To Commit Read online

  “Oh, hush,” Stella mumbled.

  “Didn’t say a word. Steaks look wonderful. Would you like to come live with me and cook for me every day?” Rance joked.

  He’d dreamed of Stella the past three nights. He had to keep reminding himself on an hourly basis that he wasn’t going to get serious again about any woman; especially a tall blond haired goddess. But dang it all, this woman was getting under his skin.

  He’d been standing so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her bare neck and the smell of his aftershave was intoxicating. She didn’t like the shivers playing chase down her back bone. “Mr. Harper, it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to be your cook. I’d poison you. Go find a place at the table. I’m loading the tea cart and then it is ready.”

  “Can’t blame a man for trying,” he said.

  His slow drawl not only made her heart skip a beat but infuriated her so much she would have liked nothing better than to throw the whole platter of steaks at him. She wouldn’t even flinch about the waste. That she was attracted to him was bad enough; that he, a married man, was flirting blatantly with her meant he had no scruples or morals. He wasn’t a bit better than Mitch.

  The Carpenter family paraded in and Jewel joined them at the end of the table away from the repulsive steaks. Stella gritted her teeth at the silly grins on all five men. Every one of them, Rance included, looked like they’d gladly trade their steaks for a chunk of spinach lasagna if they could sit beside the pretty dark haired lady who batted her eyelashes with the expertise of a professional hustler. Hosting two parties at one time wasn’t ever easy, but Stella could already tell this was going to be an out and out chore.

  And does that make you mad? Not at all! She can be the entertainment tonight. She can fall down on the floor and do crunchies to tighten up those already taut muscles in her tummy, and they can lay bets on how many she can do before she gets bored. Bet she sees to it that Rance wins the pot. She looks like she could eat him for dessert whether he’s made of red meat or not!

  “And what got you all into hiking?” A biker asked.

  Mrs. Carpenter explained as she filled her plate and passed the food on to her husband. “We started hiking back when Jewel was a Brownie. She needed to hike so many miles to get her patch. We all enjoyed it so much that we’ve made it a family thing and kept it up. That was nearly seventeen years. She was six that first year and she’s twenty three now. By the way Mrs. Brannon, this looks like really good lasagna and it proves a body doesn’t have to have all that nasty meat to survive.”

  “Well, this body does,” Rance chuckled. “My body would shrivel up and die without steak.”

  Jewel gave Rance a sexy sideways glance that said she’d like to use up a lot of energy romping around a big old king sized bed with him. “Why should anything have to die so that I can eat? I’m a vegetarian. I hike to keep this body toned and fit. We’re getting ready for a big serious hike up in the Ouachita Mountains in a few months. We’re going to do a big portion of the Talimena Trail. It’ll take a lot of stamina.”

  Rance raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Stella wanted to spill the whole pitcher of sweet tea in his lap or dump it on Jewel’s head. His wife was probably a sweet little stay-at-home mother who had no idea he was a first rate rascal, flirting with two women at a time.

  Jewel’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, yes, those mountains will give us a workout. I’m also into body building and this weekend is going to be a test to see if it’s all been worthwhile. We’re going over to the Arbuckle Mountains by Davis. They’re not very big, but it’ll be good exercise for one day. We usually do a lot of hiking around Grapevine Lake. Got some really good trails there but we thought we’d try this area for a change of pace. Then we’re coming back in the early spring to do it again. Probably just before Easter weekend.”

  “Well good luck,” Rance said. “Stella, honey, would you pour me another glass of sweet tea. This steak is perfect. Cooked just like me and my grandpa like them: shoot the bull, wait ’til the bellow dies, carve out a steak and get it hot on the grill.”

  Honey? Don’t you call me honey, you scoundrel. You got a wife at home and two babies. You sit there and flirt with Jewel, and then call me honey, like we’re old friends.

  “Of course, Mr. Harper.” She picked up the unsweetened tea.

  “No, sweet tea, honey. I like my tea just like my women—sweet.”

  Stella shot him a drop-dead look.

