by Jeanne Allan
“You carefully pointed out the differences between us.”
Letter to Reader
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
AUTHOR NOTE
Copyright
“You carefully pointed out the differences between us.”
Luke continued, “How I was nothing but a poor, crude, undereducated tramp, while you were cultured, well educated, well paid and, after that long shower, no doubt well cleansed. No dirt under your fingernails, right, lawyer lady?”
“I never made any such comparisons,” J.J. exclaimed.
“Not in so many words, but even a dumb cowboy could guess what you were thinking.”
“I didn’t have to guess what you were thinking, did I? You told me. You wanted a wife whom you expected to wear jeans, but not the pants in the family. You wanted a woman to cook your meals, wash your socks, warm your bed and raise your children. You didn’t want a wife—you wanted an unpaid servant!”
“I wanted a woman,” he said coldly, “who wanted a man. I don’t know what the hell you wanted.”
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the next book in our exciting showcase series for 1997! Once again we’re delighted to bring you a specially chosen story we know you’re going to enjoy, again and again...
Authors you’ll treasure, books you’ll want to keep!
This month’s recommended reading is
Do You Take This Cowboy? by Jeanne Allan. Find out what happens when headstrong cowboy Luke Remington meets J.J. O’Brien, the hot city lawyer.... Our SIMPLY THE BEST novel for October will be No Wife Required! by
Rebecca Winters (#3477).
Happy Reading!
The Editors,
Harlequin Romance
Do You Take This Cowboy?
Jeanne Allan
TORONTO NEW YORK LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN
MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
CHAPTER ONE
J.J. HAD never seen a more beautiful woman. Envy, no less intense for being unexpected and totally irrational, slammed her in the stomach. The painting, simply titled Her Life, portrayed the pioneer woman hanging her washing on a sagging clothesline. Near the woman a pair of toddlers played in a small garden patch, a baby slept in a cradle, a pie cooled in an open window and a shotgun leaned against the door of a small sod house. The signs of human activity occupied less than one-quarter of the painting while a flat, bleached sky and parched, treeless plain filled the rest. J.J. wondered if the artist had mounted the watercolor on a slab of old barn wood rather than frame it to symbolize the sense the pioneers must have had of vast, never-ending prairie and sky.
The dull, nearly monochromatic watercolor presented an eloquent portrayal of hardship, loneliness and despair until one noticed the tiny daubs of color. Dimly visible in the background a man guiding a wooden plow behind a plodding horse wore a barn red bandanna around his neck. Near the house a single garish pink rose bloomed on a scraggly bush. The artist had cleverly used the two splashes of color to guide the viewer to the faded indigo blue of the woman’s bonnet hanging down her back as she lifted her face to the sky. The woman’s sun-and-wind-ravaged face shone with strength, courage and hope.
J.J. debated mentioning the painting to Burton. He was too well mannered to gloat, but after her fuss about being dragged down near Larimer Square in Denver to the gallery opening on her birthday, he’d be entitled to a passing moment of satisfaction at hearing she’d seen at least one picture she liked. Not that she could explain the effect the watercolor had had on her.
Chattering self-importantly about the artist’s technique and minimalist color sense, a group of people crowded around J.J. Not wanting their pretentious opinions to taint her instinctive reaction to the watercolor, JJ. moved on through the gallery. Puzzling over her unexpected response to the watercolor, she barely noticed the other paintings hanging on the walls.
Suddenly the sensation of being watched pricked the base of her spine. In the way a wild animal recognizes her mate, she sensed him before he spoke.
“Hello, O’Brien.”
JJ. turned slowly. Her gaze collided with a red silk tie littered with whitened cattle skulls. She blinked and shuddered. Her gaze crawled upward past the blunted point of the cleft chin, dark with its habitual five-o’clock shadow, and halted in fascination at the tiniest twitch at the corner of the lips. They were ordinary lips; certainly no reason for her insides to pitch and roll.
The lips moved. “The tie was a gift.” Amusement rippled through his deep voice. “You’re looking good, O’Brien. In spite of that feed sack you’re wearing.”
She forced herself to meet Luke Remington’s eyes. Hazel eyes that combined gray-brown with blue in a thousand different ways depending on his mood. She’d told him once his eyes were the color of her brother’s favorite agate marble. He’d laughed and said the color made him think of a pond filled with muddy silt. Now she said, Hello, cowboy. No time no see,” with just the right tone of airy nonchalance. He’d never know her pulse threatened to burst through her skin.
He’d changed little since she’d seen him a year ago. Then she’d foolishly considered him the handsomest man ever to cross her path. Her infatuation conquered, she thought his ears stuck out a little from his head. He’d never tame the wave above his left temple. He wasn’t handsome. He was heart-stoppingly male.
J.J. wrapped her fingers tightly around the handle of her leather briefcase, thrusting treacherous memories back into their deep hiding place before he read them in her eyes. No one else had ever come close to reading her the way he had. Or so she’d thought. She smiled, a practiced, professional smile. “What are you doing here?”
“That.” The tanned skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled, and Luke nodded to the wall behind her. “I guess it’s not such a good likeness. You didn’t recognize me.”
