A Willing Wife

by Jackie Merritt

  Dallas muttered a curse, rushed forward and took her hands in his. “You don’t have to talk, but you are going to listen.”

  “No, I am not going to listen!” With her eyes blazing, she glared into his. “Mama put you up to this, and no one, least of all you, is going to prevent me from going to that interview in the morning!”

  “You are the most stubborn, pigheaded woman I’ve ever known!”

  “Thank you very much. There’s just no end to your flattery,” she said scornfully. “Now, would you please let go of my hands and just leave? I was almost asleep when you got here, and I would like to go back to bed.”

  Dallas looked at the bed, then brought his gaze back to her. The simmering heat Maggie saw in his eyes set off warning bells in her head.

  “Don’t even think it,” she said in the most threatening voice she could muster.

  “Think what, Maggie?”

  The devilishly innocent look on his face jangled those warning bells again. “Don’t play dumb, Dallas. You know very well what I meant.”

  “Did I really? Could you have meant this?” With her own hands, he pulled her forward until her breasts were against his chest. She tried to break away, but then in a fast move he released her hands and wrapped his arms around her to keep her against him. “Damn, you feel good,” he whispered into the scented strands of her hair. “This is where you belong, you know.”

  She fought against her own responsive feelings. “Did Mama also suggest that you seduce me?”

  Dallas chuckled softly. “Hardly. You know your mother better than that. No, what Rosita would like is for you and me to get married. I’m sure it’s never entered her mind that we might already have made love. And not just once, Maggie—if you’ve got the guts to remember—but twice.”

  Maggie’s ire rose. He didn’t need to keep reminding her of what an idiot she’d been. “If I had as much physical strength as I have guts, you’d have been thrown out of this room two seconds after you got in,” she said furiously. “Damn you, let go of me!”

  Dallas held on tight. “Do you agree with Rosita that you and I should get married?”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake! Will you get off it?”

  “There’s something I didn’t tell you the day I proposed,” Dallas said softly. “I love you, Maggie.”

  She stopped struggling. “Wh-what did you say?” she whispered, before taking a much-needed breath.

  “I said ‘I love you, Maggie.’ It’s not a line, either. It’s how I really feel. I wish to God it hadn’t taken me so long to recognize what was happening to me.”

  Maggie felt as though every event of her life was bombarding her, coming at her from different directions and mixing inside her brain in a cauldron of mass confusion. If she told Dallas that she loved him, too, would everything even out? Would life suddenly become carefree and wonderful? The plans she had lived with since coming to Texas would fall by the wayside, of course, no longer important or significant—

  “Maggie? Can’t you say something?” Dallas asked quietly.

  She lifted her chin to see his face. “I— I don’t know what to say,” she stammered.

  “I’ve surprised you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Even if I didn’t realize it myself, didn’t it ever occur to you that I might be in love with you?” he asked gently. When she didn’t answer, he knew that he’d done more than surprise her. He’d shaken her to her very foundations.

  “I’m sorry, Maggie.” She looked so forlorn that he couldn’t resist comforting her. Only, instead of a compassionate hug or caress, he found himself kissing her lips. At first he merely took little love nips, whispering soothing words as he did it, but then his feelings for Maggie overwhelmed his good intentions and he settled his mouth on hers in a kiss that made his blood sizzle.

  She gave up—simply gave up, accepted her defeat and let him kiss her. But then the blood in her veins began stirring, too, her heart started fluttering and she no longer felt defeated, but rather like an eagle, soaring high above earthly concerns. She did love him so. Why hadn’t she been able to tell him?

  Dallas knew the exact moment when she stopped fighting herself and started feeling what he did. He gentled his kisses and was thrilled when she responded. He slid the silky robe from her shoulders, and then pressed his lips to the soft skin of her throat. Raising one of her arms, he tenderly kissed the underside of her elbow.

