by Mindy Neff
“I don’t suppose you have a copy of the blue-prints, do you?” she asked.
“In the study. Did you eat?”
Couldn’t the guy stay on track here? “It would be helpful if I could look at them.”
“I’ll get them later. Did you eat?” he repeated, glancing at her stomach.
Bossy man. Although she had an idea he was thinking about the baby. “Not yet. I stopped by Anna’s Café and picked up some gumbo and turkey sandwiches. They’re in the fridge. All I have to do is heat up the soup—that is, if you don’t mind sharing a meal with me.” He still had that standoffish air about him. One way or another, they were going to have to get past that.
“Have you made an appointment with the doctor yet?”
Honestly! Trying to keep up was making her dizzy. “I haven’t had time. With Daddy in the hospital and everything else…”
“You can spare an hour, babe.”
“Linc, I’m fine. I called Lily O’Rourke and she said there’s no problem with me waiting a month—especially since I took the home test so early. Donetta gave me a bottle of the prenatal vitamins Lily prescribed for her, so unless I’m having any problems—which I’m not—there’s no rush. All she’d be doing, anyway, is confirming the pregnancy and establishing a due date, but I already know those things.”
He nodded. “I’ll go wash up.”
Tracy Lynn breathed a little easier once Linc went upstairs. He was concerned about her enticing him, yet he was the one staring at her with hungry eyes. And it wasn’t a craving for Anna’s gumbo.
She recorded a few more measurements, then laid the notes on the granite surface of the breakfast bar. Before she commandeered Becca to help her shop, she needed to know more about Linc’s personality.
Right now, she knew only the basics. He was a rich man, yet he wasn’t pretentious, so comfort would be foremost. He was tough, but he had a soft side, which meant she could get away with adding a few feminine touches mixed in with some sturdy, masculine pieces.
It was mainly the accents she wanted to personalize, things that were uniquely Linc. She intended to make his house a home, a place of joy and refuge, things he probably hadn’t had for a good part of his life.
She tried to tell herself she was motivated by compassion, but honesty had her admitting that her reasons were also selfish.
She wanted this house to feed his soul, heal it. She wanted him to love it so much that he’d stay.
By the time Linc came back downstairs, she’d filled Buck’s dish with dry dog food, heated the soup and was arranging the sandwiches on plates.
“You don’t have to cook for me,” he said.
“I didn’t. Anna did. Sit down before the soup gets cold.” She put the food on the table and poured lemonade into glasses. “Who usually fixes your meals?”
“I do.”
“You cook?”
“Yes. And I’m good at it. Since I’ve been back, though, Cora and Beau have been leaving little food gifts in my refrigerator, so I haven’t really initiated my kitchen.”
Tracy Lynn’s mind conjured up an image of an entirely different type of initiation. She took a spoonful of soup and burned her mouth, quickly dousing the heat with a gulp of lemonade.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine. So, tell me about your hobbies—other than cooking.” And I’ll get my mind off of sex.
“Why?”
“Honestly, are you always so suspicious of people’s motives?”
“Habit.”
“I’d like to get a feel for what you like to do. What kind of style you have in mind for furniture. I don’t want to park a gleaming Steinway in your living room if you hate piano music.”
“I like piano music. I don’t much go for dinky furniture that looks like it’ll break if you sit on it, though.”
“I’ve got you covered there.” That, too, she’d known about him. At six-foot-four, he wouldn’t appreciate a prissy eighteenth-century chair to relax in at the end of the day. “So, what do you do in your spare time?”
“I don’t have a lot of that.”
“This is going to be like teaching a mermaid to do the splits,” she muttered. “Do you read?”
“Some.”
Exasperated, she glared at him. “Like what?“
“Westerns, suspense, any books or periodicals on horses—breeding, training, racing.”
“Okay, what else?”
“You’re not going to give up, are you?”
“No. The more I know about you, the easier it’ll be for me to make buying decisions when you’re not around to give your approval.”
