Some Like It Ruthless (It's Only Temporary, Book 2) [Ebook]

Cole Montgomery had come to beg.

And it sat in his gut like lead. Went well with the ulcerous hole the threat of bankruptcy was causing. But he couldn’t see any way out but going under.

Either under water or under the heel of a too tall, too skinny, too beautiful woman who hated him with every fiber of her being.

That she had good cause to hate him didn’t make it any easier to swallow.

He looked at the cool blond with eyes the color of a melting glacier and thought if he hadn’t been such a stupid shit six years ago, it would’ve been a whole lot easier to talk her into helping him.

He said, “I don’t need your money, just your name. The time your name can give me.”

Margaret Caldwell pushed her chair back from the desk, crossed a long leg, and steepled her fingers. “You want to marry me.”

Cole resisted the urge to rub his stomach. “I’m proposing a merger. Agree to play my fiance, give a few smiles to my creditors. Let them think that we’ll be combining our land, our businesses, and they’ll get off my back long enough for me to crawl out of this hole I’ve dug for myself.”

She didn’t smile when she said, “There are quite a few holes you’ve dug for yourself around here.”

He leaned forward. “I know it. I think it shows how deep the shit is if I’m coming to a Caldwell for a shovel.”

Her lips twitched. “You’ve always had a way with words, Cole.”

He felt a ray of hope. “I’ll give you anything if you play along with this. Let you publicly castrate me at the end of it.”

Maggie looked mildly interested, the first interest he’d seen in her eyes since he’d walked through the thick mahogany doors of her office, and her eyes flicked down to his crotch. She said, “Tempting. But I think bankruptcy will do that for me.”

It would. It would leave him with nothing, including his balls.

There were a fortunate few who could survive in Dallas society after a bankruptcy. Maggie was one of them, but Cole Montgomery wasn’t anywhere close. He didn’t have friends in high places to ease the way. He didn’t have a name as old as the city itself or have a goddamned street named after an ancestor of his.

Although it might as well have been. With views of the railroad tracks and home to semi-trailers, Montgomery Street epitomized what Dallas society thought of Cole and his father.

The son of a ruthless upstart wouldn’t get a second chance, a second thought, if his budding empire fell apart. Maybe after a few more generations the Montgomerys would have been accepted. Or after a hell of a lot more money.

He knew his current predicament had come from pushing too hard, risking too much to get those golden gates opened to him. He’d wanted to be part of the club. Now he could see, too late, how stupid that was.

He should just have “stupid shit” branded on his ass.

Because all Cole Montgomery had was a long line of enemies who would love nothing more than to tear apart everything he, and his father before him, had taken from them.

He knew he should include Maggie on that list of enemies. But despite their long and rocky past, she’d always come to his rescue when he’d gotten in over his head. The first eight years he’d known Maggie, she’d sauntered in front of his raised fists more times than he cared to count.

No one, but no one, would dare harm a Caldwell. Even the stupidest teenage boy would back away for fear of accidentally hurting her. Because if you dared hurt a Caldwell, the golden gates closed against you and yours. Loans were rescinded, money dried up, and you could kiss Texas goodbye.

He could only hope that the first eight years meant more to her than the last six.

Maggie said, “I’m not going to help you, Cole. We’re competitors, rivals. If I can buy your distressed property for pennies on the dollar after your bankruptcy, I will dance a jig on that watering hole your father swindled out of mine.”

“You can have the watering hole. I’ll even dance a jig with you– clothes optional.”

He looked at her, trying to see any emotion on her face that didn’t give him shivers. He would never know how a woman raised in the hot Texas sun could learn to freeze a man with her gaze.

Cole said, “We’re more than players in a petty feud, Maggie. More than a flickering flame left over from our fathers’ war. We’re neighbors. Friends.”

Friends might have been pushing it. Maggie had told him once that they were frenemies. That they might have liked each other if their families hadn’t hated each other. Might have liked each other if their fathers hadn’t spent years trying to break the other one.

Might have been lovers still if he hadn’t gone for the kill at the first provocation.

Maggie said, “We’re neighbors only because your father was a cheat and a bastard. And we’re not friends.”

He didn’t disagree about his father. Look up cheat or bastard in any dictionary in Texas and Rich Montgomery’s picture would be glued there. Even after the man had been dead for three years.

He said, “We were friends. More than friends at one time.”

She raised one eyebrow at him, that was it, and he knew he’d lost. He’d misstepped by bringing up their ill-fated relationship. His only consolation was there had been little hope she would’ve gone along with his plan to begin with.

