Lone Star Winter Read online

Meanwhile, Cy was cursing himself silently for what had happened in the parking lot. It was months too soon for that. She was a pregnant, newly widowed woman and he’d let his emotions get out of control. His jaw tautened as he remembered the silky feel of her in his arms. He wanted to take care of her, and it looked as though she was going to need protection after all—from him.

  Somehow he was going to have to get them back on a simple friendly footing. It wouldn’t be easy. He had no idea how she felt about what had happened. She sat quietly beside him, obviously enjoying the opera. She even smiled at him from time to time. But if she was angry, it didn’t show. He remembered her soft moan, her clinging arms. No, he thought, she’d gone in headfirst, too, just as he had. But he had regrets and he suspected that she did, as well. He had to draw back before he put the delicate new feeling between them at risk. Lisa was off-limits in any physical way, and he was going to have to remember that.

  Lisa saw his scowl and wondered if he had regrets about what had happened. Men got lonely, she knew, and he was a very masculine sort of man to whom women were no mystery. He was probably wondering how to tell her that it wasn’t about her a few minutes ago, that any woman would have produced that reaction in a hungry man.

  She would save him the trouble, she decided, the minute they started home. He’d already done so much for her. She couldn’t expect him to take over where Walt had left off; not that Walt had ever really felt passion for her. Walt had enjoyed her, she supposed, but there hadn’t been any sizzling attraction between them. It shamed her to admit that what she’d felt in the parking lot with Cy had been infinitely more pleasurable than anything she’d ever done with her late husband. She didn’t dare think about how it would be if they were truly intimate…

  Her hand jerked in Cy’s as the final curtain fell and the applause roared. She clapped automatically, but made sure that both her hands were tight on her purse when they started to leave.

  “It’s a beautiful opera,” she remarked as he escorted her to the exit.

  “Yes, it is,” he agreed pleasantly. “I’ve seen it in a dozen different cities, but I still enjoy it.”

  “I guess you’ve been to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City?” she mused wistfully.

  “Several times,” he agreed.

  She imagined him there, with some beautiful woman in an expensive evening gown and wrapped in furs. It wasn’t far to imagine them going into a dark room together, where the coat and the evening gown were discarded. She swallowed hard and tried not to think about that.

  He could feel tension radiating from her. She was clinging so hard to that tiny purse that she was leaving the indentations of her nails in the soft leather.

  When they reached the Expedition, he opened the door for her, but held her back when she started to climb inside.

  “I’m sorry about what happened earlier,” he said gently. “I’ve made you uncomfortable.”

  Her wide eyes met his. “I thought I’d made you uncomfortable,” she blurted out.

  They stood just looking at each other until his lean face went harder than ever with the effort not to give in to the hunger she kindled in him.

  “You poor man,” she said huskily, wincing as she saw the pain in his eyes. “I know you’re lonely, Cy, that you just needed someone to hold for a few minutes. It’s all right. I didn’t read anything into it.”

  His eyes closed on a wave of pain that hit him like a bat. She reached up and pulled his face down to her lips. She kissed him tenderly, kissed his eyes, his nose, his cheek, his chin, with brief undemanding little brushes of her mouth that comforted in the most exquisite way.

  He took a ragged breath and his lean hands captured her shoulders, tightening there when he lifted his face away from her warm mouth. “Don’t do that,” he said tersely.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “I don’t need comforting!” he said curtly.

  She moved back a step. He looked as if she’d done something outrageous, when she’d only meant to be kind. It irritated her that he had to be antagonistic about it. “Oh, I see,” she said, staring up at him. “Is this how it goes? ‘Men are tough, little woman,’” she drawled, deepening her voice and her drawl, “‘we can eat live snakes and chew through barbed wire. We don’t want women fussin’ over us!’” She grinned up at him deliberately.

  He glared at her, his eyes glittering.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Want me to apologize? Okay. I’m very sorry,” she added.