  Rance downed a fourth of the tea. “Now, Jewel, what were you saying about the mountains over by Davis?”

  “They’re not so big but it’ll be a nice workout. Tell me about you. What are you doing here? Are you married?” She asked.

  “Divorced and going to stay that way. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, makes me a fool,” he said.

  “Got any kids?” Jewel asked.

  Stella cleared the rest of the table and went to the kitchen for desserts. Chocolate cream pie for the hunters. A bowl of fresh fruit topped with a special white chocolate pudding mixed with apricot nectar for the hikers. She strained to hear his answer about children.

  “No kids. So what brings you guys to this part of the world?” He turned from Jewel and asked the bikers.

  George, the one sitting closest to him, answered. “We’re on vacation. Left our families at home for a week and we’re riding through Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Florida and then straight back up to Tulsa where we’re from. We’re just hoping for good weather. Bet we don’t stay anywhere in the whole trip where the food is this good, though. Miss Brannon, would you come along with us and cook just for us?”

  Stella glanced at Rance. “Sorry, I’ve got a boarder for two weeks or I might be tempted.”

  “Is that you she’s talking about? Are you staying here for two weeks for real?” George asked.

  “I guess I am,” Rance nodded.

  “Then you’d best lock your door tonight. Old Red there might decide to remove the only obstacle in the path of his good food,” George laughed.

  Jewel pretended to shiver. “Oh, my, what a thing to say!” she brought the attention back to her with a fake shudder and a big eyed innocent look.

  “Now little lady, I was just joshing,” he said.

  “I know you were, but it sounded so real. Would you be interested in a little moonlight walk?” She looked from the biker to Rance.

  “No thanks. I’m worn out. It’s been a long day. I’ll probably fall asleep before the news is finished tonight,” Rance said.

  It had been a long, long day and he was ready for sleep, but it didn’t come around the second he laid his head on the pillow. Stella’s face kept appearing every time he shut his eyes. Finally, he got up, picked up a Sue Grafton mystery novel and read until midnight.

  Steam rose off the hot water in the claw-footed tub in Stella’s bathroom. She slid down further, letting the deep layer of bubbles cover everything but her face. She could hear Jewel’s giggles in the living room as the conversation centered around her and the hike tomorrow.

  I don’t give a tiny rat’s rear if they laugh and talk to that little dark haired, well-built, egotistical girl all night. Her nose is too big and her eyes too close together. She would probably be fat if she didn’t run and exercise all the time. A steak would make her round as Santa Claus. Stop it! You are acting like a fourteen year old kid, not an adult.

  She could hear the men’s tone change from spicy to business in a moment. One minute they were laughing and talking to Jewel, the next, a dull monotone discussing biking, hunting, football and whatever they were watching on the television set drifted up the stairs to her quarters. Evidently, the pretty girl had gone to her room. After all a well-oiled, toned, tanned and mean machine like her young body needed its rest to be able to function on the mountainous hike through the fierce Arbuckle Mountains after breakfast tomorrow morning. Then when her body was at its best she could come back to the Brannon Inn and flirt to her heart’s content with divorced Rance Harper
who hated tall blondes and lied about having kids.

  His buddies had teased him the first night about having two kids that were ornery and tonight he’d said he had no kids. So the man was a three time loser—divorced, a liar, and looked entirely too much like Mitch.

  Stella soaked until the water was cold and the bubbles flat but still couldn’t get rid of the restlessness upsetting her indifferent world. For the past several months she’d booked clients, cooked meals, poured tea, cleaned up the mess, and started all over again. She pasted a smile on her face and listened to jokes, looked at family pictures and watched hundreds of people come and go, in and out of Brannon Inn. And somehow she found peace in monotony. However, since the day she backed into Rance, she’d been downright edgy and she darned sure didn’t like it. Even if her world was a faint shade of gray, with no pure white episodes or midnight black experiences, she liked it that way.

  “Divorced,” she mumbled. “Once bit, twice wise. Me, too, Rance. Me, too.”

  What was Rance Harper’s story?

