The weekend passed, and on Monday Rosita went back to work. To keep herself busy, Maggie tore into the house. She took down curtains and washed them, and then washed the windows before hanging the curtains again. She moved the furniture in the living room to vacuum every inch of the carpet, and she scoured the two bathrooms until they shone.
While she worked she kept an eye on Travis, who was so enthralled with his puppy that he didn’t even play with his lasso. And every time Maggie looked out a window and saw Baron, she thought of Dallas. He had not come by all weekend, not since Friday when she’d taken that drive to Red Rock. Apparently she had finally gotten her wish: Dallas had given up on her.
But instead of being glad about it, she felt a disconcerting emptiness. Why wasn’t she relieved because Dallas was staying away? It was what she’d asked him to do—demanded he do—wasn’t it? She should be elated. And the fact that she was neither elated nor relieved was terribly confusing.
Cleaning furiously, Maggie attempted to analyze herself. Since she had already admitted, if only to herself, that she had fallen in love with Dallas, it stood to reason that the emptiness she was feeling now was caused by his extended absence. Was this how she would feel for the rest of her life—empty because a man she could never really have, and who obviously didn’t want her—except for one thing—had finally abided by her demands?
Pure and painful unhappiness brought tears to her eyes. Would she ever be a happy woman? Why had she fallen for Dallas Fortune, of all people?
Dashing away tears that she believed she had no right to shed, Maggie prepared a bucket of hot water to scrub the kitchen floor. She’d given Travis his lunch and he was again outside with Baron. A boy and his dog, Maggie thought poignantly. While she certainly didn’t need a dog to worry about, that puppy had put a permanent smile on her son’s face. How could she continue to resent Dallas for bringing such joy into Travis’s life?
Maggie sighed. Resenting Dallas just felt like wasted energy now. He wouldn’t be back, she was sure of it. It was entirely possible that she would never see him again. Eventually she would leave the ranch, and even when she came home for visits it wasn’t likely that she would run into Dallas. Not unless she knocked on his door, which she knew in her heart she would never do.
No, this was best, even if she did wish things could have been different. No matter how she looked at their relationship, Dallas was still a Fortune. He would always be a Fortune, and she would always be a Perez.
“And never the twain shall meet,” Maggie muttered as she hefted the bucket of water from the sink to the floor.
She would have liked to turn on the radio and listen to some music while she worked, but she always kept an ear cocked for Travis. There was one thing she knew about herself that no one and nothing could alter: she was a good mother. She loved her son unconditionally and had vowed at his birth to raise him with high standards, just as she’d been raised.
Maggie started to get down on her knees, and raised up again when the front door opened and she heard Savannah’s voice. “Maggie?”
“I’m in the kitchen.” Maggie hurried to welcome her sister-in-law. “I’m glad you dropped in.”
Savannah smiled. “Only for a minute. I’m really out walking, getting my daily exercise, and I wondered if you’d let Travis go with me. Baron, too, of course.”
“Travis would probably love to go with you,” Maggie said. “Did you mention it to him on your way in?”
“I thought I should ask you first.”
“Well, feel free.”
Savannah reached for the doorknob. “Thanks, Maggie.”
“If you have time when your walk is over, come in and we’ll have a cup of tea.”
“Sounds good.”
Maggie stood on the porch while Savannah invited Travis and Baron to walk with her, and then waved them off. Going back inside, she returned to the kitchen and started scrubbing the floor, working with a scrub brush, a bar of strong soap and a clean rag. Thirty minutes later the floor was spotless, and she got up with a feeling of a job well done.
She was at the sink, wiping out the bucket, when she heard the front door open again. “Savannah, please don’t let Travis bring the puppy in. I’d like this floor to dry first!” she called.
“It’s not Savannah or Travis!” Dallas called back. “It’s me.”
Maggie whirled. He was here! Pink spots stained her cheeks, and she opened her mouth to say something, then couldn’t think of anything appropriate.
“Looks like you’ve been doing some cleaning,” Dallas commented.
