"Heavens, Tess!" Leo breathed, taking off his hat to wipe the sweat from his brow. "You don't run across a hayfield like that, without looking where you're going! When we cut hay, we always find half a dozen of the damned things!"
"It's not her fault," Cag said in a surprisingly calm voice. "I upset her."
She didn't look at Cag. She couldn't. She turned to Leo with a wan smile. "Could you walk me back, just to the track that leads up to the house?" she asked. "I'm a little shaky."
"Sure," he said gently. "I'll carry you, if you like."
"No, I can walk." She turned away. With her back to Cag she added carefully, "Thanks for what you did. I've never seen anybody use a knife like that. It would have had me just a second later."
Cag didn't say anything. He turned away and retrieved his knife, wiping it on his jeans before he stuck it back into the sheath on his belt. He stalked back toward the tractor. He never looked back.
"What did he do to upset you?" Leo asked when they were out of earshot.
"The usual things," she said with resignation in her voice. "I can't imagine why he doesn't fire me," she added. "First he said I could go in the spring, but we got too busy, then he said I could go in the summer. But here it is, and I'm still here."
He didn't mention that he had his own suspicions about that. Cag was in deep, and quite obviously fighting a defensive battle where Tess was concerned. But he'd seen the look on Cag's face when he was holding her, and dislike was not what it looked like to him.
"Did you see him throw the knife?" she asked, still awed by the skill of it. "Dad used to have a throwing knife and he could never quite get the hang of hitting the target. Neither could I. It's a lot harder than it looks. He did it running."
"He's a combat veteran," he said. "He's still in the reserves. Nothing about Cag surprises us anymore."
She glanced at him with twinkling eyes. “Did you really hit Turkey Sanders to keep Cag from doing it?"
"Dorie told you!" He chuckled.
"Yes. She said you don't let Cag get into fights."
"We don't dare. He doesn't lose his temper much, but when he does, it's best to get out of the line of fire."
"Yes, I know," she said uneasily, still remembering the birthday cake.
He glanced at her. "You've had a hard time."
"With him?" She shrugged. "He's not so bad. Not as bad as he was around Christmas," she added. "I guess I'm getting used to sarcasm and insults. They bounce off these days."
He made a rough sound under his breath. "Maybe he'll calm down eventually."
"It doesn't matter. I like my job. It pays well."
He laughed, sliding a friendly arm around her shoulders as they walked. "At least there are compensations."
Neither of them saw a pair of black eyes across the field glaring after them hotly. Cag didn't like that arm around Tess, not one bit. He was going to have something to say to Leo about it later.
Blissfully unaware, Leo stopped at the trail that led back to the house. "Okay now?" he asked Tess.
"Yes, thanks."
He studied her quietly. "It may get worse before it gets better, especially now," he said with some concern.
"What do you mean?"
"Never you mind," he replied, and his eyes held a secret amusement.
That evening, after the brothers cleaned up and had supper, Cag motioned Leo into the study and closed the door.
"Something wrong?" Leo asked, puzzled by his brother's taciturn silence since the afternoon.
Cag perched himself on the edge of his desk and stared, unblinking, at the younger man.
"Something," he agreed. Now that he was facing the subject, he didn't want to talk about it. He looked as disturbed as he felt.
"It's Tess, isn't it?" Leo asked quietly.
"She's twenty-two," Cag said evenly, staring hard at his brother. "And green as spring hay. Don't hit on her."
It was the last thing Leo expected the older man to say. "Don't what?" he asked, just to make sure he wasn't hearing things.
Cag looked mildly uncomfortable. "You had your arm around her on the way out of the field."
Leo's dark eyes twinkled. "Yes, I did, didn't I?" He pursed his lips and glanced at his brother with pure calculation. "She's a soft little thing, like a kitten."
Cag's face hardened and his eyes became dangerous. "She's off limits. Got that?"
Leo lifted both eyebrows. "Why?"
"Because she's a virgin," Cag said through his teeth. "And she works for us."
