Cade Coulter's Return

by Lois Faye Dyer

  There were times when she wondered if she was taking the coward’s way out by refusing to talk to him, or see him. But she couldn’t come up with another plan. There wasn’t a future for them and severing ties was essential. Yet their houses were within the same compound of ranch buildings and it was inevitable that they would see each other.

  She couldn’t imagine how this would work long-term, and had almost accepted that she would have to move away from the cabin she’d grown to love.

  Distracted by gloomy thoughts, she rounded the curve in the lane and drove into the ranch yard. Cade stalked toward the porch steps, his shirt slashed open from shoulder to where it tucked into his belt, bright crimson blood smearing the blue cotton.

  Mariah slammed on the brakes, her determination to spend a quiet afternoon at home instantly drowned by fear.

  She thrust the door open, leaped out of the car and ran.

  “Cade, what happened?” She hurried up the steps and pushed the door inward.

  “A bull caught me with a horn,” he told her, moving past her into the house.

  “One of the longhorns.” It wasn’t a question, her breath seizing with dread.

  “Yeah.” He strode down the hall and into a bathroom.

  Mariah followed, frowning as he ripped his shirt open, the snaps giving way with quick pops. He winced as he tried to shrug out of the shirt and with sudden decision, she caught his forearm.

  “Sit down. I’ll do that.” She lowered the lid on the commode and pushed him to sit. She could feel his gaze on her as she studied the torn shirt. “There’s no saving this,” she noted, mostly to herself. She rummaged in a drawer in the cabinet next to the sink and found a pair of scissors. With quick efficiency, she cut the shirt free from his wounded side before unsnapping the cuff on the other arm and stripping the shirt away from him. She tossed the pieces of the stained garment into the bathtub behind her and bent to inspect the long jagged tear in the flesh along his ribs.

  “I think he just grazed you,” she murmured. “But the doctor will know.” She half turned. “I’ll get you another shirt. My car’s right outside and it won’t take too long to reach the hospital….”

  “No.” Cade’s hand closed over her forearm, stopping her. “No doctor. Just pour some antiseptic over the cut, slap a bandaid on it, and I’m good.”

  Mariah felt her eyes widen as she turned back to fully face him. “Cade, that’s an ugly wound. You should see a doctor—you probably need stitches.” The injury was raw and seeped blood, his chest and abdomen marked with white scars from older damage.

  He shook his head, his jaw set. “I’ll be fine. I’ve been hurt worse lots of times.”

  She was unconvinced but the stubborn angle of his jaw told her it would do no good to argue with him.

  The cabinet over the sink held antiseptic, gauze and several rolls of ace bandages.

  “This might sting.” Mariah poured antiseptic on a gauze pad and wiped smears of blood from the heavy muscle over his ribs. Much to her relief, removing the blood stains made the jagged tear in his flesh seem less horrible. She took a towel from the bar and used it to catch the excess liquid when she poured the antiseptic directly onto the cut.

  Cade sucked in his breath but his body didn’t flinch, remaining rock steady as she blotted the excess moisture from his skin and laid a wide gauze pad over the wound. Then she unrolled the ace bandage.

  In order to secure the gauze, she had to wrap the elastic bandage around his chest. She had to reach around him, each circle of bandage around his torso meant she had to wrap her arms around his bare body. She didn’t look up at him, so close that her hair brushed his throat and jaw, sliding against his pecs and abdomen as she leaned in, then back. The scent of clean male sweat mixed with soap filled her nostrils and it was all she could do not to bury her face against his warm skin and breathe him in. When she finally finished and added a metal clasp to the Velcro grip to secure the end of the bandage, she was breathing too fast. The heat in her cheeks told her that her face was flushed.

  “Finished,” she said, her voice husky. “I still think you should see a doctor.”

  “I don’t need a doctor.” He caught her when she would have moved away.

  Mariah met his gaze and was riveted by the heat that darkened his eyes to emerald.

  “Cade, I don’t think…”

  “Shhh.” He slid his fingers into her hair, the other hand circling her waist to tug her down to sit in his lap. “Don’t think.”

  And his mouth covered hers. Mariah went under, giving in to the wave of sensual desire that swamped her.

  One big hand cradled her head, holding her still for his kiss that ravaged her mouth. The other hand left her waist to stroke down her hip and close over her thigh.

  Long heated moments passed. When Cade lifted his head, Mariah’s arms were wrapped around his neck, her heartbeat pounding beneath her breast where she pressed against his bare chest.

  “Mariah,” he muttered, his gaze intent, the lines of his face taut with desire. “We need to talk.”

  Instantly, she realized she’d done what she’d vowed she wouldn’t do—she’d given in to the overwhelming physical need that drew her to him like a magnet.

  Before she could push away, he lowered his head, brushing his lips over hers. She fought the instant melting of her resolve.

  “I miss you, baby,” he murmured roughly. “We’re good together—come to bed with me.”

  “No, I can’t,” she said, feeling the loss of his warmth as she stood, stepping back. “Please, Cade…” She gestured between them, unable to put into words the depth of feelings that swirled between them. “I have to go.”

