The Rancher & Heart of Stone

by Diana Palmer

  He indulged her for a time, but then his lean hand caught her hip and stilled her. “No more,” he whispered. “You’re very new to this. It will be uncomfortable if we don’t stop.”

  “Oh,” she protested.

  He kissed her tenderly. “Besides,” he whispered, “we’re tempting fate. These things are only good for one use. They can break.”

  Her eyes opened and looked up into his. They widened. “They can?”

  She’d sounded almost hopeful. He chuckled. “It’s rare, when that happens. We don’t need a baby right now, at the beginning of our marriage.”

  “Are you sure we don’t?” she asked.

  He kissed her again. “I’m sure. And it isn’t because I don’t want one,” he clarified. “I want time for us to travel and learn about each other.”

  “Travel.”

  He chuckled. “Anywhere you want to go.”

  “You mean, we could go to Wyoming and see Old Faithful?” she asked excitedly.

  He propped up on one elbow. “I was thinking of someplace more exotic.”

  “Oh. Like Florida.” She nodded.

  He scowled. “The pyramids. Chichén Itzá. Sacsayhuamán. Zimbabwe. Those sorts of places.”

  “You mean, go overseas?” she exclaimed. “We could do that?”

  He studied her rapt, pretty little face, and he smiled again. “Yes. We could do that.”

  “Wow.”

  He kissed her once more and withdrew, wincing when she winced. “I told you,” he mused. “It takes time and practice to avoid these little pitfalls.”

  “I suppose so.” She looked at his broad chest, where deep scars cut across it. There were more on his belly, and one, much worse, on his broad thigh. She reached out and touched them, testing the hard ridges with her fingertips, exploring. “Badges of honor,” she murmured aloud.

  He was watching her watching him, his dark eyes keen and alert. He smiled. “I’ve been self-conscious about these for years.”

  “They aren’t that bad,” she replied.

  His own eyes were on her shoulder, her scars equally as deep as his and less cared for. “If you want to have plastic surgery, you can,” he told her. “But I’d love you if you were missing an arm or a leg. Nothing will ever change the way I feel. And I don’t mind your scars.”

  “I don’t mind yours.” She reached over and kissed his chest, where the thickest, hardest ridge ran right across it, diagonally. “I’m so glad that stupid woman ran from you,” she murmured.

  He laughed. “So am I, now.”

  She cuddled close to him, more secure and less embarrassed. It seemed to be a natural thing, this combining of bodies. It was certainly fulfilling.

  He wrapped her up in his arms, careful not to jar the sore one any more than he already had. He closed his eyes. He’d never been so happy in all his life.

  * * *

  HE’D PLANNED TO have a big wedding, but his conscience got the better of him, so the next day he drove Keely over to the probate judge’s office in Jacobsville and married her.

  “You really are a prude, you know,” Keely teased him when they were back on the street wearing wedding bands, with the license in Keely’s handbag.

  He shrugged. “Pot calling the kettle black,” he replied, smiling tenderly.

  She pressed close against him, still a little weak and shaky from the snakebite, but so happy that she felt like bursting. “There’s one thing left that we have to do,” she said reluctantly.

  “Yes. Do you want to call Carly, or shall I?”

  She linked her fingers into his. “I’ll call her.”

  * * *

  THEY HAD THE funeral a week later, a small memorial service at the cemetery, where Ella Welsh was buried next to her parents. It was a sad interlude in a happy whirl, because Winnie had insisted on a society wedding. Boone and Keely reluctantly gave in. Winnie’s enthusiasm was contagious.

  So they were married in the autumn, with the maples wearing glorious red-and-gold coats, and chrysanthemums for Keely’s bouquet. She tossed it outside the church and watched with amusement as her bridesmaids scrambled for it. But it was the best man, Hayes Carson, who caught the bouquet. He grinned widely and gave a courtly bow when everyone stared at him. A glowering Dr. Bentley Rydel had also attended the wedding, along with Keely’s coworkers, and Carly, who cried buckets and said that Keely was the most beautiful bride she’d ever seen.

  Boone and Keely went away for a month, touring Spain and Africa and much of Europe. They came home weary of travel, but with beautiful memories.

  “You’re not going to be happy giving morning teas for brides and hostessing dinner parties, are you?” Boone asked when they’d finished supper and were sitting in front of the fireplace in the living room.

  “I’m not cut out for it,” she replied worriedly.

  He grinned and pulled her close. “Then do what you please.”

  “I’d like to go back to work for Dr. Rydel,” she said slowly. “I guess you wouldn’t like that?”

  He looked down into her wide, soft green eyes. “We’ve already agreed that you have skills, and they apply to animals. I think it would be a good idea. I’ll have days when I have to be out of town on business, and I’ll have workshops and conferences to go to. You can come to some of them, but you won’t like being on the road so much. Work for Rydel.” He kissed her. “Just don’t forget where you live and who loves you.”

  She grinned and kissed him back. “I could never forget that.”

