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Maggie didn't ask what “it” was, but the man listening outside the door had a face that would have stopped traffic. He'd read an entirely different meaning into Janet's innocent remark, and he was livid with anger. So his mother was matchmaking again. This time she'd picked a woman he knew, although she couldn't know what he'd thought of Maggie Turner. His eyes narrowed. Well, this time his mother had gone too far. And if little Maggie thought she was going to lead him down the aisle, she had a surprise coming. A big one!
He went out the door, his eyes cold with calculation, his steps so soft that no one heard him leave.
Janet shook her head. “I was so sure that he wouldn't be around the house,” she said. “He's hurting, but he won't admit it. That's why he was so rude.”
“Is he like that with all women?” she probed gently.
Janet picked up a roll and buttered it carefully. “I'll tell you about it, one day,” she said quietly, her eyes sad. “For now, let's just say that he had a particularly bad experience, and it was my fault. I've been trying to make it up to him ever since. And failing miserably.”
“Can't you talk to him about it?” Maggie asked.
Janet only laughed. “Gabriel has a habit of walking off when he doesn't want to hear me. He won't listen. I tried, once, to explain what happened. He cut me dead and went to Oklahoma on a business trip. After that…well, I suppose I just lost my nerve. My son can be very intimidating.”
“I remember,” came the dry reply.
Janet smiled at her. “Yes. You understand, don't you? You know, I never even told him that you'd married. He had an odd way of ignoring me if I mentioned you, after that summer you spent some time here. You remember, when he had the fight in town with that cowboy…?”
Maggie actually blushed and couldn't hide it from Janet. “Oh, yes. How could I forget?”
“He wouldn't talk about you at all after that. He seemed preoccupied for a long time, and a little strange, in fact,” she mused. “He filled in our swimming pool and wouldn't let anyone ride Butterball…”
Something barely remembered, exciting, stirred deep inside Maggie. He'd given her Butterball to ride, and she could still see him towering over her, his lean hands working with the cinch. She'd adored him in those days, despite his evident antagonism toward her. Even that was inexplicable, because he got along well with most women. He was polite and courteous to everyone—except Maggie.
“He's still not pleased to have me around,” Maggie murmured.
“Well, it's my home, too,” Janet said doggedly. “And I love having you here. Do have some more beef. It's our own, you know.”
“Purebred Santa Gertrudis?” Maggie exclaimed in horror, staring blankly at the platter Janet was offering her.
“What?” Then Janet got the message and laughed. “No, no, dear. Gabriel raises some beef cattle as well. Purebred…oh, that's sinfully amusing. Gabriel would eat his horse before he'd eat one of the purebreds. Here, have a roll to go with it. Jennie bakes them fresh every day.”
Maggie took one, savoring it, and not for the first time she had misgivings about the wisdom of coming here. Gabriel seemed to be out for blood, and she wondered if the Coleman ranch wasn't going to become a combat zone.
Chapter Three
It was vaguely like living in a war zone, Maggie thought as the first few days went by. Gabriel was impatient and irritable because of his arm, and he seemed to hate the whole world. Nothing pleased him—least of all, it appeared, having Maggie in the house. He treated her with a cold formality that raised goose bumps on her arms. It was obvious that he was tolerating her for his mother's sake alone. And just in case she hadn't already guessed it on her own, he spelled it out for her at breakfast three days after she'd arrived.
He glanced up coldly when she sat down. It was just the two of them, because his mother was still upstairs. She and Maggie had been up late talking the night before, and Janet seemed to sleep poorly anyway.
“I'm sorry, am I late?” she asked, throwing out a white flag.
He smoked his cigarette quietly, his icy eyes level and cutting. “Do you care, one way or another?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. “I realize you don't want me here…”
“That's an understatement.” He rolled the cigarette between his lean, dark fingers while he studied her. “What did she offer you to get you down here, Margaret?” he added suddenly, using her name for the first time since she'd been at the ranch.
Her eyes widened. “N-nothing,” she stammered. “I just needed some rest, that's all.”
“Rest from what?” he persisted. His pale eyes cut into hers. “You're thin. You always were, but not like this. You're pale, too, and you look unwell. What's going on, Margaret? What are you running from? And why run to me?”
Her face went white. She caught her breath. “As if I would ever run to you…!”
“Don't be insulting.” He lifted the cigarette to his chiseled lips, watching her. “Talk to me.”
She was closing up, visibly, her body taut with nerves. “I can't.”
