At Home in His Heart (18 page)

“I
owe you an apology, Sandi.”

An uncertain look lit her eyes. “You don’t need to apologize, Bryce.”

“I think I do.”

“No, it was my fault. I accept part of the responsibility anyway.” She met his gaze full-on for the first time since her arrival. “I wanted to kiss you, too.”

Heart swelling, he gave her a lopsided grin. “That’s good to know—but that’s not what I was talking about.”

The color in her face deepened with the realization of what she’d unnecessarily confessed to. “Oh.”

“I’m talking about you and Keith. About how I tried to talk him out of marrying you. How I thought you were the bossiest little gal I’d ever come across. I was dead certain you’d make my buddy’s life miserable.”

Something flickered in her expression. Hurt? Guilt? Regret? With a jolt of alarm he sensed her distancing herself from him.

He shouldn’t have mentioned Keith. Shouldn’t have tried to apologize right now. Not when they were still trying to come to terms with their relationship. That kiss. Why couldn’t he have left it alone for another day or two? Or twenty?

“But I was wrong about you, Sandi.” He reached for her
hand and gave it a gentle squeeze as if physical contact could draw her back. “I apologize. And I want to ask your forgiveness.”

“Bryce—”

“I’ll understand if you can’t give it, but God’s been doing things in my life in the years since Keith’s death. I have a lot of regrets in my life, Sandi. Lots of things I wish I’d done differently. But I vowed when God found me that I’d put the past in the past and leave it there. Do my best to live a life I wouldn’t regret.”

“So that’s what the shirt means?”

“Right.” He gave her hand another squeeze. “But this is one regret that won’t go away now that I’ve come to know you. Now that you’re not just some other guy’s woman on the other end of the phone. There’s a lot I didn’t understand back then. Things I understand better now. Like who you really are…and why Keith thought he was the luckiest man in the world.”

Sandi swallowed, her mind racing. After all these years he was apologizing. But he shouldn’t be. He’d been right about her all along. She
had
been immature. Needy. And yes, too controlling, too demanding at times. Too given to putting her foot down and being unwilling to budge.

“You don’t need to apologize, Bryce.”

“I do. I’m responsible for planting all sorts of doubts in Keith’s head, right from the get-go when he first received your Dear Soldier letter. I can be a suspicious sort, Sandi. Life’s taught me to be that way around women—except my grandma. You and Keith got caught in the fallout.”

“But he didn’t listen to you. He married me anyway.”

Shouldn’t have, but he did.

“Stubborn cuss, wasn’t he?” Bryce shot her a teasing look, then sobered. “But he delayed responding to your letter be-
cause of my warnings. Delayed meeting you. Delayed getting engaged. All because of me. I’m sorry for that.”

She nodded, staring down at their clasped hands.

“After you got married, I had no idea you wanted out of Canyon Springs because you were scared to be here alone. Refused to go fishing because you can’t swim well. I just thought—well, no point in going into that.”

He’d thought she was bossing her man.

And she had been.

“I’m no saint, Bryce.” She nibbled at her lower lip. “I resented being stuck in Canyon Springs. I
did
want out of here, and I didn’t go about voicing my determination the right way.”

“But can you forgive me?”

“I can. And I do.”

He ducked his head slightly. “Can we set aside our misconceptions of each other? Start over? Clean slate?”

She nodded, her smile tremulous.

He drew in a deep breath. “Now about that kiss.”

Her startled eyes met his.

“You see, Sandi—” His voice, now husky, barely registered over the pounding of the rain. “That’s concerned me. You know, you being Keith’s wife. Feels like I’m crowding in on his territory. Never been one to do that to a buddy.”

“I don’t think Keith would object to our being friends.”

He squinted one eye. “But what if we wanted to be more than friends?”

She stepped away from him, pulling her hands free and tucking them behind her back.

“Both of us are hurting, Bryce,” she said gently. “Drawn together by our shared loss. But I don’t think either of us wants to pursue something we’d later come to regret.”

His mouth twisted as he gazed out the door at the slanting rain. After a long moment he cast a fleeting look at the ground, then back at her. Disappointment—in her—etched in his eyes.

“LeAnne got to you, didn’t she?”

Her heart jerked. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” His words came quietly enough, but they were edged with resolve. “Did she make you rehearse those touching words of rejection, so you’d get it right? Don’t let Keith’s mom do to you what she tried to do to him.”

