To Claim a Wife

by Susan Fox

  “Anywhere else you’d like to go?”

  Caitlin gave her head a small shake and faced forward, drawing into herself as if she were under attack.

  Five minutes later, her head eased back on the headrest. Reno glanced her way and saw that she was deeply asleep. Exhaustion left gray smudges under her eyes. She had no stamina and no real strength. The doctor had said it would be some time before she fully recovered, and from the look of her now, Reno believed it. She’d been going on anger and willpower since he’d got to her room that morning and upset her.

  She didn’t wake up when they reached the ranch and he parked the car along the part of the driveway nearest the house. She was so deeply asleep that she didn’t know when he opened her door, touched her seat belt release and carefully gathered her limp body into his arms.

  Taking care not to jostle her or to carry her in a way that might put pressure where she’d been burned, he eased her cheek against his shoulder and slowly lifted her out of the car. He carried her across the back patio past the pool and went into the door that Mary held open for him.

  Reno carried her through the house and up the stairs to her room. Mary had already turned down the sheet and bedspread, so he laid Caitlin down gently. He carefully pulled off her left boot, then reached for the small stack of pillows Mary had set out on a nearby chair. He propped up the Velcro cast, then pulled the sheet and bedspread up to her chin.

  He looked down at her a moment, then reached to pluck a lock of dark hair that had fallen over her cheek and move it aside. He touched her skin lightly with the back of a finger.

  Before he left the room, he switched on the intercom on the night table. If she needed anything, he wanted to know it immediately. On his way out, he glanced back, struck again by how weak she looked now, how frail. When she woke up, they’d discuss hiring that nurse.

  Caitlin woke up late that afternoon. A few minutes after she limped to the bathroom to freshen up then returned to sit on the side of her bed, Reno was knocking on her bedroom door.

  His low voice carried from the hall. “I can take you downstairs if you’re ready.”

  Caitlin was uneasy with the offer. It had been disorienting to wake up in her bed at the ranch, her boot off and her other foot propped carefully on pillows. She had no memory of arriving at the ranch and no memory of being carried upstairs and put to bed. Because Reno must have done it, she felt self-conscious and exposed. And vulnerable.

  Reno had changed toward her. Dramatically. And the change in him terrified her.

  Now she remembered the charge that had gone through her at the hospital. There’d been something intense and sexual about the way he’d braced his fists beside her on the bed and leaned down into her face.

  He’d been so close that she’d seen every fleck of navy in his blue eyes and every dark hair on his hard jaw. Though he’d shaved that morning, she’d seen the hint of heavy beard that shadowed his ruggedly handsome features. The smell of leather and aftershave had made her nose tingle pleasantly. The feel of his warm breath on her face had sent a flash fire through her, and the subtle dominance of his big body made her crave contact with him.

  Her “I’ll come downstairs later,” was her resistance to the temptation of all that. She couldn’t let him get that close again. Though he was the only man she’d ever truly been attracted to—and had been foolish enough to love once—she had to avoid him.

  All it took to shore up her resolve was the memory of how he’d looked at her just a few short days ago, his face hard as granite and his eyes cold with loathing. Her terror that he might find a reason to return to that harsh, unforgiving attitude was crippling. The mysterious flaw she carried, the one that made her unworthy of love and unlovable, made it impossible for her to believe the change in him was permanent. He’d regret this soon enough, then everything would be as it was before. If she trusted him now, it would destroy her.

  Caitlin couldn’t relax until she heard his boot steps move away from the door and go down the hall.

  She checked the clock on her night table. It was only a few minutes until Mary served supper. She rose from the edge of the mattress and moved the pillows aside to remake the bed. She got her cane and walked carefully toward the door. Reno must have brought it to her room.

  Though her foot hadn’t been severely broken, it ached from the walking she’d already done that day. By the time she got downstairs, it was hurting and she favored it until she reached the dining room.

  The moment Reno looked her way, she gritted her teeth and tried to conceal her discomfort. Her head was throbbing, but she made herself ignore it. Reno started to rise as if he meant to come around the table to help her with her chair, but she gave him a look that signaled her opposition to that idea.

  He sat back down, but his gaze was sharp on her. It was as if he knew she was hiding her discomfort and was calculating how long she could keep it up. She eased onto the chair, relieved to sit down. The long trip from her room had tired her, and she was frustrated.

  “If you put too much strain on that foot before it’s ready, it might not heal right.”

  Caitlin didn’t respond to that. Instead, she sat stiffly while Mary carried the food into the dining room.

  The small burst of appetite surprised her, and Caitlin filled her plate, then cut into her steak. For the first time in what felt like weeks, food tasted good, and she ate as if she were starved.

  Reno finished first and sat back with his coffee, staring. Caitlin tried to ignore his scrutiny.

  “I want to hire a nurse.” Reno’s statement got her attention.

  “I don’t need one.”

  “You need someone to look after you.”

  Caitlin shook her head and looked down to spear the last bite of steak with her fork. “If I thought I needed a baby-sitter, I would have stayed in the hospital.” She ate the bite, then set her fork down, painfully self-conscious now that Reno was focused so intensely on her.

