by Diana Palmer
“My God, girl, you shouldn’t…be here,” he managed to say, curling his arm closer. “Anything could have happened to you in a joint like this!”
“Mr. Parks said they’d arrest you if you broke it up again,” she said simply. “You rescued me. So now I’m rescuing you.”
He began to chuckle. “Do tell?” he drawled. “Well, now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do with me?” he asked in a sensuous tone.
“If she had any sense, she’d lay a frying pan over your thick skull,” Cy Parks muttered. He moved Candy out of the way and propelled Guy to the car. He shoved him headfirst into the backseat and slammed the door after him.
“We’ll drop him off at the feedlot and then I’ll take you home. Justin can send somebody for the truck.”
“What are you doing here?” Guy asked belligerently. “Did she bring you?”
“Sure,” Cy said sarcastically as he cranked the car and pulled it out of the parking lot onto the highway. “She drove my car to my house and tossed me in and forced me to come after you.”
Guy blinked. That didn’t sound quite right.
“I’m sorry I made you fly,” Candy said, leaning over the backseat to look at Guy. “I know that was what did this to you.”
“What, flying?” he murmured in some confusion. He pushed back sweaty hair. “Hell, no, it wasn’t that.”
“Then what was it?” she asked hesitantly.
“You want to go home,” he said heavily. He leaned back and closed his eyes, oblivious to the rapt stare of the woman in the front seat. “You want to walk off and leave me. I had a job I was beginning to like, but if I can’t have you, I have nothing worth going on for.”
Cy exchanged an amused glance with a shocked Candy. “What if she stayed?” Cy asked. “What good is a man who gets stinking drunk every Saturday night?”
“If she stayed I wouldn’t have any reason to get drunk every Saturday night,” Guy muttered drowsily. “Could get a little house, and she could plant flowers,” he murmured on a yawn. “A man would work himself to death for a woman like her. So special…”
He fell asleep.
Candy felt her heart try to climb right out of her body. “He’s just drunk,” she rationalized.
“It’s like truth serum,” Cy retorted. “So now you know.” He glanced at her. “Still leaving town?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked, wide-eyed. “After a confession like that? I am not! I’m going to be his shadow until he buys me a ring!”
Cy Parks actually threw back his head and laughed.
* * *
Guy came to in a big bed that wasn’t his own. He opened his eyes and there was a ceiling, but it didn’t look like the ceiling in the bunkhouse. He heard soft breathing. Also not his own.
He turned his head, and there, beside him in the bed with just a sheet covering her, was a sleeping Candy Marshall. She was wearing a pink silk gown that covered only certain parts of her exquisite body, and her long dark hair was spread over the white pillow like silk.
He looked down and found that he was still wearing last night’s clothing, minus his boots. He cleared his throat and his head began to throb.
“Oh, boy,” he groaned when he realized what had happened. The question was, how had he gotten here, in bed with Candy?
She stirred. Her eyes opened, dark velvet, soft and amused and loving.
“What are we doing here in bed together?” he asked dazedly.
“Not much,” she drawled.
He chuckled softly and grabbed his head.
“How about some aspirin and coffee?” she asked.
“How about shooting me?” he offered as an alternative.
She climbed out of the bed, graceful and sensuous, and went to plug in the coffeemaker that was provided with the room. She had cups, and she went to her purse and pulled out a bottle of aspirin. Before she shook them out, she paused to use the preventative inhalant Dr. Morris had prescribed.
“Good girl,” Guy murmured huskily.
She glanced at him and smiled. “Well, I have to take care of myself so I can take care of you.” She brought him the aspirin and a glass of water. “Take those,” she directed. “And if you ever go into a bar again on Saturday night, I really will lay an iron skillet across your skull!”
“They’ll arrest you for spousal abuse,” he pointed out.
“Put your money where your mouth is,” she challenged.
He chuckled weakly as he swallowed the aspirin. “Okay. Will you marry me, warts and all?”
“We’ve only known each other a week,” she stated. “You might not like me when you get to know me.”
