by Diana Palmer
He felt that way, too. As if his past was one long emptiness because Bess hadn’t been part of him. She was now, and the longing for her grew with each passing day. Instead of satisfying his hunger, being with her increased it. He was bound to her in ways he’d never thought a woman could tie him. Bonded. He sighed, worrying about his independence. Marriage had been a big step for him, but he’d been afraid of losing Bess. And after that afternoon in his bed he hadn’t been able to think of anything except how exquisite she looked without her clothes on. Maybe those weren’t the best reasons for marriage, and he couldn’t deny that her society background had influenced him somewhat in the decision. But she was getting to him, really getting to him. She was under his skin, in his bloodstream, in his mind. He felt as if he was losing control. She loved him, but if she ever had a mind to hurt him and his feelings for her went as deep as he was beginning to suspect they went, things could get complicated. For the first time he felt a faint apprehension. As long as only his body had been involved, it hadn’t bothered him. Now his heart was gathering her in, and that did.
She saw his sudden frown and wondered about it. Probably he was wondering as she was about the family’s reaction to their arrival, she told herself. Surely that was all.
“I still have my things to get out of the apartment,” she pointed out.
“I’ll send some of the boys up tomorrow to take care of it,” he said easily. “And we’ll send Senora Lopez some of the wedding cake Mama was baking for you when I called this morning.”
“Oh, how sweet of her!” she burst out.
“She thinks you’re pretty sweet, too, honey.” He lifted his cigarette to his lips. “I’ve been pretty busy lately, but I’ll make time to take you around and show you how things work on Lariat.” He looked at her possessively. “We’ll have a good life together.”
“We still haven’t talked about my salary going into the family budget.”
“We will. That and the other finances. Things are going to be tight, but we’ll make it.”
She could believe that. Cade was a magician with money. It would work out, she told herself.
Elise was waiting at the door. She hugged Bess and stood aside so that Gussie could come forward to do the same.
“I hope you don’t mind.” Gussie grinned. “Elise and I thought a little celebration was in order.”
“No, we don’t mind,” Cade returned, pulling Bess closer as Robert and Gary and Gary’s fiancée, Jennifer, came into the room. They all hugged her, too, and finally they settled down to cake and coffee while Gussie took pictures of the couple for the family album.
It seemed like a happy gathering. But Bess couldn’t help noticing how withdrawn Cade became as the afternoon wore on. He listened instead of talked, and when one of the men came to ask him something about ranch business, he got up and left the room, looking as if he was grateful for the excuse.
Bess started worrying then. As time went by, she worried more. Because she was too uncomfortable to make love with Cade, the distance grew. He slept with her at night, but with his back to her, and they spent their time talking. He explained the cattle business to her, but she’d rather have heard sweet nothings and endearments. He acted as if her presence was trying, and she couldn’t help thinking that he felt that way. Perhaps he’d had a different idea about marriage, and the reality was distasteful to him. Whatever the reason, Bess felt him slipping away from her.
Saturday night the boys had dates, and Elise went to a party for one of the women at her church. Bess and Cade were alone, but he was locked in his study with the books and she was watching television. This was ridiculous, she told herself. They were acting as if they’d already been married for years, yet they were on their honeymoon.
With an angry sigh, she got up and padded into the study on bare feet to see what he was doing. Her hair was loose, her yellow blouse highlighting her honey-brown hair as it waved toward her flushed face. Her jeans were tight, and Cade’s eyes followed her long legs.
He felt irritated that she’d come looking for him, when he was doing his best to put some distance between them. He was finding marriage more disturbing than he’d expected, and his loss of freedom had begun to wear on him. Bess was lovely, and he wanted her for plenty of reasons. But he needed a little time to adjust to their new relationship, and she seemed determined to crowd him. He’d hoped that she’d get the idea when he pulled back, but she hadn’t. He didn’t want to come out and tell her to back off, but his temper was kindled by her persistence.
“I’m working on the books,” he said. “When I finish, I’ll come out, and we’ll talk.”
