She folded her arms across her chest as if that could protect her. Too late. His questions had already triggered a whole list of thoughts she wanted—needed—to stay away from.
“This place never was an inn before,” he said thoughtfully. “What made your mother go into business for herself?”
“As I told you, my grandfather died. He left the house to her, and she decided to start the bed-and-breakfast.” Short and sweet and all he needed to know. She needed to get him out of here. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll concentrate on your business. I’ve got—”
Nate and her friends rushed into the room, their sneakers screeching on the polished floor as the girls skidded to a stop beside the table.
Tess’s heart sank.
“Caleb—” Nate shot a glance at Tess. “He said I can call him that, Mom.” She turned back. “Can you stay and have supper with us?”
“No, I don’t think—” Tess began.
“C’mon, Caleb,” Nate urged, her unblinking gaze on him showing she obviously hadn’t even heard Tess’s words. “We’re having a sleepover. We’re gonna grill hot dogs and burgers, and Gram’s making potato salad.”
“Yes, I am. The best red-potato salad you’ll find this side of the Mississippi.”
At the sound of her mother’s voice, Tess swallowed a groan and looked across the room.
Just inside the doorway stood Roselynn and Aunt Ellamae, wearing smiles as alike as rows of kernels on a corncob. Tess eyed them warily. With those two, you could never know what to expect next. Just like Nate, as a matter of fact. “Caleb and I have some paperwork to take care of,” she told them.
“Oh, sugar.” Southern sweetness dripped from Roselynn’s words. “You worked hard all day. Surely that can wait.”
“Yeah,” Ellamae added. “At least till after the fresh-made pecan pie.”
Caleb grinned, and he glanced from one eager face to another—all six of them. With great effort, only Tess kept her expression carefully neutral.
“Ladies,” he said, “I don’t see how I can rightly refuse an invitation like that one.”
Nate took him by the hand, and he rose to his feet.
Tess’s eyes stung. Her heart sank even lower.
“C’mon,” her daughter said. “Let’s go out back by the grill.” As she led him away, she added in a hoarse whisper, “Maybe you can do the burgers. Mom always burns ’em.”
The rest of the girls followed in their wake like a row of baby ducklings behind their daddy and mama.
Her own mother and aunt looked at her, looked at each other, still beaming, and then disappeared from the doorway.
Tess put her elbows on the table and her head into her hands.
This couldn’t be happening. It just couldn’t. After almost a decade, Caleb couldn’t be back here again.
But he was. Talking about the past and the changes around here and how many years it had been. If it ever occurred to him to sit down and do the math…
That couldn’t happen, either.
Tess shot to her feet. Determination propelled her across the dining room. She had to get that man out of her house. Had to make sure he never set foot in it again.
Most of all, she had to keep him from ever finding out that Nate—her horse-crazy, rodeo-loving, rebellious daughter Nate—was his daughter, too.
Chapter Four
The evening couldn’t have gotten any worse, from Tess’s perspective. She curled up on her lawn chair in the shadowy backyard and tried not to groan.
With the burgers and hot dogs and potato salad long gone, supper had given way to the night’s entertainment.
Caleb.
He’d started in on tales of his life on the rodeo circuit, as if they had all come together to share stories over a cozy little campfire. Next thing she knew, they’d be toasting marshmallows over the grill and singing “Kumbaya.”
Sighing, she wrapped her arms around her upraised knees.
Nate and the rest of the girls sat cross-legged at Caleb’s feet. They stared up at him, their openmouthed looks of hero worship obvious for everyone to see. Even Roselynn and Ellamae had drawn their chairs over to the group, the better to hear his low drawl.
Traitors.
Yet, how could she blame them? Hadn’t he roped her in, too, just with different kinds of stories? Not anymore, though. Never again.
“How did you ever get out of that field?” asked Lissa Wright, Dana’s oldest child and Nate’s best friend.
“Didn’t that bull kill you?” another of the girls asked.
Nate rolled her eyes. “Of course not, silly. He’s here, isn’t he? Right, Caleb?”
“Right.”
Even from across the yard, Tess could see him struggling to keep from laughing.
“As for how I got out of there, it’s like this.” With every word his voice grew more animated, holding the girls enthralled. “I whipped off my bandana and blindfolded that bull so fast, he didn’t know what hit him. Got him so confused, he ran into a fence post harder than his own head. The darned fool knocked himself out.”
Her Aunt Ellamae, always given to plain speaking, responded with a very unladylike snort. “Caleb Cantrell, that’s a lot of bull, and you know it.”
He grinned at her. “He sure was, ma’am.”
Aunt El laughed.
Tess gave in to the groan she’d tried so hard to hold back and put her chin on her knees.
“Mom,” Nate called, starry-eyed in the lamps’ glow, “are you listening to all this?”
“I don’t know if I’m hearing it just right,” she said, forcing enthusiasm into her voice. “It sounds almost too good to be true.”
The real truth was, except for the most exciting moments during his stories, when either Caleb raised his voice or the girls repeated in awestruck tones something he’d said, she hadn’t heard anything at all. From her seat, Caleb’s words came as a murmur. A low, sexy murmur. As much as the sound unsteadied her, she preferred not being able to hear him clearly.
Why would she want to know the details of the bait that had lured him away from her?
In the brief moment when everyone had turned to look at Tess, Caleb stared at her. His eyes shone as bright as Nate’s. Not with the glint of excitement, though. Those eyes, his solemn expression, his stiff shoulders, all showed he had caught the false enthusiasm in her tone.
It seemed to bother him. She didn’t understand why. But she didn’t care.
“What’s the biggest rodeo you were ever in?” Lissa asked.
“Well, let me think…”
Caleb broke eye contact with Tess, the audience focused on their star again, and Tess let her attention turn inward.
She knew nothing about Caleb’s biggest rodeo, but she would never forget his first one....
She’d known nothing about his dreams, either, when they’d first found each other in high school. Two lonely teenagers, they’d held on tight to a relationship made even more precious because it was theirs alone.
Their secret.