by Firebrand
“Russ?” Rusty straightened her shoulders and preceded Cade into the room, separating herself from him with a shudder. “I’ve been meaning to give you a call.”
“Oh? You’ve decided to accept my offer to buy that little piece of rock in the north corner?”
“No. What I had in mind was making you an offer.”
The jovial man looked at Rusty shrewdly, cutting his eyes from Rusty to Cade and back again. “Oh? You’re not going to sell it to Dale Briggs are you?”
“No, my offer has nothing to do with that. I don’t intend to sell any of Silverwild. What I want to talk to you about is my new bull.”
“Yeah, I heard about the ugly devil. Ought to be a good match for them buffalo up at Howard’s place. Howard, come over here. Rusty’s got a deal for you.”
Will Fleming, who’d followed them, snagged a canape from a passing waiter and eyed it with a grimace. “A Cattleman’s Ball ought to serve steak,” he commented.
A tall, thin older man detached himself from the group he’d been talking to and walked over to meet Rusty.
“Howard Chandler,” he said holding out his hand to Cade. “Don’t believe I’ve met you, sir.”
“Cade McCall, and you haven’t.”
“A cattle buyer, Rusty?” Howard asked, taking a long look at both Cade and Rusty.
“No. You might say that I’ve been in oil.” Cade took a long look at Rusty. “But I’m looking around at other opportunities.” He slid his arm around Rusty’s waist and smiled at her possessively.
Rusty allowed herself to lean into him. She hadn’t expected that meeting these men would be so intimidating. She’d had business dealings with them over the years, but those encounters had been on Silverwild, on her own terms. Now she felt off balance. Except for Cade, whose arm told her that he was there for her. His strength was hers if she needed it. And she did.
There was no question about the man’s power. Or his magnetism. Already, Howard Chandler and Russ Long were uncertain. Every woman in the room had been watching him from the moment of their entrance. She’d seen the buzz of attention ripple around the room, and she traced it back to the man holding her. She could certainly understand their reaction.
She’d been worried that bringing Cade here was expecting too much. After all, if she couldn’t convince the other ranchers to use Pretty Boy, what could his presence add? He wasn’t even a rancher. Silverwild was her responsibility, and so was its future. Truthfully, Cade McCall wasn’t here to deal with the cattlemen. He was with her, not because of what he represented but because she needed him. All her life she’d tried to please her father, with little acknowledgment of her efforts. After Ben’s death she’d decided that she would please no one except herself. And tonight—tonight it pleased her to be Cade McCall’s woman.
Cade stumbled slightly. He decided that if Rusty could have found a way to climb into his pocket, she might well have done so. He couldn’t tell whether it was from uncertainty about the men she was talking to or the women she kept eyeing uneasily in the crowd beyond. In either case he figured that his duties as a fiancée suited his purposes as well as hers. He dropped his gaze and gave Rusty a deep private smile as he slid his warm hand possessively up to her shoulder, pulling her back so that he could look into her eyes.
Shyly she reached up and caught his hand, squeezing it as openly as she returned his hungry look.
Russ looked at Howard and back to Rusty. “Oil, huh? Well, if you didn’t lost your shirt, maybe we could talk sometime, McCall. Rusty has all the land and water, but her French cows can’t compare with my herd.”
“Not at the moment, perhaps,” Cade answered evenly. He felt, rather than heard, Rusty’s inaudible intake of breath. “But the new bull is going to change all that. You’d do well to have a look at him, before his stud fee gets too high. In the meantime I’m hungry, darling. What about you?”
Rusty allowed herself to be led away. “Why’d you do that?” she asked. “We could have talked more about Pretty Boy.”
“Always make a man think you don’t want what he’s offering. It makes him more interested in what he’s turning down.”
At the buffet table they were joined by Will and Ann-Marie. Filling their plates with little chunks of steak, potatoes, and melons, they found a seat and ate. Rusty and Ann-Marie identified various VIPs, including some people they’d gone to school with.
