by Anna Jeffrey
Luke’s jaw twitched. “You see, he doesn’t have much to look forward to. I don’t spend as much time with him as I ought to. Sometimes I lose patience with him, so I have a hard time telling him no. That’s not an excuse. It’s just a fact.”
“It doesn’t help him when you overindulge him.” Good grief, Dahlia. Is your tongue disconnected from your brain? What do you know about raising children?
“You a psychologist of some kind?”
She puffed out a laugh. “Well, I passed Psych One and Two.
Luke pushed back his hat and glared at her as if he wondered why she would dare have an opinion.
Jimmy leaned on the pickup’s windowsill. “’Bye Dal-la.”
In a tiny voice, he had said her name slowly, in separated syllables and her heart overflowed. “’Bye, Jimmy. We had fun today, didn’t we?” She sought Luke’s eyes, but he was staring at something across the street.
He reset his hat and opened the door. “Scoot over, son. Let Daddy get in.” He started up the pickup. “We need to get on. It’s getting close to suppertime.”
Dahlia stood in the driveway embracing a giant K-Mart sack and watched him back out and drive away.
Piggy’s voice came from behind her. “Strange dude is all I can say.”
Later, sipping hot chocolate and lounging in the new webbed aluminum lawn chairs they had bought, Piggy stretched her legs and held her socked feet in front of the fire. “Today has to go down as one of the more bizarre days of my life.”
“Me, too,” Dahlia said.
“I’ll say one thing for Luke. He’s got the patience of a saint. Gives macho a whole new image.”
“It’s odd Jimmy lives with his dad, isn’t it? Where do you suppose his mother is?”
Piggy shrugged. “Divorced, probably. Who isn’t?”
“Something bad has happened there. It shows in Luke’s eyes.”
“Speaking of eyes,” Piggy said, “he’s got that gleam in his when he looks at you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Who, Jimmy?”
“Don’t be dense. The Marlboro Man.”
“What gleam?”
“Like some kid let loose in Baskin-Robbins with a fifty dollar bill.”
Dahlia’s heart leaped. She left her chair and went to pick up a K-Mart sack resting in the corner of the room. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
“Trust me. He likes his women soft and sweet. Like you.”
Dahlia did trust her. Piggy was an expert. Practically everything Dahlia knew about men and sex she had learned from Piggy. “You’re the one who’s interested in him. In the restaurant, you—”
Piggy waved away her comment. “You know me. I like all men. How long’s it been for you? I’ll bet you don’t even know.”
“How long what?” Dahlia set her jaw and yanked a new blanket from the sack.
“Since you got laid, goofball.”
Dahlia felt her cheeks burn. She tore the plastic package from around the blanket. “I keep records of a lot of things, but not that.”
“I can figure it out, you know. You haven’t even gone on a date since you moved back to Loretta.” Piggy hunkered forward, she set her mug on the floor and began to count on her fingers. “This is May. That makes it two years and five months since Kenneth nosedived into the river. You’ve already told me he wasn’t a stallion in the bedroom, so I’ve always doubted he was capable of boinking you at the same time he was boinking Bonnie.
Dahlia rolled her eyes. Why had she ever discussed her sex life with Piggy? She unfurled the blanket and gave it a vigorous shake. “Just drop it.”
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
Dahlia wadded the blanket into her arms. “My relationship with Kenneth was more—more intellectual.”
“Sure it was.”
“The whole world doesn’t revolve around sex, you know.”
“But it does, girlfriend. In all cultures and at all levels.” Piggy sat back in her chair. “Luke will be back, you know, with rubbers in his pocket. He’s got your scent. The question is, what’re you gonna do with him?”
A tremor shimmered through Dahlia. “Piggy, forgoddsake. This is dumb. He’s a cowboy.”
Piggy opened her palms. “Simple question.” Her brown eyes sparked with mischief. “I’d bet my CPA certificate you’d never forget a lusty dance on a mattress with that long-legged sucker.”
