by Diana Palmer
As she said good night and hung up, she wondered how she was going to manage if she had to go home and fight off Harry’s practical proposal all over again.
Chapter Four
The next day was Saturday, and the team was given the weekend off. A trail ride was planned for guests at the ranch, along with a shopping trip to town, a small rodeo, and a camping trip that night in the mountains behind the ranch. It would be a full day, but all Christy saw were the regular wranglers. She hadn’t even caught a glimpse of Nate, and some of the joy and excitement went out of the activities because he wasn’t around.
George, of course, stuck to her like glue. He was delighted to have a partner for the trail ride. The only thing was, he apparently couldn’t ride at all. He was allergic to horses and obviously terrified of them. What happened was probably inevitable, Christy thought as she watched the horse he was on begin to buck. George came off the horse, landing flat on his back in the dust, with the breath knocked out of him.
She and Mrs. Lang fussed over him while one of the men was delegated to take him to town to be X-rayed. He was limping a little, but Christy was almost sure no real damage had been done. George was just enjoying the attention he was getting. He asked her to ride into town with them, but before she could answer, Nate came striding up and appropriated her with only a brief sympathetic word to George and a nod to his mother.
“George is hurt,” she protested.
“George is a blithering idiot,” he said shortly. He glared down at her as he propelled her back toward the barn. “And I’ll be damned if he’s going to monopolize you with that fake fall.”
“But it wasn’t fake…!”
He turned her to him within sight of the other guests mounting their horses. “Listen. Your friend George hit hard, but he knew how to fall, surely you noticed that?”
She had noticed, although she hadn’t suspected that George had done it on purpose. She stared up at Nate curiously.
He hated that look. He couldn’t decide if she was sophisticated and trying to pretend she wasn’t, or if that innocence was real. She was full of contradictions and he didn’t know whether he was coming or going lately.
Frowning, he stared down at her, his eyes suddenly kindling as the look took on new dimensions, made her knees weak, her breath come in faint gasps. The magic was there again, as potent as ever.
“Where are we going?” she asked, trying to break the spell before she gave in to it again.
“Riding,” he said.
“But, I can’t…!”
“I’ll teach you.” He took her hand and led her into the stable where two of the cowboys were busily saddling horses for the guests. “Bud!” he called to one of them. “Saddle Blue for Christy.”
“Yes, sir!”
The young cowboy moved toward an older horse, a palomino, and Christy watched with delight as it was saddled and led to her.
“This is Blue,” Nate told her, thanking the cowboy as he took the reins. “Blue was my birthday present when I was fifteen. He’s twenty-two now, and he doesn’t get ridden much, but he likes a leisurely trail ride now and again. He’s very gentle. He won’t throw you.”
She moved toward the horse and lifted a hesitant hand to his soft muzzle. He let her stroke him, his big brown eyes kind and watchful.
“Oh, he’s beautiful!” Christy exclaimed. “What a nice boy,” she cooed as she stroked his forehead. “Nice old fellow.”
“Here, give him this and he’ll be your friend for life. Mind your fingers, though.” He handed her a sugar cube, which she fed to the horse. “We don’t let him have much sugar these days. It isn’t good for him to get overweight, but he’s got a sweet tooth.”
“I guess you could ride from the time you could sit up,” she mused.
“Almost,” he agreed. “My dad put me in the saddle when I was four and kept me there until I learned to ride the way he thought I should. He was a former rodeo star. His son had to be the best, at everything, on horseback.”
The deep, angry note in his voice caught her attention. She looked up at him.
He laughed when he saw the way she was looking at him. “I’ll bet your dad spoiled you rotten,” he murmured.
“My parents died when I was twelve,” she said. “Joyce Ann raised me. She’s been more mother than big sister all my life.”
He brushed the hair back from her face, gently. “My kids aren’t going to be pushed into doing things they don’t want to do,” he said.
“Neither are mine,” she replied.
He searched her eyes. “We’re different in coloring,” he murmured, lifting her hand in his to study it. “My skin is much darker than yours, like my hair and my eyes.”
“I take after my mother,” she said. “Her grandmother was Norwegian.”
He smiled. “I take after my mother, too. Her mother was Spanish.”
“I thought she might be. She’s still very lovely.”
“Yes.” He let go of her hand, disturbed at the images that had been dancing around in his brain. He couldn’t help but wonder if he and Christy had kids, which one of their parents the children would favor. Those weren’t thoughts he should be considering. This was just a holiday romance, he told himself firmly.
He helped Christy into the saddle, trying not to laugh as she tugged and panted her way onto the horse with his help.
“My goodness, it’s much harder than it looks on television!” she exclaimed.
“Oh, you should be overweight and try it,” he murmured dryly. “Riding a horse is pretty easy compared to getting on and off one. It just takes practice.”
She was still panting, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I guess so.”
“You shouldn’t ride longer than an hour, either,” he added as he went to get his own mount.
“Why?”
He swung into the saddle with the ease of years of practice and moved his horse up to hers. “Because you’re going to discover that you use muscles you didn’t know you had. By tonight you’ll be walking bowlegged, and tomorrow you’ll be stiff as a board.”
