His for the Taking

by Ann Major

  “Not a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  She just shook her head. “That’s pretty obvious.”

  “What if I give you my word that I won’t touch you? At least, not unless you ask me to.”

  Too aware of her own burning hunger, she stared at him.

  “Look, there are things about our past I’d like to resolve,” he said. “Maybe then we could both forget about each other. That’s what we both want—right?”

  She was so out of control, she didn’t know what she wanted anymore. No. That wasn’t correct. She wanted the life she’d planned, didn’t she? So, why did denying him hurt so much she ached?

  It was dangerous sport looking at man like Cole, a man who was still as wrong for her as he’d been in the past, especially when she was wet and trembling from his kisses. His stormy green eyes and tousled black hair made him look hot and turned on even while his uncanny resemblance to their precious son tugged at her heart…and her conscience.

  At the thought of Noah, she flushed guiltily and shook her head. “We need to avoid each other.”

  “I swear I won’t touch you.” Cole’s angular face was set, his low tone sincere. “Please—I really think we should see each other again. Do you think it’s going to be easy for us to forget, if we walk away—after that kiss—when what we need is closure? We need to talk.”

  Even though she didn’t feel at all sure of herself, she agreed with him. “Maybe you have a point.”

  “So let’s ride and then have dinner at my house or have a picnic somewhere later this afternoon. You still like to ride, right?”

  She’d always loved to ride. “You mean horses?”

  “What else?”

  In spite of herself, she brightened. “I’m afraid I haven’t ridden much since I left Yella.”

  “Some things you don’t forget.” His eyes were on her lips as his words lingered in the charged air that separated them. “You always said you wanted to see my house and horse barn, but that wasn’t possible…when my mother lived there.”

  “She’s moved?”

  “Yes. When my dad was dying, he told me about my brother, Adam. I felt betrayed at first, of less importance to my father somehow. But I hid my feelings and drove to where he lived and met him. I asked him to come to Yella to help me manage the ranch so I could devote more time to the oil business. Mother didn’t want me to have anything to do with Adam. She felt betrayed even though Adam had been conceived before she met Dad and without Dad’s knowledge. She blamed Adam for the whole mess, and then me for accepting him. That’s when she moved out of the house.”

  Maddie could understand Hester’s feelings, but the mention of Cole’s mother’s intolerance dampened her spirits—and reminded her of what was at stake. If she went to his house, maybe she’d find a way to get back her letters, which he’d said were in his desk in his home office, without him ever having read them. Maybe she could secure her future.

  Be honest. Really, you just want to see his house and spend a little more time with him. “Okay,” she whispered faintly. “You win.”

  “How early can you get away?” he asked.

  “I’ll have to check with Miss Jennie.”

  “Good. Mind if I tag along?”

  “If you do, Bessie will tell everybody. Your mother will probably know in five minutes flat that we were in the woods together.”

  “So what?” Smiling, he called to Cinnamon, and the maddening dog ran right up to him.

  “He never does that when I call him!”

  Casually Cole grabbed the leash and then laid the leather strap in her outstretched hand. His fingers brushed hers, causing a familiar jolt of heat that had her jumping back.

  When he laughed, she scowled and kept a wary distance from him the whole way to Miss Jennie’s. Even so, his striding grandly beside her in his boots and Stetson made her tension build.

  Inside the house with him, it was even worse. Just knowing that he was lounging indolently in the parlor waiting for her to figure out a schedule had Maddie unable to settle, much less focus on her routine chores. She dropped things, and forgot what she was doing in the middle of a task.

  The lean male figure sprawled on Miss Jennie’s spindly ottoman was turning her life upside down, and she was powerless to stop him.

  When her cell rang and she saw it was Greg, she declined his call.

  “Who was that?” Cole demanded in a steely tone.

  “Nobody important,” she said, blushing.

  “You’re dating someone?”

