скачать книгу бесплатно
He idly wondered if his grandmother had regretted her rash marriage to his grandfather and had wished she’d made up with Megan’s grandfather. He knew his mother had never gotten over the hurt and humiliation of his father’s being with another woman when he died, the two of them alone when the sailboat went down.
Or was scuttled.
He considered the possibility. Would an examination reveal what had really happened that day in June fifteen years ago? Or would it increase the mystery?
Tongues would wag if word got out about what he was doing, or attempting to do. While the site was at the other end of the lake, his neighbor across the way might get suspicious if she saw him going that way regularly, especially since he’d need to bring a compressor and a hundred feet of hose with him if he decided there was a chance of raising the yacht.
One comforting thought—it wouldn’t be as difficult as raising the Titanic. He gave a cynical snort of laughter.
In his room, stripped and ready to climb between the sheets, he paused at the window, drawn again to the lake and the house on the hill beyond. Bathed in moonlight, the scene looked eerie and surreal, the house a gothic mansion of mystery and danger.
His body stirred as it had while he held Megan in his arms during the one dance they had shared. A horse trainer and breeder, she was slender, strong and lithe as a willow twig. The small calluses on her palms at the base of each finger said she was no stranger to work. He liked that in a person, man or woman.
Her hair was light auburn with lots of sun streaks, all acquired naturally. She had a few freckles on her nose. Her eyes were a mossy green outlined with charcoal gray, as inviting to a man as a patch of shade in a hidden glen.
Hunger pinged through him, reminding him of the feel of her in his arms—all bright warmth and feminine delight, enough to tempt a man into foolishness. He’d been surprised at the strength of the hunger she’d aroused. With an effort, he brought his thoughts and libido under control.
The expression in the verdant depths of her eyes had bothered him. Her smile had been forced. Something was definitely bothering the last single Windom cousin.
Perhaps she was jealous that Shannon had snagged Rory Daniels instead of her. After all, the vet was her business partner in the breeding program. And Rory was “drop-dead gorgeous,” according to all the women in the county.
Kyle was suddenly glad his old friend was safely married and out of the way. With a curse, he turned his back on the night scene and hurried to bed. He had no designs on Megan Windom. After all, they were mortal enemies.
That was a bit over-dramatic, but their grandfathers had definitely been enemies. He wasn’t sure what had happened between their parents; however, he was positive his father hadn’t been carrying on with another woman. It just wasn’t in the man’s makeup to be deceptive.
Or was he viewing the world through the rose-colored lens of youth? His own life had been happy and confident before the accident and underscored with bitterness and questions afterward.
What had happened that day on the lake? It was something he’d like to find out.
Megan woke to a chorus of chirrups just as the sun came over the far eastern peak. Snuggled under the comforter, she stayed in the warm bed and let her mind drift aimlessly.
No matter how warm the day, when night fell in the mountains, the temperature dropped into the chilly zone, sometimes near freezing. She’d always loved that early-morning crispness.
But today she was tired. Five hours of sleep hadn’t been enough to restore her body. Or her spirits, she admitted as a fresh wave of melancholy rolled over her.
However, Monday was a busy day. She had riding classes late that afternoon, plus the usual chores of feeding the stock and checking them over for parasites and pinkeye.
She threw the covers back. Only one way to deal with low spirits, she’d found. Get up and get busy!
After a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, cherry tomatoes and cantaloupe, she took an insulated mug of coffee to the barn with her. She was just in time.
The mare lay in the straw, her sides heaving in and out like a bellows in a blacksmith shop. Her water burst and spewed a geyser of salty fluid over the straw. The tiny hooves of the forefeet appeared.
Good. No breech birth to worry about. She wouldn’t have to call out her partner and the local vet, Rory, who was now on the first day of his honeymoon. Although he and Shannon had decided not to travel, Megan would have felt terrible about asking for help.
Everything proceeded according to nature, though, and she chuckled as a very new filly tried to get her wobbly legs to cooperate so she could find her very first meal.
Megan and the mare helped, then Megan hung her jacket on a nail and set about cleaning up. After mucking out the stall, she spread fresh straw around and tossed a scoop of oats in the bin. Mother and daughter ate, then lay down for their first nap together. Megan got all choked up.
