Western Romance Collection: Rugged Cowboys Part 32

"I'm gonna-"

She didn't answer.

"Is it safe?" It took all his control now, not to finish, but he wanted permission, and they both knew what he wanted permission for.

Her voice was strained when she answered. "Does it matter?"

He took that for the answer he wanted to hear and thrust in again, once, twice, and then held her on tight as he started to c.u.m. He could feel her, grinding up against him, trying to pull every last drop out of him, and he wanted her to. Every last drop.

Glen pulled out, both of them breathing hard, and turned her around. Slowly, but firmly. "Come here."

He pulled her in tight, pressing his lips against hers. Her body felt hot against him. He could feel something stirring inside him, urges he wouldn't deny for long.

"Catherine?"

"Yeah?"

"I got a question for you."

She was breathless, leaning in against his chest, her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed in against the rough fabric of his shirt, tightening them into hardness. They both knew that she shouldn't have done this, not really. Not the way she had. Neither cared. It wasn't as if she was going to be seen by anyone. Who would come by the ranch to see?

"Sure," she answered, taking a moment. Trying to catch her breath.

"Catherine, will you marry me?"

She leaned into him and didn't answer for a minute, and for a terrifying moment Glen thought he could guess the answer.

Thirty One Catherine let herself breathe for the first time in hours. She had to answer him some time. At this rate he was going to get the wrong idea.

Not answering, she'd make Glen think that she was refusing. In reality, nothing could possibly be further from the truth. It was all she wanted to say yes to him. To spend the rest of her life with the man.

Could she accept that, though? Could she accept ruining him just for her own happiness? What kind of woman would that make her, that she was willing to put the reputation she'd spent so long regretting, dreading, and hating on a good man like him? He didn't deserve that. Didn't deserve to have to deal with her.

She should have refused on the spot. Should have told him that she didn't want him. She had to lie. It was the right thing to do, for his sake.

So why hadn't she? She already knew what the right thing to do was, and she had already made her decision. Now he was sitting in the barn, waiting for her answer, and the fool was hoping that she would say yes. As if he would be getting something out of it.

She let out a long breath. She had to refuse. It was the right thing to do. Why did it have to be so hard?

Glen looked out on the cattle, grazing quietly. He should have felt something about them. Should have, being the operative word. Instead, he found himself occupied with the threat of Rod Dawson's gang coming out to get him when their door-man didn't come in tomorrow.

He found himself planning in his head how he was going to deal with it when they tried to raid the place. He found himself thinking about what he was going to do about the Sheriff who hadn't bothered to do anything about him for years.

How was it that he could justify shooting a man down for working at the wrong brewery, but a Sheriff was free and clear? Just because of a star on his chest?

Glen stopped the thought before he could take it any further. There was justice and then there was murder. He couldn't let the two get fuzzy in his head. Not when he knew that he was dancing dangerously close to the line already.

He turned again.

He could see Catherine, just the edge of her dress, through the window over the washbasin. She was scrubbing again, which he'd learned meant that she was worrying over something.

He'd been too abrupt with his proposal. He should have done it better. Should have made it sweet, romantic. He shoulda made everything perfect. But he wasn't perfect, and there was no changing that, no matter how much he wanted to.

No reason to fool himself. He was the furthest thing from perfect. Most folks didn't have the history her had. She had some things she had to come to terms with. Things he had to come to terms with, too, but it was surprising how little betrayal he'd felt over it. The history didn't matter, the future did.

She didn't seem to see it that way. He watched her scrub the pot well past clean through the window. She'd give him his answer sooner or later. And until he had time to make sure that Rod Dawson wasn't going to make a play on the ranch while Glen was out and dealing with his little roadhouse, there was going to be plenty of time to wait.

He laid his head back against the heavy support beam and settled in. Either she'd come out, or she'd have some very well-scrubbed pans. He had time, either way.

Catherine could feel the tears welling up. She didn't have time for it. She forced herself not to feel them any more. If she ignored them well enough, it was as if they weren't there. She reminded herself of that again.

As if they weren't there. No problems, no concerns, and certainly no man in the barn waiting for her to tell him that she was going to marry him. Certainly no man who should have come in for supper, but would stay outside until he got his answer.

A stubborn man like that, would it matter what she said? Maybe he would just wait until he got the answer he wanted. Catherine tried to decide whether she hated that stubbornness or loved it. She already knew the answer, but it only meant that she had to convince herself that she was wrong.

