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Mac shot her one of his dimpled smiles and said, “Tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself lately.”
“I’ve been figuring out the daily schedule for Camp LittleHawk.”
“Need any help?”
She gave him a surprised look. “I’d love some. Do you have the time?”
He shrugged. “Don’t have anything else planned. What kinds of things are you having the kids do these days?”
She told him, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. “Horseback riding, picnics and hayrides, of course. And handicrafts, naturally.
“But I’ve come up with something really exciting this year. We’re going to have art sessions at the site of those primitive drawings on the canyon wall here at Hawk’s Pride. Once the kids have copied down all the various symbols, we’re going to send them off to an archaeologist at the state university for interpretation.
“When her findings are available, I’ll forward a copy of them to the kids, wherever they are. It’ll remind them what fun they had at camp even after they’ve gone.”
“And maybe take their minds off their illness, if they’re back in the hospital,” Mac noted quietly.
Jewel sat silently watching Mac stare into the distance and knew he was remembering how it had been in the beginning, how they had provided solace to each other, a needed word of encouragement and a shoulder to lean on. She knew he had come back because she was here, a friend when he needed one.
“I can remember being fascinated by those drawings myself as a kid,” Mac mused.
“Didn’t you want to be an archaeologist once upon a time?”
“Paleontologist,” he corrected.
“What’s the difference?”
“An archaeologist studies the past by looking at what people have left behind. A paleontologist studies fossils to recreate a picture of life in the past.”
“What happened to those plans?” she asked.
“It got harder and harder to focus on the past when I realized I was going to have a future.”
“What college degree did you finally end up getting?”
He laughed self-consciously. “Business. I figured I’d need to know how to handle all the money I’d make playing football.”
But his career had been cut short.
He turned abruptly and headed back toward the ranch without another word to her.
Jewel figured the distance they had come at about a mile. She looked at her watch. Six-thirty. Not very far or very fast for a man who depended on his speed for a living.
About a quarter of a mile from the house, Mac was using his hand to help move his left leg. Jewel stepped to his side and slipped her arm around his waist to help support his weight.
“Don’t argue,” she said, when he opened his mouth to protest. “If you want my company, you have to take the concern that comes along with it.”
“Thanks, Opal,” he said.
“Think nothing of it, Pete.”
She hadn’t called him Pete since he had started high school and acquired the nickname “Mac” from his football teammates. It brought back memories of better times for both of them. They were content to walk in silence the rest of the way back to the house.
Jewel had forgotten how good it felt to have a friend with whom you could communicate without saying a word. She knew what Mac was feeling right now as though he had spoken the words aloud. She understood his frustration. And his fear. She empathized with his drive to succeed, despite the obstacles he had to overcome. She understood his reluctance to accept her help and his willingness to do so.
It was as though the intervening years had never been.
Except, something else had been added to the mix between them. Something unexpected. Something as unwelcome as it was undeniable.
No friend should have felt the frisson of excitement Jewel had felt with her body snuggled up next to Mac’s. No friend should have gotten the chill she got down her spine when Mac’s warm breath feathered over her temple. No friend’s heart would have started beating faster, as hers had, when Mac’s arm circled her waist in return, his fingers closing on her flesh beneath the sweatshirt.
She would have to hide what she felt from him. Otherwise it would spoil everything. Friendship had always been enough in the past. Because of what had happened, because she was in no position to ask for—or accept—more, friendship was all they could ever have between them now.
As they reached the kitchen door, she smiled up at Mac, and he smiled back.
“Home again, home again, jiggety jog,” she said.
“Same time tomorrow?”
She started to refuse. It would be easier if she kept her distance from him. But it was foolish to deny herself his friendship because she felt more than that for him.
She gave him a cheery smile and said, “Sure. Same time tomorrow.” She breathed a sigh of relief that she wouldn’t have to face him again for twenty-four hours.
“As soon as I shower, we can go to work planning all those activities for the kids,” he said.
Jewel gave him a startled look.
“Changed your mind about wanting my help?”
