Big Sky Secrets

by Linda Lael Miller

  “You deserve to be happy, Aunt Ria,” Quinn insisted, and then she burst into tears. She’d always been too empathetic, too perceptive, for her own good. “You’ve got this great farm—I can tell you love the life you’re living. But it isn’t enough, is it?”

  Ria swallowed, shook her head in glum admission. Quinn was right—even with blessings too numerous to count—it wasn’t enough. While she wouldn’t regard her time on earth as a failure if she never had the happy home and healthy family she longed for, she knew she’d feel deep regret when the end came.

  Smiling now, having wiped away her tears with the knuckles of both hands, Quinn hugged Ria.

  “Give it a shot,” the woman-child urged, in a whisper. “Take a chance.”

  Ria finally collected herself enough to sniffle—had she cried, too, without even being aware of it?—lengthened her spine and pushed back her shoulders. “We’ll see,” she said. “In the meantime, let’s go to town and do a little shopping.”

  Quinn looked concerned for a moment, as though she might be about to remind her aunt that she had little or no money, but then she gave a silent yet visible sigh and raised and lowered her shoulders. “Okay,” she said.

  Like Highbridge’s visit and gift of pie, the small expedition gave both Ria and Quinn a lift. For a little while, at least, they could drive over country roads with the windows rolled down and the CD player blasting oldies at top volume.

  Bones seemed content to stay behind, curled up on a folded blanket in a corner of the kitchen, a bowl of fresh water nearby.

  At the giant discount establishment out on the highway, Ria and Quinn selected kibble and a bed for Bones, along with a leash and collar and some treats and toys. Since these purchases filled the cart Ria was pushing, Quinn returned to the front of the store for a second one.

  The girl seemed to delight in choosing jeans and tops, sneakers and work boots, socks and underwear—at least partly, Ria suspected, because she knew her mother wouldn’t approve of “cheap” garments. While sparing with her time and attention, when it came to her daughter at least, Meredith believed in “standards,” wanted it known that she didn’t patronize companies accused of running overseas sweatshops.

  Oh, no. Meredith bought all of Quinn’s clothes in high-end department stores, with the help of a personal shopper. The tailored suits Meredith herself wore were typically made by harried Hispanic, Russian or Asian women, recent immigrants all, working out of a cramped storefront in a part of Portland where windows and doors were barred and even the police were reluctant to visit, once the sun went down.

  So much for boycotting sweatshops.

  “This is fun,” Quinn confided later, as they loaded bags and more bags into the trunk of Ria’s car. But the glow had gone off her smile when she settled into the passenger seat, her shoulders dropping into a slight but noticeable slump. “Too bad Meredith’s probably going to ruin everything.”

  Since she privately agreed—ruining things was what Meredith did best—Ria saw no need to comment. She fastened her seat belt, put on her sunglasses and turned the key in the ignition.

  Quinn picked up the conversational ball. “If she’d just let me stay, I could work for you, on the farm, I mean. Pay you back for these clothes and the stuff you bought for Bones....”

  Ria blinked a few times, afraid she’d cry. Her throat was tight—too tight for speech.

  Quinn was quiet for a while. Then, softly, she said, “Aunt Ria?”

  Ria managed a croaky “yes?” keeping her chin high and her eyes on the road. She wasn’t sure how much the sunglasses would do to hide her emotions.

  Quinn went on, her voice barely above a whisper. “If I have to go back to Portland—if I get sent to camp—will you keep Bones for me? He’d be safe with you, and I think he’d like being a farm dog.”

  That did it. The dam broke.

  Ria pulled the car to the side of the road, shifted into Park, flipped on her blinkers and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Her shoulders shook as great, silent sobs seized her.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IF RIA HAD made a list of the people she did not want to see her sitting alongside the highway in her dull and dusty car, having a personal meltdown while her poor niece looked on in helpless dismay, it would have been a long one, and Landry Sutton would fill the number one slot.

