“Adam, you don’t want to start something we can’t finish.”
“We can finish this.” The seduction in his voice was almost her undoing.
“No,” Rosa said, a little stronger. “I’m only here for the summer.”
Adam watched her a moment. Rosa wanted to drop her eyes, but she didn’t. Wouldn’t.
“You’re afraid of me,” he stated.
Why would I be afraid of you?”
“Like you said, afraid of starting something you can’t finish. I know what you’re thinking.”
“You do?”
“I’ve been there. Always moving, having no time to make lasting friendships, and relationships are out of the question. But there comes a time when you have to stop,” he said. “Miss that plane. Stop and be a part of what’s going on around you.” He tugged at her arm and she fell a little closer to him. “We won’t say we’re starting anything. We’re just two people enjoying a morning on a Montana mountain.”
His mouth was close to hers, and Rosa could feel his breath on her lips. His free hand went around her back and he pulled her close.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered.
Also by Shirley Hailstock
On My Terms
The Secret
You Made Me Love You
Where There’s A Will
(with Margie Walker, Bridget Anderson,
Shelby Lewis, and Donna Hill)
Last Night’s Kiss
SHIRLEY HAILSTOCK
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
To Richard J.
Only he and I know why.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 1
Adam Osborne scanned the baggage claim area of Waymon Valley Airport. He was looking for the out-of-place beauty queen dressed as if she were going to a dusty Montana ranch in the 1800s, only her clothes would be new, pressed, with razor-sharp seams and pointed-toe boots. New boots, he added.
With a grunt he lounged against the wall near the entrance. Everyone getting off a plane had to come through those doors.
The airport was busy. People rushed by him, running into the arms of loved ones, kissing hello and hugging each other as they walked off toward the parking lot. Adam remembered when the place had only one terminal with a few planes coming in each day. Now it had a full complement of aircraft taking off and landing.
Checking his watch, he wondered where she was. He didn’t know Rosa Clayton. Had never set eyes on her, unless you consider her staring back at him from a magazine cover. He was here in Mike’s place, or rather in Vida’s place. He was doing a favor for a friend of a friend. It was complicated, and the short of it was, Vida couldn’t come and Mike had been called away, so he’d been pressed into car service.
Rosa Clayton was a supermodel. Few men under 105 wouldn’t recognize her face. Or her body for that matter. She’d been on magazine covers and in television ads. She had a body to die for, but Adam had seen his share of beautiful women. A pretty face did nothing to turn him on. In his experience, there was nothing behind it but unused air, Vida excepted. Rosa Clayton was no different. Yet she was one person he’d never interviewed. He frowned, wondering why that was. When he’d been a correspondent in D.C. everyone who was anyone passed through the capital and he’d interview them for a segment on the news.
Then he’d gone into the field. Doing hard news. Stories that mattered. At least he thought they mattered.
Checking his watch again, he wondered where she could be. This wasn’t Dulles or National Airport. It didn’t take this long to get from the plane to the street. He had several things to do this morning and chauffeuring a beauty queen around was not high on his list.
“Are you waiting for me?”
Adam heard the voice from his left. Pushing himself away from the wall, he looked into her dark brown eyes and nearly drowned. She was tall and thin, too thin, he thought. Her face, while more than beautiful, was drawn. Circles, smudged eyes fringed with lashes as long and luxuriant as silk fringe. Rich, sable-colored hair was pulled back from her face and secured in a thick, curly ponytail. Adam had no doubt who she was. He was just surprised that she didn’t look as if she’d stepped off the pages of the latest fashion magazine. And more surprising was the way his stomach clenched at the sight of her.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed the men in the area turning to look at her. The women looked, too, but Rosa didn’t give any indication that she knew they were there. Years of practice, he thought. Only royalty could ignore the gawkers and curiosity seekers rubbernecking to get a glimpse of someone famous and beautiful the way she was doing.
“This is you, right?” She held a photo out to him. He took it and wondered where she’d gotten that one. He was used to seeing his publicity photo, a smiling professionally taken picture with all the right lighting to show off his best features. Although he hadn’t been the big-time journalist for two years now, this photo was a candid shot taken several years ago during a winter vacation. It showed him astride a horse, his hat in his hand, and a smile on his face as he leaned forward to speak to Mike Holmes.
He nodded and handed it back. “Welcome to Waymon Valley,” he said. “Vida’s looking forward to your arrival.”
She smiled. It wasn’t the bright, white, sell-toothpaste smile. This one was more tired and in need of nourishment.
“She told me she couldn’t get to the airport and e-mailed the photo so I’d recognize you.”
“Luggage?”
She turned and looked at the rollerbag behind her.
“Is that it?” He couldn’t help frowning. Vida traveled with enough suitcases to fill her own freight car. Rosa had a small bag that looked as if it would hold only a single change of clothes. According to Vida, Rosa was here for the summer.
