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It was the night their son had been conceived.
She closed her eyes as she held the photograph to her heart. In a barely audible voice she whispered the feelings that she had tried so desperately to bury. “I’ve tried to purge you from my existence, erase the memory of what I thought we once meant to each other. But, God help me, I havcn’t been able to do it.”
She forced away the tears that tried to well in her eyes. It had been a little less than a month after the photo was taken that Wyatt had disappeared from her life. His father said Wyatt had felt smothered by her. She tried to think, tried to put herself back in that place again. Was it possible that she had unconsciously made emotional demands on him following their night of lovemaking? She had not meant to. Making love had been as much her responsibility as it had been his.
She shook her head. She did not know what had happened.
She replaced the photograph, locked the box, and put it back on the shelf. Then she did something she had never done before. Rather than going back to work, she poured herself a glass of wine and took it to the glass-walled back porch.
She sat all alone and sipped her wine while she thought about the future. She had handled the shock of losing her mother when she was still in high school, of Wyatt leaving her, of discovering she was pregnant with Wyatt’s child, of her husband dying and now her father’s death. She did not know if she had enough strength left to endure any more—and that most certainly included Wyatt’s sudden reappearance in her life.
Richie had been without a father and role model during his formative adolescent years. He would soon be fifteen. Somehow she had to find a way to make everything work out while seeing to it that her son was protected from any more emotional upheavals. She sat quietly on the porch, vacillating between memories from the past, the problems of the present, and her fears of what the future held.
“Mom! What are you doing home?”
Richie’s voice startled her. She had not heard him come in. She glanced at her watch. “Oh...I didn’t realize it was so late.” She looked over at her son, who was standing in the doorway. “I just needed a little break from work, that’s all.” She stood up, taking her empty wineglass with her. “I’d better get back to the store. You get busy on your homework and I’ll start dinner in a couple of hours.”
“I don’t have any homework. I did it all at school.”
Vicki looked skeptically at him. “How did you manage that?”
“Mrs. Winters had some kind of emergency and had to leave, so my last class was just a study hall. I did everything then.” Richie turned toward the door. “So, I’m going to ride on the trail in the hills.”
“Okay, but be sure you’re back in two hours.” She called after him as he ran out the door, “You stay away from Mrs. Thackery’s house. I don’t want her complaining to me again.”
Wyatt had tried to force himself to work all afternoon, but he could not concentrate on anything other than the feel of having Vicki in his arms once again. It had been an impulsive gesture, one that he should not have given in to. She’d had him wrapped around her little finger once before, then walked out on him. The last thing he needed was for her to realize how easy it would be for her to accomplish it again. He did not want her to see the extremely vulnerable spot that still existed inside him where Victoria Dalton Bingham was concerned.
He finally gave up trying to work, left the house and strolled down the path toward the stables. Maybe a hard ride through the hills would settle the nervous tension churning inside him.
Fred Olson looked up from his desk when Wyatt entered the tack room, a quizzical expression covering his face. “Afternoon, Wyatt. Somethin’ I can do for ya?”
“Didn’t mean to interrupt you, Fred. I thought I’d take one of the horses out for a ride.”
“Need any help saddlin’ up?”
“I can handle it, thanks.” Wyatt grabbed a saddle, blanket and bridle and left the tack room.
It was just the type of afternoon for a brisk ride. The sky was blue, the sun just warm enough to take the coolness from the air without removing the crispness. He urged his horse into a trot as he cut across a field toward the stand of trees that marked the edge of the old trail he had enjoyed so much as a young man. Just as he emerged from the trees to join the trail, something flashed around a corner, startling his horse.
The animal reared, throwing Wyatt off his back, and the dirt bike and its rider skidded into a ditch. A moment later a teenage boy ran toward Wyatt as he lay on the ground.
“Are you okay, mister?”
Wyatt slowly got to his feet, testing his left leg before putting his full weight on it. He brushed the dirt from his jeans. “Yes, I seem to be all right. How about you?”
“Yeah.” The teenager glanced back over his shoulder. “But I don’t know about my bike.”
Wyatt grabbed the reins of his horse, then walked toward the ditch. “Well, let’s take a look at it and see. ”
The boy set the bike upright and Wyatt bent down to check the frame and wheels. A couple of minutes later he stood up. “It seems to be okay, except for some scratches in the paint. Hop on it and see if it rides the way it should.”
Wyatt watched as the young man rode about fifty feet down the trail and then back again. “How does it handle?”
“Handles okay,” the boy replied.
“You do know you’re trespassing on private property—” he saw the objection form on the boy’s face and his posture take on a defensive stance “—although the signs seem to have disappeared and I saw where the fence needs replacing.”
