The Lady's Man

by Linda Turner

  Shaken, she stepped back. Because she had to. Because there was a heat in his eyes that called to the longing in her heart. Because if she didn’t put some distance between them, she was going to melt against him and lift her mouth to his and give herself up to the madness that had gripped her last night.

  “I guess I was rattling on, wasn’t I?” she said huskily, and only had to see the amusement curling his mouth to know that he knew exactly what was going on inside her head.

  “A little,” he said, chuckling. “But I’d say you’re entitled. If Queenie had refused that food, you’d have had a major problem on your hands.”

  “I know. For a minute there, I was really starting to worry, but she’s going to be fine now. Thank God something’s finally starting to go right!”

  “It seems to be a day for it,” he agreed. “Nick and I posted the reward posters and got a very interesting phone call this afternoon.”

  “You got a break in the case?”

  “It looks like it.” He told her about Chester Grant and his wild driving up on Eagle Ridge the afternoon before Napoleon’s collar switched to the mortality code. “Chester’s always been more bark than bite, so it’s doubtful that he actually killed Napoleon himself. But the little worm knows more than he’s telling.”

  Elizabeth didn’t doubt that. She’d taken her car to Chester one time and she’d never taken it back. He was a sly, cunning little man who’d made her skin crawl. It didn’t surprise her at all that he would associate with the monster who’d killed Napoleon and still threatened her.

  “You think he actually knows who the killer is?”

  “The man was so scared he was stuttering, darlin’. Oh, yeah, he knows. Now we just have to get the truth out of him. Nick’s getting a search warrant to check his garage and house, but it’s so late in the day he probably won’t be able to find a judge to okay it until morning.”

  “So we have to wait. Again.”

  “It won’t be long. You know how these things work—we’ve got to follow procedure or we’ll never be able to put these jerks away.”

  “I know. It’s just frustrating. Because of them, I have to find another place to live, and there’s just not anything available.”

  His gaze sharpened at that. “You talked to the Realtor?”

  Nodding, she turned to stare glumly out to the west, where the sun was already starting its descent toward the mountaintops in the distance. “She couldn’t come up with anything. She promised to check Spring Falls, but since I haven’t heard from her, I think it’s pretty safe to say she wasn’t successful. I guess I’m just going to have to stay where I am for now. I don’t know what else to do.”

  “I do. You can stay with my mother.”

  Even as the words popped out of his mouth, he wanted to take them back and suggest she stay with him at Joe’s, instead. He wanted her with him, in his arms, in his bed. After just one night, he needed to know that if he reached out for her, she was there with him, and safe.

  But Liberty Hill was a small town, and he knew from experience just how much people loved to talk. He wouldn’t subject her to that, wouldn’t put her through it. No, his mother’s was better, he reasoned. The homestead had five bedrooms, and with his mother and Janey using only two of the five, there was plenty of room for Elizabeth.

  And she’d be safe at Twin Pines. The main house was right in the middle of the ranch, three miles from the highway. Anyone who tried to get to her there would not only have to pass by Joe’s house near the ranch entrance, but they’d have to chance running into any one of a dozen ranch hands who would be alerted to keep an eye out for anyone who didn’t belong there.

  The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. Dammit, he wanted her with his family. Now. Always. It was where she belonged.

  The thought slipped up on him from behind, blindsiding him. Stunned, he felt as if he’d been hit in the head with a rock. When had he started thinking of always and Lizzie in the same breath? How could he not have seen this coming? Right from the beginning, he’d—

  “I can’t just show up at your mother’s uninvited,” she said, whirling to face him.

  Still caught up in his turbulent thoughts, he blinked her into focus. “You wouldn’t be. I just invited you.”

  “But it’s your mother’s house! You can’t arrange for me to live there without even discussing it with her, for heaven’s sake! What will she think of me?”

  That she was beautiful and bright and perfect for him, he thought, knowing his mother. But he couldn’t tell her that. Not until he’d decided what he was going to do about it. “She’ll love you,” he said with gruff honesty, and meant every word.

  “Zeke, she doesn’t even know me!”

  Unperturbed, he shrugged easily. “So she’ll get to know you.”

  She tried not to smile and failed miserably. “It’s not that simple and you know it.”

  “Sure it is,” he insisted, and marveled she would be so shaken at the idea of meeting his mother. Teasing her, he said, “You don’t throw your gum on the floor when you’ve chewed all the sugar out of it, do you?”

  “Of course not! I don’t even chew gum, and I certainly wouldn’t throw it on the floor.”

  “And you don’t talk with your mouth full—I know, because I’ve eaten with you. And I bet you even bathe every day just like rich folks.”

  “Zeke!”

  Wicked laughter danced in his eyes. “Am I right or am I right?”

  “Of course you’re right, silly.”

  “Then what’s not to like?”

  He watched her flounder for something about herself to criticize and grinned broadly. “Well? Cat got your tongue? You’re beating a dead horse, Lizzie, honey. Just about everything about you is damn well likeable. Even this hairy mole on your chin,” he teased, drawing her close to kiss her perfectly clear chin. “And that real beak of a nose of yours,” he added, dropping another kiss on her pert nose. “And then there’s this thin, passionless mouth of yours. That really is enough to send a man running in the opposite direction I just don’t know what we’re going to do about that.”

