Linda Castle (2 page)

Brooks adjusted the shoulders and front of his black broadcloth frock coat and tried to focus on the preacher’s words. Missy fidgeted once more, and his attention became riveted upon her.

Was she nervous?

Naw.
The answer came quickly into his head. Missy
O’Bannion was as steady a woman as ever walked God’s earth. But if she wasn’t nervous, then why was her softly rounded bosom rising and falling so rapidly inside the sateen bodice?

He frowned at her in speculation. Then, as if she felt his attention on her, she looked at him again. Her eyes were darker than bottomless pools, and for a moment he felt himself drowning in their depths. She wore an expression so poignant that he nearly reached out and touched her.

He shook himself and looked back toward the preacher. He shouldn’t give a hoot in hell about how she felt. If she was frightened it was poetic justice. She had given him undiluted misery this past year. It would serve her right if she was stewing in her own juices.

No, he didn’t care how she felt. He couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about Missy’s feelings—or any woman’s, for that matter. Life in the Territory had let him see that a lone wolf survived as well as one with a mate.

That was what he wanted now—to remain alone. A lone wolf, free, unattached and pleasantly sane. None of this madness called love for him, thank you. Brooks intended to remain a bachelor, like Clell. Clell was a man who knew what was what. He had helped Brooks learn to rope and ride and how to laugh at Missy’s sharp barbs.

“Trace Liam O’Bannion…” The clergyman’s deep voice gained volume. “Do you…”

The nearest group of candles flickered. Trace leaned over and gave Bellami a little peck on the cheek, quite improper when he was taking his vows, but the kind of thing that Brooks had grown to expect in this half-tamed place. Here men made their own rules to live by. Now that he had become accustomed to it, he liked it.

Missy shifted on her feet and Brooks glanced at her
again. She was smiling. It was an angel’s smile, full of love and innocence. Something hot and liquid coursed through his veins while he watched her face.

“Bellami Irene James, do you take…”

The image of Violet Ashland flitted unbidden into Brooks’s head. The memory of that cold, elegant woman filled his mind. Then he glanced at Missy. Where Violet had been cold, Missy ran red-hot.

“And her hot tongue will sear flesh, as well,” he whispered to himself.

Brooks caught himself smiling at the memory of Missy’s frequent outbursts and his determination to prove himself. If he was honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he had come to enjoy their verbal sparring. His taste in women had changed, or maybe he had changed in the rowdy environment of the Territory. One thing for certain, Brooks was not the same man he had been when he’d stepped off the train. Besides, if the time came that he wanted to settle down—and he wasn’t thinking that it would—but if it did, then Missy would be here. He cast a furtive glance at her.

Yep, he could count on Missy O’Bannion to be constant and unchanging. She would always be Missy and she would always be tied to the Circle B Ranch.

It was a comforting thought, and one that Brooks tucked away in the corner of his mind for safekeeping.

“The ring, if you please…” The minister’s voice snapped Brooks back to attention. He forced himself to quit woolgathering. He pulled the ring, from the watch pocket of his brocade vest and gave it to Trace.

Bellami handed her spray of flowers to Missy and allowed Trace to claim her hand. Work-roughened fingers held hers within a protective grasp. In a few more years Brooks’s hands would be as rough. He thought of his old
life in New York—the champagne suppers, buggy rides through the park and trips to the athletic club. He glanced back at his parents, sitting side by side in the nearest pew. Brooks grinned. He had withstood Miss Hell-for-leather O’Bannion. He turned back around in time to see Trace slip the ring on his sister’s finger. A smile still curled Brooks’s lips. He couldn’t think of anything or anybody that would force him to return to New York City—not ever again.

A
side of prime Circle B beef sizzled on an iron spit over a glowing pile of coals several yards from the ranch house veranda. A coyote howled somewhere off in the twilight and a mournful answer echoed. The smell of burning mesquite wood filled the air. As Clell swabbed spicy chili sauce on the beef, some of the thick concoction dribbled onto the embers. Flames shot upward, as they would inside of everyone’s bellies after a taste of Clell’s secret sauce.

Missy’s heart was beating hard with happiness and excitement. Clinging to the railing, she lingered on the veranda, content to observe the crowd. Firelight reflected off rows of silver conchas running down the legs of the black
calzoneras
worn by the mariachi singers as they got in position to serenade the newlyweds.

Bellami’s cheeks flushed crimson as Trace softly translated their melodic Spanish. Then, as the fiddle players joined the mariachis, Bellami and Trace waltzed for the first time as man and wife.

It was almost painful for Missy to witness so much happiness. The persistent lump she had been choking on all day came again. She fought back tears of joy and
laughed at Trace’s mock awkwardness when the fiddles abruptly quickened and he was forced to dance a Highland jig.

