“You aren’t going anywhere tonight.”
“It’s important.”
“Unless you can change the weather or sprout wings and fly, you’re stuck.”
She sighed in defeat. “May I use a telephone? I lost my cell phone in the car. I have to let someone know what’s happened to me.”
“There’s a phone in the living room,” he said, stooping to gather her in his arms again.
“I can make it on my own,” she protested.
“Not till I see how bad that leg is.” He swept her up effortlessly, carried her into the living room, and set her gently on the sofa. Bending over her leg, he eased off her shoe and sock.
A hiss of pain escaped Cheryl’s clenched lips, and her hands grew white-knuckled as she gripped the sofa cushions.
He let out a slow whistle. “Lady, you aren’t going be dancing on this anytime soon. You need X-rays, maybe even a cast. I’ll get some ice for it. That may keep some of the swelling down.”
Cheryl opened her eyes when the pain receded and stole a quick peek at her throbbing foot. Her ankle, discolored and swollen, looked as bad as it felt, but she’d danced on worse. Her art demanded it.
With her career in mind, she glanced around for the phone, then paused as she caught sight of her surroundings. For a moment, she felt as Alice might have when she stepped through the looking glass. The small porch flanked by cedars had given her the wrong impression. Instead of an old farmhouse, she found herself in a home that looked like a color layout for Better Homes and Gardens. A series of floor-to-ceiling windows made up one entire wall of the huge room. To her right, a wide staircase led down to a lower level, and to her left was an open, airy country kitchen.
A bold Indian-blanket pattern covered the sofa she rested on. Its brick-red, hunter-green and royal-blue tones were reflected in the room’s brightly colored accents. Matching love seats flanked the sofa and formed a cozy seating area arranged at the edge of a large, patterned rug. Polished wooden floors and a rough beam ceiling lent added warmth to the room.
Looking over the open counter into the kitchen, she watched Sam move deftly, getting ice, a plastic bag and a towel. He seemed at home in the kitchen. That didn’t exactly fit the rugged cowboy images she remembered.
He returned and handed her a small ice bag. “For that bump on your head.”
“Thank you.” Cheryl took the bag and held it to her temple. He placed a second pack carefully around her ankle.
For such a big man, he had gentle hands. She shivered when he touched her bare skin. Abruptly, she pulled her foot away. “I can manage.”
Her rapid heart rate had to be from the pain and nothing else. “You have a fabulous home,” she said to distract him when he shot her a puzzled look.
“You were expecting a dilapidated log cabin?” An engaging sparkle glinted in the depths of his eyes.
“Oh, not in Kansas.” Her reply was quick and flippant. “Everyone knows there aren’t any trees out here. I was expecting a soddy.”
“A soddy?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I’m impressed you know the term. Sorry to disappoint you, New York. We don’t live in sod houses anymore.”
“Don’t tell me you have electricity and indoor plumbing, too?” she asked in mock amazement.
He stood and grinned at her. “Smart aleck. Make your phone calls. I’ll let Granddad know we have a guest for the night.”
Cheryl worried briefly that his grandfather might be someone who would recognize her, but her other concerns pushed the worry aside. She had more pressing problems. She picked up the phone and punched in Damon’s cell phone number. When he finally answered, he had little sympathy for her dilemma.
“This tour is a showcase of my work. A second-rate dancer can make it look second-rate. How can you do this to me?”
“I’m sorry, Damon. It was an accident. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can get another rental car.”
“How bad is your foot?” he asked with grudging concern.
“Only a sprain. It’ll be fine in a few days.”
“I hope so. I don’t need to remind you that good reviews mean good attendance, and good attendance means better funding for the company. If this tour doesn’t go well, we’ll all be looking for work.”
“I know. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Two days! We open in Kansas City in two days. Don’t let me down, Cheryl. Work is hard to find when word gets out that a dancer is unreliable.”
