by Linda Howard
He thought about escorting her into this kitchen for the first time, watching the horror on her face as she’d surveyed the damage he’d left behind, telling himself the whole time that she was a temporary solution and nothing more. Boy, how things had changed in the past two months!
Watching her bustle around the house, as excited as a kid, made his heart squeeze. Of course, she still insisted that there was nothing he could do to help her, and was adamant that he not interfere.
Normally he’d just plow ahead and do what he knew was right; he’d make her business his business and end this nightmare once and for all. But if he did, she’d leave. He saw that truth in her eyes every time he broached the subject. She was still clinging to the idea of leaving in the spring, because there was nothing he could do to help and anything he did would just worsen her situation.
Zeke so-the-hell didn’t agree. Brad Whatever-his-last-name-was was just a man. He could be stopped; he should be stopped. But it was something they’d have to do together, and Carlin wouldn’t even discuss the possibilities with him.
If he went behind her back, she’d never forgive him. He shouldn’t care about that, given that she kept insisting that she was temporary, that what they had was a nice fling while it lasted. But, damn it, this didn’t feel temporary. It felt as if Carlin was his.
“You look like you’ve done this before.” He stood in the doorway between the dining room and the kitchen, watching Carlin flit back and forth between a counter covered with bowls and dishes and food, to an oven that had been in use for hours—make that days—to the sink overflowing with dirty dishes. She settled in one spot with a deep bowl and a long-handled wooden spoon. “Does your family always do a big Thanksgiving?”
She didn’t pause, but continued to stir the ingredients for something in that oversized bowl. “When I was little, and Mom and Dad were still alive, we did the usual thing. Robin and Kin and I made turkey decorations and put them all over the house, Mom cooked for three days, and the food was pretty much gone in twenty minutes.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled. “My dad always took care of the cleanup. I think that’s an excellent idea, by the way. The man of the house should chip in to do his share of the work.”
“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t do dishes.”
Carlin poured the gooey mixture she’d been working into a huge oblong pan. “Come to think of it, I do remember that.” She licked the spoon and smiled. “Oh, I hope this turns out okay! I’ve never made corn bread dressing before.” She opened the oven door and carefully slid the big pan inside.
Carlin had never been one to share much about herself, as if being on the run meant she wasn’t entitled to a past, as if it meant she wasn’t just hiding from a stalker, she was hiding from everyone. He was intensely interested in this little slice of her life that she was revealing. “When did they die? Your parents. How long have they been gone?”
She didn’t answer right away, and he began to wonder if she’d answer at all, though he didn’t see anything about the question that would alarm her. Finally she said, “It’s been eight years, almost nine. After that the family kind of drifted apart, as if our parents had been the glue that held us together and we didn’t know how to be a family without them. Robin had her husband and one baby, at that time, and Kin had a new career, and I … I wanted to start a new and exciting life. I wanted to be independent, I wanted to see different things, do different things.” She looked at him again. “Stuff happens for a reason. Always. Brad knew I wasn’t close to my brother and sister. When he asked about them, I should’ve realized something was off. But I didn’t. I thought he was just making conversation, trying to get to know me. If he thought he could get to me through them, he would. Even though I don’t see or talk to Robin or Kin much these days, we’re closer than we’ve been since Mom and Dad died.”
Before he could ask another question, Carlin waved the wooden spoon at him as if she meant to smack him with it. “I do not want to talk about him today! I refuse to let him spoil this. What about your family? Why aren’t they all here for Thanksgiving?” She glanced at him. “Or why aren’t you there?”
“My family visits in the summer, when travel isn’t so iffy and the kids are out of school. And I don’t leave the ranch for an extended time very often. There’s too much to do.”
She made a scoffing sound in her throat. “You have a perfectly good foreman who can handle things while you’re away. You don’t have to do everything yourself, you know.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“And yet you don’t quite believe that the ranch can survive without you.” There was a teasing note in her voice.