“You won't,” he corrected. He smiled slowly, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. It was impatient and half angry. “I'm not blind. I know my mother, I know how her mind works. You're the sacrifice, I gather. Are you a willing one, I wonder?”
“I don't understand,” she said, bewildered.
“You will,” he promised, making a threat of the words. He got to his feet, more easily now than he had three days ago. He was improving rapidly; he even looked better.
“I came to visit with Janet—not to get in your way, Gabriel,” she tried one last time, hating her lack of spirit.
Gabriel seemed frozen in place. It was the first time she'd said his name since she arrived. He looked at her and felt a wave of heat hit him like a whirlwind in the chest. Odd, how it had always disturbed him to look at her, to be around her. She got under his skin. And now it was worse, now that she was vulnerable. It irritated him to see her like this and not know why. Was it an act? Was it part of the plan his mother had mentioned when she'd thought he was out of earshot? He was wary of the whole damned situation, and the way Maggie affected him after all these years was the last straw.
“In my way, or in my bed, Maggie?” he asked, deliberately provoking. “Because you wanted me when you were sixteen. I knew it, felt it when you looked at me. Do you still want me, honey?”
Her face paled, and she dropped her eyes to her faded jeans, staring dully at her slender hands. The old Maggie would have snapped back at him. But the old Maggie was dead, a casualty of her marriage to a cruel and brutal man. She felt sick all over.
“Don't,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Don't.”
“Look at me!” He stared down at her with his cold blue eyes until she obeyed him. Dimly, she noticed he was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved chambray shirt with worn, warped leather boots. In one lean, strong hand, a battered gray Stetson dangled. “You and Mother don't have a chance in hell of pulling it off,” he said quietly. “Give it up. I don't want to hurt you.”
And with that enigmatic statement, he turned and strode angrily out the door.
She didn't tell Janet about the confrontation. And afterward, she made it her business to be where he wasn't. He glared at her as if he hated her very presence, but she pretended not to notice. And around his mother, at least, he was courteous enough in his cold way.
She wondered if he'd ever loved anyone or been loved. He seemed so unapproachable; even his men kept their distance unless they had urgent business. He had little to say to them and even less to say to his mother. He seemed to dislike her, in fact, for all that he'd warned Maggie not to cause her any sleepless nights.
“He keeps everyone at bay, doesn't he?” Maggie asked one afternoon when she was strolling around the yard with Janet. The two women had just watched Gabriel walk away from a man trying to ask a question near the back porch.
Janet stared after him worriedly, her thin arms folded across her chest. “He always has,” she said. “I don't think he's ever forgiven me for remarrying so soon after his father's death. The fact that he hated my second husband made it worse. He was…badly treated,” she confessed, biting her lower lip as the memories came back. “Stepfathers are reluctant fathers at best. Ben liked Audrey and Robin enough, of course. They were just pretty little girls and no threat to him. But Gabe was a big boy, almost a teenager. He wound up fighting for his very life. Ben shipped him off to a boarding school, and I—” she lowered her eyes “—I was caught between the two of them. I loved them both. But I couldn't find the magic formula for making them live together. It was that way until Ben died. That was when Gabe was just out of the Marine Corps.” She shrugged. “He came back and started to pick up the pieces of his father's ranch—and there were few, because my second husband was much better at spending money than making it. Gabe was bitter about it. He still is.”
“That doesn't seem enough to make a man as cold as he is.” Maggie probed gently.
Janet stared toward the tall man who was busy saddling a horse out in the corral. “You might as well know it all,” she said quietly. “The year before Ben died, Gabriel found a young woman who seemed to worship him. He brought her here, to meet us, and she stayed for two weeks. During that time, Ben was very attentive and managed to convince her that he was in control of all the finances here and all the money.” Shamefaced, Janet closed her eyes. “Ben ate up the attention. He was dying, you see. He had cancer, and not long to live. Gabe didn't know. But Ben was so flattered by the girl's attention—he was just a man, after all. I couldn't even blame him. But Gabe lost her, and blamed Ben. And blamed me. Afterward, I tried to tell him, to explain, but he wouldn't listen. He never would. To this day, he doesn't know. You see, Ben actually died of a heart attack. I didn't even tell the girls about the cancer.”
“Oh, Janet, I'm sorry,” Maggie said, touching the stooped shoulder lightly. “I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have asked.”
