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He stifled a rueful grin. Lord, he would take a hell of a ribbing if his rodeo buddies could see him now! “Love‘em and Leave’em” King—who could squire his choice of luscious rodeo groupies, who had them lined up by the eager dozens to take their chances with the champion bull rider and ladies’ man—had bored his companion into a sound sleep. And after all the trouble he’d taken to change his shirt and clean up in the hospital rest room, too!
Of course, Mercy hadn’t drifted off until after he’d plied her with a steak dinner, a little red wine and a lot of cowboy blarney. Sipping his own iced tea—the hardest thing he drank these days—he’d been pleased to watch her across the candlelit table and see the tension in her lovely features melt away.
But what had she thought? That after taking unmerciful advantage of her concern for him, he would insist on plunging into some sort of postmortem of their aborted friendship? He had a greater instinct for self-preservation than that.
So he’d kept it light, and she’d actually laughed a time or two, something Travis had the feeling was all too rare for a gal who worked as hard and saw as much wounded humanity as she obviously did Still, he didn’t know whether to be insulted or flattered that she’d dozed off on the way home.
Shifting his weight, he settled Mercy more comfortably under his arm. A wavy cloud of honey-colored hair drifted against his cheek. Her fresh floral scent enveloped him, evoking a deep quiver of something basic and male. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad deal after all. In the plain slacks and cotton shirt she’d worn under her physician’s coat, she looked slight and feminine, not at all the forceful, take-charge doctor who’d bowled him over earlier in the evening. Quite a transformation.
The reflected glow of the streetlights illuminated the interior of the truck. Carefully Travis used a callused fingertip to pull the lock of hair back from Mercy’s face. He could be forgiven if he took this minor advantage to study the heart-shaped countenance, the high cheekbones and delicate nose. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. Yes, sir, he’d been thrown caboose over teakettle plenty of times in his career, but never as badly as the spill he’d taken at his first sight of Mercy Holt in fifteen years.
And he ached. Not just from the pounding Sidewinder had given him, either. No, it was regret. God help him, he’d give anything if things could have turned out differently.
She gave a little murmured sigh, and he immediately felt lower than a snake’s belly. She’d worked a full shift, plus some, and despite his shearling jacket and her wool cape, the Texas night was getting colder by the minute. As much as he was enjoying the sensation of holding a beautiful woman, he couldn’t take advantage of the situation any longer.
“Mercy? Honey, wake up. We’re home.”
Her lashes fluttered, revealing eyes as indigo as a field of Texas bluebonnets. Languid, sleep flushed, she smiled up at him in the dim light, then ran a fingertip over his mustache.
“I can’t get used to this.”
Her fleeting touch electrified him, and he caught her hand to stop the unexpected pleasure/pain. His voice was rough. “Kinda my trademark now, blue eyes. I’d feel naked without it.”
Something akin to horror widened her eyes, and she jerked upright, blushing in embarrassment. “Oh. What time is it?”
“Late.”
She placed a hand against her burning cheek. “I can’t believe I fell asleep. I’m so sorry.”
“No problem.” He was already out of the truck, walking around to open her door. “Must be past your bedtime. Come on, I’ll walk you in.”
“That’s not necessary.” She dug in her bag for her key. “I’m perfectly all right. But thank you for the meal and everything—”
He arched an eyebrow at her, cutting her off. “No use arguing. You know my mama raised me the old-fashioned way.”
He could see her hesitation, but he took her elbow and lifted the key from her fingers. Within minutes he was standing inside the doorway of her town house as she turned on lamps. Somehow it wasn’t what he’d expected.
The apartment was spacious, but austere. Pale vertical blinds graced the windows, and even paler modular furniture sat on an oatmeal carpet. Stacks of unopened mail and unread magazines littered the tabletops. A laundry basket of scrubs and lab coats perched on an ottoman. A stethoscope dangled over a lamp shade.
The breakfast bar that separated the living area from the kitchen sported a litter of used bowls and teacups and a cellophane-wrapped bunch of supermarket flowers that had never been placed in water and now lay limp and brown and forlorn on the alabaster counter. There were books everywhere, but no personal pictures. Only a wall display of award plaques for distinguished service for several inner city clinics and a home for troubled youth indicated that the person who lived here had an outside life at all.
