Rumor Has It (11 page)

“You did?” His eyes twinkled as he turned her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. Her hand was so tiny and feminine in his, the contrast made his stomach tighten.

Katie nodded. From the spot he'd kissed a shiver ran up her arm and spread through her, teasing all her nerve endings into awareness. “And do you know what else I felt when I heard all that clapping and screaming?”

“What?” The word was no more than an exhalation of the breath that had caught in his lungs as he gazed down at her.

“Jealous,” she whispered, still a little amazed herself.

“Jealous? You were jealous?” he asked, looking extremely pleased with this tidbit of information.

With an embarrassed smile she nodded again. “I didn't like the idea of all those strange women drooling over your body.”

Nick could hardly contain his elation. He
wanted to let out a war whoop and dance around the office. He had been so afraid Katie wouldn't understand, that she'd want to walk away from him when she found out about his dancing. Instead he was getting admissions from her that he had hoped for but hadn't expected to hear for quite a while.

He was ready to take steps toward a more serious relationship with her, but he had sensed—and respected—Katie's hesitancy. He knew she wasn't one to let a man get too close too quickly. It was her reluctance that had won her the title Ice Princess from men who hadn't been patient enough to earn her trust. She was giving him now a huge victory when he had braced himself for utter defeat.

“But they don't know it's me,” he pointed out to her. “Only you know it's me behind the mask.”

“That's right.” She smiled, pleased to know she was the only woman who had unmasked the elusive Highwayman.

Running his hands back from her face, over her satiny dark hair, Nick gave her a look burning
with sensual promise. “I wouldn't mind giving you a private performance sometime.”

“Oh?” The word quivered on Katie's lips as erotic images of Nick dancing just for her filled her head. She could feel her bones melting to the consistency of butter on a hot stove, and leaned gratefully into Nick's strength as he bent and kissed her again.

Need surged through his body, followed by a groan that came from the depths of his soul. “I'd give you one right now if this weren't a borrowed office.” He lifted her hand and slipped it inside his robe, pressing it to his chest so she could feel his heart thudding under his ribs.

“Feel what you do to me, Katie,” he demanded. He ran his hand down her back and over the delicious curve of her bottom, and drew her against him so she could feel his need not only beneath her hand but straining urgently against her belly. “I care about you so much. I want you so much, Katie.”

His words set off an avalanche of trembling inside her. He wanted her. She wanted him. Oh, how she wanted him! Katie had never known
such need before—the need to hold and cherish and express her feelings in a purely physical way, the need to have a man want all those same things with her in his arms. However, this wasn't the time or the place. Any minute Jack Clark was going to want his office back. Then there was still the matter of her own secret.

Nick could feel her pull back from him slightly— emotionally as well as physically. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, banishing the physical distance. “I know you're not ready for that step yet, kitten. I won't push it. But when you are ready, I'll be here, and I'll want you just as much as I want you right now.”

She looked up at him with misty eyes and a smile as soft as dew. Another corner of her heart went to him gladly. Aside from his daring her to kiss him that first time, Nick hadn't pressured her in any way. His patience had done wonders in helping her relax with him and with the idea of gradually entering into a more physical relationship with him. No other man she'd known had possessed his patience. “Thank you for understanding,” she whispered.

He smiled against her lips, falling a little more in love with her for letting him see her vul ner ability, then he made a little face at her and asked, “Now, just what are you doing here, Katie Quaid?”

“It was Maggie's idea,” she explained, feeling like a schoolgirl who'd gotten caught at a wild party. It was all she could do to keep from giggling. “This is what she wanted to do to celebrate her birthday.”

“I should have guessed Maggie would be behind it,” he said with a chuckle. “Is she having a good time?”

“What a silly question!” Katie laughed. “As my brother would say, she's in hog heaven. So is Zoe.”

“What about you?” he asked, tickling her. “Are you enjoying yourself, Katie?”

She squirmed in his arms but didn't try to escape. It was more fun to snuggle against him. “More than I had thought I would. I didn't have any idea what it would be like. It's a lot of fun. You guys are fantastic dancers.”

