by Judy Duarte
“It shouldn’t be too hard to get her running, but it’ll probably cost a bundle to get her looking good as new. From what I’ve heard, those Harleys are expensive to buy and to fix.”
Awareness nudged Rowan. He hadn’t given the motorcycle much thought before, and he wasn’t entirely sure why he hadn’t. But the bike was a Harley. And it had cost him a near fortune to buy before he added all the extras.
He sure hoped the accident hadn’t caused too much damage, because the Harley Fat Boy had become a part of him. Almost like a friend.
His only friend?
A fresh surge of grief settled around him, and a vision fluttered in his mind. A grave on the hillside of a cemetery. A twenty-one gun salute. A flag being folded and handed to him. A lump in his throat the size of Mt. Whitney.
But the image vanished as quickly as it had formed.
“Your sister said someone notified them that the bike had been found,” Louanne said. “So it may not be lying in that ditch any longer.”
“Well, let’s go take a look-see,” Pete suggested. “And if it’s gone, we can talk to Sheriff McDonald. I’ll take time to help you out this morning.”
“I appreciate it.” Rowan watched as Louanne stood from her seat at the table, walked to the sink and poured out the rest of her coffee. He studied the way the worn denim stretched across her rounded hips and wondered why she didn’t wear something more feminine. Something more likely to show off the womanly curves she hid.
“Do you and Noah want to ride with us?” Rowan figured the baby would probably enjoy getting out and seeing some scenery.
“We’ll pass. Aggie and I are going to can string beans today.” She placed her mug on the countertop, then used a spatula to remove a small scoop of scrambled eggs from the cast iron skillet on the stove and place it in Noah’s plastic bowl. “But thanks for thinking of us.”
Moments later, as the men made their way to the dirty, white Ford pickup, Pete opened the driver’s door, but didn’t climb inside. Instead, he peered across the seat at Rowan. “Louanne doesn’t like leaving the ranch. Aggie and I have tried to get her to go into town with us, but she won’t.”
That didn’t seem natural. The women Rowan knew loved to go places, to shop. To get dressed up and go to parties. Not waste away on a ranch in the middle of nowhere.
Of course, Louanne wasn’t like any of the women he knew. He wasn’t sure how he’d come to that conclusion, but for some reason, it just seemed to be true.
“Aggie thinks Louanne has that fear of leaving the house,” Pete added. “You ever hear about folks who suffer from that?”
Rowan nodded. He’d heard about that kind of anxiety. But he wasn’t so sure that was Louanne’s problem, although he didn’t know why he felt that way. Maybe because she seemed to be such a complex woman—a woman who held back what she was really thinking and feeling.
They drove to the place where Pete had spotted Rowan’s motorcycle. But the bike was no longer in the ditch that separated the long stretch of county road from the barbwire boundary of the Lazy B.
“Louanne was right,” Pete said. “Someone hauled it off. Let’s head into town. We can talk to the sheriff and ask where it is.”
“Are you sure that you have the time? I don’t want to keep you from your work.”
“Hell, I’ll make time.” Pete chuckled to himself. “Then I’ll put you to work so you can help me catch up.”
“That sounds like a great deal to me.” Rowan actually relished the idea of physical labor, of a good, hard workout—but for more reasons than the exercise. Helping out on the ranch would make him feel like a contributor, rather than a taker. “I’ll be happy to work for my room and board.”
For some reason, Rowan liked the idea of settling in Pebble Creek. And even though he wanted to get his memory back, he had no intention of returning to California.
But he’d be damned if he knew why.
In the kitchen, Aggie and Louanne sat across the antique oak table from each other, snapping green beans and preparing them for canning.
Noah entertained himself in the secondhand playpen that Aggie had found at a garage sale. He gummed a pacifier like it was an old stogie and grunted or squealed periodically, entertaining the two women with his baby-sweet antics.
“Sharing the workload makes canning a whole lot easier,” Aggie said.
