“Cal…” His mother’s voice trailed off and he heard her take a deep breath. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Ask away,” he said without missing a beat. Just because she asked didn’t mean he had to do anything he didn’t want to.
“I’d like to visit with you while I’m here, if you don’t object.”
“Of course not.” He injected every ounce of courtesy he had in him into his voice. Might as well get it over with. “Would you like to come for dinner?”
“Ah—dinner?” Cora Lee Jenssen sounded startled.
“How about tonight? Lyn’s making slippery pot pie. After eating her cooking for a couple of months, I can promise you it will be good.”
His mother took another deep breath. “Tonight would be very nice. What time?”
He thought for a minute. “I’ll come over and pick you up around six.”
“Six. I’ll look forward to it.”
When he hung up the phone and looked at Lyn, she was industriously rolling out the dough as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “My mother’s coming for dinner tonight,” he told her. “We’ll eat about six-thirty, if you can make that work.”
She nodded immediately. “Six-thirty is fine. If you like, I’ll make something a little more…elegant.”
He shook his head. “No, pot pie’s fine.” She’ll have to take me the way I am if she insists on coming over here. “And maybe some cookies?”
Lyn laughed. “You’re hopeless. All right, I’ll make some cookies.” As he watched, she doubled the pace at which she was working. “I’ve got to get this place cleaned up before tonight.”
“The house looks fine.” He wasn’t having her run around like a crazy woman to try to impress his mother.
“Did you leave newspapers on the floor in the den again?” She eyed him suspiciously, ignoring his words.
“Uh, maybe.” He took a step back as guilt struck. “I’ll go check.” Then he turned again and placed both palms flat on the counter. “But you are not going to get yourself into a tizz about this. It’s just my mother.”
She stopped rolling again and stuck out her chin in that stubborn little way she had. He’d already learned what that lifted chin meant. He might as well save his breath as argue with her. When Lyn dug her heels in about something, there was no moving her. “It’s your mother, Cal,” she said. “She’s the only one you’ve got and I’m not going to treat her like one of the hired hands just because you’ve got some chip on your shoulder about the past.”
The words stung. He glowered at her, anger burning a slow fuse inside him.
She glared right back.
Impasse. The good humor and tentative communion were gone.
“Fine.” He sliced a hand through the air. “Do whatever you damn well please.”
Cal had made it plain that his mother’s visit was not to be an occasion, but Lyn refused to treat the evening as if it were nothing special. She knew better than to set the table in the dining room, but she went into the storeroom and brought out a bunch of dried yarrow and several stems of the small shrub roses she’d saved from the summer. She arranged the flower heads in a centerpiece with a fat cinnamon candle in the center. Then, looking critically at her work, she covered the round table in the kitchen with an ivory crocheted cloth and got out the rose cloth napkins that matched the design on the everyday spongewear dishes Silver had picked out.
She got out two bags of pie cherries that a neighbor had sent her last summer and quickly rolled out a one-crust pie bottom. Then she added the cherries and her aunt’s ingredients for no-fail cherry pies, interwove fluted-edge strips in a lattice pattern over the top and baked it while she made a broccoli casserole and sliced some carrots to steam. No rolls necessary, since she’d be serving pot pie…hmm, what else should she serve, she wondered.
Soup? A salad? With a twinge of apprehension, she remembered the look in Cal’s eye before he’d slammed out the door. Perhaps not. She knew he would never hurt her, but she so rarely saw him in anything but a good humor that an angry Cal made her loath to deliberately provoke him.
She settled for small dishes of homemade applesauce with cinnamon sprinkled over the top. Finally, she rolled a cheese ball in crushed walnuts and placed it, along with crackers, on a spongewear platter.
Her hands were shaking. Nerves. Not for herself, but for Cal. She’d liked Cora Lee Jenssen immensely, had found the lady from Virginia to be the antithesis of a stuck-up woman with too much money. It was clear that Cal resented his mother for leaving him all those years ago, but the woman she’d met wouldn’t have done such a thing without a good reason. She wished she could make him understand how precious every day he had with his mother was.
