They Live In Two Separate Worlds, But Share The Same Desire

Bess Samson was raised in privilege, but always had a thing for Cade Hollister, the rough-and-tumble cowboy next door, even ignoring her controlling, class-conscious mother’s warning to stay away from him. But he turned her down—hard. Humiliated, she grew up and moved on, but never truly gave up hope.

Cade has secretly always adored Bess—but is filled with disdain for the Samsons’ wealth. Once, the families had been friends, until dark secrets and scandal caused a bitter rift, and now her family won’t let him forget his blue-collar roots. But when an accident nearly costs Bess her life, the proud rancher must finally fight for the love he’s never forgotten.

Denim and Lace

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Dear Reader,

Denim and Lace is one of my favorite novels. It is so lovely to see it back in print again, and in ebook form for the first time! It was written in 1990. That was still a time when many people smoked and were allowed to in hospital waiting rooms. It was so much a part of our society that nobody thought anything about it. Many phrases we used, many things we did, were commonplace. Those same things would be surprising to the generations that have come up since then.

I hope you enjoy the book. It is a bittersweet one. A socialite in love with a cowboy who fought his feelings for her, hoping to become rich enough to win her. Then, years later, a passionate encounter, leading to a marriage with a tragic secret kept too long. Cade is one of my favorite heroes, because you can see the insecurities and the flaws along with the sterling character he projects. Bess was rich and lost everything. She was left with her mother, who refused to give up her wild spending sprees and expected Bess to pay for them on her salary at an ad agency. Bess learns to stand on her own two feet and grows strong in adversity. As the story unwinds, she becomes more than a match for fiery Cade.

I loved telling this story. It was fun, too, mentally reliving the days in which I wrote it. Our son was ten years old when it appeared. He was interviewed by a national news reporter, who asked how he liked his mother’s romance books. His answer was one word: Yuck! James and I almost died laughing at that totally off-the-wall response. Of course, for Christmas, our little boy got sticks and stones... Just kidding. He got an Imperial Walker from the Star Wars collection, and a Boba Fett, to boot!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoy it. And God bless everyone!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

Dear Reader

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE MORNING COFFEE was well under way, and the bride-to-be looked as if she’d stepped from the pages of Vogue. But at least one of the guests was trying her best not to look bored to death as she stood amid the muted noises of conversation and coffee being served. These were familiar sounds to Elizabeth Ann Samson—the rattle of delicate rose-patterned china cups in their elegant thin saucers, the rustle of linen napkins, the whisper of skin against silk and wool. She smiled a little, thinking how quickly she’d trade those luxurious sounds for the hiss of coffee boiling over on a campfire and being poured into a cracked white mug. But there was no use hoping for that kind of miracle. Cowboys and debutantes didn’t mix. Everyone said so, especially her mother, Gussie. And it didn’t make a bit of difference that Cade Hollister had somehow scraped up ten thousand dollars in cash to invest in her father’s newest real-estate deal. That wouldn’t admit him to the elegant drawing room or to any party at the Samson mansion that Bess might invite him to. Bess was too shy to invite him, in the first place. And in the second, he had no use for her. He’d made that very clear three years ago, in a way that still made her faintly nervous around him. But love was inexplicable. It seemed to thrive on rejection. Hers must, she mused silently, because nothing Cade said or did stopped her from wanting him...

“Are you going to Bermuda with us in the spring, Bess?” Nita Cain interrupted her thoughts with a smile. “We thought we might rent a villa and get in some deep-sea fishing.”

“I don’t know,” Bess said as she balanced her cup of black coffee in its saucer. “Mother hasn’t mentioned what she wants to do yet.”

“Can’t you go on vacation without her, just once?” Nita coaxed. “There are several well-placed businessmen on our stretch of beach, and you look sensational in a bikini.”

Bess knew exactly what Nita was saying. The older girl had affairs with elegance and ease, and she was beautiful enough to attract any man she liked. She thought Bess was missing out on life, and she wanted to help her out of her rut. But it wouldn’t work. Bess didn’t have affairs, because the only man she’d ever wanted or ever would want was Cade. Anyone else would be just a poor substitute. Besides, she thought, she’d never match Nita for beauty, even if she tried to be a swinger.

Nita was dark and sultry and outgoing. Bess was tall and lanky and shy. She had shoulder-length brown hair with delicate blond highlights, and it waved toward her face and down her back with delightful fullness. She had soft brown eyes and a complexion that any model would have killed for, but her shyness kept men from looking at her too hard. She didn’t have spirit or grace, because Gussie had those things and didn’t like competition from her only child. So Bess stayed in the background, as she’d been trained to do, speaking when spoken to and learning French and etiquette and how to plan a banquet when she’d much rather have been riding alongside Cade when he was rounding up calves at Lariat, the Hollisters’ moderately successful cow-calf operation. It was a big ranch, but not modern. It was pretty much the same as it had been over a hundred years ago when one of Cade’s ancestors came to Texas looking for trouble and found longhorn cattle instead.

“I can’t go without Mother,” Bess said, bringing herself back from the dreams again. “She’d be lonely.”

“She could go, too, and take your father with her.”

Bess laughed softly. “My father doesn’t take vacations. He’s much too busy. Anyway, he’s been in something of a bind just lately. We’re all hoping his new real-estate project will go over well and take the worry lines out of his face. How was Rio?”

Nita spent the next ten minutes raving over the Italian count she’d met in that fabled city and discussing the delights of nude bathing in the count’s private pool. Bess sighed without meaning to. She’d never gone bathing in the nude or had an affair or done any of the modern things that with-it young women did. She was as sheltered as a nun. Gussie led and she followed. Sometimes she wondered why, but she always did it. That seemed to irritate Cade more than anything, that Gussie got her own way and Bess never argued. But Cade didn’t want Bess. He’d made that clear three years ago, when Bess had turned twenty, and in a way, it was just as well. Gussie had bigger fish than Cade in mind for her daughter. She disliked Cade and made no secret of it, although Bess had never found out why. Probably it was because the Hollisters lived in an old house with worn carpets and linoleum and drove used cars and never seemed to get ahead. Cade dressed in worn denim and leather boots, and he always smelled of calf and tobacco. The men Bess was allowed to date smelled of Pierre Cardin cologne and brandy and imported cigars. She sighed. She’d have traded them all for one hour in Cade’s arms.

She turned, idly scanning the crowded room. This coffee was for a newly engaged socialite. It was one of a round of coffees Bess had been to lately, and they were as boring as her life. Drinking coffee from old china stirred with silver spoons, aimlessly passing the time talking about holiday resorts and investments and the latest styles. And outside those immaculately clean windows, real life in the South Texas brush country was passing them all by. Real people lived in that world, which Bess had only caught a glimpse of. Real people who worked for a living, challenged the land and the weather, wore old clothes and drove old trucks and went to church on Sunday.

Bess glanced at Nita and wondered if she’d ever been inside a church except during the ceremony of one of her three failed marriages. Bess had gone once or twice, but she never seemed to find a place where she felt comfortable. The Hollisters were Baptist. They went to the same church where Cade’s grandfather had been a deacon, and everyone knew and respected the family. They might not be rich, but they were well-thought-of. Sometimes, Bess thought, that might be worth a lot more than a big account.

Several minutes later she escaped out the door and climbed behind the wheel of her silver Jaguar XJ-S, sinking into the leather seat with a long breath of relief. At least here she felt at home, out in the country with no one to tell her what to do. It was a nice change from the house.

She headed home, but as she passed the dirt road that led to the Hollister homestead, she saw three calves wandering free of the cattle grid. Her brown eyes narrowed as she noticed a break in the fence. She scouted the horizon, but there was no one in sight. Turning onto the dirt road, she told herself that it was a necessary trip, not just an excuse to see Cade. It wouldn’t do for the Hollisters to lose even one calf with the cattle market down so far because of the continuing drought. Hay had been precious and still was, and the calf crop was dropping early, because it was February and a month before Cade’s cows usually dropped their calves. These little ones were obviously the product of cows who’d ignored Cade’s rigid breeding program. She smiled to herself, thinking how brave those cows were, to defy him for love.

She was getting silly, she told herself as she wheeled into the yard, where chickens scurried to get out of her way. Her eyes moved lovingly over the big two-story clapboard house with its long porch. A weathered porch swing and two rocking chairs rested there, but only Elise Hollister, Cade’s mother, ever had time to sit in them. Cade and Robert, his youngest brother, were always out on the ranch somewhere working. Gary, the middle brother, kept the books for the outfit, and Elise took in sewing to augment the money Cade won at rodeos. He was a top hand with a rope, and he’d made a lot of money on the rodeo circuit in calf roping and team roping. He was good at bareback bronc riding and steer riding, as well. Bess worried about him. Last time, at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas in December, he’d pulled a tendon in his leg and it had been weeks before he could walk without a limp. He had scars all over his arms and chest from the falls he’d taken and a couple of mended bones, as well. But without that extra money, they’d never have made their mortgage payments. Cade was a keen businessman, and since his father’s death years ago he’d had the bulk of the responsibility for the ranch. It had aged him. He was only thirty-four, but he seemed mature and very adult, even hard, to Bess. Not that it affected her feelings for him. Nothing ever seemed to change that sad fact.

She got out of the Jaguar, pausing to pet Laddie, the black-and-white border collie that helped the men work the cattle. Cade would get angry if he saw her because Laddie was a cattle dog, not a petting dog. He didn’t like her showing affection to anything on his land, least of all to him. But she thought he might like to know about the wayward calves.

Elise Hollister was in the kitchen. She called for Bess to come in, and Bess opened the screen door, careful not to bang it, because the spring had come loose and there was a small hole in the screen. The linoleum floors were cracked and faded. Compared with the big Samson house the Hollisters’ home was a shack, but it was always clean and neat as a pin because Elise kept it that way. Bess always felt at home on Lariat, and the lack of luxury didn’t bother her one bit. It bothered Cade. He never snapped at her more than when she came here, which was rarely. She hadn’t really had a good excuse since her father had persuaded Cade three years ago to give her riding lessons, and that hadn’t lasted long. Gussie had managed to stop them just after they started, and Cade had seemed relieved. Of course it had been just after his successful attempt to get Bess to stop chasing him, and it had been something of a relief, even to her. Cade’s callous behavior had upset her. She often wondered if he regretted it. She did, because it had left her slightly afraid of him. But her stubborn heart had never found another man to fasten itself on. Despite everything, it was still Cade.

He only came to the house to see her father, and that had been a very recent development. His attitude was somehow different. Gussie’s hauteur bounced off him these days, for the most part, but the way he looked at Bess was new and a little unsettling. It was as if he was looking for something in her.

But he didn’t like her on Lariat. She wondered if it might be because he disliked having her see how he lived, comparing his lifestyle with hers. But why would that matter to him when he wanted no part of her? She couldn’t quite figure Cade out. She was in good company there. He was a mystery even to his mother.

Elise Hollister had gray hair, but she was elegant in her way, tall and slender and sharp featured, with kind, dark eyes and a ready smile. She was wearing a cotton print shirtwaist dress, and her eyes twinkled as she moved away from the sink to wipe her hands on a dishcloth.

“Hello, Bess,” she said, welcoming the younger woman like a long-lost daughter. “What brings you here?”

“Cade’s got some calves out on the highway,” she said. “The fence is down, and I thought I’d better tell somebody.” She blushed, thinking how transparent she must seem to this warm, quiet woman.

Elise smiled. “That’s very kind of you. You look pretty this morning.”

“Thank you. I’ve been to a coffee,” Bess said with a kind of sophisticated cynicism. “The daughter of one of Mama’s friends is getting married, so I had to make an appearance.” She grimaced. “I wanted to go riding, but Mama says I’ll fall off the horse and break something vital.”

“You ride very well,” Elise said. Coming from her, it was a compliment because she could ride every bit as well as the cowboys on Lariat.

“You’re sweet, but I’ll never be in your class.” Bess sighed, looking around the neat, clean kitchen. “I envy you, being able to cook. I can’t boil water. Every time I sneak into the kitchen and try to learn from Maude, Mama explodes.”

“I love to cook,” Elise said hesitantly, reluctant to offend Bess by making any remarks about Gussie. “Of course, I’ve always had to. And around here, food is more important than anything—at least, to my sons,” she laughed. “I’m lucky to get a chicken bone at mealtimes.”

Bess laughed, too. “I guess I’d better go.”

Elise studied the quiet young face with eyes that saw deep. “Cade’s out with some of the boys, checking on the heifers we bred last fall. Some of them are dropping early. I feel rather sorry for whoever let the bulls in with them too early.”

Bess knew what she meant. “I hope he can get work somewhere else,” she added. “It’s some of the new calves that are out on the highway.”

Elise nodded. “I’ll send Robbie out to get Cade,” she said. “Thanks again for stopping by. You wouldn’t like some cake and coffee?”

“I would,” Bess replied. “But I have to check in by noon, or Mama will send out the Texas Rangers to find me. Thanks anyway.”

She climbed back into the Jaguar and pulled back onto the farm road that led to the highway. Her eyes restlessly searched the horizon for Cade, but she knew she wouldn’t see him. She spent altogether too much time looking for him. Not that it would do her any good to catch him. Even if he had a wild, secret passion for her—a really laughable thought, she mused—he had too much responsibility on Lariat to marry anyone. He had his mother and two brothers and a respectable amount of land and cattle to oversee. It wasn’t realistic to think that such a responsible man would chuck it all for the sake of any woman.

