Rawhide and Lace (17 page)

"Not likely," he said. "Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you."

She shrugged. "Maybe."

She didn't see him exchanging a grin with the jeweler. Which was just as well.

He went with her through the clothing stores in the mall, watching curiously as she looked at price tags more than at the dresses and jeans and blouses.

"That isn't necessary, you know," he told her. "You don't have to watch prices anymore. You own half the ranch, for God's sake. I maintain credit in this particular department store. You can have anything you want."

She glanced at him and smiled. She knew he wouldn't begrudge her a dress or two-or three or four, if it came to that. But it was important to her to maintain her independence. And she still didn't feel entitled to any inheritance. She was almost sure that Bruce had involved her mainly to hurt Ty, not because he'd loved her or had wanted to help. She simply couldn't use that money with a clear conscience. And Ty didn't know that she'd just drained her account to buy his Christmas present.

"I don't really see anything I like," she said at last. "I just like window-shopping."

He searched her wide eyes. "Erin, you don't have many clothes...." he began slowly.

"I don't need many, not when I'm just hanging around the house, do I?" she said. "Anyway, I don't care about having a lot of things to wear anymore. The days when I looked good in them are gone."

He looked as if he wanted to say something, then he shrugged and let it go.

The last stop Erin wanted to make was at a Christmas-tree lot. "We have to," she pleaded. "I can't celebrate Christmas without a tree to decorate."

He studied her. "Conchita usually sets up a little manger scene...."

"I want a tree," she moaned.

He sighed loudly. "You'll put yourself in bed with all this walking," he muttered, noticing the way she was leaning on the cane. "It doesn't have to be gotten today, does it?"

"I want a tree," she persisted.

He pulled off the road next to the tree lot and cut the engine, shaking his head. "Women."

"Men," she replied.

He opened the door and got out, and she smiled to herself.

The tree she wanted was a white pine, gloriously shaped and green. It still had its root ball, too, so that it could be planted after the holiday season.

"Oh, for God's sake!" he burst out. "Do you mean I'm going to have to pot the damned thing and then go plant it the day after Christmas?"

"I can't kill a tree in cold blood."

He gaped at her. "You what?"

"I can't kill a tree in cold blood, just to put it in the house for a few days. It isn't natural."

"Neither is this." He glared at the tree and the smiling man who'd just taken his money.

"If you don't let me have this tree, I'll stand one of your horses in the living room and decorate it," she threatened.

He stared at the tree. He stared at her. He stared at the man.

"Go ahead, say it," she told him. "Come on. Bah, humbug..."

He turned on his heel, grasping the tree in one hand. "Let's go," he muttered.

"You don't have to help me decorate it, either," she said after he'd put it in the trunk of the Lincoln and helped her into the passenger seat.

"Good."

"You'll get used to it," she said gently.

He glared at her as he started the car and put it in gear. "Don't hold your breath."

She slid over next to him and almost immediately felt his body respond to the nearness of hers. He glanced down and then slipped his arm around her, pulling her even closer.

"That's better." She sighed and pressed her head against his shoulder.

His lips touched her hair, her forehead. His breath quickened. She reached up and touched his face, his rough cheek, his lips. He looked down and almost ran off the road staring into those soft, warm green eyes.

She smiled to herself, savoring his closeness, the spicy smell of his after-shave. In all her life, she thought, she'd never been happier.

They parked in front of the house, but before she could move away, Ty bent his head and kissed her. It was different from any of the kisses they'd shared before. Softer. More tender. More a caress than a kiss.

"I think we'll put you on the very top," he whispered. "You're as pretty as any angel I've ever seen."

"You sweet old thing," she said, and reached up to kiss him back.

"I'm not that old." He grinned.

She knew what he was thinking, and her cheeks went hot. "Quit that," she said, scrambling out of the car.

"We're married," he reminded her. "It's okay if we sleep together."

"Keep reminding me," she murmured, and glanced up at him. "You make it all sinfully exciting."

He chuckled. "So do you, wildcat."

"I'm going to get a bucket for the tree," she said, turning.

"Let Red do it," he replied. "You get off that leg before you break it. You've done enough walking for one day."

"Yes, Your Highness," she muttered.

"What are you going to decorate it with?" he asked suddenly.

She grimaced. "I forgot. Well, maybe Conchita can think of something."

"Maybe," he said.

The minute she went inside, he found Red, told him what he wanted done with the tree and slipped him a twenty-dollar bill to go and buy decorations.

Red gaped up at his boss. "Buy what?"

"Decorations," Ty said shortly. "For the Christmas tree."

"Christmas tree?"

