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“You need to go home,” John told Cort in a patient tone that was belied by his expression. “You’ve had too much to drink and you’re going to make a spectacle of yourself and us if you keep this up.”
“I want to dance with her,” Cort muttered stubbornly.
“Well, it’s pretty obvious that she doesn’t want to dance with you.” John leaned closer. “I can pick you up over my shoulder and carry you out of here, and I will.”
“I’d like to see you try it,” Cort replied, and his eyes blazed with anger.
Another cattleman, seeing a confrontation building, came strolling over and deliberately got between the two men.
“Hey, Cort,” he said pleasantly, “I need to ask you about those new calves your dad’s going to put up at the fall production sale. Can I ride home with you and see them?”
Cort blinked. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“The barn doesn’t have lights?” the older man asked, raising an eyebrow.
Cort was torn. He knew the man. He was from up around the Frio river. He had a huge ranch, and Cort’s dad was hungry for new customers.
“The barn has lights. I guess we could…go look at the calves.” He was feeling very light-headed. He wasn’t used to alcohol. Not at all.
“I’ll drive you home,” the rancher said gently. “You can have one of your cowboys fetch your car, can’t you?”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“Thanks,” John told the man.
He shrugged and smiled. “No problem.”
He indicated the door. Cort hesitated for just a minute. He looked back at Maddie with dark, stormy eyes, long enough that she dropped her own like hot bricks. He gave John a smug glance and followed the visiting cattleman out the door.
“Oh, boy,” John said to himself. “Now we get to the complications.”
“Complications?” Maddie was only half listening. Her eyes were on Cort’s long, elegant back. She couldn’t remember ever being so confused.
After the party was over, John drove her to her front door and cut off the engine.
“What happened?” he asked her gently, because she was still visibly upset.
“Cort was out of line,” she murmured without lifting her eyes.
“Not surprising. He doesn’t drink. I can’t imagine what got him started.”
“I guess he’s missing your sister,” she replied with a sigh. She looked up at him. “She’s really coming home?”
“She says she is,” he told her. He made a face. “That’s Odalie. She always knows more than anybody else about any subject. My parents let her get away with being sassy because she was pretty and talented.” He laughed shortly. “My dad let me have it if I was ever rude or impolite or spoke out of turn. My brother had it even rougher.”
She cocked her head. “You never talk about Tanner.”
He grimaced. “I can’t. It’s a family thing. Maybe I’ll tell you one day. Anyway, Dad pulled me up short if I didn’t toe the line at home.” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I had to clean the horse stalls when I made him mad.”
“Odalie is beautiful,” Maddie conceded, but in a subdued tone.
“Only a very few people know what she did to you,” John said quietly. “It shamed the family. Odalie was only sorry she got caught. I think she finally realized how tragic the results could have been, though.”
“How so?”
“For one thing, she never spoke again to the girlfriend who put her up to it,” he said. “After she got out of school, she stopped posting on her social page and threw herself into studying music.”
“The girlfriend moved away, didn’t she, though?”
“She moved because threats were made. Legal ones,” John confided. “My dad sent his attorneys after her. He was pretty sure that Odalie didn’t know how to link internet sites and post simultaneously, which is what was done about you.” He touched her short hair gently. “Odalie is spoiled and snobbish and she thinks she’s the center of the universe. But she isn’t cruel.”
“Isn’t she?”
“Well, not anymore,” he added. “Not since the lawyers got involved. You weren’t the only girl she victimized. Several others came forward and talked to my dad when they heard about what happened to you in the library. He was absolutely dumbfounded. So was my mother.” He shook his head. “Odalie never got over what they said to her. She started making a real effort to consider the feelings of other people. Years too late, of course, and she’s still got that bad attitude.”
“It’s a shame she isn’t more like your mother,” Maddie said gently, and she smiled. “Mrs. Everett is a sweet woman.”
