by Diana Palmer
Then she remembered that he’d asked how she’d feel about working in Jacobsville, and what she’d told him. She’d said that she couldn’t do such a job anywhere except Houston, and that was baloney. Of course she could. But she was frightened. She didn’t want to fall in love and get married. She wanted to depend on one person, herself. She couldn’t imagine risking her heart.
She went on down the street to her car, feeling despondent and miserable. If only she’d never met Luke Craig!
* * *
It wasn’t easy to ignore Kells’s request about that letter to Luke. In the end, Belinda was all but forced by her conscience to send him a note. It was friendly, not too intimate, and factual. It took her twenty tries before she had the right words. She mailed it and waited.
But the reply didn’t come in the way she expected. After a particularly long session in court with a client, she dragged herself up the steps to her apartment and found a familiar face leaning against the wall near her door. He was wearing a navy suit with a tie, and he looked more sophisticated than any rancher she’d ever known.
“Luke!” she exclaimed.
He chuckled and scooped her up in his arms, kissing her hungrily right there in the hall. Her raincoat, her valise, her pocketbook were scattered like grains of corn while she kissed him back. It was only then that she realized how much she’d missed him.
“No need to ask if you missed me,” he murmured before he kissed her again. “How about supper?”
“I’m famished,” she said breathlessly. “But I don’t have anything to cook….”
“There’s a nice restaurant down the street. I’ve made reservations,” he said. “Put your gear inside and freshen up.”
She was reluctant to take her arms from around his neck, and she laughed at her own feelings. “It’s good to see you,” she said, trying to act normally as she paused to scoop her stuff from the floor.
“It’s good to see you, too,” he replied with a smile. “You look worn.”
“It’s been a long week.” She searched his eyes before she put her key in the lock and opened the door. “It’s been a long several weeks,” she added honestly.
“I know.”
She put her things in a chair and turned to him. He looked tired, too. He was devastating to a heart that had gone hungry for the sight of him. For several seconds, she just stood there and looked at him.
He did the same. In her beige dress and high heels, with her dark blond hair in soft waves down to her collar, she looked lovely.
“If you want supper at all,” he said huskily, “you’ve got ten seconds to stop looking at me like that before I do something about it.”
She wanted him to. She really did. But there were things to settle first, so she dropped her gaze with a shy smile. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll freshen up.”
While she fixed her makeup and added a touch of perfume, he stared down at the computer on her desk. A piece of new software was lying near it, with a scruffy-looking dog on the cover of the box. He grinned.
“Bought a dog, I see,” he drawled as she came back into the living room.
She saw where he was looking and laughed self-consciously. “It sounded cute. And it is.”
“Told you so. Ready to go?”
She nodded, grabbing her purse.
He stopped her just at the door before he opened it. “Does that lipstick come off easily?” he asked in a deep, lazy tone.
She was barely breathing. “It isn’t supposed to.”
“Let’s see.”
He drew her to him, stared into her eyes until she felt her whole body vibrate with delicious sensations, and only then bent to take her mouth completely under his.
Absence had certainly made the heart grow fonder, she thought while she could. The purse dropped to the floor for the second time that afternoon, and her arms stretched up to hold him while the warm, hard kiss went on and on.
She was standing on her tiptoes when he stopped. His blue eyes, more vivid than she remembered them, stared straight into her green ones with all the evasions and teasing gone.
He was so somber that the expression on his face made her nervous.
“Tell me the job means more to you than I do,” he said roughly. “And I’ll leave right now before this goes any further.”
Her eyelids flinched at the very thought. She drew in an unsteady breath. “It’s been weeks,” she managed to say in a tight tone.
“Hell, it’s been years,” he muttered, and his mouth came down on hers again. But this time it was rough, hard, insistent. This time it burrowed into hers with passion and purpose, and she was shaking when he lifted his head.
She held on for dear life. “If you go, I’m going with you,” she said involuntarily, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling with feeling.
