by Ann Major
“I know it’s kinda corny,” he said, aware of the slight huskiness in his voice. “A red rose and all.”
“I don’t care,” she whispered, smelling the delicate red petals.
Their eyes locked. Hers were warm and sparkling. “I wondered about that other rose this morning. That was sweet.”
He felt his cheeks heat again. “Corny.”
“Sweet.”
He wanted to kiss her so bad he hurt. But he knew it was too soon.
“I’m not real good at giving girls flowers,” he said. “I remembered how you threw that rose at me and how nasty I was about it at first. I thought maybe you liked red roses.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“I wanted to forget you.” His voice was low and faintly hoarse.
“You were doing real good until you said that.”
“Do you want me to lie?”
“No, but maybe you’d better stop while you’re ahead because of the roses and the chocolate and Spot.”
“But how could I forget, when I couldn’t get the good times with you out of my mind, darlin’? No matter how I tried, I kept reliving them over and over in my mind.”
“Me, too,” she whispered. “Maybe that’s a start then. We both have a lot to forgive each other for.”
“Do you think you can? It seems to me I’m the one who needs the most forgiving,” he said.
“I hope so, but I’m still afraid, Shanghai.”
“That makes two of us.”
When she smiled, his heart brimmed with intense emotions, some good and some bad, but the strongest of them all was hope.
BOOK THREE
Smart Cowboy Saying:
Good judgment comes from experience And a lotta that comes from bad judgment.
—Anonymous
Twenty
As Mia heaped fried chicken and mashed potatoes onto Shanghai’s plate, she warned herself not to read too much into his return. She mustn’t be too eager or too easy, she told herself. Bottom line—she mustn’t let herself fall into bed with him as soon as he snapped his fingers.
Now that he was in the Golden Spurs kitchen, eating in enemy territory in the same room with the Golden Spurs ranch hands, he seemed much more wary of her than he had at Black Oaks. She had to be careful. He’d broken her heart when she was a girl. After all they’d shared in the cabin, when he’d gone off with Abigail, he’d bruised it again. After years of rejection, how could she ever trust him?
Looking tense and dark, he sat alone hunched over his coffee. He’d chosen a table in an alcove that was usually vacant except during roundup when they hired extra hands and lots of family showed up to help. When she came to the table with his plate, he got up and pulled out her chair.
After they sat down again, they ate in silence at first. He kept his gaze on his plate as if to avoid hers. She was conscious of the hands turning to stare from time to time, and she imagined he was aware of them, too, because of the way he half glanced at them over his shoulder from time to time.
“It’s hard coming back,” he finally said to her. “You’d think at my age I could shrug off something that happened so long ago.”
“Your dad?”
“Yes.”
She nodded sympathetically. Cole had told her that his father had always been hard on Shanghai.
“When you’re a kid, you think when you’re grown, you’ll be so big and tough none of the kid stuff will ever hurt you again.”
“You ride bulls for goodness’ sakes.”
“When I was at Black Oaks I kept remembering my mother and how everything changed after she left. It wasn’t losing the ranch to your daddy that was the end of everything. It was losing her. I went to Mexico for you because of her. I’m here now mostly for the same reason. I didn’t want Vanilla to lose you. I still don’t.”
“When you jumped, you did more for me than you’ll ever know. If I live to be a very old lady and I said thank you every day, I could never repay you.”
“That’s hardly necessary.”
“I will never forget it. Being a prisoner is humiliating and degrading. You’re helpless. You never know who’ll do what to you or what you’ll be forced to do. You have to be nice to people you hate…to survive. So you feel like you’re selling yourself out. It’s very demeaning and compromising. You probably can’t imagine—”
His dark face tensed. He leaned closer, listening to her with rapt attention.
“You have to fight back, too,” she said. “I was scared all the time. I don’t know how much more I could have taken even if Chito hadn’t been sent to murder me in that prison. I—I’d reached a point…where I could feel myself withdrawing from reality in order not to deal with it because I was just so scared all the time. I don’t want to live that way ever again.”
When she took a deep shuddering breath, he laid a hand on her forearm. “You’re home. You’re safe.”
“But for how long? John Hart says Tavio wants me kidnapped and brought to Mexico.”
“I know. Cole filled me in as to all the latest developments.”
“Hart wants to use me as bait.”
He nodded. “Could be that would be for the best. He’s been responsible for numerous seizures on both sides of the border. Maybe he knows what he’s doing.”
“I don’t like him.” She took a head-clearing breath. “I’m tired of other people telling me what to do all the time. That’s the way it was in Mexico.”
“I hate to tell you this, darlin’, but that’s the way it is everywhere.”
“I don’t trust John Hart.”
“He’s all we’ve got.”
“Tavio bought off all kinds of people. Why not an ambitious DEA agent?”
“You can’t just sit here, waiting for Tavio to make his move. I say we work with Hart.”
“Then you’re on his side.”
“No, darlin’, I’m on yours.”
“Then you won’t make me act as bait.”
He sucked in a breath. “Okay, we’ll do it your way. We’ll wait on Morales.”