It was a threat—one she didn’t dare ignore. She was on her way up in her career, but Damon Sands could make things hard for her if he chose.
“I’ll be there,” she promised. Nothing was going to keep her from finishing this tour.
“You’d better be,” he snapped and hung up.
The last call she placed went to the rental car company. They weren’t happy with her, either. She’d just finished that conversation when Sam walked back into the room.
“You’re looking kind of glum, New York. Is your boyfriend mad at you for standing him up?”
She pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples. “My boss, not my boyfriend, and, yes, he’s angry. This tour is important to him, and to me.”
“Tour?” he asked, clearly puzzled.
“I dance, remember? My ballet company is on an eight-city tour for the spring. We’ve been performing in Tulsa for the past two weeks. We were scheduled to give a one-night-only performance at the University Theater in Manhattan tonight. From there, we go on to Kansas City for a week, then two weeks in Denver, two weeks in Salt Lake City, then Reno, Fresno and San Francisco.”
“How’d you get separated from your company?”
“That is a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere and neither are you,” he said, sitting beside her.
He was right. She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice as she recounted the tale that had landed her almost in his lap. Literally.
“My sister called a few months ago to tell me she was getting married. She knew I’d be on this tour, so we planned her wedding to coincide with a break in my itinerary. The wedding was today.”
“Your sister lives near here?”
“In Wichita. We had it all planned,” Cheryl said with a shake of her head. “I flew from Tulsa to Wichita for the wedding. I couldn’t get a flight into Manhattan today so I rented a car. The rest you know.”
She pushed back a strand of hair and sighed. “My company will travel to Kansas City tomorrow with or without me.”
She wouldn’t think about what would happen if she couldn’t join them—if her foot was broken, not just sprained, and she couldn’t work for weeks.
“We can’t do anything about it tonight,” Sam said.
He was right. She would simply have to make the best of it.
“I doubt the road to Manhattan is even open now,” Sam continued. “Soon as the weather clears, I’ll get you to Kansas City even if we have to ride Dusty all the way.”
The twinkle in his eyes proved he was trying to cheer her. She held up her hands clasped together and begged, “Not that! Please! Not another ride on Dusty.”
“Now, that will hurt his feelings.”
“Not as much as he hurt my behind.”
Cheryl gazed at Sam’s amused face feeling oddly happy in spite of her predicament. It was easy to trade banter with him. Why was that? He was everything that she had loathed, once upon a time.
Still smiling, he stood and held out his hand. “Come on. I’ve got the perfect answer for your saddle sores. I ran a bath for you while you were on the phone.”
She brightened. “That’s right. You did promise me a hot bath to get me to come home with you.”
“And you accepted, cheap date that you are.” He picked her up, and she circled his neck with her arms.
Her pulse began to race once more, and she didn’t try to delude herself—it wasn’t due to the pain in her foot. She tried for a nonchalant tone. “Obviously, I need to raise my st
andards. Next time you’ll have to promise me chocolate and roses.”
His gaze met hers for a long instant. “It’s a deal,” he said softly. She looked away first.
He carried her through a doorway beyond the kitchen and through a huge bedroom to the bath. The room, tiled in stark black and white, held a large, black whirlpool tub in one corner, while a separate shower area took up the opposite wall. Inviting steam rose from the tub.
She stared in amazement. “Wow! This is awesome.”
“Compliments can go to my ex-wife. It’s her design.”
“She has great taste.”
“So she told me. In everything except husbands.”
“Your bathroom is bigger than the living room of my apartment in Manhattan. Your wife let you keep a house like this after a divorce? What’d she get?”
When he didn’t answer, Cheryl glanced at his face. The smiling, teasing cowboy had vanished. It was as if his face had turned to stone.
“She got her freedom,” he said at last.
Chapter Three
Sam turned away, but not before Cheryl glimpsed the pain in his eyes. Instantly, she regretted prying into his private life. She knew what it was to carry around things too painful to talk about.