“I told you I trust your judgment.”
“Linc…” She put as much warning into her tone as she could muster.
He let out a breath and leaned back in his chair. “I play the guitar some. Fly my Cessna every chance I get. Carve things out of wood. I made a chess set for my farrier—the guy who shoes my horses.”
“So you like chess?”
“I like to look at a chessboard, but I don’t particularly like to play.”
“What else do you carve?”
“Dolls.”
She blinked. “Dolls?”
His gaze never wavered. “You heard me.”
There was absolutely no question about his masculinity, and the fact that he stated the hobby without a qualm made her heart melt. She remembered Tori peopling her dollhouse with tiny wooden figurines, recalled being enchanted and impressed. She glanced at his large hands.
“The little miniatures Tori has. You made those, didn’t you.”
He nodded. Before today she never would have guessed that the exquisitely detailed toys were a gift from Linc to his niece.
“Linc, they’re fabulous. Do you have others? How did you get started carving dolls? And what do you do with them, other than giving them to Tori?” In her enthusiasm, her questions kept tumbling out.
“I have a few out in the tack room. I lived on the streets for a while after I split. A homeless man named Gus taught me to carve. He made dolls for his granddaughter, left them just inside the church doors a few blocks away. He figured the folks there knew how to get the gifts to heaven.”
“Oh, no,” Tracy Lynn whispered, her eyes tearing. “The girl died?”
He nodded. “A neighborhood kid threw her baby doll in the street and she went after it. The car that hit her never stopped. Gus was baby-sitting that day, and his son and daughter-in-law blamed him. He blamed himself, too. Spent every bit of money he had trying to track down the hit-and-run driver.”
“And his kids just let him end up on the street?”
“You’re very sheltered, babe. Families don’t always treat each other nice.”
“That’s so sad. How long were you homeless?”
“Long enough to know I never want to be that way again.”
She propped her elbows on the table, horrified at the hardships he must have endured, fascinated by this enigmatic man. “You’re amazing. How did you go from living on the streets to becoming a filthy rich horse breeder?”
“Gambling.” The corner of his mouth quirked upward when her eyes widened. “I worked on a couple of ranches in the area, and word spread that I was pretty good at cards. A city boy sat in on a game one day and anted the deed to an old dilapidated farm he’d inherited. Guess he figured he’d either make enough off me to pay the back taxes, or he’d get out from under it. I beat him with a royal flush and was happy to take the place off his hands.”
“You won a whole farm playing poker?” She couldn’t imagine something like that in today’s society.
“Sure did. Jack loaned me some money to help pay the taxes. Then I started going to auctions and rescuing horses.”
“From what?”
“Slaughter.” Her heart chilled when he said the word. “I learned to recognize the killer buyers and outbid them. Even as the highest bidder, I still picked up the animals dirt cheap. One of my purchases was a maiden with champion Tho
roughbred bloodlines. The bigger outfits steered clear of her because the owners listed her as barren. Imagine my surprise when she took a liking to my stallion and got herself pregnant.”
“Do you still rescue horses?”
“Yeah. I have the vet tend to them, give them some TLC, then when they’re ready, I put them up for adoption.”
“For free?”
he nodded. “To a good home. Some of the horses are old and weary. A lot of them have been neglected. Some are champion racehorses that have been injured and are no longer useful to their owners. They’ve still got life in them, though, and make fine pets or riding stock.”
“You mean people just get rid of them because they can’t perform? Or because they just don’t want them anymore?” Tracy Lynn was outraged.
“Pretty sad, huh?”
“I’d like to see one of those auctions. Although if I knew who the slaughter-minded creeps were, I doubt I could be held responsible for my actions.”
He chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest. “There’s an auction coming up the first of December. If you want, you can go with me. It would give you a chance to mingle a bit more with horses, help ease some of your fears.”
“Do you trust me not to start a brawl?”
