“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 risktaker, 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 back seat 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.
Those 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 tobac
co.
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.”
“I think so,” B.J. said.
“I definitely think so,” Jonas said from the doorway. “How’re you doing, Keely?”
“Fabulous.” Her heart full, she walked over and gave Jonas a hug, too. He’d always been a little too handsome for his own good, with his thick brown hair and laughing hazel eyes. In the ten years since she’d last seen him he’d become even more attractive. He and B.J. were a stunning couple.
“Now that Jonas has shown up, I’m gonna go find us some beers,” her father announced as he started toward the kitchen.
“Need help?” B.J. asked.
Keely wished she had the nerve to offer, but the truce was too new and fragile to risk being alone again with her father.
“I’ll take care of it,” her father said. “You kids go on out to the porch and catch up on your news.”
“He sounds so happy,” Keely said as they trooped outside the way they used to when her dad had promised them a Popsicle.
“He is happy,” B.J. said. “All he’s been talking about for the past week is you coming home.”
“Oh, he’s added a few comments on the wedding,” Jonas said with a chuckle as he pulled B.J. down next to him on the swing. “Especially about how much we’re spending on it.” He glanced up at Keely and patted the swing. “Come on. There’s plenty of room, and I’ve never been opposed to having a babe on each side of me.”
“Thanks, anyway.” Keely leaned up against the porch railing. “I just want to stand here and get used to the sight of you two together.”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Jonas said with a grin. “Who’d have thought I’d end up with such a goddess?”
“Not me, that’s for sure,” said a deep male voice behind Keely.
She turned to see Noah coming up the walk. Immediately her heart began to pound. “Hi, there,” she said, trying to sound all breezy and big-city.
“Hi, yourself.” He gave her an easy smile. “I might have known you’d roll up in a red Mustang convertible. I’ll bet you had the top down and the RPMs up all the way through town.”
It sounded like a perfectly innocent comment, but when she glanced into his eyes, she knew there was sexual innuendo written all over it. And her body heated, right on schedule. So that was how he intended to play it.
Well, she knew how to play that game, too. She might even be better at it than he was. “Of course,” she said, smiling back at him. “And if you’re a good boy maybe I’ll give you a ride before I leave.”
Noah gulped and Keely mentally chalked up one for her side.
“Woo-hoo!” Jonas yelled. “Keely’s back!”
19
AT FOUR THE NEXT AFTERNOON Noah stood next to his brother at the altar of the Saguaro Junction Community Church. All eyes were supposed to be on the bride coming down the aisle on her father’s arm, but Noah’s attention kept straying to the woman sitting in the left front pew.
He wondered if she stood out in this crowd as much as he imagined, or if his agitated state of mind only made it seem that way. No, it wasn’t his imagination. She really did look like an orchid plopped in the middle of a field of daisies and sunflowers. Her color-of-sin hair was one reason. That deep, foxy red wasn’t common in these parts. Add in her traffic-stopping figure wrapped in a leaf-green halter dress and gold hoop earrings that nearly touched the golden skin of her shoulders, and you had a spectacular sight.
If he’d expected her to melt into the landscape so he could kid himself that she belonged here, he could forget that fantasy right now. The minute he’d seen that cherry-red car, he’d realized his mistake. That red car had flashed like a stoplight, warning him to back off.
Of course, he hadn’t been able to do that, obsessed as he was with her. So instead he’d needled her every chance he could get, and she’d fired right back at him with that smart mouth of hers. He was pretty well disgusted with himself.
His tactics for getting her attention weren’t much more sophisticated than they had been at sixteen when he’d put a frog down her blouse.
Still, he couldn’t seem to stop his sophomoric attempts to get her riled, and none of them seemed to be working worth a damn. So here they were at his brother’s wedding, Keely sitting in that wooden pew looking totally together and ravishing, and him turning into a heat-seeking missile counting down to launch. His need to make love to her was making him irrational about their relationship, or lack of one, and he vaguely realized that just enough to know that a hot babe like Keely was not interested in settling down on the ranch to play erotic games with him for the rest of her life. So now with that dream in the toilet, all he could think was that she’d leave tomorrow and return to her big-city job, and he would never, ever touch her naked body again.
Oh, sure, she’d come back once in a while for a visit, but by then the gulf between them would be like the Grand Canyon. His last opportunity was tonight, when they only had to cross a little irrigation ditch.
He thought he could talk her into an encore performance if he could get her alone. She’d been avoiding being alone with him, but avoidance had been easy with all the wedding stuff going on. The wedding would be over soon. Maybe sometime during the reception he’d get his chance. They had already set a precedent for wedding-reception hanky-panky. She might still be tuned to that channel.
If he got lucky—and for the first time in his life that phrase really meant something to him—then he only had to remember one thing: He must not, under any circumstances, no matter how fantastic the experience, let it slip that he loved her.
KEELY HAD FORGOTTEN how hot an Arizona summer could be, even at nine o’clock at night. Noah, Jonas and Arch had installed a misting system under the canopy they’d erected for the reception, but it didn’t affect the temperature much. Still, having the reception at the ranch in an outdoor setting had allowed more people to come, and the whole town had turned out. Apparently everyone was perfectly willing to sweat in order to be here.
To be fair, part of her discomfort was her own fault. She would have stayed mucho cooler if she hadn’t insisted on dancing every blessed number the band played. But that wouldn’t have been her style.
Besides, she needed to stay busy in order to forget that look she’d seen today on Noah’s face. He’d spent a fair amount of time glancing her way during the ceremony, and his speculative, worried frown told her more clearly than any words could have that he’d figured out she really didn’t belong here.
The rebel in her had decided to underline that opinion and put about five exclamation points after it
. The woman in her was trying to hold her heart together. Just about the time Noah had formed his opinion that she had no business staying in Saguaro Junction, she’d begun to think maybe she wanted to, after all. Murphy’s Law.
She’d enjoyed being home more than she ever would have imagined and had begun to think of what it would be like to live here again. Yes, she would stand out, but while that had seemed terrible at nineteen, it sounded like fun at twenty-nine. She seemed to have outgrown the need to blend in.
Nor would she have to give up her career. She could use the move to reposition herself at a different type of magazine, maybe one that ran exotic-travel features. Two publications she was thinking of were based in New York, but now that she had a decent résumé, she wouldn’t necessarily have to spend much time at the office. In fact, she could live anywhere there was internet access. Twin Boulders had internet access.
But she’d figured out from Noah’s expression during the wedding that he didn’t share any part of her reworked vision for the future. And so at the reception she’d flirted and laughed and completely ignored the only man she cared to build a future with. Outrageous behavior had always been her protection and it would serve her well again.
Inevitably the band took a break. Thanking her latest conquest, she slipped away from him and headed over toward her sister. In her effort to forget Noah, she didn’t want to miss spending time with B.J. On the way over, she grabbed a glass of champagne and a paper napkin from a table. She wiped the napkin over the cool moisture on the flute and dabbed it against her throat.
B.J. motioned her to a couple of folding chairs. “Whew,” she said, sinking down to the chair and arranging the full skirt of her wedding dress. “Maybe we should have waited until November for this shindig.”
“Jonas wouldn’t have stood for it,” Keely said with a grin. “That man wants you bad.”
“Yeah, he does.” B.J.’s gaze wandered over to where Jonas stood talking with Noah. “But I had to get around his preconceptions before he realized he was crazy about me.”
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