His for the Taking

Three



Two hours after he’d left the drill site, Cole pulled up to Miss Jennie’s white house on the edge of town where her property backed up to a corner of his own estate. Miss Jennie’s house, with its sagging wraparound porch, was a sorry sight in the middle of an overgrown, brown lawn. Not that Cole’s mind was on the lousy condition of her house and yard as he slammed the door of his big, white truck and strode up her walk.

He was a little surprised when Miss Jennie’s fool of a dog didn’t race up to him, yapping. Whenever Cole rode on this part of his ranch he usually ran into the mongrel. On hot summer evenings Cinnamon loved nothing better than lying on a shady rock along the bank where the river was spring-fed and icy cold.

That particular swimming hole had often been Cole and Maddie’s secret meeting place.

All he could think of was Maddie.

He knocked impatiently, but when the screen door finally opened, it wasn’t a reluctant Maddie prettily greeting him, but sharp-eyed Bessie Mueller from next door.

Cold air gushed out of the house around her as she set fists on her solid hips. Her wrinkled face was brown from working outdoors. She had a way of standing that made her look bolted to the earth.

“Your mother told everybody you weren’t coming home till tomorrow, so, what has got you planting your dusty boots on Miss Jennie’s doorstep today?”

It went without sayin’ that everybody in Yella knew everybody else’s business.

“Ranch affairs,” he drawled, hating the way the lie made heat crawl up his neck. “Is Miss Jennie doing okay?”

“She’s just fine, but she’s restin’ for a spell. She’s had so much company this mornin’—all male. She’s plumb tuckered out.”

“And Maddie Gray?”

Bessie grinned slyly. “Oh, so, it’s her you’ve come to see…like every other man in town?” The knowing glint in her black eyes irritated the hell out of him. “Well, she’s out looking for Cinnamon, if you have to know. That’s why I’m here. I told Maddie it wasn’t no use chasin’ that mongrel. When that fool dog isn’t barking loud enough to wake the dead, he’s after my poor chickens or diggin’ up my pansies. He always comes back—when he takes a mind to.”

Like all mammals, human or otherwise, living in Yella, Cinnamon had acquired a reputation.

Cole tipped his hat. “You tell Miss Jennie I’ll be back a little later, then.”

If Maddie was chasing Cinnamon, he knew where to find her.

* * *

When Cole tugged lightly on the reins, Raider snorted and jerked his head, stopping just short of the small creek that fed the river where ancient trees grew in such dense profusion they were almost impenetrable.

“The brush is too thick from here on,” Cole said, “so this is where I’ll leave you.”

On a hunch that Cinnamon would lure Maddie to the pool by the dam, he’d saddled his large, spirited bay gelding and set off.

Dismounting, Cole looped Raider’s reins over a fallen log near the rushing water and left the horse grazing in the shade.

Pushing back a tumble of wild grapevines that cascaded from the highest branches of a live oak, Cole made a mental note to get his foreman to send a hand out to clip the vines before they smothered the tree. Then, as he stalked through the high brown grasses toward the emerald pool, memories of Maddie played in his mind.

He and Maddie had ridden these trails together. When they’d dismounted they’d often played hide-and-seek. How he’d loved catching her and pulling her slim body beneath his. She would smile up at him, her flushed face thrilled and trusting in the pink glow of a late-afternoon sun.

After she’d left, he’d posted signs that read No Trespassing and No Swimming.

At the sound of a dog barking, Cole’s heart began to race. When he recognized Maddie’s low, velvety voice, he went stone-still.

“We shouldn’t be here. We’re trespassing. But you don’t care.”

Stealthily he inched forward until he caught glimpses of dewy skin and ebony hair through the trees.

Sitting on the dam, dangling her long legs in the water, she wore nothing but a blade of wet grass on her left nipple and a pair of black thong panties. Her exotic face with those arched, slanting brows was lovelier than ever. Not that his gaze remained on her face. Her naked breasts and slender waist and her legs that went forever stole his breath.

He gulped in air while his heart thudded so violently he was sure she’d hear. He could turn and go, but why should he? He’d come here to find her, hadn’t he?

