Christmas with the Rancher: The Rancher / Christmas Cowboy / A Man of Means

“Ex-excuse me?” she stammered.

“I want to lay you down on the carpet and kiss your breasts until my body stops hurting.”

She caught her breath and stopped dancing. She pushed back from him, her eyes blazing, her face red with embarrassment. She wanted to kick him in the shin, but that would cause more problems.

She turned away from him, almost shivering with the emotions he’d kindled in her, shocked at the things he’d said to her. She almost ran toward John, who was walking toward her, frowning.

“What is it?” he asked suddenly, putting his arm around her.

She hid her face against him.

He glared at Cort, who was approaching them with more conflicting emotions than he’d ever felt in his life.

“You need to go home,” John told Cort in a patient tone that was belied by his expression. “You’ve had too much to drink and you’re going to make a spectacle of yourself and us if you keep this up.”

“I want to dance with her,” Cort muttered stubbornly.

“Well, it’s pretty obvious that she doesn’t want to dance with you.” John leaned closer. “I can pick you up over my shoulder and carry you out of here, and I will.”

“I’d like to see you try it,” Cort replied, and his eyes blazed with anger.

Another cattleman, seeing a confrontation building, came strolling over and deliberately got between the two men.

“Hey, Cort,” he said pleasantly, “I need to ask you about those new calves your dad’s going to put up at the fall production sale. Can I ride home with you and see them?”

Cort blinked. “It’s the middle of the night.”

“The barn doesn’t have lights?” the older man asked, raising an eyebrow.

Cort was torn. He knew the man. He was from up around the Frio river. He had a huge ranch, and Cort’s dad was hungry for new customers.

“The barn has lights. I guess we could…go look at the calves.” He was feeling very light-headed. He wasn’t used to alcohol. Not at all.

“I’ll drive you home,” the rancher said gently. “You can have one of your cowboys fetch your car, can’t you?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“Thanks,” John told the man.

He shrugged and smiled. “No problem.”

He indicated the door. Cort hesitated for just a minute. He looked back at Maddie with dark, stormy eyes, long enough that she dropped her own like hot bricks. He gave John a smug glance and followed the visiting cattleman out the door.

“Oh, boy,” John said to himself. “Now we get to the complications.”

“Complications?” Maddie was only half listening. Her eyes were on Cort’s long, elegant back. She couldn’t remember ever being so confused.

After the party was over, John drove her to her front door and cut off the engine.

“What happened?” he asked her gently, because she was still visibly upset.

“Cort was out of line,” she murmured without lifting her eyes.

“Not surprising. He doesn’t drink. I can’t imagine what got him started.”

“I guess he’s missing your sister,” she replied with a sigh. She looked up at him. “She’s really coming home?”

“She says she is,” he told her. He made a face. “That’s Odalie. She always knows more than anybody else about any subject. My parents let her get away with being sassy because she was pretty and talented.” He laughed shortly. “My dad let me have it if I was ever rude or impolite or spoke out of turn. My brother had it even rougher.”

She cocked her head. “You never talk about Tanner.”

He grimaced. “I can’t. It’s a family thing. Maybe I’ll tell you one day. Anyway, Dad pulled me up short if I didn’t toe the line at home.” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I had to clean the horse stalls when I made him mad.”

“Odalie is beautiful,” Maddie conceded, but in a subdued tone.

“Only a very few people know what she did to you,” John said quietly. “It shamed the family. Odalie was only sorry she got caught. I think she finally realized how tragic the results could have been, though.”

“How so?”

“For one thing, she never spoke again to the girlfriend who put her up to it,” he said. “After she got out of school, she stopped posting on her social page and threw herself into studying music.”

“The girlfriend moved away, didn’t she, though?”

“She moved because threats were made. Legal ones,” John confided. “My dad sent his attorneys after her. He was pretty sure that Odalie didn’t know how to link internet sites and post simultaneously, which is what was done about you.” He touched her short hair gently. “Odalie is spoiled and snobbish and she thinks she’s the center of the universe. But she isn’t cruel.”

“Isn’t she?”

