Matthew lifted his hat and drew his arm across his brow, making the fabric of his blue-and-black-plaid flannel shirt tighten across his wide back.
Jaimie swallowed, absently running the brush over Daisy’s withers.
Finally Jasper was settled, and Matthew, carrying his saddle as easily as if it were a down pillow, disappeared for a moment in the tack room. She heard him moving around inside for a few minutes. He reappeared within minutes and started toward Jaimie.
She thought he would pass right on by, completely ignorant of her presence. But he slowed, then stopped. He hooked his boot over the lowest slat on the gate and folded his arms across the top. And she knew then that he’d been fully aware of her presence all along.
Jaimie held the brush so tightly, the bristles dug into her palm. She had no escape route here. No chores she could use as an excuse to keep her stupid, foolish heart from tripping all over itself. Maybe if she hadn’t gone on that ride just now and let herself daydream about him, she’d have more strength. It seemed all she could do was stare at him.
“You’ve made a friend.”
She nodded, desperately shoring up her resolve. He wants Donna Blanchard, she fiercely reminded herself.
He nodded, too, then looked to the side. The toe of his boot tapped against the wooden rail. Her heart pounded, and she was surprised he couldn’t hear it in the thick silence. “You’ve been working hard,” he said after a moment.
“So?” Lord, she hadn’t expected the word to come out so sharp. So defensive.
Matthew thumbed his hat back an inch. “So...nothing.” His shoulders moved, irritated. “Just trying to make conversation. You’ve been slicker than a greased pig lately.”
“Oh, thank you so much.” She lifted the brush to Daisy once more. “Women just love to be compared to big fat pigs.”
“Who said anything about fat pigs?”
“You did.”
“I did not.”
She shot him a look. “What do you want? Another dinner for you and your new girlfriend?”
His eyes narrowed, icy blue among those curiously dark lashes. “I’m going over to Jefferson’s,” he said, ignoring her question for one of his own. “Do you want to come or not?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
They glared at each other.
Jaimie was the first to move. She pushed his arms on the gate. “Get out of the way, then.”
He didn’t budge. “Say ‘please.”’
Oh, when did she ever think he was a nice man? “Please.” She smiled, saccharine sweet.
He lifted his arms and unlatched the gate, swinging it wide, and she sailed through.
“Sassy brat,” he muttered.
She turned, her hand on her hip. “What’s that?”
“You heard me, Red. You’ve been nothing but sass since you put your high-heeled sandals on Double-C soil.”
“Well, pardon me,” she snapped, stung. “I can’t imagine why you’d ask me to go with you if my company is so objectionable.”
“The only thing objectionable about you, sweetheart, is your tongue.”
One moment she was holding the grooming brush in her hand and the next she’d launched it at his head. Horrified at herself, she could only stare as his hand shot up to catch the missile.
He set the brush on the wide top rail and stepped toward her. “Matthew—” she lifted her hands. “—I’m sorry. That was in—” she backed up a step “—inexcusable.”
“Yup,” he drawled.
She licked her lips and backed up another step, bumping her elbow against the row of stalls. “I said I’m sorry. What more do you want?”
His lips quirked, his expression pained. “Sweetheart, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“What?”
“‘Sweetheart.’” Her lips firmed. “I’m not your sweetheart,” she snapped, wholeheartedly wishing that she didn’t want exactly that.
He took a step closer, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when he placed his hands on the rail either side of her shoulders. “Okay, Jaimie.”
Ohmigod, that was worse. The way his lips closed over her name sent all sorts of yearnings rushing through her. “Look, you just annoyed me, okay?” She hated the way her breath was suddenly rushing unsteadily past her lips. “Calling me a pig and...and all.”
“I did not call you a pig.” He slowly shook his head. “The way your mind works is a complete mystery.”
“There you go again!” She pushed at his chest, but he was an immovable object. “Get your hands off me.”
