Lone Tree Page 5

  Although she and Reed hadn’t even shared a kiss—the word yet popped up and she squeezed her eyes closed against it—she’d looked at that sensual mouth a couple of times and thought about tasting it. But she didn’t want to think about that. Neither did she want to think about what it would feel like to have his arms wrapped around her...how hard and good his body might feel next to hers.

  Nope, she didn’t want her mind going there. But, dammit, it was already there.

  *

  The next day, as Lainie exited the main house in the early afternoon, she spied two men riding up on horseback. One wore a baseball cap instead of a cowboy hat. That was enough to catch her attention, but the other one looked like he just rode off a movie set. He was tall enough in the saddle that he’d probably stand eye to eye with Miles, wore a traditional high-crowned hat, was broad-shouldered and lean-hipped. The Marlboro man without the Marlboro.

  A short-haired, rangy-looking dog trotted alongside the horses. Lainie was reminded of Reed’s comment about cow dogs being able to run all day. This one looked like a well-trained, hard-working animal.

  The tall cowboy gave Lainie a long look and bowed his head. She nodded back. The two men dismounted and led their horses into the stable. She was on her way to her car and had to pass the stable to get to the enclosed shed that acted as a garage. The Marlboro man stepped out as she approached.

  He tipped his hat without removing it. “Mack Jameson,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Lainie Johnson.” She recognized his name. “You’ve just arrived from the Lazy L Ranch. With Andy.”

  “That I did. And it appears the old man might’ve found his secretary.”

  “That he did.”

  He was somewhere between thirty and forty, had gray eyes, maybe two days’ worth of whiskers. She had the nagging impression she’d met him before.

  He watched her with a thoughtful look, as if he might have the same feeling she did. “You’re not from around here. You sound like...the West Coast? California maybe?”

  Lainie smiled. “You’re good.”

  He returned the smile. “You’d make this good man a happy one if you’d let him show you around this part of the country.”

  Then his gaze lifted from hers at the same moment she felt a presence behind her, and a hand then rested briefly on her shoulder. “Oh.” She looked up, startled. “Reed. Hi.”

  “Lainie. Howdy, Mack. It go all right?” Reed’s thumbs were hooked inside his pockets as he spoke to Mack. His hand had left Lainie’s shoulder as soon as it’d touched her.

  “Yeah.” Mack turned the word into two lazy syllables. “Two windmills went out on them, one right after the other.”

  “So I heard. Dinner’s still out on the sideboard.”

  “I’ll tell Andy. Soon as I see to Misty, I’ll see to my stomach.”

  The gaze Mack now rested on Lainie held more distance than interest. “I see how it is,” he said as he tipped his hat, then he turned back to the stable.

  Lainie narrowed her eyes as she watched his back. I see how it is?

  “Where you off to?” Reed asked.

  She turned in time to catch him checking out her sandals, but she didn’t respond to the implied assumption he had a right to know where she was going if she wasn’t wearing recommended footgear. Actually, she was going into town to buy the boots, but he didn’t need to know that.

  She tilted her head, squinted at him. “Did you just do what I think you did?”

  His brow wrinkled. “That’d depend on what you think I did.”

  “You warned him away from me.”

  “Warned him,” he repeated, expression turning quizzical.

  “You put your hand on my shoulder, my far shoulder so your arm had to go all the way around me. You couldn’t have said it plainer. She’s mine, stay away.”

  He gave her a perplexed shake of his head. “I touched you in passing, like saying hello. Don’t know where you—”

  “Uh-huh. You were laying claim, Reed, and I don’t appreciate—”

  “You hear yourself?” Amusement in his eyes, he rocked back on his heels. “You think it’s all right for one person to lay claim on another?”

  “No, I did not say that. What I said was—”

  “Howdy, Reed.”

  Reed glanced away, bobbed his head. “Andy. Glad to have you back. Meet Lainie Johnson, Miles’s secretary.”

  Andy removed the baseball cap. He looked like he was fresh out of high school. “Nice to meetcha.”