Pulling on the coat and grabbing the mug, she went outside to check the rest of her charges. She had three horses to train for recreation riding and one to correct for bad habits, such as biting a person on the leg when anyone tried to mount him. In addition, she was working with four yearlings to prepare them for the show ring.
She pulled in a deep breath. This was the life she loved. What more could one ask for?
The answer came swiftly. Her early memories, for starters. Contentment for another. With a wry grimace, she added wealth, happiness and Prince Charming. There, that should cover everything. Where was that genie in the bottle when a gal needed him?
Across the lake, she heard the drone of an engine. Glancing that way, she watched Kyle Herriot maneuver a small powerboat onto the placid water. He sped off toward the other end of the lake. Fishing, probably.
She recalled his mother was to have left early that morning for a vacation with one of her schoolteacher friends, another widow, so Kyle was on his own, too. She idly wondered if he could cook, a task she had little patience with.
Which reminded her, she needed to make a grocery list. The last month had been given over to wedding preparations and the refrigerator had gradually filled with special dishes as the big day drew near. She’d eaten whatever was on hand and easy to fix, usually frozen entrеes heated in the microwave oven.
She checked all the horses, repaired a fence, then headed back to the house. The temperature was rising rapidly. The afternoons were hot due to a high-pressure system sitting over this part of the state. She’d welcome a thundershower to settle the dust.
After freshening up, she took off for town in the ranch wagon, a list of chores in her pocket. The first person she saw at the feed store was Kyle. His fishing expedition hadn’t lasted long.
Her insides clenched up.
She didn’t like that a bit. He neither frightened nor attracted her, so why the emotional twinge?
“Good morning,” he said when he saw her. He held open the door. No smile graced the planes and ridges of his face.
“Good morning. Did your mother get off on her trip okay?” she asked, pleased with the polite distance in her tone that gave nothing of her restless emotions away.
Her dreams had been filled with scenes she couldn’t interpret—him and her, running from something, then her running from him while ghostly figures hovered ominously on the sidelines.
“Yes, considering she was afraid the ranch would fall apart without her watchful eye on things.”
His rueful answer took her by surprise. So did the amusement in his eyes, which looked more silver than gray in the morning light.
“Mothers,” she said, smiling with genuine warmth.
He seemed to stare at her mouth for a long minute before nodding. She turned down the first aisle of the store to escape him, then rubbed her lips to see if she had egg on her face.
She yanked out her list and hurried to the huge bags of feed. She might have known—Kyle was already there. He moved over so she could make her selections.
“Who’s first?” the proprietor asked when he came to wait on them.
“He was.”
“She was.”
Megan glanced at Kyle in annoyance. “He was,” she said firmly.
He shrugged. “I’m getting a hundred pounds of the special mix. I can handle it.”
Megan watched him hoist a bag of feed as if it weighed no more than a five-pound bag of sugar. Muscles rippled in his arms and shoulders while others bunched in his thighs as he rose and slung the bag over his shoulder in one smooth movement. The owner dumped her order onto a wheelbarrow with a grunt, then headed out to her vehicle.
She gathered the rest of the ranch items on her list and went to the cash register. Kyle was there, asking about an air compressor. The store rented equipment to the locals as well as supplying them with crop seeds, stock feed and various medicines and liniments.
“You two have got to quit meeting this way,” the owner told them, laughing heartily at his joke.
Megan’s smile was automatic, but her heart went into fast mode as she glanced at her enemy. His gaze locked on her mouth again and she recalled the way his eyes had roamed her face while they danced last night. His expression had been cold, but there had been something in those silvery depths….
Right. Dislike and suspicion.
She licked her lips and turned to Harry, glad to finish her business and get out of the store. After having her hair trimmed, she did the grocery shopping. By then, it was time for lunch. A meal at the local diner was the one treat she allowed herself when she had to come to town.
By rushing, she got a table just before a busload of senior citizens tramped inside. She watched them settle in, asking questions about the cooking methods of various dishes and the fat content, then ordering hamburgers and fries. The waitress, who had worked there just about forever, was the soul of patience, but she winked at Megan as she pivoted toward the pass-through to the kitchen.
