into an all-out inferno. Dismayed that she was reacting to him so strongly, she could only thank God that it was dark and he couldn’t see the droplets of sweat collecting on her upper lip.
“I thought maybe you were just feeling generous,” he said close to her ear. “Wanting to give the hired help a dance with royalty.”
Easing her head back, she glowered at him. “Look, just so you know, I don’t think of myself as a princess or you as hired help. You have a chip on your shoulder or something?”
Gabe had never felt sorry for himself or his position in life. He was proud of who and what he was. Maybe he needed to make that clear to her. “I just don’t need for you to feel sorry for me, Ms. Saddler. I like myself.”
She surprised him by laughing. Not just one short sound of amusement, but a long laugh filled with joy. Yet instead of feeling annoyed with her, the infectious sound put a grin on his face.
“Please, call me Mercedes. And just to set your mind at ease, Gabe, you’re the last person I would think needs sympathy.”
She felt like a dream in his arms, he thought. A soft warm dream where one pleasure seeped into another and every spot he touched thrilled him just that much more.
He struggled to control himself. Hell, just because it had been a long time since he’d had a woman didn’t mean this one was supposed to turn him into a randy buck, he thought with self-disgust. So what if she was as sexy as sin? That didn’t mean he needed her any closer than she already was. No, sir, he’d already learned the hard way the price he’d have to pay for a woman like her.
“I heard Alice say something about the Air Force. Is that why you’ve been away from the ranch? Because you were in the Air Force?”
“Eight years,” she answered. “My job was intelligence gathering.”
It just didn’t fit, Gabe pondered. A woman like her didn’t need to work, much less go into the strict, disciplined life of the military. He had to admit that he admired her ambition. Even more, he had to admit that he wanted to know what was really behind those deep blue eyes staring back at him.
“What made you decide to enter the military?”
One of her shoulders lifted and fell with nonchalance, but he noticed that her gaze deliberately swung away from his.
“You and I are more alike than you think, Gabe. I like a challenge, too.”
He didn’t figure she was giving him the complete reason. But then he hadn’t expected her to spill her life’s story through one slow dance.
“What about you?” she asked. “How did you come to be here on the Sandbur?”
“I met Cordero at a horse seminar over in Louisiana. He liked my work and asked me if I’d be interested in settling here.”
“And you were,” she stated the obvious.
“Here I am.”
She seemed on the verge of asking him more when the song suddenly ended.
“Want to go another round?” he asked.
She smiled. “I really shouldn’t ignore the other guests who’ve come to see me tonight.”
“Then thank you very much for the dance.” He lifted the back of her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss on the soft skin.
Wide-eyed, she asked, “Did you give one of those to Alice, too?”
A faint grin curved the corner of his mouth. “No. She didn’t dance nearly as well as you.”
She studied him for several long, awkward moments and then smiled impishly. “Oh. Well, I won’t wipe it off, then,” she said brightly. Before he could make any sort of reply, she pulled out of his embrace and hurried off the dance floor.
Gabe stared after her and wondered why he felt as though he’d just taken a hard tumble from the saddle.
Chapter Two
Once the party finally ended, Mercedes didn’t get into bed until the wee hours of the morning. Though she was exhausted, her sleep ended abruptly when she woke up long before daylight, her body drenched in sweat, her senses disoriented.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she pressed a hand to her damp face.
You’re okay, Mercedes. You’re in your old bedroom on the Sandbur. The bedroom where you played as a child, had sleepovers with friends.
Dropping her hand from her bleary eyes, she gazed around at the shadows shrouding the walls and furniture while she waited for the axis of her brain to spin in the right direction.
She’d been dreaming, she realized, but not of something pleasant or peaceful. The dream had involved a man and a horse inside a corral. She’d been watching from the fence, calling out to him, trying to warn him that he was about to be hurt. The horse had charged, knocked the man down, then reared and viciously brought his front hoofs down on the man’s back.
Gabe! She’d been dreaming about Gabe Trevino. The realization stunned her almost as much as the vivid dream had shocked her senses. She’d not gone to bed thinking of the man much. Well, maybe that tiny kiss on the back of her hand had fluttered through her thoughts right before she’d gone to sleep, she corrected herself. But her mind certainly hadn’t been consumed by the man.
With a rough sigh, she rose from the bed and stumbled into the bathroom. She might as well shower and start the day, because there was no way she could go back to sleep now.
A few minutes later, Mercedes, dressed in jeans, boots and a cool summer shirt, walked through the quiet house. In the kitchen, she realized that she’d even beaten Cook out of bed. The room was still dark.
For a brief moment, she considered making a pot of coffee, then decided she’d wait until the rest of the family was up to enjoy it with her.
Instead, she let herself out of the house through a back exit and made her way through the dark early morning to the horse barn. Across the way, she could see a faint light glowing in the bunkhouse. The wranglers would be stirring soon, catching their mounts and saddling them up for the day’s work ahead.
Mourning doves were cooing and mockingbirds were beginning to flitter to life among the live oaks. There was a peaceful beauty to the ranch that Mercedes had always loved. Even when the ranch yard bustled with life, it was a poetry of sights and sounds. The hammer of the farrier, the bawl of a calf, the nicker of a horse, the sun coming up and the moon going down.
From generation to generation and year after year, her family had worked and carved this ranch from prickly pear patches and endless stretches of mesquite trees. As for Mercedes, she’d been born here in her parents’ bedroom.
Yes, she’d been rooted here. But eight long years ago, she’d pulled up those roots and run as fast and hard as she could. Now she wondered if she’d made a mistake by coming back, trying to make this her home once again, trying to pretend that she could fall back into the life she’d led before her college life and John’s big deception, before her stint at Peterson AFB and the humiliating mistake she carried
