“Burke, I don’t think—”
His lips brushed across the damp skin of her cheek. “Don’t”—his mouth touched hers gently—“think. With you and me it does no good. Haven’t you realized that yet?”
She knew he was right, and she surrendered to his kiss as his hands slipped beneath the camisole and closed over her breasts.
An ache began between her thighs, and she wrapped her legs around his back so that the exact spot where she ached was pressed against his lower stomach. She was almost completely defenseless and most certainly was offering no resistance.
She tried to think. Why was she letting this happen? She had never behaved like this before. It was her fear of a coldhearted affair that had spurred her to fly out of Paris this morning at almost twice the speed of sound. So why didn’t she push Burke away? she asked herself—at practically the same moment she felt herself pulling him closer.
There were no answers. There was only moist heated air caressing her bare skin, and Burke’s hands raising fire where they touched her.
He worked her camisole up until her breasts were bare to him. And when his hands stroked them, it still felt to him as though they were covered by the silk fabric of the camisole. She was made of silk, he remembered, just as in a fantasy. His attention was claimed by the taut pink tip, and he took it into his mouth and began to suckle. Perspiration beaded on her skin. Shutting her eyes, she dug her nails into his shoulders as shudders of pleasure convulsed her body.
He looked up at her. Her eyes were shut and her head was thrown back. “You can’t be real,” he murmured thickly. “It’s impossible. I feel as if you’re going to disappear any minute, and I should take as much of you as I can while you’re here.”
Her eyelids fluttered up, and Burke saw that her eyes were pure silver. Taking his hand in hers, she slid it along her skin until his hand covered her lower abdomen and the tips of his fingers were just beneath the edge of her panties. “Burke... you make me feel... a pain right here that’s exquisite.”
“Good, that’s good,” he muttered hoarsely. “Where else do you hurt?” His hand delved deeper, until his fingers found the delicate place between her legs and stopped just outside the opening. “Here?”
“Yes, oh yes!”
“I want inside of you. Let me.”
“I—”
“You can’t say no. I won’t let you. Not when we’ve gone this far.”
“Oh, Burke...”
The delicate clink of china in the next room pierced through the sensual clouds of her mind.
He jerked away. “Damn!” He had whispered the expletive, but he felt Cara flinch. His arms went around her and he pulled her close, holding her gently now, resting his cheek against her head. “That’s no doubt Bridget bringing you supper on a tray,” he murmured. “It’s beyond her comprehension that anyone could go without supper. She’ll be gone in a minute.”
Drawing away, Cara looked at him. “I’m leaving in the morning.”
He noticed absently that moisture had dampened the silver-blond hair at her temples and on the ends. He frowned. “So you said.”
“It’s best.”
Best. She was absolutely right, he told himself, but he had his own reasons for thinking so, and he had almost forgotten them. He stood up, walked to the door, and listened for a moment. “Bridget’s gone. I think I’d better say good night.” As his hand closed around the doorknob he turned back for one final look and felt his gut tighten. Through the faint mist passion-softened gray eyes were staring back at him. His hand tensed on the knob—tempted, oh so tempted. But he needed time to think things through. He would have her, he told himself, but on his terms. “I’ll see you in the morning.” he muttered tersely, opened the door, and walked out.
Later, lying in his bed, Burke reflected on his uncharacteristic behavior regarding Cara. He had always had strict rules where women were concerned. He carefully chose them from his circle of acquaintances, only after first getting to know them and observing them closely. Women had to meet what he considered “safe” criteria, and Burke made it his business to be sure of three things: That the women wouldn’t cause a scandal, that they wouldn’t get pregnant, and that they wouldn’t become upset and continue to bother him when he grew tired and moved on to someone else. Where women were concerned, his head governed and had for many years.
His loss of control this evening had been an exception that wouldn’t be repeated, he reassured himself. His reaction could be blamed on the trial.
