by Teresa Hill
Anything.
They trudged on, miserable, cold, wet.
She wondered if the cabin might have a primitive shower or even an old washtub. A bath was highly unlikely, she knew, but a woman could dream, couldn’t she?
A bath and then a nice warm bed with him.
That was a fantasy!
In the end, it took more than three hours. Three thoroughly miserable hours, but they made it. Paige didn’t see how he found his way, because the world seemed like a wet, foggy, miserable mess to her, but he led them right to a small cabin.
“Come on,” he said, opening the door for her.
She wanted nothing more than to get inside, but dug in her pack for her satellite phone instead. It was nearly six, and her brother had to be going crazy.
She huddled under the narrow overhang of the roof, pressed up against the side of the cabin and held up the phone. “I have to try to make a call before my brother shows up with the National Guard or something like that.”
He nodded. “I’ll start a fire. If you get through, I need to call the ranch, let ’em know I’m okay and to get us when they can.”
“Fire!” That was what she heard. “Yes, please. A fire.”
He went inside, and she turned on the phone and dialed. There was a ton of static on the line, a couple of seconds when she thought she heard Blake, frantic and calling her name, and then nothing.
Finally, on the fourth try, she could hear him.
“Hey, sorry about that. I got caught in the storm, but I’m fine,” she yelled into the phone.
“What?”
“I’m fine!”
“Paige—”
“Out of the mine, taking shelter in a cabin. I’m fine.”
“Cabin?”
“Yes. I’m in a cabin. We’ll wait out the storm here. I’ll call as soon as I can. Don’t worry. And don’t do anything stupid, like send someone to get me. You’ll give our whole plan away. Blake? Blake—”
But he was gone. There was nothing but static now.
Oh, well. He got the important parts, she thought. She was safe, out of the mine, out of the storm, and he didn’t need to do anything.
Which would be incredibly hard for her big brother, but Paige had to hope that he’d sit tight.
She clicked off the phone and opened the door to the cabin to find no real light, just what she had from her own helmet lamp. Slowly panning the room, she saw a roughly made wooden bed in one corner, a giant fireplace, two chairs, shelves with dry stores of food, a sink and what she really, really hoped was a bathroom behind a door in a corner.
She was still standing on the threshold, literally dripping wet, when the door opened and out came her cowboy, already out of his wet clothes and into a pair of dry jeans, pulling on a dry flannel shirt.
“I’m afraid there’s no electricity, and I was making too much of a mess to do the fire first,” he said. “Stay where you are. I’ll bring dry clothes to you. Believe me, it’s going to be easier this way.”
She didn’t argue, feeling like a drowned rat and looking away, not wanting anyone, especially him, to see her looking this bad and grateful that there wasn’t much light in the cabin yet.
He came back a moment later with a pair of sweatpants and another flannel shirt, even a pair of men’s boxers.
“Best I have to offer,” he said. “Now, my advice to you would be to get naked right here at the door and drop your clothes where they are. Because there’s only one dry towel left, and I imagine you’d rather have it for yourself and not bring all the water and mud into the cabin.”
“Did you strip at the door?” she asked.
“No, I just wish I had.”
Paige laughed and motioned for him to turn around so she could start stripping. She’d do anything right then to be warm and dry.
He turned to the side and held up the towel between them. She didn’t think she’d ever taken her clothes off that quickly. Not that it was easy, since everything was heavy with water and her fingers were practically numb.
But she got them off, leaving them in a sopping pile on the floor in the doorway, then took the towel and wrapped it around herself.
He just grinned and handed her the dry clothes.
“Is that a real bathroom over there?” she asked.
“There’s no hot water, if that’s what you’re asking. But there is running water. Rainwater collection system on the roof, so there’s no shortage of water now. Some semblance of a shower, if you could stand the cold. But there is a toilet that flushes and everything.”
“That’s it. I’m in love with this place,” she said, heading across the room for the bathroom. “If there were dry socks somewhere, I’d be in heaven.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised.
“And a fire? Dry socks and a fire? You are my hero!”
“Simple girl, are you? Easy to please?”
“Today I am,” she promised, shutting herself into the tiny bathroom.
He’d found a candle in the bathroom and left it burning. The room was tiny, primitive, but clean. She rubbed herself down briskly, dismissed completely the idea of a cold shower right now. Maybe once he got a big fire going, she’d try it. For the moment, she hurried into the boxers, the sweatpants and the flannel shirt.
They felt fabulous. Better than any designer gown she’d ever tried on.
Then she went to work trying to squeeze what water she could out of her hair.
Finally, she wrapped it in the towel and went into the main room.
He had a fire just starting to burn in the giant stone fireplace and she knew they’d soon be warm, given how small the cabin was, once the fire really got going.
She sat down on the raised stone hearth, and her hero presented her with luxuriously thick, warm socks.
“Ahhh!” She moaned in pure ecstasy, then exclaimed, “That’s it. It’s official. I would do absolutely anything for you!”
