The Prodigal Wife

Now he would get his pound of flesh—that much was plain in the bitter way he said the words. But she’d come here to do some sort of penance and she hadn’t truly expected anything but harshness, whatever her wild hopes had been. She tried to take this as calmly and patiently as he’d taken all her slights and mistreatments.

“C-can we go someplace to talk?” The tremor in her voice was impossible to thwart.

“No reason until you answer the question. Sorry for what?”

She suddenly couldn’t bear the diamond glitter in his eyes and looked away. She’d craved this opportunity for weeks while she worked up her courage, but Gabe was so tough and skeptical of her that she wished she could simply vanish from his sight and slink away somewhere.

But if she let him chase her off now, she’d regret that, too, and she might never get another chance.

“I came here to…apologize.” The dryness in her mouth and the surge of roiling emotions complicated it all. “To even grovel if that’s…what it takes.”

Now she made the monumental effort to look up at him again, to say this to his face as she’d meant to. “I’ve been awful to you. You were never what I thought you were, and I came here to tell you that. And to say that I’m profoundly sorry.”

The diamond glitter in his eyes was suddenly banished by dark fire. “So now you want a divorce.”

His conclusion sent a new shock through her and she reflexively gave a quick, “No,” then caught herself and just as quickly added, “Yes. But you can’t want to stay married to me.”

The fire in his eyes didn’t lower by so much as a spark, so she rushed out with, “Isn’t that what you want to do?”

He let her wait a few more breathless seconds before he leaned toward her. She had to fight not to take a step back. “You have no idea what I want to do.”

To beat her, strangle her? The way he’d said the word want seemed menacing enough to suggest those things.

“Could we talk?”

Nothing eased in his face or in his eyes, but his voice lowered to a growl. “You’ve always taken the say-so about that.”

She tried a small, conciliatory smile, but it felt more like a sick curve of lips. She was just so desperate to somehow win a chance to tell him everything she’d come here to say. “I’m sorry about that, too.” Her heart was beating impossibly fast. “It’s your turn now.”

Not getting any clue that she’d said enough to satisfy him, she panicked and babbled out, “It’s completely your turn now, Gabe, completely.”

She couldn’t bear the awful suspense and her breathless, “Could we?” came out without her being conscious of it until she heard herself say the words. She’d sounded like a pitiful child begging for something, and she cringed inwardly. His growl went lower.

“How bad do you want to talk to me?”

It was as if he’d somehow hypnotized her and she’d answer any question without reserve.

“Badly.”

Gabe slowly straightened, his glittery, angry gaze never leaving hers. The big horse shifted beneath him as if responding to some sort of tension in his rider. Just when she thought he’d decided to ride away and leave her hanging, he spoke.

“Then move your things into my house. If you’re still there by supper, I’ll eat with you. I’ll think about talk—if you’ve learned enough manners to get through a meal.”

And then he rode away. She turned to watch him go, a little stunned to see the horses that had been herded to the tree-shaded pens were now milling inside. The thirty or so animals had trotted past only a few feet away from where she was standing, and it amazed her that she’d neither seen nor heard them or the wranglers who’d brought them in and closed the gate.

Move your things into my house…I’ll think about talking if you’ve learned enough manners…

Tough, uncompromising, but it was as much a warning as it was the chance she’d craved. Gabe Patton would tolerate no misstep or wrong word, and certainly no hint of spite from her ever again. And she didn’t know him well enough to know what might set him off, particularly when she was sure that anything, no matter how miniscule or unintended on her part, might well get her thrown out before she even realized what she’d done to rile him.

Mindful that he’d now dismounted and handed his horse off to one of the wranglers and might be about to glance her way, she turned and hurried back to the house, determined to demonstrate that she would immediately comply with his dictates, however more demanding they might become.

And however impossible she feared he could make them.

CHAPTER TWO

GABE PATTON had realized the truth the moment he’d taken the cell call from his housekeeper and heard Lainey’s name: His wife was here to divorce him.

Lainey Talbot Patton was the only acquisition he’d not fought to get his hands on or gone to war to keep. Partly because as long as they were married, she was his whether she thought so or not. Partly because he knew she’d been devastated by her father’s death and manipulated to within an inch of her life by her harridan mother.

