His purpose, also, was to bring honor and integrity to the Coltrane name. God knows, after his father's reputation, the Coltranes needed every drop of honor they could produce. He felt a sliver of discomfort. In that respect, Martina was correct. He had a passion for her, but the bottom line was that this was a matter of honor. She would eventually adjust to that fact, he was certain.
Turning in to the long drive to the house, Noah relished his progress. Soon, Martina would be where she belonged. With him. He tried looking at the ranch through her eyes. Since she had grown up on a ranch, many of the sights, sounds and smells would be familiar. The flat Texas terrain and the dry heat would come as no surprise.
He pulled his truck to a stop and glanced at the large two-story wood-frame house that stood like a stubborn weed on dry rocky ground. Although the Coltrane home showed little in the way of feminine influence, it was freshly painted and renovated, and boasted most modern conveniences.
Mounting the steps, he thought Martina would approve of the rebuilt porch and refinished oak floors. He walked through the downstairs, taking inventory. She might want to add some rugs or pictures, he thought, looking at the clean bare walls, but she would like the modern appliances in the kitchen. She might want to add some lamps. Sometimes the rooms seemed dark. He would clear out a room for her to do her Web page design. With a few minor changes, he decided she would adjust. She would like it, he thought, following the sound of his brothers in the TV room. No problem-
Noah stopped short at the sight that greeted him. Adam and Gideon lay sprawled on the sofa and recliner in their boxers. With a book propped in his lap, Adam chugged a beer and Gideon sucked on a cigar, his newsmagazine abandoned on the floor beside him.
Wearing headphones, Jonathan sat on the floor watching television while he hummed off-key.
"Be quiet," Gideon said.
"He can't hear you," Adam said, and turned up the volume on the wrestling show.
No-woman's-land.
Gideon glanced up. "Yo, brother, how goes the taming of the shrew?"
Noah sighed and raked his hand through his hair. "Progressing," he said, and sat down on the sofa. He stared unseeingly at the television screen, his mind busy.
"No bite or claw marks?" Gideon asked with a smart-aleck grin.
Noah shook his head.
"What are you doing to cut down on the battle scars?"
"I feed her," Noah said, his lips twitching as he imagined Martina's enjoyment of the cheesecake he'd left her.
Still wearing headphones, Jonathan glanced up at him and nodded, yelling, "Hi."
Noah pulled back one of the earphones. "I gave her the Mozart CD for the baby."
"What'd she think?" Jonathan asked.
"I don't know, but she didn't look like she wanted to slap me. That's an improvement."
"Any chance there'll be a wedding soon?"
Noah felt a burning determination. "Damn straight." He looked at his oldest brother, who he'd noticed hadn't said anything. "Talk," Noah said to him. "Front porch."
Adam glanced at him and slowly rose from his easy chair. "Okay." Setting Homer's Odyssey aside, Adam joined Noah on the front porch. In his boxers, he was an incongruous picture of a "good ol' boy" traditional cattleman with a closet appreciation for literary classics.
"What do you want now?" he asked, as he had asked Noah dozens of times before. Although Adam gave the impression of being reluctant to change, he offered a steadiness that had provided a balance to him and his brothers.
"When I walked into the house tonight, it occurred to me that a woman considering moving into our home might find the prospect difficult."
Adam propped his beer on the porch rail and glanced down at his skimpy attire. His mouth quirked in an ironic grin. "I don't know why."
"Oh, something about the combination of the World of Wrestling full blast on the TV, men sitting in their underwear drinking beer, smoking cigars and yelling at each other."
Adam shook his head. "You're gonna have a hard time changing our habits."
"I'm not planning on it."
Adam took another drink of beer. "Then what?"
"You know that building we've been putting together for offices?"
"Yeah."
"I was thinking about using some of my own money and making it into a house, instead."
Adam let out a long breath. "Has she agreed to marry you?"
"No, but-"
"Don't you think you're gambling against the house? You keep forgetting her family hates us."
"I haven't forgotten it," Noah said. The reality of the grudge burned like a hot poker in his gut every waking minute. "But Martina is going to marry me."
"She and her brothers just don't know it yet, right?"
Noah appealed to his brother's sense of the bottom line. "I'll take it out of my own pocket," he said. "I've done pretty well with some of my day trading."
Adam scratched his head and shot him a glance mingled with doubt and respect. "Good luck. You're gonna need it."
* * *
Chapter 7
«^»
A ringing sound jerked Martina from her sleep. Disoriented, she sat up in bed. The ringing continued and she shook her head, trying to clear it. When she realized the sound was coming from the phone, a dozen thoughts flew through her mind.
If this was Noah, she was going to give that man a piece of her mind. He hadn't just been late this time. He hadn't shown up at all. She'd paced the house the entire evening watching the clock and then had a difficult time going to sleep.
What if it was someone else, though? Brock? Tyler?
She reached across the bed and snatched the phone from the cradle. "Hello?"
"Martina Logan?" a male voice said.
"Yes."
"Sorry to call so late. This is Jonathan Coltrane. Noah won't be able to make it tonight."
Martina glanced at the fluorescent-blue numbers on her alarm clock. "Since it's after 2 a.m., that thought had occurred to me."
"Yeah, well, he was in an accident on his way to see you. The doctor says he's gonna be okay, but-"
Martina's heart sank to her knees. "Doctor?"
"Yeah, the ambulance took him to the hospital. His truck is totaled. He's gonna be real pissed off."
Martina swallowed over her racing panic. "How is he?"
"Broken ribs, punctured lung, concussion and one of his legs is bruised pretty bad. He'll be sore and cranky the next few days."
Wide awake now, she clenched her hands to keep them from trembling. "Which hospital is he in?"
"County Hospital. We'll bring him home in the morning. The doctor would've let him go except for the punctured lung and the concussion. They wake him every so often and ask his name. I was in there one of the times they woke him, and he muttered something about needing to call you right before be fell asleep again."
"Thank you for telling me," Martina said, her mind whirling.
"You're welcome," Jonathan said. "G'night."
He hung up and Martina listened to the dial tone for a full minute before she returned the phone to the cradle. What if Noah had been hurt worse? A chill ran through her. What if he had died? For a moment, the darkness felt as if it had closed in around her, suffocating her.
Throwing back the covers, she rose from the bed and flipped on one light, then another and another. She walked to the hall and turned on that light, followed the steps downstairs and turned on nearly every light until the house was bright enough for Christmas.
"It's not as if I'll be going back to sleep anytime soon," she murmured to herself, and tried to deal with the terrible fear and pain she felt at the thought of Noah being hurt or dying.
Pacing into the kitchen, she poured herself some orange juice and gulped it. Lately, it seemed as if she was always thirsty. She kept picturing Noah in his truck and the crashing, grinding sound of metal. In her mind, she saw him against white sheets in the hospital. Another more insidious image flashed of Noah dead.
Her heart raced double time and panic coursed through her. She didn't want her baby growing up without Noah. For all her uncertainties about him, she believed he would be a wonderful father, a far different father than the one she had experienced. Noah would not ignore his child. Although Martina tried not to focus on it, when her mother died she might as well have been orphaned. If not for her brothers, she wouldn't have experienced any love as a child.
The thought tore at her, tugging fiercely at her sense of loyalty, as it always did. Martina closed her eyes and shook her head. She couldn't deal with that right now. Right now, she had the edgy, overpowering need to see that Noah was all right.