“Yes. Mom has an amazing voice and is not conceited. She was offered a career in opera but she turned it down. She liked singing the blues, she said. Now, she just plays and sings for us, and composes. There’s still the occasional journalist who shows up at the door when one of her songs is a big hit, like Desperado’s.”
“Do they still perform… I mean Desperado?” she qualified.
“Yes, but not so much. They’ve all got kids now. It makes it tough to go on the road, except during summer holidays.”
She laughed. “I love their music.”
“Me, too.” He studied her. “Odd.”
“What is?”
“You’re so easy to talk to. I don’t get along with most women. I’m strung up and nervous and the aggressive ones make me uncomfortable. I sort of gave up dating after my last bad experience.” He laughed. “I don’t like women making crude remarks to me.”
“Isn’t it funny how things have changed?” she wondered aloud. “Not that I’m making fun of you. It’s just that women used to get hassled. They still do, but it’s turned around somewhat—now men get it, too.”
“Yes, life is much more complicated now.”
“I really enjoyed the party. Especially the dancing.”
“Me, too. We might do that again one day.”
She raised both eyebrows. “We might?”
He chuckled. “I’ll call you.”
“That would be nice.”
He smiled, got out, went around and opened the door for her. He seemed to be debating whether or not to kiss her. She liked that lack of aggression in him. She smiled, went on tiptoe and kissed him right beside his chiseled mouth.
“Thanks again,” she said. “See you!”
She went up the steps and into the house. John Everett stood looking after her wistfully. She thought he was nice. She liked him. But when she’d come off the dance floor trailing Cort Brannt, she’d been radiating like a furnace. Whether she knew it or not, she was in love with Cort. Shame, he thought as he drove off. She was just the sort of woman he’d like to settle down with. Not much chance of that, now.
Maddie didn’t sleep at all. She stared at the ceiling. Her body tingled from the long contact with Cort’s. She could feel his breath on her forehead, his lips in her hair. She could hear what he’d whispered.
She flushed at the memory. It had evoked incredible hunger. She didn’t understand why she had these feelings now, when she hadn’t had them for that boy who’d tried to hurt her so badly. She’d really thought she was crazy about him. But it was nothing like this.
Since her bad experience, she hadn’t dated much. She’d seen her father get mad, but it was always quick and never physical. She hadn’t been exposed to men who hit women. Now she knew they existed. It had been a worrying discovery.
Cort had frightened her when he’d lost his temper so violently in her father’s office. She didn’t think he’d attack her. But she’d been wary of him, until they danced together. Even if he was drunk, it had been the experience of a lifetime. She thought she could live on it forever, even if Odalie came home and Cort married her. He was never going to be happy with her, though. Odalie loved herself so much that there was no room in her life for a man.
If only the other woman had fallen in love with the Italian voice trainer and married him. Then Cort would have to let go of his unrequited feelings for Odalie, and maybe look in another direction. Maybe look in Maddie’s direction.
On the other hand, he’d only been teasing at the dance. He wasn’t himself.
Cold sober, he’d never have anything to do with Maddie. Probably, he’d just been missing Odalie and wanted a warm body to hold. Yes. That was probably it.
Just before dawn she fell asleep, but all too soon it was time to get up and start doing the chores around the ranch.
She went to feed her flock of hens, clutching the metal garbage can lid and the leafy limb to fend off Pumpkin. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that it was going to come down to a hard decision one day. Pumpkin protected her hens, yes; he would be the bane of predators everywhere. But he was equally dangerous to people. What if he flew up and got one of her cowboys in the eye? She’d been reading up on rooster behavior, and she’d read some horror stories.
There had been all sorts of helpful advice, like giving him special treats and being nice to him. That had resulted in more gouges on her legs, even through her slacks, where his spurs had landed. Then there was the advice about having his spurs trimmed. Good advice, but who was going to catch and hold him while someone did that? None of her cowboys were lining up to volunteer.
“You problem child,” she told Pumpkin as he chased her toward the gate. “One day, I’ll have to do something about you!”
