“I was a different person then,” she said, her voice low. “My parents were still alive and I was just a kid, really.”
“As was I.” She dropped her gaze. He still had her in his arms, but he felt the distance between them. “What is it?”
“Rafe, what happened between you and Mac?”
He supposed that he should appreciate the fact that Violet had phrased it as a question and not an accusation. “It does not signify,” he said, his jaw tight. The effort of keeping his voice light was more taxing than he might have anticipated. “What happened was a lifetime ago. I was, as you said, a different person then. It has no bearing on us at this moment.”
“But...”
Rafe did the only reasonable thing he could, given the situation. He kissed Violet, hard. She stood stiffly in his arms for a moment but then relaxed into him.
“It does not signify,” he repeated, tucking her against his chest. “I am not here for your brother. I am here for you. I am here for our child. Our family.”
Odder still that as he said it, it did not feel like a lie.
It felt very much like the truth.
He was surprised to see her eyes fill with unshed tears. “Are you unwell?” he asked hurriedly.
“I’m fine,” she said, giving him a watery smile and dabbing at her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve. “It’s just the hormones. Okay. Whoo.” She exhaled heavily and put on a brighter smile for him. “There.”
He was not entirely convinced. “I can still have a private doctor here inside of twenty-four hours.”
She waved this suggestion away. “I’m fine,” she repeated. “It’s just that you have no idea how refreshing it is to know that you don’t care about going through my brother.”
Ah, yes. His scheme. The one that now hinged on convincing this woman that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him so that she would turn her back on Mac. He wanted to be impressed that it was going so smoothly, but as she blotted at another stray tear, that was not the emotion that welled in his chest.
“In my country, it is customary to ask permission of a woman’s father before you court her,” he told her. “Or, if her father is not available, her oldest living male relative.”
Violet held her breath. “Oh? You’re not going to do that now, are you? I haven’t even told Mac about my pregnancy or anything.”
“No,” he assured her, wrapping his arms around her again and pulling her against his chest. “You forget something.”
“What’s that?”
“We are not in my country.”
Her head lifted and this time, her smile was not forced. “We’re not, are we?”
“Not even close. So,” he said, cupping her cheek in his hand. “Let us eat this delicious meal and then you can show me what you do. For our child will be a bin Saleed and there are expectations that go along with that, but that child will also be a McCallum and it would be best if they knew how to manage a ranch, would it not?”
Her expression should not make him feel this, well, good. Nothing about her except for the sex should make him feel this good. But everything about her did. “It would. And tonight? Will you stay again?”
“I will not leave your side until you tell me to go.”
“Good,” she said. “Then I want you to stay.”
* * *
Watching Rafe mount Two Bit was a thing of beauty and quite possibly a joy forever. Good heavens, that man in a pair of blue jeans was the stuff of dreams, Violet decided. She wouldn’t have guessed that Rafe could so easily slip into the role of a cowboy but, appearance-wise, he was doing just that. The jeans and the button-down shirt with mother-of-pearl buttons looked completely natural on his athletic form. Hell, he even pulled the hat off with plenty of grit to spare.
Who would have guessed that her sheikh was hiding a cowboy underneath those dark eyes and smoldering gazes? It was hard to disguise the imperial lift of his chin, though.
“Two Bit,” he said as he got his seat in the Western saddle. He took up the reins in two hands, but caught himself and switched both to one hand. “That is a quarter of a dollar, correct?”
“Yup. But he’s also a quarter horse. All my cutting horses are,” Violet said, swinging up onto Skipper’s back. Rafe’s eyes got wide. “Oh, come on. I’m only a little bit pregnant. Skipper’s a good old mare and I’ve been riding her for years. Trust me, there’s nothing dangerous about this. In three or four months, maybe. But I have no plans to ride hell-for-leather today.”
“All right,” he said doubtfully. “Where are we going?”
“We’ve been working calves,” she explained, gathering Skipper’s reins and heading toward the northwest pasture. “We castrate them, brand them and vaccinate them all at one time. But we do that in the morning, when the sun’s low and it’s still cool. Puts less stress on the animal. So now, we’re going to move the calves and the cows from the pasture where we worked them this morning to a different pasture and then round up another group and shuffle them in so they’ll be ready to be worked tomorrow morning.”
As she talked, she kept a close eye on Rafe’s face. What would he think of her after that little lecture? Because thus far, he’d mostly only seen her in dresses at hotels and restaurants. But that wasn’t who she really was.
This—crap on her boots, wearing blue jeans and half chaps that covered her thighs—this was who she was.
Could he handle it? Or would his vision of his beautiful, mysterious V be destroyed by a whole lot of cows?
“I gather that being a ranch manager is a hands-on job,” he said without wincing at the word castrate.
Which was impressive. Most of the men around here—men who castrated plenty of calves on their own—got a look of dread on their faces when Violet said the word out loud.
“It is,” she agreed.
“What will you do when you are no longer able to—what is the phrase? Saddle up and ride?”
