by Kim Redford
A lightbulb went off in his head. Memory crashed in on him. Her throat. Her voice. Her fall. Hell. He was being an insensitive jerk. He backtracked. “What I’m trying to say is that you’re welcome to stay up at the ranch house just to hang out or whatever. Make yourself at home. You’ll be safe there and near the radio station.”
She turned pink as she dropped her hand from her throat. “Kind of you.”
He nodded, feeling like a fool for ragging on her when she had so little in life. Maybe pride was about all she had left, and she didn’t need him doing his best to strip it away. “How are you?”
“I’m home.” She gave a smile that went clear to her eyes, crinkling around the corners in happiness.
“You deserve better than what you got in LA. You know that, don’t you?”
She touched her throat again, happiness leaching from her eyes. “I can talk a bit. I have the Den. And Wildcat Spring.”
He felt like a heel, knowing they were going to lock horns over the property, but she didn’t need to know his plans yet. First, they’d best air out the LA thing. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She gave a shake of her head.
“I mean, if you’ll give me the gist of it from your viewpoint, I’ll spread the word and you won’t need to repeat your story around here.”
“It was all over the news,” she whispered, voice breaking.
“Yeah, but that’s the news…not reality.”
She gave him a tight smile. “Most people think the news is all true.”
“I’m not most people.”
She cocked her head to one side as if considering his suggestion. “Good idea, telling my story once.”
“You know you can trust me to tell only what you want told to folks.”
“I don’t trust…” She looked him up and down, nodded as if coming to a decision, and stepped closer. “Ever do something really stupid?”
“More times than I care to count.” He felt as if life were reeling backward, drawing him into her world again.
“Heard about Graham Tanner?” She gently stroked her throat as if for reassurance.
“Yes. Let me help out. I know you lost your voice due to trauma.”
“I’m getting better.” She looked off into the distance, then glanced back at him. “He was a good-looking fast-talker. Married me. Wormed his way onto my show.” She took a deep breath, then raised her shoulders and dropped them again. “We were a red-carpet power couple.”
“I saw photos on the news.” Shane didn’t want to ask, but he had to know the truth. “Did you love him, or was it for publicity?”
She looked down at the VW, then leaned over and traced a heart in the dust covering the window before she turned back to him. “My heart’s always been in Wildcat Bluff.”
He felt his own heart give a lurch and pick up speed. Did she mean what he thought she meant? Had she left her heart up on Lovers Leap? No, he was a fool to think that night had any play here.
“He told me what I wanted to hear. Love. Family. Babies. Working together,” she whispered. “Lies.”
“I’m sorry.” Shane suddenly realized they were standing in a parking lot where anybody could overhear their words. He could hardly have picked a worse place to ask her to spill her guts. He glanced around to make sure they were still alone. “Maybe we should go somewhere less public.”
“Cowboys. Caretakers.”
“Lots of folks and critters depend on us.”
“Bred in the bone.” She gave him a warm smile.
He felt that smile clear to his bones, setting a blaze he hadn’t felt since she went away.
“Bottom line—he won. I lost.”
She was breaking his heart with her story. She’d always been a trusting, innocent girl, but he’d figured she’d wised up in the big city. Now he knew different. He wanted to hold her and comfort her and give her everything she’d been denied in a man.
“You saw?” she asked.
“Big news.” He stayed quiet to give her space, knowing what she was remembering as her face went sad. Famous husband caught in bed with starlet. Wife goes berserk, falls down grand staircase…unable to speak due to emotional trauma.
She took a deep breath as she stroked her throat again. “The fall. I tried to get away. Graham—”
“You don’t have to tell me more, not now.” Shane couldn’t stand to see her standing so strong, but so lonely, a second longer. He placed his hands gently on her shoulders and felt her too-thin frame, as if she’d been wasting away for a long time from lack of nourishment. He knew from caring for cows, horses, dogs, cats, wild critters that they survived and thrived on so much more than something to eat or drink. If he didn’t miss his guess, Eden was wasting away from broken dreams, and maybe a broken heart, as much as anything else. He wanted to crush her to his chest and make everything right, but it’d be too much too soon. Instead, he gently tugged her closer, wanting to see if she’d trust his touch like she had when they were younger. She gave a little sigh and laid her head against his chest, and he could’ve sighed, too, because she needed a shoulder to cry on and maybe that was all she would ever need from him.
She clung to him a moment before she pushed away and stood up straight. “Thanks. The past gets to me.”
“No wonder.”
“My voice gone, he took over Sugar Talk. Persuaded the studio to drop me. Said I was unstable.”
Shane clenched his fists in frustration. He’d known what he’d heard on the news hadn’t been the whole story. Now he wanted to take Graham Tanner out behind the woodshed and teach him right from wrong. “So you divorced him, and he took everything except the Wildcat Den?”
“Yes,” she said in a hoarse tone. “Came home.”
“About the station—”
She jingled her key ring. “Later,” she whispered in a voice almost gone.
“If it helps, everybody around here thinks Tanner is lower than a snake’s belly for doing you dirty.”
She put a hand on Shane’s chest, then rose up on tiptoes and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. “Helps.”
