“I can see that.” They were quiet for a minute, then he asked. “How’d you get so wet, anyway? Were you standing in front of the window?”
“Oh, not then! I was taking a shower in that gorgeous rain—are you kidding? After all this time without any, how could I let it just fall right in front of my door and not feel it?”
“A shower,” he repeated.
Sunny laughed. “It felt great, too. You should try it sometime.” She felt his eyes on her and looked over. “What?”
A mix of curiosity and surprise and something quite intense was on his face. For an instant, Sunny felt her breath go still, felt the tension coming from him so clearly it couldn’t be mistaken. He was looking at her the way a man looks at a woman he wants, with that look that made her know he’d been imagining how she might look naked. Or maybe it wasn’t even that pretty. Men didn’t think like that, did they? She flushed, looked away.
“This land will kill you, you know,” he said conversationally.
“Hasn’t killed you yet.”
“I’m tougher.”
She raised an eyebrow. “How would you know that?”
He grunted. Putting his long legs out in front of him, he asked, “What’d you do before you came here?”
She stirred eggs into the hot pan, scrambled them with quick, sure strokes. “Come get a plate, cowboy. It’s almost ready.”
He took down plates, one for each of them, silver out of the drawer she indicated, set the table so that Sunny could come over and pour the eggs directly to their plates. They moved around each other easily, she noticed. He didn’t have that man-weirdness in the kitchen, bumping into her every time he tried to help. Instead he moved smoothly, anticipating her movements, and they sat down together before the steaming eggs, glistening ham and warmed banana bread.
“Do you mind if I say a blessing?” Sunny asked.
“Nope.”
He bowed his head while Sunny quickly said grace. “Dear Lord, for this we are about to receive, make us truly grateful. Amen.”
He chuckled softly. “That gets right to the point.”
“I’m starving!”
Michael was starving, too, and the food was excellent. He ate three slices of the banana bread, flavored with hints of cinnamon and something else he couldn’t quite name, and there were generous chunks of walnut in it.
It wasn’t just his stomach he was filling. He filled his eyes with the shine in her healthy, soft-looking hair, the dewiness of her scrubbed-clean face, the glitter in her blue eyes. She wore a simple scoop-neck T-shirt that allowed just a little bit of chest to show, just a hint of the curves beneath, and he liked that, too. Liked her nice round rear end as she cooked, her quick, efficient movements that seemed so at odds with that luscious figure. She ate as hungrily as a child, washing it down with milk, but then dabbed at her mouth carefully with a napkin between bites.
A paradox, this woman.
“So, you never said what you did for a living back in Denver.”
“I was a seamstress. Designed one-of-a-kind clothing and sold it at boutiques, but I also made my own patterns, sewed costumes for stage shows and the Renaissance Festival, things like that.”
“That’s different. Why’d you give it up?”
“The truth is, a self-employed person has to work no matter what’s going on, and I couldn’t for nearly six months. It took everything I had to take care of Jessie.” She put her fork and knife carefully down across her plate. “I had to sell my machines to pay off some of my debts.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
That lift of a shoulder. “It was worth it. I’m sure I’ll get to a place where I can do it again one of these days.”
“Were you good?”
She met his eyes. Nodded with a little smile.
Suddenly, through the windows came a sound. Michael lifted his head. “Listen. Hear that?” A rain of yips and yowls rang out, an excited, exuberant noise. “Coyotes.”
Her face broke wide open with wonder. “Really?” She raised her eyes, as if seeing into the distance, and the coyotes accommodated her by singing a long, complicated song to each other. “They sound like they’re laughing!”
“I’m sure they are.”
“I thought ranchers hated coyotes.”
“Some do.” Truth was, they could be a pain in the neck, but he also knew they served a purpose, as all creatures did. How could you hate something that could laugh like that?
“But not you.” Her eyes shone as the coyotes sang a little more, then faded into the distance. “I’m so glad.”
