Hannah shifted so she could see the other faces at the table. June wore a small, reminiscent smile of someone who had heard this before, but Will’s eyes were wide. All this was new to him. That didn’t surprise her, considering the way Dax kept his mother at arm’s length. What did surprise her was that under his careful air of uncaring, she detected flickers of interest in Dax’s lean face. He hadn’t heard these family stories before, either.
“We had Juney almost right away. And then we had Andrew.”
“Andrew?” Will tamed his startled gaze from his grandmother to his father and back. “Who’s Andrew?”
Neither answered him. Sally looked intently at her son, who kept his eyes steadfastly aimed at his folded hands.
“He was your uncle, Will,” said June. “My little brother. But Drew died before your dad was born.”
“He died? How’d he die?”
“He ate some poison plants. We both did. Some plants we found in the hollow behind the barn. I was big enough that they made me real sick, but I survived. Drew was too small. He died before your grandmother and grandfather could get us into town.”
“If we hadn’t been so far out . . .” Sally’s voice quavered.
June placed a comforting hand on her mother’s arm. “Being in town might not have made any difference.”
“Sure didn’t for our grandfather, did it?” Dax’s gruff voice startled Hannah. “Old Adam Randall sold the place his grandfather and father had loved and moved into town for the easy life, and then he drank himself to death.”
“The easy life?” Sally echoed bleakly. “Oh, Dax, is that what your father told you?”
His silence was enough of an answer.
“Your grandfather didn’t have a choice about selling this place. It was the Depression, and he lost it. He tried to make your father understand, but William was young, and even then he wasn’t one to forgive. Especially not when it came to the ranch. He’d have died to keep it. He thought his father should have, too. In a way, Adam did die over this place.”
“But,” Will’s face folded into a tight frown, trying to take in all this new information, and lighting on the most easily understood. “There’s no hollow behind the barn. The pond’s there.”
“That’s right,” June said. “But it used to be a hollow and that’s where we found the plants. Pa came back after Drew’s funeral and burned off the grass and plants and then he diverted the irrigation ditch to flood it into a pond.”
“He said I shouldn’t have let you children go over there. He said I should have watched you better. He worked seventy-two hours straight,” Sally, her voice, heavy with memories and sorrow, took up the story. “Digging in the dark, moving rocks, burning and reburning. When the hollow was flooded, he drove into town and enlisted to go to Korea.”
“Grandfather fought in Korea, too?”
“Yes. And he stayed on there even after the war ended. He kept volunteering, and God knows, nobody else wanted that duty.”
Hannah wondered if the others at the table heard the hurt in Sally’s voice. A woman whose son had died in a tragic accident and whose husband had left her to raise their surviving child and to deal with her grief alone. Especially, Hannah wondered if Dax heard it.
“We leased out the ranch and June and I moved to town. Your grandfather didn’t come back until ’56. He wouldn’t consider anything but returning to the ranch, though the old house had gotten so run-down by then that we mostly lived in tents that first summer back while William built the first part of this house whenever he had some time. He worked like a man possessed, but it took years to get the place back in shape. Then your father was born, and your grandfather—”
“Will, why don’t you take Theresa outside now.” Dax’s low voice cut across the mood like a cannon boom.
“But, Dad—”
“Your guest doesn’t want to hear these old family stories. Show her around the place.”
For a second Hannah thought Theresa might disagree about what she wanted to hear. Instead, the girl gave Will a slight smile, and his mulish expression eased. He pulled out her chair with an awkward gallantry.
“You can have another helping of strudel when you come back in if you want,” June called before the door closed behind them. “Well, that was subtle, Dax. As usual.”
Without rising, he stacked dirty plates one on top of each other. His motions were sure, but slightly jerky. “They don’t have to hear the past dug up.”
“I wanted to tell Will how happy his grandfather was when you were born,” Sally said softly. Her eyes never left his face.
Dax added a salad plate to the stack before him with a clatter. “Yeah, right. The whole family danced for joy.”
“Not me,” June said easily. “I didn’t want a whiny, snot-nosed kid running around stealing my thunder.”
Dax shot a look at his sister from under his brows that she returned with a wicked smile. He glared back, but the lines around his eyes eased slightly.
“Your father wanted a son,” Sally insisted.
“He wanted a ranch hand.”
“He wanted an heir. Someone to know and love the land the way he did.” She glanced at June, apologetically. “He didn’t think a woman could do that. Maybe some of that was his upbringing, maybe some of it was me, because I didn’t have that same feeling for the land he did. Never did. And especially not after Drew.”
Dax stood abruptly. Hannah glanced at his face, then away. The lines were sharp with the strain of control. He wouldn’t need so much control if he didn’t have so much hurt.
Hannah suddenly remembered the tree that had so fascinated her at Shell Canyon. And now she knew why. It had reminded her of Dax. A solitary tree that grew so straight and proud out of sheer rock. But there had to be sustenance somewhere in that rock, some soil for those roots to hold on to—even if the tree didn’t acknowledge it.
