Читать книгу The Girl with the Golden Gun - Ann Major, Ann Major - Страница 15

Buckaroo Ranch

20 miles south of Austin, Texas

“Tonight’s the night.”

Shanghai gritted his teeth. The jeering note in Wolf’s deep voice on the other end of the line set Shanghai on edge so much he wanted to punch him.

“You’re doing it, hombre. You’re asking her the question. Tonight! Before you leave for the big rodeo in Vegas.”

“Don’t remind me, brother.” Shanghai’s stomach tightened as he clutched the cell phone a little closer to his ear. To settle his nerves, he took another long pull from his Lone Star.

What was he waiting for?

“You still there, brother?”

“Where the hell do you think I am?” Shanghai shot back in the space of a heart beat.

“So, what’s the big deal? You know she’ll say yes.”

“Hell, maybe that’s the big deal. You ever been married?”

“Twice. When I was still in the military.”

Wolf had flown helicopters in the Middle East. Recently he’d been honorably discharged from the National Guard.

There was a short silence. “Divorced twice, too,” Wolf admitted.

“Then you’re a two-time loser.”

“I was gone a lot. Top-secret shit. They couldn’t take the stress.”

“Why the hell am I asking you for advice?”

Ever since Shanghai’s daddy had run his mother off, he’d been afraid he’d do the same.

“Just ask her, okay. Just get it over with, you wuss.”

“I ain’t no wuss.”

“Not when we train. You can take any kind of pain then. But you’re a wuss.”

Wolf was his physical trainer. Modify that—his psycho trainer. Wolf was six foot six and built like a lethal African-American god. He had a black belt in karate and had been in Special Forces. He’d even done a bit of bull riding. The man worked him until every muscle in his body ached.

At thirty-nine Shanghai was hardly the newest kid on the block. Not that he ever liked thinking about his age.

Bull riding was an extreme sport. He put up with Wolf’s abuse to stay in shape to ride bulls.

Why the hell did he still want to ride bulls?—that was the million-dollar question. He’d proved himself—hadn’t he?

Unlike most in his profession, he’d made a lot of money and had invested it well. His land, which was just south of the Austin airport, was worth more every year. Why did he keep putting off moving here and ranching full-time? He couldn’t tell himself he rode just for the money anymore.

“When it comes to women, you’re a wuss. You see a pretty little filly you’ve bedded a few times and you like a lot in your rearview mirror, and you stomp on the accelerator. When things start getting serious, you do it every time, brother. Every time.” Wolf laughed. “Zoom.”

“If you were here, I’d punch your lights out.”

Wolf roared. “No, you wouldn’t. Even you’ve got enough sense not to start something you can’t finish.”

He was so right. Although some of his bull riding friends might disagree, Shanghai didn’t have a total death wish.

“Gotta go,” Wolf said. “A mama just walked in with her fat kiddo, who probably wants to take karate lessons. No can do. The kid’s gotta lose some major weight first. Do some jogging. Eat broccoli instead of fries.”

“Go easy on ’em, huh? Eating broccoli may be a radical thought.”

Eager for their blood no doubt, Wolf roared with laughter again as he hung up.

The fat kid and his mama would be in tears long before Wolf got through talking to them. Wolf either toughened you up or he made mincemeat out of you.

Shanghai inhaled the aroma of pine and smoke. There was nothing better than the smell of two fat grass-fed sirloins sizzling on a grill out in the country, unless it was knowing you were going to sit across the table and eat them with a loving woman, who just happened to be a gorgeous blonde and a rancher, and then share her bed. Or rather his bed.

He would ask her. He wasn’t a wuss.

He lifted his beer to his mouth again. Abigail Collins was better than a bar full of adoring buckle bunnies, and he’d had his share in his years on the road. Despite the ace bandage on his right arm, and maybe because of the Bufferin he’d been gulping like malted milk balls along with the beers, he was feeling pretty good.

It was time he settled down. Way past time. For fifteen years his family had mainly been his rodeo pals. A lot of his friends his age were already retired and married with kids. What the hell had been stopping him?

