A Husband For Christmas. Diana Palmer

loved it for four, long, empty years. Cade, the eternal bachelor. She wondered if he’d ever marry, or want children of his own to inherit Painted Ridge and the other properties he had stock in. She’d thought once, at eighteen, that he might marry her one day. But he’d made a point of avoiding her after that devastating encounter. And in desperation, she had settled for the adventure and challenge of modeling.

      It had been the ultimate adventure at eighteen. Glamour, wealth, society—and for the first year or so it had almost satisfied her. She remembered coming home that first Christmas, bubbling with enthusiasm for her work. Cade had listened politely and then had left. And he’d been conspicuously absent for the rest of the time she was at Painted Ridge. She’d often wondered why he’d deliberately avoided her. But she’d been ecstatic over the glitter of New York and her increasing successes. Or she had been at first...

      Cade seemed to sense her intense appraisal. His head suddenly turned and he caught her eyes as he pulled up to the house and parked at the back steps. Abby felt a shock of pure sensation go through her like fire. It had been a long time since she’d looked into those dark, glittering eyes at point-blank range. It did the most wonderful things to her pulse, her senses.

      “You’ve been away longer this time,” he said without preamble. He leaned back against his door and lit a cigarette. “A year.”

      “Not from the ranch,” she countered. “You weren’t here last summer or at Christmas when I was.”

      He laughed shortly, the cigarette sending up curls of smoke. “What was the use?” he asked coolly. “I got sick of hearing about New York and all the beautiful people.”

      She sat erect, her chin thrusting forward. “Are we going to have that argument all over again?”

      “No, I’m through arguing,” he said curtly. “You made up your mind four years ago that you couldn’t find what you wanted from life anyplace except New York. I left you to it, Abby. I know a lost cause when I see one.”

      “What was there for me here?” she demanded, thinking back to a time when he wouldn’t come near her.

      But his face went cold at the words. It seemed actually to pale, and he turned his eyes out the window to look at the falling snow. “Nothing, I guess,” he said. “Open country, clean air, basic values and only few people. Amazing, isn’t it, that we have the fourth largest state in the country, but it’s forty-sixth in population. And I like it that way,” he added, pinning her with his eyes. “I couldn’t live in a place where I didn’t have enough room to walk without being bumped into.”

      She knew that already. Cade, with his long, elegant stride and love of open country, might as well die as be transplanted to New York. This was Big Sky country, and he was a Big Sky man. He’d never feel at home in the Big Apple. A hundred years ago, however, he would have fit right in with the old frontier ways. She remembered going to the old Custer battlefield with him, where the Battle of the Little Bighorn was fought, and watching his eyes sweep the rolling hills. He sat a horse the same way, his eyes always on the horizon. One of his ancestors had been a full-blooded Sioux, and had died at Little Bighorn. He belonged to this country, as surely as the early settlers and miners and cattlemen had belonged to it.

      Abby had wanted to belong to it, too—to Cade. But he’d let her get on that bus to New York when she was eighteen, although he’d had one hell of a fight with her father about it the night before she left. Jesse Shane had never shared the discussion with her. She only knew about it because she’d heard their angry voices in the living room and her name on Cade’s lips.

      “You never wanted me to go to New York,” she murmured as she withdrew from the pain of memory. “You expected me to fall flat on my face, didn’t you?”

      “I hoped like hell that you would,” he said bluntly, and his eyes blazed. “But you made it, didn’t you? Although, looking at you now, I could almost believe you hadn’t. My God, Calla has better taste in clothes.”

      She avoided his eyes, puzzled by the earlier statement. “I’m very tastefully dressed for a woman on a ranch,” she threw back, nervous that he might guess why she was wearing loose clothing, why she couldn’t bear anything revealing right now.

      “Is that a dig at me?” he asked. “I know ranch life isn’t glamorous, honey. It’s damned hard work, and not many women would choose it over a glittering career. You don’t have to tell me that.”

      How little he knew, she thought miserably. She’d chuck modeling and New York and the thought of being internationally famous if he asked her to marry him. She would have given up anything to live with him and love him. But he didn’t know, and he never would. Her pride wouldn’t let her tell him. He’d rejected her once, that magic night years before, even though he’d done it tenderly. She couldn’t risk having him do it again. It would be too devastating.

      Her eyes dropped to her suede boots. The boots would be ruined. She’d forgotten to spray them with protective coating, and she’d need to buy a new pair. Odd that she should think about that when she was alone with Cade. It was so precious to be alone with him, even for a few minutes. If only she could tell him what had happened, tell him the truth. But how could she admit that she’d come back to be healed?

      “Hey.”

      She looked up and found him watching her closely. He reached out and caught a lock of her long hair and tugged it gently.

      “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly.

      She felt the prick of tears and blinked to dispel them. It was so much harder when he was tender. It reminded her forcibly of the last time she’d heard his voice so velvety and deep. And suddenly she found herself wondering how she would react if he tried to hold her, touch her, now.

      “Nothing’s wrong,” she said shortly. “I was just thinking.”

      His face hardened and he let go of her hair. “Thinking about New York?” he demanded. “What the hell are you doing here in April, anyway? I thought summer was your only slack time.”

      “I came to see Melly, of course,” she shot back, her face hot and red. “To help her get ready for the wedding!”

      “Then you’ll be staying for a month,” he said matter-of-factly, daring her to protest. How could she when she’d stated the lie so convincingly?

      She swallowed. “Well...”

      “I understood you were designing her a dress?” he continued.

      “Yes,” she agreed, remembering the sketches she’d already done. Over the past few years she had discovered that she enjoyed designing clothes much more than modeling them.

      “My God, you’re quiet,” he observed, his eyes narrowing against the smoke of his cigarette. “You used to come home gushing like a volcano, full of life and happiness. Now you seem...sedate. Very, very different. What’s the matter, honey, is the glitter wearing off, or are you just tired of going around half-naked for men to look at?”

      She gasped at the unexpectedness of the attack and drew in a sharp breath. “Cade Alexander McLaren, I do not go around half-naked!”

      “Don’t you?” he demanded. He had that old familiar look on his face, the one that meant he was set for a fight. “I was up in New York one day last month on business and I went to one of your fashion shows. You were wearing a see-through blouse with nothing under it. Nothing!” His face hardened. “My God, I almost went up there and dragged you off that runway. It was all I could do to turn around and walk out of the building. Your father would have rolled over in his grave!”

      “My father was proud of me,” she returned, hurting from the remark. “And unless you missed it, most of the people who go to those shows are women!”

      “There were men there,” he came back. He crushed out the cigarette. “Do you take off your clothes for men in private, too, Abby?”

      She lifted her hand to hit him, but he caught the wrist and jerked. She found herself