by Diana Palmer
She was a rock in hard times. He hadn’t realized how much he counted on her presence for comfort, for security. Now that comfort was removed, perhaps forever, and her absence was like a hole inside him that nothing could ever fill again. He forced his attention back to the computer screen, grateful that he still had his vision, even if he lost everything else. Not that he was going to advertise his recovery. Not yet.
Impulsively he closed down the spreadsheet and logged on to the Internet. He wanted to know where his nemesis was and what illegal activities might have prompted the attack on Cord in Miami. With a smile of pure arrogance, he walked into the back door of a government agency and right into the protected files on one Raoul Gruber, who had connections in the Cote d’Ivoire of Africa, in Madrid, and in Amsterdam….
2
After a mostly sleepless night, Cord sat down to breakfast. He’d gone over the latest herd records with June’s father the day before, and he was satisfied with the breeding program and the sales figures. He’d called down to the bunkhouse for Red Davis last night to discuss a problem with some irrigation equipment, since Red had charge of ranch equipment and supplies, but the cowboy who answered the phone said Davis was off on a date, as usual. Cord wondered how a man with such a cocky attitude and such a big mouth could draw so many women. His own social life was stagnant by comparison. But that suited him, he told himself. He had no time for women.
The back door opened just as he finished his last bite of egg and biscuit, and Davis walked in yawning. His hat was pushed far back over his red hair and he was neat as a pin, in blue jeans and a short-sleeved checked shirt. He was twenty-seven, years younger than Cord, but he seemed even younger at times. Cord mused that he’d lived through more than Davis probably ever would. It wasn’t the age, didn’t they say, but the mileage that made people old. If he were a used car, he thought, he’d be in a junkyard.
“I heard you were looking for me last night, boss,” Davis said at once, pulling out a chair to straddle. “Sorry, I had a date.”
“You always have a date,” Cord muttered, sipping coffee.
Davis grinned wickedly. “Have to make hay while the sun shines. One day, I’ll be ancient and decrepit like you.”
Cord’s mouth drew down sardonically. “And I’d just decided to give you a raise!”
“I’d rather have girls hanging out of my truck,” Davis said, but he grinned again.
“Never mind. We’ve got problems with that irrigation system again,” he added. “I want you to get that serviceman out there and tell him I want it fixed this time, repaired with new parts, not held together with duct tape and baling wire.”
“I told him that last time.”
“Then call the customer service people and tell them to send somebody else. The equipment’s still under warranty,” he added. “If they can’t fix it, they shouldn’t sell it. I want it up and running by tomorrow. Okay?”
“Okay, boss, I’ll give it my best. But you probably should have a lawyer talk to them about their customer service department. I think they employ robots.”
Cord stifled a grin. “You took computer courses. Reprogram them.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Davis said, chuckling. But he didn’t get up. He stared at his boss, hesitating.
“Something bothering you?” Cord asked bluntly.
Davis traced a pattern on the back of the wooden chair he was straddling. “Yeah. Something. I promised I wouldn’t tell, but I think you should know.”
“Know what?” Cord asked absently as he finished his coffee.
“Miss Barton had a suitcase with her,” he said, noting the sudden attention the older man gave him. “She came straight here from the airport. She was in Morocco. She said it took her three days just to get home. She was dead on her feet.”
Remembering his cold treatment of her, Cord was shocked. “She was in Morocco? What in hell for?” he burst out.
“She said she’d just taken a job overseas. She was having a holiday with a girlfriend on the way. She came rushing back to see about you.” The younger man’s eyes became accusing. “She was walking back to Houston with her suitcase when I drove up beside her. I drove her to town.”
Cord felt the sickness in the pit of his stomach like acid. The expression that washed over his handsome features knocked the outrage right out of Davis’s eyes.
“Where did you take her?” Cord asked in a subdued tone and without meeting the other man’s gaze.
“The Lone Star Hotel downtown,” he replied.
Cord made an awkward movement. “Thanks, Davis,” he said curtly.
“You bet. I’ll get on that irrigation system,” Davis added as he rose.
“Do that.” Cord didn’t even see him go. He was reliving that painful few minutes with Maggie. He hadn’t told her that he was hurt because he’d thought she’d waited to come and see about him. He’d assumed that she’d been in town and reluctant to come around him. But she’d come halfway around the world as fast as she could, just to take care of him. He’d misread the whole situation and sent her packing. Now she’d be wounded and angry, and she’d go away again; maybe somewhere that he couldn’t even find her. That hurt.
He put his head in his hands with a groan. The most painful realization was that she’d taken a job far away. He remembered calling her and going by her apartment without getting an answer in the past two weeks. Now he knew why. She’d left the country. She’d given up trying to get his attention, and he hadn’t even noticed her departure. That must have hurt her. Maggie was proud. She wouldn’t beg for his interest. After all the years of being pushed away by him, she’d decided to cut her losses. If he hadn’t been injured, and Eb Scott hadn’t tracked her down in Morocco and told her about it, he wouldn’t even have known where she was. She’d have been gone for good.
