A Willing Wife

by Jackie Merritt

  “I happen to have Rosita’s permission to be in here,” Dallas retorted. “In fact, I have her blessing.”

  Maggie sneered. “Oh, yes, she thinks you’re so wonderful. If I told her what you did to me in the line shack, she’d change her tune in the wink of an eye.”

  “What I did to you in the line shack? Have you actually been kidding yourself about what took place between us that day? My God, Maggie, get real. You were so hot that day your skin sizzled. And you were the same last night until you saw that painting.” Dallas began advancing on her.

  “Well, let me tell you what I did after you left,” he said. “I took down the painting, and I emptied Sara’s closet.”

  “Her things were still in a closet?” Maggie gasped. “After two years? Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

  “No, I do not. I won’t lie to you, Maggie. I loved Sara with all my heart, and I came close to dying myself when she did. But things started changing the day I saw you. I started changing. And after you left yesterday I had a lot of brand-new thoughts. I see it all much differently now than I did, and I know that I want to get on with life.”

  He put his hands on her bare shoulders, and that was when Maggie remembered that she was almost naked. Wide-eyed and nervous, she backed up a step, and Dallas took a forward step.

  “I want you in my life, Maggie, but you have to help me out.” When she took another backward step, he took another forward step, keeping the distance between them no more than a few inches. “If I swear an oath not to do anything that makes you uncomfortable, will you please have dinner with me tonight?”

  Tears of frustration began stinging her eyes, and she said raggedly, “You’re making me uncomfortable right now, Dallas. Don’t you realize that? I’m not even dressed.”

  His eyes flicked down her body. “You are seriously beautiful,” he said hoarsely. “Oh, sweetheart, please don’t keep us apart.” He moved quickly and put his arms around her. In the next instant he was kissing her, and Maggie could feel her strength draining away, as surely as water runs downhill.

  His tongue plunged into her mouth, and she moaned as her pulse went wild. She let her jeans fall to the floor, and both her hands were free to wander. Dazed by so much passion, she kissed back and sought a closer union by leaning into him.

  Her response didn’t surprise Dallas. He knew they had more chemistry than anyone had the power to deny. Kissing her again and again, he slid his hand into her panties and between her legs.

  “Dallas,” she whimpered when he began stroking her most sensitive spot. “Please…Mama and Travis are right outside.”

  He was so aroused that he could barely speak. “I know, baby, I know. Maggie, say you’ll have dinner with me tonight. Or something. We need to talk.”

  “I…really don’t feel that talking is what’s on your mind,” she whispered. When she attempted to disentangle their arms and bodies, he let her. On trembling legs she walked over to the dresser and held on to it for support. “I— I’m going to say no, Dallas. I have to.”

  “Dammit, you don’t have to!”

  “Get angry if you wish, but my answer is still no.”

  He felt helpless enough to cry. Instead, he whirled around and walked out. There was no way to get through to Maggie. He’d tried everything, and had failed. It was time he faced facts. Maggie might melt when he touched her, but that would forever be the extent of their relationship.

  It wasn’t enough. By damn, it wasn’t nearly enough!

  Twelve

  The weekend passed, and on Monday Rosita went back to work. To keep herself busy, Maggie tore into the house. She took down curtains and washed them, and then washed the windows before hanging the curtains again. She moved the furniture in the living room to vacuum every inch of the carpet, and she scoured the two bathrooms until they shone.

  While she worked she kept an eye on Travis, who was so enthralled with his puppy that he didn’t even play with his lasso. And every time Maggie looked out a window and saw Baron, she thought of Dallas. He had not come by all weekend, not since Friday when she’d taken that drive to Red Rock. Apparently she had finally gotten her wish: Dallas had given up on her.

  But instead of being glad about it, she felt a disconcerting emptiness. Why wasn’t she relieved because Dallas was staying away? It was what she’d asked him to do—demanded he do—wasn’t it? She should be elated. And the fact that she was neither elated nor relieved was terribly confusing.