And there was absolutely nothing fancy about her in that moment—her hair was stick-straight, her skin not perfect under the ugly lights, and there was weariness around her mouth, but he still felt something shift inside him in that instant. He looked at her mouth and wanted to kiss her, wanted fiercely to touch her, feel her body against his. She held his gaze for a moment, then looked away, down to her plate, where she adjusted the knife and fork a minute amount.
He knew he should stand up, make his excuses and go home now, but he didn’t. He sat there, his palms itching with the wish to reach out and touch her, and stayed frozen, just looking, wishing, not acting.
Finally, she raised her head. She didn’t say anything, but the smile was gone, and there was such a wary hunger in her face that it shamed him. She hadn’t said much about her husband, but in that instant, he saw that she’d been very badly treated, like a horse who’d been beaten, and he didn’t need to be doing anything that might add to that burden.
“Guess I need to let you get some sleep,” he said, standing to carry his plate to the sink. “What time do you need to get to town?”
She picked up her dishes and carried them over, too. “I usually leave at six, and drop Jessie off at the day care.”
“No problem.” He started to move around her, but she started to move at the same time, and they bumped into each other lightly. He reached out and touched her arm. “Sorry.”
She backed up. “My fault.”
Nodding stiffly, he put on his hat and headed for the door. “Thanks for the meal. It was good.”
“My pleasure.”
In spite of the busy evening, Sunny found herself up very early, a little edge of excitement moving beneath the ordinary tasks of readying the house, getting breakfast together, waking Jessie, putting on her makeup, with which she found herself taking special care.
It was only as she was drawing a very, very thin line of soft purple eyeliner beneath her left lashes that she realized what was going on. She stopped and stared herself square in the eye. “Don’t do this, Sunny Kendricks. Don’t start giving this man all the fantasy characteristics of a good and honest and true man. You don’t know that much about him, and you don’t need to gamble your security.”
Last night, over their simple supper, her body had been quietly pulsing out little messages of pleasure—Look at his eyes, how they shine! Look at his hands and how strong they are and imagine how they would feel! That mouth! Kiss that mouth!
She’d resisted telegraphing any of it to him, but this morning, in anticipation of his arrival, of the fifteen minutes they would spend in his car together, she was all atwitter.
Just like her mother. Dressing up and getting happy every time a new man showed up, sure that this one would prove the exception to the rule. And sometimes they were nicer than others were, but it was a sad fact that Debbie had twisted herself into whatever she thought that man wanted, every time, until she got so lost in her make-believe identities that she self-destructed.
Not gonna happen, she said to herself, and wiped off the extra eyeliner, reapplied her usual one coat of mascara.
But it wasn’t all that easy to stay aloof when Michael actually appeared. In the fresh light of morning, he was dressed in his usual jeans with a long-sleeved white shirt open at the collar, a simple uniform that should not have looked so delectable, but it did. “Good morning!” he said heartily, tipping his
hat back from his forehead the slightest bit.
“Hi, Wow!”
Impossible not to be disarmed. Sunny laughed. “She thinks your name is Wow.”
He braced his hands on his hips, very lean hips they were, too, and said, “Is that right? How’d she get that idea, I wonder?”
Grinning, Sunny shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“Well, it does an old man some good.”
“Old?” As he bent over to settle the car seat in the back bench seat of his massive truck, she laughed. “You can’t be more than thirty.”
“Way older than that. Thirty-six, as a matter of fact.” He accepted Jessie and settled her. “Makes me a decade more than you, I figure.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Old.”
Sunny didn’t know where it came from. Some evil demon took over her body and made her give him a slow once-over, then say wickedly, “Still looking pretty fine to me.”
It startled him, she saw, and she opened her mouth to protest, but started laughing. “You started it last night with that crack about flashing.”
He straightened, the dark eyes glittering, and stepped close. So close she could smell soap on his neck and a spicy under-note that made her think of a good fire. “I don’t think I said I minded.”
Sunny flushed, more from his closeness than the words. She was spared having to make a reply by Jessie’s urgent, “Less go!”
