by Susan Fox
Logan moved past her and strode down the hall to the main part of the house. Claire lingered near the partially opened door to Cody’s room to make certain he’d truly settled down and would go right to sleep. Though at home she’d already moved him into a regular bed, she’d chosen to put him in the baby bed at least for tonight.
Since this was a strange house, the baby bed might give them both a better sense of security. Unless Cody decided to climb out. That’s why she lingered quietly in the hall just out of sight. Fortunately, the excitement of the day and the fact that Cody hadn’t gotten his usual full nap ensured that within ten minutes he was fast asleep.
Claire took a steadying breath and went in search of Logan. Elsa apparently went home every night just after she finished clearing things away from supper, so there was little chance of anyone overhearing.
The reminder sent a fine shiver of tension through her as she realized that she and Logan would be the only ones in the house except for the sleeping boy. Something about that sent the shiver of tension deeper.
She found Logan in his den. His expression was still the same flinty closed one he’d worn since their visit to the corrals. Claire resented that, but she’d have to keep a tight rein on her irritation and be so, so careful with this. His marriage proposal was only a few hours old. And easily—far too easily—revoked. If he hadn’t changed his mind already.
Claire stood hovering in the doorway for several annoying seconds, then reached over to rap her knuckles on the open door. It seemed to take a significant number of moments more for Logan to look up.
His black gaze sliced swiftly over her, and she realized it was probably the only greeting she would receive from the cretin. The man was arrogance personified.
“I think we need to discuss a few things,” she told him, careful to keep her voice calm as she walked on into the room and crossed to his desk.
He watched her every step of the way, but this time his gaze alighted here and there and she felt a startling warmth in each place that sent a fresh shiver of tension through her. The fact that her tension was at least mildly sexual did nothing to calm her jangling nerves.
Logan leaned back in his chair as if he were waiting for her to speak. She noted there was no invitation to sit down, and she hated his rudeness. He still hadn’t responded to her statement, which sent her temper up another notch.
“I don’t care for this silent treatment,” she announced, though she was careful to keep her tone conversational. “If you’re upset with me, say so and say why.”
Logan didn’t respond or react for another few seconds. Just when she thought she couldn’t keep her irritation to herself another moment, he spoke.
“I won’t tolerate another stunt from you like that one at the corral.”
Claire wasn’t certain she’d heard right. “Stunt?”
Logan rested his elbows on the chair arms but the glitter in his gaze told her he was anything but relaxed.
“If you mean to keep the boy from taking to the life out here, you’ll be gone.”
Claire was thunderstruck. What she’d had a hint of earlier—that Logan mistrusted her—was so clear to her now that it might as well have been spelled out on a neon sign. “What are you talking about?”
“I won’t let you scare him off,” he said in a low, gravelly drawl, but what he said next was a blatant threat. “Don’t ever act up like that again.”
Claire gave her head a dazed shake. It shocked her that he hadn’t realized she’d genuinely been afraid when the pony had rushed at them. Because he hadn’t realized the extent of her fear for the boy, much less her fear for herself, she didn’t want to confess both things to him. No sense offering that kind of personal information to an adversary unless there was no way to avoid it.
After all, he might consider her fears for the boy reasonable, but her fear of the pony would seem ridiculous to him. He’d probably never been afraid of anything in his life.
“I was…protecting Cody,” she said quietly. “The pony seemed…wild. At first.”
“Do you think I’d put the boy in danger?” The angry glitter in Logan’s eyes was more pronounced as he slowly rose to his feet.
Oh my, that idea had mightily offended him. Unrushed, he started around the big desk and she stifled the urge to move back.
Claire didn’t dare answer his question with a straightforward “yes,” so she tried to think of a reply that was just as true, but more tactful. And she couldn’t lie because she sensed he’d see right through it.
As he stopped little more than arm’s length away, she realized he was so angry that anything she said could be disastrous, whether she told him the truth or lied her head off. She made a careful start.
“I doubt you’d put him in danger on purpose, but you don’t seem to have much experience with small children. I don’t know you well enough to be certain you fully realize how small and immature Cody is, and how risky it will be for a child his age to be exposed to much of the rougher side of ranch life. Animals are unpredictable, are they not?”
Logan lifted his big fists to rest them on his lean hips. Claire tried not to let that subtly intimidating pose rattle her. His voice was still low and gravelly.
“So it follows that if you can make him afraid, you think I’ll just hand him over to you to take back to city life.”
Her attempt at tact was a rousing failure. On the other hand, she was more than a little guilty of wanting to be able to just take Cody home and keep him all to herself—and to somehow escape Logan’s marriage mandate—so she couldn’t truthfully deny everything he was accusing her of.
“What happened at the corral wasn’t deliberate, Mr. Pierce.” She could tell the moment the words were out of her mouth that they weren’t enough to settle this.
“I won’t deny that I’d rather have won in court,” she admitted, “or that I’d rather have Cody to myself. I won’t deny that I overreacted with the pony, but I wasn’t trying to come between you and the boy, or to make him afraid. That would be cruel, and I think if you consider it a moment, you’ll realize I wouldn’t do that. After all, you’re the one Cody’s legally obliged to stay with, however he feels about it. I wouldn’t sentence him to sixteen years of fear and difficulty with you.”
