Such Rough Splendor Read online

  “What’s the matter, cowboy? Did I pick on your horse?” Amelia teased.

  Mac didn’t answer.

  “I’m sorry,” she said with exaggerated regret. “I’ve been to enough Roy Rogers movies in my time to know better, but you’re just… a man a woman has got to pick on.” She gave a resigned sigh.

  “Amelia?”

  “What, Mac?” she asked, her grin running into an alarmed squawk as he pounced on her. He had her up off the ground, her arms pinned to her sides.

  “You know that stream back there?” he said. “I’m going to put you in it. Just for Willard the Wonder Horse.”

  “No, Mac,” Amelia begged, certain he’d do it. “Please don’t throw me in the water—I’ve been nearly drowned once today. The sun’s going down—I’ll catch cold—now, Mac! I apologize! I know Willard’s not a camel. He’s a noble beast, worthy of princes, fit for kings!” Mac was carrying her purposefully along. “Mac! Wait! Willard is wonderful! Honest!”

  Mac stopped walking. “Well,” he said, “that’s more like it.” But he didn’t let her go. Her breasts were pressed against the hardness of his chest, his almost-smile fading as he looked into her eyes…

  Other Second Chance at Love books by

  Cinda Richards

  THIS SIDE OF PARADISE #237

  Writing as Cheryl Reavis her Silhouette Special Edition, A CRIME OF THE HEART, reached millions of readers in GOOD HOUSEKEEPING magazine and won the Romance Writers of America’s coveted RITA award for Best Long Contemporary the year it was published.

  She also won the RITA for her Harlequin-Silhouette novels, THE PRISONER, PATRICK GALLAGHER’S WIDOW, and THE BRIDE FAIR. Three additional novels, BLACKBERRY WINTER, PROMISE ME A RAINBOW, and THE BARTERED BRIDE have been RITA finalists.

  PUBLISHERS WEEKLY described her BERKLEY single-title novel, PROMISE ME A RAINBOW as “…an example of delicately crafted, eminently satisfying romantic fiction.”

  From the LIBRARY JOURNAL regarding her Harlequin Historical, THE CAPTIVE HEART: “…a study in cultural contrasts, this well-written, vividly descriptive tale skillfully juxtaposes the “savage” with the “civilized” and allows the reader to draw some occasionally unexpected conclusions. Realistic cultural detail, a sensitively handled romantic relationship, a heroine who strengthens with the story, and a hero who comes to terms with his two cultures, combine in a sensual, emotionally involving romance that is both brutal and tender and satisfying…”

  Reavis’s award-winning literary short stories have appeared in a number of “little magazines” such as The Crescent Review, The Bad Apple, The Emrys Journal, and in The Greensboro Group’s statewide competition anthology, WRITER’S CHOICE. Visit Cheryl at cherylreavis.blogspot.com and on facebook!

  SUCH ROUGH SPLENDOR

  First Published in the US by the Berkley Publishing Group

  Copyright © 2011 Cheryl Reavis

  To Richard

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  AMELIA TAYLOR SAT quietly on the porch swing, savoring the cool breeze that came up from the Coy Creek bottomland. She was pleasantly tired, and she let the swing rock slowly as she watched the fireflies appear and disappear across the large front yard. She could smell the honeysuckle that ran along the edges of the fields between the house and Rutledge Pike, and she could hear the odd clash of a whip-poorwill’s song against the faraway night sound of cars traveling the road from Blaine to Rutledge. The pike was busy tonight, but she no longer let that sound of people with a purpose send her into a fit of loneliness.

  I’m not afraid now, she thought, smiling slightly. At least she wasn’t afraid all the time. There were days still when the anger and the sense of betrayal overwhelmed her, times when she still wanted to punch her former husband and his youthful paramour in their respective noses, but she was getting better. Much better. It seemed that she would survive Daniel’s leaving after all, because she felt nearly herself again. It had been a year since their divorce, and while she was not happy precisely, she was at least no longer sad. It surprised her a bit that Daniel and his history major hadn’t yet married. She wasn’t quite sure whether she preferred being left for a fleeting passion or for the love of his life.

