by Sandra Brown
"Didn't Don Juan ever take you to a Dairy Queen?"
"Travis?" Even saying his name sounded odd now, as though he had belonged to another lifetime. In a very real sense, he had. "The future Dr. Belcher wouldn't be caught dead in a fast-food restaurant. For a while, he got on a health food craze and tried force-feeding me stuff like bean curd and tofu."
"Tofu? Is that a cousin to toe jam?"
She laughed until she was weak … and Harlan didn't even seem to mind that she was making a public spectacle of herself. In fact, he seemed to enjoy her laughter.
It was getting dark by the time they got underway once again. Her full stomach, general sense of well-being, and the monotonous growl of the car's engine made her sleepy. Before long, she was having a hard time keeping her head upright and her eyes open.
"Here," Harlan said, patting his right thigh. "Lay your head here and stop fighting it."
Warily, Sage stared at the notch of his thighs where his jeans were soft and faded and far from roomy. "I'd better not," she said uneasily. "You might fall asleep while you're driving."
He chuckled. "Having your head in my lap is one surefire way of keeping me wide awake." He laughed out loud at her startled expression. "I was only kidding. Come on." He patted his thigh again, and she couldn't resist. She lay down along the seat and gingerly laid her head on his thigh.
He swept her hair off her neck, exposing it briefly before covering it with his hand. His thumb stroked her jaw. "Nighty-night, Miss Sage."
"I won't sleep. I'll just rest my eyes for a minute or two."
He continued to idly stroke her neck, jaw, and earlobe.
The next thing she knew, he was nudging her awake. "Come on, Sage, sit up. My leg's gone to sleep."
Woozy, she sat up but seemed unable to open her eyes. "What time is it?" she mumbled. "Why are we stopped?"
"It's going on midnight. I stopped because the center strip was blurring into two. I'm sleepy and didn't want us to become a highway statistic. By the way, did you know you snore?"
"Shut up," she said grouchily, rolling her shoulders and rubbing her neck. "Where are we?"
"A nice, clean motel."
Because clean was an amenity, she was instantly suspicious. She forced her eyes open and looked around. The individual bungalows were limned with pink neon tubes. In the central courtyard, some prickly pear and a few oleander bushes struggled for survival around a swimming pool so murky a person could walk across it. The office of the complex looked sinister and dim behind a blinking blue star. A pair of longhorns were mounted above the door.
"Great. Texas's rendition of the Bates Motel. Norman Billy Bob Bates and his dead mother, proprietors."
"This is a nice place. I've stayed here before."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me."
"Sit tight. I'll see if they've got a vacancy."
"What, are you kidding?"
Moments later, he came back wagging a key. On the short drive from the office to the cabin they'd been assigned, she said, "Couldn't we stay in something luxurious, like a Motel Six?"
"We'll only be here for a few hours' sleep. All we'll be using are the beds."
"You're right about that. I'm sure not going to take a shower. From what I could see of him, the clerk was a dead ringer for Anthony Perkins."
The room had twin beds with a tiny, spindly table between them, and a chest of drawers. No telephone. No T.V. It was, however, warm and clean. Sage sniffed the sheets of the bed and, satisfied that they were sanitary, slid between them fully dressed.
She was too sleepy to take off her clothes. It was the first night of her life she had gone to bed without brushing her teeth, but she didn't care. All she wanted to do was sleep.
Harlan went into the bathroom. Seconds later she heard the water in the shower running. He was showering to spite her, she thought acidly. But there was a smile on her face. She was permeated with contentment. Strange, when she considered how inauspiciously this day had begun.
She'd left home with a man she'd known less than a month, riding in a broken-down pickup truck that had sold for scrap metal.
She'd cleaned out her bank accounts, which represented every cent she possessed, and it was a woefully meager amount.
She'd gorged on fast food without giving a thought to the high calories or low nutritional value.
She'd deserted everything safe and familiar and had embarked upon a quest that might yield her nothing except humiliation and animosity from her beloved family.
And she was spending the night in a sleazy motel room that had probably been the scene of countless illicit trysts.
Despite all that, her mind was at ease and she was smiling as she snuggled beneath the covers and plumped up the pillow beneath her head.
Harlan was still in the shower, singing a Rod Stewart song, slightly off-key. When he came out, would he lie down beside her and place his arms around her, or would he use the other bed?
She wouldn't mind if the other bed stood empty all night.
She had never felt happier.
* * *
"Sage, will you cut it out please? That's not helping our situation."
"I don't care," she blubbered, holding a damp tissue to her leaking nose. "I feel like crying, so I'm going to cry. Now leave me alone and let me do it in peace."
"We could have irrigated every parcel of land in south Texas with the tears you've cried. Maybe we should have tried to market them."
She glared at him through red, swollen eyes. "I'm really tired of your jokes about it, Harlan."
"Well, joking's better than bawling."
Two weeks on the road together without anything to show for it had strained their tempers to the limit. As they headed back on the same highway they had so optimistically traveled fourteen days earlier, Harlan's knuckles were white with tension as he gripped the steering wheel.
