Texas Lucky (36 page)

She did not have to wonder long.

“The hell you don’t. I knew something was funny when Jernigan had somebody go looking for me in the saloon. Then when he said he’d changed his mind about making me a loan, I started asking questions, and he’s about as good at lying as you are. He finally admitted it was your money, that you set it up with him.”

He stared through the open door toward the smoke in the distance and sneered. “And you didn’t have to do that. I burned the pasture along with the dead steers.”

“I…I didn’t know what else to do,” she said helplessly, withering before his anger, as radiant as the glowing skies.

“You could have sent your foreman to talk to me, but you always think you know so damn much.”

She was beginning to recover, to feel her own ire rising over such abject condemnation when she had only tried to help him. “And you’re so damn proud,” she retorted. “Yes, I told Mr. Jernigan to put up my money for your loan. I should think you would be appreciative.”

“Appreciative of your twisting the knife a little bit deeper? Hell, Tess, all you wanted was to rub it in how you succeeded when I failed.

“But remember one thing, sweetheart,” he raged on, “you wouldn’t be where you are now if not for having been desperate enough to marry a man for his money.”

“Why…why, that’s not true,” she sputtered. “I didn’t…” she trailed to miserable silence.

What could she say?

After all, in a way it was so, but not how he had made it sound—as though she had connived to get Wendell to marry her.

“Well, it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to me,” he said. “All I want is for you to stay out of my business…stay out of my life.”

“Fine. And if you lose your ranch, I’ll be ready to buy it just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“Yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d love to be able to take everything I’ve got, because you’re a vengeful little bitch, and you’ve never gotten over me walking out on you. Just because we had sex you expected me to marry you and take care of you like Wendell, but—”

She slapped him, and he grabbed her, jerking her against him.

Then, as their fiery gazes locked in challenge, Curt suddenly gave a groan, deep in his throat, as he brought his mouth down on hers in a bruising kiss.

For an instant, Tess resisted, and then her body betrayed her as she began to respond, lips parting to meet the sweet assault of his tongue as she pressed closer.

He released her, and her arms went about him as his hands moved over her back, finally sliding to her buttocks to cup her against his hardness.

“Oh, Tess…” he raised his lips to whisper. “I can’t get you out of my blood…”

“Hello. Anybody home?”

They sprang apart as though doused with ice water.

It was Wendell.

“Tess, where are you?” he called.

By the time he entered the barn, Tess and Curt were pretending to be looking at a horse in the stall closest to them.

“There you are. One of the servants said he thought he saw you come in here.” Then, recognizing Curt, he approached him with hand outstretched. “What a pleasure. What brings you here, neighbor?” he asked jovially.

But before Curt could think of a plausible reason, Wendell frowned to inquire of Tess, “What’s all that smoke? Tell me it isn’t a wildfire.”

Hoping he could not hear how her heart was pounding, she hastened to explain about Curt’s diseased cattle and how she was taking the precaution of burning a stretch of land between their borders.

“That’s why I came—to tell her it wasn’t necessary,” Curt said, not looking at her. “I burned my pasture.”

Airily, Wendell remarked, “Well, I don’t know about such things. But I am sorry to hear about your run of bad luck. I ran into Maxwell Jernigan at the bank, and he told me how Tess said she’d back your loan. Beat me to it, she did,” he confided with a grin, “because I would’ve done the same.”

Tess wanted to put her fist in Maxwell Jernigan’s big mouth.

“That’s another reason I’m here,” Curt said stiffly. “To tell her I can’t accept.”

Wendell gave him a slap on the back. “Of course you can. Never be too proud to take help when it’s needed and offered, son. Besides, on the ride out from town I thought of a way you can pay it back real soon.”

Tess glanced from one man to the other. She had no idea what Wendell was about to propose.

“I hear you bought yourself a fine mare from Captain King,” Wendell continued.

Curt confirmed this with a nod.

“Have you bred her?”

“Not yet. Why?” he asked, a shadow of suspicion crossing his face.

“Well, you know we talked a while back about how I wanted to get some quarterhorses. I still do. I just haven’t got around to it, but I was thinking if you would agree to breed your mare to Tess’s stallion and give her the colt, I’d consider your debt paid. I figure the offspring of those two horses would be well worth it.”

“Not quite,” Curt argued. “I’d still be in your debt.”

“But a good part of it would be taken care of.” Wendell held out his hand and smiled. “How about if we say half? Would you feel all right about that?”

Curt continued to avoid looking at Tess as he grasped Wendell’s hand. “That I’ll agree to.”

“Then we have a deal. As soon as that mare of yours is ready, you bring her on over. When do you think it will be?”

“Well, a mare comes in season every three weeks from around February through the summer. Since this is her first time, I’m going to wait as long as possible.”

“Fine. Whenever you say.” Wendell slapped him on the back again, then said, “And I want you to stay for dinner. I was up at the house long enough to smell something delicious cooking. I knew my wife was expecting me tonight.

“You see, I got run out of my club for a few days.” Wendell chuckled as he and Curt walked on out of the barn. “But that’s all right. I need to come home more often than I do, and…”

The sound of their conversation faded as the men walked away.

But the warm glow of Curt’s kiss remained on Tess’s lips as she stared after them in wonder—and trepidation—over what the future held for them all.

