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Deborah looked exasperated. “The food is all the way on the other side of the square. I’m ready to go home, aren’t you? You look pale.”
“I feel fine, just a little tired.” Her physical stamina was alarmingly low.
“Stay here, then. I’ll go round up your father.” Deborah gave Anne a solicitous pat and headed off in her pumps, her figure still slender and straight despite her sixty-five years. Anne smiled and shook her head. Only her mother would wear heels to a county fair.
The pony enjoyed Anne’s attention, so she continued to pet it for a few minutes, its velvety nose soft against her palm.
“I’ve been looking all over for you.”
That voice.
Anne tensed, then gasped and turned so quickly she startled the pony, which snorted and pranced away. For a few moments all she could do was stare at the apparition standing in front of her—far too close for sanity.
Wade Hardison. What was he doing here? She’d been certain that he was permanently estranged from his family, that the last place he would ever go was Cottonwood, Texas, so she’d never worried about a chance meeting with him.
Anne blinked a couple of times, but he was no hallucination. In fact, he was disturbingly real—solid-looking as a tree trunk, and every bit as devilishly handsome as the memories she conjured up on an hourly basis.
In the next heartbeat she schooled her features, controlled her breathing and decided how she would handle this.
“Excuse me?” she said, trying to look confused.
“If you say you don’t remember me, my heart’s gonna break in two right here.”
“I—I’m sorry. You look slightly familiar, but I’m not good with names.” That was a fat lie. When it came to names and faces, her mind was like flypaper. His face was etched into her memory with the permanency of Mount Rushmore.
Wade narrowed his eyes. “Familiar? Slightly familiar? I guess I’m just one of a long stream of guys you share passionate weekends with, huh, Annie?”
“I beg your pardon, sir, my name is not Annie. You obviously have me confused with someone else.” An alternate persona that would never, ever see the light of day again, if Anne had anything to say about it. Hadn’t her father always told her to be cautious? To never, ever trust strangers? And especially to never let common impulses and unchecked appetites rule her head?
“Anne, then, if you insist. Anne Chatsworth, newly minted lawyer.”
“How do you know that?” she asked with some alarm.
“My brother told me.”
Anne felt the blood drain to her feet, making her suddenly dizzy. Wade’s brother Jeff. Dr. Jeff Hardison, her physician and a close family friend. How naive she’d been to trust that the Hardison family rift would never be healed. She knew Jeff would not reveal her medical details to anyone without her authorization, not for any reason, under any circumstances. He was an excellent doctor, and she had complete confidence in him. But the fact that Jeff and Wade had been discussing her at all…well, that was bad.
“You did me wrong, Annie.”
“I am not Annie,” she insisted. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, I think you do.” He grasped her arm and halted her attempted escape, then slid his fingers up to her shoulder.
“Please,” she said, feeling panicky. He continued to touch her, his hand hot even through her shirt, though his grasp was loose. She could escape any time—if she could only make herself move. But her feet remained welded to the ground.
He leaned closer. “Please what?”
“I’m not Annie.”
“Then why are you standing here about to let me kiss you?”
Lord help her, he was right. She stood in his light embrace, paralyzed like a deer in headlights by the look and feel of him, his scent. He had her mesmerized, just as he had the moment she’d laid eyes on him, when she was twelve and he was sixteen. And again, when she’d seen him for the first time in thirteen years, at the Mesquite Rodeo last spring. He had a strange power over her.
Her body quivered as he slowly closed the distance between them. She knew she should back away, push him, run, scream, anything but kiss him. Yet she stood there, her breath caught in her lungs, and allowed him to touch his mouth to hers, very gently, very sweetly. Like a first kiss, so tender it made her ache. She melted into it. She couldn’t help herself. He tasted like coming home.
It lasted only a few seconds, and when he pulled away, he was smiling triumphantly. “Kisses don’t lie, Annie. Now, are you going to tell me why you ran out on me without a word?”
Anne heard voices behind her. A small knot of fair goers were heading into the parking lot, sending her heart into overdrive. Her parents—what if they saw her? What if anyone saw her? She had to get out of here, for her sanity as well as a whole host of reasons.
“All right.” She disentangled herself from Wade’s warm embrace. Obviously, she hadn’t fooled him into thinking he’d misidentified her. “I do owe you an apology and an explanation, and I’ll give them to you, but not here, not now.” She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder.
“Afraid to be seen with me?”
