One Hot Cowboy

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  But it should, Maggie thought desperately. “But marriage and a family are not what you want, right?” she asked, troubled, as she hurriedly pulled on first her soaked bra and then her shirt.

  Jake raked his hands through his hair. “I’ve told you that’s not in the cards for me,” he said roughly, making no apology for that fact. “I’m not father material, Maggie. Not even close.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because of the way I screwed up with the twins tonight. Because of—” He stopped himself abruptly.

  “What?” Maggie prodded him impatiently, when he didn’t continue.

  “Nothing,” Jake cut off her questions with a brusque look. “It’s just obvious in a lot of ways,” he argued emotionally, before taking her in his arms once again. Ignoring the resisting stiffness of her body, he clamped one hand around her waist and used the other to smooth the silky blond hair away from her face. “But that doesn’t stop me from wanting you or you from wanting me, or us from belonging together, at least temporarily.” He gave her a look, reminding her of the heat and fire of their tryst. “We’re going to make love eventually, Maggie. I know it in here.” He pointed to his chest. “And in here.” He pointed to his head.

  As much as she was loath to admit it, Maggie feared that was true. He had only to kiss her, for her resistance to scatter like leaves in the wind.

  “So why not continue what we started, as much as we are able, now—tonight?” Jake persisted amiably, still smoothing her hair away from her cheek. “At the very least we could cuddle and kiss and fool around a little more in my bed. If you want—” his voice dropped another seductive notch “—you could even sleep in there tonight.”

  “No,” Maggie retorted, just as sincerely, “we can’t.”

  “Why not?” Though she was being uncooperative, Jake didn’t look ready to give up any time soon.

  “Because it’s not right,” she insisted stubbornly, feeling her heart begin to break, as she realized that in all probability Sabrina had been wrong, Maggie was not destined to be with Jake after all.

  “Because you’re not offering me what I want. Not long-term. You may be made for hot passionate affairs, Jake, but I’m not,” she told him stormily. “I’m a married ‘til I die kind of woman, and I always will be.” And darn it all, she was not going to apologize for that!

  “Meaning what?” Jake demanded, his resentment of her determination to stick by her plan to find her own Mr. Right, come hell or high water, beginning to show. “That you’re still on the great husband hunt and you won’t let yourself be distracted, even for something as great as what we just shared?” he questioned angrily.

  Maggie folded her arms in front of her and held her ground. Knowing it was time he accepted some things, too, she told him seriously, “Look, Jake, whether you help me or not, I am going to find the man who was meant for me and me alone. And when I do, I’m going to do whatever it takes to make him mine. Not just for today or tomorrow, but for all eternity. And no one, not even you, is going to stop me!”

  Chapter Nine

  “Did Jake leave already?” Maggie asked Harry, early the following morning. The storm that had started shortly after midnight showed no sign of abating. Rain pounded torrentially against the roof of the breakfast nook, and blurred the view of the backyard.

  Harry nodded as he lifted fluffy, golden flapjacks onto a plate. “He was out of here at the crack of dawn.”

  And it had been raining hard most of the night, Maggie knew. She hated to think about Jake driving in such a downpour. “Did he say when he’d be back?” she asked casually, as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

  Harry shook his head. “He just said he had business in Houston and he would be back whenever it was done.” Harry paused to give her an intent look. “The two of you have words or something last night?”

  Maggie lifted the cup of coffee to her lips. “Why would you think that?” she inquired.

  “He was in a terrible mood. The foulest I’ve seen since—Well, a long time.”

  He’d had good reason to be in a foul mood, Maggie thought. The near-lovemaking had been upsetting to her as well. She was dangerously close to falling in love with Jake. And he couldn’t have been more wrong for her. Doubtless, he was feeling the same misgivings about their increasing emotional closeness and undeniable physical attraction to each other. Hence, the early getaway.

  She sighed. All things considered, maybe his leaving was for the best. If she and Jake were not around each other, they couldn’t fall more deeply in lust or love with each other, and they couldn’t fight.

  Maggie smiled as Wyatt and Rusty bounded into the breakfast room. “Hi, guys,” she greeted them fondly. “Sleep well?”

