Cattleman's Choice (3 page)

Mandelyn couldn't meet her friend's eyes. “If you say so. I'll give you a call later about the details of the agreement, okay?” she said with a forced smile.

“Sure,” Patty said. “Thanks again.”

“My pleasure.”

Mandelyn had a salad at the local cafe, but she didn't enjoy it. Her thoughts kept returning to Carson and to Patty's disturbing remarks about him. Afterward, she went back to her office where the developer was pacing back and forth, waiting for her. She made a sly wink at Angie, her new secretary.

“Hello, Mr. Denton,” she said pleasantly, extending her hand. “Sorry I'm late. I was finalizing another deal.”

“Perfectly all right,” he returned, a tall, dignified man in a gray suit. “I'd like to go out to the ranch, if you're ready?”

She hesitated. “I'd better check with Mr. Wayne first,” she said.

“I had your secretary do that,” he said curtly. “He's waiting for us. I'll drive my car.”

She didn't like his high-handedness, but she couldn't afford to antagonize a potential client, so she ground her teeth together in a false smile and followed him out the door.

“Sorry,” Angie mouthed at her.

Mandelyn gave her a shrug, and winked again.

All the way to the ranch, Mandelyn felt as if her stomach was tied in knots. She glanced out across the grassy valley rather than ahead to the ramshackle house nestled in the cottonwood trees with the mountains behind it. She didn't want to see Carson. Why was fate tormenting her this way?

His black Thunderbird was sitting near the house, covered with dust and looking unused. The pickup truck Jake had driven the night before was parked by the barn. The corral was deserted. The front door was standing open, but she couldn't see through the screen.

“This is where he lives?” Mr. Denton asked in astonishment as he pulled his green Lincoln up in front of the rough wood house.

“He's rather eccentric,” she faltered.

“Crazy,” he muttered. He got out of the car, looking neat and alien in his city clothing, and Mandelyn fell reluctantly into step beside him. She was wearing a blue knit suit, with her hair in a bun. She looked elegant and cool, and felt neither. She'd tried to disguise her swollen lip with lipstick, but it was raw where her tongue touched it.

As they started up the steps, Carson walked out onto the porch with quick strides. He looked even taller in his work boots. He was wearing faded denim jeans and a blue chambray shirt half unbuttoned over his broad, hair-roughened chest. He looked tired and hung over, but his blue eyes were alert and at least he seemed approachable.

“Mr. Wayne?” the developer said, putting on his best smile. “Nice place you have here. Rustic.”

Carson bent his head to light a cigarette, pointedly ignoring the developer's outstretched hand.

“You won't take no for an answer, will you?” Carson asked him with a cold blue glare.

Denton looked a little ruffled but he withdrew his hand and forced the smile back onto his thin lips. “I got rich that way,” he replied. “Look, I'll up my previous offer by two thousand an acre. It's a perfect tract for my retirement village. Lots of water, flat land, beautiful view…”

“It's the best grazing land I've got,” Carson replied. “And there's a fort on the place that dates back to the earliest settlement.”

“The fort could be moved. I'd be willing…”

“My great-grandfather built it,” came the cold reply.

“Mr. Wayne,” the developer began.

“Look,” Carson said curtly, “I don't like being pushed. This is my place, and I don't want to sell it. I told you that. I told her that,” he added, glancing toward Mandelyn. “I'm tired of talking. Come out here again and I'll load my gun.”

“You can't threaten me, you backwoods…!” the developer began.

“Oh, no,” Mandelyn ground out, covering her face with her hands. She knew even as Carson began cursing what was going to happen. She flinched at the first thud, the shocked cry, the heavy sound of a body landing on hard ground. She peeked between her fingers. The developer was trying to sit up, holding his jaw. Carson was standing over him with calm contempt, smoking his cigarette. He didn't even look rumpled.

“Get off my land, you…” He tacked on a few rough words and bent to lift the other man by the collar. He frog-marched him to the Lincoln, tossed him inside, and slammed the door. “Vamoose!” he growled.

