Emmett

“Why do you ride in rodeos?” she asked when she was sitting down.

The question surprised him. He leaned back in his chair fingering the hot mug, and considered it. “I always have,” he began.

“It must be hard on the children, having you away from home so much,” she continued. “Even if your housekeeper does look after them.”

“They’re resourceful,” he said noncommittally.

“They’re ruined,” she returned. “And you know it. Especially Guy.”

His eyes narrowed as they met hers. “They’re my kids,” he said quietly. “And how I raise them is none of your business.”

“They’re my nephews and niece,” she pointed out.

His face went taut under its dark tan. “Don’t bring that up.”

“Why do you have to keep hiding from it?” she asked miserably. “Randy’s my brother. I love him. But he couldn’t have taken Adell if she hadn’t wanted to go with him…!”

“My God, don’t you think I know that?” he asked with bridled fury.

She saw the pain in his face, in his eyes, and she understood. “But, it wasn’t because something was lacking in you,” she said softly, trying to make him understand. “It was because she found something in Randy that she needed. Don’t you see, it wasn’t your fault!”

His whole body clenched. He grimaced and lifted the cup, burning his lips as he forced coffee between them. “It’s none of your business,” he said gruffly. “Let it alone.”

She wanted to pursue the subject, but it wouldn’t be wise. She let it go.

“There’s a little ice cream,” she told him.

He shook his head. “I don’t like sweets.”

Just like Guy, but she didn’t say it. Guy hated her. He hated her enough to let her cat out the door and into the street. Her eyes closed on a wave of pain. It was just as well she wasn’t mooning over Emmett, because she was certain that Guy wouldn’t let that situation develop.

“You should be in bed,” she told Emmett after a tense minute.

“Yes,” he agreed without heat and then stood up slowly. “Tomorrow I’ll take the kids back to the hotel, and we’ll get a flight out to San Antonio. We’ll all be out of your hair.”

She didn’t argue. There was nothing to say.

Chapter 3

Earlier in the day, Melody had telephoned the nearest veterinarian’s office and animal shelter, hoping that Alistair might turn up there. But the veterinarian’s receptionist hadn’t heard of any lost cats, and there was only a new part-time girl at the animal shelter who wasn’t very knowledgeable about recent acquisitions. In fact, she’d confided, they’d had a fire the week before, and everything was mixed up. The lady who usually ran the shelter was in the hospital, having suffered smoke inhalation trying to get the animals out. She was very sorry, but she didn’t know which cats were new acquisitions and which were old ones.

Melody was sorry about the fire, but she was even more worried about her cat. She went out into the hall one last time to call Alistair, in vain because he didn’t appear. She just had to accept that he was gone. It wasn’t easy. It was going to be similar to losing a member of her family, and part of her blamed Guy for that. He might hate her, but why had he taken out that hatred on her cat? Alistair had done nothing to hurt him.

Melody slept fitfully, and not only because she was worried about Alistair. The couch was comfortable, as a rule, but Amy was a restless sleeper and it was hard to dodge little flailing arms and legs and not wake up.

Just before daylight, she gave up. She covered the sleeping child, her eyes tender on the little oval face with its light brown hair and straight nose so reminiscent of Adell. Amy’s eyes, though, were her father’s. All the kids had green eyes, every single one. Adell’s were blue, and her hair was light brown. Amy was the one who most resembled her mother, despite her tomboy ways and the temper that matched her father’s. That physical resemblance to her mother must have been very painful to Emmett when Adell first left him. Guy seemed to be his favorite, and it wasn’t surprising. Guy looked and acted the most like him. Polk was just himself, bespectacled and slight, with no real distinguishing feature except his brain. He seemed to be far and away the brains of the bunch.

She pulled on her quilted robe, her long hair disheveled from sleep, and went slowly into the bathroom, yawning as she opened the door.

Emmett’s dark eyebrows levered up when she stopped dead and turned scarlet.

“Sorry!” she gasped, jerking the door back shut.

She went into the living room and sat down in a chair, very quickly. It was disconcerting to find a naked man stepping out of her shower, even if he did have a body that would grace a centerfold in any women’s magazine.

He came out a minute later with a towel wrapped around his lean hips. He had an athlete’s body, wide shouldered and narrow hipped, and his legs were incredible, Melody thought. She stared at him pie-eyed, trying to act sophisticated when she was just short of starstruck.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t think to lock the door. I assumed this was a little early for you to be up, and I needed a shower.”

“Of course.”

He frowned as he stared down at her. She was doing her best not to look at him, and her cheeks were flaming. He was an experienced man, and he’d been married. He understood without words why she was reacting so violently to what she’d seen.

“It’s all right,” he said gently, and he smiled at her. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

She swallowed. “Right. Would you like some breakfast?”

“Anything will suit me. I’ll get dressed.”

She nodded, but she didn’t look as he strode back into the bedroom and gently closed the door.

She got up and went to the kitchen, surprised to find that her hands shook when she got the pans out and began to put bacon into one.

Emmett came back while she was breaking eggs into a bowl. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, which stretched over his powerful muscles. He wasn’t wearing shoes. He looked rakish and appealing. She pretended not to notice; her memory was giving her enough trouble.

Melody wasn’t dressed because she’d forgotten to get her clothes out of the bedroom the night before. That had been an unfortunate oversight, because he was staring quite openly at her in the long green gown and matching quilted robe that fit much too well and showed an alarming amount of bare skin in the deep V neckline. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but her blond-streaked brown hair and freckled pale skin gave her enough color to make her interesting to a man.

Emmett realized that she must not know that, because she kept fiddling with her hair after she’d set the eggs aside and started to heat a pan to cook them in.

“Where are the plates?” he asked. He didn’t want to add to her discomfort by staring.

“They’re up in the cabinet, there—” she gestured “—and so are the cups and saucers. But you don’t have to…”

“I’m domesticated,” he said gently. “I always was, even before I married.” The words, once spoken, dispelled his good mood. He went about setting the table and didn’t speak again until he was finished.

Melody had scrambled eggs and taken up the bacon while the biscuits were baking. She took them out of the oven, surprised to see that they weren’t overcooked. People in the kitchen made her nervous—Emmett, especially.

“You couldn’t get to your clothes, could you?” he mused. “I should have reminded you last night.”

It was an intimate conversation. Having a man in her apartment at all was intimate, and after having met him in the altogether in the bathroom, Melody was more nervous than ever.

“That’s all right, I’ll dress when the boys get up. You could call them…?”

“Not yet,” he replied. “I want to talk to you.”

“About what?”

He motioned her into a chair and then sat down across from her, his big, lean hands dangling between his knees as he studied her. “About what you said last night. I’ve been thinking about it. Did Adell tell you that it was loving Randy, not hating me, that broke up our marriage?”