Notorious

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  Keely’s first reaction was shock, because a singing telegram was so not what she’d expected from her family, but as the significance of the message sank in, tears pushed at the back of her eyes. “Th-thank you,” she told the guy as she blinked to clear her vision.

  “No problem.” With a little bow, the man turned and sauntered out of the office.

  “Wow,” Carolyn said as she walked over to Keely’s desk. “You have a sister who’s getting married?”

  Keely nodded, not trusting herself to speak. We been missin’ you a lot. Oh, God, why had she let ten years go by?

  Carolyn took a closer look at Keely’s face. “I think you have an RSVP call to make.”

  “Yep.” Keely sniffed.

  Carolyn tilted her head toward the door of her private office. “Why don’t you use my phone?”

  Keely gave her a shaky smile of gratitude. “I’d appreciate that,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. Swiping at her eyes, she walked quickly into Carolyn’s office and closed the door. Then she pressed both hands against her stomach. Ten years. She’d missed ten years of her father’s voice and B.J.’s laughter. Ten years of birthdays, Christmas mornings, hugs and memories.

  She couldn’t imagine how they could ever forgive her. And yet they’d sent a singing telegram with a corny, touching, homemade rap verse just for her.

  With trembling hands she picked up the receiver of Carolyn’s telephone and dialed an outside line. Then she punched in the number that came to her as easily as a favorite nursery rhyme, even though she hadn’t used it in ten years.

  B.J. answered, sounding older. Of course she was older. She’d been only seventeen the last time Keely had seen her.

  “B.J., it’s Keely.” Tears poured down her cheeks.

  “Keely? Is it really you?”

  “Oh, God, yes. I’m so sorry, B.J.” Her words tumbled out between choked little sobs. “I’ve missed you so much. So much. Can I really come to your wedding?”

  B.J. started crying, too. “You’d better! You’d better come or I’ll send another singing-telegram guy, and this one will be armed!” Laughter mixed in with her jerky sobs. “You hear me, Keely Marie?”

  “I hear you,” Keely said, smiling despite the tears that didn’t seem to want to stop. She fumbled for the box of tissues on Carolyn’s desk. “I’ll be there. So, was the singing telegram your idea?”

  “Nope.”

  “Dad’s?” Keely had a hard time picturing that.

  “No, but he was all for it.”

  “Okay, I know. Jonas was behind it. He’s just the type.”

  B.J. laughed. “You’re right, he is, but Noah’s actually the one who thought it up. He said we couldn’t just send an e-mail because it would be too boring.”

  “Noah?” Keely’s heart squeezed. Lord, how she loved that man. “Well, tell him I wasn’t bored.” Tell him I’m crazy about him. “Who made up the rap thing?”

  “Oh, we all worked on that. Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Very cool.” Her throat tightened with a fresh surge of emotion. “I loved it.”

  “Dad wanted to make it country instead, but we thought rap fit L.A. better, and maybe it wouldn’t be quite so embarrassing for you at the office.”

  “Oh, it was plenty embarrassing, but I don’t care a bit.”

  “Good. I was hoping that would be the way you’d react. Listen, Dad’s out in the west pasture, but if you want to call back tonight—”

  “You know what? When I talk to Dad, I’d like to be standing right in front of him. I think I’ll wait until I get there.”

  B.J.’s voice was gentle. “His bark is worse than his bite, Keely. He’s missed you something awful. We all have. Noah told us about your job. I can’t believe I’ve never seen your name in that magazine, but you know me, I mostly read State Line Tack catalogs for fun.” She paused and chuckled. “Or I did. Lately my tastes run more toward Playgirl.”

  “B.J.!” Keely wasn’t sure what she thought about her little sister ogling naked men.

  B.J. laughed. “I’m not the same uptight woman I was when you left, Keely.”

  “Well, I guess not!”

  “In fact, I think we’re overdue for a long, sisterly talk.”

  Keely gulped back a fresh onslaught of tears. “We sure are,” she said.

  “When can you get here?”

