A Hard-Hearted Man

by Melanie Craft

  “I’m sure.”

  She hesitated. “What amenities do you offer? Heated pool?”

  “Hot bath.”

  “Good enough. What else?”

  “A very attentive hotel keeper.”

  “Mmm.” She flicked her eyes up to meet his. “Sounds tempting. Okay, I’m convinced. I’ll try not to be too late.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ll wait for you.”

  For as long as it takes.

  Chapter 13

  “What on earth are you doing?” Elliot asked, appearing in the doorway of Lilah’s tent, and looking with bemusement at the piles of papers that she had stacked on her cot.

  “Looking for maps,” she said. “Is dinner ready?”

  “That’s why I’m here. To fetch you before you lose your place at the feeding trough. It’s spaghetti tonight.”

  “Ah. Peter must be cooking again.”

  “How did you guess? And am I the only one to notice that he’s so thin and pale, he actually looks like a noodle? They do say that you are what you eat.”

  “He’s not so pale anymore.”

  “With that sunburn? Now he looks like he’s been covered with tomato sauce. It all fits.”

  Lilah grinned. “Does this mean that after a few more nights of Peter’s cooking, we’ll turn into noodles, too?”

  Elliot glanced down at his rounded waistline. “It could only help me,” he said. “Are you coming? Or should I save you a plate?”

  “I’ll be there in a minute.” She had turned up one old map of the area, but if there were any more in the box, it wouldn’t hurt to have them as well. And she was enjoying poking around in the old papers. There was a certain voyeuristic pleasure in going through a box of someone else’s stuff, especially when that person was Ross. He was so confusing that any supplementary information was welcome.

  Unfortunately, the contents of the box were mostly uninteresting, even to her. There was a jumble of old receipts, lined notebook pages with figures jotted down by Hugh, clippings of articles about cattle and ranch issues, and various postcards addressed to Claire from friends around the world.

  Toward the bottom, though, something caught her eye. It was a dark red, leather-bound book, slim and flat, packed into the sea of loose papers. Lilah picked it up curiously, and opened into the middle of its gold-edged pages.

  The page was dated April 20, 1969, and the delicate, loopy handwriting marked itself as that of a woman. Lilah let her eyes skim down the page, her gaze immediately catching a name. Jake.

  Jake? There it was again.

  ...told Hugh I was going shopping in town, but actually spent the day at Jake’s ranch...have to invent an excuse for the bracelet he gave me so that I can wear it at home...I think Hugh knows about us but doesn’t care. He’s busy with the ranch and I’m bored, as usual....

  “Oh, my God,” Lilah said, and slammed the book shut, her cheeks flaming as she realized exactly what she had found. This was Ross’s mother’s diary, and from peeking at only one page, she had suddenly learned far more about Claire Bradford than she had ever wanted to know.

  She dropped the book, not even wanting to touch it, but it was too late to keep the few sentences she’d seen from etching themselves into her mind. Could Claire Bradford have been involved with Jake Wyatt? Unless there was another ranch-owning Jake around, the diary entry certainly made it sound as if he had been on Claire’s list of affairs.

  Ross had said that his mother’s infidelities were common knowledge, but did he know about this particular affair? Lilah chewed her lip anxiously. What if he didn’t know? How horrible for Ross to learn that his own mother had been sleeping with Jake Wyatt.

  She shuddered, not wanting to be the one to tell him. She didn’t even want to mention that she’d found the book in the first place. Tough as Ross might be, it had to be painful to read the details of your own mother’s secret love life. Maybe she should just put the diary back in the box and pretend she’d never seen it.

  “Lilah!” Denise’s voice came clearly across camp and through the canvas wall of her tent. “Come eat! Or we’ll fight over your share of the spaghetti!”

  Lilah doubted that, but she was hungry nonetheless. She stood up, glaring down at the book on her bed. Why did Claire have to keep a stupid diary? Maybe Ross wouldn’t want to read it, and it would go to its rest in the trash heap where it should have ended up in the first place.

