by Anna Jeffrey
Dahlia’s stomach clenched. Upstairs in a playpen in the office, she had a live trophy to show for intimate knowledge of those long shanks and lean haunches.
With shaking hands, she fumbled the last of the fruit into the box, then gripped the edge of the display island to pull herself up. But before she succeeded, he stood, slid his hand under her forearm and easily lifted her to her feet. To her dismay, an uninvited warmth stole through her.
Not daring to risk a second look into his face, she moved her arm from his hand. She felt safer leaning on the display island. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“What, you thought I wouldn’t?”
His voice shook with . . . what? Anger? Emotion?
A flash of guilt flared within her, but she drilled him with the coldest glare she could muster. “Actually, I hadn’t thought of you at all lately. Although once, you took up a lot of room inside my head. Fortunately, I got over it.”
His eyes made a sweep of the produce section. “Piggy says you keep him here. Where is he?” His tone would have frozen a beef carcass.
“Well, he isn’t hidden under the lettuce. I’m sure he’s asleep. And I don’t like waking him.”
The glower in his eyes told her he didn’t buy that lame excuse. He stood there, hands on his hips, one knee cocked. His damn John Wayne stance. How many times had she seem him do this? Thanks to him, she had ceased watching her favorite old Gary Cooper and John Wayne westerns. She glanced around to see who might be watching and listening, then gave up. “He’s upstairs. I’ll take you up there.”
Passing through the storeroom on the way to the stairs, Dahlia’s throat felt as if she had swallowed an oversized bite of one of her premium apples. Seeing a teenage part-time helper, tearing down empty boxes, she forced her voice and ordered him to sort through the spilled apples, wash them, then re-stack the ones that weren’t too badly bruised.
She jogged up the stairs with Luke behind her, his boots making scuffy clomps on the wooden steps. Her mind raced. Piggy had written to him? Unbelievable. Still, Dahlia wouldn’t put it past her. Piggy nagged her constantly about telling Luke his son had been born.
By the time she reached the office door, the shock of Luke’s arrival and her best friend’s betrayal had morphed into fury. She clenched her jaw and opened the door.
They found Joe awake in his playpen. Breast feeding required him to be with her every day. She had borrowed the playpen from an employee and set it up with a white lamb-patterned mattress in the office. She usually didn’t leave him alone unless he was asleep, but today, he had evidently awakened early. He was making baby noises and clutching at the air. His eyes brightened when he saw her and his chubby arms and legs churned. Much of her anger melted away.
Before she could say a word, Luke had laid his hat on the old gold sofa and was on his knees, his gaze roving over her baby, his arms reaching over the playpen’s side and his fingers touching the tiny hands. To her disgust, an anxious part of her waited for his approval.
“He’s perfect,” Luke murmured and she drew a needed breath.
He looked at her across his shoulder as if waiting for her to tell him it was okay to pick the infant up. She bit her lip and said nothing. Luke lifted him out of the playpen anyway, tucked him into the crook of his elbow and began a stream of baby-talk. “Hey, little guy. . . . Just look at you. . . . I’m your daddy . . .”
If she weren’t so irate, she might have been amused for it was the last thing she expected. The baby’s mouth and tongue made sucking motions and he nuzzled at Luke’s shirt front.
“He—he’s hungry,” she managed. “And probably wet.”
Luke laid him back on the playpen mattress and began to unsnap the short blue onesie she had put on him. It came back to her how Luke always took charge of any situation, a trait which had added to her sense that his presence was larger than the space around him. In Callister, she had allowed him take control of their relationship and look where he had led her. In a renewed burst of panic, she grabbed a clean diaper from the Pampers box on top of the filing cabinet and went to the playpen. “I’ll do it.”
Luke grinned up at her and took the diaper from her hand. “You think I don’t know how? It’s been a while since my kids were babies, but I still know how to change a diaper.”
