West Texas Match (The West Texans Series #1)

by Ginger Chambers

  “I thought we were going to get married,” Jodie wailed, still trying to reach the man she loved.

  Rio could only partially straighten, and his breaths came in sharp gasps. “You said it. I never did. That was always your idea. I like you. I like havin’ you along. But you’re still a kid. And I don’t wanna get hitched!”

  Jodie could only stare at him, her dreams dissolving.

  Shannon went to the girl and put an arm around her shoulders. Jodie looked at her, her eyes filling with tears, her face crumpling. Then she hid her face in Shannon’s neck.

  Rafe leaned in toward Rio. “It’d be a real good idea for you not to come back to Texas anytime soon, son,” he said curtly. “Like in your lifetime. ’Cause if I ever see you again...” He let the threat hang uncompleted, wanting Rio to fill in the rest for himself.

  Rio looked as if unsure of his continued safety, even in New Mexico. He blinked and backed away.

  Shannon urged Jodie back toward the plane and let the others offer their thanks to the rancher and his wife. Jodie had been humiliated enough.

  ~*~

  Shannon experienced some of the same qualms on the flight back as she had on the trip over, but she was so concerned about Jodie she didn’t have time to dwell on them. The girl couldn’t stop crying. Tears rolled steadily down Jodie’s cheeks as she sat in the seat next to Shannon.

  “How could he say that?” she asked poignantly. “I don’t understand. We were going to get married. We just had to wait until I turned eighteen. He said we’d had fun. You heard him. What did he mean by fun? And he said he liked me, but that I’m a kid? I thought...I thought he loved me. But he didn’t. He as good as said he didn’t! He was only too happy to get away!” Another deluge of tears followed, which lasted until they landed.

  They transferred to the Cadillac without incident, Rafe stopping to shake hands with Jim Cleary, to thank him for his help. Jennifer ran toward them, filled with questions, but her father held her back and Jodie wouldn’t look at her.

  “She told you where we were, didn’t she?” Jodie whispered to Shannon in the car’s back seat.

  “Yes, but she was worried about you. She’s a good friend.”

  Jodie bit her bottom lip, as if unsure of her ability to forgive.

  Throughout the flight Gib had remained quiet. Shannon knew he could hear everything his daughter said, but he didn’t try to comfort the girl. His occasional anxious looks, though, spoke for themselves.

  Rafe drove them back to the ranch. “What do you want to do, Jodie? See Aunt Mae now or later?” he asked as he turned into the compound. There didn’t seem to be a third choice.

  Jodie had calmed down during the car ride. Her tears had finally dried up. “I’ll see her now,” she said.

  Gib make a small sound that might have been protest, but he kept his opinion to himself.

  They trooped into the main house. Jodie first, Shannon second, then Gib and Rafe. The rest of the family was in the living room. Rafe had called from the Bar L to let them know that the interception had worked and that they’d collected Jodie.

  No one smiled. They knew how difficult the situation was for the girl.

  “We’re glad you’re back,” Harriet said softly as she and LeRoy stood up to go home, each holding a child’s hand.

  “So are we,” Darlene concurred, getting up, as well. “Thomas and I love you, dear.” Her glance included her husband, who stood silently at her side.

  That left Mae, sitting in a straight-backed chair, looking like a monarch. Impeccably groomed, with her snowy white hair pulled into its usual knot on the top of her head, she’d lost none of her hauteur. She looked at them all, but let her gaze linger longest on Jodie.

  “Come over here, girl,” she ordered.

  Jodie’s lips trembled. Tears threatened once again.

  “I said, come here,” Mae repeated.

  Jodie took a step toward her.

  “Aunt Mae...” Rafe said in warning.

  Mae hissed him quiet. “Sit here,” she said to the girl, patting the chair next to her.

  Gib jerked forward as Jodie sat down. “Aunt Mae, she’s been through enough! She’s not going to run away again.”

  Mae looked at him levelly. Then she looked at the girl—and opened her arms.

