by Ann Major
“I know this because when I was your age I was too hard on myself, too. You and I, we’re a lot alike.”
Amy read Lexie’s name on the stone. “I never really thought so before.”
“I was wild, too, when I was young. It’s hard growing up. You lash out because you have to. You make a few wrong choices without a clue as to the consequences. I got pregnant when I was just a kid. Fifteen. I was sent away to have the baby. My parents talked me into giving it away. I abandoned my own daughter.”
“You mean I have an older sister somewhere?”
Her mother bit her bottom lip and looked up at the blue sky and billowing white clouds. “I felt overwhelming guilt and a crushing sense of loss. I still do. I think about her a lot, especially on her birthday and at Christmas.”
“Oh, Mother.”
“That was why I was so scared raising you. I didn’t want you to make the same mistakes I made. I know I was bossy and overprotective, even overbearing. Sometimes I truly hate myself for being me. I know I call you too much. It’s just that I worry. I…”
Her mother’s face was so pinched and pale it hurt Amy to look at her.
“Don’t worry, Mother. Please don’t. I can’t believe you were ever wild.”
“Why do you think I dress so perfectly and have such a perfect house? It’s all show. I was a mess. I still am. Your father picked up all the pieces and put them back together. He still does, and it’s not easy. I’m pretty difficult to live with.”
“Daddy knows about the baby?”
“That’s why he fell in love with me. I was so lost and vulnerable. His love made me stronger. Then I started bossing him around. And he let me…because he understood why control and success and other people’s opinions were so important to me. He tried to tell me not to be so bossy with you, though. But I thought I had all the answers. No wonder you rebelled.”
“Oh, Mother…” Amy threw herself into her mother’s arms. “I’m all mixed up, too.”
Her mother gave her a trembling smile and patted her hair. “You’ll sort it out.”
“You really think so?”
“You didn’t kill Lexie. It was an accident. Just like my pregnancy was an accident. I couldn’t keep the baby. I was too young. Life goes on, you know. That’s the one thing I’ve learned.”
Her mother held her close, and Amy felt a slight lightening of the heavy weight in her heart.
Despite the heat, they clung to each other for a long time. Her mother’s hand patted her back the way she had when Amy had been a small child.
“Thank you, Mother. Thank you for telling me about the baby.” Amy stared at the trees and vast sky. She’d always wanted a sister. Still, thinking about her faceless sister out there somewhere, whom she would never know, made her feel sad.
“Life goes on, and you can’t go back,” her mother said. “You just have to make better decisions in the future.”
“Steve told me I have to forgive myself.”
“You could, you know. What good will it do to keep punishing yourself forever? What good does it do Lexie?”
“I guess I thought I owed her my life.”
“You do. But you should live your life. You shouldn’t throw it away. Think of all those people in the world who would give anything to have just one more day. Life is very precious. Love is very rare. A man like Steve doesn’t come along every day.”
It was a sweltering, golden June morning, sweltering being the key word. The heat was so fierce and still that even in the shade, Steve’s hair and brow dripped with sweat as he strode inside the barn with a couple of bridles. His soaked shirt was plastered to his rib cage. Hell, it wasn’t even eight o’clock yet.
The hardest thing Steve had ever done was to drive off and leave Amy outside the Shiny Pony Bar and Grill when she’d looked so lost and forlorn. He’d wanted to stay and do something or say something to make her realize she had to change her life. When he’d left her, he’d hoped she cared enough about him to do something.
Now he was beginning to wonder if he should have stayed. All week he’d been working himself from dawn till dark, hoping he’d be too tired to think or dream about her, hoping like hell he wouldn’t weaken and call her.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Everything triggered bittersweet memories—the scent of violets, even the sight of Noche. Every time the phone rang or somebody drove up to the ranch, he’d race to see who it was, hoping against hope it was her.
Just as he was hanging a bridle on a nail in the tack room, he heard a vehicle outside. His heart seemed to come alive. Instantly the bridle was on the floor, and he was sprinting out of the barn, half crazed with the hope that it might be her.
