Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer

“Nobody does it better”

—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

“Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerising storyteller

who captures the essence of what a

romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to delivering

pure, undiluted romance.

I love her stories.”

—New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz

About the Author

The prolific author of over one hundred books, DIANA PALMER got her start as a newspaper reporter. One of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humour. Diana lives with her family in Georgia.

Also by Diana Palmer

NIGHT FEVER

ONE NIGHT IN NEW YORK

BEFORE SUNRISE

OUTSIDER

LAWMAN

HARD TO HANDLE

FEARLESS

DIAMOND SPUR

TRUE COLOURS

HEARTLESS

INNOCENCE PROTECTED

WED IN WINTER

DANGEROUS

A Long Tall
Texan Summer

Diana

Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Kelly R, Donna B and Irene S

Prologue

“This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,

May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.”

—William Shakespeare

Romeo and Juliet, II, ii, 121

Tom Walker

“If love were what the rose is, And I were like the leaf, Our lives would grow together In sad or singing weather.”

—Algernon Charles Swinburne

A Match (1866), st. 1

Prologue

The christening was a delightful affair. It seemed that everyone in Jacobsville, Texas, was there to give their best wishes to Dr. Jebediah Coltrain and his wife, Dr. Louise Coltrain, on the birth of their son, John Daniel.

Afterward, at the reception, the champagne flowed like water. The beautiful day in mid-June was clear and warm.

Dr. Drew Morris was standing close to the punch bowl enjoying the company of his friends. Beside him stood Ted Regan and Ted’s foreman, Jobe Dodd, along with Ted’s sister, Sandy. Sandy was giving Jobe a black glare, which he was returning with interest. On the other side of him stood newcomer to town Tom Walker, who’d just opened an investment firm.

“I need to talk to you about some investments next week,” Drew told Tom with a grin. “I had a good year and I want to do something with my cash overflow.”

“I’ll be glad to do whatever I can for you, Dr. Morris,” Tom said with a grin in his dark, handsome face.

“By the way,” Drew added, “if you’re in the market for any computer equipment, Ted’s sister there is the lady to see.” He nodded toward Sandy. “She works for one of the big computer franchises, and she’s a whiz with electronics.”

“Sure is,” big blond Jobe Dodd said mockingly. “Pity she can’t stay on a horse.”

“The devil I can’t!” Sandy shot back, her blue eyes flaming.

“Now, now.” Ted separated them. “Go fight somewhere else. We’re here to celebrate a christening, not to start a war.”

They glared at him and went their separate ways.

“Whew!” Ted sighed. “It’s like that all the time lately! Coreen and I are about to the point of taking our baby and running for cover. I wish they’d kill each other and get it over with.”

“They do seem volatile,” Drew agreed, sipping punch.

“How’s your new employee working out?” Ted asked him.

“She can’t dress herself, she can’t walk through the office without tripping over something and she’s forever trying to work without her glasses because she thinks she looks better that way.” He threw up his hands. “It’s a pity they outlawed flogging…”

“How kinky,” Ted murmured.

Drew glared at him and stalked off.

Ted chuckled. His prematurely silver hair sparkled in the light as he glanced at Tom, the only companion left. “That just about clears away the group around the punch bowl,” he mused, and helped himself to another cup of champagne punch. “Don’t you want to glare at me and storm off, too?”

Tom grinned, his green eyes twinkling. “I don’t have any reason to, just yet. Besides, this punch is really good.”

“How’s business?”

“Going great,” Tom told him, sipping the drink. “Coming down here was one of the best moves I ever made. Matt Caldwell was right. I do have an open field here. I can’t keep up with all the work, and I’ve barely set up my office.”

“Glad to hear it.” Ted studied the younger man over his cup of punch. “Old man Gallagher said you had a dog.”

“He’s sort of a toothache with fur,” Tom murmured and then grinned at the other man. “I found him in a storm, under a city mailbox in Houston. He was just a little ball of fur and scared to death, so I took him home.” He took a swallow of champagne punch. “Now he weighs ninety pounds and he’s uncivilized. He is housebroken, in a sense, but I’d actually call him a housebreaker. I only have one ceramic thing left.” He glanced at Ted. “I don’t suppose you need a cattle dog?”

Ted chuckled. “No. Thanks. I gave Coreen a pup before we got married. He’s grown now and he’s smart enough to do what little herding I need around the place.”

“I wouldn’t really give Moose up, anyway,” Tom confessed. “I’m all alone, and he’s company.” His eyes had a sad, faraway look for an instant, before he wiped it away. “The Coltrain baby’s cute.”

“So he is,” Ted agreed, glancing at the two doctors with the baby. “I wonder if he’ll be a redhead like his dad or a blonde like his mom?”

“No telling,” Tom said. “How old is your boy?”

“Just a few months,” Ted said, sighing. “Never dreamed I’d become a father at my age. Hell, I never dreamed I’d get married.” His eyes searched the room and found Coreen’s blue ones. She had their little boy in her arms. They never left him for a minute, even with so many willing baby-sitters around. He was a treasure, like their love for each other.

Drew Morris saw that look, and poignant memories flooded through him as he rejoined the men. He’d loved his wife. After she died he’d never thought of finding someone else. He still mourned her. He glanced at Tom, who looked as alone and sad as he felt. Farther away, Jobe Dodd was glaring at Sandy Regan, who was standing near Coreen. He wondered if all that hostility had something beneath it?

He sighed and lifted his cup. Ted and Tom lifted theirs, too. The others in the room caught on, and Jobe Dodd lifted his with theirs toward the two doctors and their son. It was going to be quite a summer in Jacobsville.

“Cheers!” they all said in unison.

Three men in the privacy of their own minds stared at the child and wondered how it would be if they had families. Each of them was sure that he never would.

Chapter 1

There was a muffled crash from the living room and Tom Walker let out a weary sigh as he turned from unpacking the few small kitchen appliances that had come with him from Houston.

“Moose!” he grumbled. He got up from the floor and left the box sitting to see what latest disaster his pet had caused.

It had all started with a rainstorm and a tiny, frightened little ball of fur hiding under a metal mailbox in downtown Houston. Somebody had abandoned the puppy and Tom had been unable to leave it there on the side of a busy street. But the act of compassion had repercussions. Big ones. The tiny puppy had grown into a gorgeous but enormous

German shepherd mix whom he had named Shep, but who was later rechristened Moose.

As he stood watching the huge animal settle himself among the remains of a once-elegant antique bowl on the big coffee table, he reflected that the new name was appropriate. It was like having a moose in the house.

“Kate will never forgive you,” he said pointedly, remembering how happy his sister had been when, newly married, she had given him the bowl as a Christmas gift. “That was a Christmas present. It was handmade by a famous Native American potter!”

“Woof,” Moose replied in his deep dog voice, and grinned at him.

The vet had said that Moose was still going through his puppy stage.

“Will he outgrow it?” Tom had asked plaintively, having taken the big dog to the vet after Moose had gone swimming in a neighbor’s outdoor goldfish pond.

“Sure!” the vet had assured him, and just as Tom began to sigh with relief, he added with a wicked grin, “Four, five years from now, he’ll calm right down!”

Resigned, he took the big dog back home and hoped he could adapt to living among pottery shards and disemboweled furniture for the next few years of his life.

One of his neighbors had offered to buy Moose who, while a walking disaster, was absolutely beautiful, with a black coat of fur that shone like coal in sunlight, and stark white markings with medium brown eyebrows and facial markings.

Tom had replied that he liked the man too much to sell Moose to him.

He gave the coffee table one last look, shook his head and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Just as he started the coffeemaker, he heard a crunching noise and turned to find that while he’d been occupied with coffee, Moose had overturned the kitchen trash can and spread the contents all over the linoleum floor. He was munching contentedly on an apple core amidst coffee grounds, banana peels and empty TV dinner cartons.

“Oh, Lord,” Tom prayed silently. He took the apple core away, set the trash can upright and went to find a broom. What a good thing that he wasn’t entertaining thoughts of marriage. No woman in her right mind would put up with his canine companion.

He was thirty-four. He should have been long-since married, but he and his sister, Kate, had been victims of a shocking, terrible upbringing that had stunted them sexually. Their father had beaten both of them as children and raised the devil every time one of them so much as smiled at the opposite sex. In fact, sex, he lectured, was the greatest sin of all. He was a lay minister, so they believed him.

What they hadn’t known at the time was that he had a brain tumor that modified his once-loving personality and eventually killed him. Their long-missing mother had been found by Jacob Cade, his sister Kate’s husband, and presented to them both at Jacob and Kate’s wedding, over six years ago. It had been a painful reunion until they learned that far from deserting them as children, their mother had never dreamed that their father would kidnap them and spirit them away from her. But he had done just that. She’d spent half a lifetime using money from her meager salary trying to find them again. She lived in Missouri, but they both saw her frequently. Now that Kate was married and had a son, their mother often visited her.

Tom wondered if he could ever marry. Kate had, but then Jacob Cade had been the love of her life since her early teens. Presumably Kate’s fear of the physical side of marriage had been overcome. She and Cade had a son, who was five years old. And although they’d tried to have a second child, they hadn’t been able to just yet.

He’d have liked children. But his one sexual experience had left him sick with guilt. Kate’s wedding had pointed out, as nothing else ever had, how very alone he was. He’d gone back to his job with an advertising firm in New York City and that weekend, to a local bar to drown his sorrows.

