City Girl (20 page)

They never heard the knocking, never heard the door open, never knew they weren’t alone until an angry gasp sliced through the air and a shrill voice demanded, “And where might my innocent little grandsons be while you’re carrying on like this in broad daylight?”

It was Kirk who moved, sitting up and shielding Liss with his body. He glared at a shocked Kristy, who was frantically pulling on a rotund, bald man and a short, stocky woman while apologizing profusely, confusedly, saying she didn’t know, she should never have barged in. But she simply didn’t know and she was so sorry, but these folks were looking for Liss and had gotten lost, so she'd led the way to the ranch and then brought them inside when nobody answered the door, and she knew the boys were normally in the playroom and . . .

“Kristy, shut the door,” Kirk said. Not until she had complied did he turn back to Liss and hand her her bra and sweater.

“Lord, sweetheart,” he said, shocked by her pale face. “I’m sorry! I did it again, didn’t I? When am I going to learn not to touch you unless we’re locked away somewhere and—”

“Kirk. Stop. It’s all right. Truly it is.” Liss fully believed that . . . until she faced her in-laws. “Mr. and Mrs. McCall,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking as hard as her body shook, “I’d like to present Kirk Allbright, co-owner of Whittier Ranch and . . .” Panic set in, making it impossible for her to meet those two sets of accusing eyes, face that pair of tight, pursed mouths and the disapproval, the silent, awful rebuke, without some kind of explanation, some kind of reinforcement. She clutched Kirk’s hand where it rested on her shoulder and added in a rush, “My-my husband-to-be.”

Kirk’s hand slowly fell from her shoulder as he reached out to accept the hand Mr. McCall offered him.

“Well,” Mrs. McCall said with a sniff. “You’re certainly nothing like my son. I’m surprised to hear that Phyllis means to marry you.”

“So am I,” Kirk murmured blandly. Liss was the only one who knew that the freckles on his cheeks didn’t normally show so starkly.

“The boys are still napping,” she told the McCalls. “We weren’t expecting you until later.”

“That,” said her father-in-law, “was quite obvious. Wake the children, please, Phyllis. We want to leave at once. There’s a storm front moving in.” It was no request.

Liss glanced at Kirk and knew there was a storm front moving in from that direction, too, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. As soon as the boys were happily busy showing off their loot to their adoring grandparents, Kirk grabbed Liss by the arm and all but dragged her out to his workshop in the barn.

“Now, “ he said, shoving her down onto the bench and looming over her, his fists on his hips. “We are going to have a very serious talk, Ms. Tremayne!”

“You’re mad.”

“You’re damned right I’m mad! And hurt. And mortified and humiliated and ashamed and a lot of other words I could think of, but damn good and mad just about covers it perfectly! First, you refuse to marry me because you need time to think about it; then, the minute your in-laws catch us doing something that their dirty little minds might consider immoral, I’m suddenly your beloved fiancé and that makes it all right for us to be stripping each other naked in broad daylight. Forget it, Liss. I have more pride than that. If I were going to marry you, I’d want a hell of a lot better reason than your fear of the McCalls!”

She shot to her feet. No way was she going to sit like a recalcitrant child while this monster of a man towered over her and bellowed at her. “If you were going to marry me? Meaning you’re not? You don’t want to be known as my husband-to-be?”

“No, dammit, not under those circumstances!” he yelled. “Liss, can’t you see—”

“I see one thing only,” she shouted back at him. “You don’t want to marry me. You never did, if something like this can change your mind so fast! I don’t know why I ever believed you in the first place, when all my instincts told me it couldn’t be true. Why do you think I never said yes? Because I sensed deep inside that you were only using me, that I was a convenience to you. What’s changed, Kirk? Have you got someone else to look after the house and . . . the other things? Someone more experienced, maybe, a better lover? Someone . . . taller? Someone with bigger boobs?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he roared, ramming a hand through his hair.

