by Diana Palmer
There was a saying, a myth, that she remembered from high school, about a man being taken to paradise for punishment and then going mad when he was sent back to earth. She felt a little like that. The most exquisite joy she’d ever known was in Chayce’s hard arms. Now, for the rest of her life, the memory of it was going to destroy any hope of feeling it with someone else.
She wondered if it was fair to marry Troy, when she still loved Chayce. If there had been a chance, even a slim one, that Chayce might one day return her feelings for him, she would never have agreed to marry Troy. But there was no chance. There was no hope. The alternative was to live her life alone, without children or companionship. By comparison, even life with Troy had a certain appeal.
She smoothed her hand over the cover of the old photo album and wished that she could have known Chayce’s mother, who had died when he was only nine years old. She had a pretty face and Becky said that Chayce’s father had loved her beyond bearing, that her death had turned him into a bitter alcoholic who took out his grief on his only child. Poor Chayce. His life had been no bed of roses, either. In his way, he was afraid of love. It had been cruel to him.
“Abby!” Becky called from the top of the staircase. “Troy’s here!”
“I’ll be right down!” she called back, not wanting Troy up here, where memories of Chayce were almost alive for her.
She scrambled to her feet, rushing to put the albums away and close the box that concealed them from view. In a sense she was putting her own memories away with them. She’d have to make sure that she didn’t take them out again. She was getting married. And not to Chayce.
She and Troy ate a leisurely lunch and then went riding in his new red pickup truck.
He patted the dash as he drove. “Isn’t she a beaut?” he asked with a grin that made his dark brown eyes light up. He was redheaded and had freckles, and when he smiled, they seemed to stand out like measles.
“Why isn’t a truck a ‘he’?” she asked.
He just shook his head. “You can’t call something this pretty a boy truck,” he explained.
She didn’t share his enthusiasm for pickup trucks, but at least he wasn’t still irritated at her, so she settled back and adjusted her seat belt without a protest.
“Heard from Chayce?” he asked abruptly.
Her heart jumped, but she didn’t let him know how the sound of Chayce’s name excited her.
“Not yet,” she replied in what she hoped was a careless tone. “Becky said that he might not have received my letter. He was in the Bahamas with Delina when I sent it, but Becky said he’d gone on to Hollywood with her when she finished shooting her film.”
Troy glanced at her suspiciously. “You don’t like her.”
“I don’t even know her!” she said with a hollow laugh. “She’s Chayce’s business, not mine.”
“Suppose he marries her?” he persisted.
She clenched her hands together over her blue jeans. “He’s got to marry someone eventually,” she said stiffly.
“Why? He has women coming out the doors and windows.”
“Not for the past year,” she returned. “There’s just been Delina.”
He was still giving her a narrow look. “How would you know that? I thought you hadn’t seen him in almost four years. Hard to believe that. You live in the same house.”
“Chayce hasn’t been at home when I’ve been there,” she said through her teeth.
“Why?”
She let out an irritated breath and turned to glare at him. “What is your problem, Troy?”
“Chayce doesn’t want you to marry me, that’s my problem!”
She took a steadying breath. “Chayce can’t tell me who to marry. I’m surprised that he said anything to you. I haven’t even had a postcard from him.”
“I’m not surprised,” he murmured, watching the road ahead of them. “He still thinks he owns you, but I’m going to prove to him that he doesn’t. I think we should set the marriage date forward. To next month.”
She felt her stomach clench. It was too soon, too soon, too soon…!
“If you love me,” he persisted angrily, “you’ll agree.”
She closed her eyes. He was making so many demands, all at once. She needed time to think, to plan, to argue her case.
“You don’t want to move it forward, do you, Abby?” he asked bluntly. “You don’t want to marry me at all.”
“I do!” she protested, turning in her seat to look at him with wild eyes.
He sighed softly. “Okay. That’s all I needed to know. I thought you were going to try to back out of it. In fact, Dad said you might.”
“Your father? Sid? But why?” she asked, stunned.
He changed gears as they went onto a dirt road that led to the holding pens of his father’s ranch. “He said that you were in love with Chayce Derringer.”
She stared at his hands on the steering wheel. They were clenched so hard that the knuckles were white. That was when she knew that she couldn’t lie to him any longer. But she couldn’t tell the whole truth, either. She decided on a compromise.
“All right,” she said after a minute, not looking at him. “I had a frantic crush on Chayce when I was about sixteen. He found out and we had a long talk.” She turned her hands over and looked at them. “He’s fifteen years older than I am and he never wants to get married. I knew then that it would never matter how I felt about him, because he didn’t want me.” She looked out the window. “I can’t stop caring about him, Troy. I don’t know how. But he doesn’t feel that way about me, and he never will. So you’re not going to be competing with Chayce.”
“If that’s true, why did he try to warn me off you last summer?”
“I’m sure he didn’t,” she said resignedly. “He only wants to make sure that we’ll have a good marriage. He’s taken care of me for a long time. Maybe it’s hard for him to let go, even if he doesn’t see much of me.”