She’d been there at a going-away party for one of the girls in the office. Elysia Craig had been his secretary for two years. She was a pretty blonde with gray eyes and a neat little figure who was teased by her co-workers for being so prim and prudish. Tom thought it was a joke. He never realized that she was as inexperienced as he was. Not until it was far too late. His most vivid memory of Elysia was of her crouching in the full-sized bed in his apartment with a white sheet clutched to her breasts, weeping like a widow. He’d hurt her without meaning to, and the tears had been the last straw. He couldn’t remember saying a single word to her as she dressed and got into the cab he called for her. He’d been far too inebriated and sick to drive by then.

He hadn’t known how to apologize, or explain. His behavior had shamed him. He couldn’t even meet her eyes the next morning, or speak to her. Most of the women in the office where he worked were sophisticated and savvy, but Elysia wasn’t. His inability to communicate with her provoked her into quitting her job that very day and going back home to Texas. To his shame, he hadn’t even looked for her. He’d still been fighting feelings of shame and guilt, holdovers from his brutal childhood, despite the aching hunger he’d felt for Elysia.

Her gentle, kind nature was what had attracted him to her in the first place, but except for his excessive drinking he would never have approached her. His feelings for her he’d kept secret, never dreaming that he might one day end up in bed with her. It had been the most exquisite experience of his life, but the guilt had made him sick, so he pushed it to the back of his mind and tried to forget it.

Not long afterward, he’d given up his advertising job and studied the investment business. His first job had been as an assistant advisor with a well-known national company. Then he’d moved to Houston, Texas, to open his own office in the building with a friend, Logan Deverell. But he’d gotten wanderlust again when Logan had married his long-suffering secretary.

He’d arrived in Jacobsville three weeks ago, thanks to another mutual friend, Matt Caldwell, who owned a stud farm out of town. Matt was friends with the Ballenger brothers, Calhoun and Justin, who owned a huge feedlot and liked to invest their earnings. They were all mutual friends of the Tremayne brothers, who owned properties all over Texas. Before he’d even had time to unpack, Tom had all the business he could handle.

A real-estate agent in town had dabbled in the properties market, but since she’d remarried her ex-husband, a pilot, they’d moved house to Atlanta. The nearest investment counselor now was in Victoria. Tom had no competition at all, for the moment, in Jacobsville. It seemed like a dream come true.

Then, yesterday, out of the blue, a new client had walked in the door—Luke Craig—and the bottom had fallen out of Tom’s life. Luke had a sister, recently widowed with a small daughter. Her first name was Elysia.

Tom poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down on the sofa. Moose jumped up beside him to rest his chin on his master’s leg.

He petted the big dog absently. “Don’t think I’m forgetting the broken pot or the garbage,” he murmured.

Moose sighed and gave him a baleful look.

Tom sipped coffee and wondered what he was going to do. Of all the quirks of fate, to land himself in the one town in America where he couldn’t bear to live. No wonder it had all seemed too good to be true. Fate was playing a monstrous joke on him. The woman he’d seduced lived right here. Apparently she’d married and had a child after she’d come home. He wondered if she remembered him, and then chided himself for his own stupidity. Of course she did. He’d been her first experience, just as she’d been his. She didn’t know that. She’d still think that he’d seduced and abandoned her, like some big city playboy without a conscience. What a joke.

He put the coffee cup down. Moose was snoring softly. He stroked the huge head and thought how nice it was to have a companion, even such a one as this.

He didn’t know how he was going to cope, but he knew he would. Jacobsville was a small town, but not all that small. He might never run into Elysia. Worry at this stage was premature. He had all this unpacking to do that he’d put off for almost a month. He’d do better to go to work and stop tormenting himself with things that might never happen. He probably wouldn’t recognize the woman, anyway. It had been years ago, after all.

Fate must have been howling the next morning when he drove to work, parked his car and started into the office. Next door to his office was an insurance agency. And heading toward it was a blond woman in jeans, boots, a T-shirt under a flannel shirt and a neat French braid.

Elysia.

She stopped dead when she was close enough to recognize him. Gone were the big-rimmed spectacles she’d worn when she worked for him. Gone was the racehorse thinness. She’d filled out. She still wasn’t pretty, but she was very attractive. He couldn’t help staring at her.

She moved closer, not shy or reticent as she had been. She looked right at him. “I heard you’d moved here to open an investment office. My brother said you looked strange when he mentioned my name. I told him I used to work for you, nothing else.” She laughed bitterly. “So you don’t have to worry about being lynched. Feel better, Mr. Walker?”

The unexpected assault had tied his tongue. She wasn’t the same girl he’d known at all.

His dark green eyes lanced down into hers. “You’ve changed, Miss Craig.”

“Mrs. Nash.” She corrected him.

His eyebrow jerked. “Mrs. Nash,” he said.

She seemed less assertive all at once. “My husband died last year. He had cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He was sick for a long time,” she murmured. “It’s trite to say it, but he really is better off.”

“I see.”

“You’re not married yet?”

He searched her soft oval face without expression. “That’ll be the day,” he replied.

“Yes, I remember. You’re the original love-’em-and-leave-’em bachelor.” The bitterness was back in her voice. “I guess you’re still shaking the women out of your bed…”

He stepped closer, his eyes kindling. “My love life is none of your damned business!” He never raised his voice, but the whip in it cut almost physically. It disconcerted her.

“No…of…of course not!” she stammered.

She actually took a step backward, and he cursed himself inwardly.

“I’m sorry,” he said curtly. “You probably think you were one in a line. That’s the joke of the century.”

“Ex…excuse me?”

He checked his watch, feeling self-conscious. “I have to get to work.”

His behavior puzzled her. She’d spent years blaming him, hating him. But he didn’t look like a philanderer. Sure, she reminded herself, and most ax-murderers probably don’t look like killers, either.

She stood aside to let him pass. He hesitated, though, the wind blowing his thick black hair around over a face that was deep olive. He had an untamed look about him. He was still very handsome, although she was sure that he was in his middle thirties by now. His build was that of a much younger man, lean and muscular.

“You have Native American ancestry, don’t you?” she asked involuntarily.

“Sioux,” he agreed. “Our great-grandfather.”

“How is your sister?” she asked without wanting to.

“Fine. She and Jacob have a son. He’s five now.”

“I’m happy for her.”

“So am I. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d never married, either.”

There was a deeper meaning to what he was saying. She wished she could read between the lines. Her eyes searched his curiously. If only she could hate him.

He looked down his long, straight nose at her with dark green eyes that didn’t blink. “We’re both older. I’m glad you found someone you could love. I hope he was good to you.”

She flushed. “He was very good to me,” she said.

“And I wasn’t.” His lean hand reached out, almost touched her hair, withdrawing before it made contact. He laughed at his own inability to show affection. “I regret you most of all, Elysia,” he said numbly. “I was afraid. Maybe I still am.”

He turned and went into his office, leaving her staring blankly after him.

She’d hated him so much when she’d come back to Jacobsville after his cold rejection. It hadn’t even been much of a memory, that short night she’d spent in his arms. He’d been ravenously hungry for her, but rough and at times, oddly hesitant. When he’d hurt her, he’d even tried to draw away, but it hadn’t been possible. His harsh groan as he gave in to his hunger had stayed with her all these long years. He’d sounded as if he hated himself for wanting her, blamed her for it. He hadn’t said a single word. Not before, during, or after.

It was painful to remember how desperately she’d loved him. She’d gambled everything on giving in to him, that once. But instead of bringing them closer, it had destroyed their tenuous friendship. She’d come home and he’d never tried to contact her at all. Perhaps that was best. She didn’t really want him to know about Crissy. Eventually he might notice that the child bore a striking resemblance to him, but he wouldn’t know what her late husband looked like, so there was little danger of her secret coming out.

She wondered what he would say if he knew that their one intimacy had produced such a beautiful little miracle. She couldn’t tell him. Everyone in town thought that her late husband had fathered the child, but poor Fred had been far too ill for intimacy, even when they married soon after her flight to Jacobsville six years before. His illness had been a long-drawn-out one, with brief periods of remission that became even briefer as time passed. He’d been kind to her, though, and she’d had affection for him. He’d loved the child. Poor man, whose wife had divorced him to marry someone richer, just when he was diagnosed with cancer. They’d both been deserted by the people they loved most. Marriage had been a sensible solution. He wouldn’t have to die alone, and her child would have a name.

The thought of telling Tom Walker about his daughter had never occurred to her. His cold avoidance of Elysia after they were intimate had told her all she needed to know. He no longer wanted her. Certainly he wouldn’t want a child.

She went into the insurance office to pay her bill without a backward glance. Their time was over, before it even began. He would never have to know about Crissy, anyway. And if he could bear to live here with the constant sight of her to remind him of the past, she could endure it as well. She was a successful businesswoman with rich clients at her exclusive fashion boutique that shipped couture and locally designed garments all over the world. She had a wonderful child and a bright future. She didn’t need Tom Walker to complete her life, even if the sight of him had knocked the breath out of her all over again. She’d just have to exercise some strong self-control, that was all. Because judging by his behavior, he hadn’t missed her. She wished that she could have said the same.

