Scandal with the Rancher

by Julia Justiss

  In the late afternoon two days later, Marguerite gathered two small apples from her bag and set off from the cabin to the pasture. Restless after a difficult day with the students, and discouraged at having to use all her small savings for the week to replace a few worn-out items, she’d decided to make a rare mid-week visit to the ranch after school.

  Sending the surprised Antonio off to town, she’d thrown herself into completing some of the tasks needing to be done in the cabin, but the restlessness that had driven her to the ranch did not ease.

  For the first time she could remember, its solace failed to calm her. Instead, she seemed to feel even more isolated and burdened than in town, crushed under the weight of a debt it seemed she’d never work free of and feeling as if all she wanted so badly would sooner or later slip through her fingers.

  What would be left of her, if she lost it all?

  Her continuing agitation over Ronan Kelly wasn’t helping her regain her peace of mind. She’d half expected him to turn up at the school again, as he’d never had a chance to explain what had brought him there the day John had fallen into the river.

  Maybe she’d been presumptuous in thinking he’d been coming to the school to see her. Perhaps he’d simply been walking in that direction, intent on some other purpose.

  But what? The town and all the nearby houses were in the opposite direction; there was nothing beyond the school but wilderness. If he’d meant to explore outside town—he was looking for land for a ranch, he’d told her—she would have expected him to be riding, or driving a carriage.

  She told herself she ought to be glad he hadn’t returned. After all, that was what she wanted, wasn’t it? To have him keep his distance, so that she wasn’t unsettled by his dynamic presence and consumed by urges she could not safely indulge.

  Yet, it seemed she was almost as unsettled, and thinking about him surely as much, as if he had paid her another visit.

  Arriving at the pasture, she whistled for the horses. As always, her heart gladdened as they trotted into view, seeming as pleased to see her—or at least the treats she always brought—as she was to see them.

  “Your mistress is an idiot,” she told them, producing the apples for them to eat from her hand. Stroking their velvet muzzles, she said, “I’m sure neither of you ladies will be so foolish when your gentleman caller finally arrives. No, you will be coy and elusive and fully in control, leading him a merry chase before succumbing.”

  At the mention of “succumbing,” heat flashed within her.

  Then she stiffened, sensing a disturbance in the air. Initial alarm gave way to inner excitement as she heard the measured footsteps approaching. She waited, not acknowledging his presence until he’d come to a stop behind her.

  “Didn’t I tell you this ranch isn’t for sale, Ronan Kelly?” she asked, not turning to face him.

  He walked up to halt beside her. “That you did, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat. “Still and all, it is a beautiful piece of land, and you can hardly fault a man for wanting a glimpse of its beauty as he rides by.”

  “Rides by to where?” As she pivoted to face him, she saw he’d turned his gelding loose to graze on the lush grass—which was why she hadn’t heard him ride up. “I thought you were seeking land for a ranch. There’s no other property in this direction that both fronts on the river and has so wide a pasture. Not for miles, Aidan told me.”

  “ ’Tis true, but there’s something about this place that draws a man here—whether or not he can possess the land. Or beauties like these,” he added, reaching out to stroke each mare in turn.

  Would she continue to possess it? Most of the time she was fiercely certain of it, but if she weren’t able to consistently save more than she had this week, she’d never accumulate enough capital to be able to leave her teaching job and still pay down the loan, purchase a stallion and buy necessary supplies for the ranch.

  Then the meaning of his words penetrated her endless spiral of doubt and worry, and she looked at him in surprise. “This place draws you, too?”

  “Aye. After seeing it, ’tis hard to imagine wanting to settle anywhere else.”

  She nodded. “I felt the same way, from the moment Aidan first brought me here.”

  “How did you come to the Hill Country? You’re Tejana, from the Mexican lands, aren’t you? Your hair and eyes speak of Spanish blood.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Do you truly want to know, or are you only being polite?”

  “I’d truly like to know.”

