Always a Lady Read online

  She was not the usual country-girl type. She was city born, city bred, and educated to boot. He didn’t know what made him so all-fired certain that she’d stay if he asked. He only knew that he wouldn’t let her leave without giving it a try.

  He heard the sounds of a vehicle coming down the long driveway and reluctantly turned away from the window overlooking the backyard. He went to the door and out onto the front porch, standing with one arm braced against the porch post as he watched a car full of men spill out of a dark sedan.

  There was one older man, dark headed, two younger men with matching hair and complexions, and two even younger men with hair as blond as Lily’s. Something about the way they walked reminded him...

  “Can I help you?” Case drawled, as they walked en masse toward him. He smiled to himself at the fancy he had of an imminent attack. They didn’t look fearsome. In fact, they looked like they were in shock.

  “Is this the Longren Ranch?” the older man asked.

  “Yes,” Case answered. “I’m Case Longren. What can I do for you?”

  “We’ve come all the way from California to see Lily Brownfield. Is she here?” Morgan Brownfield asked, half expecting to hear him say no. He couldn’t believe that his college-educated daughter was actually cooking for a roundup on an Oklahoma ranch. When he’d gotten her brief letter explaining what she’d planned to do, he’d been in shock. By the time the rest of his brood had been informed, they’d given Lily exactly three weeks to contact them. When she’d failed to do so, they’d come looking.

  Case sucked in a breath. California! Please God, no!

  “Yes, she’s here,” he answered. “But if one of you men is that sorry, fair-weather bastard of a fiancé, you can just take yourself all the way back to California and get off my property. Do I make myself clear?”

  Cole Brownfield narrowed his dark eyes, grinning to himself as he watched his father’s face. It looked like Lily had found one more man ready to fight for her honor. Somehow he wasn’t surprised.

  Morgan Brownfield couldn’t think of what to say. With his abrupt, nearly rude dismissal of them, this man clearly had the same low opinion of Todd Collins that he had. It was such a surprise he was at a temporary loss for words. Finally he found his voice.

  “Well, Mr. Longren. I don’t know what else to say except that you’re my kind of man. Hell no, I don’t have that snake Collins with me. My name is Morgan Brownfield, and these are my sons, Cole, Buddy, and the twins, J.D. and Dusty. Lily is my daughter.”

  Case grinned with relief. He all but leaped off the porch with outstretched hand.

  “Lily will be real glad to see you,” he said. “And please, call me Case. Leave your things in the car, we’ll get them later. Lily’s out in the backyard. This is a slow day for the ranch, and I’ve given everyone the day off. You couldn’t have come at a better time.”

  The last of Morgan’s worries just flew off his shoulders. His first impression of this big, dark man was favorable, especially since he viewed Todd Collins with the same disdain. He wondered, for the first time, just how involved Lily might be with her boss, and looked at Case again, judging him anew.

  “Our things are back in a motel in Clinton,” Cole answered, as he stepped forward and shook hands. He sensed this man was going to make a difference in their lives.

  “You can get them later,” Case ordered shortly. “You’re staying here. God knows there’s plenty of room. It’ll give you a better chance to visit with Lily.”

  The Brownfield crew wouldn’t argue. They were anxious to get a look at their beloved Lily. They rounded the house, following Case’s lead. Cole was the first to spy his sister’s familiar long legs stretched out on the lounger, soaking up sun.

  “Lily Kate, you’re the only person I know who’d leave California’s sunny beaches and come to Oklahoma to get a tan.”

  That voice!

  Lily flew from the lounge, dropped her book, and smiled.

  The look on her face stopped Case’s heart. My God, he’d give a year of his life if she’d look at him like that.

  “Cole! Daddy!” Her voice shook. “Oh my God! Buddy, J.D. and Dusty, too. You’re here!”

  She was engulfed.

