Texas Secrets (Texas Heroes)

by Jean Brashear

  "I don't."

  "I see." She went solemn. "I'm sorry."

  "You don't see, but it doesn't matter." He'd known better than to let down his guard. "We don't need to know each other's life stories. No point in it."

  Maddie laid down her fork and drew a deep breath, straightening her shoulders. All the mischief and fun had vanished from her eyes. Slowly she rose and carried her untouched plate to the counter, removing her apron.

  "It's time for my walk. Just leave the kitchen and I'll clean it up when I get back." A tiny tremor threaded through her voice as her lips curved faintly at the corners. "They say the best chefs make the biggest messes. It's pretty obvious I'm a great chef."

  Then she left, her gait stiff as if holding herself together. She headed out the front door and down the hill, as was her nightly habit.

  Boone stared at his plate and wondered if he ought to just go kick a puppy for good measure.

  * * *

  After cleaning the kitchen, Boone walked out onto the front porch and sat on the steps, looking out toward the dwindling twilight. He didn't see Maddie on the road anywhere, but her car was still here so she couldn't have gone far.

  He scanned the vista before him, his gaze, as always, wandering toward the little pioneer cemetery down the hill on a piece of their land. Coyote Valley Cemetery held the bones of those who had settled this place, had carved out lives from a harsh, unwelcoming land.

  His mother was buried there, as was Rose Wheeler. Sam would be there, too, but Boone hadn't paid a visit yet. He knew the reckoning was out there in the future—that someday, somehow, he had to figure out a way to let the past go. For right now, he had more to do than he could say grace over. Maybe once he'd scraped together the money and bought Maddie out, once the whole place was his again and he'd found Mitch, he could start to forgive his father.

  But right now that day seemed very far away. The days between now and when Maddie left were all he could handle.

  He thought about his brother, about the phone conversation he'd had with Devlin Marlowe. Marlowe seemed to have his head on straight and know what he was doing. He'd said he might pay a visit and see if he could find anything left in Sam's papers that might help him get closer to Mitch's trail.

  Boone had told him to hold off a day or so. He wanted to find his brother, but right now, the house belonged to Maddie. Boone felt obligated to clear it with her, even though nothing of Sam's was likely to mean anything to her.

  And before he did that, he had an apology to make. Her question about Helen had seemed motivated by honest curiosity. He couldn't even be sure that she'd heard anything about the circumstances...and no one on this place knew the whole story.

  What he had said was true. They didn't need to know each other's life stories. They only had to co-exist for a few more weeks, then they'd never see one another again.

  And while that idea turned his thoughts somber, it was a fact. It was real. Boone had learned long ago not to moon over what couldn't be.

  But even though it was real and inescapable that the less they knew about the other, the better off they'd be, Boone wasn't in the habit of kicking puppies. He'd been rough with Maddie when she didn't deserve it, and he would apologize. Cleaning up the kitchen was a start, but like most women, Maddie would appreciate the words.

  A movement down the hill caught his eye. Maddie had been in the cemetery. He wondered why.

  Your blood runs deep in this place, Maddie Rose. You have roots here.

  His father's words sent a chill through Boone's blood.

  Don't get romantic about this, Maddie, and make things more complicated than they already are.

  Boone thought about going on to bed and talking to Maddie tomorrow. He shook his head and pulled out his knife, spying a broken tree branch lying on the ground. Picking it up, he turned to the whittling that had always helped him think.

  He owed her an apology. He'd just sit here and whittle while he waited for her return. Then he'd go to bed, get a good night's sleep, and do his damnedest to keep the ranch going, come up with the money, and pretend Maddie Rose was invisible.

  Sure thing, Boone. Maybe you should save that money and buy yourself that bridge in the desert—easier deal, all the way around.

