Rough Wrangler, Tender Kisses Page 4

  As the rain slashed down the wagon bounced across the trail, which swerved through a belt of trees that shook like matchsticks, then across a sloping plain, over a rise, and then, at last, she saw it.

  A house. A wonderful house. Not the tiny square wood cabin she’d expected—the one her mother had described long ago, but a long, sprawling, magnificent two-story log house with wide windows and a slanted roof, surrounded by outbuildings and corrals, barns and sheds. Plumes of silver-gray smoke curled from the chimney, and golden light glowed cheerfully at the windows. There was a long, white-painted shaded porch out front, she saw as the wagon careened closer, turning up a winding drive and then past the corrals and a low building where a russet-haired cowboy in the doorway waved his hat at Wade Barclay in greeting.

  The cowboy immediately sprinted forward as the wagon halted before the house. A great black dog with two white feet bounded off the porch and wagged its tail as Wade jumped down from the seat.

  “Hey, there, Dawg.” Wade strode around to heave Caitlin’s trunk from the back. Another boom of thunder shook the sky.

  “Fine weather we’re havin, Wade.” The cowboy grinned, hurrying straight to the horses’ heads.

  “Couldn’t be better, Rooster.” Wade helped Caitlin alight. He did it so effortlessly she might have weighed no more than a pin. The instant her feet touched the ground she pulled away from him and swept toward the porch.

  “You must be Miss Summers.” The cowboy tipped his hat, rain pouring from the brim as his gaze skimmed over the wet lavender gown that clung to every single one of Caitlin’s lush curves. He had the grace to blush. “Uh, pleasure to meet you, ma’am. Only sorry about the circumstances.”

  “So am I.” Caitlin stepped onto the covered porch, not even glancing at the cowboy, or at the black dog sniffling around her heels and at the hem of her soaked gown. She had meant to dash inside as quickly as possible, but now that she was here, at the very doorway of her father’s precious Cloud Ranch, her feet wouldn’t budge. She could only stare, frozen, at the huge double doors of sturdy oak, at the gleaming brass knocker shaped like a horseshoe.

  This was the house where she’d been born. Her mother had always described it as such a tiny place. She realized suddenly that Reese Summers must have kept the original log cabin where he and Lydia had lived and added the other sections of the house after the ranch became successful. After his ambitions had come true—at the expense of his wife and daughter.

  She swallowed.

  “Go on in.” She jumped at Wade Barclay’s deep voice beside her. “Reese is gone, you don’t have to face him,” he said coldly.

  She couldn’t reply. The sight of the house, the impact that this place, Cloud Ranch, had had on her life, loomed before her as she tried to will her feet toward the entrance.

  For years, Cloud Ranch and her father’s neglect had ached in her heart—an ache that had never gone away. Coming to this ranch, which had meant more to him than his wife and his daughter, brought all the pain of those unanswered letters back again, and made her wonder, as thoughts of it always did, how her life might have been different if Lydia had never left, or if Reese had cared enough about her to keep in touch . . .

  Go in, she told herself as the rain pelted down beyond the shelter of the porch and the wind blew her skirt around her knees. Just push the door open and walk in.

  “Something wrong?” Wade asked sharply.

  She tore her gaze from the heavy doors and gazed into his handsome, frowning face.

  “N-no . . . nothing at all.” She noticed that Rooster was leading the horses toward the barn, that the dog had trotted after him, his black coat slick from the downpour. And that she and Wade Barclay were all alone on the porch, with the wind and rain whipping in at them. Suddenly she became aware that the foreman was studying the curves of her body through the sodden gown that stuck to her. Her breasts, her hips, all clearly outlined by the wet clinging silk. His blue eyes were narrowed, and there was a keen glint in them that made her flush.

  She wanted to slap him. And she wanted to run away from him . . . and this wild, desolate place.

  “You came all this way to claim your inheritance,” he said, and she heard the fierce quiet anger back in his voice. He shifted his gaze from her body, focusing with piercing intensity on her face.

