She pushed the button to disconnect the call, then finished the last of her cooling coffee. When she carried her dirty dishes back into the house, Darcella was sitting on a step stool at the end of a butcher block. She was pinching the heads off a pile of fresh shrimp and throwing the bodies into a colander. Her movements were automatic and Anne-Marie could see she had other things on her mind.
“Is everything okay with Miss Audra?” Darcella asked.
Anne-Marie placed her dirty dishes in the dishwasher. “Yes. She’s fine.” Turning back to the cook, she looked pointedly at the stool. “Is something wrong? You don’t normally sit when you’re working here in the kitchen.”
Darcella shook her head. “Nothing that a little rest won’t cure. I twisted my ankle last night when I climbed the steps to my house.”
Concerned now, Anne-Marie kneeled down to inspect the injury. Darcella’s right ankle was markedly swollen and blue around the bone. She felt terrible for not noticing it in the first place.
“Darcella! Why did you even come to work like this? You need to get to the doctor. I’m sure he’ll order you off your feet. In fact, I’m not waiting on the doctor! I’m ordering you off work as of now. I’ll put this stuff away and then I’ll drive you home.”
Darcella grimaced. “Can’t do that. Not when there’s company to feed.”
“Forget Cordero,” Anne-Marie told her. “He doesn’t expect gourmet meals three times a day. And he surely wouldn’t want you working in pain. Besides, I’ll take care of him.” Rising to her full height, she placed an arm around Darcella’s shoulders and squeezed. “I’m sorry if I seemed short earlier. I guess I’m a little sensitive where Cordero is concerned.”
Darcella grinned. “Maybe because you like him — a lot. Don’t you think?”
Dropping her head, Anne-Marie nodded. “Yes. I do like him — very much. More than I’ve ever liked any man.”
Smoothing a hand over Anne-Marie’s hair, Darcella said with regret, “I’m the one who should be apologizing. I shouldn’t have said that to you — about your mother.” She sighed. “But Miss Fiona wanted you to have all the things that she had. She wanted you to grow up and marry a fine man, have babies and know what it was like to be loved and wanted. There’s no sin in that, Anne-Marie. No sin at all.”
A hot lump of tears collected in Anne-Marie’s throat, forcing her to swallow several times before she was finally able to speak.
“Yes, I know,” she said in a choked voice. Clearing her throat, she took Darcella by the hand and urged her up from the seat. “Come on. Let’s get your things and I’ll drive you home. We’ll call the doctor from there.”
Anne-Marie helped the cook, then quickly put the shrimp away in the refrigerator. Before they left, she dashed off a note to Cordero and placed the piece of paper on the cabinet counter where he would likely come for a clean glass.
A half hour later, when she returned to Cane’s Landing, Cordero was nowhere about and she wondered if he was expecting her to show up at the stables for another ride. After all, getting her reacquainted with riding was the reason he was here, she reminded herself. But after last night, after kissing him so wantonly, that idea seemed ludicrous. He wasn’t teaching her about horses, he was teaching her about love.
The notion that she could be falling in love with Cordero hit her like a ton of bricks. She sank into a chair at the kitchen table and buried her face in her hands.
Last night she’d raced to her bedroom and refused to speak to Cordero because she’d been afraid. Not of him. But of herself. She’d known, even before she’d turned to putty in his arms, that he was settling in her heart like a glowing ember. She couldn’t douse it. She couldn’t ignore it. So she’d run, believing that if she didn’t give in to him or herself, she could keep her heart safe.
But she wasn’t safe. She still wanted him. She still needed to see his smile, hear his voice, feel his arms around her. Yet he didn’t want her love. He only wanted her body.
Honey, that’s a great start. The love part will come later.
Would it? The only thing she knew for sure was that running would never give her the answer.
An hour later, she’d packed a lunch of cold sandwiches in a small basket, changed into black Capri pants and a skinny tank top, then headed to the stables.
