by JoAnn Ross
Of course he didn’t love her. Not yet. But he would. And in the meantime, Claren told herself, refusing to admit that this time she might be biting off more than she could chew, she had more than enough love for both of them.
With an innate sensuality she’d been unaware of possessing, she trailed her hand down his chest, letting her fingers play in the crisp ebony curls. “I think you’re very, very good for me.”
She flicked at his dark nipple with her fingernail, intrigued by the way it immediately hardened just as hers had under his erotic assault. Claren found the physical response encouraging. It showed that they weren’t really so different, after all.
Her teasing touch made his body harden with hunger for her all over again. Dash couldn’t think when she was driving him crazy like this. “You don’t even know me.”
How could he say that after what they’d just shared? “I know you,” she insisted softly. “And it’s important that you know that I didn’t really try to talk Elliott into making love to me because subconsciously I suppose I knew that I didn’t really love him. And the reason I wanted you to make love to me—”
“With you,” he interrupted, feeling that the difference was important.
Buoyed by the emotion in his voice, Claren nodded her agreement. “The reason I wanted you to make love with me so badly, Dash, is because I love you.”
Dash stiffened. He’d known he was making a world-class mistake. Watch the woman, St. John had instructed him. Stay close. Well, he’d watched her all right. For two damn days, even though she’d practically driven him insane with her soft eyes and her hot temper. And he sure as hell couldn’t have gotten any closer. So now what was he supposed to do?
“Claren—”
Claren had watched the shock caused by her admission move across his face like an earthquake. Followed by something uncomfortably close to despair. “You don’t have to say anything,” she said quickly. The color rose in her cheeks again. “I just wanted to tell you.”
It was impossible. She didn’t know anything about him. She didn’t know all the things he’d done. Things he wasn’t proud of. Things he couldn’t change. Dammit, she didn’t know what he was going to do to her.
Dash knew he should say something. Anything. But nothing even remotely suitable came to mind.
Vowing that she’d make him fall in love with her if it was the last thing she did, and wanting to experience the thrill of his lovemaking again, Claren took hold of his hand and tugged him out of bed.
“Let’s go try out that wickedly indecent mirrored shower,” she suggested. “And we can see how I respond to that tenderness you were talking about.”
Dual urges were ripping him apart. He wanted her. He wanted not to hurt her. He retrieved his hand and dropped it to his side. “I can’t give you what you want, Claren.”
Going up on her toes, she brushed her lips against his. “Want to bet?”
His fingers curved around her waist. Although he knew that he was already in too deep, he found himself pulling her against him. “Darcy told me that you were stubborn.”
She smiled against his mouth as she felt his mutinous body respond to her closeness. “Did he, now?”
“He did.” Damning himself for a fool and a bastard, he allowed his lips to pluck at hers. “He also told me that you were beautiful.”
“My uncle’s prejudiced.”
“That’s what I thought at first. But he was right.” His lips skimmed up her cheek to her temple, before pressing against her hair. “You are absolutely lovely.”
The low, almost unwilling admission went straight to her heart. Tilting her head back, Claren gave him a smile that lit up her eyes. “What blarney,” she said, linking her fingers around his neck. “I love it.”
He’d warn her once more, Dash decided. Then it was in her hands. “It’s not blarney, Irish. It’s the truth. You won’t get pretty phrases and soft promises from me.”
“I’ve already figured that out for myself.” The laughter in her eyes softened, grew tender. “That’s why I intend to cherish whatever wee scrap I get.”
God help him, he’d tried. “You’re impossible.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to sound so proud about it.”
“But I am. Don’t you see, Dash?” she said earnestly. “For years I’ve tried to do exactly what people expected of me, even though deep inside I knew Darcy was right. I was going against my nature. But finally I’ve gotten the nerve to break all the rules and I’m having the time of my life.”
Feeling absolutely wanton and deliciously sexy, she brushed her body against his. “So, are you coming into that bathroom peacefully, boyo, or am I going to have to use force? Don’t forget—”
“I know,” he growled as she made his body ache. “The damn judo.”
The hell with it. Dash tangled his hands in her hair and gave her a long hard kiss. “You win, Irish,” he said, scooping her up in his arms. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I won’t.” She twined her arms around his neck and sighed happily. “Have I told you that I love the way you keep sweeping me off my feet?”
* * *
MUCH, MUCH LATER, Claren was sitting across the chipped Formica café table from Dash. After a long, wonderfully fulfilling shower, they’d finally left the horrid, funny room and gone out to breakfast. Starving despite the enormous dinner she’d eaten the previous night, Claren ordered the strawberry whipped-cream waffles while Dash, displaying what she considered a distressing lack of originality, stuck to steak, eggs and cottage-fried potatoes.
She’d learned something important today. Darcy, who’d always had a saying for everything, had told her time and time again that thirst grew the more you drank. Claren had never understood what her uncle had meant until now. Until making love with Dash. Because the more he touched her, the more she wanted to be touched. The more he kissed her, the more she yearned for the taste of his firm lips. And every time he took her soaring to breathless heights she’d never known existed, she couldn’t wait to go again.
