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“I’d love to see them,” Melly said, enthusiastic. “You’re sure you don’t mind making it for me?”
“Don’t be silly, of course I don’t mind. Sometimes I wonder why I got into modeling when I love designing so much.” Abby sighed. Modeling. The word reminded her of New York, which brought back other memories, and she turned away, her eyes clouding.
Melly got to her feet quickly. “Let’s go see if Calla has the berry cobbler dished out,” she said, catching Abby’s arm. “Can you men live without us?”
“Cade can.” Jerry laughed, glancing toward the taciturn rancher. “But I’ll have trouble, sweetheart, so hurry, will you?”
“Sure,” Melly agreed, in a tone that was meant for the foreman alone. She winked and tugged Abby along with her, closing the door behind them.
“Have you and Cade been at it again?” she asked Abby as soon as the door was closed behind them. “He looks like a thundercloud, and you’re flushed.”
“He’s persistent as all get-out,” Abby groaned. “He nearly backed me into a corner in the kitchen just now. He’s not going to worm it out of me, Melly. I can’t talk to him about it, I can’t!”
Melly sighed and hugged her sister. “Oh, Abby, I hoped you might be able to, once the two of you were alone.”
“Talk to Cade?” She laughed. “My God, all I have time to do is defend myself. He’s even worse than I remembered. Why does he hate my career so much?”
“You really don’t know, do you?” Melly murmured.
Abby ignored that, wrapping her arms tight around herself. “We got into it in the truck, and I tried to hit him, and when he grabbed my wrist...” She shivered. “He’s so strong....”
“He’s also Cade,” Melly reminded her. “He’d never hurt you, not the longest day he lived.”
Abby tried to smile. “I want a miracle, I guess. I want Cade to touch me and make the fear all go away.”
“That could still happen,” Melly said softly. “But you have to give it time. And telling Cade the truth would be a heck of a start. For God’s sake, Abby, it wasn’t your fault...!”
“So everyone tells me.” She sighed. “Let’s go help Calla. I just want to get my mind on something else right now. It will all work out somehow, I suppose. Someday.”
She carried that thought all through the long evening, watching Cade sit in his big chair and smoke cigarette after cigarette while he went over paperwork with Jerry and drank two neat whiskeys after the delicious dessert Calla put before them. Cade was so good to look at. He always had been, and the four years since he’d kissed her for the first time hadn’t changed him very much on the surface. He was still overpoweringly masculine. Strong and capable and as tough as well-worn leather.
She watched the way his hands held the sheets of paper in their firm grip. They were tanned and sprinkled with dark hair. He didn’t wear jewelry of any kind; the watch strapped around his wrist had a thick leather band and a dial that did everything except predict the future. He went in for utility, not style. But he managed to look like a fashion plate for all that, even in worn jeans and a faded shirt. He had a big, powerful body, and it was all steely muscle. Cade was just plain man, and he stood out anywhere.
He looked up once and caught her gaze, and she felt just a touch of the old magic. But she looked away and only the fear was left.
Later, Melly went into the bedroom with Abby. They sat on the old bed that had been Abby’s from girlhood and went over the wedding dress pattern.
“It’s just magnificent,” Melly breathed. “But it will take forever for you to make it....”
“A week, in my spare time.” Abby grinned. “Do you really like it?”
“I love it!” She traced the design with a caressing finger. “It’s the best design I’ve ever seen. You ought to sell it.”
“Sell your wedding gown?” Abby exclaimed. “Do I look like I have a cash register for a heart?”
“Don’t be silly. You know very well what I mean. It’s good, Abby. It’s really good. You’re wasted showing other people’s designs.”
“Thank you for thinking so,” Abby said with a smile.
“I’m not the only one, either. Did Jessica Dane ever get in touch with you?” Melly asked. “She absolutely raved over that dress you made me last summer.”
“The boutique owner?” Abby asked. “No. Actually, I was kind of hoping she might. I do love designing, Melly. I feel as if modeling is burning me up. I stay tired all the time, and I have no social life at all. The money’s nice,” she added quietly. “But money isn’t worth much in the long run if you aren’t happy. And I’m not.”
“Will you mind if I tell you that I never thought you would be?” her sister asked softly. She smiled. “You pretended it was what you wanted, but I saw right through you.”
Abby stared at her ringless hands. “I hope nobody else did,” she said.
“He’s thirty-six now,” Melly reminded her. “Inevitably, he’ll marry sooner or later.”
Abby laughed bitterly. “Will he? He hasn’t exactly been in a flaming hurry to commit himself to anybody. You know what he used to say about marriage? That it was a noose only a fool stuck his head into.”
“He’s a lonely man, Abby,” came the surprising reply. “I know better than anybody—I work for him. I see him every day. He works himself into the ground, but there are still evenings when he sits on the porch by himself and just stares off into the horizon.”
That hurt. Abby turned her face away to keep Melly from seeing how much. “He could have any woman he wanted,” she said, forcing herself not to let her voice show the emotion she was feeling. “He used to stay out with some woman or other every day I was here.”
