MATCH MADE IN WYOMING

by Patricia McLinn

  "I didn't say I was staying here. But wherever I am, I'm not going to run that damned company. The old bastard tried to manipulate me all my life. He's not going to do it from the grave."

  "Are you going to sell it?"

  "No. I don't want his money in that form, either." She drew out the other folder and put it on the desk. "I thought you might still feel that way, so I did some research." She fought to not put him on the defensive by letting her hopes come through. "If you don't want to run the company, and you don't want to sell it, you could turn it over to the employees. The other voting stockholders probably won't like it, but if they sue, the precedents favor you. The valuation's being done – you said to go ahead with that, remember? That would speed up the process, though it would take time to sort it out. But I think Bennington Chemical is a good candidate for an employee-run operation. Changing the culture of the company might be the most difficult aspect of the transition. But if you go there and—"

  "No."

  "Not permanently, Cal. Just to set things up. Then maybe a time or two—"

  "No."

  "But you own a company. What are you going to—?"

  "Get rid of it, that's what I'm going to do."

  "You said you didn't want to sell."

  "Not sell it. Disband it, dismantle it, close it down, wipe the thing off the face of the earth."

  "You can't. You have a responsibility to the stockholders and employees—"

  "That's why I hired you, to make sure I don't have to have anything to do with that damned company. So your next job is to wipe it off the face of the earth."

  "There are other ways, Cal. These ideas I've been working on—"

  "You said I can do what I want with it, that even all the minority owners together can't outvote me. And what want is the thing destroyed."

  Taylor stared at him, too heartsick at this moment to even cry.

  "You're just like him. You're just like your father."

  His head snapped up. She had his complete attention now. "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "I know what you've told me, and what I've read. That's enough."

  "I'm nothing like him. He wanted power, especially the power that money brought. That company was all he thought about, all he cared about because it brought him that. I want nothing to do with that company."

  She shook her head, wishing that could negate the truth she was seeing.

  "Your father thought nothing of crushing people to get what he wanted. He rolled over them or used them as it suited his purposes. And that's what you intend to do. Have you given a single thought to how this might affect other people?"

  "You're not feeling sorry for my sainted stepmother Christina, are you? His will left plenty for her to get by on, so don't waste your sympathy."

  "I'm not. But the fact that she's the only one who comes to mind proves my point. You want to be free of this company because of what it represents from your past. I suppose I can understand that. But how about all the people for whom that company represents their livelihood? They never did anything to you. By dissolving this company, you'll dissolve their lives right out from under them without another thought, simply because it suits your purposes. Isn't that what your father would do?"

  She saw the struggle in his eyes, the recognition, the questioning.

  "Your father used money and power for destructive purposes, and now you're doing exactly the same thing. Cal, there are ways to make money work, not just for yourself as your father did, but for a lot of people, to help a lot of people."

  And then she saw him lose the struggle. So she should have been prepared for his Words. But she wasn't.

  "Including you? If I dissolve the company, you lose one hell of a client. You can console yourself by knowing that it'll take a good long while to put all this through. So the money will keep rolling in, and you can use the contacts for getting back into the game you so obviously miss. They'll miss you here in Knighton, but I don't suppose it'll surprise anybody much."

  Every word, every gesture, every touch between them. He'd thrown them all back in her face. The pain was like her insides crumbling to powder.

  But the decision of what to do next was easy. And it had nothing to do with her pain or hurt pride. It came from the knowledge that the only way to fight for him now was to make him fight for himself. There was no other choice.

  That was the only explanation for her absolute calmness – that and the numbness.

  "I quit."

  The silence must have lasted a full minute. She didn't know if he was shocked wordless or waiting for her to say more.

  "I told you, there'll still be work—"

  "Get someone else to do your dirty work, Ruskoff, or should I call you Whitton. It seems to fit you better these days than Cal Ruskoff, because I'd like to think he wouldn't foist his dirty work off on someone else. But that's what you've been doing all along, isn't it?"

  "You're not making sense. I couldn't have done this legal stuff—"

  "I'm making perfect sense. You used the work as a shield against me, and you used me as a shield against the outside world. Ensuring that I kept my emotional distance saved you the effort of telling me to get lost. And you knew I would keep my distance, one way or the other. If I fell back into my old ways, then ambition would take precedence over what I might feel for you, and if I didn't, then there were my professional ethics keeping me at a distance. The old shark lawyer in me has to say it was a pretty neat trick while it lasted. But no more. I quit."

  She started to rise, then dropped back to the chair, slapping her palm on the desk.

  "No! No, I don't quit – I fire you. Yes, that's much better. You aren't manipulating me anymore, and I fire you!"

  She grabbed a legal pad, flipped to a clean sheet, wrote three sentences, then hit the button and said, "Lisa, I need you for a moment, please."

  Lisa was in Taylor's office in no time.

  "Lisa, I want you to witness my signature and notarize it. It's informal, but it should hold up if there's any question until we can do it officially. Read it first – aloud, please – so we all know what it says."

