Читать книгу The Millionaire and the Cowgirl - Lisa Jackson - Страница 12

She hasn’t changed a bit.

The thought struck Kyle Fortune deep in his gut, bringing back memories best left forgotten as he eased his foot onto the brake of the old Chevy pickup. Bugs spattered the grimy windshield, and the interior was breathless—baked by the unforgiving Wyoming sun.

Samantha Rawlings. The girl he’d left behind. A woman now. Hell, who would’ve thought she would be the first person he’d run into here in Nowhere, Wyoming? So his luck hadn’t changed any. “Damn you, Kate,” he growled under his breath, as if his feisty grandmother—the woman who had arranged this little trek back to the family ranch at the base of the Tetons—could hear him even though she was dead. That thought almost brought him to his knees.

Bald tires rolled to a stop. “God help me.” In the flash of an instant, a memory long distant seared through his mind, and he saw Samantha as he had a long time ago, lying in a field of bent grass and wildflowers, her red-gold hair fanned around her face. Her body was tanned except for the most private parts, sweet breasts rising skyward, with pink nipples that pointed proudly up at him as he kissed her everywhere—loving her with the wild abandon of youth, never giving a thought to the future, only wanting to plunge himself into her warmth and make love to her forever.

He hadn’t seen her in over ten years, and yet his insides tightened and air already hot enough to blister the paint from the hood of his old truck and bleach the color from the grass seemed to sizzle a bit more as he crossed the gravel lot. A cloud of dust settled around his new, too-tight boots.

She didn’t even flick a glance in his direction. Too intent on the stubborn-looking colt on the other end of the short tether she held firmly in her hands, she didn’t seem to know he’d driven up. They stood eyeball-to-eyeball, a spirited mite of a flame-haired woman and a determined Appaloosa, all rippling muscles and gleaming, sweat-soaked coat.

Sam wasn’t giving an inch. Mule-headed as ever, Kyle decided. Her chin was a little more pointed than it had been at seventeen, her lips, now set in a determined line, fuller and her breasts, hidden beneath the faded gingham of her Western-cut shirt, seemed larger than he remembered. But that hair—blond with fiery red streaks—was still the same, still scraped back into a ponytail, with a few wayward locks framing her sweaty face. “You listen to me, you miserable, overpriced piece of horseflesh,” she growled, barely moving her lips. “You’re going to—” She stopped short as her concentration was broken by Kyle’s shadow, stretching past the rail fence and over the hard, dry ground to crawl across the toes of her boots. Her eyes sliced a glance in his direction and she audibly gasped, her fingers losing their tenacious grip. “Kyle?”

Sensing his advantage, the horse twisted his great black-and-white head and stripped the reins from her hands. With a triumphant whistle, he reared and pivoted, a magnificent stallion who had won again. “Hey, wait, you blasted, miserable…” But the stallion was already gone, kicking up dust as he raced to the far end of the corral and the shade of a solitary pine tree.

“Great! Just great! Now look what you’ve made me do!” Stalking to the fence, she stripped the rubber band from her hair and stuffed it into the pocket of her tight, faded jeans. “Thanks for messing me up!”

“It’s not my fault you lost control of the horse.” So her tongue was just as sharp as ever. It figured.

“Sure it is.” Squinting against the sun, she eyed him up and down. “So the prodigal grandson has returned. What happened? Lose your Ferrari in a poker game? Take a wrong turn on your way to Monte Carlo?”

“Something like that.”

Leaning over the top rail of the fence, she blew her bangs out of her eyes. “You know, Kyle, you’re the last person I ever expected to see again. Ever.” Hot color caressed high, sculpted cheekbones and sweat dripped from the tip of her nose.

“I guess you haven’t heard.”

“Heard what?”

He felt a grain of satisfaction to be the one to break the news. “Believe it or not, I’m the new owner of this place.”

“You?” She stared straight into his eyes, as if checking for lies, as if she expected him to disregard the truth or stretch it to his own advantage. “You own the Fortune Ranch? Just you? No one else?” Was there a note of disapproval in her steady tone?

“The whole spread.”

“But—”

“You didn’t know?”