  Chapter 4

  Morgan Brownfield watched Lily rearranging space for him and his sons in the eating area of the kitchen. She was moving chairs and brothers with expertise and abandon. If he couldn’t still see the scar on her face, he’d swear that it was the same Lily he’d known and loved since the day she’d been born, not the withdrawn, silent woman she’d become after her accident and Todd Collins’s betrayal.

  He sighed quietly, relieved that Lily was healing in spirit as well as body. It was what he’d hoped and prayed for. And by the look on their host’s face, it seemed as if he was partially responsible for Lily’s sense of well-being. Case Longren never took his eyes off of her. In fact, he seemed to be mesmerized by Lily. Yet he stayed at a more than respectable distance away, obviously following boundaries that had been established long before the arrival of the Brownfield men.

  Case watched every move Lily made, and missed nothing of the amiable banter between her and her brothers, unaware that Morgan was watching him just as intently.

  Lily was a completely different woman from the one who’d first arrived at the Bar L. She was tanned and smiling, and she no longer turned her face away at the slightest look. In fact, it seemed as if she’d almost forgotten the scar was there.

  Case looked up, caught Lily’s father staring at him, and hoped he didn’t look as guilty as he felt. He also hoped that Morgan Brownfield couldn’t see everything that was in his heart. It would be uncomfortable, to say the least, if Lily’s father knew that he spent every waking moment wondering what it would be like to make love to his daughter.

  “Lunch is ready,” Lily called. “And just in time, here comes the crew.”

  Cole looked out the kitchen window and nearly forgot to breathe. Yesterday when they’d arrived, they’d had Lily all to themselves. But today it was business as usual, and he was dumbstruck by the rowdy crowd heading for the back door of the house.

  “You mean you feed this many every day?”

  “I feed them three times a day, goose,” Lily teased. “It’s no big deal. If you’d gotten up at a decent time this morning, you’d have met them then. It’s just like feeding you guys only six times over. Sit down and mind your manners. I don’t want the men to think I come from a family of heathens.”

  Case laughed. The look on her brothers’ faces was priceless. They couldn’t believe that Lily didn’t think them perfect in every way. Their muttered complaints only heightened his laughter. He envied her the comfort of knowing that no matter what she said or did, she’d always have the love of her family.

  Case was an only child, and his mother had left his father when Case was in college. It left him with nothing to come home to but a bitter, angry father who’d managed to maintain the ranch only long enough for Case to take over. After he had, Chock Longren had drunk himself into oblivion. As far as Case was concerned, his father had died years before his heart had actually stopped beating. He had no idea where his mother was and, quite frankly, had ceased to care. Lily was the first woman who’d mattered to him in a long, long while. Unfortunately, he had no idea how she felt about him. She alternated between being congenial but distant or ignoring him altogether. He lay awake nights afraid that would never change.

  Lily’s family was greeted warmly by the outgoing bunch of cowboys and before long, they had talked her twin brothers, J.D. and Dusty into trying their hand at helping brand and castrate the calves. The twins had decided that the experience would look great on their resumes.

  Lily smiled. Knowing the twins, they’d succeed or die trying. They were the most competitive of her brothers, with each other, as well as everyone else they met. She pitied the poor calves until the Brownfields mastered the art of cowboying.

  The meal was over. As usual, the men had eaten like a
swarm of locusts. She was always amazed at the amount of food Case provided for them. He was a generous, as well as competent, boss.

  She watched his interaction with her father and brothers and knew that regardless of the geography that had separated their upbringings, they were remarkably alike: hardheaded but willing to listen, forceful and aggressive, yet compassionate. But the way Lily felt about Case was different from the way she felt about her family. She loved her father and brothers dearly, but the feelings she had when Case came close to her, the heat that splintered the ice in her heart when he turned his all-seeing, sky-blue gaze her way, had nothing to do with familial love. She didn’t know whether it was a case of lust or the birth of something stronger, but Case Longren made her forget every ladylike manner she’d ever learned.

  She closed her eyes and turned toward the mountain of dirty pots and pans, squelching the thoughts of Case right back where they belonged, in her twilight zone.