Truck doors were opening and slamming just as Steve slicked his hair back and slowed his pace so he wouldn’t look quite so eager when he rushed around the corner of his house.
“Hey!” Cruz Perez, his rancher friend, held up a brown hand and waved. His pretty, pregnant wife, Savannah, waved at Steve, too.
Savannah. Not Amy.
Savannah was blond, and her eyes were as blue as Amy’s.
Steve’s heart constricted. Then he saw his horse trailer was hooked to the back of Cruz’s truck and realized why they’d come.
He forced a smile. Luke, their five-year-old son, sprang out of the truck and galloped toward him as Cruz, helping his petite wife down from the passenger side, shouted for him to stop running and watch for snakes.
Just the sight of the happy young family, Savannah so blond and pretty and Cruz so dark and rugged, made the pulses in Steve’s own body knock with a hard, savage rhythm.
Then Luke hurled himself at Steve, grabbing his knees. The kid threw back his head, making himself as heavy as possible, and clung. In an instant Steve had the boy in his arms and was swinging him onto his broad shoulders. Luke grabbed Steve’s hat on the way up and slapped it on his own small head. Naturally, it swallowed the kid, and he had to lift the brim with both hands to peer out.
As Steve held the little boy’s jeans-clad legs against his chest, Steve knew what he really wanted—a family of his own. That had been his real dream when he’d bought this place. That was why he’d been fixing it up with such careful attention to detail. Because he wanted to put down real roots and raise his own family here.
A flock of wild turkeys pranced out of the thicket like ballerinas onto a stage.
“Put me down! Put me down!” Luke cried, squirming a little.
“You just got up here, boy!”
“But I want to chase them.”
“You won’t catch ’em.”
“But I can try. Let me down!”
“They’ve got wings, boy.”
Steve lifted Luke to the ground, and the boy raced after the turkeys, which half flew and half ran to escape him.
“Imagine running in this heat.” Savannah smiled as she gazed up at Cruz, whose dark eyes were equally tender when he looked down at her. Then Cruz slipped his arm around her and pulled her close.
They looked so in love, so right for each other. Steve didn’t need the glint of sunlight in Savannah’s golden hair to remind him of Amy. As if caught in a vise, his wide chest felt so tight, it was difficult to breathe.
At thirty-six, he wasn’t getting any younger. More than anything, he wanted to bring Amy here and share his life with her.
He loved her. He wanted to wake up beside her every morning for the rest of his life.
Oh, my God. I love her. I really love her. That’s why I’ve felt so damned rotten all week.
If the seven days and nights since he’d seen Amy had crawled by with agonizing slowness, how could he face a bleak future that meant years and years without her? How had he fallen in love so fast, especially when she’d been fighting him every step of the way?
Cruz’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Are you going to just stare at my wife with that hungry, lost look in your eyes? Or do you want to give me a hand unhooking your horse trailer?”
Steve felt himself flush. “S
ure thing. I’ll give you a hand. Sorry, Savannah, I didn’t mean to stare.”
“You okay?” she whispered, her voice soft and sweet with concern, just like Amy’s. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine. It’s just a hot day,” he muttered gruffly.
“And it’ll get way hotter,” Cruz said. “Summertime deep in the heart of Texas.”
“Where’s Lily?” Steve asked when he opened the screen door of his ranch house two days later and found Ryan alone on his wide porch.
There were dark shadows beneath Ryan’s eyes. He looked exhausted.
“She’ll be along later,” he said evasively. “Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you when you called the other day, Steve.” Ryan drained the last of his coffee from a white foam cup. “Got any coffee? I’m out.”
“I just made a fresh pot.”
Nita, Amy’s bossy assistant, had insisted on scheduling a planning session for the Hensley-Robinson Awards Banquet at nine this morning.
