Slow Waltz Across Texas

Clayton slammed his fist against the railing, then whirled to face Rena. “Haven’t I provided you with a home, seen that you and the kids have everything you need, everything you could possibly want? What the hell is it you expect from me?”

Rena stared at him, her eyes filling with tears. Then she dragged the back of her hand across her cheek and gave her chin a lift. “Nothing,” she said and turned for the door. “Absolutely nothing.”

Something in her voice—a certainty of purpose, a calmness despite the earlier storm—chilled Clayton to the bone. This wasn’t some dramatic stunt she was pulling in order to get his attention. She really intended to leave him!

But Clayton wasn’t a four-time rodeo world champion for nothing. He knew how to win his heart’s desire…and his heart had never desired anything more than his wife….

The toughest men in Texas

are about to be tamed!

Dear Reader,

As we celebrate Silhouette’s 20th anniversary year as a romance publisher, we invite you to welcome in the fall season with our latest six powerful, passionate, provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire!

In September’s MAN OF THE MONTH, fabulous Peggy Moreland offers a Slow Waltz Across Texas. In order to win his wife back, a rugged Texas cowboy must learn to let love into his heart. Popular author Jennifer Greene delivers a special treat for you with Rock Solid, which is part of the highly sensual Desire promotion, BODY & SOUL.

Maureen Child’s exciting miniseries, BACHELOR BATTALION, continues with The Next Santini Bride, a responsible single mom who cuts loose with a handsome Marine. The next installment of the provocative Desire miniseries FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE GROOMS is Mail-Order Cinderella by Kathryn Jensen, in which a plain-Jane librarian seeks a husband through a matchmaking service and winds up with a Fortune! Ryanne Corey returns to Desire with a Lady with a Past, whose true love woos her with a chocolate picnic. And a nurse loses her virginity to a doctor in a night of passion, only to find out the next day that her lover is her new boss, in Doctor for Keeps by Kristi Gold.

Be sure to indulge yourself this autumn by reading all six of these tantalizing titles from Silhouette Desire!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Slow Waltz Across Texas

Peggy Moreland

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Knowing that I’ve entertained a reader or fulfilled a reader’s

expectations is what makes the hours of sitting in front of a

computer monitor worthwhile. I’d like to dedicate this book to

four readers who have always taken the time to write and tell

me that they’ve enjoyed my stories: Daisella Vann,

Bonnie Hendricks, Kathleen Stone and Christy Jenkins.

Thank you, ladies, for the kind words, the unflagging support

and the encouragement you’ve offered throughout the years.

PEGGY MORELAND

published her first romance with Silhouette in 1989 and continues to delight readers with stories set in her home state of Texas. Winner of the National Readers’ Choice Award, a nominee for the Romantic Times Magazine Reviewer’s Choice Award and a finalist for the prestigious RITA Award, Peggy has appeared on the USA Today and Waldenbooks bestseller lists. When not writing, she enjoys spending time at the farm riding her quarter horse, Lo-Jump. She, her husband and three children make their home in Round Rock, Texas. You may write to Peggy at P.O. Box 2453, Round Rock, TX 78680-2453.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Epilogue

One

He could see it, almost feel it, as he watched them.

He imagined calling out their names. Hey, Brittany! Brandon! His children turning to him, their eyes going wide, their surprise upon seeing their daddy quickly turning to excitement. They would run down the sidewalk, squealing, their chunky little legs churning, their tiny arms flung wide in welcome. Laughing, he would scoop them up in a big bear hug and swing them around and around until they were all three dizzy.

He could see it. Almost feel it.

Almost.

But a fear learned at an early age of exposing his feelings and being rejected kept Clayton from putting the scene he envisioned to the test.

Instead he strode across the street to the park where the twins played, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets, his expression shadowed by his cowboy hat, his eyes—as well as his emotions—concealed behind dark aviator sunglasses. He came to a stop not six feet from the sandbox where the twins were carrying on a game of tug-of-war with a bright red sand bucket.

