by Diana Palmer
She averted her eyes, red-faced.
“We burned together like twin flames,” he whispered. “I’ve had women all my adult life, but I never lost my self-control so completely with anyone until you came along. I was embarrassed and ashamed by what I almost let happen between us.”
Her shocked eyes met his. “You were?”
He scowled. “Didn’t you know?”
She shook her head. “Oh, heavens, no. I thought…” She swallowed and let her gaze fall to his chest. “I thought men did that all the time with women. You were older than I was, and I’d never even let a man touch me before. It didn’t occur to me that it was anything unusual for you.” Her hands fumbled nervously with the fabric of his shirt. “I thought I’d done something wrong and you blamed me.”
“Something wrong.” He laughed mirthlessly. “I came within a breath of stripping you and going the whole damned way, right there,” he added roughly. “It’s still my first inclination every time I look at you.”
That was a little shocking. She glanced up at him uncomfortably and saw the fires burning in his dark eyes. “Inclinations don’t mean much, though, do they, when you leave skid marks getting away from me?” she asked sadly.
“Don’t look like that!” he said sharply. “You know why I left. You know why I stayed away.”
“So it wouldn’t happen again,” she agreed with a tiny sigh. Her eyes searched his face slowly, with a longing that she couldn’t begin to hide. “But it doesn’t seem to matter, does it, Chayce? I can’t have anybody else. I don’t want anybody else.”
He drew in a heavy breath. “Neither do I,” he said shockingly.
She didn’t believe she’d heard him say that at first. Her eyes were riveted to his lean, handsome face.
“Didn’t you understand what I was telling you, when we went to look at the wedding gown?” he asked gently. “I was telling you that I’m not capable with other women. I haven’t been since that night with you.”
“Was it…something I did?” she asked.
He shook his head. His arm reached around her waist and brought her to him. “It was this.” And he kissed her.
Chapter Five
It wasn’t a demanding kiss. It wasn’t invasive. It was tender and full of respect and breathless longing. Abby slid her arms around Chayce’s neck and her body went soft against the hard length of his.
His lean hands met and passed around her back. His mouth grew slowly more insistent, pushing her head against his broad shoulder while he kissed her as if he needed her mouth to survive.
When he finally lifted his head, his eyes were turbulent, and one hand was hesitating at the fastening between her shoulder blades.
His jaw tautened and his eyes narrowed. He took a sharp breath and his hand moved back down to her waist. “No,” he said shortly, jerking back from her. “Oh, no, not this time!”
She felt shaky all the way to her toes. Her helpless eyes sought reassurance, hope, in his face.
He was still trying to get his breath. He backed away a step and then another. His hands went into his pockets and he swallowed, hard.
“I came to take you riding,” he said heavily. “And that’s what we’re going to do.” He reached for her shirt, which was still lying on the bed. He held it while she slid into it, and then he fastened the buttons right up to her collarbone.
She wasn’t thinking at all. Her eyes couldn’t leave his face, no matter how hard she tried to make them. He was her whole world.
He hesitated at the last button and saw that look. It seemed to take the breath out of him, because he stopped breathing for a moment.
“Fires burn themselves out eventually,” he said roughly. “But not before they consume everything in their path. We have to build a firebreak, while there’s still time.”
“You mean, you don’t want me,” she said.
He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean at all.” He finished buttoning the last button and his hands went to her shoulders. “We’re going to live one day at a time. Starting right now. We’re taking a tour of the ranch. I’ve been away a long time. I want to see what’s happened while I’ve been gone. I want to get reacquainted with my men. You can come along.”
It was something. He seemed willing to let her into his life, even on a limited basis. She wasn’t strong enough to refuse. “Okay,” she replied.
He touched her flushed cheek with the back of his lean fingers. He smiled in a way he’d never smiled at her before.
“What about…Delina?” she asked worriedly.
His fingers brushed across her lips. “What about that job in Helena?”
She shrugged.
A corner of his mouth pulled up.
“I hope you haven’t forgotten how to ride,” he remarked and, taking her hand, he led her down the staircase. The feel of his strong fingers linking with hers sent a thrill all the way through her. She couldn’t remember ever being so happy.
It had been years since they’d been riding together. Chayce sat a horse as if he’d been born to it, which he had. His own father had tried his hand at rodeos, although he’d never been very successful. It was Abby’s father who’d won event after event and had become Chayce’s hero. Whit Turner had tried to turn Abby into a champion rider, but she didn’t have the seat for it. She could ride, but there was nothing special about her abilities. She could stay on the horse’s back and not much more, although she did enjoy it.
Chayce glanced at her, approving the picture she made in the Atlanta Braves cap he’d loaned her. She didn’t like Western hats, because she could never find one that fit her properly. She liked bibbed caps, like this one.
“All you need is a hound dog and a shotgun,” he murmured. “And a truck.”
She made a face at him. “I look fine, thanks.” Her eyes slid over his lean, fit body in the saddle with admiration and pure pleasure. “You always did look at home on a horse.”
