by Mindy Neff
THEY WERE SITTING side by side on the floor of the kitchen and Jordan was having a hard time keeping her concentration on nursemaiding the puppies. Guilt ate at her over spending Tanner’s money. In addition to the underwear, she’d bought a pair of sandals. Then, when it had come time to pay the vet’s bill, he’d had to use a credit card—thank goodness the authorization had cleared.
Because of her, the man was going into debt.
“I appreciate you paying Dr. Eldon.”
Tanner glanced up from trying to coax one of the puppies into drinking from a baby bottle. She noticed that the thigh of his jeans was wet from spilled milk. The sight made her heart give a jolt and she couldn’t quite determine why.
“You got a fixation about money, Blackie?”
“No.” Her own puppy whined when he lost his hold on the nipple. “But I prefer to pull my own weight. So far, you’ve been footing the bill for me.”
“I did it for Annie.”
The mother dog lay on a pile of blankets. She was anemic and fighting a low-grade infection, but Dr. Eldon had given her a shot of antibiotics and promised she’d regain her strength in a few days. In the meantime, though, she wasn’t up to nursing her puppies.
“Yes, but the food and other stuff wasn’t all for the dogs.”
“I’m not broke.” A note of censure crept into his voice.
Why did her worry keep coming across as an insult? She sighed and concentrated on the puppy in her lap, trying to keep her eyes and her mind off Tanner’s capable, scarred hands ministering to the golden ball of fur that was sprawled across his thigh.
“It seems like every time I try to have a conversation with you, we end up wading through minefields. Neither one of us are the same people we were ten years ago. Would it be so terrible if we tried to get to know each other?”
“What do you want to know?”
She shrugged, trying to gather her thoughts. There were plenty of gaps, but she felt like she’d known him intimately all her life. It didn’t make sense. Probably because she’d thought about him so often, spun so many fantasies about him.
“Where do you live?”
He seemed to hesitate. His thumb gently stroked between the puppy’s ears. “Just outside Fresno.”
“That’s where your Mr. B. lives, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
If her hands weren’t occupied with the puppy, she might have thrown something at him. “Ever had a conversation before?”
He scowled at her.
“It’s a simple concept,” she said, exasperated. “An exchange of information, pleasantries, the weather, whatever. It’s more than one-word sentences.”
Reluctantly, it seemed, his mouth canted at the corners. Brown eyes pinned her, full of amusement and something else she couldn’t quite put a name to. He shook his head, shifting his long hair off his shoulders, then stretched his legs out against the tile floor, careful not to dislodge the sleeping puppy.
“Okay, we’ll start over. Talk away and I’ll try to hold up my end.” Idly, his fingertip traced the pink belly of the little dog.
Now that he’d given her carte blanche, she wasn’t sure where to start.
“Do you have pets?”
“No.”
“Have you ever?” She couldn’t imagine someone not surrounding themselves with animals. Animals never judged. They only loved. And they expected so little.
“No.”
Her brow arched at his stingy syllables and he gave a soft chuckle.
“I’m not used to talking about myself.”
“You’ll get better at it. How come you never had a pet?”
“My old man wouldn’t allow it. I brought home a stray cat once and he threatened to drown it.”
“That’s awful. Surely he didn’t mean it?”
Tanner shrugged, remembering the fight that had turned physical and the poor scrawny cat hiding in the corner. He’d have given up anything to keep that animal.
“Douglas Caldwell wasn’t what you’d call a prince of a man. I didn’t want to take a chance that he was blowing smoke, so I found a good home for the stray.” And had checked on it daily for more than a month, hiding behind a fence so no one would see him, see his longing, see the tough guy who lived in a squalid travel trailer mooning over an orange tabby.
Always on the outside...looking through the fence.
“I’m sorry,” Jordan said, placing her sleeping puppy next to its mother. Annie lifted her head, nuzzled her offspring and turned weary, grateful eyes up to Jordan.
For a minute, Tanner wondered if she’d heard his thoughts. “It’s no big deal. It was a long time ago.”
“And what about now?”
“Now, I don’t have a pet because I’ve been too busy to stay in one place for long. I haven’t had the time to devote to an animal. I’d like to, though.” He stroked the puppy in his lap, reluctant to move it just yet. “I’m thirty years old and I’d like to set down some roots. I’d always promised myself when I did that, I’d get a dog, maybe a few cats, some birds.” He grinned. “Maybe even a snake.”
As he’d known she would, she shuddered. “That’ll keep me from visiting, for sure.”
It felt as though his heart stood still for an instant. “You planning to visit with or without the husband?”
He saw the backtracking, saw the realization that she’d blurted out a platitude that had no ground in actuality. Saw the instant she remembered that their being here was only temporary, that kidnappers-at-large had forced her into this situation.
That her life was promised to another man.
“I...I—I meant...”
“I know what you meant, Blackie,” he said softly. Her stammering reminded him of the sweet girl she’d been, the girl who rooted for the underdog—or the bad-boy misfit. “And I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m not overly fond of snakes myself.” To take that bruised look off her face—the look that suggested she was worrying about his feelings—he nodded to the puppy in his lap. “Decided on any names for these guys?”
