Chapter One

Hud paused a few feet from her, pushing his cowboy hat up just enough to get a view of her, and afford her one of his face. The years were there, in a mature, tanned, cowboy handsome visage. Squint lines and proud nose, square jawed and sensual lips. Raelyn didn’t recall if he’d been handsome back then, but he was now, in that earthy, real man sense. His short hair was wheat and brown mixed, and his body solid in denim shirt, Wranglers, and cowboy boots. Everything, right up to the Stetson, fit him perfectly.

Just a look at his eyes told her that he hadn’t changed in character. There was a quiet waiting, a watchful expression, and one that had taken in her own changes and showed little reaction.

Mentally she laughed, snorted in that cynical fashion she always did where men were concerned. City boys who once came to see her sing wanted to pay her for sex. Cowboys were way off limits, and too close to the things she avoided, the memories, and to her family for her to mess with.

 Not that she had any great longing to be around the male sex, since Cal Channing had sold her the fool’s dream and left her holding the ashes.

Nope. It had been a long time in this city, where everyone was no one eventually. Too long since she’d felt, seen, or thought about anything honest or real. After all, this was performer’s heaven... You were always on stage.

He took those last three steps and said in a deep drawl, “Is this all of your luggage?”

“Yes.” Her brow rose. “You recognized me?”

He shrugged and picked up the duffel and guitar. Glancing at her he offered, “You hungry?”

“Starved,“ she said honestly, and walked beside him out of the lobby. Even with the heels, he was taller, around six three. And a peek at the worn seat of his wranglers confirmed he’d been blessed with all the cowboy assets she remembered from puberty up.

“I’ll drive through somewhere and get you something.” He led the way to a dusty pick-up, club cab...then opened the door, stowing her things inside, leaving little room for her to slide in except for the space that would put her right up against him.

He held the door. She slid in, smelling leather, tobacco, and horse. Seeing damp chaps on the floor and a couple of trophies from the local arena... The spare back seat was piled full of Cougar Gear boxes. She gathered he must have come straight from his events.

~

Hud slid in the truck cab, slammed the door, turned the key and started the engine. He detected Raelyn Kendall’s faded flowery perfume. He sat back, accidentally brushed her knee while switching gears, and glanced at her again before he pulled out onto the highway, heading for the dozens of drive through restaurants and choosing the first one he came to.

 He asked her to order. After she did, he pulled around, trying not to think about that first sight of her. Kendall had pictures of her from the PI he’d hired to follow her around, and he’d shared all the findings with Hud over the past eight years. But somehow, looking at those bruised eyelids, and seeing her in an outfit like that...

It wasn’t just the clothing, he mused mentally while paying for her food and handing it to her. Easing out into traffic, he headed for the interstate. He saw again that cynical twist to her lips and the brittle way she’d stood there watching him advance toward her. He couldn’t help but compare that to the young woman who’d lived on the Cougar spread when he’d first come to work there... She’d changed more than just the outside, and had a few dozen extra chips on her shoulder.

Hud remembered that last year, the turbulent tension that exploded daily in the Kendall house. Not just her twin Ty’s fights with Kendall, but every time he drove the old man home from some business trip or local event—it seemed like Raelyn had broken every rule in the house, and was either throwing some party in her apartments, or just staggering in from going out with the wild local crowd.

After Ty took off, though, sometimes he was in speaking distance of his father at one of the big rodeos, but they didn’t speak, ever. Hud found himself more in demand by Kendall, and privy to all of his private dealings. He knew the details about Raelyn’s life. He hadn’t really expected it to affect him.

“Can I throw this away?”

He turned to glance at her again, their shoulders close from the tight seating. “Yeah, just toss it on the floor.”

He watched her pink lips capture the straw and drink the last of the tea after she’d tossed the wrapper and bag on the floor. She looked up at him while releasing the straw, and it didn’t seem to matter that her mascara was smudged and too heavy...those tawny eyes did something to him...

He looked back to the highway and the passing glare of endless headlights, but experiencing a tension that crawled over him like new skin.

~

Raelyn placed the cup on the floor and wondered at that intense, if brief, look he’d given her. Her feet were hurting. She tried not to bump the gearshift, and unzipped her boots, murmuring, “Jackie tells me your brother doesn’t work at Cougar anymore?”