  She waved a quick good-bye to the men as they stomped out the door and back to their jobs, taking her family with them. She didn’t have time for frivolous thoughts. And she didn’t intend to ever be put in a position for a man to hurt her again as Todd had done.

  So it was shock that made her drop the pan full of soapy suds back into the sink, splashing water over the walls and down her front when a deep, husky voice drawled behind her.

  “It’s good to see you smile, Lily.”

  “For pete’s sake, Case,” Lily muttered, as she swiped uselessly at the soap and water dripping down from the cabinet onto the floor, “you startled me. I didn’t know anyone was still here.”

  “Sorry,” he said, but he lied.

  He was not sorry he’d stayed behind, and he definitely wasn’t sorry that the water that had soaked into the front of her blouse was making it almost translucent. He should have been. But he wasn’t. Lily was so beautiful, and she curved in all the right places. He wanted to pull her into his arms and imprint himself into her body as persistently as the wet blouse that was sticking to her breasts.

  “Just look what you’ve done,” Lily accused, as she picked helplessly at the collar of her shirt.

  “I’m looking,” Case said, “but I’m not sure you’d be wanting me to if you could see what I see.”

  He struggled with the need to grin as Lily’s face turned twelve shades of red and exploded into instant fury.

  “If you were a gentleman, you wouldn’t be looking,” she blustered, and turned away in angry embarrassment.

  “Oh no, Lily Catherine,” Case said softly, “only a fool wouldn’t look at a beautiful woman. Gentleman has nothing to do with it.”

  Lily forgot to breathe or argue with the fact that he’d taken to calling her by the name reserved for her family. Beautiful! Her hand shot toward her face in reflex to his words but it never reached the scar. Case caught it before it touched her cheek.

  “I told you never to hide your face from me again, didn’t I,” Case said, as he threaded his fingers through her shaking hand and turned her in his arms to face him.

  Lily nodded, although she refused to meet his gaze. She couldn’t bear to see pity on his face.

  But it wasn’t pity that Case wore, and Lily should have looked.

  “I almost forgot why I came back,” Case said softly, tilting her head up to meet his look. “Don’t cook tonight. Set out some sandwich fixings. The men can fend for themselves. I’m taking you and your family out to eat.”

  The pleasure that shot through her died almost as quickly as it was born. She hadn’t been out socially in public since her accident and the panic that followed the pleasure made her stiffen in Case’s arms.

  “I don’t think that’s such a...”

  “I didn’t ask you what you thought, Lily. I don’t even want to hear it. I’m not asking anything of you that you’re not ready to face. It’s not like I asked anything so difficult of you. I could have asked you to my bed, Lily. But I didn’t. I only asked you to dinner. Please...”

  If he just hadn’t mentioned his bed she wouldn’t have forgotten to be angry. It was the image his words painted that made her forget what she’d been about to say. But he had, and she folded in his arms like an umbrella in a windstorm. She shrugged.

  “You could ask, Case Longren, until your tongue fell out, but bed is the last place I’d go with you.” The expression of cool disdain she was trying to effect was failing miserably. “However, since you said please, I suppose dinner isn’t out of the question...as long as my father and brothers are along.”

  Case grinned. When he left, she was going to be furious with him as well as herself, but he’d take what he could get and for now, dinner was it.

  “That’s the most ladylike insult I’ve ever received, Lily love.”

  He leaned forward, his mouth opening, opening, and then Lily watched in shocked fascination as it pursed. Case took a deep breath and blew long and slow at the soap bubble hanging suspended on the side of her face. It lifted off her cheek and floated into the air at eye level where Lily saw Case stick out a finger and burst its errant flight. The tiny pop it made was almost nonexistent, but Lily heard it just the same. At least she thought it was the bubble, but it might have been one of the icicles breaking away from her heart. She wasn’t sure, and she didn’t want to find out.

  * * *

  “So you’re having a barbecue Saturday night?” Lily’s brother Buddy asked between mouthfuls of salad he was shoveling into his mouth with less than precision.

