by Diana Palmer
“I noticed,” Leo said dryly. “And then you tell her to wait one more season. She’s waited two already.”
Cag’s black eyes cut into him. “I haven’t been serious about a woman since I was sent to the Middle East,” he said through his teeth. “I’ve been pretty bitter. I haven’t wanted my heart twisted out of my chest again. Then, she came along.” He nodded in the general direction of the kitchen. “With her curly red hair and big blue eyes and that pert little boyish figure.” He shook his head as if to clear the image from it. “Damn it, I ache just looking at her!” He whirled. “I’ve got to get her out of here before I do something about it!”
Leo studied his hand. “Are you sure you don’t want to do something about it?” he asked softly. “Because she wants you to. She was shaking when you put her down.”
Cag glared at him. “The snake scared her.”
“You scared her,” came the wry response. “Have you forgotten how to tell when a woman’s aroused?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten,” he replied grimly. “And that’s why she’s got to go. Right now.”
“Just hold on. There’s no need to go rushing into anything,” Leo counseled.
“Oh, for God’s sake, it’s just a matter of time, don’t you see?” Cag groaned. “You can’t hold back an avalanche!”
“Like that, is it?”
“Worse.” Cag lowered his head with a hard sigh. “Never like this. Never.”
Leo, who’d never felt what passed for love in the world, stared at his brother with compassion but no real understanding of what he was going through.
“She fits in around here,” Leo murmured.
“Sure she does. But I’m not going to marry her!”
Leo’s eyebrows lifted. “Why not? Don’t you want kids?”
“Corrigan’s got one.”
“Kids of your own,” Leo persisted with a grin. “Little boys with big feet and curly red hair.”
Cag lifted a paperweight from the desk and tossed it deliberately in one hand.
Leo held up both hands in a defensive gesture. “Don’t throw it. I’m reformed. I won’t say another word.”
The paperweight was replaced on the desk. “Like I said before, I’m too old for her. After all the other considerations have been taken into account, that one remains. Sixteen years is too much.”
“Do you know Ted Regan?”
Cag scowled. “Sure. Why?”
“Do you know how much older he is than Coreen?”
Cag swallowed. “Theirs is a different relationship.”
“Calhoun Ballenger and Abby?”
Cag glared at him.
“Evan and Anna Tremayne?”
The glare became a black scowl.
Leo shrugged. “Dig your own grave, then. You should hear Ted groan about the wasted years he spent keeping Coreen at bay. They’ve got a child of their own now and they’re talking about another one in the near future. Silver hair and all, Ted’s the happiest fellow I know. Coreen keeps him young.”
“I’ll bet people talked.”
“Of course people talked. But they didn’t care.”
That grin was irritating. Cag turned away from him. He didn’t dare think about kids with curly red hair. He was already in over his head and having enough trouble trying to breathe.
“One day, a young man will come along and sweep her off her feet.”
“You’ve already done that, several times,” Leo said pointedly. “Carrying her off to the store to buy new clothes, and just today, out of the path of a rattler.”
“She doesn’t weigh as much as a good sack of potatoes.”
“She needs feeding up. She’s all nerves lately. Especially when you’re around.”
Cag’s big hands clenched in his pockets. “I want to move the heifers into the west pasture tomorrow. What do you think?”
“I think it’s a week too soon.”
The broad shoulders shrugged. “Then we’ll wait one more week. How about the pastures on the bottoms?”
“We haven’t had rain, but we will. If they flood, we’ll have every cowboy on the place out pulling cows out of mud.” His eyes narrowed. “You know all that better than I do.”
“I’m changing the subject.”
Leo threw up his hands. “All right. Don’t listen to me. But Sandy Gaines means business. He’s flirting with her, hard. He’s young and personable and educated, and he wears nice suits and drives a red Corvette.”
Cag glared at him. “She can see through clothes and a car, even a nice car.”
“She’s had digs and sarcasm and insults from you,” Leo said and he was serious. “A man who tells her she’s pretty and treats her gently might walk up on her blind side. She’s warming to him a little. I don’t like it. I’ve heard things about him.”