“No,” his deep, calm voice sounded. “He quit a while back. Wyatt runs a saloon and dance hall that’s become popular with the locals.”

“And you?” She managed the first boot and began unzipping the second. “How’d you ever manage to tolerate Daddy so long?”

“A boss is a boss... He pays well and on time.” He glanced over when she bumped his elbow.

“Sorry. My feet hurt.” She grunted and put the other boot down, wiggling her toes and trying to get comfortable.

“No wonder,” he murmured, glancing at the shoes and then her.

When he looked back at the highway, Raelyn secretly watched the glow of headlights striking his rugged features. There came a hiss of rain when they ran into a shower, and the refreshing smell of it coming through his rolled down window where he’d rested his elbow.

She became aware of things, that his scent was nice and warm and that his shoulders were wide, his forearm from the rolled up sleeve brawny. And when light glowed in the cab she could see the snug fit of the denim wrapping around strong thighs...

A woman didn’t have to be turned on to sense a virile male. At one time, in her early twenties, she’d had a brief affair with a young bronc rider. He’d been a healthy young animal, arrogant but rightly so. A young lover who had eventually dumped her for a Miss Texas contestant who’d come to watch him ride.

That was before Cal heard her sing at a State Fair and started paying her attention. Hell. What had she been thinking? What kind of fool couldn’t see through some rich dude with a good line and hard on? Her, obviously. She’d swallowed his bull for a year and ran off with him to become a rock/blues singer. It made her ill to think about those fights with her father and the predictions he had made that came true.

Worse yet, she’d pulled herself together after Cal cut and ran back to his California blondes, and playboy playgrounds. She’d gotten herself a small recording deal, only to fall for the producer and had a horrible one night stand that ended with his wife finding out—a wife she hadn’t known existed.

Three years ago, Raelyn found herself on the streets of Vegas with a greyhound bus behind her, and a faded dollar to phone her daddy.

Raelyn snorted mentally, that was a mistake too, because he’d offered help sure enough, but with strings... She had to come home to the ranch, and take her place in the business. She had to stop singing and chasing that foolish dream as he called it, and she had to live and do things his way, on his terms; she had to convince her twin brother to return to the fold too.

At that time, broke, bitter, lost and afraid, she’d simply wanted softness, some comfort and some kind of fatherly help. But Alan’s voice had been angry, stern, his criticisms loud and uncensored...and she’d hung up on him, and been struggling to find work, a roof over her head, anything...to prove him wrong.

Now because Ty had broken his legs, because he was there, having been flown to the ranch, she was returning. Now out of dreams and at her lowest point. Perfect...simply wonderful... It was fantastic to be twenty-eight years old and have absolutely nothing work out for you. Great to be going home a failure, and to wade through shit relationships again.

She glanced at Hud. “I’ve got to piss.”

He looked at her. “Nothing around but highway. Do you want me to pull off?”

“Yes.”

The click of the signal sounded and he eased to the emergency lane. He stopped the truck and had to slide out so that she could exit. The road was warm, wet on her bare feet.

The tea had been a bad idea.

When he started to slide back in, she said, “No, leave the door open and stand at it. I need you to block me from those headlights.”

He stood, with his back turned, and surprised her by murmuring, “Don’t piss on my new boots.”

“I’ll try not to.” She rushed, sliding down the black lace panties and muttering while she got it done. She made use of the napkin she’d grabbed at the last moment, and stood, trying to work the lace panties under the skirt without rolling them up.

“You done?”

“Yes but...”

He’d turned while she still had the skirt at her waist and was fixing the narrow sides of the panties. She saw him glance at her thighs, at the bunched panties, then her face.

“Need help?”

Raelyn smiled acridly. “I’m not screwing you for the ride. Just have my Daddy pay you double.” She shoved the skirt down and got in.

He was slower getting in, but when he did it was to turn on the overhead light, slide his hat brim back an inch, and study her while he closed the door.

Raelyn wiped her wet feet on the worn carpet and then sat back, noting he had half turned and that his forearm was on the wheel. She didn’t like that quiet assessing look.

