Cowboy in My Pocket (25 page)

“No,” she said. “He hasn’t. Yet.”

“Well, don’t count on it, Michelle. That man’s country through and through. You’re not. The only thing he’s interested in is that deed to the Double Eagle his grandmother just handed to him out there in the kitchen. He was so busy drooling over it, I doubt he even knows I left the room.”

“So,” Michelle said, as much to herself as to Mark. “Tag’s finally got his ranch.” Which meant he didn’t need her any longer. Of course, he hadn’t needed her from the moment Lenore learned of the whole charade.

“I have to dress for supper,” she said. It wasn’t easy, but she held the tears at bay and looked straight into Mark’s pale blue eyes. At least he had the decency not to gloat. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Michelle.” Mark gently caressed her shoulder. She couldn’t help but think of the shock of contact every time Tag touched her. The sizzle.

There’d be no sizzle with Mark, but he was a good man. He was her friend, even if she didn’t love him the way he wanted her to. He represented everything familiar, everything she’d always known, always done.

“Think about what I said, Michelle. I know it’s probably come as a shock, but I do love you. We have a lot of history, you and I. Marriages have succeeded with a lot less.”

“Are you proposing? Are you saying you want to marry me?” For a romance editor he certainly wasn’t much of a romantic.

“I’m just asking you to think about it.” He leaned over and kissed her very lightly on the lips. She wanted to feel something, anything besides the warm pressure of his mouth on hers.

No sizzle.

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’ll keep an open mind,” she said. She turned away, her hands resting on the knot holding her robe together. She didn’t untie it until she heard the bedroom door close softly behind Mark, but it was a long time before she found enough energy to take the robe off and slip into a clean pair of Tag’s old boxer shorts, a worn pair of jeans and a warm sweater.

It was another half hour before she motivated herself enough to head down the hallway to the front door, across the yard and out to the barn.

She’d check on Star and Goldie first. Then, maybe, she’d have the energy to face Tag.

Chapter 13

TAG RAN the comb through Goldie’s silvery mane, unwinding more with each steady stroke. Concentrating intently on the occasional tangle, he felt his tight muscles slowly begin to loosen and relax. The rain beat a hypnotic tattoo against the tin roof, the horses crunched and munched noisily through their daily ration of grain, and Star slurped and grunted as he suckled and occasionally butted his nose against the placid mare.

Dandy hung his head over the side of the stall and nudged Tag’s shoulder. “Your turn next, big guy.” Tag scratched between Dandy’s ears, then returned to the job of combing tangles out of Goldie’s mane.

This was the place that brought him peace, usually. This barn, these animals. This was the one spot in all the world where he’d always found the answers.

Why couldn’t he find them today? Sighing heavily, Tag finished with Goldie, grabbed the brush and currycomb and moved over to Dandy’s stall. Dandy nickered and moved aside so Tag could open the door. A moment later he whinnied as a quiet footfall sounded nearby.

Startled, Tag spun around.

“Tag? I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were out here.” Michelle moved into the pale light cast by the single bulb Tag had left burning. “I came out to check on Star. It’s storming so badly, you’ve been gone for so long, I was . . .”

“Star’s fine,” Tag said, surprising himself with the ease with which his lips formed the words. His mouth was suddenly dry as cotton, his heart hammered as if he’d drawn a killer bull and he wanted to hold Michelle so badly it was all he could do to keep from grabbing her up in his arms. “How are you?”

Her head came up, her green eyes filled with surprise. Good. Her turn. She’d certainly thrown him a surprise or two today.

“I . . . I’m fine, actually. In fact . . .” She might have been blushing. It was so gloomy inside the barn he couldn’t be sure. “I’m glad I caught you out here, alone. I thought you’d like to know . . .” She clasped her hands in front of her, hesitated, then appeared to draw strength from somewhere deep inside herself.

“I wanted you to know I started my period today, a little while ago. I’m not pregnant. The first couple of times we . . .”

Her voice drifted off and she looked away, almost as if she regretted . . . ? No, that couldn’t be. Tag reached his hand out to her, dropped it back to his side. He wasn’t quite certain how he felt. He guessed he should be pleased their irresponsible actions hadn’t made a baby.

He wasn’t. Instead, he felt deeply, inexplicably saddened by her news. He wished he could tell her he’d imagined her growing round with his child, wondered what the two of them, he with his dark hair and blue eyes, she redheaded and green-eyed, would produce. “That’s good, I guess. Lee . . . Michelle . . .” He laughed, a short bark that sounded awfully strained even to himself. “I guess I need more practice to get it right.”

“Why?” She turned and stared at him. Her eyes, usually so bright and loving, glimmered like dark pools in her face.

“Why what?” he asked.

“Why would you want to practice getting it right? I’ll be gone once the road’s open. You’ll never have to say it again.”

