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“But not far from it.”
Colton bristled. “I can handle myself.”
“Just use your head.”
“Oh, like you do whenever you’re around Tessa?”
Denver’s face became a mask of iron. “Leave Tessa out of this,” he warned in a low growl. “You’d better get back to the house. Dad wants to talk to you. And you, Cassie—”
“I’ll take care of her,” Colton bristled.
“If you haven’t already.” Yanking on the bay’s reins, Denver swore furiously. The horse twirled on his back legs and took off in a cloud of dust.
“Come on,” Colton said gently, “I’ll take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
A muscle tightened in Colton’s jaw, and his silvery eyes sparked. “Denver’s right, you know. This’ll only cause trouble.” He took her hand in his and guided her to the truck.
“But all I want is you! I want to marry you!”
“Oh, God, Cassie. Marry me?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head violently. The fading light was reflected in his eyes. “You’ll change your mind a dozen times before—”
“Don’t tell me I’m too young to know what I want,” she said, tears flooding her eyes as he helped her into the dented Ford pickup. She hated being only seventeen—hated it!
“Okay, I won’t. But I’ll tell you what I want. I want to finish college. I want to travel. I want to be the best photographer in the newspaper business.” He ground the old gears, and the truck lurched forward. “And I’m not interested in a wife—at least not now.”
He couldn’t have wounded her more if he’d taken a knife to her throat. Huddled miserably on the passenger side of the pickup, Cassie wondered how she could change his mind. He’d wanted her, and there was more to their relationship than simple lust, she thought wretchedly. There had to be. Some
how she’d prove it to him.
The next morning Cassie was working out her plan to see Colton when her father cornered her in the kitchen. “You were out yesterday,” he said. Seated at the battered old table, he sipped coffee from his favorite chipped mug.
“Umm.” She kissed her father on his crown. “But I wasn’t late.”
“Who were you with?” he asked.
“Just a friend.” She reached into the cupboard and found a cup for herself.
“Boyfriend?”
“Yes,” she said, naively thinking she could end the feud right then and there. “Colton McLean.”
Her father’s head snapped back and a steady flush crept up his neck as he glared at her. “I thought I told you the McLean boys were off limits.”
“And I thought that it was time to start mending fences,”
The back of her father’s neck turned scarlet. “Some fences are never meant to be mended. Don’t you remember what the McLeans did to us? To our family?” He shoved his plate across the table.
“That was John.”
“I never want to hear that name in this house!” he warned. “And you may as well realize all the McLeans are the same—cut from the same bolt of rotten cloth. Especially Colton. He’s wild and irresponsible, that one!”
“You just don’t know him.”
