Denim and Lace

by Rice, Patricia

  "How the hell do I know anything about mustangs or what your father planned? Why don't you just go after him and ask?"

  That startled her out of her complacence. She stared up at him, and Sloan had to keep himself from checking to see if he'd just sprouted wings. She had the most extraordinary way of looking at a man, as if he were larger than life. It wasn't precisely the reaction he wanted. He'd meant to irritate her into agreeing with him.

  "You know where he went?" she asked breathlessly.

  Sloan shrugged. "Ariposa would be my guess. It's the next logical step. He planned on going to the coast just to say he'd been, but he wanted to explore the mountains. He meant to hire a team to take him back through the giant forest."

  "Why are you telling me all this now?" A dozen other questions danced on Sam's tongue, but something in Sloan's eyes made hot flames lick along her skin. He made her feel all squirmy inside, and she didn't like it a bit. He knew something, but he meant to make her pay to find out. She could see it coming.

  "Because I want you out of my hair, out of my town, out of my life. I want you gone. If the only way to do it is to find your father, then we'll go find your father."

  Joy surged through Sam's veins. Here was her chance at last! She didn't like the way Sloan put it. She didn't want to give up their house or her valley, but once they found her father, he would straighten out those matters. But she knew Sloan well enough to know he wasn't doing this out of the generosity of his heart. He might react unexpectedly in moments of tragedy or emergency, but that didn't drive him now. She narrowed her eyes and regarded him warily.

  "What are you expecting in return?" she demanded.

  He studied her carefully. "I'll take you down to Ariposa. I haven't got time to go any farther than that. You can ask around all you want, but he won't be there. I'll have to hire someone to track him."

  Samantha shivered at the gravelly tone of Sloan's voice as he said that. He said things she wanted to hear, but he didn't tell her what strings were attached. Sloan Talbott was a complicated man, but above all, he was just that—a man. Men didn't think as she did. They had ulterior motives behind everything they said or did. That Sloan Talbott was sounding reasonable was enough to make her afraid.

  She should be afraid of his larger size, his powerful frame, his icy eyes, his cold expression. He could make a grown man squirm with a look. But his physical aspect didn't scare her. Actually, once she got past his intimidating stance, she found him physically appealing in a way that she found few men. She wished she were the kind of woman men liked to kiss, but apparently that one time had been an aberration. Sloan hadn't made any further attempts to corner her, as much as she would have liked to kiss him again. No, she wasn't afraid of Sloan physically. She was afraid of that formidably devious mind of his.

  Sighing, she prodded for the "if, and, or but" behind his promises. "It costs money to hire trackers. Why would you do that?"

  "You aren't going to like it." He crossed his arms over his chest and watched the impatience in her face.

  "I already know that. I never mistook you for a generous man." She imitated his stance, wishing it were a rifle in her hands instead of pruning shears.

  "I want a night in your bed," he said bluntly, insolently, watching for the flare of outrage.

  Her eyes widened to saucers. She didn't even have the grace to redden or look away in embarrassment. She merely looked incredulous. "My bed? Why?"

  "Assuming you know the usual reasons and that you're questioning my choice and not what I mean to do there, I want a woman and you're convenient. Beyond that, I figure you're not the marrying kind. You dress like a man, act like a man, try to be a man, so you probably think like a man in wanting to avoid the limitations of marriage. A man takes sex where he can find it and walks away afterward without all the clinging sentimentality of a female. That's what I want. If that's what you want, we'll go down to Ariposa and ask about your father. With any luck, when we find him, you and your family will get the hell out of my life."

  Stunned, Sam froze where she was, staring into the icy pools of Sloan's eyes. Her thoughts whirled in dizzying circles, but she would never make any sense of them while he stood there. He was challenging her, that she understood. Just as he had challenged her to a shoot-out and a foot race, he was setting her up now. It was her own fool fault if she fell for it.

  "I'll take it under consideration," she answered stiffly. Then whirling around, she walked away, oblivious to the stares of men as she crossed the yard without a word.

