Tall, Dark, and Lonesome

by Debra Dixon

  “No,” Niki whispered desperately, twisting away from his hold and circling the desk again. Everything she wanted was hers for the taking, but taking what Zach offered meant his giving up a dream. “You can’t give up everything. Life doesn’t work that way. You came back to Cutter’s Creek because you wanted to belong somewhere. You want to be a part of these people and Wyoming. I can’t ask you to give up a dream.”

  “That’s exactly what you are doing. I want you, Niki. I used to think my father was wrong for chasing women. Until I met you, I had no idea that his failure wasn’t the chasing but the letting go. He lets go too easily.” Zach started around the desk and fixed her with a hard stare. “I won’t, Niki. I’m going to go after what I want, and then I’m going to hold on hard.”

  “Think with your head, Zach, not your hormones. One day you’ll wake up and begin resenting me. Don’t throw your chance away.”

  “I’m not, but you sure as hell are. You’re my chance, Cookie. Politics was a nice idea … something to do because I didn’t think I’d ever find you. But I’ve found you now, and I’m not giving up.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re giving up family tradition, I heard Chase. Politics is unforgiving.”

  Zach’s laugh was spontaneous. “Cookie, he meant me. Not you. Good God, you could be the best thing that ever happened to a political career. The world loves a lover. I don’t mean a one-night stand. I mean the enduring kind of love. Do you have any idea what you do to a man?”

  Drawing in a ragged breath, Niki stopped running and pressed her fingers to her temples, cursing when a tear slid down her cheek. “You aren’t making this any easier.”

  Zach pulled her into his arms, forcing her chin up until her eyes met his. “And I never will. It’s not in the contract. The one that reads for better or for worse. In sickness and in health. Through thick and thin, and rain and sleet and ice and snow.”

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” Niki whispered.

  Zach kissed her on the temple and gently wiped away another tear. “I know exactly what I’m saying. I want to marry you, Niki. The press cares about bachelors, not intensely loyal, faithful husbands. If I can’t convince you, then I’ll move to New York.”

  His lips traced a path from her eyes to her mouth, tasting the salt of her tears. “You are the most important thing in the world to me. I can’t explain why you stole my heart when you looked up and said ‘Spit!’ But you did, and I’ve never been so glad to lose anything in my entire life. Marry me.”

  “You couldn’t just walk away from the ranch.”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  Niki tried one last time to convince him he couldn’t mean what he said. “What about Bess?”

  “Hell hath no fury like a grandmother whose advice has been scorned. She told me once that if I didn’t have enough guts to go after you, I deserved to lose you.”

  Tears blurred Niki’s vision again, but this time the tears were from joy. “You don’t have any idea what you’re getting yourself into.”

  Chuckling, Zach bent to capture her lips for a quick kiss. “I don’t care if you have fifteen cats that hate dogs, as long as you say yes. Marry me, Niki. Marry me so fast that my head will spin. I’m only going to ask a hundred more times.”

  Silence stretched between them as Niki realized that she’d never wanted anything as much as she wanted to marry Zach. Even the fear of facing the past was gone. If he wanted her at his side, then that’s where she’d be. “Yes.”

  Zach’s mouth stole the word from her lips. Gently his lips covered hers and pulled back to cover hers again and again until she rose to meet him, circling her hands behind his neck, letting him tell her with passion how much he loved her.

  When he scooped her up and began carrying her down the hall, Niki laid her head against his shoulder. Suddenly Zach stopped mid-stride and let her feet slide to the floor. Very carefully he turned her around and gripped her shoulders. “How do you feel about babies?”

  Nonplussed, Niki stared at him for a moment and said, “I love you, Zachary Phillip Weston, and I love children. I grew up in a big family. I always thought I’d have one myself.”

  Zach scooped her up into his arms and started for the stairs. “Thank God, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to make a trip to town for contraceptives.”

