by Diana Palmer
“And what do I look like, pray tell—the barn?” Calla continued, ruffled.
Melly bit her lip to keep from smiling. Dressed in a homemade shift of pink and green, her straggly gray hair pulled into a half bun, her garter-supported hose hanging precariously just above her knees, Calla was nobody’s idea of haute couture. But only an idiot would have told her that, and Melly had good sense.
“You look just fine, Calla,” Melly soothed. “I meant—” she searched for the right words “—that this isn’t Abby’s usual look.”
Calla burst out laughing, her merry eyes going from one girl to the other. “Never could tell when I was serious and when I wasn’t, could you, darlin’?” she asked Melly. “I was only teasing. Come here, Abby, and give us a hug. It’s been months since I’ve seen you, remember!”
Abby ran into her widespread arms and breathed in the scent of flour and vanilla that always clung to Calla.
“Stay home this time, you hear?” Calla chided, brushing away a tear as she let go of the young woman. “Tearing off and coming back with city ways—this is the best you’ve looked to me since you were eighteen and hell-bent on modeling!”
“But, Calla...” Melly interrupted.
“Never you mind.” Calla threw her a sharp glance. “Call her dowdy again, and it’ll be no berry cobbler for you tonight!”
Melly opened her mouth and quickly closed it again with a wicked grin. “I think she looks...mature,” Melly agreed. “Very...unique. Unusual. Rustically charming.”
Calla threw up her hands. “What I put up with, Lord knows! As if that hard-eyed cowboy I work for isn’t enough on my plate.... Well, if I don’t rush, there’ll be no peace when he comes in and doesn’t find his meal waiting. Even if he doesn’t come in until ten o’clock.” She went away muttering irritably to herself.
Melly sat down heavily on the couch with an exaggerated sigh. “Oh, saved! If I’d realized that she was out there, I’d have sung the praises of your new wardrobe.”
“Still hooked on her berry cobbler, I notice?” Abby smiled, and for just an instant, a little of her old, vibrantly happy personality peeked out.
“Please tell him,” Melly pleaded.
“And give him a stick to beat me with?” Abby asked with a dry laugh. “He’s been down on me ever since I coaxed Dad into letting me go to New York. Every time I see him, all I hear is how stupid I was. Now he’s got the best reason in the world to say it all again, and add an ‘I told you so.’ But he’s not getting the chance, Melly. Not from me!”
“You’re wrong about Cade,” Melly argued. “You always have been. He doesn’t hate you, Abby. He never did.”
“Would you mind telling him that?” came the cool reply. “I don’t think he knows.”
“Then why was he so anxious for you to come home?” Melly demanded. She folded her arms across her knees and leaned forward. “He even had Hank bring up your own furniture from the homestead, just so you’d feel more at home. Does that sound like a man who’s hating you?”
“Then why does he avoid me like the plague?” Abby asked curtly. She searched momentarily for a way to change the subject. “I sure would like to freshen up before we eat,” she hinted.
“Then come on up. You’ve got the room next to mine, so we can talk until all hours.”
“I’ll like that,” Abby murmured with a smile. Impulsively, she put her arm around Melly’s shoulders as they went up the staircase. “Maybe we can have a pillow fight, for old time’s sake.”
“Calla’s room is across the hall,” Melly informed her.
Abby sighed. “Oh, well, we can always reminisce about the pillow fights we used to have,” she amended, and Melly grinned.
It was just after dark, and Melly was helping Calla set the table in the dining room when the front door slammed open and hard, angry footsteps sounded on the bare wood floor of the hall.
Abby, standing at the fireplace where Calla had built a small fire, turned just as Cade froze in the doorway.
It didn’t seem like a year since she’d seen him. The hard, deeply tanned face under that wide-brimmed hat was as familiar as her own. But he’d aged, even she could see that. His firm, chiseled mouth was compressed, his brow marked with deep lines as if he’d made a habit of scowling. His cheeks were leaner, his square jaw firmer and his dark, fiery eyes were as uncompromising as she remembered them.
He was dusted with snow, his shepherd’s coat flecked with it, his worn boots wet with it as were the batwing chaps strapped around his broad, heavy-muscled thighs. He was holding a cigarette in one lean, dark hand, and the look he was giving Abby would have backed down a puma.
“What the hell happened to you?” he asked curtly, indicating the shapeless brown suede dress she was wearing.
“Look who’s talking,” she returned. “Weren’t you wearing that same pair of chaps when I left for New York?”
“Cattlemen are going bust all over, honey,” he returned, and a hint of amusement kindled in his eyes.
“Sure,” she scoffed. “But most of them don’t run eight thousand head of cattle on three ranches in two states, now do they? And have oil leases and mining contracts....”
“I didn’t say I was going bust,” he corrected. He leaned insolently against the doorjamb and tilted his head back. “Steal that dress off a fat lady?”
She felt uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other. “It’s the latest style,” she lied, hoping he wouldn’t know the difference.
“I don’t see how you women keep up with the latest styles,” he said. “It all looks like odds and ends to me.”
“Is it snowing already?” she asked, changing the subject.
