The Cowboy And The Debutante

by Stella Bagwell

  Miguel could feel her pulling away from him, the warmth he’d felt a few moments ago being replaced by cool indifference. Whether it was feigned or real, he didn’t know. Nor did it really matter. She was telling him a love song from her would never be played in real life for a man like him.

  With that sobering thought, he cleared his throat and rose to his feel “Don’t worry, Anna. I would never make that mistake.”

  He moved away from the piano bench, and after a few moments Anna looked around to see he was gone. It was just as well, she tried to tell herself. But even as she did, her chin fell against her chest and hot tears oozed from her closed eyes.

  She was falling in love with Miguel Chavez, she realized. A man who was bound to break her heart.

  Chapter Six

  Three days later Anna was coming into the house from the stables when the kitchen phone rang. Trying not to think about the nasty tracks her boots were leaving on the clean tile, she hurried across to the cabinets to answer it.

  “Hi, sis! What’s going on up there on the Bar M?”

  Thrilled to hear her brothers voice, she squealed, “Adam! What are you doing? How’s your leg?”

  While he filled her in on his condition and his accident, Anna dragged up a chair, pushed off her dirty cowboy boots and made herself comfortable.

  “Sounds like you were lucky your back wasn’t broken,” she said, once he paused for her reply. “So when are you coming home? Aren’t you nearly finished down there?”

  He clucked his tongue in a teasing way, and the sound reminded Anna of how Miguel had talked about Adam’s sense of humor and her lack of one. Maybe he was right. Maybe she had forgotten how to really laugh.

  “I’m just getting started. What’s the matter, Annie? Missing your old twin brother?”

  With the receiver cradled between her shoulder and her ear, she unwrapped the rubber band from the end of her braid. “I would like to see you. I was looking forward to us having some leisurely rides together. Without your hotshot,” she added drily.

  Her brother laughed. “You’ll never let me live that down, will you?”

  “Not a chance.”

  He laughed again, then asked, “How are you and the horses making it? Frankly, I thought Mom and Dad handed you a heavy load. But I guess they figured Miguel was there to help you.”

  Miguel. Adam couldn’t know the horses were far easier to deal with than the unpredictable foreman. Since she’d played the piano for him the other night, he’d kept his distance and she hers. She hated the separation and hated the fact that she missed him, but she tried to tell herself it was all for the best.

  “The horses and I are making it just fine,” she assured him. “I’m not even saddle sore anymore.”

  “The city girl is back in the saddle again.” He sang a line of the old Western song by a similar name, then finished it with a yodel that had Anna rolling her eyes with amusement. “Bet you’re missing all those bright lights and applause.”

  “I’ve been too busy cleaning horse manure from under my fingernails to think about making music.”

  He made a scoffing of disbelief, then his voice grew more serious. “Are you really okay, sis? You know Miguel will help you in any way. All you have to do is ask him.”

  But she wouldn’t ask him. So far she’d told the two inept cowhands what to do, and if they couldn’t manage the job, she did it herself. “Miguel has been busy with roundup.”

  There was a long pause, and in spite of the thousands of miles separating them, Anna could feel her brother weighing her response like a sack of eggs.

  “You haven’t been home since Lester retired,” he mused aloud. “What do you think about Miguel?”

  Anna closed her eyes. She wasn’t ready to admit to herself that Miguel had gotten under her skin. Much less admit it to her brother.

  “He seems a very capable man.”

  Adam snorted at her answer. “I know the man is capable, sis. I want to know what you think of him personally?”

  “Why?”

  He sighed. “Because when I first mentioned his name you froze up.”

  Anna groaned. “I didn’t freeze up! You can’t see me. So you can hardly know what I’m doing back here!”

  A long silence followed her outburst, then he said, “You’re getting hysterical now. Something must be going on between the two of you.”

  Gripping the phone, she scooted up on the edge of the chair. “Are you crazy? I hardly know the man!”

  Anna expected Adam to continue his speculations, but he surprised her by suddenly switching gears. “If that’s the case,” he told her, “then you should get to know him. He’s a great guy. And he’s lonely. He could use your company.”

  She tried to ignore the sudden wincing of her heart. “Mother says he dislikes women. And I am a woman,” she reminded him drily.

  “So. You might be able to make him see all women aren’t like his wife.”

  Anna seized upon her brother’s snippet of information. “You know his wife?”

  “Only from what little he’s told me about her. She sounded like a hellcat on wheels. I guess you know he has a son.”

  Everything inside Anna went completely still, and she stared at the receiver as though she was certain she’d heard wrong. “Did you say ‘son’?”

  “Yeah. I think he’s about eleven or twelve now. Miguel doesn’t say too much about him. But I can tell when he does talk about the boy, he really misses him. It’s too bad he doesn’t get to be with him.”

  “Doesn’t Miguel see his son regularly?”

  “He’s been on the Bar M for more than a year now, and I’ve never seen the boy. And I don’t think Miguel has gone back to Texas to see him. But I don’t ask. I don’t pry into the man’s private business.”

  After that Adam moved their conversation on to other things, but Anna was mostly lost to what he was saying. Her mind was whirling with the knowledge that Miguel had a child. A son nearly twelve years old! Where was he, and why hadn’t Miguel mentioned him to Anna?

