Denim and Lace Read online

  “I’ve never had to wash dishes, but I could if it came to it,” he returned. “People do what they have to do.”

  “My mother doesn’t,” she said simply. “Anyway,” she added to divert him, “I can get a job as a copywriter. Advertising work pays well.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” he muttered. “I don’t have much contact with cities or city professions. All I know is cattle.”

  “You know them pretty well,” she said with a faint smile. “You were making money when all the other cattlemen were losing theirs.”

  “I’m a renegade,” he said simply. “I use the same methods my great-grandfather did. They worked for him.”

  “They’ll work for you, too, Cade,” she said gently. “I know you can pull the ranch out of the fire.”

  He stared at her silently. She had such unshakable faith in what he could do. All that sweet hero worship was driving him to his knees, even though he knew it couldn’t last. Once she got out from under Gussie’s thumb and felt her wings, there’d be no stopping her. Then, maybe, when she could see him as a man and not a caricature of what he really was, there might be some hope for them. But that looked as if it was a long way off.

  “Don’t let your mother get her hands on those pearls,” he said unexpectedly. “They’ll go the way of anything else she can liquidate.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said, agreeing with him for once. “I told her they were costume jewelry,” she added with a faint smile.

  “It won’t work if she gets a close look at them,” he murmured.

  She knew that, too. “Why do you feel so strongly about them, Cade?” she asked.

  “Because they’re a legacy. Something that’s been in your family a long time, a piece of history for the children you’ll have one day.”

  She felt herself coloring. “I don’t know that I’ll ever have any.”

  “You will,” he said. “So will I. I want half a dozen,” he mused, letting his eyes run over the land, the horizon. “Ranches are tailor-made for big families. This one is big enough for my kids, and for Gary’s and Robert’s, too. Gary’s too city-minded to settle here, and I don’t know about Robert. But it’s in my blood. I’ll never be able to leave it.”

  She’d known that already, but it was new to have him talk to her without the usual cold hostility in his voice. Perhaps it was because she was leaving. And maybe there was a little guilt for the things he’d said the night before.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “legacies shouldn’t be used to get ready cash. Gussie isn’t sentimental. You are.”

  She smiled shyly. “I guess I am, at that.”

  “Get down for a bit.” He swung gracefully out of the saddle and helped her down, while she tried to control an irrational urge to throw her arms around him and hang on. Her heart was beating wildly when he put her down and moved quickly away to tie the horses separately to small trees.

  He stood on the banks of the creek, leaning back against a big oak, smoking his cigarette while he studied the small flow of water over the rocks. He was wearing denims and a blue-checked shirt with his shepherd’s coat and a battered old tan Stetson, and to Bess’s eyes he looked the very picture of a working cowboy. His boots, like his hat, were worn with use, and he was wearing working spurs—bronc spurs, in fact, small rowels with pincer edges around them that looked fierce but only pulled the hair of the animal they were used on. A horse’s hide was tough and not easily damaged if the right kind of spurs were worn, and Cade knew the right kind to wear.

  “You’ve been breaking horses,” she said, because she knew from experience that he only wore those particular spurs when he was riding new additions to the remuda.

  “Helping Dally,” he corrected. Dally was the ranch’s wrangler, and a good one. “We compromised. He wanted to take three years and I had three weeks, so he turns his back while I help him break them to the saddle. Besides, it’s good practice for the rodeo.”

  She knew that he competed at rodeos all around the Southwest and that he won a lot. He needed the money to help prop up Lariat.

  “It’s dangerous work.” She remembered so well the cowhand several years ago who’d had his back broken when a bronc slung him off against the barn wall. “You pulled that tendon...”

  “I barely limp at all now,” he said. “And any ranch work is dangerous.” He turned his head and looked at her, and she could see the light of challenge in his dark eyes. “That’s why I enjoy it.”

  “Race-car drivers,” she murmured. “Mountain climbers. Skydivers. Ranchers—”

  “Not to mention little girls who buy oversize horses,” he inserted, nodding toward Tina, who was towering over his own buckskin.

  “She’s terribly gentle.”

  “I guess so. Your father and I had words over her, but he finally convinced me that you’d be safe.”

  She went warm all over to think that he’d been concerned about her. He’d never said anything to her, and neither had her father.

  “But Gussie never cared, did she?” he asked pointedly, his cold eyes holding hers. “Not about seeing you trampled by an oversize horse or anything else. Unless it interfered with her comfort.”

  “Not again,” she said, grimacing. “Cade...”

  “She doesn’t give a damn about you. Can’t you see that? My God, Bess, you’ve got enough problems without taking on Gussie for life.”

  “It won’t be for life,” she began.

  “It will,” he said solemnly. “She’ll never let go. She’s like a leech. She’ll suck you dry and leave you the first time some rich man dangles a diamond over her head.”

  It was the truth. But she wasn’t strong like Cade. She never could say no to Gussie. How could she desert her own mother?

  “You’re thirty-four,” she pointed out. “And you still live at home and take care of your own mother and both your brothers—”

  “That’s different,” he returned curtly. “I’m strong enough to shoulder the responsibility.”

