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Miranda couldn’t let it alone. “You haven’t been home for more than a night in fifteen years. Why the urge to stay on now?”
Jud opened his mouth, and she thought she might get an answer. But then Wade stepped up beside them.
“I’m responsible for that, Ms. Mayor. Let’s meet in your office Monday morning about ten and I’ll explain what’s going on.” Wade drew Jud away to meet his wife, and Miranda had to be satisfied with what little she knew.
Twilight came early in December, and they finished cleaning up the park in near darkness. Finally, Miranda climbed into her truck and let her head fall back against the seat. “I’m exhausted. Baling a field of hay is an easier day’s work than throwing a party.”
In the passenger seat, her mom chuckled. “That’s why we’re farmers, not event planners, or whatever they’re called.”
“Now that’s a horrid thought—a continual round of parties to plan, set up and take down.” Miranda shuddered. “Just kill me.”
As they drove out of town, they passed Cruz’s bright blue truck still parked on the curb, with Jud standing at the driver’s open door.
“Was that Jud Ritter?” Nan turned her head to stare out the rear window.
“Didn’t you see him at the party? He showed up while we were decorating Greer’s Blazer.”
“No, I didn’t.” Her mother dropped back into her seat. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Did he come back for the wedding?”
“He didn’t even come back for his own brother’s ceremony. He wouldn’t say exactly why he’s here, but Wade has something to do with it. We’re going to meet Monday so he can explain.”
“I’m surprised he was talking to Cruz, though. I don’t think Jud’s been home since Cruz came to town.”
“Wade very kindly arranged for Jud to stay at Cruz’s place while he’s here.”
“What?” The sharpness of the word was completely unlike her mother’s usual drawl.
“I don’t like the idea, either. I mean, Cruz leases the house, but you still own it, and I’m not sure where he gets off having somebody else stay there.”
“Oh…well, of course, Cruz is free to have friends stay with him.” Nan raked her fingers through her cap of sleek silver hair. “We didn’t object when his brother came up from Mexico.”
“Yes, but—” What did she mean to say? “Jud just plain makes me uncomfortable.”
“I know. I remember the tears he cost you all those years ago. But you’ve both grown up. I doubt you’ll even notice he’s in town.”
Miranda glanced into the rearview mirror and saw two sets of headlights following her as she turned off the highway into their private drive.
“I’ll notice,” she growled. “Jud will make sure of that.”
JUD SLOWED DOWN as he approached the entrance to Hayseed Farm, allowing the two trucks in front of him to get well ahead. Thanks to his childhood feud with Miranda, he’d never set foot on Hayseed Farm during his years in Homestead. This was his first— and maybe his only—chance to satisfy his curiosity.
On both sides of the narrow gravel lane, winter hay had sprouted, narrow green shoots standing ankle high in row after row, acre upon acre. Miranda’s mother had managed the farm since her husband died, when Miranda was only three. For thirty years, Nan Wright had single-handedly planted, harvested and baled hay for local livestock farmers. Like any farm kid, Miranda probably helped out as soon as she was able.
Zeb Ritter had sure as hell put his sons to work in the fields and the barn, practically as soon as they could walk. Jud had hated every minute of every chore. He still remembered the burn of resentment in his belly, the desperate desire to get away.
The hay ended at a line of pine trees bordering the yard around the house—a white, two-story farmhouse, nearly a century old by the looks of it, with wide porches on all sides and a red tin roof shaded by pecan trees and live oaks. A branch of the driveway led directly to the house, where Miranda’s blue truck was parked, but Jud followed the curve around the tree line and headed toward the back of the farm.
Behind the house stood a good-sized barn, painted red to match the tin roof, with brown-fenced paddocks and pastures stretching into the distance. He vaguely remembered Miranda doing some barrel racing in the junior rodeos. Jud had hit the pro circuit as soon as they’d let him have his card, so he didn’t remember whether she’d actually won or not. His own winning streak had burned out so quickly, the memory was just a blur.
Beyond the pastures sat a log cabin with a stand of pines behind and a field in front planted with hundreds of silver-leafed shrubs. Cruz Martinez’s truck sat close to the side of the house. This must be the place.
Jud pulled in beside the Z71 and cut his engine. The country night surrounded him—a quiet, wintry darkness, unbroken by streetlights or the growl of machines, textured by the rustle of pine needles and grass blades as the wind passed by. He hadn’t experienced this kind of silence in…how many years?
His heart thudded against his ribs as he recognized the answer. Four. Most of four years had passed since he’d lain in the back of his truck looking up at the stars, listening to the spring sounds of frogs and crickets and whip-poor-wills.
