by Diana Palmer
“I’ve read about the sort of work you do,” he commented, recalling articles he’d seen in the daily newspaper. “You’re second only to a physician in authority. The only thing you can’t do is write a prescription without his supervision.”
“That’s true.” She smiled.
He studied her slender body, her exquisite figure nicely outlined by the garments she was wearing. “All those years, nothing but textbooks and exams and, then, a hectic career. No men?” he added, with a calculating stare.
“I dated,” she replied. “I just couldn’t afford to get serious about anybody. My father scraped and begged and borrowed to get the money to finance my nursing education,” she told him. “Even Mike…contributed to it.” She drew in a steadying breath and locked her fingers together on her lap. “It would have been so petty of me to throw all that up, just so I could go to parties and get drunk with the other students.”
“Surely there wasn’t much of that, at a community college?”
She laughed. “You’d be surprised. There was all too much, for my taste. But I didn’t live on campus. I lived at home and commuted.” She met his searching gaze. “That party I was at, when Leo was attacked—the woman who gave it was a college classmate who works for a doctor in our practice. I knew she sort of had a reputation. I guess I should have realized how wild things would get, but I was so depressed that I let her pressure me into going to the party. It was a mistake.”
“A lucky mistake, for my brother,” Rey said gently. “He might have been killed, if you hadn’t come along when you did.” He scowled. “You said, you ran at the attackers, waving your arms.”
She nodded. “Mike taught me about shock tactics,” she said sadly. “I was afraid it wouldn’t work, but I had no weapon, no other way of stopping them. So I took the risk.”
“I’m grateful that you did.” He shook his head slowly. “But it was an act of lunacy, Meredith. You could have been lying on the grass next to Leo.”
“But I wasn’t.” She hunched her shoulders as if she felt a chill. “I think there might be a force behind every single chain of events,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t believe in chaos,” she elaborated. “The body is such a messy, beautiful miracle. A single cell has chemical processes that are so complex, so meticulously crafted, that I can’t believe life is an accident. If it isn’t accidental, it has to be planned.” She shrugged. “That’s simple logic. That’s why I don’t think God is a myth.”
They were silent for a moment. “You’re the most intriguing woman I’ve ever met,” he murmured, and his dark eyes fell to her soft, full mouth.
“Surely not?” she asked demurely. “I don’t have any secrets left.”
“That’s what you think,” he said in a soft, low tone.
She looked up and he moved toward her, one hand catching the wooden headboard as he levered his hard mouth down against her soft one.
Her hands instinctively went to his chest, but its muscular warmth was fascinating. She’d never done anything really intimate with her infrequent dates, having been completely turned off by men with fast reputations. She preferred gentlemen to rounders. She knew that Rey had been a rounder. She wanted to draw away. She really did.
But Rey Hart was completely out of her experience. He wasn’t aggressive and insistent, as one of Meredith’s rare dates had been. He didn’t rush at her. He didn’t insist. He wasn’t insulting with the speed of his advances. He simply bent and kissed her, slowly and gently, with nothing more intimate than his hard, tender lips touching hers. He nibbled her upper lip and lifted his mouth slowly.
“You’re doing a surfboard imitation,” he murmured. “There’s no need. I’m too good a cattleman to rush my fences.”
She was trying to understand the slow, sensuous speech when his lips came down on hers again and caressed her upper lip. Her hands pressed flat against his muscular chest. She liked the way he felt. She could feel the quick, strong pulse of his heart under her palms. She could feel the growing rise and fall of his breathing.
His teeth nibbled her lips again, tenderly, and she found her hands moving under his arms and around him. She wanted to be held close, tight. She wanted him to envelop her against him. She wanted something more than this torturous teasing of his mouth on hers.
She made a husky, high-pitched little cry into his mouth and her nails bit into the solid muscles of his back.
“What do you want?” he whispered just above her lips.
“Kiss me,” she moaned huskily.
“Kisses are dangerous, didn’t you know?” he murmured, smiling against her responsive mouth. “They can be very addictive.”
She was following his lips mindlessly. Her body was on fire. She’d never felt such headlong desire. Belatedly she realized that his hands were at her rib cage. Whether by accident or design, they were moving slowly up and down, up and down, so that his long fingers just lightly brushed the underswell of her breasts. It was extremely provocative. It was arousing.
She caught her breath as they moved ever closer to entrapment, and her eyes locked into his.
“Don’t you like it this way?” he asked at her lips, brushing his mouth against them.
“Like…it?” she murmured mindlessly. Her body was reaching up toward those tormenting hands. She was shivering with every pulsating motion of her body, trembling with new and exciting surges of pleasure.
He laughed softly, sensuously. “Never mind.” He lifted a hand to her hair and tugged out the hairpins, so that her beautiful long hair fell down around her shoulders. He tugged aside the top she was wearing, so that her shoulder was bare. Then he bent to it with his mouth, and she felt the warm, moist press of his lips right in the hollow of her shoulder.
Her nails dug into him. She lifted toward his mouth with a hoarse moan as she felt the slow tracing of his tongue against skin that had never known a man’s touch. She was on fire. She was going to go up in flames right here. She didn’t want to think, see, hear anything. She only wanted Rey to keep on touching her, to keep on holding her, to never, never stop…!