He hadn’t considered that. Hadn’t really thought of her leaving. Had only thought about her somehow deciding to stay on at the Double Eagle indefinitely. Now that they didn’t have to pretend, why couldn’t she just stay a while, see what happened . . .

He said as much.

“You know what’ll happen,” Michelle said, straightening her spine and showing her first spark of fire since she’d walked into the barn. “We’ll end up in bed having absolutely exquisite sex, but nothing will ever be settled. You’ll go off and do your cowboy thing, expecting me to wait here until you come back, never knowing what the future holds, never . . .”

“Exquisite, huh?” He grinned. She glared back at him. Maybe he’d better wait and come back to that topic later.

But not too much later.

“I wouldn’t expect you to wait here,” he said. Where had she gotten an idea like that? “I’d want you to come with me. You’ve gotten really good on a horse, Michelle. You were a lot of help on the roundup. More than I ever expected, that’s for sure.” He thought of the laughter they’d shared, the long talks far into the night even when they knew they had to be back to work at dawn. The touching, the times spent holding each other, not making love, just holding each other tight and falling asleep.

The sex, though. Now that had been special. Exquisite. He couldn’t think of a better way to describe what they’d shared. He wished he could explain how it had been for him, how far above and beyond any physical intimacy he’d ever experienced with anyone. He really wanted to say something about it, but she didn’t look as if that would make any points with her right now.

“Yeah,” he said after only a brief hesitation, “for not knowing a thing about cows or horses, you did fine.” He gave her what he thought was an encouraging smile.

“Gee, thanks.”

He wondered how difficult it was for her to talk through that clenched jaw of hers. Why, when it had been so easy for the two of them to communicate during the past couple of weeks, was he having such a terrible time saying the right things now? “Are you sure you don’t want to stay on . . . just for a while longer?”

“Sorry, Tag. I don’t think so. Mark and I plan to leave as soon as the road’s open.” She averted her eyes and turned to go.

Tag’s chest felt as if someone had clamped a vise on him. “Michelle.” He stepped out into the passage between the stalls. “At least for a few days?” God, he was begging. He’d never begged a woman for anything, but he needed a reason, any reason, something that would keep her here until he figured out exactly what to do with her.

About her.

“We still have to get this mess with the marriage untangled,” he said, grasping the first thing he thought of. “I won’t know if we’re married or not until I can check with the county registrar. You can’t leave until then.”

She gave him a look as if she thought he was the biggest jerk on the face of the earth. “Tag, you got your ranch, exactly like you wanted. Your grandmother is healthy, Coop’s back in the bunkhouse where he belongs. I’m sure you can figure out how to untangle one simple little marriage of convenience without me here to help.”

She spun around and was gone before he could think of an answer. At least an answer other than the one he couldn’t bring himself to say aloud . . .
Stay for me, Michelle. Stay because I can’t imagine life without you anymore.

THE LAMP flickered, then glowed steadily. Curled up in the big old leather couch in the front room, Michelle flipped through the pages of the
Western Horseman
magazine, the one with the article about Tag and Will Twigg and his sister Betsy. Every time she reread the pages, more of her erroneous memories made sense. She’d absorbed everything she’d read, added some of the plot from her unsold manuscript, mixed the memories together and recreated her past. Unbelievable.

She stared at the photo of a smiling Betsy Mae and wondered how she could ever have imagined actually knowing her. Could have believed she belonged here, in the hills of Colorado. She glanced up at the fire roaring in the huge stone fireplace while the wind howled and whistled outside. An occasional flash of lightning split the gloom.

It certainly wasn’t Manhattan.

At the opposite end of the couch, Mark fiddled with an ancient Rubik’s Cube. Michelle knew he periodically glanced in her direction, but she’d done her best to ignore him. Lenore banged and chopped and stirred out in the kitchen, preparing, as she’d told Michelle, the meal that would win her man back.

Tag hadn’t come inside all afternoon.

The lights flickered again, stayed off a moment, came back on. Michelle looked up from her magazine just as thunder boomed directly overhead. “I’d better get some candles,” she said.

Lightning flashed, plunging the room into darkness. “Great timing,” Mark said dryly. “Now what?”

“Don’t worry,” Lenore called from the kitchen. “I’ve got candles and a couple of lanterns.” A pale glow preceded her as she crossed the hallway from the kitchen to the front room. “There’s baked chicken and a rice casserole in the warming oven over the woodstove and a fruit salad in the fridge. It’ll stay plenty cold even without the power. I’ll leave this lantern here for you two.”

Lenore juggled a flashlight in one hand and two heavy baskets in the other. She stopped at the door and smiled at Michelle. “I’m taking a meal over to the bunkhouse for the boys, then I’m going to see if I can locate a certain hardheaded cowboy. With any luck, you won’t see me ’til mornin’.” Then she winked, opened the door against the howling wind and headed out into the pouring rain.

