Man of Her Dreams (18 page)

Maggie had camped out near the stall on a lounge chair for part of the night, returning to the house near dawn. At seven-thirty she was on her way to the stable again, this time with doughnuts, fresh fruit, and a fresh pot of coffee.

Ry tossed down another cup of coffee but refused to eat a thing. He washed up in the bathroom off the lounge and changed into the clean shirt Maggie had brought out for him, then returned to the stall. His concentration was focused solely on saving Rough Cut's life. Regardless of what would happen afterward, he felt he owed it to the animal to do everything he could to save him. So he sat in the stall hour after hour, checking vital signs, administering medication when necessary, changing the IV bag when the need arose, sponging the horse down to help reduce his fever. Time passed without notice. He lost track of morning and afternoon.

Maggie helped as much as she could—more than he expected her to. Ry watched her push aside her fear, roll up her sleeves, and get right down in the stall with him to help bathe the horse, to stroke Rough Cut's head and try to comfort him when shots had to be given. He watched her work beside him, knowing she was working outside the stall as well, keeping the help fed, answering the phone, running errands. She had said she wanted to help, that this was to be her farm too.

Guilt poked at him when he realized Maggie didn't know what the ramifications of this illness would be. He was taking advantage of her ignorance. Rough Cut wasn't going to be their meal ticket, and she wasn't going to want anything to do with the farm or him when she found out where this illness was going to leave them.

He knew he had to tell her, but he put it off. He rationalized he couldn't leave the stallion, but he knew part of the reason he didn't tell her—a big part—was the comfort he took in having her near. It seemed every time his strength started to flag, there was Maggie with a soft touch, a word of encouragement, a cup of coffee. He had gotten used to having her around. If Fate had been kinder, he could have looked forward to that for the rest of his life. Instead, Fate had dealt his future a nasty blow. So, fair or not, he would keep Maggie with him through the worst of this crisis, because, Lord help him, he needed her. And when it was over he would let her go.

         

The morning of the third day Maggie approached Rough Cut's stall with a purposeful stride. Dr. Maclay and Christian Atherton stood in the aisle.

“How is he?”

Dr. Maclay ran a hand across his chin and sighed. “His condition has stabilized. His temperature is down to a hundred and three. He's not completely out of the woods, but I think the worst of it has passed.”

Maggie gave a decisive nod, then turned on her heel, went into the stall, and grabbed Rylan by the shirt collar.

“Mary Margaret, what the hell!”

“You are coming with me, Rylan Quaid,” she said in a tone that brooked no disobedience. When he came to his feet, she started out of the stall, tugging him along behind her with two fingers through a belt loop on his jeans. “You've been with this horse for thirty-six hours. You deserve a break, a meal, a shower, a shave, and some sleep—not necessarily in that order.”

“I can't leave now,” he protested, digging in his heels, effectively halting Maggie.

She glared over her shoulder at him. “You'll leave now if I have to take a riding crop to you. You aren't going to be any good to Rough Cut if you drop from exhaustion.”

Christian hid his laughter discreetly behind his hand. Dr. Maclay waved them on. “Go on, Ry, Maggie's right. Take a break. Christian and I will keep watch here.”

“Jeepers cripes,” Ry muttered as they walked away from the stall. Hell, they were probably right. He felt as if he were at the rocky end of a long hard fall.

Maggie slid her arm around his waist, needing to touch him even if he did smell like a horse. “Now, don't scold me, Rylan. I'm worried about you. You haven't slept, you haven't eaten.” Her voice caught as the strain of the last few days crashed down on her. “I–I know you're worried about C-Cutter, but—”

“Hey, hey, what's this all about?” he asked, stopping by the door to his office. He turned her to face him and tilted her chin up with his knuckles. Tears dampened her lashes, turning them into glistening dark spikes around her sable eyes.

She forced a rueful smile and reached up to brush the drops of moisture away. “I'm a big help.”

“You are,” he said seriously. “You've been working as hard as anybody.”