  “I sent your rental car back to San Antonio.”

  Caitlin’s gaze shot to his. He’d guessed that she meant to leave the ranch, she could see it in his eyes. She dropped her hand to her lap and gripped the napkin.

  “So you’re taking over my life.” Her voice was soft, but carried an edge of bitterness.

  “You need someone to take care of you.”

  It was plain to Caitlin that the someone Reno had in mind was himself. A flash of anger made her pull her napkin from her lap and toss it to the table.

  “I’ve been taking care of myself since I was eight years old,” she said, struggling to keep the pain of that out of her voice.

  “Your mother died when you were eight?”

  Reno had come back so fast with the question that she felt her breath catch. He was watching her more closely than ever and her eyes fled his.

  “I don’t feel like making conversation,” she said coolly, then reached for her cane. She was halfway to her feet when Reno got up and came around the table to her.

  He pulled the cane from her fingers and swept her up in his arms so fast that her head swam. She gasped and reflexively grabbed for his wide shoulders.

  “You’ve been on that foot enough for one day.”

  Anger made her head pound. She struggled in his arms but he was walking to the hall door carrying her as if she weighed nothing.

  “Put me down,” she demanded, and emphasized the order by struggling harder.

  Reno barely noticed her resistance. He carried her into the den, paused to kick the door closed, then carried her to the sofa. He sat down with her draped across his lap. Since he no longer had to carry her, he slipped his hand from under her knees and caught her hand. With her hand in his, he braced his forearm across her thighs to hold her still. He’d trapped her left elbow behind his shoulder, but not so tightly that he hurt her healing skin.

  Caitlin was flooded with sensation. Reno’s light restraint sent an avalanche of emotion through her, and the craving to be held more closely still ma
de her shake as she fought it.

  Frightened and furious, she burst out, “It always has to be your way, doesn’t it?”

  The angry words set off a flood of feelings that she suddenly couldn’t stop and they came out in a torrent.

  “Reno Duvall pities a kid, tosses her a few crumbs, then gets tired of her. He ignores her and makes her take it.” Her eyes were blazing into the watchful depths of his. “His brother dies, she has the bad manners to live, and he decides she has to get out of his sight. One day, he orders her back, and when she gets there, he won’t listen to anything she has to say. He won’t let her talk, and once again the universe bends to his will. Then suddenly, he changes his mind, so she has to accept that, too. Right away he wants to run her life, and she’ll bend to his will, by God, or he’ll manhandle her until she does—”

  The shameful sting of tears cut her off and she glared impotently at him through a blur so thick she couldn’t see his face clearly.

  His growling voice instantly took up where hers left off.

  “Then, Reno Duvall decides he wants her—”

  He leaned forward and his lips captured hers, enforcing his will and establishing his sexual dominance. He released her hand and moved his arm from her thighs to seize the back of her neck to prevent her retreat.

  His mouth gentled suddenly on the soft lips he’d just parted. His tongue swept inside and worked with a seductive skill that banished her stiff resistance and robbed her of strength.

  Caitlin felt herself slip rapidly into a tide of sensation and desire so hot and so intense that she felt faint. She was helpless to keep from responding to him. Her hand came up to his hard jaw, then slid back into his thick dark hair. A wildness shot through her and she clutched at him, hanging on for dear life as she pressed closer for everything she could get.

  She’d never dreamed it could be like this. The shock of Reno’s mouth on hers was matched only by the shock of his fingers releasing the buttons of her shirt. And then they were past the barrier of fabric, sliding expertly against her breast. She felt a ripple go through him at the discovery that the shoulder burn made her unable to tolerate wearing a bra. His tongue became more insistent as his fingers found the sensitive tip of her breast and toyed mercilessly with it.

  He had seduced her so swiftly and with such shattering ease that she suddenly panicked. She yanked her hand from his hair and tried to pull his fingers away from her breast, but found herself clutching the back of his hand in an instinctive effort to urge him on. The violent clash of terror and craving jolted her.

  Reno could destroy her. The thought streaked through her mind, and the frantic tingle of fear that went with it stopped her plunge toward disaster. She tried to break off the kiss, but Reno pressed his advantage.

  The small jerking sob of fear and frustration that tore at her throat made him abruptly go still. She felt a tiny chill on her cheek and realized with fresh shock that her cheek was damp.

  Shame made her drag her mouth from his and turn her face away to hide it. She was strangling on the tears she held back and she gasped for air so hard that her chest ached. She was so weak suddenly that she could barely sit upright. If not for the fact that Reno held her she would have collapsed. Her sensitized breast literally ached when his fingers eased away and he pulled his hand from beneath her blouse.

  Her breath hitched and she gritted her teeth weakly to control it.

  Reno’s hand came up to her damp cheek and he gently pulled her against him. His arms came around her. He held her close and rested his jaw against her head. He didn’t speak, but she sensed his anger.

  Miraculously, it wasn’t directed toward her but toward himself. She didn’t know how she knew that, and she instantly doubted the impression.

  Her whispered “Please, I want to go. . .to my room,” broke in the middle of the words.

