Because Of The Ring

Claudia said, bolting to her feet.

Hayden shot her a wry look. “I’m not old enough for that!”

Claudia tried to clamp down on her rising temper. Which, in itself, was a new task for her. She wasn’t a woman who let herself get angry about anything. Until now. But there was something about this powerful, compelling man that drove her crazy—and they’d only just met!

“The only—and let me repeat, the only—reason I’m here is because I tracked you through your boat’s registration.”

His expression suddenly wary, he stepped toward her. “Are you digging into my personal affairs? Because if you are, I’ll personally toss you out of here.”

“I’m here because—” She sucked in a fierce breath, then heaved out the next words. “Because you’re the man I—I can’t get out of my mind.”

Dear Reader,

With summer nearly here, it’s time to stock up on essentials such as sunblock, sandles and plenty of Silhouette Romance novels! Here’s our checklist of page-turners to keep your days sizzling!

Be sure to come back next month for our list of great summer stories.

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

Because of the Ring

Stella Bagwell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For two real heroes,

Kenneth Finster and Billy Wilson.

With much appreciation and many thanks.

Books by Stella Bagwell

Silhouette Romance

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Moonlight Bandit #485

A Mist on the Mountain #510

Madeline’s Song #543

The Outsider #560

The New Kid in Town #587

Cactus Rose #621

Hillbilly Heart #634

Teach Me #657

The White Night #674

No Horsing Around #699

That Southern Touch #723

Gentle as a Lamb #748

A Practical Man #789

Precious Pretender #812

Done to Perfection #836

Rodeo Rider #878

*Their First Thanksgiving #903

*The Best Christmas Ever #909

*New Year’s Baby #915

Hero in Disguise #954

Corporate Cowgirl #991

Daniel’s Daddy #1020

A Cowboy for Christmas #1052

Daddy Lessons #1085

Wanted: Wife #1140

†The Sheriff’s Son #1218

†The Rancher’s Bride #1224

†The Tycoon’s Tots #1228

†The Rancher’s Blessed Event #1296

†The Ranger and the Widow Woman #1314

†The Cowboy and the Debutante #1334

†Millionaire on Her Doorstep #1368

The Bridal Bargain #1414

Falling for Grace #1456

The Expectant Princess #1504

The Missing Maitland #1546

Because of the Ring #1589

Silhouette Special Edition

Found: One Runaway Bride #1049

†Penny Parker’s Pregnant! #1258

Silhouette Books

Fortunes of Texas

The Heiress and the Sheriff

Maitland Maternity

Just for Christmas

A Bouquet of Babies

“Baby on Her Doorstep”

Midnight Clear

“Twins under the Tree”

STELLA BAGWELL

sold her first book to Silhouette in 1985. More than forty novels later, she still loves her job and she says she isn’t completely content unless she’s writing. Recently she and her husband of thirty years moved from the hills of Oklahoma to Seadrift, Texas, a sleepy little fishing town located on the coastal bend. Stella says the water, the tropical climate and the seabirds make it a lovely place to let her imagination soar and to put the stories in her head down on paper.

She and her husband have one son, Jason, who lives and teaches high school math in nearby Port Lavaca.

Dear Reader,

Last spring my husband and I were invited by our county commissioner to join him on a trip to Matagorda Island, a forty-mile strip of land that lies off the coast of Texas and which was once the location of an army air base during WWII and for many years afterward.

Although most of the barracks and military buildings have been dismantled or washed away by Hurricane Carla and the island is inhabited only by a few Texas Parks and Wildlife rangers, the flat landscape is still crisscrossed with concrete runways and landing strips. As I stood on one such strip, I was instantly overwhelmed with the history around me, and my writer’s imagination took flight. The airmen who’d been stationed there to serve our country must have had lovers, wives, families. Did some of them go to war and never return?

I told myself that someday I would write about such an airman on Matagorda Island, and the chance came sooner than I expected when my editor invited me to do a book for the SOULMATES project.

Because of the Ring is more than just a story about a magical ring handed down from one generation to the next. It’s about a love so powerful it can transcend all time and distance and bring two troubled hearts together in the most unexplainable and wondrous way.

I hope you enjoy Claudia and Hayden’s mystical journey and, like them, I hope each of you is blessed with the magic of love.

Love and God bless,

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Chapter One

Claudia Westfield managed to slide into the seat of her car without spilling hot coffee down the front of her dress or dropping the stack of books and papers jammed beneath one arm.

Even though it was only six-thirty, she wanted to arrive at work early. Exams for the final semester were concluding this week and she had a scad of papers to grade and scores to register and average.

