by Gayle Eden
He sauntered with a kind of easy gate that she felt belied alertness in him. His presence reminded them that their mother came from strong and unique people. It reminded them that Sara made her own way for most of her life, even when wed to Frank. For Corey, at least, that was a reminder to always be her own woman.
Sometime late, near the end of the shindig, her skin was warm and flushed and her blood was humming. It was too bad she was looking around and saw Noah again as he was clearing the yard of benches and such, the company having gone.
He gave her a dimpled grin that made her want to sock him in the nose. Instead, she smiled smugly and deliberately plopped down in a chair and showed a bit of leg trying to get a breeze under her skirt.
He merely tipped his hat and winked. An action that made her lip curl. Treat her like a kid, ha! She was eighteen now, she would do as she dang well pleased.
* * * *
Finn was sitting on the porch when Alex returned from the gathering. Having handed the buggy over, he stepped up and leaned against the railing, his jacket over his shoulder and sleeves rolled up.
Finn sipped coffee, instead of whiskey for a change. “What did you think of them, the Landry’s?”
“Amazing people.” Alex half smiled. “Sara is everything you’d expect a woman rancher to be. The daughters, all different, unique. They seem a close family, enjoying each other. The ranch is definitely a working one. The women all seem to know it inside and out, but they’ve got interesting characteristics—which I think comes from their mother—whom I imagine, is a strong and resilient woman.”
Finn rocked his coffee cup slightly, staring down in it. “I want you to do something for me, Alex.”
“All right,” Alex let the coat lay on the rail and sat down beside him in another chair, elbows on his knees and leaning forward, but he glanced at Finn’s profile.
“I want you to make it legal, that my name is on Jordan’s birth record.”
“She’ll lose the money that Andre—”
“Let the money go. Take double whatever it was, from my account, and put it in hers.”
“She doesn’t want it—”
“Don’t matter a damn. But don’t tell her.” Finn took a drink and looked out over the ranch. “Don’t say a thing. She will argue the damn thing until her last breath. It wasn’t right of Andrea to put those conditions on it, and she did it to jab at me. You know I can give her twice that—no conditions to it. I want that birth record set right.”
Finn sat back and shoved a hand through his hair. “She can call herself Croft, but we’ll both know she’s a McCabe….”
Alex studied that flexing jaw. “I’ll fix it.”
Finn then glanced at him. “You see Lucas in town?”
“Yes.” Alex smiled wryly. “That badge suits him.”
“I need him here,” Finn admitted and looked away. “I can’t stop him if he refuses, but this ranch is as big as it is, because I counted on two sons running it. Morgan is good on the cattle end, and Lucas is the best with horses…”
“I don’t know what he’ll do, Finn. But take some heart from the fact he stayed this long.”
Finn grunted. “Staying at Morgan’s place. For a little bit I’d set fire to this house and burn it to the ground.”
Alex sat up. “Are you crazy?” He laughed. “This is one of the best homes in the area.”
“Home? It’s never been a home.” Finn shook his head. “I lived in forty feet of it or out on the range. As soon as he could, Morgan started building something else. Hell I didn’t mind it was Andrea’s showplace, but it was never a home.”
He stood and tossed out the rest of his coffee, leaning a hand on the porch brace. “She wanted it stripped of that, fine. It’s a mostly empty shell—Jordan hasn’t moved out yet—she will.”
“Maybe not. And I have moved in. Just too busy right now to be here much.”
“I hate it,” Finn admitted quietly. “I hate every corner of it.”
Alex was staring at him again. He said softly, “What is it, Finn. Really. What’s eating you, aside from the obvious?”
