Cattleman's Choice (2 page)

“Why is that man in the tree?” she asked Carson.

“Ask him,” Carson said in a deep drawl.

She looked up at the thin cowboy, who was young and battered looking. She recognized him belatedly as one she'd seen often in the grocery store. “Bobby, what did you do?”

The young cowboy sighed. “Well, Miss Bush, I hit him over the back with a chair. He was choking Andy, and I was afraid he was going to do some damage.”

“If he apologizes,” she said to Carson, who was slightly unsteady on his feet, “can he come down?”

He thought about that for a minute. “I guess.”

“Bobby, apologize!” she called up.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne!” came the prompt reply.

Carson glared up toward the limb. “All right, you…”

Mandelyn had to grit her teeth as Carson went through a round of unprintable words before he let the shivering cowboy come down.

“Thanks!” Bobby said quickly, and ran for it, before Carson had time to change his mind.

Mandelyn sighed, staring up at Carson's hard face. It was a long way up. He was tall and broad shouldered, with a physique that would have caught any woman's eye. But he was rough and coarse and only half civilized, and she couldn't imagine any woman being able to live with him.

“Jake with you?” he bit off.

“Yes. As usual.” She moved closer and slowly reached out to catch his big hand in hers. It was callused and warm and it made her tingle to touch it. It was an odd reaction, but she didn't stop to question it. “Let's go home, Carson.”

He let her lead him around the building, as docile as a lamb, and not for the first time she wondered at that docility. He would have attacked any man who tried to stop him. But for some reason he tolerated Mandelyn's interference. She was the only person his men would call to get him.

“Shame on you,” she mumbled.

“Button up,” he said curtly. “When I want a sermon, I'll call a preacher.”

“Any preacher you called would faint dead away,” she shot back. “And don't give me orders, I don't like it.”

He stopped suddenly. She was still holding his hand and the action jerked her backward.

“Wildcat,” he said huskily, and his eyes glittered in the dim light. “For all your culture and polish, you're as hard as a back-country woman.”

“Sure I am,” she replied. “I have to be, to deal with a savage like you!”

Something darkened his eyes, hardened his jaw. All at once, he turned her, whipped her around, and bent to jerk her completely off the ground and into his hard arms.

“Put me down, Carson!” she said curtly, pushing at his broad shoulders.

He ignored her struggles. One of his arms, the one that was under her shoulders, shifted, so that his hand could catch her long blonde hair and pull her head back.

“I'm tired of letting you lead me around like a cowed dog,” he said in a gruff undertone. “I'm tired of being called a savage. If that's what you think I am, maybe it's time I lived down to my reputation.”

His grip on her hair was painful, and she only half heard the harsh words. Then, with shocking precision, he brought his hard mouth down on her parted lips and took possession.

It was the first time he'd touched her, ever. She went rigid all over at the unfamiliar intimacy of his whiskey-scented mouth, the rasp of whiskers that raked her soft skin. Her eyes, wide open and full of astonished fear, looked up at his drawn eyebrows, at the thick black lashes that lay against his hard, dark-skinned cheek. He made an odd sound, deep in his throat, and increased the pressure of his mouth until it became bruisingly painful.

She protested, a wild sound that penetrated the mists of intoxication and made his head slowly lift.

His chiseled lips were parted, his eyes as shocked as her own, his face harder than ever as he looked down at her. His hard gaze went to her lips. In that ardent fury his teeth had cut the lower one.

All at once, he seemed to sober. He put her gently down onto her shaky legs and hesitantly took her by the shoulders.

“I'm sorry,” he said slowly.

She touched her trembling lips, all the fight gone out of her. “You cut my mouth,” she whispered.

He reached out an unsteady finger and touched it while his chest lifted unsteadily.

She drew back from that tingling contact, her eyes wide and uncertain.

He let his hand fall. “I don't know why I did that,” he said.

She'd never wondered before about his love life, about his women. But the feel of his mouth had fostered an unexpected intimacy between them, and suddenly she was curious about him in ways that unsettled her.

“We'd better go,” she said. “Jake will be worried.”

She turned, leaving him to follow. She couldn't have borne having to touch him again until some of the rawness subsided.

Jake opened the door, frowning when he saw her face. “You okay?” he asked quickly.

“Just battle-scarred,” she replied with a trace of humor. She climbed in, drawing her knees together as a subdued Carson climbed in beside her and slammed the door shut.

“Get going,” he told Jake without looking at him.

It was a horrible ride back home for Mandelyn. She felt betrayed. In all their turbulent relationship, she'd never once thought of him in any physical way. He was much too coarse to be an object of desire, too uncivilized and antisocial. She'd vowed that she'd never love a man again, that she'd live on the memory of the love she'd lost so many years ago. And now Carson had shocked her out of her apathy with one brutal kiss. He'd robbed her of her peace of mind. Tonight, he'd changed the rules, without any warning, and she felt empty and raw and a little afraid.

When Jake pulled up at her door, she waited nervously for Carson to get out of the truck.

“Thanks,” Jake whispered.

She glanced at him. “Next time, I won't come,” she said curtly.

Leaving him to absorb that, she jumped down from the cab and walked stiffly toward the front door without a word to Carson. As she closed the door, she heard the pickup truck roar away. And then she cried.

Chapter Two

W
hen dawn burst over the valley in deep, fiery lights, Mandelyn was still awake. The night before might have been only a dream except for the swollen discomfort of her lower lip, where Carson's teeth had cut it.

She sat idly on the front porch, still dressed, staring vacantly at the mountains. It was spring, and the wildflowers were blooming among the sparse vegetation, but she wasn't even aware of the sparkling early morning beauty.