  * * *

  Maddie walked back up the hill, her mind awhirl. She shouldn't have gone into the little cemetery. She'd barely regained her calm and her determination to keep things in perspective, remembered that this was not her home, that she couldn't get romantic about cooking in her grandmother's kitchen. Boone was right, more right than he knew. She had plenty in her own life she didn't want to discuss, and her foolish fancies of being Boone's friend and coming back to visit were just that—fantasies.

  Then she'd decided to see inside the little cemetery where tall juniper sentinels guarded the departed so securely. She wasn't a person who was spooked easily, and cemeteries had never bothered her before. She didn't fear ghosts or spirits walking the night.

  But this cemetery had done something she'd never expected: it had charmed her. Inside the junipers lay an almost palpable sense of peace and...history. The plaque at the entrance denoted that only members of pioneer families were buried there. She'd gone looking for Rose Wheeler's grave.

  Somehow she hadn't been prepared for the feeling of looking at the simple headstone and knowing that her grandmother's bones rested there, cradled in the earth where Maddie stood. For the first time, it all seemed real. A sense of connection had tugged at her, and Maddie was shaken by it still.

  Her grandmother. Maddie wanted to talk to someone who had known her. With a hunger that swept through her like a blast furnace, Maddie suddenly wanted to know what her grandmother looked like, how she laughed, how her voice sounded, what she wore.

  And it didn't matter that she wouldn't stay here, that she couldn't, that her life was elsewhere. Maddie wanted to take her heritage with her, wherever she landed. So she had made a promise, then and there, that she would make it her mission to find out as much as she could, in these weeks, about the people she came from. She wasn't a person to lie around, anyway, and if Boone wouldn't or couldn't answer her questions, she'd find someone who could.

  She'd headed back out of the cemetery, filled with resolve—until she'd passed the newest grave. It bore only a tiny marker right now, but the stone next to it told her everything she needed to know. Jenny Wallace Gallagher, Beloved Wife and Mother.

  Boone's mother. Buried next to his father Sam, the man who had brought her here. The man who had hurt his son so much.

  She'd been angry with Sam Gallagher for putting Boone and her in an impossible position, but now she wasn't so sure what she felt. The need that swept through her, for family and roots, was not a feeling she welcomed. Longing and discomfort mingled too closely. She'd let herself need Robert and forgotten that she was supposed to be enough for herself. She'd spent her whole life without roots. She shouldn't need any.

  Yet as she stared at Jenny Gallagher's headstone, Maddie wondered if anyone would ever call her beloved. Being wife and mother had never seemed farther away.

  And today's phone call swirled into the mix, the heady knowledge that a restaurant that her colleagues would kill to work in wanted her, Maddie Rose Collins, enough to wait for her to finish out her month. She had options. She could be lionized in the only city that mattered, she could write her own ticket if she did well at Sancerre. And she would do well. She hadn't lied when she told Boone she was good.

  The money she had, combined with what Boone had agreed to pay her for the house, wouldn't be enough to set up her own restaurant in New York, but if she did well at Sancerre, she might attract an investor or two. This time, however, she would hold the majority share. No more penniless Maddie in a one-way partnership like she'd had with Robert. And one day, she swore, she would have a place all her own. She'd put down roots, at last.

  She had to keep her eye on the prize, to remember her real life and not let the romance of the past sweep he
r off her feet. She'd learned more than once that romance didn't last, no matter how much she wanted to believe it could.

  "Evenin'."

  Maddie gasped when Boone spoke up from his seat on the porch.

  "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you."

  She shook her head. "You didn't, not really. I was just...thinking."

  He turned the piece of wood slowly in his hands, studying it with care. Maddie looked closer and realized that he was whittling it into a shape like—

  "Devil! You're carving the puppy's likeness." He was good, really good.

  Boone shrugged. "Just something to pass the time."

  "But it's so lifelike—how long have you been working on it?"

  "Just started tonight."

  "Boone, you could do these and sell them. That's really good. Have you been doing it a long time?"

  "Off and on for years. Sometimes I've had a lot of time I've had to spend waiting."

