Man of Her Dreams (16 page)

“This is an interesting view.” Maggie's voice floated in from the doorway.

Ry jerked his head up, smacking it into the underside of the desk. Swear words rolled out from under the sturdy piece of furniture like a cloud of acrid smoke.

“Sugar, such language.” Maggie tsk-tsked, coming to the desk to help him. She bent over and accepted the pair of taffy-colored pups he handed out. “And in front of the babies.”

“Dammit, Mary Margaret, you hadn't ought to sneak up on a man like that.”

“I'm sorry.” She raised on tiptoe to kiss his scowling mouth when he stood up with a puppy in each hand. “What are these little darlin's doing in here?”

Ry turned his dour look on Shasta. The dog whined and looked woebegone, but thumped her shaggy tail hopefully. “The little mother decided she didn't like the new accommodations. Between her and that flea-bitten pack of rat hounds outside, I swear, I'm gonna lose my mind. I oughta ship the lot of them to the pound.”

“But you won't,” Maggie said softly, snuggling the puppies to her chest, her heart aching with love for Ry.

Ry frowned at the puppies in his hands. He walked around the desk and set them on the rug beside Shasta. “No, I won't. Lord only knows why not.”

“I'm in on the secret, too, sugar.” Maggie reunited mother and munchkins, then stood and sent Ry a knowing smile. “It's because you're sweet and good and have a soft spot for helpless creatures that need love.”

He actually felt it snap. The hair-thin thread that had been holding his temper in check frayed and broke. He wheeled on Maggie. “Jeepers cripes, Mary Margaret, do you have to make a federal case out of it? I show a little common decency to a few stray animals, and you make me out to be Saint Francis of Assisi.”

Maggie jammed her hands on her hips. “I don't see why you have such a problem acknowledging the fact that you give love to these animals.”

“I don't give…that. I feed them and house them, that's all.”

“Lord have mercy, you can't even say it!” Her laugh was one born of frustration, not humor. “Love. Love, Rylan. It's the only four-letter word not in regular use in your vocabulary! Why can't you admit you have it and you give it?”

“And why do you have to be so bloody stubborn, insisting that I give something that I don't have in me?”

“Stubborn!” she shouted. “
You're
calling
me
stubborn? Sugar, you wrote the book on it! You are the original immovable object. I could just as well go beat my head against a stone wall as try to talk sense into you.”

“Then why don't you!” he shouted back, swinging an arm toward the open door. “I sure as hell don't need you hanging around here, sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong.”

Tears sprang to her eyes as quickly as if he had slapped her, but Maggie spun on her heel and stormed out of the room before Ry could see them. It was bad enough she'd let him have the last word, she wasn't about to let him see how badly those words had hurt.

Her step faltered as she continued down the aisle of the barn, and she realized with no small amount of shame that she had been hoping he would come after her. She had been hoping he would spin her around and scoop her up into his arms and kiss her and apologize.

“Dream on, darlin',” she muttered bitterly, blinking back scalding tears, “it's what you do best.”

Her booted feet pounded down the cement alleyway. She kept her head up and choked back the lump in her throat as she passed two grooms.

“Killer's all ready for your lesson, Miz McSwain,” called one.

Maggie hiccupped and thanked him without breaking stride. Without really thinking about what she was doing, she went to the end stall. The brown gelding stood dozing, flipping his lips. He was indeed tacked up, saddled and bridled. With little half sobs escaping her throat, she led the horse out the end of the barn, stood on a wooden block to mount, then turned him toward the hills and kicked him into a trot.

The tears flowed freely as soon as she was away from the stables. They blurred her vision and streamed down her cheeks. She paid no attention at all to where she was going, letting Killer choose his own path. She merely hung on and cried her heart out.

“Damn you, Rylan Quaid,” she said, sobbing. “Damn me for loving you.”

It wasn't fair. She'd worked so hard. Not just helping with the preparations, but with trying to help Ry break down the walls he'd built around his heart.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe he didn't build them up with the intention of letting you tear them down, Maggie?” she asked herself in a strangled voice.