  Smiling, Niki nuzzled her head in the crook of Zach’s neck and hugged his impatience and his longing to herself for a second before she realized that impatience had nothing to do with his concerns about birth control. Her father owned the only drugstore in Cutter’s Creek, and he didn’t want to buy contraceptives from Jim Devlin! The smile turned into a chuckle, which turned into a laugh. Finally Zach’s reluctant rumble of laughter joined hers, and they collapsed on the stairs.

  Much later Niki remembered to cancel her reservation.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Debra Dixon has written eight romances for the Loveswept imprint. In 1995, she received the Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times Magazine. She has served as Vice-President for the Romance Writers of America (RWA) and in 2003 received the national Emma Merritt Service Award for her contributions to writers and RWA.

  ABOUT LOVESWEPT

  LOVESWEPT

  Love stories you’ll never forget by authors you’ll always remember.

  Loveswept brings you the very best of classic romance – from treasured favourites to exciting new talent, these are love stories you’ll never forget.

  Find out more about Loveswept at: www.lovesweptbooks.co.uk

  Indulge yourself even more with tasters from a selection of other wonderful Loveswept titles in the back of this eBook.

  Remember the Time by Annette Reynolds

  A shattered wife with secrets to hide and the man who has always loved her are united in this wrenchingly beautiful novel

  Dream Lover by Adrienne Staff

  The mystical allure of the desert – and a rugged, sexy tour guide – bring hope and happiness to a woman haunted by tragedy.

  The Vow by Julianna Garnett

  A fierce Norman warrior clashes with a proud Saxon beauty in this stunning medieval tale.

  This Fierce Splendor by Iris Johansen

  In a classic historical romance, a bookish beauty and her rogue guide go in search of a city lost to the sands of time.

  The Baron by Sally Goldenbaum

  She isn’t accustomed to attention. He isn’t used to being denied. When two worlds collide, true love can seem unimaginable.

  Lightning That Lingers by Sharon and Tom Curtis

  Sparks fly between a shy librarian and a sexy dancer.

  Legends by Deborah Smith

  A sexy CEO finds himself kidnapped by a brazen beauty determined to save her Scottish village.

  Read on for an excerpt from Annette Reynolds’s Remember the Time

  PROLOGUE

  The front porch of the Victorian house provides the only relief from the afternoon sun. The threat of a thunderstorm will only make the heat worse, and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia hunkers down to wait out the summer of 1977. Likewise, the three teenagers who sit sprawled on the porch in various states of heat prostration.

  “Can it get any hotter?” Kate asks, her voice taking on just the slightest hint of a whine.

  “Don’t say that.” Paul watches a fly take a desultory stroll across his forearm.

  “Bet it’s hotter than this in Arizona,” Mike comments.

  “But it’s a dry heat,” Paul and Kate say in unison. Paul looks down at Kate and they grin at each other.

  No one on that porch doubts Paul Armstrong will be in Phoenix next summer. He is the golden boy of Staunton High School’s baseball team. Making it to the majors isn’t a pipe dream for Paul. His self-confidence will make it happen.

  Kate groans as she raises her head from Paul’s lap.

  “Where’re you going, Ms. Moran?” Paul asks, his fingers closing around her wrist.

  “Get more tea.”

  “Ya got
ta kiss me first.”

  “It’s too hot,” she moans, but they all know she doesn’t mean it.

  Both boys watch Kate’s walk to the front door. Her cutoffs are short and her legs are long. Mike silently sings the praises of summer. The screen door slaps closed behind her and, for a few seconds, the relentless drone of the cicadas is silenced.

  Mike feels a rivulet of sweat trickle down the nape of his neck. He looks over at his best friend. “How’d you get so lucky?” he asks.

  Paul slouches lower in the porch swing, setting off a gentle rocking motion. “It’s that Armstrong charm.”

  Mike snorts and shifts in the wicker armchair.

  “Hey, we both had an equal shot at her.” Paul’s voice holds the hint of a shrug. “She picked me.”

