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“Like on that old TV show, ‘Here Comes the Brides’,” added Diego, his sparkling eyes as black and shiny as the curls sticking from beneath his battered straw hat. “Yes, indeed,” Diego continued as he stripped a sweat-soaked shirt from his middle-aged, wiry frame, folded it over the back of a swivel chair and plopped down with a grunt. “Every woman in the world be desperate to get herself hitched to a rich rancher stud like Macon, right, Macon?”
“Just ask any female,” Cam added as he tossed his work gloves next to the letters. “Marrying my son’s their main goal in life. You boys wouldn’t believe how many brides I had to fight past to get to work this morning!”
Macon shot his father a quelling glance.
Cam laughed. “Oh, c’mon, don’t get mad, Macon. I never told you to advertise for a bride.”
“No, you didn’t,” Macon said, worriedly running a hand over his head, slicking back the gold waves. “But you said you won’t legally hand the ranch over to me until I’m married.”
“Now you’re catching on.” Cam’s left hand was nearly immobile, due to a stroke he’d suffered, but he gleefully clapped the other on his knee. “I don’t want you running the Rock ’n’ Roll yet. It’s my ranch, and no matter what your ma says, I’m not retiring.”
Macon surveyed his father a long moment, his gut clenching as if he’d been punched. Cam’s shoulders, once as powerful as Macon’s, were thin and stooped, and what was left of his hair had turned bristly gray. His face was as wrinkled as a pair of old boots, and suddenly, noticing how his father had changed with age, Macon wished he’d never left home. He missed the years he hadn’t been here, working the ranch with Cam. Macon had been a late baby, the only child, and now Cam was seventy-three.
Harper, why did you make me leave?
And where had the years gone? Only yesterday, the woman he’d wanted had been in his arms. Only the day before that, he’d been knock-kneed and in short pants, chasing after Cam in the fields. Pa, when you gonna teach me to ride that big horse? When you gonna take me to herd cattle? When you gonna let me rope a bull? And now he was hearing his mother’s voice. I can’t talk sense into him, Macon. His blood pressure’s sky-high, and if he doesn’t get some help with the ranch, he’ll have another stroke. Doc Dickens says so. Blanche McCann might as well have said, Your father’s going to die if you don’t come home, Macon.
Nothing less could have brought Macon to Pine Hills, since the last place he wanted to live was in the same town as Harper. He said, “Doc says you’ve got to retire on account of your blood pressure.”
“The only pressure I’ve got is you trying to take away my ranch,” muttered Cam. “Fortunately, every woman in the world’s got the sense not to marry you.”
“If I get married, you retire,” Macon said. “You promised.”
“And Cam never goes back on his word,” said Ansel.
“Nope, I don’t,” agreed Cam. “But somehow I doubt I’ll hear church bells, since Harper wrote every woman in China, just to warn them about Macon.”
“And every woman in Pine Hills already knows better than to get involved with him,” added Ansel.
“Now, now,” chided Cam. “Nancy Ludell’s still trying. And that cute schoolteacher, Betsy, who moved down from Idaho. And Ansel’s wife’s best friend…what’sername?”
“Lois Potts,” Ansel supplied.
“Right. You went bowling with her,” Cam coaxed, his tone insinuating. “Why, Lois is the closest thing we’ve got to an heiress in Pine Hills, since she’ll inherit the Feed and Seed. Why not marry her?”
“I might marry Lois,” Macon muttered, though marrying a stranger would be just as good an option. Macon wasn’t necessarily looking to fall in love. He wasn’t even sure if he was capable of it anymore.
Ansel suddenly whirled around, shielded his eyes and squinted through a smudged window at the corral. “Hurry, Macon!” he teased. “Some women in wedding dresses are running this way!”
Diego ran to the door. “Look at them wild womens lifting their veils just so they can claw out each other’s eyes! They’s fighting over Macon like cats and dogs.” The Mexican raised his voice to a falsetto. “Please, please,” he crooned, twining a finger around the end of a black mustache, “let me marry Macon and iron his shirts and give him some good lovin’!”
