A Love to Call Her Own (5 page)

They just looked at each other for another moment. She'd never been the sort to find herself at a loss for words, especially with men, but that was exactly where she was now. They'd already discussed weather—how lame was that? If he would just go on his way…

He nodded in her direction. “What are you hiding there?”

She blinked before remembering the camera. She held it up, then lowered both arms to her sides. She'd been more comfortable, she immediately realized, with them crossed. “I didn't want it to get dusty.”

“You like taking pictures of scrub and weeds?”

“No, I was photographing the wildflowers—” Realizing they probably were weeds to a rancher, she broke off. “Actually, I stopped to take pictures of the cows over there. The one in front is a pretty girl. She liked posing for the camera.”

He glanced to the right, and this time it was obvious he was controlling a smile. She hadn't yet seen him smile, but she would bet it was worth preserving with a close-up glossy. “Don't tell his owners. They paid good money for the calves they're going to get from him.”

She was coming off lame and dumb. Heat crept up her neck and into her face, but she managed a careless shrug. “What do I know? Once you put them in little foam containers, they all look alike.”

“Supermarket beef.” He gave a shake of his head. “I haven't eaten beef from a grocery store in…well, ever that I can recall.”

“Yeah, well, I haven't butchered something I've raised since birth and served it up for dinner.”

“That's the way of the world. Sometimes you eat. Sometimes you get eaten.”

Halfheartedly she looked for another vehicle so he would have to move on, but it wasn't likely. She'd driven the country roads around Tallgrass for hours and learned that two cars constituted heavy traffic. Anyway, somewhere inside, a small traitorous part of her was sort of enjoying the conversation, though she wasn't sure how that could be. How many times had she hoped never to see him again? How many times had she thought it would be best if they could treat each other as complete strangers? How often had she desperately wished they'd never met?

Not as often as she should have. Yeah, she'd been shameless. Yeah, he'd seen her obnoxious, drunk, and naked. Yeah, he'd had obvious regrets, and she did, too.

But there was something about Dalton Smith…

“You like Herefords?”

It wasn't the smoothest question a man could ask a woman, Dalton acknowledged, but it wasn't just his people skills that had grown rusty over the years. Hell, when the only creatures he talked to five out of seven days a week had four legs, it was easy to get out of practice with the art of conversation.

Jessy blinked those emerald green eyes once before glancing at the “pretty cow” in the pasture. “Is that what the red-and-white ones are?”

“Yeah.”

“They're pretty.”

Pretty tasty, too.
He kept that to himself. “You ever seen a Belted Galloway?”

She shifted her weight from foot to foot. “Since I don't have a clue what it is, I'm gonna say no.”

Maybe cows weren't the best topic of conversation, but it was a subject he could discuss, apparently, with anyone. Even a delicate little city girl who couldn't tell a bull from a heifer. “It's a breed of cattle. Mostly black with a white band around the middle, though I know a guy who has a few red-and-white ones. That's what I raise, them and palominos.”

He'd swear her ears literally perked up. “You raise horses?”

“Yeah. The girls are very pretty. You can—” Realizing what he'd been about to say, he clamped his jaw shut. Invite her to his house? Just because he'd had that thought last night about getting back to a normal life? Because she'd gotten under his skin in that one afternoon and made him remember what it felt like to be alive?

Because she was the only woman he'd thought twice about since Sandra. And yeah, because she'd gotten under his skin that afternoon.

She was watching him warily, her eyes shadowed, reminding him that he hadn't treated her the way he'd been taught to treat women. He'd walked out on her while she slept, pretended not to know her, been rude. It was only the last time they'd been together, sharing a table at Bubba's, that he'd behaved in a way that wouldn't have made his mother smack him.

With a growl from his stomach, he glanced at the dashboard clock. He'd intended to get a hamburger in town before making stops at the post office and the feed store. But he wasn't completely out of anything vital, and the bills he was mailing could wait another day, and Jessy was silent, watching and waiting, and…

He drew a breath, then blurted out, “My ranch is a few miles east. You want to see the animals and—” He removed his Stetson, ran his fingers through his hair, then reseated it. “And maybe have a sandwich or something?”

It was the hardest question he'd asked in a long time.

She was quiet a long time, then a shaky smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “Okay, um, sure,” she said, avoiding his gaze, her fingers clasping, then loosening on the camera. She actually managed to come off as shy—a trait he never would have imagined in the smoking-hot sexy redhead he'd met two months ago. “I'll follow you.”

As she pivoted to walk to her car, Dalton pulled into what was left of the Jefferson driveway, backed out again, and started slowly toward home.