She actually paled, the dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose becoming more visible. “I—I knew that one of Kate’s children or grandchildren would probably end up with the…” Her eyes moved from his face to the vast acres of rolling pastureland, dry and brown in midsummer. Clumps of sagebrush were scattered along the fence line and a tumbleweed rolled lazily past the weathered barn. Sam swallowed hard as her gaze settled on him again. “I mean, someone was bound to inherit it, but I never once thought… Oh, for the love of Mike, why you?”

“Beats me.”

“You’re a city boy now, aren’t you?” Her chin rose a little bit, as if she were suddenly defiant. “You haven’t set foot here in years.”

“About ten,” he agreed, and saw her gaze shift away, as if she, too, didn’t want to think about that last summer they’d shared. It seemed a lifetime ago, though his blood still raced a little at the sight of her. That would have to change.

“So you’re here…why? To live?” she asked, wrinkling her brow as if she couldn’t believe it.

“For the time being. There’s a catch to my inheritance.”

“A catch?”

“Kate left the ranch and everything on it—well, almost everything—with the condition that I can’t sell the place or even one item of equipment until I’ve lived here for six months.”

Six months! Kyle was going to be her neighbor for the next half year? Sam’s knees hitched a little. “But you don’t intend to really stay here,” she said, panic chasing through her innards.

“Haven’t got much of a choice.”

There had been a time when she’d hoped to see him again, had planned the day, been ready to tell him off, nail him and call him the bastard he was. But she didn’t want it to happen like this, not so unexpectedly, blindsiding her when she wasn’t ready. “You’ll be here through Christmas?” she asked, feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

“That’s the plan.”

He looked so cocky, so damned citified in his starched jeans, new hat, polo shirt and polished boots. He had no place being here. Oh, God, now what? Trying to regain her equilibrium and think clearly, she blurted, “But, but what about Grant?” He was the only one of Kate Fortune’s grandchildren faintly interested in ranching. Sam reminded herself that Grant McClure wasn’t a blood relative, but a stepbrother to Kyle and stepgrandson to Kate. Not that it had mattered during Kate’s lifetime. She’d treated Grant as if he were blood kin, though he’d spent little time with the Fortune family.

“Grant inherited a horse.” Kyle’s gaze traveled to the muscular stallion who was eyeing the intruder with interest. The beast had the audacity to snort at him. “Fortune’s Flame.”

“Joker.”

“What?”

She nodded toward the stallion. “That’s him. They’ve called him Joker from the time he was a foal. Always in trouble, and with his odd markings—” she motioned to the splashes of white on the animal’s coal black face “—it just seemed to fit.”

“And what do you call him?”

“Today?” she said with a twisted smile. “Demon, for starters. I have other names, but they’re not fit for mixed company.” Again she blew a stubborn strand of hair off her face as Kyle laughed, the sound rich and deep, like the first crack of thunder in a spring storm.

Why hadn’t Kyle aged poorly? Why was he trim and fit, his face more chiseled now that all trace of boyishness had disappeared? Where was the hint of a belly? The graying of his hair? The softness of a rich man who didn’t have to raise a finger? Instead he was all hard angles and tight skin, slim in the waist and hips, wide across the shoulders. If anything, time had been inordinately kind to Kyle Fortune.

“I haven’t met a horse yet that you couldn’t handle.”

“Joker, here, just might be the one,” she said, though her mind wasn’t on the conversation, not when there were so many raw emotions racing through her, scraping against her heart. “He’ll be the death of me, I swear.”

“I doubt it, Sam. The way I remember it, you liked nothing better than a challenge.”

“Funny. That’s not what I remember.”

All the laughter disappeared from his eyes. “No? Then what?”

Oh, Lord. Her heart squeezed painfully. “You don’t want to know.”

“Try me.”

“Already have. It didn’t work out.”

His lips flattened over his teeth and his jaw turned to granite. “You know, Sam, we don’t have to start out this way.”

