by Sandra Brown
"You do it all the time!"
"That's a helluva thing for a young lady to say." "But it's true, isn't it? I hear the men talking about your conquests."
He pointed a stern finger at her. "Now, Banner, you stop that dirty kind of talking right now. Go on to bed or I'll paddle your behind so hard—"
"Stop talking to me as though I were a child!" "To me that's what you are."
She shrugged the shawl off. It landed on the hay with a soft whisper. "Look at me, Jake. I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm a woman " Oh, Jesus.
His insides groaned. She was a woman all right. A beautiful, enticing woman. It was a fact he was trying his damnedest to ignore, but his body was making it tough. When had she stopped being darling little Banner? When had she stopped being the precious daughter of his best friends? When had she gone from all elbows and knees, long ungainly limbs and untidy braids, to soft womanhood? From coltish thinness to slender softness that curved voluptuously? Had the transformation taken place gradually over the years since he had seen her, or in the last ninety seconds?
Her hair was as black as midnight, a soft wreath of curls around her oval face. A man's hands could get lost in that hair. Jake could imagine it coiling around his fingers, feel it against his face, his lips, his belly.
He had acknowledged years ago that she was a pretty child, but this was no child gazing up at him with smoky eyes and a mouth that he suddenly thought he had to taste or die.
Her face was sensual and provocative. It should have belonged to a woman without morals, one who knew her way around a man and what to do to make him tick. That that face was worn by a sweet, innocent girl, one he had known from the cradle, was one of God's crudest jokes.
Her eyes had too much fire to protect her purity from marauders. Framed as they were by arching dark brows and surrounded by spiky black lashes, they were too bold, too intriguing, too inviting for her own good. Her honesty and forthrightness were hazardous to her virtue. One look at that sensuous mouth was enough to drive a man right through the bounds of loyalty and allegiance. Who could think of old friendships with a temptation like that offering itself up to be sampled?
The smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose was impudent. Her skin looked as soft as satin and as warm as fresh milk. Jake didn't dare imagine what it tasted like. She smelled like she had just washed with a soap scented with flowers. He wanted to bury his face in a bouquet of them.
She was naked beneath the sheer, virginal nightgown. To even think about Banner Coleman naked was a sin for sure. He had no doubt that Ross would shoot a man who even looked like he was thinking about Banner naked.
But what man with a beating heart and breathing lungs wouldn't fantasize about that slim body silhouetted against the soft fabric, wouldn't want it entwined with his own? What man would be blind to the fullness of her breasts which stirred the soft cloth covering mem each time she drew a tremulous breath? And hell, if he could see the darker centers of them... ? Damn! Of the slender legs and that dusky shadow between her thighs he couldn't think at all or he would go stark, raving mad and do something he could be hanged for.
But her sexiness came from more than a provocative face and a seductive body. It was her spirit that first captured a man's imagination. There was a wildness about her that begged to be tamed by anyone with enough courage to try. Her fiery nature was a challenge any man worth his salt would love to tangle with, if not to break, then to bend to his will.
This tiny bundle of womanhood had walked up to him and, with a spunk he had to admire, asked him to take her virginity.
But no matter how appealing the thought, there was no way on God's green earth that Jake would touch her.
He loved her because of who she was. He wasn't about to sacrifice a twenty-year friendship for twenty minutes' worth of pleasure. He cursed himself for not taking one of Priscilla's whores last night. Then his body wouldn't be so hungry. It would be easier to say no to Banner. He convinced himself that's why he had given the idea even this much thought.
His answer was never in question. He had to let her down. But gently. Without risking their affection for each other Without dealing her pride another blow.
"I know you're a woman, Banner. Frankly I'm shocked to realize just how much of a woman you've become."
"Then make love to me."
"No. That would only make things worse. Tonight you're hurt, you feel rejected in favor of another woman. I understand. You're desperate. This is a natural reaction to what Sheldon did to you. You're trying to salve your wounded pride. That sonofabitch embarrassed you and you've got to get your pride back. But this isn't the way."
"It is," she argued earnestly.
He shook his head. Stepping forward, he laid his hands on her shoulders. That was a risky move, but one he felt he had to take. It was necessary to convince himself he could still touch her and mink of her in the affectionate terms of an uncle. And he had to convince her that's how he felt toward her. "Banner, let's not talk about this anymore. Please go back to the house. In the morning things will look different. I promise. We'll go riding together and—"
"Jake, don't you want me?" she cried softly. "Aren't I desirable enough?"
"Banner," he groaned, pinching bis eyes closed.
"If I were any other woman, would you want me?"
"But you're not."
"Does it matter that much?"
"It's all that matters. You're Banner, Ross and Lydia's baby girl. I remember when you were born, for godsakes."
Her heart thudding nervously, she laid her hands on his chest and gazed up into his face. "But if you didn't remember all that—"
"But I do." He shoved away and turned his back. His head fell forward and he ground at his eyesockets with the heels of his hands. If only he couldn't see, smell, feel. If only all his senses would stop operating. Instead they were clamoring, working furiously. His sex drive had always been his downfall, governing decisions when his brain should have governed.