  “Same here.” Lainie nodded, trying not to let the annoyance she felt with Reed show to the boy.

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get some dinner.” Andy walked away. “I see how it is, too.”

  Lainie stared after him, then slowly turned back to face Reed.

  He nudged his hat brim up, gave her a casual nod. “Guess we all know how it is,” he said, then left her standing there by herself.

  Chapter Six

  When she entered the main house the next morning, Lainie’s mood was aggravated enough that she felt like stomping. But instead she walked with extreme care. The boots would take time to get used to; they’d taken a frustratingly long time to get into.

  Reed stepped away from the buffet, spotted her and headed her way. He must’ve been aware of her footwear, and she looked for smugness in his expression, but fortunately for him she found none.

  “Fill your plate and come join me,” he said. Then, surprising her, he added, “Please.”

  She nodded, and then did as bidden.

  He looked at her plate as she set it down across from him. “You surely don’t eat much.”

  She glanced at the mounds of food on his plate. “Nope. Guess I don’t.”

  As they ate silently, she wondered why he’d asked her to join him if he had nothing to say, then it dawned on her that he might be trying to make it easier on her to say what was on her mind. The shiny new boots had already announced her intentions.

  “I was hoping to ride this morning,” she said, hearing and disliking the tentative note in her voice. “Nelly told me you wanted to go with me the first time I went out.”

  “Yes.” His fork paused on its way to his mouth. “But it doesn’t have to be that way. Someone else can go with you. If you prefer.”

  Her expression must’ve held her surprise, because he shrugged, a sheepish look about him. “I was kind of highhanded with you,” he said. “And I apologize. I shouldn’t have handled it that way. Randy could go out with you, or Carter, or anyone else who’s free. You don’t have to ride with me.”

  Well. This was a new Reed, and she liked this one better. “Thanks...but I think I’d like to ride with you.” The instant she said it, she wondered at the advisability of it.

  “Good.” His face smoothed out, and the forkful of pancake made it all the way into his mouth. As she got back to her own breakfast, she told herself she was simply agreeing to a riding lesson, not a relationship.

  Sipping coffee, he eyed her over the cup’s rim. “You surely do have color in that shirt. Hope it doesn’t scare the horses.”

  “Oh, for...” His remark was lighthearted, but she’d given up a lot of ground to do his bidding, and she was no more in the mood for teasing than she was for criticism. “Do you have the slightest idea how difficult you are to get along with? I’m wearing a long-sleeved shirt, boots, and I’ve got a hat. Now what more could you possibly want?”

  The suggestive glint that appeared in his eyes told her she should’ve taken better care with her phrasing. As she wondered if she should back off, stand up to him, or ignore him, his lips curved and she guessed he was reading her. The urge to wipe the smugness off his face grew awfully strong, but her short experience with this guy had taught her he’d be a tough one to top.

  Prudently, she finished her meal in silence. And she felt like she’d won a concession when he did the same.

  Later, as they walked to the stables, the edge of her right boot heel skimmed a rock an
d tried to twist under. She stumbled, he caught her arm to steady her, and she shot him a look. Gone was all thought of prudence. “You laugh, and I swear I’ll make you sorry.”

  He didn’t laugh, but he smiled.

  He saddled Irish while Nelly saddled Glory. Lainie watched, intent upon their actions and their order so she could learn to do this for herself.

  When Nelly stood aside so Lainie could mount, he looked as proud as a father anticipating his child’s first solo on a bicycle. “Now you get on up there. You be fine, little missy, don’t you worry. Glory be good to you.”

  Lainie took hold of the saddle horn, hooked her boot in the stirrup, noticing how conveniently the boot heel caught and gave her leverage, and swung herself up. It was a long way up, but she felt okay once seated. She looked down at each boot, marveling at the good fit. “Perfect,” she murmured. “Almost as if the heel were made to fit the stirrup.”

  Reed paused. Reins in one hand, other on the pommel and one foot in the stirrup, he became perfectly motionless. Lainie glanced curiously at his back. Then he completed the move and sat astride Irish. He didn’t look at her, but she caught his profile, and his face appeared strained with the effort of keeping it straight.