“Sure we do.” Oh, Kyle, if you only knew. Naked, gut-wrenching emotions tore at her and she could barely breathe. Life just wasn’t fair. Why was Kyle Fortune, the one man on this earth she’d sworn to despise, so damned sexy, even in his pressed Levi’s and the Ralph Lauren shirt that stretched a bit over his shoulders? He probably worked out in some gym, lifted weights until the sweat ran down his body as he eyed the women in their leotards, thongs and bodysuits. Kyle had always attracted females—like horse dung attracted flies. Including you, she reminded herself grimly.

Dusting off her hands, she climbed to the top rail of the fence. “Since you’re here and all, I guess I can go home. I was just watching the place, playing overseer until Kate could hire a new foreman. Then she…” Sam couldn’t say the word, couldn’t believe that Kate Fortune—feisty, fun-loving, full-of-life Kate—could actually be dead. Though the woman had to be in her seventies, she’d been nowhere near the grave when a hellish plane crash over the rain forests of Brazil changed everything and snatched away Kate Fortune’s life.

“How’s your dad?” Kyle asked, and Sam’s heart felt as if it were suddenly filled with lead.

“Gone. He died about five years ago.”

“Oh. Sorry. I…” He lifted his hands. “I didn’t know.”

She shook her head. “Doesn’t surprise me. You don’t know much about anything here in Clear Springs, do you?” His eyes, blue as the summer sky, clouded a bit, and though she knew she was being cruel, she couldn’t help but ask, “Why in the world would Kate leave you this ranch when you’ve made a point of avoiding it for so long?”

A muscle came to life in his jaw. His fingers clenched, then straightened, and his gaze drilled into hers as if he was offended that she would be so direct. Finally he shrugged and looked away. “Beats me,” he admitted, and she believed him. He squinted as he took off his new hat, showing off thick brown hair that was streaked by the sun. It ruffled in a breeze that swirled through the paddock and bent a few long weeds clustered near the fence posts.

“You know, I really liked your grandmother,” Sam said, thinking of the strong-willed woman who ran a cosmetics company in Minneapolis with an iron-fisted grip and yet was known around these parts for her rhubarb pie. An independent woman of many talents, Kate loved her family fiercely and had been determined throughout her life to make her mark, not only in business, but with her children and grandchildren as well. She’d loved her ranch nearly as much as she loved Fortune Cosmetics. “I can’t believe that I’ll never see her again.”

His head jerked up, as if she’d hit a painful nerve.

“Look, what I’m trying to say,” she added, tongue-tied for one of the first times in her life, “is that I’m sorry she…she’s gone.”

“Me, too,” he said with a heartfelt sigh, then scowled, as if talking about Kate’s death was too painful a topic. Clearing his throat, he hitched his chin in the stallion’s direction. “So what were you doing with the horse?”

“Trying and failing, thank you very much, to teach him to walk on a lead. He’s the most valuable stallion on the spread, and several ranchers in the area have been asking about hiring him as a stud. The problem is he’s got a mind of his own and, like a lot of men I know, doesn’t much like being told what to do. He hates the lead, refuses to be loaded into a trailer and is a general pain in the backside,” she added, but smiled. Truth to tell, she admired Joker and his fierce independence. Though his bloodlines were pure, it was his attitude that often teased a grin from Samantha’s lips.

As if on cue, the stallion lifted his head, flared his nostrils and let out a neigh as a mare, her spindly-legged foal prancing behind, grazed closer to the paddock where Joker was penned.

“He does like the ladies,” she observed.

“A mistake.”

Shooting Kyle a sharp glance, Sam felt her smile disappear. “Experience talking?”

His jaw tightened a bit. “Look, Sam, I know I—”

“Forget it,” she said, cutting him off swiftly. “Ancient history. Let’s not discuss it, okay?” But you’ll have to, won’t you? You can’t just ignore the past—not now, not when he’s back in Wyoming, not when he deserves to know the truth. Her conscience was sometimes a royal pain in the neck. Sure, she had no choice other than to confide in him, but not yet. Not now. “Let’s just take care of the horse.” With that she stalked across the paddock, and Kyle followed. She talked in soft tones to Joker, and he responded as he always did, by bolting to the far end of the corral. Sam’s nerves were stretched tight as she approached the beast again, but this time the fire was out of him, and as quickly as a dime flips when tossed into the air, Joker gave up and allowed Sam to lead him back to the stables, where she unsnapped the tether and fed and watered him.

