by Diana Palmer
“Calla’s gone to a movie with Jeb. Any day now I expect to be asked to the wedding.” He sighed. “Abby, before long you and I are going to be the only two single people on earth.”
“Why are you drinking?” she asked, worried. “You haven’t gotten hurt, have you?”
“You’re a hell of a person to ask me that,” he growled. “You cut the heart out of me when you got on that damned plane. Just the way you cut it out when you got on the bus four years ago. Oh, God, Abby, I miss you!” he ground out, his voice throbbing with emotion. “I miss you!”
Tears burst from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “I miss you, too,” she whispered. Her eyes closed and she bit her lip. “Every hour of every day.”
There was a long, deep sigh from the other end of the line. “We should have made love that day by the river,” he said achingly. “Maybe we would have gotten each other out of our systems. I’ve got a picture of you by my bed, Abby. I sit here and look at it and ache all over.”
Her fingers clenched until the blood went out of them. She had one of him, too, that she’d carried to New York with her four years before. It was wrinkled from being hugged against her heart.
“You’re the one who told me sex was a bad foundation to build on,” she reminded him wearily.
“It wasn’t just sex,” he said. “It’s never been that. Four years ago, I couldn’t risk getting you pregnant, don’t you see? I couldn’t take the choice away from you. To hell with how I felt, I couldn’t force you to stay here, Abby.”
Her breath caught in her throat. She caught the receiver with both hands and sat as still as a poker. Did he even realize what he was admitting?
“You...you thought that given the choice between you and modeling...”
“You showed me which was more important, didn’t you, honey?” he asked with a bitter laugh. He sighed heavily. “You got on that bus, laughing like a freed prisoner, and you never even looked at me. I told your father I’d marry you, if you’d have me, and we fought it out half the night. He said you were too young and you wanted a chance to get away from the ranch, to be somebody. I argued with him then, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t make you stay with me.” His voice was faintly slurred, but just as beautiful as ever, and Abby was hurting in ways she’d never dreamed she could. “You see, I’d already realized how vulnerable you were with me. And I was just as vulnerable with you. I had to be careful not to come too close, Abby, because we could have gotten in over our heads. I figured you’d go to New York and get tired of the city and come back to me. But you didn’t.”
There was a world of emotion in those words. Bitterness. Hopelessness. Hurt.
“You never asked me to stay,” she whispered. “You said you didn’t want a commitment to any woman, a...a leash on your freedom.”
He laughed. “I haven’t been free since you were fifteen years old. I’ve never wanted anyone else. I never will.”
“You let me go!” she burst out, suddenly hating him. “Damn you, you let me go! I was only eighteen, but there was nothing New York had to offer that could have torn me away from you if you’d just told me to stay! One lousy word, just one word—stay. And you let me go, Cade!”
There was a shocked pause on the other end of the line, a silence like darkness in a graveyard.
But she didn’t notice. The words were tumbling out of her, while tears burned down her cheeks. “I loved the glamour, you said, I couldn’t live without the city! And all I’ve done for four years is stare at this picture of you and cry my eyes out! You put me on a bus four years ago, and you put me on a plane four months ago...damn you, what do you care? You push me away, you accuse me of teasing you, you...Cade? Cade!”
But the line was dead. She slammed the receiver down and burst into tears. If he called back, she wasn’t even going to answer. Let him sit and drown in his whiskey. She didn’t care! She turned off the lights and went to bed in a fit of furious temper.
Several hours later, she sat straight up in bed as the doorbell rang and rang and rang. Maybe she was dreaming it. It had taken her forever to get to sleep, and she was still drowsy. She laid her head back on the pillow, but there it came again, even more insistently.
Frowning sleepily, she padded to the front door of her apartment with her gold caftan swirling around her.
“Who is it?” she grumbled.
“Who the hell do you think? Open the door, or do I have to break it down?”