  Lisa accepted the legal pad from her, scanned the lines there, then read aloud, "'I, the undersigned, hereby revoke the power of attorney assigned to me by Bennington Caldwell Rusk Whitton. In addition, I hereby cease representing Bennington Caldwell Rusk Whitton in any capacity whatsoever. Monies received to date constitute payment in full for any services rendered.'"

  "Thank you, now give it to me, Lisa." Taylor signed and dated the sheet with a flourish and handed it back. "If you would notarize it at your desk, and have a copy ready for Cal – for Mr. Whitton – when he leaves, that would be great, Lisa. Thank you."

  The younger woman gave them each another look, then left.

  "So that's it?" Cal's mouth twisted.

  "That's it, because that's how you're making it, Cal. I know you don't believe in the power of love—"

  "Oh, I believe in its power all right." He rose with slow grace. But his voice was taut and harsh. "I believe in the power of love to make you so vulnerable to another person that they can break you."

  "Maybe I can understand, with your history, that you're worried about me doing that to you," she said to his back as he opened the door. "But how do you explain your trying to do it to me?"

  * * *

  Taylor heard the thrum of the truck idling under her apartment window near midnight.

  She rose from the easy chair where she'd sat wrapped in her fleece robe and an afghan and went to the door, standing in the open frame, looking toward the dark form of the pickup.

  The engine turned off, leaving a yawning silence. Her arm holding the door was trembling when the truck door finally opened, so she propped the door open with her back.

  Cal's tread was slow. She didn't move, even when he stopped at the bottom of the stairs up to the narrow porch.

  He looked up so slowly that she'd imagined the instant their eyes wou
ld meet a half-dozen times before it happened for real. And when it did, she still went breathless.

  "I never meant to hurt you."

  If he'd used that voice back at the start of this year, she would have thought it was devoid of emotion. No longer. Threads and layers of concern, regret, anger and frustration came through.

  "I know."

  He came up two stairs, until his eyes were level with hers. He looked at her steadily, the grooves cut deep and his bones stark.

  "So you're not my lawyer anymore."

  "No."

  "Then there's no reason not to do this."

  He came up the final step and across the porch in a stride. That was just enough time to form the thought that she should run, and to know she wouldn't.

  He didn't embrace her or hold her, meeting her only mouth to mouth. His mouth on hers was al that she'd been longing for, and all that she'd feared these nearly three months since the snowstorm.

  Lips and tongues and teeth rediscovered textures and touches that erupted heat inside her.

  She tasted the anger and bitterness in him. But more than that, she tasted the frustration. He'd tried to map their relationship according to the peculiar geography of his background, and she'd tossed in streams and valleys where he'd expected desert, then erected a few mountains where he thought he had the molehills under control.

  He pulled away abruptly, his breathing as harsh as her own. His eyes glittered from between narrowed lids. The light behind him showed the tense outline of his shoulders.

  She swallowed down the tears, shouts, cries and pleading moans that could have come so easily, and forced herself to return his look. Steady, calm.

  "No reason at al not to do that," she confirmed as if the kiss between his words and hers hadn't changed her body from ninety-eight percent water to all steam.

  He closed the space between their torsos, without so much as a brush of fabric against skin. Breathing room evaporated, because breathing would have eliminated that infinitesimal gap and, with it, her control. Without that control she would be crying like a banshee, or begging him, or railing at him.

  And yet she didn't hesitate.

  He was offering her – or requesting from her – a last time. She'd ended his manipulation of her, but that in no way lessened her feelings for him. She would give him every drop of love he would let her give him. As for herself, she would need this to sustain her through the vast expanse of never-again.

  She stepped back, letting him in.

  * * *

  He didn't know what to say to her now that he'd said the words that had driven him here. He hadn't meant to hurt her. It was why he'd tried to keep her away.

  He didn't know whether to blame her naïveté or his weakness for the fact that he'd failed.

  He'd had no intention of kissing her on the porch. He'd had no intention of coming in. He'd said what he had to say. He should leave. He'd only advanced a few steps – it would take seconds to turn and be out the door, down to his truck—

  Then Taylor darted him a glance, and leaving was beyond him.

  She wanted him.

  Despite everything.

  More important, she wanted this. Maybe she even needed it.

  That need – her need – pushed him. Two long strides to reach her, one hand hooked around the back of her neck, pushing away the small blanket she'd had around her shoulders, and then his lips were on hers again.

  Too long, it had been too damned long since he'd kissed her. Since he'd tasted her and felt her.

  It didn't matter that logic told him he'd kissed her just moments ago on her porch – it had been too long.

  Two brief kisses, and he was as hot and hard as he'd ever been when they were snowbound. That's when he knew what he'd suspected during those days they'd been together. With Taylor, none of the rules held. Making love with her didn't sate him. Each time just built the hunger, wider and deeper, and harder to fill.

  So making love with her now would make it even harder to not have her again. But hard on him didn't matter. Taylor mattered.

  He stroked one hand down her throat, into the opening provided by the crossed-over material of her robe, but she held the lapels together, denying him access.

