The Wedding Assignment

by Cathryn Clare

  More cryptic Cotter wisdom, Rae-Anne thought as she slung her purse over her shoulder. They’d agreed to leave the coffee shop separately, just in case they were seen by someone outside, and she preceded Jack to the front door, wondering how he’d managed to make a simple question so convoluted.

  It was only after she was out in the afternoon sun that she remembered that their meeting was supposed to have been about Rodney Dietrich, and not about Wiley, at all.

  Rodney had announced his intentions of working short days this week, so that he could spend time at the ranch with Rae-Anne. And while she’d been in New Braunfels, he’d decided that tonight would be the time to stage the cookout he’d talked about yesterday.

  “I always like to do this when we’ve got new people working on the property,” he said, reminding her of the work crew who had started work on the horse barn the day before. “You know—show a little hill-country hospitality and all. Want to ride down with me and let them know about it?”

  She suspected he was also hoping that a full, blowout, Texas-style barbecue might remind Rae-Anne just how good life in the country could really be. But she was always glad of a reason to be outside on the ranch, and as soon as she’d changed into more casual clothes, she was happy to join Rodney in the late-model Jeep he used for transportation around the property.

  And besides, being out in the country would take her mind off Wiley Cotter and her ongoing curiosity about what his life had been like before she met him. She hadn’t wondered about it ten years ago—maybe it had been clear that what they’d had was only for the moment, and never meant to last. And she wasn’t sure why she was wondering about it so inescapably now.

  But she was, and she still hadn’t chased it out of her head as the Jeep bounced to a halt behind the half-fallen stone barn. This was getting out of hand, she thought. It was bad enough to be dreaming of Wiley at night, bad enough that he seemed to be lurking around every corner she turned. Now she seemed to be having problems clearing her mind of him even when he was nowhere around.

  “You didn’t bring a hat.” Rodney looked over at her.

  “I forgot.”

  “You can borrow mine. Here.” Rodney pulled a navy blue baseball cap from the back seat. “You know you get sunburned just thinking about being out in the sun.”

  It was true. It was also true that she hated being fussed over, and she wished Rodney wasn’t doing it now.

  Wait a minute, a voice at the back of her mind cut in. What about all those fantasies of having a happy, relaxed pregnancy and enjoying putting your feet up for a while? Doesn’t that imply letting people fuss over you?

  Rae-Anne adjusted the baseball cap over the hair she’d braided into a thick single strand, and slipped on the sandals she’d kicked off. Maybe she just didn’t want Rodney fussing over her. She stopped moving, struck by the idea.

  Rodney had a way of hovering over her that had only happened since she’d found out she was pregnant. He was acting as though she had suddenly become breakable, and Rae-Anne didn’t like it.

  Wiley would never treat her that way, she knew. She remembered how he’d reacted two days ago when she’d told him about her pregnancy. He’d been as blunt as usual— blunter, even. He hadn’t tried to smooth things over for her or pretend the situation was better than it was. Suddenly, in contrast to Rodney’s careful solicitude, she found herself missing Wiley’s rough honesty.

  Damn it, she was thinking about him again.

  It was getting almost laughable. She squinted against the late-afternoon sun and told herself she had to get him out of her thoughts. For heaven’s sake, even the strangers on Rodney’s work crew were starting to remind her of him now. The broad-shouldered, lean-waisted man lifting one end of that big beam, for instance-

  Was Wiley Cotter.

  It wasn’t just her imagination. It was Wiley in the flesh, all six-foot-three of him, soaking up the hot October sun and sweating along with the rest of the crew on the tumbledown barn. Rae-Anne caught her breath and paused halfway out of the Jeep.

  “Something wrong, Rae-Anne?” Even behind Rodney’s dark sunglasses she could see his expression of concern.

  “No,” she said quickly. “Just a stiff muscle.”

  Rodney took that as a signal to help her out of the vehicle and keep hold of her hand as they walked closer to the barn. Rae-Anne could feel her heart beating harder. And her heart wasn’t the only part of her responding to the sight of Wiley’s magnificent, half-naked body in the sunlight.

