Heartland

by Sherryl Woods

  The downtown streets were already crowded when they arrived a half hour later. They parked a few blocks from Main Street and walked over to find places on the curb, which was already lined with families.

  “Me can’t see,” Kelly protested, trying to wiggle between adult legs.

  “Me, either, Aunt Lara.”

  “We’ll walk a little way down and see if we can’t find a better place.”

  “But the parade’s already started. I can hear it,” Jennifer lamented, tears welling up. “We’re going to miss it all.”

  Suddenly Steven was blocking their path. Catching sight of Jennifer’s tears, he was instantly kneeling down in front of her. “What’s all this about?”

  Blue eyes were turned on him appealingly. “Kelly and me can’t see anything. Everybody’s too tall.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to fix that, won’t we?” His gaze lifted to meet Lara’s. She was trapped. Again. His voice dropped a level. “Hello, Lara.”

  “Steven.”

  “Mind if I help out my friends here?”

  She shrugged. There was no point in objecting. She’d have two hysterical children on her hands if she did.

  Steven lifted Kelly and perched her on his shoulders, then took Jennifer’s hand. He approached the family in front of them. “Excuse me, folks. Would you mind if the little one here gets up front so she can see?”

  They responded automatically to his smile and parted to create a space for Jennifer. She looked back at him. “You, too.”

  “Nope. That wouldn’t be fair. Your Aunt Lara and I are tall enough to stay back here. We’ll be right behind you.”

  Accepting Steven’s word without question, Jennifer turned to watch the parade. Kelly was already wide-eyed as the first band came marching past. She waved her flag so enthusiastically it almost caught Steven in the eye. Lara reached out to take it away from her, but Steven intervened, his hand catching hers in midreach. “She’s okay. No damage done.”

  Instead of dropping her hand, he used the incident as an excuse to keep it, holding it in the familiar way of two lovers used to such casual intimacy. Lara’s head protested the touch, but her body accepted it all too readily. His flesh was warm, his fingers gentle in their command over her senses. It was the touch of a man who knew well the subtleties of seduction. In time, just when Lara’s blood was heating, her heart drumming, he released her. She felt instantly bereft and furious because of it.

  The last band marched past, and the crowd began to break up, most of the people heading for the square where a barbecue was being held throughout the afternoon, to be followed by games and dancing and fireworks.

  When he’d retrieved Jennifer from her spot along the curb, Steven touched a hand to the small of Lara’s back to turn her toward the square. “Come on. I’ll buy you all some chicken and corn on the cob.”

  “Really, that’s not necessary,” Lara protested.

  “Of course, it’s not necessary. I want to do it.” He tendered his most beguiling grin. “You wouldn’t want me to spend the rest of the holiday all alone, would you?”

  “With the number of available women in this county, you wouldn’t be alone more than five minutes, and you know it.”

  “But I’d rather choose the one I’ll spend my time with. Come on, Lara. It’s just a barbecue. Your nieces are with us. We’ll be chaperoned by the whole town. How dangerous can it be?”

  Lara’s heart skipped a beat. She was unable to restrain herself from saying, “I seem to recall that eleven years ago the whole town wasn’t enough to keep us from getting into trouble.”

  Warmth filled his eyes. Their glances caught and held. Time—eleven lonely years—vanished. “I wasn’t sure you remembered that night.”

  “How could I not?” she said, unwillingly lost to the memories. “It was a night that changed my life.”

  “Mine, too,” he said very, very softly, and for just an instant she believed him. “Stay, Lara.”

  Desire tugged at her. “Steven, I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t? Weren’t you planning to take the girls to the barbecue before I came along?”

  “Yes,” she admitted with a sigh.

  “Then you can’t very well disappointment them, can you?” he pressed.

  “Please, Aunt Lara,” Jennifer begged. Even Kelly’s bright blue eyes watched her hopefully.

  Her eyes flashed angrily as the trap tightened around her. “Steven—”

  He gave a quick, pointed glance at the two wide-eyed children and held up a hand.

  “Hey, Nellie, my love,” he called to the grey-haired woman who normally worked behind the old-fashioned soda fountain at Beaumont’s. Lara noticed that a blush crept up her cheeks at the affectionate greeting he’d been giving her since he and Lara had gone into the drugstore for milk shakes eleven years ago. Apparently not even women over sixty were immune to Steven’s considerable charms. Nellie waited for him, not looking one bit surprised to see Lara and her nieces with him.

  “Would you mind doing me a tremendous favor?” he asked her. “You’d be saving my life.”

  “Steven Drake, I’d walk across hot coals for you,” she told him, sharing a conspiratorial grin with Lara. “It’s a good thing I’m not a few years younger. I’d take that sweet talk of yours seriously, and then we’d both be in a pack of trouble with your young lady here. What do you need?”

  “How about taking Jennifer and Kelly on down to the barbecue for me so I can have a few minutes alone with Lara?”

  “Steven,” Lara protested.

  “I don’t mind a bit,” Nellie said cheerfully. “How about it, kids? Shall we go find the biggest pieces of fried chicken we can?”

  “And ice cream?” Kelly inquired hopefully.

