A Kiss In The Moonlight

Trevor heaved another sigh. If his uncle wanted to invite his deceased wife’s cousin to visit, there was nothing he could do about it. Why Lyric had come with her aunt was the thing he didn’t get.

Pasting a pleasant—he hoped—smile on his face, he carried two plates into the other room and gave one to Lyric while his uncle presented one to the aunt, then took the chair beside her and attentively asked about the trip and all that had been happening to her of late.

Trevor sat on the far end of the sofa from Lyric. Neither of them said a word for the next fifteen minutes.

“Trev, would you take the plates to the kitchen and bring out the coffee?” Uncle Nick turned to Fay. “I put on a pot of decaffeinated coffee. It should be ready. I find I can’t sleep if I drink regular coffee at night.”

“I have the same problem,” she said.

Trevor met Lyric’s gaze, and they exchanged spontaneous smiles as the older couple discussed aging and the changes it brought.

Lyric’s eyes reminded him of a brown velvet dress Aunt Milly had loved to wear. As a kid he’d once stroked the soft material and observed the way the light changed when the nap was smoothed down. Lyric’s eyes were like that—changing from brown to gold as the light reflected off the golden flecks around the black pupil.

He wiped the smile off and looked away. He wanted nothing to do with her. No memories, no shared amusement over the old folks, nothing!

“I’ll get the coffee,” he said.

In the kitchen he sucked in a harsh breath and wondered how long this visit was going to last. Not that he wouldn’t get through it just fine. After all, no one in his family knew he’d made a fool of himself over a woman who had been engaged to another and, in the end, had chosen that man over him.

He’d lived through worse. The death of his parents. The death of his twin’s first wife, whom he’d been half in love with all his growing-up years. The end of his rodeo career when he’d caved in several ribs and been advised by the doc to hang up his spurs. Yeah, life was tough.

Hearing steps behind him, he stopped the useless introspection and turned his head.

“I thought I would see if I could help,” Lyric said.

Her eyes searched his face anxiously, as if she sought something from him. Welcome? Understanding? Forgiveness? She’d come to the wrong place if she thought he had anything left for her.

He stifled the angry words that rushed to his tongue. “Sure. Bring the sugar bowl and cream pitcher. I’ll carry the cups on the tray.”

He picked up the walnut tray he’d made in shop class in tenth grade years ago. Part of him was keenly aware of the woman who followed him into the other room.

After the coffee was served, the two seniors went back to their conversation without a hitch, obviously interested in catching up on the other’s life since they’d last met twenty years ago. His uncle’s face beamed in pleasure, and Lyric’s aunt looked ten years younger in spite of the bruising on her face.

A lump came to Trevor’s throat. It wasn’t often that sentiment caught up with him, but he felt an overpowering love for this man whose heart had been big enough to take in six kids without a complaint, who’d buried his own wife with quiet grief no more than a year later and who’d lost his own daughter and had never known what happened to the child. Footprints and tire marks had indicated someone had taken three-year-old Tink from the scene of the wreck and left with her, but no one was really sure what had happened.

God, how had the kind, loving uncle stood the pain?

By holding on and meeting each new sunrise one day at a time, Trevor knew. Just as he’d done last fall and winter until he’d finally confined all the pain, anger and sense of betrayal to the little black box that was his soul. He’d locked it away and learned to live with it. He would keep on doing that.

Finally the group was ready for bed. He brought in luggage for the aunt and though Lyric insisted on getting her own, he determinedly took her larger suitcase and marched into the house. She trailed behind.

Uncle Nick assigned the older guest to the suite at the end of the west wing. The rose-colored room had its own bathroom and sitting area. Lyric was put in the spare room next to it.

Unfortunately his room was next door to hers, and they would have to share the bath across the hall.

Not at the same time, he hastened to add as his libido picked up on this idea. Okay, so there was still a physical attraction. So what? For a brief moment Trevor considered moving to his cousin’s old room in the other wing of the house, but knew that was stupid. He wasn’t going to let a woman make him run like a startled deer.

After he saw to the aunt’s luggage, he carried Lyric’s large case next door. She stood by the bed, her eyes taking in the furnishings.

