by Susan Fox
Ty led the way with his hand solicitously around her elbow, keeping her slightly behind him as he made a path through the crowd. It amazed her how quickly he managed to get them to the buffet table. Though Rio had no appetite, she made a few selections, mindful of her increasing light-headedness and the fact that she hadn’t eaten since the day before.
They left the dining room carrying their drinks and plates. Every available seat was taken in the house. They walked to the kitchen, and Rio came to a halt as she glanced through the door to the patio and saw that every seat available in the shade outside was occupied, as well.
She turned to Ty. “It looks like it’s no better outside. If you don’t mind, we might find a place to sit on the stairs.”
“The stairs would be fine,” he returned, then let her lead the way to the staircase that opened off the back hall. Rio sat down on the third step from the bottom. Ty sat beside her.
Though she was initially stiff with the handsome rancher, she gradually relaxed. They talked about ranching, but Ty didn’t ask her what her plans were now, as nearly everyone else had. It seemed he was the only person in Texas who didn’t assume Kane would never let her stay on.
On the other hand, there was something speculative in his gaze, something that suggested he had made the same assumptions as everyone else, but was too much a gentleman to let on.
His solicitous, “I’d be happy to get you something more to eat or another glass of tea, Miz Rio,” prompted her to shake her head.
“Thank you, no, but go ahead if you’d like something,” she told him.
“I’m full enough for a hot day,” he said, then reached over to relieve her of her plate and sit it with his on a step behind them. When he turned back, his eyes made a brisk search of her face.
“My ranch manager is buying a ranch of his own, so I’m looking for someone with experience running a place the size of Cameron.” He gave her a half smile that was loaded with masculine appeal. “I thought I’d mention it to you in case you ever got the notion to try a new challenge.”
As he spoke, he slipped a hand to the inside pocket of his suit jacket. He withdrew a business card and passed it to her. “If I’m not available at that number, my people will have instructions to notify me immediately of your call, and I’ll get back to you right away.” He shrugged. “Or, if you’d just like to get away sometime, I’d be honored to take you to dinner and show you what we do for excitement down in San Antone.” The smile he gave her was warm, and there was no mistaking the personal interest in the gaze that was fixed so intently on her face.
Rio glanced down at the card. The possible offer of a job as good as this made her feel less terrified of the future, but the personal offer made her wary. She hoped her soft, “Thank you, Mr. Cameron, we’ll see,” as she lifted her gaze to meet his would be taken as a more businesslike response than a personal one.
On the other hand, what would it hurt if things did get personal between them? As she considered what she knew of Ty Cameron’s character along with his rugged good looks, she realized he was probably the only man she’d ever met who had the potential to make her fall for him and forget her feelings for Kane.
As if the possibility of caring for someone else and forgetting her feelings for Kane was destined to be thwarted, she heard a sound, then turned her head to see Kane standing next to the staircase. His blue gaze shifted from her face to Ty’s before it shot back to hers and narrowed.
“There are people asking after you,” he said gruffly, managing to make her feel in the wrong.
Ty said smoothly, “That’s my fault, I’m afraid. I’ve been dominating Miz Rio’s time.” Ty got to his feet, then reached out to shake Kane’s hand and offer condolences.
Rio stood to her feet while the two men talked briefly, stepping out of the way when a waiter came scurrying down the hall to collect their empty plates and glasses. Kane seemed to relax a bit as he returned the handshake, but by the time Ty had taken his leave of them both, his expression was again stony with disapproval.
“Is there a reason the two of you were hiding out back here?”
Kane’s terse question took her aback. She answered before she thought about it. “There was no other place to sit.”
“Some rental place called,” he went on irritably, as if her answer was too trivial to acknowledge. No doubt he was annoyed at being bothered by the call. “They wanted to let you know the trailer you reserved is ready. I told them to hold it another day.”
Rio shook her head slightly. “I need it today.”
“Not with a crowd around to watch the little melodrama of Rio Cory packing her things and driving off into the great unknown,” he said grimly.
