Seduced by Love, Claimed by Passion~Summer Box Set

by Helen Conrad

  “She’ll always be welcome here to visit,” she said quietly. “I like her.”

  “So do I.” His exploring tongue had found the hollow behind her ear. “But I love you,” he growled. “And the difference is remarkable.”

  She closed her eyes and enjoyed his lovemaking, enjoyed the trail of tingling sensation he made across her skin with his touch. They’d only been married a week and they couldn’t get enough of each other. She hoped this easy excitement would never fade. But even if it did, they had so much more to keep them together.

  Their wedding had been amazing—a good old-fashioned Spanish barbecue with Santa Maria style-meats cooking on huge grills and filling the air with wonderful smells. Strolling musicians played Mariachi music and brightly dressed pretty girls whirled performing Mexican dances. Choirs of little children sang wedding songs and magicians did magic tricks. A makeshift rock band composed of Santiago teenagers from Santa Barbara and Carrington teenagers from Destiny Bay played in one corner of the lot while a string quartet played classical music in another. The grounds themselves were covered with tables and chairs decorated with roses and sitting ready for the huge crowds of people who attended.

  “It was more a fiesta than a wedding,” Lisa had commented, though not in any way complaining. She’d had a wonderful time as well. Everyone had.

  “It had to be,” Shawnee had told her. “After all, once you get scores of Carringtons and throw them into the mix of all the Santiago clans that exist in this area and up in Gold Country, you’ve got too many people to begin to get precious about seating arrangements.”

  And the best part? She and David had been joined together forever and ever to come. Petra had told her that was the way things worked in this family and she was ready to live the dream.

  And living at Rancho Verde was a dream come true. Allison had turned out to be no problem. “Well, it’s about time, isn’t it?” she’d grumped when they announced their wedding plans. “You two have been making eyes at each other all summer. I thought you’d never get around to making it legal.”

  Petra had been thrilled. “You’ll be my aunt,” she’d giggled, still uncomfortable in her restraining sling. “Won’t that be fun?” Her shoulder was healing rapidly and she was looking forward to riding again as soon as possible. But even better from her point of view, her father had come for the wedding, and he was still staying with them. From all evidence the rest of them could see, things were going pretty well between him and Allison. After all, she was a Santiago, wasn’t she?

  Riding was something Shawnee hadn’t abandoned, even though David took up most of her days. David still had reservations about her riding Miki, but he was coming around, since he had very little choice.

  “We’ve got to practice every day,” she’d warned him. “I’m going to win the Cup next summer.”

  “Of course you are,” he’d agreed archly. “Santiagos always win.”

  She’d stared at him in mock astonishment. “Is that why you married me?” she’d teased. “To make sure the Cup stayed in the family?”

  “Naturally. What did you think?”

  But she knew what to think. He loved her. It shone in his eyes as he looked down at her naked body now, so creamy golden in the morning sunlight. Her nightdress lay in a smooth, satiny pool at her feet and his dark hand reached out to touch the exquisite tip of her breast.

  “Oh, David!” she gasped, reaching for him, amazed as always by the jagged thrill of desire that tore its way through her body.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he breathed, eyes narrowed as he gazed at her. “Your hair is dark as chocolate and your eyes—like native silver themselves.” He touched her cheek. “Like a treasure I found in a mountain stream,” he murmured. “Why did it take you so long to admit you loved me?”

  His eyes looked curiously vulnerable, as though she could slay him with a single word. Her heart broke open, spilling out all her love and affection in a flood that he couldn’t possibly misunderstand.

  “I was trying so hard to hate you,” she admitted. “And all the time I knew it was impossible.” She smiled as her hands went to his chest, fingers tangling in the thick, curly hair. “I’ve loved you from before you knew I existed.”

  His hands took her face before him. “And I’ve loved you from the moment you burst out of that water, all wet and shiny, just for me.”

  “Just for you?” she teased, laughing softly. “How did you know that?”

  His mouth tilted in a semi-smile. “Because that was the way it had to be.” There was a snuffling sound at the door. At first they ignored it, sharing a kiss that seemed to fuse their souls along with their bodies. But the snuffling got louder, and then there was the sound of little nails against the door.

  “It’s Hank,” Shawnee whispered, a little short of breath.

  David only held her more tightly. “Don’t you dare let that dog in,” he growled. His hands swept across her body, his touch hardening along with his sense of urgency.

  “Oh!” she moaned as he pulled her down with him to the thick carpeting of the floor. “But David, the bed . . .”

  “I can’t wait that long,” he murmured tensely. “Can you?”

  “No!” she cried out, half-laughing, half-frenzied. And as they came together, drenched in shimmering sunlight, she knew it would always be like this, the love, the caring, the quickening need to demonstrate it with passion. Was there a woman in the world as lucky as she was? She pulled his dark head to her in fierce love and knew the answer.

  The End

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  The Destiny Bay Romances mostly can stand alone, but if you want to read them in order, the next one is:

  Destiny Ranch

  Blurb

  She desperately needs to find her father. He needs to make sure she can’t.

