Texas Secrets (12 page)

Dancers around them were complaining loudly because they were holding up progress. Boone shot glares all around, but began to move across the floor once again. He didn't look at Maddie as he answered. "I hadn't thought about it. It might be all right."

"Please—don't be so enthusiastic."

"Hey, I never thought about it, all right? I don't know how I feel."

"Do you ever let yourself really feel, Boone?" she asked, her eyes soft and searching.

The music slowed and segued into a waltz. Boone found himself reluctant to take her off the floor and let her go. Instead, he moved into the new steps and Maddie moved effortlessly with him.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Maddie."

Maddie looked at him with sad eyes, and he knew he'd disappointed her. "I want you to say what's in your heart. To let go and just feel."

She didn't, though. Not really. If he once let go of his control, she wouldn't like what she saw. Boone didn't much like it himself. He was a man who had loved one woman badly, who had never earned his father's love. He'd lost a child who should have had a chance if he'd just done things right.

He'd been good in the dark arts of killing and war. He could track an enemy to extinction, could find a grain of sand in the desert. None of those were skills Maddie would admire.

She was a creature of light, and he was darkness. She might think she wanted to know him, but she was wrong.

Since Boone had no answers Maddie would want to hear, he didn't even try. Instead, he pulled her close and let the music fill the silence.

She held stiff for a moment, but he didn't relent. Soon she stopped resisting and swayed against him, and Boone knew a moment of painful longing.

Maddie had weapons of her own.

A soft, tender heart.

A ready smile.

A soul that shone brighter than the sun.

Maddie took the whole world to her bosom and cherished it. A part of Boone wanted to step into the magic circle and inhale Maddie's cheer, her never-say-die optimism, to hold it as a talisman against the darkness inside him.

But Boone knew his own power. His darkness would snuff out her light, and the world would be poorer.

So Boone simply held Maddie close until the music faded.

And then he thanked her, turned her over to the line of men waiting for the belle of the ball—and walked away without looking back.

* * *

Maddie watched him go, so tall and handsome in the starched white shirt, knife-edged crease in his jeans. She wondered when she'd ever learn to keep her thoughts to herself. Hadn't she warned herself that it wouldn't work for her to come back to visit? He hadn't answered her, which was answer enough in itself.

When she left Morning Star, she would not return.

"You ready to dance, pretty girl?" The cowboy asking the question smiled beneath his straw hat and stepped forward.

An adventure, Maddie. Remember, it's just an adventure. You were having fun until Boone showed up
.

She accepted the outstretched hand and smiled her biggest smile. Not from the heart, but it had always been Maddie's belief that if you smiled whether you felt like it or not, you'd soon feel better. "Let's do it, Mr.—?"

"Call me Randy, ma'am."

"Then you call me Maddie."

"Here we go, Maddie. I like it fast."

"Good." She would concentrate on her feet and forget the heart Boone had bruised.

Twenty-five days and counting. The end couldn't come too soon.

* * *

Boone stayed outside for a long time, staring into the moonlight. He was lousy company; soon even Jim left him alone. He nursed the same beer he'd been holding since he'd walked off the dance floor, less interested in something to drink than having something to do with his hands.

He could still feel her soft curves against him, feel her warm breath on his chest where his shirt parted. He could smell Maddie's scent, unnamable and mysterious, rich and full of sex and sunshine and thoughts of sin.

Why couldn't he just take what she would give and enjoy it while she stayed? What was it about Maddie that made this so damn hard?

So what if she was leaving? He'd had affairs before, had left and been left, had enjoyed rolling on the bed and parting unencumbered. Why not with Maddie?

Because she's not a roll in the hay
. Just that simple.

Maddie was more. If he played with fire, he would be burned, but with Maddie it would incinerate him. He knew it in his bones.

A shiver ran down his spine. Boone grimaced in disgust. Maddie's fanciful thinking was rubbing off on him.

Shoving off from the pillar on which he leaned, Boone drained his beer bottle on the grass and took it back inside to the bar. He planned to tell Jim he was leaving and make sure Maddie had a ride home.