  “You’re so beautiful, Maggie,” he whispered huskily. “So desirable. Your skin is like satin. I want to kiss every part of it, every part of you.” For the moment he satisfied his overwhelming hunger by kissing her mouth, and while his tongue toyed with hers, he slipped the straps of her gown down her arms. The flimsy garment fell to the floor.

  Her total nudity startled her, and she pushed him away and ran for the bed, where she lay down and covered herself. “Turn out that bright ceiling light,” she told him. “The switch is by the door.”

  She had scared him for a second, but then he knew she was waiting for him, and he quickly extinguished the ceiling light and moved to undress by the bed.

  The lamp on the nightstand still burned, and Maggie watched him shed his clothes. She wouldn’t let herself think of afterward, or speculate about what they might talk about later. Her mind wasn’t made up yet. Maybe she would never be able to tell him she loved him.

  But she wasn’t lonely now, and he’d actually said that he loved her. If he’d said it the day he’d proposed…? No, she wouldn’t think about that, either. It was strange how often she changed her mind about Dallas, but she couldn’t seem to eliminate confusion from her system. With Dallas nothing seemed cut-and-dried. They truly connected in only one area: lust for each other’s body.

  As though proving her theory on that point—if only to herself—she turned back a corner of the blankets in invitation. He was a beautiful man, and she wanted him in her bed. For tonight, at least. Who knew what tomorrow would bring?

  Dallas slipped into bed next to her and pulled her into his arms. He suddenly felt very emotional and whispered raggedly, “Maggie…oh, Maggie.”

  His hot skin against hers raised her own temperature, and she closed her eyes and moaned softly.

  Dallas wasn’t content to make love under the covers, and he threw them back so he could watch his own hand tracing the contours of Maggie’s incredible body. That day when they’d made love in Rosita’s kitchen, everything had happened much too fast. Tonight he intended to go slowly, to savor each second himself, and to give Maggie every pleasure.

  Maggie lifted her eyelids just a little and saw the ardent expression on Dallas’s face as he slowly slid his hand down her side, from just under her arm to her waist and then to the curve of her hip. Her heart skipped a beat. That single caress was more intimate than anything else that had ever occurred between them, and it scared her. Physical intimacy was one thing, but she wasn’t sure she could deal with emotional intimacy, and that was what Dallas seemed to be concentrating on tonight.

  If he continued to make love to her in this way, she would be lost forever! She would become mindless, she would confess her own feelings, and then she would let him completely take over her life.

  She wasn’t yet ready to give another man so much power over her. She’d lived Craig’s life during her marriage and had vowed never to repeat that mistake. Now, here she was, on the verge of doing the same thing with Dallas.

  She couldn’t let it happen. She took his hand from her thigh and brought it to her breast. Breathing unsteadily she whispered, “Do it, Dallas. Make love to me.”

  Her urgency startled Dallas; he’d been mesmerized by his exploration of her body. But a man didn’t argue when his lady-love demanded immediate action, and he positioned himself on top of her and thrust his aching manhood into her hot and velvety depths.

  “Yes…oh, yes,” she whispered hoarsely when he began moving.

  He looked at her face and saw what she was feeling. Except that she was feeling it with her e
yes closed, and he felt shut out, as though he were merely the mechanical means by which she was gaining such pleasure.

  “Open your eyes,” he said gruffly. “Let me see what you’re thinking. What you’re feeling.”

  “Oh, please, let’s just…enjoy.”

  He remembered then that she’d said nothing about love tonight, not a word, and that every time they had made love she had kept her eyes shut. Most of the time, anyway. Occasionally he’d caught a glimpse of her soul, but it had never lasted long enough for him to fully understand Maggie. It struck him as sad that she was still withholding a part of herself, and he wondered if even love was enough to crush such a strong barrier. Then, of course, there was the possibility that she didn’t love him at all. Or maybe she only loved him enough to use him to satisfy her natural need for sex.

