“Morning, Chase,” she said with a smile.
“Morning.” Without another word, he walked over to the cupboard and got himself a mug. Standing next to her, he poured his own coffee.
“Lonny’s taking care of the horses,” she told him, as if she needed to explain where her brother was.
Briefly Chase wondered how she would’ve responded if he’d said it wasn’t Lonny he’d come to see.
“Cricket talked nonstop for hours about riding Firepower. It was the thrill of her life. Thank you for being so kind to her, Chase.”
Chase held back a short derisive laugh. He hadn’t planned to let Cricket anywhere near his gelding. His intention all along had been to avoid Letty’s daughter entirely. To Chase’s way of thinking, the less he had to do with the child the better.
Ignoring Cricket was the only thing he could do, because every time he looked at that sweet little girl, he felt nothing but pain. Not a faint flicker of discomfort, but a deep wrenching pain like nothing he’d ever experienced. Cricket represented everything about Letty that he wanted to forget. He couldn’t even glance at the child without remembering that Letty had given herself to another man, and the sense of betrayal cut him to the bone.
Naturally Cricket was innocent of the circumstances surrounding her birth, and Chase would never do anything to deliberately hurt the little girl, but he couldn’t help feeling what he did. Yet he’d given her a ride on Firepower the day before, and despite everything, he’d enjoyed himself.
If the truth be known, the ride had come about accidentally. Chase had been on the ridge above the Bar E fence line when he saw two faint dots silhouetted against the landscape, far in the distance. Almost immediately he’d realized it was Letty and her daughter, working outside. From that moment on, Chase hadn’t been able to stay away. He’d hurried down the hill, but once he was in the yard, he had to come up with some logical reason for showing up in the middle of the day. Giving Cricket a chance to see Firepower had seemed solid enough at the time.
“Would you like a waffle?” Letty asked, breaking into his musings.
“No, thanks.”
Letty nodded and turned around. “I don’t know why Cricket’s taken to you the way she has. She gets excited every time someone mentions your name. I’m afraid you’ve made a friend for life, whether you like it or not.”
Chase made a noncommital noise.
“I can’t thank you enough for bringing Firepower over,” Letty continued. “It meant a lot to me.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” he said bluntly, watching her, almost wanting her to come back at him with some snappy retort. The calm way in which Letty swallowed his barbs troubled him more than anything else.
As he’d suspected, Letty didn’t respond. Instead she brought butter and syrup to the table, avoiding his gaze.
The Letty Ellison he remembered had been feisty and fearless. She wouldn’t have tolerated impatience or tactlessness from anyone, least of all him.
“This coffee tastes like it came out of a sewer,” he said rudely, setting his cup down hard on the table.
The coffee was fine, but he wanted to test Letty’s reactions. In years past, she would’ve flared right back at him, giving as good as she got. Nine years ago, Letty would’ve told him what he could do with that cup of coffee if he didn’t like the taste of it.
She looked up, her face expressionless. “I’ll make another pot.”
Chase was stunned. “Forget it,” he said quickly, not knowing what else to say. She glanced at him, her eyes large and shadowed in her pale face.
“But you just said there’s something wrong with the coffee.”
Chase was speechless. He watched her, his thoughts confused.
What had happened to his dauntless Letty?
Letty was working in the garden, carefully planting rows of corn, when her brother’s pickup truck came barreling down the drive. When he slammed on the brakes, jumped out of the cab and slammed the door, Letty got up and left the seed bag behind. Her brother was obviously angry about something.
“Lonny?” she asked quietly. “What’s wrong?”
“Of all the stupid, idiotic, crazy women in the world, why did I have to run into this one?”
“What woman?” Letty asked.
Lonny thrust his index finger under Letty’s nose. “She—she’s going to pay for this,” he stammered in his fury. “There’s no way I’m letting her get away with what she did.”
“Lonny, settle down and tell me what happened.”
“There!” he shouted, his voice so filled with indignation it shook.
He was pointing at the front of the pickup. Letty studied it, but didn’t see anything amiss. “What?”
“Here,” he said, directing her attention to a nearly indistinguishable dent in the bumper of his ten-year-old vehicle.
The entire truck was full of nicks and dents. When a rancher drove a vehicle for as many years as Lonny had, it collected its share of battle scars. It needed a new left fender, and a new paint job all the way around wouldn’t have hurt, either. As far as Letty could tell, Lonny’s truck was on its last legs, as it were—or, more appropriately, tires.
“Oh, you mean that tiny dent,” she said, satisfied she’d found the one he was referring to.
“Tiny dent!” he shouted. “That…woman nearly cost me a year off my life.”
“Tell me what happened,” Letty demanded a second time. She couldn’t remember ever seeing her brother this agitated.
“She ran a stop sign. Claimed she didn’t see it. What kind of idiot misses a stop sign, for Pete’s sake?”
“Did she slam into you?”
“Not exactly. I managed to avoid a collision, but in the process I hit the pole.”
“What pole?”
“The one holding up the stop sign, of course.”
“Oh.” Letty didn’t mean to appear dense, but Lonny was so angry, he wasn’t explaining himself clearly.
