by Teresa Hill
What could he have possibly given her?
On the desk in the library, she found a box. A big, old cardboard box.
“How romantic,” she muttered to herself.
But inside…inside was an absolute treasure chest of information. All kinds of historical documents about the ranch, diaries of his ancestors and hers, maps, drawings, photos, everything.
She was so happy, she was practically bouncing with joy, couldn’t wait to dig into it all.
Best of all, he had what looked like a complete record of the archaeologists’ work in the mines with the petroglyphs last year!
She had their published report, but he had…everything!
She was so excited. This was…everything. Everything she needed. If anything could pinpoint the exact location of the diamond, it was the petroglyphs, and the archaeologists had mapped and photographed them all!
She was going to do it! She was going to find that diamond, and Blake would do what it took to save the family diamond empire, and then…
Paige thought of Travis.
And then what?
She pushed the thought out of her mind and settled into a chair with the archaeologists’ material to start reading.
Travis caught hell from the ranch hands that day for not only starting the day obscenely late—and no explanations of conference calls with bankers were believed in the least—but also for being ridiculously happy.
Apparently, he’d been a bear to deal with for days.
He found he didn’t care.
What he did care about was that there was a gorgeous redhead waiting back at the ranch for him, and he couldn’t wait to get back to her, even if it was the first day in forever that it wasn’t raining like crazy and there were a million things to be done around the ranch.
But he did his duty, as he always had, and got his work done, despite the temptations of her. Then he hurried with almost indecent speed back to the house once the work was done.
Cal offered to take care of Murph for him, and Travis actually agreed, which won him a long, hard look from Cal and a muttered, Damn, she must be something, under Cal’s breath as Travis walked out of the barn.
For once, he wished a day’s work didn’t involve him coming home a mess, this time wet and muddy through and through.
He had just gotten his boots off in the mudroom and stood up to take off his shirt when she ran into the room, a beautiful smile on her face and launched herself into his arms, giving him no choice but to catch her.
“I’m filthy,” he told her.
“I don’t care,” she claimed, as she laughed and kissed him.
“Okay, but what happened?” He’d never seen her this happy.
“You! My present! All those old records and the archaeologists’ report!”
It was his turn to laugh. She was thrilled with a box of old records about the ranch?
“They’re not exactly diamonds,” he reminded her.
“No, they’re better!” She kissed him again.
He gave her a skeptical look. Better than diamonds?
“You’re talking to a geologist, remember? Trust me. They’re better.”
“Well, in that case…” He’d already gotten her filthy, wrapped around him the way she was, so now they both needed to get cleaned up. “Just how grateful are you, Red?”
She grinned. “You need someone to clean you up?”
He nodded.
“Allow me. Please.”
“Only if I get to return the favor, Red.”
She nodded. “Done.”
They were lying in his bed, much later that night, Travis on his back, Paige curled against his side, him stroking that glorious red hair of hers, when he remembered the conversation he’d had with his father yesterday, about Charlie and Eleanor McCord.
Travis sighed, hating to bring their families into this room, this moment, but he knew she was worried about Charlie meeting the Foleys, and he didn’t want to be keeping things from her.
He kept stroking her hair, his touch easy and soothing, he hoped, and said, “I meant to tell you, I talked to my father the other night, and I thought you’d like to know. He met Charlie.”
She went to pull away from him, and he let her, only as far as to roll onto her back in the bed beside him, and he followed, up on his side, taking her face in his hand to turn it back toward him.
Because he was determined that they could talk about this and still be two people thoroughly enjoying each other in bed.
“When?” she whispered.
“I’m not sure. Just in the last few days.”
She studied his face, obviously worried. “And?”
“And…they met. Listening to my father, it sounds like everybody’s feelings are pretty much the same. All mixed up. Charlie is my father’s son, except he’s not, or he never has been. He doesn’t know any of us, and none of us really knows what we feel yet. You should know, my father wanted to meet him all along, but decided to wait until Charlie was ready. Sounded like the whole thing was awkward, but civil. I’m sure they’ll see each other again. My father said it’s bound to take some time to get over the awkwardness and figure out where they go from here, but…He’s a good man, Paige. A good father. And it meant something to him. It meant a lot. I could—”
He broke off.
“What?” she demanded. “Tell me.”
“I think he actually started to cry while he was telling me about it,” Travis admitted. “I don’t remember my father ever shedding a tear over anything. He’s a rock. He raised me and my two brothers all by himself after our mother died. The man’s a force to be reckoned with, and this brought him to tears, just telling me about it. He’d never be cruel or even unkind to a child of his. You have to believe me about that.”
“Okay. I do,” she said. “And I’m glad that it meant so much to your father, and that you told me.”
“I also told him I’d like to meet Charlie, whenever Charlie’s ready,” Travis added. “That maybe he’d like to come to the ranch. Around here we put a man on a horse to see what he’s made of.”
