by Ginna Gray
The sincerity in his eyes, in his voice, tugged at her heart. Her throat grew so tight she could not swallow, and her chin began to wobble.
Noticing the tiny movement, Wyatt smiled tenderly. Slowly, softly, his thumb rubbed back and forth across her lower lip. “I don’t ever want you to feel trapped in this marriage, sweetheart. I know that someday, hopefully in the distant future, you will inherit a sizable fortune from Asa, but in the meantime I want you to be financially independent. As my wedding gift, I’m giving you Blue Hills. I’ll have my attorney draw up the transfer of title today.”
Maggie gaped at him. “But...you love that farm. Blue Hills is your most prized possession.”
“Yes. It is. Which is why I’m giving it to you, so you’ll know that I’m serious. If our marriage ever becomes intolerable, you will have the means to walk away.”
Something inside her cracked and gave way. Her chin wobbled even more and tears filled her eyes. “Oh, Wyatt,” she whispered in an unsteady voice. “Are you sure you want to do this? You deserve so much more. You deserve someone who will love you back, without reservation.”
“You do love me, Maggie.” His smile was both tender and sad. “You just haven’t accepted it yet. But you will. You’ll see.”
Chapter Fifteen
Over the next few months Wyatt’s confidence slipped several notches. By Christmas he was even beginning to call himself an arrogant fool for ever thinking that once they were married Maggie would accept that she loved him. With Maggie, nothing was that easy.
Sitting slouched in an overstuffed chair in Asa’s living room, he held a mug of steaming coffee cupped between his hands and brooded. In the corner, the gigantic Christmas tree that Maggie had insisted upon twinkled, its base bare now and a little forlorn looking. At the crack of dawn his wife had rousted everyone from their warm beds to open gifts.
The ritual had been nothing like the polite exchange of presents his parents had overseen on Christmas morning when he and Eric had been boys. Maggie had torn into the gaily wrapped packages like a three-year-old and had encouraged everyone else to do the same. Her enthusiasm had been contagious, and before they knew it they were all wading in, laughing and exclaiming over their loot and exchanging noisy, good-natured taunts. Even Corinne had unbent enough to join in the mayhem with enthusiasm. Within moments, the living room, looking as though a bomb had hit it, had been knee-deep in shredded paper, empty boxes and ribbons.
A reluctant smile tugged at Wyatt’s mouth at the memory, and at that of his wife’s reaction to his gifts. Maggie had been just as pleased with the fuzzy bear-paw slippers, complete with two-inch-long claws that clacked on the floor with each step, as she had been with the diamond earrings.
“Ah-ha! Gotcha!” Maggie whooped, drawing Wyatt’s attention back to the present. Grinning triumphantly, she jumped three of her grandfather’s checkers and plucked them off the board.
Asa glared and growled, “That was pure luck, so don’t go getting a big head, Missy. This game’s not over yet.”
“Good as,” Maggie taunted, grinning.
Wyatt shook his head. His wife was irrepressible, and Asa loved it. So, for that matter, did he.
Wyatt’s eyes lingered on the old man. Asa looked his old, robust self again. Ever since the wedding, which had been performed at his bedside, his recovery had been nothing short of miraculous. He had been released from the hospital a little over a week later and was now back at work on a limited basis. If Asa kept on the way he was going he’d be around for another thirty years or more.
From the kitchen came the delicious aromas of roasting turkey and dressing, sweet potatoes, rolls and pecan pie. Eric and Tyson were glued to the football game blaring from the television, and Daphne, Corinne and Great-Aunt Edwina sat on the sofa discussing the details of Eric and Daphne’s wedding, which was set for the second week in June.
Listening to them, Wyatt was profoundly grateful that he and Maggie had not been subjected to such an ordeal—mainly because he had no doubt that she would have cracked under the strain and run for the hills. As it had been, she’d been jumpy as a cat, and he’d sweated out those few hours it had taken to make the hurried arrangements.
