Virgin Seduction

by Kathleen Creighton

  Cade had been to enough of Rueben and Betsy's gatherings to know that for the next ten or fifteen minutes or so, nobody was going to be paying attention to anything but food, so instead of announcing himself right away he paused and leaned a shoulder against the trunk of a pin oak tree.

  He was feeling just a tad wistful, as he always did when he saw their family together like this and thought about how lucky Rueben and Betsy were. They'd known each other forever, just about, had grown up together and knew each other so well. Theirs was a great marriage. A great family. The kind of marriage, the kind of family Cade would have chosen for himself, if he'd had any say in the matter. The kind he'd never had, and finally accepted he probably never would have.

  Definitely not with Leila.

  He straightened abruptly and lightened the heaviness inside him with a breath while his eyes searched for her in the crowd.

  She wasn't easy to find. Naturally, with that black hair of hers she'd blend right in with this Flores bunch as if she belonged there. When he finally did spot her, in the thickest part of the crowd around the food table, it was because he'd heard somebody call out her name.

  "Hey Leila-you ever eat chili?"

  "Chilly?" Her voice was unmistakable and instantly recognizable to him-another surprise-and musical as a flute. "I do not think so. This means cold, no?"

  There was laughter, and someone yelled, "I don't think so!"

  Then there was a clamor of voices explaining, urging Leila to try some chili…some warning her not to. Cade had moved unconsciously closer, alert as a bird dog on point as he tried to see what was happening in the center of the knot of people gathered around the chili pot. He was a little apprehensive, too-Rueben's chili was notorious. After eating a bowlful Cade didn't stop sweating for hours. And he was used to the stuff.

  An expectant silence had fallen around the food table. Cade found that his heart was beating faster. He really did wish he could have seen Leila's face when she tasted that chili.

  And then the knot of people seemed to loosen and shift, as if everyone had decided to give her a little more breathing room. And suddenly he could see her face-perfect oval, breathtakingly lovely, smooth and fresh as a child's-as she lifted a spoonful of the rich, red-brown chili to her mouth. Cade's heart gave a kick, then seemed to stick at the bottom of his throat, thumping away to beat the band while Leila chewed and the suspense grew. Cade held his breath along with everyone else while a tiny frown etched itself between her eyebrows. Then she tilted her head, and her lilting, slightly husky voice carried even to where he stood.

  "It is very good…" she said, still with that uncertain little frown, and now she was turning her head, as if she were looking for something, there on the table "…but I think I would like-yes, there-what are those little yellow peppers called? Jalapenos-yes. I think I would like some more jalapenos in mine, please."

  There were shouts of amazement and laughter from everyone, and smatterings of applause which Leila acknowledged with a winsome display of dimples. Cade let out the breath he'd been holding. He was smiling in spite of himself. The suspense had broken, so why was his heart still beating so hard and so fast? And why this growling in his stomach when he wasn't hungry?

  "Hey, Cade-hey, Ma, look who's here! Come on over, Cade, grab yourself a plate."

  His cover blown, he grinned, shrugged and pushed away from the tree trunk. But while the grin, shrug and a little deprecating wave of his hand were for the assembled crowd, his gaze stayed where it had been, on Leila. So he knew exactly the moment her body stiffened and the dimpled smile froze on her face, when the liveliness drained out of her so that she seemed to become a flat black-and-white photograph of herself.

  So, he thought dismally, she isn't exactly happy to see me. Did that surprise him? Why would he expect her to be? But his heartbeat now was a slow, dirge-like pulse, and his breath tasted bitter in his throat.

  The knot of Flores' family loosened and Leila came toward him, carrying her plastic plate in both hands, carefully, like a child. And it seemed to Cade that she carried herself the same way. With constraint. Yes, that was the word he was thinking of-as if she held her natural exuberance under a tight rein. But a moment ago with the Flores bunch she'd been lighthearted and free as a bird, so it was pretty obvious she felt that constraint only because of him.

  He felt heavy, suddenly. And his heart hurt, as if the heaviness was right there, pressing in all around it.

