“Cal will discover this all on his own.”
“Listen, honey, I hate to burst your bubble, but Cal’s a confirmed bachelor. I don’t even remember the last time he went out on a date. He’s sworn off women for good.”
“You sure about that?”
“Well, it’s been more than two years now, and he still isn’t over Jennifer.”
“Then it’s about time he got over her.” She sounded more confident than she felt, but she wasn’t going to let a little thing like male pride stand in her way. Cal needed someone in his life, but he was too stubborn to realize it. Like most of the male sex he simply needed a little help. She’d aim him in the right direction and leave matters to progress as they would.
Eventually Cal would see the light; he’d figure it out on his own. As soon as she and Glen were married, Cal would be in that ranch house all by himself. It wouldn’t take him long to discover how large and lonely a house could be with just one person living there.
“You look thoughtful,” Glen said.
“It’s going to be up to us.” She nodded firmly.
“Us?” He raised both hands. “Not me! Forget it. If you want to play matchmaker with my big brother, you go right ahead, but don’t include me.”
A little respect for the validity of her idea—bringing two lonely people together—would have gone a long way, but Glen was having none of it.
“Good luck, sweetheart,” he said, reaching for a French fry. “I have to admire your spirit.”
“I don’t believe in luck,” she told him with the confidence of one who knows. “I believe we shape our own destinies.” And occasionally someone else’s.
* * *
LATE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON Caroline drove into the yard of the Yellow Rose Ranch. She’d been looking forward to this all week.
As she parked, the screen door opened off the back porch and Grady stepped outside.
Caroline climbed out of the car, and Maggie slipped her small hand into Caroline’s as he approached.
“Will Grady yell at me?” Maggie whispered.
“Of course not,” Caroline assured her.
Grady smiled at them and it was difficult for Caroline to look away. His face was alight with such pleasure she had to catch her breath. They’d known each other for years, she and Grady; they had a history, most of it unpleasant. Both were opinionated, strong willed. But she’d always admired Grady, always thought him honorable and decent. She’d carefully guarded her heart for a lot of years, and he was the first man, the only man, to get close enough to make her dream again.
“Hi,” she said, feeling self-conscious.
“Hello.” His gaze left her and traveled to Maggie. He bent down on one knee to be eye to eye with Caroline’s daughter. “How are you, princess?”
“Fine.” Maggie kicked at the dirt with the toe of her shoe and lowered her head to stare at the ground. “I’m sorry I went into the big horse’s stall.”
“You were looking for the colt, weren’t you?”
Maggie nodded and kept her head lowered. When she spoke, even Caroline had trouble understanding her. “I won’t do it again.”
“Good for you,” Grady said. “It’s a wise woman who learns from her mistakes.”
“And man,” Caroline added.
Grady threw back his head and laughed loudly. At the sound Maggie leaped two feet off the ground and flew into her mother’s arms, her own small arms tight around Caroline’s neck.
“What’d you say to her this time?” Richard asked as he sauntered out of the bunkhouse.
“Richard!” Maggie twisted around, her face wreathed in smiles.
“How’s my cupcake?” Richard asked, holding out his arms to the youngster.
Maggie squirmed free of Caroline’s embrace and hurried toward the other man. Richard cheerfully caught her, lifted her high above his head and swung her around. Maggie shouted with glee.
“What are you doing here?” Grady asked, frowning.
The smile on Richard’s face faded. “This is my home.”
“Not anymore. Nothing here belongs to you.”
The message was clear. Grady was telling his younger brother to keep away from Caroline and Maggie.
Richard laughed as if to say the mere suggestion was ludicrous. “How can you bar me from something that was never yours?” he asked. He switched his attention to Maggie.
“Maggie, I think—” Caroline started, but was interrupted.
“I like Richard!” her daughter cried. “Not Grady, Richard.”
Richard tossed a triumphant gaze at Grady.
“Richard shows me magic tricks and dances with me.”
“Grady saved your life,” Caroline reminded Maggie. After looking forward to this time with Grady all week, she wasn’t about to let Richard ruin it.
Maggie’s head drooped against Richard’s chin and her arms circled his neck. “I still like Richard best.”
“Of course you do,” Richard cooed. “All the women in this town do.”
“Except Ellie Frasier,” Grady said in low tones.
The air between the two men crackled. Richard raised his eyebrows. “Well, well, so my brother knows how to score a point.”
“Caroline and Maggie came here to visit me.”
“If that’s the way you want it,” Richard said and slowly set Maggie down. “I didn’t realize they were your exclusive property. It’s a shame because Caroline and I might have renewed an old acquaintance. We used to be good friends, remember?”
“We were never friends, Richard,” she said, intensely disliking him.
“So that’s the lay of the land, is it?” Richard said, with a half smile that implied her words had wounded him. As though his heart was capable of entertaining anything other than selfish pursuits, she thought in disgust.
He walked away then, and despite everything, Caroline experienced a twinge of sadness. She regretted the waste of his skills, his potential. She’d known him all her life, but she didn’t really know him. She didn’t think anyone was capable of fully understanding Richard.
