A Willing Wife. Jackie Merritt
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but friendship with a woman.
He also did a bit of traveling now and again. In fact, he had just returned from Europe, a trip that had been mostly business, as almost everything was to him these days. Pleasure simply wasn’t on his agenda anymore, and he apologized to no one for his attitude or life-style, either.
He wasn’t thinking of those things as he hiked down to the barns and corrals today, however. His thoughts were on the herd of longhorns in one particular corral that had been sold and were scheduled to be picked up by a cattle truck at one o’clock. He had discussed the sale with his father, and Ryan had agreed with Dallas’s decision to weed out some of the older longhorns. Dallas intended to be there when the truck arrived.
Approaching the corral, Dallas heard the longhorns milling around and bawling much more than he’d anticipated. Frowning, Dallas broke into a jog, and as he got closer to the penned animals he saw the reason for their disturbance. A small boy Dallas didn’t recognize had climbed to the top rung of the corral fence!
Dallas’s heart skipped a beat. One wrong move and that kid could fall into the corral. The longhorns were already nervous over his presence; the boy could be trampled to death.
Realizing that he had to be careful, and that the “wrong move” could be his own, Dallas circled the corral until he was behind the boy. Then, walking as silently as he could, he moved in on the child.
He grabbed him just as the boy lost his balance and fell forward. With a wildly beating pulse borne of dread and relief, Dallas lifted the youngster back over the fence and then set him on his own two feet on the ground.
Travis’s small heart was beating a mile a minute. Holding back tears because he was really a very tough guy and didn’t want to cry in front of the tall man who had rescued him, Travis stared up at him.
Dallas leaned down and looked directly into the boy’s blue eyes. “And who might you be, young fellow?”
“Tra-Travis Randall.”
“Well, Travis Randall, didn’t anyone ever tell you that longhorns can be ornery critters, and that climbing the fence of their pen could be dangerous business?”
“I just wanted to see ’em better.”
“Haven’t you ever seen longhorns before?”
“Mama showed me some pictures.”
“And what is Mama’s name?”
“Uh, Maggie. Mama’s name is Maggie.”
Out of the corner of his right eye Dallas caught sight of someone running hell-bent for leather. He turned his head for a better view, and saw that the runner was a woman, a small woman with long, flowing dark hair and a figure any man would notice. She was wearing cut-off denim shorts and a white tank top that left little to the imagination.
“Could that lady heading this way at ninety miles per hour be your mama?” Dallas asked young Travis.
The boy took a look and visibly shrank. “She’s mad.”
“At you?”
Travis nodded and fell silent. Dallas rose and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, and both of them waited for Maggie to reach them.
Out of breath, she ran up, took one look at the pale face of her son, then knelt down and put her arms around him. “Something happened, didn’t it? What was it?” Her gaze rose to Dallas’s face.
Dallas cleared his throat. “Travis accidentally fell into the corral.”
“And I suppose he ‘accidentally’ climbed the fence?” Maggie gave her son a small shake. “Didn’t I tell you to stay in Grandma’s yard?”
“Yes, Mama,” Travis said meekly.
“He didn’t actually fall, Maggie,” Dallas said. “He’d just started to fall when I caught him.”
“How do you know my name?”
“Travis told me. Are you Maggie Perez Randall?”
“Yes, that’s my legal name—my married name. But I prefer Maggie Perez. And you’re…?”
“Dallas Fortune.”
He was a Fortune. She should have known. Good-looking, confident. Oh, yes, she should have guessed that he wasn’t just another cowhand.
And maybe she should have remembered him from childhood. They’d known each other as children, after all. Obviously he was back from his trip. Where was it she’d heard he’d gone? Oh, yes, Scotland, to look over some special breed of cattle. Or was it France? Well, it didn’t really matter. What did was that he was here now and he had saved Travis from a nasty fall.
Rising, Maggie offered her hand, which Dallas readily shook. “Thank you for being in the right place at the right moment. If Travis had fallen into that corral…” She couldn’t even say it; just the thought of her precious son being trampled by cattle hooves was more than she could bear. But precious or not, Travis was going to get a good talking to, at the very least.
“Don’t be too hard on him,” Dallas said quietly, as though reading her mind. “Small boys are naturally curious creatures.”
“He disobeyed me. From the day we arrived I told him that when he played outside he had to stay in the yard.”
Dallas couldn’t seem to stop looking into Maggie Perez’s gorgeous dark eyes. She’d grown up to be a strikingly beautiful woman—naturally tawny skin, the kind of full rosy lips that a fashion model might envy, and a perfect body and legs. Her hands and feet were small, her wrists delicate, her fingernails beautifully shaped and shiny with colorless polish.
“Um, when did you arrive?” Dallas asked.
Maggie looked off into the distance and frowned slightly. It had seemed like such a good idea to return to Texas—to the ranch she’d grown up on and to her family—until she got her bearings again after being laid off from her job as a bank manager. But now she wasn’t so sure. Unquestionably she wasn’t accomplishing anything positive by living with her parents, even though Rosita, her mother, and Ruben, her father, were wonderful to her and Travis.
“I’ve…rather, Travis and I have been here for weeks and weeks,” she murmured, unnerved by the swift passage of time. She really must get herself together and decide what she was going to do with her life. Her divorce was over a year old and hadn’t bothered her nearly as much as had losing her job. But then she hadn’t really been in love with her ex, nor had he loved her. Their marriage had been a result of her pregnancy, a foolish mistake for both her and Craig, and for a while she had hoped to make it work. Craig, too, had tried—for a while—but then it all started falling apart. Without love, relationships—even marriage—simply couldn’t endure.
“Are you home for good?”
“No, of course not. Just until…well, I’m not really sure just how long we’ll stay, but I know we’re not here for good.” Maggie was a trifle confused. Dallas seemed to be sincerely interested in talking to her, and why would he be? Heavens, he was attractive! At least six feet tall, and so lean and hard-muscled. And his eyes were a marvelous color, a light golden brown that reminded her of good whiskey. She liked the way he wore his sun-streaked brown hair, too, long enough to touch his shirt collar.
“Didn’t I hear something about your living in Phoenix?” Dallas said, breaking into thoughts that Maggie knew full well she shouldn’t be having.
“I was living in Phoenix, so you heard right,” she said a bit brusquely. Admiring Dallas Fortune’s good looks was just about the most foolish thing she could do while she was here, and if there was one thing she didn’t plan on ever being again with a man, it was foolish. One stroll around that block was quite enough, thank you very much. “But I’m not going back to Arizona. I haven’t actually done anything about it yet, but I’ve been thinking about looking for work in Houston,” she found herself adding, in spite of all that common