  He was turning her, guiding her toward something he wasn't consciously aware of until the side of his calf came into contact with the corner of her bed. He didn't remember noting the bed when he'd come in the door – he sure as hell hadn't noticed anything else. But some instinct had dropped its location into his subconscious.

  He'd warned her at the start that instincts were dangerous. Now they were both about to experience the effects of crossing into danger.

  With one knee on the mattress, he started the twisting motion that should carry them to its surface, with him covering her body. But the maneuver required cooperation, and he wasn't getting it. Instead, without breaking the kiss, Taylor knelt on the mattress facing him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him like this kiss could decide the fate of the world, or of a single heart.

  The demands of their lungs ended what should have lasted forever. Their expansion and contraction brushed her breasts against his chest, and even through the thick cloth of her robe he felt the heat and the softness.

  Taylor eased back, cupping his face between her hands. Her lips brushed across his, feathery kisses mixed with the sensation of her breath across his skin. He grasped her shoulders, fully intending to take control. But that would have ended this delicate torture, so he simply held her.

  The kisses soon took on a weight and substance no feather ever dreamed of. Her tongue lining his lips brought such heat he thought he'd be branded forever. Her teeth gently tugging on his bottom lip brought a surge to his already swollen groin. Her tongue sliding into his mouth brought a need to wipe out the space between them.

  He was kneeling on the bed now, too, and he brought their bodies together from knees to shoulders, rubbing with languid movements that produced the hottest friction known to humanity. Her one hand left his face and slid down his back to his waist, then lower. The light stroke had the impact of a diesel engine, rocking him forward against her. Shifting against her, he pressed one knee between hers and rocked again. Her hand flexed into the flesh of his buttock and he surged against her.

  He wanted the damned robe gone. He wanted her skin – to see it and touch it and taste it. She'd stopped him once at the neck, so this time he reached to where the material pooled around her bent knees, found the opening and laid his hand against the silky curve of her thigh. Stroking up, his fingertips found the elastic edge of her panties, slid under, and came to her warm, moist center.

  She gasped into his mouth and swayed. He held her up by pressing her even tighter against him, slipping his fingers deeper into her. They were both rocking now, trying to find the rhythm even before they'd joined.

  And he learned another lesson. His hunger for Taylor didn't just grow from one time with her to the next. It grew from one instant to the next.

  He yanked the tie loose and pushed back the robe, leaving her wearing only panties, and those just barely because of his movements. With something like a growl, he bent and took her pointed nipple into his mouth, sucking strongly.

  "Cal…" It was half a moan and half a plea.

  The sound changed to satisfaction when she discovered the snaps of his shirt opened with a series of short tugs. Fingers spread wide, she placed her hands over his chest before slowly – so slowly – pushing the material back. He had no patience for it, and yanked his arms out of the sleeves, letting it fall.

  His urgency had infected her or she'd discovered her own, because her fingers found his belt buckle. The backs of her hand brushed against his abdomen as she worked, and his muscles contracted. Taylor hesitated an instant, then bent her head, and the next instant, he felt the cool sweetness of her lips at the flesh just above his waist. How such coolness could ignite pure heat he didn't care. All he knew was the fire was inside him, and around him, and s
he was its cause.

  The metallic hiss of the lowering zipper stoked the fire. When her cool, soft hands slipped inside to cup him, no fire wall on earth could have contained the blaze. He dragged jeans and briefs down himself – letting her do it would have been jumping right into the inferno – balancing on one knee to yank them off the opposite leg, then switching. All the while her touches, her nearness, her simply being threatened his precarious equilibrium.

  And then they were pressed together again, knees to shoulders. Naked flesh to naked flesh. Desire to desire.

  Cal recognized his unwillingness to either drop back onto the mattress, or to use his strength to force Taylor to do so – recognized it and pushed aside consideration of what it might mean.

  Instead, he carried her down so they were on their sides, still face-to-face. Hooking one hand under her smooth thigh, he drew it up over his hip, opening her to him, feeling the heated dampness awaiting him, knowing the tight, smooth ecstasy that was so near.

  Her hips rocked against him, one hand pressing against his buttocks.

  "Wait."

  "Oh." Her soft breath of a syllable acknowledged why he'd stopped. "Hurry."

  But he didn't hurry and he didn't reach for his jeans.

  He had to slow it down. Now. Or it would be way past the time – or need – for protection. But that wasn't the reason, either. He didn't want to use protection. He wanted to stroke into her, skin to skin. To let his seed spill into her. To watch her swell with his baby. To watch their baby suckle at her breast. To—

  "Cal?"

  For one fraction of time he met her eyes, and all the fantasies he'd just imagined welled up between them.

  He jerked away, swearing short and harsh. Then, shifting around, he reached for the condom in the pocket of the jeans behind him. Still swearing under his breath, he put it on and came back to her.

  Tears darkened her eyelashes but didn't fall.

  "Taylor?"

  If she said no, he'd stop. If it killed him, he'd stop. She shook her head – two sharp motions. "I want you, Cal." Low and fierce, her voice pushed the fire deeper inside him. "I want you now."