by Stacy Dawn
Hard as she tried, she couldn’t keep her errant gaze from darting to the women fawning all over Grey. He pushed the hands away, but she saw him accept a pen and some kind of square picture as she pulled out of the parking spot. Small, squealed phrases reached her on the breeze, “your autograph, please,” “do you ride as good as you...,” and “I never knew your arms would be so strong.”
Swallowing a gag reflex, Elizabeth aimed for the exit and hit the gas. Should I really be surprised? Grey once told her himself that he was close to having a championship season. With all the notoriety of the press at the practice and now the fawning fans, he must have reached his goals and then some.
Pride trickled in, but couldn’t push out the annoying little voice in her head. Told you so, didn’t I? Come Monday morning, he’ll be off to the next rodeo and the next gaggle of groupies, remember? Rodeo cowboys are all the same. Have you learned nothing from your mother’s mistakes?
****
Grey Wulfsen darted his gaze around the bleached blonde hair bouncing in front of him. The blue Jimmy was gone, swallowed by the traffic on the main road.
The toss from the bronc had knocked the wind from him, but not his senses. That had been Lizzie. He was sure of it. Then why did she play oblivious? There was no mistaking the recognition in those wide blue eyes; she knew, she remembered.
Shaking his head, he frowned at the buckle bunnies invading his space. This was all Lizzie’s fault. If not for her, he would have kept his music to himself and had only one profession, as a bronc rider.
A smile tilted the corner of his mouth and he glanced back toward the road. Of course, because of her, he’d taken a chance that paid off like he’d never expected. He owed her a lot and wondered if he’d ever get the chance to thank her properly.
Removing yet another hand from his backside, he passed back the CD cover page to the blonde on the right.
She smiled wide and flipped a corner of her hair off her ample breast. “My brother’s best friend’s uncle’s bowling partner’s sister’s stepson saw you in Nashville last October at that songwriter’s session.”
“Pardon?” He’d been lost after “brother.”
“My brother’s—”
Grey held up a hand. “Right, the session,” he agreed, simply to avoid the high-pitched, squealing voice again.
He’d done a number of events during the last off season to gain recognition and a few more contacts in Nashville. He enjoyed the music and jamming with friends—the interruptions in his quiet life, he could have done without.
Apparently though, they weren’t going to stop any time soon. After last month, his name was no longer simply on the fine print next to a song but now plastered across the industry, something he still wasn’t used to—just like the photo shoot earlier and then ladies grabbing him out of nowhere. Not that all the ladies lacked an intelligent thought in their head like these three, but they did lack something. Then again, maybe he just didn’t want to admit to himself who he measured all women up against these last couple years....a dark-haired muse who’d disappeared one starlit night.
Lizzie had started this snowball and left him to deal with the avalanche. Now that he’d seen her again, he wasn’t going to let her get away with that. A grin twisted his lips as he stared at the empty parking spot. And he planned to thank her properly.
Extricating himself from the ladies, Grey slapped his hat against his chaps. Dust floated from him like a desert wind as he slowly headed back to the arena. He grimaced at a dull pain in his ribs as he walked. He didn’t think thirty-two was too old to be bronc riding, but his body told him differently. Not to mention the young studs showing up in droves these days to try to unseat him in the standings.
He rubbed his left side.
Didn’t help getting my ass knocked off the horse, either.
He gave his head a slight shake and grinned. Man, he thought he’d really taken a hit when he saw Lizzie there, bent down on the ground, staring at him like he was some ghost.
He snorted a chuckle. She hadn’t been the only one. Two years on and off of coming back here, hoping to catch up with her again, and he’d all but given up, chalked it up to some unexplainable vision. No matter who or how many times he asked, no one had seen her that night, like she’d been some ghost of the town, an invisible entity.
But she hadn’t hidden from him that night. He’d seen everything in her...and it was a night he wasn’t likely to forget, ever.
Geez, if Dusty heard me thinking like this, he’d keelhaul my ass.
