by Diana Palmer
He looked tired, his face under his wide-brimmed hat hard with new lines. He was wearing dusty boots and jeans and bat-wing chaps, as he had been that day Allison had met him in town, but despite the dust, he was still the most physically devastating man Allison had ever met.
He paused at the table, absently unfastening his chaps while he studied her. She was wearing the gray dress he’d seen her in several times, with her hair up and no makeup, and she looked as tired as he felt.
“Worn-out, little one?” he asked gently.
His unexpected compassion all but made her cry. She took a sip of hot tea to steady herself. “I’m okay.” She glanced at him and away, shyly. He was incredibly handsome, with that lean dark face and black hair and glittering peridot eyes. “You look pretty worn-out yourself.”
He tossed his Stetson onto the sideboard and smoothed back his black hair. “I’ve been helping brand cattle.” He straddled a chair and folded his arms over the back. “Got another cup?”
“Of course.” She poured him a cup of steaming tea. “Want anything in it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Thanks.” He took it from her, noticing how she avoided letting her hand come into contact with his. But he caught her free hand lightly, clasping it in his as he searched her face. “Can’t you look at me, sweetheart?” he asked when she kept her eyes downcast.
The endearment went through her like lightning. She didn’t dare let him see her eyes. “Let me go, please,” she said, and tugged gently at her hand.
He released her with reluctance, watching her as she went back to her own chair and sat down. He no longer had any doubts about her reaction to him. He wrapped his lean hands around his cup and flexed his shoulders, strained from hours in the saddle and back-breaking work as they threw calves to brand them.
“How’s Dwight?” he asked after a minute.
“He’s doing very well,” she replied. “He’s still in a lot of pain, of course. Winnie’s sitting with him right now. Marie’s gone to a movie.”
“I haven’t said it, but I appreciate having you stay with him. Especially under the circumstances.”
She sipped her tea quietly, darting a quick glance up at him. He was watching her with steady, narrow, unblinking eyes. She averted her gaze to her cup again.
“I’m doing it for Winnie,” she said finally.
“That goes without saying.” He put his cup down and folded his arms over his chest. “How long will it take, do you think, before he’s on his feet again?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You’d have to ask the doctor about that.”
He watched the steam rise from his mug, not really seeing it. He’d driven himself hard today, trying not to think about Allison and what he’d done. But it hadn’t worked. Here she was, and sitting with her was the first peace he’d known all day. She had a calming effect on him. She made him feel at ease with himself and the world around him. It was a feeling he’d never known before. His emotions had gone wild with Hank Nelson’s death and the subsequent revelations about his past.
He thought about his real father and the shame it would bring on him to have people know what kind of parent he’d had. But the sting of that knowledge seemed to have lessened. Now he could look at Allison and none of the anguish he’d known seemed to matter anymore. All he could think about was how it had been with her during the time they’d spent together, her softness in his arms, her gentle voice full of compassion and warmth. But he’d killed all that. He’d reduced what they were building together into a feverish sexual fling, without meaning or purpose. That was how she was bound to see it, and it wasn’t true. He’d used women before, of course he had, but Allison wasn’t an interlude. She was...everything.
He looked at her with soft wonder. She couldn’t know how she’d changed him. She probably wouldn’t care, even if she knew it. The more he saw of her, the more he realized how genuinely kind she was. He’d never met a woman like her. He knew he never would again.
“I’ve been a fool about my family, Allison,” he said suddenly, his dark brows knitted together as he stared at her. “I think I went mad when I found out how I’d been lied to all these years. Hurt pride, arrogance, I don’t know. Whatever it was, I’ve just come to my senses.”
“I’m glad about that,” she replied. “You have a nice family. They shouldn’t have to pay for things they never did.”
“I’ve come to that conclusion myself.” He picked up the cup, but didn’t drink from it. “Are you going to be able to forgive what I’ve done to you?” he asked suddenly.
Her heart jumped at the question. But in all fairness, she couldn’t let him take all the blame. Nobody held a gun on her and made her do it, she knew. That one lapse could have cost her her career as a missionary if anyone had found out about it, but she couldn’t have blamed him totally even then. She was pretty lucky that they hadn’t been seen at that line cabin, she supposed. “You didn’t do anything that I didn’t invite,” she said dully. “It doesn’t matter.”
Her reply caught him on the raw. “You might have my child inside your body, and it doesn’t matter?” he asked icily.
She flushed. “It isn’t likely,” she said stubbornly.
He set the mug down again and his chest rose and fell roughly. Even now she wouldn’t put all the blame on him. His lean hand speared across the table and gently slid into hers, holding it warmly. “I’m sorry I made it into something you’d rather not remember,” he said solemnly. “It shouldn’t have been like that, your first time. The least a man owes a virgin is satisfaction. All I gave you was pain.”
She colored furiously and drew back her hand. “I have to get back to Dwight,” she said huskily. “Good night, Gene.”
She stood, but so did he, moving around the table so fast that she didn’t see him coming until he had her gently by the shoulders, his tall, fit body looming over her.
“Do you hate me?” he asked abruptly. “No subterfuge, no half-truths. I need to know.”
