Gambling On a Heart (21 page)

Tracy ached at the realization Zack wanted to spend time with her and Bobby, but she couldn’t risk Jake using the invitation against her in his ridiculous custody case. “I’ll have to get back with you. I’m not sure about Bobby’s football schedule.” She told a boldfaced lie and hated it.

He stared at her for a few moments, as if searching for something. “Okay. The invitation is open. Maybe some time you’d like to come over and go riding–without Bobby.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs so hard she figured he had to hear the thumping. “Okay,” she heard herself say.

His eyes burned under the dim lighting reaching them from the floods. The left side of his mouth twisted upward. “Good. Perfect.”

They drank their coffee and found a safe topic in talking about the kids and the return of Dylan and Charli from their three-week honeymoon–which had undoubtedly been more like a family vacation since they had their teenage ward, Annie, with them.

When Mandy and Bobby finally got out of the pool, Zack sat his empty cup on the table. “Mandy and I should be heading home. I have to work tomorrow.”

The evening had been too magical. Tracy didn’t want Zack and Mandy to go.

After they changed back into their clothes, Tracy walked Zack out onto the front porch. While the kids ran off toward his truck, chattering about what they would do during their next visit, he held back and turned to her. “Thanks for dinner. We had fun.”

“We did, too.”

“You know what’s happening here, don’t you?”

A thrill ran through her, so electrifying it curled her toes. Did she dare hope? She hadn’t missed that he hadn’t told her much about Lisa; in fact, he could have been talking about anyone with his few words. “I think so.”

Zack feathered her cheek with the backs of his fingers. The porch light couldn’t hide the blaze in the dark depths of his blue eyes. He leaned in and kissed her lightly on her lips, instantly igniting Tracy’s own need.

“I don’t think you really do, Tracy. I’m not looking for another wife. I had one. I’ll never fall in love again. Ask yourself if you can live with that because I can’t–I won’t–give you more than sex.”

His husky words extinguished the fire as effectively as being dunked into a pool of icy water.

Tracy couldn’t respond. He turned and took the porch steps two at a time. Bobby came back up the steps and looked up at her. She watched Zack drive the big truck down the driveway and over the bridge that straddled Oak Springs Creek.

“Mom?”

She turned from Zack’s disappearing taillights. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“Are you and Zack gonna get married?”

Rattled by Zack’s proclamation, Bobby’s question only turned the shock into an ache. “It’s too soon for questions like that, Bobby.”

“Mandy likes you.”

She nodded and ruffled her son’s brown hair. “Yeah, I know. Do you like Zack?”

He wavered for a moment, then nodded as he bit on his bottom lip in a perfect imitation of her. “I guess.”

She turned away from him and thought about Zack’s painful words. It would hurt too much to be with him.

“Zack didn’t care that I didn’t win the volleyball game. Dad would’ve been mad as heck.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” She took him into her arms. Zack was a wonderful father. He provided prudent guidance where it really mattered, he praised accomplishments, and he cared, but he never held his acceptance and approval over a child’s head.

Zack was the kind of father Bobby needed.

“Mandy wants a mother,” Bobby said when she let him go.

“What do you mean?”

With his head down, he shrugged and bit his lower lip again. She got the impression he wished he’d kept his mouth shut.

She didn’t push. Tracy already knew what he’d meant.

Two children caught in Fate’s vicious games and people’s stupid mistakes. How far was she willing to go to get back what had been taken away?

Did she honestly believe she had an ice cube’s chance in the center of the sun of making Zack fall in love with her again?

Maybe there was only one way to find out.

Chapter 10

Zack poured his second cup of coffee and prayed the day would be a good one. He hadn’t slept the night before. Instead, he’d spent the night thinking about the evening with Tracy.

What kept him up wasn’t the amazing time he’d had sharing a meal and playing in the pool, or even the fireworks that had gone off when he’d kissed her. The things plaguing him were his parting words and the reason he’d said them.

I’m not looking for another wife. I had one. I’ll never fall in love again.

They went far deeper than letting her know where she stood because he’d never forgive her. Maybe if they had been spoken for that reason, he wouldn’t feel like a fresh pile of horseshit. He’d said them to remind himself that he could never feel more than lust for Tracy.

He carried his cup from the kitchen into the living room. The room, like the rest of the house, was large, but the design and the decor weren’t fancy or formal. The house was over 140 years old and made of logs and limestone. The interior was white painted plaster, exposed ceiling beams, and solid oak and stone floors so old his great-great-great grandparents had walked on them.

He stopped at the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the land making up his share of the CW Ranch. In the distance, Oak Springs Creek cut through a pasture and acted as the boundary between his and his cousin’s half to the south. The sun was coming over the massive oak trees lining the creek. Bordering Lance’s half of the CW was Oak Springs Ranch; Butterfly Ranch bordered his. Originally, the tract of land had covered about one hundred-twenty-thousand acres, nearly one hundred-ninety square miles. All the land of Forrest County, Texas.

He sipped his coffee, looking out over more pasture and past the barn. Out there was the lake where he’d first made love to Tracy, probably his favorite spot on the whole ranch. Yet, he’d never taken Lisa to the lake during the times they’d visited his family. Nor had he ever considered moving her into this house after his grandfather’s death when he’d inherited it.

He’d never told Lisa much about Tracy, but she knew he’d loved her. His late wife had been jealous of the woman who had stolen his heart when he was nothing more than a boy. What about Tracy had always intrigued him so damned much? She wasn’t centerfold gorgeous–far from it, but something about her made her beautiful, an inner brilliance that out-shined many of the Hollywood sex goddesses.