Finn sat back down and spent long moments apparently gathering his thoughts. When he did speak, he replied, “There was a time I did have real pride. Pride in how far I’d come, what I had sweated and broke my back for. The dreams I had. One mistake, one damn mistake, and everything after that was me always trying to get it back, to feel it as true in what I accomplished…”
“I don’t know what to say, Finn. I at least can see the efforts you’re making for Jordan, and for Lucas. As to the root of all that, I’m going to assume it all changed when you wed Andrea? I was born a Croft; I know it can take more than give…”
Finn grunted again on a bitter laugh. “You have no idea.” He breathed in deep and let it out, shaking his head as if to himself and murmured, “I never seen this. I dreaded it without ever admitting it. The day I’d be sitting here facing my choices. But I never thought I’d feel the absolute nothing that anything I have means now.”
“The ranch is still your accomplishment, Finn.”
“Yeah. But it would give me more satisfaction to know my sons would live out their lives here, running it, gaining what I should have from it.”
“It may happen. Lucas and Morgan work well together.”
Finn told him. “I want it deeded over to them as soon as possible.”
“There’s no hurry—”
“Just do it for me, will you?”
“All right.” Alex sighed. “I’ll see it filed.”
Standing again, Finn nodded, his gaze off in the distance, before he turned to go in. “I’m going to make a fool of myself, for the right reasons this time.”
Alex apparently had no idea what that meant. He watched Finn go up the stairs, a frown of concern on his face.
* * * *
Corey was just about to dash out of the house, half a biscuit in her teeth as she was pulling on her gloves, and jerked open the door. Her eyes rounded to see Finn McCabe standing there.
He arched a brow at that expression and inquired, “Is Sara at home?”
Nodding, she reached up to jerk the biscuit out of her teeth, then licked crumbs off her lips, and invited, “Come in, I’ll fetch her.”
As soon as the big rancher stepped inside, she nearly tripped over the parlor rug running through that, the dining room, kitchen, and onto the back porch—where Sara was doing laundry.
“Finn McCabe is here!”
“What!” Sara’s head popped up from being bent over, doing the sorting. Her voice loud to her own ears as she shoved a hank of hair out of her eyes.
Still rounded in gaze, Corey nodded and pointed with the half biscuit. “On the front porch.”
The look on Sara’s face was almost as stunned. She opened and closed her mouth twice before Corey saw her brush her hands over her well-washed skirt and sleeveless blouse. Following her inside, Corey watched her mother start to head up the stairs, muttering something about changing, and then Sara stopped and muttered, “No I won’t,” and started out onto the porch.
To Corey’s disappointment, she stopped at the door and told her, “Go start the wash.”
“But I want—”
“Go.”
The look on her mother’s face brooked no argument. Corey sighed and dragged her feet out to the back porch to do as she was told.
For Sara’s part, the shock hadn’t worn off. There was a dip in her stomach, a kind of sick not prepared warring with the—what the hell does he want, and he’s got some nerve—but she opened the door and stepped out.
Mentally groaning because the skirt and blouse she wore didn’t even have a color beyond some sickly brown, and her hair was mostly down, save for the front she’d tied back with a strip of cloth. When Finn Unfolded from the chair he was nicely dressed in a dark green chambray shirt, black trousers and Spanish leather boots. His hat in his hand and—damn him, lush headed and handsome.
His eyes lingered on her face
, and then went down and up her. “You’re busy—”
“It’s laundry day.” She pushed that hair back again. “What are you doing here?”
He leaned his hips on the porch rail, idly fingering the hat brim. “I came to see you.”
She stared at him. “Why?”
“Because I want to see you, Sara.”
“And you do what you want, Finn McCabe, regardless of—”
“If I asked, you’d have said no.”
“Damn straight I would.” She set her hands on her hips. “You didn’t ask, but I’m still saying it. No. We got nothing to say to each other.”
Finn held her gaze and chewed at the inside of his cheek a moment, an action that drew her attention to his lips, so Sara looked out into the yard.
He coaxed, “Take a ride out, where we can talk, and I won’t ask, won’t come again.”
She shook her head.
“Please, Sara.”
Please was a word Finn McCabe never said. Her stare turned back to him. She groaned again because of the expression in his eyes. His beautiful green eyes.
