“Maybe you ought to borrow the doctor’s X-ray machine.”
“Huh. Maybe.”
Clearly, he was locked into a welter of sensations as churning and changeable as her own. The barn’s confrontation had been disturbing enough that its aftermath was still roiling around, causing problems for both of them. It would take time to come down from that mountain top where tumult and agitation dwelt.
Ben sat hunched forward, flexing his wounded hands around the cup, while a muscle along the base of his jaw kept clenching and unclenching. Speaking little, but biting down hard on whatever was welling up inside, he shifted position, rose to pace from one window to another, returned to perch on the edge of his seat. Like a coiled spring, ready to explode.
At last Dr. Morgan came out to confer.
“Okay, we’ve got a couple of broken ribs and some bleedin’. I’ve given the little guy some pain meds, and a sedative, to let him sleep, and applied antiseptic to the cuts I found. Also put him on an IV for hydration, because he’s pretty rundown.”
“Skin and bones,” supplied Caroline, with a frown.
“That’s for sure.” Dr. Morgan consulted his notes. “Gonna do a heartworm test later, when he’s up to it, and get all his shots up-to-date—although I doubt, given his condition, that he’s been given a single one of the series. We’ll try him out with a bit of wet food once he’s able to eat. Oh, and he’s got a rollickin’ case of fleas, besides. My tech can work on that problem.”
“Nothing too terribly serious, then?” Caroline asked eagerly.
“Not that I can tell. But I’d like to keep him overnight for observation, just to make sure nothin’ else is lurkin’ under his skin. Okay with you?”
“Okay with us.” The immediate answer of her thickened voice left no room for argument from Ben, even had he considered doing so. “Thank you, Dr. Morgan.”
“No thanks necessary. Good thing you got him in here as fast as you did. Cute dog, by the way. He’ll make a great pet for Sophie.” Slanting a knowing grin toward them, he waved one hand and strolled away to discuss appointments with his admin.
The cab of Ben’s dusty Ford truck, as they pulled out into traffic, seemed filled with waves of passion, ebbing and flowing: the remnants of anger and tension, the element of drama, the burgeoning of relief. Under the weight of so much conflict, Caroline was feeling restless, nervous, almost smothered by some unidentifiable pressure. As they drove along, she put down her window for fresh air, then almost as quickly put it up again.
Suddenly Ben sharply cut his speed to veer off the asphalt highway onto a dirt road, barely more than two tire tracks cut through the long grass.
“What are you doing?” Caroline’s startled voice jounced and joggled in tandem with the bouncing of the truck.
Silence. His battered hands were locked onto the steering wheel; his face, in profile, was set like granite into hard lines that might have been seen on a cemetery statue. For the first time, in any of her dealings with him, she felt a shaft of fear stab into her vitals and ooze like melted ice through her veins. She could almost see smoke pouring out of his ears, beneath the Stetson, but didn’t understand why.
They had gotten to the middle of a forest, populated by scattered trees and abundant green sod, when he slammed on the brakes, threw the truck into park, and jerked off the motor. Without a word, he jumped out, stomped around to her side, yanked open the door, and pulled her out.
“Ben—” she began with real apprehension.
Grabbing her roughly by both upper arms, he slammed her hard up against the century-old trunk of a sycamore. To yell at her, first and foremost, with eyes blazing blue fire.
“What the hell did you think you were doin’ in that barn? Were you lookin’ to get knocked around by a man twice your size?”
Taken completely aback by his light-speed movements over the past couple of minutes, she still managed to work up enough spleen to spit back at him. “I was rescuing a dog from death, if you’ll recall! Had I not stopped your precious employee, who obviously hadn’t been properly vetted to begin with—”
“You damned little fool! Did you think I wasn’t capable of handlin’ the situation? Did you really think I’d leave you alone to deal with things on your own?”
“Oh, I see. So that’s what this is all about. Your manhood was impugned!”
His fierce, furious face was jammed only two inches away from hers. Sparks flew between them like lightning between thunder clouds; the tensity and stress was a palpable thing, to be touched and marveled at.
