Читать книгу Christmas On His Ranch: Maggie's Dad / Cattleman's Choice - Diana Palmer - Страница 8

Dawson Rutherford was tall, lean and drop-dead gorgeous with blond, wavy hair and eyes that seemed to pierce skin. Even if he hadn’t been so handsome, his physical presence was more than enough to make him attractive, added to a deep voice that had the smoothness of velvet, even in anger. But he was as icy a man as she’d ever known, especially with women. At his father’s funeral, she’d actually seen him back away from a beautiful woman to avoid being touched. Odd, that, when she knew for a fact that he’d been quite a rounder with women in his checkered past.

If Antonia hadn’t given her heart to Powell Long so many years before, she wouldn’t have minded setting her cap at Dawson, intimidating though he was. But he was plainly meant for another type of woman altogether. Barrie, perhaps.

It was Christmas Eve, and he’d stopped by with a pipe for her father. Antonia walked him out a few minutes later.

“Shame on you,” she muttered, pausing on the porch.

Dawson’s green eyes twinkled. “He’ll get over the bronchitis. Besides, you know he won’t quit smoking, whether or not I give him a new pipe. You’ve tried and I’ve tried for years to break him. The best we can do is make him smoke it outdoors.”

“I know that,” she agreed, and smiled. “Well, it was a nice gesture.”

“Want to see what he gave me?” he asked, and produced a smooth silver lighter with inlaid turquoise.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” she observed.

“I don’t.”

Her eyes widened.

“I did, just briefly, smoke cigars.” He corrected himself. “I gave it up months ago. He doesn’t know, so don’t tell him.”

“I won’t. But good for you!” she said approvingly.

He shrugged. “I don’t know any smokers who don’t want to quit.” His eyes narrowed, and he watched her without blinking. “Except one, maybe.”

She knew he was talking about Powell, who always had smoked cigars, and presumably still did. Her face began to close up. “Don’t say it.”

“I won’t. You look tortured.”

“It was nine years ago.”

“Somebody should have shot him for the way he treated you,” he replied. “I’ve never liked him, but that didn’t win him any points with me. I loved my father. It was a low thing, for Sally to make him out a foolish old man with a lust for young girls.”

“She wanted Powell.”

His eyes narrowed. “She got him. But he made her pay for it, let me tell you. She took to alcohol because he left her alone so much, and from all accounts, he hated their daughter.”

“But why?” Antonia asked, shocked. “Powell loved children, surely…!”

“Sally trapped him with the child,” he replied. “Except for that, he’d have left her. Don’t you think he knew what a stupid thing he’d done? He knew the truth, almost from the day he married Sally.”

“But he stayed with her.”

“He had to. He was trying to build a ranch out of nothing, and this is a small town. How would it look for a man to walk out on a pregnant woman, or on his own newborn daughter?” He pursed his lips. “He hates you, you know,” he added surprisingly. “He hates you for not making him listen, for running. He blames his misery on you.”

“He’s your worst enemy, so how do you know so much?” she retorted.

“I have spies.” He sighed. “He can’t admit that the worst mistake was his own, that he wouldn’t believe Sally capable of such underhanded lies. It wasn’t until he married her that he realized how she’d conned him.” He shrugged. “She wasn’t a bad woman, really. She was in love and she couldn’t bear losing him, even to you. Love does crazy things to people.”

“She destroyed my reputation, and your father’s, and made it impossible for me to live here,” Antonia said without pity. “She was my enemy, and he still is. Don’t think I’m harboring any tender feelings for him. I’d cut his throat given the slightest opportunity.”

His eyebrows levered up. Antonia was a gentle soul herself for the most part, despite an occasional outburst of temper and a keen wit that surprised people. She hadn’t ever seemed vindictive, but she harbored a long-standing grudge against her former best friend, Sally. He couldn’t really blame her.

He fingered the lighter her father had given him. “How’s Barrie?” he asked with deliberate carelessness.

“Fending off suitors,” she said with a grin, her soft gray eyes twinkling. “She was juggling four of them when I left.”

He laughed coldly. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? One man was never enough for her, even when she was a teenager.”

She was curious about his antagonism toward Barrie. It seemed out of place. “Why do you hate her so?” she asked bluntly.

He looked surprised. “I don’t…hate her,” he said. “I’m disappointed at the way she behaves, that’s all.”

“She isn’t promiscuous,” she said, defending her colleague. “She may act that way, but it’s only an act. Don’t you know that?”

He looked at the lighter, frowning slightly. “Maybe I know more than you think,” he said curtly. His eyes came up. “Maybe you’re the one wearing blinders.”