And all for nothing. The thought dug into his conscience like a set of talons. He'd kept her there under false pretenses, working like a dog, for his own selfish reasons. He stood staring down at her, at her pale face and the dark smudges beneath her eyes. He had to tell her the truth, and he might as well do it now, when he was already feeling beaten.

“Come in the office, Maggie,” he said, opening the door. “We need to talk.”

“Ry, it can wait,” she protested. “You need—”

“To talk to you, Maggie.”

A strange apprehension closed around her heart like a fist. He seemed so businesslike all of a sudden. He wasn't wearing his normal scowl. His look was almost blank, oddly guarded. She had to fight the urge to turn and run before she stepped through the door ahead of him. Nerves kept her away from the chair in front of his desk. She didn't want to sit. Somehow she thought if she kept moving, the whole situation would lighten up. If she sat in that chair across from Ry like a truant student across from the principal, something bad was going to happen; she could sense it.

She wandered around the room she had spent so much time in the past week, stopping every few steps to stare at something without seeing it, then moving on.

Ry sank down on the big chair behind his desk—the chair Maggie had given him. Elbows on the blotter, he made a steeple of his fingers and watched her flit around the room like a skittish butterfly. He had dreaded this moment and postponed it further by saying nothing. Watching Maggie wander around his office was much preferable to watching her walk out the door.

When she could stand the silence no longer, Maggie said, “I suppose we'll have to postpone the open house. Is that what you wanted to talk to me about, sugar? I can—”

“It'll have to be canceled,” he said flatly. He picked up an ink pen and rolled it between his palms.

“Canceled?” She stopped and looked at him, bewildered. “But why? We've done so much work getting ready. Why can't we just put it off for a couple of weeks? Cutter will be back to normal by then, won't he? And the investors—”

“There aren't going to be any investors, Maggie.” He put down the pen and sighed, feeling as though he didn't have the strength to pick it back up. “If we manage to pull Rough Cut through this, he'll be sterile, useless as a sire or as anything else for that matter.”

No wonder he looked so grim. Maggie's heart ached for him. Rough Cut was the horse he had worked all his life to raise. The stallion was to have been the cornerstone for the future of the farm. Now that dream was wrecked. “I see,” she said quietly.

“Do you?” He pushed his chair back and stood, frustration forcing him to pace back and forth behind his desk. “Do you see that everything I've worked toward for the last few years is gone? Just like that the slate is wiped clean. Do you see that I've invested over a hundred thousand dollars on new facilities that won't even begin to pay for themselves now?” His voice rose a decibel with each statement as the anger built. “I invested money that was supposed to come from Rough Cut's syndication, but now there won't be any syndication, and I can't sell him off as a field hunter, because he'll be lame for the rest of his life! Do you see that I'm not only back to square one, I'm in the hole, Maggie.”

“I understand what's happened is terrible, but it's not the end of the world, Ry. Rough Cut isn't the only good horse you've got. You've got stables full of fine animals. Why can't we go on with the open house and simply change the emphasis? We could show off the young stock. The new facilities are wonderful; there's no reason we shouldn't—”

“
We
won't do anything.” He dropped back down on his chair, cradling his head in his hands as he leaned on the desktop once more. Damn, he was tired, and things were going to get worse before there was any hope of their getting better. “I'll take care of calling the investors. I'll take care of canceling the open house. It's my responsibility. I've imposed on you too much as it is.”

“Imposed?” She stopped in front of his desk. He looked exhausted. A three-day stubble darkened the harsh planes of his face. His hair was mussed from too many finger combings. He looked tough and angry and hurt. Maggie propped a hip on the desk and leaned across to stroke her fingertips down his beard-roughened cheek. “Sugar, it's no imposition. We're in this together.”

His hand closed around her wrist, and he removed her touch from his face. This was bad enough without being reminded of how soft she was, how tender she could be. Heaven help him, if he got a whiff of her perfume, he wasn't going to be able to go through with what he had to do.

