by Sandra Brown
But they were very close to each other, best friends and confidants, as well as brothers. She had never been a part of that special male bonding and was always secretly jealous and resentful of it. It was something she hadn't outgrown.
Quelling her deep-seated hurt, she moodily responded to Lucky's question. "Travis is fine."
"Is he coming up Christmas Day as planned?"
"Uh, I doubt it. He's … he's bogged down with his studies. It was going to be inconvenient for him to make the trip in the first place. Now, with Jamie's arrival, Christmas is going to be so hectic…"
At the risk of painting herself into a corner, or telling an outright lie, she let her explanation trail off. The unvarnished truth was that Travis wouldn't be joining them on Christmas Day, period. They didn't need to know anything beyond that.
Once Travis and she were reconciled, she might tell them about the "spell" he'd taken at Christmas, but probably not. It would be a long time before his rejection would qualify as one of those episodes in life that one could look back on and laugh about.
"Damn shame he won't be here," Lucky said with affected sincerity. Devon gave his shoulder a hard nudge.
Any other time, Sage would have lit into Lucky for poking fun at Travis, but, again, his comment went virtually unnoticed. She was experiencing a twinge of conscience and arguing with herself that she hadn't actually told a lie.
Lucky hadn't asked her point-blank, "Are you still engaged to Travis, or did he break it off earlier tonight?" Sage reasoned. She had avoided mentioning it, that's all.
Then why was she haunted by Harlan's gloating grin? Why could she hear the echo of him saying, "I don't think you're going to give them that story straight, are you?"
All her life she'd managed to hide her hurt feelings and screen her disappointments by bluffing. It was unsettling that an imperfect stranger, a tramp like Harlan, had seen straight through her bluff.
* * *
Laurie Tyler was never happier than when bustling around her kitchen, the house full of family. She had been a housewife since marrying Bud Tyler when she was eighteen. She made no apology for never having had a career outside the home. It would never occur to her to regret her life because she had always been blissfully happy with all the choices she had made.
She was active in civic and church work and could be depended on to handle either a leadership position or the most menial and thankless task. She was quite comfortable in either capacity.
But in her kitchen, with her noisy, rambunctious family seated around the large table, she was in her element. Tonight she was especially happy because she had been blessed with another grandchild … and Sage was home.
Sage had been conceived long after Bud and she had thought their family was complete. The baby girl was an added bonus, like a gorgeous gift wrap on a very special present. Her blond prettiness had dressed up the family. Her personality had given it spiciness.
Laurie entertained no illusions about her daughter, anymore than she did her sons. Sage had many attributes. She also had flaws. She was headstrong and stubborn and had the same trait as Chase of being very hard on herself. Like Lucky, she had inherited the Tyler temper.
She wasn't demure and soft-spoken, qualities some might use to typify the ideal daughter. Not Laurie, who was glad that Sage was more passionate than proper. She preferred vivacity to vapidity, and Sage had plenty of the former.
Laurie loved her daughter in a special way, even though Sage herself sometimes made loving her difficult. She didn't accept or express love easily. As though fearing a rebuff, she always kept a part of herself protected. In that way, too, she was much like Chase and very unlike Lucky, who often let his emotions run away with him.
"Would you like something to eat, dear?" Laurie asked her daughter, unable to resist the impulse of lovingly smoothing her hand over Sage's mane of hair.
"Please, Mother, if it's not too much trouble." Momentarily she rested her cheek on the back of Laurie's hand. Then, as though embarrassed by the childish gesture, she pulled away. "Hmm, Christmas cookies."
"Yes," Laurie replied, laughing as she surveyed the mess on the kitchen countertop. "Marcie went into labor while I was right in the middle of frosting them. As you can see, I dropped everything and ran. We'll finish them tomorrow.
"I'd like that," Sage said, giving her a swift hug before taking a chair at the table.
"I'm so sorry we had to interrupt your holiday plans with Travis." Laurie dropped a pat of butter into a hot iron skillet and began building a cheese sandwich.