She darted a glance at the calves as she drove past them on her way home. Well, at least they were standing beside the road, not in it, and Robbie, Cade’s youngest brother, would find him and tell him about them. But it would have been so nice if Cade had been at the house. She smiled, indulging yet another daydream that ended with herself in Cade’s arms, with his dark eyes full of love as they looked down at her. Always the same dream, she thought. Always the same hopeless reality. She really would have to grow up, she decided. If only she could manage a way to do it without stuffing her overprotective mother into a croker sack and hiding her in the attic.

She smiled at the thought just as her eyes caught a movement in the grass beside the road. She slowed the Jaguar and stopped. A calf was lying there. It might be hurt. She couldn’t just leave it there. She pulled over onto the side of the road and cut the engine. Now what was she going to do? she wondered as she got out of the car.

CHAPTER TWO

THE LONG STRETCH of Texas horizon looked lonely in winter. The man sitting quietly astride the big bay gelding understood loneliness. It had been his constant companion for some years with only occasional and unsatisfying interludes to numb the ache he could never ease. His dark eyes narrowed on the sleek silver Jaguar paused at the road where his calves were straying, and he wondered if it had just come from the house. Probably it had. Gussie Samson wouldn’t have bothered to tell him his calves were out, but her daughter would. Despite all his efforts to drive her away, and his attacks of conscience because of the method he’d once used, Bess kept coming back for more. He wondered sometimes why he didn’t just give in and stop tormenting them both. But that was madness. He was poor and she was rich, and all he could ever offer her was a brief affair. That wouldn’t do for Bess. It wouldn’t do for him either. He had too many principles and too much moral fiber to compromise her for his own satisfaction. He wanted her honorably or not at all. Besides all that, she was no match for his passionate temperament, and that was the one thing that stopped him from letting her get close. He’d break her gentle spirit in no time. The thought made him sad, made him even lonelier as he turned it over in his mind. Bess was all heart, the gentlest creature he’d ever known except for his own mother.

Bess was made for a palatial house with elegant white columns surrounded by white fences and stables and a neat red barn. Someday she’d find a man who fit into her elegant world, who had the money and power to keep her in diamonds and furs and spoil her rotten. He could only give her a life of hard work, and she wasn’t suited for that. She never would be.

Cade Hollister leaned over the pommel of his saddle, his black eyes thoughtful as he watched her get out of the car and move toward a calf that was down. That wouldn’t do. Not only would she ruin that pretty and probably expensive green dress she was wearing, but the mama cow might take exception to her interference and charge her. He urged the horse into motion. The leather creaked softly against his weight and he winced a little from the lingering soreness in his left leg. He’d taken top money at the Las Vegas National Finals Rodeo, but he’d pulled a tendon in the bareback bronc riding. Now he was hoping he could get back in peak condition before the San Antonio rodeo. A lot was riding on his skill with cattle and horses. Too much. His mother and two brothers were depending on him to keep Lariat solvent, which was not an easy task even at the best of times. His father had died ten years before, but his debts hadn’t. Cade was still trying to pay off his father’s ruined dream of turning Lariat into an empire.

As he approached Bess, he could see her worried face. She looked the way she did when something was eating at her. Usually she walked when she was upset, and usually it was her mother, Gussie, who caused those long hikes in the Texas brush country south of San Antonio. Gussie was a selfish, careless woman who used her only daughter in much the way a plantation mistress would make use of a slave woman. Cade had watched it for years with emotions ranging from disgust to contempt. What made it so much worse was that Bess didn’t seem to realize what a hold her possessive mother had on her, and she made no effort to break it. Bess was twenty-three now, but she had the reserve and shyness of a young girl. Her mother captured the spotlight as her due, wherever they went. Bess was a frail shadow of the elegant, beautiful Gussie, and she was never allowed to forget that she fell short of the mark as far as her mother was concerned.

She was kneeling beside the calf now, and Cade urged his mount into a gallop, attracting her attention. She got up when she spotted him, looking lost and alone and a little frightened. Her long light brown hair was loose for a change, and she had no makeup on. Bess had soulful brown eyes and a complexion like honeyed cream. Her face was a full oval, soft with tenderness and compassion, and she had a figure that had once driven Cade to drink. She didn’t flaunt it, but any man with eyes could see how perfect her full breasts were, rising above a small waist and gently flaring hips to long, alluring legs. But her mother never encouraged her to make the most of her assets. Very likely Gussie didn’t want the competition, or to have a daughter who looked like an attractive twenty-three-year-old woman, which would remind Gussie of her own age.

As Cade neared her, the contrast between them was much more noticeable than at a distance. Bess was a lady, and Cade had been raised rough and without the social graces. She was a society girl and he was part Comanche, a cowboy who was expected to come to the back door when Frank Samson had hired him three years ago to teach Bess how to ride. He still bristled with anger remembering how those riding lessons had ended so abruptly, and for what reason. That, too, had been Gussie’s fault. Most of the resentments in his adult life could be laid at her door, and foremost of them was the untimely death of his father. He wondered if Bess knew about it. He couldn’t imagine that Gussie had ever told her, and Bess would have been too young to remember. Cade, who was thirty-four to Bess’s twenty-three, remembered all too well.

Bess Samson saw Cade coming toward her, and all her dreams seemed to merge in him. Her heart jumped up like a startled thing, and she had to clench her teeth to control her scattered emotions. Even though she’d hoped that she might see him at the house, it was a shock to have him actually appear. The calf was hurt or sick, and Cade cared about little lost things, even if he didn’t care about her.

Whatever Cade felt, he kept to himself. Except for one devastating lapse when he’d become a cold, mocking, threatening stranger, he’d kept Bess at a cold distance and treated her with something bordering on contempt. She knew that he didn’t have much time for rich society girls, but his contempt even extended to her mother, who, God knew, was harmless enough.

She couldn’t quite meet those cold black eyes under the wide brim of Cade’s Stetson when he reined up in front of her. He wasn’t a handsome man. He had strong features, but his face was too angular and broad, his eyebrows too heavy, his nose too formidable and his mouth too thin and cruel. His only saving grace was his exquisite physique. He had the most perfect body Bess had ever seen in her life, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, long-legged and powerful. He looked lithe and slim until he moved into action, and then he was all muscle and masculinity. But Bess tried not to notice those things. It was too embarrassing to remember what had happened between them in the past and the contempt he still held for her, along with a barely hidden anger.

“I...went to the house to tell someone that the calves were out,” she stammered. He made her feel like a schoolgirl. “But then when I came back, I saw this little one lying down...”

Cade swung out of the saddle gracefully, although he still favored the leg with the pulled tendon a little when he went to kneel beside the little red-and-white-coated calf. “It’s dangerous to go near a downed calf when his mama’s close by,” he informed her without looking up. His lean, sure hands went over the calf while he checked for injury or disease. “I don’t run polled cattle here. Mine have horns, and they use them.”

“I know that,” she said gently. “Is she all right?”

“She’s a he, and no, he’s not all right. It looks very much like scours.” He stood up, lifting the calf gently in his arms. “I’ll take him back with me.” He spared her a glance. “Thanks for stopping.”

She walked after him. “Can I...hold him for you while you get on the horse?” she offered unsteadily.

He stopped at the bay and turned, his eyes twinkling for an instant with surprise. “In that dress?” he asked, letting his eyes run down her slender figure with blatant appreciation. “Silk, isn’t it? You’d go home smelling of calf and worse, and the dress would most likely be ruined. His plumbing’s torn up,” he added dryly, putting it discreetly.

But she only smiled. “I wouldn’t mind,” she said. “I like little things.”

His jaw tautened. “Little things, sick things, stray animals,” he added to her list. “Go home, Bess. You don’t belong out in the sticks or on a ranch. You’re meant for better things.”

He laid the calf gently in front of the pommel and swung easily up behind it, positioning it as his hand caught the reins. Bess watched him, her eyes faintly hungry, helpless. He looked down at her and saw that look, and his own eyes began to narrow and darken.

“Go home,” he repeated, much more roughly than he meant to, because the sight of her disturbed him so.

She sighed softly. “All right, Cade.” She turned and went back to her car, her head lowered.

Cade watched her with an expression that would have spoken volumes, even to an innocent like Bess. Without another word he turned his horse and headed back toward Lariat.

Bess wanted to watch him ride away, but she’d already given away too much. She loved him so. Why couldn’t she stop? Heaven knew he didn’t want her, but she kept flinging herself against the stone wall of his heart.

She climbed back into the car, feeling weary and numb. She wished she could fight him. Maybe if she were spirited, he’d notice her, but she loved him far too much to go against him in any way. She wondered sometimes if that wasn’t the problem. He was worse when she knuckled under. She had spirit, it was just that she’d been trained from her childhood not to express it. It was neither dignified nor ladylike to brawl, as Gussie often put it.

Bess pulled the car out into the road, feeling depressed. She was decorative and well mannered, and her life was as dead as a rattlesnake lying flattened in the middle of the highway. Her life had no adventure, no spark. She was nothing except an extension of Gussie. And not a very attractive extension at that, she realized bitterly.

Her father was home when she got there, and he looked twice his age.

“I thought you were going to be in Dallas until tomorrow,” she said as she hugged him warmly. He was only a little taller than she was, dark-eyed with salt-and-pepper hair and a live-wire personality.

“I was,” he returned, “but something came up. No, I won’t tell you, so stop snooping,” he added when she opened her mouth to speak. “It will work out. It’s got to.”

“Business, I suppose,” she murmured.

“Isn’t it always?” He loosened his tie and looked around at the black-and-white marble floor leading to a carpeted staircase. There was a Waterford crystal chandelier in the foyer and elegantly furnished rooms off both sides of the hall. “My God, it gets worse every day. No matter how hard I work, I just go backward. Sometimes, Bess, I’d like to chuck it all and go to Africa. I could live in a hut somewhere in the jungle and ride an elephant.”

“Africa is in turmoil, most of the jungle has been eaten by the elephants, and some of the little ones are even being transplanted to other countries in an experiment to see if they can repopulate in areas with sufficient vegetation,” Bess informed him.

“You and your damned National Geographic Specials,” he muttered. “Never mind. I’ll sign aboard Moulin à Vent and help Jacques Cousteau and his son explore what’s left of the seas.”

“They have a new windship now. Its name is—”

“I’ll tell your mother you didn’t go to the coffee,” he threatened.

She laughed. “Okay, I’ll stop. Where is Mama?”

“Upstairs primping. I told her I’d take her to San Antonio for lunch.” He checked his watch. “If she gets finished in time.”

“She’s still beautiful,” she reminded her father. “You can’t rush beauty.”

“I’ve been trying for twenty-four years,” he said. “Next year we celebrate our silver anniversary. They’ve been good years, despite your mother’s harebrained spending. I hope I can keep enough in the coffers to support her diamond habit,” he chuckled, but his eyes didn’t laugh. “It’s getting to be an ordeal. I’ve just taken one of the biggest gambles of my financial career, and if it doesn’t pay off, I really don’t know what we’ll do.”

Bess frowned because he sounded worried. “Daddy, can I help?”

“Bless you, darling, no. But thank you for caring.”

“Mama cares, too,” she said hesitantly.

“In her own way,” he agreed. “I hoped in the beginning that it was really love on her part and not just an attraction to the good life. Then I settled for friendship. We haven’t had the best of marriages, but I promise you I’ve loved her enough for both of us. I still do,” he said, smiling.

Her big brown eyes searched his face. “Nita wants me to go down to the Caribbean with her.”

“Your mother will have a fit.”

“Yes, I know. I don’t really want to go anyway.”

Frank Samson grimaced. “Yes, you do. You’re entitled to a life of your own. It’s just that your mother doesn’t realize how possessive she is. She leads you around like a puppy, and you let her,” he said, pointing a lean finger her way. “You’re a big girl now. Stop letting her run over you.”

“She means well,” Bess began hesitantly.

“Don’t wait too long,” he added. “Parents can do a lot of damage without realizing it.”

“I’m not damaged,” she protested, although in a sense she was. She wanted Cade, and her mother would fight her tooth and nail if she knew how badly.

“Where in the world have you been?” Gussie Samson muttered angrily as she came down the staircase in a delicately woven white-and-cream wool suit with pink accessories. Her tinted blond hair was elegantly coiffed and her makeup was perfect. In her younger days Gussie Granger Samson had had a brief career on the stage. Her roles had been supporting ones, not leading ones, but she still acted as if she’d been a full-fledged star, right down to the elegance of her carriage.

“I stopped by Lariat to tell Elise some of their calves got out of the fence,” Bess said.

Gussie glared at her with angry green eyes. “I suppose Cade was at the house?”

“No, Cade wasn’t at the house,” Bess replied quietly.

Gussie sighed angrily. “I don’t want you near that man. He’s a common cowboy...”

“He’s an able and intelligent man with great potential,” Frank argued, putting an arm around his wife. “Stop riding him. All that is in the past, remember? And better forgotten.”

Gussie flushed, darting a glance at Bess. “Never mind the past,” she told Frank quickly. “Shall we go?”

