His Texas Wildflower (16 page)

“It's getting dark,” he murmured huskily. “We'd better mount up and get back.”

She gazed at him for long moments, then with a wistful sigh, she placed a kiss on his cheek. “Give me just a few minutes longer, Jake. Please.”

How could he deny her, he asked himself, when all he wanted to do was hold her forever?

“All right,” he murmured. “We'll go in a little while.”

He held her quietly in his arms until dusk faded into darkness and a crescent moon appeared above the jagged line of mountains to the east. After that they dressed quickly, mounted their horses and headed them homeward.

The ride back to the house was done mainly in silence, while they carefully maneuvered the horses through sagebrush and clumps of cacti. Rebecca seemed lost in thought and Jake could hardly resent her quietness. Especially when his own mind was absorbed with questions and doubts. Something had changed her or the both of them on that grassy bed. And once they'd left it to dress and return to the real world, he'd felt certain he would never be the same man. As for Rebecca he could only guess what was going on inside her.

She'd clung to him as though she loved him. Yet he told himself that couldn't be the reason why she'd wanted to stay in his arms with her cheek pressed against the beat of his heart. That idea—that she could possibly
love him—was too incredible for Jake to wrap his mind around.

When they reached the barn, Jake unsaddled both horses and while Rebecca poured a bucket of feed into Starr's trough, he loaded the tack and Banjo into his trailer for the trip back to the Rafter R.

Once the animals had been dealt with, Rebecca invited him into the house for a light supper of cold-cut sandwiches and iced tea. Throughout the simple meal, their conversation came and went in brief, awkward spurts. Until finally, Jake reached across the little table and brought her chin up with his forefinger.

“What's wrong, Rebecca? And don't tell me it's all this stuff about Gertrude and your parents. I already know you're upset about that. There's something else. Tell me.”

She closed her eyes and swallowed. “I can't explain what's wrong, Jake. I guess today, after talking with my mother—” She broke off and with a shake of her head, let out a humorless laugh. “Dear God, I can't call Gwyn my mother anymore, can I? Because she isn't or wasn't. She's my aunt. Gertrude was my mother.”

“Rebecca—”

“I'm sorry, Jake. I'm not going to say any more about her or what happened. I just—well, I guess the whole thing has confused me. And I realize that these past few weeks that I've been here in New Mexico I—I've been living in limbo.”

An ominous chill crept down Jake's spine. “What does that mean?”

She gave him a long, searching look, one that made Jake feel cowardly and worthless. Two things he'd never felt in his life.

You'll be like your father until the day you die.
Oh,
God, why were his mother's words haunting him now? Jake wondered. Because she was right about him? Because he lacked what it took to be a man who could faithfully love one woman?

She reached for his hand and clung to it tightly.

“It means that I've been going through the motions of living without really knowing who I am or where I belong. I wanted to think I belonged here. But I'm beginning to see I—well, that I'm deluding myself.”

“I thought you liked it here.”

Her gaze swung away from him as she pulled her hand back to her side of the table. “I was. I do,” she said. “But I need to do more than just exist. And I—well, I have nothing to hold me here.”

That cut him deep. So deep that he could feel the blood drain from his face. Did she think of him as nothing?

Whoa, Jake. Before you go getting all hurt and bothered, you'd better stop and take a good look at this situation—at yourself. You've had some incredible sex with this woman, but you never told her what it's meant to you. What she means to you. How can you expect her to see you as anything more than a passing affair?

The voice traipsing through Jake's thoughts brought him up short. For a minute there he'd almost forgotten that Rebecca was only a temporary pleasure in his life. That was all he'd set out to have and he couldn't expect to have more with her now.

“You have this place and the animals.”

Avoiding his gaze, she rose from the table and carried her plate over to the sink. With her back to him, she said, “Yes. But I have to have a means to live. Gert—my mother left me a nice sum of money and I do have some
of my own saved. But all of that will go quickly if I'm not working.”

“And your job is in Houston.” He knew his voice sounded flat, maybe even accusing. But dammit, he didn't want her to go. He wasn't ready to give her up. Not just yet.

