His for the Taking

Six



Since her heart was in shreds just from spending a pleasant evening with Cole, she wished she could forget her letters and demand that he drive her home. But when Cole turned on the lights in the barn and neither Joe nor a groom appeared, the smell of hay and the soft nickering of the horses seduced her into offering to help him put both horses to bed.

Together they removed the saddles and bridles and carried them to the tack room. Together they hosed down the horses, rubbing their long, narrow faces with big puffy sponges, squeezing the sponges repeatedly so that the water ran down their great bodies and legs and gurgled in the drain.

“I’ve missed working with horses,” she said. “Horses don’t lie to you, so they don’t break your heart as often as people do.”

His eyes studied her face for a long moment. He’d hurt her, made her feel cheap and unimportant to him. Maybe he hadn’t done it deliberately, but he’d hurt her just the same. For six long years she’d carried those scars.

“I’m sorry you had such a rough start in life. But you’ve certainly risen above it.”

She smiled warily as he turned back to Lily, but the work was a pleasant distraction, causing her to relax in Cole’s company. All sensual tension vanished. She simply enjoyed being with him and his horses. Soon they were laughing and talking easily.

“Would you like a cup of coffee before I drive you home?” he asked after he secured Raider in his stall.

She wondered if he was merely being polite, but his gaze was so intense, she couldn’t resist.

“I’d love one,” she lied, even though she never drank the bitter stuff.

Side by side they walked down the road to his house in the moonlight, each so wrapped up in their lighthearted banter they failed to see the Lincoln parked in the shadows of the huge live oak beside his house. He opened the front door as they were laughing at a joke he’d made.

“John, is that you—at last?” His mother’s biting tone cut Maddie to the quick.

“Mother?”

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever come home.”

“You should have called before coming if you don’t like being inconvenienced.”

“I did call. Your phone was off, or you didn’t bother to answer.”

Black silk rustled as his tall, elegantly slim mother stood up. Her flawless features held no warmth. She kept her thin nose high and angled away from Maddie.

“You should have let me know you were coming home, dear,” she said. “I would have had Angelica make dinner.”

“I had other plans. You remember Maddie Gray, don’t you?”

His mother’s lips pursed as her icy stare flicked briefly to Maddie. “Vaguely,” she lied in a voice that made Maddie feel small.

“Hello,” Maddie said.

His mother’s nose arched higher. “I’d prefer to talk to my son in private.”

Feeling like a child unjustly put into time-out, Maddie nodded. Her first impulse was to leave, but she couldn’t since Cole had driven her here. Then she remembered her letters. Maybe this was the perfect opportunity to search for them. “Cole, why don’t I wait in your office?” Maddie said.

“Because the den is larger and much more comfortable,” he replied.

“I’ll be just fine in there. You and your mother should take the den.” Before he could object, she hurried toward his office.

He followed her. “Why did you have to choose the messiest room in the house?” he whispered as she sank down in his big leather desk chair.

“Cole!” his mother snapped. “I said I’ve been waiting for over an hour!”

At his mother’s command he frowned. “There are a few magazines on the desk. I won’t be long,” he said gently to Maddie.

When he closed the door, Maddie faced his messy desk. She wasn’t happy that his mother despised her, but she refused to dwell on something she couldn’t change. This might be her only chance to search for her letters.

Knowing that she probably didn’t have much time, she leaned down and tugged at the bottom drawer. Just as she’d suspected, it was locked.

“Okay—so, I’ll look through the top drawers first!” she whispered.

While she riffled through the other drawers, which was slow going because they were stuffed with so many papers, she heard raised voices.

Not wishing to eavesdrop, but not being able to stop herself, Maddie’s ears pricked to attention even as she continued her rummaging.

“I know you’ve been lonely, dear. But this pathetic girl—Jesse Ray Gray’s daughter, of all people?”

“You don’t even know her.”

“I know she probably came back here deliberately to flaunt herself the minute she heard Lizzie died.”