“Back off,” warned Macon mildly. Suddenly, he yawned and stretched his powerful arms over his head. Damn it all—his father, Harper and the cattle, too. Late last night, over a hundred head had broken through a pasture onto Ansel’s property, so Macon had been mending fences since before sunup, stopping only to run into town to check the mail, which was how he’d discovered the letters.
Diego squinted. “What’s those letters say about how bad you is, anyway?”
Macon shrugged, lifting a pink, bubble-gum scented sheet. ‘“Dear Gong Zhu,”’ Macon drawled, ignoring the tightening of his chest as he took in Harper’s neat cursive, ‘“It’s in your best interest to know there are good reasons Macon McCann has to advertise for a bride. Think about it. What kind of American man has to go all the way to China just to get a girlfriend?”’
Ansel, Diego and Cam chuckled.
Macon stirred the letters with a finger. “Here’s another. ‘Dear Carrie Dawn Bledscoe, Please know that Pine Hills, Texas has a male-female ratio of three to one. If Macon McCann was such a great catch, don’t you think a local girl would have married him by now? He’s thirty-four, so they’ve had ample opportunity.”’
The men laughed, and despite his underlying anger, a smile tugged at Macon’s lips. “Get this,” he added. “She signs the letter, ‘Yours in female solidarity.”’
Ansel snorted. “That woman’s sure got a way with words.”
It’s not all she’s got a way with, Ansel. “This one gets right to the point,” continued Macon. “’Dear Anna Gonzales, Do not come to America! Stay in Mexico and away from Macon McCann. He’s a menace, and Pine Hills is one big dusty dive. There’s no rain, and the heat’s insufferable. Pine Hills,”’ continued Macon, fishing for another letter, ‘“sounds uneventful, right? Well, guess what, Mirabella Morehead. When it comes to wildlife, Macon’s only the beginning. Unlike in Los Angeles, we’ve got more than our fair share of poisonous snakes. No culture, either. You won’t find first-run movies, or musical events.”’
“She’s got a point.” Diego swiped away tears of laughter. “The only music we gots is from frogs and crickets.”
“It’s nobody’s fault but hers if she hates it,” argued Ansel. “She could have left town. Both she and her mama said she planned to. She skipped a grade, and she had a scholarship to some Eastern school.”
“She stayed to antagonize Macon,” Cam guessed.
“Which is why I moved to Houston,” said Macon, despite the fact that no man present really understood how serious he’d once been about Harper.
“Well, amigo—” Diego looked sympathetic “—now you’re back. And the only thing standing between you and this ranch is Harper.”
Ansel grinned. “A formidable force.”
Restless and tired of the ribbing, Macon rose, crossed the room and leaned in the door frame, staring through the screen at the rock bluffs and green hills that had given the Rock ’n’ Roll Ranch its name. He watched corralled horses grazing under the shade trees. Why can’t you just leave me alone, Harper?
When he decided to advertise in Texas Men, his motive had been purely business, but when no one wrote back, Macon had felt an unexpected void and admitted the truth to himself. He wanted a wife. He’d tried for years to get over Harper. He’d waited long enough. Didn’t he deserve to start waking in the night with someone beside him, each inch of her his for the touching? She’d had a man’s warm body beside her for sixteen years. She’d enjoyed shared morning kisses and raising a son. Hundreds of protective miles no longer lay between him and Harper, and Macon needed to have a woman with him, if only to prove to Harper that he still could.
She was thirty-three now and probably nothing like the girl he’d left behind, but physical distance and the passage of time had never deadened Macon’s feelings the way he’d hoped. Some Christmases, he’d run into her, Bruce and their son, Cordy, and every time, something inside Macon would curl up and die. He’d tighten his arm around whatever woman he happened to be entertaining, intimating plenty more was going on than there ever really was, then he’d return to Houston. Oh, he’d tried other relationships, but nothing ever panned out. He’d missed Pine Hills, too, but couldn’t live in the same town as her.
But now Bruce was dead, and Macon was here to stay.
He’d offered a quick hello in the post office before he and Harper reached a silent, mutual agreement not to exchange pleasantries. Since then, he’d wordlessly checked the mail, never venturing past the copiers in the lobby, but always aware of Harper behind the counter.
