A Willing Wife

by Jackie Merritt

  When she walked in and saw Dallas still in bed, obviously awaiting her return for a rerun, her anger built.

  “Turn your back,” she demanded.

  Dallas pushed himself up on an elbow. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m getting out of here, that’s what’s going on!”

  “Maggie, why?” He looked confused, but Maggie saw his bewildered expression as a big act.

  “I don’t think I have to explain myself,” she said coldly. “Fine, if you won’t turn your back, I’ll use the wood shed!” The little addition to the cabin had been chilly when she’d passed through it, and pulling on damp clothes would be much easier to do without a bout of shivers. But apparently it was her only choice. She started out again.

  Cursing violently, Dallas threw back the sheet and followed her. She tried to slam the door in his face, but he held it open.

  “You do need to explain yourself,” he said harshly. “What in hell happened in the five minutes you were gone to cause this? You’re mad as hell at me, and I have a right to know why!”

  “You have a right? You have no rights at all where I’m concerned!”

  “Maggie, I didn’t force you into anything. Are you thinking I did?”

  “Maybe you didn’t use physical force, but you definitely took advantage of me!”

  “So you bear no blame at all for making love with me? Maggie, that’s a damn lie, and you know it.”

  “I— I was in shock,” she stammered, albeit with a defiant tilt to her chin. Her voice rose. “Would you please put something on? I’m tired of seeing you naked.”

  Grimly, Dallas stared at her for a long moment, then let go of the door. Muttering under his breath, he went over to the blanket she’d dropped near the chair and wrapped it around himself. Then he poured out the cold coffee in his mug and refilled it from the pot on the stove. He was glad it was still raining hard. No one with a lick of sense would leave a dry cabin and set out walking in this kind of drenching rainfall, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to offer to take her home on Vic, at least not until she did some talking.

  Leaning against the woodwork framing a window, Dallas stared broodingly at the falling rain and thought of Sara. She had not been an on-again, off-again person. Never would she have treated him the way Maggie was doing. How could he be so wild for a woman who was so opposite to Sara?

  Maggie walked in and stood near the stove to soak up some warmth. Her damp clothes were miserably uncomfortable, and she was chilled to the bone. She felt Dallas’s gaze boring into her, and she finally looked back, letting the disgust she felt for herself—and for him—show on her face.

  Her expression was so intense that Dallas felt as though he’d been slammed by something tangible. It angered him that she could be so loving one minute and so cruel the next.

  “Just what is your problem?” he asked in a none-too-kind tone.

  “My problem? Well, yes, I suppose it is ‘my’ problem,” she said with searing sarcasm. “Fortunes don’t make mistakes, do they?”

  “Do you really see what happened between us as a mistake?” Dallas was dumbfounded. It wasn’t as though he’d had to coax her into bed, after all. “And what does my last name have to do with anything?”

  “Oh, don’t play the innocent,” she retorted. “I’ve known all my life that you Fortunes always get what you want.”

  “Good Lord, don’t tell me that my being a Fortune is what’s been causing all the friction between us! Maggie, surely you’re not that petty.”

  She flushed, but held her ground. “Don’t try to convince me that you’re not aware of who you are every minute of every day!”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous.” Dallas drained his mug in one big swallow and set it on the windowsill. His eyes were hard as marbles when he looked at her. “In fact,” he said coldly, “you’re ridiculing my family name, trying to make me feel ashamed of who I am. It won’t work, Maggie. I’m no more ashamed of being a Fortune than you are of being a Perez, and the simple truth is that there’s no reason for either of us to regret who we are. You’re weighing our value as people by net worth, and that’s completely unfair. And, I might add, the worst kind of snobbery there is. I know for a fact that no one else in your family feels inferior because they have less money than the Fortunes.”

  “Inferior!” she cried. “Do you actually have the gall to suggest that I feel inferior to you?”

  “Well, you sure as hell aren’t treating me as an equal!” Dallas narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you feel superior. Is that it, Maggie?”

  “Now who’s being ridiculous?”