“Uh…yes.” The expression on his face was so sober that Maggie wondered what was on his mind. She’d been thinking that she might never see him again—and here he was. Why? Regardless of that disturbing question, something real and alive had ignited inside her. Dare she call it happiness? She certainly no longer felt empty.
Unnerved over her own ambiguity, Maggie turned back to the sink and finished wiping out the bucket.
Dallas stared at her. Was she just going to go on cleaning, and ignore him? Obviously he’d surprised her, but did she think he was just going to stand around and hope that she would deign to talk to him?
“Could you possibly force yourself to look at me?” he asked in a lethally quiet voice.
Maggie drew a long breath, folded the wet cleaning rag and draped it over the lip of the bucket. Then she turned and faced him.
“I can look at you, yes,” she said, proud of the calmness she heard in her own voice. It was a good act, because she wasn’t feeling calm on the inside.
“Thank you. There’s something I want to ask you.”
“Go ahead.” His question undoubtedly had to do with Travis, she thought. Maybe he wanted to take Travis for a horseback ride, or give him another gift. Since she’d raised such hell about the puppy, Dallas probably figured he’d better check with her before giving Travis anything else.
Dallas cleared his throat. “I think we should get married. Would you marry me, Maggie?”
Her jaw dropped and her eyes went blank as a freshly cleaned blackboard. Surely he hadn’t said what she’d thought she heard!
“Excuse me?” she mumbled.
“I just asked you to marry me.”
She’d heard right! He had actually asked her to marry him. She was speechless.
“I know this is sudden,” Dallas said, “but I’ve thought it through all weekend and it makes a lot of sense. First of all, we both need someone. You’re alone and I’m alone. I know we’ve been at odds, but I think that’s because you’re too damn regretful about what happened between us in the line shack. I’m not one bit regretful about us making love, and I don’t mind admitting that I can’t stop wanting you.
“Second, there’s Travis to consider. Maggie, I couldn’t love him more if he were my own son. And that boy needs a father. I’d be a good father, Maggie, and I think you know it.”
What about me? Do you love me? Oh, please say you do! Maggie realized at that crucial moment that she didn’t care what Dallas’s last name was. All that mattered was that he loved her.
He was ticking off his reasons for proposing marriage on his fingers. “Third, I’ve figured out your financial situation, and from the hints you gave me at my house the evening of Ruben’s birthday, I’ve also figured out that you’d like to stop living off your folks. Marrying me would solve all your problems, Maggie. Every single one of them.”
Yes, but do you love me?
“So there you have it,” Dallas said. “There are a lot of good reasons for us to marry. Sound reasons, Maggie. What do you say? Should we set the date?”
“Gi—give me a minute,” Maggie whispered shakily. He was right. Marrying Dallas would solve all her problems. She would never have to worry about money again…or a job…or a home of her own.
And yet he’d not said one word about love, except with regard to Travis. Not one word about loving her. Wanting her, yes, but she’d already known that. How could he marry a woman he didn’t love? And how long would her love for him last when there would never be anything except sex between them?
This wasn’t exactly like her first marriage proposal, but it was close. And so would the marriage itself be, if she said yes.
She wanted to marry again very much, but she wanted a husband who adored her. She wanted what her parents had, and what Cruz and Savannah had. They all worked hard to earn their keep—why should she give up her dream of a truly happy marriage just to put an end to her problems?
She couldn’t do it. Whatever the future held for her, she could not marry a man for his money. And that’s all it would be when Dallas couldn’t even say that he loved her. He couldn’t say it because he didn’t love her, she thought as a burst of adrenaline hit her. His proposal was offensive. She suddenly had no qualms at all in telling him.
Facing him head on, she said it. “No.”
Dallas looked slightly shell-shocked, incredulous. “You’re saying no?”
“Yes, sir, that’s the word.”
“But…but why? Maggie, it makes so much sense.”
“Maybe to you it does. Sorry, but the whole idea leaves me cold.”
“It leaves you cold! What the hell do you want from a man? I’ve offered you everything I have. What more could you want?”
