“Ordered?”
“All right, what you suggested I do.”
He took the can out of her hand and set it on the corner of one of the stalls. “Madelyn sent me to get you. She said she needs you in the house.”
If Belinda thought that keeping distance between them had diffused the sexual tension one whit, she was finding out now that she had been wrong. She was aware of Faron from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. “Did she say why she wants me?”
“No. But I noticed there’s a lot of cleaning going on in the house. I asked Rue what was going on, and she said we’re expecting company.”
“My sisters and their families always come to King’s Castle to visit during the Fourth of July holiday.”
“Now I remember. You said something about that the first day—” He cut himself off. He didn’t want to think back to the day he had met Belinda, when they had shared a special moment in time together. He had been trying desperately over the past couple of weeks to treat her like the stepmother she was.
It wasn’t working. All he had to do was take a breath around her, and his body surged to life. He had given her things to do that would keep them apart, but once her family arrived they would be forced into social situations together. It would be hell pretending in front of her family that he didn’t want her.
“When does your family start arriving?”
“Tomorrow.”
Faron took off his hat, forked his fingers through his hair and tugged the hat back on again. “You could have given me a little more warning.”
“Why? There’s nothing you need to do. Madelyn and Rue and I will take care of everything.”
If he’d had more warning maybe he could have figured out a reason to be gone from the ranch during their visit. If he left now it would look like he was running. Faron wasn’t the kind of man to run from trouble. Not that he necessarily sought it out, either. But he could see trouble coming.
Still, some good might come of this visit. He would have a chance to ask Belinda’s family some of the questions she had refused to answer. “I’m looking forward to meeting your sisters.”
Belinda smiled. “It’ll be hard not to trip over them, since they’ll all be staying at the house.”
By sundown the next day Faron realized that Belinda hadn’t been exaggerating. Her three sisters, Dori, Tillie and Fiona, had all arrived. Dori had come with her husband, Bill, and three daughters under seven years of age. Tillie was also married. She and her husband, Sam, had two boys, five and nine. Fiona was still single, but she had brought her Abyssinian cat, Tutankhamen, Tut for short.
There were trucks on the floor, dolls on the chairs and screaming children chasing each other and the cat up and down the stairs. When they all sat down to dinner it was chaos.
It reminded Faron of home. Of the days when his mother had still been alive, and he and his brothers had argued at the table while their parents refereed. He felt his stomach twist when he realized that the picture he remembered hadn’t been exactly as it had seemed.
Had his father’s eyes been sad as they met his mother’s across the table? Had there been any hesitancy in the way his father had lifted him up into his arms and held him in his lap? He couldn’t remember.
Whatever his father had felt about raising another man’s child hadn’t been evident in the way Faron had been treated. He had felt loved, had known he was loved. By a woman who had been faithless to his father in conceiving him. By a man who had overlooked the foreign blood that ran in his veins.
He sat back and listened to the children around him and searched for the warm memories he knew he would find.
“Mom, Travis threw a pea at me!”
“Travis, stop throwing food at Peter.”
“Dad, make Jennifer stop kicking the table.”
“Jennifer, that’s enough. Eat.”
“Daddy, Trisha spilled her milk.”
“I did not!”
“It’s all over your dress.”
“Is not!”
“Is, too!”
“Is not!”
“Penny! Trisha! That’s enough from both of you. Can’t we have a little peace and quiet here?”
No, Faron thought. There would be no peace and quiet until the kids had been put to bed. But he didn’t mind. And he could see that Belinda didn’t mind, either. In fact, the look in her eyes was decidedly soft—and yearning.
He remembered what Belinda had said about wanting children. He wondered why she and his father hadn’t given him stepbrothers and stepsisters. Suddenly he was fiercely, selfishly glad that Belinda hadn’t borne his father’s children. Even if it meant she had no child to hold to her breast during this family reunion. Because he wanted to be the one to give her those children.
Until that moment Faron hadn’t realized how deep his feelings for Belinda ran. He had known, of course, that he desired her physically. When he looked at her now it was with the knowledge that she was the one woman he was meant to spend his life with. With a sense of awful frustration he conceded that the unique relationship that had brought them together was equally likely to be what kept them apart.
Faron turned his gaze on Belinda. She had settled Jennifer, the youngest of Dori’s daughters, in her lap and was playing patty-cake with the child. The smile on Belinda’s face was easily as broad as the little girl’s. When Jennifer threw her hands wide, Belinda tossed her head back to keep from getting hit. And met Faron’s eyes.
He made no effort to hide what he was feeling. At first her expression softened. She shared with him the joy of holding the baby in her arms. As he continued staring, she lowered her lids and hid those expressive violet eyes from him. But it was too late. He had already seen the need, the desire, the yearning for a child of her own.
“Time for baths,” Tillie announced.
“Aw, Mom!”
“Jeez, Mom!”
“I want to play some more.”
Faron listened to all the complaints knowing that they were being made in vain. The children’s parents slowly but surely herded their offspring up the stairs. He wasn’t surprised when Belinda took advantage of the opportunity to escape with them. Madelyn excused herself to check on Rue, who had apparently found another bottle this afternoon.
