A Willing Wife

by Jackie Merritt

  “Repay them? I’m sure neither of them are expecting any sort of payment for a simple dinner invitation. And Papa frowns on birthday gifts.”

  “I don’t consider their generosity simple, Maggie, and I know Ruben’s views on birthday gifts. It’s why I didn’t bring one with me. But I still think some sort of thanks for dinner is called for. Do they enjoy good wine? I could bring them a bottle. Or flowers? Maybe Rosita would enjoy a nice bouquet of flowers. I could phone a florist in Red Rock and have them delivered.”

  “I suppose Mama would be pleased to receive flowers, but, believe me, it’s not at all necessary.”

  “Maybe I should do both—wine for Ruben and flowers for Rosita. Yes, that makes sense. I’ll see to it tomorrow.” And maybe something for Maggie, as well. And for Travis. Dallas was glad he’d thought of it. If he entertained at home, he would ask them all to his house for a meal, but since he hadn’t invited even one person to his home since Sara’s death, he was so out of practice that he wasn’t sure he would even remember how to be a good host.

  Approaching Dallas’s home, Maggie couldn’t help admiring it. It was a lovely house with beautiful landscaping and that lovely little gazebo. She wouldn’t let herself even dream of living in a house like this one day, because she knew in her heart it would never happen. Actually, her dreams were as ordinary as she was, she realized—just a nice little house, a good job and maybe someday a second marriage to a decent man. A decent, ordinary man.

  “I’ll wait in the gazebo while you get your jacket,” she told Dallas.

  There was no good reason for her to wait outside that he could think of. “Maggie, please come inside while I get a jacket.” There was something in her eyes—a reluctance—and he added, “You’re not afraid to be alone with me, are you?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” she snapped.

  “Yes, it would be absurd, wouldn’t it? Come inside. I’ll only be a minute.”

  Bravely lifting her chin to prove how absurd the idea of her being afraid to be alone with him really was, she followed him in. It was a gorgeous house right from the front door, and she furtively looked at everything she could see as he brought her to the living room.

  “Go ahead and sit down,” he told her. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, I’m fine.” Maggie sat on the sofa, and when Dallas left the room she permitted her gaze to wander. It was tastefully furnished and decorated, but she had expected that. What really caught her eye was the painting hanging above the fireplace: a portrait of a lovely young blond woman. Sara, Maggie thought, feeling as though the last drop of blood had just drained from her body. Dallas was still in love with his deceased wife. It wasn’t just her, Maggie Perez, who didn’t stand a chance with Dallas Fortune. No woman did!

  Oh, she was so right not to look for anything real or enduring from Dallas. And she’d been such a fool with him, such a terrible fool. But never again, no matter how long she was trapped at the ranch.

  Dallas returned with his jacket and was shaken by the resentful look Maggie laid on him. He could not stop himself from asking, “Maggie, are you still angry with me? I thought from the way you greeted me today that that was over, but it isn’t, is it?”

  Honesty was all she had left. “No,” she said dully, “it’s not over. But let me add something to that statement. I’m also angry with myself, probably even more so than I am with you. And my anger doesn’t stop there, either. I’m angry because the bank I was working for in Phoenix laid me off. Not because I was a bad employee, but because the new owners of the bank were bringing in their own people. And I’m angry because none of the banks in Houston to which I sent my résumé have contacted me with a job offer. I could go on,” Maggie said bitterly.

  “Go ahead,” Dallas said quietly as he sat on a chair facing the sofa. He wanted to hear it all, everything that made Maggie the distant, angry woman she persisted in being.

  “All right, but don’t say you weren’t warned. I’m angry because my marriage was such a bust, and because my ex-husband didn’t love his son enough to pay child support. Instead he chose to give up all parental rights to Travis.”

  “You don’t mean it!” Dallas looked stunned.

  “Oh, don’t look so shocked. There are lots of deadbeat parents in this miserable world, both mothers and fathers. Good grief, what kind of cocoon have you been living in?” Maggie looked scornful.

