The Ranger And The Widow Woman Read online

  Her eyes on the sleeping face of her child, she said, “Sam’s father was killed in a plane crash. A light, singleengine. He flew into a thunderstorm. Wind shear severed the plane in two.”

  “He was a pilot?”

  Violet nodded. “He got his pilot license because his job forced him to travel a lot.”

  “What did he do?”

  She hesitated, then decided it would look very odd if she didn’t say something. “He...uh, was a salesman for a meat company.”

  They were passing through a faint smattering of houses. One tiny building built close to the highway had a sign that read U.S. Post Office, Hondo, New Mexico.

  Her brows lifted with wry amusement. The place wasn’t large enough to be called a settlement, much less possess a United States Post Office, but maybe there were more people hidden in and around these desert mountains than she could see from Charlie’s pickup truck.

  “Were you raised in this area?” Violet found herself asking as he turned north onto a graveled dirt road.

  “Until I was five my mother and I lived in Las Cruces. After that, we moved here, and my parents got married.”

  Violet knew she should keep her curiosity to herself. Tomorrow or the next day she and Sam would have to be finding a place of their own. She’d be saying goodbye to Charlie Pardee. The less she knew about the man the easier it would be to forget him.

  “Your parents...weren’t married when you were born?” she couldn’t help asking.

  He had slowed the truck considerably since they had left the main highway. Through the dusky light outside the windshield, she could see clumps of choya and sage and a few scrubby pinon pine dotting the hills rising around them. Violet had never traveled this far west before, and its stark beauty mesmerized her as much as the man behind the wheel.

  “No,” he answered. “When my mother was pregnant with me, she left here thinking my dad was obligated to marry someone else. And my dad didn’t know about me. A few years later my mother decided to return to Hondo Valley to be with her family. It was then my father learned he had a son, and in the process my parents realized how much they still loved each other.”

  Her gaze slipped over his strong face. “That’s quite a romantic story,” she murmured.

  To Charlie’s annoyance, he felt a blush sting his cheeks. He was a grown man who’d seen and heard everything. He didn’t think there was anything that could embarrass him. But somehow Violet had managed to leave him feeling like an awkward teenager for relating his parents’ history.

  “I wouldn’t call it romantic,” he muttered. “For a while it was hell for both of them.”

  His sharp cynicism shouldn’t have surprised Violet. She had already decided he wasn’t the most cheerful of men. Yet he did seem to be a man who had deep values. She wouldn’t have taken him for a man to mock love or romance. But then he could have been burned by a lover or wife and never gotten over it. And that idea unsettled her far more than his hard-bitten attitude.

  “Have you...ever been married, Charlie?”

  He felt the warmth of that damn blush on his face deepen, suffusing his face with unaccustomed heat. “No,” he said curtly. “I’m not the marrying kind.”

  Her brows arched, but other than that she made no remark to his answer. Charlie wondered what she was thinking and why she’d asked the personal question in the first place. She was not a woman looking for a man. He’d come to that conclusion within minutes after meeting her. So what was she looking for, he asked himself. Money? Security? A hiding place?

  “How long had you been married when your husband was killed?” he asked.

  Violet carefully kept her eyes on the darkening landscape. She didn’t like thinking about her marriage to Brent. It reminded her of how foolish and vulnerable she’d once been. And how she could never be the loving, trusting woman who’d first married him.

  “Six years,” she said quietly.

  Charlie mulled this over. “That’s a hell of a thing to have happen.”

  Guilt coursed its way through Violet. Charlie believed she’d been a grieving, devastated widow. And maybe she had been, to a certain degree. Heaven knew she’d never wanted Brent to die. She’d simply wanted him out of her and Sam’s life. When she’d filed for divorce, she’d had no way of knowing a week later her husband’s plane was going to crash.

  “It was,” she agreed. “But time has helped us to adjust. We’re making it okay.”

  From the closed expression on her face, Charlie figured she’d either loved her husband very much or hated the very sight of him. And he was angry with himself for wanting to know which.