In four years, he'd never invited anyone to the house, and now twice in two months he'd done just that—first with Dane Clark, a soldier from Fort Murphy who had a soft spot for palominos, and now Jessy. Not only would she still have a hold on his brain, now she would be leaving memories of herself in his house, with his animals, on his property.

Though it had worked out with Dane, the first friend Dalton had made since high school, having Jessy there could be a step forward with reclaiming his life…or two steps back.

He kept his speed down to minimize the dust, and Jessy stayed far enough back to avoid the worst of it. When he turned into his driveway, dirt so hard-packed it took a fully loaded stock truck to raise a particle of dust, she closed the distance, parking a half beat after him under the oak.

Inside the house, Oz barked, his face popping up at one window, then another, ears perked and yelps increasing with frustration that he couldn't get to their visitor. “I have to let Oz meet you before he takes out the front door. You want to eat first?”

Jessy hesitated, camera strap and purse strap over one shoulder, arms across her middle. “Yeah, sure. I skipped breakfast.”

She walked to the house with him, but her head was constantly moving, gaze sliding over the structures, the fences, the pastures, the horses, the wood swing, the honeysuckle gone wild where the old well house had finally collapsed, taking note of everything as if she found it all deeply interesting. At least, more than him.

Or to be fair, maybe she was more comfortable with things than with him. He sure as hell was.

He gave Oz a firm command to sit before cautiously opening the front door. This would be his first official introduction to anyone outside the family, and its success depended more on Jessy than on the mutt. Did she like dogs, hate them, fear them, prefer cats? Was she going to shriek, maybe shove Oz away?

Oz's butt was hovering a few inches above the floor when Dalton stepped inside, and his entire body vibrated with excitement. His long pink tongue dangled from the side of his mouth, and he was sniffing the air so thoroughly and so fast that it was a wonder he didn't hyperventilate.

“Oh, you have an Australian shepherd! He's beautiful!” The words came from behind Dalton and from the area of his knees, because she was crouching on the floor, sending out let's-play vibes as strongly as the dog.

No need to worry there.
With a hand gesture, he released Oz, who closed the distance with one jump, leaning his body against hers with enough force to make her wobble before she readjusted to sit on her butt. She appeared to know his next move would be to climb into her lap for some serious scratching and grateful licking, and she was prepared for it.

She likes your dog. That's always a good thing.
It sounded crazy, but he'd known there was serious potential between him and Sandra when she'd fallen in love with his horses the first time she'd seen them. Animals were too big a part of ranch life to get involved with a woman who didn't like or, worse, was afraid of them.

Leaving Jessy and Oz to bond, he went into the kitchen and washed up, then foraged inside the refrigerator. He'd offered a sandwich or something, and that was one thing he knew he could provide. Mom had roasted two chickens for dinner the night before, baked a couple loaves of bread, and made a dewberry cobbler. She'd also brought four quarts of home-canned pickles and a bowl filled with vine-ripe tomatoes from one of their South Texas neighbors.

Steps sounded a moment before Jessy's voice. “He's a sweetie.”

“More like a pain in the—” Dalton broke off the mumble. His mother's presence was still in the kitchen, and she'd always warned the boys to watch their language, not just around women but with everyone. It was a sign of respect.

The dog trailing behind her, Jessy went to the sink to wash her hands. A good five feet separated them, but Dalton could feel her heat, sultry and tantalizing, and smell her fragrance, something grassy, light, like a field of spring flowers after a hard winter.

“I wouldn't have taken you for a dog person,” he commented, keeping his gaze tightly locked on the tomato he was slicing except for an occasional quick glance.

“I've never had a pet of any kind. My mother didn't like small, pesky creatures. She couldn't get rid of the three she had, but she could certainly keep any more from invading.” A little snort sounded faintly. “She would have forbidden the squirrels and birds from setting foot in her trees if she could have.”

Those few sentences said a lot. So did her manner—the way her gaze never settled on anything while she was talking, the tightening of muscles in her jaw, the tension that held her shoulders rigid. So Jessy's mother had considered her children pesky creatures to be tolerated. Must have been fun growing up in that family.

“You the oldest?”

“Middle. My parents originally intended to have only two kids so they wouldn't have to deal with a middle child, but they had sex on their schedule one too many times. My little sister came along, and they were stuck with a middle child, after all.”

Dalton turned his knife to the cold chicken breast. Like his dad, he paid strict attention to his stock, breeding for one quality or another. But kids, Dad always said, were a whole other prospect. They were what they were, sometimes because of their parents, sometimes in spite of them.

He bet there was a lot of spite between Jessy and her mother.

“Where do they live?”