"I'm glad you remembered those things this afternoon," Leo returned. "But it's a shame you'd forgotten all about them until you saw me coming toward you. Or are you going to try and convince me that you weren't about to kiss the breath out of her?"
Cag's teeth ground together. "I was comforting her!"
"Is that what you call it?" came the wry response. "Son of a gun. I'm glad I have you to tell me these things."
"I wasn't hitting on her!"
Leo held up both hands. "Of course not!"
"If she's too young for you, she's damned sure too young for me."
"Was I arguing?"
Cag unruffled a little. "Anyway, she wants to go to school and study horticulture in the fall. She may not want to stay on here, once she gets a taste of younger men."
Why, he really believed that, Leo thought, his attention diverted. Didn't he see the way Tess looked at him, the way she acted around him lately? Or was he trying not to see it?
"She won't have to wait for that to happen," Leo murmured. "We hired a new assistant sales manager last week, remember? Sandy Gaines?"
Cag scowled. "The skinny blond fellow?"
“Skinny, sure, but he seems to have plenty of charm when it comes to our Tess. He brought her a teddy bear from his last trip to St. Louis, and he keeps asking her out. So far she won't go."
Cag didn't want to think about Tess with another man, especially the new salesman. "She could do worse, I guess," he said despite his misgivings.
“You might ask her out yourself,'' Leo suggested carelessly. Cag's dark eyes held a world of cynicism. "I'm thirty-eight and she works for me." Leo only smiled.
Cag turned away to the fireplace and stared down at the gas logs with resignation. "Does it show?" he asked after a minute.
That he cared for her, he meant. Leo smiled affectionately. "Only to someone who knows you pretty well. She doesn't. You won't let her close enough," Leo added.
Broad shoulders rose and fell. His eyes lifted to the huge painting of a running herd of horses tearing across a stormy plain. A great-uncle had painted it. Its wildness appealed to the brothers.
"She's grass green," Cag said quietly. "Anybody could turn her head right now. But it wouldn't last. She's too immature for anything... serious." He turned and met his brother's curious eyes. "The thing is," he said curtly, "that I can't keep my head if I touch her." "So you keep her carefully at a distance to avoid complications." Cag hesitated. Then he nodded. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and paced. "I don't know what else to do. Maybe if we get her into school this fall, it will help. I was thinking we might even get her a job somewhere else."
"I noticed," Leo said dryly. "And then you tell her to wait one more season. She's waited two already."
Cag's black eyes cut into him. "I haven't been serious about a woman since I was sent to the Middle East," he said through his teeth. "I've been pretty bitter. I haven't wanted my heart twisted out of my chest again. Then, she came along." He nodded in the general direction of the kitchen. "With her curly red hair and big blue eyes and that pert little boyish figure." He shook his head as if to clear the image from it. "Damn it, I ache just looking at her!" He whirled. "I've got to get her out of here before I do something about it!"
Leo studied his hand. "Are you sure you don't want to do something about it?" he asked softly. "Because she wants you to. She was shaking when you put her down."
Cag glared at him. "The snake scare
d her."
"You scared her," came the wry response. "Have you forgotten how to tell when a woman's aroused?"
"No, I haven't forgotten," he replied grimly. "And that's why she's got to go. Right now."
"Just hold on. There's no need to go rushing into anything," Leo counseled.
"Oh, for God's sake, it's just a matter of time, don't you see?" Cag groaned. "You can't hold back an avalanche!"
"Like that, is it?"
"Worse." Cag lowered his head with a hard sigh. "Never like this. Never."
Leo, who'd never felt what passed for love in the world, stared at his brother with compassion but no real understanding of what he was going through.
"She fits in around here," Leo murmured.
"Sure she does. But I'm not going to marry her!"
Leo's eyebrows lifted. "Why not? Don't you want kids?"
"Corrigan's got one."
"Kids of your own," Leo persisted with a grin. "Little boys with big feet and curly red hair."