She had forgotten all about it. “No. I…uh…”
He tousled her hair. “You can make up your mind while I shower. I’ll be here if you need me.”
A moment later he had disappeared into the house. It was only then she realized he was going to use up all the hot water.
“Hey!” she yelled, yanking the screen door open to follow after him. “I get the shower first!”
He leaned his head out of the bathroom door. She saw a length of naked flank and stopped in her tracks.
“You can have it first tomorrow,” he said. His eyes twinkled as he added, “Unless you’d like to share?”
She put her hand flat on his bare chest, feeling the crisp, sweat-dampened curls under her palm, and shoved him back inside. “Go get cleaned up, stinky,” she said, wrinkling her nose.” We’ve got work to do.”
He saluted her and stepped back inside.
It was the right response. Just enough teasing and playful camaraderie to disguise her shiver of delight—and the sudden quiver of fear—at being invited to share Mac’s shower.
CHAPTER THREE
“WOW! MAC MACREADY IN THE FLESH!”
Mac felt embarrassed and humbled at the look of admiration—almost adulation—in Colt Whitelaw’s eyes. Mac had just shoved open the kitchen screen door to admire the sunrise on his third day at Hawk’s Pride when he encountered Jewel’s fourteen-year-old brother on the back steps. He had known the boy since Colt came to the Whitelaw household as an infant, the only one of the eight Whitelaw kids who had known no other parents than Zach and Rebecca. “Hi there, kid.”
Colt was wearing a white T-shirt cut off at the waist to expose his concave belly and ribs and with the arms ripped out to reveal sinewy biceps. Levi’s covered his long, lanky legs. He was tossing a football from hand to hand as he shifted from foot to booted foot. With the soft black down of adolescence growing on his upper lip, he looked every bit the eager and excited teenager he was.
“Mom said you were coming, but I didn’t really believe her. I mean, now that you’re famous and all, I didn’t think you’d ever come back here. I wanted to come over as soon as you got here, but Mom said you needed time to settle in without all of us bothering you, so I stayed away a whole extra day. I’m not bothering you, am I?”
Mac resisted the urge to ruffle Colt’s shaggy, shoulder-length black hair. The kid wouldn’t appreciate it. Mac knew from his own experience that a boy of fourteen considered himself pretty much grown up. Colt was six feet tall, but his shoulders were still almost as narrow as his hips. His blue eyes were filled with wonder and hope, without the cynicism and disappointment that appeared as you grew older and learned that life threw a lot of uncatchable balls your way.
“Sit down and tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself,” Mac invited. He eased himself into one of the two slatted white wooden chairs situated on the flagstone patio at the back of the cottage. Colt perched on the wide arm of the other chair.
The patio was arbored, and purple bougainvillea woven within a white lattice framework provided shade to keep the early morning sun off their heads and a pleasant floral fragrance.
Mac was aware of Colt’s scrutiny as he gently picked up his wounded leg and set the ankle on the opposite knee. When he was done, he laid his cane down on the flagstone and leaned back comfortably in the chair.
“I was watching the game on TV when your leg got busted,” Colt said. “It looked pretty bad.”
“It was,” Mac agreed.
“I heard them say you’d never walk again,” Colt blurted.
Mac managed a smile. “Looks like they were wrong.”
“When you didn’t come back after a whole year, they said you’d never play football again.”
“It’s taken me a while to get back on my feet, but I expect to be back on the football field in the fall as good as new and better than ever.”
“Really?” Colt asked.
Mac was fresh out of the shower after his second morning of walking with Jewel, and wished now he had put on jeans and boots instead of shorts and Nikes. The kid was gawking at his scarred leg like he was a mutant from the latest horror movie.
Mac figured it was time to change the subject, or he’d end up crying his woes to the teenager. He gestured to the football in Colt’s hands and said, “Are you on the football team at school?”
Colt made a disparaging face and mumbled, “Yeah. I’m the quarterback.”
Most boys, especially in Texas, would have been ecstatic at the thought of being quarterback. “It sounds as if you don’t care much for football.”
