A Husband For Christmas

She swallowed. “Well...”

“I understood you were designing her a dress?” he continued.

“Yes,” she agreed, remembering the sketches she’d already done. Over the past few years she had discovered that she enjoyed designing clothes much more than modeling them.

“My God, you’re quiet,” he observed, his eyes narrowing against the smoke of his cigarette. “You used to come home gushing like a volcano, full of life and happiness. Now you seem...sedate. Very, very different. What’s the matter, honey, is the glitter wearing off, or are you just tired of going around half-naked for men to look at?”

She gasped at the unexpectedness of the attack and drew in a sharp breath. “Cade Alexander McLaren, I do not go around half-naked!”

“Don’t you?” he demanded. He had that old familiar look on his face, the one that meant he was set for a fight. “I was up in New York one day last month on business and I went to one of your fashion shows. You were wearing a see-through blouse with nothing under it. Nothing!” His face hardened. “My God, I almost went up there and dragged you off that runway. It was all I could do to turn around and walk out of the building. Your father would have rolled over in his grave!”

“My father was proud of me,” she returned, hurting from the remark. “And unless you missed it, most of the people who go to those shows are women!”

“There were men there,” he came back. He crushed out the cigarette. “Do you take off your clothes for men in private, too, Abby?”

She lifted her hand to hit him, but he caught the wrist and jerked. She found herself looking straight into his narrowed eyes at an alarming distance. But worse, she felt the full force of his strength in that steely grip, and she felt panic rise in her throat.

“Let me go, Cade,” she said suddenly, her voice ghostly, her eyes widening with fear. “Oh, please, let me go!”

He scowled, freeing her all at once. She drew back against her door like a cornered cat, actually trembling with reaction. Well, now she knew, didn’t she? she thought miserably. She’d wondered how she’d react to Cade’s strength, and now she truly knew.

“Remember me?” he asked angrily. “We’ve known each other most of our lives. I was defending myself, Abby. I wasn’t going to hit you. What the hell’s the matter with you? Has some man been knocking you around?” His face became frankly dangerous. “Answer me,” he said harshly. “Has one of your boyfriends been rough with you? By God, if he has...!”

“No, it’s not that,” she said quickly, drawing in a steadying breath. Her eyes closed on a wave of remorse. “I’m just tired, Cade. Tired. Burned out. Too many long hours and too many go-sees that didn’t work out, too many demanding photographers, too many retakes of commercials, too many fittings, too many temperamental designers....” She slumped back against the door and opened her eyes, weary eyes, to look at him. “I’m tired.” It was a lie, but then, how could she possibly tell him the truth?

“You came home to rest, is that what you’re telling me?” he asked softly.

“Is it all right?” she asked, her eyes searching his. “A whole month, and I don’t want to interfere with your life....”

“That’s a joke,” he scoffed. His eyes went over the shapeless dress. “You don’t know what a joke it is.” He turned abruptly to open the door. “Let’s go in. It’s freezing out here. We can sit around inside for the rest of the night and watch your sister and Jerry climb all over each other.”

He sounded utterly disgusted, and she laughed involuntarily. “They’re engaged,” she reminded him.

“Then why don’t they get married and make out in their own house?” he growled.

“They’re trying,” she said.

He gave her a hard glare before he opened his door and went around to open hers. “The wedding can’t be soon enough to suit me,” he said. “The only place I haven’t caught them at it is in a closet.”

“They’re in love.” She stepped down from the running board, landing in the soft, cold snow. “My gosh, you’re old-fashioned, Cade.”

“Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed that before?” he asked as they walked toward the house through the driving snow. It tickled Abby’s face, melting cold and wet over her delicate features.

“It’s hard to miss,” she agreed. She glanced up at him, walking so tall and straight beside her. He moved with easy grace, long strides that marked him an outdoorsman. It would take wide-open country like Montana to hold him. “But people in love are notoriously hard to separate.”

“What would you know about love?” he asked, shooting a glance down at her. “Have you ever felt it?”

She laughed with brittle humor. “Most people have a crush or two in a lifetime.”

“You had one on me once, as I remember,” he said quietly. He was staring straight ahead, or he’d have seen the shock that widened Abby’s pale brown eyes.

