Lone Star Winter

by Diana Palmer

  She lifted both eyebrows when she saw that the dark scowl over his green eyes was getting more ominous by the minute. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Don’t go out in the yard like that,” he said abruptly.

  She looked down at herself and then back at him, puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me.” He stood up, towering over her. That was a mistake because now he could see the upper curves of her breasts that her knit blouse left visible. “I don’t want my men leering at you.” Especially Harley, he thought angrily.

  Her eyes kindled with humor. “You’re leering at me right now,” she pointed out, grinning because he obviously found her attractive. Her knees suddenly felt wobbly.

  “I’m not leering. I’m noticing. But I’ve got some young men with bucking hormones and to them a woman in a steel drum would probably look sexy. Wear jeans and a blouse that buttons to your throat.”

  “Bucking hormones,” she mused. “That’s a new one.”

  “You aren’t that naive,” he grumbled. “You were married. You can tell when a man wants you.”

  Not really, she wanted to tell him. Walt had only slept with her twice, and apparently had to force himself both times. He wasn’t really attracted to her physically, and the feeling had been mutual. It wasn’t that way with Cy. She looked at him and her knees went weak.

  “I’m not wearing a steel drum around the place to do housework,” she informed him. “Hormones or no hormones. Heavens, I’m pregnant! Who’s going to make a pass at a pregnant woman?”

  “Any man under eighty who sees you dressed like that,” Cy said flatly. “Up to and including me.”

  Her heart jumped into her throat as her eyes lifted to his and were captured. She felt the breath rush past her parted lips as the look intensified, making her feel odd in the strangest places, even more strongly than the night at the opera. She remembered the taste of his mouth on hers, and no matter how disloyal it might have been to her late husband, she wanted it again.

  “Would you really?” she asked.

  He looked uncomfortable. “We were talking about how you dressed. When you go outside around the men, don’t wear shorts and low-cut blouses.”

  “Are you telling me that grown men can’t control themselves and I have to go around in a coat all summer to keep from disturbing them?” she wanted to know. “That’s not fair.”

  “Oh, hell, of course it’s not fair! But men are going to look when there’s something to see. All the legislation in the world won’t kill a basic human instinct, and that one is hundreds of thousands of years old!”

  Her eyes dropped to his hard mouth and she remembered, not for the first time, how delicious it felt when he kissed her. Then she felt guilty for even the thought. She was forgetting Walt, something that Cy hadn’t. He hadn’t touched her again since she moved in. He was respecting her husband’s death. She was sorry about Walt, but when she got close to Cy, her emotions were all over the place.

  “Harley seems to spend a lot of time in the house lately,” he remarked unexpectedly.

  “He gathers the eggs for me,” she replied, fighting down the excitement she felt as his green gaze slid over her once again. “Ever since you found that chicken snake in the henhouse, I’ve been nervous about putting my hand in the nests.”

  “We moved the chicken snake into the barn,” he reminded her.

  “Well, it isn’t in handcuffs or anything, now is it?” she demanded. “It can go wherever it wants to, and I’ve noticed that snakes seem to feel violent attractions to anyone who’s scared of them.”

  “In that case, I don’t suppose even the house is safe.”

  She immediately started looking around her feet and he burst out laughing.

  “Never mind,” he said on a sigh. “I guess Harley’s better than a snake, at that.”

  “I know he isn’t what he pretends to be,” she replied with a smile. “But he’s nice. Besides,” she added with a calculating look that he missed, “isn’t he helping to keep an eye on those people who set up the honey ware house next door to you?”

  He didn’t like that, not one bit. Eb had agreed to let Harley spy on the drug dealers if he kept his mouth shut. Quite obviously he’d been bragging about his exploits to Lisa.

  “Did he tell you that?” he asked quietly.

  She didn’t quite trust the look in his eyes. She didn’t want to get Harley in trouble. On the other hand, she didn’t like telling lies.

