“You could have told me.”
Eyes as blue as his own glanced his way. “I did. Last month, right after we got things straightened out between Roni and Adam. I distinctly recall mentioning it at Sunday dinner when everyone was here.”
In May, Roni, one of the orphaned cousins and the only girl in the family, had married Adam. His younger sister, Honey, was married to Trevor’s older brother, Zack.
Trevor sighed. The family connections were becoming complicated, with his two brothers and his three cousins all getting hitched during the prior fourteen months.
Five weddings.
He was the only bachelor left of the six kids whose four parents had been wiped out in a freak avalanche twenty-three years ago. His father and uncle had been twins, the same as he and Travis were. Uncle Nick, the oldest of the three Dalton brothers, and Aunt Milly had taken all six children in and raised them as their own.
Glancing at the older man, who was acting as frisky as a new colt, Trevor experienced a clenching in the vicinity of his heart. Uncle Nick seemed okay now, but he’d had a heart attack last spring and a couple of weak spells since then.
Trevor heaved another sigh. If his uncle wanted to invite his deceased wife’s cousin to visit, there was nothing he could do about it. Why Lyric had come with her aunt was the thing he didn’t get.
Pasting a pleasant—he hoped—smile on his face, he carried two plates into the other room and gave one to Lyric while his uncle presented one to the aunt, then took the chair beside her and attentively asked about the trip and all that had been happening to her of late.
Trevor sat on the far end of the sofa from Lyric. Neither of them said a word for the next fifteen minutes.
“Trev, would you take the plates to the kitchen and bring out the coffee?” Uncle Nick turned to Fay. “I put on a pot of decaffeinated coffee. It should be ready. I find I can’t sleep if I drink regular coffee at night.”
“I have the same problem,” she said.
Trevor met Lyric’s gaze, and they exchanged spontaneous smiles as the older couple discussed aging and the changes it brought.
Lyric’s eyes reminded him of a brown velvet dress Aunt Milly had loved to wear. As a kid he’d once stroked the soft material and observed the way the light changed when the nap was smoothed down. Lyric’s eyes were like that—changing from brown to gold as the light reflected off the golden flecks around the black pupil.
He wiped the smile off and looked away. He wanted nothing to do with her. No memories, no shared amusement over the old folks, nothing!
“I’ll get the coffee,” he said.
In the kitchen he sucked in a harsh breath and wondered how long this visit was going to last. Not that he wouldn’t get through it just fine. After all, no one in his family knew he’d made a fool of himself over a woman who had been engaged to another and, in the end, had chosen that man over him.
He’d lived through worse. The death of his parents. The death of his twin’s first wife, whom he’d been half in love with all his growing-up years. The end of his rodeo career when he’d caved in several ribs and been advised by the doc to hang up his spurs. Yeah, life was tough.
Hearing steps behind him, he stopped the useless introspection and turned his head.
“I thought I would see if I could help,” Lyric said.
Her eyes searched his face anxiously, as if she sought something from him. Welcome? Understanding? Forgiveness? She’d come to the wrong place if she thought he had anything left for her.
He stifled the angry words that rushed to his tongue. “Sure. Bring the sugar bowl and cream pitcher. I’ll carry the cups on the tray.”
He picked up the walnut tray he’d made in shop class in tenth grade years ago. Part of him was keenly aware of the woman who followed him into the other room.
After the coffee was served, the two seniors went back to their conversation without a hitch, obviously interested in catching up on the other’s life since they’d last met twenty years ago. His uncle’s face beamed in pleasure, and Lyric’s aunt looked ten years younger in spite of the bruising on her face.
A lump came to Trevor’s throat. It wasn’t often that sentiment caught up with him, but he felt an overpowering love for this man whose heart had been big enough to take in six kids without a complaint, who’d buried his own wife with quiet grief no more than a year later and who’d lost his own daughter and had never known what happened to the child. Footprints and tire marks had indicated someone had taken three-year-old Tink from the scene of the wreck and left with her, but no one was really sure what had happened.
God, how had the kind, loving uncle stood the pain?
By holding on and meeting each new sunrise one day at a time, Trevor knew. Just as he’d done last fall and winter until he’d finally confined all the pain, anger and sense of betrayal to the little black box that was his soul. He’d locked it away and learned to live with it. He would keep on doing that.
Finally the group was ready for bed. He brought in luggage for the aunt and though Lyric insisted on getting her own, he determinedly took her larger suitcase and marched into the house. She trailed behind.
Uncle Nick assigned the older guest to the suite at the end of the west wing. The rose-colored room had its own bathroom and sitting area. Lyric was put in the spare room next to it.
Unfortunately his room was next door to hers, and they would have to share the bath across the hall.
Not at the same time, he hastened to add as his libido picked up on this idea. Okay, so there was still a physical attraction. So what? For a brief moment Trevor considered moving to his cousin’s old room in the other wing of the house, but knew that was stupid. He wasn’t going to let a woman make him run like a startled deer.
After he saw to the aunt’s luggage, he carried Lyric’s large case next door. She stood by the bed, her eyes taking in the furnishings.
He set the case on the cedar chest at the end of the bed. The words escaped before he fully realized he was going to say them. “So how’s your fiancé?” he asked.
She gazed at him with her soft, doe-like eyes. He saw her throat move as she swallowed, then her breasts—those gorgeous full breasts—lifted as she took a deep breath and slowly released it.
“Lyle—” she began, then stopped as unreadable emotions flickered across her face.
The name was a stab in the gut. Lyle and Lyric, as if they were a matched pair, meant for each other.
“Does it matter?” she finally asked in a strained voice.
He shrugged and left the tempting bedroom before he did something he’d regret—like grab her and crush her to him, like make good use of the bed behind them, like beg her to say she was sorry she’d chosen another over him.
And why the hell didn’t she wear an engagement ring like other women?
Chapter Two
On shaky legs, Lyric closed the door, then unzipped the smaller of her two cases. She pulled out the red ankle-length nightshirt made like a football jersey with the numeral one printed on it, a gift from her two brothers last Christmas, then sat on the cedar chest, the jersey clutched to her breasts.
Had Aunt Fay lied about her being included in the invitation to the ranch? If not, then it certainly wasn’t Trevor who’d asked for her presence. His uncle? The silver-haired rancher had never met her, so why should he?
With lethal humor, she wished she were still lost on the country roads, driving around and around in endless circles going nowhere. Because at the present moment she felt she’d crossed over into the Twilight Zone.
Lifting