She got through the gate in the nick of time and shut it, hard. At least he wasn’t going to get out of there, she told herself. She’d had Ben go around the perimeter of the large fenced area that surrounded the henhouse and plug any openings where that sneaky feathered fiend could possibly get out. If she kept him shut up, he couldn’t hurt anybody, and the fence was seven feet high. No way he was jumping that!
She said so to Ben as she made her way to the barn to check on a calf they were nursing; it had dropped late and its mother had been killed by predators. They found it far on the outskirts of the ranch. They couldn’t figure how it had wandered so far, but then, cattle did that. It was why you brought pregnant cows up close to the barn, so that you’d know when they were calving. It was especially important to do that in winter, just before the spring calves were due.
She looked over the gate at the little calf in the stall and smiled. “Pretty boy,” she teased.
He was a purebred Santa Gertrudis bull. Some were culled and castrated and became steers, if they had poor conformation or were less than robust. But the best ones were treated like cattle royalty, spoiled rotten and watched over. This little guy would one day bring a handsome price as a breeding bull.
She heard a car door slam and turned just as Cort came into the barn.
She felt her heartbeat shoot off like a rocket.
He tilted his hat back and moved to the stall, peering over it. “That’s a nice young one,” he remarked.
“His mother was killed, so we’re nursing him,” she faltered.
He frowned. “Killed?”
“Predators, we think,” she replied. “She was pretty torn up. We found her almost at the highway, out near your line cabin. Odd, that she wandered so far.”
“Very odd,” he agreed.
Ben came walking in with a bottle. “’Day, Cort,” he said pleasantly.
“How’s it going, Ben?” the younger man replied.
“So far so good.”
Maddie smiled as Ben settled down in the hay and fed the bottle to the hungry calf.
“Poor little guy,” Maddie said.
“He’ll make it,” Ben promised, smiling up at her.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Maddie said. She was reluctant to be alone with Cort after the night before, but she couldn’t see any way around it.
“You’re up early,” she said, fishing for a safe topic.
“I didn’t sleep.” He stuck his hands into his pockets as he strolled along with her toward the house.
“Oh?”
He stopped, so that she had to. His eyes were bloodshot and they had dark circles under them. “I drank too much,” he said. “I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved with you.”
“Oh.” She looked around for anything more than one syllable that she could reply with. “That’s…that’s okay.”
He stared down at her with curiously intent eyes. “You’re incredibly naive.”
She averted her eyes and her jaw clenched. “Yes, well, with my background, you’d probably be the same way. I haven’t been anxious to repeat the mistakes of the past with some other man who wasn’t what he seemed to be.”
“I’m sorry. About what happened to you.”
“Everybody was sorry,” she replied heavily. “But nobody else has to live with the emotional baggage I’m carrying around.”
“How did you end up at the party with John?”
She blinked. “Well, he came over to show me some things about animal husbandry, and he asked me to go with him. It was sort of surprising, really. He doesn’t date anybody.”
“He’s had a few bad experiences with women. So have I.”
She’d heard about Cort’s, but she wasn’t opening that topic with him. “Would you like coffee?” she asked. “Great-Aunt Sadie went shopping, but she left a nice coffee cake baking in the oven. It should be about ready.”
“Thanks. I could use a second cup,” he added with a smile.
But the smile faded when he saw the fancy European coffee machine on the counter. “Where the hell did you buy that?” he asked.
She flushed. “I didn’t. John likes European coffee, so he brought the machine and the pods over with him.”
He lifted his chin. “Did he, now? I gather he thinks he’ll be having coffee here often, then?”
She frowned. “He didn’t say anything about that.”
He made a huffing sound in his throat, just as the stove timer rang. Maddie went to take the coffee cake out of the oven. She was feeling so rattled, it was a good thing she’d remembered that it was baking. She placed it on a trivet. It smelled of cinnamon and butter.
“My great-aunt can really cook,” she remarked as she took off the oven mitts she’d used to lift it out.
