“If I insulted you,” he said, suddenly ashamed of himself, “I apologize. You seem sincere. You just have to understand where I come from.”
His capitulation surprised her. She stared at him with a barely discernible frown on her brow, then nodded. “We’ll just agree to disagree for now. Eat before it gets cold.”
Joleen looked at Daniel over her cat-eye glasses. Tiny rhinestones glinted on the wings. The eyes were big and blue, a blue like the mountains, and the expression in them was all too readable.
You idiot.
He’d have to agree. In the silence following their verbal tussle, Daniel ate the magnificent food and wondered what meanness in him always made him push people away. He counted literally hundreds of people among his acquaintances, but very few friends—and it was by his own choosing that it was so.
Jessie had been his closest friend for a long time, but she’d found something deeper with Luke, who was his oldest friend. Fitting, somehow, and he was pleased that he’d been instrumental in their union despite the sorrow it had brought into his own life.
He envied their union sometimes, but it terrified him, too. They had the kind of marriage in which others were largely unnecessary. They were each other’s best friend as well as being lovers. Daniel once asked Luke if it didn’t worry him to have all his eggs in one basket like that. What if something happened to her?
Luke had only smiled. “I’ll take my chances.”
Daniel couldn’t imagine being so cavalier. Not even with Jessie had he let down his guard entirely. He kept vast areas of his thoughts and his soul apart from the world, safe from the wounding hands of fate.
But this tall woman with her pale-crystal eyes and spun-silver hair had managed to make him reveal something twice today. Without even remembering he ordinarily didn’t share such strong feelings with his closest friends, he’d opened his mouth and spoken this afternoon in the orchard about things that went deeper than maybe anything else about him.
With the taste of sweet potatoes and savory chicken in his mouth, Daniel warned himself to be on guard. He didn’t know why, but Winona Snow somehow softened his walls.
Joleen scooted back from the table. “Can I go watch a movie now?”
“What about the dishes?” Winona asked.
“I’ll do them,” Daniel volunteered. “It’s only fair—you two cooked.”
“Thanks,” Joleen said, beaming.
“You’re welcome.”
The girl bounced downstairs, two tennis-shoe-clad feet making as much noise on the wooden steps as three buffalo.
Winona smiled and stood up. “Coffee?”
“Sure. But you don’t have to wait on me. I’ll get it.” Her gaze was quizzically amused. “It’s really a long walk over there to the counter. What—maybe three whole steps?” She grinned. “I don’t know. Daniel. Maybe you’d better walk the ten over here and do it yourself.”
Just that fast, he was snagged again. A deep-seated twinkle gleamed in her eye, and a dimple showed in her cheek. A dimple. He stared at it, imagining his tongue teasing into the seductive little hollow. It aroused him instantly, and he shifted in his chair, bewildered at his response to her. What the hell was wrong with him, anyway?
Winona, still smiling faintly, reached over the table for the decimated dish of chicken. Daniel wasn’t looking—he swore it—but as she reached, one button of her simple blouse came undone. The sudden gap didn’t reveal much, only a tantalizing glimpse of one full breast spilling over the cup of a surprisingly sexy, black lace bra, but his formerly low-level arousal leaped to raging full attention. His mouth went dry. Damn. He didn’t know women really wore such things.
She straightened, evidently unaware of the problem, and put the plates in the sink. Daniel stared at her back, his vision flooded by that searing, beautiful glimpse of breast. When she turned back, the gap was demure enough that it only showed the slightest hint of swelling flesh.
He warred with himself for a minute over whether he should tell her the button had come undone. His anatomy—that most adolescent of creatures—protested vigorously. His dignity and intellect urged him to speak.
Before he could say anything, she turned around with a mug in her hand and leaned over to give it to him. Dog that he was, his gaze strayed once more. Only the edge of the lace showed this time, scalloped and transparent against her flesh.
She noticed his gaze and straightened quickly, one hand flying to her buttons. Bright-red color flooded her cheeks. “Sorry.”