He scrutinized the teenage boy for a moment. “So, what are you doing out here zipping around a horse trail on a dirt bike? Do you live somewhere nearby?” he asked, neither angry nor accusatory, merely curious.
“Yeah, I live in town. Me and my friend Tim were riding on this trail the other day. I didn’t know this was someone’s property. I guess Tim didn’t know it either.”
Wyatt placed his foot in the stirrup and swung up on his horse. He looked down at the teenage boy, taking a moment to study him before speaking. “Try to be more careful from now on, okay?”
“Sure thing, mister.” The boy got back on his bike and rode in the direction of town.
Wyatt watched as the boy disappeared around the curve in the trail. Something about him touched Wyatt, something that seemed familiar, but he did not know what it was or why. The disturbing feeling continued to nag at him as he rode back to his house.
Richie arrived home just as Vicki returned from work. He did not move fast enough to hide the results of his mischief from her scrutiny.
“What happened here, Richie? How did you rip your shirt and what happened to your bike?”
“It’s nothing, Mom. I was riding in the hills and some guy came out of the woods on a horse. He got thrown off and I skidded into a ditch. That’s all. It was no big deal.”
“No big deal? Someone could have been seriously injured. Who was this man?”
“I don’t know, just some guy on a horse.”
“He didn’t tell you his name?”
The irritation sounded in Richie’s voice. “I don’t know who he was. He didn’t get hurt. I didn’t get hurt. The horse didn’t get hurt. My bike only got a couple of scratches. That’s all there was to it.”
“What, uh...” The nervous jitter started in the pit of her stomach. “What did this man look like?”
“I don’t know. He was just some guy. I never saw him before. He was tall with dark hair. He was older, even older than you are.”
Richie leveled a curious look at her, followed by a withering sigh that said he was sure her advanced age had affected her reasoning. “So what’s the big deal?”
“It’s nothing. I just thought he might have been someone I knew.” She tried to put forth a smile that said it was unimportant, but she was not sure how successful she was. “Why don’t you go on in and clean up while I start dinner?”
She went through the motions, but her mind was not on preparing the meal. All the land back in the hills belonged to the Edwards family—or, more accurately, Wyatt Edwards. Could he possibly be the man whom Richie had run into?
She closed her eyes and took a calming breath. She knew there was no way to keep Wyatt from coming in contact with her son in such a small town, but she certainly had not intended for them to meet when she was not there to control what happened. How was it possible for everything to be falling apart like this? She felt a tear trickle down her cheek.
“Are you okay, Mom?”
She looked up to find Richie standing in the kitchen door, staring at her. She could not quite read the expression on his face, but he looked concerned.
“No one got hurt and I’m sorry about ripping my shirt. It really was an accident, Mom. Honest.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, his words telling her that his concern emanated from an entirely different place than hers. But she knew the relief was only temporary. She would be seeing Wyatt again; there was no way of avoiding it. She also knew that each confrontation would bring her one step closer to what she feared the most.
Three
“I’m going to my dental appointment. I should be back in about an hour and a half, if that’s all right” Noreen grabbed her purse from beneath the counter.
“That’s fine. I have some paperwork to catch up on. Things seem to be pretty slow right now. In fact, they’ve been quiet all morning.” Vicki watched as Noreen left the store, then she returned to the order she had been working on for the grocery distributor.
Wyatt peered through the doorway separating the post office from the market. As soon as Noreen exited through the front door, he entered through the back.
“Good morning.” He tried to sound cheerful even though that was not the way he felt. The impulsive embrace of the previous day kept running through his mind. Even though it rekindled the passionate feelings he had been carrying inside him, it also reinforced the anger and hurt. There was a lot to reconcile, a lot she had to answer for.
Vicki looked up from her paperwork. “Uh...good morning.” She refused to allow any hint of the warmth his touch had caused to show in her expression. She did not want him to think she was happy to see him again, especially after the way he had pulled her into his arms.
Wyatt proceeded directly to the counter, his attitude all business. “I would like to place an order for some special food items. Can you handle that or do I need to go to the city to procure what I want?”
“If my distributor handles the items, then I will be able to get them for you. I’m just putting together an order now.” She looked up at him, trying her best to maintain a professional manner. “What is it you want?”
“What is it I want?”
She saw the slightly wicked grin tug at the corners of his mouth and the glow in his eyes. An edge of irritation crept into her voice as she tried to ignore his innuendo. “What items would you like me to order for you?”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. “I’ve written them down.” He slid the list across the counter toward her.
She reached for it, but he refused to release it from his grasp. She tugged at the piece of paper, then shot him a questioning look. “Are you going to let me see your list, or not?”
He was not ready to let her off the hook yet. He fully intended to toy with her a little longer. One way or the other he would get some answers from her. “Just as soon as you agree to sit down and have a serious discussion about some unsettled matters. Maybe we could talk over lunch.” He leveled an even gaze at her, turned on his best smile and waited for her response.