  She turned and walked quickly out of the bathroom, out of the house and to her car. Tears blinded her and she dashed them away as she drove the remaining distance to the cabin.

  “I will get over this,” she told herself fiercely as she entered the cabin. Physical attraction wouldn’t resolve the issue of trust that lay between them. She refused to give in to the need to climb into bed and pull the covers up to cry. Instead, she forced herself to begin a storm of housecleaning, doggedly wiping away tears and the headache that echoed the pain in her chest, right above her heart.

  Cade drove into the alley behind the feed store, backing up to the loading dock and leaving his truck to enter the store through the rear entrance.

  Archie looked up as Cade strode down the aisle toward the counter.

  “Hey, Cade, how’s everything out at the Triple C?”

  “Not bad, Archie.” Cade pulled the sheet of paper with Pete’s scribbled notes from his back pocket and handed it to him. “Pete told me to give you this—says you can read his writing. I sure as hell hope so, because I can’t.”

  Archie grinned. “It took me a while to learn but I can usually decipher his scratches.” He looked over the list, frowned a couple of times before nodding. “We have all this in stock, I think. Are you parked out back?”

  “Yeah.” Cade followed Archie down an aisle.

  “Six of these bags,” Archie told him, grabbing one and levering it over his shoulder.

  Cade followed suit and trailed the other man down the aisle and out to the loading dock. They dropped their load into the bed of the pickup truck and went back inside.

  “I hear Mariah quit the Triple C.” Archie picked up another bag, shifted it onto his shoulder and turned, his gaze meeting Cade’s with a directness that demanded an answer. “Folks say there’s trouble between you two.”

  “It’s personal,” Cade said shortly, irritated that the rift between Mariah and him had become common gossip.

  “Just thought I’d warn you.” Archie turned and headed down the aisle toward the loading dock, a second bag slung over his shoulder. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to try and eat lunch at the café. Sally and Julie might refuse to serve you.”

  “Did they tell you that?” Cade followed with another bag.

  “No, I overheard a couple w
omen talking.” Archie dropped the feed sack on top of the others in Cade’s pickup bed. “They came in to look at garden seed.” He grinned at Cade. “They kept talking the whole time they were in here. It’s a toss-up as to which is the hottest topic, speculation about you and Mariah or the likelihood that Ken Eaton’s wife really did catch him at the motel in Billings with an exotic dancer from Minneapolis.”

  Cade lifted an eyebrow. “An exotic dancer from Minneapolis?”

  “Yep.” Archie headed back inside. “Apparently, old Ken has previously unknown depths to him.”

  “Huh, you don’t say?” Cade replied. He hoped Eaton and his wife kept the gossip mill fueled for a while. He didn’t really care what people said about him but he didn’t want gossip upsetting Mariah.

  Oh, hell, he thought. I don’t want her unhappy.

  He had to find a way to make her listen—and then hope to hell she accepted his apology.

  Over the next several days, Cade telephoned and left several messages on Mariah’s answering machine. Twice, he knew she was at home but didn’t pick up.

  Finally, he walked down the lane after dinner one evening and knocked on her door.

  She didn’t answer.

  He waited and knocked once more but again, there was no response. He turned, striding down the steps and past her car, going back down the lane to the ranch house.

  He went into the house and straight to the cabinet in the office. The half-filled bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey was exactly where his dad had always kept it. He grabbed it, along with a heavy cut crystal glass, and carried bottle and glass back into the living room. He dropped onto the leather sofa and picked up the control for the television, turning to a cable news channel before tossing the remote onto the leather cushion.

  Lifting the bottle, he poured the glass half full before setting the whiskey on the low coffee table. He raised the glass, pausing just before he drank.

  Dust coated his fingers.

  What the hell? Frowning, he assessed the glass but the etched surface was clear.

  He looked at the bottle. The imprint of his hand stood out against the dust on the amber surface.

  Joseph Coulter had only been dead for a few months. Could that much dust accumulate in so little time?

  He frowned, eyes narrowed as he stared at the bottle.

  More than one person in Indian Springs had commented that his dad had stopped drinking years before. He hadn’t given their claims a lot of credence. Joseph had never been a man to drink in a bar, or drive drunk, or any other public displays of alcoholism. Mostly, he just drank. Period. He started drinking when he rose in the morning and sipped Jack Daniels whiskey all day long until he fell into bed at night.

  And as the hours passed, he’d grown meaner.

  Cade couldn’t count the number of times Joseph’s vicious temper had exploded in blows. He didn’t want to remember the number of times he’d stepped between his father and one of his younger brothers, taking the punishment for them. The day he’d driven away from the Triple C, he’d put all that behind him.

  Was it possible his father really had changed when he and his brothers left? Had he come to regret the years he’d lost to alcohol and despair over the death of his wife?

  Had Joseph Coulter actually stopped blaming his sons for their mother’s death?

  Cade leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees, the glass dangling between them as memory sucked him in.

  The sun had been shining, the sky as bright as the bluebells his mother had loved, on the day she died. She’d laughed at her sons from the porch of her studio, teasing them to swing higher, farther, on the rope that dangled from the old tree overhanging the deep pool in the creek.

