by Jan Freed
“Morning Glory’s last litter was a beaut,” she babbled on. “Twelve in all, but the runt barely made it. He’ll bring next to nothing at market and less than that as breeding stock. You’re welcome to take him if you want. He’s in the truck now.”
“Really? One of your prize Hampshires? I don’t know what to say, Ada.”
Neither did she, since he’d moved to peer out the door and driven every coherent thought out of her head. Her spine hugged the doorjamb. Her chest rose and fell an inch from his arm. Oh, to be Ellen Gates now.
He turned and looked down, his evident pleasure shifting to surprise, then keen awareness. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen that expression in a man’s eyes. Never had it thrilled her body and soul like now.
She saw his gaze fasten on her mouth, felt her lips soften in response, watched him frown in confusion and step out onto the front porch. As he stared into space, realization hit. Lord in heaven, he’d almost kissed her!
Her heart soaring, she breezed across the porch, floated down the steps and turned to call up teasingly, “C’mon, old man. Let’s get your pig unloaded.”
Spinning on one serviceable work boot, she was amazed at how naturally her walk had an extra sway when she knew Grant was watching. One thing about working a farm sunup to sundown—it kept her figure trim and supple. From this view, she might even have the edge on Ellen.
At her truck, Ada dropped the tailgate, grabbed a flimsy chicken-wire cage and pulled. Excited grunts erupted from the black-and-white shoat inside. She’d always had a soft spot for runts. She’d only postponed this one’s inevitable fate, but still, she felt noble.
“Hush, little guy. We’ll get you out of there in a minute,” Ada crooned, dragging the cage to the edge of the tailgate. The eight-week-old pig trembled miserably, his tail tucked as low as the curl would allow. Intent on getting the poor creature settled, Ada tightened her grip on the cage and heaved.
“Let me help,” Grant rumbled unexpectedly in her ear.
Her fingers slackened. The cage hit the ground. Wire crunched, popping the door open. And thirty pounds of squealing, outraged pig dug in his toes and raced wildly for the barn.
After exchanging a stunned look with Grant, Ada took off in hot pursuit.
She focused with dizzying results on the corkscrew tail twirling counterclockwise to anatomy. Ah, good. The rascal was headed straight for the first stall. Easy pickings. She plunged through the stall just behind the pig, waited tensely while he bobbled against three walls and grasped empty air as he squirted between her legs and out the door.
“Get him!” Ada shrieked at Grant, who stood watching with an infuriatingly superior male smirk.
Stumpy legs pumping, the runt streaked into the next stall. Grant leapt into manly action. Ada stumbled into the corridor just in time to see the frenzied pig rounding the stall like a fresh-shelled pea in a bowl. When Grant zigged with hands open, the black-and-white terror zagged straight out through the door.
It was a beautiful moment.
“Get him!” Grant roared, lurching out of the stall with murder in his eyes.
There were advantages to being a runt, Ada discovered during the next ten minutes. Never again would she feel sorry for nature’s pip-squeaks. Runts were faster than their heftier siblings, for one thing. And small enough to wiggle under sawhorses, between stacked well pipe and behind metal storage cabinets.
In a distant part of Ada’s awareness, she registered the sound of an approaching vehicle, then closed out all distractions save the pig eyeing her with myopic defiance four feet away. For some reason, he’d skidded to a stop in another stall. Afraid to move, she spoke in a soft, singsong voice.
“That’s a good piggy, just stay where you are and we’ll stick an apple in your mouth yet, yes we will. If you’re there, Grant, close the stall door now, because our little friend here looks very nervous.”
She watched the pig’s beady eyes follow Grant’s movement toward the door.
“Yoohoo. Oh, Gra-ant?” came a woman’s glass-shattering voice.
Hide bristling, the runt bolted for the stall door. Ada lunged, groaning as a piece of his tail slipped through her fingers. Dusty, sweaty and completely alone, she hung her head.
Outrage brought her chin up. She charged out of the stall and spotted Grant pounding down the corridor, hard on the tiny rump of Turbo Pig. A voluptuous woman in a flowing, ankle-length dress stood silhouetted in the barn entrance, holding a cake aloft.
