Audra moaned while she willed her body to calm down. To think he’d heard her carrying on from clear outside.
How awful! How humiliating!
“I thought you were being attacked. Your front door was locked, so I got in through your bedroom window, which had been left open.”
Last night she’d been too physically exhausted to check the window. Her driving need had been to reach the bed before she collapsed.
To her chagrin the clock radio by her bed said five after twelve. She hadn’t thought to set it because she rarely needed an alarm to wake her up. Normally she only slept seven hours.
“It’s a-all right,” she stammered. “If you would please wait for me in the living room. It’s down the hall on your left.”
“Would you like some help getting up first?”
“No— I can manage, thank you.”
The concerned gray eyes staring down at her from between heavy black lashes made a sweep of her five-foot-five figure. They started with the toes peeping out of her cast, and ended with her dark red curls, missing nothing in between. She felt as if he’d just sucked all the air out of her lungs.
“So you’re the cousin who almost lost a limb.” His voice had a faraway sound, yet his gaze was all too personal as it took in her other leg, which was bare to the fringe of her denim shorts. “Thank God it didn’t happen.”
Thank heavens she hadn’t changed out of her clothes before she’d finally drifted off. He could have found her in her underwear…
Audra had never felt so embarrassed in her whole life. Heat poured into her cheeks.
“So,” she mimicked. She was attracted to him yet his presence in her bedroom made her feel violated, though she knew he’d meant her no harm. “You’re the son with the death wish. The Hill Country’s a little far out of your way for a pit stop, isn’t it?”
Avoiding his eyes, she waited until he’d disappeared out the door before reaching for her crutches.
That’s when she saw her spiral notebook still open and lying on the bed next to her hip. The pencil had fallen to the floor.
“Racetrack Lover!”
Oh no! Had he read what she’d written?
Audra closed the book and put it on the bedstand. In a few clumsy moves she eased herself off the mattress and was able to grab fresh underwear from the drawer.
No way was she going to wear another pair of shorts in front of him. Snug jeans were impossible to put on. A blouse and skirt would be easier to manage than a dress with a zipper up the back.
She pulled a light-blue blouse and denim skirt from the hangers in the closet, then moved to the bathroom across the hall as fast as she could.
Since she was unable to shower with the cast on, a quick sponge bath would have to do for today. The small bathroom left little space for her cast and the crutches, too.
She applied a dusky pomegranate shade of lipstick and flicked a brush through her curls. There wasn’t anything she could do about the shadows under her eyes.
“Did you close and lock your window?” he asked as she entered the living room a few minutes later.
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? Until a few minutes ago we’ve never had a break-in.”
She hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic, but it must have come out sounding that way, because he grimaced.
“Then you’re damn lucky.”
“According to your father, so are you,” she drawled.
The room was charged with tension, which broke as he moved toward the hallway. Audra made a half turn with her crutches.
Over her shoulder she said, “If you’re determined to be a Boy Scout instead of an intruder, you might as well put the screen back on while you’re at it.”
After that reminder she opened the front door and started down the porch steps. There were only two of them. She managed without difficulty.
It didn’t surprise her to find a new, gleaming black BMW parked in front of the bungalow. The kind of car she was seeing more and more of these days on the back roads…
Rich trespassers were raping the land with their easy money and didn’t know a gelding from a stallion. Did the racetrack lover know the difference? It would be interesting to find out.
RICK STARTED UP the car without saying anything to her. He backed out of the driveway, past the mailbox, to the road leading to the main ranch house. When he’d offered to pick up Pam’s cousin as a way to help, all he’d known about her was that she was recovering from an automobile accident in which the driver had been killed. Apparently, the man had worked at the same radio station she did.
Though he was armed with that much knowledge, he couldn’t have imagined what awaited him at the bungalow. The screams he’d heard coming from inside were so bloodcurdling, he still hadn’t recovered.
Ms. Audra Jarrett had come as a big surprise to him in more ways than one.
She was in her early to mid-twenties. For some reason he’d had the erroneous impression she was much closer to Pam’s forty. He’d never been partial to red hair, but then he’d never seen a shining mass of dark-mahogany curls before. They danced above a pair of blue-gray eyes so close in color to his mother’s, he was taken by surprise.
While he’d tried to wake the writhing woman on top of the bed, his gaze had been drawn to the curves of her slender body, making it impossible for him to look anywhere else.
Right now she didn’t appear to be in the mood to talk. Who could blame her for her silence?
No doubt she’d been plagued by horrific dreams since the crash. They had to be disorienting and probably stayed with her even after she awakened from them.
He’d known several racers who’d had to be cut from a wreckage. While he’d watched and listened to Audra fight her way out of her nightmare, it was evident she’d been trapped in the car accident that had broken her leg.
Neither his father nor Pam had shared those details with him. His breaking into her bedroom couldn’t have helped the situation any.
“I’m sorry a total stranger had to be the cause of more distress,” he apologized again. “You were in such a highly agitated state, my only thought was to get to you and wake you up so you wouldn’t have to suffer any longer.”
