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The Baby Season
Alice Sharpe
On a mission to fulfill her grandmother's wishes, civilization-loving Roxanne Salyer was utterly at sea. Her car was crumpled in the California desert. Her cell phone had gone kaput. She was sandy, sunburned–sizzling to death! And then strong, sexy Jack Wheeler rode to her rescue….Raised to nurture a career, not a family, Roxanne was out of her depth at Jack's ranch, which teemed with newborn critters! Worse, intense, enticing Jack had a pigtailed pixie of his own, and dad and daughter stirred impossible dreams–of marriage and of motherhood. But Roxanne didn't believe in giving in to temptation–until she tasted that first kiss
What a sweet, tiny package a baby was,
Roxanne decided. How soft and adorable.
Roxanne found her lips puckering of their own accord, and she kissed the baby’s downy head. The child stirred, and reluctantly Roxanne put her back into the crib.
But somewhere in her chest she felt her heart constrict, and she wasn’t sure why.
Was there some kind of kismet at work at Jake’s ranch? Had fate brought her here, to this man and his motherless child, at this particular time and surrounded her with newborn life in order to remind her of something? Something that her old life was missing?
“I get the point,” she whispered, “I think I understand.…”
Dear Reader,
This June—traditionally the month of brides, weddings and the promise of love everlasting—Silhouette Romance also brings you the possibility of being a star! Check out the details of this special promotion in each of the six happily-ever-afters we have for you.
In An Officer and a Princess, Carla Cassidy’s suspenseful conclusion to the bestselling series ROYALLY WED: THE STANBURYS, Princess Isabel calls on her former commanding officer to help rescue her missing father. Karen Rose Smith delights us with a struggling mom who refuses to fall for Her Tycoon Boss until the dynamic millionaire turns up the heat! In A Child for Cade by reader favorite Patricia Thayer, Cade Randall finds that his first love has kept a precious secret from him.…
Talented author Alice Sharpe’s latest offering, The Baby Season, tells of a dedicated career woman tempted by marriage and motherhood with a rugged rancher and his daughter. In Blind-Date Bride, the second book of Myrna Mackenzie’s charming twin duo, the heroine asks a playboy billionaire to ward off the men sent by her matchmaking brothers. And a single mom decides to tell the man she has always loved that he has a son in Belinda Barnes’s heartwarming tale, The Littlest Wrangler.
Next month be sure to return for two brand-new series—the exciting DESTINY, TEXAS by Teresa Southwick and the charming THE WEDDING LEGACY by Cara Colter. And don’t forget the triumphant conclusion to Patricia Thayer’s THE TEXAS BROTHERHOOD, along with three more wonderful stories!
Happy Reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
The Baby Season
Alice Sharpe
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to all the babies in my life: those in the past, those right now and those to come. I love you all.
Books by Alice Sharpe
Silhouette Romance
Going to the Chapel #1137
Missing: One Bride #1212
Wife on His Doorstep #1304
Prim, Proper… Pregnant #1425
The Baby Season #1525
Silhouette Yours Truly
If Wishes Were Heroes
ALICE SHARPE
met her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing.
Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at P.O. Box 755, Brownsville, OR 97327. SASE for reply is appreciated.
Contents
Chapter One (#u57777dad-0783-5b5e-81d2-ea8ae2692f99)
Chapter Two (#u3f1b1d62-960e-5ba7-8a38-957e2f6fae9e)
Chapter Three (#u8f844475-622f-54ef-9ef6-365ee34a5950)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
After three grueling hours, the hike Roxanne Salyer had approached as a means of finding help revealed itself for what it really was: a trek into an inferno.
She should have stayed near her car instead of taking off on foot. Not inside, but near it.
Her car, the victim of the successful attempt to avoid running over a rabbit, was far behind her now, gobbled up by the California desert. Roxanne knew it was up to her to save herself, and if she had to do it wearing half a wilted linen suit and sandals never intended to tackle sand, then so be it.
All in all, not an auspicious beginning to her quest.
A niggling little voice in the back of her head balked at the word quest and inserted instead fool’s errand.
“Oh, give it a rest,” she told that voice as she scanned miles and miles of rolling sandy hills and hazy distant mountains. Sporadic poles strung with wire announced the possibility of civilization, but it sure wasn’t visible from where she stood. No buildings, no phone booths, no nothing.
Didn’t anyone ever drive down this blasted road?
For the first time, fear, and not just annoyance, prickled her overheated skin. People were known to die out in the desert. It happened.
She should have worn less impressive and more durable clothing; she should have carried more water; she should have been prepared.
A big lump suddenly materialized in her throat. She couldn’t swallow it—she didn’t have enough saliva left. There was nothing to do but continue walking, which she did until her fried brain registered the fact that the road had split in two. One track continued in a more or less straight line, the other curved off to the west, leading to the same mountains, only closer.
Two roads, neither looking well traveled. It was a Robert Frost nightmare.
Her gut said the straight road was the right road but her gut didn’t have a great track record. Not today anyway. “West,” she muttered, vaguely comforted by the fact that the Pacific Ocean lay in that direction, albeit a hundred miles away.
That’s when the strap on her left sandal snapped in two.
She stood for a moment on her right foot, her throat as dry as the sandy earth burning through the thin sole.
Now what?
Jack Wheeler frowned at the sight of the white compact abandoned halfway across his access road. Bumping over small rocks and tumbleweed, he pulled around the car, coming to a stop amidst a billowing cloud of sandy dust. He popped open his door and jumped to the ground, both boots hitting the road at the same time.
As he approached the car, he noticed it sported a Washington State license plate and a sticker on the front bumper advocating the practice of random acts of kindness. He couldn’t imagine whom the car belonged to; he wasn’t expecting anyone from Washington. He impatiently strode to the driver’s door and, using one of his gloves as a makeshift pot holder, tried the handle.
Locked. Leaning down and gazing inside, he spied on the passenger seat an empty bottle of water, a sky-blue woman’s jacket, a cell phone and a plastic folder with an unfamiliar logo: a stylized raindrop, inside of which were call letters.
A wave of irritation flashed across the stern contours of his lips. Oh, brother, not another reporter, radio or otherwise.
Maybe just a curiosity seeker.
The logo suggested otherwise.
Jack recalled the last big-city reporter who had tried to cozy her way into the tattered remains of his dignity. He’d caught on to her act just in time, but it hadn’t saved him from her half-truths.
But that had been right after Nicole left, when the public’s curiosity about the whole affair was still white-hot. Besides, this car was parked in a weird spot for a thrill seeker or a writer. It was way too far from the house to see anything, too far from the mountains to provide cover.
Kneeling, he looked under the vehicle and saw a puddle of black fluid and a jagged piece of lava rock, which explained a lot but still left the question: Where was the driver?
He didn’t have time for this, he thought with an impatient glance at the pocket watch his father had left him. He was running behind schedule.
It didn’t matter. You couldn’t leave someone stranded out in the desert. Not even if that someone was a reporter.
On the other hand, he couldn’t leave this car partially blocking the road, either. Swearing under his breath, he flattened out on his stomach and dislodged the rock—no easy feat. Then he took a rope from the back of his truck and looped it around first his hitch, then the car fender. Within a few minutes, the automobile sat harmlessly off to the side, tucked up against a sandbank.
Back in the truck, Jack drove north until he hit the fork in the road. It occurred to him that only someone who knew about the studio would stray from the main road, but he stopped anyway and grabbed a pair of small binoculars from the glove compartment.
