A Willing Wife

by Jackie Merritt

  “He’s all boy, Maggie. Let me ask you something. Would you mind if I took him riding sometime?”

  “He’s never been on a horse, Dallas. Papa told him he would teach him to ride, but he hasn’t had the time yet.”

  “I’d put him on our most gentle horse, Maggie, and guarantee his safety. For that matter, you could come with us and see for yourself that he’s all right.”

  While she was trying to think of a response to that somewhat troubling invitation, Dallas’s expression became caressing and intimate. “Know what I’d like to do right now?” he said softly. “Make love to you, Maggie. You’re just about the only thing I’ve thought of since we talked yesterday.”

  She knew she should feel insulted: no man had ever spoken his mind so clearly to her before. But she was stunned because instead she felt overheated and achy in personal places.

  “You—you don’t mean what you just said,” she whispered hoarsely. “We don’t even know each other.”

  “We grew up together.”

  “Knowing each other as kids doesn’t mean we know each other now.”

  “You’re evading the issue. Will you go out with me tonight?”

  Maggie felt as though a steel band around her chest was cutting off her air supply. “So we—we can make love? How dare you even suggest such a thing!”

  “You’re trying very hard to be angry, aren’t you? Surely you don’t prefer that a man hide his true feelings and seduce you when you’re not looking.” Dallas set his glass on the table next to his chair and then leaned forward. “Maggie, with you I think everything should be out in the open. I was struck dumb by you yesterday. You’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen, but there’s more to you than an incredible face and body. You hit me precisely where it counts for a man, and I thank you with all my heart for that.”

  “So I should sleep with you just because you—you feel grateful for something I didn’t even know I did?”

  “Not sleep, Maggie. I doubt that we’d be doing much sleeping. I need to know something. Where’s your husband?”

  “You don’t even know I’m divorced—and you’re asking me to go to bed with you? That does it!” Jumping to her feet, Maggie angrily advanced on the crudest man she’d ever known. “So you want to take Travis riding? You louse, you actually have the gall to use my son as an excuse to get to me! Well, read my lips, Mr. Fortune. I will never, let me repeat, never, have one personal moment with you! Is that clear enough?”

  She’d made a tactical error. Dallas recognized it, Maggie didn’t. In her fury she’d gotten close enough to Dallas that it was a simple matter for him to reach out, take her by the waist and pull her down on his lap. She didn’t want to scream and risk scaring Travis outside, but she wiggled and fought and did her best to scratch out Dallas Fortune’s whiskey-colored eyes!

  “So you’re a little wildcat,” Dallas said with a satisfied laugh after catching her flailing hands in his. “I figured you were. Come closer, little wildcat, and let me tame you.”

  Maggie never did know how he managed to hold both her hands and press on the back of her head at the same time, but the next thing she did know was that his mouth was devouring hers. Fighting him did no good, so she did exactly the opposite. She sat statue-still until he stopped kissing her and looked at her with puzzled eyes.

  “You didn’t like being kissed like that?” he asked.

  “I don’t like anything about you!” she shrieked loudly enough to endanger his eardrums. Remembering Travis just outside, she lowered her voice. “Take your hands off of me and get the hell out of this house, you…you Fortune!”

  Dallas’s heart sank clear to his toes. He’d completely misread Maggie Perez. She might look sexy as sin, but she obviously preferred a more gentlemanly approach from a man.

  “Maggie, I— I’m sorry,” he stammered, red-faced and embarrassed over the way he’d talked to her. “Look, I can explain everything I did and said here today.”

  “Are you going to let go of me?”

  Dallas quickly released her hands and held up his own. “Whatever you say.”

  Maggie leaped off his lap, crossed to the other side of the room, then turned around and hit him with a murderous look. “I have never been treated so—so boorishly by a man in my entire life. You Fortunes think you can do anything you want, don’t you? Well, your caveman tactics leave me cold, and I’d just as soon never set eyes on you again.” She took a breath. “And to think my mother believes you’re an honorable man!” she spat scornfully.

  Dallas got up. “Maggie, I am an honorable man. If you’ll let me explain—”

  “Not today!” Maggie pointed at the door. “Get out!”