  So, naturally, he materialized within moments, as though he and his big truck had been conjured by some hidden magician, tall and strong and solidly present, seeming to take up more than his share of space as he leaned to peer in at her through the driver’s-side window, a worried frown creasing his forehead, his eyes slightly narrowed.

  His fine mouth shaped the words Are you all right?

  Ria’s odd, silent sobbing fit was beginning to subside, thank heaven, but she was a long way from “all right.” She rolled down the car window, knowing Landry would open the door if she didn’t. He was firmly planted where he stood, and obviously not going anywhere.

  While she tried to catch her breath, summon up some shred of dignity by staring at the dashboard, Quinn bent forward in her seat in order to see around Ria and studied Landry before asking, on a single breath, “Is that him?”

  Ria could only hope Landry hadn’t heard the girl’s question. If he had, he’d surely guess that he’d recently been the topic of discussion, and he might jump to the wrong conclusion.

  “Having car trouble?” Landry asked mildly, as, out of the corner of one puffy eye, Ria saw him straighten. She knew he was still looking at her, though—she could feel his gaze in every nerve ending, every pore.

  Ria shook her head, forced herself to meet those cornflower-blue eyes, darkening shade by shade as he watched her, waited for an answer. “No,” she said, at once embarrassed and relieved that she’d regained enough equilibrium to speak at all. “We’re just—”

  She fell silent, stricken and confused and more than a little frightened—not of Landry, but of herself. In all her practical, left-brained life, she’d never fallen apart in quite the same way.

  Certainly, she’d grieved a deep, soul-chafing grief after Frank died in the apartment fire—she’d loved him as completely as she’d known how to love anyone—and her season of mourning had lasted for a long, long time. Still, she’d always held herself together, when there were other people around, anyway.

  For Ria, grief was a private thing, silent and subterranean, a dark night of the soul necessarily endured alone.

  “Just what?” Landry finally prompted.

  Bless her, Quinn finally came to the rescue, her tone cheerily matter-of-fact. “I think I upset Aunt Ria when I asked her if she’d take care of my dog—if I have to go back to Oregon, that is,” she told Landry, leaning forward in the passenger seat to make eye contact. “I’m sure she’ll be fine in a little while.”

  Ria rested her forehead against the steering wheel again and closed her eyes, though this time she didn’t go mental. Instead, she was mortified.

  “Okay,” Landry agreed hoarsely, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  “I’ll drive us home,” Quinn announced brightly, pushing open her car door and stepping out. “I have my license.”

  “That’s probably a good idea,” Landry admitted, but he didn’t move to walk away; Ria knew that without looking. She would have felt a shift in the very atmosphere if he’d gone, an actual void in the place where he’d been, like a major piece missing from a vast jigsaw puzzle.

  Knowing it would be irresponsible to insist on driving in her condition, Ria got out of the car, let Quinn take her place behind the wheel. And then she just stood there, willing starch into her knees, not quite trusting her shaky legs to support her as far as the other door.

  “Ria and I will be right behind you, in the truck,” Landry said. The decision had obviously been made, and he didn’t expect an argument.

  Ria felt a swift flicker of annoyance, and took that as a good sign.

  Quinn looked at Landry and then, with questions gathe
ring in her eyes, at Ria. Well?

  Ria nodded, the signal that she’d be okay riding home with Landry. “You know the way back to the farm, right?” she asked her niece.

  Quinn rolled her eyes and grinned good-naturedly. “Sure,” she replied. “I have a great sense of direction, you know.”

  “See you there,” Landry told Quinn.

  Then, with no warning at all, he lifted Ria into his arms and carried her back to his truck, seated her in the passenger seat and stood still for a long moment, studying her with pensive concentration.

  “I’m really all right,” Ria insisted. “Truly.”

  “You don’t look all right,” Landry replied flatly. “Buckle your seat belt.”

  With that, he shut the door and strode around to the driver’s side, climbed in.

  Ria, who’d left her purse in her car, suppressed an urge to grab hold of the rearview mirror, slant it her way and check her appearance. Did she look crazy? Sick?

