Unlikely Lover (17 page)

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He was hurting her, and she hardly noticed. His mouth was telling her things words couldn’t. That he was afraid for her, that he was glad she was safe, that he’d take care of her. She let him tell her that way, glad of his strength. Her arms curled around his broad shoulders, and she sighed under his warm, hungry mouth, savoring its rough ardor.

“My God,” he whispered unsteadily, his mouth poised over hers, his eyes dark in a face that was pale under its tan, his breath rough. “My God, one more step and it would have had you!”

“I’m all right, thanks to you.” She managed to smile through the shaking relief, her fingers traced his rough cheek, his mouth. “Thank you.”

He lifted her against his body, as rugged as any frontier man would have been, his face mirroring pride and masculinity. “Thank me, then,” he whispered, opening his mouth as he bent to her lips. “Thank me…”

She did, so hungrily that he had to put her away from him or let her feel how easily she could arouse him. He held her by the waist, breathing unsteadily, watching her flushed face.

“We agreed that wouldn’t happen again,” he said.

She nodded, searching his eyes.

“But the circumstances were…unusual,” he continued.

“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes falling to his hard mouth with languorous remembered pleasure. “Unusual.”

“Stop looking at me like that, or it won’t end with kisses,” he threatened huskily. “You felt what you were doing to me.”

She averted her eyes and moved away. Sometimes she forgot how experienced he was until he made a remark like that and emphasized it. She had to remember that she was just another woman. He felt responsible for her, that was why he’d reacted like that to the snake. It wasn’t anything personal.

“Well, thanks for saving me,” she said, folding her arms over her breasts as she walked back to the car, and carefully she avoided looking at the dead snake as she went.

“Watch where you put your feet, will you?” he asked from behind her. “One scare like that is enough.”

Scare for which one of us?
she wanted to ask. But she was too drained to say it. Her mouth ached for his. She could hardly bear to remember that she’d inflicted this torment on herself by letting him bring her out here. How was she going to bear days or weeks of it, of being near him and being vulnerable and having no hope at all for a future that included him?

Chapter Ten

W
ard was quiet the rest of the way to the ranch, but he kept watching Mari and the way he did it was exciting. Once he reached across the space between them and found her hand. He kept it close in his until traffic in Ravine forced him to let go, and Mari found her heart doing spins.

She didn’t know how to handle this new approach. She couldn’t quite trust him yet, and she wasn’t altogether sure that he didn’t have some ulterior motive for bringing her back. After all, he wasn’t hampered by emotions as she was.

Lillian came quickly out to meet them, looking healthy and fit and with a healed leg.

“Look here,” she called to Mari and danced a jig. “How’s that for an improvement?” She laughed gaily.

“Terrific!” Mari agreed. She ran forward to embrace the older woman warmly. “It’s good to see you again.”

“He’s been horrible,” Lillian whispered while Ward was getting the bag out of the car. “Just horrible. He moped around for days after you left and wouldn’t eat at all.”

“He should have foreclosed on somebody, then,” Mari said matter-of-factly. “That would have cheered him up.”

Lillian literally cackled. “Shame on you,” she said with a laugh.

“What’s all the humor about?” Ward asked as he joined them, his expression tight and mocking.

“Your appetite,” Mari volunteered tongue in cheek.

Lillian had turned to go back inside. Ward leaned down, holding Mari’s eyes. “You know more about that than most women do, honey,” he said in a seductive undertone. “And if you aren’t careful, you may learn even more.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” she told him, rushing away before she fell under the spell of his mocking ardor.

“Where’s Bud?” Ward asked as they entered the hall.

“Did somebody call me?” came a laughing voice from the study.

The young man who came out to greet them was a total surprise for Mari. She’d been expecting Ward’s cousin to be near his own age, but Bud was much younger. He was in his late twenties, at a guess, and lithe and lean and handsome. He had Ward’s swarthy complexion, but his eyes were brown instead of green and his hair was lighter than his cousin’s. He was a striking man, especially in the leather and denim he was wearing.

“Have you been sneaking around after my bull again?” Ward demanded.

