Huckleberry Lake

by Catherine Anderson

  Wyatt managed a weary smile. “You’ll have kids. Maybe one of them will love ranching.”

  “And maybe one of them won’t. Then what?”

  “Even if I had kids, there’d be no guarantee that one of them would want the ranch. Look at Slade’s sister. She hates this place. Besides, falling in love and getting married to raise a family isn’t for everyone.” Wyatt collected his hat, which he’d set on the log beside him. “And as sad as that may seem to you, I’m a guy who just isn’t interested. You have to kiss a lot of girl frogs before you find a princess. Shopping around is too risky for someone like me. I could have done hard time, Kennedy. The only reasons I didn’t were because I had a determined defense attorney and the victimized woman told the absolute truth when she was on the stand.”

  “Victimized? The way I see it, you were the victim!”

  “No. I orchestrated the entire situation by deciding to pass as a hearing person so I could hook up with women. I didn’t anticipate all the things that could go wrong, and I ended up hurting someone who did nothing to deserve it.”

  “You didn’t intend to do anything wrong,” Kennedy insisted.

  “No, I didn’t, but I didn’t think of every possibility, either. For a guy like me, the term responsible sex takes on a whole different meaning.”

  “So what’s your plan?” Kennedy asked. “To live like a monk all your life? To punish yourself for something you never meant to happen?”

  Wyatt thought carefully before he answered. “Being celibate isn’t so bad, really. And to be honest, hitting on women is an unpleasant experience for me.” He gestured limply with one hand. “Dating is hard enough. For me, it’s doubly complicated. I can’t live my life pretending to be something I’m not in order to attract women. Do you agree with me on that?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And that leaves me where? Striking out isn’t fun. It wears down the self-confidence. And like it or not, most women run the other way the moment they realize I’m deaf.”

  Kennedy slapped at a fly that landed on his leg. “Erin knows, and she isn’t running. Why can’t you just level with her and see what happens? She’s a really pretty lady.”

  Wyatt couldn’t argue those points. “True, but I’m a risky bet for almost anyone, even a woman who is interested in me despite my disability. Let’s say I ask Erin out and she accepts. We hit it off, and one night, the situation heats up, so she asks me over to her place. The moment the lights go out, I can no longer read her lips. Even if she leaves the lights on, a guy can’t always see a woman’s face as he has sex with her. Can you see how that complicates things?”

  Kennedy nodded. “So you’re afraid she’ll change her mind at the last second, and you won’t hear what she says to you.”

  “Exactly.” Wyatt settled the Stetson on his head and angled the brim to shade his eyes before he walked back to the ranch proper. “But that’s not the only risk factor for me. Women like some things and don’t like others, and no two women are the same. Erin couldn’t communicate to me what she wants me to do or doesn’t want me to do. There’s also the possibility during sex that something that usually doesn’t bother a lady can suddenly be painful. If I can’t read her lips or see her hands move, she would be unable to let me know.”

  Kennedy puffed air into his cheeks and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “There has to be a way around that. Other deaf men have significant others in their lives.”

  “True, but it’s probably safe to say that there’s still a huge communication problem when the lights go out.”

  “Will you at least consider talking with Erin about it?”

  Wyatt wished his brother would just let it go. “Sure, I’ll consider it. But my biggest concern right now is that I hurt her feelings. I said some pretty ugly things and owe her an apology. The sooner I take care of that, the better.”

  * * *

  * * *

  At a quarter after three the next afternoon, Wyatt got in his truck and drove into town. He knew through Slade and Vickie that Erin worked the day shift this week, so by the time he reached her house, she’d most likely be home. If she wasn’t, he’d just sit on her porch and wait. It was perfect weather for that, sunny and warm for Mystic Creek in May. He’d had a busy morning, allowing him little time to think about how he should apologize to her. Maybe if he had a few minutes of downtime, he could come up with a brilliant approach to what would probably be a tension-packed conversation.

  As he pulled into Erin’s driveway, which was in sore need of grading and fresh gravel, he saw her on the front porch. She was bent over something big and black. Through the glare of sunlight on the dusty windshield, he squinted to see what she was doing. She appeared to be dumping potted plants into a garbage bag. She didn’t glance up at the sound of his truck, which he thought was odd. According to Kennedy, diesel engines emitted a loud rumble. Wyatt had no clue what a rumble sounded like, but he figured Erin should have heard him pull up.

  Throwing off his seat belt, he opened the door and swung out of the pickup. As he walked toward the steps, bypassing the county truck in the driveway, he kept his gaze riveted on Erin. She still didn’t glance his way. Okay. She’s pissed at me, he decided. Not that I blame her. When he’d closed the distance between them to about ten feet, he saw a glistening of tears on her cheeks, and his stomach clenched. He also saw her lips moving, but he wasn’t at the right angle to determine what she was saying. Was she talking to herself? Wyatt knew hearing people sometimes did that, but it wasn’t an activity that he normally engaged in. He couldn’t decide if she was ignoring him or just didn’t know he was there.

  “It looks like you’re on a mission,” he called out to her.