“It’s where I’d rather be, most of the time, not stuck in some boardroom with spreadsheets between my hands.”
“You have your finger in a lot of pies,” she recalled.
He nodded, absently watching the lazy circling flight of a hawk overhead. “The ranch would be enough for most men. I sit on the board of three corporations, head a committee for the national cattlemen’s lobby and chair my own companies. It keeps me running.” He glanced back at her. “Lately I think it keeps me running too much.”
She averted her gaze to the wide pommel of her Western saddle. “I thought you were running from me.”
He chuckled. “Maybe I was.”
“Not anymore?” she asked and tried not to sound hopeful.
He drew the reins more securely through his gloved fingers. He averted his face so that she couldn’t see it. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“I won’t marry Troy, in case you thought you could change my mind,” she said firmly.
“You don’t suit him the way you are,” he said quietly. “But I feel responsible for the way you broke up. Maybe I shouldn’t have come back until the wedding.”
Her hand caught the pommel and held it, hard.
He saw her fingers clench, saw her stiff stance, and reined in his own mount. “Talk to me!”
She reined in, but she didn’t look at him. She stared off in the distance at the buttes that seemed to run along forever against the blue sky. “If I’d married Troy, it would have been the biggest mistake either of us ever made. You don’t marry one man to work another one out of your system. I may not be mature, but at least I know that. I would have cheated Troy every day I lived with him. Eventually he might have hated me for it.”
“Love can be learned.”
She turned and looked straight at him. “No, it can’t. Not where there’s no spark of interest to begin with and nothing in common except being born in the same town. He liked football games and I liked fishing. That’s pretty basic.”
He leaned forward in the saddle and pulled his Stetson farther over hi
s eyes. “I like fishing myself. I haven’t been in years, of course.”
“We used to go, when Dad was alive.” She smiled, because the memory wasn’t so painful now. “I’d sit on the bank with a cane pole and try my best to catch something.”
“You were patient enough,” he agreed. “But you wouldn’t use the right kind of bait.”
She glared at him. “I am not torturing worms and spring lizards…!”
“Dough balls for crappie,” he indicated. “And artificial flies for trout fishing. You needed a good rod and reel, not a cane pole, but Whit was always afraid you’d hook yourself in the hand or the eye. I knew better, but I wouldn’t argue with him.”
“He loved you,” she said, glancing back toward the distant river.
“He loved you, too. If he’d had ten kids, I think you’d still have come first. You were unique, Abby, even at the age of ten.”
“You liked me then.”
“I like you now,” he said, and his voice was deeper, softer.
She wouldn’t look at him. What she felt was too near the surface. “Billy said the boys were chasing strays. Know where to look?”
“I think so. Come on.”
He led the way down a long wooded trail that passed across the shallow river and into a small canyon. The sound of bawling calves was loud in the face of the soft wind.
“There they are,” Chayce said, nodding toward two hands who were driving a few calves out of the brush toward a corral set up in the grassland beyond. He scowled. “I thought I told Kirk to buy polled cattle to replace the culls. Even these damned cows have horns. That’s an open invitation to a bad accident.”
Abby hadn’t been home enough to get a look at the cattle this far from the house. She was puzzled, too, because Kirk Conroy was very good at his job.
“Speaking of Conroy,” Chayce murmured, his keen eyes scanning the valley, “where is he?”
He wasn’t one of the riders; that was immediately apparent. Chayce urged his mount into a canter and reined up beside one of the cowhands.
“Where’s Kirk?” he asked curtly.
The man, surprised, gaped at him. “Mr. Derringer?” he asked, leaning forward as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. “We thought you were in the Bahamas, sir!”
“I said, where’s my foreman?”
The cowboy sighed. “He’s at the doc’s.”
“Why?”
“He really ought to tell you himself, Mr. Derringer,” he said nervously.
“Is he hurt?”
There was a pause. “He got stepped on by a bull,” the man confessed finally. “Bruised his foot real bad and he’s going to limp for a week or so.” The cowboy shrugged. “He didn’t want you to know. Said you’d take a strip off him for being careless.”
“Oh, hell,” Chayce muttered. “Anybody can get stepped on by a bull. I’ve been stepped on by a surly horse. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about!”
The cowboy smiled, relieved. “He’d sure like to hear that, I expect.”
“And I’ll tell him, just as soon as he gets back,” he added. “I’m going to be home for good now. I can handle things if he needs to rest that foot for a few days.”
He gave the man brief orders about the roundup and moved ahead with Abby. He stopped to talk to another rider and Abby rode ahead a few hundred yards, where she spotted a red hide in some thick underbrush.
“Poor little guy, are you stuck?” she murmured, smiling. She struggled down off her horse and went toward it, vaguely aware of an angry shout behind her as she tugged at the bawling calf. She was totally oblivious to the horned cow that heard the bawling of her calf and came thundering down a hill with her head lowered, right at Abby.
Chayce saw the charge and knew he’d never be quick enough to ride the cow down. “Brady!” Chayce yelled, holding out his hand. “Throw me your Winchester!”
