Gone. The single word echoed like a mournful hymn rising in air that was too hot to stir. “I know.”
His expression was so strange, she couldn’t begin to read it. “It’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he bit off, as if by doing that, it could shield him from the rest of it. From all those other feelings he didn’t want to deal with, didn’t even want to acknowledge.
Brianne squared her shoulders, feeling as if she’d just been physically assaulted. Did he hate her being here that much? She tried to hide her hurt. “You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that you said that just a little too fast with a little too much feeling in it.”
Kent saw the hurt in her eyes, but did nothing to reach out to it. If he did, it would only draw her out more. And that would be his undoing.
He shrugged, indifferent. “It’s because you guessed right.”
This time, his voice, his expression, cut through her like a huge bowie knife. “Well, I guess that puts me in my place, doesn’t it?” Pressing her lips together, she raised her chin. And tried to rally her scattered, wounded pride. “It’s too late to try to line up someone else. I’ve got a deadline to meet.” She’d never felt quite so lost before and didn’t fully understand why. Or what to do about it. “But I’ll make more of an effort to keep out of your way.” Afraid the tension vibrating through her would release itself in tears, Brianne turned away.
She’d only taken a few steps toward the house before she heard him call her.
“Wait a minute.”
As if his voice was an off switch, she stopped, still looking straight ahead of her. Brianne prayed neither of his parents would choose this moment to come out She wasn’t sure if she could carry on a coherent conversation. “What?”
“I’m not sure.”
The strange, quiet note in his voice made her turn around to face him. “Not sure about what?”
He knew he shouldn’t be saying it even as the words found their way out of his mouth. “Not sure if I want you to go.”
Brianne stared at him incredulously. He was the most complicated so-called simple man she’d ever met. “What?”
Frustration had Kent saying more than he knew he should. “That’s what’s crawled under my skin, all right? The fact that I don’t know if I want you to leave.” He was stumbling over feelings that seemed so miserably tangled he was no longer certain which end was up. “That maybe there’s a small part that wants you to stay, which is ridiculous because you are going.” The look in his eyes challenged her to negate his statement. “Right?”
“Right.” But her voice lacked any conviction as she agreed.
Kent blew out a breath, hating this ambivalence that was dogging him, haunting his thoughts. He didn’t like complications. Complications only led to confusion, to a state he already knew he didn’t function well in. He wasn’t a slow learner. The incident with Rosemary had taught him that he should stick to what he understood. That did not include women. Even one who made his blood heat every time he looked at her.
He moved toward her, taking each step as if it were his last. “Another week, eh?”
Brianne swallowed. The air had stopped moving. Everything seemed still to her except for the beating of her heart. “That’s all.”
The half shrug that met her assurance was an attempt at carelessness. “I guess I can put up with it for another week.” He kept his voice casual. “Where do you go from here?”
“Back to New York, to my office. I wasn’t kidding about that deadline.”
He could see her fitting well into an urbane world like that, taking in the theater, going to sophisticated restaurants where they served overpriced food and had long, convoluted conversations about things that didn’t matter. Trouble was, he was beginning to see her fitting into his world as well. Beginning to want her to fit in. “I thought you said you don’t live in New York.”
“I don’t. The magazine I work for is located in New York. I live in Connecticut.”
“Connecticut.” He’d never been very good in geography when it came to anything east of the Rockies besides the obvious states that everyone knew. Wasn’t Connecticut some little bitty state north of New York?
She picked up on his tone. Didn’t he think any place was worthy except for Montana? “You say that like it’s a dread disease.” Gamely, she interrupted their silent truce by asking, “What have you got against Connecticut?”
“Nothing, I just never thought about people living there, that’s all.” Certainly not people who lit up a dark Montana night with just a smile.
She wondered what he did think about, besides cattle. A smile born of the grudging affection she was beginning to develop for him rose to her lips. “Everybody’s got to live somewhere, especially since you don’t want them trespassing in Montana.” She knew she was being defensive, but he was goading her into it. If she were honest with herself, she preferred what she saw right here to what she’d left behind. There was something so basic about life out here, basic, simple and beautiful. Or maybe it was just because he was here.
He straightened, bracing for something she didn’t see. “You’re doing it again.”
Brianne didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “Doing what?”
He frowned, his eyes narrowing as he looked at her mouth despite the fact that common sense bid him not to. “Smirking.”
She relaxed. “I told you before, that’s smiling.” Was he that unaccustomed to it? “I can’t believe that women haven’t smiled at you, Kent. Even though you do try to run them all off with a shotgun.”
Just when he thought he was beginning to follow her, she lost him. “Now what are you talking about?”
“Well, you’re not exactly hospitable. Quint told me that you’re like that with all women.”
“Quint?” A suspicion he was unaccustomed to feeling trickled through him, the same restlessness he felt when he saw her talking to his men out of earshot. “When did you see Quint?”
“Here, that second day. Don’t you remember?”