“Yes, I will. Will you marry me?”
She smiled. “Sure.”
He laughed with pure delight. “Care to come down here and seal the bargain?”
She hesitated. “No, I don’t think so. You’re in disgrace. First you can get over the hangover and clean yourself up a bit.”
He sighed. “I guess I do look pretty raunchy.”
She nodded. “And you still smell like a brewery. By the way, I don’t drink. Never.”
He held up a hand. “I’ve just reformed. From now on it’s coffee, tea or milk. I swear.”
“Good man. In that case, we can get married next week. Before Saturday night,” she added with a smile.
He opened his eyes wide and studied her with possessiveness. “It wasn’t flying at all,” he said softly. “It was losing you. I couldn’t bear the thought that you were going to go off and leave me. But this time the alcohol didn’t work. I’ve lost my taste for bars and temporary oblivion. If you’ll marry me, I won’t need temporary oblivion. I’ll build you a house where you can plant flowers.” His gaze dropped down over her slender body. “We can have children, if it’s safe for you.”
She beamed. “I’d like that.”
“It might be risky.”
“We’ll go ask Dr. Morris,” she assured him. “Since I’m going to be living in Jacobsville, he can be my doctor.”
He just stared at her, his heart in his eyes. “I didn’t know it could happen like this,” he said aloud. “I thought love died and was buried. It isn’t.”
She smiled brilliantly. “I never even knew what it was. Until now.”
He opened his arms and she went down into them, and they lay for a long time just holding each other tightly in the shared wonder of loving.
He lifted his head finally and looked down at the treasure in his arms. “I suppose, if you want to, I can go back to my air cargo company and run it.”
“Do you want to?”
He thought about that for a minute before he answered her. “Not really,” he said finally. “It was a part of my life that I enjoyed at the time, but there will always be bad memories connected with it.” He put his hand over her lips when she started to speak. “I’m not still grieving for Anita,” he added quietly. “I’ll always miss her a little, and regret the way she died. But I didn’t bury my heart with her. I want you and a family and a home of our own. I enjoy managing the feedlot. In many ways, it’s a challenge.” He grinned. “And if you’d take over publicity for the local cattlemen’s association, we’d have a lot more in common.”
She beamed. “Would they let me?”
“They’d beg you!” he replied. “Poor old Mrs. Harrison is doing it right now, and she hates every word she writes. She’ll make you cakes and pies if you’ll take it off her hands.”
“In that case, I might enjoy it,” she replied.
“And we’d get to work together,” he murmured, bending to kiss her gently. He lifted his head. “Oh, Candy, what did I ever do to deserve someone like you?” he asked huskily. “I do love you so!”
She pulled him down to her. “I love you, too.”
* * *
Neither of them questioned how love could strike so suddenly. They got married and spent their honeymoon in Galveston, going for long walks on the beach and lying in each others’ arms enjoying the newness of loving in every pos
sible way.
“My mother wants us to come and visit her when we’re back from our honeymoon,” she mentioned to Guy after a long, sweet morning of shared ecstasy. She curled closer to him under the single sheet that covered them. “She said she hoped we’d be happy.”
“We will be,” he mused, stroking her long hair with a gentle hand. “Do you want to go?”
“I think it’s time I made my peace with her,” she replied. “Maybe I’ve been as guilty as she has of living in the past. Not anymore,” she added, looking up at him with love brimming over in her eyes. “Marriage is fun,” she said with a wicked grin.
“Is it, now?” He threw off the sheet and rolled over onto her with a chuckle. “Was that a hint?” he whispered as he began to kiss her.
She slid against him with delight and wrapped a soft, long leg around his muscular one. “A blatant hint,” she agreed, gasping as he touched her gently and his mouth settled on her parted lips.
“Anything to oblige,” he whispered huskily.
She laughed and gasped, and then clung to him as the lazy rhythm made spirals of ecstasy ripple the length of her body. She closed her eyes and gave in to the pleasure. Love, she thought while she could, was the most indescribable of shared delights.