  Keely had been eyeing her schedule ever since she’d returned from her trip. It was packed with work. “Coming in the day before is the best I can do. I know that sucks, but this was unexpected. I’ll have to juggle a few things to even take that Friday off, but I’m determined to do it.”

  “Then Friday it is. Want me to pick you up at the airport?”

  “Absolutely not. You’re the bride and you have things to do.”

  “I’ll bet Noah could.”

  Not on your life, babe. “You know what? Let me rent a car.” A convertible, she was thinking. The prodigal daughter needed to make a splash when she arrived back in Saguaro Junction after a ten-year absence.

  “Renting a car seems silly,” B.J. said. “I’m sure that Noah—”

  “I want to rent the car,” Keely said. “Think red Mustang convertible. Think top down, radio blaring, going down Main Street past the feed store, past the café, past the bench in front of the post office…”

  “Okay.” There was a grin in B.J.’s voice. “I get it. God, it’s gonna be great to see you again. Set those tongues to waggin’, Keely. It’s been duller than dust around here without you.”

  Keely had a sudden moment of uncertainty. “Maybe I shouldn’t do the convertible thing. I don’t want to upstage the bride.”

  That really made B.J. laugh. “There was a time I would have been worried about that. But I have Jonas right where I want him, and that’s all I care about. Come back in full sail, Keely. This girl can take it.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  “Me neither. See you soon.”

  Keely couldn’t stop grinning as she hung up the phone. She was dying to see what sort of transformation had taken place with B.J., who’d been the quintessential tomboy the whole time they’d been growing up. Keely had always thought that B.J. took that role in self-defense because Keely had grabbed the sex-symbol image so early on and B.J. hadn’t wanted to compete.

  But maybe Keely’s long absence had been a good thing for B.J. Without Keely around, she might have felt more free to try her sexual wings. It was majorly weird to think about that, but it was comforting to imagine that the separation might have produced something positive. And Keely was thrilled to be forewarned, so she wouldn’t head to the ranch expecting her sister to be an Annie Oakley look-alike.

  Then Keely’s mind circled back to the topic it couldn’t seem to leave alone. Noah. She still couldn’t believe he’d instigated the rapper stunt. The guy was full of surprises, and she was a sucker for surprises. Leaving him strictly alone next weekend was not going to be easy.

  NOAH GOT HOME after dark to find Jonas and B.J. cozied up on the front-porch swing. “Okay, keep it clean,” he said as he walked up the steps. “I want all your hands out where I can see them.”

  Jonas flashed him a dry smile. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have a babe like B.J. to make out with.”

  “Keely called,” B.J. said. “She loved the rapper telegram and she’s definitely coming to the wedding. You must have stayed well out of sight, because obviously she didn’t have a clue you were there.”

  “That’s good.” Noah leaned against the porch railing. In a way, he’d been disappointed that she hadn’t seen him just outside the door of the office. He wasn’t sure what he’d have done if she’d caught him standing there, but he’d had a tough time being so close and not making contact. Damn, but she’d looked incredible in her silk blouse and tight little skirt.

  “Was the office nice?” B.J. asked.

  “I guess.” He’d barely noticed the office once Keely had walked out of that conference room looking so efficient
, with her hair scooped up on top of her head and a pencil stuck through her red curls. The spiral notebook in her hand had reminded him of teenage fantasies in which a full-breasted secretary invited him to have sex on the top of a wide executive desk. Come to think of it, he had a desk like that in his office at the ranch….

  “How was L.A.?” Jonas asked.

  “Smoggy.” He wondered if Keely noticed the smog, or if she was so caught up in all that a big city had to offer that she didn’t care what the air was like or how bad the traffic was. After seeing her in the bright, bustling office he was beginning to doubt himself again. But he’d needed to see her in that environment so that he had a better idea of what he was up against. She probably liked that hectic pace. She must like it if she’d stayed there for ten years.

  “Dad’s excited that she’s coming home,” B.J. said. “You know him, he doesn’t want to let on that he’s excited, but he’s over at our place cleaning like I’ve never seen him clean. I offered to help, but he wouldn’t let me. He still thinks he does it better than anybody, and he wants the house to be perfect.”