“Maybe you’re seeing what you want to see,” she replied gently.

He pocketed the lighter with a curt gesture. “I’d better go. I’ve got a deal cooking. I don’t want the client to get cold feet.”

“Thanks for coming to see Dad. You cheered him up.”

“He’s my friend.” He smiled. “So are you, even when you stick your nose in where you shouldn’t.”

“Barrie’s my friend.”

“Well, she’s not mine,” he said flatly. “Merry Christmas, Annie.”

“You, too,” she replied with a warm smile. He was kind, in his way. She liked him, but she felt sorry for Barrie. He was a heartbreaker. And unless she missed her guess, Barrie was in love with him. His feelings were much less readable.

After he left, she went back to join her father in the kitchen, where he was fixing hot chocolate in a double boiler. He glanced over his shoulder.

“Did he leave?”

“Yes. Can I help?”

He shook his head. He poured hot chocolate into two mugs and nodded for her to take one while he put the boiler in water to soak.

“He gave me a pipe,” he told her when they were seated at the small kitchen table, sipping the hot liquid. He grinned. “Didn’t have the heart to tell him that I’ve finally given it up.”

“Dad!” She reached across and patted his hand. “Oh, that’s great news!”

He chuckled. “Figured you’d like it. Maybe I won’t have so much trouble with my lungs from now on.”

“Speaking of lungs,” she said, “you gave Dawson a lighter. Guess what he’s just given up, and didn’t have the heart to tell you?”

He burst out laughing. “Well, maybe he can use it to light fires under his beef cattle when he throws barbecues out on the Rutherford spread.”

“What a good idea! I’ll suggest it to him the next time we see him.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath,” he replied. “He travels a lot these days. I hardly ever see him.” He lifted his eyes to hers. “Powell came by last week.”

Her heart fluttered, but her face was very composed. “Did he? Why?”

“Heard I was sick and came to check on me. Wanted to know where you were.”

Her frozen expression grew darker. “Did he?”

“I told him you didn’t know about the bronchitis and that he should mind his own business.”

“I see.”

He sipped hot chocolate and put the mug down with a thud. “Had his daughter with him. Quiet, sullen little thing. She never moved a muscle the whole time, just sat and glared. She’s her mother all over.”

Antonia was dying inside. She stared into her hot chocolate. That woman’s child, here, in her home! She could hardly bear the thought. It was like a violation to have Powell come here with that child.

“You’re upset,” he said ruefully. “I guessed you would be, but I thought you’d better know. He said he’d be back to check on me after Christmas. Wouldn’t want him to just show up without my telling you he was expected sooner or later. Not that I invited him,” he added curtly. “Surprised me, too, that he’d come to see about me. Of course, he was fond of your mother. It hurt him that the scandal upset her so much and caused her to have that first heart attack. Anyway, he’s taken it upon himself to be my guardian angel. Even sent the doctor when I first got sick, conspired with Mrs. Harper next door to look after me.” He sounded disgusted, but he smiled, too.

“That was nice of him,” she said, although Powell’s actions surprised her. “But thanks for warning me.” She forced a smile to her lips. “I’ll arrange to do something in the kitchen if he turns up.”

“It’s been nine years,” he reminded her.

“And you think I should have forgotten.” She nodded. “You forgive people, Dad. I used to, before all this. Perhaps I should be more charitable, but I can’t be. He and Sally made my life hell.” She stopped, dragging in a long breath.

“No other suitors, in all that time,” he remarked. “No social life, no dating. Girl, you’re going to die an old maid, with no kids of your own, no husband, no real security.”

“I enjoy my own company,” she said lightly. “And I don’t want a child.” That was a lie, but only a partial one. The children she had wanted were Powell’s, no one else’s.

Christmas Day passed uneventfully, except for the meager gifts she and her father exchanged and their shared memories of her late mother to keep them company.

The next day, she was packed and dressed for travel in a rose knit suit, her hair carefully coiffed, her long legs in hose and low-heeled shoes on her feet. Her burgundy velvet, full-length coat was slung over one arm, its dark lining gleaming in the overhead light, as she put her suitcase down and went to find her father to say goodbye.

Voices from the living room caught her attention and she moved in that direction. But at the doorway, she froze in place, and in time. That deep, gravelly voice was as familiar as her own, despite the many years since she’d last heard it. And then a tall, lean man turned, and cast narrow black eyes on her face. Powell!

She lifted her face slowly, not allowing a hint of emotion to show either in her posture or her eyes. She simply looked at him, reconciling this man in his thirties with the man who’d wanted to marry her. The memories were unfavorable, because he was definitely showing his age, in the new lines beside his mouth and eyes, in the silver that showed at his temples.