  Once Adam hung up with the promise to call again soon, Anna went to her bedroom and took a long, hot shower. By the time she was finished, she told herself she had to put Miguel out of her mind. It wasn’t any of her business whether he had a son. But Adam’s words wouldn’t leave her alone. Miguel is lonely. I can tell he misses the boy.

  Eventually she gave up fighting with herself and decided to take her brother’s advice and give Miguel a little company. The most he could do was tell her to leave. If he did, she would go away and pretend it didn’t matter to her one way or the other.

  She dressed in a short-sleeved cotton sweater and a full skirt of Indian printed cotton. The copper, turquoise and burgundy shoes suited her, and along with her fiery hair gave her enough coloring to forgo makeup. The last thing she wanted was for Miguel to think she was going out of her way to entice him.

  The evening before, Anna had made a green chili casserole and eaten very little of it. She pulled it from the refrigerator and carried it out to one of the pickup trucks she’d been driving on the ranch.

  She was halfway up the mountain when she met Miguel coming down in his four-wheel-drive vehicle. The moment he spotted her, he pulled to the side of the narrow dirt road and waited for her to reach him.

  “Where are you going?” he asked before she had a chance to say anything.

  She stared. She’d never seen him so dressed up before. A clean gray felt was on his head and his white shirt was starched and sharply creased. His jaws were freshly shaven. The sight of him both thrilled and disappointed her. He was obviously going out.

  “I was...coming up to see you.” She glanced at the casserole on the seat beside her. Adam’s phone call must have temporarily paralyzed her brain cells. She’d been an idiot for ever thinking Miguel might want or need her company.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “No. I...” She shrugged while wishing she’d never put herself in such an awkward position.
“I thought you might not have eaten yet, and I have plenty of green chili casserole with me.”

  He studied her face, searching for a motive behind her suggestion. When her expression failed to tell him anything, he said, “Actually I was on my way into town to eat.”

  “Oh.”

  Sudden disappointment flickered in her eyes, and Miguel inwardly cursed. For the past three days she hadn’t made any sort of effort to seek him out. It seemed suspicious as hell that she wanted to have a meal with him now.

  “Why don’t you tell me what you’re really up to,” he said.

  His question stiffened Anna’s backbone. “I’m not up to anything,” she said coolly. “I was simply going to share my supper with you. But it’s obvious you have other plans.”

  Not waiting for a reply, she gunned the motor, put the gear shift into low and pulled away from him.

  Because the rocky lane was so narrow, she was forced to drive all the way to the honeymoon house to find a space wide enough to turn the truck around. By the time she headed back down the mountain, her face was still burning with humiliation.

  It was a lesson well learned, she firmly told herself. Men were selfish, narrow-minded creatures. Scott had taught her that long before she’d ever come home to the Bar M. She needed to remember Miguel was no different from the rest of his gender.

  She was still fuming, vowing never to make another friendly gesture to the man, when she topped a small rise and was suddenly faced with Miguel’s Explorer parked smack-dab in the middle of the road.

  Cursing out loud, she jammed on the brakes. Gravel spewed from all four tires as the truck skidded several feet on down the steep incline until it finally came to a halt half a foot away from his bumper.

  Shaking with anger and fear, she jammed on the emergency brake and quickly climbed out of the truck. Miguel was already on the ground, waiting for her. “With that kind of driving, I hope your parents have their insurance paid up,” he drawled mockingly.

  Her mouth fell open, then snapped shut. “What are you doing? Trying to get this thing smashed?”

  She gestured toward his vehicle, and Miguel could not miss the fire in her eyes. She was a beautiful woman. But even more so when anger flamed her cheeks and sparkled in her eyes. He had to admit he sometimes goaded her purposely, just to see the transformation.

  “You left without saying goodbye. I thought I’d give you another chance.”

  His comment was so unexpected and ridiculous, she shook her head, then was unable to stop a small smile from tugging at her lips.

  “You’re crazy,” she said to him.

  With a lazy grin he watched the high-desert wind whip her hair like the flame of a piñon fire. “Would you like to drive into town and eat with me?”

  The sight of his vehicle parked in the road had momentarily shocked Anna, but his invitation completely bowled her over.

  “You don’t have to pretend you’d like me to come along. I’d rather you be truthful with me.”

  That was the whole trouble, Miguel thought. He actually did want Anna to be with him. Though God only knew why. She was not a woman he should be letting into his life. But in this past week he had come to want her as he had wanted no other woman.

  “If I didn’t want you to come with me, I wouldn’t have asked.”

  His face was shaded by the wide brim of his hat. Anna studied his passive expression for a few moments while she tried to decide what to do. She’d driven up here because she’d wanted to see him, to spend a little time with him and hopefully learn something more about his son.

  Perhaps driving into Ruidoso with him would be even better, she thought. At least the two of them would be in a public place with no chance of anything physical happening between them.

  “All right,” she said finally, “I’ll follow you down to the ranch house and leave my truck there.”