  “He mentioned that he was watching them to make sure the bees didn’t threaten your purebred cattle,” she said, which was the truth. Or, at least, what Harley had told her.

  “I see.” He relaxed visibly and she knew she’d said the right thing. She wondered why he was so concerned about bees, when plenty of people around Jacobsville kept them. Maybe he had a hidden fear of flying insects.

  Cy’s green eyes narrowed. Harley was young, in his late twenties, and despite his bravado, in peak physical condition. Cy was thirty-five and scarred, inside and out. Perhaps Lisa couldn’t help liking the younger man. And he had been kind to her.

  “If you’d rather I asked someone else to fetch the eggs, I can,” she began, trying to find a way to erase that dark scowl on his lean face.

  “Of course not,” he said at once. “Why should I mind?”

  He left her wondering about that, and she went back to what she’d been doing.

  Two days later, Cy came into the kitchen and found Harley holding Lisa’s hand in the living room.

  Both of them turned and jerked at his sudden appearance. Harley’s high cheekbones colored as Cy’s green eyes glittered at him like a poisonous snake uncoiling.

  “Hi, boss!” he said with forced enthusiasm. “I was, uh, just showing Lisa…Miss…Mrs. Monroe how to break a hold.”

  “Yes, he was,” Lisa said quickly. She had on those same tight jeans and a yellow sweater with a vee neck that was much too low when she bent over. Cy’s unsmiling scrutiny made her feel as if she’d just committed adultery. She’d put on the outfit deliberately, not for Harley, but for Cy. He hadn’t been near her until now. Harley had.

  “I’d better get back to the garage now, I guess,” Harley said, still flushed. He was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans with a red rag sticking out of his back pocket. “I’m overhauling the cattle truck, boss.”

  “Good. Hadn’t you better go do it?” Cy asked with a bite in his voice that he seldom used these days. He looked dangerous, something Harley noted with surprise.

  “Sure thing!” Harley went through the kitchen and out the back door without another word.

  “He really was showing me how to get out of a hold,” she told Cy with her hands on her hips.

  Cy moved toward her, too jealous to think properly. “Was he now? And you’ve learned the lesson? Show me. Let’s see you get out of this hold!”

  He had her around the waist and flush against every line of his lean, powerful body before she could speak. She opened her mouth to protest and his lips claimed hers, hungry and rough and demanding.

  She wanted to fight. She really did. But the closeness of him, the warmth, the strength of him drained her of every semblance of protest. With a tiny little cry, she slid her arms under his and pushed as close as she could get, answering that hard kiss with all the pent-up longing of the weeks since he’d touched her. She felt a shudder go through him even as her own body rippled with passion.

  He said something against her mouth that she didn’t hear, didn’t understand. Her mouth pushed up against his, answering the devouring fierceness of his hard lips. It wasn’t a practiced sensuous kiss at all. It was flash-fire need, hunger, desire, out of control. It gave her an odd feeling of pride that she could throw him off balance. And as much as it shamed her to admit it even in the privacy of her mind, his jealousy of Harley made her even hungrier for him.

  His body began to swell and old instincts jerked him out of her embrace. He stepped back, fighting the de sire that tautened every
muscle he had. The unexpected explosion left him shocked and uncertain.

  They were both breathing unsteadily, staring at each other more like combatants than lovers.

  “I don’t like Harley touching you,” he said bluntly, bristling with possessive instincts he hadn’t known he had.

  “I noticed.” She sounded breathless.

  His green eyes slid down her body and back up again with desire and possession equally mixed. “You’re pregnant.”

  She nodded. Somewhere deep in her mind she wished it was Cy’s baby. That was disloyal to Walt and she should be ashamed. Her hand went protectively to her waistline.

  He muttered something under his breath and stepped back. “I shouldn’t have touched you,” he bit off. “God knows, I’m trying not to! I might manage it if you’d stop tempting me with tight jeans and shirts cut to the navel in front!”