“Red, I haven’t even made you a cup of hot coffee yet, but I’m about to. What is that gonna get me?”
“I don’t know. What do you want?”
“Well, if that fire was going and this place was even halfway warm, I’d have dried you off myself and not given you any clothes to wear. I’d have taken you straight to bed. But I was planning on being gentlemanly about it and warming the place up first, maybe getting some food in you, and then getting you naked. That was my plan.”
“That sounds like an absolutely glorious plan.”
Okay, just like that.
They had a plan.
A highly satisfying plan.
Travis figured there was only one other thing he absolutely had to do before hauling her off to bed, and that was to try to get hold of someone at the ranch house, just so they’d know he was okay and not waste time trying to find him.
He was sure they had better things to do right now, to make sure everything else on the ranch was okay. He could wait. He might be very happy waiting here with her, letting someone else take care of things for a change.
After all, how many times did he find himself stranded with a gorgeous, willing woman?
It was definitely a first for him. Years of good clean living and hard work were being rewarded right here, he decided. He deserved it and he intended to enjoy it. She would, too. He’d make sure of it.
But first, he took her satellite phone and dialed the ranch. Nothing but static greeted him, despite repeated attempts.
“Try it outside,” she suggested, warming herself by the fire, just starting to catch well and throw off some heat and light. “There’s just enough of an overhang on the roof to keep you dry, and point the antenna toward the mine. That’s where I finally found a signal.”
“Okay. Be right back, Red.”
He got outside. Lord, it was a miserable day out there, but he was smiling, whistling, even.
He did as she suggested and pointed the antenna toward the mine, and sure enough, there was something of a signal. His housekeeper, a f
ierce-looking, no-nonsense woman named Marta, answered.
At least, he thought it was her.
The line crackled with static.
“Marta, it’s Travis. I’m holed up in the hunting cabin near the Eagle Mine. I’m fine. Tell the men to see to the animals and not to worry about coming to get me until they can.”
She said something. He thought she got it. Then asked, “Everything okay there, Marta? Look, tell Jack that the creek near the mine is a roaring river right now, not to be in a hurry to try to cross it to get to me. I’m fine.”
He hoped she got that, because the static only got worse. He clicked off the phone and let it be.
He realized he hadn’t said anything about his pretty trespasser, but then, what was the point? Nobody there really needed to know, he reasoned.
It was his ranch, and he’d decide for himself what to do with her once they were out of here.
Travis sighed and looked out into the mess of the storm.
He intended to enjoy himself in what time they had here. They’d figure out the rest later.
She sat on the hearth and used the towel to dry her hair as best she could, then finger-combed it to get out the tangles and separate the strands in hopes it might dry faster.
The fire was soon roaring. With that and the light from the half-dozen candles that she found scattered around the room, she could finally see, after hours in the dark and the ghostly gloom. When she had a mug of hot coffee in her hand, her life was nearly complete.
Paige was so busy thinking about what was to come between them that it was only after he’d gone outside and then come back in that she remembered something she should have already discussed with him.
He really had her completely distracted, thinking only of how much she wanted to be curled up in that bed with him naked in his arms.
She looked up as he came back into the cabin, her thoughts warring between him and what she wanted from him, versus her own family and what she’d come here to do.
And she hated asking this of him, bringing this into it, but she had to. She looked up at him and said, “You didn’t tell anyone at the ranch what I was doing, did you?”
“No,” he said.
But he’d gone still by the doorway, staring at her.
When he stepped closer, into the fall of light from the roaring fire and the candles, she could finally really see him. Not like that glimpse she had through the binoculars when she’d quickly, guiltily looked away. No rain falling between them now, no fog, no storm and no darkness.
He was tall, his body lean and beautifully muscled, hair dark, eyes dark and unfathomable at the moment.
She felt a hint of uneasiness first, a sense that she was missing something, something important that was right in front of her.
“What is it?” she asked, thinking there was something familiar about him. “What’s wrong?”
He came close, taking a long strand of her hair in his hand and holding it out in front of the fire.
“It looked so much darker before. But in this light, it’s almost like gold,” he said. “A golden red.”
“Yes.” Again, she felt uneasy, and again, she wasn’t sure why.
Did he know who she was?
Was that why he was suddenly so wary? Maybe even angry?
Paige’s family was Texas’s version of royalty, wealthy and often in the spotlight. She and her sister had been in the society pages of the Dallas Morning News and all the bigger papers in the state since birth.
And the hair was often what gave her and her sister away.
Not many women had this combination of reddish-gold hair.
“We never got around to introducing ourselves last night, Red,” he said.
“No, we didn’t.” She hadn’t wanted to. Hadn’t wanted to lie to him and hadn’t wanted to tell him her name, just in case it meant something to him. And she’d been happy to think of him simply as her cowboy, a man she’d admired and met by chance. Nothing else. Finally, she found the courage to ask, “You know who I am?”