“Don't, Maggie. Don't you see what this means? I promised you I could give you things, that I could give you everything you ever wanted. Now I won't have anything left to give you except bills and headaches. I don't expect you to hang around.”

“You don't expect…” She let the words trail off as their awful meaning tried to penetrate. That fist of apprehension tightened. Her heart pounded as Ry went on.

“I made an offer I can no longer make good on, so the deal's off. I'm sorry, Mary Margaret. I wish it could have been different.”

“You're throwing in the towel,” she said, pulling her wrist from his grasp and rubbing it absently as she stared at him in disbelief.

He looked away.

Fuming, she pushed herself to her feet. “You're throwing in the towel. I ought to strangle you with it. You and your confounded deals! Do you really think I ever gave a hoot in hell about the money?”

The look on his face told her plainly what he'd thought.

“You son of a gun.” She ground the words out through clenched teeth. “I suppose I should be flattered that you thought so little of me but were still willing to marry me. Or didn't it matter to you? I guess you made it plain enough the first time you asked me to marry you—what you wanted was a brood mare. As long as I was genetically compatible, maybe it didn't matter that I was so lacking in character that I would marry you for your money.”

“Stop it, Maggie!” He came out of his chair once again, fists clenched at his sides.

She glared at him. “Have you never once believed me when I told you I loved you?”

“You thought you were in love with a man who was about to come into a lot of money. I never held that against you. I can understand—”

“You wouldn't understand an anvil if it fell on your head. Choke on your damn money, Rylan Quaid. I never wanted a nickel of it. Never.” She stepped back from the desk, retreating as her anger shifted and let the pain through. “All I ever wanted was you, though Lord only knows why. I guess in my dreams you were never such a hardheaded, hardhearted bastard. The man of my dreams would never have accused me of wanting him for his money.” She tried to swallow back her tears as she said, “In my dreams you loved me back.”

“I do, Maggie.” The words came out in a strangled whisper. He could hardly look at her, it hurt so much. He loved her, but love had never been enough to keep a woman in his life before, and he had nothing more to offer her. She was hurt now, but he was doing her a favor, and he was doing himself one. Better to hurt her pride now than to wait for that inevitable day when she would tire of the farm, the bills…him. But he couldn't let her go thinking he had never cared. For the first time in a long time he had cared. He had cared too much.

Maggie shook her head, her brown eyes full of accusation and pain and disillusionment. Her voice trembled when she spoke. “No. If you loved me, you'd believe me when I said those words to you. You wouldn't bend them and twist them and throw them back at me and tell me they're just a pretty cover for greed. You'd know that I've been out here night and day because I'm worried sick about you, not because I wanted to keep an eye on the big investment.

“You can take that horse and ride him straight to hell. I never wanted anything more than your love, Rylan. When you're ready to accept that, you come and see me.”

She bolted out of the office and ran for her car, not caring that she was leaving behind two suitcases worth of clothing and cosmetics. That was the least of what she was leaving behind, she thought as she drove down the tree-lined lane with tears streaming down her face. She was leaving behind a broken dream and a broken heart.

Why had she had to pick Rylan Quaid to fall in love with? The world was full of men who had no ghosts haunting them, men who recognized love for what it was. Why was this man, this man who had learned not to trust, the one who haunted her dreams?

And why had she had to pick a tourist attraction for her home? she wondered as she pulled into the parking area at Poplar Grove. It was a beautiful day and it appeared every tourist traveling through Virginia was taking advantage of the weather, touring not only the house, but the lovely grounds of the old plantation as well.

Maggie dug through her glove compartment, throwing out maps, a mitten, crumpled notes, and a petrified candy bar as she searched for a pair of sunglasses to hide her tear-ravaged face. The ones she found had one bow missing, but she put them on anyway.

Lord, she thought, glancing at her reflection in the car window when she got out, she looked like a vagrant. She was wearing one of Rylan's flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up. The tails hung to just above her knees—not quite long enough to cover the frayed hole in her oldest jeans. Dirty sneakers and the one-armed sunglasses completed her outfit.