"Ever consider untying the laces before you put them on?" he asked, in a slow Texas drawl. There was no warmth in his tone. "Can't put on your own shoes, can't pick up your clothes. Your daddy spends a fortune on your college education, but you haven't learned to take care of yourself."
Tracey jerked the high-top onto her foot, and glared at him.
"Just go get in the car and quit preaching at me." Her voice was low and husky. Austin knew only too well that she was on the verge of a red-hot, red-headed rage, and he didn't care. The apartment door was open, and he slung the storm door back with enough force to break the spring. Then he stomped out to Tracey's bright red Camaro, and molded his six-foot frame into the passenger seat.
She followed him, dashing through the driving rain and sleet to the car and sliding quickly behind the wheel.
"Austin, I just don't understand why you're so angry." She jammed the key into the ignition and turned it on with a hard twist. The starter motor let out an awful shriek, and Austin winced. Tracey let the car warm up and kept talking. "All I want is for you to come home with me for three days and meet my father. And you just won't. I'm beginning to think you're not serious about me."
"Don't start that." Austin stared out the front window, refusing to look at her for even a second. "Just don't. You know I love you. But that doesn't change the fact that I have to work during winter break. My daddy didn't give me an open bank account to spend as I please."
Tracey scowled at him, but he ignored her.
"I have to be back at the factory on Monday morning after Christmas. I need the money, Trace. You don't know what it means to have to work for your tuition. And I don't know how to make you understand."
This was a lecture Tracey had heard a thousand times before, and she didn't want to hear it again. Austin looked sideways at her mulish expression, and sighed deeply.
"If it's so almighty important to you that I meet your daddy, why don't you cancel your skiing trip and stay home on Christmas Eve and Christmas? Those are the only two days this month that I don't have to work."
"That can't be."
"It's true," Austin insisted. "I even promised the floor boss that I'd work New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. They need the help and I need the overtime."
Tracey fumed silently for a few seconds, then spoke.
"Austin, you can take a few days off. You just don't want to."
He sighed again, and looked out at the window at the pouring rain, rubbing a clear circle with his hand in the condensation. Tracey turned his face around to hers suddenly, even though she knew he hated to be touched that way.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Her tone was imperious and Austin gritted his teeth as she went on. "It's not my fault that I don't have to work. My daddy can't help being generous. I'm his only child. It doesn't mean I'm—"
"Spoiled? Oh, yes. You are. You've been spoiled so damn rotten it stinks." He stared into her bright green eyes, so angry at not getting her way that they were brimming with tears. He knew she hated to cry in front of him, but he intended to have his say, whether it made her cry or not. His voice was quiet when he continued.
"You've had everything handed to you, Trace. And you take it all for granted. A girl who had to grow up poor would understand what I have to do and stand by me and respect the fact that I had to work."
"Oh, sure," Tracey replied furiously, heedless of his feelings. She put the car in gear and backed out so fast it skidded on the slick pavement. "I know what's really on your mind. You're afraid. The only reason you won't go home with me is that you're scared to death to meet my daddy."
Austin chose not to answer her.
He'd been in love with Tracey from the day they'd met two years ago. He'd seen her sitting alone in the student lounge, taking up a whole booth with sheafs of notes and open textbooks, evidently trying to write a paper. Red hair fell almost to her curvy waist, and when she'd looked up at him, Austin had been lost in the greenest eyes he'd ever seen.
"Can I help you with something?" Tracey had said.
He remembered how eagerly he'd answered.
"No, but maybe I can help you. Is that a Comp II assignment you're working on?" He'd recognized the textbook.
"Yes."
"I took that class last semester with Dr. Hinson. What's your topic?"
He'd slid into the vinyl seat across from her as she looked him over, amused and pleased by his attention. She'd been waiting a long time to talk to Austin Miller.
"I haven't decided on a topic. Got any ideas?"
He'd had quite a few. After that day, they'd been inseparable.
Tracey had taken summer classes that year, living in an apartment in Durant, near the university. Austin had worked all summer, but it wasn't far to his home town of Tom Bean, Texas. They saw each other as often as they could. Later, during their sophomore year, she'd asked him to move in with her, but his Texas-size pride made him say no. He wasn't about to be dependent on her or anyone else, and he had told her so too many times.
She had a sneaking suspicion that he also wanted to keep his freedom as long as possible, but didn't want to come out and say so. There wasn't a girl on campus who hadn't noticed him, after all. Austin was long, tall, strong-jawed, and handsomer than anybody had a right to be.
But he never wanted to do anything but study and work most of the time, so she didn't know why she worried. They'd grown nearly as comfortable as two old married people by now, even though he lived in his tidy dormitory room and she lived across town in her messy apartment.
And sometimes they fought just like two old married people, too. Like tonight, Tracey thought ruefully. Even though they wouldn't see each other for the next two weeks, they were having this stupid argument. Austin simply would not stop working long enough to come and meet her father. It wasn't fair no matter how she looked at it.
Tomorrow Tracey would drive to her father's big, fancy house in Purcell, Oklahoma and spend part of the winter break with him and Molly, the housekeeper. There seemed to be no way to make Austin understand that she actually envied him the noisy, happy Christmases he shared with his brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and cousins in the rambling old Texas farmhouse where he'd grown up.
