Read My Lips: Restricted Version

RML: Chapter 20 (R)

Chapter 20

'Why are you here?' Amber signed to Lucy when she showed up at the library late Saturday morning.  'You did not have to come in today.  I told you that.'

"I know," she sighed, "but I didn’t have anything else to do."  Lucy picked up a file from the stack on Amber’s desk, but she just stared at it.

"Hey, what is wrong?"

Lucy's hazel eyes drifted over to her friend, and she tried to smile but it wasn’t real.  "Nothing.  How was the game last night?"

"Oh, no," Amber said, taking the file from Lucy's hand and setting it aside.  "Do not change the subject.  Something happened last night on your date."

Lucy fell into the nearest chair.  "I don’t know, Amber...I don’t know what happened.  One minute everything was going great -- Brian is so nice and sweet, and we were enjoying a great dinner, but then..."

Amber sat in the chair next to her.  "Did he do something to you...say something?"

Her eyes widened.  "Oh, no...it’s nothing like that.  He got a call from his boss and had to leave, right there in the middle of his grilled porterhouse."  Lucy slumped in her seat, hunching her shoulders.  "But otherwise we had a great time...well, I had a great time."

"What do you mean by that?"

Lucy shrugged.  "Oh, you know...you've heard of guys having their friends call them, saying it’s his boss so he'd have a reason to skip out on the rest of the date, especially if it’s not going well."

"I can not believe he would do that, not if he is really as sweet and nice as you say."

Lucy smiled.  "You really are speaking so much better.  What did Linc say about it?"

"Thank you,” Amber spoke with a gracious incline of her head.  “I have been practicing.  Linc said nothing, which is not part of this subject, so stop changing it."

"Fine...and I agree with you. I don’t think he would do that either, but then I thought, ‘Do I really want to get involved with a man who jumps up in the middle of dinner just because his boss needs his hand held?’  I just don’t know what to do."  She stared down at her fingers, entwined together in her lap and filled her lungs with a ragged breath.  “He liked my hair, though...he even asked to run his fingers through it,” she added, looking up with a timid smile.  “But that was before he took off.”  She lost her smile and her eyes filled with confusion.  “What should I do, Amber?  I like him, but I don’t know if it’s worth it.  Should I call him, or wait?”

Amber felt she was not the person who Lucy should turn to for relationship advice.  She’d fallen in love with the first man to come along after gaining her independence from her family.  The first man to kiss her in over five years.  If that didn’t disqualify her judgement on the subject, she didn’t know what would.  Coming up with the easiest solution to Lucy’s question, she said, “Maybe you should wait to see if he calls you back.”

“Oh, he did,” Lucy said with a flip of her hand.  “He woke me up this morning.  He apologized for the date; he apologized for calling so early and for not being available for the next two weeks.”  

“Two weeks?  Why?”

Lucy slumped even further into herself.  “He’s leaving on a last minute business trip.”

“Oh,” Amber mourned with her.  “That sucks."

“Yeah...so what about your night?  Did you have a good time."  Lucy perked up a little, a small hint of excitement in her eyes at the prospect of Amber having a better night.

This time, Amber was the one to fall back in despair.  "Let me see...I yelled at Linc for his bad manners.  I lost him in the parking lot of the stadium and almost panicked.  He pissed me off again, and I pissed him off.  He invited me out to his ranch to see the deaf horse he is caring for. I met his cousin, Jason, the starting pitcher for the team, who apparently insulted me somehow, and Linc came to my rescue, and then he kissed my cheek for a goodnight at the door and left."

Lucy nodded and steadied a sad gaze on Amber, hearing the words that weren’t spoken.  "So you've fallen in love with him, huh?"

There was no hiding it.  “Yup.”

“That sucks.”

“Yup.”

“Maybe we should just skip the work and go get drunk,” Lucy offered with a tiny smile to mock both of their bad lucks with men.

Amber grabbed her bag.  "I have a better idea.  Let us go get my car.  I want to drive so bad my knees are shaking.”

Lucy let out a small laugh.  “Are you still wanting that little bitty thing?”

“Yes!” Amber responded, her eyes bright.  “When did you get your first car?”