“I realize I sounded like a soldier back from Vietnam, so you’re forgiven,” she said without looking at him. “Last night Pam told me your father had gone out looking for you, so I can’t say you came as a complete surprise. Otherwise I’d have cracked your head open with the end of my crutch.”
“Ouch,” he teased.
“Obviously he found you,” she replied without a hint of warmth. “How far off the beaten track were you?”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Audra Jarrett didn’t like him.
Rick wasn’t such a vain man he had to conquer every woman in sight. Still, her hostility had gotten beneath his skin.
Intrigued, he intended to learn the reason for her demeanor. He suspected today’s events had little to do with the fact that she wished herself anywhere but in his car.
“We discovered each other on the ranch road about two miles from the house.”
Her only response was to turn her head and stare out the passenger window. The gesture caused him to wonder if she resented his father for taking Pam away from her and couldn’t help disliking Rick for being his son.
Rick’s thoughts harkened back to a conversation with his brother. Nate had found out that the men in Pam’s family were laying bets on how long the marriage to their father would last. That was why she hadn’t invited any of them to the wedding.
It was possible that no one in Pam’s family, male or female, was happy about her recent marriage.
Then again, maybe Audra’s antipathy toward Rick had nothing to do with his father. Perhaps after such a terrible nightmare, she was just lashing out. The accident had killed a man she loved, and Rick happened to be a handy target.
“I heard you calling for Pete over and over again,” he said quie
tly. “He was your fiancé?”
That brought her head around. She studied him as if he were a species she’d never come across before.
“Your father may have married my cousin, but that doesn’t make us related or entitle you to information that’s none of your business.”
He saw her hands curl into fists. His attempt at sensitivity wasn’t going over well.
“Why don’t we start again, Ms. Jarrett?” he suggested. “Since my father and Pam’s happiness is of the utmost importance to both of us, shall we try to be friends while I’m here?”
His father intended to use the money from the sale of the ski business to help Pam establish a bed-and-breakfast on the ranch. Apparently, the idea had been a dream of hers for years and would bring in much needed income. Rick didn’t want to see anything go wrong with their plans when they both seemed so excited about it.
He pulled to a stop in front of the ranch house where there were a half-dozen cars and trucks assembled.
“I have a better idea,” she replied.
His lips twitched while he waited to hear the rest of her remarks with an eagerness that surprised him.
“Let’s agree to stay out of each other’s way. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Inside of twelve hours, boredom will consume you. By nightfall we’ll be breathing the dust from your tires when you peal out of here for heaven knows what race with death you have scheduled next.”
Her withering comment brought to mind a conversation he’d had with his brother a few weeks earlier.
When I saw Laurel’s joy as she held her daughter in her arms, I knew what Mom and Dad felt when we were born. Since that moment, I’ve asked myself how our parents were able to accept our chosen careers without suffering a nervous breakdown in the process.
Come on, Nate. Don’t forget, they placed themselves in mortal danger every time they ran a ski race.
True. But in comparison, you have to admit strapping ourselves into a race car or into the cockpit of a jet increases the danger by quantum leaps.
No longer smiling, Rick got out of the car to help Audra, but Pam had reached her first.
“Honey—you took so long I got worried about you.” She opened the back door to retrieve the crutches for her cousin.
“Forgive me. I’m afraid I overslept.”
The impassioned woman of a moment ago shot Rick a warning glance that forbid him to add one word of explanation.
Message received, he muttered to himself.
By this time Audra had swung her legs out, displaying amazing agility for someone wearing a full-length leg cast. With Pam’s assistance she stood up and started walking toward the house on her crutches.
Pam put a detaining hand on Rick’s arm. Her demeanor didn’t resemble that of the radiant wife who’d introduced Rick and his father to her male cousins less than an hour ago. Some contentious family issue must have flared up during the time Rick had been gone.
“Thanks for picking her up. Did she seem all right to you?” Pam asked in an anxious voice.
Putting two and two together, Rick realized that if Pam had been at her cousin’s bedside both at the hospital and here at the house, then she knew about the nightmares. Maybe she feared Audra had suffered another debilitating episode. Under the circumstances, Rick could well understand her concern.
“She’s fine.”
He didn’t dare say anything else. It was important that Audra trust him.
They walked up the steps of the house together. “Is everything okay with you?” he asked her.
“I’m not sure. Better ask me after today is over, Rick,” came her cryptic remark.
THE DINING ROOM was Audra’s favorite place in the house. It had a huge eighteen-foot ceiling, an enormous fireplace and circular bay windows. In the past, with the addition of several round tables surrounding the main dining-room table, the room could hold forty-five Jarretts comfortably. But tragedy had struck, limiting their numbers.
Today the remaining fifteen family members were joined by Clint Hawkins and his son. Uncle David, whose thinning gray hair still showed traces of auburn, presided at the head.
Several of the other family members in the room had inherited the Jarrett trait of red hair. Audra had been forced to put up with a lot of teasing because of it. She didn’t envy her cousins’ children for what they’d have to deal with as they grew older.