“Fine.” He walked toward her slowly. “I’ll go visit my family for Christmas. I’ll fly down and stay with my oldest sister and her crazy-ass family for a full week.” It wasn’t like she hadn’t asked a hundred times. Carlin looked a little surprised, and then he threw in the kicker. “As long as you come with me.”
Frowning, she looked down, then tossed the spoon into the sink. “You know very well the answer is no.”
“Why? What could go wrong? Don’t you think I can protect you?” It was what he wanted to do more than anything: protect her. Fix all that had gone wrong in her life.
“It’s not that.” She turned her back to him and started fiddling with bowls and spoons, needlessly straightening her mess.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her back against his chest. “Okay, then. You’ll meet them in the summer, when they come for a visit.”
“You know I won’t be here when summer rolls around.” She tried to sound cool and matter-of-fact, but didn’t quite pull it off.
It was some comfort that she sounded sad about that fact. Instead of arguing with her—which was, he had discovered, a waste of breath—he kissed her on the neck and then let her go. “I’ll be back in less than two hours.”
She watched him head for the mudroom. “Don’t you dare be late! And tell the others they’d better not be late, either. Kat will be here by one, she said. I told her I didn’t need any help, goodness knows she spends too much time cooking, but she said she’s bringing dessert and rolls anyway. We will all be at the table and eating no later than two. Got that?” She sighed. “It’s going to be perfect.”
The meal, maybe. The day, sure. He’d had plenty of perfect days lately. But her life wouldn’t be perfect until her fear of Brad was gone, until Brad himself was gone, and he couldn’t figure out how to make that happen without breaking his word to her. He knew what he risked if he broke his promise. She might never forgive him, and everything they had would be gone.
But as much as he didn’t want to let her go, he had to wonder if it wouldn’t be a worthwhile sacrifice if it meant she would finally be free.
CARLIN WAS PLEASED with the meal, but damn, it had been a lot of work! Exactly as she remembered from her home life when she was younger, the food had disappeared quickly. They didn’t have a huge bunch of people to celebrate with, but Walt and Spencer were there. Kat, too, and she kept the conversation going. Spencer’s family had a big to-do planned for the weekend, and by then Kenneth and Micah would be back at work. Life on a ranch didn’t stop for any holiday. The animals had to be taken care of, if nothing else. And as Walt had pointed out, anything that didn’t get done today would just have to be done tomorrow.
She tried not to let her lingering horror show, as she accepted compliments on the meal, but when Zeke had mentioned taking her to meet his family, her heart had jumped into her throat and had stayed there for a while.
Maybe she was crazy about him, maybe the sex was stellar, maybe she even sometimes thought she loved him. None of that changed anything. She had to deal with reality, and while her current reality was pretty damn perfect, the bigger reality of Brad loomed out there like a huge storm.
This would be her only Thanksgiving with Zeke. Christmas was coming and it would be her only Christmas with him. She wanted to savor every moment, to make
every day between now and then as perfect as it could possibly be. Spring would be here all too soon.
When she stood and reached for Walt’s empty plate, Zeke reached over and covered her hand with his. “You sit. We’ll get the dishes.”
Kat’s eyebrows shot up, but she immediately leaned back in her chair and relaxed, smiling.
Carlin’s first thought was that the men couldn’t possibly do the job of cleanup properly, but then she sat and relaxed. Who cared if they didn’t do it the way she would have? Her feet hurt from standing all day, and she was exhausted. Without a word every man at the table had gotten busy gathering dishes and leftovers. This had been planned, and she loved them for it. Even I-don’t-do-dishes Zeke had grabbed his dirty plate and taken it out. Presumably Spencer knew how to run the dishwasher, so everything would be taken care of.
Carlin stretched her legs out, watched the men scramble, and said—in a very sweet voice, “Thanks, guys. I think Kat and I will head into the den and plop ourselves down in those nice, fat recliners, and watch some football.”