  With a hangdog expression, Dallas walked to the door. But he couldn’t leave without one more stab at making her understand. He looked at her pleadingly.

  “I wasn’t conning you about how I feel about Travis. He’s a great little kid, and I really would like to be his friend.”

  “Go to hell! If I told my dad or brother what you tried, they’d…they’d—” She stopped herself. This man’s family was her father’s employer. Her mother’s, too. And Dallas himself was her brother’s business partner. Oh, God, she thought miserably.

  “What did I try, Maggie? Was kissing you really that terrible?”

  She didn’t yell again, but the disdain in her voice was thick enough to slice. “You didn’t just kiss me. You asked me to go to bed with you.”

  “Well, obviously I shouldn’t have spoken so plainly, and I apologize. But I can’t help wanting you,” he said quietly. “You’re the first woman who’s made me feel like a man since my wife died. That was two years ago.” Dallas took a deep breath. “Guess I’d better go. If you change your mind about anything—”

  “Good Lord, I’m not going to change my mind! Just go!” Maggie threw up her hands.

  “Okay. Don’t get mad again. See ya, Maggie.” Dallas went out the door.

  “Not if I see you first,” Maggie fumed under her breath, then dashed to the window to make sure he didn’t do something else crazy when Travis was out in the yard alone.

  Dallas walked up to the boy. “Trav, would you like to keep that hat?”

  It was way too big for a child, but Travis beamed. “Could I? I’ve been wanting a hat like this one, Dallas.”

  “It’s yours, son. I’ll be going now.”

  “Will you come and see us again?”

  Dallas glanced at the house and sighed. “I’d sure like to, Trav. I’d sure like to.”

  The second he’d driven away, Maggie ran outside. “Travis, why didn’t Dallas take his hat?”

  “He gave it to me, Mama. He said I could keep it.”

  “Oh.” Maggie slowly turned and went back inside. Had she ever been more disappointed in a person than she was in Dallas Fortune? How could he have been so nice yesterday and so awful today? Oh, the things he’d said!

  Maggie paced the house with her arms wrapped around herself. Something was wrong with her; she felt hot and cold at the same time.

  Finally her emotions got the better of her. She collapsed on the sofa and cried her eyes out.

  Cruz dropped in that afternoon, and Maggie threw herself at her brother to give him a big hug. He laughed and hugged her back.

  “I wish you’d come around more often,” Maggie scolded, thinking that if she was ever going to tell her family about Dallas’s arrogant and insulting pass, this was her chance to do it. But, Lord, the stink it would cause! No, she couldn’t tell anyone. She would handle Dallas Fortune by herself.

  Cruz grinned. “Savannah and I have both been really busy. You’re looking good, Maggie.”

  She felt better just because her brother was here. “Did you see Travis?”

  “No, where is he?”

  “In the yard.” Maggie went to the kitchen window. “He’s not in the yard! Oh, Cruz, he almost felt into a corral of longhorns yesterday, and I’ve threatened him with everything from a paddling to a week o
f sitting on a chair in the house if he left the yard again. What am I going to do with that boy?” She went outside and shouted, “Travis! Where are you? Travis, answer me!”

  “I’ll go and find him,” Cruz offered. “He probably just wandered off again.”

  “Cruz, he’s only five years old,” Maggie wailed.

  “But he’s a Perez, Maggie.”

  “Which makes him immortal? I don’t think so, Cruz. Come on, you go one way and I’ll go another. I’ve got to find him before he pulls another naughty-little-boy trick and gets himself really hurt this time. He thinks he’s tough, you know, and he doesn’t have the strength of a flea.”

  Cruz laughed again as he walked off, conveying a boys-will-be-boys attitude. Ignoring it for the time being, Maggie headed for the corrals and barns, because that was where she’d found Travis yesterday. Cruz could laugh off her motherly concern, but her son’s disobedience was no laughing matter for Maggie. This time he was definitely going to be punished, she promised herself.