  She cast him a sparing glance. “Have you been a Texas Ranger for long?”

  “Seven years.”

  He must have become a lawman at a very early age, Violet decided. She doubted he’d seen his thirtieth birthday yet.

  “You must like it,” she mused aloud.

  His lips twisted sardonically. Charlie never thought about whether he liked being a Ranger. He just was one. He couldn’t imagine himself being anything but a Ranger.

  “My dad has been the sheriff of Lincoln County for nearly thirty years. Being a man of the law is a way of life for him. And me, too.”

  A way of life. Violet didn’t know what her way of life was. She wasn’t sure she’d ever had one. She’d always been a daughter or a wife. She’d gone from living at home with her parents straight into marriage. She’d never really been out on her own, with the chance to be Violet Wilson or Violet O’Dell.

  Sighing, Violet gazed down at Sam, who was still sound asleep in spite of the roughening road and the jostling of the truck. “I hope I can let Sam choose his own path as he grows up. I want him to make good decisions, but I don’t want to push him to be something he isn’t comfortable with.”

  “I don’t know what it’s like to have a child, and I probably won’t ever know,” Charlie replied, “but I expect letting loose of the reins is the hardest part of raising one.”

  He wasn’t the marrying sort, and he didn’t expect to have children. Violet understood there were plenty of men in the world who didn’t want families. But somehow the idea of Charlie Pardee living alone for the rest of his life just didn’t fit.

  The road made a wide bend around another bald hill, and Violet leaned forward as the vague outline of a house and trees appeared in the distance.

  “Is that your cabin?” Violet asked. “It looks more like a house to me.”

  “House. Cabin. Whatever you want to call it, there it is. If we’re lucky, the electricity will be on.”

  Violet couldn’t believe the house had electricity. This must be the darkest place she’d ever seen. For as far as she could see there were no houses with lights or any sign of civilization. The horizon held nothing but desert hills and a rising crescent moon.

  Charlie parked in front of the house and instructed Violet to wait in the truck until he unlocked the door and made sure the power was on.

  In a matter of moments a light flared in the window, and then he was back, lifting her son off her lap. “I’ll carry Sam. Follow me and watch your step. The ground is rocky out here.”

  On the way to the house Violet drank in the utter quiet, the soft breeze scented with sage and pinon, and the moonlight slanting silver rays across the yard. She’d never lived in the country before. Nor had she ever thought she’d want to, but she could see why Charlie considered this place as coming home. There was an inviting serenity about it all.

  Just inside the door Charlie turned to her. “I’m going to put Sam on the couch for now. I’m not sure whether the beds are made up with clean sheets.”

  “Of course. Thank you for carrying him. He’s getting to be quite a load.” She watched him lay the child gently down on a couch covered with a blanket in a bright, Southwestern design.

  For a man who as yet had no children or plans to have any, he seemed adept at handling them. Maybe he had dated a woman with children, she surmised. Or maybe things just c
ame naturally to Charlie Pardee.

  Straightening to his full height, Charlie looked at her. She was standing in the middle of the small room, her hands linked tightly in front of her. No doubt she was probably wondering what she’d gotten herself into, by coming out to this secluded place with a man she didn’t know. And if she wasn’t a little bit scared, she ought to be, he thought grimly.

  “Well,” he said, then roughly cleared his throat “I’m going to unload the truck. When I’m finished, we’ll find something to eat I brought a few groceries with me, and there should be some things in the cupboards. Do you know how to cook?”

  Violet’s gaze wandered curiously around the room. It was small but neat, with everything in its place. The furniture was sturdy, wood-framed pieces with cushions covered in copper-colored hopsacking. Heavy, unbleached muslin draped across a pair of wide-paned windows. There were several Navajo woven rugs on the floor, the head of a stuffed mule deer on the wall, along with a gun rack stacked with an assortment of high-powered rifles. It was obviously a man’s house, yet it was warm and homey. And as solid and strong as Charlie Pardee himself.

