The Cowboy's Bride

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Callie inched forward as he smoothed on the cream. To no avail. The feel of his hands on her skin, caressing so gently, was devastating.

  “Forget the technicalities, Cody. As I told you last night, we don’t owe each other anything.” At least not anything like this.

  “Oh... considering there was a bull just in here—a stolen bull—I think I do owe you, Callie. A lot.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that drawl. She pushed him away. “You’re not insinuating I had anything to do with Zeus being dumped in your bedroom!” Was he?

  Cody’s mouth curled sardonically. “Let’s put it this way. He’s never visited here before.”

  “So?”

  Cody stood and shrugged his broad shoulders uncaringly. “So you’re here less than a day and suddenly he’s stolen and then makes an appearance here. In my cabin.” Throwing all his weight onto one hip, he towered over her menacingly. “Mighty coincidental, wouldn’t you say?”

  The depth of her anger invigorating her with new strength, Callie leapt to her feet. “As a matter of fact, I would.” She moved forward until they were standing toe-to-toe and slapped her hands on her hips. Tossing her hair back, she smiled up at him with saccharine intent. “Not that this plan of yours is going to work, Cody.”

  His eyes were smoldering. He let his glance slide down over the rip in her blouse and the curves of her breasts before dragging his gaze ever so slowly and condescendingly back to her face. “And what plan might that be?” he asked in a soft, dangerous voice.

  Callie should have been angry at the way he was treating her. She was hurt instead and she faced him boldly. “To scare me off the ranch.”

  His head shot up. “By putting a bull in my own cabin?” he asked incredulously.

  Callie straightened the hem of her shirt with shaking fingers and covered her shoulder as best she could. “You certainly took your time about coming back in here when I first came face-to-face with Zeus. You had no qualms about sending me in first.” Even as she said it, it sounded ludicrous. Cody was not a back stabber. If he had wanted to harm her, he would have done so head-on.

  Cody faced her grimly. “I did not set you up to get hurt in here.”

  She studied him. “I believe that. I don’t know why, but I believe that.”

  “Maybe because you know me.”

  “No, Cody.” Callie shook her head. “I never knew you. Because if I had – ” Callie stopped herself abruptly. She was revealing too much, and, in the process, setting herself up for even more hurt.

  “What?”

  She inclined her head at her shoulder, swallowed hard as she reined her feelings in. “I just wouldn’t have expected you to take care of me after all that’s happened this morning.” For a second there, he had been behaving almost like a gentleman.

  Cody snapped the lid shut on the first-aid kit. His entire body was rigid with tension. He looked at her as if she had stolen his control, sabotaged his strength. “It’s no more than I’d do for any of the hands,” he managed to say.

  Keep telling yourself that, cowboy.

  Just because he was short on manners didn’t mean she had to forfeit hers. “Thanks, anyway,” Callie said. She didn’t know if it was the spirited exchange with Cody giving her strength, but suddenly she was feeling much better. She looked around, unable to believe the damage the bull had done in a few short minutes. And this was a baby bull. She couldn’t imagine working with a full-grown bull of thirteen hundred to fourteen hundred pounds.

  She shook her head at the mess.

  “Now what?” Cody asked, his manner both abrupt and impatient.

  Callie regarded him thoughtfully as something very important dawned on her. She stepped closer. “You don’t seem very upset for someone who’s just had his cabin trashed, all his furniture—what little of it there was—destroyed,” she said slowly. Even the sofa they had been sitting on had huge chunks of upholstery ripped out of the sides and back of it.

  Yet Cody hadn’t once lamented any of it.

  Cody gave her a grin. “That’s because I don’t live here.”

  THE EXPRESSION OF SHOCK, disbelief and outrage on her face was almost worth it, Cody thought. Though he hadn’t meant to give himself away just yet.... Not that this surprised him, either. Callie had a way of evoking emotions in him he didn’t even know he had, never mind had any desire to express.

