The Cowboy Claims His Lady (11 page)

T
he next day, still tired and nibbling crackers, Lyndie checked the new shop she'd just opened in the Garden District.

Her plane ticket was purchased for a night flight to Denver. There she would stay overnight, then fly to Mystery in the morning. She just had to call Hazel with the unexpected news that she was coming up, after all.

But still, she hadn't picked up the phone. She couldn't bear the questions. Particularly those best answered face-to-face.

From the large glass window in front of the shop, she watched the live oaks scatter what few leaves
they would lose in the fall. A breeze whisked away the last of the hot, sticky weather.

Her thoughts drifted north. She wondered what Mystery Valley looked like in a mantle of autumn, a chill to the air that whispered of snow and snuggling by the fireplace.

“So, how long you gonna be gone this time? Man, I should be the boss,” Annie lamented, having just been promoted to the managerial position of the new store.

“Oh, it's hell being the boss. Truly.” Lyndie gave her a wry smile. “You think I take a lot of vacation time, but the fact is, I'm never on vacation. I'm working all the time, in my head, and it's awful.”

“So you say,” Annie retorted good-naturedly.

Lyndie laughed. She was grateful for her loyal employees like Annie. Those that had been there for over five years were jewels, and she was bound and determined to treat them as such.

Besides, she was now looking out for two, and suddenly everything meant a lot to her.

“I just have to go over a few of the orders, then I'll cab it to the airport. I hope only to be gone a couple of days.” She rubbed her flat belly almost subconsciously.

“Let me know if you need anything.” Annie went to greet a woman who had just entered the shop.

Lyndie wasn't in the back room for more than fifteen minutes when Annie came sauntering in.

“We've had a lot of men looking for gifts at Milady, but I swear, none of them can hold a candle to the handsome creature who just came in.”

“Good. Make him flirt with you, then he'll spend even more money, just to relieve the guilt of flirting with the shop girl.” Lyndie gave a diabolical chuckle.

“He wants to see a bra and panty set in palomino. You ever heard of that color? I didn't want to look dense.”

Lyndie stared at her. The word
palomino
made her think of Girlie. She wondered how the mare was getting on these days.

“Palomino is kind of a beigy-blond color.” Lyndie furrowed her brow. “You know, I think we have a set in that color in the New York shipment. I'll bring them out for the display before I leave.”

“Thanks.” Annie raised her eyebrows. “Let me get back. I don't want him to leave without my phone number.”

Lyndie shook her head, then she went into the storeroom to look for the box.

She found the set she was looking for. Taking an armful, she walked into the shop and placed the stack on the Victorian display case.

“I think this is pretty close to the color of a palomino. What size does your girlfriend wear?” Lyndie
asked the man whose back was to her, as he looked at a silk camisole Annie held out in her hands.

He turned.

Lyndie's heart stopped.

She should have recognized the black cowboy hat, but in the South, sometimes men wore hats just like it.

Then again, she should have noticed the broad back, the tall stature. She should have known it was Bruce Everett just by the scent and the crackle of sexual tension in the air.

“Hello.” Lyndie put down the bra and panty set she was about to hang up.

“Hello, Lyndie,” Bruce said, his gaze strangely warm.

Annie's eyes popped out of her sockets.

When she realized Lyndie knew the hunk, she made a quick excuse to check the storeroom and left them alone.

“What brings you all the way down here?” Lyndie asked, caution in her voice.

“You. I came to see you. To tell you—” He hesitated. His expression became taut.

She hadn't realized how much she'd missed his hard, inscrutable face until now.

“To tell me what?” she asked solemnly.

“To tell you how good it feels to be released from Katherine. To tell you how great it feels to wipe the
slate clean and be free. It took saving you on that mountain to make the ghosts disappear.”

His words strangely disappointed her.

“You could have written me a note. You didn't have to fly all the way down here,” she admonished. “After all, you could have saved anyone up there on the mountain, it didn't have to be me.”

“But it was you.”