Wyatt tried to work up an interest in the football game, but his gaze, like his thoughts, kept returning to his wife. Maggie sat at a table before the roaring fire in the hearth, playing checkers with Asa and laughing at his testy grumbling, teasing him as though she hadn’t a care in the world.
And why should she have? Wyatt thought sourly. From her perspective, their marriage was a rollicking success. They got along well, they enjoyed each other’s company, and their love life was fantastic.
For a woman who had remained chaste until the age of twenty-six, Maggie was a delightfully sensual creature. As with everything she did, she approached lovemaking with wholehearted enthusiasm. Open and spontaneous, she followed her instincts and gave herself over to the pleasurable sensations with no inhibitions, no reservations, alternately submissive and aggressive as the emotion of the moment moved her. She was a constant delight. Sex with Maggie was the hottest, most arousing and erotic, most loving he had ever experienced.
Out of bed she pleased him just as much. She was bright and inquisitive and funny and fun to be with. Life was never dull with Maggie around. Thanks to her, he had learned to slow down and relax and appreciate little things and enjoy life as he never had before. The month-long trip in the RV, which he had been so sure he would abhor, had not only been enjoyable, it had taught him that Sommersby Enterprises could manage to creak along without him now and then.
His gaze traced Maggie’s profile, and he felt that familiar sweet pressure in his chest. It still amazed Wyatt that he, a man who had always scorned marriage, who had cringed at the thought of spending the rest of his life with one woman, was so completely, irrevocably enthralled by the tiny sprite he had married.
He missed her when he was at the office, and trips out of town were pure misery. At odd times he caught himself thinking about her, and he couldn’t wait to come home to her at the end of a day. Maggie saw the amusing side of everything and laughed at the world and its silliness. No matter how trying a day he’d had or what crisis he faced, she never failed to cheer him. He was happier than he’d ever been, happier than he’d ever imagined it was possible to be.
Yet one thing was missing—those three little words that he wanted so desperately to hear.
He still believed—no, dammit, he knew—that Maggie loved him. Whether or not she would ever admit that was another matter.
Dammit! he thought, scowling at her over his mug as she gleefully jumped two more of her grandfather’s checkers. A woman didn’t respond to a man the way she did to him unless she loved him. She was, without a doubt, the most stubborn, pigheaded, obstinate female he had ever encountered. It had been over three months since their wedding, but the minx had yet to voice a single word of love, not even in the hottest moments of passion.
“I win! I win!” Maggie crowed, sweeping the last of Asa’s checkers from the board.
“Only because I let you,” he grumbled. “I didn’t want you to get discouraged and quit.”
“Let me, my foot! I won with skill, cunning and superior play,” she said, with her nose in the air.
“Oh, yeah. Well, we’ll just see who wins the next game.”
Asa had barely begun setting up the board again when Mrs. O’Leary appeared at the door of the living room. Her cheeks were rosy from cooking, her plump body encased in a voluminous white apron. “Dinner is ready, Mr. Hightower. If you’ll be good enough to take your seats in the dining room I’ll be after servin’ it.”
The Christmas dinner was as different from that the Sommersbys had shared in the past as the gift exchange had been. Usually Wyatt’s parents had taken him and Eric to dinner at the country club or one of Houston’s posh restaurants.
Asa, however, for all his wealth and social aspirations, had never abandoned his simple family values. Formalit
ies, such as which fork to use and what was considered proper dinner conversation and etiquette, were less important than the sense of belonging and conviviality that dominated the Hightower feast. Wyatt suspected that was one of the reasons Asa had never been fully accepted by Houston’s social elite. As he listened to the laughter and good-natured banter swirling around the table, he was glad.
The meal was sumptuous and plentiful. Wyatt watched with amazement as his tiny wife tucked away more food than a lumberjack. Where did she put it all? When busy with whatever had her attention at the moment, she could go days without eating, but when the opportunity presented itself she gorged herself like a bear preparing for hibernation.
By the time they reached the coffee and dessert course Wyatt was feeling sated and mellow, his earlier discontent all but forgotten. Then Maggie dropped her bombshell.
“Och! I won’t be able to eat for a week,” she groaned, patting her tummy. “‘Tis a good thing I start fire fighters’ school next week.”
