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“You have any plans for this evening?” Tate asked.
Other than dates when he was seeing someone in particular, Josh had a tendency to not make plans. He was single, his own boss—at least, when Tate wasn’t giving him orders—and he had no responsibilities outside his family. He was free to go where he wanted when he wanted. Why mess it up with plans?
But when he opened his mouth to say no as he snugged the last broken strands together to splice, the wrong words came out. “I thought I might drop by Frenchy’s—have a beer and play a game or two of pool.”
“Gee, what made me think that’s where you’d be?” Tate teased. “Must have been you telling the pretty woman it was a good place for a cold beer. Maybe a good place to have a dance or two, pick up someone like…hmm, maybe her. At least this one’s definitely past the age of consent.”
Josh scowled at him as he swung into the saddle. It would serve Tate right if Josh proved him wrong and showed up for supper tonight just like he did most other nights, then went home—alone. Though he wasn’t quite sure how his sleeping alone tonight while Tate snuggled up with his wife would prove anything.
“Why don’t you go on and start checking the fence?” Tate suggested. “I’ll take care of this, then meet you back at the house for lunch.”
Josh didn’t argue. He just nodded in agreement, then turned his gelding north. He’d lived all but the first few years of his life on this ranch, and he couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. It hadn’t been an easy life to start. Lucinda had had her hands full trying to run the ranch and raise two boys without much help from their fathers. By the time Tate had turned fifteen, he’d put in a full day at school, plus another on the ranch, and he’d still managed to find time to play football and baseball and get his girlfriend pregnant.
Josh had skipped the sports, other than a little rodeoing, and the pregnant girlfriend, thank God, but other than that, his life had been pretty much the same. It wasn’t so bad now. The days were still long, the work still hard, but their mom helped out, and when Tate’s son, Jordan, came home from college on weekends, he did more than his share. Even Natalie—the best example of a city girl Josh had ever known—was more than willing to saddle up or mend a fence when necessary.
They didn’t have the biggest spread around, but it was about as big as they could handle, and big enough to provide them with a comfortable living. They would never get rich, but, hell, that had never been a priority in their lives. Tate had wanted to be a good father to Jordan, hang on to the land, stay close to his mother and brother, and someday expand his own family, and he’d done that. Josh just wanted to maintain the status quo—live on and work the ranch, see his family every day and have a good time. He’d enjoyed the first thirty-three years of his life, and he intended to enjoy the rest of it just as much.
Though the sun was shining brightly overhead, occasionally there was a chill in the breeze as it shifted directions. October in Oklahoma couldn’t be beat anytime, anywhere, in his opinion. The hundred-degree-plus temperatures of August and often September were gone, the leaves were turning red and gold, and even the air smelled sweeter. The sky was a clear blue this morning, with only a few thin clouds that one good wind would blow into nothing but fluff, and the fragrant scent of wood smoke from the north indicated that their neighbors were burning the timber they’d bulldozed last spring.
That was a job he had to do soon—after putting it off for eight years, he’d finally cleared out some trees around his house—but he was waiting for the nights to get colder. He planned to pick some weekend when Jordan and Michaela Scott, his nephew’s best friend and their neighbor, were home from college, and the two families could get together for a wiener roast. There wasn’t much better than a cold night, a blazing fire, hot dogs, roasted marshmallows and a pretty woman.
The horse maneuvered through timber and over sandstone without much guidance from Josh, who checked the five strands of barbed wire that ran from post to post. This was a mindless job—one that he liked, of course. He was good at mindless tasks because his thoughts certainly liked to wander. For a moment he let them wander to the stranger.
Where was she from? What had brought her here? And why had she chosen their little dirt road for a drive? He was pretty sure she wasn’t visiting anyone locally—in a town like Hickory Bluff, news like that got around—and that meant she wasn’t staying locally since the nearest motel was twenty miles away in Dixon. Well, there was that old campground up at the lake—though not much of a campground and not much of a lake. Besides, she sure didn’t look the camping type. Or the small-town type. Definitely not the country type.
That left the here-for-a-day-or-two-then-gone type. Most definitely his type.
