by Diana Palmer
“I’m Kati,” she told the girl as she led her to the chair and eased her bulky figure down into it. “I’m going to stay with you. He’ll be all right, Barbara. Egan said so.”
Egan looked down at her with a faint smile in his eyes. “I’ll be out on the ranch with my tracker,” he told Kati. “But if Al isn’t home by dark, you’ll stay in the house with us, Barbara.”
“Yes, Egan,” Barbara nodded numbly.
Kati left her long enough to walk out onto the front porch with Egan.
“Keep her as quiet as you can,” he said. “If you need help, get Dessie.”
“I will,” she promised. She looked up at him, quietly searching the craggy lines of his face, loving him so deeply that she’d have followed him barefoot through the snow.
He glanced down at her, and the darkness grew in his eyes as they held hers.
“The wolf,” she said uneasily. “You won’t take chances?”
He moved close, framing her worried face in his hands, and stared down into her eyes for a long moment. “I never take chances, as a rule,” he said. “Of course, I blotted my book with you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What would you call trying to seduce a virgin on a bearskin rug?” he asked dryly.
She flushed and he laughed.
“I lost my head that night,” he told her. “I could have broken your young neck when you told me the truth.”
“Yes, I know, and your temper hasn’t improved since,” she said miserably. “I shouldn’t have said anything, I guess.”
“I’d have blown my brains out afterward if you hadn’t,” he said. “Kati, I wasn’t in any condition for initiation ceremonies. You had me so worked up, I didn’t know my name. That’s why it took me so long to get over it.”
“Oh,” she murmured, studying him. He didn’t look so formidable now. He looked…odd.
“I can’t get too close to you, baby, don’t you know? I don’t want you any less right now than I did the first time I kissed you,” he breathed, bending to her mouth. “But I could seduce you now without even trying. And that wouldn’t be a good thing.”
“It wouldn’t?” she whispered, watching his mouth brush and probe gently at hers in the cold air.
“Don’t they say,” he whispered back, “that good girls almost always get pregnant that first time?”
“Egan…!” she moaned as his mouth found hers.
He lifted her against him and kissed her roughly, his mouth cool and hard and sure as it moved over hers. His gloved hand caught at her nape and brought her face closer; and she heard a deep, rumbling sound echoing out of his chest.
“We’ve got to stop this,” he ground out as his mouth slid across her cheek, and he wrapped her up tightly in his arms. “It’s just a matter of time before I go off the deep end if we don’t. I could eat you!”
“Yes, I know,” she whispered achingly. “I feel the same way.”
He rocked her slowly in his arms while the wind whistled around the house and snow blew past them. “I have to go, Kati.”
Her arms tightened. “Be careful. Please be careful.”
He was breathing heavily, and his eyes when he lifted his head were silvery and wild. “I used to be,” he said enigmatically. He let her go and tugged at a lock of her hair with rough affection. “See you, city girl.”
She nodded with a weak smile. “So long, cowboy.”
She turned and went back into the house before he could see the worried tears in her eyes.
“Would you like some coffee?” she asked Barbara with perfect poise. “If you’ll show me where you keep everything, I’ll even make it.”
Barbara dabbed at her eyes and smiled. “Of course. Thank you for staying with me.”
“I’m glad to do what I can for you,” Kati replied. “Come on. Your man will be all right. You have to believe that.”
“I’m trying to,” the young girl replied. She glanced at Kati as they went into the kitchen. “Is Egan your man?”
Kati flushed. “No,” she managed. “No, he’s my best friend’s brother. He’s helping me with some research on a book I’m writing.”
“You write books?”
“Yes. Those big historical things,” Kati offered.
“It must be lots of fun.” She got down cups. “I wanted to be a singer, but I married Al instead. We’ve been together two years now.” She stared out the window at the thickening snow. “I love him so much. And we’ve been so excited about this baby.”
“What do you want?” Kati asked, seeing an opening. “A boy or a girl?”
“Oh, a boy,” Barbara said. “I’ve been knitting blue booties and hats. He’ll be all right, won’t he?”
“Egan said he would, didn’t he?” Kati hedged.
Barbara smiled wanly. “I guess so. Egan’s never lied.”
Kati nodded, but her own mind was on that killer wolf and Egan out hunting it. An animal that would savage cattle three or four times its size would think nothing of attacking a man. She closed her eyes to the possibility. She couldn’t bear thinking about it.
Two hours went by before the phone rang, and Kati answered it herself.
“Barbara?” came Ramey’s voice.
“No, Ramey, it’s Kati. How is Al?” she asked quickly.
“Madder than a skinned snake.” Ramey chuckled. “He wants Egan to give him that bull for steaks.”
“He’s all right!” Kati told Barbara, laughing; and Barbara sat down heavily with a tired sigh.
“The boss might do it, too,” Ramey laughed, “despite how much he paid for him. They’re going to keep Al overnight, but he wants Barbara with him. Pack her a bag, will you? They’re going to put a bed in the room for her.”
“I sure will. Are you coming after her?”
