Tangled Destinies Page 22
“Which will be a blessing. Just don’t teach them how to break arms, okay?” Marc said, taunting him.
“Who, me? I’ll be a model uncle,” he returned. “What’s to eat? I’m starved!”
“Ask Carla for something. She’s working on lunch right now,” Marc told him.
“I cook better than she does,” Uncle Michael said, insulted. He got up. “Maybe I should go in and give her a hand.”
“Oh, Lord,” Gaby muttered, hands at her mouth when he went inside, “Carla will kill him!”
Marc simply laughed.
“You saved my life and you never told me,” she said softly. She touched his face. “Why?”
He smiled. “It’s a dumb reason,” he said, confiding in her. He toyed with her smock top. “I wanted you to want just me. Not to agree to marry me out of gratitude.”
“I loved you,” she said. “It was only that. Always that.”
“Yeah. I wanted to be sure, that’s all,” he said. He searched her eyes for a long moment, and she felt his heartbeat against her fingertips as he held her close. “I do love you so, Gaby,” he breathed fervently. “You and this little one.”
She reached up, brushing her mouth tenderly over his. “They say if you save a life, you’re responsible for it from then on.”
He chuckled. “That will be a pleasure.” His mouth brushed against hers, caressing it softly, warmly. He lifted her closer, deepening the kiss, so that they were both trembling and breathing raggedly when the sound of fierce arguing erupted from the kitchen.
“Do you suppose we ought to separate them before they kill each other?” Gaby asked.
“If we want lunch, maybe so.” He grinned. There were louder noises from the kitchen and a metallic crash, followed by unprintable words in a deep, angry voice.
“And we’d better hurry,” Gaby said.
He touched her hair with a possessive hand, smoothing it down. “No rush,” he said. “We have time now. All the time in the world.”
She looked up at him. Well, that being the case, she wound her arms around him and lifted a radiant face to be kissed. He laughed tenderly as he bent his head.
Inside the house, loud English had changed to louder Italian. And it sounded as if lunch would be just a little late.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from WYOMING WINTER by Diana Palmer.
There’s something about those Wyoming men...
New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer returns to the Cowboy State with a brand-new tale of desire and deception in
Wyoming Winter
Cultivating his vast Wyoming ranch is all security expert J. C. Calhoun wants. His land is the only thing the betrayed rancher can trust in after discovering his fiancée was pregnant by another man. But all J.C. holds dear becomes compromised when a lost little girl leads him to Colie Jackson, the woman who destroyed his life.
Colie stops at nothing to protect the people she loves. Years ago she left J.C. for his own good. Now, for the sake of her daughter, she must depend on a hard-hearted man who won’t forgive her. As a band of ruthless criminals tracks their every move through the frozen Wyoming winter, Colie and J.C. will be forced to confront the lies that separated them—and the startling truth that will bind them forever...
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In their quest for true love on the range, are these ranchers bold enough to open their hearts to the women under their protection? Don’t miss any of the stories in the captivating Wyoming Men series!
Wyoming Brave
Wyoming Rugged
Wyoming Strong
Wyoming Bold
Wyoming Fierce
Wyoming Tough
Add these cowboys to your shelf today!
“...You just can’t do better than a Diana Palmer story to make your heart lighter and smile brighter.”
—Fresh Fiction
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Sparks fly as opposites attract in bestselling phenomenon Diana Palmer’s most emotionally compelling romance to date!
Undaunted
The only man she wants is the one who’ll never forgive her
Falling in love with her boss’s handsome millionaire neighbor was easy for young Emma Copeland. Despite the vast differences between them, and a past that’s left Connor Sinclair reclusive and wary, Emma gambles her heart on a desire that rocks them both. But there’s something Connor doesn’t know: Emma is responsible for an accident that changed his life forever.
Connor lives by rules intended to protect both him and his vast wealth. Emma’s innocence is the only thing that’s ever broken through his cold reserve, but now his trust is shattered. By the time he realizes how much he stands to lose, it might take a miracle to win her back. But it’s a challenge he’ll gladly face for the woman and the family he needs more than his next breath...
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Defender
Untamed
Invincible
Protector
Courageous
Merciless
Dangerous
Heartless
Fearless
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“Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly!”
—Publishers Weekly
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Be sure to check out Diana Palmer’s next book in her WYOMING MEN series, WYOMING WINTER.
When rancher J.C. Calhoun rescues a lost little girl, he never expects to reunite with his lost love—and confront the harsh truth about their shared past.
Read on to get a glimpse of WYOMING WINTER.
