by Lisa Jackson
She’d barely settled into the passenger seat when Colton started the rig. “It’s too early to take you home,” he announced.
“It’s nearly midnight.”
“Like I said—too early.” Flashing a devilish grin, he cranked the wheel and the Jeep roared toward the main highway.
“Don’t tell me, you’re kidnapping me again.”
“Nope.”
“Then where are we going?”
“Somewhere we should’ve gone a long time ago,” he replied. His voice had grown deep, his gaze thoughtful.
“And where’s that?”
“The lake.”
Her heart nearly stopped beating. Vivid memories haunted her—memories of making love with Colton, of cold water and a brilliant summer day, of the scent of pine mingled with the musky odor of sweat and of their sweet, precious day being ruined by Denver McLean astride a rangy bay gelding. “There’s no road to the lake.”
“Then we’ll ride.”
“Ride? You mean ride horses—like this?” she cried, glancing down at her dress, but couldn’t help giggling at his wonderful sense of the ridiculous. She considered telling him about Vince Monroe’s horse, but didn’t—there was time later. For a while she didn’t want anything to come between them. And until she had her facts straight, there wasn’t much she could do.
“Why not?” he asked.
“If you don’t know, I couldn’t begin to tell you.”
Colton laughed and yanked off his tie as the Jeep tore down the highway toward the McLean Ranch.
“You’re out of your mind!”
“So you’ve told me.” He guided the car up the lane leading to the house, parked in the yard and grabbed Cassie’s hand, pulling her to the stables where the geldings were housed.
Inside, while Cassie blinked against the bright lights and her nostrils filled with the scent of horses, leather and musty hay, Colton saddled two geldings, a short gray creature named Lamont and a lanky buckskin called Joshua.
“I don’t suppose you have a sidesaddle,” she said as he tightened the cinch around Lamont’s belly.
Colton shook his head and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “You’ll just have to hike up your skirts.”
The joke had gone on long enough. “Colton, you’re not serious . . .” she said when he slapped Lamont’s reins into her hand and opened the stable door. The gray pricked his ears and lifted his head.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I think I left it in the drawer with my common sense,” she said, taking off her coat and tossing it over one of the stall gates before following him and Joshua through the door. “This is madness—sheer, unadulterated madness!”
Colton swung into the saddle, and Cassie, caught in the excitement of it all, followed suit. Her skirt bunched around her thighs as she prodded Lamont with her knees. The eager little horse took off, swinging into a gentle gallop and keeping up with the buckskin’s longer strides.
The wind rushed at Cassie’s face, yanking the pins from her hair, stealing the breath from her lungs and snapping her skirt like a long, scarlet banner. She leaned forward over the horse’s shoulders, adrenaline pumping through her system, her spirits soaring as the gelding’s hooves thundered against the thick spring grass.
Ahead, washed in the moon’s silvery light, the pine forest loomed before them, and through the trees the reflection of the clear water appeared jewellike against the black tree trunks.
She felt her mount take the bit in his mouth and leap forward, his ears flattening back against his head as he challenged the bay. Colton’s horse responded, and soon the animals were charging across the field, hoofbeats thundering, nostrils wide, eyes sparking with defiant fire.
Cassie leaned lower, urging the little horse on, whispering words of encouragement. Racing across the moon-washed fields beneath a spray of glittering stars, Cassie rode hard, tears smarting in her eyes.
Colton’s laughter rang through the night, and her heart skipped a beat. How long had it been since she’d felt so carefree, so young?
At Colton’s whoop, the bay leaped forward. Though Lamont labored, he couldn’t catch the longer-legged horse.
Near the edge of the forest Colton reined his horse to a slow walk. Lamont, dancing and snorting, caught up with him and tried to take a nip out of Joshua’s backside.
“Sore loser,” Colton teased, guiding his horse along the overgrown path through the pines. Cassie followed a few steps behind. The sounds and smell of the forest closed in on her: the deep-throated hoot of an owl, the crackle of twigs and rustle of leaves and the fresh fragrance of pine and soil.
