His Only Wife

“Can’t blame him for everything. If she’d really wanted to stay married to me, she wouldn’t have left.” Or, I could have gone with her, thought Gage. “But I see your point.”

“You were a walking train wreck afterward. Are you sure you want to put yourself out there again?”

“No. But you should have seen her.”

Gage recalled Aubrey hurrying across the gas station parking lot. Short denim skirt. Short little top. Short red hair. The only thing long about her had been her legs. He’d never seen so much of their tanned length exposed in public. The Aubrey he remembered lacked the confidence to show off her body. Gage had to admit he liked the change in her.

In fact, everything about her was different, including her green eyes. They were the same color, but their former vividness had been replaced by wariness and a sadness he didn’t think had anything to do with him or their breakup.

He often wondered what might have become of them if her father hadn’t shown up that night, waving a carrot in front of Aubrey’s face. Her decision to return to college hurt Gage, but the passing years had given him an adult perspective he lacked at twenty. He understood, at least in part, some of her reasons and didn’t disagree with them.

Blue Ridge offered little opportunity for anyone with an ambition outside of ranching. He of all people knew that. Aubrey dreamt of following in her father’s footsteps her whole life. Bombing her first year at college took a little of the wind from her sails, but it hadn’t thrown her off course.

No, Gage did that when he proposed marriage.

Marty made a disgruntled sound into the phone, distracting Gage.

“Be careful, buddy. A hot ex-wife back in town is no reason to go all stupid.”

“Quit your worrying,” Gage answered, returning his focus to Aubrey’s SUV. “I’m not planning anything.”

But he was. He’d seen the spark igniting in Aubrey’s eyes when he’d touched her. And while he wasn’t ready to go “all stupid” as Marty put it, he did want to explore possible options. Risky, yes, but the plain truth was, he’d never cared for a woman the way he had Aubrey. One look at her again and he wasn’t sure he ever would.

The only way to discover for sure if Aubrey reciprocated any of his feelings was for him was to see her again.

Already his mind was formulating a plan. One that would ensure he and Aubrey crossed paths frequently during her stay in Blue Ridge.

Chapter Two

Aubrey flopped over onto her side, pulled the bedsheet up around her neck and cracked open one eye. A field of tiny pink tulips filled her vision, more faded than they’d been the last time she slept in this room, but still the same.

She and her sister chose the wallpaper, back when she was four and Annie three. It was the first summer they’d stayed in Blue Ridge. Grandma Rose had wanted the girls to feel at home, so she and Grandpa Glen drove them into Pineville for the day and let them pick out paint, wallpaper, bedspreads, matching sheets and a lamp at the home decorating store. Being little girls, they went with a pink color scheme.

Grandma Rose never changed a thing. Every summer for the next fourteen years, Aubrey and Annie spent their nights in twin beds, slumbering amongst pink tulips. Until the summer ten years ago when, fresh from a quickie Las Vegas wedding, Aubrey had moved out of her grandparents’ house and into an old motor home parked behind the barn on the Raintree ranch.

Thinking of Gage reminded her of the two of them in her SUV yesterday. One little touch of his fingertips, one brush of her hair, and she’d gone soft and gooey inside. Old habits were definitely hard to break. Groaning, Aubrey drew the bedsheet over her head and buried her face in her pillow.

“Aubrey,” her grandmother hollered from her bedroom across the hall.

“Coming!” Aubrey sprang out of bed, glancing at the alarm clock as she did. The red numerals glowed 8:16 a.m. Yikes! No wonder her grandmother was hollering. Throwing a robe on over her pajamas, she hurried through the door.

“Were you still sleeping?” Grandma Rose asked when Aubrey entered her room.

“I could have sworn I set the alarm before I went to bed.”

“It’s all right. You needed your sleep. I could tell when you arrived yesterday that you were tired from the drive.”

More frazzled than tired, thought Aubrey. She’d seen Gage tailing her the entire way from Pineville to Blue Ridge and couldn’t shake the feeling he was going to prove as difficult to outrun during her stay here as he was on the road yesterday afternoon.

