No comment, Garrett thought.
“How about making yourself scarce?” he said aloud.
Austin mugged like he was wounded to the quick and pretended to pull a blade from his chest. He was scarred where a whole team of surgeons had put him back together after a bad turn with a mean bull on the rodeo circuit earlier that year, but that probably appealed to women, rather than putting them off.
“Well,” he said now, “that ain’t neighborly.”
“We’re not neighbors,” Garrett pointed out, casting an anxious glance toward the door leading in from the garage. “We’re brothers. Get lost—and spare me the hillbilly grammar while you’re at it.”
Instead of obliging, Austin padded over to the huge table in the middle of the room, drew back a chair and sat down. “I know it’s inconvenient at the moment,” he said, “but I live here.”
Even looking like he did—he might have been sleeping on the floor of somebody’s tackroom closet for a week—Austin had a way about him, especially with women. It would be just like him to wangle an invitation out of Julie to join them for supper, and then hang around for the rest of the night, knowing damn well he was getting in the way.
Garrett resisted an urge to shove a hand through his hair. He’d just combed it after his shower, gotten rid of the crease left by his hat. He’d spent the day helping the fence crew drive postholes and string wire, except for a stop at Tate’s place on the way back home.
He smiled, recalling that. Maybe all wasn’t lost, after all.
He’d fished Calvin out of the creek, though the kid had never been in any serious danger of drowning, and that might have earned him a few points with Julie.
“Okay,” Garrett said, almost sighing the word. “What’s it going to cost me to get you the hell out of here for the rest of the night?”
Austin’s eyes twinkled with a faint reflection of the old mischief, then hardened slightly. “You’ve been kowtowing to Morgan Cox for too long, brother,” he said. “Not everybody has a price, whatever your boss may have led you to believe.”
Garrett’s back molars ground together. He stood beside the table, gripping the edge, and did his best to loom. Not that Austin was intimidated, the little bastard—he was cocky as a rooster.
“Maybe I’ll pretend you didn’t say that,” Garrett said slowly and evenly. “The fact is, right about now I’d just as soon drown you in the pool as anything else.”
Austin chuckled, but the sound was raspy and there was no amusement in it. He shook his head once, and then leaned back to drain the beer can. That done, he stood up so fast that his chair nearly tipped over. He caught it before turning toward Garrett.
“Bring it on,” he challenged. His blue eyes flashed with temper, and with pain.
“Some other time,” Garrett replied quietly. Something was sure as hell eating his kid brother alive, but whatever it was, Austin wasn’t ready to talk about it.
Austin raised an eyebrow. “Scared?”
In the near distance, one of the garage doors rolled up.
“You know I’m not,” Garrett said. “I happen to have other plans, that’s all, and they don’t include getting into a pissing match with you, little brother.”
Some of the granite drained out of Austin’s eyes and his jawline; he looked almost like his old self again.
Almost, but not quite.
He slapped Garrett on the shoulder and headed for one of the stairways, and by the time Julie stepped into the kitchen, carrying one plastic grocery bag and her purse, Austin was gone.
“Where’s Harry?” she asked, looking around the kitchen.
It took Garrett a moment to realize she was referring to the dog.
He smiled, crossed the room and took the bag from her hand. “He’s taken to hanging out in front of my fireplace,” he explained. “I hope that’s all right with you.”
“I wouldn’t have thought he could manage the stairs,” Julie said, her tone fretful and her gaze straying up the steps.
“I carried him,” Garrett said. And just then, the three-legged beagle appeared on the landing above, making a happy whining sound down deep in his throat and wagging his tail and both hips.
Julie seemed strained and pretty tired, but a smile transformed her face. “You carried him?” she asked, as though she wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
“Yeah,” Garrett admitted, puzzled. The dog was about to start down the stairs, a decision that could prove disastrous, considering the critter’s anatomical limitations, so he said, “Hold it right there” and bounded up there to head Harry off.
He caught the mutt in the curve of one arm, hoisted.
Julie stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up at them, that soft smile still gracing her face. For a moment, it seemed to Garrett that she glowed like a stained-glass Madonna in a church window.
The sight of her made his breath catch and then swell in his throat.
“I hear you saved Calvin in the face of certain survival,” she quipped, the smile turning to a grin. “Thanks for that, Garrett.”
He chuckled. “You’re welcome,” he answered, frozen where he was, at the top of the stairs, with a dog under his arm and a grocery sack dangling from his other hand. His voice came out sounding hoarse. “Come on up,” he said. “Whatever’s in this bag, we’ll cook it together.”
She hesitated, set her purse aside on a countertop and mounted the stairs, looking down at her feet as she climbed. It was only when she’d reached the landing that Garrett saw the heat burning in her cheeks.
She was still wearing her coat, and the rich autumn-brown color of the cloth turned her changeable eyes to a smoky shade of amber. “About what we were planning—for after supper, I mean—”
Garrett set Harry down, and the dog greeted Julie with a few jabs of his nose to her shins, then turned and trotted off toward the double doors opening into Garrett’s living area.