  His broad chest rose and fell heavily. “I want you to quit while you’re ahead,” he said in a tight voice.

  She stared at him without guile. “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you?” His smile was full of mockery and he was seeing a succession of women from his wild days who liked to tease and run away, but not too far away. His lean hands tightened on her shoulders as his eyes slid down her body. “Your husband didn’t tell you what teasing does to a man?”

  “Teasing…?” Her eyes widened. “Was I?” she asked, and seemed not to know.

  That fascinated expression was real. He did scowl then. “What you were doing…it arouses me,” he said bluntly.

  “You’re kidding!”

  He wanted to be angry. He couldn’t manage it. She did look so surprised…. He dropped his hands, laughing in wholesale defeat. “Get in the damned truck.”

  He half lifted her in and closed the door on her barely formed question.

  She was strapped in when he pulled himself up under the steering wheel, closed the door and reached for his seat belt.

  “You were kidding,” she persisted.

  He looked right into her eyes. “I wasn’t.” He frowned quizzically. “Don’t you know anything about men?”

  “I was married for two months,” she pointed out.

  “To a eunuch, apparently,” he said bluntly as he cranked the vehicle and pulled out of the parking lot and into traffic. “I am pregnant,” she stated haughtily.

  He spared her an amused glance. “Pregnant and practically untouched,” he replied.

  She sighed, turning her attention to the city lights as he wound south through Houston to the long highway that would take them home to Jacobsville. “I guess it shows, huh?” she asked.

  He didn’t say anything for half a block or so. “Did you want him?”

  “At first,” she said. Her eyes sought his. “But not like I wanted you in the parking lot,” she said honestly. “Not ever like that.”

  A flash of ruddy color touched his cheekbones. He was shocked at her honesty.

  “Sorry, again,” she murmured, looking away. “I guess I haven’t learned restraint, either,” she added.

  He let out a long breath. “You take some getting used to,” he remarked.

  “Why?”

  His eyes met hers briefly before they went back to the highway. Rain was beginning to mist the windshield. He turned on the wipers. “I don’t expect honesty from a woman,” he said curtly.

  She frowned. “But surely your wife was honest.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “It’s obvious that you loved your little boy,” she began.

  His laugh had the coldest ring to it that she’d ever heard. “She wanted an abortion. I threatened to take away her credit cards and she gave in and had him.”

  “That must have been a difficult time for you,” she said softly.

  “It was.” His jaw clenched. “She was surprised that I wanted her baby.”

  “Hers, and not yours?” she ventured.

  “Hers by one of her lovers,” he said bitterly. “She didn’t really know which one.”

  There was an abrupt silence on the other side of the truck. He glanced at her frozen features with curiosity. “What sort of marriage do you think I had? I was a mercenary. The women you meet in that profession aren’t the sort who sing in church choirs.”

  “How did you know I sang in the choir?” she asked, diverted.

  He laughed, shaking his
head. “I didn’t, but it figures. You’re her exact opposite.”

  She was still trying to understand what he was saying. “You didn’t love her?”

  “No, I didn’t love her,” he replied. “We were good together in bed and I was tired of living alone. So, I married her. I never expected it to last, but I wanted a child. God knows why, I assumed it was mine.”

  “Why did she marry you if it wasn’t?”

  “She liked having ten credit cards and driving a Jaguar,” he said.

  That produced another frown.

  “I was rich, Lisa,” he told her. “I still am.”

  She pulled her coat tighter around her and stared out the window, not speaking. She was shocked and more uncertain about him than ever. He was such a complex person, so multifaceted that just when she thought she was getting to know him, he became a stranger all over again.

  “Now what is it?” he asked impatiently.

  “I hope you don’t think I agreed to come out with you…that I was eager to let you buy the ranch because…” She flushed and closed her mouth. She was so embarrassed that she wanted to go through the floor.