“You know, Dallas, in spite of our many disagreements, I’ve always thought of you as an intelligent man. Obviously I was wrong.”
“That’s a damn low blow,” Dallas growled.
“So was your marriage proposal,” she snapped.
“You’re insulted by a serious proposal of marriage? What in hell’s wrong with you?”
“What in hell’s wrong with you?” she shouted. “All you did was try to buy me. Well, let me tell you something, Dallas—you can buy what you need from a woman in any town in Texas. I do not happen to be for sale!”
Dallas was so angry that she would bring his marriage proposal down to such a degrading level that he grabbed her by the upper arms with the intention of shaking some sense into her. He hadn’t thought that sort of physical behavior through, however, and the second his hands were on her his thoughts went in an entirely different direction. Yanking her forward, he kissed her until her whole body was trembling against his, and when they were both gasping for air he raised his head and looked into her eyes.
“How can you refuse me when we’ve got this?” he demanded hoarsely, and before she could do more than blink, he kissed her again.
As happened every single time he touched her, Maggie felt her resistance slipping away. He was right; in this they connected. In truth she had never felt so connected to a man as she did to Dallas when he kissed her. Lord help her if this was the reason she’d fallen in love with him, she thought in the back of her mind, but that unsettling concept didn’t prevent her from responding.
She honestly didn’t know how it happened so fast, but she suddenly found herself naked from the waist down and sitting on her mother’s kitchen counter, with Dallas just naked enough and thrusting into her.
It was wild and crazy and so exciting that she could think of nothing else. The whole thing happened so fast that Dallas was surprised when she cried out and dug her fingernails into his back. But it pleased him more, and he let go completely and went over the edge with her.
Burying his face in the curve of her throat, he heavily breathed her name. “Maggie…Maggie…” And after a minute he was able to speak more coherently, and he whispered raggedly, “After this, can you still say no?”
Reality hit Maggie hard, and she pushed him away, got off the counter, hurriedly picked up her panties and jeans and ran for the bathroom.
Straightening his own clothes, Dallas called after her, “Can you?”
She shouted, “Yes, I can still say no! Now, go away and leave me alone!”
She heard him yell, “Damn you!” Then she heard the hard slam of the front door, and knew he’d gone. Shaking from head to foot, she turned on the shower, threw off the rest of her clothes and stepped into the stall.
It was while she was drying off that she remembered they had again made love without protection.
Rosita was spitting mad when she got home that afternoon. “How did Sophia know that the big house was empty for the weekend? How could she have known?”
“Mama,” Maggie said wearily, “what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Sophia Fortune, that…that… Well, I don’t use bad language, but think the worst and you’ll know what I’m thinking. Maggie, sometime during the holiday weekend, Sophia went into the house and took china, silver, cash and paintings right off the walls.”
“How do you know it was Sophia?”
“Who else would have such gall?”
“A thief?”
“Oh, yes, it was a thief, all right, and her name is Sophia Fortune! Didn’t you notice the sheriff’s car parked near the big house all afternoon?”
“No, I didn’t. Is there proof that the thief was Sophia?”
Rosita sighed. “I don’t think so. Not the kind of proof that would put her in jail, at any rate. But it was her, everyone knows it.”
“Mama, how would she know that no one was home? She wouldn’t dare come by when someone was in the house, and who would tell her that everyone had gone away for the weekend?”
“That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, Maggie. Who on this ranch would tell Sophia anything? Even the household help only put up with her imperial attitude and self-centered demands because of Ryan. She wasn’t even nice to Ryan’s kids. I remember very well when Ryan married her, and she never once attempted to mother those children, and they were terribly distraught over their own mother’s death, I can tell you. If Sophia had shown the least bit of compassion or affection for Ryan’s children, things might have turned out much differently than they did in that marriage. But Sophia’s concern was always for herself. I doubt very much if she ever loved Ryan at all. She saw a good catch while she was nursing Janine, and the minute Janine passed away, Sophia moved in on Ryan.”