The words stung. It was as if those few moments of closeness they’d experienced that day hadn’t happened. Rio turned from him and walked briskly toward the front of the huge home. The grief that had seemed to ease the past half hour settled back into place, bringing with it a fresh sense of loneliness.
Rio made her way through the crowd, stopping to speak briefly here and there, doing her best to be as visible as possible for as long as she could stand before she slipped away to the quiet of her room.
She never had an opportunity to leave the ranch that day after all. Guests came and went at the main house until after seven that evening. Two of Kane’s cousins from his mother’s side of the family stayed the night, not leaving the ranch until late afternoon the next day.
Too restless to wait around at the house, Rio put in a full day’s work so Kane could visit with his cousins. By the time she got to the house that evening, she felt uncommonly tired, and didn’t care if she ate supper or not. The fact that Ramona would be at the table was added incentive to forgo the meal.
Rio stopped in the kitchen only long enough to grab a small jar of fruit juice from the refrigerator and tell Ardis not to set a place for her. She went upstairs to her room, her feet so leaden with fatigue that she almost wished she’d taken Sam’s elevator.
The emptiness she’d run from that whole day was suddenly so much worse in the silence of the big house. Ardis had given her usual taciturn greeting of “Evenin’,” but Sam wasn’t somewhere nearby calling out to her or asking about her day.
Rio stepped into her room and closed the door, then walked across the floor to her private bath. It seemed to take forever to get her clothes off, unbraid her hair and step beneath the hot spray of the shower.
When she stepped out later, wound her hair in a huge towel and dried off, she felt more exhausted than ever. Finishing the fruit juice refreshed her a bit, but by the time she’d wrapped up in a robe, brushed her teeth and dried her hair, she was worn out.
She walked into her bedroom, and was about to turn down the comforter and top sheet when she was startled by a knock at the door. She cinched the belt of her robe tighter and was halfway to the door when the knock came again, louder. Kane called out an irritable, “Where the hell are you, Rio?”
Rio opened the door a few inches and looked out at Kane’s dark expression. “Where do you think?” she answered in a false show of spirit, secretly hurt by his impatience.
“We’re waiting supper for you,” he said gruffly.
“I told Ardis—”
“I know what you told Ardis,” he cut in. “Get dressed and come down anyway.”
A flash of temper banished some of Rio’s fatigue. “My workday’s over,” she told him. “Permanently. Find someone else to boss around.” She gave the door a smart shove to close it in his arrogant face when his hand flew up to stop it.
The look in his eyes was dangerously grim. He walked forward slowly, his hand on the edge of the door to push it wide. Rio stepped back.
“I’m asking you to get dressed and come down to supper,” he said in a low, rough voice.
Rio’s chin came up. “And I’m telling you that I’m going to bed now. I could care less about eating.”
“Are you sick?”
She must have been imagining t
he hint of concern in his eyes. She shook her head. “Just tired. I’m not up to you and Ramona tonight.” She gave him a humorless quirk of lips. “No offense.”
Kane’s stiff smile was just as humorless. He stepped farther into the room and closed the door. “What are your plans for tomorrow?”
“To leave Langtry,” she answered simply, drawing herself up a bit straighter as she said it. Not for anything did she want Kane to see how much it hurt to have to leave her home. If things had been different between them, she might have moved out of the main house into the quarters at the end of the bunk house. She loved the ranch, loved the outdoor work, and would have been content to stay on indefinitely as a ranch hand. Because of Kane, she couldn’t.
“The lawyer’s coming out tomorrow morning. He’ll be reading the will,” he said. It was clear by his low, rough voice that he wasn’t happy to have to tell her anything about it. His brusque, “I understand from him that you need to be present,” explained why.
Rio shook her head. “The will doesn’t concern me. The only thing I’m interested in is the letter Sam mentioned that day.” She’d been unable to forget Sam’s weak, Letters say for me, as he lay dying. If he really had left a letter for her, it would be like one last talk, a keepsake she could see and touch and take with her.