  “You’re right, you know. I have been living in a cocoon,” Dallas said with a troubled frown. “Or rather, I was. Until I met you again, I was.”

  “And now I’m supposed to believe that meeting me again made some kind of difference? For heaven’s sake, Dallas, I wasn’t born yesterday,” Maggie said disgustedly. “You let me know from the first what you wanted from me, and it was hardly an indication of a high-minded transformation.”

  “It was one of the worst mistakes of my life, and I’d give anything if you could forget the way I talked to you that day.”

  “Sorry, but some things just aren’t forgettable.”

  “True,” Dallas murmured. “For instance, I could never forget you.”

  “Well, that statement is going to be put to the test,” she drawled sardonically. “When I find a job in Houston, Travis and I will be moving.”

  “Cruz thinks you came home to stay.”

  “So do my parents. Even though I told them that this was just a visit, they refuse to face it. There’s another reason for my anger,” Maggie said harshly. “I’m living off my folks, and I feel guilty as hell about it.”

  Dallas sat back in his chair and tented his fingers about chest level. “So, what it boils down to is that you’re angry at just about everyone and everything.”

  “Close,” Maggie admitted.

  “Well, at least you didn’t single me out.”

  “No, you singled me out, and you managed to get what you wanted, didn’t you? How is it that even nature is on your side? Without that storm I would never have gone to that line shack, and we never would have—” Maggie stopped short of using an explicit vulgarity.

  “We made love,” Dallas said softly. “Don’t you dare call it anything else.”

  Maggie’s face got red, but her courage wasn’t yet entirely destroyed. “Whatever name you give it, we did it without protection,” she said defiantly, suddenly hit with an incredibly strong urge to scorch him with the facts.

  But she’d already told Dallas more than she should have—spewing her anger had been especially unnecessary—when all she’d planned to say was one thing: I’ll be leaving the ranch. While she’d emphasized that point, it hadn’t seemed to affect Dallas all that much. Obviously he didn’t believe it, just as her family didn’t believe it. What was wrong with everyone? Did they think she was talking just to hear her own voice? Couldn’t anyone grasp how important self-sufficiency was to her?

  “Yes,” Dallas said thoughtfully. “We did take a chance, didn’t we?”

  Maggie’s thoughts had gone so far afield that it took a moment for her to align them with Dallas’s comment. “Uh…yes, we did,” she stammered. She fell silent when she saw how hard Dallas was thinking. It could only be about them, and she didn’t want to hear any phoney excuses or remarks. Hastily she got up from the sofa. “I’m going to go,” she said, wishing she hadn’t come into his house for even a minute.

  Frowning, Dallas got to his feet. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I’d rather do a little walking by myself, if you don’t mind.” Her tone of voice indicated that she didn’t care if he did mind.

  Maggie started to leave, and all Dallas saw was her walking out of his life again. He rushed forward, took her arm in a firm grasp and forcibly turned her around to face him. The look of surprise on her face was too apparent to miss, but he couldn’t just let her leave with nothing resolved between them. He’d thought he’d been making some real headway when she opened up and talked about her reasons for being angry, but Maggie could turn on a dime, he realized, and he still had no
idea why she was so angry with him. Oh, he had a few vague suspicions, like the fact he was a Fortune, for instance. But they’d talked about that in the line shack, and it was such a ludicrous reason for anger that he couldn’t accept it.

  “I don’t want you leaving yet,” he said, looking directly into her face. He loved her beautiful dark eyes, but probing their seemingly endless depths provided few clues to her inner self. Then he noticed the sardonic twist to her lips.

  “And, of course, you always get what you want,” Maggie retorted. He was too close to her, and she tried to shake off his hand. “Let go of me, Dallas,” she said threateningly, worried sick that if he didn’t let go of her, she might do something foolish again. He had a powerful hold on her emotions. It was bad enough that she had admitted to herself her physical attraction to him; she certainly didn’t want to do so with him all but breathing in her face.