“That’s what I came all this way to hear,” he said in a harsh undertone. “It took you long enough!”
She burrowed against him and his arms came around to enfold her. “I’m still afraid, Luke,” she whispered.
“Everyone’s afraid. Not only of falling in love, but of getting married, having children. These are big steps, important steps. People who aren’t afraid to take them are the ones who end up divorced and miserable. You have to be sure, but even then, it’s a risk.”
“I’m willing to take it, if you are,” she said after a minute.
His arms contracted again as he bent over her head and rocked her against him. “I’ve been willing to take it since the first time I saw you,” he breathed. “I’ve spent my life waiting for a woman I could live with. And you didn’t even like me!”
She laughed with delight. “Only at first,” she protested.
“Ha!” he murmured. “You fought me every step of the way.” He lifted his head to look down at her. “Jacobsville can always use a good public defender,” he said firmly. “There are kids in trouble everywhere.”
She smiled ruefully. “I was hedging,” she confessed. “I couldn’t bear the thought of being near you all the time if…well, if I was the only one who felt this way.”
“Which way?” he asked in a soft, sensuous tone.
She stared at his tie. It was blue and had a paisley pattern—very nice. His thumbs jabbed her gently in the ribs.
“Which way?” he persisted.
She leaned her forehead against him. “I love you.”
There was a long, ominous silence. She lifted her head apprehensively and saw his eyes. They were such a vivid blue that they almost glowed. She got barely a glimpse of them before they closed as he lifted her against him and kissed her again. Under his breath, she heard him repeat the words back to her. And then, she stopped trying to hear anything except the beat of her own heart.
* * *
Long, tempestuous minutes later, he looked down at her, where she lay in the crook of his arm on the sofa, her body soft and fluid against his, her dress unfastened, her hair disheveled. His shirt was open, too, the tie long gone, and her fingers played lazily through the wedge of blond hair on his chest.
“We were going out to eat,” she reminded him.
“To hell with food. I’m not hungry.”
“Well, I am,” she said, laughing. “Especially now.”
He traced a slow pattern on the lace of her bra. “Spoilsport,” he murmured. “Just when I’m getting to know all about you.”
She laughed again, moving his hand aside so that she could button up her dress again. “You stop that,” she teased.
“Stop? I haven’t even gotten started!” he protested.
“There’s plenty of time for all that,” she reminded him. She searched his blue eyes. “I want a white wedding. Do you mind?”
“I want a white wedding, too,” he agreed, smiling at her. “We’ll have the works, a best man, a best woman, a flower girl—my niece, of course,” he added with a chuckle.
“I’ll have my sister-in-law for matron of honor. Best woman,” she scoffed, and broke up laughing at the thought of pr
etty Marianne in a suit and bow tie.
“It will be an occasion,” he said. “And then we’ll raise cattle and look after kids and grow old together.”
She snuggled close to him, so happy that she could barely contain it all. “I love the way that sounds.”
“So do I. But we’ll grow old slowly, if you don’t mind. I’ve got a lot of ginger left in me, yet.”
“I noticed,” she said demurely.
He loomed over her with intent. “Did you, now?” he murmured, his eyes drawing over her sensually.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He smiled slowly. “I love you, too.”
It was the last thing they said for a long time.
* * *
The wedding was truly a Jacobsville occasion. Everybody came, even glowering Cy Parks, who wore a suit and brought a wedding present. Ward Jessup and a very pregnant Marianne were present, along with Marianne’s Aunt Lillian. Elysia Craig Walker and her husband, Tom, welcomed Belinda into the family, and their daughter Crissy acted as flower girl. Belinda was exquisite in a white lace gown with a train and a delicate lace veil. She carried a bouquet of white rosebuds and she wept when her devastatingly handsome new husband lifted the veil and saw her for the first time as his wife.
