Corolla: the part of a flower that constitutes the inner whorl.
ABE Hollister’s appearance was shocking. His skin was pasty, his normally sharp eyes glassy. He’d always been a lanky man, but now he was so skinny that the gold band on his bony fourth finger looked like it would fly across the room if he suddenly waved his left hand. But lethargy had a strong hold on him. No sudden hand waving going on here. His frail body sank deep into the hard mattress.
Pierce stood in the doorway of his father’s hospital room, the hyper-edginess of intense sexual attraction that had overcome him in the elevator draining away.
His father wore a paper-thin hospital gown the color of misery. House shoes with worn-down heels were tucked underneath the foot of the bed. A metal walker parked beside the bed with the maroon robe Pierce had sent him for Father’s Day thrown over it. Dad lifted a weak hand to his stomach, pressed his lips together into a grimace.
Pierce’s throat constricted and his gut twisted. Ah damn, ah damn. This was not good. No easy solutions. No quick get things straightened out and get back to the gridiron. No magic wand.
The last time he’d seen his father had been five months earlier when Abe had come to visit him in the hospital in Dallas. In February, he had been the one in trouble. Now it was Dad. How could his father’s health have deteriorated so rapidly?
His brother, Malcolm, was seated in a chair beside their father’s bed, keyboarding on a laptop computer. He was small-boned and blond like their mother. He wore what every rancher’s son in Jeff Davis County wore, the same thing Pierce had on—Wranglers, Western-style shirt, cowboy boots. Except Malcolm’s boots were dusty and scraped, whereas Pierce’s were shiny, new, and cost ten times more.
Abe hacked a raspy harsh cough that shook his spine.
A dark word carved into Pierce’s brain, in a big, red neon glow of ugly.
CANCER.
Air hung in Pierce’s lung. He curled his hands into fists. Ah man, no, no. Not again. Cut and run! His father hadn’t seen him yet. The impulse to flee was mutinous. He just might have done it too, if Abe’s gaze hadn’t flicked toward the door.
Instantly, his father’s face brightened. “There he is! My number one son! C’mon in here, boy. Let me see you.”
“The big shot he remembers,” Malcolm muttered. “But the son who works side by side with him every day? Not so much.”
Alarmed, Pierce flung a glare at his brother. What did he mean by that crack? Was Dad’s memory going too?
Malcolm lifted one pale eyebrow, gave a tight, one-shouldered shrug.
His father opened his arms slowly, like a leggy sandhill crane unfurling his wings for flight.
To keep from limping, Pierce took his time crossing the room and then allowed his father to envelop him in a weak-muscled hug. “S’up, Dad?”
“Not a damn thing. I sure am glad to see you.” He sank back against the pillow, his arms drifting down to his sides. “But why aren’t you at practice getting ready for preseason? You boys are gonna win the Super Bowl this year, I just know it.”
“Broke my leg, Dad. Remember?” Pierce touched his left leg.
His father’s face clouded. “I don’t remember that.”
“Sure you remember Pierce’s Joe Theismann moment. They showed it on TV over and over and over.” Malcolm sounded damn cheerful about it.
“Joe Theismann. Yeah, yeah. Lawrence Taylor got him on the blitz.” Abe grimaced.
“When it comes to football, memory as big as an elephant’s balls.” Malcolm closed his laptop, stood up, and settled the computer in the seat he’d just vacated.
“Do you have to do that in front of Dad?” Pierce kept his voice low and his tone even.
“What? Speak the truth?”
“Be disrespectful.”
Malcolm’s mouth dipped in a sulk. “Don’t worry. He never listens to me anyway.”
“Theismann was never the same.” Abe shook his head woefully. “Taylor’s sack ruined his career.”
Pierce’s leg twinged.
“I rest my case.” Malcolm folded his arms over his chest.
“Do you need to take a walk?” Pierce asked.
“Matter of fact, I do. I’m going for a sandwich.” Malcolm headed for the door. Paused. “You want anything?”
Pierce raised a palm. “I’m good.”
“I want for Pierce to bring home that Super Bowl ring,” Abe sang out.
Pierce sucked in his breath. That’s all his father had ever wanted from him. It had started with the football Abe had given him for Christmas when he was five. Pierce never knew if he really did have an exceptional passing arm as the sportscasters claimed, or just an exaggerated need to please his old man.
