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“I thought it had something to do with fertility,” he said.
“I…” She hesitated. Fertility? She didn’t think she had ever heard that before, but then she wasn’t thinking too straight right now, and she still couldn’t imagine why.
“Did they throw rice at your wedding, Mrs….?” His voice rose slightly at the end of the question, waiting for her to fill in the blank he’d deliberately left.
“McCullar,” she supplied obediently.
His left hand caught hers, which was still holding out the tulle-covered packet of seed. The smallness of hers was almost lost in the grasp of his long, tanned fingers. He turned her hand over, and they both looked down on the plain gold wedding band she still wore.
She had worn it for almost ten years, since the day Mac had slipped it on her finger. She had never thought about taking it off, not even when she had begun to give serious consideration to accepting Trent’s proposal.
“Mrs. McCullar?” he said.
Her eyes moved slowly up to his face. Its features were less strange now. Less off-putting. As a matter of fact, she found herself wondering what she had found so disconcerting before.
His lips moved, only the left corner inching up. “Did they throw rice at your wedding?” he asked again.
Suddenly there was a thickness in her throat, and her eyes stung. Ridiculous, she thought again. She was about to say yes to planning her second wedding, and an offhand question from a stranger had made her want to cry about her first.
“I don’t remember,” she lied. “That was a very long time ago.”
She pulled her fingers from his. At their first movement, he released her. But his hand didn’t drop to his side. Instead, it opened in front of her, palm up.
For the birdseed, she realized. She placed the tiny package on his outstretched hand.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to manage the ribbons,” he said. “If you wouldn’t mind doing that for me?”
Because his fingers are too big? she wondered. The narrow satin streamers she and Samantha had tied did look absurdly small in comparison to his hand. And absurdly feminine against its hard masculinity. Without comment, she pulled on one end of the bow and slipped the ribbon from around the gathered neck of the tulle, which fell open.
“Unless you think the newlyweds would like to be showered with the net as well as the seed, you might want to remove that, too,” he suggested.
She lifted her eyes to his, questioning. Whatever hint of amusement had been in his face and in his voice was gone, wiped out and replaced by an emotion she couldn’t read. She shook her head, her eyes still questioning.
“My right hand doesn’t work too well. Certainly not well enough to pick up something that small. That demands a kind of coordination my fingers no longer have.”
Again she was forced to fight the revelation of her feelings. There was a hollowness in the pit of her stomach when she heard those words, created not by the words themselves, but by whatever had been in his eyes when he’d said them. She fought to keep her gaze on his face, and not to let it drop to his other hand.
He would hate that, she knew instinctively. It was obvious that he wasn’t comfortable even talking about whatever was wrong with his hand. Jenny was sensitive enough to realize that that quiet confession hadn’t been lightly made.
“Of course,” she said. She lifted one corner of the tulle and slid the small pile of seed into his palm.
“Thank you.” The tightness in his deep voice had eased, and she took a breath in relief.
“You’re very welcome.”
She knew that it was time to leave, although, since he was blocking the outside door, she hadn’t quite figured out how she was going to accomplish that. She had already begun to turn back toward the interior of the club, deciding that discretion might really be the better part of valor in this case.
“Was that Mr. McCullar?” he asked. “The blond man you were dancing with?”
She hesitated, again schooling her features before she turned to face him.
“My husband’s dead,” she said. Her voice spoke the words evenly and calmly, words she had learned to say during the past five years without revealing any emotion. It was something that should have gotten easier with time, but it really hadn’t. “I’m a widow,” she added, finishing the rest of that practiced explanation.
There was a minute movement of his head, almost a nod of agreement. For what seemed to be an eternity their gazes held, and then, again breaking the spell, Jenny turned and retreated. She looked back when she reached the shadowed sanctuary of the door on the other side of the big reception room. The man was still standing in the other doorway, looking out on the milling guests, his left hand closed around the birdseed she had poured into his palm.