Chapter Twenty-Six

As time passed and Wendell began to stay in Dallas more and more, Tess finally decided she had to try to make him see that the drinking and gambling was ruining his life, as well as his health. After all, he had said his motive for wanting to get married was loneliness, and she truly believed he had meant it at the time. Then gambling fever had struck, and he had changed, but she felt she owed it to him to attempt reason.

It was the middle of the afternoon when she finally found him in a hotel room, daring to hope he would be sober by then. Instead, he was in a foul mood due to a heavy gambling loss the night before and feeling the effects of all the whiskey he had consumed in an effort to ease the pain.

Tess tried very hard to express her concern for his welfare so he would not think she was just being a nagging wife, but he lost his temper and went into a rage.

Still in his nightshirt, he stormed about the room yelling loud enough for anyone nearby to hear that he had lived up to his bargain to see that she had everything she wanted, and it was none of her business what he did otherwise.

Tess knew it was the liquor making him so mean and that there was no use in continuing to try to talk to him.

She turned to go, but he suddenly, and without warning, grabbed her and threw her down on the bed, crying, “My money wasn’t enough for you, was it? You wanted this, too, didn’t you? You little strumpet.”

She did not fight him, too filled with pity.

He ripped the front of her dress, yanked up her skirt, spread her legs, and tried to push himself into her, but his limpness prevented him.

Then he rolled off of her to sob and beat the mattress with his fists.

Tess left him then, forced to muster what dignity she could and hold her head high as she walked out of the hotel holding her torn bodice together.

He came home a week later, acting as though nothing had happened, and Tess wondered if he even remembered it. But she was not about to say anything, having vowed afterward to concentrate on running the ranch and let him live his life as he chose.

Yet it was a lonely, miserable time, and all she was living for was the hope that one day there would be word of Perry. Imagining what life must be like for him haunted her day and night.

As for thoughts of Curt and how he had kissed her, Tess tried to dismiss it all from her mind but failed.

Had he done it, she wondered, to remind her how she had once wantonly fallen into his arms, and to torment her by stirring passion he somehow knew he could still invoke?

It had happened—and ended—so quickly that there had not been time to search his face, his eyes, for answer. She hoped she would not see him again, that she would be nowhere around when he came to have his mare serviced by Saber. But, as fate would have it, the day he showed up, all the hands were working on a distant range, and no one was about except the household servants, who never went near the outbuildings.

There had been a bad thunderstorm during the night that had triggered a stampede and scattered the herd. Granger had told her he was taking all the hands to gather them up, and she had promised to join them as soon as she finished her monthly work on the ledgers.

When a servant came to tell her Curt was asking for her, Tess groaned and slapped her forehead. There was nothing she could do but face him.

“You came at a bad time,” she said curtly, rudely, when she walked down the steps of the sweeping front porch to meet him.

He smiled down at her from his horse. “Well, tell the mare that, Tess. Not me.”

She ignored his attempt at humor. “You’ll find Saber in his stall. You can take care of it.”

She hurried back inside without giving him a chance to say anything more.

But, back at her desk, she could not concentrate and finally gave up the ledgers, only to pace restlessly around the room.

She did not like the idea of Curt taking over her horse, even to mate him. He was hers, as was the ranch, and Curt had no right running any aspect of it, and—

She jumped, startled, as a loud roll of thunder shook the house.

Rushing to the window, she stared out to see that the sky overhead had ominously turned dark as lightning flashed in the distance.

Another storm was brewing and it looked bad.

She looked toward the stable and the corral beside it, expecting to see Curt there with the horses, but it was empty. The door to the stable was closed, however, and she realized he had probably seen the storm building and kept them in there.

Well, he could just wait till another time, she fumed as she left the office and hurried down the hall to the front door. With the storm about to break any minute, she did not want him stranded in it, did not want him to be on her land any longer than necessary.

She felt a few raindrops as she hurried across the yard.

The wind was starting to blow and thunderclaps seemed closer. Anxious for shelter, she entered through the tack room at the end of the stable, rather than the front door.

It was dark, and she paused to allow her eyes to adjust.

The air was pungent with the loamy smell of animals and hay.

Ahead, through the short corridor that ran between the rooms on either side, she could hear the horses whinnying and snorting, and the wild and vicious stamping of their hooves.

Venturing closer, Tess realized the mating had begun. The mare was tied to a railing, her hind legs hobbled, and Saber was reared up on her back.

Tess began to back away, face flaming.

It was not something she wanted to witness with a man, especially not Curt and she was relieved he had not realized she was about.

She turned to go, but stumbled in her haste and bumped into a feeding bucket hanging from a stall.

At the loud clanging, Curt whirled about and saw her. “Tess, what are you doing here?”

“Uh…” she floundered, and then her words tumbled out in a nervous rush. “I came to tell you that you should go. The weather is getting bad, and you’ll get caught in it going home.”

She bit her lip, thinking she sounded like a mother hen fretting over a chick.

Curt walked over to her. He was not smiling. In fact, as Tess tried to read his eyes, she could see no message there at all, only a strange, heated gleam.

“It went well,” he said when he stood only a foot away from her. “My mare was eager, I’m afraid.”

There was the play of a smile on his lips.

“Oh, I see.” Tess could feel her face grow even hotter to hear the sound of flesh pummeling flesh and know what it meant. “Well, I hope you don’t get wet going home,” she said thinly, feeling so very, very foolish.

“I don’t mind.”

She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, unnerved at how he continued to stare at her, then said, “I’d best get back. I don’t want to get caught out here when the storm breaks, and—”