Emmett

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Melody clasped her hands in her lap and stared at them. “She said that she married you because you were kind and gentle and obviously cared about her so much,” she told him, because only honesty would do. “When she met Randy, at the service station where she had her car worked on and bought gas, she tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, that she wasn’t falling in love. But she was too weak to stop it. I’m not excusing what she did, Emmett,” she said when he looked haunted. “There should have been a kinder way. And I should have said no when Randy asked me to help them get away. But nothing will change what happened. She really does love him. There’s no way to get around that.”

“I see.”

He looked grim. She hated the wounded expression on his lean face.

“Emmett,” she said gently, “you have to believe it wasn’t because of you personally. She fell in love, really in love. The biggest mistake she made was marrying you when she didn’t love you properly.”

“Do you know what that is?” he asked with a bitter smile. “Loving ‘properly’?”

“Well, not really,” she said. “I haven’t ever been in love.” That was true enough. She’d had crushes on movie stars, and once she’d had a crush on a boy back in San Antonio. But that had been a very lukewarm relationship and the boy had gone crazy over a cheerleader who was more willing in the backseat of his car than Melody had been.

“Why?” he asked curiously.

She sighed. “You must have noticed that I’m oversized and not very attractive,” she said with a wistful smile.

He frowned. “Aren’t you? Who says?”

Color came and went in her cheeks. “Well, no one, but I…”

It disturbed him that he’d said such a thing to her, when she’d been the enemy since Randy had spirited Adell away. “Have the kids given you any trouble?”

“Just Guy,” she replied after a minute. “He doesn’t like me.”

“He doesn’t like anybody except me,” he said easily. “He’s the most insecure of the three.”

She nodded. “Amy and Polk are very sweet.”

“Adell spoiled them. She favored Guy, although he took it the best of the three when she left. I think he loved her, but he never talks about her.”

“He’s a very private person, isn’t he? Divorce must be hard on everyone,” she replied. “My parents loved each other for thirty years—until they died. There was never any question of them getting a divorce or separating. They were happy. So were we. It was a blow when we lost them. Randy wound up being part brother and part parent to me. I was still in school.”

“That explains why you were so close, I suppose.” He cocked his head and studied her. “How did they die?”

“In a freak accident,” she said sadly. “My mother was in very bad health—a semi-invalid. She had what Dad thought was a light heart attack. He got her into the car and was speeding, trying to get her to the hospital. He lost control in a curve and wrecked the car. They both died.” She averted her eyes. “There was an oil slick on the road that he didn’t see, and a light rain…just enough to bring the oil to the surface. Randy and I blamed ourselves for not insisting that Dad call an ambulance instead of trying to drive her to the emergency room himself. To this day I hate rain.”

“I’m sorry,” he said kindly. “I lost my parents several years apart, but it was pretty rough just the same. Especially my mother.” He was silent for a moment. “She killed herself. Dad had only been dead six months when she was diagnosed with leukemia. She refused treatment, went home and took a handful of barbiturates that they’d given her for pain. I was in my last few weeks of college before graduation. I hadn’t started until I was nineteen, so I was late getting out. It was pretty rough, passing my finals after the funeral,” he added with a rough laugh.

“I can only imagine,” she said sympathetically.

“I’d already been running the ranch and going to school as a commuting student. That’s where I met Adell, at college. She was sympathetic and I was so torn up inside. I just wanted to get married and have kids and not be alone anymore.” He shrugged. “I thought marriage would ease the pain. It didn’t. Nobody cares like your parents do. When they die, you’re alone. Except, maybe, if you’ve got kids,” he added thoughtfully, and realized that he hadn’t really paid enough attention to his own kids. He frowned. He’d avoided them since Adell left. Rodeo and ranch work had pretty much replaced parenting with him. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it until he got hit in the head.

“Do you have brothers or sisters?” Melody asked unexpectedly. She hadn’t ever had occasion to question his background. Now, suddenly, she was curious about it.

“No,” he said. “I had a sister, they said, but she died a few weeks after she was born. There was just me. My dad was a rodeo star. He taught me everything I know.”

“He must have been good at it.”

“So am I, when I’m not distracted. There was a little commotion before my ride. I wasn’t paying attention and it was almost fatal.”

“The kids would have missed you.”

“Maybe Guy would have, although he’s pretty solitary most of the time,” he replied. His eyes narrowed. “Amy and Polk seem very happy to stay with anybody.”

So the truce was over. She stared at him. “They probably were half-starved for a little of the attention you give rodeoing,” she returned abruptly. “You seem to spend your life avoiding your own children.”

“You’re outspoken,” he said angrily.

“So are you.”

His green eyes narrowed. “Not very worldly, though.”

She wouldn’t blush, she wouldn’t blush, she wouldn’t…!

“The eggs are getting cold,” she reminded him.

The color in her face was noticeable now, but she was a trouper. He admired her attempt at subterfuge, even as he felt himself tensing with faint pleasure at her naiveté. Her obvious innocence excited him. “I have to make a living,” he said, feeling oddly defensive. “Rodeo is what I do best, and it’s profitable.”

“Your cousin mentioned that the ranch is profitable, too.”

“Only if it gets a boost in lean times from other capital, and times are pretty lean right now,” he said shortly. “It’s the kids’ legacy. I can’t afford to lose it.”

“Yes, but there are other ways of making money besides rodeo. You must know a lot about how to manage cattle and horses and accounts.”

“I do. But I like working for myself.”

She stared pointedly at his head. “Yes, I can see how successful you are at it. Head not hurting this morning?”

“I haven’t taken a fall that bad before,” he muttered.

“You’re getting older, though.”

“Older! My God, I’m only in my thirties!”

“Emmett, you’re so loud!” Amy protested sleepily from deep in her blankets.

“Sorry, honey,” he said automatically. His green eyes narrowed and glittered on Melody. “I can ride as well as I ever did!”

“Am I arguing?” she asked in mock surprise.

He got up from his chair and towered over her. “Nobody tells me what to do.”

“I wasn’t,” she replied pleasantly. “But when those kids reach their teens, do you really think anyone’s going to be able to manage them? And what if something happens to you? What will become of them?”

She was asking questions he didn’t like. He’d already started to ask them himself. He didn’t like that, either. He went off toward the bedroom to call the boys and didn’t say another word.

Melody worried at her own forwardness in mentioning such things to him. It was none of her business, but she was fond of Amy and Polk. Guy was a trial, but he was intelligent and he had grit. They were good kids. If Emmett woke up in time to take proper care of them, they’d be good adults. But they were heading for trouble without supervision.

Emmett came back wearing a checked shirt and black boots. Being fully dressed made him feel better armored to talk to Miss Bossy in the kitchen.

“They’re getting up,” he muttered, sitting.

“I’ll warm everything when they get in here.” She busied herself washing the dishes and cleaning the sink until the boys came out of her room, dressed. Then she escaped into the bedroom and closed the door. Emmett’s stare had been provokingly intimate. She’d felt undressed in front of those knowing eyes and she wondered why he had suddenly become so disturbing to her.

Seeing him without his clothes had kindled something unfamiliar in her. She’d never been curious about men that way, even if she did daydream about love and marriage. But Emmett’s powerful shoulders and hair-roughened chest and flat stomach and long, muscular legs, along with his blatant masculinity, stuck in her mind like a vivid oil painting that she couldn’t cover up. He hadn’t even had a white streak across his hips. That was oddly sensual. If he sunbathed, he must do it as he slept: without anything on. He looked very much like one of those marble statues she’d seen photographs of, but he was even more thrilling to look at. She reproached herself for that thought.