by Diana Palmer
“I’d better get dressed,” he murmured dryly, turning away. He hadn’t even been in the water, but he was drenched with sweat anyway.
She found her patio skirt and put it on, watching him pull on his jeans. It didn’t embarrass her anymore when she knew he wanted her. It was so natural, as if she were already an extension of him, a physical part of him. She loved him to distraction.
He glanced at her, frowning at that rapt expression. She didn’t seem to be afraid of him or nervous about giving herself to him. Why? Did she care for him? That made him tingle, and he turned to scoop up his shirt with a feeling he didn’t understand. When he was dressed again, he took her hand, clasping it close in his without a single twinge about Bess.
“If it happens,” he said without looking at her, “I’ll make sure you never want to forget what we do together.”
“I never would, whatever happened,” she said solemnly.
He drew in a steadying breath and linked his fingers with hers. She made him feel ten feet tall. He couldn’t understand this compulsion to make love to her; it wasn’t only sex, but he couldn’t puzzle out what else it was. He glanced down at her slender body, already picturing the very fluid way it was going to become part of him. He felt a flush of warmth from head to toe, and it got worse when he happened to drop his gaze to her flat stomach and involuntarily wondered what she’d look like with a baby in there.
His fingers clasped hers until they hurt, and she caught at them with curious laughter.
“What is it?” she asked breathlessly, wondering if he was thinking about Bess.
He searched her eyes. “Elissa … do you like children?” he asked slowly.
Inexplicably, she felt deliriously happy. He’d never asked a question like that. It gave her a little hope. She smiled, turning back toward the house. “Yes, of course. I’d like at least two someday. Why?”
He didn’t answer her. His eyes were dark and troubled the rest of the way home. Bess said she didn’t want children. And he was shocked to discover that he did. But he wanted them with Elissa.
He was totally withdrawn while he waited for the women to get supper together, electing to watch television with Mr. Dean. A telephone call he made a little later gave Tina the chance to ask Elissa what was wrong.
“He’s asked me to his ranch,” Elissa said with a smile. “I think he’s worried about telling you and Dad.”
Tina searched her daughter’s face. “You’re very much in love with him, aren’t you, darling?”
Elissa sighed. “Yes. But he … I’m not sure he feels that way about me.”
“He wants you.” Tina smiled, but her eyes were solemn. “Be sure, honey. It’s all too easy for a man to be physically infatuated, with no lasting emotion to hold him to a woman. I like your young man very much, but then, he’s no threat to me.”
Elissa put her head in her hands and leaned over her coffee cup, feeling lost and miserable. “I don’t know what to do,” she confessed. “I don’t know if I can live without him now.”
“My poor darling,” Tina said quietly. She leaned over and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “You have to find your own way, you know. I love you, and nothing you do will ever change that. I know your father and I must seem very old-fashioned to you, but we believe in what we do, and the way we live has to reflect that. Earthly pleasures are fleeting. Love is immortal, and it goes beyond satisfying some fleeting physical hunger. In other words, sweetheart,” she explained with a grin, “sex won’t make up for the lack of love, no matter how good it is.”
“You hussy, talking like that,” Elissa teased.
“That’s me,” Tina agreed. Her eyes twinkled. “You don’t realize how much the world has changed in recent years. When I was in high school, girls could get expelled for wearing a skirt an inch above the knee. That was considered vulgar.” She pursed her lips with a smile. “Life is so violent these days that I sometimes wish we were back in the Amazon,” she muttered. “I felt safe there.”
“I can help you out,” Elissa said. “I’ll bring Warchief over here to live with us and he can make you feel you’re back in the jungle.”
Tina, who’d heard volumes about the big parrot, frowned. “We have neighbors with sensitive ears.”
“Our nearest neighbor is a mile down the beach,” Elissa pointed out.
“That’s what I mean. Sound carries. Besides,” she groaned, “parrots fly. I have enough trouble with little bitty mosquitoes. Imagine something that has wings and bites and weighs a pound.”