  Joined as they were, it wasn’t possible for Dallas to back off and leave her hanging, because he would also be left hanging himself. But his thoughts were no longer tender and loving, and he drove into her fast and hard—almost angrily.

  In mere seconds Maggie reached the pinnacle and cried out, and a moment later so did Dallas. Then they both had their eyes closed as they waited for their hearts to slow down and their breathing to return to normal.

  To Dallas’s surprise, Maggie spoke first. “That was…great.”

  He lifted his head. “It could have been better.”

  Her eyes were open now, and the hard light in Dallas’s unnerved her. She looked away and said, “Sorry if I didn’t satisfy you. You certainly satisfied me.”

  “But any man could do as well, right?” Dallas rolled away from her.

  She propped herself on an elbow and frowned at him. “Are you insinuating that I would sleep with any man who might come on to me?”

  “You told me you didn’t like me, and you still made love with me. You were mad at me that day in your mother’s kitchen, and you still made love with me. Now, tonight, when I told you that I’m in love with you, you acted as though I hadn’t even hinted at any such thing, and you still made love with me. What should I think about all that, Maggie? What would any man think?”

  Maggie lay down again on the pillow and stared at the ceiling.

  “Can’t you give me an answer?” Dallas asked. He rose on an elbow to see her face. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.” After several long moments of silence, he said, “You can’t let anyone know you, can you? Why not, Maggie?”

  “You know me,” she said defensively.

  “The hell I do. No one knows you. Not even your parents.”

  “That’s absurd,” she scoffed. But even while she was denying it, she knew it was true. She’d erected such a staunch barrier around her inner self during her marriage to Craig that no one—other than Travis—ever really got past it. Dallas had come very close to breaking through her defenses the day he’d proposed marriage. He just might have succeeded if he’d told her then what he had tonight.

  Dallas was thinking hard. “Why didn’t you let me make love to you the way I wanted to tonight? Were you afraid that I might make you feel something?”

  “Oh, you made me feel a lot,” she retorted. “Don’t ever doubt your sex appeal, or your competence in bed.”

  “Why does that sound more like an insult than a compliment? Dammit, Maggie, I love you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  She took a deep breath. “I suppose it means you love me.”

  “But you really don’t give a damn, do you?”

  “Dallas,” she said with a sigh, “I’m tired. If you want to stay the night, that’s fine— I know it’s a long drive back to the ranch and it’s getting late. But I have to get some sleep. My interview is at nine in the morning, and I want to get up early so I have plenty of time to get ready for it.” She gave him a few moments to reply, then reached out and turned off the lamp. “Good night.” Turning her back to him, she closed her eyes.

  About five minutes went by. Maggie felt every movement Dallas made, and he seemed restless and dissatisfied. She would never get any sleep with him thrashing around, and she wished he would either lie still, or get up and leave.

  Then she heard him say quietly, “Maggie, don’t go to that interview. Come home with me in the morning. For God’s sake, give us a chance. What if you get that job? You’ll move to Houston, and we’ll never see each other. Maggie, I still want to marry you. You and I and Travis could have so much together. Why can’t you see it the way I do?”

  I cannot become a Fortune! The truth hit Maggie so hard that she felt faint from it. She’d told Dallas in the line shack that she needed time to figure herself out, and then, later on, she’d decided she had merely said that to put Dallas off. She’d wished many times that he wasn’t a Fortune, and she might even have told him so. Her memory was vague on that point, but she knew for certain that she’d talked to her mother about it several times.

  Now, for some unknown reason, the truth was as clear as glass. All along, from the day Dallas had rescued Travis right up to the present, she’d been afraid that she could never measure up to the rest of the Fortunes. Yes, she loved Dallas, and after tonight she also believed that he loved her, too. But marriage? And living the Fortune life-style?

  She trembled from just the thought of it; the reality of herself in that situation would be much worse. And there was something else to remember, something that would cool the hottest passion: the painting of Sara above Dallas’s fireplace. He’d told her that he’d taken it down, but she would bet anything that it was still somewhere in his house.

