“You’re wrong, Blaire. Mr. Davis has aged noticeably over the last few months, and his colleagues are blaming his mood on stress at home, but I think it’s more trouble with his heart.”
Blaire was not convinced. His reluctance to go to the train station to see her off, his anger at the whole mail-order bride idea, and the fact he hadn’t answered any of the six letters she’d sent home was all the evidence she needed. No, there appeared no grace allotted to his rebellious daughter.
“I’m afraid you are the one who is wrong, David. I seriously doubt he pines for his daughter. I am far from his thoughts.”
“He does care.” David scooped her hands into his. “He spoke to me just before I left.”
“Really? Did he offer a well-laid-out plan for dragging me back as your captive wife?”
“He did mention it…briefly, but I told him you were a big girl and had a mind of your own, and I wouldn’t be changing it to suit my fancy. Even after that, he offered to drive me to the train station the day I left, but I believe the main reason was so he could talk about you again, with no one else around.”
Blaire doubted that would have been his reason, but she could think of no other. She reacted to his comment with ridicule while attempting to change the subject. “Trains? Really, David—I thought your mother hated trains.”
“She hates being home more,” David said. “She needed to get away more than I did.” As if reading Blaire’s mind, he backtracked. “Whoa, now, girl—don’t change the subject. It was your father who asked me to look you up to see how you were doing. Frankly, I was surprised, but I grabbed onto the idea, as intrusive as it is, and knew that I could not return home without obliging him.”
“Your rendition sounds too good to be true, so I will just agree to disagree. The man likely thinks I never wed at all and wants you to check up on me and drag me back like the disobedient spinster I am.” She gasped inwardly. Had she said, I am, out loud?
Relief flooded through her when she noticed David hadn’t noticed her use of the present tense. Instead, he laughed heartily, throwing his head back as he did. “Not a job for me, your very good friend who wants to stay one. It’s true that I like to carouse with multiple women—I’m not interested in anything permanent yet. My passion is still for the land. That hasn’t changed, and it appears that the ladies always misinterpret that compulsive drive within me, so when it comes to making a choice, I will always choose the ranch over women who want to trap me with their game plan.”
David rubbed his fingertips over the back of her hand, lost in deep thought. At last, he voiced what he was thinking, “Only you understood me, so I might have made an exception in your case, but I was messed up and lost you to Minnesota.”
"I’m sure you’re sugar-coating your memory of me. The women will be lined up at the station when you get home, and one of them, I’m confident, will be more than eager to share her love and your ranch with you.” Blaire pulled her hand loose and fumbled with her napkin.
“Ah, yes, every guys dream: an understanding woman.” David arched his brows and smiled. “What about you? Have you found the dream?”
Blaire pushed away the doubt that was eager to respond and hoped the pain she felt did not show in her expression. At the same time, she was tired of skirting the issue that refused to go away. “I did find the dream. He was a doctor, and I was his nurse, both of us passionate about medicine and…” She met his inquisitive gaze. “But it’s over now if you must know my business, Mr. David Kennedy.”
She lowered her eyes when her bravery crumbled, and her mind drifted to places it had no business going. Was David her answer? Should she settle for second best, knowing she once had known a great love? No. Too many years, too many miles, and too many hurts had passed between them.
“I’m sorry for mentioning it, Blaire. We don’t need to talk about anything serious. I just want to see you smile again.”
“Ah-ha, the carefree David has taken over again, but this time, I welcome your swift retreat from reality. Let’s hide our heads in the sand together; is that still the motto you live by?"
“It’s worked for years, why not now?"
She lifted her glass to toast. “Hear, hear.” He joined in, and they took a sip of lemonade together. “You always managed to see the bright side of my doldrums. I have, indeed, missed our friendship of old.”
“And I have been miserable without you.” His eyes danced with amusement.
“Spare me the dramatics. Misery in situations over which you have no control is far from the ones a person simply chooses not to confront.”
