by Diana Palmer
* * *
THE COFFEE AND cake were delicious. The coffee seemed to sober up Cort’s father, who was quiet and even more morose and sober. He excused himself after one cup and went to his room upstairs.
“He needs to call his wife,” Mina remarked.
“Good luck getting him to do it,” Cort mused. “I tried. He said she’d been pretty firm about not wanting him back in her life, and she’d already seen the divorce lawyer.” He grimaced. “When he gets served, he’s going to go wild.”
“We’ll handle it,” she said simply.
He searched her eyes. “There’s something I didn’t mention,” he began. “Because you didn’t know who I really was. But I’ve got business meetings in several states, starting tomorrow. You’re going to be on your own for a while. I don’t like leaving you here with Dad, in his present state.”
“I like to write poetry, as well as play games,” she said. Well, she had, in the past. “So I’m at my computer a lot. I’ll just knit and compose and play video games and watch sunsets.”
He chuckled. “Poetry, huh?”
“Yes.” It was a lie and it was probably going to come back and haunt her. She had to find a way to tell him what she did for a living. It was going to be difficult, if she was totally honest. She’d work on it while he was away.
“I’m glad you have hobbies to keep you busy,” he said. He leaned back on the sofa, studying her. “You look tired.”
“I am, a bit,” she confessed. “It was a long trip, even in a comfortable private jet.” She touched her stomach. “I don’t think the baby likes flying.”
He grinned from ear to ear. The baby lifted his heart. He’d never imagined what it would be like to have a wife who was pregnant. He was discovering a family man hidden deep in his philandering heart. “He’ll have to get used to it,” he teased. “He’ll inherit Latigo one day.”
“And my little ranch,” she replied.
“And your little ranch.” He got up and leaned over to kiss her softly. “Come on. I’ll show you to your room. I’ll have one of the cowboys bring your bags up, too.”
* * *
HER ROOM WAS bigger than most of her little house back in Wyoming. The bathroom was twice the size of her bedroom. She was aghast at the utter luxury of it. Everything was done in shades of blue and beige, and the bed looked big enough for five people.
“This was my mother’s room,” Cort said softly. “I’m putting you in here temporarily, because I’m going to be gone a lot for the next few weeks. I’m really sorry,” he added. “Things piled up while I was away. Now I have to play catch-up.”
She turned and looked up at him. “It’s okay,” she said, smiling tenderly. “I love this room.”
He moved closer and drew her against him to kiss her with soft, tender lips. “I’ll sleep in here with you tonight,” he whispered. “But I’ll be gone before you wake, I’m afraid.”
“Where do you have to go?” she asked.
“New York. Chicago. Miami. Denver. Los Angeles.” He rattled them off and smiled ruefully. “The cattle are our main concern, but we own mining interests and oil interests, and a lot of real estate. It takes hard work to keep it all solvent, and I’m the point man.”
She smoothed her hands over his broad chest. “It’s an empire,” she mused.
He nodded. “It is. I’m sorry that we won’t get much of a honeymoon, but I’ll make it up to you when I get things back in line. Where would you like to go? France? Italy? Spain?”
She laughed. “Let me have a little time to get used to being here,” she said, “before we rush off to foreign places.” In fact, she’d been in a lot of foreign places, most of them where sane people would never go.
“I can do that.” He smoothed over her long fingers, resting on his chest. “Mina, you’re going to have to learn a few things. Like how to organize business dinners, cocktail parties, stuff like that. And you’ll need new clothes.” He winced at her expression. “I’m not trying to talk down to you. Honest I’m not. You dress well for someone on a budget. But you’re not on a budget here. I’ll get you a gold card and you can fly up to Dallas, to Neiman Marcus, to shop. You’ll need a whole new wardrobe.”
She bit her lower lip. “Not right now?” she asked, almost pleading.
He let out a breath. She was tired, and this was culture shock. He could understand her reticence. “Okay. Not right now. I’ll give you time to settle in before we go along, okay? You’ll get used to it.”
She recalled how much he’d been drinking at Pam Simpson’s party and it disturbed her. She knew that many social parties involved drinking. She wasn’t afraid of Cort’s father, or Bill McAllister, when they had liquor, but she was nervous about strangers who had too much. How could she explain that to Cort?
She started to try when his phone rang. He pulled it out of the holder. It was a short conversation, but it caused him to brood.
“I have to leave today,” he said, grimacing when he saw Mina’s expression. “Honey, I’m sorry. There’s a labor dispute at a company we own in Ohio. I have to go myself to negotiate with the shop foreman.”
She drew in a breath. “You’re a tycoon, so you have to do tycoon stuff,” she translated. She forced a smile. “I’ll be fine. You go and do what you have to.” She didn’t tell him that she was going to have to be on the road in a couple of weeks. She didn’t know how, just yet.
“You’re a sweetheart.” He bent and kissed her hungrily. “Damn,” he muttered as he put her away from him. “I’ll miss you like hell.”
“I’ll miss you, too. Can you call me from time to time?”
