by Ann Jacobs
When she held out her hand he enveloped it between his palms. It was soft and slender, but in her hand he felt the tensile strength of a person who was by no means idle. He envisioned her astride that palomino tethered outside the door, controlling the magnificent animal as easily as he had topped a club submissive last weekend at the Neon Lasso.
Would she want to control a man as firmly as she controlled the magnificent animal she rode? Les looked into her eyes but didn’t sense that driven quality he’d finally recognized in Jessica toward the end of their relationship.
Her smile was warm, not challenging. “My mother named me for her grandma. I’ve always liked the name because I don’t run into a passel of Deidres every time I turn around. It’s nice to meet you, Les. Are you going to take care of me if I get sick?” Her low, teasing words came out with an accent that revealed her local roots but also hinted at a bit of out-East culture. Les didn’t doubt that she’d spent a few years hanging around Ivy Leaguers. That didn’t surprise him, since it was obvious that the Cadens were richer than God.
This one is way out of your league. The voice in his head came through clearly but he brushed off the warning. Deidre touched off unfamiliar emotions in him, as well as lust, so he wouldn’t let the differences in their stations scare him off. He’d toss his brand-new Stetson into the ring. After all, she couldn’t do any worse than toss it back at him and laugh at his impetuousness.
He shot her his best come-on smile. “I’d much rather take care of you when you aren’t sick, chéri. Would you like to go out to dinner with me sometime?” Where they’d go he’d have to figure out. The nearest city worthy of the name was Lubbock, at least a half-hour’s drive beyond the Neon Lasso, which made it an hour and a half trip from here. He assumed since he’d never seen her at the Neon Lasso that she wasn’t involved in the sexual kink that seemed to be the main source of social interaction for the younger adults in the community.
Her dazzling smile nearly took his breath away. “Since you put it so nicely, I’d love to go out with you. Here or someplace a little more interesting?” This time the smile reached her pale-blue eyes and made them sparkle.
Deidre Caden obviously would expect to be taken somewhere way classier than The Corral, though she seemed right at home here. “Is there someplace else nearby?” Les didn’t recall seeing any eateries that had looked promising when he’d driven over to the hospital in Lubbock to be interviewed for admitting privileges. There had certainly been nothing at all that he thought would impress a princess, but maybe she knew some place he hadn’t passed by. “We could always drive over to Lubbock if you don’t mind the stench of the feedlots.”
She wrinkled her nose as though Lubbock wasn’t exactly her favorite date destination. “The Corral’s fine. I’ve been coming here ever since I can remember. If we’re going to go somewhere else, I vote for Dallas.”
Les still hadn’t gotten used to the vastness of this northwest corner of Texas, where ranch acreage often ran into the mid-six figures and folks seemed to think nothing of going hundreds of miles to shop or see a show. He’d driven through Dallas on the way here and the trip had taken nearly six hours. “It’s a long drive there, but—”
“I imagine Deidre’s talking about flying,” Karen said, shooting an indulgent smile her husband’s way, then zeroing in on Les. “I’m sure it must seem weird to folks who come from places where things aren’t so spread out, but around here flying out for a dinner date is just about as common as driving a car. It takes some gettin’ used to, for sure, but at least you go up in Doc’s small plane all the time to go see patients. Obviously you’re not afraid of flying, the way I was the first time Bye took me up in the Cessna.”
“Karen feels more secure when we use the Bar C’s Learjet, don’t you, sugar?” Bye leaned over and gave his wife a kiss that practically sizzled.
Deidre looped her arm through Les’ and stroked the back of his hand, a gesture that made his cock stand up and take notice even before she smiled and spoke in a husky, sexy-as-hell tone. “Don’t mind those two. They haven’t come out of heat since before they got married.”
The sexual electricity between Bye and Karen Caden was evident now, if not as obvious as when they’d indulged their shared taste for exhibitionism at the Neon Lasso for other members’ pleasure as well as their own. It was also as contagious as the flu that had been keeping him and Doc busy since the week before Christmas.