“You have not kept up with my life of late, Blaire. It may surprise you, but I’ll not bore you with the details. Tonight is not about me.”
Blaire recognized David’s long-standing tactic of trying to be everything she needed, in the here and now, but that night, she saw a flicker in his unguarded eyes that said otherwise.
“I’ll believe that David can be miserable only when I see it—if he choses to unveil such vulnerability.”
“Surely, details of my miserable existence will crop up sometime during these next two weeks. Then, we can comfort one another.”
His playful tone lightened the conversation, which turned to safer subjects: youthful days gone by, and David’s ingenious plan to enlarge the family ranch by introducing the new breeding lines and modern techniques he’d been studying.
It felt good to laugh and debate issues other than those of the heart. Blaire found the years rolling back until the magic of new life breathed within her. She wondered if it were a sign, a turn in the road she’d somehow missed.
The comfort of it did not last. Destiny caught up with her, and the new sprout of life was put to death once more.
Blaire alerted to the strands of music filtering into the room as the band struck-up a love song. It was the song Lyle had proclaimed to be theirs when the musician had played it at their wedding, and they’d danced as if they were alone in the room. Even the odd foot-squishing had not stolen the magic of it from her heart.
She glanced instinctively in the direction of the dance floor, and her breath caught in her throat when she recognized one of the couples. In response, Blaire’s heart thundered a lethal tune of its own, and it wasn’t the least bit romantic.
They were there, swaying to the melody of her love song. Liza-Mae was clinging to Lyle, resting her head intimately against his broad chest. Blaire was thankful she had been saved the horror of seeing his face in case his expression showed contentment at being in another woman’s arms. She drank in every detail of the man she had called her husband, the knife of ultimate betrayal slashing her apart piece by piece.
“Blaire, whatever is the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” It was David’s voice penetrating her thoughts, but it wasn’t enough to pull her eyes away from the dance floor.
The coy woman lifted her head, leaned back, and playfully swung the couple about-face, providing Blaire with a full view of her lost love; Lyle was smiling.
That detail alone would have totally crushed her except for one redemption. It came in the intimate knowledge of the man, knowing that the upturned mouth one might mistake as a smile had not ignited that familiar twinkle in his eye. Blaire embraced a smidgen of comfort from that fact. She also observed a defeated sag to his shoulders and wondered if he had given up the fight. There was a controlling power in Liza-Mae’s possessive arms that even a stranger could have spotted a mile away, and Lyle moved as a lump of clay within the woman’s embrace.
Blaire felt suddenly sick to her stomach.
David’s voice invaded her thoughts again. “Blaire, what’s the matter with you?”
She turned to face her dinner companion slowly, David, she realized, was more than that. Concern etched his face, and at that moment, she became aware that a very special man had come back into her life. Blaire also realized that she had always identified that look in his eyes as love. He had always loved her, and she had strong feelings f
or him, though strangely, it didn’t erase her love for Lyle. She loved them both. Heaven forbid—she was as fickle as they came.
“I’m fine, David,” she lied, but when she saw his brow raise in a sign of doubt, she laid it all out. “There’s a man on the dance floor with whom I work and even married. He’s also the one who managed to steal my dream of being together forever.”
“Where is the rat,” David said as he scanned the dancers. “I see him. The one in the photograph, yes?”
“Yes,” she said. “The man with the dark hair and navy suit, dancing with the blonde bombshell.”
“Your husband…with another woman…already?”
Blaire straightened in her chair. “It is, and she can have him for all I care.” Before David could comment further, she jumped to her feet. “Excuse me. I have to go to the ladies’ room.”
She felt David’s eyes probe her back as she made her way to the rear of the establishment. Once inside the backroom designated for patrons, she retched until her stomach felt as empty as her heart. When she was done, Blaire splashed cold water from the basin on her face in an attempt to cool the burning tears that threatened to overcome her.
