0373659458 (R) Page 6

  The worry in her eyes touched something deep inside him. A worry he’d seen before, in his own mother’s eyes. About all four of her sons, for one reason or another. And not for nothing, had she worried. “You’re very trusting,” he said, “sharing all this with a stranger.”

  “Except you don’t feel like a stranger, Dr. Talbot. Don’t know why, but you never have.” She paused. “But thank you for letting me share. I really don’t have anyone to do that with anymore. Oh, there’s one sister in Idaho, but we haven’t really talked in years. And of course I’ve been focused on taking care of Mallory recently. Not that I’m complaining,” she hurriedly added. “And I know I could’ve gone out and made friends in LA if I’d wanted. I just didn’t.”

  He smiled. “Then we’ll have to make sure you find friends here. My mother, for one. Annie, the owner of Annie’s Place in town. But as far as your daughter goes...” He glanced toward the mountains, then back at Dorelle. “If it’s any consolation, I get the feeling that headstrong little girl is still in there somewhere.”

  “Well, honey, if you could somehow help me find her,” Dorelle said, smiling, “I’d be more than grateful. And you know what? I think she’d be grateful, too. But you did not hear that from me. Enjoy the cookies,” she said, then headed back toward the house, her arms tightly wrapped around her waist against the evening chill and leaving Zach wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into.

  He got into the truck, his heart turning over in his chest at the sight of his sleeping sons behind him. Hell, he could barely find himself these days, let alone anyone else.

  Yeah, well, maybe you should try harder, whispered a voice inside his head.

  Clenching his jaw, Zach rammed the truck into Reverse and backed out of Mallory’s drive, that voice hanging on tighter than a prizewinning rider on a really pissed-off bull.

  Chapter Four

  A week later, that conversation about why she’d bought property up here still bounced around underneath Mallory’s skull, all nice and tangled up with images of the man she’d had the conversation with.

  So much for finding peace.

  True, Whispering Pines seemed as good a place as any for a vacation home, for all the reasons she’d given Zach. But she couldn’t deny that most of what had driven her away from LA had followed her here like a bunch of imprinted ducklings. Except not nearly as cute.

  Not that she didn’t truly love it here, she thought as she drove into the circular drive fronting the Vista’s main house, then cut the engine to her modified SUV. The landscape was everything she remembered, and more—bold and vast and in your face, the colors so intense they burned. And she couldn’t wait to show Landon around, get his take on the quaint little stuck-in-time town, the sky that went on forever. His room up at the house, which she and Mama had taken great pains to fill with as much New Mexican kitsch as they could fit in a twelve-by-twelve room, right down to the lassoing cowboy wallpaper. She smiled—he’d probably think they’d lost their minds. And he’d be right.

  The lightweight wheelchair reassembled and ready to go, Mallory lowered herself into it and shut the car door, then rolled up the gently sloping drive toward the main house. Not that she’d planned on it, but when she’d called Josh earlier about seeing the horse again, he’d mentioned that Granville Blake, the ranch’s owner, had wondered if he might meet her. It would have been ungracious, to say the least, to say no. She’d even “made an effort,” as Mama would say, dragging out her nicer jeans and boots for the occasion, a fave vintage fringed suede jacket, a pair of dangly handmade silver earrings she’d picked up from a local artisan some years back.

  A lovely piece of Southwest history squatting in the shadows of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the house was equally breathtakingly magnificent and unpretentious, the earthy stucco dabbled in flickering patches of sunlight filtered through a half dozen huge, yellowing cottonwoods. Sturdily supported by a dozen rough-hewn posts, the clay-tiled overhang sheltered a flagstone porch spanning the entire front of the hacienda. And scattered across it, a mishmash of manly rocking chairs and traditional equipales—those drumlike curiosities peculiar to northern New Mexico, tanned pigskin seats and backs over wood-latticed bottoms—beckoning a person to sit and enjoy the view. She caught a whiff of woodsmoke—piñon, most likely, the sweet-smoky scent a welcome change from LA smog.

