Too Hot To Handle

by Elizabeth Lowell

  She nodded and turned her face away from him, hoping he wouldn’t see the tears that scalded her eyelids. She wasn’t like this. She hadn’t cried since she was seven and her father had looked at the first swimming ribbon she had ever won and asked her if third place was the best she could do.

  “You sure, honey?”

  It was the voice Reever had used to calm Black­jack, warm and gentle and reassuring. It was Tory’s undoing. She was accustomed to whip-cracking lec­tures when she fouled up, not compassion. A shud­der went through her.

  “Poor little green-eyed cat,” he murmured, shifting her in his arms until her face was tucked against his neck. “This just hasn’t been your day, has it?”

  Her only answer was the trembling of her body and the hot, silent slide of her tears down his neck.

  He carried her into the ranch house and set her gently in a big oak kitchen chair.

  “Got your breath back now?” he asked.

  “Y-yes.”

  “Can you sit up without help?”

  She nodded and leaned back, her eyes still closed. The tears had gone, but she was too embar­rassed to look at him. He already thought her a clumsy little girl, and she had just proved that he was right in the most humiliating way possible. One corner of her mouth turned down in a bitter smile. It really hadn’t been her day.

  Yet it had been magic to be held like that, to be cherished by him, if only for a moment.

  While Reever ran hot water into a pan, he watched Tory out of the corner of his eye. Beneath her tan she was as pale as a morning glory. Her lack of color didn’t disturb him as much as the sudden quenching of the life in her body that told him she was at the end of her rope. Watching her, he knew that he couldn’t drive her in to town, dump her at the Sunup Café and drive off.

  Hell, I don’t even know if she has enough money for the crummy motel at the edge of town.

  How will she live for the next three days until the bus comes in?

  Frowning, he wrung out a clean cloth in the water, added a mild disinfectant to the pan and car­ried it over to the table.

  “Here,” he said, lifting her hands gently. “Soak in this.”

  The water was hot without being painful, and the familiar smell of denatured iodine rose from it. It was a favorite disinfectant around the pool because it didn’t stain, sting or leave grease floating on top of the water. She sighed and sat back again, only to make a startled sound when she felt a warm, moist cloth moving over her face.

  “Easy now,” he said, holding her still. “The war’s over, little girl. You’re in no shape for any more fighting.”

  She felt both his strength and his gentle­ness as he cleaned her dusty, tear-streaked face. Af­ter the first surprise passed, she made a tiny, inar­ticulate sound of pleasure and relaxed, giving herself to the unfamiliar luxury of being cared for. Without thinking, she rubbed her face slowly against the cloth and his hand, moving as she had while she bent over the stream.

  The hunger that hadn’t left Reever since he had first seen Tory sat up and howled. He watched her through narrowed eyes, trying to see if she was playing a teasing game with him.

  She wasn’t.

  Nothing showed on her face but simple, sensual pleasure. She didn’t look nearly twenty-one right now. She looked like fifteen, and she made him feel like a lecherous sixty. The longer he looked, the more he became convinced that she had lied about her age.

  “I think you better call them,” he said fi­nally, tossing the wet cloth into the sink and leaning back against the table with his arms crossed, watch­ing her.

  “Who?”

  “Your parents.”

  Her eyes flew open. “What do you suggest I call them?” she asked flatly.

  “Hell, honey, nobody gets along with their par­ents,” he said, shrugging. “It’s not the end of the world. Call them and tell them you’re sorry. They’ll be glad to send you bus money to get home.”

  “How did you know I—”

  The words stopped abruptly when she realized that Reever had decided she was some kind of teenage runaway. She didn’t know whether to laugh or try to drown him in the pan of water. After a few elec­tric seconds she decided to do neither. She reached with a dripping hand into the frayed pocket of her slacks and drew out a cloth wallet that was even more worn than her tennis shoes.

  The wallet landed on the table with a soft plop and fell open, revealing a California driving license.

