Connal Read online

  Pepi knew how much the ranch meant to her father, and she felt a twinge of guilt for putting up a fight when; C.C. was the answer to all his problems. But he was the root of all hers.

  "How do you really feel about this?" Ben asked qui­etly.

  She fingered her coffee cup. "I think he's just making the most of a bad situation," she said. "Or maybe he feels that getting an annulment would be a reflection on his masculinity." She shrugged. "Maybe it's even what he said, to keep prospective brides off his back when his monied background gets around. But how I feel about it is uneasy. He's too smooth about it for a man who was ranting and raving like a madman when he found out what happened in Juarez."

  "He was away for several days," Ben said thought­fully. "Maybe he came to grips with it then."

  She remembered what C.C. had told her about his wife, and she wasn't sure about that. He'd mentioned wanting a family, that Edie didn't. He could just be thinking about how easily Pepi could be cast in the mold he wanted—housewife and mother and cook, somebody in the background of his life, somebody he could walk away from without his emotions being involved if the marriage dissolved for any reason. She knew he didn't love her. He'd made that all too obvious already. He might want her. She wasn't even sure about that, be­cause he only let things show on his face that he wanted people to see. He might be playing a game. He might be getting even.

  "You're doing it again," Ben observed. ''Brooding," he added when she frowned with curiosity. "Stop brood-ing. Live one day at a time and see what hap­pens."

  She wanted to argue, but there was really no reason to. "Okay," she said easily. "I've got a job," she said.

  "A what?"

  "A job. Well, I've almost got a job," she amended. "There's one going in El Paso, if the receptionist who just had a baby doesn't come back." She told him about it, puzzled by his worried look. "What's wrong with my having a job?" she demanded.

  "You've got enough to do around here," he mut­tered. "I'll have to give up my apple pies and cakes if you go to work. Who'll take care of me?"

  Her eyebrows arched. "But, Dad, I can't stay at home forever!"

  "Could if you stayed married to my new son-in-law," he said curtly. "No reason why you shouldn't. He's a great catch. Rich, good-looking, smart. . ."

  " . . . hardheadcd, autocratic, unreasonable. . ." she-amended.

  ".. .and best of all, he likes kids," he concluded firmly. "I like kids. Would have had more than just you if we could have, you know. Nothing in the world I'd enjoy more than a houseful of grandkids."

  "Great. When I get free from C.C. and marry Bran­don, we'll make sure you have lots. All redheaded," she said with a smug grin.

  "I don't want redheaded grandkids!" he raged.

  "Too bad," she sighed, finishing her breakfast. "Be­cause I'm not going to spend the rest of my life helping C.C. ward off women."

  "Hasn't it occurred to you that he might have other reasons for wanting you to stay with him?" her father asked after a minute. "More personal reasons than he's given?"

  She searched his face. "You mean because of his wife, and the baby?" she asked.

  He nodded. "Hard for him, losing her like that, and her pregnant at the time. I can see why he's haunted. I know all about guilt, sweetheart, I felt it for years be­cause I was drinking the night of the wreck that killed your mother. I learned finally that you can't live in the past. You have to shoulder your mistakes and regrets and go on. He's learning that. Maybe he's ready to start over, too."

  "Maybe he is, but it's not enough, Dad," she said wearily. "I can't be just a healing balm in his life, you know? I have to be loved, wanted, needed."

  "He needs you, all right, we've all seen that over the years," Ben reminded her.

  "Sure. Good old Pepi, keeping him out of trouble, making sure he wears his raincoat, watching over his meals. . . but that isn't what he needs, Dad. He needs a woman he can love. Edie would be a better choice than I am, at least they've got a relationship of sorts. C.C. and I—well, he's never even kissed me," she muttered with a faint flush.

  "You might ask him to, then," Ben said with a twin­kle in his eyes. "Just to sample the goods, so to speak."

  She went redder and lowered her brown eyes to her plate. "I don't want to kiss him, I don't know where he's been."

  "You won't know what you're missing until you try," he said. "After all, you've lived like a saint for the past few years, despite the best efforts of the redheaded vet."