She got up, her heels clicking methodically across the cool marble as she headed for the door.

Cole said softly, “Please. Please, Maggie.”

She had to know he would only come to her if he had no other option. No hope. But he’d say the words for her. Give her that, and hope she liked the thought of lording it over him enough to put the past behind them.

She turned, her hand on the doorknob and a cold, cruel smile on her face. “I’ve always wanted to hear a Montgomery beg. Outside of the bedroom.”

Cole closed his eyes, acknowledging his words being thrown back at him. The disgusting words of an eighteen-year-old boy.

It had been too much to hope she’d forgotten. Forgiven.

He nodded his head, and didn’t bother to open his eyes when the door opened and his salvation walked out of it.

He heard her say to her assistant, “Get him out of my office,” and wondered if there was any way down that would end with him splattering on the hot cement below. Fast and messy had to be better than this long drawn-out hell.

Cole didn’t look for Maggie as security escorted him out and to the elevators. Didn’t want to see the glee he’d find in her eyes.

Didn’t want to see what a Caldwell looked like when she finally broke a Montgomery.

Six years later

Maggie set her drink down with a thud and glared at her sister. “It’s not happening. Ever.”

“You want to put Daddy in a home? And Mother? Should we just dig her up and move her to the cemetery?”

Maggie rubbed her forehead. She wanted to say that Mother was dead, Daddy was good as. It would be kinder to him if he was.

She said, “I am not asking Cole Montgomery to bail me out of bankruptcy. End of story.”

Maggie didn’t bother saying she had a better chance of winning the lottery than of getting him to help. Her sister must have had three drinks too many to even think it was a possibility.

Ginny said, “He asked you to help him when bankruptcy was breathing down his neck.”

Maggie laughed humorlessly. “And I said no. Remember?”

“But he asked. Now that the situations are reversed, it would almost be rude not to ask him.”

Maggie shook her head, pushing her fist into the ache in her stomach. She kept forgetting that alcohol was not her friend anymore.

Maggie said, “I didn’t realize there was etiquette involved when begging for favors.”

“He gave you the opportunity to be the bigger man. To let bygones be bygones. It’s not his fault you didn’t take it.”

Maggie sometimes hated her sister. She had plenty of reasons to. Where Margaret was tall enough to be intimidating, Virginia was just tall enough to be statuesque. Where Margaret’s blond was ashy, nearly silver even, Virginia’s blond was the color of golden honey. Where Margaret made people run into doors, Virginia made people run to open doors.

Maggie was beautiful, except when she was next to her sister. Next to her sister she was just a little too much to be beautiful.

But Maggie had one thing Ginny didn’t. Where Ginny was sweet and lovely and loved by everyone who knew her, Maggie was ruthless. She got what she wanted. And she protected what was hers.

She sacrificed for what was hers.

Maggie took a long, long look at her drink and wished looking could give the same kind of relief.

Ginny said, “Asking won’t hurt.”

Yes, it would. It would quite possibly be the most painful thing Maggie had ever had to endure because of Cole Montgomery. And there was already a long list to choose from.

Maggie looked at the sister she loved and hated. She listened to the endless beeping from her father’s machine, faint but steady. No matter where she was in the ranch house she could hear it. She could hear it in quiet moments even in Dallas, as if when her father had patted her hand and wheezed at her to look after things, he’d passed unbreakable strings connecting her to every member of the family.

Unbreakable and loud. All their problems throbbing in her head. In her stomach.

All of this was her responsibility.

And sometimes she felt her father was sticking around just to see how she would do with it.

So far she’d made a giant fuck-up of it.

Maggie said the word no lady should ever say out loud and Ginny smiled at her. “Just think of it as Cole Montgomery bailing us out of bankruptcy. Not you. Us.”

“He wouldn’t help any of us for any reason. I’ll just think of it as something to say ‘I told you so’ over.”

“Maybe he’ll surprise you.”

Maggie snorted, dumping amber liquid down the drain. “Cole Montgomery will never surprise me again.”

Tanner wandered in just as the last bit of liquid left her glass. “Waste the last of the fine scotch, would you?”

He pecked Ginny on the lips, wrapping his arm around her waist and sipping from her Baileys.

Ginny smiled into his eyes and Maggie turned away from one more problem beating a swift tempo in her stomach.

She gripped the edge of the sink, looking down into the black drain and wishing she could pour herself down it.

Maggie drove the four hours west to Cole’s new headquarters knowing it was useless. He wasn’t going to help her, not after he’d begged.