Outside the church, the Craig ranch’s cowboys made a double line and threw confetti as the happy couple erupted from the front entrance. One of the cowboys had just graduated from high school and was the newest employee on the place. He wore a ten-gallon hat, a red bandanna, boots, jeans, a chambray shirt and a huge toothy smile—and his name was Edward Kells.
The happy couple waved at him as they rushed past to the limousine that would take them to the ranch to change clothes before they went on to the reception Matt Caldwell was hosting for them at his elegant mansion on the outskirts of Jacobsville.
They piled into the car and the driver pulled away from the curb.
Luke looked at Belinda with his whole heart in his eyes. “The best day of my life,” he murmured, “Mrs. Craig.”
“And the best day of mine, Mr. Craig,” she echoed.
The words exemplified their vow of love. He drew her close and kissed her. Behind them, the crowd drew in on itself to rehash the details of the elegant society wedding. But inside the limousine, two pairs of sparkling eyes were already looking ahead to a bright and beautiful future.
* * * * *
Be sure to check out
Diana Palmer’s next book in her LONG, TALL TEXANS series,
UNDAUNTED.
The only man Kate Martin wants is handsome millionaire Garrett Carlton—the one man who will never forgive her…
Read on to get a glimpse of
UNDAUNTED.
Kate Martin was sitting on the end of the dock, dangling her bare feet in the water. Minnows came up and nibbled her toes, and she laughed. Her long, platinum-blond hair fell around her shoulders like a silk curtain, windblown, beautiful. The face it framed wasn’t beautiful. But it had soft features. Her nose was straight. She had high cheekbones and a rounded chin. Her best feature was her eyes, large and brown and gentle, much like Kate herself.
She grew up on a small ranch in Comanche Wells, Texas, where her father ran black baldies in a beef operation. She could ride and rope and knew how to pull a calf. But here, on Lake Lanier in north Georgia, she worked as an assistant to Mamie van Dyke, a famous and very wealthy writer of women’s suspense novels. Mamie’s books were always at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. That made Kate proud, because she helped with the research as well as the proofing of those novels in their raw form, long before they were turned over to editors and copy editors.
She’d found the job online, of all places. A Facebook friend who knew that Kate had taken business courses at her local vocational school, had mentioned that a friend of her mother’s was looking for a private assistant, someone trustworthy and loyal to help her do research and typing. It wasn’t until she’d applied and been accepted—after a thorough background check—that Kate had learned who her new boss was. Mamie was one of her favorite authors, and she was a bit starstruck when she arrived with her sparse belongings at the door of Mamie’s elaborate and luxurious two-story lake house in north Georgia.
Kate had worried that her cheap clothing and lack of social graces might put the older woman off. But Mamie had welcomed her like a lost child, taken her under her wing, and taught her how to cope with the many wealthy and famous guests who sometimes attended parties there.
One of those guests was Garrett Carlton. Garrett was one of the ten wealthiest men in the country—some said, in the world. He was nearing forty, with wavy jet-black hair that showed only a scattering of silver. He was big and broad and husky with a leonine face and chiseled, perfect lips. He had a light olive complexion with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes under a jutting brow. He was handsome and elegant in the dinner jacket he wore with a spotless white shirt and black tie. The creases in his pants were as perfect as the polish on his wing-tip shoes. He had beautiful hands, big and broad, with fingers that looked as if they could crush bones. He wore a tiger’s eye ring on his little finger. No other jewelry, save for a Rolex watch that looked more functional than elegant.
Kate, in her plain black cocktail dress, with silver stud earrings and a delicate silver necklace with a small inset turquoise, felt dowdy in the glittering company of so many rich people. She wore her pale blond hair in a thick bun atop her head. She had a perfect peaches and cream complexion, and lips that looked as if they wore gloss, when they didn’t. Light powder and a soft glossy lipstick were her only makeup. She held a champagne flute filled with ginger ale. She didn’t drink, although at twenty-three, she could have done so legally.
She was miserable at the party, and wished she could go somewhere and hide. But Mamie was nearby and might need an iPod or her phone, which Kate carried, for Kate to write down something for her. So she couldn’t leave.