“The lawyer mentioned he had them. He’ll pass them out after the will is read.”
Rio turned away, wearily shaking her head. “I’m only interested in Sam’s letter.” She brushed a wide swath of hair behind her shoulder and walked to her bed to tug the comforter and sheet down. She lifted her hands to the belt on her robe and paused. “Could you please close the door on your way out?”
She stood there for several long moments. There was no sound from Kane, not even a whisper of movement. Finally, she glanced back, saw Kane’s dark expression, then felt herself wilt a little more. “Please take your angry looks someplace else, Kane,” she said softly as she faced forward.
The sound of Kane walking up behind her made her stiffen. The big hands that settled over her shoulders were warm and sure, and Rio tried to move away from him. Kane thwarted her with the tight flex of his strong fingers.
“Just stand still,” he whispered gruffly. His right hand lifted from her shoulder. “You’ve got something in your hair. Looks like a pillow feather.” She felt him comb his fingers down the length of her hair, sending a shower of bright sensations across her skin from her scalp to her toes. Her legs began to weaken as heat flooded her. Kane lifted his hand to run his fingers down her hair a second time and she twisted abruptly from him.
The grip he had on her other shoulder when she wrenched away pulled her robe open. Kane caught her wrist with an ease that mocked her quick move, and his blue gaze dropped to the shoulder and breast that had been uncovered. Rio grabbed for the edge of her robe to cover herself, but he seized her other wrist.
His eyes fixed on her bare breast and darkened. Her gasp drew his attention to her mouth for a fraction of a second before his gaze fell again, to her exposed flesh.
Rio realized dazedly that he was drawing her closer, and tried to pull away from him. Though years of ranch work had made her strong, she was no match for Kane’s superior strength. Their brief struggle managed only to loosen the tie belt until the top of the robe gaped open.
She froze, her cheeks flushing a dark red. In the next instant Kane released her wrists and slid his calloused hands around her bare waist. She grabbed for the edges of her robe to close it, but the hot, determined look in his eyes made her fingers sluggish. She stared up at him, mesmerized as his lips descended to hers.
The next thing she knew, she was lying back on her bed, pressed to the mattress by Kane’s big body. His denim-clad leg slid between hers and more of his weight shifted atop her until he was lying fully on her, his clothing gently abrading her tender skin. And all the while he was kissing her, dominating her with the skill of his lips and tongue and hands until she wept with frustration at her body’s helpless response.
Suddenly his mouth slid off hers and he dropped his forehead to the mattress beside her head. The low growl that rumbled up from his chest was shockingly feral and sent a light shiver of fear through her.
“Damn it,” he growled, then turned his head until his lips were touching the shell of her ear. “What is it about you?” he demanded softly. “If I take you here, right now,” he said as his hand found the soft mound of her breast and toyed aggressively with its tip, “then maybe you can get the hell off Langtry and I’ll never give you another thought”
The words were unbearably cruel, but the tender expertise of his fingers made her move restlessly beneath him. The terrible confusion of cruelty and sharp pleasure tore at her. A silent sob rose painfully in her chest, but she bit her lip until she tasted blood to stifle it.
“I hate wanting you,” he growled. “I hate looking at you and knowing that you’re not only the one woman I ache to have, but the last one I want.”
The breath she’d been holding gusted out on a wave of pure misery. She turned her face away. Her voice was so hoarse that it was barely audible: “Rio Cory, tomboy trash, daddy caused an awful crash. Killed them two boys, killed himself, now he’s gone to drunkard’s hell.”
The silence that descended was thunderous. Rio’s blood was pounding in her ears. She’d never repeated to anyone, not even Sam, the malicious little verse she’d been tortured with those years after her father’s death. The mayor’s daughter was the first to actually say it in her presence, but it had been rapidly picked up by her classmates. It had seemed to take forever for everyone to forget the awful rhyme.