Slowly she dipped a rag—no, it was her T-shirt—into the water and squeezed it so tightly that rivulets of sparkling liquid showered her throat and breasts.

“Ah, nothing like icy water on a hot day,” she purred huskily as she put the T-shirt back into the pool and dripped more fluid diamonds over her body. “I was burning up.”

The dog was panting hard. Cole was burning up, too, but his condition wasn’t entirely due to the heat.

Erect, spellbound, he watched as the blade of grass got caught in the currents of water tracing down her smooth, gleaming belly before sliding down to her navel. When a slender fingertip plucked it off her skin, heat shot through Cole. His sex, hot and hard, swelled painfully against tight denim. When Cinnamon walked onto the dam and shook water all over Maddie, she screamed even as she giggled.

“You are all dog,” she said huskily, but she laughed, teasing the mongrel rather than chastising him.

Damn her to hell and back for being so gorgeous and unnervingly sexy. She seemed sweet, too, just as she always had—the very essence of everything feminine.

But looks could deceive.

Even though he knew what she was, memories of the first time she’d lain with him struck him full force.

She’d been flushed and naked as she’d whispered she loved him and always would. She had begged him to take her.

He’d kissed her throat and stroked her hair. “Are you sure about this?”

“No matter what happens, I want it to be you…who’s first, I mean.”

For a long time, his hands had skimmed over her body, touching her, caressing her. She’d been so innocent and so infinitely precious to him.

Determined not to hurt her, he’d been gentle and patient even though his youthful hormones had been raging. Hell, he’d even told her he loved her, too. Worse—he’d meant it.

Don’t think about it.

But how could he forget how tight she’d been, or how she’d held her breath so long after he’d entered her, she’d scared the hell out of him?

“Are you okay?” he’d whispered.

“Better than okay.” When she’d pressed her soft mouth to his throat she’d sent him over the edge. He’d apologized, but she’d begun to kiss him again, and he’d hardened inside her almost instantly.

“I’ve had a crush on you for years,” she’d said. “I just never thought you could care for someone like me.”

“Well, I do.”

“Sometimes I still have to pinch myself so I know I’m not dreaming.”

Now, determined to push the bittersweet memories aside and regain control, he counted slowly…backward from one hundred to zero. Long before he reached zero, more memories bombarded him, each one sweeter than the last. Then he couldn’t count, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel his testosterone-engorged body thicken.

More than anything, he wanted to touch her warm, velvet skin, to taste her sweet lips…just one more time. Maybe once he was sated, he would be rational enough to remember how shabbily she’d treated him.

As if she sensed him, she slid into the water, screaming because it was so cold, and then swam away from the dam, leaving a trail of graceful ripples flashing in her wake.

Instead of listening to the voice of reason that told him not to play with fire, he strode down to the bank and stood above her in the long shadows of the cypress trees, watching her swim, willing her to turn and face him.

When she did, her face whitened with shock. “Cole! What are you doing here?”

The alarm in her slanting blue-violet eyes cut him to the quick. But still his tone was hard when he said, “I heard you were chasing Cinnamon on my land, so I came looking for you.”

When her exotic face went even whiter, his own craven desire made his gut clench.

Without another word, she dived underneath the water and swam as far away from him as she could. When she finally came up, she crossed her hands over her breasts and scrambled behind the nearest rock. “I—I didn’t mean to bother you!” she began, blushing furiously as she gasped for breath. “If I’d known you were in town—I would never have come here! Your brother, Adam… He told me you wouldn’t be back anytime soon. I swear he did!”

“Didn’t you see the No Swimming signs? A kid nearly drowned here a couple of years ago, after a flood. Cinnamon is not worth risking your pretty neck by swimming here alone.”

“Okay. I won’t do it again. If you’ll just leave, I’ll dress and go.”

“The last thing I want is you dressed and gone.”

The stark look of terror reappeared in her eyes. “Don’t start!” she whispered. “Please—”

The shame and fear in her frantic gaze tore at his heart. He remembered how sensitive she’d been on the subject of her mother and how shy she’d always been about sexual matters, especially in the beginning. But she’d never been this skittish. Suddenly he wished he could take back the suggestive comment.