Wyoming Winter
by Diana Palmer
CHAPTER ONE
COLIE THOMPSON WAS in a mild panic. Her brother Rodney was bringing over his friend J.C. Calhoun. J.C. was thirty-two, pretty much at the end of his Army Reserve service. He and Rodney met in Iraq, almost four years ago. Both men were with the same Army unit. Rodney was serving his first tour of duty. J.C.’s Army Reserve unit had been called up for limited duty, and he was assigned to the same area that Rodney was. In one of those wild coincidences, they started talking and discovered that they both lived in the same Wyoming town, J.C. having taken a job with another Catelow resident, Ren Colter, whom he’d met during his first tour of duty. Rodney looked up to J.C., who was a little older. The older man had been a police officer before he went into the Army the first time, almost twelve years earlier.
Rodney left the Army before his tour of duty w
as officially up, never saying why. He’d been home for several months. After J.C. finished his overseas duty, he came home with him sometimes, although they’d grown apart since Rodney started a new job. They still went around together, but not often. One memorable visit to the Thompson home was on Colie’s birthday, when J.C. had unexpectedly given her a cat. It was the high point of her recent life. She named the huge gray Siamese cat Big Tom and it slept on her bed every night.
Even though he didn’t come home with Rodney much, Colie often saw J.C. around Catelow, which was a small and very clannish town. There were only a couple of restaurants, and Colie, whose real name was Colleen, worked as a clerk for a law firm downtown. Inevitably, she saw J.C. from time to time, occasionally with her brother. And since he was single, and handsome, and mostly avoided women, he was the subject of much gossip.
He always made time to talk to Colie if he saw her. He was polite, teasing, friendly. He made her glow inside. Once, when he brought Rod home after his car had quit, J.C. had helped her into her jacket when she was going outside to get the mail. Just the touch of his hands was like an explosion of pleasure. The more she saw of him, the more she wanted him.
Rodney had invited J.C. to come to supper before this, but he’d always had an excuse. This time, he accepted. It had been just after Colie had started walking back to the office, in the snow, and J.C. had stopped and given her a ride the rest of the way. Sitting with him, in the cozy warmth of the big black SUV he drove, she’d been hesitant to get out again. They’d talked about the upcoming presidential election, the state of the country, the beauty of Catelow in the snow. He’d teased her about wearing high heels to work instead of sensible boots, with snow already piling up and she’d retorted that boots would hardly compliment the pretty pant suit she was wearing. He’d pursed his lips and looked at her, long and hard, and said Colie would look good in anything. She’d gone inside the law office, reluctantly, flushed and beaming after the unexpected pleasure of his company.
J.C. worked full time locally, but he went back overseas periodically to train troops in Iraq in police procedure. He was supposed to go back in a few months to do it all over again with a new group. J.C. worked as security chief for Ren Colter, who owned a large cattle ranch, Skyhorn, outside Catelow. Ren was ex-military as well, and he had somebody fill in for J.C. while he accommodated a former commander by drilling new recruits.
Giving orders was something J.C. was very good at. He was also gorgeous. He had jet black hair, cut short, and eyes so pale a gray that they glittered like silver. He was tall and muscular, but not like a body builder. He had the physique of a rodeo cowboy, lithe and powerful. Colie liked to just sit and look at him when she had the opportunity. She’d never known anybody quite like him. He had a unique background, about which he rarely spoke. Rodney had told her that J.C.’s father was a member of the Blackfoot nation up in Canada. His mother had been a little red-headed Irish woman. Quite an uncommon pairing, but it had produced a handsome child. J.C. never spoke of his father, Rodney added.
Colie wanted a family of her own, badly. She and Rodney had lost their mother two years previously to bone cancer. It had taken her a long time to die, but even then, she’d been cheerful and upbeat around her children and her husband. Colie’s father was a Methodist minister, a pillar of the community. Everybody loved him, not just his own congregation. They’d loved Colie’s mother, too. The little woman, named Beth Louise, but called Ludie, had always been the first to arrive if there was a sick person who needed caring for or a child who needed a temporary home. She even fostered dogs that were picked up by the local no-kill animal shelter, while they waited for an adoptive family.
All that had passed, along with her. The house was suddenly empty. Jared Thompson, Colie’s father, had been almost suicidally depressed after his wife’s death, but his faith had pulled him through. It was, he told Colie, not right to mourn someone who had lived such a full life and had gone on to a happier, more wonderful place. Death was not the end, for people of faith. They simply had to accept that people died for reasons that were, perhaps, not quite clear to those left behind.
Colie and Rodney had grieved, too. Rodney had been overseas for almost four years, with only brief visits. He couldn’t come home for his mother’s funeral, although he Skyped with his father and sister after the services. He was a sweet, bidable boy until he went into the service. When he came home, he was...different. Colie couldn’t figure out why. He became fixated on fancy cars and designer clothes, neither of which fit in his small budget. He’d obtained a job at the local hardware store when he came home, because it was owned by a friend of the Reverend Thompson. Rodney seemed to be a natural salesman. But he complained all the time about getting minimum wage. He wanted more. He was never satisfied with anything for long.
