His for the Taking

Five



There was no telling what the neighbors had made of her wet hair and wet T-shirt when she’d returned to Miss Jennie’s with Cole. So Maddie felt both light-headed and mortified when she left Miss Jennie’s on Cole’s arm later that afternoon. Not that he seemed to care what Bessie and her ilk thought about them being seen together.

He’d insisted on returning to Miss Jennie’s in his truck to pick her up, after he’d taken his horse back to his house. And now, while he strode confidently to his truck, she kept her eyes glued to the sidewalk. They were almost to his big, white pickup when she saw Bessie’s window shade move.

In a deliberate attempt to downplay her looks, Maddie had coiled her glossy black hair into a severe knot at her nape. She’d buttoned her white blouse to her neck and had secured its cuffs at her wrists. Her lips were pale because she hadn’t bothered to freshen her lipstick. Her jeans were tight, but she’d brought only one pair.

“Bessie’s watching us,” she murmured.

Without bothering to so much as glance in Bessie’s direction, he opened Maddie’s door.

“She’s probably already told everybody we went skinny-dipping,” Maddie said.

His dark eyes traced her curves. “I wish you’d suggested that when we had the chance.”

“No sexual innuendo. You promised!”

“No, I promised not to touch you.”

“Innuendo leads to touching….”

He smiled. “You’re saying there’s hope.”

“I’m saying don’t!”

“Then stop tempting me by blushing so charmingly.”

“There you go again!”

“Look, you’re not committing a crime…just because you’re beautiful. You could dress sexier. That wouldn’t be a crime either. Hell, it’s a bigger crime that you don’t.”

Her breath caught. Did he want to kiss her again as much as she wanted his mouth on hers?

Don’t even think about it, or look at his lips, because he’ll see how much you want him.

When he climbed inside and started the truck, she snapped on her seat belt. The nearness of him and the faint scent of his lemony aftershave made her blood quicken and her hands tremble. As they sped toward his ranch, her pulse beat unsteadily just because he was beside her.

When he sucked in a long breath, she realized he was on edge, too.

“It’s really hot,” she said.

“It’s July.”

They made a few more inane remarks about the weather and climate change before lapsing into a silence that lasted until they reached his house.

The Colemans had long been a respected family in Texas, so naturally, like everybody else in town, she’d always wanted to see his grand yet informal house up close. But since he’d never considered her part of his world, he’d never issued an invitation.

As a girl, all she’d managed to catch were glimpses of his big, white house with its columns and wide verandas from her secret hiding place in the brush. How she’d admired the house and the barn and the swimming pool and tennis courts where she’d watched him play tennis with Lizzie. A paved road wound past grassy paddocks where horses sometimes grazed.

How different today was now that she was formally invited. How excited she felt when he parked at his front door and let her out in full view of his wiry foreman, Joe Pena. Not that some of her high spirits weren’t dashed when the older man’s weathered face blanched after Cole asked him to saddle Raider and a suitable mare for them to ride later.

“Miss Gray hasn’t ridden in six years, so maybe Lily would be perfect,” Cole said.

Joe smiled affably enough at Cole, but his jaw hardened whenever he looked at her. “Thank you,” she said to Joe.

Without a word to her or a glance in her direction, the man turned his back on her and marched stiffly toward the barn.

Her mother had slept with Joe once or twice, and that had caused a rift in his marriage.

Cole took Maddie’s arm gently. “Don’t mind Joe,” he murmured as he swept her up the stairs and inside his house.

“It’s hard to forget that here I’ll always be Jesse Ray Gray’s daughter.”

“It’s way past time you grew a thicker hide.”

“How—when all it takes is a dark look or a remark to bring it all back?”

“If you want me to follow him to the barn and invite him to a boxing match, I will.”

“No.”

“Good, because it’s too hot for a boxing match. So forget about Joe and his stupid prejudices.”

It was difficult when she knew his prejudices were well-founded.

The minute Cole shut the front door behind them, she felt as if she were in another, more privileged world. He pointed to a low table near a window and said she could set her purse down.

After doing so, she smiled in appreciation as he led her through a series of pleasant, oak-paneled rooms with tall ceilings, rooms that generations of women in his family had filled with antiques, Texas memorabilia and family history that included many pictures of the Colemans socializing with famous Texans and various presidents.

How did it feel to have a family you could be proud of?

She felt nothing but shame as she remembered the stench of her mother’s trailer and the garbage-strewn lot it had shared with another even sorrier trailer on the edge of town. Had her mother ever taken a single photograph of her? The only pictures she had of herself were tattered school pictures that Miss Jennie had given her.

