Rage of Passion. Diana Palmer

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СКАЧАТЬ one afternoon when she was strolling around the yard with Janet. The two women had just watched Gabriel walk away from a man trying to ask a question near the back porch.

      Janet stared after him worriedly, her thin arms folded across her chest. “He always has,” she said. “I don't think he's ever forgiven me for remarrying so soon after his father's death. The fact that he hated my second husband made it worse. He was…badly treated,” she confessed, biting her lower lip as the memories came back. “Stepfathers are reluctant fathers at best. Ben liked Audrey and Robin enough, of course. They were just pretty little girls and no threat to him. But Gabe was a big boy, almost a teenager. He wound up fighting for his very life. Ben shipped him off to a boarding school, and I—” she lowered her eyes “—I was caught between the two of them. I loved them both. But I couldn't find the magic formula for making them live together. It was that way until Ben died. That was when Gabe was just out of the Marine Corps.” She shrugged. “He came back and started to pick up the pieces of his father's ranch—and there were few, because my second husband was much better at spending money than making it. Gabe was bitter about it. He still is.”

      “That doesn't seem enough to make a man as cold as he is.” Maggie probed gently.

      Janet stared toward the tall man who was busy saddling a horse out in the corral. “You might as well know it all,” she said quietly. “The year before Ben died, Gabriel found a young woman who seemed to worship him. He brought her here, to meet us, and she stayed for two weeks. During that time, Ben was very attentive and managed to convince her that he was in control of all the finances here and all the money.” Shamefaced, Janet closed her eyes. “Ben ate up the attention. He was dying, you see. He had cancer, and not long to live. Gabe didn't know. But Ben was so flattered by the girl's attention—he was just a man, after all. I couldn't even blame him. But Gabe lost her, and blamed Ben. And blamed me. Afterward, I tried to tell him, to explain, but he wouldn't listen. He never would. To this day, he doesn't know. You see, Ben actually died of a heart attack. I didn't even tell the girls about the cancer.”

      “Oh, Janet, I'm sorry,” Maggie said, touching the stooped shoulder lightly. “I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have asked.”

      “There, there, it was a long time ago,” the older woman said through a stiff smile. “Gabe, needless to say, never got over it. Nor did he understand why I didn't leave Ben. After Ben died, Gabe came back from the service and stayed here, but the distance between us has been formidable. I think sometimes that he hates me. I've tried so hard, Maggie,” she said softly. “I've tried so hard to show him that I care, that I was sorry, for so many things. I suppose playing Cupid was just another way of making restitution. But even that backfired.”

      “People don't hold grudges forever,” Maggie said gently.

      “Don't they?” Janet replied, and her eyes were on her son, who was just mounting his horse. She shook her head and laughed. “I wonder.”

      “Have you told him about Becky?” Maggie asked suddenly. “Or why I'm really here?”

      “Not yet,” Janet confessed. “I've been waiting for the right time.”

      “He doesn't want me here,” Maggie said. “And perhaps I should go back to San Antonio.”

      “No,” Janet said firmly, “this is my home, too. I have a right to invite people here. He won't stop me. Or you.”

      “Janet, I'm so tired of fighting….”

      “We'll keep out of his way,” Janet assured her. “He'll be back at work in no time, you'll see, and then we'll have the place all to ourselves.”

      But she sounded no more certain than Maggie felt. And her apprehension intensified when Janet hesitantly asked Gabriel the next morning if he had a horse Maggie could ride.

      “Please, I don't need to…” Maggie began quickly, noticing the dangerous look in Gabe's pale eyes.

      “No, I don't have a spare horse,” Gabe replied with a cold glare at Maggie. “I'm trying to get my calves branded, tagged and inoculated, and my herd out to summer pasture. Meanwhile, I'm being driven crazy by new hands who have to be led around like kids, I'm trying to keep supplies on hand with my ranch foreman off on sick leave, I'm a week behind on paperwork that my secretary can't do alone…I don't have time to be hounded by tourists!”

      “Gabriel, there's no need to be rude,” Janet chided.

      He stood up. “She's your guest, not mine,” he told his mother. “If you want her entertained, you entertain her.”

      And without another word, he left them sitting there, arrogantly lighting a cigarette as he went.

      Maggie shivered as she stared after him half-angrily. “A person could freeze to death just sitting near him,” she muttered.

      Janet shook her head and reached for her coffee. “I'm so sorry.”

      “You aren't responsible for his actions, and at least now I understand a little better than I did,” Maggie told her with a smile. “It's all right. I'd like to stroll around a little, if you don't mind.”

      “I don't mind,” Janet returned. “Just do stay out of his way, darling,” she cautioned.

      “You can count on that!” Maggie laughed.

      She went out the back door, in fact, tugging on a yellow windbreaker over her beige blouse and jeans. It was still a little nippy, but she loved the coolness. She loved the outdoors, the land stretching lazily to the horizon, dotted with mesquite trees and prickly-pear cacti and wildflowers.

      It was so different from her home in the middle of downtown San Antonio, so removed from urban traffic. Although the city was delightful and there was plenty to see and do, and colorful markets to visit, she was a country girl at heart. She loved the land with a passion she'd never given to anything else. Even now, with an enemy in residence, she could hardly contain her excitement at having so much land to explore, to savor.

      She walked from the backyard down to the fence that stretched to the stables and stared over it at the few horses that were left. Most of them had gone out with the cowboys who were working the far-flung herds of cattle.

      Her eyes were wistful as she stared at a huge black stallion. There wasn't a patch of white anywhere on him, and he looked majestic in the early-morning light. He tossed his mane and pranced around like a thoroughbred, as if he knew that he had an audience and was determined to give it its money's worth.

      “Do you ride?”

      The rough question startled her. She whirled, surprised to find Gabriel Coleman leaning against one of the large oak trees in the backyard, calmly smoking a cigarette while he stared at her.

      She shifted a little. He looked bigger than ever in that old long-sleeved chambray shirt, and its color emphasized the lightness of his eyes under the wide brim of his hat. He was formidable in work clothes. So different from Dennis, who'd always seemed a bit prissy to Maggie.

      “I…don't ride very well,” she confessed.

      He nodded toward the stallion. “I call him Crow. He was a thoroughbred with a bright future. But he killed a man and was going to be put down. I bought him and I ride him, but no one else does. There isn't a more dangerous animal on the place, so don't get any crazy ideas.”

      “I wouldn't dream of taking СКАЧАТЬ