by Lauren Canan
Considering how unconcerned he was about their time together in New Orleans, he wouldn’t care two hoots about a baby. Or he would accuse Tallie of getting pregnant on purpose. She could think of a half dozen scenarios and none of them was pleasant. Tallie refused to bring a child into this world and subject him to a father who was never going to show up. Every child deserved better. Hopefully, someday she would find a good man who would raise her baby as his own and Cole would never be the wiser. And her baby would not lack for anything in spite of the fact that she had no money to speak of. Love was more important than money. As long as she could provide a roof over their heads and food on the table, they would be fine.
In minutes, Cole had replaced the flat tire with the spare. He handed her the jack and tossed the flat into the back of his truck.
Tallie tried to maintain a grip on her emotions. She inhaled deeply to clear her mind of what she’d just learned. Better save it for later; she could work through all this devastating information when she was alone.
“I think the tire is fixable. I’ll take it to the local garage and have it repaired.”
“Thank you, Mr. Masters. I am in your debt,” she choked out. He looked at her as though he just now realized her words said one thing but her body language said quite another.
“I think we’re past the ‘mister.’ My name is Cole.”
“I don’t care what your name is, Mr. Masters. If I wasn’t worthy of knowing it three months ago, I don’t want to know it now.”
“Tallie, you’re being stubborn.”
For the briefest of seconds she struggled with his comment. She did not want to be on a first-name basis with this man. He was not the same man she’d met in New Orleans, although she had to admit his current attitude matched the first glimpse she’d had of him: dark and ruthless. Dangerous. Being on a first-name basis was the first step to a relationship. She didn’t want a relationship that had nowhere to go. It wasn’t on her bucket list.
But neither was bearing his child.
Why did she have such bad luck with men? Her last relationship was a case in point. John Mosby, a guy she’d dated for a year, had been an egocentric control freak. She’d done everything he’d asked her to do and still he’d dumped her, sneaking his stuff out of her apartment while she was away on a dig. It hurt. Eventually she’d decided it was the best thing that could have happened to her. Like she’d had a choice. He hadn’t even bothered to leave a note. She’d had the humiliating task of asking her girlfriends if they’d known what had happened to John.
But at least she was free of his constant, overbearing, fault-finding harassment. She wasn’t about to jump from that frying pan into the Cole Masters’s fire.
“Go ahead and I’ll follow you to your camp site just to be sure nothing else happens.”
“No.”
She turned to go back to her vehicle when he seized her shoulders and spun her around. She opened her mouth to ask what he thought he was doing and his lips came down over hers. For seconds she struggled, but his lips, the taste of him, were potent, overcoming her stubborn resolve to not make another mistake with this man. As soon as she relented he kissed her long and deep, and moments later raised his head, leaving her lips swollen. Leaving her wanting more.
“I want to start fresh, learn more about you other than how insanely phenomenal you are in bed.” His deep voice was raspy. Her body immediately responded.
He lowered his head, his lips almost touching hers. “Could we start over, Tallie?” Then he was kissing her again, and this time she felt his hunger and it drew her to him. His tongue moistened her lips before plunging deep inside the cavern of her mouth. She felt his hand at the back of her head, holding her to him as he continued to blow her mind. She heard him groan then he was backing away, making the heat of the day drop to below freezing.
She wanted his arms around her. She wanted him to kiss her some more, to make love to her. She was putty in his arms, encircled by the scent and strength and touch of him. She’d often dreamed of the night they had spent together, burning the sheets and making love until most sane people would have been satisfied. Not them. Every climax he’d given her would satisfy her for a while then he would say something to her in that remarkable voice or kiss her and nibble her jawline or find her breast with his hand and lips and she would be lost again.
But he was Cole Masters. The Cole Masters. Playboy of the western world. He knew what he was doing. He knew a woman’s body as well as his own, so under the circumstances she couldn’t agree to starting over. Eventually he would feel her enlarging belly and he would know. Then his professed interest would change into loathing because he would think she’d set him up; that she had gotten pregnant on purpose.
“I suppose we could talk.” That was the most she was willing to do.
“If that’s all you can give me right now, I’ll take it. Maybe I can convince you otherwise. Go ahead and get in your car. I’ll follow you to the cabin.”
She got into her wagon, started the engine and looked in her rearview mirror. She had to grudgingly admit it had been nice of him to stop and help her change the tire. She had no experience with millionaires, let alone billionaires, but she doubted if anyone else of his social status would do what he’d done, especially after all the times they’d butted heads over the past several weeks.
After a twenty-minute drive, she pulled up next to the shack. By the time she got out of the truck Cole was already opening the back door to her wagon, asking where she wanted things to go.
“Okay, that’s everything,” Cole said as he closed the doors to her vehicle.
“I appreciate all you’ve done. I really—”
Cole pushed her against the side of his truck and, in the glow of the setting sun, kissed her again.
