Home To Copper Mountain

After eyeing the short distance from her table to the bedroom doorway, she felt for her crutches and with superhuman effort, grabbed them from where they’d been leaning against the wall. She stopped long enough to turn out the lights, then moved out into the hallway and into the bedroom next door and lay down on the bed. The night was warm enough that she didn’t need a blanket to cover her.

There was no way she’d be getting up again any time soon to brush her teeth or change out of her top and cutoffs. They were the only shorts loose enough around the legs to slide up and down over her cast.

The strain of perching on the stool with her left leg in a full cast had been too draining. Whatever had possessed her to think she could transfer from her guitar to her harp between commercials while operating her own mixing board at the same time? Tonight she should have relied solely on recorded music.

She’d been home from the hospital almost a month. By now she assumed it wouldn’t be a problem to perform some of her own music live during her radio show, broadcast from the bungalow on her uncle David’s property.

It was a small three-bedroom home. With a few steps, everything was in easy reach. No stairs, no basement. But Audra hadn’t counted on the weakness that assailed her body through the simple act of singing into the microphone again. It may have just been her leg that was broken, but this seemed to affect her whole body.

The car accident that had taken Pete Walker’s life could have done a lot more damage. But it hadn’t been her time to go.

No. Destiny’s plan had been to kill her off in increments. She figured when her uncle found a buyer for the ranch, that would be the final blow.

Her eyelids fluttered closed from sorrow and fatigue.

What would she do without her music? Thanks to Pam, who’d started her on the piano in grade school, Audra had found her muse. Not even Boris, the talented French conductor she’d fallen in love with at the Paris Conservatory of Music, had been able to stamp out the solace when he’d rejected her.

As she settled back against the pillows her cell phone rang. That would be her cousin calling from the main ranch house three miles away to make sure Audra was okay.

Pam…the wonderful woman who’d been mother, sister and best friend rolled into one since Audra was a little girl.

She reached for her phone. After checking the caller ID to make sure, she clicked on to talk to her cousin. “It’s 3:15 a.m., Mrs. Hawkins.”

Audra loved calling her that. Clint Hawkins was the best thing that had ever happened to Pam. Audra was half in love with him herself.

“Your new husband is going to resent me if you keep this up. I’ve been out of the hospital for some time now, yet you’re still hovering!”

“That’s because I listened to your broadcast tonight. You were fabulous, but you overdid it.”

Audra couldn’t hide anything from her. “I found that out as soon as I was switched off the air.”

“I’m mad at you, honey. The doctor warned you to be careful.”

“I wanted to start performing again. It’ll be easier next time.”

“Why not wait till the cast comes off before you go back on the air, period?” Pam urged.

Because I can’t stand the nights.

Memories of the crash wouldn’t leave Audra alone. Her guilt—that she’d escaped death and Pete hadn’t—continued to haunt her.

“I’d die of boredom, but I appreciate your phoning. I’m in bed, so stop worrying about me. Now, hurry and hang up before Clint discovers you’re awake and talking to me again.”

“My husband isn’t here.”

She frowned. “Has he flown to Colorado on another family emergency?” Audra hoped everything was fine with his recently married son, Nate. That marriage almost hadn’t come off.

It didn’t seem as if Clint and Pam were ever going to get the time alone they deserved, no thanks to Audra, whose accident had ruined their honeymoon.

“He’s out in the truck looking for his son who should have arrived by now.”

Audra blinked. “I didn’t know you were expecting his family.”

“He didn’t either until earlier in the day.”

“Which one is it?”

“Rick.”

Ah yes, the famous race-car driver, Lucky Hawkins. The speed-loving son he’d secretly worried about for years. The one Clint feared would end up a statistic.

Audra refused to entertain the thought that he might have been in a collision on the highway driving down here. She didn’t want Pam thinking bad thoughts either.

“It would be a hoot if he’s lost.”

“Now, Audra…”

She chuckled. “Well, it would. Can’t you see this living sports legend whizzing around to the various ranches asking, ‘Does my daddy live here?’”

“Be nice,” her cousin murmured, but Audra could tell she was on the verge of laughter. “It’s easy to get lost in the Hill Country after dark, and lest you forget, he’s no boy.”

Her cousin was right about that. An image of the good-looking male with black hair she’d seen in some of Pam’s wedding pictures filled Audra’s mind. Clint and his sons were more attractive than any three men had a right to be.

“Is this to be a quick visit?”

“Yes. Clint’s so thrilled Rick agreed to come here on his way to Arizona, he’s been restless all day waiting for him. I put him to work helping me cook. We’re going to have a big lunch at noon. Sleep now and I’ll be by for you about quarter to twelve.”

“No, no. This is your first chance to show his son around your turf for a change. There’s no way I’m going to interfere with that!”

“Audra—Uncle David wants everyone to meet. The cousins and their families are coming from Austin. He insisted.”

“Oh, no.”

“I’m not too excited about that myself.”

Their uncle probably had to threaten leaving them out of the will for them to agree, but Audra didn’t say the words out loud. Their bitterness over his handling of the Jarrett family finances since their parents’ deaths years before had turned them into angry men.

After the loving care Pam had always shown their cousins growing up, Audra couldn’t believe how mean-spirited and ungrateful they were. When they’d heard she was marrying what they considered to be some old geezer from Colorado, they’d mocked her and laid bets the relationship wouldn’t last.

To their shock, she’d returned to Texas with her new husband following their honeymoon in Hawaii. Despite family emergencies that required Pam to leave Hawaii early to be with Audra after her accident, and Clint to fly home to Copper Mountain to talk some sense into his son Nate, who was hurting from a broken engagement, it appeared their marriage was thriving. Clint would be a permanent fixture around the ranch from now on.

Tom, the oldest of the three boys and their spokesman, had given their uncle David an ultimatum. They wanted Clint out of the main house. Until he was gone, they would no longer come out on weekends to help keep the fencing in good repair, a never-ending project.

That kind of cruelty pained Audra, who was still hampered to a large extent by her broken leg. Her unexpected accident had brought Pam running to her side to wait on her when Pam should have been enjoying precious time with her brand-new husband.

As it turned out, Clint Hawkins was anything but an old geezer.

Audra didn’t know such a wonderful person existed anywhere. She’d shed tears of happiness he’d come into Pam’s life. Already she sensed that beneath Clint’s mild-mannered nature lived a highly principled man and a force to contend with. He protected Pam in so many subtle ways, their male cousins would be no match for him when they did meet.