“Oh. Yes, I do.”
Kent felt more than a little foolish for jumping the gun. It was just that the thought of Quint seeking her out bothered him. The fact that it did bothered him even more. She was nothing to him, why did it matter to him whom she talked to? It just made no sense to him.
“Why, are you afraid I might taint the rest of your family if I talk to them?”
“No, I—” That wasn’t it and she knew it. “Damn it, woman, you always twist everything around. Most of all, me.”
He hadn’t meant to say that. Kent could tell he made a mistake the moment he saw the look in her eyes.
“Meaning?”
Why did she want to play games? “You know what I mean.”
Brianne drew closer to him. “If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.”
He could feel the heat of her body and struggled to keep from absorbing it in every fiber of his being. “You’re a pest, you know that?”
“So you keep telling me.” Her words were slow, drifting to him, lingering in the air between them. “I’m still trying to figure out what you mean by that.”
“I mean that you keep getting in my way.” Wasn’t it enough that she’d messed with his mind? Wasn’t she going to be satisfied until he spelled it all out for her?
Brianne thought of all the effort she’d put in to be as unobtrusive as possible. The effort she’d put in to be a help rather than a hindrance. Why couldn’t he just admit that? “I do not.”
“Yes, you do. Up here—” he tapped his temple “—you get in my way up here.”
A smile, warm and pleased, began to curl through her. They were getting there. By inches, but they were getting there. “How?”
“Just by being,” he growled.
She looked up at him innocently, so close to him that if she were any closer, they would have been one. “I can’t cease to be, Kent. At least, not for another week.”
“That’s just the problem.”
How she had come to be in his arms like this, Kent hadn’t the vaguest notion. All he knew was that she was there and he liked it far too much for it to be safe for him. He’d been down this road once before, a road he hadn’t a single clue how to navigate.
No clue how to get from here to there. And in the middle was this huge hole. He’d already fallen through it once. He didn’t want a repeat performance, not under any circumstances.
Yet he wasn’t drawing his arms away, wasn’t stepping back. Like a damn lemming, he remained on the path he was on.
Kent looked down into her face. “You know, women are a lot more complicated than cattle.”
If she stayed really still, she could feel his heart beating. Hard, like hers. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Wasn’t meant to be.”
Oh yes, it was. “Cutler?”
“Yeah?”
“Quit while you’re ahead.”
He framed her face with his hands. God, but he did want her. Wanted what was so bad for him. “Was I ahead?”
“Uh-huh.” He was going to kiss her, she could see it in his eyes. Anticipation rushed through her veins. “But not as ahead as you’re going to be.”
When had his blood turned to fire like this? He hadn’t even kissed her yet. “You do talk too much.”
“So you said.” She whispered the last word against his mouth as it came down on hers.
There was something wonderful about the familiarity of his kiss, something even more wonderful about the exhilaration it ushered in. Brianne wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning her body into his. Letting herself be taken away.
It was like riding a roller coaster in the dark. You thought you knew what was ahead, but you weren’t altogether sure that someone hadn’t changed the route on you when you weren’t looking. So she went on the ride and held on for dear life, knowing only one thing. That when it was over, she was going to want it to begin all over again.
More, he wanted more, but more was just what Kent couldn’t let himself have. He had to keep his goal in mind, to remain detached. She’d be gone in another week, and he could go back to life as he knew it. Dependable, stable.
And duller than rain on an endless prairie without her.
His arms closed around her again. It was hard to think of the future, hard to think of anything when white lightning was coursing through his veins.
She didn’t taste like strawberries anymore. It was moonshine she brought to mind now. Moonshine far more potent than what he and Quint had sampled that time behind Joe Tyler’s makeshift still.
Moonshine that had a kick he wasn’t all that sure he could recover from.
With a shaky breath, Kent drew back just enough to look down into her face. Down at the mussed lips that had his imprint on them.
He tried to summon anger and found it was just beyond his reach. “Damn it, woman, where did you learn to kiss like that?”
There was mischief in her eyes. “Some things you don’t learn. Some things just come naturally.”
He wanted to believe that. Wanted to believe that there’d been no other men in her life, but he was no fool. There’d probably been a legion of them and he was just one of a number.
Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to wipe the memory of all the others from her mind.
Murmuring an oath she couldn’t quite make out, Kent kissed her again.
And again.
One kiss dovetailed into another, growing stronger, until they all melded into one huge, heated kaleidoscope that swirled through her head, making her dizzy with desire. Brianne felt she was going to climb out of her skin if he didn’t make love with her tonight.
As if he could read her mind, Kent stopped suddenly. His heart pounding, throbbing in his ears, he took her hand without a word. Leading her to his horse, he got on, then extended his hand to her.
She debated, knowing that if she agreed, she was taking a very huge step. A step that might have consequences.
After a beat, she took the hand he offered and swung into the saddle behind him. With her arms tightly around his waist, Brianne held on as Kent turned Whiskey toward home.