“My turn,” four-year-old Brittany cried, giving the bucket a determined tug.

“No, mine,” her twin brother, Brandon, argued stubbornly, and yanked right back.

The plastic sand bucket looked as if it would snap any minute from the pressure placed on it by two sets of warring hands.

“Can’t you two share?”

Clayton didn’t realize how gruffly he’d spoken the question until two little heads whipped around to peer up at him, two sets of brown eyes wide with fear. They released their holds on the bucket and the loss of tension sent both toppling over backward in opposite directions. He stooped and lifted them from the sand, tucking one under each arm, as if they were sacks of feed.

“Clayton! What do you think you’re doing?”

He turned to see his wife charging across the park’s carefully manicured grass toward him, her face flushed with anger. When had she cut her hair? he wondered in dismay. That beautiful blond mane. Gone.

Shocked by the dramatic change the new style made in her appearance, he let his gaze drift down her length, noting the body-hugging white T-shirt tucked into crisp khaki shorts, and the stretch of long, tanned legs. And when had she managed to lose that last ten, stubborn pounds she’d carried since the twins’ birth? he asked himself. He tried to remember the last time he’d seen her. Had it been a month? Two? Or closer to three?

She reached him and snatched his daughter from his arms, her brown eyes dark with fury.

And that’s when he noticed that her wedding ring was missing—the simple gold band he’d bought her in the jewelry store right down the street from the courthouse where they’d married. The shock he’d felt upon seeing the changes in her appearance quickly gave way to icy-cold dread.

Rena had never taken off her wedding band before. Not even when the twins were born. He could still remember her stubborn refusal to remove it when the nurses at the hospital had demanded she take it off before wheeling her into the delivery room. With the twins’ birth imminent, a compromise had quickly been reached, and the nurses had wound surgical tape around the ring, sealing it against her finger.

Realizing the significance of the missing ring, Clayton swallowed hard and shifted his gaze to hers to find her still glaring at him.

She quickly shifted Brittany to her hip and reached for Brandon. But Clayton turned away, preventing her from taking his son from him, as well. He hefted the boy up into his arms, but kept his gaze on his wife. “Hello, Rena.”

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What are you doing here, Clayton?”

“I came to take my family back home where they belong.”

Brittany clapped a palm against her mother’s cheek and forced her face to hers. “Are we goin’ home, Mommy?” she asked, her eyes wide with hope.

Rena caught her daughter’s hand in hers and pressed a kiss against the center of the tiny palm, before offering her a soft smile of regret. “No, darling.”

Brittany pushed her lips out into a pout. “But I wanna go home.”

“Me, too,” Brandon complained, echoing his sister’s sentiments.

Rena leaned over and lovingly brushed a lock of blond hair from her son’s forehead. “But the ranch isn’t our home any longer,” she reminded him gently. “Remember? We’re staying with Nonnie and Pawpaw for a few days, then we’re moving to a home of our own.”

Brandon slipped an arm around Clayton’s neck. “But what about Daddy?” he asked uncertainly. “Isn’t he going to move with us, too?”

Rena’s gaze flicked to Clayton’s, then quickly back to her son’s. “No, sweetheart,” she said gently, though Clayton was sure he heard a quaver in her voice. “Daddy’s home is at the ranch.”

Brittany thrust out her lower lip and turned to look at her father. “But the ranch is our home, too, isn’t it, Daddy?”

Clayton cleared his throat, not sure he could work a sound past the emotion that tightened his throat. “It sure is, baby.”

Rena snapped her gaze to his, and he could see the anger, the resentment in the brown depths. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is, Clayton,” she warned in a low voice.

He lifted a shoulder. “You’re the one who uprooted the kids. Not me.”

Brittany’s hand pressed against her mother’s cheek again, turning her face to hers. “What’s uprooted mean, Mommy?”

