Against the Rules Read online

  They had put him in a regulation hospital gown, but that state of affairs hadn’t lasted long. The garment was in a tangled heap on the floor, and she knew that beneath the thin sheet there was only Rule. Despite herself, she began to laugh.

  He began to turn his head with the utmost care, and behind her, Cathryn heard Lewis’s stifled chuckle. Rule gave up trying to turn his head and instead only moved his eyes, which still caused him to wince noticeably. “Well, don’t just stand there gloating,” he growled at Cathryn. “Come hold my hand. I could use some sympathy.”

  Obediently she crossed to his bedside, and though she was still laughing she felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes. She took his hand in hers and lifted it to her lips for a quick kiss on the lean, powerful fingers. “You scared me half to death,” she accused him, her voice both teasing and tearful. “And now you don’t even look hurt, except for your leg. You just look grouchy!”

  “It hasn’t been a picnic,” he told her feelingly. His hand tightened on hers, and he drew her even closer to the bed; but his glance shifted to Lewis. “Lew, how badly is Redman hurt?”

  “Nothing serious,” Lewis assured him. “He was walking okay. I’ll keep an eye on him, watch for swelling.”

  Rule forgot himself and nodded, a lapse that he paid for immediately. He groaned aloud and put his hand on his head. “Damn,” he swore weakly. “I’ve got a hell of a headache. Didn’t they leave an ice pack or something?”

  Cathryn looked around and found the ice pack on the floor where it had evidently been flung along with the hospital gown. She picked it up and placed it on his forehead. He sighed with relief, then returned to Lewis.

  “Go on back to the ranch,” he instructed the foreman. “There’s too much to be done before the sale for both of us to be gone, even for a day. The dun mare should come in tomorrow or the next day. Put her with Irish Gale.”

  Lewis listened attentively as Rule outlined what had to be done during the next two days. He asked a few brief questions; then he was gone before Cathryn could quite comprehend that she had been left behind. Rule hadn’t released his grip on her hand in all that time. Now he turned his sleepy attention to her.

  “You don’t mind staying with me, do you?”

  It hadn’t occurred to her to leave, but asking her permission after she had already been stranded made her give him a wry look. “Would it have mattered if I did?”

  His dark eyes grew even darker; then his jaw hardened. “No,” he said flatly. “I need you here.” He shifted on the bed and muttered a curse when his head throbbed. “This changes things. You can’t leave the ranch now, Cat. With the sale coming up I need your help. There’s too much for Lewis to handle on his own, and when it comes down to basics, it’s your responsibility because it’s your ranch. Besides, if you’ll ever be safe from me, that time is now. I couldn’t fight a kitten, let alone a full-grown Cat.”

  She couldn’t even smile at his pun. He looked so unnaturally helpless that she wished she had never said anything. All thoughts of leaving the ranch had disappeared from her mind the minute she’d heard that Rule was hurt, but she didn’t tell him that. She merely smoothed a damp strand of dark hair back from his forehead and said quietly, “Of course I’ll stay. Did you really think I’d leave now?”

  “I didn’t know,” he muttered. “I couldn’t stop you if you wanted to go, but I hoped the ranch meant more to you than that.”

  It wasn’t the ranch that held her, it was Rule; but his accident hadn’t deprived her of her common sense, and she didn’t tell him that, either. Instead she plucked the sheet a little higher on his torso and teased, “I have to stay, if only to protect your modesty.”

  He gave her a roguish look despite the pallor of his face and the not-quite-focused expression in his eyes. “You’re too late to save my modesty. But if you’d like to protect my virtue, I could use some help in fighting off these fresh nurses.”

  “Does your virtue need protecting?” She felt almost giddy with the unusual pleasure of teasing him, of actually flirting. It was odd that he had to be flat on his back and unable to move before she felt easy enough with him to tease him, but then, she had always been wary of him. It just wasn’t good sense to turn your back on a panther.

  “Not at the moment,” he admitted, his voice fading away. “Even the spirit isn’t willing right now.”

  He slipped easily and swiftly into sleep and Cathryn tucked his hand under the sheet. The air-conditioner was on full blast and it felt cold in the room to her, so she lifted the sheet over his naked shoulders, then sat down in the chair by his bedside and drew her legs up under her.

  “What now?” she wondered aloud, her eyes never leaving the hard profile, softened somewhat as he relaxed deeply into sleep. In one morning everything had changed. Instead of fleeing to safety she was sitting by his side, and she knew that nothing could induce her to leave. He was weak and injured and he hadn’t been lying when he had said that he would need her at the ranch during the coming weeks. The horse sale alone involved a great deal of work, and regardless of how competent Lewis was, he wasn’t a superman. He couldn’t be everywhere at once. That took care of any logical arguments she had. On an emotional level she admitted that she wouldn’t leave Rule now even if there were no need for her to stay at all.

  Rather than suddenly falling in love with him, she had awakened to the realization that she had loved him for a long time. She had loved David, too, with a very real love, but it had been a shallow emotion compared to the intensity of her feelings for Rule. It was so intense that when she was younger it had frightened her and she had fled from it. It had destroyed her control and her self-confidence, prevented her from accepting its existence. She was still frightened of the furious strength of her emotions. She had been running yet again because she wasn’t certain that he returned even a fraction of that emotion. Watching him now, Cathryn made a painful decision, wondering wryly if she had reached a new level of maturity or if she were merely being foolhardy. At whatever risk, she was going to stay at the ranch. She loved him. It didn’t make sense. It was against all the rules of human behavior that she should have loved him so young and so fiercely; but she had, and the feeling had endured.

  Her glance swept blindly around the small, dim room and settled on a black object so familiar that it took her breath. How had his hat gotten here? She couldn’t remember its being on the plane, but it must have been, because here it was. Had Lewis brought it? Or had Rule unconsciously clutched it in his hand? It didn’t really matter, though she gave a wobbly smile at the thought.

  Rule’s hats were disaster areas. He was rougher on his headgear than any man she had ever seen. She had no idea what he did to his hats to get them in such shape, though she had sometimes suspected him of stomping on them. Whenever he was forced to buy a new one—something he did only reluctantly—within a week the new hat had taken on a battered, defeated shape, as if it had been run over by a herd of stampeding cattle. Tears blurred her eyes as she reached out for the dusty, shabby hat and hugged it to her breast.

  She could be risking her entire future if she were wrong in staying, but today she had been forced to realize that Rule was as human and as vulnerable as any other man. An accident could easily take him from her at any time, and she would be left with nothing but the bitter thought, what if? He had asked her to marry him. She didn’t know about that. She was far too upset and confused to plan anything concrete, but she was finished with running. It hadn’t solved anything before. She had been haunted by thoughts of him, memories that had continually surfaced until his face had been a mental veil through which she had viewed all other men. She loved him. She had to face it squarely and accept whatever that love brought her, whether pain or pleasure. If she had learned nothing else from the eight years she had spent away from him, she had learned that she could never forget him.

  CHAPTER 8

  Rule was an angel. He was a perfect patient—obedient, uncomplaining, as docile as a lamb...as l