The Texan's Forbidden Fiancée

“You didn’t eat much,” he observed a few moments later.

“It was delicious, but I don’t eat much most of the time and I’ve been busy thinking about your proposition.”

“Take all the time you need. You don’t have to give me an answer tomorrow night for that matter. I can wait. Want to go dance?”

“No, thanks,” she replied, smiling at him. “This is sort of a business dinner and I have no interest in dancing. Too much on my mind. I’d step on you,” she added, broadening her smile.

“I wouldn’t mind, but we can sit out the dancing.” He leaned forward, reaching across the table to take her hand. The instant her fingers touched his warm ones, she couldn’t get her breath. The air around her heated and her body tingled. That slight contact sizzled from her head to her toes and then settled low in the center of her being, a hot torment that made her ache to be in his arms and brought back memories of Jake holding her close, kissing her passionately, making torrid love to her that drove her wild.

“Truce?” he asked and she barely heard what he said as she stared at him. Something flickered in the depths of his eyes and for one brief instant, his fingers tightened around hers and his thumb ran over the back of her hand.

“You always did have the smoothest skin ever,” he whispered, his voice husky, a thick whisper, while his eyes blazed with such hot desire that she felt as if she would melt. At the same time, she wanted him to pull her toward him, to take her on his lap while he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her senseless. Closing her eyes momentarily, she tried to stop thinking about the past with him, the love she had thought they had shared. Love that he had smashed the way someone would break a crystal goblet by throwing it down.

She yanked her hand free and looked away, gasping for breath and hating that she had lost control so obviously that he could not avoid knowing exactly what she was feeling and thinking. He could see how much he could still affect her and she hated it.

“I guess we have a truce,” he said. His voice was raspy and she realized she still had an effect on him, too, giving her both satisfaction and annoyance.

“Truce for now,” she replied without looking at him.

“When you’re finished, we can head home. You can think about what I’ve offered.”

She nodded. “Then I’m ready to go back,” she said, wondering if they would say goodbye at her door and if she turned him down, if they wouldn’t see each other again. She didn’t care and she wasn’t too interested in accepting his proposition, except there were possibilities that would be good for her family.

She continued to think about all he had told her while he paid the bill and they returned to the airport. They barely talked, which seemed so odd in some ways. Long ago, she could talk to him endlessly and never tire of it.

Finally, as they flew back to Verity, she turned to him. “I think I would like to have our ancestors’ remains have a proper burial, also. If you remember, I’ve always been interested in our family tree and our history. The treasure—that seems a tall tale to me, but who really knows? It’s a generous offer to turn the treasure over to me if we find one.”

“Somehow, I think we might be more likely to find bones than treasure. If we do find treasure, that’s a good payment for your agreement to this,” he said. His long legs were stretched out in front of him, his booted feet near her. When they had boarded the plane, he had shed his jacket and tie and unbuttoned his collar. He looked relaxed and he still appeared open and straightforward, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that in some way, he was slipping something past her.

After another lapse of silence between them, she sat up straighter and turned slightly to face him. He sat watching her.

“If we do this and do find bones, how will we know whose bones are Milans and whose are Calhouns?”

“Take them to the county medical examiner. We can get some kind of DNA test and they can sort out the two families.”

She nodded. “That sounds reasonable. And I walk away with the treasure?”

“Absolutely.”

She lapsed into more silence before she broached the topic. “I know you want to lease some of my land for your energy company. Why not go elsewhere? It’s a big world.”

“So it is, but your land looks promising and is an area that we think may be a big play. It’s also cheaper and easier for us because it’s close to our headquarters. Labor is available here. Trained men who do this if we need to hire more. It’s dollars in the bank instead of going off a long distance.”

“That sounds reasonable. Suppose we put a high, high price on this.”

“You can price yourself out of the market, but energy companies, I think, are generous when they want something. Are you going to give us a chance?” he asked, looking at her and smiling, making her heart turn over again. Longing swamped her again. Too easily he could trigger those feelings.

“Don’t push me, Jake,” she said and he became silent again.

She thought about his original offer, still trying to look at it from all possible angles. When they stopped in front of her house, the driver came around to hold the limo door. Jake accompanied her to her door.

