by Norah Wilson
Finally, finally, he kissed her the way his eyes had promised these past days. His mouth was dark and male and sinful, and she gloried in the taste of him.
It was like being hauled up into the funnel of a tornado, she thought dazedly. His mouth robbed her of breath, seeming to pull the very essence from her. His hard hands flashed over her, heating her flesh and making her head spin. Mindlessly, she arched into him, welcoming him. With another deep-throated sound, he ground himself against her. Already her insides were liquefying, readying to accept him. It was madness, but she prayed it would never end.
He splayed a hand inside the open vee of her shirt to explore the hollows of her collarbones. She made a small protesting sound when he abandoned her mouth, but it turned into a sigh as his lips found the leaping pulse at the base of her throat. All she could think was how good that hot mouth felt, how it might feel on her breasts. Then it was back on her mouth, kissing her even more urgently than before.
Anywhere, she thought. He could touch her anywhere with that talented mouth, those clever hands. She’d do anything as long as he didn’t stop. On a surge of raw lust, she caught his lower lip between her teeth and bit. His growl thrilled her, but then he flexed a powerful thumb against her throat.
Something about his action, the pressure on her neck, penetrated the fever of Lauren’s arousal. Marlena! That was it. She was supposed to be safeguarding a would-be murder victim, not losing herself in this sweet, sensual fog. This was why she’d resolved not to get involved with Cal.
Reluctantly she pulled back, her mouth stilling, her hands pressing against his chest now instead of roaming his strong back. It took him a second to recognize her signal, and in fact his hands tightened on her before relaxing and setting her free.
Cal felt the change in her, but his mind rebelled at the idea of letting her go. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted a woman like this. Surely one had never tasted so sweet or responded so thrillingly. But there was no mistaking her will. She wanted loose. Dragging in a ragged breath, he released her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stepping back. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, but he knew enough to know an apology rarely went amiss between a man and a woman.
“Don’t be,” she said, a rueful smile curving her lips. “I think it was pretty evident I enjoyed it.”
That verbal confirmation gave him a jolt, which he instructed his body to ignore.
“It’s just…”
“Just what?” he probed.
“Well, we were kissing and it was so good and I didn’t want to stop. I mean, I really didn’t want to stop. In another few minutes…I was afraid it was going to go too far.”
“Not if you didn’t want it to,” he pointed out. Hell, he’d stopped, hadn’t he? The very moment he’d felt pushback, he’d stopped.
She grimaced. “The problem is I didn’t want to stop either. But then I thought, Who is this man?”
A choking noise was the best he could do.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it? I don’t really know you. I don’t know you, yet I was almost ready to have sex with you. It happened so fast. I guess I just got scared.”
“Of me? I’d never hurt you, Lauren. I’d never hurt any woman.”
“I believe you. But frankly, I scared myself.”
He searched her face, found her blue gaze unwavering. She spoke the truth, he realized. Or part of it. Something inside him unclenched. “Okay, I’ll accept that you don’t know me very well.” He took a deep breath and exhaled. “But you can start with this: I’d never force myself on a woman. Ever.”
She nodded. “Got it.”
“Also, while we’re being honest, I’m not really sorry I kissed you.”
She laughed, a real, genuine laugh that had his own lips turning up in a smile.
“I’m glad,” she said, and her face sobered. “I’m not really sorry either.”
And she would be more careful henceforth. He read that message in her eyes as clearly as though she’d said it aloud. But he wasn’t in the least deflated by it. She’d called a halt because she didn’t know him? Well, she was here for a good stretch. If he had anything to say about it, he’d change that.
He didn’t say that, though. Instead he said, “Good. But we’d better get going now. We don’t want to be tripping down this ridge in the dark.”
Cal hung back, letting Lauren lead the way back down the ridge to the cabin. She’d have no trouble retracing their steps.
She was an enigma, that one. She’d been just as hot as he’d fantasized. Hotter. But with an innate sense of caution and no shortage of strength of will. He admired that.