“Damn your impugnity! And my manhood can take good care of itself!”
With that, he cradled and caged her head in his palms, holding her fast as he bent to savagely cover her mouth with his own. The shaggy bark not only cut into her writhing shoulders but blocked any attempt at escape. Exactly what he had planned. Exactly what she could not resist.
Keeping her captive now by force of will if not by physical prowess, Ben sent his hands plunging down to loosen and shove away her Capri pants, along with her nylon briefs. Immediately he found what he wanted—fire and heat and dew-drenched knoll—and seized upon it.
And Caroline? Helpless under his assault, she realized that this, now, was exactly the conclusion she had been unconsciously seeking—wild, wanton sex that would satisfy her odd restlessness, the itchy agitation that had been plaguing her most of the day.
The kiss went on and on—or, perhaps it was a series of killer kisses that closed off her breath and sucked the very life from her body. She opened her mouth to let out a delirious cry, but he merely snatched possession again. Mindless, heedless, she had no idea when he actually unzipped his jeans, pushed down his boxers, and released everything that was demanding release.
Abruptly pulling her away from the tree which had acted as barrier, he heaved Caroline erect to wrap her naked legs around his naked middle. His downward wrench on her hips met the upward thrust of his, connecting both together as slick and smooth as a washer sliding over a bolt. She choked, struggling frantically to grab hold of anything she could, while his hands opened her wide and he plowed inside with the force and fury of a pile driver.
Much as she wanted it, she was not ready. Oh, God, how could she possibly have been ready? At the sharp pain of entrance, she let out a yowl of protest. Then a wail at the indignity of his onslaught. Minutes later, a long moan as pleasure overtook her and she willingly succumbed to his expertise.
It was a bestial coupling, incited by the events of the day, and passion ruled.
Caroline had never known such blind, dumb desire, the need to be completely one with a rough and rowdy male. Even as, panting, he took her again and again, she tangled her fingers into his hair, attacked his jaw and bared throat with her teeth, desperately clawed at his muscular buttocks to pull him deeper.
Finally, it was finished, with screams and little hiccupping sobs on her part, a guttural triumphant bellow on his.
When, completely spent, he could no longer stand upright, Ben collapsed with her onto the grass and simply lay unmoving for some time, gasping for air.
Recovery was a slow, agonizing process.
“Oh—my—God—” came Caroline’s mutter after a while.
Ben, sprawled flat beside her, opened one eye. “Was it good for you?” he asked, and then burst out laughing.
Giving him an outraged glare, she managed, with much effort, to sit up. “I can’t believe this. Look at us. Just look at us.”
“Yeah, darlin’.” Grinning like an imp from Hades, he rolled onto one side and swept a lazy glance over her, disheveled top to unclad bottom. “I’m lookin’.” His impudent hand reached up to grab hold of one breast, just to prove a point. “You wanna try this again, my bordello queen, you’re gonna have to give me time to get my strength back.”
“Strength? Strength?” she screeched at him. “You maniac, you’ve put bruises on every part of my body. I ache all over. I won’t be able to walk for a week.”
Now
his expression just turned smug. The dog.
“You wanna compare marks of passion, sweetheart? I think any good doctor would figure I’d been mugged in a back-alley brawl.” Under the much-rumpled, grass-stained shirt, his shoulders shifted in an effort to ease cramping. “Here.”
“What’s this?” She picked up the large square of gold cloth he had spread across her bare thigh.
“Thought you might wanna—uh—clean yourself up a little before we head back home. You know, that’s the real reason we cowboys wear a bandanna.” And he gave vent to an uproar of laughter again.
“Ben.”
“Uh-huh.”
“This has been—quite a session. You’ve shocked me…and surprised me. Did all this stem just from what we went through, earlier, at the barn?”
He was already standing upright, trying to pull himself back together and adjust everything that had been torn apart. Leaning forward, he took her chin in one hand to meet her gaze very straightforwardly. “Carrie, this was just a damn good roll in the hay, that’s all. Don’t make anything more of it than that. We were both all fired up, and it was time, and I didn’t wanna wait any longer.”
