Defending the Rancher's Daughter

by Carla Cassidy

  “Sorry. Want some?” She held out a spoonful of black-speckled green ice cream. “It’s chocolate mint.”

  “What in the hell are you doing in here?” He was angry, but not at her. He was angry because she’d managed to sneak right past him and into the kitchen. He’d been sleeping too damned soundly. Mistakes like that got clients killed.

  She put the lid back on the ice cream carton and placed the carton back in the freezer. “I couldn’t sleep. I sometimes get up in the middle of the night and eat ice cream. It soothes my nerves.”

  “Yeah, well, it could have gotten you shot,” he retorted. He set the gun on a nearby countertop, hoping the surge of adrenaline would slowly filter out of him.

  She put her spoon in the sink then leaned back against the counter, her gaze holding his intently. He was grateful she wasn’t wearing one of those silky, see-through nightgowns but instead was clad in an oversize T-shirt.

  “Are you ready to go back to bed?” he asked.

  “Not just yet.” Her eyes held a strange light as she continued to gaze at him. “You were moaning.”

  “Excuse me?” He returned her gaze blankly.

  She pushed off the counter and advanced toward him, and every muscle in his body tensed once again. “When I came through the living room and passed the sofa, you were moaning in your sleep.”

  He stared at her, horrified by the very idea. “You must have been mistaken.”

  “No. I’m not mistaken.” She moved to within mere inches of him, so close he could feel the heat of her body radiating toward him.

  Had he moaned her name? Had the nightmare of her death so troubled him that he’d whispered her name in his sleep?

  “Go to bed, Katie.” His voice was deep, gruff, as he recognized his tenuous grasp on control.

  She stood too close, he’d been fantasizing about her too much and he knew if he didn’t get control right now something might happen that would forever change the relationship between them.

  “Zack, I’m feeling very alone right now and I don’t want to go back to bed. I want you to hold me.”

  Before he had a chance to step away, she moved closer, so close her breasts touched his chest, so close she leaned her head forward on his shoulder.

  The sweet scent of her hair filled his nose as the warmth of her curves filled his arms. He held himself stiff, not yielding to his desire until she curled her arms around his neck and raised her head to look at him.

  Her lips were parted, as if in open invitation, and despite all his firm resolve to do otherwise, he leaned his head forward and captured her lips with his own.

  She tasted of minty ice cream and forbidden pleasure and as she returned his kiss he knew he was about to make a mistake, but was helpless to stop himself.

  When she’d gotten up to eat ice cream she’d had no intention of disturbing Zack, although she could have sworn as she walked by his sleeping form he’d moaned her name.

  But when he’d burst into the kitchen, gun drawn, with his bare chest gleaming and the jeans slung low over his lean hips, she’d been electrified.

  Now, with his lips scorching hers, she knew she wouldn’t be satisfied until he possessed her completely, entirely. She wouldn’t be satisfied until she was weak with exhaustion, sated by his lovemaking.

  His kiss was just as she’d always imagined it would be, hot and demanding, filled with barely leashed passion and a simmering of underlying danger.

  His hands tangled in her hair as his tongue danced with hers. She moved her hands from the nape of his neck down his smooth, muscled back and her knees weakened at the sensual feel of his skin beneath her fingertips.

  As she leaned closer to him she felt his arousal, knew with certainty that the electricity she’d felt every time he was near wasn’t one-sided. He wanted her, too, and the knowledge of that drove her half insane.

  “Katie,” he whispered as he tore his mouth from hers. She couldn’t imagine him calling her anything else, knew that she’d never ask him to call her Kate again.

  He placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed, putting an inch of separation between them. “We need to stop this now. We’re about to make a big mistake.”

  If he’d released her entirely, she might have come to her senses, but he didn’t. His fingers lingered on her shoulders, caressing with a heat she felt through the thin material of her T-shirt.

  “Most of the mistakes I’ve made in my life have been unintentional,” she said, her voice husky with the desire that coursed through her. “If this is a mistake, then it’s one I’m making intentionally.”

  She took one of his hands and he grabbed his gun from the countertop as she led him from the kitchen. Neither of them spoke a word as they went through the living room and down the hallway to the door of her spare bedroom.

  It was only then that he stopped in his tracks, his features evident in the moonlight illuminating her bedroom.

  “Katie, if I go in there with you it won’t be just to hold you.” There was not just a warning in his voice but a promise, as well.

  “I don’t want you just to hold me. I want you to make love to me, Zack.” She saw the flare of his eyes at the same time she reached out and stroked her hand down his bare chest.

  He caught her hand with his and held it tight. “It won’t change anything, it won’t mean anything.”

  “I don’t want to wear your ring or be your girl. I just want you to make love to me tonight.” She pulled her hand from his and stepped back from him.

  She felt as if this moment had been predestined from the time she was an adolescent girl trying to understand the feelings that Zack evoked in her. She’d wanted him before she understood what want meant.

  She reached down, grabbed the bottom of her T-shirt and with one graceful movement pulled it off over her head, leaving her clad only in a pair of wispy silk panties. She dropped the T-shirt to the floor, then turned to enter the room. “Are you joining me?”