Les wondered briefly if Deidre might share her brother’s lack of inhibition, even though he’d never run into her at the club. “I don’t mind them showing affection in public, do you?” he asked, his tone light.
“I guess not, except seeing them mess around the way they do sometimes makes me wish I had a relationship like theirs.” She paused, her expression pensive before she brightened and shot another thousand-watt smile his way. “If you want to fly over to Dallas for dinner or a show, we can take one of the ranch’s Cessnas. I’m not qualified to fly the jet, and even if I were Daddy wouldn’t let anybody take it up without a copilot. That would be him or Bye, or Mike. He’s the ranch’s pilot and resident aviation genius.”
Les had known since his first week in Caden that the Bar C had a plane. He hadn’t been aware it owned more of them than the sleek twin-engine jet with the distinctive Bar C brand painted on its tail. He had noticed that one pretty regularly as it soared over the courthouse on its way to or from some distant destination.
Although he knew he might never amass enough spare cash to buy his own plane, he loved to fly, even when he used Doc’s ancient Piper Cub to visit housebound patients on distant ranches. “I have a commercial ticket for prop planes with one or two engines. That’s one reason Doc picked me from a handful of potential associates. As Karen said, it’s pretty hard to get around to sick patients in a car.”
Deidre looked at him as though she thought he’d hung the moon. “Wonderful! Let’s go early enough that we can take in some of the sights and sounds of Dallas. We can spend the night and fly back on Sunday morning. Four won’t dare tell me we can’t use the plane, since you’re as qualified to fly it as I am.”
She shot Bye a triumphant look. “Don’t you dare say something like I can’t go somewhere with someone I’ve just met on an overnight. I’m a grown woman.”
“That’s true enough,” Bye said mildly, but he gave her the eye that reminded Les the guy was a pretty serious Dom at heart. “But Les has been working the area for a few months, and Four and I both know he’s solid. I trust him to take care of you.”
Though Bye hadn’t said it, the “unlike other guys you’ve picked up” hung in the air. Les saw Deidre flush, and he made an effort to appear simply pleased that they were going even though he wanted to strangle Bye for having made him sound like a total square. Her speculative look, as if she might be regretting her decision already, inspired him to take the reins himself.
“I appreciate the confidence. I will take good care of her. Any man in his right mind would.” Les gave her a smile, saw the flush turn into something a little less like embarrassment and more like pleasure at the attention. He even dared to stroke his hand along a lock of that blonde hair, give it a playful tug to ease things up. Then he glanced back at Bye. “Who’s Four?”
Bye laughed. “That’s what everybody calls our father. Deidre and me included, most of the time.”
“Bye is Byron Caden the Fifth, but the nickname ‘Five’ never stuck on him. Our mom didn’t like it.” Deidre reached over, grabbed Les’ half-eaten sandwich and took a bite. “Mmm, this is good. It’s been a long time since I tasted Mac’s barbecued beef. We all ate chicken today since we so rarely have it at home. Let’s pop over to Dallas on Saturday if the weather’s good.”
“Okay. Sure.” Les made a mental note to ask somebody to suggest a restaurant in Dallas—one he could afford. He’d hate like hell to find out that dinner for two at a place Deidre might recommend would max out the only credit card he’d gotten on his own. He’d hate to use the
one his father had pressed on him, because doing so would mean the bill would go to Papa, punctuating the fact that he’d made a poor business choice, coming to Caden. “Shall I drive out to the Bar C about noon?”
Deidre snuggled up against him like a friendly kitten. “I’d like that. You can meet Four before we go—if he’s home, that is.” She sneaked another bite of his sandwich but he didn’t mind. He liked the idea of putting his mouth where her pretty lips had been.
Chapter Two
Later on, after he’d seen five sick patients who were willing to trust him instead of waiting for Doc Baines, Les asked the old doctor where he should take a date in Dallas. “We’re going over there Saturday, spending the night and coming back on Sunday morning. I don’t know much about hotels or eateries there, other than fast-food joints along the highways.”
“We?”
“Deidre Caden and me.”