“She married him for his money,” Maggie said quietly, comparing what Sophia had done to what she could have done this very day. If she had said yes to Dallas’s marriage proposal, she would be no better than Sophia. Thank goodness she was not a crass opportunist, as Sophia obviously had been.
Rosita was glancing around. “Gracious, what did you do, clean all day?”
“Just about.”
“Well, the house looks wonderful, but—” Rosita eyed her daughter “—you don’t. You wore yourself out, didn’t you? Maggie, I appreciate a clean house, but not at your expense. You look pale and drawn. You don’t feel well, do you?”
“It’s natural at this time of the month, Mama.” It seemed like a good excuse for looking “pale and drawn.”
“Oh, I see. Well, getting back to the robbery…”
In spite of the tackiness of their room in that horrid little off-road motel, Sophia was in high spirits. “It was so easy,” she said with a self-satisfied laugh. “When you told me everyone was going away for the holiday weekend, and that even the household staff wouldn’t be on the premises, I knew immediately that I’d been handed a golden opportunity.”
Clint wore his usual brooding expression. “So, what did you take?”
Sophia airily waved her hand. “Just a few things…my favorite set of china, for one. Nothing I dare sell, of course. I’m sure Ryan has called in the law by now, so we must be very careful. If I’d known the combination to Ryan’s safe, you and I would be in tall cotton tonight. That cheapskate never would give me the combination,” she said with a disgusted roll of her eyes.
“Obviously he didn’t trust you,” Clint drawled, adding, “With good reason.” Then he asked, “Did you find any cash?”
“About five hundred dollars.” Sophia opened her purse and pulled out a small wad bills. “Here’s your share.”
Clint was disappointed. “Five hundred was it?”
“I found that in a drawer of his desk.” Actually she’d found two thousand plus change in Ryan’s desk, but she felt that she needed the cash a whole lot more than Clint did.
“The sheriff was at the ranch all afternoon,” Clint said. “Rumor has it that the thief got away with a lot more than a set of china. Let me take the stuff to Houston and pawn it. I know one pawnshop owner that would take anything I brought in without notifying the law, even if he did recognize it as stolen property.”
“No,” Sophia said flatly. “I won’t take that risk, Clint. My divorce settlement with Ryan is far more important than the few measly bucks a pawnshop owner would pay for stolen goods.”
“I’m getting damn tired of waiting for those negotiations to be finalized,” Clint snapped.
“Do you think I’m not?” Sophia bit back. She was also getting tired of Clint pressuring her for money. If she didn’t need the information he provided about daily occurrences at the ranch, she would shed him like a dirty shirt.
But theirs was a liaison she couldn’t yet discard, and she forced herself to smile at him. “Let’s forget all that for now and have a drink. I brought your favorite whiskey with me. How about it?”
Clint felt another moment of intense dislike. Small wonder that Ryan hadn’t trusted his wife enough to give her the combination to his safe, Clint thought. He didn’t trust Sophia either: he would bet anything that she’d found a lot more cash during her midnight raid than she’d told him about.
His hands were tied for the present, but he wouldn’t always have to play the fool, he told himself. Sophia held all the cards right now, but once the divorce was behind them and he’d gotten his share of the Fortune wealth, Sophia had just better watch her step around him.
“Sure,” he said with a casualness that was phonier than a three-dollar bill. “Go ahead and pour the drinks.”
Maria Cassidy was sitting on the sagging sofa in the minuscule living room of her rented trailer on the outskirts of the town of Leather Bucket. Her expression was brooding and bitter. Baby Bryan Fortune was sleeping peacefully in the small crib she had bought for her own son, James. While she was relieved that James had been plucked from the kidnappers’ hands, it galled Maria that Matthew and Claudia had taken over his care and had named him Taylor.
But Maria was the first to admit that everything about the Fortunes bothered her. She didn’t trust any of them, nor did she like them—with the possible exception of the baby boy she had taken upon discovering that kidnappers had taken her own son, stupidly thinking that James was Bryan.
