A Mother's Love (18 page)

“Is that right?” she murmured.

“Oh, yes,” Ellen answered, apparently oblivious to the frustration seething under Christa's skin.

“I'm sure you don't mind,” her mother went on blithely, “but I've invited him to have dinner with us.”

So much for any ideas she might have briefly entertained on the short drive home about spending a quiet evening at
home with her mother and daughter. Any pleasure she had found in the lovely spring evening seemed to float away on the breeze.

Her mouth tightened. What was his game? She had quite firmly rejected him the other day. Given that, why on earth would any man still want to hang around with her and her sixty-year-old mother and her brain-injured teenager?

She wanted to tell him to go back to his starlets and his sultry country music stars and leave her and her little family alone. But of course she couldn't. This was her mother's house, and Ellen could invite anyone she darn well pleased to dinner.

“Lovely,” Christa murmured instead.

He sent her a swift look as he helped Hope back into her wheelchair, and she could swear she saw him wink, as if he knew exactly the dire thoughts racing through her mind.

 

S
HE WAS ANGRY
.

All through Ellen's mouthwatering pot roast and creamy mashed potatoes, she concealed it. She was polite to him as she passed the peas or another roll and she even smiled a few times, usually at her daughter but sometimes at Ellen and even once at something he said.

She was cordial and good-humored, but underneath it he sensed the slow burn of her temper, just waiting to flare.

She said nothing through the delectable dessert Ellen produced—a crunchy, golden-crusted peach cobbler that would have brought a lesser man to tears, served with vanilla ice cream.

He finished every scrap on his plate and would have licked it clean if his grandmother hadn't raised him better. Christa, on the other hand, barely touched hers.

When they all finished, she rose from the table and started clearing away dishes.

“I can get these,” Ellen said. “Just relax. You've been working at the store all day.”

“And you've been working here all day, which is every bit as hard. You're the one who needs a rest.”

“You
both
rest. I'll clean up,” Hope interjected with her labored speech before the argument could turn heated.

Both women smiled and Christa hugged her daughter's shoulders. Jace swallowed a lump in his throat at the obvious affection between the three of them.

“Why don't we all do it?” he suggested. “Junemarie used to say something about many hands making light work.”

“Good idea,” Ellen said.

The four of them quickly cleared the dishes away and loaded them into the dishwasher.

When they finished, Christa wiped her hands on a dish towel. “I need to go feed the horses,” she said.

“Oh, we should have taken care of that when we were down there,” Ellen said, apology in her eyes. “You've been doing the chore for so long I don't even think about it anymore.”

“It's no big deal. It won't take me long.”

Jace stood. “I'll come with you.”

A small, tight smile crossed her lovely features. “That's really not necessary.”

“Many hands make light work, remember?”

She studied him for a long moment, then she shrugged. “Fine. Come on, then.”

She had been simmering all through dinner, and he figured it was almost time for her temper to blow. As he was the cause of it, the least he could do was step up and take
the sharp edge of her tongue like a man—especially since he knew damn well he deserved it.

They walked in silence until they reached the small, well-kept horse pasture. The Arabians were beautiful, high-spirited animals and they sniffed the air when Christa and Jace approached.

She murmured in a low voice to both of them, and without hesitation both horses trotted to the fence and nudged at her with affection, much as they had done earlier with Hope.

“They're magnificent animals,” he said.

“They are. My father loved them. He rode every day of his life, up until he dropped dead of a heart attack. Hope loved to ride them, too, before the accident.”

“I guess they're a little high-strung for her now.”

She sighed. “You could say that. They're both gentle as can be most of the time. But I would worry about those times they tend to get a little overexcited.”

She went about the business of feeding and watering them—something he should have handled for her earlier if he'd been thinking.

He helped as much as she would let him. Finally he decided he might as well jump feet-first into the fire rather than stand here being scorched by excruciating inches.

“Go ahead. Spill it.”

“Spill what?”

“The ire you're itching to pour on me. I know you're not happy I stayed for dinner.”

“You're a guest of my mother's,” she said promptly. “This is her home and she's certainly free to invite anyone she wants for dinner. Beyond that, Hope is obviously thrilled to spend even a minute with you, so I have no right to be annoyed.”

“But you are.”

She was quiet for a long moment, her face a pale, lovely blur in the gathering twilight. “Yes,” she finally said, her voice low. “This is…awkward for me.”

“I didn't mean for this to happen, if that helps at all. I really was just driving on my way back to the Silver Spur from the feed store and I happened to see Ellen and Hope. I stopped to say hello, and before I quite knew what happened I was pushing Hope's wheelchair while we walked and Ellen and I were talking about the Busybees and they both sort of invited me to stay for dinner.”

“You could have said no,” Christa pointed out. “It would have been easier all the way around.”