  They nodded and slipped into their chairs. “Maggie said we’re grounded today, so no TV,” Wyatt announced solemnly to Harry.

  Harry lifted a brow and looked first at the boys, then at Maggie. “Is that so?” Harry drawled.

  Maggie nodded. “They made a big mess with their shampoo during their showers last night.” So had she and Jake. “It took Jake and me quite a while to clean it up.” Too long.

  “So what are we gonna do today if we can’t watch TV or play outside?” Rusty asked.

  Good question. She wished she had known it was going to be raining when she had decided what privilege they would lose today, in penance for their misbehavior.

  “Well, there are always your toys,” Maggie said.

  Unfortunately, the toys lost their amusement value well before noon. Maggie read stories to them for an hour, and colored with them for yet another hour. And still it continued to rain. “When’s it gonna stop raining?” Wyatt asked restlessly, staring out the window, chin in hand.

  “Not until tomorrow or the next day,” Maggie told them after checking the weather on the radio in the kitchen. “There’s a hurricane stalled off the coast of Texas, and it’s sending huge storms our way.”

  Rusty groaned. “I’m gonna go crazy, cooped up inside,” he lamented emotionally.

  Maggie knew the feeling well, and it was only 2:00 p.m. She was going to have to think of something really interesting to do, if she wanted the time to fly by, until Jake returned.

  “REALLY? We’re going to play Texas settlers?” Rusty asked as Maggie opened the door leading to the usually off-limits third floor.

  “Cool!” Wyatt decreed, as Maggie led the way up the stairs.

  “How do we do it?” Rusty demanded, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the rain drumming on the rooftop overhead.

  The old-fashioned way, by using lots of imagination, Maggie thought. “Well, first we look for some Old West clothes to wear,” she told the twins enthusiastically. “Harry said he thought there might be some old bandannas and chaps or vests and hats and stuff up here.”

  “So we can dress up?” Wyatt asked, looking pretty excited about that.

  “Yep. If I can find the stuff,” Maggie said.

  She switched on the overhead lights as they reached the third floor and was delighted with what she found. The spacious attic ran the entire length of the sprawling ranch house. Maggie guessed it encompassed a good square twenty-five hundred to three thousand feet. Dormer windows on either end of the attic let in the misty gray daylight, while rain continued to drum against the roof with soothing regularity.

  Together, she and the boys surveyed the wealth of belongings scattered across the wood floor. Oldfashioned rocking chairs fought for space between heavy leather-bound steamer trunks. There were several old saddles, kept, Maggie guessed, for sentimental value, and to her amazement, an old teepee, covered with a thin coating of dust.

  “Cool,” Rusty said, immediately heading for the teepee. “Can we sit inside this, Maggie?”

  “Yeah, Unka Jake let us sit in it the last time we were here and it rained real hard. He let us watch while he put it together, too. The teepee used to be his, you know, when he was a kid.”

  Maggie peered in. Inside, was a stack of v
ery old comic books, a flashlight, and a rolled-out sleeping bag. Somehow she could imagine a much younger Jake playing in here and wanting his nephews to do the same.

  Deciding the teepee seemed sturdy enough, Maggie said, “Sure. You can sit on the sleeping bag and pretend you’re Indians having a powwow while I look for those old cowboy vests.”

  The boys scrambled inside while Maggie viewed the crammed attic. Where would those clothes be? she wondered. Harry had mentioned something about a trunk. But there were at least fifteen or more trunks up here. Sighing, she threaded her way through the belongings and headed for the trunk clear at the other end of the attic, next to the settee. She would start with that one, and work her way back, methodically looking through each one.

  While the boys played, she sat on the settee and opened the trunk, and was stunned by what she saw. For in it was a photo of a very young Jake, in a tuxedo, his arm around a very young and beautiful bride. Beneath that was what appeared to be a white satin wedding dress and veil, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. And beneath that were other things as well…

  “Hey, Maggie!” Wyatt and Rusty poked their heads out of the front of the teepee. “Find any chaps for us yet?”

