His Texas Wildflower

by Stella Bagwell

  As Rebecca switched on a table lamp, Jake said, “I suppose I was eight years old the first time I ever visited Apache Wells with Quint. As best as I can remember your aunt was living here then. It’s going to feel strange to drive by and know that she’s not here anymore.”

  With one hand Rebecca gestured around the room. “It’s clear that my aunt lived modestly. I suppose she wanted it that way.”

  “Maybe she couldn’t afford anything else,” he suggested.

  “My aunt wasn’t exactly a pauper,” Rebecca revealed. “She had a nice nest egg in her savings account.”

  “Guess she was saving it for something more important.”

  More important? The money, the property, everything had been left to Rebecca. Nothing about her aunt’s life or final wishes made sense. Had the woman lived miserly just to leave Rebecca a small fortune? She’d not even known her niece! Oh, God, Rebecca wished she could understand what it all meant.

  “Come along this way to the kitchen,” she told him. “I’d offer you something, but I’m afraid there’s nothing in the house to eat or drink.”

  “I’m fine,” he assured her. “It hasn’t been that long since we had refreshments at Abe’s.”

  The kitchen was a tiny room with one row of cabinets and a single sink with a window above it. Through a pair of faded yellow curtains, a ridge of desert mountains loomed in the far distance. Between them and the house was an open range filled with green grass, clumps of purple sage and blooming yucca plants.

  “Would you look at that refrigerator,” Jake remarked. “I’ll bet it’s at least fifty years old.”

  Rebecca glanced at the appliance with its rounded corners and chromed handle. In spite of the paint being worn and rusted in places, the thing was still working. Although someone, she didn’t know who, had removed nearly all of the food from the shelves. In order to keep it from spoiling, she supposed. Perhaps Gertrude’s friend, Bess, had done the chore.

  “Yes. I guess Aunt Gertrude didn’t believe in getting rid of anything that was still working.” Which was the complete opposite of her twin sister, Rebecca thought wryly. In Houston, Gwyn was constantly refurnishing her house with the newest and best. The contrast of how the two sisters lived was completely shocking and made Rebecca wonder even more how the split had happened.

  Rebecca pointed to a short hallway that led off the kitchen. “The bedrooms and bathroom are down there. I’d show you, but they’re all a mess. Would you like to see out back?”

  “Sure.”

  He followed her out of the kitchen and onto a porch. This portico was made of planked wood and shaded with a roof. At one end, the thin branches of a desert willow moved in the breeze and scattered lavender blossoms on the dusty boards. The grass in the yard was long, scraggly and full of weeds and Rebecca couldn’t help thinking about her mother’s well-manicured lawn in Houston. There, thick St. Augustine grass was fed and groomed on a regular basis by a hired gardener. Expensive lawn furniture was arranged in an eye-pleasing manner beneath the deep shade of a live oak. From the looks of it, Gertrude O’Dell hadn’t even owned an old porch swing, she thought dismally.

  “Looks like things need a little cleaning and fixing up here, too,” Jake remarked. “I didn’t realize there was a barn behind the house. The trees hide it from the road. Are there animals or equipment in it?”

  “No tractors or anything that could be deemed as equipment,” she told him. “But there are three barn cats. And a horse was here this morning. I think it must come and go in the pasture. At least, it wasn’t locked inside a pen when I saw it. There’s a dog somewhere around here, too.”

  “Let’s go have a look,” he suggested, then glanced down at her high heels. “Or maybe you’d rather not.”

  “The ground is hard and dry. I’m not worried about my shoes, Jake.”

  He smiled and for a moment she was reliving those few moments she’d stood in the circle of his arms. His body had been warm. Incredibly warm. And his muscles thick and hard. His male scent had engulfed her and she’d wanted to bury her face in the V of his shirt, to cling to him until nothing else in the world mattered.

