Cattleman's Courtship

by Lois Faye Dyer

  “Are you expecting a call from your mother?” he asked. “Should I hang up?”

  “No,” Victoria said quickly. “I was talking to her only a few moments ago. When the phone rang so soon after we’d hung up, I assumed she’d called back to tell me something she’d forgotten earlier. Your voice startled me.”

  “Yeah? I don’t sound like your mother?” His deep voice held amusement.

  “No,” Victoria said dryly. “Mom’s voice is definitely more soprano, while yours is more bass. Now my dad, on the other hand, sounds a bit like you.”

  “Yeah? Is this a good thing?” Quinn asked warily.

  “Absolutely,” Victoria said promptly, smiling at his small hum of appreciation. “Did you spend time with Becky tonight?”

  “Yes. She made dinner for us, and I helped her upstairs to her room before I left.”

  “Was she feeling all right?” Quick concern swept Victoria. “Do you think she should have been standing and using her ankle long enough to make dinner?”

  “No, I don’t. Which is why I insisted on barbecuing steaks on the grill. She put potatoes in the oven to bake, then cut up a salad while she sat on a lawn chair to keep me company while I watched the steaks,” he chuckled. “Then I had to fight with her again to let me wash the dishes while she sat down to dry them.”

  Victoria laughed. “And I bet she scolded you and told you to go home all the while you were helping her upstairs, didn’t she?”

  “I see you know our Becky well,” he said dryly.

  “Not nearly as well as I’d like to,” Victoria confessed with a smile in her voice. “She’s a lot of fun. If I hang around her long enough, I’ll be ready to play poker in Vegas.”

  “Hah,” Quinn snorted. “If you keep playing poker with Becky Sprackett, you won’t have any money left to take to Vegas. She cheats, you know,” he warned.

  “No!” Victoria feigned surprise. “Not that sweet little lady!”

  “That sweet little old lady will have you betting your gold fillings—and she’ll collect them too, when you lose. Which you will, because she’s a card shark.”

  Victoria giggled. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d giggled.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d guess that you’ve never beaten Becky at poker.”

  Silence reverberated over the line.

  “You’d guess right,” he admitted, faintly disgruntled. “I came close one time.” He added. “But I couldn’t prove that she slipped an ace off the bottom of the deck so I had to let her claim the pot.”

  Victoria could only laugh.

  “I’m serious, Victoria,” Quinn warned her. “Don’t bet money with that woman. She used to wipe out Cully’s and my piggy banks on a regular basis.”

  Quinn continued to relate outrageous stories about Becky. Time flew by as Victoria sat curled in the chair, connected to Quinn by his voice and their shared laughter.

  “Are you working at the pharmacy tomorrow?” he asked much later.

  “Yes,” she responded. “Sheila has a dental appointment in the morning so my being available was good timing. Uncle John wants me to open the store at nine.”

  “Then I’d better let you go,” he said reluctantly. “Victoria…” His voice was deeper, husky and the brief silence was charged with emotion. “I watched the sun go down alone tonight. It wasn’t the same without you here. I missed you.”

  “Did you?” Victoria’s eyes went soft and lambent.

  “Yes,” he said gruffly.

  “I miss you, too.” Victoria couldn’t erase the yearning that lay beneath her words, her voice an unsteady thread of sound.

  “Good. I’d hate to feel this way alone.” The words were a husky murmur. “Go to bed, honey. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Goodnight,” she whispered.

  “Night.”

  Quinn hung up the telephone and crossed his arms beneath his head, staring up at the darkened ceiling of his bedroom. He wanted her. But the ache went deeper than the physical need that rode him and had him shifting restlessly against the sheets. He wanted her close enough to touch, not just while they were making love, but all the time. That meant having her living in his house and sleeping in his bed.

  He had to convince her to stay in Colson. But how? There were no law offices in the small ranching community that would offer her a career to compare with a partnership in a high-powered Seattle firm. Her work was important to her; he couldn’t and wouldn’t ask her to give it up.

  It’s ironic that I’m worried about her opportunity to practice law, he realized. His deeply embedded dislike of attorneys and the law profession had been shaken by Victoria. He still didn’t like lawyers, but he had to admit that perhaps not every attorney was a bad seed. Especially not Victoria.