Tom sat down behind his desk, shaken. Elysia looked as lovely to his eyes as she ever had. She was more mature, much more desirable. He felt ashamed all over again. She’d married and had a child. He couldn’t have had much of a place in her heart after what he’d done. He wished things had gone differently for them. If he’d been able to communicate, a little less proud about his past, a little more open with her, who knew what might have happened. But he’d let his chance for happiness slip right by him. He’d given her the idea that he found her easy and undesirable after one night. How could he blame her for being bitter?

The phone rang. He picked it up. It was a potential client. He put on his best business manner and forced the thought of Elysia to the back of his mind for the moment. It was inevitable that he was going to run into the Craigs sooner or later. As it happened, it was Luke he saw first, and he had Elysia’s daughter with him.

Tom stopped dead at the sight of the child. There was something about her that reminded him vividly of his sister, Kate. The child had olive skin and light green eyes. Her hair was long and straight and jet black. She was almost the image of Kate. He smiled in spite of himself. What a beautiful child!

“Hi, Tom,” Luke said with his easy friendliness. He had the little girl by the hand. He drew her forward. “I’m taking my niece to a movie. Crissy, honey, this is Mr. Walker. He’s Uncle Luke’s investment counselor.”

“Hello,” the child said politely, eyeing the tall man curiously. “You look like an Indian.”

His eyebrow quirked. He smiled faintly. “I had a Sioux great-grandfather.”

“I like to wear my hair in braids. Mama took me to an Indian powwow. That’s a festival where you can learn all about their culture and history, and all sorts of crafts. I had fun.”

That interesting fact piqued Tom’s curiosity, but before he could say anything, Luke cut the child off.

“Christine, you’re babbling,” Luke chided gently, chuckling as he glanced at Tom. “She’ll talk your leg off. She’s only in kindergarten, too.”

“Uncle Luke thinks I talk too much,” the little girl muttered, glowering up at her uncle.

“No, I don’t, pet,” her relative assured her. “She wants to see the pig movie.” He sighed. “I’m not keen, but I don’t have much to do around the ranch today, so I was free. Elysia’s at home with every pot we own on the stove putting up sauce. We’re going to die of tomato poisoning. Honest to God, she’s put up enough sauce to float a small ship!” He eyed Tom. “I don’t guess you like spaghetti? I could give you twenty or thirty jars of spaghetti sauce for Christmas.”

“I love it, as it happens,” Tom admitted, amused. “Why does she put up so much of it?”

“Just between us, I think something’s upset her,” he confessed. “She’s been like this for several days. She’s cleaned the house twice and washed both cars, now she’s determined to corner the tomato sauce market.”

“Mama always works when she’s upset,” Crissy volunteered. “Last time was when Miss Henry told her I pushed Markie down the steps.”

Tom’s eyebrows both rose. “Did you?”

Her lower lip thrust out. “He called me a sissy,” she said belligerently. “Just because I made him stop throwing rocks at a little frog.” She brightened. “I told his mama what he did, and he got whipped. His mama has an aquarium with lots of little fire toads in it. She let me see them.”

“Poor Markie,” Luke said under his breath.

“Good for you,” Tom told the child.

“Do you like cows?” she asked Tom. “We’ve got lots. I’ll bet Uncle Luke would even let you pet one, if you want.”

“He can pet all I’ve got,” Luke replied, his blue eyes dancing as he glanced at the other man.

“I’m a city boy,” Tom mused, his hands in his pockets. “Lately, anyway.”

“Yes, you’re from Houston, aren’t you?” Luke asked.

“Originally, I’m from South Dakota,” he replied. “I grew up around Jacob Cade’s ranch near Blairsville. He taught Kate and me how to ride when we were young. He’s a whiz at it.”

“I know that name,” Luke replied. “He and I were at a cattle auction in Montana a couple of years back. He’s your brother-in-law? Well, well. I have to say I was impressed. He knows cattle.”

“So does Kate. I’m the odd one out.”

“You know how to invest money,” Luke said pointedly. “That’s no small talent.”

Tom smiled. “Thanks.”

Luke was frowning. “Jacob said something about you… Oh, I remember,” he added with a grin. “You threw a client out the door in Houston for making remarks to your secretary, as I recall.”

“He was a—” he glanced at the little girl “—chauvinist.” He amended the word he’d been about to use. “It was no great business loss. I don’t like people hassling my employees.”

“Didn’t Elysia used to work for you, when you were working at that ad agency in New York?” Luke asked suddenly.

Tom’s face showed no expression at all, but he felt a sinking feeling inside. “Yes, she did. I was sorry to lose her. She was a terrific secretary.”

“She said she got tired of New York,” Luke replied easily. “I don’t blame her, what with all that noise and concrete. Anyway, it was a good thing she came home, or she’d never had married Fred and had Crissy. It’s been nice having her back here. I expect you missed her.”

“More than she’ll ever know,” Tom replied absently, his eyes with a faraway look. He shook himself mentally. “I have to go. Nice to have met you, Miss Nash,” he told Crissy, extending a lean hand.

She shook it warmly. “Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Walker.”

“Great manners,” he remarked to Luke.

“Oh, Elysia’s a stickler for them. Crissy’s much loved, but she doesn’t lack for discipline, either.”

“What does Elysia do now?”

“She owns an exclusive fashion boutique, actually,” he told Tom. “She enrolled in college after Crissy was born and got her degree in business and marketing. She has a backlog of designers and dressmakers and despite the small size of our town, she’s getting an international reputation for her fashion sense. She gets orders from all over. She even does a little designing as well. I knew she could draw, and she’s always been good at numbers, but I don’t think she really applied herself until she married Fred. He had contacts in the fashion world and in business and he pushed her—gently, of course. All that hidden talent came out. She’s only been in business a few years, and she already makes more on her boutique than I do on my cattle. Kills my ego.”

“I can imagine.”

“She and Crissy live with me. I don’t have any marriage plans and it’s our old family home—one of those big Victorian horrors. Of course, Matt Caldwell’s sweet on her. She may give in and marry him one day and move out.”

For some reason, that casual remark played on Tom’s mind all day long, and into the night. Matt hadn’t mentioned Elysia at all when they’d talked, before he moved to Jacobsville. He wondered if the omission had been deliberate. Maybe Matt had known that Tom and Elysia were acquainted and was protecting what he thought of as his property. It was odd that he hadn’t mentioned her.

Moose was waiting for him when he got home. The dog really was huge, he thought, as he fended off huge paws on his chest and an affectionate tongue the size of a washcloth.

“Down, you moose,” he muttered, laughing as he patted the dog’s head. “Hungry, are you, or desperate for a fire hydrant? Come on.”

He led the way to the back door and opened it. The backyard was fenced and reinforced on the bottom, fortunately, because Moose liked to dig. Local gardeners wouldn’t appreciate a visit from his pet.

He waited until Moose was ready to come back in and opened the door for him. He filled the food and water dishes and left the big animal to have his supper.

Tom went through his cabinets looking for something to tempt his appetite. He finally settled on a bowl of cold cereal. He had no appetite at all. Too many questions were plaguing him.

Chapter 2

Tom’s opinion of the new Elysia underwent a series of changes in the following few weeks. There was still plenty of gossip about her in Jacobsville, and he heard it all in bits and pieces of conversation when Elysia’s comings and goings were noticed by local citizens. One acquaintance thought she’d only married Fred Nash for his money, and that it was this inherited wealth that had made her exclusive fashion boutique possible. It was known that their union was one of friendship, not passion, and that there was a great age difference. And that Fred had been very, very rich.

He didn’t believe the unpleasant remarks at first, but it was impossible not to notice how prosperous she was. She’d bought into her brother’s cattle farm and held half ownership of it. She also had investments of several kinds, including some very expensive oil stock. She had her daughter enrolled in a very well-known girls’ school in Houston for the fall term, and she drove a Mercedes convertible. Poor, she wasn’t.

With her investments and the nearest counseling office in Victoria, it was inevitable that Luke was going to suggest that she bring her portfolio to Tom.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she told her brother after supper that night.

“Why not?” Luke asked. “He’s a whiz. Ask the Ballenger brothers.”

“I know he’s good at picking stocks that increase in value,” Elysia replied calmly. “But he’s an intelligent man and he isn’t blind. I don’t want him around Crissy.”

Luke sat back with a soft sigh, his blue eyes sympathetic. “She’s almost six years old,” he said pointedly. “She’s already in kindergarten. Don’t you think it’s time he knew he was a father?”

She grimaced, leaning forward with her forearms crossed over her knees. “I don’t know how he’d react,” she said. “He was…less than encouraging when I left the office for good. I think he was relieved that I went away.” She shrugged. “I don’t think he’s lacked female company.”

“Then isn’t it interesting that he doesn’t date?” he asked shrewdly. “That was the case in Houston, too. And since I haven’t heard any gossip about Mr. Walker liking men, I gather that he’s amazingly selective about his dates. One woman in over six years, I believe…?”

She flushed red. “He was drinking. I told you.”

He leaned forward, too, his face serious. “Jacob Cade and I became fairly good friends over the years. He never came right out and said anything, but he intimated that his wife and Tom had a very brutal childhood. Their father had a brain tumor and went stark-raving mad before he died. He attacked Kate physically because she just smiled at a young man.”

“Wh…what?”

