“Will you do that?” Lizzy asked. “Will you come back to Los Piños?”
Justin nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“He seems to think he knows all the laws around here real well,” Harlan Patrick teased, “especially since he broke so many of them.”
Ignoring the taunt, Lizzy came back into the room and hugged Justin. “I’m glad for you. Fighting the plans this family makes for us isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do.” She turned to Harlan Patrick. “You’re lucky. You’ve always wanted to follow in your daddy’s footsteps and run White Pines someday. Ranching is in your blood.”
“That and Laurie Jensen,” Justin taunted.
“Okay, enough,” Harlan Patrick said, heading for the door. “Are you two coming or not? I don’t have all day to waste sitting around here gossiping like an old woman.”
“Oh?” Lizzy retorted. “But you have enough time to come along and spy on Hank and me?”
He grinned. “Yep. I always make time for the important things. Besides, I promised Grandpa Harlan I’d come back with a full report.”
With that, he took off running, Lizzy right on his heels. “You’d better be darned glad your legs are longer than mine,” she shouted after him. “Because if I catch up with you, Harlan Patrick Adams, you are a dead man.”
“Big talk for a city girl,” he shouted right back as he mounted his horse.
The two men had saddled Lizzy’s horse before she came downstairs so she was able to mount the pretty little mare and take off after Harlan Patrick at a full gallop. Justin muttered a curse, then raced after them.
After the first ten minutes of the high-spirited chase, Harlan Patrick slowed his horse and allowed Lizzy and Justin to catch up. He winked at her.
“Truce?”
She debated making it so easy on him, then nodded. “Truce.”
“Thank goodness,” Justin muttered. “I really wasn’t ready for my first homicide investigation.”
“But just think what a reputation you would have gotten if your first arrest had been Lizzy,” Harlan Patrick noted. “Ordinary folks would have trembled in fear at the sight of you in uniform.”
“Okay, okay, fellows, let’s not get carried away,” Lizzy said. “Nobody’s going to die.” She gave him a pointed look and added, “Leastways not this morning. And nobody’s going to jail. Now fill me in on the rest of the news around here.”
“You heard it all at supper your first night back,” Justin declared. He shot a sly look over her head at Harlan Patrick. “Of course, there was that one rumor about Hank that nobody mentioned.”
Lizzy’s gaze narrowed. “What rumor about Hank?”
“That he’s got a woman over in Garden City, one he’s been seeing real regular.”
“Yeah, I hear she’s hot, too,” Harlan Patrick said.
Lizzy’s temper began to heat. “Is that so?” she said softly.
“Now, I ain’t saying it’s fact,” Justin said. “Just that it’s a rumor. Of course, you know how talk can get started around here. All it takes is somebody blabbing about something totally innocent, and the next thing you know, trouble’s brewing.”
“Oh, trouble’s brewing, all right,” Lizzy said just as Hank came into sight. He was taking a break from whatever work he’d been doing. He’d stripped off his shirt in the morning heat and was leaning back against a tree, his Stetson tilted low over his face.
Lizzy dismounted, stalked straight over to the creek and filled her own hat with icy water, then took it and dumped it squarely over the two-timing sneak. Drenched, he jolted upright to the sound of masculine laughter and hoofbeats. Lizzy whirled and saw that her nephews had taken off, kicking up a storm of dust in their wake.
When she turned slowly back, Hank was regarding her warily. “Mind telling me what that was all about?”
She winced as she watched the water tracking down all that bare flesh.
“If I had to guess, I’d say it was a little practical joke courtesy of Harlan Patrick and Justin.”
“Where’s the guesswork? You’re the one who soaked me. Don’t you know why the hell you did it?”
“I did it because of something they told me,” she confessed, watching him uneasily. “But judging from the way they took off, I’d have to say now that they probably made the whole wild tale up.”
“And what wild tale would that be?”
She would have preferred to avoid getting into that, but Hank’s expression warned her not to try dancing around the subject. “Something about you and a woman in Garden City,” she admitted reluctantly. “A very hot woman.”
Hank nodded soberly. “I see. And you were what? Jealous, maybe?”
“Never,” she denied instinctively.
“Oh, really? Then why am I soaking wet?”
“Because...” Her voice trailed off for lack of a plausible explanation.
“Because you were mad as hell that I might be seeing another woman,” he teased. “Well, hallelujah!”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself so much.”
“It’s just that I have waited for a very long time for some sign that you gave two figs about what I did with my time. Do you know how many rumors I planted at White Pines every time you were due home?”
She stared at him incredulously. “You planted rumors,” she repeated slowly. “To make me jealous?”
He nodded, grinning. “If you counted up, I have supposedly dated at least a dozen women since you left town. I came darned close to playing the wedding march as background music every time I casually dropped a hint about one of them. You have no idea what it did to my ego to have you ignore every single rumor.”
Lizzy walked up and jabbed a finger in his chest. “Why you, low-down, sneaky, lying devil,” she said as she began backing him up. She came up with a satisfyingly long list of comparisons to reptiles and other forms of lowlife. With each step, an unsuspecting, defensive Hank came closer and closer to the bank of the creek. In the end, all it took was a gentle nudge to topple him straight into the icy water.
