“Letting it go anywhere would be complicated,” he said, which, along with thinking about that kiss and how much he wanted to kiss her again, had also been on his mind nonstop. “Complicated and probably not the best idea,” he added.
He felt Willy turn to stare at him. “Complicated and not the best idea?” the ranch hand parroted. “Every time Carla’s tried to fix you up with someone you’ve gone into a huge song and dance about the decision you made when Margee died and how your love life is totally and completely on hold. But now, with Terese, it’s just complicated and not the best idea?”
“Well, it is complicated and not the best idea.”
“Sure. But what I’m gettin’at is, why aren’t you just saying a flat no, the way you have with other women?”
Because this woman was different. And not just different than he’d expected or different than her nasty sister. But different in what she was stirring in him. Things that hadn’t been stirred in him since Margee’s death.
But once again Hunter merely said, “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you have a little thing for her, all right,” Willy concluded for himself.
“Not saying I do, but what if I did?”
“Definitely complicated,” the ranch hand decreed.
“With you and Carla?” Hunter asked, testing the waters.
“Not with me,” Willy said. “I want to see you happy, period. With Carla? She likes Terese and I think she’d be okay with it. It’s just tough for her to see you with someone other than her best friend. But complicated because of who Terese is.”
Complicated and not the best idea, Hunter repeated to himself.
In spite of how complicated it was, in spite of anything personal happening between the two of them not being a good idea—maybe even being about the worst idea there ever was—it didn’t change anything for him.
He was still thinking about her, no matter how hard he tried not to. He was still itching to be with her whenever he wasn’t. He was still remembering how much he’d enjoyed sitting and talking to her the previous evening. He was still recalling how much he’d wanted to kiss her the night before last and last night.
He was still thinking about that kiss and how much he’d enjoyed it.
And he was still thinking about how much he wanted to do it again.
Not even the complications, not even the solemn swearing-off of a love life that he’d done after his wife’s death managed to stop any of it.
Terese’s day with Johnny flew by. They drew faces on six pumpkins and Terese let herself be talked into carving two of them—something she was inexperienced and very bad at, but her nephew didn’t seem to notice.
They also used Johnny’s crayons, watercolor paints and markers to make Halloween decorations that they hung up in the living room and the kitchen, in Johnny’s room, and in the cabin so Terese wouldn’t be left out. Then they sat together on the sofa with a bag of microwave popcorn and watched animated Halloween movies.
Through it all Terese tried to concentrate solely on her nephew. There was no doubt that she was as enamored of him, as fascinated and entertained by him, as she could possibly be. In spite of that, it still wasn’t easy to keep her thoughts from wandering to Hunter. To the way Hunter looked, the way he sounded, the things he’d said and how he’d said them. To Hunter and the kiss that had ended the previous evening. To Hunter and the dinner they were having tonight…
And then Hunter and Willy returned from mending fences, and Terese turned Johnny over to his father so she could go to the cabin to get ready for her night out. And even the marginal success she’d had warding off those thoughts of Hunter was lost. Because without any distraction at all, it was impossible to keep the man out of her head.
Instead, as she stepped under the spray of a steamy shower, those thoughts of Hunter kept her constant company. Only now, for no reason she understood, insecurities she was all too familiar with began to pummel her with questions.
Questions about why Hunter had kissed her.
About why he’d asked her to have dinner with him.
She didn’t want to be jaded, but experience had taught her some harsh lessons. Lessons about attractive men who seemed to show an interest in her. Lessons about not being too easily convinced that they really were interested in her…
So why had Hunter kissed her last night and invited her to dinner tonight? she asked herself as she coated her hair with conditioner and then began to use a honey-and-vanilla-scented body scrub on the rest of her.
She wanted to believe that both the kiss and the impending dinner had simply come out of an attraction to her. She wanted to believe that he enjoyed her company, that he liked her.
But she also kept remembering another time when she’d believed those things of another man. A man who wasn’t even as strikingly good-looking as Hunter. A man who hadn’t exuded as much of the pure, innate sensuality that Hunter did. But a man who, like Hunter, could have had any woman he wanted.
And she’d been wrong.
So maybe, a little voice in the back of her mind said, she shouldn’t be so quick to believe that that kiss had come from Hunter being attracted to her, or that tonight’s invitation to dinner had come from him merely wanting to spend some time alone with her.
But if he had kissed her and suggested dinner tonight for some other reason, then what was that other reason? she wondered as she let the shower’s spray rinse her body and hair, then wrapped a towel around her head and used another to dry off.
The only reason she could come up with was what she considered the worst-case scenario.
Hunter owned a ranch that, though it obviously supported him and Johnny and provided Willy’s income as well, still wasn’t lucrative enough to allow him to afford the important business trip he needed to take without saving up for a full two years. Which led her to assume that finances were an issue for him in a way that finances had never been and would never be an issue for anyone born to the Warwick family.
