Phantom Waltz

  “Mom’s there, huh?” It went without saying what that meant. “Then you’ve heard all about Bethany.”

  Rafe pretended intense interest in Rosebud’s colt. “I heard some.”

  “Some? In her entire life, when has our mother ever been reticent?”

  “Okay, I heard a lot,” Rafe admitted with a shrug. “I thought maybe you’d like to talk.”

  Ryan didn’t like the sound of that. He joined his brother at the gate. “There’s really not all that much to tell. Her name’s Bethany Coulter.”

  “Any relation to Harv Coulter?”

  “His daughter. I met her last week when I went into the store. Asked her out, she said yes. I took her to the mud pulls last night, and we really hit it off.”

  “You forgot to add that her eyes remind you of Johnny-jump-ups.”

  Ryan laughed. “There are some things in life you can always count on. The sun will rise of a morning, it’ll set at night, and our mother will be talking nonstop every second of daylight in between.”

  “That’s Mom, dependable.” Rafe turned to regard Ryan with solemn, steel-blue eyes that seemed to miss nothing. “She says this girl’s a paraplegic.”

  “Yeah. She got hurt barrel racing eight years ago.”

  A muscle rippled in Rafe’s cheek. “How do you feel about that?”

  Ryan mulled over the question. “I’m okay with it.”

  “You’re okay with it? From what Mom says, you’re serious about this girl, little brother. You’d best do better than that.”

  “I’m a big boy, Rafe. I know what I’m doing.”

  “I hope so. I’d hate to see you screw up your life.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you’re too tenderhearted for your own good.” Rafe swung his hand to encompass the ranch. “All the damned bulls we’ve got on this place bear testimony to that. If you nurse a sick calf, you develop an attachment, and when it comes time to castrate, you hide it from me.”

  “I’ve never hidden a calf from you.”

  “You most certainly have. Two years back, it was Boomer. You couldn’t bear the thought of him ending up on a styrofoam tray, and you locked him in a horse stall. I knew it then, I know it now. I don’t know why you keep denying it.”

  “That is such bullshit. He just wandered in there.”

  “Oh, yeah? We sure have a lot of calves that accidentally wander into enclosures on castration day. Last year it was T-bone.” Rafe held out a hand. “Pay up. ‘Bullshit’ isn’t allowed.”

  Ryan clenched his teeth and fished in his pocket for his money clip. If he didn’t get his mouth cleaned up, he’d go broke. As he peeled off a ten spot, he said, “There must be enough in that fund to send the kid to Harvard by now.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  Ryan sighed. “Who in his right mind would name a pet calf T-bone?”

  “A softie who was trying to distance himself and not love the damned thing, that’s who.” Rafe tucked the money into his shirt pocket so he wouldn’t forget to put it in the ginger jar when he got home. “And don’t tell me you didn’t hide him. How else did he wind up in the tack room?”

  “He must’ve followed someone in there, and that person shut the door.”

  “Someone.” Rafe grinned. “You, maybe?”

  “Could’ve been. He was always following me around, if you’ll remember.”

  “All I know is, he never went under the knife.”

  “He’s gonna be a fine-looking bull. Even you can’t deny that.”

  Rafe sighed and bent his head to scuff his boot in the dirt. “No, I can’t. He’s turned out real nice. Probably all that special feed you give him.”

  “What special feed? You’re letting your imagination get away with you.”

  As if on cue, T-bone wandered into the stable just then. When the half-grown black bull spotted Ryan, his vacuous brown eyes lighted with eagerness, and he lumbered toward them, chuffing and mooing for his grain.

  “Christ,” Rafe said.

  “That’s ten you owe to the college fund.” Ryan was still laughing as he went to the feed room to get T-bone his breakfast. When the bull was happily munching grain from a trough, Ryan rejoined his brother at the stall. Rosebud ambled over for petting. Rafe scratched her nose and smoothed her mane.

  “You running a ranch around here, or a spoiled-critter shelter?” Rafe asked. “Here’s another one of your projects. Hadn’t been for you, she never would’ve survived.”

