"You are home." He stepped from the car, went around to her side and opened the door. "Well, to be specific, you're at my home."
She jerked away when he reached for her but he caught her hand and linked his fingers through hers.
"Cait," he said softly, "I live here."
Her gaze flew to his. "Here? But when I asked Jonas, he said—"
She clamped her lips together, but it was too late. The words were already out of her mouth, he'd heard them, and the look on his face told her what a mistake she'd made.
"You asked your stepfather about me?"
"No. Of course not. Well, yes. I mean, you and he obviously had a row, and then you left, and I—and I..." Dammit! The more she said, the worse it sounded. She took a deep breath and stepped from the car. "All right," she said briskly. "I admit, I was curious."
"Aren't you curious now?" He jerked his chin toward the enormous house behind them. "I am, if you're not. I saw this place for the first time this morning."
"You what?"
"I asked the realtor to show me some ranch property. She took me to half a dozen places but when I saw this one, I knew it was right." He grinned. "At least, I think it's right. It comes furnished."
"How nice for you," she said lamely.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. So—I put a deposit on it but I'd like an honest opinion before I sign the papers tomorrow."
"An honest opinion." Caitlin cleared her throat. "That's why you brought me out here? To ask me what I think of this house before you buy it?"
"Sure. What do I know about Texas ranches? I'm just a Georgia country boy, myself."
She looked at him through narrowed eyes. Tyler Kincaid was as much a country boy as she was the queen.
"Cait? Do me a favor. Take a look."
He wasn't a man who asked favors of anybody, either. There was something wrong with this entire setup ...but damn, she was curious. And now that she'd taken a better look at the house, that curiosity was growing.
"Is this the Wilson place?"
Tyler nodded. "Do you know them?"
"No. Well, not exactly. I came here with Jonas once, when Charlie Wilson was raising money for his Senate run." She sighed, tugged her hand free of Tyler's and stepped from the car. "I don't know what I can possibly tell you that the realtor couldn't."
Tyler led the way to the front door. "Well," he said, as he opened it and turned on the lights, "for starters, you can tell me if there's some law that says those things have to hang at the windows."
Caitlin stared at what looked like yards and yards of deep crimson, scalloped and fringed and festooned with heavy gold fringe.
A laugh bubbled up in her throat. She bit it back and took a quick look around her. Not just crimson drapes and gold trim, but cupids and shepherdesses and naked cherubs, too.
"I'd heard that Charlie's second wife had the place redone," she said, and then she couldn't help it. She snorted, snorted again, and hooted with laughter. "Oh my gosh, it's awful!"
Tyler breathed a sigh of relief. "You can't imagine how relieved I am to hear you say that. The realtor—"
"Who is she?"
"Lady name of Pru Barnes. Do you know her?"
"Oh, yes. I certainly do. The woman acts as if she has a stick up..." Caitlin colored. "She's stiff-necked. Folks lay bets on what will happen, the first time she smiles."
"Yeah, well, she's not gonna smile around me, I can tell you that." He crossed the room and tugged at the drapes. "I told her the place looked like a world-class bordello. For a minute. I thought she was going to faint dead away."
Caitlin threw back her head and laughed. "I love it! I just wish I'd been here to see... Kincaid? Kincaid, what are you..."
Tyler gave a last wrench and the drapes fell to the floor in an undulating sea of crimson.
"I asked for your opinion," he said innocently, "and you gave it. Goodbye, drapes."
Caitlin grinned and reached for a cherub. "Goodbye, cherub?" she asked, nodding toward the enormous fieldstone fireplace that ran half the length of one wall.
Tyler folded his arms. "By all means."
He watched as her hand closed around the ugly little figure's fat bottom. She turned toward the fireplace and looked at it. The tip of her tongue—such a pink, delicate tongue—stuck out between her teeth.
"Really?" she said, glancing at him again. "Really."
Caitlin drew back her arm and hurled the cupid onto the hearth.