Here photographs of friends and family were abundantly displayed on walls and shelves. When his mother’s likeness glowered at her from a beige wall, Maddie flushed with guilt. Did his mother already know he’d stopped by Miss Jennie’s to see her?

“As you can see, Colemans aren’t good at throwing stuff away,” he said.

“Because you have a history to be proud of.”

When his cell phone rang, he pulled it out and frowned. Instead of answering it, he said, “I’m turning this off. Damn thing rings all the time.”

“Who was it?”

“My mother.”

“Go ahead. Talk to her. I don’t care,” she lied.

“Later.” He punched a button or two and slid it back into his pocket. “There—for now it’s off.”

Maddie couldn’t help grinning a little triumphantly at his mother’s stern picture before she began a study of the formal photographs and the painted portraits of his ancestors that filled his den. These were Noah’s ancestors, too. She felt a pang of guilt that her son would never know about them.

Pushing Noah to the back of her mind, she imagined Cole spending his free time in this masculine room with its dark carpets and huge reddish-brown leather sofas and matching armchairs. How often had he brought other women here? Women he’d respected? Women he’d introduced to his mother?

He joined her, telling her again what she already knew, that the ranch had been put together shortly after Texas had won its independence from Mexico, and that during the Civil War, Yankees had burned the first house.

“This second, much grander structure was built after the family recovered. It faces due south just like our state capitol in Austin—for the same reason, to spurn the north and the ‘damn’ Yankees.”

She managed to laugh lightly. “I hadn’t heard that before.”

“Like most Texans, we’re a stubborn, proud bunch,” Cole said, not bothering to hide his pride in his family and his state.

Cole’s ranch house was lovely, classy. Once when she’d lain in his arms she’d foolishly dreamed of living here, of being accepted because she was his wife.

But the town and his mother would never have approved, so he’d turned his back on Maddie and had married Lizzie. As proof of his brief, joyous union with his wife, he kept several informal photographs of her on the tables and shelves. And in every one of them, sweet, blonde Lizzie was looking up at Cole’s rugged, tanned face with adoring blue eyes.

Maddie lifted one of the photographs. “She looks so happy and in love.”

Without a word, he took the picture from her and placed it facedown.

“She’s gone now.”

Maddie winced at the rejection she felt in his icy tone. She couldn’t help remembering Miss Jennie telling her how worried the whole town had been because Cole had stayed drunk for six months straight after Lizzie’s death.

“His mother says he’ll never get over her,” Miss Jennie had said. “They were high school sweethearts, you know.”

Until a stolen kiss in a barn had temporarily awakened his lust for the town’s bad girl.

In spite of everything, Maddie had felt genuine sympathy for him in his time of loss.

“She always loved you so much,” Maddie said gently, knowing now that all he’d ever felt for her was lust. “Since she was a little girl.”

“Yes,” he muttered coldly.

“The whole town wanted you to marry her and give them their happy ending. And you did.”

“Can we talk about something else?” Again his expression was grimly forbidding. “Look, I didn’t bring you here to talk about Lizzie.” A nerve jerked in his cheek. “All that’s over now.” He took her arm and led her toward the open door of what was obviously his office. “You haven’t seen the rest of the house yet.”

Forgetting his promise not to touch her, he took her hand and led her inside the room. Her quick shiver brought a wicked glint to his eyes, but he let her go without teasing her.

“This is where I work. Sloppily, as you can see.”

Stacks of papers littered the top of his massive mahogany desk and spilled out of its drawers.

Her mind on the letters now, she gazed at the drawers, barely listening as he explained his various businesses to her.

There was the ranching operation to run, he told her, the other heirs who didn’t live on the ranch to satisfy, several farms to deal with, his mother to cater to, his ongoing oil and gas business, which was booming and kept him away from the ranch, his beloved horses, and several other income streams to keep track of. Ranching, he said, was a difficult business due to the unpredictable nature of so many important variables such as the weather and the price of feed and cattle. His father had been on the brink of bankruptcy when Cole had taken over. He was still in the process of streamlining the cattle operation and diversifying into other, more lucrative businesses.

“We got lucky with this new oil and gas play,” he said. “I’ve hired geologists and drillers, and am constantly expanding. There’s so much exploration going on in Texas, I can’t get the men or the parts I need. Or even the frac water to drill…”

Her gaze skimming the drawers, she listened absently while he told her about a greedy water-well driller. All but the bottom one were open.

“But I’ve been rambling, and you’re studying my messiness instead of listening,” he said, reaching for her and then dropping her hand when she jumped, startled at his touch.

“Sorry—I keep forgetting about the no-touching rule!”