"Don't worry about it."
"Secretly I'm glad you're going to be home tomorrow."
"Me, too."
"Christmas Eve just wouldn't be the same without you here, snooping around all the presents."
"I never snooped!"
"Like hell." Lucky sauntered in and dropped into a chair. "Remember the Christmas that Chase and I unwrapped your presents and replaced what was inside with dead crickets? You wished you hadn't snooped that Christmas."
"Infidel." Sage threw a Frito at him. Grinning, he caught it and ate it.
"I remember that," Pat said. He was leaning against the countertop, snitching raw cookie dough and sipping the coffee Laurie had poured for him. "Bud had to paddle you both on Christmas Eve. Hated like hell to do it. Laurie, you tried to talk him out of it."
"Though Lord knows they needed it for that stunt. Where's Devon, Lucky?"
"She said to tell everybody good-night. She was exhausted."
"For all the tricks you and Chase played on me, it's a wonder I'm not psychotic," Sage remarked.
"I think you are."
She threw another Frito at her brother. This one he threw back. She threw another one. He threw it back too. Soon corn chips were flying.
"Children! I swear, you're worse than three-year-olds."
They were all still laughing when Harlan came through the back door, carrying Sage's suitcases, one in each hand. Whenever Laurie saw him, no matter how briefly or how long it had been since the last time, she was always a little surprised by how handsome a young man Harlan Boyd was.
Quite objectively, she thought her sons were the handsomest men around. That opinion was borne out by the number of ladies they had squired before falling in love and getting married. For his age, Pat, too, was a heartthrob. Plenty of women in and around Milton Point were jealous of his devotion to Laurie.
Harlan, however, was movie-star handsome. Some matinee idols might even envy the angular bone structure of his face and the provocative shape of his mouth. And his eyes… One look into those eyes could steal the breath of even an old woman like herself, Laurie thought.
"Thank you, Harlan," she said to him now. "Set those suitcases down there. We can take them up later. Would you like something to eat?"
"No thanks." He removed his damp hat and raked his hand through his thick, tousled hair. "Just some coffee, please."
Laurie poured him a cup. When she turned around to hand it to him, she caught Sage looking at him with such disdain, he could have been one of the crickets her brothers had replaced her Christmas presents with.
Granted, Harlan was a little rough around the edges, but she was disappointed that Sage couldn't feel more charitable toward him.
Then she saw Harlan smile at Sage and wink. No wonder Sage was in a snit. Laurie could barely suppress her smile. He was barking up the wrong tree if he was trying to flirt with Sage. Unless her strong-willed daughter could lead a man around by the nose, the way she did Travis, she wasn't interested.
Harlan, however, seemed unfazed by her condescension. To Laurie's amusement, he continued to stare at Sage while she methodically ate her grilled cheese sandwich and drank two glasses of milk. About the time she finished, Lucky stood up and stretched.
"Guess I'd better check and see if Devon got Lauren to bed okay." He said his good-nights and left the kitchen for upstairs.
"I'm beat, too," Sage said, coming to her feet. "I had a harrowing trip,"
she added, looking pointedly at Harlan who continued to nonchalantly sip his coffee, though a betraying grin played around his mouth. "Good night, Mother. We'll get on those cookies first thing in the morning." She kissed Laurie's cheek. "Good night, Pat."
Harlan stood up when she went for her suitcases. She waved him back into his chair. "I can get them."
"No problem," he said, lifting the suitcases off the floor.
Sage wrested the handles from his hands and marched from the kitchen without another word. Pat looked at Laurie inquisitively. She shrugged with puzzlement. Harlan returned to the table to finish his coffee.
"It's late. I need to get back to town," Pat said.
"I'll walk you out." Laurie reached for her jacket hanging on the rack just inside the back door and threw it around her shoulders.
Once Pat and she were out of earshot and away from the pools of light coming from the windows, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her. His mouth was warm and mobile over hers. Their kiss was giving, loving, and sexy. He drew her closer, and, for a moment, she submitted to having his hands on her hips before self-consciously stepping back, her cheeks flushed.