That won him a smile.
“Red, tell me the kid can at least ride a horse respectably.”
“He was born and raised in Texas. Of course, he can handle a horse.”
“Good. I don’t want to be embarrassed by the kid,” he teased, leaning over and kissing her softly, then thinking, damn, he had to tell her the rest of it.
“What?” She seemed to have radar when it came to him holding back family news. “It’s something bad. I knew it. You told me the good news. Now tell me the bad.”
He groaned, closed his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t know if it’s bad, exactly—”
“If your reaction is any indication, it’s bad. Travis, tell me—”
“My father said…he and your mother are…seeing each other.”
She frowned. “Seeing…Like my mother is helping him to get to know Charlie?”
Travis shook his head. “No…seeing each other.”
Paige looked incredulous. “Seeing as in…dating?”
“Worse,” he admitted.
“They’re sleeping together?” she cried, looking horrified.
“No! I mean…I don’t know. I don’t want to know. I didn’t ask, and he didn’t volunteer any information about that. He just…he said…he really cared about her all those years ago and that…he never stopped.”
Paige scrambled to sit up in bed and keep the sheet covering her. Her mouth fell open, and she looked so shocked she couldn’t even say anything.
“I know,” he said. “I felt the same way when he told me. I just…That’s what he said. That they’ve been apart all these years, and that they’re seeing each other and they don’t care what anyone in the family thinks about it anymore.”
He waited, and she just sat there, looking like a million different questions were rushing through her head every moment, and he wished…He wished everything didn’t have to be so damned complicate
d, with so many ways in which his family was entangled in hers.
“I meant to tell you last night, and we got…Well, you know what we did. But I don’t want you to think I’m keeping secrets from you, either, and if you ask me what I think about this, I have no idea what to say. It’s just…”
“Unreal,” she said.
“Yes, it seems like it can’t possibly be happening. But that’s what he said. I take it this is not common knowledge in your family or mine, or we’d have heard about it by now from one of our siblings.”
“Oh, I’d have heard about it. Blake, this morning, if he had any idea, would have told me all about it.” She made a face, like a woman who dreaded what was to come.
“So I shouldn’t have told you?” he asked.
She groaned. “I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know about the two of them. And I certainly don’t want them to know about us. I just want to be here with you, without any of the family stuff between us. I know that’s impossible, but…that’s what I want.”
“Well, how about…no more talk about the family while we’re in bed?” he proposed, easing back down in the bed and tugging her down after him.
“Oh,” she said, letting him pull her to him, those long legs of hers wrapping around his, her pretty breasts once more pressed against his chest. “That sounds like a great idea.”
“Okay. Forget I said anything.”
“I can do that,” she promised. “Kiss me, and I’ll forget right now.”
He happily complied.
The days that followed, waiting for the floodwaters to recede, were idyllic, among the most joyous of her life, Paige decided.
She studied the historical records from the ranch by day and gave up her nights to Travis, gave herself, her body to him completely, while trying to tamp down any questions about risky emotional attachments, the future or messy family entanglements.
This was like a little present to herself, this time with him, and she meant to enjoy it to the fullest and try not to think about what happened later, once it was time for her to leave the ranch.
Except that she wanted Travis to always have the ranch.
The place had come alive to her after reading the old diaries of the women who’d lived and died here, the record of the struggles they faced, the men they’d loved, and all this life on the ranch had meant to them.
Travis loved it in that same way, and it should be his, she decided.
She wanted to be the one who made sure it was always his.
If she found the diamond, she thought she’d have the leverage to do that. She’d simply tell her family if they wanted her to give them the diamond, he got the ranch, period.
It was, as she’d told him, nothing more than stubborn pride and wanting to best the Foleys that would make anyone in her family hang on to the ranch anyway, and she was sick of the whole feud.
So that would be her parting gift to Travis.
His ranch.
And if, when this was over, he just let her go…she supposed she’d have to find the strength and the pride to go.
She wasn’t going to think about it now.
She had a diamond to find.
And his records were going to help her. So far, she hadn’t found any reference to the diamond at all, except for the same old speculation that it might be there. No one had put together the clue on the back of the old deed with the petroglyphs. No one said anything about ever searching in that way for the diamond.
So she thought it might still be here, even after all this time.
And with the archaeological records, she had the location of all the petroglyphs. The published report showed eight, but it turned out those were only the most clear, intact images the archaeologists had found. The complete records Travis had showed five more partial eagle images and their locations. With that, Paige had mapped out her own plan to search the mine, once the water went down.
Travis checked the mine every day and said it wouldn’t be long now.
Which made her think, it was getting late. He’d be home soon.
She thought about what she might do that she hadn’t already done with him, something he would enjoy coming home to….