  He stretched and yawned. “Clark’s got a new girl, Winnie says,” he murmured after a peaceful silence. “A nice one, this time. She works in a library.”

  Keely smiled. “Good for Clark. How about Winnie?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t know. She’s changed. She’s gone all silent lately. Probably mooning over Kilraven.” He shook his head. “That bird isn’t going to settle down in some small town. He’s got big city written all over him.”

  Keely promised herself that she’d make time to talk to her best friend and let her cry it all out.

  “Sleepy?” he asked.

  She nuzzled against his shoulder. “Not really. Why? Did you have something in mind?” she teased.

  “In fact, I did.” He leaned closer, brushed his mouth over hers in a whisper of contact. “Yeast rolls.”

  Unprepared, she burst out laughing. “Yeast rolls?”

  “I haven’t had a decent roll since before we married,” he pointed out, “and you’re all healed now. Besides, nobody makes bread like you do.”

  “Well, if that’s how you feel, I’d love to bake you some yeast rolls!” she replied. Her eyes shimmered with amusement. “But I’d need a little encouragement, first.”

  He pursed his lips. “What sort of encouragement?”

  “Be inventive,” she coaxed.

  He got to his feet, swung her up into his arms and started for the staircase. “Inventive,” he assured her with a chuckle, “is my middle name.”

  She tucked her face under his chin and listened to the heavy, hard beat of his heart and smiled with anticipation. She felt as if she were being reimbursed for all the long years of loneliness and sorrow that she’d endured. Her scars, she decided, didn’t matter so much after all. And the happiness she’d found with Boone was worth every one.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Real Vintage Maverick by Marie Ferrarella.

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  Chapter One

  It happened too quickly for him to even think about it.

  One minute, in a moment of exasperated desperation—because he hadn’t yet bought a gift for Caroline’s birthday—Cody found himself walking into the refurbished antique store that had, up until a few months ago, been called The Tattered Saddle.

  The next minute, he was hurrying across the room and managed—just in time—to catch the young woman who was tumbling off a ladder.

  Before he knew it, his arms were filled with the soft curves of the same young woman.

  She smelled of lavender and vanilla, nudging forth a sliver of a memory he couldn’t quite catch hold of.

  That was the way Cody remembered it when he later looked back on the way his life had taken a dramatic turn toward the better that fateful morning.

  When he’d initially walked by the store’s show window, Cody had automatically looked in. The shop appeared to be in a state of semi-chaos, but it still looked a great deal more promising than when that crazy old coot Jasper Fowler ran it.

  Cody vaguely recalled hearing that the man hadn’t really been interested in making any sort of a go of the shop. The whole place had actually just been a front for a money-laundering enterprise. At any rate, the antique shop had been shut down and boarded up in January, relegated to collecting even more dust than it had displayed when its doors had been open to the public.

  What had caught his eye was the notice Under new ownership in the window and the store’s name—The Tattered Saddle—had been crossed out. But at the moment, there was no new name to take its place. He had wondered if that was an oversight or a ploy to draw curious customers into the shop.

  Well, if it was under new ownership, maybe that meant that there was new old merchandise to choose from. And that, in turn, might enable him to find something for his sister here. As he recalled, Caroline was into old things. Things that other people thought of as junk and wanted to discard, his sister saw potential and promise in.

  At least it was worth a shot, Cody told himself. He had tried the doorknob and found that it gave under his hand. Turning it, he had walked in.

  Glancing around, his eyes were instantly drawn to the tall, willowy figure on the other side of the room. She was wearing a long, denim-colored skirt and her shirt was more or less the same color. The young woman was precariously perched on the top step of a ladder that appeared to be none too steady.

  What actually caught his attention was not that she looked like an accident waiting to happen as she stretched her taut frame out, trying to reach something that was on a higher shelf, but that with her long, straight brown hair hanging loose about her back and shoulders, for just an instant, she reminded him of Renee.

  A feeling of déjà vu seized him and for a moment, his breath caught in his throat.

  Balancing herself on tiptoes, Catherine Clifton, the former Tattered Saddle’s determined new owner, automatically turned around when she heard the little bell over the front door ring. She hadn’t anticipated any customers coming in until the store’s grand reopening. That wasn’t for a couple more days at the very least. Most likely a couple of weeks. And only if she could come up with a new name for the place.

  “We’re not open for business yet,” Catherine called out.

  The next thing out of her mouth was an involuntary shriek because she’d lost her footing on the ladder and both she and the ladder were heading for a collision with the wooden floor.

  The ladder landed with a clatter.

  Catherine, fortunately, did not.

  She was saved from what could have been a very bruising fate by the very person she’d just politely banished from the premises.

  Landing in the cowboy’s strong, capable arms knocked the air out of her and, along with it, anything else she might have said at that moment.

  Which was just as well because she would have hated coming across like some blithering idiot. But right now, not a single coherent thought completed itself in her head. It was filled with just scattered words and a myriad of sensations.

  Hot sensations.

