Made For Each Other (14 page)

“Please call me Grandmother,” the old
woman said, leading Julie inside. “Maybe you’re not quite the
siren, then, but certainly an enchantress to have captured Nick. I
was afraid my grandson was never going to fall in love.”

Julie’s gaze flicked to Nick, who was
shrugging out of his cowhide jacket. But Nick made no effort to
refute his grandmother’s statement. Instead he laughed. “The truth
is, Grandmother never approved of any of the women I dated,
Julie.”

“Frivolous, empty-headed creatures
they all were. But I’ve been reading Julie’s column for several
years now. Your wife has a head on her beautiful shoulders,
Nicholas. And she’s not afraid to call the balls like she sees
them, is she?”

Nick flashed Julie a roguish smile as
he tucked his plaid shirt into his Levi’s. “I think you could
safely say that, Grandmother.”

Elizabeth took her through the
elegantly furnished rooms that whispered of a bygone era and showed
the couple to their bedroom, which had been restored as it actually
was when Elizabeth’s parents had the room.

“I always dreamed of having a room
like this,” Julie said as her gaze traveled over the calico-papered
walls, the hand-carved four- poster bed and the maple washstand.
Her eyes strayed back to the four-poster, smaller than Nick’s
king-size bed, that she and Nick would be sharing. How much longer
could she stand being so near to him, touching him, wanting him . .
. but not having him? And an insidious voice inside her asked if it
was Sheila Morrison who was the recipient of his caresses for the
present.

Julie had thought she would feel out
of place at the legendary San Ramon mansion, but after the first
few moments Elizabeth put her at ease with her interesting tales of
what the place had been like when kerosene lamps were still used
and water was pumped at the kitchen sink—“which wasn’t so long ago,
mind you,” Elizabeth said.

With the help of Marta, a large
Mexican woman who had been with the family for years, Elizabeth had
prepared a dish indigenous to New Mexico when it was still a
territory—mutton stew and baked squash topped with red chilies, and
for desert an apricot cobbler. Over dinner the conversation between
Elizabeth, Nick, and her revolved around such stimulating subjects
as the state’s fiscal and monetary responsibility and the
importance of supporting the Indian arts, so that by the time
dinner was over and Nick had finished his cigarette, she felt as if
she belonged, as if she were truly a part of the family.

Yet, when it came time for bed, Nick
lingered, discussing with his grandmother improvements that needed
to be made on the ranch. And Julie found herself lying in the
four-poster alone. She meant to stay awake to wait for Nick in
hopes they might reconcile their ill-started marriage. Just one
word of love from Nick, some sign that he cared, was all she
wanted. But the mattress, an old- fashioned kind stuffed with
fluffy wool, lulled her to sleep within minutes, and she was
unaware of what time Nick finally came to bed.

The next morning was Christmas Eve
day, and she learned that Nick had arisen and left before she awoke
to talk with some of the ranchhands. She helped Elizabeth and Marta
in the kitchen as they prepared the traditional turkey dinner.
Marta, her round brown face beaming, told tales of Nick’s boyhood
pranks that kept Julie laughing.

Dinner was just as enjoyable, and
afterward she surprised Elizabeth with a bottle of White Shoulders
cologne. She had intended it as a Christmas gift for Pam, but since
Nick had not given her much warning about the trip, it was the only
gift she could come up with on the spur of the moment.

Elizabeth looked touched by her
thoughtfulness. “You know, Nick never warns me when he’s going to
come, so I can’t tell you how happy he made me, Julie, when he
phoned yesterday to tell me he was bringing you.” She leaned over
and pecked her on the cheek. “You’re the kind of granddaughter I
always hoped to have in the family.”

Affected by the woman’s sincerity, she
looked away to find Nick warmly regarding her. “Come on,” he said,
taking her hand, “let’s get the kinks out of our muscles. We’ll
saddle up two of the horses and ride some of the land.”

“I haven’t ridden that much,”she said,
her face an apologetic squinch.

