by Fran Baker
“Why did you have to come back?” Jeannie could have been eighteen again, so wistfully did she ask.
“I had to see you.” A muscle jumped along Rafe’s clean-edged jaw. “I had to satisfy my curiosity.”
“About what?”
“About the man you married.”
She stiffened instinctively. “What about him?”
His lips quirked into a cynical smile. “I wanted to know what kind of man could make you forget me so easily.”
“Oh …” She swallowed, trying to relieve the sudden dryness in her throat.
“When I first found out you’d eloped—”
“Who told you I eloped?” She reiterated the demand she’d made of him earlier.
“What difference does it make now?”
“None, I guess.” Except she would have liked to know who’d spread that lie.
“Just believe me when I say I almost went out of my mind.” His mouth remained in its crooked line, bitter and mocking. “Half the time I was calling myself every name in the book for not telling Big Tom to go to hell, and the other half I was congratulating myself on getting rid of the original material girl. But mostly …” His gaze ran over her, as if the memory were almost to painful to voice. “Mostly I was insanely jealous of the man who had you for himself.”
Caught in the emotion of both the moment and his moving admission, Jeannie almost blurted out the truth. But if his expression was anything to go by, Rafe wasn’t finished. And she wanted—no, she needed—to hear the rest of his explanation.
“I finally calmed down and decided that it was for the best.” He shrugged pragmatically. “Let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly a hot prospect at the time—a college graduate, yes, but with no hope of ever earning enough money for law school by doing ranch work. And I realized that your new husband could probably give you more than I ever could.”
Above, mare’s-tail clouds pranced across a sky as bright and blue as the eyes that met and held hers. “Still, I’ve always wondered if he treated you as well as you deserved … as well as I would have.”
Jeannie turned away, her silky hair swirling about her shoulders and her hands all but mangling her hat brim. She didn’t want him to know how deeply affected she was by all this, didn’t want him to see her face when she posed her next question. Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper as she asked, “Why did you leave me?”
Rafe didn’t answer her right away—not because he didn’t want to but because he didn’t know where to begin. He’d come here this morning to lay the past to rest, only to find that he’d come full circle. For years he’d rued the day he’d set his sights on the girl she’d been; now he realized he wanted the woman she’d become.
But in order to have her …
“That’s a long story,” he said at last. “And this is neither the time nor the place to tell it.”
Her pulse fluttered when she felt his fingers close in on her elbow and assert a guiding pressure toward the wrought-iron gate. “What are you doing?”
“I’m walking you back to the house.”
“But …” Stunned by his declaration, Jeannie faltered slightly, breaking the purposeful rhythm of their steps and throwing Rafe offstride as well.
His grip tightened in support. “We need to talk.”
“I really don’t have time today.” She shook her head, partly in feeble protest to his suggestion and partly in sheer amazement at the speed with which things were moving.
“Give me ten minutes,” Rafe bargained, in the firm baritone that had swayed its fair share of juries.
Ten minutes? Jeannie’s heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest as their steps crunched along the gravel drive that led to the house. Ten minutes could destroy her!
Three
“Where’s Tony?” Jeannie demanded of Webb the instant they entered the house.
Rafe heard the anxious note in her voice and chalked it up to maternal concern. Personally he’d always been of the opinion that Big Tom would have to hire someone to cry at his funeral. But the tears that had streamed down the boy’s cheeks had been the product of genuine grief. And though he couldn’t imagine it, he had to wonder if the Archie Bunker of Bolero had actually mellowed in his old age.
“Tony’s in the kitchen.” Webb had obviously been haunting the entry hall, waiting for her. Now his brown eyes seemed unusually bright as they skimmed from her bare head and unbound hair to her flushed face. “Rusty promised to take him riding as soon as he’s finished eating.”
Jeannie fingered the brim of the hat she still held and self-consciously wet her lips. She tasted Rafe’s kiss on them and experienced the ridiculous but not unfounded fear that it might be visible. Belatedly remembering her manners, she introduced the men who stood on either side of her.
“Dr. Webb Bishop,” she said briskly, “I’d like you to meet Rafe Martinez.”
Rafe extended his hand. “Dr. Bishop.”
“Mr. Martinez.” Webb sounded as if the words had been forced from his throat.
The two men shook hands, sizing each other up as potential rivals for Jeannie’s affection. Rafe was taller and darker than Webb, but they were both professionals, both successful in their chosen fields of endeavor. The tension built and the low buzz of background conversations seemed as loud as the roar of a blue norther while they quietly assessed each other’s chances.
Standing between them, seeing the tanned hand that had once known her intimately clasping the fairer one that knew her in only the most superficial manner, she suddenly felt like the rope in a tug-of-war.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, removing herself from the highly charged situation as gracefully as she could, “I’m going to check on Tony and freshen up before I see to my guests.”
Rafe and Webb dropped their hands and all pretense of propriety, turning of one accord to study her ashen face.
“I’ll catch up with you later,” Rafe said, the rumbling tautness in his voice making it sound like a threat.