“What? You expected at least a blow job from the—”

“Shut up,” he’d said it soft, unemotional. And then, “You can’t take a joke like an adult, fine. I’m not particularly amusing anyway. You can tell me kiss your ass or anything else that comes to mind. But I’m not those young hands, sniffing around for a lay with the boss’s daughter, and no one’s ever implied you were a whore. You had a chip on shoulder then, and you got one now. That’s your problem, you can save the lethal blows for the boss.“

Raelyn stared at him. He’d said everything so low, so calm, that if she had not been hearing it, she may not have noted the quiet steel in the right places. She wet her lips. “Okay. So I jumped you for something I shouldn’t have.”

He shook his head and switched the dome light off, then pulled back in traffic. A muscle flexed in his lean cheek.

She felt like shit for saying what she had. The truth was, she was both brittle and defensive. She had years to perfect an attitude for dealing with pricks and assholes that had propositioned her on a daily basis. Not to mention the so-called friends, performers who offered her a place to stay for sex. She’d had to be hard... The sick feeling she experienced at the thoughts of going home again...

She knew now, however, that she’d done nothing with a man like Hud but show herself to be a cranky bitch.

Raelyn sighed. Over the smack of the wipers she said, “I’ve gotten used to being...harsh. In the world I’ve been living, you deal with all sorts of men, from all walks of life. Some who crawled from under rocks. I’m not used to anything not having a double meaning or looking through a joke to find a...” She tilted her head back, shifted it to ease the tension in her neck, and then looked at him. “I figured since Daddy called me a slut to my face, he’s pretty much said to everyone else...”

He didn’t turn to look at her, but said, “Kendall has a temper and says whatever comes to his mind. I guess when you and Ty were young it seemed fierce, but the boss is known by everybody to blow hot. He does it and calms down. You were probably eighteen or so when he said it...”

“Nineteen.”

 “Anyway. His daughter rebelling, running with the wild crowd...you can’t hold onto something he said then.”

“He pretty much said so in our last phone conversation...something like five years ago.”

“That’s got nothing to do with me.” He looked at her finally, then back to the road. “Just get it straight. I was joking.”

“I know,” she said and grimaced. “I’m not real fond of men, any of them, at this point in my life.”

He shrugged. “You choose a way that makes you hard, jaded, cynical, you’ll find a world that is more than happy to accommodate you.”

She tried not to be defensive but said, “That sounds like Alan Kendall’s wisdoms.”

“Just because he has a temper, doesn’t mean your father is stupid or narrow minded, Raelyn. He’s built a ranch, a business, and travels in a pretty big world. None of us like to hear the truth from our parents, most of us have to make all the mistakes ourselves, before we see it for what it was.”

“Why don’t you just say ‘grow up’, and get it over with,” she snapped.

He shrugged and passed a slow car. “Grow up.”

Her lips parted in surprise. Raelyn snorted and smiled bitterly. “Kiss my ass. You know nothing about life. You’ve been on the Cougar spread for how many years now? From what Jackie said, right under old Alan’s wing, and doubtless had your way paved by his generous paychecks. Don’t frigging preach at me or sing his praises, just because you’ve become his golden boy. I’ll bet Ty has just loved having you thrown in his face these past few years...”

 “Ty and me are good friends.”

She grunted. “I doubt that. But then, Ty’s a man.”

“Yes. A man facing serious choices. A grown one.”

She felt her hackles rise. “Oh, now I see why Daddy sent you. His ambassador. The perfect one to try and convince me that he did and said everything, for my own good.”

 “No—”

“Let me tell you something, Hudson McKabe. Long before my so-called rebellion, he was nothing more than a tyrant and a harsh critic. Everything from grades in school to ranch work, and that godforsaken Cougar image. The old man thought of his kids as some extension of his ego, his reflection. He was hard on Mama too. There was nothing in that home for me and Ty, to have our own dreams or goals. Everything was about him. When Mama died in that car wreck...”

 Her throat clogged with tears and they burned at the back of her eyes. Her voice roughened, lowered, “He had his damned chance to be there, and all he did was make the ranch bigger, and Cougar larger, and come down on me and Ty harder. We didn’t even get to mourn her.”

“He loved her, Raelyn.”

“Bullshit.” She dashed the tears from her eyes and stared out the windshield through a glare of lights and rain.

“Okay, so I’m here to clear up anything between the two of you. I’m not here because he sent me. Jackie called me when she couldn’t make it.“ He glanced at her. “Alan was in no shape to give orders to anyone. He’s been crazy with worry since he was at that rodeo, and witnessed Ty get ran down by that bull. He only left Ty’s side when your brother was awake...so as not to upset him.”