That left Faron sitting at the table with Belinda’s youngest sister, Fiona. Fiona had a pixie face, and from what Faron had seen, a puckish sense of humor. She was blond and blue-eyed, but considerably shorter than her eldest sister. She had a figure that curved in all the right places. If Faron had met her before Belinda, he might even have been interested in getting to know her better.
Fiona picked up her wineglass and walked down the length of the table to take a chair across from Faron. “I guess you and I are the only ones without someone to bathe.” She paused and added with a come-hither smile, “Unless you’d like me to scrub your back?”
“No thanks,” Faron said, returning the smile.
“Thank goodness.”
“Pardon?”
Fiona’s smile turned into a grin. “I was just checking. I mean, I saw the way you stared at Belinda all night. You wouldn’t be the right kind of guy for her if you were willing to hustle me the minute her back was turned.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Oh, I’m still not sure you’re what she needs.”
“And what is that?”
Fiona’s blue eyes bored into him. Her hands fisted on the table. “Someone who wouldn’t take advantage of her. Someone who would make her happy.”
“She wasn’t happy with my father?”
Fiona gave an unladylike snort. “Not hardly.”
Faron waited for her to say more. He didn’t have to wait long.
“Wayne Prescott abused my sister. Oh, not so much physically. Although I know he hit her once or twice. But he crushed her spirit. Or at least he tried. Toward the end Belinda learned to hide what she was feeling, and he left her alone.”
Faron felt a r
age such as he had never known directed at a man who was beyond his reach. “Why didn’t she leave him?”
“I asked her the same question. She said they had made a deal, and she owed him her loyalty.”
“What kind of deal?”
Fiona’s eyes were bleak. “Belinda sold herself to get the money to take care of us. Me and Dori and Tillie. When she married Wayne he established a substantial trust fund in each of our names. Dori went to UCLA and fell in love with Bill. Tillie married the doctor who put the cast on the broken leg she got skiing in Colorado. I bought a bed and breakfast in Vermont. Belinda got nothing. Except marriage to Wayne.
“Of course, all of us were too young to realize what she was doing when she did it. She told us she was in love with Wayne, and during the first couple of years they got along pretty well.”
“What happened then?”
“Wayne started to gamble. He lost big. He took it out on Belinda. He kept her like a prisoner here, wouldn’t let her go anywhere. I guess he was afraid she wouldn’t come back. If it hadn’t been for Madelyn, she probably would have left him.”
“What does Madelyn have to do with anything?”
“You’ve seen them together. Madelyn treats Belinda like the daughter she never had, and Belinda returns her affection. They both tried to curb Wayne’s excesses. Sometimes I think if Belinda hadn’t been there, Wayne might have taken out his frustrations on his mother.”
“Not the best father figure a man could have.”
“I’m sorry. I forgot he was your father. But he wasn’t really, was he? I mean, someone else raised you. You’re certainly nothing like Wayne from what I’ve seen today.”
“The question is whether Belinda sees my father when she looks at me,” Faron said.
“I don’t see how she could,” Fiona said. “You don’t look a thing like him. You don’t act like him, either. Wayne mostly thought about himself. From things Belinda has told me about you—”
“Belinda talked to you about me?”
Fiona shrugged. “She just told me you were Wayne’s son.” Belinda had revealed a whole lot more about her feelings for Faron Whitelaw through what she had not said. But Fiona wasn’t about to give away Belinda’s secrets to the cowboy. She would keep her eyes open over the next couple of days and make her own judgment about whether Faron deserved a chance with Belinda.
“Guess I’d better go see if I can help get things settled upstairs. I’ll be down later to help with the dishes,” Fiona said.
Faron looked around him and realized everything was still sitting on the table. With Rue sleeping off her latest binge there was no one to handle such details. “I’ll take care of it,” Faron said.
Thus, when Belinda came downstairs she found the table cleared, the leftovers put away and Faron wiping down the counters with a sponge.
“You didn’t have to do the dishes,” she protested. “I would have done them.”
“You were busy. I didn’t mind. Charlie One Horse taught me how to stack a dishwasher.”
“Who’s Charlie One Horse?”
“A cross between hired hand, mother and father at Hawk’s Way. He kind of takes care of things.”
Belinda sat on one of the bar stools at the center island and leaned her chin on the heel of her hand. “When you see Charlie again, tell him I said thanks. I have to admit I’m a little tired.”
“You work too hard.”
“It was mostly play today. I love having my family around, but they keep things hectic.”
“I spent some time after dinner talking to Fiona.”
Belinda’s lids lowered to hide her eyes. “And?”
“She told me why you married my father.”
“Fiona never could keep a secret.”
“She’s grateful for what you did.”
Belinda’s voice was bitter as she explained. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t. And I won’t make the same mistake twice. I’ll never let another man do to me what Wayne did. I won’t—”
Belinda suddenly realized who she was talking to. Wayne’s son. A man it would be all too easy to allow into her life. Would she be making a mistake if she did? Or would things be different with Faron? She wished…she wished…
“Excuse me.” Abruptly Belinda stood and headed for the screen door. She shoved her way outside and started walking. She didn’t have any destination in mind, she just wanted to get away. Belinda didn’t want to think of might-have-beens. She was tired of feeling regret. It wouldn’t change what had happened. She had to forget about the past and go on with her life. Alone. That was the safest way, the best way to survive.