The desert heat rippled like airborne ocean waves as he scanned the trek leading to the house and found it empty. Next he tried the west road. Was that a figure up ahead? If he or she was from the car, they’d walked almost five miles. Setting aside the binoculars, Jack gunned the engine and swore under his breath.
Another reporter on her way to snoop around the abandoned studio?
Whoever it was would soon regret their decision to invade his privacy.
A few minutes later, he slowed the truck and gaped at the apparition in front of him. Irritation turned to amazement as he took in the figure of a young woman, her expression just as startled as he supposed his was.
She was tall and willowy, with long, dark blond hair caught in a high ponytail, sunglasses perched on a straight nose, wearing what once must have been a silky white blouse and a perfectly cut light blue skirt. Both articles were covered with a film of dust. The sunburn on her throat and arms extended down two shapely pantyhose-free legs. Her right foot was just barely embraced by a delicate white sandal that looked as alien out here on the desert plateau as an ice cream parlor would look in hell, and on her left foot, she wore…a purse.
That demanded a double take and he gave it one. Sure enough, the woman had stuffed her left foot into a straw shoulder bag. A long strap extended upward, clutched tightly in her left hand. As he stared, she started hobbling toward him, the purse acting as a makeshift shoe.
He jumped out of the truck, a canteen in his hand. As she drew closer, she tried smiling but it apparently hurt because she winced. In that instant, he realized that under the sunburn and the dust she was pretty. Okay, extremely pretty. His defenses immediately went back on to full alert.
“Who are you?” he heard himself bark.
This stopped her in her tracks.
He knew he should show compassion—she looked miserable. Even if she was a reporter, she wasn’t in the best of straits right now. But what he felt was alarm as he registered how, one by one, his traitorous senses were springing back to life. Even the air had a new sharp smell, and the sun, hitting the back of his neck, felt warmer than it had in two years.
“What are you doing out here?” he grumbled, reminding himself that this woman was definitely not his type. He liked small women with fluffy hair. He liked women with more curves, and most importantly, if she was indeed a reporter, he liked women who didn’t get their kicks out of snooping into a person’s life.
“Didn’t you see the No Trespassing signs?” he added.
She gasped, “Is that water?”
He finally got his act together enough to twist off the cap and hand her the canteen, which she immediately upended. He watched her greedily gulping the precious fluid, her throat rippling, water dribbling down her chin, plopping onto her pink bosom and running in tiny rivulets between her breasts, down under the clinging fabric of her shirt.
Jack swallowed hot dry air. “Who are you?” he repeated as she finally lowered the canteen.
“Roxanne Salyer,” she said breathlessly. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, smearing the fine coat of dust into a minor mud slide.
“Is that your car back there?”
She nodded and tried to return the canteen.
“Go ahead and keep it,” he told her, handing her the cap, “but take smaller sips.” He studied her for a second, his gaze eventually drifting down to her unusual footwear. “Are you hurt?”
Her eyes followed his. She bit her lip and winced again. All she said was, “My shoe broke.”
“Any cramps? Dizziness? Are you nauseous?”
“No, no, honestly, I’m fine. Just really glad to see you.”
Her voice was as rich and warm as spiced honey. She spoke as though greeting a friend after a long absence, which he supposed wasn’t too surprising as she was apparently lost out in the desert and must view him as a savior of sorts. Ha!
“What are you doing out here?”
“I came to find a woman.”
Not so lost after all, and he felt a flush of disappointment he was hard put to understand. She was looking for a woman, huh? Two guesses who that might be, and the second one didn’t count. Just as he’d thought, she was here after a story about Nicole. Or—shudder—him! He said, “I see. Well, my ex-wife is long gone, or don’t you do your own research?”
Roxanne wrinkled her nose which reminded him of his daughter, Ginny. “She’s gone?”
“Yes,” he said, leveling her with an icy stare. “Nicole ran off with the artist I hired to paint her portrait. Last I heard, they were in France. I have a hard time believing you find any of this a surprise. What’s your game? What tabloid are you working for? Or is it a radio station? Who are you?”
She was shaking her head. “I don’t work for radio or a tabloid. I work for a television station—”
“You what? Now just a moment. My private life isn’t fodder for some sleazy—”
“I work for a network affiliate in Seattle, Washington,” she interrupted. “I haven’t the slightest idea who you are. I don’t know anything about your wife. In other words, we can’t possibly be talking about the same woman. Mine is about sixty years old. Her name is Dolly Aames.”
The television thing had rattled him. For one awful moment, he had envisioned his sorry life story spread over one of those nighttime exposition shows. Why couldn’t Nicole have run off with someone less well-known than Jeremy Titus, heartthrob artist to the stars?
On the offensive again, he barked, “You could have gotten into real trouble wandering around out here.”
“I know, I know. Do you have a cell phone I can borrow?”
“Not on me. I saw one in your car.”
“It’s dead.” She looked flustered and edgy as she added, “I used the last of the battery to call my insurance agent. He told me I’m too far away and should call a local towing service. Helpful of him, wasn’t it?”
All this was interesting in its own perverse way, but he was running late. Turning on his heel, he said, “Come on, I’ll give you a lift to a phone. You can call a tow truck.”
“Wait, wait,” she said, limping along behind him. “Do you know Dolly Aames?”
“Never heard of her,” he said, opening the passenger door. As Roxanne paused beside him, he noticed the scalp exposed by the part in her hair was as sunburned as the rest of her. She was going to be in pain—soon, too. He reached into the glove box and came up with a battered bottle of aspirin. Shaking out a couple, he handed them to her. “Take these now. For your sunburn.”
She swallowed the aspirin before climbing past him into the truck. “Shade,” she whispered reverently. Hugging the canteen to her chest with one hand and lifting her sunglasses with the other, she glanced down at him. “Heaven,” she sighed.
He’d expected blue eyes. What with her fair skin and blond hair, her eyes should have been blue. But Roxanne’s eyes were chocolate brown, deep, sensuous, eyes that seemed to absorb the world, eyes that looked kind and full of humor and intelligence. Dangerous eyes.
“Thanks,” she said.
He nodded brusquely as he slammed her door. Pulling his hat off his head and putting it back on again, he walked around to his own door, his stride purposeful as he attempted to stuff this woman’s abrupt appearance in his life into a tiny cupboard under his mental stairs.
Trouble was, it was already pretty crowded in there.…
It wasn’t until the truck was headed in the opposite direction that Roxanne began to relax. Well, that wasn’t totally true, she realized. It was a little impossible to relax with the surly stranger sitting beside her taunting every square inch of her parched flesh.
At first, standing in the road, aware that a vehicle was approaching in a cloud of dust, she’d felt tremendous relief. She was to escape an ignominious demise after all. Hallelujah!
But the tall man who jumped out of the truck had startled her with his intensity, with the way his blazing blue gaze had raked her from head to toe, with the twist of his lips as he studied her face and the timbre of his voice as he barked questions. It wasn’t until she registered the canteen in his hand that she was able to mutter anything.
Glancing over at his profile now, she wondered if she dared impose on him further for lip balm, and decided on a long drink of water instead. The sight of him concentrating on the empty road ahead did nothing to soothe her—quite the contrary. Her heart felt like it was beating double time.
“I don’t know your name,” she said.
He flicked her a short glance. “Jack Wheeler.” What he saw apparently didn’t please him because he looked away at once, his brow set in a frown.