He knew what—Mia Kemble. For years he’d told himself she didn’t matter. Then two years ago she’d seduced him in Vegas and run off before he’d figured out how much he’d wanted her to stick around. He’d thought he hated her for what she’d pulled—coming on to him all hot and heavy when he’d been injured and then confusing the hell out of him the next day after they’d had sex. She’d picked a stupid fight, demanding to know how he felt and what he’d thought about her and what had happened. As if he’d known or could have put it into words.

He’d said a bunch of idiotic stuff and had driven off furious, and so had she. Hell, he couldn’t remember what he’d said.

Then a month later she’d called and wanted to toy with him some more. Since he’d been thinking about her for a solid month and longing for her, he’d felt off balance and tongue-tied. They’d immediately gotten off to a bad start again. His feelings had put him under some weird pressure. Maybe hers had affected her the same way.

How come you didn’t call me, cowboy?

How come you ran off, darlin’?

I didn’t think you wanted me to stay.

You didn’t think period. Neither the hell did I. So we wound up in bed when we shouldn’t have.

Is that what you think? What if I’d gotten pregnant that night, huh? Would you even care?

Anybody who’d known him as long as she had had to know he thought the world had too many stray kids. Hell, he might be one himself for all he knew. Maybe he was the reason his sorry old man had gone so wrong.

What kind of lowdown cheap shot was that from a girl? How many times had he turned her question over and over in his mind when he thought about her and Cole and their kid?

His rational mind did hate her.

He’d left his home and kin to get clear of the Kembles, stayed away, too. Only she’d tracked him down just like she’d promised.

As if going to bed with him was nothing, she’d married his brother and had a baby. When she’d gone and gotten herself killed, conflicting feelings he hadn’t known he’d stored a mere one layer under his thick skin had burst inside him. The pain had been like claws shredding his heart. He’d thought he’d bounce back, but apparently without her on this earth, his world had permanently darkened.

He would have retired from bull riding but for her accident. Hell, he’d needed to do something to forget.

Ever since her plane had gone down, he’d ridden bulls with a death-defying vengeance. He was looking forward to riding in Vegas way more than he was to proposing to Abigail.

Damn her hide. Mia was a Kemble through and through. She’d hopped in his bed and stolen his heart—without him even knowing it until it was too late. Before he’d figured out what was eating him she’d had the bad taste to call him and taunt him that she could have gotten pregnant.

Just about the time he’d faced his feelings and had decided to go lookin’ for her, she’d up and gotten herself hitched to his brother.

Hell. Somehow she’d made him care.

He wasn’t supposed to love her. They’d never really dated. For most of their lives, she’d been too damned young for him. Then there was the not insignificant fact she was a Kemble.

She’d been a fixture in his young life. He wasn’t sure when annoyance and affection had changed to love.

She was dead.

Love or not, he had to move on.

“Then why doesn’t she feel dead?” he whispered, clenching his longneck a little tighter and hoping she wouldn’t choose to haunt him tonight while Abby was here.

Sometimes he woke up at night with the strangest feeling that she was screaming his name and begging for him to come. He’d pace for hours whenever that happened.

The fact that she didn’t feel dead was another thing that didn’t bear dwelling on because it made him worry he was crazy for real.

When Shanghai heard what he thought was Abigail’s gentle footfall behind him, he deftly moved the steaks to one side and shut the lid. Then he turned around, hoping to take Abigail into his arms and steal a kiss. Not that her kisses needed stealing any more than Mia’s had.

Abigail had a big job in Austin. She sold creativity, whatever that was. People came to her with ideas and she would invent concepts for them and name things so they could market their ideas. She was so successful that she had an apartment in Austin as well as the small ranch next to his.

Lucky for him she had a weakness for cowboys.

Abby had ridden over on her golden palomino, Coco, and had thrown herself at him right after he’d bought this place. She’d brought him a chicken casserole. Hell, hadn’t he been running from females for just about as long as he could remember?

Shanghai… Mia’s voice seemed to whisper from the trees.

When he turned, no one was there. Unless you counted the flying squirrel that leapt from his deck to the ground, he was the only mammal within shooting range.

He picked up his beer and took another long swig as the wind sighed in the pine trees. Then he grabbed a handful of the peanuts Abigail had set out and munched a few.

Mia was dead. Abigail and he were alive.

For a month, hell, ever since he’d bought the ring, he’d been trying to work up his nerve to ask Abby this one little question. His bull riding buddies thought this was as big a hoot as Wolf did.

