The Cessna had no toilet.
By the time the plane’s wheels went sprrt-sprrt on the tarmac in Oregon, every jolt of the small craft was an agony for her. After Ryan exited the plane by the side door, she pushed up on her elbow to gaze out the oval passenger window near her head, hoping to see a house. Instead, the bright afternoon sunlight glanced off snow-swept fields and mountains for as far as she could see. She pushed up a bit higher to peek out the adjacent window, looking for buildings. Nothing. Just wilderness.
Signing off the radio, Rafe turned and saw her sitting halfway erect. He unfastened his seat belt and swung from the copilot’s seat into the center aisle.
“Just rest easy, honey. Ryan has to start the four-runner and get it warm, so it’ll be a few minutes before we get out.” He bent over a first-row seat to check on the sleeping baby and then moved aft to hunker in front of her. Maggie half-expected him to whip a glass of water from behind his back. Instead he pressed a hand to her forehead. “How you feeling? Tired, I’ll bet.”
Maggie was too tense to be tired. She’d never been across the Idaho state line, and she’d never stepped foot on an airplane either. Now she was about to marry a man whose family owned two, this Cessna, which had a pressurized cabin for comfortable long-distance travel, and a small single-engine called an Eagle, which Rafe had explained was used for ranch work.
“What?” he asked softly.
Maggie shook her head. How could she explain her feelings when they were in such a tangle? This man, who’d poured sixty-four ounces of water into her in the last three hours and hadn’t stopped to think she might need to use the rest room, had taken control of her life.
A part of Maggie knew Rafe meant her no harm. He treated her as if she were made of fragile glass, his solicitousness almost suffocating. How could she fear someone who seemed so frantically concerned about her well-being?
Yet on a level where reason held no sway, Maggie did fear him. She’d been in a situation where a man had complete control of her world, and she’d learned from experience just how vulnerable that made her.
“Can you sit up, honey?”
Maggie did as he asked, relieved to find that she felt much stronger now than she had in days. He reached for her parka.
“I can do it,” she protested as he began fishing her arm down a sleeve. When that didn’t slow him down, she added, “I hate being so much trouble.”
He tugged the jacket up onto her shoulder, then reached behind her to pull it around. “You’re no trouble,” he said huskily. He hesitated in his task to cup her chin in his big hand and make her look at him. “You’ll never know how sincerely I mean that.”
It seemed to Maggie that his dark face came closer, and for a moment, she felt sure he was about to kiss her. Her heart flip-flopped, sending a flutter into her throat. Her gaze went to his mouth. In the dimness of the plane, his firm lips had a satiny sheen. For a fleeting instant, she wondered what it might be like to kiss a man whose breath didn’t reek of stale cigarettes and beer.
Shocked at herself, Maggie shoved the thought away. A mischievous glint danced in Rafe’s eyes, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. Letting the coat puddle behind her, he tightened his hold on her chin and curled his other hand over her nape, his hard fingers sifting through the strands of her hair to rest with intimate possessiveness on her skin. Shivers ribboned down her spine as he traced circles with his fingertips.
His features blurred as he pressed closer. Maggie planted a hand on his chest, intending to hold him away. The instant her palm connected with the front of his shirt, that hope fled. He felt as heavy and immovable as a wall of granite. Her breath snagged in her throat as his lips settled over hers. Velvet heat.
He tipped his head to gain better control of the kiss, parting his lips and touching the tip of his tongue lightly to hers. Maggie jerked. His arm tensed, the wide palm on her nape becoming a relentless but gentle restraint that held her fast. He tasted her as he might a sweet he meant to savor, with light brushes of his tongue that teased her sensitive flesh like the flutter of a butterfly wing. His breath mingled with hers, hot and laced with the rich taste of coffee and mint.
