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“But he’s just doing that for his family. For you,” Vanessa argued.
No, not for her, Savannah thought. Because if it was for her, he would have stopped knocking himself out a long time ago. He would have tried to fit her into his day, into his night, instead of living and breathing work on the ranch.
“He’s doing that for himself,” Savannah said firmly. Ever loyal to the man she loved with all her heart, she softened slightly, as if she couldn’t help but take his side, at least to a minor degree. “Oh, he wants to be a good provider and all, but part of being a good provider is being there in more than just body. And he’s not.” She sighed, looking past her friend, focusing instead on the last few months. Maybe even years, she amended. This had been going on and steadily getting worse for a long, long time. “He hasn’t been for a long while now.”
Trying to lighten the moment and do away with the dark look in her friend’s eyes, Vanessa patted Savannah’s stomach. “Well, he must have been there in body and spirit at least once.”
Savannah shook her head. “I need more than just once. I need more than just a part-time husband, although at this point I’d settle for that. What I have is a husband who’s there ten percent of the time. And usually that ten percent is spent in bed.”
“Quality, not quantity, has always been my motto.”
“Sleeping,” Savannah emphasized. “And although he looks really cute that way…” She looked toward her son, who had once more dropped down onto the rug. Jake was smashing in the monster’s face. “A little like Luke, really. But it’s hard to maintain a two-way conversation with a man who’s doing a fairly good imitation of a corpse.”
Savannah took in a deep breath, knowing that she was coming very close to crying again. That wasn’t why she’d come here. She didn’t want to cry; she wanted to forget about everything for a little while.
“Cruz is up and out of the house before sunrise, back after sunset—sometimes long after sunset.” Sadness twisted her soul. “I have to show Luke pictures of the man just to remind him what his father looks like.”
Vanessa shook her head as she laughed. “C’mon now, you’re exaggerating.”
Savannah sighed. There was sadness in her eyes as she looked up at her best friend. “Not as much as I wish I was.”
Communication was the only way, Vanessa thought. It certainly worked for her and Devin. “Have you told him how you feel?”
Savannah looked at her. Hadn’t she been listening? “I just said—”
“I know what you just said,” Vanessa interrupted, squelching a minor bout of impatience. The solution, or at least a start, seemed pretty clear to her. “That you’d have to make an appointment to see him. Well, make one. Do whatever it takes. Grab him by the arm when he walks in tonight and say, ‘Cruz, we have to talk.’” She waved her hand, as if trying to bring about a magic spell. “And then talk.”
“He’ll probably fall asleep while I’m talking.”
Cruz had done that just the other night. Right after dinner. He hadn’t even got up from the table. He’d laid his head down for a second, just to “rest my eyes,” and boom, he was out like a light. It took everything she had not to put on the radio and blast him. But she hadn’t. She’d gently prodded him to his feet and then, with his arm slung across her shoulders, she’d somehow managed to get him up the stairs and into bed. During the one occasion when he’d been intoxicated and the same thing had happened, he’d pulled her down on top of him and they’d made love.
This time, though, he’d gone straight back to sleep.
Leaving her out in the cold.
“It won’t be the first time,” Savannah concluded, keeping her voice low for Luke’s sake. It throbbed with emotion.
Vanessa glanced at the iced tea container. “Then keep a pitcher of cold water handy and douse him if you have to.”
Despite the situation, Savannah heard herself laughing. “You’re a radical woman, Vanessa Kincaid, you know that?”
Vanessa winked in response. “Maybe, but I get results.”
He had begun to think that today was never going to be over. Since before sunup, the day had felt endless.
Which, he supposed, made it no different from all the others that had come before it in the last few months. His days were stretched to the maximum, filled from beginning to end with work. By the time he finally walked up to the house each evening, Cruz Perez felt as if he barely had enough energy to put one foot in front of the other.
Certainly not enough to sit and talk the way Savannah always wanted to do when he walked in through the front door.
He wished he had the energy she required of him.
He wished she could understand.
Getting the life he wanted for them required a great deal of sacrifice on his part. And part of that sacrifice meant not doing what he would rather be doing.
Which was being with Savannah.
He loved his wife. He really did, he thought as he drove up the winding lane to his house. Loved her with every fiber of his being.
But at the same time, the very sight of Savannah made him acutely aware of all his shortcomings. They came at him from all directions, illuminated with glaring headlights. They made him ashamed, because he couldn’t give her what he wanted to give her.
A woman like Savannah deserved to have things, things he couldn’t find a way to give her no matter how hard he tried. How hard he worked.
