by Diana Palmer
“Go ahead,” he invited in a husky whisper. “Touch me.”
“I don’t want…” she began.
“Don’t fight me,” he whispered. “I’m not going to seduce you or force you into a relationship you aren’t ready for. Touch me. I won’t lose my head again, I promise.”
Tears stung her eyes. “I didn’t blame you for that, Jason,” she whispered softly. “I shouldn’t have said what I did….”
He lifted his head, just enough to see her eyes. “I didn’t like having you see me that way. I felt helpless.”
“I know,” she said gently. “And you don’t like losing control.”
He lifted an eyebrow ruefully. “You know too much about me.”
“That’s right.” She moved her hand experimentally on his chest, liking the way he moved sinuously under her light touch. “Watch your step, cowboy, or I’ll tell on you.”
He chuckled softly. He hadn’t laughed in a long time. She hadn’t, either. He liked the way she lit up when she laughed. “Who will you tell? I can’t think of anybody else who’d care.” He drew his nose softly against hers. “Your legs are trembling,” he whispered.
“Don’t get conceited. Yours are, too,” she whispered back.
He knew they were. His dark eyes searched hers gently. His hips moved once, slowly, and his gaze went to her mouth, watching it part. She still wanted him. If he took his time, and didn’t rush her, there might be a small chance that he could make her love him again.
“I want you,” he whispered. “But I’m not going to do a thing about it. See how that ties in with your theory that I only made love to you out of desire.”
And with that he levered away from her, his whole look frankly amused and a little predatory as she stared blankly at him, her body shocked by his sudden withdrawal.
“I don’t understand,” she said unsteadily. The whole tone of their relationship had changed pitch since she’d told him the truth about the baby. She couldn’t understand the sudden change. She didn’t quite trust it, either.
“I know that. But you’ll figure it out one day.” He finished his cigarette and ground it out under his heel. “Let’s go inside. And one more thing, honey, no more midnight conversations with Gabe in the barn,” he added, and this time there was venom in the stiff wording.
She looked at him, shocked. “Well, I didn’t plan it,” she said hesitantly. “He’d had a fight with his girl.”
“He doesn’t have to cry on your shoulder.”
“I’ll tell him that, if it happens again.” She glanced at his hard face. “I wouldn’t have let him do anything, you know.”
He nodded. “I know that.” He searched her eyes quietly. “Gabe will never know that we got married because he was going to take you to a square dance,” he remarked, watching her go beet red. “Remember, Kate? I dared you to go with him and you tried to slap me again, and I pushed you against the door and went crazy the second I kissed you. My God, I don’t even remember how we got on the sofa, I was so far gone.”
Remembering that day always embarrassed her, and it was too fresh a memory to talk about. She moved away from him, clearing her throat.
“I’d better go back in and face the music, I guess,” she sighed, leading the way out of the barn while she tried not to hear his amused soft laughter behind her. She glanced at him. “I’ll never make a socialite, you know. But I guess I can try again.”
“We’ll lay off inviting businessmen over, for the time being,” he said as they reached the porch. “You’ll have enough to do, with those new designs.”
She was touched by this odd and unexpected concern for her feelings. She turned at the bottom step and looked up into his dark, impassive face. “Jason, it’s important, isn’t it? These business dinners, I mean.”
He studied her face. “I don’t know, Kate,” he replied honestly. “If I can get some backing, with what I learned in Australia about breeding new strains of Indian cattle with my own, I might pull us out of the fire. It will take time, and I need a feedlot to start out, but it’s an investment that may pay off big. I just need a little leeway. A backer might make the difference.”
“And if you had a decent hostess,” she said miserable, “you’d have a better chance. I’ve let you down badly. You never should have married me. I know you never would have, if I hadn’t gotten pregnant.”
“Don’t bet on it,” he said, and looked down at her with darkening eyes just as the front door opened and Gene came out.