Doc Baines whistled. “She’s a pretty little gal, but from what I hear she’s gone wild in the last year. She’d set her cap for Jack Duval, but that never got off the ground before he took up with Liz Wolfe. On top of that, Mae Caden died—cancer that spread too fast to stop it—and that hit Deidre real hard. Not that it didn’t tear Four and Bye up, of course. Mae always kept the Bar C humming smoothly without anybody realizing all she’d been doing until she was no longer able to do it.”
Then Doc’s expression turned serious. “Everybody loved Mae, but nobody depended on her as much as her little gal. Losing her affected Deidre something awful and sent her off on a tangent, acting as though she was desperate to find some reason for staying alive. According to Four, she wandered around Texas all summer, taking up with no-good cowboys and then running crazy down in San Antonio and Houston. She came back home for good a week or so before Christmas. It will do her good to find herself a nice, clean-cut boy and settle down. You’ll be good for Mae’s little girl.”
So that was the reason for the hints of sadness Les had glimpsed in Deidre’s beautiful eyes over at The Corral. He wondered if Deidre might run “wild” during their Dallas overnight, and if the wildness Doc mentioned was her way of begging a man to take a strong—a dominant—hand with her. That made him want to protest at the nice, boring description Doc had just hung on him but he bit his tongue and just asked blandly, “Well, where do you think she’d like to go to eat?” He doubted any place his fellow members of the Neon Lasso BDSM club might suggest would impress a vanilla princess, and the idea she might be anything but vanilla was likely wishful thinking.
Doc mentioned a few places then snapped his fingers. “Don’t make dinner reservations. Take her down to the West End Historical District. You can probably get overnight reservations at the SpringHill Suites, and there must be at least fifty restaurants within a couple of miles, all with plenty of atmosphere. You can pick among chains like the Spaghetti Warehouse or famous landmarks like the Butcher Shop Steakhouse or Wild Bill’s. If I were you I’d leave my car down near Union Station and take the train in. Parking places are hard to come by, especially on weekends.
“I wish the Piper Cub could handle the trip to Dallas, but you’d have to stop somewhere to refuel. I used to take it over there once in a while, during the summer, but that was when I had dual tanks on it.” Doc sounded regretful and Les felt bad that his boss could no longer pilot his plane.
“Deidre is going to fly us over to Dallas.” If he was going to keep on dating Deidre—and he wanted badly to do just that—Les figured he’d have to lose his ego and just accept the fact that the Cadens were as rich as Croesus and he wasn’t—not anymore. Swallowing his Cajun pride wasn’t going to be easy to do but he’d manage.
“Then you’ll land at Love Field. That’s where Four always puts his planes down when I hitch rides to Dallas with him. He keeps a car there—says it’s cheaper than renting one every time he goes to town.”
“Cool.” Les deliberately tried not to sound awed to learn that Deidre’s father kept a car at a commercial airport in Dallas so it would be available whenever he or his kids took a notion to spend a day in the city. From Doc’s amused expression he figured that he’d failed.
“Don’t be too impressed, son. When a man spends as much time as Four does at the Fort Worth auctions, not to mention his monthly meetings with the moneymen in downtown Dallas, and when his pilot has to ferry parts for oil wells and Bye’s windmills as often as he does, it makes sense to have ground transportation handy. The car’s nothing special—a nondescript sedan that must be at least ten years old.”
Doc picked a couple of charts out of the cabinet and let out a sigh. “I’d better get going if I’m going to get over to see both of my patients and be back before sundown. It’s hell getting old and being told I can’t drive after dark. I’ll leave the office patients for you. Mike Dryden’s bringing little Johnny in at three o’clock to have his ear infection rechecked, and Diego Garcia—he’s the Bar C foreman—should be arriving in a few minutes with a couple of cowboys who got tangled up in barbed wire. From what Four told me when he called while you were having lunch, those idiots will need a few stitches as well as tetanus shots.”
After Doc had left, the reality of his chances for Deidre began to sink in. Who the fuck was he to think he had a shot at her? She couldn’t possibly see more in him than a fledgling family practitioner. He had no prospects of earning more than a modest living at what he was doing.