“That’s it,” she said.
He took the bag from her, his hand brushing across hers. Turning toward the exit, not waiting for her to follow, he left her behind. What was wrong with him? He was being intentionally rude and he rarely, if ever, did that, but the brief touch of his skin to hers sent a shiver up his arm. He could still feel it.
She said nothing on the way to his truck. He walked faster than he normally did. She kept up with him. He didn’t bother thinking whether he was trying to leave her behind or get away from her. The one thing he did know was he regretted agreeing to come here and pick her up. She was beyond beautiful, the kind of woman Adam had interviewed more than once, and several times been involved with. He had no desire to go through that again. But the jolt that went up his arm when he touched her told him that this could be the beginning of something. He was going to make sure it wasn’t.
He opened the door and she climbed into the pickup. She wore a simple pair of khakis, a light sweater, and tennis shoes. The uniform was the same for most of America, either jeans or Dockers, but on Rosa it was a combination that warranted a second glance.
“When you were on the news in D.C.,” she said after they were situated and he was pulling onto the main road, “you weren’t this quiet.”
So she knew who he was. That surprised him. “Sorry, I have a lot to get done today.”
“And picking me up cut into your schedule,” she stated.
He sighed. She was perceptive, he thought. But that wasn’t the whole story. And he wasn’t reporting the part that he’d edited o
ut.
“Vida is excited about your visit.” He changed the subject. “She said the two of you worked well together.”
“We did.”
“She gave up her day job several years ago. You’re still at it.”
“Is that your way of telling me I’m getting old and losing my looks?”
“I would never say such a thing.” He refused to fall into the trap of giving her a compliment, telling her how beautiful she really was. Even in her state of obvious distress, she could still stop traffic.
“How long is the drive to Vida’s?”
“About twenty minutes. I’ll have you there in no time. You look tired. Was it a long flight?”
“Fourteen hours in the air just to get to American soil. Then another three to get here.”
“Where did you come from?”
“Vida didn’t tell you?”
“I only got the time you were arriving.”
“I flew to San Francisco from Australia.”
“With only that one suitcase?”
“I don’t usually carry a lot of clothes. Or makeup.”
She wasn’t wearing much makeup. Her face had the remnants of lipstick that must have been applied before she crossed the international date line. Yet there was something about her mouth, something that found a place inside him that years earlier he’d closed tighter than a can of unexposed film. Swinging his attention back to the road, he drove as quickly as possible toward Vida’s.
“I forgot,” he said flatly. “Other people do the carrying for you.”
“And you,” she said. “I’m sure you didn’t sprint through the airport with a suit bag over your shoulder pulling a suitcase when the next breaking story needed your personal brand.”
He could tell he’d gone too far. Her back was up now and her fangs were coming out.
“Vida tells me you live here now,” she said.
“I’ve always lived here,” he said. “I was born here. I came back a couple of years ago.”
“Weren’t you up for the anchor’s job in D.C. about that time?”
“I turned it down.” He’d been offered the job on the national news, but the timing was wrong. His father needed him. And he’d come home, but that wasn’t the only reason.
“Why? I thought reporters lived for getting that anchor desk.”
“You were misinformed.”
“Sorry. I was just making conversation.”
Adam took a deep breath. He was out of character. He did have things to do today and this trip was slowing him down, but that was no reason to be rude. There was something about her that brought back memories of everything he’d left behind. “I have an aging father,” he finally said.
“Is he ill?”
“Not according to him.”
“Is he part of the things you need to be attending to?”
He nodded.
“If you need to stop somewhere before taking me to Vida’s, go right ahead.”
Adam relaxed his hands on the steering wheel. Rosa Clayton was turning out to be different from his preconceived notion of her. She was dead tired. He could see it in the way her eyes drooped. She was a supermodel, a celebrity in her own right, someone whom people catered to, yet she was putting his needs ahead of her own. Where was the vain character he was sure she was harboring?
“We get to Vida’s first,” he told her as he turned onto the road leading to Vida’s house. The subdivision was new. There was a section at the far end of the street that was only skeletons of new houses.
Vida lived on a cul-de-sac at the end of the street. Her house was a modest development property like those that had sprung up across America in the last couple of decades. Adam was surprised to see them here since there was so much open space in Montana. People didn’t need to live on top of each other like they did in the ten-mile tract that limited the District.
Of course, the space between properties here was wider than it was in the major cities, but still it was a development. Adam lived on his father’s horse ranch. From fence post to fence post it covered five thousand acres. As a boy, he’d loved to camp out in the woods. As a man, he knew how hard it was to run.