“Fine,” she agreed, unable to bring herself to meet Webb’s silently appealing expression. Taking the coward’s way out, she headed for the safety of the kitchen and the reassuring sight of her son … of Rafe’s son.
The country kitchen, spanning the rear of the house, was papered in a small floral of blues and greens and creams. Six-inch pine flooring shone spotlessly. A trestle table surrounded by comfortable arrowback chairs invited people to sit and share a meal. Tea tins lining the soffits over the oak cupboards lent charm, and a bread-making board under one of the windows meant business.
Tony had already changed out of his dark suit and good shoes into play clothes, boots, and the neon-blue baseball cap he would have worn around the clock if Jeannie would have let him. He was happily ensconced at the head of the table, a plate with a half-eaten taco and a glass of milk sitting before him.
“Hi, Mom,” he said around a mouthful of taco.
“Hi, honey.” She put her arm around his shoulder and planted a kiss on his freshly scrubbed cheek, relishing the spring of his flesh and the familiar bump and blade of bone.
By nature Big Tom had been all rough edges and emotional reserve. In contrast Laurrinda had been all parties and perfume and pitiable need. The social butterfly whose wings had been clipped by cancer. And by the time Jeannie was born, it had essentially been over between them.
To this day she didn’t really understand what had drawn her parents together in the first place. If she’d had to guess, she would have said it was a classic case of opposites attracting. But somewhere along the line the magnetism, not to mention the marriage, had lost its pull.
It was their remoteness, though, that was responsible for Jeannie having made a daily habit of hugging her son and saying to him the words she’d seldom heard when she was growing up … the words she whispered now into his clean-smelling hair. “I love you.”
Tony swallowed and said, “I love you too.”
Knowing he wouldn’t sit still for m
uch more of this “mush”—his word, not hers—she let him go and turned to look at the woman who’d taken Maria Martinez’s place as cook and housekeeper. “How’s it going, Martha?”
A gaunt, gray-haired woman who’d never married and who had no children of her own, Martha Spencer ruled her culinary realm with a spatula, an iron skillet, and the firm belief that food was the panacea for all the problems in this world. Toward that end she’d been cooking for three days straight, preparing a proper send-off for Big Tom.
Martha had never met Rafe, of course, but Rusty had obviously filled her in. Her hazel eyes telegraphed a visual missive that she was doing her part to protect Tony even as she added her vocal assurance. “So far, so good.”
“I’m going to write down the calf count for Rusty,” Tony said excitedly. Like the majority of the children who grew up on a ranch, he equated chores and the care of the animals with fun. “That way we’ll know what we’re going to need in the way of supplies when branding starts next week.”
“Great.” Jeannie smiled at his enthusiasm. Big Tom had started early with his grandson, training him to take over the Circle C someday, teaching him the importance of each and every job, instilling a love of the land in his heart and soul. That Tony was so ready and willing to work on the day of his funeral was perhaps the rancher’s greatest legacy.
“You’re not going anywhere until you finish your lunch, young man,” Martha interjected in an imperious but loving tone.
Tony wolfed down the rest of his taco and reached for his glass of milk. He drained it in one long swallow, then took an ineffectual swipe at the white mustache it left on his upper lip with the back of his hand. That done, he got up from the table and dashed for the back door and the most direct route to the barn.
“See ya later, Mom,” he called over his shoulder.
Before Jeannie could even open her mouth to say good-bye, he’d closed the door behind him. Tony seemed to be going through a phase where he had to race at everything. Sometimes, especially toward the end of a long day, she felt like the tortoise trying to keep up with the hare.
Shaking her head in silent amusement, she asked Martha, “Is there anything you need me to take to the dining room?”
The older woman shook her head and began clearing the kitchen table. “Rusty carried the last of it out while I was making Tony’s taco.”
“If you need any help, call me,” Jeannie offered before pushing through the swinging doors that led to the dining room.
The table had been extended to its full length and set with duplicate lines of serving dishes for smooth traffic flow. A portable bar stood in one corner, and the French doors leading to the patio had been thrown open so that the guests could eat in umbrella-shaded comfort by the swimming pool.
Martha had done herself proud in the food department, combining the finest Southwest specialties with the best of Hill Country cooking.
The mirror over the sideboard reflected silver ramekins of heuvos rancheros rubbing elbows with chafing dishes full of their fluffy scrambled counterpart. Bite-sized pieces of chorizo shared platter space with crispy cuts of country ham. Clay steamers kept stacks of tortillas warm alongside baskets of beaten biscuits. Bowls of spicy gaucamole backed up to boats of cream gravy. Dessert plates mounded with honey-laced sopaipillas and butter-rich sugar cookies brought up the rear.
But food was the last thing on Jeannie’s mind. Rafe’s surprise appearance at the funeral, his kiss and her response to it, the terrible threat he posed where Tony was concerned … Everything had happened so fast, she needed some time alone to think. So after weathering a few more well-meant condolences and encouraging people to eat heartily, she slipped upstairs to her bedroom.
