by Alison Kent
And she could do it without becoming her mother.
Unsnagging her hair from a chip in the door, she rubbed her hands vigorously over her arms as the drop in temperature settled into her bones. Briefly, she considered checking on Tyler’s progress but seeing him dry and nearly naked had been enough excitement for her dormant hormones.
She needed to start dinner but first she needed to start a fire. Tyler would be cold and wet. She didn’t want him warming up and drying off at the stove where she’d be cooking. Figuring he wouldn’t be outside long, she got started on the fire.
The wood Sam had left was seasoned and dry and it caught quickly. Cowboy paid no attention to her actions until he heard her at the stove banging pots and pans. Then he was sitting at attention and smiling for all of his doggie worth.
“Hmph. A little attention and you’re worthless as protection,” she grumbled, checking the contents of the efficiency-size refrigerator. She decided Friday’s potato soup would be more filling than the corn and tortilla she’d fixed yesterday and set it on the stove to reheat. She’d torn the top from a box of cornbread mix when she heard the knock.
Her head snapped up. Tyler. The blanket. How could she have forgotten the blanket? She knocked a raw egg to the floor in her mad dash for the bedroom. Snatching an old quilt from the top of the stack, she rushed back to answer the door.
More than Tyler’s jeans had become soaked. His bare skin, his dark hair, his long and now spiky lashes, the tip of his nose. He grinned when a droplet fell then shook his hair like a dog shook his bath. Sophie stepped back from the spray.
“Got a towel?” His teeth began to chatter, gooseflesh covered his arms.
Clutching the quilt, she returned through the bedroom and grabbed three of the folded towels from the rack in the alcove outside the tiny bathroom. Arms full, she retraced her steps, entering the main room, slowing as she came closer to the door that stood wide open.
His silhouette filled the rectangle of gray light. A curtain of rain hung behind him; the falling water roared like applause. Before he could take a bow, before she pulled up a chair, she shoved the linens into his hands. He handed back the quilt. She returned it.
He glanced from his left hand holding the towels to his right hand clenching the quilt. Then he looked at Sophie.
“You know, I’ve always wanted to be dried off by a blond pixie with bright green eyes. And now that I’ve got my hands full…” He let the sentence trail.
In your wildest dreams, she wanted to say. But since it was her dream wearing wet denim and holding the towels, she tightly compressed her lips, telling herself the shiver she felt was the cold.
She grabbed the quilt from his hands, hung it over the top of the open door, and tossed the towels onto the seat of the chair she pulled over.
“There. Two free hands. I’ll be in the kitchen.” She headed in that direction. It wasn’t a far enough walk. She could still hear Tyler laughing and she swore, above the rain and the wind and the creaky old cabin, she heard his zipper slide down.
Turning her back to the open door, she grabbed another egg—Cowboy had cleaned up all but the shell of the first—and a fork and stirred the cornbread batter. Tyler moved into the room behind her, making “brr” noises, and shivering. The fire hadn’t yet started putting out much heat but she wasn’t offering him use of the stove until she knew he was decent.
Decent. Tyler. What an oxymoron. Except he hadn’t made a single improper move.
The decency factor was all in her mind, where common sense and self-respect were having it out with lust. Separating the men she worked with—or worked for, in this case—from the men who were part of her personal life had never been a problem.
So why the trouble now? Why had she been ruffled by a physical attraction?
She knew the answer to both of her questions but refused to acknowledge his name.
“Did you have any luck on the radio?” she asked, stirring the pot of warming soup.
“I couldn’t raise Sam but did manage to get through to Harley.” He closed the door, the latch caught with a trigger-sharp click.
Sophie’s heart jumped but her feet stayed on the ground. “Harley?”
“My sister-in-law.” Keys and change clattered across the table. Cloth whispered, covering bare skin. Fire crackled and resin popped, warming the room and heating the scents in the air.
Sophie nudged Cowboy away from the back door and cracked it to let a breath of breeze into the kitchen. Filling the kettle to make iced tea, she asked, “What did she say?”