If he had a destination in mind, he hadn't informed her. She felt indifferent toward it anyway. They were just driving aimlessly, mile after mile, while she wept and he simmered. He seemed to be spoiling for a fight. Sage, feeling fractious herself, was prepared to give him one.
"You can't imagine how important the success of this trip was to me."
"I can guess," he shouted back. "You wanted to come home triumphant. You wanted your family's love and adulation."
"What do you know about family love?"
She saw a spark leap in his eyes, but he didn't acknowledge the question. Instead he counterattacked. "You think you've got the whole damn world fooled, but I can see clean through you, Sage. You don't think anybody respects you. Well, you're wrong. You should have heard your family bragging to me about how hard and diligently you worked to earn your master's degree. Long before I met you, I was sick of hearing about you."
"They may talk about me, but they don't take me seriously. They never have."
"Maybe because you're always flouncing around and shooting off your mouth."
"Oh, thanks. I'm beginning to feel a whole lot better now that we've had this little talk."
He took his eyes off the road to study her for a moment. "You're in competition with your brothers, aren't you?"
"Of course not!"
"The hell you're not. Somewhere deep inside you, you're afraid you don't measure up to them, that compared to them you're second-rate."
"You're crazy."
"No, I'm right. Listen, Sage, you're a Tyler through and through. You've got the same rugged stuff inside you that Chase and Lucky do. It's just packaged differently. You've got grit and guts and integrity. You're a decent human being, and you're certainly not lacking in looks, personality, or intelligence."
"Then why did I fail to get one measly contract? Only a few people would even talk to me. Several laughed in my face when I explained why I wanted an appointment."
"You didn't fail," he said with emphasis. "You did everything you could. You left every morning dressed up fit to kill, looking professional but still feminine. You practiced yo
ur presentation until you got it letter-perfect. Hell, every time I listened to you deliver it, I was ready to sign on the dotted line myself."
"Then why didn't one of those prospects we called on sign?"
"Bad luck. Bad economy. Neither of which reflects on anything you did or didn't do. Even the best fishermen using the best bait can't catch a fish if the fish simply refuse to bite."
She derived some comfort from everything he said. Secretly, she was persuaded that she had done her best. Through co-ops and agricultural associations she had gleaned a list of prospective clients. Together Harlan and she had systematically called on them. Their efforts had produced nothing, not even a prospect with good potential. She had done everything she had known to do.
She couldn't blame their lack of success on Harlan either. He had surprised her by wearing a necktie everyday. His explanation of the mechanism was articulate and thorough. He easily won the confidence of everyone they spoke to. People seemed instinctively to trust his opinion on a variety of subjects. He was a good ol' boy with a lot of smarts and a charm that wasn't cloying.
People liked him and he liked people. Very much like Laurie, he accepted people as they were and expected them to do the same regarding him. He made friends wherever they went. His need to develop friendships no doubt arose from his lack of a family.
But for all Harlan's affability, they were still leaving the valley empty-handed. It was their rotten luck that the farmers and fruit growers were suffering their own setback due to unseasonable freezes the previous year. The agricultural business was no healthier than the oil industry. The growers were worried about making ends meet this year. None was inclined to make an investment and increase his overhead, no matter how receptive he was to the product.
"Everybody agreed that we've got a terrific idea," Harlan reminded her now.
"Try paying bills with a terrific idea."
He hissed a curse. "So what do you want me to do? Take the next exit and head for east Texas? Are you giving up?"
"No. Absolutely not. That's the Harlan Boyd method of doing things. When the situation gets tough, simply disappear. Wash your hands of it and walk away."
"What the hell do you know about Harlan Boyd's method of doing anything?"
"Well, isn't that so?" she shouted, rounding on him. "Why does putting down roots and making a home like a normal person scare you so much?" It was a rhetorical question, so she didn't even wait for a reply. "I'm different from you. I don't slink away from my problems."
"No, you either avoid them by telling half-truths or hide them behind a smart mouth and highfalutin manner."
She glowered at him, then turned her head and stared out her window. The fields they passed were lying fallow. The dried, dead stubble of last year's crops lay in the furrows, waiting to be plowed under in spring.
Cultivation reminded her of irrigation, and irrigation reminded her of Harlan's invention, which could be the salvation of Tyler Drilling, at least until the oil business recovered. When it did—and she believed that it would—her brothers might turn the entire irrigation business over to her. It could be a subsidiary of the original company.
Before her imagination could run away with her, she bitterly reminded herself that their money was about to run out. Then she would have to return home not only defeated but penniless as well.
How long could Harlan and she stay together without murdering each other? The alternative was to make love again, and that was just as prohibitive. Some of her tears, she acknowledged now, stemmed from sexual frustration.
The closer their quarters, the more standoffish they were. The smaller the room, the wider the berth they gave each other. That avoidance hadn't been her choice. She'd taken her cues from him.
He hadn't kissed her since that night at the Dairy Queen. He didn't even hint that he might like to waste one of the beds in their double rooms. Their conversations revolved around the business at hand and lacked the double entendre teasing she had thought she despised but now missed. She was confused and disappointed.
