by Ann Major
Seven
The Porsche roared across desolate ranch land beneath a star-beaded, ink-black canopy of sky. It wasn’t late, but it looked like it was because in southern Texas, as in the tropics, there was no lingering twilight. Blazing suns melted into nights as black and hot as pitch and vanished.
Megan’s hair whipped about her face in the warm humid wind that smelled of mesquite and huisache, cattle and dry earth. She felt Byrom’s fingers move beneath her flying hair to caress the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck.
Once she would have edged closer to him when he caressed her like that, but tonight she twisted away with a shudder. He stiffened at her rejection, pulled his hand away and replaced it on the steering wheel. The pointed toe of his boot jammed the accelerator to the floorboard, and the car leapt forward, tearing crazily down the black ribbon of road.
She knew she’d hurt him, but she couldn’t help it. All evening she’d felt strange and jittery every time he’d even lightly touched her.
He expected her to move closer, to take his hand, to smile at him invitingly, to apologize for the way she was behaving. Instead she remained rigidly where she was, staring into the silent darkness, wishing everything could be as it was before that night with Jeb. But she knew nothing would ever be the same again.
“I understand you’re pretty upset about Kirk,” Byrom said quietly, after a long time.
Gratefully she seized on the excuse he had provided. “Yes.”
Byrom kept talking along the same vein, his soothing words scarcely audible above the powerful roar of the car. After a while she stopped even trying to listen and tuned him out. Oh, why did she keep thinking longingly of a dark-faced man, as male as one of his great champion bulls, as stubborn as any mule; a man whose velvet drawl fell as softly on her ears as a musical caress?
It had been a month now since she’d slept with Jeb.
And two days since he’d sent her to California to pick up Janelle and bring her to Texas for his upcoming birthday. Though Megan hadn’t actually seen him with the softly golden and demure Janelle, she had felt tortured by the knowledge that they were together.
Tonight Megan had gone out with Byrom to forget Jeb and Janelle.
But all she had done was think about him incessantly.
True to his word, Jeb had avoided her and turned to Janelle. Instead of feeling relieved, Megan felt more tormented than ever.
Byrom cut the engine in front of the MacKay cottage, got out of the car and walked Megan to the door. They stood together, spotlighted in the golden cone of the porch light. The muted sounds of the television came from inside. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a movement as a dark, furled curtain fell back in place at the window.
Byrom pulled her into his arms, and his skillful mouth played over hers.
A sudden burst of male laughter from inside the house robbed her of the ability to concentrate on Byrom’s kiss. His mouth felt cold, alien on hers. Gently she pushed him away.
“Sounds like your brother has company,” Byrom said mildly.
From inside she heard her name huskily spoken, and the sound electrified her.
“Megan and I don’t always fight,” came that low melodious tone. “There have been times...”
She would have known that purring, sardonic drawl anywhere. Her heart began to pound like a frightened rabbit’s, even as her mind desperately tried to deny Jeb’s presence. Her golden skin paled, and her eyes glowed with an almost feverish brightness.
How dare Jeb speak of her in such a way—to her own brother—and so loud she and her date could hear him outside on the porch?
A tom-tom began to beat in her breast.
She had told Jeb she wanted him to stay away. And yet...
“Good night, Byrom,” Megan said, stiffening so she wouldn’t tremble.
“Good night?” Byrom’s quizzical blond brows shot upward. Usually she invited him inside.
She lowered her eyes with a demureness she was far from feeling. “Good night,” she said with grim finality. “My boss, Jeb Jackson, is inside. I’d better find out what he wants.”
“Saturday night then?”
“Okay.” She nodded, frantic for him to leave. “Saturday night.”
Then he was gone.
Megan threw the door open and slammed it behind her violently.
Two Indian-dark men swiveled in their chairs.
She tipped her head back and gazed defiantly into Jeb’s handsome face. “What do you want?”
