Kitabı oku: «The Gentrys: Cal», sayfa 3

Three

Cal handed Bella the bottle, but his expression remained alert. “What else?”

She put the bottle’s nipple into Kaydie’s mouth, but the baby didn’t seem to want to take it. “Ah, sí,” Bella said. “It is as I thought. Your daughter has a cold, señor. Her nose is stuffy and she’s having trouble breathing.”

“Is there anything we can do for her?” His eyes had filled with concern.

“I can think of a couple of things that might help,” she explained. “Do you have a humidifier?”

He shook his head. “I don’t exactly know what that is, but I didn’t see anything I couldn’t identify when I unpacked the car. Is it important?”

“I think we can manage another way,” Bella told him. “But first, will you bring her diaper bag to me, please? I saw something in there that may be of use.”

Cal limped toward the front room while she tried to comfort Kaydie. “Shush…shush, niña,” she crooned. “Your daddy might not know what to do with you, but he obviously cares. Some of us have not been so lucky in our lives.”

After Cal returned with the diaper bag, Bella cleaned out the baby’s nose the best she could and then found a small jar full of eucalyptus cream. She rubbed some on the baby’s chest. Then she and Cal dragged the lightweight crib from the small bedroom into the kitchen.

As he placed it where Bella directed, Cal asked, “Tell me again why she has to sleep in the kitchen?”

“She needs warm moist air. Without a humidifier we can boil water on the stove while she sleeps, and she’ll breath easier,” Bella replied.

“But won’t that mean we’ll have to stay with her? It could be dangerous to leave a pot on the stove.”

Bella nearly chuckled at the innocence of the man. “Sí. I will sit with her and make sure all is well. You may go back to sleep without worry.”

“That doesn’t seem right,” Cal fussed. “You are the one who needs rest. I’ll sit up with her. You go on back to bed.”

Ah-ha. The charming gringo did have some unselfish thoughts inside him after all. Bella looked beyond the bare chest and broad shoulders that had so far been the focus of her attention and studied Cal’s demeanor. She came to the decision that he did have the potential to become the friend she desperately needed.

“We will both sit up with her,” she told him. “It is only a few hours before dawn, we could keep each other awake. We may be able to take a nap tomorrow while Kaydie sleeps.”

Cal used one hand to push the two-person kitchen table around so both of them would be facing Kaydie’s fold-away crib. He couldn’t imagine how Bella could remain this alert and wide-awake after everything she’d been through the past few days, but he was grateful for a chance to talk to her.

He still wanted to find a way to get her to like him—at least a little. He was on a mission to keep her here, helping with Kaydie. And maybe even helping him to understand why she affected him the way she did.

Cal pulled out a chair and sat down, watching her settle the baby and then put water on the stove to boil. It took him a minute to notice what she had on.

“Why are you still wearing those same clothes?” He grinned at her.

She looked down at her ripped jeans and dirty long-sleeved shirt. “Oh. I don’t have any other clothes with me. I didn’t exactly get a chance to pack before I hid in that truck. I’ll wash these out tomorrow.”

“I know you took a shower before we went to bed…so…you put your dirty clothes back on?” He shook his head. “You can’t sleep in jeans,” he declared.

“When one is tired enough,” she replied as she headed toward her chair, “one can sleep in whatever they happen to be wearing…or in nothing at all for that matter.”

Oh, man. He certainly wished she hadn’t said that. The image of her lying naked on his cool cotton sheets, waiting for him grabbed him in the gut. How could he be charming when he couldn’t even think anymore?

He huffed out a pent-up breath and bit down on the inside of his cheek, trying to make the visions disappear and his errant body behave so he could speak. “I can lend you some T-shirts and sweats to sleep in,” he finally managed.

She shook her head. “Oh, I could not—”

“Sure you can. It’s no problem for me.”

“I suppose that might be better than wearing these old clothes until I can purchase new ones.” She gestured to the holes in her pants.

Cal needed to get her talking about something else. Something that would take his mind off the softness of her skin or the silkiness of her thick, dark hair. And off the picture now forming in his head of her in a thigh-topping T-shirt with nothing underneath.

Fortunately, Bella found a good topic—him.

