Cattleman's Choice

“Don’t get too close, he might make a grab for you,” Mandelyn teased.

“Me? Not Carson, he’s too polite.”

“That’s rich!” Mandelyn laughed bitterly. “He’s a savage. Something right out of ancient history.”

“He’s always been polite to me,” Patty said. “Strange, isn’t it, that he’s never married?”

Mandelyn felt her blood boil. “It doesn’t seem strange to me. He’s too uncivilized to get a woman. He’d have to kidnap one and point a gun at her to get a wife!”

“I thought he was your friend,” Patty said.

“He was,” Mandelyn said coldly. She turned. “Well, I’ve got a developer coming round in about an hour. I’d better go and have my lunch. I’m glad you liked the office.”

“Me too,” Patty said, laughing. “Say, do you really think Carson would be all that bad in bed?” she added curiously. “He’s awfully sexy.”

Mandelyn couldn’t meet her friend’s eyes. “If you say so. I’ll give you a call later about the details of the agreement, okay?” she said with a forced smile.

“Sure,” Patty said. “Thanks again.”

“My pleasure.”

Mandelyn had a salad at the local cafe, but she didn’t enjoy it. Her thoughts kept returning to Carson and to Patty’s disturbing remarks about him. Afterward, she went back to her office where the developer was pacing back and forth, waiting for her. She made a sly wink at Angie, her new secretary.

“Hello, Mr. Denton,” she said pleasantly, extending her hand. “Sorry I’m late. I was finalizing another deal.”

“Perfectly all right,” he returned, a tall, dignified man in a gray suit. “I’d like to go out to the ranch, if you’re ready?”

She hesitated. “I’d better check with Mr. Wayne first,” she said.

“I had your secretary do that,” he said curtly. “He’s waiting for us. I’ll drive my car.”

She didn’t like his high-handedness, but she couldn’t afford to antagonize a potential client, so she ground her teeth together in a false smile and followed him out the door.

“Sorry,” Angie mouthed at her.

Mandelyn gave her a shrug, and winked again.

All the way to the ranch, Mandelyn felt as if her stomach was tied in knots. She glanced out across the grassy valley rather than ahead to the ramshackle house nestled in the cottonwood trees with the mountains behind it. She didn’t want to see Carson. Why was fate tormenting her this way?

His black Thunderbird was sitting near the house, covered with dust and looking unused. The pickup truck Jake had driven the night before was parked by the barn. The corral was deserted. The front door was standing open, but she couldn’t see through the screen.

“This is where he lives?” Mr. Denton asked in astonishment as he pulled his green Lincoln up in front of the rough wood house.

“He’s rather eccentric,” she faltered.

“Crazy,” he muttered. He got out of the car, looking neat and alien in his city clothing, and Mandelyn fell reluctantly into step beside him. She was wearing a blue knit suit, with her hair in a bun. She looked elegant and cool, and felt neither. She’d tried to disguise her swollen lip with lipstick, but it was raw where her tongue touched it.

As they started up the steps, Carson walked out onto the porch with quick strides. He looked even taller in his work boots. He was wearing faded denim jeans and a blue chambray shirt half unbuttoned over his broad, hair-roughened chest. He looked tired and hung over, but his blue eyes were alert and at least he seemed approachable.

“Mr. Wayne?” the developer said, putting on his best smile. “Nice place you have here. Rustic.”

Carson bent his head to light a cigarette, pointedly ignoring the developer’s outstretched hand.

“You won’t take no for an answer, will you?” Carson asked him with a cold blue glare.

Denton looked a little ruffled but he withdrew his hand and forced the smile back onto his thin lips. “I got rich that way,” he replied. “Look, I’ll up my previous offer by two thousand an acre. It’s a perfect tract for my retirement village. Lots of water, flat land, beautiful view…”

“It’s the best grazing land I’ve got,” Carson replied. “And there’s a fort on the place that dates back to the earliest settlement.”

“The fort could be moved. I’d be willing…”

“My great-grandfather built it,” came the cold reply.

“Mr. Wayne,” the developer began.

“Look,” Carson said curtly, “I don’t like being pushed. This is my place, and I don’t want to sell it. I told you that. I told her that,” he added, glancing toward Mandelyn. “I’m tired of talking. Come out here again and I’ll load my gun.”