Without thinking, he chuckled at her apology. “Hey, it was a hardship,” he drawled. “You know how men hate that kind of thing.” He added sugar to his cup and stirred, then added wickedly, “I didn’t know women really wore underwear like that.”
She buttoned the flap hastily, a pale showing of color running all the way up her neck. She didn’t look at him. “A woman has to have some kind of luxury in her life.”
She seemed frozen at the counter, her back to him.
“Hey, there,” he said gently. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. I should have said something.”
She took a breath, shaking her head with a reluctant smile as she turned. “I’m just embarrassed, that’s all. No big deal.”
Another teasing comment rose in his throat, and Daniel realized he was actually flirting. Flirting.
With an abrupt move, he stood up. “Why don’t you go sit on the porch and get some air while I finish in here?”
She inclined her head the slightest bit. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
Gruffly he said, “I’m sure. Go on.”
With a shrug, she picked up her coffee. “I’d be happy to help.”
He shook his head, his gaze firmly fixed on his cup. He could still smell her, though, skin mixed with heat and food, and a faint, spicy undernote in her long-faded talcum powder.
She walked to the door and paused. “If you have some time tomorrow, maybe we could talk a little about some ideas I have for the orchard.”
“Fine.” He wanted her to go. Now. Take her black lace underwear and siren smile with her before he lost his head and thought up some reason to put his hands on her.
She left, and Daniel let go of his breath, swearing. As he stacked plates and ran water in the sink, he tried to puzzle out his strange reaction to her. He wasn’t particularly vulnerable to women. He selected them with his head, not his hormones.
The notable exception was Jessie. One look at her and he’d reacted the same as he had with Winona—ached to put his hands and mouth on her, all over.
He never had with Jessie, of course. Their relationship had been purely platonic, but that hadn’t kept him safe from the pain of unrequited love. How much worse would it have been to make love with her before he’d lost her?
No, there were good reasons for men and women to make love only when the mating was true and clean and honorable, equal and committed. It was too damned painful otherwise.
He’d managed to keep Jessie Callahan out of his lustful thoughts—most of the time, anyway—for nearly seven years. A few months with Winona Snow under his roof would be a piece of cake in comparison.
Chapter Five
In the cool, crisp, post-supper hour several days later, Winona and Joleen walked to the crude basketball court that lay to one side of the house, protected by the thick arms of three cottonwoods. They were not cotton-less, and as predictably as the blossoms on the peach trees had disappeared, the flying cotton of these trees wasn’t far off. Winona eyed the plump seedpods expertly, figuring one or two days before the trees lost their covering, less if there was a wind. They didn’t bother her, but her mother had been unable to come anywhere near the trees when they were in season. Joleen might have the same trouble.
Idly bouncing a basketball, Winona moved onto the court. Nets hung at either end, and the concrete was in decent shape, considering how long it had been there.
“Uncle Jerry had this done when I was about five,” Winona said. “Somewhere...” She peered at the edges of
the rectangle in the smoke-colored gloaming. “Look, right here.” She pressed her sneakered toe into the clear marks on the concrete. “Those are my hands and feet.”
Joleen dropped to her knees and put her hands over the imprints. Her thirteen-year-old hands were only a bit larger than the five-year-old Winona’s. “You were always big, weren’t you?”
From anyone else, the thoughtless comment might have been wounding. From tiny Joleen, who wanted to be big and strong, it simply bespoke envy. “Yes. They stopped letting me get kid prices at most places when I was nine.” Absently she dribbled the ball. “You gonna play or not?”
“I guess.”
“You don’t have to if you don’t feel like it.”
“You always win.”
“I’ll take it easy on you, I promise.” Winona aimed and made a basket, the ball swishing through the net with barely a sound. She grinned at her sister. “Practice makes perfect.”
Joleen rolled her eyes. “Maybe for you. I’m obviously not athletic.”
“Okay.” Winona dribbled the ball and shot again. “You need to have some exercise, though. Why don’t you jog a few laps around the court?”
