Read The Ranger And The Widow Woman Online
Authors: Stella Bagwell
The Ranger And The Widow Woman (5 page)
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Straightening to his full height, Charlie looked at her. She was standing in the middle of the small room, her hands linked tightly in front of her. No doubt she was probably wondering what she’d gotten herself into, by coming out to this secluded place with a man she didn’t know. And if she wasn’t a little bit scared, she ought to be, he thought grimly.
“Well,” he said, then roughly cleared his throat “I’m going to unload the truck. When I’m finished, we’ll find something to eat I brought a few groceries with me, and there should be some things in the cupboards. Do you know how to cook?”
Violet’s gaze wandered curiously around the room. It was small but neat, with everything in its place. The furniture was sturdy, wood-framed pieces with cushions covered in copper-colored hopsacking. Heavy, unbleached muslin draped across a pair of wide-paned windows. There were several Navajo woven rugs on the floor, the head of a stuffed mule deer on the wall, along with a gun rack stacked with an assortment of high-powered rifles. It was obviously a man’s house, yet it was warm and homey. And as solid and strong as Charlie Pardee himself.
Eventually Violet’s eyes settled back on his strong face, and as she looked at him she wondered why fate had brought her to a man who had the power to hurt her the most.
“I can find my way around a kitchen, Ranger Pardee.”
Chapter Three
“H
amburgers, hot dogs or lunch meat.” Charlie pulled each food item from an ice chest, carelessly tossed the packages on the tabletop, then walked over to a wall lined with varnished pine cabinets. The countless number of canned goods displayed on the shelves reminded him of just how long it had been since he’d been home. “The choices here are soup, chili, tamales and refried beans.”
amburgers, hot dogs or lunch meat.” Charlie pulled each food item from an ice chest, carelessly tossed the packages on the tabletop, then walked over to a wall lined with varnished pine cabinets. The countless number of canned goods displayed on the shelves reminded him of just how long it had been since he’d been home. “The choices here are soup, chili, tamales and refried beans.”
“Sam and I aren’t particular eaters,” Violet assured him from her seat at the little farm table. “We’ll eat anything. Just tell me what you want and I’ll prepare it.”
Even though he’d asked her if she could cook, Charlie hadn’t really expected her to. She wasn’t exactly a guest, but she wasn’t hired help, either. She wasn’t a relative or even a girlfriend. He really didn’t know how the hell to treat her. “I didn’t bring you out here to make you my slave.”
For the first time since they had met on the side of the highway, Violet gave him a little smile. It was the most knowing, provocative, female expression he’d ever seen on any woman, and as his eyes settled on her lips, he felt something stir deep in his gut.
“I don’t see a whip in your hand,” she told him. “I’d like the chance to compensate for all this trouble you’ve gone to. I really feel like Sam and I shouldn’t be here.”
He was inclined to agree with her. She and the boy shouldn’t be here. He was a man who enjoyed his own company. Especially when he was in a black mood, and lately he’d been in a lot of those. Besides, a woman and child could only mean trouble he didn’t need. Yet in spite of all his misgiving, she was here and he found himself more and more intrigued with her.
Propping a thigh on the corner of the table, he folded his arms against his chest. His assessing gaze roamed her face. “Are you a jinx? Should I be worried the roof or something will fall in on us?”
Violet had been around big, muscular men before. For the past two years she’d worked in a place where men of all shapes and sizes came and went. She was used to them and rarely gave any of them a second glance. But there was something about Charlie that made her heart beat out of rhythm every time her eyes touched him. She didn’t know if the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his chest, the sandy hair flopping defiantly over one eye or merely the deep, resonating sound of his voice was affecting her. The only thing she did know was that her strong reaction to him was very unsettling to her peace of mind.
Desperate to lengthen the distance between them, Violet rose from her chair and walked over to the groceries scattered across the counter. “With the luck I’ve had today it looks as though I’m a jinx.”
With narrowed eyes, he watched her quickly set about unpacking the last sack of groceries. “Violet, you can’t imagine what sort of trouble you might have gotten into if I hadn’t come along.”
She supposed as a lawman he’d seen plenty of heinous crimes against women, and he’d naturally think of the worst scenario happening.
“I suppose I should look at it that way,” she conceded. But had she been lucky? Violet wondered. She wasn’t so sure. Each time she looked at him, she got the feeling she’d run from a storm and straight into a wildfire.