Bess was more in the dark than ever after that statement. She wondered if she knew her parents at all, especially Gussie. But she wasn’t one to pry into people’s secrets, so she smiled and waved goodbye to her parents and went upstairs to change.

That night she overheard an argument between her parents over money, and although they made up quickly, she couldn’t forget it. The next evening a man came to see her father.

“Who is he?” Bess asked Gussie curiously.

“I don’t know, darling,” Gussie said nervously. “Your father’s been in a terrible mood for two days. He snaps and snarls and his color is bad. I don’t know what’s wrong, but something is.”

“Can’t you ask him?”

“I did. He only stared at me. There’s a party tomorrow night at the River Grill. Want to come with your father and me?” she coaxed. “The Merrills will be there, and their son, Grayson, is going to be with them.”

“Gray’s very nice, but I don’t want to be thrown at him, if you don’t mind,” she said softly. “I’m not in the market for a rich husband.”

“You’ll enjoy yourself,” Gussie assured her, smiling. “Now, no more arguments. You know you love seafood, and Gray is just back from a month in Europe; he’ll be full of stories. You can wear your new gray crepe dress and that pretty fox cape I bought you for Christmas.”

“But, Mother...”

“Let’s have some coffee. Ask Maude to fix a tray, dear, and perhaps your father and his guest will join us. There’s a good girl,” Gussie added, patting Bess’s hand absently.

Bess gave up. It was easier than trying to fight Gussie, but she knew that someday she was going to have to stand up to her. Giving in was a dead end. Her father was right. Odd, she thought, that her father should have made such a statement, when it was usually Cade who disliked Gussie’s overbearing maternity. She knew that Cade and her father talked a good deal when they had business meetings about the new real-estate investment. But surely Cade wouldn’t have talked to her father about so personal a subject. Would he?

She came back from the kitchen still pondering, when Gussie came running toward her, wild-eyed and breathless.

“Your father’s guest left, and now Frank’s locked the study door and I can’t make him answer me!” she cried. “Bess, something is terribly wrong!”

“But...what could—”

They heard the chilling, loud report of a pistol and they both froze in place. Then Bess turned and ran down the hall to the study, trying the door with both hands, banging on it, kicking.

“Daddy!” she screamed. She turned to Gussie. “Call the police!”

“The police?” Gussie just stood in place, white and shaking.

Bess ran to the phone, ignoring her shocked mother, and her hands shook as she searched frantically for the number, dialed it, and gave her sketchy information to the man who answered the phone.

Minutes later sirens wailed toward the house, and the nightmare began. The door to the study was finally forced open. Bess got a brief and all too good look at her father’s body, where it was sprawled on the carpet in a pool of blood. She shuddered and had to run into the guest bathroom as her stomach emptied itself. Gussie, in shock, had gone upstairs even before the police came and Bess phoned the doctor when she came out of the bathroom.

The rest of the night went by in a blur of pain, grief, and numb shock. She answered questions until she wanted to scream, vaguely aware that Cade was suddenly there.

He fielded the police, lifted Bess in his hard, strong arms and carried her up the staircase into her room. She was barely coherent and shaking all over with mingled horror and fear. “The police...” she whispered huskily.

“I’ll cope with everything,” he said firmly, easing her down onto the bed. He removed her shoes and gently covered her quivering body with a sheet. “Try to sleep. The doctor is with your mother, but I’ll send him along when he’s finished.”

“He killed himself,” she said, choking.

“Lie still. Everything will be all right,” he promised. His dark eyes scanned her white face. “If you need me, just yell. I’ll be around for a while. At least until you’re asleep.”

Her eyes searched his hard face and she reached up with a numb hand to touch it while tears escaped her eyes. “Thank you.”

He clasped her hand for an instant and then laid it beside her on the coverlet. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

The doctor came and gave her a sedative, murmuring comforting things. She was aware of Cade’s concerned gaze once or twice, but then the sedative took effect and she slept. When she woke, the house was empty, and the pain began.

Gussie was no help at all. She wailed and moaned and had hysterics every two hours, and took sedatives by the handful. As the day wore on, Bess began to realize just what a headache she’d inherited. If this was any indication of what was to come, her life was going to be hell.

Cade hadn’t come back. She found that curious since she knew he’d been there the night before, but apparently he’d made all the arrangements and had felt that Gussie wouldn’t welcome his presence.

“I’m so glad you’re strong, Bess,” Gussie sniffed as they sat in the living room. “I couldn’t have coped.”

“I didn’t. Cade did,” Bess said quietly. “He carried me upstairs and got the doctor. I caved in, too.”

“You mean that man was in my house all night?” Gussie raged. “I won’t have him here, I won’t!”

“This is no time for hysterics, Mama,” Bess said in a soothing tone. “I couldn’t attend to details, but Cade did. Whatever you think of him, Daddy liked him—they were friends.” She shuddered to think of Cade having to see what she’d seen through that opened door. He’d liked her father. “Why did he do it?” she asked huskily. “Why? I don’t understand what’s happened. Daddy was rational and strong...”

“We’ll know soon enough,” Gussie said. “Now, do get me some coffee, darling, please. We’ll sit and talk.”

Their attorney, Donald Hughes, came to the house just after lunch to tell them what was going on prior to the reading of the will, which would be the next day, after the funeral. Cade had arranged the funeral, too, thank God, with Donald’s help.

Bess listened to Donald’s quiet voice with a feeling of utter shock, and Gussie’s face went from white to red to paste.

“We’re what?” Gussie faltered.

“You’re bankrupt,” Donald replied gently. “The investment scheme your husband involved himself in was a fake. The perpetrators are already out of the country and can’t be extradited. Frank invested everything he had. That’s gone, along with Cade’s ten thousand dollars. And unfortunately Frank guaranteed Cade’s money back to the penny. I’m sorry. It’s all legal. There’s nothing you can do, I’m afraid.”

There was one thing Gussie could do, and she did it. She fainted.

Bess sat there with her eyes glued to the lawyer’s face, not moving, not speaking as she tried to absorb what Donald had said. Her father had been involved in an illegal operation, and it had failed. He’d lost everything and sold out his friends, and that was why he’d killed himself.

That was understandable, in a way. But now Gussie and Bess were left with his debts and they were going to lose everything. Worst of all, they were going to lose the house. It would mean having to move and being poor, and having to start again from scratch. Bess looked down at her mother, absently thinking that Gussie looked beautiful even when she was unconscious. Bess wished she could faint, too, and wake up to find that it was all just a bad dream. But Donald was very real and so was her mother. It was all real. And her problems were only just beginning.

CHAPTER THREE

BESS WAS A little calmer by nightfall. Except that Gussie was wearing on her nerves. She wondered how she was going to cope with everything. When the shock finally wore off, it would be much worse, she knew.

It had started to snow. The silent feathering of it in the darkness was almost reverent, but Bess only half noticed the white blanket covering the ground. A pickup truck, an old familiar one, pulled into the driveway, its headlights blinding her for an instant before it stopped and the engine was cut off. Cade. She relaxed, just a little. Somehow she’d known that he would come back.

“Who’s that outside, Bess?” Gussie asked, pausing on the landing upstairs to look down at her daughter.

“It’s Cade,” Bess replied and waited for the inevitable explosion.

“Again?” Gussie said wearily. “He’ll want his money of course.”

“You know very well he didn’t come for that,” Bess said gently. “He’s come to see about us. Can’t you be a little grateful for all he’s done already? Neither of us was able to cope with the funeral arrangements, and that’s a fact.”

Gussie backed down. “Yes, I’m grateful,” she said, wiping away more tears. “But it’s hard to be grateful to Cade. He’s made things so difficult over the years, Bess. Elise and I were once friends, did you know? It’s because of Cade that we aren’t anymore. No matter,” she said when Bess tried to question her. “It’s all over now. I’m going upstairs, darling. I can’t talk to him. Not now.”

She watched her mother move tiredly back into her bedroom with a sinking feeling that her life was going to be unbearable from now on. Her father’s unexpected suicide had shocked the small Texas community almost as much as it had astounded Frank Samson’s family. None of the scandal had been his fault. He’d been an innocent pawn in the fraud. Cade wouldn’t blame him, though, or his family. Cade had too much sense of family himself to do that.

She peeked out the lace curtain, her soft brown eyes hungry for just the sight of the man outside. She pushed the long honey-brown hair from her shoulders, idly tugging it into a ponytail that abruptly fell apart. Cade had that effect on her. He made her nervous; he excited her; he colored her life. She was twenty-three but still a sheltered innocent because her father had been unusually strict. Maybe that was why Cade wouldn’t have anything to do with her. He’d been raised strictly, too, and his family was staunchly Baptist. Seducing innocents would be unthinkable to such a man, so it hadn’t been surprising that Cade acted as if she didn’t even exist most of the time.

Of course he had a lot on his mind. But he was nothing like his younger brothers, Robert and Gary, whom she adored. Cade never flirted with her or asked her out. He probably never would—she wasn’t his type, as he’d told her once. She could still blush about that, remembering her shy worship of him the summer he’d taught her to ride and what he’d done about it.

Bess knew that he’d lost far more than he could spare because of her father, and she wondered how in the world she and her flighty, spendthrift mother were ever going to settle the debts. Oh, Dad, she thought with a bitter smile, what a mess you’ve landed us all in. She spared a thought for that poor, tortured man who hadn’t been able to bear the disgrace he’d brought on his family. She’d loved him, despite his weakness. It was hard giving him up this way.

Outside, the wind blew up, but it didn’t slow Cade’s quick, hard stride. She knew that a hurricane wouldn’t, once he set his mind on something. Bess shivered a little as she saw him heading toward the front door, his worn, dark raincoat brushing the high grass as he walked through it, snow melting as it fell against the brim of his gray Stetson. He walked as he did everything else, relentlessly, with strides that would have made two of hers. As he came into the light from the porch, she got a glimpse of cold dark eyes and a deeply tanned face.

He had very masculine features, a jutting brow and a straight nose and a mouth like a Greek statue’s. His cheekbones were high and his eyes were very nearly black. His hair, too, was very nearly black, and thick and straight, always neatly cut, very conventionally, and neatly combed. He was tall and lean and sensuous, with powerful long legs and big feet. Bess adored the very sight of him—worn clothes, battered Stetson, and all. His lack of wealth had never bothered her. Her mother’s frank dislike of him was the major stumbling block. That and Cade’s cold indifference. She thought sometimes that she’d never live down that long-ago confrontation with him, that he’d never forget she’d thrown herself at him. Looking back, her own audacity shocked her. She wasn’t a flirt, but Cade would never believe it now.

He was at the door before she realized it, towering over her as she stood in the doorway to greet him. He stared at her narrowly. She was wearing a pale green silk dress, and her big brown eyes were full of sadness.

The grief in her eyes disturbed him. “Open the door, Bess,” he said quietly.

She did, immediately. His voice had a deep, drawling authority despite the fact that he rarely raised it. He could make his toughest cowhands jump when he spoke in that quiet tone. He was a hard man, because his life had made him into one. Old Coleman Hollister hadn’t spared Cade, though he’d been indulgent enough with his younger sons. Cade had been the firstborn, and Old Man Hollister had groomed him carefully to take over the ranch when the time came. Apparently he’d done a good job of it. Cade had a great track record with the money he made on the rodeo circuit.

He strode into the hall without taking off his hat. He had the knack of hiding his strongest feelings, with the exception of his bad temper, so Cade looked down at her without showing any emotion. Bess looked tired, he thought, and Gussie had probably been giving her hell. Her soft oval face was flushed, but it only made her lovelier, right down to that straight nose over a sweet bow of a mouth. He didn’t want to take it out on Bess, but the sight of her caused its usual physical response and made him uncomfortable. There were a hundred reasons why he couldn’t have Bess, no matter how badly he wanted her.

“Where’s your mother?” he asked.

“Lying down.” She’d already chewed the lipstick off her lower lip. Now she started on the upper one. He made her feel much younger than her twenty-three years.

“How are you?” He was watching her still, with that dark appraisal that disturbed her so.

“I’ll do. Thank you for all you’ve done,” she said. “Mother was grateful, too.”

“Was she? My mother and some of the other neighbors are bringing dinner and supper over for you tomorrow,” he added. “No arguments. It’s the way things are done. The fact that you’ve got money doesn’t set you that far apart.”

“But we don’t have money,” she said, smiling ruefully. “Not anymore.”

“Yes, I know.”

She looked up, defeated. “I guess you know, too, that we’re going to lose everything we have. I only hope we’ll have enough money to repay you and the other investors.”

“I didn’t come here to talk business,” he said quietly. “I came to see if I could do anything else to help.”

She had to fight tears. “No,” she said. “Heaven knows, you’ve already done more than your share, Cade.”

“You look tired,” he said, his dark eyes sweeping over her creamy skin now pale with fatigue. She had big brown eyes, a peaches-and-cream complexion and a body that made him ache every time he looked at it. She wasn’t pretty. Without makeup she was fairly plain. But Cade saw her with eyes that had known her most of her life, and they found her lovely. She didn’t know that. He’d made sure she didn’t know it. He had to.

He removed his hat, unloading snow onto the faded Oriental rug, onto his worn boots. “Mother and the boys send their condolences, too,” he added, and his eyes darkened as he looked down at her.