The wooden chair creaked as Tyler sat. “She called Ford’s and explained our situation to your foreman. I couldn’t hear what he said but his tone wasn’t hard to interpret. Basically, he was, uh…” Tyler paused. “Glad to hear you’re in such good hands.”
Reaching for a box of tea bags, Sophie laughed. “Try again. If he was glad to hear anything, it was the name of your next of kin. Rico’s appointed himself my protector and he has the Latin temperament for the role.”
“Yeah, that came across loud and clear,” he said, sounding more amused than threatened. “But then Harley assured him of my high safety rating with the mothers of Brodie, Texas.”
Safety rating?
The chair seat squeaked again. “I think the medical degree’s what swayed him. Once he calmed down, he agreed I’d be handy to have around in case of an emergency.”
“Like what? Rabies or distemper? The only emergency I can see happening is drowning,” she said, glancing up toward the window.
“Speaking of drowning, it’s a good thing you didn’t take off on that five-mile hike. Gardner barely got the Range Rover across Camelot’s bridge before it went down into Little Creek. You and I aren’t the only ones stranded.”
Like that’s supposed to make this easier? “So what did your sister-in-law say about the weather?”
“The squall line seems to have stalled. My predictions could be wrong.”
Sophie turned off the burner beneath the soup. “You mean, it might not be thirty-six hours?”
“Could be forty-eight. Or longer.”
“You are kidding.”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
She finally turned. He’d pulled on his white socks and his white shirt. Though he’d fastened the snaps at his wrists, the shirt hung wide open. The tapered lines were cowboy cut and designed to fit a lean body—not a lean body already bundled up in a quilt.
The quilt was thin enough and worn enough that he’d been able to tie it around his rib cage. Still, it dipped in front, showing too much hair-dusted skin. And the edges barely managed to lap where they met along his thigh.
Judging by the way it fit Tyler’s body, the quilt had been designed as a coverlet rather than a spread. Next time she’d be sure to check dimensions.
She glanced toward the fire, needing a brief distraction, getting one—and more. Tyler had pulled a chair in front of the fire, draped his black denim jeans over the back, and a pair of black boxer-briefs over the seat.
This was really more than she wanted to know.
“I squeezed out most of the water. I’ll put ’em back on soon as I can.” He sounded apologetic but not the least bit sorry. “I don’t suppose you have a blow dryer?”
She slowly rolled her gaze his way. “You want to dry your hair?”
“No. My jeans.” Her confusion must have shown because he added, “You’d be surprised at the survival skills I picked up in college.”
Survival. Hmm. She doubted he’d devised any schemes more ingenious than the ones she’d used to stretch a dollar. Or the truth. “I have a blow dryer but it’s travel-size. Drying those jeans could take a while. Do you want to eat first?”
“Sounds good to me. Smells good to me.” He pulled his chair to the table. “What’re we having?”
She set out two crockery bowls, added two spoons, and returned to the oven. “Soup.”
“Soup?” Tyler glanced from the bowls to the spoons to t
he oven.
She plunked the hot skillet in the center of the table. “And cornbread.”
“No meat and potatoes?”
“No meat and the potatoes are in the soup.” She hefted the kettle from the stove.
“That’s it?”
“Nope.” After filling two tumblers with ice and tea, she quickly sliced a tomato, a cucumber, and a yellow bell pepper. “Vegetables.”
“Raw vegetables?” His turned-up nose would’ve done a three-year-old proud.
A true brat if she’d ever seen one. She made a quick trip to the refrigerator, grabbed a bowl of shredded cheese. “Here. Sprinkle this in your soup.”
He ladled soup into both their bowls and added cheese to hers, too, when she nodded. Then he took a bite. “Mmm. You always eat like this?”
“Do I always eat this well, you mean?”
“It is good,” he admitted. “And, no, I meant… Spartan.”
