by Diana Palmer
“Mary’s told me a lot about Montana and the way it used to be,” she said. “It’s a fascinating country. Big and sprawling and special.”
“That’s why I stay here,” he said. He leaned back against the pillows, studying her face. “I have no desire to go back to the life I used to lead.”
“Well, that’s one thing we can both agree on,” she said quietly. “Neither do I.”
His chiseled lips pursed thoughtfully. “Are you really worth three million?”
She nodded. “If I sign the necessary papers. But I don’t want three million dollars. If I refuse that trust, do you know what the money will be used for?”
“No.”
He seemed honestly curious, so she told him. “It will fund a research program to find new ways of treating cancer in children.”
“Three million would go a long way,” he said.
“Yes, wouldn’t it?” She smiled. “And since I’ve gotten used to working for the Christopher Corporation, and nobody’s fired me yet, I expect I can support myself without that trust.”
He stretched lazily, watching her eyes drop to his chest with the movement and follow the sensuous tautening of muscle under thick hair. He liked the way it felt to let her look at him like this.
“You’re a surprising girl, Nicole,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, deep and sexy.
“Am I? I thought I was a gold digging adventuress.”
“That sounds bitter,” he mused.
She shifted from one foot to the other and stared down at the thick beige carpet. “It felt bitter, too. You never believed a word my father said, really, but it gave you the excuse you needed to draw back before things got complicated.” She looked up, catching the surprise in his dark eyes even as it registered that she’d hit on the truth.
“I told you at the beginning that I didn’t want commitment,” he reminded her sulkily.
“I don’t remember asking for any,” she replied.
“You said you loved me.” His dark eyes slid down her body. “Several times.”
“You’d just saved my life.” She steeled herself not to let him see how vulnerable she was. She’d thrown herself at him for the last time. He didn’t want to make a life with her, and there was only one other thing he might offer. She couldn’t accept that kind of relationship, so what was left?
His face didn’t reveal a single emotion. “And it was only gratitude?”
“Gratitude, and a natural response to a very experienced man. Which you are,” she said, watching his eyes narrow. “I must have been a real pushover.”
“You’re twisting it.” His voice was deep, but a little more curt now. “What I saw in your eyes wasn’t completely physical.”
“I’m young, as you keep reminding me,” she shot back.
“Yes.” His gaze swept over her face, memorizing lines and curves and expressions. “Eleven years my junior. Almost another generation, especially in sensual ways.”
“You don’t have to remind me about how experienced you are.”
“In my day, I was,” he agreed. He propped himself against the pillows, righting the sheet with a careless hand. “But in recent years, I’ve given up jet-setting around the world. I’ve changed my values, Nicole.”
“Through choice?” she asked gently. “Or just because you were unsure of being accepted with your battle scars?”
“Honey, you believe in cutting to the bone, don’t you?” he asked with a half-angry laugh.
“You aren’t the kind of man to be spoon-fed things, are you?” she returned gently.
“No.” He drew up his left leg and studied her quietly. “Why did you think I’d order you off the place if I knew your real name?”
“You’d already said you hated rich people, and Gerald said you had no use whatsoever for jet-setters. I guessed that if you knew I was in that class, it would make you hate me,” she said simply.
“You might have given me the benefit of the doubt.”
She managed a smile. “I didn’t have enough self-confidence for that. As it was, you were only tolerating me.”
“I thought you and Gerald had something going,” he said. He studied the coverlet. “I love Gerald. I couldn’t take away something he wanted as badly as he seemed to want you.”
“And all along, he was in love with Sadie. I’ve never had ulterior motives,” she added, wanting to make him understand. “I don’t want a rich man, Winthrop. I have a job I enjoy, I can make my own way in life. I was never looking for a…a meal ticket.”
“I didn’t know that. All I had left were my instincts, and they’d already let me down once. I haven’t trusted a woman since this happened.” He touched his knee.
“Were you ever in love before her?” she asked hesitantly, because it was suddenly important that she know that.