Six years later and she could still see him sitting in that chair. His hard blue eyes closed, his black hair just a little too long, a little too wild, as if he’d run his hands through it more times than it could take. His wide shoulders hunched, his body slumped, hiding his height, hiding the long, lean muscles that said he knew how to fight. Everything about him lost and defeated.

She’d nearly changed her mind. And then had remembered that she’d begged him, with the same result.

The sting should have faded. But she didn’t want it to. She didn’t want to forget what happened when you mixed up your enemy with your friend.

She wouldn’t beg again. Not today. Not ever.

She would ask Cole for his help, knowing he wouldn’t, so her sister would move on. They couldn’t get mired in wishful thinking; they couldn’t afford to waste any time hanging hope on a man like Cole.

Maggie turned onto a thin dirt track far enough outside of Midland that she couldn’t see the improbable skyline of “The Tall City” rising out of the desert, and bounced gingerly along in her little, yet surprisingly big, Elantra.

She could see a grouping of construction trailers and a dozen trucks about a mile ahead, and knew she was looking at Cole Montgomery’s empire. It didn’t look like it but since Cole’s near-bankruptcy, he’d prospered.

It wasn’t lost on Maggie that he’d flourished while she’d struggled.

He’d gotten lucky, there was no doubt. And she’d been supremely unlucky.

But that didn’t change the fact that he’d ridden his luck as hard and as far as he could.

Shale oil had saved him. Mere months after he’d come to her, oil prices had soared and his formerly unprofitable wells in West Texas had literally become gushers. Technology too expensive to use at lower oil prices had become more than profitable. He’d run to West Texas, the forerunner of a new boom in oil, and had prospered.

With early profits he’d snatched up land and property in and around Midland, watching values double, all the while basing his business on cheaper land on the outskirts of town. Cole had learned not to overextend himself, and to not waste space that could pay.

Shale oil had saved him from bankruptcy in more ways than one, though not before everyone knew he was headed that direction thanks to her refusal to help him.

She’d seen him on occasion in the last six years, they were neighbors after all, and knew he wore his oil money like a badge.

He drove a beat-up Ford truck that was usually covered in mud. He wore work boots instead of Italian loafers. And his offices were as far from the central business district of Dallas, as far from the gleaming glass skyscrapers and brand-name suits, as he could get.

Cole’s father had been focused on making Dallas society welcome him with open arms. And Cole had spent the good part of his formative years following his father.

Neither had ever been welcomed.

But Cole had seemed to wave that dream away when shale had become feasible. He’d been one of the first to see just what it meant and had dropped everything for his one last chance.

Six years ago, Maggie had been his one last chance, and she’d relished it. Relished denying him his saving grace. Relished that he knew full well he deserved it.

And then he’d found another one last chance.

Lucky bastard.

Maggie thought as she parked that the busyness, the rough language and bellowed curses, the frenetic energy in the air, suited him better. This life on the edge, this aggression without the smiling back-stabbing, was just like Cole.

The busyness and cursing stopped as she got out. She asked the nearest roughneck which trailer was Cole’s and received a wordless point as he looked down at her shoes.

Maggie held out a business card to Cole’s harried admin when she entered. “Margaret Caldwell. He’ll see me.”

Eventually.

She took a seat in a metal folding chair, crossing her ankles. The admin stopped what he was doing, ran his eyes down her pale peach blouse and taupe pencil skirt, down her legs to her three-inch heels with their thin ankle straps, and said, “Uhhh…”

Maggie had arrived knowing Cole would keep her waiting as long as he could. And she thought that in this male-dominated business, a womanly woman might just throw a kink in the works. A kink that would need to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Not to mention, her three-inch heels put her eye to eye with Cole’s six foot three.

She’d thought about finding some four-inch heels but decided in the end that she needed to be able to walk after all.

Maggie nodded at her card, still in the admin’s hand. “Margaret Caldwell. To see Cole.”

The admin looked at the card, looked at her legs, then picked up the phone.

Fifty-three minutes later, Cole opened the door to his office. He held a bottle of water in one hand and gripped the door with the other. The sight of Maggie sitting there, snotty and holy-hotter-than-hell left him breathless. Her mile-long legs ended in ankle breakers with straps wrapping around each ankle, and Cole knew the devil had invented those shoes. They made a man want to reach down and circle those ankles with his fingers. Didn’t matter that he’d wind up on his knees before her.

She uncrossed her ankles, rising, and Cole knew that every man, and there were quite a few more than usual stuffed into his trailer, was watching. Watching her slim skirt ride up just a touch, watching her shimmy it back down.