  He went over and over the problem but could find no solutions. When he finally fell asleep, his subconscious continued to wrestle with the puzzle with little result.

  Quinn took Victoria to dinner the following evening, but kissing her good-night at the door nearly did him in.

  “I can’t stay,” he ground out.

  “Why?” Victoria was barely capable of speaking. His mouth was furnace-hot against her throat. Her dress was unbuttoned to the waist and pushed off one shoulder, his hand cupped possessively over the white lace of her bra.

  “Because I’m damned if I’ll take you and leave you in a few quick minutes,” he muttered, his lips brushing the upper swell of her breast above white lace. “And your neighbors would have a field day gossiping about you if I spent the night.”

  “Mmm.” Victoria wanted him so badly that she didn’t think she cared what the neighbors said, but she knew that gossip mattered to Quinn. So she didn’t resist when he pulled away from her.

  “I don’t want to leave you,” he groaned. He bent and kissed her, his mouth fierce with frustration and hunger. Then he yanked open the door. “I’ll call you.”

  He left. Victoria heard him stride down the steps, heard the thud of the outer door, and waited until the growl of the truck engine faded into silence before she moved.

  She twisted the locks closed and drifted into her bedroom, still dazed by the force of the passion that always flared between them. She understood Quinn’s sexual frustration all too well for she suffered, too.

  And she still hadn’t told him she loved him, nor asked him about their future. She hadn’t found the right moment. Sighing, she showered and climbed in bed, dreams of Quinn keeping her twisting and turning until dawn.

  Unfortunately for Victoria, Quinn was kept busy at the ranch with one emergency after another over the next few days.

  After three days of only hearing his voice in after-midnight telephone conversations she was beginning to feel seriously deprived. Then the bells on the shop door jangled shortly after lunch and she glanced up just in time to see Quinn walk into the pharmacy.

  “Quinn!” She didn’t care that several customers turned to stare. She didn’t care that the smile on her face and the pleasure in her voice must surely have spoken volumes about how she felt about him. The only thing she cared about was Quinn.

  He was wearing work clothes—faded jeans and dusty boots, with the sleeves of his blue work shirt folded up over sun-browned forearms and the ever-present gray Stetson tilted over his forehead.

  His eyes lit when he saw her, a smile curving his hard mouth.

  “Afternoon, Victoria.”

  For once, he didn’t seem to care that there were people watching. Victoria halted in front of him and brushed a smudge of dust from his shirt pocket.

  “Have you been playing in the dirt again?” she teased.

  “If you call chasing thirty-odd cows and calves back through a downed fence, then yes, I guess I’ve been ‘playing’ in the dirt,” he said dryly.

  “Uh-oh. Did you find them all?”

  “I think so.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers brushing gently against her cheek and the soft lobe of her ear. “What have you been
doing?”

  “Working. And missing you,” she added softly, lowering her voice so only he could hear.

  His eyes darkened.

  “Yeah?” he asked, just as softly.

  “Yeah,” she mimicked, just as quietly.

  “Maybe we can do something about that tonight,” he murmured. “Wait up for me.”

  Her heart beat faster. “What time will you be there?”

  “I don’t know. I’m buried in work. The only reason I’m in town now is to pick up a part for a water pump. But I’m not going another night without seeing you. Do you care how late it is?”

  “No.” She shook her head, smiling with pleasure.

  The door opened behind them, bells jingling, but neither of them noticed the customer enter. But the woman saw them. There was no mistaking their intimacy. Quinn’s head was bent toward Victoria, her face turned up to his. The very closeness of their bodies shrieked familiarity.

  The sight infuriated Eileen Bowdrie.

  “Well, isn’t this cozy?”

  The acid tones shattered the spell that held the two lovers. Quinn stiffened, his shoulders squaring as he shifted to face his stepmother, instinctively shielding Victoria.

  “Eileen,” he acknowledged, his voice impersonal.

  Except for one frigid glare, she ignored him, all her attention on Victoria. “It’s obvious that you don’t listen to good advice, young woman. Your poor aunt and uncle must be worried sick about your liaison with a man as unacceptable as Quinn.” Her mouth twisted, pursing in distaste.