From across the room, the big man was glaring at her. She squirmed under his look, wondering what she could have done to incur his anger. She’d never even seen him before.
Then she remembered. She’d been out on the lake in Mamie’s speedboat once. She loved the fast boat. It made her feel free and happy. It was one of the few things that did. She’d been crazy about a boy in her class at the vocational school where she’d learned administrative skills. When he’d asked her out, all her dreams had come true. Until he’d learned that her father ran beef cattle. They were even engaged briefly. Unfortunately, he was a founding member of the local animal rights group, PETA. He’d told Kate that he found her father’s profession disgusting and that he’d never have anything to do with a woman who had any part of it. He’d driven her home, all but thrown her out of his car and rushed away. After that, he ignored her pointedly at school. Her heart was broken. It was one of the few times she’d even had a date. She went to church with her father, but it was a small congregation and there were no single men in it, except for a much older widower and a divorced man who was her father’s age.
Her home life wasn’t much better. She and her father lived in a ranch house that had been in the family for three generations and looked like it. The furniture didn’t match. The dishes were old and many were cracked. Water came out of a well with an electric pump that stopped working every time there was a bad storm, and there were many storms in Texas. Her father was a rigid man, deeply religious, with a sterling character. He’d raised his daughter to be the same way. Her mother had died in childbirth when she was eight years old, and she’d seen it happen. Her father had drawn into himself at a time when she needed him most. That was before he’d started drinking. He’d rarely been sober in recent years, leaving most of the work and decision making on the ranch to his foreman.
He’d never seemed to feel much for his only child. Of course, she wasn’t a boy, and it was a son he’d desperately wanted, someone to inherit the ranch after him, to keep it in the family. Girls, he often said, were usele
ss.
She dragged herself back from her memories to find the big man walking toward her. Something inside her wanted to run. But her ancestors had fought off floods and cattle rustlers and raiding war parties. She wasn’t the type to run.
She bit her lower lip when Garrett Carlton stopped just in front of her. He wasn’t sipping champagne. Unless she missed her guess, he held a large glass of whiskey, straight up, with just a cube of ice in the crystal glass.
He glared down at her from pale, glittery silver eyes. “I had a talk with the lake police about you,” he said in a curt, blunt tone. “I told them who you worked for and where you lived. Pull another stunt like yesterday’s on the lake, and you’ll find out what happens to kids who take insane risks in speedboats. I’ve had a talk with Mamie, as well.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “I didn’t see the Jet Ski…!”
“You weren’t looking when you turned,” he bit off. “You were going too fast to see it at all!”
She was almost drawing blood with her teeth. Her hand, holding the flute, was shaking. She put her other hand over it to steady it. “There was nobody out there when I started…”
“Your generation is a joke,” he said coldly. “Unruly kids who have no manners, who think the world owes them everything, that they can do whatever the hell they please, do whatever they like, without consequences! You go through life causing tragedies and you don’t care!”
She felt tears stinging her eyes. “Ex-excuse me,” she said huskily, turning away.
But he took her firmly by one shoulder and turned her back around. “I never make threats,” he said coldly. “You remember what I’ve told you.”
Tears overflowed her eyes. She couldn’t help it. And it shamed her, showing weakness before the enemy. She jerked away from him, white-faced and shaking.
He frowned, as if he hadn’t expected her reaction. She turned and ran for the kitchen. She put the flute down on a counter and went out the back door into the cool night air, desperate to get away from him. Nobody knew where she was. Nobody cared. The tears tumbled down over her cold cheeks. She’d grown up without love, without the simplest display of affection after their housekeeper Dolores left the ranch, except for an occasional hug from the women in her church. She’d lived alone, had her dreams of romance shattered. And now here she was, her pride in shambles, hounded out of her home by a relentless enemy who seemed to think she was a juvenile delinquent bent on killing people. All that, because she went a little wild in the speedboat.