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  “That’s your official opinion?” Rand asked stiffly, visions of dollar bills fluttering away through the still air.

  “Not my official opinion, at least not yet. I’m trying to keep an open mind, but it’s damn hard.”

  “I thought you liked Max.”

  “Hell, I do. I like you, too, partner.” Trey banged a fist on Rand’s shoulder. “But Thom T. was specific about what he wanted—you not only married but happily married and a contributing member of society.” Trey cocked his head. “You contributed anything to society lately?”

  “I haven’t rescued any little old ladies from burning buildings, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It’s not, but let it go.” Trey turned back toward the house. “Look, I want you to get what’s coming to you. I want you and Maxine to settle down on the Rocking T and have a whole passel of little cowboys. Somehow I don’t think that’s what’s going on here, though.” He stopped at the door, reaching for the screen. “If it was another kind of girl, then I’d understand. But this girl doesn’t fit the scenario I’ve got in mind.”

  Irritated, Rand followed his uncle into the house. Clearly he had his work cut out for him before he tried to do a similar number on his parents.

  But at least Trey hadn’t laughed in their faces, so there was hope.

  TREY AND RACHEL STOOD in the front yard waving goodbye to the newlyweds. When the car was out of sight, they turned back to the house, arm in arm.

  She sighed and he squeezed her tighter against his side. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That I’m really confused about what just happened here.”

  “For instance?”

  “I can’t figure out why Randy married that girl.”

  “I think it’s fairly obvious he did it to get the ranch. It’s equally obvious he doesn’t have any intention of living there and running it.”

  “Oh, God, Trey, everybody’s just been waiting for him to come to his senses and return to the family fold. If he really intends to sell the Rocking T to the highest bidder, it’ll break a lot of hearts.”

  “Including yours.” He turned her in his arms and touched his lips lightly to hers. Even after all these years, he felt that familiar spark of desire and almost laughed at the pleasure of it.

  “I’m not the only one,” she said as they entered the house. “What about Jesse and Boone and Kit? Meg…well, she’s never really understood the pull of the land, but she loves Jesse enough to keep on trying.”

  “But you don’t think Maxine loves Rand that way.” He led her into the house.

  “Good Lord, no. I don’t think she loves him at all, or he her, although they seem attracted to each other. I think she’s in this for a completely different reason, but I have no idea what that might be.” She frowned. “Something funny happened when you and Randy left us alone, though.”

  “Such as?” He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat.

  “She brought up Bill Overton. Don’t you think that’s kind of…strange? So far as I know, Rand hasn’t seen him in years.”

  “You think her maiden name was Overton?”

  Rachel laughed. “No way! He was a sleaze and she’s very straightforward. I like her a lot. Whatever she is, I don’t think she’s a gold digger.”

  “Me, either.” Trey watched her move around, preparing iced tea. “If Randy’s marriage is a scam, I wonder why he picked someone so…plain,” he mused.

  “Plain!” She faced him with a tall glass in each hand. “She isn’t plain. She’s…reserved.”

  “You used to be reserved.” He was flirting with her, teasing her, as he’d enjoyed doing ever since they met all those years ago. “You were just a small-town Texas librarian trying to be oh-so-proper.”

  “And you were a sophisticated damnyankee,” she teased him right back. She placed the glasses on the table, then sat down on his lap and slid an arm around his neck.

  He put one hand on her thigh and the other on her breast. “Those were the good old days,” he said softly. “Rachel, do you remember that night your brother stole the pickup and the sheriff came out to the Rocking T looking for him?”

  “Lee didn’t steal Dub Partridge’s pickup. I’ve explained that to you a million times.” She covered his hand with hers, pressing it closer against her breast. “But yes, I remember.”

  “After the sheriff left, you really lit into me. I can still see it…. You were standing a couple of steps above me on the front stairs, wearing a nightgown so thin that it looked like gauze….”