Rusty only picked at her food. Will complained that they ought to be eating real steak and potatoes, not little finger foods. Ann-Marie reminded both men that they’d elected to skip dinner and arrive in time for the ball.
“Speaking of the ball,” Cade said, “I think I’ll dance with my lady.”
Rusty found herself being turned expertly toward the dance floor, Cade’s hand guiding her through the crowd of people until he found a spot near the center of the floor.
“You don’t have to do this. I’m not much of a dancer, Cade,” Rusty whispered anxiously between lips planted in a tight smile.
“Doesn’t matter. I wanted an excuse to put my arms around you. Just lean against me and sway.”
“I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
It wasn’t a good idea, Cade decided as Rusty complied. At thirty-seven it had been a long time since his body had responded so instantly to a woman’s touch. But then a woman like Rusty had never been his before. Suddenly his body was fourteen and had ideas of its own.
“Cade?” Rusty broke off and gaped as she felt him harden against her.
“Sorry, darling,” he said blandly. “I can’t seem to control myself when I touch you. You’re the boss. Give me an order. What shall I do?”
“I don’t know. What do men normally do?”
“Depends on the woman, darling.”
“Why are you calling me that?” she whispered. “There’s nobody listening now.”
“Because I want to. Does it bother you?”
“Yes! You make me crazy. I can’t think.”
“There comes a time, Redhead, when feeling beats hell out of thinking.”
He was right. Rusty stepped forward, draping both arms around his neck. “Not here, McCall. Let’s go. Allowing your feelings to show may come easy to you. But I’ve never … I mean, I don’t think I can stand being stared at one more second!” She began moving backward with great determination.
This wasn’t embarrassment, Cade decided. Suddenly Rusty was really upset. He didn’t know why. He’d been caught up in the aura of holding a beautiful woman in his arms, a woman with great green eyes that promised more than even she knew, and he’d let himself go too far.
Cade swept her around until they reached the glass doors behind her. He turned the knob, and in a second they were outside the ballroom on a terrace. Rusty tore herself from his arms and moved over to the rail. Beyond the hotel the lights of Salt Lake City glowed in the darkness. A sharp wind curled around the building and swept across the terrace.
“Are you all right?” Cade asked.
“Yes. I mean, I think so.”
“I don’t understand, Rusty. What happens when we touch is a constant surprise to me. I don’t normally react to a woman every time I hold her. But together we seem to explode.”
“I know. I’m sorry. You must think I’m crazy. It’s just that nobody but … I mean, I’ve never had a man like you be so—so obvious—before. I feel like a fool.”
Cade pulled off his jacket and placed it across Rusty’s shoulders. “You’re cold.” When she didn’t protest, he slid his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest, clasping his hands around her waist.
“It’s all right, darling,” he said softly. “It’s normal, when two people are on the same wavelength.”
“Maybe,” Rusty conceded, allowing herself to relax a bit. “But it doesn’t always work that way.”
“Rusty, have you been to the Cattleman’s Ball before?”
She tensed, trying to find the words to answer. “Once, the first year that Ben and I were
married.”
“What happened?”
“Ben and I danced once. Then he just disappeared and I had to go home alone.”
There was more here than Rusty was telling. Cade couldn’t imagine any acceptable explanation for Ben’s deserting his young wife. “Your husband disappeared? What does that mean?”
“I didn’t understand then. Later, I did. We hadn’t been married long. You see, to Ben, I was like a daughter. He could never see me as a wife. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to. He tried, but he never”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“could make love to me. That night, we were dancing. He—well, the same thing happened to him. Later he started to drink. There was a woman at the dance. He went home with her.”
“The bastard!” Cade tightened his hands around her stomach.
“No, Cade. He was just drunk.” She turned inside his arms to face him. “I’m sorry, Cade. I didn’t mean to be so silly in there. It took me a long time to understand about Ben. He never meant to hurt me. He simply couldn’t live with loving me.”