“Don’t look. The place is a mess,” she said, shoving the laundry basket behind the sofa. “I don’t have much time for housekeeping or anything else but work.”
“Don’t apologize. Considering I spend a lot of my time perusing the inside of motel rooms, it looks okay to me. And I know what you mean. I’m on the road so much, there’s no time to smell the roses, much less for someone special.”
“Don’t tell me you lack for company.” Her voice was skeptical. “I’ve had a sample of that potent cowboy charm of yours tonight, and I won’t believe you.”
He smiled, pleased at her admission. “Glad you enjoyed yourself, darlin’.”
She tugged off her cape, looking willow slender and pale and suddenly uncertain. “Ah, I’d offer you coffee, but it’s so late....”
He twirled his hat between his hands. “I should be going.”
“It’s been wonderful seeing you again. Where are you heading from here?”
“Oklahoma City next week. Got to see a man about a bull.”
She grimaced. “Travis—”
“No, really,” he protested with a deep laugh. “Sam Preston and I are running rodeo stock together now. King & Preston Stock Company.”
“Sam? Kenny’s brother?”
Her astonishment was plain, and he didn’t blame her. He and Sam were unlikely partners.
“Heck of a thing, huh? We’re working hard at it I’m the front man, and Sam runs the operation in Flat Fork. Could pan out pretty well, I guess. You know Sam married Roni Daniels a few months back?”
“No, I hadn’t heard. That’s nice.”
There was a moment of awkward silence, then Travis went to her, his hand extended. “I’ll say good night.”
She moistened her lips, then slipped her slender hand into his outsize paw. She made a vague gesture at his bandage with her free hand. “You’ll need those stitches out in a few days.”
“I know the drill.”
“And about those tests. If you’ll call me, I’ll be glad to set them up.”
“Uh, Mercy?” Eyes locked on their joined hands, he cleared his throat. “I have a confession.”
“You do?”
“I don’t need those tests.”
She jerked, but he didn’t release her hand. “Travis, you promised.”
“I’ve already had them.”
“What?”
“Every one in the book, and a few they made up just for me,” he admitted.
This time she did manage to free her hand, and her voice was cold. “And the results of these tests?”
He shrugged. “I’ve got a bit of problem. Chronic, you know, but nothing I’m not handling.”
“They told you not to ride again,” she stated flatly.
“They told me the risks, but, hell, it’s nothing worse than a thousand other bull riders have to deal with, and I’m a whole lot better than some.”
“So you ride and risk—what? Permanent pain? Complete disability? Or worse?” Her words were clipped, coldly furious. “Why the hell would you do something so completely asinine?”
“It’s what a world champion does, darlin’.” He lifted a placating hand. “Give me a little credit. I know what I’m doing. Besides, it’s all part of the game.”
“Game?” She spit the word. “Was that what this was all about tonight? You lied so I’d agree to come out with you. You used my feelings so you could manipulate me. Well, thank you very much, old friend.”
“It wasn’t like that!” Exasperated, he shoved on his hat. “I just wanted to buy you a meal.”
“What it boils down to is that you and your monumental ego haven’t changed a bit, Travis King. You aren’t a kid anymore. Don’t you realize you could end up crippled, or even dead? Or are you so addicted to the thrill of being champion you don’t care?”
Her caustic words pricked a tender spot, and his temper flared. “Wait a damn minute. Isn’t there something about ‘Physician, heal thyself’?” You’re just as much an adrenaline junkie as I am, traipsing around that E.R., getting high on all that power.”
She gasped in outrage. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? And what have you got to show for it? An anonymous apartment, dead flowers and not a friend or lover in sight.” His mouth twisted. “At least I got a belt buckle.”
“Cold comfort for a womanizing rascal who never grew up,” she said with a sneer.
Travis felt his cheeks heat. “I don’t get many complaints.”
“No, luckily for you all those teenage buckle bunnies shoving their phone numbers down those tight jeans of yours don’t have a lot with which to compare your performance.” Mercy tilted her chin in challenge. “I wonder how you’d stack up against someone your own size.”
Eyes narrowed, he growled. “Let’s see.”