“Thanks. But I don’t think of it as Spartan. I grew up eating soup from a can. Too often straight from the can.” Scraping the back of her spoon over the lip of the bowl, she remembered the hard lessons of sink-or-swim independence. “I know a little about survival myself.”
This time his smile was unnervingly tender. “Hey, I didn’t do anything but survive. You turned your skills into something positive. Not everyone has what it takes to be a soup gourmet.”
“It’s no big deal. I travel a lot. Restaurants and fast food get old. Soup is filling and easy,” she said, not wanting to remember any more.
“So what’s for breakfast? Bacon and eggs? Ham and biscuits? Grits and gravy?”
Her hand stilled halfway to her mouth. She’d forgotten he’d be spending the night. Yeah, right, she’d forgotten. She took the bite, swallowed, then said, “Oatmeal and bananas.”
“Oatmeal and bananas?”
Sophie glanced at the bowl of fruit on the countertop. “I’ll save the apples for the morning after. I’m afraid the bananas won’t last another day.”
She looked back at Tyler but judging by the pained look on his face, he seemed to be struggling with the concept.
“Tyler, it’s not that difficult. I eat simply. I dress simply. I’m on the road. I work long hours. I don’t have time to cook.” She pointed at him with her spoon. “Besides, you said you wouldn’t turn up your nose at anything I fed you.”
“And as long as it’s not tuna or macaroni and cheese I’ll be glad to keep my word.”
“More college survival skills?”
Spoon in his mouth, he nodded then swallowed. “Yeah. Gardner put me through school but he also put me on a monthly allowance. The first month I blew it in a week.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh is right. That was the one and only time big brother bailed me out. When I did it again the next month, he loaned me the money. I had to work it off at the ranch over Christmas break. I didn’t do it again after that.”
“Well, if you ever get in another financial bind, remember the soup. It comes in more varieties.” She spooned up her last bite.
“Thanks, but right now going hungry is the least of my worries. Every Brodie County mother I know is cooking up a storm of chicken-fried steak and cream gravy trying to convince me they’ve taught their daughters everything they need to know to make the perfect veterinarian’s wife.”
He leaned his chair back and patted his belly. “I’m gonna weigh a ton this time next year.”
His heartbreaking grin weighed a ton. So did the urge to lower her gaze from his face. “Won’t you find it tough to give up all that attention and settle down?”
“Hey, I plan to settle down. I never said anything about giving up the attention. Why should I?”
For a moment, she couldn’t move, then she began stacking the empty dishes. “How do you think your wife will feel about all this attention you don’t plan to give up?”
He looked at her as though she’d lost her mind. “Since she’s the one I plan on getting it from, she damn well better be okay with it.”
Oh. Well. That made it a bit easier to finish gathering their bowls without breaking them.
“Why do you think I’m sacrificing my fighting weight for all that home cooking?” Leaning his forearms on the table, he fingered another pepper strip, grabbed it up, and chomped down.
Sophie arched a brow. “I assumed you were judging the contestants’ culinary skills.”
“It’s the mothers impressing me with the culinary skills. I’m judging the contestants on that willing part.”
That sweet-times look in his eye really did make the word “willing” easy to understand. Lips compressed, she got to her feet and took the dishes to the sink.
“You have a good point, though,” he said, carrying on without her.
She tried to look only vaguely interested when what she really wanted to do was prick up her ears. “Oh?”
“I’m going about this all wrong, aren’t I? I’m working it like a business deal instead of just letting it happen.”
Not only that, she wanted to say, you’re judging them, sampling them, calling them willing contestants. But it wasn’t any of her business, so instead she said, “I don’t know. Guess that depends on how important home cooking is to the merger.”
The big bad wolf was back. “Definitely not as important as that willing part.”
This conversation had strayed where she didn’t want to go. Looking from Tyler back to the sink, she said, “Why don’t I go get that hair dryer?”