Now that he knew the truth, it didn’t solve the problem. It only complicated things. He wondered if it wouldn’t be kinder to just let her go, let her think he didn’t care about her, let her think that he was involved with June. But he was oddly reluctant to do that. It made him ashamed to think how much she cared, to come all that way, to sacrifice so much, because she was concerned for him.
There was only one thing to do. He had to go and find her, and tell her how badly he’d misjudged her. Then, if she left, at least they wouldn’t part with a sword between them.
He had one of his ranch hands drive him into town, wearing dark glasses to maintain the fiction about his lack of sight. He got Maggie’s room number from the hotel desk, on the pretext of phoning her later. Then he ducked into the elevator, went up to her room, and easily let himself in with skills learned in a dozen covert operations around the world.
She was asleep in a huge double bed, moving restlessly. It was warm in the room, but she was huddled under the covers as if it were winter. He’d never known her to sleep with the sheet off, even in the hottest summer night when the air-conditioning in Mrs. Barton’s house was on the blink. Odd, that he’d never noticed that before…
She looked younger when she slept. He remembered the first time he’d ever seen her, when she was eight. She was clutching a ragged toy bear and she looked as if she’d seen hell and lived to tell about it. She didn’t smile. She hid behind Mrs. Barton’s ample girth and looked at Cord as if he were responsible for the seven deadly sins.
It had taken weeks for her to come near him. She loved Mrs. Barton, but she was uneasy around boys or men. He attributed that to her age. But as she grew older, she began to cling to Cord. He was her source of stability. She anchored herself to him and hid from any sort of social activity. Despite the age difference, she became possessive of him. When he got in trouble at the age of eighteen and was faced with the possibility of going to jail, it was Maggie who sat beside him and held his hand while Mrs. Barton had hysterics and became the voice of doom. Maggie, in her quiet, gentle way, gave him the comfort and strength he needed to face his problems and overcome them.
She’d only bee
n ten years old, but she had a maturity even then that was surprising. She was an introvert by nature, but she seemed to sense that Cord needed someone bright and happy to bring out the best in him. So she developed a sense of humor and picked at Cord and teased him and made him play. Maggie had taught him how to laugh.
He studied her wan, drawn face on the white pillowcase and wondered why he’d always treated her as an outsider. He was alternately hostile and sarcastic, never kind or welcoming. Maggie had done more for him than anyone in his life except their foster parent. Maybe, he pondered, it was because she knew him so well. Despite his spiny outward appearance, Maggie knew him right inside, where he lived. She knew that he had nightmares about the night his parents had died in a hotel fire. She knew that he was haunted by Patricia’s suicide. She knew that when he was being his most sarcastic, he was hiding wounds. He couldn’t hide anything from Maggie.
But she hid her whole life from him. He knew next to nothing about her, really. She’d been a sad, frightened, jumpy child with odd moods and terrors. She’d avoided relationships like the devil, yet she’d married a man she hardly knew, a much-older man, and been married and widowed in weeks. She never spoke of her husband. She was job-oriented and somber as a judge usually. Even a brief engagement to his friend Eb Scott hadn’t really softened her much, long before her marriage to Evans. He’d wondered at the outward distance she seemed to keep from Eb. It hadn’t made sense, until later, when he understood the magnitude of his misconceptions about her.
She looked so fragile, so vulnerable, lying there. Even in sleep, she looked tormented. She looked tired. No wonder. Flying all the way from Morocco without a pause, and then out to his ranch only to be turned away practically at the door. He hadn’t even asked if she had a way back to town. That was harsh. Even for him.
He hesitated for an instant before he reached out and touched her arm through the cotton fabric that concealed it.
Maggie was dreaming. She was walking through a field of wildflowers in the sun. In the distance, a man was laughing, holding out his arms to her—a tall, dark-haired man. She ran toward him, ran as fast as she could, but she never closed the distance. He watched her from afar, like a cat toying with a desperate mouse. Cord, she thought. It was Cord, and he was taunting her as he always had. She could hear his voice, hear it as clearly as if it were in the room with her…
A hand was shaking her, hard. She moaned in protest. She didn’t want to wake up. If she woke up, Cord wouldn’t be there anymore.
“Maggie!” came the deep, insistent voice.
She gasped and opened her eyes. She wasn’t dreaming. Cord was sitting on the edge of her bed, one lean hand beside her head on the pillow supporting his leaning posture.
He studied her face, devoid of makeup, framed by long, wavy dark hair in soft tangles. She was wearing pajamas, a jacket and pants that covered her up completely. It used to puzzle him that Maggie dressed in a luxurious but conventional style to go to work, and she slept in the most unisex clothing she could find. She never wore sexy clothes, even when she’d been a teenager, and she never walked around in her nightclothes, even when she was little and they were living with Mrs. Barton. He wondered why he’d never noticed that before.
She focused on him and her face clenched. “What are you doing here?”
He grimaced. “Field-dressing crow. I’m sure it’ll taste terrible, too.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
He shrugged one powerful shoulder. He didn’t like admitting his faults, but he owed her. “I didn’t know you were in Morocco. I thought you were right here in Houston, and that you’d waited four days to drive out to see about me.”
