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“I’m not sure I can offer excitement this early in the morning,” Grant said, appearing suddenly from the shadows of the dining room, where it led into the kitchen. “Frankly, it took me half an hour to manage coffee. Want some?”
“Grant!” Crimson frowned. “What on earth are you doing awake?”
He couldn’t have slept more than two hours. If that. They’d decided not to leave Molly with Marianne, who had the restaurant to handle and needed rest. But by the time they’d picked up the baby, and stopped by Crimson’s apartment to grab a toothbrush and a change of clothes, and driven back to Grant’s place, it had been nearly 3:00 a.m.
“Did Molly wake you? I tried to keep her quiet, but—”
“No. I haven’t even been upstairs.” He turned and led the way into the kitchen, talking as he walked. “Too much to do.”
She watched him move away. He was limping more than he had last night. Shifting Molly to her other shoulder, she followed him into the kitchen.
“Tell me what needs to be done, and I’ll take care of it. You need to get off that foot, and you need sleep. You look awful.”
He turned, raising one eyebrow and giving her a small smile. “Gee. Thanks.”
She refused to smile back. He’d been born gorgeous, and he knew it, but she wasn’t kidding. He looked done in. His thick, brown hair fell onto his forehead in unkempt waves. Dark blue shadows sat like bruises below his heavy-lidded eyes. His skin, which ordinarily glowed, bronzed by the hours outside, looked oddly sallow. His full lips seemed to have thinned from pain.
“You look terrible,” she repeated.
“Oh, well.” Tilting his head, he let his gaze quickly scan her from head to toe. He brought his coffee mug up for a quick sip to hide his smile. “Obviously we can’t all be as splendid first thing in the morning as you are.”
Aw, crud. Belatedly, she remembered she hadn’t even run her fingers through her hair when she got up with the baby. Last year, she’d cut her hair in edgy, red-tipped spikes, and growing that stupid style out was an ordeal. If she didn’t slick it down, it stuck out all over like a sick peacock in molting season.
And then there was the sexless gray bathrobe, which still hung over one shoulder, half on, half off, and dragged on the ground behind her.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t expect to find anyone down here,” she said brusquely. It annoyed her to realize she was embarrassed. What did she care how bad she looked? If he’d wanted eye candy, he should have stuck with Ginny, whose magic mascara probably never gave her raccoon eyes if she forgot to take it off.
She felt around behind her, blindly rooting for the other side of the robe so she could at least cover herself up. It was probably obvious she wasn’t wearing anything underneath this ugly cotton nightshirt.
With a small chuckle, Grant set down his coffee cup. Reaching his good hand around to help her, he lifted the terry cloth and guided the opening of the sleeve toward her fingers. When that was on, he tugged the robe up over her shoulders and tucked the edge under the other side, while she held Molly out of the way.
He grabbed the short end of the fuzzy belt and slid it through its loopholes to pull it even.
“You’ll have to tie it, I’m afraid.” He smiled. “I’m already discovering how many things I can’t do with one hand. Making a bow is one of them.”
“Thanks,” she said awkwardly. He was still holding the edge of the sash, and Crimson’s skin prickled with an odd awareness. When he’d brushed her breast, she’d felt it like a burn. She needed to remember not to come down half-dressed ever again. Clearly it made her way too sensitized and silly.
As if he understood, he dropped the sash and instead put his palm over the crown of the baby’s head and softly stroked the carroty hair.
“Hey, cutie,” he said. “You look sleepy, too. How about a nap, so Auntie Red can get a little more shut-eye?”
Molly seemed to love the touch of his big, gentle hand, and she clearly recognized the name “Auntie Red.” Kevin had given it to her when they first started dating.
The baby sank against Crimson’s shoulder with a contented chirp. She nuzzled her collarbone for a second or two, and then she shut her eyes and went instantly limp with sleep.
Grant smiled, and their gazes met over the baby’s head. Crimson shook her head slightly, a mute acknowledgment of the irony. She’d tried for an hour to accomplish what he’d been able to do with one touch.
“It’s a guy thing,” he whispered, but his eyes were teasing.
She ought to take Molly upstairs right now, ease her into the crib and grab a little more sleep. And yet she felt oddly fixed in place.