  Why do I even care? He might have warmed my cold, hard heart but in ten more days he’ll be gone from Brannon Inn and I’ll never see him again. After his two week hunting trip, he’ll go home to wherever he lives and I’ll settle back into my rut. And those ten days can’t come too fast!

  With that settled she stepped out of the lukewarm water and dried off. She pulled on a pair of black leggings and red socks, topped it with an oversized red plaid, flannel shirt and was buttoning the last button when the phone rang.

  “Brannon Inn,” she said.

  “Stella Brannon?” A masculine voice said. “Is this the Stella Brannon who graduated from Sulphur High School a few years ago?”

  “Who is this?”

  The voice sighed loudly. “My heart hurts. To think you wouldn’t remember my voice. Truly, Stella, I am in pain.”

  Oh, spare me!

  “I’m sorry but I really don’t know who I’m talking to,” she said.

  “Joel. Your old Joel Curtis at your service, ma’am,” he said in a soft, sexy drawl. “I just moved back to Sulphur this past week and found out you were running your granny’s business.”

  “My business. Brannon Inn belongs to me now. So where have you been Joel?”

  Talk about thinking of the devil and he doth appear.

  “Here and there, but you know the old saying about the apple never falling far from the tree and all hearts go home eventually. I’m back in business with my father,” he said.

  “So where is here and there?”

  “Texas, mainly. Brownsville, to be more specific. Hey, are you free for dinner this week. We could have a steak at Two Frogs in Ardmore?”

  “No, thanks,” she said.

  “Hey, surely you’re grown up enough not to hold old grudges?” He sounded just as cocky as he had in their junior year of high school.

  “Yep, but not foolish enough to repeat the same mistakes.”

  “Someone said your marriage to the actor didn’t work. I’m sorry, Stella, for real, I am. My marriage didn’t work either. That’s part of the reason I’m back in Sulphur. We could swap stories and . . .”

  A long silence followed.

  And what? And come back to the Inn for a nice little nightcap. I remember your style, Joel. You don’t just kiss and tell. You kiss and brag.

  “You still there?” He asked.

  “Yes, and no. Yes, I’m still here Joel, but no, I don’t want to go out with you.”

  “Okay, maybe I’ll run by sometime and you can give me a tour of the Inn. I picked you up there for our last date. I don’t think your granny ever did really like me,” he said.

  And I should have listened to her more often.

  “That was a long time ago. Nice talking to you, Joel. Tell your momma I said hello.” She was easing the receiver down to the cradle when she changed her mind.

  “Joel, you still there?” She asked hurriedly.

  “Still here. Second thoughts? I promise I’m a little more adult than I was at seventeen,” he said.

  “I’ve got guests for supper every night for the next two weeks, but I’d be willing to go for ice cream at eight tomorrow night if that would work with your plans.”

  “Pick you up at eight then?”

  “That would be nice. See you then.”

  “Thanks, Stella, I’ll look forward to seeing you again.”

  “Me, too.” She said, but her heart didn’t melt or do flip flops or even skip a single beat. The last time she dated Joel was the year they went to East Central State University in Ada, Oklahoma, along with half the graduating class of Sulphur High School. He was six feet tall, thick blond hair, big blue eyes, an ego bigger than his silver belt buckle and a brazen attitude that drew women to him like bees to honey.

  She opened the French doors out onto the balcony, sending a couple of squirrels scampering up the pecan tree overshadowing the back of the Inn. She wrapped one of her granny’s quilts around her and snuggled in a chaise lounge.

  So Rance was divorced. So was she and so was Joel. The more she tried to sort through the confusion, the more muddled the whole thing became. She had accepted a date with Joel, the man she ended up hating in college. Every time she was in the same room with Rance, her hormones went into overtime. Would Joel affect her that way also?

  Stella twirled the back of her hair up into a clip, letting the ends cascade down her neck line. She chose a long column dress of brushed denim with wooden buttons down the side. She left the last four buttons undone for walking ease and picked up her knee high suede boots. Butterflies danced in her stomach like a band of gypsies around a bonfire.

