by Jeanne Allan
Allie shut the car door and leaned against her sport utility vehicle admiring the paint filly. Large patches of white splashed her black shoulders and flanks and blazed down her face. The filly’s well-muscled shape and compact build showed why Zane thought she’d make a good stock horse. With her beautiful head, the filly was the kind of horse little girls fell in love with.
And big girls. To Allie, the colorful paint horses symbolized a mythical, magical, romantic Old West.
The paint maintained her vigilance, never taking her attention from Allie. Allie could read the fear and distrust in the filly’s stance, in her stiff mouth, flared nostrils and wide-open eyes. The horse wanted to flee; the enclosed pen gave her nowhere to go.
Allie didn’t need the increased flicking of the filly’s ears to tell her Zane had walked up. She’d sensed him standing in the shadows of the barn’s interior. Watching her. Before he spoke, she said, “A beauty like her, you’ll have no trouble selling her. You don’t need me to train her.” Allie wanted to run as badly as the mare. Coming here had been a mistake.
“Selling her’s not the problem.”
The silence lengthened while Allie watched the filly. She wouldn’t ask why he’d called. She wouldn’t mention the past, his daughter or his wife. They had nothing to talk about. The only thing she wanted to say was goodbye. “What’s wrong with her?” she blurted out and wanted to kick herself for showing interest.
“Some fool over near Rifle decided to play cowboy and raise quarterhorses. No one told him if two solid-colored horses each have a recessive overo gene, they could produce a paint foal with an overo-patterned coat. When he found out he couldn’t register the filly as a quarterhorse because of her paint markings, he sold her for chicken-feed to a kid who’d never had a horse and didn’t have a clue how to train one.”
Allie refused to look at him. “I suppose he mistreated her.” Dumb, dumb, dumb to prolong the conversation when Allie had no intention of helping with the filly.
“No, but he expected her to act like a ten-year-old trained mare, and when she didn’t, he sold her to a spoiled teenage girl who thought the filly was cute and whipped her when she wasn’t. The girl sold her to a man who bought the filly for his daughter and he turned her over to one of his hands who tried to break the filly through fear and punishment. When the owner told me about the paint, I thought she deserved another chance.”
To a stranger, their conversation might sound normal, but Allie heard the tension in Zane’s voice.
The filly watched them apprehensively. Experience had taught her humans couldn’t be trusted. She didn’t know she could trust Allie. Or Zane. No matter what Zane had done to Allie, he’d never abuse an animal. “You could train her,” Allie said.
“You get her started and I’ll finish her.”
Her cue to refuse, but the filly’s fear tugged at Allie’s heart. The wrong approach could ruin the horse forever. Allie walked around her SUV to the driver’s side. “She’ll take time.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
“I’ll see how it goes.” The setting sun heated the side of her face. “With Cheyenne away, I’m running the agency by myself, so I’ll have to schedule around work.”
“I heard you resigned your teaching position.” He paused. “Want me to bring in a horse for you tomorrow?”
“I’ll bring Copper. Nothing spooks her.”
“Would you like a cup of coffee? Some iced tea or lemonade?”
“No.” Allie reached for the door handle. All she wanted was to escape.
He couldn’t let her go. Not yet. Zane pushed against the car door, preventing her from opening it. There were so many things he wanted to say to her. About how much he’d missed her. How much he regretted hurting her. How much he loved her.
Afraid to say any of it, he said, “We’ve known each other a long time, Allie. Couldn’t we at least try to be friends?”
“No.” She directed a cool look at him. “I want to be able to trust my friends. Move your hand before you lose it.”
“I’d give anything, my right arm if I could, if it would change what happened.”
“How dramatic,” she said lightly. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you, you can’t change the past?”
He wanted to smash through the thick wall she’d built around herself, but he didn’t know how. “I didn’t plan to hurt you.” Her face dismissed his words for the inadequate excuse they were.
“I lived.” She pushed at his arm to remove his hand from her car door.
