His for the Taking

She dreaded seeing him more than anyone else in Yella, which was ridiculous. How could his rejection and contempt still hurt so much after six years, when she’d told herself repeatedly that the past—that who she used to be—no longer mattered?

Maddie hadn’t been back to Yella since the night she’d run away because there were too many memories here, both good and bad. For years, she’d made the future her focus and only rarely looked back. Besides, coming here meant she’d had to leave Noah, who was enrolled in a summer day camp on Town Lake, with a dear friend. She missed him, but she wouldn’t have people here judging him because of her—or noticing how much he resembled Cole and putting two and two together.

She’d only come back now because she owed Miss Jennie for everything good in her life.

Maddie wiped her damp brow with the back of her hand. Had Yella always been this suffocatingly hot in the summer? Of course it had. She just hadn’t noticed when she’d been a skinny, fearless kid wearing a thin T-shirt and shorts, running wild in the woods.

Today, with the sun beating down out of a bright sky, the heat felt thick and ferocious, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Strands of her long black hair had come loose from her ponytail and stuck to her cheeks and neck. Her T-shirt and cutoff jeans felt as if they were glued to her perspiring body.

Still, despite the oppressive heat and humidity and a faint sense of uneasiness, she loved the scents and sounds of the woods. The smell of grass and dust, the chorus of insects that hummed along with the birds, made her remember some of the brighter moments of her youth. Long ago she’d ridden in these woods. Here, on horseback, a slim, despised girl had acquired the magical power that riding a powerful horse could bring. Riding had taught her to be brave and strong.

Most of all she remembered riding here with Cole.

Don’t think about him.

Better to fret about her company’s fundraiser than Cole. Even though she dreaded the annual event and the stress of dealing with wealthy donors, especially the women who knew how to dress and where to shop and where to lunch, she preferred worrying about all of that to thinking about Cole.

He’d rejected her, had made her feel more unworthy than anybody else here ever had. Why couldn’t she simply forget him? Even after Greg had come into her life last spring—solid, reliable Greg, who didn’t know her secrets, who approved of her and wanted to marry her because of who and what she was now—she remained confused about her obsession with Cole, who’d never seen her as his equal.

He’d rejected her soundly—so why couldn’t she let him go? Why was she so afraid of seeing him?

When she’d fled Yella six years ago, she’d been too traumatized to ever imagine coming back. In Austin, she’d tried to better herself, tried to live down the mother who hadn’t wanted her, the sorry trailer in Yella where she’d been raised, the terrible night that had driven her away. Most of all, she’d fought hard to be a better mother to Noah than her mother had been to her.

Not that juggling single motherhood while working full-time and going to college had been easy. Especially not when the nagging fear that she really was what everybody here had believed—no good—had remained.

Then, five days ago, just when she’d been on the verge of setting a date for her wedding to the man who valued her, Miss Jennie had called from the hospital and said she’d fallen. Miss Jennie was the one person in Yella who’d always believed in Maddie, the one person who’d been there when Maddie had been terrified and desperate. So, when Miss Jennie had mentioned she’d just love it if Maddie could come for a few days because her niece, Sassy, lived in Canada and needed some time to wrap up her affairs before she could fly to Texas, Maddie had agreed to come.

Not that Miss Jennie’s neighbors hadn’t all offered to fill in, but Miss Jennie had made it clear that she would prefer spending a little time with Maddie…if only that were possible. “Time seems more precious as you get older,” she’d said, her voice sounding frail.

Still, since Miss Jennie had helped her relocate and had lent Maddie money to go to college, there was no way she could say no, even if it meant facing Cole and the prejudiced town.

Up ahead Maddie heard the jingle of dog tags. Just as she was about to call him, Cinnamon barked exuberantly from the sun-dappled brush. Her heart sank as she realized that he’d set off for the swimming hole on the Guadalupe River where she and Cole used to secretly meet. Where they’d made love countless times. Of all the places she would have preferred to avoid, the icy green pool beneath tall cypress trees on his land topped her list.

