by Diana Palmer
“Stubborn woman,” he sighed.
“I guess I am. And I haven’t even told you how grateful I am that you let me come here to get back on my feet.”
“Don’t be absurd,” he bit off as they reached the huge greenhouse. “I don’t want gratitude.”
“Jacob, this is awfully big,” she said dubiously.
“I told you I had a few experiments of my own in mind.” He opened the door for her and she walked inside, aghast at the amount of space she was going to have. The aisles were covered with pine shavings, and there were tables the length of the building. Hoses were connected everywhere, seed starters were sitting in boxes along the walls. Kate just shook her head, awed.
“I never expected anything like this. Oh, Jacob, it’s… heavenly!”
He smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Like it!” She turned impulsively and hugged him. “You’re wonderful!”
He felt wonderful with her soft body pressed against him and her face bright and radiant. His hands went to her shoulders to hold her lightly, and his breath caught. It was like flying. His head spun when she touched him.
“You’re welcome,” he said at her temple.
His faint reticence got through to her and she started to draw away, embarrassed. But when she looked up and saw the indecision in his face, she stood still.
“You’ve never touched me voluntarily before,” he said quietly.
She smiled hesitantly. “I don’t suppose I have,” she confessed. “You always seemed to have an invisible Keep Away sign around your neck.”
“And now I haven’t?” he persisted.
“Well…it’s less noticeable,” she mused.
“Then since it is,” he murmured, bending, “why don’t you kiss me?”
Her breath caught. That tender note in his deep, drawling voice was new, too. She closed her eyes as his mouth came close enough to capture her own, and then she held on and put her heart into it.
Seconds later, he was the one who drew back, all too quickly.
“We’d better look at some seed catalogs,” he said through his teeth, and the eyes that looked down at her were dark with hunger. “Before all my good resolutions go up in smoke.”
“Yes.” Since she’d refused to marry him, she supposed he didn’t feel entitled to make love to her anymore. That was vaguely disappointing, but she had to face reality. This was how it was going to be from now on.
But if she expected him to get better humored as the days went by, she was doomed to disappointment. His temper became shorter and his irritation grew as he drew away from any physical contact at all.
Chapter 11
Kate spent most of her free time puttering in the greenhouse while Jacob tried to work himself to death. Things were relatively peaceful for three days. And then, on the fourth morning, Jacob sat down at the breakfast table in a black study.
He glared at her as she paused in the doorway in her pale yellow slacks and blouse. “I don’t give a damn if you don’t want to marry me,” he said out of the blue. “Go back to Chicago and get shot at, for all I care.”
“Thanks, I will,” she returned, sitting in the chair Hank had pulled out for her. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling like your old irritable self, Jacob.”
“These eggs have curdled, for sure,” Janet grumbled as she put them down roughly in front of Jacob. “I’ve never in my life seen a man in such a bad temper. Kate, I wish you’d marry him and put him out of his misery.”
“Me, too,” Hank sighed, glancing at her. “Janet and I would never forget you for making the sacrifice.”
“I don’t want to marry her anymore,” Jacob muttered, hacking at his bacon. “This bacon is too hard!”
“Then why don’t you go out and cut yourself a piece of beef off one of your cows and eat that?” Janet snapped back.
“And the eggs taste like leather.”
“I knew you’d curdle them,” the housekeeper returned. She put her hands on her hips and scowled at him. “And I’ll bet the coffee’s too weak and the biscuits are too crumbly to suit you, too!”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Jacob said.
“Then you can get breakfast in Blairsville in the morning,” Janet replied, “because you won’t get any here!”
“I’ll fire you!” he shot at her.
“Go ahead. I couldn’t get a worse boss in hell!”
Jacob put down his fork, glared at everyone and stormed out of the room.
“Thank God, now we can eat in peace,” Hank said with a sigh. He smiled at Kate, who was a little paler than normal. “Still holding out, are you?”