  “Don’t you want to see where your father lived—and where he died? Or are you too squeamish to go inside?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  His lip curled. Suddenly he pushed the door open. Before Caitlin even realized it, he grabbed hold of her arm and dragged her inside, then kicked the door closed behind them.

  “Consider yourself safely delivered. Welcome to Cloud Ranch.”

  Chapter 3

  Caitlin couldn’t speak for a moment as she gazed around the wide, oak-floored hallway.

  For a moment she forgot all about Wade Barclay, his roughness and rude treatment. A sense of comfort, spaciousness, and warmth enveloped her. So this was Cloud Ranch, this big house with its high-beamed ceilings and gleaming wood floors.

  With a lump in her throat, she realized that this expansive area must have once been the entire main room of the cabin. The room where she and her mother had lived with Reese Summers.

  Now it was a huge entry hall, its oak floor polished to a high gleam, and an elaborate brass chandelier descending from the ceiling. A walnut table and square mirror stood against one wall, and a wide stairway led to the next story.

  She took a deep breath. The house smelled of lemon polish. And . . . beef stew, she realized. And fresh bread. A tantalizing combination.

  The sensation of spaciousness, hominess, and cozy warmth enveloped her—she had a glimpse of large, comfortably furnished rooms branching off the entry hall: a parlor with gold-framed watercolors upon the walls and an elegant stone mantel, and a study or office of some sort, with shelf after shelf filled with books, as well as a great oak desk and a Turkish carpet that covered almost the entire floor.

  Cloud Ranch was not primitive or spartan in any way, she realized. It was every bit as comfortable and fine in its own way as her former Philadelphia home had been.

  Somehow this only made the knot in her chest grow tighter.

  “Francesca? We’re back!” Wade called out, setting her trunk down beside the walnut table.

  “Who’s Francesca?”

  “Our cook and housekeeper—here she is now.” Wade’s stern features relaxed for the first time as the short, olive-skinned woman bustled into the hall. She looked to be in her mid-sixties, pretty, with dark graying hair twisted into a firm coil atop her head and strong, chiseled features.

  “Senor Wade! Por Dios, you are soaked to the bone,” she scolded, a Spanish flavor accenting her brisk words. Her floury hands flew in dismay to her cheeks. But as her gaze fell upon the bedraggled blond-haired girl all the soft concern faded from her face. “Ah, so this is the senor’s daughter,” she muttered.

  Francesca’s dark, thick-lashed eyes swept Caitlin from head to toe. There was patent disapproval in her stare. She sniffed. “On behalf of Senor Reese, I welcome you, senorita.” She spoke with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. “If you wish, I will show you to your room.”

  “Thank you.” Caitlin spoke quietly. “I’m afraid that I’m dripping water all over your floor.”

  “Hmmph.” The housekeeper shrugged, her expression stony. “You are not responsible for the storm. Besides,” she added, “I have been told that the floor now belongs to you.”

  And you couldn’t be more displeased about that, Caitlin thought. She turned to Wade. “I’ve decided that you may stay on until after we’ve had our discussion— and until the storm has passed. Then I want you to leave my property at once.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I do say.”

  She spoke haughtily, but some of her composure slipped when she suddenly noticed that his chambray shirt was every bit as soaked as her own gown. It clung to the muscles of his chest and
arms—and what powerful muscles they are, she thought in a gulp. They could only have been built and toned by an immense amount of hard work. She felt her breath catch in her throat. Don’t stare, she ordered herself, and with iron resolve, dragged her gaze away from his powerful body and focused instead on his face. That dark, quiet handsome-as-hell face.

  “Kindly carry my trunk to my room. That will be the last of your duties here.”

  “’Fraid it won’t be that easy to get rid of me, Miss Summers.”

  “We’ll just see about that.”

  “Yep, I reckon we will.” Hefting the trunk, he strode past her to the staircase. “I’ll meet you in Reese’s study in an hour. Don’t keep me waiting. We’ll go over the will before dinner.”

  Caitlin’s mouth dropped. One would have thought he was the owner of Cloud Ranch—not merely its foreman, she thought indignantly as he strode up the stairs two at a time and disappeared around a corner.

