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.

As for Uncle David, Audra could tell that Clint had won him over when he’d agreed to fly Pam’s husband to Odessa in the middle of the night.

There’d been some family emergency that required Clint’s getting on a plane back to Colorado. Their uncle wouldn’t have gone out of his way like that if he hadn’t respected Clint a great deal.

When Audra really thought about it, lunch with the whole family ought to be downright interesting.

“I’ll make sure I’m ready when you arrive. Thanks for checking up on me, Pam.”

“As if I wouldn’t. Get a good sleep.”

I won’t. “You, too.”

Audra clicked off, then lay back against the pillows. The time she dreaded every night was here once again.

No longer on heavy painkillers that blotted out consciousness, when she closed her eyes, her mind replayed the horror of the accident.

Refusing to let it happen tonight, she turned on the lamp and reached for the spiral notebook she kept by the bed. She could almost hear the music as she pulled the pencil from the coil and started jotting down the words to a song formulating in her mind. She’d already entitled it “Racetrack Lover.”

Hey cowboy, can you hear me?

Better hold your sweetheart tight.

There’s an exciting new man.

Coming into town tonight.

He’s lucky on the track and lucky with the women,

He’ll mess with your gal,

Consider that a given.

Tall, dark and sexy,

Handsome as sin,

He’s the racetrack lover

Who’s about to drive in.

If you don’t want a broken heart before daylight,

Keep your gal out of sight and locked up tight.

Better put her in the barn,

And throw away the key,

Don’t let him get near her,

Or believe you me,

He’ll take her for a ride,

And rob you blind,

Before he spins his wheels,

And leaves her behind.

He’s a charmer,

He’s a talker,

He’s a no-strings guy,

He’s the racetrack lover in town on the fly.

Hey cowboy, can you hear me?

Better hold your sweetheart tight.

There’s an exciting new man coming into tow—

“I’m so cold. Are you cold, Pete? Pete? Talk to me! Oh no! Oh please God, no.

“Don’t let him be dead! Help him! Help him!” She pounded her fist against the glass.

“Why doesn’t someone come?” She pounded harder. “Help! So much blood. He’s not moving.

“Someone help! What am I going to do?”

“Audra?”

“Oh thank God. Get him out. Hurry!”

“Audra? Wake up,” an alarmed voice sounded from the murky haze engulfing her. “Wake up! You’re having a nightmare.”

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “Come on. Wake up. It’s all right. You’re home in bed. It was just a bad dream.”

“Pam?” she cried, clutching the hand that gripped her upper arm to force her awake.

But it wasn’t small and feminine. This hand felt solid and male. Her eyelids flew open.

A man with black hair stood over her bed.

CHAPTER TWO

AUDRA SCREAMED bloody murder and threw off his hand while she tried to reach the nearest crutch. To her horror, her bad leg pretty well held her anchored.

“Forgive me for frightening you, Ms. Jarrett,” he said in a low voice. “I’m Clint Hawkins’s son Rick. I told Pam I’d pick you up for her.”

Rick Hawkins?

She fought to catch her breath and waited for her heartbeat to return to normal. Her mind began to clear now that the threat of bodily injury had passed. Audra recognized him from Pam’s wedding photographs. In those pictures his tall, well-honed physique had been dressed in a formal suit instead of a black T-shirt and jeans. He was even more attractive in person.

“When I got out of my car, I could hear screaming. It gave me the chills,” he explained. His compassionate gaze let her know her nightmare must have been a beaut.

Audra moaned while she willed her body to calm down. To think he’d heard her carrying on from clear outside.

How awful! How humiliating!

“I thought you were being attacked. Your front door was locked, so I got in through your bedroom window, which had been left open.”

Last night she’d been too physically exhausted to check the window. Her driving need had been to reach the bed before she collapsed.

To her chagrin the clock radio by her bed said five after twelve. She hadn’t thought to set it because she rarely needed an alarm to wake her up. Normally she only slept seven hours.

“It’s a-all right,” she stammered. “If you would please wait for me in the living room. It’s down the hall on your left.”

“Would you like some help getting up first?”

“No— I can manage, thank you.”

The concerned gray eyes staring down at her from between heavy black lashes made a sweep of her five-foot-five figure. They started with the toes peeping out of her cast, and ended with her dark red curls, missing nothing in between. She felt as if he’d just sucked all the air out of her lungs.

“So you’re the cousin who almost lost a limb.” His voice had a faraway sound, yet his gaze was all too personal as it took in her other leg, which was bare to the fringe of her denim shorts. “Thank God it didn’t happen.”

