His for the Taking - By Ann Major Page 0,6
since Miss Jennie had helped her relocate and had lent Maddie money to go to college, there was no way she could say no, even if it meant facing Cole and the prejudiced town.
Up ahead Maddie heard the jingle of dog tags. Just as she was about to call him, Cinnamon barked exuberantly from the sun-dappled brush. Her heart sank as she realized that he’d set off for the swimming hole on the Guadalupe River where she and Cole used to secretly meet. Where they’d made love countless times. Of all the places she would have preferred to avoid, the icy green pool beneath tall cypress trees on his land topped her list.
For here she could be too easily reminded of Cole, of their brief affair. Back then she’d been young and in love and filled with anticipation for their every meeting. She’d been so sure that he’d loved her and would love her forever, and that his love, once known publicly, would change other people’s opinions and she’d gain the respectability she’d craved. Even when he’d insisted on keeping their relationship a secret from everyone important to him, especially his mother, she’d believed in him.
It had taken a crisis of the worst magnitude to make her see him for what he really was—a typical boy in lust out for a few cheap thrills with the town’s bad girl, a boy who’d never respected her and couldn’t be counted on to save her. No, she’d had to save herself.
Maddie had had six years to deal with the trauma of the past. She was all grown up now. She knew that life wasn’t a fairy tale, that she needed to get over the hurt that Cole and his mother had inflicted on her.
The last thing she wanted or needed now was to see him again and reopen all those old wounds. If she were lucky, Cole would keep to his oil fields while she was here with Miss Jennie.
Maybe then she would escape Yella unscathed.
Three
Two hours after he’d left the drill site, Cole pulled up to Miss Jennie’s white house on the edge of town where her property backed up to a corner of his own estate. Miss Jennie’s house, with its sagging wraparound porch, was a sorry sight in the middle of an overgrown, brown lawn. Not that Cole’s mind was on the lousy condition of her house and yard as he slammed the door of his big, white truck and strode up her walk.
He was a little surprised when Miss Jennie’s fool of a dog didn’t race up to him, yapping. Whenever Cole rode on this part of his ranch he usually ran into the mongrel. On hot summer evenings Cinnamon loved nothing better than lying on a shady rock along the bank where the river was spring-fed and icy cold.
That particular swimming hole had often been Cole and Maddie’s secret meeting place.
All he could think of was Maddie.
He knocked impatiently, but when the screen door finally opened, it wasn’t a reluctant Maddie prettily greeting him, but sharp-eyed Bessie Mueller from next door.
Cold air gushed out of the house around her as she set fists on her solid hips. Her wrinkled face was brown from working outdoors. She had a way of standing that made her look bolted to the earth.
“Your mother told everybody you weren’t coming home till tomorrow, so, what has got you planting your dusty boots on Miss Jennie’s doorstep today?”
It went without sayin’ that everybody in Yella knew everybody else’s business.
“Ranch affairs,” he drawled, hating the way the lie made heat crawl up his neck. “Is Miss Jennie doing okay?”
“She’s just fine, but she’s restin’ for a spell. She’s had so much company this mornin’—all male. She’s plumb tuckered out.”
“And Maddie Gray?”
Bessie grinned slyly. “Oh, so, it’s her you’ve come to see…like every other man in town?” The knowing glint in her black eyes irritated the hell out of him. “Well, she’s out looking for Cinnamon, if you have to know. That’s why I’m here. I told Maddie it wasn’t no use chasin’ that mongrel. When that fool dog isn’t barking loud enough to wake the dead, he’s after my poor chickens or diggin’ up my pansies. He always comes back—when he takes a mind to.”
Like all mammals, human or otherwise, living in Yella, Cinnamon had acquired a reputation.
Cole tipped his hat. “You tell Miss Jennie I’ll be back a little later, then.”
If Maddie was chasing Cinnamon, he knew where to find her.
* * *
When