  She’d been so beautiful in the silvery moonlight, so beautiful and so uptight. She’d wavered beneath his hungry gaze, crossing her arms over her breasts as if that would protect her from him. Yeah, as if.

  “I’m not even vaguely interested in your opinion,” she’d said in that prissy voice.

  And he’d lost his head. “If you’re not interested in anything I have to say, maybe you’ll be interested in what I plan to do,” he’d said.

  The words had rolled out, full and soft with promise, without any of the half-joking quality that had so often marked his dealings with her to that point. She stood as still and straight as a statue, not softening even when he drew her to the edge of the step—but not running from him, either. He reached beneath her nightgown with both hands and stroked up the fullness of her bare calves, at the same time pressing the side of his face to her abdomen beneath her folded arms.

  Then, with a provocative slowness, he lowered her to the next step, the top of his head nudging aside her arms. His seeking mouth fumbled against her, then closed over one straining nipple.

  Perhaps she was remembering, too, for now she stirred restlessly on his lap. “What happened that night…I wanted it to happen,” she whispered. She rubbed her lips lightly against his cheek. “But I still shocked myself. I’d never done such a thing…let anyone do such a thing to me.”

  “I knew that.” He pressed his hand to the vee between her denim-covered thighs. “I couldn’t help myself, sweetheart. I still can’t.”

  “I couldn’t help myself, either….”

  She’d been adrift on a cloud of sensual feeling. When she found herself straddling his thighs, she’d instinctively held on to his shoulders and arched her back. Spreading her thighs, she’d lifted her breasts toward his clever, seeking tongue.

  She wanted to do things with him she couldn’t even name. Mindless with wanting, she felt the shattering of her vaunted self-control and the blossoming of passion she’d ruthlessly suppressed for a very long time.

  He caught one nipple between his teeth and tugged, setting off another series of deep, quivering contractions that made her groan. His hands roamed over her as they did now, kneading and molding her buttocks, touching her with intimate understanding.

  His nimble fingers inserted themselves between his flesh and hers. The white heat of desire shuddered through her and she shifted ever so slightly to give him better access. He molded his palm to her contours while little, wordless gasps and tremors shook her. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if this was now or then.

  “Trey.” It was a weak gasp. “You really began to set me free that night.”

  “I know,” he said in a raspy voice. “It cost me plenty, but it was worth it.”

  She began unbuttoning her shirt. “If it can happen for us, different as we are, it can happen for Randy and Maxine.”

  “Forget them.” He stood up with her in his arms. “I love you, woman.”

  “Then take me to bed and show me how lucky we both are,” she murmured, grateful that Randy and his unlikely bride had reminded her of things she never wanted to take for granted.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  RAND AND MAXI MADE IT onto the airplane, but just barely; they were the last to board. Maxi didn’t even like to think about how much he’d paid for the two last-minute first-class tickets. She was beginning to suspect that his lifestyle required all those never-again-to-be-taxed illegal dollars he’d squirreled away in some Caribbean ban
k.

  With that likelihood very much on her mind, she couldn’t help remarking as she settled into the comfortable seat, “You sure do throw money around.”

  “That’s what it’s for.”

  “Only if there’s plenty of it.”

  He shrugged as if money were no object. “You don’t have time to worry about that with everything else that’s going to hell around us,” he said.

  Startled, she frowned. He’d barely spoken in the car on the trip to the airport. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Trey and Rachel didn’t buy it—us, I mean.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” She relaxed back in her seat. “Rachel seemed willing to give us the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Trey’s a harder sell. He pretty much said that since we weren’t constantly all over each other, I must be faking it.”

  “There is that.” A smile tugged at her lips. “I’ll bet Trey and Rachel have an active sex life.”

  “Jeez!” He gave her a horrified glance. “You’re speculating on the sex life of my aunt and uncle?”

  “Sorry. It’s just that if this so-called marriage we have was real, we could do worse than to take them as shining examples of what’s possible.”