He nodded. “That’s right. In his distorted mind, he equated sex with evil and made his kids believe it. Neither of them had anything to do with the opposite sex, even after he died. He warped them, Ellie. Now imagine how it would be, to have a parent who browbeat you into repressing your sexuality for years and years. And then imagine how it would be if you grew older with no experience whatsoever with the opposite sex? Do you think a man, especially, would find it easy to become involved with a woman?”

She was barely breathing. “You aren’t going to tell me that you think Tom is a…a…”

He nodded. “That’s exactly what I think. He and Kate were very close. When she married Jacob, Tom had nobody. He was totally alone. Probably getting a snootful of liquor was the only way he could let go of those repressed desires.”

She sat back with a rough sigh. It actually made sense. She felt her heart beating wildly in her chest as she recalled how it had been with Tom. At the office, he’d avoided the female staff. He and Elysia had become close because she didn’t make eyes at him. She wasn’t aggressive, as some of the women were. She was shy and reserved, and she must have been the least threatening female he knew. He’d opened up with her, just a little. And then right after Kate had married, he’d had too much to drink and Elysia had been nearby. Perhaps he’d given in to feelings he couldn’t express, and then been ashamed of what he’d done, because of his childhood teachings.

The thought made her heart race. Could it be possible that she was Tom Walker’s first, only, woman in that way? Her lips parted.

“Do you think it’s possible?” she asked hesitantly.

“That it was his first time?” He nodded. “He’s no rounder. Nobody would accuse him of being a playboy. He’s courteous to women, but there’s an icy tone to his dealings with them. He’s polite, but nothing more.” He smiled. “He was very impressed with Crissy. You’ve never seen his sister Kate, have you?”

“No.”

He chuckled softly. “Well, I have. Crissy could be her daughter. I’m sure the resemblance didn’t escape Tom, even if he hasn’t quite recognized it yet.”

“What should I do, Luke?” she asked.

“Why don’t you go and talk to him honestly?”

“It would be hard.”

“Of course. Doing the right thing usually is.”

“I can’t go today. I’m meeting with a European buyer to open a new market.”

“There’s always tomorrow.”

She sighed. “I guess I always knew that I’d have to tell him one day. He won’t like it.”

“He will.”

She smiled. “You’re a nice brother. Why don’t you get married?”

“Bite your tongue, woman,” he said. “I’m not putting my neck in that particular noose. There are too many pretty girls around who like to party,” he chuckled, rising.

“One day, you’ll run head-on into someone who doesn’t.”

“I’ll pity the poor girl, whoever she is,” he said with a grin.

“You’re hopeless.”

“At least I’m honest,” he said pointedly. “A confirmed bachelor has to protect himself any way he can against you devious females!”

She threw a small sofa pillow at him.

She’d planned to stop by Tom’s office the next day, but an unexpected meeting early that morning had unfortunate consequences.

She’d just seen her European buyer off, very early that morning, from her shop in the middle of town. He was a determined would-be suitor who had to be convinced that a young widow didn’t need a man. She’d pushed him away with a cold smile right there on the sidewalk and wished him a pleasant trip.

“Pleasant, ha!” the handsome Frenchman had called. “Without you in my bed, I shall be very lonely, cherie. I hope that the business I send you will compensate you for my loss. After all, Elysia, to you, money is much more important than a mere lover, n’est pas?”

Sadly for Elysia, this bitter remark, loudly made by her angry rejected suitor, reached Tom Walker’s ears. He was less than ten feet away and heard every word.

Before Elysia could reply angrily to the Frenchman, he climbed into his sports car and roared away. She could have the business she wanted overseas, but the cost was too high. She wasn’t going to accept the merger. Better to rest on her American sales record than have to deal with a man like that!

“Is that how you get clients?” Tom asked, pausing beside her, his dark green eyes furious in that lean, dark face. “By sleeping with them?”

She looked at him blankly. “I get clients by providing quality service.”

“Oh? Really?” His gaze went up and down her body in the simple silk suit, to her long hair twisted into a neat chignon. She looked cool and desirable and very flushed. He hated her in that moment for the way she’d twisted his heart.

His contempt was visible. It hurt her, and it also made her furiously angry, that he should misjudge her so.

She pulled herself up to her full height. “Think what you like,” she said coldly. “Your opinion and fifty cents will buy you a cup of coffee at any café in town!”

He made a rough sound and put his hands into his pockets. “How was he in bed?”

Her face went scarlet. She slapped him. It wasn’t premeditated, but it felt good afterward. She turned on her heel and stalked away to her Mercedes convertible. Several people had seen what she did, but she didn’t care. She knew that she was gossiped about—most wealthy people were. She didn’t care anymore. She’d send her daughter away to a private school where she wouldn’t have to suffer the speculation and contempt of the neighbors. As for herself, people could think whatever they liked. And that included Tom Walker!

Tom, nursing a stinging cheek, stalked back into his own office, foregoing the sweet roll he’d gone out to get for his breakfast. He’d never been slapped by a woman in his life. It was an experience he didn’t relish.

He walked past his curious middle-aged secretary and closed his office door. Elysia had never seemed spirited in the old days. Perhaps her marriage had made her bitter.

As he recalled what he’d said to her, he had to admit that he’d provoked her into the action. He hadn’t meant to say the things he had, but the thought of her with that Frenchman—a man who had probably been to bed with hundreds of women from the look of him—made him sick with jealousy. He hadn’t known that he still felt so strongly for Elysia in the first place. Apparently his feelings for her were buried so far inside him that they couldn’t be removed.

Was this how Kate had felt about Jacob Cade? His sister had been enamored with the man most of her adult life. She’d kept photos of him in the damnedest places. It wasn’t until her job as a reporter had sent her into a terrorist standoff and she’d been shot that Jacob had revealed his own violent feelings for her. Theirs had been a rocky, volatile romance that eventually ended in a happy and lasting marriage. Kate had adjusted to it with joy.

But except for Elysia, Tom had never felt a rush of joy at just the sight of a woman. He’d often wondered as he grew older what it would be like to share his life and his heart as well as his bed with a woman. He’d always been sure that no woman would accept him with his hangups and his chaste status. Elysia had, but then, she hadn’t known that she was the first. He’d been too proud to admit that he was innocent. Now, he was glad he hadn’t shared that knowledge with her. She obviously wanted no part of him in her life.

He leaned forward and began to deal with the stack of mail on his desk, his sore cheek forgotten. Elysia was in the past. He might as well keep her there.

If only it had been that easy. Jacobsville was small enough that the monied class congregated everywhere. There was an endless social round that included chamber of commerce meetings and various charity and business gatherings of all sorts. Tom, as the town’s only investment counselor, was included in all of these. So, unfortunately, was Elysia.

Their stiff courtesy with each other didn’t go unnoticed. People remembered that Elysia had worked for Tom in New York before she’d come home to marry Fred Nash. They began to wonder about these two people because of their obvious hostility toward each other.

The gossip was unavoidable.

Tom found himself seated next to Elysia at the monthly meeting of businessmen. It was a lunch affair, served in the private dining room of the largest local restaurant. Tom, in a dark suit, and Elysia, in a neat gray pantsuit, her hair in a chignon, was secretary of the group. She couldn’t avoid him at this function, or the gossip would have been even worse.

But it was obvious to the most unobservant of guests that they barely tolerated each other. When Elysia passed around the neat copies she’d made of the financial report, she made sure that her hand didn’t touch Tom’s. When she passed the cream and sugar holders to him, again, she kept her fingers from making contact.

Tom was keenly aware of her bitter avoidance of him. He understood it, but that didn’t make it any easier. He was astonished that such a mercenary woman still had feelings to hurt.

After the meeting, she went straight to her car.

Tom followed right behind her, keenly aware of eyes following his progress to his own somber Lincoln, which was parked beside her Mercedes convertible.

Elysia fumbled with her keys and dropped them in her haste to get away before he came to his car. She muttered curses, hating the door because it wouldn’t cooperate.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured coolly from across the top of her car, “whatever I seem to have probably isn’t contagious a car length away.”

She glared at him, flushed. “That works both ways, Mr. Walker!”

“Listen, if you want to sleep your way up in the fashion world, it’s none of my business,” he said with icy venom.

She bit back a curse as the president of the chamber of commerce passed them with a curious glance.

“Nice meeting, Mr. James,” she said through her teeth with a smile.

“Yes, it was. Nice to have you aboard, too, Mr. Walker,” he said, pausing to shake Tom’s hand. “You be good to him, Mrs. Nash, we need new blood in the community!” he added with a wave of his hand as he went along to his own car.

“Oh, how I’d love to show him some of yours,” Elysia said fervently, glaring at Tom.

“You need to work on that attitude problem,” he replied somberly. “You seem to have lost your knack for diplomacy.”

“Only with you,” she shot right back. “I get along fine with everyone else.”

“Especially French buyers, hmmm?”

“Damn you!”

His eyebrows arched as she pulled off a high heel shoe and threw it at him.

“Wouldn’t you know I’d miss?” she demanded of the parking lot. “Give me back my shoe.”

“Come over here and get it,” he challenged.

“You’re not my type,” she purred. “You can’t speak French!”

His eyes went cold. He threw the shoe onto the top of her car, got into his own, backed out and drove away without even looking in her direction.

“I love you, too, you sweet man!” she called after him.

“Can I print that?” the local newspaper editor whispered in her ear.

She shrieked. “John, don’t sneak up on me like that!”