Until he took one quick glance at the dance floor and didn't like what he saw.

Hank Caswell was Maddie's partner, and Maddie didn't look happy at all.

Boone and Hank went way back. Hank had a vicious streak. In school, Boone had been the only one around who would go toe-to-toe with him. Hank's crooked nose had come courtesy of Boone, and Hank had never forgotten it.

Boone cared nothing about their past. All he cared about was that Hank was holding Maddie way too close. He started through the crowd, watching carefully to be sure he wasn't mistaken. When Maddie pushed at Hank's chest and tried to back away, Hank jerked her back.

Boone saw red. He picked up speed, shoving through the crowd. But when he got close to them, he slowed down, remembering what he'd once seen Hank do to a reluctant girlfriend. He had to handle this carefully or Maddie could get hurt.

"Evenin', Hank," Boone drawled.

Hank kept a tight grip on Maddie but didn't look at him, only a short nod. "Gallagher. Heard you were back."

Boone shot Maddie a worried glance, then choked back a grin. If Hank gave her an inch to maneuver, he was going to find himself unmanned. Maddie wasn't scared yet—she looked mad as the devil.

But Boone knew Hank was truly dangerous. "Let's go outside and catch up on old times, Hank."

The glare Maddie shot him should have incinerated him on the spot. Impatience vibrated from her every pore. "Let go of me, you big, fat—oof!"

Boone grabbed Maddie's arm and turned suddenly, wedging his shoulder in between them. With practiced ease, he slid Maddie away and behind him. "I don't think the lady is enjoying herself."

Hank's little pig eyes narrowed. "She was dancing with me. We weren't finished."

"Well, you see, Hank, there's just one problem. I was never very good at sharing."

"She's not yours. You weren't here. You left."

"But I was coming back. And here I am." Boone kept his voice smooth. He didn't see how Hank could miss the implied threat. He wouldn't initiate the fight, but Hank couldn't have forgotten who had usually wound up on top.

He pulled Maddie close. "You go on and find yourself another girl, Hank. This one's taken." Turning away, he walked Maddie toward the outside.

They had almost reached the door when Maddie was wrenched from his arms. Hank jerked her to him and grabbed her hair, grinding his mouth down on hers.

Boone went blind with rage. He leaped toward them. Grabbing Hank by the arm, he jerked him away from Maddie. The solid connection of fist to jaw didn't begin to placate the roar in his head.

Hank had put his mouth on Maddie. Had hurt Maddie.

Boone never heard the shouting around him. He entered a zone of deadly silence, a savage place where forsaken skills had lain dormant. With brutal satisfaction, he punished Hank for daring to hurt Maddie's bright spirit, for endangering the light she had brought into his life.

"Boone, stop! Please—" Finally, Maddie's voice sliced through the rage.

He looked at her, her face drained of all color. Then he looked back at Hank, collapsed against the wall, chest heaving.

"You crazy sonofa—" Hank roared. "The bitch is the spawn of a murderer. You're welcome to her." He spat at her feet.

Boone charged toward him, but Maddie held on for dear life to one arm while Jim grabbed him by the other, stepping between him and Hank.

"Come on now, Boone. Back away. He's crazy and mean. You know that. Come on. You're scaring Maddie."

The last words broke through to him. Boone looked down at her and saw her eyes gone huge and dark.

Now he'd done it. She'd seen what lay inside him, the dark, howling beast that had been his salvation...and damnation.

He turned to Hank. "You're not fit to walk on the same ground as Maddie. If I ever hear you talking about her like that again, I'll—"

"Boone, please." Maddie's quiet voice settled him as nothing else could.

But he wasn't quite through. "You stay away from her, you hear me? You stay very far away."

Hank didn't respond. He turned and lumbered off, leaning on a friend.

Then Boone realized that his eye hurt like hell. He reached up and came away with blood on his fingers.

"I'll drive you home in your truck," Jim offered. "Maddie can come later with Velda."

Boone looked at Maddie, prepared for her revulsion. Instead he saw quiet strength.

"That's all right, Jim," she said. "If Boone can't see to drive, I can drive his truck. We'll be all right."

