He gathered her closer still. “Seriously. Do you?”
“I’m never around kids. Why do you ask? Do you think we’ve made one?” She chuckled again at her own joke.
“No. I’m careful about that.”
He had proved that. Nothing unplanned for Terry Ledger. “I always thought I’d have some kids,” she said. “But the truth is, I’ve never been in a relationship where children were a good idea. In that way, I’m as much a misfit as Bob or Ben.”
“You’re so warm and giving. You’d make a great mom.”
I don’t have any kids. Or a wife.
His words from one of the first conversations she’d had with him. She had played them over and over in her mind. Later, from Ben, she had learned Terry had never even been engaged. The question about kids aroused a new curiosity and added yet another dimension to their fledgling romance. She turned her head toward him. “How old are you?”
She couldn’t resist asking. She had pegged him at thirty-five. Most men she knew already had families by that age.
“Thirty-seven in August,” he said. “You think I look older?”
She turned, pressing her front against his, but leaning back to look into his face. She touched his thick brown brow with her fingertip, cupped his square jaw with her palm and smiled into his eyes, now as blue and peaceful and placid as a mountain lake. “You look just fine, Mister Ledger. Eye candy, I’d call you.”
“Yeah?” He smiled like a little boy pleased with her answer. His fingers moved down her ribs until his hand rested on her hipbone. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever called me eye candy.”
“Maybe not to your face.” She smoothed a palm over his muscled shoulder. Having a naked man at her disposal in a king-size bed was too decadent. “How have you escaped a wedding and a houseful of kids for so long?”
A shrug. “How have you? You aren’t much younger than I am.”
How had she, come to think of it? She’d had a couple of serious crushes, like with Woody, whose black eyes and sexy smile had turned her sappy from the beginning. In Arlington, she had even lived with someone for a time. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in love.”
“What about that cop character the first time I saw you?”
Thinking of Woody and Terry in the same sentence was hard enough, but thinking of her ex-lover while lying in bed with Terry was almost impossible. Her eyes narrowed as she taxed her brain, made muzzy by outrageous sex and total absorption with the being that had her surrounded, body and soul. “Um, we’d sort of hung out together for a year.”
Well, actually, what they had done for a year was have sex. She had never been able to get away from the café or Mama long enough to hang out anywhere. “I thought I cared about him, but I was wrong.”
“So it was just sex?”
That she didn’t want to admit, at least not to Terry. She smiled at the simplicity of the question, when in truth getting together with Woody hadn’t been simple at all. Still, looking back, she realized it had been just sex. She grinned. “Could be.”
He laughed.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asked him.
She felt his body stiffen a little. His hold on her hip relaxed and his eyelids lowered. “No.”
Uh-oh. Dangerous territory. Still, “no” seemed like the logical answer. Since he was ambitious, driven and disciplined, emotional entanglements would always have been at the bottom of his agenda. Maybe she was pushing too much, but she had to delve deeper, since a mountain of fear of her own emotions was building within her and her heart was in serious danger. “Not even a teeny-weeny bit?”
”I’m a coward. If things looked like they were headed in that direction, I usually called a halt.”
“Everything on your terms, eh?”
He shrugged.
She had known the answer before she heard it. That instinct again. She bolstered her courage and looked into his expressive eyes. “Are you afraid now?”
Those eyes held hers for a few seconds. “Scared shitless.”
Her heart swelled and she kissed him with every emotion she had.
“Are you scared?” he asked her.
“Yes. But I’m more scared not to go for it.”
He wrapped her in his arms and rolled on top of her.
Later, as dusk darkened the bedroom, he asked if she preferred going to the hotel restaurant for dinner or going to a restaurant downtown. “But we’ll have to get out of bed,” he said on a laugh.
For only a brief moment, she thought of the clothes her aunt Radonna had insisted she borrow for wearing out to dinner. “Well, now. A place this fancy must have room service.”
“Room service? C’mon now. You don’t want to stay in the room the whole time we’re—-”
“We won’t. Tomorrow we’re going riding in a balloon, right?”
The fact was, she already felt as if she were floating on air.
****
The balloon ride was just as fantastic as Terry had promised. Thrilling and indescribably beautiful as, standing within the circle of his embrace, for an hour and a half she floated with him through the gold and mauve sunrise, along the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, over the exquisite and colorful patchwork of the Rio Grande River and its valley.
When they touched down, a ground crew waited with what looked like an armload of red roses, but was, in fact, only two dozen. In the cool of the summer mountain morning they breakfasted in the open air on sweet breads and fruit and champagne, at a table covered with white damask and set with delicate china and silverware. They crossed wrists and toasted and she leaned in and kissed him, letting all that was in her heart rise to her lips and transfer to his.
She was dizzy on more than champagne by the time they embarked on the return trip to the hotel. The fragrance from the roses filled the car and she found herself touching the velvet petals and frequently putting a bloom to her nose. If she had ever had a better time with any man in her whole life, she couldn’t recall when it had occurred.
Back at the hotel, when they entered their room, they saw the message light blinking on the phone. “I’ll get it,” Terry said. She let him, since he was the one most likely to receive a phone call.
He retrieved the message, took down the number and placed a call. “Terry Ledger, here,” he said into the receiver. As he listened, his expression changed from relaxed to tight. “When?” he said, low and serious. He glanced at his watch. A sense of misgiving rose within her.
“No, I understand.” he said. “It’ll take us a few to get in the air, but...I’ll take care of it.” He hung up.
She lifted her chin, giving him a cautious look. “Why do I feel like I should ask who that was?”
His expression remained solemn. “Bob Nichols. We have to get back. Your mother’s missing.”
Marisa’s stomach dropped to her shoes. “What?”
