to be inside you—and knowing that you were my father’s wife!”
Belinda pushed at his chest with the heels of her hands. “Let me go, Faron! This is wrong!”
“You didn’t think so yesterday.”
“I told you, I didn’t know who you were yesterday! This situation is awkward enough. Let’s not make it worse.”
He nuzzled her temple, let his lips trail down to her ear and felt her shiver in his arms. “And this will make it worse?”
Belinda exhaled a shuddery sigh. “What happened between us was—”
“A miracle.”
“A mistake. Faron, we can’t let this happen again.”
Faron heard the desperation in her voice. He felt the same desperation himself. However, he could afford to be patient. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Neither was she.
He dropped his hands to his sides and stood up straight so there was more space between them. “Call me when supper’s ready.”
She didn’t answer him, just made her escape as quickly as she could. Belinda didn’t run back to the house, although it took all her willpower to keep her pace to a walk.
How had things gotten out of hand so quickly? She should have known better than to let herself get cornered like that. But she hadn’t been expecting Faron to confront her. She hadn’t been expecting him to admit that he still desired her.
But she had been right to push him away. There could be no repetition of what had happened yesterday. Under the circumstances it was unthinkable.
Belinda stepped up on the back porch and shoved her way through the screen door that led to the kitchen. In some ways, The Castle was like any other ranch house. Friends and neighbors always entered through the back door which was usually left open, rather than the front. She stopped dead when she saw Madelyn standing in front of the stove, stirring a pot of chili.
“What are you doing in here?” she asked.
Madelyn lifted a spoonful of chili and sipped a taste of it. “Making supper.”
“Where’s Rue?”
“She’s having one of her spells.”
That was Madelyn’s way of saying Rue was drunk. Once a year, on the anniversary of her son’s death in Vietnam, Rue got drunk. How long the “episode” lasted depended on how good a job Belinda did of finding Rue’s stash of bottles and disposing of it. “I thought we’d gotten rid of all the bottles.”
“She must have had another tucked away somewhere.”
Belinda came up behind Madelyn and put a hand around her shoulder. “You should be resting.”
“There’ll be time enough for that when I’m laid in my grave.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that!” Before Wayne’s death, Belinda hadn’t been quite so aware of Madelyn’s mortality. Now she worried about the older woman’s health. Madelyn’s heart wasn’t in much better shape than Wayne’s had been.
Madelyn turned and patted Belinda on the arm. “I’m sorry, dear. Why don’t you sit down and tell me how the day went with my grandson?”
That brought a wry smile to Belinda’s face. “I’ll make a deal. You sit down, and I’ll tell you how the day went.”
Madelyn handed over the wooden spoon and took a seat on a bar stool next to the woodblock island in the center of the kitchen. “I’m sitting. Talk.”
Belinda turned away to stir the chili, which gave her a chance to organize her thoughts. There was no hope for her feelings, which were still in a state of chaos. “He’s a hard worker,” Belinda conceded.
“Then you two should have gotten along well,” Madelyn said.
Belinda shot Madelyn a look over her shoulder. She was a shrewd old woman. Belinda wondered how much Madelyn knew—or suspected—about the tension between her daughter-in-law and her grandson. “We didn’t argue much, if that’s what you’re getting at.” Only at the very beginning and the very end of the day. “Faron has his own way of doing things. I just went along with him.”
“Go along and get along. That didn’t work very well with Wayne, my dear.”
“Faron is nothing like Wayne!” Belinda astonished herself with her outburst. She flushed and tried to backtrack by saying, “I mean, they look nothing alike.”
“And they don’t act alike, either. Is that what you wanted to say?”
“I don’t intend to criticize my late husband to his mother,” Belinda said.
Madelyn sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m well aware of my son’s faults. I hope you won’t let what happened between you and Wayne keep you from finding another young man to love.”
Belinda dropped the spoon in the chili and turned to face Madelyn. “I hope you’re not thinking about matchmaking, Madelyn. Not matching me with Faron, anyway. For heaven’s sake, he’s Wayne’s son!”
“And quite a good-looking young man, if I do say so myself.”
“Please, Madelyn. Don’t interfere. Things are difficult enough as it is.”
“Difficult? How so?”
Belinda grimaced. She should have known Madelyn wouldn’t be satisfied without specifics. But she wasn’t going to get them. “We just don’t get along.”
“It didn’t look that way to me last night.”
The old woman saw too much. Belinda took a deep breath and let it out. “Suffice it to say that I don’t want to get involved with anyone right now.”
Madelyn was wise enough to know when to let well enough alone. She had said her piece. Not that she wouldn’t consider a little manipulating behind the scenes. She would have a talk with her grandson and see which way the wind was blowing.
When the table was set and the corn muffins were just about ready to come out of the oven, Belinda stepped out onto the back porch and circled the triangle hanging from the eave several times with an iron rod. The metallic clang was a sound that cowboys recognized all over the West as a call to supper.
Sure enough, Faron’s head and shoulders appeared at the barn door, followed quickly by the rest of him. Belinda knew she should turn around and go back inside, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
His stride was long and his body moved with an easy grace. His face was hidden by the hat he had pulled down low on his brow. His shirtsleeves were rolled up onto his forearms and she could see the muscles move as he swung his arms in rhythm with his legs. He was almost to the porch by the time she realized he was aware that she had been staring at him.
He stopped with his boot on the first step and tipped his hat back so she could see his face. He was grinning.
“See