“Yeah? Well your credentials are safe. There’s no danger I’m going to become one of the Moscow to Winnemucca crowd.” Dahlia raised her chin and strode toward her bedroom. “You know something, Piggy? You really should stop betting your CPA certificate. Someday somebody’s going to take it away from you.”
Dahlia. Why would somebody name their kid after flowers?
Irritation grated inside Luke. One nosy woman’s presence had made a hard day harder. First, she had distracted him with lips that looked like ripe berries, then she had laughed and talked to Jimmy in a soft, deep-throated voice that made him think of sexy words whispered from bed pillows.
Inure to his optimum benefit? Who the hell talked like that? Not some bimbo in town on a summer job.
Well, he didn’t have to worry about it. Running into her and her friend today was a fluke. He didn’t go into Callister that often, so it wasn’t likely to happen again.
Belted into the passenger seat, Jimmy sang and pounded his plastic horse on the windowsill. Luke watched him, remembering how Dahlia had hugged him and laughed with him like she really meant it when the little guy got the hang of a high-five. Luke’s heart swelled a little as it always did when the kid learned anything new, even something small.
And he was jealous. It was childish, but he resented the hell out of her, a stranger, being able to teach his son to do a simple thing, a task others, including himself, accomplished only with a lot of effort. That very reason was why he had taken Jimmy to Boise today, to be looked over and poked at by a damn committee for enrollment in a school for the mentally challenged.
Dahlia picking at his failure to discipline his son had been as hard to swallow as a toothpick. He hated for an outsider to be right. Luke knew he spoiled Jimmy. Everybody at the Double Deuce spoiled him. Nobody ever told him no. That was part of the problem. Lack of discipline was why he didn’t learn.
Luke’s eyes and nose stung. His throat felt thick, like a fist had knotted in it. He must have one of those allergies people were always complaining about. Damn spring weather anyway.
He shifted, pulled his handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his nose and eyes. Then he stuffed it back, reached over and ruffled the thick hair that curled around Jimmy’s undersized head. “You’re gonna hurt that horse, son. Let him rest and teach me your new songs.”
Jimmy scooted close and started over. Luke sang with him, correcting him when he missed the words. As much as he wanted to encourage Jimmy, he wanted to distract himself from thoughts of the raven-haired outsider.
Chapter 7
“Listen. There’s a diesel in our driveway.” Dahlia cocked her ear toward the front door.
Wearing sweats and thick socks, she and Piggy had taken their tea and coffee to the new aluminum chairs in front of the TV and settled down to watch cartoons. If Piggy was anywhere near a TV on Saturday mornings, watching Sylvester and Tweety was a must. Thursday, in an episode that would have made I Love Lucy’s producers envious, they had managed to make the TV work by replacing a frayed cable running from an antenna on the roof.
Friday, decked out in their new cold weather gear, they had accompanied Jerry to Wolf Mountain. After spending a day in instruction on the use of surveying instruments, Dahlia felt more confidence in her ability to do the job to which she and Piggy had committed themselves. She had even found much to like about the work.
“Ohmigosh, that must be Jerry. I don’t want him to see me without a bra.” Dahlia dashed to the bedroom to change her clothes—out of Callister’s view. Besides repairing the TV cable, they had installed new pull-down shades on t
heir bedroom windows.
Dahlia stepped out onto the front stoop into a penetrating chill. The sun had yet to climb high enough to chase away the morning fog or the front yard’s shadow. To her surprise, she saw Piggy helping Luke McRae unload furniture from his pickup bed. Already sitting on the grass were two worn reclining chairs and Luke was lifting a folded card table over the tailgate’s edge.
“Mornin’.” His face broke into a wide grin. “You just get outta bed?”
“Wha—what are you doing?”
Piggy’s forearms rested on the back of an ugly, brown reclining chair. Stuffing poked out from a slice in the vinyl upholstery on one arm. “Stop acting like you just got here from Neptune. It’s furniture.”
Dahlia blinked in confusion. Luke strode toward her carrying the card table under one arm and two folded metal chairs under the other. He wore a tan suede blazer over an open-collared dress shirt and Wranglers, dark blue in their newness. “Thought you girls could use this furniture.”