  She gasped as he grabbed her by the hand and whirled her back around to face him. He grabbed her to him with a force that stole her breath away. He crashed his lips to hers, plundering her mouth with fiery intent.

  Together, with mouths still locked, they moved toward the bed. She was vaguely aware of him placing his gun on the nightstand before he tumbled her backward onto the mattress.

  Heart pounding, she watched in the moonlight as he unzipped his jeans and took them off, leaving him clad in a pair of briefs that couldn’t hide his arousal.

  He joined her on the bed, gathering her into his arms as his mouth once again sought hers. She felt just as she had the night before when she’d been dreaming and in her dream Zack had been kissing her, caressing her, and she’d been hot…so hot.

  His hands moved between them to cup her breasts and as his thumbs razed across her nipples she gasped with pleasure. His scent worked like an aphrodisiac on her. The combination of his woodsy cologne and the underlying male musk exhilarated her, stimulated her to a height of sensation and pleasure she’d never known before.

  His strong legs pressed against hers, his arousal hard against her center, the only barrier their underwear. He raised his head and looked at her, his eyes glittering like something feral and wild.

  “I’ve wanted to do this since I walked into the ER and saw you sitting there.” His voice was nothing more than a low rumble of suppressed emotion.

  “I’ve wanted this since I was sixteen-years-old and my stomach tied in knots every time you were around,” she replied breathlessly.

  The hunger between them was palpable in the charged air. “You know this is crazy,” he said.

  “Doing crazy things has always been a part of my existence.” She moved her hips against his, saw his eyes darken just before he dipped his head and captured one of her nipples with his mouth.

  A rush of sweet heat flowed from his mouth through every vein in her body as his lips and tongue teased her. It was so easy to forget any resentment she might feel toward him, to let g
o of any other emotion the last couple of days had wrought and just give herself to the pleasure and excitement of him.

  His hands left her breasts and blazed a trail down her rib cage, across the flat of her abdomen and she gasped again as he rubbed his hand across the front of her panties.

  All the nerve endings in her body seemed to be concentrated beneath his hand and she trembled with his touch. Wanting to be an active participant in their lovemaking, she reached down and traced the length of his hardness outside his briefs.

  He moaned, a sound that seemed to come from someplace deep inside him. The wordless expression of pleasure did more for her than anything he might have said. Emboldened, she plucked at his briefs, wanting them off, wanting to feel him without the barrier that stood between them.

  He pushed her hand aside, as if her touch irritated him, but she knew it wasn’t irritation that drove him to slide her panties down her thighs and off her legs. It wasn’t irritation that sent him off the bed to remove his briefs.

  Before he returned to the bed she heard him fumbling with his jeans. After a moment he was back on the bed, this time pulling her naked length firmly against his as their mouths met in hunger.

  A condom, she thought with relief as she realized what he’d done in the minute that he’d been out of bed. He’d apparently had a condom with him and had put it on, assuring both her safety and his own.

  She moved her hips against him, rubbing against his turgid length with a fervor she’d never known before. His hands gripped her buttocks, aiding her as she moved against him in a frenzy. Gasps and moans of pleasure escaped her lips as the tension in her body increased and she felt herself shattering into a million pieces.

  Before she could recover from the mind-blowing intensity of her release, he entered her. She sighed at the feel of him so deep, so full, inside her. She started to move her hips, but he gripped them and held her tight, unmoving.

  His eyes glittered down at her. “Wait,” he whispered, the muscles in his face taut with tension. “Give me a minute or this is going to be over before it begins.”

  He stroked her hair away from her face and kissed her, his mouth soft and gentle against hers. She’d expected his passion, she’d anticipated the lust, but she hadn’t expected tenderness.

  As his lips softly plied hers, she felt a warmth invade her heart, a warmth unwelcome and just a little bit frightening.

  Before she could assess her own emotional reaction, he moved his hips, stroking into her and driving all other thoughts out of her mind.

  The passion that had momentarily ebbed peaked to a new height as they moved together in unison. They began slow, almost languid, kissing with gasps and moans of pleasure at the same time he stroked long and deep inside her.

  It didn’t take long before slow became more frenzied as need exploded. Once again tension coiled inside her, a sweet evocative tension that begged for release.

  His mouth nipped at her neck as he possessed her and she felt herself climbing up…up…spiraling completely out of control. Her climax came at the same time he tensed against her and cried out her name.

  Once their breathing had begun to resemble a rhythm more normal, he eased from the bed and disappeared out into the hall.

  She rolled over onto her side and wondered if he’d come back to the bed or if he’d go directly to the sofa and spend the remainder of the night without saying another word to her.

  She hoped he came back. If he didn’t, it would somehow diminish what had taken place between them and it had been wonderful.

  The relief that coursed through her as he came back into the bedroom and slid next to her beneath the sheets surprised her. “I thought maybe you’d go right back to the sofa when you left,” she said.

  He raised one arm beneath his head and with the other pulled her closer against his side. “I got up and checked out the house, made sure everything was still secure. Besides, it breaks one of Smokey’s rules of engagement to get up in the middle of the night and leave a woman you’ve just had sex with.”