Jim glanced back and forth between them. "You sure about that, Maddie?"

His meaning was clear. Boone wasn't fit to be with her.

She nodded and clutched Boone's arm tightly. "Yes. I'm sure." Then she looked up at Boone. "Can you drive or would you like me to do it?"

He started to shrug her off. He was unclean, contaminated by the rage that had spewed from him. "I can get myself home. No need for you to come."

She reached for a bar towel someone had brought over. Lifting it to his face with careful strokes, she mopped away the blood. Then she stared him straight in the eye. "Don't trip over that pride, Boone. You took care of me. Now let me take care of you."

Her quiet voice and matter-of-fact manner stirred his hope. Could it be that she wasn't frightened by what she'd seen? Boone studied her as carefully as she was watching him. Then he shook his head. "You always surprise me."

The smile that was never far away reappeared. "Good. Don't forget you said that." Then she clasped his hand. "Take me home, Boone."

For one quicksilver, impossible moment, Boone let himself imagine a life where those words could be ordinary.

Take me home, Boone
.

They weren't real. He knew that.

But for tonight, at least, he was the man who had the right to take Maddie home.

He squeezed her hand and led her outside.

Chapter Seven

Stubborn. A frying pan applied to the side of Boone's head seemed more attractive all the time. He'd insisted on driving, denying that he was hurt. Maddie tamped down her concerns, her thoughts still on what had happened.

Some women would have called it Neanderthal, Boone's reaction back there. Maddie tried to imagine a single man she'd ever known who would leap to her defense with such raw physical power.

None came to mind. She tried to picture Robert in that same situation. Robert would have used words or bouncers—or walked away.

Boone had defended her honor with his fists.

As a woman of the twenty-first century, she should have been horrified. Such brute behavior should have revolted her.

It hadn't. She wasn't.

Instead, Maddie was thrilled. She felt safe. Protected. Awed by what Boone had done.

Boone would have mashed in Robert's face for what he'd done to her. Boone would have dispatched the bullies who had taunted the gangly girl who never fit in.

She'd been angry at first, but Hank's strength had frightened her when he squeezed her tighter, spewing sour beery breath in her face. When he'd ground his mouth down on hers, she'd been more unnerved than on any dark New York street.

Then, like an avenging angel, Boone had charged to her rescue, his golden hair gleaming in the light.

Egad. The hair rose on her skin as she remembered him, the sheer power and strength of his passion to protect her.

She'd thought she'd never see Boone lose his formidable control. Now she knew why he clamped down so hard.

It wasn't because he didn't feel. Far from it.

Boone felt too much.

If only that passion could be spent on her...what must it be like? Maddie rubbed her arms at the thought and squirmed on the seat.

"You cold?" He reached out to turn down the a/c.

Maddie looked over at him, but he turned away quickly. Since they'd left, silence had wrapped him like a shroud and he wouldn't meet her gaze.

"Boone, I didn't thank you for what you did back there."

"You mean for acting like some kind of beast let out of his cage?"

She jerked around to see if he was joking. His face was grim.

"You weren't an animal. You rescued me."

Boone pulled up to the house and turned off the truck. Still not meeting her gaze, he stared straight ahead. "I'm sorry you saw that."

"Boone..." She laid one hand on his arm.

He pulled away and opened his door. In the overhead light, she saw anguish on his face.

Boone left the truck and headed for the house, not waiting for her.

Maddie leapt out of her side and followed, racing to catch up. Just before the porch steps, she grabbed his arm.

He spun around. "Don't!" he barked. "Let me be."

"Boone, what's wrong?"

"Go away, Maddie." When she showed no intention of leaving, he turned away toward the barn.

Something deep within her said not to let him leave like this. She practically ran to get in front of him.

"Maddie..." His voice dropped to a growl.

She got a better look at him in the moonlight. His face was all angles and haunted hollows. "Talk to me, Boone. Tell me what's wrong."

He rounded on her then. "I could have killed him. I would have, if you and Jim—" He looked away, his jaw working. "You shouldn't have seen that."

"You saved me, Boone. He was hurting me. I was scared."