“My, it’s dark in here. Is that you, Grant? I brought you my famous Molasses Spice Cake everybody raves abou—Eeeeek! Get away! Get away, you nasty thing!” Spinning in a circle, Ellen Gates trapped the thrashing, frantic pig in her swirling skirt.
You should have changed out of your Sunday dress, Ada thought smugly.
“Stand still, Ellen,” Grant ordered. “He won’t hurt you.”
“What won’t hurt me? What won’t hurt me, goddamn it!”
Tsk-tsk, what would the preacher say?
“It’s a pig. A small pig,” Grant explained with a superior male smirk Ada didn’t mind at all.
Just then, the animal in question caught scent of his favorite flavor in the world, the one Ada used to sweeten his sorghum and tempt his runty appetite, and snuffled as high as he could reach beneath Ellen’s skirts.
“Eeeeeyuu!”
The cake hit the ground with a succulent splat. The pig fought his way out of Ellen’s skirts with a squeal of ecstasy and began gobbling scattered molasses shrapnel from the dirt floor. The last of Ada’s hostility toward the little runt faded.
“Do something!” Ellen wailed.
Ada pushed past Grant, grabbed the warm, quivering pig, and repositioned his leathery snout dead center in the cake. “Enjoy yourself, runt. It’s famous.”
SCOTT CAUGHT a loose strand of barbed wire with his hammer claw and pressed the tool back against a worm-eaten mesquite post. He waited for the telltale twang of maximum tension before plucking a staple out of his mouth, lifting a second hammer from his belt and securing the strand with two solid whacks. Only then did he straighten and wipe the sweat from his brow.
Repairing fence alone was tricky work and required all his concentration—which was exactly why he’d declined Pete’s offer to help. If Scott had time to think, he might remember Maggie’s stricken expression earlier today when he’d lectured her about ruining a frying pan. Or her startled awareness when he’d forcibly held her wrist. Neither reaction spoke well of his behavior. But then, she’d always brought out the worst in him.
Frowning, he dropped both hammers and noted the belch of dust on impact. Damn, it was dry for April. Unless a gully-washer hit soon, the approaching summer would dry up his stock tanks. They were dangerously low as it was.
He peeled off his work gloves and walked to the pickup parked in the dubious shade of a young mesquite. This part of the ranch hadn’t been cleared in two years. The profusion of cactus, scrub brush and spindly trees depressed him. Pulling his shirttail free, he wrenched open the snaps in one movement and threw the wadded material into the open window. He’d had big plans for this place once. Now he just got up, worked until he couldn’t see straight, then fell into bed—day after day after day.
Lifting out the thermos of water he always carried, Scott gulped and then backhanded his mouth. If only watering his cattle was so easy. Inevitably, irresistibly, his gaze drifted to the thick stand of oaks and cotton-woods edging the horizon.
The trees sheltered the Guadalupe River, whose far bank sloped up to the foot of a manicured green lawn. His mind provided details of the plantation-style house, massive horse barn and various outbuildings he’d seen only twice in his life.
Riverbend. The embodiment of everything he wanted, yet couldn’t have.
As a kid, he’d listened to his dad talk about buying the riverfront acreage from old man Perkin and improving H & H Cattle Company’s holdings. Then his mom had grown ill. The medical bills stacked up, and t
he talk stopped.
After she died, they’d all handled it differently. Laura found comfort in excelling at school, Grant relinquished his dream, and Scott grabbed hold of it with both hands. At the ripe old age of twelve, he’d extracted a promise from Andrew Perkin to give Scott first crack at purchasing the prime riverfront land one day.
For seven years he’d worked any job his spare time would allow and saved his earnings. After high school graduation, Mr. Perkin had made noises about being too old to keep farming, and Scott had picked up a loan application from the bank. While his friends dreamed about college, he’d fantasized about his Santa Gertrudis herd drinking from the Guadalupe.
Until someone with more money, more clout and more cojones beat him to it.