She sighed. “Let me speak to Rose—”
He nodded and Sara turned and went inside. She found Rose and explained she was riding out with Mr. McCabe. Not even able to answer Rose’s wide-eyed look, Sara hastily went to her rooms, stripped down and pulled on a shirt, trousers, and boots. She jerked the rag out of her hair, grabbed her hat and was even madder that Finn was standing on her porch—and she didn’t even have time to comb her hair.
Outside again, she took off to the stables, leaving him to follow, leading his stud. Mounted on a sturdy roan, she rode beside him some miles, feeling some pride at least as he looked over her land, and eyed the prime stock.
“You’ve done well, here.” He glanced at her before taking the trail to the creek.
“I’ve got a good foreman, and good stock. We’re doing okay.” She rode beside him then stopped and dismounted. The bank on both sides already carpeted with the gold, red, and yellow leaves. Autumn was upon them.
Leaving his horse, he sat on a large jutting stone and waited for her to do so. Sara chose one, a good three feet away.
“I’ve told Alex to deed my ranch to my sons.”
She eyed him. “Why the rush?”
“I want them to know it’s theirs. To feel like it is,” Finn answered as his gaze moved over her face. “It’s been more of a point of contention between me and Lucas—and I know they think I poured everything into it, instead of them, but that wasn’t my intention.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked over at the stream. “There’s no point in trying to explain anything. I drove Lucas from it, and it’s only because he loves it that Morgan is still there.”
Sara was still looking over his profile. “What’s this got to do with me?”
“Everything,” his tone was hoarse as he glanced at her again. “Everything, Sara. Because you remind me of what I meant to be, and do, accomplish. What I was supposed to feel, instead of what I do.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better about your choices too, Finn?” She was the one to look away this time.
“No. I made a mistake and I made more because of it. Because— I kept trying to make it feel like it was one I could live with.”
She was shaking her head. “It makes no difference to me.”
Still, she could feel his eyes moving over her, lingering on her face before he murmured, “I bought some land, years ago, way up north, I’ve been thinking of spending the winter there, maybe building a log house….”
She snorted and shook her head.
Yet what came next, came in a quiet tone, “I want to hold you, Sara, one more time, before I leave.”
Her eyes jerked to his. “You’re not going to do anything stupid are you, Finn. Shoot yourself or—”
“No.” He smiled a rather devastating white one. “I promise.”
“Shit.” She stood and walked to the edge of the stream. “Shit!” The split second thought that he might die made her own heart stop. Proving to her just how connected they still were.
“Just one more time. We can go miles from here, anywhere you want. We’ll meet. I’d give anything for that.”
“Damn you, Finn,” she whispered it as her neck tilted. She glared at the sky.
He stood and had taken three steps before her head lowered and she said low, “Don’t. Don’t touch me right now.”
He stilled but his gaze felt like a touch.
Hurt, mad, aroused, she kept shaking her head. “I want to hit you, pound at you, Finn McCabe—and—dammit, I should have never come out here.” She husked, “Why don’t you just go into town and find a whore to fill in, until you find another pretty bride with—”
“—Don’t. I’ll let you slap me, hit me. I am big enough to take it, and I deserve it, even understand it. But don’t put it like that. When I made Jordan was the only time I cheated, and Andrea did not sleep with me, not after Morgan came. She had a lover—”
“What!” Sara spun around, staring at him in shock.
His brow rose, a wry smile on his face. “She had a lover until the day she died.”
“But—why?” Her gaze went over him, up and down.
His grin was pure sexy.
Sara flushed and met his stare. “Well, I don’t understand that.”
“Like I never understood Frank whoring.”
She brushed that off. “Everyone knows how he felt about daughters, and I wasn’t going to wear myself out trying to give him sons, not if he couldn’t love what he had. It was his idea to take other rooms. Not that he ever—”
“Ever what?” Finn’s gaze was relentless.