Of course he did. His son, Jimmy, had worn diapers until age five. Joe was in a red-faced, full-decibel squall by the time Luke finished. She carried her son to the desk chair, turned her back on his father and positioned the screaming infant at her breast. He calmed down with a great sigh and began to drink. Tears brimmed her eyelids. How could she get through this?
She didn’t know what Luke was doing behind her back, but he hadn’t left the room. She heard his footsteps and then her chair was being swiveled, turning her and Joe to face him.
“Dal,” he said softly, looking into her eyes. He was so close she could see the navy blue ring outlining his lighter blue pupils and giving his eyes their arctic look. She could smell Polo, smell his breath made minty by flavored toothpicks, smell him. Shaking her head, she swallowed her tears and looked away. Joe was undeterred. He clung to her breast in the football grip and suckled in contentment, unaware his mother was close to screaming.
Luke placed his finger beneath the baby’s hand, barely touching her breast. The baby gripped it and hung on, a link between his father’s finger and his mother’s breast. Luke leaned forward and placed a long kiss on her temple.
Emotion plugged Dahlia’s throat and paralyzed her vocal chords. When she could speak, she said, “I would appreciate it if you would sit on the sofa.”
He stepped back and straightened as if she had punched him, his gaze intense on her and the baby.
“He’ll be finished in a few minutes,” she blurted, not moving her eyes from Joe’s mouth and jaws, still fighting to come to grips with how events had spiraled out of her control.
Luke sat down on the sofa and bent forward, forearms resting on his thighs, his hands dangling between his knees. “It’s six o’clock. Maybe we can go to supper somewhere.”
She glanced at her desk clock. Good grief, where had the day gone?
Okay, so he’s here. He wouldn’t, couldn’t stay away from that ranch long. All she had to do was keep her wits and get through this visit without incident. “Fast food is all there is in in Loretta. I guess I could fix supper at my house. I’ll get something out of the freezer case downstairs.”
The corners of Luke’s mouth turned up in a wide grin. “Home cooking, hunh?”
Damn. His teeth were still perfect. Perfect to nip her neck, then kiss the bitten spot. Suddenly the room seemed to tilt and she felt as if she needed help to stand. “Something frozen is mostly what I cook. I’m too busy to be Betty Crocker.”
“Working like you do and all, you almost don’t have time to be a mother to the boy here, do you?”
Another spurt of panic darted through her system. His expression revealed nothing, but she took that remark to be threatening. Maybe he had a bevy of Boise lawyers waiting in the wings. “Joe is a perfectly contented baby who has all the attention he needs. Everyone dotes on him, especially me.”
Joe had finished. Dahlia hooked her bra cup back in place and covered herself, then put the baby against her shoulder to burp. She nodded toward the end of the sofa where she had stashed the infant carrier. “If you want to put that on the sofa—”
Before she could finish, Luke lifted the carrier onto the sofa, then took the baby from her and positioned him in it. He brushed Joe’s hair into place with his fingers. “He’s got your pretty, black hair. And McRae eyes.”
“I suppose you can feel relieved he doesn’t look Chinese.”
Luke straightened and gave her an arch look.
“Just quoting your sister,” Dahlia said.
Luke picked up the infant carrier and tucked it under his arm. “You know what, darlin’? You’re trying awful hard to pick a fight with me, but I’m not gonna let you. We hashed t
hat race thing out a long time ago. He’s a fine looking boy, just fine.”
“I’m not your darling,” she snapped, going to the door. She nodded for him to leave the office ahead of her. She locked the door and they moved down the dim stairs.
She plucked two Hungry Man meatloaf dinners from the freezer case as they passed it, then detoured by the bread rack. “White or wheat?”
“I’m not fussy. You know me.”
Indeed. And the knowing had her strung tight as a banjo string. She picked up a loaf of whole wheat bread and led the way out the back door to the employee parking area. The grocery store’s night lights and Loretta’s three pink street lights had come on. They bathed everything in eerie amber.
He stood by as she situated Joe in his infant seat on her car’s back seat. “How did you get here?”
