“Who the heck are you and get the heck out of my room!”
Marlie finally managed to get out.
Well, hell. They were back to this. “Marlie,” Caid said patiently, “I told you last night who I am. Remember?”
“Caid?” Her tone sounded disbelieving.
“Yeah. Caid Matthews.”
“Caid Matthews, you’re naked as a jaybird! Get out of my room!” Marlie screeched, throwing a pillow at him.
But Caid didn’t move. “You can see me?”
Marlie finally seemed to grasp the importance of the moment. She blinked, then slowly, wickedly grinned. “Yes, Caid, I can definitely see you.”
Dear Reader,
October is bringing big changes in the Silhouette and Mills & Boon worlds. To strengthen the terrific lineup of stories we offer, Silhouette Romance will be moving to four fabulous titles each month.
Don’t miss the newest story in this six-book series—MARRYING THE BOSS’S DAUGHTER. In this second title, Her Pregnant Agenda (#1690) by Linda Goodnight, Emily Winters is up to her old matchmaking tricks. This time she has a bachelor lawyer and his alluring secretary—a single mom-to-be—on her matrimonial short list.
Valerie Parv launches her newest three-book miniseries, THE CARRAMER TRUST, with The Viscount & the Virgin (#1691). In it, an arrogant royal learns a thing or two about love from his secret son’s sassy aunt. This is the third continuation of Parv’s beloved Carramer saga.
An ornery M.D. is in danger of losing his heart to a sweet young nurse, in The Most Eligible Doctor (#1692) by reader favorite Karen Rose Smith. And is it possible to love a two-in-one cowboy? Meet the feisty teacher who does, in Doris Rangel’s magical Marlie’s Mystery Man (#1693), our latest SOULMATES title.
I encourage you to sample all four of these heartwarming romantic titles from Silhouette Romance this month.
Enjoy!
Mavis C. Allen
Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance
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For the TMTW faithful and the mountains that keep me coming home.
Silhouette Romance
Marlie’s Mystery Man #1693
Silhouette Special Edition
Mountain Man #1140
Prenuptial Agreement #1224
loves books…the feel of them, the sight of them, the smell of them. And she loves talking about them. She has collected them, organized them, sold them new and used, written them, worked with others to write them, read them aloud to children and has hopefully imparted the magic of them to the grade school, college and adult students she has taught over the years. History, philosophy, science, satire, Western, mystery…In her home, books are the wallpaper of choice.
Romances hold a special place on her shelves, however. A story that ends with a couple stepping into the future with love and hope may be an ideal, but it is an ideal she wishes for the tomorrows of every living thing in the universe. Love, after all, in whatever form it takes, is all that is.
Doris enjoys hearing from readers and you may contact her via snail mail at P.O. Box 5645, Victoria, TX 77903-5645, or via e-mail at Drangel@selectrec.net.
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
“Hell, I can’t fire Waldo! He’s been ramrod on the Rolling M since before I was born.”
Snorting angrily, Caid Matthews down-shifted the pickup to climb another steep grade.
“He’s eighty, dammit, and I’m not firing him. Dad gave him a good retirement package. And it’s not like he’ll have to live on the streets. He can move to Florida, like he always said he would. Flirt with the blue-haired widows. Maybe marry one.”
“Sure that’s what he says, but everybody knows that’s just talk. Waldo’s lived in West Texas all his life, most of it in the Davis Mountains as a hand on the Rolling M. The day he shucks his Levi’s for swimming trunks is the day the sun stands still.”
Caid sighed and used a knuckle to rub the bridge of his nose. He’d been fighting with himself over this for the past week, his brain knowing the ranch could no longer afford Waldo’s salary, but his heart knowing it would kill the old man to leave the Rolling M.
And it wasn’t just Waldo. The Rolling M’s finances were in deep horse hockey in a way they’d never been before. Caid had trimmed everywhere he could find to trim, with part of him knowing it had to be done and the other part madder than hell that he had to do it.
Waldo had to go. There was no other way. And five hundred acres had to go, too. That five hundred acres might be only a drop in the Rolling M’s proverbial bucket, but never in the history of the ranch had any acreage been sold.
