One From The Heart by Cinda Richards, Cheryl Reavis

where you’re going.”
    She looked up at him, losing herself for a moment in his sad, dark eyes. If he’d put it any other way—made it a demand instead of a statement of fact—she would have dug her heels in. Damn it all, she cared about him. She didn’t want to worry him. She didn’t want his life to be turned upside down, even if he did insist she was the cause of it. In her opinion, it was six of one and half a dozen of the other as to just whose life had been upset by whom. “All right,” she said, because she needed him and she needed to give in to his logic. She tried not to think that the real reason he wanted to go had to be Elizabeth.
    He looked so relieved that she nearly put her hand out to touch him, after all.
    “Do you chew tobacco?” she asked abruptly instead, and he grinned.
    “Hannah, you’ve been with me night and day for almost ten days. Have you seen me chew?”
    “Answer the question!”
    “What for!”
    “Because I’m not traveling anywhere with somebody who’s going to be spitting tobacco juice!”
    “I tell you one thing, Hannah, between my dumb reasons and your dumb questions, it’s a wonder either one of us gets let out by ourselves.”
    “Do you or don’t you?”
    “Not when I’m sober! I have to be drunk to stand the taste of it. All right?”
    “All right!”
    “All right!” he repeated.
    “Just so you know,” she said to underscore her position.
    “Just so I know?” he said incredulously. “You give me hell about not chewing tobacco when I don’t chew, and I’m supposed to know ?”
    “It makes as much sense as anything else that’s happened around here lately,” she said significantly.
    “Well, now, you got me there, Hannah. You going to work?”
    “No, I’m not going to work. Petey’s had enough of musical caretakers for one day.”
    The remark was unfair, and she knew it. Petey wasn’t his responsibility, even if he had been willing to stay in Dallas and help take care of her until last night. Ernie made no comment, though it was plain enough by the way he pressed his lips together that he wanted to.
    “How soon can you be ready?” he said after a long pause.
    “I have to stop at the station before I go.”
    “We can do that on the way. I’ll be back in about an hour,” he said, and he left her alone in the kitchen, still wiping up imaginary oatmeal.
    Petey had fallen asleep. Hannah used the time to pack a few things for this mad trip to Oklahoma, making a great effort not to concern herself about Ernie’s whereabouts—not an easy thing to do when he had two telephone calls from the same strange-voiced female while he was gone, one who wouldn’t leave a message. It was early afternoon and raining when he returned. He’d changed his clothes, and he’d had a haircut, of all things. He was still wearing his cowboy garb—jeans and a plaid shirt and a denim jacket. But he looked so groomed somehow. And masculine. And handsome. Hannah didn’t comment, but she couldn’t keep her eyes off him, and he kept catching her at it.
    “Fifteen bucks!” he finally snapped, snatching off his hat and pointing to his freshly barbered hair. “Okay?”
    “And worth every penny,” she assured him, whether she should have or not. “You’re gorgeous.”
    He grinned, a little embarrassed, a little shy, and clearly pleased.
    “Elizabeth will love it,” she added, and his grin faded.
    Petey let her face be washed, and Hannah told Ernie about his telephone calls. He made no comment, and they were ready to leave by two. It was still raining. Ernie and Petey waited in Ernie’s beat-up, no-color pickup truck in the KHRB parking lot while she went inside. She dreaded having to see the station manager, dreaded having to ask him for more time off, but there was no help for it. She fully expected to come out of his office unemployed.
    “What happened?” Ernie asked the minute she returned, hardly giving her time to get in out of the rain and close the truck