She fingered the reins. “I don’t suppose there’s a van going to church?”
He chuckled. That was a nice touch, he thought to himself. She was really putting on the act for him. “No. Most of the guests like to sleep late on Sunday. But mother and I go, if you’d like to come.”
She beamed. “Thanks.”
His slate-gray eyes ranged over her face with pure mockery, but she was too far away to see the expression. All she saw was the smile. “Don’t pull too hard on those reins.”
He rode off ahead of her, more disturbed than he wanted to let on. If she’d been a hometown girl, if that pose of hers was real, she’d have been everything he’d ever wanted in a wife. As it was…
They headed around the valley and through a small canyon, and while they rode, he told her about the vegetation that grew in the desert and how it held water.
“Notice the leaves,” he said, reining in, indicating one of the prickly pear cacti beside the trail. “If the leaves are fat, it means we’ve had rain. If they’re skinny, we haven’t. The leaves on desert plants usually stay thin during periods of drought so that the plant won’t require as much moisture. Now, the saguaro is pleated, like an accordion, to allow it to expand with water when it rains.” He crossed his forearms over each other on the pommel and stared at her. “Did you know that a saguaro can weigh up to ten tons? There’s a skeleton inside it to support that weight, and most of it is just water. The saguaro doesn’t grow an arm until it’s from seventy to seventy-five years old. They can live to be two hundred years old.”
She caught her breath. Just looking at the huge cacti in the Saguaro National Monument outside Tucson had fascinated her as they drove through the monument to get to the ranch. But Dr. Adamson hadn’t known a lot about the giant cacti, so conversation had centered on the dig, not the vegetation.
“That’s not a fraction of fact on the plants here,” he mused, star
ing out over the desert. “My God, a botanist could spend his life learning about desert plants. The Papago use them for medicine, for food, for liquor. They make flour from the dried pods of palo verde and mesquite. They fry or boil the leaves on prickly pear cacti for food. They make a kind of beer from the fruit of the prickly pear and the saguaro. I could go on for hours.”
“I could listen for hours,” she replied. “I’d like to take pictures of those plants for my class back home. The children would enjoy learning about a different kind of vegetation than they’re used to.”
He frowned as he looked at her. If she really was an elementary school teacher—and everything pointed to it—that one fact didn’t jibe with what he thought she was. If she led a wild life, wouldn’t the education department protest? And how could she settle for such a tame career, if she was the pretty little flirt she’d convinced him she was? It didn’t make sense.
“Why do you teach school?” he asked bluntly.
“I don’t know. It just sort of fell into my lap. My father was a teacher. He loved the life, and I loved him.” She smiled. “My mother was an artist. They were terribly mismatched, but it was just as well they died together.” The smile faded. “They were so devoted to each other that one wouldn’t have thrived without the other. I suppose I’ve spent my whole life looking for that kind of love, but maybe it’s so rare that it only happens for one couple out of ten thousand.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “My parents never got along. My father married my mother because he wanted this ranch. He managed to drive it into bankruptcy with his extravagant ideas of how to make an empire of it. He died when I was twenty-five,” he added curtly, and his dark eyes glittered. “He never forgave me for preferring geology to ranching. When he couldn’t browbeat me into doing what he wanted, he tried freezing me out. I don’t think he said ten words to me after I started college.”
She wondered if he’d ever told anyone else that, and decided that he was such a private person that he probably hadn’t. It flattered her that he felt so at ease with her. “Your mother is very proud of you.”
His dark gray eyes searched hers. “Yes. She was the one person who ever cared enough to let me be myself.” He pushed back the creamy Stetson he was wearing. “Most women go into a relationship with the idea that they’ll change a man to suit them. It’s not that easy to restructure a person’s personality, and not much of a man who’ll allow a woman to do it.”
“If you change people, sometimes you change the things you love most about them, without realizing it,” she replied.
He stared at her blatantly. She was beautiful with the sun making a golden fire of her wavy hair as the wind moved it around. Her pale green eyes were soft and warm as she looked back at him, and there was an attractive color in her cheeks. She was wearing a gaily striped blouse with puffy sleeves that buttoned up the front with her tight jeans and tan boots, and she looked like the Eastern tourist she was. But she had a lovely figure and Nate remembered so well how she felt in his arms. Fires began to burn deep inside him as he looked at her. She knew the score, for God’s sake, and she wanted him, too. He knew by the electricity that sparkled between them when they were alone. So why was he holding back?
His jaw clenched. He glanced past her to the shade of some palo verde trees by the wash that was, infrequently, a running stream during the rainy season. “Let’s rest a bit,” he said.
She followed him into the shady area and watched him tether his mount to a palo verde tree. He reached up to help her down from her own horse, deliberately letting her slide against him, so that she could feel the corded muscles in his body, feel the warm strength of it, feel his breath sighing heavily against her face as he helped her down.
The nearness was unnerving, especially when his dark eyes looked down into hers and time spun out between them.