“Where did it come from?” Dahlia held open the front door and flattened her back against it to stay out of his way. The faintest whiff of his aftershave floated by her as he passed.
“Bunkhouse. It’s pretty well used, but it’ll work.”
Stooping to lift the front of the recliner, Piggy called out, “Come over here and pick up the other end.”
Dahlia stamped to where the chair sat in the middle of the yard. “Piggy, no. I don’t want to be obligated to him any more than we already are.”
“Pick it up. We need something to sit on that feels better than lawn chairs.”
Dahlia released a loud sigh and lifted the thick back of the brown recliner. In tandem, they carried it into the living room.
Luke came with the second one. On his last trip, he brought a lamp, its primitive base made of horseshoes welded on edge. Spying an empty cardboard box they had saved in a dining room corner, he brought it to the living room and turned it upside down between the chairs. He set the lamp on top, then dusted his palms. “There you go. How’s that?”
Dahlia laughed. “Martha Stewart would be impressed.”
“Who’s that?” Luke asked, digging a toothpick from his shirt pocket.
“Never mind.” Dahlia glanced down and saw his boots, brown ostrich quill that still had a shine of new on them. He was dressed up. Why? And for whom? A niggling annoyance pinched her.
Piggy offered him a cup of coffee, but already on his way to the front door, he said he’d had enough. Piggy made no effort to see him out, so Dahlia followed him. The least they owed him was courtesy. “This is really nice of you—”
His palm came up and stopped her. “No big deal. You were real good to Jimmy. I figure I can do you a favor.”
“I know you don’t know us. I promise we’ll take good care of your things.”
“Sugar, that stuff’s old and beat all to hell. Unless you cut it up for firewood and use it to heat this house, you couldn’t hurt it.”
With no warning, he clasped her arm, drew her outside, onto the shaded stoop and pulled the door shut behind her. Her gaze shot to his face. “Is—is something wrong? What is it?”
A fierceness glinted in his eyes. “They want him put in a school. That’s why I took him down to Boise the other day. So they could look at him.”
The truth slammed into Dahlia. His coming here this morning had nothing to do with the loan of a few pieces of battered furniture. What she saw in his eyes was frustration. And pain. Emotions she suspected he would never give voice.
Though she and Piggy had been with him most of Wednesday, when he left them at K-Mart, he didn’t say where he went. “They” had to be counselors or teachers or doctors or who knew who else. She thought of the gentleness he showed with his troublesome son and how difficult taking care of him day after day must be. Having someone think he wasn’t meeting the boy’s needs would be more than a proud man could stand.
But what did he want from her? Approval? Her blessing? He was looking at her as if he expected some kernel of wisdom to fly from her mouth. She searched so hard for one that a nerve began to quirk in her left eye. “That—that should be a good thing.They’ll be more objective than you are. I’m—I’m sure they’ll help him.”
He released her arm. Turning away, he stuffed his hands into his back pockets and stared across the street. “It’s a boarding school. He’s never stayed away from home.”
She wanted to reach out, touch him, ease the worry she could plainly see. Instead, she wrapped one chilled arm around the porch post. “If it’s a boarding school, I’m sure they have people who have dealt with that before.”
He lifted the flap of his shirt pocket and tucked away his toothpick. His eyes swept the street in both directions. “I haven’t been down this street since I was a kid.” He tipped his head toward the vacant house. “I used to know the people who lived over there. They left. Couldn’t make it here.”
The moment of weakness was gone so quickly Dahlia wondered if it had really happened.
“It’s a struggle for folks to get along here,” he said. “Being an outsider from a rich place like Texas, I expect you don’t know much about that.”
Dahlia thought of her dad’s tumbled-down house and the long hours he worked in the grocery store because he couldn’t afford to hire as much help as he needed. “Texas hasn’t been rich for a long time.” “For most people, it never was. This place doesn’t have an exclusive on hard times. I haven’t found life to be easy anywhere.”
