The Colton Ransom (16 page)

No right wanting her the way he did.

But damn, she was making it far too hard for him to be able to just pick up and walk away. Hell, he didn’t even know
if
he could actually walk. She’d made him not just weak in the knees, but completely weak all over.

All except for his desire, which was so incredibly intense, so incredibly strong, that before he knew it, it commandeered center stage.

And then he found himself taking her.

Unable to resist her any longer, unable to resist his own desire any longer, Trevor uttered a groan of surrender as he moved into her. Her legs tightened even harder around him. He honestly hadn’t thought that it was physically possible.

And yet it was.

The movement began automatically, the symphony of their souls utterly in sync, each thrust begetting another and another until, breathless, overwhelmed, they rose to the top of the peak as one, joined in body as they were joined in spirit.

And then they leaped off the summit, still joined together in purpose, still as one.

Gradually, he became aware of the heavy, labored breathing. He thought it was hers, until he realized that the sounds were coming from him.

Very slowly, Trevor descended to earth, relinquishing his hold on—his place in—paradise.

His surroundings came into focus, as did his memory.

They were in his bed, the blanket and sheets beneath her tangled and all but stripped off the bed from the sheer frenzy of their lovemaking.

As he fell back onto his bed he realized that his skin came in contact with his mattress, not his sheets. Well,
that
had never happened before, but then making love had never been a high priority with him before, either. It happened when it happened, but it had never been a driving force in his life.

He couldn’t truthfully say that anymore.

If he could have, he would have just vanished from the scene, found a way to disappear without the need to exchange any dialogue or even be seen.

But he couldn’t just get up and leave now. For one thing, this was
his
bedroom, not hers. For another, if he left in silence, he wouldn’t have been able to return; it would just be too awkward.

Besides, he’d made a connection with her—almost against his will, but he’d made it. That wasn’t something he could turn his back on, even if he wanted to—which he didn’t.

Now all he needed was a way to start some sort of verbal exchange between them.

His mind went blank.

The silence grew louder until it was almost deafening in nature.

The inside of his mouth grew drier.

Chapter 15

T
he silence within Trevor’s bedroom completely engulfed her—or so it seemed.

Had it gone
that
badly for him? Either way, why wasn’t he saying
something?

Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.

“I know you’re a man of few words,” Gabby began, picking her own words carefully, “but this is setting a record, even for you. Please say something.”

It wasn’t exactly an order or a plea, but the silence, now that the euphoria had abated, was
really
getting to her—big-time—and making her exceedingly uncomfortable.

She didn’t regret what had happened—how could she? The experience—at least for her—was the most incredible one of her limited twenty-four years. She’d never felt anything so intense, so moving in her life. It was as close to an out-of-body experience as she’d ever had or probably
would
ever have.

Her entire body, when it had finally floated back to earth, had felt as if it were smiling. That wasn’t something to regret. On the contrary, she wanted to repeat this glorious experience—and soon.

But not if the whole interlude had rendered him close to catatonic.

“You haven’t been struck speechless, have you?” Gabby prodded. “Say
something,
” she said again, this time with a great deal more emphasis.

Trevor took a breath, shifting his body so that it turned into hers. He shifted his eyes as well. Finally, he murmured a very simple, unadorned phrase. “Didn’t see that coming.”

Gabby propped herself up not just on her elbow but pushed herself up with her hand so that she gained some height over his resting torso. She gazed down into his face.

“Really?” she asked, not knowing whether to be amused or stunned that he had been caught so unaware by what had just happened. “You had no clue?”

She really found that difficult to believe, especially since she’d had an inkling that this was on the horizon for a while now. Something in her bones had whispered to her that they’d be together like this sometime in the future, maybe even the near future.

And here they were.

A sheepish smile curved the corners of Trevor’s mouth. He supposed that he did sound pretty clueless at that. For once, he took no offense at the less-than-flattering image she was verbally painting.

“Guess I was just too busy focusing on other things to realize what was going on right in front of my eyes,” he admitted.

She was surprised that he took her words and just accepted them. The man wasn’t all that unreasonable at that.

“I guess so,” she agreed. She laid her head on his chest, her red hair fanning out across the firm, wide expanse.

Without thinking, he ran his fingers along the silky waves. His breathing slowly returned to something that resembled normal, even though his heart insisted on beating erratically.

“Now what?”

Trevor asked the question so quietly, for a moment, she thought she’d just imagined it. But then she became aware that he appeared to be waiting for some sort of a response from her.

