MacKenzie-Blackthorn 2 - Fire and Rain by Elizabeth Lowell

Author:Elizabeth Lowell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Ranchers, Contemporary, Fiction, Romance, Large Type Books, General
ISBN: 9780373218882
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 1989-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

~ 16

“When are you going to stop this foolishness and call him?” Cash demanded from the hallway of Carla’s apartment. His tone was divided between exasperation and concern, as was the look he gave her.

Carla glanced from the enigmatic shard of pottery lying in her palm to the dresser where the telephone sat in a silence that hadn’t been broken for ten weeks. Slowly she looked at the twilight-blue color of Cash’s eyes as he walked into her bedroom. His usual easy smile was absent and his jawline looked frankly belligerent. His sun-streaked, chestnut hair was awry, making its indomitable natural wave all the more pronounced.

“Call who?” she asked.

“Santa Claus,” Cash retorted.

“It’s a bit early for Christmas lists.”

“It’s nearly Thanksgiving and you’ve been home since the end of August.”

Carla’s slender fingers curled protectively around the pot shard. She said nothing. She could count as well as her brother could. Better. She knew to the day when she had become pregnant: the last day on the Rocking M, when she had risked everything on one last throw of the dice.

And lost.

“Well?” demanded Cash. “Well what?”

“When are you going to call Luke?”

Very gently Carla replaced the shard in its hand-carved nest, closed the lid and put the box on the dresser.

“I’m not.”

“What?” Cash said.

“I’m not going to call Luke. I’ve chased the poor man for seven years. Don’t you think it’s time I left him in peace?”

Uneasily Cash assessed his sister’s expression. Carla had grown up since the beginning of summer. Though she had said nothing specific, the sadness underlying her smiles told Cash that the summer hadn’t worked out the way he had expected. What he didn’t know was why.

“Luke has been fascinated by you for years, but you were too young,” Cash said with his customary bluntness. “By the time you were old enough, he had made a habit of pushing you away. To make it worse, he has this fool idea that the Rocking M destroys women, and he loves that ranch the way most men love a woman. So I threw in a set of winning hands and sent you off for a summer of cooking on the Rocking M, where Luke could see for himself that you weren’t going to fold up and cry just because you couldn’t get your nails done every two weeks.”

Surprise replaced sadness in Carla’s face. “You set me up with that card game?”

“You bet I did. I thought the summer would give you two a chance to get acquainted with each other as adults, without me around to remind either of you about the years when you were a young girl in braids with a massive crush on a man who was old enough and decent enough to keep his hands in his pockets!”

“It worked,” Carla said neutrally. “You weren’t around to remind us.”

“Like hell it worked. We’re back to where we were three years ago, with Luke meeting me in West Fork for cards and beer and asking sideways questions about how you are and if you’re dating and do I like any of the men you bring home.

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