“My hands aren’t on you,” he pointed out reasonably. “But you,” he closed his big palm over the fists pushing at his chest, “have yours on me.”
She tried to pull her hands away. Futile. He simply wrapped his fingers around both her wrists. Her heart was doing that stupid little jig that happened whenever she stood too close to him. She tossed her head back, her tart response dying unsaid upon her lips.
His eyes. Oh. Lord, those eyes. They seemed to look right down into her very soul. She could no more resist him than she could jump to the moon.
“Ah, Red. What am I going to do with you?” His husky question whispered across her temple.
Her voice was even softer. “What do you want to do?”
Matthew watched the color climb into her cheeks. Self-mockery pulled at the corners of his lips. “Dangerous question.” The tiny corner of his brain retaining any measure of common sense told him to stop moving his thumb back and forth across the soft skin of her palm. Her chin lowered and his jaw locked when her lips touched his knuckles. “We’re not gonna do this.”
Her lashes lifted and she looked up at him. A man could drown in those slumberous green eyes. His thumb touched her lip. Slid to the corner and parted them. “We’re not gonna do this,” he repeated.
Her tongue flickered across the pad of his thumb, then retreated. She ran her free hand up his arm. Molded his shoulder. Slipped up his neck.
“Jaimie—”
His hat tumbled to the ground. Her fingers slid into his hair. Traced his ear.
He grabbed her exploring hand. Pressed it safely out of the way. “Jaimie—”
“I like the way you say my name,” she murmured.
Her head suddenly moved, and he felt her lips touch his throat. He jerked, capturing her second hand safely against the stall, also. She leaned back, her hair tumbling about her shoulders. She looked up at him with such naked longing that it was all he could do not to push her into the empty stall behind her where a fresh bed of straw beckoned. “You started this,” she whispered.
Oh, that sassy mouth. “So I did.” Though he touched only her wrists, his blood whistled through his veins as if they were plastered together from breast to hip.
“Kiss me, Matthew.” Her pupils dilated. “Just a kiss. It’s not so bad. You’ve even done it before.”
“Here, Adam, have a taste of this apple.”
“Do I tempt you?”
His lips were inches from hers. “Yeah.”
“You’re not happy about it, though.”
He slowly shook his head.
“I won’t beg.”
“I don’t want you to.” He closed his mouth over hers. It was like getting a shot of heaven straight into his veins. He couldn’t get enough. A kiss. That was all he would allow. A kiss. That went on and on and on, whittling his control down to a silly, fleeting dream. So much for limits and delusional promises.
Letting her wrists free, his hands slid along her arms, to her waist. She was so slender his hands nearly spanned her waist. All these weeks, months of watching her. Wanting her. It had only gotten worse since the night in the motel.
He wanted to throw her over his shoulder and whisk her to his bed.
He contented himself with cupping her narrow hips in his palms and pulling her tightly to him, acutely, painfully aware of the way her soft curves greeted him.
; Jaimie’s breath stalled when he pulled her against him. Mindless, she arched against that hard ridge behind his zipper. A moan rose in her when his lips slipped to her throat. His hands, so sure and strong, slid over her bottom, tilting her toward him. Her arms twined around his shoulders, fingers slipping down the back of his shirt, touching his neck, nearly singeing from his searing body heat.
His breath rasped across her ear, and his tongue sent a jolt through her system. His name was a gasp on her lips. He rocked against her, and she could only cling to him. There were too many clothes between them.
As if he’d read her mind, his palm slid beneath her sweater, pulling it up. She leaned back enough for him to pull it from her head.
Time stopped. His eyes clung to her as tightly as the plain white thermal undershirt did. The textured fabric couldn’t disguise a single curve. A muscle ticked in his jaw. Just when she thought she couldn’t stand still another moment, his hand curled beneath her thigh. Braced between him and the stall gate, she felt him drape her thigh around his hip and press himself against her.