Her touch sent a shock of longing through him. He wanted to explain. He wanted understanding. Forgiveness where forgiveness was impossible. He wanted her to love him. “Just listen to me.” Zane plunged ahead before she could argue. “You told me to go away, said I was too much like your father. You said you’d never marry me.” She’d sounded so adamant, he hadn’t tried to dissuade her, but had stumbled to his truck and driven to the nearest bar.
“I was angry and hurt, and Kim listened to me. I didn’t sleep with her to get back at you.” Allie flung up her head, making no effort to hide her disbelief. “All right,” Zane said savagely, “maybe I did. Maybe I wanted to prove to you that another woman wanted me in spite of all those flaws you’d enumerated at great length.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, I proved something, didn’t I? I proved I was every bit as immature and irresponsible as you said I was.”
She didn’t bother to disagree. Zane doggedly continued. “No matter how juvenile my reasons for sleeping with Kim, she became pregnant with my child. I couldn’t ignore the situation. I had to marry her.” Despite what Allie believed, that was the first time he’d ever gotten drunk. The first and only. Although when he realized the bitter cost of his shameful behavior, he’d been tempted to drown his troubles in alcohol. “It wouldn’t have been fair to marry her and then refuse to try to make the marriage work. I hoped we could be comfortable together, raise our child. I intended it to be a real marriage.”
He held Allie’s gaze. “In every way.” The way her eyes darkened told him she knew what he meant. He locked his hands on Allie’s arms, forcing her to stay and listen. “Our marriage was not a success.”
“I’m not interested.”
An urgent need to break through the barriers she’d erected compelled him to go where he knew he had no business going. “Get interested. Ask me why our marriage didn’t work.”
“I don’t care why.”
His fingers tightened. “Ask me,” he ordered through clenched teeth.
This time he had no trouble reading her face. She wanted to tell him to go to hell. She wanted to ask.
She gave a long-suffering sigh. “All right. Why didn’t your marriage work?”
Her patronizing voice filled him with fury. He was practically on his knees, and she wanted him to think she was humoring him. She couldn’t quite carry off a contemptuous twist of her lips. Or disguise the heaving of her breast. Zane tossed common sense in the dirt. “This, is why.”
She made an O of surprise with her mouth as he lifted her to her toes. He kissed her before she had a chance to argue. Her body went stiff as a fence post. He wanted to toss her down on the ground and rip that filthy shirt off her. He wanted to nuzzle her breasts and wrap her long legs around him. He wanted to touch her in a million and one ways and places. He allowed himself to touch nothing but her mouth and her arms.
Allie didn’t respond, but she didn’t pull away. His body hardened as he feasted on the fullness of her bottom lip. She hated her lower lip, thought it pouty. Loving it, he ran his tongue over it. When her mouth softened, he slid the tip of his tongue between her parted lips.
Her breathing quickened. She wasn’t as disinterested as she pretended. Her body betrayed her arousal. Zane wondered how far he could go, and his body grew so tight at the thought he almost lost control.
Knowing she’d never forgive him if he did what he longed to do, Zane eased his grip and stepped back. His shallow, rapid breathing echoed hers. He didn’t care i
f she noticed. “I think you get the picture.”
Despite the pulse racing in her throat and the breathing she couldn’t control, she tried to act cool and unaffected by his kiss. “I get the picture. You forced your kisses on your wife, and she didn’t like them any better than I do.” Allie’s voice barely shook. “Do not kiss me again.”
She deliberately misunderstood him. Just as she was deliberately ignoring her response to his kiss. Fighting her feelings and fighting him. He wanted to smile. Allie would go down fighting. He did smile at that. He liked a good fight.
When he won. His smile vanished.
He’d been stupid to risk everything by kissing her. He’d waited five years. He could have waited longer. Given her time.
If that much time existed.
He wanted to kiss her again. Instead he brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “I won’t kiss you again until you want to kiss me.” The words he’d meant as compliance with her wishes echoed arrogantly.
Quick anger flashed in her eyes before they narrowed with cunning. “It’s a deal. We won’t kiss again until I want to kiss you.” Taking his silence for agreement, Allie reached for the car door handle.