“There, there, it was a long time ago,” the older woman said through a stiff smile. “Gabe, needless to say, never got over it. Nor did he understand why I didn't leave Ben. After Ben died, Gabe came back from the service and stayed here, but the distance between us has been formidable. I think sometimes that he hates me. I've tried so hard, Maggie,” she said softly. “I've tried so hard to show him that I care, that I was sorry, for so many things. I suppose playing Cupid was just another way of making restitution. But even that backfired.”
“People don't hold grudges forever,” Maggie said gently.
“Don't they?” Janet replied, and her eyes were on her son, who was just mounting his horse. She shook her head and laughed. “I wonder.”
“Have you told him about Becky?” Maggie asked suddenly. “Or why I'm really here?”
“Not yet,” Janet confessed. “I've been waiting for the right time.”
“He doesn't want me here,” Maggie said. “And perhaps I should go back to San Antonio.”
“No,” Janet said firmly, “this is my home, too. I have a right to invite people here. He won't stop me. Or you.”
“Janet, I'm so tired of fighting….”
“We'll keep out of his way,” Janet assured her. “He'll be back at work in no time, you'll see, and then we'll have the place all to ourselves.”
But she sounded no more certain than Maggie felt. And her apprehension intensified when Janet hesitantly asked Gabriel the next morning if he had a horse Maggie could ride.
“Please, I don't need to…” Maggie began quickly, noticing the dangerous look in Gabe's pale eyes.
“No, I don't have a spare horse,” Gabe replied with a cold glare at Maggie. “I'm trying to get my calves branded, tagged and inoculated, and my herd out to summer pasture. Meanwhile, I'm being driven crazy by new hands who have to be led around like kids, I'm trying to keep supplies on hand with my ranch foreman off on sick leave, I'm a week behind on paperwork that my secretary can't do alone…I don't have time to be hounded by tourists!”
“Gabriel, there's no need to be rude,” Janet chided.
He stood up. “She's your guest, not mine,” he told his mother. “If you want her entertained, you entertain her.”
And without another word, he left them sitting there, arrogantly lighting a cigarette as he went.
Maggie shivered as she stared after him half-angrily. “A person could freeze to death just sitting near him,” she muttered.
Janet shook her head and reached for her coffee. “I'm so sorry.”
“You aren't responsible for his actions, and at least now I understand a little better than I did,” Maggie told her with a smile. “It's all right. I'd like to stroll around a little, if you don't mind.”
“I don't mind,” Janet returned. “Just do stay out of his way, darling,” she cautioned.
“You can count on that!” Maggie laughed.
She went out the back door, in fact, tugging on a yellow windbreaker over her beige blouse and jeans. It was still a little nippy, but she loved the coolness. She loved the outdoors, the land stretching lazily to the horizon, dotted with mesquite trees and prickly-pear cacti and wildflowers.
It was so different from her home in the middle of downtown San Antonio, so removed from urban traffic. Although the city was delightful and there was plenty to see and do, and colorful markets to visit, she was a country girl at heart. She loved the land with a passion she'd never given to anything else. Even now, with an enemy in residence, she could hardly contain her excitement at having so much land to explore, to savor.
She walked from the backyard down to the fence that stretched to the stables and stared over it at the few horses that were left. Most of them had gone out with the cowboys who were working the far-flung herds of cattle.
Her eyes were wistful as she stared at a huge black stallion. There wasn't a patch of white anywhere on him, and he looked majestic in the early-morning light. He tossed his mane and pranced around like a thoroughbred, as if he knew that he had an audience and was determined to give it its money's worth.
“Do you ride?”
The rough question startled her. She whirled, surprised to find Gabriel Coleman leaning against one of the large oak trees in the backyard, calmly smoking a cigarette while he stared at her.
She shifted a little. He looked bigger than ever in that old long-sleeved chambray shirt, and its color emphasized the lightness of his eyes under the wide brim of his hat. He was formidable in work clothes. So different from Dennis, who'd always seemed a bit prissy to Maggie.
“I…don't ride very well,” she confessed.
He nodded toward the stallion. “I call him Crow. He was a thoroughbred with a bright future. But he killed a man and was going to be put down. I bought him and I ride him, but no one else does. There isn't a more dangerous animal on the place, so don't get any crazy ideas.”
“I wouldn't dream of taking a horse without asking first,” she said levelly. “Perhaps you're used to more impetuous women. I'm careful. I don't rush in without thinking.”
His eyes narrowed at the insinuation, and he took a long draw from his cigarette. “Then why are you down here?” he asked coldly.