Outside the window, waves crashed on the beach and seagulls dived and cried in the early-morning sunlight. Somewhere on the boundary of her senses, Candy heard them, but she was so close to heaven that the sound barely registered.
When the stormy delight passed, she held an exhausted Guy to her heart and thought of flower gardens in a future that was suddenly sweet and full of joy. She closed her eyes and smiled as she dreamed.
Guy felt her body go lax. He looked down at her sleeping face with an expression that would have brought tears to her eyes. From a nightmare to this, he was thinking. Candy had made him whole again. She’d chased away the guilt of the past, and the grief, and offered him a new heart to cherish. He knew without a doubt that his drinking days were over. Candy would make his happiness, and he’d make hers.
He settled back down beside her and drew the sheet over them both. In his mind, before he fell asleep, he was already working on plans for that small house where he and Candy would share their lives.
* * * * *
Be sure to check out
Diana Palmer’s fan-favorite Long, Tall Texan tale,
DEFENDER.
After her heart was broken years ago, Isabel Grayling has vowed never to be so vulnerable again. But years later, when she’s reunited with the man who left her behind, can she trust herself to love again?
Read on to get a glimpse of
DEFENDER.
ISABEL GRAYLING STUCK her head around the study door and peered in. The big desk was empty. The chair hadn’t been moved from its position, carefully pushed underneath. Everything on the oak surface was neatly placed; not a pencil wasn’t neatly in a cup; not a scrap of paper was out of line. She let out a breath. Her father wasn’t home, but the desk kept the fanatical order he insisted on, even when he wasn’t here.
She darted out of the office with a relieved sigh and pushed back the long tangle of her reddish-gold hair. Pale blue eyes were filled with relief. She wrinkled her straight nose, where just a tiny line of freckles ran over its bridge. Her name was Isabel, but only Paul Fiore called her that. To everyone else, she was Sari, just as her sister, Meredith, was always called Merrie.
“Well?” her younger sister, Merrie, asked in a whisper.
Sari turned. The other girl was slender, like herself, but Merrie had hair almost platinum blond, straight and to her waist in back. Her eyes, like Sari’s, were blue, but paler, more the color of a winter sky. Both girls looked like their late mother, who was pretty but not beautiful.
“Gone!” Sari said with a wicked grin.
Merrie let out a sigh of relief. “Paul said that Daddy was going to Germany for a few weeks. Maybe he’ll find some other people to harass once he’s in Europe.”
Sari went up to the shorter girl and hugged her. “It will be all right.”
Merrie fought tears. “I only wanted to have my hair trimmed, not cut. Honestly, Sari, he’s so unreasonable…!”
“I know.” She didn’t dare say more. Paul had told her things in confidence that she couldn’t bear to share with her baby sister. Their father was far more dangerous than either of them had known.
To any outsider, the Grayling sisters had everything. Their father was rich beyond any dream. They lived in a gray stone mansion on acres and acres of land in Comanche Wells, Texas, where their father kept Thoroughbred horses. Rather, his foreman kept them. The old man was carefully maneuvered away from the livestock by the foreman, who’d once had to save a horse from the man. Darwin Grayling had beaten animals before. It was rumored that he’d beaten his wife. She died of a massive concussion, but Grayling swore that she’d fallen. Not many people in Comanche Wells or nearby Jacobsville, Texas, wanted to argue with a man who could buy and sell anybody in the state.
That hadn’t stopped local physician Jeb “Copper” Coltrain from asking for a coroner’s inquest and making accusations that Grayling’s description of the accident didn’t match the head injuries. But Copper had been called out of town on an emergency by a friend and when he returned, the coroner’s inquest was over and accidental death had been put on the death certificate. Case closed.
The Grayling girls didn’t know what had truly happened. Sari had been in high school, Merrie in grammar school, when their mother died. They knew only what their father had told them. They were much too afraid of him to ask questions.