“The Atlanta 'burbs. Southern by birth and Georgian by the grace of God.” Cynicism didn't shine through her voice, but it was there just the same. “There have been Wilkeses and Hamiltons in Georgia for a hundred years longer than Oklahoma's even been a state.”

“If they leave, will the Grand Old South collapse without them?”

“They like to think so. The current residents would be grateful as hell. My parents do have opinions.” She said it in a lofty way that, again, told him a lot about them. Finished drying her hands, she hung the towel on the wooden bar, spread it neatly, then looked at the food he'd laid out. “Can I help?”

“There's a loaf of bread on the stove.”

She picked up the foil, unwrapped it, and set the bread on a cutting board. “Hey, someone forgot to put this loaf through the slicer. It's all one piece.”

Dalton traded knives for a serrated one, sliced the heel from the loaf, and tossed it to Oz before cutting four soft slabs for their sandwiches. “You're lucky. Mom doesn't share her fresh-baked bread with just anyone.” It wasn't true. Ramona baked for family, friends, and neighbors, newcomers to their neighborhood, and fellow members of their church. When things were good, she baked to celebrate. When things were bad, she baked to commiserate.

Bending, Jessy inhaled deeply of the sweet, yeasty fragrance. “Do your parents live here?”

“Texas. They stopped by yesterday and spent the night.”

“So with your brother going to school in Stillwater, it's just you around here.”

He glanced out the window, listened to the quiet, felt the emptiness. It was never supposed to be this way. The plan had always been simple: Like his dad and uncle before him, all the way back to the brothers who'd started the Double D, he and Dillon were supposed to take it over when they were grown, work it together, succeed or fail together.

But Dillon had let him down when he took off thirteen years ago. It had taken Dalton a good long while to readjust his thinking. He didn't need a brother when he had a wife who loved the ranch as much as he did. Sandra was going to take Dillon's place in the plan, and their kids would have pitched in, too, and life would have been good.

And then Sandra had let him down.

God, he'd never intended to wind up this way: living alone, working alone,
being
alone.

Grimly aware that Jessy was waiting for an answer, he managed a curt one. “Yeah. Just me.”

R
ising from her chair, Lucy gently removed the near-empty coffee cup from Patricia's limp fingers, then covered her with a throw before taking the dishes into the kitchen. The poor woman was mentally and physically exhausted and had finally fallen deeply asleep.

Colonel Hodges had been happy to give Lucy a few days off from her secretarial job at the post hospital to be with Patricia. Other than quick trips home to care for the dog and, this morning, to shower and change clothes, she'd been at the Sanderson house nearly twenty-four hours.

They had cried together, talked, prayed, and spent hours in deep, numbing silence. They'd slept on the living room couches since Patricia couldn't face a night in the bed she'd shared with George for twenty years.

Lucy had been just the opposite. She hadn't wanted to get
out
of her and Mike's bed. She'd been convinced his smell remained in the linens and especially his pillow, and she'd stayed there for the better part of three days. And Marti Levin, her best friend whose husband had died with Mike, had been drawn to Joshua's closet for the same reason.

Lucy was tired. She wasn't built for a night on a couch or used to hearing someone else's breathing while she tried to sleep. It had been six years since Mike's death, and except for twice-a-year visits from her parents, she was always alone at night.

She inserted a mug in the coffeemaker and set a cup of extra-bold, intense dark-roast brewing. Sliding a couple of pastries from CaraCakes onto a foam plate, she took it and the coffee out onto the front porch, careful to close the front door quietly.

The wicker rocker was comfortable, the light breeze fluttering the flag and making the temperature perfect. Two gold ribbons, fashioned into elaborate bows, hung on the railings alongside the broad steps. Last night's visitors had brought them, along with food, flowers, and cards.

Like Lucy, Marti, and all their friends, Patricia was now a Gold Star wife. It was an exclusive club, but the price of admission was dear. Lucy would give anything in the universe to go back to her Blue Star status as a wife whose husband had served and come home.

A set of chimes tinkled next door, and from somewhere down the block came the sounds of children playing. In the backyard across the street, a couple of teenage girls sunned themselves beside a pool, with occasional snippets of music drifting on the air. It was a beautiful summer day; life going on as usual everywhere but here.

When a car turned onto the street, she gave it little more than a glance—small, expensive, gray—until it slowed to a stop at the front curb. The air suddenly seemed quiet when the engine shut off, but the driver simply sat there. Thanks to the tinting on the windows, all she could see was a figure, no details, but it tightened her gut.

Ben Noble had wavered at the end of their phone call this morning, saying he would consider a trip to Tallgrass, and a single, young surgeon might drive an expensive, powerful car. A son facing an errant mother might hesitate, getting his emotions under control, before approaching her house.

