would take to make Rose Jordan look at
him
that way. She’d let him love her last
night. Hell, she’d been a wildcat in his
arms. But she hadn’t given him any words
at all. Hadn’t really ever looked him in the
eye. She’d let him touch and taste her, and
now she was under his skin, all right. He
wanted
more
. He was, he realized, feeling
jealous of a rosebush and of a dead woman
Rose couldn’t, wouldn’t, forget.
Of course, Auntie Dee had been a good
woman.
Cabe wasn’t good.
“This is
mine,
” she said. “I’ve spent
months dreaming about it, drawing up
plans for the renovations. This is
my
home,
and I plan on hanging on to it. Even if it is
falling down around my ears,” she added
wryly.
Problem was, the place
wasn’t
hers. She
just didn’t know it yet.
“Start over,” he said quietly. “My offer
still stands. I’ll cut you a check, and you
can pick out a place that doesn’t come with
the largest colony of termites west of the
Sierras.”
She opened her mouth, and he could just
about see the refusal coming, when the
contractor banged open the screen door
and joined them on the porch.
“Christ,” the contractor said. “She’s a
tear-down, all right. Not sure why you’d
want to put her to rights.” He shook his
head. “Thought you were putting a well in
here, Cabe, not doing renos.”
Hell
. Cabe glared at the man, but the
damage was done.
“The house already has a well.” Rose
sounded confused. “It’s not dry.”
“We’re done here,” Cabe snapped.
The contractor nodded, glancing down
at the yellow legal pad where he’d been
jotting his endless notes.
“No, we’re not. You don’t call the shots
here,
Cabe. Not in my house.” Rose shot to
her feet, looking irritated. “Tell me why I
need a new well.”
The contractor looked at Cabe, because
the man wasn’t stupid. Cabe could make
damn sure he never worked in Northern
California again. Cabe’s mouth tightened.
The damage was done, and he wouldn’t lie
to Rose.
Overtly,
a little voice mocked. He
gestured for the other man to continue.
“You got plenty of water here. This
place is sitting on a real nice little aquifer.
Mr. Dawson had a drilling engineer out to
check the levels maybe seven, eight months
ago. We all figured he was waiting for the
old woman to pass on before he knocked
the house down and drilled for the water.”
Her face closed right up. “I see,” she
said, and he’d just bet she did. The
contractor must have smelled trouble
brewing, because he beat a retreat to his
pickup. Rose just watched him go.
“Rose,” he said carefully.
“Your offer to buy me out isn’t just a be-
nice favor, is it, Cabe?”
“No. This house is sitting on an aquifer.
Blackhawk Ranch is running dry on its
southern border. I drill here, that problem
goes away.”
“You want to turn my home into a cattle
yard.”
“Hell, Rose.” He scrubbed a hand over
his head, then jammed the Stetson back on.
“I want what’s best for both of us. My
ranch needs the water. You need a chance
to start over. Take the check, and you’ve
got that chance. What’s so hard about
doing that?”
“You don’t get to decide what’s best for
me.” She was standing chest to chest with
him now, eyes snapping. She was furious,
and she still didn’t know the half of it.
Goddamn it, why couldn’t she admit he
might be right? Maybe he did know what
was best. “You have no right.”
“Actually, I do, darlin’,” he drawled. “I
have every right in the world.”
Cabe Dawson was big and tough and
sexy. Part of her wanted to get her hands
on his belt buckle and undo him the way
he’d undone her. He was so gorgeous—she
tried the word out mentally, and it fit—but
he’d put that distance between them again.
He stood up there, leaning against the
pillar, while she sat lower on the steps.
Well, screw him. Screw his well-
intentioned plans for her life.
“No,” she countered. The problem with
Cabe was, the man didn’t move until he
was good and ready to move. “You have
no rights here at all. Just because we had
sex last night doesn’t mean you can come
in here today and tell me what’s what.”
Last night hadn’t been just sex, though,
and that was the problem, wasn’t it? He’d
taken her into his arms, and she’d been
impossibly happy. He was a sensual,
dominating lover, and, for the first time,
she’d known he was
seeing
her. Not his
brothers’
friend
or
the
neighbor’s
wayward foster child.
Her
. Rose Jordan,
the woman. She wasn’t sure where they’d
been going, but someplace special, even if
feelings and words weren’t something
Cabe expressed easily. That was her
cowboy.
“I should have let the lawyer finish,” he
growled out. “Like ripping off a Band-Aid,
right? Maybe there’s a sting, but it’s over
quick, and you move on.”
Time seemed to slow down. That icy-
hot sensation hit her, the feeling you got
when you knew there was bad news
coming and there was no way to stop it.
“Auntie Dee left you this house,” he
continued. “But she had a reverse mortgage
on the place.”
The pieces were falling into place, and
she didn’t like the pattern. “You hold her
note. How much?” She fought the
temptation to close her eyes. There was no
hiding from this.
