Once inside the cool interior, Maura and Quint quickly excused themselves to the kitchen to prepare refreshments. While Rebecca took a seat on a long couch, Abe settled himself in a worn leather recliner and Jake stood to one side trying to decide if he should escape to the kitchen with his friends or take advantage of these few minutes with the Texas wildflower.
“Don’t just stand there, Jake. Sit down,” Abe practically barked at him. “You’re makin’ me tired just lookin’ at you.”
Stifling a sigh, Jake pulled off his hat and carried it over to the opposite end of the couch from where Rebecca was sitting.
As he sank onto the cushion, and placed his hat on the floor near his boots, he said, “Sorry, Abe. I was thinking I should go help Maura and Quint. But I guess they can manage without me.”
“Sure they can,” Abe replied. “Besides, I need you to help me entertain Ms. Hardaway.”
Since when did Abe need help entertaining a woman? Jake thought wryly, but he kept the comment to himself.
“Oh, please. You don’t have to make conversation for my sake,” Rebecca spoke up. “Just sitting here in the cool is nice and restful.”
She’d leaned her head against the back of the couch and crossed her legs. From the corner of his eye, Jake let his gaze wander down the length of shapely calf and on to the delicate ankle. Like the black leather strap of her high heel, he could easily imagine his thumb and forefinger wrapped around her smooth ankle and tugging her toward him.
Jake’s thoughts were turning downright indecent when Abe spoke up and interrupted them.
“I’m right sorry about Gertie, Ms. Hardaway. She wasn’t an easy person to know, you understand. She liked her privacy and I respected that. As neighbors we got along. ’Cause we didn’t bother each other—just exchanged a few words from time to time.” He wiped a thumb and forefinger down his long white mustache. “She was way too young to leave this world.”
“Yes. She was only fifty-six. But she…suffered from some sort of heart condition.” At least, that was what Gertrude’s lawyer had explained to Rebecca about the cause of her death.
“That’s too bad,” Abe replied. “Could be that’s why she didn’t socialize. Guess she didn’t feel like it.”
Rebecca’s gaze dropped to her lap. Was the old man trying to say in a nice way that Gertrude O’Dell had been a recluse? If so, he was probably also wondering why Rebecca or other relatives hadn’t been around to visit or check on the woman. Oh, God, the whole situation was so awful. She didn’t want to explain to these people that for some reason her family had been split down the middle. She didn’t want them to know that her own mother had refused to attend her sister’s funeral. It was embarrassing and demeaning.
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that, Abe,” Jake countered. “Gertie visited some with Bess.”
Rebecca looked at the cowboy named Jake. Without his hat, she could see his hair was thick and lay in unruly waves about his head and against the back of his neck. It was the color of dark chocolate and even though the lighting in the room was dim, the strands gleamed like a polished gem. As her gaze encompassed his broad shoulders and long, sinewy legs, she decided he was a man of strength. No doubt he worked out of doors. With his hands and all those muscles.
She swallowed uncomfortably, then asked, “Who is Bess?”
“Gertie’s friend,” he answered. “She was the older woman at the funeral. She left the cemetery before we had a chance to introduce you. I guess she must have been in a hurry for some reason.”
“Oh. Yes.” Rebecca vaguely remembered an older, heavyset woman dressed in a simple print dress standing on the opposite side of Gertrude’s coffin. “I would have liked to have met her. And thank her for coming to the services.”
“I’m sure Jake can make that happen for you,” Abe said. “He knows where everybody works and lives. He gets around.”
Rebecca didn’t find that hard to believe. Even though she didn’t know him, Jake Rollins looked like a man who would never have a problem socializing. At least, with the female population.
He had that rangy, rascally look. The sort that tugged at a woman’s dreams, that made her want to learn how it felt to be just a little naughty, a bit wild and reckless.
Had Gertrude ever had those womanly feelings? Rebecca wondered. Had her aunt ever looked at a man like Jake and wondered what it would be like to make love to him? To have him make love to her?