  She pursed her lips. She was neither of those things, thank you very much, and she wanted, in the worst way, to make sure Landry Sutton knew it, knew she wasn’t a weak woman, prone to spontaneous nervous breakdowns. Far from it.

  “Who’s the kid?” Landry asked presently, following as Quinn pulled carefully out onto the highway.

  For some reason, the question prickled a little. “‘The kid,’” Ria replied stiffly, keeping her eyes on the car ahead, her car, which, it seemed to her, lacked imagination and style, “is my niece, Quinn Whittingford.”

  Landry sighed audibly, but said nothing.

  Ria was amazed to find herself rattling on, when silence would have been the most prudent course. She’d already made a fool of herself, and talking only increased the risk that she’d do it again.

  Still, the words spilled out. “Quinn’s seventeen. She ran away from home, and on her way here—to Three Trees, I mean—she found a little dog at a rest stop, evidently abandoned. If her mother forces her to come back home, which is a ninety-nine-percent probability, Bones will be dumped at some shelter within the first five minutes.” Ria willed herself to shut up, found that she couldn’t. There was something freeing about confiding all this stuff to Landry, though heaven only knew why that should be the case, given their usual antipathy to each other.

  Even more perplexing, her body had thrilled shamelessly to being carried in strong, protective arms, was still reverberating with odd sensations.

  “So, anyway,” she rushed on, aware of a need to be held in those same arms, just held, until she was herself again, and absolutely determined not to give in to that need, “Quinn asked if I’d take care of Bones, if she had to leave, and I’d already planned on it, but for some reason—for some reason—”

  At last, Ria was running out of steam. A blush pulsed in her cheeks, and she swallowed miserably, audibly.

  “For some reason,” Landry said quietly, even gently, “you let down your guard, and the floodgates opened. It happens, Ria. In fact, it was probably good for you.”

  She stole a glance at him, savored his profile, the way the slight breeze coming in through his partly open window ruffled his hair, the strength of his hands, resting on the wheel, the almost Grecian perfection of his features.

  “You don’t think I’m crazy?” she asked, without intending to. The question was reflexive, and it sneaked out from behind her usual facade of sturdy pragmatism, fierce independence and unrelenting competence.

  He looked her way, just briefly, and she saw a smile dance in his eyes before landing, almost imperceptibly, at one corner of his mouth.

  A voice in her head warned, Don’t think about his mouth! She’d already lost the best part of a night’s sleep thinking about the man’s mouth—and other parts of his anatomy—and she didn’t want to repeat the experience.

  Landry spoke solemnly, and with a certainty that seemed to be rooted in the marrow of his bones. What would it be like to be so damn sure of everything?

  “I think,” he said, “that you’re a flesh-and-blood woman, trying too hard to be too strong too much of the time. And right now I’d like nothing better than to lie down with you, somewhere dark and cool and quiet, and hold you close.”

  Fresh fire shot through Ria as though fired from a flame gun, burning in her veins, sizzling along the surface of her flesh, causing an achy, spilling sensation of expansion between her pelvic bones. Her reactions were so elemental, so primitive, that she wouldn’t consciously register the fact that she’d just been thinking much the same thing only moments before until a lot later. When she would wonder, not for the first time, if Landry could read her mind.

  Up ahead, Quinn signaled to make the turn onto Ria’s twisting driveway.

  Landry signaled, too, glanced Ria’s way, gave a low chuckle and shook his head slightly. “No snappy comeback?” he teased, his tone husky, intimate, as though they were already lying in that “dark and cool and quiet place” he’d mentioned. She could almost feel his caresses, the seeking touch of his mouth as he slowly peeled away both her clothing and her inhibitions. “I’m surprised. Maybe even a little disappointed.”

  She said nothing; all her concentration went into getting across the verbal and emotional mine field in front of her.

  Quinn parked the car next to the house, while Landry brought the truck to a stop out front.

  Ria rallied enough to unsnap her seat belt, shove open her door and say tersely, “Thanks for the ride.” Then she fairly leaped to the ground, keeping her back to Landry, struggling awkwardly to shut the door behind her without turning around.