  Jodie blinked and with no hesitation fell into them. She started to cry again, but this time her tears were the tears of someone who had come home. Wounded and ashamed, but welcome.

  The relief among the others was palpable. Rafe shifted position, Gib rubbed a speck from the corner of his eye, and Shannon sank slowly onto the end cushion of the couch.

  The day was done, their mission accomplished, and Jodie had been returned safe, and mostly sound, to the heart of her family.

  As Jodie hung on to her great-aunt, Mae stroked her hair just as a mother might a young child. Then she pushed the girl away and made her sit upright on her own.

  “You did a silly thing, Jodie,” she said. “But we’re all capable of doing silly things on occasion. Myself included. I apologize for what I said to you yesterday. It was uncalled-for.”

  Jodie seemed taken aback. Her eyes sought out her father, and he gave her the glimmer of a smile.

  “Now,” Mae said, “why don’t you get along home, take a nice hot bath, eat some of the soup Marie’s going to bring over, talk to your daddy for a while, then go to bed and get some rest. I’m sure you need it. You must be very tired.”

  Jodie nodded her assent. When she got up, Gib came over, took her hand and led her from the room.

  “That was a nice thing to do, Aunt Mae,” Rafe said gruffly. “She was feeling pretty low.”

  Mae stood up herself—slowly, as if she, too, was in sore need of a meal, a bath and bed.

  “The girl’s young and foolish, not stupid. She’ll get over him soon enough. Then I’m going to see if I can talk her into going off to a university. She needs to see something of the world besides these old mountains and plains.”

  Rafe smiled tightly. “So you’re still at it?” he said.

  “Still at what?” Mae countered.

  “Running other people’s lives.”

  “Is that what you think I do?” she asked innocently. “I thought I just made suggestions.”

  Rafe threw back his head and laughed.

  Mae walked over to him and patted his cheek. “Why don’t you take Shannon into the other room and get something to eat yourselves? I’m sure neither of you has thought of food since early this morning.”

  “I’m not hungry now, Mae.” Shannon spoke for the first time since their return.

  Mae smiled at her. “Just something light,” she cajoled.

  Shannon nodded, then glanced at Rafe, who was having a hard time not laughing again.

  “She did it to you, you know,” he said as he accompanied her into the dining room. “You said you weren’t hungry, but here you are.”

  Shannon smiled wryly. “She does have a way about her.”

  “Sometimes you want to strangle her, sometimes you want to hug her. Most times you just end up scratching your head—or banging it against a wall.” Rafe pulled out a chair at the table for Shannon.

  She hesitated. “I really think I’d like to go straight to bed. Don’t let me stop you, though.”

  “An unfortunate choice of words,” he said softly. “You do that a lot, don’t you? But I don’t mind. You blush nicer than any woman I’ve ever known.”

  Shannon could feel the heat rise in her cheeks.

  “There! See?” he said, smiling.

  “A gentleman wouldn’t mention it,” she chided.

  “Whoever told you I was a gentleman?”

  Shannon flashed an irritated look, but her heart secretly tripped along. She was seeing a side to Rafe she hadn’t known existed—easy, teasing, relaxed.

  “Sure you won’t change your mind?” he asked.

  So much had happened that day. There was so much to think about, to sort through. If she listened
only to instinct, she would close the small gap that remained between them and kiss that smiling mouth. She would run her hands over his arms, over his chest—cause havoc with his hair, not to mention his blood pressure. But now, of all times, it was important for her to take a step back. She’d made a discovery earlier in the day and she needed time to examine it.

  “I’m sure,” she murmured, and turned to leave. But at the door she paused.

  Rafe hadn’t moved, yet something about him was different. His eyes, his expression, were no longer teasing. He looked at her as if he was hungry for her, not for whatever meal Marie would soon bring from the kitchen.

  Shannon felt a like response shudder through her, and it took all her remaining strength to walk away.

