Lost Memories (Honky Tonk Hearts) (8 page)

“I tried calling my brothers—any idea why they aren’t answering their phones this time?”

“They drove over to the Lonesome Steer for a couple of beers. “

“Why didn’t you go?”

“Someone needed to stay here. Besides, a quiet night sounded better.”
And I didn’t want to miss your call.

“Oh. I, ah, bought you something today.”

Her pulse accelerated and wine sloshed over her hand. She set her goblet down on the end table and wiped her skin on her shorts. “What? Why?”

“It’s nothin’ big. I saw it and thought of you. No big deal.”

The fact he purchased anything for her loomed a huge deal. Uncomfortable with all the questions it stirred, she searched for another, safer subject.

“Have you talked to your parents?” She sat on her sofa, knees pulled to her chest.

“I spoke to my mom this morning. She’s impressed with everything Sam’s told her about you; wanted to call and talk to you herself, but Dad has kept her busy.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Good, but I hate that I can hear worry in my mother’s voice.”

Picking up the glass of wine, she sipped the liquid. “What’s troubling her?”

“My father has an appointment Monday. Until she gets a good report from the doctor, she’s pacing a hole in the floor.”

“She loves him a lot, huh?”

“More than anything. I think buildin’ the ranch from the ground up strengthened their bond.” A deep sigh filled her ear. “If his appointment goes well, she’s taking him on a cruise. One she hasn’t informed him of yet.”

“Sounds fun.” Darcy reclined on the couch and closed her eyes, letting the low rumble of his gentle tones wash over her.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure he’s ready for the high seas. The last time I spoke with him, he wanted to come back and make sure we didn’t bulldoze the place.”

She snorted. “Like that would happen. He has to know how much you love the ranch.”

“He does, but we weren’t the most obedient boys growing up.”

“I don’t imagine any child is. How many years separate you and your brothers?”

“Eleven. I’m thirty-two, Sam’s thirty, Trent’s twenty-five, and Chris is twenty-one.”

“At least you’re close with your brothers.” Again she wondered if she had a brother? A sister? She searched her brain, focusing hard to pull the information from the depths within her.

“Yeah.”

She envisioned him sitting next to her, talking to her as an old acquaintance. Except a friend’s voice didn’t cause a tingly-tangly feeling to flow through every nerve ending in her body.

“Darc, what’s wrong? You’re distant tonight, darlin’.” His endearments were becoming a regular part of his vocabulary.

Shivers traveled down her spine every time his southern voice spoke one. Before he left, she barely knew him. Now, on the phone, he edged close to being...more. Would the changes in the relationship hold true when he came home? Did she want it too?

“I, uh, was just thinking how lucky you all are to have each other.”

Stop thinking of Nick in any other sense than a boss. You’re only setting yourself up for heartbreak.
Without knowing her past, any relationship remained out of the question, let alone one with her employer. She’d lose her heart
and
her job; the two went hand in hand.

“How come you don’t talk about your family?”

She swallowed the ball of nerves forming in her chest, threatening to choke her.

“Things not good on the home front?” His tone softened. “Come on, talk to me.” The friendship with the eldest Matthews developed and matured over the last two weeks, but if she informed him of her amnesia, would he understand?

In the beginning maybe, but not now.

“Do you ever talk to your folks?”

“They ah...passed away.” And somehow that rang true.

“Do you have brothers or sisters?”

The notion of lying to him any more hurt now that he had broken through her shell. She couldn’t just blurt out, “I don’t know. I can’t remember.” Her mind scurried for a way to distract him from the subject.

“Oh, geeze. Hold on. I spilled my wine.” She made a rustling noise, taking the reprieve to calm her nerves. After a few breaths she returned with a quick, “Okay, I’m back.”

“Drinking, Darc?”

“One glass. It helps me sleep after a busy week.” Her hand rose to cover the yawn the words provoked.

“Don’t get defensive on me. You’re entitled to a drink. I’d like one myself right about now.”

She swirled the remaining red liquid around in her glass. A comfortable silence stretched, and she closed her eyes, listening to his breathing. The sound soothed her, making her body languid along with the alcohol.