Maybe what she had to realize was that Ry was right. Maybe he wasn't capable of loving her. Maybe she had to face up to the possibility that she couldn't make him love her. Love came naturally or not at all. And just because he was the man of her dreams, just because she'd fallen in love with him all those years ago, didn't mean he had to feel the same depth of emotion.

As long as she was facing facts, she had to admit that the man she'd fallen in love with originally had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination. She'd discovered that when she had finally started spending time with Ry. He wasn't the man who swept her around ballrooms and wrote poetry. He was a man who was tough but tender, who could have won a world championship for scowling but who took in any helpless creature that needed him. She'd seen he was a man who didn't trust emotions, who held a part of himself back from others. And she'd fallen in love with him anyway.

“So, it's your own darn fault, McSwain,” she said, reaching up to swipe away some of the tears that clung to her lashes. “You deserve whatever happens to you.”

At that instant a deer bounded out from behind some brush and shot across the path directly in front of a very startled Killer. Wild-eyed, the gelding executed a hasty half pirouette and dashed out from under his rider.

Maggie didn't even have time to realize what had happened before she hit the ground and everything went black.

         

“Aw, hell, why did I have to be such a bastard?” Ry asked himself aloud. He sat behind his desk, his elbows on the blotter, his head cradled in his hands.

He hadn't meant to tear into her like that. He had intended to thank her for the work she'd done on his office. Well, he'd blown that royally. Instead of thanking her, he'd practically thrown all her hard work back in her face.

She'd been crying when she'd stormed out. He hadn't seen the tears, but he'd heard the jerky intake of breath, he'd seen the way she set her shoulders, he'd heard her hiccup. Damn. It tore him up inside to know he'd made her cry.

It had been a long, hard day. He was tired. He was feeling edgy and crowded by Maggie's continual declarations of love. That still didn't excuse what he'd done. He'd have to go find her and apologize. Hopefully she would forgive him. Maybe when he went into town tomorrow he could stop by Leebright's Jewelry Store and pick her up a little something just to make her feel better.

And to soothe your own miserable conscience, he told himself.

Why did life have to be so doggone complicated?

Two brisk knocks sounded on the office door before it swung open. Christian stepped inside, his usual smile in place. “I came to fetch Maggie for her lesson.”

“She's not here,” Ry mumbled.

“She's not here?” Atherton glanced around the newly refurbished room. His smile faded to a frown. “She's not here.”

“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock,” Ry said sarcastically.

Christian was unperturbed. “Ah, a lover's quarrel. Well, perhaps she can channel her anger into something productive. She needs to be more aggressive as a rider anyway. Where did she go?”

“I don't know. Maybe she went up to the house. Maybe she left. Maybe she went to get a gun so she can blow my stupid head off.”

“Oh, quit feeling sorry for yourself. Feel sorry for me. I've been cooling my heels for the last ten minutes waiting for her to show up in the arena.”

“Hey, Marlin,” Ry called to the groom passing the open office door.

The young man stuck his dark head in. “Yes, sir?”

“Have you seen Miss McSwain in the last half hour or so?”

“Yes, sir. She took Killer out about that long ago.”

Ry's brows knitted in concern. “Took him out where?”

“I couldn't say for sure. I was grooming Specialty when she stomp—er—walked past. She went down to Killer's stall and took him out the end of the barn. I reckon she rode up into the woods.”

Ry let loose a stream of words that could have turned the air blue as he launched himself out of his chair. Maggie wasn't a good enough rider to head into the woods on her own. She didn't know her way around. She could barely stay on the blasted horse just trotting around the arena.

Young Marlin turned gray at his boss's outburst. His Adam's apple bobbed nervously in his throat.

“Fool woman! She's gonna get herself lost up there—or worse—and it's damn near dark.” Ry poked a rigid index finger at the groom. “I want a horse saddled, and if it's not ready in five minutes, I'll have your rear on a platter.”

“Yessir!”