Scared her, she’d said. Fair enough. It’d scared him too.
Oh, not the speed and power of it. He’d known she’d be all fire and demand. What scared him was touching her and finding her there, right there beneath the surface, so real and complete and present. He’d wanted to kiss that mouth, feast on every inch of that tall, slender body, but he hadn’t counted on her being so damned…alive in her skin.
That was going to take some getting used to. Touching her—holding her—was unsettling, but God help him, impossibly exciting too. In fact, it was just like the way he felt when she trained those eyes of hers on him.
Oh, wait, hold the phone—it was exactly like that! It was—
He stumbled on a tuft of grass and nearly went slamming into Lauren. Shit, he’d have to pay better attention. But that thought—holy Mary, it had knocked him blind.
Yes, by God, it was as though she saw him just as acutely with the rest of her body—with the pores of her very skin!—as she did with that eerie gaze.
As they picked their way down the slope, he tried to talk himself out of the idea, which was pretty damned fanciful by any sane man’s measure, but he couldn’t seem to dislodge it. And if it was true…well, that didn’t bode well for his chances with her. She’d soon know there wasn’t much worth bothering with inside him. There’d be no concealing that, ’cause he couldn’t act worth a damn.
Just ask his ex-wife.
A dull ache gripped his gut.
Failure.
If he’d been a better actor, maybe Marlena could have stayed faithful. She needed to have a man crazy in love with her all the time, and to his enduring shame, he’d had neither the commitment nor the stamina to be that man.
Of course, everyone expected him to be wild with jealousy, and for a while he was. But it quickly resolved into bitter acceptance. He’d told himself he’d sent her packing to keep order among his men, and there was truth enough in that. But on those occasions when he allowed his mind to be still, he suspected his decision had more to do with getting rid of the evidence of his failure.
And now she was back. Though she wasn’t his wife anymore, she was still a living reminder of his emotional shortcomings. And like a mare in season in a corral full of stallions, she could still be trouble. Maybe it was just as well she’d singled out one man. Cal hoped the much younger Brady could keep her preoccupied so she didn’t create havoc with his ranch hands.
Yeah, he’d have to keep an eye on her, for sure. The eye that wasn’t fastened on Lauren, that is.
Cripes, if he could get through the summer without the ranch going to hell, it’d be a miracle.
An hour later, the four of them sat awkwardly around the table. When Cal announced he would sleep outside to keep an eye on the horses, Lauren almost sighed her relief.
Cal stood. “Anything I can do for you before I go, Lauren?” There was nothing in his expression to suggest that he was offering anything more than normal courtesy toward a guest, but she lifted an eyebrow as she gazed back at him. “No, thanks. I’m just about ready to turn in.”
Lauren watched his profile as he turned to his ex-wife. “I trust you won’t want for anything, Marlena.”
To Lauren’s ears, the insult seemed automatic, without heat.
“Thanks, Callum, sweetie, but I can take care of my own needs quite adeq
uately.”
Marlena’s rejoinder was equally reflexive, requiring no conscious thought…
Wait a minute…Callum? His real name was Callum?
“’Night, then.” Cal collected his bedroll and left.
Despite her assessment that the exchange had contained more habit than heat, the tension in the cabin dipped with Cal’s exit. Maybe Marlena was a better actress than Lauren thought. Maybe better than Cal thought. For that matter, maybe they were both Oscar contenders.
Or maybe the threat to Marlena had absolutely nothing to do with the people in this cabin. Cal had said that his ex-wife was being sought by a loan shark’s thug. Could the thug find her here? But even if he did track her down, would defaulting on a debt earn her a death sentence? Putting a scare into her, sure. Maybe even hurting her or disfiguring her pretty face. But murder? How did you get money out of a corpse?
