by Diana Palmer
He shrugged. “It wasn’t for purely selfless reasons,” he said, winking at her. “Bed’s damned cold in early spring,” he chuckled.
She hit him softly. “Beast!”
“Think you can sleep now?”
She nodded. “I feel a little different about it. Maybe I just need time to put things into perspective, after all.”
“If you’d like something to occupy your mind, I’ll take you out to see the rest of the calves in the morning.”
“Oh, boy,” she said enthusiastically. “But what if it snows again?” she asked. “It was awfully cloudy this afternoon and cold as blazes and the radio says—”
“When has snow ever stopped me?” he asked, chuckling. “Night, honey.” He turned and strode off toward the stairs.
When has anything ever stopped you? she asked herself silently.
Except once...she’d never realized until now that he’d really wanted her that night. He’d been so cool and calm on the surface that she’d halfway convinced herself he had only been satisfying her curiosity to keep her from experimenting with younger, more hot-blooded males. But now she began to wonder. She was still wondering when she fell into a deep, satisfying sleep.
7
Cade had offered to take Abby back to see the calves, but by morning the snow had covered Painted Ridge and he was out with his men trying to bring in the half-frozen calves and their new mothers. According to Hank, Cade was cursing a blue streak from one end of the ranch to the other.
“Wants his other gloves,” Hank growled at Calla when he paused in the hall, the familiar wad of tobacco tucked into his cheek. “Ruined a pair trying to unhook one of them damned cows from the barbed wire.”
“He goes through gloves like some men go through food,” Calla grumbled, shooting an irritated glance at Hank for interrupting her in the middle of lunch preparation. “Only got one pair left as it is. You best remember to tell him that!”
“Can’t tell him a damned thing,” Hank muttered, waiting uncomfortably in the hall. His wide-brimmed hat was spotted with melted snow, and his heavy cloth coat was equally damp. “He hit the ground cussing this morning and he ain’t stopped yet. I just follow orders, I don’t give ’em!” he shouted after Calla.
“Is it bad out there?” Melly called from the den, where she was busily operating Cade’s computer.
“Bad enough,” Hank replied. “Hope your fingers are rested, Miss Melly, ’cause you’re sure going to do some typing when we get a tally on these new calves!”
“As usual.” Melly laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Hank, I get paid good.”
“If we got paid what we was worth, Cade would go in the hole, I guess,” the thin cowboy said to no one in particular. He glanced at Abby, who was standing there quietly in her jeans and a blue turtleneck sweater. “I hear you’re going to stay with us till Miss Melly’s wedding. How’re you settling in?”
She smiled. “Just fine. It feels like old times.”
“Far cry from the city,” he observed.
She nodded. “Less traffic,” she said with a hint of her old humor.
Hank looked disgusted. “Give me a horse any day,” he muttered, “and open country to ride him in. If God wanted the world covered in concrete, he’d have made human beings with tires!”
It was the cowboy’s favorite theme, and Abby was looking for a way to escape before he had time to get started when Calla came thumping back down the hall with a worn pair of gloves in her hand.
“Here,” she said shortly, slapping them into Hank’s outstretched hand. “And make sure he doesn’t get holes in them. That’s all there is.”
“What am I, a nursemaid?” he spat out. “My gosh, Calla, all I do is babysit cows these days. If Cade gave a hang about my feelings, he’d give me some decent work.”
“Maybe he’ll set you to digging post holes,” the older woman suggested with malicious glee. “I’ll tell him what you said.”
“You do,” he threatened, “and I’ll tell him what you did with that cherry cake he had his heart set on the other night.”
She sucked in a furious breath. “You wouldn’t dare!”
He grinned, something rare for Hank. “You tell him I like digging post holes, and I’ll do it or bust. Bye, Abby, Melly,” he called over his shoulder as he stomped out the door.
“What did you do with Cade’s cherry cake?” Abby asked with a sideways stare.
Calla cleared her throat and walked back toward the kitchen. “I gave it to Jeb. Cade’s not the only one who’s partial to my cherry cake.”
Abby smothered a chuckle as she wandered into the den. With its bare wood floors, Indian rugs and wood furniture, it was a far cry from the luxury of the living room.
Melly looked up as Abby came toward the desk where the computer and printer were set up. “I didn’t want to desert you last night,” she said apologetically. “Did you tell him?”
“I had to,” Abby admitted, perching herself on the edge of the chair beside Melly’s. “You know Cade when he sets his mind on something. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. He didn’t even say ‘I told you so.’”
“I didn’t expect him to. You underestimate him sometimes, I think.” Melly looked smug. “There’s a brown spot on the carpet in the living room.”
Abby looked guilty. “I was afraid of that, but he wouldn’t hear of my cleaning it up.” She sighed. “He was holding the coffee cup when I told him. He...crushed it.”
Melly closed her eyes for an instant. “I noticed his hand was bandaged this morning,” she murmured. “I wondered why...”
“He said some things that made me think,” Abby recalled, smiling faintly. “He may not be a psychologist, but he’s got a lot of common sense about things. He said I was giving the man who attacked me a hold over me, by dwelling on it. I’d never considered it in that light, but I think he has a point.”