“You had that feeling for the ranch, Dax. Right from the start. Even as a baby you always wanted to be looking out the window, staring off toward the hills. Your first word was outside and your second word was horse. As soon as you could walk, you took to following your father everywhere you could. You were always—”
He picked up the stack of dishes and walked toward the kitchen without a word. The door swung closed on Sally’s final words.
“—your father’s son.”
Chapter Twelve
While Dax drove Will and Theresa back into Bardville, Sally and June remained, helping her with the dishes. No one referred to the revelations or reactions at the dinner table. No one talked much at all. Hannah did notice Sally keeping a close eye on the clock.
“We’d better be leaving, Juney. It’s getting late.” Hannah realized Sally had timed it so they would leave before Dax returned—for her own sake or his? “I’m sorry we can’t help you with the last of these, Hannah.”
“Don’t even think about it. You and June have been wonderful to do so much—especially since I asked you as guests, not as kitchen help.”
“Guests,” Sally repeated so softly that Hannah doubted she knew she’d spoken aloud. Hannah winced that her offhand remark had reminded Sally she was a guest now in what had once been her home.
“Nonsense,” June said. “The one who does the cooking shouldn’t have to do the cleaning. And you tell that brother of mine I said that—leave all the pots for him to scrub.”
Hannah smiled. “Maybe I will.”
She walked them to the car, accompanying Sally to the passenger side, staying close in case she had trouble on the uneven ground. When she reached out to help Sally into the car, the older woman took her hands between both of hers.
“Thank you, Hannah. I am grateful to you.”
Hannah’s eyes filled with tears at the sorrow and resignation in the older woman’s face. “I hoped it would be different. Sally.”
“I know you did, dear. You have a good heart. It’s just, well, some hurts don’t heal, you see.”
June snorted, but her
eyes, too, looked suspiciously bright. “Especially not since my brother is as rock-headed stubborn as a mountain.”
“He has reason,” Sally softly. “He hasn’t had an easy time.”
June jerked her car door open. “And he’s made it even harder. His reasons are stubborn pride and being scared spitless of being hurt more. If I didn’t love the idiot, I’d shoot him to put us out of his misery.”
Hannah didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at June’s sentiment.
Sally looked as if she was balancing the same choice as she eased into the car and June started down the road to the highway. Just then Dax’s truck pulled in. The two vehicles met halfway, with Dax pulling to the side to let his sister’s car past. By the floodlights used to brighten the barns and sheds, Hannah could see Dax facing straight ahead as the vehicles passed, while everyone else exchanged waves. She could also see Sally turned to watch Dax’s truck as the two vehicles went in opposite directions.
She went inside before Dax and Will pulled to a stop. When they didn’t come in right away, she realized they must be doing some of the never-ending chores that kept a ranch going.
She had just put away the last of the glasses and had the dishes and silverware stacked on the counter ready to be returned to the dining room when she heard the back door open, followed by Will’s voice and two sets of footsteps.
“—and Hannah’s right, if I take it slow, it’s not so hard. Theresa said the country club doesn’t even have that many forks.”
He entered the kitchen with a jaunty step, followed more slowly by his father.
“Hannah, this was great. Thanks! I owe you.”
She smiled, her first genuine smile in several hours. “You’re welcome, Will.”
“We didn’t mean for you to do all the cleanup,” Dax said, frowning around at the kitchen.
“I didn’t do it all. Your sister and mother—” She said it deliberately, probing a bit. He gave nothing away. “—helped a great deal before they left. And there’s still some to do.”
“Will, you get these things squared away back in the dining room—” Dax indicated the china and silver on the counter “—then you’d best finish that homework. It’s still a school night, even if it’s only a half day tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Will headed off, carefully carrying the family pieces, then could be heard whistling in the dining room as he put them away.
“What else needs doing?”
A spurt of irritation at Dax’s matter-of-fact refusal to acknowledge how the breach with his mother hurt him— much less trying to heal it—heated Hannah’s blood. June was right. It was stubborn pride and fear of being hurt more.
“Packing up Irene’s things to take back and washing the pots and pans. June,” she said, deliberately trying to provoke him, “suggested making you scrub all the pots to make up for your surly attitude.”
He didn’t rise to the bait. He simply started rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll do the pots and pans, then.”
“Dax—” she started in exasperation.
But her exasperation couldn’t match his granite defenses. He offered a cool, reasoned response of’ “Makes sense. You know what’s Irene’s and I don’t. Besides, you’ve done enough of the Randall dirty work for tonight.”
Randall dirty work. That was probably as close as he would come to revealing his feelings about the evening.
He had the water running in the sink and retrieved a granular cleanser and a pad from beneath the sink. Hannah turned to her own chores, finding her frustration and irritation with him waning as they worked independently, sharing the space and silence.
She finished first, laying the folded pastry cloths across the top of the second big shopping bag filled with equipment and supplies Irene had let her use.