“It’s all right. It’s just…” Colt slid off the arm backward into the slatted wooden chair, with his legs dangling over the arm, the football cradled in the notch of his elbow. “Did you always know what you wanted to do with your life?”
Mac nodded. He had always known he wanted to play football. He just hadn’t been sure his body would give him the chance. “How about you?”
“I know exactly what I want to do,” Colt said. “I just don’t think I’m going to get the chance to do it.”
“Why not?”
“Dad expects me to stay here and be a rancher.”
“Is that so bad?”
“It is when I’d rather be doing something else.”
Mac stared at Colt’s troubled face. “Anything you’d like to talk about?”
Colt shrugged. “Naw. I guess not.” He settled his feet on the ground and rose with an ease that Mac envied. “Guess I’d better get going. Now that school’s out for the summer, I’ve got a lot of chores to do.”
Mac turned his eyes in the direction of the squealing windmill.
Colt laughed. “I’ll get to it right away. Hope it hasn’t been keeping you awake.”
“I’ve slept fine.” Like the dead. He had slept straight through the afternoon and evening of his first day here, and yesterday he had been exhausted after a day spent mostly sitting down, working out a crafts program for the camp with Jewel. He knew his body needed rest to heal, but he was tired of being tired. He wanted to be well again.
Colt began loping away, then suddenly turned and threw the football in Mac’s direction. Instinctively, Mac reached out to catch it. His fingertips settled on the well-thrown ball with remembered ease, and he drew it in.
Colt came loping back, a wide grin splitting his face. “Guess you haven’t lost your touch.” He held out his hand for the ball.
Mac looked up at the kid, an idea forming in his head. “How would you like to throw a few to me over the next couple of weeks, after I get a little more mobile?”
Colt’s eyes went wide with wonder. “You mean it? Really? Hot damn, that would be great! I mean, golly, that would be great!” he quickly corrected himself, looking over his shoulder to see if any of his family had heard him. “Just say when and where.”
“Let’s say two weeks from today,” Mac said. “I’ll come and find you.”
Colt eyed Mac’s injured leg. “Are you sure—”
“Two weeks,” Mac said certainly.
Colt grinned. “You got it.” He took the ball and sauntered off toward the barn.
Mac let out a deep sigh. He had given himself two weeks to get back enough mobility to be able to run for a pass, when it was taking him thirty minutes to walk a mile.
He turned as he heard the screen door slam and saw Jewel. She was just out of the shower, having been second again this morning, since she had gotten a phone call the instant they came back in the door from their walk. She must have blown her hair dry, because it looked shiny and soft enough for him to want to put his hands in it.
The only time he had ever touched her hair in the past was to tousle it like an older brother or tug on her ponytail. He couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to have all that long, silky hair draped over his body.
Mac turned away. This is Jewel. Your best friend. You’d better get laid soon, old buddy. You’re starting to have really weird fantasies.
She was wearing jeans and boots and a long-sleeved man’s button-down, oxford-cloth shirt turned up at the cuffs with the tails hanging out. He wondered if the shirt had belonged to her fiancé and felt jealous of the man. Which was stupid, because Mac and Jewel had never been lovers.
Would you like to be?
He forced his mind away from that insidious thought. It would mess up everything if he made a move on his best friend. He needed Jewel’s friendship too much to spoil things that way.
The shirt was big and blousy on her, and she wore her hair pulled over her shoulders in front to hide whatever there might have been left to see of her figure, which wasn’t much.
He started to say “You look great!” and bit his tongue. It sounded too much like something a man might say to a woman he wanted to impress. “Hi,” he said instead. “Hope you had enough hot water.”
“Barely. I made it a quick shower. I’m definitely first tomorrow.” She took the seat next to him, leaned back and inhaled a breath of flower-scented air that made her breasts rise under the shirt. The sight took his breath away.
Whenever he had thought about Jewel in the years they had been apart, it was her laughter he had remembered. The way her eyes crinkled at the corners and her lips curved, revealing even white teeth, and how the sound would kind of bubble up out of her, as effervescent as sparkling water.