She slammed on the brakes in front of the twin tower dorm. It had been raining so hard she'd almost missed it. Tracey pulled into a loading zone, and tried to talk to Austin one more time.
"Will you change your mind and come home with me?"
"No." His voice was disconcertingly even. Tracey hated the way he stayed cool when her blood was about to boil over. Austin didn't get out of the car immediately, but he wouldn't look at her either. "Listen to me for once, Trace. Really listen. I love you Red River deep and I think you know it. But right now I think it'd be best if me and you took some coolin' off time to see what we want out of life." The words didn't come easy and talking like that to her fairly well squeezed the blood out of his heart, but Tracey had to hear. She was going to have to grow up someday.
"That's fine with me," she retorted furiously. "Go ahead. Get into your beat-up truck and get on back to Tom Bean, Texas. Where all those poor, upright girls are waiting to do whatever they're supposed to do for their big, tough men."
Something inside of Austin snapped but he wasn't about to let her know how deeply her words hurt.
"Maybe I'll do just that, Trace."
The quietness of his reply made Tracey listen a little as he went on.
"And you can drive home in this big red toy your daddy bought you and go huntin' for a lawyer or a doctor who can afford to hire a dozen maids to pick up after you. I'm sure as hell not goin' to do it. I've had enough of you."
Austin grabbed his duffel bag and got out, slamming the car door behind him. He disappeared into the dorm lobby without even a backward glance.
Tracey stayed in the Camaro, listening to the insistent rain pounding on the car's roof. She beat the palms of her hands on the steering wheel in a helpless fury, until they hurt too much to
keep on doing it. She took off the class ring he'd given her, and flung it against the back seat. Her fingers curled around the gold pendant with his initials that hung from an expensive chain around her neck, and she broke the links with a swift jerk. She threw the pendant and chain over her shoulder, and didn't even look to see where they had fallen.
Austin Nelson Miller had been exasperating her ever since the day they'd met. Tracey ignored the soda delivery truck honking at her for taking up the loading zone, and tried to remember just what she'd ever seen in him.
It hadn't taken her long to find out everything about him after he'd introduced himself to her. He had been fresh out of his podunk home town with the silly name, had a partial scholarship, and worked a couple of jobs as well as attending the university.
Even then he'd been too busy for her, Tracey thought sourly.
She'd done everything she could to get him to notice her that first semester, and finally decided he had to be blind, gay or hated red-haired girls. She had even considered asking her hairdresser to put a dark rinse in her hair in a final bid for Austin's attention. Then, as unexpectedly as a bolt of lightning, she'd looked up from her books and there he'd been, standing beside her in the student lounge.
And Tracey had known even then that Austin was the only man for her. She sighed, and gave the steering wheel a few more smacks. Why did he always have to be so damned stubborn? His stupid job wasn't so important that he couldn't ask for a few days off. But he wouldn't do it, not even if the angel Gabriel appeared with a golden harp and personally assured him that he wouldn't end up on the wrong side of the pearly gates for taking a vacation. There was such a thing as being too conscientious, and Austin was going to have to learn that someday.
Well, she would just let him stew for a week or two in his little home town where everything seemed to be done according to Hoyle's Rules for the Poverty-Stricken. Where women knew their place and men always had the last word no matter what. She would trade her front seat in heaven for a back seat in hell on a barbed wire fence before she'd call up Mr. Austin Nelson Miller to apologize.
Tracey revved up the engine and spun out of the parking lot in a fit of anger, unappreciated by anyone since it was already two o'clock in the morning and the campus was deserted. When she reached her apartment, she had to pull the storm door shut by its half-broken spring. Another reminder of Austin, which she didn't appreciate. She slammed the wooden front door hard enough to make the windows rattle, waded through the pile of unwashed clothes that he was always complaining about, and fell across the tangled sheets in the bedroom to stare at the ceiling.
Before daybreak Austin threw his packed bags into the bed of his pickup truck, a vintage Chevrolet that had enough dents to give it personality and a motor that hummed like a baby when he turned the ignition on. He'd never cared that the big, bench-style front seat had to be covered with a blanket because the upholstery had worn out. It wasn't as if he put any old blanket not fit for the doghouse in his truck. He smoothed out the special one he'd covered the seat with. Tracey hadn't liked it very much, because it got fake-fur lint all over her. She hadn't ridden in his truck very often, he reflected.
Austin knew she'd rather cruise around in her new red Camaro. He set his duffel bag on the passenger side, slid behind the wheel, slammed the door viciously, and drove back home to Tom Bean, Texas.
Before noon the same day Tracey had put two laundry baskets overflowing with dirty clothes in the backseat of her Camaro, three suitcases in the trunk, and a vanity case full of travel necessities, including chocolate bars and marshmallows, on the bucket seat beside her. The next few weeks might be lonely, but this was one time she wasn't saying she was sorry. She couldn't help it if she'd been born into a well-to-do family. It wasn't as if she hadn't tried to share everything she had with him. Austin was just too damn proud. Maybe by the time school started again next month he'd come to his senses.