She stared at him quietly. “What’s wrong?” she asked gently. “It’s being married, isn’t it?” she added insightfully and watched it register in his dark eyes before he could hide it. “Yes, I thought it might be. It’s hard to be tied down when you never have been before, and harder to adjust to than you expected.”
He sighed and put down the pencil he was holding. “I’ll get used to it,” he replied with a faint smile. “But things have changed pretty quickly. I’ve been alone for a long time.”
“So have I.” Her eyes ran hungrily over his dark face, down to his half-open blue-checked shirt, where bronzed muscles lay bare under thick, curling hair. “My gosh, I love to look at you,” she breathed. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man who looked sexier with his shirt open than you do.”
His heart began to beat like a bass drum. He felt his body react suddenly, urgently, to her eyes and her husky voice. She was doing it to him again, seducing him with those soft, bedroom eyes.
“Isn’t there anything on television you want to watch?” he asked curtly.
She moved closer to him, her eyes holding his, her blood burning. “Not really.” She felt reckless. He was her husband and she wanted him. For the first time she felt free to express it, to show him how badly she wanted him.
Her hands went to the buttons of her shirt and she slowly undid them, her heart keeping time with her breathing. She hadn’t worn a bra underneath because of the heat. She pulled the edges apart in front of Cade’s steady, astonished gaze.
His jaw tightened as he saw the arousal of her pretty breasts, and his body reacted predictably. “Damn you, that’s not fair,” he said harshly.
She had to hold back a smile. His eyes were hungry, and she could see his arousal when he stood up. He wasn’t indifferent. Not at all.
She walked around the desk and gently pushed him back down into his chair, sliding onto his lap facing him, overwhelmed with a sense of delicious freedom. Her fingers pulled his shirt aside and she leaned forward to rest her breasts on his hair-roughened chest, sighing as she nestled her face into his throat.
His big hands were already on her hips, pulling her closer. His heart was shaking him already, and when he bent and put his mouth on hers, it went crazy.
“This is insane.” He groaned, his hands suddenly shaking as he reached for the zipper of her jeans. “For God’s sake, stand up!”
He jerked her jeans off while she fumbled with the fastenings on his. Then he dragged her back onto his lap and positioned her, looking up into her rapt, excited face as he lowered her gently, bringing them together in one long, sweet motion. He shivered as she enveloped him, but his eyes didn’t leave hers, first above, then level with his, then below them.
“Hold on,” he whispered. His mouth burrowed softly into hers and his hands tightened on her hips, showing her the motion, helping her body adjust itself to his as he built the rhythm gently.
She moaned sharply against his mouth when the pleasure began to sing through her. He felt her shudder and smiled harshly against her mouth. He laughed with feverish abandon, kissing her roughly while his hands pulled and lifted and the sounds they made together grew louder and more urgent.
When the pleasure burst through, she
arched backward, her hair trailing to his thighs as she wept and shivered with the anguish of completion, her drawn face and body so beautiful that he deliberately delayed his own satisfaction just to watch hers.
And then it all went down in flames, his body convulsing under the softness of hers, while somewhere a clock struck the hour and he heard his own voice shouting her name.
He held her to him, trying to breathe while his body trembled helplessly in the aftermath. His hands gently stroked her damp back, soothing her. She was crying, huge tears rolling from her eyes onto his bare chest.
“I ought to throw you out on the porch and chase you to town with the truck,” he breathed heavily. “Damn it, Bess...!” He burst out laughing. “My shy, innocent little wife, stripping for me in the office with the damned door standing wide-open!”
“Yes. Just like last time, except that it’s not wide-open,” she pointed out. She clung closer. “Take me to bed, Cade,” she whispered softly. “Love me some more.”
He groaned. “Honey, I’ve got to do the books,” he said.
But she moved sensually on him, and he shivered violently.
“You were saying?” she whispered unsteadily.