Her heart ran wild. Cord had never explained anything to her. Over the years, she’d become accustomed to his barbed remarks, his hostility, his sarcasm. He’d never apologized or shown any signs of caring what she thought about him.
Her eyes drank in his strong, handsome face. “Maybe I’m still asleep,” she murmured.
“Pity,” he said, studying her drowsy face with a faint smile. “I don’t apologize very often.”
She watched him. “You didn’t tell Eb you wanted me to come at all, did you?”
He hated to admit that. She looked as cynical as he usually did. But he wasn’t accustomed to lies. “No,” he replied honestly.
She laughed ruefully. “I should have known that.”
“Why were you going to work in Qawi?” he asked abruptly.
“I was in a rut,” she said simply. “I needed a change. I wanted adventure.”
“You lost your job because of me,” he persisted, frowning.
“Big deal! There are jobs everywhere, and I have a good background in investments. I’ll find something. Preferably,” she added teasingly, “in a multinational corporation, so that I can work overseas and never get in your hair again.”
“Why do you want to leave the country?” he asked irritably.
“What is there for me here?” she countered simply. “I’m twenty-six, Cord. If I don’t do something, I’ll dry up and blow away. I don’t want to spend the best years of my life commuting to downtown Houston to play with numbers. I’m not a baby anymore. If I have to work, at least I can choose something in an exotic location. Preferably something adventurous, and exciting,” she said as an afterthought.
He frowned. “Why do you have to work?” he asked suddenly. “Amy left us both a little money. Besides, Bart Evans had an extensive stock portfolio and you were his widow.”
Her face hardened. “I didn’t take one penny of his money. Not property, not stocks, not savings. Nothing!”
That was surprising. “Why not?”
She lowered her eyes to the coverlet and closed them briefly under a wave of pain she didn’t want him to see. “He cost me the most precious thing in my life,” she said in a husky, throbbing tone.
That was an enigmatic statement. He didn’t understand it. “Nobody forced you to marry him,” he pointed out, and with more bitterness than he realized.
That’s what you think, she thought to herself, but she didn’t say it aloud. She crumpled the coverlet under her bright pink fingernails and looked up at him bravely. “I had his estate divided between his two ex-wives.”
He laughed shortly in surprise. “You did what?”
“You heard me,” she remarked with a shrug. She let go of her grip on the bedspread. “I thought they deserved the money more than I did. They lived with him longer than I did. He had no living relatives.”
His dark eyes narrowed. He’d been curious about her marriage for a long time. He’d never mentioned it to her, because she closed up like a clam when her husband’s name came up. She never discussed it. But it had left scars on her emotions that were obvious to anyone with a grain of sensitivity.
“Not a happy marriage, Maggie?” he asked quietly.
“No.” She met his eyes evenly. “And that’s the only thing I’ll ever say about it,” she added firmly. “Digging up the past solves nothing.”
He studied her wan face. “I used to think that way, too. But the past shapes the future. I never got over Patricia’s death.”
“I know.”
She said it in an odd sort of way. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“You aren’t exactly Don Juan these days,” she pointed out.
He bristled with stung pride. It was true that he didn’t have affairs, or spend a lot of time living the life of a playboy, but he didn’t like her knowing it. His dark eyes flashed. “You know nothing about that side of my life,” he said coldly. “And you never will.”
There was a brief, incredulous look on her face, and he could have bitten his tongue. They’d slept together, once, even if it wasn’t a memory she liked. She knew him in a way few women ever had. It was a thoughtless remark.
“On second thought,” he began abruptly.
She held up a hand. “You said it yourself, digging up the past doesn’t solve anything.”
He d
rew in a long, slow breath. “I hurt you.”
Her face flamed. She wasn’t going to get trapped into that conversation. “Let it go, Cord. It all happened a long time ago. Now I have to get up and start job-hunting. If you don’t mind going out of here so I can get dressed…?”
But he wouldn’t leave it alone. “You’re twenty-six and a widow,” he said shortly, irritated by her embarrassment. “And I know every inch of you. So stop acting coy.”
Her teeth clenched so hard she thought she might chip them. Her eyes were furious. “You have no idea how much I hate the memory of that night,” she said spitefully.
The words stung, as she meant them to. He got to his feet abruptly and noticed how she dragged the covers up to her chin, as if she couldn’t bear him to look at her body at all.
“You must have noticed that I was drunk,” he said curtly. “If I hadn’t been, I’d never have touched you!”
“I drank too much myself,” she shot back. “Or I’d never have let you touch me!”
“Having made ourselves clear on that point,” he added, turning away from her. “I’m sorry about what happened.”
He sounded as if he was about to choke on the words. She noticed that his face was clenched as tightly as her fingers.
“Two apologies in one day,” she said with mock surprise. “Do you have something fatal and you’re trying to win points with God while there’s still time?”
He laughed faintly. “You could be forgiven for thinking so, I suppose.” He turned and looked at her for a long time, as if he needed to reconcile his memory of her with the reality. “You were eight when we came to live with Mrs. Barton. That means you’ve been part of my life for eighteen years.” His eyes grew contemplative. “I’ve given you nothing but hostility, all that time. But the minute I get in trouble or get hurt, you come running. Why?”