Today, she’d hung a paper clock over the counter, next to a help wanted sign, indicating she’d be gone for five minutes, so after he’d checked the empty P.O. box, Macon had given in to the impulse to glance into her work space. He’d been stunned to find Harper’s un-mailed responses to his brides. Wanting time to process how she’d been disparaging him, he’d grabbed the letters and left.
But what had possessed her? She had no right to stand between him and a woman. She’d married. As much as he liked her son, Cordy, who’d been working odd summer jobs on the Rock ’n’ Roll since around the time Bruce died, Macon still hated the fact that she’d had him by another man. Macon knew he’d satisfied her sexually but figured Bruce had offered Harper another, better kind of sharing, touching her in a way so deep she’d married him. Macon tried to ignore the words teasing the edges of his consciousness. Why couldn’t it be me, Harper? Why wouldn’t you let me break the iron grip your mama had on you?
Macon’s lips compressed. He had no choice but to confront her about the letters, but he hadn’t wanted to create a scene at the post office, since it was the gossip hub of Pine Hills, and now he wasn’t sure he could handle being inside the house she’d shared with Bruce. Being anywhere near the bed where she’d given herself to her husband made Macon as tense as he’d been years ago when he’d caught his first glimpse of her.
She’d been sixteen and headed to live with relatives in Tuscaloosa when her mama’s car broke down in Pine Hills. One thing led to another and they’d stayed. Harper’s mama got a job managing a Laundromat, where Harper spent every day after school when she wasn’t sneaking off with Macon. Now he figured there wasn’t a landmark in town where he hadn’t made out with her, in the old cemetery, the rock quarry and on the sloping banks of Star Point Lake. Even Ansel, with whom Macon had been thick as thieves since birth, didn’t know how much time he’d spent with Harper, since her mama was so strict that they’d kept their meetings as secret as possible.
Her mama had died the year before Bruce had, but Macon had never stopped hating the woman. She’d had her suspicions about what Macon and Harper were doing, and anytime she saw Macon in town, she’d pull him aside, her blue eyes narrow and fierce and her voice cracking from the Camels she chain-smoked. My baby girl’s smarter than you. She don’t need your kind. You and me know you’re just using her, trying to get the one thing boys want. But she’s got herself one of those scholarships, so the last thing she needs is you.
Macon had been young and rebellious enough that he could have told the woman what he thought of her, but he hadn’t, out of respect for Harper. In her own way, Macon guessed the woman had loved Harper. And loving Harper, at least, was something Macon understood.
But she’d turned out to be her mama’s girl all the way. She’d rebelled, but not before that twisted woman had filled her head with dire warnings about men, just because she was backward and because a man had left her when she was pregnant with Harper. The summer they were out of school, Macon begged Harper to leave home and run away with him, and she’d finally said she would.
That night, he’d waited in the truck under a canopy of trees not far from Big Grisly’s Grill, alternately peering down the road and staring into a night as starry as Harper’s eyes. Where are you? he’d thought with panic. Don’t stand me up. Don’t let your mama win.
But she had.
And then she’d married Bruce and given birth to Cordy. Now Macon lifted his gaze from the horses in the corral, realizing he’d been half admiring their dreamless ease, their thoughtless pleasure. Why couldn’t his life be that damn simple? “What?”
Diego’s black eyes narrowed. “Stewing about the widow?”
Macon shook his head. “Just hoping that new fence’ll hold.”
“Don’t let her get you down,” said Ansel. “You saw her son, Cordy, last Saturday when he came over here to help herd cattle. He’s ready to leave the nest, so Harper’s just looking for distractions. She’s like her own crazy mama, always meddling.” Ansel frowned. “Wait a minute. Back in high school, was there more going on with you and Harper than we knew about?”
Plenty. “’Course not.” Crossing to the desk, Macon stared at big block letters that stated: “Everything you read in Texas Men magazine is a lie. Here is the real Macon McCann.” Attached was a photo of a grizzled, leather-faced, bearded man three times Macon’s age. Macon held up the photograph, forcing a smile. “This guy makes Cam look pretty.”
Cam laughed. “Don’t take your love troubles out on me, son.”
“They’re not love troubles,” Macon grumbled, wishing his father would simply turn over the ranch to him. Since he wouldn’t unless Macon married, Macon had no choice but to fix things so the Texas Men respondents could write him back.