Thank heavens she hadn’t changed out of her clothes before she’d finally drifted off. He could have found her in her underwear…

Audra had never felt so embarrassed in her whole life. Heat poured into her cheeks.

“So,” she mimicked. She was attracted to him yet his presence in her bedroom made her feel violated, though she knew he’d meant her no harm. “You’re the son with the death wish. The Hill Country’s a little far out of your way for a pit stop, isn’t it?”

Avoiding his eyes, she waited until he’d disappeared out the door before reaching for her crutches.

That’s when she saw her spiral notebook still open and lying on the bed next to her hip. The pencil had fallen to the floor.

“Racetrack Lover!”

Oh no! Had he read what she’d written?

Audra closed the book and put it on the bedstand. In a few clumsy moves she eased herself off the mattress and was able to grab fresh underwear from the drawer.

No way was she going to wear another pair of shorts in front of him. Snug jeans were impossible to put on. A blouse and skirt would be easier to manage than a dress with a zipper up the back.

She pulled a light-blue blouse and denim skirt from the hangers in the closet, then moved to the bathroom across the hall as fast as she could.

Since she was unable to shower with the cast on, a quick sponge bath would have to do for today. The small bathroom left little space for her cast and the crutches, too.

She applied a dusky pomegranate shade of lipstick and flicked a brush through her curls. There wasn’t anything she could do about the shadows under her eyes.

“Did you close and lock your window?” he asked as she entered the living room a few minutes later.

“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think? Until a few minutes ago we’ve never had a break-in.”

She hadn’t meant to sound sarcastic, but it must have come out sounding that way, because he grimaced.

“Then you’re damn lucky.”

“According to your father, so are you,” she drawled.

The room was charged with tension, which broke as he moved toward the hallway. Audra made a half turn with her crutches.

Over her shoulder she said, “If you’re determined to be a Boy Scout instead of an intruder, you might as well put the screen back on while you’re at it.”

After that reminder she opened the front door and started down the porch steps. There were only two of them. She managed without difficulty.

It didn’t surprise her to find a new, gleaming black BMW parked in front of the bungalow. The kind of car she was seeing more and more of these days on the back roads…

Rich trespassers were raping the land with their easy money and didn’t know a gelding from a stallion. Did the racetrack lover know the difference? It would be interesting to find out.

RICK STARTED UP the car without saying anything to her. He backed out of the driveway, past the mailbox, to the road leading to the main ranch house. When he’d offered to pick up Pam’s cousin as a way to help, all he’d known about her was that she was recovering from an automobile accident in which the driver had been killed. Apparently, the man had worked at the same radio station she did.

Though he was armed with that much knowledge, he couldn’t have imagined what awaited him at the bungalow. The screams he’d heard coming from inside were so bloodcurdling, he still hadn’t recovered.

Ms. Audra Jarrett had come as a big surprise to him in more ways than one.

She was in her early to mid-twenties. For some reason he’d had the erroneous impression she was much closer to Pam’s forty. He’d never been partial to red hair, but then he’d never seen a shining mass of dark-mahogany curls before. They danced above a pair of blue-gray eyes so close in color to his mother’s, he was taken by surprise.

While he’d tried to wake the writhing woman on top of the bed, his gaze had been drawn to the curves of her slender body, making it impossible for him to look anywhere else.

Right now she didn’t appear to be in the mood to talk. Who could blame her for her silence?

No doubt she’d been plagued by horrific dreams since the crash. They had to be disorienting and probably stayed with her even after she awakened from them.

He’d known several racers who’d had to be cut from a wreckage. While he’d watched and listened to Audra fight her way out of her nightmare, it was evident she’d been trapped in the car accident that had broken her leg.

Neither his father nor Pam had shared those details with him. His breaking into her bedroom couldn’t have helped the situation any.

“I’m sorry a total stranger had to be the cause of more distress,” he apologized again. “You were in such a highly agitated state, my only thought was to get to you and wake you up so you wouldn’t have to suffer any longer.”

“I realize I sounded like a soldier back from Vietnam, so you’re forgiven,” she said without looking at him. “Last night Pam told me your father had gone out looking for you, so I can’t say you came as a complete surprise. Otherwise I’d have cracked your head open with the end of my crutch.”

“Ouch,” he teased.

“Obviously he found you,” she replied without a hint of warmth. “How far off the beaten track were you?”

His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Audra Jarrett didn’t like him.

Rick wasn’t such a vain man he had to conquer every woman in sight. Still, her hostility had gotten beneath his skin.

Intrigued, he intended to learn the reason for her demeanor. He suspected today’s events had little to do with the fact that she wished herself anywhere but in his car.