  Cleaning furiously, Maggie attempted to analyze herself. Since she had already admitted, if only to herself, that she had fallen in love with Dallas, it stood to reason that the emptiness she was feeling now was caused by his extended absence. Was this how she would feel for the rest of her life—empty because a man she could never really have, and who obviously didn’t want her—except for one thing—had finally abided by her demands?

  Pure and painful unhappiness brought tears to her eyes. Would she ever be a happy woman? Why had she fallen for Dallas Fortune, of all people?

  Dashing away tears that she believed she had no right to shed, Maggie prepared a bucket of hot water to scrub the kitchen floor. She’d given Travis his lunch and he was again outside with Baron. A boy and his dog, Maggie thought poignantly. While she certainly didn’t need a dog to worry about, that puppy had put a permanent smile on her son’s face. How could she continue to resent Dallas for bringing such joy into Travis’s life?

  Maggie sighed. Resenting Dallas just felt like wasted energy now. He wouldn’t be back, she was sure of it. It was entirely possible that she would never see him again. Eventually she would leave the ranch, and even when she came home for visits it wasn’t likely that she would run into Dallas. Not unless she knocked on his door, which she knew in her heart she would never do.

  No, this was best, even if she did wish things could have been different. No matter how she looked at their relationship, Dallas was still a Fortune. He would always be a Fortune, and she would always be a Perez.

  “And never the twain shall meet,” Maggie muttered as she hefted the bucket of water from the sink to the floor.

  She would have liked to turn on the radio and listen to some music while she worked, but she always kept an ear cocked for Travis. There was one thing she knew about herself that no one and nothing could alter: she was a good mother. She loved her son unconditionally and had vowed at his birth to raise him with high standards, just as she’d been raised.

  Maggie started to get down on her knees, and raised up again when the front door opened and she heard Savannah’s voice. “Maggie?”

  “I’m in the kitchen.” Maggie hurried to welcome her sister-in-law. “I’m glad you dropped in.”

  Savannah smiled. “Only for a minute. I’m really out walking, getting my daily exercise, and I wondered if you’d let Travis go with me. Baron, too, of course.”

  “Travis would probably love to go with you,” Maggie said. “Did you mention it to him on your way in?”

  “I thought I should ask you first.”

  “Well, feel free.”

  Savannah reached for the doorknob. “Thanks, Maggie.”

  “If you have time when your walk is over, come in and we’ll have a cup of tea.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Maggie stood on the porch while Savannah invited Travis and Baron to walk with her, and then waved them off. Going back inside, she returned to the kitchen and started scrubbing the floor, working with a scrub brush, a bar of strong soap and a clean rag. Thirty minutes later the floor was spotless, and she got up with a feeling of a job well done.

  She was at the sink, wiping out the bucket, when she heard the front door open again. “Savannah, please don’t let Travis bring the puppy in. I’d like this floor to dry first!” she called.

  “It’s not Savannah or Travis!” Dallas called back. “It’s me.”

  Maggie whirled. He was here! Pink spots stained her cheeks, and she opened her mouth to say something, then couldn’t think of
anything appropriate.

  “Looks like you’ve been doing some cleaning,” Dallas commented.

  “Uh…yes.” The expression on his face was so sober that Maggie wondered what was on his mind. She’d been thinking that she might never see him again—and here he was. Why? Regardless of that disturbing question, something real and alive had ignited inside her. Dare she call it happiness? She certainly no longer felt empty.

  Unnerved over her own ambiguity, Maggie turned back to the sink and finished wiping out the bucket.

  Dallas stared at her. Was she just going to go on cleaning, and ignore him? Obviously he’d surprised her, but did she think he was just going to stand around and hope that she would deign to talk to him?

  “Could you possibly force yourself to look at me?” he asked in a lethally quiet voice.

  Maggie drew a long breath, folded the wet cleaning rag and draped it over the lip of the bucket. Then she turned and faced him.