When he’d first fallen in love with her, she’d been as skittish as a range-raised filly. To his surprise, in many ways she still was. Tracy had never been like the girls and women he’d dated–or the one he’d married. It had taken him months of making love to her before she’d finally believe him her small breasts, bony hips, or
spaghetti
legs, as she called them, hadn’t repulsed him. To his surprise, Lisa had been a virgin, too, when they’d first made love, but he’d never had to convince the former pageant queen of her beauty.

He turned away from the windows, and the mantle on the adjacent wall caught his attention. A painting of the founder of CW Ranch, Cole Cartwright, and his wife Isabelle, hung on the rough river rock chimney. Dressed in a dark suit of the time, Cole made an imposingly tall image. Seated in the foreground was a beautiful blond woman in a deep blue gown that matched her eyes. Cole and his wife sat with their backs to the pasture he could see out the windows. Not much had changed in the landscape since 1867, except that it had contained countless longhorns. Now some of his horses grazed on that grass.

Zack had heard their story since he was a toddler. He’d even believed he could follow in the footsteps of his famous ancestor and learn to love his wife after the wedding. It was no secret in the family that Cole and Belle hadn’t loved each other when they’d married. Cole offered her marriage instead of hanging her on the old oak tree in front of the present day courthouse for robbing the stagecoach. Somehow, they’d eventually fallen in love and had eight children by the time they’d died after the turn of the twentieth century.

He looked from his ancestors to a photograph of Lisa holding a place of honor next to numerous shots of Mandy on the oak plank mantle. He picked up the frame and looked down into the face of the woman who’d loved him with all her heart.

However, he could never give her more than a tiny part of his.

He set the mug on the mantle and gingerly ran his fingertips over her face. She’d been so beautiful and full of life. He would never forget the argument that took that life away.

“Your aunt Winnie called today.” Lisa placed a plate of pork chops on the kitchen table of the small house they’d purchased in Cheyenne after he’d left the Marines.

After shaking the snow off his coat, he shucked out of it and hung it on a peg by the door. “What did she have to say?”

Lisa flitted over and straightened the collar of his police uniform. He had to bend to receive her kiss on the lips. “She just wondered how we were. Asked if we were coming home for Thanksgiving. Apparently, she’s planning some shindig. The whole family will be there. I think it would be good to go to Texas this year. I don’t see enough of your family. She also said your dad is thinking about retiring and wants to discuss your taking over the ranch with you. I really think you should consider it. I’d love to move there. My parents will have a fit, but–”

He moved past her and tossed his keys on the kitchen counter, but instead of sitting down to eat the supper his wife had prepared, he headed into the small bedroom they’d converted into an office. For his bottle of whiskey.

“Zack?” She followed him. “Supper’s ready. Where’re you going?”

He pulled the bottle from a bottom drawer of the desk and poured a tumbler three fingers full. “I’ll never live in Texas. Logan can have the ranch. I don’t want it.”

“Why not?” Lisa demanded and moved into the dark room.

The only lighting came from the streetlight through the window and the rectangle of the open door. She switched on the desk lamp. The harsh light made him squint, and he turned away.

“You hate living here,” she said to his back. “I worry about you. The nightmares are getting worse. I think it’s your being a cop. It’s too much like being an MP and reminds you of the war. I can get a nursing job anywhere, and Mandy would be better off in that little town than here.”

He downed the whiskey and poured another, then stared out at the snow falling in the small front yard. He didn’t need more liquor and was already halfway drunk from stopping at the beer joint on the way home, but he had to have it. These days the whiskey was all that got him through the day and night.

“Zack?”

“Leave me the hell alone, Lisa.” He turned on her. “I’m not moving to Texas. So, forget it. I don’t care what happens to the ranch. After what happened with her–”

He realized what he’d said a second too late. Lisa flinched as if he’d slapped her. At last, she put her hands on her hips. “Fine. Are you going to eat tonight or are you going to drink all night?”

Zack slammed down the glass so hard on the desk, whiskey sloshed all over the sides. He was as irritated with himself as he was with her. Tracy never kept poking and prodding like Lisa did. Tracy had known when to leave him alone and when he needed to talk. Tracy. She was coming to mind more and more these days, especially after he’d heard from his brother she’d been divorced from Jake for almost two years. “Dammit! Can’t a man come home from a crappy day at work and have some peace and quiet?”

“No!” she’d yelled back. “Zack, I can’t go on like this. I know something’s changed in you.”

“Yes, something changed. I watched my friend get killed as he saved my life. I should be the one dead!”

“It’s been six months and you’re still blaming yourself for something you couldn’t have prevented.” She’d moved around the desk to stand before him. Her voice softened. “Maybe you shouldn’t have taken the job with the police force.”

“You’re the one who talked me into it!”

“I know, but maybe it was too soon...Maybe moving back to Texas–”

“What the hell do you want? I told you I will never go back there. I can’t. Not while she’s–”

Lisa stepped back and stared up at him. “What kind of hold does she have over you? I forgave you for calling out her name when you woke up in Germany...” Her eyes widened and her voice shook. “You’re still in love with her, aren’t you? Have you ever loved me at all? I believed when you didn’t say the words first that was just who you are. You’d only say them back to appease me. But you’ve never said them first because you never really felt them.”