“Want to come in a few minutes? Would your driver mind?”

“No, he’ll wait. He’s getting paid for whatever he does.”

She unlocked the house and turned off the alarm. “We’ll go into the study,” she said, glancing at Jake to see him looking around.

“I forgot—you’ve never been inside this house. Seems ridiculous in some ways, but understandable in others. My ancestors would be turning over in their graves if they knew I’d invited a Calhoun inside.”

Jake smiled again. “I still feel the feud is arcane, ridiculous. Come into the present.”

“I agree, but we decided long ago to stop fighting it,” she said. As he walked beside her, he looked around. “Is any of this art hanging on the walls yours?”

“Not in the hallway, but in here it is,” she said, leading him into a study that held a large wet bar. “The painting over the mantel is mine,” she said and he crossed the room to look at the large painting of a field of bluebonnets, a tall oak in one side of the field and a stream running through it. “You’re not a contemporary artist. This is a beautiful painting and you’re very good.”

“Thank you. The painting on that wall by the window is mine, too,” she said and he crossed the room to look at the painting of three horses in a field, a cowboy holding the reins and standing by one. “That’s good, Madison. Very impressive. I can see why you’ve been a success.”

“Thanks. Would you like a drink?”

He shook his head. “No, thank you. Let’s just talk.”

She motioned with her hand. “Have a seat,” she said, sitting and crossing her legs, pulling her skirt to her knees and catching him watching her.

“I’ve been thinking about this all evening, Jake,” she said slowly, watching him intently. “I will in fact give you a final word tomorrow night....” She wouldn’t commit until she talked to her brothers; after all, she had to protect Milan interests. “But I’m thinking about accepting your proposal.” She speared his eyes with her own. “Under one condition.”

Three

Jake tried to avoid showing any emotion, but his heartbeat sped up and he had a flash of satisfaction. She was going to agree to let him on her ranch. He barely paid attention when she said she had a condition. He couldn’t imagine anything she could come up with that would stop him from accepting.

“Sure. Let’s hear it,” he said.

“I want to take a couple of my ranch hands and accompany you.”

As if cold water had been poured over him, his enthusiasm chilled. “You don’t trust me? Madison, if I surveyed your land, it wouldn’t get me any further with you on signing a lease,” he stated, sitting up straight in the chair. “I don’t intend to survey, but why would you want to go with me?”

“First of all how would I know if you found the treasure if I wasn’t along, except pure trust that you would inform me about it? That isn’t going to happen,” she said, her voice sounding cold and harsh, something he had never heard from her before.

“I expected you’d want one person to go with us—I figured one of the men who works for you. There’s no reason for you to go with us and it would be a waste of your time to have to sit and watch us dig.”

“You said nothing about someone who works for me going with you.”

“That’s your decision.”

She faced him, looking calm and composed again, the flash of anger gone. She shook her head. “That’s my condition. Take it or leave it. I go or you don’t.”

He stared at her a moment and then shrugged. “Sure, come along. If you think it over tonight and still want the same agreement, that’s fine. You have yourself a deal,” he said, holding out his hand. “If we find the treasure, you get it. I get my ancestors’ remains. We’ll just have to see if we do find a deed, what it says and who the land goes to. You go with me to search for the treasure.”

She placed her hand in his to shake while she smiled at him. “Deal.”

Her hand was warm, soft, and when they looked into each other’s eyes, he realized it might be torment to work with her beside him every day. He released her hand and the moment was gone, but it had dampened some of his enthusiasm. He didn’t want to get emotionally involved with her again and he didn’t like this constant flashback to that time in his life when she meant everything to him.

“I can go in tomorrow and clear my calendar. I don’t think we’ll search for more than a week, but I’ll clear my schedule for two weeks just in case. I can be ready to go Tuesday. What about you?” he asked.

“My time is my own. I think it would help if you would give me a copy of the map and let me study it. We need to have an idea where to go before we start. If you can send me an electronic copy of the map tonight when you get home, I can start studying it. Then tomorrow night, if you’d like, you can come over and look at maps of the ranch with me. You’re a geologist—I’m sure you can figure out some things from those photos of the ranch.”