He grinned wickedly. “Can’t you see the headlines? Boutique Owner Shouts Love For Financial Advisor At Top Of Lungs…”

“Do you need a shoe?” she asked, holding it over her head in a threatening manner.

He cleared his throat. “Not my size. Thanks, anyway.”

He beat a hasty retreat. She glared after him. This was getting totally out of hand.

Tom was kept busy for the rest of the week, and Elysia took a back seat in his mind as he dealt with one financial crisis after another. By Saturday, he was ready for some rest and recreation. He decided that fishing might be a nice way to relax, and a local man had a stocked private pond where he rented poles and bait for a small all-day fee.

He put on jeans and went on his way. Fortunately the fish were biting, since he did love a nice fried bass. It brought back memories of his youth in South Dakota, when he and Kate had gone fishing with Jacob Cade on the older man’s sprawling ranch.

His boots were worn, but serviceable, like the old beige Stetson he’d had for years. Dressed like that, he looked every inch a cowboy. Kate had always wondered why her only brother had chosen city life. She’d never realized that the very anonymity of a big city was kind to his ego. In a small town, his aloneness would have been so much more noticeable.

In fact, it worried him here. He hadn’t considered how curious small-town people were about strangers, or how gossip, though kind, ran rampant. It was rather like being part of a huge family, having everyone know all about you. The comforting thing about it was that, also like family, people tended to accept each other regardless of human frailty.

For instance, everyone knew that old Harry was an alcoholic, and that Jeff had been in prison for killing his wife’s lover. They also knew that a local spinster bought copies of a notorious magazine that contained vivid photos of nude men, and that a certain social worker lived with a man to whom she wasn’t married. These were open secrets, however, and not one person ridiculed these people or treated them as untouchables. They were family.

Tom began to understand that even the talk about Elysia wasn’t vicious or brutal.

In fact, as Tom spent more time around local people, and heard more gossip about her, he learned that Elysia’s marriage had been looked upon more as a charitable act on her part, despite her husband’s wealth.

“Took care of him like a nurse, she did,” old man Gallagher had said, nodding with approval as he filled Tom’s order at the office supply store the week before, when talk had turned to Elysia’s similar taste in stationery for her boutique. “Never shirked, not even at the end when he was bedridden and needed around-the-clock nursing. She had a nurse, but she stayed, too.” He smiled. “She may have inherited a lot of money, that’s true, but most people feel like she earned it with the care she took of old Fred. Never doubted that she was fond of him. And that kid doted on him.” He sighed. “She mourned him, too, and so did the kid. Nice young woman. Most folks remember her dad.” His eyes had darkened and narrowed.

Tom frowned. “In a kind way?” he asked, because the old man’s voice had shaded a bit.

“Hardly. Old man Craig drank like a fish. Beat Elysia’s mother and Luke. Day came when Luke was old enough to realize he had to do something.

He called the police, even though his mama wouldn’t. Swore out a warrant for his dad and signed it, too.” He chuckled. “They put the man away. He died in prison of a heart attack, but I think it was a relief to all of them. Would never have stopped beating her, if they’d ever let him out. I reckon they all knew it.”

That had sounded painfully familiar to Tom, who’d had his share of beatings. His and Kate’s father had never touched alcohol, but the brain tumor had made a monster of him. The two of them had been “disciplined” frequently by their unpredictable parent, especially if they ever showed a flicker of interest in the opposite sex.

Tom threw his line into the water and leaned back against the trunk of an oak tree with a sigh. He wasn’t really interested in fishing, but it was something to do. His days had been empty for a long time. In the city, there was always something to do in the anonymity of crowds. Here, he either sat at home with rented movies or fished. Fishing was much preferable.

“Hi!”

The bright greeting caught his attention. He turned his head to find Luke and Crissy with tackle boxes and fishing poles.

“I never expected to find a big city dude in a place like this,” Luke murmured dryly. “Bored to death or do you just enjoy eating cheap fish?”

“This isn’t cheap,” Tom murmured on a chuckle. “Ten dollars a day and the price of renting the tackle. Plus fifty cents a pound for whatever you catch. It adds up.”

“Bobby Turner’s no fool,” Luke said with a grin. “He figures people will pay to catch clean fish in a good location. He does a roaring business.”

Tom, glancing out over the dozens of people around the big lake, had to admit that the warm weather drew scores of fishermen.

“Mind if we join you?” Luke asked. “The best spots are already taken.”

“Is this one of them?” Tom queried.

“It sure is,” Crissy piped up. “I caught a big fish last time, didn’t I, Uncle Luke?”

“She caught a four-pound bass,” Luke agreed, settling in. “But I had to land him. She’s a bit small yet for pulling in fighting fish on a line.”

“It pulled me down,” Crissy explained solemnly. Then she grinned. “But we ate it for supper. It tasted very good.”

Tom laughed in spite of himself. The child had an incredible variety of facial expressions.

Crissy looked at him for a long time, her little face studious and quiet. “You have green eyes and dark hair,” she noted. “Just like me.”

He nodded. “So I do.” He paused, glancing at Luke, who’d gone to the small shed where bait was sold. “I guess your dad had green eyes, too, huh?”

She frowned. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “My daddy had red hair.”

Tom’s heart jumped up into his throat. The most incredible thoughts were gathering speed in his head. He stared down at the child. She had his own olive skin, his eyes, his hair. She was in kindergarten, that would make her at least five years old. He couldn’t stop looking at her as a shocking idea took shape in his mind.

Luke came back with bait. “Go put this on your hook,” he told Crissy, “and watch that you don’t get it stuck in your finger like poor old Mr. Hull did last time he went with us.”

“Yes, sir,” she said at once. “I don’t want my finger cut open!”

She rushed off, a miniature whirlwind in jeans and a short-sleeved cotton shirt.

“She loves to fish,” Luke said. “I had a date, but I broke it.” He made a face. “My latest girl doesn’t like fishing or any other ‘blood sport.’”

“Fishing is a blood sport?” Tom asked.

“Sure is,” came the reply. “So is eating meat.” He grinned sheepishly. “I’m not giving up my cattle, so I guess this girl will go the way of the others pretty soon. She’s a looker. Pity.”

Tom knelt down beside Luke, glancing warily toward the child. “She said her dad was redheaded.”

Luke’s indrawn breath was audible, although he recovered quickly enough. “Did she? She was barely older than a toddler when he died…”

“Red is red, whatever age you are,” Tom said doggedly. His green eyes met the blue ones of the other man. “She’s mine.”

Luke cursed silently. Elysia was going to kill him.

“She’s mine,” Tom repeated harshly, his eyes demanding verification.

Luke bent his head. “She’s yours,” he said heavily.

Tom looked at the little girl again, his face white, his eyes blazing. He’d never thought much about getting married, much less about having children, and all at once, he was a father. It was a shattering thought.

“Dear God,” he breathed.

Luke put a hand on his shoulder, noting how the other man tensed at once. He didn’t like being touched. Luke withdrew the comradely gesture. “She thought you were a big city playboy,” he explained. “She never considered trying to get in touch with you, especially after the way you acted before she left town.”

Tom grimaced.

“If it’s any consolation, Fred had leukemia when they married, and he was already infirm. They lived together as friends, nothing more, and she was fond of him. She needed a name for Crissy. For a small town like this, we’re pretty tolerant, but Elysia couldn’t bear having people gossip about us more than they already do.” He searched Tom’s eyes. “You’ll have heard about our father, I imagine?”

Tom nodded. He drew in a long breath. “My father was a madman,” he confided quietly. “I’ve had my share of beatings, too,” he added, and a look passed between the two men. “The difference was that my father died of a brain tumor—while he was beating my sister for smiling at a boy she liked. He called her a slut, if you can imagine being labeled that for a smile.”

Luke grimaced. “Good God, and I thought I had it bad.”

Tom laughed coldly. His eyes were on the child. “One time,” he said half to himself, “in my entire life, and there was a child.”

Luke looked down at the ground. “Elysia was your first?”

Tom hesitated, but he was too stunned by what he’d learned to conceal it anymore. “Yes,” he said bluntly. “And the last. There hasn’t been anyone else, ever.”

Luke looked up, quietly compassionate. “Not for her, either,” he said. “Not even her husband.”

“You’re not serious.”

“Yes, I am,” Luke countered. “He was too ill most of the time, and she never felt like that about him. She was honest. Then when Crissy was born, they seemed to find common ground. That child was wanted and very much loved.”

Tom’s hand clenched by his side. “And now that I know about her—” he nodded toward the child “—what the hell do I do?”

Chapter 3

“On that subject,” Luke mused, “I would say that you’ve got a real problem on your hands. Elysia never meant for you to find out about Crissy. And here I’ve given the game away.”

He shook his head. “Crissy gave it away,” he replied, “when she said her dad was redheaded. I believe in recessive genes, of course, but not to that extent. She’s a dead ringer for my sister, Kate.”

“I noticed that, too,” Luke replied.

“What am I going to do?” Tom groaned, pushing his hands through his hair in frustration. “I can’t walk up to Elysia after all this time and demand my rights to my daughter. I let her leave New York pregnant, although I swear I didn’t suspect that she could have been after one night, and I never even tried to see her again. She won’t understand why.”

“Care to tell me?”