But nobody forgot, not really. She was still “that Cory girl” no matter what she’d done, no matter what Sam had tried to do for her. Wasn’t Kane’s insulting declaration proof of that?
Heartache and exhaustion took the last of her strength. She let her hands slide from his wide shoulders. She all but wilted beneath the warm crush of his hard body, her face turned away, tears leaking from her eyes.
“I hate wanting you, too, Kane,” she whispered. “I’m ashamed that I’ve loved someone all these years who holds me in such contempt.”
At last Kane’s fingers stopped toying with her breast. She shivered when he pulled the soft terry cloth of her robe over it. He slowly shifted himself off her, then quietly drew the facings of her robe together until they overlapped from neck to hem, covering her nakedness.
Rio was too exhausted and too dispirited to even open her eyes as she waited in the harsh silence for Kane to move off the bed and leave the room. She felt him shift, then felt the warm gust of his breath the second before his lips touched her neck. His hand slid around her waist and pulled her tighter against him, but Rio didn’t move.
“Oh, God, Rio, I must be losing my mind,” he rasped as he nuzzled her neck, then drew back to smooth a few strands of hair from her temple. “Forgive me for being such a bastard.”
Rio didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The weight of grief and disappointment pressed so heavily on her heart that she almost couldn’t breathe. Kane eventually’ rolled away from her and got up. He must have taken her silence for sleep because he gently moved her until her head was on a pillow. He drew her robe more snugly around her and pulled the sheet and comforter over her. The light switched off and she listened to his booted tread as he walked to the door and left the room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KANE took somber note of Rio’s empty chair at the table that next morning. He knew she was awake— he’d heard her moving around in her room. He knew she’d slept the night through, because he’d checked on her several times during the restless night he’d put in.
Just when he was about to give up on her, he heard her quiet footsteps on the front stairs. Rio was probably the only person he knew who could wear boots and walk quiet. Even her spurs, when she wore them, didn’t rattle and chime. She had a way of moving that didn’t demand attention, but it was that very grace and elegance that made her s
tand out.
Rio Cory, tomboy trash… The hateful rhyme made another pass through his mind before he ruthlessly silenced it. So many things about Rio suddenly made sense.
“I was wondering if you were going to come down this early.”
Kane’s voice had a deep, rusty sound at 5:00 a.m. Rio walked toward her place at the long dining room table and slipped onto her usual chair across from him. She didn’t look him in the eye and she didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. Besides, he’d merely made a comment.
All she had to do was get through the next few hours. The last thing she felt like doing was eating the steak and eggs breakfast Ardis was carrying in. The fact that she hadn’t eaten since noon the day before was her only incentive to show up for this meal. She’d chosen to have breakfast when Kane did because she knew he’d allow her to eat in peace. Ramona wouldn’t be so charitable.
The silence between them was oppressive. Rio ate mechanically, forcing herself to chew her food. The time or two she’d dared a glance at Kane, her gaze had collided with the laser intensity of his. Eventually the self-consciousness she felt made it impossible to eat. She set her fork down and plucked her napkin from her lap to toss it next to her plate.
“Where are you off to?” he asked as she stood.
Rio stepped aside and pushed her chair up to the table. “I have to finish packing,” she said quietly, then turned to start for the door.
“There’s no need to rush off.”
Kane’s deep voice made her hesitate. She looked at him, meeting his gaze full-on before she shook her head. “There’s every need, Kane. Especially after last night.”
Her soft words intensified the stillness of the big room. The deep blue of his eyes flickered a moment, then dulled, but he didn’t look away. Instead, his gaze made a lightning tour from her face to her toes before it sped back up to meet her eyes.
“Suit yourself.”
Irrational as it was, that was the moment Rio realized that she still hoped Kane would ask her to stay on. She’d helped run Langtry for years, with the authority to act for him on many occasions. She’d done a competent job, but Kane’s bad feelings toward her were evidently too strong for him to even suggest it.