  She sighed. “It’s a long story. I’d better ask you in for some coffee.”

  He smiled at her then, that roguish, beguiling smile that made her toes curl in her boots and filled her with the urge to do whatever he suggested.

  Which was a prime reason she ought to withdraw her offer of coffee and send him on his way. But she’d been feeling so lonely, so hopeless, that the chance to talk with someone who seemed to share her appreciation for this land and what it meant to her was too compelling to resist. Ignoring the voice of prudence, she turned and led him up the slope to the cabin.

  Chapter Five

  All too conscious of the thrum of excitement simmering in his veins at the proximity of Marguerite McMasters, Booze watched her as she busied herself by making coffee. It had taken considerable strength of will to keep from riding by the schoolhouse to see her again, after the child’s accident robbed him of being able to talk with her that first day.

  Having reconfirmed to himself that he needed to have the mercantile available as a base of supply for the ranch he’d decided to establish, he had planned to ride out this afternoon to look at other land along the river. Somehow, as it had the other day, that odd but intense sense of connection had drawn him back to this place.

  He hadn’t expected to find Marguerite here, figuring she stayed in town for the duration of the school week. When he rounded the bend of the river and saw her feeding apples to her horses, his pulse had leapt and his chest expanded with a delight and anticipation whose intensity he could neither explain—nor deny.

  Even though she’d probably just send him away, perhaps angrily, thinking he’d violated both her privacy and their unspoken agreement that he leave her alone. So he’d set his horse free and quietly approached her, wanting to savor his view of her for as long as possible before she sensed his presence.

  And how charming a view it was! She looked like some fairy sprite from an Irish folk tale, sunlight gilding her dark hair and outlining her lithe body as she communed with her horses. Just watching her with them, so clearly belonging here, so much a part of this land, was so beautiful it made his chest ache.

  Though he was hardly in the habit of listening to female chatter, when she offered him an excuse to linger, he’d seized it eagerly. For the possibility of remaining a while longer in her presence, drinking in her beauty—and, yes, fantasizing of more—he’d have agreed to have her read him her recipe cards.

  “Black, isn’t that right?” she asked, bringing him a cup of the dark, hot brew.

  “And yours with sugar,” he replied, taking the cup—his eyes on her lips as he remembered what he’d thought the last time she’d sugared her coffee.

  Her face coloring at the intensity of his regard, she looked away and seated herself. “So, what did you want to know?”

  “What made you come here? Now, I could picture you in a fine mansion in town with a banker for a husband, but you seem too...refined a lady to have headed to a wilderness cabin. Your husband must have been one persuasive gentleman.” To his surprise, he found he really wanted to know more about the man who’d captivated Marguerite.

  So he might work the same magic?

  Her gaze going to the far distance, she said, “I saw him first in the crowded mercado. He was staring at me, an intense gaze I could feel. When I looked up at him, he had the audacity to smile and tip his hat. Even more audacious, he met me at one of the stalls and introduced himself, telling me he’d started working horse
s for my father.”

  “Sounds enterprising to me, not audacious. I’m forced to approve.”

  She laughed. “Aidan could charm a miser out of his gold. His family had a farm in Tennessee, but he was too restless to settle down there. He’d grown up on tales of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone and the heroes of the Alamo, and wanted to explore Texas. He traveled around for several years, working on ranches along the way. He is—he was—an expert in handling horses. After a while, he got tired of wandering and decided to settle somewhere and breed horses on land of his own. He’d heard of the horses my father’s ranch produced, and came to San Antonio to see them.”

  “And saw you, instead?” Ronan asked. He could readily imagine being distracted from his plans by the vision she presented.

  Smiling, she nodded. “I was just turned sixteen. He insisted we wait the two years until I finished my schooling before he would marry me, using that time to earn money toward buying land of our own, and traveling the area to find the right spot. After seeing this stretch of river, he came back and told me he’d found the perfect place for us to start a ranch and our life together.”