After the hell of yesterday, there was something so intensely intimate and good about this moment. The kitchen was fresh and pink with dawn light. The coffee gave the rain-freshened air a homey flavor. The warm infant in her arms smelled like baby powder, soap and everything simple and sweet.
“Thank you, Crimson,” Grant said, his voice quietly solemn. He rarely used her real name, which he knew she didn’t like. But it sounded oddly feminine and lovely now. “Thank you for being here. For being willing to help.”
Crimson started to protest automatically—it was nothing, she was glad to do it, she adored Molly, she’d do anything for Grant...
But as she gazed into his eyes, she felt a strange shift, as if she’d momentarily lost her balance. When she centered herself again, she felt different. The whole room felt different.
He blinked and frowned slightly, as if the same tremor had just run through him, too. His beautiful brown eyes, flecked with gold, were just as shadowed and tired as ever, but they suddenly held a new gleam. When he gazed down at her, it was as if he could see beyond the surface, beneath the skin, down to something very private. Something no one else could see.
She’d do anything for Grant...
Heat shot to her cheeks as a jolt of electricity moved through her midsection. Confused and deeply embarrassed, she fought the feeling. This was ridiculous. She must be imagining it. She and Grant...they weren’t like this. They weren’t lovers. They hadn’t ever even considered it. They didn’t even flirt.
They were just friends.
And yet, she didn’t seem to be able to pull her gaze from his, and she was tingling all over...
“It’s nothing,” she said, desperately clutching at the pat phrases. “Really. I’m glad to help. It’s nothing.”
She backed off a clumsy step or two, ignoring the way her robe slid open again, exposing her bare legs and the outline of her breast. If he dropped his gaze, he would see what these invisible shivers had done to her...
But he didn’t look down. The minute she began to move, he turned away.
“Better get some sleep while you can,” he said briskly. “I’m trying to line up more help. I’ll let you know what I can get.”
And then, as if the electricity that arced between them had never happened, as if she had imagined it, he turned back to the counter where the coffee was brewing. He was pouring himself another cup when his cell phone rang.
“Get some sleep, Red,” he said again. He smiled casually at her over his shoulder as he answered his phone. “Olson...thank God. Did you catch up with Barley? I’m going to be useless for weeks. Can he be here by ten?”
* * *
THESE DAYS, WHEN the alarm on Rory’s cell phone went off at 6:00 a.m., Becky pretended to sleep through it. She used to get up with him, eager to be supportive and “wifely.” But she’d quickly learned he wasn’t a morning person. He didn’t eat breakfast, hated to make small talk before the coffee kicked in and was always running late, anyway.
Besides, their apartment was too small, and no matter how careful she was, she always seemed to be standing right where he needed to be. If she asked him questions like “When do you think you’ll be home?” he’d get that cold, contemptuous look. He’d sigh and repeat very slowly, “What did I tell you the last ten times you asked?”
I don’t know when I’ll be home, Becky. Remember? It depended on how many cars there were to fix, and how hard the problems were to diagnose, how long the supplier took to deliver the parts, how obnoxious the customers acted or how lazy the other mechanics were when it came time to clean up the bays.
Of course she remembered all that. She was just making conversation. It felt weird to watch him shave and gargle, drag on his underwear, guzzle milk from the carton and pee with the bathroom door open...all without saying a word.
It hadn’t always been like this. When she’d first moved in, he’d usually been horny in the mornings. When his alarm went off, he’d hit the snooze button, and then he’d reach over and shove her nightgown up around her waist with a quick jerk that was supposed to be a joke. She slept on her side, so he’d angle her hips and take her in a spoon position, sometimes before she was even fully awake.
He’d always be finished long before the alarm went off again.
Funny. She could remember when she’d found that kind of primitive dominance weirdly thrilling. It had seemed manly. Simple, earthy and real. Maybe it wasn’t technically satisfying, in that she never...well, it never made her...
But it had turned her on, even so. It made her feel female and desirable. It had made her feel alive, as she had never felt alive in the mansion on Callahan Circle.