She shot him a smile. “Good! I’ve got a good crew. I’ll have to hire a few more hands and my crew leader, Dale, will have to take on a bit more responsibility.” It wasn’t going to be easy to back away from her position like that, but at a certain point when her belly just got too big, she was going to have to accept reality. “We have a Gator, a minitruck I can use to get out into the pastures.”
“And when the baby comes?” His tone was not judgmental, nor was he issuing any sort of edicts. Thank heavens for that.
She laughed, but she didn’t miss the way it sounded nervous to her own ears. “I’m still working on that. I’ve only been aware of this pregnancy for a couple of days.”
“Ah, yes. I am sorry. One day at a time, correct?”
“Correct.”
He was silent for a while and they rode on. Violet pointed out land features as they went. “That’s our spring and over there? Those empty concrete pads? That’s where our water tanks were,” she said. “The tornado ripped our tanks right off their moorings like they were empty pop cans.”
“But you could have replaced the tanks, yes?”
“We did. But the spring got messed up. We’re not sure what happened—before the tornado, the spring was fine and we had water reserves in abundance. But after the tornado, the cows refused to drink the water and our reserves were gone. Mac thought maybe some fracking that had been happening to our east had something to do with it, but we’re not sure.”
“But you have water now, correct?”
“Yup. Our tanks are now up on the property line dividing the Double M and the Wild Aces. The Aces has a bunch of springs, including one not that far from the property line. It’s the only reason Mac agreed to leasing the Wild Aces—for the water.”
Rafe thought this over for a while. “Why did he not allow you to buy the land? You obviously want it.”
Violet sighed so heavily that Skipper’s ears swiveled back. She leaned forward to pat the horse’s neck in reassurance. “I don’t know.” Rafe turned in his saddle to give her a look. “No, really, I don’t. I don’t know if he thinks I’m incapable of being on my own or if he just feels more in control of the world if I’m under the same roof. He wasn’t here when our parents died and I’m not sure he’s ever forgiven himself for it.”
“So he did not make a wise business decision because...something might happen to you?” Rafe sounded genuinely confused by this.
“As best I can guess.” Rafe was staring at her as if he understood the words, but the meaning was lost on him. “What? Didn’t your family try to protect you?”
“Ah,” Rafe said in a way that Violet was pretty sure meant no. “I believe the whole reason my father had children—aside from Fareed, who is the ruler—was to use them to make ‘wise business decisions,’ as you have said.”
Use? Had he really just said use like that, like it was this common thing? Sure, her parents expected her and Mac to do their fair share of chores around the ranch, starting when she was three and had the job of making sure the horses’ water buckets in the barn were full, but that wasn’t the same kind of expectation as being used for business-related purposes. “Really? Didn’t your parents love you?”
“My mother, I am sure, felt affection toward us.”
Now it was Violet’s turn to stare. “‘Felt affection’? Didn’t she ever tell you she loved you?”
Rafe was silent for far too long and she wasn’t sure if the conversation was over or not. Maybe this cultural divide was bigger than she’d thought?
But then Rafe said, “Love is a weakness and weaknesses can be used against you,” in such a way that a chill ran down her spine.
“That sounds...awful.”
“It was quite normal for us. It is not until you get out into the world and see how other people live that you begin to question your upbringing.”
“I never got out into the world,” she said quietly. “I’ve never left home.”
“But you will. You will always have a place in Al Qunfudhah as the mother of a royal child.”
Another shudder ran through her. Was this what awaited her in this far-off desert country? A royal life with a man who had been raised to believe that showing love—or even affection—to a baby was a weakness?
But how did that mesh with the man who whispered sweet words in that liquid-honey voice of his, who brought her an expensive necklace symbolizing their birthdays and the future birthday of their baby? A man who had promised he’d look into the Wild Aces for her?
Was that love?
Or was it a wise business decision?
“It was not until I went to Harvard that I saw things could be different,” Rafe went on, missing her stunned silence. “I was quite unsure how to understand your brother’s closeness to his family, to you.”
And then there was that—that unspoken event involving Rafe, his sister and Mac that had destroyed the two men’s friendship. Earlier in the kitchen, Rafe had spoken of that time as if it were his fondest memory. It was obvious that Rafe had considered Mac a brother then.
But there were other instances when the mention of Mac’s name brought a hard edge to Rafe’s eyes—a hardness that Violet couldn’t overlook. And she had to wonder what, exactly, Rafe thought of her brother now.
“Were you close to your brothers and sisters growing up?” she asked in a careful tone.
“I did try to protect the younger ones.” He gave her a rueful smile. “On that, your brother and I agreed.” He turned his gaze away. “To a point.”
“And you’re not going to tell me what happened? Does it somehow not ‘signify’?”
Rafe attempted a careless shrug but, unlike the hat and boots, he couldn’t pull it off. She got the feeling that careless wasn’t in his vocabulary. “In the end, it was for the best. Nasira was promised to a warlord much older than she and, once she was ruined, the warlord released her from her obligations. After that, my father no longer cared what she did, so she was able to leave Al Qunfudhah and marry a man more to her liking.”