“Rent car. It’s out front.”
“I’ll drive around the front and you can follow us home. Our house isn’t far from Piggy’s. I assume that’s where you’re staying.”
“Nope. Gonna get a room.”
“Humph. Not in Loretta. All we have is the Prairie Bed and Breakfast. They have only two rooms and they’re usually full.”
“Then where am I sleeping?”
“There’s motels on the highway between here and Abilene. About sixty miles.”
His face scrunched into a pained expression.
“Did you expect me to put you up?” she asked.
“I don’t know what I expected. This isn’t the easiest place to get to. I left home at four o’clock this morning. I drove three hours to Boise, rode on two airplanes, then drove two hundred more miles in a damn roller skate. I’d just like to get a bite to eat and stretch out a little.”
Dahlia thought frustration might strangle her. “When we get to my house, I’ll call the Prairie B and B. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”
Approaching her dad’s old house, which was now hers, she was struck by how shabby it looked compared to the Double Deuce ranch house and Luke’s cabin. Just stop it, Dahlia. The McRaes are rich and you’re not.
A call to the bed and breakfast yielded zilch. His rental car was a Taurus. Sleeping in it would serve him right. “They’re full,” she told him.
He shrugged and she could see the weariness on his face. A déjà vu feeling nearly smothered her. She remembered the look from last summer, after he had worked a long day, then made the two-hour drive into town from the Double Deuce just to visit her.
“Abilene it is, I guess.” He picked up his hat and started for the front door.
Damn. She had never been a mean person and she couldn’t be mean to him, though the cranky old hen that had popped into her head thought he deserved it. She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “We’ve got an extra room, but you’ll have to make do with a regular-size bed.”
Chapter 24
Dahlia clicked on a Winnie the Pooh lamp and soft light filled Joe’s room. Luke laid the infant in his crib, then stood there watching him, his solemn silence as unnerving as any words. Dahlia would give a lot to know his thoughts.
She watched, too, chewing on the inside of her lower lip. When Luke stepped back at last, his hat brim collided with a Pooh and Friends mobile hanging from the ceiling.
She went to the crib and straightened Joe’s his clothing, but didn’t undress him. Joe couldn’t have cared less. He heaved a baby sigh and continued to sleep. She kissed his cheek, then looked up at Luke. “It’s too hot for covers.”
As soon as she said it, she berated herself for having felt the need to explain her actions.
After the brush with the mobile, Luke had removed his hat. It hung on his fingers in front of him. “It’s sure ’nuff hot, all right.”
She nodded at his arm. “One thing I do not recommend is a starched, long-sleeved shirt in a Texas August.”
His gaze shifted from one sleeve to the other. “This is all I’ve got with me. I’ll get along.”
She had forgotten how unaffected he was by circumstances he couldn’t control or saw as being unworthy of worry. If a long sleeved shirt was all he had to wear and the temperature melted a thermometer, he would endure without complaint.
Then just go ahead and suffer. “Whatever,” she said. “Come on. I’ll heat the food.”
The scrape of his leather soled boots behind her in the hallway emphasized the age of the turn-of-the-century house’s linoleum floor, which had been laid during her childhood. She recalled the gleaming oak floors in the Double Deuce ranch house and wished she had spent the money to have the outdated linoleum replaced with new vinyl. Luke might think she couldn’t afford to provide a decent home for Joe.
They passed through the living room on the way to the kitchen and she directed him to lay his hat on the sofa arm. At the kitchen counter, she pulled the two frozen dinners from the plastic sack. “Should I heat one or both of these?”
Luke looked at the boxes with a puzzled expression. “One’s okay, I guess. What do you think?”
She shrugged. “I can always heat the other if you want it.”
As she tore one open and slid it into the microwave, she suspected he might never have eaten a TV dinner. She was reminded, as she had been often in Callister, how little she knew of the way her son’s father lived his daily life.