  “If I’m rich, it’s because I know pure gold when I see it,” he said, casting her an amused glance. “Do you think I’ll assume that you’re a gold digger because you came out with me?”

  “I kissed you back, too,” she said worriedly.

  He sighed with pure pleasure and relaxed into the seat, smiling to himself. “Yes, you did.”

  “But it was an accident,” she persisted. “I didn’t plan it…”

  “That makes two of us.” He pulled up at the last streetlight before they left the city behind and turned to her. His eyes were narrow and very intent. “There are things in my past that are better left there. You’d never begin to understand the relationship I had with my wife, because you don’t think in terms of material gain. When I was your age, you were the sort of woman I’d run from.”

  “Really? Why?” she asked.

  He cocked an eyebrow and let his eyes run over her. “Because you told me once that you hadn’t slept with Walt before you married him, Lisa,” he drawled.

  She glared at him. “I would have if I’d wanted to,” she said mutinously.

  “But you didn’t.”

  She threw up her hands, almost making a basketball of her small purse. She retrieved it from the dash and plopped it back into her lap.

  “You’re the kind of woman that men marry,” he continued, unabashed. “You like children and small animals and it would never occur to you to be cruel to anyone. If you’d gotten involved with me while I was still in my former line of work, you wouldn’t have lasted a day with me.”

  “I don’t suppose I would have,” she had to agree. She looked through the windshield, wondering why it hurt so much to have him tell her that. Surely she hadn’t been thinking in terms of the future just because of one passionate kiss? Of course, her whole body tensed remembering the pleasure of it, the exciting things he’d said…

  “And you weren’t Walt’s usual date, either,” he said surprisingly. “He liked experience.”

  She grimaced. “I found that out pretty quick. He said I was the most boring woman he’d ever gone to bed with. Except for our wedding night, and the night be fore he was killed, he slept in a separate bedroom.”

  No wonder she was the way she was, he mused as the light changed and he sent the big vehicle speeding forward. She probably felt like a total failure as a woman. The child must have been some sort of consolation, because she certainly wanted it.

  “I’ll bet you hate admitting that,” he said.

  “Yes, I do. I felt inadequate, dull, boring,” she muttered. “He liked blondes, but not me.”

  “He liked that parcel service driver plenty,” he recalled, his eyes narrowing. “You were pitching hay over the fence to the cows and he was flirting with her, right under your nose. I never wanted to hit a man more.”

  Her lips parted on a quick breath. “You saw…that?”

  “I saw it,” he said curtly. “That’s why I stopped by later and said something about the way you were pitching hay by yourself.”

  She shifted in the seat. “He said they were old friends,” she replied. “I guess he really meant they were former lovers. He never treated me to that sort of charm and flirting. He really wanted Dad’s ranch. It was a pity I went with the deal.”

  “It was his loss that he took you for granted,” he corrected. “You’re not inadequate. You proved that earlier tonight, in the parking lot.”

  She cleared her throat. “An incident best forgotten.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She stared at him. “Walt’s only been dead two weeks, that’s why!”

  He stopped at a four-way stop and turned in his seat on the deserted road to look at her. “Lisa,” he said quietly, “it wouldn’t have mattered even if he’d still been alive, and you know it. What happened was mutual and explosive.”

  “It was a fluke…”

  His hand reached out and his fingers traced her lower lip. She couldn’t even speak. “Would you like me to prove that it isn’t?” he asked quietly. “There are plenty of dirt roads between here and home, and the seats re cline all the way.”

  “Cy Parks!”

  “Best of all,” he mused, “we wouldn’t even have to worry about pregnancy, would we?”

  Her face was scarlet; she knew it was. He was making her breathless with that torturous brush of his fingers, and she was vulnerable. She’d never really known desire until tonight, and she wished she could turn the clock back a day. Life was difficult enough without this new complication.

  He drew in a long breath and lifted his hand back to the steering wheel. “God knows I want to,” he said shortly, “but you’d die of shock and never speak to me again afterward.”