She lifted her chin. “I’m not.”

“Then explain the look I saw on your face when you spied her at the lake. Like a criminal caught in the act. Sirens wailing. Nowhere to run.”

He stepped forward, crowding her, but there was no place for her to escape except into the downpour.

“I admit, Sandi, there was a time when Keith, too, would have warned you away from a man like me. He’d have been right to do it. But God’s cleaning me up. That’s the reason, the only reason, I can stand here with the confidence to ask if you’d consider me as more than a friend.”

He reached out to gently cup the side of her face in one hand. “Don’t let LeAnne put words in your mouth. Steal the feelings from your heart.”

She pressed the side of her face into his hand. Closed her eyes as waves of something she hadn’t felt in a long time washed over her. Warming. Touching deep inside the core of her, a fragile place she’d kept under lock and key for five long years.

Love?

“She never wanted me to marry Keith.” She opened her eyes to see Bryce still gazing down at her, his expression filled with tenderness.

“It doesn’t surprise me. The two of us really messed up her plans for him, didn’t we?”

His thumb grazed her cheek.

“LeAnne is very special to me, Bryce.”

“I know that.”

“When Keith died she came to Canyon Springs almost every weekend, even in the winter, to make sure I wouldn’t be alone. Gave me breaks from the demands of a little one. She’s good to me. Very good.”

“I’m not saying she isn’t. It’s just that she has her life to live and you have yours.”

She pressed her lips together. “LeAnne doesn’t believe you’ve changed.”

“She wouldn’t. But what about you? What do you believe?”

His thumb again caressed her cheek, distracting her. “I know God can do…amazing stuff.”

“Stuff?” His gaze intensified, amusement glinting.

“I know Keith was proud to be your friend. I know he prayed for you. And I believe God answers prayers.” She closed her eyes again, shutting him out. She couldn’t think straight with him looking at her like that, as though he could read her with ease. “I just don’t want us making a mistake.”

“Meaning you don’t want me to kiss you again?”

With a gasp, her eyes flew open.

“Let’s hear you deny it, Sandi,” he teased. “Hear you tell me you don’t want to be kissed.”

He was daring her?

She pinned him with a scowl. “I don’t want…”

He raised a brow, stepped in closer.

“You…”

Slipping his other hand beneath her hair, fingers caressed the back of her neck.

“To kiss…”

“… me.”

The breathless word came a millisecond before his lips met hers. To his delight, she melted right into him, arms slipping around his neck as though she’d come home following a too-long journey. He’d hoped it wouldn’t take much convincing to
coax a second kiss out of her, but this was more than he could have dreamed.

He drew her closer, feeling the warmth of her waist under his palms, drinking in her vanilla scent. Never wanting to let her go.

Was this really happening, or was he dreaming it?

When at last he reluctantly drew back, he leaned his forehead against hers. “This is getting to be a habit.”

“A nice one.”

He nodded.

“So,” he whispered. “Where do we go from here?”

She pulled back slightly to study him, her gaze still smoldering, flickering with the same awe, the disbelief, he felt himself. “Where do you
want
to go?”

He wanted to wake up each morning with her by his side. Come home every night to her smile, even if he had to put out the garbage and fix his own dinner and find his own slippers. He still didn’t understand it. Why God was letting a no-good bum like him slip into the blessings a guy like Keith deserved. But he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Or question the Almighty.

He wasn’t that dumb.

“I’d like to see where God takes this. Us.”

“Me, too.”

The sun split through a crack in the clouds, heralding the after noon thundershower coming to an end. The same look of wonder he felt dawned on Sandi’s pretty face, and he reluctantly released her. Then reached for her hand.

“What do you say I get this load of hay moved and you follow me over to Grandma’s?” No way was he going to let her out of his sight for long. “I promised her I’d grill dinner tonight. And you’re invited.”

“Won’t she be surprised if I show up?”

“Doubtful.”

Within thirty minutes, he’d transferred the hay and they headed home, him often glancing up in the SUV’s rearview mirror just to make sure he hadn’t made the whole afternoon up. But no, there she was, right behind him. Was it his imagination, or did the flowers surrounding the museum property seem brighter? The sky a deeper blue?

She pulled up behind him in the driveway, but before she could get out he was already at her door, smiling, holding it open. Feeling every bit like a kid bringing home his first puppy. Grandma was gonna dance with delight.