Maggie felt as if her bones were dissolving. The stutter of her pulse at the base of her throat became a pounding that seemed to echo in her temples. He wouldn’t allow her to pull away, and she couldn’t help but be frightened by the sheer power she felt radiating from his big body. She’d found herself on the receiving end of a man’s greater strength too many times to easily discount the dangers. But at the same time, she was fascinated. Every other kiss she’d ever experienced had been a slobbery grinding of teeth that had hurt her lips and made her feel as if she were going to strangle on her own bile. By contrast, Rafe’s mouth coaxed hers for a response she didn’t know how to give.
When he drew back, there was a question in his eyes.
“I—” Maggie gulped and groped for the coat sleeve behind her. “I’m not a very good kisser, I’m afraid.”
As she fumbled with the jacket, he continued to caress her neck, his touch seeming to become more electrical with every pass of his fingertips. Her stomach felt as if she had swallowed a giant-sized carton of live goldfish.
“Maggie?” he whispered.
She froze, her gaze drawn to his by the silky demand in his tone. He smiled slightly and rubbed his thumb over her mouth. “What?” she squeaked.
He leaned forward to graze his lips along her temple, his breath stirring the curls there as he whispered, “You kiss like an angel.”
He drew back and released her. As he reached around her to finish helping her into the jacket, he smiled. “Is there anything I can do to make you feel a little less nervous? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I get the feeling you’re a little afraid of me. There’s no reason to be.”
No reason? He’d made clear his intention to make this a real marriage. She found the prospect of physical intimacy terrifying. Not that she would ever admit it. Fear was yet another weakness that a man could use against you.
Trying to keep her expression carefully blank, she bent her head to fumble with the zipper. “I’m not afraid of you. That’s silly.” It truly is silly, a small voice inside her mind chided. Any fool can see he doesn’t mean to hurt you. Maggie guessed she was like those people who were afraid of heights. Even standing behind a sturdy guardrail, they couldn’t breathe when they looked down. Sometimes a person’s fears defied all reason. “Why would I be afraid?”
He brushed her fingers aside. “Is that why your hands are shaking? Because you trust me so much?”
Maggie looked down and saw that he was right; she was shaking. “I’m just—cold.”
He zipped the jacket and rocked back on his heels, his well-muscled arms resting loosely on his knees. His expression was bemused as he regarded her. “I’ll never hurt you. I want you to know that. And when the time comes that we make love, you’ll want to do it. I promise you that.”
Maggie barely managed to suppress a shudder. “Th-that would be nice.”
“Better than nice,” he assured her. “Much better than nice.”
Maggie had her doubts. She would be greatly relieved if sexual intimacy with him turned out to be tolerable. Nice was a bit much to hope for.
He stood and drew her to her feet. Just then, Ryan opened the door of the plane. “The four-runner’s heated up.”
Rafe gathered Jaimie from the seat and handed him down to his brother, who promptly ran toward the waiting Ford to get the baby in out of the cold. Grabbing a hand strap suspended from the ceiling, Rafe swung from the plane, bypassing the drop-down steps. He caught his balance and turned, motioning her to the doorway. When she came within reach, he swept her into his arms.
As he carried her toward the expensive sport-utility vehicle parked a few feet away, she spied a small hangar in front of the plane that she’d been unable to see from the rear windows. “Does that building have a rest room?” she asked, hating herself for blushing.
&
nbsp; “It sure does.”
He broke stride and veered toward the hangar. It lay quite a distance away, and the snow at the edge of the plowed runway was over a foot deep.
“I can walk,” she suggested. “I’m feeling much stronger today.”
“It’s farther than it looks,” was his only reply.
Maggie stifled a sigh.
At the end of the tarmac, he jostled her in his arms to get a better hold and then struck off through the drifts. Maggie clutched his shirt, her body tense. She was only a few feet off the ground, but it seemed like much more. “It looks icy and slick in spots,” she observed, thinking how easily he might slip.
“It is.”
Maggie kept expecting him to get breathless. It was hard going, and he was lugging a lot of extra weight. But he trudged on without getting winded. Once at the hangar, he bent slightly to open a door, then carried her inside a small office furnished with only a desk, a chair, and a metal file cabinet. He set her on her feet in front of another door.