His lips stretched in a sexy smile. “I’ll consider it my sworn duty to run interference. I spent time in jail once for fighting. You wouldn’t like it.”
She nearly choked on her own breath. “You went to jail?”
“Since I didn’t have money for bail, there wasn’t much choice.”
“I’m sorry, Linc, but if your father was here today, I’d slap the tar out of him.”
He chuckled. “Babe, you wouldn’t hurt a fly except by accident. But thanks for the offer.”
“You’re welcome.” She still felt livid on his behalf. But now that she gave her statement a bit more thought, she probably shouldn’t have threatened violence, no matter how rhetorical, to a guy for whom violence had been a way of life.
“Did you ever find out what happened to Gus?”
“Yeah. He works for me.”
That caught her off guard. She was so touched, it was a moment before she could speak. He helped a homeless man carve dolls for a little girl in heaven, plus rescued unwanted animals and pregnant women—at least one pregnant woman.
He was an absolute study in contrasts. Just looking at him when he got that stoic expression on his face was enough to scare a person off.
How had he ended up with such a streak of goodness when so much of his life was ruled by anger?
There were so many things she admired about this man, and the more she learned about him, the more she wished that somehow she could’ve married him first and then gotten pregnant with his child….
Determined not to linger on thoughts of things that couldn’t be, she refocused on her original topic. “Okay, you like to play cards, gamble. How about billiards?”
He nodded. “Good idea. We’ve got plenty of room for a pool table.”
Her pulse jumped. She waited another beat to see if his use of we had been intended or merely a figure of speech. His demeanor didn’t change, and she realized that he wasn’t even aware that he’d coupled them.
And she was being ridiculous, making way too much out of a simple word.
“Do you dance?” Wrong question. Her mind immediately snapped back to their wedding night, and what their slow dance had led to. She could tell by looking at Linc that he was sharing the same memory.
“Of course you dance,” she corrected herself quickly with a laugh. “I meant, do you like to? Do you go out honky-tonkin’?”
“I don’t make it a point to, no. Not enough spare time in my life.” He shrugged. “But dancing’s okay.”
“So much enthusiasm,” she drawled. “I love to dance.”
His gray-blue eyes lifted lazily, locked onto hers. “Alone or with a partner?”
“Preferably with a partner.” She had the feeling they were now talking about a different type of dance, and she was helpless to look away from his penetrating gaze.
Desire spread through her body. It would be so easy to melt into him and let nature take its course. But the words she’d flung at him in the barn came back to her. What do you want from me? My word of honor that I won’t try to entice you back into bed? Fine. You’ve got it.
She didn’t care for the idea of any man regretting that he’d made love to her. Especially Linc. If there was going to be a repeat of that awesome night, it would be up to him to make the first move. Meanwhile, Tracy Lynn needed some distance to cool off.
“Um, I think I’ve got enough information now to get started. I’d better clean up these dishes, though, and go to bed…to sleep, I mean.” Shut up, Tracy Lynn. She hopped up and reached for the bowls.
Linc put his hand over hers. “Leave them. I’ve got some phone calls to make, so I’ll be up for a while. I’ll take care of the kitchen.”
Before she talked herself out of it, she turned her hand over in his, gripped his palm and squeezed.
“I had a nice time tonight,” she said. “The two of us talking. You’re a good man—don’t frown at me like that. You are. Why can’t we just continue to be this way together?”
His frown deepened and she pressed forward in her efforts to sway him. “Thanksgiving is next week,” she said, “and then Christmas will be right on top of us. It’s uncomfortable for both of us to tiptoe around each other when we’re alone and don’t have to pretend our marriage is real. Besides, I’m a people person, and I don’t want to rattle around in this big house all by myself. I need somebody to talk to at the end of the day. Would it be so difficult to just be pals?”
His brow shifted, whether in surprise or horror, she wasn’t sure.
“You’re a gorgeous woman, babe. Being just pals is a tall order.”