He disgusted himself. It wasn't possible that he could have an erection for the little girl he used to push high hi her swing until she squealed in glee. But he did. A helluva one. How? How could his body betray his conscience?
"You want a man tonight, Banner," he said roughly. "All right, I can sympathize and understand, though I still think that's no solution for heartbreak." He paused to draw a breath. "But I swear to you, I'm not the one you want. I'm a saddle tramp, a shiftless cowboy that farmers hide their daughters from. I've done things, witnessed things, that would make you cringe I shirk responsibility. I'm a wanderer without a thing to my name except what I can pack in my saddlebags. When I do have a few dollars I spend them on whiskey, cards, and whores. And I've had plenty of them too. My hands aren't clean enough to touch you. Think about that."
"I love you, no matter what you are or what you've done. It doesn't matter. I've always loved you."
"I love you, too, Banner. But we're talking about something else entirely." He dropped his hands to his sides with a finality she couldn't misinterpret. "I'm not the man you want tonight, Banner."
"I'm not the woman you want either, Jake," she said harshly. "You want my mother."
He spun around sharply. "What did you say?" Gone was the weary defeat in his stance. The humility and self-deprecation had vanished. His face was hard. His brows were pulled down low over his eyes which were busily searching her face.
"I said that you want my mother," Banner replied clearly. He stared at her, hard and angrily. Her chin went up a notch. "You love her, Jake."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Deep down I guess I've always known it, but it only occurred to me recently." His eyes continued staring at her in that penetrating relentless way. "I think Ma knows too. That's why she never presses you to stay on here, isn't it? That's why you never stay long, because you can't bear to see her and Papa together."
Emotion spasmed across his face. It shimmered off him like heat waves off the a
rid prairie in the summertime. "Ross is the finest man I've ever met. My best friend."
Banner softened and smiled. "I know that, Jake. You probably love Papa just as much as you love her, only in a different way. But don't insult me by denying you love Mama. I know you do."
He turned away from her again, but not completely, only a quarter-turn so that she saw him in profile. He drove his fingers through his hair, then laced them together and bounced them against each other. His face was ravaged by guilt and regret.
Banner's heart swelled with compassion. She had played her trump card and it had turned out to be a winning move, but there was no glory in her victory. She had always suspected the reason for Jake's self-imposed loneliness. Now her suspicion was confirmed. She stepped around him and pressed herself against him, locking her arms around his waist as she had when she was a child.
Only this time it was vastly different. It was surprising how good his body felt against hers. He was taller than Grady, harder, leaner. Something stirred inside her, something wonderful, something forbidden. Made more wonderful because of its forbidden nature.
"It's all right, Jake. I didn't say that to make you feel bad. Your mother and I are probably the only ones who have guessed, and we wouldn't tell anybody. You can't help loving her." She raised her head from his chest. "Since you can't have her tonight, take me."
Her hair fell away from her face to sift over her shoulders and down her back. Without thinking about it, Jake's arms went around her. He was still dazed by Banner's perception of the feelings he had harbored for Lydia all these years, ever since he first saw her lying near death in a rainy forest in Tennessee.
"You're alone, Jake, yearning for a woman you've loved for years. But she loves someone else, belongs to him and always will. I was supposed to become a woman tonight. I doubt I'll ever risk loving a man after the way Grady humiliated me. But I need to know I'm capable of winning a man's love. Give me my confidence back."
She raised her hands and touched his face. Her fingertips glided over it, acquainting her sense of touch with each rugged contour, each prominent bone. She indulged her curiosity and found the sideburns as coarse as she had suspected and the lobes of his ears as soft. She traced the stern lines curving down from the sides of his mouth.
"We're exactly what the other needs. Let's give each other comfort and love tonight, Jake."
Her gentle touches had roused him from his trance. They also served to give her words credence. His hands opened wide across her back and drew her close. He buried his face in her hair, hair so like Lydia's in texture. He moaned when her body naturally curved up to fit his. "We can't do this. Banner."
"We can."
"I'm the last thing you need."
"You're the only one I would consider asking to do this."
"You're a virgin."
"Yes."
"I'll hurt you."
"You couldn't."
"You'll suffer for this later."
"I'll suffer more if you don't." Her lips touched his throat where his shirt was opened. His skin was warm.
He sighed and nipped her shoulders lightly. "This is wrong."
"How could this be wrong? You used to kiss my scrapes and bruises to make them well. Kiss me now, Jake. Take away this terrible pain inside me. Even if you must pretend I'm my mother."
His mouth met hers even before she had finished speaking. A gentle brush of lips. An exchange of breath. Petal soft. But electric. Again. Longer this time. Then he pressed his mouth over hers. And stayed.
Her arms timidly went around his neck. He felt the peaks of her breasts against his chest and almost forgot to go slowly. His mouth moved over hers, hungrily now. He slanted it across hers until her lips parted. He swept her mouth with his tongue.
She reacted with a startled catch of her breath and a jolt of her body that straightened it and pulled it up hard and high against his, as though someone had tugged sharply on a string at the top of her head.
He got lost, irretrievably lost, in her taste and scent and softness.