  “Lilah!”

  “Coming!” she called, shooting the diary one last baleful look, then turned to dash out of the tent.

  There was one light burning in the ranch house when Lilah drove up a little before midnight, and she looked at the faint yellow glow with a wry smile. Ross was probably doing his ever-present paperwork, or on the phone with New York, as the offices there began to open for the day.

  The askari was walking across the front lawn as Lilah stepped out of her car. He was shadowy and hard to see in the darkness, but the shape of the rifle slung over one shoulder was clear.

  She waved to him a little doubtfully, and was relieved when he waved back, apparently having been told to expect her.

  Ross was in the library, working at the big rolltop desk, his profile illuminated by the pool of light from the little table lamp.

  “Is this the reservation desk?” she said from the doorway. “I’d like to check in.”

  He must have seen her approach out of the corner of his eye, because he didn’t seem startled as she spoke, but looked up and smiled, rubbing his eyes. “Hi.”

  “Hi. I was afraid that you might have gone to sleep.”

  “Would you have turned around and gone home if I had?”

  “No... I would have stumbled around in the dark, broken a few valuable antiques, and eventually found you and crawled into bed with you. That would have taken your hotel rating down to three stars, though.”

  “Lucky I had enough work to keep me up.”

  Lilah came into the room and sat down on one of the leather chairs near his desk, her heart beating anxiously. “Ross,” she said, “I need to talk to you about something.”

  He turned his chair to face her. “What?”

  “I found something kind of unexpected in that box of papers I was searching through.”

  “Did you find the maps for Wyatt?”

  “Yes, I have those. But I found something else.”

  He looked inquiringly at her.

  “Um, maybe you saw it already? A book? Red, leather-bound?” she said hopefully. “Does that sound familiar?”

  Ross shook his head, waiting for her to continue.

  “Oh,” she said unhappily. So, he didn’t know about the diary. Great. Could that mean that he also didn’t know about Claire’s affair with Jake? “It...ah...belonged to your mother.”

  “Most of the things stored in the summerhouse did.”

  “Yes, well, this book seems to be her diary,” she said, then added in a rush, “and I don’t know if you want to read it or not, but I really don’t think you should, because like you said yourself, the past is over, and there isn’t much use in bringing it up again, especially in this case, because it probably isn’t worth reading anyway. Right? Right. After all, the past is—”

  “Over,” Ross finished for her. “I believe you already said that.”

  “I did? Oh.” Lilah watched him for any reaction to this news, but so far she saw none.

  Ross was gazing at her thoughtfully. “I get the feeling that you have a reason for not wanting me to read this diary?”

  “Well, not really,” she said uncomfortably. “I just don’t think it would be a good idea, that’s all.”

  “Thank you. And the truth, please?”

  Damn. She was going to have to tell him.

  “I didn’t read it,” she said defensively. “I was just wondering what it was, so I opened it, and saw a few sentences. I just don’t think that you should—”

  “Lilah,” Ross said softly, with an odd look in his eyes.
“Are you trying to protect me from something?”

  She looked at him mulishly, and didn’t answer.

  “Tell me what you read,” he said. “Please.”

  She sighed. “Not much. But enough to get the feeling that your mother might have been involved with...Jake Wyatt. I could be wrong, of course.”

  Ross’s brief smile was without humor. “No, you’re probably right. I’ve suspected that for a long time. It’s hard to ignore the gossip around here.”

  “Are you upset?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. And I’m certainly not surprised, except that I didn’t realize Claire’s taste in men was quite so bad.” He paused. “You really were worried that I’d be upset by this?”

  Lilah stared at him, trying to read something in the cool mask of his face. He seemed to be taking it well, and she knew that she should be relieved, but something didn’t seem quite right.

  “I was very worried,” she said. “Ever since I found that book this evening, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to tell you about it. I thought you’d be crushed.”

