As she clambered back into the truck, she had to slam the door a couple of times before it clicked into place. “So you were saying Baxter knows you’re coming? He just didn’t tell you why he wanted you?”
“I wouldn’t say that. Whoa!” The door flew open at the first bump, and he grabbed her arm. “Put your seat belt on, would you? You don’t want to land on a cow patty.”
“Add the door to your list to fix,” she groused, snapping the belt into place. “When you get home.”
Will steered the truck over the rolling, bumping track, wishing he’d taken the main road. He’d end up leaving parts scattered between here and the house and have to come back and pick them up to reattach later. With all the rattling and banging, he didn’t think now the time to tell her where he planned to live. Her announcement might have changed his plans anyway.
“How long did you say Baxter’s been ailing?”
“I didn’t say, oof!” A particularly big bump sent her head nearly to the roof and landed her back on her tush. “Shocks. You’ll want to replace the shocks if you’re going to keep from shaking your passengers to pieces.”
“Sorry. But it’s been some time, right? Months?” He slowed, trying to hit the bumps at the least atrocious angle. “Years?” How long since he’d actually seen him? A couple of years anyway.
“He didn’t specify. It had to be months, though. At least. Dammit, why did he wait so long?”
And why had he hired him on a year-long contract he didn’t anticipate being alive long enough to enforce it?
“There’s the house.” She leaned forward in the seat, despite her claims of hating the place, eagerness lighting her features. Then they darkened. “How bad do you think he’ll look?” Her voice broke.
He pulled up behind the big white barn, where they’d be hidden from the house, and cut the engine. Taking her hand again, he unsnapped her seat belt and tugged her toward him, amazed when she didn’t slap him away. What a bastard for taking advantage of her in her distress, but if he didn’t kiss away the tears rolling down her cheeks again, he’d be a worse one. Sliding his hand through the straight, shiny length of her bob, he drew the hair back from her face and pressed a kiss to each shining droplet. Rather than protest, she tilted her head the other way, baring her other cheek to his attentions, and he was only too happy to oblige.
“We’ll face him together,” he murmured, kissing her forehead then her nose before the pink tip of her tongue flicked out to wet her lip and his gentlemanly instincts disappeared before the deep rose of temptation. Their lips met with sweet warmth, drawing comfort and sharing their grief. The building shaded them from the sun, but the heat in the cab rose anyway as she responded, taking charge of the kiss and climbing onto his lap.
She parted her lips and he followed her lead, willing to let her spend her sadness on him. To do whatever it took to calm herself enough to face Baxter in whatever shape he might be in. What a great guy, willing to let the sexiest woman he’d ever held in his arms climb all over him, her small, perky breasts rubbing against him through their clothes, his cock hardening under her.
She panted, grasping the hem of his T-shirt and tugging it up. He lifted his arms and sat forward to assist her in getting him naked. Whatever the lady wanted.
The shy girl he’d made love to in the soft grass by the lake had been supplanted by a tigress who knew what she desired and he was the guy to give it to her. She tossed the shirt onto the floor and fell upon him again, kissing the hollow of his throat and along his collarbone, sucking, nipping, biting. Resting his hands on her hips, he held still, remembering the feel of her mouth on him, her soft lips and sharp teeth rocketing him into the past. She’d been nineteen, home from college for the summer, and he’d been twenty-two, the last time they’d seen one another. The first and only time he’d made love to her.
They weren’t kids anymore, but her mouth still had the ability to send him flying, her thighs clamped on either side of his firm thighs. Her arms locked around his neck, and he brought his up to circle her, too lost in the moment to even care whether someone found them. He kissed her, sucking at her lips and teasing her mouth open to lap inside, to taste her. How had he lived without her for so long? Sliding his hands around to the front, he cupped her breasts through her blouse and began to work the buttons. The soft fabric parted to reveal the lacy cups of her bra. Still slender, she had filled out just enough in the right places. He buried his face between her breasts and inhaled her scent. A trace of an elegant citrusy perfume he’d probably never even heard of.
