Читать книгу Crazy For Lovin' You - Teresa Southwick, Teresa Southwick - Страница 9

Ten years later…

Mitch Rafferty was back in town.

And she was going to see him any minute. Taylor Stevens looked out her living room window wondering if he would be on time. As the newly appointed commissioner of the high school rodeo association, it was his job to find a site for the state championships. It was an event she desperately wanted. When she’d found out Mitch was the man who held her future in his hands, she’d been stunned. Even now she wondered which of the gods she’d offended and how she could make amends.

She needed him to pick her—or rather her ranch, the Circle S. She had a lot riding on this. But if history repeated itself, she was in a lot of trouble.

The sound of a car engine drifted to her over the hum of the central air conditioning in the house. She cracked the shutter in the front room enough to peek out. The late-model, extended cab pickup crunching rocks and dirt as it came to a halt in her circular driveway was unfamiliar. Her stomach dropped; he was here.

Ever since finding out Mitch was back, she’d been as nervous as a small kitten up a big tree. And not only because he could impact her life. Over and over she’d repeated to herself that she didn’t care about him anymore. She was a big girl now and he couldn’t hurt her.

Tell that to her hammering heart.

She turned away and took a deep breath as she brushed her hands down her khaki slacks, then adjusted the belt, at the same time making sure her buttercup-yellow blouse was neatly tucked in. No point in meeting him wearing the dirty jeans and work shirt she’d worn to muck out stalls that morning. She might be country, but she cleaned up pretty good and wanted to put her best boot forward.

There was a knock on the door and she took a deep breath as she counted to ten. Heaven forbid she looked too anxious.

“Here goes nothing,” she said, opening the door wide.

Her heart nearly stopped. Mitch was a decade older, but he looked even better than she remembered. His eyes were still bad-boy blue and hinted of mischief. His hair was the same sandy-brown, and his well-formed nose crooked enough to keep him from being too perfect. The angular face and square jaw were somehow more rugged. Why did she find that so incredibly appealing?

Right there on her front porch stood Mitch Rafferty, the same man who had two-stepped on her tender, fourteen-year-old heart. Shock sanded ten years away. Feelings that were every bit as big and deep and painful as they’d been that night engulfed her again. She wished she didn’t remember, but she did. All too clearly.

The humiliation of their last encounter washed over her as it had countless times since. It had become the standard by which she judged all disasters. She’d said way too much. Followed by a kiss that even with a decade in between made her cheeks burn now. She couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought, let alone get a word past the Texas-size lump in her throat.

He looked at her for several moments before recognition jumped into his gaze. “Taylor?”

“Mitch. It’s been a long time.”

No kidding. It had taken him several moments to know her. But, she’d been a skinny kid the last time they’d seen each other. He’d told her she kissed like a little girl. If there was any cosmic justice, she would not blush at that thought. She was a grown woman now, not the kid who’d pushed him into the pool. The memory had dominated her recollections ever since learning he was the new commissioner.

Would he hold it against her? Even worse, would he recall how she’d bared her soul?

When her silence dragged on, he cleared his throat. “How have you been?”

“Fine. You?” she asked.

“Great.”

“Did you just get into town?” she asked.

He nodded. “I drove in from El Paso this morning.” He continued to stare at her. “You look great.”

“Skinny little me?” she asked, unable to resist the jab, testing the waters, so to speak. Then she smiled, hoping the nerves line-dancing in her stomach didn’t make her mouth quiver. “You don’t have to say that, Mitch.”

“I mean it. You’ve really changed,” he said grinning his good ol’ boy grin, the one that showed his even white teeth to perfection.

It was also the one that told her he said something equally flirtatious to all the girls. Although she’d tried to forget about him, over the years she hadn’t escaped reading about him in tabloid and magazine stories that had touted the sexy bull rider’s athletic and romantic conquests. Before dropping out of sight, he’d been linked to women she could never compete with. Why would he remember that they’d once been friends?

“You’ve grown up.”

“That happens in—” She paused for what she hoped was just the right thoughtful expression. “How long has it been? When did I last see you?”

Fiddle de dee, she wanted to say in her best Scarlett O’Hara voice. If God was her witness, Mitch would never know that she clearly remembered the last time she’d seen him he’d been going backward into the deep end of the pool.

“I can’t say. And I try not to think back too far.” For just a second, a frown chased away the mischief in his eyes. “Offhand I’d say it’s been a long time because I haven’t been back to Destiny for ten or eleven years.”

