Denim And Lace

“You don’t have to explain. We appreciate what you did,” Bess said softly. “I wish I could cook.”

“It’s a shame Gussie wouldn’t let Maude teach you,” Elise said.

Bess sighed. “Maude leaves at the end of the week,” she said. “We had to let her go, of course.” She tried to smile. “I’ll practice the trial-and-error cookery method. After I’ve burned up a few things, surely I’ll get the hang of it.”

Elise smiled. “Of course you will. If we can do anything...”

“Thank you.” She touched the older woman’s shoulder gently and turned down the long hall.

She knocked at the second door.

“Come in.”

Cade sounded tired, too, and irritated. That wasn’t encouraging. She opened the door and went in, leaning back against the cool wood for support. Her eyes cast briefly around the room. It was almost ramshackle compared with its counterpart at the Spanish House, with worn linoleum on the floor and equally worn throw rugs. The chairs were faded with age, and the paintings on the wall dated to the twenties. There was a small lamp on Cade’s desk, along with stacks of ledgers and paperwork.

He sat at his desk, bent over one of the ledgers. He didn’t look up for a minute, and Bess was shocked at the sheer fatigue she saw in his face. He had all the responsibility for the ranch these days and took care of all the other Hollisters. How he must hate the Samsons, she thought sadly, for what they were costing him now.

He glanced up and saw her, and the weariness was suddenly overlaid by bitterness.

“Hello, Bess,” he said in a faintly surprised tone, leaning back. “Is this a social visit?”

“I expect you’d be delighted to throw me off the back steps if I dared, considering the mess we’ve landed you in,” she said with what pride she had left. She moved forward and put the jewelry case down on the cluttered desk.

“What’s this?” he asked.

She folded her hands in front of her. “Great-aunt Dorie’s pearls,” she said quietly.

His eyebrows shot up. He picked up the case and opened it, revealing the creamy-pink glow of those antique, priceless pearls. His expression gave nothing away, but she sensed that she’d shocked him.

“Does your attorney know about these?” he asked curtly.

She looked away from his piercing gaze. “I didn’t think it was necessary,” she said evasively. “Dad’s enterprise cost you more than the other creditors. Those pearls will be almost enough to make up every penny.”

“These are more than collateral,” he said, closing the case and laying it on the desk. “They’re a legacy. These should go to your oldest child.”

Her eyes lingered on his chest. His blue work shirt was unbuttoned. “It’s not likely I’ll have children,” she said. “The pearls don’t matter.”

“They will to your mother,” he replied, standing. “And don’t tell me she approved of your coming here. I doubt you even told her.”

“She’s not in much condition to notice what I do,” she said uneasily.

He came around the desk slowly and perched on its edge to light a cigarette. In his half-leaning position, his jeans stretched sinuously across powerful leg muscles and narrow hips. He was devastating physically.

He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “How do you stand financially, after the other debts are paid?”

“We don’t,” she said simply. She had to fight the urge to move closer to him. He was so sensually appealing that her heart was nearly racing.

His chest rose and fell heavily. “Well, I won’t pretend it’s going to be easy, but I can make do with fifty cents on the dollar, and your attorney tells me you can manage that,” he said, watching her face color. “Yes, I’ve spoken to him already.”

“I should have guessed that you would.”

“Why bring me the pearls, then?” he asked quietly. “Didn’t you think I’d settle for what you had to give?”

She smiled. “I wasn’t sure. You’re first and foremost a businessman, and you stood to lose more than the other investors. I didn’t want to see you lose Lariat.”

“I’m not going to lose Lariat,” he said curtly. “I’ll hold on to it somehow.”

She was staring at his dusty boots. He was a hardworking man. A hard man, period. Something in him appealed to her, despite the cold, sarcastic face he presented to the world. She sometimes thought that underneath there was a man who desperately needed to be loved. But Cade Hollister would never have admitted it. No one got close to him.

