"Shhhhh!" he said curtly, glancing stealthily around. "Somebody might hear you!"
"I can't quit! I just started working here the week before last!"
"You have to quit," he insisted. "If I go home without you, Lil ian is going to starve me to death. She's get ing her revenge in the kitchen. Smal portions. Desserts without sugar. Diet foods." He shuddered. "I'm A shadow of my former self.'
She glared at him. "Poor old thing," she said with poisonous sweetnes .
He glared back. "I am not old. I'm just hit ing my prime."
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"That's nothing to do with me," she as ured him. "I hope you didn't come al the way to Atlanta just to make this lit le scene!"
"I came to take you back with me," he replied. His eyes took on a determined hardnes . "And, by God, I'm taking you back. If I have to pick you up bodily and carry you out of here in a fireman's lift."
Her heart jumped, but she didn't let him see how he was disturbing her. "I'l scream my head off," she said shortly.
"Good. Then everyone wil think you're in pain, and I'l tel them I'm taking you to the hospital for emergency treatment." He glared at her. "Wel ?" He had a stubborn streak that even outmatched her own. She weighed the possibilities. If he carried her out by force, she'd lose al credibility with her colleagues. If she fought him in front of everyone, Ward would get al the sympathy, and Mari would look like a heartles shrew. He had her over a barrel.
"Why?" she asked, her voice quiet and defeated. "Why not just let me stay here?"
He searched her eyes. "Your aunt mis es you," he said gruffly.
"She could cal me collect and talk to me," she replied. "There's no reason at al for me to go back to Texas and complicate my life and yours."
"My life is pret y boring right now, if you want to know the truth." He sighed, watching her. "I don't even enjoy foreclosing on people anymore. Besides al that, my cousin Bud's come to stay, and he's driving me out of my mind."
Cousin Bud was a familiar name. He was the one Ward's fiancee had wound up marrying for a brief time.
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She couldn't imagine Ward actual y welcoming the man as a guest.
"I'm surprised that you let him," she confes ed. He stared at her. "So you know al about that, too?" She flushed, dropping her eyes to the desk. "Aunt Lil ian mentioned it." He sighed heavily. "Wel , he's family. My grandmother her worships him. I couldn't say no without having her jump al over me—and maybe even rush home to defend him. She's having a good time at Belinda's. No reason to disturb her."
She knew about old Mrs. Jes up as wel , and she almost smiled at his lack of enthusiasm for his grandmothers company.
"If you've already got one houseguest, you surely don't need another one."
He shrugged. "There's plenty of room. My secretary quit," he added, studying his hat. "I sure could use some help in the office. You could almost name your own salary."
' You forced me to leave Texas in the first place," she shot back, glaring up at him. "You did everything but put me on the bus! You propositioned me!" His cheeks had a sudden flush, and he looked away.
You can't actual y like this job," he said shortly. "You said you hated working with numbers."
"1 like eating," she replied. "It's hard to eat when you aren't making money."
"You could come home with me and make money," he said. "You could live with your aunt and help me keep Cousin Bud from sel ing off cat le under my nose.
"Sel ing off cat le?"
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His powerful shoulders rose and fel . "He owns ten percent of the ranch. I had a weak moment when he was eighteen and made him a graduation present of it. The thing is, I never know which ten percent he happens to be claiming at the moment. It seems to change quarterly." He brushed at a speck of dust on his hat. "Right now, he's sneaking around get ing statistics on my purebred Santa Gertrudis bull."
"What could I do about Cousin Bud—if I went with you?" she asked reasonably.
"You could help me distract him," he said. "With you in the office, he couldn't very wel get to any statistics. He couldn't find out where I keep that bull unles he found it on the computer. And you'd be watching the computer."
It was just an excuse, and she knew it. For reasons of his own it suited him to have her at the ranch. She didn't flat er herself that it was out of any abiding love. He probably did stil want her, but perhaps it was more a case of wanting to appease Lil ian. She frowned, thinking.
"Is my aunt al right?" she asked.
