by Diana Palmer
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think to lock the door. I assumed this was a little early for you to be up, and I needed a shower.”
“Of course.”
He frowned as he stared down at her. She was doing her best not to look at him, and her cheeks were flaming. He was an experienced man, and he’d been married. He understood without words why she was reacting so violently to what she’d seen.
“It’s all right,” he said gently, and he smiled at her. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
She swallowed. “Right. Would you like some breakfast?”
“Anything will suit me. I’ll get dressed.”
She nodded, but she didn’t look as he strode back into the bedroom and gently closed the door.
She got up and went to the kitchen, surprised to find that her hands shook when she got the pans out and began to put bacon into one.
Emmett came back while she was breaking eggs into a bowl. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, which stretched over his powerful muscles. He wasn’t wearing shoes. He looked rakish and appealing. She pretended not to notice; her memory was giving her enough trouble.
Melody wasn’t dressed because she’d forgotten to get her clothes out of the bedroom the night before. That had been an unfortunate oversight, because he was staring quite openly at her in the long green gown and matching quilted robe that fit much too well and showed an alarming amount of bare skin in the deep V neckline. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but her blond-streaked brown hair and freckled pale skin gave her enough color to make her interesting to a man.
Emmett realized that she must not know that, because she kept fiddling with her hair after she’d set the eggs aside and started to heat a pan to cook them in.
“Where are the plates?” he asked. He didn’t want to add to her discomfort by staring.
“They’re up in the cabinet, there—” she gestured “—and so are the cups and saucers. But you don’t have to…”
“I’m domesticated,” he said gently. “I always was, even before I married.” The words, once spoken, dispelled his good mood. He went about setting the table and didn’t speak again until he was finished.
Melody had scrambled eggs and taken up the bacon while the biscuits were baking. She took them out of the oven, surprised to see that they weren’t overcooked. People in the kitchen made her nervous—Emmett, especially.
“You couldn’t get to your clothes, could you?” he mused. “I should have reminded you last night.”
It was an intimate conversation. Having a man in her apartment at all was intimate, and after having met him in the altogether in the bathroom, Melody was more nervous than ever.
“That’s all right, I’ll dress when the boys get up. You could call them…?”
“Not yet,” he replied. “I want to talk to you.”
“About what?”
He motioned her into a chair and then sat down across from her, his big, lean hands dangling between his knees as he studied her. “About what you said last night. I’ve been thinking about it. Did Adell tell you that it was loving Randy, not hating me, that broke up our marriage?”
Melody clasped her hands in her lap and stared at them. “She said that she married you because you were kind and gentle and obviously cared about her so much,” she told him, because only honesty would do. “When she met Randy, at the service station where she had her car worked on and bought gas, she tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, that she wasn’t falling in love. But she was too weak to stop it. I’m not excusing what she did, Emmett,” she said when he looked haunted. “There should have been a kinder way. And I should have said no when Randy asked me to help them get away. But nothing will change what happened. She really does love him. There’s no way to get around that.”
“I see.”
He looked grim. She hated the wounded expression on his lean face.
“Emmett,” she said gently, “you have to believe it wasn’t because of you personally. She fell in love, really in love. The biggest mistake she made was marrying you when she didn’t love you properly.”
“Do you know what that is?” he asked with a bitter smile. “Loving ‘properly’?”
“Well, not really,” she said. “I haven’t ever been in love.” That was true enough. She’d had crushes on movie stars, and once she’d had a crush on a boy back in San Antonio. But that had been a very lukewarm relationship and the boy had gone crazy over a cheerleader who was more willing in the backseat of his car than Melody had been.
“Why?” he asked curiously.
She sighed. “You must have noticed that I’m oversized and not very attractive,” she said with a wistful smile.
He frowned. “Aren’t you? Who says?”
Color came and went in her cheeks. “Well, no one, but I…”
It disturbed him that he’d said such a thing to her, when she’d been the enemy since Randy had spirited Adell away. “Have the kids given you any trouble?”
“Just Guy,” she replied after a minute. “He doesn’t like me.”
“He doesn’t like anybody except me,” he said easily. “He’s the most insecure of the three.”
She nodded. “Amy and Polk are very sweet.”
“Adell spoiled them. She favored Guy, although he took it the best of the three when she left. I think he loved her, but he never talks about her.”
“He’s a very private person, isn’t he? Divorce must be hard on everyone,” she replied. “My parents loved each other for thirty years—until they died. There was never any question of them getting a divorce or separating. They were happy. So were we. It was a blow when we lost them. Randy wound up being part brother and part parent to me. I was still in school.”
“That explains why you were so close, I suppose.” He cocked his head and studied her. “How did they die?”
“In a freak accident,” she said sadly. “My mother was in very bad health—a semi-invalid. She had what Dad thought was a light heart attack. He got her into the car and was speeding, trying to get her to the hospital. He lost control in a curve and wrecked the car. They both died.” She averted her eyes. “There was an oil slick on the road that he didn’t see, and a light rain…just enough to bring the oil to the surface. Randy and I blamed ourselves for not insisting that Dad call an ambulance instead of trying to drive her to the emergency room himself. To this day I hate rain.”