It was a busy day at Mel’s Diner. Everyone came to town to talk about the dual dramas—the fire then the hailstorm—and compare notes on damage. The hailstorm had been very destructive, no question, but the general mood was jovial anyway. One old man summed it up: “Sure needed the moisture.”
By the time she got off at two, Sunny’s pockets were thick with tips. Without any other resources, she asked her boss, a gruff but kindly ex-marine, if she could have a loan to replace her windshield. “I’ll pay you back at whatever rate you think is fair. It’ll probably be about two hundred dollars or so. But I can’t even get to work without it.”
“Tell you what,” he said, picking up the phone. “My brother-in-law runs a junkyard in Rocky Ford. Let me give him a call and see what he can do.” After a short discussion of the fire and the hail and what damage each had sustained, he said, “Hank, one of my best employees has a little problem, and I’m hoping you can help her out.”
To Sunny’s amazement, he hung up the phone in five minutes. “You’re covered. He’ll bring his wrecker over this afternoon and bring you a loaner. He said it might take him a coupla weeks, since you’re not the only one with a bad windshield, but that’ll cover you for the meantime. He’ll work with you on the money, twenty bucks a week. How’s that?”
Sunny blinked back tears. “It’s wonderful. Thank you. So much.”
“My pleasure, kiddo. Now skedaddle and let me get my work done here.”
Bemused, she walked out of the office, and there was Michael at the counter, his hat neatly beside him on a stool. Sunny halted, wanting this one quiet minute to calm her suddenly racing heart. It was his hands that captured her again—long and graceful and very strong. The most competent hands she’d ever seen, but they were gentle, too, as she’d seen when he touched his horses, the cat, Jessica.
She wanted them on her body. With the thought came a vivid image of exactly that, those elegantly shaped hands sliding up her tummy to—
He spied her and reached for his hat. “Hi. Ready to go?”
“Um. Yeah.” She gestured toward the back room. “Just let me get my purse. I didn’t know you were coming to pick us up.”
He tilted his head, eyes glittering. “You think you were just gonna walk?”
“I guess I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Lucky one of us did then.”
“Be right back.” As she turned into the back room, a waitress came up to her, whispering urgently, “You’re seeing Michael Chasing Horse? Good grief!”
“No, it’s not like that.” Sunny grabbed her purse. She didn’t always like this woman, Andi, who had the kind of petty greediness that led her to constantly grab tables from other waitresses. “He’s my neighbor.”
Andi raised an eyebrow.
“I have to go,” Sunny said, and pushed by the other woman.
After the air-conditioned cool of the restaurant, it was blazingly hot outside. The weight of it made Sunny stagger a little, and Michael touched her back, once, right in the middle. “You okay?”
“Fine. That’s just one of those transitions that’s hard to make every single time.”
They picked up Jessica, who had to be awakened from a nap and was cranky and flushed and irritable. “Go ’way,” she said to Michael when he settled her in her car seat. Alarmed, Sunny glanced at his face, and he was smiling as he buckled her in.
“Girl with a curl. I knew it.” He touched her forehead lightly, brushing away a circle of blond hair from her brow.
As they drove out of town, Sunny eyed the sky. A thin, distant line of clouds rimmed the western horizon. “So you were married ten years, you said?”
“Yep.”
“You’re such a natural with kids, I—” She broke off, realizing how rude she was about to be.
“My wife had a mother and a sister with schizophrenia. The sister is very ill, and Kara didn’t want to take the chance.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rude.”
He shook his head, unconcerned. “It’s a natural thing to wonder.” He leaned over the steering wheel a little, peering at the sky. “Looks promising, huh?”
“It does. Two days in a row! Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
“With the heat, it’ll be violent again, but I don’t mind, either. Turn your radio on and keep an ear open for reports.”
“And stay away from windows,” Sunny joked.
“Also a good plan.” He grinned, and for the space of a moment, Sunny let herself imagine that he could be what he seemed to be, that she could give her heart and he would hold it safely in his strong hands. He didn’t look away, but put his hand on hers, lightly, once, then drew it away.
