him.
However, he and Lyric had never slept together. She’d been engaged to another guy the whole time she’d been responding to his caresses.
Mentally cursing, he forced the memory into the battered tin box of the past. He was over it now, over her and the wild emotion he’d thought was love. A cheating woman wasn’t on his list of most-wanted things.
Quickly, he secured the ice packs on her knees and moved away from the smoothness of her skin, the warmth of her body, the spicy scent of her powder and cologne.
“Have you two had dinner?” Uncle Nick asked.
“Yes,” Lyric answered.
“No,” her aunt said at the same time. The older woman continued, “Lyric was so anxious to get here that she didn’t want to stop, so we had a salad at a fast-food place in Boise. That was hours ago. If I could bother you for some toast, that would be plenty for me.”
“I recall that you like chocolate cake with ice cream,” Uncle Nick said, his eyes all soft and glowing.
Lyric’s aunt removed the ice pack from her nose and grinned at the older man. “You don’t happen to have some of that, do you?”
“Well, now, I reckon we do.” He rose from the matching chair next to the aunt’s with a big smile. “You ladies sit still. Trev and I will get it.”
Trevor refrained from rolling his eyes at his uncle’s gallant manner. If the old man sparkled much more, they could wire him up to the light bulbs and save the cost of the electricity.
He followed the other man into the kitchen and helped prepare the treat. Glancing at the freshly made cake and the homemade ice cream, he frowned, recalling the way his uncle had insisted on preparing the dessert, even though the Fourth of July had been last week, which was when they usually made ice cream, and this was Tuesday, July the eighth. Since none of the orphaned Dalton cousins that Uncle Nick had taken in and raised as his own were expected at the ranch—they were all busy with new wives and jobs and the like—he’d wondered at the reason for the unusual activity.
Setting his jaw, he admitted he hadn’t suspected a thing, even though his uncle had made it plain he hadn’t wanted Trevor to head over to a neighboring ranch for a visit that evening.
Glancing toward the living room, he said in a low voice, “You knew they were coming, didn’t you?”
Uncle Nick nodded, busily spooning ice cream onto the saucers. “Fay and I have kept in touch for years, mostly cards at Christmas. She said she was restless and lonely this past winter, so I told her to come up for the wildflowers this spring, but she couldn’t make it until her niece had time to drive her.”
“You could have told me.”
Eyes as blue as his own glanced his way. “I did. Last month, right after we got things straightened out between Roni and Adam. I distinctly recall mentioning it at Sunday dinner when everyone was here.”
In May, Roni, one of the orphaned cousins and the only girl in the family, had married Adam. His younger sister, Honey, was married to Trevor’s older brother, Zack.
Trevor sighed. The family connections were becoming complicated, with his two brothers and his three cousins all getting hitched during the prior fourteen months.
Five weddings.
He was the only bachelor left of the six kids whose four parents had been wiped out in a freak avalanche twenty-three years ago. His father and uncle had been twins, the same as he and Travis were. Uncle Nick, the oldest of the three Dalton brothers, and Aunt Milly had taken all six children in and raised them as their own.
Glancing at the older man, who was acting as frisky as a new colt, Trevor experienced a clenching in the vicinity of his heart. Uncle Nick seemed okay now, but he’d had a heart attack last spring and a couple of weak spells since then.
Trevor heaved another sigh. If his uncle wanted to invite his deceased wife’s cousin to visit, there was nothing he could do about it. Why Lyric had come with her aunt was the thing he didn’t get.
Pasting a pleasant—he hoped—smile on his face, he carried two plates into the other room and gave one to Lyric while his uncle presented one to the aunt, then took the chair beside her and attentively asked about the trip and all that had been happening to her of late.
Trevor sat on the far end of the sofa from Lyric. Neither of them said a word for the next fifteen minutes.
“Trev, would you take the plates to the kitchen and bring out the coffee?” Uncle Nick turned to Fay. “I put on a pot of decaffeinated coffee. It should be ready. I find I can’t sleep if I drink regular coffee at night.”
“I have the same problem,” she said.
Trevor met Lyric’s gaze, and they exchanged spontaneous smiles as the older couple discussed aging and the changes it brought.
Lyric’s eyes reminded him of a brown velvet dress Aunt Milly had loved to wear. As a kid he’d once stroked the soft material and observed the way the light changed when the nap was smoothed down. Lyric’s eyes were like that—changing from brown to gold as the light reflected off the golden flecks around the black pupil.
He wiped the smile off and looked away. He wanted nothing to do with her. No memories, no shared amusement over the old folks, nothing!
“I’ll get the coffee,” he said.
In the kitchen he sucked in a harsh breath and wondered how long this visit was going to last. Not that he wouldn’t get through it just fine. After all, no one in his family knew he’d made a fool of himself over a woman who had been engaged to another and, in the end, had chosen that man over him.
He’d lived through worse. The death of his parents. The death of his twin’s first wife, whom he’d been half in love with all his growing-up years. The end of his rodeo career when he’d caved in several ribs and been advised by the doc to hang up his spurs. Yeah, life was tough.
Hearing steps behind him, he stopped the useless introspection and turned his head.
“I thought I would see if I could help,” Lyric said.
Her eyes searched his face anxiously, as if she sought something from him. Welcome? Understanding? Forgiveness? She’d come to the wrong place if she thought he had anything left for her.
He stifled the angry words that rushed to his tongue. “Sure. Bring the sugar bowl and cream pitcher. I’ll carry the cups on the tray.”
He picked up the walnut tray he’d made in shop class in tenth grade years ago. Part of him was keenly aware of the woman who followed him into the other room.
After the coffee was served, the two seniors went back to their conversation without a hitch, obviously interested in catching up on the other’s life since they’d last met twenty years ago. His uncle’s face beamed in pleasure, and Lyric’s aunt looked ten years younger in spite of the bruising on her face.
A lump came to Trevor’s throat. It wasn’t often that sentiment caught up with him, but he felt an overpowering love for this man whose heart had been big enough to take in six kids without a complaint, who’d buried his own wife with quiet
