Charlene Sands - Exquisite Acquisitions

That damn curse. She wished she’d stopped him from bidding on the ring. She wished he hadn’t gotten hurt by the rejection. If she hadn’t needed the money for attorney fees and to pay off her mother’s debts, she would have held on to the rings so no one else would have to endure the pain and suffering those diamonds brought on. And it became obvious to her that the limousine and the private yacht, stocked with champagne and aphrodisiacs, were meant for the newly engaged couple. She should have realized it from the beginning, but being with Carter made her fuzzy-brained.

“Seriously, I’m really sorry, Carter.”

He nodded and stared into her eyes. “You wanna know something? Meeting you tonight was just the dose of reality I needed. You helped me forget how gawd awful I felt walking out of that restaurant. You may have helped me just as much as I helped you.”

“I doubt that, but it’s nice of you to say.”

“It’s true, darlin’.” Carter faced the water again and blew out a deep breath. “Man, I’m ready to get on home to Wild River. It’s no secret I don’t like the city.”

“This city in particular?”

“New York especially, but I don’t like any place where skyscrapers block the sunsets. Where you can’t walk down a street without being crammed and bumped. I like wide open spaces. And we have a lot of that in Wild River. It’s peaceful there. A man can think.”

Macy closed her eyes. “Mmm. Sounds like heaven.”

“Pretty close. What about you? Are you a big-city girl?”

“I kind of had to be. My mother and father were both actors. I grew up around glamour and glitz. But with that also came petty jealousy, vanity and overindulgence. So, no. I don’t like big cities. For me, when I go back to Los Angeles, I’ll be facing the same kind of scrutiny. Different reporters hounding me, but with the same agenda. I won’t have a moment of real privacy. I dread it already.”

“There’s no place you can go to hide out?”

Macy shook her head. She’d authorized the money from the auction to pay off her mother’s debts and to pay attorney fees to settle her lawsuits. She didn’t have the money or the means to take off to an exotic port where she wouldn’t be recognized. “Not really.”

Carter was quiet for a few minutes as the yacht rocked gently, cruising by Ellis Island. Beams of light from the Statue of Liberty glistened along the water’s surface. Carter’s musky scent traveled on the breeze. Standing so close to him, Macy felt immeasurably safe and protected. The feeling wouldn’t last. Soon, she’d have to face reality.

She sighed and let the wind whip at her face.

When she opened her eyes, Carter was staring at her, his expression determined. “Why not come to Wild River with me?”

“Wh-what?”

“You can hide out there for as long as you want. I have a big house and thousands of acres. Nobody’ll know you’re there.”

“I, uh…uh…”

“You can leave with me on the red-eye. We’ll be in Texas at breakfast and having lunch at Wild River before noon.”

It sounded like heaven, but Macy couldn’t just fly off with a stranger. Could she? She didn’t know much about him, other than he was wealthy, handsome, honorable and kind.

Oh boy. She’d just answered her own question. But could she really do this? Could she really run away from her troubles for a while? With Carter? What did she have waiting for her in L.A. anyway? She’d have to figure out her future soon, but she hadn’t been able to think of much else but getting through the auction. It had consumed her thoughts and sapped her spirit. Now she’d been offered a brief respite. “I don’t really know y-”

“Look, up until a few hours ago, I was in love with a woman and ready to be married. This is purely an offer with no strings attached. I won’t be sneaking into your room at night.”

Why not? Didn’t he find her appealing? A nervous laugh escaped. “Oh, I wasn’t thinking you would.”

His tone turned serious. “Just so you know, I’m offering you a place to stay, period. It’s up to you. Soon as we’re off this yacht, I’m making arrangements to get back to Wild River. The invitation is yours if you want to take it.”

Because that seemed to be what Carter McCay did. He saved people. And Macy had a big decision to make. Does she go home to Hollywood and face the photographers, the disruptions to her privacy and the bellyaches, or fly off with the sexy cowboy of her dreams?

Shouldn’t be such a hard decision.

But Macy wasn’t like Tina Tarlington in that respect. She didn’t usually do things by the seat of her pants.

Except this time.

Macy needed the peace.

She needed time to think.

She needed to get a handle on where her life was heading.

When it came right down to it, Macy didn’t need any more encouragement. She turned to Carter with a brave smile. “I’ll take it,” she said. “You won’t even know I’m there.”

* * *

Macy sat in first class with Carter on a plane nearly empty of passengers. She was heading to Texas, a place she’d visited a few times when she was a young girl. What she remembered about Dallas, Houston and Austin was that everyone was polite and the men were tall, friendly and wore cowboy hats. She’d been fascinated, tagging along with her mother when she’d begun a promotional tour for Striking Out for Texas, a Western film that eventually tanked. Her mother hadn’t been happy about it. The public had seen Tina Tarlington only as a sequin-gown-wearing glamour queen and that’s where they wanted to keep her. A tomboyish, ponytailed Tina with a twang wasn’t big box office. Her mother had faulted the director for the failure due to his lack of vision. Much to Macy’s dismay, she’d never made another Western.

Macy’s fascination with Texas cities had soon turned to disappointment. As a twelve-year-old, she’d expected to see horses roaming the range and longhorn steers grazing. The Texas she’d seen wasn’t anything like Carter McCay had described to her. Now, a shot of mental adrenaline brought on a round of excitement. She couldn’t wait to see the land Carter owned. She couldn’t wait to see Wild River Ranch.

He sat across the aisle from her, lounging in a big leather seat, his long legs stretched out in front of him. With his eyes closed, she could take time to really admire him. His lashes were unfairly long. Brad Pitt dark-blond hair touched his collar, unruly for a military man but perfect for a rancher. His shoulders seemed to stretch a yard wide.