“I’m surprised you even noticed,” she muttered. “In between raising cattle and fighting off girls at square dances.”

“I noticed.” The words didn’t mean a lot, but the way he said them did. There was a world of meaning in the curt, harsh sound of them.

She drew in a slow breath and wrapped her arms around her chest, averting her gaze from him. Would she ever forget that night? Despite the recent experience that had soured physical relationships for her, she felt an explosion of pleasure at the memory of Cade’s warm, rough mouth on her own, his hands touching her so gently....

They were at the back door. He opened it and let her into the warm, dry kitchen ahead of him. Calla had apparently stepped out for a minute, because it was deserted.

“Abby,” he called.

She turned at the entrance to the dining room and looked back at him. He’d pulled off his hat, and his dark hair glittered damply black in the light.

His eyes slid down her body, taking in the ill-fitting clothing, and went back up to her flushed face and wide, soft eyes. The tension was suddenly between them, the old tension that she’d felt that night at the swimming pool when he’d seen her as no other man ever had. She could feel the shock of his gaze, the wild beat of her own heart in the silence that throbbed with unexpected promise.

“Are you happy in New York?” he asked.

She faltered, trying to get words past her tight throat. She had been—or she’d convinced herself that she had been—until the incident that had made her run home for shelter, for comfort. But always she’d missed Painted Ridge...and Cade.

“Of course I am,” she lied. “Why?”

His tall frame shifted impatiently, as if he’d wanted an answer she hadn’t given him. He made a strange gesture with one hand. “I just wondered, that’s all. I saw your face on a magazine cover the other day,” he added, studying her. “One of the better ones. That means something, I gather?”

“Yes,” she agreed with a wan smile. “It’s quite a coup to have a cover on that kind of magazine. My agency was thrilled about it.”

His eyes wandered over her face, searching eyes that grew dark with some emotion she couldn’t name. “You’re beautiful, all right,” he said quietly. “You always were. Not just physically, either. You reminded me of sunlight on a morning meadow. All silky and bright and sweet to look at. Whatever happened to that little girl?”

She felt an ache deep inside, a hunger that nothing had ever filled. Her eyes touched every hard line of his face, lines she would have loved to smooth away. She withered away from you, she wanted to tell him. Part of her died when she left Painted Ridge.

But of course she couldn’t say that. “She grew up, Cade,” she said instead.

He shook his head and smiled—a strange, soft smile that puzzled her. “No, not quite. I carry her around in my memory and every once in a while, I take her out and look at her.”

“She was dreadfully naive,” she murmured, trying not to let him see how his statement had touched her.

He moved slowly toward her, stopping just in front of her. He towered over her, powerful and big and faintly threatening, and she fought down the fear of his strength that had already surfaced once that night.

She looked up, intrigued by the smell of leather and wind that clung to him. “I’d forgotten how tall you are,” she said involuntarily.

“I’ve forgotten nothing about you, Abby,” he said curtly. “Including the fact that once you couldn’t get close enough to me. But now you back away the minute I come near you.”

So he had noticed. She dropped her eyes to the front of his shepherd’s coat. “Do I?”

“You shied away from me in the calving shed tonight. Do you think I didn’t notice? Then in the truck...” He drew in a deep breath. “My God, I’d never hurt you. Don’t you know that?”

Her eyes traced the stitching on the coat and she noticed a tiny smudge near one of the buttons, as if ashes from his cigarette had fallen on it. Silly things to be aware of when she could feel the heat of his big body, and she remembered as if it were yesterday how sweet it was to be held against him.

“I know,” she said after a minute. She forced her eyes up to his. “I...have some problems I’m trying to work out.”

“A man?” he asked curtly.

She nodded. “In a way.”

His face hardened, and his hands came up as if he would have liked to grip her with them. But he abruptly jammed them into his pockets. “Want to tell me about it?”

Her head went slowly from side to side. “Not yet. I have to find myself, Cade. I have to work it out in my own way.”

“Does it have something to do with your career?” he asked.

“Yes, it does. I have to decide whether or not I want to go on with it,” she confessed.

He seemed to brighten. His face changed, relaxed, making him look strangely young. “Thinking of quitting?”

