Texas Secrets (6 page)

Then he looked down at Maddie. "So you just tell me what he could have said that would give me a second's pause. I don't think you know me well enough to know what I can take." His eyes turned cold, colder than the light from a distant star and every bit as lonely.

"Boone..." She placed her hand on his muscular forearm. The contact shocked them both—she could see it in the quick flare in his eyes, could feel it all the way down her spine. "It's not anything like what you're thinking, but it won't make you feel any better."

A muscle jumped in his rock-hard jaw. He pulled his arm away, and Maddie felt the loss.

In a voice deceptively soft, he asked, "Why don't you let me be the judge of that?"

So be it. "All right." Maddie wished she'd stayed out on the porch, but she met his squarely. "He said that he was afraid to find Dalton or to tell Jenny that Dalton was alive."

Boone's hard expression didn't flicker. "Why would he be afraid?"

Maddie swallowed. "Because your mother loved my father first, and Sam was afraid he would lose her."

Boone still didn't move, and his gaze never wavered. Behind him, Vondell sucked in a gasp of disbelief.

His voice betrayed nothing of his feelings. "I'd like to read the letter."

"Are you sure?"

Boone's laugh was short and rusty. "Yeah." But his eyes told a different story. "I'm sure."

"Boone, I'm sorry. I don't know what—"

"Just get the letter, Maddie."

She traded sympathetic glances with Vondell, then ran up to her room and got Sam's letter. Back in the kitchen, she handed it to Boone. She stayed quiet, though she could have recited every word after all the hours she'd spent trying to decide if any of it was real.

Dear Maddie Rose,

I was hoping we'd get to meet, but the doc says it's not likely. In any case, my lawyer will be contacting you with this letter and the provisions of my will. You don't know me, but my name is Sam Gallagher, and your father was once my best friend. I wronged your father, Maddie Rose, but it's too late to make it right with him, so I'm giving you the house that should have been his.

It probably comes as a surprise to hear that I'm leaving you a ranch house in Texas. This house belonged to your grandmother Rose and was the place where your father grew up. It should have been his when Rose died, but by then everyone believed he was dead. I bought it from Rose's estate, not knowing until a few years later that Dalton was alive.

That's why I'm leaving it to you, Maddie—because I should have looked for Dalton then, and I didn't. You see, my Jenny loved Dalton first, and I was afraid I'd lose her. I know she only married me because Dalton was gone. By the time I found out he was alive, we had our two boys, Mitch and Boone, and we'd built a good life together. But there was always this sadness in Jenny, and I knew it was because she lost Dalton.

A few years after I bought this place, my Jenny passed away. I never got over her, never loved another woman. Gallagher men love only once, you see. But I should have trusted Jenny and told her about Dalton. I'd like to believe she would have stayed with me, but I couldn't take the chance.

If you don't want the place, that's fine. The land will go to my sons, regardless, but it won't go down easy with Boone, especially, for you to have the house. But give yourself a chance to love the place as your daddy did. I'm making it a condition that you stay in the house for thirty days before you make up your mind. It might take a while to grow on you.

I hope you and my sons can make peace with what I've done. At the end of the thirty days, if you don't want the house, I want you to sell it to Boone. I think he'll want it, now that he won't have to put up with me. But if you decide to stay, there's plenty of land for them to build their own houses on. It's as fair as I know how to be.

I hear that you're a fancy cook back east, but Devlin also tells me you have no other family. Your blood runs deep in this place, Maddie Rose. You have roots here. Generations of Wheelers fought and died, battled drought and Indians and heartache to keep this place. I believe old Rose would like knowing you were here.

I was off in the service when everything went bad for Dalton, but I know he would have hated to leave. People think he killed his stepfather, but he didn't. He confessed and then vanished to save his mother from the consequences of what she'd done. In my heart, I know he never felt at home anywhere else, and she never stopped missing him.

Give it a chance, Maddie Rose. See if Texas whispers in your heart the way it always has in mine. This house was a happy place once, when Jenny was here, but it hasn't been happy in years. See if you can bring it back to life.

