* * *
Brice slowly entered her. He wanted to relish their lovemaking, letting her adjust to the feel of him bit by bit, and he luxuriated in the warm, wet feel of her. He leaned her back against the wall, giving her more control. He wanted to treasure the fevered look on her face as they joined as one, as he possessed her and she certainly possessed him. "Easy," he coaxed, as she tightened her legs around him.
Her breasts rose and fell with the rapid rhythm of her breath. Her eyes darkened to sapphire and dilated. Her hands gripped his shoulders till her knuckles blanched white. "Brice?"
"Just let it happen, sweetheart." He kissed her, tasting passion on her lips, her tongue, in her mouth. Intense heat ran through him like a range fire destroying everything in its path. Control gave way to obsession, and he pushed into her, sending them both into total ecstasy. He called her name, yelled it, heard his voice mix with hers, echoing off the shower walls. Never had he felt more complete, more satisfied than he did at this moment, loving Pru.
Pru sagged against him, meshing their bodies. He kissed her neck, her ear, her hair. Suddenly he realized the water pouring over them was ice cold. "Hold on to me, sweetheart." Brice wrapped his arms around her tightly and stepped out of the water. Slowly, he set her down on the old concrete floor, enfolded her in her towel, then disposed of the condom.
"Here—" she said when he came back to her, opening her arms to welcome him into her towel, her warmth. The expression on her face and in her blue eyes was happiness, joy, contentment. He'd never seen her look that way before, and realized he'd caused it—it was very addictive, indeed.
She wrapped her arms and the towel around his shoulders, snuggling against him. The feel of her so close, so loving was incredible.
"Brice—"
He felt her breath on his lips.
"We're not doing a very good job of staying away from each other."
"I don't want to stay away, Pru." He watched her eyes sparkle in agreement, and he felt happier than he'd ever have thought possible. "I want to give what we feel for each other a chance. But that's not going to happen until our families stop battling, and we can concentrate on each other instead of them." Brice gave her a thoughtful look. "Before, I wanted to end the feud so we could get out of our marriage. Now, I want to end the feud to see if there's any chance of saving it."
"For years, no one's been able to make any progress toward getting the families together, Brice. That's not very encouraging." She let out a long, dejected-sounding sigh.
"That's because there's been a lack of proper motivation." He kissed the tip of her nose. "I want to make love with you again and again. I want us to be close. I want us to be able to trust each other. I want us to be the best of friends, on fire for each other with nothing in the way. We can't get to that stage until we solve our problems, and we can't do that until we solve the problems between our families." He stole another quick kiss, then said, "Right now, we happen to be the two most motivated people on planet Earth to put an end to this blasted feud."
* * *
Prudence tried not to think about how she and Brice had made love only three hours ago and how she wanted to make love with him again, right now. Instead, she concentrated on the page of notes she'd taken as they shared a picnic dinner in front of the hearth—a dinner the two of them had cooked on their new stove—and tried to think of ways to end the feud. Sunny had told her that a common cause pulls people together, so she and Brice were now racking their brains to come up with some cause. It was a mighty poor substitute for what she wanted to do, but it was very necessary.
Brice stretched his legs out on the blanket and leaned against the raised stone. Firelight danced in his hair and gave a warm glow to his tanned face. Her concentration waned. How in Hades was she supposed to come up with ways of ending anything at all, when it took every ounce of fortitude she possessed not to persuade him to make love to her. A mental image of the persuading part sent little shivers of anticipation through her; it presented great possibilities. But it was out of the question because they were out of protection. Bringing a baby into the middle of this feud was not an option.
"Okay," Brice said, yanking her away from her lusty thoughts. "Read the suggestions we've come up with so far to bring the two most hardheaded families in North America together."
"We have the great chili cook-off, the town beautification project, paint and fix up the library, have a book drive, put in a playground for the kids, build a baseball field, construct a shelter at Pine Tree Ridge, have a rodeo."