  Mike remembers it differently, but says, “Yeah. I guess she’s not as smart as she looks.”

  “I heard that, Michael Fitzgerald,” Kate states, pushing open the screen door.

  “Heard what?” Mike asks innocently.

  Kate perches on the porch railing and rolls the cool glass across her forehead.

  “You know I love you both. Just different.”

  “Please don’t give me that ‘I love you like a brother’ routine. It wounds me,” Mike says in what he hopes passes for mock pain.

  The glass at her lips, Kate rolls her eyes at him then closes them and tilts her head back to take a long drink.

  Her thick auburn hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, but a few heat-damp strands cling to her neck. Mike wants to lift them, blow on her hot skin. He wants to put his mouth there and taste her. The thought brings on the beginning of an erection and he guiltily glances at Paul.

  When Mike sees those amused hazel eyes looking back at him he knows he’s been caught.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The initial assault on his body knocked the wind out of him. Gasping for air, he was swept along in the tumult of the newly born river in the Arizona desert. Rocks pummeled him. One particularly jagged stone hit his leg with such force that it slashed his jeans and cut open his thigh. He could feel the warm blood swirling around him, contrasting sharply with the cold water. A small manzanita tree swept past him, caught his left arm, and pulled it back. He could hear the snap as a bone broke. The pain made him scream, and then there was nothing but numbness.

  The thoughts that flashed through his mind were quicksilver and, in some ways, senseless. There goes the season. Followed by, Kate’s gonna be so pissed when she sees me. And then, I’m gonna have to buy Stu a new Jeep.

  A lethargy had come over him and the idea of sleep floated around his mind like a pleasant daydream. But there was something he needed to do. What was it? God, he couldn’t think anymore.

  Paul could hear something ever the thunderous crashing of the water around him It must’ve been Mitch. Mitch is gonna be late. I’ll have to explain it all to his wife … Opening his eyes, Paul caught sight of the Jeep and remembered the most important thing. The thing he’d forgotten.

  It took all the concentration he had left for him to reach out his right hand and grasp the side mirror. His legs—his whole body—were whipped backward by the oncoming water, and he screamed again when something hit his lacerated leg with the force of a twenty-pound hammer.

  There it was! He could see his wallet wedged between the dashboard and the windscreen. If he could just reach his wallet, open it up, look at that photograph—he’d be able to find the strength to get through this. The decision he’d made earlier was too important to be sidetracked by a few cuts and bruises, or a broken arm.

  He was only thirty-four years old. He was healthy and strong. Dying was not on his agenda. Not for a very long time. All his intensity—all the life he had left—went into pulling himself up to the open window.

  But he never heard Mitchell’s terrified shout. He never saw the boulder that crashed through the flimsy canvas roof of the Jeep, shattering the windshield, and his skull. He never got to hold the photograph hidden in the recesses of his wallet.

  The search for Paul Armstrong and Mitchell Browder began at one P.M., immediately after the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department received the call from Kate Armstrong. Kate made the call immediately after Browder’s wife phoned from the airport, complaining that her husband had failed to pick her up, and “I’m standing here with a cranky four-year-old and every damn toy she’s got and five suitcases.”

  The search ended at 2:48 P.M. because Paul Armstrong and Mitchell Browder were just where they said they’d be.

  The four-wheel-drive vehicle carrying a deputy and a member of the rescue squad sped along the dirt road. When they saw the unfamiliar sight of a river running through the desert, the deputy reverently whispered, “Flash flood,” and immediately put in a call for an emergency vehicle. The two men breathed a sigh of relief when they spotted a man sitting on a large boulder. Their relief would be short-lived.

  He fit the description of Mitchell Browder, and the deputy was about to cancel the call for emergency services when the stillness of the figure struck him. The two men got out of the car, not bothering to close the doors, and walked toward the lone man. He didn’t move. He didn’t acknowledge their presence. When the deputy called out his name, he didn’t hear. He simply sat, staring at a point somewhere in the distance. When the man from the rescue squad drew closer he could see the mud caked on the man’s clothing. When he stepped in front of him and repeated his name, Mitchell Browder slowly moved his head upward, revealing a face streaked with dirt and tears.