Nobody could out-celebrate a cowboy, she thought. Fast-moving boot heels clicked on the wood in quick rhythm. Missy laughed out loud when Lupe joined in and lifted her skirt to reveal slender brown ankles and layers of snowy white petticoats. She executed a series of lightning quick and intricate steps. Her movements flowed with such grace and speed that it was hard for Missy to believe the Circle B cook was nearing sixty years old. Her dark eyes flashed with Spanish fire as the mariachis played faster and faster to match her feet.

Without warning the tempo changed. Strains of two additional fiddles blended with the romantic Spanish guitar.

Another waltz for the married couple.

Trace kissed Bellami and pulled her close, and they began to float around the dance floor in a way that made Missy’s heart catch. A part of her hungered to be in the middle of the swirling, twirling couples, but her awkwardness kept her in the shadows at the edge of the veranda.

Bellami had shown Missy how to wear the complicated frippery of a lady, but she still did not
feel
like one. She clapped her hands to the brisk tempo while she watched other girls from nearby ranches being swept onto the dance floor by one handsome cowhand after another. Her one consolation was that she was in no danger of making a fool of herself while she was hidden alone in the shadows.

“Grab a partner,” Hugh bellowed. “Everybody dance! I don’t want to see anybody sitting this one out.”

“Boo.” Brooks’s voice jarred Missy. “Penny for your thoughts, little lady.”

She whirled to find him standing no more than six inches from her. His black string tie and long-tailed coat had been discarded. The white shirt was unbuttoned halfway down. An errant breeze ruffled the hair on his hard, muscled chest.

“And just when I was enjoyin’ a private moment,” she snapped, pulling her gaze from his torso.

He eyed her with cool detachment and picked a bud from the rose of Sharon that grew in abundance by the veranda. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were hiding up here away from the dance floor, Miss O’Bannion.” That mysterious half smile tickled his lips beneath the full mustache. His eyes twinkled mischievously in the firelight as he sniffed the blossom.

“I ain’t doin’ no such thing. What a fool notion.” She turned back toward the dancers and started clapping again, but the toe-tapping music had changed. Now everyone was twirling in another slow, seductive waltz. She had been so caught up in her talk with Brooks that she hadn’t even noticed. Her cheeks burned with inner heat and she brought her palms together awkwardly, not really sure what to do with her hands.

“Care to try?” Brooks asked with an amused chuckle.

“Try what?” Missy knew exactly what he was asking, but she’d sooner take a polecat for a walk than let Brooks James know she couldn’t dance. She looked back at the dance floor, staring determinedly at the laughing couples, trying to ignore the knot that had taken up residence in her middle.

He stepped closer and leaned near her ear. His warm breath carried the faint trace of whiskey—and danger. “Would you care to dance—with me?”

Missy whirled to face him once more. She summoned her voice, but the refusal that had been in her mind died
in the back of her throat when she encountered his charming smile.

The night breeze lifted strands of his silky dark hair. Silvery moonlight and the amber glow from the bonfire made his eyes a most peculiar shade of blue.

Missy couldn’t describe it, or what looking into his eyes was doing to her insides. It appeared, for one heartlurching moment, that his eyes glowed with an inner fire like lightning playing on the horns of cattle in the midst of a storm.

Goll-dang, if he isn’t a handsome cuss.

She swallowed hard. Her heart beat against her rib cage like a gloved fist. “I—uh, that is…”

“You can dance, can’t you?” One winged brow rose in silent challenge. Then he raised his hand and deftly slipped the rose bloom behind her ear, tucking a thick lock of hair in place over it.

The heat of a blush raced up her cheeks. Her first inclination was to turn tail and run. She couldn’t dance, but she had gotten to know Mr. Smart-jackass James well enough to know he would require her to prove it. That was a humiliation she would just as soon spare herself, if you please.

“I—I—” she stammered while visions of public indignity raced through her mind.

One side of his mustache lifted. “I believe I will take that as a yes, Miss O’Bannion.” He slipped his arm around her waist and drew her close to his rock-hard body before she had a chance to flee.

Panic welled up inside her, but it was soon overwhelmed by the stunning impact of the way it felt to have his arm about her. A tiny voice in her head said
Dig in your heels and run while there is time,
but she didn’t
listen, she just let him clamp her against his body and pull her off the veranda.

“You know, Miss O’Bannion—” his grin widened “—back home I was considered to be quite a good dancer.”

“Yeah, well, what do a bunch of Easterners know about anythin’?” she answered defensively, raising her chin a notch higher.

He laughed deep and low in his chest. He liked this easy, teasing banter; he liked Missy and the tug-of-war that went on between them. It was much more pleasant than getting all tangled up romantically. He looked at her face, sweetly flushed with lips that were soft and kissable, and he realized this was what he wanted. He wanted to stay in the Territory where he was safe from having to make any permanent commitments and decisions. He was content to stay where he could tease Missy and know that she was always there, day in and day out. She had no suitors hanging around, so he had a clear field. It was the best possible situation for a man who had no desire to settle down.