“When I was seventeen,” Lucy said.

“Then I am eleven years overdue.”

“Since you put it that way,” Lucy said, losing her remorse over her date because of Amber’s infectious enthusiasm, “you are definitely overdue for a car.”

Amber walked with Lucy to the elevator and out of the library.  “Then we can drive out to Linc’s ranch.  I know you loved your cousin, but it is time for the woman to go.”

Lucy actually laughed at that.  “That’s not your problem,” she said.  “Getting Linc to let her go is your problem.”

“Yeah,” Amber mused softly.  “I might need your help on that.”

“What do you mean?”

But Amber didn’t reply, so Lucy let it go for now.  After all...who would believe she was a twenty-eight year old woman with absolutely no sexual experiences under her belt?

*****

Linc drove the nail into the fence board with a single, powerful swing of his hammer.  Chloe’s words came back to him, haunting him all day... “She was attacked in high school...by five or six guys...they would have raped her...she’s never trusted a man since that day...”  Amber’s sister hadn’t been the most forthcoming with her information, but Linc managed to pull the story out of her.  Amber had gone to a public high school for only a few weeks, then that happened and she stayed at home for the rest of her schooling.  No wonder she got defensive when tried to talk to her about her past.

The next nail went in the same way, just as ferociously, just as strongly.  He was venting, and the physical task of repairing some rotted fencing along his horse pasture seemed the best way to work out his frustrations.

I trust you.

Those words kept echoing inside his brain.  Amber’s sweet voice and perfect lips forming them...keeping them inside his mind.  I trust you...I trust you...

She trusted him.  Trusted!  Trusted him to be a good friend.  To tell her the truth no matter what.   To keep her safe.  Even safe from himself if need be.  Trusted him as she had never trusted another man before...according to her sister...because Amber was a goddamn virgin.  A virgin!  At twenty-eight!  Chloe said, “She could never stand the touch of a man...not even enough to let them kiss her...and I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.  Are you trying to get my sister in bed?”

“No,” Linc told her, especially since he knew the truth now.  “I really am just trying to be a good friend to her.”

“Well, keep it that way,” Chloe told him while the sound of a baby crying in the background gave her an excuse to get off the phone with him.  Linc was glad Chloe ended the call.  He didn’t know how much longer he could keep the indifference out of his voice.  Because frankly, he had been thinking about Amber in his bed ever since he almost kissed her last night.

Another nail sailed through the wood of a board, and another, as he pounded angrily with his hammer.  He crouched to secure a lower board.  The grass under his boots smelled fresh and new.  The wind at his back ruffed his hair at his neck.  The sky above him was clear and brilliant, gazing down on him like a woman’s caress...and it was torturing him.  This was the part of the year when winter was finally a memory and the heat of the summer had yet to smother everything in a blistering furnace.  His favorite time of the year.  But it had been nothing but one agonizing hour after another ever since he dragged his sorry butt out of bed that morning.  The sun had peaked in the sky an hour ago, and though it took every ounce of willpower, he had managed to not call Amber or drive past her building at all that morning, just to see if she was still coming out to his place to see Raven Rose.  

When he woke up early after a lousy night’s sleep, he called Chloe and then he went to see Macie, but he managed to not drive downtown toward Amber.  He did stop by the feed store, picked up some fresh honey at a roadside stand and gave Egaeus and Raven Rose a good scrubbing, all before ten o’clock.  Then, he cleaned out the tack room in the stable, did some much needed laundry, mowed the yard around his house and generally kept himself busy and not thinking about Amber.

It hadn't helped.

She was right there, always smiling in the back of his mind, looking up at him with those blue eyes, and saying those words, I trust you, while he pictured her fighting off the groping hands of five teenage boys.

With a snarl of weakening stability, he threw his hammer across the field as far as his aching body would allow and yelled, “Don’t trust me!  Dammit, don't, Amber!”  There was only so much restraint in him.  He wanted to kiss her lips and her neck and run his hands all over her body, divesting her of her clothes until he could pull her down on the spring grass and make love to her until neither of them could breathe or think.

