LITMIR.BIZ

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at that.”

      “Get down for a bit.” He swung gracefully out of the saddle and helped her down, while she tried to control an irrational urge to throw her arms around him and hang on. Her heart was beating wildly when he put her down and moved quickly away to tie the horses separately to small trees.

      He stood on the banks of the creek, leaning back against a big oak, smoking his cigarette while he studied the small flow of water over the rocks. He was wearing denims and a blue-checked shirt with his shepherd’s coat and a battered old tan Stetson, and to Bess’s eyes he looked the very picture of a working cowboy. His boots, like his hat, were worn with use, and he was wearing working spurs—bronc spurs, in fact, small rowels with pincer edges around them that looked fierce but only pulled the hair of the animal they were used on. A horse’s hide was tough and not easily damaged if the right kind of spurs were worn, and Cade knew the right kind to wear.

      “You’ve been breaking horses,” she said, because she knew from experience that he only wore those particular spurs when he was riding new additions to the remuda.

      “Helping Dally,” he corrected. Dally was the ranch’s wrangler, and a good one. “We compromised. He wanted to take three years and I had three weeks, so he turns his back while I help him break them to the saddle. Besides, it’s good practice for the rodeo.”

      She knew that he competed at rodeos all around the Southwest and that he won a lot. He needed the money to help prop up Lariat.

      “It’s dangerous work.” She remembered so well the cowhand several years ago who’d had his back broken when a bronc slung him off against the barn wall. “You pulled that tendon...”

      “I barely limp at all now,” he said. “And any ranch work is dangerous.” He turned his head and looked at her, and she could see the light of challenge in his dark eyes. “That’s why I enjoy it.”

      “Race-car drivers,” she murmured. “Mountain climbers. Skydivers. Ranchers—”

      “Not to mention little girls who buy oversize horses,” he inserted, nodding toward Tina, who was towering over his own buckskin.

      “She’s terribly gentle.”

      “I guess so. Your father and I had words over her, but he finally convinced me that you’d be safe.”

      She went warm all over to think that he’d been concerned about her. He’d never said anything to her, and neither had her father.

      “But Gussie never cared, did she?” he asked pointedly, his cold eyes holding hers. “Not about seeing you trampled by an oversize horse or anything else. Unless it interfered with her comfort.”

      “Not again,” she said, grimacing. “Cade...”

      “She doesn’t give a damn about you. Can’t you see that? My God, Bess, you’ve got enough problems without taking on Gussie for life.”

      “It won’t be for life,” she began.

      “It will,” he said solemnly. “She’ll never let go. She’s like a leech. She’ll suck you dry and leave you the first time some rich man dangles a diamond over her head.”

      It was the truth. But she wasn’t strong like Cade. She never could say no to Gussie. How could she desert her own mother?

      “You’re thirty-four,” she pointed out. “And you still live at home and take care of your own mother and both your brothers—”

      “That’s different,” he returned curtly. “I’m strong enough to shoulder the responsibility.”

      “Oh, of course you are,” she said softly, her eyes adoring him. “You’ve had to be. But the point I’m making is that you’ve got all that responsibility and you’ve never turned your back on your own people or refused to do for them. How can you expect me not to do for my mother?”

      He stared at her quietly. “At home Gary keeps the books and Robert handles the sales. Gary’s engaged and won’t be around much longer, and Robert keeps talking about going to San Antonio to find work. I don’t know how much longer they’ll be here. But my mother takes care of a yardful of chickens and a gaggle of geese, which we use for pest control in the garden that she keeps every year. She sews and cleans and cooks. She cans and even helps out at roundup when she has to. I don’t mind providing for a woman like that.”

      “I guess my mother would faint if she had to get near a horse,” Bess mused. “But we lived in a different world from yours.”

      That was the wrong thing to say. It hurt him. No, he couldn’t imagine Gussie around horses, or Bess cleaning and cooking and planting a garden. His face hardened. She was meant for some rich man’s house, where everything would be done for her. A poor man was hardly her cup of tea.

      “I’ve got to get back to work,” he said curtly. “When are you leaving for San Antonio?”

      “Tomorrow,” Bess said sadly. “We’ve left all the details to our attorney, and Tina goes to a stable this afternoon to be boarded until they sell her.” She shrugged. “I’m not having much luck with it, I’m too softhearted.”

      “Amen.” He paused just in front of her, smelling of the whole outdoors and faint cologne and smoke, smells that were familiar and exciting because they always reminded her of him. “Don’t kill yourself for Gussie.”

      She looked up, her eyes soft and misty with tears she didn’t want to shed. “I’ll...miss you,” she said, and tried to smile.

      “Do you think I won’t miss you?” he asked, and it was the severest test of his control he’d ever had. The mask slipped, and some of the hunger he felt for her showed in his glittering dark eyes.

      She almost gasped. It was such a shock, to know that he felt even a fraction of the longing she did.

      “But you don’t care about me,” she whispered. “You don’t even want me, you proved it—”

      “I’m in an impossible situation here,” he interrupted gruffly. “It isn’t going to improve. You’ve got Gussie around your neck like an albatross and you have to get used to being an ordinary woman, not a debutante. Those are obstacles neither of us can get around.”

      Her lips parted. The hunger was so staggering that she felt her knees wobbling under her. “What if there...were no obstacles?” she asked breathlessly.

      His jaw hardened and his eyes roved over her face. “My God, don’t you know?” he asked roughly.

      Her hand went out slowly toward his chest, but he caught her wrist and held it away from him. The contact was electric, his warmth penetrating her blood. “No,” he said, letting go of her, watching her blush. “It’s better not to start things when there’s no hope of finishing them.”

      “I see.” She did, but it hurt all the same. Her eyes searched his hungrily. “Goodbye, Cade.”

      The tears in her eyes made him feel homicidal. He could hardly bear them. “If things get too rough, let me know.”

      Tears overflowed down her cheeks, soundless, all the more poignant for the lack of sound.

      “Stop that,” he ground out and turned away, because he knew exactly what was going to happen if he didn’t. He was already trembling with the need to grind her body into his and kiss the breath out of her. But kissing was intoxicating and addictive. If he started that with Bess, he might not be able to stop in time. Gentlemen didn’t seduce virgins—he’d been raised to believe that, and his strict upbringing reared its head every time he looked at Bess with desire.

      “I’m sorry I did that,” Bess said after a minute, wiping her eyes. “You’ve been so much kinder about all this than I expected. That’s all.”

      “I don’t feel particularly kind,” he said shortly. He turned back to her. “But if you need help, all you ever have to do is call. Watch yourself when Gussie has male

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