It was obvious the handsome stranger didn’t much care for rescuing damsels in distress. Well, she didn’t much like being said damsel.
Jack looked as though he was about a decade older than her, in his mid- to late thirties. His skin was tanned a warm brown color. No wedding ring, no tan line where one had ever been. His short brown hair was sun-bleached and nearly hidden under a worn Stetson. A battered tan work shirt and equally disreputable blue jeans with leather gloves stuffed in a hip pocket completed his ensemble. His facial features were strong, though perhaps this was just an impression helped along by what appeared to be his habitual expression of weary tolerance.
Judging from his worn clothes and the coils of barbed wire she’d glimpsed in the back of the truck, she decided he was a rancher, perhaps with local connections in politics. No itinerant cowboy would be so worried that a newspaper or tabloid had come a-callin’.…Besides, he’d mentioned commissioning an artist to paint his wife’s portrait.
The desert was probably littered with men like him, she thought. Disillusioned men who had somehow lost what they once had.
Like a wife.
Maybe the missus got tired of living out in the middle of nowhere, even if it was with Jack Wheeler who looked more than capable of providing enough nighttime stimuli to keep the old hearth fires burning.
Her heart fluttered a little with the thought of this man starting fires only he could extinguish. All that energy, all that power, all that size—the thought of him leaning in close to her, of running those brown fingers along her face, down her spine—it sent chills racing across her overheated skin.
It was kind of impossible not to compare this hunk of he-man flesh with the refined presence of her former boyfriend, Kevin, a news anchor at the station where they both worked. Four days earlier, he’d dumped her, flashing all twenty-eight perfectly capped teeth as he smiled like a used car salesman and spat out the hated words, “Face it, Roxanne. You’re just like your mother.”
Good riddance, she’d said, but his words had stung.
She put aside thoughts of Kevin and moved along to the next puzzle: a pink box tied with a pink ribbon sitting on the bench seat between them. Utterly feminine, the box implied a new love interest, which made Roxanne so curious it was all she could do to mind her own business.
Business reminded her why she was there. “I’m looking for Dolly Aames,” she declared once again.
“So you said.”
“Last anyone heard from her, she lived out here—”
“Listen,” he said, cutting her short, “this is the desert. A really remote part of the desert.”
“Not that remote, not by car. Not even half an hour from town if you stay in your car—”
“If your friend lived out here and let connections back home drop,” he said, interrupting her with another flick of his blue eyes, “then I’d be the last person in the world to blow her cover. I’ve never heard of her. Honest.”
“But you wouldn’t tell me even if you had?”
“No.”
“Then how do I know you’re not lying now?”
He shrugged. “I guess you don’t.”
About then, they hit the fork in the road. He turned in the direction Roxanne had decided against.
“Where was I headed?” she asked.
“You don’t know?”
She gestured at her foot, slipping the purse off as she did so. How embarrassing to have a man like this come across her with her foot stuffed in a purse! Digging in her skirt pockets, she extracted the car keys, wallet and micro tape recorder she’d deposited there when her shoe broke. At the sight of the tape recorder, Jack grimaced.
“What’s that for?” he demanded.
She held up the little contraption. “This?”
“Yeah. Who do you plan to record?”
“Dolly Aames, of course,” she said, throwing her belongings back in the now-tattered bag where they belonged.
“You should never have turned off the main highway,” he said, his voice as dry as the landscape. “This is all private property out here. It belongs to the High W Ranch. It’s well marked.”
“I didn’t see any signs,” she told him truthfully, but she suspected that even if she had, she would have taken a chance.
He grunted.
Roxanne indulged in more canteen water. Would a little tin sign nailed to a fence have dissuaded her from turning off the main road and trying to fulfill her grandmother’s fondest wish? Not likely!
“The signs are there,” he said firmly.
“But I didn’t see them. How can this be a ranch? I don’t see a single cow. Even if there are cows, what do they eat?”
“I’m still having trouble imagining someone dressed as inappropriately as you are striking out on her own,” he said, obviously not interested in discussing what the cows ate. “You should have carried water and stayed near your car. At the very least, you could have used your jacket to shade your head. If you were going to walk, then why not head back out to the highway? If I hadn’t come along…”
His voice trailed off. Even though she had thought the very same things, his observations made her bristle. “I’m sorry if I just flunked your version of Desert Survival 101. I’m new at this. I knew the highway was a long way back. The mountains looked closer. Besides, that was the direction I needed to go.”
Digging in her pocket, she extracted a yellowed envelope. “Dolly Aames,” she said evenly, “sent this letter to my grandmother almost forty years ago. See, the postmark on the envelope says Tangent, January, 1964.”
He stopped the truck in the middle of the empty road, then turned to her. Face on, within the tight confines of the truck cab, his presence was overwhelming and she gulped.
“Let me get this straight. You’re trying to track down a woman no one has heard from in forty years? What are you, a private eye? A bounty hunter?”
“I told you, I work for a television affiliate in Seattle. I produce midday news programming.”
“Produce? I would have thought you’d be in front of the camera.”
“The real power is behind the camera.”
“Power, huh? You’re one of those.”
“No, I’m not one of those. I just enjoy putting things together. Besides, I hate makeup, and have more bad hair days than good ones. Now, about Dolly Aames…”
His gaze traveled up to her hair and back again. She could only guess its current condition, but as he didn’t sputter a rebuttal, she imagined the worst. “Is this woman an escaped criminal or a notorious husband killer?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then why did you come all the way from Seattle to find her? Is she a relative?”
“No. She’s an old friend of my grandmother’s.”
“So you traveled almost two thousand miles just to look up an old friend of the family? Why did your grandmother wait so many years to look for her?”
“It’s complicated,” Roxanne said, hedging. She didn’t want to go into the details of her grandmother’s illness just to satisfy this guy’s curiosity. Besides, she could barely stand to think about Grandma Nell’s symptoms and what they might portend. She added, “Grandma wants to reunite a singing group they both belonged to a long time ago.”
“And how about you? What do you want?”
She stared at him, unblinking, then muttered, “I want to help my grandmother.”
“Hmm—” Shaking his head he added, “Has it occurred to either one of you that this Dolly either moved away or died?”
“Of course. But you have to start somewhere.”
He shook his head. “Well, I think that’s pretty incredible. And very naive.”
Opening the envelope, she took out a small, faded photograph of a young woman standing next to a fence. Each rustic post was topped with the bleached skull of a long-horn, making it a rather grisly, if unique, setting. She shoved it under his nose.
He took it reluctantly.
“I stayed in Tangent last night and asked around town—not that it did me much good because most everything was already closed when I got there. Anyway, no one knew Dolly Aames, but the guy at the motel said this photo was taken at the juncture of this road and the highway. He told me how to get out here.”
“Was that Pete at the Cactus Gulch or Alan over at the Midtown?”
“I guess it was Pete. I just stayed there one night and checked out this morning. I can’t believe you know his name.”
“It’s a very small town,” Jack said, handing the photo back. “Okay, I’ll grant you that this photo was taken here, more or less. Those skulls were something of a landmark for a long time until I got rid of them. Still, people came from miles around to pose with the damn things, so I don’t see that the photo means anything. I don’t know who Dolly Aames is.”
“Hmm—”
“Maybe Sal will,” he said slowly, as though hesitant to admit he might have a way of helping.
“Really? Who’s Sal?”