  She could hear the telephone ringing suddenly deep within the house, and she went to answer it, her bare feet padding across the rough boards of the porch and then onto the ancient layers of wax on the oak flooring in the long central hall. The house was nearly two hundred years old. It had given shelter to Cherokee fleeing the forced march to Oklahoma, to wounded Yankee soldiers after the Battle of Bean Station—and finally to Daniel Quinn, unfaithful husband of Amelia Taylor Quinn. It was the last that had nearly proved its undoing. Her first impulse after Daniel’s departure had been to get rid of the house and its memories, even if it meant selling it to someone who would put pink flamingos out front and fill the interior with plastic and chrome and glass. Amelia smiled again as she reached for the telephone. She loved this place, and just in time she had proved as protective of it as Scarlett O’Hara saving her beloved Tara. This was her home, her sanctuary.

  “Hello?” she said into the receiver. She could hear muffled voices and traffic noises on the other end of the line, and then silence. “Hello?” she said again.

  “Amelia Quinn?” a man’s voice asked just as she was about to hang up. There was more background discussion.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice went on. “Bobby says you go by Taylor now.”

  “Who is this?” Amelia asked, catching a glimpse of her frown in the mirror over the hall table. She made an effort to smooth out the lines. She had done entirely too much frowning of late.

  “This is Houston McDade. I’m in Albuquerque. I’m calling for Bobby.”

  What in the world? Amelia thought. Her brother was a thirty-eight-year-old enfant terrible, irresponsible and often unemployed, and over the years she’d learned to expect anything. Thus far, however, she’d never gotten a telephone call from a strange man four states away.

  “Amelia, it’s Mac,” the man said when she gave no sign of recognition, and suddenly the deep, gravelly voice became familiar.

  “Mac?” she said in surprise. Ten years ago Houston “Mac” McDade had been Bobby’s friend while they were fellow patients in a VA hospital in New York City. They had stayed in what they called the Humpty Dumpty ward because all the young men there had, so to speak, fallen off a wall in Southeast Asia and come out badly broken. Bobby had been having his second repair of a mangled elbow, and Mac—Mac was in a body cast from chest to left knee to right foot. He had worn mirrored sunglasses so no one would see him cry when the pain was too bad, and some girl from a place called Chimayo, New Mexico, kept sending him turquoise love beads. Amelia still got Christmas cards from Mac’s father, but she hadn’t seen Mac for ages—four years to be exact, when he’d been on his way to some beef-growers lobby in Washington and he’d somehow turned up at her mother’s supper table. She was about to tell him that Bobby was likely at his apartment in Knoxville, but then she realized it was Bobby’s voice she was hearing in the background there in Albuquerque. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is Bobby all right?”

  “He’s standing right here,” Mac said evasively, and Amelia could feel her anxiety rising. Oh, Lord, what now?

  “Let me talk to him, Mac.”

&nb
sp; “That… wouldn’t be such a good idea. He’s not exactly sober.”

  Amelia glanced into the mirror again. The frown was back. “Mac, I just saw him yesterday. What is he doing in Albuquerque?”

  “He says he’s trying to find Chimayo,” Mac said with a short laugh. “He’s all right, Amelia. I just called so you wouldn’t be worried if he didn’t show up where he’s supposed to be. He’s not making enough sense for you to talk to him now, you know?”

  Amelia knew. She knew probably better than anyone. She had spent the last ten years of her life trying to keep Bobby out of harm’s way. That chore had fallen to her when she and Daniel were living in New York City while Daniel worked on his master’s at Columbia. Bobby had chosen to have his surgery done in New York rather than closer to home, and somehow he’d dragged Amelia into a kind of conspiracy that had lasted until three years ago, when their mother died. Amelia was struck with a sudden déjà vu, only now it was Mac who was fielding the questions her mother would have asked, and it was she, Amelia, who was being protected. She didn’t like it.

