Although he was thoroughly in the middle of the splashing, the dunking, and other pool antics with the kids, Zack somehow managed to take a long, hard look at his hostess. She walked from the French doors to the edge of the pool and slowly dropped the cover-up onto a chaise lounge.
The plain suit she wore would never be featured in Sports Ill.u.s.trated. But there was something about the fluid motion of her willowy body slipping into the water and the swan-like grace of her strokes as she swam out to them that had Zack thinking about her without the suit.
Don"t go there.
She stopped and straightened several feet from him. Water sluiced off her, and she wiped a hand over her face. She"d pulled her hair back into a ponytail and water glistened on her high cheeks and dripped off the point of her chin. She gave him a slight smile, then looked over at the kids.
"What are we going to do?"
"Let"s play volleyball!" Bobby yipped and swam to the edge to grab the net setup.
Tracy smiled and looked at Mandy, who was treading water with the help of a Styrofoam noodle tucked under her arms. "Is that what you"d like to play?"
"Yeah. Can I be on your side, Tracy?"
"I"d love it if you were." Tracy gave his daughter a winning smile. "We girls gotta stick together."
"I can"t get it." Bobby struggled with the end of the net. Zack swam over to the edge, and within moments, had it attached to the other end.
"Looks like it"s you and me, buddy." Zack smiled at Bobby. He"d gotten the impression all evening the boy was less than happy at having him here.
"Okay." Bobby looked up at him. As Tracy retrieved a big beach ball from the diving end of the pool, he asked, "Did you really ride rodeo?"
"Yep. I"ve been riding horses since I was two years old."
"Not by yourself?" His hazel eyesJake"s eyesgrew wide.
"I had a little pony that wasn"t much bigger than a shepherd dog. My dad would lead me around on him. By the time I was four, I was riding on my own horse."
Tracy was back and spoke with Mandy, but her gaze surrept.i.tiously met his.
"When I was about your age, I started riding broncos. About the same time, I started working for my dad and granddad, learning how to saddle train horses."
Bobby"s brow pinched together as if he was deep in thought.
Zack said loud enough to ensure Tracy heard, "Maybe you could come over to the ranch sometime. You and your mom. We could go riding."
Bobby shook his head, looked at the surface of the water, and mumbled, "I don"t know how to ride."
Zack glanced at Tracy, who was biting her lower lip. "That"s okay. I could teach you. It"s not hard."
Bobby met his grin with a wobbly smile. "I don"t know."
"I think we"ll need to think about it," Tracy chimed in and looked from Bobby to Zack. "Thank you for the offer, Zack."
"No problem." Zack shrugged. What the h.e.l.l? Bobby didn"t know how to ride? Tracy was an accomplished rider, and she"d always had access to the Ferguson horses even when Leon owned the place.
"Let"s play!" Mandy chirped. "We girls are gonna beat the pants off y"all!"
Zack and Tracy both laughed, and Bobby teased, "No way, little girl."
Then Tracy served ball and the game began.
After the very cutthroat volleyball game, which the girls won by one point, Tracy suggested the kids play Marco Polo. She and Zack got out. She made coffee and carried out two mugs to the wicker chair, where Zack settled in to watch their children frolic in the water.
Amanda"s swimming ability had surprised her during the volleyball game. When she jumped into the deep end and swam across the pool chasing Bobby, Tracy commented, "Wow. She"s quite a swimmer."
Zack sipped from his mug and nodded. "Yeah, she"s part fish, I think." He sat the mug down on the small table between their chairs. "I"m glad Lance has a pool, or she"d be bugging me to put one in. Lisa had taken her to swimming lessons since she was a baby."
"I did that with Bobby, too." Tracy hugged her hands around the hot cup she held. Lisa...she always seemed to come up. Tracy knew Zack still missed his wife, but she wanted to know if he still loved her. Accepting that he wanted her only for s.e.x was one thing, but if he was still in love with another woman, even a dead one, she"d never have a chance. "What was she like?"
He pulled his gaze from the kids and studied her. "Who?"
"Lisa."
"She was outgoing," he said in a low tone and looked back out at his daughter. "She was a nurse and a fantastic mother. She had to beI was gone most of the time. I wasn"t even there for Amanda"s birth or the time she got her appendix out."
"That was when you were wounded, wasn"t it?" She"d spent all evening trying not to let her gaze settle on the silvery puckered scar on his mid-abdomen where he"d been shot.
He looked at her again and nodded. "Yeah, Lisa had called me and told me she was taking Mandy to the hospital because she was afraid her appendix had burst. Mandy had woken up screaming her belly hurt." He paused and looked down at his hands in his lap. Tracy watched as he fisted one of them. "I wanted to be there so badly, if it had been possible, I would"ve gone AWOL. I"d already missed so much of her life. I hadn"t been there for her birth because I was on a training mission. I missed her first words and steps because I was deployed to Iraq. Now, she was sick, and instead of being home, I was watching supply trucks roll through the checkpoint at Peshawar on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
"Finally, one rolled in and exploded. Guerrilla soldiers swarmed us, and I was shot in the gut. Dennis, one of my fellow Marines, pulled me to the safety of a rock. But we had been followed, and that Taliban b.a.s.t.a.r.d shot Dennis in the chest. The only good thing out of it was Dennis got a shot off, too." Zack paused and took a long draw on his coffee cup. She flinched at the haunted shadows in his blue eyes. "If he hadn"t risked his life, I"d be dead."