Forcing a smile for her daughter’s sake, Rena tickled Brittany’s tummy, making her giggle. “It means I dug you up out of the dirt like I would a tree,” she teased, then swung her daughter up high in the air, making her squeal.

“Do me, Mommy!” Brandon cried, stretching his arms out to his mother. Rena took him from Clayton and wrapped her arms around both her children, clutching them to her breasts. She spun in a fast, dizzying circle, until all three collapsed onto the soft grass in a tangle of legs and arms, laughing.

Clayton tucked his own empty hands beneath his armpits and watched his wife and children roll around on the grass, feeling like a kid with his nose pressed up against the candy store window, with no means to purchase the sweets displayed inside. He wanted so badly to join them, to romp and play with them on the sweet-smelling grass.

But a lifetime of suppressing his feelings, of standing on the sidelines and wishing, his heart near bursting with the need to feel loved, to feel a part of a family, kept Clayton’s boots glued to that spot of grass where he stood, his hands, empty and aching, still tucked tightly beneath his armpits.

Clayton stood on the patio of his in-laws’ house, his hands shoved deeply into his pockets, staring up at the dark sky. The night was unseasonably cool, but he preferred the chill in the air to the frigid looks he received inside the house. His in-laws didn’t care for him. Never had. But then, he didn’t care much for them, either.

With a weary sigh, he dropped his chin to his chest and settled his gaze on the toe of his boot as he chipped at the patio’s gray slate surface. He supposed he could understand their coolness. They’d had big plans for their only daughter. A life of luxury and refinement much like their own.

And she’d gone off and gotten herself knocked up by some rodeo cowboy.

Yeah, he thought, his sigh heavier this time as he turned his gaze up to the moon. He supposed he could understand the Palmers’ dislike for him.

The French door behind him opened, and he tensed as he listened to the soft tread of footsteps approaching. He knew without looking it was Rena. The scent of her reached him first, and he inhaled deeply, quietly, savoring it. Lord, but he loved the smell of her. Sweet. Feminine. Seductive.

She came to a stop beside him and tipped her face up to the stars, hugging her arms tightly beneath her breasts. “It’s cold out here,” she said with a shiver.

Clayton glanced her way, then shrugged out of his jacket and turned to drape it around her shoulders. She looked up at him in surprise at the gesture, then slowly caught the lapels of the jacket and pulled them around her. He wasn’t sure if it was the suddenness of his movement or the kindness in the act that drew her surprised look. But he wouldn’t ask. He never did. He’d learned years ago never to question. The answers almost always ended up hurting.

When the silence continued to stretch between them, she turned her face away, her mouth dipping into a frown as if he’d disappointed her somehow. Stifling yet another sigh, Clayton turned his gaze back to the sky. They stood side by side though not touching, both staring at the dark star-studded sky. Minutes ticked by, the silence growing heavier and heavier between them.

“Clayton, I—”

“Rena, I—”

They spoke simultaneously, their words tangling. They glanced at each other, then away again, both pressing their lips together in annoyance.

“Go ahead,” Clayton said gruffly. “You first.”

Rena gave her chin a stubborn lift. “No, you,” she insisted. “I’ve had my say.”

Clayton angled his head to look at her, his eyes wide. “You’ve had your say?” he repeated. “A voice mail message telling me that you’re leaving me and taking the kids with you is all you have to say to me after more than four years of marriage?”

She pulled the jacket more closely around her, refusing to look at him. “It’s more than you’ve had to say to me in months.”

He brought his hands to his hips as he glared down at her. “Maybe so, but I wasn’t planning on leaving you,” he said, first thrusting his thumb against his chest, then leveling an accusing finger at her. “And if I was, I sure as hell would’ve given you more warning than a lousy voice mail message.”

Infuriated that he would assume the part of the injured party in their relationship, Rena whirled on him. “And what kind of warning would you have liked, Clayton? Would you have preferred that I’d kicked and screamed and thrown temper tantrums, demanding that you come home so that I could tell you in person that I was leaving you?”

