by Tami Hoag
As if in answer to his thoughts, she wheeled on him, shaking a shoe in his face. “I’m a grown hic woman, Rylan Quaid. I know the difference between love and multiple orgasms. I know I’m in hic love with you. If you can’t handle that, it’s just too damn bad, but don’t you dare throw it back in my face!”
She started for the door, intending to go down the hall to the bathroom to dress, but Ry stepped on the bedclothes trailing behind her, then caught her by the shoulders and pulled her back against him.
“All right, all right,” he said impatiently. “I’m sorry.”
If she wanted to think she was in love with him, who was he to stop her? As she’d said, she was a grown woman, responsible for her own actions, for her own feelings. His responsibility was to himself, to keep his own head clear, to keep things in their proper perspective. He knew better than to believe in the love she thought she felt; it was just a passing thing.
Maggie struggled against his hold a bit, fighting his superior strength in vain. Ry wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back against his chest. There were times when he enjoyed having her hiss and spit at him like an angry cat. But now he felt a strong need to hold her and soothe the hurt he’d caused. It was a need he didn’t examine too closely.
“Sometimes you make me so doggone mad, Rylan.” Her temper had kept her tears at bay. His sudden tenderness was loosening her tight hold on control, making her mouth tremble and eyes fill up and overflow.
“I know. I’m a bastard,” he said softly. He pressed a whisper-soft kiss in her tangled hair then nuzzled through the dark burnished mass to brush another on her neck. “I’m just a big, rough farmer. Wouldn’t know charm if it spit in my face.”
Maggie sniffled and scrubbed at a tear with the heel of her hand, a watery chuckle escaping her. “That’s a fact.” Twisting around, she pressed her cheek to his chest as the tears began coming in earnest. Hugging him for all she was worth, she said, “But I love you anyway.”
“Shhh…shhh…” Ry held her tight, rocking her back and forth, drinking in the feel of her sweet soft curves in his arms. A hint of her perfume still teased his nostrils. She was very feminine, and she seemed as fragile as a flower crying in his arms. Like a knife through silk, the sound tore through him all the way to his soul. He held her tighter. “Hush, baby, please don’t cry.”
“I-I-I love you, and y-you don’t believe me.”
That wasn’t the stuff her dreams had been made of. In her dreams Ry had always returned her declaration of love with one of his own. His silence now squeezed around her heart like a fist, but she took hope in the comfort he offered. When his palms pressed against her cheeks, she raised her head and accepted the kisses he feathered across her face to take her tears away. When he pressed his lips to hers, she accepted that kiss too.
She loved him. It seemed she’d always loved him. So what choice did she have but to try to make him believe in that love? She put everything she was feeling into her kiss, refusing to stop even when he lifted her in his arms and the bedclothes she had wrapped around her fell away. She offered herself to him freely, without reservation, with all the love that ached in her heart. She stroked her love along the sleek, hard lines of his back, wrapped it around his hips, gloved the essence of his maleness with it. And when they reached passion’s summit, she whispered it to him from the very depths of her being.
“Marry me, Maggie.”
Her lips lifted in a tired smile as she zipped her dress. “I guess that’s an improvement over your last proposal.”
“Good enough for an admiral’s daughter?” Dressed in jeans and a white western shirt, Ry stood by his dresser fiddling with the articles that sat on top, watching Maggie in the mirror. He didn’t pursue the topic when she chose to ignore the question. It hardly seemed relevant anymore. If she thought she was in love with him, she probably thought he was good enough for her. In any case, the promise of the money and notoriety Rough Cut was bringing home was enough to make up for his own rough edges. “We make a good team.”
“Like Siskel and Ebert? Abbott and Costello? Pork rinds and beer?” she joked, trying to keep an eye on him as she bent to force her foot into her shoe.
Ry didn’t laugh. “I mean it. I’m sick of playing these little games.”
“Okay.” She straightened and smoothed her skirt, nerves dancing in her stomach. “No more games then. Do you love me, Ry?”
