LITMIR.BIZ

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the tape stuck now to the hairs along his arm. “That’s going to be a bear to take off,” he predicted.

      She knew that, but there was no way around it. “I’ve always found it best to rip it off quickly rather than to prolong the pain.”

      “I noticed.”

      The tone of his voice had her looking at him. A hidden shaft of guilt sliced through her. “Carly—I mean Carl—”

      Whoever she was evoking, whether it was the boy she turned her back on or the man who had come to rescue her cat, he shouldn’t have said that, Carl thought. It was too much like a dig and that was beneath him.

      Rather than apologize, he nodded at her handiwork-in-progress. “When did you develop this gentle touch?”

      Again, she unconsciously glanced toward her children. Their game of make-believe was becoming rather animated, with hand gestures and much pointing coming into play.

      “Comes with the territory. I’ve cleaned countless scrapes. Three children aren’t three times as much work as one, it’s an exponential function with an increase that goes up tenfold with each child who’s added into the mix.”

      There were days when she realized she’d had less than four hours sleep, with a full day ahead of her. Sometimes, she wondered how she managed. Other times, she couldn’t imagine life any other way.

      Picking up the large roll of bandage, she began to wind it around his forearm, anchoring the gauze and tape in place.

      Carl shook his head. “Melinda, it was just a few scratches, not a war wound. I’ve seen fewer bandages used for a heart transplant.”

      She sniffed, a little of the old give-and-take banter that had existed between them returning to her. “When did you ever see a heart transplant?”

      He hadn’t, not close up at any rate. Offhand he only knew of one Serendipity resident who had had any heart surgery at all and that had been merely an angioplasty. “On the Discovery Channel,” he replied evasively. Because he wanted to draw attention away from himself and the scratches she was fussing over, he switched back to the question he’d just asked her. “So, you didn’t answer me. What are your plans?”

      “I want to start a day-care center. That way I can be earning money and not be away from the triplets. I need a few credits before I can get certified to teach in Serendipity’s public school system. That’ll mean taking a couple of classes and then an exam.”

      Half the students would be in love with her before the first week was out, Carl thought. “Sounds very noble.”

      Embarrassed by praise she didn’t feel she deserved, she shrugged. “Nothing very noble about it.” Finished wrapping, she secured the bandage with more tape. “Just practical.” She broke off the tape and looked up at him. “I’ve gotten a lot more practical since you last saw me. Motherhood does that to you.”

      “Fatherhood didn’t seem to do that for Steve.” Annoyed, Carl upbraided himself for the slip. “Sorry, that was a low blow.”

      Nothing he could say about Steve could begin to bother her. “But an accurate one. Since my cat mauled you, I figure you had that one coming. And maybe a couple more, too,” she added. And then she smiled, the old Melinda back for a moment. “Don’t worry. There’re no feelings left between Steve and me. Just a very civil divorce.”

      Her tone was crisp, but he knew there had to be more to it than that. You couldn’t give your heart to a person, follow him wherever he wanted to go and not have some sort of residual feelings. But he let her have her dignity and her lie.

      “Child support payments?” he asked mildly.

      “That, too. But no alimony,” Melinda added with pride in her voice. She saw Carl raise a quizzical brow. She squared her shoulders as she said, “I don’t want anything from him.”

      The way he saw it, Melinda had put in the time, she deserved some kind of compensation. “Isn’t that like cutting off your nose to spite your face?”

      “No, that’s like telling him that he has a responsibility to the children, but that he and I are irrevocably through. Taking alimony from him would make me feel like a kept woman. I want to earn my own way, Carl, not have checks coming in because of a mistake I made.”

      He studied her for a moment, mildly surprised by the stand she’d just taken. The old Melinda would have wanted her chance at revenge if she’d felt the least bit slighted. “You have grown up, haven’t you?”

      She supposed she had at that. “Way I see it, it’s about time.” Pushing the paraphernalia on the table together, she turned her attention to the next step. “Okay, now take off your shirt.”

      Rising, about to take his leave, Carl stared at her. “Excuse me?”

      “Your shirt.” She pointed to it to underscore her words. “Take it off.”

      “Why?”

      “Because blood sets if you don’t treat it right away.” Melinda indicated several red blotches on the blue material. Somehow, he’d brushed his arm against his breast pocket as well as the left side of his shirt. “Now, if you don’t want to throw away a perfectly good shirt, take it off and give it to me so I can soak it.”

      He made no move to comply. This wasn’t exactly orthodox. “Quint doesn’t like having his deputies come back half-naked from an assignment.”

      Serendipity was as close to paradise as anywhere on earth. The sheriff’s department had always been there out of a sense of tradition rather than from any real necessity. It was also traditional for it to be a two-man operation at best. “There’s more than one now?”

      He’d used poetic license and frowned now. “No, but I’m sure the rule would apply to anyone else he’d hire if the need arose.”

      He was stalling. She held out her hand. “Give me the shirt, Carl.”

      Instead he laughed, shaking his head. “Well, some things haven’t changed. You’re still the stubbornest woman I ever met.”

      “Everyone needs a hobby.” Her hand outstretched, Melinda beckoned for the shirt.

      With a sigh, Carl pulled the shirttails out of his waistband and unbuttoned his shirt, then stripped it off, moving the material gingerly along his right arm before finally handing the shirt to her.

      The moment the shirt had come off his shoulders, her mouth had turned to cotton. The last time she’d seen Carl Cutler without his shirt on, he’d been working on his uncle’s ranch, digging fence holes for posts. His body had been sweaty with perspiration and there had been just the barest hint of muscles that were to be.

      The hint had turned into a full-fledged reality. The man had an upper torso that belonged to a body builder, or more accurately, in Carl’s case, to a man who was no stranger to heavy labor.

      “I guess your name’s not the only thing that’s changed,” she finally said, blinking before her eyes dried into a permanent stare. Forcing herself to look elsewhere, she folded her fingers around the shirt.

      The smile that took his lips was slow, mesmerizing and had more than a tinge of satisfaction woven through it. “I help Uncle Jake around the ranch whenever I get a chance. Kent’s got his hands full,” he told her, mentioning his middle cousin who had taken on most of the duties involved with running the Shady Lady Ranch now that his uncle had gone into semiretirement. There was a great deal involved in keeping the horses in top-quality condition and perpetual demand.

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