River's Bend

by JoAnn Ross

  Apparently not having expected him to bring up the late Alan Hathaway during a conversation that had begun as a prelude to sex, Rachel visibly tensed.

  Not wanting to let her get away until he’d gotten this off his chest, Cooper cupped her shoulders comfortingly with his palms. “I’d never ask you to deny what you and Alan had together, Rachel. Because it’s obvious that your marriage was special.”

  “Really, Cooper,” she protested. “I don’t think this is the time or the place—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. If we don’t talk about him now, he’ll always be there between us.”

  “Alan isn’t standing between us,” she insisted.

  Cooper had been a cop long enough to know when someone was being less than truthful. “Isn’t he?”

  Before she could deny his softly spoken accusation, his next words came as a complete surprise to Rachel.

  “You’ve never asked about my marriage.”

  “I didn’t think it was any of my business.” But oh, how she’d wondered.

  “I think it is,” he quietly corrected her. “Ellen and I grew up together. She lived on the neighboring ranch.”

  “The neighboring ranch? But that would make her—”

  “Jake Buchanan’s daughter,” he confirmed.

  No wonder Jake and Cooper were so close. “How did she . . .” Rachel couldn’t make herself say the word. “What happened?”

  “We’d been back here six months and talking about starting a family when she flew to Denver to visit a friend from college who’d just had a baby. On the way home a freak spring snowstorm blew in. The plane went off course and flew into Modoc Mountain.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, as if to expunge the bitter memory. “I headed up the search party that found the wreckage. There weren’t any survivors.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t begin to imagine how painful that must have been.

  “So was I. After having been friends all our lives, once I was old enough to decide that girls were a lot more fun than fishing, she and I became the quintessential high school sweethearts and I always figured we’d be spending the rest of our lives together. In fact, her being homesick while we’d been living in Portland was the main reason I decided to stay here in River’s Bend after Dad’s heart attack.”

  He sucked in a deep breath. “I didn’t tell you this so you’d feel sorry for me, Rachel. I told you about Ellen so you’d understand that I know, firsthand, what you’re going through. I loved my wife. And although we weren’t married nearly as long as you and Alan, I’ll always value those years we had together.

  “I also want you know that your love for your husband only makes you more special to me.”

  “How?”

  He took both her hands in his. “Because all those years with Alan have contributed to the woman you are today.” Despite the topic, he smiled down at her. “And believe me, sweetheart, you are one extraordinary woman.”

  Over the past weeks Rachel had come to realize that Cooper was more than a sexy, desirable male. He was a genuinely kind and generous man. She could only hope that he was also a patient and forgiving one.

  She pulled her hands free. “You’re going to hate me.”

  “Never.”

  “I’m so sorry.” There were words for women who’d lead a man on, only to pull away when he was primed for sex. None of them pretty.

  Taking hold of his arms, feeling their strength, she knew she’d be safe in them. Protected. It was that, more than anything else about the man that worried her.

  Cooper Murphy was a man accustomed to being in charge. She’d already determined that River’s Bend, as charming and friendly a town as it was, tended to be more traditional than Connecticut or New York. Would he truly be happy with the independent woman she’d become?

  She’d never be able to return to the passive, protected woman she’d been during her marriage. She’d come too far to allow herself to retreat to the security of a man’s protection just because things had gotten a little rough.

  Okay. A lot rough. But every day, as work on the New Chance progressed Rachel could begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, shining like a beacon, leading her steadily forward.

  “I want to be with you.” That was the absolute truth. She thought about him too much during the day. Dreamed about him every night. “And I’m honestly not playing coy. It’s just that I need more time.”

  Until the New Chance opened. Then, as soon as she was standing fully on her own two feet, she’d be able to handle an affair with Cooper without getting into this relationship over her head.

  “Then you’ll have it.”

  Without taking his eyes from hers, Cooper lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss against her palm, which she’d never realized was an erogenous zone until he caressed her skin with the tip of his tongue, causing a jolt of hot need to arc between her thighs.

  Apparently satisfied with the vivid response she knew he’d seen in her startled gaze, he lowered her hand.

  “How would you like some hot spiced cider?” he asked with a surprising amount of calm. Surely she wasn’t the only one who’d felt that spark?

  Rachel’s body was screaming at her to give into temptation and make love to Cooper now, if only to cool the flames raging inside her.

  As a battle raged between her mind and her body, she struggled to listen to reason.

  “I really should leave. Mrs. MacGregor will be anxious to get home.”

  “You said she wasn’t expecting you for another hour,” he reminded her. “Come on, Rachel, what could it hurt? We’ll share some Antelope Valley Orchards cider, talk a little, then I’ll take you home.”

  The idea was more than a little appealing. Especially since they’d had so few chances to be alone together. “I’d like that.”

  “Terrific. I’ll be right back.” He bent, brushed a quick, unthreatening kiss against her lips, then left the room.

  “I’ll probably regret this,” she said to Hummer. “But your master is proving difficult to resist.”

  Appearing happy to be included in the conversation, Hummer rose from the rug and ambled over to her, tail wagging. As she patted the dog’s enormous head, Rachel decided that describing Cooper as difficult to resist was an understatement.

