Everybody's Hero

by Karen Templeton

  "And don't I know it," Maddie herself said, waddling up to the table and collapsing into the remaining outside seat with a huge sigh. Only she had to sort of sit sideways because there wasn't enough room to fit in both her and the kid. "But bakin's about the only thing keeping me from goin' nuts. Figures I'd be two weeks late with this one." This morning, her Arkansas twang was as thick as the pancake syrup Ruby was setting on the table. "The other three were all puny little things when they were born, on account of their daddy bein' pretty puny himself, I suppose. But your mother says—" she looked across the booth at Dawn, whose mother Ivy was the town's midwife "—this one could be a ten-pounder!"

  Dawn lifted her cup of decaffeinated coffee like a drunk would a beer. "Damn those Logan genes."

  "At least you're tall!" Maddie squeaked in a voice that sounded like an abused violin. Underneath scraggly light brown bangs, her gray eyes were wide as saucers. "I'm barely five foot!"

  "In shoes," Ruby put in.

  Maddie tossed a friendly glower in Ruby's direction, then wailed, "How on earth am I gonna push out a ten-pound baby, is what I want to know."

  "Carefully," Dawn said, adjusting the eagerly nursing baby underneath the receiving blanket flung over her shoulder.

  "Maybe it's just as well I can't have kids," Jenna mused, stirring sugar into her coffee. "Hank's the biggest one of the brothers. I'd probably feel like I was carrying one of Cal's foals."

  "You got it," Dawn said, holding up one of Max's chubby little feet. A blob with toes. "Hooves and all."

  Everybody laughed, including Taylor, who was thinking, Yeah, well, so they've all got hubbies and kiddies, what's the big hairy deal? After all, there was a lot to be said for being free to come and go and do as she pleased, to not having to worry about anybody else's expectations. Okay, so maybe she wasn't all that down with the enforced celibacy bit, but she had nobody to blame for that but herself. If she wanted sex badly enough, she could go troll the bars in Tulsa, right?

  Yeah, that was so something she would do.

  Ruby took their orders, after which Maddie said to Dawn, "So how was the honeymoon?"

  The brunette grinned, then one-handedly extracted an envelope from the baby bag which practically took up half the booth. "I've got pictures!"

  "Cal Logan in New York City?" Jenna said. "This I've gotta see!"

  "He loved it, by the way," Dawn said smugly. "You should've seen his face when the plane flew over Manhattan as we came into La Guardia. Now he says he can't wait to go back when Max is bigger."

  Although Dawn had been raised in Haven, she'd left for New York right after high school, getting her law degree and then staying on in the city to practice after she passed the bar. Nobody ever expected her to return to Haven to live and start her own practice, let alone marry a horse breeder, let alone be sitting here in Ruby's, looking perfectly happy about having a monster-sized baby attached to her breast.

  Just as nobody ever expected a reclusive, duty-obsessed country doctor to make room in his life for a widow with three young kids.

  Or that a classy, shy blonde and a cranky teenager could melt the heart of a bitter, grief-stricken ex-cop.

  Okay, so miracles happened. To other people. And Taylor was glad for them, she really was. But just because they happened for these women didn't mean it would happen for her.

  At least, not with Joe.

  They passed around the photos—Taylor had to laugh at the one of Cal, in jeans and boots and cowboy hat, posing with Max in front of Tiffany's—and stuffed their faces, and Maddie and Dawn shared leaking breasts stories. Taylor started to feel like a usually docile little stream after a big storm, the rushing water churning the stream bed into a froth of mud and rocks and lost flip-flops long buried and forgotten. Now, she knew once the storm passed the bed would settle back down and the water would once again be clear. Clearer, even. But she also knew nothing would end up where it had been before the storm.

  Which was what worried her.

  Especially when Joe and Seth walked through the door.

  And Joe's eyes clamped on hers like a magnet.

  Enter one storm, stage right.

  She took a huge swallow of coffee to wash down the wedge of eggs and sausage caught in her throat. But coffee couldn't budge the sexual tension that had plopped down between them, hot and panting and immoveable (like Oakley, but not as endearing) from the moment Joe set foot—as well as the rest of his fine-looking self—inside the diner. Even after he averted his gaze, she could feel what he was thinking. And unless she was way off base, what he was thinking involved his hands on various parts of her body. Or maybe hers on his. That clairvoyant, she wasn't.