When she approached the long string of wooden structures she spotted Cordero sitting with Ben in the shade of a cypress tree. Ben was laughing, something she’d not seen him do in a long time and the sight momentarily lifted her heart. Cordero had touched everyone at Cane’s Landing and brought a smile to their faces. That could only be good.
“Well now,” Ben said teasingly as he caught sight of Anne-Marie, “here comes Miss Anne-Marie. You finally decided to rise and shine?”
She walked over to the two men who were using overturned feed buckets for seats. “I’ve been up for a long while. I’ve been busy. I had to take Darcella home.”
Cordero looked at her with concern. “Is something wrong?”
“She twisted her ankle last night and it’s blue and swollen. I made a doctor’s appointment for her later this afternoon. She’s going to have a friend drive her.”
Ben snorted. “The woman shouldn’t have come in to work in the first place. She knows I can take over kitchen duties if need be.”
Anne-Marie glanced over at Cordero and gave him a conspiring wink. “That’s what she was worried about. She said Ben’s biscuits taste like gun waddin’ — whatever that is.”
A look of outrage passed over the caretaker’s face. “Why, that old biddy! I’ll tell you what it is. It’s a rag used to shove a bullet down the barrel of a musket. It’s black and oily and —”
He broke off as Anne-Marie began to giggle. “Oh Ben, Darcella didn’t say any of that. I’m just teasing you.”
Reaching over, she patted the old man’s shoulder as she said to Cordero, “Ben’s cooking is really quite good. Course father and I can’t rave too much about it or Darcella will get jealous.” To Ben she said, “Thank you for offering to take over the kitchen duties, Ben, but there’s plenty in the refrigerator for Cordero and I to eat.”
Grinning now, Ben pointed to the basket hanging from her right hand. “What’s that? You bring the horses some apples?”
“No.” Feeling a little embarrassed now, she glanced at Cordero, who was watching her with raised eyebrows. “Actually it’s a picnic lunch for Cordero — and me.”
“Oh.” Ben tossed a sly wink at Cordero. “Sounds like we’d better get the horses saddled again, son.”
“Uh, no,” Anne-Marie quickly replied. “I thought Cordero might like to take a boat trip down the river.”
Totally surprised now, Ben exclaimed, “You mean in that old rowboat?”
She frowned at Ben. “Well, why not? Cordero’s a big, strong man. He can row. And it’s a beautiful day for it.” She turned a questioning eye on Cordero. “Would you like to go?”
To say Cordero was taken aback by her invitation would be putting it mildly. For most of the morning, he’d been hanging around the stables trying to find the nerve to face her, to apologize for his forward behavior. He’d expected her to be as frosty as a December morning, but instead she was laughing and playful and inviting him on a picnic. He wasn’t going to stop and wonder about the change in her. He was simply going to enjoy it.
“Sure.” He rose to his feet. “Where is this boat you’re talking about?”
She pointed toward the woods at the back of the stables. “There’s a dim trail down to the river over there. Father keeps the boat tied at a dock.”
He looked down at Ben. “I hate to leave good company, Ben, but when a woman calls there’s not much else a man can do.”
Anne-Marie looked down at the basket she was carrying. “I have plenty of sandwiches, Ben, if you’d like one.”
He waved the two of them in the direction of the river. “I got my lunch in the tack room. You two go on and be safe. I’ll be right here if you need me.�
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Taking the basket from Anne-Marie, he curled his free hand around her upper arm. As they walked across a grassy slope, he said, “This is a very nice surprise. I was just about to come back to the house to see if you wanted to ride.”
Darting a glance up at him, she said, “If you’d rather ride, we can. I just thought — it might be nice to go down the river.”
As Cordero looked down at her, he was surprised at how beautiful she looked to him today, even more than she had last night in her sexy red dress. Which didn’t make a lot of sense. Today she was dressed casually and her hair was flowing loose upon her shoulders. Yet it was not her clothing or her hair that made her appearance different. It was something he couldn’t quite define. A glowing aura about her face that made her eyes look like jewels and her lips look like velvet rose petals.
He was spellbound, and the scary part about it was that he knew it.