“You can’t threaten me, you backwoods…!” the developer began.

“Oh, no,” Mandelyn ground out, covering her face with her hands. She knew even as Carson began cursing what was going to happen. She flinched at the first thud, the shocked cry, the heavy sound of a body landing on hard ground. She peeked between her fingers. The developer was trying to sit up, holding his jaw. Carson was standing over him with calm contempt, smoking his cigarette. He didn’t even look rumpled.

“Get off my land, you…” He tacked on a few rough words and bent to lift the other man by the collar. He frog-marched him to the Lincoln, tossed him inside, and slammed the door. “Vamoose!” he growled.

Mandelyn stood there, frozen, while the Lincoln jerked out of the yard. She stared for a long minute and then, with a sigh, started after it.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Carson asked.

“Back to town.”

“Not yet. I want to talk to you.”

She whirled and glared at him. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

He took her arm and half led, half dragged her up the steps and into the house. “Did I ask?”

“No, you never do!” she shot back. “You just move in and take over! He made you a very generous offer. You’ve cost me a fortune…!”

“I told you not to bring him out here.”

“You told my secretary he could come!” she floundered.

“Like hell I did. I told her to tell him he could come if he felt lucky.”

And poor little Angie hadn’t realized what that meant.

“Angie’s new,” she muttered, standing still in the dim living room. He didn’t even have electricity. He had kerosene lanterns and furniture that she didn’t want to sit on. It looked as if it were made with leftover gunnysacks.

“Sit,” he said curtly, dropping into a ragged armchair.

She shifted uncomfortably on her feet. She’d only been in this house once or twice, with her uncle. Since his death, she’d found excuses to stay on the porch or in the yard when she stopped by to talk business with Carson.

His face hardened when he saw the look she was giving the sparse furniture. He got up, furiously angry, and walked into the kitchen.

“In here,” he said icily. “Maybe the kitchen chairs will suit you better.”

She felt cruel. She hadn’t meant to be rude. With a sigh, she walked past him and sat down in one of the cane-bottomed chairs around the table with its red checked oilcloth cover. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to be rude.”

“You didn’t want to soil your designer clothes on my filthy furniture,” he laughed through narrowed eyes. He sat down roughly and leaned back in the chair, glaring at her. “Why pussyfoot around?”

She stared at him unblinkingly. “What do you want?”

“There’s a question,” he replied softly. His blue eyes wandered slowly over her face, down to her lips, and hardened visibly. “Hell,” he breathed at the swollen evidence of his brutality. He pulled an ashtray toward him with a sigh and crushed out his half-finished cigarette. “I didn’t realize how rough I’d been.”

“I’ll put it down to experience,” she said curtly.

“Do you have much?” he asked, holding her gaze. “Did you fight because you were afraid?”

“You were hurting me!” she said, red with embarrassment and bad temper.

His nostrils flared as he breathed. He paused a moment, and his next words took her completely by surprise. “You told Patty I was too savage to get a woman.”

Her mouth flew open. She just sat and stared, hardly able to believe Patty’s betrayal.

“I…I never dreamed…”

“That she’d tell me?” he asked coolly. He pulled another cigarette from his pocket and lit it with an impatient snap of his lighter. “She was kidding around, she didn’t mean anything. I guess you didn’t either.” He stared at the cigarette. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, about getting older, being alone.” He looked up. “When Patty said that this morning, it made me mad as hell. Then I realized that you were right, that I don’t even know how to behave in polite society. That I’m not…civilized.”

“Carson…” she began, at a loss for words.

He shook his head. “Don’t apologize. Not for telling the truth.” He sighed, stretching, and the hard, heavy muscles of his chest were evident beneath his shirt. Her eyes were drawn to the mat of dark hair visible in the opening, and she felt a sensation that shocked her. “I didn’t sleep,” he said after a minute, watching her. “I’m sorry I cut your lip, that I manhandled you. I guess you knew I was drinking.”

“You tasted of whiskey,” she said without thinking, and then flushed when she remembered exactly how he’d tasted.

“Did I?” His eyes dropped to her swollen lip. “I don’t know what came over me. And you fought me…that only made it worse. You should have known better, little debutante.”