She sniffed as she passed him and murmured, “So predictable.”

He resisted the urge to throw his water in her face just to prove how predictable he was.

He closed the door behind her, trying not to inhale the light, crisp scent she wore. Tried not to notice that it was different from the musky scent she wore six years ago. Different from the flowery scent she’d worn in high school.

Cole set his water bottle down gently, out of reach, and sat down behind his desk. He stared at her, waiting for her to tell him why she’d come down and disrupted his operation.

It would be good, he had no doubt. Maggie wouldn’t seek him out for anything less.

She said, “Remember that deal you asked me for six years ago?”

He cocked his head. “The one where you turned me down?”

She nodded her head.

He looked up at the ceiling and remembered a man so desperate he’d begged a Caldwell for help. He said, “What about it?”

Her face remained cool and calm but he heard her take in a deep breath. She said, “I’m interested in that deal now.”

He smiled, a slow grin that worked its way from slightly amused to full-out entertained. He raised his eyebrows and said, “You want to marry me.”

“Not particularly. But I need…some time.”

He tapped the desk, his smile fading. “How bad is it?”

“Bad.” She moved her hands palm out, indicating him and his office. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

He knew how that went. A woman had to be pretty damn desperate to come to a Montgomery for help.

He swiveled his chair to look out his window, out into the parking lot full of muddy trucks and busy men.

She said, “I don’t want your money. But I need your name.”

She laughed bitterly and he couldn’t stop the breath that rushed out. Margaret Caldwell, one of the scions of Dallas, needed him. A no-good Montgomery from the wrong side of the tracks.

He felt a cold sneer take over his face and knew what he would look like. His bastard of a father had sneered whenever he got the upper hand over someone. Anyone.

Cole wiped his face clean, and breathed, and continued to watch muddy trucks and muddy men. Too busy to care what image they were presenting.

Maggie said, “I need the time your name will give me.”

He swiveled his chair back around to find her eyes closed, her hands folded tight in her lap. He watched until her eyes opened. The color of her eyes changed from cool green to brilliant turquoise, depending on her mood.

Right now green was winning, and it pissed him off. She’d come in here in that skirt and those shoes with clear green eyes.

He said, “You know what I want in exchange.”

She looked taken aback, as if surprised that she was still what he wanted. Or maybe she was surprised that a grown man would still be making deals with his Johnson in mind.

She shook her head, her expression torn between amused and insulted. “No.”

“Then no deal.”

She rose. “Good.”

“You have an interesting way of negotiating.”

“I’m not negotiating. I’m appeasing my sister.”

“I thought I was your last option. I can’t imagine you would come beg if you had any other way out.”

“You aren’t my last option. Just the quickest one. And I don’t remember begging.”

Cole raised an eyebrow. “And just what are your other options? Street-walking is harder than it looks.”

One corner of her mouth quirked up. “Not if you get the right clients.”

He plopped one booted foot onto his knee, hopefully hiding a certain portion of his body and its growing interest in their conversation. He could all too clearly see her cool, calm and in charge.

He said, “Let me get this straight. You’d rather sleep with anybody who’s got two nickels to rub together than sleep with me?”

“I’d rather sleep with anything than sleep with you. I don’t really care if it has thumbs to rub those nickels together.”

He muttered, “Tell me how you really feel, Empress.”

Her eyes flashed, blue edging into the green, and he nearly crowed with delight. That old spitfire was still in there, ready to take his head off.

He waited with baited breath to hear her say it. Just one little “don’t call me that” and he would agree to any of her terms. Keep her creditors at bay, play the game with her one more time. He’d even let her keep her dignity, although he might not tell her that just yet. He wouldn’t mind watching her sweat just a little.

He waited. And he waited.

They stared at each other, the years too thick between them.

Maggie clutched her bag in one hand and turned toward the door.

He said, “That was it? You drive four hours to get here, wait an hour to see me, then spend five minutes trying to talk me into it?”

She looked back at him. “There’s nothing I’m willing to give you that would make it worth your while. But now I can tell Ginny that you won’t help and we can move on to the next possibility.”

“If your body’s not for sale, I might be tempted by land.”

She shook her head. “No. Again.”

He spread his hands wide. “If you’re going to lose it anyway…”

“Even if I would give it to you, it wouldn’t help. It’s all mortgaged.”

“All of it?” Her eyes shuttered and he took a deep breath. “Even the ranch house?”

“All of it.” She said it coldly, as if losing the ranch house wouldn’t rip out her soul, but he knew better. Knew what home and family meant to her.

“Maggie.”

