Luke's hands clenched and his short nails raked with sensuous precision down Carla's spine. He felt the breaking of her breath, the wild shudder of her body, the involuntary arching of her hips into his. He tried to bite back a cry of pleasure-pain as she rocked softly against his aroused flesh, but a groan escaped his control, and she drank the passionate sound as he had drunk her own small cries.
The warmth of Luke's hands followed the slow unbuttoning of Carla's blouse, and as each button came undone his teeth sank gently into her tongue, distracting her. She would have let him undress her anyway, distraction or no, for her skin was on fire and her clothes were stifling her and she wanted to be as naked as her tongue sweetly tangling with his.
Luke had just enough self-control left to know if he unhooked Carla's bra, he wouldn't stop undressing her until she was wholly nude, her body open to him, and he was naked within her. With hands that shook, he pushed aside the soft folds of cotton blouse and smoothed his palms over her breasts once, lightly.
He might as well have taken a whip of fire to her. She shivered, transfixed, and her nipples hardened to his soft touch.
Knowing he shouldn't, helpless to prevent himself, Luke slid a long finger beneath each bra strap and slowly caressed the hollow of Carla's collarbone to the warm slope of her breasts. He hesitated, groaned almost soundlessly and eased his fingers farther down, beneath the warm lace, stroking slowly, savoring the rise of warm, firm flesh, the satin areola, the velvet of her nipples. Sweetly, in the same rhythm as his tongue mating with hers, he flicked back and forth over the tight peaks beneath the lace until they were as hard as the male flesh thrusting hungrily between his thighs.
A soft, ragged moan was torn from Carla's lips, a sound Luke took into his own mouth, devouring it as he wanted to devour her. For long, rasping seconds he plucked her velvet nipples until she quivered wildly and her hips rocked in silent pleading against his hard flesh. He freed one hand and let it slide over her belly, tracing the zipper of her jeans without opening it, sliding down and down until he could feel her humid heat resting in the palm of his hand. He moved slowly, rocking with her, wanting her until it was like dying not to take her.
With a sound of anguish Luke ended the kiss, freeing his mouth without freeing Carla's body from his caressing hands. She trembled violently, breathing as raggedly as he was, her eyes dark with the first passion she had ever known.
"I want you," Luke said harshly, flexing his hand into Carla's secret warmth, shuddering when she moaned. "But that's all it will ever be," he continued through clenched teeth, understanding finally the dimensions of his own personal hell. "Wanting. No rings and vows, no babies and color snapshots and scrapbooks to put in with the old albums. No happily ever after. I'll grind no modern woman into bits on the Rocking M. I'll leave no more children to be raised without mothers. The MacKenzie line will end with me."
Shocked, trembling, trying not to cry, Carla felt Luke's pain more deeply than her own.
"But I want you to know this," he continued, his voice savage, his eyes blazing with all he would never know, never do, never be. "No matter who you marry or how many lovers you take, no matter how long you live, no man will ever want you the way I do."
With a swift, powerful movement Luke stood, lifting Carla and setting her aside in the same motion.
"Stay away from me, sunshine. If you come to me again like this I'm afraid I won't have the strength to say no. Then I would take you and hate you and myself and the ranch that's as much a part of me as my soul."
~ 9 ~
"Cosy just left," Luke said, answering Carla's question and watching her intently despite the activity around the corral. "Why? Did you want to go to town with him?"
Carla shook her head, making a shaft of sunlight tangle and run through her hair. "I've got a recipe I want to try and it needs a particular spice. By the time I realized it, it was too late to put in on the list."
Luke snapped his leather work gloves impatiently against his thigh. "Hell, schoolgirl, this is a ranch, not a fancy city restaurant. West Fork never heard of most of the junk you want to put in the food."
Carla's chin came up as belligerently as Luke's. "Listen, cowboy, the only complaint I've ever had from the men about my cooking is that their horses are threatening to go on strike over all the extra poundage they have to haul around these days."