  He was impossible to resist. And the more time Rachel spent in his company, the more she wondered why any woman would even want to try.

  25

  The cider was hot, fragrantly spiced and, coming after a long day’s work, definitely appreciated. As she sipped it slowly in front of the crackling fire, Rachel gradually relaxed.

  “Who carved the menagerie?” she asked, picking up an intricately detailed wooden antelope from the coffee table.

  “That would be me.”

  “You?”

  “Surprised?”

  She ran a finger over the smooth wood. The antelope was remarkably lifelike, as were all the other animals scattered around the room. “Let’s just say that you’ve kept your woodworking skills well hidden.”

  “You’ve forgotten about my potato peeling.”

  “That’s right,” she recalled. “You said something about pretending you were whittling.” But at the time she’d imagined a stick and pocketknife.

  “I may be a klutz with a hammer or wrench, but my grandfather’s a world-class carver who won a lot of awards in his day. I grew up spending summer evenings sitting on the front porch, watching him bring a piece of wood to life. I suppose it only figures I’d pick up some of his tricks.”

  “They’re wonderful.” She replaced the antelope on the table.

  “Thanks.”

  “And I really like your home.”

  Two of the room’s walls were made of logs, the others distressed wooden planks she guessed to be barn siding. Perhaps from the family ranch? The fireplace had a river rock surround with a rustic wood mantle holding books and some of the carved animal figures. A framed print of a Native American in full headdress hun
g above the mantle and a tall case Grandfather clock she recognized as dating back to the early 1900s stood in the corner.

  The furniture was leather and a lustrous antiqued pine that had been hand-rubbed and distressed for a rich and mellow look. Or, she considered, thinking of his family history here in River’s Bend, maybe the distressing had been done the old fashioned way, by generations of Murphys living with it.

  It was a room designed for comfort and relaxation.

  “I like it, too,” he said. “I built it a couple years ago, but Mitzi’s responsible for the rug and the pillow. Apparently the decorating police show up at your house if at least one chair in any given room doesn’t have a pillow on it.”

  While Rachel was a fan of decorative pillows, Alan had been less enthusiastic. “She’s right.”

  “It figures you women would stick together,” he said. “At least Hummer enjoys it when he sleeps on that chair. The paneling’s from Dad’s old barn,” he confirmed what she’d been thinking.

  “I thought that might be the case.” She sipped on the cider. “That’s a lovely way of keeping in touch with your past.”

  Most of her parents’ belongings had been sold at an estate sale after their deaths. As Alan had pointed out, the New York apartment they’d been living in at the time, the one he’d kept for those nights he’d stay in the city, couldn’t handle a houseful of sturdy farmhouse furniture. She had kept her grandmother’s Depression-era calico star quilt.

  “My great-great grandfather built that barn, with the help of his neighbors, the weekend before he got married,” Cooper revealed. “They spent the first six months camping out and sleeping in the hayloft because they didn’t have enough money to build both a house and a barn.”

  Rachel shot him a suspicious glance. “Is that true?”

  “My hand to God.” He raised his right hand. “Fortunately, they managed to get a one-room cabin built before winter set in.” He flashed her one of those quick grins she was finding more and more difficult to resist. “While we Murphy men are renown for our lovemaking prowess, I’m not sure even he could’ve kept his bride warm once the temperatures dropped down into single digits.”

  “Is the cabin still standing?”

  “Sure is. Except now it’s the master bedroom in my dad’s house. Each generation added more rooms as they needed them. Once Ryan, Sawyer, and I got older, the main house got too crowded, not to mention rowdy with three boys under roof, so we built that log house Gram and Gramps are living in next door.”

  “You were lucky, growing up surrounded by so much tradition.” It sounded as if she and Cooper had much the same childhoods, although he’d come back home. While, with no family left in Iowa, there’d been no reason for Rachel to return.

  He shrugged. “I never gave it much thought. A lot of folks around here are descended from one of the original settlers, so yeah, there’s a fair amount of shared history. Although we do get more and more people like Mitzi, who visit, fall in love with the place, and decide to stay.”

  “I suspect her reason for choosing to live here has more to do with her falling in love with your father.”

  “That’s undoubtedly true. But small town life isn’t for everyone. Mitzi’s a savvy woman. If she weren’t sure she’d settle in, she wouldn’t risking making them both unhappy by trying to live here.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” The real estate agent definitely seemed to be a woman who knew her own mind. And heart. “Cal mentioned that your great-great-great grandfather founded the town.”

  “He did. Malachy Murphy was the third son of a Boston lawyer and politician, who eschewed the political life that was the family tradition and became a librarian.”

  “A librarian?”

  “Yep. He was well-educated, highly respected, and supposedly the least adventurous of the Murphy brothers. Which was why everyone was so surprised when he suddenly packed everything he and my great-great-great-grandmother Mary owned into a wagon and headed off to California, where he promptly came down with a serious case of gold fever.”

  “I think I’m beginning to suspect where the idea of all the Murphy men being crazy started.”

  He grinned good-naturedly. “Heard that one, have you?”