“Somebody told me a while back that you’re a mother now…that you have a little boy…”

Her violet-blue eyes widened with even more fear. Why?

“I just meant that as a mother, you shouldn’t take unnecessary risks—like swimming here alone.”

“My son is no concern of yours!” Her voice was high and thin. “You made that very clear—”

“When did we ever discuss your son?”

“What?” She seemed to catch herself. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I saw your signs. It’s just that I’m upset because you startled me. I shouldn’t have gotten in the water without a buddy. If you’ll just leave, I’ll get out, dress and go. Like I said.” She had begun to shiver, and her lips were blue.

“You can swim as long as you like…now that I’m here to watch over you.”

“I don’t want you here watching over me.” Her teeth were chattering.

“Right.” He set his hot, insolent gaze on her.

“Cole, I’m…I’m freezing. If…you won’t go, would you please turn your back so I…can get out and dress?”

“Okay, already.” Halfheartedly, he turned his back.

Not trusting him, she hesitated. A moment or two later, he heard water splash on limestone, followed by the whisper of damp feet on grass and the breaking of twigs as she scampered across the rocks to retrieve her clothes.

When a low curse escaped her lips, he turned out of concern and was rewarded with another glimpse of her tantalizing breasts and thighs. His breath hitched as she struggled to push her slim arms through the knotted sleeves of her wet, tangled T-shirt. Absorbed in pulling on her jeans, she didn’t look up and see that he couldn’t take his tortured eyes off her.

When she’d fastened her cutoffs, she looked up. “You cheated,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“I guess I shouldn’t wonder, since you’ll always think I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t deserve your respect.” With an indignant frown she leaned down and secured the now-docile Cinnamon with a leash.

“Damn,” he muttered, feeling guilty as well as angry.

That she could chastise him, for anything, when she’d jilted him for Turner, was gallingly unfair.

“Don’t worry. I won’t presume to trespass on your land again,” she said almost haughtily.

“You can swim here anytime,” he said coldly. “It’s just that I’d prefer that you bring a friend with you the next time.”

“Who? With the exception of Miss Jennie, people here don’t really like my mother or me much. If you’ll recall, I…I never had any real friends in this town.”

“I hear eight men stopped by to check on Miss Jennie this mornin’.”

“For your information, I wasn’t ever who you thought I was or who they probably think I am. It’s taken me a long time to believe in myself…after…after the way you and the town treated me.”

“Oh, really? I find that surprising. For someone so sensitive and romantic, you sure as hell slept with me and then ran off with Turner without so much as a goodbye.”

When her skin went as pale as the bleached limestone bank, he felt as if someone had kicked him in the gut. But even as she began to tremble, her eyes blazed.

“Believe what you want about me!” she whispered as she hugged her arms around herself. “I’m glad I don’t have to care anymore.” But her eyes belied her indifference.

When he’d left the rig today he’d sworn he wouldn’t rehash the past, but now he had to ask. “Tell me why you ran off with him. You owe me an explanation.”

“Once…I foolishly thought…maybe I did owe you. So, before I left, I called you to explain, remember?”

Fury that she would lie so carelessly swelled inside him. “The hell you did! You called me eighteen months later—when it was a little late, since I was already married to Lizzie!”

“No! I called you the night I left. But your mother answered the phone. She told me exactly what you told her to tell me, that she didn’t want my kind in your life. So, excuse me if I didn’t call you back. I had a lot on my plate. But my problems then are none of your business now.”

“My mother? You talked to my mother that night?”

She nodded.

“I don’t believe you! There’s no way she could have resisted throwing such a call from you in my face!”

“I don’t care what you believe. Do you deny that when I called you again, a year and a half later, you were even less receptive than she’d been that night? If you do, let me refresh your memory. You answered the phone and told me you never wanted to talk to me again! Then you slammed the phone down. At least your mother had the guts to talk to me!”