He met her searching gaze. “Love is an illusion. I don’t believe in it. I never did. I wanted Deanne until she was an obsession with me. I got drunk on her. When she walked out, I thought I was going to bleed to death, and for two years I felt like a zombie. Is that love? I don’t know. It’s the most intense thing I’d ever felt, so maybe it was. But I’m over her now and I have no inclination whatsoever to go through it again.”
He’d probably never spoken so candidly about his feelings before, and she was flattered that he’d trusted her even that far. She sat down slowly on the bed beside him, her soft weight moving the mattress.
“Love shouldn’t be all physical,” she told him, her voice as gentle as the fingertips that went hesitantly to his firm mouth and touched it. “It should be a sharing between two people. A bonding of thoughts and hopes and dreams. A linking of intangible things. Companionship. Friendship. Openness and honesty.”
“You lied to me,” he said curtly. His fingers caught her wrist.
“What do you care?” she asked. “You don’t believe in love, and you don’t really want it anyway. You’re safe from ever being hurt again. Nobody can reach you. If you stay up here another ten years, you’ll be a walking dead man!”
“At your age, what do you know about love?” he demanded. “You said you loved me, but we both know all you feel is pity. I’ve been hurt and I’m scarred, so you see me as a charity case!”
Her eyebrows went up. “You?”
The one word was more expressive than any argument she could have made. He glared at her and let go of her wrist. “You feel sorry for me,” he continued doggedly.
“I feel sorry for anybody who gets close to you all right,” she mumbled. “You aren’t my idea of the perfect lover.”
“How would you know, when you’ve never had one?”
“You said my innocence was all an act—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, I was mad as hell, I’d have said anything! I didn’t mean it. I know lack of experience when it stares me in the face. You blushed that night in the kitchen when I looked at you.”
“I wish you’d stop bringing that up. I was…overwrought,” she concluded helplessly.
“You got too damned close,” he said suddenly, every last bit of caution gone. His eyes glittered dangerously. “You got under my skin. What did you expect me to do—lie back and enjoy it? I won’t be owned by some little city girl with a rich daddy!”
“Now just hold on one minute,” she said slowly. “What do you mean ‘with a rich daddy’?”
“Your father mentioned that if I wanted to marry you, he’d give us a racehorse for a wedding present, and an interest in the farm to boot.”
She was horrified. Absolutely horrified. In his usual bulldozing way, her father was trying to help. This scheme sounded like his idea of building a fire under the man he thought Nicky wanted.
Somehow she got to her feet, her heart slamming in her throat. “How nice of him,” she said huskily.
“He needs looking after,” he replied. “He shouldn’t be let out alone. And you’re not much better. Neither of you do things the right way.”
“Which is?” she taunted.
“Straightforward. Don’t you know how to get what you want in life?”
“Your way would probably be to reach out and grab it,” she muttered.
“You’re catching on, sugarplum.”
Before she could react, he had her by the wrist again. He levered her down onto the bed, on her back, and loomed over her with a purely arrogant look in his dark eyes.
“I don’t want to be another one of your conquests,” she told him, struggling.
“Sure you do. If you keep thrashing around like that, you’re going to dislodge my sheet and the mystery of life will be over!”
She stopped immediately, glaring at him with wide green eyes as she tried to catch her breath. Smiling down at her, all unshaven and with his hair down over his forehead, he looked sensuous and a little dangerous.
“You don’t want commitment, remember?” she reminded him bitterly.
“I don’t have to propose marriage to kiss you,” he returned, bending.
“I have a cold—I’m contagious!” she squeaked.
“I have a sore leg, and that’s not catching. But desire is,” he whispered against her lips. “Shall I show you how easy it is to catch?”
“It isn’t fair,” she wailed.
“Probably not. But it’s sweet, all the same.” He nuzzled her face with his, in soft, gentle caresses that wore her down all too easily. “You smell of gardenias, Nicky. You smell sweet all over. Here,” he breathed, taking her hand in his to press it against his hard, warm chest. “Touch me.”