Of course, a man who made his living inflicting pain on other people probably derived a sick, sadistic pleasure from it. Maybe he’d come to put a scare into Marlena per his boss’s orders, but just got carried away…
Suddenly she couldn’t think about it anymore. She said her goodnights and headed for the back bedroom.
Her mind numb from exhaustion and the stress of the day, she grabbed her nightshirt and pulled it over her head. As the fabric skimmed down her body, her breasts tingled in remembered arousal.
Oh, Christmas, that had been a close thing! If the pressure of Cal’s big, work-hardened hand on her throat hadn’t reminded her of Marlena and the fate awaiting her if she couldn’t unmask the murderer, God only knew what might have happened up there on that—
Oh, God! She touched her fingers to her throat. He’d had his hand there—right there—on her neck, his thumb flexing against her throat. Yet she hadn’t panicked. Her heart hadn’t thundered and she hadn’t freaked. It hadn’t sent her into hysterical conjecture about Cal as the possible suspect. It had simply served to remind her of her whole reason for being here.
She smiled as she crawled into bed. Clearly nothing from her unconscious vision track had been triggered. Hal would say that was better than passing a polygraph.
Hal. She should call him and give him an update. She’d phoned him before she’d left, telling him what she planned to do. He’d been less than enthusiastic about it and, yeah, worried for her. But he understood. He really did. What was the point of these visions if she couldn’t help anyone? She’d failed so many. That young male prostitute…If only she’d been able to ID the backdrop as Montreal. It had been a good week before those images stopped sending her racing for the bathroom to try to vomit them up. She’d still been in veterinary college at the time and had had to dash out of so many classes everyone must have thought she was pregnant. Even now the memory still had the power to make her stomach lurch, but with the passage of months and years, she’d learned to wall it off.
And that military wife battered to death by her husband. In its own way, that one had been even more horrifying to watch. While it lacked the pure, sadistic evil of the young man’s murder, seeing a woman brutalized by the very man who should have protected her had changed Lauren. Changed the way she looked at men. There was no unseeing this stuff.
And unfortunately there’d been no way to help that poor woman, though Hal had tried. The interior of every PMQ looked pretty much like the next one, and even though that guy had had visible tattoos on his forearm and a distinctive keloid burn scar on the back of one hand, it had been like finding a needle in a haystack. Hal had unofficially felt out the military police at various military bases, but with nothing concrete to offer up, the MPs weren’t too inclined to share about any frequent fliers who might bear those distinctive markings on the left arm and hand.
So, yeah, Hal had understood Lauren’s need to do this, but he still hadn’t been happy to see her pack her bags.
And speaking of phone calls, she really should call her sister.
She’d gone to visit her mother in person to tell her about her impending trip, to which Bonnie Townsend had replied, “That’s nice, dear. It’s about time you took yourself a vacation. You work too much.” Then she’d gone back to fussing over Lauren’s father, who was still recovering from the side effects of a stroke that had forced his early retirement. “Did you hear that, Paul? Lauren’s going on holiday.” Her father had managed a, “Good for you, baby girl.”
She could have gone from there straight to her sister’s house, but she hadn’t wanted to face Danielle. No way would her older sister have believed Lauren had booked an extended dude ranch vacation on five days’ notice. She’d have poked and prodded until Lauren told her what was really going on, and then she would have wailed, “Not this again!” If that had happened, Lauren might have been guilted into canceling her arrangements. Lauren owed Danielle, and Danny wouldn’t let her forget it.
Lauren gnawed the inside of her lip. Her memories of that time were foggy, but she knew the gist of it. She’d brought their small community’s outrage down upon her family by telling the cops that the DiGiacinto girl’s mother was the one who’d committed the murder. Lauren had been too young to be terribly conscious of the adult fallout. Well, beyond her parents’ reaction, which had been traumatizing enough to stop the visions. But poor Danielle had been eleven. Plenty old enough to understand the near-pariah status her family had endured in those early days.
So, taking the coward’s way out, she’d just left a breezy message on Danny’s voicemail telling her she was Alberta-bound for vacation and would see her in a few weeks.
