by Sandra Brown
"Uh-uh. You tell him. He's your foreman. You're the one who insisted on this period of time to think it over. Otherwise it would have been settled this morning. Since you've delayed him from making any plans one way or another, I think you should be the one to give him the good news."
"But—" She bit back her objection because both of them were staring at her curiously. She didn't want them to wonder why she was reluctant to speak to Jake alone. Besides, she might just as well jump in feet first and get used to facing him on a regular basis. "All right."
The heels of her shoes tapped smartly as she left the kitchen. Her back was straight. Her head was held high. On the inside, she was jelly.
She paused in the hall to check her reflection in the mirror. Her hair had been brushed earlier, but the spring humidity had caused it to curl and wave whimsically. She looked pale after having spent the last two days inside. A brisk pinching on each cheek remedied that somewhat. She smoothed her hands over her linen shirtwaist, which was slightly wrinkled. She sighed. "Well, I'll have to do."
She pushed open the front door and crossed the porch with all the enthusiasm of a convict going to the gallows. What did they expect her to do, march up to the door of the bunkhouse and ask for him? She would be teased unmercifully. Besides, the bunkhouse was the one place on the ranch that was off limits to her.
Should she try the barn first? Would he-be tending to Stormy? Her footsteps faltered. She didn't think she could ever go into that barn again. The memories of what had happened there were still too fresh.
Indecisively she stood in the yard. As it turned out, fortune smiled on her. She saw Jake sitting on the top rail of the fence bordering the grazing pasture nearest the house. The heels of his boots were hooked over the next lowest rail. His back was slightly bowed. He sat staring out over the pasture, perfectly still. In the gathering twilight he was cast in profile. He held a cheroot between his lips.
Banner approached him soundlessly. He didn't hear her until she was almost even with him. Then his head snapped around abruptly. Foolishly, she jumped back. One hand went flying up to her chest as if to capture her heart before it leaped from her body.
She cursed herself for acting like a witless ninny. "I... I need to talk to you, Jake."
He swung down from the fence railing and swept his hat from his head in one fluid motion. Then, as though realizing how ridiculous he must look, he replaced it and nudged it to the back of his head with his thumb. His shoulders found the railing he had just been sitting on and he leaned against the fence with an attitude of indifference. If only Banner had known that his heart was pounding as fitfully as hers, she might not have been so nervous. As it was, he looked in full control, unmoved, unapproachable, aloof, cool.
Her bravery evaporated as quickly and as surely as her breath mingled with the sultry night air. She turned her head to gaze in the direction his eyes had held only moments before. Her profile was cleanly etched against the darkening violet sky. The breeze that had come up from the south was flirting with her hair, puffing ebony curls against her cheek, then lifting them away.
She wet her lips with her tongue. Jake's eyes caught the unconscious movement. So innocent, yet so provocative. He closed his eyes to ward off the spear of desire that pierced through him. He opened them just in time to meet her gaze when she finally looked up at him.
"I'd like for you to be my foreman."
"Like for me to be?"
She made an impatient gesture with her'hands. "I have no choice."
"Yes, you do, Banner. Tell me to pack and leave and you'll never see me again."
"What kind of choice is that?" she demanded. "They would assume that we had quarreled. They would know that something wasn't right between us because I had driven you away instead of begging you to stay the way I always have before. Then where would we be? You'd be gone and I'd be left behind to make the explanations." She ended on a flurry of emotion and quickly turned away. She laid her forehead on her hands which were stacked on the top rail of the fence.
She heard the jingle of his spurs and knew that he had moved closer. But her ears weren't the only sensors making her aware of him. She could feel the heat of his body as it spread over her back when he came nearer. He had ground out his cheroot, but the scent of tobacco still clung to him. And leather. And man. Her insides felt weightless, then unbearably heavy as they seemed to flow toward and concentrate in the valley between her thighs.
"Banner?" he asked softly. "Are you all right?"
She raised her head and looked at him. "What do you mean?"
His eyes delved into hers, stripping away all the pretense between them, painful though it was. "I meant exactly what I said. Are you all right? Did you have any... ill effects, any pain?"
Suddenly she wanted to punish him. She wanted to throw herself against his chest and pummel it with her fists. She wanted to tell him that she had bled and suffered excruciating agony after what he had done to her.
But she couldn't. Because it hadn't been that way. Jake hadn't done anything she hadn't begged him to. She shook her head before once again letting her gaze drift away. "No."
She felt him sag with relief. It wasn't an overt movement, just an immediate lessening of the tension in his body, as though he had been holding his breath for a long time.
"God, I've been sick with worry. I wanted to ask you this morning, but... well, there really hasn't been a chance for us to talk." Her failure to respond urged him on. He was desperate to make things right. He wanted her to tell him not to worry about it anymore. He wanted to hear her say that she was fine and well and that she had forgiven him. "I told you it would hurt, Banner."
"I expected it to."
"Then it did?"
"A little."
"I should have been gentler."
"It's all right."
"I didn't want to hurt you."