  Well. The good news was, she could indulge in her original assessment of the situation with a clear conscience. Whether or not Joe still had the hots for her was no longer an issue. The bad news, of course, was that now she had to hope he'd continue to be the strong one. Because that's what she wanted. For him to be strong.

  She stole a glance at his back, all muscled and what-all underneath his T-shirt.

  Oh, yeah. He'd be strong, all right.

  Then Maddie leaned over—well, she would have leaned over if her belly hadn't been in the way—and whispered, "Oh, Lord…I have got too many hormones to deal with that," and Dawn said, "You and me both, sister," and Taylor realized estrogen levels in five counties had probably surged to new highs.

  With a dry chuckle, Jenna surveyed the devastated remains of their breakfast. "So much for the eating-as-a-substitute-for-sex theory."

  "Honey, there is not enough food in the world," Taylor said, and everybody looked at her. She blushed furiously and stuffed the last bite of sausage into her mouth. "Okay, I don't know where that came from."

  As one, three heads now swiveled to Joe, then back at Taylor.

  "Hey," Dawn whispered, "I just had sex this morning—"

  "Oh, now that's just cruel," Maddie said, rubbing her stomach.

  "—and the man's making my teeth hurt. I think we all know where that came from."

  Taylor poured way too much sugar in her coffee. "Oh, come on…he's not that good-looking."

  They all laughed. Like hyenas.

  Taylor looked at each one of her friends in turn. "Are y'all really this obsessed about sex, or am I just imagining it?"

  "Well, let's see," Jenna said. "I'm forty-two, which puts me at my sexual peak. Dawn is obviously still thinking about this morning…"

  The brunette grinned.

  "…and thinking about sex," Maddie put in, "is all I can do at the moment."

  Dawn stretched across the table to pat her hand. "This, too, will pass, sweetie."

  "I'm fantasizing about the missionary position, for crying out loud! I mean, jeez Louise, that's like the cheese-sandwich-on-white-bread of sex."

  "American cheese," Dawn said, entirely sympathetic.

  "Always did have a soft spot for American cheese," Taylor said wistfully as she lifted her coffee cup to her lips, only to nearly choke when Seth suddenly said, "I like American cheese, too!" right at her shoulder.

  Grabbing a napkin to cough into, she glared at the two women across from her, both of whom seemed to be thoroughly enjoying her misery. But once her eyes stopped watering, she smiled for Seth and said, "Well, how about that?" Then she put her arm around his waist and hugged him to her, only to realize his big brother was standing right behind him. Which put his crotch right smack at eye level. And her own whimpered, You know what would be nice…?

  She quickly lifted her eyes to see Joe giving her a bemused I-know-exactly-what-you're-thinking look. Damn him. Because she could tell herself from now to doomsday that this was nothing more than physical attraction, the effects of a good-looking man on a neglected everything. But every time she looked at him for longer than a nanosecond, she felt a connection that singed her to a place so deep inside her, she couldn't even name it. Whether he felt it or not, she didn't know. And why she felt it, she knew even less. But her helplessness at
avoiding becoming bonded to Seth—who'd linked his arm around her neck and was snuggled up against her like a second skin—was nothing compared to the helplessness she felt around Seth's big, strong, nobody-should-be-this-sexy brother.

  Or the annoyance when she also caught, behind the bemusement, the tell-tale signs of exhaustion. Irritation shot through her, about men who thought they were invincible, who were too dumb or too stubborn to see when they were overdoing it. Yeah, yeah, the guy was young and healthy, he could probably weather the stress okay. But for how long?

  This was why she couldn't get involved, she told herself, even as she knew that's exactly what made him so dangerous.

  And while she was pondering all this, Joe and the others were introducing themselves. Joe was being unbelievably charming, and Taylor could feel little pieces of her heart splintering off and floating in his direction. He complimented Maddie on her pies and asked how she was feeling and when she was due, and then he made over Max, even picked him up and made goofy noises at him for a second before giving him back to an obviously smitten Dawn.