“What sort of things?” Cag asked without wanting to.
“That he’s fine until he gets his hands on a bottle of liquor, and then he’s every woman’s worst nightmare. You and I both know the type. We don’t want our Tess getting into a situation she can’t handle.”
“She wouldn’t tolerate that sort of behavior from a man,” he said stiffly.
“Of course not, but she barely weighs a hundred pounds sopping wet! Or have you forgotten that she couldn’t even get away from Herman, and he only outweighs her by ten pounds? Gaines is almost your size!”
Cag’s teeth clenched. “She won’t go out with him,” he said doggedly. “She’s got better sense.”
That impression only lasted two more days. Sandy Gaines, a dark-haired, blue-eyed charmer, came by to discuss a new advertising campaign with the brothers and waylaid Tess in the hall. He asked her to a dance at the Jacobsville dance hall that Friday night and she, frustrated and hurt by Cag’s sarcasm and coldness, accepted without hesitation.
Chapter Six
Sandy picked her up early for the dance in his low-slung used red Corvette. Cag was nearby and he watched them with cold eyes, so eaten up with jealousy that he could hardly bear it. She was wearing their dress, to top it all, the blue dress he’d helped her pick out when he’d taken her shopping. How could she wear it for that city dude?
“Get her home by midnight,” he told Sandy, and he didn’t smile.
“Sure thing, Mr. Hart!”
Sandy put Tess into the car quickly and drove off. Tess didn’t even look at Cag. She was uncomfortably aware of the dress she had on, and why Cag glared at her. But he didn’t want to take her anywhere, after all, so why should he object to her going out on a date? He didn’t even like her!
“What’s he, your dad?” Sandy drawled, driving far too fast.
“They all look out for me,” she said stiffly.
Sandy laughed cynically. “Yeah? Well, he acts like you’re his private stock.” He glanced at her. “Are you?”
“Not at all,” she replied with deliberate carelessness.
“Good.” He reached for her hand and pressed it. “We’re going to have a nice time. I’ve looked forward to this all week. You’re a pretty little thing.”
She smiled. “Thanks.”
“Now you just enjoy yourself and don’t worry about heavy-handed surrogate parents, okay?”
“Okay.”
But it didn’t work out that way. The first two dances were fun, and she enjoyed the music. But very quickly, Sandy found his way to the bar. After his second whiskey sour, he became another man. He held her too closely and his hands wandered. When he tried to kiss her, she struggled.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he muttered when she tried to sidestep him. He caught her hand and pulled her out of the big structure by a side door. Seconds later, he pushed her roughly up against the wall in the dim light.
Before she could get a hand up, he was kissing her—horrible wet, invasive kisses that made her gag. She tasted the whiskey on his breath and it sickened her even further. His hands grasped her small breasts roughly, hurting, twisting. She cried out and fought him, trying to get away, but his hips
levered down over hers with an obscene motion as he laughed, enjoying her struggles as she tried valiantly to kick him.
It was like that other time, when she was sixteen and she’d been at the mercy of another lecherous man. The memories further weakened her, made her sick. She tried to get her knee up, but she only gave him an opening that brought them even more intimately together and frightened her further. She was beating at his chest, raging at him, and his hand was in the neckline of her dress, popping buttons off in his drunken haste, when she felt the pressure against her body suddenly lessen.
There were muffled curses that stopped when Sandy was suddenly pushed up against the wall himself with one arm behind him and a mercilessly efficient hand at his neck, the thumb hard under his ear. Cag looked violent as Tess had rarely seen him. The hold was more than dangerous, it was professional. She didn’t have the slightest doubt that he could drop the other man instantly if it became necessary.
“Move, and I’ll break your neck,” Cag said in a voice like hot steel. His black eyes cut to Tess and took in her disheveled clothing, her torn bodice. He jerked his head toward the ranch pickup that was parked just at the edge of the grass. “It’s unlocked. Go and get inside.”