  “I can look at you, yes,” she said, proud of the calmness she heard in her own voice. It was a good act, because she wasn’t feeling calm on the inside.

  “Thank you. There’s something I want to ask you.”

  “Go ahead.” His question undoubtedly had to do with Travis, she thought. Maybe he wanted to take Travis for a horseback ride, or give him another gift. Since she’d raised such hell about the puppy, Dallas probably figured he’d better check with her before giving Travis anything else.

  Dallas cleared his throat. “I think we should get married. Would you marry me, Maggie?”

  Her jaw dropped and her eyes went blank as a freshly cleaned blackboard. Surely he hadn’t said what she’d thought she heard!

  “Excuse me?” she mumbled.

  “I just asked you to marry me.”

  She’d heard right! He had actually asked her to marry him. She was speechless.

  “I know this is sudden,” Dallas said, “but I’ve thought it through all weekend and it makes a lot of sense. First of all, we both need someone. You’re alone and I’m alone. I know we’ve been at odds, but I think that’s because you’re too damn regretful about what happened between us in the line shack. I’m not one bit regretful about us making love, and I don’t mind admitting that I can’t stop wanting you.

  “Second, there’s Travis to consider. Maggie, I couldn’t love him more if he were my own son. And that boy needs a father. I’d be a good father, Maggie, and I think you know it.”

  What about me? Do you love me? Oh, please say you do! Maggie realized at that crucial moment that she didn’t care what Dallas’s last name was. All that mattered was that he loved her.

  He was ticking off his reasons for proposing marriage on his fingers. “Third, I’ve figured out your financial situation, and from the hints you gave me at my house the evening of Ruben’s birthday, I’ve also figured out that you’d like to stop living off your folks. Marrying me would solve all your problems, Maggie. Every single one of them.”

  Yes, but do you love me?

  “So there you have it,” Dallas said. “There are a lot of good reasons for us to marry. Sound reasons, Maggie. What do you say? Should we set the date?”

  “Gi—give me a minute,” Maggie whispered shakily. He was right. Marrying Dallas would solve all her problems. She would never have to worry about money again…or a job…or a home of her own.

  And yet he’d not said one word about love, except with regard to Travis. Not one word about loving her. Wanting her, yes, but she’d already known that. How could he marry a woman he didn’t love? And how long would her love for him last when there would never be anything except sex between them?

  This wasn’t exactly like her first marriage proposal, but it was close. And so would the marriage itself be, if she said yes.

  She wanted to marry again very much, but she wanted a husband who adored her. She wanted what her parents had, and what Cruz and Savannah had. They all worked hard to earn their keep—why should she give up her dream of a truly happy marriage just to put an end to her problems?

  She couldn’t do it. Whatever the future held for her, she could not marry a man for his money. And that’s all it would be when Dallas couldn’t even say that he loved her. He couldn’t say it because he didn’t love her, she thought as a burst of adrenaline hit her. His proposal was offensive. She suddenly had no qualms at all in telling him.

  Facing him head on, she said it. “No.”

  Dallas looked slightly shell-shocked, incredulous. “You’re saying no?”

  “Yes, sir, that’s the word.”

  “But…but why? Maggie, it makes so much sense.”

  “Maybe to you it does. Sorry, but the whole idea leaves me cold.”

  “It leaves you cold! What the hell do you want from a man? I’ve offered you everything I have. What more could you want?”

  “You know, Dallas, in spite of our many disagreements, I’ve always thought of you as an intelligent man. Obviously I was wrong.”

  “That’s a damn low blow,” Dallas growled.

  “So was your marriage proposal,” she snapped.

  “You’re insulted by a serious proposal of marriage? What in hell’s wrong with you?”

  “What in hell’s wrong with you?” she shouted. “All you did was try to buy me. Well, let me tell you something, Dallas—you can buy what you need from a woman in any town in Texas. I do not happen to be for sale!”