He nodded. "She's fine. I wouldn't lie to you about] that. But she's lonesome. She hasn't been the same since! you left." Neither had he, he thought, but he couldn't tel her. Not yet. She didn't trust him at al , and he couldn't real y blame her.
She fiddled with a pencil, considering Ward's offer. She could tel him to go away and he would. And she'd never see him again. She could go on alone and take up, the threads of her life. What a life it would be. What a long, lonely life.
"Come with me, Mari," he said softly. "This is no place for you."
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She didn't look up. "I meant what I said before I left. If I come back, I don't. . I don't want you to.. to.. " He sighed gently. "I know, I know. You don't have to worry," he told her. "I won't proposition you. You have my word on that." She shifted. "Then I'l go."
He forced back a smile. "Come on, then. I've got the tickets already."
She lifted her eyebrows. "Were you that confident?"
"Not confident at al ," he replied. "But I figured I could always put my Stetson in one of the seats if you refused." She did smile faintly at that. "I always heard that a real Texan puts his hat on the floor and his boots on the hat rack." He lifted a tooled leather boot and studied it, "Yep," in said. "I gues I'd put my boots in the extra seat, at that. But I'd rather have you in it." She got to her feet and put her work aside. "I need to see Mr. Blake, my boss."
"I'l wait." He wasn't budging.
After Mari had apologetical y informed her boss of her departure, she picked up her purse, waved at her new friends and went quietly out the door with Ward. It felt odd, and she knew it was foolhardy. But she was too vulnerable stil to refuse him. She only hoped that could keep him from knowing just how vulnerable the was. He drove her back to her apartment and then wandered around the living room while she packed.
His fingers brushed the spines of the thick volumes in her smal bookcase. "The Tudors of England," he murmured, "ancient Greece, Herodotus, Thucydides quite a collection of history.*'
"I like history," she commented. "It's interesting reading about how other people lived in other times."
"Yes, I think so, too," he agreed. "I prefer Western history myself. I have a good collection of information on the Comanche and the cowboy period in south Texas, from the Civil War up to the 1880s."
She took her bag into the living room, watching the way he fil ed the room. He was so big. So masculine. He seemed to dwarf everything.
"We don't real y know a lot about each other, do we?" he asked as she joined him. He turned, hands in his pockets, spreading the fabric of his trousers close against the powerful muscles of his legs.
"Get ing to know women isn't one of your particular interests, from what I've heard," she returned quietly. "At least, not in any intel ectual way."
"I explained why," he reminded her, and his green eyes searched her blue ones. "It isn't easy learning to trust people." She nodded. "I suppose not." She wanted to ask him why he seemed to be so interested in where she lived, but she was too shy. "I'm packed." He glanced toward her suitcase. "Enough for a lit le while?"
"Enough for a week or so," she said. "You didn't say how long I was to stay."
He sighed heavily. "That's something we'l leave for later. Right now I just want to go home." He looked around him. "It's like you," he said final y. "Bright. Cheerful, Very homey."
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She hadn't felt bright and cheerful and homey in recent weeks. She'd felt depres ed and miserable. But it fascinated her that her apartment told him so much.
"It doesn't have an indoor stream," she commented.
He smiled slowly. "No, it doesn't. Good thing. With my bat ing average so far, I gues I'd be in it by now, wouldn't I?" She cleared her throat, feeling embarras ed. "I didn't mean to push you in the river."
"Didn't you? It seemed like it at the time." He searched her eyes quietly. "I meant what I said, Marianne I won't make any more insulting propositions."
' I appreciate that. I'm just sorry that I gave you such poor opinion of me," she added, admit ing her own guilt. "I shouldn't have let things go on the way they did." He moved closer, lifting his hands to her shoulders, lightly holding her in front of him. "What we did together was pret y special," he said hesitantly. "I «couldn't have stopped it any more than you could. Let's try not to look back. That part of our relationship is over.