The motor was running and she was reaching to pull the gearshift into Reverse when a wave of dizziness suddenly sent her head spinning.

Alarmed, especially when she’d never been sick a day in her adult life, Claudia gently leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Hopefully, a few moments of quiet would straighten her equilibrium.

The next thing she knew a man’s face appeared against the canvas of her closed eyelids. The image was sharp and focused and so very real, she unconsciously gasped out loud.

Stunned by the unearthly sight, Claudia’s eyes popped open and she glanced wildly around her. The driveway leading up to her apartment and the small manicured lawns of her bordering neighbors looked normal. Yet she could still see the man in her peripheral vision. He had dark wavy hair and cobalt-blue eyes that seemed to be peering straight at her. A somewhat sexy smile twisted his lips and exposed bright white teeth against dark skin.

“Oh. No. No,” she whispered the denial. “This is—you’re not really there. I’m just tired. Too tired.”

Frantically she snatched the coffee cup from its holder on the dash and gulped at the still-hot liquid. The drink scalded her tongue, but she didn’t care. The feeling was real and normal.

More careful now, she took a second sip and then a third. After that she dared herself to look out the windshield again. Thankfully, the man was gone and everything was as it should be.

She allowed herself to breathe again. Then slowly she closed her eyes to make sure he’d disappeared from that aspect of her vision, too. Relief washed through her. The man with the smiling face had disappeared.

Deciding there was nothing to panic about, she put the car into Reverse and backed onto the street. But moments later as she headed into the already busy Fort Worth traffic, she realized her hands were slick with sweat and she was trembling from head to toe.

You’re cracking up, Claudia. Really and truly cracking up.

By lunchtime Claudia had more or less put the incident of the vision out of her mind. At least she thought she had until she met up with her friend, Liz, in the school cafeteria.

Secretary to one of the assistant principals, the high-spirited redhead who was slightly older than Claudia was the exact opposite of her quiet nature. Even so, they’d been pals from the first day they’d met two years ago.

Now as the women inched through the serving line, Liz’s worried stare had Claudia clutching an unwitting hand to her throat.

“What in heck is wrong with you?” she asked.

“Me? Nothing. Why?”

Liz said, “You look like the bride of Frankenstein right after she was shocked to life.”

Trying her best to joke away Liz’s concern, Claudia touched a hand to her smooth brown hair. “Why? Have I suddenly developed two gray streaks?”

“No. You look totally drained.”

“That shouldn’t be surprising. This is finals week, Liz. Where have you been?”

“Don’t play cute with me. This job never gets you down. Although, I don’t know why. If I had to deal with some of the lazy, insubordinate students that come through Judith’s office, I’d throw my hands up and scream. You, on the other hand, have a knack for bringing out the better side of these kids.”

After exiting the serving line the two women took a seat at a vacant table. Immediately, Liz dug into her plate of chicken pot pie, but as soon as she realized Claudia was ignoring her food, she looked up in silent question.

“Something happened to me this morning, Liz,” Claudia announced with grim resolve. “I think I’m going crazy.”

Liz chuckled. “Aren’t we all.”

Urgently, Claudia leaned forward and lowered her voice. “No. I mean, really crazy. Like delusional. I think…I need to make a doctor’s appointment for a checkup.”

Hearing the concern in her friend’s voice, Liz frowned. “Why? What happened?”

“I had visions of a man.”

Liz didn’t just chuckle this time, she outright laughed. “I’d be more worried if you weren’t having visions of a man,” she finally managed to say.

Frustrated, Claudia picked up her fork and jabbed at the lump of meat loaf on her plate. “I’m not talking about having a fantasy of the opposite sex, Liz. This was something totally different. This was a sharp, clear image that came to me out of the blue. No…it wasn’t exactly out of the blue. I got dizzy first and then—” A trembling deep inside her made it difficult to go on. She gripped the fork and tried to breathe normally. “This face appeared.”

“Aha! You got dizzy,” Liz repeated with confidence. “See, there’s a physical reason for this. And I’d say it was stress. Or it could be hormonal. Maybe your body is trying to tell you that you need a mate.” She studied Claudia with renewed thoughtfulness. “Did you recognize this man?”

“No.”

“Hmm. How strange. Was he nice?”

Claudia forked a piece of meat loaf to her mouth and chewed automatically. She didn’t want to think about the man. Or the incident. The whole thing had been completely out of the ordinary and totally frightening.

“What do you mean by ‘nice’? I’m not so far gone that I tried to talk to the man, Liz!”

