Diana Palmer - A Husband For Christmas

“Unbearably,” Melly confessed. “We fought like animals the first few weeks I worked here, when I came home from business college. But then, one day he threw me down in the hay and fell on me,” she added with a grin. “And we kissed like two starving lovers. He asked me to marry him on the spot and I said yes without even thinking. We’ve had our disagreements, but there’s no one I’ll ever love as much.”

Abby thought about being pushed down and fallen on, and she trembled with reaction. She felt herself stiffen, and Melly noticed.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, touching Abby’s arm. “I didn’t think about how it might sound to you.”

“It’s just the thought of being helpless,” she said in a suppressed tone. Her eyes came up. “Melly, men are so strong...you don’t realize how strong until you try to get away and can’t!”

“Don’t think about it,” Melly said softly. “Come on, we’ve got to decide on the trimmings for this dress. Calla has a bag full of material samples she got from the fabric shop. We’ll look through them, and she’ll go into town and get what you need tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” Abby hugged her warmly. “I love you,” she said in a rare outburst of emotion.

“I love you, too,” Melly returned, smiling as she drew away. “Now, here, this is what I liked especially...” She pulled out a swatch of material and the girls drifted into a discussion of fabrics that lasted until bedtime.

Abby spent the next few days reacquainting herself with the ranch. She was careful to keep out of the way of the men—and Cade—but she trudged through the barns looking at calves and sat on the bales of hay in the loft and remembered back to her childhood on her family’s ranch. It was part of Painted Ridge now, having been bought by Cade at Jesse Shane’s death. It would have gone on the auction block otherwise, because neither Melly nor Abby had any desire to try to run it. Ranching was a full-time headache, best left to experts.

When the snow melted and the weather turned springlike again, Abby wandered through the gates up to a grassy hill where a small stand of pines stood guard, and settled herself under one of the towering giants. It was good to breathe clean air, to sit and soak in the cool, green peace and untouched beauty of this land.

Where else were there still places like this, where you could look and see nothing but rolling grassy hills that stretched to the horizon—with tall, ragged mountains on the other side and the river that cut like a wide ribbon through it all? Cade had liked to fish in that river in the old days, when Donavan was still alive to assume some of the burden of their business. Abby went with him occasionally, watching him land big bass and crappie, rainbow trout and channel catfish.

The nice thing about Cade, she thought dreamily, was that he had such a love for the land and its protection. He was constantly investigating new ways of improving his own range, working closely with the Soil Conservation Service to protect the natural resources of his state.

Her eyes turned toward the gate as she heard a horse’s hooves, and she found Cade riding up the ridge toward her on his big black gelding. He sat a horse so beautifully, reminding her of a Western movie hero. He was all muscle and grace, and she respected him more than any man she’d ever known.

He reined in when he reached her and swung one long leg around the pommel, a smoking cigarette in his lean, dark hands as he watched her from under the wide brim of his gray Stetson.

“Slumming, miss model?” he teased with a faint smile.

“This is the place for it,” she said, leaning back against the tree to smile up at him. Her long, pale hair caught the breeze and curved around her flushed cheeks. “Isn’t it peaceful here?” she asked. “No wonder the Indians fought so very hard to keep it.”

His eyes darkened, narrowed. “A man does fight to keep the things he wants most,” he said enigmatically, studying her. “Why do you wear those damned baggy things?” he demanded, nodding toward her bulky shirt and loose jeans.

She shrugged, avoiding that piercing gaze. “They’re comfortable,” she said inadequately.

“They look like hell. I’d rather see you in transparent blouses,” he added coldly.

Her eyebrows arched. “You lecherous old thing,” she accused.

He chuckled softly, deeply, a sound she hadn’t heard in a long time. It made him seem younger. “Only with you, honey,” he said softly. “I’m the soul of chivalry around most women.”

Her eyes searched his. “You could have any woman you want these days,” she murmured absently.

“Then isn’t it a hell of a shame that I have such a fussy appetite?” he asked. He took a draw from the cigarette and studied her quietly. “I’m a busy man.”

“You look it,” she agreed, studying the dusty jeans that encased his hard, powerful legs, and his scuffed brown boots and sweat-stained denim shirt. There was a black mat of hair under that shirt, and a muscular chest that she remembered desperately wanting to touch.

“It’s spring,” he reminded her. “Cattle to doctor, calves to separate and brand and herds to move up to summer pasture as soon as we finish roundup. Hay to plant, machinery to repair and replace, temporary hands to hire for roundup, supplies to get in... If it isn’t one damned thing, it’s another.”

“And you love every minute of it,” she accused. “You’d die anywhere else.”

“Amen.” He finished the cigarette and tossed it down. “Crush that out for me, will you, honey?”

“It’s not dry enough for it to cause a grass fire,” she reminded him, but she got up and did it all the same.

“Back in the old days, Indians and white men would stop fighting to battle grass fires together,” he told her with a grin. “They’re still hard to stop, even today.”

She looked up at him, tracing his shadowed face with eyes that ached for what might have been. “You look so at home in the saddle,” she remarked.

“I grew up in it.” He reached down an arm. “Step on my boot and come up here. I’ll give you a ride home.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t ride a horse the way you drive,” she observed.

“That’s not a good way to get reacquainted,” he said shortly.

“It’s only the truth. Donavan wouldn’t even get in a truck with you,” she reminded him. “Although I have to admit that you’re a pretty good driver on the highway.”

“Thanks for nothing. Are you coming or not?”

She wanted and dreaded the closeness. He was so very strong. What if she panicked again, what if he demanded an answer to her sudden nervousness?

“Abby,” he said suddenly, his voice as full of authority as if he were tossing orders at his cowboys. “Come on.”

She reacted to that automatically and took his hand, tingling as it slid up her arm to hold her. She stepped deftly onto the toe of his boot in the stirrup and swung up in front of him.

He drew her back against him with a steely arm, and she felt the powerful muscles of his chest at her shoulder blades.

“Comfortable?” he asked shortly.

“I’m fine,” she replied in a voice that was unusually high-pitched.

He eased the horse into a canter. “You’ll be more comfortable if you’ll relax, little one,” he murmured. “I’m no threat.”

That was what he thought, she told herself, reacting wildly to the feel of his body against her back. He smelled of leather and cow and tobacco, and his breath sighed over her head, into her loosened hair.

If only she could relax instead of sitting like a fire poker in his light embrace. But he made her nervous, just as he always had; he made her feel vulnerable and soft and hungry. Despite the bad experience in New York, he appealed to her senses in ways that unnerved her.