“I should’ve called you back the other day,” Ryan said. “But Thunderhawk won’t stop hounding me, and I’ve been hell on wheels to live with lately. Lily and I…we’re having problems, too. She’s asking all sorts of questions. This morning I yelled at her that she was worse than Thunderhawk. She’s so steamed now, she won’t speak to me.”
“Sorry to hear all that.” Steve patted Ryan on the shoulder and stepped back so he could cross the threshold.
“You don’t look too good yourself, boy. Something eatin’ you, too?” Ryan asked.
Steve jammed his fists in his pockets. “I’ll be a whole lot happier when this place is finished.”
Ryan stared at him a little too intently. “Right.” An awkward silence followed.
“The house is looking great. Really great,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, but the closer James gets to finishing, the more he slacks off. You might have noticed he and his men aren’t here yet. They didn’t show up yesterday or call, or even answer their cell phones until late last night.”
“Hey, the A.C. sure feels great.”
“Good thing, too. This way.” Steve pointed toward the dining room. “When Nita called yesterday to schedule this planning session I actually got my dining room table out of storage and set it up in the dining room.”
He’d done that on the off chance that Amy might show up today. Not that he expected her to. Nita, who seemed formidable over the phone, had been handling all Amy’s phone calls and meetings ever since the morning Steve had left Amy in that parking lot. Every time he asked Nita about Amy, she clammed up. It was all too obvious Amy had told her assistant not to discuss her with him.
Steve poured Ryan a cup of coffee.
“The gossips in Red Rock are tarring and feathering me,” Ryan said. “Now even Lily—”
Clouds of dust outside the window signaled a new arrival.
“Maybe that’s her,” Steve muttered. “This will blow over. You’ll see.”
“It’ll be a while before I forget those who turned on me.”
Steve swallowed guiltily as somebody knocked on the front door. He heard his name. Then his screen door banged, and he heard quick, light footsteps in the hall. The next thing he knew, the scent of violets wafted into the dining room.
“Steve? Oh, hi, Ryan.”
Despite her fashionable, gold-rimmed sunglasses, Steve felt the exact moment when her gaze locked on his face. His feet became rooted as his heart began to thud in violent excitement.
“The doorbell didn’t work, so I’m afraid I just barged right in.”
“That’s okay,” Steve said tightly.
She was so golden and lovely, such a vision in white in his doorway, she dazzled him. Ryan said something, but Steve didn’t quite catch it.
He hated how Amy held him in thrall. How every muscle in his body tensed. His gaze fixed on her pale face and trembling mouth. He wished he could see her eyes, but her sunglasses hid them.
She looked thinner, as if she’d lost weight. Her cheekbones were more prominent. Was she okay? He brushed aside his concern.
Gone were her stuffy professional clothes and old-lady bun. Soft gold waves he longed to plunge his hands into gleamed about her shoulders. A snug white T-shirt clung to her small breasts and tiny waist. Low-slung white jeans hugged her butt and thighs like a second skin. The jeans hung so far down on her hips, they didn’t quite meet her T-shirt, so he got an eyeful of too much honey-gold abdomen.
In spite of being thinner, she was sexier than hell today. Had she dressed like that to break his heart all over again?
“Hey, there,” Ryan said casually.
Steve held his breath, and his pulse knocked against his ribs.
“Hello, Steve,” she said ever so casually, as if their ten-day separation had meant nothing to her.
Steve wanted to grab her, to crush her against his chest. He wanted to push her against the wall and kiss her so much he didn’t trust himself to speak.
“Would you like some coffee?” Ryan said, lifting an empty cup.
Amy smiled uncertainly at Steve. “Sure.”
Suddenly Steve felt too conflicted to just stand here, pretending he felt nothing when she was dressed like a sex kitten and he was aching to hold her. No way could he sit through this planning session with her dressed like that. He felt close to exploding from tension, when he blurted, “I forgot something in the barn. I’ll be right back.” Not that he had any intention of coming back anytime soon.