She was leaning forward in the rocker, half ready to rise to her feet, when finally the driver's door opened. The man who emerged looked nothing like Patricia: six foot, solid but lean, his hair jet black, his skin a rich, warm, roasty shade. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but she would bet they were dark, too. His mouth was set in a thin line, his jaw squared, as he stepped onto the sidewalk and, for a moment, just looked at the house.

Lucy could tell the moment he noticed her. A person would think at her weight, she'd be the first thing he saw, but she'd learned better. In the past six years, she'd become pretty easy to overlook. It made it kind of hard to keep thinking she would marry again and have a family someday when no guy ever looked at her. Even the nice guys like Joe, who didn't mind being friendly with a plump chick, usually didn't
really
see her.

And let's face it, child, you passed plump thirty pounds ago.

Admonishing herself in her beloved grandmother's voice didn't make her feel any better.

As the newcomer started moving, so did she, setting her coffee on one small table, nestling her pastries behind a pot of overflowing vinca on the other. With a mental reminder to reclaim the food before it lured insects or worse to the porch, she got to her feet, wrapped her fingers tightly around the coffee mug, and moved closer to the steps.

Lord, he was even better looking up close. Once on the porch, he removed the sunglasses, revealing eyes that were bitter coffee brown and intense. She would guess he was about her age—thirty-four—and obviously comfortable financially. She might never wear them, but she could recognize a hundred-dollar pair of jeans and Ray-Ban sunglasses when she saw them.

“Are you Ben?”

Looking as if he'd rather bolt for his car, he nodded curtly. “You're Lucy.”

His gaze skimmed over her, and within three seconds she felt completely cataloged: short, fat, average hairstyle, average makeup, average clothing. Oddly enough, though, she didn't feel dismissed. Most hunky guys she met did just that, unless they were young enough to mistake her for surrogate mother material. With all the young troops that passed through the hospital at Fort Murphy, it had happened before.

“Your mother's asleep. I'd rather not wake her just yet. She's had a tough twenty-four hours.”

He murmured something that she took to mean he'd rather not wake Patricia, either. Lucy was curious about what had happened between them, but beyond asking for her son, so far Patricia's focus had been entirely on George.

She waved toward the chairs. “Why don't you have a seat? Would you like something to eat? We've got all kinds of good stuff inside.”

“No, thank you. I'm good.” He seated himself in one of the chairs, looking as if he expected an electric current to zap through it at any minute.

Returning to her own chair, Lucy hoped he couldn't see the plate of food she'd stashed. She was embarrassed about choosing both a cinnamon roll and a cheese Danish, even if it was her lunch, but she would be humiliated if she got caught hiding it.

“I guess I should ask how she's doing.” Ben's voice was deep, heavy with the Oklahoma accent she'd learned to love. There was a reason the state produced so many country music stars, and in her opinion, that accent was part of it.

“It's going to take a while to accept that it's not just a bad dream, that George is really gone, that all their plans and their hopes and future are gone. It's a big adjustment.”

His gaze locked on his hands. Long fingers, short nails, just as she'd expected of a surgeon. Those hands wielded instruments that made people's lives better; they helped people to heal. Could he do the same for his mother? Would he?

“Has she told you?”

The question was unexpected, his tone a shade vulnerable. “What went wrong? No.”

His stiffness returned. “Just as well. Her version probably wouldn't have much in common with the truth.”

“Everything in our past is colored by our perceptions,” Lucy said gently. Ben had his truth; Patricia had hers; and reality might be one, the other, or somewhere in between. But the stern look he shot her didn't encourage her to pursue the subject. “Do your sisters also live in Tulsa?”

“Yes.”

“Will they be…” She paused to consider her words.
Coming to the funeral
seemed a little too blunt,
checking on their mother
a little too presumptive. “Visiting Patricia?”

He gave her another of those looks and changed the subject again. “You seem awfully young to be friends with her.”

Lucy smiled. Mike had always told her she was pretty,
but when you smile, you're incredible
. Just the memory was enough to make her smile and, sometimes,
feel
incredible. “Don't you have friends who are younger or older?”

“Acquaintances. But most of my friends are in my age range.”

“Mine, too.” Fia was the youngest of her besties, but they still related. Patricia was probably the oldest of her local friends, and about the same age as her mother. “I live on the next street over. Our backyards connect. When they moved here from Louisiana, I brought a pot of gumbo, bread pudding, and pralines to welcome them to the neighborhood, and we've been friends ever since.”

“I'd be friendly for gumbo, bread pudding, and pralines, too,” he muttered.