  “My aunt and uncle respect my judgment,” Victoria said pointedly, in an attempt to be polite.

  “Humph.” Eileen dismissed the words. “Your judgment is clearly impaired if you’re expecting anything but an affair with Quinn. He’s just like his father. All you’ll get from him is misery and heartbreak when he’s unfaithful, which he’s sure to be. He’ll never marry you, you know.”

  White-faced with anger, Victoria pushed at Quinn’s forearm, wanting to step past him and confront Eileen. But his arm was rock-solid. He didn’t move.

  All his adult life, Quinn had made it a practice to ignore Eileen’s frequent outbursts, but her attack on Victoria lit cold rage and pushed him beyond reticence.

  “You’re wrong, Eileen.” His deep voice carried easily in the quiet store where every patron was silent, watching the encounter with open curiosity. “I’d marry Victoria in a heartbeat, if she’d have me. And I’d spend the rest of my life doing everything in my power to make her happy. Unlike my father, I’d never be unfaithful to the woman I loved, even if she wasn’t the woman I legally married.”

  A collective gasp rose from the onlookers.

  Victoria’s heart stopped. He loves me? He wants to marry me? It took a full moment before she realized that Quinn’s narrowed, unflinching stare was focused entirely on his stepmother. Victoria glanced at the older woman, shocked at what she saw.

  All color leached from Eileen’s face, leaving her lips a slash of red against bone-white skin.

  “You…that’s a terrible thing to say.” Her lips trembled. Her hand lifted to press shaking fingers against her mouth.

  “I’m sorry, Eileen.” Regret tinged Quinn’s reply. “I’ve never denied the things you’ve said about me. Or Cully. Or our father, because I don’t blame you for resenting us. But you’ve no cause to attack Victoria. She’s an innocent bystander in this war you’ve carried on for years, and I won’t let you involve her. Not her.”

  Not a single person listening misread the threat implicit in his voice.

  Not even Eileen.

  Visibly shaken, she glanced at Victoria before her gaze returned to Quinn. She drew herself in, her face carefully expressionless except for eyes dark with pain.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Quinn Bowdrie.”

  With an attempt at her usual haughty stare, her gaze flicked over the silent onlookers. Then she turned on her heel, gathered her shattered composure around her like a cloak and walked from the shop.

  Quinn saw the door close on her stiff back before he glanced down at Victoria. Instead of the anger he expected to find, her blue eyes were bemused.

  “I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “That was my fault. I should have warned her before to leave you alone.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Victoria dismissed Eileen and focused on more important matters. “Did you mean what you told her?”

  “Yes.” His response was instant, implacable. “If she ever says anything to you again, or if I hear of her spreading lies about you, I won’t let it pass.”

  Victoria shook her head. “I didn’t mean about that. I meant about what you said about loving me and getting married.”

  Quinn’s eyes went hot, naked emotion written on his features.

  “Oh, yeah.” His voice was husky. “I do. And I’d marry you in a heartbeat, if you’d have me.”

  “Oh, Quinn.” Her smile trembled, her eyes misty as she gazed into his beloved face. “I’d have you.”

  His big body jerked in reaction, his green eyes blazing with exultation and fierce joy. Then he yanked her against him and swung her off her feet, his mouth claiming hers with swift possession.

  Long moments passed before they realized that they had an audience that was clapping, cheering and laughing with delight.

  Quinn lifted his head, glanced at the shop’s customers, then smiled apologetically at Victoria.

  “Sorry, honey. I guess I could have picked a better place to propose.”

  Victoria laughed and hugged him closer. “I think Colson will just have to get used to seeing us kiss in public because I don’t plan to stop.”

  “At least the town gossips won’t have to get the news secondhand,” Quinn whispered wryly. “Because Flora Andersen and Elizabeth Price are both standing in the cosmetic section.”

  “Good,” she whispered, smiling sunnily. “Kiss me again so they have a really good story to tell. I dare you—just think what this will do for your reputation, Quinn.”

  He made a sound that was half groan, half chuckle, and covered her laughing mouth with his.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-1684-6

  CATTLEMAN’S COURTSHIP

  Copyright © 2000 by Lois Faye Dyer

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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