It was impossible to think. He could only experience the heady wonder of actually kissing her. Her fingers played at the nape of his neck and created a teasing torment that made blood surge through him.
He’d hoped to offer her comfort, but now his desire for her was in complete control of him. He’d dreamed of kissing her, but even his wildest dreams hadn’t lived up to the real-life experience.
Her petite curves fit neatly against him and he reached a hand up to stroke her hair. Soft and silky, just as he knew it would be. It was easy to imagine his fingers tangled in the strands as he thrust into her.
Her small moan cut through the hazy fog that had momentarily taken possession of his mind, and with a horrified gasp he broke the kiss, moved her aside and jumped up from the sofa.
He took two steps backward and stared at her, appalled by what had just happened, by his utter lack of self-control. “I’m so sorry,” he said.
She gazed up at him, her eyes a warm golden green and her lips slightly plumped. “Sorry about what?”
“I shouldn’t have kissed you.” He jammed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels, needing whatever distance from her he could get. All he really wanted to do was take her in his arms once again. “I’m sorry because it shouldn’t have happened.”
“But I wanted it to happen. Tanner, I’m very attracted to you.”
The words washed over him in a combination of sweet warmth and cold dismay. “Josie, you shouldn’t be attracted to me. I’m way too old for you.”
“Age has nothing to do with attraction,” she countered with a smile. “And I’m definitely not sorry we kissed. In fact, I’m hoping we will kiss again.”
He pulled his hands from his pockets and took another step backward. She was killing him with her come-hither gaze and words of encouragement to continue the madness.
“It won’t happen again, Josie. I think we both have enough serious issues going on in our lives. We don’t need to mix in a relationship that will go nowhere and would only complicate things,” he said firmly.
He hated how quickly her smile disappeared and the gold sparkle in her eyes faded, but somebody had to inject cold, hard reality into the crazy conversation.
And the cold, hard reality was that, despite his desire for her, he had no place in his life for a young woman like Josie. She would be a mistake and he wasn’t willing to make that error again. There was no place for any woman in his life. “I think I’m going to call it a night,” he said. “Good night, Josie.”
“Good night, old man,” she retorted with a touch of sarcasm.
He stiffened his shoulders and then turned and escaped into his bedroom, where the sight of her, the scent of her, was blessedly absent.
It took him forever to go to sleep and when he finally did he dreamed of Josie once again, her eyes gold and glittering with want as he stroked her soft skin and tasted her hot lips.
He awakened before dawn and dressed and left the suite before she or the girls were awake. He headed for the barn where his office was located. Once inside the small enclosure that held a desk, his work computer, a file cabinet and an ancient coffeemaker, he sat and thought about what had happened the night before.
He had been stunned and saddened by what she’d told him about her past. It was bad enough her mother had been murdered by her father when Josie was just a toddler. It was tragic that she and her siblings had been separated and forced into the foster-care system. But it was what she’d told him about Desmond that had broken his heart for her.
She’d been a twelve-year-old child who had seen a murder and had lived in terror for years. The father inside of him had wanted to find that little girl and somehow soothe her pain, even though logically he knew there was really nothing he could do to take away what she’d endured.
He couldn’t imagine how alone she’d been for the five years before she’d gone to the police and told them what she’d seen. To wake up with fear every morning and go to bed with it at night must have been horrifying for her. It had been a burden that would have completely broken most people. Still, she had survived it all.
That kiss.
That damnable kiss.
He reared back in his chair and frowned. What had he been thinking? He shook his head ruefully. The problem was he hadn’t been thinking. He’d been driven by his own desire, acting on it without any rational thought. He couldn’t allow it to happen again.
There was no way he believed her attraction to him was real. She’d told him she’d been out of witness protection for only a month. She’d spent most of her life isolated and afraid. They’d been thrown together due to exigent circumstances.
She was just focused in on him because he was probably the first male she’d interacted with in any meaningful way for a long time. She hadn’t mentioned any other relationships other than the one she’d had when she’d been a teenager.
She was vulnerable, probably seeking some sort of connection now that she was out of the program and free to pursue a life. He knew he was decent-looking, but he still knew that any attraction she believed she felt for him had to be false.
Had she really seen somebody hiding behind a tree the day before? Had it been the man from the woods? She hadn’t been sure, but if it hadn’t just been her imagination, then it was still too soon for them to try to unearth the watch.
Time. They just needed more time and then hopefully one night they could sneak out and get what she’d come here for and then she could go back to Granite Gulch and build a life for herself.
She’d find some young man who didn’t already have children, a man who would make her the entire center of his world. After all she had been through, she deserved that and so much more.
He was vaguely ashamed he’d run like a coward out of the suite before she’d awakened. He wasn’t even sure what he’d been afraid would happen. Maybe he feared an awkwardness that would be unpleasant. But even having faced a gunman and delving back into her painful past, he had yet to see a trace of unpleasantness in her.
He needed her at the moment, and she needed him. He had to move past the kiss, past his desire for her, and keep things amiable and uncomplicated between them.
