by Quinn Wilder
my knee and give you a damned good licking."
He let her go, turned and walked rapidly away. For a single moment she debated throwing her cane at him for the pure pleasure of diverting his ag-gravatingly one-track mind. For the pure pleasure of challenging him, calling his bluff.
He turned and gave her one last look, and she had the uneasy feeling he might have read her mind. She gave her head a spirited toss. No sense giving him the satisfaction of knowing that when he looked so grimly forbidding she had about as much nerve as a chastened child.
When Dace finally found Storm the scenario was very much as he'd imagined. A group of well-meaning officials had suspended a rope between themselves and had Storm trapped by some buildings. Dace bit back the temptation to tell them how to use a rope. At least the horse wasn't running up the highway.
It was obvious the horse was exhausted. Storm was trembling and bleeding badly from a gash in his chest.
"We just got him again," one of the men informed Dace. "The vet's going to tranquillize him
in a minute, if we can hang on to him. We've been at this stage twice before.''
Dace approached Storm slowly, talking calmly and gently. The horse's head drooped with relief at the sound of the familiar voice. Dace walked up to him and touched his shoulder. The horse responded by laying his head on Dace's hands.
Dace looked at the snapped reins. "You're lucky you didn't break a leg," he remonstrated with mock sternness.
It seemed like hours before he got the tired but still stubborn horse looked at by a vet, and loaded into the trailer. He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror and saw blood had seeped through the pure white of the bandage. His clothes were torn and dirty. He looked like a guerrilla commando. Which was probably just about what one had to be to have a relationship with Cadence Copperthorne.
On impulse, he dropped the horse off at a secluded paddock on his land. No use trying to get him into a stable tonight—and no use finding out how powerful an anger Cadence would hold inside her.
He realized he half hoped she would be over being mad by the time he got home. He fantasized about her to be waiting for him in his apartment, all soft and sexy and needing to be kissed. But when he drove in the lights were out over the stable. He glanced hopefully across the yard toward her bedroom window. Her window was uninvitingly black.
He sighed. He was bone-weary anyway. And she was a redhead; it would probably take her a few days to cool out. Lord, she was sexy when she was
spitting yellow sparks out of those awesome amber eyes.
He frowned, and took one last look "the castle." She came from a different world from his, that was for sure. He had his land, and he had money put away, and some day he knew he'd be a prosperous rancher again. But he knew he was never going to be able to keep Cadence Copperthorne in the manner to which she was accustomed. And he didn't know what to do about that.
"Lady," he whispered into the night, "maybe you're best to stay over there." The words caused an unbelievable anguish to flash through him.
He entered his apartment, and even though he was dead tired he went and put on the video. He had looked at it close to a hundred times trying to figure out what happened.
Tonight, it hit him like a ton of bricks.
Of course, he thought, of course! And now that he knew what it was it amazed him that he had never figured it out before. Now, it seemed so glaringly obvious.
As obvious as it had been as soon as that horse had corkscrewed out from underneath him this afternoon. All those hours of sitting in front of this video had clicked then. In that split second when he had heard the siren and simultaneously felt the horse twist under him.
And here it was on the video, almost lost in the other noises. Somewhere, in between the sounds of the crowd, and the noise of a bad PA system, a distant siren screamed.
Of course, he'd noticed the sirens before when he'd watched this video, and assumed they were for Cadence. But the ambulance had already been
there, that day, the attendants already lifting her onto the stretcher as the noise of the sirens grew. They hadn't been answering the accident, they had caused it. Storm was scared to death of the sound of sirens.
He rubbed his aching head wearily. There was more—he knew that. There had been no sirens on other days when Storm was jumpy and hard to handle. There were no sirens to explain his edginess inside box stalls. But he had a suspicion, and he knew he had to check it out. Because Cadence had lost faith in the horse, and he had to convince her the horse wasn't bad. Though if his reasoning was correct... He frowned.
Maybe he didn't have to think about that just yet. He had to check it out first, and protect the horse from Cadence's wrath for a few days.
And maybe she needed a few days, too. A few days away from the euphoric spell of her newfound passion, and maybe she'd see him for what he was. A cowpoke. With weather creases on his face, and leather in his hide, and not much to offer a princess, except a patch of earth and a handful of sky.
The next day he enlisted Sloan to check on the horse for him and give a note to Cadence.
Sloan eyed him disapprovingly. 'They used to hang horse thieves."
"Just for a few days. That woman is capable of doing grave harm when she's annoyed."
"Hmm. Sounds like the old princess to me. And I don't want to tangle with her."
"Just give her the note, okay?"
"Ah, all right."
But, when it came time to go up to the house and actually give her the note, Sloan couldn't find
it. He knew it must have slipped out of his shirt pocket while he was leaning over something or other, but he was disinclined to go and look for it. He did not handle women very well at the best of times. The thought of tangling with an angry one— and particulary when that angry one was Cadence Copperthorne—made finding that note a very low priority for him.
He had just about nicely managed to dismiss even the niggling little guilt from his mind when she stormed down to the barns.
