The Cowboy (9 page)

If she were meeting him for the first time, she might have been a little frightened. He looked dark and dangerous. But this man was no stranger. She knew his body as well as she knew her own. And she wasn’t going to be intimidated into dancing with him.

She cocked her head and said, “You’re a little late, aren’t you, cowboy?”

“Did you think I wasn’t coming?” Trace replied, his lips curving in a winsome smile.

She refused to be charmed. “The dance is over.”

“Not quite,” Trace said, as the band began playing “Crazy,” a slow, sentimental Patsy Cline tune.

“I have to watch the punch bowl.” Callie was appalled to realize that she was breathless and that her pulse was racing.

“I’m here, Callie,” Lou Ann said with a smile, as she stepped up beside Callie. “Trace and Dusty and I were going over some figures in the house. Sorry I’m so late getting back to relieve you. Trace told me you’d promised him a dance.”

Callie stared at Trace’s outstretched hand, looked up to catch the gleam in his eye and the arrogant arch of his brow, and realized how neatly she’d been trapped.

It’s only a dance. One dance can’t matter.

Callie set her hand in the one Trace held outstretched to her. It was warm and strong, the fingertips rough and callused. She shivered as the flat of his hand palmed the small of her back. She rested her hand on his shoulder, feeling the hard, too-familiar play of muscle and bone beneath her fingertips.

This isn’t the same man you once loved
, she reminded herself. She looked for changes and found them.

His nose had a bump on the bridge that hadn’t been there in college, and he had a new scar running through his left eyebrow. She realized she had no idea what he’d been doing during the long years he’d been gone from Texas, or even where he’d been. Except, whatever he’d been doing had kept him outside, because the sun and the wind had etched lines around his eyes and mouth. And his work had required physical labor, because his shoulders
seemed broader and his body looked even leaner and harder than it had when he was a younger man.

“Do you remember the last time we danced, Callie?” Trace asked as he moved her around the sawdusted wooden floor to the seductive country tune.

Callie felt her heart skip a beat. She wondered if there was any significance to his question. The last time they had danced was in college, on Valentine’s Day. They had left the dance floor that night and driven out into the hill country to a spot along the Colorado River where they could be alone, with only the stars overhead and the cool grass beneath them.

She remembered how much they’d laughed that night, how boyishly Trace had smiled at her in the moonlight, before he pulled her sweater up over her head, leaving her wearing only a plain white bra. It was the only time she had truly regretted being poor. She’d wished she had on some expensive French lingerie, something made of delicate lace that would make her beautiful for him.

Trace hadn’t minded. He’d grinned and told her how glad he was that the bra clasp was at her back, because he had an excuse to put his arms around her. He’d made her feel beautiful without the need for rich, expensive things.

That long, lazy night they had spent together on the banks of the Colorado, they’d loved one another with reverence and abandon and delight. She had become a woman in his arms that night. And they had created their son.

“I remember,” she murmured.

“I found you enchanting, Callie.” He turned her in a circle that forced their bodies close.

Callie barely had time to register the fact that he’d
phrased his compliment in the past tense before he added, “You look tired.”

“It’s been a long day,” she said, aggravated that she could feel hurt that he no longer found her enchanting. She kept her eyes determinedly focused over his shoulder. She considered staying silent, but decided it would be safer to direct the conversation herself. “Congratulations on winning the bid on the number twenty-three animal. Smart Little Doc was a steal at $76,000.”

“That colt you got wasn’t bad, either,” he said.

“You mean the one colt you let me have.” Callie bit her tongue to keep from saying more.

“I didn’t expect you to return after you left the stands,” Trace said. “Why did you?”

“My father called me a quitter.”

He hesitated, then said, “And you’re not?”

“You left me, Trace, not the other way around.”

“And now I’m back,” he said quietly.

“You’ve been back nearly four months,” she said, her eyes flashing. “Today is the first I’ve seen of you. Am I supposed to fall at your feet—or into your bed? I’m a widow now, the mother of two children.”

His jaw flexed. “I’m not likely to forget either condition. That doesn’t change the fact that I still find you desirable.”