“Why not?” she asked, grinning. “Need an extra cowhand? I close gates good—you ask Hank if I don’t.”

He smiled back, his dark eyes sparkling with humor. “I’ll do that.”

She sighed. “You’ll be ready to run me off by the time that month’s up,” she said with a short laugh. “Anyway, I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

He searched her quiet face. “Maybe I can help you make up your mind,” he murmured. One hand caught her chin and turned it up, while his eyes searched hers curiously. “Melly said there was a man. A bad experience. What happened, honey, a love affair gone sour?”

She flinched, moving backward to release herself from the disturbing pressure of his fingers. She hadn’t fled New York only to wind up back in Cade McLaren’s hip pocket again; letting him get too close would be suicide in more ways than one. His strength unnerved her, but there was more to it than that. She reacted to him in ways that she’d never reacted to any other man. Every man she’d dated or been with socially had been for her a poor imitation of this one, and she was only now realizing how large he loomed in her memory. For years she’d pushed that night at the swimming pool to the back of her mind, afraid to take it out and look at it. And tonight, going back in time had stirred something deep inside her, had momentarily banished the bad memories to make way for remembered sensations and longings.

She stared up into Cade’s dark eyes and saw her whole world. He was as big as this country, and nothing she ever found in New York was going to replace him. But there was no way she was going to let him know it. He’d pushed her away ever since that long-ago night. It was as if he couldn’t bear having her close to him, in any way. Even now, when she backed away, he wasn’t following. He could still let her go without flinching, without regret, even in this small way.

“A man,” she agreed, and let it go at that, not looking at him. “What do you think I did in New York, stare out windows longing to be back here?” That was the truth, little did he know it. The glitter had long ago worn off her life there, leaving it barren and lonely.

“Not me, honey,” he said. “I know all too well how dull this place is to you. You’ve done everything but shout it from the roof.” He glared at her. “Did the man come too close, Abby? Did he want to settle down, and you couldn’t face the thought of that?”

She stared at him blankly. “Is that shocking?” she asked, adding fuel to the fire. “I told you, Cade, I like my life the way it is. I like having money to spend and things to see and places to go. I went to Jamaica to do a layout last month, and in September I’m going to Greece for another one. That’s exciting. It’s great fun.”

He stared at her with cold eyes, believing the lie. “Yes, I can see that,” he growled.

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it while his eyes ran quietly over every line of her face. “Then where does your boyfriend come in?”

She swallowed and turned away. “He wasn’t...a boyfriend, and it’s a long story.”

“I’ll find time to listen.”

She shifted restlessly and turned. “Not tonight, if you don’t mind. I’d like to say hello to Jerry.”

He drew in an angry breath, and for just an instant she thought he was going to insist. But he reached past her and opened the door.

She went ahead of him, relieved that he’d swallowed her explanation. Boyfriend! Oh, God, what a horrible joke that was, but she’d rather have died than tell him the truth. Anyway, what would it matter? Let him think she was just getting over a love affair. What did it matter?

5

Melly was curled up on the sofa next to the tall, blond man who was going to be her husband. They both jumped when Cade deliberately slammed the door behind Abby and himself.

“Oh, hi, boss.” Jerry Ridgely grinned, looking over the sofa back with dancing blue eyes. “Hi, Abby, welcome home!”

“Thanks, Jerry,” she said, grinning back. She’d known him almost as long as Melly had. One of the advantages of growing up in country like this was that you knew most everybody from childhood onward. It gave people a sense of security to know that some things stayed constant.

“Staying for the wedding?” he asked, and Melly smiled at her sister.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she promised. “Which reminds me, Melly,” she added, sticking her hands in her pockets, “I’ve roughed out some sketches for your wedding dress. They’re in my suitcase.”

“I’d love to see them,” Melly said, enthusiastic. “You’re sure you don’t mind making it for me?”

“Don’t be silly, of course I don’t mind. Sometimes I wonder why I got into modeling when I love designing so much.” Abby sighed. Modeling. The word reminded her of New York, which brought back other memories, and she turned away, her eyes clouding.

Melly got to her feet quickly. “Let’s go see if Calla has the berry cobbler dished out,” she said, catching Abby’s arm. “Can you men live without us?”