“Oh, don’t be such a guy. Ignore the outside package and just hang out with me once in a while. There are going to be furniture decisions we need to make, parties to attend, gifts to buy. I’ll need help putting up the tree. We could at least give it a try. Just until after the holidays. By then, Daddy should be on the mend, and we’ll get everything out in the open.”
He studied her for a long moment, then finally nodded. “Okay. Consider me the boy next door.”
She laughed and shifted their palms so they could shake on the deal. “I think I’ll stick to housemate. It’s much more credible.”
LINC STEPPED OUTSIDE the hay barn and saw Tracy Lynn’s red Mustang streaking down the road that led from Jack’s end of the property to his own. He absently scratched Buck’s ears as the dog sat patiently at his side. What the heck was she up to now?
In the week since their marriage, he’d hardly gotten any work done because he was too busy watching Tracy Lynn’s comings and goings. It was a darn good thing he’d hired extra help. Once he’d gotten the word out that the Royal Flush, his horse-breeding operation in Dallas, had branched out and partnered with the Forked S here in Hope Valley, business had been hopping.
But lately his concentration ranged from very little to none. No wonder. Delivery trucks arrived daily to drop off furniture, and construction vehicles crowded his driveway. The house was brand-new, yet Tracy Lynn had carpenters in spewing sawdust everywhere and putting up decorative moldings, while painting crews repainted the walls with fancy textures.
She was at the hospital every day, yet still managed to order furniture and drapes, and charm construction workers into performing miracles.
He’d say one thing for her. When she set her mind to getting something done, everybody shifted into high gear.
Although his libido kept him in a constant state of tension, he liked having her in his house, like talking to her at the end of the day, learning the latest news from the hospital or at Donetta’s Secret, which she also managed to visit every day or so.
She was ultrafeminine, which showed in her frequent trips to the salon, her manicured fingers and toenails, the mouth-w
atering scent that lingered in the bathroom after she showered, the perfumed lotion she slathered on her skin.
As the sports car barreled closer, he could hear her stereo blasting. He squinted against the sunlight, realizing she wasn’t alone in the vehicle.
“What the…?” His mouth dropped open. Tori was riding shotgun, and two huge dogs were sitting politely in the back seat, their ears flapping in the wind.
Man alive, he needed a camera.
She brought the car to a stop right next to him, turned down the stereo’s volume and beamed a smile that threatened to knock the air out of his lungs.
“I don’t think the neighbors are going to appreciate you doing the dogcatcher’s job, babe. Besides, one of those animals happens to be a police officer.” The German shepherd, Dixie, in the back seat belonged to Storm Carmichael, the sheriff. As did the little rat terrier, Sneak, that Tori was holding in the front seat. The other hound, Simba, was related to Linc by Jack’s marriage to Sunny.
Tracy Lynn laughed. “Retired officer. Can I borrow Buck for the day?”
“You’ve got two dogs the size of small horses plus a little runt. What are you going to do with another hundred-pound animal?”
“We’re going to visit the seniors, Uncle Linc,” Tori said. “They like to see kids and animals. It makes them happy. And we have to help them get ready for Thanksgiving. We have pumpkins and flowers in the trunk to make pretty table pieces.”
“I see. Are the dogs going to help out with arts and crafts?”
“No, silly. They’re for petting and kisses.”
“Hmm. How come you’re not in school?”
“Because some plumbing broke and we don’t have any water in the bathrooms and drinking fountains.”
“Guess that’s a good enough reason.” Linc looked down at Buck. “What do you say, boy? Are you up for petting and kisses?” Buck gave a happy bark, which caused Simba to hang over the side of the car in excitement and return the greeting. Sneak scrambled out of Tori’s arms, leaped into Tracy Lynn’s lap and put her paws on the door to see what all the fuss was about. To her credit—and training—Dixie stayed where she was, giving the other two dogs a disgusted look.
