The Rogue Read online

  The last time Diana had seen him, Guy had just turned sixteen. He had been thin and gangly then. He had muscled out and become a good-looking young man, not handsome in the classic way Rand had seemed. There was something very fresh and clean about Guy, and Diana felt strangely tainted in contrast.

  “What’s the matter?” Guy frowned and Diana realized he had noticed her staring.

  “I was thinking about what a stinking mess I’ve made of my life.” There was a soft, bitter sigh in her voice as she climbed into the cab of the pickup.

  Guy closed her door and paused beside it. “Everybody makes mistakes, Diana.”

  It was more than a mistake. She had failed utterly and miserably, but she appreciated his attempt to console her. “Some are just bigger than others.” A tense smile curved her lips. “Right?”

  “That’s the idea.” Guy returned the smile and walked around the front of the truck to climb into the driver’s seat. Leaving the airport, he turned south on the highway. “Do you want to stop in town for coffee or something to eat?”

  Diana shook her head. “No. I just want to go to the ranch.”

  “I’m glad you’ve come home.”

  “So am I.” She should never have left, but there was nothing to be gained by dwelling on that. “How are things?”

  “Fine.”

  Diana glanced at him. The strong profile reminded her of his father. “How are you and Holt getting along?” she asked, remembering the estrangement between them, aided many times by her.

  “We’re getting along better.” There was a self-mocking twist of his mouth. “I guess you could say we’ve learned to tolerate each other. Holt is a hard man to get to know. I’ve never been able to figure out what goes on inside him or why he bothered with me. Guilt, I suppose.”

  Diana had difficulty imagining Holt Mallory feeling guilty about anything. She suddenly didn’t want to discuss him.

  “How’s the Major?”

  “Improving.” Guy slowed the truck to turn at the signal light.

  “Improving? What do you mean?” She frowned.

  “Didn’t you know?” he questioned with a surprised look. “The Major had another bad spell a couple of months ago.”

  A cold chill ran down her spine. She stared sightlessly ahead at the road. “No, I didn’t know. He hasn’t even hinted that he wasn’t feeling well, not in his letters or when I talked to him on the phone. Why didn’t someone let me know? It was Holt’s place. Why didn’t he?”

  “Maybe he thought you knew.” Guy wasn’t attempting to defend his father, merely offering a possibility.

  “Two months ago. That’s when I finally told the Major Rand and I were having problems,” Diana remembered aloud.

  “That had nothing to do with it.” Guy seemed to follow her train of thought. “The Major had been overdoing it. We had a long cold spell at calving time, and we were all working pretty hard to keep our losses down.”

  Diana let herself be convinced that Guy was right. “How did he take it when he learned about Rand and me?”

  “He was pretty philosophical about it. Naturally he was upset for you, but ...” Guy hesitated. “Why did you marry him, Diana?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged and looked out the window. “I guess I thought I loved him. Rand was handsome and intelligent and successful. He wanted to marry me, and the Major liked him. I don’t know why I married him,” she repeated. “Maybe I just wanted someone to love me.”

  After that, they rode in silence for a long stretch of miles. The highway wound over a mountain pass through a desert forest of stunted pines, down to a valley of sage and grass. When they talked again, it was about unimportant things; they were both carefully avoiding the painful subjects.

  At the end of the hour-long drive, Guy turned into the ranch yard and stopped in front of the main house. Diana stared at her childhood home. She had half-expected to see the Major walk onto the porch to meet her when he heard the truck drive in, but the porch was empty.

  “Diana?”

  Guy was holding the cab door open, waiting for her to step out. She did, running a nervous hand over her tailored skirt.

  “Go ahead,” he prompted when she hesitated beside him. “I’ll bring your suitcases.”

  He was only a few paces behind her when Diana entered the house. Everything looked exactly the same as when she had lived there. Not even the furniture had been rearranged. There was a lump in her throat as she looked around. The housekeeper appeared from the hallway that led to the kitchen.

  “Hello, Sophie.” The woman didn’t look a day older to Diana.