“It sure does.” Louanne cast a smile at the older woman. In the last eighteen months, Aggie had become a dear friend. And having her around made a tough, lonely life bearable.
Aggie grabbed another handful of beans from the strainer and began to snap them. “When is Doc coming back from his vacation?”
“He hoped to come back on Saturday afternoon and mentioned coming by here to check on Rowan.”
“Good.” Aggie tossed a handful of snapped beans into the bowl. “I hope you plan to talk to Doc about your feelings.”
Her feelings? For Rowan? Was her attraction to the man that obvious?
Aggie added, “I was hoping Doc would give you a prescription that will make you feel better about leaving the house.”
Louanne was at a crossroads. She had to either perpetuate the false assumption or confess.
Did she dare tell Aggie the truth? Admit that her fear and anxiety couldn’t be helped by medication?
Louanne believed the fewer people who knew she’d come home to the Lazy B, the better. But the reason for her return had been a heavy burden to carry alone.
“Pete and I kept your secret,” Aggie said. “No one in Pebble Creek knows you’ve come home with a baby. But I think you’re afraid of more than gossip.”
Louanne stared at the green beans in her hand.
Undaunted by the silence, Aggie continued to drive home her point. “It’s not healthy for a pretty, young woman like you to hole up here at the ranch.”
Maybe not, but Louanne felt safer here than anywhere. “I appreciate your concern, Aggie, but I’m getting some much-needed rest. College life became very stressful for me, and I like the slower pace.”
“College was too stressful?” Aggie lifted a silvergray brow. “For a smart bookworm like you?”
Okay, so Louanne would have to come up with another, more plausible excuse. But since Louanne wasn’t particularly keen on feigning an anxiety she didn’t have, maybe she ought to level with her friend.
After all, Aggie had proved to be trustworthy on more than one occasion. And after nearly a year and a half, Richard hadn’t found her yet. If she were lucky, another graduate student might have caught his eye—although that was a disturbing thought. She wouldn’t wish Richard Keith on her worst enemy.
“I haven’t been truthful with you,” Louanne confessed. “There’s a whole lot more to the story.”
“You don’t feel as though you can confide in me?” Both the tone of Aggie’s voice and her cocker spaniel eyes revealed the depth of her disappointment.
“When I explain, maybe you’ll understand why I kept things a secret. But you’ll need to promise not to tell anyone. Not even Pete.”
Aggie paused momentarily, as though weighing what the agreement might cost her. The older couple loved each other, and Louanne doubted there was much they didn’t share.
“All right.” Aggie placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I’ll keep your secret, even from Pete.”
Now what? Louanne had opened the door to the basement of her fears. Did she have the courage to step into the dark? To confront what frightened her the most?
She took a deep breath, then started at the beginning. Or pretty close to the beginning. “Two years ago, I began dating one of my professors at college. He was an older man and the epitome of class and charm. I found myself falling for him, and when he asked me out, I agreed.”
“Is that ethical?” Aggie reached for a handful of green beans. “You know, a teacher dating a student?”
“No. I suppose it isn’t. But I was very close to finishing my doctorate coursework and ready to start
my dissertation in English. We were both adults. And we were very discreet.”
“I assume that man was Noah’s father.”
Louanne nodded, finding it hard to voice the truth out loud.
“How did he die? I’ve been curious, but you always changed the subject whenever I brought it up.”
“He didn’t die. Unfortunately, the man is very much alive.”
Aggie’s hands froze, and she dropped the green beans she’d been holding. “What do you mean, ‘unfortunately’?”
“Over time, Richard became increasingly possessive. He began to follow me. And whenever I wasn’t someplace he thought I should be, he would accuse me of seeing someone else. Someone younger.”
“I assume you weren’t,” Aggie said.
“Of course not. But he’d been masking a serious drinking problem, and as it became more and more apparent, I realized my mistake and naïveté in getting involved with him. But I knew I had to be careful how I ended things.” Louanne took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly. “One day, he broke into my apartment while I was at the library doing research. When I returned home, he accused me of cheating on him. I tried to deny it, but he threw me against the wall. Then he struck me.”