Bess misunderstood that dark appraisal. He looked at her as if he despised her. Probably he did, too, she thought miserably. She was her father’s daughter, and her father’s risky venture might have cost him his ranch. She knew he’d had to borrow heavily to scrape up the money to invest in her father’s venture. Why had he done it? she wondered. But, then, who could ever figure Cade?

“That’s very kind of them, considering what my father cost you all,” she replied.

A corner of his mouth curled up, and it wasn’t a kind smile. “We lost our shirts,” he said. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette and without bothering to ask if she minded, lit it. He let out a thick cloud of smoke, his eyes taking in her thinness, the unhealthy whiteness of her face. “But you know that already. Your mother is going to have a hell of a time adjusting.”

That was true. “She isn’t strong,” she said absently, lowering her eyes to his broad chest. Muscles rippled there when he breathed. He was powerfully built, for all his slimness. She’d seen him without a shirt, working in the fields in the summer, and the memory of it made her feel warm all over. With his shirt off, he was devastating. Bronzed muscle, covered with a thick, sexy wedge of hair that ran from his chest down to his lean stomach, into the belt at his jeans...

“She smothers you,” he returned, cutting into her shocking thoughts. “She always has. You’re twenty-three, but you act sixteen. She’ll never let you grow up. She needs somebody to lean on. Now that your father’s gone, you’ll be her prop. She’ll wear you down and bring you down, just as she did him.”

Her dark eyes flinched. “What do you know about my mother?” she demanded. “You hate her, God knows why...”

“Yes, I do,” he said without hesitation, and his black eyes pierced hers, glittering like flaming coals. “And God does know why. You don’t know what she really is, but you’ll find out someday. But it will be too late.”

“What can I do, Cade, walk out on her?” she cried. “How could I, when she’s just lost everything! I’m all she’s got.”

“And she’s all you’ll ever have,” he returned coldly. “Cold comfort in your old age. She’s a selfish, cruel little opportunist with an eye to the main chance and her own comfort. Given a choice between you and a luxurious lifestyle, she’d dump you like yesterday’s garbage.”

She wanted to hit him. He aroused the most violent sensations in her. He always had. She hated that cold look on his face, the devastating masculinity of him that put her back up even at a distance. But she kept her feelings to herself, especially her temper. “You don’t know either of us,” she said.

He moved a little closer, threatening her now with just the warmth of his body, his superior height. He looked down at her with an expression in his eyes that made her toes curl inside her shoes.

“I know what I need to know,” he said. He studied her face in the silence of the hall. “You’re very pale, little one,” he said then, his voice so soft that it didn’t even sound like Cade’s. “I’m sorry about your father. He was a good man. Just misguided and gullible. He didn’t force any of us to invest, you know. He was as badly fooled by the deal as we were.”

“Thank you,” she said huskily, fighting tears. “That’s a very tolerant attitude to take.” Her eyes searched his. “But it won’t save Lariat,” she said sadly, remembering Cade’s dreams for his family ranch. “Will it?”

“I’ll save Lariat,” he said, and at that moment he looked as if he could do anything. One eye narrowed as he studied her. “Don’t let Gussie own you,” he said suddenly. “You’re a woman, not her little girl. Start acting your age.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “How?”

“My God,” he said heavily. “Don’t you even know?”

His eyes dropped to her soft mouth. He stared at it intently, and he was standing so close to her that she could smell the leather of his vest, feel the warmth of him as his finger gently caressed her parted lips. The acrid smoke from his cigarette drifted past her nostrils, but it didn’t even register. His dark eyes were on hers, and she’d never seen them so close. He had lashes as thick as her own, and tiny lines beside his eyes. His nose had a small crook in it that was only visible this close, as if it had been broken. His mouth...oh, his mouth! she thought achingly, looking at its chiseled lines, already feeling the hardness of it. She’d wondered for years how it would feel to kiss him, to be close to him. But Cade was like the moon. This was the closest he’d ever come to her, except for that one time when he’d only meant to frighten her, and she didn’t even move for fear that he might move away. He might kiss her...!

But a tiny sigh worked its way out of her tight throat, and it seemed to break the spell. His head lifted, and there wasn’t a trace of expression on his dark face. He moved away from her, without a word. But he kept his back to her for a long moment, quietly smoking his cigarette. That long, intense scrutiny had his heart turning cartwheels, and it would never do to let Bess see how vulnerable she made him.

“We’ll pay you back somehow,” she said after a minute.

He turned, as if the statement made him angry. “Will you? How?”

“I’ll find a way. I’m not helpless, even if I am a mere woman in your eyes,” she added with a faint smile.

He looked as formidable as a cold marble statue. “Challenging me?” he asked in a softly dangerous tone. His dark eyes mocked her. “That’s been tried before, but go ahead if you feel lucky.”

She almost did. But those nearly black eyes had made men back down, and she was just a grieving shadow of a woman.

“Please thank your mother for her concern,” she said quietly. “I’m sure you have better things to do than bother with us.”

“Your father was my friend,” he said shortly. “I valued him, regardless of what happened.”

He turned toward the door without glancing at her.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said as he reached for the doorknob and pulled open the big front door with its huge silver knocker. “Don’t worry. We’ll work out something.”

Her eyes closed. She was sick all over. Just last week she’d been planning parties and helping her mother choose flowers for a coming-out party. And now their world was in shreds. Their wealth was gone, their friends had deserted them. They were at the mercy of the courts. Miss Samson of Spanish House was now just plain Bess.

“It’s a long way to fall,” Cade was saying. “From debutante balls to poverty. But sometimes it takes a fall to get us out of a rut. It can be a challenge and an opportunity, or it can be a disaster. That depends on you. Try to remember that it’s not life but our reactions to it that shape us.”

For Cade it was a long speech. She stared at him hungrily, wishing she had the right to cry in his arms. She needed someone to hold her until the pain stopped. Gussie hadn’t noticed that her own daughter was grieving, but Cade had. He noticed things about her that no one else on earth seemed to, but he was ice-cold when he was around her, as if he felt supremely indifferent toward her most of the time.

She smiled faintly, thinking how uncannily he could read her mind. Sleet was mixing with the snow, making a hissing sound.

“Thanks for the wise words. But I think I can live without money,” she said after a minute.

“Maybe you can,” he replied. “But can your mother?”

“She’ll cope,” she returned.

“Like hell she’ll cope.” He tugged the hat closer over his forehead and spared her one last sweeping appraisal. God, she looked tired! He could only imagine the demands Gussie was already making on her, and she was showing the pressure. “Get some rest. You look like a walking corpse.”

He was gone then, without another word. As if he cared if she became a corpse, she thought hysterically. She’d lived for years on the vague hope that he might look at her one day and see someone he could love. That was the biggest joke of all. If there was any love in Cade, it was for Lariat, the Braided L, which had been founded by a Hollister fresh from the Civil War. There was a lot of history in Lariat. In a way the Hollisters were more a founding family of Texas than the Samsons. The Samson fortune was only two generations old, and it had been a matter of chance, not brains, that old man Barker Samson from back East had bought telephone stock in the early days of that newfangled invention. But the Hollisters were still poor.

She went upstairs to see about Gussie. It was an unusual nickname for a woman named Geraldine, but her father had always called her mother that.

Gussie was stretched out on the elegant pink ruffled coverlet of her bed with a tissue under her equally pink nose. Thanks to face-lifts, annual visits to an exclusive health spa and meticulous dieting, and a platinum-blond rinse, Gussie looked more like Bess’s sister than her mother. She had always been a beauty, but age had lent her a maturity that gave her elegance, as well. She’d removed the satin robe, and underneath it she was wearing a frothy white negligee ensemble that made her huge dark eyes look even darker and her delicate skin paler.

“There you are, darling,” she said with a sob. “Has he gone?”

“Yes, he’s gone,” Bess said quietly.

Her mother’s face actually blanched. She averted her eyes. “He’s blamed me for years,” she murmured, still half in shock, “and it wasn’t even my fault, but he’d never believe me even if I told him the truth. I suppose we should be grateful that he hasn’t raided the stables to get his money back in kind. The horses will bring something...”

Here we go again, Bess thought. “You know he wouldn’t do that. He said we’ll work something out, after the funeral.”

“No one held a gun on him and made him invest a penny,” Gussie said savagely. “I hope he does lose everything! Maybe he’ll be less arrogant!”

“Cade would be arrogant in rags, and you know it,” Bess said softly. “We’ll have to sell the house, Mama.”

Gussie looked horrified. She sat straight up, her careful coiffure unwinding in a long bleached tangle. “Sell my house? Never!”

“It’s the only way. We’ll still owe more than we have,” she said, staring out the window at the driving sleet. “But I have that journalism degree. I might get a job on a newspaper.”

“We’d starve. No, thank you. You can find something with an advertising agency. That pays much better.”

Bess turned, staring at her. “Mama, I can’t take the pressure of an advertising agency.”

“Well, darling, we certainly can’t survive on newspaper pay,” her mother said, laughing mirthlessly.

Bess’s eyes lifted. “I wasn’t aware that you were going to expect me to support both of us.”

“You don’t expect me to offer to get a job?” Gussie exclaimed. “Heavens, child, I can’t do anything! I’ve never had to work!”

Bess sat down on the end of the bed, viewing her mother’s renewed weeping with cynicism. Cade had said that her mother wouldn’t be able to cope. Perhaps he knew her after all.

“Crying won’t help.”

“I’ve just lost my husband,” Gussie wailed into her tissue. “And I adored him!”

That might have been true, but it seemed to Bess that all the affection was on her father’s side. Frank Samson had worshipped Gussie, and Bess imagined that Gussie’s demands for bigger and better status symbols had led her desperate father to one last gamble. But it had failed. She shook her head. Her poor mother. Gussie was a butterfly. She should have married a stronger man than her father, a man who could have controlled her wild spending.

“How could he do this to us?” Gussie asked tearfully. “How could he destroy us?”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean to.”

“Silly, stupid man,” came the harsh reply, and the veneer of suffering was eclipsed for a second by sheer, cruel rage. “We had friends and social standing. And now we’re disgraced because he lost his head over a bad investment! He didn’t have to kill himself!”

Bess stared at her mother. “Probably he wasn’t thinking clearly. He knew he’d lost everything, and so had the other investors.”

“I’ll never believe that your father would do anything dishonest, even to make more money,” Gussie said haughtily.

“He didn’t do it on purpose,” Bess said, feeling the pain of losing her father all over again, just by having to discuss what had caused his suicide. “He was taken in, just like the others. What made it so much worse was that he talked most of the investors into going along with him.” She stared at her tearful mother. “You didn’t know that it was a bogus company, did you?”

Gussie stared at her curiously. “No. Of course not.” She started weeping again. “I simply must have the doctor. Do call him for me, darling.”

“Mother, you’ve had the doctor. He can’t do anything else.”

“Well, then, get me those tranquillizers, darling. I’ll take another.”

“You’ve had three already.”

“I’ll take another,” Gussie said firmly. “Fetch them.”

Just for an instant Bess thought of saying no, or telling her mother to fetch them herself. But her tender heart wouldn’t let her. She couldn’t be that cruel to a stranger, much less her own grieving mother. But as she rose to do what she was asked, she could see that she was going to end up an unpaid servant if she didn’t do something quick. But what? How could she walk out on Gussie now? She didn’t have a brother or a sister; there was only herself to handle things. She couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d felt so alone. Her poor father—at least he was out of it. She only wished she didn’t feel so numb. She’d loved him, in her way. But she couldn’t even cry for him. Gussie was doing enough of that for both of them anyway.

She went to bed much later, but she didn’t sleep. The past couple of days had been nightmarish. If it hadn’t been for Cade, she didn’t know how she and Gussie would have managed at all. And there was still the funeral to get through tomorrow.

Her thoughts drifted back through layers of time to the last day Cade had been teaching her how to ride. He’d grown impatient with her attempts to flirt, and everything had come to a head all too quickly.

He’d caught her around the waist with a strength that frightened her and tossed her down on her back into a clean stack of hay. She’d lain there, her mind confused, while he stared down at her from his formidable height, his dark eyes glittering angrily. Her tank top had fallen off one smooth shoulder, and it was there that his attention wandered. He looked at her blatantly, letting his gaze go over her full breasts and down her flat stomach to the long, elegant length of her legs in their tight denim covering.

“You don’t look half bad that way, Bess,” he’d said then, his voice taut and angry. He’d even smiled, but it hadn’t been a pleasant smile. “If all you want is a little diversion with the hired hand, I can oblige you.”

She’d gone scarlet, but that shock led quickly to another. He moved down atop her, his heavy hips suddenly square over her own while his arms caught his weight as his chest poised over hers. He laughed coldly at her sudden paleness.

“Disappointed?” he asked, holding her eyes. “As you can feel, little rich girl, you don’t even arouse me. But once we get your clothes out of the way, maybe you can stir me up enough to give you what you want.”

Bess closed her eyes even now at the shame his words had made her feel. She’d never felt a man’s aroused body, but even in her innocence she knew that Cade was telling the truth. He’d felt nothing at all. She’d stiffened, her eyes tearing, her lower lip trembling, as the humiliation and embarrassment swamped her.

Cade had said something unpleasant under his breath and abruptly got to his feet. He was holding down a hand to help her up, but before she could refuse it or even speak, Gussie was suddenly in the barn with them, her dark eyes flashing as she took in the situation with a glance. She’d hustled a shaken Bess into the house, ignored Cade’s glowering stare, and the next day the riding lessons became a memory.