He stiffened, avoiding his own reflection in the mirror. Did he love her? No. He was attracted to her, liked her, and respected her…. Christian Atherton’s words of the night before came hauntingly to mind: All those things add up to love.
Only if you’re fool enough to let them, a bitter little voice murmured inside him. He’d seen his father do it, he’d nearly done it himself once, and once was enough. He wanted Maggie, but he was going to be honest about it with her. He wouldn’t be a fool for love again. He couldn’t be. He just didn’t have it in him.
He turned to face her and heaved a sigh, his big shoulders sagging. “It’s just a word, Maggie.”
“Not in my book it isn’t.”
“We’ve got so much going for us. Don’t screw it up waiting for some abstract concept to make bells ring in your head.” Determined to sway her to his way of thinking, he started ticking off his points on his fingers. “We’re attracted to each other. We like each other—most of the time—”
She sliced her hand through the air to cut him off. “If you’re going to read me that damn list again, I swear I’ll choke you. We’re people, Rylan, human beings, not critters with pedigrees to be matched up and bred in hopes of a nice foal crop.”
“I do not think of you as a brood mare,” he said, dropping his hands to his slim hips. “I think we could have a good life together, and I’m sick of waiting to get started on it. Marry me.”
She could have pointed out that he was being arrogant and dictatorial, but that would have been a waste of breath. He had no doubt been born arrogant and dictatorial. He had probably bossed around the nurses in the delivery room at his birth. And the truth of the matter was, she liked him that way. Once they were married, it was going to be one contest of wills after another, which suited her fine. There was just one little thing she wanted, one thing she had to have cleared up first.
She stepped closer to him, looked up into the fierce expression she loved so much, and wished that for once things would go according to her dreams. “Do you love me?”
“Aw, Maggie.” All the fight drained out of him on his sigh. The regret was there in his eyes again as he lifted a hand and stroked her cheek. “Don’t ask me for something I’m not capable of. If there ever was a part of me that could feel that way, it died a long time ago. I’ll give you everything else you ever wanted, honey.”
“But not your love.”
“You can’t go to the well if the darn thing is dry.”
If she had believed that were true, that he simply wasn’t capable of giving love, Maggie could have walked away from him feeling nothing more than pity. But it wasn’t true, and she knew it. Ry had love in him. She’d seen him give it to his sister, to his horses, to the strays he took in. He gave it to her in his own stubborn way. He undoubtedly called it something else, but it was love.
She had lain awake half the night thinking it over, and she was convinced Ry was in love with her. He exhibited every known symptom. He admitted to each individual one. And no man would display as much jealousy as he did if there weren’t deeper feelings involved. As far as she was concerned, the question now wasn’t whether or not he was capable of loving, but whether or not he could let go of his fears and admit his love to her and to himself.
“Maggie, you know I care about you, you know I want you. We could have a good life together. Can’t we leave it at that?”
Leave it at that? When she had loved him forever and had dreamed of nothing but his loving her in return? No, she couldn’t leave it at that. She wouldn’t settle for that when she knew in her heart of hearts they
could have it all. They deserved better than to leave it at wanting and caring. And, because she loved him so, she felt she owed it to him to show him he could love and be loved and not get his heart broken in the process.
“Oh, Rylan,” she said on a sigh. Shaking her head wearily, she slid her arms around him and hugged him. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Marry me.” He scowled at her as if he thought he could get her to say yes by sheer force of will.
She raised up on tiptoe to kiss his nose. Her smile was as soft as satin. “I love you.” She stepped back and ran a hand over her skirt. “I’d better get on home so I can change clothes. Silk and sequins are probably overdressing for a horse show.”
When she was halfway to the door, he said, “You didn’t answer me, Mary Margaret.”
The look she gave him was tender but run through with threads of firm resolve. “You’ll get the answer you want, Ry, when I get the one I need to hear.”