She moved to the refrigerator and stood with its door open, perusing the sparse contents—a jar of apple juice, a shelf of fresh fruits and vegetables, a plate of sliced boiled chicken breast.
Luke joined her and peered over her shoulder. “For somebody in the grocery business, you sure don’t have much to eat in there.”
His hand came to rest on her hip as if it had a right to be there. She lifted it, dropped it and stepped sideways, then pulled out the plate of chicken slices that were covered with plastic wrap. “Would you like some chicken? I boiled this last night.”
She thought he repressed a grimace. The pallid slices on the white plate didn’t look particularly appetizing, but with sustenance being all she sought from food, how it looked made little difference.
“Boiled, huh? Guess you don’t have any beef.”
“Chicken’s better for you.”
He gave her a lop-sided grin. “Whatever you say. I’m so hungry right now, I could eat the feathers.”
While Luke’s TV dinner turned in the microwave, she made a green salad for him, then began putting something together for herself—a sliced chicken sandwich with tomato slices, lettuce and avocado. She placed small bunches of white grapes on each plate. “Fruits and vegetables are what I eat mostly. With nursing, I’m cautious about my diet.”
She filled two huge glasses with ice cubes and lifted the jar of apple juice off the refrigerator shelf.
“Apple juice?” Luke asked.
“I don’t have anything else but water. I don’t drink anything with caffeine.”
“Apple juice is just fine. The water down here tastes like shit anyway.”
She rolled her eyes at the coarse comment, but at the same time, appreciated that to someone whose drinking water came from a mountain spring, the heavily mineralized water of West Texas probably wasn’t pleasant.
They ate in silence except for her grandmother’s mantle clock ticking in a monotonous cadence from the top of the TV set in the living room. Luke wolfed down the TV dinner and several slices of chicken covered with salsa.
She hadn’t eaten a bite since lunch, but her stomach felt as if a rock nested in it. She nibbled at her sandwich, finally picked it apart with her fingers and ate only the vegetables. “Would you like my chicken?”
“Well, I am still a little hungry. They don’t feed you that good on airplanes any more, even in first class.”
A dart of anger flew through her as she thought of the cost of first class plane tickets. “First class? You flew down here first class?”
His eyes widened in a defensive expression. “I always fly first class. Those seats in the back are too cramped up.”
“Well, how nice.”
Had she lost her mind? Why should it annoy her for him or anyone who could afford it to fly first class?
She rebuilt her sandwich sans the vegetables, slid her plate to him and sat back in her chair, hugging her elbows and hoping his first class round-trip ticket had a short time limit.
“Piggy said your dad passed on.” Luke appeared to be studying his plate as if it required concentration, treading lightly no doubt after her outburst. “Said he meant a lot to you.”
“He’s . . . He was the only person who was always there when I needed someone.”
Luke raised his eyes to hers. For several seconds their gazes held. “He’s why you left town in such a hurry, isn’t he?”
Memories of the devastating day before she departed Callister came hurtling back—learning of Dad’s collapse, followed by Luke—She shook her head to clear it. “He had a stroke.”
“I thought you left because . . . well, I figured you were so pissed off when I put a stall on things, you just hit the road.”
“It’s water under the bridge now. Things have worked out for the best.”
He exhaled a tight breath, obviously searching for a follow up. “I know all about sick folks. I could have bought a herd of new bulls with what I spent on doctors in the last year.”
“Who’s been sick?” She scolded herself for asking. She didn’t care, so what difference would knowing make?
“They finally said Mom’s got MS. She’s not old enough for Medicare. We’ve got insurance, but it doesn’t pay the bills all that good.”
Claire McRae’s effort to rise from the sofa that horrible night in Luke’s cabin came back, but Dahlia refused to offer words of sympathy. “MS?”
“She’s walking with a cane now. Her and Dad both.”
“I assume your kids are okay.”
“They’re just fine.” He reached back for his wallet, removed three pictures and handed them across the table. “I got settled up with Janet. The girls live at the ranch for good now. I told you I’d get things straightened out.”