For here she could be too easily reminded of Cole, of their brief affair. Back then she’d been young and in love and filled with anticipation for their every meeting. She’d been so sure that he’d loved her and would love her forever, and that his love, once known publicly, would change other people’s opinions and she’d gain the respectability she’d craved. Even when he’d insisted on keeping their relationship a secret from everyone important to him, especially his mother, she’d believed in him.

It had taken a crisis of the worst magnitude to make her see him for what he really was—a typical boy in lust out for a few cheap thrills with the town’s bad girl, a boy who’d never respected her and couldn’t be counted on to save her. No, she’d had to save herself.

Maddie had had six years to deal with the trauma of the past. She was all grown up now. She knew that life wasn’t a fairy tale, that she needed to get over the hurt that Cole and his mother had inflicted on her.

The last thing she wanted or needed now was to see him again and reopen all those old wounds. If she were lucky, Cole would keep to his oil fields while she was here with Miss Jennie.

Maybe then she would escape Yella unscathed.

Three

Two hours after he’d left the drill site, Cole pulled up to Miss Jennie’s white house on the edge of town where her property backed up to a corner of his own estate. Miss Jennie’s house, with its sagging wraparound porch, was a sorry sight in the middle of an overgrown, brown lawn. Not that Cole’s mind was on the lousy condition of her house and yard as he slammed the door of his big, white truck and strode up her walk.

He was a little surprised when Miss Jennie’s fool of a dog didn’t race up to him, yapping. Whenever Cole rode on this part of his ranch he usually ran into the mongrel. On hot summer evenings Cinnamon loved nothing better than lying on a shady rock along the bank where the river was spring-fed and icy cold.

That particular swimming hole had often been Cole and Maddie’s secret meeting place.

All he could think of was Maddie.

He knocked impatiently, but when the screen door finally opened, it wasn’t a reluctant Maddie prettily greeting him, but sharp-eyed Bessie Mueller from next door.

Cold air gushed out of the house around her as she set fists on her solid hips. Her wrinkled face was brown from working outdoors. She had a way of standing that made her look bolted to the earth.

“Your mother told everybody you weren’t coming home till tomorrow, so, what has got you planting your dusty boots on Miss Jennie’s doorstep today?”

It went without sayin’ that everybody in Yella knew everybody else’s business.

“Ranch affairs,” he drawled, hating the way the lie made heat crawl up his neck. “Is Miss Jennie doing okay?”

“She’s just fine, but she’s restin’ for a spell. She’s had so much company this mornin’—all male. She’s plumb tuckered out.”

“And Maddie Gray?”

Bessie grinned slyly. “Oh, so, it’s her you’ve come to see…like every other man in town?” The knowing glint in her black eyes irritated the hell out of him. “Well, she’s out looking for Cinnamon, if you have to know. That’s why I’m here. I told Maddie it wasn’t no use chasin’ that mongrel. When that fool dog isn’t barking loud enough to wake the dead, he’s after my poor chickens or diggin’ up my pansies. He always comes back—when he takes a mind to.”

Like all mammals, human or otherwise, living in Yella, Cinnamon had acquired a reputation.

Cole tipped his hat. “You tell Miss Jennie I’ll be back a little later, then.”

If Maddie was chasing Cinnamon, he knew where to find her.

When Cole tugged lightly on the reins, Raider snorted and jerked his head, stopping just short of the small creek that fed the river where ancient trees grew in such dense profusion they were almost impenetrable.

“The brush is too thick from here on,” Cole said, “so this is where I’ll leave you.”

On a hunch that Cinnamon would lure Maddie to the pool by the dam, he’d saddled his large, spirited bay gelding and set off.

Dismounting, Cole looped Raider’s reins over a fallen log near the rushing water and left the horse grazing in the shade.

Pushing back a tumble of wild grapevines that cascaded from the highest branches of a live oak, Cole made a mental note to get his foreman to send a hand out to clip the vines before they smothered the tree. Then, as he stalked through the high brown grasses toward the emerald pool, memories of Maddie played in his mind.

He and Maddie had ridden these trails together. When they’d dismounted they’d often played hide-and-seek. How he’d loved catching her and pulling her slim body beneath his. She would smile up at him, her flushed face thrilled and trusting in the pink glow of a late-afternoon sun.

