A Long Tall Texan Summer

by Diana Palmer

  “Don’t take long,” Coreen called after her. “It’s going to rain later, they said.”

  “Okay!”

  She was back within five minutes, and Coreen went out the door with her.

  Jobe was lounging against a bale of hay when they walked in. He didn’t say anything, but the look he gave Sandy in her trim, well-fitting jeans, would have made any woman’s knees weak. He didn’t smile or joke or say a word. He just looked.

  “Thanks, Jobe,” Coreen called to him as they mounted.

  He shrugged. “No problem. I’m going out to check on the baler. They were having trouble with it earlier, and it’s due to rain. Mind if I tag along as far as the bottoms?”

  “Of course not,” Coreen said, ignoring Sandy’s hunted expression.

  Jobe drew his own horse, already saddled, out of a nearby stall and swung gracefully into the saddle. They rode along in a pleasant silence for a few minutes.

  “Don’t hold those reins so tight,” Jobe chided Sandy. “You’ll hurt his mouth.”

  She loosened them at once. She didn’t argue or snap back, which was so uncharacteristic that Coreen shot her a startled look. But when she saw her friend’s face, she hid a smile.

  “I’m going to ride over and talk to Hank for a minute about the new foal we’ve got in the barn,” she said. “Be right back!”

  Sandy wanted to call after her, but she couldn’t admit that she was afraid to be alone with Jobe. Alone, she mused humorously, in the middle of a ranch with cowboys everywhere. What a laugh!

  Jobe’s gloved hand rested on the pommel. He didn’t look at her, but off into the distance, his broad-brimmed hat pulled low over his gray eyes. “That rain would be welcome two days from now. I hope it holds off until we’ve got this hay up.”

  “Will it be hard…to fix the machine?”

  He turned his head and looked into her eyes under the brim of her wide-brimmed straw hat, seeing the nervousness there, the unfamiliar vulnerability. He maneuvered his horse closer to hers.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said unexpectedly, holding her gaze.

  She laughed unsteadily. “Afraid? Of you?”

  “I wasn’t going to follow up on what happened last night, Sandy,” he said solemnly. “It was a moment out of time. Nothing to worry about.”

  Her heart fell. She didn’t look at him. “I see.”

  “Unless…”

  She glanced up. “Unless?”

  His narrow eyes fell to her mouth. “Unless you’re willing to take a chance with me.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “What… sort of… chance?”

  He searched her drawn face carefully. “The sort we tried together last night,” he replied. “It was good. Better than I’d ever thought it could be. We’ve both had our share of false starts with the opposite sex. Why don’t we see how we do as a couple for a while?”

  She felt her heart stop in her chest. It was the last thing she expected him to say to her. “What about Missy?” She choked.

  “What about her?” His face hardened. “I haven’t made her a single promise.”

  “Yes, I remember. You don’t make promises to women.”

  “Don’t make a joke of it,” he said flatly. “I’m not kidding. This is serious business.”

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth and stared at him, half-afraid. “You’re a single man. You like it that way. I’m not…not in the market for an affair. I’m sorry.”

  She started to move away, but his hand caught hers where it held the reins.

  “I’m not talking about an affair, Sandy,” he said. He managed a smile. “Ted would kill me. He lives in the past, too.”

  She glared at him. “So I’m old-fashioned. So what?”

  “I don’t mind,” he mused, chuckling. “In some ways, I’m old-fashioned myself.”

  She moved in the saddle and heard the leathers creak. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Suppose we go out to eat and take in a movie?” he suggested. “Or is that too middle-class for you?”

  She flushed. “I’m middle-class, too.”

  “Like hell you are,” he countered. “You and Ted were born to money. You’ve never been without it.”

  “I earn my own way now,” she reminded him, refusing to admit why she’d decided to go out to work when she stood to inherit a fortune from a trust when she turned twenty-eight.

  “Yes, I know you do,” he replied. “And I know why.”

  She met his eyes, shocked. “You…do?”

