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“Now?”
“He used to be with Flameco.”
“Oh,” she said.
Good intentions went awry. The rest of the trip was made in silence. Sarah cooperated by going to sleep against Leigh’s breast. She had placed an absorbent pad between Sarah’s drooling mouth and her new blouse. The tension fairly crackled between Chad, who kept his eyes resolutely on the stretch of highway, and Leigh, who did likewise.
“Warm enough?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“Mind if I turn down the thermostat a little?”
“No.”
That was the extent of their conversation as the powerful car ate up the twenty miles or so to the estate Chad had modestly termed “some acreage.” He turned the car onto the private road. On either side of it, Hereford cattle grazed on bales of hay scattered across sprawling pastures now brown with winter. Leigh’s awe increased. She lost count after they had passed the tenth oil well pumping in steady cadence.
The house was another mild shock. It stood in stately serenity in a grove of mulberry and pecan trees beside a shallow creek. It was built of white-painted brick. Four square columns connected a wide front porch to the second-story balcony. Dark green shutters flanked six tall, multi-paned windows across the front.
“Here we are,” Chad said, avoiding Leigh’s eyes as he climbed out of the car carrying the diaper bag. He came around to assist her and Sarah.
“And to think I felt bad when you bought me flowers because I thought you were indigent and out of work,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. His lips thinned in irritation, but he didn’t have time to respond before the wide front door was thrown open and Amelia Dillon bustled out, wiping her hands on an apron.
“Hurry in out of this wind. Get that baby inside before she catches a cold. Welcome, welcome, Leigh. Hello, son.” Amelia placed a protective arm around Leigh’s back and shooed her into the house. “Get in there by the fire,” she said, steering Leigh out of a hallway that ran the length of the house into a comfortable living room. A blazing fire was burning in the huge fireplace that took up one wall. “Daddy, they’re here,” Amelia called toward the back of the house. “Chad, put the baby’s things in that chair. Nothing can hurt that old thing. Leigh, let me take your coat. No, you can’t take it off while you’re holding Sarah. Let me”
“Mother,” Chad intervened, catching her on the shoulders with his large hands. “Mother, we’ll be here all day, but you’ll never survive it if you don’t calm down. This is Leigh Bransom.”
Amelia laughed nervously. “I’m chattering, aren’t I? I’m sorry. It’s just that I was so excited about meeting you,” she said. “Hello, Leigh.”
If Leigh had predicted that she would like Amelia Dillon, she knew it now. The woman was small, with a compact, matronly figure. Her hair was silvered, but showed evidence of at one time having been the same dark brown as Chad’s. Her eyes, too, were a radiant blue. “Hello, Mrs. Dillon. Thank you for inviting us. We’re very glad to be here.”
“Leigh, let me take Sarah while you get out of your coat,” Chad suggested. He took the blanket-swathed baby, who was beginning to come to life.
“Oh, let me see her, Chad,” Amelia said, crowding against him. “Now isn’t that the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen? Look at her dress, Chad. How precious. Will she cry if I hold her?”
“I don’t think so,” Leigh said, shaking off her heavy coat. After handing Sarah to his mother, Chad took her coat and, with Sarah’s blanket, hung it on a hall tree. When he turned back, he caught Leigh’s eye and they smiled at each other over his mother’s croonings to Sarah. Leigh felt her heart expanding, reaching out, finding his.
Her anger evaporated. She read the softening in his eyes and knew that he, too, had found the antipathy between them tiresome. In light of her history and his career, their problems seemed insurmountable, but underlying all this was an attraction she neither could, nor wanted to deny. It was happening too fast, too quickly to be safe, but who could stop an avalanche?
Suddenly she longed to touch him. He seemed to know that, for he came toward her and put a possessive arm around her waist, drawing her to his side. Forgiving him his deception and pushing her fears aside, she allowed her body to adjust to the length of his.
The hunger that radiated from his eyes when she looked up at him startled her. She saw a plea for patience, a promise.
“Oh, she truly is precious, Leigh,” Chad’s mother said of the baby. Glancing up, her eyes lit on someone behind Leigh and she said, “Stewart, come here.”
Leigh turned in the direction of the doorway and caught a soft gasp just before it escaped her. Her back stiffened. Chad squeezed her waist reassuringly.
Mr. Dillon stood under the archway leading into the hall. He was a large man. In his youth he would have been as brawny as Chad. His face had been lined by the elements and years of smiling broadly. Thick white hair crested on the top of his head from a receding hairline. He was propped on a crutch. And where his left leg should have been was an empty trouser leg, pinned together above his knee.
“Hello, son. Leigh?” he asked and she nodded. “It’s a pleasure.” Agilely he crossed the room and extended a callused hand to her. “Forgive me for not wearing my prosthesis, but in cold weather, it tends to be uncomfortable.”
“Mr. Dillon,” she said, smiling easily now and taking his hand. Her initial shock had been instantly replaced by well-bred manners. “Don’t apologize for wanting to be comfortable in your own home.”
“Call me Stewart,” he said. “You were right, son. She’s beautiful.” Leigh blushed and everyone laughed.
“He’s so annoying, Leigh,” Amelia said. “He wouldn’t tell us a thing about you. Not if you were blonde or brunette or short or tall. Nothing. All he said was that you were beautiful.”
“Let me see the baby, Amelia,” Stewart Dillon said, and his wife immediately obliged him. “You sure picked a pretty one to bring into the world, son,” he conceded, placing an affectionate han
