New Way to Fly (20 page)

“Strange?” Beverly leaned forward, her lips parted eagerly. “Like what, Brock? Anything to do with Luke Harte?”

Brock waved his hand in an abrupt angry gesture. “That stuff about Luke, it's all just stupid damn talk,” he said scornfully. “No truth to it at all. What I'm talking about,” he added, “is all this coming and going. The past few days I've seen Cody Hendricks heading out there two or three times, and surveyors up on the hill by my place…. It just seems real strange.”

“I know she's been talking to Vern about selling the place,” Beverly volunteered. “Asking him what kind of price they could expect and how long it would take to sell, all that sort of thing. Maybe she's
sold the ranch and that's why she's got the bank and the survey people out there.”

Brock considered this. “God, I hope not,” he said finally, his voice softening with emotion. “Poor ol' Bubba, he'll just die if he can't ever come home again.”

“Poor ol' Bubba should have thought of that before he started killing his horses,” Lynn said coldly.

“Women,” Edward said, exchanging a cheerful glance with Jeff and Brock. “They're so terribly harsh in their judgments. Have you fellows ever noticed that?”

“Frequently,” Brock said without humor. He turned to Amanda. “Maybe before you go away for good, Amanda, you should drop around and see what you can find out about Mary's situation,” he suggested quietly. “She seems able to confide in you. See if she'll tell you what's going on, and if there's any way the rest of us can help.”

“Why don't you ask her yourself, Brock?” Beverly suggested. “After all, y'all have been neighbors since forever. Why don't you just go on over there yourself and ask Mary what's happening, and if there's anything you can do?”

“I did. Just yesterday,” Brock confessed, looking troubled.

“And?”

“And she laughed at me. She told me just to mind
my own business and that I'd find out everything in good time.”

The women smiled at one another, picturing timid little Mary Gibson saying that to her large neighbor.

“Good for Mary,” Lynn said firmly. “You might as well just do what she says, Brock. More coffee down here, anyone?”

Beverly and Jeff both held out their cups but Brock folded his napkin and pushed back his chair, smiling politely at his host and hostess.

“None for me, thanks. I have to get home. Amanda, it was a wonderful meal. Thanks again for inviting me. Nice to meet you, Edward.”

Amanda gazed up at him, wide-eyed and silent, while Jeff looked unhappy. “You leaving so soon, Brock?” he asked. “The evening's young.”

“I'm like Sandy,” Brock said with a faint grin, dropping his hand onto the child's shining carroty hair. “I've got a sick animal at home, too, but mine was a little too big to bring along to the dinner party. I'd better get home and check on him.”

“What animal?” Lynn asked with interest.

“One of my little Brangus bull calves,” Brock told her. “Back a few weeks ago, the day Vern and Carolyn got married, in fact, I pulled a whole lot of porcupine quills out of his nose, thought I made a clean job of it but the flesh got infected. I've given him a few good doses of penicillin over the past few
days, so if he's no better by the time I get home I guess I'd better call Manny over.”

Edward grimaced with distaste at Brock's story, but Beverly and Lynn nodded sympathetically.

Edward got courteously to his feet and followed Brock to the door with Amanda at his side. In the vestibule Brock slipped into his leather jacket while Edward hesitated, looking confused.

“But isn't…Will Lynn be staying?” he asked Amanda. “Are Beverly and Jeff going to take her and the girls home?”

“Well, I hope so,” Brock said cheerfully when Amanda didn't answer. “Beverly and Jeff brought them, after all. We all arrived at exactly the same time,” he told Amanda casually. “Kind of a coincidence, actually. I pulled up to the curb and parked right behind them.”

Edward gazed at the tall tanned man with the rumpled dark hair, then turned his eyes to Amanda, who felt a sudden frightening little chill. “But, Angel, didn't you tell me—”

“Never mind, Edward,” Amanda said hastily. “I think you must have misunderstood.”

“Misunderstood what?” Brock asked, hesitating with his hand on the doorknob. He cast a questioning glance from one face to the other. “Amanda?”

Edward frowned, clearly unaware of Amanda's discomfort. “I'm sure that Amanda told me you and
Lynn were a couple,” he confessed with a charming smile. “How awkward of me. I've been assuming something all evening that was obviously incorrect.”

“Amanda told you that?” Brock said slowly, his dark intent gaze resting thoughtfully on the other man. “I see.”

Those blazing dark eyes shifted abruptly to Amanda. She trembled at the force of his gaze but seemed powerless to look away. Standing there gazing helplessly into Brock Munroe's eyes, she saw the truth, realized that he understood what she'd done.

He knew why he'd been invited here, exactly what her purpose had been, that she'd been ashamed of their brief physical intimacy and wanted to discredit him in her own eyes, make him appear awkward and ridiculous so she could dismiss him from her thoughts.

Amanda found herself drowning in a hot wave of shame, deeper and more painful than anything she'd ever known. In Brock's eyes she could see his own pain, his anger and cold contempt.

And worst of all, his pity…

The tall rancher stared at her a moment longer, and turned courteously to Edward, who still seemed puzzled and uncertain. “If Amanda told you that,” Brock said in a quiet remote tone that stabbed at her heart, “then she was wrong.”

He gave them both a brief wintry smile, nodded
at the others and was gone, his shoulders erect, his lean body lithe and self-contained as he swung off down the corridor and out of sight.

 

R
AIN FLOWED
against the windows, a cold autumn rain that was silvery gray and bitter in the darkness. Amanda woke suddenly on the morning after her dinner party and lay gazing at the square of blackness beyond the drapes.

