Desperado: Deep in the Heart, Book 2 (17 page)

“It’s fine,” Cody suddenly growled. “It’s only until the weekend. We can last that long.”

He glared at Stormy as if to say that every waking moment would be torture, but he would make this sacrifice for Annie. Stormy stood, staring down his unwelcoming expression. “I’ll see you in a few days. Annie, I’m sure we’ll talk before you leave.”

She refused to say goodbye to Cody, that big, feeling-sorry-for-himself oaf. All he cared about was how much she was going to put him out. He didn’t care about the inconvenience to her schedule, or even his niece’s distress. All he wanted was to jump from square to square like a checkerboard piece and avoid her. Fine. She could find plenty to do with Mary that didn’t involve being on this property all day. At night, she would barricade herself in her room with a book. Their paths need never cross.

She marched from the room, her head held high—and her heart breaking.

Annie put her hands on her hips. Her eyes flashed blue fire. “Cody Aguillar, I have never heard you be so rude in my entire life.
What is your problem?
”

“I don’t have one.” He threw himself into a chair. “I just happen to think that woman is the source of a lot of the problems we’ve been having with Mary.”

“How do you figure that?” Her eyes narrowed on him.

He shook his head. “We wouldn’t have had the orange-hair incident and the ride into Austin if Stormy had never blown into Desperado.”
And into my life, like gale-force winds.

“It’s not going to work,” she said softly. “You can’t put the blame on Stormy. We had problems before, Cody, and they’re not her fault. It’s easier, I know, to feel that way. God knows, I’ve wished a hundred, a thousand times, that Carlos hadn’t gotten on that tractor that day. I’m sorry you had an argument with your brother.” Her voice dropped lower as her eyes pleaded with him.

She laid her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry Carlos went off in a moment of anger. I know it’s something that has haunted you ever since.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorrier that he died. I wish with all of my heart that Mary had not seen her father that way.”

Cody drew her into his arms, holding this woman who was his sister in so many ways.

“But I wish more that you could forget,” Annie whispered against his chest. “Maybe not forget. But at least move on. You can’t hold yourself away from everyone just because…just because you’re afraid to care deeply again.”

He bit the inside of his jaw as he clenched it. His heart felt like heavy stone in his chest. He understood what Annie was saying. It was something he knew deep in his heart. But he couldn’t get past the guilt and the fear that ate at him most of the time. Today, his heart had nearly shrunk to the size of a piece of gravel as he’d chased Mary to Austin. Something had gone wrong in his relationship with his niece, the child who Cody had sworn on his brother’s grave to take care of as if she were his own. But Mary was suffering her own hell and it was all coming back to haunt them. Closing his eyes wearily, he knew he was part of the problem. He couldn’t be strict with her at all, the way she needed sometimes. The fear of losing her, too, was great inside him. Annie was right. He was part of the problems Mary was having.

He just didn’t want Stormy to be the solution.

“Is there something I should know about Stormy that you’re not telling me?” Annie asked, slowly pulling away to sit in a chair. She watched him with suddenly curious eyes.

“No. It’s going to be fine, Annie. You know I’m just uncomfortable around people sometimes.” It was a straw, and he grasped at it.

“You seem more uncomfortable with Stormy than most. Is there something I’m missing here?”

A smile hovered at the edge of her lips. He shook his head, anxious to keep his secret hidden. “Nope.”

Annie got to her feet. “Well. For a moment there, I wondered if there was something going on between the two of you.” She shrugged, smiling. “I haven’t seen you this out of sorts about a woman before.”

“I’ll admit we don’t get along very well.”

“That’s not exactly how Carmen put it. Your mother says you spent more time in Stormy’s bedroom when she was sick than you did on your land.”

“She was afraid to be alone.” He headed into the kitchen to show that this conversation had gone far enough.

“It’s a good thing Carmen is here to be a chaperon for Stormy. We wouldn’t want there to be any gossip about Stormy and you in town.”