“Sally Collins, but you’re a braver soul than I if you call her Sally instead of Sal. I have to warn you though, she’s not quite as forthcoming about these things as I am.”
“You’re forthcoming? You’ve got to be kidding.”
He cast her a serious look. “Roxanne, has it ever occurred to you that Dolly Aames may not want to be found?”
No, as a matter of fact it hadn’t.
Chapter Two
The house within the rolling hills turned out to be a sprawling white stucco structure with a red tile roof. Desert plants brought to life by vivid spills of flowers enhanced the aura of an oasis. Only a huge helium-filled bouquet of pink and white balloons tied to an old-fashioned pump provided a jarring note.
“Is this your place? It’s gorgeous.”
He cast her a speculative look as he circled the house and parked in front of a small barn. Next to it was another wooden building, this one long and low with a split-rail corral attached to one side. Within the corral were two horses who ambled over to the fence to stare at the truck and its passengers.
“Aren’t they cute?” she said. “What are their names?”
“The pregnant white mare is called Sprite and the bay gelding is Milo,” he said with a sidelong glance at her.
When Jack got out of the truck, the brown horse whinnied and the white horse tossed her head and snorted. After running a hand along their sleek necks, Jack reached back into the truck and snagged the pink box, keeping a firm grip on it in his large hand. His gaze met Roxanne’s, and he produced a shy grin.
It looked good on him, she decided. He really should try doing it more often.
This thought was cut short when a side door on the barn opened and out walked a large man with rounded shoulders. He wore a hat much like Jack’s though his was black and crisp instead of crumpled and dusty.
The newcomer slapped his leg and a shaggy black-and-white dog appeared.
Jack slammed his door. “Carl, this is Roxanne. How’s the new filly?”
Carl nodded his greeting, his gaze lingering on Roxanne’s face a moment longer than was necessary. Roxanne touched her cheek. Her fingers came away gritty.
“She’s doing great,” Carl said. “What about the south fence?”
“Fixed for now, but Monday morning you’ll have to get the boys to make it more permanent.”
Jack looked toward the house, then back at Roxanne, as though trying to decide something. Finally he said, “I’d like to check on the new filly. Do you want to see her?”
What Roxanne wanted was a phone, more water and a clue to Dolly Aames’s location. But Jack was watching her with a question in his eyes and it was impossible not to respond. “Sure,” she said.
He opened the barn door and entered, followed by Carl. Roxanne limped past him, watching the ground for rocks that might gouge her bare foot.
The barn was cool, narrow and deeply shadowed, smelling pleasantly of hay and horses. There were four stalls, a stack of bales at the far end and a smattering of equine paraphernalia hanging from walls and dividers. Only one stall was occupied. A palomino mare and her foal glanced at the humans with obvious curiosity.
“Ah, now, isn’t she sweet?” Jack said softly, draping himself over the gate and petting the mare’s velvet muzzle, his eyes on the baby. “There you go, Goldy. You got yourself a real beauty this time.”
The mare snorted and sniffed and managed to look proud of her offspring. The youngster stayed back by her mother’s flank, as though bashful.
Roxanne’s impatience with this diversion dissipated as her television producer instincts kicked in—babies of any kind sold a story.
The image of this little filly, for instance, and the strong, good-looking guy hanging on the fence admiring her, was great. Even the shadowed stall and the glint of sunlight from the open door spilling across the hay-scattered floor would come alive on the screen.
As for Jack? Well, besides an interesting face and eyes to die for, he had broad shoulders tapering down to a trim waist, and an absolutely top-rate denim-clad rear end. Add the way he moved, kind of long legged, and the way he spoke, kind of warm but with an edge, and you had a man captivating enough to interest any female with a pulse.
Even the hat was perfect. Crushed, dusty, sexy as all get out, especially when Jack peered from under the brim with those laser-blue eyes.
She wondered if her boss would be interested in a story about modern cowboys. Maybe they could dig up a few cows to lend credibility…
The mare nosed Roxanne’s arm, making her jump about six inches in the air and cutting short her reverie. She must have made a startled sound, because she heard one. The two men stared at her with raised eyebrows and twitching lips.
“This is the closest I’ve ever been to a horse,” she mumbled.
“Really?” Jack said. The filly moved toward his outstretched hand, and he ran his fingers through the tufts of her sprouting mane.
“How old is the baby horse?”
Jack and Carl exchanged quick glances. Finally Jack said, “About twelve hours. Goldy always births in the wee hours of the morning.”
The baby was the same color as the straw, lighter than her mother. She had a white blaze running down her face and one white sock on her front left leg. Roxanne said, “She’s just the most darling thing I’ve ever seen.”
“The second most darling,” Jack said, and glancing up at him, she found him looking at her. Wait a second now…Was he saying that she was more darling than this horse? Was that a compliment?
For a second, she lost herself in the pure blue of his eyes, amazed he would express such a tender sentiment—assuming that comparing a woman to a horse was indeed tender—after knowing her such a short time. No, amazed wasn’t the right word. Dazzled, perhaps. Intrigued. Breathless.
Stunned.
He was the most impressive guy she’d ever met, hands down, flat-out mesmerizing.
What about Kevin?
Kevin who?
But the moment passed and it dawned on her that his gaze was really fixed on the open door. She turned to see what he found so fascinating, and discovered he hadn’t been talking about her at all. A very small girl stood just inside the barn. She was wearing denim overalls, a pink shirt and matching pink shoes. Her yellow hair was wound up into two blond pigtails that glowed with the sunlight behind her. And she was undoubtedly adorable.
“Daddy!” she screeched, running at Jack with open arms.
The commotion unsettled the jittery new mother horse, who snorted, stamped a foot and turned in her stall. The baby whinnied and turned, too.
Jack caught the child and swung her up on his hip. “Shh,” he said. “You’re frightening Goldy.”
“And the baby,” the child said with a lisp.
“Yes, and the baby.”
“Is that mine?” she asked, pointing at the pink box in Jack’s hand.
“Yes, but not until your party.”
The little girl finally noticed Roxanne. She buried her head against her father’s shoulder, revealing just one blue eye, which she fixed on Roxanne’s face.
Roxanne smiled and the child completely buried her head. Roxanne wasn’t surprised. This was not only her first experience with a small horse, but also with a small human. She’d probably frightened the poor little thing.
“This is my daughter, Ginny,” Jack said, looking from Roxanne to his child. “Ginny, this lady’s name is Roxanne.”
“Hello, Ginny,” Roxanne said in her best put-a-child-at-ease voice. “Is it your birthday?”
Ginny pushed her head away from her father’s chest and produced a grin that looked just like her father’s. “Yes,” she said holding up three pudgy fingers.
Jack said, “Hey, pumpkin, how are Aggie’s puppies doing?”
“Good.”
He tickled her and she wiggled to the ground. With another shy glance up at Roxanne, the child said, “Wanna see?”
“The puppies?” Roxanne said.
“No.” Pressing one small finger against her lips and whispering, she added, “It’s a secret.”
Roxanne felt like scratching her head. The puppies were a secret? From whom?
“I think I know what she means,” Jack said as they both watched the little girl make her way across the barn to an empty stall, glancing back over her shoulder at them periodically. “Follow me,” he added.
Jack walked into an empty stall, Roxanne right behind him, watching her step. The straw might look innocent, but she’d found it poked at her tender city toes if she stepped on it wrong. Ginny was halfway up a stack of bales, scrambling at such a pace it was obvious she was experienced at this kind of thing. Jack climbed a couple, and reaching down, took Roxanne’s hand and pulled her up beside him. She teetered a second, and his grip tightened. A totally unexpected shiver ran up her arm.
