Maybe the future wasn’t as bleak for them as he thought.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
Anticipation and alarm zipped up and down her spine like two downhill racers. Morgan set down her piece of half-eaten cake on the table. “You noticed.”
Since she wasn’t turning to him, Wyatt went around to stand in front of her. He knew there were several women at the reception who would have been more than willing to try to make him forget about Morgan, but for this evening, Wyatt didn’t want to forget.
“Why?”
Why couldn’t the man just let things be and let her continue to avoid him? Why? Because he was Wyatt, that’s why. Wyatt, the bane of her existence.
“I’d think that would be obvious. I don’t want to get into another compromising situation with you where you could take advantage—”
He took exception to her choice of words. “Who took advantage of who?”
“Whom,” she corrected clinging to the side track. “Your grammar’s off.”
His eyes on hers, he toyed with the large gold hoop that dangled from her ear. Another shiver raced down her spine, heading for home. “That’s not the only thing that’s off.”
She had to get away from him before what was left of her resistance did a nosedive. Spotting Kent, she saw her way out. With determination she made her way toward her brother, Wyatt bringing up the rear.
“This is all very fascinating, but—” her voice drifted to him over her shoulder “—if you’ll excuse me, I promised this dance to Kent.”
Kent took quick assessment of the situation. “No, you didn’t.” He beckoned Brianne over. “I’ve got a very jealous wife.” As she joined him, he wrapped his arms around Brianne. “You’re on your own, kid,” he told Morgan. As an afterthought, he leaned toward her and added, “By the way, did you know he was asking everyone about you?” Nodding at Wyatt, Kent danced away with Brianne, leaving Morgan stranded.
Wyatt caught his lower lip with his teeth. It was the only thing keeping his jaw from dropping open. Obviously he couldn’t trust the Cutler brothers to keep a secret. At least, not where their baby sister was concerned.
She looked at him intently, determined to get at the truth. “And just what,” Morgan wanted to know, “have you been asking?”
“Dance with me, we’ll look less conspicuous,” he instructed amiably. Then, not waiting for her to agree, he took her into his arms, his hips swaying to the beat. She had no choice but to comply.
It seemed to her that she was doing that a lot lately, not having any choice, going along with things.
It had been a late-morning wedding. The reception that followed was being held behind the Cutler ranch house, with canopies scattered here and there for those who wanted to get out of the sun. Will and Quint had put up a temporary dance floor, and it was there that Wyatt was leading her.
Because she didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention, she waited until they were dancing. A whole new set of problems arose, but since they all had to do with her, she tried desperately to ignore them.
“Why are you pumping my brothers about me?” she demanded.
He laughed. “A couple of questions can hardly be called pumping.”
She’d be the judge of that. Why was he asking anything at all? They’d known each other most of their lives. He knew everything about her that needed knowing. “What kind of questions?”
He pretended to think. He could see the color rising to her cheeks again.
If he’d lived to be a hundred, Wyatt would have never thought he would see Morgan blushing. Just showed that you learned something every day. He spun her around the floor and then pulled her back into his arms. “You like me, don’t you, Morgan.” He made it a statement.
Of all the egotistical, big-headed…If she’d been entertaining thoughts along that line, he’d made them evaporate. “I what?”
“You like me,” he repeated. He saw Morgan’s eyes darken to a deeper shade of blue. Storm warnings, he mused. “Don’t worry, it’s not all onesided. I like you, too.”
As if that mattered to her. Morgan ignored the slight leap her heart made and frowned. “Very big of you.”
“I think so.” Wyatt looked into her eyes, and the teasing smile faded into something serious. “I mean it, you know. I’m not sure if it was at Hank’s wedding or Kent’s, but you’ve suddenly become a very real, very vibrant woman for me. And I like what I find.” He paused as Morgan struggled with an unexpected bout of speechlessness. “Or maybe it was at the hospital.”
The reference jolted her back to reality. “The hospital?”
Wyatt nodded, guiding Morgan around another couple. “You remember, that day your father had his heart attack.”
Morgan knew she’d never forget one second of that awful day even if she lived forever. She stiffened, trying to avoid the feel of Wyatt’s hand on her back. She remembered how afraid she’d been and how vulnerable. And what he’d said to shatter her world and make her feel like a fool. How dare he try to make that into something special now?
“What I remember is that I poured out my heart to you, you kissed me and then told me you were getting married—that’s what I remember.”
He’d told her the truth back then because for a glimmer of a moment, he’d felt something for her. Felt that just possibly, there might have even been something between them, given the chance, but it had already been too late.
“One thing didn’t have anything to do with the other. You were telling me about how afraid you were that your father was going to die. My getting married didn’t affect that one way or another.”
But it did. It had torn out her heart just at the moment she’d wanted to offer it to him. He’d been kind to her, kind and concerned, and the antagonism between them had transformed into something else. Something equally as charged but far more compelling. Until he’d told her about Judith.
Morgan drew back and studied him. “You don’t have a clue, do you?”
Lost. He felt he was lost again. It happened a lot around her. The woman should come with a road map and a manual of instructions. “Where you’re concerned? Guilty as charged.”