“Did you call the police?”
“I probably should have, but he began to cry. And he told me he was sorry. That he loved me so much, it made him crazy.”
“All those wife beaters say they’re sorry,” Aggie said. “But the abuse just gets worse.”
“I’m aware of that. But I was just months away from completing work on my doctorate, and I planned to stick it out.”
“Things got worse, didn’t they?”
Louanne blew out a ragged sigh. “Richard was twenty years older than me and had never had a child. I’m not sure he’d ever wanted one, but he got this weird idea about a baby of ours having a genetic predisposition to intelligence and perfection. A wonder kid.”
“That’s almost scary,” Aggie said. “Planning like that takes the miracle out of birth.”
“I agree. But having a child with me became an obsession. He began checking into private nursery schools for gifted children. And the more he pushed for a child, the more I insisted he use condoms.” Louanne glanced at her friend, hoping she understood the dilemma she faced.
“I guess God had other ideas.” Aggie glanced at Noah, her eyes beaming with love and admiration. “Look at what a precious little boy you have.”
“You’re right.” Noah was precious. And he was a blessing Louanne had never anticipated in those early months while Richard haunted her waking hours, and not just her sleep.
For the hundredth time, Louanne whispered a prayer, asking God to forgive her for not wanting the baby and wishing she’d miscarry. She’d actually contemplated an abortion, although just for a moment. But she couldn’t go through with it.
Still, the fact she’d never wanted Noah tormented her each time she looked into her son’s sweet little face.
Louanne took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. “One night, after Richard had been drinking more than usual, he confessed to having poked holes in the condoms we’d been using. To make matters worse, I then found out I was pregnant. And that’s when I began to plot a careful escape that couldn’t wait until I finished school.”
“How did you do that?”
“I covered my tracks, or at least I hope I did. Several weeks before running away, I changed my address so that the entire college computer system reflected a bogus home residence in Austin, which is where I’d told everyone I was from.” Louanne stood and moved aimlessly about the kitchen, restless. Uneasy. “I also took the paper files from the English department, just in case Richard thought to look there. And I destroyed them.”
“Then you ran away?”
“That was the plan. Richard had a night class, but for some reason, he canceled it and came to my place unexpectedly. He found a suitcase on the bed.” Louanne closed her eyes, remembering that night. “His eyes grew wild, and I thought he was going to go into another rage. I told him that I had to go home, that my grandmother was seriously ill. I must have been convincing, because he let me go.”
“Does the man know he has a son?”
“No.” Louanne swallowed hard, remembering Richard’s threat, as he watched her go.
I’ll see you back in my bed, willing to have my baby, or in a casket, six feet under.
“And so you came home in secret,” Aggie said. “That’s why you won’t go into town.”
Louanne nodded. She’d done everything she could think of to protect herself and Noah from the professor. She told Doc Haines that she wanted to have her baby at home, just like her mother had done. She’d also made Doc promise not to tell anyone in town that she’d come back or had a baby. And she’d refused to put the father’s name on Noah’s birth certificate.
Richard had said he’d follow her to the ends of the earth, which is exactly where she always believed the Lazy B had been located. And so she’d come home with her tail between her legs, pregnant and licking her wounds.
Aggie stood, and when she reached out her arms, Louanne eased into her embrace and absorbed every ounce of comfort her friend offered.
“I’ll keep your secret,” Aggie said. “And Pete and I won’t let anything happen to you or to Noah. You’ll be safe here.”
Louanne certainly hoped so. But she could never be sure. The more people who knew her secret made the risk of Richard finding her all that more real.
And even though she told herself that she’d given Richard the slip, she walked on eggshells every day of her life, fearing that someday he would find her.
And, even worse, find his son.