He was watching those expressions drift across her young face, and they weren’t making it easy for him. Bess had worshipped him from afar for years, and knowing it had almost driven him crazy. There were so many reasons why he couldn’t give in to the barely curbed hunger he felt for her. Her mother had a hold on her that Bess didn’t seem able to break. Despite her lack of wealth now, she’d been born to it and he hadn’t. There were all too many years between them. Besides those good reasons, he had Lariat and his family to think of. His first responsibility was to them, and they were in one hellacious financial pickle now, thanks to Bess’s father.

He was surprised, too, at her continuing attraction to him. He thought he’d convinced her that he didn’t want her. But she still looked at him with those soft, sweet eyes that made him burn from head to toe. It had provoked him into near-violence once, and he’d humiliated her in a way that still haunted him. At the time it had seemed necessary to get her off the track, but now...

He stood up abruptly, irritated by her sudden, jerky backward movement. It angered him beyond all reason.

“For God’s sake,” he burst out, eyes blazing.

She bit her lower lip, her wide eyes searching his with faint apprehension.

He saw the fear and hated it. He had to control a wild urge to grab her, to bring her close and kiss the breath out of her and teach her not to be afraid of him. But he couldn’t do that, and the knowledge made him wild. He crushed out the cigarette with muted violence.

“Don’t flatter yourself, honey,” he said bitingly. “You’re hardly enough to make a man drunk with passion.”

He’d made that clear long ago, so she didn’t take offense. She looked down at her feet, her expression faintly defeated. “I know that already,” she said. There was simply no fight in her, and that bothered him most of all. She was so damned vulnerable.

She looked up at him then with soft brown eyes that shot every scruple he had. The look burned between them like fire, ripping away his will, his restraint. All at once his hand shot out to catch her arm. He swung her around, right up against him, so that she could feel the warmth of his hard, fit body and see the faint beads of sweat clinging to the thick dark hair on his chest.

“Is that your best offer?” he asked deeply, and his eyes at close range were dynamite. He saw the puzzled look in her eyes and cursed himself for saying such a thing to her. She was so damned green, she didn’t even know what he was talking about.

“You mean the pearls?” she got out. “Well, everything else is gone already, except for some of Mama’s jewelry...”

He stared at her with unbridled contempt. “And of course, Mama won’t give up her jewels, even to pay a debt, isn’t that right?”

She felt herself going limp, feeling weary of defending her mother to him. “Cade, can’t you find it in your heart to talk to me without making horribly sarcastic remarks about my mother?” Her big eyes pleaded with him.

He saw the tiredness then. Saw how the funeral had affected her. She was becoming far too pale, too thin, too worn for a woman her age. Like a leech, her mother had sapped her, robbed her of a normal girlhood. His dark eyes narrowed. He wondered if she’d ever realized that his sarcasm was more defensive than offensive.

His dark eyes moved over her like hands, exploring the roundness of her breasts and hips and her small waist. He knew what she felt. Even now she was almost trembling as he looked at her. She wanted him.

But wanting wouldn’t be enough. There was still Gussie and Bess’s lost lifestyle and her own inability to stand up to her own problems. In her present state he’d walk all over her because she had hardly any spirit. That hurt him, to think that he could do even more damage to her spirit than Gussie had. He had a quick, hot temper that he wasn’t shy about losing. Bess would knuckle under. The woman she could be would be submerged in his own strength.

There was a hunger in her soft brown eyes that he felt an urgent need to satisfy. He had to get her out of here, and quick.

But she smelled of gardenias and she looked as if he was every dream of perfection she’d ever had. Her eyes were making love to his, soft and hungry. Virgin eyes.

He touched a loose strand of Bess’s soft hair and brushed it back from her long neck. Even the black suit she was wearing with that stark white blouse didn’t detract from her appeal. If she’d worked at it, she could have been beautiful. But Mama wouldn’t like the competition, so naturally Bess wasn’t encouraged to dress up or fix her face and hair to her best advantage. He knew that, even if Bess didn’t.

Her lips parted at the light touch on her hair. She stared up at him with eyes that were wide and excited.