“You okay?”
“Just not used to climbing around in the hay.”
“Shall I keep hold of your hand or are you steady now?”
“Oh, I’m steady,” she said as he dropped her hand. The truth was that she was anything but. His touch had spurted up her arm like a fizzing fuse. She was loathe to have him take his hand away, but even more concerned that he should sense this.
What was going on? She felt kind of dizzy. Perhaps it was the effects of dehydration.
They climbed up beside Ginny who motioned for Roxanne and her dad to take a look. Roxanne peered over Ginny’s bent head into a crevice formed between the bales, and found six faces staring back.
Kittens.
One orange, two black, a gray-and-white, a pure white and a tabby. Little meows. Tiny little pink tongues and blurry bluish eyes.
“Go ahead, touch one,” Jack said as he gently stroked a tiny white-and-pink ear.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Roxanne said. They looked far too fragile to touch. Jack seemed to know what he was doing, but his finger looked huge next to the kitten’s head.
Pointing at each kitten in turn, Ginny said, “Blinky and Fuzzy and Foggy and Casper and Blackie and George.”
Just then, the mother cat appeared at Ginny’s elbow and jumped down into the crevice. As she flopped onto her side, the kittens, meowing in earnest now, jockeyed for position until everyone was lined up with their own nipple and settled in for lunch.
The cat, purring, began bathing her offspring.
“Isn’t motherhood something?” Jack said.
“I wouldn’t know,” Roxanne mumbled. Motherhood wasn’t something she spent a lot of time thinking about. Out of nowhere, she heard Kevin’s voice again, telling her this very thing just four days earlier.
Jack turned his attention to his daughter. “Okay, sweet-pea, time to leave Flossy and her babies alone. And remember, don’t tell Aggie.”
“’Cause it’s a secret.”
“That’s right.”
As Ginny scrambled down the stack, Roxanne said, “The kittens are a secret from the dog?”
He shrugged. “Not really, but little kids love secrets.”
Ginny was back on the floor within seconds, Jack right after her, Roxanne slowly following. Jack took her hand again and steadied her last few steps to the ground.
By now, Ginny was running out the door. Jack released Roxanne’s hand. She gestured for him to go after his daughter, happy to have a moment to collect what was left of her wits.
“That Ginny is one sweet little kid, isn’t she?” Carl said, emerging from a stall with a bucket of grain.
Roxanne jumped at the sound of his voice—she hadn’t realized he was still in the barn. “What? Oh, yes. Adorable.” For a second, she thought of the little pink-and-blond child and actually felt a smile tug at her lips. She’d had no idea little girls were so…well, cute.
Vaguely uncomfortable with her gut reaction to Carl’s remark, she added, “Carl, have you lived out here long?”
“All my life.”
“Ever hear of a woman called Dolly Aames? She’d be about sixty now. I know she lived in this area forty or so years ago. Maybe right here in this very house.”
He straightened up and scratched his fleshy chin. “The Wheeler family has been here longer than that,” he said. “Jack’s grandfather built the house. Sorry, but I don’t remember anyone by that name ever living here.”
It was getting to be a familiar refrain. “Thanks, anyway. Jack said I could use the phone.”
“Sure thing. Come on into the house,” Carl said.
As she hobbled across the yard beside Carl, she said, “This place is really beautiful.”
“It is nice,” he said with a fond smile. “’Course, what with Doc’s schedule, all the heavy work falls to me and the other hands, but that’s the way I like it. Been here long enough now that the place feels like home. Know what I mean?”
She decided to ignore his question about home—it made her feel funny inside, the way he phrased it. Home? Home was where you slept, where you paid rent, where you got dressed in the morning to go to work. She said, “Doc?”
“The guy you rode in with.”
“Jack Wheeler?”
“Sure. Only almost everyone calls him Doc Wheeler, just like his dad before him.”
Roxanne glanced ahead to find Jack standing on a rock porch. He seemed to be studying her as she hobbled along, his expression hovering somewhere between anxious and…unreadable. She didn’t know why she made him look like that. His daughter didn’t. His horses didn’t. Not even Carl did.
She suddenly found herself wanting to make him relax and maybe even grin, and she racked her brain for something funny to say.
Nothing came to her.
She tried a smile.
He nodded politely while holding out a cordless phone, then he spoke to Carl. “People are going to start arriving soon. Maybe we’d better convince Aggie that she and her pups would be happier out in the barn. It’s about time for them to move anyway.”
Carl nodded and disappeared into the house.
Roxanne took the phone. She was about to ask for a phone book when Jack met her gaze and rattled off a number. She punched it in, got an answering machine saying that Oz, of Oz Repair and Towing, was out on a job, leave a name and number, he’d get back to you. She found a number on the phone and left it on Oz’s answering machine along with her name and on second thought, Jack Wheeler’s name.
“Looks as though you’re stuck with me for a while,” she told Jack.
He grunted. “Oz can be a little…unpredictable. He’s got things going on at home, too. He’ll get back to you, all right, only on his own time schedule.” He stared at her for an eternity and added, “We’re having a party for Ginny. I need to shower and change clothes before the guests arrive.”
“She’s very charming,” Roxanne said.
Now his face softened again. The man was obviously a sucker for his kid. Roxanne found that rather intriguing. She couldn’t imagine either of her parents going out of their way to host a birthday party for her at such a tender age…okay, at any age.
“I can’t believe she’s already three years old,” Jack said.
It suddenly occurred to Roxanne that Jack’s wife hadn’t only abandoned him but their child. How incredible! Having made the decision to have a baby, how could the woman then abandon her?
On the other hand, how could she abandon Jack Wheeler?
She said, “Carl said you’re a doctor. What kind?”
“General practitioner. I have a little office in Tangent. I’m one of a dying breed of small-town doctors. I do everything from tending to the dying to delivering babies.”
“Delivering babies,” she mumbled. “Why am I not surprised?”
“Listen,” he said, obviously trying to figure out what to do with Roxanne. “A kid’s party is going to be boring as hell for you.”
“I don’t mind.”
“It’s a big house. There are plenty of places to relax until Oz calls back.”
“Will there be any adults at the party?”
“Yes—”
“From around here?”
“Of course.”
“Maybe one of them will know something about Dolly Aames,” Roxanne said. “Would you mind if I invite myself to your party?”
He looked her up and down. Until that moment, she wasn’t even aware she knew how to blush, but under his scrutiny, imagining what a mess she was, she felt her cheeks grow warm. Maybe it was just the blasted sunburn catching up with her.
“I could wash first,” she said. “And maybe borrow a shoe.”
He looked unconvinced that washing or shoes would help her appearance. How he managed to suffuse this skeptical expression with enough sexual energy to rival a nuclear power plant was fascinating and would require further contemplation on Roxanne’s part.
But not now.
Now she was too busy inviting herself to a child’s party.…
“You’re welcome to come,” he said.
“And what about Sal? Will she be there?”
“Yes. Sal will be there and you can ask her about Dolly Aames. You’re persistent, aren’t you?”
“I am indeed,” Roxanne said.
Carl reappeared just then, loaded down with a box. A glance inside showed four black-and-white puppies. The mom was the shaggy black-and-white dog who was now hanging around down by Carl’s knees, casting him worried looks. “I’ll settle them in the barn and then I’ll see to the barbecue and the ice.”