The rider complied in a heartbeat. Chayce stood up in the stirrups, whipped the rifle to his shoulder, sighted and started firing, right in front of the cow.
She bawled and, frightened, turned. He held the Winchester steady, ready to bring her down if he had to.
“Abby! Get out of there!” he yelled.
She’d turned at the shock of the shots being fired and only then realized her danger. She went back to her horse on shaky legs, mounted and rode quickly up to Chayce.
He only lowered the rifle when she was reining in beside him. “You little fool!” he raged. “Don’t you look?”
She felt shaky. It had been a long time since he’d been so angry with her. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry,” she said in a choked tone.
Chayce put the safety on the rifle and gave it back to the man he’d borrowed it from. His face was pale under its olive tan, and he looked wild-eyed as he swung down out of the saddle.
Her hands trembled on the reins as she began to realize how close a call she’d had. “I just wanted to free the calf.”
He didn’t say a word. He reached up and lifted her down from the horse with deft, sure motions. His face was as rigid as stone, and the black eyes that met hers were frightening. Around them, the men could sense trouble brewing and the man Chayce had been talking to yelled for the men to come on and take their morning break. It was almost comical how quickly they scattered.
With the horses grazing just behind them, they were alone in the deserted pasture, a good distance from the calf and its mother, with whom it was now reunited.
“You could have been gored,” Chayce said through his teeth. “You could have been killed, damn it!”
She bit her lower lip hard. She felt like a fool already and here he was, rubbing it in. She didn’t know why she’d done something so stupid in the first place. She’d never thought of any danger with Chayce nearby.
“Come here, you little idiot!”
He jerked her into his arms and wrapped her up bruisingly tight. She could feel the wild racing of his heart, hear his quick, sharp breathing.
Only then did she realize that she’d frightened him. Imagine that, she thought dazedly, frightening Chayce, who never felt fear at all.
“I wasn’t in any danger,” she mumbled against his damp shirt. “You were here.”
“I knew I couldn’t get to you before the cow did,” he growled out at her temple. “The only hope I had was to spook the cow or bring her down, and my hands were shaking.”
Her heart turned over. She drew back a breath, just enough to let her see his hard face. It was amazing, the look on it. He was afraid for her.
His eyes narrowed as he realized what she was seeing. His jaw tautened and he put her away from him abruptly. He could barely get a complete breath.
“Don’t do that again,” he said curtly.
She shook her head, still fascinated by his concern for her. He’d always stood between Abby and danger, but it had never affected him quite like this. Not so that his hands shook.
“And don’t get any ideas,” he added impatiently.
She shook her head again.
His nostrils flared. He looked around them, took off his hat, wiped his sweating brow on his sleeve and slammed the hat back onto his head.
“Let’s go,” he said shortly. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”
He helped her to remount with careless efficiency and swung back into his own saddle. He didn’t say a word as they rode from place to place, watching small groups of cowboys work cattle from one range to another. It was a huge operation, and Abby had never realized just how big it was until now. It was a responsibility that would make mincemeat of the nerves of a lesser man. She remembered all the things Troy had said about the obstacles that beset ranchers in the modern world.
“Do you agree that wolves shouldn’t run on cattle range?” she asked abruptly.
He glanced at her. “I get along all right with wolves,” he said. “If I have any problems, I call the wildlife people and have the threat removed.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “What about park buffalo infecting
the herds with brucellosis?”
“If you inoculate your herd, they can’t catch it,” he said simply.
“How do you feel about conservation?”
“Is this a quiz?” he asked. “And if it is, what’s the prize?”
“Sorry.” She withdrew again.
He reined in and pulled her horse around as well. “I think that conservation is essential,” he told her. “We’re experimenting with hardy forage that doesn’t require tons of fertilizer to grow. In fact, we’re processing animal waste to meet that requirement. We’re experimenting with grass strains that thrive in the conditions here, and we’ve cut back even in our graze plantings to natural ways of controlling insect pests.” He frowned. “Didn’t you know that I sit on the board of the local resource conservation and development authority as well as the local cattlemen’s association?”
She stared at him with quiet curiosity. “You never talked about it.”
He laughed shortly. “You were a child, Abby,” he said simply. “You’ve grown up.”
“Yes.” She turned her attention to the wide pasture, noting the lack of moisture. “The drought is biting hard.”
“In spite of the snow melt, too, and we had record drifts this year. Amazing how we still have to fight nature to make a living.”
“Drought doesn’t affect mining,” she re minded him.
He chuckled. “Diversity has distinct advantages.” His eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do with that degree?” he asked out of the blue.
She started. “Get a job.” She faltered.
“What sort of job?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Something in management maybe, or a junior executive position working for a company.”
“What company?”
She pursed her lips. “Is this a quiz? And if so, do I get a prize?”
He chuckled, hearing his own questions thrown back at him. He turned his horse and rode on, waiting for her to catch up.
They stayed out for several hours, stopping to eat steak and beans at the chuck wagon with the men at lunchtime. It was midafternoon before Chayce had seen what he wanted to see and was willing to go back to the house.