The Master Fiddler Part 14

"Fine." She swallowed convulsively. "And you?"

"Fine." He paused. "I promised Robbie I would see you while I was here."

So that was why he had come, Jacquie thought silently to fulfill a promise to his son. The tiny hope that he might have wanted to see her for himself was dashed to the ground.

"Oh!" A light dawned in her mother's blue eyes. "You're the Mr.

Barnett that Jacquie worked for when she was in Arizona."

"That's right." His gaze narrowed slightly on Jacquie before he nodded to her mother in acknowledgement.

"I appreciate your stopping by," Jacquie inserted stiffly. "I'm sorry I can't ask you to stay longer, but I have a great deal of work to do.

I was on my way to the library when mother told me you were here."

"I see." Choya exhaled slowly and grimly.

"If you'd known Jacquie before she went to Arizona," her mother spoke up, "you wouldn't believe the way she's changed since she came back. It used to be her evenings were taken up with parties and activities. Now, it's studying. She rarely goes out anymore."

"Mother, please!" Jacquie murmured angrily, turning away from Choya's piercing glance.

"Would you mind, Mrs. Grey, if I spoke to your daughter alone for afew minutes?" he asked with grating deference.

"Of course not," she smiled, missing Jacquie's beseeching look to stay.

"I have dinner to start anyway."

An electric silence filled the room when her mother left. The chargedcurrents drained the color from her face and sent her blood poundingwildly in her ears. Jacquie walked shakily to the large picturewindow.

"How did you know where I was?" she tried to breach the silence.

"I contacted your insurance company and they gave me your parents' nameand address here in Dallas," Choya answered. Jacquie had forgotten allabout giving him the name of her insurance company when she had had theaccident with his jeep. "I telephoned the other night to see if theyknew where you were. I found out you were here."

Jacquie tipped her head back, gazing sightlessly at the sky. Vaguelyshe remembered her mother mentioning that some man had called for herthe other night. It hadn't meant anything at the time. Although shehadn't gone out since she had come back, that hadn't stopped anyonefrom asking.

"Unfortunately I didn't know you were coming or I would have arranged not to be here," she said with bitter truthfulness.

"That's what I thought." His comment was clipped and harsh. At the sound of his ap The Master Fiddler proach, she turned warily to face him. "You left this behind."

Her gaze flicked briefly to the folded bills of paper money in his hand. She guessed it was the money she had left on the nightstand.

"It's yours. I always pay my debts in full!" she flashed.

A muscle leaped in his jaw. "I deserved that." Choya breathed in slowly, glancing at the money in his hand.

"You've explained how you found me. Now tell me why you're here," Jacquie challenged, reeling at his intoxicating closeness yet unable to make her trembling legs carry her a safe distance away.

Like a magnet, his tawny eyes seemed to draw her toward him. The enigmatic light in their depths tightened the muscles in her chest until she could hardly breathe.

"I came to take you back with me," he stated.

Her head jerked as if he had slapped her. "No!" she gasped in pain.

"Robbie misses you."

A wavering laugh broke from her throat. She turned back to the window, cradling her arms around her middle to ward off the sudden chill.

"I want you to come with me as my wife," Choya said firmly, leaving her in no doubt that he meant it.

"I like Robbie very much," she murmured in a choked voice. "But I want more out of life and a marriage than to be some little boy's stepmother."

His hands settled onto her shoulders, and she didn't have the strength to move away. She closed her eyes, reveling in the exquisite pain of his touch.

"I was wrong when I said you were trouble," his low whisper caressed her hair. "The trouble has been living without you, Jacqueline."

Exerting the slightest pressure, he turned her into his arms. Her turquoise eyes were riveted to his mouth, watching it form more enchantingly beautiful words.

"I've wanted to do this ever since you walked into the room," he murmured.

His fingers tangled themselves in the silken length of her silver blond hair. His mouth covered hers in a searching yet possessive kiss, and Jacquie responded to it with all the pent-up longing in her heart.

Then he was tearing his mouth away from her lips. The iron band of his arms held her so The Master Fiddler tightly she didn't think she could breathe, but she didn't care. She felt him shudder against her and the joy seared through her veins.

"Lord knows I never intended to fall in love with you," Choya muttered thickly against her hair. "After what I've done to you, it would be poetic justice if you hated me."

"You said Robbie missed me," Jacquie breathed, remembering the anguish when she had thought he only wanted her back for his son.

"He does, but not as much as I do. I can't sleep without remembering what it was like to have you in my arms and cuddle you against me like a sleeping kitten," he murmured. "I told myself I was only coming to see you to make sure you were all right. The minute I saw you I knew I had to take you home with me. I used Robbie as a reason because you love him."