Cag lifted a paperweight from the desk and tossed it deliberately in one hand.
Leo held up both hands in a defensive gesture. "Don't throw it. I'm reformed. I won't say another word."
The paperweight was replaced on the desk. "Like I said before, I'm too old for her. After all the other considerations have been taken into account, that one remains. Sixteen years is too much."
"Do you know Ted Regan?"
Cag scowled. "Sure. Why?"
"Do you know how much older he is than Coreen?"
Cag swallowed. "Theirs is a different relationship."
"Calhoun Ballenger and Abby?"
Cag glared at him.
“Evan and Anna Tremayne?''
The glare became a black scowl.
Leo shrugged. "Dig your own grave, then. You should hear Ted groan about the wasted years he spent keeping Coreen at bay. They've got a child of their own now and they're talking about another one in the near future. Silver hair and all, Ted's the happiest fellow I know. Coreen keeps him young."
"I'll bet people talked."
"Of course people talked. But they didn't care."
That grin was irritating. Cag turned away from him. He didn't dare think about kids with curly red hair. He was already in over his head and having enough trouble trying to breathe.
"One day, a young man will come along and sweep her off her feet."
"You've already done that, several times," Leo said pointedly.
"Carrying her off to the store to buy new clothes, and just today, out of the path of a rattler."
"She doesn't weigh as much as a good sack of potatoes."
"She needs feeding up. She's all nerves lately. Especially when you're around."
Cag's big hands clenched in his pockets. "I want to move the heifers into the west pasture tomorrow. What do you think?"
"I think it's a week too soon."
The broad shoulders shrugged. "Then we'll wait one more week. How about the pastures on the bottoms?"
"We haven't had rain, but we will. If they flood, we'll have every cowboy on the place out pulling cows out of mud." His eyes narrowed. "You know all that better than I do."
"I'm changing the subject."
Leo threw up his hands. "All right. Don't listen to me. But Sandy Gaines means business. He's flirting with her, hard. He's young and personable and educated, and he wears nice suits and drives a red Corvette."
Cag glared at him. "She can see through clothes and a car, even a nice car."
"She's had digs and sarcasm and insults from you," Leo said and he was serious. "A man who tells her she's pretty and treats her gently might walk up on her blind side. She's warming to him a little. I don't like it. I've heard things about him."
"What sort of things?" Cag asked without wanting to.
"That he's fine until he gets his hands on a bottle of liquor, and then he's every woman's worst nightmare. You and I both know the type. We don't want our Tess getting into a situation she can't handle."
"She wouldn't tolerate that sort of behavior from a man," he said stiffly.
"Of course not, but she barely weighs a hundred pounds sopping wet! Or have you forgotten that she couldn't even get away from Herman, and he only outweighs her by ten pounds? Gaines is almost your size!"
Cag's teeth clenched. "She won't go out with him," he said doggedly. "She's got better sense."
That impression only lasted two more days. Sandy Gaines, a dark-haired, blue-eyed charmer, came by to discuss a new advertising campaign with the brothers and waylaid Tess in the hall. He asked her to a dance at the Jacobsville dance hall that Friday night and she, frustrated and hurt by Cag's sarcasm and coldness, accepted without hesitation.
Chapter 6
Sandy picked her up early for the dance in his low-slung used Corvette. Cag was nearby and he watched them with eyes so eaten up with jealousy that he could hardly bear it. She was wearing their dress, to top it all, the blue dress he'd helped her pick out when he'd taken her shopping. How could she wear it for that city dude?
"Get her home by midnight," he told Sandy, and he didn’t smile.
"Sure thing, Mr. Hart!"
Sandy put Tess into the car quickly and drove off. Tess didn’t even look at Cag. She was uncomfortably aware of the dress she had on, and why Cag glared at her. But he didn't want to take her anywhere, after all, so why should he object to her going out on a date? He didn't even like her!
"What's he, your dad?" Sandy drawled, driving far too fast.