Four years since he’d nearly ravished Miranda Wright in the back of that truck. The memory gripped him like a bad hangover, complete with regret for ever taking that first drink and, even worse, that first kiss. He usually played with women who knew the score, a category which definitely excluded Mayor Miranda.
But at least he’d stopped in time. She might have had her feelings hurt, but he hadn’t done anything unforgivable. He’d just been a stupid jerk.
“Damn.” Shaking his head, Jud got out of the truck and pulled his duffel from behind his seat.
As he reached the porch steps, Cruz Martinez opened the front door of the cabin. “Come in, make yourself at home.” He led the way into warmth and light and a room neater than any bachelor pad Jud had ever seen.
“Take the room at the end of the hall,” Martinez said, pointing down a dark passage. “There’s a bathroom right next door. More important—” he grinned as he heard Jud’s stomach rumble “—the kitchen is at the back of the house and there’s plenty of stuff for sandwiches in the fridge.”
“Sounds great.”
Grabbing a jacket, Martinez went back to the front door. “I’m going to check on the barn. Walk over after you eat and I’ll give you a tour. Or hit the sack, if you want. Just treat the place like your own.”
“Thanks. Hey,” Jud said. “What’s planted in the field out front? All those silver bushes?”
His host grinned. “That’s Miranda’s pet project. She’s been nursing those lavender plants for a couple of years now.”
“Lavender? For perfume?”
“She’s got all sorts of plans for marketing. I don’t understand most of them.” He winked at Jud. “I think it’s a female thing.”
“In other words, clear as mud.”
“Exactly.”
Left alone in the cabin, Jud set his bag down in the assigned bedroom, noting with approval the king-size bed. His four extra inches over six feet didn’t fit well in small spaces. He used the bathroom, washed his hands, then flipped back the shower curtain, wondering if he’d be taking showers on his knees.
What caught his eye, though, was a scrap of lavender lace draped over the towel bar at the opposite end of the tub from the water faucet. Jud reached out and caught the fabric between two fingers, pulling it off the bar. A bra, he realized, lace cups and satin straps with a small bow in the center.
“Well, well,” he said, his jaw tight. “No wonder Ms. Mayor was so upset to hear I was staying with Cruz Martinez.”
Resisting the urge to break something—Miranda Wright’s neck, for a start—Jud carefully put the garment back where he’d found it, flipped off the light and went to make himself something to eat.
AFTER AN AFTERNOON spent in skirts and dress shoes, the Wright women changed clothes as soon as they got home. Wearing jeans and a sweater, Nan came downstairs a few minutes later to find her daughter snuggled into the sofa in the living room, TV remote control in hand.
Miranda looked her over. “You’re planning to go out? Something wrong?” She wore her favorite sleepwear—a faded, stretched-out, long-sleeved T-shirt over flannel pajama pants decorated with penguins on skis. She’d scrunched her hair into a ponytail. Dusty, the golden Labrador retriever, lay in a contented butterscotch curl across Miranda’s feet.
Nan shook her head. “Nope. I thought I’d go and check on the horses, is all, look in on the moms-tobe.”
“I’ll come with you.” To Dusty’s distress, Miranda shifted her feet to the floor and started to get up.
“Don’t bother.” Nan pushed her back onto the couch. “I’ll just walk through. Be back in a few minutes.” She held her breath, expecting an argument.
For once, her daughter didn’t insist. “Call if you need me,” she said, burrowing back between dog and blanket.
“I will.” In case she changed her mind, Nan went straight through the kitchen to the mudroom, where she slipped on barn shoes and her favorite jacket. Outside, the night felt a lot colder than it had earlier, and she buttoned the jacket as she hurried to the barn. When she saw the doors had been rolled back, she slowed to an easy walk, so she wouldn’t be breathless when she arrived.
With her first step into the barn, Bailey, her buckskin stallion, turned in his stall to greet her.
“Hey, big man.” She slid open the top half of his door so she could rub his face and neck. “I came to see your new baby. He’s gonna be a big guy, just like you.” Bailey rubbed his muzzle over her hair. “Uh-huh. I love you, too.” She kissed his cheek before closing the door.
Starlet’s stall was across the aisle. Nan approached and looked through the grate. “Everything okay?”
As she’d expected, Cruz knelt in the straw, running his hands over the soft dun coat of the sleepy foal they’d named Cappucino. “Sure. I woke him up a little, but he’s being a good boy.” Nearby, Starlet, a sweet little bay mare, chewed a mouthful of alfalfa hay and kept close watch on the human touching her baby. “What are you doing out here?”
“Just checking.” She swallowed hard. “I hear you have a houseguest.”
Cruz stretched to his feet with an easy grace. He still wore the white shirt, new jeans and fancy ostrich-skin boots he’d looked so good in at the party, and he looked even better without so many people around.
