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Christmas On His Ranch
Christmas on His Ranch
Maggie’s Dad
Diana Palmer
Cattleman’s Choice
Diana Palmer
www.millsandboon.co.uk
MILLS & BOON
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Maggie’s Dad
About the Author
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Cattleman’s Choice
Back Cover Copy
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Copyright
The prolific author of more than a hundred books, DIANA PALMER got her start as a newspaper reporter. A multi–New York Times bestselling author and one of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humour. Diana lives with her family in Cornelia, Georgia.
Visit her website at www.DianaPalmer.com.
Prologue
Rain was peppering down on the roof of the small house where Antonia Hayes’s parents lived. It was a cold rain, and Antonia thought absently that she was very glad it was summer, because by early autumn that soft rain would turn to sleet or snow. Bighorn, a small town in northwestern Wyoming, was not an easy town to leave once it was covered in ice. It was rural and despite having three thousand inhabitants, it was too small to offer the transportation choices of a larger town. There wasn’t even an airport; only a bus station. The railroad ran through it, too, but the trains were spaced too far apart to do Antonia much good.
She was about to begin her sophomore year in college, at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and snow was fairly rare in that area in winter, except up in the mountains. The desert floor had light dustings, but not enough to inconvenience anyone. Besides, Antonia—having just finished her first year there—had been much too busy trying to pass her core courses and heal a broken heart to notice the weather. She did notice the summer heat now, though, she mused, and thanked God for air-conditioning.
The clock sounded and Antonia turned, her short, blond hair perky and her gray eyes full of sadness at having to leave. But fall semester started in less than a week, and she had to get back into her dorm room and set up some sort of schedule. The only comforting thing about going back was that George Rutherford’s stepdaughter, Barrie Bell, was her dorm roommate, and they got along very well indeed.
“It’s been lovely having you home for a whole week,” her mother, Jessica, said warmly. “I do wish you could have stayed the whole summer….”
Her voice trailed off. She knew, as did Antonia and Ben, her husband, why Antonia couldn’t stay in Bighorn very long. It was a source of great sadness to all of them, but they didn’t discuss it. It still hurt too much, and the gossip hadn’t quite died down even now, almost a year after the fact. George Rutherford’s abrupt move to France a few months after Antonia’s departure had quelled the remaining gossip.
Despite what had happened, George had remained a good, true friend to Antonia and her family. Her college education was his gift to her. She would pay him back every penny, but right now the money was a godsend. Her parents were well regarded in the community, but lacked the resources to swing her tuition. George had been determined to help, and his kindness had cost them both so much.
But George’s son, Dawson, and his stepdaughter, Barrie, had rallied around Antonia, defending her against the talk.
It was comforting to know that the two people closest to George didn’t believe he was Antonia’s sugar daddy. And of course, it helped that Dawson and Powell Long were rivals for a strip of land that separated their respective Bighorn ranch holdings. George had lived on his Bighorn ranch until the scandal. Then he went back to the family home he shared with Dawson in Sheridan, hoping to stem the gossip. It hadn’t happened. So he’d moved to France, leaving more bitterness between Dawson and Powell Long. There was no love lost there.
But even with George out of the country, and despite the support of friends and family, Sally Long had done so much damage to Antonia’s reputation that she was sure she would never be able to come home again.
Her mind came back to the remark her mother had just made. “I took classes this summer,” she murmured absently. “I’m really sorry, but I thought I’d better, and some of my new friends went, too. It was nice, although I do miss being home. I miss both of you.”
Jessica hugged her warmly. “And we miss you.”
“That damn fool Sally Long,” Ben muttered as he also hugged his daughter. “Spreading lies so that she could take Powell away from you. And that damn fool Powell Long, believing them, marrying her, and that baby born just seven months later…!”
Antonia’s face went pale, but she smiled gamely. “Now, Dad,” she said gently. “It’s all over,” she added with what she hoped was a reassuring smile, “they’re married and they have a daughter now. I hope he’s happy.”
“Happy! After the way he treated you?”
Antonia closed her eyes. The memories were still painful. Powell had been the center of her life. She’d never imagined she could feel a love so sweeping, so powerful. He’d never said he loved her, but she’d been so sure that he did. Looking back now, though, she knew that he’d never really loved her. He wanted her, of course, but he had always drawn back. We’ll wait for marriage, he’d said.
And waiting had been a good thing, considering how it had all turned out.
At the time, Antonia had wanted him desperately, but she’d put him off. Even now, over a year later, she could still see his black eyes and dark hair and thin, wide mouth. That image lived in her heart despite the fact that he’d canceled their wedding the day before it was to take place. People who hadn’t been notified in time were sitting in the church, waiting. She shuddered faintly, remembering her humiliation.