The trees gave way to the banks of the lake. Pale rocks rimmed the darker water. A ribbon of moonlight rippled across the glassy surface. Cassie felt as if she and Colton were the only man and woman on earth.
“You going to stay up there all night?” Colton asked.
Lost in the beauty of the night, she hadn’t noticed he’d dismounted. Colton reached up, his hands slipping around her waist as he helped Cassie down from her mount. She touched ground, and his palms slid upward against her ribs. He tightened his grip then and drew her close.
“I’ve thought about this from the minute you walked down the stairs at your house,” he whispered, running his hands through her hair and yanking loose the few remaining pins.
“We could’ve ditched the party.”
“Oh, no.” When her hair fell free, he framed her face with his hands. “Then I couldn’t have shown you off.”
“‘Is that what you were doing?”
“Mmm. You were far and away the most gorgeous woman there.”
She laughed, the sound ringing through the surrounding hills, and she shoved her thoughts of Vince Monroe aside. “And did you see that in a movie, too?”
“‘No—that’s my own.”
“You’re irrepressible.” Loving him, she tilted her face up to his.
He sighed. “You know,” he whispered, taking a pin from her hair and letting the long loose curl drop to her shoulder, “I thought I’d leave you alone for a week, maybe two. Give you time to realize just how miserable your life is without me, but I couldn’t make it.”
She struggled against a giggle and failed. “Twenty-five years of misery. It’s a wonder I survived.”
“A miracle,” he said, taking another pin from her hair, then lowering his mouth to hers. His lips were chilled and tasted of Scotch. They fit across her mouth perfectly. With strong arms he pulled her so close she could scarcely breathe. He tugged at the zipper of her dress, and she felt the breath of wind touch her bare back as the silk parted,
She wound her arms around his neck, and he lifted her deftly from her feet. One shoe dropped on the bank, but she didn’t notice. He carried her to the base of the very tree where so long ago they had made love.
Tenderly he laid her on the ground, her dress falling off one shoulder, her skin shimmering like pearls in the night. “I love you, Cassie,” he whispered roughly. “I think I always have.”
Her heart thrummed wildly, but she attempted to hang on to some tiny shred of her common sense. Placing a finger across his lips, she whispered, “Shh. You don’t have to say anything.”
“Wrong, Cass. I should’ve said what I’ve felt for a long time.” He kissed the finger touching his lips and shuddered when she traced the outline of his mouth. “I didn’t want to love you eight years ago. God knows I fought it. But I lost.”
“No—”
“Yes.” He tangled his hands in the wild strands of her windblown hair. “Why do you think I’ve been running away, Cass? Why haven’t I married? Settled down? Had a family?”
She held her breath.
“Because of you,” he admitted, his lips brushing over hers as her pulse quickened crazily. “Only you. Oh, I denied it,” he conceded, “wouldn’t even admit it to myself, but deep down I knew.” With his tongue he tasted her lips, then forayed between her teeth, delving deep, tasting and explori
ng.
Cassie gave into the swelling in her chest, the ache burning hot and deep inside, the quiver of her skin as he brushed his hand across her breast.
“Marry me, Cass,” he pleaded, nuzzling the hollow of her throat, moving his hands slowly across the red silk still draping her breast. “Say yes.”
A thousand questions raced through her mind, a thousand questions without answers. “Shh,” she whispered, searching beneath his shirt for the muscled wall of his chest. “Don’t talk.”
And he didn’t, not until they were lying side by side, sated and sighing, arms and legs wound together as they watched a hawk circling in the moonlight. “I’m serious, you know,” he said, levering himself up on one elbow and twirling one long strand of her hair around his finger. “I want you to marry me.”
Cassie laughed. “And where would we live,” she teased, “Beirut or Seoul?”
“Somewhere around here.”
Shaking the pine needles from her hair, she eyed him thoughtfully. “And you’d be happy ranching?” She didn’t believe him for a second.