And then what?  Say, “Thank you, I’ll call you”?  Or give her a good-bye kiss and a pat on the fanny for a wonderful time?  Could he even be that callous to a woman?  If he wanted to get involved with Amber on a sexual level, then, yes, he would have to be that callous, and then he wouldn’t be any better than every other man who had treated her wrongly.  He had nothing else for her, just a few moments of passion and he knew for a fact she wanted more.  It was written on her damn list.  Fall in love.  Right there in black ink.  A tattoo on a piece of paper, proclaiming exactly what she wanted out of life, along with Learn to Dance and Travel Across the Country.

He had the means to dance with her or to take her to anywhere in the world she wished to go...but not that.  Not love.  Not again.  He couldn’t.  He couldn’t give what he didn’t have any more.  But God!  How he wanted to!  He yearned to pull her against him, hold her in his arms and feel love again...say, “I love you,” again, but the thought of saying those words to another woman made his throat seize up.  He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t swallow, he got dizzy just from the idea of loving someone other than Macie.  

He should have just left Amber alone from the beginning.  Now, he was out in his pasture, making work for himself, breaking a deep sweat, doing anything and everything except seeing her, talking to her, watching her eyes spark when he teased her, drowning in the depths of her smiles, fantasizing about another kiss in her bathroom.  He had to stay away from her.  He had to let her live her life the way she wanted to.  No more invites to a baseball game.  No more driving past her apartment building, just to see her silhouette in the window.  No more dancing, and no more friendship.  And no more invites out to his ranch.  She wasn’t here anyway.  She must have decided not to come.

It’s for the best, he thought.  All this circling around each other had to end.  Right here.  Right now.  The temptation was too great, to take everything she had and give nothing back.

And that just pissed him off.  “Fuck it,” he scowled, tossing all his tools and extra lumber in the back of his truck.  He’d barely had more than a few drinks in three weeks...a considerable amount of abstinence for him, ever since meeting Amber that fateful day, but, “I need a drink,” he growled to the world and headed toward home and the nearest bottle of beer.

His truck tires spit grass and dirt as he tore out of the field and through the gate by the stable.  A familiar figure leaned against a porch post as Linc slid to a stop behind his house.  Wil.  There was no mistaking that hat.  Linc liked his hats, but he never took to wearing one at all times, like his younger brother did.  Sometimes, he wondered if Wil slept with the things still on his head.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, getting out of the driver’s side and slamming the door behind him.

Wil nudged his stetson up with a finger.  “I got up at the ass-crack of dawn and drove seven hours to get my ass chewed.  Nice, Linc.  A ‘How the hell are you?’ would be great, but I’m guessing that’s asking too much.”

Linc stalked up the porch stairs and stuck his hand out.  Wil always knew how to put things in perspective.  “How the hell are you?” Linc asked gruffly, but with a smirk.  “Sally with you?”

“Nah,” Wil said, giving Linc a one-armed, brotherly hug.  “I’m alone.”

“Trouble in paradise already?” Linc asked, sitting down in a rocking chair with a weary sigh.  “You’ve only been married three weeks.”

“Are you kidding me?” Wil asked as he settled in a neighboring chair and propped his feet on the porch banister and grinned.  “I’ve got a beautiful wife who loves me, loves to love on me, and loves to cook for me.  Paradise is a mud hole compared to my life.”

Linc grunted.

“She and Sage are shopping in Branson for the weekend,” Wil went on, saying more than he’d normally say.  Linc’s little brother had never been much of a talker, but it seemed Sally loosened up his tongue a bit in the past few months.  “You know, baby clothes, baby furniture, ooh’s and aah’s and lots of giggling -- female drama...I thought I’d skip all that and come see you.”

“I’m flattered,” Linc muttered, running his fingers through his sweaty hair.  “How long had you been here?”

“About thirty minutes,” Wil answered.  “Long enough to store my bag in my old room, admire that new mare of yours and watch you barrel out of the field like the hounds of hell were on your tail.”  He shot Linc a sideways glance.  “Something eating at you today?”

Linc wasn’t about to describe his own female drama in his life, so he just snorted and crossed his arms over his chest.  “Nope.  Just tired and needing a beer.”  He stood up.  “You want one?”

“Sure.”