“That long?” she said with as much innocence as she could dredge up.

He nodded. “Give or take. These days I feel like I’ve been rode hard and put up wet.”

Just these days? He’d been wet the last time she’d seen him. But right this minute, she thought he looked awfully good. Better than good. In fact, better than he had ten years ago. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Wasn’t his hairline supposed to recede? Not only didn’t he have forty square miles of forehead, but his hair was thick and she couldn’t detect a single gray hair in the sandy color. It was cut conservatively short. She knew it would curl with a bit more length.

A man his age should have at least the beginnings of a beer gut. He had to be pushing thirty. Surely his belly had gone doughy. But one glance at his white shirt tucked into the waistband of his soft, worn Wranglers confirmed that his abdomen was washboard firm. And his long sleeves were rolled up to just below his elbows, right where she thought a man’s sleeves ought to be. It was a look that got her every time.

Okay. Get a grip. There was some good news. She was no longer a lovesick fourteen-year-old. She didn’t care about him anymore. They would probably touch on her embarrassing confession of ten years ago followed by that impulsive kiss, chalk it up to high school hormones, then forget about it.

“So you don’t remember the last time we saw each other?” she asked fishing to find out what, if anything, he recalled.

“Should I?” He looked thoughtful.

“I guess not.”

He didn’t remember. Wasn’t that good news? Then why was she flirting with annoyance that her all-around most humiliating moment wasn’t important enough for him to store in his memory?

He shook his head. “All I can say is you’ve really changed.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I almost didn’t recognize you. Your hair is different.”

Of course he would remember her long, straight, unflattering mousey-brown hair. After two years at Texas A&M, her roommate had helped her find a flattering hairstyle and shown her that lipstick was good for more than writing messages on the bathroom mirror. Finally Taylor had taken her first step in the struggle to repair the confidence that a few moments with Mitch had destroyed. And her social life had soared from there. Right until a year ago when her fiancé dumped her for the woman who had once dumped him. That had reminded her how fragile her confidence truly was.

Mitch studied her thoroughly. Was there an appreciative sparkle in his eyes? Was that a glow spreading through her? A direct reaction to his subtle but nice words? Doggone it! She thought she’d prepared herself for him. Why could he still get to her? She’d worked so hard to nurture a spine along with her self-esteem. Two minutes facing Mitch Rafferty, once known as Texas’ most eligible cowboy, and the glow he generated threatened to melt her backbone into slush.

She realized he was still on the porch. “I didn’t mean to keep you standing out there. Please come in. Where are my manners?”

In the manure heap along with her self-confidence.

His boots rang on the wooden floor as he stepped inside. “Thanks.”

One word, just a single syllable, but uttered in his deep voice and it was enough to shake her up as surely as a tumble from a stubborn horse.

She shut the door, closing out the beginning of May warmth. It wasn’t hot yet, not like it would get in August. But she’d set the inside thermostat to keep the interior comfortable. She didn’t want to give him any reason to thumbs-down her ranch for the event. Getting even with her would be reason enough. But only if he remembered, and knew how much she was counting on a go-ahead.

He stood in the entryway, sliding his black Stetson through his hands as he looked around. A frown drew his eyebrows together. What was he thinking, she wondered. Her glance swept the area. To her right was the living room with the flagstone fireplace that dominated the large square area. Two blue and green plaid love seats, with a simple oak coffee table between, sat in front of it.

To her left was what her family had always called the parlor, also with a large fireplace, this time brick, and a new, expensive, state-of-the-art reclining sectional in front of a big-screen TV. Beyond that was the dining room and the kitchen. The dark wood floor extended throughout all the rooms on the first floor. The house had been built in the 1930s and the land it stood on had been in the family for several generations. The money she’d spent on new furnishings was part of her plan to see it stayed that way.

“How’s Jen?” he asked.

She should have known he was remembering the other member of her own generation. Her sister. Before she could prevent it, there was a dull pain right near her heart. “Jensen is fine. She works in Dallas,” she added.

Best let him know up-front that he wouldn’t be seeing a lot of her. At least not in Destiny. In case that was why he’d come back.

“A lawyer?” he asked.

“She specializes in family law.”

She tried like crazy not to let it bother her that he remembered Jensen had always talked about becoming a lawyer. No doubt they’d told each other all their hopes and dreams. He’d barely recognized her, but remembered that Jensen had always wanted to be an attorney. Even though she’d broken his heart by eloping with someone else. Did he still not want to see or talk to anyone named Stevens?