  Everything had faded into the background and Catherine was instantly and acutely aware of the man whose arms she’d landed in. The broad-shouldered, green-eyed, sandy-haired cowboy held her as if she weighed no more than a small child. The muscles on his bare arms didn’t even appear to be straining.

  A tingling sensation danced through Catherine’s entire body, which was stubbornly heating up despite all of her attempts to bank the sensation—and her reaction to the man—down.

  Her valiant efforts to the contrary, for just a moment, it felt as if time had stood still, freezing this moment as it simultaneously bathed her in a heretofore never experienced, all but debilitating, feeling of desire. For two cents proper, using the excuse that this rugged-looking cowboy had saved her, she would have kissed him. With feeling.

  Catherine could absolutely visualize herself kissing him.

  The fact that he was a complete stranger was neither here nor there as far as she was concerned. Desire, she discovered at that moment, didn’t have to make sense. It could thrive very well without even so much as a lick of sense to it.

  And for no particular reason at all, it occurred to her that this man looked like the real deal. A cowboy. A real vintage cowboy.

  Was he? Or had she managed to bump her head without knowing it and was just hallucinating?

  Their eyes met and held for a timeless instance. Only the pounding of Catherine’s heart finally managed to sufficiently rouse her.

  “Thank you,” she finally whispered.

  Doing his best to focus and gather his exceedingly scattered wits about him, Cody heard himself asking, “For what?”

  Catherine let out a long, shaky breath before answering. “For catching me.”

  “Oh.” Of course that was what she meant. What did he think she meant? Cody nodded his head. “Yeah. Right.”

  The words emerged one at a time, each containing a sealed thought. Thoughts he couldn’t begin to convey, or even understand.

  Cody cleared his throat, then realized that he was still holding the woman in his arms. He should have already released her.

  Feeling awkward—he hadn’t spontaneously reacted to a woman in this manner since his wife had died—he set her down. “Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t be,” she told him. “I’m not.” I’m not sorry at all. “If you hadn’t caught me just then, I might have broken something—either some of the merchandise or, worse, one of my bones.”

  The fact that if he hadn’t come in just now, her attention wouldn’t have been thrown off and she very well could have remained perched on the ladder was a point Catherine had no desire to bring up. Thinking of him as her hero was far more pleasant.

  Rather than comment, the tall cowboy merely nodded his head in acknowledgment. At the same time, he began to back away.

  “Didn’t mean to trespass,” he murmured by way of an apology. He reached behind him for the doorknob, ready to make his getaway.

  “You’re not trespassing,” Catherine was quick to protest. She didn’t have the heart to chase out someone who could actually buy something in the store. “It’s just that I haven’t exactly gotten the store ready for customers yet. But you can stay if you like.”

  If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn that her tone was almost urging him to stay. And she had shifted her body so that she was now standing between him and the front door.

  Cody glanced around the store, still mulling over her initial protest. “Looks okay to me,” he told her. “Actually, it looks a mite better than it used to look when that old guy owned it.”

  Catherine was eager to bring out the shop’s better features and play them up so that she could attract actual customers rather than just the pitying or dismissive glances that the store had been garnering before she’d bought it. After the forme
r owner had kidnapped Rose Traub, the people in Thunder Canyon had deliberately shunned the store. And from what she’d heard, before then the clientele was almost as ancient as some of the antiques that were housed here. She wanted to change that as well. She wanted all age-groups to have a reason to drop by and browse.

  Fowler wasn’t in the picture anymore, having been sent to prison, and the shop was something that she wanted to take on as a project, something that belonged to her exclusively. After a lifetime of being the go-to person, the main caregiver in a family of eight and always putting everyone else’s needs ahead her own, it occurred to Catherine that time—and life—was slipping by her. She needed to make her own way before she woke up one morning to discover that she was no longer young, no longer able to grab her slice of the pie that life had to offer.

  Since this sexy-looking cowboy seemed familiar with the way the store had been before she’d taken over, Catherine made a natural assumption and asked, “Did you come in here often when Mr. Fowler owned it?”

  “No,” he told her honestly. Antiques had never held any interest for him. And they still didn’t, except that he knew his sister liked them. “But I walked by the store whenever I was in town and I’d look in.”

  Mild curiosity was responsible for that. He might not look it, but Cody had made a point of always taking in all of his surroundings. It kept him from being caught off guard—the way he had when Renee had become ill.

  “Oh,” Catherine murmured. All right, the place had held no real attraction for him, at least it hadn’t before. But he’d walked in this morning. Something had obviously changed. “Well, what made you come in today?”

  She glanced over her shoulder to see if there was anything unusual out on display that might have caught the cowboy’s eye. But nothing stood out for her.

  Cody wasn’t sure what this gregarious woman was fishing for, but he could only tell her the truth. “I’m looking for a present for my sister. Her birthday’s coming up and I need to get something into the mail soon if it’s going to get there in time.”

  Okay, she wasn’t making herself clear, Catherine thought. Desperate to hone in on a reliable “X-Factor,” she tried again.