Zack looked out at Mandy again playing in the pool and murmured, "I wish I could turn back time. I"ll never..."
She wished she could give all those early experiences with Amanda back to him. She understood, because her father hadn"t been around for so many of her milestones. "Zack, you"re here now for her when she really needs you."
"I know." He shook his head. "I should never have re-enlisted after my four years were up. I wouldn"t have been there. Dennis wouldn"t be dead, and... Well..." His smile looked pasted on. "Nothing will change the past."
No wonder Zack understood Dylan"s post-traumatic stress so well. "True."
He looked away and murmured, "I just wish I"d realized that years ago."
As she watched the way his jaw clenched, something else he"d said to her from a meeting a year ago in his office when she"d gone to pick up Dylan came to mind.
"For me it was an IED packed in a supply truck. I blamed myself when I came home for not checking out the truck better. Then an argument over stupid stuff from the past and a drunk driver crossing a double yellow line killed my wife. I can imagine what Dylan is going through. I was wounded and came back only to have my wife killed six months later, leaving me a single father of a four-year-old baby girl. I blamed everyone and anyone while I tried to crawl into a bottle of whiskey, but I could never bring Lisa back."
Tracy looked out at the pool. Bobby tagged Mandy in their Marco Polo game. The floodlights had long ago come on, with a ma.s.s of moths and gnats swarming around the bright bulbs.
She turned back to Zack and found him staring down at his fisted hands. Although she wanted him to open up, she knew now wasn"t the time, nor was he ready. "That was really nice of you to invite Bobby out to the ranch."
He seemed to pull himself from some dark place and looked at her. "The invitation was for you, too. I"m hoping you"ll let me reciprocate the time we had tonight. I don"t have a pool, but I think Bobby would have fun. I can"t believe he doesn"t know how to ride. I could teach him. I still have old Gra.s.shopper. He"s the gentlest horse in Texas."
Tracy ached at the realization Zack wanted to spend time with her and Bobby, but she couldn"t risk Jake using the invitation against her in his ridiculous custody case. "I"ll have to get back with you. I"m not sure about Bobby"s football schedule." She told a boldfaced lie and hated it.
He stared at her for a few moments, as if searching for something. "Okay. The invitation is open. Maybe some time you"d like to come over and go ridingwithout Bobby."
Her heart slammed against her ribs so hard she figured he had to hear the thumping. "Okay," she heard herself say.
His eyes burned under the dim lighting reaching them from the floods. The left side of his mouth twisted upward. "Good. Perfect."
They drank their coffee and found a safe topic in talking about the kids and the return of Dylan and Charli from their three-week honeymoonwhich had undoubtedly been more like a family vacation since they had their teenage ward, Annie, with them.
When Mandy and Bobby finally got out of the pool, Zack sat his empty cup on the table. "Mandy and I should be heading home. I have to work tomorrow."
The evening had been too magical. Tracy didn"t want Zack and Mandy to go.
After they changed back into their clothes, Tracy walked Zack out onto the front porch. While the kids ran off toward his truck, chattering about what they would do during their next visit, he held back and turned to her. "Thanks for dinner. We had fun."
"We did, too."
"You know what"s happening here, don"t you?"
A thrill ran through her, so electrifying it curled her toes. Did she dare hope? She hadn"t missed that he hadn"t told her much about Lisa; in fact, he could have been talking about anyone with his few words. "I think so."
Zack feathered her cheek with the backs of his fingers. The porch light couldn"t hide the blaze in the dark depths of his blue eyes. He leaned in and kissed her lightly on her lips, instantly igniting Tracy"s own need.
"I don"t think you really do, Tracy. I"m not looking for another wife. I had one. I"ll never fall in love again. Ask yourself if you can live with that because I can"tI won"tgive you more than s.e.x."
His husky words extinguished the fire as effectively as being dunked into a pool of icy water.
Tracy couldn"t respond. He turned and took the porch steps two at a time. Bobby came back up the steps and looked up at her. She watched Zack drive the big truck down the driveway and over the bridge that straddled Oak Springs Creek.
"Mom?"
She turned from Zack"s disappearing taillights. "Yes, sweetheart?"
"Are you and Zack gonna get married?"
Rattled by Zack"s proclamation, Bobby"s question only turned the shock into an ache. "It"s too soon for questions like that, Bobby."
"Mandy likes you."
She nodded and ruffled her son"s brown hair. "Yeah, I know. Do you like Zack?"
He wavered for a moment, then nodded as he bit on his bottom lip in a perfect imitation of her. "I guess."