“Now we get back to looking for Avery,” she told him, her breath along his skin making the muscles beneath it quiver, then tighten.

He wasn’t referring to that when he’d asked “now what?” Granted, finding Avery was uppermost in his mind. However, what had just happened here had temporarily overshadowed it. The past hour wasn’t just a one-night stand to him. He’d had one-night stands, had a number of them to look back on, and they were merely vague, isolated incidents that only became more so with the passage of time. They’d happened, he’d enjoyed them while they were occurring and then they were behind him, meriting not even so much as a few minutes’ worth of reflection.

This, in comparison, had been different.

It was the difference between grabbing a nondescript sandwich and having a three-course meal at a five-star restaurant that lingered not just on his taste buds, but in his memory as well.

Was she saying that this was just a one-night stand as far as she was concerned? He didn’t know how he felt about that.

Ordinarily, he might have welcomed that sort of a reaction from her—especially if he’d felt this way. Other than Avery’s mother, he’d never had entanglements with the women he’d slept with. After the event, he’d always gone his separate way, as had they.

But this was different.

He wasn’t sure he liked Gabby behaving as if there was no strong, compelling reaction on her part, the way there had been on his.

“I wasn’t talking about Avery,” Trevor began to explain slowly.

His eyes were on hers.

A trap.

It was a trap, she thought.

He was setting her up, daring her to say what was
really
on her mind—and once she did, once she let him know that the earth
had
moved for her, he’d have an excuse to never allow anything of this nature to happen again. Because Trevor Garth wasn’t a man who could be tied down to one woman, one family. She knew that and she didn’t want to tie him down. She just wanted to be the one he turned to whenever the need for a kindred soul hit him.

Gabby was aware that feeling this way made it sound as if she were settling, but some things, unlike some sort of a movie rental, couldn’t be achieved quickly and on demand. Some things, such as a worthwhile relationship with a man like Trevor, took time to cultivate. And, luckily for her, she just happened to be a patient soul.

“But we should be,” she told him, then because he appeared somewhat confused, she realized that he’d probably lost the thread of the conversation as he was trying to figure her out. “We
should
be talking about Avery,” she further elaborated.

Gathering the sheet to her as best she could to cover up her nakedness, Gabby sat up, her eyes riveted to his face despite the fact that there were a few far more enticing sections of his anatomy to draw and captivate her attention.

“There’s got to be something we’ve missed,” she insisted.

They’d spent close to a week talking to everyone on the ranch and every friend of every staff member just to confirm the alibis they’d been given and then they’d confirmed the confirmations.

Right about now it felt as if they were spinning worn tires in the mud: lots of noise, no traction.

Trevor sat up as well, oblivious for the need of any sort of cover for his body. He dragged his hand through his hair, as if that could somehow unearth a theretofore untapped avenue to follow, leading to a discovery that hadn’t been made yet.

Coming up empty, he sighed. “I agree with you,” he told her. “But for the life of me, I don’t know what it could be, other than...” His voice trailed off as he contemplated the daunting recourse left to them.

“Other than what?” Gabby prodded. Had he thought of something they hadn’t tried?

“Other than the possibility that someone was lying to us, which means that we’ll have to question everyone in the house a second time and check their alibis again to see if they still check out.”

He expected Gabby to groan loudly and then perhaps to opt out of the overwhelming task of starting at the beginning again. What he didn’t expect was to have her agree with him.

“Someone obviously was,” Gabby told him. “So, unless one of us has suddenly developed the art of mind reading, or clairvoyance, that’s exactly what we’re going to have to do. Question everyone all over again. Who knows,” she speculated, “maybe someone will slip up, forget what they said the first time around and we’ll finally have them—and Avery.”

With effort, Gabby continued to look only into Trevor’s face, although it wasn’t easy. “Right now, it’s our only recourse.”

He nodded. Glancing through the window, he saw that it was still pitch-black and estimated that they were approaching midnight. “Okay, I’ll get started first thing in the morning.”

Didn’t he realize yet that after almost a whole week at this, she was in this for the long haul?

“
We’ll
get started first thing in the morning,” she corrected.

It amazed him how much the way he regarded Gabby had changed in the course of a few days. He’d started out blaming her for what had happened to his daughter and now he was almost depending on her for help in locating the infant.

Depending on her and—although he would never admit this to her—drawing comfort from her very presence.

“In the meantime,” he continued, “that still leaves us tonight to deal with.” His eyes swept over her face. He’d never realized how delicate her face looked yet how very determined it seemed at the same time. “Any ideas?” he asked her.