  "Did you take lessons?"

  He smiled as though she'd told a joke. "I never heard of whittling lessons. Though I guess I sort of did—my granddaddy used to whittle a lot. He said there was no right way or wrong way. You just start carving and try to miss your own thumb."

  She laughed, and when he joined her, something felt a little more right in her world.

  "Boone, I'm sorry—"

  "Maddie, I'm sorry—"

  They both halted abruptly.

  "You don't owe me an apology," he said.

  "You were right, though, in a way. But I'd rather not make this into an armed camp, Boone. It's only for a few weeks, but I'm not fond of making life harder than it has to be. Maybe you don't need to know my life story and I know I don't have a right to pry into yours, but I do have some things I really want to know."

  "Like what?" His eyes were wary.

  "I'd like to know about my grandmother. And I'd like to hear about your mother, if you'd tell me about her. If my father loved her, I'd like to know who she was."

  Boone stared at the wood in his hands for so long that she was afraid he didn't intend to answer. Then he looked up at her. "I was just a little kid when your grandmother died. I don't really remember much about her. I just remember that she seemed very tall, though she was probably about your height—what, five eight or so?"

  Maddie nodded.

  "She was nice to me, but she always seemed sad." He shrugged. "I didn't understand, but I guess we do now, don't we?" Frown lines appeared between his brows, but he didn't try to deny what Sam's letter had said. "Sorry. I'm not much help."

  "It's more than I had."

  They were both silent for a long time, listening to the sounds of the night.

  Then Boone spoke, but his voice was hushed. "My mother was probably too soft to be here."

  "On this ranch?"

  "On this ranch...with my father...on this earth." He drew in a deep breath. "I don't guess she was an angel, but she was as close to one as I'll ever see."

  He looked out across the distance. "She loved to cook, and she liked to laugh. She knew how to make things fun without needing any fancy trimmings. She worked hard, she was always busy, but she was never too busy to read us a story or let us help make cookies."

  He glanced up at Maddie. "She was small and pretty, with these big blue eyes and long blonde hair. I used to think when she read me fairytales that the princesses must have looked like her. No matter that she worked her fingers to the bone, there was always something about her that seemed like she didn't quite belong in this world."

  "She must have loved you so much."

  He visibly recoiled. "You don't know that."

  "No one could feel so loved and it not be real."

  Boone frowned but didn't answer. Beneath those strong, gentle fingers a piece of a tree turned into a puppy before her very eyes.

  Maddie was so fascinated that she wanted to sit close and watch him, but the night had been too long, too full of emotions. She yawned before she could stop herself. "I can't get used to being sleepy so early. In the city, I never get to bed before one or two."

  "You're just falling into the natural rhythms of the land."

  But I can't afford to. She moved toward the door. "I'd better go clean up that kitchen, then head for bed."

  "It's already cleaned."

  She stopped in her progression across the porch. "You did it?"

  One shoulder lifted negligently. "You cooked. I cleaned."

  "But you put in a very long day already."

  "It was my fault you didn't eat. I put your leftovers in the fridge."

  Maddie was overwhelmed. Robert had never once lifted a finger. Even her father had treated the kitchen as if it might bite him. The only help she'd ever had was help she paid. "I don't know what to say."

  "You don't have to say anything."

  "Well, I can say thank you, at least."

  "You're welcome. It was a great meal."

  Maddie stood at the doorway, one hand gripping the jamb, not sure whether to stay or go. Maybe they could be friends, after all. Go, Maddie, before you screw this up.

  "Well...goodnight."

  "Wait—"

  She halted, her hand on the knob.

  "I—the private investigator who's looking for Mitch. He needs to go through Sam's things to sift for clues."

  Maddie frowned. "And?"

  "And it's your house."

  "For the moment. He was your father. Those things belong to him and now to you."

  "I didn't know if you'd mind Marlowe being here."