“Thanks,” he said, thanking heaven Katie
was more open- minded than he had given her credit for.

“How did you get started?” she asked.

Nick let go of her and leaned back against the edge of the desk. “When I was trying to get discovered in New York, I found out there are a lot of good dancers but not many jobs. You have to be more than just a good dancer to make it on Broadway. I finally saw I didn't have the extra something and decided to set my sights on my other dream—the restaurant. But I needed money to make that dream come true. I heard the manager of a club was auditioning men for a high-class erotic show and figured why not? They wanted top dancers with imaginative acts to provide fun, escapist entertainment for ladies. The pay was high, and it sounded like I'd have a good time.”

“And the Highwayman was born,” Katie finished the story for him.

“You got it.” He reached out and caught her hand, just because he wanted to touch her. It seemed as if he never stopped wanting to touch Katie. “I gained a reputation, toured up and down the East Coast for two years until I had
enough money for the down payment on the building I wanted. When that curb and gutter problem came up, this was the quickest way I knew of to get the money. Jack had made me a standing offer to come back anytime I wanted.”

“How long are you going to have to work here?”

“Two shows a night, two nights a week until the restaurant opens. Do you mind?”

“I mind that you have to work so hard. You're working day and night on your building, helping out at the Drewes mansion, and working here too.”

Nick smiled gently at the look of concern in her big gray eyes. He drew her into his arms and kissed her lightly. “Don't worry, kitten. Mama always said I had more energy than any ten kids. I can handle it and still have time left on my dance card for you.”

He glanced at the clock on the desk and sighed. “Right now I have to get ready for my next show.”

Katie slid her arms around his neck and gave him a long, thorough kiss. When she finished, she
stepped back and winked at him. “Knock ‘em dead, Yankee.”

Nick grinned. Their relationship had survived the unmasking of his secret identity. The optimist in him predicted it would be smooth sailing from then on.

“S
O WHAT'S HE
like? Is he a nice guy or a jerk or what?” Nick asked, wishing he could watch Katie's gray eyes for her answers. He could sense the complexity of emotions in her as they drove west out of Briarwood on a climbing, winding road. She finally was taking him to meet her brother, who, according to rumor, was something of a hermit. Maggie had described him as impossible, cantankerous, and arrogant—and Nick was pretty sure she had a crush on the guy. He couldn't wait to meet Rylan Quaid.

“Rylan?” Katie rolled her eyes. “He's like a giant
prickly pear: all spiny on the outside and soft on the inside. He's a tyrant. He's stubborn and owly and—”

“—and you love him,” Nick finished with a grin.

Katie smiled in return. Only Nick could have made that determination from what she had said. Sometimes he was too perceptive. She wondered if he picked up similar notes in her voice when she spoke of him, because what she was feeling for Nick these days was love, or at least the be ginnings of it. She had realized it the night at Hepplewhite's over a week ago, the night she had discovered his secret identity. Since then, scarcely an hour had gone by that she hadn't thought about her feelings for him.

She had been fretting for days about taking Nick to meet Ry. Ry was so overprotective of her. He had called her several times since word had reached his ears that his baby sister was going out with a man with a mysterious past. It had taken every threat Katie could think of to keep her brother from paying Nick a visit.

She had deliberately put off introducing them until rumors about Nick had died down and until
Nick had established several good friendships with people she knew Ry respected. She wanted him to like Nick, but knew she would go on seeing Nick with or without her brother's blessing.

They rode in silence for a while. Instead of turning on the air conditioner to cool the warm spring air, Nick kept his window rolled down so he could drink in the rich scents of the Virginia countryside.

“Don't let him intimidate you,” Katie said suddenly.

Nick lifted an eyebrow. “Intimidate me?” She was talking about her brother the way she might talk about a Doberman.

“The idea won't sound so strange to you once you've met him.”

