The Rawhide Man

“Against Jude?” Bess smiled sadly. “I watched him back down an armed cowboy once, when I was with Dad at the Langston ranch. I was about fourteen, and one of the hands got mad at Jude for something. He took a couple of drinks and went at Jude with a loaded gun. Jude didn’t even flinch. He walked straight into the gun, took it away from the cowboy and beat him to his knees.”

“Your eyes flash when you talk about him,” Crystal observed, watching Bess. “He excites you, doesn’t he?”

“He frightens me.” The older girl laughed nervously.

Crystal shook her head slowly. “You’re awfully naive for a woman your age. It isn’t fear, but you aren’t experienced enough to know that, are you?” she asked absently. Then she shrugged and whirled away. “Have to run, pet. Jacques is meeting me at the airport. Let me know how things work out, won’t you?”

And that was that. Bess was left alone in the house, and it was getting dark. She had no family, no close friends—there hadn’t been the opportunity to make friends, with an invalid mother who needed constant care. So she was alone.

Involuntarily her mind went wandering back to Jude like a puppy that wouldn’t mind. He’d be along, all right. As soon as he realized that Bess had control of his precious stock, he’d be at her throat. He hadn’t managed to run over Carla, though, and he wasn’t going to run over Bess, either. She had the shares and she was keeping them. They were all that stood between her and starvation, and they paid a high dividend.

She let the curtain fall and turned away from the window too quickly to catch the flash of car lights against the glass. The force of the rain muffled the sound of a purring engine coming closer.

Bess went into the bare hall and sat down on the steps, ruffling her disheveled blond hair. She touched her face lightly, mentally comparing it with Crystal’s. Her nose was arrow straight; her mouth had a bee-stung appearance, full and red and soft. Her brown eyes were wide spaced and appealing. She wasn’t beautiful like her stepsister, but she wasn’t ugly, at least. Of course, she was very thin and small breasted—not voluptuous like Crystal. But someday she might find a man and get married. And again she thought of Jude and cursed her stubborn, stupid mind. Jude would never marry. For heaven’s sake, he’d never even bothered to marry Katy’s mother!

Bess stared around her at the opulent home, which had been part of the White estate for over a hundred years, surviving even the Civil War. How sad that it hadn’t been able to survive the Smythes, she thought with a surge of humor. Crystal was right, of course. It would have to be sold. Dividends from her stocks would provide enough to support her if she was frugal, but not to maintain the house as well.

With a weary groan she got to her feet. She might as well get busy and clean out some drawers or something. It would have been a blessing if she’d had a job to go to, but she’d been trained for nothing except managing this monstrous house. And soon she wouldn’t have even that. She laughed almost hysterically at the thought. She’d have to get a job.

The sudden clang of the doorbell made her jump. She hadn’t expected visitors in this wild rain.

She glanced at her hair in the mirror. It looked as if it had been caught in a windmill, but there was no time to fix it, and she wasn’t wearing makeup at all. She looked pale and plain and sickly. She hoped this wasn’t going to be another bill collector; she had enough trouble already, and the phone calls and demands for payment were growing hourly since the news of her mother’s death had been made public. When it rained it poured, she thought desperately.

A wild shudder went through her when she opened the door. The man outside was the image of every woman’s secret dream. Tall, broad shouldered and long legged, dressed in an expensive gray pin-striped suit with matching Stetson and boots, he looked like something out of a smart men’s magazine. But his face, deeply tanned, was as inscrutable as a stone carving. His mouth was rigid, as firm as his jaw. His eyes were deeply set under thick black lashes and they were a glittering pale green. His scowling eyebrows were the same jet black as the hair she glimpsed under his hat. And the whole portrait was so formidable that she instinctively stepped back.

“You’ve been expecting me, I imagine,” Jude Langston said curtly, just a trace of a Texas accent in his deep, measured voice.

“Oh, yes, along with flood, earthquake and volcanic eruptions,” she agreed, using the protective guise of humor that had always saved her nerves when she had to deal with him. “I won’t even bother asking why you’re here. Obviously, you’ve seen the will.”

