After dinner, Rafe regaled the rapt boys with a tale or two about his bull-riding days with Jake and Jordan’s father. Laurie listened quietly, smiling at the bittersweet memories and watching her sons listen to stories about their father. Carly’s heart ached for them all, but she found that Laurie wasn’t one to dwell on the sadness. She had a story of her own to tell about her late husband and a miniature donkey with a passion for denim that had everyone laughing, including Carly. Gus embellished it by adding a part none of them had ever heard, until they were all holding their aching sides at the hilarious picture he conjured up.
Finally, Laurie gave Gus a peck on his stubbled cheek and started to clear the table. The boys, miraculously, pitched in.
Evan fit in so well in the whole picture, it seemed as if he’d always belonged. Carly could almost imagine them a family, her and Rafe and Evan. Almost. But it was a dream that had no chance of coming true. They would never be a family, and Evan would only have a father if Rafe accepted him—and then only part-time.
She knew time was growing short. And the longer she put off the telling, the worse it would all be. She had to tell Rafe. Soon.
“Can we feed Tampico, Rafe?” Jordan asked, clearing dishes off the table for his mom.
“And we haven’t seen Annie yet,” Jake said. “When is she gonna have her foal?”
“Any minute,” Rafe said, getting to his feet. “All right. Who wants grain and who wants hay?”
“Me!” all three boys said in unison.
Rafe grinned. “We’ll sort it out.” As the boys stampeded for the barn, followed by Gus, Rafe reached for his hat and turned back to Carly.
As his gaze met hers, she glimpsed the same smoldering heat that she’d seen there before. And something else. Resolution. About what, she had no way of knowing, because before he could say anything, the phone rang.
Laurie was closest and picked it up. She held it out for Rafe. “It’s for you. Rance Taylor.”
Rafe’s expression went blank, and he took the receiver.
“Yeah? This is Kellard.” He switched the phone to his other ear, glanced at Carly and Laurie, then turned his back on them. She and Laurie exchanged looks.
“Uh-huh,” he murmured. A long pause. “I understand. No, it’s business. Right. No. Thanks. Don’t bother.” His voice went flat as he said goodbye and hung up the phone. A full five seconds passed before he turned around, slid his hat on and headed for the door.
Laurie broke the oppressive silence. “Everything okay?”
“Great,” he replied, trying for sincerity. “I’m gonna go and, uh, see about Tampico, or he’ll be getting triple rations of grain, if I know those boys.” He stopped and turned back to Carly. “Thanks for dinner, Carly. It was great.”
After he left, Carly stared at the door and sighed.
“He’s great, the dinner was great, everything is... great. So...why do I get the feeling it’s not?” She glanced up at Laurie. “Who’s Rance Taylor?”
A frown furled Laurie’s brow. “A banker in town.”
“A banker?” The wheels began spinning in her brain. “Does Rafe need money?”
“I don’t know.”
Carly glanced at the door. “I’ve seen him sitting up late with his books several times late at night. He’s been preoccupied, worried about something, but he hasn’t talked to me about it. Whatever that phone call was, it didn’t sound good. Do you think he’s in trouble, Laurie?”
“He’s a very private man, Carly, especially about his problems. He doesn’t talk about his problems with me. Have you tried asking him?”
She shook her head. “Even if I did, he probably wouldn’t tell me.” She stood and walked to the window, staring out at the dim light over the barn. “To say things didn’t work out between us is only half the story, Laurie. I left him. I walked out. He went off to a rodeo one day, and when he got back, I wasn’t there. Did he tell you that?”
“Not exactly, but I gathered as much,” Laurie said. “You must have had your reasons.”
Carly turned to stare at Laurie.
“Surprised I’d say that?” Laurie asked.
“Yes,” Carly answered.
“I’ve been married, remember? And I know Rafe,” she explained. “And yes, I love him—as a friend. A good friend. But that doesn’t make me blind to the little things he does to keep people at arm’s length. The dance takes two. If it had been all your fault, I suspect you wouldn’t be here now.”