“So he let you think,” Melly murmured. “He runs three ranches—a corporation the size of a small city—and in his spare time he sleeps. When does he have the time to be a playboy? I’ll grant you, he’s got the money to be one, even if he weren’t so good-looking. But he’s a puritan in his outlook. It even makes him uncomfortable when Jerry kisses me in front of him.”
“Just like Donavan,” she agreed, remembering Cade’s father. “Remember the night you were kissing Danny Johnson on our front porch and Donavan rode by with Cade? Whew! I didn’t think Danny would ever come back again after that lecture.”
“Neither did I. Donavan had an overdeveloped sense of propriety. No wonder Cade’s got so many inhibitions. Of course, being brought up in a small place like Cheyenne Lodge...”
“Only you could call Montana a small place,” Abby teased.
“This little teeny corner of it, I meant,” came the irrepressible reply. “I’ll bet you get culture shock every time you come here from New York,” she added.
“No,” Abby denied. Her eyes began to glow softly. “It’s like homecoming every time. I never realize how much I miss it until I come back.”
“And stand at the window, hoping for a glimpse of Cade,” Melly said quietly, nodding when Abby flushed. “Oh, yes, I’ve caught you at it. You watch him with such love in your eyes, Abby. As if the sight of him would sustain you through any nightmare.”
Abby turned away. “Stop that. I’ll wear my heart out on him, and you know it. No,” she said firmly when Melly started to speak. “No more. Melly, you do love Jerry, don’t you?” she added, concern replacing the brief flare-up of irritation.
“Unbearably,” Melly confessed. “We fought like animals the first few weeks I worked here, when I came home from business college. But then, one day he threw me down in the hay and fell on me,” she added with a grin. “And we kissed like two starving lovers. He asked me to marry him on the spot and I said yes without even thinking. We’ve had our disagreements, but there’s no one I’ll ever love as much.”
Abby thought about being pushed down and fallen on, and she trembled with reaction. She felt herself stiffen, and Melly noticed.
“Sorry,” she said quickly, touching Abby’s arm. “I didn’t think about how it might sound to you.”
“It’s just the thought of being helpless,” she said in a suppressed tone. Her eyes came up. “Melly, men are so strong...you don’t realize how strong until you try to get away and can’t!”
“Don’t think about it,” Melly said softly. “Come on, we’ve got to decide on the trimmings for this dress. Calla has a bag full of material samples she got from the fabric shop. We’ll look through them, and she’ll go into town and get what you need tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.” Abby hugged her warmly. “I love you,” she said in a rare outburst of emotion.
“I love you, too,” Melly returned, smiling as she drew away. “Now, here, this is what I liked especially...” She pulled out a swatch of material and the girls drifted into a discussion of fabrics that lasted until bedtime.
Abby spent the next few days reacquainting herself with the ranch. She was careful to keep out of the way of the men—and Cade—but she trudged through the barns looking at calves and sat on the bales of hay in the loft and remembered back to her childhood on her family’s ranch. It was part of Painted Ridge now, having been bought by Cade at Jesse Shane’s death. It would have gone on the auction block otherwise, because neither Melly nor Abby had any desire to try to run it. Ranching was a full-time headache, best left to experts.
When the snow melted and the weather turned springlike again, Abby wandered through the gates up to a grassy hill where a small stand of pines stood guard, and settled herself under one of the towering giants. It was good to breathe clean air, to sit and soak in the cool, green peace and untouched beauty of this land.
Where else were there still places like this, where you could look and see nothing but rolling grassy hills that stretched to the horizon—with tall, ragged mountains on the other side and the river that cut like a wide ribbon through it all? Cade had liked to fish in that river in the old days, when Donavan was still alive to assume some of the burden of their business. Abby went with him occasionally, watching him land big bass and crappie, rainbow trout and channel catfish.
The nice thing about Cade, she thought dreamily, was that he had such a love for the land and its protection. He was constantly investigating new ways of improving his own range, working closely with the Soil Conservation Service to protect the natural resources of his state.
Her eyes turned toward the gate as she heard a horse’s hooves, and she found Cade riding up the ridge toward her on his big black gelding. He sat a horse so beautifully, reminding her of a Western movie hero. He was all muscle and grace, and she respected him more than any man she’d ever known.
He reined in when he reached her and swung one long leg around the pommel, a smoking cigarette in his lean, dark hands as he watched her from under the wide brim of his gray Stetson.
“Slumming, miss model?” he teased with a faint smile.
“This is the place for it,” she said, leaning back against the tree to smile up at him. Her long, pale hair caught the breeze and curved around her flushed cheeks. “Isn’t it peaceful here?” she asked. “No wonder the Indians fought so very hard to keep it.”
His eyes darkened, narrowed. “A man does fight to keep the things he wants most,” he said enigmatically, studying her. “Why do you wear those damned baggy things?” he demanded, nodding toward her bulky shirt and loose jeans.
She shrugged, avoiding that piercing gaze. “They’re comfortable,” she said inadequately.
“They look like hell. I’d rather see you in transparent blouses,” he added coldly.
Her eyebrows arched. “You lecherous old thing,” she accused.