Wyatt’s head snapped up. “You do what?”
“I start fire fighter training. Don’t be lookin’ so surprised. I told you that in my next book Mergatroid and Arbuckle join the National Forest Service and become fire fighters, and that I’d be going out on a research trip soon.”
“You’ll have to excuse me. Somehow I didn’t connect that with my wife going out in the woods and risking her life fighting a forest fire. How stupid of me.”
“The training minimizes the risks. Besides, I’ll just be an observer and I’ll be out there with the elite in the business.” Excitement sparkled in her eyes as her gaze swept over the others. She didn’t seem to notice their stunned expressions. “They’re called Hot Shots, and they go all over the country fighting fires in the National Parks. Sometimes they have to parachute into remote mountain terrain.”
A muscle twitched along Wyatt’s jaw. He started silently counting to ten.
Asa scowled. “Didn’t a bunch of that outfit die last year fighting a fire up in the Rockies?”
“Well...yes, but—”
“All right. That’s it,” Wyatt snapped, giving up at six. He pointed his finger at Maggie and snarled through clenched teeth, “You are not going. Do you understand me? I won’t have you risking your life that way. I’ve watched you jump out of airplanes and off bridges and turn yourself upside down in a kayak and pull a dozen other crazy stunts, and I’ve held my tongue. But not this time. I won’t allow you to do this, Maggie.”
“You won’t allow?” She laughed. He couldn’t believe it. She actually chuckled out loud. That was the trouble with Maggie; it was difficult to argue with someone who took so few things seriously.
“I’m sorry you don’t approve, Your Nibs, but you really don’t have any say in the matter. Just because we’re married doesn’t mean you can tell me what I can and cannot do. We had an agreement. You were going to accept what I did without interfering. Remember?” she said with a coaxing smile.
“Within reason, yes. But this is insane.”
“According to you. I don’t happen to think so.”
“That’s it? You’re going? No matter how I feel?”
Giving him a regretful look, she shrugged. “I’m afraid so.”
“Fine.” Wyatt shot to his feet, slapped his napkin on the table and stormed out without another word.
* * *
“Stubborn man,” Maggie mumbled. Folding her forearms on the top rail of the corral, she propped her chin on her hands and watched Wyatt lead Hot Streak, Asa’s prize Arabian stallion, from the barn to where Philip Townsend waited astride King Tut, his Appaloosa.
“Well, you can’t blame him,” her grandfather said. Asa leaned an elbow on the top rail beside her and watched the two men. “Philip did goad him into racing with all that talk about being able to outride and outjump any rider around. You can’t expect a man to just ignore a challenge like that.”
Maggie grunted. Her comment had had nothing to do with the race, but if Asa wanted to think so, that was fine with her.
“And you can’t blame him for being upset with you, either, Missy. The man’s got a perfect right to object to you risking your neck. He loves you.”
Maggie barely stifled a groan. She should have known that nothing got past Asa. “We had an agreement.”
“Agreement, bah! It’s basic instinct for a man to protect the woman he loves, even from herself.”
The comment pricked at Maggie, but she pushed the uneasy feeling aside. She had come to accept that Wyatt truly did love her, but that didn’t give him the right to interfere in her life.
Ignoring her grandfather’s pointed look, she watched her husband swing into the saddle. Hot Streak did a sidestepping dance, bobbing his head, but Wyatt quickly controlled him.
This tension between them was intolerable. In the three months of their marriage they’d had a few minor disagreements, but he’d never really been furious with her before. She’d had no idea how miserable it would make her feel. Since storming out of the house the day before, he had barely said three words to her. She had tried in every way she could to cajole him out of his anger, but he had remained stiff and distant.
Philip’s arrival this morning hadn’t helped ease the situation. He and Wyatt bristled like two pit bulls whenever they encountered each other.
Wyatt was convinced that Philip was in love with her, and nothing she could say would change his mind. He resented him hanging around all the time. Never mind that Asa had allowed Philip to board his horse at the farm for years, her husband believed he came to see her.