Without another word she went downstairs and out the front door onto the wide porch, stopping at the view that greeted her. The sun had just cleared the eastern horizon, and the mists had yet to burn off the lower-lying land. A sense of peace and stillness embraced the farm. The weekend help had yet to arrive to start morning chores, so the only sounds drifting up from the stables were occasional low whinnies.
Tears stung her eyes. Oh, how she loved him, and how badly he needed that love.
This farm was where she wanted to spend the rest of her life. This was where she wanted to raise her children—Ry’s children. She could easily picture herself coming out onto this porch in the morning with a cup of coffee, absorbing the solitude as she sat and rocked in the old bentwood rocker—the rocker they had made love on, she recalled with heat in her cheeks. She could see their children playing on the lawn—a pair of sturdy little boys and their red-haired baby sister. She could imagine standing there in the evening, watching Ry walk up from the stables in his dusty jeans and battered boots.
They could have that together—a home, a family, the kind of security based on a solid foundation of love. They would have it. She would see to it.
Shivering in the chilly fall air, Maggie crossed the yard to the main barn. She ignored the dogs that came looking for attention and pulled one of Ry’s work jackets off a peg on the wall. It swallowed her up, the sleeves falling beyond her fingertips and the hem nearly to her knees. She welcomed the warmth of the soft flannel lining as well as the scent of horses and hay and Rylan. She didn’t even mind the faintly lingering aroma of that awful liniment.
For someone who had just been told she could never have the only thing she’d ever wanted—Ry’s love—she was in an amazingly good mood, Maggie mused. Perhaps that was because, in spite of everything, she was more convinced than ever that she would indeed have what she had dreamed of. It was going to take some work, and it wasn’t going to be easy, but then nothing worth having ever was. Besides, she had never been one to shrink from a challenge. She wasn’t an admiral’s daughter for nothing.
Hugging herself, she walked down the wide aisle, smiling as the horses greeted her with hungry nickers. She stopped at the stall of the orphaned foal and slid the door back. The baby hopped up on his stiltlike legs and pranced toward her, his velvety muzzle reaching out, worried brown eyes alight with curiosity. Maggie smiled. His larger relatives might make her want to turn tail and run, but she couldn’t muster even a tiny sliver of fear faced with this little guy.
“Hi, sweetie,” she cooed, reaching out to let him sniff at her hand. “You little darlin’. You and I are going to be good friends.”
The colt stepped closer, peeking out the opened door and calling for his absent mother with a shrill, frightened whinny.
“Poor baby,” Maggie said, scratching his neck. “You need love about as much as your big ornery master does, don’t you?”
On her way out of the barn Maggie snuck a peek in the dispensary, chuckling to herself at the sight of a big golden retriever sprawled on a red plaid cushion with a dozen snub-nosed pups nursing at her side. The dog had been groomed and a shiny new tag hung from her collar. Maggie thought of the man who had taken the animal in, cared for her, and would be tripping over the passel of puppies that no one else had wanted.
“And he thinks he’s not capable of loving.” Maggie shook her head. “Rylan Quaid, you have got another think coming.”
Rough Cut was a lot like his master: big, athletic, and arrogant. He was enormous, a word that translated to seventeen hands in horse jargon. Muscles rippled beneath his shining copper coat with his slightest movement. He stood, quiet but alert, gazing off into the distance as a groom efficiently braided his black mane. He looked like a handsome young prince, bored with and detached from the attentions of his personal servants.
He was unquestionably a beautiful creature, Maggie thought. She stood a safe distance outside the stall, watching the two grooms prepare him for the show ring. While one worked at the intricate task of braiding, the other began the process of tacking up, settling the pad and saddle on the big horse’s back.
The barn was alive with activity, the air filled with noise and excitement. A boom box pumped out Elton John’s latest hit as an announcement for the next class was called out on the PA system. Voices ranged from joking to curt to angry. They mingled with whinnies and the clomping of steel-shod hooves on the concrete as horses were led in from and out to the show grounds.