  Well, she would soon put an end to that bit of presumption.

  “Come, senorita.” The housekeeper gestured toward the stairs. “You must be weary from your journey. Senor Reese would want you to rest.”

  Weary didn’t begin to describe how she felt. She feared she might actually burst from all the swirling emotions racing through her. Caitlin followed the woman up the stairs, to a room at the end of the upstairs hall. There was no sign of Wade anywhere, but the door was ajar and her trunk was in the center of the floor, beside a brass four-poster bed.

  “I will bring you some hot water for your bath,” Francesca said brusquely at the doorway. “Then I must return to my cooking.”

  She started to turn away.

  “Francesca—wait,” Caitlin said suddenly.

  The housekeeper paused and studied her with those dark eyes.

  “You don’t seem to want me here.” She shrugged. “I don’t understand why, but it doesn’t matter. Because I won’t be staying long. Only long enough to sell the ranch.”

  There was a pause during which Caitlin heard only the rush of rain and wind at the window. Then, slowly, Francesca shook her head. “It is not that I don’t want you here, senorita. That is not for me to say.” She drew herself up very straight. “It is that it took you so long to get here. Too long. That is all.”

  She swept out the door and down the hall before Caitlin could respond.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Caitlin closed the door and leaned against it. The room was large, with a wide-paned window graced by crisp yellow and white curtains, and there was a plump yellow quilt upon the bed. Everything looked pretty and fresh. But the thing she noticed immediately and which drew her quickly forward was the fire blazing in the small stone hearth across from the window. Wade Barclay must have lighted it when he’d brought her trunk.

  Shivering, she hurried toward the dancing golden flames and began to strip off her wet clothes.

  Perhaps the man isn’t so bad, after all, she thought, grateful for the kind gesture and trying to be fair. But then she shook her head. Of course he was bad. Bad news all the way around. He was too handsome for words, impossibly rude, arrogant, and ridiculously domineering. The last thing she needed was a man trying to control her— she’d had enough of that. No man would ever wield power over her again, she vowed as she leaned toward the flames, her bones aching for the warmth.

  She had a sudden sickening vision of Dominic Trent, of the cruel triumph in his face that night when he’d thought he’d cornered her, when he’d tried to force her . . .

  She let out her breath and pushed the ugly memories from her mind.

  Dominic Trent had learned the hard way that she wouldn’t be controlled so easily. And Wade Barclay would too.

  Rubbing the chill from her arms, she turned her thoughts to what lay ahead. She’d deal with these stupid complications and then she’d send Wade Barclay packing from Cloud Ranch faster than he could say “Giddyap.”

  And then she’d head back east to Becky. Perhaps she could still leave tomorrow, if all went well.

  And nothing Wade Barclay could say or do was going to stop her.

  “What do you mean the ranch doesn’t belong solely to me?” Caitlin sat upon the green leather sofa that took up one wall of Reese Summers’s study. She gaped at Wade as if he’d just tossed her a lit stick of dynamite. “There must be some mistake!”

  “No mistake. See for yourself.”

  He opened the desk drawer, removed a packet of papers, and brought them over to her.

  But as he held them out to her, Caitlin stared wordlessly at them, as wary of touching them as she would be of touching a snake.

  She had thought she was prepared for anything when she came down here to meet Wade. She had bathed, brushed her hair, and coiled it atop her head in a smooth, perfect chignon. She’d donned a tight-sleeved gown of dark blue silk and her pearl and garnet necklace with its matching dainty earbobs. She’d come downstairs feeling strong and confident and ready to face whatever difficulties Wade Barclay threw her way, but some of her composure had vanished when she’d entered Reese’s study. For a moment the faint scent of cigar smoke had assaulted her nostrils and brought back hazy memories. Pleasant memories of being held and cuddled, of feeling safe, happy, of a deep voice speaking to her, singing to her . . .

  She’d shaken them off. She didn’t want those memories. They didn’t matter.

  The scent of cigar smoke had wafted away. But then Wade Barclay had made his stunning announcement and the rest of her composure flew right out the window.