  He was wearing old jeans, a pair of work boots and nothing more. His upper body was covered in a sheen of sweat, so the impressive planes of his chest and shoulders were highlighted in the sun.

  She could tell how heavy the big beam must be, but Wiley was holding his end of it without apparent strain. Rae-Anne’s eyes were drawn inescapably to the hard curve of his upper arm, and the way his tightly corded muscles shifted as he changed his grip slightly.

  He’d held her in exactly the same way—effortless, but infinitely strong. In spite of the shade of Rodney’s hat, she felt suddenly as though she’d had far too much sun. Her whole body was overtaken by the memory of how it had felt to be held against Wiley Cotter’s broad chest, how those powerful arms had cradled her, possessed her.

  He looked in her direction without warning, almost as though he’d heard the erotic current of her thoughts. At first she thought he was glaring at her, and tried to summon up her usual spirited reaction to any and all opposition from Wiley.

  She couldn’t do it. He was too beautiful, with his dark hair in a sweat-dampened tangle over his forehead and his smooth, tanned skin radiating the glow of the afternoon sun.

  And after a moment she realized he wasn’t frowning, anyway. He was just squinting into the light. After the briefest of glances, he looked away again, making some comment to the workman who was struggling to do something with a chisel at the other end of the beam.

  Even that momentary eye contact was enough to shoot Rae-Anne’s pulse sky-high again. Wiley’s dark gaze was so heated, so sensually alive. She was amazed that she seemed to be the only one aware of it, or of him.

  Rodney certainly didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. “See?” he was saying, pointing beyond the spot where Wiley stood. “You can still see the outlines of the old paddock. I’m going to get Abel to fence it in again, when the barn’s done.”

  “Where did the work crew come from, do you know?” Rae-Anne couldn’t help asking.

  “Abel hires them. He uses mostly local odd jobbers, so far as I know. Why?”

  “Just curious. You know I’m interested in the ranch.”

  Fortunately, that was the truth. And it seemed to be enough to satisfy Rodney as he greeted the workmen and extended his invitation to a barbecue at the main house that evening. Rae-Anne stood silently, aware that the half-dozen men were checking her out with varying degrees of subtlety.

  She guessed she couldn’t blame them. Aside from Renee, she was the only female on the property. And in her jeans and a cool white cotton shirt over a red tank top, with not a trace of her pregnancy showing yet, she supposed a hardworking man near the end of a long, backbreaking day might consider her worth a look.

  But only one of those masculine stares mattered to her. Only one stayed with her as she and Rodney got into the Jeep, keeping her nearly silent all the way to the house as she grappled with the memory of a serious, suntanned face and a smoky, dark-eyed gaze.

  It was the same damn dream.

  He was standing on the shore of the lake, listening to the breeze in the trees that ringed the shore. And across the water he could see the child playing on the beach, patting the sand into castle-shaped piles.

  The sense of urgency was worse this time for some reason. Wiley found himself pacing to the edge of the water and back, trying to work up the courage to jump in and swim across.

  He didn’t know why it was so hard. There was just something about the lake that terrified him. He tried to
push past his absurd reluctance as he stood at the water’s edge and found himself grappling with old, illogical demons.

  He thought about being pulled under, seized from below by creatures he couldn’t even imagine.

  He thought about sinking, drowning in icy, bottomless depths, in unfathomable darkness.

  He couldn’t do it. And yet the child was still over there, with some vague threat hanging over its head that Wiley had to defuse if he could.

  A hand shook him, and he jumped as though an icy wave had, in fact, just closed over him. “Time to go, Cotter,” a voice said, and Wiley opened his eyes.

  Napping. He was taking a nap, worn-out from his day’s work on the ranch. He was supposed to go up to the main house with the rest of the crew, and he’d fallen asleep without meaning to.

  And had that dream he hated.

  “Yeah, I’m coming,” he growled, and stumbled into the bunkhouse bathroom to splash some cold water over his face.