Tallie tried to push out of his arms but Cole was determined. It didn’t take very many seconds until she was kissing him back. Her belly tightened as the heat ran rampant through her veins.
His hands moved to cup her face, holding her to him and sending sparks of pleasure along her spine. Finally she placed her smaller hands over his and he allowed her to push him back.
“Cole.” She was breathing hard. Her lips were inches away from his, moist, swollen from his kisses, slightly open, wanting more. His member was rock-hard, just like before. And there would be no relief for either of them until he took her to his bed.
“Tallie, are you involved with anyone?”
Was it any of his business? “No.”
Then he was kissing her again with an intensity that proclaimed his ownership. He pressed his erection against her and growled his claim.
She felt the intense heat from his body and fought the urge to slide her arms up over his shoulders and pull him closer to her. As she turned away, her breasts brushed against the hard contours of his chest. Her nipples jumped to full attention, sending an electrifying sensation through her entire body. She could sense the sexual charge between them when his body responded. She didn’t move. She didn’t have to. The awareness of her arousal was noted and returned.
“Tallie,” he murmured as his mouth came down over her lips once again. The kiss was amazing, his lips soft and pliable yet firm at the same time. She wanted to melt into them. Into him. With a small whimper, she turned away but she’d had a reminder of just how seriously sexy, how potent, Cole Masters could be. It was enough to leave her wanting more. A lot more. She could sense his desire. They barely knew each other yet her body was throwing off hormones like fireworks on Independence Day. Fighting her own desire as well as his, she pushed out of his arms.
“I told you before, with the exception of our night in the French Quarter, I don’t sleep around.”
“Then why me?” he asked. “Why did you let me seduce you? Why was our night together different?” He looked at her long and hard before dropping his hands to
his sides. It might be the first time in his life Cole Masters had been turned down.
“I suppose I drank too much. I lost track of who I really am.”
“No. I think you found out who you really are. A beautiful, passionate woman who let her attraction to a man overcome her staid impractical beliefs.”
With John it had taken months of knowing him to even get remotely close to the state Tallie was in right now if, in fact, she ever did. John had never cared enough to make the effort to turn her on. He was only in it to please himself.
But Cole didn’t need to make any effort to turn her on. She felt her response to him loud and clear. His hard body was erect and ready. And all she had to do was say yes. The heat surged through her at the thought. But with determination she stepped back and this time he let her go.
She didn’t know if he was trying to seduce her because he found something about her he liked, or if he was trying to seduce her into making her leave. It had to be one or the other. She had her doubts about the first possibility, though. In a lot of ways, she was still that gangly, naïve girl who had grasped hold of any attention John had offered and done what he’d wanted her to do because he was the only one who had ever showed any interest. So what would a man like Cole Masters see in her?
Then again, if he was trying to seduce her to have his way over the dig site, it could backfire on him. Seducing her, if she allowed it, would not make her leave any faster. In fact, it could very well further complicate the entire situation.
It was more than likely he saw her as weak and vulnerable. She had the education but she’d never experienced the level of sophistication he was used to. She’d never had a man of Cole’s wealth and status coming on to her and she would be the first to admit she was completely out of her depth. He was probably taking advantage of any opportunity to talk her into abandoning the dig. He was a master manipulator who would warp any love session into forcing her to leave. She’d be stupid to discount that option; the most probable one under the circumstances.
“Good night, Cole.” She turned and walked toward the front door of the shack. Stepping inside, she sat on the sleeping bag, absently watching as the lights from his truck shone through the holes in the sides and top of the cabin as he turned around then drove away.
She didn’t know the man and he didn’t know her. She didn’t know how to get to know him without precariously dangling her heart on a string. If she were more worldly, she might say yes and see where it would go. But her experience with John painted a pretty clear and dismal picture of how men acted.
And she would never put herself in that situation again.
* * *
It was four o’clock in the afternoon the following day when the garage called about Tallie’s tire. It couldn’t be saved.
“Fine. Put a new one on my account.” Cole started to end the call but thought better of it. “Ray? I need the new tire to look like the old one. Roll it in the mud a couple of times and walk your dog.”
“Walk my dog?”
“Yeah. You know. Walk your dog. Let him do his business on the tire, then roll it in the dirt again.”
“Cole, you ask for some strange things.”
Cole couldn’t help but laugh. “Thanks, Ray.”
Clearly the man didn’t understand the why of the request but he would do it. Cole suspected Tallie would insist on paying for the fix. She wouldn’t be happy about an entirely new tire and he would have to listen to a long argument over a hundred bucks. No thanks. With any luck, he would accept her ten dollars for the “repaired” tire and that would be that.
By five o’clock the new tire was delivered. It looked pretty bad. Cole was impressed. He threw it in the back of his truck and headed for the dig site. Damn. She even had him calling it a dig site. Whatever, it was a good excuse to check on her progress, as if he needed one. She’d been working on the last section of her initial grid this morning. He couldn’t help but wonder where she would go next.