  Dallas sighed. “Maybe we both are, but if feelings of inferiority or superiority aren’t causing this ludicrous disagreement, what is?” He paused a moment, then said thoughtfully, “From what you’ve said so far—especially that crack about Fortunes always getting what they want—it appears to me that you’re angry because you made love with a Fortune. Should I deduce that if I were anyone else—if my last name was Smith or Jones—you wouldn’t be angry?”

  Maggie knew she’d given herself away, and she wasn’t proud of being petty and snobbish, as Dallas had said. An uncomfortable new idea crept into her mind: Was she also envious of the Fortunes’ wealth? Since marrying Craig, her life had been continual financial drudgery. The divorce hadn’t changed much of anything, except that when she got a paycheck now she knew she could keep it and pay the bills. When Craig had been in and out, he had often helped himself to whatever cash was in her purse, which had caused stressful, bitter arguments. At least she was freed of that particular oppression.

  Dallas could see how hard Maggie was thinking. Had something he’d said gotten through to her? Was she reevaluating their relationship? God, he hoped so. He wished that she would suddenly smile and tell him that she didn’t care what his name was. If she would just once admit they had something special going for them, everything would be okay. He was sure of it.

  Another question had occurred to Maggie, this one even more disturbing: Had she been falling in love with Dallas all along? Why else would she have responded to him with such uncontrollable fervor?

  Oh, no, she thought frantically. She wasn’t perfect, far from it, and maybe, just maybe, she was petty, snobbish and even envious. But her disastrous marriage to Craig was proof of one unquestionable flaw in her character: she was a bad judge of men, and she should definitely look long and hard before leaping into another serious relationship. If she had been falling in love with Dallas, it had to come to a screeching halt, here and now.

  At the very least, she had to slow things down with Dallas enough to give herself time to consider from every angle all that had happened between them. And that decision had nothing at all to do with who Dallas was; it had to do solely with who she was. It was time she figured that out. Other than Travis’s mother and a member of the Perez family, who was she?

  A knot the size of a fist suddenly appeared in Maggie’s stomach. Why in heaven’s name had she meekly accepted everything that life had thrown at her without once asking herself if she was the cause of her own misery?

  Dallas could remain silent for only so long. “Maggie,” he said quietly, “why don’t you share your thoughts with me?”

  She blinked, as though coming out of a trance. “I— I’m sorry for all the mean things I said,” she said in a thin, shaky voice. “What happened here today was no more your fault than mine.”

  Dallas could hardly believe his own ears, but he contained his sudden elation behind a solemn expression, and walked over to her.

  “Thank you for that,” he said softly, and raised his hand to touch her hair.

  She backed away. “No, please don’t do that,” she said dully.

  He was startled to see tears spilling from her eyes. “Maggie, why are you crying?” Rushing forward, he put his arms around her. She tried to pull back from him, but he held on to her and cradled her head against his chest. “It breaks my heart to see you so unhappy. Honey, talk to me, ple
ase talk to me.”

  She knew her tears were wetting his chest, but she couldn’t seem to stop crying. Even so, she had to make him understand what she was going through.

  “Dallas,” she said with a sob, “you have to leave me alone. I— I need time to…to think.” She felt the muscles of his arms stiffen and knew he didn’t understand at all. “I’m…all mixed up,” she whispered. “I realized how mixed up I really am only a few moments ago. I need the time and space to—to understand myself. I’m asking you to give me those things. If you can’t…”

  He waited for her to finish the sentence, and when she didn’t, he said sadly, “Are you saying that if I don’t give you some time and space, we don’t stand a chance?” He separated their bodies and took her by the shoulders so he could see her face. “Maggie, I care about you. I care about Travis. How can I stay away from the two of you? You’re asking too much.”

  She wiped away tears from under her eyes with her fingertips. “You may visit Travis whenever you wish. He’d be heartbroken if you suddenly stopped dropping by to see him. What I’m asking is that you give me some room. I can’t explain myself beyond that. Not today, anyway.”