Her mind had gone back to the first day she'd ever seen Carson, when she was eighteen and had just moved to Sweetwater with her Uncle Dan. She'd gone into the local fast-food restaurant for a soda and Carson had been sitting on a nearby stool.

She remembered her first glimpse of him, how her heart had quickened, because he was the only cowboy she'd seen so far. He was lean and rangy looking, his hair as unruly then as it was now, his face unshaven, his pale eyes insolent and intimate as he lounged back against the counter and stared at her with a blatant lack of good manners.

She'd managed to ignore him at first, but when he'd called to her and asked how she'd like to go out on the town with him, her Scotch-Irish temper had burst through the restraints of her proper upbringing.

Even now, she could remember his astonished look when she'd turned on the stool, coldly ladylike in her neat white suit. She had glared at him from cold gray eyes.

“My name,” she'd informed him icily, “is Miss Bush, not, ‘hey, honey.' I am not looking for some fun, and if I were, it would not be with a barbarian like you.”

His eyebrows had shot up and he'd actually laughed. “Well, well, if it isn't a Southern belle. Where are you from, honey?'

“I'm from Charleston,” she said coldly. “That's a city. In South Carolina.”

“I made good grades in geography,” he replied.

She'd given a mock gasp. “You can read?”

That had set him off. The language that had followed had made her flush wildly, but it hadn't backed her down.

She'd stood up, ignoring the stares of the astonished bystanders, walked straight over to him, and coolly slapped him with all the strength of her slender body behind her small hand. And then she'd walked out the door, leaving him staring at her.

It was days later that she learned they were neighbors. He'd come to talk to Uncle Dan about a horse, and that was when she'd found out who Carson Wayne was. He'd smiled at her, and confessed to her uncle what had happened in town, as if it amused him. It had taken her weeks to get used to Carson's rowdy humor and his unpolished behavior. He would slurp his coffee and ignore his napkin, and use language that embarrassed her. But since he was always around, she had to get used to him. So she did.

Later that first year, she'd gone to the rodeo, and Carson had been beating the stuffing out of another cowboy as she was coming out of the stands. Obviously intoxicated, he was throwing off the men who tried to stop him. Without a thought of defeat, she'd walked over to Carson and touched him lightly on the arm. He'd stopped hitting the other man immediately, looking down at her with dark, quiet eyes. She'd taken his hand, and he'd let her lead him around the corral, to where Jake was waiting nervously. After that, Jake went looking for her whenever his boss went on a spree. And she always went to the rescue. But after last night, she'd never go again.

With a long sigh, she walked back into the house and put on a pot of coffee. She fixed a piece of toast and ate it with her coffee, checking the time. She had a meeting at nine with Patty Hopper, a local woman who'd just come back home fresh out of veterinary school and needed an office. Then, after lunch, she had to talk to the developer who was interested in Carson's forty-acre tract. It was going to be another long day. The man had insisted on seeing Carson personally, but after last night, it was going to be heavy going. Mandelyn didn't particularly relish the thought.

Patty met her at the vacant house Mandelyn wanted to show her. The small, dark-eyed woman had light brown hair and a broad, sweet face. She and Mandelyn had been on the verge of friendship when Patty went away to college, and they still met occasionally when the younger woman was home on vacation.

“Well, what do you think?” Mandelyn answered her. “Isn't it a great location, just off the town square? And I can help you get a great interest rate if you want to finance it over a twenty-year period.”

“I'm speechless.” Patty grinned warmly. “It's exactly what I wanted. I've got space for an operating room here, and enough acreage out back to put in fences for runs. This gigantic living room will make a perfect waiting room. Yes, I like it. I like the price, too.”

“I just happen to have all the paperwork right here,” Mandelyn laughed, producing an envelope from her large purse. “Then you can meet with James over at the bank and convince him you need the loan.”

“James and I went to school together,” Patty told her. “That won't be any problem at all. I've saved up a hefty down payment, and I'm a good credit risk. Just ask all my classmates who loaned me money!”

“I believe you.” Mandelyn smiled as she watched Patty sign the preliminary agreement. “This is a sunny office. I can see you making your fortune right here.”

“I hope you're right.” Patty stood up, folding her arms over the tan sweater she was wearing with casual jeans. “Wow! All mine.”

“Yours and the bank's, at least,” came the dry reply.

“You're a jewel, Mandy,” Patty told her. She glanced curiously at Mandelyn's lip. “I heard you were riding around with Jake in the early morning hours.”

“Small towns,” Mandelyn said gruffly. “Yes, I was. Carson had the local bar in an uproar again.”

Patty laughed. “Just like old times,” she said, and looked oddly relieved. “Carson's a bearcat, isn't he? I'm on my way out there next, on a large animal call. He's got a sick bull.”

“Don't get too close, he might make a grab for you,” Mandelyn teased.

“Me? Not Carson, he's too polite.”

“That's rich!” Mandelyn laughed bitterly. “He's a savage. Something right out of ancient history.”

“He's always been polite to me,” Patty said. “Strange, isn't it, that he's never married?”

Mandelyn felt her blood boil. “It doesn't seem strange to me. He's too uncivilized to get a woman. He'd have to kidnap one and point a gun at her to get a wife!”

“I thought he was your friend,” Patty said.

“He was,” Mandelyn said coldly. She turned. “Well, I've got a developer coming round in about an hour. I'd better go and have my lunch. I'm glad you liked the office.”

“Me too,” Patty said, laughing. “Say, do you really think Carson would be all that bad in bed?” she added curiously. “He's awfully sexy.”