He drove out to the site, pulled the new old tire out of the back of his truck and rolled it over to her vehicle. He was almost finished changing it out when she came around the corner.
“How much do I owe you?”
“Ten dollars.”
“Ten dollars? For a new tire?” She gave him a look that clearly said nice try.
“I’ll put it on the tab.”
“Fine. I’ll settle up before I leave.”
And Cole believed she would. At least she would try.
Seven
It was not fully light the next morning when Tallie was awakened by an odd sound. It was as though someone had turned on a giant sprinkler. She looked toward the dig site. There was just enough light to see an irrigation system, silent and unused until now, watering the wheat. One of the sprayers appeared to be centered on the area she had planned on digging that day.
No way. This could not be happening. She quickly pulled on her jeans, a clean shirt and her boots, grabbed a sheet of plastic they used to preserve a site during a rain storm and hurried to the dig. Water was spewing at full throttle. She made an attempt to cover the ground where she’d planned to work. The soil had already become saturated.
She took a step forward and realized, belatedly, that her boots were stuck more than ankle deep in the reddish-brown mud. About then a blast of cold water hit her smack in the face, causing her to lose her balance. She fell to the left, her right foot sliding out of the boot. Turning onto her back, which seemed to be the only way to right herself, she sat up, struggling to pull her boots out of the now almost shin-deep mud. She succeeded in freeing one boot before another blast of water knocked her down again, this time face-first. At that point, a slow crawl was the only remaining option to escape.
Lumbering toward the end of the sprinkler, she attempted to turn it off. The thing was controlled remotely. As in, from the ranch. She didn’t have to ask who’d done this.
As she sloshed back toward her Ford wagon, her anger grew with each step. It would be days before that area could be excavated. And the longer the sprinklers were on, the worse it would get. Cole Masters was behind this. The man just would not give up, but she had to admit after this stunt he was getting closer to inspiring her to pack her bags. Reaching the vehicle she started the engine and headed to Cole’s ranch house.
She passed the Circle M Ranch sign over the entrance to the driveway. The blacktop road continued on, rising at a steady elevation until she arrived at the house. She got out of her Ford and followed the flagstone path up to the door. She rang the bell then knocked.
She would give him thirty seconds before she walked in. Her blood pressure was sending off warning signals, her ears were ringing and she prayed the horrible man would get to the door before she stroked out. There were few times over the course of her life she’d ever been this furious.
Just seconds before she reached for the knob, the door opened. Cole took one look, his eyes growing big at the sight of her. She knew what she must look like, wet and covered in dark red mud head to toe, with one boot on and the other still stuck in the mud back at camp. She glared at the preposterous man and then noticed another man rise from the sofa in the den behind him and slowly walk toward the open door where she stood.
“If you think, for one second, your little schemes will drive me away, you’d better think again.” Her voice was quivering in anger. “Shut that irrigation system off. Now.”
“Irrigation? The irrigation system is not scheduled to come on in that area. The wheat is about to be harvested. Because of both your dig and my project I had it shut down.”
“Convince me.”
“Tallie, I didn’t do this.” Cole held up his hands, palms forward in a gesture of surrender. But he pursed his lips as he tried to hide a grin. “I don’t know what happened but I’ll take care of it.” He paused, allowing his eyes
to roam over her from head to foot as if he couldn’t believe what he’d seen the first time.
“You have fifteen seconds.” She pinned him to the spot with her eyes, her finger poking at his chest. “This little gimmick will set me back days, but I’m not leaving. I refuse. You cannot run me off, Masters. Believe it. Deal with it.”
“Come inside. Please.”
She stepped inside, hoping to leave as much mud as possible. She nodded to the other man. He nodded back and also pursed his lips as though fighting not to laugh. “I’m Cole’s brother, Wade. And you must be Dr. Finley.”
“I would shake but...” She held out her mud-covered hand.
Cole reached for the phone and hit a speed dial number. “Yeah. Griff? I thought I instructed your boys to kill the watering on the east part of the forty thousand acres for a while.” He listened quietly. “Well, whatever you did, it didn’t work. The irrigation is going full-blast and has apparently destroyed Dr. Finley’s excavation site. Shut it down now then find out who turned it on or fix what’s wrong and call me when you make a determination.” He ended the call.
“I’m sorry, Tallie, but I had nothing to do with this. Perhaps you can relocate to another area until that section of the site dries out. It would appear,” he said as he once again let his eyes rake her from top to bottom, “that the site is too muddy to work.”
“Ya think?” Fool that she was she believed him when he said he had no part in what happened, but he still had no appreciation for what she was trying to accomplish. “Do you even know or care what I’m trying to do out there?”
He shrugged. “Look for pieces of old pottery? I guess I really don’t know. Should I?”
“No. No, you’re right. It has nothing to do with you except to delay your project.”