Macon snuggled his hat down on his head and after a moment’s hesitation dug in a pocket for the keys to his truck. “I reckon I’d better head over to the Moodys’,” he explained. He tried to tell himself that he no longer felt betrayed or cared that she hadn’t loved him. Things just hadn’t worked out. Still, Harper had no right to open his mail, and the words she’d written to Chantal Morris played in his mind. Hold out for the man of your dreams…. Macon McCann is not the man for you, nor would he be a good father for your—or anyone else’s—baby….
How had Harper known what kind of father he’d make? She’d never given him a chance. “Figure I’d better go over there,” he repeated gruffly. “At least give her a piece of my mind.”
“Careful that’s all you give her a piece of,” Ansel warned.
“Careful you don’t start makin’ bacon, Macon!” added Diego.
Cam cupped a hand around his ear. “You hear that sizzling sound, Diego? You smell something burning?”
“Hooee,” hooted Diego. “It’s Macon. He’s hotter ’n chili peppers on a branding iron.”
Macon set his lips grimly, bracing himself for the sparks that always flew between him and Harper. Fact was, in the old days, he and Harper’s explosive arguments had always landed them in bed—or more likely the floor, or a bed of pine needles, or the back seat of the nearest available vehicle. But it had been years since they’d shared that unbridled lust. Then, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Then, the resolution to any heated exchange was reached only one way—with her undressed and Macon hot and heavy between her legs.
But that was then, and this was now.
And now, stepping through the screen door into the scorching Texas heat, Macon assured himself he could confront her at her house without incident.
Now, everything was going to be different.
2
“HERE COMES TROUBLE,” Harper whispered, pressing her fingertips to the door screen, her heart hammering as Macon’s red pickup truck came down her tree-lined road. She never should have left her work station today to freshen up. Leave it to him to check his P.O. box while she was finger combing her hair and experimenting with eyeshadows. She hadn’t worn makeup since Bruce died, but now Macon was back in town, and she didn’t want him to think she wasn’t aging well.
This would teach her.
Earlier, she’d returned to the mail counter to find the lobby empty and Macon pushing through the door, pink stationery fisted in his hand. She’d quickly hunkered guiltily behind a display until he was out of sight.
As Macon now nosed his truck beneath the willow tree that served as her carport, Harper reminded herself that she had nothing to fear. In fact, she should take great pleasure in telling Macon the truth about why she’d written to all those women.
Macon got out of the truck and slammed the door. Pretending he wasn’t aware she was staring at him from behind the screen, he glanced around the yard, his gaze resting momentarily on an old sandbox. Harper hadn’t removed it, compelled, she supposed, by the same maternal force that made her hold on to Cordy’s craft class artwork, skateboard and first mountain bike. She watched anxiously as Macon casually assessed the house, taking in the sweeping, white-railed wraparound porch, porch swing and petunias spilling from the weathered pine flower boxes Bruce had built.
When their eyes met, her fingertips curled on the door screen as if the flat surface could provide her with support. All at once, she couldn’t think straight or breathe, and she kept trying to swallow, but she couldn’t do that, either. She wished Cordy was home, then she felt guilty for wanting to use her teenager—my and Macon’s teenager, she thought with breathless panic—to shield her from his own father. It was wishful thinking, anyway, since Cordy was gone, spending the night with his best friend.
Breathe, she coached herself as Macon approached. It should have been easy, but just like delivering Macon’s mail from all those women, it wasn’t. Besides, she was too busy worrying about the bags only she noticed under her eyes, and about how, after her thirtieth birthday, cellulite had dappled her thighs overnight while every other inch of her started leaning like the Tower of Pisa.
Macon, of course, had never looked better.
Why did he have to be the one man about whom her mama had been so right? And why did seeing him in her front yard hurt so much even after all these years? Well, no matter what, she wouldn’t allow her anger to surface. What was past was past. Besides, any show of passion around Macon—even temper—might lead them places neither was prepared to go.