  “I…certainly…would,” she faltered, pushing her hair back unnecessarily just for something to do.

  He shook his head. He’d known her such a short time, really, but she seemed to hold his attention even when he wasn’t with her. Every future event he thought of these days, he considered her part in. It was disturbing to know that he considered her part of his life already.

  She fiddled with the top button on her coat. Her eyes were restless, moving from the dark horizon to the occasional lighted window flashing past as the utility vehicle picked up speed. What he’d said disturbed her, mostly because she knew it was true. She’d have gone anywhere with him, done anything with him. It made her guilty because she should be mourning Walt.

  “Don’t brood,” Cy told her. “You’re safe. No more torrid interludes tonight, I promise.”

  She fought a smile and lost. “You’re a terrible man.”

  “You have no idea how terrible.” He paused to look both ways before he crossed a lonely intersection. “Harley’s fired your part-time hired hands, by the way.”

  “He’s what?”

  “Calm down. They were being paid for work they didn’t do. That’s economically disastrous.”

  “But who’ll get in the hay and brand the calves…?” she worried.

  “You didn’t hear the noise? Harley got the tractors out in your hay field early this morning. The haying’s done. The corn crop is next. I’m hiring on four new men. Harley will supervise them, and your place will live up to its promise.” He glanced at her. “You haven’t decided not to sell it have you?”

  “I can’t afford to keep it,” she confessed. “I’m glad you don’t plan to build a subdivision on it or something. It’s been in my family for a hundred years. Dad loved it with all his heart. I love it, too, but I have no idea how to make it pay. I’d like to see it prosper.”

  “I think I can promise you that it will.”

  She smiled, content with just being next to him. He turned on the radio and soft country music filled the cab. After a few minutes, her eyes slid shut as all the sleep less nights caught up with her.

  She was vaguely aware of being gent
ly shaken. She didn’t want to be disturbed. She was warm and cozy and half-asleep.

  “No,” she murmured drowsily. “Go away.”

  “I have to,” came a deep, amused voice at her ear. “Or we’ll have a scandal we’ll never live down. Come on, imp. Bedtime.”

  She felt herself tugged out of the seat and into a pair of warm, hard arms. She was floating, floating…

  Cy didn’t wake her again. He took off her shoes, tossed the cover over her, put her glasses on the bedside table and left her on the bed in her nice dress and coat. He didn’t dare start removing things, considering his earlier passionate reaction to her. But he stood beside the bed, just watching her, enjoying the sight of her young face relaxed in sleep. He wondered how old she was. She never had told him.

  He turned and went back out into the hall, pausing to check the lock on the back door in the kitchen before he went out the front one, locking it carefully behind him. He still wasn’t convinced that Lopez wouldn’t make a beeline for Lisa if he thought his men could get away with harming her. Cy was going to make sure that he didn’t.

  He stopped by the bunkhouse to have a word with Nels before he went home and climbed into his own bed. He stared at himself in the bedroom mirror, his eyes narrow and cynical as he studied his lean, scarred face and equally scarred body. He was only thirty-five, as Lisa had already guessed, but he looked older. His eyes held the expression of a man who’d lived with death and survived it. He was wounded inside and out by the long, lonely, terrible years of the past. Lisa soothed the part of him that still ached, but she aroused a physical need that he’d almost forgotten he had. She was a special woman, and she needed him. It was new to be needed on a personal level. He thought about the child she was carrying and wondered if it would be a boy or girl. She’d need someone to help her raise it. He wanted to do that. He had nobody, and neither did she. They could become a family—for the child’s sake.

  He turned off the lights and went to bed. But his dreams were restless and hot, and when he woke up the next morning, he felt as if he hadn’t slept at all.

  Harley got the calves branded and the corn in the silo in quick order.

  “You’ve got a knack for inspiring cowboys to work, Harley,” Cy told him one afternoon a few days later.