Malcolm looked put out, grunted, and left the room.
Abe’s eyelids lowered and he was breathing shallow. Asleep already? Pierce took the seat Malcolm had been sitting in, settling the laptop on the window ledge.
His father’s eyes popped open. “How’s that throwin’ arm?”
“Good.”
“Good?” Abe glowered, grabbed the bedrail, and pulled himself upright. “Boy, good ain’t near good enough.”
“I know, Dad.”
“To have a prayer of making the junior varsity your arm has to be great.”
“Uh-huh.” Better than great.
“Better than great. You have to be excellent. Never forget, this is football in West Texas! Now, get back out there and practice your throwin’. Make me proud.”
“Yes, Dad.”
What was going on here? Now his father thought he was still in high school?
Pierce felt the same pang in his stomach that he’d felt when he’d heard the lecture the first five million times. Usually when it was well after dusk and his throwing arm was aching so hard that all the ibuprofen and mentholatum rub in the world couldn’t soothe it.
Abe’s eyes were bright, his breathing too quick and raspy. “You’re gonna be the next gawddamn Roger Staubach one day. Just as long as you don’t cloud your mind with girls.”
“You’re right.”
He shook a finger at Pierce. “No girls. You got that?”
“Dad, I already made it, remember,” he murmured wearily. “I played in the Super Bowl for the Dallas Cowboys.”
His father looked startled and for a moment, clarity flashed in his eyes, but then his expression turned wily. “Then lemme see that Super Bowl ring.”
“I don’t have a ring. We lost the game.”
His father dropped back against the mattress, waved a dismissive hand. “You’re no Roger Staubach.”
“Don’t I know it,” Pierce mumbled.
He sat there feeling like he was fourteen again and had seriously upset the old man when he didn’t make first-string quarterback his freshman year. Always a disappointment, no matter how hard he tried.
It was an old wound he tried not to pick. Abe was proud of him when he won, not simply because he’d done his best. Pierce gulped. He couldn’t be resentful. Abe’s constant pushing was what had gotten him to the top of the heap. In a way, he was glad his father thought he was still in high school, had forgotten he’d lost the Super Bowl, busted up his leg, and now his entire career hung in the balance.
Abe drifted off to sleep.
Malcolm returned sometime later with a brown paper bag smelling of garlic and marinara sauce. “Picked you up a meatball sub from Franny’s. I know it’s your favorite.”
“Thanks.”
“Think quick.” Malcolm threw the sack.
He stood up and with an easy one-armed catch, snagged the sandwich in midair, but his left knee crumpled and he stumbled against the bed.
“Huh?” His father jerked awake. “What is it?”
“Sorry, Dad,” he apologized.
“Is that a meatball sub from Franny’s?” Abe eyed the sack and perked up.
“Sure is.” Pierce reached for the controls and raised the head of the bed. He unwrapped the sandwich for his father.
“He won’t eat it,” Malcolm muttered, moving to the other side of the bed.
Sure enough, Abe took one bite and shook his head. “My stomach hurts.”
A lead anchor pressed against Pierce’s chest. He couldn’t believe the shape his father was in. He met his brother’s eyes. “Can I talk to you out in the hall?”
Pulse thumping hard, he turned and stalked out into the hall. Malcolm took his sweet time following him. While he waited, Pierce drummed his fingers against the wall.
A nurse was in the hallway pushing a medication cart from room to room. She did a double take and her eyes widened. She smiled briefly, glanced away, and then peeked back at him again. If he had a dime for every time a woman had glanced at him like that, he’d double his net worth.
Malcolm strolled into the corridor, his eyes unreadable.
Pierce swallowed, reached out, and clapped his brother on the back in a quick, stiff hug.
It took a good three seconds for Malcolm to lift his arms to touch him briefly, and then step back.
“How long has he been like this?” Pierce lifted his cowboy hat, ran a hand through his hair.
“Been going on two months, but he’s steadily been getting worse. The memory lapses are fairly new. I’m scared it’s Alzheimer’s.”
“Christ, he’s only fifty-eight.”
“It’s been tough.”
“Why didn’t you call me before now?” He struggled to temper his tone. His brother bristled easily.