Hooking a hand around her nape, Travis jerked her against his chest, then found her mouth with his. She pushed at him, her hands twisting in the lapels of his jacket. Clamping his arm around her waist, he molded her close from breast to hip and felt her quiver. Her mouth was hot with fury, sweet with her own unique feminine fire, and after a moment he forgot exactly what it was he wanted to prove, forgot everything except that he was a hungry man and she was his only sustenance.
Softening the pressure, he wooed her, seduced her into her own softening, expertly parted her lips with his tongue and swept deeply into the mysteries of her mouth to taste her essence. Now she was clinging to him, her limbs melting, her lips soft and tremulous, and neither of them knew the reason this had begun, only that it ended too soon.
Travis drew back, shaken and breathing hard, looking into Mercy’s face. He instantly regretted what he saw, the pale and stricken features, the swollen lips, the rosy abrasion of his late-day stubble against her tender skin. When she made a little stumbling movement, he released her, and his hands felt empty.
Her eyes were the turbulent shadowed blue of a thunderhead. “You...you’d better go.”
It was the least he could do. “Mercy, I—”
She turned away, her shoulders hunched defensively. “Just get out.”
He let himself out, somehow ending up in his truck without quite knowing how his shaky legs had brought him there. Numb with self-loathing, he stared bleakly out the windshield, then slammed his fist against the steering wheel.
“Dammit! Dammit to hell!”
He’d blown it. He cursed because he was too much of a man to cry, even though that’s what he felt like doing. God help him, one touch of her lips and he was calf sick with love for the little rich gal, Mercy Holt, just like it was yesterday.
Only it had been impossible then, because she’d been his best friend’s girl.
And it was still impossible now, even after all this time, because he’d killed Kenny, and she would never get over that.
Two
Well, she’d always wondered. Secretly, she’d wondered. And now she knew.
Mercy pushed at her disheveled hair, took another look at the unappetizing mess of canned vegetable soup congealing in the bowl, then shoved it across the kitchen bar. She needed to eat something before she left for her evening shift at the hospital, but her stomach was in a knot that wouldn’t unravel, had been since Travis King’s devastating kiss.
And that’s what it had been—devastating. Rawly male, possessive, so skilful and evocative he’d drawn the will to resist right out of her, leaving her helpless and quivering. Damn the womanizing scoundrel!
And damn her for enjoying it for even a moment. With a low moan, Mercy buried her face in her palms. Instead of sleeping the day away, she’d tossed and turned, unable to understand what had happened. How had things gotten out of hand so fast with a man who was supposed to be nothing more than an old friend? She’d been justifiably furious at him, but why had she goaded him into something neither of them was prepared for or wanted?
Liar.
She’d wanted.
A lump of guilt lodged behind her breastbone, and she jumped up, dumping the soup down the disposal. If she were the least bit honest with herself, she had to admit that much. Since she was seventeen, despite the fact she was Kenny Preston’s girl, she’d watched Travis using his prodigious charm on the ladies and wondered if all the rumors she’d heard whispered about him in the girls’ locker room were true. She’d almost found out once, and it seemed now that the silly, spoiled, rebellious child she’d been back then still lived too near the surface for comfort. A wave of self-disgust washed over her.
Grow up, Mercy.
A clutter of dirty dishes spilled over the sink, and she knew she should load them into the dishwasher, but the task seemed too monumental to tackle. Instead she crossed to the sliding glass door and let herself out onto the tiny patio. She breathed in the chilly fall air in a fruitless effort to calm her racing heart.
Car lights danced on the boulevard beyond the brick walls that muffled the never-ending traffic noises, but the air was clear and sweet with the scent of drying grass blowing in off the plains west of Ft. Worth. Shivering beneath her oversize sweater, Mercy lifted her face to the night sky, and the smell of earth and hay caught at her memories with thoughts of Flat Fork and times gone by and damned ole rodeos. Vividly she remembered that night years ago....
The shabby motel room had echoed with the deafening crash of the door slamming behind her furious beau.
“Why does Kenny act like that?”
Mercy’s voice was plaintive, querulous with incipient tears.
“You shouldn’t have surprised him, coming here like this,” Travis said. Bare-chested in hastily pulled-on jeans, sleep groggy and bruised from the day’s bull-riding competition, Travis eyed Mercy with the weary world wisdom of his twenty-one years.