He indicated some clothes on a small wicker stool beside the tub. “I’ve left you a robe and some sweats you can use when you’re done. Call me if you need anything.”
He was gone before she could think of a way to apologize. Feeling like a heel, she pulled off her sweater and noticed the bloodstains on her clothes. One more thing ruined—rental car, job, favorite sweater—what next? Determined to salvage her clothes, she hopped to the sink and began filling the basin with cold water. She glanced into the mirror and nearly screamed at her gruesome reflection. With shaky hands, she began to wash away the blood from her face.
Suddenly, her lip started to tremble as hot tears stung her eyelids. She dashed them away with the heels of her hands. She would not cry. Hopping back to the tub, she tried to stifle the sobs building inside her. She sat on the rim and discovered another problem. She couldn’t get her tight-legged pants off over her swollen ankle. It was the last straw.
Outside Sam had rested his head against the bathroom door as his anger ebbed away. Three years, and he still couldn’t talk about Natalie’s desertion without feeling a bitterness that nearly choked him. When she’d left him with their two small daughters to raise alone, the hurt had gone bone-deep. The old saying, Love is blind, was no joke. It had been all too true for him.
If he ever became involved with another woman, it’d be with someone who wanted to be a mother to his children. Someone who’d put the twins first, before anything else, and give them the love they deserved. In spite of his surprising attraction to the woman he had rescued tonight, he knew that a New York ballerina didn’t fit that bill.
He once let his emotions rule his head and he made a mistake that he was still paying for. But he was wiser now.
He might be wiser, but that didn’t stop him from feeling attracted to his visitor. He appreciated Cheryl’s sharp wit and quick sense of humor. And he couldn’t help but notice that she made a pleasant armful when he held her. He reproached himself for the foolish thought. She was injured, and she needed his help. He turned away from the door, but paused when he heard a noise from inside.
He didn’t want to intrude on her privacy, but he wanted to be sure she was okay. He pressed his ear to the door and heard her muffled sobbing. His heart gave a queer little tug at the sound.
She had every right to a good cry. A night like tonight would have taken the stuffing out of anyone. When she called his name, it surprised him. He took a deep breath, entered the room and stopped short.
She sat on the edge of the tub wrapped in his large robe. Her injured ankle rested on the tub edge with her dark pants bunched around it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I c-can’t get m-my pants off o-over my f-foot.”
Each hiccuping sob tore at his heart. He watched her struggle to regain control. She didn’t like to cry in front of him—he could tell by the way she scrubbed at her tears as they fell. He wanted to offer some comfort but sensed that she would rather recover her composure on her own. He turned to the problem at hand, or rather, at foot.
She was right. Her pant leg wouldn’t come off over her swollen ankle. He found a pair of scissors, sat on the tub rim, and began to slit her pant leg up one side.
“The last time I had to do this was when Kayla got a big splinter in her knee. Kayla’s one of my daughters. Lindy is her twin. They turned five last October.
“Anyway, Kayla had a long wooden sliver through her jeans. I had to cut them off before I could see how badly she was hurt. Fortunately, it wasn’t deep. I thought I was doing fine until I put a bandage on Kayla’s knee. Soon as I did, Lindy started wailing.”
“Wh-why?”
He glanced at Cheryl and grinned. “She said because she and Kayla weren’t ‘’dentical’ anymore. So I had to cut off her jeans and put a bandage on her knee too.”
Cheryl smiled. “Identical twin girls. I’ll bet that’s a handful.”
“Yes, they are, but I wouldn’t have them any other way.” He slipped her pants gently over her foot. “There you go.”
“Th-thanks for your help.”
“Don’t mention it. Mom was a teacher, and she taught me to be gallant at all costs.”
Startled, Cheryl looked up. Her fingers grew icy-cold, and she pushed them into the deep pockets of his robe as fear tightened the muscles in the back of her neck.