  They all complied, striving to make her shriek louder as they pushed the limits of their young bodies. Zach landed with a huge splash and came up sputtering, crowing with delight. He taunted their mother, challenging her to beat his record and she’d left the porch, running down the creek bank to join them.

  “Melanie, no!” Joseph’s roar reached her but it was too late. She was already launching herself, clutching the rope in both hands, her shorts and top splashed with water from the boys below. Then the rope broke. And she fell.

  Cade had never forgotten the sound of her head hitting the rock on the creek bank.

  Two days later, Melanie Coulter, beloved wife and mother, was dead from brain trauma.

  Grief stricken, Joseph Coulter blamed his sons. His drinking plunged them all into a hell that only ended for his sons when they left the Triple C, all four of them together, when Eli graduated from high school.

  Cade shook his head, the sound of the cable news announcer yanking him out of the past and back to the present. He lifted the glass and tossed back the whiskey, feeling the burn as it slid down his throat.

  And his chest burned, too. The odd numbness that had gripped his emotions since he’d returned to the Triple C was gone, replaced by a storm of emotion.

  He stared at the glass, rolling it between his palms.

  He rarely drank alcohol. He wasn’t a teetotaler but growing up with an alcoholic had made him wary of the stuff.

  Face it, Coulter, he thought. If you don’t fix this trouble with Mariah, you might turn out just like your dad.

  For the first time in his life, Cade had a flash of understanding for his father. And he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he would never do what Joseph Coulter had done. The lessons he’d learned as a boy when his mother died had cut too deep.

  If he was lucky enough to have children with the woman he loved, he would never abandon them to lose himself in grief.

  And Mariah was the woman he loved—every bit as much as his father had loved his mother.

  The question was— How in hell was he going to convince her?

  The café wasn’t quite half-full at ten o’clock. Regular customers on their morning coffee break sat at tables, in booths, or perched on the blue vinyl stools at the counter.

  Mariah had been busy since five o’clock and was glad to be working behind the counter.

  The bells hung on the front door jingled and she glanced up.

  Cade stepped into the café, the plate glass door closing behind him as his gaze swept the room.

  Mariah met his eyes with equanimity before looking away. She’d known it was only a matter of time before he sought her out here. After all, it was the one place he would be sure she couldn’t avoid him.

  He strode across the room, stopping in front of the counter.

  “Mariah, will you step outside with me for a minute?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t, Cade. I’m working.”

  “I’d rather talk to you without an audience.”

  “I’m sorry, Cade,” she repeated, murmuring in an effort to keep the interested customers from hearing.

  He studied her, his voice at normal level when he spoke. “Mariah Jones, I want you to come back to work on the Triple C.”

  “No, thank you,” she said politely, thinking he clearly didn’t care if the entire café heard their conversation. “Why not?”

  “You know why not. We discussed this. And nothing has changed.”

  “Everything’s changed.”

  “How? What’s different?”

  “I’ve realized I was wrong.”

  Her heart stopped, then sped up, beating faster than before. “In what way?” she asked carefully, hardly daring to hope.

  “You couldn’t have conned Joseph into leaving you the cabin.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re honest. Sometimes,” he amended as his mouth curved in a brief, rueful grin, “you’re too honest.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” she said gravely. “It means a lot.”

  “So.” He lifted an eyebrow. “You’ll be working at the Triple C again?”

  “No.”

  His brows drew down. “Why not?”

  “I don’t think it’s wise.”

  He stared at her for a lo
ng moment. “Can we please have a word in private?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s wise, either.” She knew very well that if they were alone, her weakened resolve would have her in his arms within seconds.

  His green eyes narrowed with intent while he studied her for a long moment.

  “If we can’t do this in private, then we’ll do it in public,” he said at last, his deep voice an amused drawl.

  “Do what?” she asked, bemused.

  He moved forward until only the counter separated them, his gaze holding hers.

  Every customer in the place turned to watch them. Sally and Julie stopped clearing tables to observe and even Ed peered through the pass-through from the kitchen.

  “Mariah Jones.” His deep voice carried clearly throughout the quiet room, reaching every ear. “Will you marry me?”

  Staggered, she stared at him in shock. “What?” she managed to whisper into the expectant silence.

  “I asked you to marry me. I’m crazy about you.” He leaned over the counter until their noses nearly touched. “Come back to the Triple C. Let’s get married, have babies, all that settled-down stuff that people in love do.”

  When she didn’t answer and only stared at him with wide eyes, his brows lowered. “Unless you don’t want to?”

  Her eyes widened farther and a smile trembled on her lips. “Oh, I do,” she said fervently. “I really do.”

  And she launched herself at him. His big hands closed around her waist and he lifted her up and over the counter. His mouth took hers at the same time as his arms wrapped her tightly against him.

  Around them, the café broke into cheers and shrieks of delight but Mariah barely heard them. Happiness fizzed and zinged through her veins.

  At last, his mouth released hers and he lifted his head just far enough to look into her eyes.