“Yes!” When his cocky grin slid away, she quickly added, “It’s a complicated situation, but I’ll explain it. Later.”
“When?” he pressed.
“Tomorrow.”
“Tonight.”
“Okay, all right.”
“Midnight.”
“Eleven. I’ll be in bed by midnight.”
“I hope so.” Wade’s eyes burned like two hot coals.
She should have known better than to mention the word bed. Anne searched her brain for a private meeting place, but Wade provided one for her.
“At the ranch. The old red barn that’s used to store hay. You know it?”
She nodded.
“I’ll be waiting.”
Again she nodded.
“If you don’t show, I’ll come find you.” He turned and sauntered away.
Anne didn’t doubt him. She also wouldn’t blame him if he was really angry with her. But when she’d left him last May, it had seemed her only choice. She hadn’t counted on an emotional entanglement when she’d set off for the Mesquite Rodeo in her borrowed cowgirl duds, eager to blow off some exam-induced steam.
Eleven. If she left the house late at night, her parents naturally would ask where she was going. The truth would just lead to a whole lot of questions she didn’t want to answer. She would have to slip out under their radar.
She wouldn’t dream of standing Wade up. If she didn’t show, he would probably have the nerve to come knocking on her front door.
Anne’s parents showed up mere moments after Wade’s departure. Her father, looking every inch the country squire, wore an official-looking badge that said Judge. He smiled and waved when he caught sight of her, then immediately sobered.
“Your mother says you’re not feeling well.” His round, jovial face, which disguised a keen intellect that could cut his legal opponents to ribbons, was etched with concern.
“I’m fine. Just tired.” She smiled, reassuring him. “Let’s go home and put our feet up,” Deborah said, sliding an arm around Anne’s waist. “They gave your dad a pie for judging the contest.” She pointed to a shopping bag looped over her arm. “We can warm it up and have it with ice cream.”
“Don’t mention pie,” Milton said with a grimace. “I may never eat pie again.”
“Oh, that’ll be the day,” Deborah said. Anne relaxed slightly as they all climbed into her father’s gold Cadillac. Her parents were good people, and they loved her unconditionally. When they pushed her too hard or tried to impose their opinions on her, Anne had to remind herself that everything they did, they did out of love for her. She had come late into their lives—her mother was forty when Anne was born. They had doted on her her whole life, and they only wanted the best for their daughter.
SLIPPING OUT OF THE HOUSE was easy. When her parents were engrossed in TV, Anne tiptoed down the back stairs and out the French doors to the patio, then around to the garage. Their driveway was at the top of a hill, so Anne didn’t even have to start her car. She put her blue Mustang—a graduation present from her father—into Neutral and coasted into the street, breathing a relieved sigh when no one called to her.
The whole escapade felt a little childish, she thought as she started the car’s engine half a block away. But the previous few months had upset her parents greatly, and she refused to do anything to cause them more worry.
She knew where the Hardison Ranch was. Even if she hadn’t visited there since she was a young girl, everyone knew. It was the biggest cattle operation in Cottonwood, and old Pete Hardison had been one of the town’s first residents. Pete had struggled in the early days. Then he’d struck oil and become a millionaire overnight—and adopted the lifestyle to prove it.
The oil bust in the eighties had all but ruined the overextended Hardisons, but Pete’s grandson, Jonathan—Wade’s oldest brother—had caught the ranching bug. He’d taken hold of the ranch and brought it back to prosperity over the past dozen years.
When Anne pulled up to the Hardison Ranch’s white gates, she found them open. She rumbled over the cattle guard and up the red dirt drive, meandering through some mesquite trees before she saw the old barn, looming dark in the night.
She was five minutes late. The barn looked black inside, completely uninhabited, but she sensed Wade was there. She could almost feel him. He didn’t seem the type to play games—that was her specialty. If he’d said he’d be here at eleven, he probably was here.
She parked and climbed out of the car. The night had taken on a slight chill, and the brisk breeze blew up inside her jumper, making her wish she’d put on jeans. She shivered slightly, but more from apprehension than the cold.
The huge double doors of the old-fashioned red barn were slightly ajar, enough that she could squeeze through. “Hello?” she called out as her eyes tried to adjust to the almost total darkness.
She heard the strike of a match, then saw the flare not ten feet in front of her. She could just make out Wade’s strong features as he lit a kerosene lantern that looked like an antique. The lantern glowed to life, and Anne could see the cavernous barn was full to the rafters with hay.
