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Breaking into a relieved smile, Grant moved forward and began rummaging for ingredients. Scott gave him a look of affectionate exasperation, then slowly turned his head.
Margaret tensed.
Their eyes met.
She felt his contempt like a physical blow. It simmered in his tawny eyes, along with something else, a sexual charisma that was as genetically inherent as his square jaw, as unconscious for him as breathing.
Her gaze faltered and dropped. He wore a white, Western-style shirt like his father’s. But where the material swallowed Grant’s gaunt torso, it strained against Scott’s muscular frame. She focused on a pearl snap button near his tooled leather belt, refusing to look lower, unable to look higher as he walked to stand in front of her.
“Hold out your arm, Maggie.”
He was too close, and he hated her. She tilted her head back. “I can take care of myself. I’m not an invalid any more than your father is.”
One minute he was towering over her, the next he was sitting in a chair with her hand on his thigh, his fingers clamping her wrist.
“Hold still now, this might get a little uncomfortable,” he said soothingly, his glittering eyes and viselike grip hidden from Grant.
Scott raised the dripping ice cube and pressed it against her burn. She yanked her arm and gasped, more stunned at his immovable strength than the shock of cold. Jerk. He knew she couldn’t do anything with his father mixing batter not fifteen feet away. She pressed her bare knees primly together and pretended they weren’t sandwiched between denim-covered muscles.
He looked different without a hat, she realized, staring. Up close, his hair was a thick, swirling mixture of chocolate browns and caramel highlights. It begged a woman’s fingers to plunge right in. As if sensing her thoughts, he looked up through sun-tipped lashes and smiled, a lazy curl of lips that did funny things to her stomach. Returning his focus to her burn, he rubbed the ice in small circles.
Her hands flexed, the one on his thigh noting muscles gone suddenly concrete. The ice cube released a fat drip. It rolled down the curve of her skin and joined the spreading wet spot on his jeans.
He gentled his hold on her wrist. “Feel better?”
The skin on her forearm felt frozen, the skin underneath on fire where he massaged her wild pulse with his thumb. She felt flustered, aroused and very, very confused. But better?
“I’ll be fine now, thanks.” She pulled back her arm, freeing her wrist and dislodging the ice. It slithered over her thigh and fell to the floor.
“How many pancakes can you eat, Margaret?” Grant called from the stove.
She tried to answer. She tried to do anything but shiver from the combined impact of frigid ice and a predatory gold stare.
“One,” she managed breathlessly.
“What was that?”
She dragged her gaze to Grant. “One.”
“Lost your appetite, princess?” Scott asked softly, his eyes slitted with knowing amusement.
He was insufferable. He’d been insufferable from the time they’d first met. But she wasn’t a painfully shy teenager anymore. She was her own person, a woman strong enough to stand alone.
She scraped back her chair and stood.
“I changed my mind, Grant, I’ll have a short stack…with bacon.” She sent Scott a scathing look. “Suddenly I could eat a pig.”
LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Ada Butler cut the engine of her pickup and resisted the urge to check her face in the rearview mirror. Silly fool. Powder and a dab of lipstick wouldn’t disguise forty-nine years of hard living. Besides, Grant wouldn’t notice if she dyed her salt-and-pepper hair green and danced naked on his bed.
She smoothed her jeans, anyway, and wished briefly she hadn’t changed from her Sunday dress. The minister’d said the blue silk matched her eyes. Then again, it was his Christian duty to say something charitable about everyone—especially aging spinsters.
With a huff of self-disgust, she slid out of the truck and scanned the dirt yard. Her squinted eyes widened on a flashy red Porsche by the barn. Who on earth was here? She spun toward the house and shaded her eyes with one hand.
The yellow clapboards shimmered in the midday sun, every curl of paint glaringly exposed. Missing shingles pockmarked the roof. The long front porch sagged in the middle, surely more so than the last time she’d stopped by? Dropping her hand, she frowned and moved toward the house.
