by Beverly Bird
“It was Brie,” Kiki said.
“Is that as expensive as oysters?” he wondered.
Kiki turned from the counter. “Will someone please tell me why oysters keep coming up in this conversation?”
“No reason,” Hunter and Liv said together.
Their eyes caught. And held. Then he lifted one finger to his forehead in a tiny salute. She felt one corner of her mouth catch up in a private smile.
She couldn’t believe she had just sided with him on something. Liv felt her bones melt. She felt her heart stop. And then, finally, she knew what she had really been fighting so hard against all along, why she had so desperately needed him to leave before his ninety days were up.
She still loved him. And now that he was back in her life, she wasn’t sure she could let him go a second time.
Chapter 10
V icky polished off a third helping of Kiki’s sweet potato casserole and sat back in her chair with a belch so loud it almost echoed. She giggled and Liv found herself falling helplessly into Hunter’s answering grin.
“That was just a kid burp,” he said. “Pint-size.”
Vicky took the bait. “I can do better!”
Liv found her voice again. “Not at my Thanksgiving table, you can’t.”
“Killjoy,” Hunter muttered.
No, Liv thought bemusedly, dinner definitely wasn’t tense.
“I can do the alphabet!” Vicky announced.
Hunter waved a dismissive hand at her, egging her on. “Big deal. They teach that in kindergarten.”
“No, I mean I can burp it. I can burp the whole alphabet!”
“Dinner’s over,” Liv announced, standing up quickly and gathering plates to divert Vicky’s attention. It worked.
“What about the pie?” she demanded.
“Well, there you go,” Kiki murmured. “You need to let out a few more good ones just to make room for it.”
And out came a-b-c. Liv fled to the kitchen before she could laugh and condone the antics.
She was stacking the dishwasher, working off some room for pie of her own, when Hunter followed her. He leaned one shoulder against the refrigerator and crossed his arms over his chest. Liv didn’t quite look at him, but her pulse picked up as his silence drew out.
“She’s talented,” he said finally.
“In so very many ways,” she agreed dryly.
“You’ve done a good job with her, Livie.”
She fumbled with a dish. “But?”
“No buts.”
“You’re not going to qualify that with criticism?”
“I might not like the fact that you shut me out of her life, but you’ve done well enough by her on your own.”
Liv dried her hands quickly. Her heart was moving too fast. “Is this a cease-fire?”
One corner of his mouth tucked up into half a grin. “You’ve asked three questions in a row now. Want to give me a statement on what you’re thinking instead?”
“I need air,” she decided, and headed for the back door.
As soon as she was outside, Liv knew it was a mistake. The night was clear and cold and the sky was littered with more stars than she could remember seeing in a very long time, maybe since their days on the Res. The moon was a thin crescent. It was beautiful, and she didn’t dare share a beautiful night with him.
Not now. She felt so vulnerable tonight.
She’d taken a step off the porch when she heard him come out of the inn behind her. She headed to the barn to check the horses. She decided she felt safer with him amid straw and hay than she did beneath stars—though they’d had their moments with both.
“Where did Bourne go today?” His voice came closer behind her than she expected, but then, he had that long stride.
“He’s got family in Cottonwood. A sister, I think.”
“He doesn’t like me.”
Liv glanced back at him as she stopped at the grain bin to scoop out a handful of sweet feed for her mare. “He’s just keeping one eye on you to make sure you don’t hurt Vicky.”
Hunter’s black brows climbed. “He knows the story, then?”
“I told him.” She went to Daisy’s stall and held her palm out. The horse nuzzled up the oats.
She glanced back at him. He’d be angry, she thought. But he only nodded.
“That was the first time I’ve ever sat down with family at Thanksgiving dinner,” he said finally, changing the subject.
She knew his family hadn’t celebrated the holiday, either. But along with Kiki, they shared enough memories to start a Navajo clan of their own.
“What do you usually do?” she heard herself ask.