“Guess I’ll have to. Boss is still out with Charlie.”
That was a worrying thought. “Will it take them long to find the wolf, do you think?” she asked hesitantly.
“Anybody’s guess, Miss James. See you.”
“Bye.”
She hung up the phone with numb fingers. “Al wants you to spend the night with him at the hospital. They’ve even fixed you a bed,” she said cheerfully. “He’s going to be fine, but Ramey said they want to keep him overnight.”
“Oh, thank God, thank God!” Barbara whispered. She took a minute to pull herself together before she became practical. “I’ll pack my bag right now. Oh, my poor Al!”
Kati helped her get ready, knowing how she might feel in the same circumstances. And Egan was out tracking that wolf right now. What if something happened to him? How would she manage?
Ramey came and dropped Kati by the house on the way to depositing Barbara at the hospital. Kati waved them off and rushed to find Dessie.
“Is Egan back?” she asked the housekeeper.
Dessie shook her head. “It may take all night. Or longer,” she told the obviously worried younger woman. “Kati, he’s a rancher. This isn’t the first time he’s had to go tracking a predator. I doubt if it will be the last. It’s something you get used to. Back in the old days,” she added with a faint smile, “it was rustlers they chased. And they shot back.”
“In other words, the wolf is the lesser of a lot of evils.” Kati sighed. “Well…” She stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “I guess I’ll go work on my book.”
“You do that. I’ll straighten up the kitchen. Will you be all right by yourself? You won’t get scared if I go on to bed?”
“Of course not.” She was used to Dessie’s early hours by now. “I’ll just curl up in a chair and watch TV while I jot down a few notes. Today has been an education.”
“I don’t doubt it. Sleep well. Barbara doing okay, was she?”
“Yes. Just worried, and that’s natural. But she handled it well.”
“She’s a cowboy’s wife,” Dessie replied. “Of course she did.”
Kati nodded. She was beginning to understand what that meant. She wand
ered into the living room and watched television until bedtime. Still, Egan hadn’t come back.
She paced and watched the clock and listened for the sound of a vehicle. But it didn’t come. She thought about going up to bed, but knew she wouldn’t sleep. So she curled up on the sofa to watch a late-night talk show. Somewhere in the middle of a starlet’s enthusiasm for designer clothes, she fell asleep.
The dreams were delicious. Someone was holding her, very close; she could feel his breath at her ear, whispering words she couldn’t quite hear. She smiled and snuggled close, clinging to a hard neck.
“Did you hear me?”
The sound of Egan’s voice brought her awake. Her eyes opened heavily, and she blinked as she saw him above her.
“What time is it?” she asked sleepily.
“Six o’clock in the morning,” he said, studying her. He was standing and she was locked close in his arms. She looked around and realized that they were in her bedroom. He’d carried her all the way from the living room and she hadn’t known….
“I meant to go to bed,” she protested.
“Yes, I imagine you did.”
Her eyes searched his drawn face: the growth of beard on his cheeks and chin; the weariness that lay on him like a net. “Did you get the wolf?” she asked softly.
“Yes, honey, we got him.” He bent to lay her on the bed and looked straight into her eyes. “Were you waiting up for me, Katriane?”
“No, I was watching television,” she protested quickly.
He sat down beside her on the bed, still in his sheepskin coat and the wide-brimmed old hat he wore. He put his fingers over her mouth; they were cold from the outdoors, and he smelled of the wind and fir trees.
“I said,” he repeated softly, “were you waiting up for me?”
“Well, you said the stupid creature would attack people, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t think you’d mind too much if he took a plug out of me,” he murmured, studying her sleepy face.
“Isn’t that the other way around?” she muttered. “You’re the one with all the grudges, not me.”
“I wanted you, damn it!” he burst out, glaring at her, and all the controlled anger was spilling out of him. “Wanted you, you naive little idiot! You write about it with a gift, but do you understand what it’s like? Men hurt like hell when they get as hot as you got me that night!”
She dropped her eyes to his chest. “I wasn’t going to say no,” she managed curtly.
“But you knew I would,” he returned. “You knew I’d never take you to bed once I had learned the truth. It’s not my way.”
“I wasn’t thinking,” she muttered.
“Neither was I. I brought you home thinking I could have you. You knew it. Then, just when I’m involved to the back teeth and aching like a boy of fourteen, you turn it off. Just like that.”
She couldn’t bear the accusation in his deep voice, the anger. Her eyes closed and her fingers clenched by her side.
“And the worst part,” he continued, with barely leashed fury in his tone, “is that I think you did it deliberately, despite that lame excuse you gave about not wanting me to hurt you. I think you set me up, Kati, to get even.”
That hurt more than all the other accusations put together. It made tears burn her eyes. “What an opinion you have of me,” she whispered shakily, trying to force a smile to her lips. “First you think I’m a tramp, and then you try to seduce me, and now you think I’m a cheat besides.”
“Don’t try to throw it back on my head!” he growled.
“Why not?” She sat up, glaring. “Why not? You were the one who kept putting on the pressure, weren’t you? And every time I tried to explain, you shut me up!”