Scott had assured her that after the surgery his father was fine, that there was no reason for her to visit the hospital or drop off a casserole when Grant came home. Yet Ellen Gates had done both. Every congregation member sitting within five pews of the new widow heard how she’d read scripture by Grant’s bed—no doubt wishing she was in it, the hypocrite—and taken him her famous Chicken Delight the next week. Baiting the trap for a husband, that’s what she was doing.
A series of grunts from the back of Ada’s pickup gave her pause. It was true Ellen had boobs the size of Canada. But Ada had fifty times more brains. Surely that gave the widow only a moderate edge.
She was halfway up the porch steps when Grant opened the door.
“Ada, what a nice surprise.”
Hand pressed to pounding heart, she allowed herself one devouring look. He was so thin! Yet the rakish smile and lively green eyes were as irresistible as ever.
“Hello, Grant. How’re you feeling?”
His eyes lost some of their sparkle. “Oh, good as an old man with one foot in the grave can feel.”
She arched a brow. “Glad I came by in time. Dead men are so boring.”
When he chuckled, her pleasure pulsed bone deep.
“Come on in out of the sun, Ada. I think I can manage a little conversation before the funeral.”
“You’re sure I’m not intruding? Looks like you’ve already got company.” She glanced pointedly at the Porsche.
“That’ll take some explaining. Come in.”
She climbed the remaining steps while he held open the door. His fingertips branded the small of her back as she swept into the oak-planked parlor. He made her feel protected and utterly feminine when she didn’t need the first and certainly wasn’t the second.
And that, she supposed, was why she’d loved Grant Hayes most of her adult life.
He settled her on the camelback sofa and squeezed into the room’s only chair, a wooden rocker far too delicate for his large frame.
“The car belongs to Margaret Winston. You remember, Donald Winston’s daughter?”
“I’m not likely to forget.”
No single family in the county had provided as much juicy gossip as the Winstons. People still wondered what really happened the day young Matt Collins died. One thing was clear—a body never mentioned Margaret’s name around Scott unless she wanted her head snapped off. And Ada was rather fond of hers.
“I thought Margaret lived in Dallas now. What brings her here?” she asked, listening enthralled to Grant’s account of the past three days. When he finished, she slowly shook her head.
“If that doesn’t beat all. To hear Doc Chalmers tell it, Twister was spawned from the bowels of hell. Do you really think a little thing like Margaret can handle that devil?”
“She saddled him up not twenty minutes ago and took off on their first ride. Damnedest thing I ever saw. You’d have thought he was a Shetland pony at the kiddie park. Margaret’ll handle Twister just fine. But handling Scott…now, that’s a whole different ball of wax.”
Did he know his eyes were as green as fresh mint? Did he know how masculine he looked in that dainty chair or what happened to her stomach when he smiled?
“But enough about us, Ada. What brings you away from your sows during spring farrowing? Can’t be my charming company.”
Of course he didn’t know. She was plain, practical Ada Butler, raiser of hogs and peaches, not men’s pulses. She glanced from his jutting arms and knees to the empty cushion beside her and blinked back the horrifying sting of tears.
“Ada? What is it?” He unfolded from the chair and left it rocking wildly to sit on the sofa. Reaching for her hands, he gave them a squeeze and searched her eyes. “Has something happened at the farm? Do you need help?”
Concern had accomplished what her pitiful charms could not. It would be easy enough to let the tears flow, to find a plausible problem and see where it led. Already prickles of excitement from their joined palms spread up her arms. Heavenly.
She drew a deep breath and pulled her hands away. “Nothing’s wrong, Grant. It’s my silly allergies. They always act up this time of year.”
Avoiding his gaze, she rose and walked to the door, clearing her throat and sniffing for effect. “You’re right, I really can’t stay away from the farm long. But I ran into Scott last week in town, and he mentioned wanting to raise a hog for fall slaughter.” Some day was what he’d said. She opened the door and stood half in, half out.