“Sleep.”
“You sleep through Thanksgiving?”
“The NASCAR season ends the Sunday before,” he reminded her. “I usually crawl straight home for some R & R for a week or two.”
She didn’t have to ask what he did after that. He’d go back to roaming. He was like a shark that way, she thought. He couldn’t stay still for long or he would die.
“You’re not restless yet,” she said suddenly. “You’ve been stuck here for seven weeks now and you’re not prowling.”
“Prowling?”
She felt herself flush. “That’s what I always used to call it.”
He waited.
“After you’d been home for a while,” she explained. “Sometimes it would start after only a couple of days. You used to go into this zone where you couldn’t seem to stop moving.”
He grinned slowly. “I think that had more to do with you than with me, Liv. I couldn’t keep my hands off you once you seduced me that first time.”
Liv choked. “I did not seduce you!”
“All right. You challenged me. You backed me into a corner. You stood right there in the middle of the desert and got naked.”
This time she felt her face flame. It struck her hard that she still remembered every moment of that day. “I took my shirt off. I was hardly naked. At least not until you ripped everything else off me.”
Suddenly his face changed. Something in his eyes flared and his voice lowered a notch. “I think this is dangerous ground, Livie.”
It was. She could feel things inside her start trembling. She turned away from him quickly so he wouldn’t read it in her eyes.
“Tell me why it ended for us.” His voice was still husky.
Yes, she thought, yes, this was dangerous ground.
“I need to know,” he said. “I need the truth this time. You can give me that much, can’t you?”
Liv closed her eyes at the vulnerability in his tone. He wasn’t a vulnerable man. He was as fierce and strong and wild as the desert itself. If he needed an answer that much, she had to give it to him.
It didn’t really matter anymore, after all.
Liv turned around slowly. “It was because of the baby.”
His eyes glinted. “You’re still going to insist that you were protecting her from me?”
She hugged herself. “Maybe I was protecting myself from you, too. I tried to tell you!” she burst out.
His face hardened. “No, you didn’t.”
“I did. The first night you came to the bar, right after I got the promotion to the place.”
“The frou-frou night?” He scowled.
She nodded jerkily. “You were on your way to Pritch Spike’s place in Anaheim and you surprised me, came through Flag. I started to tell you that night, then you laid it on me that you were going to California.”
He looked confused. “I was always going somewhere.”
“Exactly.” She felt her throat close hard.
“I asked you to go with me.” Hunter shook his head in disbelief. “Then I stopped by on my way back east again and you were getting married!”
“I wrote to you. I told you not to come back. I had to let you go because you wouldn’t stay!”
“I would have if you had told me you were pregnant!”
Liv winced. Their voices were rising
steadily. She softened hers deliberately. “I didn’t want you to stay with me because of the baby. I wanted you to stay with me because you loved me.”
Something like pain slashed across his features. “I thought you were happy with the way things were. You had your dream, I had mine. We were both busy pursuing them.”
“Happy?” A thin, pitched laugh escaped her. “I was in love with a man who was never there! You couldn’t stay put! You didn’t have it in you! You still don’t!”
“You don’t know me anymore, Liv.”
She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “You’re exactly the same. You’ll go again when this is over.”
“Not to roam. To go back to work.”
“Your work is just one more way of roaming! You’re in a different city every weekend!” And it hurt as much now as it had then, she realized wildly. Why, oh, why had she let him get to her again?
She stepped around him and hurried to leave the barn.
“When did Guenther get involved?” he asked.
There was nothing vulnerable in his voice now, Liv thought. It was slashing, cutting. She stopped in the barn door but she didn’t look back at him this time. “The next day. The day you left me to go to Anaheim. When you walked out of my life that time, Hunter, it was the straw that broke me. You were running off on some crazy new adventure—as insane as the others, I thought—and I was pregnant. You walked out of my apartment that morning, and things died inside me. The night before, when I tried to tell you, all you could do was talk about racing. I knew then that I was beaten.”