“But not enchanting?” Callie flushed as she realized what she’d revealed.

“I never said you weren’t enchanting, Callie,” he said as he met her gaze. “I merely observed that you look tired, which you do. You’ve obviously been working too hard. I could make life easier for you, if you’d let me.”

“More Blackthorne charity? I don’t need it, and I don’t want it.”

“You may not want it. But you need it,” Trace contradicted.

Callie refused to argue the point.

“Since Dusty’s bum leg put him out of business, I need someone to train my new stud for the Futurity,” he said. “I’ll pay you a premium wage for your time and half the purse, if Smart Little Doc finishes in the top ten.”

“I will never, ever work for you.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Callie.” He pulled her close so her breasts grazed his chest.

She pushed at his shoulder, caught a neighbor watching with raised brows, and muttered, “Let me go, Trace.”

“The dance isn’t over, Callie.”

He might as well have said
I’m not done with you.
She’d gotten the message loud and clear. “We don’t know each other anymore, Trace. We might as well be strangers.”

“I know you in every way there is for a man to know a woman.”

“I’ve changed,” she said. “I’m not the girl who fell foolishly in love with you.”

His eyes focused intently on her. “So much the better.”

“What do you want from me?”

“That should be obvious.”

His hand pressed against the small of her back, drawing her close enough to feel his hardness against her softness. A frisson of awareness streaked through her. She gasped, tried to catch the sound, but was too late.

“Look at me, Callie,” he commanded.

Callie tried to jerk free, but Trace tightened his hold. She raised her chin and glared at him. “Whatever we had between us is over and done.”

“Not quite,” he said.

She eyed him warily, her heart thumping crazily. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I haven’t had my fill of you.”

She snorted derisively. “You make me sound like a bottle of beer you haven’t finished swilling.”

His voice was low and seductive. “I was thinking of something utterly soft and incredibly sweet I haven’t finished sampling.”

Callie felt the flush creeping up her throat, but could do nothing to stop it. “I don’t love you anymore, Trace.”

“Who said anything about love?”

She was startled into meeting his gaze. His blue eyes were icy and unfathomable. Ruthless and predatory. This was the merciless man who had so frightened her the first day she had spoken to him. Back again to haunt her. To hunt her.

But she was no longer the naive girl of seventeen who had given him her virginity. Who had loved him with her entire being. Whom he had professed to love and then abandoned with a willingness mat had left her aching inside for years afterward.

Callie lowered her gaze as she acknowledged the truth. She had never really gotten over the pain of losing Trace. Nolan had applied a balm to soothe it, but the anguish of Trace’s betrayal had been buried deep inside her, where it remained to this day. “This is not the place—”

“My thoughts exactly.” He danced her out of the barn and into the cool, quiet night, then clasped her hand in his
and dragged her behind him along the length of the barn and into the darkness.

“Let go of me, Trace.”

A moment later she found herself backed up against the rough wooden barn, with Trace’s hard body pressed against hers from breasts to thighs. His hands stapled hers against the weathered wood on either side of her head, and his face was so close she could feel his moist breath against her cheek, smell the musky scent of a man who had spent the day under a hot sun.

“We have unfinished business, Callie.”

She stared up into hooded eyes and felt all the heat and desire—and regret and anger—she had tried so hard to put behind her. She was tempted to give in to the moment, to taste him, to feel the passion and the frenzy of loving him just one more time.

But she could never become Trace’s wife. And if she became his lover, they would be forced to hide their relationship from his family and from hers. She had long ago said farewell to the fairy tale. She had to live in the real world.

“No, Trace.”

“Yes, Callie.”

Callie held her breath as Trace’s mouth lowered toward hers. She turned her face so his lips only caressed her cheek. She felt her throat swell with the loss of all that might have been.

“I’m not going to let you turn away from me this time,” he said in a harsh voice. His hand grasped her chin and turned her face up to his as his mouth came down, devouring hers, hungry and seeking satisfaction.