He clasped Sandi’s hand in his, then sniffed the air. “Do you smell something? Smoke?”

She nodded. Looking up, he glimpsed a wraithlike haze floating through the ponderosa branches above their heads.

A violent tremor coursed through his body. Terror such as he’d never before felt, not even in combat.

Dropping Sandi’s hand, he raced for the back of the house. Rounded the corner. Smoke billowed out an upstairs window.

Please, God, no.

“Call 911,” he shouted. And headed for the stairs.

A
cup of coffee halfway to her lips, Sandi stared at the front-page headlines of the weekly paper Cate had just dropped on the Kit’s Lodge tabletop in front of her.

ELECTRIAL FIRE INJURES LOCAL WOMAN.

And below that, a large photo taken outside the museum—a shot of paramedics gathered around a disgruntled-looking Mae sitting on a stretcher in the back end of an ambulance. The wide-angle lens captured Bryce and Sandi looking on—his arm firmly around her waist and her head on his shoulder, her hand pressed to the broad expanse of his chest.

Oh, no.

“Told you you’d made the news, didn’t I?” Cate laughed with delight. “Regular celebrity.”

“I didn’t know you and Bryce Harding were an item,” elderly waitress Sue Brown observed, peering over her shoulder. “I remember him when he was a towheaded kid. Know his grandma, too. My, my, but he turned out to be a fine-lookin’ fellow.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling Sandi.” Cate clucked her tongue. “But she’s dragging her feet.”

Was it her imagination or had half the female restaurant patrons turned to look at her, eager to get a gander at the woman
who’d made the news wrapped in the arms of one of Canyon Springs’s most eligible bachelors?

“We’re just friends.” What a liar she was.

Cate rolled her eyes. “Honey, get a clue. A man like that ain’t made for being just friends.”

“It’s okay to have a male friend,” Sue reassured as she cut a quelling look at Cate and refilled Sandi’s coffee cup. “Being friends is a good place to start.”

Cate scoffed. “Being friends is a good place to let the competition edge in.”

“Uh, Cate,” Sandi whispered. “Would you lower your voice please?”

“There’s no call to be embarrassed, Sandi. Everybody knows you’ve been on your own for a long time. Are in need of a man. Whole town will be tickled pink, just you wait and see.”

“Why are we all going to be tickled pink?” Meg Diaz maneuvered around Cate and a departing Sue to slip into the booth seat across from Sandi. She smiled uncertainly at their gossipy coworker.

Cate snatched up the newspaper and dropped it in front of Meg. “Would you look at that? Sandi’s finally found herself a man.”

Meg glanced at the paper, then at Sandi, her words guarded. “He’s a really nice guy.”

“Nice don’t say the half of it.” Cate winked. “If you know what I mean.”

Meg folded the paper and handed it back to Cate. “Is that your daughter I saw waiting in a car outside?”

Cate slapped her forehead. “In all the excitement over Sandi, I forgot. Promised to take my girl shopping in Show Low after I stopped off for a box of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls. Guess I’d better get going.”

She fixed an eye on Sandi. “And keep me posted, little lady,
on any developments with you know who. We may get to keep the museum after all.”

Laughing, she dropped the paper back on the table and headed off to get her cinnamon rolls.

Sandi dropped her face into her hands. Mortified.

“I could kill that photographer.”

“Definitely one of the drawbacks to a small town.”

Straightening, Sandi gave a quick glance around the room to ensure everyone was minding their own business again, then reached for her coffee cup. Caught Meg smiling at her.

“What?”

“Well?” Her friend leaned forward, her eyes bright and voice low. “Are you going to keep me in suspense? What’s going on with you and Mr. Muscle? If that photo is any indication, looks like things have heated up a notch since our picnic.”

“You might say that.” Face warming, Sandi couldn’t contain a smile. “He wants to be more than friends.”

“And?”

“So do I.”

Meg’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

She nodded, and Meg let out a little squeal.

“I’m so excited for you. You two make such a cute couple.” She pursed her lips, thought a moment. “Okay, maybe not quite as cute of a couple as you’d make with my big brother, Rob, but cute nevertheless.”

“Ha, ha. Bryce is meeting me for breakfast—Gina’s at her grandma’s. What are
you
doing here?”