“You’re not that kind of woman. You don’t throw fits. Never have.”

Her eyes blazed with newfound fury. “And how would you know what kind of woman I am? You were always off at another rodeo and never stayed around long enough to find out.” She gave his chest a push and, off balance, he stumbled back a step. She surged forward. “But then, maybe you would have preferred that I loaded up the kids and chased you across the country so that I could tell you face-to-face that I was leaving you. Maybe you would have enjoyed a more public scene than the privacy of a voice mail message.”

When she reached out to give him another angry shove, he stood his ground and grabbed her hand, capturing it in his. “I didn’t expect you do anything but stay at home where you belong.”

“Where I belong?” she repeated incredulously, then wrenched free of his grasp and planted her hands on her hips. “I’m not some cow, that you can stick in a pasture and expect to stay put while you go off and do whatever it is you do when you’re gone. I’m a woman, and I have feelings, needs. I—”

She felt the tears coming and clamped her lips tightly together, refusing to give in to them. When she was sure she had them under control, that she wouldn’t humiliate herself by crying in front of him, she dropped her hands to her sides in defeat. “You don’t care anything for me, Clayton. You never did.”

“I married you, didn’t I! I gave those kids my name.”

She staggered back a step as if he’d struck her, the blood draining from her face.

Realizing too late that he’d hurt her with the carelessly spoken words, he dropped down onto one of the patio chairs and, groaning, buried his face in his hands. He dug the heels of his hands into his forehead, then slowly raked his fingers up through his hair as he lifted his face to look at her. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, Rena.”

“Yes, Clayton,” she whispered, unable to keep the tremble, the hurt, from her voice, “I think you did. For the first time in your life, I think you said exactly what you feel.” Flinging off his jacket, she turned on her heel and strode for the patio door, slamming it behind her.

Rather than ask Rena’s parents for permission to stay in their guest bedroom so that he could be near his wife and kids, Clayton settled his horse in a stall at a boarding facility he’d used once before on a trip to Oklahoma, then checked himself into a motel on the edge of town. The accommodations weren’t anything fancy, nothing like the guest bedroom in the Palmers’ home with its canopied bed and luxurious private bath. But the sparse motel room had one thing going for it. He could rest there, knowing that there wouldn’t be anyone around watching his every move, analyzing his every word and finding him lacking.

Feeling the frustration rising again, he shrugged off his jacket, then dropped down on the bed and yanked the jacket across his spread knees.

I married you, didn’t I? I gave those kids my name.

Bracing his elbows on his thighs, he dragged his hands slowly down his face, groaning, as he remembered his words to his wife. Why was it that, lately, every time he opened his mouth around Rena, it seemed he stuck his foot in it?

He propped his chin on his fists and stared at the bare wall opposite him. He didn’t have an answer to the question. Hell, he thought, surging to his feet and tossing the jacket aside. He didn’t have any answers at all. He paced the length of the room and back, a hand cupped around the base of his neck, massaging at the tension there.

The voice mail she’d left him informing him that she was leaving him had come as a shock. But that blow hadn’t been anything compared to the one he’d received when he’d returned to their ranch and discovered Rena and the kids were already gone.

He stopped in front of the door and gulped back a sob, hearing again the eerie silence that had greeted him when he’d stepped inside the house, the hollow echo of his footsteps in rooms once filled with his children’s furniture and toys, the squeal of their laughter.

Rena had been right, he admitted miserably, in saying he’d never been around much. Riding the rodeo circuit left little time for visits home. But in spite of his absences he’d always found comfort in knowing that his home was there for him, as were Rena and the kids, waiting for his return. And for a man who had never had a home or a family, the ranch had provided a sense of security he’d desperately needed.

A security it appeared he was about to lose.

He couldn’t lose his home and family, he told himself, feeling the panic squeezing at his chest, the loss already weighing heavy on his heart. He couldn’t. Rena and the kids meant everything to him. They were his life, his reason for living.