  Feeling abruptly guilty, as though she had been deliberately spying on Jake “marriage-is-not-for-me” MacIntyre, Maggie quickly shut the lid. “Not yet,” she called back cheerfully. But she had found something that might explain a lot about Jake and his current hands-off attitude about marriage.

  Sabrina’d said the cowboy of Maggie’s dreams had a broken heart, in need of mending…Here, at last, was proof of that.

  She would explore it later, when the boys weren’t around.

  Standing, Maggie dusted her pants off and headed over to the next trunk. In it, were linens and dishes. The next trunk held decorations for the Christmas tree. In the fourth, she hit pay dirt. “Guys,” Maggie said, holding up an old Western shirt and battered leather vest that had definitely seen better days. “I think we found exactly what we need.”

  “I NEVER WOULD’VE figured dressing up like cowpokes on the trail would have entertained those boys for six hours straight,” Harry told Maggie, once the boys were asleep.

  Maggie smiled, and gave Harry a hand with the last of the dishes. “You helped a lot, by pretending to be a real chuck wagon cook and giving us a bonafide out-on-the-range dinner of chicken-fried steak and taters, sourdough biscuits, green beans and wild blackberry pie.”

  Harry grinned. “I never saw those little dickens eat so much at one sitting,” he confessed happily.

  “It was delicious. But then, everything you cook, Harry, is always delicious.” Jake was lucky to have Harry around.

  “Thanks.” Harry grinned at Maggie. “Though personally, I think it was probably the tin plates and mugs that were the real attraction.”

  Maggie had to agree the camping equipment had added a certain allure. “That, and eating our dinner on the family room floor, in front of the fireplace,” she commented. Finished drying the campfire dishes, Maggie stacked them neatly. “Any word from Jake?”

  “No, but he said this morning not to expect him back until very late, so I expect it’ll be after midnight before he rolls in, knowing Jake.”

  Maggie nodded. She wondered if Jake was out satisfying his need for hot wild passionate affairs with someone else, then pushed the unexpectedly jealous thought away. Whether Jake was or not, was none of her business. She had no claim on him, after all. Just as he had no claim on her, and the way things were going, never would have, either.

  Aware Harry was watching her, Maggie forced a smile. “I think I’ll take these campfire dishes up to the attic and tidy up a bit before I go to bed.”

  “Want some help?” Harry asked.

  “No.” Maggie shook her head. What she really wanted and needed was to be alone, for just a little while. “I can handle it, thanks.”

  Once in the attic, Maggie went straight to the trunk where she’d gotten the camp dishes, and put them neatly inside. From there, she replaced the vests, shirts and hats.

  Unable to help herself, she looked at the trunk next to the settee. The curiosity she felt was overwhelming.

  Transfixed, Maggie stared at the trunk. If Jake had been married before, and she guessed he had, why hadn’t he told her so? Had he been through a bad divorce? Was that why he was so turned off about marriage? Had his wife run away from him, or maybe cheated on him by having a hot passionate affair herself?

  The clues were in that trunk. All she had to do was go and have another look. And no one would ever be the wiser.

  Maggie sighed as she headed for the trunk. She shouldn’t be doing this, she told herself guiltily. And yet, by the same token, she couldn’t stay away. Darn it all, she wanted to marry a cowboy and the cowboy she wanted to marry was Jake and she would never accomplish that unless she found the key to unlock his heart. The key was in that trunk; she was sure of it.

  Chin set determinedly, Maggie knelt before the trunk and lifted the latch.

  AN HOUR LATER, Jake shook the water from his long black duster, removed his Stetson and stepped inside the Rollicking M ranch house. Harry, clad in robe and pajamas, had been switching off the lights downstairs and was on his way to bed. “Glad to see you made it back,” Harry said warmly. “It’s still coming down like gangbusters out there.”

  Jake hung his coat and hat on the tall rack beside the door. “You’re telling me. The drive home from Houston was miserable.” Made more so by the fact he couldn’t get Maggie off his mind. This, despite her irritating decision to continue her great husband hunt.