“Cade?” Her heart jumped wildly and she fumbled the catch and the safety latch off and opened the door. And it was no dream.
He came into the apartment with a scowl as black as thunder on his dark face, looking sleepy and tired and worn-out. He was wearing jeans and a half-open denim shirt, and old boots and the battered brown ranch hat he wore to work cattle. His boots were dusty, his face needed a shave and he was altogether the most beautiful sight Abby had seen in her life.
“Cade!” she breathed, blinking up at him out of sleepy eyes, her tangled hair glorious in its disarray, the caftan clinging lovingly and quite revealingly to every line of her body.
“I’ve had half a bottle of whiskey,” he said, towering over her with the locked door behind him. “And I’m not quite sober yet, despite the three cups of black coffee I had on the plane. But you said something to me that I’m sure I really heard and didn’t dream, and I flew up here to let you say it again. Just to make sure.”
She stared at him unblinkingly, loving every unshaven plane of his face.
“You hung up the phone and got on a plane in the middle of the night...?” she began nervously.
His eyes roamed down her body and one dark eyebrow arched curiously. “You’ve lost weight, Abigail,” he murmured, studying her. “A lot of it, and you look like pure hell.”
“Have you seen yourself in a mirror?” she countered, noticing new lines, new shadows under his dark eyes.
He shook his head. “Couldn’t stand the sight of myself,” he admitted. “Come on, Abby, let’s hear it.”
She swallowed. “It was easier when you were still in Montana,” she began nervously.
“I guess it was.” He took off his hat and tossed it onto a chair. His big hands framed her face and he looked down at it like a starving man. “Suppose I take you to bed, Abby?” he asked softly. “And after we’ve made love for three or four hours, I’ll ask you again.”
12
She could barely breathe when she saw what was in his eyes. It was hardly possible that she was dreaming, but it was so much like a dream come true that she felt faint.
“Look at me, Abby,” he whispered.
She raised her eyes and his gaze fell to the transparent material over her firm, high breasts. He reached out and drew his knuckles down from her collarbone over one perfect breast, and he smiled at her body’s helpless reaction to his touch, at the hunger he could see and feel.
“Same damned thing happens to me every time I think about you,” he murmured with a soft, deep laugh. “Four months, Abby. Four long months, and I’ve walked around aching every minute of every day, wanting you until I was like a wounded bear with everyone around me. Tonight I’d had all I could take, I couldn’t even get properly drunk...damn you, come here!”
He lifted her in his hard arms, taking her mouth with a hungry, aching thoroughness, ignoring her sweet moan of pleasure and her clinging arms as he walked back into her bedroom and slammed the door behind them.
“I’m going to make love to you all night long,” he said as he carried her straight toward the bed. “In the morning, you’ll be damned lucky if you can walk at all. Then we’ll talk.”
“Cade, I could get pregnant!” she said in a high-pitched tone, afraid that it was only the liquor talking.
“Yes, you could,” he said quietly, staring into her eyes. “And that would mean total c
ommitment. To me. For life. Say yes or no. But if it’s no, I’m going straight back to Montana, and I’ll never come near you again.”
She felt her body trembling in his strong embrace, and her heart yielded totally as she searched his face with a loving, possessive gaze.
“I don’t know if I can survive an affair with you,” she said softly. “But if that’s what you want, I...I can try. I just don’t understand what we’d do about a child....”
He breathed slowly, deliberately, and his eyes softened. “Melly said you were blind about me. I suppose she knew better than I did,” he murmured. He laid her gently down on the bed and unbuttoned his shirt with slow, easy motions, tossing it aside. His hands went to his belt and unfastened it. His trousers followed, while Abby watched him, shocked to the bone.
“If you think it’s rough on you,” he muttered, glancing at her as he turned to divest himself of everything else, “remember what I told you before, Abby. I’ve never undressed in front of a woman.”
“That’s the loss of women everywhere,” she whispered, awed as he turned around again. “Oh, Cade...!”