For those first days and weeks after the quick ceremony at the courthouse, Gabe had been amused by her stubbornness and her absolute refusal to allow him any contact with her. But when the days and weeks had turned into months, he’d stopped being amused.

He’d like to credit her mother’s death with Lainey’s sudden appearance here and her claim to have found out the truth. Her repentant pose had looked startlingly authentic, but they both knew the terms of her father’s will, and the fact that she’d waited six months to show up made her apology ring hollow.

According to the terms of the will, Lainey had to stay married to him for five years before she was eligible to receive full control of her inheritance. The five years were almost up, control of Talbot Ranch would revert to her in a few weeks, but her marriage to him—the marriage she’d never given a moment’s chance to—would be the only thing standing in her way.

Whatever he’d once hoped they might have together, there was no way in hell he’d just hand over what had been a bankrupt operation to an ungrateful female who’d virtually wiped her feet on him while he’d been risking everything he’d earned to get Talbot Ranch back into the black. Particularly now that she could legally claim control over every inch and dollar of the sweat and risk he’d invested to save it, then maybe make some token thanks before she demanded a divorce.

Though he’d agreed to John’s request and would keep their bargain to the letter, he didn’t plan to come out of the deal empty-handed.

He glanced toward the main house, but Lainey was no longer in sight. Unless her mother had succeeded in making a hothouse plant of her, he was certain she wouldn’t be able to sit around indoors for the rest of the afternoon. He figured she’d go over to Talbot and have a look around, so he didn’t let the idea bother him.

Whatever Lainey was up to now, her intention to be free of him wouldn’t be as simple as a token apology and a last trip to the courthouse.

Gabe’s housekeeper, who introduced herself as Elisa, put Lainey’s two suitcases, overnight bag and briefcase in the entry closet just off the front foyer. Uneasy and too restless and keyed up to wait around in the living room for over three hours until supper, Lainey left a hasty note on a paper scrap for Gabe on the coffee table, then left the house.

Her father had been buried in the small family cemetery on Talbot Ranch, so she went there. She drove past the big Victorian house and ranch buildings of the Talbot headquarters, and found the rutted road that stretched through three massive pastures to the gravesite.

The shady acre was enclosed by a white rail fence, and she parked her car outside the painted rails beneath an overhanging tree branch. She went to the trunk for the silk flower arrangement she’d bought in San Antonio, then entered the gate and walked to the headstone that marked John Talbot’s grave.

Poignant memories overwhelmed her as she stared at the carved stone and remembered the horror of hearing that her father had been killed. Her desperate race to get back to Texas had been blurred by the shock and numbing grief she’d been certain she couldn’t survive, then the terrible agony of his funeral.

How on earth could she have thought her father would do anything to hurt or slight her? For weeks now she’d looked through his pictures again and again, apologizing over and over for ever doubting his love and care for her.

Childish or not, foolish or not, she’d somehow hoped her father had heard her all those times. Perhaps the knowledge of what she’d inflicted on Gabe had prevented her from feeling relief; perhaps self-loathing and guilt would keep her in this torment the rest of her days, whatever Gabe had to say to her tonight.

Quietly she knelt down and placed the silk pansies and forget-me-nots in the slim receptacle at the base of the stone.

“I’m finally home, Daddy.”

All the other words crowded up from the love and heartache and brokenness she felt, and poured out in a fresh torrent of sorrow and regret. By the time the torrent had eased away, she had moved to the wrought-iron bench nearby to sit sideways on the end of it to pillow her cheek on the back with her wrists.

The sound of the breeze gently rustling the tree leaves overhead made her aware of its warmth as it brushed lightly over her clothes and teased through her hair. The first true sense of peace she’d felt in years began to trickle through her then, and she remembered the words, Not a soul on this earth I love more than my baby girl.

Her father had said that to her frequently, sometimes in his booming voice with a broad smile on his face, sometimes in a moment of gruff sentimentality.

The sweetness of the memory made her whisper back what she always had, “And there’s not a soul on this earth your baby girl loves more than her daddy.”

Lainey sat there for some time more in the calm that had eluded her for weeks. She’d needed this too long and craved it too desperately to rush away from it now. Drowsy from the heat, she must have dozed until she was roused by what sounded like a faint whisper.