“I guess that makes sense.”
“Yes, but that’s not what a man hears. A man hears the words she uses, and not the underlying meaning. He hears a question that asks his opinion, and he gives his opinion.”
“So why doesn’t the woman say she wants to eat at that place instead of asking him if he wants to?”
“Because even in the twenty-first century, little girls are still taught not to put themselves and their wants forward. That they’re supposed to cater to everyone else’s wishes before their own. If someone else wants to see a movie you don’t care for, you go see it anyway. Particularly if it’s your date. If you don’t like the movie he picks, he might think that means you don’t like him.”
“Well, that’s just plain stupid.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Why do parents teach little girls to be submissive like that?”
“Because that’s how they were raised, I guess. But they’ve done studies, too, on young children going to school for the first time, and inevitably the girls are quiet and calm and the boys are loud and aggressive, demanding the teacher’s attention. Maybe some of it’s genetic—God forbid and cut out my tongue for even saying it.”
Justin chuckled. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Anyway.” She waved away the idea. “My point was—”
He grinned at her. “You had a point?”
She gave him a mock scowl. “My point in all this is that sometimes great big problems, or what seem like great big problems, can stem from the smallest misunderstanding simply because men and women use language differently.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“Take that one step further, and keep in mind that I’m a woman.”
“Oh, honey, I know you are.”
She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I mean, I can give you the female perspective on a situation, should you happen to need it.”
“I appreciate it. I really do.”
“And if none of this is to the point,” she said, her lips twitching. “If you really don’t have woman trouble, there’s a tube of Preparation H in the bathroom medicine chest upstairs.”
Justin lowered his head to the table and groaned. “Do you think Grandmother would notice if Sloan just disappeared? I could tie bricks around his neck and stuff him in the pond. That’d work.”
Emily laughed softly in the dim light. “Stubborn, stubborn man. You’re not going to tell me what’s bothering you, are you?”
“Thank you,” he said, “for asking. For caring. You’re right, it’s a woman, but she doesn’t want anything to do with me, so that’s the end of that.”
“Who is it?”
Justin shook his head. “My lips are sealed.”
“Good for you. You get extra points for that.”
“I do?”
“You do. What makes you think she doesn’t want anything to do with you?”
Justin gave her a wry smile. “She won’t take my calls, won’t return my calls. When she sees me coming she heads the other way.”
Emily frowned. “What does she say when you ask her about all this?”
“Say?” he cried. “She doesn’t say anything, because I can’t get near her.”
“And you like this woman?”
Justin chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, yeah. I really like her. And that’s the thing, Emily. When we were together, I know she felt the same way. We were damn near perfect together.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow is right,” he said. “Then, poof. It’s all over, no word, no explanation, no nothing.”
“Wait a minute. She broke it off with you without saying anything?”
“Without one stinking word,” he said with disgust.
Emily reached across the table and placed her hand over the back of his. “Justin, if she hasn’t got the guts to tell you face-to-face that she doesn’t want to see you anymore, then she’s not good enough for you.”
“Ah, come on—”
“No, you come on. Think about it. Do you really want to tie yourself, even temporarily, to a woman who may or may not have a legitimate complaint against you, but who’ll never tell you?”
To this woman, Justin thought, yes. Yes, he did. He thought.
“She’s either too shy, too scared, or too self-centered to consider your side of things. Or, and believe me, I hate to say this, she simply doesn’t care what you think or how you feel.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe that. Not of her. She’s not like that.”
“She’s not? Or you don’t want her to be?” Emily asked gently.
“Boy, you’re tough, lady.”
“No, I’m just not emotionally involved with her the way you are. I’m on your side, looking out for your best interests. You’re on her side. There’s a big difference.”
“Yeah, I know. But you don’t need to worry about me anymore. I’ve decided to give up and move on.”
“Have you?”
“I have. Honest Injun.” He held one hand up, palm out.
“Oh, bad.” She groaned and rolled her eyes at the tacky phrase he and his brothers—his Native American brothers, she sometimes reminded them, much to their amusement—tossed at each other whenever it suited them. “Bad, bad Justin.”
However, Emily admitted, when one of the Chisholm brothers said Honest Injun, it was as good as taking an oath with one hand on the Bible. They meant it.
Unless, of course, there was a certain look in their eyes, or a quirk to their lips, or their fingers were crossed behind their back. But then it was always meant in teasing fun rather than an out-and-out lie. Like saying, “Oh, yeah, suuure.” Wink wink.
She couldn’t see any of the telltale signs of joking on Justin now, and both his hands were in plain sight, fingers uncrossed. He must be serious. He really had decided to give up on this mystery woman and move on.
“Are you okay with that?” she asked.
“I guess I have to be, don’t I?”
And when Justin said it, he meant it. He was through beating his head against the brick wall of Blaire’s unexplained indifference.
Who needed her, anyway? She damn sure wasn’t the only fish in the sea, peanut in the can, cookie in the jar, straw in the damn bale. Woman in the world.