She swallowed. “No. I...don’t hate you.”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Thank God.” He bent and brushed his mouth over her eyelids, closing them with aching tenderness. His hands held her, but not in any confining way, and he didn’t move a fraction of an inch closer or threaten her mouth with his lips.
“Good night, little one,” he said softly, lifting his head. There was something new in his eyes, in his voice, in the way he touched her. He knew it and was stunned by it. Women came and went in his life, but this one spun a cocoon of love around him and made him whole. He wanted her as he’d never wanted anything else. But it wasn’t going to be easy. His eyes fell to her stomach and darkened. A child. He found the thought of a child not nearly as frightening as he had. He could almost picture a little boy with dark hair and green eyes, following him around. A miniature of himself in small blue jeans and little sneakers. His heart lurched. Allison would be wonderful with a child. And maybe genes weren’t so important. Maybe it wouldn’t matter about his father. But the manner of the child’s possible conception bothered him and he frowned.
His hands contracted. “A baby shouldn’t be made like that,” he said huskily. “Not as a consequence. It should be planned. Wanted. God in heaven, why didn’t I stop?”
He let go of her all at once, and turned, leaving the kitchen like a wild man. He sounded bitter and furiously angry. Probably he hated her. She couldn’t blame him for that. He might even think she’d deliberately done without precautions to trap him into a marriage he didn’t want. Tears stung her eyes. All the same, he’d been worried that she might hate him, and that gave her a little solace. She finished her tea, emptied the pot and cleaned it, washed the few dishes and went back up to sit with Dwight.
Chapter Nine
The next day, Allison went outside for the first time since she’d been in residence, to clear her head while Marie spent a few minutes
with her brother.
It was a beautiful day, warm and sultry, and there was so much to see. Puppies and kittens, ducks and chickens were everywhere, not to mention the bulls and cows and steers and horses. Corrals were spaced beyond the house and its small kitchen garden, down a dirt road. She strolled along in her jeans and yellow T-shirt with her long hair drifting on the breeze. Even with all that had happened, she loved it here. But she knew her stay was limited—she had to think about leaving.
She’d been given some time off to cope with her parents’ death, and avoid the press, but soon she’d have to go back to work. It was a good thing that she’d face that problem in Arizona and not here, because there was a morals clause in her contract. But nobody knew, she reminded herself. Nobody knew except Gene and herself.
She was worrying about Gene’s sudden avoidance of her today when a voice hailed her from the corral.
She turned, frowning, to find a lean, wickedly smiling redheaded cowhand leaning against the fence. His eyes gave her a lazy appraisal and there was something vaguely insulting about the blatant way he sized her up.
“Miss Hathoway, isn’t it?” he drawled. “Thought I recognized you.”
She started. Recognized her? “Were you at the barbecue?” she asked, trying to be polite.
The man laughed, weaving a little as he pushed himself away from the fence. He approached her and she could smell the whiskey on his breath. “No, I don’t get invited to that sort of socializing. I meant, I recognized you from the other night. In the line cabin. You were there with the boss.”
Her face went stark white. She was quite literally at a loss for words.
He laughed unsteadily, moving closer, but she backed away before he could reach for her. That had obviously been his intention, because he looked surprised that she avoided his outstretched hands.
“No stomach for a common ranch hand, is that it?” he jeered. “You were hot enough for the boss. Of course, he’s got money.”
“Please!” she cried huskily, scarlet in the face that she and Gene should have been seen—like that!
“The boss won’t have much to do with you these days, though, will he, Miss High and Mighty?” he taunted. “I heard what he said. Mad as hell that you were a virgin, wasn’t he? Not his usual kind of woman, for sure, he likes ’em worldly. Now me,” he said, stalking her again, smiling, “I like innocents. I’d take my sweet time with you, pretty thing, and you wouldn’t be looking like the end of the world afterward. He must have been in one hell of a rush. You weren’t in there ten minutes.”
Allison put her hand to her mouth and turned, running wildly for the house with tears in her eyes. She didn’t know what to do. It terrified her that the cowboy might tell someone else what he knew. At least he hadn’t seen them, or she knew he’d have taunted her with that, too. But he knew! He’d overheard what Gene said! And now he’d spread that horrible gossip around. She could imagine having her name bandied around the bunkhouse all night. And that wasn’t the worst of it. What if it got around the community? Her reputation would be lost forever and her job along with it. The least breath of scandal attached to her name would cost her everything. She hadn’t considered the potential for disaster, but now all her mistakes were coming home to roost.
She went back into the house and stayed there, taking a few minutes in her room to wash her face and get her nerves back together before she went to Dwight’s room to check on him. It was almost time for his medicine.
If she’d hoped nobody would notice her turmoil, she was doomed to failure.
“What’s wrong?” Winnie asked, concerned. “Allie, you’re so pale!”
The temptation to tell her friend was great, but it wouldn’t be fair to share the burden now. Winnie had enough to worry about with Dwight. She forced a smile. “I feel a little queasy,” she said. “I think it was the sausage I had for breakfast. I love it, but sometimes it upsets my stomach.”