The sun was straight up in the sky when he got back to the barn. Natalie was standing at the corral fence, her arm around J.T.’s middle as he balanced on the top rail. She looked over her shoulder and smiled in greeting. Long-legged, red-haired and blue-eyed, she was exactly the sort of woman Tate had always been a sucker for. Looks aside, she was also sweet, generous, kind, and loved Jordan as if he were her own. If Josh knew his brother, he’d started falling in love with her the moment they’d met—and hell, if Tate hadn’t, maybe Josh would have.
“Hey, Uncle Josh!” With Natalie’s help, J.T. scrambled to the ground, then ran over, arms extended. Josh swung him onto his hip. “Look at me! I’m a nastronaut!”
“That’s pretty cool, J.T. Are you going off in a spaceship?”
The boy bobbed his head as he said, “Nooo, silly. This is for ’alloween. I’m jus’ pretendin’.”
“Well, good, because I’d miss you if you went off into space.”
J.T. wriggled out of his plastic spaceman’s helmet, leaving his hair standing on end. Except for the reddish tint to his hair, courtesy of his mother, he looked remarkably like Jordan had at his age—who, according to the family album, had looked remarkably like Tate. Occasionally Josh wondered if he would see the same resemblance in his kids someday…but only occasionally. Once every few years.
“What’re you gonna be for ’alloween?” J.T. asked.
Josh pretended to think about it as he walked over to the fence where Tate had joined Natalie. “How about if I go as a cowboy?”
“Uncle Josh, you are a cowboy. You gotta go as somethin’ you ain’t.”
“There’s a whole world of possibilities,” Josh murmured as J.T. made a leap into his father’s arms. “Hey, Natalie, Tate.”
“Hey, Josh,” his sister-in-law replied. “We were wondering if you’d be joining us for lunch. It’d be a shame if you missed it, considering I’ve fixed ribs, baked beans and the last of the Silver Queen corn from your mom’s freezer, along with a chocolate cake for dessert.”
As they started toward the house, J.T. hitching a ride on Tate’s shoulders, Josh slid his arm around Natalie. “You know I love your ribs—and the rest of you ain’t too bad,” he teased. “There’s not much that could drag me away from my favorite food fixed by my favorite sister-in-law.”
“How about a pretty blonde in a silver convertible?”
Josh gave both her and Tate a pitying look. “Your lives must be disgustingly boring if you find my being sociable with a stranger passing through worthy of discussion. Yes, she was blond, she was pretty, and she was driving a convertible. And she has about as much significance in my day as that hawk flying up there.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Poor old married folk.”
Natalie elbowed him for that last remark. “One of these days, Josh, you’re going to fall in love and get married, and then you’ll see what you’ve been missing.”
“Maybe…when I’ve done all there is to do, seen all there is to see, and life no longer has meaning.” Opening the screen door, he held it for them while they went inside, then followed them into a kitchen filled with incredible aromas. His mother was a decent cook, though she didn’t really like the fuss, and Jordan excelled at breakfasts and desserts, but Natalie’s every effort was outstanding, and she enjoyed it, too. The Rawlins family had never eaten so well until she came into their lives.
He washed up in the laundry room sink while Tate took J.T. to the bathroom to clean up and change out of his astronaut costume. Just as Josh reached for a towel, the doorbell rang, followed by Natalie’s call. “Can you get that, Josh?”
Cutting through the dining room, he dried his hands, then tossed the towel over one shoulder as he reached the door. The bell rang again an instant before he pulled it open. “Well, well.”
Standing there was the pretty blonde, looking uneasy and edgy. Out of the car, he could see that she was a half foot shorter than him, slender, with hints of curves in the right places. The ball cap was gone, revealing her very short hair, shorter even than his own. She wore linen trousers that were pressed and creased, a long-sleeved white shirt, open at the neck and sleeves rolled halfway to her elbows, and shoes that gave her a few inches of extra height—probably a casual look where she came from, but not in Hickory Bluff.
When she didn’t speak but continued to give him a look that was at the same time blank and startled, he leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb. “Let me guess. You were so dazzled by my charm and boyish good looks that you came back for more.”
“I…I— You—” She drew a deep breath. “I’m looking for Natalie Rawlins. Is she here?”
“Yes, she is, but trust me, darlin’, I’m more your type.” With a grin, he leaned back and called over his shoulder, “Yo, Nat, it’s for you.”
“Who is it?” Natalie called back, and he looked questioningly at the blonde.