“Explanation?” Mark asked. “Why won’t she be home until morning?”

“She’ll be busy,” Michelle said and laughed.
Go girl,
she added silently. At least Gramma Lenore had the guts to go after what she really wanted. “Coop, the old foreman? He’s the hardheaded cowboy she’s taking dinner to. I think she’s intending to spend the night with him.”

“But she’s so old!” Mark looked as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or be ill. “She must be seventy years old if she’s a day.”

“Actually, she’s almost eighty,” Michelle said. She grabbed the lantern Lenore had left on the table and stood up. “They’ve been in love for over sixty years, but it’s taken that long for them to finally get together. I envy them what they’ve found.”

Mark snorted in disbelief.

“For a man who deals in romance every day, you haven’t got a clue, have you?” Michelle waited for an answer. When none came, she headed for the kitchen and the enticing aromas of chicken baking in rosemary, garlic and lemon.

She set the lantern on the counter, folded her arms and stared into the flickering flame. What was wrong with her? Two men in her life, both of them jerks. Mark as handsome and urbane as could be, in love with himself, but claiming he was ready to marry her if she’d only say yes. Tag, even better-looking, trying to hang on to her long enough to figure out what to do with her as long as it didn’t include marriage.

Was it so wrong to want a little romance in her life? To want the sizzle Lenore and Coop had discovered after all these years? To want courting and kisses, words of love and promises, a future?

Mark promised the future, Tag had the sizzle. Wouldn’t it be great if she could just figure out a blend of some kind?

The image wouldn’t jell. Tag and Mark were nothing alike. She’d forget both of them if she could. Start fresh, look for a man who met her expectations.

From past experience, Michelle knew that was impossible.

Did she fight for Tag? Should she risk a broken heart but hope for the best, or open her heart to possibilities and familiarity with Mark?

Michelle suddenly imagined a cartoon strip woman with a bubble over her head, a groan of
Aaarrgghhh!
in bold type filling the empty space. She giggled. Whenever she’d written a story with a heroine forced to choose between two men, the answers had always come so easily, the solution neatly bundled in a few tightly written paragraphs.

One thing she’d learned on this adventure—life didn’t happen in tightly written paragraphs. Life had convoluted story lines with plots and subplots, unsolved problems and complicated emotions. The answers weren’t always the ones you wanted, either.

Mark wandered into the room, obviously following the light and his nose, drawn by the rich scent of Lenore’s chicken dinner. He looked expectantly at Michelle.

“We might as well have dinner,” she said. “Tag could be out all night if the storm causes problems with the stock.”

Mark’s answering grin might have knocked her socks off. Might, if she didn’t already have Tag’s lopsided, rakish smile for comparison.

Sighing in frustration, Michelle wondered for a brief moment if Mark was grinning because she’d offered to feed him, or at the thought of an evening without Tag. The way he attacked his dinner a few minutes later, she figured it must be the food.

TAG HUNG his wet coat and hat on the rack by the door, slipped his muddy boots off, then trudged into the kitchen. Michelle and her editor sat across from each other at the kitchen table. Candles glowed between them, each held a glass of wine as if preparing to toast, their eyes were so caught in each other’s gaze neither one seemed aware he’d even entered the room.

Michelle noticed first. She glanced up, obviously startled to see him standing in the doorway. “Tag!” She set her wineglass on the table and stood up. “Let me fix you a plate. Your grandmother . . .”

“That’s okay,” he said. “Finish your dinner. I’ll take mine out to the barn. I’ve still got some work to do.” He knew he was running away, knew he should stay and at least challenge Mark Connor, but damn, it’d been a long day. He was just too tired, and from the way Michelle’d been looking at the man, it wouldn’t do him any good anyway.

He and Coop had worked their tails off for the past few hours. Coop was still checking fence along the north pasture, and all that time these two had been sitting in here by a hot woodstove, drinking his wine and eating his food by candlelight, making calf’s eyes at one another. Grumbling under his breath, Tag washed his hands in the kitchen sink then grabbed a plate and loaded it with enough to last him a while.

“Did you have any problems?” Michelle asked.

“A few head caught in some low spots. Me’n Coop got ’em to high ground, but I’m sure we missed some.” Tag grabbed a knife and fork and his overflowing plate, then found a cold beer in the refrigerator.

Inspiration struck. “Coop’s pretty tired,” he said, looking pointedly at Michelle. “Would you be willing to lend a hand tomorrow? The storm should blow through tonight. It’ll be hard, muddy work, but at least the sun should be shining.”

“If your grandmother has her way, Coop won’t get much sleep tonight, either,” Michelle said. At least she was smiling. “Of course I’ll . . .”

Mark interrupted her. “We’ll both be glad to help, won’t we?” He grabbed Michelle’s hand possessively. Tag clenched his teeth and wondered why she didn’t pull her hand free. Finally, Mark released her. She quickly grabbed her wineglass.