“Those pointed-toe boots can’t possibly be comfortable.”
“A custom-made pair of boots is the most comfortable thing you’ll ever put on your feet.”
“Are those?” She signaled the waitress and ordered cinnamon-spiced coffee. When she raised her brow in his direction, he nodded his head.
“Got ’em from a bootmaker in Edmond. Took a year to get on her list and another year to get the boots.”
She studied them a moment. He hadn’t opted for anything flamboyant, just good-quality leather, a little bit of suede decoration, and some damn fancy detailed stitching. “I’m guessing they were a little pricey.”
He shrugged. “When you’re winning regularly on the rodeo circuit, you can make some good money. I spent a chunk of mine on these boots and that O’Farrell hat.” He nodded to it, hanging on a hook behind him.
“Custom-made apparel. Hmm. If I could have ordered a few extra inches on this dress…”
When she tugged at it again, a smile tugged at his mouth. “It covers what it covers. Just accept that, and all the admiring looks, and move on.”
She nodded thanks to the waitress who delivered her coffee, picked up the large wide mug, and blew gently across the top. The whipped cream rippled around the edges where the heat of the coffee was warming it.
They hadn’t talked much before dinner. She asked if he’d had any luck with finding Lilah, and he’d said no. She’d commented on the weather, and he’d remarked on the marvel of textiles that was her dress. At the fountain in the lobby, he’d asked about Cadence, and she’d talked of how well she was settling in, though the first call from her parents had made her homesick to the point of tears.
It was the most in-depth conversation he’d had since the last time he’d seen her. Was that sad or satisfying? Maybe a little of both. He sometimes missed the easy way he’d had with people when he was younger, but he was okay with being a loner. Just maybe not quite so much the loner that he’d become.
Marti finally took a drink, dabbed the whipped cream from her lip with a napkin, then spoke. “I Googled you.”
It was a little disconcerting, hearing that someone he didn’t know well had gotten on her computer and found out who-knew-what about him. He wasn’t much for computers, though of course he’d used them. Even ol’ BB’s Bar had already gone digital when Dillon started working there. The people he’d wanted to keep in touch with, he’d kept in touch with in person, by phone or text. But he’d never been on Facebook or Twitter or anything else that was out there. He’d never wanted any part of his life to be open to anyone who happened to have an Internet connection.
“I didn’t learn anything you hadn’t already told me except that you had a horse named Rebel.”
“He was a good horse. He was most of the reason I ever won.”
“I also Googled the Hunter family. It’s too common a name to come up with anything without a lot more digging. If you want me to keep looking, I need more information. Tina’s birthdate. Lilah’s birthdate. Her social security number if you have it. Tina’s parents’ and sister’s names. Any phone numbers you still have, any addresses. What kind of jobs they worked.” She hesitated, then dug a small notebook from her purse, pushing it to him along with the ink pen one of the guys had used to sign his credit card receipt. “If you want me to keep looking.”
He could do the Googling and whatever himself, though no doubt she was much more a guru of Internet searches than he’d ever be. The last thing he’d looked up had been an article on the Belted Galloway cattle Dalton raised, and that had been nearly a year ago. Besides, working for a bunch of lawyers, she probably had access to stuff he couldn’t get, and it wasn’t as if she would find anything worse than what he’d already told her.
She knew the worst he’d done, and yet she’d come back, spoken to him, smiled at him. There was no judgmental look in her eyes, nothing less than friendliness in her manner. He appreciated that.
Needed that.
Wondered if he would get the same response from Dalton and Noah, their mom and dad, and Jessy. Wondered if he would ever have the courage to tell them and find out.
“I’ll give you what I remember. I’ll have to look up the rest.” Picking up the pen, he opened the notebook and began to write.