J.J. whirled to face the oil painting she’d been standing blindly in front of. Dismay flooded through her. Why couldn’t she have stopped in front of any other painting? Tilting her head, she stared critically at the painting, searching for something dismissive to say.
A cowhand and his horse stood wearily, their dirty, sweat-covered bodies sagging. J.J. concentrated on the man’s face. Luke’s face. Satisfaction overrode the weariness. The air of a job well done. The same feeling she had after she’d won a particularly difficult case. The satisfaction a person could only earn. Not meaning to, she asked abruptly, “Why are you looking so pleased with yourself?” Then she saw the tiny calf sprawled across the saddle and had to smile. “You saved him.” She turned. Luke’s gaze caressed her face. Remembered pleasure shimmered over her skin.
“You cut your hair.” He cocked his head to one side. “I like it. Makes you look sexy as hell.”
J.J. arched a haughty brow. Her stylist cut her medium gray-brown hair chin-length to curve slightly under in a severe businesslike style. “It’s practical.”
His half smile told her how little he thought of her claim. A lazy warmth stirred in the back of his eyes. “Very sexy.” He sent a provocative gaze crawling the length of her body. “I’ll bet a year’s wages you’re wearing slinky silk underwear under that horse blanket,” he drawled.
“It’s not a horse blanket.” If she were a better liar, she’d tell him he’d loose his bet.
“There you are, JJ. I lost you in the crowd. Ready to go eat
?” Burton lightly touched her arm.
Gratefully J.J. swung around to smile at him. “Yes.”
“Ah, you’ve forgiven me for persuading you to attend the opening,” Burton teased. His gaze slid beyond her, touching first on the painting, then on Luke. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Burton Alexander. That’s you in the painting, isn’t it?”
“It’s me,” Luke agreed.
The two men couldn’t have presented a greater contrast. Burton, wearing a conservatively cut, charcoal pin-striped suit, white-on-white striped button-down shirt and red Italian foulard tie, looked the very successful lawyer he was. If he envied Luke’s four-inch height advantage, tanned, rugged good looks, and broad-shouldered, lean-hipped physique clad in jeans, blue denim shirt and tweed sport coat, Burton managed to keep any trace of that envy from showing. Burton probably didn’t even notice Luke’s aura of sex appeal, which had every woman in range preening and wishing she were the focus of all that raw masculinity.
“Are you a model?” Burton asked.
Luke laughed. “No. Harve wanted to paint some spring ranch scenes, so he stayed with us for a couple of weeks last year.” He extended his hand, introducing himself. “Luke Remington.”
Burton shook hands. “Remington,” he repeated, his brow wrinkling. “You aren’t—”
“Yes, he is.” J.J. confirmed Burton’s obvious surmise. “Isn’t this an amusing birthday surprise? My husband and the man I’m going to marry running into each other like this. What are the odds?”
Burton looked around the restaurant in the area of lower downtown Denver known as LoDo. “I should have canceled these reservations. I’m sure you would have preferred a T-bone or something.”
“Eye-talian’s okay,” Luke assured him. “I can always order spaghetti. I reckon I know what that is.”
“I shouldn’t have ordered wine,” Burton continued. “You probably prefer beer.”
“Yeah, us beer-guzzling cowboys ain’t got much of them palates,” Luke pronounced it pah-lates, “for fancy stuff.”
The sarcasm found its mark, and Burton’s face reddened. The appearance of a waiter to take their orders gave the older man time to consider his words. “I apologize for my idiotic remarks. I didn’t mean, well, this is a little awkward, isn’t it?”
His rare loss of composure underlined how awkward. For the first time since J.J. had known him, Burton Alexander’s brilliant legal mind and famous unflappable demeanor had deserted him. Of course, he’d never before dined with the husband of his future wife. Not that he hadn’t brought the uncomfortable situation on himself by inviting Luke Remington to join them for dinner. J.J. had always admired Burton’s impeccable manners. If only certain others shared them. She glared across the table at her husband. “Any gentleman with a smidgen of acquaintance with proper etiquette would have politely declined Burton’s rhetorical invitation.”
“Goldarn, O‘Brien, I wish you wouldn’t mix me up with all them big words. If you’re talking manners, I took off my hat, and I shure mean to eat without usin’ my fingers.” He gave her a soulful, accusing look. “If you rightly remember, lawyer lady, I ain’t had the benefit of all your fancy schoolin’.”
“You might remember I wasn’t born yesterday,” J.J. said, “so stop that ridiculous corn pone act right now.”
“I thought the simple, down-to-earth quality about me is what attracted you,” Luke drawled.
“Why do you call her O’Brien?” Burton asked quickly.
“J.J. ain’t no kind of name for a woman like O’Brien.”
“If you say ‘ain’t’ one more time,” J.J. snapped, “I am going to throw my Caesar salad at you.”
Satisfaction gleamed briefly in Luke’s eyes before he turned to Burton. “So you and O’Brien plan on getting hitched.”
“After she gets her divorce, yes,” Burton said cautiously.