Carter wore a tan shirt now, tucked into slightly worn blue jeans, leather boots and a silver belt buckle with the initials W.R. She assumed the initials were for the ranch, Wild River. Macy had seen Carter only in dress clothes, but it didn’t take her long to figure out he’d look good in anything he wore. The hat, now covering half his face in a downward tilt, was a constant. On Carter, it wasn’t a fashion accessory-it belonged on top of his head.

His eyes snapped alert, and he turned his head her way. Caught staring at him, she darted a glance to the overhead compartment, refusing to look into his eyes.

“What’s that I heard about a nude scene?”

Oh boy. Macy’s heart pumped double time. She’d hoped he hadn’t picked up on that comment from the dozens being leveled at her earlier. “It’s…nothing.”

Carter, apparently done with his little nap, turned his body to face her completely. The full force of his gaze was nothing to sneeze at. “That so? You gonna make me look it up online?”

Macy’s mouth fell open. “You’d do that?”

Carter’s eyes lit with mischief. “So, it is something.”

“Nothing I want to talk about.”

“I’m not a fan of computers, Macy. But I use them when I need to.”

“Trust me. You don’t need to know.”

His lips twisted into a frown and Macy thought about how he’d come to her rescue. How, he’d offered her a place of refuge. She supposed she owed him some sort of explanation.

“Oh, all right. I was doing a movie. It wasn’t a big role or anything, just this little independent film about five women stranded on an island together. I had this scene where…”

Carter leaned forward, his gaze sweeping over her in a way he’d never done before. As if he was just noticing her as a woman. A tremor quaked through her belly, making her extremely queasy.

“Go on,” he said, his brows lifting expectantly.

Sure, mention five females and nudity in the same breath, and suddenly men begin actually listening to women. She took a swallow. “Well, there was this one scene where I was to be bathing naked in this tropical lake and, uh…”

“And?”

“Well, you get the picture, right?”

Carter swept his gaze over her again. This time, with more heat than she’d expected from a jilted man. His hazel eyes darkened. “I’m beginning to.”

She’d wanted those words back the second she’d said them. Goodness, she wasn’t asking him to picture her naked, yet the gleam in his eyes was enough to make her faint.

She pressed on. “Well, I chickened out. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t allow millions of people to see me in my birthday suit. The studio offered a body double, but everyone would still think it was me anyway. So…” She wished she didn’t have to reveal such a humiliating experience to him. “I, uh, refused to do it. I sort of had a tantrum about it.” Lessons learned from her mother. “Finally, they rewrote the scene without the nudity. Needless to say, I made a lot of people unhappy.”

Carter leaned back in his seat and nodded, and that awkward awareness between them was gone. “You stuck to your principles.”

“I should have never agreed to it in the first place.”

“Yeah, well. Hindsight can be a bitch. We do things we’re thinking are right at the time, only to find out later how wrong we were.”

From the regret in his voice, Macy knew he was speaking about his own situation. She lowered her tone and gave him a soft smile. “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday with your-”

“Jocelyn?” He shifted his gaze to look out the window. “Yeah, I didn’t see that coming. I’m not sure what happened there, but I guarantee you I won’t let it happen again. I’ve got my guard up now.”

Macy nibbled on her lower lip. “You know, you can throw me off your property anytime you want. If you regret inviting me to stay at your place and would rather be alone, I’d understand.”

He faced her. “Don’t worry, Macy. Like I said, I’ve got ten thousand acres. You won’t get in my way. And I won’t get in yours. I don’t live with regrets. So don’t you worry your head off about me. Is it a deal?”

Macy smiled, more assured now. “It’s a deal.”

The second Carter planted his boots down on Texas soil, he felt better. He’d been gone only a few days, but he was damn grateful to be back on his own land. Coming home to Wild River never got old.

Jocelyn had bruised him, and he couldn’t quite shake the feeling. He’d never asked a woman to marry him before. He’d never had the inclination. Jocelyn had reeled him in like a sucker, and just when he thought things were going great, she’d tossed him back into the water to fish for someone else.

Macy had been bruised, too. Her circumstances were different, but when he’d spotted her outside the restaurant, he’d seen a look of pain and disbelief in her eyes. He’d felt a kinship with her that, even now, he couldn’t truly define. It was the reason he’d invited her to Wild River.

He glimpsed his fifteen-room house and breathed in the earthy scent of range and cattle before he turned from the car to reach for Macy’s hand. She slid her palm into his and climbed out of her seat, as graceful as a doe, to stand beside him. “You ready for a slice of heaven?”

Those violet eyes of hers swept the Wild River vista and a little sigh escaped her lips. Carter’s chest puffed out some at her thunderstruck look. “Oh, it’s stunning, Carter.”

Carter had worked with an architect to give his home just the right mixture of down-home comfort and modern-day style. The result, much to his satisfaction, turned out to be a wood and stone structure with bay windows and skylights. Stone pilings and wrought-iron fencing surrounded the grounds. Beyond the house lay the outer buildings that made up the ranch itself, with corrals, barns and feed shacks.

“No tall skyscrapers blocking out the sunrise here.” He glanced eastward toward the orange blast of light lifting from the land in midday splendor. “Every room at the back of the house has a big window facing east. Same goes for sunsets for the rooms facing west.”

“And I bet you make sure you see the sun rise every day.”

“I’m up at the crack of dawn.”

Macy’s eyes rolled at his clichéd response. “Just like a regular cowpoke.”