by Diana Palmer
“She’s lonely, Bowie,” she replied gently.
He made a sound and held out his hand. “That’s the wrong size,” he said, handing the wrench back.
“That’s what you asked for,” she pointed out.
“Then read my mind next time. Give me the next smaller size.”
She searched for it, found it, and handed it to him.
“Damned imports,” he mumbled.
“This isn’t a foreign truck,” she pointed out.
“Wyoming imports!” he corrected shortly. “Him!”
“Oh.”
“My father’s only been dead eight years,” he said angrily. “And that yahoo from the Tetons isn’t a patch on him, even if he can spin a rope and talk to horses.”
She had to hide a grin at the way he’d put it. She wondered if his pride was sore because Courtland had jumped in with that rope before he could. He wasn’t the kind of man who liked being stuck on the sidelines in an emergency.
“I guess it would be hard to watch Aggie marry someone else,” she said quietly, feeling his pain even through the anger.
There was a hard pause. “Harder than you know.” He tightened another bolt. “What about your own mother, Gaby?”
She studied a spot on the knee of her jeans. “I don’t remember her very well,” she said, finding it easier than she’d dreamed to talk to him about it. “She died when I was about five or six. Then Dad and I traveled all over, anywhere he could find work. He wasn’t the best father in the world, but he was good to me.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s dead.” She bit off the word. It hurt to say it. She’d never really come to grips with his death, and it hadn’t been until she went to work in Phoenix for the newspaper that she’d learned about it. That was all she’d found out, though—nothing about the people who’d been involved in her mad flight from Kentucky and her father’s agonizing last year of life in a mental institution. She’d been afraid to pursue that line of questioning in her research, for fear that it might give the people in Kentucky some clue to her whereabouts. The last thing she wanted was to have the past revealed. It would inevitably involve the McCaydes in a terrible scandal, and that she couldn’t have.
Lost in her thoughts, she hadn’t realized that Bowie had spoken again. “I said, are you listening?” he repeated.
“Oh, were you saying something? My mind drifted away,” she said lightly.
“I said, you never talk about the past.”
“It’s all long forgotten. Do you want another wrench?”
“No.” He slid out from under the truck and sat up. He was wearing a white, short-sleeved T-shirt dotted with grease. It clung to his powerful chest and shoulders and arms like wet silk, and Gaby caught her breath at the impact of all that vivid masculinity so close. He was sweating, and the dampness made the fabric cling to his breastbone. Under it was the faint shadow of thick chest hair. She couldn’t imagine why it should affect her so strongly lately, but ever since she’d seen him without a stitch of clothing on in the pool house, she’d had such erotic thoughts about him.
She forced her eyes away from his torso and up to his face. He was so unbelievably handsome—every line of him was perfect. His black eyes narrowed at her scrutiny while he pushed back a sweaty strand of blond hair. Her eyes glanced off his and she colored.
“Do I have spots on my nose?” he asked pointedly.
“No.” She shifted, studying her boots. “Sorry.”
“You stare at me a lot lately,” he observed. “Mind telling me why?”
She smiled self-consciously. “For the same reason other women do, I guess.” She looked up and then quickly down again. “You’re very handsome, Bowie.”
He made a sound and tossed the wrench he was holding into the tray of tools. “Hell.”
“Well, you are.”
“Hand me that piece of cloth and a cigarette.”
She tossed him the cloth, watching him wipe the grease from his big, lean hands as she pulled the cigarette package from the pocket of the shirt he’d tossed aside before he had begun working on the truck. “Do you have matches?” He searched in his jeans pocket, tightening the fabric over the powerful muscles of his legs tightened. She felt pleasure ripple through her at the sight, and blushed when she realized what was happening to her.
He saw the blush and his eyes narrowed. He calmly lit the cigarette and propped one leg up, dangling the hand with the cigarette over it. “Nervous, Gaby?” he asked with a faint smile.
“A little,” she confessed, deciding that it was always best to fight fire with fire. “Things are getting very complicated around here.”
“Oh, it’s not so bad,” he said. He took a draw from the cigarette, still, studying her. “Courtland will go home soon, Aggie will get back to normal, and the agricultural combine will discover that when I say no, I mean it.”
Her olive eyes danced. “Nice to be so certain of things,” she murmured, because he didn’t yet know what his mother had in mind.
“Why the transformation?” he asked, reaching out a hand to touch the shoulder of her sexy blouse. “I’ve never seen you look quite so feminine before. I hope it’s for my benefit, Gaby,” he added, his voice deep, soft.
“You’re getting me all mixed up,” she said defensively.
“You need mixing up.” He tugged a lock of her hair, savoring its soft texture with his fingers. “We aren’t going to be enemies,” he said quietly. “No matter what happens here with Aggie or the land. You and I are never going to be adversaries.”
“I hope not,” she agreed. She felt shaky. The way he was looking at her made her more nervous than ever. It all came flooding back—the things he’d said in the pool house, the way he’d started to kiss her, the tension that had been steadily building between them ever since. It was in her eyes, in her face when she stared back at him.