He stepped inside the mud room off the back porch, stripped his boots off and padded into the kitchen in only his socks.  Stopping first to wash the grime off his hands and face at the sink, he also took a moment to ease some tension building up around his neck.  Hiding his problems and headaches from Wil had never been an easy job.  The two of them used to be so close.  They always knew what the other was thinking, even if nothing was said between them.  After Macie died, that relationship had been severed like a hot knife though a stick of butter.  Linc blamed Wil for Macie’s death for so long, it was still difficult to look at his brother without feeling that anger and condemnation.  But he was trying.

Inside his refrigerator, he stopped and stared at the two bottles of beer shoved behind the carton of milk.  Only two?  Since when did he have less than a six-pack stored away?  Linc thought back to the night before.  He’d gone to bed with only a ham and cheese sandwich in his belly and a glass of water after dropping Amber off at her apartment.  And the night before that?  When had he last made a liquor run?  He used to drink himself to oblivion every night, just to stave off the nightmares of seeing Macie sleeping peacefully in her coffin from the funeral.  Then he realized that he hadn’t had that dream in several nights.  He hadn’t been sleeping any better, but Macie’s beautiful face hadn’t been the one plaguing him lately.

Checking the expiration dates on the bottles -- he’d never kept beer long enough to expire, but just in case -- he took them out to the back porch and handed one over to Wil.

“Thanks, man,’ Wil said, twisting his cap off and flipping it into a nearby tin pail full of other bottle caps.  “God, that’s good,” he moaned, once half the bottle was guzzled down his throat.  “Sally threw out all the alcohol in the house when she found out she was pregnant.  I’ve barely had a drink in two months.”

Linc flipped his own cap through the air and gave his brother another deep-chested grunt.  “Women will do that to you,” he stated.

Wil eyed him carefully.  “You look different.”

“I’m getting old.”

“Nah, that’s not it.  You seem -- I don’t know...content?  More at peace with yourself, I guess.”  Wil took another sip, but Linc just stared off into the distance, his beer forgotten in his fingers.  Somehow, the smell of it didn’t soothe him anymore.  “So?  Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“At peace with yourself.”

I trust you...I trust you...

In answer to Wil’s question, Linc drained his beer, forcing the liquid to bypass his taste buds altogether and land heavily and sourly in his gut.  It was his last one.  And if he felt the need to dig into the liquor cabinet for something harder, then drowning his brain cells tonight wasn’t happening.  The two brother sat in silence as the sun drifted along further and further.  The sky was a brilliant, clear blue -- Like a pair of eyes, Linc thought to himself -- and Egaeus and Raven Rose walked around in the training pen off to the side of the barn.  Linc noticed how Raven Rose’s mane glistened in the afternoon light -- Like Amber’s hair before she cut it -- but he thought that her hair look so much prettier now.  

As though a barb pierced his chest, his cell phone lay inside his shirt pocket, silently screaming at him to pull it out and call Amber.  No, I won’t.  She had her own life to live, and it didn’t include him.  It couldn’t.  And yet, every time his eyes blinked, he saw her smiling sweet face, felt her gentle breath on his cheeks, fell just a little bit harder for her.

No!

Linc shifted in his seat, yearning to think about something -- anything -- but Amber...

“She’s beautiful,” Wil commented.

“Yeah, she is,” Linc replied automatically.

“What’s her name?”

“Amber -- wait, what?  Who are you talking about?”

Wil gave him an odd smile.  “The mare...the momma down there with Egaeus.  Who did you think I was talking about?  And who is Amber?”

Linc ignored that last question and focused on the two horses.  “Her name is Raven Rose.  I’m just fostering her until she has her little one, and then she’s to be sent to a kids’ camp out west.”

His little brother studied him for a moment, but Wil knew when to leave things well enough alone.  Linc’s temper surpassed Wil’s by a long shot, and he was smart enough to stay out where he’s not invited.  “Egaeus sure is protective of her,” Wil said, looking back at the animals.  “He wouldn’t let me near her.”

“Yeah, he’s got it bad.”

Wil gazed at Linc from the corner of his eye.  “Yup...no doubt about that.”