  Eventually Violet’s eyes settled back on his strong face, and as she looked at him she wondered why fate had brought her to a man who had the power to hurt her the most.

  “I can find my way around a kitchen, Ranger Pardee.”

  Chapter Three

  “Hamburgers, hot dogs or lunch meat.” Charlie pulled each food item from an ice chest, carelessly tossed the packages on the tabletop, then walked over to a wall lined with varnished pine cabinets. The countless number of canned goods displayed on the shelves reminded him of just how long it had been since he’d been home. “The choices here are soup, chili, tamales and refried beans.”

  “Sam and I aren’t particular eaters,” Violet assured him from her seat at the little farm table. “We’ll eat anything. Just tell me what you want and I’ll prepare it.”

  Even though he’d asked her if she could cook, Charlie hadn’t really expected her to. She wasn’t exactly a guest, but she wasn’t hired help, either. She wasn’t a relative or even a girlfriend. He really didn’t know how the hell to treat her. “I didn’t bring you out here to make you my slave.”

  For the first time since they had met on the side of the highway, Violet gave him a little smile. It was the most knowing, provocative, female expression he’d ever seen on any woman, and as his eyes settled on her lips, he felt something stir deep in his gut.

  “I don’t see a whip in your hand,” she told him. “I’d like the chance to compensate for all this trouble you’ve gone to. I really feel like Sam and I shouldn’t be here.”

  He was inclined to agree with her. She and the boy shouldn’t be here. He was a man who enjoyed his own company. Especially when he was in a black mood, and lately he’d been in a lot of those. Besides, a woman and child could only mean trouble he didn’t need. Yet in spite of all his misgiving, she was here and he found himself more and more intrigued with her.

  Propping a thigh on the corner of the table, he folded his arms against his chest. His assessing gaze roamed her face. “Are you a jinx? Should I be worried the roof or something will fall in on us?”

  Violet had been around big, muscular men before. For the past two years she’d worked in a place where men of all shapes and sizes came and went. She was used to them and rarely gave any of them a second glance. But there was something about Charlie that made her heart beat out of rhythm every time her eyes touched him. She didn’t know if the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his chest, the sandy hair flopping defiantly over one eye or merely the deep, resonating sound of his voice was affecting her. The only thing she did know was that her strong reaction to him was very unsettling to her peace of mind.

  Desperate to lengthen the distance between them, Violet rose from her chair and walked over to the groceries scattered across the counter. “With the luck I’ve had today it looks as though I’m a jinx.”

  With narrowed eyes, he watched her quickly set about unpacking the last sack of groceries. “Violet, you can’t imagine what sort of trouble you might have gotten into if I hadn’t come along.”

  She supposed as a lawman he’d seen plenty of heinous crimes against women, and he’d naturally think of the worst scenario happening.

  “I suppose I should look at it that way,” she conceded. But had she been lucky? Violet wondered. She wasn’t so sure. Each time she looked at him, she got the feeling she’d run from a storm and straight into a wildfire.

  A few minutes later Violet began to prepare sandwiches for their supper. While she worked, Charlie went to the bedroom to check the beds. Both mattresses had been stripped of sheets, so he found two clean sets from a small linen closet, tossed one set on his own bed, then carried the other to the guest bedroom.

  He was slipping the puckered corners of the sheet over the mattress when Violet appeared in the doorway. She immediately walked to the head of the bed and grabbed one end of the pale blue muslin. “Let me help you,” she offered. “It’s always easier when two make a bed.”

  “My parents come over and stay here at the cabin sometimes just for the heck of it. Mom must have taken the sheets to wash them,” Charlie explained, then glanced across the bed at her.

  Other than his sister Caroline and his cousins Anna and Ivy, he’d never had a woman out here to his cabin before. Having Violet in the small bedroom with him made Charlie more aware than ever that she was a beautiful woman and he was a man who’d gone without female company for a long, long time.