  “Read it and weep, cowboy. I may have all the sex appeal of an ironing board, but I’ll be twenty-one on my next birthday. I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen. I haven’t asked my parents or anyone else for a dime since then.”

  His eyes narrowed as he measured the change in her. She looked twenty-one now, and then some. He didn’t need to ask if the years had been easy. The threadbare, empty wallet told its own story. Yet he knew if he offered to buy her a bus ticket home she would refuse with the same deter­mined independence that had sent her on a nineteen-mile walk to town without a whimper.

  “An ironing board,” he repeated neutrally, rais­ing his dark eyebrows as he remembered the soft, firm weight of her breasts nuzzling his forearm. “Honey, they must make some damned unusual ironing boards where you come from.”

  She looked at his sexy, off-center smile and wondered if he was remembering the long ride to the ranch or the plunge through Wolf Creek when her nipples had tightened suddenly beneath his hand. He had touched her only for an instant, but even the memory of it sent heat coursing through the pit of her stomach.

  Her breath came in with a soft sound as she saw the focus of his gray eyes shift from her face to her breasts. It was happening again, now, right now. She could feel it, the sudden soft burst of sensation in her nipples as they rose into hard peaks, stretching and teasing nerves that went straight to the wild, secret core of her.

  “We’d better get them wrapped up,” he said curtly, turning away before she could see his body’s reaction to her taut breasts.

  Tory stared after Reever, wondering if he had meant what she thought he meant. As she watched him walk out of the room, she wouldn’t have been sur­prised if he had come back and thrown a bra in her lap. She wasn’t wearing one because she didn’t own any. For one thing she didn’t sag. For another, she was usually in a swimming suit. The overriding fac­tor, however, in her decision to go without that par­ticular piece of clothing had been money. She could appear in public without a bra. She couldn’t say the same for a T-shirt or jeans.

  When she turned and put her hands back into the soothing water, she looked down at her breasts. Instantly she realized he must have seen her nipples clearly outlined against the soft T-shirt. She groaned and wondered if she had lost her mind since she had walked out of that doctor’s office three days ago. She had been numb since then, an automaton going through the motions of eating and sleeping, and all during the long bus ride here, she had hung on to Payton’s letter like a lifeline.

  Then the letter, too, had toppled at a touch, one more in a long row of falling dominoes.

  A sigh compounded of tiredness, hunger, and de­termination shuddered through Tory. She would find a way to take the months off from diving that the doctor had recommended. She didn’t need much in the way of money. There was nothing wrong with her knee that would prevent her from working. All she had to do was fill the prescription for an expensive anti-inflammatory. Which she would, as soon as she could afford it. Until then, plain old aspirin would have to do.

  Strong, gentle fingers lifted one of her hands from the water. Her eyes opened wide, startled. For a big man wearing cowboy boots he moved very softly. Eyes that were as clear as rain studied her. She studied him in return, fascinated by the un­compromisingly masculine lines of his face, the high, blunt cheekbones, rugged nose, and heavy, wickedly arched eyebrows. Beneath the slightly shaggy mustache his lips were distinctly
curved, a sensual contrast with the strong white teeth that showed in his rare smiles.

  “See anything you like?” he asked dryly, not even looking up from his work on her hand.

  She realized that she had been staring openly at him. She didn’t even have the energy to blush or to think of a snappy retort.

  “You’re very hand­some,” she said simply.

  His head jerked up, surprise clear in his eyes. He looked at her expression and realized that she meant exactly what she had said.

  “That’s a first,” he muttered and returned to dabbing carefully at her hand.

  “Surely women have told you that you’re good-looking before,” she said, feeling uncomfortable.

  “Yeah, but never out of bed.”

  He glanced up in time to see the shock on her face. He laughed softly. “You sure you didn’t forge that driver’s license, honey?”

  “You’re a—”

  “Devil,” he finished smoothly. “Yeah, you’ve pointed that out about once a minute since I hoisted you up on Blackjack.”