  Dark, almost haunted, eyes would meet hers and skitter away. Drift back, even when he was talking to someone else. And everybody kept giving Taylor these meaningful glances, the kind with the slightly raised eyebrows that said, "What are you waiting for?" Only Taylor's entire insides were vibrating, knowing, feeling the lie that Joe was feeding everyone. On the surface, he looked as relaxed as could be. But underneath was a whole other story.

  His mistake for letting her see inside him like that.

  Hers for not turning away.

  "Dawn," he now said, smiling for the brunette. "You're…the lawyer, right? Cal's wife?"

  "That's right." Dawn chuckled. "Hey, you're good."

  "I have to be," he said, half smiling. "I'm afraid Ruby's gonna give me a pop quiz one of these days, and if I don't pass, she'll cut off my peach pie allotment."

  Everybody at the table groaned in commiseration. Then somebody told him to pull up a couple of chairs, but Joe declined, saying he was headed over to Tulsa to check up on the crew who'd been called in.

  "On Saturday?" somebody else said. Taylor didn't hear who, she was too busy seething and being horny and being mad at herself for both.

  "This is kind of a rush job," he said, his gaze brushing Taylor's again. "And since it looks like the weather might be bad later in the week, we're trying to push through."

  "An' I get to go, this time," Seth said, grinning up at his big brother.

  Taylor stopped seething long enough to notice the adoration on the kid's face. He clearly worshipped his big, strong brother, even after such a short time. And who could blame him? This was a good man. Seth's hero. Everybody's hero, from what she could tell. How could you be tickled with someone who—she had no doubt—would put his own life on the line for his family?

  Her sausages felt like little hot coals in her stomach. If the gods were kind, he'd go away in a second and she could get back to her denial in peace. Apparently, the gods weren't in a kindly mood today, because suddenly Dawn—who had far too much energy for a woman with a three-month old baby—was inviting everybody out to the farm for a cookout that night.

  "Just burgers and stuff, nothing fancy. Oh, come on, Maddie," she said when her sister-in-law groaned, "it'll be fun."

  Maddie's response—that the only thing that sounded like fun to her right then was going into labor—turned out to be the last thing Taylor clearly remembered for several seconds as excuses flew and Dawn batted them right back. Then she played dirty by telling Seth he could ride one of Cal's horses if he came, and of course nobody (meaning Joe) was going to disappoint the kid once that offer was laid on the table. And whatever lame excuse Taylor might have made about being too busy died on her lips the instant Seth looked at her with those big, brown, pleading eyes—a ploy he'd clearly picked up from Oakley—and said, "You're gonna be there, right, Taylor?" And the next thing she knew, she heard herself saying, "Of course, I wouldn't mind bringing dessert."

  She dared a glance at Joe, who looked as though he wasn't quite sure what had hit him, either.

  "I don't know how long we can stay, though," he said. "I've got a ton of specs to go over before Monday."

  "I understand completely," Dawn said. For somebody who'd spent more than a decade in New York, she was laying on the sweet country gal act as thick as Arliss Potts's banana-mint cream cheese frosting. "But like I said, this isn't anything fancy. Whenever you get there, we'll just toss a few burgers on the grill." Then she grinned at Seth. "Now you make sure your brother doesn't back out, you hear?"

  "Yes, ma'am," the boy said, and Jordy called out that their orders were ready to go, so Joe picked them up and paid for them, and a second later, everybody's hormones floated back to earth. Somewhat.

  Taylor waited until Maddie and Jenna had gone to the ladies' room before she turned on Dawn. "Tell me you didn't plan that."

  Dawn blinked as innocently as the snoring two-ton baby in her arms. "Oh, come on, Taylor—even I'm not that good. Swear to God," she said, lowering the baby into his carrier and strapping him in, "I had no idea the man was coming in here."

  "Maybe not. But you sure as hell jumped on an opportunity."

  "Sweetie, I'm a lawyer. Jumping on opportunities is what I do." Then she winked. "Something you might want to keep in mind. For later."

  Taylor crossed her arms. "It's that married lady thing, isn't it? The minute a woman gets a ring on her finger, she becomes obsessed with trying to fix up every single woman she knows."