“Thank you.”
He leaned around her to twist the knob and flip on the bathroom light. “You’re very welcome. If you need any help, just holler.”
Not in this lifetime.
Her legs felt weak, undoubtedly from lying in bed so long. She stepped inside, closed the door, and was about to turn the latch when he said, “Don’t lock it, all right? Just in case, I don’t want to have to break down the door again.”
She quickly finished her business. When she emerged from the bathroom, she found him gazing at a picture on the wall.
“My son, Keefer,” he said. “It was taken the summer before.”
Before. Maggie moved closer, wondering what it must be like to have your life divided into two parts, before and after. The child perched on Rafe’s bare shoulders in the snapshot looked about two, with chubby cherub cheeks and wavy dark brown hair. He bore a striking resemblance to his father.
The camera had caught Rafe laughing. He had been much younger then, if not in years, at least at heart, his eyes dancing with merriment. He’d also been huskier of build, his bronze upper body a sculpture of male strength, with bulging biceps, a powerfully padded chest, and an abdomen striated with rock-hard muscle. He’d been wearing jeans that skimmed his lean hips and long legs.
Her gaze returned to the child, whose dimpled fingers were clenched in his father’s wind-tossed black hair. She almost said she knew how seeing the picture must hurt, but if she were to lose Jaimie, she wouldn’t want people to pretend they understood how she felt. She didn’t understand, she could only imagine, and she prayed to God it remained that way.
“Ready?”
Maggie glanced up. Rafe was smiling, but the shadows in his eyes were difficult to miss. “I’m so sorry.” She hesitated and then heard herself saying exactly what she’d decided not to. “I know how it must hurt.”
“That’s the first picture I’ve seen since I left,” he said softly. “It kind of blindsided me is all.”
He swept her up into his arms. Maggie hugged his sturdy neck, once again feeling as if she were dangling from a skyscraper ledge. The sadness had left his eyes. “Worried I’ll turn loose of you?”
“I’m hoping not,” she replied.
A slow grin spread over his firm mouth. “Count on it, Maggie girl.”
As he carried her to the waiting four-runner, Maggie wondered if he’d meant that as a reassurance or a threat.
En route to the house, Maggie hugged her sleeping baby close and peered out the windows of the four-runner for some sign of buildings. All she saw were distant mountains, pine and fir trees, open fields, and Herefords, all of which seemed to be running loose. It was beautiful landscape—like some of the winter scenes she’d seen on postcards. But admiring pictures and being smack-dab in the middle of the reality were two different things. After living in town all her life, she felt displaced here. And cut off from the world.
Even the luxurious interior of the Expedition smelled alien to her, the familiar scents of new-car leather and molded plastic blended with foreign odors. Grass of some kind, maybe? And horses? Glancing over her shoulder, Maggie saw that the back storage area of the Ford was strewn with pieces of rope, strange-looking leather straps, chunky metal gadgets, and bits of hay.
Rafe, who sat beside her in the back, finally noticed her craning her neck to see out his window and flashed her a questioning look.
Maggie glanced up at him. “Where’s the house?”
“It’s still quite a ways,” Ryan said as he veered left to miss a muddy pothole in the gravel road. “Forty thousand acres is a mighty big spread. The main house is about seven more miles from here.”
The main house? Ryan made it sound as if they had dozens. “Are all seven miles part of your ranch?”
Just as Maggie asked that, the Expedition hit a bump that snapped her teeth together and bounced her sideways on the plush leather seat. She tightened her hold on Jaimie. Rafe glanced down and curled a strong arm around her shoulders. “I think you need a little extra ballast.” He dipped his head to look out his window. “In answer to your question, yes, we’ll be on Rocking K land clear in to the main house. You see out through there?”
Maggie followed his gaze. All she saw was brutal wilderness. “Yes.”
