LITMIR.BIZ

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man who did anything Gussie wanted him to without protest. He had loved her mother so. But even that love hadn’t been enough to make up for the disgrace of what he’d done. He’d betrayed his friends. He hadn’t meant to. It had sounded like a perfectly respectable financial investment, but he’d been played for a fool, and that was what had driven him to suicide.

      Bess cried for all of them. For the father she no longer had. For her mother, who was so weak and foolish and demanding. For Cade, who stood to lose everything on earth he loved. Even for herself, because Cade was forever beyond her reach.

      She was up at the crack of dawn, worn and still half-asleep. She dressed in an old pair of designer jeans and a long-sleeved pink shirt with her boots to go riding. It was cold, so she threw on a jacket, as well. Gussie wouldn’t awaken until at least eleven, so the morning was Bess’s. She felt free suddenly, overwhelmed with relief because she could have a little time to herself after days of grief and mourning.

      She went down to the stable for one last ride on her horse. Tina was a huge Belgian, a beautiful tan-and-white draft horse and dear to Bess’s heart. She’d begged for the animal for her twentieth birthday, and her father had bought Tina for her. She remembered her father smiling as he commented that it would sure be hard to find a saddle that would go across the animal’s broad back. But he’d produced one, and despite his faint apprehension about letting his only child have such an enormous horse, he’d learned, as Bess had, that Tina was a gentle giant. She was never mean or temperamental, and not once had she tried to throw Bess.

      Giving her up would be almost as hard as giving up Spanish House. But there was no choice. There wouldn’t be any place in San Antonio where she could afford to keep a horse. Tina had to go. There had already been two offers for her, but Bess had refused both. One was from a woman with a mean-looking husband, who’d said haughtily that he knew how to handle a horse—all it took was a good beating. The second offer had come from a teenage girl who wanted the horse desperately but wasn’t sure she could come up with the money it would take to buy Tina and then to house and feed her. The girl’s parents didn’t even have a barn.

      She sighed as she saddled Tina and rode her down to the creek. It was a beautiful day for winter, and even though her jacket felt good, it would probably be warm enough to go in her shirtsleeves later. Texas weather was unpredictable, she mused.

      Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the other horse until it was almost upon her. She turned in the saddle to see Cade riding up beside her on his buckskin gelding.

      Her heart ran away. Despite the way they’d parted company the night before, just the sight of him was heaven. But she kept her eyes averted so that he wouldn’t see how hopeless she felt.

      “I thought it was you,” Cade said, leaning over the saddle horn to study her. “You sit that oversize cayuse pretty good.”

      “Thanks,” she said quietly. Any praise from Cade was rare. She shifted restlessly in the saddle and didn’t look at him. She was still smarting from his hurtful remarks of the night before, and she wondered why he’d approached her.

      “But you still haven’t got those stirrups right.”

      “No point now,” she sighed. “She’s going to be sold at auction. This is my last ride.”

      His dark eyes studied her in the silence of open country, flatland reaching to the horizon, vivid blue skies and not a sound except for an occasional barking dog. She was distant, and he had only himself to blame. He hadn’t slept, remembering how he’d treated her the night before.

      “If I could afford her, I’d buy her from you,” he said gently. “But I can’t manage it now.”

      She bit her lower lip. It was so kind...

      “Don’t, for God’s sake, start crying,” he said. “I can’t stand tears.”

      She forced herself not to break down. She shook her head to clear her eyes as she stared at the range and not at him. “What are you doing out here so early?”

      “Looking for you,” he said heavily. “I said some harsh things to you last night.” He bent his head to light a cigarette, because he hated apologies. “I didn’t mean half of them.”

      She turned in the saddle, liking the familiar creak of the leather, the way Tina’s head came up and she tossed her mane. Familiar things, familiar sounds, that would soon be memories. “It’s all right,” she said. The almost-apology brought the light back into her life. She felt so vulnerable with him. “I guess you felt like saying worse, because of all the trouble we’ve caused you and your family.”

      “I told you before that it wasn’t completely your father’s fault.”

      “Yes, but—”

      “What will you do?”

      Her eyes glanced off his and back to the saddle horn. “Go to San Antonio. Mama doesn’t want to, but it’s the only place I can find work.”

      “You can find work?” he exploded.

      She cringed at the white heat in his deep, slow voice. “Now, Cade...”

      “Don’t you ‘Now, Cade’ me!” he said shortly. “There’s nothing wrong with Gussie. Why can’t she go to work and help out?”

      “She’s never had to work,” she said, wondering why she should defend her mother when she agreed wholeheartedly with Cade.

      “I’ve never had to wash dishes, but I could if it came to it,” he returned. “People do what they have to do.”

      “My mother doesn’t,” she said simply. “Anyway,” she added to divert him, “I can get a job as a copywriter. Advertising work pays well.”

      “I wouldn’t know,” he muttered. “I don’t have much contact with cities or city professions. All I know is cattle.”

      “You know them pretty well,” she said with a faint smile. “You were making money when all the other cattlemen were losing theirs.”

      “I’m a renegade,” he said simply. “I use the same methods my great-grandfather did. They worked for him.”

      “They’ll work for you, too, Cade,” she said gently. “I know you can pull the ranch out of the fire.”

      He stared at her silently. She had such unshakable faith in what he could do. All that sweet hero worship was driving him to his knees, even though he knew it couldn’t last. Once she got out from under Gussie’s thumb and felt her wings, there’d be no stopping her. Then, maybe, when she could see him as a man and not a caricature of what he really was, there might be some hope for them. But that looked as if it was a long way off.

      “Don’t let your mother get her hands on those pearls,” he said unexpectedly. “They’ll go the way of anything else she can liquidate.”

      “Yes, I know,” she said, agreeing with him for once. “I told her they were costume jewelry,” she added with a faint smile.

      “It won’t work if she gets a close look at them,” he murmured.

      She knew that, too. “Why do you feel so strongly about them, Cade?” she asked.

      “Because they’re a legacy. Something that’s been in your family a long time, a piece of history for the children you’ll have one day.”

      She felt herself coloring. “I don’t know that I’ll ever have any.”

      “You will,” he said. “So will I. I want half a dozen,” he mused, letting his eyes run over the land, the horizon. “Ranches are tailor-made for big families. This one is big enough for my kids, and for Gary’s and Robert’s, too. Gary’s too city-minded to settle here, and I don’t know about Robert. But it’s in my blood. I’ll never be able to leave it.”

      She’d known that already, but it was new to have him talk to her without the usual cold hostility in his voice.

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