Burke was a powerful man and, as such, a target. He was used to attacks. They came practically every day, and he handled them. But the paternity suit hadn’t been an ordinary attack. It had come from the sick mind of a man named Davis on behalf of his weak-willed, scared sister, an employee of Delaney Enterprises. The charge had been ludicrous. After Elise, there was no chance that he would ever get another woman pregnant. His innocence had been easily proved, and the trial had ended with an unqualified acquittal.
He had come home to rest and to find a bit of solace. Instead, he had discovered Cara, a woman who fit none of his “safe” standards. She had made him forget sound judgment and had given him a taste of something he wanted more of. The damnable thing about it was, he didn’t know how she did it!
And perhaps even more bewildering was that somewhere deep inside him he couldn’t let go of the instinctive possessiveness he had experienced on first seeing her: she was on his land and on his horse: therefore, she must be his.
So he would keep her here, just for the weekend, and watch her, completely confident he would be able to figure out how she was able to affect him so deeply. Cara was an amazingly complicated woman, but complicated situations were his specialty.
Yet even as he was assuring himself of this, he slid his legs over the sheets that earlier he had refused to let Bridget change. He had known it wouldn’t matter whether the sheets were changed. For even if the sheets had been fresh, he would still have been able to smell Cara’s unique fragrance. It had pervaded everything—saturating the air, seeping into his skin, working its way into his brain.
Three
“It’s good that you’ve come back home.” Bridget said, busily cooking at the stove the next morning. Sunshine streamed through the wide kitchen windows and glinted off the profusion of copper pots hanging from hooks in the ceiling. Freshly baked loaves of bread lined a spotlessly clean counter. At Bridget’s urging, Cara had already had several pieces, and she could attest to how delicious the bread was.
Bridget crossed to the table and refilled Cara’s coffee cup. “Haven’t I always remembered you no more than a mere wisp of a child, crying your heart out as your mother loaded you into her car and drove off without a backward glance?”
“That was a long time ago, Bridget.”
“Humph! Taking you off to God-knows-where, didn’t she now?”
“Mother took me back to her home in England, as you very well know. And, speaking of homes, Killara hasn’t been my home since I was nine years old. I don’t really have a home.”
Bridget whirled around, coffeepot still in her hand. “Everyone needs a home, and don’t I know what I’m talking about? I came here when I was but a girl as maid to Miss Erin, Mr. Burke’s mother. I left Ireland, and even though my sister, Kathleen, later joined me, most of my family is still over there. But I’ve never regretted a moment of it, have I? Killara is a place graced and gifted as are the Delaneys.... Now, don’t you agree?”
Cara smiled gently. “Absolutely.” She had no intention of arguing with Bridget. “How is Kathleen, by the way? I remember her as being such a nice person. She always seemed to have time for me.”
“Ach! Isn’t she still hopeless? Mr. Burke ran out of patience with her inept ways and shipped her off to Mr. York. And now I’m wondering how long Mr. Rafe is going to put up with her, aren’t I?”
Cara chuckled. “She used to make the most awful gingerbread. I don’t think she had any idea how terrible it was. I couldn’t b
ear hurting her feelings, so I’d take the gingerbread and feed it to Crackerjack. He loved it.” She drank some more coffee and briefly toyed with the idea of having another piece of bread, but soon rejected it. For a person who never ate breakfast, she had eaten more than enough. “I understand that Rafe has a horse ranch called Shamrock.”
“Yes, and it’s what he’s always wanted, isn’t it now? It’s in the next valley over.” She nodded her head toward the west. “And Mr. York is running the family mining operation from a godforsaken place called Hell’s Bluff.”
“I read about that.” The older woman threw her a highly skeptical look, making Cara grin. “They really do have newspapers outside of Arizona, you know.”
Bridget harrumphed. “If you say so. At any rate, things are going well, but they haven’t always. People say Mr. Burke is a hard man, but I say, hasn’t he had to be?”
