Cassandra stared at him, trying hard to ignore the forced tone in his voice. A warning bell of danger rang in her mind as she swept her eyes across his face over and over again, trying to read the meaning of his words. “But it did.”
“Cassandra,” Kirk began, his hands dropping to his sides, freeing her and balling into tight fists. “Life here is different from what you’re used to. In order to run this ranch, I need the respect of the ranch hands....”
An icy chill crawled up Cassandra’s spine. She took a single step backward, her eyes wide, her head moved slowly from side to side. “And the men don’t respect me. If they think you’re fooling around with the boss’s daughter, they won’t respect you, either, will they?” Her voice was cold, her head tilted to one side. Her words shot out at him, whip-like and cold, even as her heart screamed out its own denial.
Kirk went after her, but she retreated further. He shook his head, trying to make her understand. “That’s not what I meant—”
“Isn’t it?”
“Cassandra, the world you come from is different. You play by different rules. You have different mores.”
She wanted to pretend he was saying something else, but she couldn’t. “What different mores? Do you think tonight was a game?”
“I don’t know, was it? What are you doing here with me? You’re wealthy, and you like to play games. Isn’t that what this is to you, a game?”
His words drove a stake through her heart. Shame flooded her every cell.
“Cassandra,” he began.
“Don’t bother!” she snapped, her head held proudly as she stared at him, refusing to allow him to see her shame, the degradation of having surrendered to her emotions, of having given herself to someone who wanted her without commitment and without love.
Spinning away from him, Cassandra fled to the bedroom, where she grabbed her clothing and dressed as quickly as possible. Before she could put her boots on, she felt Kirk’s presence behind her. Whirling to face him, she tried to control her angered breathing.
“Will you let me finish?” he asked, his voice level, his hands still hanging in balled, knotted fists.
“Will you leave me alone? You made your point!” Instead of trying to put on her boots, Cassandra started past Kirk. Before she could get by him, his arms shot out, and his hands grasped her arms tightly.
She stared at him, her eyes unblinking as she waited.
“Damn it, why don’t you take the time to look at yourself, see yourself for what you are? Or is it because you think you can just walk into someone’s life, take command, do whatever you please, and then ignore their feelings?”
“No,” Cassandra said, her voice filled with disgust, “but it’s obvious you do.”
Their eyes locked for a brief flashing instant. Kirk’s eyes narrowed and his jaw stiffened. He released her and stepped back. “I should have known better,” he said.
Her mind went numb; her breath hissed. Cassandra walked past Kirk and stepped out into the night. Ten feet away from the house, though, she stopped to look back. As she did, Kirk stepped onto the porch, his tall muscular body outlined by the light from the doorway. “Bastard!” she screamed.
Rage and humiliation gained the upper hand and lent strength to her arm as she lifted and then hurled one of her new boots at him. She didn’t wait to see if it hit him as she turned and walked away. Before she took the first step, the sound of shattering glass broke the night. Turning again, the back of her hand covering her mouth, Cassandra saw her boot had struck the exact center of his living room window.
~~~~
Cassandra watched the rising sun. She had been sitting in the same chair since she’d gotten back to her apartment. She hadn’t bothered to change her clothes, she’d just sat and stared. Her tears had dried before the moon had set. Her sobs of anguish had gone, too.
Eventually her tears had given way to a startlingly dark funnel of anger, hurt, and pain filling her every thought.
Tonight Cassandra had taken a chance: She had risked her heart and punished for doing so.
No, two risks, she thought, correcting herself and remembering the agonizing trembling minutes she had spent with the horse. She realized, too, that going to the corral and touching the horse had turned out to be the less dangerous and frightening of the two.
How could he have done that to me? she asked herself. Who the hell does he think he is? But Cassandra knew the answer.
Kirk North was the general manager of Twin Rivers. He was a cowboy who’d had his authority taken away, given to a woman who knew nothing about ranching.
Kirk North was a proud man, a man unlike any she had ever known. No matter how hard she tried to hate him for what had happened tonight, she kept remembering his face, lit by the soft glow of moonlight as he looked at her. “I don’t hate you,” he’d said.
“But you don’t love me, either!” Then, as had happened earlier, she found yet another deep well of resolve from which to draw. She gathered whatever strength and understanding remained hidden within her, and as the sun broke above the horizon, Cassandra saw things more clearly.
She was doing what Kirk had accused her of not being able to do—looking at herself. She replayed what had happened between them and thought about his unwarranted accusation. How could he think I was playing a game with him? How?
Cassandra knew with a certainty she felt deep within her soul that from the moment she’d made the decision to try and salvage her life, there had been no game playing where Kirk North was involved.
As she thought about the night, the self-loathing and disgust that was so suffocating in its intensity began to relent as a new determination rose through the mire of her emotions. A determination that made her sit straighter and breathe deeper.
“But you will love me, Kirk North. You will!” Cassandra’s mind whirled and her humiliation and shame receded—she suddenly saw herself from the outside. She was looking at a stranger, the same stranger Kirk North and all the other people working at Twin Rivers had seen.
