Jan Freed - The Texas Way

“So I’m the daughter of a man obsessed with winning.”

“A rich man.”

“Okay, a rich man. I can’t help it if I have wealthy parents. They don’t define me. When have I ever treated you like I was a princess, Scott Hayes?”

She sat there with her nose in the air and her posture church perfect and her eyes frosting the air between them, and Scott felt his control snap. He moved closer and gripped the supple riding boot that epitomized her privileged world.

“Since the first day I met you,” he said, all the confusion and humiliation of that day resurfacing. He wanted to shake her ivory tower till her teeth rattled. “Do you even remember that day, Maggie?”

Her cheeks flushed to match her sunburned nose. She remembered.

“Must’ve been quite a social comedown for you to hang out with the locals, huh?”

“No, I was grateful to be invited. Being new to the area wasn’t easy.”

“Our nasty red dust get your Corvette dirty?”

“You’re not being fair!”

“That’s life in the big country, princess. It ain’t fair and it ain’t easy. You don’t belong here any more than you did ten years ago.”

He’d spotted her right off when he’d walked into Lucy’s Café. Her sophisticated haircut, her expensive clothes, her French-restaurant table manners—hell, everything about her had screamed class. He’d been fascinated—and intimidated.

“My buddies bet me ten bucks I couldn’t get your phone number. I gotta admit, Maggie, you were good.”

She shifted in the saddle and frowned. “Good?”

“I thought I’d been around, knew all the tricks. But you played me like a puppet for thirty minutes before cutting the strings. I didn’t even see it coming.” He’d bought into that shy smile, the pleasure in her dove gray eyes, one hundred percent.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. I think you waited for the exact right minute to put me in my place. Everyone there saw me asking for your phone number. Everyone there knew I didn’t get it.”

He’d held out that pen and napkin for a hundred excruciating years while she’d given him the Snow Princess treatment. Her friends had giggled when he’d snatched his hand back. His own friends had snickered as he joined them in a corner booth. Losing the bet wasn’t the half of his shock.

Mr. Stud had finally been rejected, his friends had told him, by a Dallas blueblood—daughter of the millionaire who’d just bought old man Perkin’s place.

Twister tossed his head and stamped, jolting Scott back to the present. He focused on Maggie’s overly bright eyes, the pressed lips, which trembled nonetheless. She didn’t look cold now. She looked close to tears.

“It wasn’t you. It was me. I’m…” Her swallow was audible. She shook her head and fumbled with the reins.

Scott resented his pang of sympathy. “You’re what, Maggie?”

Her eyes hardened. Her chin came up and out. “I’m a damn good horse trainer, that’s what. That’s all you need to know about me.”

Twister launched forward into a fast trot, wrenching Scott’s hand from her boot. Stunned, he watched horse and rider kick up dust until they melted into the brush.

Absently rubbing his right glove, he stared unmoving at the horizon. The sun beat down hotter than ever, but he scarcely noticed. Something important had happened just now, no doubt about it.

He wished like hell he knew what it was.

MARGARET FOUGHT the powerful undertow. Clawed her way toward wakefulness and blessed peace. But the current was invincible. It swept her past the sweetness and plunged her into panic. Into despair…

Into the car.

Cracked rubber tape on the steering wheel pricked her palms. Sweltering heat compressed her lungs. Matt’s voice implored her to slow down, to pull over. A red-white-and-blue beacon flashed in her rearview mirror. Too close. Too fast.

She couldn’t go back. Wouldn’t go back, or she might never have the courage to leave again.

Get away—get away—get away. The refrain pounded in her mind with each heartbeat. She pressed down on the accelerator and clutched the steering wheel tighter, willing her grip to hold the vibrating car together. Her muscles ached. Dizziness blurred her vision. She tried to slow her shallow breaths and only panted faster.

Get away, get away, get away—Boom!

The steering wheel was wrenched from her hands. Matt yelled. The horizon spun around and around and around. Metal screeched. Pain exploded in her legs and chest. Glass stalactites trembled.

Silence throbbed.

She slowly turned her head. Matt’s flesh and bone fused with jagged metal in a gruesome sculpture of death.

Anguish filled her soul. She threw back her head and screamed at fate, “It should have been me. It should have been me. It should have been me-e-e-e—“

“Maggie!”

She jerked into consciousness with a gasp, her eyes popping open unfocused in the dark. Where…? Her vision cleared. The farmhouse, her second night here. Scott sat on the four-poster bed gripping her shoulders hard. She wondered how many times he’d shaken her.

“You were dreaming, Maggie. It was just a bad dream.”

Just a bad dream. She would’ve laughed if her teeth weren’t chattering like a set of windup toy dentures. Violent trembling seized her body in rhythmic waves. A terrible cold penetrated marrow deep. It would pass. Eventually. Closing her eyes, she waited…and endured.

“Damn,” Scott muttered, pulling her upright and into his arms.

She nearly whimpered with relief. His bare chest was hard beneath her cheek, his heartbeat loud and steady. She wrapped her arms around his waist and shamelessly clung. Maybe he hated her for what she’d done to Matt, maybe her present weakness disgusted him, but it didn’t matter. He felt strong and warm and alive , and she needed the human contact.

He rubbed her spine hesitantly, then more firmly, his callused fingers snagging on her cotton nightgown. “You’re shiverin’ like a spooked colt. Must’ve been a helluva nightmare.”

Swallowing hard, she nodded.

“Wanna talk about it?”

To this man? “No,” she whispered. “I’ll be fine in a minute.” Humiliating, but she couldn’t seem to unlock her fingers from the waistband of his jeans.

“You were dreaming about the accident, weren’t you?”

She tensed. His room was right next door.’ “Was I talking out loud?”

“Sounded more like screaming to me.”

She unpeeled her fingers and started to push away, thwarted by the iron band of his arms.

“Relax, princess. No need to get your nose out of joint.”

Somehow that nose was buried against his chest now. He smelled of soap and sleep-roused male, and radiated heat like a healthy animal.

“At least you don’t feel like a damn ice cube anymore,” Scott said, satisfaction deepening his voice.

Not hardly. Grateful he couldn’t see her face, she turned and pressed her cheek to his chest. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

His body shifted toward the window. “Looks like it’s close to dawn. I’d have gotten up soon, anyway.”

“What did I…” Go on, coward, spit it out. “What did I scream?”

He hesitated a fraction too long. “Damned if I know. One thing’s for sure. My money’s on you, instead of Ada, at the next county fair.”

She struggled to make the connection.

“The pig-calling contest,” he explained. “You pack a mean set of lungs for such a little thing.”

His chuckle rumbled pleasantly against her ear. She managed a shaky smile, surprised to realize her trembling had stopped. Dangerous. She was too warm, too content, too willing to stay in his arms indefinitely. This time when she pushed away, he let her go.