But damn her beautiful hide, he wanted to know why. And he wanted her to look him in the eye and tell him. And by Jove, she would do it.
Chapter Two
Blaire Harding surreptitiously wiped her damp palms against her wool skirt and followed her parents down the aisle and into their regular pew at the Rose Rock Baptist Church because she’d been unable to come up with a good enough excuse to stay home.
Not that she didn’t want to go to church. She enjoyed church. It uplifted her, helped her end one week and gird her loins, as it were, for the next.
But why did it have to be this church? The one where, every single solitary week, the entire Chisholm clan, which was growing by the month, filled the second center pew from one end to the other.
She was running out of excuses there, too. With Justin. Every time she thought of him she was swamped by a dozen different emotions. Pleasure. Arousal. Anticipation. Guilt. Hopelessness. Terror. Resignation. Yearning. And more guilt.
What was she to do about him?
Her mother entered the pew first, then her father. Blaire followed and sat next to him, her gaze drawn against her will to those broad, suede-clad shoulders belonging to Justin Chisholm five pews up. She knew exactly how wide those shoulders were. She’d felt them, every inch, front and back and all around, her hands against his hot bare flesh.
Any more thoughts like that, she thought, her cheeks stinging, and a lightning bolt was going to strike right through the beamed ceiling of the church.
In the second row from the front, Justin felt her gaze on his back as if she were stroking him. He stood it through the opening hymn, through the announcements, the opening prayer. But as the pastor beg
an his sermon on sins of the flesh—why did the sermons always seem aimed at him personally?— Justin couldn’t take it any longer. He turned and glanced back over his shoulder.
She was there. He’d known she was. Her hair was pulled back and tied at her nape with a clip of some sort. The style gave her a soft, fragile appearance. Especially with that telltale blush staining her cheeks, the stark look in those golden brown eyes before she glanced away.
Guilt? Was that what he’d seen in her eyes?
By damn—sorry, Lord—he’d had enough of this. He was going to get answers out of her or die trying.
When church let out—at 12:25 p.m. because Reverend Conners didn’t know the meaning of “on time,” Lord love him—Justin made for the door as fast as he could without bowling anyone down, but he was still too late.
Blaire and her parents were gone.
Justin bit back a curse. This was Sunday; he should be able to do better with his language at least on Sunday. But dammit, he wanted to talk to her. He had to know what that look meant, because it had looked to him like the look a woman gives a man she wants to be close to.
“Justin,” his grandmother called. “Are you coming to dinner?”
“I’m coming.” Every Sunday after church the Chisholm family went to Lucille’s on Main for dinner. The Chisholms, and everyone else in town, it seemed. Caleb and Melanie were with them today. It was the only time during the week that they were all together as a family.
Family meant a lot to Justin. Maybe because he’d grown up without parents. His brothers and grandmother had been his family. They were everything to him. It seemed odd to him that Caleb no longer lived at home, but they were grown men now, not boys. It was time for them to see what they could make of themselves.
But Justin had always thought that the “making of themselves” would be done right there on the Cherokee Rose. That was home to him, to all of them. His soul was rooted in the land that first Chisholm had staked out after surviving the horrors of the Trail of Tears.
The ranch had changed in size from time to time, depending on the direction of the winds of fortune and the ability of any given generation to hold on through lean times and flourish in good times.
The Rose was Justin’s home.
When Caleb had moved to the PR with Melanie, it had been a jolt for Justin. He’d never really thought about any of them leaving the ranch.
Then, too, Melanie had been Justin’s running mate, his buddy, his playmate, for most of his life. She was still and always would be his friend, but he doubted if she’d want to help him TP the mayor’s house when that new city sales tax went into effect next month. In the old days, she’d have been the ringleader of such a gag. Now she was his brother’s wife.
But at least the PR was right next door, so to speak, so that wasn’t too bad. He could see Caleb and Mel whenever he wanted. Hell, they had even installed a gate in a stretch of fence common to both ranches, so they could get from one house to the other on horseback as the crow flies.
Yes, the Rose was Justin’s home.
So why was he starting to feel like the odd man out?
Lucille’s was packed, as was usual on a Sunday afternoon. But among the dozens of diners there was no Harding family.
Justin ground his back teeth together in frustration. Blaire and her parents used to come here every Sunday after church. He couldn’t remember the number of times he’d seen them there. Now, however, when he wanted to talk to her, they weren’t there.
“You look like you could chew nails.”
Justin jerked and knocked his elbow against Melanie’s arm. “Oh. Sorry. What?” Melanie Pruitt Chisholm was Justin’s newest sister-in-law. She and her parents had been their closest neighbors forever. Mel and Justin had been best pals their entire lives. Now they were family, and that was fitting. He had loved her like a sister for years. There was nothing they couldn’t say to each other, nothing they wouldn’t do for each other.