A few minutes later Violet began to prepare sandwiches for their supper. While she worked, Charlie went to the bedroom to check the beds. Both mattresses had been stripped of sheets, so he found two clean sets from a small linen closet, tossed one set on his own bed, then carried the other to the guest bedroom.
He was slipping the puckered corners of the sheet over the mattress when Violet appeared in the doorway. She immediately walked to the head of the bed and grabbed one end of the pale blue muslin. “Let me help you,” she offered. “It’s always easier when two make a bed.”
“My parents come over and stay here at the cabin sometimes just for the heck of it. Mom must have taken the sheets to wash them,” Charlie explained, then glanced across the bed at her.
Other than his sister Caroline and his cousins Anna and Ivy, he’d never had a woman out here to his cabin before. Having Violet in the small bedroom with him made Charlie more aware than ever that she was a beautiful woman and he was a man who’d gone without female company for a long, long time.
His thoughts must have shown on his face because Violet suddenly straightened away from the bed and took a couple of wary steps backward. Crossing her arms over her plump little breasts, she said, “The sandwiches are ready whenever you are. I also opened the carton of milk and poured a small glass for Sam. I hope you don’t mind.”
Down through the years Charlie had provoked a lot of reactions from women. He could say without conceit nearly all of them had been positive. Try as he might he could never remember any woman being so leery of angering him. Had he become that hard and forbidding, or had Violet lived with a husband that had been less than loving?
The dark thought left Charlie’s voice rougher than usual. “The kid can drink the whole carton. I’ll be getting whatever I need when I drive back into Ruidoso.”
Deciding he was becoming far too aware of her sweet scent, soft body and shadowy green eyes, he quickly whipped the flat sheet in the air and allowed it to settle over the double bed.
Violet ventured forward once again and tucked the sheet under her side of the mattress. “You will be going back to Ruidoso tomorrow, won’t you?” she asked.
If he had any sense at all, he’d take Violet and Sam right back to Ruidoso in the morning. But he was sick of driving, of traveling, and most of all not being able to stay in one spot for more than five hours at a time.
Shrugging he said, “I don’t know. I haven’t decided when I’ll go back into town.”
Violet’s heart stilled as she watched his lean, tanned hand smooth the blue sheet over the end of the bed. She never would have agreed to come out here for more than one night. He should have told her his intentions!
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Sam and I have to get back. We can’t stay here!”
Hysteria tinged the last of her words and Charlie glanced at her. From the expression on her face, he might as well have announced an atomic bomb was sitting under his little summer cabin. He felt his patience rapidly slipping.
“Why can’t you stay here?” he countered. “Your car is out of commission. What could you do in town?”
What did the man think she was going to do here? Violet wondered wildly. They were out in the middle of nowhere.
“Try to find a job,” she answered, her voice conveying how ridiculous she considered his question.
“How?”
Moving from the back side of the bed, he came to stand a couple of short steps away from her. His thumbs were looped into the front pockets of his jeans. “Your car isn’t running. If you hired a taxi to drive you around for job interviews, you’d only be wasting money you obviously need. And Ruidoso is far too spread out to walk it. Besides, what would you do with Sam while you went job hunting?”
She threw up her hands in disgust. “The way you make it sound, I might as well go jump off a cliff and put myself out of this misery.”
For the first time since she’d met him, his face turned dark and rigid with anger. He stepped closer, and Violet’s heart began to pound rapidly as his fingers wrapped tightly around her upper arm.
“If you’re going to talk like a fool I don’t want you around here!” he said sharply.
The harshness of his words hurt, more than angered, Violet. Since she’d met him on the side of the highway he hadn’t exactly been amiable, but up until this moment, she’d believed him to be a fair, considerate man, a person who might actually care what happened to her and Sam. Dear Lord, she’d let her imaginations stray into left field this time.
Stiffening her spine and lifting her chin, she tried her best to hide the awful embarrassment she was feeling at imposing on this man’s privacy.