Though he knew there was no alternative, Caid often felt like his soul was being ripped in two.
The pickup topped the grade and settled into the long glide toward a wide valley below where he’d have several miles of flat. Good. Now he could make up time.
Hell of a thing. He’d driven from the ranch all the way to Fort Davis, even checked into the hotel so he could be at the bank first thing in the morning.
But he’d no sooner placed his duffel bag beside the bed than he realized he’d left the papers he needed for the bank on the kitchen table.
There was nothing else to do but return to the ranch and get them, then make the long drive back to town.
Just went to show the state of mind he was in lately. He’d never been this forgetful. Why, he’d even left his hat with his lucky jay feather back in the hotel room.
Now on the flats, Caid sent the ancient truck flying down the highway. The sun was low in the west and he hadn’t passed another vehicle in the last twenty miles—not unusual in this part of Texas.
“You ever stop to think that leaving those papers might be a way of telling you something?”
Caid shook his head angrily, wishing he could somehow yank his other, softer side completely out of his body. This constant inner debate with himself interfered with every decision he knew he had to make.
“I’ve got to sell and that’s all there is to it. It’s that or lose the whole damn ranch. I’m doing what I have t—”
A deer! Stepping right into the headlights.
With no shoulder to the road, he swerved off the highway completely to avoid the petrified animal. By the grace of God and three good inches, he missed it.
Unfortunately, he didn’t miss the sixty-year-old ponderosa pine.
“Your man is a western man, honey.”
“Oh, Gram. Please. I’m going to West Texas for a vacation, not another man. After Nicholas, I can’t think of anything I want less.”
“The Great Ones don’t care if you want him or not, Marlie. They just told me he’s in Fort Davis. Take him or leave him, it’s yours to decide.”
“I’ll leave him, then, but you can tell The Great Ones thanks for the playmate while I’m there. Just warn them that I’m not bringing home any souvenirs.”
“Don’t be flip, dear. It’s not becoming. Besides, the heart has a mind of its own.”
“Sounds like a country-western song, Gram. And I don’t have a heart anymore. Nicholas threw it out with yesterday’s leftovers.”
Recalling the conversation she’d had with her grandmother before leaving San Antonio, Marlie smiled grimly to herself and signaled to exit the interstate. Forty more miles and she’d be in the picturesque little town of Fort Davis where she planned to get a grip.
Forty extremely dark miles. The state highway had even less traffic than I-10, and led her through the kind of darkness San Antonio hadn’t experienced for over a century. A million stars spangled the sky.
Gradually, however, the stars along the horizon blotted into a jagged line that Marlie assumed were the Davis Mountains. The road twisted and turned as it wound among them, slowing her driving to a nervous crawl.
Marlie’s neck and shoulders ached with tension and exhaustion.
Sighing, she thought of the brightly lit motel she’d passed eighty miles behind her.
She’d almost stopped. Why hadn’t she? After all, she didn’t have hotel reservations to keep. Her friend, Jill, who had recommended Fort Davis as a great place to relax and hike—a good place to recover, she’d meant—had said reservations weren’t necessary this time of year.
Yet Marlie had passed up the motel and was now figuratively kicking herself for it.
This was supposed to be a vacation, not an endurance race. It didn’t matter if she spent the night in Fort Davis, for Heaven’s sake! Yet here she was, seven hours out of San Antonio and eighty miles past common sense.
Her part Native American grammie would say The Great Ones guided her. But then, Gram didn’t like to admit that any of her family were stupid. Stupid over men, stupid over sticking her nose into what was none of her business.
To Gram, descended from a noted shaman, everything was a sign. Take the blue feather that now rested in Marlie’s shirt pocket, for instance.
After uncharacteristically stalling her with errands and lunch and cleaning the kitchen, Gram had finally allowed Marlie to head out the door to get her vacation underway.
She’d placed a loving arm around Marlie’s shoulders and walked her to the car. “You’ll see,” the older woman said. “Your happiness is in the west, sweetness. Look. Here’s your sign.”
Following Gram’s pointing finger, Marlie obligingly looked down. A small blue feather lay on the concrete drive right beside the car door.
“Take it with you, dear. Your man has the other one.”