“I drove four hours to see him,” she said indignantly. The room was second-rate and musty smelling, home for the night for a couple of up-and-coming cowboys entered in a second-rate rodeo in a little Texas town. Sinking down on the edge of the lumpy, tumbled bed, she let her lip quiver in self-pity. “Sometimes I think he doesn’t like me at all.”
“He’s crazy about you.”
“Then why’d he run off?”
Travis sighed and leaned one hip against a plastictopped dresser littered with empty beer bottles. “Kenny doesn’t like this sneaking around.”
“I’m not sneaking!”
“It’s the damned middle of the night, gal. Your folks know where you are?”
Guilt heated her cheeks, and she smoothed her hands down the front of her skin-tight jeans. “Not exactly.”
He lifted a dark eyebrow. “Or that you hauled butt way out here all alone in that fancy convertible of yours?”
She tossed her honey blond hair out of her face and tilted her chin at a belligerent angle. “I’m eighteen years old. I can do what I want.”
“It doesn’t make it any easier for a proud man like Kenny, having the Honorable Judge Holt think he isn’t good enough to court his daughter. And you acting like it, too, with this kind of shenanigan.”
“My parents don’t understand,” she said, sullen. “It’s not my fault they’re living in the Stone Age.”
“Grow up, Mercy. Adults don’t deal with each other that way. If you were honest with them—”
“Don’t treat me like a child, Travis. That’s what my parents do. They never listen to what I say about anything—not med school or my friends or getting out of boring Flat Fork.”
“They just don’t want you involved with a rodeo bum, and I can’t say that I blame them. Hell knows we ain’t got much in the way of job security. And maybe defying them is part of Kenny’s appeal for you.”
She gasped, stung. “What a despicable thing to say! I’m in love with him.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes you got a funny way of showing it, darlin’. You put him in a bad position. When are you going to learn to think first, act later?”
His condemnation sent a hot and startling prickle of tears surging behind her eyelids. Travis had been their intermediary time and again, the one whom she’d trusted to convey the most precious secrets of her heart, and now to find he’d been a reluctant and disapproving ally was a betrayal almost as potent as Kenny’s walking out. Maybe more.
Her words rasped with hurt. “If you disapprove so much, why have you tried to help us make this relationship work?”
Travis shrugged. “He’s my best friend.”
“And he’s the man I love,” she avowed, with force enough to squelch any doubts. Thwarted, resentful, the tears spilled over. “And now you’re telling me he hates me just because I wanted to see him. I can’t do anything right. Oh, God, what am I going to do?”
Sobbing, she collapsed onto the crumpled bedspread and curled into a ball of sheer misery.
“Aw, stop, darlin’. Don’t cry, blue eyes.” The bed sank under Travis’s weight, and rope-callused hands lifted her, cradling her against his bare chest. “Mercy, I can’t stand it when you cry.”
“Why does love have to hurt so much?” Weeping, she clung to him, her tears raining onto his bronzed shoulder. He was hard and muscular and smelled intoxicatingly of soap from his shower and healthy male musk.
His voice rumbled rough as gravel. “Love can’t help where it lands sometimes, I reckon.”
“But why can’t he understand? You do, don’t you, Travis?” Hiccoughing on a ragged sob, she looked up at him through tear-blurred eyes. “You’re a better friend than he is. Sometimes I wish—”
“Hush, don’t cry anymore.” He pressed a comforting kiss against her temple, his palm soothing as he stroked her bare arm from shoulder to elbow, his fingertips slipping under the strap of her lace-edged tank top.
Mercy’s breath caught, and she shuddered, her skin quivering beneath his touch. Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the room, as if a flash of heat lightning had consumed all the oxygen.
Murmuring soothing nothings, he brushed his mouth over the corner of her eye, sipping the salty essence of her tears, and Mercy’s lips parted in a silent exhalation of surprise and anticipation...of what? She didn’t know, could only wait suspended, her middle turning to jelly at the feather touch of his carved male lips, her heart thumping against her ribs so hard she knew he could hear it.
He seemed to be waiting, too, his mouth now hovering mere inches from hers, his coffee-colored eyes hooded and mysterious. Their breaths mingled, warm and uneven across flushed skin, and Travis’s fingers tightened on her arm, his knuckles barely brushing the underside of her breast through the thin knit of her top.