“The same thing Cate was. Picking up cinnamon rolls for my morning Bible study group.” Meg’s eyes brightened as she looked over Sandi’s shoulder toward the door. “Won’t be staying long, though. Looks like, much to the disappointment of every single woman in town, you’re about to have company.”

Spirits rising in anticipation, Sandi turned.

She watched as Bryce wove his way among the tables,
pausing occasionally while someone inquired about his grandma. Pointed out the photo in the paper. Punched him playfully in the shoulder. Gave him a thumbs-up.

No, there was nothing quite like a small town.

When he finally arrived, he nodded a greeting to Meg and slid into the seat beside Sandi.

“Well, it was great seeing you this morning, Sandi.” Meg slipped out of the booth. “You, too, Bryce.”

“Hey,” he protested, “don’t let me chase you off.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” But Meg didn’t linger. “Ciao.”

Sandi cautiously turned to the big man next to her. What did he think of the photo of them plastered across the front page? “How’s Mae this morning?”

“Madder than a caged coyote.”

“Mad? Why?” She’d visited her last night at Pine Country Care, and she’d seemed tired but not angry.

He shook his head. “Guess.”

Because of the photo in the paper. The two of them fastened to each other tighter than Velcro. It probably came as a shock to see her grandson publicly seeking solace in the arms of a woman, even one she knew.

“Because she fell down the stairs trying to get away from the fire?” she suggested. “Rebroke her ankle?”

Bryce grunted. “No. Because she made the front-page news in her oldest, most hated housedress. The one with the big, splotchy blue flowers.”

Sandi put her hand to her mouth to squelch a laugh, relief washing through her. “Poor Mae.”

“Believe me, she is one unhappy woman this morning. Rolled me right out of bed with her call, demanding I sue the paper.”

“Maybe we both should.”

“You mean because of that?” Frowning, he tapped their intertwined image on the paper in front of him. “Wouldn’t do
any good. The whole town’s already read that thing from front to back like it’s
USA TODAY
or something.”

Expression troubled, he picked up the breakfast menu. Flipped through it without reading. Uneasily, she ran a playful finger along his biceps, astonished, as always, at the rock solidness of his arms.

“I saw you getting teased when you walked in here.”

He tossed the menu back on the table.

“We’re today’s hot news, babe. Splashed across the front page like Hollywood tabloid celebrities.” He cut her a probing look. “How do you feel about that?”

Sensing irritation in his words, she spoke with caution. “Kind of embarrassed, I suppose. You know, everyone knowing our business. I feel like a bug being examined under a microscope.”

He picked up the menu again. Toyed with it a moment. “Are you thinking it might be a good idea to put a little distance between us? Until things die down, I mean?”

A queasy sense of foreboding rolled in her stomach.

“Like how much distance?” she managed to get out, teasingly eyeing the few inches that separated them in the booth. He’d been all for kissy-face-close just a few days ago. Ready to explore where God might take them. But now that his interest in her had been made public…?

He tossed the menu down again and clasped his hands on the table. “I don’t know. Maybe enough to quell the wagging tongues. I know you’re concerned about your reputation—about mine—this being such a small town and all.”

An invisible fist slugged her in the stomach.

She might throw up.

He was having second thoughts. Backing out. Dumping her right here at Kit’s Lodge in front of God and everybody.

She smiled. Stiffly. And removed her hand from his arm. “Whatever.”

He raised a questioning brow. “You’re good with that?”

She shrugged. Swallowed. Aware that at least half the room covertly watched them. The other half openly.

“Well, looky here.” Bella Sanchez, a woman Sandi recognized as a customer from the Warehouse, paused at their table to beam at them. “If it isn’t the two lovebirds.”

Bryce leaned back in the booth, his smile looking forced.

“So glad to see you’re dating again, Sandi. I’ve worried so much about you. Prayed for you. You know, since Keith’s passing.” She winked at Bryce. “You take good care of this lady, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Bella nodded, satisfied, and moved on.

Bryce placed his forearms on the table and clasped his hands, not looking at her. Cleared his throat. “I need to get going. Sorry I can’t stay for breakfast. Trey asked me to help with some roping stock this morning while he’s gone.”

She nodded.

He frowned, studying her closely. “Everything okay?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“All right then.” He slid out of the booth, leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “Take care, Sandi. See you around.”

She gave him her brightest smile, conscious of prying eyes.

See you around. Not I’ll see you later. Not even I’ll give you a call. See you around.