“Well, not anymore,” he added. “Not since the lawyers got involved. You weren’t the only girl she victimized. Several others came forward and talked to my dad when they heard about what happened to you in the library. He was absolutely dumbfounded. So was my mother.” He shook his head. “Odalie never got over what they said to her. She started making a real effort to consider the feelings of other people. Years too late, of course, and she’s still got that bad attitude.”

“It’s a shame she isn’t more like your mother,” Maddie said gently, and she smiled. “Mrs. Everett is a sweet woman.”

“Yes. Mom has an amazing voice and is not conceited. She was offered a career in opera but she turned it down. She liked singing the blues, she said. Now, she just plays and sings for us, and composes. There’s still the occasional journalist who shows up at the door when one of her songs is a big hit, like Desperado’s.”

“Do they still perform… I mean Desperado?” she qualified.

“Yes, but not so much. They’ve all got kids now. It makes it tough to go on the road, except during summer holidays.”

She laughed. “I love their music.”

“Me, too.” He studied her. “Odd.”

“What is?”

“You’re so easy to talk to. I don’t get along with most women. I’m strung up and nervous and the aggressive ones make me uncomfortable. I sort of gave up dating after my last bad experience.” He laughed. “I don’t like women making crude remarks to me.”

“Isn’t it funny how things have changed?” she wondered aloud. “Not that I’m making fun of you. It’s just that women used to get hassled. They still do, but it’s turned around somewhat—now men get it, too.”

“Yes, life is much more complicated now.”

“I really enjoyed the party. Especially the dancing.”

“Me, too. We might do that again one day.”

She raised both eyebrows. “We might?”

He chuckled. “I’ll call you.”

“That would be nice.”

He smiled, got out, went around and opened the door for her. He seemed to be debating whether or not to kiss her. She liked that lack of aggression in him. She smiled, went on tiptoe and kissed him right beside his chiseled mouth.

“Thanks again,” she said. “See you!”

She went up the steps and into the house. John Everett stood looking after her wistfully. She thought he was nice. She liked him. But when she’d come off the dance floor trailing Cort Brannt, she’d been radiating like a furnace. Whether she knew it or not, she was in love with Cort. Shame, he thought as he drove off. She was just the sort of woman he’d like to settle down with. Not much chance of that, now.

Maddie didn’t sleep at all. She stared at the ceiling. Her body tingled from the long contact with Cort’s. She could feel his breath on her forehead, his lips in her hair. She could hear what he’d whispered.

She flushed at the memory. It had evoked incredible hunger. She didn’t understand why she had these feelings now, when she hadn’t had them for that boy who’d tried to hurt her so badly. She’d really thought she was crazy about him. But it was nothing like this.

Since her bad experience, she hadn’t dated much. She’d seen her father get mad, but it was always quick and never physical. She hadn’t been exposed to men who hit women. Now she knew they existed. It had been a worrying discovery.

Cort had frightened her when he’d lost his temper so violently in her father’s office. She didn’t think he’d attack her. But she’d been wary of him, until they danced together. Even if he was drunk, it had been the experience of a lifetime. She thought she could live on it forever, even if Odalie came home and Cort married her. He was never going to be happy with her, though. Odalie loved herself so much that there was no room in her life for a man.

If only the other woman had fallen in love with the Italian voice trainer and married him. Then Cort would have to let go of his unrequited feelings for Odalie, and maybe look in another direction. Maybe look in Maddie’s direction.

On the other hand, he’d only been teasing at the dance. He wasn’t himself.

Cold sober, he’d never have anything to do with Maddie. Probably, he’d just been missing Odalie and wanted a warm body to hold. Yes. That was probably it.

Just before dawn she fell asleep, but all too soon it was time to get up and start doing the chores around the ranch.

She went to feed her flock of hens, clutching the metal garbage can lid and the leafy limb to fend off Pumpkin. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that it was going to come down to a hard decision one day. Pumpkin protected her hens, yes; he would be the bane of predators everywhere. But he was equally dangerous to people. What if he flew up and got one of her cowboys in the eye? She’d been reading up on rooster behavior, and she’d read some horror stories.

There had been all sorts of helpful advice, like giving him special treats and being nice to him. That had resulted in more gouges on her legs, even through her slacks, where his spurs had landed. Then there was the advice about having his spurs trimmed. Good advice, but who was going to catch and hold him while someone did that? None of her cowboys were lining up to volunteer.