He chuckled softly, deeply, a sound she hadn’t heard in a long time. It made him seem younger. “Only with you, honey,” he said softly. “I’m the soul of chivalry around most women.”
Her eyes searched his. “You could have any woman you want these days,” she murmured absently.
“Then isn’t it a hell of a shame that I have such a fussy appetite?” he asked. He took a draw from the cigarette and studied her quietly. “I’m a busy man.”
“You look it,” she agreed, studying the dusty jeans that encased his hard, powerful legs, and his scuffed brown boots and sweat-stained denim shirt. There was a black mat of hair under that shirt, and a muscular chest that she remembered desperately wanting to touch.
“It’s spring,” he reminded her. “Cattle to doctor, calves to separate and brand and herds to move up to summer pasture as soon as we finish roundup. Hay to plant, machinery to repair and replace, temporary hands to hire for roundup, supplies to get in... If it isn’t one damned thing, it’s another.”
“And you love every minute of it,” she accused. “You’d die anywhere else.”
“Amen.” He finished the cigarette and tossed it down. “Crush that out for me, will you, honey?”
“It’s not dry enough for it to cause a grass fire,” she reminded him, but she got up and did it all the same.
“Back in the old days, Indians and white men would stop fighting to battle grass fires together,” he told her with a grin. “They’re still hard to stop, even today.”
She looked up at him, tracing his shadowed face with eyes that ached for what might have been. “You look so at home in the saddle,” she remarked.
“I grew up in it.” He reached down an arm. “Step on my boot and come up here. I’ll give you a ride home.”
“It’s a good thing you don’t ride a horse the way you drive,” she observed.
“That’s not a good way to get reacquainted,” he said shortly.
“It’s only the truth. Donavan wouldn’t even get in a truck with you,” she reminded him. “Although I have to admit that you’re a pretty good driver on the highway.”
“Thanks for nothing. Are you coming or not?”
She wanted and dreaded the closeness. He was so very strong. What if she panicked again, what if he demanded an answer to her sudden nervousness?
“Abby,” he said suddenly, his voice as full of authority as if he were tossing orders at his cowboys. “Come on.”
She reacted to that automatically and took his hand, tingling as it slid up her arm to hold her. She stepped deftly onto the toe of his boot in the stirrup and swung up in front of him.
He drew her back against him with a steely arm, and she felt the powerful muscles of his chest at her shoulder blades.
“Comfortable?” he asked shortly.
“I’m fine,” she replied in a voice that was unusually high-pitched.
He eased the horse into a canter. “You’ll be more comfortable if you’ll relax, little one,” he murmured. “I’m no threat.”
That was what he thought, she told herself, reacting wildly to the feel of his body against her back. He smelled of leather and cow and tobacco, and his breath sighed over her head, into her loosened hair.
If only she could relax instead of sitting like a fire poker in his light embrace. But he made her nervous, just as he always had; he made her feel vulnerable and soft and hungry. Despite the bad experience in New York, he appealed to her senses in ways that unnerved her.
He chuckled softly and she stiffened more. “What’s so funny?” she muttered above the sound of the horse’s hooves striking hard ground.
“You are. Should I be flattered that you’re afraid to let me hold you on a horse? My God, I didn’t realize I was so devastating at close range. Or,” he added musingly, “is it that I smell like a man who’s been working with cattle?”
Laughter bubbled up inside her. It had been years since she and Cade had spent any time alone, and she’d forgotten his dry sense of humor.
“Sorry.” She sighed. “I’ve been away longer than I realized.”
His big arm tightened for an instant and relaxed, and she let him hold her without a struggle. His strength was less intimidating now than it had been the last time, as if the nightmare experience were truly fading away in the scope and bigness of this country where she had grown up. She felt safe. Safer than she’d felt in years.
“Four years,” he murmured behind her head. “Except for a few days here and there, when you could tear yourself away from New York.”
She went taut with indignation. “Are you going to start that again?”
“I never stopped it. You just stopped listening.” His arm contracted impatiently for an instant, and his warm breath was on her ear. “When are you going to grow up, Abby? Glitter isn’t enough for a lifetime. In the end, it’s not going to satisfy you as a woman!”
“What is?” she asked curtly. “Living with some man and raising children?”
He seemed to freeze, as if she’d thrown cold water in his face, and she was sorry she’d said that. She hadn’t meant it—she was just getting back at him.
“It’s more than enough for women out here,” he said shortly.
She stared across at the horizon, loving the familiar contours of the land, the shape of the tall trees, the blueness of the sky. “Your grandmother had ten children, didn’t she, Cade?” she asked, remembering the photos in the McLaren family album.
“Yes.” He laughed shortly. “There wasn’t much choice in those days, honey. Women didn’t have a lot of control over their bodies, like they do now.”
“And it took big families to run ranches and farms,” she agreed. She leaned back against him, feeling his muscles ripple with the motion of the horse. Her eyes closed as she drank in the sensation of being close.
“It was more than that,” he remarked as they approached the house. “People in love want children.”
She laughed aloud at that. “I can’t imagine you in love,” she said. “It’s completely out of character. What was it you always said about never letting a woman put a ring through your nose?”