Watching a frail old man, who looked to be around ninety, help his equally fragile wife to a seat, Megan wondered what memories they shared, the births and deaths, the unexpected joys, the deep sorrows—
“You expecting anyone?” a male voice asked.
She stared up at Kyle.
“Okay if I join you? The place seems to be full.”
“Oh. Yes, that’s fine.”
He removed his Stetson and hung it on the back of a chair before taking a seat opposite her. He checked out the lunch special listed on the chalk-board. “You ordered?”
“Not yet. I’m going for the special.”
The waitress came over and plopped down two glasses of water from a tray. “You know what you want?”
“The special with iced tea. Cornbread instead of dinner rolls,” he said after she ordered the same thing but with the homemade yeast rolls.
“Got it.” The waitress hurried off.
Their table was an island of silence surrounded by a sea of babble, Megan realized. No conversational tidbits came to mind.
He had no such problem. “It’s going to be hot this afternoon. Again.”
“Yes.” She recalled the store. “You must have plans for some hard work.”
Kyle looked a question at her. He watched the way the light picked out the red-gold tones of her hair and glistened like dew on her lips, which were outlined in a subtle color, then filled in with gloss.
She pressed her lips together.
“Sorry,” he said, not meaning it. If he made her uncomfortable, tough.
“For what?” She looked truly perplexed.
“For staring. You have a tempting mouth.”
He heard the hardness in his voice, but also the huskiness, the lover-like intonations. The tightening in his gut served as a warning; there was an attraction here…and it wasn’t all on his side. There was awareness in her eyes, too. It made him angry, this unexpected hunger that throbbed in him.
What the hell was it about the Windom women that proved so irresistible to the Herriot men?
She ignored his statement. Looking straight at him as if he hadn’t mentioned her mouth at all, she said, “But then, ranches always have lots of hard chores, don’t they?”
“Usually,” he agreed.
“Did you catch any fish this morning? You were out on the lake. I saw you,” she added at his sharp look.
“Are you keeping track of my comings and goings?”
“Hardly. I was outside. I heard the motor. Sound carries across water.”
He debated telling her what the compressor was for. The wreckage was on her side of the lake. Each landholder owned a section of the water that bordered their place. The Windoms, with the longest stretch along the waterfront, laid claim to the largest portion. But what he did was none of her business, he decided.
“No, no fish.”
“That’s too bad.”
“I enjoyed the ride,” he said, keeping his tone casual while he wondered if she’d seen where he went.
“My father always said that, too. He said sometimes catching a fish was an annoyance when all he wanted to do was relax and not have to work.”
Her laughter was unexpected, a gift like a perfect sunset after a hot, tiring day. It spiraled around inside him, then dipped into a secret, sensitive place.
Forcing his way past the strange sensations, he reminded himself it was her mother who had lured his father to his death. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but he would find out. He’d bring the sailboat up and maybe discover the truth….
The light in her eyes died. He watched her chest lift and drop in a sigh as the laughter faded.
“You’re sad again,” he said, feeling it in that secret place, “the way you were last night.”
Her hand jerked, splashing several drops of water on the table as she lifted her glass. “I’ve been thinking about the past. I don’t remember—”
She stopped abruptly, her eyes darting to his, then away. He recalled adults whispering about the tragedy and shutting up when he came near. The sheriff had questioned him, of course, but he really hadn’t known anything, except that he was the last person to see his father and Megan’s mother alive.
For a second, he felt as he had last night when tears had suddenly filled her eyes, as if he needed to protect her. He wanted to gather her close and dispel the lost look in those beautiful eyes. He wanted to know this lovely, complex woman in a way he hadn’t other females. Odd.
“You don’t remember what?” he questioned.
“Anything. Nothing of my past before my mother’s funeral.”
He’d heard the rumors about her amnesia. If that’s what it was. “Does your uncle know about this?”
“Of course.”
“It isn’t generally known.”
“My grandfather ordered my cousins and me not to discuss the incident with anyone.”
“Did you and your father talk about it?”
“Some. Later. He told me not to worry about my memory, that losing my mother was a traumatic experience, and I shouldn’t be surprised that my mind had blocked it out.”