  “Nope, and isn’t she a beauty?”

  After petting the horse a bit more, Rafe smiled. “I wouldn’t change you, Ryan. You’re a good man. There’s no crime in having a big heart. All I’m saying is, just because you feel sorry for someone, you needn’t marry her.”

  “The way I feel about Bethany has nothing to do with feeling sorry for her.” Ryan tried to think of a way to explain. “She’s fun and interesting, not at all the sort of person who inspires pity. And I haven’t said I’m planning to marry her.”

  “No, but you’re thinking about it. I know you.”

  Ryan bumped the gate with the toe of his boot. “I just met her, Rafe. Don’t go jumping the gun.”

  “Famous last words. With the men in this family, when has time ever played into it? You’re talking to the world’s fastest operator, remember. What was it before I asked Maggie to marry me, three days?”

  “And look how happy you are. I’ve never seen a man so dopey over a woman.”

  “Yeah, well, this dope is worried about you, little brother.”

  “Don’t be. I’ve been around the track a few times. I won’t do anything stupid. Trust me on that.”

  “No one needy has ever gotten a tether on you. I know you, Ryan. You can’t walk past a bird with a broken wing. Tie up with a lady in a wheelchair, and you’ll never slip free of the rope.”

  “Needy?” Ryan chuckled and shook his head. “I can’t wait until you meet her. What are you picturing, a pale and wan invalid? She has a smile to light up a room and a sense of humor that won’t quit. You barely notice the wheelchair.”

  “You’ll remember it fast enough when you’re stuck at home, playing nursemaid,” Rafe warned. “For some guys, marriage to a paraplegic might work, but I’m not sure it would for you. Physical activity is your whole life.”

  “And my life is so frigging great, God forbid that I should make some changes? You’re so wrapped up in Maggie and the kids, you don’t know what my life is really like. Maybe I’m the needy one. Did you ever think of that?”

  “You?” Rafe gave him a long look. “What’s that mean?”

  Ryan gestured at the stable. “You kid me about the spoiled-critter shelter I’m running over here. Maybe I’m just lonely.” Until that moment Ryan had never focused on his emptiness, let alone tried to articulate the feeling to someone else. Now that he had, it seemed to intensify. “Maybe these spoiled critters are all I’ve got.”

  “Mom and Dad live a few minutes away, and Maggie and I are the other direction. You can come over any time you want. You also date regularly. How the hell can you be lonely?”

  “Because none of that counts.” Ryan hooked his arms over the gate and gazed solemnly at the horses. “You rib me about T-bone. Well, laugh all you want, but that dumb bull, bawling for a carrot at the kitchen window, is sometimes the social highlight of my evenings.”

  “You’re making me feel terrible.”

  Ryan laughed. “I don’t want you to feel bad. I’m just trying to explain. You and Maggie invite me to dinner, and—” He broke off and shifted his weight. “I appreciate being included. And I know you ask me more often than most brothers would, so please, don’t think I’m finding fault. It’s just that as nice as it is and as much as I enjoy your company, afterward I go home to an empty house. Sometimes the silence is—hell, I don’t know—loud is the only word. And I get up in the morning to more of it. I work my ass off, from dawn till dark, and then I work a little longer to put off being alone again. You k
now what I’m saying?”

  A stricken look came over Rafe’s face. “Damn, Ryan. Why haven’t you said something? We’d love to have you over at our place more often.”

  “It’s a loneliness you can’t fill, Rafe. I need a life of my own, a family of my own. And not with the first woman who comes along. I want it to be with someone really special, someone who’ll love me as much as I love her, someone who’ll need me as much as I need her. Does that make any sense?”

  “Of course it makes sense.” Rafe bent his head and puffed air into his cheeks. “I’ve been there. I know exactly what you mean. Before I stumbled upon Maggie and Jaimie, I felt lost. I didn’t care if I lived or died—didn’t have any reason to care. All I did was worry about how I’d buy my next bottle of booze.”

