And yet now he felt a shift in the force. A ragged tear in the veil of pleasure.
He moved on top, taking Mellie with him by the simple expedient of clamping his arms around her waist as he rolled over and maintaining the connection that made their bodies one. Maybe she was tired. But he had the sinking feeling that she had slipped away from him mentally.
He’d never asked about other men in her past. She’d told him it had been a long time since she’d been intimate with anyone, and he had believed her. Now he wished he had pressed for more details. After all, Mellie had wanted to know about Leslie.
Despite his mental turmoil, his body seized control. Desperately he entered her, again and again, trying to force her into coming with him, but even as he found his release, he knew he was alone in that moment.
Mellie was unnaturally still. He moved to the side and slung an arm over his eyes, feeling ashamed for no good reason he could understand. Why did women have to be so damned complicated?
Was she asleep? Was she hurt?
“Mellie?” He wasn’t even touching her hip to hip.
The candle had long since burned out. Her voice in the darkness was small and shaky. “Will you take me home, please?”
Stunned and angry, he reached for the lamp and turned it on. Mellie winced and turned away, but not before he saw her damp eyes. “God, honey, what is it? What’s wrong?”
She had the sheet clenched in her fingers, the soft cotton covering her bare breasts. Though she managed to look at him, it was only a fleeting glance. He saw her throat move as she swallowed. “I thought I could be one of those women who has sex as a lark. You know, just for fun. But I don’t think I can. I like you, Case. And I respect you. But I really, really don’t want to fall in love with you.”
The last sentence was flat. He felt much as he had the time a horse kicked him in the chest. No air in his lungs at all. Coupled with a jolt of pain that would have brought him to his knees had he been standing.
What the hell did she want him to say? The days were long gone when he said the L word with no thought of the consequences. Hell, he didn’t want to fall in love either. Did he?
He was angry and confused and dangerously close to taking her again just to prove how good they were together.
Perhaps he should have talked to her quietly, explained all the reasons she was panicking for nothing. But his limbs still trembled. He’d come hard, out of control, needing everything she had to give.
And now this.
“Fine,” he said, the word like glass in his throat. “Put on your dress and I’ll drive you home.”
He grabbed up his things and carried them across the hall, leaving Mellie the privacy of his room. Alternating between fury and despair, he dressed rapidly and went to stand in the front foyer. He was afraid if he lingered in the hallway, he would bust through the door and drag her into bed again.
Part of him wanted to make promises...anything to get her to stay. But he’d made a fool of himself once over a woman. Any man who let himself be manipulated by female emotions deserved to fall on his ass. That was a young man’s lesson.
Case Baxter was older and wiser now.
He had his keys in his hand when Mellie appeared. Her face was pale, her expression composed. But her posture was somehow broken, as if she were leaving the field of battle. Her beautiful dress was rumpled. She carried nothing, not even a purse. He’d been in such a hurry to make love to her they’d left everything in the car when they came in earlier.
“I’m ready,” she said.
He opened the door and stepped aside for her to precede him down the steps. Only then did he realize that Mellie’s fur wrap lay in a heap on the porch. Neither of them had noticed it fall. They had been too focused on each other to care about inconsequential things.
Mellie bent and picked up the stole, pausing only long enough to drape it around her shoulders and hold it tight. The temperature had plummeted after dark. With her bare toes and all that bare skin, she must be freezing.
“The car heats up quickly,” he muttered.
His companion didn’t answer. She moved rapidly down the steps, slipped into the passenger seat and closed her own door before he could help. Earlier, the interior of the small sports car had created intimacy. Now it only magnified the gulf between the two adults who had started the evening with such enthusiasm.
In front of Mellie’s house he reconsidered. “Do you want to tell me what’s really going on?”
Her hands twisted in her lap. “I’m not playing games. Merely having second thoughts. I think tonight scared me a little bit. We’ve moved so fast I’m feeling wobbly on my feet.”
“Are you saying I pressured you?” That thought left a nasty taste in his mouth.
Mellie turned toward him. “Oh, no...no...no... This is about me, not you. It was sweet of you to ask me to the party, and I enjoyed every moment of tonight.”
“But you’re done.”
“Can we call it a strategic time-out?”
“If this is a ploy to secure my interest by playing hard to get, I should tell you it won’t work.”
Fifteen
Silence fell like a hammer in the wake of his stupid, belligerent remark. Mellie unlocked her door, picked up her tiny purse from the console between the front seats and got out. “I’d like my bag, please.” He’d felt winters in the Rockies that were warmer than her icy request.
“Damn it, Mellie. You know I didn’t mean that. You’re making me crazy.”
“My suitcase, please.” She stood there like a queen waiting for a peon to do her bidding.
Gritting his teeth, he reached into the backseat and extricated the bag. He pulled up the handle and passed it to her. “It’s three a.m. Nothing makes any sense at this hour. Let’s talk tomorrow. Dinner. I’ll fly us to Dallas in the chopper. You’ll love seeing the city from that viewpoint.”