  “What’s Amelia saying?” she heard Bobby ask in the background, and there was more commotion.

  “Bobby!” Mac said abruptly. “Amelia, I’ve got to grab him before he gets picked up. Don’t worry. I’ll have him call you.”

  “Does he need money?” Amelia tried to get in before Mac hung up, but the line went dead. Not that she had any money to give Bobby. She had no teaching job for the summer, and her finances were tight. Bobby, Bobby, she thought. He’d made no mention whatsoever yesterday of an urge to travel. What he had mentioned was that he owed Daniel three hundred dollars, and she’d hardly been thrilled at hearing that.

  Amelia went back onto the porch and sat on the swing, but her earlier pleasure from the quiet Tennessee June night had vanished. Her brother was a big man, gentle and quiet when he was sober, and as blond and blue-eyed as she was dark. She smiled slightly. Bobby had attributed her straight black hair and dark-brown eyes to the Cherokee some kindly Taylor forebear had hidden from Andrew Jackson’s troops, and he was likely right. The theory had come in handy while they were growing up in this old house at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains, lending an air of authenticity as they worshiped their favorite cowboys at the Saturday matinees in Rutledge and then transferred their western fantasies to the backyard or to a family picnic in the lush green of Cade’s Cove.

  But they had had to leave their childhood games behind them. Amelia left home for a scholarship at Columbia University, and Bobby, for a war. And nothing was ever the same again. He’d come home pale and withdrawn and hating rainy days, and she’d married Daniel Quinn, a volatile and handsome college friend who became a professor of physical anthropology. And now Bobby was in New Mexico doing heaven knows what, and Daniel was with his twenty-one-year-old history major.

  Watch it, Amelia chided herself. She was coming dangerously close to feeling sorry for herself.

  Amelia rose from the swing and stared out across the yard, thinking of the long line of Taylor women—perhaps even that first dark-haired one—who had had their troubles and who had likely stood in the same spot to wring their hands over them. She made herself take a deep breath. There was no sense worrying now—not when she didn’t know what to worry about. It was odd, but she did feel less anxious knowing Bobby was with Mac. She’d always been just a little afraid of Houston McDade. No, that wasn’t quite true. She had been afraid of the anger and the pain she’d sensed behind those mirrored glasses, and of the intense way he had looked at her when he wasn’t wearing them—Daniel or no Daniel. The first day they met, Mac had been lying facedown in the bed next to Bobby’s, trying not to cry. Amelia had quietly pulled the curtains closed around him to give him privacy, and she had, as Bobby put it, “made a friend for life.”

  The phone was ringing again, and Amelia hurried inside to get it, thinking wryly that it was likely Mac again, this time wanting money for Bobby’s bail.

  “Your hippie friend is looking for you,” Daniel said immediately, and Amelia sighed. Daniel was in one of his moods.

  “What hippie friend is that?”

  “That guy from New Mexico. The one who was in the hospital with Bobby. You know, Amelia. The one with the long hair and the beard. And the turquoise love beads and a red bandanna tied around his forehead.”

  “As I recall, Daniel,” Amelia said quietly, “back then you had love beads and a beard of your own.”

  “Yes. And I was gainfully employed and going to school.”

  “As opposed to being in a body cast.”

  Daniel gave a sharp laugh. “You never change, do you, Amelia? Patriotic to the core, that’s you. All they have to do is run a war vet out, and your little heart just bleeds all over him.”

  “Daniel, what do you want?” Amelia asked, cutting through his sarcasm. She had suspected that life with his new love had grown less than idyllic of late, but she had no intention of letting him take it out on her.

  Daniel ignored the question. “So what’s going on?” he asked instead of answering. “The close-mouthed Mr. McDade wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Nothing is going on,” she said, trying not to lose her temper. Daniel had never trusted her to handle anything by herself, and the mere fact that they were no longer married wouldn’t keep him from giving her yet another lecture on her inability to cope. The fact was, she was coping quite well—and he knew it.