She stood there silently, her back straight, her legs braced as if waiting for an attack from him.

He said, “For Christ’s sake, sit back down.”

“Are you going to help us? For nothing in return?”

“Well…”

She opened the door, stopping when she saw a group of roughnecks pretending to wait for a paycheck so they could check her out.

She turned around with a genuine smile on her face. “Thanks, Cole. Predictable was just what I needed. I don’t think I could have taken one more surprise from you.”

He frowned at her and she said, “I hope the vultures make you pay twice what the ranch house is worth.”

He opened his mouth and she walked out, shutting the door before he could say anything. What would he have said? That he didn’t want the house?

He’d wanted that house since he was fourteen years old. Since he was old enough to know that he might live in a house bigger than his old apartment building, might have more land, more money than he’d ever dreamed existed, but he didn’t have a family that laughed and played and loved each other.

He didn’t have friends to make the huge house less empty or to stand next to him in a fight.

He would roam his father’s acres, none too careful about making sure it actually was his father’s acres, with binoculars glued to his face, watching his new neighbors. Watching what life was like for them.

And especially watching the Caldwells. Watching Maggie and her sister live in their big, warm house. Watching their father play and laugh and tease with them.

A man all of Texas feared who let his daughters put a rope around him and lead him around the yard like a pony.

Watching their mother fussing and grooming and preparing them for life. They’d hated her fussing and he couldn’t help but hate them for having what he so wanted and not realizing their great fortune.

They’d had everything in life. While he’d had nothing, no one.

Cole swiveled his chair back around to the window, watching Maggie leave a wake of slack-jawed men behind her. Watched her get into her little coupe, her skirt riding up again, his eyes zeroing in on those straps around her ankles, and thought he’d been just as stupid as those girls.

He’d had someone once. He’d had someone who stood unflinching next to him when his fists were bloody and bruised. He’d had someone who fussed over him, who tried to knock some sense into him and prepare him for life in shark-infested waters.

And he’d never realized what he’d had until he’d thrown it away.

Twenty years ago

Cole had been too busy looking through his binoculars to hear her footsteps. When she nudged him with her shoe, he jumped and shrieked, spinning on his toes and raising his fists.

Maggie looked at his raised fists as if she’d never seen one pointed her direction before and said, “My daddy shoots trespassers.”

Cole puffed out his chest. “This is my land. This is Montgomery land.”

“It’s Caldwell land.”

He sneered. “Better check your map, baby.”

Even at ten-years-old, Maggie knew how to raise an eyebrow just so. It was nearly as fearsome as a pair of fists.

“My daddy says any man calls me baby, I should kick him in the balls.”

Cole protected himself reflexively. “My daddy says your daddy is a bad loser. Empress.”

He would just file that “no baby” rule away for future thought. He wasn’t willing to test it again on Maggie.

Maggie took a step forward and shoved him. “I told you, don’t call me that.”

Cole raised his hands to shove Maggie back, then remembered. You didn’t shove a girl. You didn’t hit a girl. You didn’t call a girl “baby”.

There wasn’t all these rules in his before-life, and it took effort to take a step back. He said, “My daddy says someone shoves you, they better expect a shove back.”

His father had never said anything like it. If Cole had to guess, his father would say if someone looked like they were going to shove you, you’d better shove first. And Cole had never in his life called Rich Montgomery “Daddy”. But Maggie had a daddy. It only seemed fair that she think he had one, too.

Maggie sniffed. “I guess we’re even then.”

“How you figure?”

“I should have kicked you and you should have shoved me.”

Cole thought about that for a few minutes, then decided Maggie probably knew what she was talking about. Maggie was pretty big on fair.

He finally nodded. “Even.”

“Daddy saw the reflection off your binoculars. You’ve got to remember to keep the sun behind you.”

Cole’s stomach dropped. He didn’t mind running into Maggie when he might or might not be on Montgomery land; he sure as hell did not want to run into her father.

He nodded again, and before he could even think of anything to say, she said, “Ginny says Martha says Gayle says she heard her brother talking about a fight Friday after school.”

“Michael and Jonah.”

They’d set it up with him like they were scheduling a piano lesson. He’d never get used to the warnings. How stupid do you have to be to tell your prey when you’re going to attack?

Maggie narrowed her eyes. Cole had known she wouldn’t like it.

He said, “I’ve told you. Two against is fine. I can take two sissy boys who’ve never been in a real fight before.”

“It’s not fair,” she said and Cole rolled his eyes.

“Two of them equals one of me. It’s fair.”

“What about three?”

