Calder Pride

by Janet Dailey

  “What city?” Quint wanted to know.

  “Washington, Saint Louis, but mostly New Orleans.”

  The tap-tapping of her heels across the porch’s wooden floor masked the click of the lock’s release. Logan gave the front door a push, swinging it open, then picked up the bag at his feet and took a step forward.

  “You aren’t going in there, are you, Sheriff?” Quint blurted, then threw a half-worried and half-uncertain look at Cat. Instantly she knew what he was thinking, and a heat started deep in the pit of her stomach and grew from there, along with a mad fluttering of her pulse.

  Halted by the question, Logan frowned. “It’s our home. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “But I thought—aren’t you supposed—”

  “It’s all right, Quint,” Cat rushed as understanding dawned in Logan’s eyes.

  Amused, he ran his gaze over her face, studying the tiny signs of discomfort she showed. “That’s right. A groom is supposed to carry the bride over the threshold, isn’t he? It’s a good thing you reminded me, Quint, or I would have forgotten.”

  “It isn’t necessary.” It was a useless protest, but Cat had to make it.

  “Quint thinks it is, and so do I.” Turning, he set the bag inside the door, then pushed the creaking screen door wider, saying to Quint, “Care to hold the door for us?”

  “Sure.” He hurried to it, his bag thumping against his leg and the porch floor.

  When Logan moved toward her, Cat wanted to back away, but she held her ground. With Quint looking on, she wasn’t about to cause a scene. Something told her Logan knew that.

  He paused beside her, his body momentarily blocking her from Quint’s view. “This won’t be the first time I’ve carried you, you know,” he murmured for her ears alone.

  That was the problem. She remembered too well the sensation of being cradled in his strong arms, that sense of being protected, cared for, and, most of all, safe.

  His arm slid behind her back. In the next second, he was effortlessly scooping her up, catching skirt and all. Reflex had her hands reaching up to circle the muscled column of his neck, her fingers brushing the clipped ends of his hair. His head was tipped toward her. For an instant her eyes collided with the molten gray of his. She looked hurriedly away and held herself stiffly, silently denying that she enjoyed any part of this.

  It took only seconds for him to maneuver her through the doorway. But they were excruciatingly long seconds for Cat. The instant he put her down, she took a quick step away from him, needing to break the contact and knit together her tattered composure.

  His glance flicked coolly over her before he turned and went back onto the porch. “Come here, sport,” he said to Quint. “I’ll carry you over, too.” He swung Quint up, bag and all, and carried him into the house. “There.” He set him down, crouching beside him, a hand cupped around Quint’s neck in a man’s caress. “That’s the way it should be done.”

  Quint’s big smile and the absolute joy in his eyes mingled with a look of wonder when he gazed at Logan. There was little doubt that including Quint in the threshold ceremony had been the right thing to do. It was the second time Logan had made a special point to include Quint. Cat was touched by it, however reluctantly.

  TWENTY

  I haven’t gotten around to doing any painting or fixing up inside,” Logan said when Cat turned to look at her new surroundings. “I thought it would be something I could do this winter.”

  She took a few steps into the sparsely furnished living room, her glance skimming the cream-colored walls, bare of adornment. A fireplace stood in the center of the end wall, its carved mantelpiece and wooden front stained in walnut.

  At an angle to the fireplace sat a big easy chair upholstered in a rich green and gold tweed. Finding it much too easy to picture Logan sitting in it, his long legs propped on the matching ottoman, Cat swung her glance to the long sofa, covered in a coordinating dark gold fabric.

  “Look, Mom.” Quint dragged his overnight bag over to an old platform rocker, the only other large piece of furniture in the room. “The sheriff has a fireplace. We can roast marshmallows in it just like at home.”

  “We sure can,” Cat was determined that Quint would continue to regard the Triple C as his real home.

  He turned earnest eyes on Logan. “I like ’em best when they’re brown on the outside and all warm and gooey on the inside. I don’t like ’em when they get burnt. Do you?”