Lucy smiled again. Everything else about her might be just average, but her food was exceptional. Joe would eat at her house three times a day if he could manage it.

“When was that? When you brought the gumbo.”

“About a year ago. George deployed four months ago.” And those four months would have been easier on Patricia if she'd had family to offer her emotional support. Had she tried her best to protect her kids from the fallout of the divorce? Had their father kept them away from her? Had she willingly given up her claim to them?

Lucy's friend Therese's stepchildren's mother had done that, and now she was nothing more than a bit player in the kids' lives. Of course, Catherine Matheson didn't care—yet. Someday, Lucy was sure, she would regret it, like Patricia did.

“You don't sound like you're from around here,” Ben remarked.

“I grew up in El Cajon, California. My husband got orders to Fort Murphy about eight years ago and…” Arms open to embrace the neighborhood, she finished, “I'm still here.”

The hint of a scowl wrinkled his forehead. Had Patricia's past mistake been falling in love with a soldier? Had she already been divorced from Ben's father, or had she left him for George?

“Is he still in the Army?”

Now it was her turn to study her hands. They weren't pretty, her fingers weren't long and slender, and her manicure was in need of a redo. But they could cook. They could bake. They could scratch Norton and pat shoulders and dry tears. “No. Mike died in Iraq six years ago.”

After a moment of utter silence, as if he weren't even breathing, she looked at him again. “That's why I kept calling. Because I know what Patricia's going through. I've been there and done that, and no one should ever have to do it alone.”

Jessy and Dalton ran out of casual conversation about halfway through lunch. Normally, silence didn't bother her. Hell, she spent enough time by herself these days. But normally she wasn't sitting at a kitchen table across from a man she'd had sex with and now was finally getting to know.

You like doing things ass-backwards, don't you?
Aaron's teasing voice echoed in her head.

She pushed his memory aside and looked around the room. There was a formal dining room a few feet down the hall, but the kitchen, with its oak table and four generous chairs, was clearly where most of the living went on. It was modern enough to be convenient, but retained enough of its old character to feel timeless. The wood floor had been worn by millions of steps of bare feet, socked feet, and cowboy boots. A rack near the door held two cowboy hats and three baseball caps, along with a pair of threadbare gloves that still had a few jobs' wear in them.

Unlike most kitchens she'd seen, there was no island in this one, just plenty of open space to allow a person to move about freely. Thick mats fronted the sink, the range, and the prime workspace on the counter, and a couple of good-sized windows allowed wide-ranging views of the barn, a couple of sheds, and the pasture where black-and-white-striped cattle—

“They look like Oreo cookies,” she blurted out.

Dalton blinked. “I told you they were black with white bands.”

“Yeah, but you didn't say they look like Oreos.” She stuffed the last bite of her sandwich into her mouth. “Can we go see them?”

He answered by standing and taking their empty plates to the sink while she got her camera. They left the house by the rear door, Oz trotting alongside until they got to the big oak tree thirty feet back, where he immediately trampled a circle in the grass and settled in.

“I'm guessing he's not a working dog.”

“You'd think, being a shepherd, he'd want to herd
something
, but nope. Maybe when he's more comfortable here, his instincts will kick in.”

“More comfortable?” She glanced back at the dog, on his back now, feet bobbing in the air as he shifted to keep his balance. “He lives in the house. You feed him your mom's home-baked bread. I bet he sleeps on your bed, too, doesn't he?” Immediately the image of
her
in his bed popped into her mind, and her face flushed pink. So did his. He looked away, and she did, too, and she fumbled trying to make her point. “It doesn't sound like he could get any more. Comfortable, I mean.”

“Oz was a stray. He's only been here about a month.” His voice was steady, but he still avoided looking her way, which she knew because she was sneaking peeks his way. “I think he's still adjusting to not having to scavenge all the time for food and trying to stay out of trouble.”

So Dalton hadn't brought Oz here expecting him to earn his keep. He'd fed him, likely doctored him—according to Lucy, fleas and ticks in Oklahoma were fierce—and given him a place to live simply because the dog needed it.

Compared to the time she and her sisters had found a frail, sickly kitten.
We can take her to the animal doctor,
Jessy had pleaded,
and she'll be all good.
But their mother wasn't about to bother with a filthy stray. She told them she'd found the kitten a good home, but the next morning Jessy had seen the gardener burying its tiny, stiff body.

It was a good thing she and her sisters hadn't gotten sick.

As they reached the fence surrounding the pasture, she gratefully took shelter behind her camera and focused on a calf, who lifted his head to stare at her, his mouth moving occasionally to chew the grass he was eating. “Are they nice?”