“She’s deaf,” Linc added, still focused on Raven Rose.  “I’ve been trying to learn some signs to try to communicate with her, but it hasn’t been easy.  I don’t want to get too close, you know?  Especially since I can’t keep her.  It’s going to be hard enough when she has to leave, but I can’t help but wonder if staying here with me would be the best thing for her.  Egaeus is in love with her, and he’s going to have a fit when she goes.”

Wil drank from his beer.  But the wheels were turning in his head.  Linc could see the thoughts rolling through his brother’s eyes.  And Linc’s thoughts were just as turbulent.  Was he talking about Egaeus and Raven Rose, or himself and Amber?  Half the time, he was never sure when he started to think about himself without Amber there with him.  Because lately, she was always there...right along with his thoughts of Macie.  Comparing them.  Dividing them.  Merging them together so that he didn’t know where Macie ended and Amber began, and vice versa.  

Wil leaned forward with a sigh and set his bottle at his feet.  “Linc--”  The sound of tires riding on the gravel of his front drive cut off whatever his brother was going to say.  Wil cocked his head toward the sound and asked, “Are you expecting someone?”

Amber.  She came.  Linc shot out of his chair.  “Maybe,” he muttered and trotted down the porch steps to walk around the house, ignoring how damp and dirty his socks were becoming.

Wil followed at a more leisurely pace, but Linc could feel his curious stare boring into his back.  “So, who is it?” Wil called from behind him.

“I don’t know,” Linc spit out, rounding the corner of the log cabin, expecting to see Amber coming out of a taxi cab.  But there, sitting in the drive next to Wil’s midnight blue pick-up, was a tiny, tiny, green...thing.  Like a green M&M on wheels, but it had doors and windows and lights, too.  And it was brand, spanking, shiny new.  Still had the purchase sticker on the back window.

“Is that a car?” Wil wanted to know as he stopped next to Linc.

“I’m not sure.”

Two women piled out of the mysterious object as Wil leaned closer to Linc and said, “It looks like half a roller skate.”

Linc’s gaze was torn from the roller skate as Amber’s blue eyes found him.  She smiled and waved, and everything else disappeared.  The fact that she was the one driving that tuna can on wheels didn’t even register.  Wil snorted.  “Oh...that’s the Amber you mentioned.  Chloe’s sister.  I thought you two couldn’t stand each other.”

“We’ve become friends,” Linc mumbled hollowly as Amber and her friend Lucy approached.  Wil made another incongruous sound.

“I used to be friends with Sally, too,” he mentioned.  “Look where that ended.”

Linc turned to face his brother so that Amber could not see his words and to block her line of vision to Wil’s face.  “Wil...shut the hell up.  She can read your lips and I swear to God if you say something stupid, I will kick your ass all the way back to Arkansas.”

Wil’s eyes settled on his older brother’s face, seeing so much more than wasn’t there.  “You know she’s too young for you.  And if you do something stupid yourself, I’m the one who’s going to hear about it.  Amber will tell Chloe and Chloe will tell Eve, so on and so on.  It’ll end up back at Sally, and all of a sudden I have five women looking at me, thinking I’m you, and then I’ll be right back to sleeping in the camping trailer.”

“It’s not like that at all,” Linc vowed.

Wil just shrugged.  “Sure.  Whatever.  But I’m telling you now that if I end up back in that trailer, I’m coming up here to kick your ass all the way back to Arkansas.”

Amber blinked as she looked between the brothers.  She now stood at Linc’s elbow, and he hoped that she only caught that last part.  “Hello,” she said.  “Are we interrupting?”

Linc smiled platonically at her.  “No, no.  I was just telling Wil why you’re here.”

Amber shifted to Wil and gave him a smile of her own, which was a pretty damn good smile by anyone’s standards.  Wil smirked at Linc.  “Hello, Wil,” Amber said.  “How are you?”

“I’m fine.  How are you?”

“I am well,” she said, still smiling happily and introduced her friend.  “This is Lucy.  We work together at the library.”

Wil shook hands with Lucy and winked.  “Nice to meetcha,” he said to her, who blushed faintly.  Wil did that to a lot of women.  Turned on that good-old boy charm.  It used to irritate the crap out of Linc, who never considered himself half as charming.  Right now, he was just short of pissed-off.  The man was married, for crying out loud.