She gave up staring exclusively at his face and allowed her eyes to dip down to at least take in his upper physique.

“Oh, I’ve got
lots
of ideas,” Gabby assured him.

The smile on his face told her they were on the same page.

* * *

The following morning, Gabby was already up and dressed when he opened his eyes.

“Going somewhere?” he asked, stretching his frame as he allowed himself to come to by degrees.

Rather than beat around the bush and attempt to be coy, Gabby was completely honest with him. “I’m sneaking out of here before someone comes knocking on your door and discovers that your reputation has been compromised, Mr. Head of Security.”

“I don’t know about
compromised.
More than likely, they’d applaud me for my good taste,” he cracked. Awake now, he swung his legs out of his bed and stood up.

Gabby averted her eyes as she turned her head. But even so, a pink hue instantly began recoloring her cheeks. Again, he caught himself thinking that he hadn’t thought women could blush anymore. That she could was something he found to be rather endearing.

His broad smile, though, evaporated the next moment when there was a knock on his door.

Talk about foreshadowing...

Gabby barely had time to suck in her breath, looking around the room to see if there was somewhere for her to hide.

The next moment, she decided that she was, after all, a grown woman and entitled to make her own choices. The only one who would have made her want to disappear from the room without a trace was her father, and he was still in the hospital, unable, for the moment, to heap insults on her head.

When she turned toward Trevor to ask if he wanted her to answer the door, she saw that he was already dressed, his jeans covering his muscular lower torso and the shirt he’d had on last night back in place this morning. The man was fast, she thought in admiration.

The only hint that they were doing something other than just talking in his room was that he was barefoot.

But then, this was, after all, his room. She was the foreign element, the one who didn’t belong in the room.

The knock on the door was timid and gave the impression that if the door wasn’t immediately opened, whoever was standing on the other side would just go away.

He couldn’t have that, Trevor thought. Not knowing who it was would keep him up for weeks.

When he pulled the door open, neither he nor Gabby was prepared to see the young woman who was standing at his threshold.

Gabby found her voice first.

“Clara?” Gabby asked, curious and stunned at the same time. Stepping discreetly into the hallway, she looked up and down both corridors, but there was no one else around. “What are you doing here?” she asked, stepping back inside the bedroom.

The young maid didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she knotted and unknotted her fingers, looking exceptionally flustered and uncomfortable.

“I need to talk to Mr. Trevor,” she finally explained nervously. Consumed with why she was here, Clara didn’t appear to think that it was the slightest bit strange to find her employer’s youngest daughter inside of the head of security’s room. “I went to your office, but you weren’t there yet,” she told him nervously.

“No, I wasn’t,” Trevor agreed, doing his best not to laugh, even as it occurred to him that it was an odd reaction for him in the first place. But then, having spent the night with Gabby had made him feel almost light-headed. Certainly light-spirited. It was altogether a new experience for him.

Pulling himself together, he forced himself to focus on the pale young woman who’d sought him out. “Why are you looking for me?”

Clara looked close to tears. “Because I don’t want to go to hell.”

“All right,” he said, stretching out the words as he exchanged glances with Gabby. “And why would you be going to hell?”

It took Clara a few minutes to form an answer, and when she did, she blurted out the words. “For lying to you.”

Instantly, the humor of the moment and everything that had come before faded into the background. This was serious.

“And what is it that you lied to me about?” he asked.

It was obvious that the shift in his tone frightened the maid to the point of near incoherence. Her expression was that of a deer caught in not one but two sets of headlights.

“You have to understand, I was just trying to protect him because he was afraid that if you found out what he was doing, you’d have him fired.”

Gabby could see Trevor’s agitation growing. She could also see that Clara was terrified of Trevor as well as terrified of the consequences of her part in all this, whatever that part actually turned out to be. The only way they were going to get anything coherent out of the maid was if she managed to calm her down and did the questioning herself.

So she did.

“Slow down, Clara,” she told her gently, then urged, “Take a breath.” She waited until Clara complied. Aware that Trevor was all but chomping at the bit beside her, she still went slowly, her words emerging far more slowly than she would have wanted them to. But this was for the greater good. “Who are you talking about, Clara? Who’s
him?
”

“Duke.” Clara all but choked out the name in a whisper.

“Duke Johnson?” Trevor asked, stunned. Duke was one of the regulars who’d been on the ranch longer than he had. His suspicions had been focused on some of the newer hands, not Duke. He felt his temper mounting. If that cowboy had played him...