The shocked expression on his face was priceless, but she didn’t have much time to enjoy it. The glint in his eyes suggested she just might have overplayed her hand.
“Gotta go,” she announced, and raced for her horse.
Just as she loosened the reins she’d looped around a low-hanging branch, Hank gave a sharp whistle and the mare bolted.
“Uh-oh,” Lizzy murmured as a dripping Hank strode toward her.
“Uh-oh is right,” he said in a silky voice that was more dangerous than a shout.
“Now, Hank,” she soothed.
“Don’t worry, darlin’. This will be painless,” he replied as he reached for her.
“You’re all wet,” she protested.
“Now, whose fault is that?” He dragged her close, then slanted his mouth over hers, swallowing her screech of dismay.
Then she concluded that it didn’t matter that Hank was soaking wet or that the creek had been like ice. Between them, there was enough heat to warm an entire cabin in a blizzard. She was pretty sure there had to be a fog of steam around them.
“Now, then,” Hank murmured slowly when he pulled away. “You won’t ever, ever try anything like that again, will you?”
Lizzy grinned. “If it’s going to turn out like this, I might.”
He chuckled. “Obviously, the punishment did not suit the crime. My mistake.”
With that, he scooped her up and headed straight into the creek, not slowing until he was waist high and Lizzy was every bit as soaked as he was.
She was sputtering by the time he carried her back to shore. “That was...”
“Yes?”
She heard the dare in his voice. “Memorable,” she said finally. “Definitely memorable.”
“Good.”
“Just
one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Is there a woman in Garden City?”
Hank hooted. “If there were, do you think I’d tell you?”
Lizzy regarded him suspiciously. “Whose hide would you be protecting? Hers or yours?”
“Doesn’t matter. When you get riled, you are a force to be reckoned with.”
She gave a little nod of satisfaction. “You’d do well to remember that.”
“Duly warned,” he agreed, then gave her a once-over that raised goose bumps. “Now, then, why don’t we get out of these wet clothes and lay them in the sun to dry?”
“That could take a long time,” she noted, her pulse already pounding.
“Indeed, it could.”
“What will we do to make the time pass?”
“Oh, I have a few ideas.”
She grinned at his expression. “Oh, I’ll just bet you do. I have some nice hot coffee. We could drink that. And have some of Maritza’s coffee cake.”
“That wasn’t by any chance in your saddlebags, was it?”
She glanced over to where she’d had her horse tethered and remembered the beast’s defection. “Never mind.”
“Don’t look so sad, darlin’. I think I can make you forget all about that coffee cake.”
“You’ll have to work very hard at it.”
“Oh, I intend to,” he said, beginning to undo the buttons on her blouse. “In a couple of minutes, you won’t even remember how we got into this fix.”
His knuckles skimmed across her nipple as he removed her soggy bra. Desire shimmered through her. By the time her clothes were spread out in the sun and his were scattered beside them, there was absolutely nothing on Lizzy’s mind but the way Hank’s body fit so perfectly with her own.
5
For Hank and Lizzy, the pattern established itself quickly and continued for the next several days—a few hours apart, then long, leisurely evenings indulging in the passion they had denied themselves for far too long.
They discovered a lot about each other during those nights. She realized that his feelings for her weren’t new at all. Years ago they had been powerful enough for him to understand her dream and to let her go. He recognized that she had grown into a woman capable of giving every bit as much as she took. She was dedicated to the profession she’d chosen, but she was capable of being just as committed to a man.
None of that changed the fact that she was going to leave, that in a few days she would go back to Miami and back to medical school.
And he would stay behind.
It made their time together bittersweet, but this time Hank clung to the possibilities instead of the doubts. He set out to court her, to show her all of the thousand and one ways he needed her.
He was selfish about it, too. He didn’t want to share her for a minute. Their trips into town for dinner were always cut short by the quick flaring of passion, the hunger to be alone and in each other’s arms.
Even though he understood the necessity for her going back to White Pines each night, even if it was barely before the crack of dawn, he hated losing even those few sweet hours when they might have been together. To his gratification, she hated it more.
But no matter what arguments she tried, he was adamant. Part of it was respect for her parents. Some of it was a way of clinging to a shred of distance, a way of pretending to himself and to her that their relationship wasn’t as all-consuming as they both knew it was.
And some of it, he conceded ruefully, was a way of staving off exhaustion. In bed together, there wasn’t a chance in hell either of them would get a wink of sleep.
“Will you be having dinner in tonight?” Mrs. Wyndham asked as Lizzy drove up outside as she had been doing every afternoon by three, the time when Hank cut short whatever work he’d been doing and came inside to shower and change for their time together.
Hank watched Lizzy emerge from the car and managed to draw his attention away from the sight of that slim, lithe body long enough to murmur assent.
“Anything in particular you’d like me to fix?”
“Whatever you think.”
“I doubt either one of you will notice,” the housekeeper muttered, but there was a smile on her face when Hank jerked around to look at her.