“No. But I might be happy doing freelance work in the area.”
“I hate to be the one to break the news to you, Colton,” she teased, “but there hasn’t been a major war around here in years.”
“Maybe it’s time I slowed down a little—”
“Ha!”
“—worked on stories stateside.”
“You’d be bored,” she said, wishing it weren’t so. Unconsciously she traced the tiny purple scars on his shoulder.
“You wouldn’t let me get bored,” he insisted, throwing one leg across her and pinning her to the earth. “I know it won’t be easy, because I won’t be working an eight-to-five job, but I’ll travel as little as I can.”
“Why?”
“Believe it or not, I’m tired of covering my . . . butt.”
“Are you?”
He seemed so sincere. His eyes were dark and serious. “I mean it, Cassie. Say you’ll marry me.”
His expression was a mixture of determination and love. For the first time since she’d seen him in the middle of her father’s kitchen, she didn’t doubt that he cared. “You’re not kidding, are you?” she whispered, her voice filled with awe.
“No, Cassie, I’m not. I want you to be my wife.”
“And everything else?” she whispered, thinking of the feud, her father, Black Magic’s disappearance and their long, lost affair.
“Doesn’t matter.” He pushed his face so close to hers that she hardly dared breathe. “Marry me, Cassie.”
Her heart took flight. He wanted her! He loved her! “Oh, Colton, yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” Wrapping her arms around his neck, she sighed happily. Finally they’d crossed all the barriers between them and she was where she belonged, wrapped in the safety of Colton’s arms.
Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a ring—a diamond ring with a single winking stone. “Wear this,” he said, his voice catching as he slid the ring over her finger. “It was my mother’s.”
Katherine’s? “Oh, Colton.” Her heart filled her throat, and tears pooled in her eyes when she thought of Colton’s feisty mother and how she’d lost her life trying to save the horses. “You don’t have to—”
“I’ve waited eight years for this,” he said.
“Hardly—”
“Well, maybe I didn’t know it, but I knew someday, if I did ever marry, I’d want my wife to wear this ring.”
Cassie blinked rapidly. “Thank you,” she whispered, her heart so full of love it threatened to burst.
“Don’t thank me,” he growled against her ear, “show me how much you love me.”
“I will—oh, I will,” she whispered, finding his lips and kissing him as if she’d never stop. She didn’t think of the pain eight years before, nor the feud between the families, nor Black Magic. There was no room. Her heart, mind and body were filled with only Colton McLean.
Chapter Thirteen
Cassie snuggled close to Colton, not caring that her dress was probably ruined, her hair a mess. Sighing contentedly, she closed her eyes as he drove from the McLean Ranch back to her father’s house.
“Something’s up,” Colton said as he turned into the Aldridge lane. Ahead, though it was nearly three in the morning, the house lights were blazing. Across the broad expanse of yard, the broodmare barn, too, was illuminated. Yellow patches of light spilled through the windows.
“It’s probably Sylvia,” Cassie said as he braked the Jeep near the barn. She hurried from the Jeep and into the barn, where, as she expected, her father was settled on the top of an old barrel, staring over the slats of Sylvia’s stall.
At her entrance, he glanced up, and his mouth tightened at the sight of Colton following her inside.
“Sylvia?” she asked.
Her father nodded.
Cassie grinned at the sight of a tiny black tail waggling as the filly nursed hungrily. Long-legged and spindly, the foal was coal-black against his mother’s roan coat. Sylvia shifted, protecting her new one.
“She’s a beauty,” Cassie said, wondering at the lack of pride in her father’s eyes.
“That she is.”
“And so black.”
“Same as Devil Dancer,” he replied quickly, mentioning the foal’s sire as he placed his hands on his knees and pushed himself to a standing position. He flicked a cold glance at Colton, then took in Cassie’s soiled dress. “The party get a little out of hand?” he asked.