Joleen groaned. “I hate running even more than basketball.”
Winona laughed. “Okay, babe. You just sit there. I’ll play.”
She tossed off the sweatshirt she’d brought with her, aiming directly for Joleen’s head. “Two points!” she said when it landed with sleeves flapping over the baseball cap.
“Winona! Who’s the kid here, anyway?”
Laughing, Winona dribbled and shot once more, then ran to the other end, feeling the familiar pleasure stir in her limbs. From the trees came the whistling of a magpie and the lower twitterings of sparrows and wrens. The air was crisp on her skin, and she felt her ponytail swish back and forth, whispering against her neck. She shot from midcourt, and missed, ran forward and caught the ball and tried again. It bounced off the rim with a clang.
Winona frowned in annoyance.
“You need a man to show you how it’s done,” said a low voice from the edge of the court.
Daniel, who was already moving forward, held out one lean, beautiful hand for the ball. She gave him a secretive smile. “Oh, really?” Over her shoulder, she winked at Joleen, who shook her head and buried her face in her hands. She knew what was coming.
Winona tossed him the ball. “Show me, then, big boy.”
He flashed that mocking grin and caught the ball. Winona stepped back, gesturing with a flourish. “Go ahead.”
The ball thudded against the concrete and Winona watched his arms, his body, his form as he aimed, jumped and tossed. Not bad. He’d played a little—but, then, most men fancied themselves hoopsters of high standing.
The ball sailed home perfectly. Daniel turned, spreading his hands in a typically male gesture that said, “See?”
Winona reeled him in. Even when they actually watched her play, men discounted her ability. Even when they were shorter by a half a foot and as scrawny as little rats, every man thought he could beat any woman on any basketball court in the world. Naturally this man, tall and obviously somewhat athletic—not to mention Navajo, who took their basketball very seriously—would take her challenge personally.
It was one of her great pleasures in life to show all of them how very wrong they were. She rolled her eyes. “One lucky shot.”
“Lucky?” he said with a snort of laughter. “I was all-state in high school.”
“You don’t say,” Winona drawled, her voice dripping with obviously ironic wonder.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Gracefully he shot again. This time Winona watched more closely, taking pleasure in the swell of biceps in his bare, brown arms, the play of lats in his back—sleek, clean muscle. He sprang like a cat, as if there were no effort involved, as if legs and hips naturally lifted a man a foot off the ground.
She grinned. He was showing off. Now she knew to watch that jump shot—no doubt it was a killer. He ran down the court and, as if to illustrate her suspicion, sprang impossibly high to dunk the ball. For a brief, purely female moment, she was distracted by his rear end, shown to perfection in a pair of soft, worn jeans. She swallowed a smile.
“Let’s play,” she said.
“Play a girl?” he asked, his voice now dripping irony.
Winona realized he, too, had been watching. And maybe he wasn’t quite as dumb as most men. “Yeah. To twenty?”
From the sidelines, Joleen spoke up. “Mr. Lynch, she’s hustling you.”
Winona gasped. “Thanks a lot, little sister.”
“It’s not fair, Winona.”
“He’s a big boy, Joleen.”
Daniel materialized beside Winona, bending to murmur in her ear, “‘Man’, sweetheart. I’m a big man.”
His breath rustled the tiny, invisible hairs on her earlobe and neck, sending a current of sensation straight to hitherto quiet regions of her body. Against her better judgment, Winona turned her head to meet his gaze and found his dark eyes glittering with humor and challenge.
“Too big for your britches, maybe,” she said. One brow arched wickedly. “Sometimes.”
Winona rolled her eyes at the double entendre.
“Are you a basketball whiz?” he asked. Boldly he touched her upper arm. “Bionic limbs?”
“When she graduated from high school, she got more college-recruitment offers than any other woman before or since,” Joleen said, as if by rote.
“Oh, yeah?” His eyes narrowed. “Where did you play?”
“Tennessee.”
A slow, delighted grin moved on his mouth. “I’ll be damned. That would be about. . . what, five years, six?”