As he stopped the truck, Vida came hobbling out the door, crutches under her arms. Her right leg was encased in an air cast. She’d fallen down the back stairs several weeks ago and sprained it badly. She was lucky it wasn’t another break. Because she couldn’t drive, she’d asked Adam to pick Rosa up. No one would know Vida had once been a model, too. Not as super as Rosa Clayton, but she’d traveled the world and had her picture in a large share of magazines. Like Rosa, she’d gotten a few contracts over her career to be the signature model for a specific company or product, but her career didn’t have the same identity as her friend’s. Rosa Clayton’s name was a household word.
“Rosa,” Vida said, her arms resting on the top of the crutches. She opened them as Rosa jumped down from the cab.
“Davida,” she shouted with a huge smile on her face. Adam hadn’t seen that in the time the two of them had been together. The two women hugged like long-lost friends while he took Rosa’s suitcase from the truck bed and set it inside the door.
“No one calls me that here,” she said. “I’m plain old Vida from Waymon Valley.”
“You look great,” Rosa said. “This fresh air must agree with you.” She took a moment to sniff the air.
Vida looked nothing like the stick-thin model today. She wore jeans and a long shirt that stopped just short of her knees. Her hair hung straight down her back, only curving upward on the ends. And, according to her own words, she’d gained twenty pounds and didn’t fit into any of the clothes she’d worn on the cover of Cosmopolitan or during her entire career. After the accident she’d given up that career three years ago and returned to Waymon Valley. She was now a junior studying design at the University of Montana’s extension in nearby Butte. She planned to open her own firm.
“Adam, aren’t you coming in?” Vida asked as the two women turned toward the door. “I made a big breakfast.”
“Gotta go take care of Dad,” he said, shaking his head.
“I suppose I’ll just have to eat it, then.” She grinned as if the prospect was appealing.
He passed them without a backward glance.
“Adam,” Rosa called. Her voice struck him like the words of a song. A love song. He clamped his teeth together and turned around. “Thank you. I know I was an inconvenience.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and shrugged as he pulled himself into the driver’s seat.
“Well,” Adam said out loud, “she ought to stir up trouble around here.” But he wasn’t going to be part of it. He’d had his fill of beautiful women. He amended that. He’d had his fill of women.
Rosa stopped a moment and watched the truck pull out of sight. Adam Osborne was nothing like she expected him to be. She’d been through the nation’s capital often enough to know that he was being groomed for the anchor’s chair. Either he’d done something unthinkable and turned the political tide at the station or he’d turned the position down. And why would he?
“What’s wrong?” Vida asked.
“Nothing,” she said. She turned back to Vida with a smile.
“It didn’t seem like you and Adam got on well. I’ve never known him to turn down one of my breakfasts.”
“I’d say he has a chip on his shoulder.”
“Adam?” Vida’s eyes widened.
“Adam,” Rosa repeated.
“Maybe he’s worried about his dad. He said he had to go home and take care of him.”
Rosa accepted that. For a moment her heart was heavy. She knew what it was like to be concerned about a sick parent. She was adopted. In fact, her entire family was adopted. They were brothers and sisters through the grace of loving foster parents. Their father had died suddenly, and years later their mother had a heart attack and lingered for several days before succumbing to eternal peace.
Rosa was tired from her long
flight. She forgave Adam for being abrupt. He had his father on his mind. And family always took precedence where she was concerned.
“So, what’s for breakfast?” she asked, smelling a flavored coffee permeating the air. She knew Vida loved hazelnut coffee.
Vida led her to the kitchen. The table was set for three and covered with food. Rosa recognized strawberry blintzes and crepes filled with ice cream and blueberries; a plate of bacon sat next to a bowl of southern-style home fries. Fried apples and grits rounded out the entrees that were complemented with toast, muffins, and an assortment of spreads: apple butter, marmalade, jellies and jams.
“Wow,” Rosa stated, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. “If I eat like this I’ll never be able to walk down the runway.”
“There are no runways in Montana,” Vida informed her, stretching her legs out as she took a seat and poured herself a cup of coffee from the carafe on the table.
Rosa didn’t want to mention the weight Vida had gained, but then the model was no longer working in the business. The weight looked good on her. And she was wearing a cast from her knee down. From the looks of the table, Rosa could see the cast wasn’t the only way she’d acquired extra poundage.
Vida had fallen off the stage during a rehearsal in Paris a few years ago. Her leg was broken in two places and they discovered she had a rare form of osteoporosis. She’d laughed it off saying it gave her a reason to get out of the rat race, but she confessed to Rosa that she thought she’d have a few more years before she had to quit. Yet in the past three years, she seemed to thrive on her new venture. Her e-mail messages were always full of excitement.
“We don’t eat like this every day,” Vida said. “I know you’re dead from flying forever to get here, so I wanted your first moments to be satisfying before you fall asleep. Of course, I thought Adam was staying and he eats like a starving man.”
Rosa sat down and began filling her plate. The room reminded her of her home in Texas. Her mother making breakfast for the horde of children she fed three times a day. The table had been filled with food, the meals noisy and boisterous, and the love unconditional.
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