Her mouth worked a time or two without producing a sound, then she took another of those deep breaths. “Tell her….” Pitching her voice loud enough to carry, she said, “It’s me, Natalie…Candace.”
The sound of shattering glass echoed through the house, making Candace flinch inside and out. That was not a good sign. In fact, that was a get-in-the-car-and-get-the-hell-out-of-town sign, or the next breakable might be aimed at her. She wanted nothing more than to run away, wanted it with an intensity that surprised her, but her feet wouldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything but stand there and indulge in a mild panic.
Was the flirtatious cowboy the Rawlins from whom Natalie had gotten her new name? Had Candace been thinking mildly lustful thoughts about her former friend’s husband, for heaven’s sake? And what kind of idiot was she, to think that Natalie might ever offer the remotest hint of forgiveness?
The cowboy was looking from her to the back of the house, and the grin was gone. No doubt she’d heard her last friendly word from him. Once he realized who she was, she’d be lucky if he didn’t run her out of town on a rail, or tar and feather her, or whatever they did to unwelcome varmints in these parts.
As footsteps slowly approached the door, she caught her breath. This was it. The moment she’d been anticipating, dreading, visualizing. She’d imagined it a thousand times, with every outcome possible. Nine hundred ninety-nine of them had ended badly.
Finally her feet obeyed, took a step away from the door and toward the driveway, but it was too late. The woman she’d adored, loved, envied, idolized and destroyed appeared in the doorway next to the cowboy, and she was looking at Candace with quiet loathing.
She hadn’t changed much in the five-plus years since Candace had last seen her. Her hair was still long, curling wildly, still the color of new copper, and her skin was still pale and creamy smooth. The clothes were different—faded jeans, scuffed cowboy boots, a chambray shirt—but she was still elegant. Still beautiful. And she still hated Candace.
“What do you want?”
Candace had imagined the question a hundred times and formulated as many answers. She’d been ready. But the instant Natalie had spoken, all the eloquent answers flew right out of Candace’s head. All she could do was stammer and sputter. “I…I want— I’d like—” She breathed, then exhaled the words in a rush. “Can we talk?”
“No.” Reaching past the cowboy, Natalie gripped the door and started to swing it shut.
“Please, Natalie—”
“You couldn’t possibly say anything that would interest me. Get the hell off our property and don’t—”
“Mama said a bad word!”
Candace’s gaze slid past Natalie. The other cowboy, the one who’d worked alongside the dog while the flirt flirted, came to join them, carrying a small child. Though the boy’s hair was auburn, there was no denying the resemblance between him and the man, which suggested he was Natalie’s cowboy, which meant the other wasn’t. It was a selfish thing to consider at the moment, but Candace couldn’t help it. She was relieved.
The second man slid his free arm around Natalie’s waist and hugged her close. “What’s going on, babe?”
Pale and steely-eyed, Natalie replied, “Nothing. She was just leaving.”
Candace cleared her throat. “Natalie, please… I don’t blame you for not wanting to talk to me, but please, just listen to what I came to say.”
“Listen to you lie, twist the facts and manipulate the details? I don’t think so.”
She started to close the door again, and Candace blurted out, “I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am—”
The door closed with a quiet click.
Candace stood there a long time, staring at the door. She wanted to ring the bell again and apologize for disturbing them. She wanted to climb in her car and drive as far away and as fast as she could. She wanted to beg for just a moment of Natalie’s time.
When her lungs began to burn, she finally remembered to breathe, a quick soft gasp that sounded unnervingly close to a sob. Of course it wasn’t. Candace Thompson was tough, ambitious, self-centered. She didn’t cry. She made other people do it. She had cried only twice that she could recall in the past thirty years, the first when she’d thought she was going to die the way she’d lived—alone and unloved—the second, soon after. She hadn’t been able to name a single soul who would mourn her passing, and that had sent her into mourning.
Once she forced her feet to move, she hurried down the steps, then covered the ground to the car in a dozen long strides. She didn’t glance at the house as she backed around an ancient oak, then headed down the driveway. She didn’t wonder if they watched through the blinds with relief that she was leaving.
By the time she’d reached the intersection with the first paved highway, her breathing was relatively normal. She forced her jaw to relax, then eased her two-fisted grip on the steering wheel. She’d tried and failed. End of story, right? So she could mark that goal off her list and go on to the dozens of goals that remained. Right?