“And you’re not the divine Delina, after all,” he said without meaning to wound her further. “She’s such a knockout.” He shrugged. “I guess I overreacted. I didn’t think past what he said. But when you come to think of it, not many women could compete with a Hollywood goddess. And she is. Heaven knows, my blood pressure shoots up every time I see her picture in a magazine.”
“Apparently so does Chayce’s,” she replied, “because he spends most of his free time with her.”
“And if he ever does marry, she’ll be in the front running,” he agreed.
“Yes.”
He glanced at her. “I didn’t mean to sound as if I don’t think you’re pretty,” he said. “You’re sweet and cute and I love being around you. When you aren’t acting like one of the cutups in my history classes,” he added darkly.
“I’m not cut out to be staid and retiring, Troy,” she said firmly. “I won’t change. If you want to marry me, you have to accept me the way I am.”
“You’re fine, with a few minor adjustments,” he commented imperturbably. “You need to tone down that sense of humor and learn how to act with a little dignity in public. And you need to let your hair grow out, while we’re on the subject,” he added with a glance in her direction. “I don’t like short hair on a woman. In fact, I don’t like those tight jeans, either. You’ll have to wear something more staid when we’re married. After all, I have a reputation to maintain, in my profession.”
She tried to convince herself that it was a big joke, that he was kidding. But he wasn’t. His somber expression was proof of that. She could see herself in long dresses and no makeup with her hair in a bun, trying to live down to Troy’s image of the perfect woman.
“You should have proposed to Eve Payne,” she remarked, referring to a fellow teacher of his who was the very image of a conservative woman.
“Oh, Eve doesn’t like me,” he said easily.
“Why not?”
“She thinks I’m damaging my reputation by being seen with you!”
Chapter Two
“I beg your pardon!” Abby flared.
He laughed, but not with any real humor. “You’re not exactly the soul of discretion, Abby. And after that stunt with the bull, a lot of people around here think you’re totally out of control. In fact, my mother did wonder if you needed therapy.”
Her chest puffed up. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to remember that this was the sweet, kind, biddable young man who’d been her good friend for over a year and had pleaded with her to marry him only three months before.
She glared straight ahead through the dirty windshield. So she needed therapy, did she? And a bun and long dresses and to tone down her personality…!
“Don’t smolder. You know I’m right,” he commented. “You’ve run wild too long already. You needed a strong hand and you never got one.”
She had, when Chayce had been part of her life. But after he retired from the field, there was no one else to hold her back. She had run wild. Perhaps she did it to try to make him notice her. But it had never worked.
“Which reminds me, there’s one more thing we have to talk about,” he continued.
“What other fault of mine needs correcting, pray tell?” she asked through her teeth.
He changed gears again after they reached the top of the hill. “I want you to give up that environmental rights group you belong to. Putting wolves back on the range around here is the government’s way of wiping out private ownership of land. It’s subversive. We don’t need wolves taking down cattle.”
“I’ve explained this to you a dozen times,” she began. “In the old days before wolves were almost hunted to extinction, the rodent numbers were kept down by them. Predators do much more to support the balance of nature than they do to harm it.”
“That’s right. Nature.” He looked at her coldly. “Cattle-raising isn’t part of nature. It’s a business, like any other. If wolves multiply, cattle herds diminish. We’ve already got enough trouble trying to fight the government for water rights and public grazing. Other cattlemen are having fits because the buffalo in the national park are roaming free and infecting our cattle with brucellosis. Do you know what it is? It’s a disease that causes cows to abort calves before term. Have you any idea how much money we lose every time a calf isn’t born alive?”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “Chayce owns a ranch,” she added sarcastically, “and I do read cattle journals. But I’m not backing down on this. We have to preserve the…”
A huge black pickup truck with a double cab was bearing down on them on the narrow road. It was one of several that belonged to the Derringer ranch. She recognized the small white pistol emblem on a black field in a white circle that denoted the Derringer brand. It could have been handsome Kirk Conroy, a confirmed bachelor who ran the ranch in Chayce’s absence. But it wasn’t. Because Kirk drove like a preacher on Sunday visits compared to the way Chayce did it. And whoever was behind the wheel of that powerful machine was driving like a bat out of hell.
“Well, I’ll be,” Troy murmured. He pulled off onto the side of the road as the big truck came alongside them. “I thought you said he wasn’t coming home.”
“I didn’t know he was,” she said through her teeth.
A window powered down, and there was Chayce framed in it, his black eyes snapping in a face so handsome that it drew women everywhere he went. His hair was black, like his eyes, and he looked formidable.
“How are you, Chayce?” Troy asked with an effusive grin, trying to placate him. “Good to see you!”
Chayce didn’t answer. He sat there as if he were carved out of stone, with a powerful chambray-clad arm resting on the steering wheel as he glared past Troy, whose complaints about Chayce seemed to have become a thing of the past.
Chayce glared at Abby and she glared back. Four years, almost, and he couldn’t even smile at her. She was bitter, and she looked it. But along with the bitterness was a painful maturity, and that showed, too.
“I thought you were in the Bahamas,” Abby said curtly.