  It was the first Lily had heard of any barbecue and she alternated between panic at the amount of food she would have to prepare and the fact that Buddy needed his manners cleaned up. She’d been away from home too long.

  “Buddy, you still haven’t lost it, have you?” Lily asked sharply.

  Her brother looked up, the question hanging from his eyes as accurately as the string of lettuce hanging from his mouth.

  “Lost what?” he mumbled.

  “The ability to talk and chew at the same time,” Lily drawled.

  Buddy blushed and shoveled the bit of lettuce inside with the rest as he grinned at the good-natured banter he was receiving.

  “Sorry, sis,” he said. “I guess you need to come back home more often and give us a refresher course on manners. There’s too many men living in that big old house alone.”

  “That’s not my fault, brother dear,” Lily teased. “I still can’t fathom why four perfectly healthy men haven’t been able to find just one woman between you. You’re either all awfully selfish and set in your ways, or there’s something you guys haven’t told me about your choice of life-styles.”

  Case burst out laughing at the look of indignant shock that flew around the table. Lord, it must be nice to have such a family! And he wished with all his heart that he was a part of it.

  “I don’t think any of us have anything to apologize for,” Cole muttered. “We just haven’t found the right woman yet, just like you hadn’t found the right man, Lily Kate. You know we all hated Todd ‘The Bod’ from day one. We weren’t far off the mark on him, so there’s still hope for us...and for you, too.” Then he grinned and looked pointedly at the big man sitting to her left.

  Lily flushed and looked down at her plate. She knew they were right. She’d never guessed so wrong about a man in her life. And that was one reason she didn’t trust her budding emotions about her boss, either.

  She glanced nervously around the crowded restaurant, smoothed at the bodice of the pink silk sheath she was wearing, and imagined that everyone was staring at her disfigured face. She breathed a tiny sigh of relief when she could see no one looking in their direction. She started to slide her hand up to her cheek when she remembered Case’s warning and turned wide, green, shell-shocked eyes toward him instead.

  Sure enough, hot blue was watching her every movement as intently as a spider watches a daredevil fly. Glaring at his temerity, she tilted her head back in defiance, unaware of the seductiveness of the movement as the curls clou
ding around her neck fell down her back and over the top of the chair in which she was sitting.

  Case caught his breath as he watched her hair slide like hot honey over and down the furniture and wished they were somewhere alone. He’d take off every stitch of clothing she was wearing and clothe her in nothing but that abundant, glorious gold.

  Lost in thought, he almost missed it as Lily’s father chided Cole for mentioning Todd Collins at all.

  “You didn’t have to bring that up,” Morgan said angrily.

  “No, Dad,” Lily said. “It’s all right. And he’s right. What can I say? As J.D. always says, I was suckered.”

  Case watched the hurt come and go in her eyes and wished he had the right to take her in his arms and heal the pain. But he didn’t and had to satisfy himself with less.

  Lily caught her breath and let her mouth fall open in slight surprise as Case slipped his hand beneath the tablecloth, pulled the napkin from her hand, and threaded his fingers through hers.

  He’d known, even with all her laughter and teasing, that she was still hurting. He’d heard the bitterness in her words just as he now felt the anger.

  Lily looked up and saw the expressions on his face flash and flare as his work-roughened palm slid across her smaller, softer one, engulfing it in a strong, sensuous stroke of comfort.

  Morgan caught the look that passed between them and wondered if Lily was just getting out of one problem and into another. They knew little about Case Longren other than the fact that he was successful and hard-working and seemed to worship the ground Lily walked on. But Todd Collins had those traits and look what he’d done! However, there was one thing in Case’s favor. He didn’t seem to be aware of the long red scar down Lily’s face. In fact, he didn’t act like he even knew it was there.

  Morgan sighed. He knew that it did no good to worry. His daughter was grown and could and would make her own decisions. He just prayed that it wouldn’t get her hurt again.

  “So,” Buddy continued as if nothing else had ever been said, “what’s with the barbecue?”