“I’ve been fighting you for years,” she reminded him.

“Verbally,” he agreed. “Not physically.”

She glared at him. “What was I supposed to do, lie back and enjoy it?” she challenged.

His eyes darkened. His chest rose and fell roughly. “All right, I’m sorry,” he growled. “For God’s sake, what do you expect? I never knew my mother, never had a sister. My whole life revolved around a man who beat the hell out of me when I disobeyed….”

She stood quietly, forcing away her bad temper, hearing him without thinking until the words began to penetrate. She turned slowly and stared up at him. “Beat you?”

He drew in a slow breath, then glanced down at her bare arm where his strong, tanned fingers held it firmly. His thumb moved on the soft skin experimentally. “My father was a cattleman,” he said. “My mother couldn’t live with him. She ran away when I was four. He took me in hand, and his idea of discipline was to hit me when I did something he didn’t like. I had a struggle just to get through school—he didn’t believe in education. But by then, I outweighed him by fifty pounds,” he added with glittering eyes, “and I could fight back.”

It explained a lot of things. He never talked about his childhood, although she’d heard Jake make veiled references to how rough it had been.

Her eyes searched his hard face curiously.

He lifted his hand to her face and touched her lip gently. “I’m sorry I kissed you like that.”

She went flaming red. She felt as if his eyes could see right through her.

“I’ve never been gentle,” he said, “because I never knew what it was to be treated gently. And now, I’m thirty-eight years old, and I’m lonely. And I don’t know how to court a woman. Because I’m a savage. This,” he sighed bitterly, tracing her swollen lip, “is proof of it.”

She stared up at him, searching his eyes quietly as his hand dropped. “Didn’t you have any other relatives?” she asked.

“Not one,” he said. He turned away and went to stand by the window. “I ran away from home once or twice. He always came after me. Eventually I learned to fight back, and the beatings stopped. But I was fourteen by then. The damage had already been done.”

She studied his long back in silence, and then shifted, looking around the messy kitchen until her eyes found a facsimile of a coffee pot. She got to her feet. “Mind if I make some coffee?” she asked. “I’m sort of thirsty.”

“Help yourself.” He watched her with a familiar, unblinking scrutiny. “You look odd, doing that,” he remarked.

“Why?” she asked with a laugh. “I’m very domestic. I cook, too, or don’t you remember those dinners Uncle used to invite you to?”

“It’s been years since I’ve eaten at your table.”

She stared down at the pot she was filling. How could she possibly confess that she was too uneasy with him to enjoy his company? He disturbed her, unsettled her and she didn’t understand why. Which only made it worse.

“I’ve been too busy for guests,” she said. Her eyes went up to the tattered curtains at the window. “You could use some new curtains.”

“I could use a lot of things,” he said curtly. “This house is falling apart.”

“You’re letting it,” she reminded him. She put the pot on to boil, grimacing at the grease that had congealed and blackened on top of the once-white range.

“There hasn’t been any reason to fix it up before,” he said. “Just me, living alone, not much company. But I’ve hired a construction firm to do some renovations.”

That was startling. She turned to face him, her gray eyes wide and curious. “Why?” she asked without thinking.

“It has something to do with the reason I brought you in here,” he admitted. He finished the cigarette and crushed it out. “I need some help.”

“You!” she burst out.

He glared at her. “Don’t make jokes.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

He hesitated uncharacteristically. His face hardened. “Hell, look at me,” he growled finally, ramming his hands into the pockets of his worn, faded jeans. “You told Patty I was too savage to get a woman, and you were right. I don’t know how to behave in civilized company. I don’t even know which fork to use in a fancy restaurant.” He shifted restlessly, looking arrogant and proud and self-conscious all at once. “I want you to teach me some manners.”

“Me?” Mandelyn exclaimed in shock.

“Of course you,” he shot back. “Who else do I know with a cultured background? I need educating.”

She blinked away her confusion. “After all these years, why now?”

“Females,” he said angrily. “You always have to know it all, don’t you? Every single damned thing…all right,” he sighed roughly, running a hand through his thick hair. “There’s a woman.”