From the open portion of the U-shaped kitchen, Hannah watched Dax’s efficient, concentrated scrubbing. His shirt tightened momentarily across his muscled back, then ripples showed across his broad shoulders. He shifted to rinse a pan, and she saw the dampened hair across his powerful forearms.
He put the last pan in the draining rack, pulled out the sink stopper and gave a swipe to the sink surface with the pad. He did the actions with more familiarity than most men she’d known would have. Ethan wouldn’t have seen the need; Richard would have considered it beneath him. But Dax wasn’t the sort to live in filth—even more, he wasn’t the sort to bring up his son in filth—and with no one else to do kitchen cleanup, he’d bad no choice. He was a man who did what needed doing without making a fuss.
Even growing up without a mother, then raising his son without a wife.
“I’m sorry, Dax. I shouldn’t have done it. It’s just that I thought if you and your mother could talk . . .”
At her first words, he’d hesitated an instant, then kept wiping the sink. He continued wiping the same section over and over. “Doesn’t matter.”
She moved beside him, into the comer formed by the turn of the counter, to try to get him to look at her. He didn’t. “I think it does. I think it’s what matters most in—”
“Let it go, Hannah.”
“Dax.” She laid a hand on his forearm.
He jerked around so fast she automatically stepped back, but the counter was right there, cutting off retreat. Then she saw the harsh pain in his eyes, pain his pride tried so damned hard to hide, and she didn’t want to retreat.
She reached up to put her palm along the sharp turn of his jaw and let her fingers stroke his cheek. “Oh, Dax.”
No warning. One second she was gentling him with a touch, the next he gathered her into his arms, crushed her against his hard chest and claimed her mouth with his.
She slid her arms around his tense shoulders, parted her lips to his tongue’s insistence, curved her body to the demand of his circling arms and taut body. He was need and she was giving.
Only the giving ignited a need in her, and as he brought one hand up to cup the back of her head and stroked his tongue into her mouth with a pulse that timed her heart’s beat, he answered the need with giving of his own.
The counter was behind her, somewhere, but she didn’t feel it, because she leaned into his strength. A strength as enduring as the land he lived on. A strength like the beauty of this valley and the mountains that backed it—quiet, soothing and reliable until the instant it caught you in the heart with an amazement so intense it burned into your blood.
Dax released her mouth, but only for a second, adjusting the angle and heightening the rhythm as their bodies moved together.
Oh, Dax.
Such a fine man. But with such pain in his life.
If only he could see how much he hurt himself. If only she could make him see—
She gasped and broke away. Dax released her immediately.
If only she could make him see . . . If only she could change him.
Oh, God. There it was. Hadn’t she just had that lesson slapped in her face? When was she going to learn?
She risked a look at Dax’s rigid profile, where he leaned back against the sink.
When he stops hurting.
She didn’t realize she’d made a sound until Dax said, “Hannah? You okay? Did I— Are you hurt?”
“No, Dax, nothing you . . .” Nothing you did. Just who you are. And who you can’t become. “I’m fine. Fine.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not—” —you. But it was him. Who he was and how he made her feel and what she feared she might want. “It’s late. I better get going.”
She slung her purse over her shoulder and started to reach for the shopping bags filled with Irene’s things. He beat her to them.
“I’ll take these to the car,” he said in a voice that brooked no argument. In fact, she nearly had to wrestle him for the front door handle—she won that wordless battle only because he had to juggle the two bulky bags at the same time.
At least he let her hold the car door open so he could put them in the back seat.
“Thank you, Dax. Good night.”
“Don’t thank me. We’re in your debt, Will and me, for all you did for this dinner. If I’d known it meant so much work, I wouldn’t have let him ask.”
“I enjoyed it, Dax, and I was glad to do it—for all of you.”
He didn’t respond to that distinction other than to dip his head slightly. “Three o’clock okay to pick you up tomorrow for the rodeo? We’ll have to get the horses settled and get some early supper before the competition.”
She tried to sidestep. “About that, I think, uh, I think maybe I should be available to work with Boone tomorrow.”
“Boone hasn’t had you work these whole two weeks, he’s not going to start now.”
No, of course, Dax wouldn’t let her sidestep. “I don’t think it’s—”
“You’re backing out on me.”
Oh, that wasn’t fair. Five flat, emotionless words and he put her in the same category with his ex-wife and his mother. Women who’d let him down. Women who hadn’t kept their word to him.
“I’m not backing out. I’m just sayi—”
“Good. And I won’t break my word again.”
“Break your word?”
“No more . . .” He seemed to search for a word. It must have eluded him because instead of a word, he brushed his fingertip across her lips.
Under that light touch she became stunningly aware that her lips were still swollen, still overly sensitive. Heat shot from the faint connection of his fingertip to her lips to the pit of her stomach, pooling there to taunt her. At that moment, she didn’t want him to keep his word. She wanted him to kiss her again, to hold her again. She wanted him against her, inside her. She wanted him—period.
The Rancher Meets His Match Page 17