  “I don’t crush easily.”

  “I guess not,” she said slowly. “I guess I forgot that I don’t ever have to worry about hard-shelled Ross Bradford.”

  “Were you trying to protect me?”

  “I didn’t want you to be hurt by this.”

  “You don’t need to worry,” he said. “But I like the fact that you did. I can’t remember the last time someone wanted to protect me.”

  “I’ll bet,” Lilah said. “You don’t let anyone see you hurt, so why should anyone ever see a need to protect you?”

  “You did, though. Why?”

  “Because I’m not that easy to fool,” she said. “I think there’s more to you underneath the walls you let people see.”

  He laughed. “Don’t let your archaeological instincts overwhelm you. There’s no need to look for anything hidden in me.”

  “You won’t let me anyway.”

  He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Lilah felt what might be the first twinges of upcoming heartbreak as she looked at him. “You seem so determined to keep yourself apart, to not let anyone get close to you. I wonder why.”

  “Common sense,” he said. “I don’t expect too much from anyone, and no one ever has to give me more than they want to.”

  “Oh,” Lilah said. “I didn’t realize it was so simple.”

  “It is,” he said sharply. “I don’t depend on anyone but myself. If everyone lived like that, there would be a lot fewer disappointed and bitter people in the world.”

  “And a lot more lonely and isolated ones.”

  He exhaled hard. “Lilah, what’s the point of this?”

  “The point is that I want to know you,” she said. “And that gets tough when you refuse to talk about personal things.”

  “Things like what, exactly?”

  “Your father, for a start. Why you didn’t come home for fifteen years.”

  Ross’s jaw tightened. “You really want to hear about that? It’s a bad story, Lilah. My father believed in tradition and loyalty, and in his mind, I betrayed both of those principles when I refused to become a rancher. Rejecting the ranching life was rejecting the Bradford name, according to Hugh. He thought he had every right to cut me off.”

  “Do you agree?”

  “Hell, no. Loyalty is supposed to go both ways. But my father didn’t...”

  “Didn’t what?”

  Ross snorted. “It’s nothing. Otieno has been trying to convince me that my father was starting to change his views about all that. Softening in his old age, or something.”

  “Do you think it might be true?”

  “Who knows. I have a hard time imagining it, and it doesn’t really matter anyway.”

  “Maybe you just won’t let it matter to you,” she said. “Because you’re afraid of being hurt all over again. Maybe you’ve gotten into the habit of not letting other people matter to you, and that’s why you sometimes seem so guarded, and so alone. You don’t have to be, Ross. You—”

  “Lilah.” Ross reached out from where he sat to catch her hands and pull her firmly toward him. “Stop. We’re here together. Neither of us are alone now.”

  But we are, and I think you know it, too, she wanted to say. But as she stood before him, he pushed aside the edge of her shirt, and began to trail kisses on the sensitive skin just above the waistband of her jeans.

  The taut strength of his lean fingers on her hips, and the touch of his mouth on her skin began that spiraling feeling of desire that left her weak and aching for him. He moved his head lower, and the sensation of his lips pressing against her, between her legs, as his breath came hot and maddening through the rough denim, was more than she could stand.

  “Oh, Ross,” she groaned, crumpling down over him, her knees suddenly weakening. Her face was buried in his hair, and as she bent down, Ross wrapped his arms around her and moved forward, out of his chair, back toward the soft leather couch.

  He was rougher this time, holding her with a desperate hunger that made Lilah feel as if he were trying to seize something beyond her physical self, something which he seemed to feel was slipping away as inexorably as the minutes that passed.

  It surprised, and even awed her, this passion with which he touched her, the urgency that radiated from him as they struggled out of their clothes, and the desire in his eyes as his kiss claimed her. His mouth was hot and demanding, and although Lilah responded eagerly, even her own reeling desire for Ross didn’t seem to match the intensity of his need for her.