  "I did not expect you until later." Her voice sounded breathless, although her face remained pale and calm.

  He shrugged that aside. "Hunting was lousy and the power went out at the ranch, so we decided to leave early." He nodded his head toward her. "Looks like you've been having fun."

  It had just occurred to him that she was wet, under the loose oversized T-shirt she was wearing. Her hair hung in a thick, sodden braid down her back, except for tiny spikes and tendrils around her face and neck that had begun to dry. The T-shirt clung to the dark wetness of the bathing suit, outlining her breasts in bold relief, and it came to him with a small sense of shock that until that moment he'd had no idea what her body was actually shaped like. That one glimpse made him feel the way he did when he was good and hungry and smelled Betsy's bread baking in the oven.

  "I have been, yes." Leila said, responding to something he barely remembered saying, and she was nodding earnestly, obviously completely unaware of the direction his gaze-and his thoughts-had been taking. "Betsy and Rueben have such a nice family, have they not? They have been very kind to me, all of them. Even though," she added, showing him a brief glimpse of dimples, "I do not think I will remember any of their names."

  "I see you've been swimming," Cade said bluntly.

  Her eyes flicked downward toward her own chest, then jumped quickly back to his. Her lips parted in dismay. Letting go of her plate with one hand, she plucked the shirt away from herself as color blossomed slowly in her cheeks, going almost imperceptibly from delicate to sublime, like a sunrise.

  "Yes-with the children. In the creek. Was this all right?"

  "What? Sure, it's all right."

  "You do not mind?" Again her voice sounded breathless.

  "Why should I mind?" His voice sounded angry, though he wasn't. And damned if his heart wasn't beating too fast again. As if they were having an argument. Which they weren't, not as far as he was concerned. He wasn't so sure about her.

  "I am very glad you do not." Her head was high and her eyes seemed to flare and blaze like coals, with something that looked like defiance-though he couldn' t think what she might be in defiance of. He'd never told her she couldn't go swimming-or anything else, for that matter. And he had no intention of ever doing so. He was her husband, dammit, not her father, even if she was ten years younger than he was.

  "Because I liked being with the children," Leila went on. "Very much. I like children. I would like-" She broke off and looked away, and her throat moved with a swallow. He knew she'd meant to say more, but had no idea what it might be.

  I want to have children. A lot of children-like Betsy and Rueben. I want to have your children, Cade Gallagher.

  A little shudder quivered through Leila as she realized that she had almost said such a thing out loud. Perhaps, she thought, it is wrong for a wife to be too proud with her husband. But she was not only a wife, she was a princess, and she could not-she would not say such a thing to a man, husband or not, who did not seem to want to make babies with her at all.

  "Have you been to this place where the children swim?"she asked after a moment, watching him from under her lashes. "Did you swim there also, when you were a child?"

  "What?" Cade was staring at her with that fierce, rather puzzled frown. "Oh-no. I only bought this place about six years ago. Rueben and Betsy came with it-Rueben had worked for the previous owner forever. Most of their kids grew up in this house. But no, I never swam there when I was a kid."

  In spite of the photograph she had seen in his study, Leila could not im
agine Cade as a little boy, with knobby arms and legs and a lean brown body, golden hair dark and slick as a seal's, leaping and splashing and squealing with pleasure, like Betsy's grandchildren. Not this man, with a face so rugged and shoulders so broad, in his cowboy hat and blue jeans, and whiskers beginning to show on his chin. What was it Samira had called him? Oh yes. Imposing. It would be hard, she had said, not to be intimidated by such a man.

  But Leila Kamal would not be intimidated, not by any man.

  "You do not have to be a child to enjoy this swimming place," she said with a lift of her chin. "I am not a child."

  He did not answer. For a long moment he just looked at her, and she realized suddenly that her mouth and throat felt dry. She saw Cade's throat move as if he had swallowed, and then she wanted to swallow, too. She felt hot in spite of the wet bathing suit she wore under her clothes, a peculiar heat that filled all her insides in ways that even Rueben's famous Texas chili had not.

  "Hey, Cade, come on, man-better get yourself a plate, before it's all gone."