Thank you, darling Darcy. Even as she acknowledged the painful little hole that Darcy’s dying had left in her heart, Claren couldn’t remember when she’d been so happy.
Dash couldn’t remember when he’d felt worse. His instructions had been specific. He was to get Claren Wainwright to move into Darcy O’Neill’s house by using any ploy he felt necessary. That shouldn’t be hard, St. John had suggested with a knowing leer.
Dash was a professional. One of the best. He had also gone into this with his eyes wide open. If he had to sleep with the Wainwright woman to achieve his goals and to keep from blowing his cover, he would. Such subterfuge came with the territory; it meant nothing.
The hell it didn’t.
“It’s going to be a beautiful day,” Claren said.
Dash glanced out the window. “I suppose so.”
She felt like sighing at his unenthusiastic tone, but didn’t. Instead, she smiled at him over the thick white rim of her coffee mug. “You’ll like the festival, Dash.”
But his mind wasn’t on the festival. “There’s something I should have asked you last night.”
“What?”
“You are on the Pill, right?”
From his expression, Claren was tempted to lie. But she couldn’t. “Actually, I’m not.”
He dragged his hand down his face. “I was afraid of that.” What the hell had gotten into him? He was usually the overly cautious type. But he hadn’t even thought about protection until it was too damn late.
Hating the chasm that was growing between them, Claren reached out and covered his dark hand with hers. “I’m sure everything will be okay.”
“Yeah.” He took a drink of coffee, then eyed her bleakly over the rim of the mug. “I’ll bet that’s what my mother said in the same circumstances.”
Claren refused to let his grim tone burst her little bubble of morning pleasure. “You know,” she said, “now that I thi
nk about it, I’ve been rattling on so that you know all about my family. But you haven’t said a single word about yours.”
“My mother was a seamstress in Guthrie, Oklahoma.”
“I envy her,” Claren said. “I can’t sew a stitch. Aunt Winifred tried to teach me needlework, but I kept pricking my finger on the needle and getting blood all over the white linen pillowcases I was embroidering for my hope chest.” Yet another way she’d failed to live up to her aunt’s lofty standards, Claren considered. “What about your father?”
“My father was an Indian.”
“Really?” Claren surprised Dash with her immediate interest. “How wonderful! And it certainly explains your marvelous cheekbones. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner. What kind of Indian?”
“A Cheyenne.”
“Cheyenne.” Claren tried to remember the American history classes she’d taken in high school. “They were a Plains tribe, weren’t they? They hunted buffalo and lived in tepees. And they were warriors.”
She’d been fascinated by the tales of the Wild West. She recalled the stories of Cheyenne bravery in battle and remembered how sad she’d been at hearing how they’d lost the land they’d loved. Having never stopped missing her own home in County Clare, Claren thought she understood some of what Dash’s ancestors must have felt.
“My father was a descendant of Chief Touch the Cloud, one of the tribe’s greatest leaders, who died in a battle with the Pawnee,” Dash told her. “His people bitterly resented the coming of the white man. The Cheyenne lost more men in fighting than any of the other Plains tribes.”
Claren thought back on all the stories her mother and uncle had told her about her own relatives battling the British.
“The O’Neills were persecuted and lost their land,” she said softly. “They weren’t allowed to practice their religion or speak their language. Just like your father’s people.” She smiled up at him. “It looks as if you and I have more in common than we thought.”
“There’s one important difference,” Dash said grimly. “My father wasn’t married to my mother. He would have married her,” he insisted, repeating the words his mother had told him so many times. Words he’d wanted so desperately to believe. “But he was a rodeo rider, and before she got a chance to tell him that she was pregnant, he was killed by a Brahma bull.”
“Oh, Dash.” Claren’s eyes filled with sympathetic tears. “How terrible for your mother.”
“She was an incredible woman,” he said.
“Was?”
“She died.”
“I’m sorry.” A tear slid down her cheek; Claren brushed it away.
Dash shrugged. “It was a long time ago. But she sure as hell didn’t have it easy, being a single mother in those days, especially when the baby was illegitimate. And although I realize things are different now and people are more accepting, I damn well don’t want to be responsible for you getting pregnant like my mom.”
His gloomy tone was not encouraging. Claren decided they might as well get everything out in the open. “Have you ever received a Christmas present from someone you hadn’t thought to buy one for?”
He wondered at her sudden change in subject but answered anyway. “Sure.”
“And did you feel guilty?”
“No.” Their last Christmas together, Julia had practically bought out Brooks Brothers in search of the perfect gift for him. Sick and tired of the hypocrisy that their marriage had become, Dash hadn’t bothered shopping that year. “All right,” he admitted reluctantly, recalling the honest pain in his wife’s clear blue eyes, “I suppose I didn’t feel real good about it.”
“No one does,” Claren assured him. “It’s always one of the most stressful aspects of the holiday season. I remember one year when I was in college, I had this roommate who I didn’t really care for all that much, and she’d never pretended to like me, but then, right before Christmas break, she turned around and bought me a box of almond roca. I felt terrible, because, of course, I hadn’t thought to get anything for her.”
