“Why were you a virgin, Nevada?”
His question seemed ludicrous and she chuckled softly. “I was a virgin because I’d never made love to a man. That’s the medical explanation.”
“Damn it, I don’t want some clinical reason! You—”
She placed a forefinger over his lips. “It’s not all that perplexing, Linc. I’d just never met a man I wanted to make love to until you.”
He outwardly winced, and she wondered what the reaction meant. Was he already regretting making love to her?
“But you—you let me believe—you talked about your boyfriends and—”
“And you jumped to conclusions. Like a lot of people do where I’m concerned. Just because I have friends that happen to be male, everyone believes I’m a sex siren or something.” She rolled her eyes with amusement. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Why?”
Her brows lifted in question and he repeated, “Why? Didn’t you feel anything physical for them?”
She sighed. “Linc, I don’t go around experimenting with men. In fact—” Biting down on her lip, she glanced away from him.
“What?” he urged.
“I’ve been careful to keep my relationships with men only as friendships. That’s the way I’ve always wanted it. And that’s the way I always intended it to be. But, you’ve come along and changed all that.”
He couldn’t believe any of this. All along, he’d thought Nevada was experienced with men. He’d believed she’d considered them as nothing more than entertainment. At least, that’s what he’d wanted to believe. Part of him had desperately been trying to ignore the kind, caring woman who more often than not had put his needs before her own. And now he had to face the fact she’d offered him her innocence and he’d taken it so carelessly.
Linc moved closer, lifted his hand to her brow and gently pushed back her tumbled hair. “You should have told me beforehand, Nevada. I would have—”
“What?” she interrupted. “Not made love to me? Left the room like I had smallpox?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted truthfully. “But at least I could have been more gentle with you.”
Groaning, she scooted forward until the front of her body was pressing into his and her arm was curved around his waist.
“You were gentle, Linc. You were perfect. Perfect,” she repeated in a whisper as she rubbed her cheek against his chest.
The adoration he heard in her voice pricked him with fear. She wasn’t supposed to be all warm and fuzzy and loving toward him. And his heart shouldn’t be swelling with the sort of emotions that made him want to hold her close and never let go.
“Honey. You’ll know different. When you find a good man.”
She pulled her head back and peered dreamily up at him. “I have found a good man.”
Linc’s heart jerked with a feeling that was both sweet and frightening. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said in a husky whisper. “You don’t know me, not really.”
She smiled at him. A wide show of affection that was full of sensual invitation. “Then maybe you’d better let me learn more.”
It was time to stop this thing that was happening between them, Linc told himself. If he didn’t stop it both of them were going to suffer. But even the thought of the misery to come was not strong enough to make him move out of her arms.
“Maybe I’d better,” he said and with a murmur of pleasure he brought his lips down on hers.
When Nevada woke the next morning, the space next to her was empty and the morning sun was already slanting weakly through the nearby window. She could smell coffee and sausage and the distinct scent of warm flour tortillas filtering through the house, telling her that Linc had been busy in the kitchen.
Linc. She said his name over and over in her mind as she stretched her stiff muscles and climbed out of bed. He was the man she’d thought she would never meet. And though it scared her to think of committing her life to another person, she realized she didn’t want to step into the future without him. He made her feel special and loved and she desperately wanted to make him feel the same way.
After tossing on her robe and splashing her face with warm water, she hurried out to the kitchen. She found Linc sitting at the table, his bandaged hands curled around a mug of coffee.
He looked up as she entered the room and smiling she went to him and placed a kiss upon his forehead.
“Good morning,” she greeted.
“Good morning.”
“I smell food. Have you eaten breakfast yet?” she asked.
Careful to avoid her gaze, he shook his head. “No. I’ve been waiting on you.”
“Linc,” she scolded sweetly. “You didn’t have to do that. Besides, you should have woken me. I’ve slept way too late. I hope you haven’t needed me for anything.”
Oh, he needed her all right, but not as a nurse, Linc thought. But he kept that fact to himself. He could never let her learn exactly what making love to her had done to him. It would give her power over him. And he couldn’t allow that. He could never repeat the mistakes of his father.
“I’ve been fine,” he said dully, then ignoring her hand on his shoulder, he rose to his feet. “I’ve made breakfast tacos. I’ll get them.”
Nevada trailed after him and painful regret sliced through him as she stared up at him in confusion.
“Linc? Is something wrong?”
“No. Nothing is wrong,” he said. “I’m just hungry. Aren’t you?”
Her brow remained puckered as she studied his face. “Yes, I am. But—”
She stopped as he turned to pour coffee into a waiting mug. “Here.” He handed her the cup. “Get your cream and I’ll take the tacos over to the table.”
“Linc, aren’t you even going to kiss me good morning?” Surely she deserved that much of a greeting from him, she thought.
He looked away from her. “Don’t you think you had enough kissing last night?” he asked sharply.
Stunned by the total change in him, she quietly walked over to the breakfast table and sank onto the end of the bench.