“Why am I here?” she wanted to know.
“You don’t know?” Laurie said, pouring more coffee into her cup.
“I know he didn’t have to bring us here. He could have hung up the phone that night and pretended not to know me.”
“You and I both know he wouldn’t have.” Laurie got up and came to stand beside Carly at the window.
“Then it was simply obligation?”
“Right,” Laurie said wryly. “That was obligation you saw in his eyes every time he looked at you tonight.”
Hope cropped up from the dark edges of Carly’s mind. Irrational hope. And it struck her that she’d always harbored it somewhere deep inside—the hope that maybe he didn’t hate her completely. Maybe in some little corner, he still felt something for her, too. There was, of course, another possibility—Evan. Could he suspect her son was his? Was that what really had brought him to her? If it was, she hadn’t seen so much as a flicker of that in his eyes since that first day. Carly swallowed hard. All the worse, she knew, when she did tell him the truth.
Together, she and Laurie looked out at the yard, where, beneath the halo of light from the barn, they could see Rafe leaning against the barn door, staring out at the darkness. Behind him, the three boys darted in and out of the light like moths drawn to a candle’s flame.
“When I pictured him over the years,” Carly said softly, “it was like that. Alone.”
“And stubborn as a mule?” Laurie observed.
A smile lifted her mouth. “That, too. One minute you think there’s a chink in those walls he’s built around himself, and the next he’s slathering more mortar up there.”
“Those walls aren’t as impenetrable as he’d have you think,” Laurie said gently, tucking a long, dark strand of hair behind her ear. “Talk to him, Carly. He needs you. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
Chapter 7
The truck rumbled over a cattle gate with a bone-jarring rattle. Rafe glanced in the rearview mirror at Evan, who sat in the jump seat beside Mack, transforming the grinding of the grates into sound effects of his own imaginary world of starfighters and automatic weapons.
If anyone was to see them driving along, they might be mistaken for a family, he mused with a grin. Mom, Dad, the kid and the dog. For a moment, he allowed himself to slip into that picture, as if it were one of those carnival attractions where you stick your face in a cutout hole and assume someone else’s life for a photo. Like a Hollywood set, it was all front and no back.
He glanced at Carly as she took in the snow-dusted mountains and the sprawling valley that comprised his ranch. Everywhere she looked, spring was taking hold. Green sprouted through the crust of winter brown like a foal’s spring coat, and here and there splashes of early wildflowers dappled the palette with reds and yellows. Punctuating the landscape like so many black dots, his cattle wandered lazily under the warm May sun, a few curious enough to look up from grazing to stare as they drove by.
Carly sighed, shaking her head. “If I said it was beautiful, that would somehow seem...inadequate. It’s...spectacular. It takes my breath away.”
Rafe smiled, feeling like the kid who’s just won a licorice stick from the teacher. “I thought you’d like it.”
“Oh, I don’t just like it,” she said, leaning out the window, her elbows on the sill and her silvery hair catching the wind. She lifted her face to the sun, closed her eyes and let it pour over her. “It smells so good. I still haven’t gotten used to it. After living in L.A. it smells like heaven.”
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“After living in L.A.,” Rafe said dryly, “any place would smell like heaven.”
“Hey, no bashing my ex-hometown,” she said, pulling her head back inside with mock outrage. “Yes, there are third-stage smog alerts, runaway crime and total gridlock on the freeway at any given hour, but—” she shrugged “—the weather’s good. And earthquakes only happen on a bothersome scale every twenty years or so.”
“Oh, there’s a plus,” he said with a grin. “So what’s Ohio got that L.A. doesn’t?”
“A scaled-down version of all of the above, I’m sure.” she admitted with a smile. “And hey, they say you don’t really need three hundred and twenty-six days of sunshine to ward off psychosis. And then, of course, there’s the added attraction of a law partnership.”
“A partnership?” This was news.
“Junior partnership, actually, but a step in the right direction. To wit—away from the public defender’s office.”
