Sandra Chastain

by Firebrand

  Letty didn’t try to control her smile of appreciation. “Thank you, young man. You look like you could use a good meal or two. You’re too thin. Don’t they feed you up there in the wilderness?”

  “Alaska isn’t all wilderness, ma’am. But we don’t get food like this as troubleshooters out on the pipeline. Our cook, Eugene, is into beans, bacon, and biscuits. He doesn’t have much imagination and”—he glanced at Rusty—“he certainly isn’t much for stimulating dinner conversation.”

  “Humph!” Letty said with a sharp look at Rusty. “I expect that he’d be an improvement over eating with a person who seems to have forgotten good conversation is the leavening for a good meal, not to mention the measure of her upbringing.”

  “Letty! We’ll have coffee in the study.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Letty said in a tone of exaggerated servitude. “But you—” she leaned down and whispered in Cade’s ear, “you sneak back into the kitchen later, and I’ll leave a nice piece of pie in the fridge for you.”

  “Icebox pie, no doubt,” he said with a wink.

  “Not on your life, sugar. It’s fresh apple—make my own crust too.” Letty paused and looked at Rusty. “Willadean used to like it best of all, before she got too—too full of—”

  “ ‘Willadean’?” Cade couldn’t help himself. The chuckle that escaped spread a smile across his face he couldn’t control. This redheaded paragon of control was really named Willadean? There was a chance for her yet.

  “Letty, the coffee,” Rusty said curtly.

  Cade gave Letty a wink and ambled to his feet, following his hostess into the paneled room where he’d found her earlier. The fire had burned down. A grandfather clock outside the door chimed out the hour—seven o’clock. Someone had turned on the lamps, revealing a room that was both masculine and comfortable. In an alcove was an oversize oak desk piled with paperwork. An adjoining wing of the desk housed a small computer and printer.

  He lifted an eyebrow. “A computer?”

  “I’m determined to make this ranch a modern, efficient operation, McCall. It has to be. Competition is fierce. The odds for success are against us. There is only so much usable water in the state, and there is an ongoing battle over it between the farmers and the ranchers. I have to know where I am and where the ranch stands at any given moment.”

  “And are you?”

  “Am I what?”

  “Keeping up with the competition, staying ahead of the odds?”

  Rusty couldn’t hold back a sigh. “Sometimes. Sometimes not.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Not that it will make any difference to you, but if you choose to accept my proposal, you’re entitled to know. Drought has changed the way we do business. We’re fighting against government regulations, manpower shortages, higher prices, and the weather.”

  “Pretty much the same problems I have as a pipeline troubleshooter—weather, competition, and maintenance—universal enemies of profit and success.”

  “All of which could change if my new breeding program produces a drought-resistant beef cow, as I expect it to.”

  “Drought-resistant cows? What are you doing—crossing cows with camels?”

  “Almost. As I mentioned when we were flying in, I’ve bought a new bull, from Africa. He’s the first of a new experimental line of cattle that can live on less water for longer periods of time.”

  “Do you really think it will work?”

  “My competition doesn’t.” And neither does my banker, Rusty could have added. She poured the coffee and offered a cup to Cade. “How do you take it?”

  “Straight, just like I do my information. When do we get to the why-hire-Cade-McCall answers?”

  “All right. I’ll try to explain. At least we can get the main issue resolved before we agree on the contract.”

  “And what is the main issue?”

  “The special services I require, Cade.”

  “I’d be interested in hearing about those. I thought range wars went out with the nineteenth century. I’m not a hired gun. I know nothing about cattle ranching, and I don’t have a penny to my name. So what could I possibly have to offer you?”

  She took a sip of coffee and looked down at the cup with a frown. “I don’t quite know how to begin.”

  “Start with the ad. I was under the impression that you were simply a widow who needed a hired hand. Then I learn that you want a man you can groom to be a husband. Obviously, now that I’ve seen you, that isn’t the whole truth. You could probably marry any man you wanted. What do you really want from me?”

  Rusty fought the low-grade tremor that kept her knees unsteady. She put the cup down on the table and turned her back to the probing eyes of the man standing too close to her. It wasn’t too late to back out. She could simply give him a bonus check and say she’d changed her mind. Every sane thought in her mind urged her to do so. Every emotion that she’d kept long submerged surged forward to block out her reservations.

  “Children, McCall. After a reasonable period of time, I want you to give me children.”

  The sip of coffee Cade had just swallowed lodged in his throat somewhere below his vocal cords and around his windpipe. Children? He’d considered that she might want a man, or the “services” of a man, but thoughts like those had vanished the moment he laid eyes on her. This woman could draw men like a honeycomb attracts a hungry bear.

  She turned, forcing herself to face him. “Do you understand, McCall? I want children, several children, as quickly as I can produce them.”

  “Why?” This time there was no disguising the hoarseness in his voice.

  “The answer is simple. Silverwild is my life as it was my father’s. I will not let it end with my death. I was an only child, and my late husband was incapable of giving me children. I want heirs—legal, legitimate heirs. For that I need a husband.”

  “Why me?”