“I’m sorry,” he said kindly. “I lost my parents several years apart, but it was pretty rough just the same. Especially my mother.” He was silent for a moment. “She killed herself. Dad had only been dead six months when she was diagnosed with leukemia. She refused treatment, went home and took a handful of barbiturates that they’d given her for pain. I was in my last few weeks of college before graduation. I hadn’t started until I was nineteen, so I was late getting out. It was pretty rough, passing my finals after the funeral,” he added with a rough laugh.
“I can only imagine,” she said sympathetically.
“I’d already been running the ranch and going to school as a commuting student. That’s where I met Adell, at college. She was sympathetic and I was so torn up inside. I just wanted to get married and have kids and not be alone anymore.” He shrugged. “I thought marriage would ease the pain. It didn’t. Nobody cares like your parents do. When they die, you’re alone. Except, maybe, if you’ve got kids,” he added thoughtfully, and realized that he hadn’t really paid enough attention to his own kids. He frowned. He’d avoided them since Adell left. Rodeo and ranch work had pretty much replaced parenting with him. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it until he got hit in the head.
“Do you have brothers or sisters?” Melody asked unexpectedly. She hadn’t ever had occasion to question his background. Now, suddenly, she was curious about it.
“No,” he said. “I had a sister, they said, but she died a few weeks after she was born. There was just me. My dad was a rodeo star. He taught me everything I know.”
&n
bsp; “He must have been good at it.”
“So am I, when I’m not distracted. There was a little commotion before my ride. I wasn’t paying attention and it was almost fatal.”
“The kids would have missed you.”
“Maybe Guy would have, although he’s pretty solitary most of the time,” he replied. His eyes narrowed. “Amy and Polk seem very happy to stay with anybody.”
So the truce was over. She stared at him. “They probably were half-starved for a little of the attention you give rodeoing,” she returned abruptly. “You seem to spend your life avoiding your own children.”
“You’re outspoken,” he said angrily.
“So are you.”
His green eyes narrowed. “Not very worldly, though.”
She wouldn’t blush, she wouldn’t blush, she wouldn’t…!
“The eggs are getting cold,” she reminded him.
The color in her face was noticeable now, but she was a trouper. He admired her attempt at subterfuge, even as he felt himself tensing with faint pleasure at her naiveté. Her obvious innocence excited him. “I have to make a living,” he said, feeling oddly defensive. “Rodeo is what I do best, and it’s profitable.”
“Your cousin mentioned that the ranch is profitable, too.”
“Only if it gets a boost in lean times from other capital, and times are pretty lean right now,” he said shortly. “It’s the kids’ legacy. I can’t afford to lose it.”
“Yes, but there are other ways of making money besides rodeo. You must know a lot about how to manage cattle and horses and accounts.”
“I do. But I like working for myself.”
She stared pointedly at his head. “Yes, I can see how successful you are at it. Head not hurting this morning?”
“I haven’t taken a fall that bad before,” he muttered.
“You’re getting older, though.”
“Older! My God, I’m only in my thirties!”
“Emmett, you’re so loud!” Amy protested sleepily from deep in her blankets.
“Sorry, honey,” he said automatically. His green eyes narrowed and glittered on Melody. “I can ride as well as I ever did!”
“Am I arguing?” she asked in mock surprise.
He got up from his chair and towered over her. “Nobody tells me what to do.”
“I wasn’t,” she replied pleasantly. “But when those kids reach their teens, do you really think anyone’s going to be able to manage them? And what if something happens to you? What will become of them?”
She was asking questions he didn’t like. He’d already started to ask them himself. He didn’t like that, either. He went off toward the bedroom to call the boys and didn’t say another word.
Melody worried at her own forwardness in mentioning such things to him. It was none of her business, but she was fond of Amy and Polk. Guy was a trial, but he was intelligent and he had grit. They were good kids. If Emmett woke up in time to take proper care of them, they’d be good adults. But they were heading for trouble without supervision.
Emmett came back wearing a checked shirt and black boots. Being fully dressed made him feel better armored to talk to Miss Bossy in the kitchen.
“They’re getting up,” he muttered, sitting.
“I’ll warm everything when they get in here.” She busied herself washing the dishes and cleaning the sink until the boys came out of her room, dressed. Then she escaped into the bedroom and closed the door. Emmett’s stare had been provokingly intimate. She’d felt undressed in front of those knowing eyes and she wondered why he had suddenly become so disturbing to her.
Seeing him without his clothes had kindled something unfamiliar in her. She’d never been curious about men that way, even if she did daydream about love and marriage. But Emmett’s powerful shoulders and hair-roughened chest and flat stomach and long, muscular legs, along with his blatant masculinity, stuck in her mind like a vivid oil painting that she couldn’t cover up. He hadn’t even had a white streak across his hips. That was oddly sensual. If he sunbathed, he must do it as he slept: without anything on. He looked very much like one of those marble statues she’d seen photographs of, but he was even more thrilling to look at. She reproached herself for that thought.
