Diana Palmer - Unlikely Lover

“Poor kid,” he said, sincere yet cautious.

“She’s almost twenty-two,” Lillian said. “What’s going to become of her?” she asked loudly, peeking out the corner of her eye at him.

He whistled softly. “Therapy would be her best bet.”

“She won’t talk to anyone,” she said quickly, cocking her head to one side. “Now, I know how you feel about women. I don’t even blame you. But I can’t turn my back on my own niece.” She straightened, playing her trump card. “Now, I’m fully prepared to give up my job and go to her—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, you know me better than that after fifteen years,” he returned curtly. “Send her an airline ticket.”

“She’s in Georgia—”

“So what?”

Lillian toyed with a pan of rolls. “Well, thanks. I’ll make it up to you somehow,” she said with a secretive grin.

“If you’re feeling that generous, how about an apple pie?”

The older woman chuckled. “Thirty minutes,” she said and dashed off to the kitchen like a woman half her age. She could have danced with glee. He’d fallen for it! Stage one was about to take off! Forgive me, Mari, she thought silently and began planning again.

Ward stared after her with confused emotions. He hoped that he’d made the right decision. Maybe he was just going soft in his old age. Maybe…

“My bed was more uncomfortable than a sheet filled with cacti,” came a harsh, angry old voice from the doorway. He turned as his grandmother ambled in using her cane, broad as a beam and as formidable as a raiding party, all cold green eyes and sagging jowls and champagnetinted hair that waved around her wide face.

“Why don’t you sleep in the stable?” he asked her pleasantly. “Hay’s comfortable.”

She glared at him and waved her cane. “Shame on you, talking like that to a pitiful old woman!”

“I pity anyone who stands within striking distance of that cane,” he assured her. “When do you leave for Galveston?”

“Can’t wait to get rid of me, can you?” she demanded as she slid warily into a chair beside him.

“Oh, no,” he assured her. “I’ll miss you like the plague.”

“You cowhand,” she grumbled, glaring at him. “Just like your father. He was hell to live with, too.”

“You sweet-tempered little woman,” he taunted.

“I guess you get that wit from your father. And he got it from me,” she confessed. She poured herself a cup of coffee. “I hope Belinda is easier to get along with than you and your saber-toothed housekeeper.”

“I am not saber-toothed,” Lillian assured her as she brought in more rolls.

“You are so,” Mrs. Jessup replied curtly. “In my day we’d have lynched you on a mesquite tree for insubordination!”

“In your day you’d have been hanging beside me,” Lillian snorted and walked out.

“Are you going to let her talk to me like that?” Mrs. Jessup demanded of her grandson.

“You surely don’t want me to walk into that kitchen alone?” he asked her. “She keeps knives in there.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward her. “And a sausage grinder. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

Mrs. Jessup tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t help herself. She hit at him affectionately. “Reprobate. Why do I put up with you?”

“You can’t help yourself,” he said with a chuckle. “Eat. You can’t travel halfway across Texas on an empty stomach.”

She put down her coffee cup. “Are you sure this night flight is a good idea?”

“It’s less crowded. Besides, Belinda and her newest boyfriend are going to meet you at the airport,” he said. “You’ll be safe.”

“I guess so.” She stared at the platter of beef that was slowly being emptied. “Give me some of that before you gorge yourself!”

“It’s my cow,” he muttered, green eyes glittering.

“It descended from one of mine. Give it here!”

Ward sighed, defeated. Handing the platter to her with a resigned expression, he watched her beam with the tiny triumph. He had to humor her just a little occasionally. It kept her from getting too crotchety.

Later he drove her to the airport and put her on a plane. As he went back toward his ranch, he wondered about Marianne Raymond and how it was going to be with a young woman around the place getting in his hair. Of course, she was just twenty-two, much too young for him. He was thirty-five now, too old for that kind of child-woman. He shook his head. He only hoped that he’d done the right thing. If he hadn’t, things were sure going to be complicated from now on. At one time Lillian’s incessant matchmaking had driven him nuts before he’d managed to stop her, though she still harped on his unnatural attitude toward marriage. If only she’d let him alone and stop mothering him! That was the trouble with people who’d worked for you almost half your life, he muttered to himself. They felt obliged to take care of you in spite of your own wishes.

He stared across the pastures at the oil rigs as he eased his elegant white Chrysler onto the highway near Ravine, Texas. His rigs. He’d come a long damned way from the old days spent working on those rigs. His father had dreamed of finding that one big well, but it was Ward who’d done it. He’d borrowed as much as he could and put everything on one big gamble with a friend. And his well had come in. He and the friend had equal shares in it, and they’d long since split up and gone in different directions. When it came to business, Ward Jessup could be ruthless and calculating. He had a shrewd mind and a hard heart, and some of his enemies had been heard to say that he’d foreclose on a starving widow if she owed him money.

That wasn’t quite true, but it was close. He’d grown up poor, dirt poor, as his grandmother had good reason to remember. The family had been looked down on for a long time because of Ward’s mother. She’d tired of her boring life on the ranch with her two children and had run off with a neighbor’s husband, leaving the children for her stunned husband and mother-in-law to raise. Later she’d divorced Ward’s father and remarried, but the children had never heard from her again. In a small community like Ravine the scandal had been hard to live down. Worse, just a little later, Ward’s father had gone out into the south forty one autumn day with a rifle in his hand and hadn’t come home again.

He hadn’t left a note or even seemed depressed. They’d found him slumped beside his pickup truck, clutching a piece of ribbon that had belonged to his wife. Ward had never forgotten his father’s death, had never forgiven his mother for causing it.

Later, when he’d fallen into Caroline’s sweet trap, Ward Jessup had learned the final lesson. These days he had a reputation for breaking hearts, and it wasn’t far from the mark. He had come to hate women. Every time he felt tempted to let his emotions show, he remembered his mother and Caroline. And day by day he became even more embittered. He liked to remember Caroline’s face when he’d told her he didn’t want her anymore, that he could go on happily all by himself. She’d curled against him with her big black eyes so loving in that face like rice paper and her blond hair cascading like yellow silk down her back. But he’d seen past the beauty to the ugliness, and he never wanted to get that close to a woman again. He’d seen graphically how big a fool the most sensible man could become when a shrewd woman got hold of him. Nope, he told himself. Never again. He’d learned from his mistake. He wouldn’t be that stupid a second time.

He pulled into the long driveway of Three Forks and smiled at the live oaks that lined it, thinking of all the history there was in this big, lusty spread of land. He might live and die without an heir, but he’d sure enjoy himself until that time came.