“I was. I got your letter this morning. They forwarded it to California, but it was held up.” He glared at both of them. “What’s this nonsense about the two of you getting married in August?”
“N-nonsense?” Troy blurted out. “We…we just want to get married, Chayce. Now you don’t have to do a thing, except give Abby away. I’ll even buy her wedding gown…”
“I’ll buy the gown,” Chayce said icily. “When she marries.”
Troy went as red as his hair and began to look nervous.
Abby’s chin came up as she faced Chayce. “You heard him,” she told her guardian. “We’re getting married. And we’ll probably be moving the ceremony up.” And you can do what you please, her eyes added coldly.
“Why the rush to the altar?” Chayce replied curtly. He glanced at Abby with eyes so intimidating that she actually moved back an inch. Seconds later, his gaze fell on Troy. “Is she pregnant?” he asked in a tone so soft and cutting that Troy swallowed visibly and put an arm around Abby for comfort and support.
Abby didn’t even feel the arm, she was so outraged. “How dare you, Chayce!”
“She’s…she’s no…no such thing!” Troy blurted out. “For the love of heaven, I have a responsible job and I’m an upstanding member of the community! Decent men don’t seduce women before the wedding!”
Chayce’s eyebrows arched up at the statement.
“This isn’t going to get us anywhere,” Abby said.
Chayce’s eyes narrowed. They didn’t blink. They glittered. In this mood, he was dangerous. Abby felt chills run down her spine. Troy’s arm around her wasn’t quite as steady as he made it seem, either.
“We’ll discuss this at home, Abby,” Chayce said after a minute. He gave Troy a curt nod, powered the window back up and sped away, leaving a trail of dust as high as the truck behind him.
“Whew!” Troy exclaimed, removing his arm. “What brought that on, do you suppose? He was against it last year, sure, but you’re of legal age now!”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. Not that it matters,” she said furiously. “He isn’t telling me when I can get married!”
Troy glanced at her warily. “Now, honey, try not to get into a fight with him. We can’t afford to make him too mad. He’s a powerful man.”
She searched his eyes. “You aren’t afraid of him?”
He laughed, but it fell short of humor. “Of course not. Now let’s get on down to the holding pens. I want to show you our new bulls.” He glanced at her. “You won’t do anything impulsive around my father, like opening gates…?”
“No,” she said with resignation. “I’ll be the perfect girl. You can count on me.”
“Can I?” he murmured. “I hope so!”
She thought about that comment later, when Troy had left her at the front door without going inside. It was already dark and he was quite obviously reluctant to face Chayce again while the man was in such a black mood. Desertion in the face of battle, Abby thought irritably, watching him speed away. Some protector he was going to be!
On the other hand, why did she need a protector? It was only Chayce, whom she’d known since her tenth birthday. He might frighten the whole world, but he wasn’t going to intimidate Abby!
She squared her slender shoulders and marched right in the front door, geared for battle.
It was anticlimactic that Chayce was nowhere in sight.
She stood in the hall, breathing uneasily, almost trembling with fury. All afternoon she’d thought of having to face Chayce when she got home, and he’d taken off again. Well, what more could she expect? He’d spent years avoiding her. Nothing ever seemed to change…
“Is that you, Abby?”
The deep, smooth drawl came from the study. She went only to the doorway and looked in. Chayce was sprawled across a burgundy leather armchair with his long legs crossed and a brandy snifter in his lean hand. The room was dark except for a lamp burning beside the armchair.
“Come in,” he said quietly. “We have a lot to talk about.”
“We have nothing to talk about, Chayce,” she said with quiet dignity. “I’m twenty-one.”
He just stared at her, his black eyes going slowly over every inch of her in the tight jeans and clinging tank top. “You’ve filled out more,” he murmured. “And you’ve cut your hair.”
“Little girls do grow up,” she replied with a mocking smile.
“So they do.” He took a sip of brandy and a deep breath afterward. “Come in here and close the door, Abby,” he said.
“I’d rather stay where I am,” she replied tersely. “You can say what you have to say from there.”
“I said, come in here and close the door!”
His voice, soft and deep, could cut like a whip when he wanted it to. Added to that even, threatening black glitter in his eyes, it was enough to back down a tiger, much less Abby.
She moved hesitantly into the room and closed the door behind her. But she didn’t move away from it. The cold wood was somehow comforting at her back.
He hadn’t moved. His eyes were still riveted to her body, seeking all the changes, hunting weaknesses. They narrowed.
“Your heart is beating you to death,” he remarked coolly. “I can see the fabric of your top shaking over your breasts every time your heart beats.”
The remark only made it worse. She swallowed hard and wrapped her arms across her breasts, uncaring that it only confirmed what he’d said.
“What do you want to say to me?” she asked stiffly.
He made an amused sound deep in his throat. “I don’t really know,” he admitted with a sigh. “Four years,” he murmured as he studied her. “You’re older. Your hair is short. You’ve gained a little weight. You speak your mind, but then, you’ve never been afraid of me. Troy is. Did you notice?” he added with soft laughter.