Betting the Rainbow (Harmony) (22 page)

Big swung just as Ester yelled, “No!”

Noah braced for the punch, but it still knocked him off his feet.

Lying in the dirt, he smiled up at Big. “Thanks, I needed that,” he managed to say.

Big offered a hand up. “Anytime, cowboy.”

With his left eye swelling closed, Noah climbed back in his truck completely sober and headed back to his ranch.

The next night Reagan didn’t ask about his black eye, but she did invite him in for supper, and once he caught her smiling.

“What?” he asked.

“Does it hurt?” She pointed at his eye. “Because it looks terrible.”

“Hurts like hell,” he answered, knowing that Big had probably told her all about the favor he’d asked for.

“Want to tell me why you did it?”

“No, and before you ask, I might have to do it again. I seem to be into pain these days. Fell off my horse before lunch. My backside is black and blue. Wanna see? I’m guessing you’ll think that’s real funny too.”

“No, thanks.”

Her giggle was almost worth the pain.

When he left, he thought about telling her that he loved her again, but he didn’t want to hear her crying behind the door again, so he just tipped his hat and said good night.

On the way home he thought about telling her he hated potato soup and hoped she wasn’t planning on serving it every night. But he’d eaten two bowls tonight. If that wasn’t true love, he didn’t know what would convince her.

Chapter 36

HAWK HOUSE

A
USTIN WANTED NOTHING MORE THAN TO BE ALONE WITH
Ronny at the lake, but the Delaney sisters wouldn’t listen to his complaining when they called. They were planning a party and claimed they needed Ronny’s help. So he had no choice but to pass her the phone.

“Of course we’ll come,” she’d said, and hung up.

He glared at her. “You must have a mouse in your pocket or think you’re a queen, because I’m not going over there for a party. You may know everyone in town, but I don’t.” He wanted to tell her he hadn’t gotten over the four days she was gone to some guy’s wedding in Austin, but he’d just sound desperate. Austin loved having her near, but he promised himself he wouldn’t get too attached. When it came time to say good-bye, he’d leave. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d leave before she left him. Since they’d met he’d been counting down the days on a blank calendar without numbers. He didn’t know when she’d go, but he knew each day with her was one day less.

This morning, Ronny, after getting him all heated up by attacking him, calmly pulled away when she handed him back the phone. She had some kind of secret weapon she used against him. No amount of growling frightened her and she only obeyed the orders she liked. If an enemy ever got hold of her secret, the army would be in big trouble.

Austin frowned as he watched her running around looking for her shoes.

She didn’t have to say a word.

He knew he was going to give in. “All right. We’re going to a party, but don’t expect me to be any help. I didn’t learn party planning in boot camp.” He moved to the window. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a party that wasn’t at a bar, but I’ll bet you I’ll hate it.” She looked too cute just waiting for him to finish his rant. “All right, tell me all about it on the way across the lake. The Delaney sisters are probably already waiting for you on the dock.”

After two rounds of what-do-you-think questioning centered on party themes, Austin gave up listening and moved to the porch. The whole scene sounded like somewhere he didn’t want to be, and who cares what colors balloons should be? He’d suggested pink and they’d all three screamed at him, so he guessed they were off the list along with pork rinds as an appetizer.

He could see Ronny inside searching on the Internet and looking like she was having a great time. He decided to let her have all the fun. He’d take the leftover choice, a nap.

Ten minutes later when he was daydreaming about her, Ronny came out of the house explaining that she had to stay at the Delaney house and cook. She offered to take him back to his place, but he could do nothing here as well as there.

He wasn’t sure when, or even if, he agreed to stay. His leg was only a dull ache now and then, but the girls seemed to think him still helpless, They offered him pillows and more tea than he’d ever drink. One of them was always passing him saying, “Sit, Austin,” like he was the family dog.

Finally out of frustration, he sat down at the kitchen table and watched the women cook. Well, mostly he just watched Ronny. The two Delaney girls kept getting in his line of vision. He decided that he’d write a book one day on the joy of watching Ronny Logan move. He found it hard to believe that no one else noticed how beautiful she was. Every man in Harmony had to be blind, and he had no plans of enlightening a single one of them.