He figured she looked fighting fit as he had ever seen her. It both pleased him and dismayed him.
"What did he do with my horse, Sloan?'* she demanded.
Now Sloan was not a man accustomed to lying, but it seemed right now he was going to have to make a choice between her wrath or Dace's. And he could see Dace was quite right—she had murder on her mind. Besides, she wasn't nearly as scary as he knew Dace might be.
"I think the horse got left at the vet's," he said. "T'was hurt, you know."
For a minute dismay crossed her features, but only for a moment. "Not hurt as badly as it's going to be."
"He won't appreciate that, you know."
"What?" she asked, dangerously.
"Well, a man don't like that. A woman trying to protect him. A woman looking out for him. A woman trying to take care of all the little spills and right all the wrongs. He's got a hard head. That horse didn't hardly hurt him at all."
"The point is the horse is dangerous."
"Well, if that were the point, maybe you should have had him shot after you got hurt. It would hurt a man's pride that you could take your knocks, but you didn't want him to take his."
"Where's the horse, Sloan? And where's Dace?"
"Don't rightly know to either of them." He screwed up his courage. "Dace left an envelope for you before he left, but I cain't find it."
The anger fizzled and her face paled. Sloan thought she might faint.
"He's gone? Dace is gone?"
"I guess the note explained it all," he said awkwardly. He promised himself he'd look for it after all when he saw how distressed she was.
"I'm sure it probably did," she said quietly, her fire gone, all quiet composure now.
She turned and limped away, trying to hide the violent shaking of her shoulders.
Dace was gone. Oh, Lord, she'd known it. In the back of her heart she'd known it. He had seen. Yesterday he had seen how much she cared for him. How much she loved him. It had scared him
away. Well, could she blame him?
She had been bitchy, strong-willed, and bad-tempered. No wonder he'd run. Dace Stanton had made it clear from the beginning that he thought her limp was the very least of her problems.
She had known anyway. Known it was too good to be true. In a way, she wondered if she hadn't been testing him yesterday. Saying, this is who I really am. Some good. Some bad, too. Some light, some darkness. Some laughter, some yelling. Some tenderness, some fire.
And he'd run. He was gone. She was glad Sloan couldn't find his note. She didn't want to read a
note from him—some half-baked explanation as to why. He would try and take the sting out of it, if she knew Dace. Because there had always been an element of pity in what he'd felt for her. She knew that.
Nobody pities a wildcat.
Maybe nobody loved one, either. She knew it would be the most dreadful farce to be cared about for a role she played. And yet, for one more chance, she felt she could pretend to be docile and pleasant for the rest of her days.
No. That wasn't true. Well, he'd never promised her anything, anyway. He'd never said anything about tomorrow, or about the future. Dace Stanton had learned the tough way to stay in today. Too bad he'd never learned to stay.
CHAPTER TEN
Dace drove into the yard. It was late and he was tired. He glanced down at his watch—after eleven. He looked automatically toward Cade's window. The light burned, and he felt his heart begin to thud faster.
Hell, he had missed her. He hadn't known how much it was possible for a man to miss a woman, until he had spent this time away from her. And somewhere in those lonely days, and lonely miles, he had discovered a truth that was both frightening and exhilarating. He'd done something he'd promised himself he was never going to do. He'd fallen in love. For heaven's sake, he'd fallen in love with a she-devil.
And he'd learned something else. The deathly fear he felt of the pain that seemed to come part and parcel with relationships couldn't hold a candle to the pain he felt when he wasn't with her. It was rather humbling knowledge to have.
He gazed at her window, again, and frowned. When things had begun to get complicated, and he'd found himself in some godforsaken backwoods corner of blue-grass horse country, he'd called her to say it was going to take longer than he'd originally thought. She'd been out. He hadn't seen much point in leaving a message since there wasn't a number he could be reached at. He'd tried a couple more times. She was always out. Then he didn't leave a message because he was angry.
Out where? With whom? Lionel? Had he been ditched? Had she rediscovered her confidence in herself only to decide she had no more use for a cowboy? It was true that part of the reason he had left was to give her time to thinlr^bout what she really wanted, but now he didn't feel as if he could bear it if what she really wanted didn't include him.
I could have Cadence back if I whistled. Funny, the things that could plague a man when he was lonely and tired.
Maybe she really had been that mad about him going to Storm instead of staying with her. Mad enough to go back to a man who was weaker... more easily controlled. Still, it couldn't be helped. That was part of his code of ethics, and if she didn't like it
He wondered why he was arguing with her in his head, when he could have the pleasure of doing it in person. He thought about going to the door, but he didn't particularly want to get the whole house up—and he certainly didn't want the whole house to know he was in her room, because that would reduce the chances of her asking him to stay.
He did something he had always fantasized about doing. He began to climb the ivy trellis up to her room.
Cadence had not been out of her room in a week. She'd given instructions to Timothy that she was not to be disturbed in any circumstances. Then she had grieved. She'd cried. And fumed. And hit pillows and cursed, and shredded up the magazines that couldn't divert her attention from her heartache. She'd gone over their moments together and relived them, looking for clues to this ending.