“Sure. That’ll be good. I’ve already scanned in the old map, so I can send it easily.”

“Good. We’ll get started tonight.”

“You’re going to lose a lot of time to work on your art.”

She shook her head. “No, I won’t. I’ll take my sketch pad with me—because I don’t intend to dig. You’re the one so eager to do this.”

“You’re the one who will benefit from it if we’re successful,” he reminded her. “But you don’t need to dig so much as one shovelful of dirt.”

He stood. “I’ll go home and send you a copy of the map. Give me about an hour.”

At the door he paused. “Thanks, Madison, for agreeing to let me do this. Hopefully, it will be a productive venture.”

“I hope so. Thanks for dinner,” she said, following him into the hall.

“I’ll call you when I get home,” he said, walking away, aware she stood on her porch and watched him. As the limo pulled away, she still stood on the porch—a small figure in the moonlight.

They were going to search for the treasure together. Not what he had expected, but it was okay. The main thing was she had agreed to let him look. He hoped he succeeded in finding everything he was searching for. Again, guilt assailed him, but all he had to do was think about the day he had planned to elope with her. As he rode, he pulled out his phone to call his brother Josh, but there was no answer. He didn’t want to call Mike this late because Mike had a two-year-old son and he would be in bed.

He called Lindsay next to tell her. His sister was jubilant over his success with Madison.

After finishing his call with Lindsay, he thought about Madison. Was she looking forward to the search? He knew she hadn’t accepted because she wanted to be with him. It had been obvious that tonight had been a strain on her and she disliked being with him.

He didn’t understand the anger he had glimpsed in her eyes a few times. Why was she angry? She had done what she had wanted to do and put her career first. He shrugged, refusing to worry about it. It no longer mattered. He was honest enough with himself to admit it still hurt sometimes but he had put it in perspective and moved on.

As they reached the back door of his ranch house and his chauffeur stopped the limo, Jake opened the door. “Thanks, Chauncy,” he said, tipping his chauffeur in spite of the generous salary he paid.

“Night, Jake,” Chauncy said, following his boss’s orders for informality when it was only the two of them. Chauncy drove on to the garage to park the limo and go to his spacious apartment over the six-car garage while Jake entered his house.

In a short time he called Madison to tell her he had sent the map copy. Their conversation was brief and then she was gone.

Then he spread the maps on a table in his study and compared the ancient one with the one he had of Madison’s ranch, which was an aerial view. He had already picked out what he thought the most likely places to search, but he wanted to see what she chose. He could hardly believe it. He’d wanted to do this for a long time and now it was finally going to happen. Adrenaline pumping, he could barely contain his excitement. He had energy to burn, so turning off the light in the study, he went to the gym to work out. If all went well, he was in for some hard physical labor in the coming week.

* * *

Monday morning Jake flew to Dallas and went to his downtown office on the twentieth floor of Calhoun Energy. His office was half the floor with a reception room, his private office with its own entrance, the executive conference room, a room with a bar, a bathroom and a small workout room. On the floor above were two penthouse apartments with terraces.

Before Jake could call, Josh phoned and said he was on his way up. Jake was glad Josh was in town. Even though he had an investment in Calhoun Energy, he had his own hotel business and was gone more than he was in Dallas. In minutes his brother came striding into his office. His straight dark brown hair was neatly combed and he looked every inch the successful hotel mogul with his gold cuff links catching the light as he swung his arms. The gray suit and matching tie provided contrast for his brown eyes and dark looks.

“Good morning. How did it go last night?” he asked, sitting in a leather chair facing Jake, who leaned back in his chair behind his desk. Morning sun slanted through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him.

“Excellent. I have permission to search on her ranch.”

“Hot damn! That’s perfect. So she bought it. Any stipulations?”

“Yes, she had one. The hitch you predicted,” he said, thinking each sibling reacted in a customary way and Josh was the cynical, study-all-angles-first brother.

“She wants someone from her ranch to go along,” Josh surmised.

“She does. More than one. In fact, she’s going with me.”

