might have been white once upon a time,
now most of the paint had peeled off in
long, curling strips.
The last couple of years, she’d drawn
architectural plans for other people. These
plans had been for her and Auntie Dee, and
the two of them had talked them over for
hours on the phone. She’d taken too long,
though—waited
too
long.
Somehow,
someday, she’d have to come to terms with
that. She slid the long roll of drawings out
of the tube and spread them out on the
porch. There was the big open kitchen for
Auntie Dee, who loved to cook and who
had always had folks stopping by to chat.
After their last call, she’d added windows
upstairs for Auntie Dee to look out at the
ranch land where she’d grown up, and
even more downstairs because Rose had
had a sneaking suspicion that the stairs
were finally becoming too much for Auntie
Dee.
The heart attack had been quick.
Auntie Dee hadn’t had to leave the home
she loved for too long. By the time Rose
had got the message and understood there
weren’t going to be any more phone calls
ever again, Auntie Dee had been gone.
“So, are you going to tell me?” Beside
her, Cabe rested a booted foot on the
bottom rail of the porch. He’d picked the
sturdiest rail of the lot and probably the
only one not likely to break from his
weight. Most of the boards were rotted
clear through.
“Tell you what?”
“Why you’re so sure you want to hang
on to this place?” He nodded toward the
sagging porch step she sat on and the
drawings. “What your plans are?”
“It’s just about a tear-down, isn’t it?”
she asked, her voice rueful.
“Yeah,” he drawled. “It’s safe to say
that. We did what we could for Auntie
Dee, but she wouldn’t let us help much.
None of us realized the house was this bad,
or we would have done something, Rose. I
promise you that,” he said fiercely.
“I can fix it.” It wasn’t as if she didn’t
have the time. That was one advantage of
being laid off and jobless. Too bad all
those years of study and work hadn’t been
enough to save her job as an architect’s
assistant when the economy went south.
“Maybe.” He looked down at her, his
gaze guarded. “This place is going to take
a whole lot of work, Rose, and it’s going
to take even more money. Do you have
that?”
“I’ll find a way,” she said. All she had
to do was come up with it.
To her surprise, Cabe’s hand brushed
her shoulder. He’d been full of those
casual little touches today: threading his
fingers briefly through hers to tug her in a
particular direction, his hand cupping her
foot as he gave her a leg up to check on a
ceiling
fan.
Jumping
up,
suddenly
desperate to get away, she perched on the
porch swing, hoping to God it didn’t give
way beneath her. Cabe was driving her
crazy, and he didn’t even know it.
“You ever just known a place was the
right one?”
“Sure.”
He
shrugged,
powerful
shoulders moving beneath the faded cotton
of his T-shirt as he took a step toward her
and the swing. “The ranch.”
How close would he get? He was
already close enough now to feel the heat
coming off him. The V-neck of his shirt
exposed the powerful column of his throat
and had her thinking about something
besides home repairs.
“So how’d you feel if someone came
along, wanted to buy you out, Cabe?
Would you give up that land?”
“Hell, no. That ranch has been in my
family for generations. You don’t sell
something like that.”
There was no mistaking the fierceness
that filled his voice, stamped his face.
Cabe’s maternal ancestors had been the
Spanish aristocracy who’d come to
California to start a new life and then
mixed with the fierce, free-spirited Native
Americans. Those men had all been
warriors. Men who held on to what they
had taken and fought for every inch, every
arroyo. Cabe Dawson was a possessive
man.
“It’s like that for me. I don’t want to sell
this place.”
“It’s not the same.”
“How, Cabe? How is this any
different?”
“This isn’t a ranch. This land hasn’t
been part of your blood, part of your
family for more than a century.”
“This was my home.”
“Sure, Rose,” he said wearily. “And I
suppose the whole time you were gone,
when you were anywhere
but
here, you
just couldn’t wait to come back.”
He had the literal truth on his side.
She’d run, and she’d run hard. She’d made
one mistake after another, and now there
was no way to fix the past. Maybe she’d
fail at this, too. Maybe, she wouldn’t get
Auntie Dee’s house perfect, but she wanted
to try. Even if she couldn’t be perfect, she
wanted to try.
She wanted to come home.
Anger bubbled up inside her. He
shouldn’t be so calm always. Getting truly
angry at Cabe Dawson was unfamiliar
territory, but it felt right. She was done
letting other people tell her how to feel,
what to do. Where to go and where to be.
First in L.A. as a child and then here in
Lonesome, she’d always believed there
was some impossible standard she should
be living up to. She couldn’t be perfect, but
she was also done trying to be
imperfect
.
“Don’t be an ass,” she snapped.
His head came up, his stare incredulous.
Cabe Dawson could be an easy man until
you pushed him too far. Then, he got as
immobile as rock. The look in his eyes
warned that he was more than halfway
there now. Too bad she didn’t give a
damn.
“Don’t stand here on my porch and tell
me what I did or didn’t feel.”