  She understood none of this, and she was so confused that her head pounded with it. Her whole body pulsed with pain, and she knew she’d never be able to walk to her room under her own power.

  And yet despite the ache, her body still trembled with the effects of Reno’s kiss. Her blood still surged hotly with every beat of her heart. Exhaustion made her eyelids impossibly heavy and she could no longer keep them open.

  When Reno carefully slipped his arm beneath her knees and lifted her, she stirred, but she settled against him as he stood. She drifted to sleep in the warm security of his arms, then stirred again when he sat her on the edge of her bed.

  He released her, but instead of stepping back, she felt his fingers working the rest of her buttons open. She grabbed his hands to stop him.

  His gruff “I won’t look,” was terse.

  Caitlin couldn’t fight him, and sat mutely as he swiftly undressed her. She couldn’t look at his face, but she knew he kept his word. She sensed he was looking away because she was so aware of him now that she would have been able to feel his gaze on her.

  The moment he pulled her jeans off and only her underwear remained, he laid her down and dragged the covers over her. He stepped to the foot of the bed and pulled the sheet and spread aside to put the pillows near her feet He lifted her cast to the pillows, then flipped the covers over it.

  When he stepped back to her side, she looked up at him through heavy eyelids. His face was somber, but his eyes glowed with what she clearly recognized as possessiveness.

  Because he could see she was looking at him, he spoke. “We’ll go slower next time.”

  Caitlin squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head wearily. “There can’t be a next time.”

  “There was always a next time for us, Caitlin,” he said quietly. “You knew it as much as I did.”

  It shocked her to hear him say it, because in some strange way, she knew what he said was true. Whatever their history together, there’d always been a mysterious connection between them, something that bound them together and might always tie them in some way. Whatever the future held, whatever happened between them, there would always be some slim tendril of feeling between them. The knowledge made her unbearably sad because she believed Reno would always mean more to her than she could ever mean to him.

  She made a restless move of her head and turned her face away. “I’m an easy conquest for you,” she said quietly. “That’s what we’ve both always known.” The admission made her squeeze her eyes closed.

  Exhaustion made it impossible for her to mince words. “For you, this is just lust. Once it bums out, whatever we’ve done will be just one more thing I’ll have to live with.” She took a steadying breath because she wasn’t strong enough to hold back the tide of pain. “And I’m tired of living with things after they go wrong.”

  The silence that followed was heavy. She felt the prickle of tears and tried to summon a last bit of strength to keep them back.

  She hadn’t heard Reno move, but she felt the warm gust of his breath on her cheek when he leaned down. Startled, she turned her head and gasped when her lips brushed his.

  “Sleep now, baby, get well.” His lips were so tender on hers, so persuasive that she lay there, helpless against the warm flood that spread through her, too weak against him to turn her face away. She couldn’t fight the love that welled up from something deep in her heart, she could only feel it take her over as she tried to withstand the terrible sadness of discovering it was there.

  “You’ll learn to trust me, and everything will come right.” The rough words were a vow that Caitlin didn’t dare let herself believe.

  Her soft “no” was silenced softly by a last gentle kiss.

  Reno left the room then and closed the door. She was so exhausted, so overwhelmed by the torment of her feelings, that she fell instantly into the refuge of sleep.

  Caitlin was right. It did always have to be his way. Reno hadn’t thought much about it before. He’d been in charge since he was seventeen, shouldering the work and the responsibility, making the hard decisions, taking the risks, until the tendency to lead and dominate became such
a natural part of the man he was and the way he lived that he never questioned it.

  Until he’d forced his will on Caitlin.

  Her resistance that day had frustrated him, but the way she’d pushed herself while she was so weak and in pain had frustrated him more.

  He’d been compelled to take over, compelled to take her over with that kiss. He’d meant to go slow with her. His hatred had hurt her, but if she could ever get over it, he could accept that it might take a long time.

  But the moment he had her in his arms, then on his lap, all his good intentions had vanished. The tension that had been building between them since the day she’d come back to Coulter City exploded. For Caitlin, years of hurt and hunger had been the catalyst, for him it had been lust.

  And yet he knew it was more than just lust. As he’d declared to her, there was a connection between them, a bond of some kind. A tie that went beyond the events of the past, yet managed to exist in spite of it all.

  He’d been wrong to force the kiss when she was too weak and too confused to handle it. The guilt of what he’d done was almost as strong as the fierce satisfaction he’d got from her helpless response to him. Because she had responded to him, deeply and completely until her insecurities had frightened her off.

  Some things, some people, were now forever beyond his reach. His feelings for Caitlin—and Caitlin herself—were alive and vital and still with him.

  He’d almost lost her, too. Once because he couldn’t give her a chance, and once in the fire. He wouldn’t risk losing her again. He refused to lose her because she was afraid to trust him.

  Before he went to bed, Reno went into her room, set the intercom so he could hear if she woke up in the night, then stood looking down at her. She was sleeping deeply and peacefully. She’d get well, she’d recover her strength, but her heart would take the longest to heal. Those wounds were the worst because they’d festered a long time and likely ran clear to her soul.

  Common sense warned him she might never heal, but hope made him think about the steady medicine of patience, time...and love.