13

THE RAIN STILL hadn’t started to fall by the time Laurie walked to Bailey’s Bar & Grill for supper, letting the wind whip her hair and blow around her bare legs. She’d been so hot all day that the new cool temperature felt good. She felt good. She’d had a luxurious long bath, washed her hair, shaved her legs, made a couple of phone calls that left her feeling excited, and then changed into white shorts, sandals, and a rose-colored T-shirt that flattered her flawless complexion. She knew she should take her car, because of the weather, but assumed she could get a ride whenever she wanted one. Her sister-in-law had agreed to meet her there, so Belle could drive her home, if it came to that. If Belle couldn’t, then Laurie figured she could bat her eyelashes and several men would hop off their bar stools to help her.

When she walked into Bailey’s, heads turned, which pleased her.

A few people called out her name, but she walked on toward the back.

I’m meant for bigger things than this, she thought with scorn.

When they had more money, Hugh-Jay could take her to places she’d always wanted to see, like New York and Paris. Maybe she’d take trips without him, too, like the one she’d talked Annabelle into giving her.

As she walked confidently toward the rear, Laurie smiled to herself.

The Broadmoor Hotel. That was more like it, where she belonged.

Rose never had fit her right; it felt like a granny dress that nobody with any style would wear. She’d hoped that marrying a Linder could move her up and out in the world, but all it did was plant her deeper. She felt buried here, suffocated, with all her best talents wasted.

On the other hand, she was unique here, and she liked that.

Feeling the pleasure of being admired and the relief of being without her child for a night, she slid onto the long wooden bench in a booth across from Belle. Laurie liked being with Belle, because she looked so pretty and full of personality by comparison. A glass of beer was already sitting in front of her sister-in-law. The scent of grilled burgers, onions, and steaks permeated the big room, and Laurie sniffed appreciatively. “I may get a rib eye tonight,” she announced, with the confidence of a woman who never gained an ounce. When a waitress came by, she ordered a bottle of Bud “with a frosty glass and a slice of lime.” She’d heard they did that in Mexico -put lime in beer. There was a bowl of peanuts in the shell, and she dipped a hand into it. By evening’s end the floor of the grill would be littered with shells and crunchy underfoot.

“Where’s Meryl?” she asked Belle.

“At the office. Where’s Hugh-Jay?”

“Your dad sent him out to the Colorado place.”

“Did you hear what happened last night?”

“At the ranch? Yeah.” Laurie took a sip from the beer the waitress brought her, and looked back toward the front door of the grill. “Oh, God, look what the rain dragged in.”

Belle looked where she pointed and saw her two younger brothers coming in the door with rain dripping off their slickers and plastic-covered hats. The storm had finally arrived in Rose. A downpour was visible in the brief moment before Bobby closed the front door again. At the same time, the music got drowned out by the sound of rain pounding on the tavern’s tin roof.

“I can’t go anywhere,” Belle groused, “without my family showing up.”

“At least you’ve got family in town,” Laurie complained. She was still bitter about her own parents leaving her to fend with marriage and motherhood on her own.

“Got room for a couple of thirsty cowboys?” Chase asked when he and Bobby walked up to the booth.

“Don’t you have any other friends?” Belle demanded.

“Yeah,” Chase said with a grin, “but they’re not as pretty as yours.”

Belle rolled her eyes, which made Chase laugh.

Bobby started to slide in beside Laurie, but Chase grabbed his shirt and said, “You’re not sitting there.”

“Why not?”

“Because she doesn’t want to sit by you, do you, Laurie?”

“You’re too big for this booth,” she told Bobby.

He wasn’t fat, but his broad back and big arms and shoulders made him wide. Flushing, he got up without arguing.

Laurie scooted over to give Chase room to sit beside her. He was as tall as his younger brother, but not as bulky; his width was in his shoulders, so his slim hips didn’t crowd her, though they somehow ended up touching hers anyway.

They made a striking couple, both dark-haired and good-looking.

Instead of taking the seat beside his sister, Bobby pulled up a chair at the open end of their booth and straddled it backward. “Man,” he said, shaking water off his left hand. “Wet out there.”

“Don’t shake that thing on me,” Laurie complained, which made Chase laugh again.

“You,” Belle said with a disgusted look, “have a dirty mind.”

“Takes one to know one,” he told her with a smirk.

“And you’re one, all right,” an unexpected male voice said, beside him.

“Meryl!” Chase said, looking up at his older brother’s best friend. Meryl had the look of an ex-football player who might one day put on weight, but at the age of twenty-four he was still fit. Unlike Bobby and Chase in their blue jeans, Meryl had on a blue suit and a white shirt accented with a bolo tie-with a sterling silver clasp in the shape of a rearing horse-that Belle had given him for Valentine’s Day.

Belle suddenly looked happy. “How’d you get away from work?”

Meryl winked at her. “Got lucky. Power went out.”

“Bobby,” Chase ordered, “get out of the way and let Meryl sit by his girlfriend.” He shook his head in mock befuddlement. “Although what he sees in you, I’ll never know-”

“Shut up, Chase,” Meryl said.

“No, really,” Chase continued to tease. “She can’t take a joke, she’s oversensitive, and when she talks about all that history stuff, she can bore a stuffed bear to death-”

“Don’t talk about your sister like that,” Meryl said in a tone that surprised them all into silence. He sounded angry and serious. He looked down on his best friend’s brother, his girlfriend’s brother, his own potential brother-in-law, and said, “Has it ever occurred to you that Belle is just sensitive like normal people, and she only seems oversensitive to you because you’re such an insensitive lout? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe your jokes aren’t funny? Have you ever thought that she might be interesting to people with brains, people who are actually interested in things like history?”

“Lighten up, Meryl.”

“No, you lighten up, Chase. Lighten up on your sister. It’s time you gave up that teasing crap. She’s put up with it for years, but I’m the one who’s sick of it. I ever hear you talk like that about Belle again, I’ll stuff a fist down your mouth to shut you up.”

For a moment nobody moved.

Laurie looked impressed with Meryl’s aggressive defense of Belle.

Belle’s eyes shone with tearful gratitude.

Ever irrepressible, Chase grinned. “Did you forget you’re a lawyer now? You don’t have to get tough. You can just sue me. So if you love her so much, when are you going to marry her?”

Meryl slid into the booth beside Belle and put both of his arms around her, pulling her close to him and then kissing her deeply enough to make his future brothers-in-law hoot at the couple.

When he finally stopped kissing her, he still didn’t let her go.

“This isn’t how I’m going to ask you,” he said, “not here, not in front of them.”

“Some people are just born into the wrong families,” she told him.

“You’re telling me!” Meryl exclaimed, and as the mood lightened, he kissed her again, quick and hard and affectionately, taking all of her lipstick and leaving her looking proudly thrilled.

A little later, when Belle excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, Chase leaned across the table and said, “Come on. You’re telling me you think my sister is easy to get along with?”