“I see.” Deeply disappointed, though at a loss to understand why, Caroline used the neckerchief as advised before beginning to retrieve her discarded clothing.
“Carrie.” He paused, to give her another of those direct but unreadable glances. “You’re definitely on the pill, aren’t you?”
“That was what we had agreed upon,” she said coolly.
“Good. And, listen. Don’t ever again get involved in a fracas like that one today. Not because of my male ego.” He brushed that aside. “But because you could’ve been badly hurt.”
“Very well. No more tackles.”
“And, Carrie?”
Attempting to disentangle her hair with unsteady fingers instead of a comb, she sighed. “Yes, Ben.”
“Any time you wanna claim your conjugal rights,” he grinned down at her, “my bedroom door is always open.”
Chapter Fourteen
To Caroline’s amazement, next morning her wayward husband decided he had nowhere more important to travel, and was staying home. Sophie seemed as surprised as her stepmother.
“Daddy. Two days in a row?” she demanded at the breakfast table.
“Uh-huh.”
She paused in the act of spearing a pancake. “Daddy.” The voice was lowered dramatically. “Have you been fired?”
He laughed. “Nope, no such luck. Sorry if I’m in your way, Princess, but I can head on out to the stables, instead.”
Squealing a vehement protest, she jumped down from her own chair to clamber up on the rung of his. “Naw, you can hang around if you like. Me and Carrie can put up with you.”
“Zat so?” Ben put down his fork to squeeze the little girl’s shoulders, clad in a goldenrod-yellow tee that matched her pair of miniscule shorts printed with sunflowers. Then, still leaning sideways, he slanted a speculative look up at his wife. “Think you can put up with me today, Carrie?”
Calmly spooning sugar into her cereal, she refused to meet a glance she knew would be laced with irritating good humor. The man was a pain in the patootie, when you came right down to it. All that twinkling sense of mischief, all that lighthearted boyish delight—it tended to wear thin, after a while.
Or maybe her somewhat sour mood was due to the fact that she was still smarting a little from yesterday’s brush-off.
The house had been, thankfully, deserted, when they’d returned from their cowboy hi-jinks. Caroline had hastily slunk upstairs to shower and change before going out to track down Sophie, who, under the supervision of a watchful Tom out near the stable, was full of questions as to the reason for her father’s unexpected disappearance.
“He was here, and then he wasn’t,” Sophie complained, with reason. “Where did he go, Carrie?”
The little girl had found a small discarded tree branch and was busily drawing circles in the graveled drive with its tip. She didn’t seem terribly broken up by Ben’s absence—which she’d had six years to get used to—but more curious than anything.
Caroline’s questioning gaze had met Tom’s. He did one of those open-palmed shrugs in response. Well, then.
“Let’s go inside for a bit, have some milk and cookies, and I’ll tell you all about our adventure. How’s that?”
“Oh, uh, Carrie?” Tom stopped her as she was turning away. “That other matter, y’ know?”
“Yes, I do know.”
“All taken care of. Gone off, under supervision. I’ll fill Ben in on the details, and he can take care of things from here on.”
She was conscious of a great relief. “Thank you, Tom. I was wondering what had happened.”
In the kitchen, where Mrs. Wyeth was holding court with two housemaids, Caroline made herself at home with snacks from the pantry and two glasses of rich cold milk.
“I am discussing procedures here, Mrs. Taggart,” the cook icily informed her.
Caroline waved a negligent hand. “Go ahead, please. We don’t bother you. Sophie, run into the powder room and wash really well with soap, okay?”
As the little girl scampered away, the housemaids could see which way the wind was blowing and quickly made themselves scarce in another part of the house. When a tornado is bearing down, one is wise to get out of its path.
“Mrs. Taggart,” said Mrs. Wyeth, breathing heavily, “might I speak privately to you?”
“Of course. Please, have a seat.”
