by Diana Palmer
He bent and kissed her, with an odd tenderness. He laughed to himself. “Just my luck,” he breathed against her lips, “to get mixed up with a virgin who can cook.”
“We aren’t mixed up,” she began.
His hand contracted against the base of her spine, grinding her into him, and one eyebrow went up over a worldly smile as she blushed.
She cleared her throat. “We aren’t very mixed up,” she corrected.
He nibbled at her upper lip. “I look at you and get turned on so hard I can hardly walk around without bending over double. I touch you and I hurt all over. I dream of you every single night of my life and wake up vibrating.” He lifted his head and looked down into her misty eyes. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t kidding. “Never like this, Janie. Either we have each other, or we stop it, right now.”
Her fingers touched his face lovingly. “You can do whatever you like to me,” she whispered unsteadily.
His jaw tautened. “Anything?”
She nodded. She loved him with all her heart.
His eyes closed. His arms brought her gently against him, and his mouth buried itself in her throat, pressing there hot and hard for a few aching seconds. Then he dragged in a harsh breath and sat up, putting her back in her seat and fastening her seat belt.
He didn’t look at her as he fastened his own belt and started the truck. She sat beside him as he pulled out onto the highway, a little surprised that he didn’t turn into the road that led to his house. She’d expected him to take her there. She swallowed hard, remembering the way they’d pleasured each other on his big bed the night before, remembering the look of his powerful body without clothes. She flushed with anticipated delight. She was out of her mind. Her father was going to kill her. She looked at Leo with an ache that curled her toes up inside her shoes, and didn’t care if he did. Some things were worth dying for.
Leo drove right into town and pulled into a parking spot in front of the drugstore. Right, she thought nervously, he was going inside to buy…protection…for what they were going to do. He wanted a child, though, he’d said. She flushed as he got out of the truck and came around to open her door.
He had to unfasten her seat belt first. She didn’t even have the presence of mind to accomplish that.
He helped her out of the truck and looked down at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher. He touched her cheek gently, and then her hair, and her soft mouth. His eyes were full of turmoil.
He tugged her away from the truck and closed her door, leading her to the sidewalk with one small hand tightly held in his fingers.
She started toward the drugstore.
“Wrong way, sweetheart,” he said tenderly, and led her right into a jewelry store.
The clerk was talking to another clerk, but he came forward, smiling, when they entered the shop.
“May I help you find something?” he asked Leo.
“Yes,” Leo said somberly. “We want to look at wedding bands.”
Janie felt all the blood draining out of her face. It felt numb. She hoped she wasn’t going to pass out.
Leo’s hand tightened around her fingers, and slowly linked them together as he positioned her in front of the case that held engagement rings and wedding rings.
The clerk took out the tray that Leo indicated. Leo looked down at Janie with quiet, tender eyes.
“You can have anything you want,” he said huskily, and he wasn’t talking solely of rings.
She met his searching gaze with tears glistening on her lashes. He bent and kissed the wetness away.
The clerk averted his eyes. It was like peering through a private window. He couldn’t remember ever seeing such an expression on a man’s face before.
“Look at the rings, Janie,” Leo said gently.
She managed to focus on them belatedly. She didn’t care about flashy things, like huge diamonds. She was a country girl, for all her sophistication. Her eyes kept coming back to a set of rings that had a grape leaf pattern. The wedding band was wide, yellow gold with a white gold rim, the pattern embossed on the gold surface. The matching engagement ring had a diamond, but not a flashy one, and it contained the same grape leaf pattern on its circumference.
“I like this one,” she said finally, touching it.
There was a matching masculine-looking wedding band. She looked up at Leo.
He smiled. “Do you want me to wear one, too?” he teased.
Her eyes were breathless with love. She couldn’t manage words. She only nodded.
He turned his attention back to the clerk. “We’ll take all three,” he said.