Right.
With an overwhelming relief rushing over her, she checked for traffic, then pulled onto the highway. She didn’t intend to waste any time. She would contact the accommodating rental car guy and make arrangements to turn in the car this afternoon, get the RV ready and hit the road first thing in the morning. She had places to go and things to do. She had a life to live. She’d wasted most of the thirty-eight years she’d been given, but she intended to make the next thirty-eight—or however many she had left—worthwhile.
The two-lane highway led her east into Hickory Bluff. The smallest place she’d ever lived had more than 175,000 residents. She wasn’t sure if Hickory Bluff appealed to her in spite of that, or because of it. According to the sign on the edge of town, it was home to 990 two-legged residents, and probably twenty times that of the big, shaggy four-legged variety.
Nothing about the place was fancy. The buildings downtown were built mostly of native stone, and the houses on the blocks extending out from downtown were plain and functional. Most had porches, even the trailers, which weren’t gathered in a mobile home park as she’d come to expect, but were mixed in with the more permanent structures.
High school athletics seemed to be an important part of the community. The water tower was painted green and gold, with the legend Go, Wildcats! Store windows bore hand-painted cheers, pennants or bumper stickers, and a disproportionate number of the people she’d seen wore green ball caps with the Hickory Bluff High School initials embroidered in gold.
It was a rather shabby, worn, homey town, and if she were staying, she would probably be tempted to write an article about just how homey. If she were still writing.
Once she turned onto the main street, she intended to drive straight through town and to the campground. Instead, she found herself pulling into a parking space in front of Merrill’s, a store that could provide you with a driver’s license to drive to the lake, a fishing license to use while you were there, beer and sandwiches for a late lunch and ice to keep them cold. Through the window she could also see a selection of fussily hand-painted T-shirts, a display of plastic Halloween lawn ornaments and stacked-up cases of motor oil, supporting videotapes for rent. At first glance, it seemed an odd combination of goods and services, but she could remember a time when it would have met every one of her father’s needs, especially the beer.
It was hunger that had made her stop—she’d been too nervous to eat breakfast that morning—along with the desire to avoid one more solitary meal. She’d had enough of those in the past eleven months to last a lifetime.
Norma Sue’s Café was in the middle of the block and was one of only three places to eat in town. The others were the Dairy Delight, great for burgers, according to the obviously some-sort-of-relative-to-Natalie’s-husband charmer, and Pepe Chen’s Mexican and Chinese Buffet, an experience she thought she might be better off skipping.
A cowbell jangled over the café door when she went inside. A few people glanced up, and the waitress behind the counter called, “Have a seat wherever,” but that was the extent of attention. She’d expected a few more curious glances but was grateful to be wrong. She wanted to be with other people, but she didn’t necessarily want their attention. Just seeing other faces, hearing other voices, would be enough.
She’d barely settled in an empty booth when the waitress brought her iced water and a menu. She ordered a chicken salad sandwich and pop, then eyed the mile-high meringues on the pies that filled a display cabinet on the counter. She could turn down candy, ice cream and cake, but a good pie would undermine her best intentions every time. Natalie had once suggested that it was because she associated pies with easier, more innocent times—growing up, holidays, family closeness.
Candace hadn’t told her there’d been nothing easy or innocent about her childhood. There had certainly been no family closeness.
Thinking of Natalie stirred an ache in her chest. She’d known all along what the outcome of this trip would be—had known the odds against her succeeding were overwhelming. Still, someplace deep inside, she’d hoped….
If she left Hickory Bluff tomorrow, there could be no more hope.
Listlessly she pulled the legal pad from her bag. It was wrinkled, torn and stained, but the writing was still legible. To be on the safe side, she’d copied its contents into her journal, but there was something satisfying about this original with its stains, tears and doodles. That neatly written list on heavyweight pristine journal paper could well be nothing more than a someday dream, while this one was being made real, slowly but surely.
But not by giving up after one lousy failure.
She was staring at that failure—Make amends with Natalie—when a shadow fell across the paper. Expecting the waitress, she looked up with a faint smile. Seeing the handsome cowboy, she let it fade.
Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down across from her and leaned forward. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but you’re not welcome here,” he said in a low, cold voice. It was an amazing change—from the appreciative looks, the lazy drawl and the easy charm to this cold, hard hostility. And he didn’t even know her. Just think how much he could hate her if he did.