“I was saying to hell with the books,” he muttered, standing up with her in his arms, his powerful body trembling from the feverish desire she’d kindled in him.
He turned, ignoring her clothes on the floor, and carried her down the hall and into the bedroom they shared, slamming the door and locking it behind them. Before he could put her down on the bed, she’d twisted up to take possession of his mouth again, glorying in her sense of control, in the wonder that she could undermine all his defenses and make him want her in such an uncontrollable way.
* * *
BUT SHE KNEW the next day that she’d made a mistake. By knocking him off balance, she’d put even more distance between them. He wanted her, and it made him helpless. She hadn’t realized how that would hurt his pride until it was too late. He perceived her as trying to take control, and he was fighting it. Amazing, she thought, that she could do that to such a self-possessed, confident man. Amazing that she could make him want her badly enough to forget everything but the need to have her.
His dark eyes had glanced at her accusingly the night before, when he’d finally laid her down on the bed and stood over her, as if he were deliberating his next move.
But it hadn’t lasted long. He’d looked down at her with pure pleasure in his face and his hands had gone slowly to his jeans, to finish removing them, letting her watch as he stripped for her.
His body was powerful, muscular and hair-roughened all over his rippling chest and flat stomach and strong thighs. He was blatantly male, and her eyes worshipped every line of him, glorying in the sheer impact of him.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispered to him, aware of his dark eyes going over every inch of her, lingering on her firm breasts with their hard tips.
“Not as beautiful as you are, Mrs. Hollister.” He’d moved to the bed, his dark eyes roving over her with blazing need. “I want a child,” he said quietly. “I’m not going to do anything to prevent one, unless you insist.”
She’d trembled a little. If only it could have been that simple. “I’ve never used anything,” she whispered. “I don’t want to either.” She wanted to give him that child, but her body would never be able to, and she couldn’t tell him so. She’d opened her arms to him then, hoping to make him so warm and welcome that he’d forget children in the pure delight of sharing her body. She had to keep him happy in bed, she told herself. He was a lusty, sensual man despite his cold, arrogant look, and if she could satisfy him, perhaps he wouldn’t mind so much that she was barren. They could always adopt...
* * *
BUT AFTERWARD, AFTER she’d done everything she could think of to arouse and satisfy him, he’d withdrawn from her even more. Her very aggressiveness seemed to turn him off as surely as if she’d turned to ice in the night. From that time on he didn’t touch her again. She went back to work the Monday after the wedding, and he seemed more relieved than disturbed by her absence during the day. Bess didn’t know what to do. She knew instinctively that he didn’t love her. He wanted her. But now she had to face the fact that desire might not be enough for him, and already he was losing interest in that side of their life together.
Not for the first time she wished that she and Gussie were close enough that she could really talk to her mother about such a problem. But they weren’t. Gussie was kinder now than ever before, and friendly enough. But she didn’t have the deep kind of emotional makeup that Bess did. Elise did. But how could Bess talk to her about what was going on with Cade without embarrassing them both? Her troubles seemed even larger because there was nobody she could share them with.
So she settled her mind on work to keep from going crazy. She loved her job and the people she worked with. It was inspiring and very challenging to come up with ideas that pleased management as well as the clients and herself. She learned that it was largely a team effort, because a lot of compromise came between her original idea and the finished advertisement.
Nell had gone on vacation for two weeks just after Bess’s honeymoon. She came back looking more tired than ever, her face giving nothing away.
“You look as bad as I feel,” Bess said one morning after another long night in the big bed that Cade only shared after she’d gone to sleep. “You’re miserable, aren’t you?” she asked bluntly. “Can I help?”
Nell shrugged, looking tearful. “I thought he might call me,” she said. “We held hands at the wedding. He even kissed me,” she said, flushing at the memory. “Very nicely, too. But I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
“You’ve been on vacation,” Bess pointed out. “And he’s in California working on a hostile takeover bid.”
“He’s not in town?”
“He hasn’t been since you left,” Bess told her. “Feel better?”
