“Do you love her?” he asked his brother.
“I’ve loved her most of my life,” Rabb said simply.
“Then I wish you both happiness.”
Rabb’s arms surrounded Amanda from behind, and Jake noticed how her body swayed comfortably back into Rabb’s, in a way it never had when she’d been with him.
“You two go on back to bed,” he said with a wry smile. “Sorry I interrupted you.”
“You’re okay...with us?” Rabb asked.
Jake saw the anxiety in his brother’s eyes. “It looks to me like you belong together. When’s the happy day?”
Rabb exchanged a sheepish look with Amanda, then said, “I’ve been trying to talk her into following through with a wedding on Saturday—to me.”
“Why not?” Jake said. “No sense letting all those arrangements go to waste.”
“You could join us,” Rabb said.
“As your best man? I’d be glad—”
“We could make it a double ceremony,” Amanda said. “Rabb and me...and you and Hope.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Jake snapped.
“But, I thought—”
Jake cut off Amanda with a snarl. “I wish people would stop trying to manage my life for me. If you two want to marry on Saturday, fine. Do it. Just don’t include me.”
“Fine,” Rabb said. “We won’t say another word about it. But I’d still like you to be my best man.” He gave a chagrined look and said, “That way folks will know for sure there’s no hard feelings about...”
“About the switch in grooms?” Jake finished for him.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there. Same time, same place?” he asked Amanda.
She nodded. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”
Jake felt like saying he considered himself lucky to be out of the situation, but he figured that would earn him another smack in the nose from his brother, so he kept his thoughts to himself.
Rabb and Amanda had already gone back inside by the time Jake revved his truck engine. He wasn’t certain how he felt about what had happened. Two hours ago he’d been an engaged man, on his way to marriage within a matter of days. Now he was free again. Alone again. With no plans for the future.
He turned his truck around and headed back toward his ranch. But he never got that far. His truck seemed to turn itself down the dirt road that led to the Butler home.
When he got to the house, he pitched open the door to his truck and raced to the kitchen door, pounding on it until it opened.
“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?”
Jake found himself facing Hope’s father. “Where’s Hope?” Jake asked.
“She doesn’t want to see you,” her father said.
“I need to talk to her.”
“You’re too late. She’s gone.”
“Gone where?” Jake demanded.
“She specifically said not to tell you.”
Jake bit back an epithet. This was Hope’s father. He wanted answers, but browbeating the man wasn’t likely to get them. He just wasn’t sure what would. “I need to see her. I need to talk to her,” he repeated.
“Sorry,” her father said, shaking his head. “She said she’s had enough. She can’t take any more.”
“I want to marry her,” Jake blurted.
The man blocking the doorway narrowed his eyes. “You’re a little late,” he said at last.
“It can’t be too late. I love her,” he said.
“Do you really think you can make her happy?”
“I can try,” Jake said.
“That’s not good enough,” her father said, and began to shut the door.
Jake stuck his boot in to keep it from closing. “Look here, Butler. I—”
“Get out of my house, Whitelaw. Don’t ever darken my doorway again.”
“Where is she?” Jake pleaded. “Just tell me where to find her.”
“You had your chance,” Hope’s father said. “Now be a good boy, and leave her the hell alone!”
Jake stared at the cracked paint on the Butlers’ kitchen door for the second time in a day. Where was Hope? Where could she possibly have gone? How could he find her? Who would know where she was?
Faith would tell him. She’d always believed he and Hope belonged together. He’d have to figure out how to get Faith out of the house and meet her somewhere. But where?
The obvious place was at Randy Wright’s ranch. He’d see Randy right now and work something out. Faith was a big believer in happily-ever-after. He needed a fairy godmother to step in and help. Especially since Cinderella had flown the coop.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AMANDA CLOSED THE DOOR BEHIND Jake and turned to face Rabb. “I wish he hadn’t—”
“I’m not sorry he found us like this,” Rabb said. “Not when it made you admit that you love me. And that you’ll marry me.”
Amanda shook her head, still stunned by the events of the past few hours. She placed a palm against Rabb’s stubbled cheek and said, “I never expected... I never thought I was capable of...” She lowered her eyes shyly. She’d made passionate love with Rabb Whitelaw like some wanton woman. She’d relished all the things he’d done to her and done things back to him that she’d never imagined herself doing.
The reason she’d never gone to bed with Jake in all the years they’d been engaged was that she hadn’t expected to enjoy it. She’d kissed Jake when he’d insisted and hadn’t worried too much when he hadn’t insisted that often. In hindsight, she realized they’d used each other to avoid having to move forward with their lives.
Seeing her fiancé ravish another woman in front of her eyes had forced Amanda to admit the truth. Jake had never wanted her like he wanted Hope. And, she was ashamed to admit, her feelings for Jake didn’t come close to the passion Hope had offered him. Still, shattered by what she’d seen, she’d leapt at the chance to have Rabb take her home.