They weren't right for each other. She, more specifically, was no good for him. The stubborn fool should have known better. He'd gotten it into his head, no doubt, that if she was married again, then folks wouldn't talk. Those women would talk about the mother of G.o.d if they met her.

It wouldn't change one thing about her, and it wouldn't change anything about how folks treated her. It was the wrong thing to do. She knew it, and he should have known it. Even still, she couldn't go out. Couldn't face him.

If she did, she might say the wrong thing. She could hurt him, she knew. She could harden herself and make him hurt as much as she needed to make him hurt to get him to understand. That wasn't the problem.

The problem was whether or not she could force herself to lie to his face. He would know she was lying. That didn't matter. Glen had respected her boundaries up to this point. If she didn't want to tell him the truth, he wouldn't force it.

It would hurt, though, and Catherine couldn't quiet the little voice in the back of her mind. The one that said that she wanted him and she should have him. The one that said that it didn't matter what the right thing was, she should do what she wanted to do.

Thoughts like that were dangerous. Thoughts like that were what married her off to Billy Howell and put her in this situation in the first place. Glen wasn't like her ex-husband. He wasn't going to ruin her.

h.e.l.l, she already felt better. Like she might be a good woman one day. With a lot of help.

But she needed to remember the lesson that Billy had taught her. For all the badness he'd brought into her life, even in spite of the children she knew that she had to remember her ex-husband.

He'd taught her never to do something she wanted. It had to be the right decision, or she wasn't going to do it. Marrying Glen Riley wasn't the right decision.

The door opened. She didn't need to turn to recognize the sound of Glen's boots on the floorboards. She didn't want to see him. She wasn't ready to see him. Not right now, not while her heart was still so unsteady.

She needed more time alone. Tomorrow she'd take his horse, no arguments, and she would go get Ada from the doctor's. Then she'd come home, her babies all home and safe, and she would be able to face him. Having Ada around had always helped her to make the right decision.

Without her, it felt like she was adrift. As the boots approached, Catherine set the pan aside.

"I don't want to talk to you right now," she said, rubbing her hands off on a towel.

The voice that answered sent a shiver running up her spine. It wasn't Glen.

"I missed you too, hon."

Thirty Two Glen saw the man coming from a ways away. It was odd to see someone coming past the ranch. Odd, but then again, from the way the man's hat so low on his face, and the way he hunched over, it was hard to see who it was.

Could have been the Padre coming along to wish them well. Could have been about anybody. As they came closer, though, Glen saw that it wasn't anybody. Whoever it was, they were coming straight for the house.

Like they owned the place, more or less, and once he was very close Glen saw that in a very real sense the man approaching out of the evening dust did own the place.

Bill looked better than he had when Glen had seen him before. Even for his posture, he was wearing a mighty fine set of clothes. Riding a fresh-looking stallion that trotted like a thoroughbred. A h.e.l.l of a horse.

He tied the horse off to the banister and headed inside. Didn't bother to put his horse back into the stable, which meant he was either not planning on staying long, or he was every bit the man that Glen had come to believe he was.

Either way, Glen thought, Catherine wasn't going to like this. He pulled himself down from the loft, then thought for a second and opened up the cylinder on the Smith and Wesson. He hoped not to have to use it, but sometimes that luxury wasn't an option and Glen got the sick feeling in his stomach that he was going to need all the options open to him.

He could feel the pull to hurry up on the way over. That was the natural thing to do. Hurry up, get over there. Rush in and save the girl. It was the most natural thing in the world, and it would get him shot.

Oh, maybe old Bill wouldn't shoot him. Maybe he would be fine, this time. But Glen had been through enough sc.r.a.pes to know that it was better to be there at the right moment, and not a moment too soon. Late was too slow-but early was too fast.

Catherine's eyes shot over to the mantel-place. Where the Spencer had hung, those past five long years. Where Glen had taken it, and then he'd hung it back up. It was there still. She could go for it, she thought.

She hoped.

But the risk was a big one. If he caught her, and she didn't make it... would it matter that the kids were there?

If she was lucky, then Glen had seen Billy coming. He wasn't the type to step in where he wasn't wanted, and if she wanted to see her husband then he would stay out of it. Both of them knew that she didn't.

"Well, aren't you happy to see me?"

The way Billy said it, she would have believed that he was genuinely surprised to hear that she wasn't. As if the years of waiting for him hadn't all added up. As if he hadn't walked away with nearly ten years of her life and all the money she'd ever had in the world.

