On the whole, she had to be reasonably satisfied with the overall effect. She looked poised, cool and very much in command of herself. It was as much as she could hope for under the circumstances, she thought with a sigh as the sound of a car stopping out front caught her attention.
She opened the door to find Yale standing on the step, every inch the neat, conservatively dressed professional. For some reason she almost laughed, barely managing to stifle the flash of humor. But he must have seen it in her eyes, because the gold winked in his grin and the hazel eyes glittered wickedly behind the austere glasses.
"Why do you have to look past the surface?" he complained, stepping inside the cozy apartment and glancing around expectantly. "I really am an accountant, you know. Give me a chance!" He finished his quick perusal of the room and lifted her chin possessively with his hand. Dropping a light, proprietary kiss on her lips, he released her almost at once.
"I gave you a chance," she reminded him determinedly. "And you turned out to be something altogether different from an accountant!" She moved away from him. "I'll get my purse."
She disappeared into the bedroom and returned to find him studying her eclectic collection of books. He put down the small volume of eighteenth-century philosophy as she appeared in the doorway.
"Your interests appear to be wide-ranging," he murmured, coming forward. "Do you play that guitar?" He nodded toward the instrument on the wall.
"A little," she admitted carefully, eyeing him uneasily.
"And can you really cook stuff out of those fancy gourmet cookbooks?"
"Do I look like I've been starving to death most of my life?" she tossed back, reaching for a fluffy shawl.
He came up behind her, adjusting the shawl and then sliding his hands warmly down her sides, shaping her curves. "No," he whispered throatily. "You look like a woman who knows instinctively about womanly things like cooking and loving and—"
"And selling securities!" she interrupted, stepping hastily away from his touch.
"And selling securities," he agreed smiling. He flicked a glance over her interestedly. "Tonight's my night to ask the questions," he went on slowly.
"I thought you were going to take a lesson from me in the perils of curiosity," she muttered, turning briskly toward the door.
"I won't complain if my curiosity leads us to bed as yours did last night." He chuckled, following her out the door and into the dusk of the spring evening.
"It won't!" she swore. "Nothing will lead me into a repeat of last night! Unlike you, I've learned my lesson!'
"What did he say?" Yale asked almost conversationally as he helped her into the car and took his place behind the wheel.
"Who?" She frowned, momentarily at a loss.
"The guy you broke the date with tonight."
"That's none of your business," she declared regally, glancing pointedly out the window.
"Everything about you is my business now," he told her patiently. "But I'll let that question ride. After all, you didn't try to force a confrontation. I'll be satisfied with that."
"You're too generous!"
"I know, but that's probably because I'm feeling guilty."
"Over last night?" she scoffed. "I don't believe you."
"Try me. Give me a chance, honey. I'll make everything right this time around."
She slanted a suspicious glance across the seat, not certain how to react. This sudden earnestness to start over left her confused and wary.
"Tell me about yourself," he ordered in a rather businesslike fashion some time later as they were seated in a charming downtown restaurant. One of the new Oregon-grown and-bottled wines was on the table, the atmosphere was elegantly subdued and the other patrons were well dressed and well mannered. Yale had brought her a long way from last night, Dara thought with fleeting humor.
"What do you want to know?" she asked, picking up the menu with a sense of anticipation. The food really was very good here, and Dara appreciated good food.
He shrugged. "Anything. Everything. Are you a native?"
"Native Oregonian? Definitely," she informed him, scanning the list of Continental specialties.
"Have you ever been outside the state?" he asked in amusement.
"Only when absolutely necessary," she told him with the blissful smugness of the classic Oregonian. "I was forced to go to California once for a time and I've made a couple of brief forays into Washington." She shuddered in recollection.
"I'm beginning to feel that way myself, and I've only been here a short while," Yale chuckled.
She glanced up and met his laughing eyes. "Most new immigrants want to be the last ones allowed over the border. They'd like to see the place closed off once they're safe here. You know, issue passports and visas to the rest of the folks who want to come for a visit!"
"You can't blame us," he said gently, watching her face with deep interest. "Oregon is so unspoiled and has so much to offer. We newcomers feel like we've found a paradise, and we know how easily paradises are ruined. What amazes me is that you natives are equally conscious of what you've got."
She nodded, perfectly aware of what he was talking about. "We've got everything that counts. The outdoors is everywhere, even in the cities. We're proud of our past and we've preserved it. We're very self-reliant, a heritage from that past, I suppose. A lot of us are descendants of people who came out west on wagon trains, you know. Our towns and cities are manageable in size. Portland's our only 'big' city, and that's only about four hundred thousand people. A lot of people make their living in the lumber industry, and that tends to breed an independent spirit."
"Everything about this state is independent," Yale murmured, trying his wine tentatively. It was his first exposure to Oregon wines. "Your environmentalist attitudes are famous throughout the rest of the nation, you know. You're all considered naming radicals on the East Coast! Your state and local governments have spent a fortune taking care of your rivers and air and land."
"We know what we've got" She shrugged. "Land this beautiful doesn't last unless it's taken care of."