  Refusing to think any further about it, Sloan returned to his work, satisfied he had done everything possible to relieve the current impossible state of affairs.

  Ignoring her mother's questioning looks and Jack's pestering questions, Samantha donned her rabbit coat, found her rifle, and set out for the woods. She always thought better surrounded by nature. She needed to be outdoors and away from people.

  That was why she needed her valley. She wasn't like her mother and the twins. She didn't need people around her. She wasn't a social person. She liked the feel of sink-ng her hands deep in dirt, planting the twigs that would become an orchard. She liked sitting in a field of sweet grass, listening to the birds sing, watching the colts romp. She liked standing in a crystalline snowbank and admiring the myriad tracks of little animals across a field. She felt alive out here and stifled inside.

  If she could find her father, he would tell her where to find the valley. He would know if it was better for their family to stay here where they weren't wanted or if they should go somewhere else. He could solve so many problems that she didn't feel capable of dealing with. He couldn't solve the problem that bothered her now.

  Sloan Talbott wanted to go to bed with her.

  That was truly the most insane thing Sam had ever leard of in her life, so insane that she thought possibly she had dreamed it. She didn't mean to go back and ask to make sure though. She had to make the decision first, then she would check to see if he really meant it. She wouldn't make a fool of herself over nothing.

  The snow wasn't that deep this far down the mountain. She trudged along rabbit paths, trying to lose herself between the trees, being careful to avoid the sudden dropoffs that snow could hide. She could do all that by instinct, after years of walking through Tennessee mountains. The problem of Sloan Talbott required more than instinct.

  He thought she acted like a man. He probably hadn't meant that to be flattering, but she accepted the idea for what it was worth. She knew she didn't behave much like a woman ought to. Harriet could add figures and run a store like a man, but she always behaved like a lady. Sam simply didn't have the patience for petticoats and sidesaddles and demure smiles. She said what she thought, did what was necessary, and despised having to wait for a man to do it for her if she could do it herself. If that made her like a man, then so be it.

  But she wasn't a man. She was a woman. She felt the same things other women felt when an attractive man looked at her. Sloan could make her feel all shivery inside with just one glance. His kiss had practically melted her knees. She wanted to feel what a woman felt when a man takes her in his arms. She wanted to feel desired.

  The idea was practically laughable. What man would desire a female wearing denims, one with hair the color of carrots and a face as plain as a barn door? Even here where the men were desperate for women, she attracted only a few stares and whistles. No man really approached her for anything more. Of course, they might be afraid she would pull a gun on them if they did, and they were probably right. The only man in town who interested her was Sloan Talbott.

  She didn't know why that was so. He was irascible and infuriating. Why couldn't a gentle man like Donner attract her? She could almost imagine a peaceful life with a man like Donner. He could lose himself in his woodworking while she nurtured her fields and animals. They would never be rich, but they could be happy. Content maybe. Bored, most likely.

  Donner was boring. Sloan was not. Sloan was the least borin
g man she'd ever had the misfortune to encounter. She alternately wanted to hit him or kiss him. She certainly never could live with him. But he didn't ask that. He'd made that perfectly obvious.

  Sam knew what he wanted. She hadn't grown up on a farm without learning a few things. Her sisters might hide in the house when it came time to breed the mares, but she'd stood right there watching it happen. It was a horrifying and magnificent sight. She knew men weren't stallions, but she figured once aroused they were probably just as mindless. She just couldn't place Sloan anywhere in that mental image. She couldn't imagine him aroused, she couldn't imagine him aroused by her, and she couldn't imagine him mindless.

  But why else would he have made that obscene proposal? If he was trying to drive her screaming from the mountain, he had picked the wrong Neely. She wasn't squeamish about what happened between men and women. It was a perfectly natural part of life.

  Maybe he thought she found him so revolting that she would reject him out of hand, and then he would spring some other evil plan on her. That would be typical of him, but she didn't think he was that obtuse. He had to know she was attracted to him. Any woman would be attracted to him. He had to know that.