Maddie gasped.

“Lizzie has been gone nearly a year.”

“Well, the whole town’s talking about Maddie skinny-dipping on our land this afternoon just to lure you.”

Maddie’s hands shook with such outrage she nearly slammed a drawer.

“You’re wrong about everything, Mother.”

When Maddie had searched all the drawers but the locked one, she angrily grabbed the keys she’d noticed earlier, lying on his desk.

“You’re too gullible,” his mother said. “This cheap girl has set her sights on you.”

Cheap…. The word stung.

“Mother, your voice is too loud. She’s my guest.” He lowered his voice and must have persuaded his mother to do the same because Maddie couldn’t hear them for a while.

Furiously, Maddie began trying different keys. Naturally, it was the last one that worked.

Suddenly the voices in the other room rose again.

“Mother, I have a question. Did Maddie try to call me six years ago before she left Yella? Did you talk to her?”

Maddie’s heart began to beat very fast.

His mother didn’t answer immediately. “Do you think I can remember every call from six years ago? I can tell you one thing, though—if she’d called, you’d remember me giving you a piece of my mind.”

“All right. Look, I need to take Maddie back to Miss Jennie’s. Maybe you and I can have lunch before I go tomorrow.”

A sob caught in Maddie’s throat. She had to find her letters. She did not want his formidable mother threatening her, or Noah, especially since Cole seemed to believe everything his mother said.

With unsteady fingers, Maddie sifted through the endless stack of deeds and contracts in the bottom drawer. When she heard footsteps approaching the office, she jumped back.

“Have you forgotten your manners completely?” his mother said. “Are you going to show me out or not?”

His heavy footsteps retreated. The front door opened and slammed shut.

If only his mother had insisted he walk her to her car. But she hadn’t. Once again, Maddie heard his brisk footsteps heading toward his office.

In a panic, Maddie nudged the bottom drawer shut with her foot, only to let out a little cry when it jammed.

Grabbing a magazine, she whirled around in his chair and pretended to read an incomprehensible article about how irrigation affected hay yield.

“Sorry about that,” he said in a world-weary tone from the doorway.

Maddie looked up. When she saw him glance at his keys, which were still dangling from the lock of his bottom drawer, her heart began to knock.

Then his concerned gaze refocused on her. “You’re white as a sheet, and shaking, too.”

Ashamed that the woman could still intimidate her, Maddie leaped up so that she could stand between him and the drawer. “I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry you had to hear all that.”

“I know she doesn’t approve of me,” Maddie said, hoping she sounded braver than she felt.

“Well, I think you’re a wonderful person,” he said.

“You do?”

“After what you told me? Of course!”

“You believed the worst of me when I left.”

“Even that didn’t stop me from caring about you.”

Too bad he’d never made that fact known to her.

As he led her out of his office toward the kitchen, she thought he was being awfully nice even if he was a little more reserved after his mother’s visit. He caught her hand in his and pressed it reassuringly in his larger palm. “Forget about her, okay?”

“She’s right. The whole town’s probably talking about me skinny-dipping to lure you by now.”

“They’re just jealous.”

“Don’t joke.”

“Forget about her…and the town.”

“Can you?”

“Look, she’s my mother. I’m used to her trying to control every second of my life. I thought I’d learned how to handle her a long time ago, but then Lizzie died, and I went through a dark patch. Guilt, grief, regrets—I was pretty messed up. Mother wanted to move in with me, to take over. Fighting her helped snap me out of my funk. I know she loves me in her way, but I can’t allow her to get too close. She’s needy and critical.”

“I’m sorry about Lizzie,” she said again. “She was sweet. Even to me. She used to sneak down to the barn and watch me take care of the horses.”

“Yes, she was sweet to everybody. But there’s something I need to tell you. I didn’t deserve her, and I’m not sure I made her happy. It’s not always easy to be married to the town saint, you know.”