“You know how stubborn the old man is.” Malcolm jammed his hands into his front pocket, hunched his shoulders. “Besides, you had a lot on your plate.”
He stuck his cowboy hat back down on his head. “He’s my dad too. I had a right to know how bad his condition was.”
Malcolm’s jaw tightened and he ran a hand over his mouth. “If you called once in a while—”
Pierce took a step forward. “I’ve been recovering myself.”
Malcolm raised his chin, held his ground. Pierce was three inches taller and fifty pounds heavier. They stared at each other like two gunslingers on the streets of Dodge City.
“How’s your leg?” Malcolm asked through gritted teeth.
“Healing. I should be off the disabled list by October.” Okay, that was a best-case scenario, but he wasn’t going to tell his brother that.
“Good for you.” Malcolm’s upper lip curled in a sneer.
He sank his hands on his hips. “What do the doctors say about Dad?”
“Nothing yet. They’re still running tests.”
“We need to get him out of here. Send him to a specialist in El Paso or San Antonio.” Pierce tugged his cell phone from his pocket. “I’ll call and make the arrangements.”
Malcolm clamped a hand on his wrist.
Nostrils flaring, he narrowed his eyes, put flint in his voice. “What is it?”
“You can’t just waltz in here and start ordering people around.” This time, his brother was the one to take a step forward until their chests were almost touching.
Don’t rise to the bait. Think of Dad. “I’m only trying to help.”
“No, you’re trying to play the big shot.”
Pierce forced his muscles to unclench. “Obviously you need a break. Why don’t you go home and—”
“Why don’t you stop telling me what to do?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Hollister?”
Simultaneously, he and Malcolm glanced over to see the medication nurse standing there. She gave a tenuous smile, and extended a pen and notepad toward Pierce. “I know it’s probably inappropriate of me to ask,” she said, “but could I trouble you for your autograph? My little boy is a huge fan.”
The response was so automatic, it took Pierce only a second to find his grin and set it to stun. “Why surely, darlin’, no trouble at all. What’s your boy’s name?”
“Sammy.” She was dancing around on the tips of her toes, her hands clutched in front of her.
“Some things never change.” Malcolm snorted and went back into their father’s room.
The nurse cast a glance at his departing brother. “Is he mad about something?”
“Other than the fact that he wasn’t born first?”
“Ah.” She nodded. “Sibling rivalry.”
He scribbled a short note to Sammy, signed his name, and gave the pad and pen back to her.
She thanked him profusely. “Well, I better get back to work,” she said, walking backward toward her medication cart.
“You better watch—” Pierce tried to warn her, but she rammed her butt into the cart before he got the words out.
“Oops.” She plastered her hand over her mouth and blushed.
A gaggle of other nurses were peering around the corner of the nurses’ station, all giving him the eye.
Pierce suddenly felt allergic to his own skin. He had to get out of here. Clear his mind. Think about what to do about his father without stepping all over Malcolm’s toes.
To his left, a green exit sign mounted over the door to the stairway beckoned.
To his right lay a herd of salivating women in blue scrubs.
Ah hell. Pierce pulled his Stetson down over his forehead and took the easy way out.
LACE STOOD BESIDE her ten-year-old Corolla—okay, the model bordered on being a cliché, but what could be a more fitting car for a botanist?—which had been her first and only car, in the parking lot of Cupid General, pawing through the contents of her oversized handbag, searching for her car keys. She shoved aside the rubber-banded letters she’d been given to answer, dug past her wallet, a magnifying glass, a hori-hori sheathed in a leather pouch, a handful of Ziploc bags for collecting plant specimens, and a tube of sunscreen.
“Flytrap,” she muttered her favorite faux curse word. Where were her keys? She needed to get back to the gardens. Jeff Davis Elementary was busing in third graders on a field trip at three.
She leafed through the side pockets—a tube of Carmex, her glasses case, a folded ten-dollar bill, an iPod with ear buds attached, cell phone, and a small tin of cinnamon Altoids.
But no keys.
Sighing, she shouldered her bag and patted down her pockets. There were some clippings from the red yucca stuck in her front shirt pocket, but other than that, her pockets were empty.