Her beautiful violet eyes shimmered with remembered pain, making a muscle in his gut pull. Her accusation about his mother didn’t play. His mother, who had rigid views of social order, would have skinned him alive if she’d found out he had anything to do with Jesse Ray’s daughter.

“The truth is—you waited a whole year and a half after you’d run off to call. Like I said, it was too late.”

“Well, then let’s leave it at that! You got married to a nice, respectable girl. Maybe I moved on, too. Okay?”

But it wasn’t okay. Why were feelings that he’d suppressed for years suddenly so important to him?

“I told myself to leave it at that! And I did, as long as Lizzie was alive—for her sake. But now that she’s gone and you’re here, damn it, I want to know why you left me for Vernon without any explanation. All I knew was what your mother told everybody—that you’d flaunted yourself around Vernon to spite her and had run off with him for the same reason.”

She whitened. Although she tried to hide her fear, he saw that her hands were shaking. What was she so scared of?

Then she drew herself up straighter, and her beautiful lips thinned with determination. It was as if she found some inner strength that enabled her to face him down.

“I—I wasn’t myself when I left. After talking to your mother, I believed you were relieved to be rid of me.”

Relieved? He’d been in so much agony he’d thought he was dying. When he couldn’t get in touch with her, he’d been wild to find her, to talk to her. Wanting to hurt her now, as she’d hurt him then, he said, “I should have been relieved. Any sane guy would’ve been. You were your mother’s daughter, in the end.”

“Well, there you go,” she whispered in a small voice. “Lucky you…to escape my clutches.”

Her casually tossed comment pushed him over the edge. “Well, damn it, what if I wasn’t smart enough to be relieved?” he growled, hating himself for not hiding that she’d held such power over him. Hell, she still held power over him as she stood there looking pretty and wounded and sexy as hell in the wet T-shirt that clung to her breasts. “When you ran off, I was worried sick about you.”

“You were?” She bit her lip and looked away in confusion, as if what he’d said made no sense.

“I thought about you all the time. I didn’t want to believe what your mother was saying without hearing your side,” he said. “Every night I’d come out here and wonder how you could just disappear like that. I missed you, damn it! I wanted to know you were okay, at least, even if you were with Turner.”

“Did you ever try to find me?”

“I wanted to. But, hell, my father got sick a week after you left. I was forced to take over the family businesses. On his deathbed he confessed to having another son…Adam. Mother couldn’t accept him. I had a lot on my plate, too.”

Something in his low tone got through to her because she whispered in a raspy, broken voice, “I’m sorry about your father. I didn’t know. I was upset when I left…and too ashamed to call you again after your mother had so soundly rejected me.”

“You sure as hell should have been ashamed.”

“It took me a while to get over…what happened.” Her eyes darkened with pain. “But when I finally called you again, you didn’t want to talk to me. No—you were cold and arrogant.”

Because he’d been afraid he’d break if he spoke to her, because he’d been trying to be faithful to Lizzie, damn it.

“I don’t see why you’re dredging all this up now, Cole.”

Maybe because nearly a year had passed since Lizzie’s death, and he finally felt free to pursue whatever the hell he wanted. Because Maddie was here, looking even lovelier and more vulnerable than before. His reaction wasn’t logical. He knew that. But somehow his involvement with Maddie wasn’t over. Seeing her again had thoroughly convinced him of that.

“So, what was in those letters you wrote me after I refused to talk to you?” he asked. He remembered too well signing for those two certified envelopes and then angrily tossing them in a drawer and telling himself he had to forget them.

Maddie gasped and lost even more color. “Didn’t you read my letters?”

“No. I signed for them, but I couldn’t read them, for the same reason I couldn’t talk to you on the phone—because of Lizzie. Maybe someone like you can’t understand this—but I would have felt like I was cheating on her if anything you said tempted me. Then she died, and I couldn’t read them out of loyalty to her. She’d been my wife. What had you ever done—except jilt me for Turner?”

Maddie drew in a sharp, anguished breath. Licking her lips, she swallowed hard. “Okay,” she finally said. “You just signed for them…. Well, whatever I said in those letters can’t matter now,” she said. “You owe me nothing. And I owe you nothing.”