Scott pushed off from the truck with a snort and headed for the fence post. He’d do well to forget the past if he hoped to show any degree of civility in the next few months. Stooping over, he jerked his gloves on and attacked his work with a vengeance.
Ten minutes and two fence posts later, he heard the jingle of a bit, the clack of a hoof connecting with rock. He straightened at the sight of Maggie riding Twister slowly up the fence line. The stallion looked foreign but magnificent, with an English saddle and slender woman in jodhpurs on his back.
She stopped about twenty feet away, one hand holding the reins loosely while the other scribbled on paper against the saddle pommel.
Scott walked forward, straining to see. Some sort of drawing, it looked like. Bracing against Twister’s nudge of greeting, Scott watched her quickly fold the paper and slip it into the pocket of her pale blue shirt.
“I thought you weren’t going to ride today,” he said, reaching up to hold the bridle.
Her gaze fluttered over his bare chest and darted away. “The farrier rescheduled for tomorrow. I decided to scope out possible training sites. Twister hasn’t given me a bit of trouble—” she leaned over and rubbed the glossy neck “—have ya, handsome?”
Her sleeveless shirt gaped at the neck. Scott’s breath snagged on a glimpse of milky flesh and scalloped cream lace.
She straightened and stared out over the fence. “I never realized Riverbend was this close to your ranch.”
“No, I don’t suppose you did. It’s beneath a princess to notice the peons.”
Her head snapped around. Twister snorted and sidestepped. She collected the reins and eyed Scott with regal scorn.
“Quit calling me a princess.”
He almost smiled, but shrugged, instead. “It’s what you are.”
“Because my father bought Riverbend out from under your nose?”
His grip tightened on the bridle. How did she know about that?
“I spent some time at the feed store last week. I found out you worked there off and on all through high school. Apparently the whole town knew about your bargain with Mr. Perkin. My father didn’t win any friends around here by offering a deal the old man couldn’t refuse. Still, that has nothing to do with me.”
Like hell. “Donald Winston bought that land for you, for his little princess, so she could win horse shows.”
“So I’m the daughter of a man obsessed with winning.”
“A rich man.”
“Okay, a rich man. I can’t help it if I have wealthy parents. They don’t define me. When have I ever treated you like I was a princess, Scott Hayes?”
She sat there with her nose in the air and her posture church perfect and her eyes frosting the air between them, and Scott felt his control snap. He moved closer and gripped the supple riding boot that epitomized her privileged world.
“Since the first day I met you,” he said, all the confusion and humiliation of that day resurfacing. He wanted to shake her ivory tower till her teeth rattled. “Do you even remember that day, Maggie?”
Her cheeks flushed to match her sunburned nose. She remembered.
“Must’ve been quite a social comedown for you to hang out with the locals, huh?”
“No, I was grateful to be invited. Being new to the area wasn’t easy.”
“Our nasty red dust get your Corvette dirty?”
“You’re not being fair!”
“That’s life in the big country, princess. It ain’t fair and it ain’t easy. You don’t belong here any more than you did ten years ago.”
He’d spotted her right off when he’d walked into Lucy’s Café. Her sophisticated haircut, her expensive clothes, her French-restaurant table manners—hell, everything about her had screamed class. He’d been fascinated—and intimidated.
“My buddies bet me ten bucks I couldn’t get your phone number. I gotta admit, Maggie, you were good.”
She shifted in the saddle and frowned. “Good?”
“I thought I’d been around, knew all the tricks. But you played me like a puppet for thirty minutes before cutting the strings. I didn’t even see it coming.” He’d bought into that shy smile, the pleasure in her dove gray eyes, one hundred percent.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I think you do. I think you waited for the exact right minute to put me in my place. Everyone there saw me asking for your phone number. Everyone there knew I didn’t get it.”
He’d held out that pen and napkin for a hundred excruciating years while she’d given him the Snow Princess treatment. Her friends had giggled when he’d snatched his hand back. His own friends had snickered as he joined them in a corner booth. Losing the bet wasn’t the half of his shock.
Mr. Stud had finally been rejected, his friends had told him, by a Dallas blueblood—daughter of the millionaire who’d just bought old man Perkin’s place.