“That’s no reason for me oversleeping.” Aubrey positioned the wheelchair by the side of the bed, then helped her grandmother to a sitting position. “Do you need to use the bathroom?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Over the next thirty minutes Aubrey saw to her grandmother’s needs, getting her bathed and dressed and otherwise ready to face the day. When they were done, she wheeled her grandmother to the kitchen and got her situated comfortably at the table. It still shocked Aubrey to see how small and frail her grandmother had become. When she’d arrived yesterday and glimpsed the older woman napping in a recliner, only the presence of Mrs. Payne, the neighbor, had kept Aubrey from crying out in alarm.

“What do you feel like eating this morning?” Aubrey asked as she made a pot of coffee.

Like the bedroom she and her sister had shared, there were no significant changes in the kitchen’s decor, either. Coffee was stored in the second largest of four ceramic windmill canisters on the counter. The others held flour, tea bags and sugar, in that order.

“Just toast. And maybe some of that calcium-enriched orange juice,” her grandmother answered.

“Is that all?”

“I haven’t recovered my appetite since the accident.”

No wonder her grandmother had lost so much weight. Aubrey remembered the breakfasts served in this kitchen as being hearty enough to satisfy a crew of lumberjacks.

“Well, maybe we can fix that while I’m here.” She placed two steaming mugs of coffee on the table, then opened a cupboard where she knew she’d find a loaf of bread.

“I’m so glad you came, dear.” There was genuine pleasure in her grandmother’s voice, along with a hint of sorrow. “I’ll try not to be a burden.”

Aubrey went over to her grandmother and placed an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t talk like that. You’re no burden whatsoever.”

“I suspect your father didn’t want you coming here. As far as son-in-laws go, he’s everything a mother could ask for. But he can be a little dictating at times.”

“A little?” Aubrey laughed and took the chair beside her grandmother.

Dictating did indeed describe Alexander Stuart. He was a man used to wielding authority. And though he meant well and loved his family dearly, he sometimes treated his wife and daughters like rookie interns who needed to be browbeaten into shape.

The first time Aubrey openly defied him had been the end of her freshman year at college. Unable to cope with the pressures and high expectations put on her, she’d escaped to Blue Ridge and married Gage.

It wasn’t the last time she defied him, either. And while her father had backed off over the years, he still attempted to sway her when he felt she was making a wrong decision.

Like now.

Alexander Stuart had preferred to hire a caregiver for his mother-in-law so that Aubrey could remain in Tucson and face her career crisis head-on. He disapproved of her “running off and hiding in Blue Ridge again” as he’d called it. But Aubrey didn’t tell her grandmother that.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” The older woman smiled warmly. “I’ve missed you.”

Aubrey covered her grandmother’s hand. “I’ve missed you, too.”

Sitting there in the homey kitchen she remembered so well, Aubrey was glad she’d returned to Blue Ridge. She wanted nothing to tarnish or otherwise ruin her stay. So, for her grandmother’s health and well-being and her own peace of mind, she’d learn to live—temporarily—in the same town with Gage.

She rose from the table, brimming with determination. “How about some eggs with that toast, Grandma?”

“Maybe one. Fried.” The smile tugging at her grandmother’s lips was conspiratorial. “I’m supposed to be watching my cholesterol.”

“One fried egg coming up. And we won’t tell your doctor I corrupted you.” Aubrey fixed an egg for herself, as well.

The two of them enjoyed a leisurely meal that started with a discussion of Grandma Rose’s care and diet and ended with an unexpected barrage of banging noises emanating from the front porch.

Aubrey put down her coffee mug and automatically stood. “What is that?”

“I have no idea.” Grandma Rose peered through the door-way leading into the living room.

At the sound of the front door opening, Aubrey hastily retied her knee-length robe, which suddenly felt tissue-paper-thin, then plucked her tousled hair. “Somebody’s here.” She’d forgotten what it was like living in a small town. Friends and neighbors frequently stopped by without phoning first and doorbells were for strangers.

“Morning,” Gage called from the living room. “Anybody home?”

Aubrey dropped back into her chair.

“We’re in the kitchen,” Grandma Rose called back, obviously delighted at the prospect of a visitor. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

Gage stopped in the doorway, smiling broadly. Rather than his cowboy hat, he wore a baseball cap, which he removed as he entered the room and bent down between the two women to plant a kiss on Grandma Rose’s cheek. “Mom already fed me. But I’ll take a cup of coffee if there’s extra.”

Grandma Rose tittered like a schoolgirl. “Why, of course there’s extra.”