  She lay her head on his chest, enjoying the pound of his heartbeat beneath her ear. “Smokey has rules for sexual encounters?” she asked in surprise. “What about your dad?”

  “Dad gave all us boys the general birds and bees talk, but it was Smokey who got down to the nitty-gritty.”

  “Like what?” It wasn’t so much that she was burning with the need to know what Smokey had passed on to the West boys, but she loved the sound of his deep voice in the darkness of the room, the slight rumble of his chest beneath her face as he spoke.

  “Never leave the house without a condom in your wallet. Never kiss and tell no matter how much you want to brag about a conquest, and always make sure your partner is pleased before you please yourself.”

  He’d certainly done that, she thought. For a moment they were silent. Although his heartbeat was slow and regular, she felt the tension in his muscles.

  “Zack, I know you’d rather be anywhere but here,” she murmured sleepily. “You don’t have to worry about this changing anything between us. I know I’m not your idea of Cinderella and you certainly aren’t my idea of Prince Charming. I’m just glad you’re here now. I’ve been so lonely since Dad’s death.”

  “Go to sleep, Katie,” he said softly.

  She closed her eyes and told herself that it wouldn’t have mattered whose warm body was next to her, she just felt better not being alone in the darkness of the night.

  She was almost asleep when a thought struck her. “It’s weird—isn’t it?—that what happened to Dad and what almost happened to me was made to look like an accident and poor Joe Wainfield really did die in an accident.”

  Chapter 10

  Zack sat at the kitchen table sipping coffee, grateful that Katie was still asleep in the bedroom. He wasn’t ready to face her, needed some time to think about the huge mistake he’d made the night before.

  Making love with Katie was right up there among the worst mistakes of his life. And like all the other big mistakes of his life, it was an experience that couldn’t be easily dismissed or forgotten.

  She’d been softer than he’d expected, far more giving as an intimate partner. She’d seduced him from the moment he’d burst into the kitchen.

  She’d seduced him with the enticing light in her eyes, the breathless length of her sexy legs and with the words he needed to hear to allow himself to be seduced.

  Who was he fooling? She might have seduced him, but he had been ripe and ready for her. The desire he’d felt for her since he’d walked into the emergency room had simmered and burned in his gut every moment they’d been together. It had taken very little to nudge him into acting on it.

  Zack shoved away from the table and walked to the window where dawn’s light illuminated the eastern skies. The problem was that somewhere in the back of his mind he’d thought that by acting on his desire where Katie was concerned, he’d destroy it and never be bothered with it again.

  But when he’d opened his eyes this morning to find her warm body curled up next to his, her beautiful copper hair splayed against the pillow and the scent of her surrounding him, his desire for her had kicked him in the gut once again.

  He’d wanted nothing more than to awaken her by kissing the soft, sleep-warmed skin of her throat, by caressing her full breasts, by burying himself in her moist heat once again.

  Instead he’d slid out of bed, angry with her and even angrier with himself. She’d said all the right words to put his worries to rest. She’d assured him that he wasn’t her idea of a Prince Charming, but that didn’t make their lovemaking any less a mistake.

  The last thing he could afford was to become emotionally attached to Katie. She was the daughter of a beloved friend, nothing more. She was a job, nothing more. That’s the way it had to be for his own peace of mind.

  He frowned as he saw several men leaving the stables on horseback. Jake and Brett rode out to begin the morning chores. Jake directed a glance toward the house a
nd Zack could almost feel the man’s animus radiating across the yard and through the windowpane.

  By staying in the house with Katie, Zack knew he had garnered Jake’s hostility. What he didn’t know was what the man might be capable of, what role he might have played in Gray’s murder.

  Until Zack had more information about all the men working the ranch, he knew he’d do well to watch his back as well as Katie’s. He returned to the table and once again picked up his cup of coffee.

  Joe Wainfield. The name that Katie had muttered the night before just before falling asleep filled his head. Joe had been killed in what had been ruled a tragic farm accident when he’d somehow fallen off his tractor and the vehicle had run over him.

  Katie’s sleepy comment hadn’t made much impact on him the night before when his head had still been filled with the overwhelming pleasure of their lovemaking. But now he found himself considering her words.

  It was interesting that everything that had happened here at Bent Tree Ranch had been made to look like an accident and on the ranch next door to Katie’s an accidental death had occurred.

  It could be nothing more than an intriguing coincidence. What made it even more interesting was that Jake Merridan had worked for Joe before Joe’s death and now he worked on this ranch where accidents were happening on a far too regular basis.

  Coincidence or something more sinister? He simply didn’t have enough information to have an informed opinion. He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee, finding his thoughts about the case far more comfortable than thinking about Katie.

  Why did she think he wasn’t Prince Charming material? The question popped into his head out of nowhere and he shoved it away, irritated that he’d spent even a second thinking about what she’d said.

  He’d just finished his second cup of coffee when he heard the sound of gravel crunching beneath car tires. He left the kitchen and went through the living room to look out the front window and saw his brother, Dalton, getting out of his car.