CHAPTER EIGHT
Just when the world was spinning away in a warm, pleasurable oblivion, the sound of loud, urgent footsteps echoed down the hall and brought Rey upright.
He looked at her with narrow, blank eyes as the sound grew louder. He cursed under his breath and got to his feet, keeping his back to her as he moved to the window, gripped the curtains and stared out at the pasture beyond.
Meredith dragged the bedspread up under her arms, over her clothes, and tried to steady her breathing. When she remembered what she and Rey had been doing, she blushed.
The door, ajar, was pushed completely open, and Leo came in with a tray. On it were a china cup and saucer, with a silver coffeepot, a silver cream and sugar service and a napkin and spoon. On a china plate were some dainty little chicken salad sandwiches.
“I thought you might be hungry,” Leo said with a gentle smile as he put the tray on her lap. It had legs, so it would stand alone over her lap. “Mrs. Lewis came over to fix supper, and I had her make you these.”
“Thank you!” she exclaimed. “And thank Mrs. Lewis, too. I was just starting to feel empty!”
Rey made an odd sound and she reached for a tiny sandwich very quickly, not daring to glance at him after the enthusiastic and unwise remark she’d just made.
Leo turned his eyes toward his brother. “Something wrong with you?” he asked curiously.
“Stomach cramp,” Rey said without turning. “I had chili and salsa for lunch. Heartburn’s killing me!”
“You should go and take an antacid tablet,” Leo advised. “And drink some milk.”
“I guess I’d better.” Rey took a long breath and turned around, feeling more normal, finally. He glanced at Meredith. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“I’ll be fine. Thanks for the conversation,” she said, and wouldn’t meet his eyes. But she smiled shyly.
He just looked at her. Suddenly his d
ark eyes began to burn. He studied her intently, as if something had just happened that shocked him.
“Are you all right?” she asked impulsively.
He took a slow breath. He was still staring at her, to his brother’s covert amusement. With her hair around her shoulders like that, sitting up in bed, smiling at him, he felt as if his whole life had just shifted five degrees. She was uncommonly pretty with her hair down. She had a warm, kind heart. She’d put her life on the line for a total stranger. Why hadn’t that occurred to him in Houston, when they first told him that she’d saved his brother from attackers?
“Leo probably owes you his life,” Rey said carefully. “But it bothers me that you risked your own to save him.”
“Wouldn’t you have done that same thing, even for a total stranger?” she mused.
He hesitated. “Yes,” he said after deliberating for a few seconds. “I suppose I would have.”
“See? You have all sorts of potential as a prospective husband,” she added with a wicked smile, which got wider when he reacted. “You’re sexy, you’re rich, you drive a nice car, and besides all that, you like animals.” She began nodding her head. “Definite potential.”
His high cheekbones flushed and he glared at her. “I don’t want to get married.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said soothingly. “It’s perfectly natural for a bachelor to resist matrimony. But you’ll come around.” She wiggled both eyebrows. “If you get me a ring, I’ll let you see my collection of used chewing-gum wrappers and bottle caps.”
He was still glaring.
Leo chuckled. “I’d love to see your used chewing-gum wrappers, Meredith,” he said enthusiastically. “In fact, I may start collecting right now!”
Rey stared a hole through his brother while, inside him, something froze.
“I’ll even consider marrying you,” Leo added wickedly.
She laughed, not taking him seriously. “Sorry. It’s Rey or nobody. My heart’s set on him.” She frowned. “Pity I couldn’t trade you something for him,” she murmured to Leo.
Rey was getting angrier by the second, and uncomfortable at the idea that Leo was trying to cut him out.
“Make me an offer,” Leo told her. “But he can’t cook, and he has a temper worse than a sunburned rattler. Besides that, you can’t domesticate him. He wears his spurs to the dinner table.”
“So do you!” Rey accused.
“I sit more daintily than you do,” Leo said imperturbably.
Rey rammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and glared at Meredith again. “You can’t give people away.”
“I’m not trying to give you away,” Leo said calmly. “I want to make a profit.” He scowled suddenly and his eyes widened as he looked at his brother’s boots.
Meredith was staring at them, too. She pursed her lips and exchanged a look with Leo.
Rey glared back at them belligerently. “What?” he demanded hotly.
Both Leo’s eyebrows went up, along with both hands, palms out. “I didn’t say a word!”
“Neither did I,” Meredith assured him.
Rey looked from one to the other and finally looked down. There, on one of his feet, was a dainty little foot sock with a tassel on it, covering the steel toe of his brown cowboy boot. He’d unknowingly picked it up under Meredith’s bed while he was kissing her.
Rey jerked it off, cursed royally, shot a furious glance at Meredith and his brother, who were trying valiantly not to look at him, and stomped out.
Helpless laughter erupted from the two people left in Meredith’s room, and the sound of it infuriated Rey.