  She stared at the packet of papers he held out to her, feeling her hands grow clammy.

  “Do you want them or don’t you?”

  She snatched them from his grasp. “Perhaps you would be so good as to tell me who else this ranch could possibly belong to?” she snapped.

  “My pleasure, ma’am.” Wade met her flashing eyes with equanimity. “Me.”

  She went cold all over. “You?”

  “That’s right.” He sauntered to the desk and leaned against it, his thumbs hooked negligently in his pockets. “Me. And my brothers. Clint and Nick Barclay.”

  “Brothers? You mean, there’s more than one like you in this world?”

  “Do you want to hear about the will or not?”

  “Go ahead,” she bit out, a dreadful panic shooting through the center of her stomach.

  Wade picked up a pencil from the desk and began to roll it between his fingers as he spoke. His tone was quiet and steady.

  “The fact is, Reese left you forty percent of Cloud Ranch. And he left the same to me. Ten each to Clint and Nick.” His eyes flicked over her, unreadable in the study’s amber light. “That means the Barclay boys own sixty percent of this ranch, compared to your forty percent, princess.”

  “I can count!” she snapped. She felt dizzy. “My father would never have done that.” She stumbled to her feet. “Why in the world would he leave his ranch to his foreman?”

  Wade studied her for a long moment as rain drummed at the windows and the wind snarled like a wolf. “Because I was more than his foreman. I was—I am—his son.”

  Her green eyes flew to his lean, hard face, searching it in disbelief.

  “I was told . . . he never married again . . .”

  “No, he never married again. He adopted me. And Clint and Nick. When we were just young boys. He raised all three of us as his own sons.”

  Caitlin stared at him, speechless. Each word struck her like a stone.

  “Reese Summers was the best father any of us could have had,” he continued quietly. “We were orphaned when I was eleven years old. Clint was nine and Nick . . . Nick was only seven. He took us in, gave us a home, taught us ranching . . . and a whole lot more.” He stopped, but not before she heard the pain in his voice. Pain over the loss of Reese Summers. Then he cleared his throat and continued in a firm, steady tone.

  “As it turned out, I was the only one who shared the passion he felt for this land, for this ranch. Don’t get me wrong, Clint and Nick lov
e Cloud Ranch—they grew up here, and consider it their home, but they wanted to follow different paths. Reese gave them his blessing. Yet he wanted them to know they’d always have a home here.” He set the pencil down and fixed his hard gaze on her.

  “Your father was quite a man, Miss Summers. The finest man I’ve ever known. I was proud to consider him my father.”

  There was silence but for the quick drum of rain. Caitlin struggled to speak.

  “He . . . took you in—three of you—left this ranch to you . . .”

  She felt ill. Suddenly her legs wouldn’t support her anymore and she sank back down upon the sofa, trying to breathe past the painful lump in her throat.

  Reese Summers didn’t answer a single one of her letters, refused to visit her or see her, even to send her a damned photograph of himself—but he took in the three Barclay boys. He raised them as his sons, bequeathed them his ranch—and never once bothered his head over his daughter.

  Knifelike pain sliced through her and mixed with a boiling anger as she clenched the will between shaking fingers.

  “I hate him,” she whispered. “I hate him so.” Her lips began to tremble. “I’m only happy I didn’t trouble myself to come to him when he finally got around to sending for me!”

  He reached her in two quick strides. The next instant she was seized, hauled up from the sofa, and the will flew from her grasp as she was imprisoned in a grip far too powerful to break. Shock pierced her. She saw the fury in Wade’s eyes, felt the tension in every muscle of his tall, powerful frame, and knew that he was filled with an anger every bit as potent as her own.

  “Enough,” he warned.

  “L-let me go.”

  “Not till I’m ready. We need to get a few things straight.”

  “You’re hurting me,” Caitlin gasped out, and she saw his eyes dart down to where his fingers dug into her shoulders. Instantly their excruciating grip relaxed, but he only slid his hands to her wrists, and held them in a steel grip instead.

  “I told you once. I won’t hear a word against him.”

  “I’ll say whatever I please.”