He leaned toward Aubrey. She shied, momentarily alarmed he intended to kiss her cheek, too. But he just winked.

“Stay put,” he said. “I’ll get my own.”

Aubrey had every intention of staying put. Silly, she supposed. Gage had seen her wearing far less than pajamas and a thin robe during their marriage. Heck, the outfit she wore yesterday exposed more bare skin than this one. Her fingers gravitated toward the hem of the robe. The movement must have caught his eye, for he looked down, and his smile widened.

Damn him.

Her first instinct was to lower her head. She resisted and met his gaze head-on.

Like the previous day, heat crept up her neck, all the way to the tips of her ears. Still she stared. “Clean mugs are in the cupboard to the right of the sink,” she said.

“What brings you by this morning?” Grandma Rose asked. “And don’t tell me it’s the smell of brewing coffee.”

She appeared oblivious to Aubrey’s discomfort. The Rain-trees had always been friendly with her grandparents. Fortunately, Aubrey’s and Gage’s impulsive and short-lived marriage hadn’t affected that friendship. Given the two families’ long-standing history together, Gage was probably a frequent visitor to her grandmother’s house.

“I’m here to start work on the handicap renovations.”

“What?” Aubrey and her grandmother said in unison.

“You did advertise for a handyman?” Gage peered at them from over the brim of his mug, then took a sip of coffee. “I saw the notice posted on the bulletin board outside of Cutter’s.”

There were two markets, if one could call them markets, in Blue Ridge. Cutter’s was the larger of the two, not much more than a convenience store with a modest produce bin, while the town’s one and only gas pump could be found at the Stop and Go.

“I did,” Grandma Rose exclaimed. “But surely you can’t be answering the ad. When in the world would you have time, what with working at the ranch and all?”

Gage propped a hip on the edge of the counter in a casual stance that somehow managed to be sexy, too.

“Well, it’s not just me. We’re splitting the job between all of us in the volunteer fire department. I’m building the wheelchair ramp for the front porch. Gus will change out your round doorknobs for lever ones, and Mike’s installing a grab bar in your bathtub. Anything else you need, Kenny Junior will handle.”

“Gage is the captain.” Grandma Rose beamed. “He was promoted after Bob Stintson and his wife moved to Show Low.”

“Really?” So, Aubrey thought, he had stuck with firefighting. No surprise. Gage always had a sense of adventure. He was the one who suggested they elope, after all.

“You know we’re raising money for some new equipment.” Gage directed his statement at Grandma Rose. “We figured this would be a good chance to build the fund and help out a loyal contributor at the same time.”

“Why, I’m….” She placed a hand at her throat. “I’m just thrilled. Thank you, Gage. Thank all the boys for me. Now you swear this won’t be an inconvenience? I heard from Martha Payne yesterday your father has suffered another gout attack.”

“He’s not so bad. I think he’ll be up and around in a couple of days. Hannah can handle things for one morning,” Gage said, referring to his younger sister.

Aubrey thought she noticed a bit of tension in the lines around Gage’s mouth. She remembered Mr. Raintree as being a somewhat hard and inflexible man, on par with her own father. She and Gage always shared that commonality. If Mr. Raintree was laid up, he probably depended on Gage and Hannah to run the ranch. The work was constant and difficult, she knew firsthand from her brief residence there.

“Are you sure?” her grandmother asked. “I don’t want to be the cause of any…discord.”

“Forget it.” He dismissed her worries with a casual shrug. “I’d be here helping even if you hadn’t advertised for a handyman.”

Aubrey believed him. Gage adored her grandmother, and she him. But, as Aubrey watched their exchange, she couldn’t help feeling something was amiss in the Raintree family.

“Dad’s just being his usual grumpy self,” Gage went on.

Her grandmother nodded in understanding. “Gout is no picnic.”

“Probably less painful than a broken hip.” He shifted his weight to his other foot, looking quite at home and in no hurry to start the renovations.

“It’s been tough going so far,” Grandma Rose said, smiling, “but I expect to improve rapidly now that my granddaughter is here. I couldn’t ask for a better nurse.”

Gage toasted Aubrey with his coffee. “Here’s to granddaughters.”

Bringing her mug to her lips, she drained the last bit of coffee. “Grandma, we should probably get a move on.”