“He doesn’t love me,” she said doggedly. “I won’t tie him down. He thinks it’s what he wants, but someday he may fall in love.”
Hank didn’t say a word. But he was smiling as he bent over his eggs.
It was the day that Kate was due to go in for her one-month checkup. She was sure Hank would be deputized to take her, or one of the men, but it was Jacob who waited for her in the Lincoln at the front steps.
He looked out of sorts, as he had for days. He glared, as he had for days. But he opened the door for her, and was as coolly polite as a host could be.
“I guess you’ll be headed back to Chicago in no time once you’ve got the all clear from the doctor,” he said as they went lazily down the highway.
“I guess so,” she responded without much pleasure. She didn’t relish the thought of picking up where she’d left off. The memories were too fresh.
“Don’t expect another proposal from me,” he continued shortly, “because you aren’t getting one.”
“I didn’t expect to.” She stared out at the rolling landscape. The horizon seemed to be years away, and there was such a feeling of spaciousness, of freedom here in South Dakota. She wondered how she’d lived without it. But she shouldn’t get too used to it; she was leaving soon. She might as well get used to not seeing Jacob, too, because in no time her precious few weeks with him would be a sweet memory. She felt empty already, and she hadn’t even left.
He stopped suddenly in the middle of the deserted highway, and turned to her. “Is it because I’ve made sex into some kind of nightmare for you?” he asked abruptly, ignoring her flush. “Is that it? Are you afraid to trust your body to me again because I hurt you so badly?”
She felt on fire. “Jacob, I don’t want to talk about it, please!”
“Just tell me the truth.”
She closed her eyes. “You didn’t hurt me that badly,” she said through clenched teeth. “It’s not because I’m afraid of you.”
“So you keep saying.” He sighed roughly and eased down on the accelerator. His expression didn’t waver as he turned onto the road that led to Blairsville, and he didn’t speak again.
The doctor checked her over, pronounced her fit enough to return to work and smiled as she left his office. Jacob paid the bill, against her protests, and led her back to the Lincoln.
“I’m well,” she said. “I can go back to work, officially.”
“Well, hooray,” he muttered as he put her in, got in beside her and started the car.
“You can stop feeling guilty now,” she said under her breath, sitting rigidly in her seat. “I don’t hold anything that happened against you, all right?”
He wasn’t listening. The day was unseasonably warm, and he turned off onto a dirt road that led deep into the woods, to a secluded little glade where a stream bubbled across the road and the wind blew through a small stand of trees.
“Why are we stopping here?” she asked uneasily.
He turned to her, his dark eyes blazing. “Because I’m sick to death of having you try to save me from myself. Why in hell do you think I want to marry you out of guilt and pity? I’m not stupid enough to try and build a long-term relationship on that kind of emotional quicksand!”
She tried to speak, and stammered, “Then, why?”
“I like being with you,” he said curtly. “God knows why,
you drive me nuts most of the time. I like doing things with you, I even like being alone with you.” He searched her face slowly. “I’d even like to have kids with you. Despite the bad beginning we had, we’ve grown pretty close since you’ve been at Warlance, Kate. Close enough to gamble on marriage. At least, I think so.”
She could hardly think at all. He was knocking down her arguments one by one. “I want to marry you,” she whispered brokenly. “I want it more than anything on earth, Jacob. But it’s such a risk, don’t you see?”
“All I see,” he whispered back, “is a body I ache for in the darkness, a mind that matches mine thought for thought and a woman I’d kill for.”
Holding her eyes with his, he slid the seat back and unfastened first his seat belt, then hers. He moved closer without saying a word, but the expression in his dark eyes was speaking as he bent to her mouth.
It was the slowest, softest kiss they’d ever shared. She felt his arms enclosing her, his fingers easing into her hair to hold her head where he wanted it as he began to deepen the kiss.