  “What do you mean you don’t live here?” Callie demanded, her emerald eyes flashing with the fire of righteous indignation.

  “Just that. This isn’t my home.” When she continued to stare at him in rigid disbelief, Cody continued with a casualness meant to provoke. “I live in the original ranch house, where Uncle Max settled when he founded the Silver Spur.”

  “And that ranch house is where?” Callie knew there were numerous residences on the Silver Spur, some more modern than others. But she didn’t know the history of any of them.

  “It’s in the middle of the cattle operation, about two miles or so from the bunkhouse and the barns, ensuring me, and in the past the family, privacy from the hands.”

  Rich color flowing into her cheeks, Callie held her arms aloft, the motion lifting and molding the shirt against the soft curves of her breasts. “Then what is this?” she demanded with disdain.

  Watching her, Cody was filled with the desire to take her in his arms again. No matter what the past, or her betrayal, he wanted to kiss her senseless. Until she gave him all that she had denied him before. And told him she loved him and only him. And that, he didn’t understand. He had told himself over and over he would never forgive her what she had done. Was it possible the shock of seeing her again...touching her...kissing her...had ripped away the protective layers he’d erected to make sure he would never be hurt again?

  Callie lowered her arms again. Her breasts heaved with every angry breath as she waited for his reply. Cody had half a mind not to tell her the history of the place, but also knew that she could get the information from just about anyone on the ranch. So it might as well be him. He didn’t want her asking questions of the hands or creating more of a stir than she already had.

  Having recovered his senses, Cody moved away from her and leaned against the far wall. “This, Callie, is an old cowboy outpost that predates the First World War.” He inclined his head at the sturdy walls. “It was originally designed for shelter in inclement weather when cattle were out on the range.”

  Her green eyes lit up with a compassion he neither expected nor wanted. “But it’s so primitive, Cody,” Callie said softly.

  Cody shrugged and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He knew this was something she could find out, too, yet he wanted to tell her himself. “After you disappeared on me, I found myself wanting to be alone—a lot. That was damn near impossible at the ranch house at the time—there was always someone dropping by to check up on me. So I started coming out here for days at a time.” So I could make sense of what happened with you, figure out how—and more importantly, why — I’d been duped.

  “Max didn’t worry about you?” Callie asked, the gentle understanding in her eyes enough to make him want to drag her back into his arms and hold her there for a very long time.

  Cody inhaled a ragged breath. No one had offered him such simple comfort in a long time. He was finding it hard to resist. “He understood that if he and the others didn’t leave me alone I’d disappear altogether,” Cody revealed shortly, wishing Callie would stop trying to tear down the defenses he’d spent years building. “So he passed the word I wasn’t to be disturbed,” Cody finished.

  Callie fastened the sweet, serious warmth of her gaze on his face. “Weren’t you lonely?” she asked quietly.

  For you, Callie. For what we’d lost. Realizing what he’d just admitted to himself, Cody shook his head in silent regret. He’d thought he was over all that. Knowing it still cut at him deeply, astonished and disturbed him. She had no right coming back into his life, dredging all this up. Mouth tightening, Cody turned
away from Callie and the understanding he saw in her eyes. He knew better than to let her get close to him again. Because if he trusted her again, and she let him down, as he half feared she would, it would destroy him. That being the case, he was going to have to find a way to make sure that she knew it would never work, too. Despite what Max may have wished.

  “I found out the rustic atmosphere suited me just fine,” Cody continued with feigned nonchalance. Needing respite from her gaze, he found his hat and lowered the brim over his eyes. “When I ran out of supplies or wanted electricity and so on, I went back to the original ranch house, the one where my brother, Trace, and my sister, Patience, and I first lived with Uncle Max. And where Uncle Max had lived before building the new state-of-the-art ranch house where Trace and Susannah are going to live.”

  Cody looked at Callie’s face and knew he’d put some distance between them.

  Callie stared at him furiously. “You duped me into thinking this was it! That this was where you had been living... where I was going to have to live if I married you again!”