Melly smiled at her gently. “Maybe he ought to open an office,” she said impishly.
Abby grinned back. “Maybe he ought.” She studied her sister closely for a minute as her head bent over the computer keyboard while she typed in a code and glanced up at the screen. The abbreviations were Greek to Abby, but they seemed to make sense to Melly.
“What are you doing?”
“Herd records. We’re getting ready to cull cattle, you know. Any cows that don’t come up to par are going to be sold off, especially if they aren’t producing enough calves or if the ones they’re producing aren’t good enough or if they’re old....”
“Slavery,” Abby burst out. “Horrible!”
Melly laughed merrily. “Yes, Cade was telling me what you thought about veal smothered in onions.”
“That’s really horrible,” she muttered. “Poor little thing, all cold and half-frozen and its mama turned her back on it, and Cade talks about eating it....”
“Life goes on, darling,” Melly reminded her, “and a cattle ranch is no place for sentiment. I can’t just see you owning one—you’d make pets of all the cattle and become a vegetarian.”
“Hmm,” Abby said, frowning thoughtfully, “I wonder if Cade’s ever thought of that?”
“I don’t know,” came the amused reply, “but if I were you, I’d wait until way after roundup to ask him!”
Abby laughed. “You may have a point.”
Melly murmured something, but her mind went quickly back to the computer and her work. Abby, curious, asked questions and Melly told her about the computer network between Cade’s ranches, and the capacity of the computer for storing information about the cattle. There was even a videocassette setup so that Cade could sell cattle to people who had never been to the ranch to see them—they could buy from the tape. He could buy the same way, by watching film of a bull he was interested in, for example. It was a far cry
from the old days of ranching when ranchers kept written records and went crazy trying to keep up with thousands of head of cattle. Abby was fascinated by the computer and the rapidity of its operation. But after a few minutes the phone started ringing and didn’t stop, and Abby wandered off to watch the snow.
“Isn’t Cade going to come in and eat?” Melly asked as Calla set a platter of ham and bread and condiments on the table, along with a plate of homemade French fries.
“Nope.” The older woman sighed. “Said to pack him a sandwich and a thermos of coffee and he’d run up to the house to get it.” She nodded toward a sack and a thermos on the buffet.
“Is he coming right up?” Abby asked.
“Any minute.”
“I’ll carry it out,” Abby volunteered, and grabbed it up, hurrying toward the front door. She only paused long enough to tug on galoshes and her thick cloth coat, and rushed out onto the porch as she heard a pickup skid up to the house and stop.
Cade was sitting in the cab when she crunched her way through the blowing snow to the truck. He threw open the passenger door.
“Thanks, honey,” he said, taking the sack and thermos from her and placing them on the seat beside him. “Get in out of the snow.”
She started to close the truck door, but he shook his head. “In here,” he corrected. “With me.”
Something about the way he said it made her pulse pound, and she shook herself mentally. She was reading things into his deep voice, that was all.
“Hank said you were turning the air blue. Is this new snow your fault?” Abby asked him with humor in her pale brown eyes.
He returned the smile and there was a light in his eyes she hadn’t noticed before. “I reckon,” he murmured, watching the color come and go in her flushed face. “Feel better this morning?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said softly.
He reached out a big hand and held it, palm up.
She hesitated for an instant before she reached out her own cold, slender hand and put it gingerly into his. The hard fingers closed softly around it and squeezed.
“This is how it’s going to be from now on,” he said, his voice deep and quiet, the two of them isolated in the cold cab while feathery snow fell onto the windshield, the hood, the landscape. “I’ll ask, I won’t take.”
She looked into his eyes and felt, for a second, the old magic of electricity between them. “That goes against the grain, I’ll bet,” she said.
“I’m used to taking,” he replied. “But I can get used to asking, I suppose. How about you?”
She looked down at his big hand swallowing hers, liking the warmth and strength of it even while something in the back of her mind rebelled at that strength. “I don’t know,” she said honestly.
“What frightens you most?” he asked.
“Your strength,” she said, without taking time to think, and her eyes came up to his.
He nodded, and not by a flicker of an eyelash did he betray any emotion beyond curiosity. “And if I let you make all the moves?” he asked quietly. “If I let you come close or touch or hold, instead of moving in on you?”
The thought fascinated her. That showed in her unblinking gaze, in the slight tilt of her head.
“Therapy, Cade?” she asked in a soft, steady tone.
“Whatever name you want to call it.” He opened his hand so that she could leave hers there or remove it, as she wished. It was more than a gesture—it was a statement.
She smiled slowly. “Such power might go to my head,” she said with a tentative laugh. “Suppose I decided to have my way with you?” she added, finding that she could treat the matter lightly for the moment.
He cocked an eyebrow and looked stern. “Don’t start getting any ideas about me. I’m not easy. None of you wild city girls are going to come out here and lure me into any haystacks.”
She let her fingers curl into his and hold them. “It’s a long shot,” she said after a minute.
