would be her downfall. She hadn’t expected it to tempt her in this manner, though. “Thank you. You’re an exceptionally—helpful—person, aren’t you?” Trying to outpace him, Jessie lengthened her stride, taking two and a half to every one of his and feeling crowded the whole time, surrounded by him, his energy, his sheer, overwhelming presence. “Or perhaps you’re a retro Boy Scout?”
“I like to be useful.”
“Good for you,” Jessie said through gritted teeth. “The world could use a lot more useful men.” She reached the automatic exit doors that swung open as she stepped toward them.
Huddled under the portico, the smokers cleared way for her. For Jonas. Hurrying toward her car, she fumbled for her keys, pulling them out. A wave of heat curled toward her from the concrete sidewalks, washed over her. The red sun lay fat and hot on the horizon and she wanted to be home, to escape the very solid spirit from her past. Just as she opened her van door, he stopped her.
“Wait.” His hand closed around her elbow, his thumb flat against the inner pulse, and her heartbeat slammed in a staccato rhythm to that light, insistent pressure. His thumb was rough as he moved it against her skin, against her underarm in a slow, unconscious stroking that had nothing’ at all to do with the questions gleaming at her from his eyes.
“Take your hand off me, cowboy. Now.”
Buck did.
She hadn’t needed to tell him. As he’d touched her, her face had turned pinched and tight, and he’d already taken a step away from her. He recognized the desperation blazing in her eyes. Holding his hands up, palms toward her, he didn’t move. “Sorry, Ms. McDonald. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t. I don’t scare that easily.” Not looking in back of her, she opened her van door and stepped quickly inside, shutting the door between them with a quiet snick. She stabbed the key into the ignition as she said in a low, furious voice, “But I don’t like strange men grabbing me, cowboy, no matter how charming they are. And you don’t know me well enough to be anything else except a stranger.” Sunlight burnished her hair to pale gold.
Like an overlay, another image superimposed itself, this one in vivid color.
Her hair should have been sleek—a smooth, bright blond helmet cut close to her face, that full mouth dark red, seductive.
“But we’ve met before, haven’t we?” Trying to meld the two images, he rested his hand on the open window of the van. A strand of her hair brushed the back of his hand, curled around his palm with the feel of a forgotten touch, a remembered kiss. “I know you, don’t I?”
She looked as if he’d struck her. Her face went paper-white, and a rumbling growl came from the shadowy interior of the van. “Believe me, you don’t know me at all.” As she spoke, a wide head with enormous teeth and lolling tongue appeared next to hers at the window edge.
Buck kept his hand on the window. “Does he bite?”
“She. Yes, she does.” Color was flowing slowly back into the woman’s face as she regained her equilibrium.
“Bites, huh?” Buck scanned the dog’s face, noting the wagging tail. “She doesn’t strike me as a dog who’d bite.” Dog slobber dripped on his hand but he didn’t move, didn’t try to pat that wide, rough head.
“Well, she does. Enthusiastically. Every chance she gets.”
“Now why don’t I believe you?” he asked gently.
“Maybe you’re not a trusting soul,” she said, her gaze flashing to his and back to the key.
The woman’s astringent tone matched her earlier, back-offfella attitude, and he was relieved. Her skim milk white face had disturbed him. He’d never seen himself as a man who intimidated women, and he didn’t like the idea that he’d scared her. Pushing for answers was one thing, but reducing her inyour-face thorniness to white-faced fear wasn’t an image of himself he cared for. “Not trusting? Me? I’m wounded,” he said, placing his hand over his heart.
“Now why don’t I believe you?” Her arm resting on the dog, she turned to him and lifted her eyebrow, her mockery obvious.
“How perceptive of you.” Deliberately he repeated her earlier gibe and watched her quite remarkable blue eyes darken behind her glasses. “I’d almost think we’d met before—for you to have such insight into my character, Miz McDonald. Or was it only a lucky guess?” He wondered if she’d let him have the last word. He somehow didn’t think she would.
“Down, Loofah,” the woman said and ground the ignition key, restarting the engine before tilting her chin up at him. “Look, cowboy, you tried out your pickup routine, and it didn’t work. You were bored, at loose ends, and I wasn’t interested. Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay? Call it a day.”
Pebbles and dust spurted out from under the tires as she backed out. The monster dog watched him from the rear window, tongue hanging out as if maybe after all she’d like Buck to be dinner.
For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Buck found himself contemplating the van’s taillights. But this time, he had an answer.
She knew him. Her slightly acid responses hadn’t been those of a stranger. And he knew her. But she wasn’t a Miz, Ms. or Mrs. McDonald. Some other name. It would come to him sooner or later. Dust blew into his face as he stared into the empty distance.
He understood the sizzle crackling between them. He understood sex. He liked the way her pupils dilated when she looked at him. He liked the way her smooth skin shone pink with discomfort. He liked the faint scent of flowers that rose from her skin, her hair.
The sense that there was something more than a sexual pull between them disturbed him. He liked sex a whole, heaping bunch. It was simple, uncomplicated. What he felt toward the woman with the bedroom voice and cautious eyes wasn’t simple at all.
Scratching the still-itching mosquito bite on his neck, he thought about the peculiar swirl of emotions the woman created in him. He’d never exerted this kind of energy in pursuit of a woman, and he wasn’t comfortable with the sense that he was sailing over the edge into unknown seas, that she had some power over him.
But he trusted his instincts and his instincts told him that she had her own reasons for pretending not to remember him. He couldn’t help wondering what they were. Rocking slowly back and forth on his worn-down boot heels, he stayed there until the van was nothing more than a dark speck on the red horizon.
Dust swirling and blowing around him, foretelling the coming storm, he walked around the hospital and the physical rehabilitation center for veterans. He didn’t want to go back inside the hospital. Out here in the wind and dust, the air was rich with the smells of ozone and earth, with sweat and flowers. Inside the automatic doors were filtered air and the smells of disinfectant and tragedy.
Bea refused to leave. “I’ve slept beside Hoyt every night for almost forty years. We’ve never been separated. I don’t intend to start now. I don’t want y’all fussing me about it, hear?”
They heard. And they quit pestering her to go back to the ranch and rest. “You know how Mama is,” Buck said to his brothers. “Don’t push. She’ll only dig in her heels harder.” Like the woman in the Palmetto Mart, he thought, surprised. “I’ll be here. Let’s back off, all right?”
There was a curious peacefulness during the quiet night hours with the pinging bells and shushing sounds of doors opening and closing. Bea dozed beside him, her head falling to his shoulder and then snapping up as anxiety slapped her awake. Buck brought her soup and tea. Later, the tea and soup gone cold, he disposed of the paper cups.
During the night, while he sat in the pulled-up chair close to Hoyt’s bed, Buck felt his stepfather’s gnarled hand pull against his own.
“That you, son?” Hoyt’s words were slurred and hard to hear, his effort at speech