Cowboy Come Home (25 page)
Authors: Janette Kenny
Hollis shrugged. “Hard to say. Could be any time. Could be late.”
She hoped it would be sooner instead of later. “The man who called on me today. If you see him come back here before Trey returns, please come up to the house.”
The old man stopped scrubbing his dungarees and stared at her. “You afraid of this fellow?”
The memory of what he’d planned to do in the loft sickened her. “I don’t want to be alone with him.”
Hollis gave a curt nod. “I’ll keep an eye peeled for him then.”
“Thank you.”
She left him to his work and trudged into the house. With the heat of the day on them, she longed for a siesta. But she refused to rest until she’d washed the sweat from her body, donned fresh clothes, and cleaned the ones she’d worked in.
A quick scrubbing in the house took a bit longer than she’d hoped. She stepped outside to hang those garments too.
Hollis had finished his chore and had dumped the tubs, leaning them against the shed to dry. Nobody else was around.
That cold sense of loneliness swept over her again. Why did it bother her now when it never had before?
She had no answers as she returned to the house and slipped up to her room. With the shades drawn and a breeze drifting through the windows, it was relatively cool.
She curled on the bed, intending to nap for an hour at the most. But time was a thief.
She woke with a start, reliving that scene with Kurt in the loft again. Her breath came too fast and tears still blurred her eyes.
Just a dream, she told herself. There was nothing to fear.
The scuff of a boot on her bedroom floor debunked that thought. She lurched up in bed just as it dipped with a man’s weight.
“It’s just me,” Trey said as he sat at the foot of her bed.
“You scared me.”
She swiped the tears from her face and launched herself into his arms. He was safe. Home. Everything would be all right now.
“Didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said. “I wasn’t going to bother you, but I heard you sobbing.”
“I had a bad dream again.”
He said nothing to that but rubbed her back in long, slow strokes, for he knew her nightmares came with more frequency now. More times than not a bit more of her memory returned as well. But not this time. This nightmare was simply of the tragedy that would plague her for a very long time.
“Heard you had a caller today,” he said.
She pulled from him and drew her bare feet under her. “Kurt came by.”
“What did he want?”
She tried to read his expression, but his wide-brimmed hat cast his handsome face in shadow. Not that it mattered.
Trey was an expert at hiding any emotion that dared to touch him, especially those he feared. And because of the austere manner in which he’d grown up, he had learned at a young age to closet his feelings.
Yet he wasn’t a cold man. Just horribly reserved when it came to matters of the heart.
He had no difficulty showing his rage when it came to wrongs done her. If she told him what Kurt had done, he’d go gunning for him.
Maybe if she had thought Kurt would be a threat to her, she’d encourage Trey’s intervention. But Kurt was choking in guilt already, and this time she believed she’d finally made him understand that there was no future for them.
“He asked if he could court me,” she said, which was a partial truth.
Trey bit off a ripe curse. “He just doesn’t want to give up. Maybe if I paid him a visit—”
“You’ll do no such thing. Kurt knows it’s over between us this time. Let it go.”
“You sure as hell can’t.” He scooted closer to her. “I know when you’re hiding something, when you’re hurting inside. And right now you’re silently crying a river. Why? Did Kurt do or say something? Did you remember more of the past?”
“Nothing important.” Nothing she could share with him. “I’ve faced the awful reality that men want me for what I own, but none love me.”
He leaned close, not touching her, but she felt his strong presence wrap around her just the same. But it wasn’t enough. It never was with him.
“Is love that important to you?” he asked.
“It means everything.” Yet even now when they were at loggerheads over this, she ached to lean into him. “I wish you could understand that. Wish you could let yourself go and just feel what I do.”
He heaved out a breath and hung his head. “I’m trying, Daisy. But I can’t change nigh on thirty years of thinking one way for another overnight.”
“I don’t expect you too. There’s no rush.” Nor would there be, for she couldn’t welcome him into her bed and risk entrapment again.
“Isn’t there?”
“No. Any decision we make is ours now. All we can do is wait out the drought.” Both the one drying up the land and the emotional one that could dry up her heart if Trey couldn’t find it in his to love her.
But he was shaking his head as if disagreeing with her. “Dade could show up any day out of the blue.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with the way you and I run this ranch,” she said, her anger building because she knew what he meant. “I won’t hold for Dade Logan coming in here and telling me how to run this ranch.”