Her uncle told Audra to sit at the opposite end of the table where she could rest her cast without any obstruction. Then he asked the boys—her male cousins now in their thirties—to get up and finish bringing in the rest of the food from the kitchen.
Audra didn’t dare glance at Pam just then. The vexed expressions on the boys’ faces would have caused both of them to break into laughter.
To Audra’s relief, their uncle had placed Pam and Clint on his right, with Rick next to his father. Jim, Sherry and their two children sat on his left. Next to them came Greg and Diane and their two kids. Tom and Annette and their two offspring took up the rest of the places.
Being at opposite ends of the table meant Audra didn’t have to look into a pair of intelligent gray eyes that had been privy to sights she didn’t want anyone to see.
Trying to overcome the shock of finding Rick Hawkins standing over her when she’d awakened, screaming her head off, she concentrated on her food.
As far as Audra was concerned, Pam was the best cook in the Hill Country. She’d outdone herself with her country-fried chicken, giblet gravy, dumplings and a half-dozen side dishes that were her uncle’s favorites.
Audra felt terrible for not contributing anything. The cast couldn’t come off soon enough to suit her.
“This is a fine meal, Pam.” Their seventy-two-year-old uncle appeared to be enjoying himself.
“Clint helped me. In fact, he made the dessert, a Hawkins-family recipe.”
“Which one is that, Dad?” she heard Rick ask.
“Rocky road.”
“I’ll bet it’s good,” their uncle commented.
“My brother and I could never get enough of it, but then we’re chocolate lovers.”
So was Audra. She helped herself to the creamed potatoes with peas, waiting for the rest of the Jarrett side of the family to chime in. But the others just talked horses and ranch business among themselves, acting for all the world as if they were alone at the table.
According to Pam, none of the boys had ever shown the slightest interest in Clint or knew anything about him except that he’d come from Colorado. They’d never asked any questions. Their distrust of outsiders, plus their jealousy of Pam, had made communication impossible.
Pam, on the other hand, had welcomed their wives into the family. She’d shown love to their children, and had done everything she could for them. Yet they ignored her new husband as if he didn’t exist. Their unconscionable rudeness toward Clint and Rick infuriated Audra. This couldn’t be allowed to go on.
She turned to Tom’s thirteen-year-old son seated on her right. “Hey, Bobby? Have you thought of a subject for your technology report yet?”
He frowned. “I was going to show how phones have changed to become cell phones, but a lot of the kids are planning to do the same thing.”
Good. He hadn’t gotten started on it yet.
“Would you like an idea that’s different? I can promise no one else in your class will have thought of it.”
“What’s that?”
“Skis and boots.”
“Huh?”
“They’ve changed a lot since the days when someone tied his shoes to wooden slats with a couple of pieces of rope and used sticks for poles. I bet when Clint won his gold medal in the Olympics, his skis and boots were a lot different because of technology.”
Bobby’s head jerked toward the other end of the table. “You won a gold medal at the Olympics?” By now everyone else was staring at Pam’s husband in surprise. It was about time the family opened their eyes and ears to the kind of man she’d married.
Clint fl
ashed Audra a private smile. “It was a long time ago, but Audra’s right. Since then, skis and boots have undergone tremendous changes to make them faster, lighter and safer.”
“What did you win the medal in?” Michael wanted to know. He was Jim’s eleven-year-old.
“The giant slalom.”
“Whoa.”
Delighted over the kids’ reactions, Audra said, “He and his now-deceased wife owned and ran a ski business in Copper Mountain, Colorado.
“Fabulous skiers from all over the States and Europe flock there for the World Cup races. There probably isn’t anything he doesn’t know about the changes in ski technology.
“His wife won a silver medal at the same Olympics for the women’s downhill, Bobby,” Audra continued. “If I were you, I’d pump Clint for all he’s worth. You’re bound to get top marks with such an original report.”
She flicked her glance to Sherry. “Would you mind passing me the corn on the cob? It’s so good, I’ve got to have another one.”
“Sure.” Sherry picked up the bowl and handed it to Bobby, who gave it to Audra.
“Do you ski, too?” Sherry directed her question to Rick. Jim’s wife, like Annette and Diane, couldn’t seem to take her eyes off Clint’s son. And the boys didn’t seem to like it.
Audra smiled to herself. The racetrack lover had blown into town. Watch out, guys. He’s not only easy on the eyes, he’s a breed apart from the rest of you.
“Every chance I get,” came Rick’s quiet reply.
“Rick won the Junior World Slalom Championship when he was a teenager,” Pam volunteered.
“Cool!” This from several of the children.
Audra didn’t know that. “Rick Hawkins is a man of many talents.” All of them had to do with speed and danger.
At that comment, his gaze met hers head-on. She refused to look away. Pete had lost his life in a freak car accident. According to Pam, Clint figured it was only a matter of time until his son was seriously injured or killed on the track in a fiery crash. Audra didn’t want to think about that happening.
Clint adored his boys. If anything ever happened to them he would never get over it. The pain would put a blight on Pam’s marriage. And there’d been too much pain in the Jarrett family. Her cousin Pam didn’t deserve any more.
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