Bess had often wondered why Cade had felt the need to be so cruel. It would have been enough to simply reject her without crushing her budding femininity at the same time. If he’d hoped to discourage her, he’d succeeded. But her feelings hadn’t vanished. They’d simply gone underground. There was a lingering nervousness of him in a physical way, but she knew in her heart that if he came close and took her in his arms, she’d cave in and give him anything he wanted, fear notwithstanding. He hadn’t really touched her that day anyway. It had all been planned. But what hurt the most was that he hadn’t wanted her and that he’d taunted her with it.

She rolled over with a long sigh. It was just her luck to be doomed to want the only man on earth she couldn’t have. He’d thought she was teasing because he was poor and she was rich, but that wasn’t the case at all. He couldn’t see that his lack of material things had nothing to do with her emotional attraction to him.

He was a strong man, but that wasn’t why she loved him. It was for so many other reasons. She loved him because he cared about people and animals and the environment. He was generous with his time and what little money he had. He’d take in a stray animal or a stray person at the drop of a hat. He never turned away a cowboy down on his luck or a stranded traveler, even if it meant tightening the grocery budget a little more. He was hard and difficult, but there was a deep sensitivity in him. He saw beneath the masks people wore to the real person inside. Bess had seen his temper, and she knew that he could be too rigid and unreasonable when he wanted his own way. But he had saving graces. So many of them.

It was odd that he’d never married, because she knew of at least two women he’d been involved with over the years. The most recent, just before her twentieth birthday, had been a wealthy divorcée. That one had lasted the longest, and many local people thought that Cade was hooked for sure. But the divorcée had left Coleman Springs rather abruptly, and was never mentioned again by any of the Hollisters. Since then, if there were women in Cade’s life, he’d carefully kept them away from his family, friends and acquaintances. Cade was nothing if not discreet.

Bess herself had no real beaux these days, although she’d dated a few men for appearance’s sake, to keep Gussie from knowing how crazy she was about Cade. No other man could really measure up to him, and it was cruel to lead a man on when she had nothing to offer him. She was as innocent as a child in so many ways, but Cade obviously thought she was as sophisticated as her outward image. That was a farce. If only he knew how long she’d gone hungry wanting him.

She closed her eyes and forced her taut muscles to relax. She had to stop worrying over the past and get some sleep. The funeral was tomorrow. They’d lay her poor father to rest, and then perhaps she and her mother could tie up all the loose ends and get on with the ordeal of moving and trying to live without the wealth they’d been accustomed to. That would be a challenge in itself. She wondered how she and Gussie would manage.

CHAPTER FOUR

AS BESS EXPECTED, there was a crowd at the simple graveside service, but it wasn’t made up just of friends and neighbors. It was a press holiday, with reporters and cameras from all over the state. On the fringe of the mob Bess caught a glimpse of Elise Hollister, stately and tall, standing with her three sons. She caught the older woman’s eye, and Elise smiled at her gently. Then, involuntarily, Bess’s eyes glanced at Cade. He looked very somber in a dark suit, towering over his mother and his brothers, Gary and Robert. Red-haired Rob was outgoing, nothing like Gary and Cade. Gary was bookish, and kept the accounts. He was a little shorter than Cade, and his coloring was lighter and he was less authoritative. Bess turned her attention back to what the minister was saying, aware of Gussie’s subdued sobbing beside her.

The cemetery was on a small rise overlooking the distant river. It was a Presbyterian church graveyard with tombstones that dated back to the Civil War. All the Samsons were buried here. It was a quiet place, with live oaks and mesquite all around. A good place for a man’s final resting place. Frank Samson would have approved.

“My poor Frank,” Gussie whimpered into her handkerchief as they left the cemetery. “My poor, poor Frank. However will we manage without him?”

“Frugally,” Bess said calmly. Her tears had all been shed the night before. She was looking ahead now to the legal matters that would be pending. She’d never had to cope with business, but she certainly couldn’t depend on Gussie.

She helped her mother into the limousine and sat back wearily on the seat as the driver climbed in and started the engine. Outside, cameras were pointed in their direction, but Bess ignored them. She looked very sophisticated in her black suit and severe bun atop a face without a trace of makeup. She’d decided early that morning that the cameras wouldn’t find anything attractive in her face to draw them to it. They didn’t either. She looked as plain as a pikestaff. Gussie, on the other hand, was in a lacy black dress with diamonds glittering from her ears and throat and wrists. Not diamonds, Bess reminded herself, because those had already been sold. They were paste, but the cameras wouldn’t know. And Gussie had put on quite a show for them. She didn’t look at her mother now. She was too disappointed in the spectacle she’d made of their grief. That, too, was like Gussie, to play every scene theatrically. She’d left the stage to marry Frank Samson, and that was apparent, too.

“I don’t want to sell the house,” Gussie said firmly, glancing at her daughter. “There must be some other way.”

“We could sell it with an option to rent,” Bess said. “That way we could keep up appearances, if that’s all that matters to you.”

Gussie flushed. “Bess, what’s gotten into you?”

“I’m tired, Mother,” Bess replied shortly. “Tired, and worn-out with grief and shame. I loved my father. I never dreamed he’d take his own life.”

“Well, I’m sure I didn’t either,” Gussie wailed.

“Didn’t you?” Bess turned in the seat to stare pointedly at the smaller woman. It was her first show of spirit in recent memory, and it almost shocked her that she felt so brave. Probably it was the ordeal of the funeral that had torn down her normal restraint, she thought. “Didn’t you hound him to death for more jewels, more furs, more expensive vacations that he couldn’t afford in any legal way?”

The older woman turned her flushed face to the window and dabbed at her eyes. “What a way to talk to your poor mother, and at a time like this.”

“I’m sorry,” Bess murmured, backing down. She always backed down. It just wasn’t in her to fight with Gussie.

“Really, Bess, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately,” Gussie said haughtily.

“I’m worried about how we’re going to pay those people back what they’ve lost,” Bess said.

Gussie’s eyebrows lifted. “Why should we have to pay them back?” she exclaimed. “We didn’t make them invest. It was all your father’s fault, and he’s dead.”

“That won’t make any difference, don’t you see?” Bess said gently. “His estate will be liable for it.”

“I don’t believe that,” her mother replied coolly. “But even if we are liable, your father had life insurance—”

“Life insurance doesn’t cover suicide.” Bess’s voice broke on the word. It still hurt, remembering how it had happened, remembering with sickening clarity the bloodstained carpet under her father’s head. She closed her eyes against the image. “No insurance does. We’ve forfeited that hope.”

“Well, the lawyer will handle it,” Gussie said. “That’s what he gets paid for.” She brushed lint off her jacket. “I really must have a new suit. I think I’ll go shopping tomorrow.”

Bess wished, for an instant, that she was a hundred miles away. The grief was hard enough to cope with, but she had Gussie, as well. Her father had managed his flighty wife well enough, or at least it had seemed so to Bess. She had been protected and cosseted, just like Gussie. But she was growing up fast.

Since they had to talk to their attorney, Bess asked the driver to drop them by the lawyer’s office on the way home. They could get a cab when they were through, she said, wondering even then how she’d pay for it. But the driver wouldn’t hear of it. He promised to wait for them, an unexpected kindness that almost made Bess cry.

The limousine stopped at the office of their lawyer, Donald Hughes, a pleasant man with blue eyes and a kind heart, who was as much a friend as he was legal counsel. He sat down with Bess and Gussie and outlined what they’d have to do.

“As I’ve already told you, the house will have to go,” he said, glancing from one woman to the other.

Bess nodded. “We’ve already faced that. Mother has a few jewels left—”

“I won’t sell the rest of my jewels,” Gussie broke in, leaning forward.

“But you’ll have to,” Bess began.

“I will not,” Gussie said shortly. “And that’s the end of it.”

Bess sighed. “Well, I have a few pieces left. I can sell those...”

“Not Great-aunt Dorie’s pearls,” Gussie burst out. “I absolutely forbid it!”

“They’re probably fake anyway,” Bess said, avoiding her mother’s eyes. “You know Great-aunt Dorie loved costume jewelry, and they’ve never been appraised.” In fact they had, just the other day. Bess had taken them to a jeweler and had been shocked at their value. But she wasn’t telling their attorney that, or her mother. She had plans for those pearls.

“That’s too bad. It would have helped swell the kitty,” Donald said quietly. “Well, now, about the stocks, bonds and securities...”

What it all boiled down to, Bess realized some minutes later, was that they were declaring bankruptcy. Creditors would have to settle for fifty cents on the dollar, but at least they would get some kind of restitution. But there would be nothing left for Bess and Gussie. It was a bleak picture he painted, of sacrifice and deprivation—at least it was to Gussie.

“I’ll kill myself,” she said theatrically.

Bess stared at her. “Wonderful,” she said, her grief and misery making her lash out. “That’s just what I need. Two suicides in my immediate family in less than a week.”

Gussie had the grace to look ashamed. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“It won’t be as bad as it sounds, Gussie,” Donald told her kindly. “You’d be amazed how many people will sympathize with you. Why, I heard old Jaimie Griggs say yesterday how much he admired you for carrying on so valiantly.”

“He did?” Gussie smiled. “How nice of him.”

“And Bess’s idea about the two of you renting the house is a sound one, provided you can find a buyer,” Donald said. “Put it on the market and we’ll see what develops. Meanwhile I’ll need your signature on a few documents.”

“All right,” Gussie said, and she seemed to brighten at the thought that she might get to stay in her home.

“What about the Hollisters?” Bess said quietly. “You do know that Cade’s going to need every penny back. We can’t ask him to settle for fifty cents on the dollar, and he’s the biggest investor.”

“Yes.” Donald sighed through his teeth. “Cade is going to have one big headache. He’s careful with his money. He never puts up more than he can afford to lose, but he was generous with his investment in your father’s venture. He’ll have to cut back heavily to keep going if he doesn’t recover that capital. They’ll be in for some more lean times. A pity, when they’d just begun to see daylight financially.”

“He did it of his own free will,” Gussie said indignantly.

“Yes, so he did,” Donald agreed. “But all the law will see is that he invested in a guaranteed market. Your father gave him that guarantee, in writing, and I’m sure he can produce it.”

“Isn’t that a bit unusual in a risky venture like Dad’s?” Bess asked, leaning forward.

“As a matter of fact, it is,” Donald said. “But it’s quite legal. Cade has the right to expect every penny of his investment back, under the terms of the contract.”

“I can see myself now, eighty years old and still sending Cade a check for ten dollars every month.” Bess began to laugh, and the laughter turned to tears. It seemed so hopeless. Her father was dead, the family was disgraced, and to top it all, she was going to be saddled with a debt that would last all her life, with no one to help. Gussie would be no more support than a broken stick. She’d be saddled with Gussie, too, wailing and demanding pretty things like a petulant child and giving Bess hell when she pointed out their circumstances. It was almost too much to bear.

“Oh, Bess, you mustn’t,” Gussie burst out, shocked by the tears. Bess never cried! “Darling, it will be all right.”

“Of course it will,” Bess said with a choke in her voice. She dabbed at her tears. “Sorry. I guess I’m just tired.”

Donald nodded, but he knew very well what Bess was going to be up against with Gussie. She would have had a hard time without the older woman. With her the task would be well-nigh impossible.

Later that day, several neighbors came by the Samsons’ bringing food, a custom in rural areas that Bess was grateful for. Elise Hollister had sent a fried chicken and some vegetables, but she hadn’t come herself, and neither had Cade. Bess wondered why, but she accepted the food with good grace and thanks. Shortly after Maude had helped Bess set a table with the platters of food brought by their few friends, Gussie went up to bed with a headache. Bess got Great-aunt Dorie’s pearls and drove to the Hollister home.

She rambled quietly over several cattle grids, inside electrified wire fence stretched over rustic gray posts. The house wasn’t palatial at all, but it looked comfortable. Her eyes roamed lovingly over the white clapboard, two stories tall, newly painted with gray rocking chairs and a swing on the porch. Around it were towering live oaks and pecan trees, and in the spring it was glorious with the flowers Elise painstakingly planted and nurtured. Now, in winter, it had a bleak, sad look about it.

Bess parked the car in the driveway and got out, grateful for the porch light. It was almost dark, and there was no moon.

She walked slowly up onto the porch. It had been a terrible day, and it showed no sign of getting better. She hadn’t changed out of the black suit she’d worn to the funeral, nor had she added any makeup to her face or loosened her hair from the severe bun.

She knocked on the door, hearing a television set blaring in the background.

To her amazement Elise answered the door herself. She had Cade’s dark eyes and silver hair that had been jet-black in her younger days.

“Bess,” she said gently. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to see Cade,” Bess replied wearily. “Is he home?”

Elise was astute. She noticed the jewelry box clutched in Bess’s slender hand. “Darling, we’re not going to starve,” the older woman told her. “Please, Bess, go home. You’ve had enough on you these past few days.”

“Don’t,” Bess whispered, fighting tears. “I really can’t bear sympathy, Elise, I’ll just go to pieces, and I can’t. Not yet.”

The older woman nodded. “All right.” She managed a quiet smile. “Cade’s in his office. It’s the second door on the right.” She glanced toward the living room. “The boys are watching television, so you won’t be disturbed.”