Twister tossed his head and stamped, jolting Scott back to the present. He focused on Maggie’s overly bright eyes, the pressed lips, which trembled nonetheless. She didn’t look cold now. She looked close to tears.
“It wasn’t you. It was me. I’m…” Her swallow was audible. She shook her head and fumbled with the reins.
Scott resented his pang of sympathy. “You’re what, Maggie?”
Her eyes hardened. Her chin came up and out. “I’m a damn good horse trainer, that’s what. That’s all you need to know about me.”
Twister launched forward into a fast trot, wrenching Scott’s hand from her boot. Stunned, he watched horse and rider kick up dust until they melted into the brush.
Absently rubbing his right glove, he stared unmoving at the horizon. The sun beat down hotter than ever, but he scarcely noticed. Something important had happened just now, no doubt about it.
He wished like hell he knew what it was.
CHAPTER FOUR
MARGARET FOUGHT the powerful undertow. Clawed her way toward wakefulness and blessed peace. But the current was invincible. It swept her past the sweetness and plunged her into panic. Into despair…
Into the car.
Cracked rubber tape on the steering wheel pricked her palms. Sweltering heat compressed her lungs. Matt’s voice implored her to slow down, to pull over. A red-white-and-blue beacon flashed in her rearview mirror. Too close. Too fast.
She couldn’t go back. Wouldn’t go back, or she might never have the courage to leave again.
Get away—get away—get away. The refrain pounded in her mind with each heartbeat. She pressed down on the accelerator and clutched the steering wheel tighter, willing her grip to hold the vibrating car together. Her muscles ached. Dizziness blurred her vision. She tried to slow her shallow breaths and only panted faster.
Get away, get away, get away—Boom!
The steering wheel was wrenched from her hands. Matt yelled. The horizon spun around and around and around. Metal screeched. Pain exploded in her legs and chest. Glass stalactites trembled.
Silence throbbed.
She slowly turned her head. Matt’s flesh and bone fused with jagged metal in a gruesome sculpture of death.
Anguish filled her soul. She threw back her head and screamed at fate, “It should have been me. It should have been me. It sho
uld have been me-e-e-e—“
“Maggie!”
She jerked into consciousness with a gasp, her eyes popping open unfocused in the dark. Where…? Her vision cleared. The farmhouse, her second night here. Scott sat on the four-poster bed gripping her shoulders hard. She wondered how many times he’d shaken her.
“You were dreaming, Maggie. It was just a bad dream.”
Just a bad dream. She would’ve laughed if her teeth weren’t chattering like a set of windup toy dentures. Violent trembling seized her body in rhythmic waves. A terrible cold penetrated marrow deep. It would pass. Eventually. Closing her eyes, she waited…and endured.
“Damn,” Scott muttered, pulling her upright and into his arms.
She nearly whimpered with relief. His bare chest was hard beneath her cheek, his heartbeat loud and steady. She wrapped her arms around his waist and shamelessly clung. Maybe he hated her for what she’d done to Matt, maybe her present weakness disgusted him, but it didn’t matter. He felt strong and warm and alive, and she needed the human contact.
He rubbed her spine hesitantly, then more firmly, his callused fingers snagging on her cotton nightgown. “You’re shiverin’ like a spooked colt. Must’ve been a helluva nightmare.”
Swallowing hard, she nodded.
“Wanna talk about it?”
To this man? “No,” she whispered. “I’ll be fine in a minute.” Humiliating, but she couldn’t seem to unlock her fingers from the waistband of his jeans.
“You were dreaming about the accident, weren’t you?”
She tensed. His room was right next door.’ “Was I talking out loud?”
“Sounded more like screaming to me.”
She unpeeled her fingers and started to push away, thwarted by the iron band of his arms.
“Relax, princess. No need to get your nose out of joint.”
Somehow that nose was buried against his chest now. He smelled of soap and sleep-roused male, and radiated heat like a healthy animal.
“At least you don’t feel like a damn ice cube anymore,” Scott said, satisfaction deepening his voice.