Behind her, Linc gathered up two plates and a basket full of tacos and carried them over to the center of the table. Nevada didn’t say anything as he shoved one of the plates and the basket in her direction. She simply picked up one of the tacos and began to eat.
After several minutes of silence had passed, he said in a distant voice, “Look, Nevada, if you got up this morning thinking we were going to start playing house together, then I’m sorry, you got it all wrong.”
Funny that he should choose those words, Nevada thought sadly. As a young girl she’d never had the chance to play house. She’d had to behave as a grown woman and take care of things that her mother hadn’t been capable of dealing with. There had been many times she’d cleaned up after her drunken father and helped him to bed. And back then, she’d vowed to herself that she would never let another man disappoint or hurt her in any way. Too bad she hadn’t been able to stick to that vow, she thought.
“I didn’t think we’d play anything,” Nevada said soberly. “And I didn’t think I’d wake up this morning to be insulted by you.”
A shamed expression suddenly washed over his dark face and he placed his taco on the table, then moved down the bench so that he was sitting only inches from her.
Nevada quivered with hurt and longing as he lifted his hand and touched her cheek.
“I’m sorry, Nevada. I should never have said that. I don’t know why I did.”
Tears suddenly misted her eyes and she looked down at her lap rather than have him see them. “It’s all right, Linc. I understand.”
“I doubt it,” he said grimly.
Her head jerked up and their gazes locked. “Why do you say that? You think I don’t understand that all of this is just as new for you as it is for me?”
He let out a heavy sigh. “Look, Nevada. What happened between us last night was very, very nice. But—”
&
nbsp; “But you didn’t really mean anything serious by it,” she finished for him.
Her voice was thin and flat and the mist in her eyes was growing thicker, but she no longer cared if he knew how much she was beginning to hurt.
He shook his head. “I think you were aware of that from the very beginning.”
Yes, maybe she had been, Nevada thought. Maybe in the back of her mind she’d always known that Linc was a free spirit, a loner at heart. Sex with a woman was just that for him and nothing else. Yet the moment he’d kissed her, she’d believed there was something special, something magical flowing from him to her. Apparently she’d been a fool to think he’d felt anything but physical pleasure.
“Linc, it wasn’t like I sat for hours and contemplated what was about to happen,” she tried to explain. “But even if I had, I wouldn’t have changed anything. I would still have wanted you to make love to me.”
With a groan of frustration he looked away from her and raked a hand over his dark, tumbled hair. He looked tired, she thought. But more than that he looked anguished, and the idea that she was putting him through such torment was enough to crack her heart right down the middle.
“Nevada, I don’t how to explain. Maybe all I should say is that—last night can’t happen again. It won’t happen again. Understand?”
Stiffly, her head jerked back and forth. “No. I don’t understand. Why? I thought last night was a beginning for us.”
He swallowed hard and then before she could guess his intentions, he rose from the table and crossed over to the kitchen sink where he stood with his back to her and stared out the window.
“There can’t be an us, Nevada. That’s what I’m trying to get across to you.”
Nevada left her seat and when she reached his side, she carefully lifted his bandaged hand and cradled it to her face.
“I don’t think you really mean that, Linc.”
He swallowed hard as he tried to rid himself of the ball of pain burning his throat and creeping into his chest. “I have to mean it,” he said flatly. “I’ve been a bachelor for many years now. That isn’t going to change. For you or anyone.”
“Why?”
He pulled his hand away from her grasp. “You shouldn’t have to ask. You’ve already told me that you didn’t want to get serious about a man. Obviously you have reasons of your own for staying single and I have mine.”
She nodded glumly. “That’s true. I never wanted this to happen to me. I actually prayed that it wouldn’t. Because I know firsthand what it does to a woman to depend solely and completely on a man. My mother adored my father. For a long time she refused to see his shortcomings. And then when his boozing and womanizing became too much to ignore, she still loved him so much she couldn’t let him go. It was a horrible situation. Now she drinks to forget it all.” Shaking her head, she searched his face. “That’s why this scares me, because I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Linc was stunned by her revelation and even though he was telling himself he didn’t want or need her love, joy was pouring into his heart. “Nevada, last night wasn’t love—”
“Don’t, Linc! Just don’t ruin everything for me. As far as I’m concerned it was love. And don’t try to tell me that all I’m feeling is physical infatuation. I began caring for you the very first day I arrived. I tried to stop my feelings then. But I couldn’t. And now I find I don’t want to.”
He was quaking inside and for once he was glad his hands were hidden behind all the bandages. They were shaking like those of a man who’d drunk too much and slept too little.
“I’m sorry about that, Nevada. If you think I set out to hurt you, you’re wrong. Last night just happened and now for both our sakes we’ve got to put it behind us.”
“Why?” she demanded. “I thought what happened between us was wonderful. Wasn’t it that way for you?”
He felt sick as he turned away from her and walked over to the windows to stare unseeingly at the distant San Juan Mountains. He couldn’t tell her the truth, Linc thought. He couldn’t let her know that making love to her had turned him inside out and his world upside down. Linc had always believed sex was just sex, a pleasurable act between a man and a woman. But last night in Nevada’s arms he’d experienced something far greater than pleasure. He’d felt linked to her in a deeply spiritual way and that idea was still making him shake with fear.