  “I don’t know,” Logan replied. “I’ve never roasted marshmallows.”

  “You haven’t?” Quint couldn’t have been more astonished.

  “Nope.” His gray eyes crinkled at the corners. “Sounds like I have a treat in store for me.”

  “We can fix you some, can’t we, Mom? Mom knows how to do it real good.”

  “I’ll bet she does,” he agreed, his glance running soberly to her. “Would you like to see the rest of the house?”

  “Please.” Although she didn’t really want a guided tour, Cat recognized it would be the quickest way to orient herself.

  Logan took them first to the typically large and roomy ranch kitchen with its white-painted cupboards, long wooden table, and ladder-back chairs. An alcove off the dining area served as a ranch office, complete with an old rolltop desk and a metal filing cabinet.

  After pointing out the kitchen’s adjoining laundry and utility room with its rear door to the outside, he led them back through the living room to a hallway that branched off it. “The bathroom’s down here, along with the bedrooms.”

  “Which one’s mine?” Quint wanted to know.

  “This one.” Pushing open a door on the right, Logan reached inside and flipped on a wall switch.

  Satisfied by the sight of a twin bed, dresser, and a corner chair, Quint then voiced his next concern, “Where do you sleep?”

  “Right across the hall.” Logan indicated the door on the left side.

  Two sharp knocks rattled the screen door. “Anybody home?” came the hesitant call.

  “Culley,” Cat breathed her uncle’s name, relief flooding through her, dissolving the tension that had gripped her ever since they had left The Homestead. “Yes, we’re here.” She went eagerly to meet him, aware that Logan followed her.

  The screen door squeaked noisily when Culley opened it. Once inside, he paused and eased the door closed out of habit. Doffing his hat, he gripped it in both hands and stood uncertainly just inside.

  “Hey, Uncle Culley,” Quint greeted him with a child’s simplistic ease. “Did you know the sheriff married my mom today? This is our new house.”

  “You did it, then,” Culley said with a small, satisfied nod.

  “Yes.” Cat unconsciously touched the wedding band on her finger.

  His glance went to Quint’s overnight bag sitting next to the platform rocker. “Guess you’re still gettin’ settled in,” he said, turning his hat in his hands.

  “I was just giving them a tour through the house,” Logan explained. “But it can wait, considering you’re our first visitor. How about some coffee?”

  “Yes,” Cat quickly seconded the invitation. “It won’t take but a minute to put some on.”

  Not giving Culley a chance to refuse, she headed for the kitchen. The others followed at a slower pace. By the time they joined her, Cat had found the coffee in a canister and the filters in a cupboard above it.

  Within minutes the coffee was brewed and poured, and all three were seated at the kitchen table, with Quint on Cat’s lap. The flow of conversation was natural and easy, centering on safe topics like weather and ranching. Listening to the two men exchange information on range conditions they had observed, Cat discovered she could readily imagine other nights spent like this, gathered around the kitchen table drinking coffee and talking.

  Quint snuggled more comfortably against her and rested his head on her shoulder. Looking down, she saw the fight he was making to stay awake. Smiling, she smoothed the hair off his forehead.

  “I think it’s
somebody’s bedtime,” she murmured near his ear.

  “Not yet,” Quint protested without much strength.

  “Yes.” She pushed her chair away from the table and stood, shifting her heavy-eyed child to ride on her hip. “Quint has decided to call it a night.”

  “It’s been a long day,” Logan observed.

  “Yeah.” Prompted by Cat, Quint added, “Good night, Uncle Culley. Good night, Sheriff.”

  They echoed his phrase. For a brief moment, Cat met Logan’s glance. His eyes held a soft, warm look of love and understanding, the kind parents exchange when they see their sleepy child. It was intimate, disturbingly so.

  The memory of it lingered throughout the nightly ritual of making sure Quint brushed his teeth, listening to his prayers, and tucking him into bed.