He took his hat off and shook it. “Looks like. I hope Calla’s loading a table for the men, too. The nighthawks are going to have their hands full with those two-year-old heifers.”
Abby couldn’t help smiling. Those were the first-time mothers, and they took a lot of looking after. One old cowhand—Hob, the one who’d resigned—always said he’d rather mend fence than babysit new mamas.
“Who got stuck this year?” she asked.
“Hank and Jeb,” he replied.
“No wonder Hank was so ruffled,” she murmured.
A corner of Cade’s disciplined mouth turned up as he studied her. “You don’t know the half of it. He begged me to let him nurse the older cows.”
“I can guess how far he got,” she said.
He didn’t laugh. “How long are you here for?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said, feeling nervous. “It depends.”
“I thought spring was your busiest time, miss model,” he said, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. “When Melly told me you were coming, it surprised me.”
“I’m, uh, taking a break,” she supplied.
“Are you?” He shouldered away from the doorjamb. “Stay through roundup and I’ll fly you back to New York myself.”
He turned, and her eyes followed his broad-shouldered form as he walked into the hall and yelled for Calla.
“I hope you’ve got enough to feed the hands, too!” he called, his deep voice carrying through the house. “Jeb’s nighthawking with Hank!”
Jeb was the bunkhouse cook—some of the cowboys had homes on the ranch where they lived with their families, but there was a modern bunkhouse with a separate kitchen for the rest.
“Well, I’ll bet the boys are on their knees giving thanks for that!” Calla called back. “It’ll be a change for them, having decent food for one night!”
Cade chuckled deep in his throat as he climbed the stairs. Abby couldn’t help but watch him, remembering old times when she’d worshipped that broad back, that powerful body, with a schoolgirl’s innocent heart. How different her life might have been if Cade hadn’t refused her impulsive offer that
long-ago night. Tears formed in her eyes and she turned away. Wishing wouldn’t make it so. But it was good to be back on Painted Ridge, all the same. She’d manage to keep out of Cade’s way, and perhaps Melly was right. Perhaps being home again would help her scars to heal.
3
Abby might have planned to avoid him, but Cade seemed to have other ideas. She noticed his quiet, steady gaze over the dinner table and almost jumped when he spoke.
“How would you like to see the new calves?” he asked suddenly.
She lifted her eyes from her plate and stared at him, lost for an answer. “Isn’t it still snowing?” she asked helplessly.
“Sure,” he agreed. “But the trucks have chains. And the calving sheds are just south of here,” he reminded her.
Being alone with him was going to unnerve her—she knew it already—but she loved the sight of those woolly little creatures, so new to the world. And she liked being with Cade. She felt safe with him, protected. Despite the lingering apprehension, she wanted to go with him.
“Well?” he persisted.
She shrugged. “I would kind of like to see the calves,” she admitted with a tiny smile. She dropped her eyes back to her plate, blissfully unaware of the look Cade exchanged with Melly.
“We’ll have dessert when we get back,” Cade informed Calla, pushing back his chair.
Minutes later, riding along in the pickup and being bounced wildly in its warm interior, snow fluttering against the windshield, it was almost like old times.
“Warm enough, honey?” Cade asked.
“Like toast.” She wrapped the leather jacket he had loaned her even closer, loving its warmth. Cade was still wearing his shepherd’s coat, looking so masculine he’d have wowed them even at a convention of male models.
“Not much farther now,” he murmured, turning the truck off onto the farm road that led to the calving pens, where two cowboys in yellow slickers could be seen riding around the enclosures, heads bent against the wind.
“Poor devils,” she remarked, watching.
“The men or the heifers?” he asked.
“Both. All. It’s rough out there.” She balanced her hand against the cold dashboard as he stopped the truck and cut the engine at the side of the long shed. Cade was the perfect rancher, but his driving left a lot to be desired.
“Now I know how it feels to ride inside a concrete mixer,” she moaned.
“Don’t start that again,” Cade grumbled as he threw open the door. “You can always walk back,” he added with a dark glance.
“Did you ever race in the Grand Prix when you were younger, Cade?” she asked with a bright, if somewhat false, smile.
“And sarcasm won’t do the trick, either,” he warned. He led the way through the snow, and she followed in his huge footprints, liking the bite of the cold wind and the crunch of the snow, the freshness of the air. It was so deliciously different from the city. Her eyes looked out over the acres toward the distant mountains, searching for the familiar snow-covered peaks that she could have seen clearly in sunny daylight. God’s country, she thought reverently. How had she ever been able to exist away from it?
“Stop daydreaming and catch up,” Cade was growling. “I could lose you out here.”
“In a little old spring snowstorm like this?” She laughed. “I could fight my way through blizzards, snowshoe myself to Canada, ski over to the Rockies...”
“...lie like hell, too,” he said, amusement gleaming in the dark eyes that caught hers as they entered the lighted interior. “Come on.”
She followed him into the airy enclosure, wrapping her arms tight. “Still no heat, I see.” She sighed.
“Can’t afford the luxury, honey,” he remarked, waving at a cowboy farther down the aisle.
“Is that why it’s so drafty in here? You poor thing, you,” she chided.