  “Mr. Browder, where is Paul Armstrong?”

  “He’s gone,” Mitchell answered in a hollow voice.

  “Gone where, Mr. Browder?” the deputy asked in a patient voice. “Which way did he go? My partner will go find him and I’ll stay with you.”

  Mitchell shifted his eyes away from whatever he had been staring at and turned them on the man who stood before him. They seemed to burn with pain and fear, and the deputy took a step backward.

  And then Mitchell Browder said the words that stunned first the men standing in front of him, and then the entire nation.

  “He’s not far away. I watched Paul Armstrong die right over there.”

  Mitchell lifted a hand that felt heavy with the weight of his words, pointing to the nearly unrecognizable Jeep that sat buried in the muddy rubble of the flash flood, and then silent tears coursed down his face once again.

  “He didn’t stand a chance,” stated the sheriff, thinking she was out of earshot.

  “It was over very quickly,” said a friend, who was also a doctor on call at the hospital, afterward.

  “He didn’t feel any pain,” the coroner had pronounced, taking her hand.

  Over and over again, the same meaningless phrases blew across her consciousness until she simply stopped hearing them. How the hell did they know? Although she had been spared the sight of his once beautiful now unrecognizable face, she had been forced to look at his battered body. A body that had been untouched by a surgeon’s knife, despite thirteen years in baseball. It seemed to her that he had hurt very much.

  Paul had tried to convince her to go with them that morning. But Kate was sick to death of everything to do with Arizona. She’d been married to Paul Armstrong, and consequently baseball, for thirteen years. It wasn’t fun anymore. The constant moving, the road trips, the hundreds of hours spent alone, the limelight that Paul lived in as the Giants’ phenomenal second baseman—all these things had worn her down: She’d almost not come to spring training this year. Almost. But at the last moment she’d changed her mind, knowing that separation from Paul would be even more devastating to their marriage. This was his last chance to make it better. Kate had done all she could. She didn’t think she could live without him, but knew something had to give. And that “something” wasn’t going to be her any longer.

  And as she sat, dry-eyed, on the couch in the living room of her parents’ Tempe home that night, surrounded by people who whispered and murmured and hovered
, that was the one thought that assaulted her mind.

  How am I supposed to go on without you?

  It wasn’t until the next day that she cried.

  Mitchell Browder stood in front of her while she sat on that same couch. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked at her forlornly—helplessly. He held a small plastic bag that he continually passed from one hand to the other. When he finally began speaking, his words came out in torrents of pain.

  “I’m sorry, Kate. I’m so sorry! I don’t know what else …” He stopped and swallowed hard. “God, he was my best friend on the team. They just let me out of the hospital, and I wanted to come by and tell you how sorry … I don’t know what else to say. It doesn’t seem like enough. If there’s anything I can do to help you … anything.”

  Kneeling in front of her, he held the bag out with both hands. When she didn’t take it from him, he gently placed it on her lap.

  “These are some of Paul’s things. They forgot to give them to you at the hospital. They were going to send over some stranger to give them to you, but I wouldn’t let them.”

  She tried to smile, but the effort it took was too great.

  “He saved my life, Kate.” Mitchell’s voice broke. “He saved me and then he died. I’ll never be able to repay him. I don’t know what to do …”

  And then this man, who had been through too many injuries to count, who was as tough as nails when it came to the vagaries of his career, began sobbing like a small child. His tears widened the crack in her heart, and she reached out for him.

  They held each other for long minutes, and then she sent him away.

  He was wiping his face with the back of his hand, standing in the archway that led to the hall, when he suddenly said, “The rose was for you. He wanted you to have it.” Kate’s grief-stricken eyes stared at him blankly, but he didn’t want to have to explain any more and he walked away.