Chapter Ten #2
“Especially me.” He smiled. “When we were kids, Boone was always protecting me from the mean, older boys. He was never afraid of anything. I guess maybe he protected me too much. After our mom left, Dad was hell to live with. Boone took a lot of hits that were meant for me.”
“He loves you.”
“Yeah. I love him, too.” He glanced at her. “Boone said that Sheriff Carson was out your way.”
“Yes,” she replied. “I had to tell him what Dad did.”
“Excuse me?”
She bit her lower lip. Her father was a criminal. That was going to put Boone right out of her orbit forever. She was certain that Hayes Carson had already told him about Keely’s parents. The two men had been best friends forever.
“My father was a drug dealer, Clark,” she said quietly. “He supplied the cocaine that killed Sheriff Carson’s brother, Bobby.”
“Oh, boy,” Clark said heavily. “You poor kid.”
“Now my dad’s back and he and his partner want money, lots of it…”
“I could give them whatever they want,” he said at once.
“No!” Her eyes were eloquent. “Don’t you see, the only way to stop them is to keep them hanging around while Mama puts the house on the market. The police might have a chance to catch them before they can hurt anyone.”
“Do you think your father would hurt you?” he asked.
Keely had never liked looking back. Her accident had hurt more than her body. When the little boy dropped into the lion pit, Keely’s father had been standing on the other side. He hadn’t made a move to help.
“Yes, he would, wouldn’t he?” Clark asked perceptively.
Keely drew in a long breath. It had been just after the court case that Keely’s father had brought her back to Jacobsville. He hadn’t said much to her, and he hadn’t met her eyes. She’d tried to tell herself that he’d only hesitated because he was shocked. But Keely hadn’t hesitated.
“I’ve spent all these years trying to pretend that he brought me back for my own good,” she said.
“But I think it was because I made him ashamed.” She held up her hand when he started to ask a question.
“I can’t talk about it, not even now. It’s so painful to think that my father was willing to stand by when a child’s life was in danger.
I loved him. But he was ready to sacrifice me to save himself.
” She looked up. “In the same situation, Boone wouldn’t have hesitated a split second. Neither would you or Winnie.”
Clark was solemn. “It’s hard to lose faith in a parent. I know. When our mother ran off with our uncle, we were devastated. Three little kids, and she just left.”
Keely was thinking that she would never have deserted her own flesh and blood. But she didn’t say it.
Clark smiled. “You’ll make a wonderful mother,” he chuckled. “Your kids will be spoiled rotten.”
She smoothed her right hand over her left arm. “No,” she said absently. “I won’t have children. I won’t marry.”
“A few little scars aren’t going to matter,” he told her.
She didn’t reply. He had no idea. She couldn’t tell him, either. She glanced at him. “I had a good time,” she said. She smiled. “Mr. Pendleton’s fiancée was a hoot.” She chuckled. “Do you think he’s really going to marry a woman who’s that blatant about social climbing?”
“I think, like me, he got into a physical relationship that blinded him to a woman’s true nature,” he said after a minute. “I hope he’s lucky enough to see the light in time.”
She frowned. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
“I was watching Misty tonight,” he replied.
“She was all over Boone, her eyes like dollar signs. She likes going first-class. She pretends to have money, but I don’t think she does.
I think she’s putting on an act, to try to get Boone back.
I hope he’s got better sense.” He gestured with his hand.
“I saw myself when I looked at him. I was just as enchanted by Nellie. But what I saw was an illusion.” He glanced at her.
“You won’t even let me give you emerald earrings, and you love them,” he said softly. “I’ve never known a woman like you.”
“Actually there are lots of them, and they all live in Jacobsville and Comanche Wells,” she teased. “Just plain unsophisticated little country girls who love animals and like to plant things and don’t think marrying a rich man is the greatest of life ambitions.”
He grimaced. “I’d never get one of those kind of girls past Boone,” he said with resignation. “He always expects the worst when I date anybody outside our own circles.”
That stung, but she didn’t say so. Clark had been kind to her. “I have to go,” she said. “I had a wonderful time tonight, Clark,” she added. “Thanks.”
“We’ll do it again.” He frowned. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded—about dating girls outside my own circle,” he added. “I always think of you as family.”
