TAG HESITATED outside Michelle’s bedroom door. He’d been up since dawn, which didn’t really mean much since he hadn’t slept all night.
He’d actually thought about joining all of them for dinner, but he’d caught part of Michelle’s conversation about wanting a whole new look. He hoped she was kidding. He didn’t want her to change a thing, but since he couldn’t see her eyes, he didn’t know if she meant it or not.
He could always tell when she was teasing by the little twinkle she got in her eyes.
He was really gonna miss that twinkle.
He knocked.
Before he had a chance to prepare himself, Michelle flung the door wide.
She was dressed for travel in her good jeans and one of her fancy dress western shirts. The fringe along the yoke was the same green as her eyes.
“Tag?” Her eyes, her beautiful emerald green eyes. She stared at him a moment, her lips parted, her soul wide open to him.
Just as quickly, she shuttered all of it, hid her emotions where no one, especially Tag, would see them. “What are you doing here? It’s barely seven.”
“I wanted to tell you good-bye,” he said, the carefully prepared words nowhere to be found. “I thought it would be easier if we were alone.”
He looked away. He couldn’t meet those eyes of hers, look into the hurt and know he was the cause. Even though he was certain she’d thank him one day.
“You’re probably right. Good-bye, Tag.”
He turned back and she was holding out her hand. She wanted to shake his damned hand! He stared at her fingers a minute, those fingers with the blunt nails that were going to be manicured and polished, probably before the day was over. He couldn’t stand it.
He grabbed her. He moved so fast he thought she’d belt him one, but she just melted into his arms as if they’d never been apart. Tag stepped through the door and kicked it shut behind him, and all the time he was kissing Michelle she was kissing him back, kissing him the way she had up there in the line shack all those nights and days.
He covered her mouth with his, breathing her in, tasting her, needing her so much he thought he might shatter into a thousand tiny pieces.
Her breath came in ragged gasps. She tore her mouth away from his and leaned against his chest, her chest rising and falling in cadence with his.
The front of his shirt was wet. Damn, she was crying. He didn’t want her to cry.
“Michelle, sweetheart, please . . .” He tipped her chin up with his fingers, expecting to see the love shining in her eyes. He saw a fierce determination, a will every bit as strong as his own.
“Good-bye, Tag,” she whispered. “I think you’d better leave now.” Then she slipped out of his embrace and before he could think of a thing to say, opened the door. “Thank you for everything.” Her voice sounded stiff, foreign.
He licked his lips, tasted her on his mouth. Couldn’t take his eyes off her. Michelle’s throat convulsed as she swallowed, but her tears had stopped and she held her head proudly.
She also held the door open.
He could take a hint, Tag figured. Nodding his head, he left.
MARK KNOCKED on her door a few minutes later. “You okay?” he asked after Michelle opened it to admit him. “I saw Tag race off on Nitro and wondered if he’d stopped by here.”
“Yeah, he was here.” She grabbed her saddlebag off the bed, stuffed with her well-worn western gear. The rest of her luggage—the bags with all her expensive clothes—was probably buried under tons of mud by now.
“I told Lenore we’d skip breakfast, just have a cup of coffee and get something on the road. I didn’t think you’d feel much like eating this early.”
“Thanks, Mark. You really are sweet,” she said. He was sweet. He’d been kind and understanding, everything a friend should be.
He just wasn’t Tag. She’d been right to send Tag away, though. If he’d come to ask her to stay, to tell her he loved her and couldn’t live without her . . . well, that would have been one thing.
But he’d come to say good-bye. Privately, so he wouldn’t have to say it in front of everyone, so afraid of his emotions, terrified someone might see that her leaving actually meant something to him.
She wouldn’t live her life with a man afraid of love. She’d give up the most passionate relationship she’d ever known, but she wouldn’t trade love for anything.
Not even the sizzle?
No, she told herself. Not even that.
LENORE CRIED when she said good-bye. Coop didn’t cry, but his pale blue eyes shimmered with tears and his embrace was warm and strong. “You come back, ya hear? The Double Eagle ain’t gonna be the same without you.”
“Thanks, Coop. Lenore, I’m really going to miss both of you, so much. Thank you for everything. If you ever come to New York . . . ?” She left the sentence dangling.
