Cattleman's Choice

He stood slightly crouched, breathing slowly, watching her.

“If you’re not going to use that gun, may I have it?” she asked, nodding toward the weapon.

He didn’t move for a long, taut minute. Then he silently flipped the gun, straightening as he held the butt toward her.

She moved forward, taking it gently, carefully. Carson was unpredictable in these moods, but she’d been dealing with him for a long time, now. Long enough to know how to handle him. She emptied the pistol carefully and stuck it in one coat pocket, putting the bullets in the other.

“Why is that man in the tree?” she asked Carson.

“Ask him,” Carson said in a deep drawl.

She looked up at the thin cowboy, who was young and battered looking. She recognized him belatedly as one she’d seen often in the grocery store. “Bobby, what did you do?”

The young cowboy sighed. “Well, Miss Bush, I hit him over the back with a chair. He was choking Andy, and I was afraid he was going to do some damage.”

“If he apologizes,” she said to Carson, who was slightly unsteady on his feet, “can he come down?”

He thought about that for a minute. “I guess.”

“Bobby, apologize!” she called up.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Wayne!” came the prompt reply.

Carson glared up toward the limb. “All right, you…”

Mandelyn had to grit her teeth as Carson went through a round of unprintable words before he let the shivering cowboy come down.

“Thanks!” Bobby said quickly, and ran for it, before Carson had time to change his mind.

Mandelyn sighed, staring up at Carson’s hard face. It was a long way up. He was tall and broad shouldered, with a physique that would have caught any woman’s eye. But he was rough and coarse and only half civilized, and she couldn’t imagine any woman being able to live with him.

“Jake with you?” he bit off.

“Yes. As usual.” She moved closer and slowly reached out to catch his big hand in hers. It was callused and warm and it made her tingle to touch it. It was an odd reaction, but she didn’t stop to question it. “Let’s go home, Carson.”

He let her lead him around the building, as docile as a lamb, and not for the first time she wondered at that docility. He would have attacked any man who tried to stop him. But for some reason he tolerated Mandelyn’s interference. She was the only person his men would call to get him.

“Shame on you,” she mumbled.

“Button up,” he said curtly. “When I want a sermon, I’ll call a preacher.”

“Any preacher you called would faint dead away,” she shot back. “And don’t give me orders, I don’t like it.”

He stopped suddenly. She was still holding his hand and the action jerked her backward.

“Wildcat,” he said huskily, and his eyes glittered in the dim light. “For all your culture and polish, you’re as hard as a back-country woman.”

“Sure I am,” she replied. “I have to be, to deal with a savage like you!”

Something darkened his eyes, hardened his jaw. All at once, he turned her, whipped her around, and bent to jerk her completely off the ground and into his hard arms.

“Put me down, Carson!” she said curtly, pushing at his broad shoulders.

He ignored her struggles. One of his arms, the one that was under her shoulders, shifted, so that his hand could catch her long blonde hair and pull her head back.

“I’m tired of letting you lead me around like a cowed dog,” he said in a gruff undertone. “I’m tired of being called a savage. If that’s what you think I am, maybe it’s time I lived down to my reputation.”

His grip on her hair was painful, and she only half heard the harsh words. Then, with shocking precision, he brought his hard mouth down on her parted lips and took possession.

It was the first time he’d touched her, ever. She went rigid all over at the unfamiliar intimacy of his whiskey-scented mouth, the rasp of whiskers that raked her soft skin. Her eyes, wide open and full of astonished fear, looked up at his drawn eyebrows, at the thick black lashes that lay against his hard, dark-skinned cheek. He made an odd sound, deep in his throat, and increased the pressure of his mouth until it became bruisingly painful.

She protested, a wild sound that penetrated the mists of intoxication and made his head slowly lift.

His chiseled lips were parted, his eyes as shocked as her own, his face harder than ever as he looked down at her. His hard gaze went to her lips. In that ardent fury his teeth had cut the lower one.

All at once, he seemed to sober. He put her gently down onto her shaky legs and hesitantly took her by the shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” he said slowly.

She touched her trembling lips, all the fight gone out of her. “You cut my mouth,” she whispered.

He reached out an unsteady finger and touched it while his chest lifted unsteadily.

She drew back from that tingling contact, her eyes wide and uncertain.

He let his hand fall. “I don’t know why I did that,” he said.

She’d never wondered before about his love life, about his women. But the feel of his mouth had fostered an unexpected intimacy between them, and suddenly she was curious about him in ways that unsettled her.

“We’d better go,” she said. “Jake will be worried.”

She turned, leaving him to follow. She couldn’t have borne having to touch him again until some of the rawness subsided.

Jake opened the door, frowning when he saw her face. “You okay?” he asked quickly.

“Just battle-scarred,” she replied with a trace of humor. She climbed in, drawing her knees together as a subdued Carson climbed in beside her and slammed the door shut.

“Get going,” he told Jake without looking at him.

It was a horrible ride back home for Mandelyn. She felt betrayed. In all their turbulent relationship, she’d never once thought of him in any physical way. He was much too coarse to be an object of desire, too uncivilized and antisocial. She’d vowed that she’d never love a man again, that she’d live on the memory of the love she’d lost so many years ago. And now Carson had shocked her out of her apathy with one brutal kiss. He’d robbed her of her peace of mind. Tonight, he’d changed the rules, without any warning, and she felt empty and raw and a little afraid.

When Jake pulled up at her door, she waited nervously for Carson to get out of the truck.

“Thanks,” Jake whispered.

She glanced at him. “Next time, I won’t come,” she said curtly.

Leaving him to absorb that, she jumped down from the cab and walked stiffly toward the front door without a word to Carson. As she closed the door, she heard the pickup truck roar away. And then she cried.