But it suited her. Releasing her mouth, he smiled down at her. “We should probably head for the house.”
She shook her head, her green eyes gleaming in a last beam of sunlight as the day darkened around them. “Not yet, cowboy.” And then they were kissing again, and he lost all interest in anything else. For the moment. He’d missed her more than he realized. Although no day had passed without thinking of her, wondering how she made out in California. He’d pictured her standing at the front of a big auditorium with theater-style seating, enlightening the minds of America’s youth. In his fantasy, the class applauded her.
But with her sweet lips moving over his and her palm sliding between them, over his chest and abdomen to flip open the top button on his jeans, he figured those students would just have to educate themselves for a while. At least until he had his fill of her.
Which would be never.
Now how to convince her moving back to the ranch she’d fled and giving up her dreams was a good idea. How was that for impossible?
Chapter Four
Maggie didn’t even recognize herself in the wild woman who crawled all over Will, kissing and touching and making demands. But as their lips ground together, their tongues twining, her hands gliding down his hard, muscled abdomen, she could push aside her doubts and fears and impending grief.
She could forget she’d left him behind eight years before to pursue dreams now imploding around her. Forget her brother lay dying in the house. Just for a moment, postpone seeing his cheerful, healthy face transformed into the gaunt specter of a man about to die. She shrugged it aside and redoubled her efforts to forget, fumbling with the buttons on Will’s jeans. Why were they so hard to open?
Tap, tap, tap.
“Maggie.” Will’s hand closed over hers, stopping her frantic motions. “Maggie, there’s someone here.”
Frantic barking accompanied the tapping on the passenger window, and she lifted her head to see the olive complexion of Jose Gutierrez, one of the hands who’d been with them since her father took Honeysuckle Ranch over from her grandfather. His hair was totally gray now, but the severe expression darkening his features had not changed since he’d fished her out of the pond when she’d gone there alone and paddled out in the kayak as a small child, against all the rules. She could swim, but in her panic, she’d forgotten how. One of many times her klutziness had made the ranch more dangerous for her than most of the other kids kicking around.
Scooting to the far side, she held the sides of her blouse together and cranked the window down. Her heart still slammed against her ribs, her cheeks burned, and she struggled to steady her breathing and her voice. “Hello, Jose. How is Juliana?”
“Hola, Miss Maggie. She is doing well, thank you. If you go in through the kitchen, she is waiting to greet you.”
Casting a quick glance toward Will, Maggie grabbed the door handle and yanked but nothing happened. “I can’t get out.”
Will came around and shook hands with Jose before opening her door from the outside. “One more thing to fix.”
She hopped out and faced the cowboy. “Jose, I ummm…”
His deep-brown eyes, wreathed with wrinkles from years in the sun, herding cattle for her family, twinkled, and he grabbed her in a hug. “I will bring your suitcase to the house. Go ahead. Juliana has made cookies. Your favorites.”
“I’ll see you up at the house after I get settled in the bunkhouse,” Will said,
leaning against the truck. “It’s good to be here, Jose.”
She parted her lips to ask why he’d be out in the bunkhouse instead of in a guest room but shrugged it off, in a hurry now to get to Baxter.
Maggie stared around the barn, taking in the activities of later afternoon/early evening on the ranch. Juliana cooked for both the family and the hands, and usually everyone ate together around the big table in the dining room. She’d never hated that part. Most of the cowboys and horse handlers were like Jose, longtime family friends as well, and their cheerful banter had been the bright spot of some difficult days. Her mother had rarely sat down, always rushing to the kitchen for another big bowl of potatoes or helping Juliana with something, but her father presided over the table with his jovial presence, insisting none of the day’s troubles be brought there. He didn’t allow cursing in the dining room, or—in the case of his children—whining.
She followed the pathway toward the house, eying the changes since she’d left. The house could use a coat of paint, its white boards not quite peeling but definitely faded and the shutters a shade off the coral honeysuckle. Her mother had selected the color, although her father claimed it was bad enough the ranch was named after a flower without orange shutters on the house. But they never looked garish, just rich, cheerful, and welcoming.