She hesitated, sick and wobbly and afraid.
“Go on,” Cag said softly.
She turned. She might have pleaded for Sandy, except that she didn’t think he deserved having her plead for him. He might have… God only knew what he might have done if Cag hadn’t shown up! She resisted the urge to kick him while Cag had him powerless, and she wobbled off toward the truck.
She was aware of dull thuds behind her, but she didn’t turn. She went to the truck, climbed in and sat shivering until a cold, taciturn Cag joined her.
Before he got into the cab, he pulled off the denim shirt he was wearing over a black T-shirt and put it over her shoulders the wrong way. He didn’t attempt to touch her, probably aware that she was sick enough of being touched at the moment.
“Get into that,” he said as he fastened his seat belt, “and fasten your belt.”
He reached for the ignition and she noticed that his knuckles were bleeding. As she struggled into the shoulder harness she glanced toward the barn and saw Sandy leaning against the wall, looking very weak.
“I couldn’t make him stop,” she said in a thin voice. “I didn’t expect him to…to get drunk. He seemed so nice. I never go out with big men usually—” Her voice broke. “Damn him! Oh, damn him! I never dreamed he’d be like that! He seemed like such a nice man!”
He glanced toward her with a face like black thunder, but he didn’t speak. He put the truck in gear and drove her home.
The others were out for the evening. They were alone in the house. She started to go down the hall toward her room, but he turned her into the study and closed the door.
He seated her on the big black antique leather divan that graced the corner near the picture window and went to pour brandy into a snifter.
He came back and sat beside her, easing her cold, trembling hands around the bowl and offering it at her swollen lips. It stung and she hesitated, but he tilted it up again.
She let out a single sob and quickly controlled herself. “Sorry,” she said.
“Why did you go out with him?”
“He flattered me,” she said with pure self-disgust. “He was sweet to me and he seemed sort of boyish. I thought…I thought he’d be a perfect gentleman, the sort of man I’d never have to fight off. But he was different when we were alone. And then he started drinking.”
“You’re grass green,” he muttered. “You can’t size up men even now, can you?”
“I haven’t dated much.”
“I noticed.”
She glanced up at his set features and then down into the brandy.
“Why haven’t you?” he persisted.
She tried not to notice how sexy he looked in that black T-shirt that clung to every muscle he had. He was big, lean, all powerful muscle and bristling vitality. It made her weak to look at him, and she averted her eyes.
“My mother came to see us one day, when I was sixteen,” she said uneasily. “She wanted to see how much I’d grown up, she said.” She shifted. “She brought her latest lover. He was a playboy with lots of money and apparently he saw that it irritated her when he paid me some attention, so he put on the charm and kept it up all day. After supper, she was miffed enough to take my dad off into another room. Dad was crazy about her, even then.” She swallowed. “It made her lover furious and vengeful. He closed the door and before I knew what was happening, he locked it and threw me down onto the sofa. He tore my clothes and touched me….” She closed her eyes at the horrible memory. “It was like tonight, only worse. He was a big man and strong. I couldn’t get away, no matter how hard I fought, and in the end I just screamed. My father broke in the door to get to him. I’ll never forget what he said to that man, and my mother, before he threw them off the place. I never saw her again. Or wanted to.”
Cag let out the breath he’d been holding. So many things made sense now. He searched her wan little face with feelings of possession. She’d had so much pain and fear from men. She probably had no idea that tenderness even existed.
“You’re tied up in bad memories, aren’t you, little one?” he asked quietly. “Maybe they need to be replaced with better ones.”
“Do they?” Her voice was sad, resigned. She finished the brandy and Cag put the snifter on the table.
She started to get up, only to find him blocking her way. He eased her back down onto the wide divan and slid down alongside her.
She gasped, wondering if she’d gotten out of the frying pan only to fall into the fire. She frantically put her hands against his broad chest and opened her mouth to protest, but his fingers touched it lightly as he lay beside her and arched over her prone body resting his formidable weight on his forearm.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of, Tess,” he said quietly. “Whatever disagreements we’ve had, you know that I’d never hurt you physically. Especially after the ordeal you’ve just been through.”