“What I’m doing is none of your business,” she said, making an enormous effort to keep her voice as well as her hands steady as she turned the legal pad facedown.
“The hell it isn’t! No one comes around here making trouble for my family without making it my business.”
“I’m not making trouble.”
“Natalie says you are. She says you’re a liar, that you’d backstab your own mother to get ahead. She says you’re dishonest, unethical and untrustworthy and that she wishes she’d never met you.”
Candace stared hard at the tabletop to stop the moisture trying to well in her eyes. No surprises there. She’d known of all the challenges and goals she’d set for herself, this would be the most impossible. Natalie wasn’t inclined to feel an ounce of forgiveness, and understandably so. If Candace were in her place, she wouldn’t feel very forgiving, either. But if she could just find it in her heart to listen—not forgive, not forget, just listen….
“Do us all a favor and get the hell out of town. If you set foot on the ranch again, we’ll have you arrested, and if you go near Natalie again, I swear to God, I’ll make you damn sorry.” He delivered his warning in a voice so fierce, with such force behind it, that she had little doubt he meant every word of it. Then he slid to his feet, almost bumping into the waitress.
“Hey, Josh, can I get you—” The waitress broke off, perplexed, to watch him walk away, then slowly shifted her suspicious gaze to Candace. Making no effort to be friendly, the woman set the dishes down with a thud, sloshing pop onto the cardboard back of the legal pad, then walked away.
So was that the kind of influence the Rawlins family held in Hickory Bluff? Candace wondered wearily as she stared at a chicken salad sandwich big enough for three. Their enemies were the town’s enemies? Was the waitress’s loyalty to Josh in particular, or was the entire town likely to turn against Candace if she stayed?
She was feeling perverse enough to find out.
Chapter Two
Supper at the Rawlinses’ house that evening was an unusually somber affair. Natalie was withdrawn, Tate concerned about her, and Josh…. Truth was, Josh was pretty much in the dark. He didn’t know exactly who Candace Thompson was—someone Natalie had once been friends with, whom she now despised, whose name couldn’t even be mentioned at the table without stony silences or, worse, an awful hurt look sliding over Natalie’s features.
But, bottom line, Josh didn’t need to know any details. Rawlinses stuck together. It was how they got through the bad times, and it made the good times that much better. He didn’t need to know what Candace had done. Natalie was family, and her enemy was the family’s enemy.
Too bad her enemy was so damn pretty.
He finished the supper dishes he’d volunteered to wash and dried his hands, then went into the living room. Tate was sitting on the couch, J.T. snoozing on his lap and Natalie curled up against him. She looked as if she were a thousand miles away, in a place too melancholy to bear.
“I…I guess I’ll head on home,” he said.
“See you in the morning,” Tate responded.
Moving closer, Josh gently ruffled J.T.’s hair, then squeezed Natalie’s hand. She didn’t lift her head from Tate’s shoulder but gave him a sad smile.
The night was chilly, making him glad he’d brought a jacket. The sky was dark and clear, the stars so bright that it seemed he could reach up and touch them. He whistled tunelessly as he crossed to his pickup, then headed home. He lived on the south end of the property, a half mile west of the road in a stand of timber. He and Tate had built the house themselves eight years ago, working in their free time. They’d had precious little of it, so the place was plain and purely functional, which suited him just fine. He didn’t spend much time there, and if he ever married and had kids, he would have to build on. Any prettying-up could be done then.
The road that ran between the two houses was little more than two ruts in the grass. Just before it entered the trees, another narrow lane angled off to the left, giving him quick access to the county road through a rickety gate. The main road went straight, then zigzagged through the trees before finally reaching the clearing where the house stood. It was a simple frame house, painted a dark rusty red. The front porch stood only a foot off the ground, so he hadn’t bothered with railings, and he generally ignored the steps centered in front. He parked at the side, stepped directly up onto the porch, then went in.
The place always seemed so quiet compared to Tate’s house—though this evening next door had been an exception. Of course, having a three-year-old in residence made a hell of a difference. It was nice to walk into Tate’s and hear laughter, chattering and singing, to smell scents like food cooking, perfume and other feminine things, to see childish and womanly touches all over.
Just as it was nice to come in here and find the quiet and privacy he expected.