Mandelyn stood there, frozen, while the Lincoln jerked out of the yard. She stared for a long minute and then, with a sigh, started after it.

“Where the hell do you think you're going?” Carson asked.

“Back to town.”

“Not yet. I want to talk to you.”

She whirled and glared at him. “I don't want to talk to you.”

He took her arm and half led, half dragged her up the steps and into the house. “Did I ask?”

“No, you never do!” she shot back. “You just move in and take over! He made you a very generous offer. You've cost me a fortune…!”

“I told you not to bring him out here.”

“You told my secretary he could come!” she floundered.

“Like hell I did. I told her to tell him he could come if he felt lucky.”

And poor little Angie hadn't realized what that meant.

“Angie's new,” she muttered, standing still in the dim living room. He didn't even have electricity. He had kerosene lanterns and furniture that she didn't want to sit on. It looked as if it were made with leftover gunnysacks.

“Sit,” he said curtly, dropping into a ragged armchair.

She shifted uncomfortably on her feet. She'd only been in this house once or twice, with her uncle. Since his death, she'd found excuses to stay on the porch or in the yard when she stopped by to talk business with Carson.

His face hardened when he saw the look she was giving the sparse furniture. He got up, furiously angry, and walked into the kitchen.

“In here,” he said icily. “Maybe the kitchen chairs will suit you better.”

She felt cruel. She hadn't meant to be rude. With a sigh, she walked past him and sat down in one of the cane-bottomed chairs around the table with its red checked oilcloth cover. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I wasn't trying to be rude.”

“You didn't want to soil your designer clothes on my filthy furniture,” he laughed through narrowed eyes. He sat down roughly and leaned back in the chair, glaring at her. “Why pussyfoot around?”

She stared at him unblinkingly. “What do you want?”

“There's a question,” he replied softly. His blue eyes wandered slowly over her face, down to her lips, and hardened visibly. “Hell,” he breathed at the swollen evidence of his brutality. He pulled an ashtray toward him with a sigh and crushed out his half-finished cigarette. “I didn't realize how rough I'd been.”

“I'll put it down to experience,” she said curtly.

“Do you have much?” he asked, holding her gaze. “Did you fight because you were afraid?”

“You were hurting me!” she said, red with embarrassment and bad temper.

His nostrils flared as he breathed. He paused a moment, and his next words took her completely by surprise. “You told Patty I was too savage to get a woman.”

Her mouth flew open. She just sat and stared, hardly able to believe Patty's betrayal.

“I…I never dreamed…”

“That she'd tell me?” he asked coolly. He pulled another cigarette from his pocket and lit it with an impatient snap of his lighter. “She was kidding around, she didn't mean anything. I guess you didn't either.” He stared at the cigarette. “I've been thinking about it a lot lately, about getting older, being alone.” He looked up. “When Patty said that this morning, it made me mad as hell. Then I realized that you were right, that I don't even know how to behave in polite society. That I'm not…civilized.”

“Carson…” she began, at a loss for words.

He shook his head. “Don't apologize. Not for telling the truth.” He sighed, stretching, and the hard, heavy muscles of his chest were evident beneath his shirt. Her eyes were drawn to the mat of dark hair visible in the opening, and she felt a sensation that shocked her. “I didn't sleep,” he said after a minute, watching her. “I'm sorry I cut your lip, that I manhandled you. I guess you knew I was drinking.”

“You tasted of whiskey,” she said without thinking, and then flushed when she remembered exactly how he'd tasted.

“Did I?” His eyes dropped to her swollen lip. “I don't know what came over me. And you fought me…that only made it worse. You should have known better, little debutante.”

“I've been fighting you for years,” she reminded him.

“Verbally,” he agreed. “Not physically.”

She glared at him. “What was I supposed to do, lie back and enjoy it?” she challenged.

His eyes darkened. His chest rose and fell roughly. “All right, I'm sorry,” he growled. “For God's sake, what do you expect? I never knew my mother, never had a sister. My whole life revolved around a man who beat the hell out of me when I disobeyed….”