“You look as if you might jump up and start running any minute,” he mused. “Am I that frightening?”
“It isn’t really fear,” she said hesitantly.
His black eyes darkened even more and his hand stilled on the lock of hair he was holding. “Isn’t it?” His fingers tightened. “Come here.”
She wasn’t sure, and it showed. “It will...change everything,” she whispered.
“Everything is already changed,” he said quietly. “This has been building between us ever since that night in Phoenix. Every day it gets worse. Do you know, I almost came to you last night?” he asked, his voice deepening at her scarlet blush. “It took all my will power to stay in my own bed.”
She remembered her own anguish the night before, the way she’d wanted him. It was uncanny that he should have felt it, too, but that only increased her fears. She felt her nerve deserting her. She tugged her hair away from his confining fingers and jumped up, moving away from him toward the wall.
“Don’t say things like that,” she whispered huskily. “It isn’t right!”
“You’re twenty-four, for God’s sake!” He got up, too, gracefully for a man his size, and walked toward her with the smoking cigarette in his hand. “We’re not playing games, Gaby. This isn’t some mild flirtation because I’m bored and looking for a diversion. And you won’t make me believe that you react to me any differently than I do to you.”
She didn’t know what to say. She knew her legs were trembling. She was afraid of what he might expect of her. He was worldly and sophisticated and she was a novice—a very nervous one, at best. She shifted so that she was standing with her back to the long worktable against the wall. “Bowie, you’re going too fast,” she said, her voice husky with feeling.
“No. I’m just refusing to put off the inevitable any longer. My God, I want your mouth,” he breathed roughly.
Her lips parted as she felt the impact of the words,
saw the need in his black eyes. She couldn’t speak.
He studied her expression closely. In a few seconds he dropped the barely touched cigarette to the concrete floor and ground it out deliberately under his booted foot. He hadn’t shifted his eyes one inch, and she felt the purpose in that steady gaze grow.
Her breath began to rustle quickly in her throat when he walked toward her. His hands slid slowly to her waist, clasped it, and lifted her gently so that she was sitting on the table. Then he moved closer, between her jean-clad legs, his hands still on her waist.
In her high sitting position, his eyes were on an unnerving level with hers, and she could feel the pervasive warmth of his big body, smell the scent of tobacco and cologne and sweat that mingled sensually and drifted into her nostrils. His black eyes searched hers until she flushed, and then they fell with obvious intent to her lips. She almost swooned with the need to feel his mouth. For two days now, she’d gone hungry for him, but there had never been the opportunity for them to be alone. Now they were, and it was going to happen, at last...!
She felt her heart begin to race when he bent forward and slowly touched his hard lips to her soft ones in a whisper of a kiss, his smoky breath mingling with hers in a silence that magnified the sound of her own rapid heartbeat. She stiffened a little at the intimacy of his mouth against hers, the newness of being so close to Bowie. His lips were hard and warm, and he brushed them lazily over hers, nudging them apart. Her hands gripped his shoulders, half in fear and half in anticipated pleasure. The strength of his body was all too evident in the near-intimate embrace.
He lifted his head enough to see her eyes, and he read very accurately the apprehension there. “This is all I want of you right now,” he said quietly. “Just your mouth under mine. Relax, little one. I won’t hurt you. I’m only going to kiss you.”
The complete control he displayed and the laziness of his movements took the rigidity out of her spine. She stopped trying to fight it. Her breath rippled against his hard lips as he bent again. This time the kiss lingered. His mouth brushed at hers again with slow, expert sensuality until he made her lips part. Then he moved forward, feeling her starkly open eyes on him as he turned his head slightly and covered her mouth completely with his lips.
She gasped. It was the most sensuous thing she’d ever done with a man in her life, and to do it with Bowie was shattering. She stared up at him, meeting his steady, curious eyes.
“I feel it, too, baby,” he said quietly, his voice rough with emotion. The unfamiliar endearment sounded so natural, yet he’d never used it with her before, and it sent delicious chills up her arms. His nose rubbed softly against hers as he bent again. “Lift your arms around me.”
She didn’t understand why it was imperative that she obey him, but it was. She slid her hands behind his head, where they touched, tentatively, the thick hair at his nape and entwined there. Her mouth yielded to the slow crush of his and she was staggered at the flash of emotion it ignited.
His big hands left her waist to slide up her back and pull her closer into his warm, enveloping embrace. He half lifted her against him, her breasts crushing softly against his broad, hard chest. His mouth grew just slightly harder on hers, brushing firmly at her lips to make them part even more.
She felt a sting of pleasure that ran down her taut body and settled in her lower stomach. She heard herself make a sound deep in her throat and pulled her mouth from under his.
“It frightens you, doesn’t it?” he asked with a faint scowl on his face. “Haven’t you ever felt passion before?”
She swallowed. She shook her head, beyond words. Her lips were tingling, faintly swollen from the long touch of his mouth on them. Her eyes fell to his mouth and found it equally swollen. Her breasts shook with her heartbeats. He was very close, and the intimacy of the hold he had on her was making her body throb in the most disturbing way. She felt herself tremble and wondered what to do about it.