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
She didn’t have that kind of money, and
if Cabe wanted that water, he wouldn’t
want money anyhow. She was going to
lose this place. She wasn’t coming home,
not to stay. She’d be saying good-bye. To
her heart and her home.
“You should have said something.”
Could he hear her heart breaking in the
quiet surrounding them? Goddamn it, she
wasn’t going to show him how this was
tearing her up inside.
He stared at her, and she couldn’t read
his face. Of course, she never had been
able to tell what he was thinking, had she?
“I should have,” he admitted.
Grabbing the tube of plans she’d brought
with her for the contractor to review, she
put some space between them and let her
feet take her out into the yard.
“Yes, you should have. Or maybe, Cabe,
you should have said something
before
you
took me to bed. Maybe I deserved to know
exactly what I was dealing with here.”
“You wanted me,” he said, and that
calm, logical voice of his made her want to
shriek. “This house doesn’t change that,
Rose. You kissed me. You let me put my
fingers and my tongue on that sweet little
pussy of yours, and you liked it. Money
owing doesn’t change that.”
She’d heard he was ruthless. She’d
known that his was the hard, predatory
gaze of a man who knew what he wanted
and took it. He’d wanted her, and she’d
made it so very easy for him to take her.
“Was I a pity fuck? I had no place to go,
so you took me in because you felt sorry
for me?”
“It wasn’t like that, Rose.” It sounded to
her as if it had been
precisely
like that.
“Then tell me what it
was
like,” she
demanded. “Make me understand that you
didn’t fuck me two ways to Sunday, Cabe.”
His silence was damning. That hat of his
came off his head, slapping slowly,
dangerously at his thigh. Cabe didn’t get
mad quickly or often, but once he was
worked up, a wise woman left him alone.
“I did what I thought was best, darlin’.”
“Don’t call me darling. Don’t call me
anything. Just don’t, Cabe.”
For the second time that week, she threw
what she was holding at him. The tube of
architectural drawings was an awkward
length, but he caught it, just as she’d known
he would. Cabe didn’t like loose ends, and
he never left things to chance. She stomped
to her car.
Slamming the door of the Honda, she
tore down the drive.
She’d left him.
Cabe had caught the roll of papers
instinctively. Other older, more primitive
instincts screamed for him to go after
Rose. His ancestors had been Californians
and Spanish aristos who knew how to rule.
How to carve out and hold territory in a
hostile, unfamiliar world. She was his.
She’d let him touch her, and she’d enjoyed
every moment.
She was his, and he always held on to
what was his.
So letting her go now was the hardest
damn thing he’d ever done. He wanted to
go after her, take her into his arms, and
make this all better. There was no getting
around the fact, however, that he needed
her water and had every intention of
drilling just as soon as he could get the
engineer back in here. He had a business to
run. A ranch to preserve. Blackhawk
Ranch was more than a legacy—it was a
way of life. A hell of a lot of people
depended on him. Cheap foreign beef had
put most of the California ranches out of
business, making it almost impossible for a
man to even sell his cattle for what it cost
to raise them. Cabe barely broke even on
his herd, but that herd mattered. He’d
inherited a ranch full of cowboys and a
disappearing way of life he wouldn’t let
die. Not on his watch.
So he watched her go and tried to work
it all out in his head. She drove that
battered Honda Civic of hers down the dirt
road, headed nowhere in particular as far
as he knew, and he wanted to be in the
front seat with her. It didn’t matter where
she was headed. For one insane moment,
he wished he could consign the ranch and
all his responsibility to hell.
She’d stormed off. He’d stayed put. And
wasn’t that the way it had always been?
He looked down at the plans in his
hands. When he looked at them, he realized
he was holding plans for a home, not a
house. She’d seen more than four walls
and a roof.
To hell with his plans and his heavy,
endless responsibilities.
Some
things—some
people
—were
worth fighting for.
He got his ass into his pickup and
followed her.
Chapter Six
R
ose didn’t stop driving until Cabe could
almost see Lonesome. Maybe she’d
stopped at the rest area on purpose, or
maybe she was just plain tired of his
following her ass so closely.
He just knew he wasn’t done with
them
.
He wouldn’t let her run from him this time.
Slamming the pickup’s door, Cabe strode
toward the picnic table where she was
waiting for him. Before she could move, he
slapped his hands down on either side of
her, caging her body between his arms and
the table. A distant part of his brain—the
logical
part that hadn’t been turned upside
down and inside out by this infuriating,
fascinating, wonderful woman—warned
him that this wasn’t his best idea.
Rose Jordan didn’t need or want a
Neanderthal cowboy. But to hell with that.
“I took that reverse mortgage,” he
growled, “because it was the only
goddamned way Auntie Dee would let me
give her money. She was proud, Rose. She
wanted to give me something back.”
“You should have told me right away,”
she accused. “Why offer to buy me out
when you already had that note? You know
I can’t repay it. My home is all yours.”
He leaned in further. “Because that
house
is
your home, Rose. I don’t want to
take that for you. I thought maybe that
check would let you start over. Pick some
other place.”
“Coming home doesn’t work that way,