“Careful,” Jeb purred in a low, lazy voice that made her heart pound even faster. “That’s my house you’re treating so roughly.”
“We’ll move if that’s what you want,” Megan snapped. She set her crimson scarf and her purse on a table and tried to tidy her hair with shaking hands.
“Can’t you be nice to Jeb this once?” Kirk asked.
Jeb’s eyes devoured her slowly, boldly evaluating every curve of her visible assets—and too many were visible in the strapless scarlet evening dress that fit her body like a glove.
Jeb’s sunburned face broke into an insolent grin. He watched the rapid rise and fall of her breasts pushing against the shimmering red cloth. For the first time she wished she’d worn something less dramatic, less revealing.
“You look good in red,” he murmured.
Was that a compliment or an insult? She didn’t know how to react, so she merely acknowledged him with a cold look that only made his white grin broaden and his eyes gleam.
Slowly his long, silent gaze kindled a new fire in her. Was one look all it took for Jeb Jackson to undress a woman?
“Been dancing instead of taking care of your brother, I see,” Jeb taunted silkily.
An electric hostility charged the air between them.
“Kirk insisted,” she bristled. “Tell him, Kirk.”
“Did I? I don’t remember. I’m staying out of this one, little sister,” her brother said dryly.
“You know you did!”
“There’s no need to shout at Kirk, Megan.” Jeb’s black eyes flashed with amusement. “A simple yes or no will do. Besides, no need to worry. I kept Kirk company...while you were out. Had there been an emergency—”
She glared into Jeb’s jeering, dark face. “You of all people have no right to judge me.”
Megan marched toward the kitchen, determined to escape him, but Jeb was right behind her.
“I’m not judging,” he whispered. “I’m just observing. And while I am, your lipstick’s smeared and your hair is a mess.”
She whirled. “So? Who cares?”
His eyes darkened to midnight black.
Megan would have given anything to be able to pretend he wasn’t there, but he moved closer, filling the kitchen with his virile presence. She was too disturbingly conscious of him.
“I do,” he whispered.
“What about Janelle?”
The creases around his mouth hardened. “Forget Janelle,” he ground out harshly.
“You have no right. You promised—”
He stared at Megan for a long moment. Her hair fell about her shoulders in wild red ribbons of flame. Her lips were soft and mussed from another man’s kiss.
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “That doesn’t seem to matter anymore,” Jeb muttered raggedly.
She glanced down, away from the hot darkness of his compelling gaze. For the first time Megan noticed that Jeb was holding the wooden figure of herself and him that her father had carved. Megan’s eyes lifted again, questioningly, to Jeb’s.
She no longer understood herself. She had wanted him out of her life. For the past two weeks he had completely ignored her, and she had been miserable. Now, in the kitchen, alone with him, she felt nervously excited, curiously exhilarated.
Her gaze fell to the carving again. The wooden figure in his tanned hand evoked bittersweet memories she would have preferred to forget. Glen had whittled the piece shortly before he had lost the ranch. Megan had adored Jeb then. She’d been sixteen
, a child, and yet not a child at all. The sweetness that had passed between them was something she wanted to erase from her mind, but every time she looked at the wooden figures, she remembered that afternoon with a deep and poignant nostalgia.
She snatched the carving from him, and as she did, their fingers touched. A delicious shiver danced over her skin. She jerked her hand from his, but not before liquid fire had flashed from his caress.
His gaze ran over her face, black and glinting. Then Jeb reached up and brushed her lips with a fingertip. “I’ve fancied that piece for years, Megan.”
The subtle inflection of eroticism in his low tone deepened the color in her face and made a golden fire race in her veins. Something elemental seemed to hover in the air, charging it with tension.
“It’s a particular favorite of mine,” he said. “It brings back memories. I never realized before how much I cherished them.”
He made a deep study of her mouth and the rounded swell of her breasts. His smoldering look made her blood pulse with excitement.
“You’re the last person on earth I’d believe to have a sentimental nature.”