“Pleased me,” she choked on a whisper, and looked away again.
“He was a fool.”
“But I married him.” She shrugged.
Finn took another step, but stopped. Just standing behind her, his height putting her head even with his sinewy breastbone. “Just one night, Sara, a few hours together, feeling that fire we haven’t felt in too long. There were things then, that I dreamed of doing, wanted to, meant to—”
“But you—”
“Yes. I did wrong, so wrong. Nothing ever felt like that. The rush of blood and fire, the way we burned.”
“I don’t know, Finn. I can’t just—”
“You can. You’ll think of something. I can find a place ahead of time. There’s some places for sale in Shelby creek, that’s only—”
“Okay. All right.” She groaned and closed her eyes, hands against her stomach. “Find someplace…next…Thursday. I’ll tell the girls I’m going to look at stock somewhere and staying overnight.”
“I’ll meet you on the main road, after dark?”
“Yes.” She swallowed past her tight throat.
“You won’t be sorry.”
“I will.” She sighed. “But I’ll deal with it.”
His hand came up, but he laid it on her shoulder. Tugging her back so she rested against him, his timbre deeper when he murmured, “I’m going to love you like I should have for the last twenty some years, like I dreamed about….”
Flushed and hot she could feel her bones melting, her body already wet. “I’ve had children…”
“You’re beautiful, Sara. More beautiful than any woman on earth.”
She snorted even though she glowed from that. “You lie well.”
“It’s no lie. You are stronger, and have more heart, more soul, than anyone I know. I knew that, the moment I met you.”
“Let’s not talk about then.”
“No,” he agreed. “We won’t.” He squeezed her shoulder and then turned.
Sara followed, watching him climb in the saddle, admiring his strong masculine body, his cowboy ease. She mounted up too. They rode back to the ranch, parting at the stable with his assurances that they could be discreet.
After he had gone, Sara hung out the wash then helped the girls do other chores, distracted, mind miles away—
and feeling like she did when he’d introduced her to sexual pleasure. It had been so many years since she even thought of her body like that—tried not to—that the swell in her breasts, the sensitivity of her nipples, the way she moved thinking of it, kept a flush on her skin.
She planted seeds for the lie about buying stock, figuring she’d better start now.
That night, she bathed and lay in bed, her hands feeling the curves and still firm skin, her eyes closed, imagining Finn’s nude brawn, aching for the power of his thrusts so very deep inside her.
She was still hurt, still angry. Angry with herself, for loving him still. One night, one out of too many cold and lonely ones, yes, she would swallow her pride for that.
As it happened—Rose never suspected a thing, she, and Jordan were planning a trip into PineFlatts to pick up an order of new hats from Boston. Rose had books she was anxious to receive and read. It was Corey who was disgruntled. She kept asking Sara why she couldn’t go with her, and Sara, ordinarily would have taken her, and was hard pressed to find excuses.
Finally, she said to Jordan the day before, “Why don’t you and Rose invite Corey to town. The three of you have dinner at the hotel?”
“Yes. We will.” Jordan smiled. “We can stop by Alex’s, and have him and Falon join us.”
“That’s a wonderful idea. It is time Corey started getting off the ranch more. I know you two are friends, and even though she tries to act like she likes absolutely nothing girlish, she does really, she just hasn’t had that many female friends.”
“I know. Neither have I. I feel like she and Rose are that though.” Jordan nodded. “I think we can lure her into coming with us” Jordan winked.
Sara was relieved, feeling a tiny bit guilty, but telling herself that one night of being selfish wasn’t the worst sin.
As the hour got closer, she was glad the girls weren’t there to see her pace and pack, and unpack her bag. Having scrubbed and put on lotions, washed her hair— twice, she dressed in a split skirt, knee high boots, a yellow shirt and fringe buckskin jacket. She was taking the buggy and had a round brim hat, her gloves lying on the bed.