“I could have,” he agreed. “But I didn't want to.”

“Even after the…after the other day? I told you I wasn't interested in anything with you. I haven't changed my mind.”

Her words were firm enough, but he thought he heard a slender thread of uncertainty in her voice, just enough to make him wonder if she wasn't as unaffected by him as she wanted him to think.

No. He was probably imagining things. Damn it.

“Lucky for me, my ego is healthy enough to survive a little rejection. It's bigger than my horse, remember?”

“How can I forget?” she muttered.

He laughed, charmed by this lovely woman with more prickles than a whole field of burdock.

“Anyway, my accepting an invitation to dinner from your mother and daughter wasn't about you. Or at least not
completely
about you.”

“What was it about?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I enjoyed the afternoon with your mother
and Hope. More than any afternoon I've had in a long time. Ellen knows everything there is to know about Sage Flats and the people who live here. She's full of funny stories about the mayor's pigs and Betty Renfrew's hair-color-gone-wrong and the time Tag Jensen was cornered by his prize bull and ended up stuck in a tree all afternoon.

“And Hope,” he went on. “She's just…amazing.”

She was just about the most courageous person he'd ever met. He smiled, remembering how she had laughed at his jokes and even told some of her own. He was getting better at understanding her labored speech.

“Is it my imagination or is she using her hands better than she did before we went riding?”

Christa nodded. “We've been working on writing her name for a long time now, and she just hasn't quite been able to master it until after we went riding. The day after equine therapy, she wrote it plain as can be—and she's been doing it ever since.”

“Writing her name? That seems an odd skill to be affected by riding a horse. I wouldn't think the two would go together.”

“Who knows? Maybe some hand-brain connection clicked in while she was holding the reins. I'm not going to question the mechanics of it, I'm only grateful for the result.”

“It's an amazing thing Hank is doing with his retirement, isn't it? If not for his granddaughter with Down syndrome, I'm sure he never would have come up with the idea to start the center. And now look what he's accomplishing. It's not every day a guy like me gets to be part of a miracle.”

Hank was changing lives, helping children, while Jace had spent the better part of two years wasting every single chance he'd been given with self-indulgence.

She was silent for a few moments, watching the horses enjoy their dinner. When she turned to him, her eyes were softer than they'd been when they left the house. “You're a tough man to stay angry with. How does anyone do it?”

“Lots of practice?”

She laughed out loud, something he sensed she didn't do nearly often enough these days, and a warm sense of accomplishment bubbled up inside him. Maybe his life wasn't completely a waste if he could bring a little laughter into her world.

He wanted more, he suddenly realized as he watched her features relax. She was extraordinarily lovely in the dusky light, her features soft, subdued like a pastel watercolor.

He ached to touch that skin along her jawline, to trace a finger there and feel the softness, then learn the curves and hollows of her smile.

She turned to him, still smiling, but her gaze collided with his and after a moment the smile slid away, replaced by something else—wariness, awareness, hunger. He wasn't quite sure.

He only knew he had to kiss her.

C
HRISTA HELD HER
breath, her heart racing in her chest like Shiloh on a wide stretch of alpine meadow.

He was going to kiss her. She had seen his gaze flicker to her mouth and saw the sudden heat flare there.

Anticipation swirled inside her, rich and sweet as the finest Belgian chocolate.

He was going to kiss her—and she was going to let him. Just one taste. That's all she wanted, one heady, delicious taste of him that she could savor after he went back to his whirlwind life and she was left here amid the tumult of hers.

It was foolish, she knew. Selfish, even. But didn't she deserve a little respite from her constant stress over Hope? Surely heaven couldn't begrudge her this one indulgence.

She held her breath as he slowly moved closer, his eyes dark as a moonless night. At last—at long, long last—his mouth found hers with an aching, unexpected gentleness.

She shivered and closed her eyes as his heat and strength surrounded her. He smelled a thousand times better up close—of pine and sage and life, like her favorite mountain trail after a spring rain shower.

She was vaguely aware of the sounds of evening around them—crickets chirping somewhere, one of the horses whinnying, the wind sighing in the top of the huge elm tree.

Mostly she was consumed by Jace. The taste of him, the silk of his hair beneath her fingertips, the leashed strength in his muscled frame.

Oh, heaven.

She leaned into him, wanting this stolen moment to stretch out forever, like a sultry, endless summer afternoon. He deepened the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers, and she lost all reason as heat and hunger churned through her. She wanted to be closer—and closer still.

When he finally drew away from her, they were both breathing hard, and beneath her fingertips she could feel his heartbeat, as urgent and fast as her own.

It took her several moments before she could string any coherent thoughts together and force herself to step away.

“Okay, you've obviously made your point,” she finally said, her voice rough.

