Peggy Moreland – Slow Waltz Across Texas (страница 3)

The voice mail she’d left him informing him that she was leaving him had come as a shock. But that blow hadn’t been anything compared to the one he’d received when he’d returned to their ranch and discovered Rena and the kids were already gone.

He stopped in front of the door and gulped back a sob, hearing again the eerie silence that had greeted him when he’d stepped inside the house, the hollow echo of his footsteps in rooms once filled with his children’s furniture and toys, the squeal of their laughter.

Rena had been right, he admitted miserably, in saying he’d never been around much. Riding the rodeo circuit left little time for visits home. But in spite of his absences he’d always found comfort in knowing that his home was there for him, as were Rena and the kids, waiting for his return. And for a man who had never had a home or a family, the ranch had provided a sense of security he’d desperately needed.

A security it appeared he was about to lose.

He couldn’t lose his home and family, he told himself, feeling the panic squeezing at his chest, the loss already weighing heavy on his heart. He couldn’t. Rena and the kids meant everything to him. They were his life, his reason for living.

Without them he was nothing.

Nothing.

Rena lay on her side, her knees drawn to her chest, a corner of the sheet pressed tightly against her lips. Hot, silent tears saturated the pillow beneath her cheek.

She’d done the right thing, she told herself. She’d had to leave Clayton. She couldn’t go on living with him the way things were and continue to pretend that nothing was wrong. Not with him gone all the time and her left alone on the ranch with the children.

Not without his love to keep her company during the long, lonely nights when he was away.

She felt a sob rising and pressed the sheet more tightly against her lips to choke it back.

He didn’t love her. He couldn’t. If he did, he would come home more often, would want to spend more time with her and the twins. As it was, he was gone weeks at a time, never even bothering to call and check on her or their children. And even when he was at home, she reminded herself tearfully, he wasn’t there, at least not emotionally. Not for her.

When he was at the ranch, which seemed to occur less and less frequently, he took care of what business needed his attention, then he’d leave again. And while he was there, he never looked at her, never talked to her, nor did he ever listen when she tried to talk to him.

And he never touched her anymore…except when they were in bed.

As a result, she felt empty inside, drained, as if she were a well that was drawn from time and time again, but with no one to replenish her emotional supply. She was dry, empty and felt as if she had nothing left to offer those who needed her most. Her children.

She rolled to her back, clutching the sheet to her breasts, and stared at the shadows dancing on the ceiling overhead. Was it so wrong to want Clayton’s attention? she asked herself. To need it? To even demand it? She was his wife, after all, and there was no one else to give her the things she needed. And that realization was what had finally pushed her into leaving him, she knew.

She had no one.

Yet she still had needs.

She felt the familiar ache in her breasts beneath the weight of her arms. How long had it been since he had touched her there? Swept his tongue across her nipples? Suckled at her breasts? How long since he had lain with her, the heat of his body warming hers, his comforting weight pressing her more deeply into the bed they shared so rarely? How long since he’d buried himself in her? Filled her with his seed?

The ache spread, throbbing to life between her legs. Biting back a sob, she rolled to her side again.

Yes, she thought as the tears scalded her throat.

Rena Rankin still had needs.

Stretched out on one of the cushioned lounge chairs beside her parents’ pool, Rena crossed her legs at the ankles and took a sip of her lemonade.

“So, are you going home with him?”

Rena shook her head at her friend Megan’s question, then set her glass of lemonade on the wrought-iron table between them. “No, that wouldn’t solve anything.”

Megan drew back, looking at Rena in dismay. “Surely you aren’t planning on staying here with your parents?”

Rena cast a glance over her shoulder at the stately two-story mansion behind them with its glistening mullioned windows, the long stretch of French doors that lined the curved patio, the carefully manicured shrubs that hugged the mauve stone walls and the urns spilling with brightly colored flowers, which changed almost magically with the seasons. Wealth. Perfection. Success. Those were the images her parents’ home drew; the same images to which they had tried to make their only daughter conform. The same images she’d wanted so desperately to escape as a young, single woman. With a shudder she glanced away. “No, not permanently. Just for a few days.”

