by Diana Palmer
He realized the stupidity of it, so he drank more. In no time at all he was bleary-eyed and spoiling for a fight.
Cy Parks, usually unsociable and rarely seen around town, had stopped by the joint for a beer and saw him. He had a good idea why Guy was there, and he knew just the person to do something about the situation. He walked right back out the door and drove himself to the motel where Candy was staying.
He rapped on the door with his good hand. She came to open it, still wearing jeans and a tank top, with her long hair around her shoulders. She gaped when she realized who was standing at her door.
“Mr. Parks!” she exclaimed. “Did you come to tell me something else about your operation, for the article?” she asked, voicing the most likely reason for his presence here.
He shook his head. “I phoned Justin Ballenger from my car and asked where you were staying.” His black eyes glittered, and not just with impatience. He almost looked amused. “I thought you might like to know that Guy Fenton is getting tanked up at the local dive. He looks in the mood to break something. I thought you might like to try your hand at keeping him out of jail.”
“Jail?” she exclaimed.
He nodded. “Rumor is that the sheriff won’t give him a second chance if he wrecks the bar again.”
“Oh, dear,” she murmured. She sighed. “Can you drive me out there?”
He nodded again. “That’s why I came.”
She didn’t hesitate. She all but jumped into the passenger seat of his luxury car and fastened her seat belt before he climbed in behind the wheel.
“I made him fly,” she said heavily. “I had an asthma attack at the Caldwell place and he had to get me back to town in a hurry, so he had to fly Matt’s plane. I brought back all the memories of the girl who died in the plane crash. Poor Guy.”
He glanced at her. “Are you sure that’s what sent him out to the bar?”
“I can’t think of anything else.”
He smiled to himself. “Justin says you told him you’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“That’s right,” she said with resignation. “The boss only gave me a week to do these articles. I can’t stay any longer.”
He didn’t reply to that. But his whole look was speculative as he drove. He pulled up at the bar and switched the engine off.
“Want me to go in with you?” he asked.
She glanced at the sheer size of him, and almost said yes. He looked tough, and she knew that having a damaged hand wouldn’t save any man who challenged him. But it would be cowardly to take protection in with her, she considered.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll go in by myself,” she said.
“I’ll wait out here, then,” he replied. “Just in case.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
She got out and walked warily into the bar. There was a hush, nothing like the regular sounds of clinking glasses and conversation and loud music. The band was sitting quietly. The customers were grouped around a pool table. As she watched, a pool cue came up and went down again and there was an ominous cracking sound, followed by a thud and a louder bump.
Following her intuition, she pushed through the crowd. Guy was leaning over a cowboy with a bleeding nose, both big fists curled and a dangerous look on his face.
She moved right up to him, without hesitation, and caught one of his big fists in her hands.
He jerked upright and stared at her as if he was hallucinating.
“Candy?” he rasped.
She nodded. She smiled with more self-confidence than she felt. “Come on, Guy.”
She tugged at his fist until it uncurled and grasped her soft hand. She smiled shyly at the fascinated audience and tugged again, so that Guy stumbled after her.
“Don’t forget your hat!” a cowboy called, and sailed Guy’s wide-brimmed hat toward them. Candy caught it.
There were murmurs that grew louder as they made it to the front door.
Guy took a deep breath of night air on the steps and almost keeled over. Candy got under his arm to steady him.
“My God, girl, you shouldn’t…be here,” he managed to say, curling his arm closer. “Anything could have happened to you in a joint like this!”
“Mr. Parks said they’d arrest you if you broke it up again,” she said simply. “You rescued me. So now I’m rescuing you.”
He began to chuckle. “Do tell?” he drawled. “Well, now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?” he asked in a sensuous tone.
“If she had any sense, she’d lay a frying pan over your thick skull,” Cy Parks muttered. He moved Candy out of the way and propelled Guy to the car. He shoved him headfirst into the backseat and slammed the door after him.
“We’ll drop him off at the feedlot and then I’ll take you home. Justin can send somebody for the truck.”
“What are you doing here?” Guy asked belligerently. “Did she bring you?”
“Sure,” Cy said sarcastically as he cranked the car and pulled it out of the parking lot onto the highway. “She drove my car to my house and tossed me in and forced me to come after you.”
Guy blinked. That didn’t sound quite right.
“I’m sorry I made you fly,” Candy said, leaning over the backseat to look at Guy. “I know that was what did this to you.”
“What, flying?” he murmured in some confusion. He pushed back sweaty hair. “Hell, no, it wasn’t that.”
“Then what was it?” she asked hesitantly.
“You want to go home,” he said heavily. He leaned back and closed his eyes, oblivious to the rapt stare of the woman in the front seat. “You want to walk off and leave me. I had a job I was beginning to like, but if I can’t have you, I have nothing worth going on for.”
Cy exchanged an amused glance with a shocked Candy. “What if she stayed?” Cy asked. “What good is a man who gets stinking drunk every Saturday night?”
“If she stayed I wouldn’t have any reason to get drunk every Saturday night,” Guy muttered drowsily. “Could get a little house, and she could plant flowers,” he murmured on a yawn. “A man would work himself to death for a woman like her. So special…”
He fell asleep.