“You said you just arrived here last night,” she began as she settled into a chair. “Why have you come to this place, Cal? What business brings you so far away from the main ranch?”

He tapped his injured leg. “A car accident.” He smiled wryly. “Which is damn funny considering that I race stock cars for a living.”

“What is so funny?”

“I wasn’t racing at the time,” he muttered as he rearranged his body in a more comfortable position at the table. “You’ve really never heard of me, honey?” he drawled smoothly. He scrutinized her face, waiting for some kind of reaction.

Surely she’d been putting him on. Everybody knew what had happened to racing giant Cal Gentry.

Her eyebrows rose, but she sat quietly.

“It was in all the papers.”

“I don’t read newspapers much.” Bella shifted in her seat the same way he had. “It’s hard to get delivery in places with no roads.” She’d said it with a straight face, but her eyes danced with mischievous lights.

Cal could scarcely believe it. She’d made a joke. He’d been convinced that, as erotic as he might find her, she was all commitment and deadly serious. His efforts to charm Bella might just turn out to be fun after all.

His blood began to stir again, liquefying his brain. He fought the sexual urges. But he was sure she would want him as much as he wanted her—sooner or later. He’d never met a woman yet that he couldn’t charm into his bed. It was just a matter of time.

“Well, if you’d read any newspapers or magazines, you’d know that I had a reputation as the most expert driver on the circuit. The lucky one who’d never caused a crash.” He laughed at the memory of his own foolish pride and stood.

It had suddenly occurred to him that he wanted to see what it would take to shake Bella’s composure. He’d had some extremely sensual ideas involving that very thing earlier. But at this moment he just wanted to see her taken aback some—without scaring her off in the process. Underneath her calm exterior lay a hot-blooded woman, and Cal wanted a small preview of what awaited him.

“But that was before I smashed the family minivan into a truck,” he continued with a drawl. “A crazy crash on a public freeway managed to put me into the hospital and to kill Kaydie’s mother…my wife.” He turned away to go and retrieve something for Bella to wear, but added over his shoulder, “You’ve hooked up with a murderer, sweetheart. How’s that for stepping out of a hot spot and into a fire?”

Bella sat poised in silence. Cal thought she was hot as ice. But a cold flame burned intensely in her eyes.

She showed no reaction to his words, amazing Cal enough to stop him where he stood. Hadn’t she heard him? He was positive there were fiery passions just below the surface of her serene outer shell. He’d seen the signs of it before in her eyes and had been more than a little intrigued.

But he guessed it didn’t take her long to figure out that he’d been testing her. “I see,” she calmly said. “That is a shame.”

The words were spoken in such a deadpan way that Cal grew irritated at her serene demeanor, even knowing that she was deliberately teasing him in return for his obnoxious behavior. “Doesn’t it bother you that you’re sitting in the same house with a murderer?” he probed.

Bella let herself smile at the odd gringo. “I am not totally ignorant of U.S. laws, señor. I went to nursing school in Houston. If you were truly at fault, you would be facing charges somewhere.” He was quite the examiner, this injured race-car driver, but she knew she could hold up under his scrutiny. “I’m not some silly young girl who will believe everything you tell me and then fall all over one of your smiles.”

He scrunched up his forehead and frowned. “Well, it’s true the police didn’t charge me…but I was at fault just the same.” Cal looked frustrated and tired. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get you those sweats to wear. I’ll be right back.”

She had seen by the barely hidden anguish in his eyes that he did feel guilt for something. When he came back carrying the clothes, she decided to ask more about it—even if it just seemed like she was being nosy.

“Please tell me what happened,” she asked, and at the same time took the bundle from his arms.

Cal sat back down and propped his elbow on the table, while rubbing the other hand across his forehead. “Well, since I brought it up, I guess I at least owe you an explanation. I was driving Jasmine…my wife…and Kaydie back from a doctor’s appointment.”

He hesitated, watching her closely as she carefully set the clothes down on the table. “At that exact moment, the Fort Worth police were chasing a bank robbery suspect on the same interstate highway. I never noticed the lights or heard the sirens, but suddenly a speeding pickup swerved into our lane from behind.