  He actually thought she would consider the notion. That was the only conclusion she could draw. And the horrible part was, he was right. She desperately wanted her father back. She would do almost anything to find him. And she didn't find Sloan's proposal completely unattractive. She had always known she was destined to spend her life as a spinster. She was nearly twenty-five years old, and no man had ever been interested in her. Why shouldn't she explore this one chance to know what it was like to be a woman?

  The fact that she actually considered Sloan's proposal appalled her morally, but in no other way.

  Sam stopped in her tracks and rested her rifle butt in the snow as she realized how far along she had come in her thinking. She could see the tracks of a deer ahead of her, but her mind wasn't on the deer.

  Behind her, evergreen branches rustled. She swirled, raising her rifle at the same time.

  "Don't shoot." Sloan stepped calmly around the tree, holding his hands up to indicate he was weaponless. "I just came to tilt the odds in my favor."

  Before Samantha could grasp what he meant, he set her rifle aside and pulled her into his arms.

  Chapter Seventeen

  This time Sam wasn't so startled by Sloan's kiss. She melted into it slowly, balancing her hands against his solid chest and shoulders as he pulled her closer. The touch of his lips still had the ability to send her head spinning, but the heat seeping through her was strong, pinning her feet to the ground, pinning the rest of her to Sloan.

  "Oh, God, don't," she whispered against his mouth when he came up for air, but she wasn't heeding her own plea any more than he was. Headily, she met the thrust of his tongue with her own, and tasted his groan with the same pleasure with which it was emitted.

  Sloan Talbott wanted her. It was impossible to believe, but she could feel it in the way his hands clasped her waist beneath the coat, the way they spread over her hips and bottom and pulled her closer, touching her, holding her, making her feel him. She tasted it on his mouth, in the desperate heat of his kiss. His body couldn't lie.

  He convinced her, but the knowledge thoroughly shook her. When he nudged her hat away and kissed behind her ear, Sam buried her face in his wide shoulder and clung for dear life. He crushed her against him and held her tight, advancing his cause with a trail of kisses down the curve of her neck. She felt sensations she'd never felt before, sensations she knew weren't proper, sensations that would lead to her ruin. She wasn't ignorant; she knew what was happening. She just didn't know how to stop it.

  "Sloan, don't," she protested when his hands roamed upward, deliberately zeroing in on the places aching for his touch.

  "Don't?" he murmured against her ear, his thumbs rubbing temptingly at the lower curve of her breasts. "Don't stop, do you mean?"

  He knew it wasn't. He was being deliberately provocative. She ought to kick him or stamp on his toes or something, but she merely leaned into Sloan's embrace, sighing in pleasure when his fingers finally moved a fraction of an inch higher. One thumb caressed a nipple hidden beneath layers of clothing, and just that one touch shot straight through to her loins as if the two places were connected by telegraph wires.

  "Not here, not like this." Those were words she could mean. She might not want him to stop, but she didn't want him to take her out here, in a snowbank. She didn't want to be mounted like a mare. That thought gave her sufficient strength to shove him away.

  Sloan looked down at her through eyes that were first heated, then vaguely amused. He hadn't shaved, and the heavy stubble of his beard made him look the part of highway robber or worse. She ought to punch that cursed square jaw of his. Instead, she traced her fingers down the harsh bristle of his face.

  "Then you'll go with me?" he demanded.

  There wasn't an ounce of tenderness in his expression. His gaze was as relentless and demanding as his words. If she said no, she had no doubt that he would proceed to kiss her off her feet again, and seduce her until he reduced her to a quivering mass of jelly. Sam had half a notion to say no just to have him try.

  That thought bent her lips into a tiny smile. Her mouth felt swollen where he'd kissed her, but she caught the sudden hunger in his eyes when he looked at her there. That made her feel a bit better. She didn't want to be just a convenient female. She wanted to be one that he had to have.

