Custody for Two. Karen Rose Smith
or trekking after a photograph he’d never taken before.
As if his answer disturbed her, Shaye restlessly rearranged her silverware, stood and picked up the plate of brownies on the counter. When she brought them over to the table, she set them in front of him.
“Not interested?” he asked with a half-smile.
“I don’t give in to chocolate cravings often because I know it’s habit-forming.”
“I admire your willpower.”
“I’m not sure willpower has anything to do with it.” She smiled back. “I’m just vain.”
“I doubt that.”
She looked up at him, surprised. “Why would you say that?”
“Because selfish people are vain, and I already know that you’re not selfish.”
Her cheeks took on some color. Leaning away from him and their conversation, she began to clear the table. “We’d better get back to Timmy. I don’t want to be gone too long.”
“Neither do I.” Timmy was the only essence of Julia he had left. Seeing him made losing Julia even more real. But seeing him also reminded Dylan the baby was an essential part of his sister that he could hold on to.
Dylan’s deep, heartfelt words turned Shaye to face him once again. Their gazes locked and held. A vision of holding Shaye in his sleeping bag under the stars was so incredibly real, he ached to do it. His physical response was so strong that he set his brownie back on the plate. It seemed the pain he was experiencing over the loss of his sister was rebounding into an attraction to Shaye.
Breaking eye contact, he muttered, “I think I’ll skip dessert, too.” She obviously knew what was good for her. Dylan reminded himself what was good for him. While he was in Wild Horse Junction, Timmy was his main concern…his only concern.
Dylan stood in the NICU, looking down at his nephew. He’d let Shaye visit first since he needed a little time to prepare. He wasn’t sure what he’d prepared for because the sight of the tiny baby on the ventilator to help him breathe was heartbreaking. All Dylan could do was wish Timmy life, wish him good health, wish Timmy could have known his mother and father. Dylan had long ago stopped praying, stopped believing that someone had a master plan.
After losing his parents, after losing Julia to the foster care system for a while, he’d known a man created his own destiny. If he didn’t take control of it, others would. Now, standing beside Timmy’s bed, he wished he could believe that prayer could make a difference. He wished he could believe that one day he’d see his parents and Julia again.
After his visiting time with Timmy was up, he went to the waiting room. Shaye wasn’t there, though her coat hung beside his on the rack. By the time he crossed to the window to look down on the lamplit street, Shaye came through the door, her arms full of pillows and blankets.
“I thought we might need these.”
He’d been in such shock when he’d first arrived, confused by his sister’s decision, that he hadn’t completely appreciated Shaye’s beauty. In spite of that, her presence had impacted him and now he realized why. Her silky burnished-brown hair moved around her face when she walked. He’d seen amber mined from the earth that was the rich color of her golden-brown eyes. When he was close enough to her, he could just make out the smattering of almost invisible freckles on her cheeks. From what he could tell, she didn’t use makeup to try to cover anything, and he liked that natural look. Now, as she walked across the room, he couldn’t help but admire her trim figure.
He glanced again at her arms full of blankets and pillows. There was one long sofa in the waiting room and several chairs.
“I’ll push two of the chairs together,” Dylan told her as he slipped a pillow and blanket from her arms.
“You won’t be able to sleep like that.”
“I’ve slept on worse. Don’t forget, I’m used to a tent.”
“Whether you want to admit it or not,” Shaye argued with him, “you’re practically dead on your feet. I’m not there yet, but getting there fast.”
She glanced at the sofa. “I checked to see if they had any of those recliners we could wheel in, but they’re all in use. We’ll have to share. From the looks of the sofa, we can both stretch out.” When she added the last with a little smile, he realized he liked her positive outlook. He liked a lot of things about her.
“We can try it,” he said doubtfully. “On the other hand, you could go back to your place and get a good night’s sleep. I’ll call you if anything happens.”
“Or you could go back to your place and I could call you.”
Already Dylan knew Shaye wouldn’t budge on this. “The sofa it is,” he decided, going to it and shaking out the blanket.
The whole idea of sharing the sofa seemed like a common sense one until Shaye plunked on one end and looked at him as if to figure out how to accomplish the feat.
“You can put your legs on the inside,” he suggested.
Propping her pillow against the arm of the sofa, she swung her legs up close to the back. “It’s a good thing this is wide.”
“And long,” Dylan remarked, lying back against his pillow.
After he swung his feet up beside Shaye’s hip, he crossed one over the other to take up less room. She was small and he was long. Somehow they seemed to fit like two puzzle pieces. The thing was, his legs were smack against hers. Even with corduroy and denim between them, he found he couldn’t help but imagine the curve of her leg, the probable smoothness of her skin.
Aroused, he picked up the blanket and tossed it over them. He’d simply been without a woman for too long. That was all. However, as he lay there, he could smell the traces of a sweet, rose-scented perfume that did as much to arouse him as her leg against his. He’d noticed it earlier and wondered if it was shampoo or lotion or perfume. Wondering about it brought other visions he didn’t want to entertain—Shaye smoothing lotion on her arms, Shaye dabbing perfume on her pulse points, Shaye under the shower washing her hair…
Damn! He must be more than sleep deprived if he couldn’t control the path of his thoughts. Dylan considered himself flexible, but he always liked to be in control. Since he’d returned to Wild Horse Junction, he didn’t seem to have any control. He’d left the small town to run his own life…to find freedom…to take what he wanted in a world that was so big he couldn’t explore it all.
Uncomfortable silence filled the waiting room. Dylan didn’t move, not wanting to remind himself of how close Shaye was. His mind told him to close his eyes so his body could sleep.
Instead of closing his eyes, curiosity nudged him to ask, “You said you have another brother besides Randall?”
“Yes, I do.”
“What does the other one do?”
“John manages the feed store.”
“Is he married?”
“Nope.”
His mind wandered back to their dinner at Randall and Barb’s. “You were great around your brother’s kids. It’s obvious they like you to visit.”
“I try to spend Sunday evenings with them.”
He had never been around kids at all. Although Shaye’s mother had died, she knew a lot about being a mother from a practical standpoint.
Veering off that track, he suddenly wanted to know more. “How did you survive growing up with a house full of males?”
She laughed, a soft musical sound that seemed to ripple through him. “It wasn’t easy. I often felt as if I were on an alien planet. But I have two really good friends who I’ve known since grade school. They were my ‘sisters.’ Once all of us started