“You know damned well what I’m talking about! If this is what you want to use as an excuse to go after Gina again, fine. Go ahead and use it.”

For the second time in an hour, she watched his freckles pop out across his cheekbones. He grabbed her by the upper arms and shook her. “I don’t want to marry Gina,” he said raggedly. “I’ve never wanted to marry her!”

“And you never wanted to marry me either, or anyone else. You proposed to me out of sheer expediency, because you felt you couldn’t make me stay otherwise, not once you knew my photography was starting to pay off. Do you think I didn’t notice that you asked me to marry you the very day I got my first check? The thought of my independence scared you, didn’t it, Kirk?”

He didn’t deny it. He only stared at her, and she went on, her rage creating a fine haze before her eyes. All the hurts, all the losses, all the pain of the past seemed encompassed in this one moment of his rejection. “It must have come as a shock when I didn’t leap at the chance to put an end to your bachelorhood. But one thing you’ll have to realize, Kirk. This city girl isn’t quite as stupid as you thought. I can look after myself and my children, and if you don’t need me, I don’t need you!”

He glared at her silently, then spun around and strode out of the barn, leaving her shaking and sick and icy cold as she listened to his truck drive away.      

With her chin tilted high, she strode from the barn, not looking back. Less than an hour later, she sat in the back seat of the McCalls’ car with her children on either side o€ her. She held them tightly, telling herself that this was the right thing to do. She didn’t love Kirk. She didn’t want him. She hated the ranch and all it stood for and was glad to be leaving.

But if that was the case, why was she crying all those silent tears?

* * * *

“Hello, Ms. Tremayne!” Lester Brown stood to welcome Liss into his drab office and seated her in a hard chair. “Happy New Year. I hope you enjoyed your first Christmas at Whittier Ranch. I was surprised to hear you were back in the city, but glad to have you make an appointment with me. Sorry you had to wait so long. I was away. Just here for a little visit, I suppose?”

Lester seemed unusually talkative, maybe even a bit . . . edgy. “How are the children settling in? And more to the point, how can I be of service to you today?”

“The boys are visiting their grandparents while I look for a place to live,” Liss said. She bowed her head and stared at her linked hands for a moment, then glanced back up. “Here. In the city. I’m staying with a friend for the time being. I’ve left the ranch.”

“I . . .see,” he said slowly. “May I ask why?”

“A variety of reasons,” she said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t live up to what my uncle wanted of me, but I’ve begun selling more photographs recently, so I’ll be able to pay back the money you advanced me. It may take time, but I’ll do it.”

Lester tented his neatly manicured fingers and gazed at her over them. “My dear, I’m very sad to hear things didn’t work out for you up there, but there’s no need for you to pay anything back. Your uncle knew you might not be happy at the ranch and made provisions that will enable you to live elsewhere if you want. I wasn’t permitted to tell you until you’d given ranch life a good try, but now I can. I think the weeks you spent there, especially in the middle of winter can be considered a good enough test.”

“Thank you. I did try.”

“I’m very much aware of that, my dear. Kirk gave me glowing reports of the way you and your children adapted. I—”

“Kirk? He’s been giving you reports on me?” She made no attempt to hide her indignation. “By what right? And why?”

“It was a condition of your uncle’s will,” he said. “As was the extra provision Ambrose made. You’re to have one hundred thousand dollars, paid at once, which will cancel your claim on the ranch.”

A hundred thousand dollars? Her head spun. Where was Kirk going to get that kind of money? How many cows would he have to sell? Appalled, she stared at Lester. “No!” she said. “I can’t take that.”

“But you must, my dear. It’s in the will.”

“I don’t care. Tell him he can keep it, tell him I died and left it to him, tell him anything you want, but I’m not taking that money from Kirk! Do you have any idea what that kind of a loss would mean to Kir—to the ranch? He’d have to sell stock, and without cows, there won’t be calves. Without calves, there won’t be steers. Without steers, there’ll be no beef, and no money to buy new stock! No, Mr. Brown. The ranch couldn’t handle that kind of loss.”