  “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  He frowned as if the mere thought of another man in her life made him feel possessive, which, of course, he had no right to be.

  “What about you? Are you dating?” she asked.

  “No. When Lizzie died I told myself I wouldn’t date for a year…which is nearly up, by the way.”

  “Oh….”

  She was so mixed up. Usually she looked forward to Greg’s calls. Usually she loved having him tell her about his morning and sharing her own with him.

  Guiltily she remembered Cole’s kisses on her mouth and breasts. Just thinking about them brought the butterflies back to her tummy and made her feel as wildly alive as an infatuated teenager.

  Her pleasure in Cole’s possessiveness and her disloyalty to Greg only increased the confusion she’d been feeling earlier.

  What was happening to her?

  Five

  There was no telling what the neighbors had made of her wet hair and wet T-shirt when she’d returned to Miss Jennie’s with Cole. So Maddie felt both light-headed and mortified when she left Miss Jennie’s on Cole’s arm later that afternoon. Not that he seemed to care what Bessie and her ilk thought about them being seen together.

  He’d insisted on returning to Miss Jennie’s in his truck to pick her up, after he’d taken his horse back to his house. And now, while he strode confidently to his truck, she kept her eyes glued to the sidewalk. They were almost to his big, white pickup when she saw Bessie’s window shade move.

  In a deliberate attempt to downplay her looks, Maddie had coiled her glossy black hair into a severe knot at her nape. She’d buttoned her white blouse to her neck and had secured its cuffs at her wrists. Her lips were pale because she hadn’t bothered to freshen her lipstick. Her jeans were tight, but she’d brought only one pair.

  “Bessie’s watching us,” she murmured.

  Without bothering to so much as glance in Bessie’s direction, he opened Maddie’s door.

  “She’s probably already told everybody we went skinny-dipping,” Maddie said.

  His dark eyes traced her curves. “I wish you’d suggested that when we had the chance.”

  “No sexual innuendo. You promised!”

  “No, I promised not to touch you.”

  “Innuendo leads to touching….”

  He smiled. “You’re saying there’s hope.”

  “I’m saying don’t!”

  “Then stop tempting me by blushing so charmingly.”

  “There you go again!”

  “Look, you’re not committing a crime…just because you’re beautiful. You could dress sexier. That wouldn’t be a crime either. Hell, it’s a bigger crime that you don’t.”

  Her breath caught. Did he want to kiss her again as much as she wanted his mouth on hers?

  Don’t even think about it, or look at his lips, because he’ll see how much you want him.

  When he climbed inside and started the truck, she snapped on her seat belt. The nearness of him and the faint scent of his lemony aftershave made her blood quicken and her hands tremble. As they sped toward his ranch, her pulse beat unsteadily just because he was beside her.

  When he sucked in a long breath, she realized he was on edge, too.

  “It’s really hot,” she said.

  “It’s July.”

  They made a few more inane remarks about the weather and climate change before lapsing into a silence that lasted unti
l they reached his house.

  The Colemans had long been a respected family in Texas, so naturally, like everybody else in town, she’d always wanted to see his grand yet informal house up close. But since he’d never considered her part of his world, he’d never issued an invitation.

  As a girl, all she’d managed to catch were glimpses of his big, white house with its columns and wide verandas from her secret hiding place in the brush. How she’d admired the house and the barn and the swimming pool and tennis courts where she’d watched him play tennis with Lizzie. A paved road wound past grassy paddocks where horses sometimes grazed.

  How different today was now that she was formally invited. How excited she felt when he parked at his front door and let her out in full view of his wiry foreman, Joe Pena. Not that some of her high spirits weren’t dashed when the older man’s weathered face blanched after Cole asked him to saddle Raider and a suitable mare for them to ride later.

  “Miss Gray hasn’t ridden in six years, so maybe Lily would be perfect,” Cole said.

  Joe smiled affably enough at Cole, but his jaw hardened whenever he looked at her. “Thank you,” she said to Joe.