“Well, I really doubt there's any need for a fashion buyer around these parts.” With a wry smile, she turned to face him. “And I'm not trained to do anything else.”

In spite of the warmth of the kitchen, he felt cold, his face stiff. “I'm sure it's a very good job and that you do it well.”

She drew in a long breath and let it out as though she was exhausted. Jake stared at her and wondered how things had quickly moved from making love to this?

“I've put in years of college and long, hard hours of work to get to the coveted position I have. I'm putting it all in jeopardy by hanging on here.”

With a shake of his head, he rose from the table and walked over to her. “You didn't seem all that concerned about your job before. I don't understand this sudden change in you, Rebecca. Earlier—out by the windmill—were you already thinking this?”

Her gaze dropped to her feet as a blush washed her cheeks with pink. “Not exactly, Jake. I— To be honest, there's nothing sudden about it. I've been thinking about this every day. And tonight, as we rode home, I realized I couldn't put it off any longer. I—I'm going back to Houston.”

She might as well have slapped him, Jake thought. And then it dawned on him. For the first time in his life, he was getting exactly what he'd dished out to his lady friends over the years. A few romps between the sheets
and then a quick goodbye. He'd just learned how it felt to be on the receiving end.

But in his defense, he'd never given any of those women rosy promises or pledges of love, he thought.

And Rebecca never gave them to you, either.

Wiping a hand over his face, he turned and walked to the middle of the room. Beau was lying just inside the screen door and the sight of the dog made it somehow even harder to deal with her decision. He'd thought she loved the dog. But then, he'd begun to think that she might love him. What a fool thought that had been.

“I see. So what about Beau and the rest of the animals?”

She didn't answer immediately and he glanced over his shoulder to see her wiping her eyes. And suddenly he was angry. Angrier than he'd ever felt in his life. Why hadn't she packed up and left a long time ago? he wondered. Why in hell had she stuck around and made him and the animals fall in love with her?

“I want Starr to have acreage to roam over instead of taking her back to Houston and confining her in a stable. And since I live in an apartment that doesn't allow pets, I'll have to find homes for the cats and Beau with someone around here.”

“They already have a home,” he said gruffly. “They'll be lost anywhere else.”

Lifting her head, she looked at him with an anger that matched his own. “Don't make this any harder for me than it already is, Jake.”

Turning, he walked back to her and gestured around the small kitchen. “What about this place? What are you going to do with it? Sell it?”

Her nostrils flared at his accusing tone. He made it
sound like she was a criminal for leaving. “This was my mother's home. I'll never sell it for any reason.”

“You just won't live here.”

She shot him a daring stare. “Why should I?”

“Why should you?” Earlier he'd laid his hat on top of the refrigerator. Now he pulled down the stained gray Stetson and levered it onto his head. “If you have to ask, Rebecca, then I sure can't tell you.”

She took a halting step in his direction. “You have no right to be judgmental with me, Jake.”

That was true enough, he thought ruefully. Where she was concerned, he had no right to feel anything, think anything. And the less he did, the better off he'd be.

Closing the space between them, he touched a hand to her cheek. “I'm sorry, Rebecca. I don't want our time together to be marred by these last words between us. That's why…I'm going to say goodbye. And if you do decide to come back, you know where to find me.”

So they could have another casual affair? Rebecca was tempted to fling the loaded question at him. But he robbed her of the chance by quickly turning and walking out the door.

Seconds later she heard the engine of his truck fire to life and then the rattle of the trailer as he pulled away. In the far distance she heard Starr nicker loudly and the sound of the mare calling out for Banjo to come back to her brought a wall of tears to Rebecca's eyes.

She wanted Jake to come back, too. She ached for him to walk back into the kitchen, take her into his arms and tell her that he loved her. That the only place she belonged was with him.

But she'd given him all kinds of chances to speak the words, to ask her not to go. Instead, he'd said goodbye and now she had to deal with a breaking heart.

As she tried to fight back her tears, she felt something cold and wet nudge against her hand. Glancing down, she saw Beau's sad eyes staring up at her, as though he knew their time together was over.