  Leaving his bedroom door slightly ajar, she exited the room and flipped on the hall light. From the kitchen came the distinctive rubbing scrape of chair legs being pushed over the linoleum floor, followed by footsteps. She was halfway across the living room when Logan and her uncle appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “You aren’t leaving already,” Cat said on a vague note of alarm.

  “It’s late,” Culley mumbled.

  Noting the restless movement of his shoulders, Cat was reminded that her uncle had never been comfortable for long within the confines of four walls. As much as she wanted the insulation of his company, she didn’t press him to stay. Instead she companionably linked arms with him.

  “Why don’t you have supper with us tomorrow night, Uncle Culley.” Pushing through the screen door ahead of him, Cat walked onto the front porch.

  “I don’t know.” He threw an uncertain look over his shoulder at Logan.

  “We’d like to have you, wouldn’t we, Logan?” she challenged when he joined them on the porch.

  “Of course.” His voice was smooth and very dry.

  Culley slanted another look at Logan. “What time?”

  “Around seven o’clock,” Logan replied.

  “Okay.” He shoved his hat on and took his leave of them with a quick, nodding bob of his head, then cut an angle down the porch steps and headed toward the shed barn, moving with a soft-footed silence.

  Cat gazed after him, tracking his progress until night’s gathering shadows swallowed him. “I hadn’t realized he had gotten so thin,” she murmured in concern. “I’ve always known he doesn’t cook for himself, just opens up a can, sometimes eating right out of it. But his arm felt like only bone and sinew just now.”

  “You don’t need to justify the invitation, Cat.” Logan sounded half-irritated.

  It spun her around. “I wasn’t justifying anything. I was making an observation.”

  Logan felt the sizzle in the air and knew the tension between them came from more than just anger. It hardened him. “If you say so. In any case, I agree it will probably be best for a while to have your uncle take his meals with us. It might make them less awkward for both of us until we get used to this—” He stopped, his mouth quirking in a humorless, almost bitter, line. “I don’t know what to call it. That “ring on your finger says you’re my wife, but this isn’t a marriage.”

  “No, it isn’t.” She felt something that was very much like regret, which made no sense at all. “It’s a bit like having a stranger for a roommate.”

  The breath he expelled was heavy with irony. “We aren’t strangers, either, Cat.” Reaching up, he loosened the knot of his tie and unfastened the collar button on his dress shirt, a certain weariness in the gesture. “It would make it a lot easier if we were. Instead of trying to deny this physical thing between us, we’d be exploring it to see where it led.”

  “But that’s all it is—physical.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She ignored the swift rise of her heartbeat and unconsciously twisted the gold band around her finger. “I’m sure. You forget that I know what love is.”

  “Ah, yes, the boyfriend. How could I forget him.” The amused disdain in his voice had her temper simmering again. “He’s dead, Cat.”

  “That doesn’t change how much I loved him,” she fired back.

  “Loved. Past tense,” he countered smoothly. “As I recall, that night in Fort Worth you wanted to feel alive.”

  “And look what happened.” She turned from him, folding her arms tightly across her middle.

  “Yes, we have a beautiful son now.” He dragged the tie from around his neck and jammed it in a jacket pocket. “Maybe you regret that night, but I don’t.”

  “Of course not. You enjoyed yourself immensely.”

  “And you didn’t, I suppose?” he mocked, then snapped his fingers. “That’s right, I forgot—you were drunk that night and can’t remember. But I can.”

  Without warning, without Cat even noticing the step he took to bridge the distance between them, he was inches from her. Too stunned to react, she stood there, unable to breathe, unable to move, her pulse racing.

  “Everything about that night was branded in my mind.” His voice was husky and thick, vibrating between anger and some other emotion. “I remember everything about it—the way you felt, the way you tasted, the way you moved against me.”