She watched him weave his way back to the entrance. T-shirt tight across his broad-shouldered back. A muscled arm reaching out for a passing handshake. A strong hand securing his straw hat on his head.

Then he disappeared out the door.

And out of her life.

He’d been gut-punched in a fistfight before, but it didn’t hold a candle to what he’d gone through yesterday. Was still
going through. He had no doubt, from the look on Sandi’s face when he sat down with her at Kit’s, that she was dismayed by that photo in the paper. Of being seen with him, cuddled in his arms for the whole town to gawk at.

He shut and fastened the gate on a dozen calves he’d unloaded into the corral, then strode toward his SUV. Didn’t fancy getting caught in the approaching afternoon monsoon.

Sandi’s reaction hadn’t come as any surprise. And to be honest, why shouldn’t she be concerned about it? About a splotch on a previously spotless reputation she’d fought long and hard to maintain. About the dirty assumptions people might make about the two of them together.

Yes, he was New Bryce now. He’d changed significantly in the past few years, but few here knew it. Wasn’t like he wore a sign around his neck. He hadn’t been back long enough for word to get around. Except for escorting his grandma to church, he hadn’t exactly been vocal about it. Churchgoing didn’t prove any thing to most hereabouts anyway. When he was a teen everybody knew Old Man Addison had a lady love on the side, but he never missed a Sunday service. So nobody would pay his own Sunday appearances much mind, either.

Sure, maybe some noticed he no longer camped down at the Timbertop Bar as he used to when on leave and Grandma had gone to bed. Didn’t hang out at a neighboring town honky-tonk on Saturday nights, making sure the local gals had a good time.

He kicked at a rock. Sent it sailing.

Grandma.
If he’d have been home, this never would have happened to her. She’d wakened from a nap to find the apartment filling with smoke from an outlet in the bathroom. The new detector he’d installed last winter, recently tested, had apparently malfunctioned. She’d panicked, headed for the inside staircase. Slipped. Tumbled.

He’d never forget finding her near the bottom of the stairs.

Her arm flung out as if to break her fall, her body twisted in an unnatural position. All because he’d let himself get delayed with wooing Sandi. Not taking care of business.

Grandma didn’t break her neck, though. Relatively minor injuries. That’s what counted. He jerked the SUV’s door open.

Some grandson he’d turned out to be.

Climbing into his vehicle, he tossed his hat and gloves onto the seat beside him. Then stared out the window to watch the pastured horses tearing at the fodder along the fence line, seemingly oblivious of the rumbling thunder. They’d seek shelter under the lean-to if so inclined. Then his gaze shifted to the hay-storage building, where only a few days ago it looked as if God was opening doors.

Doors to a future with Sandi.

He should have known better. LeAnne had done her dirty work well.

When he’d offered Sandi a way out, asked if she wanted to put some distance between them for a while, she didn’t voice any objections. Didn’t ask him why. Just kind of shrugged. Said “whatever.” Basically jumped on it like a cat on a cricket while feigning indifference.

Lightning flashed as he rammed the key into the ignition. Started the vehicle. Put it in gear. He might be dense at times, but he could see the handwriting on the wall. Looked as if New Bryce needed lessons on hearing the voice of God when it came to his love life.

“When were you going to get around to telling me, Bryce?” Sandi planted herself in front of him, hands on her hips, as he pounded the For Sale by Owner sign in the rocked area between the sidewalk and the street.

How dare he not even warn her?

“Figured I’d tell you next time I saw you.”

“And when would that be?” He’d avoided her since that day
at Kit’s when he suggested they put some distance between them until hoopla from the photo died down. It hadn’t. Almost every day for the remainder of the week she’d been teased and taunted about “that Harding fellow,” sometimes even by people she hardly knew.

She could only hope he’d been similarly tortured. Would serve him right for not even calling her.

“I thought you planned to remodel in the spring. So we had plenty of time to find another location. But you’re selling it now? Not remodeling?”

“The lease is up the last day of July. You haven’t signed the new one.” Bryce bumped his hat up on his forehead and waved toward the museum. “I don’t want Grandma in that old place. Faulty wiring. Ancient plumbing. Had an inspector in, so I got an eye-opener. If I can get enough for it, get that firefighter job soon, I’ll find us a nice modern ranch house. No way am I going to risk putting her back in this place. Don’t want anyone else in there, either. So the museum’s closed. I’ll refund your money for the remaining weeks of the lease.”