“I know,” he said with a grin, and she
realized he was talking about something else. “But we can remedy
that.” Then, with a straight face, “The horses are quite
gentle.”

She changed into an old pair of jeans
and a white turtleneck sweater she had brought along with a new
pair of western boots and a suede jacket with fleece lining. Just
before she left the bedroom she brushed her hair so that it
feathered back from her face and added a hint of raspberry
lipstick.

Nick was waiting for her on the
veranda, his hands jammed into his worn cowhide jacket against the
cold. The dusty gray Stetson he wore was pulled low over his eyes.
“Ready?” he asked, his gaze raking over her in an appreciative
manner.

She nodded, warming under his obvious
male scrutiny. She turned to descend the steps, and Nick said,
“Just a minute.”

She turned back, her eyes questioning.
Nick removed his Stetson and, gathering Julie’s shoulder-length
hair in hand, set the Stetson on her head. He tucked the remaining
stray wisps up inside the hatband, saying, “It’ll keep you much
warmer.”

“What about you?” Julie asked,
thrilling at his nearness, at the feel of his warm breath tingling
her face and his hands lingering at her neck.

Nick pulled his collar up around his
ears with a smile. “You forget, I’m used to these winters. Rarely a
weekend goes by during the winter that I’m not out hunting in
Ruidoso or riding the range here at San Ramon.”

The two horses they rode, a roan and a
paint, pranced over the night’s light layer of snow, their breath
steaming about their nostrils. For a quarter of an hour or so she
and Nick rode in silence as they followed a barely visible cow
trail that led to a stock tank frozen over about the edges. The
utter quietness of the winter morning, the majestic beauty of the
deep purple mountains and towering pines that isolated the area,
stirred her soul, as Nick’s nearness stirred her heart.

Occasionally their legs would brush as
their mounts were forced to pass close when the trail suddenly
narrowed, and her breath would catch, the sudden cold air searing
her throat. Once, when Nick dropped back on the trail to let her
precede him, she turned about in the saddle to find his bold gaze
riveted to the curve of her buttocks, and she knew that he was as
aware of her as she was of him.

As he called her attention to the
newest calves following a single-file string of cows or a section
of barbed-wire fence he had strung as a teenager, she could hear
the pride in his voice. His uncompromising countenance even seemed
more relaxed as he laughingly pointed out the first windmill in the
territory. “My great-grandfather once tried to hang a cattle
rustler from it, and his wife was so furious she held a rifle on
her own husband and forced him to let the rascal go!”

She almost hated to return to the
house, she was enjoying herself so much—and enjoy¬ing the way Nick
looked at her and talked to her, the way a man would look and talk
to a woman he cares about. But she reminded herself that Nick was
very experienced with women. He knew all too well how to make each
woman feel as if she were the only one he was interested
in.

Still, her heart was thudding like a
schoolgirl’s by the time they returned to the barn. She knew she
was destroying herself by loving Nick. Oh, she fully realized she
could arouse his lust, but why couldn’t she arouse his love? She
forced her eyes to meet Nick’s as he helped her dismount, his hands
closing about her waist. Slowly, as if he were enjoying tormenting
her, he slid her down along his length until her boots touched the
barn’s hay-covered floor.

His head bent over hers. “You know the
safe word, Julie,” he warned huskily before his lips claimed hers
in a punishing kiss. A flame of desire leaped to life deep, deep,
deep in her, warming her with the want of Nick. She molded herself
against his hard, lean body, setting fire to his blood as he had
hers.

Her hands slid inside his jacket and
up to his shoulders, savoring the heat that burned through his
woolen shirt. Nick tipped her chin back, reclaiming her lips with a
thorough kiss that left her shaken. Her Stetson slipped off, and
her hair tumbled free about her shoulders.

The odor of the musty hay and old
leather combined with Nick’s own musky male scent to fill her with
a kind of primeval abandon, so that when Nick finally released her
with a shuddering reluctance and demanded roughly, “Tell me it
isn’t so—tell me you’re not mine,” she could only nod mutely and
offer her lips up to the possessive mouth.