"Wow," she said, whirling toward him. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, and he wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her so badly that he felt the ache right through his bones.
But he didn't move, didn't touch her. Instead he smiled and brought his hand to his forehead in a lazy salute. "Nice throw."
She smiled. "I was taught by the best."
Tyler lifted an eyebrow. "Nolan Ryan?"
Her smiled broadened. "Gage Baron. My middle step-brother. I was ten when I came to live on Espada, and the last thing Gage or Travis or Slade wanted was a girl underfoot." "But they got to know you, and to like you?"
"What they got was tired to death of seeing my face. I guess they decided the only way to handle me was to take me into Los Lobos."
"Their baseball team?"
"Their gang. The Los Lobos pack. They made me a member after my mother took off for New York—" She broke off, looked at him and flushed. "I don't know why I'm telling you the story of my life," she said stiffly, "when what you asked for was my opinion of those drapes."
"I'm glad you are," he said softly. "I want to know more about you."
And I want to know everything about you.
The words were so clear in her mind that for a second, she thought she'd spoken them aloud. But she hadn't. Of course, she hadn't. She'd never say anything so foolish to any man.
"And I," she said, with a quick little smile, "want to know more about this house. Why did you decide to buy it?"
Tyler's smile tilted. "Land is a good investment."
"Ranching can be a lousy investment. You're at the mercy of the weather, the market—"
"I can afford it."
She liked the way he said it, with no false modesty and no arrogance. "I figured that. And that makes it all the harder to understand why you came to Espada the way you did."
"I wanted to talk to your stepfather, and to check on some things."
"Things you thought you'd learn more about if nobody knew you were rich?"
"Yeah." He shrugged. "Something like that."
Caitlin nodded. "You play things close to the vest, Mr. Kincaid."
"As do you, Ms. McCord."
They smiled at each other, and then his smile slipped. "Caitlin..."
"Show me the rest of the house," she said quickly, and before he could answer, she walked rapidly around the living room, pausing to shake her head over a china figure or to roll her eyes at a painting.
"The second Mrs. Wilson seems to have had a thing for, ah, for plump naked ladies and big horses."
Tyler laughed. "I said something like that to Ms. Barnes."
"You didn't."
"I did."
Caitlin grinned. "Better watch out, Kincaid. Pru will take her commission, then come after you and try and wash out your mouth with a bar of soap." She moved on, her smile fading, and paused at a bronze sculpture of a man mounted on a horse. "Oh, this is beautiful," she said softly.
Tyler watched her run her hand over the bronze. "Yeah." He cleared his throat. "I have the next piece in the series in my house in Atlanta."
"A Remington?" Caitlin looked at him and smiled. "A real one, numbered and signed like this?"
"Yeah." He shrugged his shoulders, foolishly pleased she should recognize the piece that was, in fact, the pride and joy of his Georgia collection. "So, what do you think? Do you like the house?"
Caitlin laughed and whirled in a circle. The skirt of her yellow sundress flared around her knees. She was more beautiful than the bronze, Tyler thought
, and felt his belly tighten.
"I love it! It's a wonderful house, or it will be, after you get rid of all the froufrou. Can't you see this place done in pale oak?" She swung toward him. "In soft southwestern col—"
"What's the matter?"
Tyler was what was the matter. While she'd been talking, he'd slipped off his jacket and rolled back his cuffs. And oh, he was so beautiful. She'd never imagined using that word to describe a man, but what other word was there that would work? That strong-boned face. The thick, dark hair, and the little whorl of it visible in the hollow of his throat. Those powerful wrists and muscled forearms...
Yes, he was beautiful, far more beautiful than the Remington. And he wasn't unyielding bronze, either. He was muscle and bone, warm skin and hot mouth...
"So," she said brightly, as she turned her back to his suddenly knowing eyes, "you . bought the Wilson place, Remington and all."
"Yes." His voice was low. The rough sound of it kicked her pulse into overdrive.