But Marlie had hesitated before picking it up.
The family had a saying: “When you’re going on a trip, never accept one of Gram’s little presents if she didn’t buy it.” All of them knew strange things happened when Gram decided to give “just a little something” from her own possessions.
Not bad things, mind you, but…strange ones.
So far, Grammie’s “little somethings” had brought into the family two husbands, a wife, a baby, a pet iguana and a 1970s VW bus for a delighted teenager—all of which came at considerable surprise to the cousins involved who had thought they were merely going from Point A to Point B for a little R and R.
Still, Marlie reasoned, the feather was a found object, not truly a gift. It ought to be safe.
She picked it up. The vibrant blue of the feather seemed to glow against her palm.
How very appropriate, she had thought. My bluebird of happiness is molting.
Fort Davis, two miles. Thank God.
Marlie’s eyes popped open.
Something had wakened her. What?
And then she knew.
Coming from nowhere, from everywhere, a soft, elongated groan seemed to fill the hotel room. With her heart slowing to a shallow, desperate chugging, Marlie held her breath, which wasn’t easy when what she really wanted to do was scream.
Inch by cautious inch, she sat up to peer into the darkness, but only the clock on the bedside table had any substance. Twelve thirty-six, it declared precisely in bilious, luminescent green.
Another soft groan floated into the darkness and Marlie gasped, yet squint as she might, she couldn’t see a thing.
Clutching the blankets to her chin, she considered hurling them over her head. Hey, it worked, didn’t it? Certainly the maneuver had taken care of monsters when she was a kid.
The eerie sound began again, starting on a soft note then gathering strength for another stretch of oral misery. Yep, she was heading under the covers.
Suddenly, however, the building ooo-ooohs snorted and strangled and gasped themselves into an explosive and decidedly damp Ker-choo!
Ghosts don’t sneeze!
Without thinking, Marlie reached out a hand and switched on the bedside lamp.
The room was empty.
Her gaze swung to the door, but the chain was still on, the deadbolt still in place. The room’s one window was up, but only about three inches, the exact amount Marlie had raised it. Surely no self-respecting intruder would come through a window, then close it behind him once he was in the room. Besides, she was on the second floor.
The second double bed, a match to the old-fashioned iron one she slept in, was a mess of sheets and blankets, the way it had been when she arrived only a half hour before. Marlie hadn’t minded.
Her friend Jill’s blithe assertion that she wouldn’t need reservations had been sadly mistaken. A large amateur astronomy group was in the area and the stargazers who weren’t camping filled every available room in town.
Marlie had tried every hotel in Fort Davis, but only Ann, the desk clerk at the Hotel Limpia, had taken pity on her after one look at Marlie’s exhausted face.
By chance, the Limpia did have a room, Ann told her. It seemed its former occupant had checked in but left the room almost immediately. Unfortunately, he’d been involved in an automobile accident and was now in the hospital.
Since the room had been secured with a credit card but not actually paid for, Marlie could have it if she didn’t mind it being briefly used by someone else and therefore not in the hotel’s usual pristine condition.
Marlie didn’t mind, but would the former occupant?
Ann had laughed, saying the man was a local and an old school friend who would like even less being charged for a room he didn’t use.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Marlie took it.
When she was shown to the room at the end of the old-fashioned hall upstairs—a double; the man, too, had taken what he could get—a duffel bag still sat on the floor beside one of the two beds. The bed itself was heavily disarranged, but when Ann went to straighten it, Marlie told her not to bother. She would be sleeping in the other one anyway.
The desk clerk left, taking the man’s bag and toiletries with her and giving a last apology for the used towels in the bathroom. There were clean ones in the cabinet.
By then so tired she felt like a wet noodle, Marlie simply pulled off her clothes, slathered herself with lotion and tumbled into the untouched bed. She was not so exhausted, however, that she hadn’t known for a positive fact there was no one in the room but herself.
Yet the moan had sounded so close.
Slowly, cautiously, Marlie leaned over the edge of her bed to peer under it.
Nada. Not even a dust bunny.