Nell sighed. “Well, a little.” She sat down, pushing her short dark hair away from her forehead. “How’s married life?” she asked, forcing a smile.
“I don’t know yet.” Bess fingered her pencil. “He resents me. We haven’t quite got our act together yet.”
“He didn’t seem resentful that first day he came here.” Nell chuckled. “Talk about a hungry man...!”
Bess flushed. “Well, yes. But he doesn’t like it when I make the first move.”
“You know, there was an article about that in one of the women’s magazines,” Nell said seriously. “Something about aggressive women undermining a man’s confidence and making him feel impotent. Isn’t that absurd?” She frowned. “Although, you know, it’s not really so far-fetched. Men are naturally aggressive, and to have a woman put them on the defensive by being overbearing and demanding... I know one man who won’t even date anymore.”
Bess laughed helplessly. “You’re a gold mine of information.”
“I have to keep up with what’s going on in the world. Someday I may need to know stuff like that.” She crossed her long legs. “Why don’t you put on a frilly dress and flirt with your handsome husband?”
“I don’t want to be slapped down again,” Bess told her.
“You never know how men will react until you try,” Nell replied. “As for myself, I suddenly feel full of confidence. I think I’ll phone Mr. Ryker’s office and ask if he likes spaghetti. That’s the only thing I can cook.”
“That’s the spirit!” Bess said.
Nell got up and then she sat down again. “Actually,” she said, leaning forward, “it’s frozen spaghetti in those little packets. He wouldn’t like it. And I’m late on this presentation.”
Bess watched with quiet concern as Nell turned back to her desk. She hid a lot of her feelings. She wasn’t the outgoing, effervescent woman she projected. That was an image
. A mask. Under it, Nell was insecure and shy and a little afraid of risking her heart. Bess thought sometimes that Cade was much that way himself. He didn’t mind physical risks, but emotional ones...that was different. He didn’t chance his heart, not even with his new wife. This was most of their problem, she decided with a weary sigh. Nell’s idea about seducing him was nice, but that had gotten her into enough trouble already. No, it was better to leave well enough alone and let him adjust at his own pace. Then maybe they could grow closer again.
But as the days turned to weeks and summer began to slip away, Bess saw her marriage go from bad to worse. Cade’s anger turned to indifference before her eyes. He no longer tried to make love to her, or seemed to care what she did. They met at mealtimes and in the evening, but Bess spent most of her time at Lariat with Elise. Robert had a girlfriend now, and he and Gary were out a lot at night, so mostly it was just the two women.
“I shouldn’t say anything,” Elise said cautiously one night while Cade and the men had gone out to repair a broken fence. “But you and Cade seem so distant these days, Bess.”
“Yes, I know.” Bess lowered her eyes to the floor. “I think he’s sorry he married me.”
“Surely not,” Elise said, smiling. “I can remember Cade staring up toward Spanish House when he was little more than a teenager, talking about marrying someone like the elegant Miss Samson when he grew up.” She smiled at Bess’s startled face. “Didn’t you know? He adored you when he was a young man—not that he doesn’t still. He was always going on about the cars and house and parties at Spanish House. Cade had ambition from the time he was a boy. He resented his father’s roughness and the way we lived,” she added quietly. “He wanted something more for Lariat. He got that from his grandfather,” she added with a weary sigh. “Ben Hollister filled Cade’s head full of dreams. He was always telling him stories about Lariat in the early days, about the parties and elegance and the famous people who used to come here when Desiree Hollister was alive. You might not believe it, but in its day Lariat was something of a showplace. This house was built when the old one burned down. The old one was like an antebellum mansion, and there was money here. Then Desiree died and old Ben just let it go out of grief.” She put down the embroidery to sip coffee. “The house burned down and he built this one. Coleman was his only child, you know, and he let him run wild. He never tried to do for him what Desiree would have. As a result Coleman grew up rough and without some of the more desirable character traits. He brought Cade up the same way, and I was too afraid of him to say anything,” she confessed quietly.