He set the case on the cedar chest at the end of the bed. The words escaped before he fully realized he was going to say them. “So how’s your fiancé?” he asked.

She gazed at him with her soft, doe-like eyes. He saw her throat move as she swallowed, then her breasts—those gorgeous full breasts—lifted as she took a deep breath and slowly released it.

“Lyle—” she began, then stopped as unreadable emotions flickered across her face.

The name was a stab in the gut. Lyle and Lyric, as if they were a matched pair, meant for each other.

“Does it matter?” she finally asked in a strained voice.

He shrugged and left the tempting bedroom before he did something he’d regret—like grab her and crush her to him, like make good use of the bed behind them, like beg her to say she was sorry she’d chosen another over him.

And why the hell didn’t she wear an engagement ring like other women?

Chapter Two

On shaky legs, Lyric closed the door, then unzipped the smaller of her two cases. She pulled out the red ankle-length nightshirt made like a football jersey with the numeral one printed on it, a gift from her two brothers last Christmas, then sat on the cedar chest, the jersey clutched to her breasts.

Had Aunt Fay lied about her being included in the invitation to the ranch? If not, then it certainly wasn’t Trevor who’d asked for her presence. His uncle? The silver-haired rancher had never met her, so why should he?

With lethal humor, she wished she were still lost on the country roads, driving around and around in endless circles going nowhere. Because at the present moment she felt she’d crossed over into the Twilight Zone.

Lifting her chin, she decided she and Trevor would have to make the best of things. Her aunt planned on staying for the rest of the month.

Of course, she could leave Aunt Fay at the Daltons and go back home. But the hill country of Texas was a long way from Idaho. Since her beloved relative refused to fly, Lyric would have to return for her at the end of the month.

Her shoulders slumped. It was Trevor’s duty visit to her aunt—at his uncle’s insistence—that had started this whole farce. Closing her eyes, she wondered why life had to be so hard. Tears crowded against her eyes. She held on until they eased and she could think again.

She’d foolishly believed that Trevor had been instrumental in inviting her to the Dalton ranch. She’d thought this meant another chance for them and that he wanted it, too. She’d been wrong, terribly wrong.

There were two choices, she decided. She could crawl into a hole inside herself and wallow in self-pity, or she could refuse to be put off by Trevor’s lack of welcome and endure. She was good at enduring.

With a sigh she changed to the nightshirt, unpacked her clothes and put them in the maple dresser. Its beveled, triple mirrors reflected her unhappy countenance back at her from several angles. Red streaks on either side of her nose indicated the bruises that would be visible by morning.

They were nothing compared to the bruises on her heart. She recounted the tragedies life had thrown her way the past eighteen months: the putting to sleep of Scruffs, a lovable and loving stray cat she’d taken in fifteen years ago, due to kidney disease; the divorce of her parents after thirty years of marriage; and then the accident in which Lyle, who lived on the next ranch and had been a friend from birth, had been injured.

The tears pressed close again. She’d cried enough this past year and a half to flood the Rio Grande. Her aunt had told her it was time she put the past behind and started over, that she was young and had all the future before her.

Lyric gave a soft laugh, but it wasn’t a happy sound. She hadn’t felt young in ages.

Except for one delirious three-week period when a rangy, blue-eyed cowboy had visited Austin for the stock sale. Trevor was twenty-eight to her twenty-four. He’d made her laugh with his jokes and teasing. He’d thrilled her with the way he’d stared at her. She’d done the same, both unable to take their eyes off the other. And his kisses…

A shiver ran over her as she remembered their kisses. Even though they’d had to be careful because of his broken ribs, she’d never been kissed like that, had never responded the way she had to him. It had been wonderful…exciting…and terribly confusing.

She’d never felt that way about Lyle. That fact had added to the uncertainty in her, that plus the quarrel she and Lyle had had the previous month.

She’d refused to set a date for the wedding or to wear his ring. Lyle had been angry. Before he’d gone out of town on business, he’d told her to make up her mind about them before he returned. Or else.

She’d told him then that she wasn’t sure she could go through with the marriage. She wasn’t ready to be tied down.