* * *
Elliot’s best bud in high school had been the worst pessimist he’d ever known. If he always expected the worst, Dan believed, he would be pleasantly surprised when it didn’t occur and wouldn’t be disappointed when it did. And man, did it. His high school girlfriend had run around on him with the nerdy science whiz the next town over. He’d freaked out so much about going away from home to college that he’d flunked out before the first semester ended. He’d joined the Navy, and God forbid, they sent him to a ship in the middle of the ocean and expected him to dress sharp, obey orders, and work damn hard. He just barely squeaked out with an honorable discharge. He totaled his new car, couldn’t keep a job, two wives left him, and it turned out his kid wasn’t really his…The list went on.
Elliot had been taught that a person made his own luck, and he believed it. Dan screwed up everything he ever did and then claimed the universe was against him. He never saw a correlation between his own actions and the results he got.
In the quiet of Fia’s bedroom, with his two favorite girls both snoozing beside him, Elliot was feeling a bit like Dan. He never automatically looked for the bad in any situation. Hell, if it was there, it was there, and the thing for him to do was change it. His glass was never half empty. His sun was always shining.
But he couldn’t get rid of the unsettling feeling every time he thought about those medications in Fia’s bathroom. He kept telling himself it was normal, just maintenance meds for a woman who’d been through a hell of a hard time. Just because he never needed anything stronger than Tylenol was a blessing for him, not a comment on people who did. But something in his gut said this was different.
Just like he’d known from the moment he’d seen Fia, she was different.
He hadn’t said anything to her and hadn’t looked in the medicine chest again, though he’d stood there a time or two, seeing if his need to know had yet surpassed his need to behave honorably. So far it hadn’t.
Communication…that was the path to smooth relationships. Leaders had to communicate with their troops; parents communicated with their kids; dog daddies communicated with their dogs; and men certainly needed to communicate with their girlfriends if they ever wanted to have wives to be happy with.
He rolled over to look at the clock. It was eleven fifty-two. Early enough to wake up Fia, ask a few questions of genuine concern, let her reassure him, and go back to sleep. How would he phrase that? When I was looking in the medicine cabinet the other morning, I saw all the prescription bottles, and I just wonder what’s wrong with you and why you take them.
Might as well just say, I snooped the other morning, and now I want to snoop more.
How about, Hey, I used your razor—you remember, you told me I could—and by the way, don’t you know you shouldn’t keep medications in the bathroom? Too much humidity and the temperature changes aren’t good for them. So you should probably move them into the bedroom or the closet. What are they for anyway?
“Face it,” he whispered. “There’s no good way to show simple curiosity about something she’s chosen not to share with you.” Besides, what had he thought earlier? A way for her to reassure him. This wasn’t about him, except on the edges, on the serious-guy’s-come-into-her-life-with-the-potential-to-be-permanent fringes.
He turned onto his side to face her, her shoulders bare, her hair sticking up in soft dark fluffs, her face completely at peace. Her breaths were slow and measured, and when he snuggled in close behind her, half a smile lit her face as she pulled his arm over her middle. Thinking of Scott? he wondered.
“Hey, El,” she whispered, patting his hand once, twice, before sinking deeper into sleep again.
His chest was tight, his jaw cle
nched as if locked in place. He wouldn’t have minded if she’d spoken her dead husband’s name instead. He knew the things a person could say when they were goofy with sleep. Emily used to wake him up in the middle of the night just so he could amuse her with his wild stories.
But Fia hadn’t called out Scott’s name. Even in her bed, sound asleep, brain off in Neverland, she had recognized Elliot’s presence, his touch. The knowledge was so sweet, it cracked a thin line across his heart, too much pleasure and satisfaction, pride and humility, not to break it.
Elliot forced his jaw to relax, swallowed hard to push the lump from his throat. He thought of Dan, always unhappy, always complaining, and sent up a silent prayer that thankfully, Grandma had borne no guff from fools. You’re still breathing and thinking, so it’s a good day. Make the most of it, Grandma had greeted them every morning. She’d even smacked Dan upside the head a few times when she’d said it, but her message had never gotten through.
But Elliot had learned it and learned it well. He was a lucky guy, his buddies used to tell him. He could thank his family and God for that, and maybe even Dan for setting such a vivid example of the opposite.