He was doing his share of looking, too. The girl he’d jilted was no longer visible in this quiet, conservatively dressed woman with her hair in a bun. She looked schoolmarmish, and he was surprised that the sight of her was still like a knife through the heart, after all these years. He’d been curious about her. He’d wanted to see her again, God knew why. Maybe because she refused to see him at her mother’s funeral. Now here she was, and he wasn’t sure he was glad. The sight of her touched something sensitive that he’d buried inside himself.

Antonia was the first to look away. The intensity of his gaze had left her shaking inside, but that reaction was quickly hidden. It would never do to show any weakness to him. “Sorry,” she told her father. “I didn’t realize you had company. If you’ll come and see me off, I’ll be on my way.”

Her father looked uncomfortable. “Powell came by to see how I was doing.”

“You’re leaving so soon?” Powell asked, addressing her directly for the first time in so many long years.

“I have to report back to work earlier than the students,” she said, pleased that her voice was steady and cool.

“Oh, yes. You teach, don’t you?”

She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Her gaze fell somewhere between his aggressive chin and his thin but sensuous mouth, below that straight, arrogant nose and the high cheekbones of his lean face. He wasn’t handsome, but five minutes after they met him, most women were enchanted with him. He had an intangible something, authority perhaps, in the sureness of his movements, even in the way he held his head. He was overwhelming.

“I teach,” she agreed. Her eyes hadn’t quite met his. She turned to her father. “Dad?”

He excused himself and came forward to hug her. “Be careful. Phone when you get there, to let me know that you made it all right, will you? It’s been snowing again.”

“I’ll be fine. I have a phone in the car, if I get stuck.”

“You’re driving to Arizona, in this weather?” Powell interrupted.

“I’ve been driving in this weather most of my adult life,” she informed him.

“You were terrified of slick roads when you were in your teens,” he recalled solemnly.

She smiled coldly at him. “I’m not a teenager now.”

The way she looked at him spoke volumes about her feelings. He didn’t avert his gaze, but his eyes were dark and quiet, full of secrets and seething accusation.

“Sally left a letter for you,” he said unexpectedly. “I never got around to posting it. Over the years, I’d forgotten about it.”

Her chest rose in a quick, angry breath. It reminded her of the letter that Sally had sent soon after Antonia had left town, the one she’d returned unopened. “Another one?” she asked in a frozen tone. “Well, I want nothing from your late wife, not even a letter.”

He bristled. “She was your friend once,” he reminded her curtly.

“She was my enemy.” She corrected him. “She ruined my reputation and all but killed my mother! Do you really believe I’d want any reminder of what she did?”

He didn’t seem to move for a minute. His face hardened. “She did nothing to hurt you deliberately,” he said tersely.

“Really? Will her good intentions bring back George Rutherford or my mother?” she demanded hotly, because George himself had died so soon after her mother had. “Will it erase all the gossip?”

He turned away and bent his head to light a cigar, apparently unconcerned. Antonia fought for control. Her hands were icy cold as she picked up her suitcase and winced at her father’s worried expression.

“I’ll phone you, Dad. Please take care of yourself,” she added.

“You’re upset,” he said distractedly. “Wait a bit…”

“I won’t…I can’t…” Her voice choked on the words and she averted her eyes from the long back of the man who was turned away from her. “Bye, Dad!”

She was out the door in a flash, and within two minutes she’d loaded her cases into the trunk and opened the door. But before she could get in, Powell was towering over her.

“Get a grip on yourself,” he said curtly, forcing her to look at him. “You won’t do your father any favors by landing in a ditch in the middle of nowhere!”

She shivered at the nearness of him and deliberately backed away, her gray eyes wide, accusing.

“You look so fragile,” he said, as if the words were torn from him. “Don’t you eat?”

“I eat enough.” She steadied herself on the door. “Goodbye.”

His big hand settled beside hers on the top of the door. “Why was Dawson Rutherford here a couple of nights ago?”

The question was totally unexpected. “Is that your business?” she asked coldly.

He smiled mockingly. “It could be. Rutherford’s father ruined mine, or didn’t you remember? I don’t intend to let his son ruin me.”

“My father and George Rutherford were friends.”

“And you and George were lovers.”

She didn’t say a word. She only looked at him. “You know the truth,” she said wearily. “You just don’t want to believe it.”

“George paid your way through college,” he reminded her.

“Yes, he did,” she agreed, smiling. “And I rewarded him by graduating with honors, second in my graduating class. He was a philanthropist and the best friend my family ever had. I miss him.”