  Dallas felt crushed. He’d believed that something beautiful and important had begun today in this little cabin, and to hear in plain language that it had only upset Maggie was a blow. He tried to bolster his flagging spirits by reminding himself that she hadn’t said they stood no chance at all, that she had merely asked for time and space to sort out her feelings. But the attempt really didn’t eliminate the dull ache in his chest.

  Still, arguing with her about it seemed counterproductive. At least she was speaking to him now without anger. In fact, if her eyes weren’t still teary, he would think she was completely emotionless.

  He suddenly heard the silence. It had stopped raining; the storm was over.

  “I’ll get dressed,” he said tonelessly. “We can leave now.” He started to go to the door leading to the wood shed, but stopped before he reached it. “Take all the time you need,” he said without looking at her. “I’ve lived through worse. I can wait.”

  Maggie started crying again. Yes, he’d lived through worse—much worse. He’d lost his wife and infant son.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” she said out loud, sobbing. Why was life so cruel?

  Maggie rode home behind Dallas. Evidence of the raging storm was everywhere she looked. Huge puddles in low spots, broken limbs of trees lying in treeless areas—obviously blown by the fierce wind—and grass flattened to the ground as if ironed down.

  But though she kept an eye peeled for her father’s horse all during the ride, she never saw the mare. It worried her enough to ask Dallas, “Do you think my horse made it back without injury?”

  “I hope so. Ruben prizes his horses.”

  “Yes, he does,” Maggie agreed uneasily as a dreadful thought dwarfed her concern for the mare. If it had returned without her, the whole place would be in an uproar. A missing rider was no trivial matter on a ranch. Her family would be searching for her, and so would anyone else that her father could round up.

  About a quarter-mile from the ranch, Dallas said, “There’s your father, Maggie. And Cruz and a bunch of the men.”

  Maggie peered around him. “They’re on foot. What are they doing?”

  “I think they found your horse.”

  Maggie’s heart nearly stopped when she saw the mare on the ground. “Oh, no,” she moaned. “She’s hurt.”

  “I think so,” Dallas said quietly.

  When Ruben caught sight of Dallas and his daughter, he shouted, “Maggie! You’re all right!”

  “She’s fine, Ruben!” Dallas called.

  “Thank God!” Ruben ran out to meet them.

  Maggie slid from the horse’s back and into her father’s arms. “Papa…the mare,” she said fearfully.

  “You’re safe and that’s what matters,” Ruben said gruffly.

  “But is the mare hurt?”

  Ruben’s eyes were sad. “She has to be put down, Maggie. Her neck is broken. There’s nothing we can do. It would be cruel to let her suffer any longer.”

  “No!” Maggie cried. Her father held her back, while Cruz fired one shot from his rifle. Totally devastated, Maggie buried her face in Ruben’s shirt and wept violently. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have taken her out of the corral.”

  Ruben patted Maggie’s back. “It was no one’s fault. The storm caught us all by surprise. Come, I’ll take you to the house. Cruz will handle things here.” He led Maggie to his own horse and helped her mount.

  She sent Dallas a teary look, and, soberly, he lifted his hand in a small wave of farewell. She tried hard to smile at him, but couldn’t. Weeping into the back of her father’s shirt, she said again and again during the ride to the house, “I’m so sorry, Papa.”

  It was a day she knew she would never forget for as long as she lived.

  That night Maggie went to bed immediately after tucking Travis in. She desperately needed to be alone, and her facade of strength collapsed the second she closed her bedroom door. She’d told the story of Dallas’s rescue at least three times, always stopping short of what had happened between them in the cabin, of course.

  But that was the part of the day she couldn’t stop thinking about. During supper, her father had been happy she was safe, but sad about the mare. Her mother had chattered practically nonstop about how she, Emma and their grandsons had weathered the storm, but Maggie had known that Rosita was talking so much because she had wanted to take her husband’s mind off the lost horse. Travis’s eyes had been as big as saucers throughout the meal.

  “Dallas just picked you up while he was on Vic, Mama?” the boy had asked repeatedly, as though he couldn’t even imagine such a remarkable feat.