You’ve got precious little chance of getting control of your family trust fund since you blew off Papa’s plea to stay close to home. You’ve got to be insane asking out a woman who probably spends more in a week than you could earn in a year.
On top of that, Deidre didn’t strike him as being the least bit submissive, though one never knew about that. Maybe it wouldn’t matter after all.
When the bell above the doorway tinkled, Les got up to greet the first of the patients Doc had mentioned.
* * * * *
The few stitches was an understatement. The shallow but extensive lacerations on the two cowhands, neither of whom spoke a word of English, took Les nearly two hours to disinfect and sew up. “How did this happen?” he asked Diego after dressing the men’s wounds and administering a tetanus shot to each of them.
The swarthy ranch foreman shrugged. “They were trying to steal a reel of barbed wire that had been cut into lengths to string between fence posts and re-rolled so it was ready to be unrolled and stapled in place between posts in the pasture as soon as the weather improves. They had no clue how to handle the reel, and when the wire started to come loose they panicked and ended up with several segments of the wire wrapped around them. The harder they struggled to get loose, the more the barbs dug into them.”
Les shook his head, but the foreman’s explanation about the theft clarified why he was carrying that rifle and wearing a lethal-looking pistol strapped on his hip. “Why would anybody steal barbed wire?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. These two had come to the ranch office this morning looking for work, but they’ve got no papers. Four hires a lot of Mexican cowboys but he doesn’t mess with illegals. He wouldn’t have taken these fellows on anyway, even if they’d had green cards. Everybody who works for the Bar C has to be able to speak fluent English because not all of the hands understand Spanish.”
“I see. What are you going to do with them?”
Diego grinned. “Sheriff Atkins has already reserved cells in the jail across the street and notified ICE to come pick them up. They’ll be going back home, probably by the beginning of next week.”
“I guess the only occupant over there will appreciate their company.” Les had been called over to the third floor of the courthouse a few days ago to check out an infected cut on an accused rustler and killer’s right arm.
Diego laughed. “That’s not likely. Frank Williams doesn’t speak a word of Spanish. He hired only Anglos when he was the foreman over at the Laughing Wolf. I don’t imagine he’ll be in jail here much longer. The trial is set for next week. Once
he’s convicted they’ll take him on down to death row at the prison in Huntsville.”
In his short time here, Les hadn’t heard anybody expressing sympathy toward the former ranch foreman allegedly turned killer and rustler. “Most folks around here act as if they think cattle rustling is worse than murder.”
“That depends on who gets murdered. The bastards Frank killed had been working for him in a rustling ring. As folks around here like to say, they needed killing. Rustling cattle means stealing people’s livelihood. I’d better get these guys over to the jail. Four said to tell Doc to send him the bill for patching them up.”
Diego switched to Spanish, punctuating whatever it was he was saying by pointing the rifle toward the door, and escorted his patients out just as Mike Dryden was coming in with his little boy.
“Daddy, why’s that man holding a gun on those other men?” Johnny asked, his eyes glued on Diego and his prisoners as they crossed the street to the courthouse.
“Come on, son, it’s not polite to stare.” Mike hurried Johnny inside, his own gaze questioning when he looked at Les.
“The men got caught up in some barbed wire and needed stitches,” Les said. “Hey, Johnny. Let’s go see what’s happening inside your ears.”
Les led the two into the other exam room and checked Johnny out. “Mike, it looks as though Johnny’s ears are healing up just fine. You and Melissa have obviously been taking good care of him.”
“Are you sure, Doc?” Mike sounded worried but not nearly as anxious as he’d been a week ago when he and his fiancée had brought the little boy in with a raging fever.
Les understood Mike’s anxiety, so he just smiled and nodded at the question he might have taken as a slur on his skill. Mike had reason to worry because he’d just gotten custody of his son back from his irresponsible ex-wife a few weeks ago, only to have the child come down with a severe ear infection just hours after arriving back at Mike’s ranch. “Johnny’s a healthy child. Kids come down with ear and respiratory infections, especially at this time of year. Take him home and enjoy him, okay?”