She knew, but she was still nervous of him. He was even more powerfully built than Sandy, and in this way, in an intimate way, he was also an unknown quantity.
While she was thinking, worrying, he bent and she felt the warm threat of his big body as his mouth drew softly over her eyes, closing the lids. It moved to her temples, her eyebrows. He kissed her closed eyes, his tongue lightly skimming the lashes. She jerked, and his lean hand eased under her nape, soothing her, calming her.
She had little experience, but she wasn’t so naive that she couldn’t recognize his. Every touch, every caress, was expert. He eased down so slowly that she only realized how close he really was when she moved and felt his warm, hard chest move with her. By then, she was a prisoner of her own sensual curiosity, sedated by the exquisite pleasure his mouth was giving her as it explored her face.
By the time he reached her lips, the feel and smell of him were already familiar. When his hard mouth eased her lips apart and moved into them, she felt the increased pressure of his chest against her breasts, and she stiffened with real fear.
He lifted away immediately, but only a breath. His black eyes searched her blue ones slowly.
“You still don’t know me like this,” he murmured, as if he were talking to himself as he studied her flushed face, understanding the fear he read in it. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”
She swallowed. Her mouth felt dry as she looked at him. “I think I am,” she whispered.
He smiled lazily and traced her lips with a lean forefinger. “Will you relax if I promise to go so far and stop?” he whispered.
“So…far?” she asked in a hushed tone, searching his black eyes curiously.
He nodded. He teased her lips apart and touched the inside of her lower lip with the tip of his finger. “We’ll make a little love,” he whispered as he bent. “And then you’ll go to bed. Your own, not mine,” he
added with dry mischief.
Her fingers clenched and unclenched on the soft fabric of his undershirt, like a kitten kneading a new place to lie. She could hear her own breath sighing out against his mouth as it came closer.
“You don’t like me,” she breathed.
His thumb rubbed quite roughly over her mouth. “Are you sure? You must know that I want you!” he said, and it came out almost as a growl. “Taunting you was the only way I knew to keep you at arm’s length, to protect you. I was a fool! I’m too old for you, but at least I’m not like that damned idiot who took you out tonight!”
Nothing got into her sluggish brain except those first three feverish words. “You want me?” she whispered as if it was some dark secret. She looked up at him with wonder and saw the muted ferocity in his eyes.
His hand was on her waist now and it contracted until it all but bruised. “Yes, Tess. Is it shocking to hear me say it?” His gaze fell to her mouth and lower, to the two little peaks that formed suddenly against the torn bodice of her dress and were revealed even under the thick fabric of his concealing shirt. “You want me, too,” he whispered, bending. “I can see it….”
She wanted to ask how he knew, but the taste of his breath against her lips weakened her. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted nothing more in the world. Her nails curled into his powerful chest and she felt him shiver again just as his mouth slowly, tenderly, eased down on her parted lips.
He drew back almost at once, only to ease down again as his lips toyed with hers, brushing lightly from the upper lip to the lower one, teasing and lifting away in a silence that smoldered. She felt the warm pressure increase from second to second, and the leisure of his movements reassured her. She began to relax. Her body lost its rigor and softened against him. After a few seconds of the lazy, tender pressure, her lips opened eagerly for him. She heard a soft intake of breath as he accepted the unspoken invitation with increasingly intimate movements of his hard mouth.
The spicy fragrance of his cologne surrounded her. She knew that as long as she lived, every time she smelled it, it would invoke these images of Cag lying against her on the leather divan in the muted light of the study. She would hear the soft creak of the leather as his body moved closer to her own; she would hear the faint ticking of the old-fashioned grandfather clock near the desk. Most of all, she would feel the hard warmth of Cag’s mouth and the slow caress of his lean hands up and down her rib cage, making her body ache with new pleasures.