“Uh-oh,” Josh said, narrowing his eyes. “Do you think she wants to renew old times?”

“Not even remotely. She doesn’t trust me and she wants to see for herself.”

“She’s going to join you if you dig for buried treasure?” Josh asked, making a tent of his fingers in front of his chest. One booted foot rested on his knee.

“No, she won’t dig. I’m guessing that she’ll watch or sketch while she waits. Whatever she plans to do, she is definitely going with me.”

“Don’t ever trust her.”

“I don’t think you need to give me that advice,” Jake answered.

“I suppose not. So what happens if you find something and she’s there?”

“The treasure is hers as we planned. We get the remains. If any remains are Milans, she can have them.”

“What about the deed? If it’s there, she’ll see it.”

Jake nodded. “If it’s buried with the treasure, yeah. If we find it, she’s going to want to see it. At that point, I’ll drop the part about the McCracken land because she’ll know that I knew all along if there was a deed to land, it was Milan land.”

Jake sat forward in his chair. “You know, I wonder if it’s a tall tale—that our ancestor won part of the Milan ranch in a poker game and the deed was buried with that treasure.”

“You’ll have to take on about the bones of our ancestors like they mean the world to you.”

“I’ll worry about Madison. If that deed exists, I want it. According to what we were told, the deed would give us Milan land all along our border and that would be fabulous.”

“I think so,” Josh said, his brown eyes twinkling. “You’d get revenge for old man Milan telling you that you couldn’t marry Madison, to never go near her again.”

“I don’t care about revenge. That’s the past. If we have a deed to part of their ranch, I want that Milan land. We’re not the only company going after leases there,” Jake said, knowing that all his siblings owned shares in Calhoun Energy, just as he had an investment in Josh’s company.

Josh ran his fingers through his hair that sprang away and curled in a tangle. “Have you called everyone to tell them?”

“Yeah, I called you, too, and no one answered.”

Josh grinned. “I got your text. When you called, I was with...a friend.”

“The redhead?”

“No, she’s gone. Sandy is a brunette. You’ll meet her, maybe. Or maybe not.”

He paused as they heard voices outside the office and he watched their oldest brother, Mike, and their sister, Lindsay, appear from his private entrance.

“Good morning,” Mike said, standing and gazing at his brothers with wide dark brown eyes. Locks of his curly black hair fell slightly on his forehead. He shed his brown leather jacket, draped it on a coatrack by the door and hung his brown broad-brimmed hat on the rack.

“Come in and sit. Where’s Scotty?” Jake asked about Mike’s two-year-old.

“Home with Mrs. Lewis.”

“Lindsay, I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”

“I had to get some supplies and Mike talked me into coming. This is great news.”

“Madison was suspicious of my motives at first, but then she bought it and said that I can look for the treasure,” Jake explained and all three siblings cheered. “You two have a chair,” Jake said and Mike sat in the other leather chair while Lindsay took a wingback.

“And Madison thinks the deed gives you land from the McCracken place?” Mike asked.

“Right,” Jake replied. “From what I’ve always understood, until now, no one outside our family knows about the deed.”

“Thank heavens,” Josh remarked.

“Madison’s going with me on the dig. That’s the only way she would agree.”

“That’s bad news,” Lindsay remarked, frowning. “You can bet her brothers will be thinking up ways for her to take advantage of this. She’ll try something sneaky.”

Mike shook his head and rolled his eyes. “She wants to get back together with you.”

“No, she doesn’t,” Jake answered. “Madison doesn’t trust me to tell her if I find the treasure. It’s that simple.”

“Watch her. I don’t think it will be that simple,” Mike said. “I agree with Lindsay. Don’t ever trust a Milan,” he said and Jake’s eyebrows arched.

“What happens if you do find the deed?” Lindsay asked.

“I show it to her and claim the land.”

“You can just act surprised there really is a deed,” Mike said. “She can’t blame you for feeling uncertain about it.”

“I won’t need to act,” Jake remarked dryly. “I will be as surprised as hell if we find a deed or anything else. I don’t really think that legend is true.”

“Something got it started and it makes sense. You know our ancestors shot and killed Milans and Milans shot and killed some of our ancestors, which is part of what started the feud,” Josh said.

