Cowboy to the Rescue (11 page)

He darted a glance at her. “What?”

“We need to get two rooms,” she said awkwardly. “One for me. One for you.”

Lex pressed down on the accelerator while telling himself he wasn't disappointed. “I wasn't expecting anything else, Christina.”

Five minutes later, they entered a beachside hotel and took adjoining rooms overlooking the bay.

As they rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, Lex edged closer to Christina's shoulder. “We look ridiculous getting two rooms and not carrying one bag or piece of luggage between us. I'm sure the staff behind the counter thinks we've rented two rooms just for appearances' sake.”

Lifting her chin, she glanced away from him. She couldn't let him see just how easy it would be for him to seduce her into sharing one room. One bed. “I don't care what the staff thinks, or anyone else for that matter,” she said stiffly.

They stepped off the elevator without exchanging any more words and found their rooms at the end of the hallway. With her entry card already in hand, Christina quickly opened the door that matched her number.

“Christina?”

His hand came down on her shoulder, and with her heart hammering, she paused to look up at him.

“Are you angry with me?” he asked.

The innocent, almost puzzled expression on his face was so endearing that she felt everything inside her melting.

“No. Why do you ask?”

“I'm not sure. A minute ago in the elevator, you sounded a little sharp.”

Dropping her head, she stared at the carpet. “I didn't mean to, Lex. I knew you were only teasing.”

“Look, Christina, this trip,” he said lowly, then shook his head. “The reason for this trip today is not easy for me to deal with. If I seem to be making a joke at the wrong time, it's only because I—need to lighten things up. Can you understand?”

How could it be, she wondered, that he could so easily touch her heart with just a handful of words? It was scary what this man could do to her.

“Yes,” she said, her throat tight. “And if I seem stiff, maybe it's because the reason for this trip is difficult for me, too. These past days, I feel as though I've gotten to know Paul personally. It bothered me to see the place where he died.” Lifting her head, she looked at him and smiled. “Let's forget all this and enjoy the rest of the evening.”

A smile spread across his face, and like an idiot, she felt her heart dancing at the sight. She didn't want to ask herself why this man's happiness was so important to her. For right now, it was enough that they were together.

“I'm all for that,” he agreed. “After we check out our rooms, let's go down to the beach. I think the rain is all gone now.”

“Give me five minutes and I'll be ready,” she told him.

A short time later, Christina emerged from her room to find Lex standing in the hallway, with a cell phone to his ear. The moment he spotted her, he ended the call and slipped the small instrument back into his jeans pocket.

“I was letting Cook know that we won't be returning to the ranch tonight,” he told her. “She says we're not missing a thing. It's raining cats and dogs up there now.”

“I'm glad you called her. She would have been worried when we didn't show up this evening.” Christina glanced wryly down at her flower-printed white dress. “Well, I'm not exactly clothed for beachcombing, but this will have to do.”

Curling his arm around the back of her waist, Lex urged her down the hallway, toward the elevator doors. “Don't worry. If you get your dress dirty, I'll buy you another one.”

None of her boyfriends had told Christina such a thing before, but then she'd never known a man like Lex before. She could only wonder how she would ever be able to forget him once she left the Sandbur for good.

When they reached the beach, the sun was beginning to dip low behind the skyline of the city. The wind was whipping the rolling waves, tossing Christina's red curls wildly about her face. The brown sand was damp and packed from the earlier rainstorm. She pulled off her sandals and Lex carried them for her as they strolled leisurely along the surf's edge.

“It's beautiful here,” Christina said, with a wistful sigh. “Makes me realize just how long it's been since I've taken a walk on the beach. Far too long.”

“It's been a long time for me, too,” he replied. “I get so caught up in the ranch, the auctions, buying and selling cattle. I forget that there are other things out in the world. What about you? What reason do you have for not visiting the coastline?”

“The same reasons, I suppose. My work.” She bent down and brushed the sand away from the edge of a shell. A sand dollar emerged, and though one side of the fragile sea urchin had crumbled away, she picked it up, anyway.

Lex gestured toward the shell resting in the middle of her palm. “No need for you to keep a broken shell, Christina. You'll probably find a whole one farther on down the beach.”

A faint smile touched her lips. “Sometimes a person can miss out on a lot while he's searching for perfection. I think I'll keep this one.”

Lex watched her fingers close around the sand dollar and wondered if he was one of those misguided persons she was talking about. From the time he'd been old enough to think about girls and the role they would play in his life, he'd decided that he'd find the perfect woman to fall in love with. His parents' marriage had been one of those rare relationships that seemed complete and happy in every way. He wanted that same sort of union for himself. But he'd never fallen in love or found that perfect woman. Maybe Christina was right. Perfection was hard to find. Or maybe he was just beginning to recognize what was perfect for him?

For a moment, an uncharacteristic stab of melancholy struck him, but he thrust it away as he curled his arm around the back of Christina's waist and smiled down at her.

“I see a restaurant on down the beach. Are you ready for some snapper?”

“Sure. Maybe you'll find that perfect shell before we get there,” she impishly suggested.

“For you?”

She shook her head. “For yourself. I've already found mine.”

 

They ate their meal of seafood on a screened-in deck overlooking the beach. Throughout the dinner, Christina was vaguely aware of the seagulls and pelicans diving and swooping over the rolling surf, of the soft music drifting from the main section of the restaurant and the delicious food melting in her mouth. Yet none of those distractions could compete with Lex.