“Look as far into the distance as you can,” he instructed. When she fixed her gaze on the most distant point of the horizon she could find, he said, “That’s all either part of the Rocking K or land on a renewable ninety-nine-year lease. Our dad started the operation thirty-five years ago.”
Incredulous, Maggie continued to stare at the horizon. “Wow. Why do I have the feeling you can’t walk to the grocery store from here?”
“You’re right. The closest store would be quite a trek.”
Maggie peered out her window. “Is that all the Rocking K as well?”
“Yes. How’s it going to feel to know you own that much dirt?”
The question was a reminder of their forthcoming marriage, and Maggie tightened her arms around Jaimie, her reason for being there. She wanted her world back—the one with sidewalks and corner markets and neighbors she’d known all her life. Minus Lonnie, of course. From the very beginning, he had messed up her life. Now he had obliterated it.
Ryan chuckled. “Now that’s a unique way of putting it. Owning a lot of dirt!” He glanced in the mirror. “All she can see right now is snow. But in the summer, we’ve got dirt, Maggie. Lots of it.”
Her joy knew no bounds.
Rafe drew her more snugly against him. “Honey, you’re going to love the ranch. Don’t look so worried.”
“It’s just that I’m a town person, I guess. Maybe I’ll get used to it.”
“We’ve got a large town only twenty minutes away.”
“Once you get to the highway,” Ryan pointed out, as if that were another highlight. “It’s the ultimate in privacy out here. No prying eyes. No pesky neighbors. You can parade naked in the yard if you want.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Rafe warned with a possessive growl in his voice. “With all the hired hands on the place, it isn’t quite that private.”
Maggie had no intention of parting with her clothing, period. Even as the thought rooted in her mind, she quickly qualified it. She’d part with her clothes quickly enough when Rafe decided she should.
“You keep saying the ‘main’ house. Is there more than one?”
“You could say that.” Ryan braked to ease the vehicle over a rut. “There’s my place, about a mile from Rafe’s. And after the folks signed the ranch over to us, they built a cottage on the opposite side of the lake. Then there’s the housing for our hired hands and families. Plus all the line shacks.”
A few minutes later, the Expedition rounded a curve, and the wilderness gave way to white fencing that seemed to stretch forever. She spotted white outbuildings.
“There’s the house,” Rafe whispered.
She focused on the sprawling brick home that sat on a ge
ntle, snow-covered knoll in the distance. As Ryan drove closer, she saw that the huge structure was a two-story with white trim and ivy trailing up the five exterior chimneys. The expansive, multi-pitched roof was covered with burnt red tiles.
That wasn’t a house; it was a mansion.
“So, what do you think?”
She threw Rafe an incredulous look. What did she think? She remembered her cowboy bum in the ragged, filthy clothing, with his shoulder-length hair going every which way under the droopy brim of his dusty Stetson. Even later when he’d told her he was rich, she hadn’t imagined this. How would she ever fit in here?
“I, um…it’s beautiful,” Maggie said hollowly.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” He peered through the windshield at the house, as if he expected to see that the massive roof had caved in or something. When he looked back at her, he said, “If you hate it, I’ll build you another one. We don’t have to live there. This spring we’ll go riding and look for a building site.”
On a horse? “No, it isn’t that. It’s a—beautiful house. It’s just—” Maggie broke off and stared at it some more. She’d get lost in there. “I’m not used to houses that are so—big!”
“It is big,” Ryan agreed. “But you guys won’t live in all of it. The basement floor is a huge industrial-scale kitchen to feed the crews during roundups, with a big dining area and another big room for dances and parties. The main floor is only—what, Rafe?—seven thousand square feet?”
“Thereabout,” Rafe replied. “Eight, tops. And much of that is guest rooms.”
Out the right back window, Maggie saw a gorgeous red horse on the opposite side of the fence. It pranced along with the car, its tail uplifted and its mane flying. Rafe spotted it at the same instant. “What’s that son of a bitch still doing here? I told you to sell him or shoot him.”