But by the time she reached the front of the club once again, the doorway where he had stood was empty, and no matter how often her eyes searched the crowd of guests, she couldn’t find any sign of the stranger.
CHAPTER TWO
“THIS IS MATT DAWSON, Samantha. He’s an old friend of mine. He’s going to be staying with us.”
As Chase McCullar made the required introduction of the man he had brought home with him from the wedding, his face was almost guileless, but his wife knew him too well to be fooled by that look of innocence.
Samantha and Amanda had stayed behind in San Antonio to help Jenny with the presents that had thoughtlessly been brought to the wedding and to decide what to do with the food left over from the reception. The arrangement had been that Chase would drive back to the ranch alone, and she and Mandy would ride with Jenny.
Which would give her a good excuse to go home, Jenny had explained to Samantha, without having to chance hurting Trent’s feelings. Having been in San Antonio for several days before the wedding, Jenny was obviously more than ready to get back to the ranch.
All those arrangements had been understood by everyone involved. Samantha and Chase had certainly discussed them beforehand. What she didn’t understand was why Chase had brought home a guest without giving her any warning. The small house was big enough for the three of them, but there was no room to spare, and certainly no spare bedroom.
Samantha remembered the condition in which they’d left the bathroom this morning, all three of them in and out of it, trying to get ready for the wedding. She also remembered that the dirty breakfast dishes were still in the sink. Her green eyes met Chase’s with an “I’ll-get-you-later” look, before she smiled and held out her hand to the tall man who was standing beside her husband in her suddenly narrowed kitchen.
“Mrs. McCullar,” he said, nodding slightly. He didn’t return her smile.
When Samantha realized he was ignoring her outstretched hand, her eyes flicked to Chase’s face again, just in time to catch the barely discernible sideways motion of his head.
“What Chase is trying to tell you, with his usual lack of subtlety,” the stranger explained, “is that I don’t shake hands.”
Her eyes went back to his face. Samantha had noticed the patch, of course. She would have to be blind not to have noticed. And she wondered what other surprises were in store. I’m going to kill you for this, Chase McCullar, she thought, before she smiled at the man again, allowing her own hand to fall—naturally—she hoped, to her side.
“Did Chase offer you something for supper, Mr. Dawson?”
“Matt,” he said. “And Chase has already taken care of supper.”
Samantha’s eyes moved to the sink. More dishes had been piled on top of the ones that she had left there. Matt Dawson was probably feeling sorry for Chase right now, saddled with such a wife.
“I’m surprised you survived that experience,” she said with a touch of asperity. Chase could boil water, but just barely. To his father, anything that went on in the kitchen had been women’s work. Chase and his brother Mac had worked like dogs on their father’s ranch, but none of that work had ever been done in the kitchen.
“I’ve survived worse things than Chase’s cooking,” Matt Dawson said, his voice amused. One corner of his thin mouth moved upward, inviting her to relax and stop worrying.
Yes, you certainly have, Samantha thought, trying to keep that conclusion from being reflected in her face. It was good, she supposed, that he could smile about whatever had happened to him. And something obviously had, although it was just as obvious that whatever had occurred had been a long time ago and someone had done some good repair work. Except for his hand, she supposed.
“We had hot dogs,” Chase said. “I stopped for the stuff on the way home.”
At least she’d been right about the boiling water, Samantha thought—all the cooking skill that had been required for Chase’s choice of menu.
“We’ll try to do better than that for breakfast, Mr. Dawson. Are you going to be in our area long?” she asked, trying to think about sleeping arrangements. She supposed she could move Mandy into their room on a pallet if this was only for tonight.
“Matt’s going to sleep on the couch,” Chase explained.
“Which couch?” Samantha asked, her eyes deliberately surveying Matt Dawson’s height.
“We don’t have but one,” Chase said.
“I thought maybe you’d picked up one of those on the way home, too. He’s not going to fit on the couch, Chase. You couldn’t.”