She glanced around the shop, trying to retain her detached attitude. “How did you know where my shop was?” she ventured.

“Hazel told me.”

She nodded. “So that's why she called yesterday. On your behalf.”

He released a dismissive grunt. “I haven't seen Hazel since the Mystery Dude Ranch closed for the season. In fact, I only just talked to her this morning over the phone.”

His words didn't quite make sense to her, but she was through with making sense out of love.

“Strange. I was leaving to see Hazel this afternoon. She called and insisted I come up there for a few days. I figured it was on your account.”

“I can take care of my own business—just like you told me you could take care of yours, remember?”

She didn't reply. The tilt of her eyebrow was her only response.

He seemed thoroughly annoyed.

“What I came to say is that I'm sorry things got so out of hand,” he began. “I didn't realize how crippled I was inside over Katherine until you came along. It was my responsibility to take you to the airport, and I found I just couldn't. After that time on the mountain, there was nothing left in me. I just had to sort it all out.”

The wound inside her ripped open. He was saying he didn't love her, and for some strange reason, he felt the need to tell her personally.

The timing couldn't have been more cruel.

“Again,” she stated, “you could have put this in a letter. You needn't have felt the obligation to come all the way here to tell me this personally.”

“I wanted you to know.”

It was her turn to grow annoyed. “Well, consider the message sent. I never once felt you shirked your duties. Hazel would have driven me to the airport whether you were around or not, so no problem.” She studied him, still puzzled over his appearance at her shop.

His frustration seemed to grow. “What I want to say is, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I got you all involved with me and Katherine. I'm sorry for—well, for everything.”

It seemed too horrible to have to suffer the same rejection over and over again, but somehow, that was what had come to pass. He was sorry he'd gotten involved with her, sorry he'd made love to her,
sorry he'd dangled her along while he wrangled with Katherine's ghost.

She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

Certainly, the time to tell him about their child had now come and gone. He was making it brutally obvious he didn't want her, so there was no need to mention a child and throw a noose around his neck.

A marriage to a man she loved when there was no love in return was beyond her worse nightmare.

“Well, I'm glad you got that off your chest. And believe me, I don't lay in bed pining for you. I chalk up our time together as a lust thing, and that's all.”

She swore she saw hurt on his face, but she didn't dare hope. The pain inside her was too raw and exposed at this point to ask anymore questions she didn't want to have answered.

The coldness in his eyes returned. His jaw tightened. “I'm glad it hasn't inconvenienced you.”

Staring at him, she could barely get out the words. “I'm fine. Really. Only, I have a plane to catch. Hazel awaits.”

He stepped aside to let her pass. She grabbed her overnight roll-aboard and her briefcase with her laptop. After saying farewell to Annie, she left to catch her waiting cab.

He watched until she was out of sight.

She slumped down in the cab, everything inside her crushed at the goodbye. Everything except her feelings for Bruce's child.

If she couldn't have love, then she vowed to make do with love's child.

 

Instead of calling Hazel, Lyndie decided to rent a car and surprise her, if that was possible given her grim mood.

She pulled the white sedan through the gates of the Lazy M around five in the evening the following day. Hazel's Caddy was right in front of the house, in the circular drive.

At least she's home, Lyndie thought, parking the rental behind Hazel's car.

“Land sakes, are my eyes deceiving me?” Ebby exclaimed when she opened the door.

Hazel looked up from the papers at her desk in the library. Lyndie spied her through the walnut pocket doors, her leopard reading glasses perched on her nose.

“The devil?” Hazel rose and went to Lyndie.

They hugged. And Lyndie could see the concern on Hazel's face. She might fool Bruce, but there was no lying to the cattle baroness.

“So, what is it?” she asked.

Lyndie broke from her, shaking her head. “I kind of needed a break. I'll tell you when things quiet down a bit. You mind if I go to my room and rest for a while?”

Hazel seemed to understand. She told Ebby to
send a tray to the guest room, then went with Lyndie to settle her in.