When he thrust his tongue into her mouth, her body
began to tremble. He released her hands as his own went seeking. She put her hands on his shoulders to push him away, but found herself holding on instead, as his hands sought her breasts and then moved down between her legs to the heat and the heart of her. Her cry of need was swallowed by his punishing kiss.

For an instant she let herself feel, and then she panicked, struggling against the powerful emotions that had surged within her. She shoved at his shoulders, as she made her body rigid. “I won’t let you do this to me again!”

He lifted his head to look at her, his eyes glittering in the light from the doorway. There was no sign of the fascination that had once filled his eyes when he looked at her. No sign of tenderness, of love or caring. Only carnal desire.

“I’ll fight you, Trace.”

“Go ahead.” He lowered his head toward her mouth, then abruptly turned away. “What was that?”

Callie froze. Oh, dear God. What if Luke had come looking for her? She shoved at Trace with all her strength, fighting to be free. And then she heard it, too. A woman’s cry for help.

“Someone’s in trouble,” she said.

But Trace had already headed in the direction of the woman’s voice, pulling her along behind him.

T
race heard the sounds of the fight—the
thwack
of flesh hitting flesh, the
oomph!
of air being forced from lungs, the female screech of terror and rage—long before he and Callie reached the combatants. His adrenaline began to
pump when the stream of yellow light from the open door of the barn revealed that his sister Summer was smack in the middle of the fracas.

Summer had her arms wrapped around Bad Billy Coburn from behind, while he slugged away with both fists at a tall, skin-and-bones boy. It was Luke Creed.

Another female had hold of the bloodied Creed boy—who was also swinging wildly with bared knuckles—trying to drag him away. The boy leaned to dodge a blow, and Trace identified the second girl as Emma Coburn.

To his disgust, a half-dozen cowboys, including several Bitter Creek cowhands, were egging the fighters on.

“Get him, Billy!”

“Did you see that? Hit him again, boy!”

“Jesus, Billy kicked him!”

“Don’t let him get to ya, Luke!”

As Trace scanned the crowd, he was disgusted to discover that Bad Billy’s father, Johnny Ray Coburn, was yelling the loudest.

Bad Billy suddenly ducked, and a roundhouse punch from Luke intended for Billy’s chin ended up hitting Summer’s nose, causing it to spurt blood, and knocking her to the ground.

“That’s enough,” Trace said in a voice that demanded obedience. He glanced at Summer and saw she had her hand cupped against her bloodied nose. He put himself between the two men and ordered, “Both of you take a step back.”

Bad Billy held his ground, glaring insolently at Trace.

Luke did as he was told, but tripped over Emma Coburn, who was standing too close behind him. Hands
windmilling, he lost his balance and fell, taking Emma down with him.

“Luke, you asshole!” Bad Billy slurred in a drunken voice. “That’s my sister you just put on the ground.”

Billy kicked out savagely at the downed boy, but Trace knocked his boot aside and hit Billy once, hard, in the stomach. Billy grunted in pain as he fell to his knees, retching.

Trace fixed a steely eye on the now-silent cowboys, and ordered curtly, “Hector, Slim, pick up the Creed boy and have Mrs. Monroe show you where her truck is parked. Johnny Ray, see to your girl.”

Trace felt a hand on his arm and turned to find Callie standing beside him.

“Trace, I … How can I thank you?”

He almost let the moment pass without taking advantage of it. But he didn’t have time to be subtle. “You can be my date for the gala at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts next weekend.”

She looked stunned. “I …” He saw the struggle that went on before she smiled and said, “I don’t have anything to wear to something like that.”

He found himself smiling back at her. “No problem. We’ll go shopping first at Neiman Marcus.”

“Trace, I—”

“Señor Trace,” Hector interrupted, reminding him that his cowhands were still holding Luke Creed.

“Your brother needs some attention,” Trace said. “I’ll pick you up Saturday at noon.”

“I’ll meet you in town,” she countered. “At Bobbie Jo’s Café.”

“Done,” he said.

Once Callie was gone, Trace crossed to Summer. She was on her knees beside Bad Billy, who lay groaning on the ground. Trace could smell the yeasty stench of too many beers, and shook his head in disgust. “You’re fired, Billy.”