"You sure as hell don't kiss like a grandma," he teased.
"You make me behave in a scandalous way," she murmured, nuzzling his neck.
They nibbled on each other before falling into another deep, lasting kiss. Pat placed his large hand inside her jacket and rested it lightly on her ribcage, just beneath her breast. She moved enticingly, letting him know she longed for his touch as much as he longed to touch her. He covered her breast, massaging it gently through her clothing.
Moments later, he released her, making a low groan in his throat. "Laurie, have you thought about it some more?"
She didn't have to ask what he was talking about. Most of their evenings together ended on this subject. "It's all I ever think about, Pat."
"Don't you want to?"
"You know I do."
"You asked me to give you until the holidays. Well, the holidays are here."
"But I didn't know that Jamie was going to arrive early."
"What difference can that make? That's no excuse," he said shortly. "Look, I'm getting fed up with all this sneaking around, stealing kisses, and groping in the dark like a couple of kids. I'm too old for this."
"I don't like it any better than you do."
"Then let's go ahead and do it. Nobody's going to be shocked. Chase already knows about us. They all probably suspect."
"I don't know, Pat," she said uncertainly.
"Laurie, I'm dying," he said, then groaned again. "I want to sleep with you, dammit. I've wanted to for forty years. Why are you making me wait any longer?"
"Sage, for one thing."
"Sage?"
She could tell by his tone that she'd surprised him. "Soon she'll be making wedding plans. I don't want my romance to take any gilt off hers. That would be awfully selfish of me, wouldn't it?"
"It's about time you were selfish. You've spoiled those kids rotten."
"And you've helped me spoil them," she fired back.
"Sage is a modern-thinking young lady. She'll understand."
Indecisively, Laurie gnawed her lower lip. "I'm not sure how she'll take the idea of us being together. She was Bud's sweetheart, a real daddy's girl."
"She was no more devoted to Bud than you or I were." His mouth turned grim. "I want an answer, Laurie. Soon. I won't go on like this indefinitely."
His harsh tone of voice didn't intimidate her. It didn't fool her either. She placed her arms around his neck. "Are you issuing an ultimatum, Sheriff Bush?"
"Take it any way you like."
She moved closer to him. "Don't even think of leaving me, Pat. If you ever leave me, I'll hunt you down and shoot you."
"Damn. I believe you might."
"I would. Count on it."
A smile tugged at his lips for several seconds before he gave into it. "Aw, hell. I ain't going to leave you and you damn well know it." He lowered his head again and kissed her meaningfully. They finally parted reluctantly. He ambled toward his squad car. "I'll be out tomorrow evening to drive you to church."
Laurie waved him off and dreamily moved back toward the house. She had just made it through the kitchen door when a terrible, crashing racket came from upstairs.
"What in the world?" she exclaimed. Her first concern was for Lauren in her crib.
"Sounds like the house is falling down."
Harlan bolted from his chair at the table and ran out of the kitchen, headed for the staircase in the hall. Laurie was right behind him. They scrambled upstairs. Lucky and Devon stumbled from their bedroom. Lucky was in his briefs. Devon was pulling on a robe over her nightgown.
Across the hallway from their room, Lauren had set up a howl from the nursery. Devon went in to calm the baby and get her back to sleep. Lucky scratched his chest and glared darkly, asking, "What the hell was that?"
"That," Sage enunciated, "was your baby sister entering her room and finding that it's been taken over by somebody else." At the end of the hallway, she was standing with both hands on her hips, tapping her foot and bristling with rage.
"Oh, dear," Laurie said with a sigh. "I forgot."
"I reckon there's going to be hell to pay," Harlan said.
"Let me handle it."
"Be my guest," he muttered.
"Sage, dear—"
"Mother, what is this person's stuff doing in my room?" she pointed her finger at the center of Harlan's chest.
"That's what I was about to explain," Laurie said calmly. "We invited Harlan to stay with us. He lives here now."