Having her naked worked for him in a big way. So just waiting for him in his bed was always an option. Or walking into the shower with him, as he got cleaned up after a long day’s work. That had proven to be very, very satisfying a few nights ago.
Maybe tonight, she really should wait until after dinner, because the man worked hard and he needed to keep up his strength. She could see that he was fed and then maybe take him into the library and take off her clothes and lie down on the rug in front of the fire.
Paige knew he’d like that. He’d wanted her there that first night, in the light of the fire, and she’d been too shy with him at first to really get into letting him watch while she slowly peeled off her clothes.
But she could do it now.
For him, she would.
She’d do anything for him.
He had that kind of sensual power over her.
It was scary and completely thrilling at the same time.
She’d never met a man like him, one who was so very much a man. A strong, kind, patient, gentle, outrageously sexy man who loved this land, this life with a kind of certainty she found so compelling. It made him seem so much more solid and trustworthy than any man she’d ever known.
Paige had met so many men who seemed to be just playing at life, moving along from this to that with no sense of commitment to anything.
Travis knew what he wanted. He worked hard every day to build the life he wanted, even knowing he might one day lose it to her family. He worked for it anyway.
And he seemed very happy to be sharing it with her. Whether that was simply sexual attraction or convenience…
Oh, please, don’t let it be just that.
She didn’t think she could stand it if, in the end, it was nothing but that.
Paige shook her head, refusing to think that way. She was here now. That was what mattered. They had this time together, and she intended to make the most of it.
Tonight, she was going to do something she’d never done for any man, because she hadn’t ever wanted so much to please a man, to surprise him, to be a little daring, a little outrageous for him.
She was going to strip for Travis Foley.
She’d do it in front of the fire while he watched, if she didn’t lose her nerve. Paige planned her wardrobe accordingly, looking for something with lots of buttons she could slowly undo and pretty, tiny, lace underwear. She’d even wear high heels for this. That’s how crazy she was for the man.
He knew something was up when he walked in that night and saw her in those shoes.
“Are we going out?” he asked.
“Oh, no. We’re staying in.” She grinned wickedly.
“Okay,” he said meekly. “Is there anything I should…do?”
“No, I’m going to take care of everything. You just do what you normally do. Go get cleaned up so I can feed you and then…you’ll see.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, already headed for the shower.
“That was the sexiest thing I have ever seen in my life,” he whispered into her ear later that evening as they lay on a blanket in front of the fire. “If it gets any better than that, I don’t think my heart could take it.”
He’d taken her in a frenzy of blazing heat and need and pleasure so deep and all encompassing, it was as if there was nothing left in the world, like what they shared erased everything else, consumed it.
As if they were the only two people in the world and nothing else even existed, much less mattered.
As if nothing had the power to come between them.
When she was in his arms like this, that’s how she felt.
As if nothing could come between them.
Later, pleasantly tired and yet excited by all that she’d found out about the ranch, she wrapped herself up in an afghan, and he did, too
, and she showed him some of her favorite old photos of the ranch, read him a few passages from old diaries with speculation about the diamond, and then showed him the deed itself and what she and Blake had found.
There was a scanned copy of it in her e-mail box. She’d had Blake send it to her earlier.
She brought it up on the computer and showed him the image.
“See, right here?” She pointed to the border of the deed, made with hundreds of tiny eagles.
“That’s the same image used to mark the Eagle Mine,” he said, leaning over her shoulder as she sat at his desk.
“Yes. And look here, this corner. It’s hard to see on the scan—and even on the actual map, you have to really be looking to see it—but this one eagle, in his talon is a diamond.”
He leaned closer to the computer screen, then shook his head. “I don’t see it.”
“Well, it’s there. I think it’s telling us not just that the diamond was hidden in the Eagle Mine, but that the image of the eagle marks the spot where the diamond was buried. The image used on the petroglyphs is the same as the one on the deed, as the eagle holding the diamond in his claw. I know where all those images are because you gave me the archaeologists’ report, along with the maps they made. Travis, we can find it! We’re going to find that diamond!”
He turned and sat on the edge of the desk, shaking his head.
“You thought I was crazy, didn’t you?”
“Maybe. A little.”
“But see? It’s all here. It all makes sense. The diamond has to be at one of these spots, and there are only thirteen of them. We’re going to find it.”
“Okay, but can we find it tomorrow? Or two days from now? Or next week?” he asked, trailing kisses from her bare shoulder up to her neck.
She laughed, shivering because it felt so good, and went to close the image and the e-mail it came in, only then noticing she had six different e-mails from Gabby, all within a two-hour span.
“My cousin Gabby’s going nuts about something,” she said. “She probably found out my mother’s dating your father.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, teasing her ear with his tongue. “Tomorrow. They’ll all be just as crazy tomorrow.”