  His thoughts must have shown on his face because Violet suddenly straightened away from the bed and took a couple of wary steps backward. Crossing her arms over her plump little breasts, she said, “The sandwiches are ready whenever you are. I also opened the carton of milk and poured a small glass for Sam. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Down through the years Charlie had provoked a lot of reactions from women. He could say without conceit nearly all of them had been positive. Try as he might he could never remember any woman being so leery of angering him. Had he become that hard and forbidding, or had Violet lived with a husband that had been less than loving?

  The dark thought left Charlie’s voice rougher than usual. “The kid can drink the whole carton. I’ll be getting whatever I need when I drive back into Ruidoso.”

  Deciding he was becoming far too aware of her sweet scent, soft body and shadowy green eyes, he quickly whipped the flat sheet in the air and allowed it to settle over the double bed.

  Violet ventured forward once again and tucked the sheet under her side of the mattress. “You will be going back to Ruidoso tomorrow, won’t you?” she asked.

  If he had any sense at all, he’d take Violet and Sam right back to Ruidoso in the morning. But he was sick of driving, of traveling, and most of all not being able to stay in one spot for more than five hours at a time.

  Shrugging he said, “I don’t know. I haven’t decided when I’ll go back into town.”

  Violet’s heart stilled as she watched his lean, tanned hand smooth the blue sheet over the end of the bed. She never would have agreed to come out here for more than one night. He should have told her his intentions!

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? Sam and I have to get back. We can’t stay here!”

  Hysteria tinged the last of her words and Charlie glanced at her. From the expression on her face, he might as well have announced an atomic bomb was sitting under his little summer cabin. He felt his patience rapidly slipping.

  “Why can’t you stay here?” he countered. “Your car is out of commission. What could you do in town?”

  What did the man think she was going to do here? Violet wondered wildly. They were out in the middle of nowhere.

  “Try to find a job,” she answered, her voice conveying how ridiculous she considered his question.

  “How?”

  Moving from the back side of the bed, he came to stand a couple of short steps away from her
. His thumbs were looped into the front pockets of his jeans. “Your car isn’t running. If you hired a taxi to drive you around for job interviews, you’d only be wasting money you obviously need. And Ruidoso is far too spread out to walk it. Besides, what would you do with Sam while you went job hunting?”

  She threw up her hands in disgust. “The way you make it sound, I might as well go jump off a cliff and put myself out of this misery.”

  For the first time since she’d met him, his face turned dark and rigid with anger. He stepped closer, and Violet’s heart began to pound rapidly as his fingers wrapped tightly around her upper arm.

  “If you’re going to talk like a fool I don’t want you around here!” he said sharply.

  The harshness of his words hurt, more than angered, Violet. Since she’d met him on the side of the highway he hadn’t exactly been amiable, but up until this moment, she’d believed him to be a fair, considerate man, a person who might actually care what happened to her and Sam. Dear Lord, she’d let her imaginations stray into left field this time.

  Stiffening her spine and lifting her chin, she tried her best to hide the awful embarrassment she was feeling at imposing on this man’s privacy.

  “I was pretty sure you didn’t want me around here before you ever left Ruidoso,” she said coolly. “I don’t know why you insisted Sam and I traipse out here with you. You don’t know us, and I really doubt you want to get to know us. Now you’re stuck with us. And I feel awful and you—”

  Violet’s words were suddenly smothered to a shocked moan as Charlie’s head dipped and his lips captured hers. Stunned motionless by the intimate contact, Violet tried to shut down her senses, too. She tried to tell herself she didn’t want Charlie Pardee’s kiss on her lips any more than she’d wanted Brent’s after their marriage had technically ended. But her brain, or maybe it was her heart, refused to cooperate. By the time Charlie lifted his head, Violet was on the verge of swooning straight into his arms.

  “Why did you do that?” she whispered huskily.

  His heart beating like a drum in his chest, Charlie’s blue eyes swept over her pink cheeks and puffy lips. Damn it all, kissing her had been the last thing he’d planned on doing. But then she’d started that rambling tirade which hadn’t made one lick of sense to him and he’d lost all control.