“Organic fertilizer,” she muttered the botanist version of a swearword. She must have left the keys in Aunt Delia’s room. She was going to have to go past that smug little candy striper a fourth time. Bracing herself for another smart-aleck comment about Pierce Hollister ruining her brain, she started to head for the hospital entrance, but something compelled her to shade her eyes from the sun with the edge of her hand, and peek past the tint of the driver’s side window.
Yep. The keys were dangling from the ignition.
And, of course, the doors were locked.
She groaned and got out her cell phone. She was just about to text Zoey to see if she could swing by Lace’s house and bring the spare key, when a brown Ford King Ranch extended cab pickup truck did a U-turn in the middle of the road, drove into the hospital parking lot, and pulled to a stop in front of her.
Her stomach took a roller-coaster ride up into her throat, before plummeting back down to her feet. Without even glancing up, she knew who it was.
“Car trouble?”
She did not want to look at him, but then again not meeting his gaze would make it seem like he affected her. He did not affect her. Not in the least. So she raised her head and locked on to those gorgeous, green-flecked brown eyes that once upon a time had kept her awake at night.
His mouth turned up into a heart-stopping grin.
Her stomach switched rides, sliding from the roller coaster to Tilt-A-Whirl. “Under control,” she said smoothly.
“You sure?” He cut the pickup’s engine, opened the door, and swung to the ground.
Go away! “Positive.”
“I don’t mind giving you a hand.”
I mind. “I’m good.”
He stepped closer, rested his palm on the hood of her Corolla, and leaned in. “What’s the trouble?”
Even though she’d met his eyes, she’d managed to steer clear of truly looking at him, but now with him crowding her personal space she couldn’t avoid it any longer.
It was the first time she’d seen him in the flesh in twelve years, and there was a big difference between watching him fling a football on television and being here with him up close and personal. Inevitable really. Bound to happen. Once she’d decided to make Cupid her permanent home, deep down, she’d known at some point this moment would come.
For a brief time after graduation, she’d considered not moving back for this very reason. She’d even been offered a job working for the Smithsonian. But the only thing she’d ever wanted was to run the Cupid Botanical Gardens and spend her life studying the mesmerizing plants of the Trans-Pecos region.
Her roots ran deep in this arid soil, and family was important to her, in spite of the fact that her parents, numerous cousins, aunts, and uncles could be a royal pain in the butt as often as not. In the end, she simply could not allow some ridiculous incident that had happened when she was fourteen dictate the trajectory of her life.
Even so, the moment that Lace had dreaded for over a decade was finally here.
It was now.
In spite of being braced for it, she was unprepared for the full effect of Pierce Hollister. The good-looking boy had morphed into a strikingly handsome man. He moved with athletic grace, all loose-limbed and easy, while at the same time his muscles coiled tight with potent masculine power.
He had a straw Stetson cocked back on his head and the sleeves of a blue and white Western-style cowboy shirt rolled up to reveal muscular forearms. Thick curly hair, the same honey gold color of pronghorns, was cut close on the sides, but longer on top. He’d grown into the nose that had once been a little too big for his face, although now it crooked a bit to the left, giving him a thoroughly rakish air. Or maybe it was the wicked grin.
Either way, Paul Newman in Hud had nothing on him in either the looks or the rascal department.
From a distance, he might be mistaken for an ordinary cowboy—he’d never shaken off that lanky, West Texas gait—but up close, he smelled like sophistication. Lace’s nose twitched as she identified the rich notes that composed his cologne. Freshly printed money, suede, rosemary, and a hint of something lighter, frivolous—Amaryllidacese, the narcissus flower.
His nails were clipped short and buffed, the cuticles pushed neatly back, making Lace’s own garden-roughened hands look pretty ratty in comparison. She thrust her hands behind her back.
“How’s Jay?” he asked.
She almost told him, but an impish impulse took hold of her and she bit off her answer and instead asked, “You know my brother?”
He startled, looked confused.
Ha! Gotcha.
“Lace, it’s me. Pierce.”
The sound of her name vibrating off his tongue was almost her undoing. His voice was deep. Deeper than she remembered, and he put added emphasis on the “la” sound, scraping the tip of his tongue over his palate, ending with a solid lay down against the back of his lower teeth on “ace.” The way he said “Lace” made it seem like the sweetest word in Webster’s Dictionary and caused her to think far too much about the mechanics of his mouth and tongue.
