you going to let go of me?”
Dallas quickly released her hands and held up his own. “Whatever you say.”
Maggie leaped off his lap, crossed to the other side of the room, then turned around and hit him with a murderous look. “I have never been treated so—so boorishly by a man in my entire life. You Fortunes think you can do anything you want, don’t you? Well, your caveman tactics leave me cold, and I’d just as soon never set eyes on you again.” She took a breath. “And to think my mother believes you’re an honorable man!” she spat scornfully.
Dallas got up. “Maggie, I am an honorable man. If you’ll let me explain—”
“Not today!” Maggie pointed at the door. “Get out!”
With a hangdog expression, Dallas walked to the door. But he couldn’t leave without one more stab at making her understand. He looked at her pleadingly.
“I wasn’t conning you about how I feel about Travis. He’s a great little kid, and I really would like to be his friend.”
“Go to hell! If I told my dad or brother what you tried, they’d…they’d—” She stopped herself. This man’s family was her father’s employer. Her mother’s, too. And Dallas himself was her brother’s business partner. Oh, God, she thought miserably.
“What did I try, Maggie? Was kissing you really that terrible?”
She didn’t yell again, but the disdain in her voice was thick enough to slice. “You didn’t just kiss me. You asked me to go to bed with you.”
“Well, obviously I shouldn’t have spoken so plainly, and I apologize. But I can’t help wanting you,” he said quietly. “You’re the first woman who’s made me feel like a man since my wife died. That was two years ago.” Dallas took a deep breath. “Guess I’d better go. If you change your mind about anything—”
“Good Lord, I’m not going to change my mind! Just go!” Maggie threw up her hands.
“Okay. Don’t get mad again. See ya, Maggie.” Dallas went out the door.
“Not if I see you first,” Maggie fumed under her breath, then dashed to the window to make sure he didn’t do something else crazy when Travis was out in the yard alone.
Dallas walked up to the boy. “Trav, would you like to keep that hat?”
It was way too big for a child, but Travis beamed. “Could I? I’ve been wanting a hat like this one, Dallas.”
“It’s yours, son. I’ll be going now.”
“Will you come and see us again?”
Dallas glanced at the house and sighed. “I’d sure like to, Trav. I’d sure like to.”
The second he’d driven away, Maggie ran outside. “Travis, why didn’t Dallas take his hat?”
“He gave it to me, Mama. He said I could keep it.”
“Oh.” Maggie slowly turned and went back inside. Had she ever been more disappointed in a person than she was in Dallas Fortune? How could he have been so nice yesterday and so awful today? Oh, the things he’d said!
Maggie paced the house with her arms wrapped around herself. Something was wrong with her; she felt hot and cold at the same time.
Finally her emotions got the better of her. She collapsed on the sofa and cried her eyes out.
Cruz dropped in that afternoon, and Maggie threw herself at her brother to give him a big hug. He laughed and hugged her back.
“I wish you’d come around more often,” Maggie scolded, thinking that if she was ever going to tell her family about Dallas’s arrogant and insulting pass, this was her chance to do it. But, Lord, the stink it would cause! No, she couldn’t tell anyone. She would handle Dallas Fortune by herself.
Cruz grinned. “Savannah and I have both been really busy. You’re looking good, Maggie.”
She felt better just because her brother was here. “Did you see Travis?”
“No, where is he?”
“In the yard.” Maggie went to the kitchen window. “He’s not in the yard! Oh, Cruz, he almost felt into a corral of longhorns yesterday, and I’ve threatened him with everything from a paddling to a week of sitting on a chair in the house if he left the yard again. What am I going to do with that boy?” She went outside and shouted, “Travis! Where are you? Travis, answer me!”
“I’ll go and find him,” Cruz offered. “He probably just wandered off again.”
“Cruz, he’s only five years old,” Maggie wailed.
“But he’s a Perez, Maggie.”
“Which makes him immortal? I don’t think so, Cruz. Come on, you go one way and I’ll go another. I’ve got to find him before he pulls another naughty-little-boy trick and gets himself really hurt this time. He thinks he’s tough, you know, and he doesn’t have the strength of a flea.”
Cruz laughed again as he walked off, conveying a boys-will-be-boys attitude. Ignoring it for the time being, Maggie headed for the corrals and barns, because that was where she’d found Travis yesterday. Cruz could laugh off her motherly concern, but her son’s disobedience was no laughing matter for Maggie. This time he was definitely going to be punished, she promised herself.
Unless he’s hurt! she thought with a burst of panic that caused her to start running. Travis wasn’t anywhere near the corrals, and she started peering into outbuildings. Spotting the huge horse barn where the Fortunes had always stabled their best horses, Maggie’s heart skipped a beat. With the hat that Dallas had given him, Travis might be playing cowboy, and she knew that often horses could be high-strung and skittish!
Maggie hurried to the barn and went in. It was well-lit and very clean. A wide aisle ran through the center of the building, with stalls on each side. She could hear horses snorting and moving around, and she wondered if her five-year-old son would actually have the nerve to go into a stall with a strange horse. Sometimes Travis’s boasts about being tough were funny, but Maggie knew that he really did believe that telling people how tough he was made it true.
Scared to death, she began walking the aisle and looking into stalls. “Travis?” she called at each one.
About halfway through the barn, she heard her own name. “Maggie?” Dallas said as he stepped out of a stall. “What’s wrong?”
Talking to Dallas again was the last thing Maggie wanted, but right now she had no choice. Still, her voice was cold as ice when she said, “Travis is missing again. I thought he might be in here.”
Dallas set down the brush he’d been using on Jubilee, a valuable stallion, and began walking toward Maggie. Though concerned about young Travis, Dallas couldn’t help looking at this incident as a heaven-sent opportunity to talk to Maggie again. “I haven’t seen him, Maggie. Unless he’s hiding somewhere, he’s not in here. I’ll help you look for him.”
A frisson of alarm rippled through Maggie. Dallas might
