The One And Only. Laurie Paige
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in the interior of the truck, rolled over them like a blast from a furnace.
“Whew, let’s let it cool out a bit first,” he suggested. He slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, then flipped the air conditioner on to maximum air.
She got in, fastened the seat belt and looked at him without a hint of expression on her Madonna-perfect face.
For the first time since first or second grade, he felt rattled by a female’s stare. That she expected nothing and wanted nothing from him was obvious. Puzzling, too. He’d never had such a nonreaction from a member of the opposite sex. Well, so much for the famed Dalton charm.
Laughing silently at his somewhat dented ego, he slammed the pickup door and headed for the lake. He wondered if she’d accept his proposition.
“How quaint,” Shelby murmured, entering the restaurant with its rustic wooden interior when Beau held the screen door open for her.
“Sit anyplace you like,” a young woman advised, smiling at them from the cash register. “I’ll be with you in a jiffy.”
“There’s a place by the window,” her handsome companion said, gesturing across the plank floor to the opposite side of the room. Since it was after the main lunch hour, there were only three other occupied tables at present.
Beau took her arm and guided her to a table commanding a view of the Lost Valley reservoir and the mountains beyond. When they were settled, the hostess brought menus over. “The special is barbecued beans on cornbread with salad or coleslaw. It’s delicious,” she told them. “Your waitress is Emma. She’ll be with you shortly. May I bring you something to drink?”
“Iced tea, please,” Shelby said.
While he echoed her order, she observed the scene beyond the large window. The sun emblazoned diamond dust over every leaf, every blade of grass, every ruffle of water in the lake, so that the whole world seemed to sparkle.
She sighed, filled with a sort of nostalgia now instead of the intense grief. Like the endless sweep of the waves at the seashore where she grew up, the mountains had a therapeutic effect on her soul, easing the pain of loss and the hopes that had once filled her eighteen-year-old heart.
If there was one thing she had learned since that youthful time, it was that life was relentless. She’d only to live one day at a time, then the next, and the next, and then somehow, a year went by, and another, and another.
The heart does go on.
Her companion dug some change out of his pocket. He lined up a penny, nickel, dime and quarter on the table between them. When she raised her eyebrows in question, he flicked a finger toward the coins.
“However much your thoughts are worth,” he said. “Take your pick. Or all of them.”
After the waitress delivered tall glasses of iced tea, Shelby looked over the change and selected the quarter. “It’s the Kentucky commemorative quarter,” she told him, holding it up so he could see. “My mother came from there. Her parents had a farm and boarded horses. She loves to ride and still does to this day. We always had horses when I was growing up.”
“Do you like riding?”
She nodded, then added truthfully, “Not that I’ve done much for the past ten—no, eleven—years.”
“We’ll have to see if we can’t change that. My family has a ranch near here with plenty of horses just lazing around and getting fat.”
The low, sexy cadence of his words rippled with easy affection as he mentioned the ranch. She knew he’d grown up there, raised by his uncle Nick along with five other Dalton orphans, his mother having died in childbirth and his father in an avalanche that also claimed his cousin’s parents more than twenty-two years ago. Amelia at the B and B had told her this much.
The soft aura of regret enlarged to include him. He, too, had suffered loss. He, too, had gone on and made a life for himself.
Heavens, but she was sentimental today. She laid the quarter back in the line and turned her attention to a couple who strolled along the lake path.
Her companion pushed the quarter toward her and pocketed the rest of the change. “That was for sharing your thoughts. You’ve been pensive today. Do you miss your folks?”
She nodded, letting him think she might be homesick. Baring her soul to anyone wasn’t her way.
“So why did you leave the civilized east and come out here to the wilderness?”
“I’m looking for a cowboy, of course. Isn’t that the American icon of manly courage?” Her grin wasn’t exactly sincere, but she managed to hang on to it.
“Ready?” the waitress, who looked as if she might be sweet sixteen, inquired.
Shelby ordered the special. The doctor did, too, but added barbecued beef on the side. When the girl was gone, he eyed her for a minute.
There was something about his serious manner that was appealing. He had depth to him. And a solid presence that a person could depend on.
A slight shudder rippled through her. Her husband, as youthful as she, had deserted her and their child after the first month of sleepless nights and worry. He’d been the boy next door and she’d had a crush on him for as long as she could remember. He’d promised he would always be there.
Always had been exactly ten months after the marriage.
Closing her eyes for a second, she willed the memories to fade back into the hazy mist of the past. What was done, was done. She opened her eyes to find Beau studying her with a somewhat quizzical expression.
He was probably wondering what made her tick, seeing that she tended to go off into a daze every little bit today. She’d better pay attention if she wanted to keep her job and do her research.
“Sorry,” she murmured, “I was daydreaming. The mountains are so beautiful I find it hard not to simply stare at them. What did you want to talk to me about?”
“A job.”
That surprised her. “Well, I already have one.”
His smile was quick and somewhat wry. “It’s part-time. I wondered if you might be interested in working at the clinic as my assistant in the mornings.”
“I’m teaching health classes at the high school three mornings a week. It’s also part of the new program funded by the state.”
“Yeah, the weight problems of the average American family has hit the national conscience, it seems. Education is part of the solution. Exercise is the other side of the equation, in my opinion. Not that anyone has asked me.”
His laughter reminded her of soft mornings and quiet walks, of birdsong and the whispers of the wind through the pines, of the peace she’d experienced since arriving in this enchanted valley. She could almost forget she had a mission.
“A daily activity program will be part of my class,” she told him, glad of an innocuous topic to discuss. “Diets don’t work for most people. Less than ten percent of those who diet keep the weight off a year later while those who stick to a regular exercise program do.”
“Right. Say, maybe we can incorporate some kind of program for our patients,” he said.
She realized where her enthusiasm for healthy lifestyles was leading. “I can’t take on anything else at present. But thank you for thinking of me.”
He shrugged, irritation or disappointment flicking through the thoughtful blue eyes. Well, she couldn’t live her life to please him. She had her own problems.
Her mom’s worried gaze appeared in her mental vision, her eyes the same deep blue as hers so that most people thought they were truly mother and daughter by blood. Maybe she was wrong to come here, to want to find out what she could about her birth parents.
Putting the past behind