  “The hippie from New Mexico is moving heaven and earth to try to find you, and nothing’s going on?”

  “That’s what I said, Daniel.”

  “I see. Well. Remember I asked, and don’t come crying to me.”

  Amelia bit her lip to keep from swearing. “Good night, Daniel,” she said lightly instead.

  Don’t come crying to me, she thought as she hung up the phone. Bobby had said that to her once. She had come to the hospital to see him between the classes she taught at a small inner-city college, and she sat by his bed reading him a paperback western because his right arm was in traction and he was tired of trying to turn the pages. The air-conditioning was out, and the heat was unbearable. And every time she looked up from a page, she could see Houston McDade. He was lying on his stomach on a stretcher—they always seemed to put him on his face—and he was stranded until someone found the time to turn him. His body was covered with sweat, and he smelled bad because the short-handed staff had had no time for baths either. He was in such pain. Every time she looked at him she could feel it.

  “Mac,” she said finally, daring to approach him in spite of the mirrored sunglasses and the clenched fists. “You’re hurting. Let me tell them to get you something.”

  “No!” He lifted his head to look at her, and she could feel his anger—not at her especially; she just happened to be there. “Go away, Amelia.”

  She hesitated. “Mac—”

  “Dammit, Amelia! Leave me alone!”

  She went back to her chair next to Bobby’s bed.

  “I can feel the wheels turning,” Bobby said when she’d sat there for a while. She reached for her purse and began rummaging for the bar of English Lavender soap she’d just bought.

  “I’m going to take your clean washcloth and towel.”

  “All right,” Bobby warned her. “But if he punches you in the nose, don’t come crying to me. And Daniel’s not going to like it—anti-war, you know.”

  “Bobby, will you leave me alone!” she snapped because she knew perfectly well—without Bobby’s help—that Daniel wouldn’t like it, and somehow that didn’t seem to matter. Amelia approached the stretcher again. “Mac?”

  “What?” he said wearily, his face turned away.

  She kept her voice soft and low, the same voice she used on frightened stray animals and upset children. “Now, Mac,” she plunged on, “I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but it will make me feel better, all right?” She had the wash basin out of the bedside table by that time, and she was filling it with tap water. “But it�
��s not just for me,” she hurried on. “Take a whiff of that,” she said, running the lavender-scented soap by his nose. “It’s not just for me. It’s for all the innocent people who have to be in this room with you, Mac. You’re hot and sweaty, and the simple truth is, you stink. Mac, are you listening to me? You smell bad enough to draw warts on a washtub, and that’s the truth. Lift your head.” To her surprise, he did.

  “You want the glasses washed too?” she asked pointedly, and he removed them so she could wipe his face with the cool, soapy washcloth. She lathered his beard with her hands, using the washcloth to get the soap out; then she moved on to his chest and shoulders, soaping and rinsing as gently as she knew how. He had a fine body, what little she could see of it out of the cast—strong, muscular arms and a well-developed chest covered by a thick mat of dark hair. She noticed this close to him that he was as handsome as she had initially thought, but he was so tired, and his hazel eyes were so pained. It wasn’t just his handsomeness that had drawn her to him, or even his suffering. He was Bobby’s friend, and through Bobby they had developed a rapport that let them talk freely about anything. He was homesick, and, Lord, so was she. She was starved for soft East Tennessee voices and big trees and grass and honeysuckle. She wanted to wake up to mourning doves and fall asleep to whippoorwills and katydids, and she told him all that. He told her about the vivid New Mexico sunsets and the cool mountain air, and Chimayo and its yellow rose of Castile and scarlet chili drying against adobe walls, and cotton-woods and piñon, and the vast blue, blue sky. And they’d both understood that throat-clutching nostalgia for home.

  Mac’s hair was dark, though not as dark as her own, and he had it pulled back into a queue in some effort at coolness. Amelia moved to wash the back of his neck. “This is just to tide you over until Reggie and Parker get around to you,” she told him. “Just to make you feel better—and to keep the visitors from dropping over in a dead swoon.”