  “Jake mentioned it.” Rachel opted against telling him that not only had Cal and Fred offered a similar appraisal, Mitzi had mentioned it, as well. “Tell me more about Malachy.”

  “Well, according to the stories, the first two claims he bought from speculators turned out to be salted. That was an old trick pulled by the precursors of modern land developers and junk bond traders. They’d sprinkle a little gold dust on the bottom of the creek so they could sell the claim for an exaggerated value to unsuspecting greenhorns. As intelligent as he was, poor Malachy was a trusting soul. It took him a while to catch on.”

  “And when he did?”

  “After getting a stake from a guy he met in a poker game, in what’s now a ghost town on the Sacramento River, he went out on his own. Six months later, he struck it rich.”

  Rachel smiled. After such a run of bad luck as she’d personally experienced, she was pleased to hear of Malachy Murphy’s good fortune. “I’m glad.”

  Cooper had slid his arm around her shoulder and his fingers were playing idly with the ends of her hair. “The only problem was, the word of his strike made it back to town before he did. When he arrived at the recording office, he discovered the guy who’d staked him had already filed a claim.”

  “I don’t believe it. He was cheated again?”

  “According to family lore, that’s pretty much the same thing Mary, who was not happy, said. She convinced him that he was too naïve and too trusting to make it in the California gold fields. All the rascals and scoundrels could see him coming a mile away.”

  “Sounds as if Mary Murphy was a clever woman.”

  “Supposedly a firecracker,” Cooper said. “So, she and Malachy packed what was left of their belongings back onto that wagon and headed north to where he’d heard of a big strike up in Washington State.”

  “A stubborn man was Malachy,” she murmured, thinking that tenacity must run in the Murphy men’s genes.

  “True.” He polished off the cider and put his mug on the coffee table in front of them. “But he never made it to Washington, because one memorable afternoon, when he and Mary were camping out along this river, right where Dad’s ranch is today, he spotted some small gold nuggets gleaming in the water. He staked a claim, which immediately brought in others, swelling the population of River’s Bend to over fifteen thousand.”

  “That’s nearly five times more than today.”

  “Sure was. When no more gold was ever found around these parts, for a time the settlement became known as Murphy’s Folly as miners moved on to greener—or golder, as the case may be—pastures, leaving behind others who’d come to enjoy the new, freer way of life they’d found here.”

  “That’s why I came,” she admitted.

  Cooper’s only response was an arched brow.

  “It had been a horrible day,” she explained. “I’d spent the morning with the IRS trying to arrange payment for the back taxes Alan owed on his business, and that afternoon I’d met with the broker who was going to list the house, and the auctioneer I’d hired to sell off all my furniture. I returned home, overwhelmed by desperation, when I opened that magazine and saw Mitzi’s ad.”

  “Advertising the New Chance.”

  She smiled at the memory. “I don’t even remember what the ad said. All I saw was the name. It was like fate.”

  Grinning, Cooper tugged on her hair. “What if you’d known fate came with a life-size steer on the roof?”

  “I still would’ve come.”

  “And now?”

  “Now?” He was suddenly so close their thighs were pressing together. Had he moved? Or had she?

  “Are you glad you’ve come?”

  Their eyes met and held for what seemed like an eternity. Rachel knew that they wer
e no longer talking about the New Chance, but something far more important.

  “Very,” she whispered finally.

  He brushed his smiling lips against hers. “I’m glad, too.”

  His breath was warm, spiced, reminding her of autumn in New England. Rachel heard her empty mug fall to the floor as she framed his face with her hands, continuing the kiss, deepening it, stroking his tongue with hers until she felt the greedy, answering heat of his mouth all the way down to her toes, which were curling in her sneakers.

  And still she needed more. When she dug her fingers deep into his biceps, leaning backwards on the couch, urging him down so she could feel the rock wall of his chest against hers, a rough groan rumbled deep in his throat.

  He slipped his hand between them, beneath her sweater, his clever, calloused fingers gliding over her skin, leaving sparks wherever they touched.

  She could feel his erection straining against her and if her hands weren’t already busy grabbing his very fine Wrangler butt to pull him even closer, she would have been yanking down his zipper.

  She was hearing bells.

  No, not bells, Rachel realized. It was the Grandfather clock in the corner announcing the hour on a peal of Westminster chimes.

  It was Cooper who finally broke away. “I’d better be getting you home,” he said, his rough voice revealing that it wasn’t his first choice.

  Rachel’s head was spinning; her body throbbed; her lips tingled. “Yes,” she agreed, understanding how Cinderella must have felt when her magic had run out at the stroke of midnight.

  Rising unsteadily to her feet and pulling down her sweater, which was bunched up over her white cotton bra, she considered that if Cooper Murphy could create such weakness from a mere kiss, she was afraid to think what would happen were she to give into impulse and make love to him.

  Unfolding his long length from the leather sofa, Cooper stood in front of her, not attempting to conceal the bold outline of his erection pressing against the placket of his jeans.

  “Poor Rachel,” Cooper murmured, reading the undisguised desire in her eyes. “This isn’t turning out to be as easy as it should be, is it?”