“They’ll need to be sized. Let me get my measuring rod,” the clerk said with a big grin. The rings were expensive, fourteen karat, and that diamond was the highest quality the store sold. The commission was going to be tasty.
“It isn’t too expensive?” Janie worried.
Leo bent and kissed the tip of her nose. “They’re going to last a long time,” he told her. “They’re not too expensive.”
She couldn’t believe what was happening. She wanted to tell him so, but the clerk came back and they were immediately involved in having their fingers sized and the paperwork filled out.
Leo produced a gold card and paid for them while Janie looked on, still shell-shocked.
Leo held her hand tight when they went back to the truck. “Next stop, city hall,” he murmured dryly. “Rather, the fire station—they take the license applications when city hall is closed. I forgot it was Saturday.” He lifted both eyebrows at her stunned expression. “Might as well get it all done in one day. Which reminds me.” He pulled out his cell phone after he’d put her in the truck and phoned the office of the doctors Coltrain. While Janie listened, spellbound, he made an appointment for blood tests for that afternoon. The doctors Coltrain had a Saturday clinic.
He hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket with a grin. “Marriage license next, blood tests later, and about next Wednesday, we’ll have a nice and quiet small wedding followed by,” he added huskily, “one hell of a long passionate wedding night.”
She caught her breath at the passion in his eyes. “Leo, are you sure?” she wanted to know.
He dragged her into his arms and kissed her so hungrily that a familiar couple walking past the truck actually stared amusedly at them for a few seconds before hurrying on past.
“I’m sorry, baby. I can’t…wait…any longer,” he ground out into her eager mouth. “It’s marriage or I’m leaving the state!” He lifted his head, and his eyes were tortured. He could barely breathe. “Oh, God, I want you, Janie!”
She felt the tremor in his big body. She understood what he felt, because it was the same with her. She drew in a slow breath. It was desire. She thought, maybe, there was some affection as well, but he was dying to have her, and that was what prompted marriage plans. He’d said often enough that he was never going to get married.
He saw all those thoughts in her eyes, even through the most painful desire he’d ever known. “I’ll make you glad you said yes,” he told her gruffly. “I won’t ever cheat on you, or hurt you. I’ll take care of you all my life. All of yours.”
It was enough, she thought, to take a chance on. “All right,” she said tenderly. She reached up and touched his hard, swollen mouth. “I’ll marry you.”
It was profound, to hear her say it. He caught his breath at the raging arousal the words produced in his already-tortured body. He groaned as he pressed his mouth hard into the palm of her hand.
She wasn’t confident enough to tease him about his desire for her. But it pleased her that he was, at least, fiercely hungry for her in that way, if no other.
He caught her close and fought for control. “We’d better go and get a marriage license,” he bit off. “We’ve already given Evan and Anna Tremayne an eyeful.”
“What?” she asked drowsily.
“They were walking past when I kissed you,” he said with a rueful smile.
“T
hey’ve been married for years,” she pointed out.
He rubbed his nose against hers. “Wait until we’ve been married for years,” he whispered. “We’ll still be fogging up windows in parked trucks.”
“Think so?” she asked, smiling.
“Wait and see.”
He let go of her, with obvious reluctance, and moved back under the steering wheel. “Here we go.”
They applied for the marriage license, had the blood tests, and then went to round up their families to tell them the news.
Janie’s aunt Lydia had gone to Europe over the holidays on an impromptu sightseeing trip, Fred Brewster told them when they gave him the news. “She’ll be livid if she misses the wedding,” he said worriedly.
“She can be here for the first christening,” Leo said with a grin at Janie’s blush. “You can bring Hettie with you, and come over to the ranch for supper tomorrow night,” he added, amused at Fred’s lack of surprise at the announcement. “I’ve invited my brothers to supper and phoned Barbara to have it catered. I wanted to break the news to all of them at once.”
“Hettie won’t be surprised,” Fred told them, tongue-in-cheek. “But she’ll enjoy a night out. We’ll be along about six.”