  So that was why he’d kept his distance. She was pregnant and he felt that he should be trying to take care of her, not make love to her. But he wanted her. She knew it in every cell of her body. It made her glow with new delight; with hope.

  He got his breath back and glared at her. “Harley’s fixing the truck. Make sure he stays out of here. If you don’t tell him, I will, and I won’t be diplomatic.”

  She wasn’t offended by the possessive note in his deep voice. She liked it. “All right, Cy.”

  His eyes narrowed. Her compliance, unexpected, knocked the fire off his temper. “Stay inside and keep the doors locked.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t assume that you’re safe just because Harley’s in the garage,” he added tautly. “He isn’t half as savvy as he thinks he is, and he’s never dealt with men like Lopez.”

  “Okay,” she repeated with a smile.

  He drew in a heavy breath. “There’s a loaded pistol in my middle desk drawer. Just in case.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  Her mouth was swollen from the pressure of his, and it gave him a feeling of pride to see her disheveled and flustered because of him. He didn’t smile, but his eyes did.

  “Are you leaving?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Yes.” He dragged his eyes away from her to check his watch. “I’ve got to drive up to Kingsville to see a man about some new bulls.”

  She knew where he was going the minute he mentioned the town, and her soft sigh was all too audible. “I went on a tour of that ranch once, with Dad,” she said. “It made our little operation look like a milkmaid enterprise. They had some beautiful breeding stock.”

  “I like Santa Gertrudis cattle,” he said. “No better place to buy them than where the foundation herd originated.” His eyes narrowed again as he studied her. “While I’m gone, don’t go out of the house for any reason. Harley will have the house in sight all the time, and I’ve got surveillance equipment linked to Eb Scott’s place. If anything happens that Harley can’t handle, Eb can be here in five minutes. You aren’t afraid by your self?”

  “By myself?” she exclaimed. “Cy, have you noticed those fifteen cowboys who work for you…?”

  “Only six of them work here full-time. And none of them are around the ranch house for most of the day, except early in the morning and late in the afternoon,” he told her. “Harley’s working on one of the cattle trucks, which is the only reason that he’ll be nearby. If you need him, push the intercom button and he’ll come right up.” He indicated the button next to the wall phone in the dining room. He hated having to tell her that. He hated the idea of Harley anywhere near her. “And keep all the doors locked.”

  “You’re worried,” she gathered.

  “I’ve heard a few things. Yes, I’m worried. Humor me.”

  She shrugged and smiled up at him. “Okay, boss.”

  His eyebrow lifted and he smiled back. “Oh, that sounds sweet,” he drawled. “Pity I know it’s just lip service. You smile and nod your head when I tell you, for your own good, not to do something. And then you go right out and do it the minute my back’s turned.”

  “It always worked with Dad,” she mused. “It’s a waste of time to argue with some men,” she added.

  He reached for his hat on the wall rack. “And some women,” he countered. “Watch yourself.”

  “You do that, too,” she returned smartly. “You’re not on Lopez’s good list, either.”

  He propped his hat on his head as the back door opened to admit Harley. He glanced at Lisa from under the wide brim. “Yes, but Lopez doesn’t like to take unnecessary chances, and he’s already had one bad brush with the law,” he began as Harley’s footsteps became audible behind him. “He won’t come here unless he gets pretty desperate…”

  “Because he knows I’m here, Mrs. Monroe,” Harley interrupted with an irrepressible grin at his boss and their houseguest. “Nobody’s going to lay a finger on you while I’m on the job.”

  “Of course,” Lisa said and didn’t dare look at Cy.

  “I just came in to get a soft drink. It’s thirsty work. You, uh, don’t mind, boss?” he asked Cy warily.

  “I don’t mind,” Cy lied. “But don’t get careless,” he told his young foreman, and with more than usual caution. “Lopez won’t.”

  Harley dismissed Lopez and his entire organization with a flick of his hand. “All the same, he won’t come around here.”

