Texas Redeemed (12 page)

“Where’re you
going?”

“Peyton’s picking
me up.”

Jack and Cordelia
glanced at each other, then started stammering over each other. “We, uh,” Jack
finally said, “we noticed you were outside together for a while last night.”

“Just talking,” she
stressed.
And holding hands. And I let him fondle me. And I liked it.

“Well, we stand
corrected.” He draped his arm over his wife’s shoulders.

“We’re visiting
Anna today. Not sneaking off to Big—” She stopped herself in time, almost
blurting out Big Bros’ Cages, where the twins had been conceived. “Not sneaking
off.”

“It wouldn’t be
such a bad thing if you did sneak off with a man,” Cordelia said. “Doesn’t have
to be Peyton. But we notice how lonely you can get, Val.”

“Thanks, but I
swear the cure-all isn’t to invite some guy into my pants.”

“Fine, fine. What
about having somebody to really lean on? How about trying to give somebody a
chance to make you happy? It’s possible. Anything is.”

“Cordelia, you
sound like a fortune cookie. I’ll chalk it up to the pregnancy.”

“Damn it, I’m
trying to look out for you.”

“Don’t. Really. You
in super-protective-
cousin
mode is scary.”

“What’s wrong with
letting someone in your life for real, Valerie? I mean that one person you can
trust, maybe love, in a way you can’t trust or love anybody else.”

“Not interested.”

“Then we’ll leave
you alone,” Jack cut in as his wife tried to protest.

“For now,” Cordelia
added.

Valerie checked her
watch. If she hurried she’d have enough time to swipe on some makeup before
Peyton arrived. She’d had yet another restless night and didn’t want to walk
around with dark circles as evidence.

She was waiting on
the front porch when Peyton pulled up in a waxed and buffed black SUV that
dwarfed her modest Chrysler. She hadn’t wanted to hang around inside and
further explain why she’d be riding in a car with a man who’d broken her heart
once and could potentially do it again—if she let him.

“Finally get to see
the ranch in the light of day,” Peyton said, sliding out of the vehicle.

“You’ve been here
‘in the light of day’ before.”

“Battle Creek was a
different place back then.”

Valerie followed
his gaze from left to right, trying to imagine the breadth of the land through
unfamiliar eyes. “The carriage house—can’t see it from here, but it’s down that
narrow path, before you’d get to the meadow—is where Cordelia and Jack stay.
The bunkhouses’re farther beyond—” she waved, indicating a handful of small
rustic cabins barely visible in the midst of slopes and golden-leafed trees
“—just past that thicket. Oh, remember the old barn?”

“The
ready-to-collapse-and-kill-your-ass barn?” With a soft chuckle he pointed with
uncertainty eastward at a coppice of cedar elms. “Wasn’t it over there?”

“Yep. It finally fell.
No casualties. Well, except my old radio.” The only music stations the battered
Emerson with its bent antennae had been able to pick up in its final days were
country, Spanish and old-school rock that were ninety percent static. But she’d
kept it around, more than anything desperate to hold on to memories of hanging
out with Peyton in the barn, blasting the radio at full volume, trying to block
out everything but her best friend and her music.

Peyton squinted,
stepping off the pavement of the driveway and into the grass for a better
vantage point. “Is that a windmill, over that hill?”

“It is. Installed
about three years ago. Jack had the idea of windmill aeration of the pond, and
every day that I don’t have to haul fresh water to the animals is a day I’m
grateful for the suggestion.”

“I figure it’s low
maintenance.”

“You figure right.
The animals’re healthier, and we can invest our labor more efficiently
elsewhere.” She rolled her shoulders, casting a skeptical glance his way. “I’d
offer you a closer look, but the windmill’s a bit of a walk from here. Lucy
likes to spend time there, but she goes on horseback.”

“Should’ve taken
you up on your offer then,” he said.

“What offer?”

“Riding lessons in
exchange for driving lessons.”

Valerie had been
fifteen that summer, excited to have him home from college, and totally unsure
about what to do with the facts that she’d filled out, he’d started to shave
and they really weren’t kids anymore. Even though he’d been home, he’d also
been preoccupied with stuff his grandfather wanted him to do—stuff for people
with money and a name to be proud of … stuff that had excluded her. She’d known
more than a little about driving, having learned to use her uncle’s tractor,
but as an excuse to keep Peyton close had pretended to want lessons. But before
she had had the chance to get him on a horse, he’d found himself a girlfriend
in Meridien who offered more than afternoons spent riding horses and chilling
out in a barely standing barn.

“If I remember
right, you got your fair share of
lessons
that summer, Peyton.”

He searched her
eyes. “What, exactly, do you remember?”

“Just the facts,
according to you. Let’s see. You dated Lark Norton, and on your first date she
put her hand in your pants. On your second date, you spent the weekend, got
wasted on expensive booze and got it on in every room of her folks’ lake house.
Again, that’s according to you.”

He winced. “Yeah,
that’s the truth. Just wish I hadn’t shared so many details.”

“It’s not a big
deal.” Now it wasn’t, but the idea of him having sex with some blonde debutante
had speared her with jealousy and had her crying herself into dreams that were
way too raunchy for a fifteen-year-old. “Lark left Texas, you know. Moved to
Boston. Married a lawyer. The announcement was in
The Night Sky Gazette.
”

“Good for her.” The
discomfort in his voice was unmistakable.

And damn her, but
Valerie enjoyed it. “I’ll say. I never did thank her for teaching you how to
kiss,” she added nonchalantly, despite the sudden leap in her pulse as she said
the words. “By the time you got around to kissing me, you were okay at it.”

“Okay?”

“More than okay,”
she admitted, recalling being sixteen and pressed against the trunk of a tulip
poplar with Peyton’s mouth moving slowly, firmly, thoroughly over hers. “But
you tricked me into it.”