“What do you mean?”
“Faith! What am I saying? It happened right after you left, now didn’t it? Maybe you read about it?”
Cara shook her head. “I would have been only about nine or ten at the time.”
“Oh, that’s right, isn’t it?” Bridget pulled out a chair and sat down at the table with Cara. “Well, you see, on their way to Ireland for a holiday, Mr. Burke’s parents were killed in a terrible plane crash. And Mr. Burke, no more than twenty-one, had to take on the responsibility of the family enterprises, plus the raising of his brothers, who were only nineteen and seventeen themselves. Then Mr. York, always such a sickly boy, up and takes off for seven years, wandering around the world like a gypsy. It was a worrisome time, I tell you!” She tapped a finger on the table for emphasis. “And this happened, mind, just months after Mr. Burke’s own personal tragedy with that girl Elise! It would have been too much for a lesser man, but Mr. Burke went in and took over like he had been doing it his entire life.” Bridget shook her head. “After all the Delaneys who have passed through this world, it has come down to just three. Old Shamus Delaney chose the shamrock as his symbol because he believed his luck came in threes, and he was right, wasn’t he? Mr. Burke, Mr. York, and Mr. Rafe form a powerful trinity, they do.” Bridget beamed with pride. “They’re known the world over as the Shamrock Trinity, aren’t they now?”
Cara had listened with interest to Bridget’s ramblings, but the mention of Burke and a girl named Elise really caught her attention. “Who was Elise?”
Bridget started, as if she just realized she had let something slip that she hadn’t intended. “Well, now, haven’t I said enough already? But my point is, Mr. Burke is a fine man. You won’t find a better one or a more responsible one. He protects what is his. And if Mr. Burke has a bad point—and mind you I’m not saying he does—it’s that he works too hard.” She clicked her tongue. “And haven’t I told him so, though?”
“I’m sure you have.” Talk of Burke reminded Cara that she would no doubt see him one more time before she left, and a tiny thrill spurted up her spine at the thought.
There was a simple explanation for what had happened between them the night before, Cara reasoned. Surely lack of sleep explained the magnified feelings. She had felt as if all her emotions had seeped through her skin to clothe her. And how disturbing it had been to want to hold onto him and never let go! Jet lag had to have been the cause, she told herself firmly.
This morning she was well rested, and there was something she needed to do before she left. Cara drained her coffee cup and set it down. “Bridget, I’d like to walk up to the cemetery before I leave. Do you think that would be all right?”
A look of perplexity crossed Bridget’s face. “Why, of course, you’ll be wanting to visit your da’s grave! And why didn’t I think about it before? You go right on up.”
* * *
Actually Cara hadn’t known whether she would be able to visit the cemetery or not. She didn’t often allow herself to think of the bitter hurt she associated with her father. Emotional pain was something she spent a lot of time avoiding. Still, Cara could remember clinging to her father the day her mother took her away, and he had done nothing to try to soothe her. And when, sobbing, she had vowed to write to him and to come see him as often as she could, his eyes had seemed to look right through her.
Over the years she had written him many letters, but he had never answered. Not once. And every time she would ask if she could visit him, her mother always had an excuse as to why she couldn’t. The last time she asked, she had been sixteen years old, and her mother was already on her third husband. It was then her mother had finally told her that her father didn’t want to see her. Cara had stopped writing the letters. She had stopped asking her mother if she could come to Killara for a visit. She had stopped trying to hold on to people.
Located on a windswept hill, the cemetery overlooked a rolling green valley. For over a hundred and fifty years, the Delaneys had been burying their own on this plot of land. As a child Cara had sometimes sneaked away to come up here and wander among the weathered stones that traced the fascinating history of the family. The names on the markers were like remembered friends—Shamus, Malvina, Joshua, Rising Star.