“Thank you. For everything. The fried chicken was delicious, and mother said to thank you, too.”

Elise started to say something, but she stopped before the words got out. “It was the least I could do. I would have come, but the boys were busy with an emergency and there was nobody to drive me.”

“You don’t have to explain. We appreciate what you did,” Bess said softly. “I wish I could cook.”

“It’s a shame Gussie wouldn’t let Maude teach you,” Elise said.

Bess sighed. “Maude leaves at the end of the week,” she said. “We had to let her go, of course.” She tried to smile. “I’ll practice the trial-and-error cookery method. After I’ve burned up a few things, surely I’ll get the hang of it.”

Elise smiled. “Of course you will. If we can do anything...”

“Thank you.” She touched the older woman’s shoulder gently and turned down the long hall.

She knocked at the second door.

“Come in.”

Cade sounded tired, too, and irritated. That wasn’t encouraging. She opened the door and went in, leaning back against the cool wood for support. Her eyes cast briefly around the room. It was almost ramshackle compared with its counterpart at the Spanish House, with worn linoleum on the floor and equally worn throw rugs. The chairs were faded with age, and the paintings on the wall dated to the twenties. There was a small lamp on Cade’s desk, along with stacks of ledgers and paperwork.

He sat at his desk, bent over one of the ledgers. He didn’t look up for a minute, and Bess was shocked at the sheer fatigue she saw in his face. He had all the responsibility for the ranch these days and took care of all the other Hollisters. How he must hate the Samsons, she thought sadly, for what they were costing him now.

He glanced up and saw her, and the weariness was suddenly overlaid by bitterness.

“Hello, Bess,” he said in a faintly surprised tone, leaning back. “Is this a social visit?”

“I expect you’d be delighted to throw me off the back steps if I dared, considering the mess we’ve landed you in,” she said with what pride she had left. She moved forward and put the jewelry case down on the cluttered desk.

“What’s this?” he asked.

She folded her hands in front of her. “Great-aunt Dorie’s pearls,” she said quietly.

His eyebrows shot up. He picked up the case and opened it, revealing the creamy-pink glow of those antique, priceless pearls. His expression gave nothing away, but she sensed that she’d shocked him.

“Does your attorney know about these?” he asked curtly.

She looked away from his piercing gaze. “I didn’t think it was necessary,” she said evasively. “Dad’s enterprise cost you more than the other creditors. Those pearls will be almost enough to make up every penny.”

“These are more than collateral,” he said, closing the case and laying it on the desk. “They’re a legacy. These should go to your oldest child.”

Her eyes lingered on his chest. His blue work shirt was unbuttoned. “It’s not likely I’ll have children,” she said. “The pearls don’t matter.”

“They will to your mother,” he replied, standing. “And don’t tell me she approved of your coming here. I doubt you even told her.”

“She’s not in much condition to notice what I do,” she said uneasily.

He came around the desk slowly and perched on its edge to light a cigarette. In his half-leaning position, his jeans stretched sinuously across powerful leg muscles and narrow hips. He was devastating physically.

He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “How do you stand financially, after the other debts are paid?”

“We don’t,” she said simply. She had to fight the urge to move closer to him. He was so sensually appealing that her heart was nearly racing.

His chest rose and fell heavily. “Well, I won’t pretend it’s going to be easy, but I can make do with fifty cents on the dollar, and your attorney tells me you can manage that,” he said, watching her face color. “Yes, I’ve spoken to him already.”

“I should have guessed that you would.”

“Why bring me the pearls, then?” he asked quietly. “Didn’t you think I’d settle for what you had to give?”

She smiled. “I wasn’t sure. You’re first and foremost a businessman, and you stood to lose more than the other investors. I didn’t want to see you lose Lariat.”

“I’m not going to lose Lariat,” he said curtly. “I’ll hold on to it somehow.”

She was staring at his dusty boots. He was a hardworking man. A hard man, period. Something in him appealed to her, despite the cold, sarcastic face he presented to the world. She sometimes thought that underneath there was a man who desperately needed to be loved. But Cade Hollister would never have admitted it. No one got close to him.

He was watching those expressions drift across her young face, and they weren’t making it easy for him. Bess had worshipped him from afar for years, and knowing it had almost driven him crazy. There were so many reasons why he couldn’t give in to the barely curbed hunger he felt for her. Her mother had a hold on her that Bess didn’t seem able to break. Despite her lack of wealth now, she’d been born to it and he hadn’t. There were all too many years between them. Besides those good reasons, he had Lariat and his family to think of. His first responsibility was to them, and they were in one hellacious financial pickle now, thanks to Bess’s father.

He was surprised, too, at her continuing attraction to him. He thought he’d convinced her that he didn’t want her. But she still looked at him with those soft, sweet eyes that made him burn from head to toe. It had provoked him into near-violence once, and he’d humiliated her in a way that still haunted him. At the time it had seemed necessary to get her off the track, but now...

He stood up abruptly, irritated by her sudden, jerky backward movement. It angered him beyond all reason.

“For God’s sake,” he burst out, eyes blazing.

She bit her lower lip, her wide eyes searching his with faint apprehension.

He saw the fear and hated it. He had to control a wild urge to grab her, to bring her close and kiss the breath out of her and teach her not to be afraid of him. But he couldn’t do that, and the knowledge made him wild. He crushed out the cigarette with muted violence.

“Don’t flatter yourself, honey,” he said bitingly. “You’re hardly enough to make a man drunk with passion.”

He’d made that clear long ago, so she didn’t take offense. She looked down at her feet, her expression faintly defeated. “I know that already,” she said. There was simply no fight in her, and that bothered him most of all. She was so damned vulnerable.

She looked up at him then with soft brown eyes that shot every scruple he had. The look burned between them like fire, ripping away his will, his restraint. All at once his hand shot out to catch her arm. He swung her around, right up against him, so that she could feel the warmth of his hard, fit body and see the faint beads of sweat clinging to the thick dark hair on his chest.

“Is that your best offer?” he asked deeply, and his eyes at close range were dynamite. He saw the puzzled look in her eyes and cursed himself for saying such a thing to her. She was so damned green, she didn’t even know what he was talking about.

“You mean the pearls?” she got out. “Well, everything else is gone already, except for some of Mama’s jewelry...”

He stared at her with unbridled contempt. “And of course, Mama won’t give up her jewels, even to pay a debt, isn’t that right?”

She felt herself going limp, feeling weary of defending her mother to him. “Cade, can’t you find it in your heart to talk to me without making horribly sarcastic remarks about my mother?” Her big eyes pleaded with him.

He saw the tiredness then. Saw how the funeral had affected her. She was becoming far too pale, too thin, too worn for a woman her age. Like a leech, her mother had sapped her, robbed her of a normal girlhood. His dark eyes narrowed. He wondered if she’d ever realized that his sarcasm was more defensive than offensive.

His dark eyes moved over her like hands, exploring the roundness of her breasts and hips and her small waist. He knew what she felt. Even now she was almost trembling as he looked at her. She wanted him.

But wanting wouldn’t be enough. There was still Gussie and Bess’s lost lifestyle and her own inability to stand up to her own problems. In her present state he’d walk all over her because she had hardly any spirit. That hurt him, to think that he could do even more damage to her spirit than Gussie had. He had a quick, hot temper that he wasn’t shy about losing. Bess would knuckle under. The woman she could be would be submerged in his own strength.

There was a hunger in her soft brown eyes that he felt an urgent need to satisfy. He had to get her out of here, and quick.

But she smelled of gardenias and she looked as if he was every dream of perfection she’d ever had. Her eyes were making love to his, soft and hungry. Virgin eyes.

He touched a loose strand of Bess’s soft hair and brushed it back from her long neck. Even the black suit she was wearing with that stark white blouse didn’t detract from her appeal. If she’d worked at it, she could have been beautiful. But Mama wouldn’t like the competition, so naturally Bess wasn’t encouraged to dress up or fix her face and hair to her best advantage. He knew that, even if Bess didn’t.

Her lips parted at the light touch on her hair. She stared up at him with eyes that were wide and excited.

“You want me like hell, don’t you?” he asked quietly, his dark eyes holding hers.

She felt the ground moving under her feet. It was like having every dream of him she’d ever had come true. The look in his dark eyes, the feel of his hand in her hair, the way his gaze dropped suddenly to her soft mouth. She knew her legs were trembling. He already knew how affected she was, and she wondered if she could bear the humiliation.

“Cade...don’t do this to me,” she whispered shakily as his fingers moved to her mouth and touched it, making it tremble.

“What am I doing to you, Bess?” he asked deeply, not quite in control anymore. The scent of her body was in his nostrils, drugging him, and he was more aware of her by the minute. He toyed with her collar, his knuckles brushing lazily against the soft skin of her throat, making her tremble with an avalanche of new sensations.

“I can’t help what I feel,” she whispered brokenly.

His eyes caressed the soft perfection of her mouth. Her lips were parted, a little swollen with passion. Her eyes were drowsy-looking despite their excitement. He saw her tongue brush her lips, and his breath caught.

He turned his hand so that his fingers could brush softly up and down the line of her throat. Her skin was like satin. It intoxicated him. He moved closer, towering over her, so close that the tips of her breasts touched him.

Bess looked up at him with all her untried dreams in her eyes. She was on fire for him. She wanted his hard mouth with a passion that was already white-hot, and he’d barely touched her. She was surprised and frightened by the intensity of emotion he aroused in her.

His dark head bent a little. “What would you give for my mouth right now, Bess?” he asked in a voice she didn’t recognize, deep and slow and silky.

She felt his breath on her lips, and her restraint went flying. Damn her pride, she needed him...!

“Any...thing,” she whispered shamelessly, her voice breaking on the word. “Don’t you know already? Anything, Cade...”

Her slender hands were on his arms, her nails digging into him, her body swaying against him. He couldn’t help it. Years of suppressed hunger were overflowing inside him. His narrowed eyes fell to her mouth. He could bend his head a fraction of an inch and make all her dreams come true. He could take her mouth and taste its warm softness under the hard crush of his own. He could hold her and touch her, and for a space of seconds she could belong to him. He could feed on the soft, sweet desire that she’d saved up all these years for him. Only for him.

He was actually bending toward her, her breath mingling with his, her body begging to be held by him. And then he felt the weight of responsibility fall on him.

Bess was still a child emotionally, her mother’s child.

That was what brought him to his senses. Bess wanted him, but that was all it was. The newness of desire and the illusion of hero worship were driving her. He could make her dreams come true, all right, but his would turn to nightmares because it was too soon. Perhaps years too soon.

He lifted his dark head and dropped his hand from her soft neck. “No,” he said. He didn’t say it in a rough way. It was only the one word, but firm enough to make her step away from him and blush.

She had to catch her breath audibly, because the feel of that powerful body so close to hers had made it almost impossible to breathe at all. Her soft brown eyes searched his dark ones as she pushed back an unruly strand of honey-brown hair. She looked and felt ashamed, especially when she remembered that she’d practically begged him to make love to her.

“You’re too young and too green for me, Bess,” he said coolly, forcing the words out. “Go home to Mama.”

He reached behind him, picking up the jewelry case and tossing it to her with as little care for what was inside as if he’d been throwing pebbles.

She caught it in her trembling hands. He didn’t want her. Well, she knew that already, didn’t she? He’d only been playing with her, taunting her. It was like what he’d done to her when she was twenty, rejecting her, throwing her away. Only this was more cruel, because he’d tempted her first, made her show him how badly she wanted him.

Her eyes closed on a wave of pain and shame. “If you won’t take the pearls, you’ll only get fifty cents on the dollar like the other investors,” she said in a ghost of her normal tone.

“I’ve already torn up that agreement your father signed with me,” he said shortly. “You could have saved yourself the trip.”

“That and the humiliation,” she said huskily.

“What humiliation?” he asked quietly. “I know that you want me. I’ve always known.”

She turned away with tears streaming down her cheeks. “You’ll get your money back, Cade. All of it, somehow,” she said unsteadily.

She sounded a little wild, and the tears unsettled him. He wondered if she might take him seriously and go to some other man, and that whipped up a fury of sudden anger.

“You won’t do anything stupid, will you?” he asked suddenly, moving forward.

“What do you mean?”

“Like letting Gussie offer you to some well-heeled, bald millionaire just to get enough money to pay me off?”

She took a deep, hurt breath as she felt behind her for the doorknob. “What do you care?” she cried, feeling reckless. “You don’t even want me, you never did, so why play with me like a trout on a fishing line? You’re cruel, and I think I hate you, Cade!”

He didn’t flinch. Not outwardly, at least, except for the sudden angry glitter in his eyes. He cocked his head and gave her a cold smile. “Do you? Was that why you begged for my mouth? Because you hate me?”

Her face went from a blushing rose to a cold white in seconds. She gave in, as she always did, her eyes closing on a wave of shame.

“No. I don’t. I only wish I could hate you,” she whispered brokenly. “I’ve tried for years...” Tears choked her, and she blinked them away. “I came here because I was sorry for what you’d lost, because I wanted to help you. But you don’t want help, least of all from me. I know you don’t want me. I’ve always known that. I wish I was beautiful, Cade! I wish you wanted me so that I could push you away and watch you hurt as much as I do!”