“He was a rich old man with designs on you, whether you’ll admit it or not!”

She searched his deep-set black eyes. They never smiled. He was a hard man, and the passing years had only added to his sarcastic, harsh demeanor. He’d grown up dirt poor, looked down on in the community because of his parents. He’d struggled to get where he was, and she knew how difficult it had been. But his hard life had warped his perception of people. He looked for the worst, always. She’d known that, somehow, even when they were first engaged. And now, he was the sum of all the tragedies of his life. She’d loved him so much, she’d tried to make up to him for the love he’d never had, the life his circumstances had denied him. But even while he was courting her, he’d loved Sally most. He’d told Antonia so, when he broke their engagement and called her a streetwalker with a price tag….

“You’re staring,” he said irritably, ramming his hands into the pockets of his dark slacks.

“I was remembering the way you used to be, Powell,” she said simply. “You haven’t changed. You’re still the loner who never trusted anyone, who always expected people to do their worst.”

“I believed in you,” he replied solemnly.

She smiled. “No, you didn’t. If you had, you wouldn’t have swallowed Sally’s lies without—”

“Damn you!”

He had her by both shoulders, his cigar suddenly lying in the snow at their feet. He practically shook her, and she winced, because she was willow thin and he had the grip of a horseman, developed after long years of back-breaking ranch work long before he ever made any money at it.

She looked up into blazing eyes and wondered dimly why she wasn’t afraid of him. He looked intimidating with his black eyes flashing and his straight black hair falling down over his thick eyebrows.

“Sally didn’t lie!” he reiterated. “That’s the hell of it, Antonia! She was gentle and kind and she never lied to me. She cried when you had to leave town over what happened. She cried for weeks and weeks, because she hadn’t wanted to tell me what she knew about you and George! She couldn’t bear to see you two-timing me!”

She pulled away from him with a strength she didn’t know she had. “She deserved to cry!” she said through her teeth.

He called her a name that made her flush. She only smiled.

“Sticks and stones, Powell,” she said in a steady, if husky, tone. “But if you say that again, you’ll get the same thing I gave you the summer after I started college.”

He remembered very well the feel of her shoe on his shin. Even through his anger, he had to stifle a mental smile at the memory. Antonia had always had spirit. But he remembered other things, too; like her refusal to talk to him after her mother’s death, when he’d offered help. Sally had been long dead by then, but Antonia wouldn’t let him close enough to see if she still felt anything for him. She wouldn’t even now, and it caused him to lose his temper when he’d never meant to. She wouldn’t let go of the past. She wouldn’t give him a chance to find out if there was anything left of what they’d felt for each other. She didn’t care.

The knowledge infuriated him.

“Now, if you’re quite through insulting me, I have to go home,” she added firmly.

“I could have helped, when your mother died,” he said curtly. “You wouldn’t even see me!”

He sounded as if her refusal to speak to him had hurt. What a joke that would be. She didn’t look at him again. “I had nothing to say to you, and Dad and I didn’t want your help. One way or another, you had enough help from us to build your fortune.”

He scowled. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

She did look up, then, with a mocking little smile. “Have you forgotten already? Now if you’ll excuse me…?”

He didn’t move. His big fists clenched by his sides as she just walked around him to get into the car.

She started it, put it into Reverse, and pointedly didn’t look at him again, not even when she was driving off down the street toward the main highway. And if her hands shook, he couldn’t see them.

He stood watching, his boots absorbing the freezing cold of the snow around them, snowflakes touching the wide brim of his creamy Stetson. He had no idea what she’d meant with that last crack. It made him furious that he couldn’t even get her to talk to him. Nine years. He’d smoldered for nine years with seething outrage and anger, and he couldn’t get the chance to air it. He wanted a knock-down, drag-out argument with her, he wanted to get everything in the open. He wanted…second chances.

“Do you want some hot chocolate?” Ben Hayes called from the front door.

Powell didn’t answer him for a minute. “No,” he said in a subdued tone. “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

Ben pulled his housecoat closer around him. “You can damn her until you die,” he remarked quietly. “But it won’t change one thing.”

Powell turned and faced him with an expression that wasn’t easily read. “Sally didn’t lie,” he said stubbornly. “I don’t care what anyone says about it. Innocent people don’t run, and they both did!”

Ben studied the tormented eyes in that lean face for a long moment. “You have to keep believing that, don’t you,” he asked coldly. “Because if you don’t, you’ve got nothing at all to show for the past nine years. The hatred you’ve saved up for Antonia is all that’s left of your life!”

Powell didn’t say another word. He strode angrily back to his four-wheel-drive vehicle and climbed in under the wheel.