  “Hello, Miss. The Major’s in his room, resting.”

  “How is he?”

  “Fine, but the doctor insists he spend a couple of hours every morning and every afternoon lying down,” the woman explained. “You go on to his room.” Sophie glanced at Guy, standing just inside the door, suitcases in hand. “I’ll show Guy where to put your luggage.”

  Now that the moment had come, Diana realized she was apprehensive about facing the Major. She felt like the prodigal daughter returning, uncertain how she would be greeted. Her gaze slid to Guy, who in his quiet way had been so supportive this last hour.

  “Go ahead.” He smiled. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

  “Thanks for meeting me at the airport,” Diana offered, then hurried to her father’s room before she lost her courage.

  The door was closed and she rapped once, waiting until she heard a crisp, male voice give her permission to enter. The Major was lying atop the quilt cover of his bed, fully clothed.

  “Diana.” He smiled. “I thought I heard the truck outside and wondered if it was you.” He made no attempt to rise from the bed at her approach.

  “Hell, Major.” Impulsively, Diana leaned down to kiss his cheek. “How are you?”

  “Fine.” He patted her hand resting on his arm. But Diana could see that illness had taken its toll on this once vigorous man. He had lost weight, although still physically fit, and his color was not as good. His once-dark hair was now almost completely iron-gray. The muscles in her throat constricted. “I’m sorry I wasn’t at the airport to meet you,” he offered, pulling a wry face. “I’ve been told I have to get my rest. It isn’t easy to take orders when you are used to giving them.” His eyes were just as sharp as ever and they studied her closely. “But what I want to know is, how are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” Diana lied, not for the first time, and turned to walk away from the bed, hugging her arms about her. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears as she stared at the ceiling. “I’ve let you down, haven’t I?”

  “Diana”—he was reproving—“don’t speak such nonsense.”

  “It isn’t nonsense. I have a college degree with no interest in using it. My marriage is finished. I didn’t even bring you home a grandson.” Diana listed her failures as if needing to confess her guilt.

  “A college degree is never wasted, and a lot of marriages fail. As for a grandchild, I am grateful you and Rand didn’t have any children, considering the way things worked out. It is difficult for one parent to raise a child. I know,” the Major reminded her. “I won’t have you feeling sorry for yourself. You tried. A man can’t ask more from his daughter than that. In time, you’ll have another chance and things will work out better for you.”

  “I don’t want another chance.” Diana had blinked the tears away at his admonition. “I’ve come home to stay, Major. It’s where I belong. This time you can’t send me away.” Looking at him lying there on the bed, a shadow of his former self, Diana felt that he actually needed her.

  “I have never sent you away.”

  She didn’t argue the point. “Anyway, I’m back.” She lifted her shoulders in a careless gesture. “You are stuck with a twenty-four-year-old daughter on your hands . . . whether you like it or not.”

  “It doesn’t look as if there is much I can do about it, does it?” the Major queried with an indulgent look.

  “I�
��m going to take care of you from now on, sir.” The bright smile she gave him was not matched by the intense blue of her eyes, poignant in their plea for him not to object.

  “Have I told you lately that you are the best daughter a man could ever have?” His voice was gentle with affection.

  “Not lately,” Diana admitted. “But you can tell me later after you have rested some more. I have some unpacking to do. Then I thought I might wander around a bit, re-explore my old haunts.”

  “I’ll see you at lunch.”

  As she closed his bedroom door, her smile faded. She walked slowly to her old room, where her suitcases sat. There was a sense of security in the familiar walls, comfort and protection. Nothing could threaten her here. In this house, on this ranch, she was safe from all harm. It had been a mistake ever to leave it.

  The messy, embittered divorce Diana had just gone through seemed long ago. She was home and everything was all right again. Diana unpacked swiftly and changed into the only pair of jeans she still owned, suddenly eager to explore the ranch and pick up the threads of her past life. Her old boots were in the closet and she tugged them on.

