“Fine. You’re free as a bird as far as I’m concerned.”
“Fine,” she said, and stared at the road without looking in his direction again.
Instead of taking the road to the ranch, he turned onto another one running alongside the reservoir that formed a long, narrow recreational lake and supplied the town’s water. The water reflected the sky.
The valley was cupped protectively in the palm of the surrounding mountains. It looked too peaceful and lovely to be real. For her it wasn’t. Sadness gripped her heart.
Get over it, she advised, rejecting self-pity.
Trevor pulled into the parking lot of a lodge that looked new. “I thought we would have lunch here.”
Stifling a protest, she got out before he could help her and joined him on a flagstone path to the front steps.
She felt every movement as a separate pain in each muscle of her body. When he took her arm to help her as they climbed to the broad porch, she couldn’t help but flinch.
He paused on the wooden planks and studied her face. “Sore?” he asked.
“Everywhere,” she replied with a smile and a little shrug. A mistake, that. The pain was immediate. Her hand went automatically to her left shoulder.
Trevor frowned, then eased the collar of her shirt away from her neck. “The seat belt,” he murmured. “The collarbone may be broken. We’ll go see Beau.” He paused. “You shouldn’t have ridden this morning. If you’d been thrown, your injuries could have been compounded. And serious.”
“I wasn’t, so I’m fine,” she said stoically. “I don’t need to see a doctor.”
He stared into her eyes like Diogenes searching for one honest person. “Let’s go eat,” he at last said huskily.
“This is lovely,” she said when they entered the soaring, two-story lobby. A huge fireplace was filled with fragrant pine and cedar boughs, ready for a spark to set it flaming. She imagined snow outside, the warm fire inside and a lazy afternoon of lying on the sofa and reading.
Images sprang to her mind of a couple taking their ease there, then laying their books aside and turning to each other, unable to stand another moment without touching.
Lyric sighed shakily and forced the mental scene away. Trevor still held her arm. Using gentle pressure, he guided her into the dining room.
“Lovely,” she repeated when they were seated. Their window had a view of the lake and the mountains. “The lodge is new, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “We opened a couple of months ago.”
“It belongs to you?”
“To the family. My brothers and I, plus our three cousins, put up the money and did most of the construction this past year. The logs came from the ranch. We cut and milled the lumber ourselves.”
“My family worked together on the ranch. It was fun.” She fell silent, recalling her parents’ divorce last year. The shock of it. The bewilderment that thirty years could go down the drain without explanation.
With all their children out of the nest—Lyric was working and had her own place while one brother was a college junior and the other a freshman—their parents had called it quits. They’d admitted the marriage had been in trouble for a long time but they’d concealed it until the youngest child graduated from high school before going their separate ways. The boys had been just as shocked as Lyric.
So much for romantic illusions. She wasn’t sure she believed anyone lived “happily ever after” anymore. Two of her friends from school had already split after less than three years of marriage.
She let out a ragged breath composed of equal parts dismay and disillusionment. She really had been foolish to traipse all the way to Idaho chasing after a dream.
Trevor gave her a piercing glance, then his eyes went back to the menu the hostess had given them. The waitress brought the tall glasses of iced tea they’d requested, took their orders and quietly left.
“So why was your mother living in Austin?” he asked. “I thought they were divorced.”
What had they been talking about? Oh, yes, her family. “They were. They are. Last year.”
She sipped the cool tea, worry eating at her. She hated for things to go wrong. Her aunt said she was too soft-hearted. She didn’t know about that, but problems bothered her until she found solutions.
A wry smile settled briefly on her mouth. Perhaps she wanted the standard fairy-tale ending too much.
“Tell me the truth,” she requested. “Did you ask your uncle to include me in the invitation to the ranch?”
His eyes reflected the brilliant blue of the lake and sky. “No.”
Well, she’d asked. Just to be sure. Just so there wouldn’t be any lingering hope on her part.
Her throat tightened so that it was difficult to swallow or to speak. She nodded and smiled at the man who watched her with the fierce stare of a hawk. His gaze held none of the warmth or humor or desire of last fall.
She considered telling him about the final days of winter and that she couldn’t have come to him in April or May or June while the grief over her lifelong friend was still so strong. They’d set June the fifteenth as the wedding date. She’d had to get past that first.
However, one look at Trevor’s harsh expression told her he wasn’t ready to listen, and she couldn’t bring herself to plead for his understanding. So she would leave at the end of the month with her aunt.
But if the attraction blossomed again, some part of her added, then perhaps she and Trevor could talk and sort out their feelings. In the meantime, she wanted him to know she wasn’t there under any pretenses.
“I’m not engaged, Trevor,” she said softly, “not since early in March.”
“Another sucker bites the dust,” he muttered with a sardonic snort of laughter.
Lyric turned toward the scene outside the restaurant. She studied the view until the swift tempest of emotion passed and the pieces of her heart were pasted together once more. She wouldn’t try to explain the past to him again. She just wouldn’t.
When the waitress brought their meal, they ate in silence and left immediately thereafter.
“Trevor, hello,” a feminine voice called.
Trevor spotted the neighboring rancher’s daughter. He’d been going to see her last night when he’d run Lyric off the road. “Hey, Jane Anne,” he called.
She crossed the parking lot, then hesitated when she saw he was with another woman. “Hi,” she said to Lyric.
Trevor introduced the two women. “Lyric and her aunt are here for the month.” He explained about the accident.
“Are you okay?” Jane Anne asked.
Lyric nodded.
The rich brown of her hair picked up shades of auburn and golden amber in the sunlight, he noted. The gold of her eyes flashed when she glanced from him to the other woman. Her face was tanned, her cheeks rosy. Her smile was warm and friendly.
By contrast, Jane Anne looked pale. Her hair was blond, almost white, inherited from Scandinavian ancestors. Her eyes were light blue, her skin very fair. Her smile was cautious. Jane Anne was only eighteen and had graduated from high school in May. In June she’d been dumped by her longtime boyfriend for a girl he’d met in college.
Trevor had started seeing her out of sympathy, his attitude that of a big brother since he was ten years older than she was. “We’ll have to think of something