“Yes, Nevada. It was special,” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “But that part of things doesn’t matter.”
Marching over to him, she forced him to turn and face her. “Doesn’t matter?” she asked angrily. “Does anything matter to you? Is there anyone on this earth that you care about, other than yourself?”
His expression closed off like a curtain falling over the last scene of a tragic play. “That’s a hell of a thing to say.”
“That’s nothing to what I’d like to say to you,” she said tightly.
“What’s wrong with you, anyway, Nevada? I understand you were a virgin, but surely you weren’t naive enough to think sex equaled a proposal of marriage.”
Nevada actually had to clench her fingers to keep from raising her hand and slapping him. “The only thing I was naive about was thinking you had a heart!”
“You’ve taken my blood pressure enough, you ought to know!” he spat back at her.
The anger and pain boiling up in her head made her lash back at him. “Well you can bet your last dollar that I won’t be guilty of checking your blood pressure again. It’s obvious you have ice water in your veins!”
He started to make a retort, but Nevada wasn’t about to hang around to hear it. She’d already heard far more than she could stand.
“Save it, Linc, I don’t want to hear anything else you have to say,” she muttered and then hurried out of the kitchen.
By the time she reached the bedroom, her legs were so weak and shaky she could hardly make it to the bed. She sank onto the edge of the mattress and dropped her face into her hands.
This morning when she’d first wakened, she’d felt such a burst of sweet happiness. Making love to Linc had made her whole world bright and beautiful. Too bad her joy couldn’t have lasted past breakfast, she thought bitterly.
She was biting back tears, trying to tell herself that he wasn’t worth one drop of the salty water running down her cheeks, when she heard him knock on the door.
Deliberately ignoring him, she stared at the wall and desperately tried to swallow away the fiery pain in her throat.
“Nevada. May I come in?”
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. It was all she could do to keep the sobs in her chest from bursting past her lips.
Silent moments passed and then she felt his hand upon her back, his fingers threading gently through her tangled hair.
“Nevada, I’m sorry. I’m a bastard. That’s all I can say.”
Still incapable of looking at him, Nevada shook her head. “No, you could say more if you just would. If it’s me—if you’ve decided you—just don’t like me, then tell me. That’s all I ask. Tell me the real reason you’re trying so hard to push me away.”
His hand continued to stroke her back and she could only think of last night and all the ways he’d touched her. Somewhere among all those kisses and touches and whispers, a certainty had filled her heart. Linc was supposed to be her other half. He was the man who was meant to love her, give her children, protect her from the harsh realities of the world.
He sighed. And then in a soft, low voice, he said, “All right. You told me about your family, your parents and all the trouble they’d had. Well, it was pretty much the same way for me. My parents treated their marriage as a prison sentence more than anything else. After what I saw them go through I knew I didn’t want any part of it. And I sure didn’t want to put a child of mine through it.”
Twisting her head around, she stared at him with a wry sort of hope that stabbed Linc right in the chest.
“That’s exactly the way I’ve always seen things. An
d that’s the main reason I was a virgin. But being here with you, Linc, has changed my way of thinking. I love being close to you, I love living with you. I don’t want that to change.”
“It has to change,” he interrupted flatly. “Because I’m not capable of taking that sort of chance with you or any woman.”
A mixture of pain and anger tightened her features. “Why? Because of your mother? Do you think I would be like her?”
Her questions stung him, and he pulled back to stare at her. “What do you know about my mother anyway?”
Nevada could see she was treading on dangerous ground, but she didn’t allow that to stop her. Now wasn’t the time to tippy-toe around the main issue.
“Only what you’ve told me,” she admitted. “But that’s enough to understand that she must have broken your heart when she left here.”
“Who told you that?” he muttered.
“Marina. She’s been worried about you because she’s been having dreams about your mother.”
“Bah!” he snorted. “Marina’s dreams are just that—dreams. That old housekeeper just likes to gossip and keep things stirred up.”
“Linc! The only pot Marina stirs is her cooking pot. So don’t belittle her! She loves you.”
Dropping his head, Linc pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yeah. You’re right. Hell, she’s always been more of a mother to me than my own mother ever was.”
“I can’t believe your mother didn’t love you. Even mine cared about me in her own way. She just had too many problems of her own to be a good mother. Maybe that’s the way it was with yours,” she reasoned.
Linc lifted his head to look at her and for the first time in his life, he realized he wanted, needed to talk about his mother.
“My mother hated this ranch. She told my father so every day. She wanted him to move to someplace where there was culture and sidewalks, a city where she could buy expensive high heels and get her nails done.”
Nevada rolled her eyes. “She could have done that here. If she’d wanted to.”
Linc rolled his eyes. “Not in the fashion she wanted. You see, she came from a fairly wealthy family in San Antonio. She was the epitome of a beautiful Texas socialite. Obviously she didn’t fit in here and the more my father tried to force her to fit in, the worse things got.”
Taming a Dark Horse Page 14