She bit her lip, her breath hard. Her undershirt came free from her . jeans and his palms, callused and utterly seductive, slid beneath. Her lids were so heavy she could hardly keep them open. But she needed to see his face. Needed to see the heat tightening his features when he closed his fingers over her breast, his thumb rubbing her nipple.
“We’ve gotta stop,” he said roughly. Then pushed her undershirt up enough to reveal her bare flesh. He cradled her bottom against him, and his mouth, warm and wet, closed over first one peak, then the other.
Jaimie arched against him. The seams of their jeans couldn’t disguise the warm notch his hips had found. She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to get rid of the layers of denim and flannel separating them. She wanted to feel the rough brush of his whiskers over every inch of her skin. Wanted to feel his warm skin against hers. Wanted him to fill the emptiness inside.
An emptiness she hadn’t even known existed until she’d met Matthew.
“We’ve got to—oh, yes.” Her fingers convulsed, holding his head to her breast. “We’ve gotta...stop.” Her head knew it. Her heart was slower in following. But already Matthew’s head had lifted. He held her against him while their breathing quieted. She unlocked her leg and he set her to the ground, pulling her undershirt into place.
He heaved a rough sigh, his fingers smoothing her hair down her back. “You okay?”
“Yes.” No. They were both so aroused, the air hummed with it. Beneath her cheek, the flannel shirt was soft. The wide chest beneath that, rock hard. Steady and strong. Her fingers curled into his arms.
“What?”
She shook her head. She would like to burrow right under his shirt and press her cheek against his heart.
“I’m sorry.”
The words slapped her like a cold, wet, towel. She opened her eyes wide, unwilling to let the sudden hot tears fall. “I’m not.” She lifted her chin. “So if you expect me to apologize, too, you’re going to be disappointed.”
Matthew studied her from lids at half-mast. “What little wheels are turning in that mind of yours?”
She raked her hair away from her face and sidled past him. By some small blessing, her legs still operated. Embarrassment burned in her, almost—but not quite—replacing the desire still coursing through her. The last time she’d felt even remotely like this, she’d nearly fallen into Tony Dayton’s bed. That had been a disaster. But she’d made herself a promise then. Never again would she even contemplate making love with a man unless she knew he loved her in return. If that made her the oldest living virgin on the planet, then so be it. She’d made that promise to herself, and she would be darned if she’d break it.
“Jaimie?”
She closed her hands over the smooth wooden rail, looking at him over her shoulder. Why were some promises so hard to keep?
He seemed to be weighing his words. “You do understand why...we can’t—”
She couldn’t help it. The man was primed and they both knew it. “Can’t?”
He propped his fists on his hips, all male. “Won’t, then,” he obliged. “You’re on the Double-C. That makes you my responsibility.”
“So?”
“So, I can’t very well watch out for you while I’m...taking advantage of you,” he said doggedly.
He really believed that. She could see it in his lighter-than-blue eyes. Her heart gave an odd little twist. “I can watch out for myself.”
“I know that.” He raked his fingers through his hair, leaving it standing up in endearing spikes. “But you...well, you’re...”
She raised her eyebrows, waiting.
“Jaimie, I’m older than you. A lot older than you. You’re—”
“Well over the legal age,” she inserted. “For heaven’s sake, Matthew. I’m not some teenager that you’ve hired for the summer. I’m twenty-seven. I do know the facts of life.” Maybe not firsthand, she admitted silently. But close enough.
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered.
“And I can look after myself.”
“So you said.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, as if he’d developed a sudden headache. “It’s stupid pretending there’s no...attraction...between us. But that’s all it is. You deserve more than that.”
She knelt and picked up his hat, twirling it in her fingers. Her fingers smoothed over the finely braided hatband. She really loved his hat. It wasn’t the hat of a dandy. Sweat had left stains. It was the hat of a hardworking man. The hat reminded her of Matthew, actually. Strong. Protective. And undeniably sexy.