“So you remember that day, too?” His hand settled on her bare shoulder possessively.
“No!” she whispered tightly, even as she was drawn by a magnetic force that somehow emanated from him. “Let me go.”
He smoothed her wild hair with his fingers. When he had finished, he nestled her head against the curve of his throat. “We walked down to the beach. The sun was like fire in your hair. You picked up so many shells we didn’t have enough hands to carry them back. I remember you weaving wildflowers into your hair.”
She felt his lips against her temple, his warm breath falling rhythmically against her hair, and she was no longer struggling. She wanted him to go on holding her, to go on talking forever.
His hand curved along her slender throat and he turned her face toward his. “Then,” he continued huskily, “comes my favorite part...”
“Stop!”
Jeb’s eyes touched hers, and she knew he was remembering that young, eager kiss, her first. She had loved him so desperately, so childishly. She hadn’t known then how unscrupulous he was. He’d accepted her kiss, then gently set her aside.
“So you do remember?” he whispered teasingly.
“No...”
“Liar. I was a fool not to take what you freely offered. I was trying to be noble. I’d take it now.” There was leashed passion in his husky tone. “Gladly.”
His lips followed the dark line of a winged brow, and she seemed to stop breathing at the velvet warmth of his mouth tracing along her skin.
“Megan...” His voice was low, urgent.
She felt the pressure of his hand near the small of her back as he arched her toward him. His mouth closed over her parted lips.
The hard muscles of his chest flattened her breasts. Through the thin red dress she could feel the violent thudding of his heart.
Her fingers curved around his neck, into the silken black thickness of his hair. Jeb lifted his head a fraction of an inch, and their hot breath mingled when he spoke. “Open your mouth. I want to taste you.”
His hard lips claimed hers again. In the hot, wet fullness of the kiss, wildfire raced through her arteries. Her bones seemed to melt, and she clung to him limply. An instinct that was fierce and wild and pure had taken her over.
When Jeb dragged his mouth from hers a long time later, his taut voice trembled hoarsely against the slender column of her throat. She felt the blistering heat of his skin touching hers.
“Glen watched us come back laughing and running. Then he sat down on the porch and was quiet for a spell while he whittled that out of a block of wood. I’d give anything to have it, Megan. I’d pay anything...”
He was holding her, not kissing her, and she struggled against the primitive desire exploding within her.
“It’s not for sale.”
There was a faint grimness about his sun-bronzed features. “Megan...”
Jeb was about to kiss her again, and she knew if he did, she’d never be able to fight her way out of the whirlpool of passion he could so easily evoke.
Stiffening with fear, Megan wrenched herself free and ran back to the living room. Kirk looked up from a magazine as she clumsily thrust the wooden figure back on its shelf, knocking over two others.
His sister’s eyes were blazing. Her normally pale face was livid with emotion.
“You giving Jeb a hard time again?” Kirk demanded.
Jeb stalked into the room after her.
“Jeb, sorry if Megan’s got it in for you. She really can be fun when she’s not as mad as ten hornets.”
Jeb grinned. His gaze slid to her trembling mouth. “She certainly can be.”
Megan bit her lips and refused to look at either of them.
“The figure’s yours, Jeb,” Kirk said generously, “if you want it. All it does here is gather dust.”
“It’s not yours to give, Kirk,” Megan snapped.
Kirk threw his magazine on the table with grim resolve. “Wouldn’t you say it’s little enough to pay for your brother’s life?”
“I never realized the piece was a favorite of yours, too, Megan,” Jeb said softly, mockingly.
“It isn’t one of my favorites!” she lied.
“Then why are you so determined to hold on to it?” Jeb’s voice was velvet smooth; his eyes too knowing.
“Because Glen gave it to me! He gave me little enough. You took everything else that had any real value.”
Kirk stared at her, appalled. He started to say something, but she cut him off before he could begin to lecture her. “And you just sat back and let Jeb take it, Kirk MacKay. You’re always rushing off to fight for strangers. Why didn’t you fight for what was ours?”