“Actually, we’ve met before,” Lucy said.  “I’m Macie’s cousin.  I met you at the engagement party a few years ago.  Congratulations on getting married yourself.”

Linc listened to Lucy’s words, but his eyes were on Amber, who was watching him just as carefully.  Did she expect him to start sobbing like a toddler the instant Macie’s name was said?  Hell, he had better control than that.  In fact, thinking about that engagement party only gave him a small twinge of remorse...not at all as potent as it used to be.  

Linc and Amber stood at opposite corners of the people square, while Lucy and Wil chatted politely from their corners.  But Linc and Amber were communicating silently.  He could read hints of excitement and that damn trust and bits of wariness from her eyes, and he was fairly sure she saw his own brand of wariness in his gaze.  He wanted her to be here, but then he didn’t.  He wanted to crush her in his arms and he wanted to tell her to go away and never come back.

I’m a mess.  I don’t know up from down when I’m with this woman.

Today, she wore a soft yellow, button down shirt with butterflies hand-stitched into the fabric, pair of well-worn jeans and the same boots from the night he took her dancing.  Her hair was pulled back from her face by a hair pin above each ear, leaving only a few wisps to tickle her forehead and temples.  And her eyes were that same beautiful blue, her skin that same freckled perfection, and her lips the same tempting pink.  She looked like she belonged here.  She looked like she should have just stepped out of the front door, with a tall glass of iced tea and a glow of pure satisfaction from him making love to her all morning.

Linc swallowed roughly.  Don’t think about making love to her.  And thankfully, Wil and Lucy ran out of things to talk about because Wil cleared his throat and asked Amber, “So...uh, what is that thing?”

Confused, Amber turned to where he was pointing, and when she saw he meant the car she arrived in, her face flashed anger and insult.  Linc considered making good on his promise to kick his ass if he said anything stupid, but Amber rounded on him with her hands on her hips and said, “You do not like it?”

Wil chuckled.  ‘No, I like it...it’s cute.”

Linc took a second to study the car in question.  The thing was so small he could lift it with his pinky finger.  Who in their right mind would buy something like that?  Amber was getting hot under the collar about the thing, and finally it hit him.  Amber drove here.  She was the one who got out of the driver’s side.  That was her car?

That little-bitty, pitiful excuse for a vehicle...and she drove it here.  On the highway...probably going faster than forty miles per hour...passing other vehicles of various sizes and most likely twice as big as this one...maybe even coming across a few semi-trucks on her way...semi-trucks that could run right over that tiny car and assume it hit a speed bump and would keep on going...

Linc’s eyes slowly swiveled to Amber while she glared at his brother.  He felt light-headed as all the blood drained from his face.  Good God...she was crazy.  He could put that car of hers in the back of his truck!

“It is a smart car.  It gets great gas mileage,” she was arguing with Wil.  Wil smirked and sauntered over to it.  The top came to his chest, and he leaned an elbow over it to make a point.

“I think I played with Tonka trucks that were bigger than this thing.”

Lucy was giggling, but Amber stomped over to Wil and pulled him off her car.  “If you want to make fun, you can do it somewhere else.”

“I’m not making fun of it,” Wil said, while Linc just stood there, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, still thinking of Amber in that tin box, driving down the highway to get to his ranch.  It was ten miles!  Just on the highway!  Not to mention the trip in town with all those yahoo’s running traffic lights and switching lanes without warning...and oh, god! the interstate.  

“Please tell me you didn’t get on the interstate in that thing,” he muttered to Lucy, so very glad Amber was preoccupied with his brother.

Lucy stepped closer to him and said, “Don’t worry.  I insisted on taking the scenic route.”

“Thank you,” he said back.

“No problem,” she said with a smile.

By now, Amber was turning a shade of purple as Wil continued his teasing, and the idiot actually waved Linc over to join in on his fun.  “Hey, Linc!  Come here.  Let’s see if we can carry this roller skate across the yard.”

Amber’s blue eyes hit him with a ‘Don’t you dare.’  “Wil, leave Amber’s car alone,” Linc called to his brother.