Philip was no better. He had not been pleased to learn of her marriage, and he seemed bent on needling Wyatt every chance he got.
Today was no exception. His bragging had bordered on insult, and the race that was about to take place plus a ridiculous amount of money wagered, was the result.
Men, Maggie thought with disgust. They acted like overgrown boys, always trying to outdo one another.
“Okay, Asa, we’re all set,” Philip called from atop his prancing horse. “We’ll race from here down to the creek, around that stand of oaks on the other side, and back. First one to pass the water trough over there is the winner. You give us the signal to start.”
“Will do.” Stepping up onto the bottom rail of the fence, Asa raised a starter pistol over his head. “Okay, look alive. This is it. Get ready! Get set! Go!”
Even though she was braced for it, Maggie started when Asa fired the gun. So did the horses. They leapt forward as though poked with an electric prod and took off for the creek at breakneck speed, their lean, graceful bodies stretching out, straining, reaching. Thundering hooves shook the ground and kicked up clods of dirt as their riders crouched low over their backs, exhorting them on to even greater speed.
“Look at ‘um go!” Asa whooped.
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Honestly. I swear, you’re as bad as they are. Why are men so competitive?” she grumbled, but her heart began to pound as she watched the two riders race away. She gripped the board rail so tight her fingers whitened. Straining forward, she silently urged Wyatt on.
They hit the creek side by side, sending water spraying upward in silver arcs. Up the opposite bank they went. For a few seconds they disappeared behind the stand of huge oaks. Then they burst into the open again and came pounding back, splashing back across the shallow creek, up the bank, then pouring on the speed in the straightaway.
Both men had shed their jackets for the ride. Somewhere along the way Wyatt had lost his hat, and the wind plastered his black hair against his head and molded his shirt to his powerful chest.
Hot Streak slowly pulled ahead, at first by a nose, then by half a length, a length. As the riders thundered closer, Maggie saw that the remote anger that had marked Wyatt’s expression for the past twenty-four hours was gone. His face wore a look of fierce exultation as he and Hot Streak flew past the horse trough a length and a half ahead of Philip.
Maggie turned to watch him as he raced
by. She expected him to rein in as Philip was doing, but Wyatt urged the horse on even faster.
“What is he doing? Oh, no! Sweet Mary and Joseph! He’s going to try to jump the fence!”
“Has the boy lost his mind?” Asa barked. “That fence is too high to jump.”
“Wyatt, stop! Stop!” Maggie turned to her grandfather and grabbed his arm. “Do something, Asa. Stop him. He’s going to kill himself!”
“It’s too late, child,” Asa said, never taking his eyes off the horse and rider.
Maggie whirled and clamped her hands over her mouth, her eyes filled with horror as horse and rider neared the fence.
It seemed to happen in excruciatingly slow motion—she saw Hot Streak’s hindquarters bunch, saw his rear hooves set, the powerful muscles spring, the sleek body stretch out, Wyatt crouch low over that graceful arched neck. Then, as one, they were sailing up...up...up...
Hot Streak cleared the fence but stumbled on the landing, and Wyatt went flying over the horse’s head.
“Wy-att!”
Maggie was running before he hit the ground. She ran so fast her feet barely skimmed the ground, her heart banging against her ribs. She strained for all she was worth, sobbing and gasping. She didn’t feel the stitch in her side or the burning in her lungs. Her entire being was focused on the inert form lying in the pasture beyond the fence.
She hit the fence going flat-out, leapt up on the bottom rung and vaulted over in one continuous motion.
Wyatt lay flat on his back, one arm flung above his head. Before she reached him Maggie saw that his entire body was shaking as though in convulsion. “Wyatt! Oh, blessed Mary. Darling, are you all right,” she cried, dropping to her knees beside him. Her hands flew over him—his face, his chest, over his concave belly, his sex, down his long, sturdy legs, and back up—frantically searching for an injury. “Please. Oh, please, be okay. You’ve got to be okay,” she sobbed hysterically. “You’ve got to. I can’t lose you. I can’t!”