  “No, I do not always get what I want. Dammit, Maggie, where do you get such crazy notions?”

  “So now I’m crazy?” she shot back. “Is everyone crazy who doesn’t snap to when you want something, Dallas, or is it just me?”

  “I can tell you one thing, Maggie. You’re the only person driving me crazy!”

  “Thank you. You’re very kind.”

  “Cut the sarcasm, Maggie. I know now that it’s something you retreat behind when you don’t know how to deal with a situation. Am I making you nervous, Maggie? Am I standing too close to you? Are you remembering what making love with me was like?”

  She gasped. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Like hell it is. We got along great in bed, and you know it. What I can’t figure out is why we don’t get along as well out of bed.”

  “Don’t strain yourself with that one, Dallas. I simply do not like you.” Her own words stunned her, but what could she do about them now? They’d been said, and she could see in Dallas’s eyes that the possibility had never occurred to him. She felt awful for saying something that wasn’t even remotely true, and she looked away from the pain on his face, the pain she had inflicted with a lie.

  It took Dallas a few moments to recover from the blow she’d just dealt him, and he came out of it a different person. Suddenly he was a man who could fight back, who could say things that he knew would hurt her as badly as she’d hurt him.

  “In that case, I guess I should assume that you don’t have to like a man to sleep with him,” he said, jerking her forward so that she was pressed tightly against his chest.

  “Don’t!” she cried.

  “Why in hell not? We had fun that day in the line shack, didn’t we? Don’t bother to lie about it. A man knows, Maggie, and you were with me every step of the way that day. Let me say it plainly. I’m good and ready for a rerun. How about you?” His mouth covered hers in a rough and punishing kiss; he’d given her no chance to answer.

  Maggie’s heart started pounding. She knew she should be furious and fighting him, but all she wanted to do was to lose herself in his arms. Hadn’t she thought of this a hundred times since the first time? Hadn’t she restlessly rolled and tossed in her bed at night, remembering every detail of his body and how it had felt against hers? How he felt inside her?

  When Dallas realized that she was kissing him back with the same abandonment she’d shown him in the line shack, he gentled his kisses. That was Maggie’s undoing. She tried to get rid of her jacket without disrupting the passion between them. Dallas caught on to what she was doing and helped her shed the garment. Then, without one word of warning, he picked her up and started carrying her toward his bedroom.

  Keeping her eyes tightly shut, Maggie said nothing. She couldn’t. She wanted what Dallas did, and she feared that if she said anything at all, it would be something negative. In her soul she knew she shouldn’t be doing this and that she would regret it horribly after it was over. But as inundated with desire as she was right then, regret seemed like a small price to pay for another glimpse of heaven.

  And then Maggie opened her eyes at a fateful moment. Dallas was carrying her past the fireplace, and above it, the portrait of Sara Fortune seemed to be looking directly at them. Maggie’s heart nearly stopped beating, and she started struggling.

  Perplexed, Dallas stopped walking. “What’s wrong?”

  It took Maggie a second to catch her breath. But then she spoke pleadingly, “Please put me down. I— I can’t do this. Not with—with her…watching us.”

  “What are you talking about? Who’s watching us?” Dallas actually looked around the room, half expecting to see someone there. Then he caught on: Sara’s portrait.

  The steam he’d worked up suddenly deserted him, and he let Maggie’s feet slip to the floor. She teetered a moment, then turned and walked away from him. Dallas stood where he was and looked up at the portrait. Heaving a long, soulful sigh, he moved closer to Maggie, who was fumbling with her jacket, trying to put it on.

  He helped her into it, then dropped his hands and stepped back. “I don’t think I’ll be going back with you,” he said quietly.

  She nodded and wished to God that she could stop the tears that were threatening. Dallas disappeared for a minute and returned with a handful of tissues, which she gladly accepted. Wiping her eyes, she managed a few hesitant words. “I— I’m terribly embarrassed.”

  “You’re embarrassed and I’m sorry. We’re a fine pair, Maggie. It appears that neither of us is ready for a new relationship, doesn’t it?”