Once they’d dropped Huck and Becky with his parents, Rabb said, “I can see you’re still upset. What happened back there with Jake?”
“He comforted Hope,” she said.
Rabb glanced sideways at her and asked, “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“He kissed her senseless,” Amanda said agitatedly. “And she kissed him back. He was so worried about her, he completely forgot I was standing right there.”
“That jackass!” Rabb pounded the steering wheel. “I ought to go back there and give him the kick in the butt he deserves.”
“I’m glad it’s over,” she said, shoving her bangs away from her eyes. “Really. I am.”
“It’s over between you two?” Rabb asked cautiously. “For good?”
“I don’t think I ever loved him,” Amanda admitted. “I’m not proud to say that. When he proposed to me I...I’d just been through a difficult time, and I suppose I was flattered that someone like Jake would want to marry me.”
“You mean someone intelligent and—”
“No,” she said, cutting him off. “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but it was...” She flushed. “The fact he seemed so determined never to marry again. Catching a man who didn’t want to get caught was like riding the full eight seconds on an outlaw mustang. Does that make any sense?”
Rabb nodded. “So it wasn’t...that you were attracted to him physically?”
“Of course he’s handsome,” Amanda said. “But not as good-looking as you are.”
Rabb snorted. “Get real.”
“I mean it. Your face has so much more... I don’t know how to describe it, except to say that I can see what you’re feeling. It’s there in your eyes and in your smile. With Jake... His face was like a stone wall that I couldn’t get past. I never knew what he was thinking.”
“And that was bad?”
“He shut me out,” Amanda said. “I don’t know why I never noticed how carefully he kept me at arm’s length. Emotionally and physically.”
“I’m glad,” Rabb said as he pulled up in the driveway behind her house.
“So am I, since things turned out the way they did. I mean—”
That was as far as she got before Rabb leaned over and kissed her. Senseless. His tongue slid along the seam of her lips until she opened to him. After that, she was lost. He dragged her across the seat and into his lap, so she could feel his arousal beneath her hip. His hand closed over her breast through her beige silk blouse, and her nipple budded beneath his coaxing fingers.
“Rabb, I—”
He never gave her a chance to protest, not that she would have been able to put together a coherent sentence. Her driveway was secluded, a white wooden fence on one side and a row of forsythia bushes on the other.
She heard Rabb grunt in satisfaction when he realized she was wearing real nylons with a garter belt. She was ravenous to touch him, to be touched by him, and in no state to protest when he hiked up her skirt to the waist, then pulled off her lacy black bikini panties and tossed them onto the dash.
“Come here, woman,” he said in a guttural voice.
Amanda had never straddled a man in her life and never imagined doing it in the front bench seat of a pickup truck. She could feel the hardness beneath her as he pressed her naked pubis down against his jeans. She reached between his legs, and he bucked upward when she touched the fullness of him. She reached between them and unbuckled his belt, then unsnapped his jeans and unzipped them, shoving them down off his hips along with his underwear.
He thrust upward at the same time she sank down onto him.
“Oh,” she said, the word drawn out and full of feeling. She was surprised at how good it felt. How right it felt.
He was gripping her hips tightly, holding her in place, not moving. “Are you all right?” he asked, his eyes intent on hers.
“I’m great. I’m wonderful. This is wonderful.”
“It gets better,” he said with a grin. And began to move inside her.
“Oh.” She gasped. “Oh, yes.”
Their mouths meshed as their tongues mimicked the thrust and parry below. Rabb’s hands were never still, touching her in places that increased her pleasure, that took her higher, that made her want more, and want to give more.
Suddenly her body was convulsing and she felt such pleasure it was almost unbearable. She heard Rabb cry out as he gripped her hips and held her still and spilled his seed inside her.
Her body trembled as she sank against him, her lungs bellowing. She felt totally enervated, unable to move, unable to speak.
She wanted to tell him how good it had been. She wanted to ask him if it had been as good for him. She realized that it was a silly question. His breathing was as labored as hers, and his expression in those last moments before they had come together had been tortured with the same pleasure/pain she’d felt herself.
Their bodies were still connected when he spoke at last. “I’ve wanted you for so long...and thought for so long that I’d never have you for my own.”
She kissed his throat and said, “I’m yours.”
“Will you marry me?”
She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. “I want to. I just don’t think—”
“Say yes, Mandy. We’ve already lost so many years we could have spent together. I don’t want to waste another day apart.”
“You know how I feel about—”
His hand caught her nape and he pulled her down for a kiss that made her toes curl. She felt a thrill of feminine satisfaction as he hardened inside her. “Again?” she said with a smile against his lips.
“Constantly,” he replied. “I want you all the time.”
She giggled, a girlish, totally un-Amanda-like sound. “We’re not kids anymore, Rabb.”
“That’s no reason we can’t have fun like kids, or play together like kids,” he said as he moved slowly inside her.