She was rattling on again, but Dash didn’t mind. Because he liked listening to her, whatever she had to say. He turned their hands and linked their fingers together. “Does this story have a point?”
Since he was smiling, Claren didn’t take offense at his words. “Actually it does.” She took a calming breath and looked him straight in the eye. “When I told you that I love you,” she said softly, hurt by the way he inadvertently flinched at the word, “it was a gift, Dash. You don’t have to feel guilty if you can’t give the same to me.”
She looked so sweetly earnest. As he met her warm and loving gaze, the resultant sharp ache nearly rocked him. “Darcy neglected to tell me that you were crazy.”
“Crazy about you,” she agreed with a grin. “Don’t worry about it, Dash,” she suggested blithely, cutting into her strawberry-topped waffle, “love’s neither contagious nor fatal.”
As he returned his attention to his steak and eggs, Dash wished that he could believe her.
* * *
THE FESTIVAL WAS HELD atop a bluff overlooking the ferry pier. Laid-back and mellowed out, the people sprawled on the grass and enjoyed the summer sunshine, the music and each other’s company.
News of the vandalism at Darcy’s house had obviously spread through the small, insular town like wildfire. Dash couldn’t count the number of people who came up to Claren and expressed condolences while they examined Dash with unbridled curiosity.
“Maxine and Mildred obviously told everyone about the wedding,” Claren said as an aging black musician created magic with the graceful lyricism of his alto sax. “Or lack of a wedding, I suppose, is a better way to put it. So naturally they’re all wondering if you had something to do with me calling it off.”
“Should we tell them we just met?”
Color flooded her face at the memory of where and how she’d spent the night and much of this morning. Not that she was embarrassed or ashamed, Claren assured herself. It was just that she wasn’t ready to have everyone in town know that she’d gone to bed with a man she’d known only two days.
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”
He’d watched the blush stain her cheeks and wondered what a woman who’d displayed the unbridled passion Claren had shown could possibly be embarrassed about. A tall, thin woman started singing along with the sax, her flat tone making Dash wish she wouldn’t.
“Whatever you say. I suppose that means you’re not going to tell anyone how I kidnapped you, either.”
“If I’d had you locked away in jail, I wouldn’t have a handyman.”
Feeling unreasonably carefree, Dash took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “I knew you were beautiful and sexy, but I hadn’t realized you were also practical.”
The touch of his lips against her palm made her flesh burn, and Claren found herself wanting him all over again. “If you don’t stop that, Dash MacKenzie, I’m going to attack you right here and now.”
It sounded eminently appealing to him. He flopped down on his back and spread out his arms and legs in a gesture of surrender. “Have your way with me, Irish. I’m too exhausted from this morning to have the strength to fight back.”
He was smiling up at her, and for this brief, shining moment, the harsh lines bracketing his mouth had softened, making him appear much younger and a great deal more carefree than she’d seen him look thus far.
Lying on her stomach beside him, Claren traced the sharp, slanting lines of his cheekbones with her fingers. “That singer sounds as if her shoes are on too tight,” she murmured, aware of the strident sound on some distant level as she drank in the rough-hewn features of Dash’s face.
“Great minds,” he murmured. “I was thinking the same thing.”
It was nice, after all the differences she’d detected between her and Dash, to have something else in common, even something as insignificant as an agreement about a singer’s talent. She smiled. “You have the most mar
velous face,” she murmured. “It makes me hope that Darcy’s right about my talent. Because I’d love to paint you.”
“In the nude.”
Her appreciative laughter bubbled free, like a crystal mountain spring. “Of course.” The midday sun was warm and soothing. She put her head on his chest, reveled in the feel of his strong arm around her and closed her eyes.
They stayed that way for a long, comfortable time. The sax player and singer left the stage, replaced by a voluptuous woman clad in a rainbow caftan whose amazing, seemingly incandescent voice slid effortlessly up and down a four-octave range as she took one of Louis Armstrong’s songs and made it hers. She controlled the beat, turning it inside out, playing it like a yo-yo, never losing it, finally segueing into a long, breathless riff of scat singing.
The woman was the most beguilingly unpredictable singer Claren had ever heard. “She sings like you make love,” she murmured as the music rushed through her blood like desire.
“How’s that?” Dash sat up and adjusted Claren so she was lying with her head in his lap.
“Her timing is absolutely dizzying. She keeps so many rhythms in the air that when the song is finally over, it’s a wrench to have to adjust to ordinary time.”
Her words created a burst of male pride. “And that’s the way I make you feel?”
She turned her head and smiled up at him. “That’s just the beginning. It gets better.”
She was the most naturally open person he’d ever met. He wondered how in the hell she’d spent all those years locking those tumultuous emotions inside her. It was a wonder she hadn’t gone mad.
“If it’s good,” he murmured, brushing her tumbled red-gold hair away from her face, “it’s not because of me, Irish. It’s you.”
It wasn’t a declaration of undying love. But it was something, Claren decided. And it made her feel wonderful. “Perhaps it’s not you or me,” she suggested softly. “Perhaps it’s us. What we make together.”