Maggie remembered many of the sights and sounds from the days when Katie had competed. Indeed, she had first spotted Ry’s line of stalls by the royal blue drapes and chrome-trimmed tack trunks of Quaid Farm. As had been the case back then, everything was in its place. The floor had recently been swept. The outer wall of one stall was decorated with ribbons that had been won by Quaid Farm horses during the first two days of the show. A smile of pride touched Maggie’s mouth; after all, they were going to be her horses too.
“Well, hell, Mary Margaret,” Ry said, rounding the corner of the stalls. With no more greeting than that he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the stall where Rough Cut was being prepared. “Don’t be shy. Come meet the meal ticket.”
She swallowed the protest in her throat. She was going to conquer her fear. She was going to show Ry she was more than willing to fit into his life. Still, she stayed a little bit behind him as they stepped into the stall and approached the horse.
“He’s a gentleman, but mind where you put your fingers, cause he’ll nip if he thinks he can get away with it.”
Maggie glanced at the horse’s mouth, then at her fingers. They were short enough as it was. She jumped when the horse gave a sudden low nicker, and was glad Ry was too busy digging in his pocket to notice her show of nerves.
“Hey, Cutter, old pal,” Ry said, fishing out a butter mint and offering it to the horse on his open palm. “You gonna pay off the loan on that new breeding shed today?”
“Don’t fill his head with business pressures, old man,” Christian said, coming out of the tack stall adjusting his necktie at the throat of his white shirt. He was already in white breeches and tall black boots, needing only his jacket and hard hat to complete his outfit. He winked at Maggie and said, “Remind him of all the lovely ladies that are going to come calling next spring.”
Marissa McLaughlin sauntered past, dressed in an outfit identical to Christian’s, a sassy grin tilting her wide mouth. “Is that all you ever think about, Atherton?”
“That and winning.” Christian grinned back.
“How’s the course look, Casanova?” Ry asked dryly.
“Interesting. I’d say that even a bit wet from last night’s rain, it’s going to cater to quickness, but there are three really big fences that are going to require some power to clear cleanly.” He ran a hand down the stallion’s neck and patted the big horse’s shoulder. “He can do it. After all, it would be bad form to end his career on anything less than a win.”
Bad form and bad business, Ry thought, remembering the stac
k of bills on his desk back home. A win today not only would pay off some debts and end Rough Cut’s career on a high note, but also would leave mare owners with a positive last impression of the stallion, one that might entice them to invest in a hefty breeding fee come spring.
“Well, I think you both look too handsome to take anything less than first place,” Maggie said with that familiar flirtatious tilt to her head.
“Thank you, darling,” Christian said with a chuckle for Ry’s disgruntled expression. “A woman of charm as well as looks.”
Ry grunted and backed toward the door with Maggie in tow. “See you in the winner’s circle, hotshot.”
They walked out of the stables and toward the grandstand, where a good-size crowd had already gathered to watch the day’s competitions. The lane was lined on both sides with food vendors and mobile tack shops. With the clean washed beauty of the fall day all around, the atmosphere was much like a country fair.
Ry glanced down at Maggie, who looked very sporty in her brown corduroy slacks and tweed jacket. He didn’t want to admit how glad he’d been to see her when he came around that corner. He’d felt as if the bottom had dropped out of his stomach, almost giddy—or as close to it as he’d ever come.
“I wasn’t sure you’d show up,” he said evenly, carefully watching for her response.
“Why wouldn’t I have come?”
His shrug was more defensive than nonchalant as he steered her toward a food stand. “You weren’t exactly pleased with me when you left this morning.” He ordered a pair of hot dogs with everything, fries, and a quart of soda, then turned to Maggie and asked if she wanted anything.
She rolled her eyes. As they walked away from the stand, Ry carrying a cardboard tray heaped with the food, she said, “I’m not angry with you, Rylan. I think you’re wrong, and I mean to prove it to you, but I can hardly be angry with you. Besides, I promised the ladies I’d drive them here.”