Faron stood in the kitchen after Belinda was gone, thinking back over what he had learned about her marriage to his father.
Belinda might have married Wayne Prescott for money, but she had done it from selfless rather than selfish motives. It had become increasingly clear to him that she had bought security for her sisters at a very high price.
Now that he knew Belinda bitterly regretted what she had done, he allowed himself to acknowledge that he had been jealous of her relationship with his father. He wanted Belinda’s love unbound by memories of her past. He was grateful to learn that he didn’t have to compete with loving recollections of Wayne Prescott. But it had dawned on him this evening that he might have even more difficulty overcoming the damage done by his father’s abusive treatment of his wife.
I won’t make the same mistake twice. I’ll never let another man do to me what Wayne did.
Faron was going to have to prove to Belinda that he wasn’t like his father. That he was capable of loving her, of cherishing her, of treating her with the respect she deserved. He had to find a way to convince her that marriage to him wouldn’t even remotely resemble her relationship with his father.
There was no time like the present to start.
Faron shoved open the screen door and marched out into the darkness after Belinda. She had already disappeared beyond the light pouring from the windows. He increased his pace and finally caught up to her at the edge of the river that ran across King’s Castle.
The North Platte was narrow here, and the shallow water rushed over stones that made up the riverbed. Cottonwoods lined the water, and their leaves rustled in the wind. A zephyr cooled the night air. The cicadas chirped, and Faron heard an owl hoot in the distance. They might have been two people lost on the prairie with no one around for a thousand miles.
Or so it felt.
The moonlight created a glow around Belinda, outlining her so she was easy to find. “Why did you run away?”
Belinda whirled, surprised to find she had been followed. “I thought it was pretty obvious why I left. I was telling my late husband’s son that his father was a terrible husband. Not the most proper after-dinner conversation I can imagine.”
“But fascinating all the same.”
“Why don’t you go away and leave me alone? I’ve made up my mind not to get involved with another man—ever.”
Her statement seemed to confirm his fears and left him feeling angry over what he couldn’t control. “Are you only precluding marriage? Or do you plan to live the rest of your life as celibate as a nun?”
Belinda crossed her arms defensively. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“There you’re wrong. Because,” he said in a low, dangerous voice, “you’re lying to yourself if you think you can live without love for the rest of your life.”
“I don’t need a man—for any reason.”
“I think you’re lying. To me. And to yourself.” Faron stalked her now as he had wanted to for the past month. He was fighting for their life together. This time he wouldn’t allow her to escape.
Belinda backed away slowly, but for every step she took, Faron took two. She found herself backed up against a cottonwood at the edge of the river with nowhere else to retreat.
Faron laid his palms on the bark on either side of her head and leaned down so they were eye to eye. �
�I’m not my father. I would never hurt you.”
“That’s what you say now,” Belinda said in a tremulous voice. “But later—”
“Later I’ll be the same man I am now. A man who desires you, Princess. A man who wants to cherish you.”
It was too much what she had always wanted to hear from a man she cared for, and never had. Belinda’s eyes sank closed. A moment later she felt Faron’s mouth on hers. Gentle. Tender. Coaxing.
He insinuated his body between her thighs and rubbed himself against her. “Princess, open your mouth for me. Please.”
He caught her upper lip with his teeth and teased it, then slid his tongue along the crease of her lips, making her gasp with the pleasure of it. He took advantage of the opportunity to slip his tongue inside, to taste, to tempt her to join him in his sensual exploration.
She put her palms on his chest, intending to push him away, but her fingers curled against the cloth instead, and she pulled him closer. Faron’s arms curved around her and aligned them from breast to hip.
“I need you, Princess.”
Belinda caught fire in Faron’s arms. There was no denying that she wanted him. And needed him. As the prairie grass needed sunshine. As the flowers needed spring rain. Her knees would no longer support her, and she and Faron sank to the ground together.
Faron made short work of Belinda’s blouse, but when he reached under her skirt he found a delightful surprise. “You’re wearing nylons.”
“I always wear nylons with a skirt.”
Faron grinned. “I mean real nylons.” His hand slid around the top rim of her nylons and followed the garter belt up to her waist. “It’s been a long time since I’ve met a woman who wore a garter belt.”
“So I’m old-fashioned. Sue me.”
“I’d rather make love to you.”
Faron took his time removing her nylons. By the time he had her garter belt off, they were both having trouble breathing. He unsnapped his shirt and then pulled it off over his head. He unbuckled his belt, but when he reached for the zipper, she was there before him.
She took her time, touching him as she had always dreamed of touching a man. Aware of his guttural groans of pleasure, aware of the restraint he exercised to remain quiescent under her touch. But soon, touching wasn’t enough for either of them. Faron finished what Belinda had started, and in moments they were both naked in the moonlight.
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