  The regulars on old Abel’s work crew had already told him that Rodney enjoyed playing lord of the manor from time to time, and that eating up at the ranch house beat the heck out of doing their own cooking at the end of the day. Wiley wasn’t sorry for the chance to check Rodney Dietrich out at close quarters, and of course it would get him close to Rae-Anne for the evening, which was his primary reason for having wangled a place on the work crew at all.

  He wished he wasn’t so damn tired, and that the rest of the crew would stop talking about Rae-Anne as they walked up the gravel road toward the big house.

  “I heard they were supposed to get married last weekend and she split on him,” one of the men said.

  “I don’t blame her. Guy’s a nobody.”

  “Yeah.” Someone else snorted. “A rich-as-hell nobody.”

  “Any woman looks like that has gotta be able to do better. You check out that body?”

  Wiley didn’t want to think about these guys checking out the body he’d touched and loved so intimately just two nights ago. He was glad when they reached the big flagstone patio at the back of the ranch house, and gladder yet when Rodney, who was presiding at the barbecue, deputized Wiley to go down to the freezer in the cellar and bring up a couple more bags of ice.

  What made him glad about the errand was the sight of Rae-Anne, cool and lovely in a soft white Indian cotton dress, already leaning over the freezer. He’d been wanting a chance to talk to her alone.

  And now that he’d gotten one, he was wasting it by taking a long look at the way the folds of her dress outlined her body. For some reason, the belted dress, loose and gauzy though it was, seemed almost sexier than the curve-hugging jeans and shirt she’d worn this afternoon.

  The dress hinted things, that was why. It accented the soft slope of her breasts and the slenderness of her waist. Given the nature of Wiley’s imaginings when it came to Rae-Anne Blackburn, hinting was a thousand times more potent than any obvious display could have been. He had to fight his impulses hard to keep from thinking of how it would feel to pull that soft white fabric back slowly, inch by inch, and replace its light touch with the touch of his lips.

  Her words brought him to earth in a hurry. “I wish you would stop following me around,” she said.

  Wiley raised both hands. “I’m innocent, honey,” he said. “Just doing a favor for old Rodney. And speaking of Rodney, have you gotten anywhere with him since yesterday?”

  “Not really.”

  He looked sharply at her. The light in the cellar was bright, and he couldn’t tell whether she was as strained as she looked, or whether it was just the harsh shadows the fluorescent bulbs cast on her face.

  “Not really as in nothing’s happened, or not really as in you don’t really want to tell me about it?” he asked.

  She hesitated a moment before answering. “Both,” she said. “Wiley, what are you doing here? This is complicated enough without you being underfoot all the time.”

  Underfoot wasn’t exactly a compliment, but he’d been called worse. “Just keeping an eye on things, honey,” he told her. “You go out to meet Jack this afternoon?”

  She glanced toward the open bulkhead that led toward the patio, but apparently felt reassured that they were far enough from the party that no one would notice them talking. “How did you know that?” she demanded.

  “Lucky guess. He going to check up on those new employees?”

  “Yes.” She closed the door of the big freezer, but before she could reach down to pick up the two bags of ice, he’d done it for her.

  “Allow me,” he said.

  She didn’t seem to want to allow him. She stood there with her hands stretched toward the bags, frowning at him. “Don’t you start treating me like an invalid, Wiley, just because I’m pregnant,” she said.

  “Rodney treating you like an invalid?” Wiley considered it. “I did think he looked sort of fussy this afternoon.” He looked at Rae-Anne’s still-slim waist and hoped like hell he sounded as casual as he wanted to as he said, “I didn’t get a chance to ask you—how’re you feeling? Being pregnant, I mean. Are you okay?”

  She brushed a fine strand of hair away from her face toward her thick braid. “I’m fine,” she said. “My body seems to like being pregnant, when it gets a chance to relax.”

  She hadn’t had much of that in the past few days, Wiley thought. He felt suddenly fierce on Rae-Anne’s account, angry that she was caught in the middle of all this.