Caught off guard and feeling slightly ashamed because she imagined he still saw her as an easy woman, Maddie jammed her hands into her pockets. “It’s all very interesting,” she murmured.

That was when she saw his arrowheads, which were framed and mounted above his desk. Much to her surprise, the ones she’d found near their secret pool and had given him were in the center of a collection he’d arranged in the shape of the state of Texas.

“Your arrowheads. You even framed the ones I gave you.”

“Yes. You were always so patient and observant when we searched those old Indian mounds. I was too easily distracted.”

He was staring so intently at her lips that she blushed.

“So, what do you feel like doing?” he said too abruptly, glancing outside. “Are you hungry?”

“Not yet,” she whispered, suddenly feeling ill at ease and shy around him.

“Do you want to ride now? Take a picnic along for later?”

Riding was a rare treat since she couldn’t afford her own horse. Thrilled at the thought of riding anywhere again, much less with him, she nodded. She’d worry about the future and what was best later. Later she’d find an opportunity to search for her letters.

She helped Cole pack ham sandwiches, chips, fruit, cookies and canned drinks before they headed out to his barn. As they approached the tall, red building, an Australian shepherd bounded out of it, wheeling between them, greeting them with exuberant barks. The dog jumped, licking her hands, sniffing her jeans. Laughing, Maddie knelt and let it lick her cheek, too.

“Why does Bendi get all the kisses?” Cole asked when she remained at the dog’s level.

“Bendi, is that your name, fella? Bendi may be my only friend in Yella…besides Miss Jennie,” she said, stroking the dog.

“What about me?”

“We weren’t really friends, now were we?”

“I always liked you,” he whispered.

“You never brought me here…the way you brought all the rest of your real friends.”

“My mother and dad lived here then.”

“See what I mean. I was always Jesse Ray Gray’s daughter, so you were ashamed of me.”

His face darkened. “With my mother, it was difficult. She was always so critical, and she had about a hundred rules she lived by. Maybe I wasn’t ready to tell her about you. About us. Maybe I was too afraid she’d spoil it, or drive you away. Maybe I didn’t realize how you’d see it and feel about it.” He paused. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“Look, I don’t want to quarrel about the past. We have our own lives now, don’t we? Let’s just ride and enjoy what’s left of the afternoon.”

She rose from the ground and headed toward the barn in silence with the dog racing circles around her.

“If coming here was so important to you, you could have asked me to show you the house,” he said defensively behind her.

Since she didn’t want to argue, she just kept silent.

Except for Bendi’s toenails scraping the concrete inside the barn as he trotted happily beside her and the sounds of horses munching grain and corn in their stalls, the shadowy barn was silent. In the tack room, saddles, bridles and halters hung from whitewashed walls. Everything—the sink, the desk that held a telephone, the floor—was immaculate.

The two horses that Cole had ordered to be saddled nickered as he opened the first stall door. Horseshoes rang on the concrete as he took the reins of a lovely palomino mare with brown eyes and led her out.

“Meet Lily. She’s gentle and likes everybody.”

“She’s lovely.”

At the compliments, Lily lowered her golden head and let Maddie stroke her.

“Good girl.” Maddie held out the apple she’d brought and enjoyed the feel of the mare’s lips and nose as she eagerly took a bite.

Horses—they’d been her salvation as a girl. If it hadn’t been for horses and Miss Jennie, where would she be now? Maybe in some shabby trailer enduring some awful man’s abuse. Or worse, abusing her own child.

Cole opened another stall and led out a tall bay gelding. “And this is Raider. He and I go way back. He’s half Arab and half quarter horse and pretty challenging to ride.”

“In what way?”

“He doesn’t like white rocks. And he insists on bossing all the other horses. He thinks he should decide which hay pile the horses can eat, and if they don’t agree, he lays his ears back and charges them.”

“Oh, dear.” She began to stroke him. “A big boy who doesn’t play well with others. In my line of work I meet a lot of people with your problem.”

“Lily is so agreeable that he isn’t threatened, so he doesn’t get up to many of his bad tricks when he’s around her.”

Outside, the wind rustled in the trees. Raider stomped, snorted and tossed his head, eagerly anticipating their ride.

Cole gave Maddie another moment to stroke and talk to Lily. Then they mounted and headed for the narrow, shady trail that wound through the brush. “I keep the trail groomed in the summers, just for riding,” Cole said.

“Do you ride often?” she asked wistfully, unable to imagine such a luxury.

“I’ve been away a lot overseeing my rigs and haven’t had time when I’m here, so getting out today will be fun, especially since you’ll be with me.” His words, warm and seductive, sang along her nerve edges.