“So what have you been up to for the last ten or eleven years?” she asked to fill the silence.

His gaze settled on her. “Rodeo. At first.”

“I heard you gave up your scholarship.”

“Seemed like the thing to do at the time.” He frowned and the thundercloud expression on his face took her back to that night by the pool.

She wanted to bite her tongue. In all these years, she hadn’t managed to activate the mechanism in her brain that would refine or remove anything stupid on the way to her mouth. Or maybe it was Mitch Rafferty who deactivated it. She never could think straight around him.

Nervously she tucked a bothersome strand of hair behind her ear. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen? Can I get you a glass of iced tea?”

“I’d like that.”

She held out her hand for him to go first and he found his way as surely as if he’d been there only yesterday. She hated herself for noticing that the back of him was almost as impressive as the front. Broad shoulders tapered to his trim waist. His backside, hugged by impossibly soft and worn denim, was practically a work of art. And that was strictly objective female appreciation for an above average looking man. Because she had no feelings for him whatsoever.

But when her hormones subsided, she noticed that he limped slightly. She recalled reading a small blurb about an injury, but the celebrity magazine articles mostly proclaimed that his playboy points matched his impressive rodeo stats. Was there more to his story? Probably. The fact that he was acting commissioner of the high school rodeo association was a clue.

The fact that she wanted to hear every last detail just made her a candidate for crazy. She needed him to look at the ranch and tell her it would work just fine for his purposes. Then she prayed that he would go away and never come back. But she’d opened her mouth and offered him iced tea. Taking back the offer probably wasn’t the best strategy to win friends and influence people.

The kitchen was arranged in a large U, part of which formed a bar with stools. Instead of sitting on one of them the way he’d always done, he invaded her work space inside the U, parking himself with his back propped against the beige ceramic-tile counter. She felt his gaze on her as she pulled the pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator beside the stove and opened the cupboard above to retrieve a glass.

More memories came flooding back as she poured the amber-colored liquid and handed it to him, not easy to do with trembling hands. She’d poured him iced-tea all those times she’d kept him company while he’d waited for Jen to come downstairs. She tried to clamp the lid tight on the details but failed miserably at forgetting how she’d pined for him, hoping and fantasizing that a miracle would happen and he would notice her. That someday he would wait downstairs for her to get ready to go out with him.

“How did you wind up in charge of the high school rodeo association?” she asked. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you were once the state bull-riding champion, would it?”

“You remember that?”

“Yeah, I do.”

A muscle in his jaw contracted for a moment before he continued. “As you pointed out, I gave up my scholarship to join the pro rodeo circuit. I did okay that first year, although I wasn’t the overall point winner. But I took nationals in Wyoming. I was nineteen. It was a sign to make hay while the sun shines, so to speak.”

“Then what?”

“I rode the crest for two or three years until—”

“Until what?” she encouraged.

“I had a couple of injuries,” he said as if it was no big deal.

She decided to mimic his tone and keep it light. “Really? Imagine that. Riding a ton or two of ticked-off bull is hardly more challenging than a merry-go-round at the Texas state fair,” she teased.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Yeah” was all he said. “All the hits were to my right leg. The third injury was bad. The doc said one more and I might never walk again—at least not on my own two feet.”

The words tugged at her heart in spite of all her warnings to harden it. She knew how much rodeo had meant to him. It was all he’d talked about. “Oh, Mitch, I had no idea. I didn’t mean to—”

He held up his hand. “It’s okay. I managed to take it in stride,” he said with a grin. “Pardon the pun.”

His smile kicked the butterflies in her stomach into fluttering again. She thought she’d reined them in. Apparently that was something else she’d been wrong about.

“That still leaves out a couple steps—pardon the pun,” she said.

His grin widened. “I went back to school.”

“But your scholarship?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t need it then. Not like—”

He stopped, but she knew what he’d almost said. In high school he’d been a poor kid in a foster home until the state turned him loose at eighteen. Then he’d been on his own and needed that scholarship if he wanted a chance at a higher education. That’s why she’d been so stunned when he gave it up.

“So you went to college?” She leaned back against the counter and folded her arms over her chest. A large space separated them, but it wasn’t enough to blunt the force of his appeal. Or the way he could stir up her emotions without even trying.

“Yeah.” He set his tea on the ceramic tile beside him. “I got my degree in business from UCLA. Then I started R&R Development.”