"They all look out for me," she said stiffly.
Sandy laughed cynically. "Yeah? Well, he acts like you’re his private stock." He glanced at her. "Are you?"
"Not at all," she replied with deliberate carelessness.
"Good." He reached for her hand and pressed it. We're going to have a nice time. I've looked forward to this all week. You're a pretty little thing."
She smiled. "Thanks."
"Now you just enjoy yourself and don't worry about heavy-handed surrogate parents, okay?"
"Okay."
But it didn't work out that way. The first two dances were fun, and she enjoyed the music. But very quickly, Sandy found his way to the bar. After his second whiskey sour, he became another man. He held her too closely and his hands wandered. When he tried to kiss her, she struggled.
"Oh, no, you don't," he muttered when she tried to sidestep him. He caught her hand and pulled her out of the big structure by a side door. Seconds later, he pushed her roughly up against the wall in the dim light.
Before she could get a hand up, he was kissing her—horrible wet, invasive kisses that made her gag. She tasted the whiskey on his breath and it sickened her even further. His hands grasped her small breasts roughly, hurting, twisting. She cried out and fought him, trying to get away, but his hips levered down over hers with an obscene motion as he laughed, enjoying her struggles as she tried valiantly to kick him.
It was like that other time, when she was sixteen and she'd been at the mercy of another lecherous man. The memories further weakened her, made her sick. She tried to get her knee up, but she only gave him an opening that brought them even more intimately together and frightened her further. She was beating at his chest, raging at him, and his hand was in the neckline of her dress, popping buttons off in his drunken haste, when she felt the pressure against her body suddenly lessen.
There were muffled curses that stopped when Sandy was suddenly pushed up against the wall himself with one arm behind him and a mercilessly efficient hand at his neck, the thumb hard under his ear. Cag looked violent as Tess had rarely seen him. The hold was more than dangerous, it was professional. She didn't have the slightest doubt that he could drop the other man instantly if it became necessary.
"Move, and I'll break your neck," Cag said in a voice like hot steel. His black eyes cut to Tess and took in her disheveled clothing, her torn bodice. He jerked his head toward the ranch pickup that was parked just at the edge of the grass. "It's unl
ocked. Go and get inside."
She hesitated, sick and wobbly and afraid.
"Go on," Cag said softly.
She turned. She might have pleaded for Sandy, except that she didn't think he deserved having her plead for him. He might have...God only knew what he might have done if Cag hadn't shown up! She resisted the urge to kick him while Cag had him powerless, and she wobbled off toward the truck.
She was aware of dull thuds behind her, but she didn't turn. She went to the truck, climbed in and sat shivering until a cold, taciturn Cag joined her.
Before he got into the cab, he pulled off the denim shirt he was wearing over a black T-shirt and put it over her shoulders the wrong way. He didn't attempt to touch her, probably aware that she was sick enough of being touched at the moment.
"Get into that," he said as he fastened his seat belt, "and fasten your belt."
He reached for the ignition and she noticed that his knuckles were bleeding. As she struggled into the shoulder harness she glanced toward the barn and saw Sandy leaning against the wall, looking very weak.
"I couldn't make him stop," she said in a thin voice. "I didn't expect him to...to get drunk. He seemed so nice. I never go out with big men usually—" Her voice broke. "Damn him! Oh, damn him! I never dreamed he'd be like that! He seemed like such a nice man!"
He glanced toward her with a face like black thunder, but he didn't speak. He put the truck in gear and drove her home.
The others were out for the evening. They were alone in the house. She started to go down the hall toward her room, but he turned her into the study and closed the door.
He seated her on the big black antique leather divan that graced the corner near the picture window and went to pour brandy into a snifter.
He came back and sat beside her, easing her cold, trembling hands around the bowl and offering it at her swollen lips. It stung and she hesitated, but he tilted it up again.
She let out a single sob and quickly controlled herself. "Sorry," she said.
"Why did you go out with him?"
Books By Diana Palmer Page 207
