"Sharilyn got around in those days. It was Sharilyn in high school, wasn't it?"
"Briefly."
"Anyway, she got around, and so did you, as I recall. Girls always fluttering around you and your brothers. Young Bryan's mother must be right pleased to have hooked herself a MacKade, and I got to say, the three of you look real nice together. I got a feeling your mama would've taken to that girl."
"Yeah." Jared felt a clutching in the stomach. What would his mama have sa
id about a woman like Savannah?
He thought about it on the way home, and it added weight to his headache. If his mother were alive, how would he explain Savannah? Unwed mother, erotic dancer, carnival worker, calf roper, street artist.
Pick one, he thought, and rubbed at his temple.
The problem was, he could imagine it all, could see her in each stage of her evolution. And it was too easy to see how each layer was part of the whole that was the woman who was waiting for him.
He was tempted to stop off at Rafe's, or go straight to the farm. Just to prove he could. That Bryan's mama didn't have her hooks in him. But he turned up her lane, because it seemed that anything less would be cowardly.
No MacKade was a coward.
She was playing the music at full volume again. Usually it amused him, the way she would crank up that old stereo and blast rock out over the hills. Now he sat in the car, rubbing his aching head.
He walked to the porch, his heavy briefcase weighing him down. Though the screen door he could see her back in the kitchen, washing dishes, singing along with the stereo in a lusty, throaty voice that would sizzle a man's blood. Her hips were grinding to the beat.
She sure knew how to move, he thought, jealousy and temper slashing through him at the same time the first flash of lightning blazed in the west.
Before he could stop himself, he'd slammed the door behind him. Like a pistol shot, it boomed over the music. She swung around, her loose hair following the flow of her movement.
"You want to turn that damn thing down?" he shouted.
"Sure." Hips still rotating, she sauntered over and flipped it off. "Sorry, didn't hear you drive up."
"You wouldn't have heard a freight train drive up."
She only lifted a brow at the edge in his voice and wiped her damp hands on tight jeans. "Rough day?"
He stalked over, dropped his briefcase on the table where the daisies he'd brought her a few days before still smiled sunnily. "Is that how you danced for money?"
The blow was so quick, so sudden and sharp, she couldn't even gasp. It shivered through her once, viciously, before she gathered herself and rolled over the pain. "No. I wouldn't have made much, if that's all I'd put into it." She walked to the refrigerator for a beer she didn't want, because if there was something in her hands they might not shake. "Want one?"
"No. Didn't it bother you, being stared at, drooled over?"
"Not especially." She look a slow, deliberate swallow of beer.
"So you enjoyed it." He was prodding, very much as he would prod a witness who'd been sworn in. "Enjoyed the dancing, the staring, the drooling."
"It paid the rent. Men liked to look at my body, and I figured they could pay for it."
"And if they'd pay to look, they'd pay to—" He broke off, staggered by what had nearly come out of his mouth. He'd had no idea it was in there.
She didn't so much as flinch. This time, it wasn't unexpected. "Now that you brought it up—" her shoulders moved in a lazy, careless shrug "—I thought about it. There was a time that that was all I had to bargain with, so I thought about selling myself."
The horrified apology that was on the tip of his tongue dried up. "And did you?"
She stared at him, her eyes cool and blank. "I'm going up to say good-night to my son." Her eyes went from cool to ballistic when Jared snagged her arm. "Don't mess with me, MacKade. Stay or go, it's up to you, but don't mess with me."
She jerked free and strode quickly up the stairs.
He wanted to break something. Preferably something sharp that he could stab himself with afterward. Instead, he ripped open the box of aspirin, fought off the lid, then downed three with what was left of her beer.