  Cy wanted to argue the point, but the younger man was in a concrete mind-set and he wouldn’t listen to reason. He’d just have to hope that Harley wouldn’t do something stupid.

  “I’ll be back late. Remember to keep the doors locked,” he cautioned Lisa.

  “You bet.”

  He left rather reluctantly. Harley got himself a cold drink out of the refrigerator and paused at the back door. Lisa went to the kitchen counter and got out a bowl and a knife and some potatoes and began peeling them for potato salad. “I wanted to make sure I hadn’t got you in trouble,” Harley said sheepishly. “Mr. Parks was pretty hot when he came in.”

  “It’s all right,” she assured him with a smile. “He’s protective of me because of the baby,” she added.

  Harley grimaced. “I should have realized that. He isn’t a man who has much to do with women, you see.” He shrugged. It had seemed like violent jealousy to Harley, but now Mr. Parks’s ill temper seemed justified. He wouldn’t want anybody making passes at her when she was pregnant. Of course, he added silently as he looked at her, she did seem somewhat flustered and her mouth was swollen. He wondered…

  “Don’t you want that soft drink in a glass with some ice?” she asked. His scrutiny was making her nervous.

  “No, thanks, this is fine. Well, if you need me, just call, Mrs. Monroe. I’ll be trying to find the oil leak in that engine.”

  He looked as if he’d found several, she mused, judging from all the black stains on his once-white sweatshirt. It never ceased to amaze her that Harley always found something white to put on when he was going to do a dirty job.

  “I know where the intercom button is,” she assured him. “But I don’t think I’ll need to use it.”

  “You never know. I’ll lock the door as I go out. See you later.”

  “Sure.”

  He locked the door and moved slowly toward the garage. Lisa watched him walk back to the garage with a slight frown between her eyes. Cy was unusually worried about Lopez, and it made her uneasy. Surely the man wasn’t going to risk having any more men picked up by the sheriff. After all, he’d lost two in the midnight raid on Lisa’s house that had prompted Cy to bring her here to stay with him.

  On the other hand, she had to admit, if the man based his reputation on keeping his word, he couldn’t afford not to make good on a threat. But she was fairly certain that Lopez was long gone. Otherwise why would Cy have gone off in the first place?

  Reassured, she went to the kitchen, put Lopez forcefully out of her thoughts and peeled the rest of the potatoes.

  Harley finished most of his repairs on the truck and came back into the house for another drink,
liberally stained with grease and a noticeable cut on the back of one lean hand. It was bleeding. There was even a little grease in his crew-cut sandy hair.

  “Here,” Lisa said at once, leading him to the kitchen sink. “Wash that with antibacterial soap while I find a bandage.”

  “It’s nothing much, Mrs. Monroe,” he protested, but very weakly.

  She smiled to herself as she fetched adhesive bandages from the kitchen cabinet and began peeling one apart to cover the deep scratch after it was clean.

  “I wish you’d been with us in Africa,” he observed wryly, his blue eyes twinkling. “Several of us got banged up out in the bush.”

  “In the bush? With the lions?” she exclaimed.

  He held out his dried hand for her to put on the bandage. “Didn’t see any lions,” he remarked. “But there were plenty of guerrillas. Not the furry kind, either.” He sighed and smiled dreamily. “That’s the life, Mrs. Mon roe, fighting for principles and a king’s ransom in loot. When I get another two or three training courses under my belt, that’s what I’m going to do—I’m going back to Africa to make my fortune.”

  “Or get yourself shot,” she observed.

  “Not a chance. I’m too handy with close quarter weapons.” He looked as if he could strut sitting down as he said it. “My instructor said he’d never seen anybody who was such a natural in martial arts. And I can throw a knife, too.”

  “It wouldn’t do you much good if the other guy had a gun, would it?” she asked innocently.

  “It isn’t so hard to disarm a man, if you know how,” he said confidently. “They taught us a lot of tricks. I guarantee there isn’t a man alive who could threaten me with a gun. I know my business.”