“Why don’t you decide?”
“I’m not good at that.”
Jordan stared at him for several seconds, making a concentrated effort not to let her jaw drop. His quick denial held a host of undertones.
“Are you kidding? You call me Blackie because I’ve got black hair, and you call me duchess—which I object to, by the way—because you think I’m such a privileged miss. So take a good look at these little fur balls and come up with something.”
He scowled at the puppies, then at her. For a minute she thought he was going to get up and leave the room.
“If I name them, it doesn’t mean I’m keeping them.”
“Why not? You said you wanted roots. Pets.”
“I ride a Harley. I can’t very well haul Annie and her runts on my bike.”
The longing that came over him when he looked at the dogs was in direct contrast to his argumentative tone.
“What about the Jeep?”
“It belongs to Mr. B.”
“I’ll deliver them for you.”
His gaze snapped to hers. “You and Russell?”
“Randall. And leave him out of this. I want a name.”
Silence. Bordering on belligerence.
“Well?” she prompted.
“Buddy.”
That surprised her. “Buddy?”
He looked embarrassed.
Jordan was charmed.
“What’s wrong with Buddy?” His square jaw jutted out, and a strand of long hair caught on his beard stubble.
“Nothing. It’s a good name. But it should mean something. What makes you think of him as Buddy?”
“Forget it.” Despite his short tone, his hands were gentle as he laid the sleeping puppy next to its sibling. “It was a stupid idea.”
“No. Tell me.”
For the longest time, he stared at the abandoned mother and her offsprin
g. His voice, when he spoke, was rough-edged and quiet. “I always wanted a pet because it would be my buddy.” His tone gained strength, became dismissive. “But since I won’t be keeping these, it’s a dumb name.”
She reached out and touched his arm. He reminded her of a little boy, embarrassed in front of his peers. “It’s a perfect name. In fact, we’ll call his brother Pal.”
“No sense in going overboard, Blackie.”
She made the mistake of looking into his eyes. And found herself trapped. Snared by his magnetism, his virility, the vulnerability he tried so hard to mask... Snared by her own desire.
Dear Lord, she wanted this man. Right there in the kitchen, sitting on the cold tile floor, surrounded by puppies.
Like an out-of-focus lens, her world gradually narrowed into crystal clarity, into just the two of them. Alone. No obligations. No outside forces to intrude.
Spellbound, she saw his hand lift, saw him move closer, felt his warm breath on her cheek.
For the life of her, she couldn’t move.
Didn’t want to move.
Restlessness stirred again. The desire to start something she had no business starting. Her heart pounded out of control, making her dizzy, weightless somehow... as though she were someone else.
As though she were free to take...and to give.
What could it hurt?
His lips were a mere breath away.
The voice of reason warred with passion. And for once, just this once, Jordan wanted to ignore the reason and go with the passion.
“So long,” he whispered. “I’ve been waiting for you for so long.”
“I know. Me, too. If you don’t kiss me now, I think I’ll go mad.”
He cupped her face, closed his eyes and laid his forehead against hers. Jordan felt so confused. The urge to take nearly consumed her. Something held her back.
His features were tight, as though he were in pain.
“Tanner?”
“We’re in a hell of a fix, Blackie. If I don’t kiss you, you’ll go mad. If I do, I’ll lose it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. I have an idea I’m going to regret this until my dying day, but I think we should call it a night and go to bed.” His lips brushed her brow. “Alone.”
Chapter Nine
“I swear there’s an epidemic,” Tanner said.
Jordan rearranged the cardboard they’d fashioned to keep the puppies from running amok. Each day they were getting stronger, and more curious.
“An epidemic of what?” She’d been steering clear of Tanner as much as possible over the past week. If he hadn’t gone all noble on her that night in the kitchen, they would have made love.
She still wanted to—with an increasing fervor that bordered on obsession.
“Botched weddings,” Tanner said.
Jordan’s heart lurched. For long periods of time, she was able to dismiss the danger from her mind. But then the restlessness would set in, the worry. With each day that passed without information, without an assurance that it was safe to go home, her fear increased. What if their whereabouts were found out and a genuine ransom was demanded? What if she didn’t get back in time and the bank foreclosed on the estate? What if she returned to Grazer’s Corners to find her stables empty, her stallion missing?
It was a nightmare that made it difficult to sleep.
“What’s happened now?” There had been three weddings scheduled a week apart—Kate Bingham’s, Jordan’s, and Hailey Olson’s to Garrett Keely.
“The details are sketchy, but according to Sonny, the bride didn’t show and the groom came up missing.”
“Garret? No way. The guy’s a pro football player. He can definitely hold his own.”
“Maybe with his fists.”
“Are you saying there were more guns involved?” She didn’t give him time to answer. “Lord, Tanner. What’s happening to our town?”
“Your town,” he corrected. “And I don’t know the answer to either one of those questions.”