  He started to speak, and just as he opened his mouth, Coreen came galloping up beside Sandy.

  “We’d better get moving,” she said with an apologetic smile, indicating the black clouds building. “That hay will be a dead loss if the rain gets it.”

  “So it will,” Jobe agreed. He shot a wistful glance at Sandy, tipped his hat and rode away.

  “Sorry I interrupted,” Coreen began.

  “In the nick of time,” Sandy said, forcing a laugh. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”

  Chapter 4

  If Sandy had hoped to avoid Jobe’s offer of a date, the rain didn’t stop him. He came looking for her late that afternoon, after the hay was in.

  It was dark and rainy outside and Sandy had been sitting in the garden room out back, watching the rain come down on the pecan trees.

  Jobe found her there, curled up on a sofa in white slacks and a brief blue top.

  “Avoiding me?” he asked quietly.

  She sat up abruptly, flustered. “Why, no, of course not.”

  He moved right into the room, took off his hat and sat down beside her on the sofa. “I like thrillers,” he said without preamble. “There’s one at the theater downtown. If you’d rather see something else, I believe there’s a comedy at the Grand.”

  “I like thrillers.”

  He nodded. “We can have a pizza or a burger and fries before we go to see it. Or there’s a cafeteria, if you’d like that better.”

  He was testing her, she concluded, to see if she minded an inexpensive meal.

  She searched his eyes for a long moment. “I don’t have to go to the best restaurants or to the opera or a play, in case that’s what you were thinking,” she said gently. “I like a burger and fries, and movies suit me very well.”

  “It isn’t what you’re used to, though,” he added. He sighed. “To tell you the truth, I had second thoughts about asking you out at all.” He twirled his hat in his hands. “Maybe it’s a bad idea.”

  She didn’t know what to say. She shifted a little. “Whatever you want to do is fine,” she said.

  “Is that so?” His eyes glittered. He threw his hat on the floor, caught her around the waist and bore her down on the sofa, finding her mouth with his at the same instant.

  She couldn’t get enough air to breathe, much less to protest. He was rough with her, as if her reply had angered him. There was no hesitation, no tenderness, in his demanding mouth or the weight of his body over hers.

  She made a soft sound of protest and he relented, lifting his head to glare at her.

  “This is what I want to do,” he said harshly, looking at her as if he hated her. “It’s what I’ve wanted to do since you were seventeen, damn it!”

  She paled, seeing the self-loathing written all over his face. He wanted her and hated himself for it. If she had dreams of happily ever after, they turned to ashes from the look in his eyes.

  Suppressing quick tears of anger and disappointment, she put both hands against his shirtfront and pushed.

  “Let me up, please,” she said through her teeth.

  To her surprise, he did. He got to his feet and whipped his hat off the floor with an angry hand.

  “I don’t want to go out with you, thanks all the same,” she said in a choked tone. She sidestepped him and the instant she was an arm’s length away, she ran all the way upstairs, into her room, locking the door behind her.

  Tears ran down her cheeks, and she wiped them away
angrily. He was the cruelest man she’d ever known. How could he treat her like that, after all the years they’d known each other? It broke her heart that he had no more respect for her than that. It made her furious that she’d let her guard down at all.

  She went into her bathroom and washed her face, cold with suppressed rage.

  She didn’t even think as she dragged her suitcase out of the closet and started packing. No way was she going to stay here after that.

  A quick change of clothing, from jeans into a neat beige suit, her hair in a bun and her purse over her arm, and she was on her way down the staircase.

  She paused at the kitchen doorway, where Mrs. Bird was cooking supper.

  “I have to go back to Victoria,” she told the woman. “An emergency.”

  “Oh, did the phone ring, then?” Mrs. Bird asked. “I was out in the yard getting in the throw rug, I must have not heard it.”

  “You must not have,” Sandy agreed with a straight face. “Tell Ted and Coreen that I’ll phone them later, would you?”

  “Of course, Miss Sandy.”