“Oh, there you are,” he said, smiling when he noticed that Jason had apparently been reaching for Kate when he opened the door. “Our guests are getting ready to leave.” He grinned from ear to ear as Kate and Jason came through the doorway. “I just sold a portrait to the crying lady.”
Jason blinked. “What?”
“She’s still crying, by the way, Kate,” he told her. “She’s really sorry that she hurt your feelings.”
“My sensitive feelings will be the death of us all if I don’t get them under control,” Kate remarked ruefully.
“You’ve been through a lot,” Gene said gently. “Nobody’s mad at you, least of all family, isn’t that right, Jay?” when he noticed that Kate’s mouth was swollen and so was Jason’s, and they both looked flustered.
“The only person I’m mad at is you,” Jason shot back. “Get in there and sell cattle, not portraits.”
“Spoilsport,” Gene muttered. “What in hell do I know about the cattle business?”
“And that’s the whole problem.” Jason was on his favorite subject now, just warming up. “You never have taken an interest in it.”
“Why should I?” Gene demanded. “You’re the one with the ranch know-how, not me. I never wanted any part of running it, but you’re determined to try and force me into a mold I don’t fit!”
“You could fit if you wanted to.”
“Then why don’t you paint?” Gene replied. “Why don’t you become an artist, just because I want you to?”
Jason glared at him and he glared back. “Excuse me,” Kate murmured, escaping while she could. She darted down the hall, past the open living room door, and had almost made it to the staircase when the weeping woman came after her.
“I’m so sorry,” the matron apologized. She was at least fifty pounds overweight, white haired and blue eyed, and her whole face was red. “Honest to God, Mrs. Donavan, I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
Kate turned around, her eyes as kind as her smile. “I’ve just lost my baby,” she said softly. “I’m hurting, a lot. I wouldn’t have taken offense ordinarily,” she added, tossing off the white lie with panache.
“I lost my first one, too, honey,” the older lady replied, “but then I had three in a row.” She smiled. “You’ll have other children.”
Kate liked her. From a bad beginning, this lady was turning out to be a jewel. “Mrs…. Drake, isn’t it?…” she asked. “You’re very kind. I hope you’ll come back to dinner again, and maybe I can be a better hostess.” She flushed. “You see, I’m not used to this kind of thing. I worked in a sewing plant before I started designing. In fact, I still work there.” She threw up her hands. “Oh, what the devil. I don’t know anything about cocktail parties and CDs and sports cars. My gosh, until just recently, the best car I’d ever owned was a twenty-year-old Ford with ninety thousand miles on it!”
Mrs. Drake brightened. “Would you like to learn all about cocktail parties and CDs and sports cars?”
Kate stared at her. “What?”
“My children are grown. I sit around all day long with nothing to do except in the spring, when I get outside and plant flowers until even the bees complain.” She grinned. “I’d just love to instruct you in the fine art of being rich. It’s fun.”
Kate burst out laughing. “You snob, you.”
Mrs. Drake did laugh then, her broad face almost young. “You bet, honey. Well?”
“I’d love it,” Kate said. “If you won’t expect too much. I guess you prob
ably heard what I did to poor Mrs. Halls…”
“…who should have had coffee dumped on her years ago, it might have improved her,” Mrs. Drake said pertly. She smiled. “What are you doing Saturday afternoon?”
“Not a thing in this world,” Kate replied. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
She told Kate how to get to her house before she left, and paused on the way out to remind Gene about her portrait.
“What about my portrait?” Kate asked when the guests had gone.
“Next Monday, for sure,” Gene assured her. “I’m just finishing the face now.”
“I can hardly wait to see it,” Kate sighed. “Did you paint me in blue jeans?”
Gene grinned. “Wait and see.”
Jason had already gone into his study, and where the door was open, Kate noticed him hard at work on the books as she went past it. He didn’t look up, and she didn’t speak. But she noticed that he only had a cup of steaming coffee on the desk beside him—and some homemade cookies. She had a good idea where they came from, too.