Around his hand, Fia’s fingers flexed lightly. “You awake, cowboy? Or is this one of those three to five erections men supposedly get while they sleep?”
“Only three to five? Slackers.” With a chuckle, he scooted closer. “I hadn’t even noticed, but now that you’ve mentioned it…”
She twined her fingers with his. “You feel so good.”
“I aim to please.”
When he rubbed his erection against her bottom, it was her turn to laugh. “Not that, though it’s awfully nice, too. Just you. The whole of you. You give off this air of strength and comfort and security and good humor and optimism and honesty and Zen-ness. I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone who embraces life the way you do, hard knocks and all, and still loves it so thoroughly. You’re a very special man.”
Touched by her statement, he nuzzled her neck. “I’m here, you know? So I want to make the best of it. Which is why Fate crossed our paths. ’Cause you are definitely the best of it, Sofia.”
Finally she turned to face him, sliding her knee between his, cradling her head on his arm, rubbing her soft muscular thigh against his penis. The hall light brushed her skin with its faint glow, showing her serious smile. “The world needs more people like you.”
“Em used to say it needed one less—or at least, the Ross family needed one less. Her goal was always to be an only child.”
“I don’t believe it for a second. You people are the fantasy kind of family that some of us only see on TV. You Rosses give the rest of us hope.”
He would have wanted her that instant even if she hadn’t said great things about him and his family, but the fact that she had just made his desire that much stronger. Lifting himself up, he slid over her, covered her slim, lovely body, and bent to leave kisses along her jaw and down her throat. “Let me give you something besides hope,” he murmured as her hands seared a path along his spine to his hips.
Her words were muddled when she abruptly kissed him, but he thought he got the gist of them.
Please do.
Chapter 10
The Fort Murphy hospital wasn’t huge, but it served the needs of its soldiers and their family members pretty well. Any illness too complicated to be treated there could be shipped to other military treatment facilities all over the United States or even, in critical cases, to civilian hospitals.
During her marriage to Scott and after his death, Fia had set foot inside this hospital once a year for her annual checkup. She’d admired the cleanliness of the place, the whiteness and brightness, but she’d been happy to leave.
In the last year and a half, she’d been back more times than she wanted to remember. She and Jessy took the elevator to the second-floor neurology clinic, where Fia checked in, then sat down, nervously tapping her toes.
“Cute shoes,” Jessy said.
Fia stretched out her legs to show the sandals at their best advantage. “Aren’t they? They’re soft and spongy and comfy, I love the way they feel, and the raspberry color goes so well with the lime green and yellow and pink in my dress.”
“You look like you’re ready to fiesta.” Jessy shimmied in her seat to the beat of a song only she could hear, catching the attention of every man, young or old, in the waiting room. She didn’t even notice. “Remember when we danced the conga at Kari Okie’s?”
“That was fun.” It had been early in Fia’s illness, when her only symptoms were a few annoying aches and spasms that came and went. They’d driven to the restaurant outside the small town of Kiefer to celebrate Lucy’s birthday, eaten incredible food, danced, and even sung karaoke. It was one of many memorable moments Fia had shared with them.
“How are you feeling?”
Fia smiled faintly. “Pretty good. I never know whether to hope for a good day when I see the doctor, or if I should pray to be in the middle of a bad spell. If I walk in here on the sides of my feet with my arms curled up to my chest, my speech slurred, and my brain scrambled, don’t you think they’d have to take me more seriously?”
“I think they’d slap you in a hospital bed and wire you for sound. But we can do that. Next time you have it bad, you call me, and we’ll bring you to the ER and watch the doctors spaz.”
When Fia’s name was called, she got to her feet, wiggled her toes, and said, “Yep, but not today. All of my muscles are pretty relaxed.”
“Ooh, Elliot’s good for something more than gazing upon with great appreciation and awe, isn’t he? I knew he would be. I mean, look at him. How could he not be? Just that Texas accent alone is orgasm-inspiring.”