Ruined. That was, hands down, the ugliest word Violet had ever heard. And Rafe had said it so easily, as if he now thought less of his sister for what she’d done with Mac.
Was that it? Mac and Nasira had taken a liking to each other and Rafe disapproved because he believed Mac had ruined his sister?
Doubt flickered through her mind. This thing with Rafe was happening so fast—was the attraction between them real or was there something else going on here?
“I’m happy for her,” she managed to get out in a tight voice. “I’d love to meet her sometime.”
“I shall arrange it. But I do not know if she will come to Texas. She resides in England with her husband. They are quite happy, I believe.”
They were silent for a bit longer as they approached the pasture where her cows and calves were anxious to begin the trip back out to the wide-open spaces. “Would it be possible to ride out to this other ranch, the Wild Aces, after we are done here? I would love for you to show it to me.”
“Yeah.”
Rafe looked out over the spring Texas landscape and sighed. There was something in his face—something that looked more relaxed than she’d seen him yet. “It is your dream, is it not?”
“It is.” Violet nudged Skipper into a trot. “So let’s get moving.”
Seven
Violet’s workers greeted her warmly and they all tipped their hats to Rafe. No one questioned her statement that Rafe was an old friend of Mac’s visiting. And, Rafe noted, no one questioned her skills.
One of the workers swung open a gate and the calves came hurrying out. Rafe watched with interest as the larger cows and smaller calves all paired off. The noise was something new to him. They did not exactly have herds of cattle wandering around Al Qunfudhah. Camels, yes. Arabian horses, yes. Cattle? No.
“Rafe,” Violet called. “To your left—we’ve got a straggler!”
Rafe twisted in his saddle and saw a cow leaving the group as it was herded north. The animal was moving at a good pace and the distance between it and the rest of the cows was quickly growing.
“What should I do?” he called back. He did not miss the way several of the cowboys laughed under their breath at him.
Embarrassment burned at his ears, but he kept his attention on Violet. “Try to get in front of the cow,” she called back. “I’ll be right there.”
Rafe touched his heels to the horse’s side. He may not know the best way to retrieve a wayward cow, but he would be damned if he allowed this beast to outrun him on horseback.
Two Bit leaped into a flat-out run. Rafe held the reins awkwardly in one hand, but the horse responded to his heels wonderfully. Rafe gave the animal his head and trusted his footing.
Behind him, he heard a loud whoop, but he did not know if it was Violet or one of the men who had laughed at him.
Rafe smiled as he leaned over Two Bit’s neck. The wind ripped his hat from his head, but he didn’t give it a moment’s thought.
Oh, how he loved to ride. His father had kept a stable of prizewinning Arabian horses and expected his children to ride and ride well. Anything less than expert horsemanship would have brought shame upon the bin Saleed house.
Rafe’s daily rides were the time of his greatest joys, for then, he was free.
Just as he felt free now. The wind ripped at his clothes as he urged Two Bit to go faster. They shot past the stray cow and then, using only his knees, Rafe got Two Bit turned back. The horse stopped and spun, startling the cow to such a degree that the animal froze.
They all stood there, Rafe and Two Bit and the cow, as if none of them were sure what to do next. He had done as Violet had told him—he had gotte
n ahead of the cow and the animal had stopped. But now what?
Out of nowhere, a looped rope sailed through the air and landed around the neck of the cow. “Gotcha,” Violet said, trotting up.
“You roped that cow in one shot? I am impressed,” Rafe said, watching as Violet tied the other end of the rope around the horn of her Western saddle and began to pull the stubborn cow back to the herd.
She shot him a smile. “Get up, Bossy,” she snapped at the cow, who reluctantly began to move.
When the cow was safely back with its brethren and she had removed her rope, one of the other cowboys rode up to Rafe and said, “Oowee, man—that was some fancy riding! Didn’t expect that from a city slicker—no offense.”
He looked at the man with a bemused smile. “None taken. I normally ride Arabians, but this is quite a mount.” He leaned forward and patted the horse’s neck as he glanced at Violet. “I believe Two Bit is worth far more than twenty-five cents.”
Everyone laughed at that—but this time, they weren’t laughing at Rafe. And he once again had that out-of-time experience where this whole thing could have easily happened twelve years ago, except with Mac by his side instead of Violet.
He was glad, however, that it was Violet by his side now.
“I trained him myself,” Violet said as they spread out along the vast herd of cattle to keep any more from wandering off.
“He rode beautifully. I have not spent much time on other horses besides my own—but it was wonderful.”
“Cowboy,” Violet said, giving him a look that heated his blood, “any time you want to come back and ride hell for leather, you just let me know.”
* * *
It was some hours later, with the sun already setting, when Violet said farewell to her workers. The cowboys all departed, but Violet and Rafe stayed out in the pastures on horseback, riding farther away from the Double M.
“You are quite good at this,” Rafe said. They were speaking softly. With dusk closing in around them, the sky lighting up in golds and reds like a tapestry woven of the finest silk, Rafe felt as if the world had been made just for them.
A Surprise for the Sheikh Page 8