She made one token protest that turned into a soft moan, and then she yielded to his tenderness. Birds called back and forth, the bubbling stream made itself heard even through the closed windows. The wind blew softly. But Kate was feeling his hands touching her, turning her, gently discovering her. She was hearing Jacob’s rough breath against her soft mouth, and feeling his heartbeat against her breasts.
He turned her, moving her so that she was lying on the seat. Vaguely she heard him opening a door to make more room. The bubbling sound increased, like her heartbeat. She looked up at him—breathless, curious, searching.
She started to speak, but he smiled and shook his head. He bent again to her warm lips and began to nibble at them.
His hands eased her blouse out of his way, so that he had access to her lacy bra. That, too, was easily disposed of. His mouth was on that soft skin, nibbling, tasting, covering first one taut breast and then the other in a silence that grew hot with expectation.
It was a lesson in arousal. She’d never realized how many nerves she had in her body, or how sensitive they were to a man’s hands and mouth. He smoothed his lips over her skin like hands, and she didn’t feel her slacks and briefs slide down her legs, because his mouth was like a narcotic. She couldn’t get enough of it.
His shirt was gone and she was touching him in all the ways she’d wanted to. He guided her hands down his sides, and she discovered somewhere along the way that his jeans were loose and pushed away as well.
His forearms were taking most of his weight when he moved against her and her eyes opened, misty and soft and inquiring.
“It’s broad daylight,” she whispered, gasping as she realized where they were, with both doors open in the middle of a field.
“So it is,” he mused softly, moving even closer. “Broad daylight, and no secrets between us. And I want you to the point of madness. I want you to see how much, feel how much.” He bent to her mouth, cherishing it with aching tenderness, and his heart beat roughly over her taut breasts.
“Jacob, we mustn’t…” she whispered, but she moaned as well, because her body was throbbing with arousal.
“I want you for my wife, Kathryn,” he breathed against her ardent mouth. “I want you to be the mother of my children. I’m not asking you to give yourself a second time without a commitment. I’m asking you for the rest of your life. And I’m going to show you what beauty there can be in intimacy when two people share it unselfishly.”
She could feel how hungry he was. His body was keeping no secrets from her. She searched his dark eyes. “It isn’t…just desire?”
He smiled gently. “If that was all it was, any woman would do,” he said quietly.
“And any woman won’t?” she persisted breathlessly.
His mouth brushed her eyes, her nose. “I don’t want anybody except you, Kate. There isn’t going to be another woman, ever.”
“Oh, Jacob, you might fall in love….” she moaned.
“Yes,” he said against her parted lips, “I might at that. Lie still, sweet, and let me love you. Let me show you how it should have been that first time.”
She didn’t answer him. She didn’t have to. Her long, slender legs moved, just enough to admit the vibrant masculinity of his body.
“This time,” he whispered into her mouth as he began to bite at it sensuously, “you and I are going to fly into the sun together.”
“Someone might come here….” she protested with her last logical thought.
“No.” He moved, ever so gently, and his eyes held hers as she felt the first tender probing of his body. He saw her gasp, felt her hands grasp his arms. “Relax for me,” he whispered. “I promise, it isn’t going to hurt at all. Join with me, Kate. Let your body be one with mine.”
She bit her lower lip. She was thinking of all the reasons why she shouldn’t.
He knew that. His hand moved down, and she gasped at the sudden throbbing wave of passion that trembled over her skin. “Don’t think,” he whispered. “Just lie back and let me do it all. Let me give you pleasure. Let me teach you.”
She was trembling. He moved, careful not to jar her too much, and she felt him as she had that night. Only now it wasn’t hurting. Her eyes grew wide with every slow, adept movement of his hips, and he watched her the whole time, adjusting his motions to the needs of her soft body under him. He whispered things—sweet, shocking things—and his hands guided her with unbearable patience, until she was as wild for him as he was for her.