Chapter 6
As suppertime approached, the clouds grew darker and more foreboding. Michael ate a bowl of chili and eyed the sky uneasily. Something about it made him uncomfortable—a sound he couldn’t quite hear, or a scent that was a little too elusive to name. Uncomfortable, he turned on the weather channel, but the only warnings were severe thunderstorms and possible hail. Not a surprise. He was probably worrying for nothing.
But he didn’t like it. There was a weight to those clouds, a depth of blackness that went beyond the ordinary, and as if to underscore his concern, the horses were jumpy and restless, their manes flying in the wind that was picking up. Michael made the rounds of the outbuildings, tying down anything that might be carted away in a high wind—he’d seen winds that overturned cars when the storms turned violent. He brought the mother cat and her kittens into the house, rounded up the dogs. Horses still uneasy, he went back to the television. Still no upgrade. Some large hail spotted five miles southwest of Rocky Ford, a severe thunderstorm moving northeast at seven miles an hour, which meant it would arrive here in a quarter hour, maybe a little more.
Maybe, he thought, hands on his hips, he’d just turn off the breaker box, too, just to be safe. Damned lightning could sometimes take out—
An electronic voice, using the imperfect pronunciation of a robot, said, “Warning. A tornado has been sighted moving northwest from Rocky Ford. Residents are advised to—”
Michael didn’t wait for the rest. He grabbed his keys and bolted out of the house.
Sunny heard the news at the exact same instant. A huge claw of terror squeezed her chest for one agonizing second, and she was frozen, her mind frantically tearing through previous experiences to see if it could get a close match for this situation. There was none.
A sudden, roaring blast of rain hit the kitchen windows, followed by a crack of lightning and thunder so loud she knew
something had been struck close by. It sent her adrenaline into over-drive, and she grabbed Jessica, who had been startled by the noise and was howling, and ran to a doorway.
No, it was a bathtub, right? Bathtub and couch cushions. She dashed to the bathroom, set Jessie in the tub, screamed, “Sit right there!” and ran back to grab the cushions. Tears leaked out of her eyes and she was making a strange animal sound, half pant, half prayer—
The door burst open with a crash, and Sunny screamed before she realized it was Michael. “Let’s go!” he roared. “Now! Now, now, now!”
Jessie was screaming in the bathroom, and Sunny grabbed her, following Michael out at a dead run. He’d grabbed the diaper bag that sat at the ready by the front door at all times, and it made her want to giggle for some reason. He was skidding down the road the instant the truck doors were closed. “Hang on,” he yelled, and Sunny realized that Jessie was screaming at the top of her lungs, and the sound of the storm was rising like a cluster of demons. She held Jessica against her chest, her lips against her head, and braced them both with her other arm as Michael gunned the truck down the road.
Something was clanging and banging as they raced into the yard, and Sunny looked up. A huge, black wall was bearing down on them. She was stunned to stillness for one second, but Michael shoved her, grabbed her sleeve, and they bent into the wind and ducked into the house.
“Into the basement, to your left!” he cried. “Go, go, go.”
Two dogs came skittering up to greet them, and Michael had paused to gather a handful of spitting, terrified kittens and cat. The mama scratched him and screeched as she leapt out of his arms and dove under a bench. He slammed the door closed behind him, and suddenly, it was much quieter.
“Right here,” he said, gruffly. He was soaked, Sunny saw, as she was, as Jessie was. He pointed at a bench beneath a thick support beam, and Sunny sank down gratefully. Her entire body was trembling, hands, knees, intestines and she was clutching Jessica so hard she thought she might crush her. The baby was clinging just as hard back, as if she wanted to crawl inside Sunny’s body and just stay there. “It’s okay, sweetie,” Sunny said. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” She rocked forward and back. “It’s okay.”
Lakota Legacy: Wolf DreamerCowboy Days and Indian NightsSeven Days Page 20