“Tricked how? We’d
walked to the creek and you complained about people treating you like a kid.
Then you said you’d kiss the next guy you saw.”

“And you told me to
close my eyes and then open them. And when I did, I saw you. And you—” she
shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket “—kissed me. Over and over.”

“Are you sorry?”

What were a few
kisses compared to what they’d done in the backseat of her car only two short
years after that muggy afternoon at the creek? It had never occurred to her to
regret the day that had been better than anything she’d conjured in a heated
dream—no matter that he’d wanted her only as a friend. “No, I’m not. I’m not
sorry we cared about each other, that I kissed the first guy I saw. And I’m not
sorry that we made our daughters.” She sighed. “We should get going. I put
chores on hold to make this trip.”

Peyton reached out,
snagged her sleeve. “I’m not sorry, either—that we made Anna and Lucy. What
happened after that is what I’m sorry for.”

“I told you before
not to shower me with apologies.”

“I’m giving you the
truth.”

“Let’s just go, all
right?”

He nodded, then
retreated to the driver’s door. “Heads up.”

Valerie barely had
her hand in the air before his keys smacked against her palm. She fumbled,
nearly dropping them. “Why’re you giving me—”

He held open the
door with one hand and made a sweeping motion with the other. “You’re driving.”

S
HE LOOKED HOT
.

Peyton hadn’t
wanted to think that as Valerie climbed into the driver’s seat of his SUV. But
his brain was on autopilot, harping on things that were out of his control.
Like how ridiculously hot she was—and how she didn’t even seem to realize it.
All seriousness, she efficiently adjusted the mirrors and settled in against
the buttery leather seat, unaware that he was hanging on her every movement …
cataloguing her every detail.

She’d tamed that
mane of loosely curled hair into a ponytail atop her head, exposing tiny ruby
studs in her lobes. The earrings were modest, easy to miss but interesting
enough to hook him once he noticed. The red flannel shirt she wore under a
creased brown aviator jacket was faded, likely with years of wear. As were her
jeans and cowboy boots. A stark difference from the irresistibly soft sweater
she’d worn last night.

And yet in an
outfit that wasn’t meant to be sexy, she was exactly that. Content in familiar
old clothes—relaxed, at ease …
herself
.

He knew good and
well he’d been staring too long, but didn’t consider looking away until she
suddenly turned to him with raised eyebrows and said, “You ready to go?”

Somehow he must’ve
grunted out a response because a few moments later she’d backed out of the
driveway and they were on the road, leaving the ranch in the distance.

“Peyton.”

“What?”

“Your eyes are
burning holes through me.” She braked at a stop sign, extracted a pair of his
sunglasses from a compartment between the front seats and slid them on. “Do you
have a question or … what?”

Those sunglasses
did him in. Dark and oversized on her heart-shaped face, throwing emphasis on
her lips.

They were good
lips, full with a noticeable Cupid’s bow—and as she sank her front teeth into
that plump bottom lip, he immediately thought of a juicy, freshly sliced peach.

And he thought of
that day he’d first kissed her.

Damn it. Did all
his blood just shoot to his groin? He’d gone from zero to rock-hard in less
than a minute.

“Want music?” he
suggested, already fiddling with the radio and trying to ease the tightness in
his jeans without drawing her attention.

“Music? That’s your
question?” She frowned then shrugged. “Always.”

He could’ve figured
that. She was a music brat, with a thing for heavy metal and rock. When he’d
known her years ago she’d been dead-set on having the radio on while hauling hay
and cleaning up after barn cats. He found a station that was halfway through
Styx’s “Too Much Time on My Hands.”

“Ooh, this song
just speaks to me. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah, but you
listen for lyrics—the story. I listen for the music. You know, the beat, the
melody.”

“That’s because you
don’t let the words in,” she said. “Guess that’s why you’re so into classical.
Sometimes the lyrics are the most affecting part of a song.”

Peyton thought of
the records he’d inherited from his grandmother, who’d encouraged him to listen
to Bach and Bizet and Beethoven to give his mind clarity and focus he studied.
“Classical’s more than music. It’s … it’s a language.”

Valerie sneaked a
glance at him, her features suddenly softer. “You miss Estella. Terribly,
right? I do, too.”

Peyton responded by
inching up the radio’s volume, and she let it go.

“Ohhh, this
song.
I wish I had too much time on my hands.” She fell quiet for a moment, as if
she’d revealed a secret meant to stay hidden. Then she continued, “This was one
of the tunes featured in
Rock of Ages.
Lucy really got a kick out of
that.”

“It wasn’t too … uh
…
adult
for her?”

“No.” Valerie sent
him a considering look. “Peyton, she knows more than you might expect—and she
can handle it.”

That got him
thinking about the movie he’d found Lucy watching last night. He lowered the
radio’s volume. “How much does she know?”

“All about sex, for
one thing,” she said, signaling a turn. “How could she not? She lives on a
cattle ranch. Reproduction’s an important part of it. Besides, I thought it
best that she understand puberty before the time came for bras and tampons. And
we hit those milestones without any speed bumps.” She looked at him then, her
mouth dropping open in an
O.
“Wow, I didn’t mean to embarrass … I mean,
you’re a doctor …”

And a father who
didn’t want to even come close to thinking about his twelve-year-old daughter
and issues like sex, bras and
tampons.

“The point is,” she
went on, “she shouldn’t grow up ashamed of things that are all part of being a
human … being a young woman. I was brought up that way and I don’t want that
for Lucy. I want her to be fully informed so she’ll make good choices. As far
as sex goes, she knows to come to me with any questions.”

“Has she?” he
wondered, instantly uneasy because he knew full well that Lucy’s first reaction
in awkward situations seemed to be to lie.