“Morning Glory’s last litter was a beaut,” she babbled on. “Twelve in all, but the runt barely made it. He’ll bring next to nothing at market and less than that as breeding stock. You’re welcome to take him if you want. He’s in the truck now.”
“Really? One of your prize Hampshires? I don’t know what to say, Ada.”
Neither did she, since he’d moved to peer out the door and driven every coherent thought out of her head. Her spine hugged the doorjamb. Her chest rose and fell an inch from his arm. Oh, to be Ellen Gates now.
He turned and looked down, his evident pleasure shifting to surprise, then keen awareness. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen that expression in a man’s eyes. Never had it thrilled her body and soul like now.
She saw his gaze fasten on her mouth, felt her lips soften in response, watched him frown in confusion and step out onto the front porch. As he stared into space, realization hit. Lord in heaven, he’d almost kissed her!
Her heart soaring, she breezed across the porch, floated down the steps and turned to call up teasingly, “C’mon, old man. Let’s get your pig unloaded.”
Spinning on one serviceable work boot, she was amazed at how naturally her walk had an extra sway when she knew Grant was watching. One thing about working a farm sunup to sundown—it kept her figure trim and supple. From this view, she might even have the edge on Ellen.
At her truck, Ada dropped the tailgate, grabbed a flimsy chicken-wire cage and pulled. Excited grunts erupted from the black-and-white shoat inside. She’d always had a soft spot for runts. She’d only postponed this one’s inevitable fate, but still, she felt noble.
“Hush, little guy. We’ll get you out of there in a minute,” Ada crooned, dragging the cage to the edge of the tailgate. The eight-week-old pig trembled miserably, his tail tucked as low as the curl would allow. Intent on getting the poor creature settled, Ada tightened her grip on the cage and heaved.
“Let me help,” Grant rumbled unexpectedly in her ear.
Her fingers slackened. The cage hit the ground. Wire crunched, popping the door open. And thirty pounds of squealing, outraged pig dug in his toes and raced wildly for the barn.
After exchanging a stunned look with Grant, Ada took off in hot pursuit.
She focused with dizzying results on the corkscrew tail twirling counterclockwise to anatomy. Ah, good. The rascal was headed straight for the first stall. Easy pickings. She plunged through the stall just behind the pig, waited tensely while he bobbled against three walls and grasped empty air as he squirted between her legs and out the door.
“Get him!” Ada shrieked at Grant, who stood watching with an infuriatingly superior male smirk.
Stumpy legs pumping, the runt streaked into the next stall. Grant leapt into manly action. Ada stumbled into the corridor just in time to see the frenzied pig rounding the stall like a fresh-shelled pea in a bowl. When Grant zigged with hands open, the black-and-white terror zagged straight out through the door.
It was a beautiful moment.
“Get him!” Grant roared, lurching out of the stall with murder in his eyes.
There were advantages to being a runt, Ada discovered during the next ten minutes. Never again would she feel sorry for nature’s pip-squeaks. Runts were faster than their heftier siblings, for one thing. And small enough to wiggle under sawhorses, between stacked well pipe and behind metal storage cabinets.
In a distant part of Ada’s awareness, she registered the sound of an approaching vehicle, then closed out all distractions save the pig eyeing her with myopic defiance four feet away. For some reason, he’d skidded to a stop in another stall. Afraid to move, she spoke in a soft, singsong voice.
“That’s a good piggy, just stay where you are and we’ll stick an apple in your mouth yet, yes we will. If you’re there, Grant, close the stall door now, because our little friend here looks very nervous.”
She watched the pig’s beady eyes follow Grant’s movement toward the door.
“Yoohoo. Oh, Gra-ant?” came a woman’s glass-shattering voice.
Hide bristling, the runt bolted for the stall door. Ada lunged, groaning as a piece of his tail slipped through her fingers. Dusty, sweaty and completely alone, she hung her head.