“A chaperon! That woman isn’t worried about her reputation—” He halted immediately. Stormy had been a virgin, a fact he couldn’t forget nor take lightly. She was a good woman, as much as he’d Hollywood-stereotyped her. She deserved to be treated as respectfully as a woman who wore white dresses buttoned up to her neck and sat in church seven days a week. “I hadn’t thought about that.” He dumped ice in a glass and scowled.

“Well, now you have,” Annie said brightly. “Of course, it doesn’t slip my attention that you’re not insisting that there isn’t a reason for gossip concerning you and Stormy. That there’s nothing going on between the two of you…”

Cody stared at his sister-in-law, realizing he’d been maneuvered into a trap. He started to say something to her, make a stinging reply of denial, but her eyes were laughing at him. He shrugged as if it didn’t matter.

“Maybe Mary’s not the only one who’s taken a liking to Stormy,” she said softly as she patted him on the shoulder.

“I haven’t!” he denied. “Don’t look at me. I don’t like her, like that. She doesn’t affect me one way or the other.”

“I meant me,” she said smoothly, with a grin as big as Texas, “but now that you’ve mentioned yourself, I wonder if you’re trying just a little bit too hard to act as if you don’t like her. Relax, Cody,” she said, as she left the kitchen, “Stormy’s not a rattlesnake that requires special handling. She won’t bite you.”

He closed his eyes. For a snakebite, there was antivenom.

For what Stormy was doing to him, there was no antidote.

Mary stayed with Stormy in town the few days she’d been promised, and Cody didn’t go near the Stagecoach. He spent a lot of time thinking. He and Annie had come to an agreement. If Mary created a ruckus while her folks were gone, he was going to take her to task. Punish her if need be. Though this went firmly against his grain, he knew that he could no longer allow Mary to manipulate him. If situations arose during the time Annie and Zach were gone that were serious, Mary was going into counseling upon their return.

He hated that idea. But it was true that he’d allowed Mary to work him like a cow dog. He hadn’t done a whole lot to curb her wildness, preferring to sit squarely in the role of favored uncle. While he wasn’t crazy about Stormy Nixon, at least she’d kept Mary’s attention off rock throwing and on matters more typical of her age, such as wanting to be beautiful.

So, either peace and quiet existed at his ranch while her folks were gone, or Mary was getting the reining in she deserved. Cody sighed, wishing they were past the weekend already. He knew Stormy had her return plane ticket set for Sunday. Annie would be back, and Stormy would be gone. His life could return to normal.

The biggest, most important rule of all while Stormy was in his house was that, while he treated her courteously and with the respect she deserved, no way was he ending up in her bed. No matter how much she enticed him. No matter if it killed him, he was not falling into that woman’s arms again. She was destructive to his lifestyle and his brain; he hadn’t stopped thinking about her since her arrival in Desperado. Now he had an itch. It kept him awake at night, and kept him company in the saddle. His body craved that woman. His mind was fascinated by her. His heart ran scared from her.

She turned his entire being inside out.

From the window, he watched her pull the thing she called a suitcase from the car. Her flowered carpetbag looped over her arm, and a mashed, vagabond-style hat covered her hair.

The hair on the back of his neck electrified as she walked toward the house. Four days. It was only four days.

Temptation, thy name is woman.

He went out to help her carry her things.

“I’m glad you’re going to stay with us, Stormy.” Mary’s eyes filled with happiness. “It’s going to be so much fun!”

If you like constant friction
, Stormy thought. Cody had taken her suitcase inside, which she hadn’t expected. Usually, he acted as if he might catch a disease if he touched her. Except for the time they’d made love. He hadn’t had any problem touching her then. Afterwards, of course, had been a different story. Then he’d been afraid of getting caught by Mary—
and by me
. Cody definitely didn’t want anything that remotely felt like commitment—and her virginity had certainly run him off.

She watched his wide back as he walked inside the house. “I’m glad I’m staying here, too,” she told Mary. “It will be fun.”

“Stormy,” Mary suddenly said, “you did mean what we talked about? About Uncle, I mean?”