He always knew that running a ranch wouldn’t be easy, but he had lusted after it as far back as he could remember. Having a ranch made you your own man, gave you something to make you proud.
If it was successful.
Lately, though, there were more headaches, more bills than there was joy. A lot more.
And then there was the new baby coming—a baby that hadn’t been planned.
Lightning certainly did strike twice, he thought, driving his Jeep into the garage. Getting out, he began to walk toward the house. Luke had certainly not been planned. His firstborn had been the result of a night of passion, the kind that most men only dreamed about.
Cruz’s mouth curved as he remembered. He’d been working for the Fortunes then, with a chip on his shoulder and an army of women trailing after him. He’d had more than his share, but from the first moment he laid eyes on her, he’d seen something special about the quiet beauty who was Vanessa Fortune’s friend.
Savannah was genteel, refined, not like the other women he’d bedded. Women who wanted a wild ride with the rebel stallion, who hadn’t seen him for who he really was. Savannah had looked into his eyes, and he’d felt that she was seeing things inside of him that he had only been wishing were there.
She made him want to be a better man.
Still, when she’d left soon afterward, he’d locked her memory away and gone on with his work, being a horse whisperer. Gone on with his life, bedding every willing woman he came across. But even then, Savannah had haunted the perimeters of his mind, making him long for her even though she was an unattainable dream.
After she’d lost her teaching position in a prim and proper private school, she’d returned, to work for the Fortunes as the Double Crown’s bookkeeper. He’d been stunned to see her belly slightly rounded with child. His child, although pride had her denying it at first.
Pride was the one thing they had in common. Her pride wouldn’t let him marry her out of a sense of obligation, so she’d lied to him about the baby’s father. And his pride wouldn’t allow Savannah to be married to anyone but a success.
It still didn’t.
He was determined to be that success for her. And for his son. Honor demanded nothing less.
He’d expanded on the original ranch’s one hundred acres, buying more land to the east, planning on having more horses, planning to put the name of La Esperanza on the map. This ranch would never rival in size anything the Fortunes had, but in quality…well, that he could strive for. That would be something worthy he could give Savannah and Luke and whoever else was joining the family in six months. No, four, he mentally corrected himself after ticking off the months in his mind.
Damn, it was hard to keep that straight. Hard to keep anything in his life straight these days, what with one thing after another. Just the day-to-day chores were overwhelming now that Paco had left for reasons that had nothing to do with Cruz.
Didn’t matter what the reasons, he thought, walking up to the front door. He still felt the man’s loss. Paco had been with him since the beginning and had remained more out of loyalty than the pay. Cruz was down to three hands. The money he’d set aside to hire a new man had been eaten up by vet bills when one of his mares had been bitten by a rattlesnake. He’d come close to having to put her down, but now she was out of the woods. And he was very close to being out of money.
That left him a man short, with him having to take up the slack, since in clear conscience he couldn’t ask anyone else to do it. He wasn’t that kind of a boss, wanting his hands to do more than he did himself.
It was after nine. The last bit of July daylight had been siphoned off, and night had descended, sitting oppressively over the terrain along with its humidity.
He felt more dead than alive, but he remembered to stomp his boots on the doormat with its faded Welcome sign. He knew how Savannah hated having dirt tracked into the house.
Lately, there seemed to be a lot of things Savannah hated, he thought.
He followed the trail of lights, shutting them off as he went. Electric bills didn’t pay for themselves.
He found her sitting at the table in the small dining room. She turned her face toward him as he entered. The table was set for two.
A sad smile twisted his lips. Savannah had given up setting it for three. Luke had long since gone to bed.
Cruz missed his son. Missed his wife. Missed enjoying his life. But sitting back and enjoying things was for dreamers. Not for men with responsibilities.
Someday, he promised himself, he would be able to kick back a little and enjoy the fruit of his labors, like the Fortune men he’d grown up with. Right now was his time to prosper.
But only if he kept after it.
He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Hi,” he said wearily.
Savannah forced a smile to her lips. He looked as tired as she felt, she thought. “You made it home,” she murmured.
His broad shoulders moved in a careless shrug beneath a faded denim work shirt that was damp with sweat. “I always do.”
He said that as if he resented coming home to her, she thought. She took a breath. “Hungry?”
Yes, he was hungry. Hungry for a lot of things. Hungry for more than food. But all his body begged for was some place to drop so that it could finally, finally rest. Cruz shook his head.
“No, I’ll just turn in.”