After she’d left, he’d posted signs that read No Trespassing and No Swimming.

At the sound of a dog barking, Cole’s heart began to race. When he recognized Maddie’s low, velvety voice, he went stone-still.

“We shouldn’t be here. We’re trespassing. But you don’t care.”

Stealthily he inched forward until he caught glimpses of dewy skin and ebony hair through the trees.

Sitting on the dam, dangling her long legs in the water, she wore nothing but a blade of wet grass on her left nipple and a pair of black thong panties. Her exotic face with those arched, slanting brows was lovelier than ever. Not that his gazemained on her face. Her naked breasts and slender waist and her legs that went forever stole his breath.

He gulped in air while his heart thudded so violently he was sure she’d hear. He could turn and go, but why should he? He’d come here to find her, hadn’t he?

Slowly she dipped a rag—no, it was her T-shirt—into the water and squeezed it so tightly that rivulets of sparkling liquid showered her throat and breasts.

“Ah, nothing like icy water on a hot day,” she purred huskily as she put the T-shirt back into the pool and dripped more fluid diamonds over her body. “I was burning up.”

The dog was panting hard. Cole was burning up, too, but his condition wasn’t entirely due to the heat.

Erect, spellbound, he watched as the blade of grass got caught in the currents of water tracing down her smooth, gleaming belly before sliding down to her navel. When a slender fingertip plucked it off her skin, heat shot through Cole. His sex, hot and hard, swelled painfully against tight denim. When Cinnamon walked onto the dam and shook water all over Maddie, she screamed even as she giggled.

“You are all dog,” she said huskily, but she laughed, teasing the mongrel rather than chastising him.

Damn her to hell and back for being so gorgeous and unnervingly sexy. She seemed sweet, too, just as she always had—the very essence of everything feminine.

But looks could deceive.

Even though he knew what she was, memories of the first time she’d lain with him struck him full force.

She’d been flushed and naked as she’d whispered she loved him and always would. She had begged him to take her.

He’d kissed her throat and stroked her hair. “Are you sure about this?”

“No matter what happens, I want it to be you…who’s first, I mean.”

For a long time, his hands had skimmed over her body, touching her, caressing her. She’d been so innocent and so infinitely precious to him.

Determined not to hurt her, he’d been gentle and patient even though his youthful hormones had been raging. Hell, he’d even told her he loved her, too. Worse—he’d meant it.

Don’t think about it.

But how could he forget how tight she’d been, or how she’d held her breath so long after he’d entered her, she’d scared the hell out of him?

“Are you okay?” he’d whispered.

“Better than okay.” When she’d pressed her soft mouth to his throat she’d sent him over the edge. He’d apologized, but she’d begun to kiss him again, and he’d hardened inside her almost instantly.

“I’ve had a crush on you for years,” she’d said. “I just never thought you could care for someone like me.”

“Well, I do.”

“Sometimes I still have to pinch myself so I know I’m not dreaming.”

Now, determined to push the bittersweet memories aside and regain control, he counted slowly…backward from one hundred to zero. Long before he reached zero, more memories bombarded him, each one sweeter than the last. Then he couldn’t count, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel his testosterone-engorged body thicken.

More than anything, he wanted to touch her warm, velvet skin, to taste her sweet lips…just one more time. Maybe once he was sated, he would be rational enough to remember how shabbily she’d treated him.

As if she sensed him, she slid into the water, screaming because it was so cold, and then swam away from the dam, leaving a trail of graceful ripples flashing in her wake.

Instead of listening to the voice of reason that told him not to play with fire, he strode down to the bank and stood above her in the long shadows of the cypress trees, watching her swim, willing her to turn and face him.

When she did, her face whitened with shock. “Cole! What are you doing here?”

The alarm in her slanting blue-violet eyes cut him to the quick. But still his tone was hard when he said, “I heard you were chasing Cinnamon on my land, so I came looking for you.”

When her exotic face went even whiter, his own craven desire made his gut clench.

