“Jealous,” Tank told Merissa in a stage whisper. “I can play it and he can’t.”
“I could play it if I wanted to,” Mallory muttered.
“I love ‘Send in the Clowns,’” Merissa said softly.
Tank’s eyebrows lifted.
“Did I say something wrong?” she asked worriedly.
“It’s his favorite,” Cane said gently and laughed.
“Oh!” She flushed as she met Tank’s soft, searching eyes.
“Similar tastes in music,” he teased. “Not a bad thing at all. Okay. Here goes.”
He began to play. Merissa closed her eyes to drink in the sweet beauty of the song. It was timeless, ageless, haunting. Her mother had a recording of it sung by Judy Collins, inherited from Merissa’s grandmother, who had loved it dearly. Merissa had fallen in love with the recording long ago. Even without the words, the melody was exquisite.
Tank finished. Merissa wiped her eyes. He grinned.
“Okay,” he invited Mallory, who was holding his son and grinning. “Your turn.”
Mallory kissed the little boy and handed him over to a beaming Morie. “On my way.”
Tank got up and sat beside Merissa on the sofa. Mallory flexed his own fingers, gave Tank a smug grin and launched into his own favorite, the theme from
Merissa sat entranced while he played. When he finished, she clapped.
“Sorry,” she told Tank.
He only laughed. “No need. He really is better than me. I just like to pull his chain occasionally. Bravo, Mallory,” he added, and he clapped, too. “I yield to a maestro.”
Mallory made him a mock bow. Then he went back to playing with the baby.
“Coffee?” Morie asked, surrendering the baby to Mallory again as she got to her feet.
“That would be very nice,” Merissa said.
“Come with me,” Morie invited, smiling.
Merissa smiled at Tank and went to join the other woman in the kitchen.
“You can be in charge of mugs.” Morie laughed. “They’re in the cupboard, there.”
Merissa went to get them. They were thick white mugs. She looked at them with surprise. The Kirk ranch was massive. She expected bone china, at the least.
Morie saw her expression and grinned. “We don’t use the good china except at Christmas dinner,” she confessed. “Nobody likes hand washing every single piece of it, you see. Those—” she indicated the mugs “—go very nicely into the dishwasher and never crack.”
“You aren’t what I expected,” Merissa confessed shyly. “I mean, I knew Bolinda from when I was very young, and she was always kind. But people say you’re from a very powerful ranching family in Texas. I thought...”
Morie put an arm around her shoulders impulsively and hugged her. “We’re just people,” she pointed out. “My dad’s just as much at home in a dented pickup with torn seats as he is in a Jaguar. He and my mother raised my brother and me not to be snobs,” she added with a chuckle.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Merissa said softly, and smiled.
“I know.” Morie sliced pound cake and put it on a platter. She glanced at Merissa. “We all know what happened over at your place. I’m so sorry. Just before Christmas, too.”
“I still don’t understand why the man would do something so horrible. He sent my father to terrorize us.” She closed her eyes and shivered delicately. “You have no idea what he did to us, to my mother and me, before Dalton came and the others came and rescued us. He said he was going to kill me....”
Morie hugged her close and rocked her. “It’s all right. He’ll never hurt you again.”
She shivered. “The man shot him dead, right in our backyard.” She pulled away and wiped at her eyes with a paper towel Morie passed to her. “Why kill him?”
“Apparently he’d served his purpose,” the older woman said quietly. “Or some purpose that only he knew. People like that aren’t quite sane, I think.”
Merissa nodded. “He’s dangerous. The most dangerous person I’ve ever heard of. He said he’d be listening, and if I told Dalton anything else about him he’d kill Mama.”
Morie grimaced. “If it helps, these things do finally get resolved. One way or another.” Her eyes were sad. “You heard about Joe Bascomb, didn’t you?”
“Everybody did,” the other woman said. “It was so brave of you, going out to find Mallory after Bascomb had kidnapped him and left him to die. He could have killed you.”
“I knew that,” Morie said. “But I would have had no life without Mallory.”
It was said in a matter-of-fact way. Merissa saw the love in the other woman’s eyes for her husband as she glanced through the doorway of the kitchen past the dining room into the living room beyond, where Mallory was sprawled on the carpet with their son.
She looked back at Merissa. “You would have done the same, if it had been Tank,” she said perceptively.
“Of course,” Merissa said without a pause. She drew in a breath. “He’s my whole world now. I can’t imagine life without him in it.”
Morie smiled. “You won’t have to, from what I’ve seen,” she told her. “You watch, he’ll come through that door any minute. He can’t stand to be away from you. He’s been mooning around here all day trying to find an excuse to go and see about you... See?” she whispered.
Tank appeared in the doorway, hands in his jean pockets, eyebrows raised. “Are we ever going to get coffee, you think?” he mused.
The women laughed.
“We’re putting it on the tray now, with cake,” Morie said. “Want to carry it in for us?”
He grinned. “My pleasure.” He glanced at Merissa with a look in his eyes that made her just melt.
He put the tray down on the coffee table and drew Merissa to his side on the sofa.
“I like mine black,” he told her. He smiled.
She laughed. “I like mine with cream and sugar.”
“It doesn’t matter. You like ‘Send in the Clowns,’” he teased. “We’ll find other things in common, too.”
“Yes.” She leaned over to pour the coffee for him.
ALL TOO SOON, she had to leave. Tank drove her back to her home, but he stopped a little way from the cabin, put the truck out of gear and removed their seat belts. While she was wondering why, he pulled her across his lap and kissed her with a starving passion.
She reacted to it at once, her arms around his neck, her body straining to get as close to him as she possibly could.
His hand went under her blouse, searching for soft flesh to explore. His mouth teased around her lips until he roused her. The kiss was deeper, slower, hungrier than any they’d shared before. He groaned.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, feeling his anguish.
“We should get married,” he blurted out.
MERISSA DREW BACK from him with a faint gasp. “What?” she stammered.
He ground his teeth together. She looked so shocked that he was embarrassed, and suddenly his confidence about her feelings for him took a nosedive. The set of rings in his pocket was burning a hole in the material of his coat now. “I didn’t mean to say that,” he lied. “I’m sorry. I got in over my head a little too quickly.”
“It’s...all right,” she said, moving away from him, back to her own seat. She fastened her seat belt for something to do. “No harm.” She tried to smile. For an instant she’d thought he meant it, and her heart sailed up into the sky. Now he was busy backtracking.
“I’m really sorry...”