But today she had come because of her own father. She found his grave in the far corner of the cemetery, marked by a simple granite stone that bore only his name, date of birth, and date of death. Kneeling beside it, she ran her fingers across the chiseled letters, touching the stone as if she could touch him. “Daddy,” she whispered.
Some time later Burke found her there, still kneeling beside the grave, a bouquet of wild flowers forgotten in her lap.
“Cara?” She looked up at him, her eyes clouded with visions only she could see. He didn’t like the idea. There was something in him that demanded to see what she saw. He waited a moment until her eyes had refocused on the present—and on him. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but Bridget told me you’d be up here, and I didn’t think you should be alone.”
“That’s very thoughtful, but I’m fine.”
“Would you like me to leave?”
“No.” She looked at the stone one final time. “No. I’m through here.”
She placed the flowers on the grave and stood up. A slight wind came off the far distant mountains and molded her dress against her. It was a soft lavender-and-mauve jersey dress that curved and flowed, taking its structure solely from her body. A scarf of the same material was wrapped twice across her forehead as a headband, a belt was slung low over her hips and buckled across her stomach, and on her feet she wore taupe suede boots. To Burke she looked earthy and sensual, and the memory of the night he had just spent wrapped in her fragrance came rushing back.
He had a sudden need to touch her. He took her arm and they began threading their way through the gravestones. “I want you to know that your father had a nice service. My office tried to contact you through your mother, but we got no response, and we decided to go ahead with it.”
“I appreciate your efforts. I think I was in Rio then, or maybe it was Marrakesh. I can’t remember. Normally mother would have been able to contact me, but she was on her honeymoon.”
“She remarried?”
“She remarried five times.” Her gaze skimmed the horizon. “You have to give her credit. She keeps trying. She has this incredibly romantic view of the world. I think that’s what appealed to her about my father when she first met him. She had never been to America, and here was this rugged man who was foreman of a cattle ranch. I think he just swept her off her feet. It’s a wonder she lasted nine years. The reality of living on a ranch never came close to matching her expectations of the romantic West.”
Burke listened carefully to what she was saying, and what he learned about Cara surprised him. They were kindred souls. He, too, knew all about buried pain that could resurface when you least expected it. He frowned. “No, I can see where it wouldn’t. It’s a hard life, and you have to have a feel for the land to endure. Not everyone sees beauty here. It’s too savage and raw.”
As one they stopped i
n front of the simple marker that bore Shamus Delaney’s name. Burke pointed to it. but didn’t release her arm. “Now, you take old Shamus here. He brought his wife, Malvina, and their sons all the way from Ireland to America because he had a vision. They passed through some beautiful country on their way out West, but he didn’t stop until he came to this valley. Here he saw something no one else did, and he was willing to die for it. He almost did a few times too.”
Her gray eyes lightened, picking up a violet tint from the color of her dress. “You’re talking to someone who was practically weaned on Delaney lore. I remember hearing all about the battles between the Delaneys and the Apaches.”
He nodded, then grinned. “Everytime the Apaches burned Shamus out, he just rebuilt. Rafe has Shamus’s journals that tell about it. Eventually the Apaches realized that they had met their match, and they decided the expedient thing to do would be to make peace. So the Apache chief offered one of his daughters in marriage, and as luck would have it, Shamus’s youngest son, Joshua, had already noticed and developed a passion for her. Her name was Rising Star.”
“I’ve always thought that was such a beautiful name.”
“She was a very unusual woman. York has her portrait at Hell’s Bluff.”
They began walking again, down off the rise and across the field. “You have a fascinating heritage. The pride in your voice is very strong.”
“I am proud. Over the years the Delaneys have spread out over the world—to fight, to marry, to travel—but they always come back here.” He chuckled. “All but one, that is, and he’s buried on Boot Hill. York, Rafe, and I have a running joking feud as to whether we should leave him there.”
“Ah-ha!” She clapped her hands together, captivated by the idea. “A black sheep Delaney.”
Burke, the Kingpin (The Shamrock Trinity) Page 4