She nudged him back with her elbow. “You could scare little kids with that look, pal. You practice it in the mirror?”
“Did you rehearse that joke? Maybe try it out on the cows first before you take it out on the road?”
“Quick,” Sloan said from across the table. “Somebody separate those two before they start a food fight.”
Justin and Melanie gave him twin mock looks of innocence. Each put a hand to the chest and cried, “Moi?”
The conversation halted then because the waitress arrived with their orders. After the food was distributed and everyone dug in, Melanie gave Justin a smirk.
“So,” she said between bites of Lucille’s infamous spaghetti. “I hear you’ve got hemorrhoids.”
Justin nearly spewed a mouthful of tea across the table.
“Oh, I am going to enjoy getting even for that.” He included Melanie, Sloan and Emily in his warning. “You won’t know where, you won’t know when. You won’t even know how. But one day, suddenly you’ll realize that I got you back. All of you.”
“Oooh,” Sloan said in a high falsetto. “I’m shaking in my boots.”
“Yeah,” Melanie said with a sneer. “I’m gonna lose a lot of sleep over it myself.”
Emily merely shook her head and smiled.
By the next day Justin was more determined than ever to confront Blaire. That look he’d caught on her face in church had stayed with him all day Sunday, and he’d lain awake half the night trying to figure out what it meant, why she would look at him that way, yet refuse to speak to him.
He was tired of guessing. It was time she gave him some answers. Maybe then he could get her out of his system once and for all.
He pulled up around 9:00 a.m. at the feed store and went directly toward the office in back where Blaire took care of the store’s bookkeeping. Just outside her half-open door Justin was stopped cold by the furious voices coming from within.
“Don’t you go blaming this on me, by damn.” That was Thomas Harding, Blaire’s father, speaking. “Like mother, like daughter.”
“What are you saying?” This frigid response came from Nancy, Blaire’s mother.
“You know exactly what I’m saying. You got knocked up, now so has she. Like mother, like daughter. Her watch won’t even run on her arm anymore.”
Justin reached for the wall to steady himself. Knocked up? Blaire was pregnant? Watch? What watch?
“I got knocked up?” her mother shrieked. “Why you clueless, thickheaded piece of frog bait, who the hell was it who knocked me up? It takes two to tango, mister.”
“You shoulda been on the damn pill and you know it.”
“Oh, that’s right, it’s all my fault. You were just an innocent bystander.”
“I never said any such thing. I married you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, and you haven’t let me forget it for one single day since.”
“I’ll tell you one thing, Nancy girl. If I ever find out who did this to our little girl I’m gonna tear him to pieces with my bare hands. Right after I’ve made sure they’re good and married. She’ll make a pretty widow.”
Justin gulped. Holly Hannah. Tom sounded like he meant every bloodthirsty word.
Discretion being the better part of valor, he decided it was time for a hasty—and silent—retreat.
Back out in his pickup, Justin sat a minute to catch his breath and let his head stop spinning.
Blaire was pregnant? Pregnant?
From what he’d seen of her in the past year or so—and he’d seen plenty, because he’d had his eye on her for at least that long—the only man who’d been near her in ages was…himself.
If she was pregnant, as far as he could tell, he was the father. They’d used a condom, but those weren’t foolproof.
Father?
He shook his head hard. His heart was pounding at three times its normal speed. It took him two tries to get his key in the ignition, his hand shook so badly.
There was no question now. He had to talk to her. And he would, if it meant
tearing this whole damn town apart to find her.
She hadn’t been at the feed store. She could have been at her parents’ house behind the store for some reason, or at her apartment above their detached garage. But he didn’t see her faded red compact in its usual spot next to the garage, so he figured she’d gone out to run an errand.
It was early, but maybe she was meeting a girlfriend for coffee. He drove through the parking lot of Lucille’s, but her car wasn’t there. Neither was it at either of the other two cafés, or at the burger place.
He tried the grocery store, but didn’t see her there, either.
He was about to give up and go back and demand her parents tell him where she was when he spotted her coming out of the hardware store.
Considering how slippery she’d been for the past couple of months, he pulled up behind her faded red compact car and blocked her in so she couldn’t leave. He killed his engine and pocketed the keys before getting out.
The sky was crystal blue, the air almost balmy for early February, the temperature hovering in the mid forties. But the slight breeze out of the north had a little nip to it, warning of another cold snap on the way.
Blaire stopped next to her car and stared at him, a small paper sack clutched in one fist. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. Her tongue flicked out and moistened her lips. It was a gesture of nerves, that much was obvious. But it still made Justin want to follow her tongue with his own.
“Justin.”
“Blaire.” He rounded her car and stopped five feet away from her. She was just as beautiful as he remembered. Her dark blond hair turned honey gold in the sun, a shade that matched her eyes, narrowed now, and wary as they studied him, then darted away. She looked as if she might want to turn and run, but to her credit, she stood her ground.
The Chisholm Brothers:Friends, Lovers... Husbands? Page 42