Stormy stared down into the teenager’s eyes. During their two-day stay together at the Stagecoach, she and Mary had a lot of heart-to-hearts. One thing that had come out was that Mary feared Stormy just liked her because of her Uncle Cody. Stormy had taken great pains to assure Mary that the two were totally separate. She felt affection for Mary. She felt something else about Cody. Hurt, mainly, but she hadn’t said that to Mary.

“I promise, it’s just going to be me and you for the next four days,” she told Mary. “Maybe we’ll get your grandma one day and all of us can go shopping.”

“Oh, good. I’d like a hat like yours,” Mary said happily.

“We’ll see how it suits you. We need to find you your own style, Mary. What looks right on me might not look as pretty on you as something else might.”

She walked inside the house, noting instantly the fresh spray of flowers on the table. Taking a deep breath, Stormy forced herself to relax.
This is what you wanted. You get to be in a real home for four days.
Nothing else mattered. She had worked hard on this project, and now she was going to enjoy a small vacation of her own. Annie dreamed of going to Bermuda, but Stormy…
nothing so exotic for me
, she thought.
This is my dream
.

“Supper!” Carmen called into the living room. “Stormy, don’t stand there like you’re a visitor. Come on in and join the family.” She waved a welcoming hand her way.

Stormy didn’t look at Cody as she stepped into the yellow and white painted kitchen. It was like walking into heaven—and if there was a devil standing guard in the dining room, well, she wouldn’t pay him any mind at all.

They had supper at the oval formal table in the dining room. Cody didn’t look at her much, and Stormy purposely avoided looking his way. She talked to Carmen and Mary about anything she wanted, and when they asked her questions, Stormy basked in their obvious interest in her life. Family time around a real dinner table. She wanted the night never to end, even if Cody didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. The sun set low in the distance and she helped Carmen do the dishes. Afterwards, she and Mary walked through some fields. It was this land which had brought her here. The open land that would be used for the filming was farther away, but this ground under her feet had drawn her to this ranch. This place. It was giving her something she’d always wanted—for now.

“Are you having fun, Stormy?” Mary asked.

“You have no idea how much I’m enjoying myself,” she told her. Glancing toward the house, she could see two cigars glowing on the porch as Cody and his mother savored a late-night smoke after supper. That suited her. She just wanted to walk and listen to the country sounds and dream.

“I don’t know why you like it so much,” Mary said, her face wondering. “I get bored out here by myself.”

She smiled. “I know. But I’ve never had this. It’s all new to me. Being in LA seems typical to me, but you’d probably like it a lot because it would be different.”

“I suppose.” Mary jumped up onto the wood fence and hooked her feet over a lower rail. “I’m not bored when you’re around.”

“I know. It’s fun to get to know new people.”

“I hope I meet lots of people when the movie comes.”

“You will.” Stormy listened to the sound of birds Cody had briefly tried to teach her, so that she could distinguish between mockingbirds and mourning doves. He hadn’t appeared to like his role of teacher much.

“Will you be here then?” Mary asked.

“I’m not sure yet. I’ve been offered a job doing something different on the set, but I like being a location scout. I like going new places.” It might not be the best idea to spend too much time in Desperado. She’d see how a few weeks away from Cody affected her perspective, but she suspected her emotions would still be raw where he was concerned.

The two cigar lights went out, and the front door shut loudly.

“Grandma goes to bed early,” Mary explained. “I usually like to stay up and watch a late movie, but tonight I’m tired. Will you mind if I disappear on you?”

“No, I’ll feel like part of the family.” Stormy smiled. “I’m going to walk for a while, then come in myself.”

“’Night, then. See you in the morning.”

“We’ll go shopping.” She waved goodbye and then turned to gaze into the paddock. Closing her eyes, she tried to let her other senses work. Manure, grass, night wind smells. A steer shook his horns. Stormy took a deep breath and let all of the moment work its magic on her. She adored this place. The peace was intoxicating.
Peace, brother,
she heard her father say. Peace wasn’t in pot plants, psychedelic drugs and soul-disturbing music.