Once and Always (Women of Character) (25 page)

Now she heard the tractor running
and the distinctive clatter of the ancient hay baler. Tyler had worked magic
and somehow managed to get the baler running. It was a familiar sound, one
she'd heard every summer since arriving here. As she walked between lots, she
came to a double row of short, gnarled apple trees and wove her way between
them, the sound growing louder all the while.

As Anna skirted a short hedgerow
she saw Tyler on the tractor with the long green baler hitched behind. As she
watched, the baler kicked out two bales, and the second one fell apart as it
hit the ground. She started to jog across the field but the scent of newly cut,
sun-warmed hay met her squarely. She stopped as a wave of nausea hit her.

She'd thought, mistakenly, that
she could handle being out here. It was humiliating to see how easily she was
brought to her knees. Vaguely, she heard the clatter of the baler and tractor,
and looked up and realized Tyler had seen her. With renewed strength Anna made
her legs move forward. Dammit, she could do this. She clenched her jaw and
gritted her teeth. She'd always loved the smell of fresh hay in the field. She
would learn to enjoy it again and maybe release the pain from the past.

Tyler set the brake and jumped
down, his long strides bringing him to her as she took three steps in his
direction. He wore a hat but no shirt, and the sweat glistened in his hair and
on his chest, tiny fragments of hay clinging to his skin. Anna thought how good
he looked, his skin already a golden tan.

"Annie?" He placed his
hand on her shoulder and Anna welcomed that slight touch. They hadn't touched
each other in three long days.

Hoping he didn't notice how her
hands shook, Anna brushed the chaff from his chest. Breathing deeply, beginning
to feel a bit more like herself, she forced her glance away from that muscled
torso with its dusting of dark hair.

"I brought your lunch."
She held up the small knapsack. "Did you notice the baler's not
tying?"

With a muttered curse, Tyler
looked at the last several bales that lay on the ground. Some had tied on one
side, the others hadn't tied at all. "The needles keep getting out of
line." He moved back to the baler and bent over it, his fingers deftly
adjusting the path of the twine.

The baler continued to rock and as
Anna watched Tyler she felt a lump form in her throat. She remembered watching
Martin perform the same ritual. The baler had been old back then, spitting out
bales that wouldn't tie, and he'd patiently set everything right, just as Tyler
was doing. Martin had always acted as if he had all the time in the world to
see to such mundane matters. Anna found it curious, though, that Tyler, who
liked everything modern and up-to-date, had elected to use the old baler.

Determined to resume some type of
normalcy, if only for her own satisfaction, Anna placed Tyler's lunch on the
tractor seat and then walked back to where the untied bales lay. Reaching down,
she picked up the flakes and dropped the loosened hay into the wide slot where
it would be caught in the baler's long teeth.

Tyler came up beside her.
"Thanks."

Anna couldn't tell much by his
expression or tone of voice. She picked up the pieces of baling twine on the ground
and fastened them with a half-hitch knot to a handle on the back of the baler.

Her arm brushed Tyler's shoulder
and she stared at the definition of muscle, then followed the long smooth
length of his back, noticing how the muscles bulged and moved under his skin.
She looked up and knew he'd caught her staring.

She looked instead out over the
field. "I always loved the smell of green hay, but now it just reminds me
of what happened to my horses. It's like a punch in the stomach. . .but I'm
really trying to put it in the past." Anna dropped another sheaf of grass
into the baler and faced Tyler squarely. "We need to talk about
Danny."

A frown shadowed his face and his
jaw clenched. "Any word on him?"

"Yes. His mom called me. He's
been in the tree house he and his father built when he was a kid. She can't get
him to come out."

Tyler closed his eyes briefly.
"That's a relief. I was getting worried when nobody knew where he
was."

She pressed his arm then quickly
moved her hand away. "I know. But I took it as a good sign he returned the
horse, even though it was in the dead of night."

Tyler stared a moment at the
tractor, then shifted his glance to her. "Must be he's afraid to come
back. He's afraid of me. This has really gotten out of control. I've given this
a lot of thought, Annie." He pushed his hand through is hair. "It's
all I've thought about.  I'm letting this go."

