Her shoulders slumped. It was Trevor’s duty visit to her aunt—at his uncle’s insistence—that had started this whole farce. Closing her eyes, she wondered why life had to be so hard. Tears crowded against her eyes. She held on until they eased and she could think again.
She’d foolishly believed that Trevor had been instrumental in inviting her to the Dalton ranch. She’d thought this meant another chance for them and that he wanted it, too. She’d been wrong, terribly wrong.
There were two choices, she decided. She could crawl into a hole inside herself and wallow in self-pity, or she could refuse to be put off by Trevor’s lack of welcome and endure. She was good at enduring.
With a sigh she changed to the nightshirt, unpacked her clothes and put them in the maple dresser. Its beveled, triple mirrors reflected her unhappy countenance back at her from several angles. Red streaks on either side of her nose indicated the bruises that would be visible by morning.
They were nothing compared to the bruises on her heart. She recounted the tragedies life had thrown her way the past eighteen months: the putting to sleep of Scruffs, a lovable and loving stray cat she’d taken in fifteen years ago, due to kidney disease; the divorce of her parents after thirty years of marriage; and then the accident in which Lyle, who lived on the next ranch and had been a friend from birth, had been injured.
The tears pressed close again. She’d cried enough this past year and a half to flood the Rio Grande. Her aunt had told her it was time she put the past behind and started over, that she was young and had all the future before her.
Lyric gave a soft laugh, but it wasn’t a happy sound. She hadn’t felt young in ages.
Except for one delirious three-week period when a rangy, blue-eyed cowboy had visited Austin for the stock sale. Trevor was twenty-eight to her twenty-four. He’d made her laugh with his jokes and teasing. He’d thrilled her with the way he’d stared at her. She’d done the same, both unable to take their eyes off the other. And his kisses…
A shiver ran over her as she remembered their kisses. Even though they’d had to be careful because of his broken ribs, she’d never been kissed like that, had never responded the way she had to him. It had been wonderful…exciting…and terribly confusing.
She’d never felt that way about Lyle. That fact had added to the uncertainty in her, that plus the quarrel she and Lyle had had the previous month.
She’d refused to set a date for the wedding or to wear his ring. Lyle had been angry. Before he’d gone out of town on business, he’d told her to make up her mind about them before he returned. Or else.
She’d told him then that she wasn’t sure she could go through with the marriage. She wasn’t ready to be tied down.
Tied down. That seemed an odd way to describe what should have been one of the most exciting times in a woman’s life. It wasn’t until she met Trevor that the doubts became focused and clear as to why she couldn’t marry her old friend. She didn’t love him that way.
But then there had been the accident. Trevor had been at her house, having dinner with her, her mom and Aunt Fay when the call came.
“That was Lyle’s mother,” she’d said to the other three when she’d hung up the phone. “He’s been in an accident near San Antonio and is in intensive care. She said I should come to the hospital at once. He’s asking for me.”
“Who’s Lyle?” Trevor had asked.
“Her fiancé,” her mom had answered.
Lyric would never forget the shock, the disbelief, then the fury on Trevor’s face as he absorbed this news. “Is that true?” he’d asked.
“No, not exactly. Lyle’s been out of town on business this past month,” she’d said, stumbling over the words, anxious to wipe the anger from his eyes, the disgust now curling his lips, the accusation in the question.
“How convenient,” he’d said.
She realized he thought she was a cheat and deceiver of the first order. “We weren’t officially engaged. I was supposed to be thinking it over while he was gone.”
“One last fling before tying the knot,” Trevor had murmured sardonically, his eyes black pools of anger.
“No—”
“We’d better go, Lyric,” her mother had interrupted. “The accident sounds serious.”
“Yes. We have to go,” she’d said to Trevor, knowing she had no choice.
With her aunt hovering anxiously, and Trevor standing as still as a statue, she and her mom had rushed off into the night, arriving at the hospital an hour later.
Lyle’s mother had been distraught. A widow with no immediate family, she’d needed them desperately. The doctors had discovered a tumor in her son’s head, one that was inoperable. That was why he’d passed out while driving.
“Trevor,” Lyric now whispered to the absent cowboy who’d filled her heart with delight for a short time, “how could I have left him then?”
After talking to the doctors and knowing Lyle would never recover and that his future was very uncertain, she’d known she couldn’t desert him.
Trevor had left the state before she could get back to him. It was just as well. She’d been going to ask him to wait for her, but she knew whatever Trevor had felt for her had turned into hatred. She’d seen it in his eyes tonight when he’d given her the ice bag.
Gathering her toiletry case, she admitted she couldn’t have done otherwise and lived with herself. Not even for a man who’d made her heart sing could she have turned her back on her friend’s need.
Morning came early on a ranch. Lyric wasn’t naturally an early riser, but living on her father’s ranch had made her one. Last year, after the divorce, her mother had moved to Austin. Lyric divided her time equally between the two homes and had visited frequently with Aunt Fay who also lived in the city.
As administrator of a four-family trust set up by her grandparents and three other couples who were all friends and whose parents had founded an oil company together in the early 1900s, Lyric had had a busy life since college, spending her time approving grants and participating in various charity functions for the trust foundation. It was a job she could do from anywhere on her laptop computer.
Forcing her reluctant body from the comfortable bed, she went into the bathroom to shower. At once her senses were assailed by a familiar aftershave, by the clean smell of balsam shampoo and soap, and by the memory of being enveloped in Trevor’s arms.
She’d loved snuggling her nose against his neck and feeling his arms around her, holding her close, as close as his poor injured ribs could take.
At times during the long, dreary winter, she’d ached to crawl into his embrace and rest there, too weary to ever move again. Trevor, her strong, gentle love…
But none of that was to be, she reminded the longing that rose to choke her. As some wise person had observed long ago: you made your bed; you slept in it. Alone.
She pulled off the jersey and stepped into the shower. Twenty minutes later, hair dry and held off her face in a ponytail, wearing jeans, a knit top and a determined smile, she went into the kitchen.
“Good morning, Lyric,” her aunt greeted her.
“Did you sleep okay?” Trevor’s uncle asked.
She smiled at the two who lingered at the table with coffee and the newspaper. “Good morning, Aunt Fay, Mr. Dalton. Yes, I slept like a log. Your air is much cooler and conducive to sleep up here,” she said.
“It’s the mountains,” the uncle said. “And Mr. Dalton was my father. Everyone calls me Uncle Nick.”
“Uncle