“Who’s here, Daddy?”
Hannah’s voice came from the direction of the house. Zane didn’t take his eyes off Allie. “Allie Lassiter. The lady you met at the wedding.”
“I wanna see Allie.”
“I have to leave.”
Zane held on to the door. “You can stay long enough to say hello to Hannah.”
“I’m not interested in saying hello to your daughter.”
Her cold, brittle voice cut like ground glass in his gut. He’d done this to her. Nothing he could do or say would ever change that fact. Or reach the depths of his regret. She’d agreed to help the filly. She would come to his ranch. He could see her. Talk to her. That would have to be enough.
Hannah skipped to his side. “Hi, Allie. How come you’re here?”
“To see the paint,” Allie answered curtly.
Zane smiled down at his ragamuffin of a daughter. She looked as bad as Allie in her dirty jeans and shirt. She’d lost another button. He’d be glad when she learned to do her own mending. Little needles and his big hands didn’t go together.
“Isn’t she beautiful? Daddy said she has to go to school. He said you’re a teacher.”
“I used to be. I don’t teach anymore.”
Red curls bobbed as Hannah nodded her head vigorously and pointed to the filly. “Daddy said you’re gonna teach her. He promised.”
Hannah had a habit of taking every word he said as a kind of pronouncement from on high. Zane smiled wryly at Allie.
She glared back. “Your father’s good at making promises. He’s not very good at keeping them.” Jamming her key into the ignition, Allie added in a tight voice, “I won’t be back.”
He couldn’t believe it. Damn it, she’d been a teacher. She ought to know how kids interpreted things. She did know. Hannah’s remarks had given her the excuse she wanted
Zane wanted to throw back his head and howl in despair. Frustration and pain boiled up from deep inside him. Slamming her car door shut, Zane braced his hands on the rolled-down window and stuck his face close to hers.
“Does this make you feel better, Alberta? I betrayed you so you’re refusing to help a blameless filly and rejecting a little girl who’s reaching out to you for friendship. Do you think sinking to my level will make you feel better? I’ve got news for you, honey. Life down here in the slime pits is dark and dirty and rank. and you’ll hate yourself from the moment you wake up in the morning until you work yourself into an exhausted sleep at night. And every time you look in a mirror, you’ll loathe the person looking back at you.”
“My, don’t we feel sorry for ourselves? Why don’t you have a beer and forget your troubles? It worked for you before.”
Her words slashed painfully deep. Zane dropped his hands and stepped back. Allie’s car roared into life and tore out of the ranch yard. The dust swirling around his boots smothered the false crumbs of hope he’d secretly nourished.
A car honked behind her. Allie checked her rearview mirror as an unfamiliar car flashed around her. Her eyes darted back to the mirror and her own image. She looked no different. The same blue eyes, shaggy blond hair, chopped-off chin, ordinary nose. Only the mouth seemed different. As if it didn’t belong to her. Because she didn’t want to lay claim to a mouth that could say such horrible, hurtful words. The ugly taunt replayed itself endlessly in her mind.
Hateful words. Said in a reasonable, quiet tone of voice, which made them all the more hateful. “Proud of yourself, Alberta Lassiter?” she mocked her twin in the mirror. Worse was the shameful knowledge Zane had been right. She’d refused to help the filly because she didn’t have the power to hurt Zane the way he’d hurt her.
Allie pulled over to the side of the road and parked. She’d always thought of herself as a good person. Condemning others for callous and uncaring behavior, she’d set herself up as a paragon of goodness and mercy. Prided herself on her compassion.
Closing her eyes, she leaned back against the headrest. She was a fraud, her behavior a total sham, her heart as black as three of the filly’s legs.
She wanted to blame Zane Peters for pulling her down. “The slime pits,” he’d said. “Dark and dirty and rank.” He’d put himself there.
He couldn’t put her there. Only she could.
Starting the engine, Allie retraced her route.