Confused, shamefully aroused, Mercy’s head spun. She couldn’t be feeling this, could she? This utter longing to have his mouth sealed on hers, to experience his taste on her tongue. But this was Travis! Best friend to the man she swore she loved. Was she crazy, or was that light blazing behind his dark eyes a burning curiosity and need that matched her own ungovernable, inappropriate desire?
What would he do if she curled her arm behind his neck and drew him down to her? What would she do if he took up her offer and pressed her down against the bed? Worse, what would she do if he didn’t?
The potential for disaster, for rejection, for utter humiliation made her stiffen, and suddenly the heated light disappeared from Travis’s features, masked so quickly by his normal teasing expression that she was sure she’d imagined it.
“Lord-a-mercy, Miss Mercy, you sure are a mess when you blubber.” Easing his grip, he dropped a brotherly peck on the tip of her nose.
Chagrined, flustered, she pulled away, using the hem of her shirt to wipe her damp face. Had he guessed where her wayward impulses had almost led her? Oh, God, how mortifying!
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, but she wasn’t sure if the apology was for weeping all over him or almost placing him in the awkward position of betraying his best friend’s trust.
If he hadn’t sensed anything, then it was best to ignore that flash of hunger that had nearly made her forget herself. There was a name they called girls like that, and while she might have a reputation for being spoiled and a bit wild, she’d be damned if she’d ever let anyone call her the other.
“It’s okay, darlin’, you’re just upset.” He stood and slipped on a pearl-studded cowboy shirt, then jammed his feet into a pair of well-worn boots. “Look, I’ll go find Kenny. It’ll be all right. You know he can’t stay mad at you for long. You got him wrapped right around that pretty little pinky finger.”
She swallowed, not much liking the picture his words painted. “Is that how you think it is?”
“Sure thing.” He opened the door and slanted her a grin. But somehow it didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m sure Kenny’s cooled off by now.”
“I hope so.” Cooling her own humors wasn’t such a bad idea, either, not if she expected her relationship with her boyfriend to continue. But she had to know something first. “Uh, Travis? Have you ever fallen in love?”
He froze on the threshold, his shoulders stiff, then he grinned again, all cowboy cockiness and masculine charm.
“Sure, darlin’. About every ten minutes or so. Only problem is, I tend to fall out again faster’n chain lightning.”
Suddenly cold wind whipped Mercy’s hair about her face and brought her back to the present. “Every ten minutes or so...”
That’s what it had been all about, she realized. Some things, some men never changed. A consummate ladies’ man, Travis had merely been indulging in a typically masculine experiment when he’d kissed her late last night. Perhaps one that was long overdue. And she’d been vulnerable and tired and as a result, incautious.
Shivering, Mercy stepped back into her town house, blaming the temperature but knowing on another level it was still the aftershock of that kiss that raised her goose bumps. There was a lot unresolved in her relationship with Travis King, things about Kenny, about the way he’d died, about how Travis had disappeared from her life so completely afterward, that she’d lost not one man she’d cared about, but two.
But that was water under the bridge, and it wouldn’t pay to complicate her already complex, overworked life by admitting she was still susceptible to a certain bull rider’s brand of cowboy charisma. It was a good thing she wouldn’t be seeing Travis again.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. She knew who it was before she opened the door, but she wasn’t prepared for the sheepish expression on Travis’s handsome face or the giant bouquet of hothouse blossoms he thrust at her.
“I came to apologize.”
“Uh—” Helplessly she stood in the doorway and accepted the cellophane-wrapped bundle, breathing in the rich scents of roses and narcissus. What could she do with a man who laid it on the line like this, who stood there literally with his black hat in his hand...throw his peace offering in his teeth? “This wasn’t necessary,” she murmured.
His mouth under the bold black mustache was solemn.
“To me it was. Your friendship means—has always meant—too much to me to risk with some stupid foolishness. Tell me I haven’t screwed up everything again.”
“No, of course not.” She shook her head, searching for some excuse. “Seeing you after all this time...we were both in a highly emotional state, that’s all. No harm done.”
“I‘tn glad to hear it, darlin’.”
She gestured at the armload of flowers. “Thank you, they’re beautiful. Uh, would you like to come in?”