“It’s not the ranch he’ll take exception to. It’s me living here with you,” he said. “It makes it look like we’re not just business partners but bed partners as well.”
Which they were. They had been from the start, and he hadn’t batted an eye then. So why all the fuss now?
It was because of Dade. He was more worried about what her brother would think than about sullying her reputation.
He cared more for her brother than her.
The thought of having a stranger here instead of Trey rankled. “I’m beginning to dread this reunion with my brother.”
“Don’t. You’ll do fine once you get to know him again.” He trailed a finger down her cheek, and she was powerless to stop the moan that escaped her. “I just don’t care to get in a fight with him.”
She grabbed his hand, her fingers curling around his. But instead of pulling him from her, she held him close.
“There will be no fighting,” she said. “He’s got to see that you’re my partner in this ranch. It’s up to us if we tell him any more than that. As for you sleeping in the house, you have every right to stay here with me.”
He leaned closer to her, so close she could almost taste him on her tongue. “Dammit, Daisy. I’m trying to protect your reputation.”
“A little late for that.”
“What would you rather do? Flaunt that we’re lovers in front of your brother?”
“Of course not. That’s nobody’s business but ours.” She curled her fingers around his arms and felt his strength seep into her, chasing away her fears. “It’s just that there’s no need for you to move out yet, especially this time of day.”
His hold on her gentled. “Hell, you’re afraid to be alone.”
She was, but she didn’t like admitting it. “I’m not used to living in a house by myself, especially after all that’s happened of late.”
He cupped her chin and lifted her face to his, his kiss no more than the brush of lips. But she felt the burn of desire clear to her toes.
“If you marry me, you’ll never have to sleep alone again.”
She smiled and rested her forehead against his, for if nothing else he was persistent. “Do you have something to tell me, Trey March?”
She felt the tension stiffen his body, and she went still as well. Even the wind whistling around the eaves died too, as if holding its breath for his answer.
He said nothing for so long she almost believed he was gathering his courage to reveal what was in his heart.
“No.”
And that one word told her either he’d lost his nerve or she was just trapped in wishful thinking again.
“Then you’d better find your own bed,” she said.
“I will,” he said, yet he stole another kiss.
“Have you forgotten I’m indisposed?” she asked, thankful that her time had visited her now, because it’d be so easy to surrender to passion.
She had to be strong. For as much as she wanted him and his child, he had to come to her with love in his heart.
“Nope. I remember. But that don’t mean we can’t enjoy a bit of necking.” His lips found hers in a long, drugging kiss that left her breathless, left her trembling with longing. “Just for a minute or two.”
“All right.”
But like all the other times, a minute or two of kissing turned into five. Then they were both lost in the passion that raged through them.
He pushed her back on the bed, and she threaded her fingers through his hair, holding fast to him. His hands weren’t idle either, gliding over the curve of her hip before meandering back to her breasts.
It amazed her how quickly his big fingers could work the buttons on her bodice, but in moments he’d pushed that garment off her shoulders. Her corset hooks gave next, and then his big palms were cupping her bared breasts that were left damp from the heat of the day and the desire burning within her.
“You’re so fine,” he said, before his tongue swirled around one hardened nipple.
Her back arched on a pleading moan. He answered by drawing hard on one breast while toying with the pebbled tip of the other one, then kneading the soft flesh until she was sure she’d die from the pleasure.
Distantly she heard the back door open and close. Trey paused too, his big body going stiff.
“Hollis,” she whispered.
The old cook brought up supper every day around this time. He’d set it on the stove and leave.
Still Trey remained frozen over her, his head canted, her breasts forgotten. The door shut a moment later, so softly she wouldn’t have heard it if she hadn’t been listening.
She vowed then to learn to cook for herself. In time she wouldn’t want even this slight interruption.
He tossed her a crooked grin. “Where was I?”
She threaded her fingers through his tousled hair and pulled him back to her. “In my arms.”
And a heartbeat later he returned to kissing her with wild abandon before lowering his head to pay her breasts homage again. She swept her hands down his back, annoyed that he’d left his shirt on and denied her the feel of his warm skin beneath her fingers.