“I was pretty sure you didn’t want me around here before you ever left Ruidoso,” she said coolly. “I don’t know why you insisted Sam and I traipse out here with you. You don’t know us, and I really doubt you want to get to know us. Now you’re stuck with us. And I feel awful and you—”
Violet’s words were suddenly smothered to a shocked moan as Charlie’s head dipped and his lips captured hers. Stunned motionless by the intimate contact, Violet tried to shut down her senses, too. She tried to tell herself she didn’t want Charlie Pardee’s kiss on her lips any more than she’d wanted Brent’s after their marriage had technically ended. But her brain, or maybe it was her heart, refused to cooperate. By the time Charlie lifted his head, Violet was on the verge of swooning straight into his arms.
“Why did you do that?” she whispered huskily.
His heart beating like a drum in his chest, Charlie’s blue eyes swept over her pink cheeks and puffy lips. Damn it all, kissing her had been the last thing he’d planned on doing. But then she’d started that rambling tirade which hadn’t made one lick of sense to him and he’d lost all control.
“To shut you up,” he answered, his breaths still coming short and fast.
She glared at him in disbelief.
He didn’t wait for her to make any sort of remark. He lit into her with a voice as rock hard as his face. “Over the course of a year I see more murder victims than I want to see. None of those people had a choice to keep living. Someone else decided to take it away. And you—”
“Are you crazy or something?” she cut in hotly. “When I said jump off a cliff, I didn’t mean it literally! And if you’ll recall, you were the one listing all the reasons why I should wring my hands together and cry. Well, let me tell you something, Mister Texas Ranger, I’m not a weak, sniveling person who crumbles at the first sign of trouble. I’ve been through more than you’ll ever know, and never once have I considered copping out on myself or my son or anyone. And furthermore, I don’t let just anybody kiss me! Got that?”
She needn’t worry about a repeat performance, Charlie thought. Kissing Violet O’Dell had left him feeling as if he’d been whammed on the head with a nine-pound hammer.
“Yeah, I got it,” he muttered. “And maybe we should go eat before we have any more of these misunderstandings.”
Violet had never heard of a kiss labeled as a misunderstanding. In her opinion the word didn’t begin to describe the storm that had rushed through her the moment his lips had touched hers. She still felt the need to draw in several cleansing breaths and give herself a hard mental shake.
“I’ll go wake Sam,” she told him, then shot out of the room on shaky legs.
The meal of sandwiches was a solemn affair. Sam’s nap had left him quiet and groggy. As for Violet she felt as unwanted and in the way as an ant at a picnic. As she forced the ham and cheese past her tight throat, she wished a thousand times she’d never allowed Charlie to bully her into coming out here. It had been a drastic mistake, and if he’d had a regular telephone available, she would call a taxi as soon as she cleaned the supper table. But the only phone she’d seen anywhere was the cellular in his truck. And he’d disconnected it shortly after they had arrived at the cabin.
A short while later as Violet sat on the side of the tub, supervising Sam’s bath, he asked, “Mommy, are we gonna sleep here at Charlie’s house tonight?”
“Yes. For tonight,” she answered.
The child plopped the sopping washcloth on top of his head, then squinted his eyes and giggled as rivulets of water rushed over his face.
Violet smiled gently at his playful antics. It was a relief to see her son didn’t appear to be the least bit traumatized or confused by all that had happened today. He seemed to feel as much at home here as he had in the house they had shared with Brent’s father.
“Tomorrow when it gets light, can I go outside and play?” he asked. “Do you think Charlie might play with me?”
Violet didn’t want to think about Charlie Pardee. The man had more sides to him than a pair of dice. Worse than that, he was a lawman. Just being in the same house with him was like playing with fire.
“You might go outside for a little while if it’s not too hot,” she told Sam. “But I’m sure Charlie will be too busy to play.”
One thing Violet could say about Brent—he’d been a good father to their son. Though his job had required him to travel often, whenever he was home he’d always made a point of spending time with Sam. Even when their marriage had turned sour, his love for Sam had never wavered. Violet supposed that was the main reason why she’d tried to hold their marriage together for the last year before he’d died. Sam had needed his father, and Brent had always been there for him. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to tear them apart with a divorce.
In the past months Violet was aware her son missed and needed the male companionship Brent had provided. And now that the two of them had left Amarillo, she’d taken him away from his grandfather, too. A part of Violet felt guilty about the separation. The man was the only close relative either of them had left. But he was not the sort of male influence she wanted for Sam. On the contrary, she prayed her son would not grow up to be like the O’Dell men before him.
“Mommy, when are we gonna get to our new home? Is it a long way from here?”
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