Brice picked up his fifth piece of fried chicken from the plate and helped himself to a fourth helping of pasta salad. If she ate like that she'd look like a blimp, she thought. Brice was no blimp. How could he pack away so much food and keep so fit? And he was indeed fit. Her blood hummed in her veins just thinking about his fitness. Good thing she'd bought the best stove and biggest fridge she could find in town. Cooking was about to become more than just a passing hobby in the Randolph-McCormack house.
Brice took a bite of chicken. Around a mouthful of food he said, "Which ideas do you like best?"
She tapped her pencil against the paper. "Hmm. The chili cook-off might be too competitive. I see fistfights and bloodshed over that one, since chili is serious business in Texas." She ran her pen through that suggestion. "The town beautification project is mostly a Randolph thing, since we live in town and your family lives in the boonies. What do you think?"
"I think this isn't the boonies. We like to think of it as the wide-open spaces. But the rodeo is a McCormack thing." Brice gave Prudence a cocky smile that made her heart skip a beat. "The Randolphs wouldn't have a chance at that one."
"True. Just like if we had a competition on who could fill out their own tax returns, the McCormacks wouldn't have a chance there." She gave Brice a smug grin.
"Point taken." She ran her pen through the words beautification project and rodeo. But she would have loved to see Brice at a rodeo.
He continued, "We need something neutral, but not the library. If anything goes wrong, I'd rather keep books and periodicals out of harm's way."
Prudence scratched off the library idea and looked back to the list. "That leaves us with a baseball field, a playground and a shelter." She tapped her pencil on the pad again. "What if we put in a baseball field, playground and shelter at Pine Tree Ridge? That covers a lot of interests. Both families, plus everybody else in town, especially the kids, use it for picnics, baseball, soccer, hikes. It wouldn't be seen as favoring one family over the other. It's always been kind of detached from the feuding. Fixing it up would benefit everyone. It would be a philanthropic project for both families that neither could find fault with."
"Whoa, that's a considerable undertaking, Pru. We'd have to do it in stages. But you're right about one thing—it is neutral territory. Not neutral like the ranch here because we're both owners, but neutral all the same, and that's the important thing."
Had he really said "both owners" without hesitating or blinking an eye? Fatigue had obviously robbed him of his good sense. Or maybe it was kissing her that had lowered his defenses to an all-time low. She hoped so. Ending this feud was one heck of a lot more complicated than keeping it going.
"The question is, how in blazes are we going to get both families to show up at the same place, and convince them to use shovels, saws and hammers on a building and not on each other?" He looked her dead in the eyes. "If we can solve that little dilemma, Pru, we can solve damn near anything."
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
"We'll lie," Prudence said, after swallowing a mouthful of potato salad and washing it down with lemonade. "With all we've been through in trying to keep our families out of the county jail, we're pros at lying, whether we like it or not." She paused, then added, "We'll use some basic principles of feud psychology."
"What kind of psychology?"
"The kind where you just happen to mention to your family that the Randol
phs are putting up a shelter at Pine Tree Ridge. Then you throw in the clincher. You tell them the Randolphs are doing this for the town, and the town's putting up a big plaque with the Randolph name on it. You casually say something like, 'It's a rotten shame the McCormack family is getting outdone by the Randolphs.' Plaque and outdone are the critical words, here, believe me. Then offhandedly maybe suggest that the McCormacks build sandboxes, swings and picnic tables. Whenever one family hears that the other is doing something the first is not, it stampedes into immediate action. 'Course, I'll tell my family the opposite story. Everyone will show up on the same day because they'll want to keep an eye on what the other's doing. We'll get the judge to donate two plaques, and the town gets a great park in the bargain. Voilà! Feud psychology in action." She gave herself a mental pat on the back for coming up with such a great scheme.
For a second, Brice looked overwhelmed by what she'd said, then replied, "It's worth a try, since we haven't come up with anything else. We should aim for Sunday."
"This Sunday?"
"No reason to wait, and the sooner we solve our families' problems, the sooner we can concentrate on our own."