Cassandra didn’t like that stranger. She didn’t like the arrogant tilt of her head or the defensive set of her jaw. Nor did she like the assiduous specter of fright lurking behind the hazel green eyes. She understood, too, for others to like her, to respect her, she must learn how to like herself first.
While she examined herself in this rare instant of unbridled truth, Cassandra wondered what had happened to her to make her like this.
Gazing at the sun, she made herself think back to that long ago time when she had loved life and loved herself as well as everyone around her. She wondered what she must do, not to merely survive, but to live and make her life what she wanted it to be.
~~~~
At the same time that Cassandra was beginning to see the world without her rose-colored glasses, Kirk, too, was gazing at the leading edge of the sun, lost within his own bitter introspection.
After Cassandra had gone, leaving behind a shattered window, Kirk had dressed completely and walked to the corrals. As he’d stood by the fence, his mind had become a mass of unwanted thoughts.
Unable to merely stand around, Kirk had taken one of the Land Rovers and driven aimlessly about the ranch, not bothering to stay on the roads, cutting across the ranges, his headlights harsh upon the unpopulated earth.
When he’d reached a small butte, he’d stopped the vehicle and gotten out. With the barely perceptible dawn starting to lighten the eastern sky, Kirk had climbed to the top of the butte, sat, and tried to let the beauty soothe his tortured thoughts.
He sat for an hour, watching the black sky change as bands of color began to invade the heavens, heralding the coming of day.
When the dark purple turned to a crimson streak across the eastern horizon, Kirk saw not the beauty but the similarity of that color to his thoughts. The deep crimson was like a swath of blood—a wound Kirk had opened and was unable to stanch.
He wondered how he could have fallen in love with Cassandra. Even as that th
ought rose in his mind, his memory of this night of magical lovemaking flooded him with all its wrenching reality.
It wasn’t just the haunting memory of their lovemaking assaulting Kirk; there was also his own unfeeling cruelty. Or, should I call it fear? he asked himself.
Cassandra had done nothing to warrant his accusation that she was playing a game with him. Yet he had been afraid everything about her was a facade, a fantasy game she was living.
He didn’t want to believe it, but he could think of nothing else. She said one thing to him yet acted in the opposite manner. She had told him how important it was to make Twin Rivers a profitable business. Yet she refused to learn about ranching in the only way possible—by being involved with every phase.
Kirk shook his head, but his thoughts would not waver from their path. Cassandra always walked with an air of condescension, which openly declared her different from everyone else. When she talked, her voice was as cool as the breeze on the highest mountains.
“Who are you?” he asked the empty land. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Kirk had to believe that Cassandra was playing a game of her own invention. There could be no other explanation because he knew who he was and he knew her, too. She was a child of wealth, used to the finest of everything. He was from a world with different values and needs. He knew Cassandra Leeds would never fit into his world, never.
There was still one thing still bothering Kirk. If he knew all these things about Cassandra, why was he in love with her?
“But that doesn’t matter, does it?” he asked the now fully risen sun. Standing, Kirk started down from the butte.
When he reached the Land Rover, he sat back in the seat and closed his eyes, once again trying to solve the problems that Cassandra Leeds had brought upon him. “I can’t do anything,” he said.
That was a lie, and Kirk understood it fully. What he could do, and what he had to do, was simple. He had to make Twin Rivers show a profit this year. To do so, he would have to be as civil as humanly possible to her. He realized, only at year’s end would he know if Cassandra Leeds was playing a game with him or not.
Chapter Ten
Cassandra stared out the kitchen window as she had been doing since the sun had risen and the day had begun. She’d watched the ranch come to life and observed the hands leaving the dining room on their way to work.
She’d watched the ranch hands intently, waiting to see Kirk’s form, but he never appeared. Long after the hands had left the area, Cassandra continued to stare.
Her mind was a turbulent mass of half-formed thoughts. She had tried, during the long dawn, to understand the events of last night.
Still, as the sun had climbed higher in the sky, she had found no answers. All she knew was that she must somehow succeed in doing the very thing that had brought her here. She must forget what had happened last night and concentrate on today, tomorrow, and the remaining months. She must keep her willpower strong and channel her desires and emotions into her ability to do the job.
To do that, Cassandra realized, she must become a part of the ranch. Sitting straighter in the chair, Cassandra contemplated this new thought, evaluating it until she began to understand the basic truth of her new discovery.
Intuitively Cassandra had found the only thing that would make her succeed. Although she’d only been at the ranch for a short while, she had seen how alien to her experiences ranching was.
It was a business unto itself, and there was no way she could hope to make it a viable business unless she knew more about it.
“You need the respect of the ranch hands....” Kirk had told her last night in his cruel denial of the love she knew they both felt.
“…and they don’t respect me!” She flung the words at him with all the force of her pain. In the light of day, Cassandra knew how true those words were. The ranch hands did not respect her; they couldn’t because they didn’t know her. They only knew what they had seen.
Cassandra drew in a sharp breath. She understood what the first step had to be. She must continue on the path that she’d started last night before her obviously irrational mistake with Kirk. She looked down at her hands and saw them tremble. Shaking her head, Cassandra stood. I will do it! she declared to herself.