“I love me some football,” Kat said, smiling widely, then she made big questioning eyes at Carlin and shrugged her shoulders, from which Carlin gathered that Kat might, just might, know the difference between baseball and football.
“We’ll be right there,” Walt called from the kitchen. “This won’t take long.”
Carlin laughed at that. She’d used every bowl and utensil in the kitchen, as well as almost every casserole dish and baking pan.
Kat leaned onto the table and lowered her voice. “Oh my God, you have got these men eating out of the palm of your hand. Way to go, girl.”
For a moment Carlin listened to the men’s voices, to the rattle and clank of dishes, to the occasional laughter.
Thanksgiving wasn’t about food, it was about family. And for now, for today, this was hers.
Chapter Twenty-four
ZEKE LEANED HIS shoulder against the frame of the kitchen door, watching Carlin as she folded a mound of towels. “You have any sweatpants, something loose and comfortable?”
She didn’t look up. “Yeah, but they’re too little for you. You’ll have to buy your own.”
“Smart ass. Go change. We’re going to fight.”
“Well, hell, I can do that without changing clothes,” she shot back, finally shifting her attention from the towel to him. The towel dropped to the floor. She felt as if her mouth had followed the towel.
Zeke was hot enough in jeans and boots and hat. God save her, despite Kat’s opinion and warning, she thought this particular cowboy was testosterone on two feet. Her resistance to him was practically zero as it was. But now he was wearing a pair of ragged sweatpants with a hole in one knee, socks, and a T-shirt that clung to his muscled torso, and she found that this scruffy look was even worse—or better, she couldn’t decide which. She just knew she liked it. It was the T-shirt’s fault. All too vividly she remembered every ridge of muscle, the crisp dark hair on his chest, the thick muscle padding his shoulders and rippling down his back.
Of course, the way she liked him best was stark naked, covered in nothing except maybe sweat.
The thought almost made her drool.
“Are you going to change, or not?” he asked impatiently, making her wonder how long she’d been staring at him. Probably not long; Zeke’s default setting was impatience.
Mentally she shook herself and said, “I’ll be right back,” picking up the towel and tossing it on top of the dryer, then running for her room.
The days had rapidly grown shorter, which drastically changed Carlin’s schedule. Instead of rolling out of bed, swearing beneath her breath, at four-thirty in the morning, she could sleep until the decadent-feeling hour of five-thirty. And instead of serving dinner at nine-thirty, even ten o’clock at night, to men exhausted from fourteen-to sixteen-hour days, she was putting food on the table at five-thirty, had the kitchen cleaned up and the dishwasher running by seven at the very latest, which gave her the opportunity to—gasp!—actually read or watch TV, or take a long soak in the tub, paint her toenails, and other things generally associated with Having a Life.
Cold weather and shorter days brought their own hardships, but generally life on the ranch had slowed considerably, giving everyone, including herself, time to catch a much-needed breath.
The downside was that Zeke was spending much more time in the house. Or maybe that was the upside. She knew what she should do, which was avoid him, and she knew what she wanted to do, what she was doing, which was falling into bed with him every chance she got.
She got up every morning with her heartbeat racing in anticipation of seeing him, being with him, and spent the rest of the day mentally at war with herself. It was just sex. She couldn’t let it be anything more. She had to be on constant guard, not to let it get to her when he was watching her with that intent gaze that said more than he’d ever said with words. She couldn’t let the domesticity of living in the same house with him, cooking his meals, and washing his clothes undermine the wall she’d been forced to build around herself. Who would ever have thought of laundry as seduction? And yet the familiarity of it all was exactly that, almost as if they were married, a family, though without the benefits. She had become so enmeshed in the day-to-day fabric of his life, and he in hers, that the ranch had come to feel like home.
She couldn’t think of anything, short of a face-to-face confrontation with Brad, that was more dangerous to her safety. Her life might depend on being ready and willing to drop everything and leave at a split second’s notice, and because of Zeke, she didn’t know if she still had that decisiveness.