As her mother reminded him, his father had named the ranch after the flowers which ran over the fence by the front gate as well as the wraparound porch at his own mother’s insistence. She’d loved them, their scent, their orangey-red color, and the greenery that made the porch feel cool in the hottest weather.
Approaching the kitchen door, Maggie paused, listening to the sounds inside. Juliana scolding someone in Spanish. A smile twitched at her lips and she mounted the steps and pulled open the screen door. “Mama Juliana, who is in trouble now?”
The cook stood, a long-handled spoon in her hand, her long gray-and-black braid swaying past her hips. “You are, mija. For staying away so long!” The miscreant, a tiger-striped cat who had been up to some sort of mischief, scooted between Maggie’s legs and out the door before it banged closed. “Come give me a hug.”
And just like that, she was home again. The good part of home. Her eyes flooded with tears, which was becoming a really annoying occurrence. No matter how frustrating her days at the university, she didn’t cry. The dean’s unreasonable demands, the rush to “publish or perish” while fighting for tenure with the others at her level, nothing did this to her. She lived as if encased in ice every day. But cross the state line into Texas and her emotions rose to the surface and poured out.
Juliana patted her shoulders and held her while she cried. “It’s okay, mija. You have much to be sad about. Your mama and papi, and now Mr. Baxter. We are so glad, Jose and me, that you came, but why did you wait so long?”
Maggie lifted her head and stepped back, fishing in her pocket for the handkerchief Will gave her but not finding it. She must have left it in the truck. “So long? I came right away.”
“Your hermano has been sick for a year…” The cook’s eyes narrowed. “He did not tell you?”
She shook her head, sniffing back the last of the tears. “No. He didn’t.”
“He told us he had.” Juliana moved over to the stove and bent to peer in the oven door. “My cookies!” Grabbing a hot pad, she withdrew a tray of golden-brown shortbread. “They are ruined.”
Maggie’s mouth watered as the scent of melting chocolate and toasted pecans filled the kitchen. She peered over Juliana’s shoulder, inhaling deeply. “I know you always say it should be pale, but I like it better a little brown around the edges. I’ll get a knife.”
“It has to cool.” She slapped her hand away. “Go say hello to your brother, and I will bring a plate of them up to you along with some milk.”
It all came rushing back. She’d been too caught up in old friends and sweet treats from childhood for a moment to remember smiles had no place in this house now. Closing her eyes for a moment, she pictured her brother, gaunt, pale, in a bed with the covers pulled up to his chin, and beeping machines all around him monitoring his last moments of life.
“I am the worst sister in the world,” she muttered, sinking onto a stool at the big, scrubbed butcher block table. “No wonder he waited so long to call me home.” Damn tears rose to the surface again, but she forced them back. She did not deserve to cry.
Juliana set the tray on the tile countertop in front of the birds of paradise backsplash and hurried to her side. “You are not a bad sister. He didn’t want you to worry.” She tugged Maggie’s head to her shoulder and stroked her hair. “But if you want to cry some more, do it now so you can be cheerful when you see him. He needs your smiles, mija.” Her smiles. They were few and far between even before she knew Baxter was so ill.
Giving a shudder, she lifted her head and stretched her lips into a smile to please Juliana. “I can be cheerful.”
“You look like you’re going to bite me. Relax. Maybe cheerful was too strong a word. But go now and find your brother. He will be in his room.”
Maggie nodded and stood. The kitchen was a happy room but her brother’s bedroom, his sickroom, could offer any number of horrors, and she determined not to add to his pain. “Thank you, Juliana. I’ll go now.” She moved quickly through the hallway and to the big front staircase, almost as if she might not make it soon enough to see him before he…before he. She swallowed hard. He was dying. Soon.
Why him? Baxter loved the ranch, loved everything about his life. If anyone had to die, it should be her. The one who always thought the grass was greener on the other side. Who couldn’t even ride a horse.