“Thanks, Carl,” Jack said. Holding the door for Roxanne, he added, “This way.”
The door opened into a large, square kitchen with rough ceiling beams. Long windows faced away from the sun and the room was cool even though Roxanne detected no air-conditioning. There were reddish tiles on the floors, the drain boards were made of thick wooden planks and were covered with several bowls of salad, platters of meat, cheese and vegetables, stacks of sandwiches and a pink birthday cake.
It was a gorgeous room filled with delectable smells that reminded Roxanne she was hungry. Starving. She wondered if she could sneak a cucumber wedge. Or a sandwich. She politely kept her hands to herself as she met the gaze of an attractive woman of about thirty wearing blue jeans and a baggy fringed cowboy shirt. Jack’s girlfriend? The woman smiled at Roxanne.
“Roxanne, meet Grace, our housekeeper slash cook,” Jack said. “Grace, this is Roxanne.”
Grace, who was at the huge stove, was busily stirring a pot of something that smelled good enough to…well, eat…said, “Hi.”
“If you have time, could you show Roxanne where to clean up, and maybe loan her something to wear to Ginny’s party?”
“Oh, I couldn’t impose like that—” Roxanne said, but Grace laughed.
“Trust me, this is one time when you want to impose,” she said, her gaze assessing Roxanne. “Besides, it’s no bother. This stuff should simmer for a while anyway.” With that, she turned down the gas flame under the pot of what smelled like barbecue sauce.
“I’ll leave you in capable hands,” Jack said with a lingering look that was hard to read. He took off his hat and ran a tanned hand through his short hair, his gaze still fastened on Roxanne, and she had to remind herself to breathe and blink and not gape.
There was something about this man that had her catching her breath like no other man ever had. It wasn’t just his startling good looks—she regularly spent her days around men the camera loved, Kevin among them. It was something else, something elusive, something that seemed to charge the air between them that had Roxanne’s fertile imagination conjuring up some mighty interesting scenarios. She could almost feel those hands of his running through her hair, could almost see his eyes close with passion as his lips touched hers…
He finally shifted his gaze to Grace. “Where did Ginny disappear to?”
“Sal is helping her get ready for her party.”
With a last look at Roxanne, Jack left the kitchen, and she watched his retreat with a combination of fascination and lust. Damn, the man looked as good leaving a room as he did entering it!
Grace touched her arm. A glance down at Grace’s hand revealed a wedding band, which made Roxanne foolishly happy.
“We have a couple of rooms of our own behind the kitchen,” Grace said. “You need a shower and some lotion for that sunburn. Come with me.”
“But Sal might know of a woman I’m here to find. Her name is Dolly Aames. Do you know anything about her?”
“Nope,” Grace said. “I’ve never heard that name before. I hate to be rude, but now is when I can take a few minutes to get you settled. Later I have to get the chicken ready for the grill and—”
“I’m the one who’s rude,” Roxanne said. “Of course, I’ll talk to Sal later.”
Within moments, Grace had shown Roxanne the bathroom, secured a clean towel and washcloth, even produced a toothbrush still wrapped in cellophane. “Help yourself to whatever else you need,” she told Roxanne. “Here’s lotion with aloe for after your shower. I’ll put clothes out on the bed. We’re about the same size, more or less. You’re in luck—I bought underwear a while ago that I haven’t had the occasion to wear. Not likely to any time soon. Holler if you need anything.”
As Grace closed the bedroom door behind her, Roxanne came face-to-face with her reflection in the long mirror that backed the door.
“Oh, my,” she said.
Her clothes were a wreck, streaked with dirt, splotched with something greasy, covered with tiny pieces of straw. The dry cleaner back home wasn’t going to be amused. Her fancy shoe—the one she hadn’t broken—was history. And her straw purse looked like something she should donate to the cats in the barn.
Bad as all that was, it couldn’t touch what she looked like above the neck. Straw-encrusted hair struggling to escape the ponytail, face sunburned and dirty, crimson and white and brown.
She turned away from the mirror. A cool shower would help. A shower had to help.…
She emerged sometime later with tingling pink skin and a mop of wet hair. A glance in the bathroom mirror revealed a face still colorful, but clean. A blow-dryer took care of the hair as long as she was careful to keep it away from her skin. Lotion helped with the burn. She didn’t want to use Grace’s cosmetics, and her own were still locked in the trunk of her car, so she’d have to go without mascara, her one concession to beauty. She didn’t need blush she thought with a smile, but when she found a tube of Vaseline, she smeared a little on her finger and gently applied it to her lips, sighing with relief. Heaven!
Wrapped in a towel, she let herself back into Grace’s bedroom and found a black dress laid out on the red-and-yellow quilt. Next to it were two pieces of lacy black underwear, the tags still attached.
Roxanne put on the black strapless bra and panties that fit like a second skin. She didn’t own any lingerie as beautiful or luxurious—it always seemed silly to spend money on something no one else ever saw.
Not even Kevin, thank the Lord. The swine.
The black rayon dress had an elastic waist and neckline and a full skirt that draped softly to below Roxanne’s knees. She cinched it at the waist with an incredible silver-and-turquoise concho belt she found lying beside the dress. She pulled the neckline down off her shoulders and looked in the mirror. Not too bad. Considering everything.
She left her hair loose on her shoulders, slipped her feet into a pair of Grace’s black sandals that were only a little snug and piled her own belongings into a pitiful heap on a chair.
She was ready to look for Sal.
Grace handed Roxanne a glass of iced tea the minute she entered the kitchen. “I knew that dress would look great on you,” she said.
“Thanks. I really appreciate the loan. It smells heavenly in here.”
“Doc said to remind you to keep drinking fluids and to take a couple more buffered aspirin. I put them out on the counter for you.”
As Roxanne swallowed the pills and hoped they would somehow magically make her skin feel less prickly, she said, “I don’t suppose Oz called?”
“Nope.”
“You waitin’ for Oz, you’ll be here a while,” Carl said as he pushed a wheelbarrow full of blue sacks of crushed ice into the kitchen. He started emptying them one by one into the large bowls that cradled the smaller bowls of perishable food. Looking at Grace, he abandoned his ice and went to stand beside her. “How you feeling, honey?”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You look tired. Maybe Doc should—”
“No, Carl. Now, stop, honey. I’m fine.”
They exchanged a lingering look. Roxanne finally noticed that Carl wore a wedding ring identical in design to the one Grace wore.
“I just don’t want you overdoing it,” he said. “Doc said you have to take it easy this time.”
Grace patted his cheek tenderly, lifting a spoon from the pot of bubbling sauce to his lips. “Tell me what it needs.”
He tasted. “Salt.”
As Grace added a pinch of salt, she glanced at Roxanne and explained, “I’m pregnant,” she said. “I had a miscarriage last year, so we’re being extra careful this time.”
“Of course. Uh—congratulations.”
Beaming, Carl and Grace said, “Thanks,” in unison.
As they worked side by side, Roxanne thought to herself that Jack Wheeler’s house had a very nice feel to it. How wonderful it must be to grow up with kind people like these, in a house this warm and welcoming, with a father whose eyes flooded with joy when he caught sight of you.
Lucky little Ginny.
Even without a mother?