Leo was obviously ready to set up shop with their recently disclosed nurse, and Rey didn’t like it. Leo was the plague of housekeepers everywhere, but he was also easier on the eyes than the other brothers, and he was charming. Rey had never learned how to use charm. He always looked uncomfortable when he smiled. Especially with women like Meredith, who was painfully shy and naive. He wasn’t used to such women. But what made it so much worse was the dropping sensation in his stomach that he’d experienced when he’d stared at Meredith. He hadn’t had anything like that since Carlie, who made his pulse race almost as fast as Meredith did when he kissed her.
He could still taste Meredith on his mouth. She didn’t know much, but she made up for her lack of knowledge with enthusiasm and curiosity. He thought about carrying the lessons much farther, about baring her to the waist. His heart began to slam into his throat as he tried to imagine what she looked like under her blouse. He already knew that the skin of her shoulder was warm and soft, like silk. He remembered her husky moan when he’d kissed her there, the way her fingers had bitten into his back like little sharp pegs.
He’d been away from women for a long time, but he still knew what to do with one, and his imagination was working overtime just now. Meredith had attracted him when she was just his cook. Now that he knew about the intelligent, capable woman underneath the flighty camouflage, he was fascinated with her. She was everything a man could wish for.
Not that she wanted him, oh, no. She’d made it plain. But that teasing speech about marriage had unnerved him. His freedom was like a religion. He didn’t want to get married. Of course he didn’t!
But it was natural to think of Meredith with children. He could picture her baking biscuits for him every morning and holding a child in her arms at night while they watched television. He could picture her playing catch with a little boy out in back, or picking wildflowers with a little girl at her skirts. She was kind and sweet. She’d make a wonderful mother.
There was her job, of course. He knew something about her profession, that it was supposed to be high pressure. She’d be called upon to make life and death decisions, to comfort the sick and grieving, to make herself involved in the daily lives of her patients so that she should counsel them on how to maintain good health. Besides all that, she had a college degree.
Rey was college educated, too, with a degree in management and a minor in marketing. He was the mind behind the business decisions, the coordinator of the labor pool, and the director of marketing for the brothers’ cattle cooperative. He was good at what he did. He enjoyed conversations with other educated people, and he’d convinced himself that Meredith wouldn’t know Degas from Dali, Domingo from Dwight Yoakum, Hemingway from Dr. Seuss. Now he knew better, and his respect for her increased.
She’d saved Billy Joe’s life at the gun club. He recalled that she must have known what to do for Leo as well, when she’d found him after he was mugged. Leo really did owe her his life. She was competent, confident, and she wasn’t hard on the eyes, either. She had wonderful qualities.
But he didn’t want to marry her. He wasn’t sure about Leo. His eyes narrowed as he recalled the way Leo conspired with her. Leo had known all about her already. Obviously they’d been talking together since her arrival at the ranch, because Leo hadn’t been a bit surprised when she rushed over to manage Billy Joe’s heart attack.
Why hadn’t he noticed that? Leo had called for Meredith when he was in the hospital. He was obviously fond of her. Maybe he was interested in her romantically, too. He’d been interested in Tess, before Cag had walked off with her, but Tess hadn’t realized it. Or if she had, she’d ignored it. Leo wasn’t hard on the eyes, either, and when it came to charm, he had his share and Rey’s as well.
As he walked down to the barn to talk to one of his men, Rey had a terrible premonition that Leo had been serious when he joked about being willing to marry Meredith. Would she be desperate enough, lonely enough, frightened enough, to marry Leo and give up her job and living with her father? Her father had beaten her badly. She might be looking for a way out of the torment, and there was Leo, successful and handsome and charming, just ready to take her in and protect her.
Rey felt himself choke on dread. He couldn’t imagine living in a house with Meredith if she was married to his brother. He’d rather throw himself headfirst into a cement mixer!
* * *
Several days later, Meredith received a huge bouquet of assorted roses from Billy Joe, now out of the hospital and back on the shooting range. She put them in water in the kitchen, along with the card, which the brothers blatantly read.
“He’d marry you,” Rey drawled with pure acid in his tone as he dragged out a chair and sat down to lunch. “He’s been widowed twenty years.”
Meredith gave Leo a mischievous glance and fiddled with putting biscuits in a linen-lined basket. “He’s not bad-looking for a man his age, and it wouldn’t hurt him to have a nurse under his roof.” She glanced at Rey’s eloquent back. “But can he cook?”
Rey sipped coffee noisily.
“And does he slurp his coffee?” she added without missing a beat.
“That was done deliberately, to show you that I don’t give a damn about manners!” Rey growled.
“All right, just don’t expect me to take you to any nice restaurants while we’re courting,” she said easily, setting the basket of biscuits on the table.
“Lady, you aren’t taking me as far as the mailbox,” he said curtly.
He looked ferocious. That black temper was already kindling. Meredith studied his bent head curiously. You never knew about men. She’d seen some very mild-mannered ones come to the emergency room with wives who’d been beaten within an inch of their lives. It didn’t hurt to see how far a man would go when he got mad. Especially after her experience with her father.
“You’ll have to learn to scrape the mud off those enormous boots, too,” she went on in a conversational tone. “And not slurp your soup. Your hair could use a good trim…”