“You problem child,” she told Pumpkin as he chased her toward the gate. “One day, I’ll have to do something about you!”

She got through the gate in the nick of time and shut it, hard. At least he wasn’t going to get out of there, she told herself. She’d had Ben go around the perimeter of the large fenced area that surrounded the henhouse and plug any openings where that sneaky feathered fiend could possibly get out. If she kept him shut up, he couldn’t hurt anybody, and the fence was seven feet high. No way he was jumping that!

She said so to Ben as she made her way to the barn to check on a calf they were nursing; it had dropped late and its mother had been killed by predators. They found it far on the outskirts of the ranch. They couldn’t figure how it had wandered so far, but then, cattle did that. It was why you brought pregnant cows up close to the barn, so that you’d know when they were calving. It was especially important to do that in winter, just before the spring calves were due.

She looked over the gate at the little calf in the stall and smiled. “Pretty boy,” she teased.

He was a purebred Santa Gertrudis bull. Some were culled and castrated and became steers, if they had poor conformation or were less than robust. But the best ones were treated like cattle royalty, spoiled rotten and watched over. This little guy would one day bring a handsome price as a breeding bull.

She heard a car door slam and turned just as Cort came into the barn.

She felt her heartbeat shoot off like a rocket.

He tilted his hat back and moved to the stall, peering over it. “That’s a nice young one,” he remarked.

“His mother was killed, so we’re nursing him,” she faltered.

He frowned. “Killed?”

“Predators, we think,” she replied. “She was pretty torn up. We found her almost at the highway, out near your line cabin. Odd, that she wandered so far.”

“Very odd,” he agreed.

Ben came walking in with a bottle. “’Day, Cort,” he said pleasantly.

“How’s it going, Ben?” the younger man replied.

“So far so good.”

Maddie smiled as Ben settled down in the hay and fed the bottle to the hungry calf.

“Poor little guy,” Maddie said.

“He’ll make it,” Ben promised, smiling up at her.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Maddie said. She was reluctant to be alone with Cort after the night before, but she couldn’t see any way around it.

“You’re up early,” she said, fishing for a safe topic.

“I didn’t sleep.” He stuck his hands into his pockets as he strolled along with her toward the house.

“Oh?”

He stopped, so that she had to. His eyes were bloodshot and they had dark circles under them. “I drank too much,” he said. “I wanted to apologize for the way I behaved with you.”

“Oh.” She looked around for anything more than one syllable that she could reply with. “That’s…that’s okay.”

He stared down at her with curiously intent eyes. “You’re incredibly naive.”

She averted her eyes and her jaw clenched. “Yes, well, with my background, you’d probably be the same way. I haven’t been anxious to repeat the mistakes of the past with some other man who wasn’t what he seemed to be.”

“I’m sorry. About what happened to you.”

“Everybody was sorry,” she replied heavily. “But nobody else has to live with the emotional baggage I’m carrying around.”

“How did you end up at the party with John?”

She blinked. “Well, he came over to show me some things about animal husbandry, and he asked me to go with him. It was sort of surprising, really. He doesn’t date anybody.”

“He’s had a few bad experiences with women. So have I.”

She’d heard about Cort’s, but she wasn’t opening that topic with him. “Would you like coffee?” she asked. “Great-Aunt Sadie went shopping, but she left a nice coffee cake baking in the oven. It should be about ready.”

“Thanks. I could use a second cup,” he added with a smile.

But the smile faded when he saw the fancy European coffee machine on the counter. “Where the hell did you buy that?” he asked.

She flushed. “I didn’t. John likes European coffee, so he brought the machine and the pods over with him.”

He lifted his chin. “Did he, now? I gather he thinks he’ll be having coffee here often, then?”

She frowned. “He didn’t say anything about that.”

He made a huffing sound in his throat, just as the stove timer rang. Maddie went to take the coffee cake out of the oven. She was feeling so rattled, it was a good thing she’d remembered that it was baking. She placed it on a trivet. It smelled of cinnamon and butter.

“My great-aunt can really cook,” she remarked as she took off the oven mitts she’d used to lift it out.

“She can, can’t she?”