“So you picked up with some other guy within hours?”
Liv finally turned. “I never ‘picked up’ with him at all! I tried to go to work that night but I couldn’t hold it together. Johnny was the bar manager. He tried to send me home. I couldn’t take the time off because I knew I’d need the money for the baby. He asked me what was wrong and I just lost it. I turned into a slobbering, sobbing idiot.” She wondered if it was regret she saw flash in his eyes. She didn’t dare believe it. “I told him about the baby. Six months later he married me. He said he loved me. He wanted to give my child a real home.” Liv closed her eyes. “I needed that, Hunter,” she whispered. “I desperately needed to give Vicky everything I had lost myself.”
It broke his heart because her words had the ring of truth to them. Worse, he understood. “Guenther gave you the mom-dad-kiddie scenario in suburbia. What you had before your family died.”
“Yes.” Her chin came up. “He’s a good man.”
She heard Hunter growl in response. “How long were you married?”
The time for lies was so far past, she thought helplessly. “Three months. Give or take.” She looked at him again. “Until right after Vicky was born. I left then because…I couldn’t love him.”
His eyes went fierce. “Love him how?”
Liv only shook her head. She turned again and fled out the door, and this time she didn’t let his voice stop her. If she told him that she’d never slept with Johnny, he would know she’d never stopped loving him.
This wasn’t a cease-fire, she thought crazily, jogging for the porch. It was just a different kind of war.
In the morning, Liv, Vicky and Kiki hashed out their traditional argument about the Phoenix trip.
“I’ll be back by nightfall,” Liv said, guzzling strong coffee. She hadn’t slept well last night. Twice she’d thought she’d heard Hunter’s footsteps outside her door.
“No need,” Kiki replied. “I can spend the night here.”
“Where? Hunter has your room.”
“Change your sheets first and I’ll be fine in your bed. But I don’t want your cooties.”
Vicky giggled. “You two always do this. Every year.”
It was true. The Friday after every Thanksgiving, Liv and Vicky made a pilgrimage to the city to get a start on Christmas shopping. Kiki stayed behind to watch over the inn, then she took off the following day and Liv ran the show. Kiki always spent weeks cooking in advance for the guests for that day—safe, simple items that even Liv could warm up in the oven. They never had a full house that weekend, anyway, after their Thanksgiving break.
“What’s going on?” Hunter asked, walking into the kitchen. Then he breathed in deeply and frowned. “What’s that I smell?”
“Hangtown fry,” Kiki said absently. “There’s plenty in the dining room. Help yourself.”
He glanced at Liv. “If I begged, could I have a bowl of your cornflakes instead?”
Her eyes narrowed. “If you know that I keep a stash of cornflakes, that explains why the box empties so fast.”
“Are you accusing me of theft?” He actually managed to look offended.
“Pilfering. And only on the days that Kiki serves seafood.”
“You don’t like seafood?” Vicky asked. “But—”
“Maybe I’ll run into town to the diner,” Hunter said quickly.
“Hey! I know! You could come to Phoenix with us!” Vicky cried. “We always stop for brunch halfway there!”
Liv felt her heart dive. “I’m sure he has better things to do.”
“You’re going to Phoenix?” His voice was careful, Liv thought. “For how long?”
“We’ll be back—”
“In the morning,” Kiki said.
“Tonight,” Liv finished.
“Which is it?” Hunter asked, looking between the two of them.
“Probably tonight.” Vicky sighed and sat at the table, her chin in her hand. “Mom usually wins this one.”
He relaxed a little. Only then did Liv realize how much he’d stiffened. He’s afraid I’ll take Vicky away for one precious night of his ninety-day stay, she thought. She’d felt that way about his visits once, too, wringing everything out of every moment with him before he’d go again.
“I want to get a start on Christmas shopping,” she said faintly. “It’s only a two-hour drive on the Interstate. We’re always back by bedtime.”