“I turned the wheel the minute I caught sight of the truck in the right-hand mirror but it was too little and too late. The truck rammed directly into our passenger door with enough force to lift the van off the ground and push it across the median and into the oncoming lanes.”

Bella was struck by the pain in his voice and the pictures of terror that his words had conjured in her mind. “I’m so sorry. But this was certainly no fault of yours.”

He shook his head. “I’m a professional driver, for God’s sake. I should’ve heard the sirens. If I’d had just a few seconds’ warning, I could’ve taken some evasive action that might have saved lives.”

She could hear and see his torment as he berated himself for failing to do the impossible. “How many were hurt in this incident?”

Cal hung his head. “My…wife…and the driver of the suspect’s truck were killed instantly. An innocent motorist coming toward us from the other direction and I ended up in the hospital,” he told her. “It could have been much worse, I suppose.”

“And Kaydie? What happened to your daughter?”

“She wasn’t injured at all.” He looked over to the baby’s sleeping form and blinked once. “I had insisted on keeping her behind me in the car and in a specially made cocoon-type infant seat. Jasmine used to complain about how much time it took to strap her in before we could go anywhere. And she was always griping about how she couldn’t reach Kaydie if she started crying.”

“So your actions did save your child’s life. I think you should commend yourself for being careful rather than chiding yourself for your misfortune.”

Cal jerked up from the table and limped to the side of his daughter’s crib. “You don’t understand.”

Yes, Bella believed there was something more behind his guilt that she didn’t understand. Something more he’d left unsaid. But she wasn’t going to push him for answers that he obviously didn’t want to give. Maybe he couldn’t even admit them to himself.

She stood, moving closer to his side. “Why do you race cars, Cal?” Perhaps if she changed the subject he could put his troubles aside for a while.

He glanced at her, and she saw the clouds of hurt and self-hate slowly disappear as they lifted from his eyes. “It’s an adrenaline addiction, I guess,” he said with a shrug.

“Hmm. It sounds a little superficial to me. Sort of a rich man’s game. Is that all you want from life?”

“I don’t think of it as a game, and I don’t believe it’s about the money or the fans…although both are nice benefits. Racers like living on the edge, taking risks and feeling alive. I guess that description fits me to a T.”

She glanced down at the sleeping baby’s face and saw peace—exactly the opposite from what the father’s words had described. Then she gazed at Cal, who had turned to look at his daughter. She was happy to see the love for his child radiating across his face, making him seem more appealing than ever.

As he’d spoken of his racing profession, he’d certainly given off high-voltage and combustible animal magnetism. Now as he looked at Kaydie, she found that his charm had finally managed to turn her insides into melted ice cream. His loving response to his child was breaking down her defenses.

Bella surprised herself by also noticing the warm electric currents arcing from his bare skin and zinging through her flesh, straight to her spine. She’d believed she’d stopped feeling these kinds of lustful things many years ago.

But she had to admit that she was definitely noticing them with this man. All her carefully constructed walls seemed about to crumble around her. Was it possible that she did still shelter a hope deep in her heart that someone somewhere would love her one day? Or was this simply an urgent erotic need, unlike any she’d ever known before?

“Maybe that description fits me, as well,” she told him as she ordered her body back under her control. “I take my own kind of risks to do my job on the border.” She didn’t mention that taking risks was no big deal for someone like her who had no family and no love to care whether she stayed safe or not.

But the real risk would be in letting this charming man get too close. Whatever her body felt just couldn’t matter. He was dangerous to her equilibrium and too big a risk for her peace of mind.

All the talk about risks reminded Cal of the life he’d had before any of this happened. Before the baby, and before he and Jasmine had to get married. He’d liked things the way they were back then.

Speed was what his life had been all about. He wasn’t cut out to hang around a ranch wiping a kid’s bottom.

As if to bring home his current miserable situation, when he twisted to move away from the crib, a spear of pain jolted through his leg straight to his hip. “Damn it.” He had to stop and breathe just to keep upright.

“What is it, Cal? Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine,” he retorted fiercely, as he fisted his hands and refused to bend to the pain.

She’d made a move to assist him, but when he shouted at her, she stepped back. The look on her face showed she felt stung and hesitant, exactly the opposite of what he’d been hoping to see there since the first time he’d opened his door to her.