Don’t say things like that. Don’t make me long for what I can never have.

“Riding will be a special treat for me, too. As a single mom, I don’t take off much time for myself.”

The sky was a deep blue, and the clouds against the horizon looked as soft as huge tufts of cotton. The light breeze curling the grasses made the late afternoon cooler than expected. Maddie, who rode behind Cole, found herself enjoying the ride more than she’d enjoyed anything besides Noah in years.

He set off on a gallop. Laughing aloud, she raced after him across one of his endless pastures with her hair streaming behind her. Her blood tingling from the thrill of it, she felt like a girl again with the big animal beneath her. When Cole turned and their eyes met, excitement charged through her in a white-hot jolt. Later, when he pulled up on his reins and headed in the direction of the river, she followed.

“The ground is not firm enough here to gallop,” he said as he waited for her to come alongside him.

She wasn’t surprised when Cole chose the pool where he’d discovered her earlier that day as their destination to water their horses and picnic.

When Cole helped her dismount, she stood beside Lily, stroking the horse, pretending she felt as calm as the mare, who dipped her mouth into the pool and drank through golden lips.

Cole opened a cold beer can and offered it to Maddie. When she accepted it, he popped the top off a tonic water and lifted it to his sculpted mouth. Studying his dark, angular face, especially his mouth, and the reflections of the trees and sky in the green water, she fought to pretend she felt nothing for him. But her blood was buzzing even before she drank deeply.

“So, who are you now, Maddie Gray?” he whispered as he led her to a limestone rock that served as a bench. “Now that you’re all grown up and educated? What have you made of yourself?”

“My story is probably pretty ordinary.”

“Not to me.”

“I don’t have your lineage of famous pioneer Texans. I was just a child here, going hungry on occasion and feeling trapped in that awful trailer with Mother when she was there. And when she wasn’t, I was always too scared of the neighbors in the next trailer to play outside.”

He frowned as if he genuinely empathized with the child she’d been. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

“You asked,” she said, touched by his response. She’d never talked about these things with him before. Or with Greg, she thought. Greg knew next to nothing about her past, and she didn’t want him to. For some reason that she didn’t understand, she felt like talking to Cole this afternoon. Since they both needed closure, maybe telling him as much of the truth as she dared would help.

“Yes. Maybe it’s time I did talk about it. Mother didn’t come home lots of nights—sometimes she’d be gone several nights in a row. Out on dates, I suppose. Dates that lasted all night…and sometimes several days. I would hide in the closet even though I was scared of the dark.”

“Did you ever tell a teacher that you were so scared you locked yourself in a dark closet?”

“Only Miss Jennie, when I was in high school. She took me home with her one afternoon. Everything was so clean and bright and nice in her house, and she was so gentle and kind that I started to cry because I wanted to live in a place like hers, with no smudges on the walls, a place with tablecloths and clean sheets on the beds, a place where I felt safe and where people were kind. Mother, you see, always screamed and cursed at me. Most people in Yella treated me like they hated me, too, though not Liam or Lizzie, who were always nice to me. So, I never imagined that I might achieve a decent kind of life.

“But Miss Jennie gave me hope. Until I started spending afternoons at her house in high school, my only friends had been horses.”

“What was the name of your first horse pal?”

“Remember how our trailer was next to Jasper Bower’s property? Well, Mr. Bower noticed that I used to bring his two horses apples after school. He was the one who gave me my first job mucking stalls in exchange for riding lessons. He let me take care of Pico and his other horses and gave me a good reference and that led to other jobs. I loved being in barns and working with horses, but until Miss Jennie saw how lost I was and befriended me, the human world mostly seemed big and unfriendly. And I felt helpless to ever change anything. She made me realize that if I didn’t want to be despised my whole life, I couldn’t hide out in barns. It was up to me to make something of myself. She’d been poor, too, you see, and she told me how she’d changed her life. She set out a very specific path to follow, with steps and options. We made a plan for what I’d do after graduation. I swore that if I ever succeeded, I wouldn’t forget that there were other little girls like me who didn’t have anyone to turn to, and that I’d help them…just like she helped me.”

“And? Have you?”

“I try so hard. I try every day. I got my bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology so I could work at the same homeless shelter that took me in when I left Yella. Now, on cold days, I have coats to give shivering children and diapers for wet, dirty babies and bus tokens for poor mothers who need transportation to get to work. I run a day care for children and a shelter for women and children. And one for disabled men, as well. We feed lunch to three hundred people a day. I feel like the shelter I work for makes a difference.”

“You make the difference.” His gaze was so intense with interest and admiration, it caused a warm rush of pleasure and pride to swamp her.