“Cade can.” Jerry laughed, glancing toward the taciturn rancher. “But I’ll have trouble, sweetheart, so hurry, will you?”

“Sure,” Melly agreed, in a tone that was meant for the foreman alone. She winked and tugged Abby along with her, closing the door behind them.

“Have you and Cade been at it again?” she asked Abby as soon as the door was closed behind them. “He looks like a thundercloud, and you’re flushed.”

“He’s persistent as all get-out,” Abby groaned. “He nearly backed me into a corner in the kitchen just now. He’s not going to worm it out of me, Melly. I can’t talk to him about it, I can’t!”

Melly sighed and hugged her sister. “Oh, Abby, I hoped you might be able to, once the two of you were alone.”

“Talk to Cade?” She laughed. “My God, all I have time to do is defend myself. He’s even worse than I remembered. Why does he hate my career so much?”

“You really don’t know, do you?” Melly murmured.

Abby ignored that, wrapping her arms tight around herself. “We got into it in the truck, and I tried to hit him, and when he grabbed my wrist...” She shivered. “He’s so strong....”

“He’s also Cade,” Melly reminded her. “He’d never hurt you, not the longest day he lived.”

Abby tried to smile. “I want a miracle, I guess. I want Cade to touch me and make the fear all go away.”

“That could still happen,” Melly said softly. “But you have to give it time. And telling Cade the truth would be a heck of a start. For God’s sake, Abby, it wasn’t your fault...!”

“So everyone tells me.” She sighed. “Let’s go help Calla. I just want to get my mind on something else right now. It will all work out somehow, I suppose. Someday.”

She carried that thought all through the long evening, watching Cade sit in his big chair and smoke cigarette after cigarette while he went over paperwork with Jerry and drank two neat whiskeys after the delicious dessert Calla put before them. Cade was so good to look at. He always had been, and the four years since he’d kissed her for the first time hadn’t changed him very much on the surface. He was still overpoweringly masculine. Strong and capable and as tough as well-worn leather.

She watched the way his hands held the sheets of paper in their firm grip. They were tanned and sprinkled with dark hair. He didn’t wear jewelry of any kind; the watch strapped around his wrist had a thick leather band and a dial that did everything except predict the future. He went in for utility, not style. But he managed to look like a fashion plate for all that, even in worn jeans and a faded shirt. He had a big, powerful body, and it was all steely muscle. Cade was just plain man, and he stood out anywhere.

He looked up once and caught her gaze, and she felt just a touch of the old magic. But she looked away and only the fear was left.

Later, Melly went into the bedroom with Abby. They sat on the old bed that had been Abby’s from girlhood and went over the wedding dress pattern.

“It’s just magnificent,” Melly breathed. “But it will take forever for you to make it....”

“A week, in my spare time.” Abby grinned. “Do you really like it?”

“I love it!” She traced the design with a caressing finger. “It’s the best design I’ve ever seen. You ought to sell it.”

“Sell your wedding gown?” Abby exclaimed. “Do I look like I have a cash register for a heart?”

“Don’t be silly. You know very well what I mean. It’s good, Abby. It’s really good. You’re wasted showing other people’s designs.”

“Thank you for thinking so,” Abby said with a smile.

“I’m not the only one, either. Did Jessica Dane ever get in touch with you?” Melly asked. “She absolutely raved over that dress you made me last summer.”

“The boutique owner?” Abby asked. “No. Actually, I was kind of hoping she might. I do love designing, Melly. I feel as if modeling is burning me up. I stay tired all the time, and I have no social life at all. The money’s nice,” she added quietly. “But money isn’t worth much in the long run if you aren’t happy. And I’m not.”

“Will you mind if I tell you that I never thought you would be?” her sister asked softly. She smiled. “You pretended it was what you wanted, but I saw right through you.”

Abby stared at her ringless hands. “I hope nobody else did,” she said.

“He’s thirty-six now,” Melly reminded her. “Inevitably, he’ll marry sooner or later.”

Abby laughed bitterly. “Will he? He hasn’t exactly been in a flaming hurry to commit himself to anybody. You know what he used to say about marriage? That it was a noose only a fool stuck his head into.”