“Fine,” Leo said, and didn’t offer to leave Janie at home. He waited until she changed into a royal-blue pantsuit with a beige top, and carried her with him to the ranch.
He did chores and paperwork with Janie right beside him, although he didn’t touch her.
“A man only has so much self-control,” he told her with a wistful sigh. “So we’ll keep our hands off each other, until the wedding. Fair enough?”
She grinned at him. “Fair enough!”
He took her home after they had supper at a local restaurant. “I’d love to have taken you up to Houston for a night on the town,” he said when he walked her to her door. “But not with your face like that.” He touched it somberly. “Here in Jacobsville, everybody already knows what happened out at Shea’s last night. In Houston, people might think I did this, or allowed it to happen.” He bent and kissed the painful bruise. “Nobody will ever hurt you again as long as I live,” he swore huskily.
She closed her eyes, savoring the soft touch of his mouth. “Are you sure you want to marry me?” she asked.
“I’m sure. I’ll be along about ten-thirty,” he added.
She looked up at him, puzzled. “Ten-thirty?”
He nodded. “Church,” he said with a wicked grin. “We have to set a good example for the kids.”
She laughed, delighted. “Okay.”
“See you in the morning, pretty girl,” he said, and brushed his mouth lightly over hers before he bounded back down the steps to his car and drove off with a wave of his hand.
Fred was amazed that Leo did take her to church, and then came back to the house with her for a lunch of cold cuts. He and Fred talked cattle while Janie lounged at Leo’s side, still astounded at the unexpected turn of events. Fred couldn’t be happier about the upcoming nuptials. He was amused that Hettie had the weekend off and didn’t know what had happened. She had a shock coming when she arrived later in the day.
Leo took Janie with him when he went home, approving her choice of a silky beige dress and matching high heels, pearls in her ears and around her throat, and her hair long and luxurious down her back.
“Your brothers will be surprised,” Janie said worriedly on the way there.
Leo lifted an eyebrow. “After the Cattleman’s Ball? Probably not,” he said. Then he told her about Corrigan offering to drive him home so that he could pump him for information to report back to the others.
“You were very intoxicated,” she recalled, embarrassed when she recalled the fierce argument they’d had.
“I’d just found out that Marilee had lied about you,” he confided. “And seeing you with damned Harley didn’t help.”
“You were jealous,” she realized.
“Murderously jealous,” he confessed at once. “That only got worse, when you took the job at Shea’s.” He glanced at her. “I’m not having you work there any longer. I don’t care what compromises I have to make to get you to agree.”
She smiled to herself. “Oh, I don’t mind quitting,” she confessed. “I’ll have enough to do at the ranch, after we’re married, getting settled in.”
“Let’s try not to talk about that right now, okay?”
She stared at him, worriedly. “Are you getting cold feet?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you what I’m getting,” he said, turning dark eyes to hers. And he did tell her, bluntly, and starkly. He nodded curtly at her scarlet flush and directed his attention back at the road. “Just for the record, the word ‘marriage’ reminds me of the words ‘wedding night,’ and I go nuts.”
She whistled softly.
“So let’s think about food and coffee and my brothers and try not to start something noticeable,” he added in a deep tone. “Because all three of them are going to be looking for obvious signs and they’ll laugh the place down if they see any.”
“We can recite multiplication tables together,” she agreed.
He glanced at her with narrow eyes. “Great idea,” he replied sarcastically. “That reminds me of rabbits, and guess what rabbits remind me of?”
“I know the Gettysburg Address by heart,” she countered. “I’ll teach it to you.”
“That will put me to sleep.”
“I’ll make biscuits for supper.”
He sat up straight. “Biscuits? For supper? To go with Barbara’s nice barbecue, potato salad and apple pie. Now that’s an idea that just makes my mouth water! And here I am poking along!” He pushed down on the accelerator. “Honey, you just said the magic word!”