“Damn it,” he muttered again. How could he be so stupid as to push her away when what he really wanted was to get closer to her? He wanted her to feel the beginnings of need for him—not pity.

Cal stopped moving and took another deep, cleansing breath. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean to yell. It’s just that the pain surprises me sometimes. Right when I begin to think I’m healing and that I can start doing more, I do something thoughtless and have to rethink my plans.”

He leaned hard on his crutch and shook his head. “God, why is this so hard?”

“Have you been receiving physical therapy for your injuries?” she asked warily.

Her voice had become so tentative that Cal immediately shrugged off the pain and concentrated his attention on Bella. “I was…while in the rehabilitation hospital. But I chose to leave and come back home.” He forced a purely phony but easy smile, trying to put her more at ease. “Those doctors were all so pessimistic that I had to get away from there. I know what I’m capable of better than any supposed medical specialist who just looks at X rays.”

The tension lines at the corners of her eyes relaxed as she apparently started to trust him not to bite her head off again. “I know a little about physical therapy, it was one of the things I specialized in at nursing school. What did the doctors tell you?”

“Well, they informed me that I might never walk again.” He tapped his thigh and raised his eyebrows at her. “Guess they were wrong about that one.”

Cal shifted his weight so he could face Bella squarely. “They’re wrong about the rest of it, too. I’ll show them.”

“What did they say?”

“They told me I might never be able to drive a car again and that racing would definitely be out of the question for the rest of my life.” He tilted his head and winked at her. “But that’s just bull dung. I’ll be back in a car by next season.”

Bella had listened carefully to the sentiment beneath his words. He was scared. His life had revolved around racing, and now it might be lost to him forever. Her heart went out to him.

Both a recent widower and a man who’d been forced out of his life’s work, Cal needed help right now. Bella decided to make sure that he had that help before she made her way back across the border. She could never leave them stranded.

Bella changed her clothes, then she and Cal talked softly about nothing important. Racing, weather, what Cal wanted to accomplish with his career. Finally she rose from the table once again to check on Kaydie. The baby was still sleeping soundly and her skin was cool to the touch.

Bella looked out the kitchen window and was shocked to find the purple and rose rays of the breaking dawn showering the yard with early-morning shadows. She and Cal had talked on longer than she’d imagined. But he was so easy to be with, so charming and enthusiastic about his work and his life on the racing circuit that the time had whizzed by.

“Is Kaydie okay?” he murmured softly.

“She seems fine.” Bella stuck her hand under the baby’s bottom and found it a bit wet. “She just needs changing.”

As Bella started to pull off the baby’s diaper, the phone on the kitchen wall began to ring. Cal stood and limped to answer it.

She didn’t want to eavesdrop, but the small kitchen did not afford any privacy. Cal, at first surprised by the early phone call, soon seemed irritated with the caller.

“Listen, Cinco, I don’t need your help yet,” he said into the receiver. “I’ll call when I want you to…”

Cal pulled the instrument from his ear and stared at it. “Son of a gun. The bastard hung up on me.”

He slammed the phone down and turned to Bella. “That was my brother. He was a little hot that I hadn’t called him when the baby’s nanny took off yesterday. Seems his wife has been keeping an eye on us from above.”

Bella began to ask the obvious question to that remark, but Cal quickly explained. “My sister-in-law, Meredith, is in charge of Gentry Ranch’s range pilots and air fleet. One of her jobs is to oversee the hands checking the fence lines every morning, along with watching for problems with the stock.”

“Oh?” Bella broke in. “Do you think she might’ve spotted the coyotes while she was checking the ranch? I don’t know where they’d be in the daylight hours.”

Cal shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ll have to ask Cinco. But I guess Meredith has been watching out for Kaydie and me. She flew over yesterday and noticed that the Suburban was gone but that there was smoke coming from the chimney.”

He grimaced and continued. “On this morning’s rounds she saw that the truck was still gone and began to worry.” Cal sighed and shook his head. “I imagine we’ll be getting a visit from my brother very soon.”

“Oh, but that is good…no?” Bella was relieved to think that someone would come to help Cal and Kaydie; the two of them seemed so vulnerable. Eventually she would have to leave, and perhaps the sooner the better—before she grew too attached to the child—and to the father.