"Well." She gave a tinkling laugh, the sound painfully artificial even to her own ears. "I guess this makes it definite. You're not a drifter, are you, Mr. Kincaid?"
"Caitlin."
She closed her eyes as he came up behind her. She could feel the heat of his body and when he put his hands on her shoulders and drew her back against him, she knew she couldn't go on hiding behind bad jokes, or cold words, or an anger she no longer felt.
"Don't," she said, in a shaky whisper. "Please, don't. I'm not—I'm not ready to deal with this, Tyler."
His fingers pressed into her naked flesh as he turned her toward him. She looked into his eyes and it was like standing at the edge of a precipice, when logic assures you that you're not going to fall but something dark and deep within urges you to jump.
He put his hand under her chin and she lifted her head. Don't, she thought, but her lips parted...
Tyler brushed his mouth gently over hers.
"I'll go see to dinner," he whispered.
"Dinner," she said, with a quick smile. "Don't tell me you hired a cook."
"'Billy's Bar-B-Que Take-Out,"' he replied, smiling back at her. "'You Call, We Haul."'
She laughed, grateful for the reprieve ... and caught her breath as Tyler pulled her into his arms and kissed her, not gently, not as if she were made of glass, but as if he were going to take her, right here, right now, and heaven help her, she wanted him to, wanted him to...
"Find us some wineglasses," he said softly, as he put her from him. "And then why don't you come and join me in the kitchen?"
"Sure," she said brightly.
Just as soon as she was sure she could walk on legs that had the consistency of jelly.
They dined on the patio, at a candlelit table with the starry sky for a canopy.
They ate their barbecued beef on translucent china, buttered ears of corn with sterling silver butter knives, drank a soft, wonderful red wine from plastic glasses.
"Plastic glasses?" Tyler said, when Caitlin produced them, and she laughed and shrugged her shoulders.
"Maybe Mrs. Wilson thought they went with the cupids and the drapes."
Plastic or no, the wine was wonderful. So was the barbecued beef.
"Wonderful," Caitlin said, smiling at Tyler over the last of the wine.
He grinned. "I'll be sure and tell Billy you said so."
Caitlin touched her fingertip to a drop of barbecue sauce left in her plate, then licked it off. Tyler's smile tilted as he followed the simple action.
"So, what do you do? In Atlanta, I mean."
He shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "This and that." "Ever the mystery man, huh?"
"I'm no mystery man, Cait. You can look me up in Dun and Bradstreet anytime you like."
"Will Dun and Bradstreet tell me why you sneaked onto Espada?"
The smile fell from his lips. "I thought we settled that. I told you, I wanted to talk to Jonas. And—"
"And check things out. Yes, so you said. That still doesn't explain why you showed up on our land, looking like a drifter."
"Our land? Do you have a share of Espada?"
"No." Caitlin's mouth thinned. "I think I told you, I'm not a Baron."
"And only Barons are good enough to own Espada?"
"Something like that."
"But you love the ranch. And you damned near run it."
"Yes, and yes ...and please don't try to change the subject. Why did you come to Espada?"
Tyler looked across the table at this woman he'd only met days ago. There was no artifice to her, neither in the way she looked and dressed nor in the way she spoke. He'd known so many women in his life... some of them must have had more perfect features, more voluptuous bodies. He knew, for certain, that he'd never dined on Texas ribs at a table set outside a handsome house all done up like an overblown whore.
He knew, too, that he'd never spent a more wonderful evening, that he'd never dreamed he'd hear a woman tell him she wasn't ready for what they both wanted and know, in his gut, he wasn't ready, either, because he was flat-out scared of what she made him feel.
And he knew that this was the first time in his thirty-five years he'd ever been tempted to tell a woman the truth. To say, look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I don't know who I am. I don't even know my real name. That's why I came to Espada, to try to solve the mystery that's haunted me all my life...
Was he losing his mind? Tell her that he was an orphan? That he'd grown up first in the care of two polite people who'd never particularly cared for him, then in the even more tender care of the state? Tell her that he'd spent the better part of a year at a place for kids who'd gotten themselves in trouble?