“Of course.” He smoothed back her hair. “I’ll give you Parker’s number. If Dad gets out of hand, you can call him and he’ll come home and take care of whatever’s wrong.”
“Okay. But I think we’ll get along,” she added.
He chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
* * *
HE WAS GONE in an hour, after a rushed goodbye. Mina’s things were sitting around her in the guest room. She unpacked her laptop computer first and set it up on a small desk by the window that overlooked the Davis Mountains, beyond the huge valley full of red-coated cattle. It would be a good place to write, she thought.
She put away her few clothes and grimaced, because most of them had come from low-end stores. She had the one good dress that she’d worn to Pam’s party, but she was going to need new clothes not only for Cort’s business interests, but also for her own. She had to dress the part of a successful author. And what about the guys, she wondered. How was Cort going to react to her commando friends? She rolled her eyes. Well, one disaster at a time.
She went downstairs, her cell phone in the pocket of her beige slacks that she was wearing with a yellow sweater. Chaca motioned to her.
“The grande señor,” she said, “has passed out in his room. He will probably sleep for the rest of the day.” She made a face. “So I will feed him when he comes to. But would you like something to eat? An omelet perhaps, or a salad?”
“An omelet sounds very nice. Can I sit in the kitchen with you?” she added, after a glance at the huge, luxurious dining room. “I’m a little intimidated by all this,” she confessed with a soft laugh. “I live on a tiny little ranch in Wyoming. I’m not used to fine things.”
“Nor was I, when I first came to work here,” Chaca laughed as she led the way into a huge kitchen with a small table and chairs in a corner. “It was hard to adjust. My people live closer to the border, in a little village called Malasuerte. We had fifty people and two Jersey milk cows,” she teased.
Mina chuckled. “I have Black Angus cattle on my ranch. So does my friend, Cort’s cousin Bart.”
“You could have knocked me over with a feather when Cort introduced you as his wife.” She shook her head. “So many glitzy women in his life, none of them with any character
or any interests rather than money.” She glanced at Mina. “And here he brings me a quiet, sweet woman whose eyes have no trace of greed.”
Mina smiled. “I don’t care about money. If I have enough to pay my bills, I’m happy.”
“It is the same with me.”
“Are you married?”
“Oh yes, for twenty years. My husband is the livestock foreman here, a job of great responsibility. The family has stud bulls worth millions and millions of dollars. We have full-time security guards here, and not only for the bulls. We have had problems with drugs coming over the border on the southern edge of the property. Not often, but the people involved think nothing of killing anyone who gets in the way.”
“Good heavens!”
“There has never been a problem with safety here, at the house,” Chaca was quick to add. “And we have the Border Patrol as well. Those people are very good at their jobs.”
“That makes me feel better,” Mina said.
“The baby, you are happy about it?”
Mina drew in a long breath. “So happy!” she said. “Every day is like a miracle. I can’t wait until I’m really showing.” She grinned. “I’m looking forward to maternity clothes. I guess that sounds sappy.”
“It sounds like a woman in love who very much wants her child.”
“It’s like a dream, you know. I fell in love with a cowboy. I expected to live in a small house and do laundry and cook...”
“I do those things for you,” Chaca said with a smile. “So you have time to sit and dream about the baby.”
She laughed. “Well, I write a lot. So I’ll be in my room a good bit, especially while Cort’s away. Does he take these trips often?”
Chaca looked hunted. She didn’t reply, busying herself with the preparation of the omelet.
“Chaca?” Mina prompted.
Chaca took the completed omelet off the stove and slid it onto a platter. She turned off the burner before she brought it to the small table where Mina was sitting. “He is almost never home, as a rule,” she confessed, flushing a little. “It is a big responsibility, the business. When his father was home last, he took much of the burden off the señor. But since the talk of divorce, Vic has been helpless. He does nothing, so Cort must now do it all. It is a shame. When Parker lived at home, he also helped with the business.” She finished setting the table and poured coffee into a cup for Mina. “It is too much for one man. I would like to say this, but I only work here.”
“I’ll say it,” Mina promised.
“If he would only delegate,” Chaca sighed. “He has competent people who run the real estate business, but he must involve himself in every part of it. Like this labor strike. He has negotiators and a business manager who could solve it themselves, but he trusts no one to do it except himself.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Mina promised.
Chaca smiled. “We will hope for change, then. Here, eat your omelet before it gets cold.”
“The coffee is good,” Mina said.
“It is decaf,” came the dry reply. “Caffeine is not good for the baby.”
Mina just laughed.
* * *
VIC CAME OUT of his room near bedtime. Mina was in the guest room with the door open, working away at the computer. It was a wonderful coincidence that she was working on a book set in Texas, and here she was in the best place to research it. Life, she thought, was funny.
She was deep in the middle of a shoot-out between rustlers and cowboys in the modern day setting when Vic paused at the doorway, frowning.
“What are you writing?” he asked.
She couldn’t quite come out of the scene he’d interrupted. She turned slowly, her eyes blank as she tried to bridge the gap from fantasy to reality.