Without another word, she dived underneath the water and swam as far away from him as she could. When she finally came up, she crossed her hands over her breasts and scrambled behind the nearest rock. “I—I didn’t mean to bother you!” she began, blushing furiously as she gasped for breath. “If I’d known you were in town—I would never have come here! Your brother, Adam…He told me you wouldn’t be back anytime soon. I swear he did!”

“Didn’t you see the No Swimming signs? A kid nearly drowned here a couple of years ago, after a flood. Cinnamon is not worth risking your pretty neck by swimming here alone.”

“Okay. I won’t do it again. If you’ll just leave, I’ll dress and go.”

“The last thing I want is you dressed and gone.”

The stark look of terror reappeared in her eyes. “Don’t start!” she whispered. “Please—”

The shame and fear in her frantic gaze tore at his heart. He remembered how sensitive she’d been on the subject of her mother and how shy she’d always been about sexual matters, especially in the beginning. But she’d never been this skittish. Suddenly he wished he could take back the suggestive comment.

“Somebody told me a while back that you’re a mother now…that you have a little boy…”

Her violet-blue eyes widened with even more fear. Why?

“I just meant that as a mother, you shouldn’t take unnecessary risks—like swimming here alone.”

“My son is no concern of yours!” Her voice was high and thin. “You made that very clear—”

“When did we ever discuss your son?”

“What?” She seemed to catch herself. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I saw your signs. It’s just that I’m upset because you startled me. I shouldn’t have gotten in the water without a buddy. If you’ll just leave, I’ll get out, dress and go. Like I said.” She had begun to shiver, and her lips were blue.

“You can swim as long as you like…now that I’m here to watch over you.”

“I don’t want you here watching over me.” Her teeth were chattering.

“Right.” He set his hot, insolent gaze on her.

“Cole, I’m…I’m freezing. If…you won’t go, would you please turn your back so I…can get out and dress?”

“Okay, already.” Halfheartedly, he turned his back.

Not trusting him, she hesitated. A moment or two later, he heard water splash on limestone, followed by the whisper of damp feet on grass and the breaking of twigs as she scampered across the rocks to retrieve her clothes.

When a low curse escaped her lips, he turned out of concern and was rewarded with another glimpse of her tantalizing breasts and thighs. His breath hitched as she struggled to push her slim arms through the knotted sleeves of her wet, tangled T-shirt. Absorbed in pulling on her jeans, she didn’t look up and see that he couldn’t take his tortured eyes off her.

When she’d fastened her cutoffs, she looked up. “You cheated,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“I guess I shouldn’t wonder, since you’ll always think I’m the kind of girl who doesn’t deserve your respect.” With an indignant frown she leaned down and secured the now-docile Cinnamon with a leash.

“Damn,” he muttered, feeling guilty as well as angry.

That she could chastise him, for anything, when she’d jilted him for Turner, was gallingly unfair.

“Don’t worry. I won’t presume to trespass on your land again,” she said almost haughtily.

“You can swim here anytime,” he said coldly. “It’s just that I’d prefer that you bring a friend with you the next time.”

“Who? With the exception of Miss Jennie, people here don’t really like my mother or me much. If you’ll recall, I…I never had any real friends in this town.”

“I hear eight men stopped by to check on Miss Jennie this mornin’.”

“For your information, I wasn’t ever who you thought I was or who they probably think I am. It’s taken me a long time to believe in myself…after…after the way you and the town treated me.”

“Oh, really? I find that surprising. For someone so sensitive and romantic, you sure as hell slept with me and then ran off with Turner without so much as a goodbye.”

When her skin went as pale as the bleached limestone bank, he felt as if someone had kicked him in the gut. But even as she began to tremble, her eyes blazed.

“Believe what you want about me!” she whispered as she hugged her arms around herself. “I’m glad I don’t have to care anymore.” But her eyes belied her indifference.

When he’d left the rig today he’d sworn he wouldn’t rehash the past, but now he had to ask. “Tell me why you ran off with him. You owe me an explanation.”

“Once…I foolishly thought…maybe I did owe you. So, before I left, I called you to explain, remember?”

Fury that she would lie so carelessly swelled inside him. “The hell you did! You called me eighteen months later—when it was a little late, since I was already married to Lizzie!”