Tied down. That seemed an odd way to describe what should have been one of the most exciting times in a woman’s life. It wasn’t until she met Trevor that the doubts became focused and clear as to why she couldn’t marry her old friend. She didn’t love him that way.

But then there had been the accident. Trevor had been at her house, having dinner with her, her mom and Aunt Fay when the call came.

“That was Lyle’s mother,” she’d said to the other three when she’d hung up the phone. “He’s been in an accident near San Antonio and is in intensive care. She said I should come to the hospital at once. He’s asking for me.”

“Who’s Lyle?” Trevor had asked.

“Her fiancé,” her mom had answered.

Lyric would never forget the shock, the disbelief, then the fury on Trevor’s face as he absorbed this news. “Is that true?” he’d asked.

“No, not exactly. Lyle’s been out of town on business this past month,” she’d said, stumbling over the words, anxious to wipe the anger from his eyes, the disgust now curling his lips, the accusation in the question.

“How convenient,” he’d said.

She realized he thought she was a cheat and deceiver of the first order. “We weren’t officially engaged. I was supposed to be thinking it over while he was gone.”

“One last fling before tying the knot,” Trevor had murmured sardonically, his eyes black pools of anger.

“No—”

“We’d better go, Lyric,” her mother had interrupted. “The accident sounds serious.”

“Yes. We have to go,” she’d said to Trevor, knowing she had no choice.

With her aunt hovering anxiously, and Trevor standing as still as a statue, she and her mom had rushed off into the night, arriving at the hospital an hour later.

Lyle’s mother had been distraught. A widow with no immediate family, she’d needed them desperately. The doctors had discovered a tumor in her son’s head, one that was inoperable. That was why he’d passed out while driving.

“Trevor,” Lyric now whispered to the absent cowboy who’d filled her heart with delight for a short time, “how could I have left him then?”

After talking to the doctors and knowing Lyle would never recover and that his future was very uncertain, she’d known she couldn’t desert him.

Trevor had left the state before she could get back to him. It was just as well. She’d been going to ask him to wait for her, but she knew whatever Trevor had felt for her had turned into hatred. She’d seen it in his eyes tonight when he’d given her the ice bag.

Gathering her toiletry case, she admitted she couldn’t have done otherwise and lived with herself. Not even for a man who’d made her heart sing could she have turned her back on her friend’s need.

Morning came early on a ranch. Lyric wasn’t naturally an early riser, but living on her father’s ranch had made her one. Last year, after the divorce, her mother had moved to Austin. Lyric divided her time equally between the two homes and had visited frequently with Aunt Fay who also lived in the city.

As administrator of a four-family trust set up by her grandparents and three other couples who were all friends and whose parents had founded an oil company together in the early 1900s, Lyric had had a busy life since college, spending her time approving grants and participating in various charity functions for the trust foundation. It was a job she could do from anywhere on her laptop computer.

Forcing her reluctant body from the comfortable bed, she went into the bathroom to shower. At once her senses were assailed by a familiar aftershave, by the clean smell of balsam shampoo and soap, and by the memory of being enveloped in Trevor’s arms.

She’d loved snuggling her nose against his neck and feeling his arms around her, holding her close, as close as his poor injured ribs could take.

At times during the long, dreary winter, she’d ached to crawl into his embrace and rest there, too weary to ever move again. Trevor, her strong, gentle love…

But none of that was to be, she reminded the longing that rose to choke her. As some wise person had observed long ago: you made your bed; you slept in it. Alone.

She pulled off the jersey and stepped into the shower. Twenty minutes later, hair dry and held off her face in a ponytail, wearing jeans, a knit top and a determined smile, she went into the kitchen.

“Good morning, Lyric,” her aunt greeted her.

“Did you sleep okay?” Trevor’s uncle asked.

She smiled at the two who lingered at the table with coffee and the newspaper. “Good morning, Aunt Fay, Mr. Dalton. Yes, I slept like a log. Your air is much cooler and conducive to sleep up here,” she said.

“It’s the mountains,” the uncle said. “And Mr. Dalton was my father. Everyone calls me Uncle Nick.”

“Uncle Nick,” she repeated. Spotting mugs on a rack beside the coffeemaker, she poured a cup and sipped the hot brew that was just the way the ranch cook made it in Texas. “Mmm, delicious.”