“That’s right. Jud Ritter is doing some work for Wade, and I said it would be okay if he stayed with me.”
Beside Cruz, Cappucino folded his legs in awkward angles, trying to stand. Starlet nosed her baby to his feet and he immediately began nuzzling the mare’s side, looking for his next meal.
Nan backed away as Cruz left the stall. “So, I guess we won’t…I won’t be seeing much of you for a while.” Her clumsy choice of words only struck her after she said them. How often had she told him she loved just looking at him?
He leaned his shoulders back against the stall door and crossed his arms over his chest. “I guess not.”
She didn’t hear regret in his voice, and she couldn’t read his face in the shadows of the barn. “Did you do this on purpose?”
“You mean, did I plan it? How could I? I never met Jud Ritter until this afternoon at the party.”
“But…”
Cruz nodded. “But I was willing to accept Wade’s suggestion that he stay with me.”
“Why?”
“I think you and I need some space.”
The width of the aisle between them was too much space, as far as Nan was concerned. “For what?”
“To choose our priorities. To look ahead and figure out where we go from here.”
She’d sensed some unsettledness in him lately, but this seemed to come out of an empty sky. “Why do we have to go anywhere? What’s wrong with where we are?”
He stared at her for a long minute. “You enjoy hiding behind the widows and old ladies at parties, like you did this afternoon? You don’t want to dance with me, have some fun?”
As Nan struggled to frame an answer, he continued. “You think I want to spend my time leaning against the wall, watching everybody else have a good time?”
“Cruz—”
“When I’m with you, what we have together is enough.” His broad shoulders lifted on a deep breath. “But I’m tired of living two lives. Having Jud around will keep me thinking straight, maybe long enough to work this out.”
Her heart cramped. “I don’t mean to force you into living two lives.”
“But if you’re not comfortable with people knowing about us, I’m not going to broadcast the news. And that requires me to be one person with you and someone different with everybody else in town. I can’t even be honest with Miranda—and she’s one of my best friends.”
“Yes, and you’re closer to her in age than to me.” Nan bit her lip as soon as she said the words. She hated sounding like a bitter old woman, jealous of her daughter. But if the shoe fit…
In two strides, Cruz crossed the aisle to close his hands over her shoulders. “Which doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to the way I feel about either of you.”
They were the same height, and now she could see the anger, the pain blazing in his dark brown eyes. What kind of love was hers, that hurt him this much?
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m not being fair—”
“Fair, hell.” His arms came around her, hard. “I’m selfish enough to want to show you off, that’s all.”
He claimed her mouth with the directness that was so much a part of his nature, and her body ignited for him in an instant, as it had from the very first. She’d been married for five years, yet had not known passion could take her this way. When she lay alone in her bed now, she ached for Cruz beside her. When they were together, like this, she couldn’t get enough of him. There were hay bales in the stall behind them. Her knees weakened and she pulled him closer….
Down the aisle, Bailey whickered as he always did when someone approached the barn.
“Miranda,” Nan whispered, and turned her face away, pressing her forehead against Cruz’s shoulder. “I should go back to the house. I told her I wouldn’t be long.”
Smiling slightly, Cruz loosened his hold and stepped back. “See what I mean? I lose my head completely when I’m around you.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Nan said, trying for lightness. She turned to walk farther into the barn, checking on the mares who had yet to drop their foals. Regaining control. “Flora was pacing this morning before we went to the wedding—I’m thinking tonight might be her—”
“There you are!”
Nan whipped her head around to see her daughter silhouetted at the barn door, wearing her barn coat and shoes and her pajamas. Dusty trotted down the aisle.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten the way to the barn and wandered out into the night,” she teased. “Or been eaten by wild animals.” Head tilted, she looked at Cruz, then at Nan again.
“So what’s going on?”
MIRANDA DIDN’T REALLY expect her mother or Cruz to answer the question. Any intelligent observer would understand what was going on—especially after two or three occasions like this one. She just couldn’t resist ribbing them a little about their “secret.”
“We got to talking about the mares and foals,” Cruz said, his voice deeper and a little huskier than usual. “And the party, of course.”
“I thought Greer and Noah looked so happy together.” After giving Dusty a head rub, Nan came slowly toward the front of the barn. Cruz backed out of her way, keeping the width of the aisle between them. “And we all had a great time.”
“Of course,” Miranda agreed. “Even Jud Ritter.” She looked at Cruz. “Where is your houseguest?”
“I gave him free run of the fridge and left him to it. He didn’t reach the food tables at the reception.”
“How long is he planning to stay?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“Wade said he’d invited Jud here to do some work. Do you know anything about that?”
Footsteps sounded on the floor behind her. “Not much more than you do,” Jud said. “And he doesn’t ask nearly as many questions.”