Fifteen minutes later, dressed in jeans, a light denim work shirt and boots, Cassandra stepped outside to walk beneath the morning sun.
At exactly nine o’clock, she reached the double doors of the stables, where she saw the ranch hand who Kirk had sent after the horses.
Cassandra spoke, forcing her voice to remain level, just the opposite of her nervous state. “Jamie, would you saddle a horse for me, please. I think it was Suzi?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a nod. “That’s the one Kirk picked for you.”
“Thank you. Could you bring her to one of the empty corrals?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said before turning and disappearing into the depths of the stables. As she watched him walk away, Cassandra knew there could be no turning back. A few minutes later Cassandra leaned against the railing of an empty corral, watching Jamie lead the gigantic beast toward her. I can do it!
Feeling the moisture build on the palms of her hands, Cassandra wiped them on her jeans. She held her breath when the young ranch hand opened the corral gate and led the horse in. Then Cassandra followed.
“Suzi’s a real sweetheart, Miss Leeds,” Jamie said as he looked at the new boss, judging her height and seat before adjusting the stirrups. When he was finished, he smiled at her. “She’s got a gentle mouth; you won’t have to fight with her. She’s real easy.”
“Thank you, Jamie,” Cassandra said, going to the horse and taking the reins from the stable hand.
“Will you need a hand up?”
“I’ll manage,” she said without looking at him. She heard him walk away but didn’t turn to watch. Her throat had a lump in it, and she hoped she wouldn’t suffocate.
Her hands were trembling again, but she refused to yield to her unending fears. Instead, she lifted her hand and began to pat Suzi’s cheek. “Good girl,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the last word.
She patted the mare’s cheek for several more minutes, waiting for her terror to recede. When she felt a little calmer, she grasped the reins tightly and began to walk around the corral. Suzi followed obediently, and Cassandra breathed a sigh of relief.
Do it! she ordered herself. She tried, really tried, but the shaking started again and the terror that had developed over the years filled her mind with a black horror that stole her breath from her lungs. Trying to ignore the fright laying claim to her, Cassandra placed her hand on the saddle horn and lifted her left foot into the stirrup.
Now! she commanded. Gritting her teeth, she pulled her body up. As she did, the horse back stepped. Cassandra wanted to scream, wanted to let go and run, but she didn’t. She threw her right leg over the saddle, sat down quickly, and gripped the pommel with her right hand.
The knuckles of her hand turned white from the pressure she used to hold on. Thankfully, the mare stood still beneath her, and Cassandra let out her breath and opened her eyes. I did it, I’m on a horse.
She fitted her right foot into the stirrup. One by one, she made her fingers loosen their death grip on the pommel and took the reins in both hands. It had been eighteen years since she’d been on a horse, but her hands reacted to the reins as if it had been yesterday.
Her knees clamped much too tightly on the saddle, but that was the least of her worries. Carefully, using the lightest of touches, she pressed her heels into Suzi’s flanks and loosened the reins.
The horse began to move; Cassandra’s heart threatened to stop. Her body froze and her thighs shook from the pressure she was exerting. When at last she pulled back on the reins, the mare obediently stopped. “G…good girl,” Cassandra whispered.
Now what? she asked herself.
“Just take it easy,” Jane Paulson ordered as she entered the corral and walked
over to Cassandra and the horse.
Cassandra looked at the ranch hand in a combination of surprise, embarrassment, fear, and not a little envy. She wondered, too, why Jane Paulson was in the corral.
“If you didn’t know how to ride, why didn’t you just tell that to Kirk yesterday?” she asked.
Cassandra shrugged her shoulders helplessly, realizing Jane had offered her a valid excuse to save her from having to admit the truth. “I don’t know.”
“All right,” Jane said with a shake of her head. “Get down.”
Cassandra, still clutched with fear, did not waste a moment in following Jane’s instructions. When Cassandra was on her feet and facing her, the ranch hand began to talk in a low, friendly voice.
“Let’s start at the beginning,” Jane said logically.
A few moments later Cassandra came to the surprising realization Jane Paulson was befriending her. It took her another few minutes to adjust enough to this startling revelation and concentrate on Jane’s voice.
While she listened, she began to understand Jane was teaching her not only about riding but about horses, too. For the next half hour, Cassandra paid close attention to everything Jane said and began to relearn all the techniques she’d hidden in those dark corners of her mind.
When Jane finished her short lecture, she gave Cassandra a look of reassurance. “You do have courage. Not many people would try to ride without someone to help them.”
Cassandra nodded. “I had to try by myself.”
“But you shouldn’t. Until you’re very sure of yourself, you should have someone close by. Want to try a few circles?”
Cassandra nodded her head in acceptance.
“Okay. First take the reins in your left hand….” Cassandra followed Jane’s instructions to the letter, concentrating intently on the woman’s words in order to forget her fear. Before she realized it, she was on the mare again and walking around the edge of the corral, controlling the horse with her legs and hands.
“Very good,” Jane said from the center of the corral.
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