by Diana Palmer
“It could have happened anywhere,” he said.
She shrugged. “Sure it could, but it happened there. These days, I spend as little time at home as I can manage. I suppose I’m tired of paying for my sins.” She laughed hollowly. “I run. You run. And they’re still dead, aren’t they?”
Her voice broke on the last word. He couldn’t understand why it affected him the way it did, but he couldn’t stand there and watch her cry.
He eased her into the motel room and closed the door behind them. He drew her into his arms and held her hard, tight, close against the length of him while his lean hand stroked her soft hair. She’d left it loose today, and it fell to her shoulders like dark silk. It smelled of flowers.
“I don’t need…” she began, in just a token protest.
He smoothed the hair back from her face. “You do,” he corrected. “So do I. It’s human to want comfort.”
“Do I?” she asked miserably.
“Yes. And I do, too.”
He wrapped her up again and just stood there holding her while she clung to him, more at peace than he’d been in years. He liked the way she felt in his arms, warm and soft and vulnerable.
She sighed after a minute and nestled closer.
“Didn’t your mother ever hug you?” he asked.
“Not really. She wasn’t affectionate, except with Dad, and that was rare. She still isn’t a touching person.”
“Neither am I, as a rule.” His chest lifted and fell against her. “What a hard little shell you wear, Ms. Marshall,” he murmured against her temple.
“I don’t want pity.”
“Neither do I,” he said. “But I could get used to being comforted.”
She smiled against his shirt. “So could I.”
“Suppose we give up fighting and declare a truce?”
Her heart jumped. “Isn’t that cowardice under fire?”
“Not between two old troopers like us.”
She smoothed her hand over his soft shirt. “I suppose I could try not to be on the defensive so much if you’ll try not to get drunk.”
He was still. His eyes went past her head to the big oak tree beside the motel. Absently, he wondered how old it was. “I haven’t tried going without alcohol in a long time,” he confided. “Even if just on weekends. But I’d have to have an alternative.”
Her fingers toyed with a pearl button midway down his chest. “I don’t suppose you like fishing.”
He lifted his head. “You’re kidding, of course.”
“Do you or don’t you?” she asked, perplexed.
“I won the bass rodeo last year.”
Her eyebrows went up and she chuckled. “Only because I wasn’t competing with you,” she said. “I love to fish for bass!”
A soul mate, he was thinking. He almost said it aloud. “I’ll bet you didn’t bring your tackle with you.”
She grimaced. “I had to fly here. I couldn’t carry everything I wanted to.”
“I’ll kit you out. I’ve got spinning reels and cane poles, everything from sinkers to hooks to floats. We’ll spend Saturday at the lake.”
“I’d love to!” She smiled up at him with her soft eyes, and he wondered why he’d ever thought she was cold.
“I’ll try to get somebody to substitute for me so I can go with you to Matt’s in the morning. About nine suit you? I’ll arrange it with him, too.”
“That will be fine. Is he like Cy Parks?” she asked, curious.
He shook his head. “Matt’s easygoing most of the time, unless he’s really mad and then people get out of his way. He likes women. As a rule,” he added.
“There’s an exception, I gather?”
“Only one.” He smiled at her. “I’ll see you tomorrow. You might try some strong coffee,” he suggested. “They say it helps an asthma attack—if that’s what you’re having. If you don’t get better, call the doctors Coltrain or Dr. Morris. They’re all great.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
He let her go with a sigh. “It’s not a weakness to get help when you’re sick,” he mused. “I just thought I’d mention that.”
“I wasn’t allowed to be sick at home,” she told him. “Some lessons are hard to unlearn.”
He searched her wan face. “What a childhood you must have had,” he said sadly.
“It was all right, until my dad died.”
“I wonder,” he mused, unconvinced.
She coughed again, holding the handkerchief to her mouth.
He scowled. “That wheat straw dust gets to you, doesn’t it?” he asked with concern. “You need to stay out of enclosed places where it’s bad. If you really do have asthma, it’s dangerous.”
“I have one lung,” she said huskily. “It’s sensitive to dust, I guess.”
He wasn’t buying it. “I’ll call you tonight, just to make sure you’re okay. If it doesn’t get better, call the doctor or get to the hospital.”
“I will. You don’t need to worry.”
“Somebody does,” he said curtly. “If you’re not better in the morning, we might put Matt off until you are. He lives in town, but his ranch is about twenty-five minutes out of town. If you had a life-threatening attack out there, I’d never get you to town in time in the truck.”
“Mr. Caldwell has an airplane,” she pointed out.
“He has two—a Learjet and a little Cessna Commuter,” he replied, “but he’s only going to be at the ranch long enough to introduce us to his ranch manager. He’s flying himself to Fort Worth in the Learjet for a conference.”
“I’ll be fine by the morning,” she said doggedly. “I know I will.” She ruined the stoic image with another choking cough.
“Go drink some coffee, just to humor me, will you?”
She sighed. “Okay.”
“Good girl.” He bent abruptly and put his mouth gently against hers.
She jumped and a shocked breath pulsed out of her.