Candy felt her heart try to climb right out of her body. “He’s just drunk,” she rationalized.
“It’s like truth serum,” Cy retorted. “So now you know.” He glanced at her. “Still leaving town?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked, wide-eyed. “After a confession like that? I am not! I’m going to be his shadow until he buys me a ring!”
Cy Parks actually threw back his head and laughed.
Guy came to in a big bed that wasn’t his own. He opened his eyes and there was a ceiling, but it didn’t look like the ceiling in the bunkhouse. He heard soft breathing. Also not his own.
He turned his head, and there, beside him in the bed with just a sheet covering her, was a sleeping Candy Marshall. She was wearing a pink silk gown that covered only certain parts of her exquisite body, and her long dark hair was spread over the white pillow like silk.
He looked down and found that he was still wearing last night’s clothing, minus his boots. He cleared his throat and his head began to throb.
“Oh, boy,” he groaned when he realized what had happened. The question was, how had he gotten here, in bed with Candy?
She stirred. Her eyes opened, dark velvet, soft and amused and loving.
“What are we doing here in bed together?” he asked dazedly.
“Not much,” she drawled.
He chuckled softly and grabbed his head.
“How about some aspirin and coffee?” she asked.
“How about shooting me?” he offered as an alternative.
She climbed out of the bed, graceful and sensuous, and went to plug in the coffeemaker that was provided with the room. She had cups, and she went to her purse and pulled out a bottle of aspirin. Before she shook them out, she paused to use the preventative inhalant Dr. Morris had prescribed.
&
nbsp; “Good girl,” Guy murmured huskily.
She glanced at him and smiled. “Well, I have to take care of myself so I can take care of you.” She brought him the aspirin and a glass of water. “Take those,” she directed. “And if you ever go into a bar again on Saturday night, I really will lay an iron skillet across your skull!”
“They’ll arrest you for spousal abuse,” he pointed out.
“Put your money where your mouth is,” she challenged.
He chuckled weakly as he swallowed the aspirin. “Okay. Will you marry me, warts and all?”
“We’ve only known each other a week,” she stated. “You might not like me when you get to know me.”
“Yes, I will. Will you marry me?”
She smiled. “Sure.”
He laughed with pure delight. “Care to come down here and seal the bargain?”
She hesitated. “No, I don’t think so. You’re in disgrace. First you can get over the hangover and clean yourself up a bit.”
He sighed. “I guess I do look pretty raunchy.”
She nodded. “And you still smell like a brewery. By the way, I don’t drink. Never.”
He held up a hand. “I’ve just reformed. From now on it’s coffee, tea or milk. I swear.”
“Good man. In that case, we can get married next week. Before Saturday night,” she added with a smile.
He opened his eyes wide and studied her with possessiveness. “It wasn’t flying at all,” he said softly. “It was losing you. I couldn’t bear the thought that you were going to go off and leave me. But this time the alcohol didn’t work. I’ve lost my taste for bars and temporary oblivion. If you’ll marry me, I won’t need temporary oblivion. I’ll build you a house where you can plant flowers.” His gaze dropped down over her slender body. “We can have children, if it’s safe for you.”
She beamed. “I’d like that.”
“It might be risky.”
“We’ll go ask Dr. Morris,” she assured him. “Since I’m going to be living in Jacobsville, he can be my doctor.”
He just stared at her, his heart in his eyes. “I didn’t know it could happen like this,” he said aloud. “I thought love died and was buried. It isn’t.”
She smiled brilliantly. “I never even knew what it was. Until now.”
He opened his arms and she went down into them, and they lay for a long time just holding each other tightly in the shared wonder of loving.
He lifted his head finally and looked down at the treasure in his arms. “I suppose, if you want to, I can go back to my air cargo company and run it.”
“Do you want to?”
He thought about that for a minute before he answered her. “Not really,” he said finally. “It was a part of my life that I enjoyed at the time, but there will always be bad memories connected with it.” He put his hand over her lips when she started to speak. “I’m not still grieving for Anita,” he added quietly. “I’ll always miss her a little, and regret the way she died. But I didn’t bury my heart with her. I want you and a family and a home of our own. I enjoy managing the feedlot. In many ways, it’s a challenge.” He grinned. “And if you’d take over publicity for the local cattlemen’s association, we’d have a lot more in common.”
She beamed. “Would they let me?”
“They’d beg you!” he replied. “Poor old Mrs. Harrison is doing it right now, and she hates every word she writes. She’ll make you cakes and pies if you’ll take it off her hands.”
“In that case, I might enjoy it,” she replied.
“And we’d get to work together,” he murmured, bending to kiss her gently. He lifted his head. “Oh, Candy, what did I ever do to deserve someone like you?” he asked huskily. “I do love you so!”
She pulled him down to her. “I love you, too.”
Neither of them questioned how love could strike so suddenly. They got married and spent their honeymoon in Galveston, going for long walks on the beach and lying in each others’ arms enjoying the newness of loving in every possible way.
