His by Valentine's Day (3 page)

The thought made her smile, something she hadn't done since her run-in a month ago at the National Finals Rodeo with Cade Calloway. Talk about a man with an ego! Wealthy beyond even thinking about. Women practically throwing themselves at him everywhere he went. He spent his days flitting all over the world, buying up companies and re-selling them for profit. He didn't care who got hurt in the process, especially the poor guy--or woman--barely eking by a living working for one of those companies. She hadn't actually read anything about him that said he felt that way, but she suspected it was the truth. "Hopefully, whoever purchases the ranch for the long run will keep you and the men." Yeah right! That never happened the in the real world where big, heartless corporations were concerned. She had heard about the large ranching corporations and knew there was trouble ahead for them all.

She coughed again and felt her chest wall hurting. Stupid, stupid colds! She should be out there helping her ranch hands. She would be, too, if she had the energy even to get dressed. The best she could manage today was dragging her sorry bones downstairs from the loft bedroom still wearing her baggy, pink flannel PJs. Well, she'd also managed to slide her feet into the big fuzzy slippers Alan had given her for Christmas. Now she couldn't even muster the strength to crawl back upstairs and drop into bed again. Lord a'mighty, she was a P-I-T-I-F-U-L mess.

The portable phone rang across the room and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She could ignore it, but not really. She was the ranch manager, after all. It could be important.

Resigned to playing some kind of nice even if she didn't feel like it, she went to pick up the receiver.

"Rolling Hills Ranch," she said with a raw throat, and then coughed.

"You sound terrible," Cade said in surprise.

Considering that she'd had this dang cold for almost a week, her throat was scratchy, her chest felt like a horse had sat on it, and every cell in her body ached, "terrible" probably covered it. Still, his comment annoyed her. Actually, everything about him annoyed her. Almost as much as her ridiculous attraction to him did.

"Shawna, are you still there?" Now he sounded impatient.

She reached for a tissue from the nearly empty box on the end table and coughed mucus into it. Disgusting? Yes. Unladylike? Yes. Did she care? No. Then she cleared her throat and answered him. "Still here, alive but not kicking. Oh, and thanks for the 'sounding terrible' thing. I needed a perk-up."

He chuckled and she wanted to reach through the invisible phone line and strangle him. "You're calling to ruin my day because..." she prompted.

"You're even more of a wise ass when you're sick, I see."

Suddenly she didn't feel like picking at him. Didn't feel like anything more than sinking to the floor and being flat-out miserable. Then she surprised them both by saying, "Sorry. I've had better days. Better weeks, really."

His tone gentled with concern. "Have you been to a doctor?"

She rubbed at her throbbing forehead, and then tried rolling her neck in a circle to ease the ache in her shoulders. All that happened was she got dizzy. Hell. "I'll live. Maybe."

He was quiet a second and she slumped down onto the over-stuffed leather sofa. "Ahhh."

"It sounds like you belong in bed."

Her fever-dumb mind immediately envisioned lying naked on her king-sized bed, face down. An equally naked Cade straddled her legs and gently massaged her back. Then his hands started creeping lower...and lower... "Stay the hell out of my bed!"

"What?"

"Oh, gawd," she mumbled, squeezing her eyes closed in horror. "I didn't just say out loud what I thought I said? Please tell me I didn't."

The impossible man taunted her instead. "So, you're thinking about me in your bed." His added huskily, "I've been thinking about that a lot, too. Thinking about you in my bed."

She curled her free hand into a fist and was disgusted when her body went all girly on her. Her woman's place tingled. Her clit was seriously interested. Annoyed, she huffed. "You know, it isn't nice to pick on a sick person! I'm on death's door here and you're playing mind games with me. That's sooo wrong."

"A cold is hardly 'death's door.' But you're right; I shouldn't be teasing you when you don't feel good." He blew out a sigh that she heard over the line. "Actually, I was calling to say I'm coming to the ranch in a couple of days. Once that storm passes through the area."

Shawna stiffened, sucked in a sharp breath and regretted that. Then she began that another round of coughing. And she shivered, teeth-chattering chills sweeping through her. Oh, perfect! It just gets better and better.