They’d never come. Not in a million years. Why should they, when they had all of Colorado to call home? When they had love and laughter and shared nights for the rest of their lives?
Coop had proposed to Lenore just last night. They’d announced their impending marriage this morning and invited Michelle and Mark to come to the wedding.
Michelle didn’t think she could stand another wedding on the Double Eagle, at least not one that didn’t include her and Tag.
Mark grabbed her bag and threw it in the backseat, then opened the door for her. Michelle scanned the horizon, hoping for one last glimpse of Tag.
She spotted him, far off atop one of the low hills that surrounded the ranch, a silent silhouette against the morning sky. Her throat tightened as she watched him, mounted on Nitro, horse and man so much a part of the ranch they seemed to flow up out of the earth.
She wondered what he thought, waiting up there on his hill. She wondered if he knew what a terrible mistake he was making.
“C’mon, sweetheart. It’s a long ways home.”
Michelle glanced up at Mark’s gentle smile, gave Lenore and Coop one last hug, then crawled into the front seat. Her face felt frozen, her eyes dry and scratchy, her jaws ached from clenching her teeth.
Mark started the car, they all waved, and she was suddenly leaving the Double Eagle behind. Leaving Lenore and Coop, Daisy and Dandy and Star.
Leaving Tag.
She hadn’t quite left Bob the Dog. He bounded along beside the car, his beautiful tail flying in the breeze, his joyful bark out of place with Michelle’s mood.
She opened the window. “Go home, Bob,” she yelled. “Go home.” The dog ran a few more paces then stopped, one ear up, one ear down, his tongue hanging out of his grinning mouth. Michelle thought he looked as if he were laughing at her as the car slowly followed the long drive to the main road.
“I should have known he was letting you get away too easily.” Mark’s disgruntled laugh startled Michelle.
“What?”
“You ever put an ending like this in one of your books, Michelle, I swear I’ll make you rewrite the whole damned thing.”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Michelle spun around in her seat and scanned the horizon.
“No, stupid. Over there!” Mark was laughing out loud now, but he gave the car a little more gas and increased their speed.
Michelle looked in the direction he pointed and gasped. Tag, riding low over Nitro’s back, galloping in a reckless dash across the hillside in a course destined to head them off before the main gate. The stallion’s powerful legs stretched and pounded over the ground, throwing up huge clods of mud and turf.
Tag held his Stetson in one hand, the reins in the other. Michelle held her breath, glorying in the powerful combination of man and beast, the knowledge that Tag was finally, really and truly, coming for her.
In front of Mark, his grandmother, even Coop, he was chasing after Michelle.
Her cowboy hero, racing to the finish for his one true love.
Mark was right. No way in hell could she get away with an ending like this. She was laughing, out of breath, in love, when horse and car reached the same point on the road.
Mark hit the brakes, Tag pulled back on the reins. Nitro reared, his front hooves flailing the sky, his mouth wide open in a stallion scream of triumph.
Tag slid easily to the ground, tipped his newly replaced Stetson to Mark, then opened Michelle’s door. “I can’t let you do it,” he said, gasping for breath. “I can’t let you marry him.”
“Why?” Michelle asked, unbuckling her seat belt and stepping out of the car.
“You know why, Michelle. You know damned why.”
“Maybe I do and maybe I don’t,” she said, laughing for the pure joy of the moment. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”
“Because I love you, dammit! I can’t live without you and you know it. You’ve gotten yourself under my skin, you’ve left bits and pieces of yourself all over the Double Eagle so that everywhere I look, every place I go, I see you. I finally get the damned ranch and it’s not even mine! It’s yours.” He grabbed her hands and got down on one knee.
Michelle burst into tears.
“I love you, Michelle. I love you more than I ever thought I’d love anyone. I think you love me just as much. I hope you do, because you’re gonna have to love me a lot to put up with me once we’re really married. You will marry me, won’t you? You’ll be my wife, have my babies? Help me during roundup,” he added, grinning that damned lopsided grin she never could resist.
She was crying so hard she couldn’t answer him. She figured he must have taken it as a yes, because he suddenly stood up, kissed her hard on the mouth and grabbed her hand. “I’m really sorry, Mark,” he said. “You’re one hell of a nice guy and I like you a lot, but you can’t have her.”
