Laurie Paige – A Kiss In The Moonlight (страница 8)

Trevor looked her over. Damn, he’d forgotten his intention of taking her by the clinic to be checked. He’d noticed she’d moved carefully all morning. A couple of times she’d winced, like when she swung onto the mare up on the ridge. Also when she’d stepped up into the pickup at the garage and again when they’d left the lodge.

Guilt ate at him. He wished he’d been more careful with his driving yesterday. He hadn’t, and, as his uncle had often told the kids, there was the devil to pay.

His uncle continued. “Your aunt did, too. She’s napping now.”

Lyric smiled at the older man. “That was next on my list.”

Trevor thought of her in his bed and of holding her while she slept. His body reacted at once. When she recovered from the accident, he could imagine lots of enjoyable things to do in bed.

But not with a woman who responded passionately to one man while thinking of marriage to another.

Lyric woke slowly, groggily. The knock came again, and she realized that was what had roused her. Glancing at the window, she saw the sky was brilliant with the colors of sunset. “Yes?” she called, sitting up with an effort.

The bruise on her left shoulder where the seat belt had dug in was bluish purple.

“Uncle Nick sent you some salve,” Trevor said.

She went to the door and opened it.

He handed over a tube of cream. “Rub it in good. We use it on the horses when they get a sore leg. It seems to work.” His grin was wry.

“Thank you. I’ll try it.”

“Dinner’s in about ten minutes.”

She nodded. After closing the door, she used the salve on her shoulder and knees. Her skin tingled, then heat spread throughout the sore places. It felt so good, she smoothed the cream over her shoulders and the calves of her legs, too. The scent of camphor, peppermint and cinnamon engulfed her.

After changing from her rumpled clothing to blue slacks and a long-sleeved white silk blouse, she freshened up, then went to the living room. The two men were putting the finishing touches to the table in the dining room. Her aunt was already seated there.

“Join us,” the older man said, welcome in his smile. “We were getting worried when you didn’t show up all afternoon. You must have needed the rest.”

Her eyes burned with sudden tears at his kind tone. Lyric blinked them away as rapidly as they formed, horrified that she might cry in front of them. She sat opposite her aunt while the two men sat at each end of the table.

“I don’t recall ever having a three-hour nap. It must have been the pills. I feel great now,” she lied.

Trevor made a low sound of disbelief.

Raising her chin, she dared him to dispute her word. He didn’t, but his eyes were cynical as he passed a basket of rolls to her.

“What did you think of the mare you rode this morning?” Uncle Nick asked.

“She was smooth and well behaved.”

“We’re going to breed a championship line from her and the stallion.”

“Show horses?”

“Cutting ponies,” the uncle corrected.

“That’s why you bought the stallion when you were at the stock show,” she said to Trevor.

He nodded. “To introduce new blood. Zack wanted to develop a line closer to the Thoroughbreds. He wants them a little taller and quicker than our present stock.”

She knew the Seven Devils cow ponies were well-known in ranching circles. “You already raise the best in the West.”

His uncle beamed. “Yes, but we can’t rest on our laurels. The rancher across the creek is determined to beat us at the state fair next year.”

“Is that Jane Anne’s father?” she asked.

“Yep,” the uncle said. “That girl is a crackerjack rider, too. She wins any competition she enters.”

Lyric’s heart dropped a couple of inches. Ah, well, one couldn’t be the best at everything, she consoled herself.

Smile and be nice for three weeks, that was all she had to do to get through this awkward period with grace. She could do that. Smile and hold the tears inside as she’d done all fall and winter…

Uncle Nick broke into her introspection. “How about a game of Fantan?” he asked. “Do you ladies feel up to it?”

“I do,” her aunt declared.

Lyric nodded as three pairs of eyes looked her way. They played cards until ten o’clock. After that, Trevor turned on the television so they could check the news and weather report.

“Clear tomorrow,” he said. “Trav and I are going to cut hay before the weather changes.”

The local channel came on after the national news. The anchor reported an accident on the highway that had killed a man returning to Boise after a business trip. The camera focused on a woman holding a baby while a little girl clung to her skirts. The little family looked scared.

Lyric pressed a hand to her throat as a terrible ache settled there. She felt their fear and bewilderment, the disbelief that this tragedy could be happening to them. They seemed so alone—the woman, the child and the baby, standing there in front of a little house, the glare of the camera lights catching every nuance of emotion.

Tears, horrible and hurting, flooded her eyes and poured down her face.

“Lyric, honey,” her aunt said.

She shook her head. “It’s just…they look so sad,” she said, trying to explain. She stood. “I’m all right.” She rushed from the room.

In the neat bedroom she closed the door and lay down with her hot, streaming face pressed into the pillow.

Nothing like making an utter fool of yourself, she scolded, but the tears wouldn’t stop. She’d held them too long…through the turning of leaves in the fall, the rains and ice of winter storms, the blooming promise of a spring that never came. Spring would never come for Lyle, her oldest friend, the playmate of her youth.

But he’d seen the opening of the daffodils and the brilliant show of the tulips. That had made him happy.

The tears continued, each one a separate ache as memories unreeled like a movie—picnics by the river, climbs along the Pedernales River cascades, games of Kick the Can at twilight with cowboys and the ranch children joining in.

She’d loved it all, had reveled in life and its great and wonderful freedom. So had her brothers. So had Lyle.

Sobs shook her body. Grief took her to the far shore of despair. She’d wanted so much for everything to stay the same, locked in its perfect little niche of happiness.

But her mother had wanted to leave her father; her old friend had wanted more than friendship; and a stranger had entered her idyllic world, forcing her to face its imperfections. Lyle’s car wreck had been the final blow to her fantasy.

The woman with the little girl and the baby must have thought her world was perfect, too. She’d baked a cake for her husband’s birthday. That was why he was rushing home, so they could celebrate together.

The tears soaked the pillow, their supply seemingly endless. Lyric willed them to stop, but they wouldn’t.

The air stirred, and faint light brightened the room for a second as the door opened, then closed. She heard the footsteps on the oval braided rug. Not her aunt. Trevor.

“Lyric?” he said in that uncertain way men had when confronted with an emotional woman.

“Go away,” she said. “Please. Go away.”

“I can’t.”

He sat on the side of the bed, then leaned close. His big hand stroked down her hair, stripping away the band that held it in place so he could run his fingers through the strands.

“Don’t,” he murmured.

“I c-can’t h-help it.” Each word was whispered on a sobbing breath, like a child trying to hold the tears back but unable to.

She felt him release a deep breath as he bent close to her temple. His lips touched her there ever so gently.

“Your aunt said you’d been unhappy for a long time. She said I should ask you to tell me about it.”

Lyric shook her head and kept her face pressed into the pillow. The tears were never going to stop, not in a hundred years, and she wasn’t going to share any tales of woe with a man who hated her for deceiving him.

He shifted until he stretched out beside her. He rubbed her scalp and her back, massaged along her spine. “Then cry, if you have to, until the tears are gone.”

A fresh flood ensued at his words. He silently waited for her to finish. After a long time, she became aware of his heat along her right side. She realized that deep within she was cold in spite of the hot tears. She moved closer.

She felt his hesitation, then he laid a leg over both of hers. Lifting her hair, he kissed the back of her neck and along her blouse collar.