He moved forward, and she knew him too well to stand her ground. He closed the door roughly behind him, and rain dripped from the wide brim of the gray hat that shadowed part of his face.

“Where can we talk?”

She turned, remembering that she was still Miss White of Oakgrove, and led him into the shabby parlor.

“Still the society girl, I see,” he taunted, dropping down onto the sofa. “Do I get coffee, Miss White, or aren’t the servants working today?”

She blanched, but her chin lifted and her brown eyes accused. “My mother died two days ago,” she said pointedly, “so could you save your sarcasm for a special occasion? Yes, there’s coffee, and no, there aren’t any servants. There haven’t been for a number of years. Or don’t you know yet that the only thing standing between me and imminent starvation is that block of oil shares you’re so hot to get your hands on?”

He looked as if she’d actually surprised him, but she turned away. “I’ll get the coffee,” she said curtly.

While she was gone, she cooled down her hot temper. It wouldn’t do her any good with Jude; the only chance she had was to keep her head and not go for his throat. By the time she carried the worn silver service into the living room, he’d discarded his topcoat and hat and was wandering around the room, glancing distastefully at the portrait of Carla and Bess above the mantel.

He turned and watched her set the heavy service on the coffee table without offering to help. That was like him, the original chauvinist who had no time for women.

“Thank you,” she said elegantly, “for your kind offer of assistance.”

“Is the damned thing heavy?” he asked carelessly.

She almost laughed. The situation was unbelievable. She sat down and poured out the coffee, handing him his black without realizing what that little slip gave away.

“Should I be flattered that you remember how I take my coffee?” he asked, leaning back to study her insolently, running his eyes over every curve outlined by the simple gray jersey dress she was wearing.

“Don’t put on your cowboy drawl for me, mister,” she replied quietly, lifting her cup to her lips. “I know you.”

“You think you do,” he agreed, his green eyes narrowing.

“How’s Katy?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Growing up fast.” His gaze focused on her. “She asked about you when the family got together this summer.”

“I’m sorry I missed it,” she said. “I couldn’t leave Mother.”

He flexed his broad shoulders and leaned forward. The action stretched the fabric of his pants over his powerful thighs and Bess had to look away.

“That’s enough small talk,” he said suddenly, piercing her eyes with his. “You’re coming back to San Antonio with me.”

She hardly had time to catch her breath. “I’m what?”

“You heard me.” He set down his cup. “The only way I can control that stock is by marrying you. So that’s how we’ll do it.”

Her body jerked as if he’d hit her, and she stared at him uncomprehendingly. She might have thought of this before—it was so like Jude to take the direct approach.

“No,” she said shortly.

“Yes,” he replied. “I’ve waited years to get my hands on those shares, and I’m having them. If you come along with the deal, I’ll just have to make the best of it.”

She went red in the face and sat up straight. “What makes you think you’re any prize?” she asked in her coldest tone. “You’re cold and hard and you don’t care about anybody in the world except Katy!”

“That’s absolutely gospel,” he agreed, staring at her unblinkingly. “But you’ll go to the altar with me if I have to tie you up and gag you, except for the part where you say, ‘I do.’”

“I do not,” she corrected. “You can’t force me to marry you.”

“Think not?” He stood up, his green eyes glittering with cold humor, his face confident and frighteningly hard.

He left the room, and Bess stood up, staring helplessly around. What in the world was he doing!

Minutes later he was back, with her coat in one hand and her purse dangling from his fingers. He slung them at her. “I’ve undone the fuse box. You can call a real estate agent from San Antonio and put the house on the auction block. Any little things you want can be shipped out. Now put on that coat.”

She couldn’t believe this was happening. It must be a hallucination brought on by the strain, she told herself. But a minute later, always impatient, he was stuffing her into the coat. He jerked the hood up and thrust the purse into her hands.

“I won’t go!” she cried out.

“Like hell you won’t go.” He bent and swung her up into his arms like a sack of feathers and carried her out into the rain.

Chapter Two

This isn’t happening, Bess told herself an hour later as she sat beside Jude in the cockpit of his big Cessna. It simply isn’t happening!