"I'm not sure what you
mean."

Tyler kicked at a windrow and hay
went sailing from the end of his work boot. "Maybe we'll never know the
truth of what happened six years ago. It could be there isn't anyone who knows.
I have to let it go. If Danny is our only lead, and I've somehow hurt him by
trying to get at whatever he might know, I can't do this. I have to let it go
once and for all." He clenched his jaw a moment. "All of it."

Anna knew he was referring to her
pregnancy also. That was something they really hadn't talked about. "What
about your dad?" she asked quietly, unable to imagine him giving up what
had become a mission for him; discovering the truth.

"I think he'd understand. He
certainly wouldn't appreciate me scaring Danny away from here."

Instead of the relief she
expected, Anna felt even more unsettled. "But now it seems we're so
close."

"We don't know that. Will
Danny come back?" he asked abruptly. "What did his mother
think?"

She shrugged. "I don't know.
I told his mom that he's not in trouble. If she can get him to come out of the
tree house, she might convince him to come back. I'll give it to the end of the
week, then I'll go see him. At this point, we have nothing to lose."

Tyler lightly touched her waist.
"Thanks. I've got to get back to work."

The brush of his fingers felt good
against her. Anna had a sudden, wanton thought that she'd like to drop to the
grass and make love to him in the warm air of the open field, make him forget
about the baler and its worn mechanisms. As Tyler walked back to the tractor
she tried to ignore the way his jeans rode low on his hips, reminding herself
he had work to do. She ran up behind him.

"You have to eat lunch!"
she said loudly, leaning across the seat and snatching it before he sat down.
For a moment they were very close and she saw the skin stretched taut over his
ribs. As she clutched the bag in her hand, she thought of how this man had changed
her life. He'd made her want and care about him and long for a future together.

She held out the bag.

He shook his head. "I wasn't
planning on stopping."

Anna looked across the pasture at
the grass that lay in neat windrows. "You've got most of it baled and the
rest has to dry anyway. You have to eat," she insisted.

He put a hand to his ear.
"What?"

"You didn't have
breakfast!" She shouted so he could hear her, but at the same time he cut
the tractor motor.

"No need to shout," he
said, his eyes suddenly beginning to twinkle with some of the old mischief.
Tyler climbed down, then he killed the engine on the baler and walked back to
her. She caught her breath as his hands, warm and sure, cupped her face. She
closed her eyes, not fighting the sensations that rose to the surface. Three
days ago she hadn't known if he'd ever touch her again. Long, supple fingers
splayed across her shoulders, the callused palms kneading and caressing as they
worked over her skin.

A tremble began deep within Anna.
Without conscious thought, her body leaned into him, craved his attention, the
ministrations which felt so good. Hunger gripped her and she looked up at him,
caught off guard by his slight smile.

"I'm full of hay," he
muttered, resting his chin on the top of her head.

"Somehow, I don't care."

A hush hung in the air. Her
breathing seemed overly loud. He tilted his head, his nose brushing against
hers, wide lips grazing with tantalizing slowness the contour of her cheek.

Anna's gaze collided with his,
eyes intensely blue and changing. Tentatively, she ran her hand along his arm,
watching the dark hair rise under her touch.

He groaned. "If I'm going to
get anything done today, we'd better have lunch right now."

Anna's heartbeat eased just a bit,
but her reaction to this man continued to frighten and fascinate her. He made
her tremble with need and ache with desire. Right now lunch was the furthest
thing from her mind. All she thought about was they hadn't made love all week.
She felt as if she'd lost an essential part of herself.

"Lunch. Great." She
stepped back and looked around. "How about in the shade of those apple
trees?"

Tyler nodded, grabbed his shirt
and pulled it over his shoulders as they walked toward the shade.

"I didn't bring a blanket or
anything to sit on, I guess I didn't think that far ahead. But I know you like
roast beef, and I went into town to get some fresh rolls and deli pickles from
Grossners―"

"You went into town to get
this stuff?" he asked with a frown.