“No! I called you the night I left. But your mother answered the phone. She told me exactly what you told her to tell me, that she didn’t want my kind in your life. So, excuse me if I didn’t call you back. I had a lot on my plate. But my problems then are none of your business now.”

“My mother? You talked to my mother that night?”

She nodded.

“I don’t believe you! There’s no way she could have resisted throwing such a call from you in my face!”

“I don’t care what you believe. Do you deny that when I called you again, a year and a half later, you were even less receptive than she’d been that night? If you do, let me refresh your memory. You answered the phone and told me you never wanted to talk to me again! Then you slammed the phone down. At least your mother had the guts to talk to me!”

Her beautiful violet eyes shimmered with remembered pain, making a muscle in his gut pull. Her accusation about his mother didn’t play. His mother, who had rigid views of social order, would have skinned him alive if she’d found out he had anything to do with Jesse Ray’s daughter.

“The truth is—you waited a whole year and a half after you’d run off to call. Like I said, it was too late.”

“Well, then let’s leave it at that! You got married to a nice, respectable girl. Maybe I moved on, too. Okay?”

But it wasn’t okay. Why were feelings that he’d suppressed for years suddenly so important to him?

“I told myself to leave it at that! And I did, as long as Lizzie was alive—for her sake. But now that she’s gone and you’re here, damn it, I want to know why you left me for Vernon without any explanation. All I knew was what your mother told everybody—that you’d flaunted yourself around Vernon to spite her and had run off with him for the same reason.”

She whitened. Although she tried to hide her fear, he saw that her hands were shaking. What was she so scared of?

Then she drew herself up straighter, and her beautiful lips thinned with determination. It was as if she found some inner strength that enabled her to face him down.

“I—I wasn’t myself when I left. After talking to your mother, I believed you were relieved to be rid of me.”

Relieved? He’d been in so much agony he’d thought he was dying. When he couldn’t get in touch with her, he’d been wild to find her, to talk to her. Wanting to hurt her now, as she’d hurt him then, he said, “I should have been relieved. Any sane guy would’ve been. You were your mother’s daughter, in the end.”

“Well, there you go,” she whispered in a small voice. “Lucky you…to escape my clutches.”

Her casually tossed comment pushed him over the edge. “Well, damn it, what if I wasn’t smart enough to be relieved?” he growled, hating himself for not hiding that she’d held such power over him. Hell, she still held power over him as she stood there looking pretty and wounded and sexy as hell in the wet T-shirt that clung to her breasts. “When you ran off, I was worried sick about you.”

“You were?” She bit her lip and looked away in confusion, as if what he’d said made no sense.

“I thought about you all the time. I didn’t want to believe what your mother was saying without hearing your side,” he said. “Every night I’d come out here and wonder how you could just disappear like that. I missed you, damn it! I wanted to know you were okay, at least, even if you were with Turner.”

“Did you ever try to find me?”

“I wanted to. But, hell, my father got sick a week after you left. I was forced to take over the family businesses. On his deathbed he confessed to having another son…Adam. Mother couldn’t accept him. I had a lot on my plate, too.”

Something in his low tone got through to her because she whispered in a raspy, broken voice, “I’m sorry about your father. I didn’t know. I was upset when I left…and too ashamed to call you again after your mother had so soundly rejected me.”

“You sure as hell should have been ashamed.”

“It took me a while to get over…what happened.” Her eyes darkened with pain. “But when I finally called you again, you didn’t want to talk to me. No—you were cold and arrogant.”

Because he’d been afraid he’d break if he spoke to her, because he’d been trying to be faithful to Lizzie, damn it.

“I don’t see why you’re dredging all this up now, Cole.”

Maybe because nearly a year had passed since Lizzie’s death, and he finally felt free to pursue whatever the hell he wanted. Because Maddie was here, looking even lovelier and more vulnerable than before. His reaction wasn’t logical. He knew that. But somehow his involvement with Maddie wasn’t over. Seeing her again had thoroughly convinced him of that.

“So, what was in those letters you wrote me after I refused to talk to you?” he asked. He remembered too well signing for those two certified envelopes and then angrily tossing them in a drawer and telling himself he had to forget them.