“Now, Cousin,” Bud said soothingly, “how would I find him in there?” He jerked his hand toward the study and shuddered. “It would take a team of secretaries a week just to find the desk!”

“Speaking of secretaries,” Ward said, “this is my new one. Marianne Raymond, this is Bud Jessup. My cousin.”

“Ah, the much-talked-about niece,” Bud murmured, winking at Mari. “Hello, Georgia peach. You sure do your home state proud.”

Ward didn’t like Bud’s flirting. His eyes told his cousin so, which only made Bud more determined than ever.

“Thank you,” Mari was saying, all smiles. “It’s nice to meet you at last.”

“Same here,” Bud said warmly, moving forward.

“Here, son,” Ward said, tossing the bag at him. “You can put that in the guest room, if you don’t mind. I’m sure Mari would like to see the study.” Before anybody could say anything else, Ward had taken Mari by the arm and propelled her none too gently into the study.

He slammed the door behind them, bristling with masculine pride, and turned to glare at her. “He’s not marrying material,” he told her immediately, “so don’t take him too seriously. He just likes to flirt.”

“Maybe I do, too,” she began hotly.

He shook his head, moving slowly toward her. “Not you, honey,” he replied. “You aren’t the flirting kind. You’re no butterfly. You’re a little house wren, all feathered indignation and quick eyes and nesting instinct.”

“You think you know a lot about me, don’t you?” She faltered on the last word because she was backing away from him and almost fell over a chair. He kept coming, looming over her with threatening eyes and sheer size.

“I know more than I ever expected to,” he agreed, coming closer. “Stop running. We both know it’s me you really want, not Bud.”

She drew herself up, glaring at him. “You conceited…”

He moved quickly, scooping her up in his arms, holding her off the floor, his eyes wavering between amusement and ardor. “Go ahead, finish it,” he taunted.

She could have if he hadn’t been so close. His breath was minty and it brushed her lips when he breathed, warm and moist. He made her feel feminine and vulnerable, and when she looked at his hard mouth, she wanted to kiss it.

“Your office,” she swallowed, “is a mess.”

“So am I,” he whispered huskily, searching her eyes. “So is my life. Oh, God, I missed you!”

That confession was her undoing. She looked up at him and couldn’t look away, and her heart felt like a runaway engine. Her head fell back onto his shoulder, and she watched him lower his dark head.

“Open your mouth when I put mine over it,” he breathed against her lips. “Taste me…”

Her breath caught. She was reaching up, she could already feel the first tentative brushing of his warm lips when a knock at the door made them both jump.

He lifted his head with a jerky motion. “What is it?” he growled.

Mari trembling in his arms, heard a male voice reply, “Lillian’s got coffee and cake in the dining room, Cousin! Why don’t you come and have some refreshment?”

“I’d like to have him, fricasseed,” Ward muttered under his breath as Bud’s laughing voice became dimmer along with his footsteps.

“I’d like some coffee,” she said hesitantly even though she was still shaking with frustrated reaction and her voice wobbled.

He looked down into her eyes. “No, you wouldn’t,” he said huskily. “You’d like me. And I’d like you, right there on that long sofa where we almost made love the first time. And if it hadn’t been for my meddling, jealous cousin, that’s where we’d be right now!”

He put her down abruptly and moved away. “Come on, we’ll have coffee.” He stopped at the door with his hand on the knob. “For now,” he added softly. “But one day, Marianne, we’ll have each other. Because one day neither one of us is going to be able to stop.”

She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t even manage a defiant stare. It was the truth. She’d been crazy to come here, but there was no one to blame but herself.

From that first meeting, Cousin Bud seemed determined to drive Ward absolutely crazy. He didn’t leave Mari alone with the older man for a second if he could help it. He found excuse after excuse to come into the office when she was typing things for Ward, and if she ever had to find Ward to ask a question, Bud would find them before they said two words to each other. Mari wondered if it might just be mischief on Bud’s part, but Ward treated the situation as if he had a rival.

That in itself was amazing. Ward seemed possessive now, frankly covetous whenever Mari was near him. He shared things with her. Things about the ranch, about his plans for it, the hard work that had gone into its success. When he came home late in the evening, it was to Mari that he went, seeking her out wherever she might be, to ask for coffee or a sandwich or a slice of cake. Lillian took this new attitude with open delight, glad to have her former position usurped when she saw the way he was looking at her puzzled niece.

