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“If you don’t know what it is, then nothing can fix it.”
“Are we down to riddles now? I’m not any good at mind reading,” he warned. “Whatever you want, just say it right out. I can deal with reality, but guessing games aren’t my strong suit.”
“I’m not jerking you around. I’m not happy with this situation, either, but I’m not going back until I know for certain we have a future. That’s the way it is, and I won’t change my mind.”
Slowly he stood up and pulled some bills out of his pocket. Maddie held up her hand dismissively. “Never mind, this one’s on me. I get good tips,” she said with a crooked smile.
He looked down at her with a surge of hunger that almost took him apart, and he didn’t try to resist it. He leaned down and covered her mouth with his, tilting her head back so he could slant his lips more firmly over hers, his tongue sliding between her automatically parted lips. They had made love too often, their senses were too attuned to each other, for it to be anything but overwhelmingly right. She made one of her soft little sounds, and her tongue played with his, her mouth responding. If they had been alone the kiss would have ended in lovemaking; it was that simple, that powerful. No other woman in his life had ever gotten to him the way Maddie did.
The café was totally silent as the few customers still there watched with bated breath. The situation between Reese Duncan and his spirited wife was the best entertainment the county had seen in years.
“Harrummph!”
Reese lifted his head, his lips still shiny from the kiss. The loud interruption had come from Floris, who had left the sanctuary of the kitchen to protect her waitress. At least that was what Reese thought, since she had bypassed the spatula in favor of a butcher knife.
“I don’t hold with none of that carrying-on in my place,” she said, scowling at him.
He straightened and said softly but very clearly, “Floris, what you need is a good man to give you some loving and cure that sour disposition.”
The smile she gave him was truly evil in intent. She gestured with the butcher knife. “The last fool that tried drew back a nub.”
It always happened. Some people just didn’t know when to keep out of something. The cowboy who had gotten in the argument with her the first time Reese had brought Maddie in just had to stick his oar in now. “Yeah, when was that, Floris?” he asked. “Before or after the Civil War?”
She turned on him like a she-bear on fresh meat. “Hell, boy, it was your daddy, and you’re the best he could do with what he had left!”
IT WAS THE end of April. Spring was coming on fast, but Reese couldn’t take the pleasure in the rebirth of the land that he usually did. He rattled around in the house, more acutely aware of its emptiness now than he had ever been before. He was busy, but he wasn’t content. Maddie still wasn’t home.
She had given him financial security with her legacy from her grandmother. Without the remaining payments of the huge mortgage hanging over him, he could use the money from the sale of last year’s beef to expand, just as he had originally planned. For that matter, he could take out another loan with the ranch as collateral and start large-scale ranching again, with enough cowhands to help him do it right. Because of Maddie, he could now put the ranch back on a par with what it used to be, even with the reduced acreage. She had never seen it as it had been, probably couldn’t imagine the bustle and life in a large, profitable cattle ranch.
He needed to make some sort of decision and make it soon. If he were going to expand, he needed to get working on it right now.
But his heart wasn’t in it. As much as he had always loved ranching, as deeply as his soul was planted in this majestically beautiful range, he didn’t have the enthusiasm for it that he’d always had before. Without Maddie, he didn’t much care.
But she was right; it was their baby’s heritage. For that reason he had to take care of it to the best of his ability.
Life was always a fluid series of options. The circumstances and options might change from day to day, but there was always a set of choices to be made, and now he had to make a very important one.
If he expanded on his own it would take all his capital and leave him without anything in reserve if another killing blizzard nearly wiped him out. If he went to the bank for another loan, using the ranch as collateral, he would be putting himself back in the same position Maddie had just gotten him out of. He had no doubt he could make it, given that he would be able to reinvest all of the money in the ranch instead of paying it out to a grasping ex-wife, but he’d had enough of bank loans.
That left an investor. Robert Cannon was brilliant; he’d make one hell of a partner. And Reese did have a very clear business mind, so he could see all the advantages of a partnership. Not only would it broaden his financial base, he would be able to diversify, so the survival of the ranch wouldn’t come down to a matter of how severe the winter was. The land was his own legacy to his child.
He picked up the telephone and punched the numbers on the card Robert had given him at Christmas.
When he put the receiver down half an hour later, it was all over except the paperwork. He and Robert dealt very well together, two astute men who were able to hammer out a satisfactory deal with a minimum of words. He felt strange, a little light-headed, and it took him a while to realize what had happened. He had voluntarily put his trust in someone else, surrendering his totalitarian control of the ranch; moreover, his new partner was a member of his wife’s family, something he never could have imagined a year before. It was as if he had finally pulled free of the morass of hatred and resentment that had been dragging on him for years. April, finally, was in the past. He had made a mistake in his first choice of a wife; smart people learned from their mistakes and went on with their lives. He had learned, all right, but he hadn’t gotten on with living until Maddie had taught him how. Even then he had clung to his bitter preconceptions until he had ruined his marriage
.
God, he’d crawl on his hands and knees if it would convince her to come back.
As the days passed he slowly became desperate enough to do just that, but before the need inside him became uncontrollable, he received a phone call that knocked the wind out of him. The call was from April’s sister, Erica. April was dead, and he was the main beneficiary in her will; would he please come?
Erica met him at JFK. She was a tall, lean, reserved woman, only two years older than April, but she had always seemed more like an aunt than a sister. Already there was a startling streak of gray in the dark hair waving back from her forehead, one she made no attempt to hide. She held out her hand to him in a cool, distant manner. “Thank you for coming, Reese. Given the circumstances, it’s more than I expected and certainly more than we deserve.”
He shrugged as he shook her hand. “A year ago I would have agreed with you.”
“What’s happened in the past year?” Her gaze was direct.
“I remarried. I got back on my feet financially.”