  “I don’t imagine your papa was too happy about his daughter’s intention to go off into the wilderness. Or too pleased with the rogue who was enticing her to it.”

  Her face clouded, that memory obviously not a happy one. “He was not. He tried to bully me out of the idea, then coax me when he realized I could no longer be cowed by his anger, as I had been when I was younger. Then he tried to coerce or bribe Aidan into staying in the San Antonio area. But Aidan wanted this land, and wanted us to settle it together. And so did I.”

  “So you talked your papa into it? I can see you sweet-talking a man into almost anything, no matter how much he might have opposed it.” Hell, he couldn’t imagine any man she turned those big brown eyes on not promising her the moon, if she asked for it.

  She laughed shortly. “You don’t know my papa. He was furious when we both defied his wishes. He threatened to lock me in my room until I relented—so I ran away with Aidan before he could make good on that threat. The priest at a village where we stopped on the trail finally agreed to marry us after I told him I intended to live with Aidan as my husband regardless of whether he performed the ceremony or not, so he might as well make an honest woman of me.”

  “Not much of a ceremony you would have had, then. Did you never regret being cheated out of the fancy wedding females put such stock in?”

  She shook her head. “The simple ceremony was lovely, and I had the most magical honeymoon any woman could ask for. Aidan, who knew and loved this land, showing it to me. Camping at night on a long ridge of land that fell away into deep shadow on all sides, the vista under the full moon so broad you felt you could see to the ends of the earth! Dawn air so pure it almost hurt to breathe, and a brilliant blue sky by day. The two of us alone, as if there were no other beings in the world, and all that beauty belonged just to us.”

  Something clenched in his chest as Ronan listened to her description. “Free of the dust of town and the tramp of feet and the drone of commonplace voices. Everything fresh and new and seeming full of limitless possibility.”

  Her gaze lifted to his, her eyes widening in surprise. “Yes! How did you...?”

  “I always feel that way when I camp on a trail through unsettled lands. This place has something of that feel about it—which I guess is why it calls so strongly.”

  She nodded. “Exactly. It’s captured me since the very beginning.”

  He hesitated, picking his words with care. He wanted her to know he understood the land’s hold on her—not feel he was trying to persuade her to give it up. “And it holds you still?”

  She opened her mouth, closed it. To his dismay, a tear pooled at the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek. Before he could figure out what to say to comfort her, she said, “Aidan was my friend, lover, confidant—everything. I didn’t need anyone else while we were together, not that there was much chance to make any friends in town when we lived here. As fiercely as I love this place and want to hang on to it, it’s still...lonely to come here without him. To know, however much this place holds happy memories, he will never be here with me again.” She gave him a crooked smile. “Dreams make sadly unsatisfactory bedfellows.”

  Grieved by her grief, driven to offer comfort, he took her hand, gratified when she did not pull away. “I am so very sorry for your pain.” He drew the hand to his lips and kissed it.

  And then, without him knowing quite how it happened, she was in his arms, nestled against his chest, her body trembling with tears she would not let fall. Though the feel of her against him sparked his body to flame, for long moments, he simply held her, knowing solace was all she sought. It would be an unforgivable violation of her trust to try to steal more.

  At last, she sighed and straightened in his arms. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for,” he soothed, stroking her hair. “I know what it is to yearn for something so much, it drives you from home and family.”

  “What is it you yearn for?”

  He smiled wryly. “I don’t know. I haven’t found it yet.”

  She drew back, and he reluctantly let her go. “Thank you,” she murmured. “How I’ve ached to feel a man’s embrace again!”

  He tipped up her chin. “Call on me whenever you want for that—and anything else you desire.”

  Suddenly her gaze was on his face, no longer nostalgic and sad, but unexpectedly fierce. “Anything else?” she whispered.