Rafe kept his eyes on the road. “I thought you liked your work.”
“I like the law,” she said. “I just didn’t like rubbing shoulders with the lowest common denominator of society on a daily basis anymore. Or watching them walk because I was doing my job well.”
“So what’s waiting in Cincinnati?”
He watched her search out some imaginary thread on her jeans and pay it particular attention. “Room to grow, for me and for Evan. I’ll be able to pick and choose my cases. Maynard, Barnes and Griffith built their reputation on sticky-wicket cases no one else would touch. They’ve won some huge cases, which allow them to do pro bono work for clients other firms would reject out of hand as being unprofitable.”
“That’s where you come in?”
She smiled. “That’s been my specialty for years. But this time, I set my hours, and choose my cases.”
“And Evan? What does he get out of it?”
“Me,” she said, glancing back at her son. “Oh, and definitely a dog.”
Rafe glanced in the rearview mirror again. Evan was tussling with an exuberant Mack in the back seat. They were wild about each other, after only a few days. Mack would miss Evan when the boy left. So, Rafe realized with startling clarity, would he.
A sinking feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. Leaving was a topic they’d managed to avoid these past few days. Not that he wanted them to stay, he told himself quickly. Both he and Carly understood that this whole thing was temporary. Carly had her life and he had his. That was the way he wanted it, and the way it had to be.
“What’s that?” Evan shouted, pointing to a strange-looking rock formation poised in the middle of a pasture.
“That’s Bread Loaf Rock,” Rafe said, glad for the distraction. Indeed, the massive boulder looked just like a loaf of bread, with a slice off the end lying beside it.
“It’s kind of a landmark. A hundred and fifty years ago, the Ute Indians made their winter camp here every year.”
“There’s Indians here?” Evan asked, wide-eyed.
Rafe nodded. “Not like the old days anymore. But yeah, they still live around here. They thought the rock was good medicine.”
“Medicine?” Evan repeated.
“Luck. Fortune,” Rafe explained.
“Like the dime?” Evan whispered in his ear.
“Sort of, yeah,” Rafe whispered back.
“Okay,” Carly said, pulling her head in the window. “No secrets in the peanut gallery.”
Evan winked at Rafe, who winked right back. “Did you buy your ranch from the Indians, Rafe?”
Rafe shook his head. “The Indians believed that no man could own a piece of land. He could only use it for a while. It was all part of the Great Spirit.”
“So you’re just borrowin’ it?” Evan asked, leaning his elbows on the seat behind Rafe’s shoulders.
The truth to that was closer than either Evan or Carly knew. “You might say that.”
Carly was staring at him, and when he turned to look at her, she made no attempt to hide it. A smile played on her lips, and some unasked question had deepened her blue eyes to a smoky gray.
He momentarily forgot the road, and had to swerve back on it when he felt the wheels leave the gravel.
Mack barked and Evan laughed with eight-year-old glee at the unexpected thrill. “Do that again!”
But his mother had braced one cautious hand against the dashboard, and Rafe took that as a no.
“Hey, there’s a creek just up the road here. Feel like stretching your legs a bit?”
“Yeah!” Evan shouted, ruffling Mack’s ears.
Carly eyed her cast with a glint of humor. “I don’t know about stretching, but I’ll do my best to hobble.”
They stopped near the headwaters of a spring-fed creek that could have graced any postcard. Rushing clear water tumbled over sparkly granite rocks that tangled in the roots of three towering ponderosa pines, forming pools and waterfalls as it went. Evan’s eyes went round at the possibilities, and he and Mack were off and running before Rafe’s feet hit the ground.
“Hey, don’t get too close to the water!” Carly shouted after him.
“Don’t worry, I’m only gonna look for rocks. C’mon, Macky!”
“It’s not moving fast enough to hurt him,” Rafe said, and Carly relaxed a fraction, stretching the stiffness from her back and legs.