Sam Gallagher

When Boone finished, he stared at her for a long, long moment. Then his voice came, so low she almost couldn't hear it.

"You can't mean to stay." His eyes...

"No," she whispered back. "I won't be staying."

Boone laid the letter down on the old scarred table. Then he pushed past Maddie, leaving the air stinging with anguish so deep it echoed in the room. The back door slammed behind him, and Maddie could only stand very still.

Vondell crossed over and picked up the letter, reading it slowly. Then she heaved a big sigh and pressed one set of fingers to her forehead. "Curse you, Sam Gallagher. It never had to be like this."

Maddie's chest ached. "I said I was going. If I could leave right now, I would, Vondell." She lifted her gaze to see the older woman's grim visage. "I won't stay a minute longer than I must. But surely he's not so mad he would want to lose the whole place just to get me out of here."

"He's not mad at you, child. He's just got a hurt real deep, so deep it's never healed. Boone's a proud man, too proud to admit it. He was proud even as a young man, and he'd take a bullet before he'd admit how much he wanted his father to love him. The only happy memories Boone has of this place are from when Jenny was still alive. Hearing that Jenny loved a man we all thought was a murderer was bound to go down hard."

"I tried to warn him."

"In some ways, Boone's as hardheaded as Sam."

"I won't make this any more difficult for him than I have to, Vondell, but I am not hiding in my room for a month."

"Of course you shouldn't." Vondell patted her arm and smiled. "Sam was right about one thing—this old place needs someone to liven it up. I'm thinking you're just the person for the job. You just be yourself, Maddie girl. No harm in that."

Maddie's laugh was shakier than she'd like. "I doubt that Boone would agree."

"Well, maybe Boone Gallagher needs a little shaking up. Heaven knows this place has held little enough happiness since Jenny died." She smiled more brightly. "Now how about you show me what magic you can make from a carrot?"

Maddie had to smile back. Thank heavens Vondell was here.

And that come tomorrow it would be only twenty-eight days and counting.

* * *

Boone climbed the stairs and headed down the hall, years of practice dispensing with the need for lights. The house was quiet. He'd heard Vondell's soft snores downstairs, and he saw no light from under Maddie's door.

He paused outside her door, remembering the look on her face when he'd finished Sam's letter. She had a soft heart, too soft to be caught in Sam's games. He no longer believed she was anything more than an innocent victim, a pawn caught in the swirling winds of long-ago disasters. But that didn't mean he could let down his guard.  Her sheer attractiveness was reason enough, never mind the potential damage she could do if she wanted.

He couldn't afford to run her off before her thirty days was up and because of that, he appreciated the stubborn streak that ran a mile wide down her back. He also couldn't risk her learning to like this place and deciding to stay.

Not that it seemed much of a risk, Boone thought, as he opened the door to his room. The picture beside his bed kept that fresh on his mind. Helen's blonde perfection shone out at him—the Helen he'd first met, not the one he'd last seen.

She'd hated it here, and so would Maddie. As soon as the new wore off, the restlessness would set in. Boone would have to tread a fine line; his best course was to keep an eye out, but stay far, far away. Maddie might tempt him, but she also had the potential to cost him the only thing he had left. 

He would stay watchful but stay out of Maddie's way. Vondell could keep her entertained when she started to go stir-crazy, wanting out of this place.

People thought Boone kept Helen's picture out because he was still mourning. They couldn't be further off the mark.

He kept the picture there to remind him. His father had gone wrong, loving too much. Boone had gone wrong, loving too little. He would avoid both paths to tragedy.

No more love. No more city girls. No more mistakes.

Chapter Four

"Would you look at that?" Jim Caskey whistled.

Boone glanced up from cleaning Gulliver's hoof. The minute he did, he wished he hadn't.

"I didn't know a body would bend that way," Jim observed.

Jim's horse shifted, and Gulliver got edgy.

"Pay attention, Jim."

"Oh, I am, Boone. I surely am."

"To your horse," Boone clarified.