  Cody grinned wordlessly, admitting the chicanery, and Callie flew at him, completely incensed.

  Cody caught her arms before she could do any serious damage and held her against him. “I never said this was where I lived full-time,” he replied silkily, finding the look on her face almost worth it. “You jumped to that conclusion all by yourself.”

  Callie yanked herself free, picked up a boot and sent it sailing at his head. Glorious color filled her pretty face. “You are no gentleman, Cody McKendrick!”

  Cody ducked to avoid the flying object. It was all he could do not to chuckle at her spirit. “That’s not what you said a few minutes ago when I was taking care of the cut on your shoulder!” He lifted a disparaging brow meant to incense her, glad their relationship had landed back in an arena he could handle. “In fact, from the way you were looking at me, you seemed to think I was more than gentlemanly enough,” Cody continued, deliberately provoking her all the more. And that, too, had been a problem. Prior to Callie’s return to his life, he’d had no problem at all keeping women at arm’s length. In the act of protecting and caring for Callie he was becoming more chivalrous again.

  He had deliberately been living the life of a hermit. He was not sure he wanted to come back to life again in the way Callie was urging him to. He was not sure he wanted to risk getting hurt again. And she could hurt him. Probably worse this time than she already had.

  “A few minutes ago, I thought you had a heart in there somewhere. Now I know I was wrong,” Callie stormed.

  “And you, Callie, are just as young and immature. But I can handle you this time,” Cody said confidently. “Because this time I know who and what you are!”

  Callie grabbed up what was left of the clothes from her sparsely packed duffel bag. They were muddy, ripped and smelled like Zeus. “On top of everything else, the only clean clothes I had left are ruined! I’ve got nothing to wear!”

  One glimpse of her soft white skin had told Cody that he did not want her to go around wearing that ripped shirt, either, even if she once again misinterpreted his reason for helping her. “You can borrow something of mine,” he said gruffly, telling himself it was no big deal. “I’ve got plenty of shirts back at the ranch house.” A ranch house she had never seen, because during the precious three months they’d dated, they’d spent all their time at Pearl’s and on the range.

  “I don’t – Fine.” Callie stopped and, with what looked to him like a great deal of effort, brought herself up short. She raised both hands in a testy gesture of surrender. “I’ll take whatever I can get my hands on. Let’s just get going.”

  Figuring they’d stayed more than long enough, Cody decided her idea made sense. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “After you.”

  Chapter Five

  “This is where you live?” Callie stared at the white, two-story ranch house with the cranberry red shutters. Victorian in style, with a high pitched roof and painted wood siding, the decades-old ranch house sported long, narrow windows and a raised front porch that ran the width of the house and was edged by a waist-high railing. The house was at the end of a long, tree-lined gravel lane and surrounded by a variety of evergreen shrubs, badly in need of pruning. Wildflower-strewn meadows edged the picket-fenced front yard, and beyond that were woods.

  “Officially, yes,” Cody replied as he parked in front of the house, which was, as he had promised, a good two miles from the bunkhouse and the rest of the cattle operation. “Is this more to your liking?”

  Callie sensed the question was some kind of test. She regarded him, determined to be as honest as she could about as much as she could. “It’s better,” she allowed frankly, not sure he really wanted to hear the rest of what she thought about his real home on the Silver Spur Ranch.

  Cody narrowed his eyes at her. Apparently unable to completely contain his curiosity, he prodded, “But... ?”

  “You’ve let it go to ruin a bit, haven’t you?” With a disturbed glance, Callie pointed to the flower beds, which were blossomless and choked with weeds.

  If Cody felt any guilt about the way he’d let the property go untended, he shrugged it off. “I’ve got more important things to do than plant flowers,” he grumbled irately.

  Callie mumbled her dissent unintelligibly, then pointed to the paper taped to his front door. “Let’s hope that’s not an eviction notice.” For lack of flowers and all forms of tender loving care.

