Undaunted

Ideals were worthwhile, certainly, but it had been her father’s choice of vocations that had alienated him. He hadn’t considered that she might not feel as her father did. He simply walked away, without a backward glance.

For several weeks, she hoped that he might call or write, that he might apologize for making assumptions about her. But he hadn’t. In desperation, she’d written to a former girlfriend in San Antonio, where Steven had moved to, a mutual friend from high school. The friend told her that Steven was involved with a new organization—a radical animal rights group, much larger than the one he’d belonged to when Emma knew him. He and his friend were apparently still living together, too. Neither of them dated anybody. Steven said that he was never going back to Jacobsville, though. That was when Emma finally gave up. She wasn’t going to have that happy ending so beloved by tellers of fairy tales. Not with Steven, anyway. She walked idly through the woods, a stick held loosely in her hand. She touched it to the tops of autumn weeds as she walked, lost in thought.

She almost walked straight into the big man before she saw him. She jumped back as though he’d struck out at her. Her heart was beating a mad rhythm. She felt breathless, frightened, heartsick. All those emotions vied for supremacy in her wide brown eyes.

She bit her lower lip. “I’m sorry,” she said at once, almost cringing at the sudden fierce anger in his broad face.

His hands were jammed deep in his trouser pockets. He was wearing a beige shirt with tan slacks, and he looked, as usual, out of sorts.

He glared at her from pale glittering gray eyes, assessing her, finding her wanting. His opinion of her long brown checked cotton dress with its white T-shirt underneath was less than flattering.

“Well, we can’t all afford Saks,” she said defensively.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Some of us can’t even afford a decent thrift shop, either, judging by appearances,” he returned.

She stood on the narrow path through the woods that led to the lake. “I wasn’t trespassing,” she blurted out, reddening. “Mamie owns up to that colored ribbon on the stake, there.” She pointed to the property line.

He cocked his head and stared at her. He hated her youth, her freshness, her lack of artifice. He hated her very innocence, because it was so obvious that it was unmistakable. His whole life had been one endless parade of perfumed, perfectly coifed women endlessly trying to get whatever they could out of him. Here was a stiff, upright little Puritan with a raised fist.

“You’re always alone,” he said absently.

“So are you,” she blurted out, and then bit her tongue at her own forwardness.

Broad shoulders lifted and fell. “I got tired of bouncing soufflés, so I sent her home,” he said coolly.

She frowned, searching his face. He showed his age in a way that many older men didn’t. He pushed himself too hard. She knew without asking that he never took vacations, never celebrated holidays, that he carried work home every night and stayed on the phone until he was finally weary enough to sleep. Business was his whole life. He might have women in his life, but their influence ended at the bedroom door. And nobody got close, ever.

“Can you cook?” he asked suddenly.

“Of course.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“My father has a little cattle ranch in Texas,” she said hesitantly. “My mother died when I was only eight. I had to learn to cook.”

“At the age of eight?” he asked, surprised.

She nodded. Suddenly she felt cold and wrapped her arms around her body. “I was taught that hard work drives out frivolous thoughts.”

He scowled. “Any brothers, sisters?”

She shook her head.

“Just you and the rancher.”

She nodded. “He wanted a boy,” she blurted out. “He said girls were useless.”

His hands, stuffed in his pockets, clenched. He was getting a picture he didn’t like of her life. He didn’t want to know anything about her. He found her distasteful, irritating. He should turn around and go back to his lake house.

“You had a little girl with you a few days ago,” he said, startling her. “She was lost.”

She smiled slowly, and it changed her. Those soft brown eyes almost glowed. “She belongs to a friend of Mamie’s, a young woman from Provence who’s over here with her husband on a business trip. They’re staying at a friend’s cabin. The little girl wandered over here, looking for Mamie.”

“Provence? France?”

“Yes.”

“And do you speak French, cowgirl?” he asked.

“Je ne parle pas trés bien, mais, oui,” she replied.

He cocked his head, and for a few seconds, his pale eyes were less hostile. “You studied it in high school, I suppose?”

“Yes. We had to take a foreign language. I already spoke Spanish, so French was something new.”

“Spanish?”

“My father had several cowboys who were from Mexico. Immigrants,” he began, planning to mention that his grandfather was one.

“Their families were here before the first settlers made it to Texas,” she said, absently defending them.

His pale eyes narrowed. “I didn’t mean it that way. I was going to say that my grandfather was an immigrant.” He cocked his head. “You don’t like even the intimation of prejudice, do you?”

She shifted on her feet. “They were like family to me,” she said. “My father was hard as nails. He wouldn’t even give a man time off to go to a funeral.” She shifted again. “He said work came first, family second.”

“Charming,” he said and it was pure sarcasm.

“So all the affection I ever had was from people who worked for him.” She smiled, reminiscing. “Dolores cooked for the bunkhouse crew. She taught me to cook and sew, and she bought me the first dress I ever owned.” Her face hardened. “My father threw it away. He said it was trashy, like Dolores. I said she was the least trashy person I knew and he...” She swallowed. “The next day, she was gone. Just like that.”

He moved a step closer. “You hesitated. What did your father do?”

She bit her lower lip. “He said I deserved it...”

“What did he do?”

“He drew back his fist and knocked me down,” she said, lowering her face in shame. “Dolores’s husband saw it through the window. He came in to protect me. He knocked my father down. So my father fired Dolores and him. Because of me.”

He didn’t move closer, but she felt the anger emanating from him. “He would have found another reason for doing it,” he said after a minute.

“He didn’t like them being friendly to me.” She sighed. “I felt so bad. They had kids who were in school with me, and the kids had to go to another school where Pablo found work. Dolores tried to write to me, but my father tore up the letter and burned it, so I couldn’t even see the return address.”

“You should have gone with them,” he said flatly.

She smiled sadly. “I tried to. He locked me in my room.” She looked up with soft, sad eyes. “Mamie reminds me of Dolores. She has a kind heart, too.”

There was an odd vibrating sound. She frowned, looking around.

He held up the cell phone he’d kept in his pocket. He glared at it, turned the vibrate function off and put it back in his pocket. “If I answer it, there’s a crisis I have to solve. If I don’t answer it, there will be two crises that cost me a small fortune because I didn’t answer it.”