From all appearances, Gertrude had died a spinster. And at the rate Rebecca was going, the same was going to happen to her. Men were drawn to her, but they didn’t stick around for long. Once a guy learned she enjoyed her demanding career, he chose to move on and find a woman who could devote her time solely to him.
Rebecca was doing her best to push those thoughts away when Quint and Maura entered the room with a tray of refreshments. And thankfully for the next half hour, the conversation moved away from Gertrude O’Dell’s untimely departure, and on to the daily happenings of these people who had chosen to show her a bit of hospitality and kindness.
While Rebecca sipped iced tea and nibbled on a sugar cookie, she learned that Maura and Quint had been married for nearly two and a half years and had two young sons, the latter of which had been born only a few months ago. Abe was a widower and had been for nearly twenty years. As for Jake, she could only assume he was a single man. During the conversation he didn’t mention family of any sort and there definitely wasn’t a ring on his finger. At the cemetery when he’d handed her his handkerchief, she’d noticed that much about him. But it wasn’t the lack of a wedding band, or the mention of family, that told Rebecca he was a bachelor. He had that independent look. Like a mustang who knew how to avoid the snares and traps made by human hands. Even though she was a city girl, she could see that about him.
But in spite of the prickly awareness she had of Jake Rollins, Rebecca decided she could’ve sat in Abe’s house for hours, letting the easy conversation take her mind away from all the hurt and betrayal she’d been feeling since she’d learned of Gertrude’s existence. But the day was getting late and she needed to do so many things before she returned to Houston.
After placing her empty glass on a tray situated on the coffee table, she rose to her feet. “Thank you so much for the refreshments and for inviting me to your home,” she told Abe, then included the others in a hasty glance. “You’ve all been so kind, but I really need to stop by my aunt’s place before dark. If someone could drive me to the cemetery to pick up my car, I’d be ever so grateful.”
Quint looked questioningly at Maura and then Maura smiled suggestively at Jake. “Jake, I know you’d be more than happy to drive our guest to pick up her car. Wouldn’t you?”
“That’s a fool question,” Abe shot at Maura. “Jake would give up his eyeteeth to drive Ms. Hardaway to wherever she wants to go. And if I were twenty years younger I wouldn’t give him the chance.” Winking at Rebecca, he pushed himself out of the chair and fished out a wad of keys from the front pocket of his jeans. Tossing them to Jake, he said, “Here, son. Take my truck. That way you won’t have to hurry back with Quint’s.”
With a bit of dismay, Rebecca watched Jake rise to his feet. She’d expected Quint or Maura to be the one to drive her. Not the brown-eyed cowboy with the charming dimple in his cheek.
“Thanks,” Jake told him. “And don’t worry. I’ll take care of your truck.”
“Dammit, I’m not worried about you taking care of my truck. Just make sure you take good care of Ms. Hardaway.”
Abe walked over and with a gnarled hand patted Rebecca’s shoulder. For a moment the old man’s gesture of affection stung her eyes with emotional tears. It had been years since she’d had her father in her life and with both sets of grandparents passing on before she’d been born, she’d never had a grandfather. Abe made her realize what she’d been missing and how much she needed a wise, steadying hand right now.
Jake cast Abe a wry grin. “Don’t worry about that, either. I know h
ow to be a gentleman.”
Behind them, Quint chuckled and Rebecca didn’t miss the dark look that Jake shot back at him. Obviously the two men were such good friends they communicated without words, she thought. And from what she could read from the conversation, Quint viewed her as a lamb about to be thrown to a wolf.
That was a silly thought, Rebecca told herself. She was twenty-eight years old and had been around all sorts of men. She hardly needed to worry about one New Mexican cowboy.
But moments later, as he wrapped a hand at the side of her waist and helped her into Abe’s truck, her heart hammered as though she’d never been touched by a man.