It was five-thirty by the time she finished vacuuming the downstairs, dusting and straightening up, and she quickly ran a mop over the kitchen floor. She’d done it just that morning, but Cal and two of the men had traipsed in and out for drinks and bandages and heaven only knew what else, and they’d left a trail of mud to mark their passage.
Hastily, she ran up to her room and took a quick shower. She braided her hair and caught it up with pins in a knot at the back of her neck, sprayed herself with scent and then put on one of the few nice blouses she owned with her newest pair of jeans. It was at times like this that she felt most keenly her lack of sophistication. She didn’t even own a casual skirt or a pair of pants other than jeans!
Looking in the mirror over her dresser, she shook her head critically. The closest thing she possessed to makeup was a tinted lip gloss, which she applied. The scar across her jaw had continued to fade as the plastic surgeon had assured her it would, but there was still an obvious hitch marring the line of her lip on that side.
Slowly, she put her fingers up to the scar, running them along the ridge of scar tissue she still could feel. She rarely thought about the physical damage that had been done to her anymore. But now she wondered. Who had hit her? What kind of weapon had caused a long scar like that? A fist might have split her lip but it wouldn’t have left that kind of tear.
In her mind’s eye, a knife flashed!
It was a pocketknife, but the blade was sharp, just the same. She’d told him to get out or she’d call the police and that’s when he’d pulled the knife.
She backed away from him, afraid to take her eyes off that knife.
“Bitch. I want money and I want it now!” Wayne lunged and grabbed her by the arm. “I have to have money.”
He struck her with his fists, kicked her in the ribs and knocked the breath right out of her. Before she could recover, he had his hands around her throat, squeezing until she couldn’t draw a breath. She swore to herself that if she lived through this, Wayne Galloway was going to prison. Her vision was dimming; instinctively she jerked her knee up, catching him squarely in the groin. His eyes widened in shock and pain and he made an agonized groaning sound as he doubled over and dropped to his knees.
She had to get out, get away. She staggered to her feet and edged past the man writhing on the floor. The door was less than fifteen feet away. If she could get out of the apartment, she could—
His hand curled around her ankle and yanked her foot from under her, and she went down hard on her side. He was on her in a minute, still screaming about money. She fought him, and at some point during the struggle he got the knife up to her face.
She saw it coming, like a slow-motion replay of an accident. The blade descended—
And she got her hand up in time to knock it away. But she didn’t knock it far enough. A thin line of fire sliced across her jaw and down her neck. He’d cut her! A strength she didn’t know she had burst forth; she reared up and shoved him, hard. He went over backward and hit his head on the corner of the table—
My God. She stared at herself in the mirror. She really had done it. She’d killed Wayne. One hand was stuffed against her mouth in denial and she forced herself to loosen the taut muscles. My God. She was a murderess.
The other m
emory fragment floated into her head. Who had the other man been? She’d been hiding in a closet when he’d banged on the door—hiding from Wayne. Had this happened before or after Wayne had pulled the knife on her? It had to have happened before if he’d died when he struck his head on the table. Or had it?
A small ray of hope, weak but steady, shone through her dark thoughts. Maybe that fall hadn’t killed him.
One thing she knew for sure, she hadn’t been the one to stuff his body into a closet to rot. The mere thought made her want to gag.
Then an old board squeaked in the hallway, and she jumped halfway to the ceiling at the unexpected sound.
Cal’s footsteps passed her door and she heard the steps creak beneath his weight. She glanced at her watch and realized he’d be going to get his mother any minute. Oh, Lord! She’d better get down there and check on dinner.
She hurried from her room and rushed down the stairs to the kitchen. As she rounded the corner from the hallway, Cal stood blocking her way. He held the phone in one hand, but as she barreled into him he put out his free arm and caught her, splaying his fingers wide on her spine and holding her against his big, warm frame when she would have moved away.