Lester looked at her compassionately. “You came to care about . . .the, um, the ranch, then?”

“Yes. Of course. It’s a wonderful place. I learned to love . . . it. Please, don’t take that money from him, Mr. Brown. It would be disastrous! Why, Kirk nearly killed himself during every storm, because he couldn’t afford to lose even one cow. I’m sorry. I know Uncle Ambrose meant well, but I can’t accept it. I won’t.”

Swiftly she got to her feet. “Excuse me. I must go. But as I said, I mean to repay every cent of what you advanced me. It’s not my money. It’s Kirk’s, and he needs all of it.”

“My dear, please,” Lester said, standing quickly. “Wait, won’t you? Let me explain. Let me—”

She shook her head, fighting tears. “I won’t take money that Kirk needs to run the ranch. Don’t you know how important it is to him, Mr. Brown? How much he loves it? It’s his life. It was going to be mine, too, and my children’s, but I was stupid and weak and scared and let it matter too much that he loved me as much for my cake as he did for myself and . . . and . . . I’m sorry, Mr. Brown. Goodbye.”

“The money doesn’t come . . .” Lester began, but Liss didn’t want to hear any more. She opened the door and run into a wall.

A wall with arms.

She looked up, way up. Her tears blurred Kirk’s face, and the sight of him only made her cry harder. “He wants you to give me a whole pile of money. I won’t take it, Kirk. I’ll come back to the ranch and be loved for my chocolate cake and sex before I’ll let you ruin the ranch that way.”

“Chocolate cake?” he asked, tilting his hat to the back of his head. “Sex?” He bent down and quickly kissed her. “Never mind. Don’t answer. Just come home with me, Liss. I need you, love. Please come home.”

Liss shook from the force of her weeping. She couldn’t even question why he was there, although she suspected Lester Brown had something to do with it. All that mattered was that Kirk was there. And he was holding her, stroking her hair, looking down at her, his eyes full of questions and love and sadness and need.      

“Cakes and kisses,” she said, hiccupping. “Supper and sex. What Mrs. Healey said you and Ambrose wanted from your housekeepers. Gina can’t cook, she’d make a terrible rancher’s wife, so you asked me instead and . . . Isn’t your mother going to stay and take over the kitchen?”

“My mother and Mrs. Healey are going on a Caribbean cruise together.”

She blinked in surprise, then said, “You see? I knew it. You only need my cakes.”

Her mouth trembled. Her chin quivered. He planted a finger on it, square over her scar. “To hell with cake,” he said. “I need your kisses.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you.” When she continued to look at him with a thousand doubts in her exotic eyes, he lost his patience—exactly what he’d told Lester he wouldn’t do when the lawyer had phoned to say Liss had asked for an appointment. He’d driven straight through to get here in time to intercept her.

“For the love of Mike, woman!”  he bellowed. “What does it take to convince you?”

“Is that why—really why—you want to marry me?”

He drew in a deep breath. “Yes, Liss. That’s really why. It’s the only reason why. If you want to spend all your time taking pictures, we’ll hire a damned cook and housekeeper—the ranch can afford it—but it’s you I want in my home, in my bed, in my heart, because I love you, city girl.”

She smiled, then reached way, way up and kissed him. “Maybe you’ll have to stop calling me that,” she murmured, her whole body seeming to glow with her love for him.

He looked down at her three-inch heels and shook his head. “Nope. I love you just the way you are, city shoes and all. Keep wearing those and I won’t get such a crick in my neck.”

She flung her arms around his neck and laughed. “But would it be all right if I kicked them off now and then and got hay down my back?”

“Come on home,” he said, “and we’ll see.”

Copyright © 1991 by Judy Gill

Originally published by Bantam Loveswept as Dangerous Proposition [0553441957]

Adapted by the author in 2008

Electronically published in 2008 by Belgrave House

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are

fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is

coincidental.