Her week at the ski lodge turned out to be a vacation to forget. Some silly stomach virus kept her the same color as split pea soup and feeling like she'd been run over by a bulldozer. When her sympathetic girlfriends clucked over her and tried to cheer her up with stories about the fantastic bodies the instructors had, Tracey only felt sicker. She shooed them away, begging to be left alone with a quilt, a weak cup of tea, and a book she had no intention on reading. Her friends went off to have a high old time in their cute little ski suits. Tracey watched them head happily for the slopes, praying that she'd kissed Austin long and hard enough before the fight to give him the virus, too. She added more to her heartfelt prayer, asking that he would also upchuck everything he ate while he tried to work at his precious job.
Back at home in Purcell and still not feeling better, she hurried to the phone in her bedroom to check the answering machine for messages on her private line. The red light was blinking furiously and she pushed the button and held her breath.
Someone from the dry cleaners said her suede coat was ready to be picked up. And that was all.
Tracey let out her pent-up breath in a whoosh. Maybe Austin hadn't called because he'd written. She rushed downstairs to the foyer and called to the housekeeper.
"Molly, did I get any mail while I was gone?"
But the echo of silence was the only answer she got. She'd forgotten that Molly was away that day and the next. Tracey's father had told her he had business in Houston and would be away until Wednesday.
She rifled through the envelopes on the silver tray on the sideboard. Bills for her credit cards, addressed to her father. Tracey tossed them aside without opening them. A long envelope from her apartment complex's office . . . probably the bill for the next six months' rent. Her father, who'd made a small fortune in real estate, was as determined as ever to keep a roof over her head and that's the way he preferred to pay for it. She looked at the invitations propped against the intricately-carved gilt frame of the enormous mirror over the sideboard, and wanted to cry.
There was nothing from Austin.
The room started spinning and she sat down before she fainted. She put her head between her knees and sucked up gulps of air. This was crazy. Just because the love of her life didn't think it was necessary to apologize didn't mean she had to carry on like this. He'd come around. He'd told her a million times that he loved her Red River deep and that kind of love didn't stop because of some silly argument.
Classes were scheduled to begin in two weeks. The day before she had to return Tracey finally gave in to Molly's pleading and went to see her doctor. She hadn't felt like herself since her skiing vacation. Not surprising, considering how nervous she got when Austin gave her the silent treatment. This was the longest he'd ever gone without communicating with her somehow. It had been a month and two days since she'd seen him. No calls. No letters. Nothing.
It was late afternoon when she let herself in the front door of her father's house after her doctor's appointment. Molly had already gone home, thank goodness. And her dad was out of town again, looking at commercial property near Wichita, Kansas. Thank goodness for that, too.
Tracey needed time to think before she called Austin. Maybe she should just pack her bags and go down to Durant and have it out with him face to face. She went up the stairs slowly, without the usual bounce in her step. She pulled the suitcase out of her closet and began to fold her designer jeans and sweaters, laying them in neatly as she could.
Then she noticed the blinking light on her answering machine. Probably a message from the doctor's office. The receptionist was new, and Tracey had left without telling her to send the bill to her father. She pushed the button.
"Trace, this is Austin," the all-too-familiar voice said. "Call me, please. I have something to tell you." That was all. He sounded as depressed as she was.
She dialed his number and waited. Two rings, three, four. Finally Austin answered.
"Hello," she said.
"Trace." He didn't have a sore throat, but she knew him so well she could hear the hurt in his voice.
"You wanted me to call you." She couldn't keep the lilt from her own voice.
"Yes, I did," he said, then cleared his throat. "I just have to say this and get it over with. I'm getting married Friday night. I got drunk—"
Had he said married? Was she hearing things?
"What? What on earth are you talking about?"
"Oh, Trace. There's no easy way to explain this. The night I got home—after we had that hellacious argument—a couple of friends treated me to a few beers. And the beers turned into boilermakers."
He paused.
"Okay. You went on a bender. So?"
"Well, I didn't go on a bender all by myself."
"You were with friends."
"One of them was a female friend."
Tracey came close to slamming down the receiver. She willed herself to listen to his crazy story for a few more painful minutes.
"I wound up in bed with Crystal Smith."
"Why are you telling me this?"
He sounded like a despairing old man.
"Because you have to know."
"Okay. Now I know you're a two-timing, good-for-nothing, lying—"
"Whoa."
"What? Are you going to argue with me?"
"No. I don't want to hurt you any more."
"Gee. Thanks. Who's Crystal Smith, by the way?"
Austin paused a moment before he replied.
"You don't know her."
And a good thing, too, Tracey thought wildly. Because if I ever run into her, I'll scratch her eyes out and feed them to the buzzards. Which will be shortly after I iron your shirt with my car. While you're still wearing it.
"Trace? You there?"
"Yeah. Just filing my nails. Now where were we? You had just gotten out of bed with some hussy named Crystal Smith."
"Don't talk like that. As if I didn't feel guilty enough. I—have something to tell you."
Small Town Romance Collection: Four Complete Romances & A New Novella Page 16