“Working with these people requires many of the same skill sets I acquired training horses. Only you’re dealing with people. With rules, patience, determination, compassion and a plan, you can sometimes work miracles.” She paused. “When Noah’s older, I need to go back to school for my master’s so I can do more. But right now I need to be with him as much as I can. Children grow up fast. You don’t want to waste a moment.”

“If I had a son I’d feel the same way.”

Her head jerked. When her eyes met his, his warm, thoughtful gaze unnerved her.

“I’m sure you would,” she whispered haltingly.

For a second or two she was so connected to him she felt she had to tell him about Noah—because it was the right thing to do. She caught a panicky breath. Thankfully, he looked away, and in doing so, broke the spell. Squeezing herself, she let out a sigh. She had to be careful. Confiding in him had made her feel closer to him, and that closeness was dangerous.

As the sun turned golden-red and the sky blazed, he continued asking her questions. So eager was she to answer them she barely noticed the lengthening shadows as the sun sank lower.

After she finished her second beer, he unpacked their sandwiches and chips, which were delicious. Since they were there, she ate too many cookies, which he teased her about after she lamented having done so.

“Lighten up on yourself,” he said. “It’s easy to know what you should eat, but not always so easy to eat what you should. Besides, what would the world be coming to if Yella’s number one bad girl lived up to her virtuous ideals one hundred percent of the time?”

As she laughed, she found it amazing and scary that she could feel so easy opening up to him. It was as if he were a true friend of the heart, instead of what he really was to her—the rich college boy who’d once lusted for her body and the powerful man who could threaten her future if he discovered her secret.

“Do you ever save any adults?”

“A few. We are connected to all the agencies in town that can help them with their special problems. If you’re a person who’s down and out, and you want to change, we can teach you how to get your medications, how to fill out a job application or an application for an apartment. But a person has to be fiercely determined to succeed. There are so many basic skills functioning adults require…like money management and taking care of health issues.”

In his turn, Cole talked about his oil and gas company and his ranch. She got a little lost when he tried to explain a modern drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing. Fracking, he explained, involved using pressurized water, sand and chemicals to extract more gas and oil from rock formations than had previously been possible. “But I’m not saving lives,” he said. “I’m just making money.”

“The modern world can’t survive without energy. You saved the ranch, your family’s heritage.”

“There’s that.” He smiled. “Hey, the sun’s going down fast. We better ride back to the house before it gets totally dark.”

When he helped her remount Lily, her spirits rocketed at his nearness and his casual touch. As she stared down at his handsome face, which was half in shadow, she felt her stomach flutter. His intent gaze lingered on her, as well, increasing her nervousness. He didn’t have to touch her to be dangerous.

For years, she’d been crushed by loneliness and the hard work required to pull herself up from nothing. Even now that she’d found Greg, she often felt lonely. Why did she never feel as connected to Greg as she felt right now to Cole?

How can you think that when you know Greg wants you as a person and Cole wants you for only one thing?

Instead of feeling outrage over Cole’s lust for her, a delicious shiver of excitement coursed through her. Was she as shameless as her mother?

She had to stop this. She had to get back to his house and find her letters and go.

Not long after they remounted and headed back to his home, a full moon rose, painting the landscape with shimmering silver. Beside Cole, her blood began to pulse in ever-deepening awareness of him. When they reached the barn, which loomed in the dark, and he lifted her down, she was already so hot for him that she couldn’t prevent herself from trembling when her body slid briefly against his.

No sooner were her feet on the ground than she sprang free of him.

Not that she felt much safer standing several feet away. How could she when all she wanted was for him to wrap her in his arms again and kiss her?

Breathing hard, he stared down at her so hungrily her own mouth watered. “You said not to touch you.”

“Yes….”

“Then don’t look at me like that.”

When she didn’t stop, he closed his eyes on a groan. His massive chest swelled, and he rasped in a harsh breath. “We’d better put the horses up,” he said, his voice biting as he heaved out another violent breath.

For no reason at all she was too shy and tongue-tied to utter a coherent thought.

She should never have come out with him today or talked to him so openly, baring her soul, so to speak. Maybe then she wouldn’t have reawakened all those dangerous yearnings and unrealistic hopes that had haunted her for years. She’d always wanted more from him—so much more than he’d ever been able to give to a girl he’d considered beneath him.

She knew too well that theirs was an impossible relationship.

But tonight he’d brought her to his house, talked to her about his family and work, listened to her with respect.

None of that should matter. She should stick to her decision and marry Greg and have nothing more to do with Cole.

But that was a difficult plan when Cole made her feel so alive.