Her friend waved an impatient hand at her. “I meant was his image appealing or did you get the feeling he was not someone you’d want lurking around you?”

Claudia’s head tilted to one side as she considered Liz’s question. “I was too stunned to think much. But I guess he was…nice. Not evil.” She shook her head and groaned with disbelief. “What am I doing? I’m a science teacher! My job is to teach students about logical reasons. For instance, the shamrock is green because of chlorophyll, not because some Irish elf painted it that way. A rainbow is created by refraction and reflection of sunlight in raindrops. It’s not some magical guide to a pot of gold. And a vision—well, there’s always an explanation for them, too.”

“Well, I’ll be hanged,” Liz said with exaggerated disappointment. “I guess I must have had too many absent days in science class. Here I’ve been chasing after rainbows, believing I was going to find some gold at one end.”

“This isn’t funny,” Claudia snapped.

Claudia’s testiness caused the other woman’s brows to arch. “I wasn’t trying to be funny. In fact, I feel sorry for you, Claudia.”

Claudia’s mouth gaped open. Sympathy was the last thing she expected from Liz. “Sorry! I don’t want that, either! I want—” She made a frustrated gesture with her hand. “I want explanations!”

Liz popped a cherry tomato into her mouth and chewed with pleasure before she replied, “Look, Claudia, one of these days you’re going to learn that there are mystical, magical powers at work in our lives. And they’re something that can’t be analyzed or reasoned out in a science lab.”

Claudia huffed out a breath. “Well, you believe what you want. As for me, I’m sticking to my science lab. Or a doctor’s office!”

A week later Claudia walked out of the doctor’s office and headed home without a prescription or a concrete explanation for the vision she’d had or the ones that had subsequently followed these past few days.

Physically there was nothing ailing her, the doctor had assured her. He’d went on to suggest that she take a long vacation to rest her mind from the stress of her job and later, if the visions continued, she could always make an appointment with a psychiatrist.

A psychiatrist! Was she really becoming that emotionally unhinged? There wasn’t any reason for it! She was an average young woman with a normal life, she reasoned with herself. Except that she spent odd times out of the day looking at a man she’d never seen in her life. And to make matters worse, the images were growing more detailed. The man appeared to be wearing some sort of uniform with a tie. Several times she’d pictured a stretch of water and a boat. There had also been a big white house with a widow’s walk. None of it seemed to tie together or to make any sense.

Inside her apartment, she went straight to her computer and logged on to the Internet. She was going to take her doctor’s advice and buy plane tickets to Cancun. A few days’ rest might be exactly what she needed.

A few days with a man is what you need, Claudia.

The words zinged through her head so quickly she didn’t know where they came from. But the suggestion sounded suspiciously like something her grandmother would have said to her.

Dear Lord, was she starting to hear voices now along with seeing things? she wondered wildly.

Shaking her head, she glanced down at her hands resting on the keyboard. Betty Fay’s opal ring was still there on her hand and for long moments Claudia studied the piece of jewelry as though it was a piece of bacteria on a microscopic slide. At one time she’d believed the ring had led her to Anthony. She’d believed it so strongly that she’d refused to give up on their rocky relationship. It had taken proof of his infidelity to finally make her see the light. But by then she’d already endured a great deal of pain and humiliation.

Claudia would be a fool to think the ring had anything to do with her visions. To even consider it would be admitting that she still believed the piece of jewelry carried some sort of magical power. And she didn’t believe in such things! It was pure hogwash!

But the first vision occurred the morning after she’d starting wearing the ring again, she argued with herself. What would happen if she took it off? Maybe that would fix her problem. Not a vacation in Cancun!

A week later Claudia smiled happily at Liz. “I’m fixed! I’m cured. No more visions.”

“I wondered why you sounded so chipper when you picked up the phone this morning. And I didn’t have to do much begging to get you to come over for a swim.”

The two women had already made a few laps around the in-ground pool in Liz’s backyard. They were now stretched out in lounge chairs and sipping iced lemonade.

“You can’t imagine what a relief it is to know you’re not losing your sanity, Liz. I wasn’t relishing the idea of getting on a psychiatrist’s couch.”

“So what happened?” Liz asked. “How do you know you’re cured?”

The hot sun was seeping into Claudia’s muscles, relaxing them from the workout in the cool water. For the first time in days she felt like a whole person again. “Because I haven’t seen him anymore. Not since I took off Gran’s ring and that’s been a week ago. Before, I was seeing him on a daily basis.”

Frowning, Liz sat up and swung her legs over the side of the lounge. “You mean to tell me that taking off a ring stopped your visions? That’s hard to swallow. Even from somebody who chases after rainbows.”