Megan stretched out a hand and took Rena’s, squeezing it within her own. “Oh, Rena,” she murmured, her eyes filled with concern, “are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Honestly?” At Megan’s earnest nod, Rena sighed and withdrew her hand from her friend’s. She pressed her head back against the plump cushions and stared blindly up at the clouds floating across the sky overhead. “No, but I can’t go on living with Clayton. Not with the way things are between us.”

“But you love Clayton! I know you do.”

Rena lifted a shoulder. “I thought I did. But now…I’m not sure anymore.”

“Of course you love him! And he loves you!”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“How do you know that? Has he told you that he doesn’t?”

Rena snorted indelicately. “No, but Clayton rarely says anything. Or at least, not to me.”

“Then you can’t possibly know that he doesn’t love you.”

Rena turned her head slowly to peer at Megan through the dark sunglasses that concealed eyes swollen from a night spent crying over that very actuality. “Trust me,” she replied dryly. “I know.”

Megan huffed a breath and flopped back against the cushions, folding her arms stubbornly beneath her breasts. “Well, I think he does.”

Rena sputtered a laugh. “And why would you think that? You haven’t been around Clayton or talked to him in years.”

“I was there the night you met him,” Megan reminded her. “Remember?”

Rena turned her face away. “Yes, I remember.”

“And do you also remember how you two just seemed to click?” she asked, snapping two fingers together for emphasis. “I’ve never seen chemistry like that before, nor have I since.”

Rena fluttered a hand, dismissing her friend’s opinion. “Lust. Pure and simple.”

Megan jackknifed to a sitting position. “It was not just lust!” she cried, then clamped her lips together and stole a quick glance at the house to make sure that no one had overheard her. Though no faces appeared in any of the windows, she lowered her voice, obviously concerned that Rena’s mother was hovering on the other side of the doors, as she had when they were teenagers, eavesdropping on their conversation. “Two star-crossed lovers destined to meet,” she whispered furiously to Rena. “That’s what the two of you were. One look from Clayton, one touch, and you came alive.”

Even as her friend described the event, Rena felt the leap of nerves beneath her skin, the quickening of her breath, the heat racing through her veins. She could see Clayton as he’d stood that night, alone at the edge of the dance floor, his hands braced low on his hips. The sleeves of his black Western shirt had been rolled to his elbows, exposing muscled forearms dusted with dark hair, and his black cowboy hat had been shoved back on his head, revealing the sharp angles of an incredibly handsome face.

Black. The bad guys always wear black, she remembered thinking at the time, even as she’d smiled flirtatiously at him when he’d looked her way.

Furious with herself for even thinking about Clayton and the night they’d first met, she sat up impatiently. “Lust,” she repeated stubbornly and reached for the bottle of sunscreen sitting on the table. “It was nothing but lust.”

“How can you say that?” Megan cried. “You were crazy about him!”

Frowning, Rena smeared the cream over her legs. “Crazy being the operative word.”

“Uggh,” Megan groaned, obviously frustrated by having her words twisted around. “You weren’t crazy! In fact, accepting Clayton’s invitation to dance was probably the sanest and bravest thing you’d ever done in your life.”

When Rena humphed her disagreement, Megan swung her legs over the side of the chair and snatched the bottle of sunscreen from Rena’s hand. “You listen to me, Rena Rankin,” she ordered sternly. “Up until that night, you’d lived your entire life at your parents’ direction, being the dutiful daughter, the perfect little debutante, doing exactly what you were told, never daring to veer either left or right from the path they’d mapped out for you. But with Clayton you forgot all that, and you were simply you!”

“Me?” Rena sputtered a laugh. “I was twenty-one years old, extremely naive and looking for trouble. And I found it,” she added bitterly.