She looked at the food, which had long since cooled, waiting on his arrival. After leaving Vanessa’s, she’d returned home, determined to be more patient. To be the loving wife she wanted to be. That had entailed making an elaborate Mexican dish her mother-in-law had taught her how to prepare. “But I made your favorite.”
Cruz forced a smile to his lips only because he was too tired to do it naturally. He looked at the meal. Chewing took more effort than he could give it.
“Thanks. Save it for tomorrow.”
She struggled to hide her hurt. He was rejecting her. Again. “It won’t taste the same.”
“You made it. It’ll still taste good.” Cruz felt his temper threatening to spike. It took all the energy he could muster to keep it in check. “Look, I’m exhausted. If you don’t mind, I’m going to turn in.” He was already walking away from her toward the stairs.
“Yes, I do mind,” Savannah said under her breath, but Cruz was too far away to hear.
Angry tears stung her eyes as she began to clear the table.
Two
S avannah made it upstairs less than half an hour later, after clearing the table and putting away all the untouched food. She’d gone to the trouble of cooking mainly for Cruz. The way her stomach was behaving, it didn’t welcome eating no matter what time of day she tried. The best she could hope for was to keep down a few crackers at a time.
Crossing the threshold into their room, she found him facedown on the bed, his face pressed against a pillow. Cruz was sound asleep.
She sighed. Her husband looked as if he’d crashed on the bed the second he came into the room. His body was sprawled on top of the covers, his opened shirt fanned out on either side of him like denim wings. Savannah shook her head. Cruz hadn’t even bothered getting undressed, except for his boots.
The air in the master bedroom was oppressively heavy. It felt sticky, still ripe with the day’s humidity. Savannah walked to the windows on either side of the king-size bed and opened them as far as they would go, hoping to get a little air circulating through the room.
Nothing happened. If there was a breeze in the vicinity, it was avoiding them.
Not bothering to shed the loose-fitting sundress she had on, Savannah lay down on the other side of the bed and pretended that all was well in her life.
“Why didn’t you put your nightgown on last night?”
It was the first question she heard when she walked into the kitchen the next morning.
Savannah felt groggy. Her stomach was just now inching its way down from her throat after being lodged there for the better part of the last fifteen minutes, as she’d knelt over the toilet bowl. She’d then crept down the darkened stairs, making her way through the all but pitch-black house, guided by the light coming from the kitchen.
Cruz was sitting at the table, eating. He’d fixed his own breakfast. Again.
So now she felt useless as well as harried and ignored.
“You noticed.” Savannah hadn’t meant to let the cryptic words escape, especially in that tone, but they had.
A piece of toast raised to his lips, Cruz looked at her as if he thought her pregnancy had somehow loosened a few screws in her head.
“Of course I noticed. You were lying right there beside me.”
Savannah shrugged as she opened the refrigerator and moved a few things around. “Since you were wearing your clothes, it seemed like the thing to do.”
Taking out a container of milk, she poured the glassful she forced herself to drink every morning. As she raised it to her lips, she felt her stomach tighten in rebellion.
Taking her words to be a criticism, Cruz did his best to stifle the annoyance that rose up like a tidal wave inside of him. He’d never had a long fuse, but lately his temper was exceedingly short. “I was exhausted.”
Savannah put the container back in the refrigerator and sat down at the table, joining him. “You’re always exhausted.”
His back went up, even though he continued eating. “Running a ranch takes a lot out of a man.”
Savannah set the glass down after only two sips. She absolutely hated milk. “Then let someone help you run it.”
He used the edge of his toast to coax the last of his scrambled eggs onto his fork. “You mean like you?” He shook his head as he took another bite. “You’re already doing the bookkeeping. And you’ve got Luke and the house, not to mention that you’re—”
Savannah cut him off. How could someone so smart be so thick? “I know exactly what I’ve got to do.” The words rang a bit too sharply in her ears, but she couldn’t seem to control the tone of her voice this morning. “And I didn’t mean me. I meant one of the hands.” She thought a second. “What about Paco?”
Cruz could literally feel annoyance creasing his brow. In the next minute it was gone as he reined in the frustration that seemed to appear more and more quickly these days whenever he was home.
“I told you before, Paco left.” Impatience returned despite his best efforts to keep it in check. “Don’t you listen to me?”
“I listen to you,” she said with indignation. “I can count every word you’ve said to me in the last month. There haven’t been many.”
Was she going to start in on that again? “Look, Savannah—”
She didn’t want to argue. She wanted to find a solution. Desperately, she went over the names of the other ranch hands. “What about Hank?”
Cruz stopped and stared at her. Just what was his wife up to? “Hank?”