Fia smiled all the way to the exam room, which looked like every other exam room she’d ever seen. Jessy took the comfy chair and Fia had to step up onto the paper-covered table. She settled in with a crinkle, exhaled deeply, and wondered what to say to the doctor.
I appreciate all you’ve done, but it’s not enough.
I don’t care about your other patients. Make me your first priority.
You’re a healer, so heal me, damn it.
For the love of God, heeelllp me!
The medic checked her vitals, told her the doctor would be in soon, and left them alone again. Flipping through a golf magazine disinterestedly, Jessy asked, “How serious are you about Elliot?”
Fia studied her feet in the raspberry-hued flip-flops and grimly admitted, “Enough that it’s gonna break my heart when he leaves.”
That brought Jessy’s piercing gaze to her, one she could feel as surely as if she were looking. “Where do you think he’s going? Because from what I’ve seen, he’s getting really comfortable here. He’s got a job, he’s got friends, he’s got you.”
Fia tried to make her shrug casual, but her muscles were suddenly too tense to pull it off. “I don’t know if he’ll leave Tallgrass, but me…”
Jessy let the last pages of the magazine flutter and tossed it on the counter. “Little sister’s keeping secrets, hm?” One finger tipped with glossy red polish wagged in Fia’s direction. “Don’t deny it. I was the master secret keeper for a long time. I recognize the signs in others. You haven’t told him about this.” Her wave took in the room.
“No.” Fia wagged her own finger. “And you were the master secret keeper, so don’t tell me I shouldn’t be doing it.”
“That’s exactly why I get to tell you now you shouldn’t. Because I know how hard it is on you. It killed me to even think about you guys figuring out the truth about me. I was terrified, trying to figure out how the hell I would get by without you. I had this incredible part of my life where I could be happy and laugh and feel grateful I was here, and this other big part where I was scared all the time. About Aaron. About my drinking. About you guys disowning me and Dalton wanting nothing to do with me. About being totally alone.” Jessy shook her head ruefully. “It was no fun, and it just made everything harder. Coming c
lean…aw, Fee, it was like breathing again after spending way too long underwater.”
Fia gazed out the window, though all she could see were treetops interspersed with the roofs from the nearby housing area, remembering that evening when Jessy had confessed all to the sisters: that she’d fallen out of love with her husband; that she’d intended to ask for a divorce after he’d returned from his deployment; that she’d coped with her guilt and her grief by numbing herself with way too much booze. She’d fought her way back, though, through their help, through Dalton’s, but mostly through her own stubborn strength. She’d refused to throw away her life and had begun living it instead.
That was what Fia wanted.
“But you could handle your problem,” Fia said quietly. “You could fix it. I can’t. I have to depend on other people to take care of mine. You guys keep me going. You cook for me—”
Jessy looked scandalized. “I do not cook.”
A laugh broke free. “Okay, the others cook for me. You drive me places. You take me shopping if I can go and you do it for me if I can’t. I’m guessing it’s not too bad because there’s a bunch of you, so I don’t take up too much of any one person’s time. But Elliot’s just one guy, and he has a life. He spends long hours at work. He takes care of his dog. I’m sure there are times when all he wants to do is go out and have a beer—”
“Tuesday night with the guys.”
“Or strip down to his underwear and play the guitar—”
“Who cares if he plays stark naked? As long as one, um, instrument doesn’t get in the way of the other.” Jessy grinned, and even if Fia hadn’t wanted to, she couldn’t have stopped herself from joining in. Granted, she’d seen both instruments and was seriously impressed by both.
“My point is, I’m kind of a full-time commitment. A lot of the time, I don’t need help, but a lot of the time, I do, and it doesn’t come on schedule. I don’t get a text saying, ‘Today at two thirty-eight p.m., you’re going to get a migraine,’ or ‘Pull the car to the side of the road because in the next sixty seconds, your legs are going to spasm and go numb.’”
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