  “Did you get something to eat?” Harry asked, concerned. “If not, I could warm you up some dinner.”

  “I’m fine, Harry. Got a bit to eat before I left the city. Thanks, anyway.” Jake paused to hang his coat on the rack to dry. Though only 10:00 p.m., it was awfully quiet. He glanced around, scanning for any sign of trouble, finding none. “How are Maggie and the boys?”

  “They’re doing great,” Harry confided. “Weather being what it was, they had to work to keep themselves entertained, though.”

  I’ll bet they did. In a way, Jake was sorry he missed it. Playing inside on a rainy day sounded like fun.

  “So how’d Maggie manage?” Jake asked.

  Harry smiled, revealing without meaning to how fond he had become of their guest and temporary nanny in only four days. “She went up in the attic and rooted around ‘til she found some dress-up clothes for the kids, and then they played Western settlers the rest of the day.”

  Briefly, Harry went on to explain about cowpoke costumes and makeshift wagon trails, but all Jake could think about was the attic, and the fact Maggie had been up there, looking around. Searching. For God only knew what…besides the costumes.

  He swallowed around the sudden tightening of his throat. Damn it, he thought furiously, if she’d found any of that stuff he’d hidden away, even inadvertently…

  “Jake? You okay?” Harry asked, undisguised apprehension on his face. He stepped nearer. “You’re looking kind of pale, all of a sudden.”

  “I’m just tired.” Jake shrugged it off and regarded Harry with a respect and affection that had been years in the making. “Go on to bed, Harry. And don’t worry about the rest of the lights. I’ll close up down here.”

  And then, Jake told himself grimly, he was going to go up to the attic and find out just what—if anything—Maggie Porter had unearthed.

  “WHAT IN BLAZES do you think you’re doing?” Jake’s voice, low and lethally angry, came out of the darkness from the other end of the attic, startling Maggie into dropping the tiny pink-and-white baby clothes in her hands.

  Before she could do much more than replace them in the trunk, beneath the pictures, wedding gown and veil, Jake stormed the length of the room, his boots echoing on the unvarnished wood floor, and yanked her to her feet. Dressed in Levi jeans, an open-collared blue cotton shirt and a Harris tweed blazer, the hint of evening beard and lingerin
g traces of his cologne clinging to his jaw, he had never looked sexier. Nor more out of sorts.

  “I expect you feel I owe you an apology,” Maggie said, willing herself to hold her own with him. Though it might have been easier had she arranged her hair in something other than a high, bouncy ponytail atop her head, or been clad in something more dignified than white sneakers, denim walking shorts, a white T-shirt and blue work shirt.

  “I expect an apology and then some,” Jake affirmed grimly, accusation flashing in his dark eyes.

  Maggie stiffened but couldn’t quite bring herself to shrug off his grip. “I didn’t come up here looking for this.”

  “But you found it anyway.” His voice was unforgiving.

  “Yes, I did, while searching for cowpoke clothes for the twins. Damn it, Jake, why didn’t you tell me you were married before?” Maggie asked, abruptly losing her balance and stumbling backward as he finally let her go.

  “Because it was none of your business,” he said gruffly, looking as if he expected her to argue with him about that, too.

  “What happened, Jake?” she asked quietly, in an attempt to assure him that it was all right, even advisable, to confide in her. She wanted desperately to get to the heartache that had so negatively impacted his life. “Why are there baby clothes in this trunk?” She started to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, but when she realized her fingers were trembling, she abruptly stopped. “Is the reason you’re so dead set against having a wife and children because you’ve already had a wife and child?” If so, it made sense.

  Jake swallowed, and to her frustration, looked all the more remote. “I’m not getting into this with you, Maggie.”

  The hell he wasn’t. “What happened to your wife, Jake?” Maggie persisted boldly.

  Jake blew out an exasperated breath. “She died, okay?”

  And it had obviously hurt him like hell. Maggie bore that knowledge like a lethal blow to her chest. She forced herself to draw a breath and look into his dark brooding eyes. “And your baby?” she whispered, afraid from the devastated look on his face, she already knew the answer to that, too. “What happened to your baby, Jake?”