Her grandmother’s appointment wasn’t until early afternoon, but Aubrey wanted Gage out of the house. The three of them sitting around the kitchen having a friendly chat reminded her too much of days gone by.

“Where you headed?” he asked, not taking the hint and not moving an inch.

“Physical therapy,” Grandma Rose told him.

“Sounds like fun.”

“It’s hard work,” Aubrey corrected him.

“I don’t doubt it.” Unfazed by her brusque tone, Gage polished off his coffee, rinsed out his mug and placed it in the dishwasher. “And speaking of hard work, I should get cracking.”

Aubrey blew out a huge sigh when she heard the front door shut behind him. How long, she wondered, would it take to build the wheelchair ramp? More importantly, how long until she could comfortably share the same air space with him?

Getting Grandma Rose ready for their trip to Pineville didn’t take long. She obviously wished to be self-sufficient eventually and would do whatever was required of her to achieve that status. Because morale played an important part in the recovery of someone in her grandmother’s condition, Aubrey encouraged her.

Afterward, she helped her grandmother into the recliner so that she could watch her favorite soap opera. During the show, Aubrey showered and dressed. When she finished, they still had a good half hour to kill before they had to leave for the rehabilitation center in Pineville.

“Wheel me out onto the porch, dear,” Grandma Rose said, using the remote to shut off the TV, “so I can see how Gage is doing with the ramp.”

Aubrey tried to come up with a valid argument. “Are you sure? You have a big afternoon ahead of you and don’t want to overdo it.”

“I’d like to know how I can overdo it by just sitting.”

“It’s warm out there.”

“Nonsense.” Grandma Rose leaned forward and braced her hands on the armrests. “I can tolerate a little heat.”

Aubrey reluctantly complied with the request, the wheelchair bumping as it rolled over the threshold and onto the porch. She thought about asking Gage if he could replace the threshold with a flatter one, then caught herself. Asking one of the other guys might be a better approach.

The first sight to greet her as she stepped outside was Gage’s pickup truck parked in the driveway. The emblem on the door, she now noted, was some kind of flame with initials in the center. He’d lowered the tailgate and was using it as a makeshift workbench. The second sight to greet her was Gage. He stood with his back to them, bent over a circular saw and cutting wooden planks. She tried not to notice him, but her eyes kept darting across the yard to where he worked.

His shoulders were broader than she remembered, the muscles more defined and prominent. He might have grown another inch or two. Then again, maybe he just stood straighter and taller. Either way, maturity agreed with him. Were he another man, Aubrey might find the changes appealing.

When the plank Gage was cutting split neatly into two pieces, he shut off the saw and looked up. “Hey, there.” Removing his ball cap, he ran fingers through sweat-dampened hair, then flung it onto the tailgate as he came toward them. “Need a hand?”

“No, I—”

“Good heavens, Gage,” Grandma Rose interrupted. “You must be dying of thirst. Get him a glass of lemonade, will you, Aubrey?”

Setting the brake on the wheelchair, she gratefully retreated into the house. Maybe by the time she came back with his lemonade, he’d be working again.

No such luck.

He was sitting in the chair closest to Grandma Rose when Aubrey stepped outside.

“Thanks,” he said, as he shot to his feet and reached for the plastic tumbler she carried.

She gave it to him and when he’d sat back down, she inched toward the door. “I have a few things to do around the house before we leave for Pineville.”

“There’s nothing that can’t wait until later,” Grandma Rose said, motioning with her hand. “Sit down and visit for a while.”

Gage grabbed one of the other chairs and dragged it over next to his. Flashing his trademark sexy grin, he patted the seat. “You heard your grandmother. Sit and visit for a while.”

To a casual observer, the invitation appeared innocuous enough. Aubrey knew better.

He drank half the lemonade in one long swallow. “Whew! That hit the spot.” He then lifted the plastic tumbler to his forehead and rested it there. “Awfully hot for June.”

“Do you remember the day you and Gage first met?” Grandma Rose didn’t wait for a response and just prattled on. “It was at Sunday school. You were about four and Gage must have been, oh, five or six. You had on that pretty pink dress I liked with the big white sash. We had such a time with your hair, trying to make it look nice.” She made a tsking noise. “A few weeks before arriving here, you and your sister decided to play beauty parlor. Annie, the little dickens, cut a huge chunk of hair out of the left side of your head. Your poor mother cried for days.”