With this thought in mind, at noon he decided to check in with Josie and his girls. He walked into the suite to find the twins in their high chairs and Josie seated at the island. “Look, girls, Daddy-love is home for lunch,” she said in obvious surprise.
He got peanut-butter-and-jelly kisses from Lily and Leigh and then joined Josie at the island. “You aren’t eating?” he asked. She looked achingly beautiful in a bright pink sleeveless blouse tucked into a pair of denim shorts.
“I grabbed a sandwich while the girls were napping. Can I fix you something? Along with my awesome chicken and dumplings, I make a mean peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.”
“No, thanks. I’m good.” He was especially good given the fact that her tone was light and easy and it was as if last night and that very hot kiss had never happened.
“You were up and out of here early this morning,” she said.
“Yeah, Thursdays are when I spend most of the morning in my office doing paperwork and ordering supplies. I always try to start the day extra early.” He got up and went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of water, aware he’d just told a little white lie. Although it was true that Thursdays were filled with paperwork and time in his office, he rarely left the suite before dawn like he had that morning.
“I didn’t know you had an office.”
He smiled. “Actually, office is too grand a word. It’s just four wooden walls that make a small space in one of the barns, where I can do my official foreman work. It’s actually a pretty bleak area.”
“Sounds like maybe you need some twin artwork to hang on the walls and make it more cheerful.” She looked at the girls. “How about this afternoon we color pictures for Daddy-love?”
“Color!” Lily exclaimed and then popped a bite of sliced banana into her
mouth. Leigh nodded in eager agreement, her blond curls bouncing on top of her head.
“I’d never thought about hanging anything on the walls,” Tanner admitted.
Josie smiled. “Just give us this afternoon and you’ll have artwork to rival the greats.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather have than some pictures from my girls to look at when I’m working,” he replied.
“What’s your favorite color?” she asked.
“I guess I’m a blue kind of guy. What about you?”
“I’m definitely a pink kind of gal, although I’m getting very fond of purple.” She looked at the girls and smiled. “Definitely pink and purple.”
He saw the real affection that shone in her eyes as she gazed at the twins and it only made her more attractive to him. When she looked back at him the warmth was still in her gaze. “So, how are things around the ranch?”
“A bit tense,” he admitted. “It’s like nobody knows who they can trust anymore. It’s hard not knowing if there’s a killer in the house or on the grounds.”
“There’s only one person you can trust around here and that’s me, cowboy,” she replied with a teasing sparkle in her eyes. It was the same thing he’d told her and it somehow felt like a little secret they shared.
“And on that note, I’d better get back to work,” he said. “I just figured I’d pop in here for a minute before I headed out to check things in the pastures.”
“If you would have popped in twenty minutes ago you would have run into Marceline. She came by for another quick visit.”
“You enjoyed her visit?” Tanner worked hard not to frown.
“I did, although our conversation was fairly superficial.”
“Did she mention where she was on the night Eldridge disappeared?”
Josie shook her head, her dark hair gleaming in the sunlight from the window. “We talked about fashion and food and the only thing she said about Eldridge was that everyone is hoping for a ransom note or call. She seems a bit lonely to me. I was looking out the window not long after she left and saw her go into one of the barns.”
“She was probably visiting her horse, Queenie. She loves to ride, and I’ll admit she does take good care of her horse.” Still, his instinct was to warn her again about Marceline, but he bit back the words.
He’d already told Josie not to trust the woman. But Josie was an adult and could form her own opinions. Besides, he didn’t see how Marceline could really harm Josie.
He was just grateful that the kiss and the conversation afterward hadn’t changed things between them. When he left the suite minutes later he was confident he and Josie were back on track.
As he headed to the stables to mount up and spend the afternoon in the pastures, he thought about the fact that a ransom demand for Eldridge hadn’t been received yet.
Did the lack of a ransom mean the old man was dead? Or was he being held alive someplace and the kidnapper was just biding his time and hoping desperation would make for a bigger payoff?
And what in the hell was Marceline really doing visiting with Josie?
CHAPTER 8
The next week swept by quickly. Josie and Tanner and the twins fell into a comfortable routine that spun a happy fantasy in Josie’s head.
She could easily imagine a life here with Tanner and his girls. They had started each morning sharing coffee while Lily and Leigh ate their breakfast, and then Tanner left for work.
In the evenings after eating with the rest of the staff they returned to the suite, where they played with the twins until their bedtime. Once the girls were asleep, she and Tanner spent a couple of hours just talking.
It was amazing to her that they didn’t run out of things to talk about and that their conversations were so easy, so comfortable. It was as if she’d known him for months and each morning she looked forward to those hours with him at the end of the day.
The twins had definitely woven their way deep into her heart. They were wonderfully bright and funny and loving and she didn’t like the idea of anyone else taking care of them.
And then there was Tanner. The kiss they’d shared had rocked her to her very core. Despite the fact that there had been no physical contact between them for the last week, a sharp yearning had simmered in the air between them.