“I’ll tie Blue for you,” he said huskily. “Then you and I are going to make love.”
She wasn’t quite sure she’d heard that last bit, because he turned away as he said it and probably she’d misunderstood. He tethered Blue and came back to her, and then she knew that she hadn’t mistaken what he’d said. His eyes were blazing with raw desire.
He bent and lifted her easily in his muscular arms and carried her, holding her fascinated gaze, to the shelter of the tree. He laid her down in the soft sand and stretched out beside her, pausing just long enough to let his hat sail to one side before he bent to her mouth.
She knew then how much he’d been playing with her. The teasing kisses of the past were totally eclipsed by the blatant, demanding hunger of the kiss he now gave her. His mouth was hard and rough, pushing her lips apart with fierce command, making her submit with the threatened pressure of his body while he deepened the kiss into something far beyond her slight experience.
“Relax,” he said against her soft mouth. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. I may be a little rougher than the men you’re used to, but I won’t hurt you.”
That didn’t make sense at first. Then she felt his tongue go into her mouth, felt his hands sliding under her top, against her bare skin. Her eyes flew open and she tried to speak, but his mouth grew rougher.
He moved, one long leg insinuating itself between both of hers, and she felt the power and strength of him in an embrace she’d never shared with a man before.
“Please…you’re going…too fast!” she whispered, frightened.
He lifted his head, searching her eyes. He frowned, because she actually looked frightened. Odd, when she was such a pretty, outgoing woman. Men must have been camped on her doorstep for years now, and she surely didn’t reach her present age without some experience. Not the way she looked. It must be part of the act, but that fear seemed real.
“How old are you, Christy?” he asked, his voice deep and faintly husky with desire. He knew, but he asked anyway.
“I’m twenty-five,” she said uneasily.
His fingers were against her ribcage, gently caressing her so that unknown sensations began to work in her body. He made her feel odd, uneasy, excited, especially when he worked his way up to the band of her bra just under her breasts and lingered there. She shouldn’t let him touch her this way, but something was happening to her that she didn’t understand.
“I’m thirty-seven,” he murmured, holding her eyes while that hand moved again and his fingers touched her breast, making her jump. “We’re both plenty old enough to know what we’re doing, aren’t we?” he added.
“I…guess so,” she managed. Her heart leaped. He was touching her, his fingers warm through the thin fabric of her bra, and she lay there docilely, letting him caress her. She couldn’t imagine why she was permitting the intimacy, except that it was making her head spin and her body blaze up with pleasure. She made an odd sound and raised her back, shocking herself with the sensuous little movement.
He smiled, bending to her mouth again. “That’s more like it,” he whispered. “I wondered how long you could keep up the act…”
Her thoughts dissolved as his mouth covered hers again. His thumb rubbed over her nipple and she felt it tighten until it was almost painful, but every time he touched it, her body flinched with helpless pleasure. She moaned, tangling her hands in the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling his hard mouth even closer against her own. She opened her lips for him, inviting the thrust of his tongue into the soft, warm darkness of her mouth.
Fever, she thought while she could. It burned like a vicious fever. She wanted to be closer to him. She wanted to be without her clothing so that he could cool her hot skin by touching it with his lean, strong hands. She wanted his touch as she’d never wanted anything.
He seemed to know it, too, because he lifted her and snapped the fastening of her bra. Then he looked into her eyes and slid his hand over her naked breast, watching the expression that washed over her face.
“Yes, it’s good, isn’t it?” he asked gruffly. “Feeling my hands on your body, my mouth on your mouth. And this is just the
beginning. Hasn’t it been like this before?”
“No,” she whispered brokenly. She shivered as he began to raise the hem of her blouse.
“There isn’t another soul within twenty miles of us,” he breathed, letting his eyes slide down to the bareness of her white skin as he pushed the offending fabric away and left her bare to the collarbone. His breath caught at the sight of her pretty breasts, pink-tipped, firm and peach-colored. He couldn’t get enough of the sight of her. But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. He bent his head and opened his mouth, taking her inside.
Christy wept. It was the sweetest agony she’d ever known. His eyes on her body, the expression on his face that told her she was beautiful to him, the feel of his mouth against her tender skin. She clung to him, arching herself up to his lips, begging for the feel of them on her body. She thought she wouldn’t survive the pleasure, and then he turned her into him and brought her hips against his with one fierce jerk of his lean hand.
She’d never experienced the feel of a man’s aroused body. It terrified her. She cared for him and she didn’t want to ask him to stop, but it was going to be too late if she waited much longer. Judging by the feel of him, and the faint shudder of his powerful body, he wasn’t going to be too eager to stop anyway. He was sophisticated and he seemed to feel that she was, too. She didn’t understand why he was letting things go this far. She’d told him she was a greenhorn, but perhaps he’d misunderstood.
She had to force her lips not to cling when he lifted his head. She could imagine how she looked, with her mouth swollen and her body half bare to his eyes. It was agony to stop.
“Please,” she whispered, putting a trembling hand against his broad chest.
“Unbutton it,” he said, his voice rough, his eyes glittering with desire.
“What?”