There wasn’t much in the small town of Pebble Creek, just a couple of shops on the main drag. Mabel’s Diner. Farley’s Fine Clothing. The Creekside General Store.
Rowan didn’t suppose the community had much to offer, so maybe that’s why Louanne didn’t venture off the ranch. But for some reason, he didn’t believe that was the case.
Pete parked the truck in front of the sheriff’s office, and they both went inside. It didn’t take long to find out the bike had, indeed, been hauled away.
After Sheriff McDonald explained the impound fees, which needed to be paid in cash or with a cashier’s check, he gave them directions to the lot where they could find the Harley.
The men headed for the pickup. As Rowan reached the passenger door, something caught his eye. “Just a minute, Pete.”
He bypassed the pickup, crossed the street and headed toward Farley’s Fine Clothing.
“What you got in mind to do?” Pete asked, tagging along behind him.
“I want to get something for Louanne. Something to show my appreciation for her taking me in and tending my wounds.”
“That’d be nice. My woman loves surprises.” Pete lifted his worn, black cowboy hat and adjusted it on his head. “It might be hard for you to believe, seeing as how Louanne doesn’t do much primping anymore, but she and her sister used to get all gussied up when they were young girls.”
Apparently, Tallulah still liked to wear stylish clothes. But he wondered what had triggered the change in Louanne’s wardrobe. Lack of money? The death of her parents? Childbirth?
The death of her old lover?
She’d told Rowan she didn’t miss the man at all. Had that been a lie? Or had she never loved the man who’d fathered her baby?
It was hard to say. But Rowan was determined to see the tall, attractive brunette “all gussied up” again.
He went straight for a rack of dresses and began to sort through the various colors and styles. When he pulled out a lime-green sundress in a slinky fabric, he whipped it around for Pete to see. “What do you think about this?”
Pete let out a slow whistle. “It’s pretty. And it ought to look real nice on Louanne. ’Course, she doesn’t go anywhere and probably won’t wear it.”
“She can wear it around the house.” A smile crept onto Rowan’
s face. She could wear it for him.
And he would make her feel good about herself. Good enough to go out in public again. Then he would take her into town for a night of dinner and dancing.
It would be a piece of cake, a walk in the park. A slam dunk.
Rowan was a charmer. And he’d never had a lady he was interested in turn down one of his offers. No matter what it happened to be.
Now that was a revelation that would prove to be useful.
His smile deepened. He would charm Louanne Brown into another blood-pumping, mind-spin-ning kiss.
And this time, instead of regret, he would see those golden-brown eyes light up with a smile.
Chapter Seven
Louanne stood before the white, sturdy, hulk of a stove and carefully removed mason jars filled with green beans from a pot of boiling water.
At the sound of the pickup returning home, Aggie peered out the kitchen window. “It’s Pete and Rowan. And they must have found the motorcycle. I see something black in the back of the truck.”
Louanne stepped away from the heat and joined Aggie at the window. A smile tugged at her lips, as she watched the men scratch their heads, then try to maneuver the bike out of the truck and into the barn.
“Pete’s always loved tinkering with engines and things. So I have a feeling, he’ll want to help get that motorcycle running again. I sure hope that contraption doesn’t give my fool husband any wild ideas. Years ago, he wanted to buy a big old Yamaha and put me on the back.” Aggie chuckled. “Now, do I look like one of those biker chicks?”
Louanne smiled at the thought of lanky Pete and his heavyset wife riding down the road, the wind whipping their gray hair. Letting themselves go, feeling free and young again.
It sounded like great fun to Louanne. And she could certainly see herself perched on the Harley behind Rowan, her arms wrapped around his waist, her breasts pressed against his broad back, her legs straddling a powerful motorcycle. Just the thought was exhilarating, liberating.
But daydreaming like that was a complete waste of time. Especially with her experience.
Her one and only relationship had been with a man she hadn’t really known. A man with secrets he didn’t initially reveal—like his excessive drinking, his need for domination and control. His penchant for violence and threats.