But while she was bent over, practically standing on her head with her rump still on the mattress, another massive sneeze made her jump so hard she had to catch herself to keep from tumbling onto the floor. She whipped upright, only to hear a sniff of what clearly had to be congestion…then, incredibly, the sound of someone honking into a handkerchief or tissue.
Another moan, a short one this time. A sigh. Another sniff.
Silence.
And there was no one but herself in the room!
Absolutely stunned, Marlie leaned slowly back against the pillows—and reality struck.
This was an old hotel, built around the turn of the century, Ann had said. Old hotels had thin walls. A man—it was definitely a masculine sneeze—in the next room had a cold and didn’t mind moaning and groaning about it.
Mystery solved.
Letting out a relieved sigh and feeling a little foolish, Marlie clicked off the lamp and snuggled back under the warmth of the covers.
But just as her eyes drifted blissfully shut, she heard a sniff and another low moan, though now the sounds seemed muffled, as if whoever it was had turned his face into a pillow.
Thanks be for that, Marlie thought sleepily, and did no more thinking at all until she awoke early the next morning to the sound of birdsong and what Fort Davis called traffic.
Caid swung his legs over the side of the bed and immediately clutched his head with both hands to keep it anchored to his shoulders.
God, it hurt. He probably had a mild concussion.
Too bad. He didn’t have time to see a doctor. What would a doctor tell him anyway but to stay quiet, drink plenty of liquids, etcetera, and don’t take any naps? But, though he didn’t remember actually getting into bed, he had slept and hadn’t wakened up dead, so no problem there except the headache from hell.
And his allergies giving him fits.
The thought of breakfast made him queasy, but he’d find coffee and an aspirin at The Drugstore before heading on to the bank and his appointment with Miles Durig.
When he stood, however, the room tilted and it took a moment of standing with his eyes squeezed shut before the floor settled down.
When he could open them, the first thing his gaze landed on was the clock. Holy smoke, it was 9:05! He was already five minutes late.
Where the hell was his duffel bag? He needed fresh clothes. The shirt he’d worn yesterday had bloodstains all over the front and shoulders. So where was his bag, dammit? He’d left it by the bed before going back to the ranch yesterday afternoon.
Striding to the old-fashioned wardrobe, swallowing bile induced by his pounding head, Caid yanked open one of its two doors.
What the hell? Clothes hung there but, since he didn’t wear skirts, they damn sure weren’t his. And his bag wasn’t there.
This was his room, right?
Yes, he’d used his key to get in. It had to be his room. There was his hat, still hanging on the corner of the mirror where he’d forgotten it yesterday.
Hell of a thing, a rancher forgetting his hat.
He opened the other door and was relieved to see his jeans and bloodstained shirt hanging just where he’d placed them, his boots side by side on the closet floor with his socks inside them and his briefs in the plastic bag supplied by the hotel. The bag with his change of clothing, however, wasn’t there.
Well, hell. He hated to wear dirty clothes, but he didn’t have time to track down his bag. By now, everyone in Fort Davis knew about the accident anyway. The town was like that.
The three cowboys who’d given him a ride into town had stopped at the sheriff’s office and Caid, hardly able to speak because his head hurt so badly, left them to make the report while he crossed the street to the hotel. Sheriff Elan knew where to find him if he needed more information.
Elan’s secretary would have typed up the report first thing this morning, and by now everyone and his dog would be discussing it anywhere in town serving breakfast.
All of which meant Caid and Durig could have a friendly chuckle over his bloodstained shirt without Caid doing any unnecessary explaining, and then they could settle down to business. No problem.
Since he’d showered last night, all he needed was a quick shave and he was outta here. His kit was in the bathroom so at least he knew where that was.
The bathroom, however, produced another surprise. For one thing, there were women’s toiletries all over the counter. For another, it had the steaminess of recent use. And for a third, damn it all, his kit was nowhere to be found.
To hell with it. He didn’t have time now to get huffy with the staff or find out what in blazes was going on, but they were damn sure gonna hear from him later.
Eyeing the proliferation of feminine articles, Caid used what he could. He wasn’t about to use the woman’s toothbrush, but he used his finger and her toothpaste, then shaved himself in record time with her pink disposable razor.
