LITMIR.BIZ

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eyes widened. “N-nothing,” she stammered. “I just needed some rest, that's all.”

      “Rest from what?” he persisted. His pale eyes cut into hers. “You're thin. You always were, but not like this. You're pale, too, and you look unwell. What's going on, Margaret? What are you running from? And why run to me?”

      Her face went white. She caught her breath. “As if I would ever run to you…!”

      “Don't be insulting.” He lifted the cigarette to his chiseled lips, watching her. “Talk to me.”

      She was closing up, visibly, her body taut with nerves. “I can't.”

      “You won't,” he corrected. He smiled slowly, but it wasn't a pleasant smile. It was impatient and half angry. “I'm not blind. I know my mother, I know how her mind works. You're the sacrifice, I gather. Are you a willing one, I wonder?”

      “I don't understand,” she said, bewildered.

      “You will,” he promised, making a threat of the words. He got to his feet, more easily now than he had three days ago. He was improving rapidly; he even looked better.

      “I came to visit with Janet—not to get in your way, Gabriel,” she tried one last time, hating her lack of spirit.

      Gabriel seemed frozen in place. It was the first time she'd said his name since she arrived. He looked at her and felt a wave of heat hit him like a whirlwind in the chest. Odd, how it had always disturbed him to look at her, to be around her. She got under his skin. And now it was worse, now that she was vulnerable. It irritated him to see her like this and not know why. Was it an act? Was it part of the plan his mother had mentioned when she'd thought he was out of earshot? He was wary of the whole damned situation, and the way Maggie affected him after all these years was the last straw.

      “In my way, or in my bed, Maggie?” he asked, deliberately provoking. “Because you wanted me when you were sixteen. I knew it, felt it when you looked at me. Do you still want me, honey?”

      Her face paled, and she dropped her eyes to her faded jeans, staring dully at her slender hands. The old Maggie would have snapped back at him. But the old Maggie was dead, a casualty of her marriage to a cruel and brutal man. She felt sick all over.

      “Don't,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “Don't.”

      “Look at me!” He stared down at her with his cold blue eyes until she obeyed him. Dimly, she noticed he was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved chambray shirt with worn, warped leather boots. In one lean, strong hand, a battered gray Stetson dangled. “You and Mother don't have a chance in hell of pulling it off,” he said quietly. “Give it up. I don't want to hurt you.”

      And with that enigmatic statement, he turned and strode angrily out the door.

      She didn't tell Janet about the confrontation. And afterward, she made it her business to be where he wasn't. He glared at her as if he hated her very presence, but she pretended not to notice. And around his mother, at least, he was courteous enough in his cold way.

      She wondered if he'd ever loved anyone or been loved. He seemed so unapproachable; even his men kept their distance unless they had urgent business. He had little to say to them and even less to say to his mother. He seemed to dislike her, in fact, for all that he'd warned Maggie not to cause her any sleepless nights.

      “He keeps everyone at bay, doesn't he?” Maggie asked one afternoon when she was strolling around the yard with Janet. The two women had just watched Gabriel walk away from a man trying to ask a question near the back porch.

      Janet stared after him worriedly, her thin arms folded across her chest. “He always has,” she said. “I don't think he's ever forgiven me for remarrying so soon after his father's death. The fact that he hated my second husband made it worse. He was…badly treated,” she confessed, biting her lower lip as the memories came back. “Stepfathers are reluctant fathers at best. Ben liked Audrey and Robin enough, of course. They were just pretty little girls and no threat to him. But Gabe was a big boy, almost a teenager. He wound up fighting for his very life. Ben shipped him off to a boarding school, and I—” she lowered her eyes “—I was caught between the two of them. I loved them both. But I couldn't find the magic formula for making them live together. It was that way until Ben died. That was when Gabe was just out of the Marine Corps.” She shrugged. “He came back and started to pick up the pieces of his father's ranch—and there were few, because my second husband was much better at spending money than making it. Gabe was bitter about it. He still is.”

      “That doesn't seem enough to make a man as cold as he is.” Maggie probed gently.

      Janet stared toward the tall man who was busy saddling a horse out in the corral. “You might as well know it all,” she said quietly. “The year before Ben died, Gabriel found a young woman who seemed to worship him. He brought her here, to meet us, and she stayed for two weeks. During that time, Ben was very attentive and managed to convince her that he was in control of all the finances here and all the money.” Shamefaced, Janet closed her eyes. “Ben ate up the attention. He was dying, you see. He had cancer, and not long to live. Gabe didn't know. But Ben was so flattered by the girl's attention—he was just a man, after all. I couldn't even blame him. But Gabe lost her, and blamed Ben. And blamed me. Afterward, I tried to tell him, to explain, but he wouldn't listen. He never would. To this day, he doesn't know. You see, Ben actually died of a heart attack. I didn't even tell the girls about the cancer.”

      “Oh, Janet, I'm sorry,” Maggie said, touching the stooped shoulder lightly. “I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have asked.”

      “There, there, it was a long time ago,” the older woman said through a stiff smile. “Gabe, needless to say, never got over it. Nor did he understand why I didn't leave Ben. After Ben died, Gabe came back from the service and stayed here, but the distance between us has been formidable. I think sometimes that he hates me. I've tried so hard, Maggie,” she said softly. “I've tried so hard to show him that I care, that I was sorry, for so many things. I suppose playing Cupid was just another way of making restitution. But even that backfired.”

      “People don't hold grudges forever,” Maggie said gently.

      “Don't they?” Janet replied, and her eyes were on her son, who was just mounting his horse. She shook her head and laughed. “I wonder.”

      “Have you told him about Becky?” Maggie asked suddenly. “Or why I'm really here?”

      “Not yet,” Janet confessed. “I've been waiting for the right time.”

      “He doesn't want me here,” Maggie said. “And perhaps I should go back to San Antonio.”

      “No,” Janet said firmly, “this is my home, too. I have a right to invite people here. He won't stop me. Or you.”

      “Janet, I'm so tired of fighting….”

      “We'll keep out of his way,” Janet assured her. “He'll be back at work in no time, you'll see, and then we'll have the place all to ourselves.”

      But she sounded no more certain than Maggie felt. And her apprehension intensified when Janet hesitantly asked Gabriel the next morning if he had a horse Maggie could ride.

      “Please, I don't need to…” Maggie began quickly, noticing the dangerous look in Gabe's pale eyes.

      “No, I don't have a spare horse,” Gabe replied with a cold glare at Maggie. “I'm trying to get my calves branded, tagged and inoculated, and my herd out to summer pasture. Meanwhile, I'm being driven crazy by new hands who have to be led around like kids, I'm trying to keep supplies on hand with my ranch foreman off on sick leave, I'm a week behind on paperwork that my secretary can't do alone…I don't have time to be hounded by tourists!”

      “Gabriel, there's no need to be rude,” Janet chided.

      He stood up. “She's your guest, not mine,” he told his mother. “If you want her entertained, you entertain her.”

      And without another

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