"Well, yes. I know you prefer
the rolls for sandwiches."

He looked at her with a serious
expression, almost a frown on his face. "Annie, I don't expect you to be
doing this kind of stuff."

"What stuff?" she asked,
puzzled.

"I know you don't like going
into town unless you have to, and to go in for some rolls just so I can have
them with my lunch, I don't expect that."

She looked around the shaded area
under the tree and then dropped down gracefully to the grass. She held out a
plastic-wrapped sandwich. "I wanted to do it for you," she said
simply. She'd only had a moment's hesitation before she'd walked into the busy
delicatessen, but she'd done it and it had felt like a major step.

He stared down at his sandwich.
"You put your makeup on?"

"Of course, although I almost
forgot, if you can imagine that," she said lightly.

He didn't say anything, and Anna
wondered why it bothered him that she'd done that for him. Didn't he want her
to care about him? This was just a small measure of caring. Anna looked down at
her own sandwich. She swallowed quickly, feeling momentarily panicked. What if
he just wanted the physical side of their relationship without any of the
feelings that went with it? Without any of the love? What did Tyler want from
their relationship?

"I appreciate it,
Annie."

"It was no big deal."

He smiled at her. "I think it
was."

She nodded, some of the tension
inside uncoiling. "You're right. I'll confess when I first went in there I
was shaking, but nobody stared at me, in fact the few people I knew I spoke to
and they seemed real glad to see me. It was hard at first, but it was
okay."

"You've been working really
hard, with the horses, and the house looks great inside and out. You should be
proud of the job you're doing. You've dealt well with the extra press we're
getting. It's got to be tough for you, dealing with people coming around."

"That's the whole idea,"
she said carefully. "Making people take notice. Isn't it?"

Tyler put his sandwich down and
shifted so that he faced her directly. "Yes."

Anna felt a moment's
disappointment that he didn't elaborate or give her more words. She knew he
wasn't a man who put his feelings easily into words but she wished for once
he'd be more open with her. Watching him eat his sandwich, she knew that
countless times he'd showed he cared, but caring didn't necessarily mean love.

Anna gathered up the remnants of
their lunch and placed it in paper bags, then stowed them in the knapsack.
Taking the bull by the horns, knowing she had to try to somehow dispel the
tension between them, she said, "If you want to talk about that last week
six years ago, we can do that, you know."

He stared hard at her a moment,
then merely nodded. Plucking a blade of grass, he stretched, reaching his hands
up toward the sky. "How is Carol's horse coming along?"

"No big problems. I'm working
with her on the right way to discipline Lady, when to reward her, when to be
firm. She's a good rider, just a bit timid, but she's working hard."

"I remember when I didn't
know one end of the horse from the other," Tyler mused. "I had a lot
to learn too."

Anna looked out over the field,
the Double B land stretching as far as she could see. She'd loved this ranch
for as long as she could recall. "It's kind of interesting that we both
started off the same." She swung her hair back. "But now you're a
success and people look up to you."

For once he didn't dispute her
words. Instead, he rolled over on his back, his face not far from hers. "I
know you're not thrilled about the idea of an open house," he said,
"but I think we've got a good chance at making it a success. Have you
thought anymore about riding?"

She studied him for several
moments. "You really want me to do this, don't you?" She still felt
some resistance to the idea. "I'm thinking about it," she conceded.
"That's all I can promise."

He laughed and squeezed her hand.
"That's a start. We're creating so much from scratch. Can't you just feel
that old excitement?"

Anna nodded and knew in her heart
she wanted it to be like old times.

He tugged her to her feet.
"Come on, we'll go for a ride."

She looked at the field. "I
thought you wanted to finish baling."

Tyler's fingers pushed through her
hair to the back of her scalp. "I have a few minor adjustments to make on
the baler, then it'll only take me about another half-hour to finish tying
what's dry. I can have some of the boys bring the truck and hay wagon out here
to load them up. What do you say? Would you like to go for a ride?"