She closed the door, shutting out the hum of conversation downstairs. Then she closed her eyes, and for a moment she was eighteen again, lying in her canopy bed on a hot July night, tingling with anticipation as she waited for the thunk of a rock against the window screen, feeling herself cross the invisible line from girl to woman when the signal came and she snuck down the stairs, out the front door, and into Rafe’s loving arms.
The room had been redecorated since then, the teenager’s clutter having given way to artfully arranged family treasures, and the canopy bed having been replaced by an antique cherry four-poster. But those memories and others swirled around her now, dancing like dust motes in the shafts of sunshine streaming through the lace-clad windows.
As she put her hat back in its flowered box on the closet shelf, Jeannie couldn’t help but recall how carefully she’d chosen the white sundress she’d worn for their first night together, how nervously she’d done up the dainty buttons that covered her breasts and how deftly Rafe had undone them, how tenderly he’d lowered her to the moonlit grass and made her his.
Determined not to dwell on the past, Jeannie stepped to her dresser and repinned her hair before wandering restlessly to the window that overlooked the ranch yard and parting the curtains. But as the breeze picked up and she watched the dust rise off the gravel drive, the past came back to her in a rush of images.…
She could see Rafe behind the wheel of the Studebaker he’d repainted a dark blue and commuted to and from college in. She could hear him gunning the motor once—his secret “I’m home” to her—before he killed it. She could smell his powerful masculine scent and feel his strong arms holding her as they’d lain in the backseat, planning for that distant day when they could bring their love out in the open and face the world as one.
His sexuality—sharp as musk—had filled her senses, blinding her to their different cultural backgrounds and religious beliefs, deafening her to Big Tom’s warnings to steer clear of “that damn greaser” and his dire threats of what would happen if she didn’t. She’d muted her own desire to shout back “I love him!” and had worried constantly that she would be caught sneaking out to keep their secret assignations. She would have risked anything, even her father’s wrath, to be with Rafe.
But one night she had waited for his signal in vain. The luminous hands on her bedside clock had crawled toward dawn as she’d kept her lonely vigil. Eventually she’d given up on seeing him and cried herself to sleep.
The next morning, when she awoke to find him gone, something inside her had died. And something else had lived.
“Jeannie?”
At the sound of Webb’s muted voice and sharp knock she snapped back to the present, surprised to find that only minutes had passed instead of years. She spun away from the window just as he opened the door.
In the few seconds it took to reorient herself, Webb’s eyes circled the room that he, like Rafe, had never set foot in. He took in everything, from the fringed Turkish carpet that covered the parquet floor, to the Victorian dollhouse she’d found in the attic and refurbished, to the Bakelite accessories that served as her vanity set. For some reason it rankled to think he should be the first to see the heirlooms she held so dear.
Nodding as if to say he approved of her eclectic taste, his gaze moved back to her, standing beside the window. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“I’m sorry.” A guilty flush crept up her face, as if she’d been caught doing something indecent. “I just needed to get away from the noise and the crowd.”
“I understand,” he said soothingly.
“Is something wrong?” she asked, thinking of Tony now.
“No.” He smiled his steady smile, putting her fears on that front to rest. “I just wanted to say good-bye.”
“Good-bye?” She looked at him with a blank expression.
Webb patted the beeper that he wore on his belt and that connected him to the hospital. “Duty pages.”
Jeannie dared not think how relieved she was that she wouldn’t be torn between him and Rafe the rest of the day. Her nerves were already stretched as taut as the exercise trampoline that sat in the corner. Any more stress and they’d snap.
“Come on.” Fixing a smile on her face, she crossed the room and took his ar
m. “I’ll walk you downstairs.”
At the front door he captured her hands in his warm, somewhat damp ones and gazed down at her with a slightly desperate expression. “It didn’t seem right to say this when Big Tom was so ill, but now … I’m falling in love with you, Jeannie.”
“Oh, Webb …” she said softly, moved in spite of herself by the knowledge that she could so easily break his heart.
He released her hands and took hold of her shoulders. “I’d be good to you. And I’d treat Tony like my own son. You have my word on that.”
She realized then that he was drowning in false hopes as she was drowning in fear of exposure, and she didn’t know how to save either one of them.
A muscle twitched below his eye as his mouth came down on hers, and he kissed her with a passion she sorely wished she could match. The problem was—
“I’ll call you later,” he promised, his breath coming hard when the kiss ended.
“Do that,” she agreed, her breathing as calm as if she’d just awakened from a good night’s sleep.
No sooner had she closed the front door than Rusty came up behind her. His face wore a terribly worried expression and his tone crackled with urgency as he asked the question Jeannie had asked Webb earlier. “Where’s Tony?”
In addition to the outside entrance from the porch, Big Tom’s office was accessible by a set of pocket doors that opened off the dining room.
Having made all the small talk he could stand, and holding a Bloody Maria that he’d barely tasted, Rafe wandered into the walnut-paneled office.
A massive century-old desk, its burled wood accented with heavy brass trappings, dominated the room. A gun cabinet stood against the far wall, gleaming rifle barrels showing through its locked glass door. And the memory of his fateful meeting with Big Tom seemed to echo off the walls.…