  Carly Stevens needs to fill in her past so that she can face her future. She takes a job caring for Joe Carrington's loveable yet frustrating children, only to find that she's stepped into the middle of her own mystery--and into a struggle with an irresistible rancher who's own heartbreak has destroyed his trust in love.

  Destiny Ranch

  A Destiny Bay Romance, Book #2

  CHAPTER ONE

  "I need a real woman, Doris. Not some slick little refugee from the fast lane."

  The rugged man in the denims and cowboy boots pushed his wide-brimmed hat back on his head, his handsome face a picture of stubborn resistance.

  Doris sighed, rolled her brown eyes and leaned across the Formica cafe table so that she wouldn't be heard by all the eavesdroppers at the other tables.

  "Joe Carrington, you've got some nerve. It's not like you've got people lining up to take this job of yours, you know. Those two little kids are cute as the dickens, but they aren't angels, and everybody knows it. You've gone through all the local talent. There's not a woman left in this town who would tackle taking care of Jeremy and Beth, much less you and that big old house of yours. I'm offering you someone decent who will do for you for a while. You won't find anybody better, and you know it."

  "'Decent,'" Joe echoed, his voice, usually edged with humor, just this side of bitter this time. He raised his dark, cloudy eyes and gazed at her with self-deprecating amusement. "Is that what it's all come down to, Doris? Do I have to settle for 'decent'?"

  Doris leaned back, her plump hand smoothing the apron of her waitress uniform. She
was pleased, thinking she was finally getting through to him.

  "My cousin Carly is more than decent, honey. Come on. You can see that for yourself."

  Reluctantly, he turned and looked at the woman Doris was talking about. She was perched on a stool at the counter, her long, caramel blond hair hanging like a banner of silk down her back. The dark panes of her sunglasses stared back at him. Even though her eyes were obscured, he could see she was pretty. Too skinny. But pretty. Her long, slender legs were made for the designer jeans she wore. The plaid shirt was rayon rather than cotton. And the short suede jacket was cut for fashion rather than utility. Expensive clothes. City clothes. This woman was no more a rancher’s housekeeper than he was a stockbroker.

  He thought of his two kids, Beth and Jeremy, and that awful empty feeling in the pit of his stomach was back again. He felt like a man in a shipwreck trying to save his kids, trying to get each one something to cling to while he searched for the life raft. And all the time the water was swirling harder and harder around them, and he was beginning to wonder if he was really going to save them after all.

  He needed help. That was certain. But this little piece of city driftwood wasn't a life preserver.

  "Give me a break, Doris," he growled, turning back. "When it comes to feeding a family, the only thing she'll know how to make is reservations. I need someone better than that."

  Doris set her round shoulders and glared at him. "What you need, Joe, is a miracle. You haven't had anyone who lasted more than four weeks with those kids in two years of trying." She sighed and shook her head of soft brown curls. "Well, Carly ain't no miracle. But she's about the only chance you've got of having your kids looked after any time soon. You'd be a fool to turn her down."

  He looked back at her and his wide mouth twisted into a grin that held as much pain as humor. "Call me crazy," he drawled. "But I'm not ready to take in tourists yet, just because the Dewdrop Inn went and burned down just when you needed it." His dark eyes sharpened. "Say, why can't she stay with you, anyway?"

  "I..." Doris hesitated. This was something of a sore spot with her and she almost blushed. "Well, you see, Brian's been sort of staying with me for a while now, and he's lookin' to be just on this side of proposing. Carly is my cousin and all, but.. .well, darn it, look at her. She's just too... too good-looking."

  His grin was affectionate but teasing. "And you don't want Brian to lose his focus before he gets that big question out of the way. Is that it?"

  She slapped at his hand and he threw back his head and laughed. "Even you can see that the woman is bad news," Joe told her when he sobered, glancing back across the room. "So why the hell would I want her?"

  Carly watched the two of them nervously. Her slender hand reached automatically for her purse, going for a cigarette. Stopping herself, she sighed softly. No more smoking. That had been one of the conditions she'd laid down for herself. She was going to be clean now that she’d left city life. Organic foods. Lots of sleep. She needed space to think, and clean living was going to be her way of finding it.

  She'd already quit smoking, actually. She'd thrown away her last pack just before her bus had left Washington, D.C. The funny thing was, she hadn't really missed it. There had been so much to see and think about on that bus trip, she hadn't had time to miss it.

  The bus. It made her smile to think of that trip. She'd decided to take the bus to California because she knew Mark would search the airports. And the private limousine companies. And maybe even the luxury shipping lines for cruises through the Panama Canal. But he would never think to check the bus lines. The concept of his little Carly taking a bus with the other plebeians would be beyond his comprehension.

  But she'd done exactly that and she'd been pretty darned proud of herself. She'd had plenty of time to calm down and begin to get her head together on the long trip. And the bus had brought her right into town, straight to where her cousin Doris worked as a waitress at the Kit Kat Koffee Shop.