“No,” he grumbled dejectedly. “Cinco’s been heckling me to move into the main ranch house with him and Meredith. Our family’s housekeeper is there to help with the baby, and my brother thinks I’d be safer under his roof.”

“It sounds like your brother loves you and wants what is best for you. Wouldn’t that be better than trying to make it alone?” she probed.

Cal shook his head sadly. “I know my brother loves me and he’s been missing me all these years since I’ve been on the circuit. But he’s a security freak.”

Bella wondered again what he was trying to tell her.

Cal waved his hand in the air. “Cinco thinks he can save everyone and everything that happens to be within his reach. I’m sure he’d hire nurses for both Kaydie and me. I can’t take being fussed over twenty-four hours a day.”

Cal straightened and limped to the chair. “It would be the worst thing that could happen for me, and probably for Kaydie too. I need my independence to keep moving. I have to relearn how to take care of myself.” He sat down gingerly and leaned on his elbow. “I can’t take the chance of letting Cinco smother me with kindness. I know I must live through the pain so I can get back to doing what I love. In order to drive again, I have to be tough on myself.”

Bella had listened to everything he’d said, and tried to listen to the things he’d left unsaid. “Have you thought of letting your brother and sister-in-law take Kaydie into their home temporarily? Maybe you could do better if you had less to worry about.”

Cal’s face turned ashen, and he stared at her as if she’d just suggested that he throw his child to the wolves. “My daughter is my responsibility. My father taught all his children to honor their responsibilities and to do their duty to their families. I just need a little help with her right now, that’s all.”

Bella felt as if he’d struck her. She thought she knew him well enough by now to know that he was an honorable man. She hadn’t meant to accuse him of anything. And she couldn’t figure out why his reaction had been so intense.

“Cal, I didn’t mean that you should give up your daughter permanently. I just thought…”

“It’s okay.” His demeanor quickly changed and he shook off her apology. “Actually, I’d already thought of that solution myself. But I don’t think Cinco will accept leaving me here alone. And…and…I think he might need more time to get to know Kaydie better.”

Bella thought that last remark was a strange thing for Cal to say. Somehow his words had not made any sense to her. Even listening between the lines with her soul, the way she’d learned to do with the migrants, had not been enough to decipher his meaning this time.

But one thing had come through quite clearly. He needed help and was probably trying to find a way to ask her to stay and take care of his child while he worked on healing himself. It was something she would certainly have to consider.

An hour later Cal stood at the kitchen sink alone, washing out the few dishes they’d used for breakfast. After she’d fed Kaydie and before she’d gone to take another shower, Bella had fixed a delicious meal consisting of scrambled eggs with chopped corn tortillas and sausage mixed right in.

He’d found he enjoyed learning about the complex and gorgeous Bella. She was a better cook by far than Jasmine ever could’ve been. In fact, her food was as good as the Gentry Ranch’s longtime housekeeper, Lupe, who made the wonderful Tex-Mex cuisine Cal had loved since childhood.

Man, he sure hoped he could convince Bella to stay on for a while. Life would be exceedingly easier—and maybe, if he played his cards right, a lot more challenging.

A quick rap on the cabin’s front door caught Cal’s attention. But before he could dry his hands and limp to answer it, Cinco strode through the door and into the room.

“Well, I see you’re still standing.” Cal’s older brother gestured toward the dishes drying on the counter. “And that you can at least manage to feed yourself. Is your daughter still alive, too?”

Damn, but Cinco could sure annoy the hell out of him in less than sixty seconds. “Listen, bubba,” he retorted, with as much emphasis on the hated baby-talk word for brother as he could manage. “We’re doing just fine. Kaydie is asleep in the next room. You didn’t need to break into your day just to come check on us.”

Cinco ignored his remark. “Why didn’t you call when Mrs. Garcia left so suddenly?” he demanded. “We’ve tried all along to make you understand we want you and the baby to come stay with us. Without the nanny, Meredith and I can’t stand the thought of you and Kaydie trapped out here with no help and no way of escape in case of emergencies.”

Cinco’s expression turned softer and his eyes began to plead his case. “Things would be so much easier for you at home. We could handle everything for you.”