“I’m beginning to see they’re a piece in a puzzle I need to explore in more depth.”

“No! The past, which includes you, doesn’t matter now!” But her voice shook. “I—I was nothing to you.”

“How can you say that and act like I mistreated you—when you ran off with Turner?”

“You should thank me. I set you free so you could marry your precious Lizzie and have everyone in Yella think the best of you. And that’s exactly what happened.”

He remembered resenting how anxious his mother had been to push Lizzie on him after Maddie ran off and his father died. Maybe marrying Lizzie because he’d been sad and lonely and overwhelmed, and because his mother and the whole town had thought they’d make a perfect couple, hadn’t been the smartest thing he’d ever done. Not that he could tell Maddie that he’d made bigger mistakes than sleeping with her.

“What did you write in those damn letters?” he demanded, really curious.

“Nothing that could possibly matter now,” she said, too casually. “I was young and foolish. Money was tight. My girlhood fantasy got the best of my better judgment. You know, poor girl wins rich boyfriend after all…lives happily ever after with him in his big, white, legendary ranch house…and then everybody in Yella looks up to her. Some foolishness like that.”

“I think it’s high time I finally read them. I’ll be the judge of what’s foolish.”

Her brows flew together. “You still have them?”

“I threw them in a desk drawer, in my office, up at my big, white house, as you put it. They should be there…that is, if Lizzie put them back.”

“Lizzie?”

“On her deathbed, Lizzie confessed she’d found them when she was tidying up in my office and had steamed them open and read them. She said she resealed them and put them back. She made me promise to read them after she was gone, said I owed you that. And then she said she was sorry, truly sorry, she hadn’t told me about reading them before…but that she’d been too jealous to do so, too afraid of losing me. Imagine what a heel I felt like for having made her jealous over someone like you. Out of respect for her, I haven’t looked for them since her death.”

Maddie’s gaze was fixed on Cinnamon. “Well, there’s no need to read them now,” she said softly. “I’ll go….”

“I’m not finished,” he said. “I told Lizzie those letters didn’t matter, that they never had mattered, because I’d married her, and she’d been the most wonderful wife a man could wish for.”

“You were lucky then,” Maddie said wistfully. “I hope to be as lucky…someday soon.”

He hadn’t felt lucky. He’d felt guilt-stricken and low for never having loved Lizzie as she’d deserved because of Maddie.

“She always loved you. From the time she first saw you,” Maddie said softly.

“Yes,” he muttered, familiar guilt washing over him. He’d broken Lizzie’s heart to pursue Maddie in secret. After that first kiss in the barn, he’d burned for the town’s bad girl so fiercely, he hadn’t been able to help himself.

And now Maddie was back, as beautiful as ever. He still wanted her.

“Maybe it’s good we saw each other today, so we can face the fact that the past is over,” she said. “I’m sorry I ran off without saying goodbye. I was young, immature…” Her voice was even and polite, the voice she would use to console or dismiss a stranger. “It’s nice knowing you had a wonderful marriage, and I’m truly sorry for your loss. It can’t be easy…even now. Cole, I wish you well. I truly want you to be happy.”

“Thank you,” he muttered ungraciously.

“Someday you’ll find another woman. Maybe she’ll remind you of Lizzie. You’ll have children, build a family together….” Her voice grew choked and then trailed off awkwardly.

He didn’t want to be reminded of Lizzie, who had been the bride everyone else had believed would be perfect for him. They’d made each other very unhappy. He’d remained lonely even in marriage.

“Goodbye, Cole.”

When Maddie turned to walk away, he watched her slim, denim-clad hips swing and noted the way her damp T-shirt clung to her back.

Just watching her move with liquid grace as she vanished into the woods had his blood surging like fire in his veins. His breathing felt shallow. He wanted to strip her, to hold her, to kiss her. He wanted her naked and writhing with her legs wrapped around his waist.

He wanted her—period. Longed for her.

He’d stay crazy if he let her walk out of his life a second time. At the very least she still owed him some answers.