A corner of Luke's mouth turned up. "Heard rumors of that myself. Even Ten ordered a new pair of jeans, and that old boy was nothing but rawhide and hard times before he started putting away your food like there was no tomorrow. First thing you know he'll be as fat as I am."
"You? Fat?" Carla looked Luke over from the brim of his cowboy hat to the toes of his boots. "Pull my other leg. There's not an extra ounce on you anywhere. You and Ten are enough to make me yank my hair out. The more I feed you, the better you look, and Lord knows neither one of you was exactly ugly to begin with."
Luke laughed despite the stabbing pleasure Carla's frank admiration sent through him. He had tried to keep her at arm's length since she had come to him in the blazing silence of the dining room and taught him just how much a man could want a woman and still survive not having her. He had twenty-three more days of hell to endure until her stint as cook and housekeeper was over.
Twenty-three days. He wondered if he could make it. Keeping Carla at a distance had proven to be impossible. The anger he had turned against her earlier in the summer was simply gone, burned up in the far hotter fires of his passion for her. He was edgy, he slept badly, he was short-tempered – but not with Carla. No matter how much easier it would have been to be angry with her, he simply could not feel rage toward the girl who had come to him, offering her body and her soul to him with a single shattering kiss.
One kiss, but no more. Carla had heeded Luke's pain, if not his warning. She continued to serve Luke hot food when he came in long after the other hands had eaten. She poured coffee for him, joined him if he asked her to, listened with transparent pleasure when he talked about what he had done that day. She cleaned every inch of the house, washed and mended everything in his closet and drawers. She joked with all the men equally, giving no man any encouragement to become personal, and did it all so diplomatically that Luke was reminded of Mariah Turner's deft handling of the courting outlaws.
In all, Carla had done nothing to earn Luke's displeasure and everything to fulfill the terms of the bet. He could hardly blame her if sometimes he turned around unexpectedly and saw her watching him with desire and wonder mingling in her beautiful eyes. He watched her in the same way, was caught in the same way, and walked off in the same way.
Alone.
Nothing was said. No excuse was given. None was needed. Luke and Carla could not have understood each other better if they had been connected to the same central nervous system.
And time after time, late at night, when thunder and lightning stalked the wild land, Luke heard Carla pacing her room, then tiptoeing down the hall to the kitchen. A few minutes later he would hear the faint scrape of a dining room chair being moved; and he would lie awake, his body clenched with savage need, and picture how she must look at that instant, sitting and sipping hot lemon water, wearing nothing but the black shirt he had left with Cash … the shirt Carla had chosen to use as a nightgown, wearing nothing beneath it but her fragrant skin.
Sometimes it was Luke who awakened, paced and went to the kitchen for something warm and soothing. Sometimes it was Luke who scraped a dining room chair over linoleum and sat shirtless, his jeans half-buttoned, with nothing under the jeans but his rigid, intractable hunger for his best friend's kid sister.
"I'd better do the breakfast dishes," Carla said.
She turned away, unable to bear the intensity of Luke's eyes a moment longer. Yet even with her back turned, she felt him watching her as she went to the house. The thought of leaving tomorrow with Cash for September Canyon was all that kept her from throwing back her head and screaming in a combination of frustration and �
� frustration. She had thought there could be no worse punishment than loving a man who didn't love her.
She had been wrong. Wanting a man who wanted but refused to take her was worse. Much worse. She felt his unhappiness as acutely as her own.
Do you feel my pain, Luke? Is that why your eyes follow me, watching every step, every breath, every gesture?
Don't do that. Don't watch me. Don't look at my mouth and remember how it felt to kiss me so deeply that we tasted of each other long after the kiss ended. Stop torturing yourself. Stop torturing me.
Twenty-three more days. God, how can I do it? And how can I not?
Forcing herself not to think about it, Carla went to the kitchen and frowned over the recipe she wanted to make that night for the men. It was a French recipe for beef stew that had a long, elegant name. But she lacked one of the pungent herbs she needed. She reread the ingredient list again, went to the cupboard and sighed. The closest she could come was sage, which was already in the recipe.
