as Cody’s mother had once explained to Juliet, the guesthouse had been the main house. The ranch had been smaller then, more of a homestead than anything else. Cody’s great-grandmother had run the place, while his great-grandfather owned and operated the Rush Creek Digs mine. They’d closed the mine in Cody’s grandfather’s time; Cody’s grandfather had bought more land, then built his family a bigger, more comfortable place to live. Cody’s father, retired and living in Arizona for the past few years, had opened the hardware store in town and added the Olympic-size pool at the house. When he retired, Cody’s dad had signed both the ranch and hardware store over to his only son. Now Cody took care of it all, as well as the bar and grill that was his contribution to the family holdings.
The huge yard of the main house was surrounded on three sides by a stone wall. The north side, except for the garage, was divided from the pasture by a wooden fence. It was a stunning effect, Juliet had always thought: the pampered, lush grounds, cut off from the road and the outbuildings by the high wall—but opened right up to the wild, wide field on the north side. There, the tall grasses rolled away for a half mile or so until they hit the woodlands of the surrounding hills.
Once inside the gate and sheltered by the spreading shadow of a big fruitless mulberry tree there, Juliet hesitated, partly in hushed appreciation of the starlit yard, and partly to gauge the source of the music that curled through the still night.
The melody came, as she had suspected, from the wide front porch that faced her across the drive. She could see Cody there, now that she looked for him. Since the porch light was off, he sat in shadow, lounging against one of the two pillars that flanked the front steps. He faced the main gate and had his back to the garage. He was shirtless—she could see the sheen of bare skin—and barefoot, too, just as she was. His naked feet were on the second step. Not far away from him, near the porch railing, she could make out the sprawled black shape of the dog, Kemo. The dog’s head was raised and pointed in her direction.
Cody, staring off toward the front gate, seemed lost in his music. If he had looked, he could have seen her, even in the shadow of the mulberry, for her robe was the palest shade of blue and drew what little light there was within the darkness. But he didn’t look.
Kemo, still peering in Juliet’s direction, whined. Cody stopped playing to murmur a soft order to the animal. The dog laid his sleek black head on his paws once more.
Juliet stood for a while, listening to the song, suspended in the moment and glad to be there. All of her senses seemed heightened. There was the music, the faint gleam of Cody’s skin across the yard, the cool caress of moist grass at her feet. The grass had a sweet, full earthy smell that mingled deliciously with the dusty scent of the drier, wilder grass on the other side of the fence.
Cody paused for a breath. From somewhere on the green lawn, a frog croaked; it was a rough, humorous sound, after the beguiling beauty of the song. Juliet smiled. Cody played on.
It occurred to her that, were she to circle the pool and cross the drive up by the garage, she could approach from the side steps and keep from disturbing Cody for a few minutes more. It seemed appropriate, somehow, for her to come up on him quietly. It was in keeping with the enchanted mood of moonless darkness and haunting song.
The thick grass tickled her feet as she crept, still smiling to herself, beneath the trees that grew close to the stone wall. By the time she reached the wooden fence, it had become a sort of game to her. She shot across the open space, picked her way over the pebbles of the drive in front of the garage and then flew across the unprotected space on the other side. Then she had one of the pair of huge old chestnut trees that grew in front of the house for cover as she approached the side of the porch.
When she put her dew-damp foot on the bottom step, Cody began yet another song, one of his own that Juliet had heard once or twice over the years. It was a love song, about a poor boy who loved a rich girl whose family kept them apart. Now, of course, he only played the melody. But Juliet recalled the general flow of the lyrics, and felt sad for the penniless lover, whose dream girl could never be his.
Juliet mounted the steps and then, still unchallenged, began to approach the man who sat on the front steps with his back to her, playing one of those songs that broke women’s hearts.
The wooden boards of the porch were with her; they gave out nary a squeak. The dog, too, seemed to be on her side. Though he raised his head and watched her, he made no sound.
Juliet tiptoed to the Mission-style easy chair, one of a pair that flanked the double front door. And then, lost in the music, she hovered there, staring at the marvelously sculpted musculature of Cody’s bare back, until the sad song came to an end.
There was a silence, one that slowly filled up with the sounds of the night. An owl hooted somewhere behind the house. The crickets spun out whirring songs of their own. A mourning dove cried. Out in the field, a quail loosed its piping call, just as Kemo’s snaky black tail began beating the porch boards, and the dog opened his mouth to pant in a welcoming way.
Cody said, “Julie.”
He said it softly, in a different way than anyone had ever said her name before. He turned his head, slowly, and smiled at her.
Juliet smiled back, with no shyness or hesitation. It seemed that her triumph at the meeting earlier had boosted her confidence, while the magic safety of the darkness made her bold.
“You saw me,” she accused in a teasing manner, as Kemo rose and went to her to be scratched behind the ear.
Cody nodded. “When you came through the gate.”
“The music was so beautiful. I didn’t want to break the mood. So I sneaked up on you, hoping that you wouldn’t stop.” The dog, satisfactorily scratched, went to the end of the porch nearest the front gate. There, he walked in a circle, at last lying down again, all curled into himself.
Juliet came to sit next to Cody, first adjusting her robe where it met on her lap, then wrapping her hands around her knees. “I’ve enjoyed it each time you played, ever since I moved in.”
“You never came over before. How come?”
She glanced off toward the rippling lights of the pool. “I don’t know. I guess I was just never the kind of woman to run across a lawn barefoot in the middle of the night.”
“But now you are?”
Juliet chuckled, considering the question, considering her own lightness of spirit, her boldness, her sense of glowing self-confidence. Tonight, she felt disconnected from her usual self. It was as if her usual self were some other woman, a woman for whom she felt a little sorry. A woman frightened of life, of its sights, scents and sounds, of its sweet and sensual beauty that tonight seemed created for her alone.
“Well?”
“What?” She looked at him.
“I asked if now you were the kind of woman who—”
“I remember. And I don’t know. Tonight is different. I feel different. But we’ll see.”
He smiled again, that slow warm smile that lifted the right side of his mouth a fraction more than the left. Juliet thought, as he did that, that it was fully understandable why the women went wild for him.
Lord, he was one beautiful hunk of man. Much too much man for someone like Juliet—she knew that. But absolutely splendid nonetheless.
“Believe