Because he looked so troubled by this admission, and she thought he was going to say more, she didn’t reply.

“She’s gone,” he said simply. “It’s too late to change anything. Except there is one thing I can say for sure—she wouldn’t mind you being here. She would have wanted me to see you and sort my feelings out. She loved me—in spite of the many ways I disappointed her.”

He looked more at ease after he said that, less tense, and Maddie couldn’t help but wonder if Lizzie had known all about Cole’s desire for her and sensed his guilt. Maybe her sweet, forgiving nature had made him feel that he was a worse person than he really was.

But what did his marriage to Lizzie have to do with his feelings for Maddie now? Did he or did he not agree with his mother’s low assessment of her? Could he ever respect her?

What if he could? What if he did?

Suddenly Maddie knew she couldn’t leave; she couldn’t return to Austin and marry Greg without finding out what Cole meant to her and what she meant to him. Greg was a good man. It would be unfair to risk hurting him as Cole believed he’d hurt Lizzie. She couldn’t marry Greg until she came to terms with her feelings for Cole or purged him from her system.

“So—do you still feel like a cup of coffee?” he asked.

“I’m not much of a coffee drinker.”

When his face darkened with disappointment, her own heart brimmed with wild, illogical joy.

He wants me to stay! Despite his mother’s disapproval and the risk of more gossip!

No doubt his mother had come to warn them off each other. But Maddie was no longer a teenager who could be easily bullied. She had to know how Cole felt. His opinion mattered. Not his mother’s. It was time she stood up for herself, time she showed his mother and the gossips of Yella that she wasn’t who they’d thought she was.

“I think I’d like a glass of wine,” she said.

His brilliant smile made her tummy flip.

“White or red?”

She laughed, feeling warm and flushed from just looking at him. “You pick. What we drink is not my top priority tonight.”

“Then what is?” An electric current charged the air between them. Looking charmingly baffled, he stared into her sparkling eyes.

“I can see I’ll have to give you a great big hint.” Because she simply couldn’t resist, she reached up on her tiptoes and put both arms around his neck. When he made no move, she arched her body into his.

His black brows lifted quizzically, and for a few more seconds he hesitated. Then his strong hands at the back of her waist locked and pulled her closer. “You did say no touching,” he whispered huskily.

“You know what they say about women being allowed to change their minds?”

His eyes blazed as he ran his knuckles up the gentle curve of her throat, causing her to shiver. Staring at her mouth, he cupped her chin, his thumb caressing the sensual fullness of her bottom lip. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you all night—and very badly.” When she licked her lips, he groaned and snugged her against his hips more tightly. Without further invitation, his mouth came down on hers, hard. She opened her lips, sighing in soft pleasure when his tongue moved inside, probing the soft interior of her mouth so erotically he took her breath away.

Sensing her surrender, his pelvis crushed hers, communicating his blatant arousal.

“Oh, my,” she said. “Is that for me?”

When she kissed him even more hungrily than before, he swung her up in his arms. “Baby, I can’t believe you’ve finally come home…to me.”

“I didn’t intend to. But I’m kinda glad I did.”

“Just kinda?”

“Way more than kinda,” she whispered, nuzzling her cheek against his.

Still kissing her, he carried her to the kitchen where he grabbed a bottle of wine and a can of tonic water, his drink of choice ever since he’d pulled himself out of the booze hole he’d fallen into after Lizzie’s death. Holding Maddie tightly, he mounted the stairs, taking them easily. Then he strode down the darkened hall toward his vast bedroom.

Laughing, feeling like a bride, she reached out and twisted the doorknob and pushed the door ajar for him.

“If you’re going to say no again, say it now,” he whispered in a low, urgent tone.

“I want you,” she said. “And I’m weak. I’ve always been weak where you’re concerned. But then, what do you expect from the bad girl of Yella, Texas?”

“I expect wild, wanton sex,” he murmured as he kicked the bedroom door shut. “Lots of it.”