She opened the door and ran through it, her heart broken. He was horrible. Cruel and cold and she didn’t want him anymore, she hated him...

She loved him! His mouth had been the end of the rainbow, the most exquisite promise of pleasure she’d ever known, and she’d wanted it with a pitifully evident desire. But he’d only been playing. And then he had to go and spoil everything with that cruel taunt...!

Cade meanwhile was glaring at the closed door with a jumble of emotions, foremost of which was anger at his own cruelty and Bess’s helpless reaction to it. He’d never meant to humble her. He’d only wanted to protect her, even from himself. If he started kissing her, he wasn’t sure he could stop. The last thing she needed now was the complication of a hopeless relationship. But he hadn’t meant to hurt her.

He started after her, flaming with frustration and bad temper. “Damned circumstances,” he muttered to himself. He hated making apologies. Not that he intended to make one now. But maybe he could rub a healing balm on the wound he’d inflicted.

But when he stepped out into the long hall, he found Bess halfway down it, sobbing into his mother’s shoulder.

Elise looked at her tall, angry son with knowing, soulful eyes. That look was as condemning as Bess’s had been. Worse. He glared at her, then at Bess’s rigid back, and went into his office again. But he didn’t slam the door. Oddly enough, he felt as if he’d just made the biggest mistake of his life.

“There, there,” Elise murmured softly, smoothing Bess’s soft hair as it fell out of the bun down her back. “It’s all right, darling.”

“I hate him,” Bess whimpered. She clung, even though she’d sworn on her arrival that she didn’t need sympathy. Yes, she did, desperately. Gussie had none for anyone except herself, and Bess had nobody else.

“Yes, I know you hate him.” Elise hugged her close with a sigh. Poor little thing, with only Gussie for company at Spanish House. Elise and Gussie had been friends once, until Cade had made an accusation that had broken their friendship and made them enemies. Elise held no grudges even now, but Gussie hated Cade for the accusations he’d made and the way he’d embarrassed her in front of Elise. Bess didn’t know about that scandal, and there was no reason to tell her. It was better left in the past, to her mind. It was only Cade and Gussie who kept it alive, and Elise had long since given up hope that the two of them would ever bury the hatchet.

All the same, she worried about Bess. At times like this she could have picked Gussie up and shaken her. Didn’t she care enough about Bess to see that she was taking her father’s death badly? The last thing she needed was to be here, letting Cade upset her. Elise, who’d wanted at least one daughter, had to content herself with the hope of daughters-in-law. Someday. Maybe.

Bess wept slowly, enjoying the luxury of tears. She was going to get over Cade Hollister if it killed her, now that she knew how he really felt about her. And she’d pay him back someday. It was going to be her goal in life. So it was a pity that no matter how hard she pictured her revenge, it always ended with his arms around her.

CHAPTER FIVE

BESS HAD HERSELF under control by the time she went upstairs to say good-night to Gussie. She’d wiped the tears away and even forced herself to smile as she carried her mother a cup of herbal tea and some cheese for a bedtime snack.

“Feeling better?” she asked Gussie.

The older woman stretched lazily. “A little, I suppose. It’s very lonely without your father, Bess.”

“Yes, I know,” Bess said gently.

“I thought I heard the car leave while I was napping,” Gussie said, eyeing her daughter. “Did you go out?”

“Just to the store for a minute, to get some more tea,” she prevaricated.

“Oh. Well, you really should tell me when you’re going out. I might have needed something.”

Bess felt herself bristle. This was going to be unbearable. Now that her father was gone, she could already see Gussie’s attention turning inward, to her own comfort. Bess was going to be trapped, just as Cade had said.

“Now listen, Mother—” Bess began.

“I’m so tired and sleepy, darling. I simply must rest,” Gussie said with a weary smile. “Sleep tight, baby.”

Bess almost stood her ground, but that smile cut the ground out from under her. She stood up. “You, too, Mama.”

“And don’t forget to lock the doors.”

“No, Mama.”

“You’re such a nice child, Bess.” She lay back, sipping her tea.

Nice, Bess thought as she went to her own room. Nice, but thick as a plank. She was going to have to do something to shake Gussie out of her tearful, clinging mood. Perhaps that would work itself out in time. She had to hope it would.

Meanwhile she didn’t dare tell her mother anything about going to see Cade with Great-aunt Dorie’s pearls. It would be the final straw, to have to hear Gussie ranting about that.

That was unkind, Bess told herself as she put the pearls away in her drawer. Gussie did try, but she just didn’t have many maternal instincts. Bess looked at the sheen of the pearls against their black velvet bed and touched them lightly. Save them for her eldest child, Cade had said. Her eyes softened as she thought about a child. Cade’s child, dark-eyed and dark-haired, lying in her arms. It was the sweetest kind of daydream. Of course that’s all it would ever be. Although his hunger for children was well-known, and he made no secret of the fact that one day he wanted an heir very much, Cade seemed in no rush to involve himself with a woman. And now there would be no money and no time for romance. He was going to spend the next few months trying to save his inheritance, and Bess felt terrible that she’d had even a small part in seeing him brought to his knees. She only wished there was something she could do.

The things he’d said to her still hurt. Even though she could understand that he was frustrated about the financial loss, and her defense of her mother, his bitter anger had wounded her. Especially that crack about not wanting her. What made it so much worse was that it was true. He knew how she felt about him now, and maybe it was just as well that she and Gussie were leaving town. It would be hell to live near Cade and have him know how she felt.

He’d seemed for just a few seconds to want her as badly as she’d wanted him. But that was probably just her imagination. He’d been angry. Of course he’d started to come after her. She spent most of the night trying to decide why.

That night was the longest she’d ever spent. She couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her father’s face. He’d been a wonderful father, a cheerful, smiling man who did anything Gussie wanted him to without protest. He had loved her mother so. But even that love hadn’t been enough to make up for the disgrace of what he’d done. He’d betrayed his friends. He hadn’t meant to. It had sounded like a perfectly respectable financial investment, but he’d been played for a fool, and that was what had driven him to suicide.

Bess cried for all of them. For the father she no longer had. For her mother, who was so weak and foolish and demanding. For Cade, who stood to lose everything on earth he loved. Even for herself, because Cade was forever beyond her reach.

She was up at the crack of dawn, worn and still half-asleep. She dressed in an old pair of designer jeans and a long-sleeved pink shirt with her boots to go riding. It was cold, so she threw on a jacket, as well. Gussie wouldn’t awaken until at least eleven, so the morning was Bess’s. She felt free suddenly, overwhelmed with relief because she could have a little time to herself after days of grief and mourning.

She went down to the stable for one last ride on her horse. Tina was a huge Belgian, a beautiful tan-and-white draft horse and dear to Bess’s heart. She’d begged for the animal for her twentieth birthday, and her father had bought Tina for her. She remembered her father smiling as he commented that it would sure be hard to find a saddle that would go across the animal’s broad back. But he’d produced one, and despite his faint apprehension about letting his only child have such an enormous horse, he’d learned, as Bess had, that Tina was a gentle giant. She was never mean or temperamental, and not once had she tried to throw Bess.

Giving her up would be almost as hard as giving up Spanish House. But there was no choice. There wouldn’t be any place in San Antonio where she could afford to keep a horse. Tina had to go. There had already been two offers for her, but Bess had refused both. One was from a woman with a mean-looking husband, who’d said haughtily that he knew how to handle a horse—all it took was a good beating. The second offer had come from a teenage girl who wanted the horse desperately but wasn’t sure she could come up with the money it would take to buy Tina and then to house and feed her. The girl’s parents didn’t even have a barn.

She sighed as she saddled Tina and rode her down to the creek. It was a beautiful day for winter, and even though her jacket felt good, it would probably be warm enough to go in her shirtsleeves later. Texas weather was unpredictable, she mused.

Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear the other horse until it was almost upon her. She turned in the saddle to see Cade riding up beside her on his buckskin gelding.

Her heart ran away. Despite the way they’d parted company the night before, just the sight of him was heaven. But she kept her eyes averted so that he wouldn’t see how hopeless she felt.

“I thought it was you,” Cade said, leaning over the saddle horn to study her. “You sit that oversize cayuse pretty good.”

“Thanks,” she said quietly. Any praise from Cade was rare. She shifted restlessly in the saddle and didn’t look at him. She was still smarting from his hurtful remarks of the night before, and she wondered why he’d approached her.

“But you still haven’t got those stirrups right.”

“No point now,” she sighed. “She’s going to be sold at auction. This is my last ride.”

His dark eyes studied her in the silence of open country, flatland reaching to the horizon, vivid blue skies and not a sound except for an occasional barking dog. She was distant, and he had only himself to blame. He hadn’t slept, remembering how he’d treated her the night before.

“If I could afford her, I’d buy her from you,” he said gently. “But I can’t manage it now.”

She bit her lower lip. It was so kind...

“Don’t, for God’s sake, start crying,” he said. “I can’t stand tears.”

She forced herself not to break down. She shook her head to clear her eyes as she stared at the range and not at him. “What are you doing out here so early?”

“Looking for you,” he said heavily. “I said some harsh things to you last night.” He bent his head to light a cigarette, because he hated apologies. “I didn’t mean half of them.”

She turned in the saddle, liking the familiar creak of the leather, the way Tina’s head came up and she tossed her mane. Familiar things, familiar sounds, that would soon be memories. “It’s all right,” she said. The almost-apology brought the light back into her life. She felt so vulnerable with him. “I guess you felt like saying worse, because of all the trouble we’ve caused you and your family.”

“I told you before that it wasn’t completely your father’s fault.”

“Yes, but—”

“What will you do?”

Her eyes glanced off his and back to the saddle horn. “Go to San Antonio. Mama doesn’t want to, but it’s the only place I can find work.”

“You can find work?” he exploded.

She cringed at the white heat in his deep, slow voice. “Now, Cade...”

“Don’t you ‘Now, Cade’ me!” he said shortly. “There’s nothing wrong with Gussie. Why can’t she go to work and help out?”

“She’s never had to work,” she said, wondering why she should defend her mother when she agreed wholeheartedly with Cade.

“I’ve never had to wash dishes, but I could if it came to it,” he returned. “People do what they have to do.”

“My mother doesn’t,” she said simply. “Anyway,” she added to divert him, “I can get a job as a copywriter. Advertising work pays well.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he muttered. “I don’t have much contact with cities or city professions. All I know is cattle.”

“You know them pretty well,” she said with a faint smile. “You were making money when all the other cattlemen were losing theirs.”

“I’m a renegade,” he said simply. “I use the same methods my great-grandfather did. They worked for him.”

“They’ll work for you, too, Cade,” she said gently. “I know you can pull the ranch out of the fire.”

He stared at her silently. She had such unshakable faith in what he could do. All that sweet hero worship was driving him to his knees, even though he knew it couldn’t last. Once she got out from under Gussie’s thumb and felt her wings, there’d be no stopping her. Then, maybe, when she could see him as a man and not a caricature of what he really was, there might be some hope for them. But that looked as if it was a long way off.

“Don’t let your mother get her hands on those pearls,” he said unexpectedly. “They’ll go the way of anything else she can liquidate.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, agreeing with him for once. “I told her they were costume jewelry,” she added with a faint smile.

“It won’t work if she gets a close look at them,” he murmured.

She knew that, too. “Why do you feel so strongly about them, Cade?” she asked.

“Because they’re a legacy. Something that’s been in your family a long time, a piece of history for the children you’ll have one day.”

She felt herself coloring. “I don’t know that I’ll ever have any.”

“You will,” he said. “So will I. I want half a dozen,” he mused, letting his eyes run over the land, the horizon. “Ranches are tailor-made for big families. This one is big enough for my kids, and for Gary’s and Robert’s, too. Gary’s too city-minded to settle here, and I don’t know about Robert. But it’s in my blood. I’ll never be able to leave it.”

She’d known that already, but it was new to have him talk to her without the usual cold hostility in his voice. Perhaps it was because she was leaving. And maybe there was a little guilt for the things he’d said the night before.

“Anyway,” he continued, “legacies shouldn’t be used to get ready cash. Gussie isn’t sentimental. You are.”

She smiled shyly. “I guess I am, at that.”

“Get down for a bit.” He swung gracefully out of the saddle and helped her down, while she tried to control an irrational urge to throw her arms around him and hang on. Her heart was beating wildly when he put her down and moved quickly away to tie the horses separately to small trees.

He stood on the banks of the creek, leaning back against a big oak, smoking his cigarette while he studied the small flow of water over the rocks. He was wearing denims and a blue-checked shirt with his shepherd’s coat and a battered old tan Stetson, and to Bess’s eyes he looked the very picture of a working cowboy. His boots, like his hat, were worn with use, and he was wearing working spurs—bronc spurs, in fact, small rowels with pincer edges around them that looked fierce but only pulled the hair of the animal they were used on. A horse’s hide was tough and not easily damaged if the right kind of spurs were worn, and Cade knew the right kind to wear.

“You’ve been breaking horses,” she said, because she knew from experience that he only wore those particular spurs when he was riding new additions to the remuda.

“Helping Dally,” he corrected. Dally was the ranch’s wrangler, and a good one. “We compromised. He wanted to take three years and I had three weeks, so he turns his back while I help him break them to the saddle. Besides, it’s good practice for the rodeo.”