It was hard to weather that brutal gaze as it glittered and flared, hard to not look away as Logan searched her face as if examining it for any hint of dishonesty. She caught the tiniest glimpse of perception.
“You were scared.”
The blunt words carried a hint of both curiosity and scorn. It was because of the scorn that she tried to evade a complete answer.
“Perhaps ‘overprotective’ is a better word.”
Now Logan tilted his head back as if to study her in a slightly different way. “That, too. But you were scared. And not just for the boy, but for yourself.”
The closer he stood to her, the more impossible it became to somehow ward off the pressure to confess. Claire hoped he’d stop easing closer. Or that he might move away. Perhaps she should.
But then, Logan wasn’t really moving closer, it just felt as if he were. Her tension was rapidly evolving into something else, and it was a distraction. But his body was like a big magnet, and her insides seemed to be reacting to the pull. It felt like a yearning, almost a craving.
She’d been upset for months, and these past few days had been awful. Today had been unbelievable, so she had to be mistaking all this. Since she hadn’t been attracted to Logan at all, it didn’t make sense that she’d suddenly be attracted to him now.
And she was too proud to just baldly confess her fear. Instead, she got out a stumbling, “I admit I haven’t had much experience with horses.”
Logan’s stony expression eased and she sensed the harshness in him relent. His stern mouth actually curved a little, and the hard glitter in his eyes softened dramatically. It was an amazing transformation that made him suddenly…handsome.
“Well, now. Thanks, Claire, for the less
on.”
His gravelly voice had gone smoother and lower, and it somehow moved through her leaving a trail of sparks. She felt too hypnotized by the sensation and the way he was looking at her to be sure how to take any of this, much less fathom what he was talking about.
“What lesson?”
“What you’re like when you tell the truth. And what you’re like when you lie to me. It’s good that you’re a bad liar.”
Before she could respond to that, he added, “You probably got thrown from a horse and no one made you get over it.”
Claire felt a modest wave of relief. He’d gotten it exactly right, and he showed no sign of scorn now. Something about the matter-of-fact way he’d said it made her feel freer to confirm his guess.
“I’m sure it’s not an unheard of thing.”
Logan actually smiled a little, and in spite of Claire’s resistance to him, she thought it might be the sexiest smile she’d ever seen. But then he spoiled it.
“Well, honey, it’s unheard of in these parts. You’ll have to get over it quick.”
What she’d thought was a major improvement in his hard-hearted, cold-blooded temperament and an understanding about her fear, was not. Riled, she forced a tight smile. “Oh my, I’m impressed. You make a decree, and suddenly it’s done.”
“Yes, ma’am. Right after breakfast tomorrow, it will be.”
Was he toying with her? Or was he seriously trying to provoke her? After his punishing silence tonight, she wouldn’t tolerate this.
“I’m not interested in horseback riding,” she informed him stiffly. “After the list of wifely tasks you mandated this afternoon, I doubt I’ll have much time for equestrian pursuits.”
“You will if you’re my wife.”
Claire searched his face for any sign of a threat, but he looked more relaxed—and handsome—than she’d ever seen him, so she wasn’t able to tell how serious he really was about this. Since he appeared to be having a little fun at her expense, perhaps she could return the favor.
“Is that right? Well, you left that little requirement off your order for a wife. Since you filled in all the available blanks when you placed your order, I’m afraid this little extra can’t be guaranteed. And tomorrow might be a little soon anyway, even with overnight delivery.”
“You’ve got a smart mouth, Claire.” Logan’s voice was low and smooth, but there was no hint of displeasure in what he’d just said. If it was a criticism, it certainly didn’t sound like one.
“We all have our good points,” she said and primly laced her fingers together in front of her.
The small movement seemed to set him off and he reached for her clasped hands and took a half step closer. Claire reflexively pulled back, but his grip tightened gently. She looked down at their hands, then away.
The silence in the room was charged, as if someone had thrown a high voltage switch. His big hands were hot and hard with calluses, and heat radiated over her skin to pool in places where heat had never pooled before. A delicious weakness seemed to flow along with the heat, and Claire felt the first diabolical tendrils of desire.
“I don’t expect impossible things from you, Claire,” he said softly, but there was no way to miss the implacable edge in his voice when he added, “but the things I want, I aim to have.”
Normally, words like those would have provoked her. Not that she wasn’t provoked by them now, but she just didn’t quite feel the fiery outrage she should have. The only thing that saved her from letting Logan know that his touch had undermined a little of her will, was the fact that a man like him was ruthless enough to shamelessly exploit it if she revealed it to him now.
She looked up to boldly meet his black gaze. “I’m not surprised that you have aims and goals. So do others.” Claire lifted a disapproving brow. “Speaking as one of those others, I’ve been wondering. Aside from getting to raise Cody, what will I get out of this marriage? Besides a list of orders and decrees, that is?”
“I’m not an ungrateful man.”