He groaned in frustration. “Then, ever so sweetly, she climbs out of her car, tells me how sorry she is and asks if there’s any damage.”
Letty rolled her eyes. She didn’t know what her brother expected, but as far as Letty could see, Lonny was being completely unreasonable.
“Right away I could see what she’d done, and I pointed it out to her. But that’s not the worst of it,” he insisted. “She took one look at my truck and said there were so many dents in it, she couldn’t possibly know which one our minor accident had caused.”
In Letty’s opinion the other driver was absolutely right, but saying as much could prove dangerous. “Then what?” she asked cautiously.
“We exchanged a few words,” he admitted, kicking the dirt and avoiding Letty’s gaze. “She said my truck was a pile of junk.” Lonny walked all the way around it before he continued, his eyes flashing. “There’s no way I’m going to let some teacher insult me like that.”
“I’m sure her insurance will take care of it,” Letty said calmly.
“Damn straight it will.” He slapped his hat back on his head. “You know what else she did? She tried to buy me off!” he declared righteously. “Right there in the middle of the street, in broad daylight, in front of God and man. Now I ask you, do I look like the kind of guy who can be bribed?”
At Letty’s questioning look, her irate brother continued. “She offered me fifty bucks.”
“I take it you refused.”
“You bet I refused,” he shouted. “There’s two or three hundred dollars’ damage here. Probably a lot more.”
Letty bent to examine the bumper again. It looked like a fifty-dollar dent to her, but she wasn’t about to say so. It did seem, however, that Lonny was protesting much too long and loud over a silly dent. Whoever this woman was, she’d certainly gained his attention. A teacher, he’d said.
“I’ve got her license number right here.” Lonny yanked a small piece of paper from his shirt pocket and carefully unfolded it. “Joy Fuller’s lucky I’m not go
ing to report her to the police.”
“Joy Fuller,” Letty cried, taking the paper away from him. “I know who she is.”
That stopped Lonny short. “How?” he asked suspiciously.
“She plays the organ at church on Sundays, and as you obviously know, she teaches at the elementary school. Second grade, I think.”
Lonny shot a look toward the cloudless sky. “Do the good people of Red Springs realize the kind of woman they’re exposing their children to? Someone should tell the school board.”
“You’ve been standing in the sun too long. Come inside and have some lunch,” Letty offered.
“I’m too mad to think about eating. You go ahead without me.” With that he strode toward the barn.
Letty went into the house, and after pouring herself a glass of iced tea, she reached for the church directory and dialed Joy Fuller’s number.
Joy answered brusquely on the first ring. “Yes,” she snapped.
“Joy, it’s Letty Ellison.”
“Letty, I’m sorry, but your brother is the rudest…most arrogant, unreasonable man I’ve ever encountered.”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about this,” Letty said, but she had the feeling Joy hadn’t even heard her.
“I made a simple mistake and he wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than blood.”
“Can you tell me what happened?” She was hoping Joy would be a little more composed than Lonny, but she was beginning to have her doubts.
“I’m sure my version is nothing like your brother’s,” Joy said, her voice raised. “It’s simple, really. I ran the stop sign between Oak and Spruce. Frankly, I don’t go that way often and I simply forgot it was there.”
Letty knew the intersection. A huge weeping willow partially obscured the sign. There’d been a piece in the weekly paper about how the tree should be trimmed before a collision occurred.
“I was more than willing to admit the entire incident was my fault,” Joy went on. “But I couldn’t even tell which dent I’d caused, and when I said as much, your brother started acting like a crazy man.”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with Lonny,” Letty confessed. “I’ve never seen him like this.”
“Well, I’d say it has something to do with the fact that I turned him down the last time he asked me out.”
“What? This is the first I’ve heard of it. You and my brother had a…relationship?”
Joy gave an unladylike snort. “I wouldn’t dignify it with that name. He and I…He—Oh, Letty, never mind. It’s all history. Back to this so-called accident…” She drew in an audible breath. “I told him I’d contact my insurance company, but to hear him tell it, he figures it’ll take at least two thousand dollars to repair all the damage I caused.”
That was ridiculous. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it—”
“Oh, he meant it, all right,” Joy interrupted. “Personally, I’d rather have the insurance people deal with him, anyway. I never want to see your arrogant, ill-tempered, bronc-busting brother again.”
Letty didn’t blame her, but she had the feeling that in Joy Fuller, her brother had met his match.
At four o’clock, Lonny came into the house, and his mood had apparently improved, because he sent Letty a shy smile and said, “Don’t worry about making me dinner tonight. I’m going into town.”
“Oh?” Letty said, looking up from folding laundry.
“Chase and I are going out to eat.”
She smiled. “Have a good time. You deserve a break.”
“I just hope that Fuller woman isn’t on the streets.”
Letty raised her eyebrows. “Really?”
“Yeah, really,” he snapped. “She’s a menace.”
“Honestly, Lonny, are you still mad about that…silly incident?”
“I sure am. It isn’t safe for man or beast with someone like her behind the wheel.”
“I do believe you protest too much. Could it be that you’re attracted to Joy? Still attracted?”