  He sounded sad and a little lost to Maggie’s ears, and she realized that she felt almost the same sense of desolation.

  “It…appears so,” she whispered hoarsely. Wiping her eyes again, she stuck the damp tissues in a pocket of her jacket. “It’s best if I leave now.”

  Dallas didn’t disagree. “Would you tell your folks ‘thanks’ for me? And if they wonder why I didn’t return with you, tell them…” Dallas paused to think, then said, “Tell them the truth, if you want.”

  “The truth? No, I don’t think so.” Maggie started for the door.

  “’Bye, Maggie,” Dallas said in that same saddened voice.

  She left Dallas’s house without answering, and she walked away from it with her head down.

  Maggie hiked around until the chill in the air began penetrating her clothes. Then she returned to her parents’ house and went in by the back door. Quietly she tiptoed to her bedroom and silently shut herself in. Placing her jacket on a chair, she lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  A burst of laughter in the living room breached the walls of her private domain. Obviously her family was still having a good time, still enjoying the day.

  Maggie heaved a sorrowful sigh. She’d never felt more alone than she did at this moment. Her list of worries and problems could only be solved by her. She could not burden her family with her troubles, especially her parents. They were good and honest people, and they would never understand why she wasn’t the same. They especially would not understand why she had made love with Dallas if she wasn’t in love with him.

  Tears filled her eyes again. All along she had known—or at least suspected—that Dallas felt nothing for her but lust. Now there was no room at all for doubt; he’d said it right to her face. It appears that neither of us is ready for a new relationship.

  And she hadn’t had the courage to refute his observation by telling him that she ardently hoped someday to find the right man and marry again. There really would have been nothing wrong with saying, Speak for yourself, Dallas. You might be satisfied living with memories of your deceased wife, but I do not intend to spend the rest of my life alone.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered as anguish inundated her system. As difficult and painful as it was to face, she had fallen in love with Dallas Fortune. She was in love with a man who didn’t now nor ever would love her. She could no longer argue herself out of the feeling; she would just have to learn to live with it, because she knew in her soul that it wasn’t going to disappear just because she wished it would.

  Some
way, somehow, she had to find the means to leave the ranch. Just because Dallas couldn’t commit to any sort of permanent relationship didn’t mean that he might not try to further their sexual entanglement.

  After all, he was still a Fortune and accustomed to having things go his way.

  Eleven

  Long after Maggie had gone, Dallas sat in his living room and looked at the portrait of Sara. It was an excellent likeness and a good piece of art. He remembered when Sara had sat for it, at his request, and how she had complained about doing nothing for hours on end while the artist worked. Dallas also recalled teasing her and making her laugh over her own complaints, but tonight, dredging up memories while studying the portrait, he finally admitted that Sara’s impatience with inactivity had caused her own death.

  It was a chilling thought, but if she had listened to her doctors and heeded their advice to stay off the horses, to stop rushing around at top speed and to spend most of her time in bed, or at least resting, she would be alive today. And, in all likelihood, so would his son.

  For the first time since the double tragedy, Dallas let a clearly defined resentment roll through his system. An anger that Sara and their child had died needlessly. For the first time he admitted that Sara had not been perfect. She’d been stubborn and willful and defiant, all but daring fate every time she’d climbed on a horse, or played a rousing game of tennis, or dived into chores that she’d had no business even worrying about. How many times had he reminded her that she shouldn’t be doing something, and how many times had she told him that she was fine, and for him to stop mother-henning her?

  Why in heaven’s name had she believed in her own immortality, and treated her pregnancy so cavalierly? They had wanted to have children so much, and when she’d finally become pregnant, they had celebrated and made wonderful, enthusiastic plans for their child’s future, telling each other that this baby would be the first of many. But then when it became apparent that her pregnancy was not normal, and Dallas had pleaded with her to stay in bed, she’d ignored everything he and her doctors said to her. She’d done exactly as she pleased.