  “Does the rest of you like being pregnant, too?” He wasn’t sure why it was so hard to ask her these things, or why the whole subject made him feel vaguely the same way as the dream he’d just awakened from—restless and ineffective and responsible in some way he couldn’t quite define. “Are you happy about this, Rae-Anne?”

  She looked toward the cellar stairs, then at Wiley. “I’m not happy about the situation,” she said. “But I am happy about the baby—happier than I can tell you.”

  She put her hands over her stomach, and Wiley felt his stomach tighten suddenly as he watched the easy, nurturing motion. There’s your answer, Cotter, he told himself. He could protect witnesses and corner bad guys and find missing people, but never in a million years would he feel as confident about producing a child as Rae-Anne’s gesture proclaimed her to be.

  “You never said anything about wanting children when we knew each other before,” Wiley said slowly.

  “There were a lot of things we never said to each other,” she replied. “I mean, you probably only ever said twentyfive words to me about your family—just enough to tell me your father disappeared and your mother died when you were still a kid.”

  “There’s not much more to say about it.”

  Something flickered in her blue eyes that made him think she disagreed with him. And her voice had a deliberately gentle quality to it that made him wonder whether she’d been waiting for a chance to ask him about this.

  “Oh, come on, Wiley,” she said.’ “What was your father like? And your mother?” When he didn’t answer right away, she prompted him, “Why did he leave?”

  “She kicked him out.” Somehow, she’d seemed so open and revealing just a moment ago that Wiley couldn’t think of a good enough reason to close up on her. “My father was the world’s ultimate con man,” he told her. “He loved the word tomorrow. Things were always going to be better tomorrow.”

  “And they weren’t.”

  “No. They got worse and worse, until my mother stopped believing in all the tomorrows and just threw him out.”

  He’d intended to stop there, but Rae-Anne kept prodding him. “How old were you when that happened?”

  “Eleven.”

  “So Jack would have been—”

  “Nine. And Sam was seven.” He drew in a breath, amazed that he was telling her about this. He was amazed, too, at the way Rae-Anne’s sympathetic blue eyes made it easier to dredge up these memories.

  “How much longer did your mother live?”

  “Only a couple of years. She drank.�
� He said the words bluntly, because he couldn’t see much point to softening them. “And she kept taking up with the wrong man, one right after another. I had a couple of temporary stepdaddies I’d be happy to settle a few old scores with, if I knew where they were today.”

  Rae-Anne was frowning. “What would be the point of that?” she asked. “It’s all so long ago.”

  Not in my mind, Wiley wanted to tell her. In his memory, in spite of—or maybe because of—the way he’d kept his past a secret all these years, it was still as fresh as it had been that night when he was eleven years old. He could see himself so clearly—a scrawny kid with big ideas about how the world could be when his father’s ship finally came inleaning out of the upstairs window in that rickety house in Abilene, watching his father storm out to the family’s old truck in the wake of the worst fight his parents had ever had.

  And he could see the skinny little ankle and foot poking out from under the burlap bag in the truck bed, too, letting Wiley know a minute too late that his seven-year-old brother had stowed away. He’d gone pelting downstairs, yelling that Sam was gone, but his mother had been wailing too loudly to hear him, and Jack had taken refuge in the tree house out back when the fight had started to escalate.

  Only Wiley had seen it happening. And there hadn’t been a damn thing he could do about it. Sometimes he thought that night—that single moment, in fact—had shaped everything he had become thirty years after the fact.

  He’d forgotten what Rae-Anne had just asked him. He’d been wrong, he thought—it wasn’t easy to talk about this even when he was looking into Rae-Anne’s beautiful blue eyes.

  “We better get this ice upstairs before it melts,” he said curtly. “Let’s go.”

  “Wiley-”

  He didn’t stop to let the questioning sound in her voice distract him this time. He’d just remembered the feeling he’d sometimes had when he’d first met Rae-Anne—that this was a woman whose love would demand everything and give everything and threaten the whole foundation that Wiley had built his solitary life on.