"Get out of here, Billy."

"I'm here for my family, Catherine. I'm here to provide for you, and for the girls. And Cole."

"You don't care about them, and you don't care about me."

"You know," he said. His hands were shaking, his knuckles turning white where he was gripping the back of a chair, trying to look casual. "I don't like when you talk like that, hon. You're my wife, and I don't think it's proper that a wife should talk like that about her husband."

Where was Glen? Why hadn't he shown up yet? Time seemed to stretch out in front of her. What couldn't have been more than ten seconds felt like she'd been pressing herself back against the counter for eternity.

"Billy, just get out of here. This ain't your home any more."

"Now that's where you got me. See, some guy stole my copy of the deed, and now I hear he's running around claiming I sold him the place."

A voice called out from the door. "That's not how I recall it, Bill."

Glen stood there. His hands hung at his sides, not making any moves for the weapon at his hip. But the way that his arms hung, natural and loose-Catherine could see the threat there. That any moment he could pull the gun free and leave a Billy-shaped mess on the floor. Like a rattlesnake ready to strike.

"You know what I don't recall? I don't recall saying that you could carry on with my wife, regardless what else I said."

Glen's face remained neutral, but the time it took to respond told Catherine that he hadn't taken the remark well. She wanted to hit him for it. Wanted to scream.

More than anything, though, she just wanted to leave. Wanted him to be gone, and to never come back. She wanted it to be as if he had never walked through that door in the first place.

That wasn't an option, though.

Glen stepped inside, squared up his shoulders.

"Bill, I think you need to leave my property."

"This is my house."

"Not any more, it isn't. You left, and you sold me the property. I've got all the paperwork, done up real nice and everything. Now you can leave, or I can make you leave, but you ain't gonna be staying."

Billy looked at her for a moment, and for an instant she thought that he might thought he might have a sympathetic bone in his body. He looked, above all, tired. She couldn't bring herself to feel bad for him, not after everything that had happened.

But if he felt one little bit sorry for what he'd done, then at the very least it might save his sorry soul. She saw his hand pulling back the long coat he wore, and where he was reaching, an instant before he put his hand on the pistol.

Everything after that seemed to happen in slow-motion. She never doubted for a second who he was going to shoot. Glen was an inconvenience, but not one that would last long. Not with the kind of money that Billy seemed to have come into.

She saw his fingers wrap around the handle, saw him pulling it free. She saw him bringing it up, turning it when it was still at his hip. No reason to make it last any longer than it had to. As long as she didn't have to live with him again, anything was better than that.

The loud bang made everything speed back up again, double-time to make up for the loss. Glen already had the pistol back in its holster by the time Billy had hit the ground, screaming b.l.o.o.d.y murder. He dropped his pistol to the floor.

Catherine ran up and kicked it into the corner before he could reach for it a second time.

"Put your hands over your head, Howell."

He didn't. Billy was too busy clutching at his thigh, where the bullet had ripped a hole in him. Blood was seeping into the floor that Catherine had spent so much time working to clean.

"Put them up, or you'll wish you had."

Slowly, still crying over his leg, Billy lifted his hands, caked in red, over his head.

"We're going into town, Bill. And I don't want any funny business."

Bill shook his head. "No funny business. Just-" She could see him wince hard. "Let Cathy see to my leg, will ya?"

Thirty Three Catherine wasn't sure what to think at this point. Why did this have to happen? In less than twelve hours she was going to get Ada from Doc Connelly's place, and until then she should have had a nice quiet night in. A night where the biggest concern she had was a man asking her to marry him.

Now that same man was marching her husband into town. A town with a dirty Sheriff, and the same town where Billy had always played cards. The man was a cheat, but with the way he paid off his debts in the end, some of them would be willing to forgive and forget for old times' sake.

Which meant that, for all intents and purposes, he was walking into a lion's den.

"What's wrong, Mama?"

Catherine leaned down and pulled Cole up into her lap. "Nothing, baby. Mama's fine. Everything's going to be alright."

"Who was the man that was here?"

"That was..." She struggled between her desire to keep things easy, and knowing what the right thing was. Telling him would just hurt his feelings, and it wouldn't change a thing. So she shouldn't tell him, simple as that.

Only it wasn't as simple as that. It never seemed to be. Cole, Grace, they had the right to know who their father was. For that matter, though, could she be sure? Like, really sure?

Catherine sighed. "He was someone Mama used to know, Cole. n.o.body any more. Just an old friend."