“A little,” Cassie said, her eyes sparkling. Colton was standing behind her, with one arm slipped possessively around her waist. Her stomach had tightened into knots even though she’d never been happier in her life. “Dad . . .” she started, as her father slapped his hat against his thigh.
He glanced up, his skin losing some of its pallor, as if he expected what was to come. “What is it?”
“Colton and I are getting married.”
Ivan’s old shoulders slumped. His jaw slackened, and a heavy sigh fell from his lips. “I was afraid of that,” he admitted, bracing one arm against the wall as if he’d been kicked hard in the gut.
The seconds ticked by, measured only by the drumming of her own heart and the soft sounds of the foal suckling nearby.
“I love him,” she said simply. “I always have.”
Ivan’s throat worked. “And what’s it got you, huh?” he demanded of Cassie before impaling Colton with his furious eyes. His face turned beet red, and one fist coiled angrily at his side. “Only heartache. And what did it get your mother when she fancied herself in love with a McLean? Nothing!” Big veins throbbed in his throat. “I always wanted what was best for you, Cassie. Always. I would have done anything to make you happy, but ... ah, hell!” He kicked a water pail and sent it rattling down the concrete corridor, then reached for the door.
Colton stopped him with a hand on Ivan’s arm. “Wait, Aldridge,” he warned.
“For what?”
“To hear my side.”
“I’m not interested!” Ivan roared, then glanced at Cassie and closed his eyes, obviously struggling with his temper. He shook off Colton’s hand and glared at the younger man. “Okay—so talk.”
“I’ll take care of your daughter.”
Ivan didn’t say a word.
“I love her.”
Cassie thought her heart might break right then and there.
“What do you know of love?”
“I know that I was a fool eight years ago. That I should have trusted her. That I made a mistake.”
Ivan cast his eyes to a far stall. “So?”
“And I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to her if I have to.”
Blinking rapidly, Ivan studied the floor. His voice had dulled from a roar to a whisper. “This is really what you want?” he asked Cassie.
“Yes!”
Ivan’s Adam’s apple moved up and down his throat. He struggled with words that wouldn’t come. “I—uh—I won’t stand in your way.” Liftin
g his eyes to meet Colton’s gaze, he added through tight lips, “You’ll be welcome in my house anytime.” Then, without another word, he yanked open the door and marched stiffly outside.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Colton said, staring after the older man.
“Did you think it would be?”
“Sure—a piece of cake.” He chuckled and drew her to him, taking her lips in his. He kissed her for an endless moment, then chuckled. “And if you think this was bad, wait until we talk to Denver.”
“Oooh,” Cassie groaned. “Let’s not think about it.” Happiness swelled deep in her heart. Resting her head against Colton’s chest, she looked through the slats of Sylvia’s stall just as the newborn turned his face to hers. For a minute she didn’t say a word—just stared at the perfect little horse with the crooked white blaze. Her blood seemed to freeze in her veins as the curious colt lifted his head and tossed his ebony head. He was so like Black Magic.
Colton’s eyes followed her gaze, and the blood drained from his face. His fingers curled tight.
Cassie’s eyes pleaded with his. Don’t say it, she seemed to whisper, though not a sound passed between them, don’t spoil this beautiful night.
He didn’t. His eyes narrowed on the little horse, but he didn’t say a word. A cold stone settled in her stomach.
The stables seemed suddenly cold as if a wind from the north had silently blown through.
“I think I’d better go,” Colton finally said, his voice suddenly distant, his eyes filled with an anger so hot it burned through her heart.
“You don’t have to . . .”
He took a step toward her, then hesitated. “I think we both have a lot to think about.” Turning, his broad shoulders stiff beneath his jacket, he left without another word. Cassie slumped against the wall, her fingers sliding down the rough wood. It couldn’t be possible. Or could it?
Her feet felt like lead as she made her way to the open door and watched Colton get into his Jeep and drive away. Searching her heart, she tried to push her suspicions aside. Ivan wouldn’t have stolen Black Magic; he couldn’t have. The colt was sired by Devil Dancer and that was that.