  In Sara’s house!

  So there it was—all of it, she thought. Not only couldn’t she visualize herself as a Fortune, but she could never live in Sara’s house.

  Although tears clogged her throat and made speaking difficult, she managed a few words. “Sorry, but there’s no way I can see it the way you do.”

  “And you won’t marry me.”

  “Good night, Dallas,” she said wearily. In the next heartbeat she felt him getting off the bed. From movements and sounds in the dark room, she realized that he was feeling around for his clothes. Sitting up, she switched on the lamp. “You’re leaving?”

  The look he laid on her was cold as ice. “Yes, I’m leaving. Obviously there’s not much point to my hanging around here.”

  He dressed quickly and walked out without a goodbye.

  Sixteen

  Maggie was stunned. Numbly she sat there and stared at the door. The silence of the room bore a deathly, almost smothering quality, and the loneliness she’d felt earlier that evening returned to taunt her. Then her numbness turned into unbearable pain, and her mind screamed, Dallas, don’t go! I love you, I love you!

  And then, My Lord, what have I done?

  She fell across a pillow and began sobbing so hard that her shoulders shook. He’d done everything but get down on his knees and beg her to marry him, and she’d chosen loneliness over living with the only man she would ever love. She deserved to suffer. She deserved the pain that gnawed at raw nerves and caused great gulping sobs. She was a despicable, small-minded woman, and she didn’t blame Dallas for walking out.

  She couldn’t stop thinking terrible thoughts about herself, nor could she stop crying. She felt as though her entire body was filled with tears, and that she would cry until there was nothing left of her but a dried-up sack of skin. She cried until her eyes were red and swollen, and when her nose began to run, she got off the bed and went into the bathroom for some tissues.

  But blowing her nose and wiping her eyes did nothing to stop the flow, and she took a handful of tissues and went back to bed, stopping only long enough on the way to pick up her robe from the floor and put it on. Then she crawled into bed and continued to sob.

  Her own brain condemned her. What kind of fool was she? The greatest guy she’d ever known wanted to marry her—or he had wanted to marry her. Dallas would never propose again, and why should he? How many times could a man forgive a kick in the teeth? She’
d treated him shabbily, disdainfully and sometimes cruelly, again and again, and he’d kept coming back.

  But this time she knew in her soul that it was over between them. Tonight Dallas had washed his hands of her, and it was her doing. She’d caused her own misery, and she knew it wasn’t going to end simply because she had finally faced facts. She had sentenced herself to a lifetime of loneliness, all because she hadn’t been able to see herself as a member of the Fortune family, and because of Dallas’s house.

  How ludicrous that seemed now. A house was merely a building, and any woman with the slightest imagination could make a home hers. Why had she been so leery of moving into the house Dallas had shared with Sara? That poor dead woman was no threat.

  Every thought delivered more pain and another onslaught of tears. Maggie cried for so long that she was hoarse, and still it went on. Her next thought was maybe the worst one of all: she hadn’t only deprived herself of a wonderful husband, she had deprived Travis of a wonderful father!

  She was still weeping passionately when she heard a knock on the door and a voice quietly calling, “Maggie?”

  Leaping off the bed, she ran to the door and yanked it open. She nearly knocked Dallas over when she threw herself at him. “You came back…you came back,” she sobbed.

  “Something told me I should.” Dallas walked her into the room and shut the door. “You’ve been crying. You’re crying now.” He put his arms around her, and she sobbed into his shirt.

  “You…came back,” was all she could say in between the heaving sobs shaking her body.

  He took her chin and looked at her face. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes and nose were red and swollen. “My God, Maggie, how long have you been crying?”

  “Since—since you left.” Her voice was so hoarse that it didn’t even sound like hers, but she had things to say, so many things, and she rushed into them. “Dallas, I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time, maybe from the first. I have so much to apologize for that I don’t know where to begin, but if you’ll listen—”