It was more than Rebecca could bear and she dropped to her knees and hugged the dog close to her breast.

T
hree weeks later, Jake was walking from the barn to his house when the sound of a vehicle had him looking over his shoulder to see Quint's truck coming up the driveway.

The sight of his friend at this late hour was a bit surprising. Once Quint had gotten a family, he didn't roam from the Golden Spur after working hours, unless he had to deal with some sort of business outside of the ranch.

Jake waited for his friend to park and climb to the ground before he walked over to join him at the side of the truck.

“Hey, bud, what are you doing over here at this hour? It's nearly dark.”

“Maura sent me on a mission,” Quint explained, then reached inside the back door and pulled out a long casserole dish covered with aluminum foil. “She thinks
you're starving to death so she made something to tempt you.”

With a wry shake of his head, Jake asked, “What makes her think I'm in need of food?”

Quint shoved the glass dish at him, forcing Jake to accept it before it fell to the ground. “When you came by the Golden Spur yesterday, she said you looked thin and terrible. Her words. Not mine.”

“Well, I should have known my good looks would start to go sooner or later,” Jake tried to joke, then inclined his head toward the house. “Let's go inside and have a beer.”

“You finished with the evening chores?” Quint asked as they walked through a gate and across the front lawn.

Unlike Quint, who had a roster of hands to deal with the mundane chores of feeding, watering and spreading hay, Jake only had two men to help with the everyday tasks. Sometimes it was long after dark before they were finished and the men headed for home. “Yeah. Before you drove up I was down at the cow lot. I got a problem.”

“What's wrong?”

“A hell of a lot!”

At the house, the two men entered a side door that led them directly in the kitchen. While Jake set the casserole on the cabinet counter, Quint straddled one of the tall stools at a breakfast bar.

“I'm waiting,” Quint prodded. “What's happened?”

“Nothing. That's what's happened. This morning me and the guys pregnancy tested the herd on the east range. Ten of the cows are empty. And you know what that means—ten less calves this spring!” Jake went to the refrigerator and pulled out two long-necked beers.
After shoving one in Quint's direction, he twisted the top off the one he was holding and downed a third of the contents.

Quint eyed him closely. “So how many cows did you have in that herd? Two hundred? Two-fifty?”

Jake grimaced. “Two hundred and thirty.”

“Well, ten out of that many is not a big enough percentage to raise a ruckus over. This kind of thing happens to every rancher.”

“Yeah, I know. But that doesn't make it any easier to take,” Jake muttered.

“Have you had the bull tested?”

Jake shook his head. “I don't see any need for that. The rest of the cows in his herd are all carrying calves. That's what makes it so bad. I'll have to sell and replace them. And with the cows being open, I'll hardly get a decent market price.”

“I doubt it. But that's part of ranching, too. There will always be ups and downs in the business. This is just one of those downs and if I were you, I'd call it a very minor one.”

Jake shot him a cynical glare. “You would. Ten cows wouldn't count much to you.”

Quint plopped the beer bottle down on the bar with a heavy thud. “Dammit, Jake, don't talk to me that way! Every cow on my ranch is important to me. Right now I have twenty that are too old to calve anymore. They've not produced in two years and they never will again. But I don't have the heart to send them to slaughter. So I feed and care for them just like the others. It's not good business sense, but it makes Maura happy. And I guess, to be honest, it makes me happy, too.”

Heaving a weary breath, Jake walked over to a pine farm table and sank into a chair at one end. He felt awful
and spouting off to the man who'd been like a brother since they were very small boys, only made him feel worse.

“Sorry, Quint. I didn't mean that like it sounded. But you can absorb the loss much easier than I can.”

Quint mouthed a curse word. “You're not exactly poor, Jake. Not anymore.”

They both knew he was referring to the dividends he received from shares of the Golden Spur Mine. And Quint was basically right in saying Jake wasn't poor anymore. He owned more valuable assets now than he'd ever dreamed possible. Yet he still couldn't think of himself as solvent. Maybe that was because he'd never felt confident that he could hang on to all he'd acquired.