Ben was still muttering about Sally.
“That’s enough, Ben.” Jessica laid a hand on her husband’s arm. “It’s water under the bridge,” she said firmly. Her voice was so tranquil that it was hard for Antonia to believe that the scandal had caused her mother to have heart problems. She’d done very well, and Antonia had done everything possible to avoid the subject so that her mother wouldn’t be upset.
“I wouldn’t say Powell was happy,” Ben continued, unabashed. “He’s never home, and we never see him out with Sally in public. In fact, we never see Sally much at all. If she’s happy, she doesn’t let it show.” He studied his daughter’s pale, rigid face. “She called here one day before Easter and asked for your address. Did she write to you?”
“She wrote me.”
“Well?” he prompted, curious.
“I returned the letter without opening it,” Antonia said tightly, even paler now. She looked down at her shoes. “It’s ancient history.”
“She might have wanted to apologize,” Jessica ventured.
Antonia sighed. “Some things go beyond apologies,” she said quietly. “I loved him, you know,” she added with a faint smile. “But he never loved me. If he did, he didn’t say so in all the time we went together. He believed everything Sally told him. He just told me what he thought of me, called off the wedding and walked away. I had to leave. It hurt too much to stay.” She could picture in her mind that long, straight back, the rigid set of his dark head. The pain had been terrible. It still was.
“As if George was that sort of man,” Jessica said wearily. “He’s the kindest man in the world, and he adores you.”
“Not the sort to play around with young girls,” Ben agreed. “Idiots, people who could believe that about him. I know that’s why he moved out of the country, to spare us any more gossip.”
“Since he and I are both gone, there’s not much to gossip about,” Antonia said pointedly. She smiled. “I’m working hard on my grades. I want George to be proud of me.”
“He will be. And we already are,” Jessica said warmly.
“Well, it serves Powell Long right that he ended up with that selfish little madam,” Ben persisted irritably. “He thinks he’s going to get rich by building up that cattle ranch, but he’s just a dreamer,” Ben scoffed. “His father was a gambler, and his mother was a doormat. Imagine him thinking he’s got enough sense to make money with cattle!”
“He does seem to be making strides,” his wife said gently. “He just bought a late-model truck, and they say a string of ranches up in Montana have given him a contract to supply them with seed bulls. You remember, Ben, when his big purebred Angus bull was in the paper, it won some national award.”
“One bull doesn’t make an empire,” Ben scoffed.
Antonia felt the words all the way to her heart. Powell had told her his dreams, and they’d planned that ranch together, discussed having the best Angus bulls in the territory…
“Could we not…talk about him, please?” Antonia asked finally. She forced a smile. “It still stings a little.”
“Of course it does. We’re sorry,” Jessica said, her voice soft now. “Can you come home for Christmas?”
“I’ll try. I really will.”
She had one small suitcase. She carried it out to the car and hugged her mother one last time before she climbed in beside her father for the short ride to the bus depot downtown.
It was morning, but still sweltering hot. She got out of the car and picked up her suitcase as she waited on the sidewalk for her father to get her ticket from the office inside the little grocery store. There was a line. She’d just turned her attention back to the street when her eyes froze on an approaching pedestrian; a cold, quiet ghost from the past.
He was just as lean and dark as she remembered him. The suit was better than the ones he’d worn when they were dating, and he looked thinner. But it was the same Powell Long.
She’d lost everything to him except her pride. She still had it, and she forced her gray eyes up to his as he walked down the sidewalk with that slow, elegant stride that was particularly his own. She wouldn’t let him see how badly his distrust had hurt her, even now.
His expression gave away nothing that he was feeling. He paused when he reached her, glancing at the suitcase.
“Well, well,” he drawled, watching her face. “I heard you were here. The chicken came home to roost, did she?”
“I’m not here to stay,” she replied coolly. “I’ve been to visit my parents. I’m on my way to Arizona, back to college.”
“By bus?” he taunted. “Couldn’t your sugar daddy afford a plane ticket? Or did he leave you high and dry when he hightailed it to France?”
She kicked him right in the shin. It wasn’t premeditated, and he looked as shocked as she did when he bent to rub the painful spot where her shoe had landed.
“I wish I’d been wearing steel-toed combat boots like one of the girls in my dorm,” she said hotly. “And if you ever so much as speak to me again, Powell Long, I’ll break your leg the next time!”
She brushed past him and went into the depot.
Her father had just paid for the ticket when his attention was captured by the scene outside the depot. He started outside, but Antonia pushed him back into the building.