"Please, Jake," she whispered. Her chin buried itself against her chest and she closed her hands over her ears so she wouldn't hear his reminders. Unfortunately it didn't serve to close off the words that reverberated in her head.
I don't want to hurt you, Banner.
I'll hurt you.
Oh, God, you're sweet.
Then a gasp had torn through her whole body. It echoed again and again. Even now she relived that instant of glorious pain, that moment when she had known his full possession.
Jake stared down at her, feeling helpless and angry with himself. She looked so tiny and defenseless. The row of buttons on the back of her shirtwaist only emphasized the graceful curve of her spine. He wanted to lay his hands on her, give her comfort, but he couldn't bring himself to touch her.
Before, he would have thought nothing of making physical contact with Banner. He had touched her frequently, given her bear hugs that made her squeal in mock pain, tugged on wayward strands of hair. Hadn't it been on the very morning of her wedding that he had swatted her bottom? He couldn't imagine doing such a thing now. They had robbed themselves of such playfulness.
"I don't want to talk about it," Banner said gruffly, withdrawing her hands from her ears.
"We have to talk about it. We can't see each other every day with something like this festering between us. We'd be crazy in a week."
She faced him angrily. "Why didn't you think of that sooner, Jake? Why did you put me in the position of choosing? Why didn't you just refuse the job and leave?"
"I tried to. I couldn't."
"Why?"
No longer ashamed, no longer meek, she was a firebrand again. Her whole body was vibrating with pent-up frustration. Jake was just as agitated.
How could he want her again? How, when he would do anything, give anything on earth, to take back what had already happened, how could he want to crush that dainty body against his and taste her sweet mouth one more time? Just once more.
The memories wouldn't desert his mind. They stayed there in the forefront to torment him like waving red flags in front of a bull. Now he knew just how a
live her hair felt when it curled around his fingers. He knew the taste of her skin and the texture of her earlobe. Against his will his eyes lowered to her breasts which were trembling with anger. Had his hands really reshaped mem, or did he just want to remember it that way?
He yanked his eyes back to her face and targeted in on her mouth. He had defiled it, scoured it, raped it with his tongue. Some low-class whores wouldn't even let you kiss mem with such intimacy. He had hated himself afterward and wondered why Banner hadn't put a stop to it then. But now, all he could think about was doing it again. He wanted a second taste of the sweetness that lay just beyond her lips.
And he hated himself all over again.
He turned away suddenly and braced his elbows on the top rung of the fence. Clasping his fingers together tightly, he tapped at his front teeth with his thumbnails. The lines of his jaw were rigid.
"I felt like I owed it to you to stay."
"Owed it to me?" she ground out.
"Yes, owed it to you. This is my way of paying you back for what I took."
"Don't do me any self-sacrificing favors. You didn't take anything I didn't offer."
The muscles in his arms bunched tighter. "You offered it, but I should have patted you on the head and sent you back to the safety of the house." His eyes flickered down her body. "I didn't. I owe it to you to see that this ranch of yours gets off to a good start. Then maybe I can leave with a clear conscience."
"I don't want your pity!"
His head came around and she recoiled from the cold glinting light in his eyes. "I didn't pity you the other night, did I? Compassion damn sure wasn't one of the reasons I did what I did." He took a step forward and seized her shoulders. "I wanted you. Pure and simple, I wanted you. You got me hard, Banner. So hard I couldn't help myself. But if I were going to do it, why couldn't I have taken it slow, not come at you like some—"
Later, he could never say what stopped the flow of words. Suddenly, his lips fell silent and his mind went blank. Banner was gazing up at him. Her eyes were limpid. Her lips were slightly parted. He stared back, mesmerized by the mellow expression on her face.
In that transference of thoughts, they relived those moments of fierce possession when they had been one. The memory of it refused to be sealed away in the crypts of their minds like something dead. It was very much alive. It seethed between them, a living thing, almost tangible. It swirled around them, an invisible, soundless tempest that shook the foundations of their souls, just as Jake had trembled at the moment of climax.
Then it was over.
Banner was the first to look away. Jake let his hands slide away from her shoulders. The silence stretched out interminably. They were both embarrassed. Banner fervently hoped that Jake didn't know she still ached for something unknown, something just beyond her grasp. Jake wondered if Banner knew how badly he wanted to embed himself inside her again.
"Why did you stay?"
"I needed the job."
They spoke in hushed tones. They didn't look at each other. This was something that had to be said. It had to be settled now or it would ferment and become sour.
"You could always find work as a cowboy."
"Yeah, but that's no life. Not for someone as old as me. I need to do this, Banner."
"I see." And she did. "That's the only reason?"
"I need to stay close to Ma." He was using the same lame argument on Banner that Lydia had used on him. But Ma was old. And who knew when her time would come?
"I can understand that."
"But I still refused Ross's first offer. I want you to know that."
"Why?"
"Because I knew how you'd feel having me around after... after the other night."
"What changed your mind?"
"Ross's stubbornness. He wasn't going to give you what you wanted unless it was an arrangement that included me."
"You and I both know that I could have changed his mind eventually." She looked at him now. She hated the question she needed to ask, but she had to know."Why did you stay, Jake?"