Aubrey had no desire whatsoever to walk down memory lane. Gage clearly didn’t share her sentiment and enthusiastically participated in the discussion, bringing up one youthful indiscretion after the other.

Crossing and uncrossing her legs, Aubrey endured the small talk. Because of Gage, she’d lived exclusively for the summer when she and Annie would stay in Blue Ridge. For nine straight weeks, their parents visited various hospitals across the country where their father would demonstrate the latest medical advance he’d made in the field of cardiovascular surgery.

Their mother, Carol May Stuart, had been raised in Blue Ridge, having met their father at college. They both liked the idea of their daughters being exposed to the same grassroots upbringing she experienced. The girls loved Blue Ridge; their grandparents loved having them stay. It had been a perfect arrangement. Until the summer after Aubrey’s freshman year at the University of Arizona when everything went to hell in a handbasket.

“Do you remember the day you came home and announced you’d eloped?” Grandma Rose’s smile turned sentimental. “I was so happy for you both.”

If Gage was ill at ease with her grandmother’s reminiscences, he didn’t show it. His attention didn’t waver from Aubrey once while the older woman recounted the incident. Not that Aubrey had made eye contact with him. But she could feel his stare just as surely as if he’d reached over and laid a hand on her.

“I remember everything,” he said in a husky voice.

She remembered everything, too. And despite the scalding temperatures, a shiver ran through her.

Perhaps sensing Aubrey’s discomfort, Grandma Rose slapped the arms of the wheelchair. “Would you look at the time.” No one had so much as glanced at their watch. “We’d best be on the road, hadn’t we, Aubrey?”

“Yes,” she mumbled and gratefully rose.

Gage also stood and grabbed the back of her chair, pulling it out. She couldn’t help herself and looked at him. Given the sexually charged atmosphere in the SUV yesterday, she fully expected desire or longing to be reflected in his features. What she saw there caught her off guard and affected her far greater.

Sadness and, unless she was mistaken, regret. For their marriage, she wondered, or that it ended? She couldn’t tell, and maybe that was for the best.

“And I need to get back to work. That ramp won’t build itself.” Gage’s smile vanquished all trace of negative emotion from his face. “Can I help you into the car, Rose?”

“Yes, thank you. That would be nice. Aubrey, fetch my purse for me, will you? It’s on the kitchen counter.”

“Sure, Grandma.”

They were leaving at last. Retrieving her grandmother’s purse first and then hers, Aubrey headed back outside just as Gage was assisting Grandma Rose into the SUV. The scene was tender enough to give Aubrey pause.

He had no sooner buckled her grandmother’s seat belt when a series of loud beeps cut the air. Stepping away from the SUV, he reached for the radio hooked to his belt. Aubrey remembered seeing similar communication devices being used by the local ranchers. After listening to a garbled voice, Gage depressed a button and returned the radio to his belt, a frown creasing his brow. “I have to leave.”

“Problems at home?” Aubrey asked.

“No.”

Without so much as a wave goodbye, he abandoned Grandma Rose and hopped into his truck. Throwing it into Reverse, he tore out the driveway, the tires spewing a shower of gravel and dirt. He hadn’t even bothered to put the tailgate back up. His ball cap sailed out and landed at the end of the driveway.

“What the heck was that all about?” Aubrey asked after retrieving the cap and loading the wheelchair into the back of her SUV. It annoyed her that Gage would take off and leave the ramp half-done, not to mention a mess in the front yard.

“I suppose he got called to a fire,” Grandma Rose answered. “What fire?” She scanned the nearby rooftops. No telltale plume of gray-black smoke billowed skyward.

“In the mountains somewhere, I suppose.” She peered out the window. “Or anywhere in the state. Once they went to California and twice to Colorado.”

Aubrey jammed the key in the ignition, inexplicably irritated. “The volunteer fire department doesn’t travel outside Blue Ridge.”

“No. But the Blue Ridge Hotshots do. Gage is also a wilderness firefighter.”

Aubrey’s mind grappled with the unexpected information. “Since when?”

“For a while now. During the summers, mostly. He does something else with them the rest of the year, too, but I don’t know what. Part-time, of course. He still works the ranch with the family.”