"We'd better get going," he said, missing the shock in her eyes. "Come on."
He held out his hand and stood there until she took it, refusing to budge an inch. She yielded because she knew him so well. He'd die before he gave in, once he got his mind set on something. She even admired it, that stubborn streak of his. The feel of his strong hand around hers was intoxicating. She let him hold it while she wondered how she was going to keep him from taking her over, lock, stock and daughter. Odd, she thought as they approached the plane, how delicious it was to be close to him....
Then they were on their way, and she stopped thinking about it.
Chapter Five
The exclusive boarding school where Becky stayed was frantic with activity. Gabe looked around him curiously as little girls rushed down the hall outside the office where he and Maggie waited for Becky.
"Margaret, thank goodness!" Mrs. Hayes burst out as she joined them, closing her office door gingerly behind her. "I didn't know what to do. He's been here for thirty minutes. I knew you were coming since you called this morning...."
"Dennis is here?" she gasped. "Oh, Mrs. Hayes, you didn't let him have Becky?"
"Of course not, dear. He's in my office...."
Gabe moved her gently aside and made a beeline for the office, his long strides eating up the distance. Maggie, sensing disaster, rushed after him and Mrs. Hayes just stared, biting her lip.
Gabe thrust open the door and a shorter, younger, fair-haired man jerked around in surprise, his eyes wide and shocked as he stared at the formidable Westerner.
"Maggie, darling..." Dennis laughed nervously, staring past the tall man to a less intimidating presence. "I didn't expect you so early. I was just going to drive Becky over to your house for you."
"Like hell you were," Gabe said coldly. "But I can save you the trouble. I'm taking Maggie and the child home with me."
Dennis glared at the bigger man. "Who are you?"
"Gabriel Coleman."
Dennis straightened, finding unexpected new ammunition in the curt response. Gabriel Coleman... He remembered everything he'd heard about the man. And now, seeing him, it wasn't hard to believe it was all true. So this was the Texas rancher Maggie's father had wanted her to marry. Maggie probably didn't know that, but Dennis did. Her father had used it like a nagging prod every time they'd met socially. He smiled. "So, that's how it is. Living with your old lover, are you? Janice and I got married Monday, so I've really got the edge on you now, haven't I?" he added. "It won't look good in court when everyone sees what an unfit mother you are."
"You can't take her," Maggie cried. "You can't! All you want is the money!"
"She's my child," Dennis replied arrogantly. "And I've got a lot more right to her, married, than you do single and living with your...lover," he added, with a cold glare at Gabriel. "You couldn't wait, could you? Well, he'll find you as frigid as I—"
He stopped in midsentence as Gabe, imperturb-ably unruffled by the outburst, lifted him half off the floor by the collar and escorted him out of the office and down the hall.
"By God, that's enough," Gabe was muttering to Dennis. "How she could marry something like you in the first place is beyond me."
Becky came into the office before Gabe returned and ran into her mother's outstretched arms.
"Oh, Mama," Becky wailed. "Michelle said Daddy was here." She drew away, green eyes wide and frightened. "I don't have to go with him, do I?"
"No, darling," Maggie said softly, hoping, praying that it would be the truth after the custody battle was over. She knelt, smiling at the young girl, brushing back the long strands of hair from the pale little face. "No, you don't have to go with him."
Becky looked past her mother and her face froze. She frowned a little. "Who are you?" she asked curiously.
"Gabriel Coleman," he said, looking down at her with narrowed eyes.
Becky's face lit up. "You're Aunt Janet's Gabe, aren't you?" the little girl asked, moving toward the tall man. She looked up at him with open fascination. "Aunt Janet says that you have a ranch and horses and cows and lots of cowboys, just like in the movies! Do you shoot Indians?"
Incredibly, the hard face relaxed into a genuine smile, the first one Maggie had seen yet. He went down on one knee so that he could see Becky better. "No, I don't shoot Indians," he said, amused. "But I have a couple of Commanche men who work for me."
Becky's face brightened. "Do they scalp people?"