To her consternation, Kyle didn’t leave her side. As if he were fascinated by her handling of the horse, he followed her into the stables and eyed the old building that was now his—concrete floor, rough cedar walls, hayloft stretching over the row of stalls and tack room where saddles, bridles and halters gave off the warm scent of oiled leather.

“You live in your folks’ place?” he asked, peering around curiously. Sunlight filtered in through windows thick with grime. Dust motes played in a few feeble rays of sunlight that pierced the interior.

“Yeah.”

“Alone?”

“With my daughter,” she said, closing the stall door. The latch clicked into place and seemed to echo in the stillness, broken only by a frustrated fly buzzing near the window and her own wildly beating heart.

“I didn’t know you were married.”

“I’m not.”

“Oh.” He probably thought she was divorced, and for now, until her equilibrium was restored, she’d let him think what he wanted. He could bloody well leap to whatever conclusions his fertile mind conjured up.

She was used to speculation. Raising a child alone in a small town was always grist for the ever-grinding gossip mill. Over the years people had made a lot of wrong assumptions about her—assumptions Sam never bothered correcting. “Mom moved into town when Dad died, but Caitlyn and I—”

“Caitlyn’s your daughter?”

She nodded tightly, afraid of giving away too much. “We wanted to stay out here. I was raised in the country and I thought she should be, too.”

“What about her father?”

A roar like a wind through the mountains in the middle of a winter storm surged through her brain, creating a headache that pounded behind her eyes. “Caitlyn’s father,” she repeated. “He’s—he’s out of the picture.” Silently calling herself a coward, she grabbed a brush to stroke Joker’s sleek coat.

“Must be tough.”

If you only knew. “We manage,” she said, throwing her back into her work as nervous sweat began to slide down her spine. Tell him, Sam, tell him now! You’ll never have such a golden opportunity again. For God’s sake, he deserves to know that he’s got a child, that he’s Caitlyn’s father!

“I didn’t mean to suggest—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she interrupted, moving to the other side of Joker and sending a cloud of dust from the animal’s rump. She worked feverishly, her mind racing, her mouth as dry as Sagebrush Gulch in the dead of July.

“If you don’t watch out, you’ll rub the spots right off of him.”

She realized then how intent she’d been on her work. Even Joker, usually never distracted from feed, had crooked his long neck to look at her. “Sorry,” she muttered and tossed the brush into a bucket. Kyle was making her nervous, and the subject of Caitlyn’s lack of a father was always touchy. Today, in the hot, dark stables, with the very man who was responsible for impregnating her and leaving her alone, Samantha felt trapped. She let herself through the stall door and tried to ignore the way he sat upon the top rail, as he had ten years before, jeans stretched tight over his knees and butt, heels resting on a lower rail, eyes piercing and filled with a sultry dark promise as he watched her. But that was crazy. Those old emotions were gone, dried-up like Stiller Creek in the middle of a ten-year drought.

“Sam…” He reached forward and touched her arm, his fingers grazing her wrist.

She reacted as if she’d been burned, drawing away and throwing open the door. A shaft of bright summer sunlight pierced the dim interior and a breath of hot, dry air followed along. Hurrying outside, she heard his footsteps behind her, new boots crunching on the gravel of the parking area, but she didn’t turn around, didn’t want to chance looking into his eyes and allowing him to see any hint of what she was feeling, of the bare emotions that surged through her just at the sight of him. Damn it, what was wrong with her? “I—I’ve been coming over here, doing my dad’s old job, acting as foreman ever since the last guy, Red Spencer—he’d been here for seven years or so, I guess, before Dad retired—anyway, Red took over for Dad when Dad couldn’t handle the job, but he left a couple of months ago. Moved to Gold Spur, I think it was, to be close to his son and daughter-in-law. Kate asked me to keep an eye on things and I agreed, but now that you’re back you won’t be needing me—”

“Sam!” This time his fingers found her wrist, clamped tightly and spun her around so fast she could barely catch her breath. “You’re rambling, and near as I remember, that’s not like you.”