His smile quickly slipped back. “Aw, you tease. You’re yanking my chain.”
She glanced over at him, almost lost her bravado in the face of those brown eyes as rich and tempting as pecan pralines, but managed to bluff her way through it. “Your ego simply can’t believe that someone doesn’t recognize the great Pierce Hollister?”
“Not someone,” he said. “You.”
He said “you” like he was saying “sex.” Slick technique he’d no doubt perfected to ignite the panties of his multitudinous groupies. Well, her panties were staying ice-cold, thank you very much.
Pierce cocked his head, studied her attentively. So attentively, in fact, that it made her itchy. She scratched the back of her hand. The man was a paradox—at once slick and sophisticated but at the same time, down-home country, with a magnetically rugged edge that no amount of urban living could polish.
“It was fun catching up,” she said, and wriggled her fingers at him.
He kept standing there.
What the hell did he want from her? “Good-bye.”
“Bye.” He didn’t move.
Neither did she, because where was she going to go? He was blocking her way.
“You’re a lot different from how I remembered you,” he said.
“You’re not.”
“You were so quiet and sweet.”
Quiet yes, because she stuttered. Sweet? Shows how much he really knew her. “I was fourteen.”
“You don’t stutter anymore.”
“You ever see The King’s Speech? It was like that.”
“You cursed your stutter away?”
Yes indeed, by cursing him and Mary Alice. “Among other techniques.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Don’t be. I didn’t cure cancer.”
“Dad’s sick,” he blurted. “I’m scared he might have cancer.”
Oh man, why did she have such a tendency to stick her foot in her mouth? Downside of conquering her stutter, she opened her big trap too often. “I’m so sorry to hear about your dad.”
He pulled a palm down his face. “I don’t know why I said that. It’s not your problem.”
She wished he hadn’t said it either. It made him vulnerable and human. How could she hold a hard-line stance when he was standing there looking all vulnerable and human? “Jay just started the last year of his residency at Johns Hopkins,” she said. “You might want to call him about your dad.”
“He’s a heart surgeon.”
“He’s also a friend.”
“We really haven’t been all that close since . . .” He hesitated. “We went off to separate colleges.”
That wasn’t the big wedge that had been driven between her brother and his best friend and they both knew it. Lace shifted her weight. “I’ll keep your father in my thoughts.”
“Thanks.” He didn’t make a move to leave.
Lace massaged her forehead. How to get rid of him without being flat-out rude? That option had been sealed off when he’d told her about his father.
“Ah,” Pierce said.
Ah what?
He was looking through the windshield of her car. “You locked yourself out.”
“It happens.”
His grin reappeared, bright and perky as ever. “A lot?”
“Enough.”
“Still a daydreamer, huh?”
“Listen,” she said. “I’ll have a busload of field-tripping third graders showing up on my front door at three—”
“Gotcha.” He winked. “You need in there fast. Hang on.”
Great. Now he was determined to help.
He spun on his heel, hustled over to his pickup, rummaged around in the big shiny silver toolbox in the bed of the truck, and returned with a slim jim.
“You keep a tool for breaking into cars in your toolbox? How very gangster of you.”
He flashed those straight white teeth again. “Not at all. I keep it for damsels in distress.”
She whacked herself on the side of her head with a palm. “Duh. Should have known.”
“Make way.” He came toward her.
She slipped back, but couldn’t really go anywhere, hemmed in by the Lincoln to her left and a yew hedge behind the cars. Twelve years ago if she’d found herself in this close proximity to him, she would have drooped like a tropical orchid in the Chihuahuan Desert. But now, she was tough as a purple sage.
Bring on the heat. She could withstand it.
His scent circled her. He focused on the car, the muscles in his arm flexing as he worked. In under a minute, he had the door unlocked and gestured with a flourish. “Your chariot, Princess.”
Oh, she could see why women melted at his feet. All the more reason not to. “Thanks,” she said tightly.
“You’re welcome. Drive safe.” He saluted her, ambled back to his truck.
She took a deep breath, and went to turn the key.
Except it was already turned—in the wrong direction. Not only had she left the key in the ignition, but also she’d mistakenly turned it to the accessory position.
“Please let it start, please let it start,” she prayed. She closed her eyes, and twisted the key to the start position.
Click.
Then nothing.