“You’re probably right, Mrs. Wyndham,” he admitted sheepishly. “But just in case, fix something decadent for dessert. Lizzy has a sweet tooth.”
He’d discovered that about her, that and her ready laughter, her razor-sharp wit and the surprising grasp she had of ranching. Why hadn’t he realized that being Harlan Adams’s daughter meant ranching was in her blood? It allowed him to believe that she would be suited to life here with him, even if it meant foregoing her medical career. He prayed he wasn’t deluding himself about that.
She’d certainly seemed contented enough the past few days. The subject of school hadn’t cropped up once. He sighed and wondered if maybe it should. A big part of her life had been declared off limits by silent, mutual consent.
Yet when she came rushing through the front door, a smile on her face, Hank didn’t have the stomach for hard truths.
“Hey, darlin’,” he said, opening his arms to welcome her.
Lizzy fit against him snugly, generating enough heat that only Mrs. Wyndham’s presence nearby kept him from making love to her smack-dab in the middle of the foyer. Eyes shining, she met his gaze.
“So, cowboy, what are we going to do tonight?”
“I thought we’d stay in. Do you mind?”
“Are you kidding? There’s no place I’d rather be, nothing I’d rather do.”
He searched her face intently. “You sure about that?”
“Absolutely.”
“There must be friends you’ve been wanting to catch up with,” he suggested. “And your family must be wondering where you’ve disappeared to.”
“I’ve caught up with all my friends in the mornings, when you’ve been busy. As for my family, they have a pretty good idea where I’ve been spending my time.”
“And they don’t object?”
“Not when you’re making me so incredibly happy.”
He grinned at that. “I’m sure if it were otherwise, I’d have heard from those overprotective big brothers of yours.”
“Exactly right,” she said, then gave him a wide-eyed look. “What are you planning to do to keep me happy?”
“I think I’ll start with this,” he said, lowering his head to steal a kiss.
He meant it to be no more than a teasing brush of his lips, but kissing Lizzy never quite turned out the way he expected. She had a sneaky way of luring him into doing things he’d never intended. He was hot and hard and breathless by the time they broke apart. Not that it took a lot of doing, but she could make him want her with a fierce desperation just by skimming her mouth over his.
Wanting that badly should have terrified him, but he ignored all the warning signs. All he felt was gratitude that she wanted him back. Today, this minute were the only things that mattered. Tomorrow would just have to take care of itself.
“If we don’t slow down, we’re going to shock Mrs. Wyndham,” he said.
“Give her the rest of the day off,” Lizzy suggested.
“She’s fixing our dinner.”
“We can finish,” Lizzy said as she unbuttoned a few more buttons on his shirt. “Later.”
Hank groaned as her lips touched bare skin. “Much later.”
She had worked most of his shirt free when he struggled to regain his composure. “Wait,” he murmured with regret.
“Wait? Why?”
“Because I still haven’t made it to the kitchen to tell Mrs. Wyndham she can leave.”
“Oh. Right.” Her gaze locked with his. “Maybe I’ll just wait for you in your room.”
Hank swa
llowed hard. “That would be good.”
He watched her sashay off down the hall, then shook himself. What was he supposed to be doing? Oh, yeah, giving his housekeeper the night off.
At the doorway to the kitchen, he checked to make sure all his clothes were back in place, then opened the door. Suddenly, he felt like a schoolboy again, trying to put something over on a teacher.
“Mrs. Wyndham.”
She glanced up from the pie crust she was rolling out. “Yes, sir.”
Hank searched for an explanation that sounded innocent, but not one single word came to mind. “Um, how’s dinner coming?”
“It’ll be a while yet. It’s not even four. I was figuring on getting it on the table at six, like always. Is that okay? Are the two of your hungry now? I could fix a snack.”
The kind of hunger troubling them could not be sated with cheese and crackers, Hank thought. Still, he nodded. “Sure, a snack would be great.” He glanced around for something that didn’t require preparation. “Maybe some fruit,” he said, seizing on the sight of a huge pottery bowl of apples, oranges and bananas. “I’ll just take this.”
He grabbed the bowl and headed for the door. Only when he was on the other side did he realize that the woman was chuckling. So much for discretion. Obviously, he was totally, disgustingly transparent.
When he walked into the bedroom with the fruit, he found Lizzy in the middle of his bed without a stitch of clothes on. The bowl slipped from his grasp, and fruit tumbled every which way. He barely noticed. Thankfully, the pottery was cushioned by the carpet or he’d have been walking over shards of it to get to the woman before him. He quickly shut the door behind him and turned the lock.
“Got a little ahead of me, didn’t you?” he asked, his gaze fastened on her bare breasts.
“You looked as if you could use a surprise.”
“Honey, a birthday cake is a surprise. This is a shock.”
“A shock?” she repeated, sounding suddenly uncertain.
“Not a bad shock,” he said hurriedly. “It’s just that Mrs. Wyndham is still here.”
“You didn’t tell her to go home?”
He shook his head. “Afraid not.”
White Pines Summer Page 24