  "You didn't tell C.C. that!" she exclaimed.

  "He figured it for himself," he said easily. "C.C.'s been around. Even a blind man could tell that you haven't. You blush too much."

  "I'll dot my face with rice powder and wear a mask over my eyes from now on, that's for sure!" she grum­bled. "Men!"

  "Now, now. We only want what's best for you."

  "And the fact that he can get the ranch out of debt is like icing on the cake, huh?"

  He smiled placatingly. "I won't say no. This land is a legacy. We'll hand it down for years to come now, and the history that goes with it. John Wesley Hardin slept in this very house. A Comanche war party raided the ranch and killed one of the cowboys. The cavalry used to bivouac on the bottoms on its way to various campaigns toward the Pasa del Norte and back. Yes, girl, this land is full of history. I'd like your kids to inherit it."

  She reached out and lightly touched his wrinkled hand. "I understand that. But marriage seems to be hard enough when you love someone. When you don't. . ."

  "But you do," Ben replied knowingly. "I've seen the way you watch him, the way you light up when he comes into a room. He doesn't see it because he's not looking. But the fact that he doesn't want an annulment gives you hope, doesn't it?"

  "He doesn't want it for the right reasons," she moaned. "Any woman would suit him, don't you see?"

  "No, I don't." He tugged his pocket watch out by its gold chain and looked at it. "And I don't have time to make you see it right now, I'm late. Won't be in for lunch, so don't worry about me. C.C. mentioned he might be in for it, though."

  "I'll be sure I leave him something on the table," she muttered.

  "Now, now. Is that any way to treat the man who's getting your worried old father out of debt?"

  She grimaced. "I guess not. All right, I'll try to look suitably grateful. Now if you'll excuse me," she added, getting up to stack the dishes, "I've got some chores to do. And I'm not giving up that job, either," she tossed over her shoulder. "If they hire me, I'm going!"

  Ben threw up his hands and went toward the door.

  Pepi did the dishes and cleaned the house. All the while she was thinking about C.C.'s impromptu invitation to come out to the loading docks and watch them process the new heifers. He'd probably be through long before lunch, and he hadn't pressed his invitation. But she went, anyway, riding lazily down the unpaved ranch road to­ward the loading docks; the wooden chutes down which arriving cattle were driven into the ranch's only fenced pasture.

  As she rode, her mind was comparing this valley land with the mostly desert country farther to the northwest, toward El Paso. The desert country around El Paso was deceptive. Beautiful, in its stark way, and its barren ap­pearance only disguised a multitude of life, animal and plant. The prickly pear cactus could inflict enough hairy thorns to keep a man busy with tweezers and a flashlight for the better part of an hour, but it put forth some of the most elegant blossoms of any desert plant. The rain kin­dled more blossoms, so that the desert came alive with them. Even the tough mesquite tree put out its own heavenly bloom. Animal life abounded, and not just rattlesnakes and lizards. There were other stretches where only the creosote bushes grew, spreading like miniature orchards, with no vegetation nearby because of their toxic root secretions, which killed any vegetation that tried to grow up around them. After a rain, their pun­gent, spicy smell was a treat to the senses. Old pioneers made medicines and glue out of them.

  But where the Mathews ranch sat, near the site of old Fort Hancock, s
outheast of El Paso in Hudspeth County, the Rio Grande was close enough to make the area fer­tile and there was plenty of grazing land for the cattle. The U.S. Army had situated a number of forts along the Rio Grande in the mid and late I800s in accordance with the settlement of the southern boundary of Texas against the Mexican border. The United States accepted respon­sibility for stopping Indian attacks across the border, so a number of forts were located along the river. One of those was Fort Hancock, named for General Winfield Scott Hancock. Pepi had played on the site of it on trips with her parents, the eternal history buffs. They'd known every point of historical interest in the area, which was why she knew about the Salt War, provoked by the salt deposit at the base of Guadalupe Peak, which resulted in some fierce gun battles between people who thought the salt should be free and others who argued the advan­tages of private mineral rights. She knew about the In­dian hot springs on the Sierra Blanca road, and nearby Fort Quitman, another of the early forts—although no real ruins were left of it, only an adobe scale model on private land.

