Page 74 of Texas Honor

“Gabriel Coleman,” he said, looking down at her with narrowed eyes.

Becky’s face lit up. “You’re Aunt Janet’s Gabe, aren’t you?” the little girl asked, moving toward the tall man. She looked up at him with open fascination. “Aunt Janet says that you have a ranch and horses and cows and lots of cowboys and rustling, just like in the movies!”

Incredibly, the hard face relaxed into a genuine smile, the first one Maggie had seen yet. He went down on one knee so that he could see Becky better. “I’d love to hear the bedtime stories you tell this child,” he said, amused, then looked up at Maggie.

She flushed. “Well, actually, it’s the movies...”

“You’d better come home with me, Becky,” he said seriously, “and you can see what ranching is like for yourself.”

Becky hesitated. There was fear in her eyes—the same fear Gabe had seen in her mother—and his face hardened visibly.

“Your mother will be there, too,” he said softly. “And I swear, honey, nobody will hurt you as long as I’m around.”

Becky’s wan little face managed a wobbly smile. “Then I guess it’ll be okay.”

He nodded. “Are you ready?” he asked, standing.

“Yes, sir. I have my suitcase right over there.”

Gabe picked it up, glancing at Maggie over the child’s head. There was an expression in his eyes that defied description.

BECKYWASDELIGHTEDwith the ranch. She’d been quiet all the way back, except to exclaim at the private plane and the fact that Gabe could actually fly it. But when she got her first look at the ranch, her breath sighed out in a rush.

“Oh, isn’t it just beautiful, Mama?” she asked Maggie, all eyes and laughter. “Isn’t it just beautiful? Look at all the room! And cows and horses...!”

Gabe chuckled softly, smoking his cigarette without comment.

“Can I ride a horse? Oh, can I?” Becky begged.

“No,” Maggie said.

“Yes,” Gabe countered immediately, his eyes challenging Maggie. “She’s old enough. I was four when my dad put me on my first horse. I won’t let her get hurt,” he added gently when she still hesitated.

Maggie bit her lip. She’d need a lot more sustenance than the rushed breakfast she’d had to take on Gabriel Coleman in that mood. But it was going to be a fight all the way; of that she was sure.

Janet was delighted to see the child and made a big fuss over her. Even the housekeeper began immediately to spoil her. She was taken off into the kitchen and then upstairs to see her very own room. Everyone was enthusiastic except Maggie, who’d had a glimpse of hell at the boarding school.

Dennis had almost succeeded in spiriting the child away, and possession was still nine-tenths of the law. If she’d been a little later, or if Gabe hadn’t been with her... She shuddered to think of the consequences.

And now Dennis thought she had a lover. He was going to use Gabe, of all people, against her. How would she prove it was a lie? It might be just the lever Dennis needed to get possession of Becky, and what a hell of a life she’d have with him. If it came to that, Maggie might be forced to take the child and run. She glanced at Gabe, at the sheer magnificence of him. Perhaps they’d said something to Dennis in the early days of their marriage, something that had made him suspicious. Dennis had an active imagination, and he was good at twisting the truth to suit himself. She dreaded the thought of having him create a scandal that would involve Janet as well as Gabe.

Gabe was watching her closely over dinner. After Becky was tucked up in bed and Janet had gone upstairs, he waylaid Maggie and dragged her off into his study.

“Let’s talk,” he said curtly, motioning her into an armchair.

She refused his offer of brandy and sat with her hands folded primly in her lap. “What about?” she asked hesitantly.

“About that little girl upstairs,” he returned, dropping into an armchair across from her. “And why she’s terrified of men. What did that son of a rattlesnake do to her?”

“Dennis in a temper can do that even to big people,” Maggie said miserably. She studied the hard lines of his face. “Oddly enough, I’m not afraid of your temper. Not anymore,” she added with a faint smile. “I used to be. I’ll never forget the day you beat up that cowboy at the grocery store in town.”

His eyes darkened, narrowed. “He touched you,” he said curtly, as if that explained everything. “He put his hands on you. I could have broken his neck.”

She stared at him, curiously. “I wondered,” she murmured, her voice barely carrying. “I always wondered if it was because of that.”

He shifted in the chair, bringing the brandy to his lips to break the spell. “You didn’t know anything about men. I wasn’t going to let one of my hands back you into a corner.”

She studied his lean, beautifully masculine hands, wrapped around the brandy snifter. “You always were like a bulldozer.”

---