Her hand faltered shyly, but he guided it over the hard muscles, letting her feel the silky hair that covered him, the ripple of muscle under rough skin. “You feel furry,” she whispered.
“And you feel like satin.” He traced her cheek with his fingers as he kissed her very lightly, and his hand slowly lowered to the buttons of her bodice under the robe.
“No,” she protested.
“Go ahead, fight for your honor,” he chided. “And I’ll wear you down anyway. It’s only going to be a token resistance. You want to be touched as much as I want to touch you. So just give in, Nicky, and enjoy it.”
“You conceited ape!”
“Enjoy it,” he whispered. His fingers moved to the edge of her breast, tracing around it with maddening expertise, making her moan and stiffen suddenly in an explosion of unexpected pleasure.
“Winthrop!” she gasped.
“It isn’t new,” he whispered, drawing his mouth slowly over hers. “We did this in the kitchen that night…you let me touch you then, too. You let me kiss you.”
“You shouldn’t,” she whispered shakily.
“You belong to me,” he said simply as he began to unfasten buttons. “I have every right in the world.”
“You don’t,” she tried to protest, but his hand was inside the gown now, his lean, cool fingers against virgin flesh, teasing, tracing, until she arched up and trembled.
“Mine,” he breathed against her mouth. Her movements were exciting him, her little cries caught in his lips, making him hungry. “All of you. Here and here…sweet young body, ripe for my hands. I could make a meal of you, Nicky.”
He had her gown around her waist, and she couldn’t even protest. Her eyes closed, tears falling down her cheeks while he looked, touched, delicately tasted her pretty, firm breasts. She let him, and his whirling mind registered her complete abandonment to his ardor. She wasn’t resisting him anymore—verbally or physically. He could do anything now and she’d let him.
And that realization was what slowed him down. He lifted his head quietly, looking at the helpless reaction of her body to his lovemaking. She was beautiful, he thought, and he stared at her with something akin to reverence in his dark, tender gaze.
His fingers traced around an erect nipple, gently loving. “I’ve never seen anything so perfect, Nicky,” he whispered. “It’s like touching satin.”
Her eyes opened. She was embarrassed, and her face felt hot as she met his gaze. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.
“There’s no reason to be frightened. I’m not going to ravish you.” He drew the backs of his fingers against her, loving the way she tensed with pleasure. “But I could, couldn’t I? You want me pretty badly right now.”
“Obsessively,” she confessed. Her voice shook a little. “Do you enjoy humiliating me?”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Think again.” He lifted his hand, and she saw its faint tremble. “That isn’t faked, Nicky,” he added solemnly. “I go just as high as you do when we make love. It’s mutual, this chemistry. It has been from the very beginning.”
“I won’t have an affair with you,” she said quietly.
“I wouldn’t let you,” he returned. He nuzzled her nose with his. “On the other hand, I don’t want marriage.”
“I’ll have to leave,” she whispered, feeling her heart break.
“Inevitably,” he agreed. He looked down at her as his fingers drew tenderly over her bare breasts and she trembled. “It knocks the very breath out of me to touch you this way,” he breathed.
“You aren’t the only one,” she said shakily.
He bent and put his mouth gently on the soft curve, and then he drew back, while it was still just a whisper of sensation. “You’d better sit up and pull up your gown, honey. Someone’s coming up the steps very loudly.”
His words registered, but she felt as if she was caught in a dream. In the end, he helped her up, buttoned her gown and belted her robe with exaggerated indulgence. He’d only just finished when Mary ambled into the room with two mugs of steaming black coffee.
“Still here?” She clicked her tongue at Nicky. “You should be in bed. You will never mend this way.”
“We were talking,” Winthrop said. “Don’t run her off just yet. I’m not through.”
“Yes, you are,” Mary said with unexpected stubbornness. “Must get her well, first, and you back on that leg. Then you can talk. Up!”