“Depends on the three.” Cole puffed out his chest but it was wasted on her.

She said, “How will I know if three is too many?”

Cole had hated the first time Maggie had come to his rescue, especially since it had only been two boys swinging at him like they was swinging blind-folded at a piñata. But since then he’d realized there was an endless wave of them and only one of him.

Sometimes a man had to take help where he could get it.

And he knew exactly what his father would say about that.

But some days, most days, Cole liked Maggie better than his father, and she made a lot of sense when he was nursing a black eye, fat lip, and sore ribs.

Cole said, “Maybe we need a signal or something. But it can’t be too obvious.”

“Like you curled up in a ball on the ground?”

He narrowed his eyes. She was never going to let him forget that.

He said, “Sometime before that would probably be okay.”

Maggie smiled, her creepy eyes changing colors.

They gave her away when he was fighting. She liked watching him fight. Her eyes stayed that creepy greeny-blue for a long time after one of his fights. It didn’t matter if he won or lost. And while he liked it better when he won, losing wasn’t so bad either.

When he lost, Maggie stepped between him and his enemies. It was hard to feel like a loser when your enemy was the one cowering from a girl.

A girl with soft hands who rinsed blood away like his housekeeper washed the fine china.

A girl with soft hands who held an ice pack to his face like she was holding a day-old kitten.

A girl with soft hands and swirling eyes who should be his greatest enemy and instead was his only friend.

A girl with soft hands and a sharp voice that told him he was an idiot. Whether he won or lost.

Cole had never had a mother but he thought Maggie would one day make a pretty good one. Cole thought soft hands and a sharp voice was just what a mother was supposed to be like.

Cole sat in the shade watching Maggie swimming back and forth, back and forth. She looked as if the weight of the world rested on her too skinny shoulders. She swam as if all her devils were chasing her.

He’d been out here for over an hour, waiting for her to get home. The housekeeper had taken one look at him and crossed herself. She’d repeated, “No, no, no, no,” and he’d held up a hand to forestall a complete meltdown.

“I’ll wait by the pool. Tell Maggie I’m here.”

The housekeeper had shrieked, “Madre de Dios! She no here!”

“I’ll wait.”

He’d half-believed Maggie had been inside the whole time, making him wait just a little bit longer than he’d made her wait. But one glance at her barely-hanging-in-there, faded black Speedo and he’d known Maggie didn’t have a clue he was here.

As soon as he’d been able to get away from work, he’d taken off after her, thinking he’d catch up to her somewhere on I-20.

He’d seen her push her fist into her belly before she’d slammed her car door shut and remembered his own ulcer. Seen her drive out of his parking lot in a Hyundai. A Hyundai.

It was stylish enough that maybe she could pretend she was driving it because she liked it, but he knew better.

Margaret Caldwell wouldn’t know what a Hyundai was unless she had to.

He’d remembered the stomach-eating acid of his own bankruptcy. Wide awake nights. The crushing failure. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy.

Which was why he was here.

He’d give her the time she needed, distract her with a good fight now and again, and redeem himself. She’d had her revenge on him, though she’d clearly not forgiven him. He wasn’t sure she ever would. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to. But he needed to forgive himself, forgive the stupid shit that he’d been. Make up for hurting the one person who’d made life bearable.

Cole sat and watched Maggie swim until her strokes slowed, until her arms lost their controlled precision.

He stood and walked to the edge of the pool.

She jerked, her head whipping out of the water. She stared at him for a moment, her eyes wide, then she shouted, “Cole!”

She hit the water with her fist, spraying water onto his pants, and he grinned.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She hit the water again, spraying more water, and he shook his head, reaching for his buckle.

“If you’re going to get me all wet, I might as well jump in and cool off.”

She watched him slide his zipper down with narrowed eyes. “How long have you been here?”

He glanced at his watch, then took it off. “About an hour and a half. With not even an offer of a drink.”

He pulled his shirt over his head, not missing her gaze sliding down his chest.

She said, “I’m surprised Rosa didn’t offer you the business end of a shotgun.”

He kicked off his shoes and socks, hooking his thumbs into his jeans. He looked at the house, noticing a crooked blind suddenly straighten.

“She’s not the same housekeeper who walked in on us, is she?”

“The same.”

“Well, that makes a little more sense. I thought she seemed unreasonably unwelcoming.”

He pushed his jeans down quickly and jumped into the water, the cold soaking into his white briefs.

Say what you would about breezy boxers, Cole liked the classics.