At some point Mark must have gotten out of the car, because he was leaning against it, his arms folded on the roof. His smile was bittersweet, loving, the smile of a good friend. “For what it’s worth, Tag, she never was mine to have. You be good to her, though, or I’ll be back.”
“You’re welcome back any time. You know that.” Tag rubbed his hand along Michelle’s back. “C’mon, sweetheart. We’re going home.”
“But Nitro? You said I can’t get near Ni . . .”
“Nitro listens to me,” Tag said, tilting her chin up with his finger. “I promise to listen to you. Okay? Is it a deal?”
“It’s a deal.”
Tag scooped Michelle up in his arms and settled her on the suddenly placid stallion. He mounted behind her, leaned over and grabbed the bulging saddlebag that Mark held out to him. He knew it was filled with Michelle’s fancy western clothes—a little worn, a lot more comfortable. He hooked the strap over the saddle horn and grabbed the reins. “Drive carefully,” he said, waving to Mark.
Michelle couldn’t think of a thing to say. “Mark, I . . .”
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re doing the right thing. However,” he added, pointing his finger. “This doesn’t mean you quit writing. I want a western from you, Michelle. I want the best damned western you can write. Now get busy.” He dipped his head to get into the car, then straightened up again. “Be happy, sweetheart, but don’t you dare end the story with the hero racing up on a white stallion to rescue the heroine. That sort of thing just won’t fly.”
She heard his laughter as he drove away. Michelle and Tag watched until the rental car reached the main gate and turned toward town. Mark waved, they waved back, then Tag clicked his tongue and Nitro calmly headed back to the ranch.
Michelle snuggled into Tag’s embrace, fit herself into the valley of his thighs and grinned at the future lying in wait for both of them.
“Yes,” she said, turning to kiss Tag on the chin.
“Yes, what?” he asked, kissing her back.
“Yes, I’ll marry you.” She kissed him once more.
Tag nudged Nitro and the big horse lunged forward. Coop and Lenore waited for them, hand in hand on the broad front porch.
Standing there waiting as if this were exactly the right way for Michelle’s story to begin.
Epilogue
MARK CONNOR replaced the final page of Michelle’s latest manuscript and rubbed his hand over his face. All he managed to do was smear the tears, so he grabbed his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his eyes, blew his nose and did his best to make himself presentable before he headed home. Thank goodness the office was empty. Anyone with half a brain, or a life, had gone home hours ago. He’d stayed on, reading Michelle’s western. Started it the minute it arrived with the morning mail and hadn’t been able to put it down.
She’d certainly gotten it right this time, though Mark wasn’t certain if it was the story that touched him so or the personal note she’d added on the end.
She was taking an unofficial leave of absence from writing for a while. She hoped he didn’t mind too much, had thought she could manage with the baby coming and everything else going on. Twins, a boy and a girl, had complicated things more than she and Tag had expected, but they couldn’t be happier.
Or more in love.
When was Mark coming to visit? She missed him, missed the occasional lunches, the phone calls. She even missed his insults.
Phones worked just fine in Colorado, in case he’d forgotten.
She’d signed it “Love, Michelle,” then added a PS as long as the note. Lenore and Coop were fine, Tag sent his greetings, Star was learning his paces. Will and Annie Twigg were expecting a baby come spring, but Betsy Mae’s clown had decided he wasn’t cut out for marriage. He’d left her at the Durango rodeo and she was back at Columbine Camp, nursing a broken heart and driving her brother and new sister-in-law nuts.
Life on the Double Eagle, however, was absolutely wonderful.
Mark stuck the note in his pocket, tidied his desk and stood up. He glanced at his calendar and smiled. Just six more months and he’d be out of here. Long enough to get Michelle’s book going, long enough to farm his authors out to other editors. Then it was his turn.
He’d been thinking about Colorado lately. Thinking about horses and mountains, trees and freedom. Thinking about love. Michelle’d told him he didn’t have a clue when it came to romance. He was willing to agree with her, up to a point.
What better place to learn than Colorado? It had certainly worked for Michelle. Whistling, Mark turned out the light and headed home.
~ ~ ~
Look for Mark Connor’s story,
Dime Store Cowboy
, in The Promise of Love anthology from Berkley Publishing. Read a first chapter excerpt at
www.katedouglas.com/id57.htm
.