"If only it were pine nuts," she muttered, flipping pages, looking for another recipe, "there would be no problem. I'd just go up the trail to MacKenzie Ridge and shake down some ripe piñon cones and spent the next three days getting the sap out of my hair."
Remembering, Carla laughed. But it had been worth it to see the look on the men's faces when they asked what the tasty crunchy things in the green beans were. She only wished Luke had been there to share the joke, but it had been during the time he had spent days camping out, scouring the ranch for something he never named.
Suddenly Carla remembered the juniper branch that Luke had brought to her yesterday, saying he thought she might like the smell of it in her room. The deep green of the needles had been studded with the small, powdery silver blue of the hard berries. Flipping quickly to the index of the cookbook, Carla looked up juniper, found a recipe in which it was used and discovered that a very few berries went a long way in flavoring any stew. She closed the book, ran upstairs to her room and returned with several pungent berries in her hand. Singing softly to herself, she began assembling the ingredients for boeuf à la campagne.
By dinnertime the smells emanating from the ranch house were enough to make a hungry man weak. As usual when Luke wasn't around at dinnertime, Ten was the first man in the door by a good forty minutes. He looked at the stove, noted that she was using the big pot again and crossed the kitchen quickly.
"I'll take care of that," he said.
"Thanks, but I can—"
"Want to get me fired?" Ten interrupted, taking the heavy pot from Carla's hands, pot holders and all.
"Of course not!"
"Then make real sure I do the heavy lifting when Luke isn't around or he'll have my butt for a saddle blanket. He was very particular about not having you wrestle with gallons of boiling stuff."
The realization that Luke had told Ten to help her made emotions shiver invisibly through Carla.
"Thank you," she said huskily. "I have to admit I've been thinking of rigging a block and tackle for the stove."
Ten smiled as he set the pot full of stew on the worn counter. "Smells like heaven."
She gave him a sideways look. "I'd have guessed you were more familiar with unheavenly smells."
He laughed and began filling two huge serving dishes with stew, using a ladle the size of a soup plate. Smiling, Carla turned back to her other dinner preparations, grateful for Ten's quiet help … and at the same time unable to keep from wishing that it were Luke's hands lifting the heavy pots, Luke's arms flexing with casual strength, Luke's broad shoulders making the kitchen seem small.
"Is Luke coming in for dinner?" Carla asked two seconds after telling herself she wouldn't.
"Nope."
"Is he … camping again?"
"Not this time. Some fool cow took a notion to tangle with barbed wire. Luke will walk her to the barn after he sews her up a bit." Ten looked up at the clock. "Be a few hours yet."
"Ladle some of that into the small pot, would you?" Carla asked. "I'll keep it warm for him."
"You're spoiling him shamefully."
She shrugged. "Just doing my job."
"None of the other cooks ever kept food warm for the man who worked through dinner."
"From what I've heard, none of them cooked anything worth keeping warm," Carla said dryly.
Ten bent over the ladle and inhaled. "Damn, but that smells really fine. What's in it?"
"You wouldn't believe me."
"Sure I would."
"The usual things, plus bourbon and juniper berries.
Ten blinked. He sniffed again. "Juniper berries?"
"Think of them as Rocking M peppercorns."
"You think of them. I'm going to eat before you tell me something I don't want to know."
Cosy's voice called plaintively from the next room. "Hey, ramrod, you planning on sharing any of that with the men what do the real work or are you going to keep it all for yourself?"
"Don't get your water hot," Ten retorted. "If we fed you on the basis of work, you'd have starved to death long before now."
Carla just managed to remove the smile from her face before she walked into the dining room carrying a tray of steaming biscuits and a pot of dark mountain honey. Ten followed with the big bowls of stew. The food vanished shortly after it was put on the table.