He pushed back his chair and got to his feet.
"Tyler, please." Caitlin rose, too. "Tell me what's going on. Jonas has done nothing but growl since he threw you out."
"Threw me out?" He gave a snort of laughter. "It would take that old son of a bitch and his three sons to throw me out, and even then, they'd have a tough time doing it. Besides, I didn't bring you here to talk about Jonas Baron."
"Tyler, if you'd just listen..."
"I am listening." He came around the table toward her, his eyes locked on hers. "I liked the way you said that."
"Said what?" Caitlin cleared her throat and took a step back. "What did I say?"
"My name. " She caught her breath as he reached out his hand and touched her cheek. "Say it again."
"You're right," she said unsteadily. "It really is late..."
"Caitlin."
His voice was as soft as honey but there was a roughness to it that sent a lick of flame through her blood. He was so beautiful. So impossibly, dangerously male. He was everything a woman would dream of, everything she had dreamed of since she'd first begun to wonder what it would be like to lie in a man's anus and give herself up to passion.
"Tyler," she whispered, and she knew that one, softly spoken word had given everything away. His green eyes darkened and his gaze fell to her mouth. She trembled as he reached for her, as she imagined his weight bearing her down into the softness of his bed.
"I'm on fire for you," he said huskily, and kissed her.
She didn't fight him. How could she, when the taste of his mouth was richer than wine? When the feel of his arms was everything that mattered? She moaned as his tongue parted her lips, and she arched against him and wound her arms around his neck.
Tyler swept his hands down Caitlin's body, molding her. marking her with his touch. He groaned, slid his hands up under her skirt, and it was almost his undoing. God, how he wanted her.
"Sweet Cait," he whispered, and he cupped her bottom. lifted her to him, shuddering when she pressed herself against him. "Come to bed with me," he said, against her throat. "Let me make love to you until dawn lights the sky."
Caitlin moaned and tore her mouth from Tyler's. She pressed her face to his throat and inhaled his scent.
"I—I don't do this," she whispered. "I don't."
Tyler drew back, cupped her face, and lifted it to his.
"Damned right, you don't, " he said fiercely. "You're only going to do it with me."
She struggled to hold on to reason. Things were moving too quickly. She knew what she'd always believed was right and what was wrong, but Tyler had swept all of that aside. Right and wrong had given way to hunger and need, and it frightened her.
"I need—I need time," she said. "We just met. You hardly know me, and I don't know anything except that you're Tyler Kincaid."
The change in him was stunning. He let go of her and stepped back, his eyes cold and flat.
"And that's not enough, is it?" His voice was quiet but she sensed the fury of the storm beneath the calm facade. "After all, who in hell is Tyler Kincaid?"
"No. That isn't what I meant."
"Of course it is. And you're right to ask the question. A woman would be a fool to get involved with a man who has nothing but a name."
"I don't understand what you're talking about."
He walked across the room and stood looking out at the dark hills. Seconds passed. When he turned to her again, she felt as if she were looking at a man wearing a mask.
"It's late, Caitlin, and we've both had a long week." He smiled as he came toward her but the smile was empty of meaning. "I'll drive you home."
His hand closed on her elbow. His touch was polite and removed. It was hard to believe that only moments ago, his touch had seared her with fire.
"Tyler." She touched his shoulder. "Please, what's wrong? I didn't mean to upset you."
"It's all right," he said gently. "You didn't."
He gave her the same empty smile as he had before, pressed his lips lightly to her forehead and took her back home, to Espada.
CHAPTER SEVEN
MARTA was waiting at the foot of the steps when Caitlin came down the next morning.
She shook her head before Caitlin could greet her, put a finger to her lips and drew her aside.
"What's wrong?" Caitlin asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.
"I just wanted to warn you that Jonas is in a terrible mood this morning."
Sandra Marton - Taming of Tyler Kincaid Page 9