Tom laughed coldly. “Because I was too ashamed,” he said. “I got drunk and had sex,” he said with self-contempt. His eyes closed. “My God, I thought I was sure to go to hell after that. I didn’t realize that the hell was going to be living with myself afterward. I missed her,” he confided. “She’d been with me for two years, and it was like losing part of my own body. But every time I thought about what I’d done, I was too ashamed to try to contact her. I never thought of a child,” he added huskily. He shook his head. “I wasn’t very clued-up for a twenty-eight-year-old man. And Elysia thought I was a playboy. How’s that for irony?”

“You should have told her the truth,” Luke told him. “She’s not the sort of woman who would think less of you. I’d guess that it would impress her very much.”

“How could I have told her something like that? I’m thirty-four now, but when I knew Elysia I was twenty-eight already. How many male virgins of that age have you ever known?” Tom asked him with an irritable glance.

Luke grinned. “One.”

Tom burst out laughing. It didn’t seem so terrible now, that he’d had a woman and a child had come of the experience. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more pleasure he felt. Those pangs of conscience were receding at least a little. But he was knee-deep in problems, with no solutions in sight. Elysia was the biggest one of all. He remembered the things he’d said to her recently and he wanted to throw back his head and scream. Even if she’d have let him come around Crissy before, she’d never allow him close to the child now. He’d burned his bridges by accusing her of sleeping her way up the corporate ladder. He groaned aloud. How could he have been so blind?

“You might come to supper tonight,” Luke said.

Tom’s eyebrows lifted. “She’d have me stuffed and baked if I walked in the door. Either that, or she’d smother me in all that tomato sauce you said she made.”

“No guts, no glory,” Luke reminded him. He looked at the child, who was just joining them. “Crissy, what would you think if Mr. Walker came to dinner tonight?”

“I’d like that,” the child said seriously, grinning up at him. “I’d like to know all about Indians.”

Tom sighed. “I only know family lore, and not much of that,” he confided. “Kate and I went to live with our grandmother, and she didn’t like that side of our family at all. She refused to let us talk about it.”

“How mean,” Crissy muttered.

“It was, wasn’t it?” Tom agreed, having just realized that it was a form of discrimination on the old woman’s part. “But my sister’s husband knew someone on the Sioux reservation who was related to our great-grandfather—and therefore to us. He asked for the history, and Kate went to see the woman and wrote it all down.” He searched the little face so much like his own. “One of our ancestors was at the Little Bighorn, and we have distant relatives in Canada and South Dakota among the Sioux.”

“Do you visit them?” Crissy asked, wide-eyed.

“I haven’t yet. I think I might like to,” he added. He smiled. “Maybe you and your mom could come along.”

“You could ask her,” Crissy said doubtfully. “She doesn’t like to go places.”

“You said she took you to a powwow,” Tom reminded her, cherishing the memory.

“She liked it,” Crissy agreed. “She told me all about the Plains Indians and about that place where General Custer got shot, too.”

“Colonel Custer,” Tom told her. “He had a Civil War battlefield promotion to Brigadier General, but that was a brevet commission. He was only a colonel in the 7th Cavalry.”

“Touchy subject, hmmm?” Luke teased.

“Very,” Tom replied. “And isn’t it a hell of a thing that it should be? I haven’t paid a lot of attention to my ancestry before now.” He looked at Crissy. “But it’s in the genes.”

“It sure is,” Luke replied amusedly.

“I want to catch a big fish for you to eat at our house,” Crissy said. She tried to throw the hook into the water, but she wasn’t tall enough to cast the line out.

Tom squatted just behind her, holding her with one arm while he guided the small hand holding the line. “Like this, sweetheart,” he said gently.

She grinned at him over one shoulder. “Thanks. You smell nice,” she added.

He chuckled, hugging her close. “So do you, tidbit.”

He got up, leaving her to hold the pole tight in both hands. He’d never used endearments, but the child seemed to invoke them effortlessly. He stared down at her with pure pride, unaware that Luke could see that pride.

“She’s very like you,” Luke remarked quietly.

“Yes,” came the reply. Tom went back to his own pole, baited the hook and tossed the line out into the lake. His thoughts were dark ones. He knew Elysia wasn’t going to want him in her house, but he had to try to make his peace with her. He glanced at his daughter and knew that it was worth the effort.

They caught five big bass between them, which Luke volunteered to clean. “Come over about six,” he told Tom.

Tom glanced from the child’s eager face to Luke’s. He grimaced. “I don’t know…”

“You have to,” Crissy pleaded. “Me and Uncle Luke and Mama can’t eat all these big fish alone. Please?”

“Okay,” he relented. “I’ll see if I can rent some body armor,” he murmured to himself. “Boy, am I going to need it!”

He went home to clean up, wondering how Luke was going to fare when he broke the news to Elysia. It would probably be bloody.

“You what?” Elysia exploded.

Luke held up a hand. “Go upstairs and clean up, pumpkin,” he told Crissy.

She hesitated. “Mommy, you have to say it’s okay,” she told her mother somberly. “I invited Mr. Tom to come help us eat the fish. He helped us catch them.

I like him,” she added belligerently. “He’s going to tell me all about Indians.”

“Go on,” Luke prompted, smiling. “It will be all right.”

Crissy went, glowering at her white-faced parent on the way.

“You can’t,” Elysia cried when her daughter was out of sight. “You can’t have him here! If he’s around her enough, he’ll see…!”

“He already has,” Luke said.

He jumped forward and helped her into a chair, because she looked as if she might faint.

“You told him,” she accused hoarsely.

“I did not. Crissy did.”

“Crissy? But she doesn’t know!”

“She told him that her dad was redheaded,” he explained. “It wasn’t a great leap of logic from that to the way she resembles his sister—not to mention himself.”

“Oh, dear God,” Elysia whispered, closing her eyes. “Dear God, what’ll he do?”

“Nothing, judging by this afternoon,” Luke said. He knelt by her chair, one hand on hers in her lap. “Listen, he’s not vindictive. He doesn’t blame you. He’s got secrets of his own,” he added, hoping to get her attention.

That did. She looked at him through misty eyes. “He does?”

“You remember what we were speculating about?” he asked. “Well, we were right on the money. Sex was a taboo at home. Their father beat them for showing the slightest interest in the other sex. He said his conscience was eating him alive about you. He thought he’d go to hell for sleeping with you.”

She gasped. “Good heavens!”

“He said that it’s taken all these years for him to come to grips with it,” he continued quietly. “The main thing that came out is that he was angry at himself, not at you. It was guilt and shame that caused him to let you go without a word, and kept him from coming after you. He didn’t even consider that you might become pregnant. His father taught him that desire was nothing more than sick lust.”

She closed her eyes and shivered. “How he must have felt,” she whispered.

“He’s a case,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose there was a woman brave enough to chase him at all until you came along. That cold reserve of his is rather formidable, even to other men.”

“I’ll say,” she agreed, remembering the Tom of six years ago. She looked up. “Why is he coming to dinner?”

“Because I invited him.” He held up a hand. “This can’t go on,” he informed her. “Half the town’s talking already about the way the two of you avoid each other. We all have to live here. It’s time to make peace. Or at least, a public peace. This is the first step.”

“He’ll be lucky if he gets in the door unwounded,” she said coldly. “Do you have any idea what he’s been saying to me lately?”

“No,” he said warily.

“He’s accused me of sleeping with that damned Frenchman to market my boutique’s designs,” she said furiously. “He thinks I’m a slut!”

“No, he doesn’t…”

“You can’t imagine the things he said to me at the business meeting just the other day,” she added. “Not to mention that we were about to have lunch in Rose’s Café downtown and when he saw me come in the door, he gave up his place in line and left.”

He pursed his lips. “He didn’t mention that.”

“He was probably too busy thinking of ways to get to my child,” she raged. “Well, he won’t get her. He can come here tonight, but you are never to invite him into this house again while I’m living in it, Luke! I won’t be persecuted by him, not even for my little girl’s sake!”

“He’s not out for revenge,” he reminded her. “He’s had as rough a time as we had. Maybe rougher. You can at least try to be sociable, can’t you? Crissy likes him.” He searched her wan face. “You loved him once.”

“A long time ago,” she replied, “and he never felt the same way, even then. He talked to me, but it was never more than that, until he got drunk. He doesn’t love me. He wanted me that once, and now he doesn’t anymore. He thinks I’m a gold digger, out for money and nothing else. He told me so. That was a week or so before the business meeting.”

“Tom actually accused you of that?” Luke was surprised, because Tom hadn’t said anything about that to him, either.

“We had words on the street, and I slapped him.” She flushed at her brother’s level look. “Well, he deserved it! He made me out to be cheap, and all because that French buyer had humiliated me loud enough for the whole town to hear.” Her eyes flashed. “Hell will freeze over before I give him a contract for our designs,” she added coldly. “He did that deliberately because I wouldn’t have an affair with him.”

“Did you tell Tom that?”

“He didn’t let me tell him anything,” she replied. “He made a lot of nasty accusations and I hit him. I’m glad I hit him,” she added. “I only threw a shoe at him and missed at the business meeting, but I’ll practice,” she assured herself. “Next time, I’ll knock his brains out!”

Luke had to bite back a grin. “He has got quite a few hang-ups,” he reminded her. “It will take a brave woman to live with a man like that, if she can even get him in front of a minister to get married. He’s frozen halfway through because of his father.”