David waited in the dining room for her. The guy who’d replaced him at the altar was in the arms of a gorgeous tease, He’d met her kind before, and left them where he’d found them when he’d had his fill. Surely, Blaire’s man could see the difference between an artificial relationship and a real one.
David also noted that the man’s distraction had affected his dance steps when he caught him staring down the short hallway leading to the restroom. When another fellow distracted his lady-friend by tapping her on the shoulder, Blaire’s man vanished on cue. After a brief pout, watching as her original partner left the room, the blonde turned to the attentive gent waiting at her side and stepped into his waiting arms as if nothing were amiss.
The man was following Blaire, David was sure of it. He marched from the dance floor as if on a mission, and while his expression was hard to decipher, David was able to easily read his movements. They reminded him of a desperado marching off to his doom. There was still something between Blaire and her husband, but it all seemed to contradict itself.
David decided not to push, but he would wait for Blaire to unburden as he knew she eventually would. In the early days, they’d had difficulty keeping secrets from one another, and he wanted, more than ever, to be there for her like old times. After the war, he’d been no good for anybody, and then the troubles with his father who drank too much, had kept him tied to the ranch.
He fanned his fingers through his blond hair and sighed deeply. No sense fooling himself—the real reason he wanted to help was that he loved her. Try as he might to suppress the depth of that feeling, he could not force it to go away. He’d wanted the union to happen when Mr. Davis had invited him to come calling years before, but she’d rejected him, and he honestly could not blame her. He was definitely not ready to take on such a headstrong young lady as his wife.
So what now? Funning aside, should he confess to Blaire that he wanted more than friendship with her? And if her misguided husband was out of the picture, maybe this time he might actually win her affections.
David had changed. He simply needed time to prove it. He pushed the question aside. There would be plenty of time for that. He would not rush his childhood sweetheart into anything that she wasn’t ready for. At least he’d matured that much.
Blaire sucked air in and out of her lungs as she muttered a pep-talk for herself. Relax, she told her image in the mirror. She even managed to stick out her stubborn chin for effect and repeated her earlier vow aloud with renewed emphasis.
“I will live again, and it will begin tonight.” Blaire tucked a strand of hair back into the knot of curls crowning her head and spun around to hurry back to the dining room before her bravery had deserted her. What had she expected? It had been over a week since she last saw Lyle, and Marnie had said he’d shown up for work at the infirmary, but most times, the patient did the diagnosing while he simply offered an ear and a remedy. Blaire had taken that as his resigning himself to his new status as Liza-Mae’s husband.
She shook off her agonizing thoughts and remembered David. He would be concerned by then, for she’d been gone from their table a long time. Blaire stepped into the hall and almost immediately felt the pressure of a hand on her shoulder. She turned around to find herself face-to-face with Lyle.
“Hello, Blaire. I’ve missed you…at work," he said.
“I’m pleased you used the work relationship as an excuse for your missing me, for I suppose it helps console your guilty conscience.” She nipped at her bottom lip and tried not to let the bitterness show.
“I was going to call on you in the morning to see if we could get together and talk.”
“As late as this afternoon, I might have welcomed a visit from you, but after tonight, I’m not sure anymore.”
“It’s not the way it looks.” Lyle glanced toward the dining room. “Liza-Mae goes crazy cooped up at the boarding house all day, and she’s a real nuisance when she shows up at the infirmary. Makes my patients wonder if I’ve gone loco.”
“Have you?”
“It looks that way to the observer, but I would really like to come over tomorrow. May I?”
“It’s your house.”
“This outing was her idea,” Lyle said in his defense. “If I had my way, I’d keep us out of the public eye altogether.”
“How convenient that would be—lots of privacy to catch up.”
“It’s not like that, Blaire.”
“Really? You could have fooled me. You appear to be quite at ease with your lovely wife. Tell me, do you whisper the same clichés in her ear when you dance to our song?”