“Why were you standing here in the dark?” she asked. “And is it safe to have a lantern in here? All this hay…”
Wade hung the lantern on a hook. “Lots of questions. I like the dark. And the lantern is safe, so long as we don’t get so wild we knock it over.”
Anne’s heart did a flip-flop. If he was trying to unnerve her with his innuendo, he’d succeeded.
Chapter Two
Wade held on to the illusion of confidence like a two-year-old with a security blanket. He tried to pretend Annie showing up here tonight was no big deal. In truth, he’d been terrified she would blow him off.
But Annie had come. She was standing before him, looking like a mirage in the lantern light, her green eyes keeping a wary watch on him. Which meant that maybe she was still interested.
He leaned against a stack of round hay bales and folded his arms. “So, Annie, what’s your story? Why the big deception?” he asked, his tone intentionally casual. “And why the disappearing act?” She’d really thrown him for a loop when he’d awakened that Monday morning after the rodeo to find her gone.
He wasn’t like a lot of the guys on the circuit who slept with any buckle bunny who came along, making empty promises then awkward goodbyes when it came time to move on to the next rodeo. Not that he was a monk, but he’d thought Annie was special—different.
Worth his time and attention.
Though they’d made no promises, he’d felt so good when he was with her that he’d been silently plotting ways he could keep her hanging around. He’d thought she felt the same.
She said nothing, just stood there with her hands clenched, staring at the floor.
“Cat got your tongue?” he asked, enjoying her discomfort. “Come on, you’re a lawyer. Lawyers have to know how to talk, right? Damn, I never would have guessed.”
“The woman you met at the Mesquite Rodeo,” she finally said, “that wasn’t me. She—”
“I thought we covered that territory earlier.”
“I mean, physically she was in my body, but she wasn’t the real Anne Chatsworth.” She paced, a caged lioness looking for a crack she could squeeze through.
Abruptly she stopped and faced him squarely. Though she still wore the conservative clothes from earlier, some of her hair had worked itself loose from her knot and squiggled around her face. Her eyes were large and luminous, and she’d lost that tight, controlled expression he’d seen at the fair.
“I was studying for finals and having a real hard time,” she continued. “The pressure, the doubts, the stress—you can’t imagine what that’s like unless you go through it.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t know anything about stress. I’m just a simple cowboy. Is that it?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sure you’ve had stress in your life at one time or another. I’m just trying to explain where my mind was.”
“Okay, I’ll agree, you were under pressure. Go on.”
“That Friday I kind of lost it. I’d been studying nonstop for hours, days, and I just…snapped. I needed a break. No, I needed more than that. I needed to get away from everything—forget everything, including myself.”
“Enter Annie the slow-talking rodeo girl.” She looked at him, her face pleading with him to understand.
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “So I was nothing to you but Cowboy Valium?”
She sank onto a rickety wooden bench. “I guess you could put it that way, although at the beginning I certainly had no intention of…of…”
“…picking up some guy and sleeping with him,” he finished for her.
“Exactly.”
“But that’s what you did. Any particular reason you picked me?”
“You make it sound so premeditated. I recognized your name when the announcer said it. I remembered you, although I’m sure the reverse isn’t true. Last time we saw each other, I was twelve and you were sixteen, so I probably didn’t register on your radar screen. I used to hang out at the Livestock Exchange arena and watch you practice with Traveler when he was just a colt.”
She was right, he’d been focused on other matters. Getting Traveler up to competition speed so he could get the hell out of Cottonwood had been the only thing he could think about back then.
“Anyway, after you won your event, I went back to the chutes to find you so I could say hi, you know, a friendly voice from back home. But I sort of never got around to mentioning Cottonwood.”
“You never even told me your last name. So you could make a clean getaway after you seduced me?”
“Hey, come on. There was a lot of mutual seducing going on, if you’ll recall.”
Oh, yeah, he recalled. And so did she, judging from the way she was breathing, quick and shallow, and the flare of heat in her eyes.
“You know, this doesn’t sound much like an apology,” he said.
“I’m getting there. Let me finish.”
“I’ve got all night.” He couldn’t be sure, because the light was so dim, but he thought she blushed. That was something he loved about redheads, about Annie in particular. It was so easy to make her blush.
“Going to bed with you wasn’t a premeditated act. It just happened. And afterward I knew I should go home and forget about it, get on with my studies, but I couldn’t make myself leave.”