His brother loved to tease him about his mysterious muse while his sister, Free, simply rolled her eyes.
Well, with any luck, he’d find Lizzie again before the weekend was over and prove a little something to both his siblings for next time he saw them.
Grey frowned back over his shoulder as doubt wiggled its way into his thoughts. Lizzie had abandoned him once, gone with the light of morning. Put him in a foul mood for a month afterward until he got his head on straight.
With a childhood full of that kind of history, he didn’t need anymore. Should he really be wasting his time looking for someone who obviously didn’t want to be found?
Chapter Three
“Oh no, no, no-o-o-o. You are not getting away that easily.”
Elizabeth paused on the hallway step and cringed at the overzealous tone in Paige’s voice. She held onto Gretal as the no-nonsense click of cowboy boots crossed the hardwood behind them. Next thing she knew, Paige disentangled Gretal from her arms and headed into the living room.
“You know there is no way I’m going to let that little scene go.”
Elizabeth squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. Something told her this was going to be so much worse than she’d feared. Opening her eyes, she accepted her fate and followed.
Paige set the puff of blond curls onto the play-mats in the corner, and her grin widened. “There you go, munchkin,” she said, handing Gretal her favorite stuffed animal, a gray wolf. “You be a good girl and play while Auntie Paige gets the goods from Mommy.”
Elizabeth cringed at the bright green eyes and wider-than-the-Cheshire-cat smile. She’s enjoying this far too much.
“Okay, Lizzie, spill.”
“Don’t call me that.” She bit her fingernail and stared at her daughter.
“Then tell me who that hunk of cowboy was, and why were you so gung-ho to leave him confused where he stood?”
“Right in the throng of trampy triplets,” Elizabeth mumbled beneath her breath.
Paige’s laughter filled the room. “I heard that.”
She ground her bottom lip between her teeth. “He’s just someone I...met...no, sort of found...I mean...” Fingers clenched and unclenched at her sides and she paced the room.
“There’s that red in your cheeks again. Oh, this is getting better by the second.”
The squeak of the big easy chair in the opposite corner told Elizabeth that Paige was getting comfy for the long haul. Shit. There’s no way out of this now.
Blowing out a fortifying breath, she watched her daughter’s chubby hand clamp around the wolf’s neck as she used the other to push herself into a standing position against a chunky, miniature, pink kitchen set.
Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment, took another breath, and turned to face the music. “You know how everyone in town thinks that Gretal came from...that I had her in a...a clinical way?”
“You mean sperm bank,” Paige corrected. With a raised brow, she jutted her chin forward and enunciated each word with ruby red lips—“SPERM. BANK.”—then fell back into the chair. “Like I told you back then, a ridiculous idea—”
“Why?” Elizabeth defended, her back instantly stiff. “Because I was a grown woman? Self-sufficient? Ready to consider having a child without the hassle of a husband?”
“A hassle? Most girls want that kind of hassle, white picket fence and all.”
“I already have the white picket fence, and I pay for it all by my
self without any help,” she snapped out, the old defensiveness coming back unexpectedly.
Unlike most girls, she hadn’t been raised by two loving parents, more like two angry women.
She gave herself to the count of ten to calm down before adding, “The odds of finding the right guy—if there ever was one—were few and far between. I didn’t want to wait until I was too old to have a child.” And she’d sworn her daughter or son would be shown love and support from day one. Gretal’s squeal of laughter gave her the hope that maybe she wasn’t doing too badly so far.
“Okay, okay,” Paige acknowledged, pulling up her feet into a cross-legged position on the big chair. “We’ve been through this already, and I am sorry. I might not have agreed with you, but remember, I did support you—not to mention I was there in the delivery room,” she added, smiling over to Gretal. “I’ll admit, it sure worked out all right.”
“Yeah, well, that’s kind of the thing.” Elizabeth went to her desk in the far corner and straightened papers. “I didn’t actually make it to my appointment,” she confessed in a quiet rush of words.
“Excuse me?”