Morgan didn’t want to trade quips, not when her heart was so heavily involved. Instead, rather than say anything in response, she slipped her hands from his and walked away from him.
Wyatt stared at her back. He wasn’t conscious of any of the people who were looking in his direction. All he was conscious of was that Morgan was walking away from him. Again.
He caught up to her in three strides and took hold of her arm, marshaling her over to the side away from most prying stares. He saw indignation flash in her eyes, but he wasn’t about to give her a chance to use that lethal mouth of hers. Not for a dressing down, at any rate.
“Seems to me that in the last three weeks, I’ve seen enough of your back, Morgan, to last me a lifetime,” he declared in hushed tones against her ear.
Morgan pulled her head away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The hell she didn’t. “You keep walking away from me.”
And she was going to keep right on walking. “Emphasis on the word away.”
This time Wyatt wasn’t going to give up and let her go. This time he wanted to undo the tangle of misunderstanding that existed between them. “I didn’t force myself on you.”
Morgan refused to let Wyatt say that she had wanted him. That it was true didn’t matter, she wasn’t going to feed his ego; it was just what he wanted. “You caught me off guard, remember?”
The excuse only stretched so far. “The first second.” Wyatt held up his index finger. “What’s your excuse after that?” He realized that he’d raised his voice, so he lowered it. “Well?”
Morgan pressed her lips together ruefully. “I’m working on it.”
She could work on it from now until doomsday, it didn’t change the facts. “The truth is, Cutler, you don’t have an excuse. You wanted to make love with me.”
&
nbsp; And now he was gloating about it. What had she expected? She glanced around to see if anyone had overheard them. But no one seemed to be listening. At least that was going in her favor.
“So, I have self-destructive tendencies.” Her chin jutted out defiantly, daring Wyatt to make something of this. “So what?”
“Why is it self-destructive?”
What else could it be? He certainly didn’t want a long-term relationship. “Well, whatever’s between us isn’t going to go anywhere, is it?” she demanded. Then her voice softened just a tad. “Is it?” she repeated.
Smooth lines didn’t seem appropriate here. And oddly he was out of them, at any rate.
“I don’t know.” The hurt look in her eyes cut him to the quick. He caught her wrist just as she started to leave again. He wasn’t finished. “What I do know is that when you’re not around, you’re still around for me.”
More double-talk. Morgan sighed. “I’m not in the mood for riddles.”
Why did she keep twisting things around? “It’s not a riddle, it’s a fact. You keep lingering on my mind, Morgan.” Suddenly he had to make her understand. And maybe if he could make her understand, he could make himself understand it, as well. “Like smoke long after the fire’s died down.”
The analogy hit her the wrong way. “So now I’m a burned-out forest fire?”
He laughed shortly. Served him right for getting involved with her in the first place. But now that he was, he couldn’t seem to shake himself loose.
“I don’t know what you are, Morgan,” he told her honestly. “Except for on my mind night and day.”
He didn’t want her walking away again. He didn’t want anything else in this world, except to be with her. Oh, God, he had to be losing his mind, he thought. He wasn’t making any sense. None of this made any sense to him.
His eyes held hers before he said, “Make love with me, Morgan.”
She had to be hearing things. Yet he looked deadly serious. Morgan looked around. The reception area was filled with family and friends. Most of the town was here, for heaven’s sake. His parents were a few yards away, talking to their other son, Casey. Wyatt had to be laughing at her.
“Where? Right here, where everyone can see?” Morgan tried desperately to hide the mounting quaver in her voice.
“No,” he said softly. He looked behind her toward the back door. “In your room.”
“My room?” Did he have a death wish? If anyone came in on them, she’d never live it down. “I—”
Wyatt laid a finger to her lips, stilling her protest, an entreaty in his eyes.
Morgan sighed, surrendering long before she uttered a word.
Her breath brushed along his skin, heightening his excitement, his anticipation.
“I must be crazy,” she murmured.
Wyatt smiled at her. “Then that would make two of us.”
Somehow, there was a comfort in that. Without a word Morgan took his hand and led him to the back door. Opening it, she slipped inside.
Wyatt followed. He had no choice. She still had his hand.
Jake slid the healthy slab of wedding cake onto his plate, but his attention was elsewhere. Nudging his wife, he pointed toward the back door, sparing not a little pride.
“Looks like I started something.”
He looked as if his chest was going to bust out of the tuxedo. Zoe smiled indulgently, patting his arm. Why did men always think that they were the movers and the shakers?
“You didn’t start anything, old man.” To soften the words, Zoe brushed a kiss against his cheek.
He took a different view of the events. “Oh, then who did?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Nature.” Zoe did a little quick calculation in her head. “Springing a trap that was twenty years in the making I suspect.”
“You can’t tell me I didn’t help oil that trap a little. What do you say, after we send the newlyweds on their way, you and I take a little stroll down memory lane and relive our own wedding night?”
“You mean relive fumbling in the dark for the first time?”
“I never fumbled,” he protested, his mouth curving generously.
