His progress was slow, his limp significant. She stared in horrified fascination at the cane, at the obscene evidence of the injuries he’d suffered. She should have been prepared for this. Troy had told her that his hip had been shattered, that the doctors hadn’t known if he would ever be able to walk again, but the prospect had seemed impossible. The Easy she knew had been too vital, too powerful, too graceful. She couldn’t have prepared herself for this sight—this reality—not even if she’d been with him from the first day on.
He reached the living room doorway before he realized she was there. The cane she was watching came to a sudden stop. The jeans-clad legs stopped, too, and stiffened.
Slowly she forced her gaze up—over the T-shirt that looked as if it had been slept in, across broad shoulders that she had clung to and cried on and, in the end, cried for—and finally reached his face. He stood in shadow, backlit by the kitchen light, touched in front only with flickers from the TV screen.
But she didn’t need to see. She knew his face as well as her own. It had haunted her dreams since the day she’d turned twenty.
For a long, still time, they both stared, then abruptly he moved. He circled the end of the sofa, dropped down on the cushions, dropped the cane to the bare floor with a clatter. He switched the beer to his left hand, used the remote to change channels, then pretended to watch the new show.
She thought about leaving without a word. Hadn’t he done it to her first The difference was, while his leaving had broken her heart, hers would only make him happy. Besides, she wanted to hear his voice. Just one last time, she wanted to hear the voice that had made such sweet promises to her.
The screen door wasn’t latched. She opened it and stepped inside on unsteady legs. There she tucked her hands behind her to hide their trembling and pressed back against the doorjamb for support, and she waited for him to speak.
Second after second ticked by. His gaze remained locked on the television screen with an intensity that meant he was concentrating hard on ignoring her. Good. She wanted to be hard to ignore. Hell, she wanted to be impossible to ignore.
After a long swig that drained half the bottle, he finally looked in her general direction. “What the hell do you want?” His voice was raspy, his hostility sharp. There had been a time when merely looking at her had made him smile, when being with her had made him happy. What had happened? How had they traveled from that place to this? When had he learned to hate her, and why, and how?
She took her sweet time in answering. “Everyone in town has been anxious for me to see you and give them all the juicy details. I decided I shouldn’t keep them waiting any longer.”
“So you’ve seen me. Now get out.”
“Oh, they won’t be satisfied with that. They’ve got a lot of questions. They want to know how you are, why you came back, what your plans are.” She wanted to know, too. She wanted to hear him say that he was only here for a few days, maybe a few weeks, and then he would be gone again. She wanted to hear him promise that when he left this time, she would never, ever see him again as long as she lived—even if the promise would hurt as much as his being here was going to hurt.
“I’ve seen how you are,” she went on in a forced casual voice. “So why are you back, and what are your plans?”
He finished the beer, then fixed a scowl on her. “I came back to be left alone, and my plans are none of your damned business. So go tell your tales and leave me the hell alone.”
She should do as he demanded—walk out, never come back and forget he ever existed. But if forgetting were that easy, she would have done so fourteen years ago, and ten and eight and six. She would have gladly traded the joy of their early years together to escape the sorrow of the last years.
But she couldn’t take his advice—couldn’t even take her own. Instead, she sighed melodramatically. “You shouldn’t have come back. Everyone was perfectly happy watching this place fall in on itself. Nobody wants you here.”
A commercial came on, casting bright light on his face. Annoyed, he hit the off button, turning the screen dark, leaving him in shadow. “Do you think I give a damn?”
“No. Not as long as you’ve got what you want.”
“That’s right.” His voice was low, his words razor sharp and cold. “And what I want is to be left alone. So get out and don’t come back.”
Perversely she baited him. “That would be a turnabout, wouldn’t it—me doing the leaving. What if I refuse? In the time it takes you to get to your feet, I can be on my third lap around the house You can’t make me go. You can’t make me do anything.”