  Dallas was so angry that she would bring his marriage proposal down to such a degrading level that he grabbed her by the upper arms with the intention of shaking some sense into her. He hadn’t thought that sort of physical behavior through, however, and the second his hands were on her his thoughts went in an entirely different direction. Yanking her forward, he kissed her until her whole body was trembling against his, and when they were both gasping for air he raised his head and looked into her eyes.

  “How can you refuse me when we’ve got this?” he demanded hoarsely, and before she could do more than blink, he kissed her again.

  As happened every single time he touched her, Maggie felt her resistance slipping away. He was right; in this they connected. In truth she had never felt so connected to a man as she did to Dallas when he kissed her. Lord help her if this was the reason she’d fallen in love with him, she thought in the back of her mind, but that unsettling concept didn’t prevent her from responding.

  She honestly didn’t know how it happened so fast, but she suddenly found herself naked from the waist down and sitting on her mother’s kitchen counter, with Dallas just naked enough and thrusting into her.

  It was wild and crazy and so exciting that she could think of nothing else. The whole thing happened so fast that Dallas was surprised when she cried out and dug her fingernails into his back. But it pleased him more, and he let go completely and went over the edge with her.

  Burying his face in the curve of her throat, he heavily breathed her name. “Maggie…Maggie…” And after a minute he was able to speak more coherently, and he whispered raggedly, “After this, can you still say no?”

  Reality hit Maggie hard, and she pushed him away, got off the counter, hurriedly picked up her panties and jeans and ran for the bathroom.

  Straightening his own clothes, Dallas called after her, “Can you?”

  She shouted, “Yes, I can still say no! Now, go away and leave me alone!”

  She heard him yell, “Damn you!” Then she heard the hard slam of the front door, and knew he’d gone. Shaking from head to foot, she turned on the shower, threw off the rest of her clothes and stepped into the stall.

  It was while she was drying off that she remembered they had again made love without protection.

  Rosita was spitting mad when she got home that afternoon. “How did Sophia know that the big house was empty for the weekend? How could she have known?”

  “Mama,” Maggie said wearily, “what are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Sophia Fortune, that…that… Well, I don’t use bad language,
but think the worst and you’ll know what I’m thinking. Maggie, sometime during the holiday weekend, Sophia went into the house and took china, silver, cash and paintings right off the walls.”

  “How do you know it was Sophia?”

  “Who else would have such gall?”

  “A thief?”

  “Oh, yes, it was a thief, all right, and her name is Sophia Fortune! Didn’t you notice the sheriff’s car parked near the big house all afternoon?”

  “No, I didn’t. Is there proof that the thief was Sophia?”

  Rosita sighed. “I don’t think so. Not the kind of proof that would put her in jail, at any rate. But it was her, everyone knows it.”

  “Mama, how would she know that no one was home? She wouldn’t dare come by when someone was in the house, and who would tell her that everyone had gone away for the weekend?”

  “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Maggie. Who on this ranch would tell Sophia anything? Even the household help only put up with her imperial attitude and self-centered demands because of Ryan. She wasn’t even nice to Ryan’s kids. I remember very well when Ryan married her, and she never once attempted to mother those children, and they were terribly distraught over their own mother’s death, I can tell you. If Sophia had shown the least bit of compassion or affection for Ryan’s children, things might have turned out much differently than they did in that marriage. But Sophia’s concern was always for herself. I doubt very much if she ever loved Ryan at all. She saw a good catch while she was nursing Janine, and the minute Janine passed away, Sophia moved in on Ryan.”

  “She married him for his money,” Maggie said quietly, comparing what Sophia had done to what she could have done this very day. If she had said yes to Dallas’s marriage proposal, she would be no better than Sophia. Thank goodness she was not a crass opportunist, as Sophia obviously had been.

  Rosita was glancing around. “Gracious, what did you do, clean all day?”

  “Just about.”

  “Well, the house looks wonderful, but—” Rosita eyed her daughter “—you don’t. You wore yourself out, didn’t you? Maggie, I appreciate a clean house, but not at your expense. You look pale and drawn. You don’t feel well, do you?”