  “That is a bit more complicated. For reasons that I won’t go into, there are no suitable men in the area. I have neither the time nor the inclination to go looking out-of-state. Singles bars and dating services are a waste of time.”

  “What about artificial insemination? I’d think that a cattle breeder would be more than willing to adopt such a procedure.”

  “You’re right. Normally I would. But artificial insemination is time-consuming, expensive, and not always reliable. Aside from the fact that it would be difficult to keep such a procedure secret. Advertising for a man I could secretly interview as a potential husband seemed the most expedient means of solving the problem.”

  “Less emotional, less personal than offering yourself to someone you know, I can understand that,” he admitted. “By choosing an outsider who’s ignorant of the ranching business you can get what you want without losing control. But how can you be sure that I can produce?”

  “I’m not. My investigation simply stated that you have already fathered a child, that you’re a healthy specimen. You have no bad habits and no ties to any place or anybody. However, because of the variables, I’ve come up with contingent plans. We sign a preliminary agreement to—work together for six months. If at the end of six months I am not pregnant, you will be given a bonus and a release from the agreement.”

  “Six months. Not much time to prove myself, is it?”

  “I’m thirty-two years old, McCall. I’m the one who doesn’t have a lot of time.”

  “And if you are pregnant in six months, what then?”

  “We will marry. On the birth of my child I will give you twenty-five percent of Silverwild. Of course, I will continue to operate the ranch just as I do now. After several children are born, we’ll get a quiet divorce, and I’ll buy back your stock. You’ll be a wealthy man.”

  “What happens if you’re not pregnant?”

  “I’ll pay you a flat fee of ten thousand dollars for your service and offer you quarters until you can make other arrangements.”

  “I see.” And in some crazy logical way he did. He
didn’t believe for one minute that she was as unemotional about this undertaking as she was pretending. An unemotional woman would seek out and adopt a healthy child who could be groomed from birth to be the heir. But this woman wanted to bear her own, not one child but several. And that was how she gave herself away. Her child had to be just that, her flesh and blood. He understood her plan. He didn’t understand her need.

  Janie had never wanted a child. Perhaps she hadn’t known she was pregnant at the time she left him, but all the time Pixie was growing up, she’d never told him about their daughter. He’d always believed that her freedom was more important than a father for their child. Now he wasn’t sure.

  Cade had seen Janie as a strong woman. He wondered if she’d been ashamed to let him know the truth when she’d gotten sick. Pixie would have been all she had then, and she wouldn’t have been able to give her up. So in her shame Janie had kept Pixie’s birth a secret. Cade felt he understood Janie better in death than he had in life.

  But there seemed to be nothing hidden about Rusty Wilder. Shocking though it might be, she was open with her plan. Now, with the firelight silhouetting her, Rusty waited quietly while he considered what she’d said. She must have expected him to talk dollars and cents, to ask for special concessions, to make demands. He didn’t.

  He allowed himself to consider her proposal, weighing the pros and cons, trying without success to erase the picture that flooded his mind—the picture of making love to the enticing woman before him.

  With the firelight behind her Rusty could see Cade’s face clearly. His expression didn’t change. The only indication she had of the war waging inside him was the intense look in his eyes. McCall was a realist too. She felt her respect for the man grow. And that wasn’t planned either. This was to be a business arrangement, pure and simple.

  “And what about Pixie?” he asked in a voice that didn’t reveal the extent of his struggle to control his confusion.

  “Your daughter?”

  “Yes, my daughter. She’s already had one mother desert her. I have no intention of going into any relationship that has a built-in escape hatch without also ensuring that every possible means of success is given equal weight.”

  “That’s why we have a six-month trial period.”

  “And what happens at the end of six months if we don’t agree to make the arrangement permanent?”

  “Whatever you wish. You can leave, or you may keep the job and one of the tenant houses with no strings attached. I won’t expect you to take any interest in my child. No one will ever know what happened.”

  “No. I can tell you now that I won’t agree to that arrangement. I’m learning to be a father to the child I have. But if I should have other children in the future, I intend to be with them. So, if I become a husband again, business arrangement or otherwise, it won’t be a temporary arrangement.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, but I am. And there’s another condition to consider, Mrs. Wilder. I’m not an easy man to live with, and from what I’ve seen, living with you won’t be a cakewalk either. Maybe not now, but there may come a time when I’ll get married to give my daughter a good life, but I’ll never have children with a woman who doesn’t want me as much as I want her. If the love isn’t there, the sex had better be.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying, McCall.”

  “Let’s spell it out, Redhead. You know that I fathered a child. What are you offering, on a personal basis? In other words, what assurances can you give me that marriage to you is worth giving up my freedom?”

  “I’ve already told you that once my child is born, I’ll make you a partner in Silverwild. You’ll have the kind of life you’ll never know otherwise.”

  “It’ll be our child, Mrs. Wilder, and money isn’t what I mean.”

  He was looking at her with such intensity that she could almost feel his physical reaction. There was a tightening in the corded muscles of his neck. He stepped forward and reached to place the coffee cup and saucer on the rough-hewn cedar mantle above her right shoulder.

  She jumped.