Her smile matched his as she rested her head on his shoulder. She loved this man with all her heart and hoped that her children would be as lucky in their choice of mate as she was with hers. “No,” she agreed, “you never did.”
9
Sixteen, that was the age Wyatt made her feel. Morgan felt as if she were sixteen again, sneaking into her room for a necking session while her parents were out of the house, instead of a full-grown woman with a serious career and responsibilities.
There was more to it than that, Morgan thought, making her way up the stairs. Wyatt didn’t just make her feel as if she were sixteen, he made her feel, period. Feel things she’d given up hope of ever feeling. The very prospect was exhilarating and frightening at the same time.
She’d waited all her life for this to happen, to have a feeling sustain itself for more than what seemed like a few minutes. There’d never been a shortage of men in her life. But they had all failed to keep the attraction going. She’d always lost interest so quickly she’d begun to secretly believe there was something wrong with her. She’d never met any man who measured up to the shadows her brothers cast, never met anyone who had made her yearn to see them again. Yearn to be in a moment that contained them in it, as well.
Coming to the landing, she glanced at Wyatt. Glanced at him and felt the excitement bubble anew within her veins. Even though she’d tried to avoid him because of the complications that were involved, secretly, deep down where she lived, she wanted to see Wyatt. Wanted to be near him.
There was no point in lying to herself. She wanted to make love with him again.
Why, of all the men in the world, did it have to be this one who lit her flame? She knew she meant nothing to Wyatt beyond a challenge. Why then couldn’t she just walk away?
Because she couldn’t. It was as simple as that.
But the parade of weddings would be over next week, and then her life would return to normal. Whatever “normal” was.
The prospect didn’t cheer her.
Morgan softly closed the door to her room. The sound of the lock slipping into place echoed in her head.
Prelude to a Seduction, she thought. But who was seducing whom?
Wyatt looked around the small bedroom. He’d peered into the room countless times throughout the years, usually sticking his head in to get off a teasing remark at his friend’s pesky kid sister.
All that seemed like a hundred years ago, happening in another lifetime to someone else. Certainly not to him.
She was nervous, he realized. It would have been hard for him to envision that, if he hadn’t been here to see it. But there was an uneasy look in her eyes, as if she had suddenly thought better of what she was doing. Heaven, he hoped not.
Wyatt slipped his arms around her and drew Morgan closer to him. A delicious tension began to hum through him. “Change your mind?”
A dozen times since she’d taken his hand. All the way up the stairs she’d been involved in an internal debate that had bordered on an argument.
Morgan cocked her head, looking at him, searching for answers to questions she hadn’t fully formed. “And if I did?”
Ever so lightly, Wyatt pressed a kiss to the side of her throat. Her pulse jumped, telling him that she was just as much a prisoner of these feelings as he was. It helped some, knowing that. Knowing that he wasn’t the only one in this heavenly hell he found himself.
He sighed. “I’d be forced to take a cold shower while you went out to rejoin the party.”
Morgan studied his face, trying to discern if he was just saying what he thought she wanted to hear. “And that’s it?”
“That’s it—” mischief glinted in his eyes “—unless you wanted to hang around to dry me off.” He whispered another kiss to her throat, this time on the opposite side. “In which case I think we might skip the
shower altogether. Or take it together.”
It was hard forming words, hard thinking, when desire burned such holes in her, but she needed to have at least some things cleared up. He was coming off terribly noble. There had to be a flaw.
“You wouldn’t call me a tease and then—”
He stopped kissing her and looked at Morgan. Was she asking what he thought she was asking?
“And then what? Force myself on you?” The smile faded. She couldn’t be serious. That wasn’t his way. It never had been. “Hey, Morgan, even when you claimed not to like me, you knew me better than that.”
Yes, she thought, she knew him better than that. The one thing she did know about Wyatt McCall was that he wasn’t the kind of man who’d force himself on a woman. But then, he didn’t have to. As far as she knew, no one’d ever refused him. And she no longer could lay claim to that honor.
It bothered her a great deal that she was just part of a group.
What had she expected? To be placed on a pedestal? She’d known where she stood with Wyatt before any of this had begun. Sexy, silver-tongued, charming, the man never indulged in games.
And then Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, I ‘claimed’ not to like you? Are you saying that I liked you?”
He knew that tone. She was spoiling for a fight. Maybe to alleviate her guilt over having feelings for him, he didn’t know and he was in no mood to analyze it, not when his hands begged to touch her, not when his lips ached to kiss her and his body yearned for the feel of hers.
“Morgan,” he said softly, his fingers lightly gliding along her face, seducing her senses, “I don’t want to argue with you. I don’t want to trade words or go five rounds. Let’s just say that you win, okay?”
“Win?” She pounced on the word. “So now you’re a prize?”
That wasn’t what he meant. Wyatt grinned. “If you say so. But what I was talking about is that I was surrendering and that you won whatever confrontation you thought we were having.” He feathered a light network of kisses along her face, reducing her to a barely standing, quickly dissolving liquid mass of hot needs. “I really don’t want to fight.”
A Match for Morgan Page 10
