by Diana Palmer
Cag ignored the looks. He knew that having Tess along was innocent, so what did it matter what anyone else thought? It wasn’t as if he was planning to drag her off into the brush and make love to her. Even as he thought it, he pictured it. His whole body went hot.
“We’d better get going,” he said abruptly, rising to his feet.
Tess thanked the cook for her lunch, and followed Cag back to the horses.
They rode off toward the far pastures without a word being spoken. She wondered what she’d done to make Cag mad, but she didn’t want to say anything. It might only make matters worse. She wondered if he was mad because she wanted to go back to school.
They left the camp behind and rode in a tense silence. Her eyes kept going to his tall, powerful body. He seemed part of the horse he rode, so comfortable and careless that he might have been born in the saddle. He had powerful broad shoulders and lean hips, with long legs that were sensuously outlined by the tight-fitting jeans he wore under the chaps. She’d seen plenty of rodeo cowboys in her young life, but none of them would have held a candle to Cag. He looked elegant even in old clothes.
He turned his head and caught her staring, then frowned when she blushed.
“Did you ever go rodeoing?” she asked to cover her confusion.
He shook his head. “Never had much use for it,” he said honestly. “I didn’t need the money, and I always had enough to do here, or on one of the other ranches in the combine.”
“Dad couldn’t seem to stay in one place for very long,” she murmured thoughtfully. “He loved the rodeo circuit, but he didn’t win very often.”
“It wasn’t much of a life for you, was it?” he asked. “It must have been hard to go to school at all.”
She smiled. “My education was hit-and-miss, if that’s what you mean. But there were these correspondence courses I took so I could get my high school diploma.” She flushed deeper and glanced at him. “I know I’m not very educated.”
He reined in at a small stream that crossed the wooded path, in the shade of a big oak tree, and let his horse drink, motioning her to follow suit. “It wasn’t a criticism,” he said. “Maybe I’m too blunt sometimes, but people always know where they stand with me.”
“I noticed.”
A corner of his mouth quirked. “You aren’t shy about expressing your own opinions,” he recalled. “It’s refreshing.”
“Oh, I learned to fight back early,” she murmured. “Rodeo’s a tough game, and some of the other kids I met were pretty physical when they got mad. I may not be big, but I can kick like a mule.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He drew one long leg up and hooked it over the pommel while he studied her. “But despite all that male company, you don’t know much about men.”
This was disturbing territory. She averted her gaze to the bubbling stream at their feet. “So you said, when we went to the store.” She remembered suddenly the feel of his hard fingers on her soft skin and her heart began to race.
His black eyes narrowed. “Didn’t you ever go out on dates?”
Her lithe body shifted in the saddle. “These days, most girls don’t care what they do and they’re clued up about how to take care of themselves.” She glanced at him and away. “It makes it rough for the few of us who don’t think it’s decent to behave that way. Men seem to expect a girl to give out on the first date and they get mad when she won’t.”
He traced a cut on his chaps. “So you stopped going out.”
She nodded. “It seemed the best way. Besides,” she murmured uncomfortably, “I told you. I don’t like…that.”
“That?”
He was going to worry the subject to death. “That,” she emphasized. “You know, being grabbed and forcibly fondled and having a man try to stick his tongue down your throat!”
He chuckled helplessly.
“Oh, you don’t understand!”
“In fact, I do,” he replied, and the smile on his lips was full of worldly knowledge and indulgent amusement. “You were lucky that your would-be suitors didn’t know any more than you did.”
She frowned because she didn’t understand.
His black eyes searched her face. “Tess, an experienced man doesn’t grab. Ever. He doesn’t have to. And French kisses need to be worked up to, very slowly.”
Her heart was really going now. It shook the cotton blouse she was wearing. She stared at the chaps where Cag’s long fingers were resting, and remembered the feel of his lean, strong hands.
“Embarrassed?” he asked softly.
She hesitated. Then she nodded.
His heart jumped wildly as he stared at her, unblinking. “And curious?” he added in a deep, slow drawl.
After a few seconds, she nodded again, but she couldn’t make herself meet his eyes.
His hand clenched on the pommel of his saddle as he fought the hunger he felt to teach her those things, to satisfy her curiosity. His gaze fell to her soft mouth and he wanted it. It was crazy, what he was thinking. He couldn’t afford a lapse like that. She was just a kid and she worked for him…
She heard the creak of leather as he swung down out of the saddle. After a minute, she felt his lean hands hard on her waist. He lifted her down from the horse abruptly and left the horses to drink their fill.
The sun filtered down to the ground in patterns through the oak leaves there, in the middle of nowhere, in the shelter of the trees where thick grass grew on the shallow banks of the stream and open pasture beyond the spot. The wind whipped around, but Tess couldn’t hear it or the gurgle of the stream above the sound of her own heart.
His hands felt rough against her skin. They felt as if he wasn’t quite in control, and when she looked up at him, she realized that he wasn’t. His face was like steel. The only thing alive in it were those black Spanish eyes, the legacy of a noble Madrid ancestry.
She felt her knees wobble because of the way he was looking at her, his eyes bold on her body, as if he knew exactly what was under her clothing.