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She stood there like an elegant statue, staring at him. Patty! she thought. It had to be Patty! It was the only possibility that made sense. His unreasonable anger about what Mandelyn had said to Patty, his sudden decision to renovate the house coinciding with Patty’s return to Sweetwater. So that was it. The invulnerable man was in love, and he thought Patty had become too citified to like him the way he was. So he was making the supreme sacrifice and having himself turned into a gentleman. Pygmalion in reverse.

“Well?” he persisted, glaring at her. “Yes or no?”

She lifted her shoulders. “Surely there’s someone else.”

“Not someone like you,” he returned. His eyes wandered over her, full of appreciation and something much darker that she missed. “You’re quality. A real, honest-to-God lady. No, there’s no one else who could teach me as well as you could.”

She dropped her eyes to the coffee pot and watched it bubble away.

“Look on it as a challenge,” he coaxed. “Something to fill your spare hours. Don’t you ever get lonely?”

Her face lifted and she studied him. “Yes,” she said. “Especially since Uncle died.”

“You don’t date?” he said.

She shifted uncomfortably. There was a reason for that, but she didn’t want to discuss it with him, not now. “I like my own company.”

“It isn’t good for a woman to live alone. Haven’t you ever thought about getting married?”

“I’ve thought about a lot of things. What do you want in your coffee?”

She poured it out and braved the refrigerator for cream. Inside there was a basket of eggs, some unsliced bacon, some moldy lumps and what appeared to have been butter at one time.

“I don’t have any milk, if that’s what you’re looking for,” he muttered.

She gaped at him. “You have hundreds of cows on this ranch, and you don’t have any milk?”

“It isn’t a dairy farm,” he said.

“A cow is a cow!”

“If you want the damned milk, go milk one of them, then!”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. He scowled back. Eventually, she gave in with a sigh and put the cups on the table.

“That’s what I like most about you,” he said as she sat down gingerly in one of the rickety old chairs.

Her eyes came up. “What?”

He smiled slowly, and his blue eyes darkened, glittered. “You fight me.”

Her skin tingled at the way he said it. Before she thought, she said, “You didn’t like it last night.”

His smile faded. He sighed and lifted the cracked mug to his lips. “I was drunk last night.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Things got on top of me. I started thinking about how alone I was….” His eyes shot up, pinning hers. “I didn’t expect to see you today. I thought you’d never speak to me again.”

She fidgeted uncomfortably. “We all get depressed sometimes, even me. It’s all right, no harm done.” She touched her lower lip with her tongue. “Well, no permanent harm, anyway,” she added dryly.

“What you told Patty was true,” he said.

“I didn’t really mean that, or what I called you last night,” she said, watching him. “You’re not an unattractive man, Carson.”

“Pull the other one,” he said curtly and put his cup down to light another cigarette. “I’ve finally got a little money, and I’m working on some investments that will pay a good dividend. But there’s nothing about me that would attract a woman, physically or intellectually, and you know it.”

She caught her breath. Did he really believe that? Her eyes wandered slowly over the lean, tough length of him, the powerful muscles of his arms and chest, the narrow flat stomach and long legs. He was devastating physically. Even his craggy face was appealing, if it were shaved and his hair trimmed. She remembered suddenly what Patty had said about how he’d be in bed, and she turned crimson.

He looked up in time to catch that blush and he frowned. “What brought that on?”

She wondered what he’d say if she admitted that she and Patty had been wondering how he was in bed. “Nothing,” she said, “just a stray thought.”

“Twenty-six, and you still blush like a virgin,” he murmured, watching her. “Are you one?” he asked, smiling faintly.

“Carson Joseph Wayne!” she exclaimed.

His blue eyes searched her gray ones. “I didn’t realize you knew my middle name.”

She toyed with her coffee cup. “It was on the deed, when I sold you that ten-acre parcel that used to be part of Uncle’s land.”

“Was it?” He sipped some more of his coffee. “You still haven’t answered me. Will you teach me?”

She went hot all over at the way he said it. “Carson, any woman who wanted you wouldn’t mind the way you are…” she began diplomatically.

“This one would,” he said harshly.

She was suddenly jealous and didn’t know why. How ridiculous! She touched her temple with a long finger. “Well…”

“I’m not stupid,” he said shortly. “I can learn.”

“Oh, all right,” she said with equal curtness.