Exactly five minutes later Ry was on horseback, galloping away from the farm and toward the wooded hills. As his horse ate up the distance with long, smooth strides, he tried to reassure himself with the knowledge that Maggie was on the gentlest horse he owned. But fear still churned in his belly. Even gentle horses could be startled into irrational behavior. If Maggie hadn't checked her equipment—of course she wouldn't have, given the state of mind she'd been in—her girth might have been loose. She had no natural sense of balance. If the saddle slipped, she'd be under her horse's belly in the blink of an eye. There were any number of ways she could get hurt.

And it was all his fault. That terrible knowledge pressed down on him like a black iron weight. He had lashed out at her, hurt her, driven her to run away. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if anything had happened to her. And he knew with a sudden chilling clarity that his life would be a desolate place if he had to live without her. Living without Maggie would be like living without half of himself. He needed her. He loved her.

The realization brought on a fresh surge of fear. He loved her, yet he'd driven her to do something as stupid as taking off on a horse when she could barely stay astride. If she were hurt, he'd never forgive himself. If she were—

He deliberately cut the thought off before he could complete it and concentrated instead on where she might have gone. She had been riding in the woods only once, so it stood to reason she would follow the same path. If she remembered what path that was. With no better idea, Ry turned his horse, standing in the irons as the big gray bounded up the hill, following the old logging trail.

What daylight was left did not make it through the thick canopy of trees. It was difficult for a human to see. So it was Killer's nicker of recognition for his stablemate that first alerted Ry he was on the right track. A second later, the shape of the horse materialized, his outline suddenly becoming distinguishable from the shapes of trees and bushes.

Ry's heartbeat doubled. The saddle was empty. Then, for only the second time in his life, he felt the choking fingers of true panic close around his throat. Twenty feet beyond the brown gelding a still figure lay flat on the bed of leaves that covered the trail.

“Maggie!” Ry shouted, dismounting before his horse could pull up. He hit the ground running and fell on his knees beside the unconscious body of the woman he loved. His hands were shaking as he reached down to touch her face. She was as pale as an ivory cameo, and seemed as lifeless. Terrified, Ry drew two fingers down the side of her throat trying to find her pulse. “Maggie, sweetheart. Oh, baby, please don't be dead. I love you so much.”

His fingertips finally settled on the proper spot and Ry heaved a sigh at the feel of her blood pumping through the pulse point. Still rattled, he tried to school his brain to the coolheaded discipline he'd always known, but as had happened when he'd seen his sister go down on a jump course five years before, emotions kept snatching at his control. He'd found her pulse, but was it strong enough, didn't it seem too slow? He wanted to gather her up in his arms and hold her, but he knew better than to move someone who had taken a fall and might possibly have suffered a neck or back injury.

Swallowing the knot in his throat, he began an examination with his eyes and hands, starting with her head, looking for blood. He cursed the darkness that prevented him from seeing well. If she were bleeding he would feel the sticky substance on his hands, but bruises and swelling would be almost impossible to distinguish in the fading light.

“Maggie, honey, can you hear me? I'm so sorry I hurt you. I didn't mean what I said back there. I want you on the farm. I love you.”

“You would have to be too blasted hardheaded to admit it until it was too late,” she mumbled weakly, struggling to clear her head of the thick fog that had blacked everything else out.

Ry bent over her, his trembling hands smoothing back her hair. “Honey? Are you all right?”

She groaned. “What kind of damn fool question is that?”

“Don't try to sit up yet,” he said, gently holding her down when she tried to raise her head. “Open your eyes and take a couple of good deep breaths if you can. Tell me where it hurts, sweetheart.”

“All over a little bit, but I think I'm all right.” At least everything seemed to be in working order, she thought, moving her arms and legs just enough to reassure herself. Her heart, in particular, was working very well. It had started pounding the instant she had heard Ry's words. “I got the wind knocked out of me, that's all.” Her fingers scratched back through her hair, and she winced at the little knob that had raised up on the back of her skull. “I guess I hit my head too.”