The speed with which Carla's cooking disappeared no longer appalled her, for she had become accustomed to thinking in terms of feeding men who routinely burned three and four thousand calories a day. During roundup, branding, calving and other seasonally demanding kinds of work, the men would work sixteen-hour days, during which they would eat a minimum of four big meals and all the "snacks" they could cram into their pockets, saddlebags or the glove compartments of their pickup trucks.
Before Carla sat down to eat, she went back to the kitchen with the stew bowls, filling them again from the much-reduced volume of the cooking pot. After bringing the new bowls of stew, plus coffee refills, two more trays of biscuits and a new pot of honey, she sat down and ate her own dinner.
She didn't lack for company; the men who weren't polishing off second helpings were working their way through a third plate. By the time she had eaten her first – and only – serving, the men were through eating. It was the part of the meal Carla enjoyed most, for the full, satisfied men tended to sharpen their wits on one another while she brought in dessert.
Sometimes it was Carla who came in for her share of ribbing, but she enjoyed even that. It reminded her of the good-natured give-and-take she and Cash shared – and Luke, too, until that disastrous summer.
"What's this I hear about you running off tomorrow and leaving us to starve?" Cosy asked as he mopped up the last of the savory gravy with a biscuit.
"True," Carla said cheerfully. "I've saved up some days off."
"And you're going to run off to the city and never think of the brokenhearted boys you left behind."
"Actually," Carla said, standing up and gathering dirty plates, "I'm running off to September Canyon."
"Same difference," mumbled Cosy.
"It is?"
"Sure. We'll starve just the same."
"You can live off the fat of the land," Ten pointed out to Cosy.
"Speak for yourself, boy. I'm trim as a rattlesnake and twice as mean."
"Three times as ugly, too," called Jones from the end of the table. As the other men laughed, Jones kicked back and lit up a cigarette, sending a streamer of smoke across the table. "But that's still one hardhearted woman," he added, gesturing toward Carla with a burned match. "Leaving us to starve and not turning a hair over it."
"Hate to disappoint you boys," Carla said, pausing in the doorway with her arms loaded with dishes, "but I doubled up on everything I made this week and froze half. You won't starve."
Shaking his head, Jones rocked back from the table and blew out another stream of smoke. When Carla returned and began passing out dessert, Jones watched her closely and said as though no time
had passed, "It's not the same a'tall. Nothing's as good as fresh." He gave Carla a thorough, up-and-down look and took another drag on his cigarette.
"’Course, I might forgive you if you gave me a big kiss before you leave."
"Nope," Carla said instantly, hearing Ten's chair creak as he turned toward the brash young hand.
"You sure about that?" Jones asked, blowing out smoke again, looking at her with open appraisal. "Bet I could change your mind, little darling."
"Not a chance. Nothing personal, but kissing you would be like licking an ashtray."
The men laughed loudly. After a moment, Jones shook his head and laughed, too. Ten's smile flickered very briefly, but there was a look in his eyes that told Carla a ranch hand called Jones would be hearing the rough edge of his ramrod's tongue. And, she admitted to herself, it might be just as well; during the past few weeks she had become increasingly aware of Jones. Of all the hands, he was the only one she took care not to be alone with. It was nothing he had said or done; she simply didn't like the way he looked at her.
Ten lingered while, one by one, the other men finished dessert. The hands had taken to carrying their dirty dishes into the kitchen after a meal, which saved Carla a lot of running back and forth. There was usually some more good-humored joking as the hands grabbed a final cup of coffee before going to the bunkhouse for a night of cards, TV, VCR movies or a few rounds on the battered old pool table.
Ten rolled up his sleeves and began scraping dishes. While he did it, he kept an eye on the men who came and went from the kitchen. Especially Jones. The hands sensed their ramrod's displeasure. No one lingered tonight. They carried in dishes, grabbed a cup of coffee, and vanished.
Carla waited until everyone had left before she turned to Ten and said neutrally, "The way you're snarling, not one of those hands is going to so much as say good-night to me from now on."
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