Moments later, they fell to the bed on the hay. "Banner, Banner." His breathing was choppy. "Stop this. I can't now. And it's wrong."
"Please, Jake. Love me."
All the objections he had lined up in his mind were shot down like targets in a gallery as he slipped the gown off one shoulder and touched her throat with his open mouth. He reached between their bodies, adjusted their clothing.
Her bare skin caressing his. Her femininity cradling him.
Soft and yielding woman flesh.
The road to hell was paved with silk.
"Oh, God, oh, God, help me not to do this," he prayed.
But God was otherwise occupied and didn't hear Jake Langston's fervent prayer.
* * *
He lay on his back, staring at the rafters and listening to her quiet weeping. He turned his head in her direction. lie laid a hand on her shoulder. "Banner." The name rent his throat.
She lay on her side facing away from him. At his touch, she curled into a tighter ball and pressed her face deeper into her sheltering arm.
Jake rolled to a sitting position, glanced back down at her, and called himself every filthy name he could think of. Coming to his feet, his rebuttoned his pants and stalked out of the barn, giving her the time alone he knew she needed.
Banner knew the moment he stepped outside. She turned on her back and wiped at her eyes until they stung. She sat up slowly, coming up first on her elbows, pausing to draw restorative breaths, then sitting up all the way.
Shaking hands smoothed her hair which was littered with hay. She picked up the shawl, shook it out and wrapped it around herself, then struggled to stand. Her hand stifled another series of sobs when she saw the bloodstain on his blanket. Mortification made her dizzy and for a moment she leaned against the wall of the stall in an attempt to regain her equilibrium before starting the long walk to the door of the barn.
The cool air outside relieved her skin of its fever. The relief was temporary. From the corner of her eye she saw movement and glanced in that direction. Jake was propped against the wall of the barn in the shadows. He pushed himself away from its support the instant he saw her and took a hesitant step forward.
"Banner?"
He stared forlornly into her shattered features, which the faint moonlight only emphasized. He saw the haunted expression in her eyes, the tears welling in them. The damp tracks down her pale cheeks testified that she hadn't been able to contain all of them. Her lips were swollen and beard-abraded. His plundering hands had wreaked havoc on her hair. She was pitiably clutching the shawl around her as though afraid he would snatch it away and take her again. Quickly she turned away from him and fled toward the house, disappearing into the shadows of the front porch.
Jake slumped against the wall of the barn. The back of his head thumped against the whitewashed planks as he grimaced ferally at the sky.
"Shit."
FOUR
Banner had thought yesterday was the worst day of her life. She had been wrong. Today was. Today she had not only Grady Sheldon to despise, but herself as well for the disgraceful thing she had done last night.
Hugging herself as though she had an excruciating pain in her middle, she lay on the bed and drew her knees up to her chest. What had possessed her to do it? Her motives had been pure. She had thought that taking such a drastic step would rid her of despair. Jake had been right. It had only compounded her shame.
Jake, Jake, Jake. What does he think of me?
He had always worshiped Lydia, keeping her on a pedestal above all other women. Intuitively Banner knew that was why he had never married, why he had never gotten close to a decent woman he would consider marrying. He wasn't being unfaithful to his love for Lydia when he took whores because his heart wasn't involved. He could be forgiven having to appease his flesh, but his soul had remained committed to Lydia.
He had loved Banner because she was Lydia's daughter. But now Jake would know she was
no better than Wanda Burns. She had thrown herself at him and begged him to make love to her. The utter amazement on his face when she had first approached him haunted her even now. He had been shocked by her brazenness, probably repelled. If not so before, then certainly later when she had...
No, she couldn't think of the actual act. Shame bit into her too deeply when she did.
Her recollections skipped over those intense moments and picked up afterward, when she had rolled away from him to hide her face and treacherous body, from his sight. Her behavior had surely destroyed any affection or admiration he had previously held for her. He would hold her in no higher esteem than he did the whores he had been with. She would mean no more than another notch on his well-marked belt. She deserved no better regard because that's how she had acted.
"Banner?"
She sprang to a sitting position and wiped at her teary-bloated eyes. Frantically she smoothed her hair, even smoothed a hand down her chest. Did she look different? Would her mother be able to detect what she had done?
She leaped from the bed and pulled on a robe, as though her nightgown would give away her secret. "Yes, Mama?"
Lydia opened the door and came into the room. She had taken great care with this room for her daughter. Into it had gone everything Lydia had missed in adolescence apd had always wanted.
The iron bed was painted an unspoiled white. Lydia and Ma had put hours into the colorful quilt that served as a bedspread. White ruffled eyelet curtains decorated the two windows. The window seats were piled with pillows made from fabric scraps and stuffed with goosedown. Braided rag rugs dotted the floor. Touches of a loving hand were everywhere. And as tomboyish as Banner had been, such femininity wasn't wasted on her.
Lydia's brow wrinkled in concern. Banner was standing in front of one of the windows. Her demeanor was proud, but it was apparent she had spent most of the night crying. Lydia closed the door behind her.
"We were getting worried about you. I could understand why you didn't come down for breakfast, but it's nearly noon. Are you coming down for dinner or would you like me to bring you a tray?"