She suddenly felt all warm and wonderful inside, just thinking that she and Brice could possibly have a future together. Suddenly, she couldn't imagine her future without him. "Can we pull everything together that fast? I mean, this will take some planning."
For a moment Brice seemed lost in thought, the crackle of burning logs, and the creaks and moans of an old house the only sounds. A faint scent of smoke hung in the air, and moonlight sliced through the windows, forming rectangles on the worn wood floor. Prudence wondered about the Dillards and others who had sat in front of this hearth, all nice and cozy and making plans about their lives. This house might be dilapidated now, but at one time it was a good house, she could feel it. If it could talk, it would probably have some great tales to tell.
Brice finally said, "Since keeping things peaceful is our main objective here, we need to provide the food. No potluck dinners. If anyone said there was better fried chicken than Aunt Lilly's, the feud would have no chance of ending for another seventy years."
"I can cook, and get Sunny to help."
"I'll figure out how much lumber, nails, screws and roofing materials we'll need. I'll order those things in town tomorrow and arrange for delivery. But let's wait till Friday to spring this idea on our families. Giving them short notice cuts down on their trouble-planning time."
Prudence looked Brice dead in the eyes. "Our wedding was on short notice. Remember? Look what happened there."
"Then we're overdue for a success, Pru." Brice winked and grinned.
Oh, boy! What that man did to her hormones with one smile was … sinful. She watched him stretch out on the blanket and cup his hands behind his head as he stared at the cracked ceiling.
He said, "You and me sitting here, calmly working on the same idea to settle family problems, is as strange as snow in July. If anyone had told me a week ago that we could do this without winding up in a yelling match or in court, I would have thought they were off their rocker."
Prudence snatched some pinecones from the pile of kindling and absently tossed them into the fire, watching them burst into flames. She'd never felt so peaceful, so content, as she did at this moment. Maybe it was being out here where there was nothing but trees and grass and cows and this run-down house. All this quiet and simplicity gave her time to consider who she really was. Concrete and traffic, she realized, weren't conducive to self-exploration.
She said, "Being with you sure takes the pressure off me, I can tell you that. For once in my life, I don't have to listen to Dad go on about what the great Brice McCormack is doing over at the Half-Circle, and then have to figure out how I am going to match it."
His gaze cut to her. "What the heck's that supposed to mean?"
Pru watched another pinecone catch fire, and the scent of deep forest filled the room. "Don't you know 'Randolphs have to keep up with McCormacks.' At least, that's what Dad says. And that means I have to keep up with you." This time she tossed a pinecone onto his chest. "In case you didn't know, Brice McCormack, keeping up with you is a royal pain in the hind end. Only this time I don't have to keep up with you because I'm here, too. As Aunt Patty says, 'God works in mysterious ways.'"
"You're kidding, right?"
"Heck, no, God really does work—"
"Not that." He sat up. "The part about keeping up with me."
She pitched in the last pinecone, then drew her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knees. "Didn't it ever occur to you just why I was yearbook editor when you were editor of the newspaper? Or why we won so many of the same honors in high school? Or what in Sam Hill I was doing at Pine Tree Ridge with the Scouts the very week you got an Eagle Scout award?"
"Your dad made you do what I did?"
"Not made, exactly. More like … expected, since I was his daughter and next in line to Bob Randolph, grand pooh-hah of the Randolph family. In high school I used to send telepathic thoughts your way. Thoughts like 'Brice, take an art class. Brice, take a cooking class. Brice, learn to play the piano.' But did you? Ha! Once I even slipped a newspaper article in your gym locker about how ballet classes helped football players improve their coordination and kicking skills."
"I remember seeing that. Hey, it worked."
Her jaw dropped. "You took ballet lessons? And I didn't know about it? Is there any justice in this world?"
"I paid Derek a month's allowance to keep that quiet."