The warm hay was their bed, the
nickering horses their watchguards, as Nick divested her of her
jacket and Levi’s and finally her sweater and underclothes. And
what began in the rough heat of desire turned into a sweet passion
of giving. When Nick withdrew from her, his body still partially
covering hers, she closed her eyes, unable to meet his searching
gaze. She was afraid she would find the look of indifference
stamped on his face now that she had willingly given herself to
him.

Nick reached up and disentangled a
piece of hay from her ruffled curls. “My grand-mother’s right, you
know. You are an enchantress, Julie Raffer.”

Her heart shriveled inside.
Why couldn’t he have said something about love?
Because this man doesn’t know how to love. Listen to his own
words, Julie. Always listen to what someone says. Listen long
enough and you’ll learn what you need to know. Nick measures the
potential of relationships to that of his
parents’
.
Thereby
a
ll
destined for failure.
Suddenly the warmth
that Nick’s lovemaking had ignited flickered out, and the chill
winter air seeped in around her nude body. She rolled from him and
gathered up her clothes. He lay there, watching her, and a blush
suffused her skin as she struggled into her jeans before his
passionate gaze.

When the last of her jacket’s buttons
were fastened, she turned on him. “You were right, Nick, I am
yours. My body’s yours—but never my heart.”

With the lie on her lips, she spun
around and stalked to the house. As she entered the living room,
Elizabeth, who was sitting in a rocker near the fire, looked up
from a book she was reading. she knew then that Nick must have
inherited his observant gaze from his grandmother, for the old
woman took one look at her flushed face and said, “I can see Nick’s
eloquence with words fails him when it comes to love.”

“Love?” she echoed. Slowly she crossed
to stand before the fire. She held her hands out to absorb the
blazing fire’s heat. “Mrs. Waggoner—Elizabeth—I can’t continue to
deceive you.” She looked at the old woman and, embarrassed,
returned her gaze to the orange-red flames. “Nick and I—we didn’t
marry for love. We were, I guess you might say,
compromised.”

Elizabeth made a chortling grunt.
“Most people in my day didn’t marry for love, either. But they came
to love each other. As you and Nick have.”

Julie turned now to fully face the
woman. “It’s true, Elizabeth, I’ve fallen in love with your
grandson. But he doesn’t love me.”

The old woman put aside her book.
“Don’t let Nick’s cool exterior fool you.” She sighed and said, “As
you must know by now, Nick loves San Ramon, but the years he spent
here growing up were often marked by violent and bitter quarrels
between my daughter and her husband—his parents.

“But, Julie, just as he loves this
place and won’t admit it, he loves you. Give my grandson
time.”

Chapter Ten

B
elow the Sangre de Cristos the capital of New Mexico sparkled
like a diamond against the black velvet darkness of Christmas Eve.
As the Blazer descended into Santa Fe, it passed homes that were
gaily decorated with Christmas candles anchored in brown paper
sacks called
luminarias
. It was supposed to be a time of joy to be spent with those
you love; yet she, who was with the one man she loved, felt no joy
as she watched the city’s colorful lights pass by her
window.

Throughout the return trip from San
Ramon, she had kept her head averted from Nick’s chiseled profile.
The silence in the car had been unbearable for her. She had wanted
Nick to rage at her, to threaten her into submission, anything but
his cool, dispassionate treatment of her.

It was as if he were confident she
would eventually surrender totally to him and content to wait until
she did. And she knew all too well Nick’s unlimited patience. It
was the patience of a hunter. She could only think how ironical it
was that the thing she wanted to do most, surrender to Nick with
both her body and her heart, would mean losing him.

Nick halted the Blazer before their
darkened home, but when she moved to get out he said, “Wait. I have
a surprise for you.”

She tried to make out his expression
in the blackness of the car, but it was unreadable. She let him
lead her to the house and stood passively outside the doorway while
he turned on the living-room lights. “All right,” he
said.