  Unless he’s hurt! she thought with a burst of panic that caused her to start running. Travis wasn’t anywhere near the corrals, and she started peering into outbuildings. Spotting the huge horse barn where the Fortunes had always stabled their best horses, Maggie’s heart skipped a beat. With the hat that Dallas had given him, Travis might be playing cowboy, and she knew that often horses could be high-strung and skittish!

  Maggie hurried to the barn and went in. It was well-lit and very clean. A wide aisle ran through the center of the building, with stalls on each side. She could hear horses snorting and moving around, and she wondered if her five-year-old son would actually have the nerve to go into a stall with a strange horse. Sometimes Travis’s boasts about being tough were funny, but Maggie knew that he really did believe that telling people how tough he was made it true.

  Scared to death, she began walking the aisle and looking into stalls. “Travis?” she called at each one.

  About halfway through the barn, she heard her own name. “Maggie?” Dallas said as he stepped out of a stall. “What’s wrong?”

  Talking to Dallas again was the last thing Maggie wanted, but right now she had no choice. Still, her voice was cold as ice when she said, “Travis is missing again. I thought he might be in here.”

  Dallas set down the brush he’d been using on Jubilee, a valuable stallion, and began walking toward Maggie. Though concerned about young Travis, Dallas couldn’t help looking at this incident as a heaven-sent opportunity to talk to Maggie again. “I haven’t seen him, Maggie. Unless he’s hiding somewhere, he’s not in here. I’ll help you look for him.”

  A frisson of alarm rippled through Maggie. Dallas might be offering to help her find Travis, but he was looking at her again with ill-concealed hunger in his eyes!

  “Thanks,” she said coldly, “but I don’t need your help. Cruz is helping.” Spinning, she walked away, forcing herself to leave at a normal speed so Dallas wouldn’t get any silly ideas about her being afraid of him. Not that he didn’t affect her, dammit. Even though she was angrier with him than she’d ever been with anyone, she felt her tingling reaction to his good looks and maleness.

  Dallas ignored her frostily stated declaration of independence and stayed right behind her. Just outside the barn he asked, “Have you checked the equipment sheds?”

  Maggie turned with blazing eyes, fully intending to give him yet another piece of her mind, when she heard Cruz shouting, “Maggie, I’ve got him! He was playing in a haystack behind one of the barns. He’s fine, and we’re going back to the house.”

  She heaved a relieved sigh. Forgetting how much she despised Dallas, she said, “It looks as though keeping Travis on the ranch is a mistake. I have no idea why he started leaving the yard, but he keeps doing it, no matter how often I threaten, beg or cajole him.”

  “Have you tried explaining the dangers he could run into on a ranch?” Dallas asked quietly, then quickly switched gears. “Maggie, you have to let me explain what happened earlier today.”

  She was instantly angry again. “Have you forgotten I was there? What possible explanation could there be for your treating me like a tramp?”

  Dallas groaned. “My God, I don’t think of you as a tramp.”

  “Well, you certainly fooled me,” she snapped, and turned to leave.

  Dallas rushed to keep stride with her. “Maggie, don’t go off like this. Talk to me, please. Everyone deserves a second chance, even a man who made a horse’s ass of himself.”

  “We’re single-minded on that, at least,” she said with heavy sarcasm. She kept walking, and it irritated her that Dallas kept pace beside her. “Will you please stop following me? I’m not the least bit interested in anything you might have to say, and if I said what I’ve been thinking, your ears would get scorched black!”

  “A red face and black ears,” Dallas said. “Paints a pretty picture, don’t you think?”

  “Stop trying to be funny,” she snapped.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Maggie, just stop and talk to me for a minute. Please.”

  “I will stop, just long enough to ask you why you even want to talk to me.”

  He wiped his hands on the legs of his jeans. “I’m not sure I can explain it. What is it that happens when a man meets a woman and immediately knows that she’s special? It’s not something that a person chooses to happen—it just does.”

  Maggie’s lip curled. “Yeah, I’m so special that it’s a wonder you didn’t offer me money for sex!”