“I forget that exploring creeks and climbing trees are the things little boys are supposed to do,” she said, watching her son tackle his first boulder with zest. “Back home, in the city, you watch them like a hawk, every move, every step. You’re always afraid of a car, or a crowd, or a stranger.”
Shoulder to shoulder, they watched Evan pick up a rock, examine it under the brilliant sun, then stuff it in his pocket. “Here, he’s just a boy, exploring the edges of his world. He loves this place, Rafe.”
The breeze carried Carly’s scent to him. Distracted by it, he nodded. “It’s what I’ve always dreamed of.”
Carly pulled her gaze from her son, surprised. “Always? Even back when we were together? Did you dream of it then?”
“Since I was a kid.”
“You never told me.”
“Didn’t I?” he asked, knowing he hadn’t. He shrugged. “I was just a cowboy then, riding for pocket change. I never quite believed it myself. I only dreamed of it.”
“And I was just a student, dreaming of becoming an attorney.”
Touché. “And here we are.”
A companionable silence stretched between them, and then she chuckled. “Do you remember the day we met?”
He rubbed his jaw, feigning deep thought. “Hmmmm.”
She laughed and slugged him in the arm.
“Ow!” he said, suppressing a grin.
“Rat. Of course you remember.”
“Okay,” he said, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Maybe I do have some dim recollection.”
“I was broken down, with steam billowing out of the propped-up hood of my Nissan on the side of the road—a road not too unlike this one. And you, knight in shining armor that you were, stopped to help a damsel in distress.”
A smile softened one corner of his mouth. “You were all in a flutter about being late for a class at the college, as I recall.”
“I never did make it to that class, or any others that day, come to think of it. We ended up spending the whole day together. Talking, drinking coffee and eating bear claws while we waited for the shop to find a water pump for my car.”
His mind sifted through the memory. He remembered hoping the shop would never find that part. That they could stretch out that afternoon forever.
He said, “I remember you looked like you’d just stepped out of some preppie catalogue, and there I was in my crummiest worn-out jeans and a pair of knocked out boots that had walked through half a dozen cow pies that day.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“I know,” he said, letting his gaze drift over her features. She’d always been as oblivious to his shortco
mings as he was aware of them.
“I do remember that I liked the way those old jeans fit you, though.” Looking up at him through a sweep of lashes, she grinned. “You kissed me that day. Remember that?”
And the next day, and the next and the next. His gaze landed heatedly on her mouth, his body tightening with the memory. “Mmm. I was young. Impulsive. Guess I haven’t changed much.”
“Impulsive can be good.”
He wondered if she was talking about nine years ago, or the other night in the kitchen. Or now. Breaking the golden top off a stern of long grass, he toyed with it between his fingers. His heart thudded against the wall of his chest. “We had our moments, didn’t we?”
“Mmmm-mm. Great moments. I wish—” She stopped short of blurting out whatever she’d been about to say.
“What?” he wanted to know.
She shook her head on a deep sigh. “I was going to say, I wish things could have been different. But I guess things worked out the way they were supposed to. I mean, look at you. Look at this. You have this ranch—”
“And you got married and had Evan,” he added.
Carly’s lips parted, and she looked down quickly at the ground. “Yes.”
He should have been mine, came the thought unbidden, but Rafe quickly quashed it. It did no good to think about things that couldn’t be. “I guess we both got what we wanted. He’s a great kid, Carly.”
Her eyes darted to him with inexplicable urgency. “Oh, he is, Rafe. He’s a great kid. The best.”
He wondered briefly about the hard sell, knowing it was unnecessary. “Tom must have been proud of him.”
A frown formed between her eyebrows. She found something on the ground to look at again and nodded wordlessly. The dried grass rattled in the wind with a sibilant sound.
Dammit! he thought. He’d made her cry.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said, touching her arm. “I didn’t mean to upset you by talking about Tom.”
That one small touch was a mistake. Both of them knew it. She pulled her arm away with a quick denial. “You didn’t. Really,” she said, flicking a knuckle across her cheek.
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