“I would be, if I didn’t keep the air circulating in here,” he agreed. “Don’t you remember how many calves we used to lose to respiratory ailments before the veterinarians advised us to put in that exhaust fan to keep stale air out of these sheds? Those airborne diseases were bankrupting the operation. Now we disinfect the stalls and maintain a rigid vaccination program, and we’ve cut our losses in half.”
“Excuse me,” she apologized. “I’m only an ignorant city dweller.”
He turned in the aisle and looked down at her quietly. “Come home,” he said curtly. “Where you belong.”
Her heart pounded at the intensity of the brief gaze he gave her before turning back to his cow boss.
Charlie Smith stood up, grinning at Cade. “Hi, boss, get tired of television and hungry for some real relaxation? Jed sure would love to have somebody take his place—”
“Just visiting, Charlie,” Cade interrupted. “I brought Abby down to see the newcomers.”
“Good to see you again, Miss Abby,” Charlie said respectfully, tipping his hat. “We’ve got a good crop in here, all right. Have a look.”
Abby peeked into the nearest stall, her face lighting up as she stared down at one of the “black baldies,” a cross between a Hereford and a Black Angus, black all over with a little white face.
“Jed brought that one in an hour ago. Damn...uh, doggone mama just dropped it and walked away from it.” Charlie sneered.
“That’s not his mama, huh?” Abby murmured, noticing the tender licking it was getting from the cow in the stall with it.
“No, ma’am,” Charlie agreed. “We sprayed him with a deodorizing compound to keep her from getting suspicious. Poor thing lost her own calf.”
Abby felt a surge of pity for the cow and calf. It was just a normal episode in ranch life, but she had a hard time trying to separate business from emotion.
Cade moved close behind her, apparently oblivious to the sudden, instinctive stiffening of her slender body, the catch of her breath. Please, she thought silently, please don’t let him touch me!
But he didn’t attempt to. He leaned against the stall and rammed his hands in his pockets, watching the cow and calf over her shoulder. “How many have we lost so far?” Cade asked the cow boss.
“Ten. And it looks like a long night.”
“They’re all long.” Cade sighed. He pushed his hat back over his forehead, and Abby, glancing up, noticed how weary he looked.
“I’d better check on my own charge down the aisle here,” Charlie said, and went off with a wave of his hand as the ominous bleating of the heifer filled the shed.
“Prime beef,” Cade murmured, chuckling at Abby’s indignant expression.
She moved away from him with studied carelessness and smiled. “Heartless wretch,” she teased. “Could you really eat him?”
“Couldn’t you, smothered in onions...?”
“Oh, stop!” she wailed. “You cannibal...!”
“How does it feel to be back?” he asked, walking back the way they came in.
“Nice,” she admitted. She tucked her cold hands into the pockets of her jacket. “I’d forgotten how big this country is, how unspoiled and underpopulated. It’s a wonderful change from a crowded, polluted city, although I do love New York,” she added, trying to convince him she meant it.
“New York,” he reminded her, “is a dangerous place.”
She stiffened again, turning to study his face, but she couldn’t read anything in that bland expression. Cade let nothing show—unless he wanted it to. He’d had years of practice at camouflaging his emotions.
“Most cities are,” she agreed. “The country can be dangerous, too.”
“It depends on your definition of danger,” he returned. He looked down at her with glittering eyes. “You’re safe as long as I’m alive. Nothing and no one will hurt you on this ranch.”
Tears suddenly misted her eyes, burning like fire. S
he swallowed and looked away. “Do I look as if I need protection?” She tried to laugh.
“Not especially,” he said coolly. “But you seemed threatened for an instant. I just wanted to make the point. I’ll protect you from mountain lions and falling buildings, Abby,” he added with a hint of a smile.
“But who’ll protect me from you, you cannibal?” she asked with a pointed stare, her old sense of humor returning to save her from the embarrassment of tears.
“You’re just as safe with me as you want to be,” he replied.
She looked into his eyes, and for an instant they were four years in the past, when a young girl stood poised at the edge of a swimming pool and offered her heart and her body to a man she worshipped.
Without another word, she turned around and started back out into the snow.
4
As she walked toward the truck, huddled against the wind, her mind suddenly went backward in time. And for an instant, it was summer, and she was swimming alone in the pool at Cade’s house one night when her father was in the hospital.
She’d been eighteen, a girl on the verge of becoming a woman. Her father, far too ill during that period of her life to give her much counsel, hadn’t noticed that she was beginning to dress in a way that caught a lot of male attention. But Cade had, and he’d had a talk with her. She’d marched off in a huff, hating his big-brother attitude, and had defiantly gone for a swim that night in his own pool. There was no one around, so she had quickly stripped off her clothes and dived in. That was against the rules, but Abby was good at breaking them. Especially when they were made by Cade McLaren. She wanted him to look at her the way other men did. She wanted more than a condescending lecture from him, but she was too young and far too naive to put her growing infatuation into words.
She’d been in the pool barely five minutes when she’d heard the truck pull up at the back of the house. Before she had time to do any more than scramble out of the pool and pull on her jeans, she heard Cade come around the corner.