When he surfaced, Maggie was heading for the stairs. He swam after her, grabbing her ankle, the smooth skin sliding against his palm, and pulled her under. He kept a loose grip on her ankle, those damn shoes still swimming in his head, and towed her away from the stairs.

She kicked against his wrist with her free foot and he grabbed that one as well. He couldn’t help his grin at the thought that he’d gotten his hands on her ankles without going to his knees after all. She twisted under the water, spinning and ripping her ankles out of his hands.

She burst to the surface, slapping a wave of water into his face when his head followed hers.

He coughed as another wave caught him in the face and he turned away. “Truce, Maggie!”

He peeked at her and caught another faceful of water, but not before he saw her mouth fighting a smile.

He didn’t look at her again, just kept his face turned away and tried to see where she was out of the corner of his eye. “Better?”

She laughed. “A little.”

“Can I turn around now?”

“You can turn around.”

He started to turn, then stopped. “And you’re not going to try and drown me, right?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

Cole folded his arms. “I want both your hands on the ledge where I can see them.”

“I want you out of my pool and your pants back on.”

“I could do that but then I won’t tell you why I’m here.”

“I know why you’re here.”

He turned toward her and said, “I doubt you’d be trying to drown me if–” and got a faceful of water.

He turned his back to her and pointed. “Hands on the ledge!”

She slowly floated to the edge of the pool, her smile wide enough to see out of the corner of his eye.

She grabbed the ledge behind her head, still facing him, letting her body float to the surface.

He turned towards her again, distracted by the sight of those long, long legs floating arm’s length away and missed the glint in her eye.

She started kicking fiercely, sending a tidal wave of water over his head. He bowed his head, hunching against the onslaught, and hoped she’d stop soon. He needed to remember the water was her home, not his. And like most legendary water-folk, she’d drown him for sport.

Her kicking legs finally slowed and then stopped, and he took a long, deep breath. “Done now?”

She smiled wide, her eyes a shade darker than the pool water. She laughed at him and he watched the shadows in her eyes fade.

She leaned her head back and looked up the sky. “I might be done now.”

“You make helping you very difficult.”

“I’m not selling the house, so you can take your help elsewhere.”

He grunted, floating towards her. “You know I want it. And I know they will pry it from your dead, cold hands.”

She stopped smiling completely. “They’ll pry it from my hands before then.”

“They probably will. But I won’t.”

She looked at him. “I can’t give you anything, Cole.”

“There’s one thing you can give me.”

She grimaced. “I already made that deal once. I’m not doing it again.”

“Not even to save your house?”

“No.”

Cole said, “Then good thing that’s not what I want.”

She looked at him trying not to look at her legs and said, “Uh-huh.”

His teeth flashed. “Okay, it’s not all I want.”

She raised her eyebrows in question, clearly believing there was nothing else she had to give him.

He floated in close, grabbing the ledge above her head and bending down to whisper in her ear.

“I want forgiveness, Maggie. Can you give me that?”

She blinked and her breath puffed against his face. “What do you want forgiveness for, Cole? For screwing me or for screwing our deal?”

“I’ll never be sorry for making that deal with you. We both knew what we were doing.”

“I didn’t know you never meant to go through with your end.”

“I meant to. I was going to work out a new payment schedule with his father. Give him more time, and then…”

Cole’s graduation present from his father had been a portfolio of loans. All the debts of one family piled together. Given to him by his father so he could “experience the rush of destroying those who would destroy you”. And then Maggie had come, willing to agree to anything to save that family.

Cole hadn’t need much persuading to take her up on the offer. He got Maggie naked and in his bed and a chance to stick it to his father.

Maggie said, “And then?”

“That little shit came with his father and sat there with that smirk on his face and all I could see was how you would sleep with me because you loved him that much. That pompous little shit with sun shining out his ass.”

Cole took a shaky breath, remembering how it felt to have Maggie. How it felt to have her only because she loved him. “He wasn’t worth it. You couldn’t see he just wasn’t worth it.”

He put his hand over hers, looking into her eyes. “I’ll never be sorry for sleeping with you. But I will be eternally sorry for taking your trust and flushing it down the toilet.”

He willed her to see the truth. That there was nothing in life that he regretted, except for that.

Maggie stared unblinking into his eyes, floated silently next to him, and finally looked away.

She said, “How do you know I haven’t already forgiven you?”

He snorted. “Then say it. Say ‘I forgive you, Cole. And I would love to accept your help.’ And then I will go find a hat to eat.”

Her lips curved. “It would almost be worth it to see that.”

“I’ve learned how to sweeten a deal since we last negotiated.”