  “Oh, of course you are,” she said softly, her eyes adoring him. “You’ve had to be. But the point I’m making is that you’ve got all that responsibility and you’ve never turned your back on your own people or refused to do for them. How can you expect me not to do for my mother?”

  He stared at her quietly. “At home Gary keeps the books and Robert handles the sales. Gary’s engaged and won’t be around much longer, and Robert keeps talking about going to San Antonio to find work. I don’t know how much longer they’ll be here. But my mother takes care of a yardful of chickens and a gaggle of geese, which we use for pest control in the garden that she keeps every year. She sews and cleans and cooks. She cans and even helps out at roundup when she has to. I don’t mind providing for a woman like that.”

  “I guess my mother would faint if she had to get near a horse,” Bess mused. “But we lived in a different world from yours.”

  That was the wrong thing to say. It hurt him. No, he couldn’t imagine Gussie around horses, or Bess cleaning and cooking and planting a garden. His face hardened. She was meant for some rich man’s house, where everything would be done for her. A poor man was hardly her cup of tea.

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” he said curtly. “When are you leaving for San Antonio?”

  “Tomorrow,” Bess said sadly. “We’ve left all the details to our attorney, and Tina goes to a stable this afternoon to be boarded until they sell her.” She shrugged. “I’m not having much luck with it, I’m too softhearted.”

  “Amen.” He paused just in front of her, smelling of the whole outdoors and faint cologne and smoke, smells that were familiar and exciting because they always reminded her of him. “Don’t kill yourself for Gussie.”

  She looked up, her eyes soft and misty with tears she didn’t want to shed. “I’ll...miss you,” she said, and tried t
o smile.

  “Do you think I won’t miss you?” he asked, and it was the severest test of his control he’d ever had. The mask slipped, and some of the hunger he felt for her showed in his glittering dark eyes.

  She almost gasped. It was such a shock, to know that he felt even a fraction of the longing she did.

  “But you don’t care about me,” she whispered. “You don’t even want me, you proved it—”

  “I’m in an impossible situation here,” he interrupted gruffly. “It isn’t going to improve. You’ve got Gussie around your neck like an albatross and you have to get used to being an ordinary woman, not a debutante. Those are obstacles neither of us can get around.”

  Her lips parted. The hunger was so staggering that she felt her knees wobbling under her. “What if there...were no obstacles?” she asked breathlessly.

  His jaw hardened and his eyes roved over her face. “My God, don’t you know?” he asked roughly.

  Her hand went out slowly toward his chest, but he caught her wrist and held it away from him. The contact was electric, his warmth penetrating her blood. “No,” he said, letting go of her, watching her blush. “It’s better not to start things when there’s no hope of finishing them.”

  “I see.” She did, but it hurt all the same. Her eyes searched his hungrily. “Goodbye, Cade.”

  The tears in her eyes made him feel homicidal. He could hardly bear them. “If things get too rough, let me know.”

  Tears overflowed down her cheeks, soundless, all the more poignant for the lack of sound.

  “Stop that,” he ground out and turned away, because he knew exactly what was going to happen if he didn’t. He was already trembling with the need to grind her body into his and kiss the breath out of her. But kissing was intoxicating and addictive. If he started that with Bess, he might not be able to stop in time. Gentlemen didn’t seduce virgins—he’d been raised to believe that, and his strict upbringing reared its head every time he looked at Bess with desire.

  “I’m sorry I did that,” Bess said after a minute, wiping her eyes. “You’ve been so much kinder about all this than I expected. That’s all.”

  “I don’t feel particularly kind,” he said shortly. He turned back to her. “But if you need help, all you ever have to do is call. Watch yourself when Gussie has male friends in. Lock your bedroom door if they stay overnight.”

  “Mother wouldn’t...!” she exclaimed.

  “Like hell your mother wouldn’t,” he said. “You’re so naive it’s unreal. You can’t see what she is.”

  “Neither can you,” she stammered.

  “You see what you want to,” he said wearily. “And I’m tired of arguing with you about Gussie. It gets us nowhere. Be careful that she doesn’t start shoving you at rich, eligible old men to help feather her nest.” His eyes grew darker at the thought of it, and he felt a momentary twinge of fear.

  “That’s funny,” she said with a faint smile, lowering her eyes. “You don’t know how funny. Can you really see me as a femme fatale?”

  “I can see you as a warm, loving woman,” he said against his will, his voice deeper and softer than she’d ever heard it. “Once you come out of that shell, men are going to want you.”

  Her heart jumped. She lifted her eyes. “Even you?” she asked in a whisper, daring everything.

  Careful, he told himself. Careful. He let his dark eyes wander over her face, but he didn’t smile. “Maybe,” he said noncommittally.

  She laughed mirthlessly. “No, you wouldn’t want someone like me,” she said wistfully and averted her eyes from the probing look in his. “You’ll want someone who’s capable and strong, someone who can cope with ranch life and country living. I’m just a cream puff with an overbearing mother...” Tears stung her eyes.