  As he drew his hand down from the mantle, he grazed her shoulder with his fingertips, sliding them around her upper arm, across her back to clasp her neck. When the other hand moved around her waist, her body gave an involuntary jerk. The fire behind her was nothing to compare with the heat arcing across the scant space now separating them.

  “What—what are you doing, McCall?”

  “Making my own investigation, Mrs. Wilder. I may not like being forced into marriage, but I’ll do it if it’s best for my child. But I’m damned well going to have to want the woman. And she’s going to want me too. And right now you’re going to give me some guarantee that the feeling between us is as strong as I think it is.”

  “I don’t understand.” Her voice was a whisper, barely audible above the wild pounding of her heart and the thundering of her pulse.

  “No, I don’t think you do. But you might as well know, Redhead. I don’t come cheap. I don’t think your detective’s report is quite complete. We both ought to know what we’re paying for.”

  Three

  Rusty gasped.

  Cade turned her around, bringing her face into the light, drawing her closer until her breasts skimmed his chest. He could feel the beat of her heart and the unevenness of her breathing.

  The coals in the rock fireplace became prisms of light reflected in the mirrors of her gown and the turbulence of her green eyes. His fingertips stole through her hair—not coarse as its color might have suggested, but soft, fine as silk. It brushed against his hand like hundreds of tiny jolts of electricity.

  With slow caressing motions he trailed her fingertips up her face. He pulled the combs from her hair and watched the long red locks spill across her shoulders.

  Rusty’s response was intense. She recognized the look of hunger in Cade’s eyes. He was staring at her the way the ranch hands stared at the girls in town when they trucked the herd to market. She hadn’t understood the raw desire that fed that kind of expression until now—now that she felt it too. Cade McCall had turned her body into hot quicksand with no substance and no form. The feeling was heady. She drew in a deep smoldering breath.

  Knowing that she was in danger of losing control of both the situation and her own emotions, Rusty closed her eyes and broke the hot connection between them. No matter how much she might relish the feeling, she couldn’t allow this to happen … on his terms. It was time she pulled back and made him understand how it would be. She’d never played before. Now she’d try. Tilting her head, she parted her lips hesitantly, moistening them with her tongue.

  Cade told himself he hadn’t intended to kiss her. But when she leaned into him, a yearning deep inside caught fire, and suddenly he was assaulting her lips, his tongue inside her mouth, his body molding itself to the woman whose very essence had drawn him like a magnet since he’d first seen her in the airport.

  She wasn’t pulling away. Like a cat, she was making little purring sounds, digging her nails into his back, urging him to greater intensity. Her arms moved up and locked around his neck. Cade felt a tremor sweep through her, rippling up those arms and settling in fingertips that asked for more than he’d expected to give. He slid his hand down the back of the silky dress, past the slick mirrors, feeling the curve of her back and the rounded cushion of her bottom filling his palm as he cupped her boldly to his body.

  Cade groaned. The very air he was breathing was blazing. The woman was burning him up.

  Suddenly Rusty tore her mouth from his and looked up. Her passion-filled eyes glazed with a confident surge of triumph. “I would say,” she whispered throatily, “that I passed your test, McCall. I’d say you want me. What do you think?”

  Her arms slid from around his neck, down across his heaving chest, pausing at his belly button, and coming to rest on what best measured his desire.

  Rusty knew her face was flushed. Her eyes felt dry, open too
wide under his stern gaze. McCall was right about desire. Never in her wildest imagination had she anticipated this response to a man. From the moment she’d laid eyes on Cade McCall, every glance, every word had fanned the flicker of heat that had sprung to life when he’d embraced her.

  But the flame had flared out of control when he kissed her. Her simple plan to make him want her had backfired. It was she who wanted him. Dear God, how she wanted him. Through her fumbling adolescent years of rebellion, through eight years of a marriage in name only, she’d never felt one smidgen of the desire Cade McCall’s kiss elicited from her.

  For a long moment he could only stare at her. Then the beginning of a smile washed across his face, and he let out a long satisfied groan as he nodded. If he’d wondered before whether he was dealing with an angel or a witch, he didn’t wonder anymore.

  “You’re right, Mrs. Wilder, ma’am. I said I’d be damned if I made love to a woman I didn’t want. I think that I could also be damned if I do. But there’s one thing that a realist like yourself will have to admit. The attraction here is mutual.”

  Mutual? Try overwhelming, Rusty thought. The feeling wasn’t subsiding. Pulling away from his kiss had been nearly impossible for her. She wanted more. Now she tried to cover her restlessness and confusion by moving around Cade to the other side of the desk.

  “In the spirit of honesty, McCall, I’ll agree that a mating between us won’t be unpleasant, but there are other considerations.”

  “ ‘Mating’?” Cade shuddered. Mating was the word for what they were on the verge of. He’d talked about making love, but he’d been wrong. Whatever this was between them was pure animal passion, and he’d been as close to taking her as she’d been to giving herself. But it had been Rusty who’d pulled back, and he was still shaken by the kiss.

  “ ‘Other considerations’,” he repeated. “I expect so, but at the moment I can’t seem to think of any.”