A COWBOY'S PURSUIT Read online

  Her mother had been calling to her to get off the phone and hurry up. Her dad had been standing in the doorway wearing a wholly uncharacteristic suit and tie of his own as he'd grinned at her.

  But Celie hadn't grinned back. She'd stood there staring at the phone in disbelief, listening to Jace Tucker sigh and mutter under his breath, then say, "For crying out loud, Celie, say something!"

  "It's a lie," Celie had said, because that was all she could think right then. This was Jace, after all! She knew Jace would think getting married was a joke. She hated him right then more than she'd ever hated anyone.

  "It's not a lie, Celie," he'd said, his voice harsh. "Matt isn't coming! He doesn't want to get married. Call the wedding off."

  Mortified, she'd banged down the receiver. Then, numbly, she'd done exactly that. And all the while she'd burned with a white-hot fury at Jace's impatience. As if she should have known! As if she should have been expecting it. As if it were obvious that no man in his right mind would want to marry her!

  Jace hadn't even said he was sorry.

  Why should he be? He'd been with Matt the last time they'd come through Elmer. He'd stood in the kitchen, shifted from one booted foot to the other, impatient to be gone, barely even looking at her. He'd obviously thought she was a loser from the very start. And somehow he'd managed to convince Matt.

  He'd influenced Matt. Inspired Matt!

  And Celie still resented that. But mostly she resented Jace because every time she saw him she was reminded of her failure.

  She was not the person she wanted to be. She was a reasonably successful businesswoman. She was the owner of Elmer's only hair salon and video store. She was a volunteer at the library, the doting aunt of six nieces and a nephew, and the person that Sid the cat liked better than anyone else on earth.

  But she didn't have a boyfriend. Or a husband. Or a child.

  She wasn't a wife. Or a mother.

  She was a reject. And every time she saw Jace Tucker, she remembered that.

  For most of the past ten years she hadn't had to see him. Footloose rodeo cowboys like Jace didn't hang around hair salons in Elmer, even if their sister and her family still lived on the family ranch five miles north of town. A year could go by and she might only catch a glimpse of him once or twice.

  She heard about him now and then, of course. She knew he'd done well over the years in rodeo. He'd never been the world-champion bronc rider like Noah Tanner, who lived west of Elmer. But he'd got to the National Finals several years, and this past year Celie knew he'd gone to Las Vegas in the number-one spot.

  "Jace says this is his year," his sister, Jodie, who was Celie's age, had said proudly when she'd come into The Spa just before Thanksgiving to get her hair cut. "Maybe if he wins in Vegas next month at the NFR he'll retire and move back to town."

  Celie's heart had jerked in her chest at the very thought of running into Jace Tucker every time she turned around. But she hadn't said a word. She'd kept right on clipping, pleased that at least her fingers hadn't jerked.

  "Maybe he'll be ready to settle down," Jodie had speculated. "Find himself a good woman and have a passel of kids."

  Celie couldn't help snorting at that.

  Jodie had looked in the mirror and their eyes had met. She'd smiled mischievously. "Maybe I'll send him around."

  "No, thanks," Celie had said as fast as she could get the words out of her mouth.

  "You used to think he was sort of cute," Jodie reminded her.

  That was the trouble with living in the same place your whole life. People remembered all kinds of foolishness—like the fact that in sixth grade at a slumber party Celie had once let slip that she'd thought Jodie's big brother was kind of cute.

  "I've developed a bit of taste since then," Celie had said sharply.

  Jodie's brows lifted at Celie's tone. "He's not that bad," she'd defended her brother.

  You could also count on Jodie not remembering that Jace had been the one who'd broken the news to Celie about Matt. Unless he hadn't told her.

  Of course he'd told her! Celie couldn't imagine that he wouldn't have. But she didn't say anything. She made herself focus on Jodie's hair again, only replying, "I'm not interested in your brother."

  She had, however, said a fleeting prayer that Jace Tucker would not become the World Champion Bronc Rider in December. And she remembered feeling a momentary pang of guilt when a couple of weeks later she heard that he'd been injured at the NFR. She hadn't wanted him to win, but she hadn't expected he'd wind up in the hospital.