  Without a word to her or a glance in her direction, the man turned his back on her and marched stiffly toward the barn.

  Her mother had slept with Joe once or twice, and that had caused a rift in his marriage.

  Cole took Maddie’s arm gently. “Don’t mind Joe,” he murmured as he swept her up the stairs and inside his house.

  “It’s hard to forget that here I’ll always be Jesse Ray Gray’s daughter.”

  “It’s way past time you grew a thicker hide.”

  “How—when all it takes is a dark look or a remark to bring it all back?”

  “If you want me to follow him to the barn and invite him to a boxing match, I will.”

  “No.”

  “Good, because it’s too hot for a boxing match. So forget about Joe and his stupid prejudices.”

  It was difficult when she knew his prejudices were well-founded.

  The minute Cole shut the front door behind them, she felt as if she were in another, more privileged world. He pointed to a low table near a window and said she could set her purse down.

  After doing so, she smiled in appreciation as he led her through a series of pleasant, oak-paneled rooms with tall ceilings, rooms that generations of women in his family had filled with antiques, Texas memorabilia and family history that included many pictures of the Colemans socializing with famous Texans and various presidents.

  How did it feel to have a family you could be proud of?

  She felt nothing but shame as she remembered the stench of her mother’s trailer and the garbage-strewn lot it had shared with another even sorrier trailer on the edge of town. Had her mother ever taken a single photograph of her? The only pictures she had of herself were tattered school pictures that Miss Jennie had given her.

  Here photographs of friends and family were abundantly displayed on walls and shelves. When his mother’s likeness glowered at her from a beige wall, Maddie flushed with guilt. Did his mother already know he’d stopped by Miss Jennie’s to see her?

  “As you can see, Colemans aren’t good at throwing stuff away,” he said.

  “Because you have a history to be proud of.”

  When his cell phone rang, he pulled it out and frowned. Instead of answering it, he said, “I’m turning this off. Damn thing rings all the time.”

  “Who was it?”

  “My mother.”

  “Go ahead. Talk to her. I don’t care,” she lied.

  “Later.” He punched a button or two and slid it back into his pocket. “There—for now it’s off.”

  Maddie couldn’t help grinning a little triumphantly at his mother’s stern picture before she began a study of the formal photographs and the painted portraits of his ancestors that filled his den. These were Noah’s ancestors, too. She felt a pang of guilt that her son would never know about them.

  Pushing Noah to the back of her mind, she imagined Cole spending his free time in this masculine room with its dark carpets and huge reddish-brown leather sofas and matching armchairs. How often had he brought other women here? Women he’d respected? Women he’d introduced to his mother?

  He joined her, telling her again what she already knew, that the ranch had been put together shortly after Texas had won its independence from Mexico, and that during the Civil War, Yankees had burned the first house.

  “This second, much grander structure was built after the family recovered. It faces due south just like our state capitol in Austin—for the same reason, to spurn the north and the ‘damn’ Yankees.”

  She managed to laugh lightly. “I hadn’t heard that before.”

  “Like most Texans, we’re a stubborn, proud bunch,” Cole said, not bothering to hide his pride in his family and his state.

  Cole’s ranch house was lovely, classy. Once when she’d lain in his arms she’d foolishly dreamed of living here, of being accepted because she was his wife.

  But the town and his mother would never have approved, so he’d turned his back on Maddie and had married Lizzie. As proof of his brief, joyous union with his wife, he kept several informal photographs of her on the tables and shelves. And in every one of them, sweet, blonde Lizzie was looking up at Cole’s rugged, tanned face with adoring blue eyes.

  Maddie lifted one of the photographs. “She looks so happy and in love.”

  Without a word, he took the picture from her and placed it facedown.

  “She’s gone now.”

  Maddie winced at the rejection she felt in his icy tone. She couldn’t help remembering Miss Jennie telling her how worried the whole town had been because Cole had stayed drunk for six months straight after Lizzie’s death.