“We can wait for the bus in here, Dad,” she said, her face still red and hot with anger.
He glanced past her to where Powell had straightened to send a speaking look toward the depot.
“Well, he seems to have learned to control that hot temper, at least. A year ago, he’d have been in here, right through the window,” Ben Hayes remarked coldly. “I hope you crippled him.”
She managed a wan smile. “No such luck. You can’t wound something that ornery.”
Powell had started back down the street, his back stiff with outrage.
“I hope Sally asks him how he hurt his leg,” Antonia said under her breath.
“Here, girl, the bus is coming.” He shepherded her outside, grateful that the ticket agent hadn’t been paying attention and that none of the other passengers seemed interested in the byplay out the window. All they needed was some more gossip.
Antonia hugged her father before she climbed aboard. She wanted to look down the street, to see if Powell was limping. But even though the windows were dark, she wouldn’t risk having him catch her watching him. She closed her eyes as the bus pulled away from the depot and spent the rest of the journey trying to forget the pain of seeing Powell Long again.
Chapter One
“That’s very good, Martin, but you’ve left out something, haven’t you?” Antonia prompted gently. She smiled, too, because Martin was very shy even for a nine-year-old and she didn’t want to embarrass him in front of her other fourth graders. “The secret weapon the Greeks used in battle…a military formation?”
“Secret weapon,” he murmured to himself. Then his dark eyes lit up and he grinned. “The phalanx!” he said at once.
“Yes,” she replied. “Very good!”
He beamed, glancing smugly at his worst enemy in the second row over, who was hoping Martin would miss the question and looked very depressed indeed that he hadn’t.
Antonia glanced at her watch. It was almost time to dismiss class for the day, and the week. Odd, she thought, how loose that watch was on her wrist.
“It’s time to start putting things away,” she told her students. “Jack, will you erase the board for me, please? And, Mary, please close the windows.”
They rushed to obey, because they liked Miss Hayes. Mary glanced at her with a smile. Miss Hayes smiled back. She wasn’t as pretty as Miss Bell down the hall, and she dressed in a very backward sort of way, always wearing suits or pantsuits, not miniskirts and frilly blouses. She had pretty long blond hair, though, when she took it out of that awful bun, and her gray eyes were like the December sky. It would be Christmas soon, and in a week they could all go home for the holidays. Mary wondered what Miss Hayes would do. She never went anywhere exciting for holidays. She never talked about her family, either. Maybe she didn’t have one.
The bell rang and Antonia smiled and waved as her students marched out to waiting buses and cars. She tidied her desk with steady hands and wondered if her father would come for Christmas this year. It was very lonely for both of them since her mother’s death last year. It had been hard, coping with the loss. It had been harder having to go home for the funeral. He was there. He, and his daughter. Antonia shivered just remembering the look on his dark, hard face. Powell hadn’t softened even then, even when her mother was being buried. He still hated Antonia after nine years. She’d barely glanced at the sullen, dark-haired little girl by his side. The child was like a knife through her heart, a reminder that Powell had been sleeping with Sally even while he and Antonia were engaged to be married; because the little girl had been born only seven months after Powell married Sally. Antonia had glanced at them once, only once, to meet Powell’s hateful stare. She hadn’t looked toward the pew where they sat again.
Incredible how he could hate Antonia after marriage and a child, when everyone must have told him the truth ten times over in the years between. He was rich now. He had money and power and a fine home. His wife had died only three years after their wedding, and he hadn’t remarried. Antonia imagined it was because he missed Sally so much. She didn’t. She hated even the memory of her one-time best friend. Sally had cost her everything she loved, even her home, and she’d done it with deliberate lies. Of course, Powell had believed the lies. That was what had hurt most.
Antonia was over it now. It had been nine years. It hardly hurt at all, in fact, to remember him.
She blinked as someone knocked at the door, interrupting her train of thought. It was Barrie, her good friend and the Miss Bell of the miniskirt who taught math, grinning at her. Barrie was gorgeous. She was slender and had beautiful long legs. Her hair was almost black, like a wavy curtain down her back. She had green eyes with mischief in them, and a ready smile.
“You could stay with me at Christmas,” Barrie invited merrily, her green eyes twinkling.
“In Sheridan?” she asked idly, because that was where Barrie’s stepfather’s home was, where George Rutherford and her stepbrother Dawson Rutherford, and Barrie and her late mother had lived before she left home and began teaching with Antonia in Tucson.
“No,” Barrie said tightly. “Not ever there. In my apartment here in Tucson,” she added, forcing a smile to her face. “I have four boyfriends. We can split them, two each. We’ll have a merry whirl!”