  She smiled at the housekeeper and marched out the front door and down to the garage.

  Jobe was leaning against the trunk of her car. She stopped short when she saw him, but only for an instant.

  “If you’d move, I could put my suitcase in the trunk,” she said with ice dripping from every word.

  He searched her wan face, noting the redness of her eyes. “You’re always running away,” he remarked.

  “And you don’t think I have good reason to?” she demanded.

  “This time, yes, you do,” he replied. His narrow gaze slid over her face. “I’m just as hesitant about getting involved as you are. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he added heavily, noting with a grimace the swollen place on her lower lip where his teeth had caught it.

  “No harm done,” she replied tightly. “Would you move?”

  He stepped aside, watching irritably as she put her case in the trunk and closed it.

  “Wouldn’t it be better to get it out of our systems?” he asked.

  She straightened. “Didn’t you do that, on the sofa?” she asked with cold irony.

  His jaw tautened. “I don’t make a practice of hurting women. I’m sorry.”

  “You wanted me to leave.”

  He let out an angry breath. “All right, maybe I did,” he said shortly. “There are so many obstacles….”

  “Yes, there are,” she agreed at once. “Missy’s just your style, uncomplicated and sweet. I’m sure you’ll be very happy together.”

  “As happy as you’ll be with your boss?” he asked harshly.

  She turned at the door. “Mr. Cranson is in love with someone else,” she said. “I like him very much, but I’m not romantically involved with him.”

  He was surprised at her lack of guile. “You seemed affectionate with him.”

  “I like him,” she repeated. “I don’t like you,” she added with a venomous look. “Not one bit.”

  “I could work on that, if you’d let me,” he replied.

  She avoided his eyes. “You don’t want me here,” she said perceptively, bringing a fleeting surprised look to his features. “Maybe you were flattered by what I told you, about the way I used to feel toward you, but you don’t want me here and it shows. You needn’t feel guilty on my account, because of an old crush that I’m over. You don’t owe me anything.”

  He scowled faintly.

  “For God’s sake, you don’t even like me,” she said heavily. “You never have. You said you knew why I went away to work. That explains it all, doesn’t it?”

  “You were seventeen,” he recalled, “when you went to college. I knew it was to get away from me. I just didn’t know exactly why.”

  “You were dating Liz Mason,” she replied sadly. “We all thought you’d probably marry her.” She moved one shoulder. “I wasn’t pretty like Liz, and I couldn’t talk cattle. It was no surprise to me that I rubbed you the wrong way. You picked at me all the time. I left because it hurt too much to be around you.”

  “It wasn’t because I didn’t like you,” he returned.

  She managed a smile. “I understand that now,” she said with what dignity she could muster. “You wanted me, didn’t you?”

  He nodded, a curt, angry nod of his head.

  “And you still do,” she said with gathering misery. “Maybe I should be flattered, but I’m not. Bodies are cheap, a dime a dozen.”

  “The sort of chemistry we have together isn’t all that usual,” he remarked. “In fact, it’s quite rare.”

  “I want more than a few nights in bed with a man who has nothing but desire to offer,” she said honestly. “That’s why I’ve never been a rounder. I’m much too serious for lighthearted affairs.”

  His chin lifted and he didn’t even blink. The intensity of his gaze made her heart race. “I could take you to bed anytime I liked,” he said quietly. “That was true when you were seventeen and it’s true now. I’ve always known it.”

  She flushed. “You arrogant…!”

  “Oh, hell, don’t fidget,” he muttered. He stuck his hands into his pockets. “I haven’t done anything about it. And if I’ve antagonized you, it was for your own protection. Just how much willpower do you think I’ve got? If you’d ever thrown yourself at me, neither of us would have had a prayer.”

  She stiffened. “I don’t throw myself at men.”

  “Good thing,” he replied. “Otherwise, you’d have found yourself standing in front of the nearest minister I could produce. I don’t play around with women who don’t know the score.”