He looked up at Maggie. "I'd love to hear the bedtime stories you tell this child."
Maggie flushed. "Well, actually, it's the movies..."
"You'd better come home with me, Becky," he said seriously, "and you can see what ranching is like for yourself."
Becky hesitated. There was fear in her eyes— the same fear Gabe had seen in her mother—and his face hardened visibly.
"Your mother will be there, too," he said softly. "And I swear, honey, nobody will hurt you as long as I’m around."
Becky's wan little face managed a wobbly smile. "Then I guess it'll be okay."
He nodded. "Are you ready?" he asked, standing.
"Yes, sir. I have my suitcase right over there."
Gabe picked it up, glancing at Maggie over the child's head. There was an expression in his eyes that defied description.
Becky was delighted with the ranch. She'd been quiet all the way back, except to exclaim at the private plane and the fact that Gabe could actually fly it. But when she got her first look at the ranch, her breath sighed out in a rush.
"Oh, isn't it just beautiful, Mama?" she asked Maggie, all eyes and laughter. "Isn't it just beautiful? Look at all the room! And cows and horses...!"
Gabe chuckled softly, smoking his cigarette without comment.
"Can I ride a horse? Oh, can I?" Becky begged.
"No," Maggie said.
"Yes," Gabe countered immediately, his eyes challenging Maggie. "She's old enough. I was four when my dad put me on my first horse. I won't let her get hurt," he added gently when she still hesitated.
Maggie bit her lip. She'd need a lot more sustenance than the rushed breakfast she'd had to take on Gabriel Coleman in that mood. But it was going to be a fight all the way; of that she was sure.
Janet was delighted to see the child and made a big fuss over her. Even the housekeeper began immediately to spoil her. She was taken off into the kitchen and then upstairs to see her very own room. Everyone was enthusiastic except Maggie, who'd had a glimpse of hell at the boarding school.
Dennis had almost succeeded in spiriting the child away, and possession was still nine-tenths of the law. If she'd been a little later, or if Gabe hadn't been with her... She shuddered to think of the consequences.
And now Dennis thought she had a lover. He was going to use Gabe, of all people, against her. How would she prove it was a lie? It might be just the lever Dennis needed to get possession of Becky, and what a hell of a life she'd have with him. If it came to that, Maggie might be forced to take the child and run. She glanced at Gabe, at the sheer magnificence of him. Her mother and father had always adored him. Perhaps they'd said something to Dennis in the early days of their marriage, something that had made him suspicious. Dennis had an active imagination, and he was good at twisting the truth to suit himself. She dreaded the thought of having him create a scandal that would involve Janet as well as Gabe.
Gabe was watching her closely over dinner. After Becky was tucked up in bed and Janet had gone upstairs, he waylaid Maggie and dragged her off into his study.
"Let's talk," he said curtly, motioning her into an armchair.
She refused his offer of brandy and sat with her hands folded primly in her lap. "What about?" she asked hesitantly.
"About that little girl upstairs," he returned, dropping into an armchair across from her. "And why she's terrified of men. What did that son of a rattlesnake do to her?"
"Dennis in a temper can do that even to big people," Maggie said miserably. She studied the hard lines o
f his face. "Oddly enough, I'm not afraid of your temper. Not anymore," she added with a faint smile. "I used to be. I'll never forget the day you beat up that cowboy at the grocery store in town."
His eyes darkened, narrowed. "He touched you," he said curtly, as if that explained everything. "He put his hands on you. I could have broken his neck."
She stared at him, curiously. "I wondered," she murmured, her voice barely carrying. "I always wondered if it was because of that."
He shifted in the chair, bringing the brandy to his lips to break the spell. "You didn't know anything about men. I wasn't going to let one of my hands back you into a corner."
She studied his lean, beautifully masculine hands, wrapped around the brandy snifter. "You always were like a bulldozer."
"When I wanted something," he agreed. He studied her over the rim of the snifter. "I wanted you. But you were sixteen."