How could she have lived here all her life and only one man loved her? Couldn’t the others see the beauty of her? The good in her? The shy humor and honest answers?

Whenever he moved for a better view of Ronny, they all three yelled, “Sit.”

So Austin took over Tippie’s job of guard duty.

Before dark the yard was full of pickup trucks and people hugging each other. They all seemed happy for Dusti and all wanted to wish her luck. Only a few days until she left.

Everyone walking in the door brought something. Drinks, beer, chips and hot sauce, hot wings. Within an hour the tables and counter were loaded down with food. Every time he stood up, someone brought him a plate of food and wanted to hear about how he killed three pigs heading straight toward him.

Austin gave the abridged version, leaving out the boys. When he finished two minutes later, whoever had asked usually stayed around to tell him every story about wild hogs they’d ever heard. Austin listened for two minutes, then ate his plate of food.

He moved outside to the porch finally, in self-preservation. In the dark corner he could watch and be unnoticed. One more hog story or plate of food just might be the death of him.

After a while, he decided he should try out to play the invisible man for the sequel. No one noticed his six-foot frame. He might as well have been an early Halloween decoration in the rocking chair. Now if they’d all be quiet, he’d enjoy the night.

The one man he called a friend in town was missing from the party. Kieran O’Toole. Austin knew he wasn’t the kind of guy to miss the party just because he’d lost, but it took him almost an hour to catch Dusti long enough to ask her if Kieran had been invited. Knowing Kieran, he’d fly in just to wish Dusti good luck.

“Where’s the Scot?” he yelled as she passed.

“He flew back home after the game,” she answered with a smile, but he saw the hurt in her eyes. “Said he had to get back to work.” Pausing, she finally added, “I haven’t heard from him since. I guess life in a small town can only be interesting for a short time.”

“Don’t you owe him a date?” Austin had heard them mention that that was Kieran’s price for teaching her to play.

“He said he’d pick the time and place and give me a call. I told him I wouldn’t wait long. Next week I’ll be in Vegas, and after that, who knows.”

Dusti Delaney was as easy to read as ever. Kieran had always had a crush on her, even when they were kids, and she’d never seen it. Every time, over the years, that they’d talked about their days on Rainbow Lane, Kieran would always say, “Wonder what Dusti is doing now?”

Austin could tell she didn’t want to take the time to talk about his friend. She mattered to Kieran, but Kieran was just someone she once knew, nothing more.

Austin watched Dusti pull Hank Matheson toward him and guessed she didn’t want him asking her any more questions about Kieran.

Hank followed Dusti to the porch, seemingly happy to find Austin in the shadows.

As before, the two men had plenty to say to one another. Since they’d last visited, Austin had taken the time to read up on some new equipment coming into the fire station. The army had been using something like it for five years. He agreed with Hank that the training would be essential if it was going to be used properly.

Austin finally relaxed. Though he and Hank didn’t talk about the same kind of fires, he felt comfortable with the volunteer chief of Harmony’s fire station. He might be ten or fifteen years older, but there was a calmness about the man. Austin could see why a woman like the sheriff would find peace being around him. Hank Matheson had exactly what Austin wanted in his life: balance.

They talked of the shooting and the hog problem, and then the conversation shifted to town matters. Hank told him about changes coming up in how he trained the men signing up, and Austin volunteered to come down and help him set up a new routine for volunteers coming in to train.

“Most are just kids,” Hank said. “I’ve got to make sure they hear every word I say.”

“I can help with that. It was most of what I did in the army. They don’t realize, one mistake can get them killed.”

Hank agreed. “I could sure use some help if you’ve got the time.”

“I’ve got nothing but time right now.”

They talked on making plans, both excited about what had to be done.

As Hank walked away, Austin realized that for the first time he felt like a part of Harmony and its people. What he’d offered to do would not only keep the firefighters under Hank safer, it would keep the town safer.

Austin leaned back in the old ladderback rocking chair and watched the people circling in small groups, laughing, kidding, talking. They came in all ages and sizes, but he felt so much older than most. Maybe it was what he had gone through, living day by day in danger.

Now, watching them having a good time, he wondered if maybe even as a boy, it had been more that he didn’t want to know the town than that the people didn’t want to know him. He and Kieran had plenty in common as kids. They’d both been moved around and passed off from one person to another. Neither of them particularly wanted to make friends here in the summers. If they had, it would simply be more people to leave behind.