  “I didn’t say a word the whole ride.”

  “You didn’t have to. I could feel the anger vi­brating through you. Such a passionate little cat. I’m surprised some man hasn’t trimmed your claws and tasted all that wild honey by now.” Abruptly he stopped talking. The direction of his thoughts was having a pronounced effect on the fit of his jeans, not to mention the color of Tory’s face. “Don’t look so hopeful. I’m not volunteering for the job.”

  “Listen, you big—” she began in a hot voice.

  He covered her lips with his long, hard fin­gers, cutting off her tirade. “No, you listen. I’m a man, honey, and I’m used to having women. Women, not girls. If you keep tempting and teasing me, I’m going to grab you and teach you things that will make you blush all the way down to your toe­nails.”

  Her breath came in and wedged hard in her throat. She wanted to rage against him, against what he was saying, to deny every word. But there was truth in what he said, even though she hadn’t realized it until that moment. She had taken one look at him and had wanted to get beneath that hard sur­face and...

  What?

  What do I want from him? Why does he have an uncanny ability to set off my temper? Why did just the simple act of being touched by him as he dried my hands and smoothed ointment into my blistered palms make me feel both safe and threatened?

  And why am I so certain that in some deep, unknowable way I was born for the moment when I opened the Sundance’s gate and walked into Ethan Reever’s life?

  When Tory spoke, her voice was husky, almost ragged. “Normally I’m one of the most even-tempered people you’ll ever meet. Ask any of my coaches. But lately...” She shrugged and smiled weakly. “Well, last week was one of the worst I’ve ever had and having you treat me like a cross be­tween a pushy tart and a juvenile delinquent was adding insult to injury.”

  “And you were depending on this job, weren’t you?” Reever asked gently. “Let me buy you that bus ticket home, honey.”

  She shook her head in a curt negative. “Thanks, but I earn my own way. Always.”

  “It will be a loan. You can repay it when—”

  “No,” she interrupted flatly. “It’s my problem, not yours. Despite what you believe, I’m a big girl. I’ve survived much worse disappointments than not being hired by the Sundance Ranch.”

  There was a taut silence while he tried to think of a way to get her to accept money. Even as he did, he knew that it was futile. Beneath that smooth, delicate surface she was both proud and de­termined to make it on her own. He admired those qualities too much to want to fight her over them.

  “What happened last week?” he asked fi­nally, knowing that he shouldn’t. Whatever had driven Tory from Payton’s civilized, moneyed cir­cles to the untamed north of Arizona was none of Reever’s business, and he knew it. Yet when he had seen the bleakness that had claimed her in the in­stant before she hid it beneath a determined smile, he had wanted to take her into his arms and promise to make everything better. “A man?”

  “As in lover?”

  “Yes.”

  “No fair, cowboy,” she said wearily. “If you want me to stop digging at you, you’ll have to stop digging at me. As you’ve taken pains to point out at every opportunity, I’m not the stuff passionate male fantasies are made of.”

  “Fishing for compliments?”

  “No more than you’re fishing for a pan of dirty water in your face,” she said, anger giving color to her cheeks again. “I know what I am and what I’m not. I’m not sexy.”

  Reever looked at Tory for a long, long moment and decided that she was telling the truth as she saw it. She didn’t believe that she was sexy, period. She was innocent to the last husky breath.

  And as long as she was that innocent, she could drive him or any other man right over the edge and never know it.

  Deliberately he lifted his hand and brushed the back of his fingers over one of her breasts. She made a startled sound deep in her throat as her nipple rose tautly. She stopped breathing entirely when his big hand smoothed out the folds of her T-shirt until her hard nipple stood out clearly against the thin cloth. She shivered and made another soft sound.

  “That,” he said, watching, listening, his expres­sion dark, intense, “is what male fantasies are made of. You respond to a look, a touch, and you make me wonder what would happen if I really looked at you, really touched you.”