Well, as Roxanne knew, there was more than one way for a mother to absent herself. Her own upbringing had been adequate but formal. Her mother was fond of saying she just wasn’t demonstrative, as though being aloof was a commendable character trait. Roxanne had known she was an “accident” before she had the slightest idea what that meant.
If she ever got married and decided on having children, what kind of mother would she make? Would she be like her own mother or might she be more like her grandmother? The two of them represented opposite ends of the parenting spectrum. One was perpetually annoyed at any inconvenience, one was full of serendipity. One threw money at any problem, the other gave love. How could Roxanne tell what she would be like?
After downing the tea, she rinsed out the glass in the copper sink. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Carl shook his head as he moved his operation to a large metal kettle filled with cans of soft drinks. Grace said, “No, really, everything is under control. Why don’t you go on out? People are beginning to arrive.”
Roxanne turned in the direction Grace gestured and saw double French doors. Peering through the glass, she saw a large, enclosed courtyard paved with brick in a herringbone pattern, boasting a bubbling fountain and haphazard pots of flowers. Chairs were clustered around tables heaped with nonperishable food and piles of presents. Two huge creamy umbrellas created shade over half the area. The perimeter was dotted with more doors leading into other rooms and an arch open to the outside. A few people had arrived, and Roxanne searched for a sign of Jack.
Face it, she thought in a moment of truth, she’d been straining for a sight of him or the sound of his voice ever since entering the kitchen. She’d been pleased he’d thought about her sunburn, though she supposed that kind of concern went with being a doctor. Now she scanned the few assembled people. Jack wasn’t among them and she fought to hide her disappointment, even from herself.
Was she anxious to show him what lay beneath all the dirt and grime? Did she want to surprise him, intrigue him, the way he’d been surprising and intriguing her from the first moment he rumbled into her life?
“Now, who are you?”
Roxanne turned to find a small woman peering at her. She wore her silver hair cut short around a heavily lined face to which the sun and passing years hadn’t been kind.
“I thought I knew all of Jack’s friends, but you’re a stranger,” the woman added.
Roxanne introduced herself.
“I’m Sal. Glad to meet you, Roxy.”
Roxanne shook hands as she smiled at the friendly, wrinkled face of the woman staring back at her. All she could think was that this woman had to be close in age to the missing Dolly Aames. If she’d lived here long enough, they would have been peers, maybe even friends. Her mission, which had begun to seem daunting, suddenly came into focus. In a few minutes, she’d hopefully know more about Dolly.
Roxanne explained about her car. “I’m waiting for Oz to call,” she added.
“He won’t call this afternoon,” Sal said, shaking her head. “Lisa is in a state. The twins have colds.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Jack will have to go see them tomorrow.”
“You call him Jack? Everyone else seems to call him Doc.”
“I helped raise him,” she said proudly. “Once you wipe a kid’s nose, it’s hard to start thinking of him as a grown man.”
Roxanne smiled at the image that suddenly sprung before her eyes, of Jack as a child, with a runny nose. Had he looked like his daughter or did his daughter look like his wife? Why did she care? Anxious to get the conversation—and herself—back on track, Roxanne added, “Jack said you might be able to help me. I’m looking for someone.”
“Glad to help. I know most everyone in these parts. Bound to after all these years.”
“Great. The woman I’m looking for moved to California almost forty years ago. I think she ended up right here or very close by. Of course, she might have married and taken a new last name or moved away entirely. Anyway, I’m trying to find her. Her name is Dolly Aames.”
There was a heartbeat when the scant ten inches between the two women suddenly seemed to close to millimeters, then just as abruptly crack open like the Grand Canyon.
Sal blinked rapidly and said, “I’ve never heard that name. I can’t help you.” With a decisive nod, she let herself out into the courtyard.
Roxanne narrowed her eyes.
That hesitation had spoken as loud and clear as the sudden blanching of Sal’s face.
Sal knew something about Dolly Aames.
Chapter Three
“Duck,” Jack said as he entered the courtyard through his bedroom door, Ginny on his shoulders. Ginny giggled as she lowered her head, and once outside, Jack paused for a moment to scan the few faces that had already gathered. No Roxanne.
Good. He wished she had quietly accepted his offer of an out-of-the-way room until Oz got back to her. He toyed around with the idea of having Carl drive her into town, to the motel, where she would be out of sight, out of reach, but he needed Carl here. It’s just that he didn’t want to see Roxanne Salyer again.
That was the biggest lie he’d told himself in months, and he knew it. The truth of the matter was that he was aching to see her. He could tell himself it was to check on her sunburn, but again, that was a lie. He just wanted to see her, that was all. Cleaned up, he wondered if she’d look all professional like a big-city television producer. Maybe she’d lose that waiflike appearance the desert had forced on her. Maybe she’d be so different that he could find a way to forget he’d ever met her.
After all, she wasn’t his type.
Only, what type was she? Sure, her looks were different than the kind of woman who usually got under his skin. But what did looks have to do with anything?
The purely male part of him knew looks had a lot to do with everything. Not just height and weight and coloring, but that inner something that glowed in some women, that seeped through their every little pore and made them iridescent.
Even if their pores were clogged with desert sand?
Even then. Some women had it. Roxanne had it.
Jack mentally slapped himself upside the head. He was thinking like a fool. Still, he couldn’t imagine his ex-wife, Nicole, taking the time or trouble to track down a family friend unless there was something in it for her.
Family meant everything to him. Perhaps it came from being an only child, raised out on a ranch, away from town, with parents who doted not only on him but on each other. Some of Jack’s first memories were of being about Ginny’s age, sitting in the saddle in front of his dad, his mother on her own horse. They’d head up to the mountains where there were a zillion places to picnic with a view as big as the world. Or so it seemed to him.
This memory always flooded him with emotion as it was on this very ride, years later, that his mother’s horse had bolted, then stumbled, throwing her to the rocky ground. She’d died within hours. Jack was eight years old at the time, but he could still remember the numbing grief.
Eventually, however, life on the ranch had resumed its contented pace mainly because of Sal. She’d started working at the Wheeler place as a housekeeper. After his mother died, she’d become more important.
After losing his wife, Jack’s father had rededicated himself to his role as town doctor. Jack had decided early on to follow in his father’s footsteps. He’d envisioned the two of them practicing side by side, and they had for a few years until a stroke claimed his dad. Still, smack in the middle of his career, Jack felt with all his heart that he was doing what he was meant to do.
That and being a good father. Being a father counted—he would always be important to Ginny, she would always be important to him. Man/woman relations, marriage—now that was a different matter. Relationships changed. Nicole had changed.
The marriage should have worked; that’s what never ceased to amaze him. Nicole had grown up on the other side of Tangent. He’d known her for years, thought he knew all about her. They were both products of the same culture, with family roots stretching deep down in the same sandy soil. This should have made for a happy union.
He now understood that Nicole had decided he was her best bet for escape.
Truth of the matter was that neither one of them had leveled with the other. He’d taken it for granted she understood he was a man who was doing exactly what he wanted to do. He’d ignored the signs of her restlessness, of her darting interests and longing for wild escapades. If he thought about it at all, he chalked it up to spirit, reminiscent of his mother.
By the time their differences surfaced, Nicole was pregnant. Jack suggested counseling but capitulated when she refused. And after Ginny was born, he decided he would do everything in his power to make Nicole happy and thus keep his family together.