Whoever the kidnappers were, though, they weren’t the only stupid people in this part of the world. Maria felt that her own mother, Lily, was appallingly stupid. Lily actually believed that Ryan Fortune was going to marry her when his divorce from Sophia became final—which, to Maria, was the laugh of the century.
The thing was, though, no one else thought it was a laughing matter. Maria had tried talking to her sister, Hannah, about it, and normally mealymouthed Hannah had actually snapped at her. “Mother is happy, Maria, and don’t you dare do anything to ruin it for her.”
Her brother, Cole, was as unapproachable on the subject as Hannah was. Maria felt that she was the only one who had the nerve to face the truth of that ridiculous liaison: Ryan Fortune would use Lily until he tired of her, then he’d toss her out. Maria could hardly wait for that day, and she often fantasized how she would triumphantly say, Told you so!
Maria had other fantasies, as well. She knew that the Fortunes would do just about anything to get baby Bryan back. That beautiful sleeping child was worth millions, but how did one go about converting a kidnapped child to hard cash? Without getting caught, of course.
Maria let her imagination take over. Obviously some sort of contact would be necessary. A telephone call? No, a phone call was too risky. Even if she disguised her voice, someone might recognize it. It would have to be a letter.
How much should she ask for? My Lord, she would be rich! She fantasized about living with more money than she could spend. First-class travel accommodations, designer clothes, the best hotels and restaurants, elegant resorts, elbow-rubbing with rich and famous people—all this ran through her mind.
And then her lips twisted with renewed bitterness. Money would permit her to get out of Texas and away from the Fortunes and her own dumb family. Nothing she could buy with that money would please her more.
Now, exactly when should she write that letter? And how should she deliver it without leaving a trail of clues that would lead investigators back to her?
She had a lot to think about. This was going to take some very careful planning.
The day had been trying. Dallas had been at the big house since around two that afternoon with his father, Lily, Parker Malone— Ryan’s lawyer—and the sheriff. They’d gone through the house with a fine-tooth comb, making a list of missing items. Ryan had been mad as hell and distraught, and Dallas had apologized for not putting a night guard on the place.
“It’s not your fault,” Ryan had told him. “I should have thought of it myself. Hell’s bells, we’ve got two body-guards, and one of them went with Matthew and Claudia, and the other went to Bermuda with Lily and me. I should have left one of them behind to keep an eye on the house, or hired a third man to do it. So stop blaming yourself, Dallas. It was my oversight, not yours.”
They had discussed Sophia. “Dad, I realize she’s the most likely candidate, but how would she have known that everyone was gone?”
“That’s what none of us can figure out,” Ryan had said grimly. “Parker came up with an idea that’s been eating at me—the possibility of Sophia having an ally among the hired help. Someone who tells her everything we do. What do you think?”
“I guess it’s possible,” Dallas had said slowly, thinking of the ranch’s cadre of hired help. No one person stood out in his mind. “But I can’t imagine who it would be.”
“Neither can I,” Ryan had admitted. “Which only makes that idea doubly worrisome. If there really is someone among our ranks who’s spying on every move we make and carrying the information to Sophia, who do we dare trust?”
When Dallas went home after dinner at the main house that night, he was still thinking about it. Who, among all the people who worked on the ranch, would carry tales to Sophia? Had she ever been particularly friendly with any of the hired help? If she had been, Dallas thought, he’d certainly never witnessed it.
After a shower, Dallas doused the lights and climbed into bed. The robbery fled his mind as Maggie’s image filled it. He’d made a damn fool of himself again with Maggie. He never could have imagined her taking his proposal of marriage as an insult—and it hurt like hell that she had.
And yet she’d told him straight out one time that she didn’t like him. Why in heaven’s name couldn’t he just believe her and let it go at that? Was it because she physically responded to him? Damn, she was a confusing woman. After flatly refusing to marry him, she’d made love with him, then told him no again. If only there was a way to crawl into her brain and really get a grasp on her thoughts and feelings.
Well, that was an inane wish, Dallas thought. He would never understand Maggie, and he might as well face it.