Nicky managed a rueful smile at Winthrop, feeling disappointed and a little shy. His expression, on the other hand, gave nothing away. He didn’t protest, so she went with Mary, too subdued to even notice the twinkle in the older woman’s eyes.
But Nicky didn’t go back to Winthrop’s room again, and he didn’t ask for her. It was a kind of world-weary truce, but without any fraternizing. She didn’t even see him, but Mary said that he was almost on his feet again. That was good news.
Meanwhile, Mike brought Sadie and Mrs. Todd down the mountain for the duration, so at least Nicky had someone to talk to. That is, she had Mrs. Todd to visit with, not Sadie, who was taking a delicious pleasure in nursing her Gerald back to health.
The little group got along very well. That was unexpected and enlightening, because Nicky had thought they wouldn’t fare that well. Even Carol found things to talk to Mrs. Todd about. And Dominic White discovered that his lady love had a compassionate side to counterbalance her mercenary tendencies. He didn’t seem to want to cut at Nicky anymore, although he did keep mentioning fairs and cotton candy….
Nicky was back taking dictation when Gerald felt up to it, in between wondering why Winthrop hadn’t come near her and how she was going to bear to leave him when she and Gerald had to go home to Chicago. Even living in the same house separated from Winthrop was agony. How was it going to feel when she was hundreds of miles away, separated for life?
Chapter Nine
It was Saturday, and the hunters were packing to go home. A chinook had blown in Friday to take away the snow, unlocking the grip the storm had on the ranch, leaving the roads passable if slushy.
“Well, it’s just been great,” Carol sighed as she left. “I can’t think when I’ve enjoyed anything as much. Especially your movies,” she added, smiling demurely at Winthrop in the hall.
“You’ll have to get Dominic to bring you again,” he returned with a smile.
“I might be persuaded,” Dominic said. He put an arm around Carol. “This one might be worth keeping.
”
“Well, she’s certainly pretty enough,” Nicky volunteered. “And I like her, if that carries any weight.”
Carol’s eyes brightened. Impulsively, she hugged Nicky. “We won’t tell anyone that I’m only five years older than you are. We’ll just let people gape when you call me Mom, okay?” she laughed.
“Okay,” Nicky said gently. She winked at the redhead.
“By the way,” Dominic hesitated, luggage in hand, “I, uh, put my foot in it again, Nicky.”
She knew what he was going to say, about trying to buy Winthrop. He was a rascal, but he was still her father. She liked him sometimes, warts and all.
She hugged him briefly. “I’ve fouled things up all by myself, thanks. You just added your two cents’ worth. I like you anyway.”
Dominic looked uncomfortably emotional for a minute before he pulled himself together. “Come see an old man once in a while,” he managed finally.
“I don’t know any old men, but I guess I could come see you. If I get to help Eddie with the horses,” she added. “It’s been a while since I’ve ridden.”
“We can remedy that. Don’t wait too long. See you, Nicky.”
“See you, Dad.”
They went out, followed by the Harris brothers who were mumbling their own thanks and goodbyes. Nicky found herself alone with Winthrop, who towered over her in jeans and that huge sheepskin jacket he liked to wear with his creamy Stetson.
“You seem to have arrived at a truce with your father,” he mused.
“I misunderstood a lot of things. Grief plays havoc with the brain,” she said quietly. “I loved my mother very much.”
“So did he, unless I miss my guess.” He touched her short hair, the simple gesture sending thrills down her spine. “Was she like you, to look at?”
“Oh, no. She was beautiful,” she recalled gently. “Long black hair and pale blue eyes—Irish. She even had the lilting speech. She was a lady, in every sense of the word. I adored her.”
“And what does that make you—the ugly duckling?” he chided. He tilted her chin up, searching her suddenly flushed face. “Nice eyes. Big and soft. Pretty little mouth. High cheekbones. Soft skin. You’ll do, sugarplum, even without long hair. But let it grow anyway. I like long hair.”