He turned back to her, his size and nearness invading her space. His eyes probed hers. “Who are you? Really?”
The confidence to answer that question had been missing for a long time. She gripped the porch post tighter, felt its sharp edge cut into her breast. “N—Nobody you need to worry about.” His hand clamped tightly around her arm. He drew her so close his clothing brushed hers. Minty breath touched her mouth and she found herself staring at his perfect lips. Giddiness danced through her.
“Don’t tell me lies.” He gave her a little shake. “You’re not a grunt who dogs a surveyor through the brush for minimum wage. You’re not a butcher either.”
She glowered up at him, indignation spiking. “I don’t have to lie about anything. Take your hands off me. Who do you think . . .
The rebuff died in her throat. He was leaning toward her, so slowly she had time to see the shine of his freshly shaved face. She caught a breath. His hand moved to bracket her jaw and his mouth settled on hers.
She stood frozen, letting him taste her, paralyzed by a rush of emotions—fear, desire, a jolt of excitement. Then, she shocked herself by sliding her own tongue against his. A low groan left his throat. She made a half-hearted effort to pull away, but his arm banded her waist. His hand left her jaw, crawled beneath her sweatshirt and cupped her breast. His thumb brushed her nipple which had grown embarrassingly taut. A primal message rose from a place low in her stomach.
Stop this, Dahlia. You don’t even know this guy.
Sanity fought its way to the surface. She pushed against his wall of a chest with both hands, balled her fist and struck his shoulder. “Are you crazy?”
If her feeble blow affected him, he didn’t show it. He neither moved nor let her go. His mouth hovered above hers. He took her hand down and pressed it against his fly. He was hard! The heat of him radiated through his jeans.
“Feel this,” he said huskily, “This is what happens. Every time I see you.”
The words swam at her through a hazy pool. Her heart galloped.
“Go with me to Boise. We’ll go to a floocy restaurant, get a fancy room at—”
“No.” She pushed against his shoulder and jerked back her hand.
His eyes narrowed. “No? You kissed me back, lady. And it was more than just a peck.”
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
“I didn’t mean to. But even if I did, that doesn’t mean I’m going off to . . .” Suspicion exploded within her. She stepped around him, down off the porch,
onto the grass. “That’s why you did favors for us? Brought furniture? You thought that would get me into bed with you?” She huffed a sarcastic laugh. “Did you honestly think I was so cheap?”
“No. I just now thought of it. The way you kissed me.”
For some reason, she believed him. She tore her eyes from his face, stared at the dew-laden grass and shook her head. “Look, you’ve got the wrong person. I’m—I’m, uh . . .my life’s sort of a mess right now. I’m not ready for something like this. There are plenty of women—”
“What’ll it take for you to get ready?”
She sucked in a breath and kneaded her fingers where he had held them in his vise-like grip. “Nothing. Don’t take it personally. You’re an attractive man. It’s—it’s me.”
A long, tense silence followed, giving her heartbeat a chance to slow. She looked back up at him. He was a good six inches taller than she. Standing above her on the stoop, he was a giant. “Where, uh, is Jimmy. You don’t have him with you today.”
He stepped down to her level. “He’s in Boise. I took him yesterday. He got so hysterical when I left him, I worried over it all night. I’m headed down there. Since you got along with him like you did, I thought you might go with me. You could sing a song with him or something. It might make him feel better.”
Oh. Her lips formed the word, but no sound came. An arrow of tenderness stung her and she swallowed to keep tears from springing, dead certain the man scowling down at her wouldn’t appreciate tears. She had a powerful urge to give him a hug, but didn’t dare. Far too dangerous. “I—I know that was…difficult. I know it took courage.”
“Yeah, right.” He turned away and stalked toward his pickup. In less than a minute, he was out of sight. She stood there in the yard, staring up the street, noticing for the first time in a while that she was cold.
Good grief. She braced a hand against the porch post and took some deep, cold breaths. She had to calm herself before she went back inside to face Piggy.