She colored softly and stared into his eyes. "You never did anything about it."
"I told you why. You were sixteen." He swished the amber liquid around, watching the patterns it made in the glass. "I might have gotten around to it, if you hadn't gone off to boarding school." He smiled slowly. "It would have been the last straw, trying to take you out with all those giggling girls watching."
Her lips trembled into a smile. "Really? Would you have?"
"I suppose I'd have come to it eventually," he said enigmatically, shrugging his wide shoulders. "You were a pretty kid. You still are, haunted eyes and all." He searched those eyes, watching the shadows in them. "You aren't afraid of me physically."
"Yes, I know." She twisted a strand of her short hair uneasily and watched him. He'd taken off his jacket and vest and unfastened the top buttons of his white shirt. Dark skin and darker hair were visible in the deep V, and she felt a thrill of excitement at the memory of being held against his long, hard body.
He laughed, his voice deep in the stillness. "Don't start getting nervous. I'm not going to pounce on you. I hope I have more finesse than that, especially after what you've been through."
She studied her hands. "I don't suppose anything frightens you. But I'm not physically strong, and I've had years of abuse, mental and physical.
I carry my scars where they don't show, but they're very deep. So are Becky's."
He leaned back in the armchair, and for once he wasn't smoking like a furnace.
"Becky's young. Hers will heal. But yours won't. Not without help." He watched her with narrowed eyes, his dark head like ebony in the overhead light
"Are you offering me the cure?" she asked, feeling bitter. "A little sexual therapy?"
He lifted an eyebrow. "I'm not that damned unselfish," he replied quietly. "And I don't need therapy. No, honey," he added, leaning forward to pin her with his pale eyes. "If I made love to you, it wouldn't be a cure; but it might be an addiction."
Heat seemed to well up inside her. She averted her eyes to the carpeted floor. Just to think of having him touch her that way made her heart ran wild. Magic, when intimacy had been such a dark thing in her life.
"Shy little girl," he said with tender amusement "Look at me, coward."
She lifted her face, hating its reddened color and vulnerability. "Stop making fun of me."
"Is that what I'm doing?" he asked. "I thought I was flirting."
She really colored then and started to get to her feet He rose at the same time, catching her arm gently in his free hand, to hold her just in front of him. He towered over her, all steely strength and masculine dominance, smelling of tangy cologne and soap.
"I haven't spent much time around women in the past few years," he said, his voice deep and slow in the stillness. "I'm rusty at social skills, so you'll have to get used to a little embarrassment now and then. All you have to remember is that I'm no pretty boy with a line a mile long. I'm a country man with old-fashioned ideas and I'll never hurt you. Physically or emotionally."
"Are you trying to tell me that you won't seduce me if I smile at you?" she asked, testing emotions she hadn't used in over six years as she looked up at him.
He didn't move. He seemed to be holding his breath. In fact, he was. The softness in those green eyes held him spellbound. He hadn't realized just how vulnerable he was.
"That's about the size of it. You don't trust men, do you?" He touched her face with hesitant fingers. "I suppose we're alike in being wary. I thought I was in love a few times, but I got burned badly once. I guess I've forgotten how to trust women in the years since."
He sounded just faintly vulnerable, and something inside her stirred like a budding flower. She searched his face. "Damaged people," she whispered.
He understood immediately, his nod more eloquent than speech. He brushed the back of his finger over her soft mouth. "Come here and kiss me."
He bent as he spoke, and without the slightest hesitation she rose on tiptoe and kissed him. It was the first move she'd ever made of her own free will toward a man. He made everything so natural, so easy. She was sixteen again, feeling her first passion for a man. And there was Gabe, tough and hard and filling her world, her life.
"Gabe," she whispered brokenly, holding him gently as she pressed her warm, soft mouth against his and flew up into the sun with the powerful response he gave her.
She felt his hand at the back of her head, pressing her lips hard against his, and then she was free and he'd moved away, turned away, so that she couldn't see the effect she'd had on him. But when he put the brandy snifter down to light a cigarette, she noticed his hand wasn't quite steady.