  “Honest to God, Bess, if you don’t stop that, I’m going to...” He bit down hard on his self-control. Keeping his hands off her was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and she didn’t even realize the effect she was having on him.

  “Sorry,” she said. She laughed. “I’m always apologizing.”

  “You don’t have much of a self-image,” he said tightly. “Time will take care of that. Losing everything was tough on you, I know, but you may find that it was the best thing that ever happened to you. Hard times shape us. They’ll shape you.”

  “Make a woman of me, you mean?” she asked shyly.

  He drew in a short breath. “In a sense, yes. Go to San Antonio. Find your own place in life. That independence will be good for you. You’ll marry one day, and it’s important that a woman doesn’t become only an extension of a man.”

  “That doesn’t sound old-fashioned at all.”

  “In some ways I’m not,” he murmured. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully on her face. “But Mother raised us in the church, even if she could never drag my father into one. The Bible looks upon some aspects of modern life as a sin.”

  She nodded. “Like sleeping around.”

  “Like sleeping around.” He stared down at her quietly. “I’m not a fanatic about it, but I’d like to think the woman I marry had enough respect for herself to bring her chastity to the marriage bed. It seems to me,” he mused deeply, “that this new morality is more for the man’s sake than the woman’s. The women are running all the risks, and the men are getting everything they want without the responsibilities of marriage.”

  She laughed gently. “Maybe so.” She stared at the ground. “I never got to go to church, but I always thought it was so romantic to wait until I got married to be intimate with a man. Mama laughed at such an outdated notion, but my father never did. I think he approved.”

  “Your father was a good man,” he replied. “I’ll miss him, too.”

  She looked up at him. “You can still have the pearls, Cade,” she said softly.

  He shook his head. “I’ll get by.” His eyes slid down to her mouth and stared at it until he thought his head was going to spin him to the ground. He wanted it so badly.

  Bess saw that look and trembled with the need to go close to him, to offer her mouth, to experience, even if only one time in her life, the exquisite pleasure those hard, firm lips could give. She knew already that it would be everything she could want. Her lips parted as he looked at them, and the wave of hunger that swept over her almost brought her to her knees. Just one kiss, she pleaded silently. One!

  He took one slow step toward her, his warmth enveloping her, the scent of him in her nostrils. She looked up, feeling his breath on her face, watching his eyes so intent on her mouth. She could see the very texture of his lips this close and she wanted them against her own.

  “Please.” She heard the soft plea and hardly realized that it had come from her own lips.

  His jaw tautened. “I want it just that much,” he said, biting off his words. His eyes caught hers. Tension strung between them like thunder building black on the horizon, the earth trembling as it waited for lightning to strike down against it. Bess searched Cade’s dark eyes with that same anticipation, her heart slamming against her chest. It was going to happen...!

  For one long, tense second it looked as if Cade wasn’t going to be able to hold back. Then he forced himself to tear his eyes from hers, to take a step back and then another. His body protested, but for Bess’s sake and his own, he didn’t dare take the risk.

  Watching him, Bess, felt her heart shaking her with its mad beat. The disappointment was almost physically painful. The way he’d been staring at her mouth had made her weak. But he’d had the strength to draw back before anything happened, because he didn’t want complications. She wished that she could knock down all those obstacles he’d talked about. Life was so short. She’d go away, and he’d forget her...

  “You might write to us once in a while. Let us know how you’re doing,” he said unexpectedly.

  �
�Would you write back?” she asked hesitantly.

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  Her face lit up. It wasn’t going to be the end of the world.

  He slanted his hat over his brow and searched her face. “I’ve got something for you.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “For me?” she asked, surprised.

  “It’s not a diamond brooch, so don’t get all excited,” he muttered. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and unfastened the knotted end. Inside was a small silver ring inlaid with turquoise in the shape of a bird on its wide face.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said softly.

  “It has a history,” he said. He took her right hand and slid the ring slowly onto her third finger, cradling her slender hand in his. “Someday I’ll tell it to you. For now it’s something to remind you that life goes on in spite of our problems.”

  “Are you sure you want me to have it?”

  “I’m sure.” His thumb rubbed over it while his fingers tightened slowly around hers. “It isn’t worth much, but it’s as much a legacy as your Great-aunt Dorie’s pearls,” he smiled faintly. “So take care of it.”

  “I’ll never take it off,” she promised. Her eyes went over it lovingly, and the expression on her face touched Cade. She was used to diamonds and pearls, but that little bit of silver seemed to touch her every bit as much as a mink coat would have touched her mother.

  “You never were mercenary,” he said quietly. “Or a snob. Once you’ve gotten over your father’s death and learned how to manage your mother, you’re going to be a heartbreaker.”

  She stared up at him quietly. “Be careful I don’t break yours,” she said with bravado.

  Surprisingly he took her hand and put it over his heart. “I’m not sure I have one,” he said simply. “It’s been knocked around a good bit in recent years. But if you can find it, do your worst.”

  She reached up her free hand slowly and touched his hard mouth and then, when he stood very still and didn’t protest, the rest of his lean, dark face.