She turned and walked right into Cort. She hadn’t realized he was so close. He caught her small waist in his big hands and lifted her right onto the counter next to the coffee cake, so that she was even with his dark, probing eyes.

“You looked lovely last night,” he said in a strange, deep tone. “I’ve never really seen you dressed up before.”

“I… I don’t dress up,” she stammered. He was tracing her collarbone and the sensations it aroused were delicious and unsettling. “Just occasionally.”

“I didn’t know you could do those complicated Latin dances, either,” he continued.

“I learned them from watching television,” she said.

His head was lower now. She could feel his breath on her lips; feel the heat from his body as he moved closer, in between her legs so that he was right up against her.

“I’m not in John Everett’s class as a dancer,” he drawled, tilting her chin up. “But, then, he’s not in my class…at this…”

His mouth slowly covered hers, teasing gently, so that he didn’t startle her. He tilted her head just a little more, so that her mouth was at just the right angle. His firm lips pushed hers apart, easing them back, so that he had access to the soft, warm depths of her mouth.

He kissed her with muted hunger, so slowly that she didn’t realize until too late how much a trap it was. He grew insistent then, one lean hand at the back of her head, holding it still, as his mouth devoured her soft lips.

“Sweet,” he whispered huskily. “You taste like honey….”

His arms went under hers and around her, lifting her, so that her breasts were flattened against his broad, strong chest.

Involuntarily her cold hands snaked around his neck. She’d never felt hunger like this. She hadn’t known it was possible. She let him open her mouth with his, let him grind her breasts against him. She moaned softly as sensations she’d never experienced left her helpless, vulnerable.

She felt his hand in her hair, tangling in it, while he kissed her in the soft silence of the kitchen. It was a moment out of time when she wished it could never end, that she could go on kissing him forever.

But just when he lifted his head, and looked into her eyes, and started to speak…

A car pulled up at the front porch and a door slammed.

Maddie looked into Cort’s eyes with shock. He seemed almost as unsettled as she did. He moved back, helping her off the counter and onto her feet. He backed up just as Great-Aunt Sadie walked in with two bags of groceries.

“Didn’t even have fresh mushrooms, can you believe it?” she was moaning, her mind on the door that was trying to close in her face rather than the two dazed people in the kitchen.

“Here, let me have those,” Cort said politely, and he took the bags and put them on the counter. “Are there more in the car?” he asked.

“No, but thank you, Cort,” Sadie said with a warm smile.

He grinned. “No problem.” He glanced at Maddie, who still looked rattled. “I have to go. Thanks for the offer of coffee. Rain check?” he added, and his eyes were almost black with feeling.

“Oh, yes,” Maddie managed breathlessly. “Rain check.”

He smiled at her and left her standing there, vibrating with new hope.

Chapter Five

Maddie still couldn’t believe what had happened right there in her kitchen. Cort had kissed her, and as if he really did feel something for her. Besides that, he was very obviously jealous of John Everett. She felt as if she could actually walk on air.

“You look happier than I’ve seen you in years, sweetie,” Great-Aunt Sadie said with a smile.

“I am.”

Sadie grinned. “It’s that John Everett, isn’t it?” she teased. She indicated the coffeemaker. “Thought he was pretty interested. I mean, those things cost the earth. Not every man would start out courting a girl with a present like that!”

“Oh. Well, of course, I like John,” Maddie stammered. And then she realized that she couldn’t very well tell her great-aunt what was going on. Sadie might start gossiping. Maddie’s ranch hands had friends who worked for the Brannts. She didn’t want Cort to think she was telling tales about him, even in an innocent way. After all, it might have been a fluke. He could be missing Odalie and just reacted to Maddie in unexpected ways.

“He’s a dish,” Sadie continued as she peeled potatoes in the kitchen. “Handsome young man, just like his dad.” She grimaced. “I’m not too fond of his sister, but, then, no family is perfect.”

“No.” She hesitated. “Sadie, do you know why nobody talks about the oldest brother, Tanner?”

Sadie smiled. “Just gossip. They said he and his dad had a major falling out over his choice of careers and he packed up and went to Europe. That was when he was in his late teens. As far as I know, he’s never contacted the family since. It’s a sore spot with the Everetts, so they don’t talk about him anymore. Too painful, I expect.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes, it is. There was a rumor that he was hanging out with some dangerous people as well. But you know what rumors are.”

