Ransom Canyon. Jodi Thomas

Be out in a minute.”

      They watched the stormy afternoon turn into evening, with lightning putting on a show outside her kitchen window. He liked how he felt comfortable being silent around her. They sometimes talked about Amalah and the funny things that had happened when they were growing up. He felt as if he and Quinn were the leftovers, for the best of them had both died with Amalah.

      Only, tonight his thoughts were on his son, and Staten didn’t really want to talk at all. As the sun set, the temperature dropped, and the icy rain turned to a dusting of soft mushy snow while they ate in silence.

      When he reached for his dishes and started to stand, she stopped him with a touch on his damp sleeve. “I’ll do that,” she said. “Finish your coffee.”

      He sat quiet and still for a few minutes, thinking how this place of hers seemed to slow his heart and make it easier to breathe. He finally left the table and silently moved to stand behind her as she worked at the sink. With rough hands scabbed over in places where the reins had cut, he began to untie her braid.

      “I did this once when we were in third grade. I remember you didn’t say a word, but Amalah called me an idiot after school.”

      Quinn nodded but didn’t speak. Shared memories settled comfortably between them.

      He liked the way Quinn’s sunshine hair felt, even now. It was thick and hung down straight except for the slight waves left by the braid.

      She turned and frowned up at him as she took his hand. Without asking questions she pulled his injured palm under running water and then patted it dry. When she rubbed lotion over his hand, it felt more like a caress than doctoring.

      He was so close behind her their bodies brushed as she worked. Leaning down, he tickled her neck with a light kiss. “Play for me tonight,” he whispered.

      Turning toward the old piano across the open living area, she shook her head. “I can’t.”

      He didn’t question or try to change her mind. He never did. Sometimes, she’d play for him, other times something deep inside her wouldn’t let her.

      Without a word, she tugged him to the only bedroom, turning off lights as they moved through the house.

      For a while he stood at the doorway, watching her remove her plain work clothes: worn jeans, a faded plaid shirt that probably belonged to her father years ago and a T-shirt that hugged her slender frame. As piece by piece fell, pale white skin glowed in the low light of her nightstand.

      When he didn’t move, she turned toward him. Her breasts were small, her body lean, her tummy flat from never bearing a child. All she wore was a pair of red panties.

      “Finish undressing me,” she whispered, then waited.

      He walked toward her, knowing that he wouldn’t have moved if she hadn’t invited him. Maybe it was just a game they played, or maybe they’d silently agreed on unwritten rules when they’d begun. He couldn’t remember.

      Pulling her against him, he just held her for a long time. Somehow on that worst night of his life five years ago, he’d knocked at her door. He’d been muddy, grieving and lost to himself.

      She hadn’t said a word. She’d just taken his hand. He’d let her pull off his muddy clothes and clean him up while he tried to think of a way to stop breathing and die. She’d tucked him into her bed and then climbed in with him, holding him until he finally fell asleep. He hadn’t said a word, either, guessing that she’d heard the news reports of the crash. Knowing by the sorrow in her light blue eyes that she shared his grief.

      A thousand feelings had careened through his mind that night, all dark, but she’d held on to him. He remembered thinking that if she had tried to comfort him with words, even a few, he would have shattered into a million pieces.

      Just before dawn, he remembered waking and turning to her. She’d welcomed him, not as a lover, but as a friend silently letting him know it was all right to touch her. All right to hold on.

      In the five years since, they’d had long talks, sometimes when he sought her out. They’d had stormy nights when they didn’t talk at all. He always made love to her with a gentle touch, never hurried, always with more caring and less passion than he would have liked. Somehow, it felt right that way.

      She wasn’t interested in going out on a date or meeting him anywhere. She never called or emailed. If she passed him in the little town that sat between them called Crossroads, she’d wave, but they never spoke more than a few words in public. She had no interest in changing her last name for his, even if he’d asked.

      Yet, he knew her body. He knew what she liked him to do and how she wanted to be held. He knew how she slept, rolled up beside him as if she were cold.

      Only, he didn’t know her favorite color or why she’d never married or even why sometimes she couldn’t go near her piano. In many ways they didn’t know each other at all.

      She was his rainy-day woman. When the memories got to him, she was his refuge. When loneliness ached through his body, she was his cure. She saved him simply by being there, by waiting, by loving a man who had no love to give back.

      As the storm raged and calmed, she pulled him into her bed. They made love in the silence of the evening, and then he held her against him and slept.

CHAPTER TWO

      WHEN HER OLD hall clock chimed eleven times, Staten Kirkland left Quinn O’Grady’s bed. While she slept, he dressed in the shadows, watching her with only the light of the full moon. She’d given him what he needed tonight, and, as always, he felt as if he’d given her nothing.

      Walking out to her porch, he studied the newly washed earth, thinking of how empty his life was except for these few hours he shared with Quinn. He’d never love her or anyone, but he wished he could do something for her. Thanks to hard work and inherited land, he was a rich man. She was making a go of her farm, but barely. He could help her if she’d let him. But he knew she’d never let him.

      As he pulled on his boots, he thought of a dozen things he could do around the place. Like fixing that old tractor out in the mud or modernizing her irrigation system. The tractor had been sitting out by the road for months. If she’d accept his help, it wouldn’t take him an hour to pull the old John Deere out and get the engine running again.

      Only, she wouldn’t accept anything from him. He knew better than to ask.

      He wasn’t even sure they were friends some days. Maybe they were more. Maybe less. He looked down at his palm, remembering how she’d rubbed cream on it and worried that all they had in common was loss and the need, now and then, to touch another human being.

      The screen door creaked. He turned as Quinn, wrapped in an old quilt, moved out into the night.

      “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said as she tiptoed across the snow-dusted porch. “I need to get back. Got eighty new yearlings coming in early.” He never apologized for leaving, and he wasn’t now. He was simply stating facts. With the cattle rustling going on and his plan to enlarge his herd, he might have to hire more men. As always, he felt as though he needed to be on his land and on alert.

      She nodded and moved to stand in front of him.

      Staten waited. They never touched after they made love. He usually left without a word, but tonight she obviously had something she wanted to say.

      Another thing he probably did wrong, he thought. He never complimented her, never kissed her on the mouth, never said any words after he touched her. If she didn’t make little sounds of pleasure now and then, he wouldn’t have been sure he satisfied her.

      Now, standing so close to her, he felt more a stranger than a lover. He knew the smell of her skin, but he had no idea what she was thinking most of the time. She knew quilting and how to make soap from her lavender. She played the piano like an angel and didn’t even own a TV. He knew ranching