I’m not going to have sex with him the minute we get away from the house! I’m not! Mia told herself as they headed out of the barn on Renegade and Sundance. Other than being a little skittish, Renegade was behaving himself and responding to her every command.
Except for the clatter of their horses’ hooves on the rocky earth, there was a stillness about the range that evening that awed Mia. The lavender sky was an immense dome above them, and the eight-thousand-square-acre pasture seemed endless.
“It’s my favorite time of year,” Mia said, feeling proud because Renegade was being so responsive and docile. She’d ridden him for the first time just yesterday evening.
Shanghai nodded agreeably but made no comment. He sat tall on Sundance. She couldn’t help but admire how well he rode. But then he would.
Yellow and violet colored wildflowers blazed in the tall grasses. Five deer stood in a carpet of yellow against the fringed edge of an oak mott, their eyes alert as the riders passed them. When Renegade slipped on a hidden rock and lurched to one side, Shanghai shot her a concerned glance. But Renegade recovered himself and continued to plod along like a well-mannered horse.
“I’ll race you to the creek,” she shouted out of the blue and took off.
Shanghai galloped behind her, keeping up easily.
Truly proud of Renegade, she slowed down when they reached the creek and dismounted. Holding on to their reins they walked toward the grass to the creek. Large live oak trees with thick spreading branches grew on both sides of the trickling water. A low dam had been built to enlarge a natural swimming pool that existed there. The water was green and clear in the pool. Frogs croaked. Dragonflies swooped low over the water. Many varieties of colorful butterflies fluttered.
“Snakes?” Shanghai murmured dryly.
“We’ve never seen one here, but that doesn’t mean…”
“There was a snake in paradise.”
“W
hy did God make snakes…or rats?”
He smiled. “I guess they make the good things seem better.”
She felt mesmerized by the feelings unfolding within her. Moss hung in swaying gray draperies from the trees. The fact that they were alone in this wild, beautiful place made both of them nervous. Her pulse skittered too fast, and she could see the apprehension in his quick smiles. Suddenly they were like strangers, who’d just met at a party and had run out of small talk.
He knelt. Picking up a flat rock, he skipped it across the glistening surface of the water. “Nine skips,” he said, frowning. “I read somewhere that the record’s around forty.”
“Not even close,” she teased, knowing how competitive he was.
He turned back to her. “You’re driving me crazy. You know that, of course.”
“How?” she asked with a little catch in her voice.
“Did you wear those skintight jeans to make me want you? Did you race ahead of me, so I’d watch you?”
His blue eyes were so dark and glazed with desire, her mouth went dry.
“I’m not going to fall into your arms every time you look at me with those hot eyes of yours or say provocative things like that…just because you’ve got me alone out here in the wild.”
“I’ve got you?” His voice was like a soft caress. “You were the one who suggested we go riding to talk.”
“We haven’t talked yet.”
“Later.” He pitched his Stetson onto a rock. Then he unsnapped the top two snaps of his Western shirt, revealing bronze skin and black swirls of hair.
“Don’t—” Her voice sounded fainter than air.
Renegade whinnied.
“It’s hot,” he said, but he let his hands fall to his sides. “Maybe you’re right, though. We should talk first.”
She parted her lips but could think of nothing to say or do. “You start.”
“Somehow I feel too distracted.”
Her heart slowed at the husky intimacy in his deep voice. The longer she held his gaze, the more she felt herself weakening on the sex issue. The yearning she felt for him was so acute it nearly made her sick. Wasn’t she shutting the barn door after she’d already let the horse out?
Life was short. She’d learned that in Mexico when she’d never known in any given hour if she’d live until the next.
“We can always talk,” she said.
Without realizing what she was about to do, she stepped into the circle of his arms and clung to him. He was so hard and solid, so strong and warm. He felt wonderful.
“I don’t know what you want me to do,” he whispered as his arms tightened at the back of her waist. “One minute you say no sex. Then you put your arms around me.” His gaze dropped to her lips. He pulled her closer so that she was flush against his body.
“You drive me wild,” he rasped, his eyes still fixed on her lips.
“I don’t know what I want, either. Just hold me.”
Suddenly an intense wave of bittersweet emotion that she was at a loss to understand broke over her, and she began to cry.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered.
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she sobbed, clutching at his collar, threading her hand through his hair. “I guess I’m afraid. I loved you for so long, and it never came to anything.”
“You got pregnant.”
“I mean…For us.” She was quiet for a while. Then she drew a long, fortifying breath. “But you saved me. And you’re here now. And yet…”
“I’m here. That’s a big step—for me.”
He looked so serious, so off balance somehow as a wayward smile touched his lips.
“I know.”
Then he lifted her chin and began kissing her with a tenderness that was so exquisite it broke her heart. First his lips caressed her cheek and then her nape and only finally her mouth again.
“I’m afraid to love you, you see. Afraid it won’t end happily,” she confessed, even as she couldn’t stop kissing him.
“I understand. I’m sorry I’ve made you unhappy in the past. Maybe we’d better stop this for now.”