  Noah nodded. He understood the urge. He’d left the inside of the ranch house to their housekeeper, Lupita, but he’d spent his spare time trimming the mesquite trees that surrounded the house and raking up the beans. Jonas had talked him out of slapping a new coat of paint on the front door, but he still might get around to that.

  Jonas chuckled. “I wish I could’ve been there to see her face when the guy started his routine. Now that it’s over, I’m glad you decided to fly over and supervise, so we could be sure it was done right.”

  “If I’d been able to locate somebody I had confidence would do the job the way we wanted it done, I wouldn’t have,” he said.

  “Uh-huh,” Jonas said. “I think you wanted to go over and check things out, is what I think. I know you better than you realize, big brother.”

  Noah thought of all the things Jonas didn’t know about him. But Keely knew. She was the only person who had tapped into his deepest fantasies, the only person he trusted with them. She’d shown him a whole new world, and he’d fallen in love with her vision and with her. He needed her by his side so they could continue to explore that world together. If only he could be sure that she needed him just as much.

  KEELY’S ONE-WOMAN PARADE through Saguaro Junction the following Friday turned heads exactly as she’d hoped. What she hadn’t expected were the shouts of greeting and the enthusiastic waves of welcome. She’d had to stop the car four different times to talk with folks, or risk running them over as they hurried toward her car.

  Not a single person had insulted her. Quite the contrary. They’d made her feel like a celebrity. Apparently the good people of Saguaro Junction had mellowed toward her. More likely her little sister, and maybe even her father, had spread the word that she was published nationwide in Attitude! magazine. From every indication, her earlier transgression of posing nude had been forgiven.

  Of course, they didn’t know that she was still a sexual risk-taker, a fact she’d proven to herself and Noah in Vegas. She didn’t really fit in here any better than she had before.

  And yet she couldn’t stop the rush of nostalgia when she drove past the small park and swimming pool where she’d hung out with her friends back in high school. High-school kids clustered there now, their shouts and laughter carrying to the road on the clear desert air.

  She remembered what a hot August day was like for a teenager in Saguaro Junction, and she felt a stab of envy for their uncomplicated existence. At the time she’d thought her world was terminally boring, but now she sort of missed the simplicity of a life where the Roadrunner Theater had only one screen and the Cactus Café was your only choice if you wanted to eat out.

  Yes, she’d stirred things up nicely, she thought as she drove on out of town past the gas station and the Elks Lodge. She’d forgotten what it was like to cause a commotion on a major thoroughfare, and she rather enjoyed it. In L.A. you could find auburn-haired, well-endowed women in convertibles at every intersection. She fit in there, all right. Yessir, fit right in. She might be wild by Saguaro Junction standards, but in L.A. she was like everybody else.

  If she lived here she’d be unique again. Not that she would really consider such a thing, but there was a certain appeal. Of course, her father had never wanted her to be unique.

  As she continued down the two-lane highway and glimpsed the arched iron gate over the entrance to the Twin Boulders Ranch, the bravado that had taken her through town with a flourish began to disappear. In a few minutes she’d have to face Arch Branscom, and she was scared to death.

  Even the prospect of dealing with Noah again didn’t worry her as much as this meeting with her father after all these years. Their parting words had been bitter. He’d flung a copy of Macho in the fire and said that she had way too much of her mother in her for her own good. Then he’d as much as told her to leave his house.

  She’d planned to use the money she’d earned from the photo session to get out of town, anyway. But she’d counted on it being her idea, not his. Packing a bag, she’d bought a bus ticket for L.A. She’d said goodbye to B.J., Jonas and Jonas’s father. Noah had been out of town at the time, which had been just as well.

  But she’d left without telling her own father goodbye. These would be the first words she’d spoken to him since he’d declared her a disgrace to the family ten long, lonely years ago.

