Rosemary Carter - A Husband Made In Texas

‘I know that,’ he said, and lifted her down anyway.

For a long moment his hands remained on her waist, and his eyes held hers. Quietly he said, ‘Is there something you want to tell me?’

‘Should there be?’ Her voice held a slight tremor.

‘For one thing, maybe you’d like to explain why you’re so thin?’

She slipped out of his hands, and he made no attempt to stop her. ‘I’ve always been thin, Flynn.’

‘Not like this.’ And as she gave an impatient shrug, ‘You forget, Kaitlin, for the last fifteen minutes I’ve had my arms around you. You’re nothing but skin and bones.’

‘How flattering.’

‘Just saying it as it is. I’ve never forgotten the feel of you, Kaitlin.’

‘Flynn—’

‘The scent of your hair, and the pace of your heart.’

‘Don’t,’ she said.

‘So—why are you so thin?’

‘Metabolism?’ she suggested.

‘Metabolism,’ he repeated cynically. ‘Is that what you call it? And another thing, what happened to your hands?’

‘My hands?’ She thrust them behind her back.

‘Why are you hiding them, Kaitlin? I’ve had time to study them—remember?’

‘Right,’ she said slowly, and dropped her hands to her sides.

Flynn. reached for them. The nails were very short and without any polish, and the palms were roughened by what could only be many months of hard manual labour.

‘Not the hands of a Southern belle, Kaitlin.’

‘No,’ she agreed shortly.

‘Your mother used to insist you wore gloves when you rode.’

‘Yes—though I used to take them off the moment she was out of sight.’

‘I remember.’ This time his laughter was warm and amused. ‘Hands were important to your mother.’

‘Right...’

‘ “Katie, darling,” I overheard her saying once, “a lady must be well-groomed, and that includes her hands. Lotion, Katie, never forget your hand-lotion.’ ”

‘Or words to that effect.’

‘I don’t claim that my memories are word-perfect.’

Kaitlin blinked. There was a look of such pain in her eyes that Flynn felt his heart give an unaccustomed wrench.

‘My hands are no longer important to my mother. She... She died fifteen months ago.’

‘So I heard.’

Her head jerked. ‘You did?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where? From whom?’

‘Someone I know.’

‘And obviously you don’t want to tell me. Well, never mind. Do you also know—’ she swallowed hard ‘—that Dad died too?’

Flynn nodded.

‘Not very long after Mom. Of a broken heart, I think, although it seemed like an accident at the time. I don’t think he could exist without her.’

A broken heart? Maybe that was part of it, though according to sources Flynn had no reason to doubt, the bottle had contributed more than a little to the death of Kaitlin’s father.

Eyes narrowing, Flynn looked down at Kaitlin: his lovely girl, his beautiful Kaitlin, always sparkling, forever laughing at some joke or another. This new vulnerability of hers touched that deep inner core which had been frozen inside him since the day he had left the ranch.

His arms lifted. He was about to pull her towards him when he remembered that whatever changes there might have been, they were probably superficial. Kaitlin Mullins was still her parents’ daughter. That had not changed. His arms dropped to his sides.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘You’re so intent, Flynn. The way you’re staring at me. As if you’re trying to read me.’

‘Read you?’

‘What you see is what there is, Flynn.’

He doubted that. He gave a short laugh, hard and unamused, and Kaitlin took a quick step backwards.

‘I really do have to see about that calf.’ She sounded hurt.

‘I said I’d go with you.’

‘I don’t need you, I can manage perfectly well on my own.’

‘I’m going with you all the same.’

‘You’re a stubborn man, Flynn. But if you insist, I guess we should get a horse saddled.’

‘In a moment.’ He reached for her left hand. ‘You’re not married, Kaitlin.’ He had known that, of course.

‘No.’

‘Why not? There- must have been dozens of interested men.’

‘A few.’

‘Well then?’

‘I refuse to marry anyone I don’t love.’

‘Are you telling me you’ve never been in love?’

Her eyes shifted. After a moment, she said, ‘You ask too many questions.’

‘Do I?’ he drawled.

‘Yes.’ She paused, and looked back at him. ‘How about you, Flynn ? Did you never marry?’

‘I did.’

An expression crossed Kaitlin’s face, but it was gone before Flynn could make anything of it. ‘You didn’t think of bringing your wife with you today?’ she asked politely.

So she didn’t care that there had been another woman in his life. Foolish of him to have thought otherwise.

‘Didn’t have a reason to,’ he said lightly. And when she looked at him questioningly, ‘We’re no longer together. The marriage didn’t last.’

Another one of those expressions appeared in Kaitlin’s eyes, though slightly different this time. ‘Yes, well...’ was all she said.

She jerked when he touched her chin, enfolding it in his fingers, brushing slowly once up and down her throat with his thumb.

‘No questions, Kaitlin?’

She shrugged. ‘Should there be?’

‘Not at all interested in what I just said?’

‘It’s your life, Flynn, not mine.’

‘True. But we were friends once. More than friends.’

‘That’s the second time you’ve reminded me.‘ For some reason her eyes left his once more. ‘I don’t know why you keep dredging up the past. Whatever there was—and it wasn’t really that much—it all happened so long ago.’

Dam the woman. She could have shown at least a little interest in his marriage, He said as much.

Turning back to him, Kaitlin said brightly, ‘I’m sure the story of your shattered relationship is fascinating. But right now I’m a lot more concerned about a little lost calf.’

Like her mother, Kaitlin seemed to know just how to put a man in his place.

Flynn’s hand dropped. ‘Which horse shall I take?’ His voice was hard as he moved away from her.

Kaitlin suggested a tall stallion, and Flynn saddled it. It was some time since he had worked as a cowboy, but his passion for horses had never lessened. The horse, temperamental by nature, seemed to sense it was in the hands of a person who was more than its match, and stood still as Flynn got it ready for riding.

They were walking the horses side by side through the brushlands when Kaitlin turned in the saddle. ‘When did you learn to fly, Flynn?’

‘A while ago.’

‘Did your new employer teach you?’

He grinned at her. ‘I don’t have an employer, Kaitlin.’ ‘You don’t?’

Her eyes were so wide that Flynn laughed. ‘You seem to find that more amazing than the fact that my marriage didn’t last.’

‘Not really,’ Kaitlin said after a long moment. ‘You have the look of a man who stopped taking orders from other people.’

Flynn was careful not to show his surprise at her perceptiveness. ‘I found out some time ago that I needed to work for myself.’

‘What do you do, Flynn?’

‘This and that.’

‘Not much of an answer, and well you know it.’

Flynn just grinned at Kaitlin, obviously infuriating her so much that she dug her heels into the sides of her horse, spurring it into a gallop. It didn’t take Flynn long to go after her.

It was almost an hour before he saw a streak of brown in some wild grass not far from a clump of lethal-looking mesquite.

‘There’s your calf.’ He gestured.

‘I saw it, too.’ .