She knew that he competed at rodeos all around the Southwest and that he won a lot. He needed the money to help prop up Lariat.

“It’s dangerous work.” She remembered so well the cowhand several years ago who’d had his back broken when a bronc slung him off against the barn wall. “You pulled that tendon...”

“I barely limp at all now,” he said. “And any ranch work is dangerous.” He turned his head and looked at her, and she could see the light of challenge in his dark eyes. “That’s why I enjoy it.”

“Race-car drivers,” she murmured. “Mountain climbers. Skydivers. Ranchers—”

“Not to mention little girls who buy oversize horses,” he inserted, nodding toward Tina, who was towering over his own buckskin.

“She’s terribly gentle.”

“I guess so. Your father and I had words over her, but he finally convinced me that you’d be safe.”

She went warm all over to think that he’d been concerned about her. He’d never said anything to her, and neither had her father.

“But Gussie never cared, did she?” he asked pointedly, his cold eyes holding hers. “Not about seeing you trampled by an oversize horse or anything else. Unless it interfered with her comfort.”

“Not again,” she said, grimacing. “Cade...”

“She doesn’t give a damn about you. Can’t you see that? My God, Bess, you’ve got enough problems without taking on Gussie for life.”

“It won’t be for life,” she began.

“It will,” he said solemnly. “She’ll never let go. She’s like a leech. She’ll suck you dry and leave you the first time some rich man dangles a diamond over her head.”

It was the truth. But she wasn’t strong like Cade. She never could say no to Gussie. How could she desert her own mother?

“You’re thirty-four,” she pointed out. “And you still live at home and take care of your own mother and both your brothers—”

“That’s different,” he returned curtly. “I’m strong enough to shoulder the responsibility.”

“Oh, of course you are,” she said softly, her eyes adoring him. “You’ve had to be. But the point I’m making is that you’ve got all that responsibility and you’ve never turned your back on your own people or refused to do for them. How can you expect me not to do for my mother?”

He stared at her quietly. “At home Gary keeps the books and Robert handles the sales. Gary’s engaged and won’t be around much longer, and Robert keeps talking about going to San Antonio to find work. I don’t know how much longer they’ll be here. But my mother takes care of a yardful of chickens and a gaggle of geese, which we use for pest control in the garden that she keeps every year. She sews and cleans and cooks. She cans and even helps out at roundup when she has to. I don’t mind providing for a woman like that.”

“I guess my mother would faint if she had to get near a horse,” Bess mused. “But we lived in a different world from yours.”

That was the wrong thing to say. It hurt him. No, he couldn’t imagine Gussie around horses, or Bess cleaning and cooking and planting a garden. His face hardened. She was meant for some rich man’s house, where everything would be done for her. A poor man was hardly her cup of tea.

“I’ve got to get back to work,” he said curtly. “When are you leaving for San Antonio?”

“Tomorrow,” Bess said sadly. “We’ve left all the details to our attorney, and Tina goes to a stable this afternoon to be boarded until they sell her.” She shrugged. “I’m not having much luck with it, I’m too softhearted.”

“Amen.” He paused just in front of her, smelling of the whole outdoors and faint cologne and smoke, smells that were familiar and exciting because they always reminded her of him. “Don’t kill yourself for Gussie.”

She looked up, her eyes soft and misty with tears she didn’t want to shed. “I’ll...miss you,” she said, and tried to smile.

“Do you think I won’t miss you?” he asked, and it was the severest test of his control he’d ever had. The mask slipped, and some of the hunger he felt for her showed in his glittering dark eyes.

She almost gasped. It was such a shock, to know that he felt even a fraction of the longing she did.

“But you don’t care about me,” she whispered. “You don’t even want me, you proved it—”

“I’m in an impossible situation here,” he interrupted gruffly. “It isn’t going to improve. You’ve got Gussie around your neck like an albatross and you have to get used to being an ordinary woman, not a debutante. Those are obstacles neither of us can get around.”

Her lips parted. The hunger was so staggering that she felt her knees wobbling under her. “What if there...were no obstacles?” she asked breathlessly.

His jaw hardened and his eyes roved over her face. “My God, don’t you know?” he asked roughly.

Her hand went out slowly toward his chest, but he caught her wrist and held it away from him. The contact was electric, his warmth penetrating her blood. “No,” he said, letting go of her, watching her blush. “It’s better not to start things when there’s no hope of finishing them.”

“I see.” She did, but it hurt all the same. Her eyes searched his hungrily. “Goodbye, Cade.”

The tears in her eyes made him feel homicidal. He could hardly bear them. “If things get too rough, let me know.”

Tears overflowed down her cheeks, soundless, all the more poignant for the lack of sound.

“Stop that,” he ground out and turned away, because he knew exactly what was going to happen if he didn’t. He was already trembling with the need to grind her body into his and kiss the breath out of her. But kissing was intoxicating and addictive. If he started that with Bess, he might not be able to stop in time. Gentlemen didn’t seduce virgins—he’d been raised to believe that, and his strict upbringing reared its head every time he looked at Bess with desire.

“I’m sorry I did that,” Bess said after a minute, wiping her eyes. “You’ve been so much kinder about all this than I expected. That’s all.”

“I don’t feel particularly kind,” he said shortly. He turned back to her. “But if you need help, all you ever have to do is call. Watch yourself when Gussie has male friends in. Lock your bedroom door if they stay overnight.”

“Mother wouldn’t...!” she exclaimed.

“Like hell your mother wouldn’t,” he said. “You’re so naive it’s unreal. You can’t see what she is.”

“Neither can you,” she stammered.

“You see what you want to,” he said wearily. “And I’m tired of arguing with you about Gussie. It gets us nowhere. Be careful that she doesn’t start shoving you at rich, eligible old men to help feather her nest.” His eyes grew darker at the thought of it, and he felt a momentary twinge of fear.

“That’s funny,” she said with a faint smile, lowering her eyes. “You don’t know how funny. Can you really see me as a femme fatale?”

“I can see you as a warm, loving woman,” he said against his will, his voice deeper and softer than she’d ever heard it. “Once you come out of that shell, men are going to want you.”

Her heart jumped. She lifted her eyes. “Even you?” she asked in a whisper, daring everything.

Careful, he told himself. Careful. He let his dark eyes wander over her face, but he didn’t smile. “Maybe,” he said noncommittally.

She laughed mirthlessly. “No, you wouldn’t want someone like me,” she said wistfully and averted her eyes from the probing look in his. “You’ll want someone who’s capable and strong, someone who can cope with ranch life and country living. I’m just a cream puff with an overbearing mother...” Tears stung her eyes.

“Honest to God, Bess, if you don’t stop that, I’m going to...” He bit down hard on his self-control. Keeping his hands off her was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and she didn’t even realize the effect she was having on him.

“Sorry,” she said. She laughed. “I’m always apologizing.”

“You don’t have much of a self-image,” he said tightly. “Time will take care of that. Losing everything was tough on you, I know, but you may find that it was the best thing that ever happened to you. Hard times shape us. They’ll shape you.”

“Make a woman of me, you mean?” she asked shyly.

He drew in a short breath. “In a sense, yes. Go to San Antonio. Find your own place in life. That independence will be good for you. You’ll marry one day, and it’s important that a woman doesn’t become only an extension of a man.”

“That doesn’t sound old-fashioned at all.”

“In some ways I’m not,” he murmured. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully on her face. “But Mother raised us in the church, even if she could never drag my father into one. The Bible looks upon some aspects of modern life as a sin.”

She nodded. “Like sleeping around.”

“Like sleeping around.” He stared down at her quietly. “I’m not a fanatic about it, but I’d like to think the woman I marry had enough respect for herself to bring her chastity to the marriage bed. It seems to me,” he mused deeply, “that this new morality is more for the man’s sake than the woman’s. The women are running all the risks, and the men are getting everything they want without the responsibilities of marriage.”

She laughed gently. “Maybe so.” She stared at the ground. “I never got to go to church, but I always thought it was so romantic to wait until I got married to be intimate with a man. Mama laughed at such an outdated notion, but my father never did. I think he approved.”

“Your father was a good man,” he replied. “I’ll miss him, too.”

She looked up at him. “You can still have the pearls, Cade,” she said softly.

He shook his head. “I’ll get by.” His eyes slid down to her mouth and stared at it until he thought his head was going to spin him to the ground. He wanted it so badly.

Bess saw that look and trembled with the need to go close to him, to offer her mouth, to experience, even if only one time in her life, the exquisite pleasure those hard, firm lips could give. She knew already that it would be everything she could want. Her lips parted as he looked at them, and the wave of hunger that swept over her almost brought her to her knees. Just one kiss, she pleaded silently. One!

He took one slow step toward her, his warmth enveloping her, the scent of him in her nostrils. She looked up, feeling his breath on her face, watching his eyes so intent on her mouth. She could see the very texture of his lips this close and she wanted them against her own.

“Please.” She heard the soft plea and hardly realized that it had come from her own lips.

His jaw tautened. “I want it just that much,” he said, biting off his words. His eyes caught hers. Tension strung between them like thunder building black on the horizon, the earth trembling as it waited for lightning to strike down against it. Bess searched Cade’s dark eyes with that same anticipation, her heart slamming against her chest. It was going to happen...!

For one long, tense second it looked as if Cade wasn’t going to be able to hold back. Then he forced himself to tear his eyes from hers, to take a step back and then another. His body protested, but for Bess’s sake and his own, he didn’t dare take the risk.

Watching him, Bess, felt her heart shaking her with its mad beat. The disappointment was almost physically painful. The way he’d been staring at her mouth had made her weak. But he’d had the strength to draw back before anything happened, because he didn’t want complications. She wished that she could knock down all those obstacles he’d talked about. Life was so short. She’d go away, and he’d forget her...

“You might write to us once in a while. Let us know how you’re doing,” he said unexpectedly.

“Would you write back?” she asked hesitantly.

He nodded. “Sure.”

Her face lit up. It wasn’t going to be the end of the world.

He slanted his hat over his brow and searched her face. “I’ve got something for you.”

Her eyes sparkled. “For me?” she asked, surprised.

“It’s not a diamond brooch, so don’t get all excited,” he muttered. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and unfastened the knotted end. Inside was a small silver ring inlaid with turquoise in the shape of a bird on its wide face.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly.

“It has a history,” he said. He took her right hand and slid the ring slowly onto her third finger, cradling her slender hand in his. “Someday I’ll tell it to you. For now it’s something to remind you that life goes on in spite of our problems.”

“Are you sure you want me to have it?”

“I’m sure.” His thumb rubbed over it while his fingers tightened slowly around hers. “It isn’t worth much, but it’s as much a legacy as your Great-aunt Dorie’s pearls,” he smiled faintly. “So take care of it.”

“I’ll never take it off,” she promised. Her eyes went over it lovingly, and the expression on her face touched Cade. She was used to diamonds and pearls, but that little bit of silver seemed to touch her every bit as much as a mink coat would have touched her mother.

“You never were mercenary,” he said quietly. “Or a snob. Once you’ve gotten over your father’s death and learned how to manage your mother, you’re going to be a heartbreaker.”

She stared up at him quietly. “Be careful I don’t break yours,” she said with bravado.

Surprisingly he took her hand and put it over his heart. “I’m not sure I have one,” he said simply. “It’s been knocked around a good bit in recent years. But if you can find it, do your worst.”

She reached up her free hand slowly and touched his hard mouth and then, when he stood very still and didn’t protest, the rest of his lean, dark face.

“You won’t forget me, will you?” she asked.

Her soft hands on his face had been heaven. He’d been busy imagining them on his bare chest, his shoulders, and his mind had to be dragged back from the exquisite images it had been contemplating. He caught her hand and pressed its soft palm to his mouth roughly. “No.”

“I won’t forget you either.”

He sighed heavily, because this was harder than he’d expected. “Come on. Time to get going. I’ve got two more horses to break. I only rode over to say goodbye.”

She lingered at her horse, hoping that he might kiss her, but he didn’t. He put her up into the saddle and rested one hand on her jean-clad thigh, his eyes dark and unsmiling as he looked up at her. When he didn’t smile, that Comanche blood showed in his face, in the high cheekbones and stern expression.

“Remember what I told you about men,” he said shortly. “You can’t live like a hermit, but don’t let Gussie railroad you into anything. Just be careful about the people you trust.”

“You don’t trust anybody, do you, Cade?” she asked gently.

“I trust my family and you. That’s it.” He turned to get back onto his own mount, looking as much a part of the buckskin as the saddle on its back. He was an excellent horseman. His mastery of horses and his skill with a rope had made him a natural in the rodeo arena, but Bess still worried about him.

She stared at him hungrily, hoping for a last-minute reprieve. That he’d propose marriage. That he’d ask her to wait for him. That he’d say, “Don’t go.”

He did none of those things. He stared at her for one long moment and then he turned his horse without a word, not even a goodbye, and went back the way he’d come. She watched him until he was a pinpoint in the distance, tears streaming down her cheeks. At least, she thought, she had one sweet memory to put under her pillow at night. She touched the silver ring on her finger and kissed it softly. She didn’t really understand why Cade would give her a family heirloom when he hadn’t said anything about a commitment, but it was the most wonderful present she’d ever received. She’d never part with it. It would remind her of Cade and help her cope with the hardships ahead.

And she knew Gussie was going to be the worst hardship of all.

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