“Trevor left pancakes and sausage in the oven,” the uncle told her.

For the briefest second, she hesitated, then she opened the oven door and removed the plate. Perfect golden circles edged by two links of sausage were ready for eating. Her tummy rumbled, reminding her she hadn’t had much food the previous day. She’d been too tense and excited to eat.

So much for great expectations.

“There’s milk in the refrigerator,” Aunt Fay told her, peering over her glasses.

Lyric poured a glass and took it, along with the coffee and food, to the table. The older couple moved newspaper sections to give her room. She ate in silence while they read and exchanged tidbits from the news.

“Trevor and Travis are in the paddock,” Uncle Nick told her when she finished. “They’re working with some green cutting horses. Do you need to go to the doctor?”

“No, thanks. I’m stiff but everything works.” After refreshing everyone’s coffee, she donned a hat and sunglasses, then carried her mug outside and ambled over to the wooden railing of the paddock beside the stable.

The man astride a beautiful bay gelding with black tail and mane looked exactly like Trevor. She knew in a glance that it wasn’t. “You must be Travis,” she said, leaning on the top rail.

“You got it right in one guess,” he told her, his smile brilliant against his tanned face and heartbreakingly like his twin’s. “What tipped you off?”

“Your smile is friendly.”

He guided the horse around the longe post and stopped it near her. “My brother’s isn’t?”

She wished she hadn’t been quite so candid. “Maybe I take things too personally,” she finally said in a light tone as if she were only joking.

The stable door opened. Trevor ducked his head and rode into the paddock on a magnificent black stallion.

“Oh,” she murmured.

“Beautiful, isn’t he?” Travis nudged the gelding closer to the rails as Trevor put the stallion through several routines such as spinning in a circle and backing, then standing beside a gate while his rider opened it. The two, moving as one, rode out into the pasture.

“What’s his name?” Lyric asked, gazing after Trevor and his mount.

“Boa’s Ebony. Eb for short.” Travis glanced toward the pasture, then back at her. “You ride?”

“Does Texas have cactus?” she countered.

“I’ll cut you out a sweet little mare,” he said and followed his twin into the pasture.

Five minutes later, he returned with a roan mare. Lyric joined him in the stable. She picked out a saddle and waited while Travis outfitted the mare, then he offered her a leg up. She left her coffee mug on a shelf and swung into the well-used saddle, ignoring the pain in sore muscles.

“Feels good,” she said.

He nodded. “Let’s go.” He led the mare outside to where he’d tied his mount.

The mare didn’t need guiding. She dutifully followed the gelding along a dirt track across an adjoining meadow.

They were heading toward a tree-lined ridge, Lyric realized. The ridge defined the beginning of forest and hills that rose ever upward. In the distance one peak stood above several others.

“Is that He-Devil Mountain?” she called to her escort.

He followed her line of sight. “Yes. There are seven peaks that form a sort of semicircle along Hells Canyon. He-Devil is the highest at a bit over 9300 feet.”

Hearing the staccato beat of hooves, Lyric looked over her right shoulder in time to see Trevor and the big stallion leap the stock fence of the pasture. They made a perfect picture against the brilliant azure of the sky as they sailed over the fence with a foot to spare.

Her heart rose with them and lodged in her throat, making it all but impossible to breathe.

“Trev was quiet for a long time after he returned from the rodeo circuit last October,” his twin remarked in a musing tone. “Some of us figured he’d met someone and fallen hard. Was that someone you?”

She tried to smile as if the idea was absurd, but it wouldn’t come. “What makes you think that?”

“Vibes. Or maybe it’s just that he’s quiet again this morning. I don’t think your aunt is the cause, so that leaves you.”

“There isn’t anything between us,” she managed to say.

His eyes, as blue as his twin’s, narrowed as he studied her. “I think there is.”

“He hates me.” The words, spoken aloud, were stark.

“Why don’t you two talk it over and clear things up?”

“I…I tried. I wrote him.”

Travis heaved an audible breath. “Yeah, he’s hard-headed. Don’t give up on him,” he advised.