“The ranch was Glen’s,” Kirk said, his low voice hard-edged. “Not mine. Or yours, Megan. If he wanted to gamble away what was left of it in a poker game, I figured it was his to gamble. Gambling always gave him more pleasure than those scrap acres ever did. Besides, after Mother left, I never cared much for the place. I don’t think Glen did, either. Maybe if he’d have moved to town and taken a job, Mother would have stayed.”
“I’ll never understand why you went to work for Jeb after he took—”
“Maybe ‘cause I was tired of fighting. Trouble with you is you’ve never gotten the fighting out of your system. Jeb’s sheltered and protected you all your life. He’s spoiled you, Megan.”
“Jeb... spoiled... Come on, Kirk!”
“No, you listen for once. When I went away, I asked him to take care of you, and he did.”
“You what?”
“I knew I couldn’t trust Glen to do it.”
“Don’t say those things about Daddy!”
“It’s the truth. You always had a knack for getting into trouble. Glen never was much good at stopping you. The reason you were usually mad at Jeb was because he was keeping you out of it.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again.
“And when I came home, even though he couldn’t afford to, Jeb gave me a job. And more important, he gave me some time and space to forget. Jeb’s been the closest thing to a friend you or I have ever had. I keep hoping that one day you’ll have the sense to see it.”
“Sometimes I don’t have any use for either of you!” Her eyes glittered briefly from Kirk to Jeb. Then she stormed to her bedroom and slammed the door.
“She sure is hell on doors,” Jeb said innocently.
“Be glad it’s only doors,” Kirk replied with big-brotherly indifference. “She’s sure been unusually cranky since Mexico too. You’d think she’d be glad I wasn’t shot to bits. I guess it shook her up when you brought me back to the plane half dead and those guys started shooting. I’ve seen soldiers crack up under less pressure than that. Jeb, you can have that statue. I’ll straighten things out with Megan after you’re gone.”
Jeb expelled a harsh breath. “No, I won’t take anyt
hing from Megan that she doesn’t give me willingly.
But it’s getting late, and you’re looking tired.” He spoke louder so Megan would hear him. “By the way, don’t forget that the main reason I stopped by was because I wanted to remind Megan and you to be sure and come to my birthday party Saturday.”
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
From the other side of the door there was the sound of something shattering against a hard floor.
Megan flung open her bedroom door. Her hair still tumbled in wild disarray. She’d changed into Kirk’s overlarge green shirt again. “I’d miss it, gladly!”
“I thought you’d gone to bed,” Jeb said dryly, coming up to her and smiling with perverse pleasure as he let his hot insolent gaze roam over the length of her. “I should’ve known you’d have your ear pressed to the door till I left.”
A dull red flush crept over her fair skin. “I have a date Saturday night,” she said heatedly.
The line of Jeb’s mouth thinned harshly. “Bring him along.”
“But...”
“I insist.” Contempt was audible in his demand. “Let me make it clear—you’re invited to my private party in the house, not the party outside for the ranch hands.”
More than anything she wanted to refuse.
“I did save your brother,” Jeb added, “or doesn’t that mean anything?”
Her skin went white. Her eyes were icy-green glitter. Kirk was watching her closely.
How dare Jeb accuse her of not caring for Kirk! A dozen hot insults leapt to her tongue.
“Megan!” Kirk warned. “Say you’ll go... for me.”
Megan was about to protest, but as she glanced toward her brother, she saw that despite his massive build, he looked gray with fatigue. He was sick of her being set against Jeb. He wanted her to go and there was no way she could refuse.
Megan nodded slowly in defeat.
Jeb watched her, his black eyes narrowing thoughtfully.
“I guess that settles that,” Jeb declared, picking up his Stetson and planting it on his gleaming black head. Under his breath as he passed her, he growled, “I win as usual.”