She felt it and she knew he did, too. She saw it in the glitter of his eyes when he gazed at her and thought she wasn’t looking. She felt his desire for her wafting from him when they were alone together in the living room and the twins were in the nursery sound asleep.
When she’d been in his arms, with his lips pressed against hers, it had felt so natural, so achingly right. She wanted more from him; she wanted him to make love to her. It had been in her mind every minute of every day since they’d shared that kiss.
The idea that he thought he was too old for her was laughable. He was only thirty-five, and besides, she was an old soul. She had no desire to spend her nights clubbing and dancing until dawn.
She wasn’t an average twenty-three-year-old. She didn’t want adventure or serial dating. She wanted stability and family. She wanted peace and she knew without a doubt she could find it here, with Tanner and the two girls who had won her heart.
She now stared out the window. The twins were down for their afternoon nap and the silence was far too conducive to thinking and spinning fantasies.
The last thing she wanted to think about was the watch. Over the past week she hadn’t mentioned going to dig it up and neither had Tanner. If she looked deep inside she’d admit that the man in the woods had cast her back to a bad place and she hadn’t quite pulled herself out of the darkness.
This place felt safe and she was reluctant to even think about leaving. Tanner felt safe, but other than wanting her physically, she had no idea how he really felt about her.
Certainly she was a convenience for him right now. There had been only one response so far to his ad for a new nanny and the woman hadn’t even shown up for the interview.
It didn’t help that Eldridge’s kidnapping had made a big splash in the news. It wasn’t every day a billionaire was taken right out of his own bedroom and the press had gone wild with the story.
Josie suspected the lack of responses to Tanner’s ad had to do with nobody wanting to work at the Colton Valley Ranch right now. The house where a kidnapping had occurred wasn’t exactly an attractive workplace.
A knock sounded at the door and Josie jumped up to answer. She opened the door and Marceline smiled at her and thrust out a vase with a bouquet of beautiful yellow roses.
“What’s this?” Josie asked as she took the vase from her.
“Yellow roses are for friendship and I decided to bring them to you to brighten up your day.” She swept past Josie and sank down on the sofa. “I guess the girls are napping?”
“They are, and thank you so much. These are beautiful.” Josie placed the vase in the center of the island and then returned to her chair.
“I keep thinking one of these days I’ll come in here and you’ll be gone.”
“If I had my way I might want to stay here forever,” Josie replied.
“Really?” Marceline leaned forward, her eyes glittering brightly. “I just knew it. I thought I smelled a romance brewing around here. So, tell me, are you desperately, madly in love with Tanner?”
Josie laughed. “I don’t know about love, but I definitely feel more than a little bit of healthy lust where he’s concerned.” It felt good to talk about her feelings with another female.
“And have you acted on that lust?”
“No, not really,” Josie replied with a laugh and then sobered. “But I feel electrified whenever I’m around him. It’s like all of my senses come alive in a way they never have before.”
Marceline nodded. “It’s a wonderful feeling, isn’t it?”
Josie raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, Ms. Marceline, is there somebody who electrifies you?”
Marceline leaned back against the sofa
cushion and laughed. “Heavens, no. I can only imagine what it must be like to feel that way about somebody.”
“But you’re so pretty. There must be plenty of men clamoring to get close to you.”
“All the men I meet remind me of my stepbrother Fowler.” Her upper lip curled up. “And he’s such a pompous jerk. He’s even gotten worse since Daddy Eldridge has disappeared.”
“I’m sure you’ll eventually find that special man who will make you happy for the rest of your life,” Josie said.
“And I hope things work out between you and Tanner if that’s what you want,” she replied. She eyed Josie with open speculation. “You’re so different from Helen.”
“Really? How so?” Although it felt bad to gossip about a dead woman, Josie wouldn’t mind knowing more about the woman who had captured Tanner’s heart.
“Helen really wanted to be a Colton, not a Grange. She envied our money, our standing in society and everything else about us. I don’t know if she was that way when she first married Tanner, or if she got that way living here with him.”
“But she must have had good qualities for Tanner to have loved her,” Josie replied.
“I’m sure she did, but to be honest, I didn’t see many. Of course, I didn’t spend much time around her, but when I did she just seemed rather unpleasant. And she was far more high-maintenance than you seem to be. She had to have her hair done and got her nails manicured regularly. She liked nice clothes and that’s obviously not a priority with you.”
Josie looked down at her T-shirt and shorts, wondering if she should be offended by Marceline’s assessment. She decided not to be offended but was secretly rather amused. Her Colton roots were dirt poor and the only money any of them had was hard-earned, not inherited.
“I just can’t imagine her walking away from those sweet baby girls,” Josie confessed. “Maybe she was suffering some sort of depression.”
“Maybe,” Marceline said.
“I’ve only been here a little over a week and already I’m going to miss them desperately when I go back home.”
Colton Cowboy Hideout (The Coltons of Texas, Book 7) Page 10