“I’d be the first one to admit it sounds farfetched, but I can’t dispute the facts. No ring, no visions,” Claudia told her.

“Hmm. Could be coincidental.”

Now it was Claudia’s turn to frown. “What is this? You sound like you don’t want me to be cured.”

“It’s not that. I’m just wondering—aren’t you the teeniest bit curious as to why this ring makes you see things? Looks to me like you’re just avoiding the problem. Not curing it.”

Claudia groaned loudly. “Oh, brother! Why should a person go around asking for trouble? School has just ended. I have the summer ahead to relax. I don’t want to spend it having some strange man pop up in my vision at any given moment.”

“It was only two weeks ago that you were telling me that as a science teacher you liked to have reasons and explanations. Well? Don’t you want them now?”

Claudia glanced at the pool of cool, glittering water. “No. I—I’m perfectly content to let things be. The visions were…” She swallowed and glanced back at her friend. “Frankly, they were too disturbing, Liz. There was something—oh, I don’t know—intimate about the whole thing. I kept getting the feeling that this man knows me. In here.” She tapped the middle of her chest, then shook her head. “It was eerie. I—I’ve decided the best thing for me to do is to get rid of the ring. So far it’s brought nothing but misery to my life.” Liz gasped. “Oh, no, Claudia! It’s a precious memento of your grandmother’s. Besides, without it you might never figure out any of this.”

“Figure it out?” Claudia repeated in disbelief. “I just want to forget it!”

“Coward!”

“I’m not!”

“Prove it,” Liz dared.

San Antonio. It wasn’t exactly Cancun, but for now Claudia considered it as a first step on her quest to find the man who’d been plaguing her waking hours ever since she’d returned the opal to her finger.

From her third-floor hotel room, she stared down at the Paseo del Rio winding its way through the city. Eighty-degree weather was mild for early June in south Texas and Claudia wished she could enjoy it with a boat ride or a drink at one of the outside cafés on the river walk. She wished she could do anything besides meet with a man she’d never laid eyes on. Especially when she had no idea how to explain the reasons that had prompted her to make this search. But she hadn’t come to San Antonio on a pleasure trip and the sooner she got this job over with, the better she would feel.

Claudia found the office building in the old downtown part of the city a few blocks away from the famous Alamo. Mr. Hayden Bedford. He owned a roustabout company and from what she gathered from the plush complex of offices, a very profitable one. But then, most businesses that had anything to do with the oil field were money-makers. With the right man at the helm, she corrected herself.

Apparently Mr. Bedford knew his business. He just didn’t know Claudia Westfield. And from the tone of his secretary when Claudia had called to schedule a meeting, he didn’t want to know her. But somehow she’d managed to convince the older woman to give her an appointment anyway.

Now that the time was here, Claudia realized her mouth was dry and her heart was thud, thud, thudding at an unhealthy speed. Which was totally out of character. She wasn’t a nervous person. Until now. And the suspicious, almost dour looks Mr. Bedford’s secretary was throwing her way didn’t help matters.

Damn it, Gran. This ring of yours is ruining me!

“All right, Ms. Westfield. Mr. Bedford can see you now.”

Rising from her seat, Claudia brushed at the wrinkles in her skirt then headed toward a wooden door with a gold nameplate attached at eye level.

After knocking lightly, she stepped inside.

“Just a moment. I’ve got to get this damn light off my desk.”

The deep male voice was coming from a man standing at the window, his back to her. At the moment he was adjusting the blinds so that the glaring afternoon sun tilted toward the ceiling rather than at him and the massive oak desk.

Claudia stood in the middle of the room, waiting for him to turn around. As the seconds ticked by she noticed he was dressed as a rancher rather than a businessman. Starched jeans. White tailored shirt, sleeves rolled back against his forearms. A dark leather belt studded with Texas lone stars. His dark wavy hair told her he was still young and his big, muscular body told her that he didn’t always sit behind a desk.

“There. That’s better,” he said, then turned to face her.

Claudia stared and wondered if she was going to faint. Her knees were turning to sponges and there was a faint buzzing in her ears.

“You!” she said weakly.

Baffled by her reaction, he stepped around the desk, all the while keeping a careful eye on her pale face. “I’m Hayden Bedford,” he introduced himself. “Are you Ms. Westfield?”

She nodded and attempted to lick her dry lips. “Yes. Yes, I am,” she said, then offered him her hand. “I’m sorry. I’m sure I must look like a fool, but I…wasn’t expecting to recognize you.”