  Leila jerked as if she'd been roused from a daydream. Rueben was coming toward them across the grass, carrying a long fork with two prongs and leather strips hanging from the handle. He looked younger today, she thought, less shy than he usually did.

  Cade put out his hand and shook the older man's. "Ah, thanks, Rueben, but I better take a raincheck."

  Rueben looked at him as though Cade had gone insane. "What, are you kidding me? We got plenty- steaks, chili…come on, you gotta eat something."

  Cade was laughing, but also shaking his head. "No, really-I had a sandwich at the airport. I just came to collect my…wife." Leila glanced at him curiously. His smile seemed as though it had been carved from wood.

  Rueben nodded toward Leila. "Hey-she tell you already?"

  "No…tell me what?" Then Cade caught a breath and snapped his fingers. "Suki had her foal."

  "Yup," said Rueben. "Nice little filly. Think she's gonna look just like her mama."

  "How is she? Everything go okay?" This was man-talk, and Leila saw that Cade had already turned toward Rueben, automatically excluding her.

  Leila was used to that kind of treatment. But before she could even begin to feel her usual frustration and resentment, Rueben had begun to back away. "Hey, let hertell you about it," he said. "She was there." Then he glanced over at Leila and, to her complete amazement, winked. "Lucky she was, too. Suki couldn't of done it without her.

  "Well-hey, I gotta get back to my burgers-see you in the morning, boss." And he hurried off to join his family, agile in spite of his funny disjointed walk.

  Leila looked at Cade, who was frowning at her as if she were a strange creature, perhaps in a zoo. He cleared his throat. "What the hell did he mean by that?"

  Leila smiled, showing her dimples. "Oh, I think he was making ajoke." But pleasure was flooding through her, warming her insides the way a hot drink does when the weather is cold. "I helped a little-but only a very little. I only spoke to her-in Arabic. I think she liked that-"

  "Who, the foal?"

  "No, Suki-the mare. And I petted her while Rueben pulled on her feet-"

  "Suki's?"

  Leila gave a little crow of laughter. "The foal's. Then, after she was born, I had to wipe her nose and mouth so she could breathe. And later I fed her with a bottle because her mother did not have milk for her right away. But she is fine now. And-oh, Cade-she is so beautiful. You must see her. May we go to see her now?" And she checked in surprise, because they were standing in front of the pasture gate and she had not even realized that they had been walking.

  Just then someone noticed them leaving. Many voices called out goodbyes, and Leila waved and answered with thank-yous and promises to come back and visit again some time. Cade waved absently as he opened the gate and held it for her.

  "Maybe you'd better tell me about it," he said gruffly as they started up the gentle slope, walking together, side by side. His feelings were mixed, and very confusing.

  He kept glancing at her as she talked, stimulated in unexplainable ways by that little burr of roughness in her voice, entranced by the way her dimples came and went, like a baby playing peek-a-boo. His heartbeat had quickened again, and he knew it was not from the exertion of the climb. He told himself he was glad to see the color back in her cheeks and the bounce in her step. He told himself he was happy to see the dimples again, and hear the musical peal of her laughter. But there was a place inside him…a kernel of disappointment… a leaden little cloud that wouldn' t let him forget. It's not me. It's not me. It's Suki and the foal that's made her happy, not me.

  Happy? What about that? Was she happy? Whether it was Rueben and Betsy's clan, or Suki and her foal that had made her so or not, right now it sure as hell seemed as though she was. Uncertainty filled Cade's belly. His resolve to undo this crazy marriage, based as it was on the justification that Leila wasn't and could never be happy with him, trembled…

  She stopped in the stable long enough to fill a can with grain for Suki. Cade stood in the doorway of the stall and watched her cross the grassy paddock, graceful as a nymph in her long wraparound skirt and sandals, T-shirt knotted at one hip, dark braid swaying as she walked. She approached the dappled gray mare confidently, murmuring in a musical language he assumed must be Arabic. How exotic she is, he thought. And yet…somehow she wasn't. That sunny paddock, beautiful gray mare and beautiful woman, spindle-legged black foal butting at her back…Cade had never considered himself a connoisseur of art, but he thought if someone were to paint this scene, it would look incredibly beautiful…and exactly right.