  Her strong reaction to the cowboy was startling and continued to confuse her. Although Rebecca had always enjoyed male company, she’d never relied on a man to keep her happy. How could she, when all the ones she’d known had been as fickle and unpredictable as the wind? Down through the years, she’d learned, somewhat the hard way, that men perpetually put themselves first. To them, sacrificing meant giving up football tickets to take her to the opera. She could do without that. And do without them. At least, she believed she could.

  Still there were times, like earlier at Apache Wells, when she’d watched the loving exchange between Maura and Quint Cantrell, when she’d listened to them speak of their young sons, that she wondered if she would ever find that sort of love, ever have children of her own.

  “Good,” he suggested, breaking into her thoughts. “Lead the way.”

  As they stepped off the porch, a reddish-brown dog with long hair scurried beneath the yard fence and came loping toward them. From the wag of his tail, he was happy to see Rebecca again and she paused to bend and stroke his head.

  “I was surprised to find that my aunt had left pets behind,” she told Jake. “I suppose before I leave I’ll have to take them to a place where they can be adopted out to new homes. And I need to find a trustworthy Realtor to deal with the property.”

  After giving the animal a few strokes on the head, she straightened to her full height to see Jake was studying her closely.

  “Gertie didn’t have a will?” he asked thoughtfully.

  Color rushed to Rebecca’s cheeks, although she didn’t understand why his question should unsettle her. It wasn’t a crime to be an heiress, even to a run-down property like this.

  “Uh—yes. Actually, Gertrude made me the sole beneficiary.”

  She began walking on toward the barn and he strolled beside her. A stand of aspen trees grew at the back of the yard and as they passed beneath the shade, the air was dry and pleasant. She suspected that by nightfall the temperature would be downright cool.

  “So why don’t you stay on and make use of the property?” he asked. “Or do you already own something in Houston?”

  As they walked along, she stared at him. “No. I rent. In the city. I don’t have any use for property.”

  Was the man crazy? Why would he even think she’d want or need Gertrude’s old homestead? Even though she’d told him and his friends that she worked as a fashion buyer, he obviously didn’t realize the importance of her job. At least, its importance to her. He didn’t understand that her mother and friends would be shocked to see her spend one night on this ramshackle property, much less want to hold on to it for herself.

  But she kept all those thoughts to herself. She didn’t want to give him the impression that she was a snob. Because she wasn’t. She was just accustomed to a different life than this. That was all.

  “That’s a shame,” he said. “With a bit of loving care this place could be a nice little home. But I guess a fancy lady like you would never settle for anything this simple.”

  There was no sarcasm or accusation in his voice. He’d simply stated a fact the way he saw it. And she wasn’t at all sure she liked the image he’d formed of her.

  Pushing a hand through her tousled hair, she wondered if she looked as bad as she felt. But that hardly mattered. When Jake Rollins had called her a fancy lady, he’d not been referring to her looks, but her substance as a person. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had noticed anything more about her than her outward appearance, the latest fashion she happened to be wearing. It was a jarring realization.

  “Actually, I won’t be leaving tomorrow,” she told him, while trying to decide why she felt it important to give him that bit of information. “It will take me a few days to deal with everything and get the property ready to sell.”

  “Well, I hope everything tur
ns out the way you want,” he said quietly.

  “I do, too,” she murmured, then quickened her pace on to the barn.

  The structure was built of lapped boards with a low roof made of corrugated iron. The outside had once been painted white but had long since faded to a tired gray. At one end, two wide doors stood open, allowing a shaft of waning sunlight to slant across a floor of hard-packed dirt.

  Inside, two female cats, one gray striped and the other a solid white, were lounging on a low stack of old hay bales. Nearby, a yellow tom was stretched out in the shade of a metal water trough full of rusty holes. Everywhere she looked, everything about the place seemed to have been long forgotten, as though her aunt had quit living years ago, instead of days ago. The idea saddened her even more.

  While Rebecca tried to get near the wary felines, Jake walked around the structure, testing the supporting beams for structural soundness. Perhaps he knew someone who was looking to buy a place like this, she thought.