“You know I am sorry, after all.” She held the hat out for him. “Not sorry for what happened, or for what didn’t.” She picked her sweater off the rail it had caught on and pulled it over her head.
She tugged her hair out of the collar and shook it free, breathlessly aware of the way his eyes followed her movements. But she took strength in the intensity of his gaze as she stepped close to him, her eyes daring him to back away. Of course he didn’t. Matthew had his feet very firmly planted on the ground. Any attraction he felt for her wasn’t enough to pull those feet into the clouds. “You want me,” she said softly. “We could’ve made love right here. Right now,” she added, wondering vaguely where she’d gotten such courage. It must have come from him. “But we both wanted to stop. We just had different reasons for doing so.”
His eyes narrowed as he waited.
“When I make love, it will be with someone who loves me back,” she said evenly. “That’s what I deserve. And what I am sorry about is that you don’t realize that it’s also what you deserve.”
Matthew watched her wheel around on her heel and walk away. Alone with only his horses to hear him. he swore. The woman was a soft heart just waiting to be smashed. He would be hanged if he would be the one to do it. He plowed his fingers through his hair and slammed his hat back in place. Forgetting all about his plan to visit his brother, he stomped out to the woodpile and, hands on hips, contemplated the already neat stack of firewood.
Calling himself ten kinds of fool, he reached for a log and the ax and started swinging.
Chapter Seven
Matthew counted himself lucky that Squire returned from Casper the next day. Even though his father was in one heck of a temper, stomping around the house grousing about contrary women. Bad temper or not, Squire was an additional presence around the house. A buffer.
He shook his head in disgust and propped his boot on the bottom fence rail he’d just reattached to the post. A grown man, all but hiding behind his daddy.
He straightened abruptly, settled his hat and pushed at the mended post. It didn’t budge. Good. He rotated his shoulders, then gathered up his tools and dumped them in the back of the pickup. Sandy scrambled out of the way, whining.
“Sorry girl,” he murmured, running his fingers through her silky ruff.
Looking across the truck bed, he contemplated the mile and a half of snow-covered fields s
eparating him from the big house. It was after noon. She would have dinner on the table. Filling, tasty food. She would be pouring Squire’s coffee. Her sassy butt swaying around the kitchen, wild hair drifting into her eyes—
No! He had to stop thinking that way. She wasn’t a permanent part of the Double-C and she never would be. Maggie would have her baby, and Jaimie would go back to the city. Where she belonged.
And that, as they said, was that.
Jaimie stole another glance at the wall clock. Almost one-thirty. Obviously Matthew wasn’t coming in for his lunch. The man’s punctual habits about his noon meal were almost legendary. It was bad enough that he’d left the house well before breakfast time. Now he was avoiding another meal.
Swallowing a wad of disappointment, she wrapped what could be saved and tossed out the rest, then fixed herself a thick peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a tall glass of milk.
Comfort food.
She should never have thrown herself at Matthew the way she had in the barn. He was avoiding her. The poor man was probably embarrassed to death.
That hadn’t been embarrassment tightening the fit of his jeans when you were plastered against him.
She took a huge bite of sandwich, forcing it down with milk. Well, whatever—she dismissed that contrary voice inside her head.
He could’ve done whatever in just a few more minutes. You wouldn’t have been able to stop no matter what you said...
“Shut up.”
“Talking to yourself is the first sign, you know.”
She whirled around. Daniel leaned against the doorjamb, the corner of his lip curving.
Jaimie made a face and turned back to her sandwich. “You’ve already eaten enough for five men,” she pointed out. “Don’t tell me you’re back for dessert?”
“Not if dessert is—” he cocked his head for a look at her sandwich “—a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
“Guess you’re out of luck then.”
“I’m waiting for you to make some more of that chocolate mousse stuff,” he said, his voice smooth as butter.
The Rancher And The Redhead Page 10