His face softened, and the red stain on his cheeks faded away. He sat down beside her, coaxing her to sit up so that he could remove the caftan. And then he just looked and looked, until she felt her heart trembling wildly, her body helplessly arching in invitation, moving restlessly under the pure sensuality of the appraisal.
“Before this goes any further,” he said quietly, sliding a big, warm hand over her smooth belly, up to rest maddeningly below one taut breast, “you’d better tell me if you meant what you said on the phone.”
She swallowed. “About being lonely and lost in the city?” she whispered.
He nodded. “Are you happy?”
“When I’m with you,” she managed through trembling lips. “Only when I’m with you. Oh, God, you don’t know...you’ll never know how it was to leave you!”
His fingers trembled and he searched for his voice. “I know how it was to be left, Abby,” he said slowly. “I’ve been walking around like half a man for four years. And until tonight, I had no idea, no idea at all what you felt.”
“How could I tell you, when you kept going on about not wanting a commitment, not wanting marriage?” she asked unsteadily. “You pushed me away....”
“I had to,” he ground out. “I can’t control what I feel for you, I never could. You’ll never know how close I came to taking you the night I found you by the pool. When I left you I was shaking like a boy. I had to drink myself to sleep—the only other time I’ve been at the bottle like I have tonight.” His fingers moved up to her breasts, touching them like a man touching a treasure trove. “So beautiful,” he whispered. “You were then, you are now. My Abby. My own.”
Abby’s hands reached up and stroked his chest, tickling as they pressed into the tangle of dark hair. “I never knew,” she whispered.
“Neither did I.” He shuddered as her hands caressed him. “Don’t do that, not yet. I go crazy when you touch me that way.”
“You said we were going to make love,” she reminded him softly.
“We are. When you agree to marry me,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t handle an affair with you, either. If I take you, you take me for life.”
It was important to know the truth, not just guess at it. There had been too much misunderstanding already. “Because you need sons to inherit Painted Ridge?” she asked in a whisper.
“Because I love you, Abigail Shane,” he corrected breathlessly. “Because I’ve loved you for so many years that loving you is a way of life for me. Because if you don’t come home with me, I’ll pack my bags and move in with you and make love to you until you’ll marry me in self-defense, just to get some rest.”
Tears welled up in her wide brown eyes as they searched his. “You love me, Cade?” she burst out.
“What a mild word for so much feeling,” he managed in a voice that shook. His hands framed her face, and his eyes worshipped it. “I want to be with you all the time. I want to sit and watch you when we’re together. I want to stay by your bed when you’re sick and you need me. I want to hold you in my arms in bed at night, even when we don’t make love. I want to give you children. Most of all, I want to live with you until I die. All the good days and bad. All the way to the grave.”
She was crying helplessly at his admission, at having all her wildest dreams come true. Her fingers moved up to his hard face and lovingly traced every warm inch of it. “I couldn’t look at you when I got on the bus four years ago,” she said brokenly, “because if I had, I would have thrown myself at your feet and begged you to let me stay. I started loving you when I was barely fifteen, and I’ve loved you every day since. Hopelessly, with all my heart. Oh, God, Cade, it was never New York and modeling. It was you! I love you until I hurt all over! I’ll love you all my life, all the days I live...!”
He stopped the frantic words with his mouth and eased down beside her. They kissed slowly, sweetly, rocking in each other’s warm arms, savoring the newness of belonging to each other, of shared loving. Until his tongue gently penetrated her mouth. Until her lips opened to its deep searching. Until they moved, together, slowly, into a new and shattering kind of intimacy with each other.
“Teach me how, Cade,” she whispered with love splintering her voice as she felt his hands touching her in new ways. “Teach me how...to show love...this way.”
His mouth gentled hers. “We’ll learn it together, honey,” he whispered back. “Because this is like my first time, too. Tell me if I hurt you. I’d rather die than hurt you now.”