She decided she wanted to try sculpting, so he’d built her a studio away from the house as requested. Then, at a fund-raiser for the hospital, she met an avant-garde artist gaining fame with movie stars and politicians alike, and demanded having her portrait done. He’d moved heaven and earth—to say nothing of a hefty chunk of change from savings into checking—to engage the fellow. The rest, as they say, is history. The only good thing to come from those four years was Ginny.
Lifting her down from his shoulders, he kissed his daughter’s golden head. She was growing up so fast. Sometimes he had to remind himself not to hold on too tightly.
“Watch your pretty dress,” he told her as her feet hit the bricks. He knew it was a stupid remark; he didn’t give a damn about the dress. What he wanted to say was: Be careful. Don’t hit your head. Don’t scrape your bare knees. Don’t let anyone break your heart.
She caught sight of one of her little buddies, and scooted away without a backward glance.
The door opposite him opened, and for a second, his heart leapt into his throat. Roxanne. But it was Sal who emerged into the courtyard, her wizened face preoccupied. When Jack smiled at her, she lowered her eyes and glanced away.
Slightly alarmed, he strode toward her, absently acknowledging greetings. “Sal?”
Reluctantly it seemed, she turned to face him.
“Sal, what’s wrong?” She was pale and trembling and he reached for her wrist. His first thought was her heart. She’d had trouble the year before, even had a stint in the hospital. “Are you okay?”
“Fine, fine,” she sputtered, pulling her hand away.
“But—”
“Stop playing doctor,” she demanded, visually summoning her reserves. Sal Collins was a strong woman. She didn’t like to be coddled, and Jack knew from a lifetime of experience, if she didn’t want to talk about something, then she wouldn’t. For instance, before she’d come to live with his family, she’d been married and had a baby but lost both. She’d never mentioned them to him. Not a word. Jack had only found out the year before when Sal became ill and he dug up old records.
However, she wasn’t the only stubborn one living at the Wheeler ranch. “Not until you let me take your pulse.”
She extended her wrist and managed a smile. “Honestly.”
Her heartbeat seemed normal enough and there were color spots appearing on her cheeks as Jack’s actions began to draw attention. Her skin wasn’t clammy.
“People are looking,” she whispered.
“Any pain in your chest? Shortness of breath? Dizziness?”
“No, no and no. Let go of me.”
“Okay, but I’m keeping my eye on you,” he said, leaning down to brush her forehead with a kiss.
Sal patted his cheek before withdrawing to a wooden bench. She was well liked and immediately surrounded. Only his two elderly spinster aunts kept their distance. Jack looked around to find Ginny, saw her and three other children sizing up the presents and smiled to himself.
He glanced at Sal again, relieved to see she was returning to her old self. Whatever had upset her apparently was passing. With the arrival of more guests, he devoted himself to mingling and chatting, but each time a door opened, he held his breath.
Amid the ribbing and the laughing, he found himself wondering what had happened to Roxanne.
He was visiting with one of his favorite patients and her husband when Roxanne stepped into the courtyard. For an instant he didn’t hear a word of their conversation.
Nicole had loved to make an entrance, arriving in a flutter of flowing clothes, in a cloud of floral perfume, her laughter as big as she was tiny, like an exotic bird a man wanted to capture in his hands.
Tall and slender, long hair loose on her shoulders, Roxanne looked…well, real. Moving with the grace and ease that were undoubtedly the by-products of good health and regular workouts, she found her way to a quiet edge of the garden, off to the side and not in the center. She was shy, he realized, ill at ease amid so many strangers. Her oval face was devoid of makeup, even lipstick. Her skin was oddly striped with sunburn and—get this—she didn’t seem to care!
She was prettier than Nicole had ever been, he realized with a start. Or maybe she wasn’t quite as pretty. Maybe that was it. At any rate, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Roxanne fidgeted with the concho belt as she watched Jack approach. For a second, when their eyes first met, she could have sworn he’d almost looked pleased to see her, but the moment passed so quickly, it might never have happened.
He didn’t look angry—he just looked overwhelmed. It was a look she was coming to recognize.
“This is quite a party,” she said, deciding to take the upper hand. Ginny and a few other children wound their way in and out between the adults, a couple of whom were holding infants. Chatter and music competed with the soft sound of falling water. A haze of smoke in one corner announced the barbecue, and delicious odors permeated the air, making Roxanne’s empty stomach growl. Carl roamed the courtyard with a tray of appetizers.
Roxanne was aware of a bevy of raised eyebrows and wondered if Jack’s friends were curious who the stranger was. One woman in particular, the pregnant redhead Jack had been talking to, seemed especially curious.
Roxanne wished she could make an announcement: “My car’s broken down!” she’d say. Then she could try again with Sal.
“That’s Nancy Kaufman giving you the once-over,” Jack said.
“She’s pretty. Pregnant, too. As a matter of fact, I see quite a few of your friends are wearing maternity smocks. Has everyone here just given birth or become pregnant?”
“Not me. Not my two elderly aunts over by the fountain, the ones waving their hankies at you.”
Roxanne waved back. “You know what I mean,” she said. “Grace and Nancy are pregnant, as are those three women sitting under an umbrella, and at least one of your horses. There are babies everywhere—in their father’s arms, in slings, in strollers, not to mention the kittens and puppies and Goldy’s foal.…It’s like an epidemic.”
He smiled, perhaps for the first time. It was genuine and dazzling, and Roxanne felt her throat constrict at the pure beauty of it. “They don’t have babies up in Seattle?” he said, his lips still curved and so appealing.
“No. We have bypassed the whole pregnancy thing up in the great Northwest. You Southerners keep moving up, we don’t need to replenish the population from our own stock.”
“I’ve heard about you people and your regional biases,” he said.
She laughed.
“Nancy is our local celebrity,” he added. “She runs the radio station in Tangent.”
“I interned at a radio station back in my late, great college days. I can’t believe that Tangent actually has one.”
“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? We have to drive almost twenty miles to a hospital, but we have a radio station. A very small one, mind you, but nevertheless…well, go figure. Anyway, I told her about you, and she said she’d like to meet a big-time television producer.”
“So would I,” Roxanne said.
With a lazy gaze, he added, “You look very, very nice.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, unsure how to return the compliment without drooling all over him. Gone was the sexy, hot cowboy with the surly brow and the impatient manner. This was the refined doctor, his brown hair glistening with health in the late-day sun, his face cleanly shaved, a soft gray shirt tucked into darker gray slacks. He smelled divine—masculine and clean, a combination of soap and desert heat. This man was just as desirable, she decided, perhaps more so.
He looked as though he had something on his mind but wasn’t sure how to go about saying it.
“Ginny is an adorable little girl,” Roxanne said as Sal and Grace tied a blindfold around the child’s head. They twirled her around before arming her with a tail to pin on a paper donkey. Ginny was wearing a fluttery yellow dress, little golden curls kissing the back of her fragile neck. She looked sweet enough to eat with a spoon.
What a thought!
“She’s a great kid,” Jack said, his voice softening as it always seemed to do when he spoke about his daughter. “She can hardly wait until it’s time to open the presents. Do you remember being that young?”
“I didn’t have birthday parties,” Roxanne said softly.
“None?”
“Well, when I got older, two girlfriends came over and we slept in my grandmother’s attic. Does that count?”
“Did they bring gifts?”
“I think so.”
“Then it counts.”
She would have happily spent the rest of the afternoon gazing up into his eyes, but she was suddenly aware they were attracting more than a few pointed glances. She said, “Jack, I don’t mean to alarm you, but everyone is staring at us.”
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