  “I’ll bet we can find some ice cream, too.”

  “Thanks, Nellie. You’re an angel. We’ll catch up with you in a few minutes,” Steven promised.

  “Take your time and enjoy yourselves. With my grandkids away, it’s a real treat to have some little ones along on a day like this.”

  As soon as the children and Nellie were out of earshot, Lara whirled on Steven. “How dare you? For the past week you’ve been barging into my life, using those children to get to me. I don’t know what you’re after, but I wish you’d tell me and then back off.”

  The more she fumed, the broader Steven’s grin grew. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded. “Why are you laughing at me?”

  “I’m not laughing,” he said, swallowing a chuckle. “It’s just that it’s been so long since I’ve seen you this furious.”

  “Well, if you’re perverse enough to think I’m terrific when I’m angry, you’re in for the treat of your lifetime because I am boiling mad, Steven Drake.”

  She began pacing up and down the sidewalk, drawing amused glances. Her blond hair, drawn up in a ponytail, bounced indignantly. She stopped in front of him finally and put her hands on her hips. She glared straight into his eyes. “You are an insufferable, arrogant, rude man, and I’ve had just about all I intend to take from you.”

  “That’s better,” he praised. “Go for it.”

  She waved a hand in his face. “This is not some game.”

  “Closer to therapy, I’d say.”

  “You traipse back into town, get some ridiculous notion into your head about wanting me back...” The amused glint in his eyes suddenly registered, and his comment sank in. “What do you mean this is closer to therapy?”

  “I told you the other day you needed to do all the yelling you didn’t get to do eleven years ago. It’s time you got your feelings all out in the open so we can deal with them.”

  His deliberately calm understanding was almost more than she could take. She began pacing again. “Who made you an expert in psychology? I don’t want to dea
l with what happened eleven years ago. I want to talk about what’s going on right now. I want to talk about the way you’re trying to manipulate me. I won’t have it, do you hear me? I won’t have you acting all sweet and attentive with my nieces just to get to me. They’re little kids. They won’t understand when you stop showing up.”

  “Any more than you did?” His voice was very quiet.

  She halted in midstep and turned slowly back to face him. His expression was unreadable, but his message had been crystal clear.

  “Okay,” she said at last. “You’re right. I didn’t understand. I still don’t, but can’t you see I don’t care anymore? Right now all I’m concerned about is the way you’re using those girls.”

  “Who says I’m playing up to those kids to get to you? I happen to like children. They always say exactly what’s on their mind, unlike some adults I could mention.” He stared at her pointedly before adding, “Besides, Megan asked me to look in on them.”

  Lara couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d slapped her. “Megan?”

  “I ran into her before she and Tommy left town. She suggested I drop in and check on them. She didn’t like the idea of the three of you being all alone over there and since I am the closest neighbor, she asked if I’d mind. Of course, I said I wouldn’t. She didn’t want me to mention it to you.”

  What on earth had Megan been thinking of? Lara wondered, then groaned inwardly. That was an easy one. Romantic that she was, Megan had been plotting, hoping that something exactly like this would happen. Lara had never told her the whole story behind her hatred of Steven. Apparently she’d read something into Lara’s hostile attitude toward their neighbor and guessed that it hid some other passion.

  “We are hardly alone at the farm,” she snapped. “Logan is there every day, and we have a whole crew around. So, if that’s the only thing that’s brought you by, you can consider your duty discharged.” Somehow the remark came out sounding more disgruntled than she would have liked. Steven grinned.

  “That’s not the only reason I’m coming by, as you perfectly well know. Lara, can’t we go to the park, sit down under a tree and talk this through? I feel ridiculous having this conversation in the middle of a sidewalk. It’s hotter than blazes out here, and you look as though you’re ready to bolt at the first opportunity.”

  “I am. I think we’ve already said quite enough for one day.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Obviously reasoning with you is the wrong tactic.” He grabbed her hand and started off down the street. Lara had to run to keep up with him.

  “I’m not going with you,” she muttered, even though she knew how ridiculous the protest sounded when she quite clearly was going with him. He headed straight for a hundred-year-old oak tree in the park, its massive trunk the perfect backrest, its leaves providing welcome shade.

  “Sit.”

  “I’m not some puppy you can order around,” she replied mutinously.

  He shrugged. “Fine. I’ll sit.”

  He lowered himself to the ground, leaned back against the tree and crossed his outstretched legs at the ankle. Since he was still holding tight to her hand, Lara was left bending awkwardly over him. She scowled at him, then sat, staying as far away as his firm handclasp would allow.

  “Talk,” he suggested.

  Her jaw set stubbornly. “You’re the one who wanted to talk.”

  “Okay. I’ll put the words in your mouth. Correct me if I get any of this wrong. You’re still upset because of what happened eleven years ago. You’re convinced that I betrayed you.”

  “You did.”

  “I didn’t.” When she started to protest, he held up his hand. “I can see why you’d think that, but I did what I thought was best.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Steven,” she said impatiently. “You keep saying that. How could it have been for the best to walk out on me without a word? I was in love with you. We were planning a future together. Or was I the only one doing the planning?”