“Blaire, don’t do this to yourself. I’m still trying to figure out what she’s after. Marriage never made us happy, and she won’t talk about the accident at all. I’m still trying to figure out what she’s after.” His hand rested on her arm, and he pulled her in hypnotically with his pleading eyes.
“It should be quite clear what she’s after, darling,” Blaire said. “She’s after you."
The deeper his eyes bore into hers, the harder his fingers dug into her bare flesh. “Lyle, you’re hurting me.” Blaire pulled from his grasp, rubbing the spot where her flesh had turned white.
David appeared from out of nowhere and came charging to her defense. “Blaire, is this man bothering you?”
She glanced from one man to the other, her heart fluttering with confusion, but her voice did not quiver under their scrutiny. “No, not at all. He’s no bother of mine any longer.” Blaire began the introductions. “David, I would like to introduce you to an associate of mine, Dr. Lyle Frazer. We used to work together at the clinic, and for a short time, we lived under the same roof.” She rotated back to Lyle, and to be polite, added, “I do believe I’ve mentioned my good friend from Galesburg, Kentucky. He popped in for a surprise visit today. May I present David Kennedy, my childhood sweetheart.”
Lyle never took his eyes off Blaire as he reached a polite hand toward David. “I do recall you telling me of your youthful escapades with a wild, carefree child in the forests near your home.”
When the men locked eyes, they remained wary of one another as they shook hands, their hands gripped as if in a competitive squeeze; till death will I crush.
The back hallway filled unexpectedly with a fourth person. Liza-Mae’s presence demanded center stage, making everything slip into the background.
“There you are, you nasty man. I simply turned my head for an instant and poof—you disappeared.” Liza Mae planted a kiss on Lyle’s nose. “But I forgive you, as always.” She turned her attention to Blaire and David. “Oh, doesn’t our little Blaire, look so grown up in her evening attire.”
Blaire cringed. She was likely the same age as Lyle’s wife, who had emphasized the word, little, to demean her into feeling young and foolish. Even if her definition had
hit the target, Blaire determined not to allow the snob any more ammunition to gloat.
The expensive cut of Liza-Mae’s fashionable dress—neckline plunging far too low for Blaire’s taste—made her best outfit look like a sack from a missionary’s grab box.
Lyle intervened before Blaire’s self-esteem completely withered. “Now that we’ve all met, let’s go back to our table, Liza-Mae."
“And spoil all my fun? Shame on you, Lyle! Blaire hasn’t introduced me to her friend.” She stretched the last word into multiple syllables in a sexy drawl as she fluttered her eyelids in David’s direction.
Blaire managed to dredge up her manners and proceed with the farce. “This is David Kennedy. He lives on the neighboring ranch in Kentucky, where I grew up.”
“How exciting! I’ve never met a real cowboy before, but if I were to imagine what one might look like, you would fit my every fantasy.” Liza-Mae’s eyes covered every inch of David seductively, finally coming to rest on his perfectly boyish grin.
David responded with sweet poison. He leaned close to Liza-Mae and said, “My dear temptress, this ol’ country boy has never chanced to meet a harlot in the flesh, but if I were to imagine a lady of the night, you would fit my every fantasy.”
Blaire stifled a chuckle after hearing the outright lie, but the direct insult appeared to go straight over the woman’s head. “I am a woman of many talents,” Liza-Mae said, “and I’m flattered at your obvious attraction.”
Blaire caught the surprise on David’s face. Since she’d known him, he’d never once struggled for a response until then. She also noticed embarrassment and horror pass across Lyle’s face, but he didn’t offer even a single word in defense of his wife’s character. At the very least, she thought he understood the choice he’d made and what he was getting.
David looped Blaire’s arm through his. “Shall we go, Blaire?”
“Yes. Goodbye,” Blaire mumbled as she allowed David to sweep her clear of the couple.
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