He felt that single word and her simple kiss like a match touched to dry kindling as his heart sped up in response. He wanted a whole lot more from her than a sisterly kiss. He watched as she got into her car and drove out of sight. He worried about her driving the old VW and staying in an even older building, but he couldn’t do much about it—at least not yet. Anyway, his own priorities had to come first. She’d gotten a raw deal, but she was strong and resilient, so she was moving forward with life. He felt proud of her.
He thought back to Lovers Leap. He’d been standing near the edge of the bluff considering his future as he’d watched the Red River roll its way toward the Gulf of Mexico. He’d wanted to follow the river to explore unknown territory, and he’d done that later on the rodeo circuit. That night, Eden had ditched her prom date for him. He’d never known why. She’d come to him on the bluff all dolled up like a princess, smelling like heaven and tasting like lemon chiffon pie. She’d had her long hair curled and up on top of her head with some sort of crystals sparkling in the moonlight. She’d worn makeup that made her look older, and she was five feet five inches of long legs and hourglass curves, with high heels that put her closer to his six-foot-one. Hot hadn’t begun to describe her.
He’d lusted after the good girl, the popular girl, the on-her-way-to-stardom girl for as long as he could remember. She’d said she’d wanted him to be her first. How could he not give her what they’d both wanted in the back of his old pickup under the bright stars of the heavens? Midnight still had the power to bring back that scorching memory.
He shook away the thought, turned on his heel, pulled out his keys, and headed for his pickup. Facts were facts. Eden was back. Not only back, but living on the Rocky T. He wouldn’t rest easy till he knew she’d safely made it t
o the ranch. Hell, he wouldn’t be able to sleep nights with her so close, teasing and tormenting his dreams until they turned white-hot. She might as well gig him with her spurs, leave him raw, and be done with it.
Chapter 3
Eden swallowed hard, then took a sip of the bottled water she carried everywhere to help her voice return to normal. She tried to relax, since it was supposed to be good for her throat, as she drove along Wildcat Road with the wing windows ajar to catch a fresh breeze.
She hadn’t expected her first encounter with Shane to be so soon or so intense. She wasn’t even sure why she’d opened up to him except that he’d been there, made a good point, and he’d always been sympathetic when they were young.
For now, she needed reassurance that she’d done the right thing in opening up to him, particularly since she’d become so self-protective. He’d never given her cause to doubt or mistrust him in the past, although he might’ve changed over the years. Truth of the matter, more than anyone right now, she didn’t entirely trust herself, whether it was evaluating people, using her voice, or getting back into broadcasting. She took a deep breath, straightening her spine. She hadn’t returned to Wildcat Bluff to cower in a corner, licking her wounds. She’d come back to save KWCB and herself in the process. If that required a high level of confidence, she’d just have to fake it till she made it.
For now, all she wanted to do was ditch her doubts, so she could enjoy the beauty of Wildcat Bluff County. She felt safe in a way she hadn’t in a long time as she looked out across the countryside of her youth.
She passed acres of pasture that stretched on either side of the road behind barbwire fence, coughing when dry dust swept inside and sipping more water to soothe her throat. She wondered how long it’d been since they’d had rain. She hadn’t thought much about the effects of weather after she’d moved away except as it applied to needing an umbrella or reading reports on the radio. Here and now, she was reminded that lack of water could be a major problem for ranchers and farmers. Maybe the clear sky would suddenly fill with clouds and drench the entire county. She hoped so.
As she drove, free for a moment between worlds, she felt her shoulders relax and stress leak out of her. She’d almost forgotten how much she loved this unique part of Texas. Wildcat Bluff had started out as a ferry point on the Red River between Texas and Indian Territory. It had grown over the years, from transient cattle drives to settled farms and ranches, and it eventually became the small town that was now a popular tourist attraction.
Nowadays, most folks didn’t know much about the Cross Timbers that made up Wildcat Bluff County, but the unusual landscape had once been part of the Comancheria, the Comanche empire that had stretched from central Kansas to Mexico. The prairie was bordered by interwoven trees, shrubs, and vines consisting of post oak, cedar elm, bois d’arc, dogwood, Virginia creeper, and blackberry vines that could be as narrow as three miles in some places or spread out to thirty miles in others. In the old days, there’d been a brush fire every year, and the border would grow back too thick and thorny to penetrate. Comanche warriors had used the prairie between the two vegetative lines as a secret passage, so enemies couldn’t see or attack them.
Unfortunately, most of the Cross Timbers old growth was long gone. It had once extended from Kansas deep into the Hill Country and separated East Texas from West Texas. But folks in Wildcat Bluff County had saved their section for posterity. She figured that was because many of the residents were descended from the Comanche and still protected their original homeland, where rich grasslands and rolling hills provided grazing for cattle, buffalo, horses, and wild critters such as rabbit and deer.
It felt good to be home in Texas. Los Angeles was in her rearview mirror. She was looking at her future out Betty’s cracked front window, and at this moment, the Wildcat Den was a familiar gift from her past. She wished the radio worked, so she could listen to the Den, but the original car radio been unrepairable for many a long year.