  "I hate it when a woman looks at me that way," he growled. "I feel like a particularly tasty slice of toast and jam.”

  Sam laughed. She couldn't help it. He growled like a surly bear denied his portion of honey, but he complained about how she looked at him! He frowned at her laughter and let her go, crossing his arms over his chest and waiting impatiently for her to recover and be sensible.

  She wasn't much inclined to be sensible, never had been, not in the way most people meant it. It wasn't sensible for a woman to want to be treated like a man, although it made perfect sense to Sam. She just had a warped view of the world. He would have to get used to it.

  "You look more like a porcupine than toast and jam,” she informed him. "And you've made my mouth all sore. Is it red? How am I going to go home if my face is all scraped from your whiskers?"

  His frown became more quizzical than angry. He continued keeping his distance, but he examined her face thoughtfully before replying. "It will fade in a few minutes. Your mother will just think you were out in the cold too long."

  Sam slid her hands under her coat, unconsciously covering herself. "Why do you look at me like that?"

  "Well-1-1 ..." he drawled the word so long she had some doubt that he would answer. "You're a hard one to place. One of your sisters would have smacked me in the jaw if I'd done to them what I did to you. The Widow Black would have smiled like a cat with cream and moved in for more. Your schoolteacher would have been screaming for marriage. That's what a man usually expects when he makes his move. I should have known you wouldn't do what's expected, but I expected a rifle in my belly before I expected to be laughed at."

  Sam shrugged uncomfortably. "I wasn't exactly laughing at you." She squirreled her face up and corrected herself. "Maybe I was. I mean, what am I supposed to do when you're kissing me one minute and growling at me the next? Are you going to bark and bite my leg if I try to walk away?"

  A shadow of a grin flitted along Sloan's lips. "Possibly. I could think of worse things to bite than your leg. I can think of better ones, too."

  She wasn't going to get into that. He was looking at her as if she were his next meal again. She turned aside and started for the path toward town. "What did you come up here for?"

  'To keep you from talking yourself out of it. I thought you might need a little reminder of what you'd be missing." He fell into step beside her.

  "Gad, you're a conceited oaf," she said without rancor. "Is this the way you talk to all your ladies, or am I
the only one treated to your bluntness?"

  Sloan remained unruffled. "I haven't bothered with ladies in years. They're not worth the trouble. Most of the women I've known since I've been out here are blunter than I am. The odds are pretty much in their favor, and they know it. If I wasted time pussyfooting around, they'd be off with another man before I could get what I wanted."

  "How romantic." Sam heard the sarcasm in her voice and winced. She didn't have a romantic bone in her body, but his calculated method of pursuit set her teeth on edge. No doubt she was just one among many he had set his sights on. She didn't have to wonder how many he'd won. His cavalier attitude showed he was accustomed to getting what he wanted.

  He gave her a sharp glance. "I'm not looking for romance."

  She lifted her chin and kept her gaze on the road ahead. "I know what you're looking for. The word isn't a pretty one."

  He stayed silent longer than was good for either of them. Finally, he just shrugged. "We both get what we want. That's the basis our society is built on."

  Sam gave an inelegant snort. "You must be pretty desperate if I'm what you want. Why not one of the twins? Or the widow. She probably wouldn't cost you anything."

  "The twins would faint if I laid a hand to them. The widow wouldn't be satisfied with just one night. You know all that as well as I do. What you're looking for is pretty words. I haven't got any. I need a woman, and you've got the appropriate requirements. You want your father found and I've got the means. Fair trade."

  "You're disgusting." She said it with feeling. He was disgusting. The fact that she actually considered his proposal was equally disgusting. He was right, and that irritated her even more. She wanted him to tell her that she was more intriguing than any woman he'd ever met. She wanted to think herself the only woman he desired. That was a lot of bull. He'd stated the situation clearly. He just hadn't added that she wanted him as much as he did her. She wondered if that was out of politeness or ignorance. Since he was seldom polite, she had to believe he just didn't realize how she felt.