  As a girl, she used to wander around those historic spots imagining war parties of elegant Comanche war­riors on horseback—the best light cavalry in the world, they'd been called. She could imagine men on long cat­tle drives, and Mexican bandits like Pancho Villa, and

  Apache and Yaqui raiders. Her imagination had kept her from brooding about being an only child.

  Pepi wondered if C.C. liked history. She'd never asked him. She frowned as the mare picked up her pace as they approached the bottoms near what they privately called Mathews Creek, a tributary of the Rio Grande. This area was known to flood when the spring rains came, other­wise it was the haunt of such creatures as pronghorn an­telope and white-tailed deer. Her father occasionally allowed hunting on his land, but only if he knew the people involved. Since man had killed off most of the predators that once kept the browsing animals in check, man now had to arrange a less natural way of reducing the number of antelope and deer. Otherwise they over­grazed the land and threatened the survival of the cattle and even themselves.

  She felt her heart climb into her throat when she saw the big trucks still unloading new stock, because C.C. was straddling the fence supervising the operation. He must have sensed her approach, because he looked straight at her. Even at the distance, she could see the smile.

  He jumped down from the fence and moved toward her, lean and rangy and dangerous. She wondered if there had ever been a man like him. He was certainly the stuff her dreams were made of.

  "So you decided to join us," he mused. "Well, come on down."

  She swung out of the saddle and fell into step beside him, the reins loosely in her hand. The mare followed noisily behind them.

  "That's a lot of cattle," she mentioned when they'd tied the mare to the fence a little farther along.

  He glanced down at her. "It takes a lot of cattle to make a living these days," he reminded her. "Especially for ranchers like your father and me, who aren't taking shortcuts."

  She frowned. "Shortcuts?"

  "Hormone implants, super vitamins, that kind of thing."

  "Didn't I read in Dad's market bulletin that some for­eign countries were refusing to import cattle with hor­mone implants that make them grow faster and bigger?" she asked.

  He grinned. "Did your homework, I see," he mused. He lit a cigarette and pushed back the brim of his bat­tered tan Stetson. "That's right. People are becoming more health conscious. We have to raise leaner beef in more natural ways to fit the market. Even the pesticides we use on our grain is under fire."

  "Not to mention branding," she murmured, darting a glance upward.

  "Don't get me started," he began gently. "It isn't cruel, but it is necessary. A freeze-dried brand won't last or be visible after a year or so. Even a burnt brand fades after the cattle shed their coats a few times. Ear tags can be removed. Hot branding is the only way a rancher can protect his investment and mark his cattle. Anything less is an open invitation to rustlers to come and wipe us out."

  "I can hear the giggles now. Rustlers, in the space age."

  "You know as well as I do that rustling is big busi­ness, even if they do it with trucks instead of box can­yons," he muttered. "Damn it, we're under the gun from every side these days. People may have to choose be­tween meat and tubes of food paste one day, but until they're willing to pass up a juicy steak, some conces­sions are going to have to be made."

  "I still don't think they ought to torture animals un­necessarily," she said doggedly. "Not just out of curi­osity, or to make cosmetics safer for women."

  He chuckled. "You and your soft heart. You'd make pets of all my steers and name the chickens, wouldn't you? A hundred years ago you'd have starved to death. And I'll remind you of a time when children died by the thousands or were crippled by endless diseases. How do you think the researchers found cures for those dis­eases?"

  "By using animals for their experiments, I guess," she said uneasily.

  "Damned straight. And a hundred years ago, if you couldn't kill an animal, you starved." He stared out over the range. "Cruelty is a part of life. Like it or not, you and I are predators, animals. Man is just a savage with the edges smoothed over. Put him in a primitive envi­ronment with an empty belly, and he'll kill every time."

  "Can we talk about something less violent?" she asked. "Are your brothers like you?"