  Less than five minutes later Anna was sitting in Miguel’s black Explorer. Dusk was falling but she was still able to watch the scenery fly by her windows as they headed away from the Bar M.

  When he halted at a stop sign, then turned onto a two-lane asphalt highway, Anna realized it was the first time she’d been away from the ranch since she’d come home more than a week ago. She’d been so busy time had flown by, and she realized she had missed nothing of the outside world. Especially the time she used to spend at the piano or the long hours she endured traveling cross-country.

  “I heard you finished roundup this evening,” she said once he’d gone through the gears on the stick shift and the vehicle started to pick up speed.

  “Who told you that?”

  “One of the hands. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  The question hurt him nearly as badly as staying away from her had. “I’ve been busy. I didn’t have time to come by the stables.”

  He was lying, and Anna knew she should let it rest. But she couldn’t. His distance had puzzled her. All she’d done was play the piano for him, and he’d repaid her with indifference.

  “If I’d known Cole Porter was going to put you in such a sour mood I would have played Beethoven,” she said, trying to joke.

  Miguel wished she hadn’t brought up that night. He’d spent the past three days trying to forget how she’d looked and smelled, the beautiful music she’d made with her hands and most of all the longing he’d seen in her eyes. It had been all he could do to leave her and walk out of the house. After that he’d stayed away from her out of necessity. Even now he knew he shouldn’t be with her like this. But she was a temptation he couldn’t seem to resist.

  “I’ve not been in a sour mood, Anna.”

  She glanced at his hard profile and was suddenly struck by how much pleasure it gave her to look at him, be with him. “So in other words you just haven’t wanted to be around me.”

  He sighed. “I didn’t say that. But now that you have, I think we should be honest with each other. Just as you said a few moments ago.”

  She continued to look at him as she waited for him to go on. He felt her gaze boring into the side of his face and was finally compelled to glance at her.

  “We shouldn’t be together,” he said with a grimace. “We bring out the worst in each other.”

  Funny he should say that, Anna thought. The few moments she’d spent in his arms had been the very best of her life.

  “I wonder why that is?” she pondered quietly.

  He shrugged. “Because we’re like fire and ice. One is bound to destroy the other.”

  Anna’s birth mother had destroyed nearly everything she touched. She’d had her chances at love and happiness but one by one she’d made a mess of them and subsequently her life. Anna was beginning to fear she was headed down the same destructive path. Especially when she looked at Miguel and wished for what could never be.

  “Don’t you think you’re being a little overly dramatic?” she asked him. “We’ve had our differences, but we’ve gotten past them.”

  “It’s the way we get past them that worries me, Anna.”

  She moved around in her seat. “I don’t know why it should worry you. It’s not like Daddy is going to come home and force you into a shotgun wedding just because you kissed me.”

  His nostrils flared at her glib remark. “Maybe a few kisses don’t mean anything to you. But to a man it’s a green light. Pure and simple.”

  The more he said, the worse she hurt. Deep inside she wanted to believe something other than lust or anger had driven him to take her into his arms and taste her lips.

  She sighed wearily. “Even though I’ve never slept with a man, I’m not ignorant of men or their behavior, Miguel. Six weeks ago I was planning to marry one.”

  His head jerked around in surprise. “You were engaged?”

  She nodded while wondering why she’d let the admission slip past her lips. She hadn’t been planning on telling Miguel about her broken engagement. What woman in their right mind wanted anyone to know she’d been cheated on?

  “And making
wedding plans,” she answered grimly.

  “What happened? You decided he wouldn’t fit in with your career?”

  “Not with another woman hanging on to his shirtsleeve. Three is usually a crowd. Especially in a marriage.”

  He glanced at her sharply. “You’re saying he was untrue?”

  Her lips spread to a thin, mocking line. Thank God Scott’s betrayal no longer hurt her, but it had taught her a hard lesson about men and fidelity. She’d have to be crazy or crazy in love to trust another one.

  Refusing to be embarrassed, she lifted her chin. “When you walk in and see your betrothed in bed with another woman, the word for it isn’t untrue. It’s—” she broke off and waved her hand in a dismissive way “—it’s bad. But it’s survivable. I’m proof of that.”

  Miguel could not imagine such a thing happening to Anna. She was a beautiful woman, and even though she was oftentimes remote and cool, he could see flashes of her passion trying to escape. How could any man ever look away from her and to another? She could give a man more than he could ever dream of. But passion wasn’t everything, he quickly reminded himself. Charlene had certainly taught him that much.

  “So unlike you, your fiancé wasn’t choosy about his bed partner, so you’ve come back to the Bar M to mend a broken heart,” he mused aloud.

  Miguel should have known it was something like that and not just a vacation from her work. No wonder she’d kissed him with such abandon. She was probably on a giant rebound, looking for any man to soothe her feminine pride, and for some reason she’d picked him.

  Anna primly crossed her legs and made sure her long skirt was down to her ankles. “My heart isn’t broken. Now that my relationship with him is all in the past I don’t think I ever really loved him. In fact, I’m quite glad to have him out of my life.”

  “Hell, you make him sound like an old dress you decided to throw away.”

  “On the contrary. I’ve had dresses I was fonder of than that...cheat.”