Elizabeth ventured a glance in her friend’s direction and saw the puzzlement, the confusion, and the perk of intense interest.
“Deeo...deeo...deeo,” Gretal sang next to her. One of her daughter’s fists clenched and unclenched toward the small stereo on the bookshelf.
Grasping at the small reprieve, Elizabeth smiled. “You want the radio on, sweetie? R-a-d-i-o,” she enunciated slowly.
“A-de-o.”
“Good girl,” she praised, then pressed the button on top of the unit.
Music instantly filled the room and she laughed as Gretal bounced up and down to her favorite song, “Boots on the Blacktop,” by an up and coming New Country artist.
Elizabeth swayed her own hips and clapped her hands, encouraging her daughter’s enjoyment.
“Okay, that’s cute as all get out,” Paige interrupted, pushing herself to the edge of the chair. “But you can’t leave me hanging here, Elizabeth. What do you mean you didn’t make it to your appointment? If you didn’t get a deposit from the bank…then the only other way to get pregnant is—” Her hand slapped to her mouth, but couldn’t conceal the wide grin spread behind it. “Ohmygod. The cowboy. That cowboy. How? When? I mean...holy cow! I can’t believe you never told me.”
She cringed at her friend’s overt reaction and slight jibe. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell Paige—too many times she almost had, but could never bring herself to say the words aloud.
“My, oh my. Elizabeth O’Leary actually has a wild side—never thought I’d live to see it.”
“I’m a mother. I do not have a wild side.”
“You weren’t a mother then,” Paige barely managed seconds before she burst out laughing.
“Are you calling me irresponsible?” Elizabeth fisted her hands on her hips. “I’ve taken care of myself since I was sixteen. I put myself through college, took care of Granny when she got sick, kept her accounting business going and growing to pay the hospital bills. An irresponsible woman couldn’t have done all that.”
“Don’t get your granny panties all up in a wedgie,” Paige panted between gasps of breath. “I never said irresponsible—I said wild.”
“I’m not that either.”
“No? Add it up, Ms. Numbers-lady—You plus No Sperm Bank could not equal one little girl. But, you plus One Hot Cowboy could definitely equal one Gretal Lana O’Leary. And that, my friend, sums up to one wild night.”
Elizabeth’s harsh response froze in her mouth. Paige had used her own vice against her. Who better than me knows the numbers tell all.
Paige sat smugly back in her seat. “Gotcha! Now start from the beginning, go slow, and tell me everything.”
Elizabeth blew out a puff of air that deflated her defensiveness. Without it, she found she was thankful that she no longer held the secret alone.
She walked over, flopped onto the couch, pulled a throw pillow over her face, and groaned. “It’s all too embarrassing.”
“Even better. I want every hunky detail.”
“You’re horrid.” Elizabeth chuckled and whipped the pillow at her friend. When the laughter eased, the old feelings of loneliness that she could usually push deep down resurfaced. “Remember the night of Nash and Gina’s engagement party?”
“Yeah, one hell of a night.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” she mumbled to herself. She glanced at Gretal then up at the ceiling and closed her eyes. “It kinda got to me the way those two clung together and looked so happy. Made me start rethinking the clinic—sperm bank—idea.” She opened her eyes toward Paige and automatically held up a hand to the comment etched on her friend’s face. “Not the whole marriage and husband thing, but the intimacy thing. I got to thinking that I didn’t want my child one day asking about his or her daddy. How was I supposed to tell her that it involved a sterile room, plastic gloves, and stirrups—and not the horse kind.”
She rolled her head on the back of the couch. “Don’t get me wrong, I was still going to go through with the appointment but...I just started thinking that maybe I could sort of borrow somebody instead.”
“Borrow?”
“You know,” she rolled her eyes and raised her brow to indicate her meaning. “Get a donation the old-fashioned way.” She sat up and rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger. “Maybe I had one too many glasses of wine that night. I don’t know. I headed to the rodeo grounds figuring I’d just pick up a cowboy. Other women do it all the time, how hard could it be.”