Over her head, she heard him conclude a conversation with another rancher. She stirred once, pushing at him, but it was like pushing at a bull that had braced his legs. He didn’t even indicate that he’d noticed, except to tighten his arm around her waist, and she closed her eyes momentarily in despair. Her pulse raced as his hard strength registered and the musky male scent he wore teased her nostrils, increasing her longing for him to an almost unbearable pitch.
“You bet, George. I’ll see you at the sale barn then.”
Cal hit the off button on the mobile phone and set it down on the counter. He leaned back a fraction and looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Well, look what I caught. What are you in such an all-fired hurry for?”
She couldn’t think straight when he held her like this. She was supremely conscious of the steely strength of his arm around her back, the heat of his unyielding body, the warm, smoky good humor in his gaze. “I— I, uh…”
“Whatever you say.” His lips curved into a lazy grin, and her heart jumped as strong white teeth flashed. He knew he’d flustered her. Then he turned fully to face her, sliding his body against her until she was lodged firmly against his chest. Her legs brushed his and his hips pressed into her belly.
Her knees felt like jelly. Deep in her quivering abdomen, a fist clenched and she sucked in a breath of much-needed air.
“I told myself I wasn’t going to do this.” Cal muttered the words as his head came down and she felt moist searing breath against the sensitive skin of her neck. “But I can’t seem to convince myself it’s a bad idea.” His lips slid across her cheek and hovered above hers. “Tell me it’s a bad idea.”
She shook her head the tiniest bit without speaking, lifting her chin while she kept her eyes on his. Loving him as she did, she couldn’t turn him away, didn’t want to turn him away. She slipped her palms up his broad chest to his wide shoulders in mute appeal.
Cal made a sound deep in his throat, a groan of pleasure, and his hands clasped her hips with almost bruising force. He took her mouth in a deep, searching kiss, his tongue sliding easily between her lips and flirting with her teeth until she opened for him and met his ardor with her own. The kiss went on and on and she felt his big body shaking against hers. Or maybe it was her shaking against him. Who cared? Then she felt the slightest withdrawal as he lessened the intensity of the kiss.
“I have to go,” he murmured against her mouth. His lips continued to mold hers with decreasing pressure until he was merely brushing his mouth over hers. “We need to talk later.”
She nodded, drawing in a shaky breath as he set her to one side and reached for the keys on the hook at the side of the cabinets.
“Now remember,” he said, and his voice was suddenly cooler, harsher, distant. “We’re not making a big fuss about my mother visiting. This is just another meal. Got it?”
She nodded, but he was already striding out the door. “Got it.”
How could he do that, she wondered? How could he turn off the passion so easily? He’d been as aroused and affected as she had by that kiss, she was sure of it. In all her life, Lyn had never known she could feel like this. Instinctively, she recognized that Cal was the man of whom she would dream for the rest of her life, the man she had been made for, the only man she could ever come alive for again.
It wasn’t fair that such feelings could be one-sided.
Then again, she thought with a slightly bitter resignation, when had her life ever been fair? Some people just weren’t made to live their dreams.
“Well, duh,” she said aloud as she realized how pathetic and self-pitying her thoughts were. She was grateful that her life was as good as it was right now. She was never hungry, never cold, never fearful that she’d anger someone and get slapped. No one took her paychecks or locked her in her room. Her present was pretty darn good compared to her past. Why make herself miserable wishing for a future that wasn’t going to happen?
She turned and slapped both hands on the counter. She just had time to feed the dogs and cats before Cal returned with his mother.
Dinner was a success in her eyes. Cal’s mother was as sweet as she’d been at their first meeting, chatting easily with Lyn and working to draw Cal into the conversation. She praised the food and talked about her own mother’s recipe for deep-dish pot pie, promising to send it to Lyn once she returned to Virginia.