She chuckled, unhooking her hands from the ledge and floating away from him. He chased slowly after her, refusing to give her space.

He said, “But before you say anything, know that I’m also going to need a please to go with that forgiveness.”

She narrowed her eyes, shaking her head.

He smiled. A shark smile. “I’ve also learned how to get what I really want when I know I’m going to win.”

“I don’t think you’ve learned when you’re winning a negotiation.”

He didn’t stop smiling. “Oh, I’ve learned it.”

He watched her temper rising in her eyes, watched her fight the knowledge that she couldn’t let this opportunity get away. He’d get her forgiveness, get her in his bed again, and hell, maybe even move into the ranch house with her.

Well, he was a bastard. It wouldn’t be any help to let her forget that.

Then he remembered her penchant for trying to drown him and yielded slightly. “But we can split my payment. Half now, half later. Please now, forgiveness at the end. Deal?”

She dove under the water, swimming swiftly to one end of the pool and then back to him.

Her head broke the surface and she took a deep breath. “Bastard.”

He nodded but didn’t back down. “Say it, Maggie, and I’ll do it.”

“You say it and I’ll do it.”

He started to back away, then laughed. He’d said please once before. So had she. They could keep things even. He could give her that.

He took her hand. “We’ll say it together. No tricks.” He looked down at the hand he was holding and said, “We’ll say it together and help each other out. And then forget about those other times. We’ll start over.”

“You really think we can?”

He looked back up into turquoise eyes. “I’m willing to try.”

She blinked and swallowed. He counted to three softly and they whispered together. “Please.”

Cole inhaled deeply, pulling her closer. He said, “Let’s never do that again.”

Maggie’s lips stopped their pinching and she let him tow her towards him.

He said, “Besides, the only place I ever want to hear a Caldwell beg again is in the bedroom.”

“You’re really pushing it.”

“I can’t help it. It’s in my genes.”

Her legs tangled with his and his heart thumped in his chest.

She said, “Don’t remind me of your genes.”

“A man can’t help where he comes from.”

Maggie looked unconvinced and he didn’t want to spend any more minutes defending his parentage. He was done feeling inferior about the mud he’d crawled out of.

He planted his lips on hers, his eyes wide open. Wide enough to see that she wanted him, just not enough. Never enough.

She murmured, “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“You’re going to. It just won’t be part of our deal.”

This time he wanted her in his bed, begging, because she wanted him. Not because she sold herself too low.

A diabolical gleam entered her eyes and she wrapped her arms around his neck, her breasts prodding him in the chin, and put her mouth next to his ear. She whispered, “If that’s why you’re doing this, it’s only fair to let you know I won’t be inviting you into my bed again. Ever.”

He dropped his chin until his lips touched her skin. He kissed the silky skin on her chest and said, “It’s not why I’m helping you. It’s just a side benefit.”

He slid his hands down her thighs and pulled her legs around his waist. “And who said anything about a bed? This pool works just fine.”

Maggie’s teeth bit gently into the fleshy part of Cole’s ear and his fingers curled involuntarily into her thighs.

“Christ, Maggie. You know I can’t wait to get under you again.”

Her teeth bit a little harder and her low laugh zinged right down his spine.

She pulled back from him, looking behind him. She said, “You’re going to be waiting a lot longer.”

A golden voice behind him said, “Hey, Sis. Who are you entertaining?”

Cole’s body tightened. He turned around, Maggie’s legs still around his waist, his fingers still digging into her thighs but now not with lust.

Tanner pulled a lounge chair toward the pool, sipping from a tumbler and choking when he looked up and saw just who Maggie was wrapped around.

Tanner stopped dead and stared. His hand shook, the ice clinking and his drink sloshing.

Maggie tried to unhook her legs and Cole crushed her tighter to him.

Maggie murmured, “Down, boy. He’s not smirking now.”

No, he wasn’t. Cole had wiped that smirk off his face twelve years ago.

Cole looked away from the sunny-assed shit and into Maggie’s suddenly clear green eyes. Looked to see if there was any love left in there for the man who’d married her sister.

When she didn’t even bother glancing at Tanner, Cole loosened his grip on her thighs, let her unwrap her legs.

Tanner finally choked out, “What is he doing here?”

Maggie looked at Tanner, flicked her eyes to the glass he was holding, then looked back at Cole. She stared at him, all but saying out loud that she didn’t think he would really go through with it. That he’d really help her for just a promise of forgiveness.

Cole smiled at her and said, “Why, I’m marrying the empress here. Congratulate us, Tanner. You’re the first to know.”