“I wish I’d known that in New York. It’s too late to matter much now. A man that age isn’t going to change.” She stared out the window and grimaced. “But I’m sorry he had a bad time of it.” She glanced back at her brother with a rueful smile. “I guess his upbringing was like ours.”

He smiled sadly. “I guess it was,” he agreed. “The world is full of wounded children who grow up to be wounded adults. Sometimes they get lucky and find solace in each other.”

“Sometimes they withdraw and strike at anyone who comes close,” she replied.

He chuckled. “An apt description of our Mr. Walker. But he has a weakness. Crissy. She winds him around her finger.”

“He really likes her?” she asked.

“He’s crazy about her,” he said. “She likes him, too. If you’re wise, you won’t try to separate them. There’s already a bond growing.”

“I wouldn’t deny him access,” she said defensively.

“But it’s going to complicate things. He doesn’t like me at all, and it’s mutual.”

“He doesn’t know you, Ellie. Give him a chance.”

“Even if I would, he’ll never give me one,” she said finally.

He saw that arguing with her wasn’t going to solve anything. He winked at her instead. “I’ll clean those fish for you.”

She was a bundle of nerves by five-thirty. Crissy, in a neat little pink skirt and tank top, was setting the table. She glanced at her mother with wry amusement for such a young child. Elysia, in a sedate denim dress and loafers, was pacing the floor. Her hair, in a neat chignon, gleamed in the sunlight filtering through the window.

Luke came down the hall with a grin on his handsome face. “You’ll wear holes in the floor,” he told her. “Quit that.”

“I’ll go mad long before six o’clock,” she moaned. “Oh, Luke, why did you…” Her voice trailed off into a faint gasp as she heard the crunch of car tires on the gravel driveway. She looked out the window, and there was the gray Lincoln.

“He’s here.” She choked.

“Is it him?” Crissy called, running into the living room. She looked out the screen door. “It is!” She opened the door and ran to him. “Hi, Mr. Tom!”

The sight of the child running toward him aroused odd sensations in Tom Walker. He opened his arms and caught her, lifting her high, his eyes twinkling with the joy that raged inside him. This was his own, his child, his blood. Amazing how attached he’d become to her in such a short time. He hugged her close, laughing.

She returned the enthusiastic hug, and chattered brightly about the meal they were going to have as he carried her effortlessly into the house.

“Gosh, you’re strong, Mr. Tom,” she said with a grin. “I’ll bet you could lift my pony.”

“Not quite,” he mused, setting her back on her feet. He shook hands with Luke and then turned to Elysia.

Her face was drawn. She looked frustrated and even a little frightened.

He reacted to her expression rather than to her cold greeting. “It’s all right,” he said gently, searching her eyes quietly. “We’ll call a truce for tonight.”

She drew in a steadying breath, ignoring the comment. “Dinner’s ready, if you’d like to sit down.”

“Come on and help me bring in the food, Crissy,” Luke said to the child, herding her out of the room.

Tom heard the kitchen door close and he searched Elysia’s worried face for a long moment. “I’m not very good at this,” he began slowly.

“At what?” she asked tersely.

He shrugged. “Apologies. I don’t think I’ve made two in my entire life. But I’m sorry about what I said to you the other day.”

“You needn’t butter me up because you like Crissy,” she said coldly. “Regardless of your opinion of me, I’m not vindictive.”

He searched her eyes. “She’s a unique young lady. You’ve done a good job with her.”

She moved restlessly. “Thank you.”

He stuck his hands into his slacks pockets with a long sigh. “Are you and Luke close?” he asked suddenly.

The question should have surprised her, but it didn’t. “Yes,” she said. “We were physically abused children, so I guess we were closer than kids who had a normal upbringing.”

His face grew very hard. “It’s a damnable world for some children, isn’t it? Even with the new protective laws, the secrecy hangs on. It’s so hard for a child to accuse a parent, even one who deserves a prison term.”

“I know.” She searched his lean face with quick, curious eyes. “You want to know if Luke told me what you said to him, don’t you?”

“He did, of course,” he said knowingly.

She nodded. “He thought…it might help if I knew it all.”

“And did it?”

She lowered her eyes to his chest, flushing. She’d been more intimate with this man than with anyone in her whole life. It hadn’t bothered her before, but now it did. Vivid memories flooded her mind of that night with him. They were embarrassing and they made her self-conscious around him.

“I won’t stop you from seeing Crissy, if that’s what you mean,” she said, evading a direct answer, her tone cold with her inner turmoil.

“Thanks,” he replied.

Neither of them spoke, having too much trouble finding the right words.

When Luke and Crissy came back, two pairs of eyes looked toward them with open relief.

“Shall we eat?” Luke murmured.

Crissy reached up and took Tom’s hand. “You have to sit beside me, Mr. Tom, so you can tell me about Indians.”

“Native Americans.” Elysia corrected her without thinking and then flushed at Tom’s keen glance.

“Is that right?” Crissy asked her companion.

“Actually it is,” he told her. “Or, if you prefer, indigenous aborigines.” He grinned. “Those two words get a workout lately.”

Crissy tried to pronounce it and finally succeeded.

After they were well into their meal, Tom explained the divisions of Sioux to his young daughter. “There are Lakota, Nakota and Dakota,” he said, “which refers to the use of the l and n and d in each of those languages. Then, there are Brule, or burned thigh, Sioux, Nez Perce, Blackfoot and Sans Arc.” He explained to her that Sans Arc meant “without bows” and came from a sad incident in that tribe’s history during which the group were advised by a shaman to put their bows and arrows into a pile. They were subsequently attacked, with tragic results.

“Tell me about your great-grandfather,” Crissy persisted.

“He was one of the warrior subchiefs,” he explained. “He fought and was wounded in the Little Bighorn fight.”

“Massacre,” Crissy said knowingly.

He gave her a long look. “A massacre is when one group is totally unarmed and defenseless. Custer and his men had plenty of weapons.”

“Oh,” Crissy said respectfully.

“Back in the old days, trackers could tell by the shape of a moccasin which tribe he was tracking.

The arrows were unique to each tribe, and even to each warrior.”

“Goodness,” Crissy exclaimed. “Can you track?”

He chuckled. “I can track my way to the nearest burger stand,” he mused. “But out in the woods, I don’t think I’d be much good at it. Now my sister’s husband is a real tracker. And he’s got Native American blood, too. Their little boy is just your age. He looks a lot like you,” he mused, studying Crissy. “He has green eyes, too, despite his dark skin and hair.”

“Have you seen the Cades lately?” Luke asked.

Tom shook his head. “I’ve been too busy, what with this move to Jacobsville. But I thought I might go up there for a few days next month. I don’t know what I’ll do with Moose while I’m away, though,” he added thoughtfully.

“You got a moose?” Crissy asked, wide-eyed.

“That’s his name,” Tom said, correcting her. He chuckled. “Moose is sort of like a walking disaster. I’ve been around dogs most of my life, but he’s unique. Kate saw him once and called him an albatross.”

“What’s that?” the little girl wondered aloud.

“There was a poem by Coleridge. The ancient mariner was forced to wear one around his neck—”

“I read that in school.” Luke interrupted. “It was one of the only poems I liked.”

“We could keep your dog for you,” Crissy volunteered.

“No, you couldn’t,” Tom said before Elysia or Luke could speak. “Moose would shatter every fragile thing your mother and uncle have, and you’d have to recarpet the floor. He’s a digger. If he can’t get his paws into dirt, he’ll try to unearth the carpet. Everything I own is saturated in lemon juice to keep Moose out of it. He really hates the taste of lemon.”

“Why do you keep him?” Luke asked.

Tom made a face. “I don’t know. I like him, I guess. He was a stray. I felt sorry for him. Now I feel sorry for myself. But he’ll grow up. One day.”

“We have two cats that somebody abandoned,” Luke murmured, with a speaking glance at his sister. “I was going to take them to the pound, but she—” he gestured toward Elysia “—wouldn’t hear of it. They went to the vet instead, for shots. Good thing she makes a good living at her boutique, or their appetites would bankrupt her.”

“They eat an awful lot,” Crissy agreed. “Especially Winter.”

“Winter?” Tom ventured.

“It was when we found her,” she replied. “And the other one is named ‘Damn—’”

“Crissy!” Elysia burst out.

“Well, that’s what Uncle Luke calls her,” Crissy muttered.

“Her name is Petunia,” Elysia said, smothering laughter. “But she likes shaving lotion, so every morning when Luke uses his, Petunia leaps into his lap and tries to lick him.”

“Moose has several other names, too,” Tom murmured, “But I won’t repeat them in mixed company.”

Luke chuckled.

“Would you like to see our cats?” Crissy asked when they finished dessert. “They live in the barn.”

“Go ahead,” Elysia told the other three occupants of the table. “I have to clear away.”

Tom hesitated, but Crissy caught his hand and coaxed him out the back door.

Luke hesitated before he followed. “You okay?” he asked his sister.

She managed a smile. “I suppose so. Not that we’ve settled anything, but we’re not attacking each other, either. I don’t mind if he sees Crissy.”

“They seem to be forming a bond.”

“I noticed.” She sighed. “Luke, you don’t think he’ll try to take her away from me?” she asked worriedly.

“No, I don’t. He isn’t that kind of man.”

“I do hope you’re right. I’ve only been around him for a few…”

The sound of tires on the gravel outside caught their attention. A tall, dark-haired man was just getting out of a racy red foreign sports car.