Lyn caught Cal’s narrowed look when she brought out the cherry pie along with the plate of raisin cookies she’d baked for him. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Don’t do anything special.
Well, the heck with him. If making a few desserts qualified as something special, then so be it.
The meal went smoothly. But then, she’d expected it to. Cal was courteous to a fault, never letting the conversation flag and playing the part of the host flawlessly. Cora Lee Jenssen was too well-bred to make a scene, but Lyn wondered if she longed to scream at him as badly as Lyn did. She could see the hurt and despair in his mother’s eyes, watched the woman grow quieter and quieter as Cal moved the conversation from one meaningless topic to another throughout the meal.
He insisted Lyn join them for coffee afterward in the living room, no doubt so he wouldn’t have to spend any significant time alone with his parent. By the time the evening ended and Cal asked his mother if she’d like him to drive her back to Silver’s, Lyn could almost see the tears the older woman was holding in check. She finished cleaning the kitchen while he was gone, banging pots and pans around in an unsatisfying cacophony of clashing sounds, wishing she could bang some sense into Cal’s thick head.
He walked into the kitchen just in time to see her slam the pantry door.
“Whoa!” he said. “Did something happen while I was gone?”
“No.” She ignored him and concentrated on wiping down the table.
He eyed her for a minute. “You were smiling when I left here. Now you look like you’d like to take a bite out of someone. Want to tell me why?”
Lyn threw the dishcloth onto the table. “Why? Why?” She crossed her arms and gave him an accusatory, un-flinching stare. “Why did you bother inviting your mother to dinner tonight?”
His eyes narrowed, and she could see a curtain drop over his thoughts as surely as if he’d physically withdrawn from the room. “Because she called and indicated she’d like to visit. If you recall.”
“And you call this evening a visit.” Her voice was scornful. “You went out of your way to make that poor woman feel like a casual acquaintance whom you were obligated to entertain.”
“I was polite!” he said through clenched teeth.
“That you were,” she agreed. “Would you like an award?”
Cal spun and stalked the length of the kitchen and back again. He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that betrayed
his discomfort. “‘That poor woman’ is a casual acquaintance,” he said, and she heard defensiveness in his tone. “I saw her once a year during my childhood. I barely know her.”
“She’s trying to remedy that!”
“I don’t care!” The words were a shout, echoing through the old house’s cozy rooms.
Lyn stared at him in astonishment. Cal wasn’t one to lose his temper; she could count on one hand the times she’d seen him angry, and she’d never seen his composure slip like this.
“You should care,” she said quietly. She picked up the dishcloth and slowly crossed to the sink, then turned to face him again. “My father treated me like a servant. As far back as I can remember, he expected me to keep his house, clean his clothes, make his meals. I never remember having any sense of kinship. If he loved me, he did a darn good job of hiding it.”
“It’s a different situation. You don’t know anything about my mother and me.”
“I know that she wants to be a part of your life now,” she said. “I know that she loves you. I know that you’re hurting her—you know it, too, and you don’t care.”
They stared at each other across the kitchen, but Lyn could feel the chasm between them yawning much, much wider. “Never mind,” she said stiffly. “It isn’t any of my business. I’m just the hired help.” She turned her back on him, rinsing and wringing out the dishcloth, and all the while she could feel her heart being wrung and twisted, as well. She knew Cal was a loving, caring man. Why couldn’t he extend that compassion to his mother?
Cal didn’t contradict her last words. He simply stood, big hands at his sides, watching her through angry eyes as she walked out of the kitchen and headed for the stairs. She could almost feel the waves of hostility emanating from him, and the fist around her heart squeezed even tighter.
“Good night,” she said quietly.
He didn’t answer.
Hours later, she was still awake, waiting for his familiar footsteps on the stairs. But he hadn’t come to bed when she finally fell into a troubled sleep in the wee hours of the morning.
Rancher's Proposition Page 9