The paint filly had joined a small herd in a nearby pasture. Zane stood by the corral watching the horses. His daughter sat on the top rail, leaning back against her father’s chest. Allie forced her legs to carry her across the yard.
Zane didn’t turn as Allie leaned on the corral beside him.
The child peeked around her father, then curled tighter into Zane. Her thumb sought her mouth.
“I apologize for what I said.” For all Zane’s response, Allie could have spoken a foreign language. “And I’m sorry I said it in front of your daughter.”
Moments passed before Zane spoke. “I haven’t had a drop of any kind of alcohol since that night.”
“That’s good.” Allie drew on a rail with her finger. She knew he meant the night he’d impregnated Kim Taylor.
The sun took its warmth below the mountain peaks. Zane straightened, and lifting his daughter from the railing, settled her on his shoulders. “Thanks for coming back. I know how difficult it was for you to apologize, and I appreciate it.” He turned toward the house.
Allie rubbed her palms along the seams of her jeans. He wasn’t making this easy for her. “You don’t need to put the filly in the round pen tomorrow. I’ll bring her in.”
Zane didn’t slow his pace. “All right.”
“All right? That’s all you have to say?” she shouted after him.
He stopped. “What did you expect me to say?” he asked without turning.
“You could act a little surprised that I’m coming.”
“I’m not surprised. I knew you’d come tomorrow.”
She couldn’t let it go. “I suppose you knew I’d come back tonight, too.”
At that he turned. “Alberta, sometimes I think I know you better than I know myself.”
“You don’t know me at all. If you did, you’d know I hate to be called Alberta.”
“I know you hate it.” Sliding one hand up and down his daughter’s denim-clad leg, Zane gave Allie a slow smile. “And, yes, Alberta, I knew you’d be back.”
He took his daughter into the house leaving Allie standing there. She hated him. Hated his teasing, his smile, his little girl who wasn’t hers. Hated his wide shoulders and lean hips. Hated that a mere flexing of facial muscles could jolt a person’s stomach and speed up her heart.
Once that slow smile would have sent Allie rushing into Zane’s open arms. Older and wiser, she knew the difference between love and shallow physical attraction. Besides, Zane no longer had open a
rms. His daughter filled his arms.
Her face had told Zane how close he’d come to ruining everything. His only excuse was giddy, overwhelming relief. He’d gambled, remembering how painfully honest with herself Allie had always been. He’d told himself she’d come back. Reminded himself she’d never walk away from an animal in need. He hadn’t realized how scared he’d been until she’d returned.
Then he’d wanted to shout with joy and grab her in his arms.
The years, his marriage, Hannah—they changed nothing. He wanted Allie Lassiter. She’d stood there in ragged, dirty clothes—worn deliberately, he’d bet—her nose pointed snootily skyward, her eyes dark with annoyance, and Zane had wanted to send Hannah to the house and throw Allie down in the dirt and make mad, passionate love to her.
He had to be content with Allie’s agreeing to come to the ranch and help the filly. The animal had enough problems to keep Allie coming for a long time.
But was it long enough for Zane to break through the fences she’d erected around herself? Fences for which he’d supplied the barbed wire and poles.
The reason he’d betrayed Allie came padding on bare feet down the stairs. “Daddy?”
No, he hadn’t betrayed Allie because of Hannah. That he had a daughter was the result of his behavior, not the cause. He smiled at her. “Ready for a story before bed?”
Hannah crossed the room and eyed him solemnly. “How come Allie talked mean to us?”
“Allie didn’t talk... well, I suppose it sounded that way to you.” He scooped his daughter up on his lap. “Sometimes when people get hurt, they sound angry.” Before Hannah could ask where Allie hurt, Zane quickly steered the conversation away from Allie. “Remember when you stubbed your big toe on the footstool the other night?”
Hannah nodded. “It hurt really, really bad and I cried.”
“You were grouchier than a hungry bear. You growled and growled, like this.” Zane made growling sounds and pretended to bite her neck.
Hannah squirmed around until she faced him. “No, no! I growled like this.” She roared at the top of her lungs.