  Then she realized what she’d said. Well, of course the boot was made to fit the stirrup. All right, tenderfoot, just don’t fall off the horse. Okay?

  They stayed at a walk as he showed her how to hold the reins, maintain her posture, what to do with her knees and heels. Then he allowed a short trot, which jarred Lainie, and then he led Glory into a rocking gait that she remembered her mother calling a lope.

  “Ahh,” she said. “Let’s stick with this one.”

  He grinned, but slowed back to a walk and started lecturing again on physical and verbal commands to the horse. When he turned to head back, he said, “Maybe one day next week we’ll ride out to the oasis.”

  Although the inside of her legs felt chafed and her rump was sore, she was looking forward to going out again. “I like the place already. It sounds pretty.”

  He nodded. “It’s fed by an underground stream. Thought about it today, but it’s too far. We’d have to be out longer or increase our gait, and I didn’t want to do either.”

  When the stables appeared, Glory started prancing. Reed reached over and patted her neck. “Easy there, girl.”

  Lainie watched his hand. She liked it there, and not only because of his help with the horse. He straightened in the saddle and pulled his hand back. Good, she thought, relieved, and then noted that she was full of contradictions today.

  “I’m tied up the rest of this week,” he went on. “But I’ll tell Randy to keep an hour free for you in the mornings. Then by the time I’m back, you should be ready for the oasis, and we’ll make a day of it. Take along a couple sandwiches and a bag of chips, thermos of coffee or iced tea. Or we can change that to a couple cans of beer if you like the stuff.”

  “Beer?” she echoed in surprise. “I’ve not seen a can of beer since I arrived at Lone Tree. I was thinking cowboys didn’t drink it.”

  He chuckled. “You thought wrong. On our own time, we do. You want to knock on my door one evening, I’ll share one with you.”

  Lainie gave him a noncommittal smile, suspecting he had more on his mind than sharing a beer.

  Nelly beamed as he took Glory’s reins, allowing Lainie to take her time alighting from the horse. Once she got both feet on the ground, she also got an excellent understanding of what bowlegged meant.

  “Look like you take good care of my little missy, Mr. Reed. She back in one piece and got rose in her cheeks.”

  Reed dismounted, looking more fresh and limber than Lainie felt. “Lainie’s a natural,” he said. “Give her time and she’ll be riding circles around the rest of us. She’ll be going out with Randy the rest of this week. Unless Miles wants to take her out.”

  As doubt crossed Nelly’s face, Reed shrugged. “None of us knows his mind.”

  Lainie listened as they discussed her, as if not aware of her presence. She noted she was Miles’s little girl, Nelly’s little missy, but at least Reed called her by name. She needed to assert herself, real quick like; then she smiled at the phrase. She might still sound like California, but was learning to think like Texas. Then she mulled over their reference to Miles. Did he have an aversion to riding? She studied how the two men stripped saddles and gear and ministered to the horses, trying to commit their actions to memory, and vowed that the first thing she was going to do once she got inside her house was drown her aches in a hot tub of water. No. First she was going to sit inside the refrigerator.

  Reed turned toward her, arms full of saddle. His gaze fell on her, and she thought about how much more comfortable it’d be leaning against him instead of the wooden stall support she was holding up. Then as his grin grew, she got the distinct impression he’d read her mind.

  *

  Muscles Lainie didn’t know she had made themselves known the next morning and talked her right out of putting her rump atop a horse today.

  When she entered the office with a second cup of coffee in hand, her gaze strayed to the fireplace and the portraits, then to the teakwood coffee table fronting the sofa and the fat album that rested on its bottom shelf. She’d been wanting to open that book since the first time she’d seen it. She glanced at the sundial clock above the filing cabinet. Miles wouldn’t show for at least another hour. She walked over, put her coffee mug on the table, sat on the sofa and lifted the album to her lap.

  Sweet sadness gripped her when she opened it. It was a family album, as she’d hoped. The first page held a single snapshot in dead center of a newly born infant. The caption read: Elizabeth Ann. Twenty-two minutes old.