  “Yes, son,” Maggie had answered every time.

  But then Travis had altered his focus. “Grandpa, could you do that?”

  Maggie had quickly intervened. “Of course Grandpa could do that. He’s even stronger than Dallas is.”

  “He is? Are you, Grandpa? Are you stronger than Dallas?”

  “That’s enough questions, son. Eat your supper.”

  And so, when Maggie finally shut herself in her bedroom for the night, she completely gave in to the pressures and stress of the day and fell across the bed fully clothed. She was physically and mentally exhausted. She closed her eyes telling herself that she would rest but a minute and then get up and put on her nightgown.

  She awoke shortly after midnight and immediately began worrying about having made love without protection. That worry went around and around with another one: Just how did a woman go about discovering who she really was? Was she hoping to find something within herself that would strengthen her self-confidence? Some redeeming quality that had so far eluded her?

  Maybe there’s nothing, she thought with a feeling of melancholy. Nothing but what I’ve known about myself all my life.

  Then the sex-without-protection worry hit her again. She was making the same mistakes with Dallas that she’d made with Craig! My Lord, what if she had conceived today? Quickly she calculated dates and time, and her heart sank when she realized that she could be in her fertile period.

  Another shotgun wedding would destroy her. She groaned out loud as that idea really sank in: What on earth made her think that Dallas would step up to the altar as easily as Craig had?

  I care about you, Maggie. And I care about Travis.

  Was it true? Dare she believe it was true? But what, exactly, did the word care mean to Dallas? She’d been worrying about falling in love with him, and he had talked about “caring” for her. There was a world of difference between the two terms. Certainly one person could care about another without love being anywhere in the picture.

  “Oh, hell,” she muttered. Switching on the bed stand lamp, she got up to find a nightgown.

  Dallas, too, was trying to sort out the day’s events. Wide awake and annoyed because of it, he tried to figure
Maggie out. Again. Seemed to him that was just about all he did lately, he thought wryly. But how dare Maggie belittle the Fortune name, or act as though he was a womanizer just because some of the Fortune men were a little too quick to open their zippers.

  If Maggie resented his wealth, they were lost. If she couldn’t deal with him being a Fortune, they were lost.

  But if she resented him for anything at all, why had she made such passionate love with him? She sure hadn’t been resentful when she’d been under him on that bed in the cabin! When he’d been inside her and making her cry out for more….

  Dallas groaned. His own thoughts were arousing him, and if Maggie were in his bed right this minute he’d prove the chemistry between them again in very short order. Why couldn’t she just admit and accept their overwhelming attraction to each other? Why did she keep looking for reasons to keep them apart?

  Now she needed time and space to understand herself? Bull! She was scared of commitment because her marriage to Travis’s father had failed. It was as simple as that.

  Why could he see that so plainly and she couldn’t?

  Eight

  “I hate this damn place!” Clint Lockhart angrily kicked an overstuffed chair with stained upholstery and a sagging cushion. “Why can’t we meet in your suite at the Austin Arms instead of a dump like this?”

  Sophia Fortune impatiently rolled her big blue eyes heavenward. “Would you please stop behaving like a child? You know as well as I do that we can’t be seen together. I don’t like this sleazy motel, either, but it’s off the beaten path and none of my friends would even come near a place like this.” She couldn’t resist giving Clint a dig. “Of course I can’t speak for your friends,” she said haughtily.

  “Save that lady-of-the-manor act for someone who doesn’t know you,” Clint snarled. “It’s wasted on me.”

  “My, aren’t we testy tonight,” Sophia drawled. It was 11:00 p.m. She had given Clint instructions to rent the motel room at 10:30, and to make sure the ice bucket was filled. She had left her car in a dark corner of the motel’s parking lot, cautiously waited a few minutes until she was certain that no one had followed her, then, carrying a bottle of whiskey, she had scurried across the lot to room 10. Because she didn’t trust Clint not to go through her purse, she had slid it under the seat and locked the car.