But Rory hadn’t touched her in the morning for weeks. They still had sex, of course, but mostly at night, after he got home from work. He’d shower first, naturally. He hated the stink of the shop. All through dinner, he’d bitch about the customers and the other mechanics, and Joe, the owner. He’d keep up a running monologue as he wolfed the food down, even when she’d made something really complicated and special for him as a treat.
And when he was finished eating and complaining, he’d want to have sex. Lately, she’d stopped even thinking of it as “making love.” It was just sex. Just a way to let off steam, like eating or complaining.
She knew what this change in him meant. It meant he was terribly, terribly unhappy. He hated his job. He hated his poverty, this apartment, the fact that her father had disowned her for moving in with a blue-collar loser like him.
What she didn’t know was what to do about it. She didn’t know how to make him happy again.
She listened to him moving around the small apartment now, mentally following the routine, gauging how long till he would be gone. She had to pee, too, but she didn’t want to risk tying up the bathroom at the very moment he needed it.
He was in a superbad mood today, she could tell. His steps were heavy on the uncarpeted floors, and he made a big to-do of trying to find a clean spoon for his coffee in the silverware drawer. She wondered whether, at least subconsciously, he wanted to wake her, specifically so they could have a fight.
He resented that she only had a part-time job at Fanny Bronson’s bookshop and didn’t have to get up as early as he did. He was always telling her she needed to look harder for something full-time, or at least another part-time gig.
He was running late. She could tell by how rushed his movements were. Too rushed. Suddenly she heard his coffee mug hit the kitchen floor. The ceramic splintered on the wood like a china bomb.
He cussed loudly, using the F word, which he once had kept off-limits, around her, anyhow.
“I don’t have time for this shit,” she heard him say. She did not hear the sound of the broom closet opening, or the swish of bristles across the floor or the clink of broken pieces collecting in the dustpan.
She merely heard the cabinet open, the trickle of coffee filling a new mug, and then Rory slamming the pot back on the stove with undisguised hostility. As if she, not he, had broken the first mug.
Becky wondered whether she could get away with feigning sleep any longer—even the dead couldn’t sleep through all this—but she didn’t have the courage to open her eyes.
She heard him stomp to the bedroom door. He stood there a minute, and she knew he was staring at her. She tried to breathe regularly, but her lungs felt like iron. And she wasn’t sure what her real-sleep breathing sounded like. Was it fast? Slow? Noisy? Did she snore? She ought to record herself sometime, she thought numbly, so she could imitate it more accurately.
After what seemed an eternity, he cursed again, smacked the door frame with the palm of his hand and left the apartment. Even then, she didn’t get up. She waited until she heard his truck rumble to life in the parking lot outside their window. When he turned the corner onto Cimarron Street, and its sputtering sound died away, she finally pushed back the covers and stood.
Her legs were oddly unsteady, and her stomach felt loose and unpleasant, as if she’d swallowed a gallon of dirty water. She put her hand over her navel, hoping to might stop the sudden surge of nausea.
Was she coming down with stomach flu?
She hoped not. Fanny was a good boss, but she didn’t offer sick leave to her part-timers, and Becky needed the money. She’d sold a gold chain last week to cover her half of the rent, and she didn’t have much more of her good jewelry with her at the apartment.
She’d left most of it back at the Callahan House on purpose. To make a statement. To show her father she didn’t give a damn about his money. She didn’t need it. Where she was going, the currency was love.
Her father had laughed. “Let’s see how much he loves you when you’re not decked out in diamonds and gold.”
How sad, how indescribably sad, to discover her father was right, after all. It wasn’t that Rory didn’t love her unless she had money—it was just that nothing could bloom in an atmosphere of this much stress and financial worry. Not even love. Nothing could go right at home when a man spent all day at a job he hated, with people who didn’t value him.
After she used the bathroom, her stomach felt a little more settled, so she cleaned up the broken mug, made the bed and took a shower. She still felt light-headed, but not actually ill, so she decided not to call in until she tried having some breakfast.
But when she sat down at the kitchen table and ate her first spoonful of cereal, she suddenly doubled over with nausea. She rose blindly, knowing she would never make it to the bathroom. She turned toward the sink.
And vomited.