The thought of Callaghan Hart’s mouth on her lips made her breath catch in her throat. She’d always been a little afraid of him, not because she thought he might hurt her, but because late at night she lay wondering how it would feel if he kissed her. She’d thought about it a lot lately, to her shame. He was mature, experienced, confident, all the things she wasn’t. She knew she couldn’t handle an affair with him. She was equally sure that he wouldn’t have any amorous interest in a novice like her. She’d been sure, she amended. Because he was looking at her now in a way he’d never looked at her before.
Her cold hands pressed nervously into the soft cotton of his shirt, feeling the warmth and strength of his chest under it.
“Callaghan,” she whispered uncertainly.
His hard lips parted. “Nobody else calls me that,” he said tersely, dropping his gaze to her mouth. He liked the way she made his name sound, as if it had a sort of magic.
Her fingers spread. She liked the feel of warm muscle under the shirt, and the soft, spongy feel of thick hair behind the buttons. He was hairy there, she suspected.
He wasn’t breathing normally. She could feel his heartbeat against her skin. Her hands pressed gingerly against him, to explore, hesitantly, the hardness of his chest.
He stiffened. His hands on her waist contracted. His breathing changed.
Her hands stilled immediately. She looked up into glittery black eyes. She didn’t understand his reactions, never having experienced them before.
“You don’t know anything at all, do you?” he asked tersely, and it sounded as if he was talking to himself. He looked down at her short-nailed, capable little hands resting so nervously on top of his shirt. “Why did you stop?”
“You got stiff,” she said.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Stiff?”
He looked as if he was trying not to smile, despite the tautness of his face and body.
“You know,” she murmured. “Tense. Like you didn’t want me to touch you
.”
He let out a slow breath. His hands moved from her waist to cover her cold fingers and press them closer. They felt warm and cozy, almost comforting. They flattened her hands so that she could feel his body in every cell.
She moved her fingers experimentally where the buttons ran down toward his belt.
“Don’t get ambitious,” he said, stilling her hands. “I’m not taking off my shirt for you.”
“As if I would ever…!” she burst out, embarrassed.
He smiled indulgently, studying her flushed face, her wide, bright eyes. “I don’t care whether you would, ever, you’re not going to. Lift your face.”
“Why?” she expelled on a choked breath.
“You know why.”
She bit her lip, hard, studying his face with worried eyes. “You don’t like me.”
“Liking doesn’t have anything to do with this.” He let go of her hands and gripped her elbows, lifting her easily within reach of his mouth. His gaze fell to it and his chest rose and fell roughly. “You said you were curious,” he murmured at her lips. “I’m going to do something about it.”
Her hands gripped his shirt, wrinkling it, as his mouth came closer. She could taste the coffee on his warm breath and she felt as if the whole world had stopped spinning, as if the wind had stopped blowing, while she hung there, waiting.
His hard lips just barely touched hers, brushing lightly over the sensitive flesh to savor it. Her eyes closed and she held herself perfectly still, so that he wouldn’t stop.
He lifted his head fractionally. She looked as if she couldn’t bear to have him draw back. Whatever she felt, it wasn’t fear.
He bent again. His top lip nudged under hers, and then down to toy with her lower lip. He felt her gasp. Apparently the kisses she’d had from other men hadn’t been arousing. He felt her hands tighten on his shirt with a sense of pure arrogant pleasure.
He brought both lips down slowly over her bottom one, letting his tongue slide softly against the silky, moist inner tissue. She gasped and her mouth opened.
“Yes,” he whispered as his own mouth opened to meet it, press into it, parting her lips wide so that he could cover them completely.
She made a tiny sound and her body stiffened, but he ignored the faint involuntary protest. His arms reached down, enclosing, lifting, so that she was completely off the ground in a hungry, warm embrace that seemed to swallow her whole.
The kiss was hard, slow, insistent and delicious. She clasped her hands at the back of Cag’s neck and clung to it, her mouth accepting his, loving the hard crush of it. When she felt his tongue slipping past her lips, she didn’t protest. She opened her mouth for him, met the slow, velvety thrust with a husky little moan, and closed her eyes even tighter as the intimacy of the kiss made her whole body clench with pleasure.
It seemed a long time before he lifted his head and watched her dazed, misty eyes open.
He searched them in the heady silence of the glade. Nearby a horse whinnied, but he didn’t hear it. His heart was beating in time with Tess’s, in a feverish rush. He was feeling sensations he’d almost forgotten how to feel. His body was swelling, aching, against hers. He watched her face color and knew that she felt it and understood it.
He eased her back down onto her feet and let her move away a few inches. His eyes never left hers and he didn’t let her go completely.
She looked as stunned as he felt. He searched her eyes as his big hand lifted and his fingers traced a blatant path down her breast to the hard tip.
She gasped, but she didn’t try to stop him. She couldn’t, and he knew it.
His hand returned to her waist.
She leaned her forehead against him while she got her breath back. She wondered if she should be embarrassed. She felt hot all over and oddly swollen. Her mouth was sore, but she wished his hard lips were still covering it. The sensations curling through her body were new and exciting and a little frightening.