Missy blinked back her confusion while tingling heat meandered into her limbs from the spot on her back where Brooks’s hand rested. She was afraid her knees would buckle, afraid she’d get all tangled up in the dress, fearful she would make a fool of herself, and sure Brooks would take an inordinate amount of pleasure in whatever indignity befell her. But to her surprise, he started talking to her in low soothing tones, as if she was a skittish filly he was determined to gentle. His voice was smoother than Clell’s twelve-year-old whiskey and as hypnotic as a ripe summer moon.

“Put yourself in my hands, little lady. I promise I won’t step on your toes.” His deep voice vibrated through her
rib cage, where he held her tightly against his body. “At least not too often.” His rumbling laughter drew her eyes to his face.

“And what happens if I step on yours?” Missy managed to ask as her foot touched the first pine board. “You won’t think your little joke is so funny then, will you, Brooks?”

The mocking grin faded from his face. “I hope I am tough enough and man enough to take whatever comes of this dance, Missy.” He stared at her, unblinking, while her heart hammered in her chest. “Now and in the future.”

His words hung before them like a spider’s silken web. Then he laughed again and broke the enchantment. “Now wipe that frown off your pretty little face and act like you’re having fun. Trace and Bellami will wonder what I’m doing to you if you keep scowling like that.”

Missy swallowed hard.

Telling her that she was pretty was just about the nicest thing Brooks had ever said to her. How in tarnation could a man like him think a girl who wore chaps and boots was pretty?

He had been everywhere, seen everything.

For half a moment Brooks returned her serious gaze, then he tilted back his head and laughed. Rich, hearty tones of masculine mirth erupted from him. Her belly quivered in reaction to the sound of it.

“Oh, you were teasing. You are always sayin’ the dangedest things to me—” She would’ve said more, but suddenly her feet had wings.

Brooks twirled her out onto the floor. With a sobering chill she realized the flames dancing beneath the side of beef and all the torches surrounding the dance floor had driven back the night. She might as well have been dancing
beneath the noonday sun. Now everyone would see if she stumbled or fell or made an ass of herself.

She stared at her feet, trying to avoid stepping on Brooks’s shiny black Justins.

“You needn’t look so terrified, Missy. I promise I’ll never let you come to harm—never.”

Brooks’s words penetrated her gloom.

Her head slowly came up and she shifted her concentration from her feet to his face. Her breath lodged in the space beneath her heart.

I’ll never let you come to harm—never.

All her fear flitted away into the night. She forgot about the crowd of people and the dance steps she didn’t know. Her world compressed into the circle of space she occupied within Brooks’s arms. He turned her in a tight circle that brought her bosom up against the wide, muscular expanse of his chest. Each time he executed a new step and expertly pulled her along with him, her heart beat a little faster.

Missy was put in mind of a midnight gallop on a half-broke mustang. Each time Brooks twirled her she had the sensation of jumping fences and swift-running washes. There was an excitement being in his grasp, a thrill and a danger. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this moment.

Brooks smiled at her and she realized she was good and truly at risk, but not of breaking a leg or even her foolish neck. As she stared into his silvery blue eyes and her heart thrummed inside her chest, she knew what she risked was her heart.

She could care about him if she let herself.

A slow, lazy smile teased the corners of his mouth. “See, I was telling the truth when I said you were in good hands.” As he bent a little nearer and drawled into her
ear, his breath fanned out over her neck and left a trail of hot chills in its wake. “I spent a good many hours dancing before I left New York.”

The spinning turns and his warm breath on her skin made her dizzy. She felt as if she had been at her father’s bottle of whiskey right along with the menfolk. A thousand new and unfamiliar feelings sizzled through her. And even though she longed for something sharp and biting to say to diffuse the tension of the moment, nothing came to mind. She was trapped like a rabbit in a snare set by Brooks himself.

“May I have this next dance with my daughter?” Hugh smiled with fatherly affection as he tapped on Brooks’s shoulder. An uncharacteristic flush crept up Missy’s smooth cheeks. Putting on a dress had changed more than her outsides, it would seem. Wearing ruffles and petticoats gave her an aura of vulnerability, an attitude of shy unease.

Brooks released his hold on her tiny waist with some reluctance. He stepped back and allowed Hugh to sweep his daughter into the crowd of dancers. They made a striking contrast—the weathered rancher with steely gray at his temples, and his dewy fresh daughter whose hair was dark as a midnight sky.

Brooks shook his head.

All this silly sentiment was only the combination of moonlight and whiskey. He was about half-drunk and that was making him wax poetic, he assured himself. Tomorrow reason would return. In the light of day Missy would be herself. There would be no soft glow of fire, no waltzes, no strange tightening of his gut each time their
eyes met unexpectedly. Tomorrow she would be herself and he would be fending off her hostility and her barbed words.

It was something to look forward to.