  Something in his gruff chuckle made it clear that he knew he’d gotten to her again, just as he had with that outrageous kiss the day before, that the score had, once again, gone up a few notches. In his favor, of course.

  “See you Saturday night,” he said, in an easy drawl.

  And then he drove away, leaving Ria simmering in her own juices. First, she’d had an emotional short circuit—or something—and Landry had turned up before she could pull herself together. He’d carried her to his truck, for pity’s sake, and she’d let him, like some moony, eyelash-batting heroine in a silent movie, and then, then she’d sat there, like a lump, putting up with—no, enjoying—what could only be described as a kind of foreplay.

  “That was the guy, right?” Quinn asked eagerly, having sprinted across the yard to meet Ria at the base of the walk. “The one you’re going out with?”

  Ria sighed. “Yes,” she admitted wearily, having neither the will nor the strength to prevaricate.

  Quinn’s face softened, and she slipped an arm around Ria’s waist as they headed toward the front steps. Inside the house, Bones was barking excitedly at their return. “He is seriously hot,” Quinn said. “I mean, wow—”

  In spite of her now-jittery mood, Ria had to laugh. “‘He’ has a name—it’s Landry Sutton. And, yes, he is good-looking. But I think—well—he’s sort of—out of my league.” Seeing a protest brewing in Quinn’s eyes, Ria hastened to explain as she unlocked the front door and pushed it open. “He’s more sophisticated than I am, that’s all. More experienced and—” She sighed as Bones launched himself at both of them, overjoyed. “I’m getting this all wrong, aren’t I?”

  Quinn bent, hoisted the little dog into her arms and nuzzled his furry neck while he squirmed with delight. “Yes,” she answered. “You are. It isn’t as if you aren’t sophisticated yourself. You’re experienced, too, and good-looking. Look in a mirror sometime, will you? You’re gorgeous, is all.”

  “And you’re prejudiced,” Ria said, touched.

  “You said he was out of your league,” Quinn reminded her. “And that’s so not true.”

  They gravitated toward the kitchen, the nerve center of any country house, and Ria dropped into her wicker rocking chair, next to a tall window, instinctively kicking off her shoes, breathing in the sight of her flower fields, soothed, as always, by the seemingly endless rows of vibrantly colored blossoms.

  Quinn waited, sti
ll holding Bones in the curve of one arm, her free hand resting on her hips. By her expression, it was clear that she wasn’t going to let the subject drop until Ria gave her a satisfactory answer.

  “All right,” Ria conceded, feeling an odd combination of invigoration and complete exhaustion, “I take it back. He’s not out of my league.”

  It was true that she didn’t feel inferior to Landry, which was probably what Quinn was fretting over. Ria liked and respected herself, was proud of the road she’d traveled, of the way she’d overcome so many obstacles along the way. Just the same, Landry definitely knew how to get past her primary defenses, how to touch her in her most vulnerable places with just a word or a glance. The unsettling truth was, she’d wanted everything he’d offered, and more.

  Still wanted it.

  If Quinn hadn’t been visiting, if they could have been alone, even for a few hours, Ria knew she wouldn’t have let Landry drive away; she’d have asked him inside, led him through the quiet little house and straight to her bed. She’d have lain with him, taken sweet shelter in his embrace, not resisting or hesitating but reveling in that first, small surrender, knowing all the while that it was only the beginning, that another giving in, wild and exultant and free, awaited them both in the heartbeat just beyond the inevitable moment when their mouths found each other.

  “Okay, then,” Quinn said, as though something might or might not have been settled. “You just sit there and rest up. Bones and I will bring in the stuff from the car.”

  Ria, not wanting to be alone with her thoughts, insisted on helping with the task, and she soon realized she’d been right to do it. Physical activity nearly always untangled her thoughts, cleared her head.

  And nothing jumbled her mental processes like an encounter with Landry Sutton.

  After the purchases had been brought in and put away, Ria brewed a pot of tea while Quinn popped the top on a diet soda.

  Just as they were about to sit down, take a break, the wall phone rang, a shrill jangle in the quiet heat of the afternoon.