  “Anything,” he managed, her smoky gaze so full of fire it was all he could do to keep from reaching for her. He needed to kiss her more than he needed his next breath. But he also knew if he touched her, the tight control he’d maintained while he’d held her would splinter, and he’d plunder her like a starving miner attacking a just-discovered vein of gold.

  While he waited, heart beating wildly with hope, she reached up to cradle his face in her hands and pulled his mouth down to meet hers. Like dynamite blasting a pass through a mountain, desire exploded with the first touch of her soft full lips. He moved his mouth to taste her, sugared coffee and sweet woman. And to his delight, she opened readily, meeting his tongue and laving it. That sensual thrust of plush on plush sent arousal pulsing to every fiber of him and he deepened the kiss, pulling her hard against him.

  She kissed him back just as fiercely, pushing back in his arms far enough that she could work at the buttons of his shirt, jerking them open, running her fingers over the bare flesh beneath.

  Groaning, he ran one hand down her back, cursing the endless layers of fabric that separated his searching fingers from bare skin. Abandoning that lost cause, he reached down to pull at her skirts, hiking one side up far enough to reach her leg, where he ran his fingers along the stockinged length from her knee to the top of her garters.

  He felt her gasp of breath when his thumb delved beneath the stocking’s edge to caress one satiny thigh. And then, still kissing him, she pulled out of his touch—not, thank the blessed saints, in retreat, but so she could tug at his trouser buttons.

  The material was pulled taut by his erection, and he had to help her free the buttons. And then, heaven on earth, she took him in her hands, stroking him in time to the swipe of her tongue against his.

  He nearly came apart, but managed to stave off completion, wanting to reward the unexpected gift she’d given him by giving her pleasure in return. But before he could try to ease his fingers into the soft opening where he might bring her joy, she shocked him by hiking up her skirts, straddling him and thrusting down.

  If her hands on him had been heaven, filling her hot, moist depths carried him to some mystical place beyond marvelous. Knowing it was impossible to rip through the layers of bodice and corset and chemise to pleasure her breasts, he put all his efforts into breath-stealing kisses while he moved within her, letting her set the pace.

  Difficult as it was to hold back his climax, it was worth it to rev
el in the taste of her and the growing volume of gasps and sobs as she rode him, harder and faster. Until she broke the kiss with a cry and clenched his shoulders, raking his back with her nails as she reached her peak. Instantly he followed her into the void.

  Sagging back against the settee, he cradled her against him, his stunned brain not sure this wasn’t all a dream that would shatter into disappointment when he woke. But as the minutes stretched away, his breathing slowed and thought became possible, he rejoiced to realize he really was holding her in his arms—the Marguerite of his dreams, even more passionate a lover than he’d imagined.

  He rubbed his cheek against her silken hair, massaging her back as she lay limp against his chest. Something bright and brilliant flamed in his heart, along with a profound sense of peace and satisfaction that went far beyond the physical.

  Until enough wit returned that he recalled all she’d told him of the impossibility of becoming his lover, and the joy muted.

  He only hoped she wouldn’t bitterly regret this lapse.

  Her mind drifting in a fog of euphoria, Marguerite nestled like a drowsy kitten into a warm chest. A hand massaged her back as strong arms held her close. How long it had been since she had felt so content, so safe, so not-alone!

  Somewhere in the rational realm beyond sensation, her mind was nattering at her about...something. But she shut her ears to it, clinging to the warmth and comfort of this moment.

  Until thought could be resisted no longer, and the realization dawned that she had just allowed Ronan Kelly to make love to her. Or more correctly, she’d practically ravished him.

  With a gasp, she pushed against his chest. He let her go without protest, helping her to sit up, straighten herself, pull down her skirts. Without a word or a backward glance, she hopped off the settee and hurried to the necessary to do the requisite cleansing.

  When she returned, Kelly had straightened and rebuttoned his own clothing. She had a pang of regret over losing her view of that magnificent chest. As he looked up at her, his expression sober, she lifted a hand to forestall him speaking.