She chuckled to herself. Marriage, she thought, was going to be a real adventure.
Chapter Eleven
Not only did Corrigan, Rey, and Cag show up for supper with their wives, Dorie, Meredith and Tess, but Simon and Tira came all the way from Austin on a chartered jet. Janie had just taken off her apron after producing a large pan of biscuits, adding them to the deliciously spread table that Barbara and her assistant had arranged before they left.
All four couples arrived together, the others having picked up Simon and Tira at the Jacobsville airport on the way.
Leo and Janie met them at the door. Leo looked unprepared.
“All of you?” he exclaimed.
Simon shrugged. “I didn’t believe them,” he said, pointing at the other three brothers. “I had to come see for myself.”
“We didn’t believe him, either,” Rey agreed, pointing at Leo.
They all looked at Janie, who moved closer to Leo and blushed.
“If she’s pregnant, you’re dead,” Cag told Leo pointedly when he saw the look on Janie’s face. He leaned closer before Leo could recover enough to protest. “Have you been beating her?”
“She is most certainly not pregnant!” Leo said, offended. “And you four ought to know that I have never hit a woman in my life!”
“But he hit the guy who did this to me,” Janie said with pride, smiling up at him as she curled her fingers into his big ones.
“Not very effectively, I’m afraid,” Leo confessed.
“That’s just because the guy had a black belt,” Janie said, defending Leo. “Nobody but our assistant police chief had the experience to bring him down.”
“Yes, I know Grier,” Simon said solemnly. “He’s something of a legend in law enforcement circles, even in Austin.”
“He has alien artifacts in his filing cabinet, and he was a government assassin,” Janie volunteered with a straight face.
Everybody stared at her.
“He was kidding!” Leo chuckled.
She grinned at him. He wrinkled his nose at her. They exchanged looks that made the others suddenly observant. All at once, they became serious.
“We can do wedding invitations if we e-mail them tonight,” Cag said offhand. He pulled a list from h
is pocket. “This is a list of the people we need to invite.”
“I can get the symphony orchestra to play,” Rey said, nodding. “I’ve got their conductor’s home phone number in my pocket computer.” He pulled it out.
“We can buy the gown online and have it overnighted here from Neiman-Marcus in Dallas,” Corrigan volunteered. “All we need is her dress size. What are you, a size ten?”
Janie balked visibly, but nodded. “Here comes her father,” Dorie said enthusiastically, noting the new arrival.
“I’ll e-mail the announcement to the newspaper,” Tess said. “They have a Tuesday edition, we can just make it. We’ll need a photo.”
There was a flash. Tira changed the setting on her digital camera. “How’s this?” She asked, showing it to Tess and Meredith.
“Great!” Meredith said. “We can use Leo’s computer to download it and e-mail it straight to the paper, so they’ll have it first thing tomorrow. We can e-mail it to the local television station as well. Come on!”
“Wait for me! I’ll write the announcement,” Dorie called to Corrigan, following along behind the women.
“Hey!” Janie exclaimed.
“What?” Tira asked, hesitating. “Oh, yes, the reception. It can be held here. But the cake! We need a caterer!”
“Cag can call the caterer,” Simon volunteered his brother.
“It’s my wedding!” Janie protested.
“Of course it is, dear,” Tira said soothingly. “Let’s go, girls.”
The women vanished into Leo’s study. The men went into a huddle. Janie’s father and Hettie came in the open door, looking shell-shocked.
“Never mind them,” Leo said, drawing Janie to meet her parent and her housekeeper. “They’re taking care of the arrangements,” he added, waving his hand in the general direction of his brothers and sisters-in-law. “Apparently, it’s going to be a big wedding, with a formal gown and caterers and newspaper coverage.” He grinned. “You can come, of course.”
Janie hit him. “We were going to have a nice, quiet little wedding!”
“You go tell them what you want, honey,” he told Janie. “Just don’t expect them to listen.”