He waited several beats before answering. “Did I…have a point?”

He looked slightly dazed; his eyes had a vague, unfocused look to them. She sternly told herself not to find that flattering in the least.

“Wasn't this some sort of object lesson? I'm attracted to you. I told you as much the other day. Obviously that hasn't changed, but neither has anything else.”

Not exactly true, she admitted. She was now even more attracted to him, and not just on the obvious visceral level. Yes, she responded to him physically, but watching him charm both her daughter and her mother during dinner had stirred something in her heart—something far more dangerous than simple attraction.

She was beginning to discover he wasn't the feckless ex
rodeo star she wanted to think him, concerned with nothing but his image.

Jace was different. He had befriended a girl who could barely communicate and he had been inordinately kind to her mother, listening to her humble stories about Sage Flats as if he found them the most fascinating tales in the world.

Blast him! It had been far easier to tell herself she couldn't possibly be interested in a man like him before he'd shown all these other facets that proved her wrong.

“Okay,” he finally answered. “You're attracted to me, but nothing has changed. Good to know.”

She sighed, feeling foolish all over again. “I get the impression you're a man who likes to get his own way.”

He leaned a hip against the fence post and crossed his arms over his chest. “Guilty. I'll admit it. I do like to get my own way. Sorry. So does that make me particularly unusual among the men you know?”

A half laugh slipped out before she could jerk it back. “No. Of course not. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most men do, I'll give you that. But not only do you like your own way, you also strike me as a man unaccustomed to hearing the word
no.
I think maybe you wanted to show me what I was missing. Why else would you kiss me?”

She had never noticed he had a little indentation on the side of his mouth that quirked when he was amused.

“Why else?” he asked dryly. “And did I?”

“I'm not stupid,” she said, though of course it was a blatant lie. Only an idiot would think she could kiss Jace McCandless and be content with one little kiss.

“You're gorgeous, successful, loaded and just about the sexiest man I've ever met,” she went on. “Of
course
I know what I'm missing! That doesn't change one thing about
what I said the other day—that I'm not interested in some kind of…of fling with you.”

He opened his mouth and she braced herself for arguments. Instead he closed it again and gazed out at the horses for a long moment, now just silhouettes in the gathering darkness.

When he finally turned to her and spoke, she had the definite impression he had originally intended to say something else.

“It might surprise you to know that I didn't have any ulterior motive by kissing you. It was one of those just-can't-help-myself moments. I'm not sorry for it, though. Not one damn bit. I should probably confess I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

Again she fought down the impulse to be flattered. “All the more reason for me to ask you to leave me and my family alone.”

She was such a coward. Could he tell how much the idea of falling for him terrified her? Oh, she hoped not.

“You don't trust yourself very much, do you?”

She flushed. “Wh-what do you mean?”

He shrugged. “I said I would probably try to kiss you again. But if you have such strong objections—as you apparently do—there's no reason you have to let me.”

She released a relieved sigh. He didn't suspect exactly how weak she really was inside, how she was just another kiss or two away from falling hard for him, like every other female he'd ever met.

With supreme effort, she forced herself to give him a cool look. “My life is in chaos right now, Jace. I'm sure this is a shock to that profoundly healthy ego of yours that we've discussed at length, but did it ever occur to you that maybe
I have better things to do with my time and energy than spend my limited free time fighting you off?”

He laughed so hard the horses trotted over to investigate. “Fair enough. But what about Ellen and Hope? They've invited me to visit again, and I'd like to come.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I like being with them. Today was just about the best day I've spent since…well, in a long time.”

The wise thing would be to tell him not to come around. It was the easy road, the comfortable one.

But she couldn't deny that Hope seemed to try harder at relearning skills when Jace was around. If he motivated her to work harder, surely Christa could control herself around him.

“I guess I'm okay with that.” Cool evening air swirled around them, and she shivered a little, with the oddest feeling that she had just made a terrible mistake.

She scrambled to regain her footing. “I need to set some conditions, though.”

“Such as?”

“If I feel that spending time with you is detrimental for my daughter—hindering her rehab progress in any way—I will insist on no future contact. I want your word that if I believe it's in Hope's best interest, you'll agree to stay away.”

“Just on your opinion alone?”

“I'm her mother,” she said bluntly. “Right now my opinion is the only one that matters.”

“Not Ellen's?”

“I owe my mother more than I can ever repay for all the help she's been the last five months. But I'm still Hope's mother and I'm ultimately the one responsible for her care.
I try to listen to Ellen's opinion when it comes to Hope, but in the end I have to trust my own judgment about what's best for my daughter.”

It was all she could do, she thought, though sometimes the weight of that task seemed heavier than she could bear.