  He sucked in a deep breath and rubbed a thumb across her knuckles. When he finally answered, his voice was so quiet she had to lean closer to hear it. “No, Lara, you weren’t the only one making plans. I wanted to be with you more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life.”

  Tears sprang to her eyes. Her heart felt as though it were breaking all over again. “Then why didn’t you stay?”

  He sighed heavily, and his expression grew thoughtful as Lara waited for his response. “There were so many reasons, starting with the fact that I wasn’t much of a prize back then.”

  “I thought you were.”

  “You saw what I wanted you to see. Did you know, for instance, how much I hated my father? It was the only thing that drove me. I wanted to prove I wasn’t like him.” He gave a rueful laugh. “Instead, I found myself doing exactly the things he’d always done. I put my career above everything else. It was just beginning to go places when we met. I had to travel a lot.”

  “I knew all that. It didn’t matter.”

  “It did to me. You were only eighteen. Too young to be making a commitment for a lifetime. I was nearly ten years older, and even I wasn’t mature enough to handle things right. I’d already had one marriage fail because of my own inability to handle the responsibility of an honest, full-time relationship. I wasn’t about to do the same thing to you. Besides, until I showed up, you’d been dreaming about going to college and being a doctor. I wanted you so much, I kept forgetting about that. Then your parents reminded me.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t believe my parents would interfere. They knew how much I loved you. They wouldn’t have asked you to leave.”

  “No, of course not. They just warned me to stop and think very seriously about what I was doing. They pointed out how much I was expecting you to give up. They were afraid that I’d never settle down entirely, that you’d wake up one day and realize I’d made you miss out on the only thing that had ever mattered to you. You would have resented me terribly for that.”

  His gaze lifted and lingered on her face. “Remember that last night at the stream?”

  “As if it were yesterday,” she admitted in a choked voice. “You held me and made love to me and you...you cried.” There was a note of surprise in her voice at the end. She had forgotten that, forgotten the shock of seeing tears in the eyes of a man she’d thought stronger than anything. “You knew what you meant to do then, didn’t you?”

  “I knew,” he admitted. “And it hurt.”

  There were tears in his eyes now as he asked, “Do you remember what we talked about?”

  She stared at him in confusion. All she recalled was being enfolded in his arms, the wild excitement that raced through her at his touch.

  “You were so excited about your classes,” he prompted, and it began coming back to her. “Your grades had come in. Straight A’s. You were absolutely certain you’d be able to get through undergraduate school in less than four years. If you kept getting grades like that there was no question you’d be accepted to medical school.”

  Lara watched him with a puzzled frown. “You seemed so excited for me.”

  “I was, but I also knew right then that to continue our relationship would be wrong. I’d been planning to ask you that night to leave town with me, but when I saw how bright your future was, how much you wanted that dream, I couldn’t ask you to go. I had to let you have your chance.”

  Lara swallowed hard. “And that’s why you didn’t say anything? Couldn’t you have given me a choice?”

  A faint smile pulled at his lips. “I knew you too well, love. I knew how you’d choose. You were impetuous and in love. You’d have gone with me.”

  “Of course, I would have.”

  “And it would have been wrong.”

  “No,” she protested, even as she realized the depth of his sacrifice.
“At least I would have had you. Instead, you left, then Papa died. Not so long afterward, Mama died, too. I had to give up any thought of medical school. So, you see, it was all for nothing.”

  “There was no way to know that that night. I thought I was giving you your dream. It wasn’t until I came back three years ago that I discovered it hadn’t come true after all. By then your hatred of me ran so deep I didn’t think there was any way to change it.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “For the reason I gave you the other day. I couldn’t stay away any longer. If you’d been happy, if you’d been married, I told myself I wouldn’t stay, but you weren’t. Even if you wouldn’t let me back into your life, I felt I had to be here to watch out for you.”

  “But you never said anything before now. Why?”

  “Fear, I suppose. I could see how you’d reacted to my being back, especially since I’d practically forced you to sell me that land. I didn’t know how to approach you to change that. Then I was gone a lot. I had a lot of business interests in other states. And in those years I’d been away, I’d had a lot of experience with engineering. I’d been in Mexico during the earthquake. I’d helped with the rescue operation. When similar disasters took place in other countries, I was asked to come and help. I always went. It was easier than staying here and seeing the look of betrayal in your eyes.”

  Lara drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She looked at Steven, saw the haunted expression in his eyes. “Could you leave me alone now? I need to think.”

  Thankfully this time he didn’t fight her. He nodded and got to his feet. “I meant every word I said, Lara. You were the most important thing in my life once. You still are. All I’m asking for is a chance to prove that to you.”

  Then before she could guess his intention, he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, a touch of silk and fire that caressed her body and set it aflame. As he started to draw away, her fingers threaded through the hair at the nape of his neck. Their eyes met, questioned and knew. Their breath mingled during that instant of separation, and then she drew him to her again, as incapable of denying herself this moment as he had been. The unexpected, gently inquisitive kiss confirmed what she’d already guessed: the passion had never died, it had merely hidden in wait for his return.