“Why, it’s Matt!” Elysia exclaimed. “Whatever is he doing here?”

Chapter 4

Matt Caldwell was a handsome devil, dark-eyed and lean-faced and dark-browed. He moved with a lithe, sure gait and he was the favorite target of most of the single women in Jacobsville. Not that Matt ever seemed to notice any of them, except Elysia, and only on a friendly basis. His full name was Mather Gilbert Caldwell. But everyone called him Matt.

He grinned as he approached the people on the front porch, showing perfect white teeth.

“Are you a delegation?” he queried.

“You’d better hope we’re not a lynch mob,” Luke chuckled. “What brings you out here?”

“I’m looking for your dinner guest. Where is he? I’ve got a message for him from his sister.”

“It must be a pretty important one to bring you out here,” Elysia said. “And how did you know he was here?”

“Mr. Gallagher,” he murmured dryly.

She groaned. “He’s out in the barn with Crissy.”

“Mind if I deliver the message?”

“Of course not,” Elysia said.

He caught her by the hand and pulled her along. “You come, too.”

She let him lead her away with an amused glance toward her brother.

“Is it bad news?” she asked as they approached the barn.

“Not at all.” He glanced down at her. “Why is your dinner guest in the barn with Crissy?”

“She’s introducing him to our cats.”

“I heard she and Luke spent today out at Turner’s Lake fishing with Tom.”

“They did.”

“Is he Luke’s friend, or yours?” Matt asked, pausing to stare down at her.

She fidgeted. “That’s personal. You and I are just friends, Matt.”

“Of course we are,” he agreed. “But friends take care of each other. Our Mr. Walker has a cold, nasty

temper and he seems to be going out of his way to antagonize you. I felt a little guilty about it, so I came out to see why Luke brought him home.”

His wording went right by her. “Crissy likes him,” she said.

“Crissy likes me, too,” he said pointedly.

She couldn’t say any more without giving away secrets. She grimaced. “Matt, be a dear and stop grilling me, could you?”

“Is he why you left New York so suddenly?”

She glared at him. “Hey. That’s too personal!”

“Sure it is. We’ve already agreed that we’re friends, haven’t we?” His dark eyes narrowed. “Crissy looks a lot like him, don’t you think?”

“Matt!”

He let out a long sigh. “Well, she does. I’m not blind or stupid, and I knew more about Fred Nash than most people. He wasn’t in any shape to become a father…”

“Oh, God, not you, too?” she groaned.

“Yes. Me, too. For heaven’s sake, hasn’t it dawned on you that I was responsible for Tom being in Jacobsville? That I planted the seed in his mind, encouraged him to do a market study of the area and move down here?”

She actually gasped. “You didn’t!”

“I did,” he said firmly. “He had a right to know.

Not that I said anything about Crissy to him. I thought fate would take care of that. And it has. He knows, too, doesn’t he?”

She glowered up at him.

“Of course he knows,” he answered his own question. “He isn’t blind, either. And he’s been giving you fits ever since he moved here. Damn, I’m sorry.”

She slumped. “Matt, you were only trying to help. But it’s all such a mess.”

“Most messes can be cleaned up with the right broom.” He tilted her face up, smiled and bent to kiss her on the cheek. “Cheer up. The world isn’t going to end. In fact, things are going to work out beautifully. All you have to do is give them a chance.”

The squeak of the barn door opening brought both heads up. Tom was standing there with Crissy beside him, glaring blackly at the newcomers.

“There you are,” Matt said genially, still clinging tightly to Elysia’s hand. “Kate phoned. When she couldn’t find you, she found me. She has news.”

Tom stilled. “Bad news?”

“Hell, no,” Matt said, chuckling. “She’s pregnant. You’re going to be an uncle again.”

Tom whistled through his teeth. “Imagine that. They’ve tried for years to have a second child.” He laughed with pure delight. “I’ll bet they’re both over the moon.”

“Kate sounded that way when I spoke to her,” Matt agreed. “She said Jacob’s already planning a new nursery. He wants a girl this time. I think Kate does, too.”

“They’ll be happy with whatever they get. They’re both crazy about kids.”

“Their son will like having a playmate.”

“And Kate is a wonderful mother,” Tom added. “I’ll call her as soon as I get home. Why are you holding Elysia’s hand?” he added so abruptly that it caught Matt by surprise.

“Was I?” He loosened her fingers with a smug look that neither of them saw.

“He can hold my hand if he wants to,” Elysia told Tom.

“I noticed,” he said coldly. “You must like him. You haven’t thrown anything at him. What’s the matter, can’t get your shoe off?”

“Just you give me a minute and we’ll see…!” She struggled with a loafer, using Matt’s arm for a prop, but she was immediately tugged upward.

“Stop that,” Matt muttered.

“Did she throw a shoe at you, Mr. Tom?” Crissy asked, wide-eyed.

“Yes, she did,” he replied curtly. “A high-heeled one, at that. She could have knocked my head off.”

“That was the idea, all right,” Elysia said sharply.

“Now, now.” Matt stepped between them. “This isn’t setting a good example for the shortest member of our little friendly group.”

Tom and Elysia stopped glaring at each other and glanced at Crissy, who was watching them with growing worry.

Tom wiped the anger from his face and smiled nonchalantly. “It’s just a slight disagreement, cupcake,” he said. “Nothing to worry about. Isn’t that right, Elysia?”

She cleared her throat. “Of course.”

“Then why did my mommy throw a shoe at you?” Crissy asked the tall man.

“Because he called me a—!”

“Ellie!” Matt interrupted.

Elysia clenched her teeth and forced a smile in Tom’s general direction. “Never mind.”

“Don’t you like each other?” the child asked plaintively. “Mommy, you have to like Mr. Tom because he’s my friend.”

Those green, green eyes would have melted stone, which Elysia wasn’t. She went down on one knee. “I like Mr. Tom,” she told the child. “I really do.”

“And do you like my mommy?” the child asked the man.

He drew in a short breath. “Sure. I think she’s just spiffy.”

“Huh?”

He glanced at Elysia with cold green eyes. “Terrific. Super. A truly wonderful person.”

“Thank goodness,” Crissy said, smiling her relief. “Now you have to stop yelling at each other, okay?”

Tom and Elysia stared at each other. “Okay,” they chorused gruffly.

“Let’s have a cup of coffee,” Matt said quickly. “Elysia, do you mind?”

“Not at all.” It was something to do, to get her out of range of that…that man!

The men followed slowly back toward the house with Crissy in tow. By the time they arrived in the dining room, Elysia was calm and coolly friendly, even to her daughter’s hated friend. But she was relieved when Tom left, just the same.

He became a regular visitor to the ranch after that. Sometimes he came when Luke was there alone with the child, but occasionally he showed up for Sunday dinner. Elysia tolerated him, but she couldn’t forget the horrible things he’d said to her, his cold treatment of her. Even understanding his past didn’t make him any more welcome in her home. She knew that he was just pretending to tolerate her company so that he could spend time with his daughter.

She still wasn’t sure if he might try to claim custody of Crissy, and it made her nervous. She saw the way he looked at the child, with pride and tenderness. Crissy was equally fond of him. It was going to complicate Elysia’s life, but she didn’t know what to do. Tom had every right to see his child. But it cut right into Elysia’s heart every time she saw him. The past might be over, but her feelings for him had never wavered. They grew harder to contain as she saw that rare tenderness he displayed with Crissy. With no one else was he as open, as vulnerable. To make matters worse, when Elysia came into a room, he seemed to freeze over.

She didn’t know that it was jealousy motivating him, that seeing her with Matt that evening had provoked all sorts of doubts about her feelings.

She was getting Sunday dinner when Tom came into the kitchen to ask for cups to go with the carafe of coffee.

“They’re in that cupboard.” With her hands busy making rolls, she had to nod with her head toward the cabinets.

“I’ll get them.”

She kneaded risen dough, trying not to notice how nice he looked in slacks and a dark jacket with a delicately red striped shirt and paisley tie. He wore his hair short and neat but she had fantasies about how he might look with his hair tousled or down around his shoulders like his Native American ancestors…

“Crissy wants to know if you’ll let her come home with me to meet Moose,” he said.

She froze. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking of making up excuses, but she was.

“I know you don’t approve,” he said quietly. “But she’s my child, too.”

She glanced at him worriedly and then away again. “It isn’t that I don’t approve,” she faltered.

He put the cups down and went to stand close behind her. “But you want her to like Matt, is that it?” he demanded.

She whirled. “Whatever made you ask that?”

He searched her wide eyes. “You’re involved with him, aren’t you?” he demanded.

She grimaced. “No, I’m not,” she said through her teeth. “But I wish I were. He’s handsome and sexy and…”

“Experienced,” he said for her, bitterly.

The tone of his voice slowed her down. She looked at him quietly, seeing emotional scars that probably were invisible to most people. They were vivid to her, perhaps because they shared the same sort of past.

“Experience doesn’t make a man,” she replied. “There are many things much more important.”

“Such as?”

“Tenderness,” she said promptly. “The ability to carry on a conversation. Intelligence. A sense of humor.”

He glared down at her. “I suppose Matt has all those qualities,” he said.

“He’s my friend,” she told him. “Only my friend.”

His green eyes narrowed. “And what am I?”

Her heart jumped. She didn’t want to be pinned down with such a question. She turned her attention back to her dough.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.