“I wondered if she’d remembered that little detail.” A feral grin curved Luke’s mouth. “I suppose that’s why you invited me to dinner. To soften me up for a divorce.”
“I thought dinner would be an excellent opportunity for us to become acquainted. I assume a divorce between you and J.J. is a mere formality.”
Luke gave Burton a cool, assessing look. “Why would you assume that?”
“You’ve been separated for a year.”
“Didn’t our vows say something about as long as we both lived?” Luke asked JJ.
“I remember very little of our so-called wedding, including the vows,” J.J. said in a forbidding voice.
Luke’s grin returned. “I guess we were in too big a hurry to get back to your place to remember much of anything about our wedding. In a hurry to get to bed,” he added, in case Burton needed a picture painted. “I offered to buy her a big, fancy wedding lunch, but O’Brien wouldn’t even stop for that.”
Because she’d been worried he didn’t have that kind of money. A suspicion she hadn’t voiced then, and wasn’t about to voice now. In spite of Luke’s provocative comments. “Burton is less interested in our wedding than in our divorce.”
“I have a little interest in that subject myself.”
“Then you’ll raise no objection to meeting in my of fice on Monday so we can discuss some of the details,” JJ. said.
Luke took his time swallowing some wine. “No.”
“Good.” The empty feeling in the pit of her stomach came from delaying dinner so they could attend the gallery opening. She picked up her wineglass and saluted Luke. “Here’s to a friendly, amicable divorce.”
Luke set down his glass and leaned back against his chair. “I meant no, I won’t go to your office Monday and discuss a divorce.”
Burton said, “If Monday is inconvenient, we can—” “What’s inconvenient is a divorce.” Nothing about Luke Remington’s flat statement indicated he was kidding.
J.J. banged her wineglass down on the table. “Our marriage is inconvenient.”
Luke looked from her to Burton and back again. He raised an insulting eyebrow. “Doesn’t seem to be.”
“JJ. has always behaved with the utmost propriety. Her conduct has been honorable throughout our acquaintanceship.” Burton added dryly, “In case I’ve used words of too many syllables for you, Mr. Remington, I’ll state this simply. J.J. has never slept with me. She refuses to do so until she obtains a decree of Dissolution of Marriage.”
“Why not, O’Brien?”
“It has nothing to do with you.” Luke had been the first and only man in her bed. J.J. drew on the tablecloth with her fork handle, and repeated the explanation she’d given Burton. “Burton has an adolescent daughter. When I’m her stepmother, I don’t want to be in the position of counseling Carrie against premarital sex when she would be bound to know if her father and I engaged in it.”
She could have added, everything in her screamed against an adulterous relationship; instead she changed the subject. “What do you mean a divorce is inconvenient? We agreed we were totally incompatible.”
His casual comments that morning a year ago about her moving had caught her totally by surprise. She’d assumed they’d live in Denver where she worked for a prominent law firm earning good money with excellent prospects for earning better. She’d purchased her town house six months earlier. As a homeowner and the larger wage earner, never once had it occurred to her he’d expect her to pull up stakes and follow him to the boondocks. She’d expected Luke to look for employment in Denver.
The stunning realization he’d been thinking along totally different lines, making totally different assumptions had forced her to face reality. “We agreed we’d be better off facing the truth that we’d been foolishly impulsive. We agreed dissolving the marriage made more sense than deceiving ourselves into thinking we could make it work.”
They’d been kidding themselves if they thought the emotion between them was love. People in love asked questions, made plans. She knew he liked hot, buttered popcorn, hated flavored coffee and moved with a slow indolence, which c
ould disappear at a second’s notice. He sang off-key in the shower. When he showered alone. He’d been an imaginative, satisfying lover. She had no idea how he’d expected to support them if she abandoned the practice of law.
“I knew something was up when you spent over an hour in the shower that Monday morning,” Luke said. “You came out of the bathroom armored from head to toe in a heavy bathrobe and announced you’d changed your mind. You carefully pointed out the differences between us. How I was nothing but a poor, crude, undereducated saddle tramp while you were cultured, well educatead, well paid, and after that long shower, no doubt well cleansed. No dirt under your fingernails, right, lawyer lady?”
J.J. knew her face matched the tomato on her plate. “I never made any such comparisons.”
“Not in so many words, but even a dumb cowboy could guess what you were thinking.”
“I didn’t have to guess what you were thinking, did I? You told me. You wanted a wife who worked side by side with her husband. A wife whom you expected to wear jeans, but not the pants in the family. You wanted a woman to cook your meals, wash your socks, warm your bed and raise your children. You didn’t want a wife—you wanted an unpaid servant.”
“I wanted a woman,” he said coldly, “who wanted a man. I don’t know what the hell you wanted. You had a great time slumming for a week, playing house with a big, bad cowboy. Then reality slapped you in the face, and you panicked at the thought of moving to North Park.”
“I didn’t panic. I came to my senses. One of us had to be pragmatic.”
Luke snorted. “Pragmatic, hell. You were plain chicken.”
“We’re getting away from the point,” Burton said. “Why would a divorce inconvenience you, Mr. Remington?”
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