The Warwick family were all familiar with being asked to invest in any number of things—things like a ranch whose owner wanted to make improvements…
It wasn’t a thought Terese wanted to have and she tried to push it out of her mind. But once it was there, it stuck like glue.
If the worst-case scenario were to come about, it wouldn’t be the first time someone had wined and dined her to present her with a proposal for their own economic gain.
And yet, merely the idea that that might be what Hunter was about made her feel bad. It certainly took some of the luster off the kiss she’d been reliving since it had happened, some of the luster off the dinner she’d been looking forward to as if it were her first cotillion.
Please don’t make that why, she silently implored no one in particular.
But she needed to be mentally and emotionally prepared, she told herself as she stepped out of the shower stall and moved on to applying lotion and powder. She needed to be going into this dinner without any illusions. With her eyes wide open.
And that was what she was determined to do.
Although, even in the midst of trying to brace herself for the possibility that Hunter had something up his sleeve that had nothing to do with being attracted to her, she still kept remembering that kiss.
That kiss had seemed to take him almost as much by surprise as it had her.
That kiss hadn’t felt contrived.
That kiss had felt genuine.
And so, so nice…
Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt, she thought. After all, Hunter hadn’t given her any cause to be suspicious of him. Didn’t that mean she could, at least for the time being, take things at face value?
She hoped she wasn’t being naive, but she thought she could. If she just didn’t go overboard. If she really did only think of that kiss as a simple, meaningless kiss, an answer to a momentary impulse and nothing more. If she really did think that this dinner was only a way to make amends for the grimy marshmallow
and the bad pizza, or that Hunter was merely being polite and entertaining her as a guest who would otherwise be left to her own devices while he went to his meeting at the hospital and Johnny had his evening with Carla and Willy.
Face value. That was the key, she decided. Not making too much of anything that went on between herself and Hunter. Either in the positive or the negative. While still being cautious.
And she could be cautious. She could, she vowed as she dressed in the black slacks and black cashmere turtleneck sweater she’d opted to wear. She could be cautious and she would be cautious.
Except that once she’d brushed out her hair and twisted the ends into a knot that fell between her shoulder blades and judged herself ready to return to the house to begin her evening alone with Hunter, cautious was not how she felt.
She felt excited and eager and hopeful. Hopeful that her worst-case scenario wouldn’t play out. And that the coming hours would be as good as every other hour she’d spent with Hunter so far.
And that tonight might end with just one more of those simple, meaningless kisses…
Terese didn’t mind sitting through the meeting of the Parents Adoption Network. There was some interesting talk about recent problems involving a black-market adoption ring operating out of Russia that members of the Children’s Connection were concerned could be connected to their agency and their satellite orphanage in the other country. But so far an investigation had not turned up a link and that news brought with it relief among the PAN members.
The second topic of discussion involved plans for an upcoming bachelor auction that was being held to raise funds. Terese’s mind wandered during the first portion of that, but when talk turned to lighthearted attempts to convince the auction chairwoman, Jenny Hall, to bid on a date for herself with someone named Eric Logan, Terese perked up.
“Her face is red but she’s smiling so big at that idea that I don’t think she’s completely opposed to it,” Terese leaned over to whisper to Hunter as all eyes went to the pretty chairwoman who was trying desperately to change the subject.
“I think you’re right,” Hunter whispered back.
“Is Eric Logan related to the woman I met yesterday?”
“Leslie Logan. He’s her son,” Hunter confirmed. “They’re good people. And Jenny is a gem, too. I’d like to see them get together.”
The meeting ended soon after that and although they could have stayed for refreshments, Hunter ushered Terese out of the conference room and they went to the restaurant.
The place was crowded. The front portion of it was jammed with people waiting for tables and Hunter left her to weave through the crowd to let the maître d’ know they’d arrived for their reservation.
Terese watched him as he did, trying not to devour him with her eyes. But it wasn’t an easy task. He was wearing brown tweed slacks, a beige shirt with a brown tie and a cocoa-colored sport coat, and he looked as good in them as he did in his jeans and work shirts.
But she really didn’t want to stare so she averted her gaze to a man and woman who were standing at the bar only inches away from her.
The man caught her attention because he had a Portland General Hospital badge clipped to the lapel of his business suit, apparently having forgotten to remove his work identification. Terese was close enough to read his name—Everett Baker—and the word Accounting, Children’s Connection, underneath it told her what department he was assigned to.
The woman he was with was young and pretty, and wearing a nurse’s uniform, so Terese assumed they had just come from work.
She was also too close not to hear what they were talking about—even though she tried not to listen.
Hunter returned just then and caught the eye of the other couple. They exchanged only nods of recognition and vague hellos before Hunter turned his attention to Terese to tell her their table was ready and to lead her through the jam-packed waiting area to the maître d’s stand.
It wasn’t until they were seated at their table that she said, “Do you know those people at the bar?”