  The front door opened right as she hiked the chair’s front wheels to access the porch, which thankfully was nearly level with the paved drive.

  “You mus’ be Miss Keyes,” said a beaming older man, his stomach straining against a plaid flannel shirt and nearly obscuring a silver belt buckle the size of a fist.

  “That’s me.”

  “I’m Gus, the housekeeper,” he said, standing aside so she could steer through the heavily carved, oversize front door. “Mr. Blake and Josh are in the office, I’ll let them know you’re here. Can I get you anything?”

  “No, I’m good. Oh, my,” she said, taking in the enormous living room, anchored by a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace on one end, while the wall opposite the entryway was basically all glass—a trio of French doors opening onto what appeared to be a courtyard. The furnishings were what she’d call Expensive Macho Casual—lots of leather, wrought iron, Native rugs and artifacts, all precisely placed over Saltillo pavers she guessed had been there forever. “This is beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” said a slightly breathless male voice behind her. She turned the chair to face Josh and his employer...also seated in a wheelchair, as it happened. But from illness, she quickly deduced from the sallow skin, the sunken cheeks. The oxygen tubing. Still, underneath a thatch of short, salt-and-pepper hair, the older man’s bright blue eyes sparkled. The motorized chair whirred closer—she got the feeling he wasn’t used to it yet—and he leaned to take her hand in his, his grip stronger than she would have expected, but cool. “Granville Blake.”

  “Mallory Keyes.”

  “Oh, yes, I know. I’ve seen most of your movies,” Granville said on a slight wheeze. “You’re one talented young lady. Not to mention even prettier in person than on screen.”

  Mallory smiled, inwardly blessing him for not speaking of her career in the past tense. “You’re very sweet for saying so. Thank you.” She glanced up at the beamed ceiling punctuated with a pair of iron chandeliers worthy of a hotel lobby. “I’m guessing there’s a history here?”

  “There is indeed. My great-granddaddy built the original main house in the 1880s, before New Mexico was even a state. This here’s an add-on, from the twenties. Since then not much has changed, from what I can tell from photos. Only what wore out.” He smiled. “Although we did update the bathrooms from time to time. The ladies are kind of particular about those.”

  “We are that,” she said, and Granville chuckled.

  “So I hear you’ve bought Waffles.”

  “Technically, my mother did. But yes. For my son, when he comes to visit.”

  “It was Josh’s idea, fostering horses.” His smile softening, he glanced up at the young man, his eyes shining with pride. “A damn good one, too,” he said, then returned his gaze to Mallory as she caught the young man’s almost diffident shrug. “He tells me you’re letting the horse stay here, though.”

  “For the time being. Probably until Landon arrives. But I couldn’t wait to see him again.”

  Granville’s eyes narrowed. “Josh tells me you used to ride.”

  “Yes. I was raised on a ranch, in fact.”

  “You don’t say? Cattle, horses...?”

  “Both. Not a huge operation, but it kept us out of trouble.”

  “A real cowgirl, then?”

  She laughed. “At one time.”

  “From cowgirl to movie star.” He shook his head. “Life certainly takes some strange twists and turns, doesn’t it?” His chuckle ended on a brief coughing spell. “Well. I’ll let you and Josh to it. There any of that vegetable soup left, Gus? I think I might like that for lunch...”

 
She watched as Josh’s boss and the housekeeper left the room, then turned to Josh, frowning. Sighing, Zach’s brother screwed on his cowboy hat and led her back outside, walking slowly enough for her to easily keep up.

  “We don’t know, exactly, what the problem seems to be,” he said when they reached the end of the porch, answering her unspoken question. “Mainly because he won’t discuss it. Or let anyone who comes in to help him discuss it with us.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “Because that’s the way he is. Always has been. But it’s pretty obvious things’re going downhill fast. Just in the last few weeks.”

  “I’m so sorry. He seems like a wonderful man.”