  She bowed her head with a small denying shake and tried to shut out the memories his words evoked. “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “Hear what?” he taunted softly, his hands sliding onto the curve of her hips and exerting little pressure to draw her to him. “The way we fit together like we were made for each other?”

  The contact with his long, muscled thighs brought her head up. She flattened her hands on his chest to keep some space between them. The intensity of his eyes blocked any other protest.

  “Or”—his face drifted closer—“don’t you want to hear about all the places I found where you had dabbed your perfume?” Her eyes closed of their own accord when his mouth grazed across her cheekbone to nuzzle the sensitive hollow below her ear, then came back to tease the corner of her lips, his breath warming them. But she refused to turn to them.

  “Or the way you moaned when I touched you.” His hand cruised experimentally up the side of her ribs to her breast, his thumb stroking the underside of it.

  Cat bit back another moan, conscious of the building ache inside. Strength seeped from the muscles in her arms until her hands no longer pressed against him in resistance. She could feel the heat of his skin through his shirt and the heavy thud of his heart. She hated this needy weakness she felt, born out of a desire to feel all those sensations again.”

  “And I know you don’t want to hear about the empty places I filled in you.” His lips moved lightly over hers, forming the words as he spoke. “Or all the empty places you filled in me.”

  That grudging admission broke the few restraints she had left, her lips parting on an indrawn breath of surprise. His mouth was quick to close over them, revealing the hunger he felt for her.

  For too long she had denied her own passions and desires, pretended that she didn’t need the satisfaction that could be found in a lover’s arms. But they were an instinct as basic as life, and too strong to ever be completely repressed.

  When he started to break off the kiss, Cat murmured an indistinct protest, her fingers curling into his white shirt. His mouth came back before all contact was broken, this time with a heat that devoured.

  It was what she wanted; Cat knew that. She wanted him as desperately as she had that night in Fort Worth. This time he was her husband. The weight of the wedding band on her finger was evidence of that. There was no reason not to know the pleasures to be had in his arms. It was absolutely natural and right.

  He lifted his head, his eyes heavy-lidded, his breathing as rough and ragged as her own. “You want me now. Admit it.”

  There was anger in his challenge. Cat reacted to it.

  “Yes,” she hissed the answer and saw the quick darkening of triumph in his eyes. “You can make me want you, Logan. But you can’t make me love you.”

  �
��No,” he said slowly, his expression hardening. “No, I certainly can’t do that.”

  The instant she felt the loosening of his arms, Cat pulled away from him and moved toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll call it a night. One way or another, it’s been a very trying day.” She pulled open the screen door, the screech of its hinge slicing across her raw nerves like chalk across a blackboard. Halfway through the door, she paused and looked back at him with a stiff little toss of her head. “I assume the room at the end of the hall is mine.”

  He looked at her for a long, hard second. “No,” he said flatly and started forward. “It isn’t.”

  Something in his purposeful stride had Cat stepping quickly into the house. “Then exactly which one is mine?” She continued to retreat from him when he followed her into the living room.

  “Truthfully—none of them.”

  “Precisely what does that mean?” An ugly suspicion formed. She stopped, her hands coming to a rest on her hips. “When I agreed to this marriage, I told you I would not share your bed,” she informed him, ready to do battle on that point.

  “And I told you that was your choice.” He took her by the arms and moved her out of his way, then walked into the hall.

  “Wait a minute.” Cat went after him. “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

  “That’s your choice.” He disappeared into the bedroom across the hall from Quint’s.

  Cat wasn’t about to follow him there. “In that case, I’ll take the spare room.” Passing his door, she continued down the hall.

  “It’s full of boxes,” he said from the bedroom. “If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to look for yourself.”

  That sounded suspiciously like the truth. Wheeling around, Cat marched back to his bedroom doorway. “Would you kindly tell me where you expect me to sleep?”

  He came out carrying a pillow, a blanket, and a bedsheet. “The floor or the sofa, take your pick.” Unceremoniously he dumped them in her arms.

  “What?” she said, her mouth agape.