Garrett shifted the grub-sack to his other hand and pressed his palm lightly into the small of Julie’s back, steering her toward the well-lit privacy of his living room. He meant the gesture to reassure her, and she did seem to relax a little. At the same time, he felt energy zipping through her like electricity through a wire.
“Wow,” she said, after crossing the threshold.
A fire crackled on the hearth, and the tall windows overlooking the range seemed speckled with stars. Lamps burned here and there, switched to “dim,” giving the room a welcoming glow.
Garrett grinned at her, but proceeded to the kitchen, where he looked into the bag, saw that it contained a package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, and tossed the works into the refrigerator.
He’d opened a good shiraz earlier, to let it “breathe,” though he was secretly skeptical about the respiratory capacity of wine, no matter how fancy its label.
He slid two wineglasses from the built-in rack under one row of cupboards, holding them by their stems, and set them on the counter as Julie slid out of her coat and draped it over the back of one of the barstools at the counter.
Garrett washed his hands at the sink, remembering that he’d been holding the dog, dried them on a dish towel, and gave Julie a questioning look as he reached for the wine bottle.
She nodded, met his eyes as he handed her a glass and then clinked his own against it, very lightly.
“To a friendly supper,” he said huskily, wanting to put her at ease, “between two friends.”
Julie looked relieved, but a little disconcerted, too, as she nodded and then sipped. Closing her eyes, she said, “Ummm,” and things ground inside Garrett, like rusted gears freshly oiled and just starting to turn again.
If it hadn’t felt so damn good, he reflected, it would have hurt like hell.
“Are we friends, Garrett?” she asked.
“I hope so,” he answered.
As if that settled something, Julie set the wineglass down, washed her hands and opened the fridge door to retrieve the bag. “Let’s cook,” she said.
“I’m starved.”
Right on cue, Garrett pulled a baking sheet lined with stuffed mushrooms from the oven. They’d been warming there for a while, thanks to Esperanza, but they weren’t shriveled, and they smelled fine.
Julie’s eyes widened. “You cook?”
If only he could have lied and taken the credit. Alas, Garrett came from a long line of compulsive truth-tellers. “I know how to fry eggs,” he confessed. “Esperanza keeps a stash of frozen finger foods on hand at all times. Her theory is, You never know when a dinner party might break out.”
Julie laughed at that. Reached for one of the mushrooms and lifted it to her mouth, taking a delicate sniff before she bit into it.
“Ummmm,” she said again, just the way she had before, when she first tasted the wine. She breathed the sound, and there was something so sensual about it that Garrett’s brain turned to vapor inside his skull and then seemed to dissipate like mist under a hot sun.
In that moment, the sophisticated Garrett McKettrick, former top aide to a U.S. senator, forgot everything he’d ever known about women, except for one thing: He loved them.
Loved the way they looked, the way they smelled, the way they felt.
Or maybe it was just this particular one he loved.
He was still standing there, dumbstruck by the implications, when Julie opened those marvelous, magical eyes, looked straight into his, and suddenly popped a mushroom into his mouth.
It was an ordinary gesture, entirely innocent.
And it struck Garrett with all the wallop of a punch.
It was only by superhuman effort that he refrained from taking the wineglass out of her hand, pressing her body against the wall or the refrigerator door, with the full length of his own, and kissing her like she’d never been kissed before.
Even by him.
“Whoa,” he ground out, amazed that it was so hard to rein himself in.
Julie gave a breathy little giggle and fluttered a hand in front of her face like a fan. “Phew,” she said. “Esperanza must have stuffed those mushrooms with jalapeños.”
Garrett laughed as some new and startled kind of joy welled up inside him and broke free. His heart pounded and his breath came shallow and raspy.
He loved Julie Remington.
No, he instantly corrected himself. He couldn’t possibly be in love with her—it was too soon.
And he was in transition.
“We’d better cook,” he said, desperate to distract her.
And equally desperate not to.
Julie giggled again and put her wineglass on the counter, then slid both arms around his neck. He felt her breasts, soft against the hard wall of his chest. “Oh,” she said, “I think we’re already cooking.”
Garrett, like his brothers, like his father and his grandfather and a whole slew of greats, had been raised to be a gentleman.
Cursing his upbringing, he took a very light grip on Julie’s wrists and brought her arms down from around his neck. He held onto her hands, though. Squeezed them.
“Food first,” he said, and the rumble in his voice reminded him of the pre-earthquake sound of tectonic plates shifting far underground.
Julie’s cheeks glowed and something flashed brief and bright in her eyes. But then she swallowed visibly and nodded.
“Food first,” she agreed.
THE WHOLE TIME SHE AND GARRETT were assembling that batch of chicken spaghetti, Julie was torn between equally strong impulses to run in the other direction, as fast as she could, and fling herself at him again.
Not that putting her arms around Garrett’s neck really qualified as flinging herself at him, she thought. On the other hand, what else could she call it?
She couldn’t blame it on the wine. Two sips weren’t enough to make her brazen.
No, it hadn’t been the wine.
She’d raised that stupid stuffed mushroom to his mouth—what had possessed her to do such a forward thing she would never know—and he’d taken it from her. Moreover, he’d sucked lightly at her fingers as she withdrew.