The one thing that bothered Colie most was that her brother wasn’t quite lucid much of the time. He had red-rimmed eyes and sometimes he staggered. She worried that he might have been hurt overseas and wasn’t telling them. She knew it wasn’t from alcohol, because Rodney almost never took a drink. It was puzzling.
During Rodney’s tour in the Middle East, J.C. and Rodney hung out together when off duty. Rod didn’t write often, but when he did, he mentioned things he and J.C. had done overseas. They went out on the town when Rodney was on liberty. Odd thing about J.C., Rodney had commented. He never drank hard liquor. He’d have the occasional beer, but he didn’t touch the heavy stuff. Like Rodney. But the brother who used to tease her and bring her wildflowers and watch television with her seemed to have gone away. The man who came back from overseas was someone else. Someone with a darkness inside him, a lust for things, for material things.
He’d been vocal about the old things in the house where he lived with his sister and father. It was primitive, he scoffed.
Colie didn’t find it so. It looked lived in. The small house was immaculate, Colie thought as she looked at her surroundings. The sofa had a new cover, a pretty burgundy floral pattern, and her father’s puffy armchair had a solid burgundy cover. The spotless wood floors had area rugs, which were beaten clean by Colie on a regular basis. There were no cobwebs anywhere. The marble-topped coffee table that her father had found at an antique shop graced the living room, where an open fireplace crackled with orange flames and the smell of burning oak.
Colie didn’t look too bad herself, she reflected, glancing in the hall mirror at her wavy collar-length dark brown hair. It never needed curling. It was naturally wavy. She had an oval face, sweet and pleasant, but not beautiful. Her eyes were large and dark green under thick lashes. Her mouth was a perfect bow. She had an hourglass figure, with long legs always clad in denim jeans. She only had a few dresses and a couple of nice pantsuits, which she wore to church and to work at the local attorney’s office where she was a receptionist and typist. Around the house, she wore jeans and boots and pullover sweaters. This one was a nice medium green, long-sleeved and V-necked. It showed off Colie’s small, firm breasts in a nice but flattering way. She never wore low-cut things or suggestive dresses. After all, her father was a minister. She didn’t want to do anything that would embarrass him in front of his congregation. She didn’t even curse.
Rodney did. She was constantly chastising him about it.
Just as she thought it, he walked in the door, stomping snow off his big boots on the front porch as he stood in the open doorway, letting in a flurry. He closed it quickly behind him.
“Damn, it’s cold out!” he swore. “Snowing like a son of a...”
She interrupted him. “Will you stop, that? Daddy’s a minister,” she groaned. “Rodney, you’re such a pain!”
He had her dark green eyes, but his hair was straight and thick and a shade lighter than hers. He was tall, with perfect teeth and a rakish smile. No choirboy, Rodney, he was always in trouble throughout high school. Presumably, he’d been better behaved in the military, since he was
discharged early.
“Daddy can curse,” he retorted. “Haven’t you heard him?”
“Yes, Rodney, he says “chicken feathers!” That’s how he curses.” She glowered at him. “That’s not what you’re saying when you lose your temper.” He lost it a lot lately, too.
He shrugged her off. “I have issues,” he said easily. “I’m working on it. You have to remember that I’ve been around soldiers for several years, and in combat.”
“I try to take that into account,” she said. “But couldn’t you tone it down, just a little bit? For Daddy’s sake?”
He made a face at her. “God, you’re hard to live up to, do you know that?” he sighed, exasperated. “You’ve never put a foot out of line. Never had a parking ticket, never had a speeding ticket, never even jaywalked! What a paragon to try to live up to!”
She grimaced. “I just behave the way Mama taught me.” The thought made her sad. “Don’t you miss her?”
He nodded. “She was the kindest woman I’ve ever known. Well, besides you,” he chuckled and hugged her, and just for a minute, he was the big brother she’d adored. “You’re just the best, Sis.”
She hugged him back. “I love you, too.” She sniffed and her nose wrinkled as she drew back. “Rodney, what’s that smell?” she asked, frowning as she sniffed him again. “It’s like tobacco, but not.”
He let her go and averted his eyes. “Just cigarette smoke. Some of that imported stuff. I have a friend who gets them.”
“Not J.C. He doesn’t smoke,” she said, curious.
“Not J.C.,” he agreed. “This is a guy I know from Jackson Hole. He and I pal around sometimes.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Sorry. I thought it was marijuana.”
He raised both eyebrows. “If I smoked marijuana in this house, Daddy would call Sheriff Cody Banks and have him lock me up in the county detention center in a heartbeat! You know that!”
“Well, yes, I do.” She didn’t add that plenty of men did smoke that awful stuff, and managed to keep their parents from suspecting. She’d had a girlfriend in high school who even bragged about it.