“If I dry the dishes for you, can I have a cookie, too?” Kate asked Sheila, peeping her head in while the housekeeper put everything away.
Sheila turned from the cabinet, looking sheepish. “I felt sorry for him,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t ever have said that about his daddy.”
“He’ll get over it,” Kate assured her. She smiled impishly. “Especially if you keep pumping cookies into him.”
Sheila grinned back and offered her the platter of freshly baked goodies.
Later, Kate went back by the study on her way to bed, but the door was closed and she heard Jason’s deep, curt voice. He was obviously on the phone and it was a business call, she could tell. She almost knocked, but she was still a little shy of him. Well, tomorrow she’d know if it had only been the alcohol that had made him forgiving and approachable and ardent. But she prayed that it wasn’t. For the first time in weeks, she felt a glimmer of hope for their marriage.
Chapter Nineteen
Jason was sitting all alone at the breakfast table when Kate went downstairs.
She stopped in the doorway, her eyes quietly hungry on his dark, abstracted face. He was wearing jeans and a chambray shirt, an echo of her own clothes except for the softer cut and decoration of her own. He was hatless, pushing a knife around on the spotless white tablecloth. It was odd to find him there this late, since he was usually up and out at daybreak. There was a production sale underway soon, and he had been pushing things and people trying to prepare for it. He was selling off more stock than he wanted to, Kate knew, in an effort to try and meet at least part of the note hanging over the Spur.
“Good morning,” she said softly, more responsive than she’d felt in weeks.
He looked up from his brooding into her freshly scrubbed face. She looked young and pretty and his heart ached for her. He smiled gently.
“Good morning yourself,” he replied. His eyes slid down her body to her tight-fitting jeans before he averted them. “Have some breakfast.”
Kate sat down next to him, glancing pointedly at the single biscuit, tablespoon of scrambled eggs, and one link sausage remaining on the platter. “Can you really spare me this much?” she asked teasingly, and lifted the platter to look under it. “Or is there more that you’ve put in your pocket for later?”
The change in him at that teasing remark was amazing. All the darkness left his eyes, replaced by a faint but steady twinkle.
“I work hard,” he pointed out. “I have to have a big breakfast.”
“That’s right,” she agreed as she put what was left onto her own plate. “Yours and mine.”
He chuckled softly as he poured himself a second cup of coffee and creamed it. “You’re bright this morning. I’ll have to hide you under a bushel so the sun won’t be ashamed to shine.”
“You’re brooding. Why?”
He leaned back with his coffee mug in his lean hand and stared at her. In that position, with his shirt pulled tight over his broad chest and his jeans making his flat stomach even flatter Kate was pleasantly reminded of what was under his clothing, at how fit he was, how powerfully muscled. She ate eggs and didn’t even taste them.
“I’m worried,” he said, telling her the truth. He was going to do a lot of that from now on. It might even improve things. “We’re in the hole and going deeper, and I don’t like the number of calves I’m having to sell off.”
“Wintering them would be expensive,” she reminded him.
He smiled ruefully. “I keep forgetting how well you know the cattle business. You charmed those Montana cattlemen, did I ever tell you? I made a sale because my pretty wife complimented their bull’s calf-producing ability.”
Her eyebrows went up. “My, my. So the little woman does have her uses.”
He pursed his firm lips. “If you want to pick a fight, go ahead,” he said softly. “But things might get physical. You look cute in those tight jeans.”
She almost dropped the fork. He’d flinched away from her only the day before, and here he was making suggestive remarks. She stared at him. “Physical, how?” she asked. “Did you plan to hit me with a switch?”
“If you’re remembering yesterday, Kate, you might consider that a hungry man can’t hide it.” He watched her flush with renewed delight. Despite marriage and the intimacy they’d once shared, she was still shy with him. “I see you understand me. I didn’t think it was the proper time or place to advertise the effect you had on me, when you’d just accused me of seducing you purely out of desire.”