“I’ll be fine, Mrs. McCullar,” Matt Dawson said. His lips were carefully controlled this time, but it was obvious he was amused by their small, politely phrased argument, maybe even amused by her discomfort over having an unexpected guest foisted on her. She hoped she hadn’t made him aware of that, despite her genuine annoyance with Chase.
“You won’t sleep worth a damn,” she said bluntly. “You can have Mandy’s bed. She can sleep on the floor in our room.”
Chase’s eyes widened slightly when he realized the obvious consequences of that. It served him right, Samantha thought. That was something he should have thought of before he brought home a guest without giving her any prior notice.
“In our room?” Chase repeated softly, as if he couldn’t believe she had just said that.
Samantha smiled at him sweetly before she turned to his friend. “And how long will you be staying, Matt?” she asked.
“The couch will be fine, Mrs. McCullar,” he said instead of answering her question.
DEA? she wondered, trying to place him, trying to remember every friend that Chase had ever mentioned. Was this someone Chase knew from back then? He certainly looked the part. He appeared to be as tough as an old boot, despite the patch and whatever was wrong with his hand.
“If I’m going to call you Matt, I think you might call me Samantha.”
“You’re Sam Kincaid’s daughter.”
“Do you know Sam?” Samantha asked, with more genuine warmth in her voice than before, despite her efforts to be hospitable. It was certainly possible that he did. Her father knew almost everyone in south Texas.
“I’m afraid not. Only by reputation.”
“Believe only half of what you hear about my father, Matt.”
“The half about his horses,” he suggested, his mouth lifting again at the corner.
“No, you can believe anything you hear about Sam’s horses,” Samantha said. The Kincaid ranch was noted worldwide for the incredible horses they produced, both Thoroughbreds and quarter horses. “Do you ride?” she asked.
She was aware that Chase had moved, some physical reaction to that unthinking question. She had asked it out of habit, never thinking about its possible awkwardness in this situation.
Guests on the Kincaid ranch were always asked if they’d like to ride. People hesitated to make that request themselves, and yet riding one of the magnificent Kincaid animals was often the highlight of a visitor’s stay. Once Sam had figured that out, it had become ranch policy to invite them to ride.
Samantha hadn’t had many guests at the small house Chase had built, but the breeding stables she had started here with Kincaid stock almost five years ago produced horses of such excellence that even her father had admitted to being impressed, and it took a lot to impress Sam Kincaid.
Matt Dawson’s “I’d really like that” fell almost on top of Chase’s “Matt doesn’t ride.” Samantha laughed. She couldn’t help it, not given the looks on their faces.
“Well, you two can work out which it is between you. I’m going to fix Mandy a pallet in our room. I’ll see you in the morning, Mr. Dawson. Matt,” she amended.
“Good night, ma’am,” he said.
“’Night, Chase,” Samantha said. Then she added, “Be real quiet when you come to bed so you don’t take any chance of waking Mandy.” The look she gave him with that admonition spoke volumes on its own.
THERE WAS A LONG SILENCE in the kitchen after Samantha left. When Chase was sure she was far enough away that there was no chance that she might overhear, he said, “You aren’t serious, are you?”
“About sleeping on the couch?” Matt’s question was as full of innocence as Chase’s introduction had been.
“About trying to ride.”
The single, suddenly cold eye held Chase’s. “Are you telling me I’m not welcome to ride one of your fine Kincaid-bred horses?” he asked softly.
“You can damn well have any horse out there, and you know it. I’m just telling you that it would be a hell of a note if you broke your neck now.”
Matt Dawson laughed. “I’ll choose one with short, arthritic legs. Will that make you happy?”
“It’ll make me happy if you let me come with you. There’s a mare Mandy rides that should be perfect for starters.”
“I rode my starter horse about thirty-five years ago. I don’t think I need Mandy’s,” Matt said. A trace of his amusement lingered at the corner of his mouth.
“I think you need your head examined,” Chase said, his voice full of frustration.