“I believe you ought to have the bull checked,” Quint went on. “I don't see ten cows having a fertility problem. But that's just my opinion.”

Jake stared at him. “If the bull is the problem that's even worse! Replacing him would take a hunk of money!”

Quint frowned. “Look, Jake, if you're so worried about taking losses, then you might as well pack up and sell this place, because every good rancher knows he's going to take some hammering at times!”

Jake's gaze slipped to the beer bottle he was gripping with both hands. “I'm thinking about doing just that!”

“What?”

The incredulous tone in Quint's voice had Jake looking up at his longtime buddy. “You heard me right,” he muttered. “I'm thinking about…doing something else.”

With slow, purposeful movements, Quint climbed down from the stool and walked over to the table. “What are you talking about?”

The censure in Quint's voice made Jake feel even worse. Like it was possible to feel worse, he thought grimly. His mind, his whole body felt as if he'd been whipped, beaten down by a hand that he couldn't see or defend himself against.

“I was at the track a couple of days ago and—”

“I should have known,” Quint interrupted with disgust. “You just can't stay away from that place, can you?”

Angry now, Jake glared at him. “And why the hell should I? Shoeing racehorses, managing the stables, those jobs made me a living for many years, Quint. And I have good friends there. Friends that don't preach to me because I'm not perfect,” he added hotly.

The caustic remark didn't send Quint packing out the door. Instead, he eased down in the seat across from Jake and gave his friend a long, troubled look. “All right, Jake,” he said quietly. “I'm sorry. I was out of line and I shouldn't have said anything about you visiting the track. I understand that place will always be a part of you.”

“Damn right it will. And they've offered me a huge salary to come back to work.”

Quint stiffened. “Are you considering taking it?”

Jake couldn't look him square in the face. “Maybe.”

Shaking his head, Quint mouthed a curse word under his breath. “So you're just going to throw all this away? All you've worked for?”

“Look, Quint, I'm not cut out for this. In the end, I'll probably lose it all, anyway. Better to sell out and get what I can while the getting is good.”

“That's a hell of a thing to say!” Quint spat. “And I don't know where this thinking of yours is coming from. You were my ranch foreman for a few years—
you know everything
about ranching. Your dad—”

“My dad is gone!” Jake interrupted flatly. “So don't go trying to bring him into this!”

Unfazed by Jake's anger, Quint said, “The man taught you a lot about horses and cattle.”

And women, Jake thought bitterly. Oh, yes, Lee Rollins had charmed them, loved them and left them. Just like Jake. Until one important woman had come along. Until Rebecca had taught him that giving up his heart was something entirely different.

When Jake didn't reply, Quint leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “All right, Jake, my father is gone, too. So what do you think we ought to do? Sit here and cry in our beer? Convince ourselves that we're losers?”

Jake glared at him. “Sometimes you can be a real bastard, Quint, and if we were eight years old again, I'd knock your head off. Or at least try.”

Quint shrugged a shoulder. “If that would make you feel any better, we can go outside and pretend we're eight years old again.”

Realizing the absurdity of that notion, Jake scrubbed his face with both hands and let out a long, weary breath. “Things were simple back then, weren't they?” he asked softly. “We both had fathers and I had no idea that mine was going to leave me behind.”

Quint leaned forward and laid a hand on Jake's shoulder. “I thought you weren't going to let that—him—hurt you anymore.”

“I believed I'd put it all behind me,” he admitted, “until Rebecca came.”

“Ah.”

The one knowing word from Quint put a rueful twist to Jake's lips. “Yeah. I guess she reminded me all over again what it's like to lose someone you care about.”

Quint studied him for long moments. “The racetrack, this ranch, the land, you're not agonizing over any of those things, Jake. You're just learning that none of it means a damn thing without someone to love. And someone to love you back.”

Pain smacked the middle of Jake's chest and he fixed his gaze on the tabletop in hopes that his friend wouldn't be able to spot the misery.

“Well, she doesn't. Love me back, that is,” Jake muttered.