“I do understand,” Cade said in a low voice. “I’m having something of the same problem myself. About those people inside. If you brought me here to make some kind of statement, I can understand that.”
“I know it was foolish, but I was always Walt Wilder’s girl. I never fit in with the women. I didn’t know how. Since Ben’s death, they’ve tolerated me, but they’ve openly laughed at my ideas about running my ranch. I decided tonight that I’d come here and show them all that I was as much a woman as any of them, and as good a rancher too.”
“Rusty,” he said tenderly, “don’t you know that you’re the most beautiful woman in the room?”
“No. My father always said I was gawky, like my mother. She was never able to fit into Salt Lake society. She died when I was a child, so I never learned either.”
“Hell, who wants a lady? I’ll take a hellion any time. Don’t you know that what you’re seeing in there is pure jealousy from the women and pure lust from the men? You’re the best-looking, sexiest woman in the state, Rusty Wilder, and you’re mine.”
Her look was pure astonishment. “But my father said—”
“Your father was a fool, and as for your husband, I think I feel sorry for him. He must have fought a real war with himself about you. I think that in some crazy kind of way, he won.”
“Cade, I don’t believe a word you’re saying, and I understand even less. How can the fact that Ben went off with another woman and left me to be the laughingstock of the ball mean that he won anything?”
“Because if he’d stayed, he’d be thinking the same thoughts I am, and marriage license or not, that would have been morally wrong to him.”
“Ben was a fine man, Cade. Only he drank too much. He never meant to hurt me.”
“But I think he did. I think your father made you feel awkward and Ben made you feel unwanted, and they both did it to protect you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your father knew how beautiful you were going to be. You’d be a target for every fortune hunter in the state. He wanted to make you tough enough to stand on your own two feet, but he wasn’t sure that he’d succeeded. So he married you to Ben. And Ben had a real problem. He must have wanted you something awful. But he couldn’t let himself love you as anything more than Walt’s daughter.”
“But he was my husband, Cade.”
Cade tightened his grip around her waist and took a deep breath. She smelled like sweet flowers in the spring. She felt like sunshine in the winter. Cade fought the overpowering urge rising in his body. He had to stop himself from reacting to her touch. He couldn’t go around the rest of his life holding his hat in front of his lower body.
“I know,” he murmured. Cade turned Rusty around, pulling her into his arms. For a long time he just held her. “I know how he felt. The man must have been made of iron. How could he hold you and not do this?”
Even the air felt charged as Cade lowered his head. His hands gathered her to him. He angled her head back and kissed her, murmuring explicit words of desire that he didn’t even know he was saying. But she didn’t pull back. She molded herself to him, demonstrating her own needs by the hungry way she returned his kisses.
“Oh, Cade. Cade.” She called his name softly, and the calling became a plea that was more urgent with every thrust of her tongue inside his mouth.
Then the door opened, and a loud swell of music blared out into the night.
“Rusty, darling,” Ann-Marie Fleming said as she closed the door, shutting off the music. “I hate to be the one to break this up, but some of the men are having a cigar in the bar. I’ve been sent to ask Cade to join them.”
Cade pulled back, stationing Rusty between himself and the woman as he tried to still his racing pulse. Another minute and he’d have been making love to Rusty right there on the freezing patio. He took a deep breath.
“Thanks, Ann-Marie. But a cigar with a bunch of ranchers can’t even begin to compare with the company I’m keeping. Give them my regrets, will you?”
“No!” Rusty said hurriedly. “Tell them that Mr. McCall won’t be joining them, but I’ll be in shortly. I’d like to talk to them.”
“Rusty darling, this may be 1991, but the last woman who joined the men for cigars was from the Coyote Wells Saloon, and she came out of there with a new car and a diamond as big as your ruby engagement ring. I don’t think they’d think too kindly of your interfering.”
“Damn!” Rusty pulled away and took a step toward Ann-Marie, who shook her head and went back inside. “This is where it all takes place, Cade. All the under-the-table deals between the bankers, the cattle buyers, and the government officials who dole out the water rights. I won’t let them close me out. I have to get in there.”