  Cody frowned as he noticed the paper, too. He strode on ahead of her. He ripped the page from the front door.

  “What is it?” Callie edged closer and peeked over his shoulder to read the fine, typewritten print.

  Cody’s scowl deepened ominously. “A bad joke.”

  Callie lifted her brow. “From?”

  “My dear departed Uncle Max, if you can believe that.” Cody apparently didn’t.

  “What does it say?” Callie asked when he shifted, cutting off her view.

  Cody read out loud, his skepticism evident. “‘Dear Cody, If you are wise, you will swallow your considerable pride and take better care of your bride, as she may need more protecting than you realize.’ It’s signed, ‘Forever watching over you, Uncle Max.”’ Frowning his displeasure, Cody handed the computer-generated paper over for her perusal.

  Callie looked it over. “Uncle Max was wrong,” she muttered.

  “About what?”

  Because he looked as if he wanted it in his possession, Callie shoved the letter back at him. “I do not need your protection. Or any other man’s, for that matter. I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself.” And she had been for some time now.

  “I’m not so sure about that, Callie,” Cody murmured, abruptly looking both distracted and upset.

  “Meaning?” Callie snapped her fingers.

  “Uncle Max always was at least one step ahead of all of us. Besides, look at what just happened with that bull. Someone obviously wanted us in harm’s way.”

  Callie bit her lip worriedly. As much as she was loath to admit it, Cody had a point. “So you think someone wanted to hurt us?” Or more specifically Cody, since it was his cabin. Someone like Buck and Pa?

  Cody gave her a grimly assessing look. “You tell me. Did they?”

  “How would I know?” Callie shot back, angry at finding herself accused of being disreputable again. Yet privately, she was worried. If Cody was right, that meant someone was out to get them. She knew Buck and Pa were very capable of mean-spiritedness, particularly where both she and Cody were concerned. The theft of the bull could have been meant as a warning of even more dire things to come unless she changed her mind and cooperated with them in a way she never had before. But there was no sense telling Cody that. He mistrusted her enough as it was.

  “Aren’t you going to show me inside?” Callie asked anxiously, wanting the subject closed. “I’d like to change my shirt. Actually, I’d like a long, hot bath.”

  Cody unlocke
d the door and pushed it open. He motioned her in, then strode on inside. The front hall was long and narrow. Looking the reluctant hellion all the while, he gave her a whirlwind tour of the downstairs. A parlor and study were at the front of the house, both behind closed doors—and the kitchen, dining room and another parlor—this one decidedly less formal and more lived-in-at the rear. Callie had an impression of dark wood and old-fashioned furniture. The placement of lamps, tables, sofas and chairs seemed haphazard at best. Magazines and books were mixed in with CDs, newspapers and personal mail. Dark, heavy velvet drapes shut out the sunlight and added to an overall impression of gloom and disorganization.

  “Well?” Cody prompted, able to tell something was on her mind.

  “It’s very spacious.” But not warm or homey at all, Callie thought unhappily. “Sturdy, well built.”

  “But not as comfortable as you would have expected.”

  Callie shrugged. Except for his study, which was equipped with computer, fax machine and copier, and the back parlor, which had a television, VCR and stereo system, it looked as if he hadn’t updated anything in the ranch house in years.

  “There are some advantages to having money, Cody. Having a nice home is one of them.” A place that was warm and welcoming and a joy to be in.

  “I’m not spending money replacing furniture that is perfectly good,” he growled.

  Callie hadn’t been talking about that, either, but she didn’t think he wanted to hear what she would do with this house if it belonged to her, so she kept silent. For now, anyway. She was beginning to understand why Uncle Max had obviously thought Cody needed her in his life. She was beginning to understand what Uncle Max wanted her to do for Cody, if only he would let her.

  Upstairs, there were four bedrooms. Cody showed her to a room with a canopy bed covered with a plain white bedspread. “Bathroom’s down the hall. Clean towels are in the closet just beside it.”

  “Where do you bunk?”

  “Not here. ’