  “I’m not some ignorant schoolgirl!”

  He drew in a long breath. “I know exactly what you are, Sandy,” he said quietly. “It hasn’t made things easier.” He searched her face. “If you’re determined to leave, I won’t try to stop you. Maybe you’re right. We’d both have a lot of adjusting to do. I don’t know if you could really settle for a middle-class life, and I’m not the sort to give up my job and live on my wife’s income.”

  “I don’t want to get married,” she said through her teeth.

  He saw through the pretense, but he didn’t say anything. “Have a safe trip,” he remarked, and turned away.

  Sandy watched him walk off, her heart down around her ankles. She didn’t know what he really wanted, and he wasn’t going to tell her. As usual, he was going to force her to read his mind.

  “I hate men,” she muttered to herself.

  She climbed into the car, started it and drove away. All the way to Victoria, she kept the radio playing as loud as she could stand it, just to stop the thoughts that plagued her. She shouldn’t have left, she should have stayed and let things take their course. But she was afraid of being hurt. Jobe couldn’t guarantee her that they’d find anything more than desire in each other’s arms, and desire wasn’t enough.

  But she’d never know what he was offering. She’d been too afraid to risk her heart with him. Now she was going to pay the price.

  Pay it she did, for two solid miserable weeks, trying desperately to put Jobe to the back of her mind. But he wouldn’t stay there. He kept popping up all the time, especially in conversations with Coreen.

  “He won’t even talk to Missy lately,” Coreen mused over the phone. “He’s so morose that one of the men asked if he’d had a relative die or something. It’s strange, you know, for Jobe to be anything but pleasant and easygoing.”

  “Maybe he had bad news,” Sandy said stiffly.

  “Oh, no, it’s not that. He’s been this way since you left.”

  Sandy’s heart jumped. “Pull the other leg.”

  “I’m not kidding,” Sandy told her. “He misses you.”

  She didn’t say a word. After a minute, she changed the subject and Coreen didn’t say anything else about the ranch foreman.

  But two days later, Ted called.

  “We’ve run into a snag with the computer,” he told Sandy. “The files
won’t come up, and I have to have them for a production sale. Can you come down and have a look?”

  “Okay. I’ll be home first thing tomorrow.”

  “Good girl!”

  He hung up and she considered the workings of providence. Fate was taking a hand. She wondered what would be waiting for her in Jacobsville.

  She packed her case and left early the next morning, refusing to admit to herself how much she’d missed Jobe, how much she cared for him.

  He wasn’t in the office when she went to have a look at the computer, but Ted was.

  He glowered. “I never did trust the damned things,” he muttered while Sandy checked files on the hard drive. “Now see what it’s done, it’s eaten my damned herd records!”

  “It hasn’t,” Sandy replied. “They’ve been erased, but I can recover them. Just stop cursing and give me a little time to do it.”

  He made a rough sound. “Are you sure you can?”

  “Yes.” She ran through the files. “How did it happen?”

  “Missy was upset and hit the wrong keys, or so Jobe said.”

  She looked at her brother curiously. “What upset her?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied dryly, “but I think it was because Jobe didn’t want to go with her to some party in town. She bought a new dress just for the occasion.”

  “Why didn’t he want to go?”

  “Ask him.” He perched himself against the desk. “He’s been hell to talk to lately. He snaps, no matter what you say to him. Irritable as all hell, since you left that day. Odd, isn’t it?” he added with a cool smile and narrow, intent eyes.

  Sandy colored in spite of herself. “We both agreed that we’re better off with the status quo.”

  “In other words, you’re too scared to take a chance on him, is that right?”

  She stopped working with the computer and whirled around in her chair. “We’re both scared,” she replied. “He doesn’t think I can settle for a middle-class life, and I don’t think he’s capable of any feelings that aren’t physical. Does that put things into perspective for you?”

  Ted chuckled. “I thought it was something of the sort.” He folded his arms across his chest. “But sometimes you have to take a chance,” he added gently.