“Not really,” Hunter responded. “The woman is a nurse. Nancy, I think her name is. She was working on Johnny’s floor one afternoon when he was at the hospital last week. I was introduced to the man at a fundraiser once, just in passing. But other than that, no, I can’t say that I actually know them.”
Terese nodded.
“Do you know them?” Hunter countered as if that possibility had just struck him.
“No, I just noticed his ID badge and since you seem pretty involved with the hospital I thought they might be friends or acquaintances of yours.”
“I’m only involved with PAN, not much in the hospital itself.”
Terese nodded a second time. But as they opened their menus, something else occurred to her. A way of possibly getting Hunter to show his hand if this dinner was for some purpose other than the meal. And since that worst-case scenario still niggled at her, she decided to do a little test.
So, working to sound nonchalant, she said, “They were talking about a pregnant teenager—that couple from the hospital.”
“Were they?”
“Yes,” she confirmed. “The nurse was saying it breaks her heart to see how young and alone some the new mothers are. But—it was kind of strange actually—when she said that, the man got so interested it was as if she’d just given him insider-trading tips on a good investment.”
Terese had put strong emphasis on that last word and watched Hunter from under her eyelids without raising her face from the menu to gauge his reaction.
But mention of investments didn’t seem to spur anything in him because all he said was, “Maybe it was their first date and he was proving how impressed he could be by what she had to say.”
“Maybe,” Terese allowed, relaxing slightly because he hadn’t taken the bait.
Then he helped her relax even more by changing the subject altogether and referring to the menu.
“The last time I ate here I was with my brother and he had the softshell crab. He said it was the best he’d ever eaten.”
“I think I’ll try the redfish,” Terese countered.
Their waiter brought the wine Hunter had requested then, and after Hunter had ordered for both of them, Terese decided to use the opening he’d given her to make conversation that didn’t test him.
“Is the brother you were here with the same brother who was left to help your dad with the ranch when you were in college and your grandfather died?”
Hunter had tasted his wine and he smiled at her as he set the glass down. “You really are a good listener. It must be the psychologist in you,” he said in response to the fact that she was referring to what he’d told her the night before.
Then he answered the question she’d worried might have sounded like prying.
“I only have one sibling, so yes, the brother I was here with is also the one left to help with the ranch. Actually, dinner here was the last time I saw him.”
“Did you argue over softshell crab and redfish?” she joked as their salads arrived.
“No, we argued about the ranch. About my refusal to sell it.”
“He wanted you to sell the ranch?”
Hunter nodded. “He wanted me to sell it and give him half the money.”
“Because he owns half the ranch?”
“Not anymore. I mortgaged the place and bought him out. But originally it was left to the two of us, so when we were here for dinner he still owned half.”
“But he didn’t want to work it then any more than he wanted to when you were in college?” Terese guessed.
“He’s not a hick like the rest of us—that’s what he said. After my grandfather died, he tried to convince Dad to sell. They had a huge falling out. Sean refused to stick around even though Dad needed the help. But Sean didn’t just take off. He cleared out one of the ranch’s business accounts first. That was the stuff I said had gone on with him.”
Terese raised her brows at that. “He
stole from your family?”
Hunter took a deep breath and sighed it out. “Yeah,” he admitted, clearly not proud of that fact. “It nearly killed my dad when he realized what Sean had done. Losing the money wasn’t as devastating to him as knowing one of his sons had taken it. Dad and Sean never set eyes on each other again.”
“Did you have contact with your brother?”
“Not until after Dad died—that was about ten years ago. Sean didn’t come to the funeral, but he did contact the estate lawyer to find out if he had anything coming. I thought that took a lot of…guts.”
“And your dad had left him half the ranch in spite of everything?”
“Dad struggled with what Sean had done for a long time but he finally decided that if Sean had needed to get away that bad—and had asked him for the money—he would have given it to him. I guess that was his way of forgiving him. But Dad never lost the hope that Sean would change his mind about the ranch and want to come back, want to work it and keep it in the family. I think that’s why he didn’t take Sean out of his will.”
“But even owning half the place didn’t make a difference?” Terese asked.
Hunter shrugged and shook his head. “Sean is…I don’t know, sort of his own breed, I guess. He always thought he was better. Not only better than us, but better than most people. That he deserved better. He said that a lot. The trouble is, he doesn’t seem to find anyone who thinks he’s quite as good as he thinks he is. So he’s hopped from one job to the next, one get-rich-quick scheme to the next, one relationship to the next.”
“I take it he hasn’t had a lot of financial success and that’s why he wanted you to sell the ranch and give him his half?”
“He started trying to talk me into selling the place as soon as he found out he owned half of it—”
“He couldn’t force you to?”
“That was the one thing Dad added to the will—I suppose as a safeguard in case Sean kept on being… Well, Sean. I had the right of refusal to sell. So it was up to me. There was nothing Sean could do without me agreeing.”
For Love and Family Page 9