He nodded. "I'm aware of that."
"Why did you move from California?" Dara asked.
"L.A. turned out to be a little too far from the hills," Yale confided with surprising honesty.
Dara's lashes flicked against her high cheekbones as she considered that. "So you came looking for someplace a little more real, is that it?"
"Something like that," he agreed reflectively. "I don't ever want to go back to the mountains, but I found out I didn't want to give up everything I'd taken for granted as a child, either. I like smaller towns. I'll never be at home in a huge metropolis. And I like having the outdoors in my backyard."
"You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy?" Dara grinned in sudden sympathy.
"I guess that's it," he said slowly, returning her smile.
In that moment of communication Dara realized she had made a huge mistake. She had unwittingly allowed him to establish the truce he had been seeking.
"And that, my darling Dara," Yale continued, cementing the truce with sure instinct, "is something I hadn't even admitted to myself until you forced the realization on me. You're a witch, sweetheart."
"Do people back in the mountains still believe in witches?" she whispered, aware of the sensual tension she was experiencing.
"Definitely. Just because we talk a little slower than the rest of you doesn't mean we think any slower!"
He danced with her after dinner. Not in the restrained way he had danced at the flashy, ex-disco nightclub nor in the earthy, blatantly sexual way he had at the truckers' bar. This time Yale held her close, the embrace intimate but not embarrassing, and Dara foolishly allowed herself to revel in the swaying, enticing strength of his lean body.
She knew she was being seduced; knew it and for the life of her didn't know how to combat it. She loved this man in all his complexity, and sa
ying no to him tonight was going to take more willpower than she might have in reserve. But it must be said, her whole future depended on it.
Six
As much as she had tried to prepare herself for the inevitable difficulty of ending the evening adroitly, and even with all her considerable experience at ending such evenings with other men, Dara had to acknowledge later that she badly mishandled the event. She found herself detonating the male time bomb in her hands with hardly any effort at all.
"I hope you're going to invite me to stay the night," Yale said deliberately, setting aside the guitar on which he'd picked out a couple of haunting mountain melodies for her and reaching for the glass of brandy Dara had poured.
So matter-of-fact! Dara drew a deep breath and said very carefully, "No, Yale. Not tonight." She sat quite still and watchful on her end of the couch and waited.
"Tonight, especially," he contradicted quietly, his eyes meeting hers with cool certainty.
In spite of herself, Dara shivered. "Why do you say that?" she whispered.
"Because I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on you, remember?" Yale allowed himself a smile at her look of astonishment.
Dara arched an eyebrow quellingly. "To tell you the truth, I'd almost forgotten about that small-time smuggler. But it doesn't matter. We both know he's not likely to show up. He doesn't even know our names."
"He could have followed us this morning, waiting until tonight to come calling," Yale suggested helpfully.
"Don't be ridiculous! You're making excuses and you know it!"
"You're right." He sighed. "I really don't need any other excuse than the obvious, do I?"
"You're not staying here tonight, Yale. The evening has been lovely, I'll admit that much, but not lovely enough to cause me to make a fool out of myself again. This is as far as you're going to get with your seduction."
He considered that for a moment. "I'm going to stay," he announced flatly.
"Then you'll have to sleep outside in the Alfa Romeo, because you most certainly aren't staying here. Good night, Yale." With an air of determination, Dara rose to her feet.
He leaned back into the corner of the couch, one leg stretching out along the cushions with the foot dangling. The picture of the relaxed male, she thought in dismay. His dark tie had ben loosened and his jacket lay over the back of the couch. Some of the rakishness of last night was back. It set off all the alarms Yale had spent the evening silencing.
"Yale," she tried reasonably, "what happened last night was bad enough, but only a bunch of truckers whom we'll never see know about it. If you stay here tonight all my neighbors will know! As you yourself pointed out, this isn't Los Angeles! If you're not concerned about my reputation, you ought to think about your own."
He sipped his brandy and contemplated the unicorn tapestry on the far wall. "An interesting notion." He turned his head to look at her speculatively. "It occurs to me that I am the injured party in all this. It was my reputation you set about tearing down last night...."
"Don't be an idiot! All I ever did was ask you a few questions! You're the one who—"
"Let's not get into that argument again. We're never going to agree on whose fault it was that we wound up at that motel last night." He groaned good-naturedly, wriggling his shoe a couple of times as he stared at the tip. "But I am staying, sweetheart. I'm a little concerned about that creep still being on the loose. I won't be comfortable thinking about you alone here."
"Yale...!" Dara opened her mouth in mounting frustration.
"I won't force myself on you, for God's sake," he told her irritably. "I'll sleep out here on the couch."
"That's not going to help the problem of my reputation!"
"Or mine. But I suppose we'll live it down," he said philosophically.
For some reason his nonchalance was the match to her kindling.
"Why you...you bastard! How dare you spend the evening behaving so perfectly when all along you were planning this! If you think I'm going to tolerate...oh!"
Her eyes blazed up at him as he leaped to his feet, all the lazy gentleness vanishing instantly.