  Outside, Diana strolled to the stud pens. Contentment radiated from her face as she rubbed the graying muzzle of the bay stallion that came to greet her. Far in the distance she could see dark shapes grazing on the rich grasses at the foot of the mountains. They would be the young horses, Diana knew, the yearlings and two-year-olds.

  Her attention returned to the aging Arabian stallion whose ancestors were desert-bred, as he was. His advanced years did not detract from his classic beauty. The delicately proportioned head, with its large and luminous dark eyes, and the flawless conformation of his body were the marks of a purebred.

  Petting the sleek neck one last time, Diana moved away, wandering toward the stables, shining white with a new coat of paint. The door stood open and she walked inside. Her eyes couldn’t immediately adjust from the brilliant sunlight.

  A horse snorted in the relative darkness, hooves shifting to rustle the hay covering the floor of his stall. The familiar smells of hay and horses, leather and saddle soap, brought a smile to her lips.

  Footsteps approached the stable door, accompanied by the sound of stirrups flapping from a carried saddle. Diana turned to greet the ranch hand entering the door, anticipating that it might be Rube Spencer or one of the other men who had worked a long time for the Major.

  It was Holt Mallory. His gaze touched, identified, and ignored her as he moved past her to the tack room. In that brief second, Diana was struck again by the feeling that his gray eyes were a hundred years old, that there was nothing he hadn’t seen or experienced. It was the same thought she had had the first time she met him. And, like the first time, a rush of intense dislike prickled her skin.

  Irritated by the way he hadn’t acknowledged her presence with a greeting, Diana followed him, pausing in the doorway of the tack room. She watched him swing the saddle from his shoulder and drape it over the wooden saddle rest. Wide shoulders tapered to a slim waist and hips. His tall frame carried not an ounce of unneeded flesh. She had the feeling a knife blade couldn’t penetrate those steel muscles.

  “I see you haven’t changed, Mrs. Cummings.” His back remained to her, his cold, drawling voice taunting in its indifference. “You are still running around in tight pants with your blouse half-unbuttoned. Who are you after this time?”

  Her hand rushed defensively to her blouse front, fingers refastening the button that had slipped loose. Heat stained her cheeks while a fiery resentment blazed in her eyes.

  “No one,” Diana retorted, “and the name is Somers. I have legally reverted to my maiden name. I can see you haven’t changed, either, Holt. You are the same cold, arrogant bastard you always were.”

  He turned to face her. The years had molded his features into abrasively masculine lines. Gold glinted in the brown of his hair, visible beneath the curved brim of his Stetson hat. Diana studied him, his seemingly indolent stance masking a coiled alertness. He was as fascinating and as deadly as a swaying cobra before it strikes.

  “Why have you come back?”

  Diana found his question infuriating. “What a ridiculous thing to ask! This is my home!”

  “How long do you intend to stay?” Holt did not let her barely controlled anger deflect him.

  “This is my home,” she repeated. “I am not leaving.”

  “Haven’t you done enough damage?”

  “Damage?”

  “I warned you before about hurting the Major,” he informed her coldly. “He may be ill, but he isn’t blind. If you plan to continue your numerous affairs, you won’t be able to hide them from him. When that happens, you’ll answer to me.”

  “My affairs!” Her stricken look was telling. “What do you know about—”

  “Did you honestly think the sordid little tales about your marriage wouldn’t get back to this side of the state?” The muscles in his jaw hardened with contempt. “Wasn’t it your infidelity that your ex-husband used as his grounds for divorce?”

  “How . . . Who ...” Her mind was whirling. She had never dreamed that the ugly gossip had traveled this far.

  “This is copper country,” he reminded her. “The stories probably made the entire circuit of mining companies, considering your ex-husband’s involvement with them. The gossips had a field day when the rumors about the Major’s daughter reached here.”

  “Oh, God,” Diana moaned and turned aside. “They were lies. I never had an affair with anyone. Rand thought ... He ...” She looked back to Holt, holding her breath. “The Major—did he hear them, too?”

  Holt’s eyes had narrowed on her, sharply gray and assessing. “I imagine. I never asked.”