“But you don’t know me anymore, do you?” she said, her anger, ten years old and instantly white-hot, taking control of her tongue. “You don’t know a damned thing about me, and that’s because it’s the way you wanted it!”

“For the love of—”

She yanked back her hand. “All the records are in the den.” Making a sweeping gesture toward the house, she kept walking to her truck. “It looks like your tractor might need a new clutch, there’s a buyer from San Antonio interested in most of your cattle, I’ve got a list of people who want Diablo—er, Joker—as a stud. The hay’s in early this year and—”

“And you’re running scared.”

“What?” She whirled and faced him, fury pumping through her bloodstream, hands planted on her hips.

“I said you’re—”

“I heard what you said, I just couldn’t believe it. You,” she said, eyes narrowing in silent, seething anger as she pointed a furious finger at him, “of all people have no right, no right to accuse anyone of running!” Throwing her hands into the air, she looked up at the blue sky with its smattering of veil-thin clouds. “You’re unbelievable, Kyle. Un-be-liev-a-ble!” Turning on a well-worn heel, she stormed to her truck, threw the rig into gear and ripped out of the parking lot, leaving Kyle in his fancy new boots, tight jeans and designer shirt to eat her dust.

“Is somethin’ wrong?” Caitlyn, sitting on the far side of the old pickup, pinned her mother with blue eyes so like her father’s as the truck sped into town.

Tar oozed on the shoulders of the old country road. Hot air blew threw the open windows, catching Caitlyn’s already tangled wheat blond hair.

“Wrong?” Samantha’s heart tightened as she shifted down for a corner. The sun was sitting low on the horizon and waves of heat shimmered from the asphalt, distorting the false fronts of the Western-looking buildings. Clear Springs paid homage to the latter part of the nineteenth century with its architecture.

“Yeah, you’ve been acting funny ever since you picked me up.” Caitlyn wasn’t having any of her mother’s double-talk.

“I suppose I have,” Sam admitted, remembering how Kyle had rattled her cage. She’d been still fuming as she’d retrieved her daughter from a friend’s house.

“Why?”

“I just saw an old…friend today. It took me a little by surprise.”

“So?”

Yeah, right. So? “And I have a headache.” That wasn’t a lie. From the second she’d laid eyes on Kyle Fortune, her head had been pounding.

“Your friend gave you a headache?” Caitlyn shook her head, still not buying her story. “You look mad.”

“Mad?”

“Uh-huh. The same way you looked last year when you found out that Billy McGrath had his birthday party and invited everyone but me and Tommy Wilkins.”

Sam’s blood boiled at the memory of that incident. “Well, that was wrong and Billy’s mother knew it was wrong and… Oh, well, it’s all water under the bridge now.” Samantha reached toward the dashboard and grabbed her sunglasses. At the time she’d wanted to throttle bratty Billy and his snob of a mother, who had decided that two kids out of a class of twenty-one weren’t good enough to attend the birthday swimming party. The two kids who were whispered to be illegitimate.

“So why’d your friend make you mad?”

“He didn’t…he just showed up unexpectedly and it surprised me,” she hedged, then tapped Caitlyn’s smudged nose. “I’ve got to stop at the bank and the post office, but then we can get an ice cream at The Freeze.”

Caitlyn’s eyebrows smoothed. “How about a sundae?”

“Why not?” Sam exclaimed as she passed the sign welcoming visitors to Clear Springs, Wyoming. Maybe it was time to celebrate. It wasn’t every day that her daughter’s father landed back in town. Oh, God, how would she ever tell him that he was Caitlyn’s dad? What would he do? Laugh in her face? Call her a liar? Be so stunned that his lying, silvery tongue would be finally stilled? Or would he see the naked truth with his own eyes and decide that it was time to become a father? If he wanted even partial custody, there was no way she could fight him. Against the Fortune family money and bevy of lawyers, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

Sam’s throat was suddenly dry as sand. She pulled into a parking space and told herself not to overreact, that Kyle was only here for six months, that even when he found out that Caitlyn was his daughter, it wouldn’t matter. He would be reasonable, wouldn’t he? He had to be. But what about Caitlyn? How would she feel about the man who was her father?

Samantha couldn’t lose her child. Not to anyone. Not even to the man who had sired her.