  Twenty-six wasn’t so old to be dating. Some women didn’t even think of marriage until they were well past thirty, and the statistics said there were lots of divorcees on the market. So why did she feel like an old lady playing teenager again?

  She’d just checked her reflection in the floor length mirror beside the front door for the twentieth time when she heard his car door slam. Suddenly, she didn’t want to go anywhere with Joel. She didn’t even want to see him again. Her palms were clammy; her heart a solid lump of stone weighing heavy in her chest. She should have called and canceled. Every nerve in her body wanted to run back up to her sanctuary and refuse to answer the door. But adult women didn’t act like that, so Stella sucked up her fears and opened the door when he knocked.

  He leaned against the screen door with that same bold, cocky grin she remembered from all those years ago. Although a little older, every nuance exuding from Joel told Stella that he hadn’t changed one bit. A divorce hadn’t made a man out of him and she’d bet dollars to donuts that by the time the evening ended, he’d join the ranks of the rest of the men unfit for anything but a twenty–two bullet.

  “I’ll grab my coat and then I’m ready,” she said quickly so he wouldn’t even take one step inside the door.

  Rance was the only boarder that night. Supper had been served and he was in his room. She hadn’t told him she was going out, but that wasn’t any of his business. After all he was a customer, not a boyfriend.

  Joel opened the car door for her. “You haven’t changed much.”

  She laughed, nervously. Maybe she was wrong about Joel. Just maybe he wasn’t a braggart and blow hard anymore. Perhaps he was as bewildered with his recent divorce as she was. “You have. You don’t have a baby face anymore. And you’ve got enough beard that you probably have to shave at least twice a week instead of twice a month. Remember that beard you tried to grow and you ended up looking like the fellow on Scooby Doo?”

  He started the engine of his low slung bright red sports car. “Hey, now! Five years is enough to grow a man out of a boy. You just got more beautiful.”

  “Thank you, but flattery will get you nowhere with me. But then you always were a charmer.”

  “Never could charm you enough though, could I?”

  It wasn’t there. That breathlessness she felt when she first knew Mitch, o
r even when Rance touched her fingertips. It just wasn’t there, which was probably a good thing. That kind of relationship only ended in heart ache. It burned itself out and there wasn’t anything left but cold ashes.

  He laid his hand on her knee where bare skin showed at the top of the boots and began to inch his fingers upward and inward. “Penny for your thoughts.”

  She picked his hand up and laid it back on the arm rest between them. “My thoughts aren’t for sale.”

  He reached across the arm rest and deliberately let his hand rest on her thigh. “Hey, Stella, we’re adults, now. We’re not kids and we’ve both been married. Don’t be prudish, honey.”

  She pushed his hand away. “Don’t be so pushy—honey.”

  “Whew, some leopards never change their spots.” He whistled through his teeth.

  “Not this one. So we’re going to Braums for ice cream. Do they still make a mean banana split?” She changed the subject. She was going to enjoy herself this evening if it caused a snowstorm right in the devil’s backyard.

  He drove south on the two lane highway toward Dickson. “They do. Now tell me about your divorce. Is it true he just came in one day and tossed you out?”

  “More or less. Let’s talk about you.” She changed the subject again.

  “Okay,” he agreed too quickly. “I got married, had two daughters and got a divorce last month. It will be final in about five more and then I’m a free man.”

  “Short and sweet,” she said. Talk about changing a leopard’s spots. Most of the time the years just aged a person into a more condensed version of what they’d been all their lives. And if anyone got out the dictionary and looked up the word ego they’d probably find Joel’s picture right beside it. It oozed out his pores as much as that overpowering shaving lotion which made her nose twitch. He should switch to something less offensive. Something more like Rance used.

  He turned west in the little town of Dickson and drove toward Ardmore. “Want the gory details? She was cold as ice and I went hunting for warmth. When I found it she tossed me out and filed for divorce. Said she wouldn’t stay married to someone she couldn’t trust. But it wasn’t my fault. She was too cold for any man.”