Had there ever been a time when Zach had ruffled her hair? She couldn’t recall. Zach was so much like Cole, really. A quiet, steady strength seemed to emanate from him, the same as from Cole.
Cole was looking at her. “Ready to turn in?”
“What? Oh. Yes, I suppose so.”
They left Annie’s room together and started down the hall. Cole said, “You okay? You got real quiet back there.”
They’d reached the door of her room. She stopped, and so did he.
She said, “I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“My brother, Zach.”
“The cattle rancher from Wyoming?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She had her card key in her hand—but she didn’t turn to use it.
“You were missing him?”
“Well, I...yes, I guess I was—which is pretty strange.”
“Why?”
She knew she ought to say good night and leave him. But she didn’t. She relaxed against the wall beside the door. “Zach and I were never that close. He was ten when I was born. And by the time he was thirteen or so, he’d managed to get our parents to let him live at the ranch in Wyoming full-time. So I never really felt as if I knew him all that well.”
“But you wish you did?”
She nodded. “He’s...a good man. He’s married now, for the second time. They have a baby on the way—and they each have a daughter, from previous marriages. They’re very happy, running the ranch together, with the kids and all the ranch hands—oh, and Edna Heller. She lives with them, too.” Melinda smiled to herself.
Cole watched her, an answering smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Who’s Edna Heller?”
“My brother thinks of her as a second mother, and so do my cousins, Nate and Cash. For years, she was the housekeeper at the ranch. But really, she and her husband, Ty, were more like part of the family than employees. Edna is...she’s very feminine. Slim and pretty, you know? But she has a will of tempered steel.”
“So,” Cole said, “you come from country people, after all.”
She corrected him pointedly. “No. I come from New York.”
“Sounds to me like you. come from Wyoming—by way of New York.”
She shook her head. “Uh-uh. My brother’s a throwback, that’s all.”
“And happy to be one. You also said that.” His expression grew thoughtful. “If you miss your brother, maybe you ought to give him a call.”
“I do call. Or he’ll call me. At birthdays and Christmas, when one of us thinks of it. And I called and sent a gift when he and Tess got married.”
“Tess. That’s his new wife?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Cole’s gaze wandered, from her eyes to her lips and back again. It seemed to Melinda that she could feel the gentle touch of his regard, brushing down her cheek, across her mouth, then up again, slow and sweet and warm.
He braced a hand on the door frame near her head. It felt... comfortable, and exciting at the same time, just to stand there in the hall of that Vacation Inn, letting Cole’s gaze caress her as she told him about her family. The scent of him teased her. He smelled of a recent shower, and of star mints, and something enticing and hard to define that was only him.
“Any other brothers?”
She shook her head. “But I do have a sister. She’s two years older than I am. Gwen. The perfect one.”
“Well now, Melinda.” His caressing gaze teased her. “Didn’t you know that nobody’s perfect.”
“Gwen is. She mastered in English Literature at Yale. She has two bright, attractive children and a wonderful husband, which means he has lots of money and the good taste never to talk about it. He runs a large architectural firm. Did I mention that Gwen also writes children’s books? Well, she does. The kind of books that kids love to read and adults love to have their children read. She even makes her own bread. And grinds her own flour, too—the food value is so much higher that way.”
He chuckled. “Gotta make sure those good-lookin’ smart kids get their vitamins.”
“Exactly.”
His laughter faded and his eyes grew serious. “You and that sister got problems, between you?”
“No, not really. I’ve envied her, wished I could be more like her. But it’s pretty hard to hate her, no matter how much I might want to. Because Gwen really is perfect. On top of all her other sterling qualities, she happens to be a very nice person.”
“Just like her sister.” He said the words so softly, raising the hand that wasn’t braced on the door frame and brushing her under the chin—just once, so quickly she almost could have told herself he hadn’t touched her at all.
But he had touched her. The echo of it seemed to spread out through her body in a series of slow, lovely ripples. And he was leaning so close. All she would have to do to feel his lips on hers would be to move her head forward, just an inch, maybe two...
She grasped for the escaping thread of the conversation. “I...what?”
He seemed to have lost the thread, too. He lifted an eyebrow, made a questioning sound.
“You...oh, I remember. You said I’m nice. Just like my sister.”
“Yeah,” he agreed after a long, breath-held pause. “That’s what I said.”
He straightened, dropped his arm from the door frame and moved away a step. Was that regret she saw in his eyes?
Forbidden longing shivered through her. She wished he would come closer again, wished that he would put his face right up to hers, so she could feel his breath across her cheek. So she could move her head slightly and tell herself that it had just happened, somehow—that their lips had met and, well, what could she do, but kiss him? What could he do, but wrap his arms around her and pull her close to him? What could they do, but stand there in that hallway, kissing each other endlessly, oblivious to everything else in the world but the feel and taste of each other?
Oh, she was like a child with a book of matches, a child who knew fire was dangerous, but still quivered with anticipation as she imagined what it might be like—to flip the cardboard cover back, pull off a red-tipped stick and strike it. To cry out in naughty, forbidden delight as the bright flame exploded into life.