“You think they were kidnapped, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “They probably eloped.”
“No. The Olsens would never stand still for that. I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Tanner. Do you think it’s all tied together somehow? My situation, and Kate’s, and now Garrett and Hailey’s?”
“Not likely. Word is that Katie went of her own free will...like you did. For all we know, Garrett did, too.”
“Kate Bingham went willingly?” Jordan had been so busy with her own plans—and her restlessness—that she hadn’t kept tabs on the progress made with Kate’s disappearance. That made her feel bad. She should have been more concerned.
And her willingness to stay with Tanner was another source of guilt.
“Seems so.”
“The guy at the wedding,” she mused, more to herself than as actual conversation. She remembered the fiasco, the handsome man who’d whisked Kate out of harm’s way. She also remembered that split second, when she’d run to her daddy to make sure he hadn’t been hit by a stray bullet, an instant when she’d glanced at the outlaw and seen his eyes connect with Kate’s.
It was the type of look every female would recognize—the look of a man who wants a woman.
The same look she saw in Tanner’s eyes.
“His name is Mitch Connery.”
“Who?”
“The man Katie went off with. And he’s wanted for murder.”
Jordan drew in a breath. “She went willingly with a man who’s wanted for murder?”
“I don’t imagine she knew it at the time. And you’re not in a great position to cast stones—”
“I wasn’t casting stones,” she interrupted, then frowned. “Why?”
“Because you went with me without knowing anything about me.”
“I knew enough.”
“Enough to be afraid?”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“You should be.”
“Because you want to make love with me?”
Her bluntness apparently took him by surprise. His hand jerked as he reached for the coffeepot. Glass clinked against hard plastic so sharply, it was a wonder the carafe didn’t shatter. “Don’t go there, Blackie.”
Her heart slammed into its runaway-gallop mode. Around Tanner, that seemed to be a common occurrence. It was a testament to her good health that she hadn’t keeled over from a stroke yet.
And as much as she knew she shouldn’t be pursuing this conversational avenue, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Would it be so wrong?”
“Are you willing to give up your plans for marriage?”
She knew that guilt, as well as her answer, was written on her face.
“Ah,” he said. “The rich girl looking for a secret fling.”
His nasty words stung, and she felt tears well, felt her throat ache. She wanted to tell him that it wouldn’t be a fling, that he meant much more to her. So much more.
What had started out as a girlhood crush, had matured into something much more powerful.
Something that felt a lot like love.
But with regard to Tanner, that wasn’t an emotion she was at liberty to examine, to allow to blossom, to hope for.
Turning her back to him, she stared down at Buddy and Pal, who were curled trustingly against Annie’s belly.
Would she ever have anyone of her own with whom she could curl up so comfortably? A dim image of Randall popped into her mind and she shook her head. Randall didn’t inspire feelings of protectiveness, or of safety.
But Tanner did. And that hurt, because he was the wrong man.
After swallowing back the pain over what could not be, she at last found her voice. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m not being fair. I don’t blame you for thinking I’m nothing more than a shallow debutante.”
She hadn’t realized he’d moved behind her until he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, and turned her to face him.
“
No. I’m the one who’s sorry. You’re not shallow, Jordan.” His knuckles lightly grazed her cheek. “I’m starting to realize that the layers of you go fathoms deep.”
“Maybe to the wrong depths, though.”
“Why’s that?”
She closed her eyes. Like an ostrich with its head in the sand, she’d avoided dwelling on her reasons for marrying Randall, hadn’t spent a lot of time analyzing the right and wrong of marrying for money. Now, it seemed, that was all she could think about. “Never mind.”
He held her in place, his hands gentle on her shoulders. The clock above the dinette table ticked like a time bomb in the silence.
“Do you love Latrobe?”
“He’s a good man.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know, but if I answer you honestly, you’ll misunderstand.”
“Try me.”
This would be like negotiating through a minefield. She hadn’t forced herself to think too closely about her relationship with Randall.
Until Tanner had come back into her life.
“I care a great deal for Randall. He’s ambitious, and he’s good to me. But I don’t feel a burning passion for him.”
She saw the way Tanner’s eyes flared.
“See? I knew you’d misunderstand.” She pulled away, and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re thinking that because I don’t get all hot and bothered with Randall, I’m wanting to use you as a substitute. And that’s just not so.”
“So, I make you all hot and bothered?”
There was no accusation in his tone as she might have expected. Only curiosity. Sexy curiosity.
“I honestly think I should plead the fifth on that.”
“Plead all you want. The truth is in your eyes. Answer me something, though.”
She nodded. “If I can.”
“Is there more to it than just hormones?”
She couldn’t hold his gaze. Especially because she’d just decided she owed him total honesty. “Yes. Much more. But that’s as far as I can let it go. I made a promise, Tanner. When it’s safe to go home, I have to marry Randall.”
THE YAP AND WHINE of the puppies woke her. Pulling on the loose cotton shorts under her T-shirt, she made her way into the kitchen, and stopped at the sight she saw.