“But you aren’t other women.”
“I know, I know. Trust me, it didn’t take me long to figure that out. After a couple of leering looks from hopeful candidates, I couldn’t stop logic from taking over—sexually transmitted diseases, hereditary illnesses, mental defects, on and on.” She dropped her hand and fell back weakly on the couch. “I got mad at myself for such a lame-ass idea and headed home.”
“Okay, so where do Lizzie and the cowboy come in?”
She groaned, grabbed another pillow, and covered her mouth before she spoke.
“Sorry, I don’t speak muffled-pillow,” Paige snorted. “Say that again.”
Elizabeth pulled the cushion from her face and repeated, “I heard him singing, okay? I was fuming at myself and angry and stomping off when I heard the music. I don’t know, I swear I don’t know why I didn’t just walk out of there, but something...there was just something in the music. Haunting, hypnotizing...”
“So, you’re saying music calmed the angry beast in you.”
Elizabeth ignored the giggles to let the room darken behind her closed lids. So easily she was there again with the sound of the rodeo crowd, truck wheels on the gravel, the smell of dust, sweat, livestock, and beer tainting the cool night breeze. She could still see the stars that night, shining so bright it almost looked like fireworks had frozen in the sky.
“He was just sitting there, all by himself, strumming absently on a guitar. His voice was low and rumbled through me like the early thunder before a big storm.”
“Who is he? By the way you’re grinning, must have been one hell of a storm.”
“Yeah, it was,” she admitted, fingering the fray on the pillow’s edge. And the storm inside had raged all night long. “His name is Grey Wulfsen—”
“As in The Lone Wolf, Grey Wulfsen?”
Elizabeth nodded and didn’t miss her friend’s gaze dart to the stuffed animal she had handed to Gretal earlier.
Paige fell back into her chair. “Damn, when you go wild, you go big. Man, can that boy ride.”
Her cheeks heated. “I know.” She fidgeted on the seat to ease the warmth spreading through her.
“Why did he call you Lizzie?”
Elizabeth scrunched up her nose. “When he asked me my name, I didn’t want to break the surreal moment with reality, so I simply used Liz. Grey smiled and said it was too formal for a
free spirit like me. He just kept calling me Lizzie.” A smile pulled at her cheeks with the memory. Didn’t know why he thought her a free spirit, but, God, she loved his voice.
“It’s not what you think, though.” She snapped her head up, and then remembered who she was talking to. “Okay, it was probably what you’re thinking, but more...hard to explain.” She rubbed her arm, feeling the cool night air again and the warmth of his worn, suede jacket going over her shoulders. “He smiled to himself when he saw me, but then looked surprised when I spoke, like he’d thought I was a ghost or something. It was kinda funny, and cute, and...well, we just started talking.” She leaned back and couldn’t keep the smile from pulling at her lips again. “About nothing. It was so easy. He only had one beer left so we shared it. When it started to get colder, we sat inside this little run-down trailer. He was the perfect gentleman, actually. There were buckles and a couple pictures, so we got to talking about family—well, he did, I didn’t volunteer much.” Just content to listen. “I don’t know, call it a weak moment or kindred spirits, whatever you want...”
Paige dropped her feet over the edge of the chair and sat forward. “Okay, I get it. He’s great—now get to the good parts.” She jerked her head toward Gretal.
Elizabeth bit her lip. “I swear I didn’t plan it, Paige. I wasn’t even thinking of that anymore. We were just talking and laughing and...next thing I know we weren’t actually speaking anymore, just sort of staring, smiling and...”
For a moment she let herself go back to that night on purpose instead of locking it behind her subconscious. There were things she didn’t want to share, things she held close to her heart, like waking to Grey softly strumming on his guitar. God, she loved his voice. He should’ve gone into music rather than rodeo. She’d even told him so. He only chuckled and said they wouldn’t want a dusty cowboy down there in Nashville. Then he opened the curtain and let the stars shine in on them as he made love to her again, slow and tender, and...