“Aw, you’re no fun anymore,” Wil said and turned back to Amber.  “I’m just teasin’ you, darlin’.  It’s a very nice car.  What kind of mileage does this thing get anyhow?”

“Thirty-four,” Amber answered, relaxing and returning to a normal color.  Wil whistled and cocked his hat higher on his head.

“Holy crap!  Really?  What does it cost to fill it up?”

Linc walked slowly over to Amber’s new pride and joy.  The thing just got smaller the closer he got to it.  He could care less what kind of mileage it got.  It better have some serious airbags and a five-point safety harness in it.  And a complimentary driving helmet...the kind NASCAR drivers wear.

Amber was beaming as Wil became more and more impressed with the car.  “Twenty-eight dollars,” she answered his last question.

“How many airbags?” Linc wanted to know, making sure Amber saw his question before leaning an arm over the passenger side and peering through the window.  When she didn’t answer right away, he looked up at her.

Biting her bottom lip, she frowned.  “I do not know.”

“You don’t know?  You bought a car, and you have no idea whether it’s safe or not?”

Indignation stiffened her spine.  “It is very safe.  It is a smart car.”

Linc stood up to his full height and faced her.  “Honey, I don’t care if the thing has a doctorate degree from Berkley.  I just want to know if you’re going to risk your life every time you drive to the grocery store.”

Wil snorted.  “Linc, everyone risks their lives driving to the grocery store.  I doubt this car will make much difference there.”

Linc pointed an angry finger at his brother.  “Stay out of this.”   Wil raised his palms up and muttered something about finishing his beer.  “You want a drink, Miss Lucy?” he asked the other woman, and together, they walked back to the house and disappeared around the back corner, leaving Amber and Linc to argue over a miniature car.

Amber crossed her arms across her chest, emphasizing her perfect breasts, and she fixed Linc with a stormy stare.  “You hate my car,” she stated, not bothering to color over the fact.

“Honey, I don’t hate it.  I just want to know if you’re going to be safe in it.”  He gazed doubtfully down at the green exterior.  “It is really small.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed irritably.  “But it my very first car, and this what I wanted.  It just as safe as any other car.”

Linc blinked at her for a moment.  “Your first car?”

“Yes,” she spit out, still mad as a wet hen and her words were starting to break up again in her agitation.  “Mom and Daddy not want me to drive.  But I learn anyway.  I pass test, and now I finally get a car.  This car.  This the car I want for long time.  If you not like it, fine.  I leave, and I not drive back here again.”

She stomped over to the driver’s side and yanked open the door.  Once inside the small interior, she fastened her seat belt -- Thank you! -- and cranked the engine.  Linc knocked on the window.  

“You’re forgetting about Lucy,” he told her through the glass, keeping the laughter off his face.  Amber’s eyes widened and she blushed.  Her mouth rounded out in an “Oh,” and she gazed toward the house.  Lucy was nowhere to be seen.

“Amber, come out of the car,” Linc said to her when she looked at him again.  “I’m sorry for insulting your lovely car and for upsetting you.  Come on, honey.  Get out.  You drove all this way.  At least you can do is come down and meet Raven Rose.”

Her gaze traveled across the yard to Raven Rose and Egaeus down in the paddock.  A tiny smile lifted the corners of her lips as she saw the two horses, and slowly, she emerged from her car.  “Is that her?” she asked, pointing down the sloped lawn.

“Yup.  Beautiful, isn’t she?”  He'd deal with the car issue later.

“Yes, she is,” Amber breathed out, amazement clearly written on her face.  She looked at him.  “Yes, I would like to meet her.”

Linc smiled.  “Well then.  Come on.  But I warn you.  You’ll have to work your magic on Egaeus first.  He’s a bit ornery lately, protective of his sweetheart.”

Amber paused as her gaze switched to the butterscotch gelding.  “But we have already met...at the wedding, remember?”

“Yeah, but that was before Raven Rose came along,” Linc said, taking Amber by the hand and leading her down to the horses.  He liked the way her fingers threaded through his as natural as the sun above them.  He liked how comfortable she seemed, walking beside him.  He liked--

A squish of mud through his socks made Linc stop thinking about what he liked, and he looked down at his feet.  Amber did, too.