  She was laughing when he playfully kissed her smack on the lips. Then he drew back, her eyes met his, and suddenly neither of them was smiling. How, he wondered, had he gone all day without kissing her? Loving her?

  “Come here,” he growled, and pulled her back into his arms.

  This wasn’t the time or the place. Somewhere in the back of his head, the thought registered. He had to help her collect her things, then get her to his mother’s so he could rest easy tonight knowing she was safe. And even if there’d been time, which there wasn’t, the lookout tower was hardly set up for a romantic rendezvous. There was no bed, nothing but a thin cot for a ranger who found himself with fire duty in the middle of the summer. It wasn’t made for two and didn’t even have a blanket on it. She deserved better, dammit.

  But with her mouth hot and hungry under his, her arms clinging to him, and every sweet inch of her pressed close, none of that seemed to matter. He had to have her. Now. Here. On top of the world, where there was no fear, no one to bother them, nothing to distract them from this craziness that had sparked between them the first moment they’d laid eyes on each other.

  “I want you,” he rasped, reaching for the hem of her sweater. In one quick move, he had it up and over her head. Before it hit the floor, he’d found the snap of her bra, and a heartbeat later, her breasts spilled into his waiting hands.

  She moaned, stunned pleasure in her eyes, and swayed toward him. “Yes.”

  She couldn’t manage anything else, just that one simple word, and had no idea what she did to him. No woman had ever made him so hot, so hard, so fast. She was a wildness in his blood, a burning need that grew more desperate every time he just thought about her. And he thought about her...about this, about touching her, loving her...continually. Knowing that he could make her want him just as much as he wanted her, with nothing more than the stroke o
f his fingers on her breasts, destroyed him.

  A rough groan rumbling low in his throat, he tore at what was left of her clothes, ripped at his own and knew, the second he had her naked, that he was never going to make it as far as the cot. Crushing his mouth to hers, he wrapped her close and carried her with him down to the floor.

  Ravaged. Her head spinning, her heart thundering, Elizabeth felt ravaged, consumed, devoured. And she loved it. How could she have lived all these years and never experienced the wonder of driving a man right to the edge of his control? It was wonderful, heady, intoxicating. And she wanted more. She wanted everything. She wanted him weak for her, wild, crazy with need, out of his head with wanting...for her.

  Murmuring his name, she pushed him to his back and rolled with him and had the satisfaction of surprising him. Feeling the tension that gripped him and knowing she was responsible for it, she smiled down into his eyes. “I thought I’d indulge myself,” she said huskily. “Do you mind?”

  He’d never be able to stand it. Even before she touched him, he knew that he’d never be able to hang on to what was left of his tattered self-control once she laid her hands on him. But he could no more have denied her than he could have denied himself his next breath. His jaw clenched as he resisted the need to sweep her under him and bury himself deep; he linked his hands behind his neck and gave her a tight smile. “Indulge yourself all you like, sweetheart,” he said thickly. “I’m yours for the taking.”

  Hers. The thought wrapped around her heart and squeezed gently, tempting her beyond bearing. How long had she wanted him to be just hers and hadn’t even known it? How long had she been fooling herself into thinking it could happen? It wouldn’t. He, like her father, was too much of a ladies’ man to ever be satisfied with just one woman, but for the first time she realized why her mother let her father charm her time and again even though she knew he would eventually hurt her again. When she was in his arms, she could pretend she was the only one.

  She wasn’t her mother. She couldn’t live like that. But knowing that this was all she was ever going to have, she, like her mother, could pretend.

  Ducking her head, she buried her face against his neck and drew in the scent of him. Old Spice. She always loved the clean, fresh scent of it, and now she would never again smell that familiar scent without thinking of him. Murmuring approval, she moved over him, indulging fantasies she hadn’t even known she had. She stroked and teased and rubbed against him and loved the way sweat broke out on his big, hard body. With a touch, she learned what made him shudder With a kiss low on his belly, she had him cursing and fighting the need to reach for her. Laughing softly, her own body humming with need, she moved lower and discovered just what it took to break his control.

  “Enough!” he growled, and with a lightning-quick move, he reversed their positions.

  Startled, her eyes met his, and then there was no time for laughter, for teasing, for anything but the lust that had their breath tearing through their lungs and their bodies burning for release. He moved over her, she parted her thighs, and with a groan that seemed to come all the way from his soul, he surged into her liquid warmth, filling her, claiming her body, her heart, her very soul. With a broken cry, she arched under him, then he was moving, his hips pumping, control lost. Driven past reason, she couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but feel him loving her, taking her in a way no one ever had. Need tightened like a fist deep inside her, then, when she couldn’t bear it another second, she heard his hoarse shout and pleasure hit them like a tidal wave, sweeping them under.

  Cradled in Zeke’s arms, her head nestled on his shoulder and her heart beating in time with his, Elizabeth would have given anything to lie just like that for the rest of the evening. But the sun was already sinking behind the mountains to the west, and with twilight just a promise away, she still didn’t know where she was going to spend the night.