  ~*~

  As Rafe slowly took his place at the table, he was seized by a curious excitement. There had been a subtle change in Shannon’s response to him. He didn’t know how or why the change had come about—but when she’d last looked at him, her eyes didn’t move away. And he was almost certain he’d caught something...more.

  One thing he would never forget was that moment in the plane, when shortly after takeoff he’d seen the way her entire body was trembling. The stark fear written on her face, in her eyes. At the time, he’d cursed himself for not considering how difficult getting on a plane would be for her. He’d noticed her slight hesitation as they’d walked toward the runway, her extreme quietness. But she’d been quiet most of the way into town and back to the Clearys’. He’d thought it was due to the situation with Jodie.

  Yet she’d overcome her fear, faced something that must have brought back horrible memories, and not said a word in protest. Not uttered even the smallest sound.

  He tried to remember all that he’d been told about the accident. The light plane she’d been a passenger in had crashed, she’d been trapped inside it for two days, along with the dead bodies of her father and his assistants. She’d almost died herself.

  It hadn’t meant all that much to him at the time. She was just an annoyance Mae was bringing to the ranch to dangle under his nose. He hadn’t particularly cared to listen.

  But now...now he had to admit that if it involved Shannon, he was interested. Vitally interested! It awed him that she had been through such a terrible ordeal and come out of it essentially whole.

  She had almost died herself!

  For the first time those words hit Rafe with a force that made him groan aloud. Shannon...dead! Her friends—his family—deprived of her courageous spirit. Himself deprived of ever meeting her. Ever touching her. Ever kissing her. Ever... He groaned again, slumping back in his chair, jolted by the knowledge of the different path fate might have chosen.

  He’d resisted giving in to the instant attraction he’d felt for her, actively fought it, continued to deny it when every scrap of proof pointed the other way. He’d been determined that Mae’s plan wasn’t going to work. She wasn’t going to pick a wife for him. No, sir. Not Rafe Parker. Of all the family, he was the one least amenable to her stubborn brand of persuasion, because he was just as stubborn as she was. He could hold out forever!

  Only this time Mae had him at a distinct disadvantage—because he’d fallen in love. He couldn’t hide from it any longer. It was there, as real as the West Texas sunshine.

  She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman, in a mate. She pleased his eye, as well as his spirit, and she touched his heart.

  Last night he’d had his first intimation of how deeply his feelings went for her, only to have it confirmed during this long, trying day. In spite of himself, in spite of his aunt, he loved her!

  Marie bustled into the room, carrying a tray from the kitchen. Rafe sat up.

  “I’m so sorry to make you wait so long, Rafe,” she apologized. “You must be starving. Everyone else wanted bread and soup, but I knew you’d enjoy something more substantial.” She placed a small serving platter of roast beef and browned potatoes on the table, followed by a bowl of carrots and peas. The aroma was wonderful, and despite his initial disinclination to eat, Rafe’s stomach reminded him that dinner last night had been his last meal.

  “Looks great, Marie,” he said. He started to fill his plate, then noticed that the housekeeper had lingered.

  “I’m glad you were able to find Jodie,” she said when he looked at her.

  “So were we.”

  “Axel and I know we’re not family, but—”

  “You might as well be,” Rafe interrupted. “I can’t imagine the place without you two.”

  Marie gave him a pleased smile. “Eat your dinner before it gets cold,” she said. Then she hurried back into the kitchen.

  Marie had lived on the ranch, where she’d met and married Axel, for more than twenty years. The couple had no children of their own, and he knew that, in their hearts, they’d adopted all the Parker children.

  For a second Rafe’s mind flashed forward in time to another child—his and Shannon’s. Wouldn’t Marie enjoy having a new Parker to spoil.

  Then he caught himself up short. Talk about putting the cart before the horse! There was still a lot that needed to be settled between Shannon and him. Just because he’d admitted to himself that he truly loved her didn’t mean that she—

  He stopped himself from thinking about that possibility.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In her room Shannon rocked slowly in her chair as she thought about the past months of her life. There’d been so many changes! She’d been engaged to James and she’d had her father to care about. Then James and her father had been snatched from her and she’d come here. Now she had fallen in love again. But how could that be?