“Linc?  Where are your boots?”  She started laughing as he lifted his foot out of the muddy rut created by his tractor and truck when hauling hay into the barn.

“Um...in the house,” he answered, growing slightly flustered by his stupidity and Amber’s ability to make him lose his mind, just because she held his hand without complaint.

She blinked at him.  “Why?”

“It’s a long story,” he said and released his grasp of her fingers.  “Stay right here.  I’ll run and put them on.  Don’t move.  I don’t trust Egaeus lately when it comes to Raven Rose.”

He trotted to the house, saw Lucy sitting in the rocking chair on the back porch with Wil, sweet tea in their hands, and rushed inside without saying a word to them.  Instead of going up the stairs to get some clean socks from his bedroom, he rummaged through the laundry basket, found a slightly dirty pair and tugged them on with his boots.  He was out the backdoor again in less than sixty seconds.

But did Amber do what he told her?  Hell, no.  I swear, I’m going to strangle some sense into her one of these days, he thought when he saw her standing on the lowest rung of the paddock fence and scratching Egaeus behind the ears.  The gelding had that look of pure contentment and rapture all over his stubborn head.  Though he was annoyed with both of them, he could sympathize.  He’d probably have the same look if Amber scratched behind his ears, too.

“Oh, Linc!  He is not ornery at all,” she called when she saw him.  A delightful smile lit up her entire face.  “He is sweet.”

Yeah, sweet, Linc grumbled to himself as he got closer.  That sweet animal rolled back his eyes when Linc came to a stop beside Amber and bared his teeth in warning.  Back off, Linc sent him telepathically.  When he gently took hold of Amber’s elbow to help her down off the fence, Egaeus stamped his hoof and whinnied in protest.

“Oh, shut up, you cur,” he told his horse.  “Go eat your hay.”

Amber slapped him on the chest.  “Be nice, Linc.  If you are nice to him, he will be nice to you.”

“I am nice to him,” Linc said darkly.  “But he can’t claim dibs on every female in the area.”

Amber’s blue eyes looked up at him.  And she smiled.  “Dibs?”

Linc had to ignore the hopeful glint in her gaze.  Crap.  Was he sending Amber the wrong signals?  God, he wanted her, but he didn’t want to want her.  And he thought he was disciplined enough to keep that conflict off his face.  Besides, she didn’t think that he had any claim on her...or did she?  Clearing his throat, he asked, “Have you met Raven Rose yet?”

“Not yet,” Amber answered, though she still looked at him oddly.  “Egaeus had to check me out first.”

Linc sent his horse a scowl.  “Yeah...I saw that.”

“Do you think he will let me close to her now?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe if you sign something?  What’s the sign for ‘come here’?”

Amber maneuvered around the fence to get into Raven Rose’s sight.  She lifted both of her hands, pointer fingers up, and flipped them back toward her body in repetition.  Raven Rose tossed her long mane and slowly walked over to Amber.  Linc grinned in relief.  It worked.  This mare actually knew sign language.  His fumbling hadn’t been in vain.

“I’ll be damned,” Wil said behind his brother.  “A horse who knows sign language.”

Linc glanced at Wil and Lucy, who had both joined him and Amber.  “Amazing, isn’t it?”

“And you’re still going to let her go?”

“What do you mean?” Linc asked him while Amber climbed up on the fence to stroke Raven Rose’s mane and Lucy joined her.

“She’s beautiful, fascinating and talented,” Wil said, his clever eyes taking in the scene before him .  “Who cares if she’s deaf?  Any female like that is a keeper.”

Linc had to focus on Wil’s statement for a second.  Who was he talking about?  The horse...or the woman petting the horse?  

“I thought you told me not to do anything stupid,” Linc said to Wil carefully.  “That horse will eventually need more care than one person can give her.”

Wil raised an eyebrow.  “Who said I was talking about the horse?  And I changed my mind.  Maybe it’s time you did something stupid over a woman, instead of getting drunk every other night and crying on top of a grave.”

“And maybe I should go ahead and kick your ass all the way back to Arkansas just for the hell of it,” Linc growled and stomped away from his brother.