"You're just dynamite," she said dazedly.
He turned, his eyes shocked, delighted. He smiled at her. "Hell, so are you."
It was a real smile, not a smirk or sarcasm. He lit the cigarette but his eyes held hers, searched them slowly. "Are you going to be that honest with me from now on?" he asked. "Because I'll have to warn you, it's dangerous."
"Telling the truth?"
"Telling me the truth about what you feel when I touch you," he told her. "My God, I've got a low boiling point with you, Maggie," he added softly, fervently. "I never dreamed it would be like that."
"Neither did I," she said, her voice soft, colored with what she was feeling so unexpectedly. "I...used to..." She stopped, horrified at what she was about to reveal.
"Used to what?" he coaxed, moving closer. "Used to what, honey?" he repeated, touching her lips gently.
"I used to daydream about you," she murmured, lowering her eyes to his hard chest. "About kissing you."
"You weren't the only one." He tilted up her chin. "The reality is pretty devastating. I gather it wasn't like that with your ex-husband?"
She shook her head. "I never really wanted him physically," she said. "I suppose he knew.... Do men know?" she asked, lifting plaintive eyes.
He nodded slowly. "I would, anyway," he said. "It's hard to fake."
"He couldn't make me want him. That made it worse. He had so many women, and I tried not to mind, but after a while, I felt like a Medusa."
"Why did you marry him?" he asked.
She shrugged. "He was a lot of fun. He'd take me places and give me things." She smiled sadly. "I'd never had a man pay me any attention. Not like that. I was a pushover."
"I could have," he said half under his breath, and the look in his eyes disturbed her. "If you hadn't been so young, honey..."
"You were almost thirty," she remembered, searching his hard face. "Already a grown man. You fascinated me."
"I know." There was a world of emotion in those two words. He brushed back the hair from her temple, his fingers warm and hard and strong. "And frightened you. It was because of me that you stopped coming here to see the girls, wasn't it?"
"Yes," she confessed softly, smiling. "I knew I couldn't hide what I was feeling. I was afraid you'd see it and make fun of me or be embarrassed."
"I wouldn't have done either," he told her, his voice gentle. "I'm not sure how I would have handled it, but I'd have managed without h
urting your pride too much." He pursed his lips musingly. "I lost track of you after the girls left school. I always meant to look you up again, but your family moved to Austin."
"It's just as well," she said. "You'd have wanted more than I could give."
He smoothed her hair. "No, I wouldn't have," he said firmly. "I'd have respected your innocence. I wouldn't have asked you to give it to me without a commitment." His chest rose and fell slowly. "Maggie, are you going to be able to handle a physical relationship again?"
She felt her body relaxing against his, felt her helpless reaction to his strength. Her fingers played with a button on his shirt, and she bit her lower lip, succumbing to old memories and new hungers all at once.
"I don't know," she said.
He nuzzled her cheek with his. "Shall we find out?"
Her lips parted on a trembling breath. "I'm afraid."
"No reason," he said gently. His mouth brushed over her cheek, her ear. "I'm older. It's hard for me to lose control now. I won't do anything you don't want me to do." He smiled against her cool cheek. "No sex, honey. Just some very light love-making."
She lifted her eyes to his. "I want to," she said, letting him see the mingled hunger and apprehension.
"Remember who I am," he breathed, touching her hair. "I'm Gabriel. I'll never hurt you. Never."
She reached up and he bent to lift her, but he grimaced and had to set her down.
"Damn," he groaned, rubbing his arm and laughing through the pain. "Damned snake! It's still sore."
"Your poor arm," she said softly, touching it lightly. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," he sighed. "It's slowed me down a little."
She smiled. "I think I like that. For now, at least."
He glared at her, moving into the big armchair with slow ease. "Come here, then," he said, holding out his hand. "But watch where you touch."
"Prude," she accused, and actually laughed. It was the first time she'd been able to joke in so long.
Books By Diana Palmer Page 18