“Six.”
“I remember. Winona Snow. Well, well, well.”
She glared at him. “Cut it out. Will you play or won’t you?”
His grin broadened. “Hell, I’ll play. I’m not a-scared of some girl.” With a whoop, he stole the ball out of her hands and took off.
The game was on. And to Winona’s delight, he was as good as he had pretended to be. She loved being able to play full force, without holding back.
He also played a very physical game, which had been Winona’s specialty. People always said it was okay for women to play basketball because it wasn’t as physical as football. Poppycock.
Ironically, at first it was Daniel holding back. She could sense it—he couldn’t quite get over the “girls are fragile” message he’d been indoctrinated with since birth, and Winona had three baskets before he had even scored one. In a split second he reassessed, and she saw the change.
She laughed in exhilaration.
They slammed together and he stole the ball. And from there, neither asked nor got any quarter. A wild ball sent them both hurtling toward it, then connecting at the shoulder with a jarring smash. Daniel went down on one knee, hard. Winona heard him swear and saw he’d torn a hole in the knee of his jeans. She grabbed the ball and paused. “Better wear shorts next time...babe.”
And she was off.
They played hard. Six to nothing, Winona. Ten to eight, Daniel. A wild play, and twelve to ten, Winona. A scramble, a fight, and the score was sixteen to sixteen. Standing at midcourt, the light fading fast, they faced each other. Both were panting for breath, both wore a layer of sweat. Winona felt her hair stuck to her forehead, and saw that Daniel’s braid was ragged. He lunged for the ball, she danced around him, made a wild break—and tripped on the concrete, landing flat on her belly with a whoosh.
Daniel got the ball and she heard him chortle as he snagged a basket. She coughed as the wind came back to her, and got to her feet.
Solicitously he paused. “You all right?”
“Fine,” she growled, and took possession of the ball while his guard was down.
In the end, Winona won by two. She did a little victory dance under her basket.
“Gloating is a singularly unattractive trait in a female,” he said, wiping his brow with the
back of his wrist.
She tossed him the ball. “I’ll give you another chance.”
“You’re on. Tomorrow, same place, same time.” He tossed Joleen the ball. “Thanks for the warning, kid. She would have killed me.”
The girl beamed at him. In that blazing second, Winona realized her little sister was quite helplessly smitten with the handsome, athletic man. Even as the knowledge sank in, Joleen jumped to her feet and hurried to match her steps to Daniel’s as they headed for the house in the cricket-shot evening.
Winona trailed behind, a tiny worry in her heart. Joleen was very fragile, and easily wounded right now. Winona didn’t want her to get so attached to Daniel that the end of the summer—and its resultant separation from him—would cause more pain. She would have to keep an eye on the situation.
Absently she rubbed her aching elbow and smiled. He sure could play a mean game of basketball, though. She anticipated their next game with no small measure of excitement.
* * *
His knee was bleeding, and once they were safely in the house, Daniel used that excuse to take himself off to the bathroom to doctor it.
Safely out of sight behind the door, he sank down on the side of the bathtub with a quiet groan. The knee alone would have been punishment enough, but every muscle and joint in his whole body hurt. His arms. His rear end. His hip where he’d landed against the concrete, his shoulder where she’d slammed into him.
As much as he ached now, he knew it was nothing to what tomorrow morning would bring. And she wanted to play again tomorrow night!
If he lived that long.
But even as he poured hydrogen peroxide over the pebble-infested cut on his knee, Daniel felt good. She had been a star in college. Good enough, everyone said, that she could have gone pro. With men. That he could hold his own against her made him feel pretty damned proud. He wasn’t over the hill yet.
When he returned to the kitchen, a baggy pair of sweats concealing his torn-up knee, a tall glass of tea awaited him. Winona leaned on the counter, her curls springing out from below the sweatband in wild wisps, her arms glowing with sweat. Her simple cotton tank had a smear of dirt at the hem, and her knees looked a little beat up, too.
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