“My mother wants us to come and visit her when we’re back from our honeymoon,” she mentioned to Guy after a long, sweet morning of shared ecstasy. She curled closer to him under the single sheet that covered them. “She said she hoped we’d be happy.”
“We will be,” he mused, stroking her long hair with a gentle hand. “Do you want to go?”
“I think it’s time I made my peace with her,” she replied. “Maybe I’ve been as guilty as she has of living in the past. Not anymore,” she added, looking up at him with love brimming over in her eyes. “Marriage is fun,” she said with a wicked grin.
“Is it, now?” He threw off the sheet and rolled over onto her with a chuckle. “Was that a hint?” he whispered as he began to kiss her.
She slid against him with delight and wrapped a soft, long leg around his muscular one. “A blatant hint,” she agreed, gasping as he touched her gently and his mouth settled on her parted lips.
“Anything to oblige,” he whispered huskily.
She laughed and gasped, and then clung to him as the lazy rhythm made spirals of ecstasy ripple the length of her body. She closed her eyes and gave in to the pleasure. Love, she thought while she could, was the most indescribable of shared delights.
Outside the window, waves crashed on the beach and seagulls dived and cried in the early-morning sunlight. Somewhere on the boundary of her senses, Candy heard them, but she was so close to heaven that the sound barely registered.
When the stormy delight passed, she held an exhausted Guy to her heart and thought of flower gardens in a future that was suddenly sweet and full of joy. She closed her eyes and smiled as she dreamed.
Guy felt her body go lax. He looked down at her sleeping face with an expression that would have brought tears to her eyes. From a nightmare to this, he was thinking. Candy had made him whole again. She’d chased away the guilt of the past, and the grief, and offered him a new heart to cherish. He knew without a doubt that his drinking days were over. Candy would make his happiness, and he’d make hers.
He settled back down beside her and drew the sheet over them both. In his mind, before he fell asleep, he was already working on plans for that small house where he and Candy would share their lives.
LUKE
“That best portion of a good man’s life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love.”
—William Wordsworth
Chapter One
Luke Craig was a rancher, and he’d battled all sorts of problems over the years. He’d had to deal with falling beef prices, closed markets, crazy winters and bad fall harvests that required him to buy feed for his livestock over the winter. But the problem that had just cropped up was one he’d never seriously considered. A summer camp for underprivileged city kids had just opened right next door to his ranch, and he was having to come to terms with invaders who made the Mexican Army in 1836 look tame by comparison.
To top it all off, the owner of the camp was a feisty young woman who seemed to have cornered the market on bad temper and stubbornness. Her name was Belinda Jessup. He knew her brother, Ward, slightly, having met him at cattlemen’s association meetings in the past. Ward was more interested in oil wells than cattle, as a rule, but he still kept his membership in various groups that dealt with livestock. Belinda didn’t resemble her brother all that much, but they shared the same hot temper. She wasn’t bad looking, with her dark blond hair and green eyes and outgoing personality. Strange how she rubbed Luke the wrong way.
His sister Elysia liked Belinda. Of course, Elysia had just married Tom Walker, the father of her young daughter Crissy, and right now, in the glow of nuptial bliss, she liked everyone. Luke, living alone for the first time in years, was heartily sick of his own cooking and his own company. Belinda’s project made him even more irritable than he normally was.
It had come as a shock to discover that old man Peterson had sold the river property that adjoined Luke’
s to an outsider. It had been sudden, too. The land hadn’t been advertised, not even with a sign on the roadside. One day, old man Peterson owned it. The next, it was being developed as a youth camp, complete with roofed pavilion, small cabins and a pier on the river. Luke’s pasture adjoined the property. It was delineated by a sturdy electrified fence and a steel farm gate with a padlock. The very first morning Ms. Jessup’s city kids came to stay, the padlock was skillfully removed and the gate opened. Neighbors had called the sheriff’s office to complain that Luke’s Hereford steers were roaming the neighborhood—and the highway.
Luke and his men had rounded up the cattle, put them back into the fenced pasture, and the padlock had been replaced by a chain half the size of one that held a ship’s anchor, affixed with eight combination locks.
The next morning, the sheriff’s deputy was back with the same complaint about loose cattle. Luke checked and all eight combination locks were lying on the grass, rusting.
It was inevitable that the rancher would go straight to the source of the problem.
Belinda was working out the next day’s recreation schedule when she heard the sound of a horse’s hooves outside the large cabin that served as her main office. She’d heard about the liberated cattle and she had a cold feeling that retribution was at hand.
She went out to meet trouble head-on. It was trouble, too; a lean, lithe man in denims and wearing an expensive wide-brimmed hat and hand-tooled boots with silver spurs that even her brother would have coveted.
As he came closer, she saw that he was incredibly handsome, with thick blond hair and eyes as blue as a china plate. He had a firm mouth and a square jaw, and an expression on his lean face that could have curdled milk. She didn’t need telling that this was Luke Craig. She’d already heard about him in town, although most people said he was easygoing and friendly. He didn’t seem that way to Belinda.
She held up both hands. “We’re quite willing to pay damages,” she said at once. “I know who the culprit is, and I’ve had words with him. Strong words.”