"Couldn't you have paid him to keep your taking calculus quiet, instead? I hated calculus, but since you took it, guess who had to take it, too?" She shrugged and let go of her knees, then reached for the paper plates they'd used. "It's getting late—we better clean this up and get some sleep. We've got a busy few days ahead of us, if we're going to pull off this Pine Tree Ridge plan."
Unexpectedly, Brice placed his hand on hers, and she looked at him, their gazes connecting and holding. Concern covered his face. "I'm sorry, Pru. I really am."
"What for?"
"For … for taking calculus. I never knew that anything I did affected you. I've just done whatever I had to for the sake of the family. I knew that one day the responsibility of running the Half-Circle would be mine, and the family would depend on me to make it a success. I had to be prepared, and if that meant taking calculus and being a business major, I had to do it."
She turned her hand palm up and took hold of his. His hands were hard and callused and totally dependable. "You took charge of the Half-Circle when other young men were footloose and fancy-free, Brice. You grew up in a hurry when your dad died. All the responsibility fell to you. You've made this ranch bigger and better than ever. You did it because you had to, and everyone admires you for it." She gave him a soft smile. "Even me."
"Don't make me out to be some hero, Pru. I'm not."
She cupped his chin with her fingers. His stubble prickled her hand, his eyes dark as the coals in the grate. "The only thing stopping you from being perfect, cowboy, is that you're not a Randolph."
His smile joined hers. "I'll keep that in mind." Then he kissed her lightly on the cheek.
A kiss on the cheek was not exactly the sort of kiss Pru wanted from him. There were a lot more interesting places she could suggest he kiss. But they both knew that making love tonight was out of the question. Finding that one tattered-looking foil pouch buried in Derek's truck had been a stroke of luck that wasn't going to repeat itself.
Tonight was going to be a really long one, with Brice in one sleeping bag and her in another. But tomorrow… Ah, tomorrow would be another story.
* * *
Brice parked the pick-up in one of the white-lined diagonal spaces in front of the courthouse. He looked at the wide porch, and for a moment remembered the day when Judge Willis had decreed he and Pru get married, or else. Then the two of them had sat there and desperately tried to figure a way out of the mess they were in. He was gl
ad they hadn't.
Pru's soft skin, delicious lips, lovely blue eyes and rose tattoo were great distractions from normal McCormack business. And making love to her was a distraction beyond his wildest dreams. Discovering the real Prudence Randolph was the most surprising thing of all.
He'd always known she was an exceptional woman, a take-charge kind of person who shouldered more than her share of responsibility. But when she took on fixing up the Dillard house instead of insisting they move back into town, and then helped him with the cow, he'd been completely amazed.
How could Bob Randolph have coerced Pru into being Brice's clone, when she had so many wonderful qualities of her own? Didn't Randolph appreciate just how remarkable she truly was? Brice always suspected that when it came to common sense, the Randolphs—except for Pru—weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. The way Bob Randolph treated his only daughter proved hands-down that Brice was right.
He caught sight of Derek coming out of the courthouse, heading for the steps. "Hey," Brice yelled from his open truck window. He waved, then left the truck and fell into step beside Derek on the sidewalk. "Just the guy I need to see."
"Here to give me a progress report on how my truck's running?"
"Not exactly, little brother. But it is as fine as bug dust."
"Any idea just when I'm going to get my fine-as-bug-dust truck back?"
"Real soon, now. Real soon. I'm just borrowing it for a spell, and you can use one of the extra ranch trucks until I do."
"Brice, they all smell like cow."
"Yeah, I know. That's why I snatched yours and not one of them." Brice laughed, and Derek rolled his eyes. "So," Brice continued, "what brings you to town? Thought you were heading out to brand cattle on the south pasture today."
"Uncle Judd and his boys rode out there this morning. I'm stuck here running errands with Granddad Wes. Hope we don't meet up with Eulah. Every time those two run into each other, all hell breaks loose. It's mighty strange. Almost like they enjoy getting together, but then they battle like wolves over a carcass."
COURT-APPOINTED MARRIAGE Page 11