But she marveled at the band of muscles that flexed beneath her palms. At the tremor that shot through him when she raked his back with her nails.
She’d been sure they’d made love every way imaginable, but this bout of necking took her back to that first time she’d gone to him. It’d been hot like this then, but a bigger fire had burned in her all day.
Daddy had had hay delivered from San Angelo, and Trey had been up in the loft to fork it from the conveyor and stack it to the rafters. Once or twice she’d caught a glimpse of him taking a breath at the haymow, shirtless, his beautifully toned body glistening with sweat.
Oddly enough he’d seen her as well standing near the well. The you-want-it-then-come-take-it look that he fixed on her shocked her to her core. But in the end she’d gone to him.
He lifted his head, his eyes glazed with passion, his breath sawing fast and hard in the silence. “We’d best stop while I still can.”
“Are you denying me the pleasure of having my way with you?” she asked as she tugged his shirt from his jeans and slipped her hands up his bare chest.
He tossed his head back and pinched his eyes shut. “A man can only hold out so long.”
“Then give in.”
Stop fighting the emotions that surely must be crowding your heart. Tell me you love me as much as I love you.
Stop fighting the emotions that surely must be crowding your heart. Tell me you love me as much as I love you.
She got his belt unbuckled and the top button popped free on his jeans before he captured her hands. He pulled them above her head and grinned down at her.
“No fair,” she protested.
“You should talk.” He shifted and lowered his weight on her, letting her feel the hard ridge of his cock press against her belly. “I’m in control now, and I say that can wait.”
She bucked against him, not to throw him off but to settle him more firmly between her legs. But the man wouldn’t budge.
“Get off me.”
“Nope. I finally got you where I want you—”
“What the hell’s going on here?” said a deep, masculine voice, a stranger’s voice, a voice laced with raw fury.
Chapter 22
“Get out,” Trey said, not about to shift one inch and expose Daisy, especially to her brother, who was likely holding on to his temper by a thread.
The only thing saving Trey at this moment was that Dade Logan wasn’t sure if the woman under him was Daisy. But dammit all, when he was sure, all hell would break loose.
“Pardon the intrusion,” Dade said. “But Reid told me you’d found Daisy.”
Daisy clamped both hands on Trey’s shoulders and craned her neck to get a look at the brother she couldn’t remember. “Is that him?” she whispered.
“Yep, it sure is.”
Even in the dim light Trey saw Daisy’s face leach of color. She shrank into the mattress and commenced buttoning herself.
“Dammit, Trey, where’s my sister?”
Trey kept his gaze on Daisy and counted to ten, then twenty. Hell, it hadn’t taken him that long to strip her.
He dropped a kiss on her mouth. “Brace yourself.”
And when she smiled up at him, he shoved himself off the bed and rolled to his feet. His gaze locked with Dade’s, and that old familiar pull of loyalty seeped into him. But oddly enough there was a stronger pull on him now, and it all centered on the golden-haired vixen who’d scrambled from the bed to stand beside him.
Beside him, not behind as he wanted her to do so he could protect her.
Yep, his Daisy had grit. She had shown it with Egan Jarvis and now she was showing it to Dade.
His foster brother was looking from Daisy to Trey like he was fit to kill.
Having Dade catch him between Daisy’s spread legs with her bosom bared was not the way he’d thought to introduce the lost siblings. Shit, could it get any worse?
“You no-good sonofabitch,” Dade said, face red and big fists bunched at his sides. “Outside so we can talk.”
He swore under his breath, for the talking Dade surely aimed to do was with his fists. “Now calm down. It’s not what you think.”
Dade’s eyes narrowed. “Your pants are unbuttoned, and her blouse is askew. Only way it ain’t what I think is if you two are married.”
“We’re not,” Trey said.
“You planning to be?”
Before he could think of a way to explain that one, Daisy spoke up again. “No.”
“Then it’s just what I thought,” Dade said. “Talk’s over.”
“How dare you!” Daisy said, her tone as sharp as the glare she shot her brother. “You’ve no right to barge into my house, let alone my bedroom.”
“I’ve got every right.” He glared at Trey, who merely sighed in resignation.
How damned ironic that he’d tempted fate by sleeping with Daisy right under Barton’s nose. He’d known full well that the man would flay him alive for touching his princess. Knew he would’ve had to light out or end up married if he was caught.