  He turned, staring down at her appreciatively, from her loosened reddish hair to her rounded figure in jeans. "Evan is," he said finally. "He's the eldest. We look alike, although he's more reserved than I am. Harden is closest to my age, but he's blue-eyed. My youngest brother is Donald—he got married just before I left to come here. Nice girl. Her name is Jo Ann."

  "Are your parents still alive?" she asked.

  "Our father died when we were just boys. Mother's still around, though." He hooked his thumbs in his wide leather belt and looked down at Pepi. "Her name is Theodora," he said, his gaze falling to Pepi's mouth. "If we have a daughter, I'd like to name her after my mother. She's a special woman. Gritty and capable and loving. She'd like you, Penelope Mathews Tremayne."

  She felt her face going hot. He was much too close, and the threat of that lean, fit body made her nervous. She shifted away a little, but he moved with her, his smile telling her that he knew very well how he affected her.

  "I'm not a Tremayne for long," she said defensively.

  "For as long as I say so, you are," he murmured. "Marriage isn't something to be taken lightly. If you didn't want to marry me, you should never have let me convince you to do into that Mexican wedding chapel."

  He had a point there, but she couldn't admit it. She stuck her hands into her pockets to keep them still. She couldn't get her eyes up past his shirt. It was blue-checked, Western cut, and drawn taut across that broad expanse of chest. She could see the shadow of hair un­der it. She'd seen him without his shirt once or twice, but only from a distance. She couldn't help wonder what he looked like up close, and when she realized what she was thinking, her face flamed.

  He lifted an eyebrow. "My, my, aren't we unsettled?" he mused with a slow smile. "Want me to take it off, Pepi?" he drawled softly.

  Her eyes shot up to his, glanced off them and darted away to the cattle. Her heart almost shook her with its beat and her mouth went bone-dry as she searched for poise. "I was. . . admiring the color," she stammered.

  "You were undressing me, you mean," he said casu­ally, lifting the cigarette to his mouth. "Why don't you?" he murmured. "We're married. I don't mind if you touch me."

  She actually gasped and started to move away, but he caught a long strand of her hair between his hard fingers and stayed the movement effectively.

  "Don't run from me," he said, his voice deep and slow, carrying even over the bawling of the cattle and the shouts of the nearby cowboys who were unloading them. A big cattle trailer had been backed in, shielding them from the men with its bulk. "It's time you faced up to the reality of our situation
."

  "Our situation would resolve itself if you'd agree to an annulment." She choked out the words.

  His hand moved, tangling in her hair. He turned her, lifted her face to his with the pressure of it, and his dark eyes had an odd, new glint in their narrowed depths. "Annulments are for people who can't work out their problems. You and I are going to give this marriage a chance, starting now, here."

  "We're what. . . C.C!"

  His mouth covered her startled cry. He didn't relent, even when she twisted and tried to fight him. He threw the cigarette in the dirt and his free arm gathered her up against the length of his hard-muscled, fit body. The warm strength of it weakened her will. Slowly she be­came aware of her hands gripping his muscular arms frantically, her breathing almost stifled. Then she began to feel the slow warmth of his mouth against her own, the sensual movements growing gentler and more insistent by the second.

  Brandon had kissed her. So had other boys. But it had been nothing like this. She barely felt the hot sun on her head or heard the noise around them or smelled the dust. She hesitated in her struggles for an instant and gave in to the steely arm around her back. He moved her closer, and she shivered a little with the newness of letting a man hold her like this, in an embrace that was nothing short of intimate.

  His mouth lifted, brushed, touched the corners of hers as he felt her resistance slackening. She melted into him unexpectedly and his cheek drew slowly against hers, lifting fractionally so that he could see her eyes. The dazed pleasure in them made him hungry. Soft, pale darkness under those long, thick lashes, pierced with cu­riosity and need.

  "The. . . men," she managed halfheartedly.

  He turned her just fractionally, so that she could see that they were shielded from view by the cattle trailer. "What men, little one?" he whispered. His mouth set­tled on hers like the brush of a butterfly's wing. Lifted. Teased. "Slide your arms under mine," he murmured as he nibbled her lower lip. "Come close."