“I noticed that Mr. Cantrell called you ‘son.’ And you and his grandson appear to be very close,” she remarked as he climbed beneath the wheel and started the engine. “Is Mr. Cantrell your father? I mean, I know you have different surnames, but—well, sometimes that doesn’t mean anything.”
He thrust the truck into first gear and steered it onto the graveled drive. “No. Quint is just a good friend. Has been since the third grade. And Abe isn’t my father. I don’t have a father.”
“Oh.” His last words weren’t exactly spoken in a testy nature, but there had been a faint hardness in his voice. She wondered what that could mean, but realized she was in no position to ask. Besides that, Jake Rollins shouldn’t be interesting her. Not now anyway. She was here to say goodbye to her aunt and deal with the woman’s estate. Certainly not to get involved with a local. “Neither do I,” she told him. “Have a father, that is.”
He shot her a questioning glance and she explained, “He died when I was ten. He worked for a major oil firm and was involved in an accident while he was in the Middle East. Something happened to cause an explosion on the job site.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been tough.”
She shrugged. “It’s been nearly eighteen years and I still miss him.”
He remained silent after that and it was clear to Rebecca that her revelation about her personal life hadn’t given him the urge to expound on his. Biting back a sigh, she forced her attention to the passing landscape.
Once they’d moved away from Abe Cantrell’s house, the forest of tall pines had opened up to desert hills dotted with smaller piñons and huge clumps of sage. To her extreme right, the sun was quickly setting, bathing the whole area in shades of pink and gold.
During Rebecca’s many travels, she’d never been to New Mexico. And before her small commuter plane had landed in Ruidoso, she’d not expected the area to be so open and wild or for it to touch something deep within her.
Was that why Gertrude had come to live in this state? Because she’d thought it beautiful? Or had she simply wanted to put a great distance between herself and her sister. Oh, God, there were so many questions Rebecca wanted, needed answered.
“What is that cactus-looking stuff with the pretty blooms on it?” she asked Jake as she forced her thoughts back to the moment. “See? Over there to your left with the pink blossoms.”
He nodded. “That’s cholla cactus. It blooms in the early spring and summer. You don’t have that in Texas?”
“Not in the city of Houston.”
His gaze slanted her way. “Guess you don’t get out in the country much.”
He’d not spoken it as a question but more like a statement of fact. As though he already knew the sort of person she was. The idea that she appeared so one-dimensional to this man bothered her a great deal. Though why it should, she didn’t understand at all.
“Not in a while,” she replied. “But I’ve been in the desert before. In Nevada. It didn’t look like this.”
“No. That state is pretty stark in some areas. But Lincoln County, New Mexico, is just plain pretty,” he said with obvious bias.
Even though the cab of the truck was roomy, Rebecca felt as though there were only scant inches between them. His presence seemed to take up a major part of the space and try as she might, she couldn’t seem to make her eyes stay away from him for more than a few seconds at a time.
While she went about her daily life in Houston, she was accustomed to seeing businessmen dressed in boots and Stetsons. Yet she had to admit that none of those men looked like Jake Rollins. He was the real deal and she was embarrassed to admit to herself that his raw sexuality mesmerized her.
“Well, here we are at the cemetery already,” he announced as he geared down the truck and pulled to a stop in front of her rented sedan.
She avoided looking across the wrought-iron fence to the mound of fresh dirt covering Gertrude’s grave. Instead, she smiled at Jake. “Thanks for taxiing me back to my car. It was very kind of you.”
His grin was crooked and caused her breath to hang for a moment in her throat.
“And I didn’t have to give up my eyeteeth to do it,” he teased.
In spite of everything, she chuckled. “Mr. Cantrell is quite a character. I think I could fall in love with him.”
He let out a humorous snort. “Most women who meet him do. How he’s stayed a widower all these years is a mystery to me.”
He climbed out of the truck and Rebecca waited for him to skirt the vehicle and assist her from the cab. Once she was down on the ground and standing next to him, she quickly started to step away, but his hand continued to rest on the side of her waist, causing her to pause and glance up at his dark face. His brown eyes flickered with a light that was so soft and inviting, she couldn’t tear her gaze away.