“My grandfather won this ranch in a poker game in Cheyenne,” he remarked. “I guess it’s in my blood to take long shots.”
“Won’t it interfere with your private life?” she added, hoping her question wouldn’t sound as if she were fishing.
He studied her closely for a minute before he replied. “I thought you knew that I don’t have affairs.”
She almost jumped at the quiet intensity of his eyes. “I...never really thought about it,” she lied.
“I’ve had women,” he said, “but nothing permanent, nothing lasting. There’s no private life for you to interfere with.”
She was suddenly fiercely glad of that, although she didn’t know how to tell him. “It’s not going to be very easy,” she confessed shyly. “I’ve never been forward, even before this happened.”
“I know,” he murmured, smiling down at her. “I could sit here and look at you all day,” he said after a minute, “but it wouldn’t get the work done,” he added ruefully.
“I could come and help you,” she volunteered, wondering at her sudden reluctance to leave him.
“It’s too cold, honey,” he said. His eyes wandered over her soft, flushed face. “Feel like kissing me?”
Her heart jumped. She felt a new kind of excitement at the thought of it. “I thought you weren’t easy,” she challenged as she slid hesitantly toward him.
Surprise registered in his eyes, but only for a second. “Well, only with some girls,” he corrected, smiling wickedly. “Come on, hurry up, I’ve got calves to deliver.”
“Young Dr. McLaren,” she murmured, looking up at him from close range, seeing new lines in his face, fatigue in his dark eyes. There were a few silver hairs over his temples and she touched them with unsteady fingers. “You’re going gray, Cade.”
“I got those because of you, when you were in your early teens,” he reminded her. “Hanging off saddles trying to do trick riding, falling into the rapids out of a rickety canoe, flying over fences trying to ride Donavan’s broncs...my God, you were a handful!”
“Well, Melly and I didn’t have a mama,” she reminded him, “and Dad was in poor health from the time we got in grammar school on. If it hadn’t been for you and Calla and the cowboys, I guess Melly and I wouldn’t have made it.”
“Stop that,” he growled. “And don’t make me out to be an old man. I’m just fourteen years older than you, and I never did feel like a relative.”
She put her fingers against his warm lips and felt their involuntary pursing with a tingle of satisfaction. “I didn’t mean it that way.” She looked into his dark eyes with a thrill of pure pleasure. “Can I really kiss you?”
His chest seemed to rise and fall with unusual rapidity; his nostrils flared under heavy breaths. “Do you want to?”
“I...I want to.” She reached around his neck to pull his dark head down to hers, letting her fingers savor the thick coolness of his hair. Her eyes fell to his hard lips and she noticed that they didn’t part when hers touched them, as if he were keeping himself on a tight rein to prevent the kiss from becoming intimate.
She liked the warmth of his mouth under hers, and she liked the faint rasp of his cheek where her nose rubbed against it as she pressed harder against his lips. His breath was even harder now but he wasn’t moving a muscle. With a quiet, trusting sigh she eased away from him and looked up.
His face was rigid, his eyes blazing back at her. “Okay?” she asked uncertainly, needing reassurance.
A faint smile softened his expression. “Okay.”
She frowned slightly, studying his set lips. “You kept your mouth closed, though,” she said absently.
“I don’t think we need to go that far that fast, baby,” he said quietly.
He moved away from her, his hand going to the ignition to start the truck and let it idle. “It’s like le
arning to walk. You have to do it one step at a time.”
“That was a nice step,” she told him with a smile.
“I thought so myself.” He raised his chin and his eyes were all arrogance. “Are you going to need an engraved invitation every time from now on?”
“I guess I could sneak up on your blind side,” she confessed with a grin. “Or drag you off into dark corners. Maybe if I watch Melly and Jerry I’ll get some new ideas. She said he pushed her into a hay stall and fell on her.”
He burst out laughing, and she found that she could laugh, too—a far cry from her first reaction when Melly had confessed it.
“That sounds like Jerry,” he said after a minute. His eyes searched hers. “It’s what I’d have done, once.”
The smile faded, and she felt a deep sadness for what might have been if she hadn’t been so crazy to go to New York and break into modeling.
“In a hay stall?” she teased halfheartedly.
“Anywhere. As long as it was with you, and I could feel you...all of you...under my body.”
She turned away from the hunger in his eyes with a tiny little sound, and he hit the steering wheel with his hand and stared blindly out the windshield, cursing under his breath.
“I’m sorry,” he ground out. “That was a damned stupid thing to say...!”
“Don’t handle me with kid gloves,” she said, looking back at him. “Melly was right, and so were you. I can’t run away from the memory of the attack, and I can’t run away from life. I’m going to have to learn to deal with...relationships, physical relationships.” Her eyes met his bravely. “Help me.”
“I’ve already told you that I will.”
She studied the worn mat on the floorboard. “And don’t get angry when I react...predictably.”
“Like just now?” he asked, and managed a smile.
She nodded, smiling back. “Like just now.” Her eyes searched his, looking for reassurance. “It frightens me, still, the...the weight of a man’s body,” she whispered shakily, and only realized much later that she’d confessed that to no one else.