She felt the tension in him increase until it all but crackled in the air between them. His fingers tightened around the bottle until she thought it might shatter, then they slowly relaxed. The tenor of the tension changed, turned as ugly as his smile as he softly agreed, “No, I can’t make you go. No matter how badly I treated you, you kept coming back for more. You always were pathetic that way. It’s good to know some things never change.”
A chill crept through her as softly, as insidiously as his words. It dulled the raw ache deep around her heart and gave her the ability to match his smile. “And you always were a bastard. You’re right. Some things never change.”
From somewhere she found the strength to push away from the jamb, to move with her normal, easy gait, to open the screen door with a steady hand before looking back at him. “Welcome back to Heartbreak,” she said quietly. “And go to hell.”
With that, she left. She followed the path she’d followed hundreds of times as a kid, but instead of skipping, she walked. Instead of jumping onto her mare’s back, she climbed into her car. Her movements were automatic, instinctive—close and lock the door, start the engine, fasten the seat belt, turn on the headlights. She backed around the shiny new truck, drove down the narrow drive and headed back to town. If she held the steering wheel tighter than usual, well, that was understandable. If she drove faster than was safe, hey, she knew the road. It ran straight as an arrow until close in to town, and it was seldom traveled at night.
She reached her house in record time, squealed to a stop in the driveway and simply sat there. Her hands were shaking, her stomach hurting, and her cheeks were damp. With her headlight beams breaking up the shadows all the way back to the pasture, with the engine running and George Strait singing, she sat there in her car, alone in the mght—alone in the world.
And she cried.
It was three in the morning, and Easy couldn’t sleep. His body hurt. His head hurt. Hell, if he had a heart, he’d say it hurt, too.
But if he had a heart, he never would have talked to Shay the way he had. He never would have hurt her again. He never would have caused her a moment’s pain all for the sake of the tattered remains of his ego.
God help him, for just one instant when he’d seen her there on the porch, when he’d recognized her, he had been so damn happy. For that one moment, he’d wanted to touch her, hold her, kiss her, lose himself in her—but then he’d remembered. She wasn’t his anymore—would never be his. He’d had nothing to give her six years ago when he left her, and he had even less now. No future, no kids, no home, no love. Nothing but anger, resentment, bitterness and sorrow.
He wished she hadn’t come—and wished she’d come because she couldn’t stay away, because she had missed him, because she still felt something for him. Instead, she’d wanted only to report to the gossips back in town—to people who didn’t care enough to drive out here and see his misfortune for themselves, people who would gloat or shake their heads as if they’d known he would come to this. Hadn’t they always said he was wild, reckless, a nogood Indian cowboy?
So let her go back and talk. He didn’t care. He didn’t give a damn what anyone said. Besides, what could she tell them? That he limped and used a cane. She hadn’t seen anything else, couldn’t possibly guess at anything else.
Oh, she could guess. She could tell them that the Easy they knew was gone. He had no desire to be
brash, had too much fear to be bold and was left with nothing to be cocky about. She could tell them that his rodeo career was over, that his dream of raising horses was dead, and that he might as well be dead, too. She could tell them that he was a sorry reflection of the man he used to be.
He was sorry. He was so damn sorry.
Leaving the bed, he shuffled through the dark house, making one stop in the kitchen before going out onto the porch. The night air was chilly on his bare skin, but he didn’t bother returning for a jacket or a blanket. In the past few years he’d become an expert at ignoring discomfort. He could do it now as he settled on the swing and unscrewed the top on the beer.
The night sky was dark, with just a sliver of cloudshrouded moon, but he didn’t need light. He could go anywhere on these few acres by memory. That was how much a part of him this place was. God, he’d missed it when he was gone!
When he’d started rodeoing, he hadn’t meant to make a career of it. Nope, he’d had his future all planned. His folks were already planning their move to Houston, and he would take over the ranch. He would become partners with Guthrie, raising cattle on the Harris acreage and horses—paints—on his own land. Guthrie and Shay would get married, and eventually he would marry, too, and they would work hard and make their partnership the biggest success Heartbreak had ever seen.