* * *
Chapter 4
"Lives here? He lives here? In my room? You took in a vagabond and gave him my room?"
"Sage, if you'll calm down—"
"I can't believe this!" Sage cried, cutting Laurie off in midsentence. "Has everyone in this family except me gone daft?"
Devon slipped out of the nursery and quietly closed the door behind her. "Lauren's gone back to sleep."
"Good," Lucky said. "Pipe down, will you, Sage? That shrieking could wake the dead."
He shackled Devon's wrist with his long fingers and drew her across the hallway and into their bedroom, giving her bottom an affectionate pat. "But I sure do appreciate your waking Devon up." Lecherously bobbing his eyebrows, he closed their bedroom door behind him.
Sage glowered at the closed door and muttered, "Animal." Then she returned her attention to her mother and the man who had not only intruded into her life, but had apparently seized control of her home and family. She had never heard of him before tonight, now he was the bane of her existence. What was more, he seemed to be enjoying it.
"What's his stuff doing in my room?" She had lowered her voice only a few decibels in deference to the sleeping baby. "Where are my things, Mother? I can't believe you just moved me out and moved him in without even consulting me."
"Sage, that's enough! Calm down this instant."
When her mother used that tone of voice, it was time to hush up and listen. By an act of sheer willpower, Sage reined in her anger. The way things were going, if she didn't mind her p's and q's, she'd be kicked out into the cold while Harlan Boyd basked in the warmth of her family's love and adoration.
"I did ask your permission to rearrange the rooms," Laurie said. "Remember, several weeks ago, I called and asked if I could move some of your things into the guest bedroom?"
"Oh." Reminded of that particular conversation, Sage's accusatory gaze lost some of its angry sheen. "I vaguely remember something like that. I was working on my thesis. I barely listened. But I'm sure you didn't tell me that you had taken in a boarder who was going to reside in my room."
"I sensed your distraction," Laurie explained. "I ended the conversation because I knew your mind was on your studies. I didn't think it was necessary to tell you about Harlan at that time."
"You didn't think I'd want to know that somebody had taken over my room?"
"Sage, you haven't lived in that room since you went away to college almost seven years ago!" Laurie's maternal patience had finally been expended. "You have an apartment in Austin. Soon you'll be married. You and Travis will have a home of your own."
Harlan noisily cleared his throat. Folding his arms over his chest and crossing his ankles, he braced himself at a slant against the wall. Sage saw his struggle to keep a straight face and could have murdered him with her bare hands.
"Married or not, I thought I'd always have a room in the house where I grew up." In spite of her best efforts not to, she sounded wounded and plaintive. Well why not? Without her knowledge, somebody must have declared this Let's - kick - the - slats - out - from - under - Sage Day.
Laurie's expression softened and she drew Sage into an embrace. "Of course you have a room in this house," she told her gently. "You always will. And when you're married and bring your family here, I'll find room to sleep everybody.
"But from now on, Sage, this house will be a stopover for you. You'll be in and out. I transferred your things into the guest room so Harlan could have more space. Otherwise, all that roominess was going to waste. Doesn't that make sense?"
It made perfect sense, but it still wasn't acceptable. The reason was Harlan. If someone else were sleeping in her bed, she wouldn't have minded so much. The fact that it was him made her want to chew nails.
In that frame of mind, she said, "One might ask where Harlan planned to stay if he hadn't imposed upon your hospitality."
"In the first place, he didn't impose. I offered him the room. I saw no need for him to stay in that trailer alone."
"Trailer?"
"The Streamline I pull behind my pickup," he supplied, speaking for the first time.
"No offense, Harlan," Laurie said, laying her hand on his arm, "but it's seen better days. It's probably drafty," she told Sage. "I'm sure he's much more comfortable here."
"Oh, I'm sure he is, too." Sage gushed so sweetly it could have caused tooth decay. "I'm sure he's as contented as a pig in the sunshine. My room has always been very comfortable. At least I've always thought so. Ever since I was a little girl, I've thought it was comfortable."