Without them he was nothing.

Nothing.

Rena lay on her side, her knees drawn to her chest, a corner of the sheet pressed tightly against her lips. Hot, silent tears saturated the pillow beneath her cheek.

She’d done the right thing, she told herself. She’d had to leave Clayton. She couldn’t go on living with him the way things were and continue to pretend that nothing was wrong. Not with him gone all the time and her left alone on the ranch with the children.

Not without his love to keep her company during the long, lonely nights when he was away.

She felt a sob rising and pressed the sheet more tightly against her lips to choke it back.

He didn’t love her. He couldn’t. If he did, he would come home more often, would want to spend more time with her and the twins. As it was, he was gone weeks at a time, never even bothering to call and check on her or their children. And even when he was at home, she reminded herself tearfully, he wasn’t there, at least not emotionally. Not for her.

When he was at the ranch, which seemed to occur less and less frequently, he took care of what business needed his attention, then he’d leave again. And while he was there, he never looked at her, never talked to her, nor did he ever listen when she tried to talk to him.

And he never touched her anymore…except when they were in bed.

As a result, she felt empty inside, drained, as if she were a well that was drawn from time and time again, but with no one to replenish her emotional supply. She was dry, empty and felt as if she had nothing left to offer those who needed her most. Her children.

She rolled to her back, clutching the sheet to her breasts, and stared at the shadows dancing on the ceiling overhead. Was it so wrong to want Clayton’s attention? she asked herself. To need it? To even demand it? She was his wife, after all, and there was no one else to give her the things she needed. And that realization was what had finally pushed her into leaving him, she knew.

She had no one.

Yet she still had needs.

She felt the familiar ache in her breasts beneath the weight of her arms. How long had it been since he had touched her there? Swept his tongue across her nipples? Suckled at her breasts? How long since he had lain with her, the heat of his body warming hers, his comforting weight pressing her more deeply into the bed they shared so rarely? How long since he’d buried himself in her? Filled her with his seed?

The ache spread, throbbing to life between her legs. Biting back a sob, she rolled to her side again.

Yes, she thought as the tears scalded her throat.

Rena Rankin still had needs.

Stretched out on one of the cushioned lounge chairs beside her parents’ pool, Rena crossed her legs at the ankles and took a sip of her lemonade.

“So, are you going home with him?”

Rena shook her head at her friend Megan’s question, then set her glass of lemonade on the wrought-iron table between them. “No, that wouldn’t solve anything.”

Megan drew back, looking at Rena in dismay. “Surely you aren’t planning on staying here with your parents?”

Rena cast a glance over her shoulder at the stately two-story mansion behind them with its glistening mullioned windows, the long stretch of French doors that lined the curved patio, the carefully manicured shrubs that hugged the mauve stone walls and the urns spilling with brightly colored flowers, which changed almost magically with the seasons. Wealth. Perfection. Success. Those were the images her parents’ home drew; the same images to which they had tried to make their only daughter conform. The same images she’d wanted so desperately to escape as a young, single woman. With a shudder she glanced away. “No, not permanently. Just for a few days.”

Megan stretched out a hand and took Rena’s, squeezing it within her own. “Oh, Rena,” she murmured, her eyes filled with concern, “are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Honestly?” At Megan’s earnest nod, Rena sighed and withdrew her hand from her friend’s. She pressed her head back against the plump cushions and stared blindly up at the clouds floating across the sky overhead. “No, but I can’t go on living with Clayton. Not with the way things are between us.”

“But you love Clayton! I know you do.”

Rena lifted a shoulder. “I thought I did. But now…I’m not sure anymore.”

“Of course you love him! And he loves you!”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“How do you know that? Has he told you that he doesn’t?”

Rena snorted indelicately. “No, but Clayton rarely says anything. Or at least, not to me.”

“Then you can’t possibly know that he doesn’t love you.”