  “That sounded a tad cynical.”

  “Maybe it was. I’ve never seen a good marriage close up. Until them, I mean.”

  He looked thoughtful. “My parents have a pretty good marriage, too. But if we’re gonna get them on our side, we’ve got to put on a better act than we did in California.”

  “Meaning what, exactly?”

  “A little physical affection is in order, Max.”

  She’d been dreading this. “What comes under the heading of ‘a little physical affection’? I’m not going to sleep with you just to earn a few bucks, if that’s what you mean. There are names for women like that.”

  “Yes, and nobody’s calling you by any of them, so relax. It’s just that when we’re around other people, we need to…at least…you know, touch each other once in a while, act like lovers.” He seemed uneasy even suggesting it.

  “That’s all it’ll take?” She rolled her eyes, thinking that this was the most ridiculous situation she’d ever got herself into.

  “Damn, I hope so.” He shut up then, settling into a brooding silence, which she didn’t break until they were airborne. Then she said, “Rachel implied your parents have their own story illustrating the rocky road to love.”

  “What the hell were you two talking about?”

  “Things. What is the story on your parents?”

  “It’s not much…or actually, maybe it was. They got married impulsively.”

  “Unlike their son, who always thinks things through.”

  “Right.” His smile was rueful. “He was a professional rodeo cowboy and she was a spoiled little heiress from Boston. They managed to stay together long enough to have me and then she split.”

  “She left him?”

  He nodded. “She took me back to Boston. We lived there with my great-grandpa Randall until I was five or six.”

  When he didn’t immediately go on, she said, “And then what happened?”

  “The way I hear it is, the two grandpas got together—Randall and Taggart. They didn’t like each other much, but they did it for…” He grimaced. “They did it for me. I must have been a total brat to bring those two old warriors together. Anyway, they decided to blackmail their respective grandchildren into—well, as Thom T. related it, ‘We decided to just lock ’em in a room like a couple of wildcats and let the fur fly till they worked it out.”’

  “I’d have loved that man,” Maxi declared, remembering what he’d done for Rachel. “I’m so sorry I never got to meet—” She stopped short. She was out to bring down that fine old gentleman’s great-grandson. She should be grateful Thom T. wouldn’t be around to see it.

  “He was a corker, all right,” Rand said, completely unaware. “Somehow they finagled to get Mom and Dad back to the old family homestead on Handbasket Creek near Hells Bells, Texas, where they’d spent their honeymoon. When they came out a week or two later, we were a family again.” His smile was bittersweet.

  “You have problems with your father,” she guessed.

  He gave her a sharp glance. “Those years we were separated put a distance between us that we’ve never been able to completely get past. He’s a great guy—I admire the hell out of him. But I’ve never felt able to…” He laughed ruefully. “To live up to him, if you know what I mean.”

  She didn’t, not through personal experience anyway. But strangely enough, she felt his pain as sharply as if it were her own. “There’s still time,” she said. “Maybe—”

  “Max, have you forgotten why we’re going there?” he cut her off. “Basically I’m out to deceive him. No matter how I try to tap-dance around it, once I get my hands on that ranch I’m selling it.”

  Why should she feel such shock? She’d known all along why he wanted this inheritance. He just hadn’t stated it so baldly.

  He made an incoherent little growl deep in his throat. “Don’t look at me like I just kicked your cow dog.”

  A burst of nervous laughter escaped her. “What does that mean, kicked my cow dog?”

  “Hell, a cow dog’s the most loyal and faithful animal on God’s green earth. Anybody who’d kick one would be the worst kind of lowlife.”

  “I see.” She met his gaze squarely. “How do you justify what you’re about to do? Or maybe I should say rationalize…”

  He got a stubborn expression on his face, one she hadn’t seen before. “Thom T. left the place to me,” he said. “He wanted me to have it, right?”