“Hell, you’ve thought that for a long time.”
“You’re damn right, I have, but I’m just now finding out how right I was. Mandy’s room is down the hall, second door on the right.” Chase started across the kitchen, the length and quickness of his stride clearly denoting his anger.
“Be careful you don’t wake Mandy,” his houseguest reminded, but he controlled himself until Chase was out of the room, and even then his laughter was soft enough that no one else in the small house heard it.
JENNY TRIED TO THINK how long it had been since she’d saddled her horse and set off by herself for a dawn ride. A month? she wondered, spending a few futile seconds trying to pinpoint the last time she’d done this. Maybe it had been even longer than that. At any rate, she decided, as she rode out of the yard, it had certainly been far too long.
The air was cool, still touched with the chill of the desert night, although the sun was already pushing yellowed streaks upward across the horizon. Almost anywhere else in the world, she thought, a woman might be afraid to be out alone at this time of day.
She couldn’t ever remember having been afraid out here, not even as isolated as the ranch had been during the brief period when there had been no one living in the small house Chase had built a couple of miles down the road. And not even lately, when the violence that seemed to be the norm in the outside world had now touched the people of this south Texas county.
She guided her horse toward the river, savoring how wonderful it was to be outdoors, to breathe deeply of clean air. She had been enclosed, surrounded so much lately by people, that only now did she realize how much she had missed the sprawling, empty vastness of the desert.
Yet the ranch house had felt empty last night when she had returned from San Antonio. For the first time in memory, it had seemed to her to be too quiet out here. And she had been lonely.
She had just gotten too accustomed to having company, she supposed. First Anne had come to stay with her. And then Rio, she thought, remembering that time with pleasure. It seemed almost as if she had had a family again during the weeks he’d lived here. Then these past few hectic days had been spent at the Richardsons’ big house in San Antonio helping out with the wedding preparations.
Last night, when the wedding was all over and she had returned to the isolation of the ranch, it had seemed like a letdown rather than a homecoming. There had been something unsettling about finding herself suddenly alone. She had once been used to that, she thought, had truly enjoyed the silence that surrounded this place. But last night the house hadn’t seemed peaceful. It had just felt empty, way too empty.
And she knew one reason why. She had not been able to get her encounter with the stranger at the wedding out of her head. Even when she thought she was fully concentrating on something else, the image of his face would suddenly appear in her mind’s eye, effectively interfering with whatever she was doing.
Determined to escape from the slight depression she seemed to be falling into, Jenny touched Spooner with her heels and the quarter horse obeyed, breaking into a gallop. The resulting rush of air across her cheeks felt invigorating, even though she knew that, despite the chill of late fall in the air, within a few hours, that breeze would become a hot wind. But of course, she wouldn’t be out here then.
She was approaching the river, the gleam of its shallow water almost silver in the thin morning light. She would ride downstream toward Chase and Samantha’s and then cut cross-country to the dirt road that joined the two houses. The time it would take her to do that would be about as long as the dawn coolness would last.
She had covered more than half the distance to her brother-in-law’s spread when she realized there was a horse standing near the river, almost at the ford. The animals Chase and Samantha raised were too valuable to be running loose out here, and she knew it wasn’t one of her horses. They were accounted for back at the ranch, even Rio’s big black, which she had agreed to keep until he had time to make some other arrangements.
She was still trying to figure out what the horse was doing out here when she realized the animal was saddled—and, more important, that it had a rider, a man who had dismounted and was bending down to examine something on the ground.
She pulled up her mount, trying to recognize either man or beast. The rider apparently sensed that he was no longer alone. Even as she hesitated, watching him from this distance, he straightened and turned toward her, the horse’s reins held in his left hand.
Since she had been seen, she realized that her options had narrowed: Confront the rider or turn tail and run. She’d be damned if she’d leave, she thought, damned if she’d be the one to run away. This was McCullar property, and he was the trespasser.