When she managed to stop coughing, she asked bristly, "Why?"

She didn't want him anywhere near the ranch, or her. Especially not near her. He made her think foolish thoughts, made her experience feelings for him that she shouldn't. All she needed to do with him was figure out how to convince him to give her more time to buy the ranch.

"Hmm, let me think. Because I own the place, which gives me a right to come there whenever I so please."

She started to snap back at him but the front door burst open and Scott strode inside. He gave her a quick glance over and said hurriedly, "That crazy horse of yours just busted out of her stall, again. Tore off into the storm. Just wanted you to know. A couple of us will go round her up."

"Bessy got out?" Shawna questioned in distress. Her $50,000 prized barrel racing horse hated storms and made a habit of getting out and running away. She should have expected this to happen. Beyond how valuable the mare was, she loved Bessy with her whole heart. She stood and said anxiously, "I'll get dressed and come with you."

"Let me talk to Terrell," Cade demanded loud enough that both she and Scott heard him.

"There's no time for chit-chat," she protested only to have Scott stride over and take the phone from her.

"You wanted to talk to me," Scott said curiously, giving her a disapproving frown.

Shawna stood next to him and tapped one pink fuzzy slipper in irritation. "We don't have time for this."

He rolled his eyes and had the nerve to look amused. Then he ignored her and talked to Cade. "Yes... No, she doesn't... Even I'm not that gutsy and I wrestle steers." He chortled. "Give it my best shot...Yeah, see you in a couple of days."

Scott punched end and set the phone back in the cradle. He faced her and said calmly, "To summarize, the boss man said--and I agree-- you have no business going out in the storm to find your horse."

She straightened to her full 5'3" height and glowered up a good foot at him. "I'll go if I decide to go. And what was that about you not being gutsy and wrestling steers?" She ruined her tirade by shivering again, something new that had started a short while ago, and then by launching into another coughing jag.

A deep furrow appeared between his eyebrows. "Calloway told me to haul your keister up to bed and put you in it." When her eyes widened in outrage, he added, "'Keister' was my choice of wording. Still, I'm not sure I'm man enough to try it. You can be a tad...well, uncooperative when you're pissed."

Shawna thrust out her chin. "Darn straight." Nobody was carrying her anywhere! Nobody was going to make her stay in bed when Bessy was running around out in this storm.

She started toward the hallway with the intention of going up to change clothes, but each step was costing her. She'd be lucky if she got upstairs at all, let alone back down again. Darn it all. Her body was working against her.

Scott strode in front of her, stopping her. "I can be as stubborn as you, Shawna Donley. You are not going out in this storm. Not when you're pretty damn sick. You need to see a doctor, at least call one. Just like I've been saying for the last three days."

His hard expression warned her he meant business and that he was worried about her. But she didn't back down easily. "I need to..."

He finally lost his patience with her and snarled, "Get in your bed and stay there! I mean it."

Tears misted her aching eyes. There was nothing she hated more than crying in front of anyone, especially her friends. But she was sick; her whole body throbbed from the pain of hacking nearly 24/7 for two days now. Her emotions were completely out of whack.

Scott noticed her tears before she could look away. The fight went right out of him. His broad shoulders slumped beneath his heavy coat. "Please. I'm begging you, darlin'. Crawl into bed and stay there. We'll find that nutty horse of yours and bring her back."

When she bobbed her head in resignation, he sighed in relief. Then he turned and strode out of the house.

She was left to stand there coughing again, fighting back tears of worry over Bessy, and struggling not to call Cade back and rage at him for being so...so... Darn it, so concerned about her!

* * *

Two days later Cade was still thinking about how no other woman had ever stayed in his thoughts so much. And no other woman had ever caused him so much trouble. He'd called the ranch at least four times yesterday trying to find out about Shawna, without actually talking to her. He'd talked to Alan. He'd talked to Scott. And he'd talked to a couple of others. Every one of them was deeply worried about their stubborn "boss lady"--as they called her. She never got sick. They didn't know how this had happened. But she absolutely, positively refused to go into town to see the doctor. She didn't like taking prescriptions. She would get well on her own, or so she kept telling them all. But it wasn't happening.