  “It’s not quite that bad for me,” Ryan admitted. “I haven’t lost a wife and kids like you did, and I haven’t turned to alcohol yet. I’m just lonely. Like at Christmas. I watch you and Maggie, shopping and whispering and hiding Jaimie’s presents. That’s what it’s all about to me—that sense of family and having a greater purpose, and when I see how empty my life is by comparison, I just …”

  “Feel lost?” Rafe said with an understanding smile.

  “Yeah. I guess that word does say it best, lost. At heart, I’m a family man. It’s what I was raised to be, what I’ve always imagined I’d be someday, but for the life of me, I’ve had no luck finding the right lady. Someday has come and gone. I’m thirty years old, I’m not getting any younger, and I was starting to think it might never happen for me.”

  “Until now?”

  Ryan hesitated for several seconds before responding to that question. When he finally spoke, his voice had gone gruff. “Yeah, until now.”

  Rafe cocked an eyebrow. “You sure, Ryan? You only just met this girl.”

  “If you’re asking me to explain it in rational terms and reassure you, I can’t,” Ryan admitted. “It doesn’t make a lick of sense. I know that.” He half expected Rafe to agree with him, but instead his brother only frowned thoughtfully. “One look was all it took. I walked into that store, wanting to take someone’s head off. The last thing on my mind was meeting the love of my life. And there she was.” A flush of embarrassment crept up his neck. “I know it sounds crazy, but that’s how I felt the second I saw her.”

  Rafe took off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair. Letting the Stetson dangle from his loosely fisted hand, he said, “Maybe we’re both crazy, because that makes more sense to me than anything else you’ve said.”

  “What does?”

  “That you felt something the first instant you saw her.” Rafe fixed his gaze on nothing, his expression distant. “I felt exactly that way the first time I clapped eyes on Susan, way back when I was just a kid. Remember that?”

  Ryan smiled. “Like anyone in our family will ever forget. You never looked at another girl all through high school and college.”

  Rafe nodded. “When she died, I didn’t believe I’d ever feel that way about a woman again. In fact, I knew I wouldn’t. That kind of love—the way I felt about Susan—it’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of love, and very few men are lucky enough to find it even once. Then, out of the blue, there was Maggie. I came out of a drunken stupor and stared through the shadows at her, telling myself no woman on earth could be as sweet as she looked. And then that feeling plowed into me. I resented it. I felt as if I was being unfaithful to Susan’s memory, even thinking along those lines, but I couldn’t shake the feeling no matter how I tried. I guess God thought I’d suffered more than my fair share and decided to send me a miracle, because Maggie and Jaimie were exactly that for me, a reason to sober up, two people who needed me as much as I needed them. I think I fell Stetson over boot heels in love with her the instant I clapped eyes on her.”

  “Did you wonder if you were out of your mind?”

  Rafe grinned. “I was out of my mind. Remember? I went at courtship like I was killing snakes. The poor girl never had a chance.”

  “You came to your senses eventually, and it’s worked out nicely.”

  “Yeah. We’re happy. Very happy.”

  “Maybe you should take it on faith that it’ll work out just as nicely for me.”

  Rafe smiled and nodded. “Maybe so.”

  “One thing’s for sure. I’ve never felt like this before, and it sure as hell wasn’t for want of exposure. I’ve dated so many women, I can’t remember them all, and never once did I go over the edge like this. Only with Bethany.”

  “If this girl is what you want, Ryan, I’ll support your decision all the way.”

  “Good, because she is what I want. I can’t explain it. I only know I can’t shake it, and it’s right. Now I just have to convince her of that.”

  Still frowning, Rafe said, “Being in a wheelchair, she can’t be dating all that often. I’d think she’d jump at the chance to go out with you again.”

  Ryan huffed and said, “Yeah, well, she’s not. Once burned, and all that. She’s one blanket-shy filly.”

  “Blanket shy?”

  “You know what I mean. As long as I kept it light, we had a lot of fun, but the instant I let on that I felt a physical attraction, she went all icy.”

  Rafe mulled that over. “Seems to me there’s your answer, little brother.”

  “What is?”