They turned in at a gravel drive that twisted up and around a hill so wooded, barely a drop of sunlight spilled through the canopy of green overhead. When they emerged from the trees at the top of the hill, pastures rolled before them like an emerald carpet. Sturdy, four- plank oak fencing marked one field from the next, separated one group of horses from another. The sign at the end of the first field read simply Quaid Farm.

“They're beautiful!” Nick said in awe as he slowed his sports car to a crawl. “When you said you grew up on a farm, I thought of pigs and cows and tractors and stuff. You never said anything about horses. What kind are they? Thoroughbreds?”

“Some of them,” Katie replied. “Some are Hanoverians, imported from Germany. We're experimenting with a crossbreeding program to combine the speed and agility of the Thorough bred with the size and superior temperament of the Hanoverian. They make excellent show jumpers.”

“We?” Nick questioned, more than a little impressed with her answer.

“I inherited part of the farm when Daddy died.”

She didn't tell him that she had tried to give it to Ry after her accident. She had so loved riding that when the doctors had told her she could never ride again, her first instinct had been to get completely away from it. To own part of the farm meant she had to express an interest in it. To drive down these lanes and walk through the stables knowing she could never get nearer than an arm's
length away from these animals that had been the largest part of her life for seventeen years had been too painful to bear.

Ry had stubbornly refused to take her offer, however. Not only that, he had bullied her into becoming more involved in the management of the farm while she had been recuperating. She had hated him for it at the time, but now she thanked him. Instead of isolating herself, she took great pride in the stock they raised and trained.

Nick parked the car near the first of two long, white stables painted with royal- blue trim. The big doors on either end of the building had been rolled back, exposing two rows of box stalls separated by a wide aisle. He killed the engine and glanced at Katie. “Do you ride?”

“I used to,” she said, quickly unbuckling her seat belt and climbing out of the car, pulling the seat forward to let Watch out of the back. She already had decided this would be the day she would tell Nick. She had brought him there to do so. But she wanted to wait until they were alone and the moment was right.

She bypassed the office, heading down the wide aisle of the stable after Watch, who jogged along
with his nose to the concrete floor. Nick danced along behind her, trying to take it all in at once— the oak walls and iron bars of the big box stalls, the smell of wood shavings and hay and horses, the sounds that echoed through the long building. He darted back and forth between the rows of stalls like an eager boy, wanting to see each and every horse up close.

“Damn!” The shout came from beyond the far end of the stable. Tools and curses flew.

Nick stopped dead in his tracks. “Sounds like he's in a bad mood.”

“He's always in a bad mood. Cease fire!” Katie called before stepping out of the building.

Nick took one look at Ry and knew instantly what Katie had meant about being intimidated. The man was six feet four if he was an inch, and he was built like a bull and looked as angry as one as he stood snarling and scowling at a blue and gray tractor. Sweat ran down his face and the sculpted muscles of his bare chest and abdomen, and had soaked into the waistband of his jeans. He wiped a hand across his forehead, slicking back his dark hair.

At a glance no one would have said this man
was related to little Katie. He was as huge and masculine as she was petite and feminine. There were similarities in their faces, however—the shape and color of their eyes, the high cheekbones, the expressive mouth, and stubborn chin.

“Can you take time out from your swearing to say hello to your baby sister?” Katie asked dryly.

“Hi, princess.” Ry bent and pressed a kiss to her cheek, never taking his wary gaze off Nick.

Katie stepped back to make the introductions. “Nick, this is my foul- tempered brother, Rylan. Ry, meet Nick Leone.”

Ry glanced at his palm and smeared grease off it and onto the leg of his jeans. He clasped Nick's hand in a death grip. Nick gritted his teeth and squeezed right back, knowing the only way to gain the man's respect was to match him step for step.

“If this is going to turn into a bone- crushing contest, I'm leaving,” Katie said with a pointed look at her brother.

“It's a pleasure to meet you,” Nick said. “Katie's told me a lot about you.”

“Yeah,” Ry said, unsmiling. “I've heard a lot about you too.”

None of it good, by the tone of his voice, Nick thought.