Outrage brought her chin up. She charged out of the stall and spotted Grant pounding down the corridor, hard on the tiny rump of Turbo Pig. A voluptuous woman in a flowing, ankle-length dress stood silhouetted in the barn entrance, holding a cake aloft.
“My, it’s dark in here. Is that you, Grant? I brought you my famous Molasses Spice Cake everybody raves abou—Eeeeek! Get away! Get away, you nasty thing!” Spinning in a circle, Ellen Gates trapped the thrashing, frantic pig in her swirling skirt.
You should have changed out of your Sunday dress, Ada thought smugly.
“Stand still, Ellen,” Grant ordered. “He won’t hurt you.”
“What won’t hurt me? What won’t hurt me, goddamn it!”
Tsk-tsk, what would the preacher say?
“It’s a pig. A small pig,” Grant explained with a superior male smirk Ada didn’t mind at all.
Just then, the animal in question caught scent of his favorite flavor in the world, the one Ada used to sweeten his sorghum and tempt his runty appetite, and snuffled as high as he could reach beneath Ellen’s skirts.
“Eeeeeyuu!”
The cake hit the ground with a succulent splat. The pig fought his way out of Ellen’s skirts with a squeal of ecstasy and began gobbling scattered molasses shrapnel from the dirt floor. The last of Ada’s hostility toward the little runt faded.
“Do something!” Ellen wailed.
Ada pushed past Grant, grabbed the warm, quivering pig, and repositioned his leathery snout dead center in the cake. “Enjoy yourself, runt. It’s famous.”
SCOTT CAUGHT a loose strand of barbed wire with his hammer claw and pressed the tool back against a worm-eaten mesquite post. He waited for the telltale twang of maximum tension before plucking a staple out of his mouth, lifting a second hammer from his belt and securing the strand with two solid whacks. Only then did he straighten and wipe the sweat from his brow.
Repairing fence alone was tricky work and required all his concentration—which was exactly why he’d declined Pete’s offer to help. If Scott had time to think, he might remember Maggie’s stricken expression earlier today when he’d lectured her about ruining a frying pan. Or her startled awareness when he’d forcibly held her wrist. Neither reaction spoke well of his behavior. But then, she’d always brought out the worst in him.
Frowning, he dropped both hammers and noted the belch of dust on impact. Damn, it was dry for April. Unless a gully-washer hit soon, the approaching summer would dry up his stock tanks. They were dangerously low as it was.
He peeled off his work gloves and walked to the pickup parked in the dubious shade of a young mesquite. This part of the ranch hadn’t been cleared in two years. The profusion of cactus, scrub brush and spindly trees depressed him. Pulling his shirttail free, he wrenched open the snaps in one movement and threw the wadded material into the open window. He’d had big plans for this place once. Now he just got up, worked until he couldn’t see straight, then fell into bed—day after day after day.
Lifting out the thermos of water he always carried, Scott gulped and then backhanded his mouth. If only watering his cattle was so easy. Inevitably, irresistibly, his gaze drifted to the thick stand of oaks and cotton-woods edging the horizon.
The trees sheltered the Guadalupe River, whose far bank sloped up to the foot of a manicured green lawn. His mind provided details of the plantation-style house, massive horse barn and various outbuildings he’d seen only twice in his life.
Riverbend. The embodiment of everything he wanted, yet couldn’t have.
As a kid, he’d listened to his dad talk about buying the riverfront acreage from old man Perkin and improving H & H Cattle Company’s holdings. Then his mom had grown ill. The medical bills stacked up, and the talk stopped.
After she died, they’d all handled it differently. Laura found comfort in excelling at school, Grant relinquished his dream, and Scott grabbed hold of it with both hands. At the ripe old age of twelve, he’d extracted a promise from Andrew Perkin to give Scott first crack at purchasing the prime riverfront land one day.