  “He is. Dad was the ranch manager when we were kids, so we all grew up here. Granville was more like an uncle than a boss. And when Dad had his heart attack and couldn’t work anymore, Gran deeded him the house my parents now live in.”

  “Does he have family? Do they know?”

  His hands slugged into the pockets of his jeans jacket, Josh stepped off the porch onto a cemented path leading to the pastures and barns, his head angled so she couldn’t quite see his face in the hat brim’s shadow. “One daughter. She lives in DC. I can’t even remember the last time she was home.”

  “But doesn’t she know...?”

  “I have no idea,” he said, not looking at her. Not meanly, exactly, but definitely as though she’d crossed a line she didn’t know was there. Even so, he tossed her a tight, almost apologetic smile. “I’m only the hired help, not my place to get involved in family business.” Only the hired help, my butt, Mallory thought as Josh nodded toward the nearest pasture, where Waffles was out with several other horses. “Well. May as well go see your boy...”

  She’d forgotten how much intrigue and craziness there could be in a small town. Like a living soap opera. Even as a kid in Springerville, Mallory had been aware of far more than a child probably should’ve been. But what else was there to do, other than watch TV and go into town every now and then? Of course, this wasn’t Springerville and it was highly unlikely that, as an outsider, she’d ever really be privy to the town gossip. Oh, she knew that drill. One did not air one’s dirty laundry to strangers, ever. However, that didn’t mean she was immune to the emotional pull—that a man’s courage in the face of his obvious illness wouldn’t tug at her heart, that a younger one’s equally obvious sting over a young woman’s absence wouldn’t pique her curiosity.

  That his brother’s obvious pain over the loss of his wife wouldn’t make her thoughts drift in directions they had no business drifting.

  As they neared the fence several of the horses, including Waffles, plodded over to the fence to say hey. Her chair’s wheels bumped a bit on the uneven surface as she pushed herself close enough to talk to the handsome boy. And his scent, his feel when she laid her cheek against his muzzle, stirred up all manner of emotions she wasn’t sure what to do with.

  Not all of them related to the horse.

  Grinning, Josh leaned one elbow on the fence’s top rail. The other horses, realizing this wasn’t about them, walked off, nickering and whuffing among themselves. “Easy to tell you’re a horse person. You’ve got that look.”

  An echo of his brother’s words, her first time here. Mallory smiled when Waffles nodded, as if he was agreeing with Josh. “And what look would that be?” she said, reaching into her jacket pocket for a piece of carrot, which she offered to the horse, palm up.

  “That one. You came prepared.”

  “I’m no fool,” she said, and he chuckled. A nice laugh, the kind that probably made girls go all moony on a regular basis. He had that way about him, the good-looking cowboy who thought he was all that. The off-kilter grin, the cheek creases when he smiled...so not her type, she thought, slipping the horse another piece of carrot. Even if she hadn’t had at least a good ten years on him. Which of course got her to thinking about his older brother, who by rights shouldn’t have been her type, either—

  “So where’s your little man?” she asked, remembering his son.

  That got the beaming smile of a man only too happy to talk about the most important person in his life. “Right now? Austin’s with my folks. But it varies, depending on who snags him first. He’s a pretty popular little dude. So when’s your boy coming out?”

  “Two weeks,” she said, flashing a smile at Zach’s brother.

  “Let’s see...two weeks. Before or after the tenth?”

  “After.”

  “Too bad. He’ll just miss the rodeo.”

  “There’s a rodeo?”

  “After a fashion. Probably nothing like you were used to.” At her lifted brows, he said, “Zach told me. Barrel racer, huh?”

  “Yep.” She patted the horse’s shoulder and steered the conversation away from herself. “What about you? You ride?”

  “Some. Cutting, mostly, these days. Although since Austin came I’ve only done the local one. It’s a big deal around here, though. Which is why I cannot figure out for the life of me why my brother and his fiancée decided that’s when they should get married.”

  Mallory’s head jerked up. “Your brother?”

  A grin spread across Josh’s mouth. “My twin. Levi. What?”