  Maddie turned. "Boone, as far as I'm concerned, this place is yours, not mine. I'll honor your father's requirement to stay, but I know I'm only a guest. Do whatever you need to do to find your brother." She wished it weren't so dark so she could see his face more clearly. She felt his stare, but she didn't know what it meant.

  Every nerve in her body was already too aware of him. She could still remember all too well how it had felt to have him so close when she'd offered him a taste of the sauce...how much she'd wanted to rise to her toes and place her mouth on his.

  The tiny hairs on her body rose in response to him now, and Maddie knew she was in danger of forgetting what was real.

  Boone Gallagher was too attractive even when he didn't like her. Tonight, the man who would apologize, the man who cleaned up the kitchen because it was fair...that man was deadly.

  "I, uh...I'd better go. Upstairs. To—never mind." Great, Maddie, remind both of you how close you sleep to each other.

  She thought she could see his eyes glitter in the moonlight.

  "Sleep well, Maddie."

  Not likely. "Good night, Boone." She was almost through the door before he spoke.

  "And thank you."

  That voice, so deep...that drawl that slid down her spine and curled low...

  Maddie gulped. "You're welcome." As fast as she could go, she was through the door and up the stairs.

  Chapter Six

  Boone rolled out of bed and slammed the alarm button down. He wasn't sure why he'd bothered to go to bed. He'd stayed on the porch long after Maddie had left to be sure they didn't cross paths again upstairs, but he hadn't been able to stop himself from pausing in front of her closed door. From wanting to open it and watch her sleep in the moonlight and lying awake for a long time after.

  He shouldn't want anything to do with her. She asked too many questions about a past he wanted to forget. Made him think too much about feelings that did no good.

  She would open up Pandora's box and then leave for New York, and he would be left here to try to shove everything back inside and slam the box shut.

  Heading for the shower this morning, he saw that her door was open, her bed empty. As his path neared the stairwell, he could smell baking bread.

  The woman was lethal. She twisted him in knots just with her looks and then played dirty with her cooking. They weren't playing house, damn it.

  He stood with the shower beating down on his head and tried to ignore the traces o
f Maddie's presence. The perfume of her soap rose in the heated air. A basket of sponges and lotions stood on a stool by the tub. As he scrubbed at a body already worn out by a restless night, a vision of her naked under this same shower taunted him.

  He turned the shower to cold.

  By the time he got downstairs he had worked up a fine head of steam, but she wasn't in the kitchen to serve as his target.

  He realized where she probably was. Doing impossible things with that lithe body on the porch.

  His porch, damn it.

  Boone grabbed a cup of the coffee that had just finished perking. Swearing ripely, he burned his tongue by sipping too quickly.

  It was suicidal to skip breakfast, as much physical labor as he did in a day. He turned and headed for the barns, anyway.

  And there she was, on the porch facing the sunrise, her body stretching as if to greet the sky, her movements slow and graceful.

  He hesitated, wanting to watch, just for a minute.

  And then she turned.

  And smiled. "Good morning."

  "Mornin'."

  "The bread is almost done."

  He had to cut this off now, before it went too far. "I told you not to cook for me."

  The peaceful glow dimmed. "I didn't make it for you, but I'm willing to share it."

  Back to kicking puppies, Boone? "I have to go." He turned to leave.

  "With no breakfast?"

  "Last I looked, I'd been taking care of myself for a few years."

  One glance back showed a parade of emotions—hurt, chagrin...the beginnings of anger.

  Good. An armed camp was far safer.

  "Fine." She squared her shoulders. "If you change your mind, it will be there."

  When Maddie turned away, it should have made Boone feel better.

  It didn’t. As she moved into the next posture, he felt like a kid who'd been sent to the corner, robbed of the fun the others were having.

  But he'd sent himself there.

  She made him crazy. She made him feel too much. He didn't know how to hold her at a safe distance when she was so damned easygoing. Or how to like himself for trying.

  "Thanks for the coffee."