I am a woman who doesn’t know where she’s going, Melinda thought. And the last thing I need is to start a fire on the way there.
Cole was watching her, his eyes guarded now. “You’d better get some sleep,” he said. “We’re getting out of here early.”
And then he turned and walked on to the door of his own room, leaving her to stare after him, wondering what might have happened if he had only stayed—and knowing she had no right to wonder any such thing.
Chapter Ten
They did make it to Amarillo the next day. But it was a grueling trip. Brady fussed constantly. He seemed to have had quite enough of sitting in his safety seat. He wanted the comfort and security of his mother’s arms. Around noon, they pulled into a truck stop. They switched Annie and Brady to the pickup before they left again.
That lasted about two hours. Then, near Albuquerque, Cole pulled off at a gas station. Melinda followed right behind. As soon as the pickup stopped, Annie jumped out and ran back to lean in Melinda’s window.
“Seems like he’s cryin’ even louder, sittin’ right between us...”
So they switched the baby to Melinda’s car again and Melinda gave Annie a chance behind the wheel. Melinda sat in back, talking soothingly to the crying child, stroking his fuzzy head to reassure him, trying not to think about how nice it would be just to take him out of his seat and hold him close until he fell asleep.
Annie even said as much at one point. “Don’t you just wish we lived back when they didn’t have things like safety seats? I guess a lot more kids got killed, but you can bet they were happy and quiet when they died.”
“Don’t even think about,” Melinda advised.
“I know what you mean,” Annie agreed. “It is too temptin’, too temptin’ by half.”
By late afternoon, though, the baby finally seemed to accept his fate. He fell asleep in midwail and Annie and Melinda drove along in silence, so relieved to have peace, they didn’t want to ruin it, not even with a little music or some friendly conversation.
Finally, at seven-thirty that night, they reached Amarillo. They found a Holiday Inn by eight and Annie insisted on her swim. It was nearly ten by the time they ordered sandwiches from the coffee shop downstairs.
Cole ate fast and then said he was turning in. With a final warning that they’d better get to bed soon because they would be on the road by six again, he left for his own room.
He didn’t ask Melinda to go with him.
She suspected that he felt the same way she did. For the two of them, a short walk down a hallway together was way too fraught with forbidden temptations. Why put themselves in situations where they had to resist?
Down the hall from Melinda and Annie, Cole let himself into his room, shoved the door shut and flopped flat on the bed with his boots on.
He laced his hands behind his head, closed his eyes—and tried not to think about Melinda.
Tried not to picture Melinda. In that black lacy bathing suit of hers, for instance. A suit that revealed way too much leg for a man’s peace of mind, but pretty much covered everything else—and somehow, at the same time, seemed like it covered nothing at all.
He tried not to think about how sweet she’d been, to come along to Bluebonnet after all the grief he’d given her, just to make sure that Annie would get herself home where she belonged. About what a sport she was, taking the baby in her car most of the time, listening to him wail from Flagstaff clear to Tucumcari.
He tried not think about how her eyes had softened, going the innocent blue of a Hill Country sky in high summer, when she talked about that brother of hers and how she wished she knew him better.
He tried to remember that Melinda Bravo had money to burn, a snazzy red car and a big house in the canyons above Sunset Boulevard—not to mention a face and a body that could cause a man to forget his own name. He tried to remember that a woman like that didn’t need some country vet to make her life complete.
Hadn’t she told him so in no uncertain terms?
Cole lifted his head off the pillow and looked down at his boots. Time to get out of them and get under the blanket. With a grunt, he sat up and swung his feet to the floor.
As he undressed, he reminded himself all over again of all the reasons he shouldn’t let himself get too near Melinda. At the same time, he couldn’t help thinking that she wanted him, too. He’d seen it in her eyes. Felt in that one barn-burner of a kiss they’d shared the night Brady was born.
Maybe she wasn’t suited to him in the least. And maybe he couldn’t offer her a damn thing she couldn’t buy for herself ten times over.
Besides having less money than she did, he had a handicapped father he was determined to take care of at home, not to mention a little sister with a baby and no husband. He spent his days bumping around on back roads, visiting the ranches around Bluebonnet, caring for sick stock. When he wasn’t out in the field, he tended smaller animals at the veterinary hospital a few hundred yards behind his house. Then at night, he went home—and took care of his dad.
How would Melinda Bravo fit in to that kind of life?
He didn’t have to ponder deeply to know the answer to that: she wouldn’t and wouldn’t want to.
But he wanted her. And she wanted him.
And sometimes, when he looked at her, he couldn’t help asking himself what point there was in temptation anyway, if a man didn’t go ahead and give in to it now and then.
Brady was reasonably quiet the next day. He only cried when he was hungry or when his diaper needed changing.
Annie was quiet, too. She stared out the window as they drove down the middle of Texas, past endless miles of barbed wire fence behind which cattle grazed on drying grasses, and by farmlands where tall, winged irrigation pipes kept everything green. Melinda knew that her friend was thinking of her father—longing to see him, at the same time as she dreaded his reaction when he saw Brady and learned that Jimmy had left her.
They stopped at a café along the highway for lunch. Cole teased Annie a little about her long face, trying to lighten her mood. But Annie wouldn’t be cheered up. She ate quickly and took Brady back to the car to feed him in private.