Bud usually managed to weasel in, of course, but there eventually came a night when he had business out of town. Ward came in about eight o’clock, covered in dust and half starved.

“I sure could use a couple of sandwiches, honey,” he told Mari gently, pausing in the living room doorway. Lillian had gone to bed, and curled up on the sofa in her jeans and a yellow tank top, Mari was watching the credits roll after an entertainment special.

“Of course,” she said eagerly and got up without bothering to look for her shoes.

He was even taller when she was barefoot, and he seemed amused by her lack of footwear.

“You look like a country girl,” he remarked as she passed close by him, feeling the warmth of his big body.

“I feel like a country girl,” she said with a pert smile. “Come on, big man, I’ll feed you.”

“How about some coffee to go with it?” he added as he followed her down the hall into the spacious kitchen.

“Easier done than said,” she told him. She flicked the on switch of the small coffee machine, grinning at him when it started to perk. “I had it fixed and ready to start.”

“Reading my mind already?” he teased. He pulled out a chair and sat down, sprawling with a huge stretch before he put his long legs out and rested his booted feet in another chair. “The days are getting longer, or I’m getting older,” he said with a yawn. “I guess if I keep up this pace, before long you’ll be pushing me around in a wheelchair.”

“Not you,” she said with loving amusement. “You’re not the type to give up and get old before your time. You’ll still be chasing women when you’re eighty-five.”

He sobered with amazing rapidity, his green eyes narrowing in his handsome face as he studied her graceful movements around the kitchen. “Suppose I told you that you’re the only woman I’ll want to chase when I’m eighty-five, Marianne?” he asked gently.

Her heart leaped, but she wasn’t giving in to it that easily. He’d already come too close once and hurt her. She’d been deliberately keeping things light since she’d come back to the ranch, and she wasn’t going to be trapped now.

She laughed. “Oh, I guess I’d be flattered.”

“Only flattered?” he mused.

She finished making the sandwiches and put them down on the table. “By that time I expect to be a grandmother many times over,” she informed him as she went back to pour the coffee. “And I think my husband might object.”

He didn’t like thinking about Marianne with a husband. His face darkened. He turned his attention to the sandwiches and began to eat.

“I have to go over to Ty Wade’s place tomorrow,” he murmured. “Want to come and meet Erin and the babies?”

She caught her breath. “Me? But won’t I be in the way if you’re going to talk business?”

He shook his head, holding her soft blue eyes. “You’ll never be in my way, sweetheart,” he said with something very much like tenderness in his deep voice. “Not ever.”

She smiled at him. The way he was looking at her made her feel trembly all over. He was weaving subtle webs around her, but without the wild passion he’d shown her at the beginning of their turbulent relationship. This was new and different. While part of her was afraid to trust it, another part was hungry for it and for him.

“How about it?” he asked, forcing himself to go slow, not to rush her. He’d already had to face the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to let her go. Now it was a question of making her see that he didn’t have ulterior motives, and she was as hard to trust as he was.

“I’d like to meet Mrs. Wade,” she said after a minute. “She sounds like quite a lady.”

He laughed under his breath. “If you’d known Ty before she came along, you’d think she was quite a lady,” he agreed with a grin. “It took one special woman to calm down that cougar. You’ll see what I mean tomorrow.”

* * *

The next afternoon Mari climbed into the Chrysler beside Ward for the trip over to the Wades’ place. Ward was wearing slacks with a striped, open-necked green shirt, and she had on a pretty green pantsuit with a gaily striped sleeveless blouse. He’d grinned when he noticed that their stripes matched.

Erin Wade opened the door, a picture in a gaily flowing lavender caftan. She looked as if she smiled a lot, and she was obviously a beauty when she was made up, with her long black hair and pretty green eyes. But she wasn’t wearing makeup. She looked like a country girl, clean and fresh.

“Hello!” she said enthusiastically. “I’m glad you brought her, Ward. Hello, I’m Erin, and you have to be Marianne. Come in and see my boys!”