Slowly her dream faded, the sweet gentle dream of a sunny green hillside starred with flowers and a baby in her arms. The dream had been as wonderful as always, but today, waking was different.

This morning, finally, after a lifetime of doubt and confusion, Amanda Walker recognized that hillside.

The green flowery place in her dream was the same one where she'd lain in Brock Munroe's arms. The baby in her arms was his child, and it was Brock himself who stood smiling nearby, the man she loved more than all the world.

Now that the truth had dawned in her mind, it seemed so obvious that she wondered how she could have missed it for so long.

“Oh, God, what a fool I am,” Amanda whispered aloud. “What a blind stupid fool.” She moaned softly, clutching one of the pillows close to her body, trying to relieve the pain that stabbed at her.

Of course she loved him.

She'd loved him the minute she saw him in his poorly fitting suit, with his lopsided grin and the disheveled dark hair. She'd thrilled to the very first touch of his hand, been intrigued and insulted when he quoted the biting line of poetry, struggled afterward without success to put him out of her mind.

And later when they finally went out for dinner she'd been so surprised by the easy flow of their conversation, the way they laughed together, his warm admiration and the comfortable trick he seemed to have of understanding everything she was thinking and feeling.

Why hadn't she recognized those things as the tender beginnings of love? Was she so stupid and shortsighted, so wrapped up in superficiality that she didn't even know the real thing when it tapped her on the shoulder and introduced itself?

Amanda moaned again and rolled over in bed, hiding her face in the soft pillow, aching with misery.

The phone shrilled suddenly, startling her with its harsh strident ring. Her heart began to pound and she heaved herself up on her elbow, reaching for the receiver hesitantly.

“Yes?” she said breathlessly into the receiver.

“Hi, Angel,” Edward said, sounding as vigorous and alert as if he already sat at his desk, halfway through a day's business. “This is your wake-up call.”

Amanda sagged against the pillows, almost sick with a strange blend of relief and disappointment.

“What time is it?” she asked, peering at the bright red digits on her bedside clock.

“Just after six. You were going to meet me at the airport for breakfast at seven-thirty, remember?”

“I remember. Edward…”

“If you'd let me spend the night,” he went on cheerfully, “I could probably have found a
much
more interesting way to wake you up.”

Amanda shivered and clutched the receiver so tightly that her knuckles showed white against her skin.

This was another clue that she'd been too stubborn or preoccupied to recognize, the fact that she had no desire at all to sleep with Edward, and hadn't had from the moment he arrived. Even when she invited him to move in, she'd only been motivated by an anxious need to revive what they once had and, perhaps, to use their relationship as a screen that would keep her safe from Brock's unsettling presence.

But she knew now that she didn't want Edward in her bed, ever again. There was only one man she wanted there, only one pair of arms that she needed, one man's embrace that could thrill and satisfy her.

And that was something she'd probably never experience again.

Amanda bit her lip and felt the tears gathering. She
struggled to keep herself under control, longing to hang up and give herself over to misery but knowing that Edward would never accept that kind of treatment.

“Why didn't you, Angel?” he was asking her with mild curiosity.

Amanda held the receiver away with a distracted expression, then put it back to her ear. “Sorry, Edward,” she said in a small voice. “I must have missed something. Why didn't I what?”

“Why didn't you let me spend the last night with you? I think I deserve the truth, darling. I came down here with an honest proposal, spent the better part of three weeks and wasn't even allowed to touch you. Why not?”

Amanda hesitated. “I just thought…” she whispered.

“Don't give me that stuff about not wanting to start something till we got back to New York, or needing to be sure about the future, or anything like that. Angel, where I come from, if a woman loves a man she wants to sleep with him. End of story.”

“You're right,” Amanda said steadily. “You're absolutely right, Edward.”

Of course he was. Even Edward understood the simple basics of human relationships, but Amanda had been so blind…so blind and foolish….

“I used to feel that way about you, Edward,” she
went on. In the midst of her sadness she felt a cleansing flood of relief as she prepared to tell the truth and damn the consequences. “I used to long for you all the time, but it's changed now. I…I feel that way about somebody else now.”

“It's the cowboy, isn't it?” Edward said, startling her into silence.

“Angel?” he prompted after an awkward moment. “Am I right?”

“How…how did you know? I didn't even—”

“I could see the way you looked at him, darling. Your face is very expressive, you know. And he seems like a good enough sort,” Edward added, obviously trying to be fair. “If you like them rugged, that is. I don't know if he's the man for you, my Angel, but I suppose you'll find out.”

“No,” Amanda said.

“No?”

“I won't have a chance to find out, Edward. Not ever.”

“Why not?”

“Because he hates me. He thinks I'm shallow and superficial, and he's right.”

“No man could hate you, Angel. I think you're being just a tiny bit hard on yourself,” Edward said with an attempt at jauntiness. “Would it…would it help if I talked to him?” he added, sounding unusually hesitant all at once.

Amanda swallowed hard, deeply moved by his words. “You'd do that for me?” she whispered. “You'd actually go and try to explain things to him?”

“I want you to be happy,” Edward said calmly. “After all,
I
fully intend to be happy regardless of what happens between us.”

“Yes, Edward,” Amanda said, smiling through her tears. “Yes, I know you will. But there's nothing you can do for me. It's too late. He despises me, and there's nothing anyone can say to change that, I'm afraid.”

Edward was silent, obviously unsure what to say.

“Edward, about the job…”

“Yes, Angel?”

“I can't take it. You know that. I've got my business started here, and I have to stay and make the best of it.”