She closed her eyes and moaned, arching her body into his, her hands gripping his shoulders. “I can’t believe... It feels so good.”
“Now that I’ve had you once, I’m going to want you all the time,” Rabb said. “I’ll be at your house night and day. Marry me, Amanda. Make an honest man of me. And shut up the neighbors’ gossip.”
She laughed, and realized she felt carefree and...young. “You make me want to be irresponsible. And I’m never irresponsible.” She gasped as his mouth latched on to her throat and he began to suck with a pressure that was strong enough to cause shivers to run down her spine.
She thrust her hands in his hair and yanked hard enough to force him to let her go, and when she could reach his mouth, thrust her tongue inside and ravaged him. She felt his body convulse and caught his guttural groan in her mouth.
Then her body joined his, spasming as she threw her head back and arched her body to reach for the joy that loving him promised.
It took them longer the second time to recover from their lovemaking. She had experienced a few awkward moments when Rabb withdrew from her and tucked himself back into his jeans, while she searched for the package of tissues he kept in the glove compartment and wiped away the semen that had spilled onto her thighs.
He didn’t even ask if he could come into the house, simply came around to her door and opened it for her, handed her down, and walked her inside.
She hadn’t realized she wanted him to stay, but she was glad he had. She hadn’t eaten lunch and neither had he, so she fixed him a hamburger and offered him some leftover potato salad. He came up behind her at the stove and put his arms around her waist and kissed her neck and she’d realized he was ready for her again.
“You’re insatiable,” she teased.
“I’ve been saving myself for you,” he teased back.
After lunch he insisted on washing the dishes and she came up behind him and put her arms around his waist and let them slide down the front of him. She heard the hiss of breath as she traced the length of him and felt his shaft grow hard beneath her hand.
“To hell with the dishes,” he said.
To her surprise he shook the water off his hands, turned and picked her up and headed for the stairs.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked breathlessly.
“I’m going to make love to you in your bed, where I can get a good look at you. I want to see your breasts and your belly and your legs and—”
“Oh, God. What if you’re disappointed?”
He laughed. “I couldn’t be. Don’t you understand yet? It’s you I love, Mandy. Every part of you is perfect to me.”
He laid her on the bed and undressed her, taking his time, kissing the flesh as he exposed it. “You are so beautiful,” he said, when she was naked at last.
She lay beneath his adoring gaze, her throat swollen tight. “I wish...” She’d never known what it was like to be loved by a man. Never imagined how honored she’d feel to have his devotion. Never imagined how excited she’d be to have his eyes devouring her or his hands exploring her.
“Mandy, I—”
She put her fingertips to his lips and said, “I want to do something impulsive. I want to say something that’s as stunning to me as it may be to you.” The words were there. All she had to do was say them. But it was an enormous, irrevocable step to take.
“I love you, Rabb.”
His eyes closed, and she heard him swallow noisily.
She let her fingertips drop from his mouth and leaned over to kiss his lips gently, tenderly. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you.”
When he opened his eyes they glistened with tears. He managed a smile and said, “I love you, too.”
>
They said nothing more for the next hour while he made love to her. And she made love to him. She took her time undressing him, discovering all the male parts of him that made him different from her.
She realized she could make him burn. And she did. She realized she could make him groan. And she did. She realized she could take him to the edge and leave him hanging. And she did. She had her wanton way with him.
And he returned the favor.
They were both exhausted, pleased and happy with themselves, when the doorbell rang. And reality returned.
Amanda begged Rabb to stay upstairs when she glanced out the bedroom window and saw Jake’s truck outside. But as she threw on a robe, he pulled on his jeans and followed her downstairs. He stood behind the door as she greeted her former fiancé.
Former by about three hours.
Amanda felt flustered and uncomfortable and embarrassed and ashamed. And defiant. Jake hadn’t wanted her. Rabb did. Jake had chosen another woman. Rabb had chosen her.
Then Rabb had opened the door and exposed their indiscretion. And she realized she’d already made her choice. She loved Rabb. She wanted to marry him.
Aloud, she’d deplored the violence that erupted between the two brothers. Inside, she’d felt a swell of savage satisfaction that Rabb was willing to fight for her. She hadn’t imagined she could be so bloodthirsty. But she’d relished seeing her man lay his brother out in the grass.
The commitment she’d been reluctant to make in bed had been easy to make after Rabb’s fierce defense of her. She could hardly believe they were going to be married at the end of the week. She stared at the door that had closed Jake out of her life, then looked at Rabb once more.
“Say it again,” he said, holding her hand against his cheek with his own.
She noticed the webbed feet at the corners of his eyes where he’d squinted against the sun, followed the lines on either side of his mouth that professed how much time he spent smiling, then looked into his warm brown eyes and said, “I’m in love with you, Rabb.” She brushed away the lock of hair that had fallen on his brow and said, “I want to spend my life with you.”
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