He searched her eyes curiously. “You aren’t afraid of me, are you?” he asked gently.
“I don’t…think so.”
Her attitude was surprising. She seemed confident and self-assured, until he came intimately close. She didn’t seem to know a lot about men.
“Don’t people kiss you, either?” he asked.
“Not a lot.”
“Pity,” he said, glancing down at her mouth. “You’ve sure got the mouth for kissing—soft and warm and very sweet.”
She put her hand to it, unconsciously. “I don’t like sports,” she said absently.
“What’s that got to do with kissing?”
“Most of the men I meet are married, but the ones who aren’t want to take me to football or baseball games. I like fishing.”
“I like sports,” he mused. “But mostly rodeo and fishing.”
“I like rodeo, too.”
“See? Two things we have in common, already,” he said with a smile. He bent and brushed his mouth against hers again, feeling the same faintly electric sensation as before. He grinned as his lips teased hers. “I could get addicted to this.”
She put her hands on his chest. “I can’t…breathe very well,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
He lifted his head and stared down at her. “Is that why you don’t get involved? You can’t get your breath and when you mention it, men think you’re giving them the brush-off?”
“How did you know?” she asked, surprised.
“It’s the obvious answer to your lack of marriageable suitors,” he said simply. “It certainly isn’t due to a lack of looks. Why didn’t you tell them you only had one lung?”
She grimaced. “It wouldn’t have mattered very much. They wanted a lot more than a few kisses.”
“And you didn’t.”
She shook her head. “I’ve been dead inside since my father died. The psychologist they sent me to afterward said it was guilt because he died and I didn’t. Maybe it’s still that way.” She looked up at him. “But regardless of the guilt, I jus
t don’t feel that way with most men. Well, I haven’t…before.”
She was flushing and he knew why. He grinned, feeling ten feet tall. “It’s like little electric shocks, isn’t it?” he mused.
She smiled shyly. “Sort of.”
He pursed his lips. “Care to try for a major lightning strike?”
She laughed. “Not today.”
“Okay.” He pushed back a stray strand of her hair, admiring its softness. “I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
He sobered. “So will I.” There was an odd little glitter in his eyes. It grew as he looked at her. It was almost as if he had to jerk his eyes away from hers and force himself to move away. In fact, that’s exactly how it was. He liked women, and from time to time he was attracted to them. It hadn’t been like this. He wanted this woman in ways he’d never wanted any other.
He hesitated as he reached the truck. “I meant it about the doctor,” he said with genuine concern. “If that cough doesn’t stop, see someone.”
“All right.” She smiled, waved and closed the door.
He drove away, but not without misgivings. He didn’t like the way she looked when that cough racked her. She was fragile, but she didn’t realize it or just plain ignored it. She needed someone to take care of her. He smiled at the random thought. That was certainly an outdated notion. Women didn’t like being taken care of. They wanted to be independent and strong. But he wondered if they didn’t secretly like the idea of being nurtured by someone—not controlled, dominated or smothered, but just…nurtured.
He thought of her as an orchid that needed just the right amount of attention—a growth mixture of bark, a little careful watering now and then—to make it grow. Orchids needed lots of humidity and cool nights. He smiled at the thought of Candy letting him put her in a pot and pour water over her. But it was the sort of thing he wanted, to take care of her and never let her be hurt again. He scowled, because the things he was thinking were very much against his nature. He was a loner. He’d never thought much about nurturing anything, much less a woman. He couldn’t think of Candy any other way, and he’d known her only a matter of days.
It was too soon to be thinking of anything permanent, he assured himself. All the same, it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on her. He had a feeling that she was going to form a very large part of his future happiness.
* * *
Back in the motel, Candy had finally gotten the best of the raging cough by stifling it with a large pot of strong black coffee. She hadn’t expected results, despite Guy’s assurances about coffee being good for asthma, but apparently he was right. She frowned. If she did have asthma, it was going to complicate her life. Working around ranches and wheat straw dust and grain dust was going to constitute a major challenge, even if there was a reliable treatment for it.
She sipped her coffee and thought about Guy’s concern, about the way he took care of her. She was a modern woman, of course she was. But it felt nice, having somebody care what happened to her. Her mother didn’t. Nobody had cared what happened to her since her father died. She couldn’t help being touched by Guy’s concern—and wasn’t that an about-face from his first attempts at it, she asked herself wryly.
Later, just before she went to bed, the phone rang. It was Guy, just checking on her. She told him that she was all right and he told her that he’d found someone to handle the visiting cattleman for him. He’d see her in the morning.
He hung up and she held on to the receiver for a long time before she put it down. It wasn’t bad, having somebody care about her. It wasn’t bad at all.
* * *
The next morning dawned bright and beautiful. Candy dressed in a neat beige pantsuit and suede boots for the trip, leaving her hair loose. She felt younger and happier than she had in years. She had a whole new outlook on life because of Guy.