"Not as much as I love his father," she whispered.

He lifted his head to gaze doubtingly into her upturned face. "Do you?"

"I love you, Choya." Her voice quaked with the depth of her love. "I have, I think, from the beginning. At first it was fascination. But later, it turned to love."

"Why didn't you tell me?" he groaned, raining kisses over her cheeks and throat as if trying to make up for all the hurt they had both been through.

"Why did you let me go? Why didn't you make me stay? I needed you," Jacquie quivered in his pa.s.sionate embrace.

"I felt like the lowest animal on earth. I had no right to ask you to stay or to force you to stay." His low voice was laced with self-disgust. "Yet I couldn't make myself say the words that would set you free not until I found out how Robbie was involved, and even then I couldn't let you go without holding you one last time. I'm warning you, Jacqueline, we Barnetts can be very ruthless to get what we want."

"Don't I know it!" she laughed, but this time without pain.

"You will marry me." It was half a question and half a command.

"Yes "

Jacquie never had a chance to complete her answer as his mouth bruised hers, demanding an answer that was not verbal. Her arms slid around his shoulders, clinging to him.

The front door opened, and Cameron Grey walked in. He glanced at the embracing couple The Master Fiddler and halted in shock. It was several seconds before Choya bothered to lift his lips from Jacquie's.

Tawny eyes danced to the man standing just inside the door. His compelling features were radiant from the light that glowed in her turquoise green eyes.

"You must be Cameron Grey, Jacqueline's father." He removed one arm from around Jacquie, still holding her firmly against his chest with the other. He offered his hand to her stunned father. "I'm Choya Barnett. I'm going to marry your daughter and take her home to Arizona."

Her father blinked. "But she's just come back!"

"You've had her for twenty-one years." Choya smiled into her upturned face. "Now it's my turn. And I have the feeling that a lifetime together isn't going to be long enough."

SOMETHING EXTRA.

another Janet Dailey t.i.tle.

Jolie Antoinette Smith found more than she was looking for in Louisiana. Not only did she locate the home of her ancestral namesake, she found someone to love.

Cameron? "It's always been my policy to stay away from spirited vii gins he informed Jolie. "They tend to complicate your life and your conscience."

Jolie had left home because of a problem, and now she was faced with a greater one. Clearly marriage played no part in Steve's plans!

SOMETHING mi

CHAPTER ONE.

The pinto, a mixture of chestnut and white, reluctantly submitted to the pressure of the reins and turned away from the rich gra.s.ses of his pasture. His head bobbed rhythmically from side to side as he plodded down the rutted lane. Fifteen summers had been seen by his soft brown eyes. He no longer pranced and tossed his brown and white mane, nor tugged at the bit between his teeth. Through the years he had grown fat and lazy, saving his energy to swish away flies and tear at the long green gra.s.s so that he would have the strength to see another South Dakota winter sweep by.

The horse didn't need to look at a calendar to see the month of September preparing to make way for October. He had only to look at the trees and their green leaves that were dotted with gold and orange, or to raise his brown eyes to the blue skies and see the gathering of birds which were ready to begin the migration to the south at the first sign of cold. The way Something Extra ing fields of wheat next to his pasture had ripened and their grains of gold hung heavily on their slender stalks. The days were still warm, but the nights held a chill. The pinto had already begun growing his s.h.a.ggy coat to ward off the cold north-west winds.

A heel dug firmly into his side, and he snorted his dislike before amiably breaking into a rocking canter. The weight on his back was light and the hands holding his reins were gentle. The pinto's dark ears p.r.i.c.ked forward as a brightly plumed rooster pheasant took wing ahead of them. But there was not the slightest break in his stride. A hand touched the side of his neck in praise, followed by a checking of reins. The aging pinto gladly settled back into a shuffling trot and finally to his plodding walk.

The girl astride his bare back sighed deeply, letting the circled reins drop in front of her while placing her hands on her hips. Her bare legs dangled from his fat sides as she balanced herself easily on his broad back. She squinted her own soft brown eyes at the sun's glare, feeling its warmth on the skin not covered by the white halter top or the blue shorts. If she had looked for them, she would have seen all the signs of autumn that the horse did. But her Something Extra gaze flitted over them all, looking but not seeing.

Her figure was adequate, not over-curvaceous nor over-slender, just somewhere in the middle. In her bare feet, she stood five feet four, an average height for an average build. Her hair was the same warm brown shade as her eyes, thick and cropped in a feathery boy-cut that allowed its thickness and natural wave to frame her oval face. Again her features were average, not possessing any startling beauty, only a pleasing wholesomeness.

When she was younger, Jolie Antoinette Smith used to moan about her lack of glamorous beauty. Her father always used to gather her in his arms in one of his giant bear hugs and in his laughing voice teased her.