  “His mother says he’ll never get over her,” Miss Jennie had said. “They were high school sweethearts, you know.”

  Until a stolen kiss in a barn had temporarily awakened his lust for the town’s bad girl.

  In spite of everything, Maddie had felt genuine sympathy for him in his time of loss.

  “She always loved you so much,” Maddie said gently, knowing now that all he’d ever felt for her was lust. “Since she was a little girl.”

  “Yes,” he muttered coldly.

  “The whole town wanted you to marry her and give them their happy ending. And you did.”

  “Can we talk about something else?” Again his expression was grimly forbidding. “Look, I didn’t bring you here to talk about Lizzie.” A nerve jerked in his cheek. “All that’s over now.” He took her arm and led her toward the open door of what was obviously his office. “You haven’t seen the rest of the house yet.”

  Forgetting his promise not to touch her, he took her hand and led her inside the room. Her quick shiver brought a wicked glint to his eyes, but he let her go without teasing her.

  “This is where I work. Sloppily, as you can see.”

  Stacks of papers littered the top of his massive mahogany desk and spilled out of its drawers.

  Her mind on the letters now, she gazed at the drawers, barely listening as he explained his various businesses to her.

  There was the ranching operation to run, he told her, the other heirs who didn’t live on the ranch to satisfy, several farms to deal with, his mother to cater to, his ongoing oil and gas business, which was booming and kept him away from the ranch, his beloved horses, and several other income streams to keep track of. Ranching, he said, was a difficult business due to the unpredictable nature of so many important variables such as the weather and the price of feed and cattle. His father had been on the brink of bankruptcy when Cole had taken over. He was still in the process of streamlining the cattle operation and diversifying into other, more lucrative businesses.

  “We got lucky with this new oil and gas play,” he said. “I’ve hired geologists and drillers, and am constantly expanding. There’s so much exploration going on in Texas, I can’t get the men o
r the parts I need. Or even the frac water to drill…”

  Her gaze skimming the drawers, she listened absently while he told her about a greedy water-well driller. All but the bottom one were open.

  “But I’ve been rambling, and you’re studying my messiness instead of listening,” he said, reaching for her and then dropping her hand when she jumped, startled at his touch.

  “Sorry—I keep forgetting about the no-touching rule!”

  Caught off guard and feeling slightly ashamed because she imagined he still saw her as an easy woman, Maddie jammed her hands into her pockets. “It’s all very interesting,” she murmured.

  That was when she saw his arrowheads, which were framed and mounted above his desk. Much to her surprise, the ones she’d found near their secret pool and had given him were in the center of a collection he’d arranged in the shape of the state of Texas.

  “Your arrowheads. You even framed the ones I gave you.”

  “Yes. You were always so patient and observant when we searched those old Indian mounds. I was too easily distracted.”

  He was staring so intently at her lips that she blushed.

  “So, what do you feel like doing?” he said too abruptly, glancing outside. “Are you hungry?”

  “Not yet,” she whispered, suddenly feeling ill at ease and shy around him.

  “Do you want to ride now? Take a picnic along for later?”

  Riding was a rare treat since she couldn’t afford her own horse. Thrilled at the thought of riding anywhere again, much less with him, she nodded. She’d worry about the future and what was best later. Later she’d find an opportunity to search for her letters.

  She helped Cole pack ham sandwiches, chips, fruit, cookies and canned drinks before they headed out to his barn. As they approached the tall, red building, an Australian shepherd bounded out of it, wheeling between them, greeting them with exuberant barks. The dog jumped, licking her hands, sniffing her jeans. Laughing, Maddie knelt and let it lick her cheek, too.

  “Why does Bendi get all the kisses?” Cole asked when she remained at the dog’s level.

  “Bendi, is that your name, fella? Bendi may be my only friend in Yella…besides Miss Jennie,” she said, stroking the dog.