Grimacing, he put on his socks, stepped into yesterday’s briefs and jeans and tugged on his boots. He was avoiding putting on his blood-soaked shirt and he knew it, but he had to wear something.
He glanced at the closet door. All he’d seen earlier was feminine clothing, but maybe her husband’s things were hidden among the frills. If so, he’d borrow a shirt and explain later. For that matter, once he had the loan against the sale of his five hundred acres, he’d buy the guy a new one.
The closet held nothing but feminine disappointment. As Caid went to close the door, however, his gaze fell on a long, brown-plaid sleeve.
Hmm. Pulling out the garment, he held it up consideringly and found a woman’s cotton jacket with western shirt styling. Best of all, it was huge, extra-wide shouldered and boxy, with detachable shoulder pads.
In seconds, Caid had the pads out and the shirt on. Not too bad, he thought, eyeing himself in the mirror. The shirt was tight across the shoulders maybe and pulled a little at the chest, but it was clean.
He rolled the too-short sleeves up his forearms, snagged his hat and headed out the door. He had to shoulder his way through a lobby full of milling tourists, but finally stood on the Limpia’s front porch in the bright morning sunshine.
Inhaling deeply, he grinned. Nowhere in the world had summer mornings like the Davis Mountains.
But that deep breath played hell with his delicate head, and when he went to put on his hat, he found he couldn’t tolerate that either. Fortunately, the bank was just across the square from the hotel.
He wished he’d had time for a cup of coffee, but Durig would give him one.
Two hours later Caid was back at the hotel, dismayed, disbelieving and totally disturbed. No one had given him a cup of coffee.
Hell, no one had given him the time of day.
Marlie had breakfast at The Drugstore, the oddly named restaurant across from the hotel, then shopped a little before returning to her room to change into hiking boots. The state park three miles out of town had a couple of good hiking trails, she’d been told.
Driving to the park, admiring the mountain scenery and shallow, sun-sparkled Limpia Creek running beside the highway, Marlie did her best to forget the last semester of school where she was counselor at Martinez High in San Antonio. And since hiking was right up there with sweaty necks on Nicholas’s hate list, she managed to keep him out of her thinking, too.
That evening when she walked into the lobby of the hotel, she was pleasantly tired and pleasantly full, having had dinner and watched the sun set at the restaurant in the park.
Ann smiled at her in greeting. “Good evening, Ms. Simms. How was your day?”
“Wonderful, thanks. This is a beautiful area.”
“It is, and I say it as one who’s lived here all my life. Is everything all right in your room?”
“Everything’s fine. It took me a while to get used to the thin walls, but I suppose that’s a minor price to pay for the hotel’s history. The man in the next room kept me awake for a while with his moaning and sneezing. Sounds like he’s coming down with a cold.”
“I’m sorry,” Ann apologized. “We’ve never had anyone complain about noise through the walls before. Actually, they’re pretty thick. I’m even more surprised because there are two maiden ladies in the room next to yours, both probably in their seventies.”
“One of the sweet things has a sneeze like a water buffalo,” Marlie replied with a grin. “But once I knew where the sound came from, I had no problem sleeping through it.”
She glanced around the deserted lobby. “After the crowd this morning, it’s certainly quiet now. Where is everyone?”
“Out looking at the stars. Most of them won’t be in till the wee hours.”
“Then would anyone mind if I browse the hotel bookshelves and read for a while in the parlor?”
“Not at all. We want our guests to feel at home.”
“Be right back,” Marlie said as she headed up the old-fashioned staircase to pull off her hiking boots.
When Caid heard a key rattle in the lock, he turned away from the window and his perusal of the street below to deliberately step toward the center of the room.
The door swung open and a woman entered, switching on the overhead light as she did so. His roomie, apparently.
Somewhere between mid-to late-twenties, she had short tousled brown hair, a snub nose with a dusting of freckles across it, a generous mouth, and eyes that he couldn’t tell the color of but which were bordered with thick lashes the same shade as her hair. She was a little on the short side perhaps, but feisty with it, he could tell.
The woman was just plain cute, he thought, the kind of cute that in a puppy would make him want to take her home.
She also completely ignored him. A strange man stood in the middle of her hotel room and she didn’t so much as back up a step.