He met her gaze honestly. "Because Lydia asked me to."
Banner nodded silently. She turned and waded through the grass toward the house. Well, she had asked. And he had told her.
She was surprised, and a little frightened, that it hurt so much to know.
♥ Scanned by Coral ♥
SIX
"Is this all?"
Wanda Burns, slatternly as always, dug her fists into her hips and confronted her new husband. She had riffled through the boxes he had carried into the shack she shared with her father. Garments and hats, shoes and gloves were scattered over the bare ticking of the shuck mattress.
"All?" Grady growled. "Isn't it enough? You can't wear any of it until your brat gets here anyway."
He looked at her with patent disgust. She was dirty. Her face was bloated. Her hands and ankles were swollen. Her body was obscenely burdened with a baby he still wasn't convinced was his. Why she had insisted that he provide her with a new wardrobe, he couldn't imagine. Except that it was just another way to put her claws into him, to eliminate any doubts that she was truly Mrs. Grady Sheldon.
"I wanna be dressed like a proper lady when I go into town with you," she had said.
Grady knew he would as soon die as go anywhere in her company, especially into town where the whispered taunts followed him like shadows every time he passed down the street.
He had laughed at her demand for the new clothes. But Doggie's leering grin as he stroked the barrel of his shotgun had changed his mind. Dutifully Grady had promised to bring some tilings back the next time he came to their cabin deep in the piney woods. It wasn't distance alone that made it seem apart from civilization.
The Burnses had made a fool of him and he didn't like it. He was going to have to do something about it. Soon. But what? And when?
"Them things look right purty, Wanda," Doggie said from the doorway. He stamped in carrying two dead squirrels, which he tossed down on the rough table in spite of the fact they were still bleeding. "Is this here husband doin' right by you, honey?"
"I guess so, Daddy," she said sullenly. "But he still won't let me move into that fancy house of his in town." She pouted up at Grady and he wondered how in hell he had ever found that sulky mouth attractive enough to kiss.
That first night he saw her she had looked pretty enough. He had ridden out to buy moonshine and found not Doggie, but Wanda, taking care of business. Hie evening had been but by an autumn moon that hung low and large over the treetops. Hie air had been crisp and cool.
Having just come from taking a bath in the nearby stream, Wanda was clean, at least comparatively so. Her tight, threadbare dress clung to her damp skin and let him know right away that she wore nothing under it. She had done everything in her power to make him aware of her lush body, moving with sinuous motions, brushing against him.
She had spoken in whispers, as though they already shared a delicious secret. He had had to stand close in order to hear her, bending his head down on a level with hers. But the effort had been worth it. His conceit had been stroked by her every word.
He was so tall.
She loved curly hair.
She had even feigned a weakness with one of the barrels and cooed appreciatively when he hoisted it to his shoulders and carried it for her.
What a sap he had been. And it was all Banner's fault. If she hadn't stirred his blood so, he wouldn't have been randy for a female. If Banner's innocent kisses hadn't promised so much passion, he wouldn't have been aching to taste Wanda's mouth. Once he had kissed Wanda and felt the hot welcome her body offered, there was no stopping him. Her body had been pliant and generous.
Afterward he had felt wonderful. Wanda had screamed her pleasure like a female panther. She had told him he was handsome, that no man equaled him as a lover.
She said everything he needed to hear. It vexed him that a man of Ross Coleman's stature would be his father-in-law. He was jealous of Coleman.
But he was willing to pay the price of living in Coleman's shadow in order to have Banner and all that being married to her would benefit him. That timberland, for instance. Still, each time he came away from River Bend, his pride had taken a beating. He would never measure up to Ross Coleman, not in the eyes of the community, not even in Banner's eyes.
Wanda Burns had given Grady his self-confidence back. She had used her body like a silver platter to serve it up to him. After that first night, he came back often. Each time they made love it was raunchy and nasty and wild. Physically she wore him out. But he took pride in the fact that he was virile enough to satisfy a woman with her sexual appetite.
He had been talking with some of the men in town. He wasn't ignorant of Wanda's reputation. That's what made her safe. He was having what many others considered their due when their wives were indisposed. Hell, he didn't see why he couldn't keep seeing Wanda even after he and Banner were married.
Oh, he liked Banner well enough. She was a damn good-looking woman and no doubt her body was as alive as it hinted at being. Their marriage bed wouldn't be sterile. But Grady was too pragmatic to entertain any notions about love, though he had paid lip service to loving her.
Banner was convenient. It would elevate his standing in the community to have her as his wife because the Colemans were so well respected. That she was pretty and popular with hostesses in town were added bonuses. Not to mention the property she would bring to the marriage.
She had shared her dreams of a ranch with him. He knew all about the horses she wanted to breed and the beef cattle she wanted to raise. He had listened, pretending interest and enthusiasm, all the while bored to tears.
Because his ideas about what to do with that land were different from Banner's. He'd let her breed a few horses, even a few cows if that would keep her content, but he wanted that acreage because it bordered one of the state's thickest forests. He had planned to build a sawmill there, an annex to the one in town. He could triple his production in a year.