Before she or Ryan could speak, he was slamming out of the screen door onto his front porch. Indeed, he was moving so fast, he hurtled into a heavyset woman who was marching up his stairs with an armful of folders. The older woman lost her footing on the stairs, and her file folders spilled down the steps onto his sidewalk.
As he grabbed her elbow to steady her, a stray breeze flipped the folders open, and papers began to blow across his lawn and down his driveway.
“Now you’ve done it!” the woman snapped, placing beefy hands on her ample hips as she stared holes through him. She had straight gray hair, a long nose and brown eyes that missed nothing.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “Sorry.” Then he chased after the papers down the drive.
“I’d run after them myself, but I have a bad knee,” the woman called from his shaded porch, sounding cheery now that she had him on task. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Nita.”
“Steve Fortune,” he yelled.
He was hot and breathless and totally out of sorts by the time he’d snatched up each paper and handed them all to Nita, who pursed her thin lips as she dusted off the gritty, dog-eared jumble. “I’ll have to refile them all before the meeting.”
“I’m really sorry,” he said.
“What were you running so fast for?”
Suddenly Amy appeared behind his screen door. “Can we talk?” she whispered.
Steve stiffened. Nita hitched up her chin, her long nose sniffing for mischief.
“Not now, darlin’. Nita’s here. She could use some help with the filing.”
Nita glowered at him. “I think I can handle this on my own. You tend to your messes, and I’ll tend to mine.”
“Please, can’t we just talk?” Amy pleaded.
“I think that’s a reasonable enough request,” Nita said when he didn’t answer.
Who asked you? Steve scowled at Amy’s impertinent assistant. Clearly she was the bullheaded sort who didn’t mind stirring the pots of other people’s business with that long nose of hers.
“She hasn’t been able to eat this whole week—because of you,” Nita said.
“Where do you want to talk?” he muttered to Amy, realizing he was beaten.
When Amy’s know-it-all champion shot him an encouraging smile, he was tempted to throttle her. “Surely you have an office, young man?”
“In the first outbuilding by the barn,” he admitted, striking out across his green lawn and driveway so fast, Amy had to sprint like a deer to catch him.
“How’s Noche?” she asked breathlessly when she finally managed to reach him.
“Something tells me that’s not what you really want to talk about,” he muttered, furious because he cared so much.
“It’s called a conversation opener.”
“I don’t give a damn what it’s called. Get to the point.” He stomped up the stairs to the porch of his office.
Now that they were in the shade, she pushed her sunglasses up so they were like a headband, holding her shimmering hair back from her face. Despite being thinner, she was as beautiful as an angel, he thought, with the sun gleaming on her golden head. But when her desperate blue eyes clung to his for an unbearable moment, he felt her pain as always. Only, today he hated himself for feeling it.
“You dating anybody yet?” he asked, his voice cold and deliberate so she wouldn’t guess how much he cared.
“What if I am?”
He grabbed her right there on the porch in front of Nita and the whole damned world and kissed her hard. At the first touch of his mouth, her lips quivered. At his first taste of her, he sobered.
“Sorry,” he said, instantly letting her go, even pushing her away because she affected him so profoundly and he was so afraid he’d lose control again. He wanted her that badly.
“I’m not sorry,” she whispered. “Because I love you,” she admitted in a torn, low tone. “I…I don’t want to, but I do, and I came here today to tell you that. I haven’t been able to sleep or eat or think about anything except you.”
Steve laughed harshly. “Tell me about it. If you care so damned much, why didn’t you call?”
“Because I thought a clean break would be easier.”
Nita was staring across the driveway at them, her dark eyes zeroed in on them.
Let her watch, he thought. He didn’t give a damn who saw them now. All he could think about was Amy.
“A clean break? What the hell are you talking about? You just said you loved me.”
“But that’s why I can’t date you.”
“You never make any sense, darlin’. You drive me crazy.”
“If I love you, something terrible will happen. I know it will.”
“Like what? What can be worse than what you’re doing to me now?”