She cleaned up the dishes while Tyler dried his jeans. Her head had begun to ache from the ceaseless pounding of the rain on the cabin’s roof. Or maybe it was from the stress of the close quarters, the conversation, and the night to come.
She needed a breath of air that didn’t smell like Tyler. And Cowboy was due for a trip outside. She dried her hands and opened the back door. Grabbing her jean jacket off the door hook, she slapped her leg for Cowboy to come.
When she turned back to see what was keeping him, he looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “You and Tyler been practicing that look behind my back?” she murmured for his ears only.
The dog whimpered.
“Sorry, bud. It’s either out in the rain or under the cabin. Take your pick.”
Cowboy placed two tentative paws on the top step, looked at Sophie a final pitiful time, then jumped down and disappeared beneath the cabin. Though the air was more cold than refreshing, Sophie found a stable stack of firewood, parked her butt, and took a deep, cleansing breath. Thunder rolled overhead, a rumbling bass beat to the relentless rhythm of the rain.
Leaning her elbows on her knees, she stared sightlessly into the black liquid and thought of all the night skies she’d seen from tenement fire escapes or tarred rooftops. Each city she’d lived in brought a subtle shift to the constellations’ position and brilliance.
Yet the stars always had a home in the sky, while she had belonged nowhere—and, quite frankly, to no one.
Her father had disappeared when she was five and the only thing she’d blamed him for later was not taking her along. He’d left Sophie to live with a mother whose sole pastime, pleasure, and purpose in life was notching her bedpost with the man of the month.
Sophie had fed herself, clothed herself, and given every city’s social workers the right answers. Living with her mother was better than the alternative of placement in a foster home where her father would be unable to find her.
Or so her childish mind had determined. She’d been too young to know about custodial rights or a parent who moved a child like a pawn. And she hadn’t learned the truth until after her mother’s death.
When sorting through the dead woman’s belongings, she’d had found six painstakingly, hand-scrawled letters her father had written. No envelopes. No return address. No clue in the body as to where he was, how to find him, why he’d stopped writing.
Or why her mother had saved them.
That one puzzle would never be solved but other answers were
out there, waiting to be found with her father.
He’d written. Every year on her birthday, he’d written. He’d wanted her, had begged her mother to let him give Sophie the life she deserved. He’d offered permanence, a life instead of an existence.
Her mother had never told her. Never. Sophie hadn’t a clue. And even as a mature adult of twenty-six, she’d found it hard not to indulge her anger, to cap off a lifetime of resentment with hatred.
But at five, she couldn’t figure out what she’d done wrong or what she needed to do right. Later, she’d thought her father must’ve feared she’d become too much like her mother. Too eager for fun and excitement. Too recklessly impulsive. Too intent on self-satisfaction to think of others.
It had been easy, as a child, to lock away her feelings; harder, as an adult, to remember where she’d put them.
Cowboy jumped back onto the porch and settled at Sophie’s feet. She rubbed her hand over his damp fur. “Mmm. Nice doggie perfume, bud.” But not quite what she’d had in mind as an alternative to smelling Tyler.
Tyler. She’d come outside to shed the man but he clung to her skin like mist from the rain. Why, when her response to him was nothing but lust at first sight? And when she knew firsthand that passion destroyed perspective and common sense?
From the time she’d understood what went on between men and women, she’d known her mother’s string of lovers was not representative of anything society considered normal.
She’d known that relationships needed more than a physical basis. First, a foundation of friendship. Then respect and care and concern. And finally a warm, cozy, and safe attraction.
Not a flash-fire lust that consumed what it touched.
She knew all this. She kept the credo in the back of her mind. That’s why all this crazy desire she felt for Tyler was… crazy.
And why now that she’d talked it over with herself she could return inside and make it through the night without becoming her mother.
THREE
WHEN SOPHIE WALKED BACK INSIDE, a blast of heat hit her in the face. Tyler had draped his jeans over the oven’s open door. The hair dryer was lying in the center of the kitchen table. It was not exactly what she’d expected to find.