Unpacking her case, she finally was able to say, “Bruce came down to see me in New Orleans. In fact, I was on my way out the door to the airport when he stopped by the shop. I suppose he must have had a cowboy convention to go to down there, because what he had to say to me wasn't worth the trip.”

“What did he say?” Hazel asked, as usual getting right to the point.

“He thanked me for helping him get over Katherine.” Lyndie shrugged. She was amazed at how hard and cold she was becoming inside. She didn't feel like crying at all now; her tears had all frozen up.

“He loves you, Lyndie. I've never seen two people so right for each other. He wasn't down there for no convention. He'd come to see you,” Hazel informed her.

“Do you know that for sure? He told you that?”

Hazel hesitated. “Well, truth to tell, I haven't talked to him much since you left. He holed himself up at the ranch and there was no dealing with him. The ranch hands said he was mean as a grizzly. He called yesterday to ask where your shop was, and I told him, figuring he was going to send you some flowers or something.”

“Okay, so you don't know if he loves me.”

Lyndie put down the pile of sweaters she'd gotten out of her suitcase. “But I think he made our relationship crystal clear when he apologized for everything.
Everything
is the word he used, and that pretty much says it all.”

“You darn young folk! Neither of you can talk worth a damn. When Bruce gets back here, I'm gonna get the truth out of him or—”

“No.” Lyndie was firm. Her conviction silenced Hazel. “It's really important that he not be coerced, Hazel. I don't need a man so badly that I've got to get him to the altar by putting a gun to his head, and—” she paused, choosing her words carefully “—and I think love is what makes a marriage work, and you can't force that.”

Hazel hesitated. For there was nothing to refute the truth of Lyndie's words.

“He's gonna come here to see you. You know that, don't you?” the cattle baroness finally said.

“Let him. There's no reason why we shouldn't be friends.”

The word
friend
got her cold ball of tears melting. She so desperately didn't want to be friends with Bruce; she wanted to be his partner, his lover, his wife, the mother of his children. The last thing she wanted was to be friends.

“I'll send in a tray of my homemade stew. Darling, you don't look too well, and I want you to
rest.” Hazel hugged her. “I may be a fool old woman, but I'm not giving up.”

“I can't have you interfering, Hazel.” Lyndie held her gaze. “It's that important, okay?”

“I won't do a thing.” Hazel held up her hands.

Lyndie shoved the sweaters aside and laid down on the bed. Suddenly she was exhausted.

Hazel gave her a worried frown. “I have to tell you, darling, that Bruce Everett's a man who gets what he wants. If he decides it's you, you'll have to surrender.”

Lyndie just closed her eyes. “If I'm what he wants, he's doing a poor job of showing me.”

 

A day later, Hazel rolled her Caddy along the rock-strewn road to the mill. Just as she thought, she found the lone male figure standing by the wheel, watching the water pour from the baskets.

Bruce looked up at the sound of the car.

Hazel took no time for warm-ups. She got out of her car, slammed the door and strode over to him.

“Somehow, I think this has to do with your grand-niece,” he quipped, his eyes on the cattle baroness.

“Damn right,” Hazel cursed. “What did you do to her?”

“I've done nothing except give her money for the business, watch her day and night, force her to stay at the ranch when all she wanted was to go home.
She used me like a bronc at a rodeo, and now you're asking me what I did to
her?
”

His disbelief was genuine, Hazel could tell.

She was caught off guard. “Your MDR Corporation made a good investment in All for Milady,” she began.

“And she still thinks it was you who gave her the money?”

Hazel nodded.

“And she thinks you own Mystery Dude Ranch, and I'm nothing but a poor cowhand. And now how do I go about telling her the truth without thinking for the rest of my life that she married me for my financial assets and not the feeling in my heart?”

The older woman's groan was audible. “This is a fine mess. I've never seen a worse stalemate. She made me promise to not interfere, so I can't just lock you both up in a cabin until you both admit you love each other.”