  “Under certain circumstances.”

  “Well, sure, but he was just hoping. He’s trying to manipulate me from the grave and it ain’t gonna happen. Besides, would the Rocking T be better off in the hands of some rancher who’d take care of it, or overrun with herds of naked people? Because if I don’t get it, it goes to some nudist colony, and then hear everybody holler.”

  She looked at him with a mixture of admiration for his nimble mind and disgust for his conclusions. “Is there anything you can’t rationalize?”

  He pretended to give her question serious consideration. “If there is, I haven’t run into it yet.” After lowering the back of his seat, he crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes. Only then did he add, “Just don’t forget.”

  “Forget what?”

  “Forget and slap my face when I make a grab for you.”

  She didn’t answer because there was no answer. She didn’t know what she’d do if he started groping her.

  Nor was she eager to find out.

  ANOTHER AIRPORT, another rental car, another drive through the countryside. Only this time, instead of Southern California’s bare golden hills, their route took them through the fall colors of the rolling Texas Hill Country.

  The drive gave him plenty of time to think and he did, mostly about his rapidly diminishing bank account. He wasn’t exactly ready for the poor farm yet, but Maxine was right; he should show a little more financial constraint. Would flying tourist have killed him? If he didn’t gain access to his inheritance in a hurry, he was going to have to think about liquidating a few assets—and he only had a few.

  Nearing Hells Bells, Max suddenly stirred. He looked at her in surprise and she said, “I was wondering…”

  He slowed the car, glad to have her interrupt his gloomy thoughts. “About what?”

  “You.” She gave an unconvincing little laugh.

  “What about me?”

  “Oh, you know…” She appeared uneasy. “About your childhood, about your education, about the way you spend your time. For example, why were you flying from Chicago to San Antonio when we met? Had you been visiting friends or…or…what?”

  “Definitely not visiting friends.” Her questions put him off; he didn’t intend to spend the next few weeks dodging her curiosity. Might as well get that strai
ght here and now. “Max, quit pumping me.”

  She drew herself up. “I wasn’t asking for state secrets. If we’re going to be spending time together trying to convince people we’ve got a marriage going, you could at least—”

  “I couldn’t. I don’t want to. You’re going to hear way too much about me from my family without me saying a thing.”

  “If that’s the way you feel—”

  “I do.”

  “Fine.” The word emerged between clenched lips.

  While she pouted, he found a distraction in the increasing familiarity of his surroundings. Hells Bells wasn’t his home and never had been, not really. But he’d spent good times and bad here; he’d learned about horses and cows and girls. He’d never gone to school a day in Texas, but he felt like a Texan every time he came back.

  Max read aloud from the city limits sign: Hells Bells, Texas, 2,113 Nice Folks And A Few Old Grouches. She laughed, apparently over her snit.

  “Corny,” Rand agreed. “My mom loves that sign—always cracks her up.”

  “This must have been a neat place to grow up.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  He made the turn down Main Street and drove slowly past the Hells Bells Low Life Saloon, the Lone Star Texasburger Drive-In and on out of town. Max seemed enchanted with the entire dusty little burg.

  Go figure.

  The Taggart place lay in a bend of Handbasket Creek, seven miles southwest of town. To get there, they had to drive past a sign hanging over a gated entrance that read Hell-on-the-Handbasket Dude Ranch, Joe Bob Brooks, Prop.

  Max laughed with delight. “You mean Texans really do have names like Joe Bob?”

  “Oh, yeah. And Joe Bill and Billy Bob and all the other combinations you’ve ever heard. That particular Joe Bob is a good friend of my mom and dad. You’ll probably meet him.”

  “I expect your parents know everybody around here, and everybody knows them.”

  “Pretty much. It comes with the territory in a small town.” He glanced at her and was surprised to see how pensive she looked. “You’ve only lived in the city?”

  “Yes. I always thought I’d like a small town, though.”