  “This morning the horse was standing out in that wooden corral. But the gate to it is open and I suppose he or she wandered away,” Rebecca suggested.

  “Grass is probably the only feed it’s been getting. Do you know how much acreage goes with the house?” he asked.

  “Two hundred and ten acres.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t worry about the horse. With that much grazing area, he has plenty to eat.”

  Rebecca moved away from the cats and walked to where he stood gazing out the wide-open door. “Do you cowboy for a living, Jake?” she asked.

  His expression faintly amused, he looked at her. “That depends on what you mean by cowboying.”

  She shrugged, while wondering why he made her feel just a bit foolish. She was an educated woman with a college degree in business, along with being well-read on a variety of subjects. She kept up with current events, politics and the stock market. She was independent and had lived on her own for some years now. Yet when Jake looked at her with those brown eyes of his, she felt like a piece of mush, a woman who didn’t know the first thing about dealing with a real man like him.

  “Well, I’ll put the question this way, do you do your job on horseback?”

  He chuckled softly. “Most of the time. I own a ranch over by Fort Stanton, near Capitan. I raise cattle and horses.”

  She looked at him with interest. “Oh. Somehow I got the impression that you worked for the Cantrells.”

  “I used to work for Quint. On his ranch, the Golden Spur. But once he got the place built up to the way he wanted it, I decided he didn’t need me anymore. And by then—” he paused, his lips twisting to a wry slant “—I had fish of my own to fry. From time to time I still help Quint. Whenever he has roundup going. And Abe occasionally asks me to do things for him, too. For instance, a few of his special horses he won’t let anyone shoe, except me.”

  Her brows arched. “You do farrier work?”

  He nodded. “I did a lot of farrier work when I was younger. And then for a long time I managed the training barns at Ruidoso Downs.”

  “So you know a lot about horses.”

  He chuckled again and the sexy sound drew her gaze straight to his. There was a gleam in his amber eyes that could only be described as provocative and she found herself drawing in a deep, cleansing breath and releasing it slowly.

  “I like to think so,” he drawled.

  Finding it more comfortable to look at her feet rather than him, she noticed her high heels were now covered with dust and one of the pointed toes scuffed. But she didn’t care. Bordeaux’s supplied her with clothing, shoes, bags, jewelry and anything she wanted as a way to advertise their merchandise. There were plenty more high heels where these came from.

  “I don’t know much about the outdoors,” she admitted, then glanced over her shoulder at the lazy cats. “Or animals. I’ve always loved being around them, but never had the opportunity to have any of my own.”

  As a young girl, she’d begged her mother for a dog or cat, but Gwyn had refused. Yet that hadn’t deterred Rebecca’s interest in animals. She’d visited the Humane Society every chance she’d gotten and fussed over her girlfriends’ furry pets. By the time she entered high school, she’d had her heart set on becoming a veterinarian and had tried to gear her studies in that direction. In her mind, it would be the perfect job. Not only would she get to spend her days with a variety of animals, she’d be caring for them, making them well and happy.

  But once her mother had learned of her daughter’s plans, Gwyn had been outraged. She’d absolutely forbidden Rebecca to even consider such a career, insisting that her daughter was too fragile, too beautiful to be dealing with animals in a dirty barnyard.

  Rebecca had argued the point. But by that time her father, Vance, who’d been a gentle, easygoing man, had already died, leaving Rebecca with no one to help support her wishes or desires. Gwyn had always been a forceful, strong-minded woman and Rebecca had never wanted to be a rebellious child. So she’d tried to consider the fact that her mother could possibly be right and that years down the road, after Rebecca had grown to womanhood, she’d eventually see that her wish to be a veterinarian was ridiculous.

  In the end, she’d caved in to Gwyn’s wishes and put aside her own dreams. But now, after all these years, Rebecca often wondered if her childhood pursuit would have suited her, would have given her more fulfillment than the materialistic job she had now.

  “Well, looks like now is your chance to change that,” Jake remarked. “There are plenty of animals here for the taking.”