“Was it just…a lesson?” she whispered, because she wanted to know.
His hands smoothed gently over her curly head. He stared past it, toward the stream where the horses were still drinking. “No.”
“Then, why?”
His fingers slid into her curls. He sighed heavily. “I don’t know.”
Her eyes closed. She stood against him with the wind blowing all around them and thought that she’d never been so happy, or felt so complete.
He was feeling something comparable, but it disturbed him and made him angry. He hadn’t wanted it to come to this. He’d always known, at some level, that it would be devastating to kiss her. This little redhead with her pert manner and fiery temper. She could bring him to his knees. Did she know that?
He lifted his head and looked down at her. She wasn’t smiling, flirting, teasing, or pert. She looked as shattered as he felt.
He put her away from him, still holding her a little too tightly by the arms.
“Don’t read anything into it,” he said shortly.
Her breath was jerky. “I won’t.”
“It was just proximity,” he explained. “And abstinence.”
“Sure.”
She wasn’t humoring him. She really believed him. He was amazed that she didn’t know how completely he’d lost control, how violently his body reacted to her. He frowned.
She shifted uneasily and moved back. His hands fell away. Her eyes met his and her thin brows wrinkled. “You won’t…you won’t tell the brothers?” she asked. She moved a shoulder. “I wouldn’t want them to think I was, well, trying to… I mean, that I was flirting or chasing you or…anything.”
“I don’t think you’re even real,” he murmured half-absently as he studied her. “I don’t gossip. I told you that. As if I’d start telling tales about you, to my own damned brothers, just because a kiss got a little out of hand!”
She went scarlet. She whirled away from him and stumbled down the bank to catch the mare’s reins. She mounted after the second try, irritated that he was already comfortably in the saddle by then, watching her.
“As for the rest of it,” he continued, as if there hadn’t been any pause between words, “you weren’t chasing me. I invited you out here.”
She nodded, but she couldn’t meet his eyes. What she was feeling was far too explosive, and she was afraid it might show in her eyes.
Her embarrassment was almost tangible. He sighed and rode closer, putting out a hand to tilt up her chin.
“Don’t make such heavy weather of a kiss, Tess,” he said quietly. “It’s no big deal. Okay?”
“Okay.” She almost choked on the word. The most earthshaking event of her life, and it was no big deal. Probably to him it hadn’t been. The way he kissed, he’d probably worked for years perfecting his technique. But she’d never been kissed like that, and she was shattered. Still, he wasn’t going to know it. He didn’t even like her, he’d said as much. It had been an impulse, and obviously it was one he already regretted.
“Where do we go next?” she asked with a forced smile.
He scowled. She was upset. He should never have touched her, but it had been irresistible. It had been pure delight to kiss her. Now he had to forget that he ever had.
“The next pasture,” he said curtly. “We’ll roust out whatever cattle wildlife we find and then call it a day. You’re drooping.”
“I guess I am, a little,” she confessed. “It’s hot.”
In more ways than one, he thought, but he didn’t dare say it aloud. “Let’s go, then.”
He rode off, leaving her to follow. Neither of them mentioned what had happened. By the end of the day, they only spoke when they had to. And by the next morning, Cag was glaring at her as if she were the reason for global warming. Everything was back to normal.
Chapter Five
Spring turned to summer. Cag didn’t invite Tess to go riding again, but he did have Leo speak to her about starting horticulture classes in the fall.
“I’d really like to,” sh
e told Leo. “But will I still be here then?” she added on a nervous laugh. “Cag’s worse than ever lately. Any day now, he’s going to fire me.”
“That isn’t likely,” Leo assured her, secretly positive that Cag would never let her leave despite his antagonism, because the older man cared too much about her. Oddly Tess was the only person who didn’t seem to realize that.
“If I’m still here,” she said. “I’d love to go to school.”
“We’ll take care of it. Cheer up, will you?” he added gently. “You look depressed lately.”
“Oh, I’m not,” she assured him, lying through her teeth. “I feel just fine, really!”
She didn’t tell him that she wasn’t sleeping well, because she laid awake nights remembering the way Cag had kissed her. But if she’d hoped for a repeat of that afternoon, it had never come. Cag was all but hostile to her since, complaining about everything from the way she dusted to the way she fastened his socks together in the drawers. Nothing she did pleased him.
Mrs. Lewis remarked dryly that he acted lovesick, and Tess began to agonize about some shadowy woman that he might be seeing on those long evenings when he left the ranch and didn’t come home until midnight. He never talked about a woman, but then, he didn’t gossip. And even his brothers knew very little about his private life. It worried Tess so badly that even her appetite suffered. How would she survive if Cag married? She didn’t like thinking about him with another woman. In fact, she hated it. When she realized why, she felt even worse. How in the world was it that she’d managed to fall in love with a man who couldn’t stand to be around her, a man who thought of her only as a cook and housekeeper?
What was she going to do about it? She was terrified that it might show, although she saw no signs of it in her mirror. Cag paid her no more attention than he paid the housecleaning. He seemed to find her presence irritating, though, most especially at mealtimes. She began to find reasons to eat early or late, so that she didn’t have to sit at the table with him glaring at her.