  The only problem was, Doris didn't seem to have room for her.

  "Why don't you go on down to L.A.?" Doris had suggested. "You must have old friends there from your high school years.''

  "No." Carly had been glad for the dark glasses at that point. Without them, Doris would surely have seen the haunted loneliness in her eyes. Going to L.A. would be no better than staying in Washington. She had to get away from that sort of life, those sorts of people. She'd come all the way across country looking for Destiny, the little town she remembered as a piece of slow, simple heaven just a few miles in from the Central California coastline. This was where it started—the farms and ranches of the California heartland.

  "No, Doris, I don't want to go to L.A. I want to be here, to remember my childhood, to learn to breathe again."

  Her cousin's kindly face had softened. "How old were you when your mama dragged you off to Hollywood to try to make you into a movie star? Let's see. I was about eighteen, so you must have been..."

  "Ten. I was just ten."

  "And you never did become a movie star, did you?"

  It wasn't said in a malicious way, but there was a certain satisfaction in Doris's tone. And why not? Carly thought to herself. Why not?

  "No, I never did become a movie star, or even anything close," she admitted with a smile. "That was my mother's dream, not mine."

  "But you've done pretty well for yourself in the East, haven't you? Didn't you say you were a secretary...?"

  "Congressional aide," Carly corrected her quickly, then frowned, impatient with herself. As if that really made any difference. It had seemed an important distinction once, but the farther away from Washington she got, the more those lines seemed to blur.

  "Whatever," Doris said. "But you work for somebody big in government or something, don't you? A good job in the big city. So what do you want to come back here for?"

  Carly hesitated. There was no way she was going to be able to explain such a complicated set of reasons to her cousin right here in the cafe between customers.

  "I...I needed a rest," she said simply. "I wanted to go back to my roots and remember who I really am."

  Doris looked at her as though she'd suggested worshiping pyramids and having her body frozen for posterity. "Roots," she muttered rather scornfully. "Well, I never had no time to think about my roots. I've been too busy making a living all these years to worry about things like that."

  Carly knew there would be no percentage in trying to explain, so she ignored her cousin's remark. "I just wanted to come back, Doris. I wanted to see the town where I lived my first ten years."

  Doris pursed her lips and stared at her with a penetrating gaze, then leaned closer, saying in a low voice, "Are you sure that's all? You haven't come back looking for your father, have you? Because I can tell you right now he hasn't been seen in this town for years and years. Let sleeping dogs lie, I always say. You shouldn't go hunting for things that might end up hurting you in the long run."

  Carly's heart skipped a beat and suddenly she was short of breath. She put a hand over her heart, wondering at the panicky feeling that was welling up in her. What the heck? She swallowed and calmed herself. Good grief. She must be overtired from the bus trip. What else could it be?

  "No,” she said quickly. “No, I didn't come back to find my father."

  At least, she hadn't thought that was why she'd been so obsessed with coming back here. Now that Doris had put it in words, she wasn't so sure. "Did you…did you know him very well?" she ventured.

  Doris shook her head emphatically. "My mama didn't have the highest regard for that man. You probably don't remember, but she wouldn't even let me go over and visit with you and your family that last year you were in town. The next year, I went away and lived in the Bay Area for a while, and when I came back, he had left."

  "Oh." She felt a pang of disappointment, but she made a face and pushed it flat. Which was just as well. Something in her had shied away from even thinking about her father for years. In planning to
come back, she had never once considered that he might be here. But now that Doris had brought the subject up, thoughts began to tease her.

  She had always said that she didn't miss her father, that her mother was all she needed. The memories of that last year she knew him were full of arguments and hurt silences. She'd loved him, of course, and he had never been unkind to her. But he'd never tried to contact her either, in all these years since her mother had taken her away. That, and loyalty to her mother, had kept her from wanting to see him.

  But her mother was gone now. Meeting her father might be interesting. What if she found him? Would that help take care of this deep, dark emptiness she felt inside? She shrugged those thoughts away and turned back to her cousin.

  "If you don't have room for me," she said, "maybe you know someone with a room to rent out for a few weeks. I would certainly be willing to pay. And to help with housework, or whatever, if that would make a difference."

  It was at that moment that a little light had appeared in Doris's eyes and she had looked over at the table where Joe Carrington was having a late afternoon snack of biscuits and gravy.

  "I wonder..." she said softly, speculatively. Her brown eyes studied Joe, then shifted and gazed at Carly for a moment with a frown.

  "All I need is a place to sleep," Carly was saying. "I plan to spend most of my days sitting out in the sun and smelling the good clean earth."

  "Smelling what?" Now Doris was pretty sure her cousin really was tetched. She made a face and shook her head. "Roots," she muttered. She looked back at Joe and a faint smile tickled her lips into a mischievous curl. "Oh well," she said with a short laugh. And then she turned back to Carly, all business.