  “Oh, my God! Maggie, how can I make you understand that it wasn’t like that? For some stupid reason I thought you would, uh, appreciate honesty. I wanted you to like me so much that I…I…” Dallas wished the earth would just open up and swallow him whole. He had never in his life talked to a woman as he had to Maggie, but in defense of his apparently unforgivable faux pas, he had said nothing that wasn’t in his heart.

  He looked so miserable that Maggie suddenly felt sorry for him. Wearily she said, “Just forget it happened, okay?”

  “Can you forget it happened?” Dallas asked hopefully.

  She walked away from him with one final comment. “The only answer I have for that question is, I’ll think about it.”

  Three

  Maggie greeted her mother when Rosita got home from work that evening, then watched Rosita suppress laughter over the huge hat on her small grandson’s head.

  “Come here, you rascal, and talk to me,” Rosita said, sitting on a kitchen chair and pulling the boy onto her lap. “Now, tell your grandmother where you got that, uh, wonderful hat.”

  “Dallas gave it to me, Grandma. Didn’t he, Mama?” Travis looked to his mother for confirmation. Rosita also looked at Maggie, only her eyes contained a suspect twinkle that made Maggie feel like squirming. She hastened to relate the only explanation that wouldn’t cause trouble between the Perezes and the Fortunes.

  “He came by to see Travis,” she told her mother.

  “And maybe to see you, too?” Rosita said with unabashed relish.

  Travis slid from his grandmother’s lap. “I’m goin’ outside, Mama.”

  Maggie instantly became all mother. “No, you are not going outside. I told you before that you will play inside the house until I can trust you not to leave the yard. Go and wash up for supper.”

  “Aw, heck,” Travis groused as he left the kitchen dragging his feet.

  “What was that all about?” Rosita asked.

  “He left the yard again today. Cruz came by, and we both went looking for Travis. Cruz found him playing in a haystack behind one of the barns. Mama, I just don’t know what to do with my son. He will not obey me.”

  “He obeys you most of the time, Maggie. He’s just so fascinated with the ranch. Try to see it through his eyes. He’s always lived in a city, and out here there are so many exciting things for a boy to explore.”

  “There are also many dangers for a young child.”

  “That’s true, but he has to learn, Maggie. D
o you think I didn’t worry about you and Cruz and your sisters when you were growing up?”

  “We were different, Mama. We were always ranch kids.”

  Ruben came in and, as was his habit each evening, he kissed his wife’s cheek. To Maggie he said, “Something smells good in here.”

  “It’s beef stew, Papa.”

  Getting to her feet, Rosita said, “It’s so good of you to make supper, Maggie. And the house is so clean, and you even did the laundry. I don’t have to do a thing when I come home. You’re spoiling me.”

  Maggie smiled but had pensive thoughts. Her mother was sixty years old and was still working as hard as a young woman. True, it didn’t seem to bother Rosita, Maggie had to admit. Other than one lovely white streak, Rosita’s hair was as black as it had always been, and her skin glowed from good health. She’d grown a bit plump over the years, true, but the beauty she had possessed in her youth was still visible, especially when she smiled.

  “Wash up, Papa,” Maggie said. “Supper will be on the table in five minutes.”

  “Bossy, just like your mama,” Ruben said, but he smiled at his daughter and went to do as she’d asked.

  Rosita eyed her daughter. “So, Dallas Fortune came by today.”

  Maggie winced. She should have realized what that oversize hat on her son’s head would do to Rosita’s curiosity. “We’ll talk after supper, Mama. Everyone’s hungry now.”

  While the Perezes enjoyed their fine meal, Dallas heated a frozen dinner in the microwave. He could go to the main house and eat at his father’s table anytime he wished. He could also eat with the ranch hands, which he often did.

  But tonight he felt that he wasn’t fit company for anyone. He’d made a fool of himself today with Maggie, and he couldn’t stop wondering what the devil had come over him. Scowling and brooding over it while he ate his chicken dinner, he tried to recapture the misguided logic that had made him think Maggie would respond to such a blunt overture.

  Pushing his chair away from the table, he rubbed the back of his neck in almost painful agitation. His behavior was inexcusable, and so uncharacteristic of the man he really was that he wondered if he hadn’t temporarily lost the good sense he’d been born with.