Caid rubbed a tired hand over his mouth and jaw. He’d been getting the same reaction all day…or lack of it. People he’d known all his life looked through him as if he wasn’t there. He’d gotten right in Durig’s face at the bank and yelled at him, but Durig hadn’t even blinked.
After failing to get anyone at the bank to notice him, Caid went to The Drugstore to buy aspirin and get a cup of coffee. Though he sat at the counter right in front of the kid behind it, no one waited on him. He finally dropped change by the cash register, took a bottle of aspirin off the shelf and left to walk to the garage where they’d towed his truck.
The vehicle was a mess and certainly not drivable, but when Caid tried to talk to Jimmy to get the lowdown on repairs, the garage owner ignored him, too. An oil stain had better conversation.
Totally frustrated and even more totally bewildered, Caid used a public telephone to call the ranch. He didn’t like what happened then, either.
“This is the Rollin’ M,” Waldo snarled, his usual way of answering the phone.
“Waldo, it’s Caid. I need you to drive into town and pick me—” Caid began.
“Hello? Hello?”
“It’s me,” Caid said loudly. “Turn up your hearing aid, dammit. I need you to…”
But he was speaking to a dead phone. Swearing, Caid dug into his jeans for more change and punched in the ranch number again.
“Rollin’ M, and buster, you better have somethin’ to say. I ain’t got time for this,” Waldo spat.
“It’s Caid. Can you hear me? I need—”
The response was an earful of profanity that would make a stevedore blush.
“It’s me!” Caid yelled at the top of his lungs. “Listen up, Waldo. I need—”
Dial tone.
Defeated, Caid replaced the receiver.
Next he tried to hitch a ride to the ranch with the owners of the property adjacent to his, but the Hendersons looked right through him and turned a deaf ear.
Not knowing what else to do, he at last walked back to the hotel, snagged a cup of coffee from the complimentary carafe in the deserted lobby and climbed the stairs to his room. His head felt like a mission bell at the noon hour and all he wanted at the moment was a handful of aspirin and a bed. He’d deal with the rest later.
Well, it was later, and even after a restless nap, he still didn’t know how to deal with it.
People just weren’t seeing him. He felt like the Invisible Man, except that guy could at least be heard.
The woman sat down on the side of the bed opposite the one he slept in and bent to untie the laces of her hiking boots. He’d like to ask just why the heck she’d commandeered his room, but knew it was probably a lost cause. No one else today had listened to him.
She’d tugged the second boot off when she paused, still holding it in her hand, and gazed for a long moment in front of her. Then she frowned.
Following her gaze, Caid looked to see what had captured her attention. All he saw was the bed he’d spent the afternoon in. The rumpled unmade bed.
“Bad housekeeping,” she finally muttered disapprovingly, then stripped off her socks and walked barefoot into the bathroom.
When she returned, she rummaged in a dresser drawer, came up with a clean pair of socks, picked up a bottle of lotion from the top of the bureau and sat down in the chair near the window, brushing by Caid in the process, actually touching his shirtsleeve—well, her shirtsleeve—without so much as breaking stride.
What she did next had Caid groaning inwardly. The woman poured a generous dollop of lotion into her palm and proceeded to massage her cute little feet.
As soon as the peppery smell of lavender filled the room, Caid sneezed.
The woman jumped a mile.
She’d heard him! But before Caid could say anything, he sneezed again. This time, however, she paid no attention, just went on slathering lotion.
Caid sneezed again. And again.
Finally, eyes streaming, he walked to the open window behind her chair and took a deep whiff of clean, unscented mountain air. By keeping his nose pressed to the screen, he managed to keep from sneezing until she closed the bottle, put on her clean socks, picked up her key from the dresser and headed for the door, obviously not bothering with shoes.
Good. As soon as she left, Caid was finding the nearest trash receptacle. Bye-bye, lavender lotion.
But she didn’t exit the room immediately. Instead, after pausing at the door, she backtracked and picked up his Stetson where he’d left it on top of the dresser.
And then she stood stock still, eyes wide and startled, her luscious mouth slightly parted as she stared in apparent amazement at his hat.
Or rather, at the blue feather he kept in the hatband.
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