“Damnation, Shanghai, you ain’t scared of gettin’ in a coffinlike chute with the rankest bulls professional rodeo can throw at you, but you’re scared to ask a shy, blue-eyed, little girl to marry you,” Matt had taunted him last night at the Stampede Bar while all their bull rider buddies had laughed.

“Consider her asked,” Shanghai had said. “And her eyes are hazel. Not blue.”

“Consider yourself hitched then. Your skinny ass is hers.”

He’d thought of Mia, and his chest had tightened with aching regret.

The last light of the evening flared above the fringe of cedar, pine and oak along the fence line of Shanghai’s Buckaroo Ranch, painting the sky until it was as bright as the flared match he’d used to light the gas grill. The air smelled sweetly of pine, which was a change for Shanghai.

Born and bred on the vast, hot, humid, mesquite-covered plains of south Texas near the Golden Spurs Ranch, it had taken a spell for this place he’d bought acre by acre with his rodeo winnings to feel like home, set as it was twenty miles south of Austin among Bastrop’s lost pines. Not that he ever wanted to go back to south Texas. He’d given up his foolish plans for revenge a long time ago.

Other than his ranch, his rodeo buddies, Wolf and Abigail, he had no family. None at all. Family could cut you like nobody else in the whole damned world. When a boy was raised by a drunk who didn’t even claim him, and he had a mother who’d run off, should it come as a surprise if the grown man didn’t feel connected to his blood kin?

Not even to his brother? He hadn’t kept up with Cole. He hadn’t kept up with anybody.

Sometimes he felt a little guilty about Cole—mainly because he blamed himself more than he should have for the loss of Black Oaks. Still, Shanghai had decided long ago, he wanted nothing to do with his past and that included Mia.

He set his beer down. Where the hell was Abigail? Usually she was all over him by now.

Just like Mia used to be.

Don’t think about her.

Impatient suddenly, maybe because he was so damn nervous at the thought of marriage—not that Abigail wasn’t perfect—he stomped into his ranch house to find her. Finding the kitchen empty, he strode through his high-ceilinged den, past the glitter of twelve championship gold buckles. When he shouted her name, he was a little surprised that she didn’t come running.

Curious now, but determined, because there’s nothing like a chase to whet a man’s appetite, he headed for the back of the house, thinking maybe she’d gone to the bathroom.

He frowned when he found the bathroom empty but saw a strip of gold glowing along the oak floor beneath his closed bedroom door. Curious, he pushed the door open. With a startled cry, she jumped from where she’d been kneeling beside his bedside table. The little velvet box with the engagement ring he’d bought for her spilled to the floor and glittered.

“Abigail?”

Her butterscotch-colored hair glistened in the lamplight. Her large, hazel eyes flashed with guilt. Flushing, she hurriedly crawled away from him on her knees toward his bed. Her shrink-wrapped white halter top and tight white jeans were way sexier than her usual clothes.

Not that he was in the mood to notice the way her breasts bulged so enticingly. He was focused on his ring that had rolled to a stop right in front of the pointed black toe of his alligator cowboy boot.

Slowly he leaned down and picked up the ring and velvet box. With a gasp, her frightened eyes lifted to his.

“Shanghai—I—I didn’t mean…I—I was looking for a fingernail file.” Her cheeks flamed.

“Sure.” Even though he hated liars more than he hated snakes, he kept his voice soft. He slid the ring inside and snapped the lid shut.

“In the bathroom,” he said tightly. “Second drawer to your left.”

“What?”

“The fingernail file you were looking for.”

“Oh…right.”

Tossing the box into the drawer, he slammed it shut. “The steaks are going to burn if I don’t go see about them.” Feeling the need for air, he turned to go.

“You can’t just walk out,” she cried when he was nearly to the den.

“I’m hungry,” he muttered, furious at her and at himself.

“Is that all you’re going to say?”

“What the hell do you want me to say?”

“Don’t you want to ask me…something?”

“No,” he admitted in a glum, dark tone. “Not anymore. At least not tonight, anyway.”

“Then when?”

“Don’t chase me, girl.”

“I—I’m sorry I—I searched your bedroom, Shanghai. I had no right…But, look, Matt told me weeks ago you bought the ring.”

“He wasn’t supposed to say anything!”