When he began to withdraw, she clung. “No,” she said, pressing her mouth to his. “I know the risks. I’m not the innocent little girl who threw herself at you. I know you’re a man with a man’s needs just as I know sex probably doesn’t mean the same thing to you as it does to me. With you it’s a physical act and a need. With me, it’s more.”
She began to tremble and drew a shaky breath. “I shouldn’t have run on so. What I’m trying to say is that I know the risks.”
“Maybe I don’t want you taking them. A man has the right to say no, too, doesn’t he?”
“But you’re just being noble for my sake.”
“Nobility’s damn sure a new character trait for me. Why don’t let you let me enjoy it a spell?”
“Because it’s driving me crazy.”
He caught her face between his hands and brushed his mouth against her cheek. “Me, too. But then that’s all part of being noble.”
“Shanghai…please—” She slid her hands up his chest and around his neck.
“Sit down,” he whispered. “You and me we did the teasin’-brat thing. We’ve done the sex. Seems to me, we skipped the courtin’.”
When she sat down on a big flat rock, he took her hand and knelt before her.
“What?”
“Shh. Let a noble cowboy serenade you.”
“You can’t sing.”
“I know. I don’t buy girls flowers, either. But you’re not just any girl.”
That said he began to sing to her in a deep, gentle voice that made her heart race, “You are my sunshine…”
He gazed down into her eyes.
“You can’t be serious—”
“My only sun…”
She closed her eyes and let his deep voice wrap her. She smiled dreamily. At some point during the years, he’d learned to carry a tune. He slid his hand around her nape and massaged her with his thumb.
Never in her whole life had she felt this close to love.
San Antonio
Western music whined in the popular Western bar called Ride ’Em that was located on San Antonio’s River Walk. Cowboys and their dates danced past Abigail and Kelly’s circular table that was jammed with plates of cheese-glazed nachos sprinkled with jalapeños and a pitcher of beer and two mugs.
Watching the dancers made Abby’s heart ache with a renewed vengeance for Shanghai. She should go! No matter what she’d promised Kel.
Although a tall cowboy at the bar with a black ponytail was tapping his toe in time with the infectious rhythm and ogling her while he smoked, nobody had asked either Kel or her to dance. Which was good.
Abby was wearing a spandex denim skirt a size too small that rode up her knees, exposing way too much leg. The red jersey top that stretched across her breasts was too snug, as well. The chunks of turquoise jewelry at her throat, ears and wrists were way too flashy. Maybe because Kel had picked them out with that idea in mind.
The hokey cowboy hat that was ringed with a headband made of conchos and fake turquoise sat on Abby’s golden head at a pert, comehither angle.
“It’s the costume. It’s way too corny,” Abby said to Kel, who was her secretary as well as a friend.
“Smile at the guy. He looks raunchy, which means he’s your type.”
“Stop it. You’re my secretary. You’re not supposed to know all about my love life.”
“I read your mail and keep up with your e-mail, remember. You’re messy as hell. You always go for the wild guys. That’s why they don’t pan out.”
“I don’t just go for the wild guys.”
“You’re neat and organized and brilliant, but I guess deep down you’re a mess like the rest of us.”
“I didn’t come here to get analyzed. Not by my secretary.”
“Hey, secretaries rule the world.”
She was so right.
“If you want him, smile at him
. Lick your lips. Make him think about the dirty, fun things you can do to him with your tongue.”
The cowboy wrapped his mouth around his cigarette and sucked really hard. Then he blew a smoke ring at them.
“Gross. Besides I’m too tired. I’ve been smiling at people all day.”
“He’ll be way more fun. He’s got one of those skinny bull rider butts you like so much.”
The last thing she needed was another bull rider.
“I wish I hadn’t let you talk me into this.”
“Two for the price of one,” Kel said, meaning the nachos were supper and the beer was entertainment and consolation.
Abby and Kel had been working in San Antonio all day and were spending the night in the city because Abby had an early appointment tomorrow with an important client, who wanted her to come up with marketing strategies for his latest jewelry collection. After that she had nonstop meetings that included a dinner meeting and an after-dinner meeting.
“This is the only cure for a broken heart,” Kel said, picking up a nacho. “Cross my heart.”
“Beer and nachos?” Abby munched a nacho, which was so sinfully hot and fattening, she could almost feel her thighs swell and the denim stretch.
“No. A new stud.”
“I’m not here to pick up some stranger.”
“He won’t be a stranger after a few dances and a beer or two. By morning, you’ll feel like you’ve known him forever.”
The cowboy took another drag and ate her with his eyes.
Nope. Not him. She wasn’t that desperate.
Even as Abigail shook her dark, golden head, she found herself scanning the crowd for other tall men in Stetsons and jeans. A few possibilities were leaning over the pool tables, but not one of them could hold a candle to Shanghai, who was tough and wild and haunted and yet incredibly gentle, too. Oh, why couldn’t he have loved her?
Was it only two nights ago that he’d dropped by with flowers and told her it was over? He’d been so sad and sweet about it, he’d made her cry.
“There’s this girl,” he’d said as he’d fumbled in her kitchen cabinets for a vase for the daisies he’d brought her.
“Mia Kemble?”
He’d nodded. “She’s loved me and chased me her whole life.”