He opened his mouth. Shut it. “Rose—”
“This was my home,” she stormed.
“Here, with Auntie Dee. She was the best
thing that ever happened to me, Cabe
Dawson, and don’t you think I ever forgot
that. Sure, I left. That was what I needed to
do, then. Now, I’m back.”
“Let me write you that check, Rose.” He
watched her, his face closed off and
unreachable.
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m fixing
this place up.”
He turned away from the porch railing,
watching her intently. She didn’t know
what he expected to find. “You want to
play house, come stay at the ranch house.
You can redesign and redecorate to your
heart’s content.”
“Consolation prize?”
“No.” Something she didn’t recognize
flashed across his face, and then he closed
the distance between them, his big, work-
roughened hands caging her in the swing as
they came down on either side of her.
“You know you always have a place on the
Blackhawk, Rose. You can come home
with us.”
“I’m not family,” she pointed out,
because it needed saying.
“No.” He watched her carefully. As if
he
had something that needed saying but no
idea how to start. “No, you’re not, Rose.
Whatever you were to my brothers, don’t
make the mistake of thinking I ever saw
you as a sister.”
There was that familiar hurt, followed
by a flicker of hot, liquid attraction.
She didn’t need him to swoop in here
and take care of her.
“This place, this house—it’s too much,
Rose, and some of the problems are just
plain beyond fixing. You’d need a new
roof on the house, new siding, a new
porch. And those are just the outside
pieces. You get inside, and I’ll lay money
the plumbing’s shot, right along with the
electrical system. You have to see that.”
She could. She wasn’t blind, and when
she stopped looking with her heart, she
could see the never-ending list of what had
gone wrong with the place.
“I know.” Her voice sounded small and
strained, even to her own ears. The knot in
her throat had her swallowing hard.
She was alone. The woman who’d
raised her was gone. Her home was gone,
too, she realized. Maybe the house itself
could be salvaged with paint, lumber, and
some serious contractor elbow grease, but
Auntie Dee wasn’t there anymore. There
was no fixing, replacing, or filling that
absence. Tears swam in her eyes before
she could remind herself she’d sworn she
was all done crying, because crying never
helped.
“Ah, Rose,” Cabe growled, hauling her
into his arms, “don’t cry, baby.”
Nothing had ever felt more right to Cabe
than pulling Rose Jordan into his arms.
He’d touched her last night, but that had
been accidental. This was deliberate. At
first, she stiffened, and then she melted,
and that unspoken gesture of feminine trust
should have warned him. Last night, she’d
pushed his buttons. Whether she’d realized
it or not, she’d made him see her as a
woman fully grown for the first time. And
right now, she needed him.
Needed what he could give her.
She’d lost a damned fine woman. They
all had. Auntie Dee had been part of
Lonesome for so many years that the town
seemed a little emptier without her. He
respected Rose for mourning the older
woman’s loss, but her tears woke some
primal strain in him he hadn’t known he
possessed.
He wanted to fix this.
Wanted to make Rose feel good. Her
unspoken trust as she fit her head into the
hard curve of his shoulder made him feel
important. And, yeah, it was sexy as hell.
When he stroked a hand down her back, his
fingers found the soft line of her bra straps
beneath the gauzy dress. The soft, warm
weight of her breasts pressed against his
chest had him thinking about other ways he
could make Rose Jordan feel.
Christ.
He was a bastard.
He wasn’t fixing anything for Rose.
He didn’t know what she had expected
to find here. The house wasn’t in good
shape, although it could have been worse.
He’d made sure Auntie Dee was taken care
of, but months of standing empty wreaked
havoc with an old house.
Rose was still crying. He wanted to
howl, to hit something, and those feelings
were unfamiliar.
“Where did you sleep last night?” he
growled against her skin.
“The car,” she said, confirming his
earlier, uneasy suspicion.
The image of that hit him hard. He could
just see her, sleepy and flushed, on the
backseat of that little car. So vulnerable.
Because a woman sleeping alone out here
with just the flimsy protection of a Honda
Civic door would be easy prey for a man
who didn’t care about right and wrong.
“That won’t do.” He looked down at
her.
Ask, don’t tell,
he reminded himself.
“Why don’t you come on back to the ranch
with me, Rose? We’ve got plenty of
bedrooms there.”
This time, when she stiffened up like a
poker in his arms, she didn’t relax again.
“Be reasonable, Rose.” He looked at the
house again, because staring at Rose
wasn’t going to help his cause any. He
could see daylight through the roof of the
porch, for Christ’s sake. “Staying here
would be only one step above camping.
Just this once, can’t you let me take care of
you? Giving in this one time doesn’t mean
you’re surrendering unconditionally.”
“Why?” she asked quietly. She stepped
away from him, leaving his arms empty.
“Because you need a place to stay.” He
forced his feet to get moving and headed
for the truck. When he opened the
passenger door for her, though, she was
still standing there on the porch step,
unconvinced. “There’s more than enough
room out at the ranch,” he reiterated.