She stood quietly, forcing away her bad temper, hearing him without thinking until the words began to penetrate. She turned slowly and stared up at him. “Beat you?”

He drew in a slow breath, then glanced down at her bare arm where his strong, tanned fingers held it firmly. His thumb moved on the soft skin experimentally. “My father was a cattleman,” he said. “My mother couldn't live with him. She ran away when I was four. He took me in hand, and his idea of discipline was to hit me when I did something he didn't like. I had a struggle just to get through school—he didn't believe in education. But by then, I outweighed him by fifty pounds,” he added with glittering eyes, “and I could fight back.”

It explained a lot of things. He never talked about his childhood, although she'd heard Jake make veiled references to how rough it had been.

Her eyes searched his hard face curiously.

He lifted his hand to her face and touched her lip gently. “I'm sorry I kissed you like that.”

She went flaming red. She felt as if his eyes could see right through her.

“I've never been gentle,” he said, “because I never knew what it was to be treated gently. And now, I'm thirty-eight years old, and I'm lonely. And I don't know how to court a woman. Because I'm a savage. This,” he sighed bitterly, tracing her swollen lip, “is proof of it.”

She stared up at him, searching his eyes quietly as his hand dropped. “Didn't you have any other relatives?” she asked.

“Not one,” he said. He turned away and went to stand by the window. “I ran away from home once or twice. He always came after me. Eventually I learned to fight back, and the beatings stopped. But I was fourteen by then. The damage had already been done.”

She studied his long back in silence, and then shifted, looking around the messy kitchen until her eyes found a facsimile of a coffee pot. She got to her feet. “Mind if I make some coffee?” she asked. “I'm sort of thirsty.”

“Help yourself.” He watched her with a familiar, unblinking scrutiny. “You look odd, doing that,” he remarked.

“Why?” she asked with a laugh. “I'm very domestic. I cook, too, or don't you remember those dinners Uncle used to invite you to?”

“It's been years since I've eaten at your table.”

She stared down at the pot she was filling. How could she possibly confess that she was too uneasy with him to enjoy his company? He disturbed her, unsettled her and she didn't understand why. Which only made it worse.

“I've been too busy for guests,” she said. Her eyes went up to the tattered curtains at the window. “You could use some new curtains.”

“I could use a lot of things,” he said curtly. “This house is falling apart.”

“You're letting it,” she reminded him. She put the pot on to boil, grimacing at the grease that had congealed and blackened on top of the once-white range.

“There hasn't been any reason to fix it up before,” he said. “Just me, living alone, not much company. But I've hired a construction firm to do some renovations.”

That was startling. She turned to face him, her gray eyes wide and curious. “Why?” she asked without thinking.

“It has something to do with the reason I brought you in here,” he admitted. He finished the cigarette and crushed it out. “I need some help.”

“You!” she burst out.

He glared at her. “Don't make jokes.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

He hesitated uncharacteristically. His face hardened. “Hell, look at me,” he growled finally, ramming his hands into the pockets of his worn, faded jeans. “You told Patty I was too savage to get a woman, and you were right. I don't know how to behave in civilized company. I don't even know which fork to use in a fancy restaurant.” He shifted restlessly, looking arrogant and proud and self-conscious all at once. “I want you to teach me some manners.”

“Me?” Mandelyn exclaimed in shock.

“Of course you,” he shot back. “Who else do I know with a cultured background? I need educating.”

She blinked away her confusion. “After all these years, why now?”

“Females,” he said angrily. “You always have to know it all, don't you? Every single damned thing…all right,” he sighed roughly, running a hand through his thick hair. “There's a woman.”

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She stood there like an elegant statue, staring at him. Patty! she thought. It had to be Patty! It was the only possibility that made sense. His unreasonable anger about what Mandelyn had said to Patty, his sudden decision to renovate the house coinciding with Patty's return to Sweetwater. So that was it. The invulnerable man was in love, and he thought Patty had become too citified to like him the way he was. So he was making the supreme sacrifice and having himself turned into a gentleman. Pygmalion in reverse.