"Don't tell me that sight don't get your mind working. Any woman that limber..."

"Can it, Jim. Velda would skin and gut you."

"She would, at that. But it might be worth it."

Boone took another look and wished he hadn't. The skintight top and belly-baring pants Maddie wore only emphasized the long legs, the lush breasts, the bare flesh he craved to touch...

Damn it. He didn't want to notice, had tried to forget she existed. He'd stayed gone from sunup to past supper for three days, avoiding her.

"Whew, Boone, you see that?" Sonny Chavez rounded the corner.

"He sees, all right. He just ain't admittin' it," Jim replied.

"Don't you two have anything better to do? If not, maybe this ranch needs to cut the payroll some."

The two muttered a little, then started moving away, chuckling at something Jim had said. Boone ignored them and concentrated on the hoof pick he wielded, noting that it was past time for Gulliver to be shod.

He let the hoof down and picked up the last one, making short work of cleaning it, studiously ignoring the movement on the porch. But when he let down the last hoof, the gelding shifted and grazed the side of Boone's foot with one hoof. Twelve hundred pounds, even at a glancing blow, hurt like hell.

"Ouch—damn it!"

Laughter erupted from the doorway. Boone shot a glare where Jim and Sonny stood. "You might want to mind your own advice," Jim chided. Then he disappeared around the corner.

That did it. Boone chucked the hoof pick into a bucket and started walking, his temper flaring with every step.

It didn't help that she was so graceful, that the limber, elegant movements were almost poetry in motion. Maddie had no business doing that right here, not in full view of the men. Didn't the woman have a shred of modesty?

Of course she didn't. Boone only had to remember the slip of a dress she'd worn the day she came, or the scrap of lace he'd seen in the window. Never mind that millions of women wore much less. Of course, he'd seen Maddie in an old baggy t-shirt yesterday and even it seemed to look—

Hell.

Seductive. It wasn't the clothes. It was the clothes on
her
.

Twenty-six days and counting.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he barked.

Maddie jolted, but drew in a deep breath and continued the stance she held. She looked like a human pretzel. Like Jim, he never realized the body could do things like that.

"I
was
relaxing and doing my yoga," she replied. "I'll continue if you'd leave me alone."

"Why do you have to do it out here?"

Slowly, she untwisted her body and centered her torso over legs spread impossibly wide. Then she bent over in the center, facing him, resting her elbows on the ground.

Boone gritted his teeth and tried not to notice the lean muscles of her thighs, the smooth, tight—

"I asked you a question. Why can't you do this in your room?"

As slowly as before, Maddie unbent from the waist, her torso rising and giving him a clear view of cleavage he didn't want to see. Her head lifted, and those bewitching gray eyes studied him too closely.

He wanted to look away. So he didn't.

"You're a perfect candidate for yoga, Boone. You need to relax worse than anyone I ever met."

"I'll relax when—" He forced himself to stop.

One dark eyebrow arched. "When I'm gone?"

"I've got work to do. Find some other place to do that stuff. Some place where you don't distract the men." He turned to walk away.

"Yoga does wonders to clear the mind and calm the soul. I could teach you."

He turned back around. "I'm not the one on vacation. I don't have time to play games."

"It's not a game." Suddenly she looked very serious. "I couldn't have made it through the last year without it."

"Cooking little appetizers is such hard work?"

She smiled. "As a matter of fact, it is, but that's not what I'm talking about. Yoga is as much a mental discipline as it is physical. But it's something more. It's a way to refresh the soul, to touch a part of life we forget to experience."

Boone sensed that there was more to the story. For one second, he thought about asking what she had needed to make it through. Then he reminded himself that she was only temporary. The last thing he needed was to get involved in her problems. He had enough of his own.

"You could use a break, Boone." Her gray eyes went soft, the pale centers seeing too much. "You work too hard."

Sometimes he felt like he'd been tired for years. At that moment, he felt the call of her gentleness, a brief instant of longing for the spark of whatever it was that made Maddie more vivacious than any woman he'd ever met.