She was in trouble—big, big trouble.
She met him in the living room within five minutes, dressed pretty much the same as he was, in a T-shirt, sweatpants, and socks. He’d shoved the living room furniture against the walls to give them as much space as possible.
Zeke was a man who made good on his promises. He’d said he’d teach her how to shoot and fight, and by damn he’d do it. She might never win any marksmanship awards, but she tried to practice with the pistol at least a couple of times a week and she was becoming a fairly decent shot. Knowing how to load and shoot an automatic pistol didn’t make her feel like Superwoman, but she did like knowing she had options that she hadn’t had before, and perhaps the means of catching Brad by surprise if her nightmare came true and he caught up with her again. Now, it seemed, Zeke was going to teach her how to kick a man’s balls into his chest cavity.
And she was going to be practicing on him.
She skidded to a stop, frowning at him.
He caught the look, frowned in return. “What?”
“I’m fond of your balls,” she said abruptly.
A wary look came into his eyes. “So am I.”
“I don’t love them, but they’re endearing in a cute, wrinkly kind of way. I don’t want to hurt them—you.”
“Let me give you a tip, buttercup: you don’t tell a man his balls are cute.”
“You’re tough enough to take it. I’d be lying if I said they were pretty.”
“That’s good. Balls are supposed to be manly, not pretty.”
“Manly,” she scoffed. “That’s safe to say. After all, how many women have them? Barring hermaphrodites, of course, but that’s a special category.”
He paused, then said in a slightly baffled tone, “Why are we having this conversation?”
“You’re going to teach me how to kick a man’s balls up into his chest cavity, right?”
For a split second he seemed dumbfounded, then he began laughing. Zeke wasn’t a man who laughed a lot, and the sound pleased her more than she liked. She was losing her own internal fight not to love him, had maybe lost it weeks ago and just hadn’t admitted it to herself yet. Was this the same as admitting it? She didn’t know, and didn’t want to think about it. Later, maybe, she’d deal with the fact that hearing him laugh made her feel … tender. Then again—maybe not.
; To cover that disturbing softness, she said, “I don’t see what’s so funny.”
“You can’t see the bloodthirsty look on your own face. And just because I’m going to teach you the basic technique doesn’t mean I’ll actually let you do it.”
“I figured I’d line up like a field-goal kicker and pretend I was kicking your balls over the goal post.”
His mouth quirked again, and he reached out to give a strand of her hair a little tug. “That’d work only if your target just stood there. He’d have to either be unconscious beforehand, or you took him by surprise from behind. What are the odds you’d be in either of those scenarios? And would that be the best action even if you were?”
He was using a generic “him,” but they both knew he meant Brad. She started to say she’d take any chance she had to kick Brad in the balls, then paused, thinking it over. Was that what Zeke wanted her to do, to think … what was the word … tactically? Mentally put herself in those possible situations and figure out what would be the smartest thing to do?
She’d been on the defensive for so long, she longed to be the one in control of the situation. The danger was that she let that longing pull her into something she couldn’t handle. So … if somehow she’d knocked Brad out, what should she do then? Kicking him in the balls would be satisfying, but it wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do. What if he recovered faster than anticipated? What if he was only faking it, to lure her within arm’s reach so he could grab her?
“I could run while I had the chance,” she said, working through the possibilities. “Or I could kill him.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach when she said those words, and she stared at him in dismay. For months she’d gone over and over nightmare scenarios, imagining what would happen if Brad found her again, wondering if he’d simply kill her as he had Jina, or if he’d kidnap her and take her to some isolated spot where he’d rape, torture, and then kill her. Of the two horrible choices, she’d much prefer being killed outright, but if Brad was in control there was no telling what he’d do. She couldn’t assume he’d simply go for the kill because that was what he’d done to Jina. He’d had time to think since then, to plan, to get more and more angry. He might want to work that anger out on her.