“No, I’d rather stand, thank you. Mrs. Taggart…” The woman’s face was mottled red, her expression murderous. “I want to register a complaint.”
Taking a sip, Caroline surveyed her employee over the rim of her glass. “Pray, do so.”
“Pray? No prayin’ about it. You’ve been treatin’ me like dirt since the minute you walked in the door, and I want it stopped.”
Both of Caroline’s brows arched. “Do you?”
The heavy jowls turned even darker, like a turkey’s wattles. “I been here since the first Mrs. Taggart hired me. Not a word of complaint from her, ever. And you ain’t got a patch on her, lady.”
“Indeed. And just exactly what problem is it I’m supposed to have caused?”
“You been disrespectin’ everything I do.” Standing flat-footed, massive arms folded across her chest, Mrs. Wyeth resembled nothing so much as a bovine statue. “You change the food I fix, the place I serve it, the time when it’s put on the table.”
“And this has caused you—”
“We had us schedules here,” she went on heavily, angrily. “We knew what time of the day things were goin’ on. Kids need schedules. They need rules and regulations. You’ve turned things upside down, doin’ whatever you want whenever you want. It’s playin’ hob with my own work, and I ain’t havin’ it.”
“You aren’t?”
“No. It’s gonna come down to you or me, and I can guess which one of us Mr. Taggart would want to stay.”
If she was guessing herself, Caroline mused whimsically, she might be quite right. It all depended on which was uppermost in Ben’s mind at the moment: food or sex. “Well, I’m certainly sorry you feel this way, Mrs. Wyeth, but I appreciate your bringing your concerns to my attention. Perhaps we might—”
The woman leaned closer, a sneer on her face. “I ain’t messin’ around here, Mrs. Taggart. We both know how you ended up on the ranch. We both know you weren’t his first choice, nor his second, nor even his third. I hear things. I hear what’s goin’ on. You just ask—”
“What kind of cookies do we have today, Carrie?” Innocent Sophie interrupted any further disclosures, skipping back into the kitchen with pony-tailed hair bouncing.
“Well, honey, looks to me like chocolate chip. Fresh-baked, too. Let’s thank Mrs. Wyeth for them, shall we?” Her cool gaze caught and held the scornful eyes of the cook, and dismissed her. “We’ll talk later, Mrs. Wyeth, at another time.”
That scru
mptious little confrontation, and the usual supper, bath, and bedtime routine for Sophie a little later, had occupied the rest of Caroline’s day. She had explained about finding a sick dog, and taking him to the dog doctor to make him all better, and the child’s chatter had been centered on that subject alone.
At nine she had retired to her suite for some personal TLC time. That meant a lengthy soak in the tub, filled with hot water and eucalyptus and lavender oil, while a whole musical selection by Mozart playing in the background softly and sweetly lulled her into semi-consciousness.
Eventually she eased her slippery body from the cooling water to slip it into a cool lawn nightgown. Barefoot, she wandered out to the terrace, where a friendly moon and several billion glittering stars shone in upon her. What a lovely spot this was! The comfortable padded chaise called her with an almost audible siren song.
“Join me here,” it said. So she did.
Contented night sounds drifted in, from the rustle of birds settling down in the giant branches to the subdued hoot of an owl farther off in the distance. The lonely wail of a train far away, and its busy chug-chug on the rails, reached her next. A gentle breeze drifted in, carrying with it a mixture of scents: dampness and moss from the pond, dusty gravel, the more homely aromas of cow and horse.
Relaxing, Caroline tilted her head back and crossed one ankle over the other.
The mean, spiteful words of the cook had stabbed deep. She had harbored them through the rest of the day, like a burr under the saddle, to dither and nag, until she had had a chance to think things through. So the whole household was aware of the marital arrangement? How? And when? And, for heavens’ sake, why?
She wasn’t about to dignify such a complaint with any questions. That would completely negate any chance she had of maintaining control.
“What in the hell am I going to do about that old harridan Wyeth?” she wondered aloud.
Chapter Fifteen
The Billionaire's Seed_A Secret Baby Romance Page 70