“We can ride later. I’d love to see the river.”
A smile radiated across her face. “Good. And if you’re worrying about rowing, don’t. I’m good at it. I’ll help you.”
The only thing Cordero was worried about was keeping his hands off her. But then maybe she’d had a change of heart. Could it be that she’d decided making love to him wasn’t the evil thing she’d first thought it to be?
Cordero could only wonder and wait and try to not to dwell on how important this woman had become to him.
Chapter Nine
The boat turned out to be a long wooden structure with a V-shaped bow and deep sides. Three wooden benches crossed the midsection of the structure. A pair of long wooden oars were on the floor, along with a couple of orange life jackets.
Anne-Marie took a seat on the middle bench and Cordero untied the mooring ropes then took a seat beside her.
Picking up one of the oars, he dipped it in the water and pushed them away from the small wooden dock. “Bear with me, Anne-Marie. I haven’t done this sort of thing in a long, long time.”
The river was a dark, murky green and smooth as glass. One push of the oar sent the boat gliding for several feet.
“Do you have a river on your ranch?” she asked.
He nodded. “The SanAntonio. But you never know how you’re going to find it. Sometimes it’s wild and flooding its banks. Other times there are only spotty holes of water. The climate back home can be extreme.”
Along the riverbanks, willows, cypress and pine grew tall and thick. Limbs bowed over the water, leaves dipped their fingers and blocked out the overhead sun. At the river’s edge, water hibiscus bloomed purple while bright green duckweed created a green carpet on the surface. Far ahead of them, birds swooped and dragonflies darted from their path.
It was a beautiful scene, but Cordero could hardly focus on his surroundings. Not when the delicate scent of flowers emanated from Anne-Marie’s skin and the warmth of her shoulder and thigh spun his mind back to last night and the feel of her body sliding against his.
Like a haunting melody, she was taking over his thoughts. He wasn’t at all sure that was a healthy thing for a man who liked his freedom. Trying to shake that dour notion from his mind, he spoke the first question that came to him. “Are there gators in this river?”
“Sure. Plenty of them,” she answered. “They mostly surface in the summer months. We’ve never had one attack the boat, though. Have you seen one before?”
He laughed. “They’re thick where I come from. And they’re big. Very big.”
She chuckled. “I should have seen that coming. Everything is bigger in the Lone Star State, right?”
He laughed with her. “I don’t know about that. But my brother, Matt, nearly lost his leg to a gator when we were kids. We were in one of the back pastures swimming, instead of hunting calves like Dad had told us to do. The river was up from heavy rains and the current always washes the alligators and snakes out of their homes.”
“How did your brother get away?”
“I hit the alligator over the head with a stick. That distracted the thing long enough for Matt to get away.”
“So how did you get away?” she wanted to know.
Sunlight emerged from the overhanging branches above them and momentarily lit her face. His eyes followed the sun’s glow and he was amazed all over again at the smoothness of her pearly skin and the fieriness of her hair.
A grin tilted one corner of his lips. “Swam as fast as I could and prayed.”
She smiled and then with a wistful sigh, she looped her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder. “I’m glad you came to Cane’s Landing, Cordero.”
He paused his rowing and looked down at her. “Do you really mean that?”
“You sound doubtful.”
“Well, you weren’t too happy with your father that first night. It was pretty obvious you wanted me gone.”
Pink color appeared on her cheeks. “I don’t like being manipulated. And as for you, I didn’t know you.”
A corner of his mouth pulled into a grin. “And you do now?”
She turned her gaze up the river as her fingers moved up and down his forearm. “Well, I don’t know everything about you. But I’m learning.”
He swallowed. “How far did you want to go? Down the river, I mean.”
“I thought we’d go as far as the landing and eat our lunch there. Why, are you getting tired?”
Her question very nearly made him laugh. He could row for hours as long as she sat next to him, touching him as though he were something precious. She filled him with energy. And something else that he couldn’t define or understand. He only knew that the feeling was thrilling.