  “Keeping it light. Pretend all you’ve got on your mind is being good friends. No matter what the cause, skittish women take a slow hand. Trust me to know. I went through the same thing with Maggie. Friendship won’t spook her.”

  “I have a lot more than friendship in mind. Pretending different would be sneaky and—I don’t know—it seems sort of underhanded to me.”

  Rafe chuckled and shook his head. “Man, do you have a lot to learn. Be too direct and honest with women, and they run the other way.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “That’s just how it is. Me and Maggie, for instance. We take a walk along the lake nearly every night. Every step of the way, I’m usually thinking about sex. Not her. Last night, it was kitchen tile—which color and pattern would look best when we remodel. Earth tones are coming back in. Should we go with yellows and golds? Whites and greens? On and on. Like I give a rat’s ass? I’ll love the kitchen however she does it just as long as she’s standing in it naked after it’s done.”

  Ryan snorted with laughter. “You are so bad.”

  “Maggie’d think so, too, so I pretend I’m interested in color choices. I rub her arm and tickle her ear and tell her I’d like tile the same color as her eyes. She’s happy as a clam, and once I get her home, I’m happy, too. Call me sneaky and underhanded if you like, but if I were honest, where would it get me? Besides, what’s wrong with being friends with Bethany before you become lovers? All really good relationships begin with a strong friendship, so it’s not as if you’re blowing that much smoke. You want to be friends with her. Right?”

  “Sure.”

  Rafe grinned. “Well, then?”

  At a little after seven that evening, Bethany had just completed her bath when the doorbell rang. Thinking it was one of her brothers stopping by to check on her, which they did regularly, she tightened the sash of her pink terry robe, quickly wrapped her wet hair in a towel, and went to answer the summons. To her surprise and intense dismay, Ryan Kendrick stood on her porch.

  “You definitely need a peephole,” he informed her dryly. “Then you wouldn’t make the mistake of opening up to someone you’d rather not see.”

  His steel-blue eyes glinting with amusement, he nudged his hat back, placed a boot over the threshold, and leaned a shoulder against the door frame. Whether he intended it or not, he had effectively scotched all possibility of her closing the door. Dressed as he had been last night in faded Wrangler jeans, a wash-worn blue shirt, and a lined denim jacket, he looked both wonderfully familiar and dangerous.

  Bethany gazed into his eyes, aware of each chiseled feature of his dark countenance. She fel
t a shiver sluice down her spine. Though she’d just finished brushing her teeth, her mouth went suddenly dry.

  He held a white business envelope in one hand which he tapped against his thigh. “I intended to leave this on your door, but your van was in the driveway and the lights were on, so I figured you might be home.”

  Given the fact she’d told him just this morning that she had plans for tonight, Bethany groped for an explanation. It was, she decided with panicky confusion, a classic case of a lie coming home to roost.

  She tugged on the sash of the robe again, reached down to make sure the front was overlapped to cover her knees, and pushed at one end of the towel, which had fallen over her face when she bent her head. “I, um … yes. I’m home.”

  “Is this your idea of a hot date?” He arched an ebony brow, his thin lips tipping in a slight smile, his eyes as sharp and relentless as honed steel. “Taking a bath and washing your hair?”

  She hugged her waist, trying without much success to gather her composure. “It was a hot bath.”

  He gave a low laugh. “Well, that’s something at least.” Without being invited to do so, he stepped in and closed the door. “I wouldn’t want you to get chilled,” he said by way of explanation as he extended the envelope. “These are pictures of Rosebud’s colt right after he was born and a couple that were taken this morning. I thought you might enjoy having a set.”

  Pasting on a smile, Bethany accepted the offering, her mind screaming one question. Why is he here? At a loss for anything to say, she lifted the flap of the envelope. When she drew out the photos of the foal, the uppermost one was so darling she momentarily forgot her concerns.

  “Oh …” she said softly. She glanced at the next picture down and laughed out loud. “He’s so cute. What a struggle, standing up that first time!”

  Ryan leaned around to look as well, and chuckled. “I like that horrified expression on his face. Every time I see it, I wonder if he was looking at me.”