He seemed to relax a little. “Great. Where do we start?”

Her eyes wandered over him. God help her, it would take a miracle. “You’ll need some new clothes,” she said. “A haircut, a shave…”

“What kind of clothes?”

“Shirts and slacks and jeans, and a suit or two.”

“What kind? What color?”

She grimaced. “Well, I don’t know!”

“You’ll have to come with me to Phoenix,” he said. “There are some big department stores there.”

“Why not Carter’s Men’s Shop in Sweetwater?” she protested.

His jaw tightened. “No way am I going in there with you, while old man Carter laughs in his whiskers watching us.”

She almost laughed at the fierce way he said it. “Okay. Phoenix it is.”

“Tomorrow,” he added firmly. “It’s Saturday,” he reminded her when she started to protest. “You can’t have any business that won’t wait until Monday.”

“That sounds as if I’d better not,” she laughed.

“You work too hard as it is,” he said. “Tomorrow you’ll have a holiday. I’ll even buy you lunch. You can teach me some table manners at the same time.”

It looked like this was going to be a fulltime job, but suddenly she didn’t mind. The project might be fun at that. After all, Carson did have distinct possibilities. His physique was superb. Why hadn’t she ever noticed that? She lifted her cup and sipped her coffee while Carson slurped his.

“That’s the first thing,” she said, indicating the cup. “Sip, don’t slurp.”

And when he tried it, unoffended, and succeeded, she grinned at him. He grinned back and a wild flare of sensation tingled up her spine. She’d have to be careful, she told herself. After all, she was revamping him for another woman, not herself. And then she wondered why that was such a depressing thought.

Chapter Three

If it had sounded like a simple thing, helping Carson buy clothes, Mandelyn soon lost her illusions.

“You can’t be serious,” he told her, glaring as she tried to convince him that a pale blue pinstriped shirt with a white collar was very trendy and chic. “The boys would laugh me out of the yard.”

She sighed. “Carson, it’s a whole new world. Nobody has to go around in white shirts anymore unless they want to.”

“What kind of tie would I wear with that…thing,” he asked shortly, while the small salesman hovered nearby chewing on his lower lip.

“A solid one, or something with a small print.”

“God save us,” Carson burst out.

“And with a solid colored shirt—say, pink—you’d wear a striped tie.”

“I’m not wearing pink shirts,” he retorted. “I’m a man!”

“A caveman,” she agreed. “If you don’t want my advice, I’ll go buy a tube of lipstick.”

“Hold it,” he called as she started to walk away. He stared down at the packaged shirt. “All right, I’ll get it.”

She didn’t smile, but it took an effort. Her eyes went over him. He was wearing a beige corduroy jacket and a worn white turtleneck shirt and tan polyester slacks. He’d had a haircut and a shave, though, and already he looked different. In the right clothes, he’d be an absolute knockout, she realized.

After a few minutes, she convinced him that striped shirts weren’t at all effeminate, and he bought several more in different colors and ties to match. Then she coaxed him toward the suits.

The salesman took him to the changing rooms, and when he came back minutes later in a vested blue pinstriped suit wearing a blue shirt and burgundy tie, she almost fell off her chair. He didn’t look like Carson anymore, except for the rigid features and glittering blue eyes.

“Oh, my,” she said softly, staring at him.

His expression softened just a little. “Will I do?” he asked.

“Yes, you’ll do,” she agreed, smiling. “Women, look out!”

He smiled reluctantly. “Okay, what else do I need?”

“How about something tan?” she asked. “One of those Western-cut suits.”

He tried one on, with similar results. He had just the physique to look good in a suit, and the Western cut showed it off to perfection. She let the salesman point him toward some sports coats and slacks, and then after he had paid for his purchases, she talked him into two pairs of new boots and a gray Stetson and a brown one to top it all off.

Just before they left the store she remembered some items they hadn’t shopped for. She turned, but she lost her tongue immediately when she tried to say what was on her mind.

His eyebrows arched. “Something wrong?”

“Something we forgot,” she said hesitantly.

A corner of his mouth pulled up. “I don’t wear pajamas.”

“How about things to go under them?” she said finally, averting her eyes.

“My God, you’re shy,” he laughed, astonished.