Only now, things had changed here in Harmony. Kieran, in his shy way, had probably simply smiled, waved, and run, as he always did. But Austin was wounded and could no longer run. Now, for the first time in his life, he wanted to stay in Harmony . . . and the reason for it was headed right toward him. His long-legged, well-rounded-in-all-the-right-places, beautiful neighbor.

Ronny handed him a glass of sweet tea. “Nice party,” she said, looking quite the country girl in her bare feet and short shorts that one of the Delaney girls had loaned her.

He smiled. She was, like him, invisible to most. Several people said hello to her, even complimented her cooking, but none stayed to visit.

“Come over here,” he said so only she could hear. “Please.”

She smiled and moved in front of him. When she sat on the porch railing, she placed her bare feet on one of the chair’s rungs between his legs.

“Talk to me, pretty lady.” His hand circled her ankle. “Tell me about what you’re planning.” He’d seen her talking with an older woman who was dressed like she’d retired from the circus, and the conversation looked like a serious one.

Her words were soft, meant just for him. “I was talking to Martha Q. She says if I decide to do accounting, she’d be my first client.” Ronny’s eyes danced with excitement. “I want to settle down here and maybe start a business. I thought accounting, but it might be more fun to open a bakery. Everyone loved my salads and pies tonight. Only the bakery would have to be in town, and I could do accounting from the cabin.”

He moved his fingers along her leg slowly as she told him of her dream. It wasn’t big, really, not get-rich-quick, no mansion in town or big ranch, but it sounded good. She could work her own hours and take off during the slow times.

“I’m buying the cabin,” she said about the time his fingers reached her knee.

“What?” He stopped, pulling his interest away from where the hem of her shorts ended just below her hips. “Did you say you bought that old cabin?”

She nodded. “I thought I’d live there for a while. Eventually, if my business grows, I might just use it as my getaway place, but for now it is my first real home.”

“Ronny, you’ve got all the world to pick from and you pick a lake in the middle of nowhere?”

She grinned. “I like it here.”

“It’s not that simple.”

She studied him. “It
is
that simple, Austin. I don’t want complicated. Don’t act so upset about having me as a permanent neighbor. I’m sure you’ll get used to it in time.”

“Oh, I’m very happy about that. Trust me.” He could think of no one he’d rather have within walking distance of him.

He slid his hand over the back of her calf. Maybe it
was
that simple. “Ronny,” he said, knowing he might get shot out of the water, but he had to try, “any chance you’d come over again tonight? We didn’t finish what we’d started when the Delaneys called. I was dreaming earlier that we might do a little more than cuddling. My leg feels fine.”

“I’ll let you know when we’re heading back. Dusti says you’re a man who’s not quite housebroken. The kind that will run off if the door’s left open.”

He thought about saying that Dusti should know; she’d been hanging around such a man lately. Kieran had left so fast he hadn’t even dropped by to wave, but Austin figured he’d probably get a text when his friend finally landed somewhere.

He’d also bet Kieran’s first question would be about Dusti.

He looked directly at Ronny. “I just want you next to me. I want to be able to touch you all night. There is something about having you near that rests my soul. Just you being near is all that has to happen. I’m not pushing.” He wanted to add that he’d been going nuts for weeks waiting for her to want to go further. Didn’t she know that paradise was just around the corner?

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not making any such promise, Captain. I might just decide to attack you and not stop until I’ve had my way with you.”

“I’m betting on it.” Austin grinned. She’d just described his favorite fantasy.

It took every ounce of his strength to stay in his chair. All he wanted to do was pull her down to the boat and head home. No woman had ever turned him inside out like Ronny. He had a feeling no woman ever would again.

She walked away with promise in her eyes, and he knew that for the first time he was in love. Head-over-heels, madly in love with a shy lady who could change the orbit of his world with one look.

Thoughts of heaven didn’t have long to live in Austin’s mind. They were smothered when a chubby woman dressed in a bright purple jogging suit sat down in the chair next to him. She was out of breath and hanging off both sides of the wicker chair. The lady from the circus, he remembered, who’d talked to Ronny earlier.