Some days she awakened with an excess of energy and did everything that needed doing, too. Other days she hung around her apartment, not getting dressed or combing her hair, eating junk food and taking naps between movies on TV. She considered those days the refilling-her-creative-well days. No doubt J.T. would think of them as damn-what-a-lazy-slug days.
“You don’t have a regular quitting time?” she asked.
With a brow raised, he reached for her plate. When she nodded, he took it and his own plate to the counter. After putting the remaining sandwich half in a plastic bag in the refrigerator, he returned. “I usually quit around six or six-thirty, depending on what I’m doing. Sometimes I have to work later. Occasionally I can quit earlier.”
“Doesn’t leave much time for a social life.”
He shrugged.
“You’ve never been married.” She waited for his nod. “I assume there are women in your life. Anyone in particular?”
For a long, still moment he simply looked at her. Though her gaze remained steady on him, some part of her mind noticed that it wasn’t as cool in the house as it had initially seemed, coming in from the searing oven outside. In fact, in the past few minutes she’d gotten distinctly warmer, almost uncomfortably so, and found herself wishing for a blast of chilly air, an industrial-strength fan…or maybe a cold shower.
“You don’t really think I’d tell you if there were, do you? Considering who—or rather what—you are….”
Though his tone was mild, his words measured, Natalie felt the insult’s sting. “This may come as a surprise to you, J.T., but not everyone regards reporters as the spawn of Satan.”
“Not everyone has one sticking her pretty little nose into their personal lives.”
She smiled smugly. Every Chaney male eventually got around to a compliment of some sort—though she had to admit, J.T. was the first one to select her nose. The number-one son had liked her legs, number two her breasts, number three her mouth. Number five had expressed great appreciation for the way she moved and the way she talked, and even the senator himself, old enough to be her grandfather, had made a few indecent suggestions the first time they met.
But of course she had better sense than to mention the reason for her smile to J.T.
“I’ve got to get to work,” he said, pushing his chair back.
She popped to her feet, too. “Can I come with you?”
His gaze started at her shoulders and glided all the way down to her sandaled feet before sweeping up again. She would bet the partial payment she’d received on the book’s advance that he was doing nothing more than taking note of how inappropriate her dress was to a working ranch—which didn’t deter her one bit from finding the look…sensual. Heated. A threat to the professional detachment she always maintained with her interview subjects.
“You’re not exactly dressed to ride one of my horses,” he said at last. “Jordan should be back before long. Get settled in, and we’ll talk at dinner.”
She couldn’t even argue the point about riding. There was no way she could make it into the saddle in this dress, and there was one other minor problem in that she didn’t know how to ride. She’d lived thirty-one years without getting closer to a horse than when they’d cut across the yard on the way to her temporary quarters, and she was convinced she could happily keep her distance for the next sixty years.
After thanking him for lunch, she returned to Lucinda’s place, nudged the thermostat into a cooler range, then wandered into the living room. With the sun already on its afternoon slide into the west, she opened the blinds, then turned to study the room.
It was a little on the small side and decorated in a rather fussy manner. There were hand-crocheted doilies on the arms of the sofa and chairs, dried flower arrangements, a ruffled cloth on one round end table. More pictures of the three Rawlins boys hung on the walls, along with a couple of snapshots of Lucinda. The one that appeared most recent had been taken in the spring, with that old green truck and the weathered barn for a backdrop. The photographer’s shadow fell across lush green grass and stretched toward the feet of the family gathered there—Jordan, wearing crisp indigo jeans and a vertically striped rugby shirt, the heartthrob every high school should have for its own; J.T. in faded jeans and a white dress shirt and holding a cream-colored cowboy hat in his hands; the absent brother, Tate, five years older than J.T., several inches shorter, less handsome, less sexy, more forgettable; and Lucinda.
From the time the senator had told Natalie about his affair with Lucinda Rawlins and the illegitimate son it had produced, she’d wondered about the woman. Was she as pretty as Chaney remembered, as sly, deceitful and cunning as he claimed? Had she pursued him, seduced him and deliberately set out to trap him, or had it been just one more instance of the senator’s lack of self-control?
In the photograph with her sons and grandson, Lucinda didn’t look sly, deceitful or cunning. What she looked like, in fact, was the senator’s preferred type—slim, blond, pretty, delicate. She had a lovely smile and held herself with a certain grace, though her life certainly hadn’t been easy. According to the senator, her marriage to Tate’s father had ended when he’d found himself one girlfriend too many. She’d been left to raise two kids alone, with no help from either father, and she had apparently been very successful. Well, except for the fact that Tate had apparently repeated her mistake and wound up raising Jordan alone.
“Hey.”
She gave a start, then turned to face the subject of her last thought, standing in the kitchen doorway.
“I knocked, but I guess you didn’t hear. I don’t know if—if Uncle J.T. told you, but the doorbell at the side door doesn’t work. We got hit by lightning in the last storm, and it fried the doorbell and Grandma’s cable and the telephone. We got the telephone fixed, but if you want to watch cable, you have to come over to our place, and Dad will fix the doorbell—” he swallowed hard, and his cheeks turned pink “—or—or maybe Uncle J.T. will. When he gets the time. Maybe.”
Natalie offered her warmest smile to put the boy at ease. “I appreciate your picking up my stuff for me. It was nice of your uncle to volunteer you.”
“They’re always doing that,” he said with a shrug that was an unconscious imitation of J.T.’s. “But I don’t mind. I just got my driver’s license a couple months ago. Your bags are by the door. Want me to put them in the guest room?”
“That’s okay. I’ll get them later. Do you have to get to work, or can you sit down and talk?”
He shifted uneasily. “I’ve got football practice in a little bit.”
“In this heat?”
“We just run some laps, and mostly work out in the weight room. It’s air-conditioned. And we drink a lot of water and Gatorade and stuff. We won’t spend a lot of time outside until week after next.”
“I saw the sign outside town that said you were the state champions last year.”
He seemed intent on dragging the toe of his boot back and forth across the seam where vinyl flooring met carpet. “Yeah, we did okay.”
“I bet you did better than okay.” He was six feet tall, broad-shouldered, about 180 pounds of muscle—and acting as shy as a tongue-tied six-year-old. “Is football your only sport?”
“I play baseball, too. Pitcher, just like my dad. He was one of the best jocks Hickory Bluff ever saw. He was recruited by the OU Sooners and the Razorbacks his senior year.”
“What happened?”
Jordan stared at the floor for a moment. When he looked up, his brown eyes were dark with regret. “Me.”
“Oh.” Natalie’s smile felt forced. “Look at it this way—you probably saved him from