  She hadn’t wanted to fall in love. When she’d first come to the ranch, all she could see was the darkness of her loss. Her spirit had been wounded as seriously as her body. Then slowly an evolution had taken place as little by little, person by person, problem by problem, she had been drawn into the lives of the people around her. She’d been pulled from her closed world into theirs. Helping them had helped her return to life.

  But to fall in love again? So soon? With Rafe?

  Shannon stopped rocking, and restlessly opened the glass-paneled door to step into the night. More than five months had passed since the accident. Would her conscience like it better if it had been five years?

  The familiar scents of cooling earth and fragrant flowers greeted her as she stood at the wrought-iron railing. She breathed in deeply, even as she shivered slightly in the chill air.

  She had grown to love the ranch. For its isolation, for the vastness of the land, for the quiet that could never be duplicated in a suburb or city. Eventually, when she went back to Austin, she would miss all that.

  The thought made her recoil. Go back? Leave the ranch? Leave the Parkers? Leave Rafe?

  Her gaze instinctively went to his house. She didn’t want to go back! Instead, she wanted... What did she want?

  Her breath caught when she saw Rafe on his front porch, standing very still, his body half in and half out of the shadows, a shoulder propped against a wood support...as he watched her watch him.

  For a long moment neither of them moved. Then a thrill of anticipatory pleasure shot through Shannon as he straightened and started toward her.

  His movements were slow at first, everything about him contained, intent, powerful, dangerous, highly sensual. Then he broke into a trot and quickly closed the distance between the houses, stopping only long enough to check the strength of the wrought-iron support at the base of Mae’s porch before he began to climb it.

  With athletic ease he swung over the balcony railing. “I’ve wanted to do that for weeks,” he said, flashing a grin.

  A lump had formed in Shannon’s throat and her heart beat so hard she didn’t think it could stand the pace.

  “Do you mind?” he asked, his dark eyes glittering.

  It was so easy for him to overwhelm her senses. It had been like that from almost the first moment they’d met. At the pens and th
en later, when he’d stood at the bottom of this very balcony and looked up at her, a rough-and-ready cowboy of old, capable of anything. That image had been powerful. Now with him standing across from her, looking just the same, and all she needed to do was to reach out and...

  He must have seen the message he wanted in her eyes, because he didn’t ask again. Instead, he swept her up into his arms and carried her into the bedroom. The still-made bed offered little impediment as he brushed aside the white eyelet comforter, placed her on the top sheet, then covered her body with his.

  Words didn’t seem important. Only feelings—feelings that had been denied for too long.

  His mouth and hands devoured her body just as hers did his. She couldn’t get enough of him. Her need was a white-hot ache. Clothes were tossed aside. His discarded boots hit the floor.

  His body was as she had imagined it—long and strong and beautifully masculine. His appreciative eyes missed nothing of her nakedness.

  The only hesitation came when he could no longer stand to be apart from her. A gentleman even in that moment, he gave her the opportunity to object.

  Shannon wanted to cry out—from the depth of her desire, from the newness of her love. That one small act meant so much to her, spoke so much of him...but passion answered first. She moved toward him, not away, to share fully in their joining.

  ~*~

  She lay very still, her cheek pressed against his damp hair-roughened chest, her breathing uneven. She didn’t know—had never known—that lovemaking could be so...incredible.

  Rafe’s hand on her back moved slightly, and she lifted her head to look at him. If she had thought him handsome before, it was nothing to the way be looked now. His head on her pillow, his dark hair mussed, his bronzed body a stark contrast to her white sheets, a small satisfied smile tilting his lips.

  If they’d known each other intimately for a longer period of time, she might have teased him by asking, “So, did you enjoy it?” When it was perfectly obvious he had. They both had.