Jan Freed - The Texas Way

The shame she’d been holding at bay all morning attacked full force. Her nose lifted, her muscles froze, her sight glazed—the defense mechanisms developed as a child were automatic now. She was only vaguely aware of the bacon sizzling. A popping noise produced a corresponding sting on her arm, but she didn’t flinch.

“Turn down the heat, Maggie! What are you trying to do, burn breakfast and the house? Can’t you even fry a batch of—”

“That’s enough, Scott.”

Gentle hands gripped her shoulders and pulled her back from the stove. Grant adjusted the control, reached for her wrist, and slowly uncurled her fist. His work-worn fingers moved up to probe an angry red circle on her pale skin.

“Let’s get some ice on that burn before it blisters.”

She searched his eyes and found only compassion, as if he knew her pain went much deeper than a grease burn. Her senses slowly thawed.

“I’m sorry about the pan, Mr. Hayes, and the bacon. I shouldn’t have been so…careless.” Scott’s accusation was convenient, and much kinder than the truth she had no intention of revealing.

Grant released her arm with a pat. “Call me Grant, remember? That ol’ skillet should’ve been tossed out along with the Nixon administration. And don’t apologize about the bacon. I like my meat on the burned side—just ask Scott. Been eatin’ his cookin’ for years and never complained.”

The older man’s lopsided, teasing grin added lines around his eyes and subtracted years from his face. It was easy to see where Scott’s masculine good looks came from. Heaven help her if the son ever emulated the father’s conscious effort to charm.

“Scott, you get an ice cube on this girl’s arm while I make us all some pancakes.” He led Margaret to the scratched kitchen table, pulled out a chair with courtly grace and waited.

“Really, Mr. Hayes…Grant. I can make pancakes if that’s what you want.”

“Let the princess fix her own breakfast,” Scott said. “I’ll make you some Eggbeaters, Dad.” Hunkered in front of the refrigerator, Scott threw down his sponge and rose to a standing position.

“Mind your manners, son. And take off that hat. Sit down, Margaret. Please.”

To refuse would be an insult. Carefully avoiding Scott’s eyes, she sat.

Grant rubbed his neck, drawing Margaret’s attention to his frayed sleeve cuff. She frowned. The cost of a single custom-made shirt from her father’s closet could buy a dozen replacements for the one Grant wore.

He dropped his arm and sighed. “If I eat one more bite of Eggbeaters, Scott, you’ll see last night’s dinner again. Only it won’t look near as appetizing this morning.”

“The doctor said—”

“Stirring batter is not going to raise my blood pressure. And one normal breakfast every now and then is not going to clog my arteries. Dr. Hearn was clear about that. You gotta quit treating me like an invalid, son, and trust me to take care of myself.”

The moment stretched, Grant’s obvious frustration gaining Margaret’s sincere sympathy. How many times had she encountered the same lack of trust in her own abilities?

Scott relented first. Setting his hat on the refrigerator, he opened the tiny freezer compartment and cracked loose an ice cube from a dented metal tray. Cube in hand, he stepped aside.

“Make my order a double stack,” he said wryly.

Breaking into a relieved smile, Grant moved forward and began rummaging for ingredients. Scott gave him a look of affectionate exasperation, then slowly turned his head.

Margaret tensed.

Their eyes met.

She felt his contempt like a physical blow. It simmered in his tawny eyes, along with something else, a sexual charisma that was as genetically inherent as his square jaw, as unconscious for him as breathing.

Her gaze faltered and dropped. He wore a white, Western-style shirt like his father’s. But where the material swallowed Grant’s gaunt torso, it strained against Scott’s muscular frame. She focused on a pearl snap button near his tooled leather belt, refusing to look lower, unable to look higher as he walked to stand in front of her.

“Hold out your arm, Maggie.”

He was too close, and he hated her. She tilted her head back. “I can take care of myself. I’m not an invalid any more than your father is.”

One minute he was towering over her, the next he was sitting in a chair with her hand on his thigh, his fingers clamping her wrist.

“Hold still now, this might get a little uncomfortable,” he said soothingly, his glittering eyes and viselike grip hidden from Grant.

Scott raised the dripping ice cube and pressed it against her burn. She yanked her arm and gasped, more stunned at his immovable strength than the shock of cold. Jerk. He knew she couldn’t do anything with his father mixing batter not fifteen feet away. She pressed her bare knees primly together and pretended they weren’t sandwiched between denim-covered muscles.

He looked different without a hat, she realized, staring. Up close, his hair was a thick, swirling mixture of chocolate browns and caramel highlights. It begged a woman’s fingers to plunge right in. As if sensing her thoughts, he looked up through sun-tipped lashes and smiled, a lazy curl of lips that did funny things to her stomach. Returning his focus to her burn, he rubbed the ice in small circles.

Her hands flexed, the one on his thigh noting muscles gone suddenly concrete. The ice cube released a fat drip. It rolled down the curve of her skin and joined the spreading wet spot on his jeans.

He gentled his hold on her wrist. “Feel better?”

The skin on her forearm felt frozen, the skin underneath on fire where he massaged her wild pulse with his thumb. She felt flustered, aroused and very, very confused. But better?

“I’ll be fine now, thanks.” She pulled back her arm, freeing her wrist and dislodging the ice. It slithered over her thigh and fell to the floor.

“How many pancakes can you eat, Margaret?” Grant called from the stove.

She tried to answer. She tried to do anything but shiver from the combined impact of frigid ice and a predatory gold stare.

“One,” she managed breathlessly.

“What was that?”

She dragged her gaze to Grant. “One.”

“Lost your appetite, princess?” Scott asked softly, his eyes slitted with knowing amusement.

He was insufferable. He’d been insufferable from the time they’d first met. But she wasn’t a painfully shy teenager anymore. She was her own person, a woman strong enough to stand alone.

She scraped back her chair and stood.

“I changed my mind, Grant, I’ll have a short stack…with bacon.” She sent Scott a scathing look. “Suddenly I could eat a pig.”

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Ada Butler cut the engine of her pickup and resisted the urge to check her face in the rearview mirror. Silly fool. Powder and a dab of lipstick wouldn’t disguise forty-nine years of hard living. Besides, Grant wouldn’t notice if she dyed her salt-and-pepper hair green and danced naked on his bed.

She smoothed her jeans, anyway, and wished briefly she hadn’t changed from her Sunday dress. The minister’d said the blue silk matched her eyes. Then again, it was his Christian duty to say something charitable about everyone—especially aging spinsters.

With a huff of self-disgust, she slid out of the truck and scanned the dirt yard. Her squinted eyes widened on a flashy red Porsche by the barn. Who on earth was here? She spun toward the house and shaded her eyes with one hand.

The yellow clapboards shimmered in the midday sun, every curl of paint glaringly exposed. Missing shingles pockmarked the roof. The long front porch sagged in the middle, surely more so than the last time she’d stopped by? Dropping her hand, she frowned and moved toward the house.