But they’d needed some cash, and the easiest way to come by it, they’d determined, was the rodeo. He’d earned enough to cover his expenses and show a healthy profit his first season. He’d also earned the attention of practically every pretty girl along the circuit. A championship belt buckle or even just a winning time was enough to get him all the female attention he wanted. He’d had the time of his life.
Until he’d kissed Shay.
That afternoon had changed his life In the end it had cost him more than he could afford to lose—his best friend, his home, his self-respect, his pride, his honor, his future, Shay herself. He’d lost everything, and even as he was destroying it, he’d wanted it back, but he could never have it. That was his punishment.
She had looked so beautiful tonight. From the time he’d become aware of her as a woman—not his buddy, not Guthrie’s girl, but a woman, full grown and desirable—he’d thought she was gorgeous. In their first few years together, simply watching her had been one of his greatest pleasures She was so beautiful, so incredible, and she wanted him. That fact had never failed to fill him with wonder.
But it hadn’t stopped him from hurting her.
Six years hadn’t changed her. Her hair was shorter and sleeker than the heavy, thick mass he remembered, and her brown eyes would probably seem a little deeper brown. They always had after they’d been apart awhile. She was still tall, still slender, still golden tanned and golden haired and guaranteed to haunt a man’s dreams.
She’d haunted his for years.
If he ever slept again, that wounded little smile she’d given him tonight would surely haunt him.
Pathetic. What kind of bastard begged a woman to run away with him—begged her to give up everything for him—then told her she was pathetic for putting up with him?
The kind he was. The kind that knew she pitied him for his limp and hated her for it. The kind that knew she would never want him again once she saw the extent of his injuries. The hopeless, useless, less-of-a-man kind.
Better to be hated for his character deficiencies, he thought bitterly, than for the physical deficiencies he could do nothing about.
Better to be hated than pitied, especially by the woman he’d always loved and had finally, for the last time, lost.
If anyone around here was pathetic, it was him. Pathetic, pitiful, pitiable.
He drank the beer slowly, though he had no taste for it, and he stared into the distance, working at keeping his mind as blank as the darkness out there As the minutes slipped into hours, fatigue crept over him. His eyes grew heavy, but every time he started to drift off, the dreams started, jerking him awake.
The last time he awoke, he could tell with his eyes closed that the sky was light, and it was no dream that had awakened him. It was the whicker of a horse. His back hurt, and he had a crick in his neck from the awkward way his head hung. He was on the porch swing—he remembered coming out here clearly enough—but he wasn’t so cold anymore, because the quilt from the sofa was spread over him. Could he have gotten up in the night, gotten the quilt and come back without remembering it?
Yeah, right. And while he was wandering around, he’d brought back a horse, too.
He wondered who his visitor was. Probably Olivia Harris. Shay had given up horseback riding when she turned fourteen and got interested in makeup and clothes, and after last night it would be a cold day in hell before he’d see her again. Despite living on a ranch for nearly forty years, Mary Stephens was afraid of horses, and Guthrie wouldn’t come over here to save his soul. Olivia, with that accent too soft and Southern for Oklahoma, won by default.
How had Guthrie found himself a Southern belle? He’d probably never set foot outside the state unless he was on a cattle-buying trip. Such a trip would be handled as quickly as possible, since someone back here would be shouldering Guthrie’s responsibilities as well as his own. There’d be no time for romancing a wife.
Though how long could it take to fall in love? An evening? An hour? How long had it taken him with Shay? Twenty years? Or the span of a kiss?
Footsteps approached the swing, then a shadow fell over him. “I seen your eyes movin’ under your eyelids. You’re no better at playin’ possum than me an’ Emma are.”
With dread tightening his chest, he opened his eyes and found the worst possible answer to the question of who had come visiting. I’m Elly Harris, she’d announced the other morning before her mother had cut her off with a look.