His hands moved, raising her higher against his chest, while his lips paused just above hers. “I won’t let it get out of hand, if that’s what you’re nervous about. Give in to me,” he whispered sensually. “I’ll teach you what you want to know without making you afraid.”
The words didn’t really make sense until his mouth settled down on hers and began to rub against it, parting her lips with slow expertise while his hands slid to her hips and slowly, achingly, drew them completely against his.
She’d never felt a man’s aroused body before—not like this. Not so that she was a willing participant. Her mind was drowning in the sweetness of a heady pleasure like nothing she’d ever known before. She clung to Bowie’s powerful neck and didn’t protest the intimacy of his hold, not even when his fingers contracted hungrily on her hips.
He felt that submission with a thrill of pride, because he could feel her innocence. Very likely, this was the first time she’d even been kissed properly, much less anything more intimate. His body sang with delicious sensation, rippled with it. He breathed in the gardenia scent of her and put his tongue delicately against the inside of her upper lip, teasing it. He felt her mouth begin to open, welcoming him, and with a groan of pure anguish, he pushed his tongue inside it, his arms swallowing her hungrily, crushing her against his body.
She tightened her arms, feeling him pull her up as he rose, feeling his body absorb her weight as her feet hung off the ground in his bearish embrace. His mouth was doing the most intimate things to hers, and she loved it...loved it! Her body throbbed where he held it to his. His mouth was the center of the universe. She was living only through it, and if he stopped, she was going to die...!
When he suddenly put her down and started to move back, she cried out and clung to him, her eyes opening like dark olive flowers, helplessly caught in his black gaze.
His eyes were full of thunder. His heartbeat was so hard and heavy that it shook her, and he was breathing as roughly as she was, but he seemed to be in complete control. The hands that put her quietly away from him were deft and completely steady.
She tried to speak, but tears spilled down her cheeks. The intensity of emotion was new, just like the helpless trembling of her body.
“No...!” she protested helplessly when he moved away from her, and then flushed at her own boldness.
“I promised you I wouldn’t let it get out of hand,” he reminded her. “No normal man can keep that up for very long,” he said with a gentle smile. “You get my meaning, I believe?”
She did, all too abruptly. The changed contours of his big body would have been enough to bring it home, even if his wicked smile hadn’t.
She caught her breath, wrapping her arms around her breasts. They felt oddly swollen, like her mouth.
“My gosh,” she whispered aloud, as the intensity of what they’d shared loomed over her like a threat.
“Want a cigarette?” She shook her head as he flicked a match and took a draw from the cigarette. He seemed perfectly at ease, except for a faint glitter in his eyes. “You and I are explosive together,” he remarked.
“I never dreamed I could let anyone kiss me like that,” she whispered, without meaning to give herself away so completely.
“You don’t trust me enough to tell me what happened, but I think I’ve got some of it worked out. Somewhere along the line, a man lost control and frightened you.”
She swallowed. There was a glimmer of truth in what he’d guessed, but he hadn’t come near the real story.
“Something like that,” she agreed, to placate him and keep him from probing further.
“Were you raped?” he asked.
She felt her face going scarlet, because she hadn’t expected that question. “No!” she burst out automatically.
“Talk to me,” he said gently. “I’m not going to look down my nose at you or give any lectures.”
“I can’t!”
“I never meant to let this happen,” she whispered tearfully. “It’s all so complicated. I can’t... I can’t ever be intimate with a man, Bowie. I can’t...!” She looked up with tragic eyes.
He touched her lips with a lean forefinger. “You can be intimate with me,” he whispered. “Not right away. Maybe not for a long time. But sooner or later, you’ll tell me all about the past, and I’ll ease you through the first time.” His black eyes narrowed. “And it will be the first time, won’t it, Gaby?”
Her eyes couldn’t move. He’d trapped them. “Yes,” she breathed. “But I won’t be able...”
His mouth brushed hers into silence. “Suppose you get on the phone after lunch and invite John Hammock to that party Friday night?” he asked, changing the subject with remarkable ease.
The suddenness of the remark startled her. “What?”
“I want you to invite John to the party,” he said simply. “Aggie used to be sweet on him, and his wife died last year. He’s good-looking and a conservationist.”
“Bowie, I don’t think it’s going to work. Your mother is really interested in Mr. Courtland.”
“Mr. Courtland is going home. He just doesn’t know it. Humor me—I know what I’m doing.” He smiled wickedly. “John’s got a way with women.”
“You might not believe it, but so does Mr. Courtland,” Gaby said firmly. “He’s not what he seems. And I don’t think he’s an escaped convict. Did you see how he handled that rope, and the horse?” she persisted. “Even Bandy isn’t that good, and he’s been a horse wrangler his whole life. Mr. Courtland has a rare talent, and there’s something very authoritative about him.”
“Well, he seems pretty ordinary to me,” he replied. “His clothes are off the rack, and he doesn’t know a damned thing about cattle, even if he can throw a rope.”