Grady reached for her hand. “I’m sorry, Caroline.”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
Maggie didn’t share her opinion, but Caroline wasn’t concerned.
“Would you like some lemonade?” Grady asked her daughter. “I made it specially for you.” He sounded downright pleased with himself.
“That sounds yummy, doesn’t it?” Caroline said.
Maggie didn’t answer.
“We’ll take a glass,” Caroline responded for both of them.
Grady led the way to the kitchen and got out three glasses. “It dawned on me the other day that I’m going to be living the bachelor life in a few months. I never spent much time working in the kitchen, not with Mom around and then Savannah doing all the cooking.” A sadness came over him at the mention of his mother. Grady wasn’t one to openly display his emotions, but Caroline knew that the death of his parents had forever marked him. He never talked about the accident—they’d drowned in a flash flood—or the horrible weeks that followed with the discovery of Richard’s theft and disappearance.
“I suspect Wiley and I’ll starve to death before the end of the first month,” he said, making a lighthearted shift of subject. Wiley had been foreman on the Yellow Rose for as long as Caroline could remember.
“I don’t think Savannah will let that happen.”
“Can I play with Savannah’s dolls?” Maggie asked, tugging at her mother’s arm.
“Don’t you want to go riding?” Grady asked, sounding disappointed.
Maggie shook her head; Caroline supposed she’d been scared off by the incident on Sunday. It might be a while before she was interested in horses again. In any event, dolls had always been her first choice.
“You be careful with Savannah’s things, you hear?” Caroline warned.
“I will,” Maggie promised and skipped off, her lemonade untouched.
“She enjoys p
laying with dolls, doesn’t she?” Grady said.
“More than anything.”
Grady carried their lemonade into the living room and set both glasses down on the coffee table.
“I imagine you’re wondering why we’re sitting in here rather than outside,” he said.
As a matter of fact she was.
“It’s too damned difficult to find a way to hold you if you’re sitting in that rocking chair,” he confessed. “Damn it, woman, I haven’t thought about anything but kissing you again from the moment you left last Sunday.”
It was heaven to hear him say it, and hell to confess it herself. “Oh, Grady, me, too!”
Neither made a pretense of drinking the lemonade. The minute they were on the sofa, they were in each other’s arms. Their first kiss was urgent, like a thirsty traveler drinking in cool water, not taking time to savor the taste or feel of it. Their second kiss was more serene.
Caroline wanted this, needed this, and Grady hadn’t disappointed her. His own display of eagerness warmed her heart. A delightful excitement filled her, allowing her to hope, to dream.
“Is this really happening to us?” she asked. She shifted around and rested her back against his chest. He spread light kisses down the side of her neck.
“If it’s not, don’t wake me.”
“When did this come about?” She closed her eyes and moaned softly when his teeth nipped her ear, sending shivers up her spine. “Grady,” she groaned, half in protest, half in encouragement.
“Kiss me,” he pleaded.
He didn’t need to ask twice. She twisted around and offered him her mouth. The havoc his touch created within her was much too powerful to resist.
Caroline was too involved in their exchange to hear the door open.
Grady abruptly broke off the kiss. Stunned by the sudden change in him, she didn’t notice Savannah for several seconds.
“Oops.” Her best friend sounded infinitely cheerful. “I think we came back a little too soon, Laredo.”
6
“THIS IS INCREDIBLE!” CAROLINE CRIED, galloping after Grady. The wind blew in her face as her pinto followed Grady’s horse across the wide open range. She hadn’t gone horseback riding in ages, and it felt wonderful, exhilarating. Caroline couldn’t remember a time she’d experienced such a sense of freedom. Not in years and years. This lighthearted feeling could only be attributed to one thing—the fact that she was falling in love with Grady.
“Come on, slowpoke,” Grady shouted over his shoulder, leading her farther from the ranch house. He hadn’t said where they were headed, but he seemed to have a destination in mind.
“Where are you taking me?” she called, but either he didn’t hear or chose to ignore the question.
Bless Savannah’s matchmaking heart. When she’d returned early, she insisted they go riding, saying she’d look after Maggie. Grady and Caroline had both made token protests, but it didn’t take long for Savannah to convince them to sneak away.
The day was lovely, not excessively hot for an August afternoon. Surprisingly it was several degrees cooler than it had been earlier in the week. The grass was lush and green because of the early-summer rains, and the air smelled fresh.
During the past few days Caroline had been giving a lot of thought to her relationship with Grady. Both were mature adults. He’d recently turned thirty-six and she was almost twenty-eight. She knew what she wanted in life, and he seemed to have set his own course, too. She liked him and deeply respected him. Recently, very recently, she’d admitted she was fast falling in love with him. Already she was beginning to believe they could make a decent life together.
Grady crested a hill and stopped to wait for her. His eyes were bright, alive with happiness, and Caroline wondered if the joy she read in them was a reflection of her own.
“Are you ready for a break yet?” he asked.
“I’ll rest when you do,” she told him, not wanting to hold him up.
“In other words you’re willing to follow me to the ends of the earth.”
She laughed rather than confess the truth of it. “Something like that.”