She raked a hand through her hair, looking like a weary angel doing battle with a recalcitrant sinner. “I appreciate the invitation, but I can’t. And I think it would be best if I assign another one of my ladies to clean your house. You run with the big dogs, Case. I’m just an ordinary woman who never really believed in the Cinderella story.”
“What in the hell does that even mean?”
“I was supposed to clean and organize your house. You got sick. I felt sorry for you. We bonded over chicken soup, and both of us were a little curious. So now we know. Tonight was fun.”
“And?” He couldn’t believe she was giving him the brush-off. Particularly after the incredible sex they had shared. Didn’t she know how rare it was to have that kind of physical connection right off the bat? He’d felt comfortable with her and at the same time eager for more.
“And I think it’s best if we stop before things get too intense. You don’t even know me, Case. Not really. And I don’t know you.”
He was too proud to argue. And too self-aware to deny she was telling the truth. When Leslie trashed his life, he had stopped letting so much of himself be vulnerable.
“I’ll walk you to the door,” he said quietly.
Mellie’s brief nod ended the conversation.
Her little house was neatly kept. The front door was recessed at the back of a narrow concrete stoop. In the dark, neither of them saw the obstacle. Mellie stumbled and would have fallen if Case hadn’t grabbed her arm.
“What the hell?” His protective instincts kicked into high gear.
Mellie groaned. “Oh, no. It’s my father.”
The pile of dark clothing on the tiny porch rumbled and moved. Harold Winslow sat up, reeking of whiskey and some other less definable odor. “’Bout time you got home, my girl. Leaving your old pop out in the cold isn’t nice.”
“Why are you here, Daddy?”
Case noted the total
lack of inflection in Mellie’s voice.
Harold made it to his feet with Case’s assistance. “Came to see you. You weren’t here. Didn’t have any cash for cab fare to make it home.”
“Let’s get him inside,” Case said in a low voice. “You said your neighbors gossip. Maybe we should keep this quiet before we wake up the whole street.”
Once they’d all made it into Mellie’s living room and turned on the lights, Case stifled a groan of pained amusement. They were a sad-looking trio. After walking Harold to the sofa and helping him sit down, Case shrugged out of his tux jacket and tossed it on a chair. His shirt was open down the front because he hadn’t taken the time to refasten the studs.
Mellie was definitely bedraggled. Her hair was tangled in a just-out-of-bed style that was actually damned appealing. When she looked across the room at him, he had no choice but to go to her and put an arm around her waist. When he touched her, he could feel the trembling she couldn’t control.
She lowered her voice. “May I speak with you in private, Case?”
“Of course.”
Harold seemed oblivious to any byplay, so Case and Mellie left him to his own devices. In the glare of the fluorescent overhead light in the kitchen, Mellie appeared distraught. “I am so embarrassed,” she whispered.
Case shrugged. “Alcoholism is a terrible disease. Have you ever gotten him to an AA meeting?”
“Again and again. But when he’s sober, he’s the most sensible man in the world. And can argue a person blind. I can’t tell you how many times he’s convinced me he’s absolutely stopped drinking. I’m his daughter. I know him better than anyone. But that’s how good he is.”
“He’s probably able to be convincing because he believes it himself. He believes he can stop anytime he wants to.”
“I suppose.”
“Would you like me to take him home for you?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. He’s my parent. My problem. But thank you for offering. I’m sorry our evening ended this way.”
Case leaned against the counter, yawning. “Turns out you had already kind of jacked it up anyway, so no harm done.”
Mellie gaped at him and then burst out laughing, which was exactly the response he’d been hoping for. Anything to get that look of sick defeat off her face.
“I can’t believe you said that to me, Case Baxter.”
“I’ve been told I have a dark sense of humor.” Her smile affected him to an uncomfortable degree. He grimaced. “Will you be okay with him?”
“Yes. He’ll sleep it off on the sofa. Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll find out why he’s here.”
“Will you loan him more money?”
Her expression was hunted. “I said I wouldn’t.”
“It’s hard. I know it is.” Case brushed her cheek with his thumb. “I don’t want to leave you. Hell, I didn’t want you to leave my house. You make it feel like a home.”
“That’s just the furniture polish I use. It probably reminds you of your grandmother.”
For a moment he thought she was serious. Then he saw the tiny spark of mischief in her eyes. “Trust me, Mellie. Nothing about you reminds me of my grandmother.”
He kissed her cheek and hugged her briefly. Nothing more. He didn’t want to pressure her, particularly not after the encounter with her father.
By unspoken consent they returned to the living room. Harold was hunched over the remote, squinting at the numbers, trying to find a channel he wanted. He looked up when they appeared. “You staying the night?” He addressed his question to Case.
Mellie winced, but Case took the old man’s query in stride. “No, sir. I’ll say goodbye now.”
He took Mellie’s hand and dragged her with him to the front door and outside onto the dark stoop. “I’d like to kiss you good-night, Mellie.”
“You kissed me in the kitchen.”
“Not like that. Like this.” Sliding a hand on either side of her neck, he used his thumbs to lift her chin. He brushed her mouth with his...pressed his lips to hers...breathed the air she breathed.