He sounded final, and she felt oddly hurt. She stared at his vest, watching the slow rise and fal of his chest. " Yes," she murmured. He looked down at her silky dark hair, smel ed the soft floral scent that clung to her, and his heart began throb. It had been so long since he'd held her, kis ed her. He wanted to, desperately, but he'd just tied his own hands by promising not to start anything. "Do you like kit ens?" he asked unexpectedly. Her eyes came up, brightly blue and interested. "Yes. Why?"
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"We've got some," he said with a grin. "Lil ian found an old mama cat squal ing at the back door in a driving rain and couldn't help herself. The very next morning we had four lit le white kit ens with eyes as blue as—" he searched hers with a disturbing intensity "—as yours."
"You let her keep the kit ens?" she asked softly.
He shifted restles ly. "Wel , it was raining," he muttered. "The poor lit le things would have drowned if I'd put them outside." She wasn't buying that. Odd, how wel she'd come to know him in the lit le time she'd spent on his ranch. "And. . ?" she prodded with raised eyebrows. He almost smiled at the knowing look on her face. She knew him, warts and al , al right. "Cousin Bud's got one hel of an al ergy to lit le kit ies." He was incorrigible. She burst out laughing. "Oh, you black hearted fiend, you!" she groaned.
"I like lit le kit ies," he said with mock indignation. "If he doesn't, he can leave, can't he? I mean, I don't lock him in at night or anything.'
If love was knowing al about someone—the good things and the bad—and loving them just the same, then it sure did apply here, she mused silently. "Ward; Jes up," she said, sighing, "you just won't leave Bud alone, wil you?"
"Sure I wil , if he'l go home and leave my bull alone," he returned. "My God, you don't know how hard I fought to get that crit er into my breeding program. I outbid two of the richest Texans in cat le to get him!"
"And now Cousin Bud wants him. What for?" she asked.
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"Beats me." He sighed. "Probably for his advertising agency."
She sat down on the sofa. "He wants your bull for an ad agency?" she asked dubiously.
His eyebrows rose while his brain began to grasp what the was thinking. "Ad agency. . oh, no, hel , no, he isn't going to use the bull to pose for male underwear commercials!
He wants to sel it to finance expanding his advertising agency!"
"Wel , don't glare at me, it sounded like he wanted to make a male model out of it," she defended herself. He sighed heavily. "Woman, you're going to be my undoing," he said. And probably she would if he let himself think too hard about just why he'd come al this way after her. But mis ing her was just part of the torturous proces . Now he had to prove to himself that he could have her around and not go off his head anymore. He stil wanted her for certain, but marriage wouldn't suit him any more than being his mistres would suit her. So they'd be. . friends. Sure. Friends. Lil ian would stop starving him. There. He had noble motives. He just had to get them cemented in his mind, that was al .
“Can't you just tel Cousin Bud to go home?" she nuked curiously.
"I have!" he grumbled. "Lil ian has, too. But every lime we get him to the front door, he cal s up my grandmother and she raises hel with Lil ian and me for not offering him our hospitality."
' She must like him a lot," she mused.
' More than she likes me, I'm afraid," he returned. He whirled his Stetson in his hands. "I'l give you one of the kit ens if you want it." 148
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"Bribery," she said in a stage whisper and actual y grinned.
He grinned back. She was pret y that way. "Sure it is," he said shameles ly. He glanced around her smal apartment. "Wil they let you keep a cat here?"
"I gues so. I haven't ever asked." So he was already planning for her to come back here, she thought miserably. He shrugged. "You might not want to come back here, though," he said unexpectedly. He smiled slowly. "You might like working for me. I'm a good boss. You can have every Sunday off, and I'l only keep you at the computer until nine every night."
"You old slave driver!"
He didn't laugh as she'd expected him to. He just stared at her. "Am I old to you?" he asked softly as if it real y mat ered. Watch it, girl, she warned herself. Take it easy, don't let the old devil fox you. "No," she said final y. "I don't think you're that old."