Kiki threw up her hands. “Okay, I give up.”
“I don’t like leaving you here alone overnight,” Liv protested.
“Why not? You’re usually on your own overnight. Besides, Hunter’s here.”
“Not if I decide to take Vicky up on her offer,” he said.
Liv’s eyes flew to his. She knew hers were wide, maybe even stricken. “You want to come along?”
Vicky jumped to her feet again. “Oh, please! Please! We can all shop together.”
She couldn’t spend the entire day with him. Things inside Liv staggered at the prospect.
Sometime during the course of the night, she’d decided that the only way she’d get through these last weeks with him was to avoid him as much as possible. There could be no more honest, heartbreaking talks in the barn. She couldn’t watch him laughing with Vicky. If she stayed away from him, maybe she could still come out of this with her heart whole.
“Or you and I can shop together,” Hunter said to Vicky, “and let your mom go off on her own to buy up every present for you in Phoenix.”
Vicky liked that idea. “Yeah!”
“What do you say?” Hunter pinned Liv’s gaze with his own.
Liv tried to nod. Her neck felt stiff. She knew one thing—if she was the one to break up this little party, Vicky would never forgive her.
“Sounds fine to me,” she said weakly.
“Now you know we’ll be home tonight,” he said to Kiki, but his eyes never left Liv.
She caught his implication. Their days of spending the night together were long behind them. She opened her mouth and closed it again, not knowing if she wanted to thank him or cry.
“I’ll go change,” she said.
He stopped her at the kitchen door. “Wait. What about the cornflakes? I’ll never make it halfway to Phoenix to eat.”
“Top cabinet beside the fridge.” Liv fled the kitchen.
Twenty minutes later she cursed herself for being an utter fool. She’d changed her clothes four times alread
y, and now she found herself peeling out of a pair of purple Capri slacks and throwing them aside, too. She liked to dress a little jauntily for the city. She got there so rarely. But would Hunter think she was doing it for him?
Who cared?
She did.
She changed into her denim jumper, then took that off, too, because it reminded her of their argument the day he’d bought Vicky the bridle. She turned the television on to check the weather station. It would be sixty degrees in Phoenix today. The Capri slacks, then, she decided. The hell with how it looked. She pulled them back on and found a lightweight white sweater. A blousy lavender jacket to keep her warm until they got down into the valley. A couple of rings. And earrings—the garnets, she decided. Blush, lipstick…and then she was ready.
There was a knock on her outer door and Liv’s breath shuddered out of her. She thought it might be Hunter and she hurried to answer.
It was Vicky. “Mom, you’re holding up the entire show!”
“I’m coming.” She reached behind her to close the door.
Vicky sniffed. “Do you have perfume on?”
She caught sight of Hunter at the end of the hall, coming down the stairs from his own room. “Of course I do. This is our dress-up day.” Then she said a brief prayer that Vicky would drop the subject.
“But it’s your good stuff,” Vicky insisted.
“I’m all out of the other,” Liv said quickly.
“No, you’re not. You have—”
“Ready?” Hunter interrupted, joining them.
“Absolutely,” Liv said a little too heartily.
Vicky turned away with a private grin and raced for the stairs. “Last one to the car is a rotten egg!”
“That’s usually me,” Liv said under her breath. She forced herself to move, and Hunter fell into step beside her. He leaned closer and sniffed.
“Nope. Not rotten. Nice, actually.”
Had he heard Vicky? She eased away from him, her heart moving oddly in her chest. “I’m doing this under duress, you know.”
“Allowing me to join you in Phoenix? Of course, you are.”
“It just doesn’t seem fair to take Vicky away from you for a whole day when you’ve only got ninety of them.”
“I’ll be back after the ninety.”
Her heart shifted again, trying to cram its way into her throat. She knew he would. And it would be just like before. He’d rip through town for a few precious days, for a handful of sacred hours, then he’d be gone.