“Now that I see that hair clearly, oh, yeah,” he said. “I’m afraid I know.”
Well, if he’d lived on this ranch his whole life, she couldn’t be that surprised. The feud was the stuff of Texas legends. Any long-standing family war over good cattle land was enough to make a story last. Throw in priceless jewels and a high-stakes poker game and you got…a good old tall Texas tale.
“One of the twins is a jewelry designer. I’m guessing she wouldn’t hold up as well down in a mine. So you must be the scientist,” he concluded.
She nodded, really hoping he wouldn’t be too mad. “I’m Paige McCord.”
She held out her hand.
He didn’t.
“That’s great. Just great.” He swore, shook his head in disgust or maybe fury and finally said, “I’m Travis Foley.”
Chapter Five
She laughed despite herself, and said, “No, you’re not!”
He nodded, looking like a man not in the mood to be patient with her while she worked this out in her own head.
“You…you were riding around like some ranch hand, checking the fences, checking the livestock. I saw you.”
“You were watching me?” he asked incredulously.
“Of course I was. Did you think I’d just show up one day and head down into the mine? With no idea of whether anyone ever came that way? Whether I’d get caught? I watched you for the last three days. Doing the work of a regular ranch hand.”
“I’m a rancher. It’s what I do. I work the land.” He looked furious.
“You’re supposed to be in Dallas at some big family meeting,” she remembered.
“I didn’t feel like going to Dallas for another family meeting,” he said bitingly. “And you? You’re spying on me? And my ranch?”
“It’s not your ranch,” she reminded him.
And, oh, wow.
That was clearly the wrong thing to say.
He looked like he might strangle her right there where she sat. He was breathing hard, towering over her, looking like he might grab her by her hair and throw her out right then and there.
But he didn’t.
He just glowered at her.
“No, it’s not my ranch. Believe me, your family would never let mine forget that. You probably wouldn’t understand this, but the thing is, a man works a piece of land every day, sweats over it, bleeds over it, takes care of it like it was his, he starts to get ideas he shouldn’t have—”
“That’s not what I meant,” she claimed. “I mean…I know you must…care about the place—”
“Care about it?” He laughed, still furious. “I care about what I have for dinner some nights, whether the Cowboys win a football game, whether it’s going to rain or be sunny. What I feel for this ranch is a helluva lot more than care.”
“Yes. Okay.” She got to her feet, tired of him towering over her, though in truth, he still did even when she was standing. “I’m sorry—”
“So for you to just waltz in here like your family owns the place, which I suppose you think you do, and head down into that mine, like you think you own that, too, to try to find that stupid diamond—”
“Yes. You’re right. I’m sorry—”
“To give me that I’m-just-a-grad-student routine? That it’s-the-chance-of-a-lifetime routine?” He took her chin in his hand, getting right up in her face and holding her there, glaring at her. “You lie really well, Red.”
She shoved him away hard, and then nearly tripped over the stone hearth of the fireplace as she backed away from him.
He swore, reached out to grab her to keep her from falling.
“You really didn’t know it was me?” he demanded, his grip on her nearly tight enough to hurt.
“No. Of course not. I told you. I thought you were just a ranch hand. I thought—”
“What?” he demanded.
“Nothing—” She was blushing, just thinking of what she thought. That he was a beautiful man.
A beautiful, ordinary man. And of what she’d wanted from him, what she’d let him do.
Oh, Lord, what she’d let him do…
What she’d planned for them to do once they got here…
She swallowed hard, thinking for a moment of all she’d lost in this instant. Glad it hadn’t gone any further between them, and yet…
She couldn’t believe he was one of the Foleys.
Paige had been introduced to him, of course. A girl didn’t move in the upper echelon of Texas society for her whole life without being introduced to the Foleys, even if her family had been feuding with them since the Civil War.
So they’d no doubt exchanged icily polite, icily brief handshakes at various social functions over the years, charity balls, the governor’s mansion, that sort of thing.
There were three brothers, something of a mixed set, all young, wealthy, arrogant and good-looking. In her mind, she could see them standing in a row in black tuxedoes and starched white shirts, looking for all the world like they owned everything they surveyed.
She’d never really been that interested in the feud, in perpetuating it or ending it, had just grown up on tales of how terribly his family had treated hers and been happy to keep her distance from him and the entire clan.
So she’d shook his hand a time or two when forced to do so in the name of good manners and not having any interest in causing a scene.
She really hadn’t paid that much attention to the whole brood until her mother’s terrible secret had come out this summer.
That her mother had once loved his father, Rex Foley. Her curiosity had driven her to the Internet and the photos she could find. She’d skipped right over the brothers and zeroed in on the father instead.
His father had slept with her mother and fathered a child with her. Paige’s little brother, Charlie.
How could that be?
She still couldn’t quite believe it, couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t…
And all that time she’d been glaring at pictures of Rex Foley, trying to understand, trying to see something of her little brother in him and wondering how it was that they’d managed to keep that secret all these years, how no one had known…