“I—I was just so curious and excited after he did. Then when you didn’t ask me, I kept wondering if you had another girl maybe in some other city. I started getting scared that maybe you’d given it to her.”

“I don’t have another girl,” he growled, stung. “You’re my only girl. Hell, if you don’t know that by now, we’re in big trouble.”

“Wolf said…”

“Who are you dating—me or Wolf?”

“He talks to me more than you do.”

“Then maybe you should marry him. I hear he’s between wives.”

Her eyes glistened. Her mouth was trembling. She was near tears and it was all his fault. She hadn’t done all that much. He was just ticked. He should take her in his arms and say he was sorry, but his chest felt constricted.

“I’d better check the steaks,” he said.

“Don’t you walk out of this room before we’re done.”

Sometimes Abigail had way too much spirit as far as he was concerned. She had lots of famous clients. He’d thought she was wild at first, but she had a serious, responsible side. Maybe that was why she made demands the girls he met on the road didn’t.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m done,” he said, stomping down the hall.

“Then maybe so am I. Who do you think you are? Oh, I know you’re a rich famous rodeo star, you can have your pick of women. But I’m the kind of woman who wants a guy, who wants only her. Maybe that sounds crazy to you.”

“I don’t think it’s crazy,” he muttered, but he kept on walking.

“You travel all over the country in your friends’ private planes or your souped-up truck,” she said, running after him. “You think you are hot stuff. Everybody’s always clamoring for your autograph.”

“Kids.” He turned. “I can’t say no to the kids.” Not when they came up to him with stars in their eyes and were almost too tongue-tied with awe of him to speak. “Big deal. I sign autographs.”

“Girls chase you, too. You don’t call much or write much when you’re gone.”

It was a fault of his, staying too busy to keep in touch.

“I don’t have to. You always call me,” he said.

“Yes. I do…because I thought you loved me.”

He’d thought so, too. “Hell.”

She raced in front of him, blocking the glass door.

“I’ve got a career, too. My daddy says I should marry a lawyer or a doctor…instead of some rodeo character.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Maybe I will. Two handsome guys bought the ranch on the other side of mine. Connor and Leo Storm. Connor’s a cowboy. Leo’s a corporate type. Runs a big ranch in south Texas.”

“Go for Connor. He seems more like your type.”

Her eyes that were usually so adoring flashed with resentment. “I don’t want either of them.

“Did you take them a casserole, too?”

She flushed.

“I just wish you’d call me sometimes. Like tonight. Who called who first to set the time for dinner?”

“Who the hell notices stuff like that?”

“I do, Shanghai. My father was too busy saving the world to ever call me. In fact, he never paid any attention to me at all. I—I don’t have a brother…or a sister….” Her voice quivered. “When I marry, I want a strong, loving family…for a change. And a big part of the equation is going to be a strong, loving husband.”

“Hell.”

“Is that all you can say?”

He was getting into trouble with Abigail faster than when he’d caught his boot in the chute three nights ago, and the gate had opened on him before he’d been ready, and that monster, Tilly, had crushed his arm brace.

Love. Sometimes he thought the closest thing he’d ever felt to love was the applause he got after a winning ride. He’d take off his helmet and hurl it toward the sky. Then he’d throw his hands up in the air. There was nothing like the roar of his fans to make him feel big and important.

“Abigail…can’t we just eat….”

Shanghai—

There it was again!

Mia’s voice stopped him cold. He pivoted wildly, his eyes scanning the darkened hall for her ghost.

Her voice kept calling to him, like she was in trouble.

Shanghai!

“Do you hear anything?” he whispered.

She got a funny look on her face. “No.”

“Listen then.”

His gaze focused on the pine paneling. Crazy fool that he was, he felt so powerfully connected to her, he halfway expected to see Mia materialize out of nothing.

But, of course, she didn’t. His stupid, mixed-up brain and heart were playing tricks on him again.

“What’s wrong now, Shanghai?”

“Nothin’.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d felt Mia calling to him. When she was a little girl in trouble, she’d always come running to him. The instant she’d headed his way, he’d known she was coming.

She was dead. He had to get over her.

“Go away,” he whispered, not realizing he’d spoken aloud. “Get the hell out of my life!”

“Go away?” Abigail wailed, sounding truly hurt.