"To a kid like you I gues I seem that way," he persisted, searching her blue eyes with his darkening green ones. She didn't like remembering how much older she felt because of his searching ardor. She dropped her eyes to the floor. "You said the past was over. That we'd forget it." He shifted his booted feet. "I gues I did, honey," he agreed quietly. "Okay. If that's how you want it." She looked up unexpectedly and found a strange, haunting look on his dark face. "It's an impas e, don't you think?" she asked him. "You don't want a wife, and I don't want an unat ached temporary lover. So al that's real y left is friendship."
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He clutched the hat tighter. "You're making it sound cheap," he said in a faintly dangerous tone. He didn't like what she was saying.
"Isn't it?" she persisted, rising to her feet. He stil lowered over her, but it gave her a bit of an advantage. "You'd get al the benefits of married life with none of the responsibility. And what would I get, Ward? A lit le notoriety as the boss's mistres , and after you got tired of me, I'd be handed some expensive parting gift and left alone with my memories. No respectability, no self respect, tons of guilt and lonelines . I think that's |a pret y poor bargain."
"You lit le prude," he said curtly. "What do you know about grown-up problems, you with your spotles conscience? It's so easy, isn't it, al black and white. You tease a man with your body until he's crazy for it, you try to trap him into a marriage he doesn't want, you take whatever you can get and walk out the door. What does the man have out of al that?"
His at itude shocked her. She hadn't realized just how poisoned he was against the female sex until he made that bit er statement.
"Is that what she did to you?" she asked gently. "Did she tease you beyond endurance and then marry someone else because what you gave her wasn't enough?" His face grew harder than she'd ever seen it. He'd never talked about it, but she was forcing his hand.
" Yes," he said curtly.' 'That's precisely what she did. And if I'd been fool enough to marry her, she'd have cut my throat emotional y and financial y, and she wouldn't even have looked back to see if I was bleeding to death on her way to the bank!"
She moved closer to him, hating that hurt in his eyes, that disil usionment that had drawn his face muscles taut. "Shal I tel you what most women real y want from marriage?
They want the closenes of caring for one man al then lives. Looking after him, caring about him, doing lit le things for him, loving him. . sharing good times and bad. A good marriage doesn't have a lot to do with money, from what I've seen. But mutual
trust and caring about each other makes ah the difference. Money can't buy those." He felt himself weakening and hated it. She was under his skin, al right, and it was get ing worse al the time. He wanted her until he ached, and it didn't stop with his body. She stirred him inside, in ways no other woman ever had. Except Caroline. Caroline. Would he ever forget?
"Pret y words," he said bit erly, searching her eyes.
"Pret y ideals," she corrected. "I stil believe in those? old virtues. And someday I'l find a man who believes; in them, too."
"In some graveyard, maybe."
"You are so cynical!" she accused, exasperated.
"I had good teachers," he retorted, slamming his Stetson down on his head to cock it arrogantly over one eye. "Are you ready?"
"I'm ready," she muttered, sounding every bit as bad-tempered as he did.
He took her bag in one hand and opened the aparttment door with the other. She followed him out, locked the door with a sigh and put the key in her purse. Her life was so unpredictable these days. Just like the man; beside her.
The commercial flight seemed longer than it actual y was. Mari had found a few magazines to read at the huge Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport, and it was a good thing that she had because Ward pulled his hat over his eyes and folded his arms and he hadn't said one word to her yet. The flight at endants were already nerving their lunch, but Ward only glanced up, refusing, food. Mari knew, as she nibbled at ham and cheese on a bun, that he had to be furious or sick. He never nl used food for any other reason. Mari was sorry that they'd quarreled. She shouldn't have been because, if he was angry, at least he wouldn't be making pas es at her. But if he stayed angry, it was going to make working for him al that much harder, and she'd promised, God knew why, to do his secretarial work. Now she couldn't imagine what had posses ed her to agree. At the time it had seemed a wonderful idea. Of course, she'd had some crazy idea that he'd cared a lit le in order to come al that way to get her. Now it was beginning to seem as if he hated himself for the very thought. Mari was miserable. She should have said no. Then she remembered that she had. and that, ultimately, she had lit le choice in the mat er. She sighed over her food, glancing at him under the hat "Aren't you hungry?" she offered.
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