  Her face hot, Mallory turned back to the horse. “For a moment I forgot you had more than one brother, that’s all. But a wedding!” she said, smiling at him again. “How exciting!”

  “For Levi, maybe,” Josh said with another quick grin, propping a boot up on the lower rail and looking out over the pasture. “Levi’d been sweet on Val all through high school, but she ended up with his best friend. Then both Levi and Tomas enlisted, went to Afghanistan...” He sobered. “Except Tommy didn’t make it home.”

  “Oh, no...”

  “Yeah. Everybody here took it pretty hard. He was a good guy. A really good guy. The kind of good guy who makes his best friend swear to look out for his wife and kids.”

  “Oh. Wow. And now they’re getting married.”

  “Yep.”

  Waffles nuzzled her hair. Looking for more carrots, maybe. Mallory obliged. “You all really watch out for each other, don’t you? The whole town, I mean.”

  “To the point where we drive each other nuts sometimes. But yeah.”

  Mallory hesitated, then asked, “Would it be betraying a confidence to tell me what happened to Zach’s wife?”

  Frowning out into the pasture, Josh waited a good long time before answering. “Car crash. Hardly a secret. Beyond that, though...”

  “Understood. And there’s no reason he should talk to me about it, really. We hardly know each other. But I get the feeling he doesn’t talk about it to anyone.”

  Josh turned his gaze to hers. “No. He doesn’t.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “I think it’s a family trait. Except for my mother. Whatever she’s feeling, you know it, boy. Which doesn’t mean she blabs about anyone else. But the rest of us...” His head shook. “None of us even know what really went on with Levi, when he was overseas. Although I suspect he’s sharing more with Val than he ever did with any of us. She has that effect on people.”

  “Aw...you like your sister-in-law.”

  Another cute, almost embarrassed grin preceded a quiet, “We all do. She’s good folks.”

  Mallory smiled. From what she’d heard so far, there were several people in town she thought she might like getting to know.

  “A word of warning, though,” Josh said. Kindly, she thought. Leaning one hip against the fence, he crossed his arms high on his chest. “Zach’s doing a pretty good job of holding it together. For his kids, his clients. At least, that’s how it seems to us. But the minute you poke at him, you’re right—he’ll close up faster’n a snapping turtle. And despite what most women think—and with good reason, I’ll admit,” Josh said with a smile, “not all men are totally oblivious. Meaning I can see you’re curious. Don’t know about interested,” he said, his eyes narrowing, “but the wheels are definitel
y turning.”

  She blew a short laugh through her nose. “Yes, they are. And you’re right, I am curious. In a people-fascinate-me kind of way.”

  “And the other?”

  Her gaze shifted to his. “Speaking of looking out for each other.”

  Josh shrugged. “Long ingrained habit. Whether any of us want to be looked out for or not.”

  And sometimes, she decided, lying really was the best option. Because to admit the truth would only go to prove it wasn’t only her legs that weren’t working properly. “Your brother is obviously a nice guy, and it hurts me to see someone else hurting,” she said, echoing what she’d said to her mother. “But I won’t pry, I promise.”

  “And that’s really all there is to it?”

  “Yes.” No. But the more details she went into—that she was only there part-time and would return to Los Angeles, that she was in no position to embark on a relationship herself—the more likely she’d sound as though she was protesting too much. Never mind that both things were true. And of course there was the indisputable fact that her wheelchair was a huge turnoff for some men. Okay, a lot of men. For her, it was freeing. There were few places she couldn’t go, far fewer things she couldn’t do than people might realize, even if she did them differently. But an awful lot of people only saw her as somebody who couldn’t walk, as though that was the main thing that defined her.

  Still, there was the also indisputable fact that the man stirred something inside her that went way beyond her severe hanky-panky deprivation. Something that took her out of herself, made her...want to do more. Be more. But to say this was a nonstarter didn’t even begin to cover it.

  And the look Zach’s brother was giving her right now told her he wasn’t buying it for a minute. Especially when he said, “That’s too bad. Because I think you’d be real good for him.”