Now he faced the same thing with Dade. He knew he was in for a tongue-lashing and a whupping, and he didn’t fault Dade for doing either.
“Get a move on,” Dade said. “We need to talk outside.”
He heaved a sigh and headed for the door, shouldering his way past Dade. “You better be right behind me.”
“Right on your heels,” Dade said.
Never mind the men likely knew she and Trey were cozy. This would bring it out in the open. Get tongues wagging. Daisy let loose an exasperated gasp. “Stop this, both of you!”
But Trey pounded down the stairs with Dade dogging his steps. As pissed as Dade was with him now, it was nothing compared to how furious he’d feel toward Trey if he heard the whole history between him and Daisy.
Not that he planned to enlighten Dade about their troubled dalliance. As she’d said, that was his and Daisy’s business.
But he wasn’t going to make Dade believe that his being in Daisy’s bed was a one-time incident either. Nope, best thing he could do would be take his licking and agree to marry Daisy, which is ultimately what he wanted anyway.
Maybe this way he wouldn’t have to bare his soul to her to get her to agree that they were right together.
“Will both of you stop and use your heads for something other than a hat rack?” she all but screeched at them when they reached the kitchen. “If you go outside spitting and fighting, then every man on this ranch will be privy to my private life.”
Trey came up short in the doorway and turned. Dade had stopped as well, but his gaze was still fixed on Trey.
“Daisy’s right,” he said. “We take this outside and two things are going to happen. The men will jump you for attacking me, and Daisy’s reputation will take a beating.”
“Fine,” Dade said. “We’ll have it out in here.”
“That’s enough!” Daisy flicked Dade a glower as she made to breeze past him, but he caught her arm and held her fast, keeping her from going to Trey. “Let go of me.”
“So you can run to him?” Dade asked. “You just stay out of this and let me handle it.”
“There’s nothing to handle,” Daisy said.
Trey stepped forward. “Leave her alone.”
“Back off.”
“Look out, Daisy,” Dade said, and gave her a tug to keep her from going to Trey.
She yelped and stumbled back toward Dade.
Trey swore. Now why’d he have to get rough with Daisy?
Before Dade shoved her behind him and straightened, Trey drove a fist into his face. But Dade always had been strong as a bull and barely flinched.
With a curse, he brought a roundhouse punch up that caught Trey under the chin and sent him stumbling backward. His back slammed into the wall so hard the plates in the cupboard rattled.
He moved his mouth to test his jaw and pushed from the wall. It’d been years since he and Dade had gotten into a fistfight. The last time Dade had been on his side fighting with him.
Now they were at odds over Daisy, circling each other in the kitchen with fists raised like pugilists. Didn’t much matter that he felt Dade was in his rights defending his sister’s honor. Trey wasn’t about to sit still for a beating.
Daisy yelped again and scrambled around Dade, planting herself between the two of them. “Stop this nonsense!”
“Get out of the way,” Dade said.
“Do as he says,” Trey said.
She let out another weary groan but didn’t budge. “No! Listen to me. Please! I won’t have you fighting, but if you feel you must, then get out of here.”
Dade pulled a dark face then started to the door. Trey heaved a sigh and started to follow.
“Once you leave, don’t ever come back,” she said. “Either of you.”
Dade pulled up first and Trey damned near walked up his back. They both turned to her.
“You’re serious,” Trey said.
“Very,” she said.
He caught the slight tremor of her lips and knew that drawing this hard line hadn’t been easy for her. But she’d done it, proving she was indeed Jared Barton’s daughter. Not blood, but a bond just as strong. A bond he understood, for he’d had the same with Dade and Reid.
“Now hold on,” Dade said. “I’m family. You can’t toss me out on my ear.”
Her eyes swam with moisture but not one drop fell. For that alone Trey’s respect for this little woman skyrocketed.
“I’m sorry but I don’t remember you at all,” she said.
Dade flinched, clearly not expecting that or taking it well. “How could you forget?”
She shook her head and cast Trey a pleading look.
“When Daisy was on the orphan train,” Trey began, “she took a bad fall. Since then she hasn’t remembered anything that happened before that day.”
“Nothing?” Dade asked.