“Your mother invited me,” she said.
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” she countered.
He smiled, and it wasn't friendly. He threw down the cigarette and moved toward her.
It was a deserted area. The house was hidden by a grove of oaks and pecan trees, and none of the men were around. Maggie, who'd had nightmares about physical intimacy since her marriage, began to back away until the cold bark of another oak tree halted her.
“Nervous?” he chided, and kept coming. “What of? I heard what Mother said the first night you were here. I know what you came for, Maggie. So why run away from it?”
She felt her body going rigid as he loomed over her, her eyes wide and green and frightened. “You don't understand…” she began.
“So you keep telling me,” he said shortly. He rested his hands on either side of her head, blocking off all the exits, and he smelled of wind and fir trees and leather as he came even closer, favoring his right side a little where the arm was swollen.
“What is this?” she breathed.
“You're another consolation prize,” he said with a mocking smile. “My mother thinks it's her fault that I'm such a lonely man. She brings me women by the gross. But I'm getting damned tired of being handed women on silver platters. When I marry, if I marry, I can choose my own bride. And I'll want something fresh and warm and sweet-smelling. A country girl—not a social butterfly who's been passed around like a plate of hors d'oeuvres.”
Her lips opened to retaliate, but he pressed his thumb over them in a movement that startled her into silence. He'd always seemed like a cold, indifferent sort of man, but there was experience in the way he played with her mouth, and her surprise widened her eyes. How incredible, after all these years, to be this way with him, to see him as a man instead of an enemy; to feel the impact of his masculinity in a different way, a sensual way. Yes, he was experienced. His eyes told her so, and she wondered how she could have thought him cold when just the brush of his finger against her warm mouth was sending her mad.
“Yes, you like that, don't you, Maggie?” he whispered, his voice deep and slow and faintly contemptuous. “You didn't realize how sensitive your mouth was, did you? It can be teased and provoked into begging for a man's lips,” he said softly, tracing the upper lip with the very edge of his thumb so that he could feel the moist underside and watch its sudden helpless trembling. “Like that,” he murmured, increasing the pressure, seeing her face flush, her lips part involuntarily. Her body tautened, and he smiled because he knew why.
“No,” she said on a sobbing breath, and even as she said it, she realized that he wasn't paying the least attention. He was powerfully made; she could feel the strength of him threatening her, the warmth that radiated from him with a leathery scent not at all unpleasant. Years ago, she'd dreamed of being touched, kissed, by him. She'd wanted him, and she'd known he was aware of it. But she'd also known, as he had, that such a thing was forbidden between them—because of her age. Her age had protected her…then. And she'd thought he was too cold to be tempted. Fool!
“Did you ever wonder?” he asked unexpectedly, tilting her chin as he bent. “Did you ever wonder how my mouth would feel moving on yours?”
Tears stung her eyes. It was fascinating that she could feel like this with him, that she could be hungry, physically, after what Dennis had done to her. She felt her own fingernails gripping the hard muscles of his upper arms, tugging gently. “Gabe,” she whispered, giving in to the raging attraction.
“What did my mother offer you, Maggie?” he breathed against her mouth.
“Offer…me?” she whispered brokenly.
He moved closer, his legs suddenly trapping hers, his body demanding as his mouth hovered warmly over her lips. “She brought you down here for me. She's given up bringing me career girls, so now she's dredging up old memories. She wants me to marry you.”
“Marry…you?” It was barely penetrating her hazy mind.
“Don't pretend,” he said. His eyes were cold, not loverlike, as they met hers. “I heard you both plotting. Well, I'm not in the market for a wife, little Maggie,” he said curtly. “But if you want to play around, I'm more than willing. You always did burn me up….”
Even as the last word faded in the air, his mouth came down on hers. But the tenderness she'd expected wasn't there. He was rough, as if the feel and taste of her had suddenly taken away his control. He made a sound, deep in his throat, and groaned as he pulled her too close and hurt his swollen arm. But he didn't let go. If anything, he was more ardent.
She felt his rough heartbeat and felt his strength with mute terror. “No!” she burst out. “Not…like this!” She tried to twist away from him.
He caught her hips with his, pressing them back against the rough bark of the tree. “What's the matter?” he taunted, lifting his mouth long enough to look down at her. “Does it take the promise of a wedding ring to get you in the mood?” His mocking voice sounded odd. Deep and slow and faintly strained.