  “Reever, I—” Her voice broke as he touched her again, softly, so softly, and turned her nerves to lightning.

  “Yes,” he said. “I know. You want to find out, too. But you’re a virgin.”

  Her eyes widened to reveal a green so pure it made him ache.

  “How did you know?” she whispered.

  He closed his eyes and said something terrible beneath his breath. “I was hoping I was wrong.”

  He turned away from her, traded the tube of ointment for the roll of gauze he had left on the table and began winding the delicate white cloth around one of her palms.

  “I’m going to wrap your hands for now,” he said, his voice flat. “Tonight, though, be sure to take off the bandages. You’ll heal faster in the air.”

  “Reever,” she said softly.

  “No, honey,” he said, not even looking up. “You’re too damned young. You’d have to tell yourself that you loved me, and then you’d want me to talk about love, too. That wouldn’t happen.” He glanced up, pinning her with his hard gray gaze. “I don’t lie to women, in or out of bed. I know what kind of woman I’ll need before I start talking about love, and I know you’re not it.”

  She couldn’t believe the sharpness of the pain that went through her at his matter-of-fact words. With a feeling close to fear, she realized how many dreams had come into focus at his gentle touch.

  I could have loved him.

  She knew it, and it was like dying to know that he couldn’t love her in return.

  So she hid her response beneath the flippancy that had allowed her to survive so much in the past.

  “Because I’m not small, stacked, and sexy?” Tory asked, repeating what he had told her when he had thrown her out of his office.

  “Those are qualifications for a roll in the hay, not a gold ring,” he said matter-of-factly, tying off one ribbon of gauze and going to work on her other hand. “For a wife I want a grown woman who will love me and who will want to have my children, even if I can’t promise her city frills and fancies. I want a woman who won’t fade the first time the going gets rough. I want a woman who will work beside me on the ranch because she loves the land as much as I do.” He shrugged. “I want a woman, not a girl.”

  Tory closed her eyes and knew that his words shouldn’t hurt so much. There was no reason for her to feel as though she were being sliced apart by a razor made of ice. He
wasn’t deliberately being cruel.

  And that was why it hurt so much.

  He wasn’t trying to bait her. He was simply, calmly, telling her the truth. She could turn him on, but that was all she would ever be to him—a roll in the hay, not a woman to love.

  For the second time Reever saw the life drain out of Tory and knew that he had caused it. He heard the echoes of his own words in his mind and winced. He had told the truth, but he hadn’t thought how it might sound to her, a belittling of her possibilities as a woman.

  “Little green-eyed cat,” he murmured, touching her cheek with his finger. “I didn’t mean that the way you took it. I’m too old for you, that’s all. There’s nothing wrong with you. You’ll find a nice boy who will teach you what it’s all about.”

  “I know all I want to know about boys grabbing and pawing,” she said in a thin, tired voice.

  “That’s not what it’s all about,” he said, smiling slightly to himself.

  “Yes, I know,” she whispered, closing her eyes so that she wouldn’t have to see his gentle, very male smile. “But you’re the one who taught me that, Reever. Just now, here, in this kitchen.” She opened her eyes. “And you’re not a boy.”

  “I’m not going to—” he began tightly.

  “I’m not asking you to,” she shot back. “And I’m not going to ask you. But if you pat me on the head again, I swear I’ll bite you.”

  “I bite back, honey. And you know it, don’t you? You like the idea.” Abruptly he made a disgusted sound. “Hell, here we go again, teasing and baiting and throwing kerosene on the fire. I should know better, even if you don’t. Did you ever ask yourself why I keep harping on how damned young you are?”

  Eyes wide, the edge of her teeth buried firmly in her lower lip to hold back a hot rush of words, she shook her head.

  Silently he pushed back his chair and stood up, no longer trying to conceal what she did to him. Her eyes widened even more as she saw the blunt length of his arousal beneath his jeans. She might be inexperienced, but she was neither blind nor stupid. She knew exactly what that hard ridge of flesh meant.