He glanced at the GPS, watching for the next turn. He should have come yesterday instead of just calling. He'd have dragged her kicking and screaming to a doctor. Instead he'd called an old friend, an ex-lover, and relayed every bit of symptoms that he'd known to her. Dr. Samantha Wilson had proceeded to make him worry even more than he already had been. Pneumonia, probably. Could be walking pneumonia, but it sounded like she was getting worse. Not good.

He'd researched pneumonia, walking pneumonia and bronchitis on the Internet. And he wished he hadn't. There was a possibility that if she didn't start improving, she could die. It happened, rarely, but it happened. Usually with older people or younger children. But it could happen to Shawna and that was totally unacceptable.

No way in hell was he going to let that happen! He'd brought prescription antibiotics that Samantha had written out for him, although she would prefer he take Shawna to see a doctor first. He'd brought other stuff, too. Vitamins, cough syrups, headache medicine, medicines for fevers, a case of tissue, and much more. He'd all but emptied the shelves of the first drug store he'd found after leaving the airport. And he had cleared his schedule for the next week--much to his assistant's horror. He fully intended to stay here and see that Shawna got well. Call him Mr. Nursemaid, because that was exactly what he planned on being until he got his way. And he always got his way in things!

As he turned onto the partially cleaned off ranch road, Cade studied the land covered with at least six inches of snow and shuddered. He had hoped it would be gone by now. It didn't look like the storm had even ended until sometime yesterday, and not much had melted. In his opinion, snow was only good if you were skiing and then doing some serious drinking around a nice roaring fire after that. This ranch was far from a relaxing ski lodge. He was out of his element here. But he would adjust.

He dodged a deep snow rut, thinking about Samantha. He had met her several years ago at one of those ski lodges. Oh, yes, she'd made that weekend very enjoyable...and they'd continued being lovers off and on for over a year. They had been pretty good together, for a while. She had fit his lifestyle and had no problem with his preferences about getting together for great sex and then going their separate ways. She was a highly sought after physician with Doctors Without Borders, so she didn't have a lot of time for a real relationship anyway. He couldn't remember exactly, but he'd probably been the one to drift away first. She'd been delighted he'd called and he'd sensed she wouldn't have minded renewing their former relationship. He'd not encouraged the idea and she hadn't pressed him.

But thinking about her, and about all the women he'd been with over the last fifteen or more years, he felt uncomfortable...a bit ashamed. He enjoyed women, really enjoyed sex with a willing woman who wasn't interested in a commitment either. He'd always gone into a relationship being up-front with the woman. He always made sure she understood that settling down would never be his thing. His actions had never bothered him before.

Crazy as it was, Shawna made him see his life differently. They hadn't actually spent much time together, the bulk of it being when he'd spanked her that first time he came to the ranch. She hadn't been impressed by him in any way, and yet he'd sensed her physical interest in him. It was clear she thought him a worthless playboy, probably thanks to the numerous magazine articles that exaggerated his affairs...well, only slightly exaggerated them, if he were honest with himself. Still, he didn't like her feeling that way about him. Yes, getting her to change her opinion of him would be a challenge. He couldn't remember a woman ever turning him down when he'd showed any interest in her. Certainly his wealth, his power as a major player in the business world, and his reputation as a skilled lover had always worked to his advantage before. But not with Shawna. No, all of it seemed to work against him this time. Interesting.

The big, two-story stone and log house came into view, pulling his thoughts away from the strength of his desire for Shawna. He knew the house had been built nearly seventy-five years ago by a previous owner, but that's all he knew about the place. He hadn't even taken the time to look inside it or really look at any of the numerous ranch buildings when he'd been here in November. Shawna had distracted him too much. She'd been distracting him ever since then as well. He could not get her out of his mind.

He drove through slushy puddles toward the heart of the ranch. As he drew nearer the main house, he spotted Scott Terrell striding out of the much smaller house to the side of the bigger one. The big man didn't look happy. Cade was pretty sure his attitude had something to do with Shawna.