“I’ve heard of it,” she said. The only thing she hadn’t heard was that he owned it.

“You have?”

She nodded. “I read the business section of the paper every day. Your company has been mentioned a couple of times for projects pending here in Texas. By all accounts it’s a company to watch.”

“I’m working on it,” he said. “But I missed the rodeo.”

“Who wouldn’t? Everyone should be stomped into the dirt by an angry bull at least once a day.”

She couldn’t help laughing and he joined her. Rewind ten years—to before everything had gone wrong. That’s how she felt. Putty in his hands. For just an instant. Just until she shut it down cold. She didn’t ever want to go there again. She was through loving men who loved someone else.

“How did you get sucked into volunteering?” she asked.

“That’s an interesting choice of words.”

Not really, she wanted to say. He was young, a hunk and a half, so many buckle bunnies, so little time. She wanted to say she knew him, at least she had. Ten years ago he was a loner who didn’t play well with others. The high school coaches had courted him for team sports but he’d turned them down flat in favor of bull riding. But she didn’t say anything. She just looked at him.

“Okay.” He crossed one booted foot over the other as he continued to lean against the tiled countertop. “Dev Hart called me.”

“Really?”

Dev had a ranch in Destiny and had taken over the stock business from his father. He supplied animals to rodeos all over the country. He and Mitch had rodeoed together in high school. She and Dev were friends.

“Yeah. We’ve kept in touch. The association was in a real bind when the commissioner resigned. Work and family obligations he said. I don’t have those.” He let the sentence hang there. “Dev thought I might be interested in helping out. Since I have business dealings in the area.”

So he wasn’t married. All the willpower in the world couldn’t prevent her insides from doing the dance of joy. But she got the feeling there was more, a still deeper reason. “And?”

“He put the bite on me. It’s no big deal, just temporary. I wouldn’t have agreed to a permanent position.”

“Dev must have had some clue that you would even consider doing it.”

“I guess he did.”

“So what was it?”

“He knew rodeo saved my life.”

Mitch wasn’t sure what had made him say that, especially when he saw the surprised look on Taylor’s face. She tried to hide it, and he found it amazingly appealing that she couldn’t.

There was something about being back in Destiny. More specifically back in this room with Taylor Stevens. He’d been telling the truth when he’d said that he’d hardly known her at first. She had changed—in all the right places. Her light brown hair was shoulder-length and the layers were streaked with gold highlights. Brown eyes full of spirit and intelligence challenged him. She’d been just a kid the last time he’d seen her. That night—

The longer he stood in this kitchen, back on the Circle S, talking to Jen’s little sister, the more he remembered. Feelings washed over him—frustration, yearning, anger that burned into rage and a feeling of helplessness that he rode like a broken-in saddle.

“Saved your life?”

“You know as well as I do that I’m a kid no one wanted.” Not even your sister, he thought. “I could have gone either way.”

“I know your background.”

“That’s a polite way of saying my father walked out before I took my first breath on earth and my mother took off with a construction worker when I was ten.”

“I bet no one’s used that nickname in a long time.”

“Riffraff?”

Why was she bringing all this up? he thought angrily. Taylor already knew and he’d spent all his life trying to live that down. Didn’t make any damn sense.

“That’s the one. It’s ancient history,” she said, completely unimpressed.

He almost smiled. “Not to me. It’s who I am. But I’ve come to terms with it.” That was only half a lie. “But back then, bull riding was all I had. I was good at it.”

“You were the only person I knew who was meaner and madder than those bulls.”

He grinned. “Back then I had reason to be. But I learned some important lessons.”

When he didn’t elaborate, she said, “Don’t keep me in suspense. What did you learn?”

“Don’t nod your head unless you mean it.”

“A bull rider’s number one rule you used to say.”

“I’m surprised you remember that.”

She lifted one shoulder. “I have a good memory.”

Unlike him, he finished for her. There wasn’t much good to remember about that time. Which brought him to his other favorite rule. “I found out there’s something more important than that.”

“Which is?” she asked.

“Don’t count on anyone but yourself.”

He saw the shadow that crossed her pretty face and wondered about it. But not enough to ask. He wasn’t here to get reacquainted. Although he didn’t remember that intriguing indentation in her chin. And he couldn’t help thinking how much fun it would be to explore.

“I don’t think you learned the right lesson,” she said. “Who taught you that?”

“Your sister. Rodeo week. The night I found her having sex with Zach Adams, who just happened to be the overall point winner at the state championships.”