  "Not every single woman." She patted Taylor's arm. "Just you."

  Taylor dug out a tip from her wallet and plopped it on the table. "For heaven's sake, Dawn. Did it ever occur to you that maybe Joe and I wouldn't work together? Or that maybe neither one of us is interested?"

  "Uh-huh," she said, stuffing a million and one baby things back into the bag. "Neither of you is interested. Right. I was just imagining the lustful gazes zinging back and forth between the two of you."

  "Lusting after something doesn't mean it's good for you."

  "Doesn't necessarily mean it's not, either. After all, there are many paths to the same goal. Ryan and Maddie got there through sympathy, Jenna and Hank through Blair, Cal and I…" She stroked a knuckle down Max's cheek, then straightened up. "Honey, Max is here because that man and I couldn't keep our hands off each other. Still can't," she added with a grin. "And for a long time, I wanted to believe that's all we had. Chemistry. But if chemistry got us where we are now…" Her shoulders hitched. "Who am I to say?"

  Taylor blew out a breath. "Now's probably a good time to tell you I set myself on fire in chem lab in college."

  "Which means you were an active participant, not somebody who let her lab partner do all the work."

  "You're terrible."

  "No argument there," Dawn said, swinging the baby bag up onto her shoulder. "But at least I admit it. Unlike some people I know," she said, more gently, "who won't admit they're lonely."

  "What?"

  "And so is that man," she went on, ignoring Taylor. "Okay, I finagled things so two lonely people who are obviously already interested in each other have a shot at being in the same place at the same time. So sue me. Maybe nothing will happen. Or maybe the two of you will decide to enjoy each other for a few weeks. Or maybe…" She shrugged. "You never know."

  The others reappeared, thankfully cutting off any further discussion. But, honest to Pete—anybody who believed that small-town life was simple had clearly never spent more than twenty minutes in Haven.

  Chapter 10

  Joe glanced across the front seat as they drove back from Tulsa, savoring a quiet burst of tenderness for his sacked-out baby brother, his skinny little face smushed into Joe's wadded-up denim jacket tucked between his face and the window. Kid'd talked nonstop for the first fifteen minutes or so of the return trip, only to suddenly pass out like he'd been hit with a tranquilizer dart. Just as well he caught a few winks now, though, or
he'd be too tired to enjoy himself later.

  Of course, that brought a cloud down around Joe's thoughts, because frankly he felt about as much like going to this shindig tonight as he did eating a hornet's nest. His head was throbbing, his stomach felt like he had eaten that hornet's nest and his mind-set at the moment was a lot closer to murderous than sociable.

  And a good part of his murderous mood stemmed from his encounter with Taylor in Ruby's this morning. Not that she'd done anything, or said anything—Had they even talked? He couldn't remember—but that was just it. Just the awareness of her was driving him crazy. One glance from those knowing green eyes and he'd feel stripped bare, connected in some way that was far more intimate than any sex he'd ever had.

  Was it any wonder he'd gone out of his way to stay out of hers, for not putting himself in the path of those see-everything eyes? Hell, he didn't even trust himself to talk to her about Seth, even though that meant giving up hearing her say it was going to be fine, just give it a chance, be patient. Sure, he could say the same things to himself—and God knows, living with a grieving eight-year-old gave him plenty of opportunity to do just that—but it wasn't the same as hearing it from her.

  That he wanted her wasn't an issue. Hell, yes, he wanted her, so badly he was beginning to hallucinate what it would feel like to feel her skin gliding along his, to slowly, painstakingly taste every inch of that skin, to hear her cries as he drove her to the same brink of madness she brought him to with those damn eyes of hers. But he'd wanted before. Maybe not this intensely, but he'd wanted. And he'd dealt with it, one way or another. However, want wasn't the same as need, and that's where things could get hairy. Because if Joe wasn't careful, he was going to start thinking he needed Taylor McIntyre. And that could be a real problem.

  A problem he did not need on top of whatever the hell this was going on with Wes Hinton.

  Oh, his boss had made good on paying Hank back, just as Joe figured he would. And none of his other checks had bounced, at least not on either of Joe's two projects. However, there were other things, things more worrisome than bounced checks.