Elissa had never thought of him as a giant green mosquito. She laughed. She’d have to remember to tell King. King. Her gaze softened. What was she going to do?
Tina patted her hand. “Life generally goes on,” she reminded her daughter. “And God loves us. Even when we’re naughty little girls and boys.”
That was a comforting thought. Elissa got up and began to set the table.
Chapter Eight
Elissa’s first sight of the Oklahoma plains drew a helpless sigh from her. Oklahoma City, where King had claimed his big gray Lincoln at the airport parking lot, was beautiful and intriguing for its rising oil derricks within the huge city itself. But the rolling plains, sweeping toward the horizon as far as the eye could see, brought tears to her eyes.
“I’ve never, ever seen anything like it,” she breathed, her expression mirroring total delight.
King swerved the car as he darted a glance at her, fascinated. “I thought you’d hate it,” he replied. “You live on the coast.”
She wasn’t even listening. “The Plains Indians—did they come down this far? The Sioux and Cheyenne?”
“Well, honey, Oklahoma was where they sent the Five Civilized Tribes back during the Trail of Tears, during the late 1830s and 1840s. Some of them fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War—a few were slaveholders, you see—and because of that, the government forced them to sell their western lands at a sacrifice. We have Chickasaws, Choctaws, Cherokees, Creek—and Seminole,” he added after a pause.
Her face brightened. “No wonder it seems like home. Don’t they say something about an ancestral memory? Perhaps some of my ancestors came here.”
“The Seminoles were fierce warriors,” he agreed easily. “They fought the government to a standstill.”
“The Apache were pretty fierce, too, I hear,” she murmured. She smiled at him and then turned her attention back to the undulating hills. “How beautiful. There’s so much space, King.”
“That’s what I like about it. No crowding yet. Plenty of room. Oil and gas and cattle.”
“The oil industry has been hard hit, though.”
“Bobby and I had to diversify,” he agreed. “But good business management will spare us too much grief. There it is.” He indicated a dirt road leading to a grove of trees and a sprawling white frame house with huge porches. There were outbuildings and endless fences and herds of white-and-red cattle everywhere.
“The ranch?” she asked, excited.
“The ranch.” He chuckled at her expression as he pulled off the main highway onto the winding dirt road. “Like it?”
“Oh, I love it,” she said softly, drinking in the lush greens and the wildflowers that seemed to be everywhere. “Those are sunflowers!” she exclaimed.
“You’ll find a lot of unfamiliar vegetation,” he said. “We don’t have sea grapes and palms out here. We have water oaks and hickory trees…. Of course, we have some fascinating animals here, too. I doubt you’ve ever seen a moose.”
“I can hardly wait.”
“You shouldn’t be this enthusiastic,” he murmured dryly, remembering how much Bess had hated the ranch when she and Bobby married. Of course, Bess had grown up in dirt-poor surroundings, and he supposed she’d had her fill of roughing it. She’d probably longed for something completely different, more refined. But Bobby, like King, had loved the plains, loved walking the hills in search of arrowheads—one of King’s favorite childhood pastimes. “You’re a city
girl, remember?”
“I’m a country girl,” she argued. “Just because I work near Miami doesn’t make me citified. I like wide open spaces, like the beach and hills. Can I go walking when I feel like it, or are there …”
“Wild Indians?” he suggested with a wicked grin.
She hit him. “Wolves,” she replied.
“Only this one,” he murmured, winking at her.
She gave up, shaking her head. She didn’t remember the reason he’d brought her here. The real reason. He still wanted her. It was in his eyes, in the way he smiled at her. And Bess was somewhere nearby….
“Where does Bobby live?” she asked suddenly.
The smile left his face. “There.” He indicated a modern split-level house in the distance. “Almost in Jack’s Corner. Bess used to spend a lot of time in Oklahoma City, but Bobby said she’s started getting interested in local society.” He frowned. “Too bad it’s only tea parties and such. She sure could do a lot of social work if she had a mind to.”
He drove the Lincoln up to the front steps, and Elissa sighed over the big green rocking chairs and the porch swing. “I love it!” She grinned. “Can we sit in the swing?”