“Let’s go.” He began gathering their things and stuffing them into their duffels.
“Wait a minute. What do you mean missing? As in out of touch, disappeared? What?”
He stopped packing and looked right at her. “Apparently she left the mobile home. No one saw her go. They have no idea where she is.”
Since returning to Agua Dulce to care for her mother, one of Marisa’s greatest fears had been that Mama would escape her custody and get lost. She stared at him, her heart beating so hard in her chest she thought she might faint. Groping for her scattered emotions, she charged to the bathroom and swept her toiletries off the counter into her bag. “How soon can we get back?”
“Three hours max,” Terry said from the bedroom. “I’ll make sure the plane’s squared away.”
Two and a half hours later, thanks to a tailwind, they landed at the Midland airport where Terry had left his crew cab parked. In record time, he drove the hundred miles to Agua Dulce. Her muscles tied in knots, Marisa could scarcely talk.
Chapter 25
Agua Dulce looked like an encampment. A dozen cars and trucks were parked at and around Pecos Belle’s, including a fire truck and an ambulance. She saw saddled horses and recognized several XO pickups and horse trailers. Lanny had brought his cowboys. Marisa didn’t even know their names. Even Tanya was there, smoking and scowling.
As she scooted out of Terry’s pickup, Bob Nichols came to them in quick little steps, his face red and blotchy, patches of perspiration visible on his shirt. “We’ve been everywhere, Marisa. But don’t worry. We’ll find her.” His brow furrowed and his gaze veered off toward the horizon. “If only I had a satellite hookup.”
Marisa couldn’t fathom the benefit of a satellite hookup. Looking at the shirt he had sweated through, all she could think of was the temperature. It had probably hovered around a hundred all day and there wasn’t a tree in sight. “Do you know how she got lost?”
“Not for sure. It appears your aunt got involved with Ben. He’s drinking again.”
Before Marisa could reply, Aunt Radonna, her hair hanging loose and damp with sweat, came from somewhere, weeping and smelling of liquor. Marisa couldn’t find the generosity to forgive her irresponsibility. What scrolled through her mind was where the hell had the woman been while Mama ran away?
“Rosemary’s coming,” Aunt Radonna said, her voice breaking. “When she gets here, she’ll know what to do. Everything will be okay.”
Marisa found no comfort in that expectation. “Forget it. I don’t care if she comes or not. As for you, Radonna, just stay out of everyone’s way.”
The person most likely to know what to do was Terry. He had told her he had been an Army Ranger. He knew about survival and rescue. He had lived in the Middle East. He, for sure, knew about surviving, or not surviving, in the desert. Marisa became aware of his absence from her side, and when she looked for him, she saw him in conversation with the sheriff. She walked toward them.
“If she’s been out in the sun all day, she’s suffering from dehydration by now,” Terry was saying to the sheriff as Marisa approached. “She may well be—” He stopped in midsentence as she neared and looked at her.
Dead
? Was that the word he had stopped short of saying?
She could see concern in his eyes. He turned his attention back to the sheriff. “Be sure the search teams are outfitted with extra bottles of water. I hope those cowboys have been riding the arroyos. What about a chopper?”
“Got one coming out of Midland,” the sheriff said.
“I know a private outfit. I’ll see if I can get one, too. Time is of the essence. Hot as it is, she won’t last another day.”
The sheriff nodded again.
Relief at Terry’s taking charge eased some of Marisa’s tension. The very first time had seen him she had sensed that he was a man who knew what to do. His hand came up to her shoulder and he guided her away from the sheriff. “They first noticed her absence around ten o’clock this morning,” he said gently. “When Bob saw your aunt drinking at Ben’s so early in the morning, he went straight to your mobile. When he didn’t find your mom, he got our hotel’s phone number from your aunt.”
Marisa stared at the sandy, rocky ground as her mother’s helplessness and visions of scorpions and rattlesnakes filled her head. And heat.
“There’s still a lot of daylight left,” Terry added. “They’ve already covered all the area north of the motel and around Patel’s place. Do you have a suggestion where to go from here?”
She shook her head. Since no one knew how Mama’s foggy brain functioned, where she might trek unsupervised was anyone’s guess.
“When we walked for exercise, we went up Lanny’s road toward his ranch house.”
“Then we’ll start from there next. You okay?”
What choice did she have? She had to be okay. She nodded and they walked back to the sheriff. Terry and the sheriff laid out a grid on either side of the XO’s long driveway and assigned sections to the searchers.
“I’m gonna go back to my place and change clothes,” Terry said to her. “Why don’t you wait in the café?”
“No. I’d go crazy just waiting. I just need to get some different shoes.”
Fifteen minutes later the group fanned out and began moving in side-by-side lines across the desert, the merciless afternoon sun giving no reprieve. Tanya, her streaked hair banded into a ponytail and Nikes on her feet, walked beside Marisa, her eyes scanning the landscape as they went. “You know what happened, don’t you?”
“I can guess.”
“Your aunt’s something else, I’ll tell you. She can outdrink Ben. I can’t believe you went off and left Raylene with her. You didn’t know she’s a drunk?”
Marisa hadn’t known. Over the years, Mama had had plenty of criticism for Aunt Rosemary, but had rarely said anything negative about Aunt Radonna. “Not really. I knew she was always up for a good time, but I thought she was responsible. Where is Ben anyway?”
“Passed out. He’s drunk enough Jack to flood the Pecos. He may not get up for three days.”
Marisa snorted, keeping her sight glued to the desert surroundings.
“Dumb assholes,” Tanya bit out. “I’d like to kill him and your aunt both.”
Marisa might have been into a little righteous vengeance herself, except that she was too busy blaming herself for having gone away in the first place.