“A woman got it started. She planned to marry a Calhoun and ran off with a Milan,” Mike reminded them.

“You know Madison doesn’t trust you,” Josh remarked.

“I don’t really care,” Jake replied. “If there is a deed and that deed will stand up in a court of law, then part of the Milan ranch is ours. Maybe the best part of the Milan ranch.” All were silent a moment and Jake figured the others were thinking about the prospect of owning part of the Milan ranch just as he was.

“What a deal,” Josh stated, his brown eyes on Jake. “This may get the old feud fired up again.”

“I hope we’re all more civilized today than to go shooting at each other,” Jake said. “We may start searching tomorrow. I’m going to her house tonight to look at aerial photos of her ranch and hear her theories on where to look. I sent her a copy of the map last night.”

They speculated on where the digging would take place, as they had all studied the map and the aerial photos of the Milan ranch.

“All we can do is wait and see,” Mike said. “Call one of us each night and give us a report and we’ll call the other two.”

Jake agreed.

“That old legend,” Lindsay remarked. “It would be funny if it turned out to be true.”

“It sounds likely to me,” Mike added, glancing at the others.

“I go back and forth about it,” Jake said. “I first heard it from Grandad. He said a Calhoun had a box of gold and he was trying to get away from robbers—”

“It might have been just the reverse,” Mike said. “The Calhoun ancestor may have been the robber trying to escape a posse.

“They’ve also said the shoot-out was over a Calhoun’s fiancée who ran off with a Milan and they had the shoot-out over her,” Mike stated.

“That’s what Grandad always said. He said the Calhoun got her back because he killed the Milan,” Jake said. “The deed was won by a Calhoun from a Milan and was supposed to say clearly that the land belonged to the Calhouns, and the deed was with a box of gold coins.”

“The ranch boundaries we have now weren’t clear back in the time that shoot-out happened, but that started the feud,” Mike said. “Myth or truth? Maybe we’ll finally find out with our generation.

“I’d like to come with you,” Mike added, “but I think it would cause trouble with Madison Milan to have two Calhouns.”

“No,” Jake replied. “She won’t want the Calhoun brothers going along, or our sister.”

“Frankly, I don’t want to go,” Lindsay said.

Josh stood up. “I’ve got to go. I leave for L.A. in a few hours. Good luck, bro,” he said, looking intently at Jake. “Sorry, but I don’t think you’ll find anything. If a treasure is on that ranch, it’s a needle in a haystack.”

“I’ll text all of you each night.”

“Good,” Mike said, standing with the others. “Good luck to you.”

Jake gave him a thumbs-up. He watched as his siblings left and then he sat, turning his chair to look out over Dallas while he thought about the old legend and the Milan ranch. Was it really true or was this a wild-good chase? If there was a buried treasure, was there any hope of them finding it? Actually, it might be buried on Calhoun land because to all his family’s calculations it was close to their boundary. Through the years there had been plenty of searching on the Calhoun side, but to no avail.

He thought again of Madison, remembering her perfume, the way the blue dress had clung to a figure that still took his breath away. She was a beautiful woman, poised and confident now. He hadn’t slept well last night with her filling his dreams. Memories of making love to her had plagued him, waking him, leaving him hot, sweaty and wanting her, something he didn’t want to feel. They had been kids when they had thought they were in love.

What had been a significant difference at nineteen and sixteen no longer mattered at thirty-two and twenty-nine. When he looked back on it now, he had to admit that they had been too young to marry, but at the time it hadn’t seemed that way.

Because of Pete Milan’s heavy-handed manner, Jake had never thought about the man being right until the past few years. All he could remember was her father warning him to get out of Madison’s life and disclosing that she had already accepted his offer to open art galleries for her and get her showings in the best exhibitions in the Southwest and along the West Coast—if she would call off the wedding. Her father’s promise had probably saved her several years of struggles and had made her a legitimate working artist. Evidently that was what she’d wanted the most. More than him. Jake had known instinctively that his own dad would have agreed with Pete Milan and said they were too young to marry; his mother never liked any of the Milans anyway.