Raelyn stilled. “Then...who ordered me home?”

 “No one ordered you. Ty did ask for you. But I made the decision.”

She stared at him. “Why?”

“Because...Alan had three strokes, and when Ty got hurt he had another. He forgets things and... For the past year Jackie has all but ran the main Cougar enterprise from the ranch study. You may well hate and resent your father. But the ranch falls to you and Ty if anything happens. There are several hundred employees who make their living at the ranch, and through selling Cougar Gear. You two have decisions to make, and not a lot of time, according to Kendall’s doctors, to do it in.”

Stunned, Raelyn absorbed his words, one by one, as if they were too impossible to comprehend. A last image of her father flashed in her mind, longish white mane and mustache, a wiry five foot eleven frame that was tough and healthy. And those eyes...flinty and blue and looking at her with fury. No. He wasn’t old enough to be that sick...he was only fifty six...and, he was too damned sharp and shrewd to lose his mental alertness...

“That’s the bad thing about a hot temper,“ Hud’s voice sounded reflectively. “It makes for high stress, which is what Kendall thrived on.“

She slumped some in the seat and rubbed her temples, the burger suddenly churning in her stomach. “Does Ty know?”

“Yes. I’d met with him the day before the rodeo and talked to him. I was half-afraid I’d been the cause of that bull...” Hud muttered a soft curse. “He knows, and he did ask if I’d contact you. I’d already decided to.”

“So. I’ll just turn everything over to him.” She closed her eyes. “I’ll give Ty and Jackie everything.”

“If that’s the way you’re planning on handling it...”

She looked up, her hands sliding onto her lap. “What?” She’d heard the condemnation in his tone.

“Nothing.” He took an exit. “We’re almost there.“

She recognized the small city they drove through after the turn off, the township where she’d attended high school. It hadn’t changed a great deal, except for video rental stores and tanning shops, and some computer outlets, a new mall and Wal-Mart, before they were on the long stretch to the ranch.

The rain had stopped. The deeper air of late hours blew across him to reach her. “Take me to the guest house when we reach the ranch.”

“I’d planned on it.” He said nothing more until they were at the ranch.

“Your father has a nurse come by two times a week, keeps an eye on his blood pressure and everything, but Ty has agreed to let one of the new, younger hands help him out. There's not much he can do with both legs in a cast... But I don’t think he expects you there waiting on him. I think he’s anxious to see you though.”

Raelyn knew her brother to be a dyed-in-the-wool cowboy, that he’d lived out of his pick-up, in cheap hotels over the years following the rodeo circuit, and living with a few fellow performers. “It’s a good-sized house, I’m sure we’ll manage, and I can understand him wanting a man helping him out.”

The white wrought-iron arch announced the Cougar entryway, with that animal symbol in the center of Alan Kendall’s name. On either side of the arch stood a high column. Once they’d gone under it, the ranch property spread out, seeming endless, even with lights glowing from various buildings and the main house and guesthouse.

 Lantern lights marked the distance up the drive. It curved and forked to the large bunkhouse, the barns, corrals and various pens and structures, until finally circling back around to a guesthouse situated behind the main dwelling and nearly as large, with a courtyard and walk that eventually connected to the main house and rear gardens.

The truck engine seemed loud amid the night sounds, and due to the slower speed. Hud eased in the parking space that held a new pick-up and another, older model, with a trailer attached.

Raelyn could see the wide concrete porch with black iron rails and flowering vines, wicker and wrought iron furnishings, planters, and colorful pots that she could make out from the lights shining through the big windows.

Hud had gotten out, obviously waiting for her to do likewise.

She slid out and turned. “I can get my things, thanks.”

He reached in and handed them out, watching as she put the shoulder strap of the duffel over her shoulder, then held her boots and the guitar case in the other hand.

“I live here too.”

Raelyn’s brow went up. “Since when?”

“Since I refused Kendall’s offer to live in the main house. It would make it easier on me to consult with him, but I told him the bunkhouse or here.”

“Why don’t you have your own house, or didn’t he let you have any life either?”

He stared at her. “I’m just informing you. I’m tired; it’s been a long day. I’m not interested in answering your digs right now.”

She winced inwardly but shrugged. “Whatever.” And walked toward the front porch.