She turned away from him and thought about Zack"s painful words. It would hurt too much to be with him.
"Zack didn"t care that I didn"t win the volleyball game. Dad would"ve been mad as heck."
"Oh, sweetheart." She took him into her arms. Zack was a wonderful father. He provided prudent guidance where it really mattered, he praised accomplishments, and he cared, but he never held his acceptance and approval over a child"s head.
Zack was the kind of father Bobby needed.
"Mandy wants a mother," Bobby said when she let him go.
"What do you mean?"
With his head down, he shrugged and bit his lower lip again. She got the impression he wished he"d kept his mouth shut.
She didn"t push. Tracy already knew what he"d meant.
Two children caught in Fate"s vicious games and people"s stupid mistakes. How far was she willing to go to get back what had been taken away?
Did she honestly believe she had an ice cube"s chance in the center of the sun of making Zack fall in love with her again?
Maybe there was only one way to find out.
Chapter 10.
Zack poured his second cup of coffee and prayed the day would be a good one. He hadn"t slept the night before. Instead, he"d spent the night thinking about the evening with Tracy.
What kept him up wasn"t the amazing time he"d had sharing a meal and playing in the pool, or even the fireworks that had gone off when he"d kissed her. The things plaguing him were his parting words and the reason he"d said them.
I"m not looking for another wife. I had one. I"ll never fall in love again.
They went far deeper than letting her know where she stood because he"d never forgive her. Maybe if they had been spoken for that reason, he wouldn"t feel like a fresh pile of horses.h.i.t. He"d said them to remind himself that he could never feel more than l.u.s.t for Tracy.
He carried his cup from the kitchen into the living room. The room, like the rest of the house, was large, but the design and the decor weren"t fancy or formal. The house was over 140 years old and made of logs and limestone. The interior was white painted plaster, exposed ceiling beams, and solid oak and stone floors so old his great-great-great grandparents had walked on them.
He stopped at the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the land making up his share of the CW Ranch. In the distance, Oak Springs Creek cut through a pasture and acted as the boundary between his and his cousin"s half to the south. The sun was coming over the ma.s.sive oak trees lining the creek. Bordering Lance"s half of the CW was Oak Springs Ranch; b.u.t.terfly Ranch bordered his. Originally, the tract of land had covered about one hundred-twenty-thousand acres, nearly one hundred-ninety square miles. All the land of Forrest County, Texas.
He sipped his coffee, looking out over more pasture and past the barn. Out there was the lake where he"d first made love to Tracy, probably his favorite spot on the whole ranch. Yet, he"d never taken Lisa to the lake during the times they"d visited his family. Nor had he ever considered moving her into this house after his grandfather"s death when he"d inherited it.
He"d never told Lisa much about Tracy, but she knew he"d loved her. His late wife had been jealous of the woman who had stolen his heart when he was nothing more than a boy. What about Tracy had always intrigued him so d.a.m.ned much? She wasn"t centerfold gorgeousfar from it, but something about her made her beautiful, an inner brilliance that out-shined many of the Hollywood s.e.x G.o.ddesses.
When he"d first fallen in love with her, she"d been as skittish as a range-raised filly. To his surprise, in many ways she still was. Tracy had never been like the girls and women he"d datedor the one he"d married. It had taken him months of making love to her before she"d finally believe him her small b.r.e.a.s.t.s, bony hips, or spaghetti legs, as she called them, hadn"t repulsed him. To his surprise, Lisa had been a virgin, too, when they"d first made love, but he"d never had to convince the former pageant queen of her beauty.
He turned away from the windows, and the mantle on the adjacent wall caught his attention. A painting of the founder of CW Ranch, Cole Cartwright, and his wife Isabelle, hung on the rough river rock chimney. Dressed in a dark suit of the time, Cole made an imposingly tall image. Seated in the foreground was a beautiful blond woman in a deep blue gown that matched her eyes. Cole and his wife sat with their backs to the pasture he could see out the windows. Not much had changed in the landscape since 1867, except that it had contained countless longhorns. Now some of his horses grazed on that gra.s.s.
Zack had heard their story since he was a toddler. He"d even believed he could follow in the footsteps of his famous ancestor and learn to love his wife after the wedding. It was no secret in the family that Cole and Belle hadn"t loved each other when they"d married. Cole offered her marriage instead of hanging her on the old oak tree in front of the present day courthouse for robbing the stagecoach. Somehow, they"d eventually fallen in love and had eight children by the time they"d died after the turn of the twentieth century.
He looked from his ancestors to a photograph of Lisa holding a place of honor next to numerous shots of Mandy on the oak plank mantle. He picked up the frame and looked down into the face of the woman who"d loved him with all her heart.
However, he could never give her more than a tiny part of his.
He set the mug on the mantle and gingerly ran his fingertips over her face. She"d been so beautiful and full of life. He would never forget the argument that took that life away.
"Your aunt Winnie called today." Lisa placed a plate of pork chops on the kitchen table of the small house they"d purchased in Cheyenne after he"d left the Marines.