Cade caught her by the shoulder and stopped her. “Rusty, I don’t think you’re going to do anything but make your cause worse if you intrude. I’ll go.”
Rusty stopped and glared at him. “What do you mean, you’ll go? You don’t know anything about cattle, or water, or bank loans. What can you do?”
“I’m not sure. But at least you’ll be represented. I’ll be a little mouse with big ears.”
The earnest look on his face kept Rusty from refusing. She frowned sternly. “All right. Just be sure that ears are the only thing big you carry in there. The women inside might never let you get to the bar.”
“They will, Redhead. Remember, I told you that I had to earn my keep. Now, this is where I’m going to start.”
“Cade—” She didn’t know what to say. How could she say what she wanted to accomplish without telling him the entire truth? Nobody knew how desperate she was to make Silverwild the ranch it could be. Nobody knew how dangerously low her cash reserves had dropped. She needed a loan or the promise of stud fees to keep the ranch going in style. Cade would have to help her with the men in the bar without knowing the truth.
“Okay, Cade. I’ll stay out here for a while. Then I’ll go powder my nose and wait for you.”
“I don’t want you out in the cold, darling. I want a woman who’s warm and willing, not an icicle in a shroud.” He gave her a light quick kiss, and together they went back inside. Rusty handed him his jacket and let her eyes play down his body and back.
“What do you want me to do in there, Redhead?” he asked seriously.
“I don’t know. Just play it by ear, I guess. I—I trust you, Cade.”
“No suggestions for handling the situation?”
“None,” she said softly. “Just don’t get lost. I won’t go home alone.”
“You won’t have to, Willadean,” he said solemnly. “Not ever again.”
The bar was a private room set up by the hotel for the cattlemen. There were no women present. Even the bartenders were male.
Cade accepted a drink and declined a cigar. He nodded to the men being introduced: Howard Chandler, Russ Long, and Will Fleming, whom he already knew. Yep, they were gathering, the vulture
s. He just wondered how they intended to pounce and why.
“McCall,” Howard Chandler called out, “come and meet the real money in our group—T.L. Landers and Thomas Paxton.”
“Gentlemen, Cade McCall. He’s engaged to Rusty Wilder.”
Cade blinked. He hadn’t expected the word to get out so quickly. He shook hands with the two men. “More ranchers?”
“Hell no,” Russ Long snapped, then pasted a false smile on his face. “They’re bankers. T.L. is the president of First Oklahoma Bank and Trust, and Thomas runs Gull Savings and Loan and the largest melon farm in the state. If you need somewhere to put your oil money, these fellows will be glad to take it off your hands.”
“Oh, I think my money is well invested right where it is,” Cade said dryly. A rented tuxedo and a down payment on an engagement ring was a fine investment from his point of view.
“Yes,” Howard Chandler observed, “that’s what old Walt thought, too, when he married Rusty’s mother. She had the money. He had the land. Trouble was, he didn’t give her room to breathe. Always thought she gave up and died just to get out from under his thumb. Never thought Rusty would stick it out after Ben died. Guess there’s more to her than old Walt thought.”
“So you’re engaged to Rusty Wilder,” Thomas Paxton commented with a hard look at Cade as he turned to the bar. “I’m not surprised.”
“Oh? Why?” Cade would liked to have questioned Howard more, but the confidential tone of Paxton’s voice seemed more important. Cade turned and followed the banker, planting his foot on the rail and turning his back to the other men who’d turned to greet a late arrival.
“Well, considering the state of affairs out at Silverwild I can understand why she’d find herself a rich husband.”
“What makes you think that it isn’t me who’s finding himself a rich wife?”
“Because,” Thomas said quietly, “I know how desperate her situation is. Whatever your arrangement with Rusty is, McCall, you’d be wise to advise her to take advantage of my final offer.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“I’ll give her the loan, all right, but only if she gives me the water rights to the runoff at the top of the valley.”