That was the moment it happened. The moment she lost her mind.
They worked reasonably well together, Julie thought, taking occasional and very slow sips from her wineglass, and chatted like the old friends they most definitely were not while she slipped the casserole into the preheated oven and set the timer, after musing over the dials and buttons a little.
While the main course baked, Garrett threw together a very decent salad, and Julie watched, munching on another stuffed mushroom.
“And you said all you could do was fry eggs,” she said.
Garrett winked. “Oh, I can do lots of things besides fry eggs,” he told her.
The kitchen was big, though not as enormous as the one downstairs, and wired for sound. When an old Patsy Cline ballad melted in through the speakers, like some shimmering liquid, nearly visible, Garrett turned the volume up and the lights down and pulled Julie into his arms, waltzing her around the perimeters of the island in the center of the room.
If he’d kissed her then, she would have been lost. But he didn’t.
He simply danced with her.
Until the song ended and she was dizzy, and her breathing was all messed up.
Silently, Julie reminded herself that Garrett was only passing through—even this legendary ranch wasn’t big enough to accommodate his ambitions. He wanted to play on the world stage, and when he left, she couldn’t—and wouldn’t—go with him.
Still, she’d been alone for so long.
And Garrett had roused things in her that no other man had even stirred.
Her body—every cell of it—was suddenly asserting itself, making demands, crying out for things her mind would have called foolish. And among those things was the simple solace of being held by a man.
Just held.
In a last-ditch effort to resist, to override flood-tide passion with common sense, Julie did the opposite of what her entire physicality craved: She pulled out of Garrett’s arms, turned from him, and stood leaning against the counter opposite the door, her head down, gasping for breath.
And her body wept.
Garrett moved to stand behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders, barely touching her, but touching her just the same. Touching her in a way that caused her very essence to gather within her and then surge, like some sparkling force summoned by a wizard, into the rein-roughened palms of his hands.
The sensation was so deliciously compelling, so utterly unnerving, that Julie sagged, suddenly boneless, and might have collapsed if Garrett hadn’t held her upright, turned her in his arms, held her against his chest.
She was trembling.
“Shhh,” he murmured. It was what she needed—holding—and somehow he knew that.
Garrett curved a finger under Julie’s chin and lifted, so she was looking into his eyes.
Without a word, he kissed her.
There was undeniable wanting in that kiss, but it was exquisitely controlled. It made promises, that sweet pressure of his mouth on hers, but demanded nothing in return.
I’m losing my mind, Julie thought, feeling swept away.
Garrett stretched—she realized he was switching off the oven—and then swung her easily up into his arms.
“If you say ‘stop,’” he told her, “if you even think ‘stop,’ I will.”
She nodded to let him know she understood, and rested her face in the curve where his neck and shoulder met, loving the smell of his skin, the warmth and substance and strength of him.
He carried her into a darkened room, and she knew by the fresh-air, Garrett-scent of the place that this was where he slept.
She felt dazed, needy, incredibly safe.
Garrett stood her beside the shadow of a bed. “Where’s Calvin?” he asked.
Julie swallowed, scrounged around in the depths of herself until she found her voice. “With Paige,” she answered. “For the weekend.”
He began peeling away her clothes, and the tou
ch of his hands seemed reverent, rather than forceful. “Good,” he said, and the word vibrated down the length of her neck, because he spoke it into the hollow beneath her right ear. “That’s good.”
She didn’t have to be strong, Julie thought, bedazzled.
For once, for a little while, she didn’t have to be strong.
Garrett was strong enough for both of them.
Garment by garment, Garrett bared Julie, then himself. He took a condom from the nightstand.
“Just hold me,” she whispered, as they sank together into rumpled sheets, fragrant with detergent and sunshine and Garrett.
He stretched out beside her on the bed, drew her close, so that their bodies fit together.
But he did not kiss or caress her.
Not then.
Honoring his tacit promise, Garrett simply held Julie in the strong, warm circle of his arms. He propped his chin on top of her head, and she took comfort in the steady meter of his breathing. He said nothing. Asked for nothing.
Gave everything.
Julie lay there, in Garrett’s easy embrace, and felt no shame, no sorrow and no need of anything more than what she had, in that precise moment.
After a long time, she spoke his name, whispered it, like a plea.
And he understood, and eased on top of her, bracing himself on his elbows and forearms.
“Are you sure, Julie?” he asked.
She bit her lower lip, nodded.
From Julie’s perspective, there was no need for foreplay. Her surrender to Garrett was a gift, and not a fulfillment of any desire she possessed. She eased her thighs apart, lifted her hips just slightly, delighting in the groan the motion elicited from him.
“I’m sure,” she told him.
He eased inside her.
Julie cried out, not in pain, but in celebration—the friction, the fit, was perfect. It sent her spinning away from herself, in a glittering spiral of light and heat, and the sounds she made were expressions of awe and delight.
He was so big.
So strong.
So hard.
Julie gave herself up to the most primitive aspects of her own femininity, let herself be lost in Garrett.
He entwined his fingers with hers, pressed her hands into the pillow on either side of her head and pumped hard with his hips.
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