And now here she was, hunting for an unknown murderer before he could commit the crime.
And thinking lascivious thoughts about the cowboy lying somewhere outside in his lonely bedroll. Was he thinking of her too? The thought made her twist restlessly.
She’d given Cal the truth. The suddenness of the passionate explosion between them had shaken her. Not because she was afraid of passion; not by a long shot! And she would apologize to no one for that. But omigod, she hardly knew the man and she’d come this close to doing him right there. He’d taken her red light graciously enough, but she’d felt his speculative gaze on her back all the way down the ridge. He’d test the waters again. She had no doubt of it.
What she did doubt was her own ability to deny him.
Face it, she chided herself, you’re vulnerable.
She hadn’t had a relationship with anything except her vibrator since Garrett broke off their engagement, and that was over a year ago. A year that marked her longest period of celibacy since she’d become sexually active in university. Not that she hadn’t had plenty of opportunities to replace Garrett in her bed since then. But somehow she hadn’t been able to, and not out of undying love or loyalty to her former fiancé. She’d gotten over that pretty quickly when she realized he couldn’t accept her as she was.
How clichéd was that? For the whole eighteen months of their relationship, she’d managed to hide from him the fact that she occasionally had these violent visions that turned her inside out. But when things got serious—after he’d proposed and she’d accepted—she’d belatedly realized that he had to know. She couldn’t see building a life with someone who didn’t know her secrets. But when her secret was revealed, he’d said he needed to sleep on it. Fair enough, she’d thought. She’d delivered a pretty big bombshell. Nevertheless, she was stunned the next day when he texted her—texted her, for God’s sake!—that he couldn’t marry her. In hindsight, he’d proposed too soon. Could they just take a step back?
She’d taken a step back, all right. Right out of his life. The jerk.
That’s what had held her back this past year. Not that she felt she needed to blurt out the bit about the visions thing on a first date, but then the question became, at what point did you tell a romantic partner? And what was the point of a relationship if she didn’t tell? As she’d demonstrated to Cal up on that ridge tonight, she clearly wasn’t ready to jump into bed with a guy she knew casually just to scra
tch an itch.
But she was close.
So close, in fact, that if she hadn’t rededicated herself to her mission, Cal would be in her bed right now.
Just like that, the pictures were there—Cal holding himself over her, his weight braced on those powerful arms, caging her, his pale eyes unreadable in the dark…
Damn. So not what she should be thinking about. She squeezed her thighs together, seeking relief from the ache.
Forget it, Townsend. Nothing’s changed.
Yet even as she told herself that, she knew that everything had changed. She’d touched his face, kissed his mouth, felt his sex stir…
“Aaargh!” Pure thoughts. Pulling the quilts over her head, she tried to channel Mother Teresa.
Lauren woke to the smell of bacon frying. Groaning, she fumbled for her watch and peered at it in the half-light. Six-o-five.
Too early to crawl out of her warm nest. She settled back again, but before sleep came, the scent of perking coffee reached her. Hunger she could have ignored, but the siren call of caffeine snared her. She donned her clothes and entered the adjoining room.
Both men sat at the table. She paused a moment in the doorway to watch them. Cal was dressed but rumpled. He’d probably slept in his clothes. Brady wore his shirt open, and his bare feet poked out from beneath faded jeans. Nice body. She could see why he’d caught Marlena’s eye.
Her gaze drifted back to Cal. No, Marlena was crazy. How could she have wanted anyone else when she’d had Cal?
Brady spotted her first. “Morning, Lauren. We wake you?”
“No.” She stepped into the kitchen. “It was the smell of coffee that woke me.”
“Sit.” Cal was already on his feet. “I’ll pour.”
“I can do it. Just show me where the mugs are.”
“You’re the guest, remember?”
That worked for her. She sat. “Black, no sugar. And I’ll have one egg over easy, one slice of toast, and some of that bacon I smell.”