But even as he spoke, his mouth was moving against her body, and she forgot that it was the first time, she forgot everything but the glory of being kissed and touched so tenderly by the only man she’d ever loved. She relaxed and moved deliberately, touched deliberately, delighting in his reactions to her fingers, her mouth. She whispered her love; her body shouted it.
Sensation piled on sensation, while she turned and arched and whispered wildly into his ear as he moved against her so slowly, with such staggering control. She could barely believe that the level of pleasure she was experiencing was bearable as it mounted and mounted and began to possess her.
Her eyes opened on a surge of mingled need and fear, and his were open, too, staring back at her.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” he whispered shakenly, urgently. “I love you. Trust me.”
It was all she needed to push her over the edge. Her eyes closed again, and she felt his mouth gentling hers, preparing her for what was coming.
Her hands tangled in his thick, dark hair as his body slowly, tenderly, overwhelmed hers. His mouth was gentle, despite the need she could feel in him, a need he was deliberately denying for her sake. The very tenderness of his movements, his slow, soft kisses, made it so beautiful that she forgot her fear and gave herself up to the incredible intimacy of belonging to him.
If there was pain, she hardly noticed it, so involved was she in trying to get closer to him, trying to please him as he was pleasing her. She wanted nothing more than the joy of giving everything she had to give.
He cherished her as she’d never dreamed a man could cherish a woman, every second fueling the hunger and the sweetness of sharing love. She clung to him, loving him, loving him! And it was so easy. So perfect. So beautiful. Her eyes burned with tears that rolled helplessly down her cheeks into their joined mouths. A moment later she heard his voice in her ear, whispering words that only vaguely registered, whispering her name like a litany.
And from tenderness came passion—suddenly, like a summer storm billowing over them, lifting and tossing them in a vortex of urgency that blazed brighter than the lights around them.
She heard her voice break, and felt his hands controlling her wild movements firmly, guiding, teaching. Her teeth bit into his hard shoulder
in an agony of pleasure, so exquisite that she cried out. And then there was no more time for the gentle beginnings, only for the wild, furious stretch toward fulfillment that sent them crashing together in frantic torment, trembling wildly, whispering urgently until there was oneness. And then peace.
Later, she curled up against him, trembling, while he lit a cigarette and smoked it. She laughed softly, triumphantly, delightedly.
His arm drew her closer, and he chuckled softly, too. “My God, in all my wildest dreams I never imagined feeling like that.”
“Neither did I,” she returned. “I thought I’d died.”
His chest rose and fell heavily. “I’m going to have that book framed and hung over our bed after we’re married.”
She blinked. “Book?”
He chuckled wickedly. “There’s this book about making love that I bought a few weeks ago,” he murmured. He lifted his brows at her stunned expression and laughed uproariously. “Well, hell, Abby, I told you I spent half my life working with the damned cattle? Where did you expect me to learn about sex? You women, always expecting men to know all the answers and hating us for the way we get them....”
Her face brightened with wonder. “Why, you old devil,” she said. “And I thought you had a string of women a mile long!”
He kissed her nose. “You’re my woman. The only one I ever wanted. I haven’t been a monk, but there was never any joy for me in sleeping with women I didn’t even like.”
She stared up at him curiously. “You mean, you learned everything you just did to me out of a book?”
His eyebrows arched. “It was a good book,” he said defensively, “kind of a primer...well, damn it, I thought that after I gave you a while to think about me and the ranch, and maybe miss me, I might come up here and try to change your mind. I was going to wait until Christmas....” He shrugged his powerful shoulders. “Then tonight, after Calla went out with Jeb, I got lonely and started drinking.” He sighed. “First time I’ve put away that much whiskey in years.” He looked down at her radiant face. “When you started ranting and raving at me, it was the sweetest music I’d ever heard. I didn’t even take time to shave, I just got Hank out of bed to drive me to the airport.”