  "She thinks I am her mother," Leila said to Cade as he joined her, laughing as the foal again butted impatiently at her hip. "Because I fed her with a bottle. No, no, little one, you must drink from your own mama now." And she bent down to encircle the foal's neck with her arms and press her face to the fuzzy black hide.

  The hollow feeling in Cade's belly pushed into his chest, and he struggled to haul in a breath for which he had no room. "I've been thinking," he said, and because it was a lie-the idea had only that moment come to him-his voice was scratchy and filled with gravel. Still cradling the foal, she looked up at him, waiting with bright and expectant eyes. "I haven't given you your bride gift-what do they call it?-the mahr?"

  She nodded, frowning a little. "The mahr, yes."

  Cade tipped his head toward the foal. Nerves jumped in his belly. "She's yours, if you want her. For your bride gift."

  He was unprepared when Leila sucked in air in a cry that sounded more like grief than joy. Unprepared, too, for the tears that suddenly glistened in her eyes. She looked so stricken, in fact, that he tried to apologize. "I know it isn't jewelry, or money-"

  "I have no need for jewelry or money! Oh, Cade-she is so beautiful-this is the most wonderful bride gift-more wonderful than I ever dreamed of." She buried her tear-wet face in the foal's coat, then as quickly was smiling up at Cade again. "I will name her-may I name her?"

  "She's yours," Cade said gruffly. "You can do anything you like."

  "Then I will name her Sari," she said with a fierce, impassioned joy. "In Arabic it means, 'most noble.'" She turned to face him squarely then, smiling with a radiance that took his breath away. "Thank you, Cade. Thank you for my bride gift." And she stepped forward, put her hands on his unshaven jaws, and kissed him.

  Chapter 9

  Her lips were warm and soft, but with an enticing little bite to them that he recognized, even in that moment of shock, as Rueben's chili. But there was something else, too, a salty coolness he knew could only be tears. It was that as much as anything, he thought later, when he was capable of it again, that reminder of her vulnerability, the fragile state of her emotions he'd violated once before, that made him stiffen when she touched him. That made him hold himself rigid while his insides quivered with unanticipated longing, his arm muscles tensing until they ached with the control it took to keep from wrapping them around her.

  "You'
re welcome," he said as he took her by the arms and held her where she was, a few critical inches away from him. Any closer, he knew, and he'd never be able to resist her. If he let her body touch him he was finished. "I'm glad you like her."

  His thoughts were as bleak as his words were gentle, and as uncompromising as his touch. It's gratitude, nothing more. It's the gift-it's the horse she loves, not me.

  * * *

  I don't understand him, this man I have married, thought Leila. He seemed so kind…yes, even sweet- Kitty had been right about that. But at the same time, so distant it seemed impossible that she would ever know or understand him.

  What if I can't? What if I never do?

  The thought filled her with the cold emptiness of panic. She could not endure such aloneness for long. And what must she do then, go running back to Tamir, to her mother and father, like a little child with a bumped knee? To even think of such a thing made her cheeks burn and her heart quicken. No-I cannot. I will not go back.

  No, she was not ready to give up. Not yet.

  Tonight, she had decided, she would try again to seduce her husband. Except…no, she did not think seduce was exactly the correct word. She had looked it up in her English dictionary, and it seemed to mean that she would be trying to make Cade do something bad. What could be bad about a man making love to his wife? No-she did not like this word, seduce. Not at all.

  So, what would she call it, this business of trying to make her own husband desire her? And more important, how could she accomplish it? She had not had any success at being pushy, so it was clearly time to try something else. But what? Leila was not accustomed to having to work to get her way. All her life she had been the baby of the Kamal family, the palace darling. All that had been required in order to wrap her family and servants around her little finger was to flash her dimples, be her winsome and charming self.

  Be herself. Was it possible? Could her own winsomeness and charm be enough to win over such a man as Cade? Leila didn't know, but since nothing else seemed to be working, it was definitely worth a try.