  “It’s getting late,” she murmured.

  Still, she couldn’t bring herself to pull out of his arms. He lazily stroked her bare arm, and with a sigh, she nestled against him. Just another few minutes, she promised herself. Just until she worked up the strength to leave him.

  “I want you to go to my mother’s,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t kidding when I said she would love to have you. The house has five bedrooms, and it’s just her and Janey there. Joe and Merry each have their own place, so it’s not like you’d be putting anyone out. There’s plenty of room.”

  After her earlier arguments, she knew he expected her to say no. It was an imposition, asking his mother to take her in, when she didn’t know her from Adam. But the loving she and Zeke had just shared had changed everything. She had fought it with every fiber of her being, but she could no longer deny the truth. She was falling in love with him.

  She didn’t know how it had happened, how she’d let it happen, but she had to do something fast, before he broke her heart. She had to get her feet back on the ground, and the only way she could think of to do that was move in with his mother. Families had a habit of telling stories about a person, of exposing them for what they really were—not viciously, but honestly. By staying with his mother and sister, right in the middle of the family ranch, she would hear about all the old girlfriends, the women, the fiancée who had broken off their engagement just weeks before the wedding. And if that didn’t strip the rose-colored glasses from her eyes and kill the crazy feelings she had for him, nothing else would.

  “You’re sure she won’t mind?”

  Stunned that she was actually considering the suggestion, he pulled back to look down at her in pleased surprise. “Of course. So you’ll do it? You’ll stay at the ranch?”

  Grimly she nodded. What other option did she have if she wanted to protect herself from a broken heart? “Until I can make other arrangements.” Like how to live without him the rest of her life.

  The matter settled, they dressed and started down the long flight of stairs to the parking area below, just as the first faint stars appeared in the evening sky. “If you’ll just drop me at the office, I’ll pick up my car and drive out to my house to pack some things,” she said as they reached his truck. “While I’m doing that, you can go ahead and clear things with your mother.”

  Frowning, he stopped in the process of opening the passenger door for her. “There’s nothing to clear. I told you she’ll love having you.”

  “I’m sure she will. But I’m not showing up at her house with my suitcase in my hand when she doesn’t even know I’m coming,” she said stubbornly. “You have to at least warn her, Zeke.”

  “So I’ll call her.”

  “In person,” she insisted. “She’s your mother. You can’t just foist some strange woman off on her without doing her the courtesy of discussing it with her in person first. That’s rude.”

  Scowling, he rolled his eyes. Women had such weird ways of looking at things. “You’re not strange. Hardheaded, maybe, but not strange.” When she just looked at him, he sighed in frustration. “Look, I’ll call her, okay? Will that satisfy you?”

  “No.”

  “Come on, sweetheart, be reasonable about this. I don’t like the idea of you going out to your place alone.”

  “But it’s in the opposite direction from the ranch,” she argued, “and it’s silly for you to go that far out of your way when I won’t be there ten minutes. All I’m going to do is grab a few things, stuff them in an overnight bag and get out of Dodge. Nothing’s going to happen. And while I’m doing that, you can be talking to your mother...in person. If she’s not thrilled at the idea of having company, you’ll be able to see it on her face, and we’ll make other arrangements.”

  He could have told her that Sara McBride would never turn away anyone in trouble, but that was something she would discover for herself. Struggling for patience, he tried to see things from her perspective and had to admit she had a right to be concerned with appearances. She was coming into a strange house, asking someone she didn’t know for hospitalit
y, and that could be awkward. If it took a face-to-face discussion between him and his mother to make her more comfortable with the situation, then by God, he’d do it. He wanted her to like his mother, to be at home in the house where he’d grown up. Because if he had his way, she was going to be staying much longer than a while.

  “All right,” he said with a sigh, giving in. “I’ll talk to my mother. In person. But I want your word that you won’t take any chances at your house. You get in and out as fast as you can, and if something doesn’t look right when you get there, you don’t even go inside. And don’t check your answering machine. If anyone has anything important to tell you, they can call you at your office.

  “Twenty minutes, sweetheart,” he growled. “I’m giving you twenty minutes. If you’re not back at the ranch in twenty minutes, I’m coming looking for you.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen,” she assured him. “I promise.”

  His thoughts wrapped up in Elizabeth, Zeke walked through the front door of the homestead and was four steps into the living room before he noticed the balloons and streamers. Stopping in his tracks, he groaned. His mother’s birthday! The family had a big party for her every year and invited everyone they knew—it was a tradition.

  Damn, how could he have forgotten? Elizabeth was going to walk in just about the time the first guests started arriving, and he hadn’t thought to invite her. Swearing under his breath, he could just imagine how she would feel about that. If she’d balked at the idea of moving in without him getting a personal okay from his mother first, there was no way in hell she was going to crash a birthday party.

  “Oh, there you are, dear,” his mother said as he strode into the kitchen and found her with her hair still in curlers and hurriedly putting the last-minute touches on her own cake. “Joe could use some help stringing some lights outside, then you’d better hurry up and get dressed We all seem to be running a little late this year—”