"You eat a parrot for breakfast or something?" Ty demanded. "She wants a tree. She wants it decorated. I got the tree, but I don't have any decorations. There's twenty dollars." Ty nodded toward the bill. "Go get her something to put on it!"

Red whistled and pulled his hat low over his eyes. "Talk about earthquakes."

"I'll quake your earth if you don't get going."

"Yes, sir."

He walked off, shaking his head and muttering.

Ty glared after him. "You'd think he'd never seen a damned Christmas tree," he mumbled to himself as he headed for the house.

"The senor is putting up a tree? Inside the house?"

"A Christmas tree," Erin told Conchita. "To decorate."

There was a long, breathless garble of Spanish. "Never before." She shook her head. "Never, never. No tree, no fuss, he say; never mind turkey and things. Christmas is only for other people. Now here he buys a tree. I tell you, this is not the same man for whom I work since he is a young man. This is a stranger, senora. He smiles, he laughs, he compliments me on breakfast...." She threw up her hands. "A miracle!"

She went off to tell Jose about it, leaving Erin standing, amused and unmoving, in the hall.

"I thought I told you to sit down," Ty said, tossing his hat onto the side table.

"Well, I-Ty!"

He jerked her off her feet cane and all, and carried her into the living room, where a fire crackled merrily in the hearth. "Can't have you hurting that hip, can I?" he murmured. "I have plans for it later."

"Oh, do you?" she said, smiling as he found her mouth and kissed it gently.

He dropped into an armchair next to the fireplace and wrapped her up against him.

"Conchita told me you don't usually have a Christmas tree," she said lazily as his lips brushed hers.

"We don't. Not since my father died. It depressed me."

"Did he like Christmas?" she asked, fascinated.

He leaned back against the armchair, letting her head fall naturally onto his shoulder. "Sure," he said, smiling at the memories. "He was like a big kid. I bought him an electric train set the year before he died, and he played with it by the hour. He told me once that they'd been so poor when he was a kid, all he'd ever gotten in his stocking was fruit and nuts. He'd never even had a store-bought toy."

"Poor old soul," she said gently. "Did they love him, at least?"

"I don't think they'd wanted him," he said. "They had to get married because he was on the way. They never forgave him for forcing them to the altar."

She studied his collar, thinking about the child she'd lost. Some of the brightness went out of her.

He traced her cheek. "Don't look back," he said as if he knew what she was thinking. "We can't change the past."

She sighed. "I guess not."

He studied her averted face. "I sent Red after some decorations for the tree."

"Oh, Ty! That was nice of you," she said, diverted.

"I just thought it would be a shame to stand a live tree up in the house with nothing on it," he said. "People would stare."

"That's true." She cuddled closer. "Do you suppose we could forget my exercises tonight?"

He shifted her on his lap. "No," he said with a smile, and kissed her.

"Tyson!" she muttered. "I've walked around half the day!"

"That's good, but it's not what the doctor ordered. You want to walk again, don't you? Properly, I mean?"

"Yes," she admitted, then grimaced. "All right. I'll do the horrible things."

"That's my girl-"

The odd thing was that she felt like his girl. There was a tenderness between them now that she noticed in the simplest acts. At dinner that evening, he seated her at the table. He creamed her coffee. And when he wasn't doing things for her, he watched her, stared at her with the most curious expression. She felt protected and safer than ever before in her life.

"Did your mother even come to see about you?" he asked as they sat over a second cup of coffee.

She shook her head. "She and I have never been close, you know."

"Why didn't Bruce tell me about the wreck?" he wanted to know, his eyes narrow and piercing.

She hesitated. It was just one more thing that would hurt him, and she'd had enough of that.

"Why didn't he?" he persisted.

"Ty, he wasn't deliberately cruel," she said, choosing her words carefully. She touched the back of his hand where it rested beside his coffee cup. "He was possessive...just obsessed with me-I wish I'd realized it sooner, but I didn't. Maybe he was afraid to tell you; or just didn't think you'd care..."

His face closed up. He turned his hand over and touched her fingers lightly. "He knew I cared," he said. "After he told me that bull about your opinion of me as a lover, I stayed drunk for two days. Jose told him about that."

"Oh, Ty," she breathed.

"I got over it." He looked up, his face harder than ever. "But I hated you for a while. If he'd told me about the wreck then..." He searched her wide green eyes, the elfin face in its frame of lustrous black hair, and the anger seemed to drain out of him. "Oh, hell, I'd have been there like a shot, who am I kidding?" he muttered. "I'd have walked straight through hell to get to you if I'd known you'd been hurt and needed someone."