Antonia only smiled. “I’m twenty-seven, too old for merry whirls, and my father will probably come here for Christmas. But thanks anyway.”
“Honestly, Annie, you’re not old, even if you do dress like someone’s maiden aunt!” she said explosively. “Look at you!” she added, sweeping her hand toward the gray suit and white blouse that was indicative of the kind of clothes Antonia favored. “And your hair in that infernal bun…you look like a holdover from the Victorians! You need to loose that glorious blond hair and put on a miniskirt and some makeup and look for a man before you get too old! And you need to eat! You’re so thin that you’re beginning to look like skin and bones.”
Antonia knew that. She’d lost ten pounds in the past month or so and she’d finally gotten worried enough to make an appointment with her doctor. It was probably nothing, she thought, but it wouldn’t hurt to check. Her iron might be low. She said as much to Barrie.
“That’s true. You’ve had a hard year, what with losing your mother and then that awful scare with the student who brought his dad’s pistol to school and held everybody at bay for an hour last month.”
“Teaching is becoming the world’s most dangerous profession,” Antonia agreed. She smiled sadly at Barrie. “Perhaps if we advertised it that way, we’d attract more brave souls to boost our numbers.”
“That’s an idea,” came the dry agreement. “Want adventure? Try teaching! I can see the slogan now—”
“I’m going home,” Antonia interrupted her.
“Ah, well, I suppose I will, too. I have a date tonight.”
“Who is it this time?”
“Bob. He’s nice and we get along well. But sometimes I think I’m not cut out for a conventional sort of man. I need a wild-eyed artist or a composer or a drag racer.”
Antonia chuckled. “I hope you find one.”
“If I did, he’d probably have two wives hidden in another country or something. I do have the worst luck with men.”
“It’s your liberated image,” Antonia said in a conspiratorial tone. “You’re devil-may-care and outrageous. You scare off the most secure bachelors.”
“Bunkum. If they were secure enough, they’d rush to my door,” Barrie informed her. “I’m sure there’s a man like that somewhere, just waiting for me.”
“I’m sure there is, too,” her friend said kindly, and didn’t for a minute let on that she thought there was already one waiting in Sheridan.
Beneath Barrie’s outrageous persona, there was a sad and rather lonely woman. Barrie wasn’t at all what she seemed. Barrie basically was afraid of men—especially her stepbrother, Dawson. He was George’s blood son. Dear George, the elderly man who’d been another unfortunate victim of Sally Long’s lies. The tales hadn’t fazed Dawson, though, who not only knew better, but who was one of the coldest and most intimidating men Antonia had ever met where women were concerned. Barrie never mentioned Dawson, never talked about him. And if his name was mentioned, she changed the subject. It was common knowledge that they didn’t get along. But secretly, Antonia thought there was something in their past, something that Barrie didn’t talk about.
She never had, and now that poor George was dead and Dawson had inherited his estate, there was a bigger rift between them because a large interest in the cattle empire that Dawson inherited had been willed to Barrie.
“I’ve got to phone Dad and see what his plans are,” Antonia murmured, dragging herself back from her memories.
“If he can’t come down here, will you go home for Christmas?”
She shook her head. “I don’t go home.”
“Why not?” She grimaced. “Oh. Yes. I forget from time to time, because you never talk about him. I’m sorry. But it’s been nine years. Surely he couldn’t hold a grudge for that long? After all, he’s the one who called off the wedding and married your best friend less than a month later. And she caused the scandal in the first place!”
“Yes, I know,” Antonia replied.
“She must have loved him a lot to take such a risk. But he did eventually find out the truth,” she added, tugging absently on a strand of her long, wavy black hair.
Antonia sighed. “Did he? I suppose someone told him, eventually. I don’t imagine he believed it, though. Powell likes to see me as a villain.”
“He loved you…”
“He wanted me,” Antonia said bitterly. “At least that’s what he said. I had no illusions about why he was marrying me. My father’s name carried some weight in town, even though we were not rich. Powell needed the respectability. The love was all on my side. As it worked out, he got rich and had one child and a wife who was besotted with him. But from what I heard, he didn’t love her either. Poor Sally,” she added on a cold laugh, “all that plotting and lying, and when she got what she wanted, she was miserable.”
“Good enough for her,” Barrie said curtly. “She ruined your reputation and your parents’.”
“And your stepfather’s,” she added, sadly. “He was very fond of my mother once.”
Barrie smiled gently. “He was very fond of her up until the end. It was a blessing that he liked your father, and that they were friends. He was a good loser when she married your father. But he still cared for her, and that’s why he did so much to help you.”