She stood there many minutes afterward, shaking strangely, her elbows pressing against the cold stainless steel. She stared into the sink. She’d had nothing in her, really, so nothing much had come up except greenish bile that had slipped right down the silver drain.
At the thought, her stomach turned again. Helplessly, she retched, desperately trying to gather her long hair and keep it from falling into her face. Again, nothing came up except a thin, sickly stream of water.
So it couldn’t be anything she’d eaten. What was it? Was it nerves? Was it Rory?
Bowing her head, she made a small sobbing sound. She felt confused and weak, as if she wanted to curl up on the floor and cry for her mommy. But she hadn’t had a mother since she was eight years old. And she hadn’t had much of one, even before that.
“Jesus, what the hell is this?” Rory’s voice was suddenly right behind her. “Don’t you have to be at work in half an hour?”
She let her hair drop from numb fingers. She whirled around to face him, too shocked to take offense at his tone. What was he doing home? He should be at the garage, shouldn’t he?
“I...I’m not feeling that great,” she stammered. “I was thinking I might call in sick.”
“Oh, yeah?” His handsome face looked menacing, suffused with dark, angry blood. He strode to the sink and caught her by the arm. His fingers were so tight she swore she felt them reach her bone.
“Well, you better think again. You’re going in no matter how you feel. We need that money. Especially now.”
She swallowed. Her mouth felt sour and unclean. “Why especially now?”
“Because only one of us can sit around in our pj’s eating bonbons, princess, and it’s my turn now. That bastard Joe Mooney just fired me.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_99581d82-1f56-595b-8a0f-f6d8b28c97c7)
“YOU KNOW ABOUT this horse, I guess.”
Dusty Barley, the crusty old trainer who had answered Campbell Ranch’s call for help the other day, shot a quick glance at Grant, who was watching the halter training from just outside the paddock fence.
“Know what?” Grant was definitely interested in Barley’s opinion. Cawdor’s Gilded Dawn was the horse he hoped to sell to his deep-pocket buyer Monday night. Grant thought the three-year-old filly was fabulous, but if she had a defect he needed to know about it now.
“Ah, well, yep, of course you know.” Barley always talked softly, as if he were thinking aloud, which maybe he was. He also sounded as if he had a mouth full of gravel, probably the result of his crowded and crisscrossed teeth. “But I still gotta say it. This one’s gonna be special, Campbell.”
Grant held back a sigh, watching as the copper filly flicked her beautifully elevated tail. As Barley prompted her to step to the right, her muscular hips caught the sunlight, gleaming as if she truly were made of gold.
Barley was right, of course. Barley was always right. That’s why Grant couldn’t afford him at Campbell Ranch, not full-time. It had been a small miracle he’d been able to get him on such short notice Wednesday—and hold on to him for three whole days now.
“So...I’m just saying.” Barley kept his voice steady as he moved around the young filly, careful not to spook her. “You sure you don’t want to keep this one?”
“I never said that.” Grant leaned on the post, taking the weight off his bad foot. The grass was soft, but right now it felt harder than concrete. “I just said I’ve got a buyer coming from California to look at her.”
“Yep.” Phlegmatic as ever, the older man put the crop close to the young filly’s nose. She didn’t flinch. “Good girl. Good girl. Still. This one’s got star quality. Look at that neck.”
Grant didn’t answer. Truth was, he was 100 percent sure he did want to keep her. But he was 99.9 percent sure he couldn’t afford to.
She would have been perfect, though. If he was going to maintain a breeding program, and not just a boarding and training stable, he needed a foundation mare. Up to now, Charisma Creek had been his dam, but she was reaching the end of her breeding years.
If Campbell Ranch was going to make a name for itself, Grant needed a champion maker, a consistent producer with a good bloodline. And he needed her soon.
Dawn could be that mare.
Though she was very young, she already had the most extraordinary elegance—a high, airy motion and impeccable conformation. She had a swan-like neck, a flat topline, a perfectly dished head. Her eyes were soulful and intelligent.
Plus, as Barley pointed out, she had that indefinable something that made a star. Everyone fell in love with her. The best Arabians were as pretty in the face as cartoon horses, as powerful in carriage as thunderbolts and as graceful in motion as water. Dawn was all of that...and then some.