She smiled. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me.”
He looked sheepish. “I guess you’d rather I thought of you as an eligible young woman?”
She shook her head. “I like being your friend.”
“I like being yours.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “If you ever needed help, you know you could ask me.”
She chuckled. “Of course I do. But I can take care of myself. Good night, Clark.”
“Good night.”
He watched her go into the house before he drove away.
* * *
Her mother was unusually quiet. When Keely asked about the house, she only got evasive replies.
Carly was nowhere in sight, and hadn’t been for some time.
She was out of town for a while, Ella said finally, and didn’t refer to Carly again.
There was also a disturbing phone call that Ella had answered with single syllable replies.
She wouldn’t tell her daughter what had been said or even who had called.
When a car pulled up at the front door on a rainy Saturday morning, Ella actually gasped. Keely ran to look out.
“It’s Boone Sinclair,” she stammered, shocked.
“Thank God,” Ella said heavily. “Thank God.” She walked back down the hall, went into her room and closed the door.
Surprised, Keely went out onto the porch as Boone exited the car and took the porch steps two at a time.
He was in working clothes, jeans and boots and white Stetson with a checked Western-cut long-sleeved shirt buttoned right up to the neck. He looked down at Keely, his eyes dark and stormy.
“Come for a drive,” he said curtly.
She could have found a dozen reasons not to go. She wanted to come up with an excuse. Her mind agreed. But her body walked back into the house, grabbed her purse and a lightweight jacket and told her mother goodbye.
* * *
Boone opened the door of his car, helped her inside and went around to get in and start the engine. A minute later, they were speeding down the highway toward his ranch.
She was nervous, and it showed. Her hands played with her small purse while she listened to the rhythmic sound of the windshield wipers as they brushed away the pouring rain.
Despite all their recent turmoil, she felt safe with Boone. Safe, excited, hopeful, breathlessly in love. Her whole body ached to be held again as he’d held her at the charity dance. She hoped that didn’t show.
It did. Boone was far too experienced to mistake her body language.
He smiled softly to himself. If she’d been involved with his brother, as Clark claimed, she wouldn’t be this nervous in Boone’s company.
That meant there was still time. If he could convince her that he hadn’t meant to humiliate her.
He pulled out onto a pasture track that led to a closed gate, stopped the car and cut off the engine.
The rain flooded onto the windshield, making the outside world a gray blur. He unfastened his seat belt, settled himself crossways in his seat and stared at Keely.
The silence was a little unnerving. She glanced at him and found her eyes captured and held.
“Clark says the two of you are going steady,” he said.
Now what did she say, she wondered frantically. It wasn’t true, but Clark was using her as a tool of vengeance, apparently, for Nellie’s loss. She bit her lower lip and tried to find a graceful way out of the dilemma.
“Did he say that?” she asked, playing for time to think.
His dark eyes narrowed. “Don’t play games with me,” he said curtly. “Are you or are you not getting mixed up with my brother?”
Sorry, Clark, she said silently, but no mere woman could have resisted that look in Boone’s eyes.
“I’m not,” she said, sounding breathless, as though she’d run a long way.
The tautness seemed to go out of him. “Well, thank God for one thing going right,” he murmured. “I could have slugged Hayes Carson!”
While she was trying to work out that puzzle, he’d unfastened her seat belt and pulled her over the console into his arms.
“I thought this week would never end.” His mouth ground down into hers as if he’d gone hungry for years and sought to satisfy the hunger in seconds. He crushed her up against him, mindless of her soft cry of protest. “I’m starving to death for you,” he whispered into her mouth. “Dying for you—”
Had she really heard him say that? She gave up protesting.
It didn’t do any good, anyway. She curled up against him and ignored the pain in her shoulder and arm, going boneless as his ardor only increased at her response.
Her head began to spin. It was the sweetest interlude of her life.
Rain pounded on the roof, the hood, the trunk, the wind blew, but she heard nothing over the pounding of her own heart.
She had no reserve left. Whatever he wanted, he could have.
Except when his hand searched under her blouse and up over her breast, inching toward the strap. She couldn’t, didn’t dare, let him feel her shoulder.
With a sharp little cry, she jerked away from him, her face flushed from his ardor, her eyes wild with passion and dread.