She sat with her fork poised in midair. Her mind just wouldn’t work out the implications of what he was saying, or his sudden change from cold tolerance to amused honesty.
He had her confused. Good. Throwing her off balance worked nicely into his plans for the future. He finished his coffee and got up, reaching for his hat on the table behind him.
“You don’t want me here,” she began, fishing.
He picked up his gloves, worn and stained with grease and grass, and flicked them against his muscular thigh. “That’s why I’ve divorced you and thrown you out the door so fast,” he agreed pleasantly.
This man was some stranger who’d sneaked in the front door. It wasn’t Jason Everett Donavan. She leaned her head back to look up at him, her eyes wide and curious.
“You’re confusing me,” she faltered.
He smiled slowly. “Progress at last,” he murmured, and bent.
She watched his face come closer with shocked delight. He nudged her mouth with his until her head was at the back of the chair, and then he lazily eased her lips apart and took possession.
But before she had the time or presence of mind to kiss him back, he lifted his head, smiling a little when her mouth tried to follow his.
“If you meant it, about trying that dinner again, how about next week, just after my production sale? A buffet dinner, for a few visiting cattlemen and their guests.” His mouth quirked. “Just a small thing. About a hundred and fifty people.”
“That’s small?” she whispered huskily. It was hard to think after what had just happened. He’d kissed her, voluntarily. He even seemed to like her again.
“This is Texas, baby doll,” he reminded her. “I’m going out to check fences down on the Smith Bottoms. You can come with me, if you want to.”
She must have a fever. That would explain these delusions.
“Yes or no, honey, but make up your mind quick. I’m in a hurry,” he added with the same faint smile as he towered over her.
She cleared her throat because part of her mind seemed to be stuck in it. “I guess I can let things slide today,” she excused her work. “It’s Saturday, after all.”
Sitting in the big Bronco beside Jason, Kate felt as if they’d started all over again from scratch. It was like the day she’d made him go to the doctor with his arm. He talked easily about the ranch and the new strain of cattle he wanted to breed with those Indi
an bulls. He talked about the cash flow and the bad decisions, as casually as if he and Kate had discussed it time and time again. It was husband-wife talk, except that he’d never spoken of it to her in this way. He was treating her as an equal for the first time.
In fact, his whole manner toward her was new and different. It was as if he were trying to make up in some way for his recent treatment of her. Not an apology, exactly, but as close as he’d ever come to one.
“You look thoughtful,” he remarked, smoking a cigarette as they bounced over the fields where tall, bare live oaks stood like dark sculptures against the horizon.
She sighed, leaning her head back against the comfortable seat. Her leather jacket and his sheepskin one were tucked away, not needed just yet because the cab was comfortably warm. “I’m not, really. I’m…” She glanced at him shyly and away again, her heart going double time in her chest because she was so close to him. “I’m happy.”
He felt those words to his toes. He smiled under his fingers as he put the cigarette to his mouth. “So am I,” he said surprisingly. “We always did get along well, Kate.”
She folded her hands on her jeans, lifting one to touch a ribbon of embroidery she’d put down the outside seam of the legs. “Until we got married.”
He hesitated. It was still hard to talk about it. “And stopped talking,” he said. He glanced at her, his eyes lingering on her soft mouth and the pretty embroidered chambray shirt that she’d left open and tantalizing at her throat. “You’ll never know how hard I fought to keep away from you,” he said surprisingly. “You were right when you said I never saw you as a threat. I hadn’t. And then I touched you and my life fell apart.”
“Yours wasn’t the only one,” she replied, her tone cool.
He laughed softly. “Don’t get your back up, honey, I didn’t mean it the way you’re taking it. My life fell apart because that’s when I realized just how empty it had been. I’d been kidding myself that I could live alone all my life and never mind it.” He shrugged. “Then it got to the point where I couldn’t sleep without dreaming about you.”