“I guess this is goodbye,” he said.
The husky tone of his voice sent shivers over her skin and she could only think how his touch soothed her, thrilled her in a way she would have never expected.
Her heart was suddenly hammering, yearning for some elusive thing she couldn’t understand. Unconsciously, she moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I—uh—don’t suppose you would like to stop by Gertrude’s house with me? I mean, if you’re not in any hurry. I need to shut things up before I head back to Ruidoso.”
His brows arched faintly, telling Rebecca he was clearly surprised by her invitation. So was she. It wasn’t like her to be so impulsive. Especially when it came to men. But during her aunt’s graveside services, Jake Rollins had been so kind and caring. And though she couldn’t explain it, his presence made her feel not so alone and heartbroken.
“I’d be pleased,” he said.
“Fine.” She drew in a long breath, then stepped away from him and quickly headed to her car.
Gertrude’s house was only two short miles from Pine Valley cemetery. As she drove carefully over the country dirt road, Jake followed at a respectable distance behind her. When she finally parked in front of her aunt’s small house, she climbed out of the car and waited for him to pull his vehicle to a stop next to hers.
When he joined her, she said, “I only arrived in Ruidoso last night, so I didn’t get a chance to drive out here until this morning. I’ve still not looked over the whole property. Only the house and its surroundings.” She glanced at the house and tried not to sigh with desperation. “I have to admit it wasn’t what I expected.”
As she walked toward a small gate that would lead them to the front entrance of the house, Jake followed a step behind.
He said, “I take it you’ve never been out here to your aunt’s home before.”
There was no censure or disbelief in his voice and that in itself drew out her next words before she had time to think about them.
“You’re right, I haven’t. And I’m very sorry about that.”
“Well, you’re here now. That has to stand for something,” he said, then with an easy smile, he touched a hand to her back and ushered her up the small steps and onto a concrete porch.
By the time Rebecca reached to open the door, his comment had tugged on her raw emotions. Pausing, she bent her head and swallowed hard at the tears burning her throat. What was the matter with her? She hadn’t known Gertrude O’Dell and until an hour or so ago, Jake Rollins had been a stranger. Neither o
f them should be affecting her like this.
“Rebecca? Is something wrong?”
Lifting her head, she looked at him and her eyes instantly flooded with tears.
“Oh—Jake.”
The words came out on a broken sob and before she could stop herself her head fell against his chest, her hands snatched holds on his shoulders.
She felt his strong arms come around her and then his graveled voice was whispering next to her ear.
“Don’t cry, Becca. Your aunt wouldn’t want that. And neither do I.”
Chapter Two
The comfort of his arms felt so good. Too good, she thought, as she sniffed back her tears and pushed herself away from him. She didn’t know how long she’d allowed her cheek to rest against his broad chest, or his hand to stroke the back of her head. For a while she’d seemed to lose all sense of control over herself.
“I’m so sorry, Jake,” she mumbled in an embarrassed rush. “I didn’t mean to fall apart on you like that. I— The day has been long and everything just seemed to hit me all at once. And now I’ve gotten mascara on your nice, white shirt.”
She darted a glance at his face and saw that his brown eyes were studying her with concern. Amusement, disgust, surprise. Anything would have been easier to deal with than his compassion. She struggled to keep her tears from returning.
“Forget that,” he murmured. “Are you okay?”
While she’d been in his arms, while her cheek had rested against him, he’d called her Becca, she thought. No one had ever called her that and she wondered why it had sounded so endearing and natural coming from him.
Drawing in a deep breath, she nodded and turned to open the door. “Yes. I’m fine now. Please come in and I’ll show you around,” she invited.
They stepped into a small living room crammed full of old furniture, stacks of magazines and newspapers, and shelves of dusty trinkets. The windows were open, but outside awnings shaded the sunlight and left the cluttered interior dark and gloomy.
His Texas Wildflower Page 2