  She lifted herself toward him, pressing up against him, and felt him pause.

  “Wait,” he said hoarsely. “This is too fast. You haven’t—”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Don’t wait.”

  With a groan, he gave in. Lilah gasped at the feel of him inside her, and at the roughness with which he was taking her; a savage melding of bodies that roused an answering fierceness within her.

  One of Ross’s legs hooked tightly around hers as his body suddenly stiffened. He threw back his head as his release came swiftly, with an untamed intensity that Lilah could feel exploding through him in waves.

  She held him until he stirred, raising himself up on one elbow to look down at her. Lilah smiled up at him intimately, reaching up to slide her fingers over his chest, then saw that his eyes were troubled, and wondered why.

  But he immediately drove any questions from her mind as he reached down, his fingertips moving in a sensual sweep over her belly and the curve of her hip, to find her most sensitive spot.

  Lilah closed her eyes and moaned softly as he began to stroke her, his fingers twined into her triangle of soft curls, moving in a slow, deliberate rhythm as she gasped and bit her lips, shifting her hips under his touch.

  “I’m not going to leave you behind tonight,” Ross said, and Lilah flicked her own desire-dazed eyes open for a brief glimpse of him watching her intently. What was it about his face that caught her attention? She couldn’t think. The erotic pleasure was surging inside her, and the only thing she was clearly conscious of were his rough fingertips buried in her softness.

  As his hands played her body, the sensations suddenly peaked and burst inside her with a wild, shuddering ecstasy.

  She opened her eyes again as the tremors died away, leaving her weak and languid with warm satisfaction, and she snuggled up against him.

  “That was wonderful,” she said, kissing his shoulder.

  “I’m glad,” Ross said. He sounded pleased, but also...relieved? Lilah had the sudden feeling that he had been disturbed by his own feverish need for her. It seemed as if he could only relax once he had proved that he could reduce her to the same state of desperate desire, as if wanting her more than she wanted him felt too dangerous.

  A small sigh escaped her. By carefully maintaining that balance of sexual need, Ross was still trying to protect himself.

  “Lil
ah?” He looked inquiringly at her.

  She gazed up at him, feeling close and far away at the same time. “I feel limp all over,” she said.

  “Are you tired?” He traced a finger down her cheek, and the warm concern in his eyes made her heart ache. Ross was a man made of contradictions, and she loved him, which tangled her up into the heart of them.

  “A little,” she said, relaxing as he ran his fingers through her hair. “Let’s not move for a while, though, okay?”

  “All right.”

  They lay there for a few minutes, nestled into the warmth of each others’ bodies, and Lilah thought sleepily that at the moment it was easy to forget her worries about their relationship and feel almost completely contented and at peace, curled up in Ross’s strong arms.

  “Ross,” she murmured, “are you going to read that diary?”

  He exhaled, and she felt his chest move against her back. “I haven’t decided yet,” he admitted. “There may be things in there that I should know.”

  “I doubt it,” she said. “It’s better to let stuff like that rest. I wish you wouldn’t read it.”

  “Sweet Lilah,” he said, pressing a kiss into the back of her neck. “Trying to protect me again.”

  She yawned. “Well,” she said sleepily, “someone has to.”

  His lips curved into a smile that she could feel against her skin. “I’ll think about what you said.”

  “But you’ll do what you want to do anyway,” Lilah said. “I know. Well, I’ll bring the diary up next time I come. Or you can come down and get it any time but Saturday night. We’re doing a group evening on the town in Nairobi.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “It’s really just an excuse to get a break from camp cooking. Want to come?”

  “I’d love to, but I’m having dinner with Otieno’s family.”

  His hand was lazily stroking her hip as they talked, and Lilah began to feel a shivery sensation spreading through her body again, slowly and pleasantly awakening her sleepy limbs with the familiar warm current of desire.

  She rolled over to press her front against his, gazing up at him with an expression that made interest flicker in his eyes.