woman nodded and stepped back, making a polite smile again before slowly closing the door.
The nausea climbed a bit higher, and Lainey turned miserably to stare at the land. It was so abominably hot, but then it was just past two p.m., and this was June in Texas. Her body had become too accustomed to her air-conditioned life in Chicago.
Nevertheless, the sight of pastureland between the house and the highway nearly two miles distant was a visual comfort. It was also the only comfort she’d felt in weeks now, and she began to feel faintly shocked that she could have walked away from ranch life and endured the cement-surrounded life of the city for so long.
Oh, God, if I could come back to this…
The door behind her opened again and she turned back, trying not to reveal the pitiful hope she had. The housekeeper’s face showed little more than her polite smile and that same touch of wary disapproval.
“Señor Gabe is bringing horses to the pens now. He says you may meet him there or not, but he is too busy to come to you.”
Lainey tried to find some encouragement in that. If Gabe was allowing her to come that close to him, surely it was a good sign, though it was apparently all he was willing to do. The only time she’d allowed him a chance to be anywhere in her vicinity had been six months ago at the funeral. Perhaps this was a turn-about-is-fair-play sort of thing. She’d only been barely civil to him that one time, so maybe this would be the only time he’d be barely civil to her.
“Thank you, señora,” she said, then turned to rush to her car and put her handbag and briefcase inside. She started around the big house to the buildings and corrals of the headquarters.
Her brain was so awhirl with thoughts of what to say during the long walk that she didn’t realize until she’d passed the last of the buildings that her sandals were now gritty with dirt. The ground had been sunbaked and churned by so many hooves that the dirt was powdery.
As she stopped to scan the panorama of ranch land ahead, she saw the rising dust of a small herd of horses moving steadily in her direction and gave up on any thought of going back to the car for her boots. She took up a position next to the open gate of one of the larger pens, then shaded her eyes with her hands as she tried to pick Gabe out from the three men who were moving the horses along at a slow pace in the afternoon heat.
Her heart began to tremble with fear and excitement. Fear because she didn’t know what Gabe would say or do; excitement because the sight of young horses being brought in, probably for training, was familiar. It had been ages since she’d been on a horse, and she was suddenly emotional over the sight. She’d missed so much!
Lainey searched the size and posture of the three men, but even from a distance, she could tell that none of them were Gabe. She lowered her hands a moment, then was compelled to look again, fretting. Had he changed his mind about seeing her?
After another long, futile look, she lowered her hands again. A movement in her peripheral vision drew her to glance that way briefly, and she felt the shock of what she saw go from her brain to her feet.
Gabe Patton sat astride a huge black gelding, and he was watching her with an iron calm that sent another shock pounding through her. The horse’s neck and flank were damp, and his big hooves moved restively, as if he was eager to run.
Five years had only hardened Gabe Patton’s rugged looks, and they carried a seasoned harshness that she’d never seen. He’d been wearing a suit at the service six months ago, but his face had not been harsh, merely somber. Today it was decidedly stony. And unreadable. Gabe had never been handsome, but he carried the look of a westerner who worked hard and somehow he’d achieved such a devastating male charisma that, after this, would make it impossible for her to ever be impressed with softer, more conventionally handsome men.
His big body also looked harder and stronger—he was as tall as a giant—adding to a larger-than-life presence that was more potent and compelling for her than ever before, even six months ago. But she’d been trying not to look at him much then, and she was now getting the full view of a man who showed not a flicker of the sympathy she’d read in his expression during the ten or so seconds she’d actually looked at him that day.
Gabe was in his element here in the outdoors, so his impact on her seemed unchecked and unrestrained. She wondered dazedly if perhaps he somehow toned himself down in more civilized, indoor places, and she made a fervent wish that he would do it now. Instead he seemed to become more intimidating by the moment.
Beneath the shade of his black Stetson his dark eyes glittered slowly over her from head to foot as if he was judging the confirmation of a horse he might buy—or cull. She saw the faint curl of weary mockery that indented one side of his hard mouth, then saw it suddenly vanish as his dark gaze slid up from her dirty sandals and feet to slam against hers.
Anger, suspicion and something flat and icy showed in his gaze before he loosened the reins a fraction and his huge horse minced toward her. The sight made her think of a knight in full armor on a black destrier who could charge forward at any second to enter a battle to the death. When he stopped his big horse beside her and she turned to look up at him, the width of his shoulders blocked the sun. The heat from his horse was scorching, but she stood her ground.
Gabe was still staring harshly down at her, and she was helpless to look away. Her brain felt the deep probe of his gaze like a rough touch. She got nothing more from the way he looked at her than the impression that he was searching for something of worth in a place where searching for worth might be a waste of time.
Suddenly terrified that he’d stare at her a few moments more then just ride away, she managed to say, “I’m sorry.” The words croaked out of her dry throat, but he heard them.
“Sorry for what?” he said at last. “Sorry you had to come all this way, sorry you got your feet dirty?”
Now he would get his pound of flesh—that much was plain in the bitter way he said the words. But she’d come here to do some sort of penance and she hadn’t truly expected anything but harshness, whatever her wild hopes had been. She tried to take this as calmly and patiently as he’d taken all her slights and mistreatments.
“C-can we go someplace to talk?” The tremor in her voice was impossible to thwart.
“No reason until you answer the question. Sorry for what?”
She suddenly couldn’t bear the diamond glitter in his eyes and looked away. She’d craved this opportunity for weeks while she worked up her courage, but Gabe was so tough and skeptical of her that she wished she could simply vanish from his sight and slink away somewhere.
But if she let him chase her off now, she’d regret that, too, and she might never get another chance.
“I came here to…apologize.” The dryness in her mouth and the surge of roiling emotions complicated it all. “To even grovel if that’s…what it takes.”
Now she made the monumental effort to look up at him again, to say this to his face as she’d meant to. “I’ve been awful to you. You were never what I thought you were, and I came here to tell you that. And to say that I’m profoundly sorry.”
The diamond glitter in his eyes was suddenly banished by dark fire. “So now you want a divorce.”
His conclusion sent a new shock through her and she reflexively gave a quick, “No,” then caught herself and just as quickly added, “Yes. But you can’t want to stay married