His presence across the small wooden table was consuming her senses, and she found it almost impossible to keep her eyes off him. The moment she'd first met him, his image had practically paralyzed her with its raw sexuality. But now that she was beginning to know the hardworking, family-loving man, he was even more attractive, more of a pull on her heartstrings. And that was beginning to worry her very much. She wasn't supposed to be liking the man or his company this much.

“Looks like we're going to have a long walk in the dark,” Christina remarked as she forced her eyes away from him and out toward the bay.

“So there's no reason for us not to stay and have dessert,” he replied. “Thirty minutes from now, it won't be any darker.”

Placing her fork on the table, she looked at him with disbelief. “Dessert! I'm too full of fish and shrimp to eat a bite of dessert!”

He grinned. “Okay. You can watch me.”

He motioned to a nearby waitress, and after the young woman had given him a verbal rundown of the desserts the restaurant had to offer, he ordered some sort of chocolate concoction and coffee for both of them.

“Cook has you totally spoiled,” she teased.

“She does,” he admitted. “She's spoiled all of us down through the years.”

“What are you going to do when she's gone?”

He looked at her sharply. “I refuse to think about that day.”

“But one day she'll be too old to work for hours in the kitchen,” Christina pointed out.

His gaze dropped to his plate, as though he didn't want her to see she'd discovered a soft spot in him. “I don't want to think about that, either. She's stalwart. She was on the Sandbur before I was even born, and I grew up thinking of her as a second mama. Some of my earliest memories are of standing next to her skirt, waiting for her to hand me a cookie or bandage a cut finger. When she gets…too old to work, someone else will take over.” His gaze was full of conviction when he lifted it back to hers. “But Hattie will remain in the house with us. I'll make sure of that.”

Impulsively, Christina reached across the table and covered his hand with hers. “I didn't mean to upset you,” she said gently. “Cook is as strong as an ox. I'm sure she'll be with you for many, many more years. And I—what I'm really thinking is that I'm very jealous of you.”

His brows inched upward as he glanced around them; then he leaned toward her and grinned slyly. “I don't see any other females in here giving me the eye. How could you be jealous?”

“I didn't mean in that way, Lex.” Although, she had to admit to herself that the idea of any other woman clinging to his side, pressing her lips to his was too unpleasant to consider. “I'm talking about your family. You have lots of relatives living close by, plus people like Cook who are part of the Sandbur, too, and you all love and support each other. I—well, I can't imagine how nice that must be.”

His thumb slipped from beneath her fingers and curled over the top of her hand. “It's not always a perfect situation, Christina. Sometimes there are arguments between us. And we often have opposing ideas on how to run the ranch. But you are right. It is nice to have family all around me. To know they'll be there if I truly need them. That's something that money can't buy.”

A chill brushed across her, and she shivered slightly. “You're so right. If money could bring Joel back, I would have found him years ago.”

His expression turned to one of interest. “I'm curious about your parents, Christina. What did they do when Joel went missing? Did they search for him? Were they torn up, or did they think he'd come back after a few days of partying?”

Just as she started to answer, the waitress returned with Lex's dessert, a gooey-looking brownie topped with ice cream. After she'd served them each a cup of coffee and left the table, Christina replied, “Actually, Dad had to sober up to even realize that Joel was gone. And Mom, well, she kept saying her son had just gone off on some jaunt with a friend and would be back when he got good and ready.”

Lex dug his spoon into the rich sweet. “But you weren't thinking that way.”

Christina thoughtfully stirred cream into her coffee. “No. Joel was very responsible. At least, he was with me. We lived together at the time. I was only twenty-one. He was eighteen. We were both in college and had moved out of the family home. Joel and I wanted to be independent. And we tried to take care of each other. God knows, we couldn't depend on our parents. They supplied us with money, but little more. By the time Joel disappeared, they'd already been divorced for eight years.”

His gaze studied her face for long moments. “So when your brother went missing, your parents weren't too worried about their son?”

“No. It wasn't until a week passed that Dad decided something was wrong and launched an investigation of his own. He and Mom both hired private investigators to search for Joel, but nothing ever came from it. The few leads that came into the police department never led anywhere. It was like Joel was home one day, and the next he'd completely vanished.”

Shaking his head with dismay, he said, “What was your brother like? Were you two close?”

Cradling her coffee cup in one hand, Christina used the other hand to push her tumbled hair away from her face. Other than her friend Olivia, no one ever mentioned Joel to her. Even her own parents had pushed him to the distant past. And as for Mike, she didn't think he'd ever really cared that her brother couldn't be accounted for. To have Lex express real interest about Joel touched her in a way that was impossible to describe.

“Quiet, but humorous at times. He was planning on becoming a doctor. He was brilliant with math and science, and learning came easy for him. He didn't have a steady girlfriend, but he dated frequently. He was particular about his friends and he—”

“What?” Lex prompted.

She frowned. “He literally hated our parents' behavior. Hated the way they'd hacked up their marriage—the way they'd ignored the two of us. His relationship with them was worse than strained. But he loved me. That much I never doubted.”

Christina watched a thoughtful crease build in the middle of his forehead. “Do you think he might have simply walked away? That he wanted to cut himself completely away from your family?”

“I've asked myself that question a thousand times over. And I suppose he could have left without wanting to be found. But why would he want to hurt me in that way? Why would he have let me suffer all these years?” She shook her head. “I can't bear to think he'd be that cruel to me.”