"You have a pair of very nice eyes to see with; a nose to breathe and smell with; nice, generous lips to frame a mouth that talks and eats with its full set of white teeth." Then he would lift her downcast chin with his hand and study her face closely. His voice would become very serious. "And by my latest count, you have two thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven freckles, which you ought to thank the good Lord for, because he's the one who sprinkled gold dust all over your face."

Something Extra She would be scowling by that time at the faint freckles that were there and not there, so light were they. Her father would then tickle the corner of her mouth, forcing her to smile.

"And he also gave you a matching set of dimples!" he ended triumphantly. Even though Jolie knew he was prejudiced in her favor, she always felt better after one of those sessions. It was only as she grew older that she realized he had been trying to make her content with the way she was, with the things she couldn't change. Yes, she had long ceased to curse the fact that she had been endowed with both freckles and dimples, too, and learned to endure the good-natured teasing that they always brought.

Even though Jolie seldom rated a second glance when she was walking down a street, the men who did become acquainted with her found that she was an excellent listener, had a ready smile, and could carry on a conversation without giggling. She was the kind of girl that got invited home to meet mother while her girl friends were invited to parties. After hearing tales of what went on at some of the parties, Jolie wasn't sure she would have liked it, but she never had the chance to find out for herself.

Something Extra She was home now after a little more than three years in which she had crammed a four-year college course. She had finished her education and obtained her degree, but now what? What came next? Inside Jolie felt that surge of restlessness, that heightening sense of dissatisfaction.

She had come home and all was different while it remained the same. Home. A three hundred and sixty acre tract of land sixty miles from Yankton, South Dakota, where for the entire twenty-one years of her life, Jolie's parents had farmed. It had been a good life, and a hard life at times, the difference dictated by the weather and its effect on the crops. But it was her parents' life and not hers.

The pinto paused to munch on a tempting clump of gra.s.s until Jolie raised herself out of her indifference to lift his head away.

"If you eat any more, Scout, your sides will burst," she admonished. Dutifully the horse plodded on. "Poor old Scout," Jolie sighed, "you've changed, too, just like me. Whoever said "You can't go home again' was right."

Her parents had lived by themselves for the last three years and had grown accustomed to it. They no longer knew how to treat Jolie. She was not a child any more, but to them she Something Extra would never be quite an adult. Madelaine, her older sister by one year, was married and already had two children as well as a life completely separate from Jolie's. Change was the only constancy. And that included John Talhot.

Jolie saw his pick-up truck parked on the field turn-off of the country road. His tall, sunburned figure was standing on the edge of a wheat field, the muscles in his arms gleaming in the late morning sunlight. A stalk of wheat was between his teeth as he lifted an arm in greeting. Without any effort his long stride carried him to the edge of the field as Jolie drew level atop her pinto. His large hands encircled her waist and lifted her to the ground. There John lowered his head and with the ease of habit claimed her mouth in a kiss. Jolie responded just as naturally, liking the warmth and the closeness of his body next to hers.

"Hi," The gleam of quiet affection in his tawny gold eyes was comfortably pleasing, as was the slow smile. "It's been a long time since you've come out to visit me in the fields."

Snuggling against his shoulder, his muscular arm firmly holding her there, Jolie nodded agreement as she slipped her arm behind his back and around his waist. The pinto content Something Extra edly began grazing on the gra.s.ses near the lane, ignoring the couple walking slowly toward the lone cottonwood that stood on the edge of the wheat field.

"Dad says your wheat is ready for harvest." Jolie easily fell into the main topic of conversation in the area. It was a safe subject that steered clear of her restlessness. John plucked another stalk of wheat before sinking down on the ground beneath the shade tree. He stripped the golden grain from its head, tossing two into his mouth.

"Still a little too much moisture," he decreed. "Another day or two of sun like this and it'll be ready." He pushed the straw hat back on his light brown head and gazed out over the golden sea of grain. "It's going to be a good harvest."

"Dad's shoulder is bothering him, which means rain before tomorrow night." The blade of gra.s.s in her hand split down the middle at the nervous pressure of her fingers. She tossed it from her in disgust.

"You can tell him for me that he can hold it off for another couple of days," John smiled, and drew Jolie into his arms.

She turned her head just as he was about to kiss her and his lips instead found her cheek.

Something Extra But he wasn't deterred, letting his mouth wander over her neck and the lobe of her ear half-covered by her brown hair. For Jolie, there was nothing soothing in his caress and her lack of response made her feel uncomfortable. She wriggled free, plucking another blade of gra.s.s and studying it intently.

His measuring eyes were on her. Jolie could feel them trail over her face and she tried to appear undisturbed.