He sighed. “It’s getting late. I should let you go. Hold down the fort until I get back.”

Not wanting to let him go, she squeezed the phone.

“Darc, you fall asleep on me?”

An image of her head on his chest sprang to her mind. “No. But I should go. Night, Nick.” Darcy hung up the phone, set her glass in the sink, and went to bed. Her body hummed with the warmth of his tone while her mind grew troubled over the lies she told.

With conflicting emotions absorbing her every thought, sleep did not come easy despite the alcohol.

****

Nick tugged on his jeans, threw a T-shirt over his head and placed his feet in his boots, glad to be home. The phone calls to Darcy held him in suspense. His feelings for her remained a mystery to him. When he first left, he chalked up his attraction as just that—an attraction. She was a beautiful female; he a normal, hot-blooded male.

The mistake he made was checking in on her. The sound of her soft voice echoed in his mind. Without the stress of day-to-day life on the ranch, he found he longed to hear the sound of her laugh and her low, sultry voice before he fell asleep.

He went to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee, thankful he remembered to set the programmable maker when he got in late last night. On his drive to the ranch, he called and rescheduled his last advertising meeting.

You’re going through a lot of trouble for a woman, buddy.

Not any woman, Darcy. Though the fact remained she still held back when he brought up her family and her past, she warmed up to him during their conversations.

Downing the rest of his caffeine, he placed his mug in the sink, and went out the door. He squinted in the morning sunlight and started toward the equine barn. “Come on, boy,” he called to Dakota, slapping the side of his thigh.

The boxy-headed dog ambled over.

Nick reached down to scratch him behind the ears. He glanced to the full water dish and half-eaten food.

“I see someone fed you.”
About five feet two inches of heaven, no doubt
. From what Sam told him, Darcy had taken a liking to the dog.

He ambled across the way and grained the horses before letting the four-legged creatures out to pasture. T.J. kicked the wall in the last stall.

“Itching to run, fella?” Grabbing a hold of the gelding, he led the animal to his friends. By the time he finished filling water buckets and mucking stalls, sweat clung to his shirt. The weatherman promised the nineties by early afternoon. He peeled the wet material away from his body and used the cotton to wipe the water from his forehead. Tossing the shirt into the tack room, he moved on to the pig barn.

The petting zoo continued to be a success with the kids who stayed at the ranch, not to mention the few minutes of sanity for the parents. Another highlight if he bought a handful of placid horses for smaller, inexperienced riders—a possibility brought up during his trip.

Entering the pig pen, he sighed with relief. One of the guys beat him there. Or Darcy, another one of her regular pit stops in the morning according to Sam.

“Well, boy,” he said to Dakota, who lounged outside the entrance. “Let’s go see if the cabins are up to snuff for the next set of guests.”

The sun penetrated Nick’s skin as he sauntered over the three acres to the first cabin. He should’ve grabbed another shirt. After coming close to getting sun poisoning last year, he usually remained more cautious of the dangerous rays, but too many thoughts swirled in his mind this morning, too much eagerness to see one specific person.

Each of the twenty cabins sported the same undersized living room, a small kitchenette, a bathroom, and a bedroom or two. He approached the steps to the small porch of the cabin, opened the door, and advanced inside. The floors shone in the sunlight as cleaning fumes assaulted his nostrils. He shut the door and jogged his way to the adjacent building. Country music blared from the bungalow. Racing up the steps, he stopped in the open doorway.

Darcy swung her hips from one side to the other while sweeping—or dancing—with the broom. The impact of seeing her in the flesh caused his hands to grow wet with perspiration. After their nightly conversations, his attraction went more than skin deep, and acknowledging that fact scared the daylights out of him.

Give it up. She’s an employee.
And she deserved better than having her boss lust after her. He held no right to think of her in any other sense. The sexual attraction violated his ethics.

Even so, Nick bit his tongue to keep from chuckling out loud as she sang along off-key and moved through the room without a care in the world.

He stepped back to give her privacy only to trip on Dakota. The dog howled and in one sweeping movement, Darcy spun around, crossed the floor, and hit the power button on the radio.