He came into the room, hands in his pockets, and frowned as he noticed the book on her desk. “Hey, I’ve read that book,” he said, picking up the copy of SPECTRE. “It’s really great!”
“Thanks,” she said without thinking. And then she flushed wildly as she realized what she’d done.
He didn’t notice her consternation. He was looking at the author’s page on the back flap, the one that had a picture of Mina on it. “Willow Shane,” he murmured. He looked at Mina with sudden realization. “That’s you?” he exclaimed.
She ground her teeth together. “Yes,” she said in a small voice.
“Well!” He let out a breath and laughed. “One of my sons bought it for his wife, and she went crazy over it. She shared it with her readers club and even sent copies to friends all over the country.”
“I’m very flattered,” she said, and meant it.
“So you knit and ranch and write books.” He beamed. “You know, my wife always wanted to write a book.” He trailed off. “She’s a good woman. Better than I deserved. I cheated on her because she paid more attention to her family than she did to me. Her brother had just died of cancer and her family was grieving. I was an idiot.” He smiled sadly. “Now I’ve lost her, and she’s the first woman I ever really loved, except for my first wife.”
She saved her work and got up from the desk. “Want to talk about it?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Well, yes.”
“Come on downstairs. Chaca’s gone, but I can make coffee.”
He smiled. “Okay.”
* * *
HE TOLD HER all about his wife, Sandra, and their explosive meeting.
“She was sitting at a table on the beach and I tripped over her purse,” he recalled, his dark eyes soft with memory. “She helped me up, all apologies, and I looked into the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. I was hooked at once. She didn’t know that I was wealthy. Kind of like you, with my son,” he added with a smile. “She fell in love with a businessman. We got married and I brought her to Latigo. I thought she was going to faint. She’d worked as a newspaper reporter on a small weekly paper, but she was a stringer for one of the bigger papers in Vermont near her home. She was a good writer.” He paused. “She wanted to write a novel, but she didn’t think she had the talent.”
“Most of us who write just sit down and get on with it,” she said wistfully. “I never had great talent, but I was persistent and I had friends who believed in me. They pushed me to send a manuscript off to a publisher.” She sighed. “It took a few false starts, but I finally sold a book. SPECTRE is actually my fourth novel, but it’s the one that’s getting all the attention. It’s on the USA Today list and climbing, and it just made the New York Times list.” She looked at him worriedly. “I’ve got to go on tour week after next...”
“No problem, we’ve got two airplanes and a jet,” he teased. “We’ll get you there and back.”
“That would be nice. I hate flying commercial.”
“So do I. That’s why we have two airplanes and a jet,” he confided with a grin. He sipped coffee. He scowled. He looked up at her suddenly. “I remember something from the book jacket. You actually slogged through swamps in Central America with a group of mercenaries to research SPECTRE?” he exclaimed.
She nodded. “A commando group adopted me after the first book.” She laughed. “They put me through a training course you wouldn’t believe. Then they packed me up and took me on missions. I’m only just back from Nicaragua. We rescued a kidnapped child. I’m still taking quinine tablets to make sure I don’t come down with malaria.”
“Did you know you were pregnant when you went to Nicaragua?” he asked worriedly.
“No,” she confessed. She sighed. “I spoke to my doctor, before we left Wyoming. At this stage of the pregnancy, he said I should be fine. I’ll have to find a local obstetrician, though,” she added.
“We’ll do that tomorrow,” he said. He smiled. “And I’ll stop drinking. For a while, at least.”
She laughed. “Okay.”
* * *
VIC WAS FUN to be wit
h. When he wasn’t drinking, he was charming. He went with her in the Mercedes to a friend of his who practiced obstetrics, and got her in. He even sat and waited while she filled out all the forms and was examined by Dr. Truett.
“You’re doing very well,” Dr. Truett told her, “despite your adventure,” he added with a chuckle, after she’d told him about her research trip. “Keep up with the quinine. I’m adding a prescription for prenatal vitamins as well. How about nausea?”
“I only have a little,” she said. “It passes pretty quickly.”
“If you have any problems, come and see me.”
“I will.”
“And try to stay out of jungles, at least until the baby is born,” he added, tongue in cheek.
She laughed. “I’ll do that. Thanks very much.”
* * *
“WELL?” VIC ASKED when they were outside.
“He says I’m doing great,” she said. “I have a prescription for vitamins.”
“We’ll get that filled on the way home,” he said.
“It’s very nice of you to come with me,” she replied.
“I’m sorry Cort can’t be here to do it,” he replied sadly. “I’ve been a drag on him lately. I’m going to get back into ranch business.”
“It would help you,” she said. “You need to keep your mind busy, so you don’t have much time to brood.”
“I wouldn’t be brooding if I could get Sandra to listen to me,” he sighed. “I really want her back.”
“Give it time,” she said. “You might consider writing her a letter,” she added.
He pursed his lips. “I’m not much good at letters. But I could text her a poem and some emojis,” he chuckled.