  And she had been lonely, she finally admitted to herself as she drove toward the ranch. Her car kicked up a rooster tail of dust on the dirt road as she passed the two large boulders on the left that gave the ranch its name. She’d made friends and had lovers in L.A., but nobody had filled the empty place where her family used to be. She wanted her family back, but not at the expense of her self-esteem. If her father showed any signs of disapproval, she’d leave right after the wedding Saturday night and never come back.

  Passing the ranch house, she wondered if Noah was inside and if he might be watching for her. As she drove around the main house toward the smaller cabin where her father lived, she noticed a man on horseback cantering over a cactus-studded hill on his way toward the ranch. Even from this distance she recognized Noah.

  Her already stressed heart kicked into an even faster rhythm. But she could only deal with one of these men at a time, and her father was first on her list. She parked beside a battered pickup that she assumed belonged to him. He’d bought different trucks through the years, but Arch Branscom’s transportation always looked about the same—a light-colored paint job so it wouldn’t show the dust and an assortment of dings and scratches where he’d taken it through the brush in pursuit of cattle, horses and even a few lost dogs.

  She left her suitcase in the backseat of the Mustang and took only her purse with her. If her reception was too chilly, she could always stay in Saguaro Junction’s only motel. As she walked up to the small covered porch, she noticed that the bushes were trimmed and the porch had been swept recently. The woven straw mat in front of the door looked new.

  Maybe her dad had spruced up the place for the wedding. She could hardly believe he’d done it for her. Heart pounding, she stood in front of the door and couldn’t decide whether to go in or knock. Although she’d sailed in and out of this door with complete ease for the first nineteen years of her life, she didn’t live here anymore.

  But knocking at the door of her father’s house seemed ridiculous. She reached for the knob then pulled her hand back. Then she raised her fist to knock and couldn’t make herself do that, either.

  Finally the door opened and her father stood there staring at her.

  She stared back. Although logic should have told her he’d look older, she hadn’t expected him to. His hair and mustache used to be dark red sprinkled with gray. Now they were nearly white. His face was more weathered and he seemed…shorter. She’d always imagined him towering over her, but in her three-inch heels she could look him straight in the eye.

  Th
ose piercing blue eyes of his hadn’t changed at all. They still seemed to look clear into her heart. She wondered if he could tell how scared she was. Probably.

  “Hello, Keely,” he said in his deep, gruff voice.

  “Hello, Dad.”

  “Figured I’d better open the door for you. You seemed to have forgotten how to do it.”

  “I…couldn’t decide if I should knock.”

  And just like that, the fierceness left his expression. “No,” he said softly. “You should never knock.” His voice shook. “You’re always welcome here.”

  A dam broke inside her as she flung herself into his arms. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed, pressing her face against his shirt. He smelled so achingly familiar, a mixture of sunshine, soap and pipe tobacco.

  He held her close and patted her back. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” he said, his voice even gruffer than before. “I didn’t really mean for you to go away, Keely-girl. I was…hasty.”

  “You were just being a dad,” she said, her voice muffled against his shirt. “I couldn’t expect you to be overjoyed with what I did.”

  “I’ll admit you did test my patience.”

  She smiled against his shirt. “You tested mine, too.” She lifted her head and gazed at his beloved face with watery eyes. “But maybe we can start over.”

  He shook his head. “That would mean throwing out all the good things along with the bad. You gave me plenty of joy, too. So we aren’t starting over. We’re just going on from here.”

  “Okay.” She took a deep breath and felt her body fill with a kind of peace she hadn’t known in years. “Where’s B.J.?”

  “Right here.”

  Keely disengaged herself from her father and turned to see her sister standing there with tears in her eyes. Keely barely recognized B.J. She was actually wearing makeup, and she’d cut her hair. No more single braid down the back. Instead, her hair curled softly around her face. She hadn’t given up her jeans, but she’d replaced her usual faded denim shirt with a sexy halter top.

  With a squeal of delight, Keely ran over to grab her. “My God, look at you!” She hugged her sister, held her away to admire her some more, then hugged her again. “Jonas is so lucky.”