Eyes narrowed, he stalked off, then turned back around and muttered, “I was never attracted to her. We might’ve seen each other a few times but it didn’t work out. How could it? She’s humorless, full of herself and…and she’s a city slicker. From the West Coast, the big metropolis of Seattle, no less.”
“I’ve heard it’s a nice place,” Letty said mildly.
Lonny did not consider that worthy of comment, and Letty couldn’t help smiling.
His bathwater was running when he returned several minutes later, his shirt unbuttoned. “What about you, Letty?”
“What do you mean?” she asked absently, lifting the laundry basket onto the table. The fresh, clean scent of sun-dried towels made the extra effort of hanging them on the line worth it.
“What are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing much.” She planned to do what she did every Saturday night. Watch a little television, polish her nails and read.
Her brother pulled out a chair, turned it around and straddled it. “From the minute you got home, you’ve been talking about marrying me off. That’s the reason you invited that Brandon woman over for dinner. You admitted it yourself.”
“A mistake that won’t be repeated,” she assured him, fluffing a thick towel.
“But you said I need a woman.”
“A wife, Lonny. There’s a difference.”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you might be right. But what about you?”
Letty found the task of folding bath towels vitally important. “I don’t understand.”
“When are you going to get married?”
Never, her mind flashed spontaneously.
“Letty?”
She shrugged, preferring to avoid the issue and knowing it was impossible. “Someday…maybe.”
“You’re not getting any younger.”
Letty supposed she had that coming. Lonny’s words were an echo of her own earlier ones to him. Now she was paying the penalty for her miserable attempt at matchmaking. However, giving Lonny a few pat answers wasn’t going to work, any more than it had worked with her. “Frankly, I’m not sure I’ll ever marry,” she murmured, keeping her gaze lowered.
“Did…Cricket’s father hurt you that much?”
Purposely she glanced behind her and asked stiffly, “Isn’t your bathwater going to run over?”
“I doubt it. Answer me, Letty.”
“I have no intention of discussing what happened with Jason. It’s in the past and best forgotten.”
Lonny was silent for a moment. “You’re so different now. I’m your brother—I care about you—and it bothers me to see you like this. No man is worth this kind of pain.”
“Lonny, please.” She held the towels against her stomach. “If I’m different it isn’t because of what happened between me and Jason. It’s…other things.”
“What other things?” Lonny asked, his eyes filled with concern.
That was one question Letty couldn’t answer. At least not yet. So she sidestepped it. “Jason taught me an extremely valuable lesson. Oh, it was painful at the time, don’t misunderstand me, but he gave me Cricket, and she’s my joy. I can only be grateful to Jason for my daughter.”
“But don’t you hate him for the way he deceived you and then deserted you?”
“No,” she admitted reluctantly, uncertain her brother would understand. “Not anymore. What possible good would that do?”
Apparently absorbed in thought, Lonny rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. Finally he said, “I don’t know, I suppose I want him to suffer for what he put you through. Some guy I’ve never even seen got you pregnant and walked away from you when you needed him most. It disgusts me to see him get off scot-free after the way he treated you.”
Unexpected tears pooled in Letty’s eyes at the protectiveness she saw in her brother. She blinked them away, and when she could speak evenly again, she murmured, “If there’s anything I learned in all those years away from home, i
t’s that there’s an order to life. Eventually everything rights itself. I don’t need revenge, because sooner or later, as the old adage says, what goes around, comes around.”
“How can you be so calm about it, though?”
“Take your bath, Lonny,” she said with a quick laugh. She shoved a freshly folded towel at him. “You’re driving me crazy. And you say Cricket asks a lot of questions.”
Chase arrived a couple of hours later, stepping gingerly into the kitchen. He completely avoided looking at or speaking to Letty, who was busy preparing her and Cricket’s dinner. He walked past Letty, but was waylaid by Cricket, who was coloring in her book at the dining room table.
Chase seemed somewhat short with the child, Letty noted, but Cricket had a minimum of ten important questions Chase needed to answer regarding Firepower. The five-year-old didn’t seem to mind that Chase was a little abrupt. Apparently her hero could do no wrong.
Soon enough Lonny appeared. He opened a can of beer, and Letty listened to her brother relate his hair-raising encounter with “the Fuller woman” at the stop sign in town as if he were lucky to have escaped with his life.
The two men were in the living room while Letty stayed in the kitchen. Chase obviously wanted to keep his distance, and that was just as well. He’d gone out of his way to irritate her lately and she’d tolerated about all she could. Doing battle with Chase now would only deplete her energy. She’d tried to square things with him once, and he’d made his feelings abundantly clear. For now, Letty could do nothing but accept the situation.
“Where do you think we should eat?” Lonny asked, coming into the kitchen to deposit his empty beer can.
“Billy’s Steak House?” Chase called out from the living room. “I’m in the mood for a thick sirloin.”
Letty remembered that Chase had always liked his meat rare.
“How about going to the tavern afterward?” Lonny suggested. “Let’s see if there’s any action to be had.”
Letty didn’t hear the response, but whatever it was caused the two men to laugh like a couple of rambunctious teenagers. Amused, Letty smiled faintly and placed the cookie sheet with frozen fish sticks in the oven.