She tried to pull her fingers from his as she took a step back.
“Ah. That certainly covers my concerns in reassuring detail,” she said with soft sarcasm, aggravated because she realized it was her fingers that were holding on to his. She promptly released them.
Logan was still looking down at her, still sexy in spite of himself. “You’ll have plenty of money, a fine home, kids of your own…”
“I’m not wild about raising kids of my own with a bossy, overbearing tyr—”
Logan had caught her fingers again and before she could get the word “tyrant” out, they were standing toe to toe and his big hands had dropped to grip her waist.
“You talk a lot, honey,” he said as his dark head descended.
Claire was too shocked to turn her head in time to escape before his hard lips seized hers. There was nothing less than absolute male confidence in that kiss, and Claire was completely unprepared for how swiftly it happened. Or how swiftly she felt her body respond.
This was no polite introduction, it was a brand. First kisses weren’t even remotely like this, and Claire was suddenly drowning in the wildness of it. The kiss deepened and went aggressively carnal. Never in her life had a man kissed her like this, but she’d known from the moment his mouth had taken possession of hers that there probably wasn’t another man on the face of the earth who would have dared to.
Even worse, he’d managed to trigger a feminine instinct and sexual drive she hadn’t suspected she possessed. Only dimly was the rational part of her aware of how shamelessly her body betrayed her.
She was so completely taken over that when Logan ended the kiss, it took her a dazed moment or two to realize that the whimper of loss she heard was her own. Logan’s gruff voice was like a toll of doom.
“It’s all over but the ceremony, Claire. We’ll fly to Vegas tomorrow. Or Reno.”
Claire blamed herself. What else would a barbarian like him think after a kiss like that? What did she think after a kiss like that? Was her brain even functioning yet? She grappled for a shred of sense.
“I h-haven’t agreed to marry you,” she whispered hoarsely, her brain still so short-circuited that she couldn’t actually remember whether she’d officially agreed to marry him or not. Why was she so muddled?
Logan’s chuckle was another warm stroke through her insides. “Your body just said ‘I do,’ darlin’…and it’s downright multilingual.”
Claire felt her face go a fiery red. Belatedly, she realized she was clinging to him, and that she was plastered so tightly against him that it was as if she’d melted and stuck to his clothes. Humiliation made her summon at least the illusion of recovered pride, and somehow she found the will to push away from him.
“At least one of us isn’t heartless and cold-blooded,” she said, annoyed that her voice sounded as breathless as she felt. She looked up into his dark eyes and hated him for looking so damnably handsome. “And tomorrow’s too soon.”
She could tell by the glitter in his dark eyes that he hadn’t liked the “heartless and cold-blooded” dig.
“No reason to wait.”
Now the grimness was coming over him again and she refused to be bullied by it. “I want it in writing about the adoption. And I’ll want my own lawyer, a new one. That will take time.”
It relieved her when he turned away and walked around his desk, taking that awful magnetism with him. She could finally get a full breath.
Claire watched as he unlocked a desk drawer, and she thought that odd until he pulled out a thin legal document and passed it across the desk.
It was a prenuptial agreement, and she wasn’t truly surprised. This dictator would, of course, be prepared to block every escape. But as she scanned the pages, Claire felt as if she held in her hands the only sure guarantee that Cody would legally be hers.
Her anger cooled, and the resentment she felt toward Logan began to ebb away. She glanced up at him and saw he’d gone harsh again. The handsome man he�
�d been had vanished.
“This doesn’t say how soon adoption could begin,” she pointed out.
“It doesn’t need to.”
Logan had gone even more somber and Claire realized that he didn’t truly want to be bound to a prenup at all, much less one that pinned him down to a timetable.
“I think it does. I’ll need to find a lawyer to represent my interests, and there might be a few other things I’d like to have in it.”
His stony expression didn’t change. “The only thing that needs to be in the prenup is the thing I told you I’d give you: the right to adopt Cody. I won’t agree to anything else.”
Claire was chilled by that. She could tell he was immovable on the subject, and they both knew she couldn’t walk away from Cody. So that gave him all the power. Didn’t he realize that his control over her would end the moment she adopted Cody?
Or did he have something else up his sleeve to deal with that problem later?
Claire couldn’t imagine what he could use to get his way then, but whatever his secret weapon was, it certainly wouldn’t involve a plan to suddenly turn into Mr. Wonderful.
She gave a grave nod and made her voice suitably quiet.
“You win, Mr. Pierce. I hope what you think you’ve won gives you satisfaction.”
A hardness came over him then, and his voice was low and rough and just as quiet as hers had been. “It will, Miss Ryan. You’ll guarantee it.”
Claire’s temper fairly shouted a defiant We’ll see about that! as she searched his flinty expression for a way around the iron will behind it. But then she had another thought that gave her pause.
All this had more to do with Logan than it did with Cody or her. Though Logan Pierce wasn’t a handsome man, he was appealing enough, and he was a very rich man. He shouldn’t have been so desperate for a wife that he’d have to blackmail a potential candidate. And yet he must be. Why else would a man like him do this?