  Lifting her head, she smiled wanly. He made everything sound so easy and uncomplicated. How would it feel to live that way? To not be hurrying and scurrying, constantly flying from one city to the next, continually worrying about maintaining her looks and asking herself if any of it really mattered, did she really matter in the scheme of things?

  “Perhaps,” she murmured, then said, “If you’re ready, I need to be shutting the house and driving to Ruidoso. I’d like to get back to my hotel room before dark and from here the trip is at least thirty minutes.”

  “Sure. I’ll help you.”

  It didn’t take the two of them long to shut the windows and lock the doors. Once they made their way back out to their vehicles, Rebecca paused at the driver’s door of the sedan and extended her hand to him. When his warm fingers wrapped around hers, she was once again flung back to those moments she’d been wrapped in his arms. Somehow she knew she would never forget how it had made her feel to be that close to him, to have his voice in her ear, his hand in her hair.

  “Thank you, Jake, for taking time out of your day to attend my aunt’s services. It means very much to me. More than you can imagine.”

  “I was glad to do it.”

  Instead of dropping her hand, he continued to hold it tightly, his thumb moving ever so slightly against its back. Rebecca suddenly had to remind herself to breathe.

  “Well, perhaps we’ll see each other again—before I leave to go back to Texas,” she said, trying her best to keep her voice light and natural, even while she was feeling the quiver of her words as they left her tongue.

  “I’d like that, Rebecca. Very much.”

  She waited for him to drop his hold on her hand. When he didn’t, she forced herself to extricate her fingers from his and turn toward the car.

  Before she could reach to open the door, he did it for her and without looking his way she quickly slid beneath the wheel and started the engine.

  When he shut the door between them, she dared to glance at him through the open window.

  “Goodbye, Jake.”

  He lifted a hand in farewell, then stepped back and out of the way. As she turned the car around and headed down the short drive, she looked in the rearview mirror to see him walking over to his truck. As he went, he lifted his hat from his head and raked a hand through his hair as though he was either puzzled or weary, or simply gathering himself after the stress of dealing with an emotional woman.

 
; Dear God, what had made her fall into his arms like that and weep against his chest? She wasn’t that sort of woman. What could he be thinking of her?

  It doesn’t matter, Rebecca. You’ll probably never see the man again.

  The idea left her very, very empty.

  Rafter R Ranch, the place Jake called home, was located only a few miles from Fort Stanton, a military facility that had once played an important part in New Mexico’s early growth as a state, but was now only a preserved part of its history, where tourists could view the past. If Jake needed to drive to town for any sort of supplies, he had to head northwest to Capitan. The trip took more than twenty minutes and the town was actually only a village of about fifteen hundred people or so, but Jake didn’t mind the isolation. In fact, he felt lucky to have snagged the precious river land.

  Several years ago, when the property had gone on the real estate market, Jake hadn’t seriously considered trying to purchase it for himself. At the time he’d been doing farrier work around the county, making a decent enough living for himself, but nothing that could secure enough money to buy choice river acreage. Besides, why would a guy like him want a house and several hundred acres? His mother already had a place of her own, and as for himself, he didn’t need much to make him happy.

  A place to eat, sleep and hang his hat was enough to satisfy him.

  But Quint, who’d always been more like a brother than a friend, had insisted that someday Jake would want to settle down and raise a family, that one day he’d want a ranch, a place to build a dream.

  At first Jake had laughed at him. Jake didn’t have dreams, he dealt in reality. And the reality had been that he couldn’t raise enough money to buy an outhouse, much less a house with hundreds of acres surrounding it. But Quint had stepped up and offered to help Jake get a loan and as a result, he’d somehow managed to purchase the first and only place he could truly call his own.

  At that time it hadn’t mattered that the property needed lots of work. The house had seen plenty of neglect and outside the fences and barns were crumbling. But he’d looked past the drawbacks and on to the possibilities. He might have been short on cash, but he was an able-bodied man who could do plenty of things with two hands and a strong back.