“Nick!” She wiped the sweat from her face. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long.” He cleared his throat and picked up a rag off the floor.

Her cheeks heated to a nice shade of pink beneath her tan as she twisted the broom handle.

“Thanks for feeding Dakota.”

“Your truck wasn’t there when I went to bed. I figured you must have got in pretty late.”

“Actually, it was early this morning.”

“Then you should have slept in.”

Her eyes darted to his chest, reminding him of his absent shirt. Her caressing gaze boosted his male pride to levels beyond. His skin tingled with every inch her brown orbs touched as her sights traveled up to his face.

“The place looks great. How ’bout we go on down to the main house and grab breakfast.”

“I—I suppose I’m not going to get a better invitation. Unless we run into Horace, anyway.” She started out the door. “You know he’s my true love.”

Her full, kissable lips turned up in a smile, a true genuine smile, one his brothers had privilege to, but not him.

Until now.

Nick followed her, taking note of the way she joked with him. He liked this playful attitude much better than the tension from before he left.

“Great, now I’m second to a pig. If he tries to steal away the first female companion I’ve had in weeks, he may find himself on a platter with an apple in his mouth.”

Her eyes darted over him again, then widened with his words. “You wouldn’t. Besides, I’m sure you’ve had plenty of dates.”

The idea of entertaining didn’t hold much appeal. Though, the way Darcy looked at him made him realize what he’d been missing.

“Where’s your shirt? Didn’t you learn anything last year?”

“How’d you know about that?”

“Chris told me how worried he’d been about you.” She shrugged and kicked a pebble. “He filled me in on different things about each one of you.”

“Did he now?”

This was news to Nick.

The past year, Chris acted as if he didn’t care a scrap about his oldest brother.

“Mmm-hmm. Hey, wait for us, will ya? You have four legs, we have two,” Darcy called out as Dakota ran ahead.

Beside him, she skidded to a stop, her head whipping from one direction to another.

Her skin paled beneath her tan. The expression marring her face resembled the day he’d hosed her off by the barn.

He searched the area noting nothing out of the ordinary. What made her so jumpy?

Her hand squeezed his bicep. “You ever feel like someone’s watching you?” she whispered.

Chapter Six

“Come again?”

“You know, the hair on your neck standing up type sensations.” Her wide eyes stared at the tree line.

On alert, he followed her gaze, curious over her odd behavior. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Sorry. Must be my overactive imagination again.” She shrugged, but lingered for a moment, examining the area.

“You need food.”

He steered her toward the house and trudged up the steps of the wooden porch, holding the door open for her, but uneasiness gnawed at his gut at her sudden mood change.

“Let me grab a shirt out of the dryer, and we’ll get some breakfast.” He crossed to the laundry room off the kitchen and pulled on a dark gray T-shirt.

“Where’s Ms. Liz?” Darcy looked around the large kitchen and leaned on the center island.

“I’m sure she’s around.” He opened one of the large refrigerators, removed the bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, flapjacks, and scrambled eggs. At the last minute, he grabbed a jar of strawberry jelly.

The cook gave him an ear full on how
his
new employee put the stuff on everything she ate.

“If you come in after a meal, she always keeps extra in the fridge.” He set out to warm up the food and pointed to the island. “Can you grab the silverware? Center drawer.”

“Sure.” She carried the utensils into the spacious dining room.

Nick followed behind her and placed the food on the buffet table located in the center of the room. Smaller booths sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Why in here?”

“I like the atmosphere. The fireplace is beautiful.” Darcy scooped a spoonful of eggs on her plate, three strips of bacon, and a pancake.

Her calm demeanor a total contradiction from her paranoia moments ago. His narrowed glance followed her movements.

Not sure what to make of her, he viewed the ceiling to floor, stone-encased hearth and was reminded of the many fall months they’d spent cutting, splitting, and stacking wood with their father. One day in particular haunted him to this day. His father had carried an armload of wood into the house and told Nick to keep an eye on his brothers. Minutes later, they rushed Sam to the hospital for slicing his palm open on a chainsaw.