She reviewed her few facts on the Caldwell ranch. It was only one of a dozen pies Matt had his finger in. He was an entrepreneur in the true sense of the word, an empire-builder. If he’d been born a hundred years ago, he’d have been a man like Richard King, who founded the famous King Ranch in southeastern Texas. Matt was an easygoing, pleasant man to most people. She’d heard that he was hell in boots to his enemies. There were always rumors about such a powerful man, and one of them was that he had it in for a female friend of his cousin’s and had caused her to lose her job. It was a glaring black mark against a man who was generally known for fair play, and people talked about it. She was a very young woman, at that, not at all the sort of female the handsome tycoon was frequently seen with.
Matt’s taste ran to models and Hollywood stars. He had no use for high-powered career women in his private life, although he employed several in executive positions in his various companies. Perhaps that was why the young woman had run afoul of his temper, Candy speculated. She was rumored to be very intelligent and sharp at business.
A rap on the motel door startled her. She went to answer it and found a smiling Guy on the doorstep.
“Ready to go?”
“Oh, yes!” she said brightly. The day had taken a definite turn for the better.
* * *
Matt’s sprawling ranch lay about twenty-five minutes out of town, and it was truly out in the boondocks.
Guy took a road that wasn’t identified in any way and flashed a grin at Candy. “I’m afraid even a good map wouldn’t have helped much. Matt says he likes being someplace where he’s hard to find, but it’s hell on people who have to go out here on business.”
“He must not like people,” she commented.
“He does, in fact, but not when he’s in a black mood. That’s when he comes out here. He works right alongside his cowhands and the newer ones sometimes don’t even realize he’s the boss until they see him in a suit and boarding the Learjet. He’s just one of the boys.”
“How rich is he?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Nobody knows. He owns this ranch and a real estate franchise, two planes, he has property in Australia and Mexico, he’s on the board of directors of four companies and on the board of trustees of two universities. In his spare time, he buys and sells cattle.” He shook his head. “I’ve never known a man with so much energy.”
“Does he do it to get his mind off something?” she wondered aloud.
“Nobody’s ever had the nerve to ask. Matt’s very pleasant, but he isn’t the sort of man you question.”
She bumped along beside him in the truck and something nagged at the back of her mind.
“You said you were flying the plane. Did you own it?” she asked carefully.
He drew in a slow breath. He didn’t want to talk about it, but then, she was entitled to know something about him. He glanced at her. “I did. I have an air cargo company.”
Her eyes widened. “And you’re working for wages at a feedlot?”
“They don’t know I own the company,” he told her. “I wanted someplace to…I don’t know, hide out maybe.” He shrugged broad shoulders. “I couldn’t cope with the memories there, and I didn’t want enough spare time to think. I got the most demanding job I could find. I’ve been here three years and I like it. My manager is doing great things with the air cargo company. I’m considering making him a full partner.”
“Is it a profitable company?”
“I’m not in Matt Caldwell’s league,” he said. “But I suppose I’m pretty close.” He glanced at her and smiled. “I could afford to live high if I liked. I don’t. I was too fond of the fast lane. It’s what cost me Anita.” His face tautened as he stared ahead at the long, winding road. “I’d been on the road all of the day before, and I hadn’t slept that night because someone had a party and I was enjoying myself. Anita wanted to go up for a few minutes, so I took her. If I’d had a good night’s sleep, I wouldn’t have done such a sketchy walk-around and I’d have noticed the problem in the engine before it caused a tragedy. That was when I looked at my life and decided t
hat I was wasting it. I came down here to decide what to do.” He shook his head. “It’s been three years and I still haven’t decided that.”
“What do you want to do?” she asked.
His eyes held a faraway look. “I want to settle down and have a family.” He saw the expression on her face and chuckled. “I can see that you hadn’t considered that answer as a possibility.”
“You don’t seem the sort of man to want to settle,” she said evasively. She twisted her purse in her lap.
“I wasn’t, until recently. I’m not that old, but I’m beginning to see down the road further than I used to. I don’t want to grow old and die alone.”
“Most people don’t.”
He grinned. “Including you?”
She hesitated. “I’d never really thought about marrying and having a family,” she said seriously.
“Because you only have one lung? That shouldn’t worry you.”
“It might worry a prospective husband,” she pointed out. “Most men want a whole woman.”
“You’re whole, in every way that matters,” he said firmly. “With or without two lungs.”
She smiled. “Thanks. That was nice. But marriage is a big step.”
“Not really. Not if two people have a lot in common and if they’re good friends. I’ve seen some very happy marriages since I moved to Jacobsville. Marriage is what you make of it,” he said pensively.
“So they say.”
The road dead-ended at a long, winding gravel driveway with a huge black mailbox at the fork which read Caldwell Double C Ranch.
“We’re almost there,” Guy told her, pulling into the ranch road. “Matt runs some of the prettiest Santa Gertrudis cattle in the state. It’s a purebred herd, which means they aren’t slaughter cattle. He sells seed bulls and heifers, mostly, and he does a roaring business.”
“I like Santa Gerts,” she remarked.
“So did my father,” he told her. “He worked on the King Ranch. I grew up with cattle and always loved them. I just loved airplanes more. Now I’m caught between the two. That tickles my parents.”
“They’re still alive?”