And she'd thought she had found it. Right at the very beginning he had said to her, "When a man feels like up and walking away, you're best to just let him." It had probably been a warning. That he wouldn't stay. That there was no point in trying to make him stay. That there was no point in trying to capture that storm called love.
And it was his silly pride. She wished she'd explained herself better when it had come up. Explained to him that no, she didn't know how to cook, and had never done dishes, but dammit, she was no stranger to hard work, and she certainly was not afraid to learn new things or get her hands dirty.
Spoiled brat, he'd called at her. He might as well have added, You can't even do dishes.
But there had been no chance to explain. He had just gone without a farewell, and there was not much point in her torturing herself about the reasons. She'd rather hoped she would die, but she didn't. In fact, once or twice she had even found herself smiling when she thought of him. Now and then, she'd known the truth: she was not only going to live—she was going to be a better person for having been touched by the wonder of love.
Cadence froze, and quietly put down her plate of cookies. She had heard something outside. She threw back her covers and made her way over to the window, trying desperately to be quiet. Something was in the ivy outside her window. Fear hammered in her throat.
A cat, she told herself, trying to still the heavy beating of her heart so she could hear better.
If it was a cat, a more rational voice informed her, it must be a three-hundred-pound cougar for all the noise it was making.
Panic froze her ability to think. Finally, she shrank back against the curtains, groped around for her cane, and held it high over her head, waiting, ready.
With horror she watched as a credit card slipped in the window and the catch flipped up. The window squeaked open, and one long, denim-clad leg came in. She hit it, with all her might, with her cane.
There was a muffled curse, and then Dace catapulted through the window, and hopped around on one leg, obviously in great pain but trying to be quiet about it.
Cadence burst out laughing, but was quelled by the angry look he gave her.
"I told you what I was going to do to you if you ever used that cane as a weapon again," he hissed, gingerly testing some weight on his leg and then limping menacingly toward her.
She backed away from him, the cane held out aggressively in front of her. "I thought you were a criminal," she protested, and then felt a flare of real anger. "You are a criminal. Bloody horse thief! You were probably coming in here to get my wallet."
"Cadence," he said softly, threateningly, "put down the cane."
"I will not!"
"Would you keep your voice down?" he ordered quietly.
She sucked in a breath, planning to let out the longest, loudest shriek of her life. The bloody nerve of the man
He leapt at her before the sound emerged. With one hand he took her cane and tossed it away; the other arm wrapped strongly around her, and pulled her toward him.
His mouth swooped down, and captured hers.
The scream died without much of a fight. She began to tremble and he picked her up and carried her across the room, dropped her on her bed and gazed down at her. Then he came down on top of her, and gave her the soundest kissing of her life.
"Dace," she whispered, "where have you been?"
"What do you mean, where have I been? I left you a note. Where haveyow been?"
"Sloan told me you'd left a note, but he couldn't find it... and I thought it probably just said goodbye... for good."
She saw pain flit through his eyes.
"It hurts me," he said softly, "that you think I could be so cruel."
She did not know how to tell him that her assumption was based on her own lack of confidence in her lovableness,
"So why did you go?" She reached up and touched the whisker-shadowed hollows of his cheeks, hoping her fingertips could tell him what pride prevented her lips from saying.
He kissed her fingertips. "Storm's mystery has been driving me crazy. I had to solve it once and for all. But never mind that, right now. Where have you been? Out gallivanting around the country, I guess?"
"Gallivanting? I've been locked in my room, licking my wounds. I told you, I thought you'd gone, Dace. I thought you'd gone for good. I
thought you took one look at my wicked bad temper and headed for the hills."
"You think I didn't have a clue before now that you have a temper? Lord, woman, you've been spitting and hissing and showing your claws since our first meeting."
"I know," she said. "I'm horrible."
"Horrible? Yes, you are. And adorable. You're a witch and an enchantress. You're a storm and you're the sunshine that follows. You're a woman. All woman. With every bit of the mystery and temperament that being a woman entails.
"Part of the reason I went was so you could figure out what you wanted. I know what I want. I love you. I've loved every single thing about you for a long, long time. And I plan to love it for a long time more, if you'll let me. I don't want a life that's dull and predictable, and I don't want a wife who's dull and predictable, either. I want you. High-spirited, and bad-tempered, and exciting. like capturing a storm with all its magnificent energy and beauty and power. Living with you will be like riding a storm."
"Wife?" she whispered incredulously.
"Can you think of one other good reason to climb up your trellis in the dead of night? Other than to propose to you?"
She laughed huskily. "Well, maybe one other."
He smiled. "Hmm. I might have given that one a passing thought, too."
"Scoundrel." She sobered. "I thought maybe you thought I was a spoiled, useless brat. I can learn to cook. I can do dishes. I can give away my money on street corners."
_
Dace laughed. "When I left I really thought we had to solve all that stuff right away. Now I see that sharing a life with someone else is a process. We're always going to have things to resolve, and that will be a part of loving each other and learning from one another. We'll work out the details.