  Lainie’s eyes moistened. She’d never before seen a baby picture of her mother. She turned the page. A woman with shoulder-length, wavy brown hair posed with her back to the camera while she held a bald, round-faced baby high on her shoulder. Personality was emerging. The child’s hands were on her mother’s shoulders as she stared at the camera. Lainie smiled. Nothing was going to sneak up on that baby.

  Frontal shots of Alice Ann and her child caught the mother’s pretty features. The camera, or the wielder of it, had also caught the woman’s love of life. In one shot, where she looked up at the infant as she held it raised in the air, Lainie fancied she could hear a gurgle of laughter.

  Though she still noted the resemblance to herself, she was relieved it wasn’t as strong as she’d first thought. She glanced up at the formal portrait, then again at the pictures of the casual Alice Ann. There was more life in the snapshots than in the portrait.

  Family pictures of mother, father, and child followed. In one, Lainie recognized the house’s front porch. They stood next to a station wagon with wood paneling. A young Miles, solid-looking but not as hefty as now, held the baby in his arms, but his eyes were on his wife. She was petite, not as tall as her daughter had grown to be, nor her granddaughter. Alice Ann barely reached her husband’s shoulder.

  As the baby grew into a toddler, the pictures were of the child alone, or with her father. The young pretty woman was suddenly and conspicuously absent. Elizabeth had had no memories of her mother. Alice Ann had died in an accident before her daughter’s first birthday. The following pictures of Miles captured a face without expression, a man who’d lost much and was hurting. The sadness seemed to reach out to Lainie.

  Her eye caught something at her side and she jumped. Her gaze flew upward.

  “Oh...Miles. You...you startled me.”

  He stared at her, expression wooden.

  The album slipped. She got a firmer grip, then closed it. “Excuse me for taking the liberty of looking through your pictures. I hope you don’t mind.” She replaced the book where she’d found it, telling herself there was no reason to feel guilty. Nosy maybe, but not guilty. The book was right there in plain sight. She picked up her cup of cooled coffee, then stood and faced him.

  “I hope I didn’t overst
ep myself. Do you mind that I looked at the book?”

  His expression smoothed out. “It’s there to be looked at. Don’t worry about it.” His gait was stiff as he walked behind the sofa on the way to his desk. “Bad night. Arthritis wouldn’t let me sleep. Got some new pills, so finally broke down and took one. Meanwhile I’ve got phone calls to make. Might as well get that done.”

  She went to her own desk, booted up the computer, and opened financial records software. Miles still signed the checks, but she prepared them and was responsible for the records. As she worked, she kept an ear tuned to Miles’s voice. He didn’t sound edgy, but she’d sensed strong emotion in him when he’d found her engrossed in the album.

  After about twenty minutes, he once more replaced the phone receiver. But instead of again thumbing through the rotary card file, he got to his feet. Slowly he shrugged, rolled his shoulders, then he stretched vigorously.

  “Ah,” he said. “Good pills.” He cast a defiant look at the hall door, then at Lainie. “Nothing wrong with going back to bed. If Rosalie asks about me, you tell her I said so.”

  She watched him leave, then shook her head. Sometimes she thought she had a handle on her grandfather, other times knew she didn’t, and hoped all the while that he didn’t have a handle on her.

  Smoothing strands of hair behind her ears, she stopped in mid-motion. Abruptly she pulled out the desk’s bottom drawer, reached for the phone book, and looked up the number of Jackie’s Style. As she punched in the numbers, mentally she crossed her fingers. Yes, she needed a haircut, but she was hoping for more than that from Jackie Lyn. Except for Rosalie, Lainie was surrounded by masculinity. She yearned for a friend of her own sex and age with whom she could put her feet up and just talk about girl things.

  When she arrived for her appointment the next afternoon, she discovered Jackie Lyn was good at her job. Better yet, she was intuitive. After draping the protective sheet around her customer’s shoulders, Jackie’s gaze met Lainie’s in the mirror.