“Seriously, Caroline, my backside is far more accustomed to a saddle than yours. I don’t want to overtax that part of your anatomy.”
“I didn’t know you were so concerned about the care and comfort of my butt,” she teased.
Grady threw back his head and laughed boisterously.
She urged the pinto into an easy trot, and Grady caught up with her in short order. They rode in companionable silence for several minutes. Gradually he led her toward some willow trees growing along the edge of a winding creek. The scene was postcard picturesque.
“There’s a nice shady spot here.” Grady pointed to a huge weeping willow whose branches dipped lazily into the water.
They paused there. Grady dismounted first, then helped her down. Caroline had been around horses most of her life and certainly didn’t need any assistance. But she didn’t stop him; she knew he wanted to hold her, and she wanted it, too. She could find no reason to deny either of them what they desired.
He held her a moment longer than necessary and she pretended not to notice. Bracing her hands against his shoulders, she slowly eased her body toward the ground. Even then he didn’t release his firm grasp on her waist.
His eyes were intense, focused only on her. Time seemed to stop. Everything around her had an unreal dreamlike quality. Sound filtered lazily into her mind—the whisper of a breeze through the delicate branches of the willow, the creek’s cheerful gurgle, the bird song of early evening.
“I used to come here when I was a boy,” Grady said. He still held her, but more loosely now. “I used to think it was a magic place.”
“Magic?”
“Bandits hid in the tree, waiting to ambush me, but I was too smart for them.” Laugh lines crinkled at his eyes as he spoke.
“When I was a little girl, I used to hide in an oak tree in our backyard. I was sure no one could see me.”
He removed his glove and brushed a strand of hair from her temple, his callused fingers gentle against her face. “Once I’d rid the place of the bandits, I’d sit and think…and pretend.”
“I’d dream,” she told him, realizing as she did that this was the first time she’d ever told anyone about the oak tree.
“Any particular dream?” he asked.
“Oh, what most girls dream,” she said. “Girls who’ve read Cinderella and Rapunzel and Snow White—I adored those stories. I’d dream about being a princess in disguise. A handsome prince would fight insurmountable odds to come to me and declare his love.”
He grinned. “At your service.”
“Oh, Grady, are you my prince?” She felt foolish when she’d said the words, but he looked at her so seriously, all joking gone.
“There’s nothing I’d like more,” he said in a quiet voice.
The air between them seemed electric, charged with tension, and Caroline was convinced she’d die if he didn’t kiss her soon. Judging by the glitter in his eyes, Grady must have felt the same way. He muttered something unintelligible, then unhurriedly lowered his mouth to hers.
He tightened his arms around her waist, almost lifting her from the ground. Caroline ran her fingers through his hair. His Stetson tumbled from his head, but he didn’t seem to notice. The kiss went on and on.
Abruptly he broke it off and shook his head. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. I’m moving too fast. It’s just that—”
“No, that’s not it.”
His hands were in her hair, too, and he held her against him. With her ear pressed to his heart, she could hear its desperate pounding.
“I can’t seem to keep my hands off you,” he whispered.
“You don’t hear me complaining, do you?”
“
No, but…” His chest expanded with a deep sigh. “Oh, hell, Caroline, I haven’t made any secret of the way I feel about you.”
“It’s how I feel, too,” she confessed.
Holding her hand firmly in his, he guided her toward the creek, stopping long enough to retrieve a spare blanket from his saddlebag. He pulled back the dangling willow branches and bowed, gesturing her in. “Welcome to my castle.”
“Castle?” she repeated. “I thought it was a bandits’ hideout.”
“Not anymore,” he murmured. “I’m your handsome prince, remember?”
All Caroline could do was smile. And if her smile was a little tremulous…she couldn’t help it.
He spread the blanket on the ground, and once she was seated, he returned to his saddlebag. To her surprise, he produced a bottle of cool white wine, two stemmed plastic glasses and a piece of cheddar cheese.
“You shock me, Grady,” Caroline told him as he opened the bottle with his Swiss Army knife.
“I do?” He glanced up, a look of amusement on his face as he cut the cheese and handed her a slice.
“This is so romantic.”
“If you think this is something, just wait.”
Caroline raised her head. “You mean there’s more?” She savoured a bite of the sharp cheddar.
“Much more.” He leaped to his feet and returned to the horses. Again opening a saddlebag, he drew out a small gold-foil box.
“Chocolates?” Caroline squealed with delight.
“I figured these were the kind of thing a man gives a woman when he comes courting.” He didn’t look at her; instead, he busied himself carefully pouring the wine.
Caroline loved the way he used the old-fashioned term. “Are you courting me, Grady?” She’d meant to sound demure, but her question had an urgency about it. “Are you being serious?” She had to know.
“This is about as serious as a man gets,” he said and handed her a plastic cup of wine. “Shall we make a toast?” he asked, holding up his glass.
She nodded and touched her glass to his.
“To the future,” he said, then amended, “our future.”
Caroline sipped the wine. The chardonnay was delicate, smooth, refreshing. One sip and her heart started to pound, the force of it growing with every beat. It took her a moment to realize what was happening.