  It was an effort to hold her head up. “I’m surprised you didn’t tell him.”

  “I try to make things easier for the Major, not harder.”

  “Oh? Is that why you didn’t bother to inform me when the Major suffered this last attack?” Diana challenged.

  “I wasn’t aware you didn’t know about it,” Holt replied evenly. “But if I had, I still wouldn’t have told you.”

  “He’s my father. I had a right to know.”

  “So you could drag the dirty proceedings of your divorce to his front door? That would have really made him feel better,” he said with dry contempt.

  “What kind of daughter would I be if I didn’t want to be at his side when he needed me?” she demanded.

  “I know what kind of daughter you are—spoiled and self-centered.”

  Diana swung at his face, her palm stinging sharply with the hard contact against his cheek, but there was satisfaction in the pain. She had only a second to enjoy the sensation before something exploded against her cheek, the force of it snapping her head to the side and drawing tears to her eyes. Stunned, she covered the smarting area of her face and looked back to the man who had slapped her.

  “Now I know what kind of a man you are. You enjoy hitting, don’t you?” she said coldly. “Does it make you feel strong and powerful?”

  “What did you expect me to do? I stopped turning the other cheek a long time ago.” Holt was quick, hard, and dangerous. Any gentleness he possessed was buried deep and guarded.

  Holt didn’t say anything as he brushed past her, tall and formidable, cutting her dead. Never had anyone made Diana feel so small and worthless. She turned, but his long strides had already carried him out of the tack room and ultimately out of the stable.

  “Damn you!” she cursed him in a sobbing breath.

  Chapter IV

  Diana was helping Sophie set the table for the noon meal when Holt and Guy entered the main house. Holt nodded briefly in the general direction of the two women before walking to where the Major was seated. Diana simmered, knowing the acknowledgment hadn’t been intended for her. Two could play the same game.

  “Do you want some help?” Guy asked.

  At Sophie’s startled glance, Diana realized the offer wouldn�
�t have been made if she hadn’t been there. “We’re almost finished. Thanks, anyway, Guy.” She set the last glass on the table. “All that’s left is to dish up the food and bring it out.”

  She followed Sophie into the kitchen and returned with a steaming bowl of gravy. The screen door slammed as Rube Spencer shuffled into the long living room and dining room. He caught sight of the Major and removed his dusty, sweat-stained hat, holding it in front of him in both hands. Wiry, dark gray hair sprang in all directions, as if it had been weeks since it had seen a comb.

  It was to Holt whom Rube spoke. “I looked under every rock, but there ain’t no goddamned sign of that chestnut mare. I told you she wasn’t there, but you wouldn’t listen to me. I had to spend the whole goddamned mornin’ searchin’ for a horse I knew wasn’t there. As if I didn’t have nothin’ better to do.”

  “What mare is that?” Diana questioned.

  “Nashira,” Guy said when Holt failed to answer. “You remember her. She had a star on her forehead and four white feet. Her colts always turned out to be little replicas of her.”

  “I remember.” She nodded. “She was foaled the spring after you moved here.”

  “She proved out barren this year and wouldn’t breed with either of our other stallions. Holt turned her out with the yearlings,” Guy explained.

  “Did you find where she might have gotten out?” Holt questioned Rube.

  “I found a place where the top wire was down. There was some tracks on the other side,” he admitted. “I figured they was hers and followed ’em for a while ’fore they got messed up in a bunch of tracks of some wild ones.”

  An eyebrow flicked upward in a thoughtful frown. “Did she join up with a herd?” asked Holt.

  “I ain’t no goddamned Indian,” Rube protested. “All I know is the ground was pretty rocky, and I couldn’t tell one hoof print from another. As near as I could tell, there was only about four horses, maybe less. It ain’t likely to be a wild stallion and his harem. It’s more apt to be some yearlings forced out of a herd, if you ask me. Don’t know of any herds that range this close to the ranch. Those wild studs usually like more distance between them and humans, unless it’s a dry year and we’ve had some good rains so far. Not like a few years ago when—”