She bit back a sharp moan and he smiled through his own hunger, because he knew what that meant—that sound, and the sudden twisting of her body and the dilation of her eyes. Yes, she was feeling it now. He moved more deeply, more fiercely, and she closed her eyes and began to make noises that incited him.
His hair-matted chest rubbed with sweet abrasion against her bare breasts as he increased the rhythm, and the sounds outside were drowned by the sounds inside.
She was whispering things to him now, secret things, and he laughed and bit her shoulder, her mouth, her throat as the spiraling tension caught them both up in a whirlwind of warm pleasure.
Her eyes opened as the coil began to tighten suddenly. His face was damp with sweat and his jaw was clenched and he was breathing fiercely above her. She matched his movements, reached up to him and, as her fingers touched his face, it all exploded.
Magic. Madness. The sun, blazing colors, roaring surf, a feverish crashing together that brought with it the first rapture of her life. The first anguished burst of ecstasy. The first fulfillment.
She came back very slowly to the sounds of the trees and the wind and the birds. She was shaking, and so was he. His heartbeat was heavy over her breasts, his body had a fine tremor.
She began to kiss his throat, his chin, his hard mouth, and he returned the caress with satisfying ferocity.
“Sweet,” he whispered roughly, his eyes blazing into hers. “Pleasure beyond bearing. I thought I might die trying to hold you to me.”
“Yes.” She touched his mouth with wonder, searched his eyes. Her breath caught. “Jacob…you didn’t…” She swallowed. “There could be a child.”
He smiled lazily. “Yes.” He kissed her closed eyelids, her nose, her mouth. “I’m sleepy.”
“So am I.” She brushed back his thick, dark hair. “What are we going to do?”
“Get married, of course,” he murmured. “And I’m not asking you, Kate. You’ll damned well have to do it without a proposal, because I’m not giving you a chance to turn me down again.”
He was offering heaven, especially after what they’d just shared. Her worried eyes searched his. “You might fall in love someday,” she whispered for the second time.
He kissed her eyes shut. “What did we just share, if it wasn’t love?” he whispered.
Her eyelids came open again, and she was staring at him.
He hadn’t meant to say that. It had just popped out. But
as he looked down at her lovely face, he could believe that he’d meant it. Sex had never been like this before. He brushed back her hair. “No heavy thoughts right now,” he whispered. “Kiss me.”
She did, warmly, softly, and then he moved reluctantly away and helped her dress with exquisite tenderness. In between soft kisses, he gathered up his own disheveled clothing and got it in order again.
He sat back, smoking a cigarette, while she stared at him from the shelter of his arm.
“I didn’t hurt your rib?” he asked belatedly, searching her face.
She shook her head. “I wouldn’t have noticed even if you did.”
He hugged her close. “Thank God. And have we removed a few scars in the process?” he asked gently, searching her eyes. “Have I made up for that night?”
She flushed. “Yes.”
“From now on, it gets better every time. Next week we’re getting married, and have I got a wedding present for you, young Kate,” he added with a secretive smile.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Wait and see,” he mused, and kissed her again, tasting nectar on her mouth. He sighed. “Now, no more second thoughts. Nobody’s forcing me to the altar. All right?”
She searched his face, loving him too much to refuse again. All her noble principles had gone up in smoke in his arms. He was addictive. She couldn’t give him up.
“All right, Jacob,” she breathed.
He smiled after a minute, and pulled her closer.
* * *
The wedding ceremony was performed at Warlance, and Margo and David attended, surprised and delighted to find two old enemies exchanging rings.
Jacob beamed at his lovely bride in her acres of white satin and lace, and amid baskets of flowers they exchanged their vows, with Hank and Janet and Margo and David and Tom and a scattering of neighbors in attendance, including a strange city-looking woman in a blue hat sitting all alone.
The rings in place, the vows spoken solemnly, Jacob removed her veil and kissed her gently. The ceremony had been so beautiful that she cried. If he’d loved her, it would have been heaven itself. But, she told herself, she couldn’t ask for the moon.