Placing her palm on the hand-carved railing, she began to ascend toward the second floor where the family bedrooms lay. Her parents’ to the right, the massive master suite she’d thought Baxter would move into after he inherited the ranch. He’d chosen to stay in his childhood room, however, the one at the far end of the hallway to the left, with the view of the front lawn.
So much wood in this house. The floors were wide oak boards, and she remembered exactly which ones would squeak under her feet. Family pictures lined the walls along with photos of some of their more famous livestock. Honeysuckle Ranch cattle were award winning, as her father had liked to remind them at every opportunity. He’d wanted to be sure his offspring understood quality was their watchword to be carried on into the future without fail.
Baxter would have managed that and more. He trailed their father and the hands around the farm from the moment he was able to walk steady and mount a horse. Unlike her, he stuck a saddle long before the stirrups could be shortened enough for his feet to reach. She passed her door and paused to open it. Nothing changed from when she’d left for college. Silly posters of movies popular at the time dominating the walls over her pale pine furniture and the bright quilt she’d found at a tag sale. For a moment she considered switching to a guest room for her stay, already overwhelmed with memories but then she’d be making work for the part-time housekeeper, preparing another room. Her bag already sat by her bed, the cheerful quilt neatly pulled up to the fluffy pillows. Shrugging away the memories of the thousands of night she’d spent in there, she turned just as the door across the hallway opened and Will stepped out.
She jumped. “I thought you were going to stay in the bunkhouse, although I did wonder why.”
He flashed her the gleaming smile that always had her ready to fall at his feet and worship him. “Jose sent me up here, said Will wanted me in the house.”
“Have you seen him yet?” She started down the hall again, the door at the end a homing magnet.
He fell in beside her. “Nope. Wonder how he’s doing?”
“Juliana said we should try and cheer him up.” She drew a fortifying breath and pasted on a smile. “Ready to go in?”
Will lifted his hand and rapped on the door. “Baxter, you awake?”
“Will! About time you got here. I thought you were going to be too lat
e.”
He cringed. Baxter’s reply had been reassuringly strong, but the moment they stepped over the threshold, Will knew his friend’s comment had been too close to the truth. While not laid up in bed, Baxter sat in one of a pair of chairs by the window, wearing blue-and-white striped flannel pajamas, brown corduroy slippers, and a smile fooling no one. Dark shadows circled green eyes that had once sparkled with as much life as his sister’s. A skull cap covered his head, where Will suspected not a trace of his hair that also matched hers remained. The waning daylight outside faded, but he didn’t need to see it to remember what the view looked like. He’d spent countless nights in this room when a set of bunks against the wall stood where the large wooden four-poster now rested.
Maggie let out a little cry and flew to him. “Baxter, why didn’t you call me sooner? What were you waiting for?” She buried her head in his lap, and her brother rested a thin hand on her smooth red bob. Her shoulders shook.
Will shifted uncomfortably near the doorway. “How’s goes it, Baxter?” Dumb thing to say. But what did a guy say to his best friend from childhood who looked like he could be dead at any moment. He’d lost so much weight the bones and veins stood out.
Baxter smiled again, but his heavy eyes and hollow cheeks drew the eye from his upturned lips. “Doing great. Just sitting here deciding what to do with my afternoon.” He flicked his gaze at his silently sobbing sister. Will nodded. But his own emotions would not subside.
“I hear there’s a new golf course down the road. Up for a quick eighteen holes?” He moved closer to the pair, not sure now long Baxter’s legs could support Maggie’s upper body.
“Oh, I dunno,” drawled the other man. “I’m thinking tennis. It’s been a long time since we have hit a ball around at the park.” His knees shook, and Will swooped in and wrapped his arms around Maggie’s shoulders.
As he settled her into the chair across from her brother’s, with a low table between them, and found the hankie in his pocket to hand her, he studied his friend some more. “Or we could talk about the bullshit of a friend who suffered in silence and used up the time we could have spent together.”
Lone Star Burn_The Foreman and the Lady Page 3