  Not that it had been her fault!

  If her God were the sort who exacted divine retribution for such selfish behavior, though, putting Jace to work in the hardware store after Artie had his heart attack would have been right up His alley. But if Celie wasn't blaming herself for Jace's getting injured, she could hardly blame God for Jace being in the store on that January day when Artie had had his attack or for his being with her at the hospital when the old man had been determined to have someone take over the store. It hadn't been necessary!

  Heaven knew she could have handled the hardware store herself. She'd said so. But Artie hadn't listened. He was stubborn and set in his ways, and even though he counted on Celie and her mother and her sister and nieces to do a lot of things, he was obviously old-fashioned enough to think a man ought to be in charge.

  He'd thought Jace ought to be in charge!

  Since then she'd had to deal with Jace Tucker. And it was having to deal with Jace on a daily basis that had made her furious enough to bid on Sloan.

  Seeing Jace day after day, being treated to his teasing, his knowing winks and gleeful grins had driven her right up the wall. A day hadn't gone by that he hadn't made some remark about Sloan Gallagher—and her!

  Celie had seethed and fumed. She'd felt first hollow and then angry and then desperate. She'd tried to cling to her dreams, but reality—and Jace—had kept getting in the way.

  As the Valentine cowboy auction had drawn closer, Jace had even turned up in her dreams as often as Sloan! It was transference, she'd assured herself. He was good-looking, damn him, though she'd never ever admit that out loud. He had thick dark hair and blue eyes very much like Sloan's. But while Sloan's were warm and tender—at least in his films—Jace's laughed and crinkled at the comers whenever he grinned and teased her, which was almost all the time.

  Celie wanted to throw things at him. She wanted to kick his shins. Mostly she tried to stay out of his way. But that didn't mean she didn't notice him.

  How could she not?

  And when he wasn't teasing her about Sloan, he was busy flirting with all the women who came into the store. There were, it seemed, hundreds of them. Not just the locals girls, whom he flirted with as a matter of course, but all the ones who'd come to Elmer to bid on Sloan.

  "You'd think they came to bid on you," she'd said to him once.

  "I'm not for sale," he'd said smugly.

  "No one would buy you," she'd retorted.

  Jace had just laughed. But Celie hadn't thought it was funny. She also knew it wasn't true. If Jace Tucker had been auctioned off, she was quite sure lots of women would bid on him. He'd certainly had plenty of women clamoring to stay with him in the extra rooms at Artie's house while they waited for the auction.

  Celie had muttered something disparaging about Jace and his harem in the days right before it.

  He'd just laughed. "Jealous? Want to join?"

  "Never!" Celie had snapped. "I won't share my man."

  "If you ever get another one," Jace said. He'd said, "Sorry," quick enough right after, when he'd seen the look on her face.

  But the shock of what he'd said had struck her to the core.

  And that was when Celie had actually begun to consider bidding on Sloan. At first the idea was so wild and preposterous that she couldn't believe she'd ever thought it. But the more she did think about it, the more she realized that she had to do something. If she didn't, they'd be nailing her in her c
offin and they'd write on her tombstone, "Here Lies Cecilia O'Meara—She Died Before She Lived."

  And Celie wanted to live.

  Fantasies weren't enough anymore. Dreams didn't suffice.

  And so, on the day of the auction, she'd mustered her courage, marched into the town hall and had bid her bank balance on Sloan Gallagher down to the last red cent. She'd won. She'd been panic-stricken.

  And yet, it had been worth it—just to see the look of utter disbelief on Jace Tucker's face.

  The memory of it could still make her smile. It had been so supremely satisfying, so uplifting, so utterly pleasurable. It was actually addictive, she discovered, the joy of shocking Jace. She'd wanted to do it again.

  Of course if Sloan had fallen in love with her, no doubt she would have seen Jace's jaw dragging on the ground. But Sloan hadn't.

  And just as well, because while she liked him a lot, she found that she didn't love him.

  Certainly not the way her sister Polly loved him. And not the way Sloan loved Polly.