“I’m only here because of my aunt. She wanted to visit.” The lie nearly stuck to her tongue. “Where are we going?” she asked to divert attention to their journey.

“The Devil’s Dining Room,” Travis said just as his twin rode up.

The stallion pressed close to the mare, crowding between her and the gelding as if establishing his claim. Trevor’s booted foot brushed hers. Even that brief contact was enough to send needles of fire along her leg.

She reined the mare away. “There seems to be a pattern of black markings on your ranch.” She spoke to Travis, but it was Trevor who answered.

“There is,” he said, letting the stallion take the lead while his twin fell in behind them on the gelding. “Your mount and the gelding are both out of a retired stud. The mare will be bred to Eb here when she’s ready.”

Lyric nodded stiffly. While familiar with all aspects of ranching, breeding and all that it implied were not topics she wanted to discuss with him.

The stallion tossed its head and pranced.

“He wants a run,” Trevor called. “You game?”

She considered her aches, but nodded anyway.

“Ready, set, go,” Travis yelled behind them.

The mare took off a split second after the stallion did, almost taking her rider by surprise. Lyric leaned forward as excitement gripped her.

The mare and stallion raced side by side across the wide meadow. Their hooves pounded in time with the beat of her pulse as she urged the mare on.

“Yi, yi, yi,” she heard Trevor shout, pushing the stallion to a faster pace.

Trevor and the stallion edged forward, outrunning her and the smaller horse. Lyric didn’t ask for more. She knew the mare was giving her all. Surprisingly they closed the gap and came abreast of the other two again.

Trevor looked over at her. Her heart did a somersault at the intensity of his stare. Then the larger horse stretched out and left them in the dust.

Lyric pulled up the mare and watched as the magnificent black beast ran like some mythical creature, hardly touching the ground as it flowed effortlessly with the wind. The rider seemed part of the magic, blending every movement with that of the stallion as they made a great circle.

At last, rider and mount, at a canter now, returned to her and the mare. Trevor’s twin, she saw, had gone back to the paddock. Without direction on her part, her horse again followed the other one.

They rode for an hour in silence, until they came upon a stream.

“Let them drink,” Trevor said.

She loosened the reins so the mare could dip her head into the tiny creek that wound down the ridge. After that, they rode on, heading for the top and coming out on a flat cliff that had a wonderful view of the ranch.

“The Devil’s Dining Room,” he said, dismounting.

Lyric did the same and ground-hitched her horse when he did. Trevor let her step up on a boulder, then onto a giant flat piece of granite that jutted over the cliff before he climbed up.

When he sat on the ledge and let his legs dangle over the side, she did, too, although not without misgivings.

“This rock has held all the Daltons at once without falling,” he told her.

“There’s always a first time,” she muttered, staring down into the lovely little valley. The ranch house looked like something for a doll from up here.

Gazing west, she observed the peaks spread out into the distance. “In Texas, you said the seven peaks were named for seven devils that used to come over and eat the children of the people here until Coyote changed them into mountains.”

“That’s the legend,” he agreed.

“He-Devil is the tallest. I saw the name on a road sign. Do the others have names?”

“The Devil’s Tooth, Mount Ogre, Mount Baal, the Tower of Babel, the Goblin.”

“That’s five, plus He-Devil. What’s the other one?”

He turned those blue eyes on her. Without blinking, he said, “She-Devil.”

It was the breeze, playfully tugging at their hats that finally broke their locked gazes and the silent struggle between them.

“Is that what you think of me?” she asked softly, as if by speaking the words that way, the answer might not hurt.

He set his hat more firmly on his head. “Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

Glancing at her once more, he shrugged and rose. “Let’s just say I don’t think much of a woman who kisses one man while engaged to another.” He leaped down to the smaller boulder, then to the ground.

Lyric stood on the hunk of granite and contemplated several retorts. None seemed worthy.

“Didn’t you get my letter?” she finally asked when she, too, stood on the ground by the boulders.

He nodded without looking at her.

In the letter she’d tried to explain why her mother had thought she was engaged and why she really hadn’t been. She tried again. “Lyle and I were at an impasse. He wanted to announce a wedding date. I wasn’t sure enough about us to do that. We weren’t engaged, not really.”