His home.
6
Nerves skimmed along her body like ice skaters’ blades along a freshly smoothed ice rink. Maybe she should have her head examined, feeling like this about a man who blew hot, then cold, but she couldn’t quite help herself. There was something about the way he kissed her that completely undid her. Unlocked her soul like no one else ever had. She’d always believed in grabbing life with both hands. Excitement filled every space within her.
Brianne pressed her cheek against Kent’s back. His warmth radiated through, heightening the anticipation churning within her. And at the center of it all was an enormous, baffling feeling of comfort. As if being here like this with Kent was where she’d always meant to be.
It was a silly notion, but silly or not, Brianne couldn’t shake it.
Brianne raised her head to see where they were. Not that she had gotten any better at finding her way around this vast range in the last week than she had been at the outset. What she was hoping to see was a glimpse of Kent’s house.
Squinting, she could just barely make it out. It would have been impossible to see at this distance, if not for the lights.
The entire house, from top to bottom, looked to be ablaze with lights.
Without being told, Brianne knew that wasn’t like Kent. He wouldn’t have just gone off and left all those lights on. She couldn’t even visualize him turning on so many to begin with. He reminded her of someone who enjoyed the solitude that the dark offered. His electric bills were probably all in the single digits.
“Kent, you didn’t leave a candle burning in every window, did you?”
Her breath, warm against his back, and the teasing question brought Kent back from the path where he’d strayed. His thoughts busy elsewhere, Kent hadn’t been looking in front of him. Whiskey knew the way to the stable. Kent left it up to the horse to get them home.
His mind wasn’t on getting home, but on what would happen once they’d gotten there. He was trying very hard not to think beyond the night ahead and the needs that were all but tearing his gut apart For once, he didn’t want to think about consequences.
Brianne’s question was a fool question to ask. To him, a candle was something you used when the power went out To her, it probably represented something romantic. He’d read that somewhere once. Maybe tonight, he’d light one for her. But he certainly hadn’t lit any earlier.
He half turned toward her. “No, I didn’t.”
She was right, he realized as he looked toward his house. There were lights on. Lots of lights. Any more and it would have looked as if the building was on fire. Even if he’d forgotten to turn off a light—which he hadn’t, since when he’d left earlier it was still daylight—he’d never have turned all of them on. Why should he? He only occupied one room at a time.
“What the—?”
For a second, the sight baffled him. The realization that the rest of the evening was, at least temporarily, put on hold sank in a moment later. Frustrated, he swallowed an oath he figured was better left unsaid, given his present company.
Brianne felt Kent’s body stiffen. “Do you think someone broke in?”
He laughed shortly. Robberies in and around Serendipity were few and very far in between. As a rule, drifters didn’t come here and the townspeople didn’t take from their own.
“Had to be one careless burglar to leave all the lights on.”
No, it was worse than a burglar, he thought dourly. A burglar would have been in and out and long gone by now…without leaving the lights on. What this meant was that it had to be one of his family, paying a call.
But which one would turn on all the lights like that? Even Morgan, who claimed to like things bright around her, didn’t require having a light in every room.
By the time he pulled up in front of the house, Kent had his answ
er. There was a car parked in the driveway. A very familiar, albeit slightly dusty car.
He recognized it instantly. “Hank,” he muttered under his breath.
His brother had moved to Southern California several months ago, looking to further his advertising career. Quick-witted, talented and enterprising, Hank’d long since outgrown the firm he’d been with and it had been just a matter of finding the right time to leave. They’d all believed that Hank was too good to waste his time and his talent going nowhere.
Though their paths hadn’t crossed nearly as much as they used to since they’d reached manhood, Kent had to admit that there were times he found himself missing Hank and his perverse sense of humor.
According to their mother, Hank had been promising to come home for a visit for some time now. Truth be told, Kent had really been looking forward to seeing him.
Any time but now.
Kent shook his head. Damn, talk about bad timing.
Wondering if he could urge Hank off to the main house without arousing any undue suspicion, Kent dismounted. It took him a second to remember to offer his hand to Brianne.
“The burglar left his car,” she observed, looking down at Kent. Obviously, he had to know whoever it was in his house. Brianne wondered if he could find a way to get rid of them.
“Yeah, I noticed.”
His hands on her waist, Kent slowly lowered Brianne to the ground, allowing the length of her body to tease his. He could feel a quickening in his gut as well as his loins. There had to be a way to get rid of Hank.
The word mistake telegraphed itself through his brain, but Kent broke the connection. If this was a mistake, and it probably was, he’d deal with it later. Right now, he felt that if he couldn’t have Brianne, and soon, he was going to self-destruct.
He’d muttered someone’s name when he’d looked at the car, but Brianne hadn’t made it out. “You know who’s in your house?”
Kent nodded, making a detour around the vehicle and fighting the urge to kick all the tires. “Hank.”
Cowboys Are For Loving Page 7