She quickly withdrew her hand. “I can’t possibly leave. Noreen is gone. By the time she gets back, it’ll be too late—”
“Too late for what? Too late to talk over lunch? Then how about dinner? We could go into the city and—”
“No, I...uh...I can’t have dinner with you. I...I have other plans.” How was she ever going to exist in the same small community as Wyatt Edwards? Why was he doing this to her? Why was he being so persistent ? He had walked out on her—actually, he had run out on her—and she did not understand why he now apparently wanted to pick up the pieces of the old relationship.
“You have other plans? But I haven’t even suggested a specific night for dinner. How could you possibly know that you have plans?” Wyatt noted the nervous way she avoided any eye contact with him, the way she kept biting at her lower lip. He needed to know what it was about him that made her so uncomfortable after all these years. It had to be more than lingering guilt over her decision to run off and get married while he was away on business. That decision had apparently been easy enough for her to make fifteen years ago, he thought bitterly. There was no reason for it to be bothering her now.
She ran her fingers through her hair as she glanced out the window. “I assumed you meant tonight..”
“I did, but as luck would have it, my entire week is open. Why don’t you tell me which night you don’t have plans?”
She bit at her lip again, the panic welling inside her faster than she could push it down. “I’m busy every night.”
“Every night?” he challenged. “I didn’t think there was that much to do in this little town. Tell me, is there some sort of list of events? What’s happening—a barn raising, a square dance, an ice-cream social? Is it rodeo season? Or perhaps big-city culture has come to Sea Cliff in the form of a new art gallery opening, a stage production of some sort, or maybe a live concert. Where do I find a list of these community activities so that I can participate, too?”
“No, it’s not that. I’m just busy, that’s all.” She felt light-headed, as if all the oxygen had been sucked from the air. He was so near and so damnably sexy. But even if it was not a matter of protecting her son. she knew she could never succumb to his charm again. She was certain that over the past fifteen years he had left a string of broken hearts in his wake...hearts just like hers. She knew she could not bear the pain of having him walk away from her a second time.
“Okay, let’s try it this way.” He grabbed her calendar from next to the cash register. “Now, you can’t have lunch with me today because your clerk won’t be back until later this afternoon. Okay, that sounds reasonable.”
He took her pen from the counter and wrote no lunch on the calendar. “Now, as for dinner tonight... you claim you’re busy.” He looked up, capturing her with his gaze. “Busy doing what? Is this the night you wash your hair?” He reached out and touched her ash-blond hair, then allowed his fingertips to skim across her jaw and finally come to rest under her chin.
His voice took on a soft quality, betraying the emotion he was trying to conceal. “Your hair looks lovely. So do you.”
Her entire body trembled beneath his touch. All she could think of was where the embrace they had shared might have led if she had not pulled away from him. She worried about him trying it again. She knew she would be powerless to stop it.
“Wyatt...I...I have work to do...” she finally managed to say. She closed her eyes and turned her head away. “Please go.” Her voice was a mere whisper
As much as he wanted to continue the seduction that seemed to have materialized of its own volition, he recognized that any further conversation along those lines would be counterproductive. He returned to the business at hand. “What about my order? Will you be able to get the items for me?”
“I’ll call you after I’ve talked to my distributor.”
“Fair enough.” He wrote his phone number on her calendar. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Vicki breathed a sigh of relief when he walked out the door. Maybe the thing to do would be to have lunch with him, in some brightly lit public place, and put an end to things once and for all. She would tell him she was not interested in him, and to confine their unavoidable conversations to strictly business matters.
Speaking of business, she picked up his list and glanced at the items he wanted her to order. She swallowed hard and forced down the now familiar jittery feeling. Every item on his list was something that had been one of her favorites, things he would pick up for her whenever he went into the city.
Why was he doing this to her? He had coldly walked out on her. What could he possibly hope to gain by this sudden pretense of wanting to get back together? Was it all some sort of game for him, just as it had apparently been fifteen years ago? She shook her head in a determined manner. It did not matter. At least that was what she tried to tell herself. She would place his order. It would be a straightforward business transaction—nothing more.
She reached for the phone and dialed her grocery distributor. “Sam, I have a special order here. Do you carry these items?”
Vicki locked up the market and went to her office in the back room of the post office. She had some paperwork to take care of before going home. She sat at the desk, turned on the lamp, and took the journal from the drawer.
“The front door was locked, but I saw the light and figured you were in the office.”
Wyatt’s voice startled her. She had not heard anyone come in through the post office. She was not sure quite what to say. “We’re closed for the day. Unless you’re just checking your post-office box for mail, I’m afraid you’ll have to come back some other time.”
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