Now, Merrie was in her last year of high school and Sari was a senior in college. Sari had majored in history in preparation for a law degree. She went to school in San Antonio, but wasn’t allowed to live on campus. Her father had her driven back and forth every day. It was the same with Merrie. Darwin wasn’t having either of his daughters around other people. He’d fought and won when Sari tried to move onto the college campus. He was wealthy and his children were targets, he’d said implacably, and they weren’t going anywhere without one of his security people.
Which was why Sari and Paul Fiore, head of security for the Grayling Corporation, were such good friends. They’d known each other since Paul moved down from New Jersey to take the job, while Sari was in her last year of high school. Paul drove the girls to school every day.
He’d wondered, but only to Sari, why her father hadn’t placed them both in private schools. Sari knew, but she didn’t dare say. It was because her father didn’t want them out of his sight, where they might say something that he didn’t approve of. They knew too much about him, about his business, about the way he treated animals and people.
He was paranoid about his private life. He had women, Sari was certain of it, but never around the house. He had a mistress. She worked for the federal government. Paul had told her, in confidence. He wasn’t afraid of Darwin Grayling—Paul wasn’t afraid of anyone. But he liked his job and he didn’t want to go back to the FBI. He’d worked for the Bureau years ago. Nobody knew why he’d suddenly given up a lucrative government job to become a rent-a-cop for a Texas millionaire in a small town at the back of beyond. Paul never said, either.
Sari touched Merrie’s slightly bruised cheek and winced. “I warned you about talking back, honey,” she said worriedly. “I’m so sorry!”
“My mouth and my brain don’t stay connected,” Merrie laughed, but bitterly. Her blue eyes met her sister’s. “If we could just tell somebody!”
“We could, and Daddy would make sure they never worked again,” Sari said. “That’s why I’ve never told Paul anything…” She bit her lip.
But Merrie knew already. She hugged the taller girl. “I won’t tell him. I know how you feel about Paul.”
“I wish he felt something for me,” Sari said with a long sigh. “He’s always been affectionate with me. He takes good care of me. But it’s…I don’t know how to say it. Impersonal?” She drew
away, her expression sad. “He just doesn’t get close to people. He dated that out-of-town auditor two years ago, remember? She called here over and over, and he wouldn’t talk to her. He said he just wanted someone to go to the movies with, and she was looking at wedding rings.” She laughed involuntarily. She shook her head. “He won’t get involved.”
“Maybe he was involved, and something happened,” her sister said softly. “He looks like the sort of person who dives into things headfirst. You know, all or nothing. Maybe he lost somebody he loved, Sari.”
“I guess that would explain a lot.” She moved away, grimacing. “It’s just my luck, to go loopy over a man who thinks a special relationship is something you have with a vehicle.”
“It’s a very nice vehicle,” Merrie began.
“It’s a truck, Merrie!” she interrupted, throwing up her hands. “Gosh, you’d think it was a child the way he takes care of it. Special mats, taking it to the car wash once a week. He even waxes it himself.” She glowered. “It’s a truck!”
“I like trucks,” Merrie said. “That cowboy who worked for us last year had a fancy black one. He wanted to take me to a movie.” She shivered. “I thought Daddy was going to kill him.”
“So did I.” Sari swallowed, hard. She wrapped her arms around her chest. “The cowboy went all the way to Arizona, they said, to make sure Daddy didn’t have him followed. He was scared.”
“So was I,” Merrie confessed. “You know, I’m eighteen years old and I’ve never gone on a date with a real boy. I’ve never been kissed, except on the cheek.”
“Join the club,” her sister laughed softly. “Well, one day we’ll break out of here. We’ll escape!” she said dramatically. “I’ll hire a team of mercenaries to hide us from Daddy!”
“With what money?” Merrie asked sadly. “Neither of us has a dime. Daddy makes sure we can’t even get a part-time job to make money. You can’t even live at your college campus. I’ll bet that gets you talked about.”
“It does,” Sari confided. “But they figure our father is just eccentric because he’s so rich, and they let it go. I don’t have any real friends, anyway.”
