A Kiss In The Moonlight. Laurie Paige

up.

      When he sat on the ledge and let his legs dangle over the side, she did, too, although not without misgivings.

      “This rock has held all the Daltons at once without falling,” he told her.

      “There’s always a first time,” she muttered, staring down into the lovely little valley. The ranch house looked like something for a doll from up here.

      Gazing west, she observed the peaks spread out into the distance. “In Texas, you said the seven peaks were named for seven devils that used to come over and eat the children of the people here until Coyote changed them into mountains.”

      “That’s the legend,” he agreed.

      “He-Devil is the tallest. I saw the name on a road sign. Do the others have names?”

      “The Devil’s Tooth, Mount Ogre, Mount Baal, the Tower of Babel, the Goblin.”

      “That’s five, plus He-Devil. What’s the other one?”

      He turned those blue eyes on her. Without blinking, he said, “She-Devil.”

      It was the breeze, playfully tugging at their hats that finally broke their locked gazes and the silent struggle between them.

      “Is that what you think of me?” she asked softly, as if by speaking the words that way, the answer might not hurt.

      He set his hat more firmly on his head. “Does it matter?”

      “Yes.”

      Glancing at her once more, he shrugged and rose. “Let’s just say I don’t think much of a woman who kisses one man while engaged to another.” He leaped down to the smaller boulder, then to the ground.

      Lyric stood on the hunk of granite and contemplated several retorts. None seemed worthy.

      “Didn’t you get my letter?” she finally asked when she, too, stood on the ground by the boulders.

      He nodded without looking at her.

      In the letter she’d tried to explain why her mother had thought she was engaged and why she really hadn’t been. She tried again. “Lyle and I were at an impasse. He wanted to announce a wedding date. I wasn’t sure enough about us to do that. We weren’t engaged, not really.”

      “So you strung him along, then while he was out of town you experimented with me. You must have decided it was real. You stayed with him.”

      “Because he needed me.”

      “Yeah,” Trevor said with undisguised bitterness. “He needed you, so you stayed.”

      “Trevor—”

      “The car wreck wasn’t all that serious, according to the news later that evening. It didn’t kill him or maim him or call for a life-or-death operation, did it?”

      She hesitated. “No,” she said. “It didn’t.”

      “But you stayed with him. Where’s your engagement ring?” he demanded, lifting her hand and holding it between them so they could both see her bare finger. He dropped it as if it might contaminate him with something dreadful.

      “At home.”

      “Your mother said you’d set a wedding date. In June, she said.”

      Lyric stared at him. “You called? When?” She clutched his arm at his nod. “Trevor, when?”

      “After I got the letter. Apparently you’d changed your mind about the marriage.” He pulled away from her grasp.

      “She didn’t tell me about the call.”

      “I told her not to. I didn’t figure it would make any difference.” He started toward the horses, then paused. “Would it?” he asked. “Would it have made a difference if we’d spoken? Would you have broken the engagement and come to me…if I’d asked?”

      She thought of silent, endless nights at the hospital, of days at Lyle’s bedside when he went home, him thinking he was going to be all right, that they would marry and produce an heir to the two ranches.

      We’ll have children right away, he’d said one afternoon toward the end. Would you rub my head? These damn headaches seem to be getting worse instead of better.

      His mother hadn’t wanted him to know the truth. She’d wanted his final days to be happy ones, filled with plans for the future. He didn’t seem to realize he was slipping further and further away as feeling began to leave his body.

      He hadn’t even noticed when he’d closed a car door on his hand. Lyric had been horrified but had managed to hide it as she released his hand and settled him on the terrace before running to the kitchen for a towel and ice to go on his injury.

      He’d become more and more docile as the days wore on, and then he hadn’t wanted her out of his sight during the last weeks. She’d slept on a sofa in his room. Often she’d held him propped up in her arms when his breathing became labored and weak. Then one night he’d whispered, “Thank you for loving me.”

      Those were the last words he spoke. He’d lapsed into a coma and was gone several hours later.

      Studying the strong, healthy man who glared at her as he waited for an answer, she sighed and said softly, “No, I couldn’t have come then.”

      His face hardened. “Then why the hell did you come now?”