“No. Besides, we’re not in any hurry, are we?”
“Not at all.”
Twenty minutes later, the old wooden landing appeared. In bygone days, boats had docked and waited there to be loaded with cane that had been cut by hand and pulled to the river by mules and wagons. Over time, the planks had rotted, but Jules had hired workmen to restore the piers and the flooring. Now carpenters came out yearly to make sure the landing was maintained.
Cordero moored the boat alongside the long dock, then helped Anne-Marie climb up. After he fetched the picnic basket, he joined her on the wooden floor.
“Are we going to eat here on the dock?” he asked.
“No. Let’s find shade where it will be cooler.”
He chuckled. “And swat mosquitoes while we eat?”
She shot him a comical frown. “An outdoor man like you worrying about a few tiny bugs?” She shook her head. “If you can’t take it, I put a bottle of repellent in the lunch basket.”
He laughed. “I was only kidding.” He gestured toward the bank. “You lead the way and I’ll follow.”
Anne-Marie explored the nearby area until she found a spot at the edge of the water where the under-growth was short and the shade from a willow was deep and cool.
“Sorry I didn’t bring a tablecloth,” she said as they both sank down to the ground. “I wanted to travel light.”
“The ground is a cowboy’s pallet, Anne-Marie. This is where I feel comfortable.”
Using the fat trunk of the willow for a backrest, he stretched out his long legs and crossed his boots at the ankles. Anne-Marie sat at his side with her legs underneath her and quickly doled out the contents of the basket.
For several moments they ate and made small talk, but once he’d eaten a piece of cake and brushed the crumbs from his hands, he looked at her with a frankness that made her cheeks burn.
“You know you’ve surprised me, don’t you?”
Anne-Marie crumpled the empty plastic wrap in her hand and shoved it back into the basket. “How do you mean?” she asked carefully.
“I mean, last night. You weren’t exactly happy with me. Now today, I think you’re actually enjoying being with me.”
Being with him had always been a joy. Or at least that was how it felt to Anne-Marie. Somehow his warmth and laughter, the depth of his kisses, had opened her eyes an
d her heart and she was seeing the world — him — in a whole new way.
Glancing at him through lowered lashes, she said, “If you think I was angry with you last night, Cordero, you’re wrong. I was more annoyed with myself — and I guess I was running scared. Just like you said.”
His expression earnest, he leaned toward her. “Why?”
Her gaze roamed his face until it finally settled on the hewed line of his lips. “Because I knew if I didn’t run, I was going to end up making love to you.”
A faint groan rumbled in his throat. “And what about now?”
Her heart began to beat with wild, sweet anticipation. She drew in a deep breath, as though readying herself to jump into the deepest end of the pool. “I’m tired of running, Cordero. I’m tired of shutting myself away from life — from you.”
Scooting closer, she lifted the black Stetson from his head. After placing it out of the way, she gently framed his face with her hands.
“I want you,” she whispered. “I don’t know any other way to say it.”
He swallowed hard as his eyes searched hers. Then his head bent until his forehead touched hers. “My sweet, Anne-Marie,” he murmured. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
Slipping her arms around his neck, Anne-Marie pressed her lips to his. “Don’t keep asking questions, cowboy.”
Happy to follow her orders, his lips captured hers in a kiss that was even hungrier than those of the night before. The connection caused Anne-Marie’s head to fall into the curve of his arm and her body to twist until she was partially lying across his lap. Cordero’s hands slid across her back then crawled beneath the hem of her tank top.
His fingers were warm and gritty against her skin as they slowly slid along her rib cage, then moved up and up until they met the lacy fabric of her bra. Not to be deterred, he released the single snap between her breasts. The plump mounds were bared to the exploration of his hands.
Fire ripped through her as his forefinger traced a lazy circle around each nipple and she groaned with a need that was as raw and primal as the deep woods surrounding them. Breaking the contact of their lips, he spattered kisses across her cheeks, down her throat and along her shoulders while his hands kneaded her breasts, formed them to the shape of his palms.
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