It was the wrong time to remember their lovemaking had been too urgent for them to ever make it as far as a bed. Or to realize Macon had showered and changed since coming to the post office. He was wearing fresh jeans and a pressed white short-sleeved, snap-up shirt, and despite that she was bracing herself for battle, he looked even better than he did in Texas Men magazine. For the briefest second, she thought he’d changed clothes for her, then she recalled it was Friday night and Macon probably had a date. She felt a rush of temper.
He came up the porch stairs lifting off his Stetson and stopping wordlessly on the other side of the door, staring at her through the screen, his amber eyes touched with barely suppressed anger. His hair was a delicious mess, the rich gold waves rippling in early evening sunlight that slanted across the wide planks of the porch.
“Harper,” he drawled, the hard consonants of her name lost so that it might have been something else entirely, such as Apa or Happa.
“Macon,” she returned just as calmly. It was the first time she’d spoken his name aloud to him since he’d come home, and doing so did such funny things to her heartbeat that she shot an involuntary glance over her shoulder, as if Bruce was still alive and might catch her out here alone with another man. Just looking at Macon McCann made her feel that guilty.
“We need to talk, Harper.”
Thankfully, the screen was safely between her and Macon. Everything inside her was tightening as it did whenever he got this close. It would be impossible to convince herself that the heat suffusing her skin was anything other than pure lust, but she tried, assuring herself that nothing could be as brutally punishing as this god-awful Texas heat. “Talk? About…?”
“You know why I’m here.” Pulling a sheet of crumpled pink bubble-gum scented stationery from his back pocket, Macon waved it in her direction, then re-pocketed it. “Mind if I come in?”
She considered, nervously lifting a hand to smooth her hair, his penetrating glance making her conscious that she’d brushed it up into a loose topknot, just the way he liked it, leaving long stray sexy wisps curling against her neck. She’d put on a strappy white sun-dress embroidered with bluebonnets, too, which showed plenty of cleavage. Licking her lips against their sudden dryness, she assured herself she’d only dressed this way because of the heat. Blowing out a shaky sigh, she said, “No, you’d better not come in.”
Macon didn’t bother to ask why not. He knew why not. He considered the matter even longer than she had. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Okay. I guess you’re right. I’d better not.” After a moment, his eyes locked on hers with an intensity that made her shudder. “Aren’t you coming out here then?”
His perusal was sapping strength from all her joints, so she wasn’t sure she could step over the threshold if she tried. “I don’t think I’d better come out, either.”
Losing patience, he raised an eyebrow in question. “So, you’re going to stay in there, barricading the door?”
“I’m not,” she defended on a rush of pique. “But should I be barricading my door? Am I in trouble?”
Since they were nose to nose, it was definitely a good thing the screen was between them. “I’m not here to have a battle of wits, Harper.”
She couldn’t help but flash him a quick smile even though her stomach felt awfully jittery—probably from all the coffee she’d drank this morning. “Wouldn’t a battle require two people with wits, Macon?”
“As ever,” he retorted, “your tongue’s sharp as spurs.”
She couldn’t quite believe how quickly she’d lost control of the conversation, and yet her heart tugged as she thought of the letters she’d read this morning. All those women were in such trouble. “In this day and age, a woman had better be sharp,” she said pointedly.
“Especially if she’s tampering with the U.S. mail.”
“You didn’t have to come here. You could have simply called the sheriff, Macon.”
“And have you arrested? I thought of that myself, and it’s sorely tempting, but there’s more than just you to worry about. Did you think of that, Harper?”
Hearing him say her name made her heart skip a beat, but she ignored that and squinted through the screen. “Think of what?”
“Of Cordy. Your son. He’s a good kid. I’d hate to see him minus a mother, which is where he’ll be if I call the sheriff and you go to jail.”
For a second, she ceased to breathe. As far as she knew Cordy and Macon had been introduced—on the rare occasions she’d run into Macon, Cordy had sometimes been with her—but Macon had said Cordy’s name so familiarly, almost as if their relationship were personal. Knowing she should feel more relief about Macon not taking legal action, she managed to say, “You’re letting me off the hook? Don’t tell me you found a heart in Houston.”
He stared at her a long moment, his expression bemused and faintly accusatory, as if she’d somehow wronged him. “I always had a heart, Harper.”
As if she didn’t. Nervously, she scraped a thumbnail on the screen. “If you don’t intend to take any action, why’d you come over?”