As if her thoughts conjured KWCB, she saw the black, metal Rocky T Ranch sign arching over the entry into the ranch. She slowed, turned off the road, crossed the cattle guard, and drove up the asphalt lane between bright-white three-slat horse fences. Shane lived on this ranch, too. He owned the Rocky T, while she owned the radio station and adjacent buildings after inheriting it all from her uncle. Maybe partly why she’d trusted Shane earlier was because she had a deep connection to him way beyond that midnight up on Lovers Leap.
Shane’s grandfather had met Eden’s grandfather in the South Pacific, where they’d fought back-to-back in World War II for the U.S. Army. They’d continued their friendship once the war was over.
Eden’s grandfather had worked as a gofer, learning everything he could about radio at KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He’d wanted to start a ranch radio station, and he’d saved most of his money from the war years to do it. Shane’s grandfather had plenty of available land on his ranch for the transmitter tower and equipment building, and he’d thought North Texas could support a new radio station. An even bigger draw to the Rocky T was the fact that it had a natural spring. Transmitters were frequently built near water sources because boggy ground boosted the power to transmit greater distances. They’d signed a long-term lease for ten acres, giving birth to the Wildcat Den. Local folks were eager for music and entertainment, so it had been a success from the get-go.
Now time had passed—year after year, generation after generation. The radio station’s lease was coming up for renewal soon. But KWCB had fallen on hard times and was now at the make-or-break point. She didn’t know what would work and what wouldn’t, but she hoped to try new technology to reach out to the world from Wildcat Bluff County. She envisioned a media center, maybe adding acreage to a new lease for more building space. Unfortunately, she was short of everything to make her dream come true except that there had always been a lot of heart in the Wildcat Den.
When she thought about it, everything came down to a matter of heart—who had it, who didn’t, who shared it, who didn’t. She wished she’d taken better care of her own heart. She realized now that Graham had a heart of stone. She’d finally put her own heart under lock and key, even as she’d returned to the one place where she’d known big, open hearts awaited her.
“Deep in the Heart of Texas” meant more to her now. It wasn’t just a song made popular by Gene Autry in 1942 and played on all the radio stations. It was a state of mind. If that song wasn’t on Wildcat Jack’s playlist, she was going to make it her lead-in when she got that far with her own voice again.
Thinking about heart, she drove up the road with a rising sense of expectation and turned in at the crooked KWCB sign that had been pockmarked and knocked askew by hail and high winds. Several chestnut horses grazed on the ranch’s side of the fence near the base of the tall metal transmitter that rose like an oil derrick high into the sky.
Home sweet home. Maybe some folks wouldn’t call it much, but for her, the ten acres comprised everything good in life. She turned off Betty’s engine, but it sputtered a few beats before it got the message and stopped on a hiccup—at least it wasn’t a backfire. She opened the door, caught the scent of dry, dusty grass, and picked up her sack and purse. Gravel crunched under her feet as she walked to the radio station that had led to her career in broadcasting.
The building was a long, narrow shotgun, meaning a single front door led straight through the building to a single back door. When both doors were open, somebody could shoot through the house and the bullet would exit outside—if it didn’t encounter an obstacle along the way. At least, that’s what she’d been told. She’d never seen it demonstrated, but she suspected Jack would be an authority on the subject. She could only figure that shotgun houses had earned their name for a reason.
The wooden structure had stood the test of time with faded white paint and a silver metal roof that matched the nearby silver transmitter. The building had been moved from anoth
er location. Set on cement blocks, it had an open crawl space underneath with wooden stairs for entry. In a twist of mixed eras, Old West with a tall false-front made of vertical wood slats met the vibrant fifties with a flat overhang, which had rounded corners edged in silver metal reminiscent of old movie theaters, attached to the front wall by four long silver wires. KWCB, fashioned in tall, silver sans serif letters, rode on top of the overhang that protected folks from inclement weather.
She glanced to each side of the building, where a corrugated steel Quonset hut crouched as if to protect the heart of the Wildcat Den. The huts were long semicircle buildings with flat ends, designed for the military in World War II. They’d been used for barracks, chow halls, medical facilities, and whatever needed housing. At the end of the war, the military had sold its surplus huts to the public. Her grandfather had snapped up two of the 960-square-foot units so he could turn one into storage and the other into his home. Eventually, her uncle had moved into a hut to be on-site with the radio station.
She walked up to the front door of the radio station and twisted the porcelain knob. Not locked, of course, since it never had been in all these years. In fact, there wasn’t even a lock on the door. She simply shook her head at the contrast to big-city security. If she was safe anywhere, she was safe here, even if she wasn’t much used to that feeling anymore.
She started to step inside but stopped in her tracks. She needed a moment, maybe a long moment, before she returned to a business that would run on its own till Jack got back. She looked around outside. She’d only gone to the store, but somehow everything felt different. Yet nothing had changed except she’d run into Shane Taggart, and she had to admit he’d unsettled her.
She opened the door, then leaned down and set her purse and bag to one side on the scarred oak floor before she closed the door again. When she questioned her direction in life, there was one place that always soothed, comforted, and inspired her.