“Does your mother teach near here?” she asked, trying to sound as if she was making polite conversation and not desperate to know the answer.
“No, she’s retired.”
Eleanor Hardin had been her junior-high principal. Could Sam be Eleanor’s son? How old had her principal been? Cheryl tried to think, but she could only recall the woman with a child’s vision. “What about your father?” she asked casually.
“He passed away a few years ago. My grandfather lives here with the twins and I. Nobody knows cattle like Gramps does. You’d never know he was seventy-five. He rides almost every day. Well, I should leave you to finish your bath instead of standing here babbling while the water gets cold.” He all but bolted out the door, closing it behind him with a bang.
Relieved at being left alone, Cheryl shed Sam’s robe and sank into the whirlpool, leaving her foot with its ice pack propped on the rim. After all the time she’d spent trying to forget the past, why had she ended up so close to it all again?
Was this what Angie had wanted: to see her big sister exposed and shamed? No, Cheryl didn’t believe that. Angie’s heart was in the right place, and her intentions were good. Cheryl knew she had only herself to blame. She had chosen the road that led to this disaster.
She kneaded her temples trying to ease the headache pounding away inside her skull. She had to think.
Even if Sam was Eleanor’s son, he still had no idea who she was. As long as he continued to think of her as a New York dancer, she’d be safe. And what if he did find out? It wasn’t as if she were wanted for a crime. But people out here had long memories and unforgiving natures; she knew that from personal experience. A lot of them would remember that Hank Thatcher’s oldest daughter had been in reform school for helping her father steal cattle.
If anyone discovered who she really was, the old story would be out in a flash. Her juvenile records might be sealed, but that wouldn’t stop the press from having a field day with the story. No doubt, Grandma Doris would be happy to tell the tale of how her rebellious granddaughter had ended up behind bars. The thought of reliving those painful days made Cheryl feel ill.
It didn’t matter what Angie thought, or what Harriet Steele had intended, Cheryl knew she would never go back to the ranch again. It wasn’t worth the risk. She had worked too long and too hard to let anything jeopardize the career she loved. She rubbed a weary hand over her face.
She had to get away from here.
The soothing hot water began to ease her aches and pains. Slowly she relaxed, and her feeling of panic faded. She was safe for tonight. The storm might keep her here, but it would also keep everyone else away. First thing tomorrow, Sam would drive her to Kansas City, and she could leave the Flint Hills behind forever.
Feeling somewhat better, she finished her bath and washed her hair, being careful of the lump on her temple. After that, she climbed out of the tub and pulled on the gray sweatpants and sweatshirt Sam had left for her. They were big, but comfortable. A search through his medicine cabinet turned up a roll of wide tape, and she expertly wrapped her foot and ankle. It hurt, but she knew it would feel better once she had it taped.
With that done, she washed out her sweater and was pleasantly surprised to find the bloodstains had come out. She hung it to dry on the towel rack and left the room.
Sam came up the stairs in time to see her crossing his living room. Dressed in his old sweats with a towel wrapped turban-style around her head, he could only marvel that anyone could look so graceful and appealing while she hopped on one foot.
He shook his head in resignation. So much for his stern lecture to himself about caring for helpless, injured women. He headed to the bathroom and rummaged in the medicine cabinet until he found a small bottle of pain pills left over from his last run-in with a moody bull.
She was reclining on the sofa when he entered the living room again. Her face looked freshly scrubbed, not a trace of tears anywhere. In his sweats with the sleeves rolled back and a towel around her hair, she looked comfortably at home—as though she belonged here. He dismissed that crazy thought and offered her the pills. “Are you allergic to any medications?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
“I called the hospital while you were in the tub. They said you could take these if you weren’t on any medication or allergic to them.”
She took the bottle and read the label. “I’ve taken these before. They make me sleepy, though.”
“That might not be a bad thing. You did a good job wrapping that ankle.” The professional-looking bandage impressed him.
Balancing Act Page 3