“Not you, honey,” he muttered in utter exasperation as he gazed forlornly down the empty dark hall.

He felt Abby’s arm on his sleeve, shaking him. “Shanghai, are you all right? You’re as white as your shirt. If you weren’t talking to me—then who were you talkin’ to?”

He stared down into Abigail’s inquisitive eyes, hoping they’d ground him.

“I asked you who you thought you were talking to?” she repeated.

“Nobody. Look, Abigail, forget it. I’m sorry I got all bent out of shape. The pace has been a bit much lately. Too many rodeos. Too many motel rooms bunkin’ with Wolf or the guys. Too many Bufferin along with the beers. My arm’s killin’ me. Let’s just forget the ring and this silly quarrel for now. Why don’t we just eat?”

“Who were you thinking of just then when you got that faraway look in your eyes? You do have another girlfriend, don’t you?”

“I was thinking about those damn steaks,” he muttered. “If we don’t get our asses out on that deck, they’re gonna be burnt to crisps.”

She leaned into him and pushed at his chest with both hands, shoving him toward the deck. “Go ahead then. I don’t care about your stupid old steaks! I don’t care about anything, not even you, you big lying lug! And you can flush that engagement ring down the toilet for all I care!”

“What I’d do? You were the one snoopin’.”

“If you loved me, you would have asked me already,” she said. “I wouldn’t have had to snoop.”

“I was going to ask you tonight,” he admitted.

“Then why don’t you?”

“’Cause I’m not in the mood anymore.”

Her face went as white as his. “Well, neither am I.”

“You satisfied now?” he growled.

“Perfectly.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and ran down the hall.

Her quick, strangled sobs cut him to the quick because Abby wasn’t one to cry. He almost ran after her. Then his front door opened and slammed so hard his whole house shook.

He was halfway to the door when he stopped midstride. When her car didn’t start, he knew she was giving him time to chase after her. For some reason that he didn’t understand, his broad shoulders sagged, and he stayed put.

Suddenly Shanghai wished he was in a chute in a rodeo arena, his gloved palm tightly wrapped in a yellow rope, about to nod at the chute boss. He craved the excitement of the arena and the adrenaline-jingling moment when the gate swung open. He craved the fans’ shouts, the clanging bell, and the bull’s plunging jumps and wild snorts. He knew what to do when he was in a life-and-death battle to stay on a bull.

Bull riding was easy compared to women.

When Shanghai rode well, sometimes the bull and he became one. On nights he got it right, nothing else mattered, nothing at all.

After Mia had seduced him and then left him for Cole and then had the baby, Shanghai had told himself he’d gotten lucky again, that he was free, that he had his bull riding, his ranch, his horses and his rough stock. There had been plenty of women on the road to make him forget. Only the more women he’d used to forget her, the emptier he’d felt. Even after he’d met Abby, late at night he’d still feel lonely.

He’d ignored his loneliness and had told himself that when he retired he would marry Abby and be a rough stock contractor. He’d settle down and raise the best rank bulls in the business, the best saddle broncs, too. They’d have lots of kids, too. They’d be happy.

Shanghai… Again he felt powerfully connected to Mia’s ghost.

“Leave me the hell alone!” he yelled.

Mia’s voice cut him like a knife.

For a couple of seconds the house was quiet. Then his cell phone rang.

He picked it up and read Abigail in bright blue letters. It rang two more times. She was out in the car, calling him already. Inhaling a deep breath, he flipped it open.

“Hi, darlin’,” he said softly, feeling sorry for her somehow.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You’re forgiven,” he whispered but in a tight, unconvincing voice. The fight wasn’t really her fault and he knew it. She always called and apologized.

“Are the steaks all burned up?” she murmured.

“If they are, I’ll take you out.”

“I have a better idea,” she said, her voice honey-soft.

He smiled in spite of himself. He knew exactly what she meant. She thought that if she got him in bed, she’d get him to pop the question.

She deserved better. He didn’t know what to say. Feeling doomed, he opened his front door and stood in the doorway. She came flying out of her car and into his arms.

But as his mouth closed over hers, he heard his name whispering in the pines.

Mia’s voice sounded as small and scared as a frightened little girl’s, and it tugged at him on some soul-deep level. She’d used that same voice when she’d pleaded for him to save Spot.