“How do you know?” Quint countered. “I doubt you asked her.”

“I didn't have to. She left. That was the answer she gave me.”

“Did you give her any reason to stay?”

Jake looked dismally up at him. “No. I don't guess I did.”

 

A week later, Rebecca lifted the stainless steel lid covering the main course of her dinner and gave the piece of glazed salmon a disinterested glance. It might have whetted her appetite if she'd gone down to the hotel restaurant instead of ordering room service, she thought. At least she could have sat among the other diners and pretended she wanted to eat. Now the food was growing cold and she had little desire to fork any of it to her mouth.

Across the opulent hotel room, piled upon the bed, were a countless number of flowing ruffled dresses, lightweight spring jackets, handbags, shoes and chunky pieces of jewelry. All of which she'd collected at today's fashion bazaar. None of those things interested her, either.

With a heavy sigh, she walked over to the outer wall
of plate glass and stared out at the dark night. The twinkling lights of the Chicago skyline stretched endlessly in all directions and directly below on the well-lit street, people were entering and exiting cabs as they made their way to some of the nearby nightspots.

There were times when an assistant traveled with Rebecca, but this time she'd made the trip alone to the Midwest Fashion Fair. Yet even if a friend had accompanied her, she wouldn't have had any desire to go out for a night on the town.

Face it, Rebecca, you're confused, miserable and missing Jake Rollins something fierce.

The voice going off in her head was suddenly interrupted by the ring of her cell phone.

Turning away from the untouched meal, she walked over to the nightstand where she'd left the phone and immediately frowned. She'd expected the caller to be her boss, Arlene, but the number illuminated on the front of the instrument was totally unfamiliar.

And then it dawned on Rebecca that the area code she was seeing was from New Mexico! Dear God, could it be Jake?

Snatching up the instrument, she fumbled it open and finally managed to slap it next to her ear. “Hello,” she answered in a rush.

“Rebecca? That you?”

Stunned to hear Abe Cantrell's voice, she sank weakly onto the edge of the bed. Had something happened to Jake and the older man had called to let her know? The mere idea left her hands trembling.

“Yes, this is Rebecca. How are you, Abe?”

“Fine and dandy. Been sittin' outside watchin' the sunset and it was mighty pretty. Made me think of you. So I gave you a call to see how you're doin'.”

A hot, painful lump filled her throat. While she'd lived on her mother's place, she'd not spent a great deal of time with her elderly neighbor, but enough to get to know and love him. Before she'd left for Houston, she'd told Abe about Gertrude being her mother and how confused and hurt the whole thing had left her. Surprisingly, Abe had understood her distress more than any of her friends in Houston. Perhaps that was because he was much older and wiser. Or maybe she'd simply opened up to him more. Either way, his thoughtful support had bonded her to him in a way she'd not expected.

“Well, right now I'm sitting in a hotel room in Chicago,” she told him.

“You on a vacation?”

Rebecca closed her eyes as images of everything she'd come to love in New Mexico swam to the forefront of her thoughts. “Nothing that pleasant. I'm on a business trip. My job requires a lot of traveling.”

“Went right back to work, did you? Guess that means you haven't had time to miss much about this place back here.”

“Actually, I—I've been missing everything out there.”

He said, “Your mother's place looks deserted now. I don't like seeing it that way.”

Before she'd left for Houston, Abe had taken her animals and given them a nice home on Apache Wells. Another reason she was very grateful to the man.

She said, “It would be better if I could find a nice little family to live there and keep the place maintained. Maybe you know of someone?”

“I'd rather see you there.”

She swallowed hard as she struggled to blink back a wall of tears. “Well, you know how it is, Abe, a person
has to work to keep their head afloat.” She cleared her throat, then asked, “How is Beau?”

“After you left he moped around for a few days. But he's okay now. I never was one to have a dog for a buddy, but he can't seem to shake me and I can't seem to shake him, so we're stuck together. The cats are in mouse heaven down at the barn and Starr has made a few friends in the remuda. And I know you didn't ask me to, but I sent someone to mow your grass. Just in case you decide to come back.”