“Tomorrow, you’ll have steak,” Dwight said with a weak smile. “I promise. Tell Gene to shoot you a cow.”
She started just at the mention of Gene’s name. How could she face him, ever, after what that terrible man had said? How would he react if he knew one of his men was making crude remarks to her? She sighed. After the way he’d walked away from her so angrily that night in the kitchen, he probably wouldn’t say anything. He might think she deserved it. After all, he’d been very vocal about Dale Branigan and his contempt for her after he’d slept with her.
She gave Dwight his medicine and put on a fairly convincing act from then on. But when she was alone in her room, she cried until she thought her heart would break. She was paying a very high price for the one indiscretion of her life, and learning a hard lesson about how easy it was to tarnish a heretofore spotless reputation. She thought about how hard her parents had worked to invest her with a sense of morality, and she’d let them down so badly. Maybe it was as well that they’d never have to know about her downfall. But she could have talked to her mother about it, and there would have been no censure, no condemnation. Her mother was a loving, gentle woman who always looked for the best in everyone. She cried all the harder, missing her.
For the next few days, she didn’t go outside at all. But inevitably, Winnie noticed it and asked why. Allison made up a story about not wanting to be out of earshot of Dwight. But Winnie told Marie. And Marie told Gene.
He alone knew that Allison might simply be avoiding him. But he’d been away from the ranch for a couple of days on business, and that wouldn’t explain why she was staying inside while he was gone. He almost said something to her about it. Her abrupt departure from any room he entered stopped him. She obviously wanted no part of his company, so he forced himself not to invade her privacy. All the while, he was cursing himself for what he’d done to her. Even he, a relative stranger, could see the change in her since that night in the line cabin. She was almost a different person, so quiet and shy that she might have been a mouse. She never entered into conversations with the rest of the family, or laughed, or did anything except be professional as she charted Dwight’s progress and talked to the doctor who checked on him several times a week. She didn’t look at Gene or speak to him, and when he tried to make conversation with her, she found a reason to go somewhere else. His pride and ego took a hard blow from her attitude, even if he understood it. Women had never avoided him. Quite the contrary. Of course, he’d never hurt anyone the way he’d hurt Allison.
Winnie and Marie finally browbeat her into going into Pryor with them to shop. She felt fairly safe about going there, sure that she wouldn’t run into anyone who knew her.
She was wrong. Dale Branigan was shopping, too, in the boutique where Marie and Winnie took Allison. She caught sight of the older woman and with a purely cattish smile, Dale maneuvered closer.
“Nice to see you again, Miss Hathoway,” she said. “Ben’s doing nicely, thanks to your quick thinking at the bar that night.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Allison said pleasantly.
Dale gave the other woman’s gray dress a demeaning scrutiny, shrugging when she realized how much prettier she was in a pink sundress that flattered her figure.
“I hear Gene’s gone off you after that one night,” she said out of the blue.
“I beg your pardon?” Allison asked reluctantly.
“After he slept with you in the line cabin,” she said carelessly, smiling at Allison’s gasped shock. “Didn’t you know? It’s all over town. You can’t expect a man like Danny Rance to keep his mouth shut. He’s a bigger gossip than most women. He really laid it on thick about you and Gene. Too bad. You should have held out for a wedding ring.” She sighed theatrically. “By the way, there’s a reporter in town. He’s looking for some woman missionary who escaped from Central America in a hail of bullets. Someone said she’d left a trail that led here.”
“Really?” Allison’s hands were shakin
g. “Well, it could hardly be me, could it?” she asked huskily.
Dale laughed. “Not if you’re giving out with Gene, it couldn’t,” she said mockingly. “Hardly a missionary’s nature, is it?”
“Hardly. Excuse me.” Allison went out the door and got into the car without a word to Marie or Winnie. She sat in shock, her body shaking, her face paper white as she tried to cope with what that malicious woman had said to her. She was branded. Really branded. She’d never get her job back. She’d have no place to go. Her family was dead, and now she was almost certainly going to lose the only work she’d ever wanted to do. It was inevitable that the reporter would track her to the Nelson place, inevitable that Dale or someone like her would relate the whole sordid story of her one-night stand with Gene. She’d given in to temptation and lost everything. If she’d had a lesser will, she’d probably have gone right off a cliff. She didn’t know what she was going to do. Oh, please, God, she prayed silently. Please forgive me. Please help me!
Winnie and Marie belatedly noticed her absence and came looking for her.
“Are you all right?” Winnie frowned. “I saw Dale Branigan talking to you. What did she say?”
“Something about Gene, no doubt,” Marie said heavily as they started the drive home. “She’s so jealous it’s sick. I’m sorry, Allison, I should have hustled you out of there the minute I saw her.”
“It’s all right. She was just...telling me something I already knew.”
“There’s a reporter in town,” Winnie said uneasily. “That was what she said, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. I may have a few days before he finds me,” she said with defeat in her whole look. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t have anything left to lose.”
“What are you talking about?” Winnie demanded. “You’ve got your job, your future...!”
“I don’t have anything.” Allison pushed back wisps of hair with shaking hands. “I’ve ruined my life.”