“We discovered each other on the ranch road about two miles from the house.”

Her only response was to turn her head and stare out the passenger window. The gesture caused him to wonder if she resented his father for taking Pam away from her and couldn’t help disliking Rick for being his son.

Rick’s thoughts harkened back to a conversation with his brother. Nate had found out that the men in Pam’s family were laying bets on how long the marriage to their father would last. That was why she hadn’t invited any of them to the wedding.

It was possible that no one in Pam’s family, male or female, was happy about her recent marriage.

Then again, maybe Audra’s antipathy toward Rick had nothing to do with his father. Perhaps after such a terrible nightmare, she was just lashing out. The accident had killed a man she loved, and Rick happened to be a handy target.

“I heard you calling for Pete over and over again,” he said quietly. “He was your fiancé?”

That brought her head around. She studied him as if he were a species she’d never come across before.

“Your father may have married my cousin, but that doesn’t make us related or entitle you to information that’s none of your business.”

He saw her hands curl into fists. His attempt at sensitivity wasn’t going over well.

“Why don’t we start again, Ms. Jarrett?” he suggested. “Since my father and Pam’s happiness is of the utmost importance to both of us, shall we try to be friends while I’m here?”

His father intended to use the money from the sale of the ski business to help Pam establish a bed-and-breakfast on the ranch. Apparently, the idea had been a dream of hers for years and would bring in much needed income. Rick didn’t want to see anything go wrong with their plans when they both seemed so excited about it.

He pulled to a stop in front of the ranch house where there were a half-dozen cars and trucks assembled.

“I have a better idea,” she replied.

His lips twitched while he waited to hear the rest of her remarks with an eagerness that surprised him.

“Let’s agree to stay out of each other’s way. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Inside of twelve hours, boredom will consume you. By nightfall we’ll be breathing the dust from your tires when you peal out of here for heaven knows what race with death you have scheduled next.”

Her withering comment brought to mind a conversation he’d had with his brother a few weeks earlier.

When I saw Laurel’s joy as she held her daughter in her arms, I knew what Mom and Dad felt when we were born. Since that moment, I’ve asked myself how our parents were able to accept our chosen careers without suffering a nervous breakdown in the process.

Come on, Nate. Don’t forget, they placed themselves in mortal danger every time they ran a ski race.

True. But in comparison, you have to admit strapping ourselves into a race car or into the cockpit of a jet increases the danger by quantum leaps.

No longer smiling, Rick got out of the car to help Audra, but Pam had reached her first.

“Honey—you took so long I got worried about you.” She opened the back door to retrieve the crutches for her cousin.

“Forgive me. I’m afraid I overslept.”

The impassioned woman of a moment ago shot Rick a warning glance that forbid him to add one word of explanation.

Message received, he muttered to himself.

By this time Audra had swung her legs out, displaying amazing agility for someone wearing a full-length leg cast. With Pam’s assistance she stood up and started walking toward the house on her crutches.

Pam put a detaining hand on Rick’s arm. Her demeanor didn’t resemble that of the radiant wife who’d introduced Rick and his father to her male cousins less than an hour ago. Some contentious family issue must have flared up during the time Rick had been gone.

“Thanks for picking her up. Did she seem all right to you?” Pam asked in an anxious voice.

Putting two and two together, Rick realized that if Pam had been at her cousin’s bedside both at the hospital and here at the house, then she knew about the nightmares. Maybe she feared Audra had suffered another debilitating episode. Under the circumstances, Rick could well understand her concern.

“She’s fine.”

He didn’t dare say anything else. It was important that Audra trust him.

They walked up the steps of the house together. “Is everything okay with you?” he asked her.

“I’m not sure. Better ask me after today is over, Rick,” came her cryptic remark.

THE DINING ROOM was Audra’s favorite place in the house. It had a huge eighteen-foot ceiling, an enormous fireplace and circular bay windows. In the past, with the addition of several round tables surrounding the main dining-room table, the room could hold forty-five Jarretts comfortably. But tragedy had struck, limiting their numbers.

Today the remaining fifteen family members were joined by Clint Hawkins and his son. Uncle David, whose thinning gray hair still showed traces of auburn, presided at the head.

Several of the other family members in the room had inherited the Jarrett trait of red hair. Audra had been forced to put up with a lot of teasing because of it. She didn’t envy her cousins’ children for what they’d have to deal with as they grew older.

Her uncle told Audra to sit at the opposite end of the table where she could rest her cast without any obstruction. Then he asked the boys—her male cousins now in their thirties—to get up and finish bringing in the rest of the food from the kitchen.