“Presently,” he promised, climbing out to open her door and help her, with old-world courtesy, to the ground.
The screen door swung open, and a middle-aged woman stomped onto the porch. Margaret Floyd, the housekeeper, was a big, buxom woman in her sixties with white hair and dark eyes and a mean-looking expression.
“Well, it’s about time,” she said, parking her hands on her broad hips. She was wearing a pale yellow print housedress with purple bedroom shoes, and a splattered white apron hugged her ample middle. “You’re an hour late. What did you do, get hijacked on the way back? I’ve ruined dinner, you’ll be glad to know, and who’s that?”
Elissa was being dragged up the steps and pushed forward like a shield before she had time to catch her breath.
“This is Elissa Dean,” King said, holding her there firmly, even though she wasn’t struggling.
“Well, glory be!” Margaret’s broad face brightened like a sunflower. “Finally!”
She rushed forward, and Elissa found herself engulfed in the smell of flour and apples.
“I thought he’d never get enough sense to bring you home,” Margaret gushed. “Idiot, chasing after them stupid city women.” She glared at King before turning back to Elissa. “You look like a nice girl. He says you still live at home,” she added with unashamed curiosity.
“Well, yes,” Elissa stammered. “My folks wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Margaret looked as if all her prayers had been answered. “Lordy, child, do come in and let me feed you. I’ve got a delicious pot roast, even if I do say so myself, and a pan of homemade rolls, and I baked him an apple pie.”
King went back to get the luggage, muttering things it was just as well Margaret didn’t actually hear. Margaret was a wonderful cook, had a mind like a steel trap and didn’t feel the least bashful about asking the most intimate kind of questions.
King finally ran her off so they could eat their meal in peace. Elissa’s face was beet red by then, and he looked a bit put out himself. Elissa couldn’t know that over the years, only Bess had ever been afforded such courteous treatment by the housekeeper. Margaret had always found not so subtle ways of showing her disapproval for the type of woman King had entertained so frequently in his younger days. Bess had been different, because Margaret knew her background and was frankly sorry for her.
“It’s a lovely meal,” Elissa said finally.
“Lovely,” he muttered.
She didn’t attempt conversation again. She finished the food and allowed Margaret to whisk her upstairs to unpack.
King was called out the minute he left the supper table to attend to sixty things the foreman—Ben Floyd, Margaret’s husband—hadn’t been able to, despite neighbor Blake Donavan’s help.
Elissa found herself alone after Margaret went to her own small house below the stables, and when King didn’t come back by midnight, she went to bed. Her first day on the ranch had been an experience.
The next morning, she awoke to strange noises. Cattle lowing. A rooster crowing. The barking of a dog. Clatter from downstairs. She sat up in bed with a lazy yawn and drank in the sweet, clean country air. It wasn’t so far removed from the Florida coast, after all. Country was country, except for the noises.
She got up and dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved blouse, feeling as summery as the weather. She left her hair down and her face clear of makeup.
Downstairs, King was sitting at the breakfast table with a brooding look. But it wasn’t the King she’d become accustomed to. This was a Westerner with a capital W. She stood stock-still in the doorway, just staring.
From his faded jeans and dusty boots up over a blue-and-white Western shirt to his dark hair, he was a different man. It wasn’t only the clothing; it was something in his face. A different look. A naturalness. A man in his native setting.
He looked up from his newspaper and cocked an eyebrow. “Well? Aren’t you hungry?”
“Of course.” She sat down beside him, her eyes curious.
“You’ve seen me in jeans before,” he reminded her, amused at her expression.
“You never looked like this before,” she faltered. Her eyes searched his.
He winked at her. “Did you sleep well?”
“Beautifully.” She sighed. “How about you?”
“When I finally got to sleep,” he muttered darkly, “it was soundly. Ben had five hours’ work waiting.”
“Wasn’t some neighbor supposed to be watching things for you?”
“He was, and he did,” came a deep, amused voice from the doorway, “but only Kingston can sign Kingston’s name to his checks.”