  Still holding a small flowerpot in her right hand, she startled and whirled to face him. Her eyes were puffy from crying, and her nose was as red as Rudolph’s. She dropped the container at her feet and clamped a palm over the center of her chest. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I have something I need to tell you.”

  “I have no interest in anything you have to say,” she retorted. “As far as I’m concerned, you’ve said more than enough already.”

  Wyatt couldn’t deny the charge. He’d totally messed up yesterday, and he needed to repair the damage if he possibly could. He climbed the steps and sat sideways on the landing with his back braced against the roof support post so he could still see her. How, he wondered, did a guy lead into a conversation like this? She was too upset for any small talk. But he decided to try, anyway. “Why are you throwing everything away?”

  “I’m getting rid of all these stupid decorations.” She gestured at a lineup of wind chimes that dangled from the overhang and then at what few plants remained. “Everything’s going, and if you don’t get your sorry ass off my porch, you’ll be next.”

  Wyatt glanced at the large pots that flanked her front door. They held what looked like half-dead petunias, one of the few flowers he recognized by name because his mother loved them. “That seems hasty. They’re a hardy species. You might be able to revive them.”

  “Me?” she asked, jabbing her chest with a grubby forefinger. “They were fine when I brought them home, and I’ve watered them every single day without fail! They’re dying right and left.”

  “Maybe you’re overwatering them. You need to moisten the soil around them daily, but you don’t want to drown them. It’s a balancing act.”

  “If you know so much about them, you take them and work your magic. I’m done!”

  Wyatt had a really bad feeling that her attack on the flowers was somehow connected to what he’d said to her yesterday. Oh, how he wished he could go back and undo every word, but that was impossible. “Erin, I came to apologize for the things I said yesterday. I had no business ripping into you that way. Will you sit down for a moment and let me tell you how sorry I am?”

  “No, I will not!�
�� Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, making their depths resemble the blue of tropical lagoons that he’d seen in travel brochures. “And there’s no need for you to apologize, because everything you said was true.”

  Wyatt’s heart sank. He’d used words as weapons, and they had wounded her far more deeply than he’d ever intended. He had to think of some way he might get through to her. If he failed in that, she might carry the pain with her for a long time. Sudden inspiration struck him, but he hesitated. He’d be opening up a can of worms. Only he could think of no other way to make her listen to him.

  “No, Erin, I lied to you. Nothing I said was true, including the bit about me not being attracted to you. I do find you attractive. Too attractive for my own good, actually, because feeling this way is dangerous for a guy like me.”

  That got her attention. She stared down at him with a mixed expression of incredulity and bewilderment. Then, saying nothing, she bent over to retrieve the dropped flowerpot and chucked it into the garbage bag. From there, she advanced on the large containers that bracketed her door mat, upending them inside the plastic bag to dump out the soil and dying flowers.

  “I still don’t get why you’re getting rid of everything,” he said. “Petunia starts don’t come cheap.”

  She rounded on him, allowing him to once again see her face. “I tried to make my porch look pretty like Julie’s!” she cried. “She got petunias, so I got petunias. She got wind chimes, so I got wind chimes. But she has a knack for decorating that I lack. No big surprise! She’s good at everything: picking out clothes, doing hair. There’s very little she doesn’t know about makeup. In short, she’s ultra-feminine. Maybe you should hang out more at the Morning Grind!”

  Wyatt winced. “Erin, I said some really shitty stuff. I wish now that I’d handled the conversation differently. That’s why I came to talk with you—to hopefully set things straight. My pride got the better of me when you implied I was gay.” He held up a hand. “I have nothing against gay men or women. It’s just that I’m straight, and no straight guy likes having his sexual orientation questioned.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Well, I didn’t like it, anyway. Maybe I’m oversensitive because I’m deaf, but my first reaction was anger. I’m sorry about that. I struck back at you, and I shouldn’t have.”

  The stiffness left her shoulders, and she came to sit on the step. He didn’t miss the fact that she kept some distance between them. Looking directly at him, she said, “Okay. I get it. I just misread the situation, I guess. But you don’t have to lie and say you’re attracted to me in order to apologize. Let’s keep this honest, at least.”

  Wyatt realized that she was trying to protect Kennedy. “You didn’t misread my signals, Erin. Kennedy came down to the creek after you left. He was worried, because you appeared to be upset, and he confessed that he told you I was gay.”

  “Oh, poor Kennedy.” She squeezed her eyes closed. “I’m sure that went over like a lead balloon.”

  Wyatt allowed himself to relax slightly. “Actually, we had a pretty good talk once I got over my initial temper spike. And frankly, I can see why he thought that. As far as Kennedy knew, I’d never dated anyone. He just put two and two together and came up with five. I’m really not gay.” He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled to give himself another moment to think. “And I’m not lying about the fact that I find you very attractive. It’s just that I won’t allow myself to act on it. I swore off women six years ago.”

  She gave him a long, measuring study. “Why on earth did you do that?”

  Wyatt’s original purpose in coming to Erin’s cottage had been to apologize. He’d had no intention of baring his soul. Only how could he explain why he’d embraced a celibate lifestyle without telling her more? Thinking quickly, he decided that he could safely tell her at least a little of his story. “I had what you might call a difficult encounter with a woman. There was a lack of communication, and I had a brush with the law. It all got sorted out eventually, but when I came out on the other side of it, I promised myself that I’d never have anything to do with women again.”