  But seeing them, she knew she wanted that kind of love. She didn't want to be alone for the rest of her life, didn't want to be a spinster hairdresser with no one to love but her cats.

  So she made up her mind to keep looking.

  Going on a singles cruise in April had been a step in that direction. It had been so completely different from her landlocked, down-home existence that it had seemed like the next logical step for a woman who was trying to jump-start her life.

  And it had had the added advantage of flabbergasting Jace Tucker once again.

  "A singles cruise?" He'd stared at her as if she'd announced that she was going to dance naked on the counter in the middle of Gilliam's Hardware Store. As if a singles cruise was out of the question for a woman like her.

  As if she wouldn't know what to do there!

  Celie had known what to do. And if she had been scared spitless the day she'd boarded that giant ship in Miami, she'd soon discovered that it wasn't as terrifying as she'd imagined. She'd discovered that the skills she'd developed while talking to people when she cut their hair were useful when she wanted to meet new people, when she wanted to meet men.

  She'd met quite a few men. She was still wary. Still nervous around them. But she was never as nervous with any other man as she was around Jace Tucker. She'd hoped the cruise would cure that.

  But it hadn't. She'd hoped he'd go back to the ranch and she wouldn't see him and it wouldn't matter. But he hadn't done that, either.

  "Artie wants me to stay," he'd said. "And Ray and Jodie's is a little too small for us all. I'll stay with Artie while I'm building my place."

  His place. He was settling down, just the way Jodie had said. He'd told Celie so himself. He'd even implied he had a particular woman in mind. But he wouldn't tell her who.

  And Celie couldn't guess. It seemed to her that every time she saw him he was with someone else—from her niece Sara to the actress Tamara Lynd, who'd been one of the women staying with him during the auction.

  Was it Tamara? She refused to ask. But she didn't want to be around to watch, either. And that was when she'd decided that a job on a cruise ship might not be a bad idea. So she'd set about making it happen.

  She was thirty. She wanted a life. She wanted a husband. A family. And taking a job on a cruise ship had seemed as good a way as any to make that happen. So she'd applied and crossed her fingers and hoped.

  And last night when she'd got back from Sloan and Polly's wedding, there it was—the job offer she'd been waiting for. The very thought of going terrified her.

  But more than that it gave her enormous pleasure—especially this morning when she'd told Jace Tucker she was leaving Elmer for good.

  Jace should have known better.

  By the ripe old age of thirty-three he should have figured out that drinking himself under the table was a less than successful response to almost anything that ailed him—and that included getting Celie O'Meara out of his mind.

  She was out of his life. Had been for a month. A month that seemed like a year. Ten years. Forever, when you got right down to it.

  He still couldn't believe she'd left! If ever there was a homebody in the world, Celie was it. But twenty-four hours after she'd come home from Polly and Sloan's wedding she'd put a Going Out of Business sign in The Spa window and seven days later she was gone.

  "She didn't even say goodbye!" Jace had said, outraged, when he discovered it.

  "Because you were still in bed," Artie told him with blunt disapproval, "sleepin' off that bender."

  It was true that Jace had been doing his fair share of drinking at the Dew Drop and down at The Barrel in Livingston since Celie's announcement. He'd also been doing his best to find a woman who appealed to him more. He hadn't, but it wasn't for lack of effort.

  "You mighta stopped her," Artie had told him reprovingly.

  Jace had scowled. "Yeah, right. Begged her not to go."

  Artie nodded. "Yep."

  But Jace would never have done that. He wouldn't have admitted anything—not when she'd acted like he was lower than dirt. "I'd have looked like a damn fool."

  "And now you don't?"

  No, damn it, he didn't! He just looked tired.

  He still looked tired a month later—because, damn it, he was tired. It was a lot of work going out every night, carousing, meeting women, trying to be flirtatious and charming, especially when he didn't want to bother, especially when it didn't seem to be doing any good!