“All right,” he finally said. “If you feel my presence isn't helping Hope, I'll agree to back off.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, somewhat surprised at how readily he agreed. “We should probably go back to the house or they'll be wondering where we are.”

He nodded and followed her back up the rocky pathway toward home.

 

I
T LOOKED AS IF HER
luck had finally run out—or finally caught up with her, depending on how she wanted to look at things.

Nearly two weeks after their intense kiss and equally intense conversation by the barn, Christa pulled into the driveway of her mother's house beside a familiar gleaming silver pickup truck.

Nerves skittered through her, equal parts excitement and wariness.

She hadn't seen Jace since the evening Ellen had invited him for dinner, though she was grimly aware that had to be more a matter of coincidence than anything else.

Or perhaps he had taken her concerns to heart and done his best to stay out of her way.

She wasn't exactly sure how she felt about that. Had she given him the impression she wanted nothing at all to do with him?

Probably, she admitted. She had been running scared of the fledgling emotion taking root in her heart.

Two weeks away from him had done nothing to yank it
out, especially since she couldn't escape him, even when he wasn't physically present.

She sighed, looking at all the evidence of his handiwork around her mother's place. The graceful new redwood ramp he had built off the back porch. The smooth-as-glass new sidewalk he'd poured the week before down to the horse barn so Hope could visit Shiloh and Shane. The new coat of white paint on the fence that made the whole property seem brighter, happier somehow.

She wasn't sure how she felt about all those improvements, either. She supposed in her heart she still hoped the wheelchair and the accommodations necessary for it wouldn't be needed for much longer. At the same time, this was her mother's house. Since Ellen had obviously given permission for the changes, Christa couldn't very well complain.

Besides, universal design elements such as ramps and smooth sidewalks made sense for more than just someone using a wheelchair. Though Christa didn't like to think about it, Ellen wasn't getting any younger, and those same things that made it easier to push a wheelchair also helped ease the way for aging bones and joints.

Jace had settled right into their lives—or at least into Ellen's and Hope's.

Christa hadn't even seen him at Hope's second equine therapy session, since an emergency at the store had demanded her presence and Ellen had ended up taking her.

Hope had spent the entire evening afterward trying to squeeze the words out to tell Christa about how she had ridden by herself and Jace had walked her around on the lead line and how Debbie, the center physical therapist, said next time she might even be able to trot.

Jace had occupied much of Hope's conversation the last two weeks. He seemed to spend every afternoon Christa was working at the house, and one memorable evening when she'd had a chamber of commerce meeting he had invited Ellen and Hope to his ranch, the Silver Spur, for dinner.

He'd taken them both for a tour of his ranch on a horse and old-fashioned buggy he had on the property, and Hope had glowed for days.

Christa sighed, worried all over again that Hope would be devastated when he eventually got bored of the quiet pace of Sage Flats and returned to his real life.

And he would, she knew. Rodeo cowboys always got itchy boots eventually. It was the nature of the beast.

She let out a breath. She couldn't sit out here all night, like the craven coward she was.

Her nerves jumped crazily as she opened her car door and headed for the house.

The last time she had returned from work during his visit, silence had greeted her inside the house. This time she heard raucous country music blaring from inside before she even opened the door.

She recognized the song as a hit from the singer whose name had been linked romantically with his some months ago, and though she had always enjoyed the group's music before, she decided on the spot that the woman had to be a talentless has-been.

She forgot all about some washed-up Nashville honey when she walked into the family room and found the furniture had been pushed against the walls. Her gaze passed briefly over Ellen, sitting at her quilting frame in the corner, before her attention was completely caught by the other two occupants of the room.

Jace stood in the middle of the space, supporting Hope's weight as her daughter swayed to the music, beaming as though she were at the prom on the arm of the high school football star.

The sheer, unaffected joy in her daughter's smile hit her like a fist in the gut. Oh, she had missed that smile. Tears burned behind her eyes and she blinked them away, taking in how well Hope was moving. Her coordination hadn't completely returned, but as they moved to the music, she seemed much more in control of her limbs.

Christa looked at the man who had brought about such amazing progress. He watched Hope with pride and delight and a deep affection, and to her eyes he had never looked as gorgeous.

It's not every day a guy like me gets to be part of a miracle,
he had said.

Something bright and hard flashed through her and settled in the vicinity of her heart. She rubbed at her chest, and for one panicked second she wanted to rush back out of the house and slam the door behind her.

Something monumental had just changed, and she wasn't at all sure she was ready to face it.

She didn't want this. He was entwining himself through their lives, and she didn't know how they would ever be able to untangle themselves.

Jace was the first to spot her. He halted, and she saw something leap into his gaze, something hot and welcoming.

She had to swallow hard before she trusted her voice. “You don't have to stop dancing on my account.”