“He’s a lonely man, Abby,” came the surprising reply. “I know better than anybody—I work for him. I see him every day. He works himself into the ground, but there are still evenings when he sits on the porch by himself and just stares off into the horizon.”

That hurt. Abby turned her face away to keep Melly from seeing how much. “He could have any woman he wanted,” she said, forcing herself not to let her voice show the emotion she was feeling. “He used to stay out with some woman or other every day I was here.”

“So he let you think,” Melly murmured. “He runs three ranches—a corporation the size of a small city—and in his spare time he sleeps. When does he have the time to be a playboy? I’ll grant you, he’s got the money to be one, even if he weren’t so good-looking. But he’s a puritan in his outlook. It even makes him uncomfortable when Jerry kisses me in front of him.”

“Just like Donavan,” she agreed, remembering Cade’s father. “Remember the night you were kissing Danny Johnson on our front porch and Donavan rode by with Cade? Whew! I didn’t think Danny would ever come back again after that lecture.”

“Neither did I. Donavan had an overdeveloped sense of propriety. No wonder Cade’s got so many inhibitions. Of course, being brought up in a small place like Cheyenne Lodge...”

“Only you could call Montana a small place,” Abby teased.

“This little teeny corner of it, I meant,” came the irrepressible reply. “I’ll bet you get culture shock every time you come here from New York,” she added.

“No,” Abby denied. Her eyes began to glow softly. “It’s like homecoming every time. I never realize how much I miss it until I come back.”

“And stand at the window, hoping for a glimpse of Cade,” Melly said quietly, nodding when Abby flushed. “Oh, yes, I’ve caught you at it. You watch him with such love in your eyes, Abby. As if the sight of him would sustain you through any nightmare.”

Abby turned away. “Stop that. I’ll wear my heart out on him, and you know it. No,” she said firmly when Melly started to speak. “No more. Melly, you do love Jerry, don’t you?” she added, concern replacing the brief flare-up of irritation.

“Unbearably,” Melly confessed. “We fought like animals the first few weeks I worked here, when I came home from business college. But then, one day he threw me down in the hay and fell on me,” she added with a grin. “And we kissed like two starving lovers. He asked me to marry him on the spot and I said yes without even thinking. We’ve had our disagreements, but there’s no one I’ll ever love as much.”

Abby thought about being pushed down and fallen on, and she trembled with reaction. She felt herself stiffen, and Melly noticed.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, touching Abby’s arm. “I didn’t think about how it might sound to you.”

“It’s just the thought of being helpless,” she said in a suppressed tone. Her eyes came up. “Melly, men are so strong...you don’t realize how strong until you try to get away and can’t!”

“Don’t think about it,” Melly said softly. “Come on, we’ve got to decide on the trimmings for this dress. Calla has a bag full of material samples she got from the fabric shop. We’ll look through them, and she’ll go into town and get what you need tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.” Abby hugged her warmly. “I love you,” she said in a rare outburst of emotion.

“I love you, too,” Melly returned, smiling as she drew away. “Now, here, this is what I liked especially...” She pulled out a swatch of material and the girls drifted into a discussion of fabrics that lasted until bedtime.

Abby spent the next few days reacquainting herself with the ranch. She was careful to keep out of the way of the men—and Cade—but she trudged through the barns looking at calves and sat on the bales of hay in the loft and remembered back to her childhood on her family’s ranch. It was part of Painted Ridge now, having been bought by Cade at Jesse Shane’s death. It would have gone on the auction block otherwise, because neither Melly nor Abby had any desire to try to run it. Ranching was a full-time headache, best left to experts.

When the snow melted and the weather turned springlike again, Abby wandered through the gates up to a grassy hill where a small stand of pines stood guard, and settled herself under one of the towering giants. It was good to breathe clean air, to sit and soak in the cool, green peace and untouched beauty of this land.

Where else were there still places like this, where you could look and see nothing but rolling grassy hills that stretched to the horizon—with tall, ragged mountains on the other side and the river that cut like a wide ribbon through it all? Cade had liked to fish in that river in the old days, when Donavan was still alive to assume some of the burden of their business. Abby went with him occasionally, watching him land big bass and crappie, rainbow trout and channel catfish.