Why hadn't he made one single pass in two weeks? Was he already preparing her for the day he would walk out of her life as unexpectedly as he had stepped into it?
Miserable over the thought, Sage propped her elbow on the ledge of the window and supported her chin with her palm as she gazed through the window at the passing landscape.
On the outskirts of Waco, they passed an extremely green, well-manicured field. There was pedestrian traffic on it and little white carts scurrying about. Triangular flags on skinny, swaying poles seemed to wave at her to get her attention.
She sat bolt upright. "Golf."
* * *
Chapter 14
"Pardon?"
"Golf. Golf. Golf."
Harlan looked beyond her toward the golf course. "You want to stop and play a few holes?"
"Harlan, we've been fishing in the wrong fishing hole." In her excitement, she reached across the seat and gripped his thigh. "We've got the right bait, but we're not casting it in the right waters."
His blue eyes lit up with sudden understanding. Golf courses."
"Yes. And … and planned communities where there's a golf course and homesites and lots of landscaped grounds."
"Upscale retirement communities."
"Health care facilities."
"Multidimensional industrial parks."
"Yes!" Unbuckling her seat belt, she launched herself against him, throwing her arms around his neck and noisily kissing his cheek. "We should be calling on property developers, not farmers. We need to see investors and contractors, movers and shakers."
"Do you want to head back to Houston?"
"Not particularly. Why?"
"Belcher. He would be a source."
She contemplated the suggestion for a moment, before vetoing it. "He's on the fringes. I want to go to the sources. Besides, I don't want to risk bumping into him after Lucky and Chase said their piece. My gut instinct tells me it was profane."
"I imagine your gut instinct is right. Then, where to?"
"Dallas."
"Why Dallas?"
"Because it's an expanding city with lots of areas just like we've been talking about."
"So's San Antonio. And Austin."
"But we're closer to Dallas, and it's closest to Milton Point. We can be there in a couple of hours."
Her excitement was contagious. With his easy grin, he said, "Buckle your seat belt," and depressed the accelerator.
* * *
He got them to Dallas in under two hours. While she was admiring the silver, mirrored skyline, he shocked her by pulling into the porte cochere of a hotel that outclassed the ones they'd been staying in by a million miles.
"What are we doing here?"
"I think we need to treat ourselves."
"You mean by staying here?"
"You're the treasurer. Can we afford it?"
"Probably not, but let's splurge," she said, her eyes dancing at the prospect.
"Let's eat at a fancy restaurant tonight. Cloth napkins, matching silverware, the works. Maybe go to the movies or something."
"Oh, yes, Harlan, yes. I can't wait."
"But tomorrow it's back to the salt mines, Cinderella," he cautioned.
"Now that we have a new plan of attack, I can't wait for that either."
* * *
"So I guess I grew up believing that I meant no more to my brothers than one of their sports balls, something to play with and kick around."
Her mood was reflective as Sage stared into the candle burning in the center of the small portable table. The hotel room was a palace compared to some they had recently occupied. In-room movies were available on the television set. The room-service menu was extensive.
The quarters had offered so many amenities that they opted to stay in. They were road-weary. Relaxing in the room had held much more appeal than dressing up and going out. They'd eaten a four course dinner served in their room. Now they were lingering over c
hocolates and coffee.
"I don't really feel competitive with them, Harlan. I just want them to recognize me as an essential part of the family and our business. I want to be more than their kid sister, the brat."
"I can understand your point." He peeled the gold foil off a disk of semisweet chocolate and placed it in his mouth to melt slowly. "But you've got to realize, Sage, that you'll always be the baby of the family, just like Chase will always be the oldest."
"This sounds like first year psychology."
"It is," he admitted on a short laugh. "I took it as an elective at A&M."
"Then your observations aren't based on personal experience?"
"No."
"No brothers or sisters?"
"No."
She fiddled with the slivers of bright foil she had removed from her own chocolates. She weighed the advisability of prying, but knew that if she didn't, he wouldn't voluntarily divulge anything about his past.
"I know your home life must have been rough, Harlan." She glanced at him across the candle's flame. His face remained impassive. "You don't have to tell me about it if you don't want to." She paused again, providing him an opportunity he didn't capitalize on.
"I don't want to."
She was disappointed that she hadn't yet won his confidence, but covered it by saying, "I'm sorry you had to bear the brunt of it alone. My family is my foundation. I can't imagine a childhood without my parents and boisterous brothers."
"You drew a lucky lot."
"I know," she conceded softly. "As aggravating as they can be, I love them very much."
"They love you too." Propping his forearms on the edge of the table, he leaned forward and drawled, "What's not to love?"
By the time she had finally left her long, hot bubble bath, their dinner had arrived. Rather than let it get cold, Harlan had insisted that she come to the table with her hair still wet, sans makeup, and wrapped in her no-frills terrycloth robe.
Now, as his eyes took a leisurely tour of her, he reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet, drawing her around the table toward him. He spread his knees wide and maneuvered her to stand between them.