She looked at the rumpled bed where Emmett had lain with the boys and her pulse raced. Tonight she’d be sleeping where his body had rested. She wondered if she’d ever sleep again.
After she was dressed, she went to the kitchen and warmed the food before she put it on the table. The kids all ate hungrily, even Guy, although he wouldn’t look at Melody. He was just as sullen and uncommunicative as ever.
But now, Melody was avoiding looking at him, too. Guy noticed her resentment and was surprised that it bothered him. He was guilty about the cat, as well. It had been an ugly cat, all scarred and big and orange, but it had purred when he petted it. His conscience stung him.
He had to remember that Melody was responsible for his mother’s departure. He’d loved his mother. She’d gone away, so it had to be because of him. He’d given her a hard time, just as he’d been giving Melody one. He’d been much more caring about his father since his mother left, because he knew it was his fault that she’d run away with that Randy Cartman. If he’d been a better boy, a nicer boy, his mother would have stayed. Maybe if he could keep his father single, his mother would come back.
Blissfully unaware of his son’s mistaken reasoning, Emmett smiled at the boy. He was a bit curious about Guy’s behavior. The boy and Melody were restrained with each other. Melody’s eyes were accusing, and Guy’s were guilt-ridden. It wasn’t a big jump from that observation to the subject of the cat.
He could ask Guy about it, but it would be better to let the boy bring it up himself, when they were away from here. If it was true that Guy really had let the cat out…
He was sorry that he’d spent so much time avoiding his children. Adell’s betrayal wasn’t their fault. If Adell genuinely loved Randy, and had left only because of that, no one was to blame for what had happened. Least of all the kids.
Emmett felt better about himself, and them. He had a lot of omissions to make up for, and he didn’t know where to start.
The kids finished breakfast and went to watch television. Emmett insisted on helping Melody clean up.
He dried while she washed and rinsed. “Tell me about the cat,” he said.
Her face stiffened.
“Come on.” He prodded gently.
She sighed heavily. “I found him last year in an alley,” she said finally. “He had a string tied around his neck. He was thick with parasites, and half-starved. It took him a long time to learn to trust me. I thought he never would.” She washed the same plate twice. “We’ve been together ever since. I’ll miss him.”
“He may still turn up,” he told her.
She shook her head sadly. “It isn’t likely. There are so many streets…”
“If he was a street cat when you got him, he’s street smart. Don’t give up on him yet.”
She smiled, but she didn’t reply.
“What you said about the kids,” he began, glancing toward the living room to make sure they weren’t listening. “I guess maybe I’ve been negligent with them. I thought they were adjusting to my being away so much. But this concussion has made me apprehensive.” He stared at her quietly. “Adell isn’t likely to be able to handle all three of them with a stepfather, even if she wouldn’t mind visitation rights. They’d be split up, with no place to go.”
“Adell loves them, you know she does,” she replied.
“She gave up when I refused to let her see them. I never would have given up.”
“Adell isn’t you,” she reminded him. “She isn’t really a fighter.”
“That’s probably why she said yes when I proposed to her,” he said angrily. “I was overbearing, because I wanted her so much. If I’d given her a choice, she’d probably have turned me down.”
“You have three fine children to show for
your marriage,” she said softly.
He looked down into her quiet dark eyes and something stirred deep inside his heart. He began to smile. “You’ve been a surprise,” he said absently.
“So have you,” she replied.
He noticed that she’d thrown away a box of cat food. “Did you mean to do that?” he asked, lifting it.
She grimaced. “Well, he’s gone, isn’t he?” she asked huskily.
She turned to put away the plates and he moved, but she caught her foot on a chair leg and tripped.
He caught her easily, his reflexes honed by years of ranch work. His lean hands on her waist kindled exquisite little ripples on her skin. She looked up into his eyes and her gaze hung there, curious, a little surprised by the strength of the need she felt to be held close against him and comforted.
He seemed to understand that need in her eyes, because he reacted to it immediately. Taking the clean colorful plastic plates from her hand in a silence broken only by the blaring television, he set them on the table. Then he pulled her quite roughly into his arms.
She shivered with feeling. Never, she thought, never like this! She was frightened, but she didn’t pull away. She let him hold her, closed her eyes and delighted in the security she felt for this brief moment. It made the ache in her heart subside. His shirt smelled of pleasant detergent and cologne, and it felt wonderful to be held so closely to his warm strength.
“The cat will show up,” he said at her ear, his voice deep, soothing. “Don’t lose heart.”
She had to force herself to draw away from him. It was embarrassing to allow herself to be comforted. She was used to bearing things bravely.
She managed a wan smile. “Thanks,” she said huskily.
He nodded. He picked up the plates and handed them back to her. “I’ll get the kids packed,” he said.
He moved out of the kitchen. He was disturbed and vaguely aroused. He didn’t want to think about how his feelings had changed since his concussion. That could wait until he was more lucid and out of Melody’s very disturbing presence.
Guy had noticed the embrace and he remarked on it when Emmett joined the children in the living room.