Mellie sighed and went lax in his embrace. Case kept an iron rein on his libido. Now was the time for tenderness. For understanding.
“I do care about you, Case,” she whispered, sending his stomach into a free fall. “But we aren’t right for each other.”
It was not the occasion to argue the point. She met him kiss for kiss, the embrace lasting far longer than he had planned. So long, in fact, that he now had a painful erection with no hope of appeasing his need for her.
It took everything he had to pull away. “Good night, Mellie.”
“Good night, Case.” She waved as he strode out to his car.
* * *
Mellie would rather have done just about anything than walk back inside her house. Harold was a millstone around her neck. As she gave inner voice to that thought for the hundredth time, she felt like a lousy person. Other people’s parents had cancer or even worse challenges to face.
At least Harold was healthy. Of course, there was no telling how long his liver would hold out.
Her intention was to walk past her father with a brief good-night. She wanted a hot shower and her own bed. In that order. Harold had pulled this stunt too many times. Even so, she fetched pillows and blankets so he wouldn’t have to sleep on the bare sofa.
As she leaned down to pick up her small evening purse, she saw something that made her stomach curl with dread. A billfold. A familiar billfold, half-hidden beneath her father’s leg.
“Oh, Daddy. What have you done?”
Her father tried to stare at her haughtily, but the effect was ruined by the fact that his eyes were glazed over. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Perhaps she might not have recognized the wallet in other circumstances. Many men’s wallets were similar. But she had seen this particular one earlier tonight when Case took it out of his pocket to retrieve the coat-check ticket for Mellie’s wrap and purse at the club.
“Give me that,” she cried. Hands shaking, she flipped open the expensive leather. “How much did you take?”
Harold stood and nearly fell over. “Are you calling your own flesh and blood a thief?” He was wearing a leather jacket that Mellie’s mother had given him twenty years ago. The coat no longer buttoned around his expanding waist, but he refused to give it up.
Gritting her teeth, Mellie reached into the nearest pocket of her father’s jacket and wanted to bawl like a baby when her hand came back out with a couple of hundred-dollar bills. “Oh, God, Daddy. How could you?”
At that very moment, a knock sounded at her front door. Given the hour, it was a safe bet she knew who it was. She shoved the bills back in Case’s wallet and glared at Harold. “Is there any more?”
She wasn’t even sure he heard her. He had dropped back onto the sofa and was sprawled facedown, snoring like a grizzly bear.
Mellie took a deep breath and told herself no harm had been done. She opened the door and managed a smile. “I bet you’re looking for this.”
Case nodded, his expression relieved. “It must have fallen out of my jacket pocket.”
She didn’t say a word, and Case didn’t seem to notice. He looked past her to the noisy houseguest on her couch. “You sure you don’t want me to take him home?”
“We’re good,” she said, her throat tight.
“Okay. I don’t suppose this qualifies for another kiss?”
She shook her head, wanting him to leave so she could fall apart in private. “You’ve had your quota. Good night, Case.”
He sketched a salute and walked away from her a second time, taking part of her heart with him. She closed the door and leaned against it, tears already dripping from her chin.
Tonight was the worst thing she had ever seen her fa
ther do. Stealing? Was it a thoughtless crime of opportunity, or was Harold more lost than she realized?
Bracing herself, she searched every pocket on his person. He never even woke up. Thankfully, there was no more money to be found. Maybe this could be chalked up to a near disaster.
In her bedroom, she locked her door for no other reason than that she needed to feel the world was at bay for a few hours. She took a shower and tried not to imagine Case’s big gentle hands caressing her body. How could one twenty-four-hour period hold so much joy and heartache in equal measures?
When she tumbled onto her bed and climbed beneath the covers, she clutched the extra pillow to her chest and told herself she didn’t have a broken heart.
Not even the pitiful lie could keep her awake anymore.
Sixteen
Case was in a bitch of a mood. Mellie was avoiding him. By phone and in person. It was as if she had up and vanished off the streets of Royal. Four days had passed since the night of the party. On Monday another Keep N Clean employee had shown up bright and early to do the second story of his house. The lady was a pleasant middle-aged woman with a no-nonsense attitude.
He showed her around and gave her carte blanche to carry out the careful list of chores her boss had spelled out. Then he saddled his favorite horse and spent the rest of the day riding his property and brooding about how one ornery redhead had made his life miserable.
Fortunately, he did have a number of things to do at the club. Because of his illness, he was behind in learning his new duties. Gil Addison had blocked off some time on Tuesday to show Case files and paperwork and to introduce him to the young assistant who held court inside the imposing club offices.
Tami knew who got in to see the president and who didn’t. She also was extremely efficient and very good at her job. “I’ll look forward to working with you,” Case said. She smiled politely, already turning back to her desk to resume her work.
Gil nodded. “She’ll be the continuity you need, especially if I’m not around to answer questions. But you’ll get the rhythm of things pretty quickly.”
Courting the Cowboy Boss: Reclaimed by the Rancher Page 13