"That's enough! You've called me a bastard twice today, and that's twice too often!" Yale had his hands on her shoulders before Dara could slip aside. The hazel eyes echoed her own simmering fury, and Dara was acutely aware of the fact that he had far more strength than she had to back his anger.
"I told myself I was going to be patient with you, give you a chance to cool off after this morning, but maybe the temper I saw then is routine for you! If that's the case, then I'm going to have to do something about it. Beginning now!" He gave her a small, decisive shake. "Apologize, Dara! There was a time when I would have taken a knife to any man who called me a name like that!"
"Why don't you try that approach?" she bit out recklessly. "You probably still carry one in your sock for old times' sake!"
"There are other tactics one can use on a woman," he warned silkily, forcing her closer.
"Don't you dare threaten me, Yale Ransom!"
"How are you going to stop me, Dara Bancroft?" he said with a hint of savagery. One hand sliding up to grip her nape and hold her steady as if she were a kitten, Yale snapped off his glasses and tossed them down onto the circular glass coffee table. Then his hand went to his loosened tie, pulling it free. It followed the glasses. His eyes never left her frozen face as his fingers went to the top button of his shirt.
"Stop it, Yale! I mean it, damn you!"
"I want an apology, Dara. A heartfelt one, I think."
"Why should I apologize?" she managed bravely. "It's the truth."
"I know. Which is probably why I want the apology," he retorted, his fingers on the second button of his shirt.
"You know?" she repeated in blank confusion.
"Umm. My father was killed in a fight before he got around to marrying my mother."
"Oh! Yale, Yale!" Dara lifted her palms to his face, her heart in her eyes. "You must know I never meant it literally! It's always been just another swear word to me. Please accept my apology."
His hand stilled and he regarded her solemnly for a moment while she waited contritely for him to tell her everything was all right again. Dara could have bitten her tongue out for having fought so unfairly. The gray and green eyes were full of her anxiety as she gazed up into his face, her hands still gently framing his hard jaw.
"How can I refuse?" he whispered a little hoarsely, his fingers gliding up her arm to capture one of her hands. "When you say it so nicely." He touched his lips to the sensitive area of her palm, first kissing it and then closing his teeth ever so tantalizingly on the flesh at the base of her thumb. The utter eroticism of the caress chilled her.
"Yale?" The question in her voice was clear and tremulous. He smiled gently down into her face. Without a word he drew her against him and kissed her.
"Do you always go from raging inferno to sweetly yielding female so quickly?" he breathed in amusement as his lips feathered across hers. "I find it fascinating, you know. So much fire and so much warmth."
"Yale, no!" Dara's voice was a plea as her eyes closed involuntarily against the force of her own passion. "I won't let you stay tonight. I can't!"
"We'll talk about it in the morning," he promised thickly. She knew he was letting the arousal he had held in check all evening begin to take command. She could feel it in the growing tautness of his thighs as he used his hand to force her close against him.
"Don't fight me, honey," he begged, shifting his leg so that it thrust between hers. Off balance and terribly aware of her vulnerability in the intimate position, Dara tried to resist.
"I won't let you do it!" she whispered, pushing at him even as her body longed for the embrace. "I won't conduct another...another business transaction with you, damn it!"
"No?" he mocked huskily, his hands moving down her sides, sliding across the high breasts with loving slowness before descending to the shape of her waist. He urged he
r closer so that his upper thigh pressed heavily against her. The thin fabric of her dress was little protection and Dara was fully conscious of the hard maleness of him.
The undeniable evidence of his physical response to her was a seduction in itself, she realized, alarmed. She felt the rush of longing she had known the night before and began to panic.
"No!" she gasped in answer to his mocking question. "No, I will not allow another business deal between us, because you couldn't afford the price this time!"
The defiant words seemed to scorch the air around them. Dara froze as she felt the savage tension in him. His hands clenched into her soft flesh and his words came back angry and raw.
"What price, Dara? Name it! We'll find out whether or not I'll pay it!"
She was committed, forced to follow through on her wild threat. She felt backed into a corner and she came out fighting for her very survival.
"The price is marriage, Yale! I don't want you to get the idea I'm still selling myself for anything so paltry as a stock account! You'll have to marry me this time!"
A taunting wickedness flashed in the hazel eyes. "Is that your idea of revenge, little tabby?" he drawled.
"That's my idea of how to stop a Southern gentleman in his tracks!" she flung back, incensed at his barely masked humor. "Force yourself on me tonight and I will demand that you do the honorable thing!"
"I think," he informed her gravely, "that you're in the wrong part of the South. Where I come from we called that sort of thing a shotgun wedding. Have you got a shotgun?" he asked interestedly.
"Push me too far tonight and you'll find out!" A thoroughly ridiculous promise, Dara thought gloomily. How could you force a man to marry you? Unless, of course, his own code of honor required it....
“I do believe you're trying to threaten me, sweetheart," Yale murmured, gliding his hands down her back and capturing her hips in a kneading grip. His lips hovered in the vicinity of her ear and she trembled at the overpowering nearness of him.
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