“I get fleeting images that make no sense, but I don’t remember my parents or you,” she said. “Trey is the one who finally figured out who I was.”
Dade cut him a caustic glower. “Was that before or after you’d become cozy with my sister?”
“After,” he admitted.
“Mighty damned convenient,” Dade said, taking a threatening step closer to him.
Yep, they were going to throw fists. Not here. Likely not where anyone would see them. But they were bound to have it out just the same.
Trey almost looked forward to it, for he knew that was the only thing that would clear the fouled air between him and his foster brother.
“Don’t blame him,” she said. “Everything I know about you I learned from Trey.”
Dade planted his hands on his hips and blew out a heavy breath. “Seems to me that your memory loss is more reason for you to need a man’s help. A brother’s help to be precise.”
Trey just stared at him. For a man who’d been able to see both sides of any picture, Dade sure was blind when it came to his own life.
“Dammit, Dade,” he said. “You’re a stranger to her. How the hell can you expect her to trust you?”
Dade looked as confounded as he felt. “It’s been years since you saw me,” Dade said to Daisy. “But I promised you then that I’d take care of you. That’s all I aim to do now.”
She shook her head, her face pale and her expression troubled. “You must realize that too many years have passed and too much has happened for us to go back to that.”
“I can see that now,” Dade said, flicking a damning look Trey’s way. “But you’re a woman alone with a lot to manage. That’s when kin pull together.”
“You need to bear in mind that I’m of age, and I hold title to two ranches,” she said. “My daddy left everything he had to me. Not a foreman or a friend. Not blood kin I may or may not have. Just me.”
“You booting me out of your life then?” Dade asked.
“Of course not. I want to spend time with you. Get to know you again,” she said. “But I won’t hold with you running my life for me.”
Dade nodded. “Fair enough.”
She studied the two men in her life. Both sported fresh bruises, and Trey’s face still bore cuts and bruises from his fight with Egan Jarvis.
The tension between them was real and disturbing. She didn’t want to be the one who came between brothers.
Brothers!
Brothers!
Likely the best thing to do would be to send them to the bunkhouse. But she still was uneasy staying here alone.
“Can I trust you two to be civil now?” she asked.
“I have no quarrel with him,” Trey said, which earned a scowl from her brother.
“Well, he did at least send word to me that he’d found you,” Dade said a bit grudgingly.
She sighed. Their animosity was still fresh. It likely wouldn’t end until they’d talked things out. Again, that wasn’t something she wanted bandied about near the hands.
That left the only sane solution. “There’s a small room next to Trey’s,” she said. “You’re welcome to it.”
“Much obliged.”
Trey frowned but didn’t say a word. Not that he had to. She could read his expression clearly. He wasn’t pleased that her brother would be living in the house.
That would stop any future dalliance with him like they’d enjoyed before Dade arrived. God knew she’d miss his touch too.
But this was for the best, because nothing had changed her decision. She wasn’t going to marry Trey unless he revealed what was in his heart. And Dade would surely press the point and blame Trey if they continued being lovers.
She looked at the two men she’d come between. It pained her to be the cause of this rift. Pained her more that she couldn’t remember Dade, at least not clearly.
“Please, let’s sit in the parlor and talk,” she said.
Dade inclined his head, his eyes hopeful. “I’d like that.”
She crossed to the parlor and stepped aside to let Dade pass. “Make yourself at home.”
A saying she’d used before with little meaning, but the words seemed right this time. Her brother. Blood kin. And a lawman at that.
She was about to take her chair across from Dade when she realized Trey hadn’t followed them. She looked through the doorway to him still standing at the back door.
“Trey?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “You two have a talk. I’ll see to Dade’s horse and be back in a bit.”
“But there are so many things I’m unsure of,” she said, earning a raised brow from Dade.
“I’ll fill in any blanks for Dade later.”
And with that he strode from the house, leaving her and the brother she didn’t remember all alone. She turned to find him studying her, not with anger this time but concern.
“You rely on Trey,” he said.
“Yes. He’s helped me piece some of my past together, but so much is still cloaked in shadow.”
He shifted on a scowl, as if uncomfortable with that admission. “What do you remember?”
She shook her head. “Pitifully little. Most of it comes in dreams. Just fragments of scenes or snatches of conversation that make no sense.”
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