“Yes,” Maddie said.

“What was Cort doing over here earlier in the week?” Sadie asked suddenly.

“Oh, he was just…giving me some more pointers on dad’s breeding program,” Maddie lied.

“Scared you to death, too,” Sadie said irritably. “I don’t think he’d hurt you, but he’s got a bad temper, sweetie.”

Maddie had forgotten that, in the new relationship she seemed to be building with Cort. “People say his father was like that, when he was young. But Shelby married him and tamed him,” she added with a secret smile.

Sadie glanced at her curiously. “I guess that can happen. A good woman can be the salvation of a man. But just…be careful.”

“I will,” she promised. “Cort isn’t a mean person.”

Sadie gave her a careful look. “So that’s how it is.”

Maddie flushed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“John likes you, a lot,” she replied.

Maddie sighed. “John’s got a barracuda for a sister, too,” she reminded the older woman. “No way in the world am I having her for a sister-in-law, no matter how nice John is.”

Sadie grimaced. “Should have thought of that, shouldn’t I?”

“I did.”

She laughed. “I guess so. But just a suggestion, if you stick your neck out with Cort,” she added very seriously. “Make him mad. Make him really mad, someplace where you can get help if you need to. Don’t wait and find out when it’s too late if he can’t control his temper.”

“I remember that boy in high school,” Maddie reminded her. “He didn’t stop. Cort frightened me, yes, but when he saw I was afraid, he started apologizing. If he couldn’t control his temper, he’d never have been able to stop.”

Sadie looked calmer. “No. I don’t think he would.”

“He’s still apologizing for it, in fact,” Maddie added.

Sadie smiled and her eyes were kind. “All right, then. I won’t harp on it. He’s a lot like his father, and his dad is a good man.”

“They’re all nice people. Morie was wonderful to me in school. She stuck up for me when Odalie and her girlfriend were making my life a daily purgatory.”

“Pity Odalie never really gets paid back for the things she does,” Sadie muttered.”

Maddie hugged her. “That mill grinds slowly but relentlessly,” she reminded her. She grinned. “One day…”

Sadie laughed. “One day.”

Maddie let her go with a sigh. “I hope I can learn enough of this stuff not to sink dad’s cattle operation,” she moaned. “I wasn’t really faced with having to deal with the breeding aspect until now, with roundup ahead and fall breeding standing on the line in front of me. Which bull do I put on which cows? Gosh! It’s enough to drive you nuts!”

“Getting a lot of help in that, though, aren’t you?” Sadie teased. “Did you tell Cort that John had been coaching you, too?”

“Yes.” She sighed. “Cort wasn’t overjoyed about it, either. But John makes it understandable.” She threw up her hands. “I’m just slow. I don’t understand cattle. I love to paint and sculpt. But Dad never expected to go so soon and have to leave me in charge of things. We’re going in the hole because I don’t know what I’m doing.” She glanced at the older woman. “In about two years, we’re going to start losing customers. It terrifies me. I don’t want to lose the ranch, but it’s going to go downhill without dad to run it.” She toyed with a bag on the counter. “I’ve been thinking about that developer…”

“Don’t you dare,” Sadie said firmly. “Darlin’, do you realize what he’d do to this place if he got his hands on it?” she exclaimed. “He’d sell off all the livestock to anybody who wanted it, even for slaughter, and he’d rip the land to pieces. All that prime farmland, gone, all the native grasses your dad planted and nurtured, gone. This house—” she indicated it “—where your father and your grandfather and I were born! Gone!”

Maddie felt sick. “Oh, dear.”

“You’re not going to run the ranch into the ground. Not when you have people, like King Brannt, who want to help you get it going again,” she said firmly. “If you ever want to sell up, you talk to him. I’ll bet he’d offer for it and put in a manager. We could probably even stay on and pay rent.”

“With what?” Maddie asked reasonably. “Your social security check and my egg money?” She sighed. “I can’t sell enough paintings or enough eggs to pay for lunch in town,” she added miserably. “I should have gone to school and learned a trade or something.” She grimaced. “I don’t know what to do.”