  Wide-eyed, Erin listened without interrupting him.

  “For reasons I don’t feel I need to get into, that’s a promise to myself that I feel obligated to keep,” he went on. “No dating, no hooking up. That doesn’t mean I have no desire. Take you, for instance. I find you very attractive, and I believe you might be interested in me as well, if I gave you any encouragement. But I just can’t go there.”

  She let a long silence stretch between them before she said, “I think you’re just saying that to make me feel better. And I appreciate that. Really, I do. But one of the reasons you hurt my feelings so badly is because every word you said was true. I am competitive with men. I’m going to counseling, and I’ve been working on that, but it’s like trying to reprogram my brain. I know I’m not very feminine. My dad hated it when I got what he called ‘girly notions’ as I was growing up. He wanted me to think like a boy, act like a boy, and essentially be a boy. Changing all of that and developing different habits is a painfully slow process.”

  Studying her as she talked, Wyatt knew she spoke straight from the heart. She truly had no inkling just how feminine she actually was. How sad that she struggled so hard to change when she was beautiful and attractive just as she was. She wore overlarge jeans, a ratty, yellow T-shirt, not a trace of cosmetics, and had her long hair knotted in a turkey tail at the nape of her neck. But in his opinion, she was lovely without any embellishments. Her blue eyes dominated her oval face and were so expressive she could almost communicate her feelings to him without words. The bow of her mouth, slightly swollen from crying, was plump and perfectly shaped. She was slender yet well-rounded in all the right places. How could she look in a mirror and not see that? He guessed that nobody saw themselves the same way others did.

  “Is that why you tried to copy Julie?” he asked.

  “For me, she’s a great person to emulate. You’ve seen her window displays at the shop. Her house is even more delightful. I’d love for mine to look even half as nice.” She lifted her hands and shrugged. “I’m just no good at things like this.” She gestured at the wind chimes. “I don’t have an eye for what works and what doesn’t. I got too many, and they look junky. Plus they make so much noise that they keep me awake at night.”

  “It seems a shame to just throw them away.”

  “Yes, well, I doubt that they’re a hot yard sale item. Maybe so, though. I could try to sell them this summer, I guess.”

  Wyatt had done what he’d come there to do, only he still felt as if there was unfinished business between them. He guessed that stemmed from the fact that she clearly didn’t believe that he found her attractive, which meant she probably didn’t think any other man would, either. He wished he knew how to convince her otherwise. Of all the people he might have attacked verbally, he shouldn’t have done it to her.

  “May I ask you a question, Wyatt?”

  He met her gaze. “Sure. Fire away.”

  “I understand your reluctance to get involved with anyone again, but don’t you think it could behoove both of us to at least try to be friends? We’re going to bump into each other all the time. It would be more comfortable for everyone if we feel no need to avoid each other when I’m visiting the ranch.” Her cheeks went pink. “I promise not to hit on you. To be perfectly honest with you and also with myself, I probably need a good friend far more than I need a lover. Right now, I’m way too messed up to get involved romantically with anyone. But being friends is harmless.”

  Wyatt’s first reaction was to say no. How much worse would his attraction to her become if he agreed to be her friend? A horny man could be around a woman he wanted only so much before his self-control snapped. Only something he saw in Erin’s eyes tugged at his heart. She truly did need a friend. And whether he liked it or not, they’d both be a lot better off if running into each other at the r
anch was no big deal. So, instead of rejecting the idea, he asked, “Can friends share a casual meal out? It’ll be my treat if you can spare the time.”

  She planted a hand atop her head. “My hair is a complete mess!”

  Her eyes were also red and swollen from crying, but he wasn’t going to point that out when she already thought she looked awful. “Well, I’m not really dressed for dinner out, either. When I knocked off work for the day, all I did was shower and throw on clean clothes. But it’ll take you only a couple of minutes to freshen up, and the Cauldron has no dress code. Sissy and Ben keep the downstairs ambience pretty casual.”

  She closed a fist over the front of her shirt, frowned slightly, and then smiled. “You’re right, and I can change in a jiff.” She stood up, met his gaze, and asked, “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive,” he replied with more confidence than he actually felt. “Go get ready.”

  As she disappeared into the house, Wyatt wondered what he’d been thinking to ask her out on what she might construe to be a date. If she resumed flirting with him every time they bumped into each other, he’d be so screwed. He was already plagued with erotic dreams about her that awakened him from a sound sleep and kept him wound up for the rest of the night.

  Chapter Four

  Fifteen minutes later, Erin emerged from the house onto the porch. For an instant, Wyatt gaped at her in startled wonderment. She’d changed into a simple denim skirt and a pink knit top, which were dressy enough for where they planned to eat, but she wore black commando boots on her feet and had a brown leather bomber jacket draped over her arm. What the hell? But as unconventional as her choices in accessories were, she looked adorable in spite of herself, and the fact that she hadn’t aimed for a sexier look eased his mind.