  Artie was disgusted with him, and Jace knew it. The old man didn't say anything, but he didn't have to. He only had to sit there in his damned recliner every evening with that book of zen wisdom Celie's mother had given him in his lap, regarding Jace with sad resignation over the tops of his spectacles as the younger man headed for the door. It was Nickel Nite at the Dew Drop, which meant that women could play pool for a nickel a game. With luck there might be a new one—one single, reasonably attractive, interested female that he hadn't already met.

  "What?" Jace demanded, glowering at Artie's pained expression.

  But Artie only shook his head. "I'd think you'd get tired of it."

  He didn't have to specify what. And Jace was tired of it. But he didn't see any alternatives. "You got any better ideas?"

  "Could be."

  Jace stopped, his hand on the doorknob. He gave Artie a hard look. "Which means?"

  "Life is what you make it."

  He had the blinkin' zen book on his lap again. Jace ground his teeth. "Sure it is," he spat.

  Artie nodded, smiling. "You are what you do."

  "I'm doin' something!"

  "Getting drunk. Picking up women. Trying to pick up women," Artie corrected himself, infuriating Jace even more.

  "I'm not getting drunk. I haven't in weeks."

  "And thank God for that," Artie said piously.

  "It didn't hurt you," Jace pointed out.

  "Didn't help you, though, either, did it?"

  "Nothin's helping!"

  "Seems not," Artie said thoughtfully. He patted the book on his lap. "Maybe you should try somethin' else."

  "I've tried."

  "Besides other women."

  "Like what?" Jace said belligerently. He nodded his head at the zen book. "I suppose that thing has all the answers."

  "You could say that."

  "Such as?" Jace challenged.

  Artie shrugged. "Wherever you go, there you are." At Jace's confused stare, Artie sighed, then amplified. "And if you don't go, well, then you ain't there, are you?"

  "I haven't gone anywhere."

  "Ain't that the truth," Artie muttered. "Sometimes, I swear," he said with weary resignation, "you are as dumb as you look. You love Celie O'Meara, don't you?"

  "Well, I—"

  "You love Celie O'Meara." It wasn't a question. "You been tryin' for a month to forget her, to move on, to get her outa your system, outa your mind, outa your life. You tried work, you tried booze, you tried other women. An
d it ain't done you a damn bit of good. You haven't been able to do it, have you?"

  "Well, I—"

  "You haven't." Artie answered his own question. "So you gotta do somethin' else. Somethin' to convince her you love her."

  Jace opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again. He didn't see how the hell he could convince her—even if he had a mind to—if she wasn't even here. Besides, telling someone you loved her was risky. It meant saying things he'd never said to anyone—least of all the one woman in the world who had every right to hate his guts.

  "'Course, if you're chicken…" Artie murmured.

  Jace's teeth came together with a snap. "Fine. By all means, let's hear it. What do you suggest?" he said. "What zen proverb is gonna make it all better?"

  "Ain't zen," Artie said. "It's just good old-fashioned common sense. If the boat don't come to you, boy, it's time you went to the boat."

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  Working on a cruise ship was totally different from cruising on a cruise ship. Celie learned that in about ten minutes flat.

  It was long hours spent doing exactly what she'd done back in Elmer—cutting, combing, shampooing and coloring, and two afternoons a week giving massages to passengers hungry for a little pampering—and sometimes doing it with the deck swaying under her feet. It was sharing a room barely big enough to get dressed in, a room so deep in the bowels of the ship that she wondered if she ought to decompress on her way up to the salon where she worked. At work it was a supervisor who didn't carry a whip, but who might as well have. She was called Simone.

  "Actually Simon," Stevie, one of the other hairdressers said. "As in Simon Legree."

  Celie could believe it. Simone had sacked her first roommate, Tracy, for coming out of a passenger's stateroom one morning wearing the dress she'd worn to dinner the night before.

  "You charm the passengers," Simone said. "You don't sleep wiz zem."

  Celie took the lesson to heart. Not that she'd had her heart set on sleeping with any of them, anyway. It was enough to be charming. She'd met a lot of people. A lot of men, actually. She'd visited several Caribbean ports on her days off with a few of them. She'd made more memories in the past eight weeks than she'd made in a lifetime in Elmer.