Guthrie’s little girl. Come a half mile by herself—no doubt sneaked off by herself—on her pony to visit her father’s worst enemy.
She was looking at him with a load of curiosity but nothing else. Her light brown hair was tucked under a dress-up cowboy hat, snugged under her chin with a red strap, and she wore mismatched colors and patterns bright enough to hurt his eyes.
“I’m Elly Harris—well, I will be soon’s the adoption’s done. Are you hunged over?”
He eased his head into an upright position slowly, wincing at the pain that stabbed through cramped muscles in his neck, then slowly rotated it a time or two before focusing on her. “Hunged—?”
She pointed to the beer bottle lying on its side next to her turquoise cowboy boots. “My daddy doesn’t drink. Well, my other dad did, but he’s dead, and now Mr Guthrie’s my dad, and he don’t drink.”
So Guthrie hadn’t helped produce the twins—not that that fact would lessen his anger at finding out one of them had wandered over here. They were his now, and Easy was still his enemy.
He rubbed his eyes, hoping to ease the ache behind them, but it didn’t work. “Do your parents know where you are?”
“Of course not. I sneaked out. Mama’ll think I’m with the horses, at least till she sends Emma out to get me. I’ll be back by then.” She whirled around and retreated to the steps, then came back. “Look. I bringed you breakfast.”
The napkin she gave him contained a cinnamon roll with caramel frosting that drizzled between the layers. It was one of Mary Stephens’s specialties that had won her a blue ribbon at every fair she’d ever entered, including the Tulsa State Fair. It smelled sweet and rich and made his stomach roil.
“Go ahead, eat.” She plopped down on the floor a few feet in front of him. “Are you hunged over?”
“No. I had trouble sleeping last night so I came out here.” Hell, why was he explaining himself to Guthrie’s little girl? He was a grown man, living on his own property. He didn’t owe anyone any explanations, least of all some color-blind little squirt whom he didn’t know and had no desire to know.
“You was sleepin’ real good when I got here, ’cept you was cold. That’s why I got the
quilt.” Abruptly she pointed at his face. “I bet that hurt, didn’t it?”
He felt his face grow warm, and he would have sworn the scar actually tingled. “Yeah,” he said grimly, though truth was he didn’t remember his face hurting at all in those minutes after the crash and before help arrived. He’d had bigger problems than a six-inch laceration—like Gambler, screaming in the twisted wreckage of the trailer. Like his han—
“You got a great big owie on your hand, didn’t you?” she asked matter-of-factly. “I seen it while I was covering you up. Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
“I bet all the kisses in the world couldn’t make that feel better, huh?” She didn’t wait for him to respond but launched into another change of subject. “See my pony there? My daddy gived him to me. His name is Cherokee. That’s an Indian tribe here in Oklahoma. Are you an Indian?”
He stared at her. So that was all she had to say about his hand—an owie that kisses couldn’t help. After five months his mother refused to look at it. Hell, he avoided it himself. And the little squirt couldn’t care less.
“Is ‘at rude? Askin’ if you’re an Indian?”
“No,” he said at last. “It’s not rude. I am. I’m Cherokee, too.”
“That’s neat.” She sprang to her feet, dusted her purpleand-pink-striped pants. “Hey, I gotta go, else Emma’ll catch me gone and tattle to Mom. Emma always tattles to Mom.”
“Wait a minute.” He threw back the quilt and slowly swung his feet to the floor. “I’ll walk out to the road with you.” From there he could see Guthrie’s driveway—could make sure she made it there safely.
“You don’t got to,” she said in a long-suffering voice that said she knew he would, anyway.
He was so stiff that it took him longer than usual to get his shoes on, to find a flannel shirt and get it properly buttoned. She was waiting at the bottom of the steps when he returned, the saddleless pony’s reins in hand. He looked at the pinto, swallowed hard and reluctantly asked, “You need a boost?”
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