Once she’d left, Cole looked across the booth at Melinda and shrugged. “She’ll be fine.”
“Yes, of course she will.” Melinda tried to inject more confidence into the statement than she actually felt right then.
“She and the baby could ride with me for a while,” Cole suggested. “Somehow, they’ve ended up riding with you most of the way.”
“I don’t mind. It’s nice to have someone to talk to.”
“I can’t believe Annie’s done much talkin’ today.”
“She hasn’t. But that’s all right, too.”
His gaze lingered too long, the way it had the other night, moving slowly from her mouth to her eyes and back again. “My sister’s made a mistake or two in her life. But I guess she knows how to pick a friend.”
“Well, I...thank you.”
“If you want her to switch to the pickup for a while, you just let me know.”
“I will.”
Cole turned his attention back to his meal. They finished their food in silence, avoiding each other’s eyes—partly because they were both a little worried about Annie. And partly for reasons neither of them found it wise to think about too deeply.
In the afternoon, as they neared their destination, Annie did begin to talk a little. She pointed out fields that would have been a sea of bluebonnets a couple of months before.
“Missed ’em this year,” she said, and let out a long sigh.
Around them, the land had risen up in rocky outcroppings. Oaks grew thick on the edges of sun-baked fields where the grasses were turning gold and cattle grazed, leaving the slopes of the hills to sheep and goats. Cedars blanketed the higher places in dark evergreen, while in the canyons, the creeks nurtured willows and palmetto palms.
“It’s beautiful,” Melinda said.
And Annie nodded. “Most beautiful country on God’s green earth. Oh, how I have missed it...” She named the few small towns they drove through, and smiled in delight when they saw a white-tailed doe grazing with two fawns near the road. The doe lifted its graceful head and pricked up its ears, then bounded off into the trees as they drove past. The two fawns followed their mother’s lead.
“The Hill Country is the white-tailed deer capital of the world,” Annie announced. “You have to keep your eyes peeled. Sometimes they panic and run across the road.”
They reached the town of Bluebonnet at a little after two. The sign on the road at the edge of town welcomed visitors and declared the population to be 403. They drove slowly down the curbless central street, predictably called Main, past a tiny bank and a post office, an insurance place, a grocery store—and a red phone booth that had been there so long, there was grass growing right in the open glass-topped door.
As they left the tiny town behind Annie whispered, “Oh, my sweet Lord, we’re almost there...”
Five minutes later, Annie said, “Turn in. That drive right there.”
Melinda obligingly swung the wheel to the left. They passed a mailbox perched on a wooden pole and a sign that read Bluebonnet Veterinary Hospital. Ahead, at the end of the unpaved driveway, a weathered two-story wood frame house waited beneath the burning ball of the afternoon sun. The house had a broad front porch shadowed by a deep porch roof and a huge pair of gnarled oaks that grew on either side of the yard.
The dirt road forked off to either side of the house, circling around to the back, where Melinda could see a long, tin-roofed structure, probably a barn, or ma
ybe the veterinary hospital. Beyond that, at the edge of a thick grove of trees, a windmill creaked away in the sultry breeze.
There was a good-size, dusty turnaround space in front of the house, between the giant oaks. “Just pull up right there,” Annie said, her voice low and charged with some painful emotion that didn’t match her casual words.
Melinda parked where Annie had pointed, next to a cute sky-blue Volkswagen Bug, which had to be twenty years old and looked like new. She turned off the engine just as Cole’s pickup slid in alongside them. Right then, a tailless German shepherd with one ear and a pronounced limp lumbered down the steps, followed by a sleek gray cat.
“That’s Cole’s dog, Sergeant,” Annie said. “The cat is a stray we adopted a few years ago. I call her Spunky.” Annie turned to Melinda, her mouth stretching wide in an attempt at smile. “Well. I guess we better go on in.”
Before Melinda could reply, they both heard the front door slam.
A stocky gray-haired woman emerged from the shadows of the porch and marched down the steps. She wore a spotless blue polyester uniform and white duty shoes. There was a scowl on her florid face.
“Uh-oh,” said Annie. “That’s Gerda Finster. She’s a practical nurse and a member of our church.”
“The one who’s been taking care of your father while Cole was gone?”
“Mmm-hmm. And she doesn’t look happy.”
Cole had already jumped from the pickup. The dog hobbled over to him. He gave it a pat and evidently an order, because it immediately moved a few steps away and sat. The cat wound around Cole’s boots once, then strutted away.
Cole and the nurse met in front of the truck.
“Come on,” Annie said, pushing her door open, “let’s see what’s going on.”
Melinda wasn’t really certain she wanted to know. But she got out anyway, since Annie did. After the air-conditioned comfort of the car, the midday summer heat wrapped around her and pressed in, a suffocating blanket of dust-thick scorched air. Spunky the cat appeared from under Cole’s pickup. It walked up to Melinda and meowed at her. So she picked it up and petted it as the nurse announced, “I’ve been waiting for you to get here, so I could tell you that I have had enough and I quit.”
Married by Accident Page 12