Elissa turned to find the voice. The man she saw made her shiver. He looked dangerous, a wild man with unruly black hair and pale green eyes set in lashes as thick and black as his eyebrows. He was lithe and lean and sported a scar down one cheek and a nose that looked to have been broken once too often. Somehow he didn’t look like the kind of man King would call a friend, and Elissa wondered how much else there was to learn about the enigmatic man she’d fallen in love with.
“Blake Donavan,” King introduced him. “This is my houseguest, Elissa Dean.”
“I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Donavan,” she said hesitantly.
He gave her an indifferent appraisal and nodded. “Same here.” He turned his attention to King. “If you’ve got everything you need, I’ll head back home. I’ve got those damned lawyers waiting. At least this time it’s for something productive. My signature goes on a document, and the suit’s settled once and for all.”
King lifted his coffee cup. “I hear Meredith Calhoun just won an award for her latest book.”
The green eyes kindled, and the lean face seemed to close up. Obviously this writer, whoever she was, was a touchy subject for Blake Donavan, Elissa noted. Had King brought up the name deliberately? she wondered.
“I’ve got work to do,” Donavan said tersely. “See you, Roper. Miss Dean,” he added, touching the brim of his hat, and was gone.
“Who’s Meredith Calhoun?” Elissa whispered, mindful of the open door.
King sighed. “That’s a long story,” he replied, apparently unwilling to delve into it.
“He’s a hard-looking man,” she ventured.
“Pure diamond,” he agreed, “and it goes straight through. If he looks hard, it’s because life made him hard. He was illegitimate, and his mother died in childbirth. He was taken in by a crusty old uncle who adopted him and gave him his name. The uncle died last year, and Donavan’s been in a hell of a court battle for the property ever since.”
“I can see why he won,” she remarked, shivering slightly and wondering anew at King’s ready compassion for life’s unfortunates. Of course, that compassion was what had made him so vulnerable to Bess…. “He’s younger than you
, isn’t he?” she said weakly, dragging her thoughts back to the present.
His dark eyes narrowed on her face. “Yes. Eight years. He’s almost thirty-two. Why? Does he appeal to you?”
She blinked. That sounded amazingly like jealousy. Why on earth should he feel possessive about her when it was Bess he loved?
Without waiting for her reply—besides, she was too stunned and confused to offer one—he got to his feet. “I’ve got a full day’s work ahead of me.”
“Not in your office, I gather?” she fished.
“On my ranch,” he said, leaning down to press a hard, warm kiss on her parted lips. “This is how I relax, tidbit—by keeping busy. Manual labor built this ranch.”
“You look like a cowboy,” she mused, surprised by the ardent kiss.
“I am a cowboy,” he replied, searching her blue eyes. “I can travel first-class and buy damned near anything I want, but what I like best is a horse under me and open land around me and a night sky to sleep under.”
“Do you?” She reached up to him, and amazingly, he came to her, letting her have his mouth. She kissed him warmly and was stunned by the softness of his lips, by his eager participation in a caress that had nothing to do with sex.
“Want to come see the calves later?” he asked as he lifted his head. “If you’re good, I’ll even let you pet one.”
“Yes, I’d like to,” she said, smiling lazily.
He drew in a slow, pleased breath as his eyes drank in her lovely face. “Fairy face,” he whispered. He bent again, brushing her mouth with his. “I’ll see you at lunch. Don’t let Margaret talk you to death.”
“I like Margaret,” she murmured.
“Margaret likes you, too, baby doll,” Margaret said from the doorway with a platter of eggs in her hand. She grinned toothily at King. “You lucky man, you.”
King actually flushed. “I’ve got work to do,” he mumbled, and he left them both there, pulling his hat down over his eyes with a jerk as he strode noisily from the room.
“Only walks that way when I’ve annoyed him,” Margaret assured her, grinning even wider. “But you’re the first girl he’s brought home to me to visit in a long, long time, so I reckon he’s in pretty deep. But you watch him, he’s no choirboy. He can be right dangerous in full pursuit.”