“You knew why I invited you,” he shot back. “For God’s sake, what did you come out here expecting, a proposal of marriage!”
That was so close to the truth that it took all her control not to let him see it. “Of course not,” she replied instead, as coolly as she could. “I expected to be allowed to research my book. And you told me,” she added levelly, “that there were no strings attached. Didn’t you?”
He sighed angrily but he didn’t deny it. His eyes searched over her flushed, angry face, her narrowed eyes. “I guess I did.”
Her breasts rose and fell softly, and she looked down at her hands. “As soon as the snow melts a little, I’ll leave. I’ll need some more data on Wyoming history and a few other related subjects, but I can get that in Cheyenne.”
“Writing is all that matters to you, isn’t it?” he asked coldly.
She met his eyes. “Egan, what else do I have?”
His heavy brows drew together. “You’re young.”
“I’ll see my twenty-sixth summer this year,” she replied. “And all I have to show for my life is a few volumes of historical fiction in the ‘J’ section of the library. No family. No children. No nothing.”
“I’m almost thirty-five and in the same predicament, and I don’t give a damn,” he told her.
She studied his hard face. “I’m not even surprised. You don’t need anyone.”
“I do need the occasional woman,” he replied.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t do occasionals,” she told him. “I’m the forever-after type, and if you’d really read any of my books, you’d have known it before you ruined everything.”
“I ruined everything?” He glared at her thunderously. “You couldn’t get your clothes off fast enough!”
“Oh!” Shamed to the bones, she felt the tears come, and she hated her own weakness. She tried to get up, but he caught her, his hands steely on her upper arms.
“I didn’t mean to say that,” he ground out. “Damn you, Kati, you bring out everything mean and ornery in my soul!”
“Then it’s a good thing I’m leaving before you just rot away, isn’t it?” she said, weeping.
He drew in a deep, slow breath. “Oh, baby,” he breathed, drawing her close against him under the unbuttoned sheepskin coat. “Baby, I don’t want to hurt you.”
His voice was oddly tender, although she barely heard the words through her sobs. She’d hardly cried in her life until Egan came along.
His arms enclosed her warmly and she felt his cold, rough cheek against hers as he held her. “You’ve had a hard time of it, haven’t you? I wouldn’t have asked you to stay with Barbara, but I needed Dessie more to get Al patched.”
“I didn’t mind, truly I didn’t. She was so brave.”
“She’s had to be. Living out here isn’t easy on a woman. It’s still hard country, and winters can be terrifying. Spring comes and there’s flooding. Summer may bring a drought. A man can lose everything overnight out here.” He stroked her hair absently. “It was even harder on Barbara. She was a California girl.”
“She loves him, Egan.”
He laughed shortly, the sound echoing heavily in the dark room. “And love is enough?”
“You make it sound sordid,” she murmured at his ear, stirring slightly.
“Well, women set great store by it, I suppose,” he said quietly. “I never did. What passed for love in my life was bought and paid for.”
She flinched at the cynicism and drew back to look at him. This close, she could see every line in that craggy face. It held her eyes like a magnet, from the kindling silver eyes to the square chin that badly needed a razor.
“Haven’t you ever loved anyone?” she asked gently.
“My mother. Ada.”
“A lover,” she persisted, searching his eyes.
“No, Katriane,” he told her somberly. “The few times I tried, I found out pretty quick that it was the money they wanted, not me. What was it you called me that last time we got into it—a big, ugly cowboy?”
“I meant it, too,” she said, not backing down. “But what I was talking about had nothing to do with looks. No, Egan, you aren’t at all handsome. But you’re all man, so what difference does it make?”
He stared at her, and she flush
ed, averting her eyes. She hadn’t meant to let that slip out.
His fingers toyed with her hair and worked their way under her chin to lift it. He was closer than she’d expected—so close that all she could see was his nose and mouth.
“It’s been…a long time since anyone waited up for me. Or worried over me,” he said huskily. His breath came heavily. “Kati, you’d better not let me have your mouth.”
But she wanted it. Ached for it. And her eyes told him so. He caught his breath at the blatant hunger in them.
“I’ll hurt you,” he ground out.
“I don’t even care…!” She reached up, opening her arms and her heart, and dragged his open, burning mouth down onto hers.
He was rough. Not only in the crushing hold he had on her slender body, but the bristly pressure of his face and the ardent hunger of his mouth. His fingers tangled in her long hair and twirled it around and around, arching her neck.
His lips lifted, poised over hers, and he was breathing as raggedly as she was. “Open your mouth a little more,” he said shakily. “Let me show you how I like to be kissed.”
Her eyes opened so that she could look into his, and his hands clasped the back of her head as he ground his mouth into hers again, feeling it open and tremble and want his.
“Kati,” he breathed as he half lifted her against him, while the kiss became something out of her experience. “God, Kati, it’s so sweet…!”
She clung to him, giving back the ardent pressure until he groaned and his rough cheek slid against hers and he held her, breathing in shudders at her ear.
“Stop letting me do that,” he ground out, tightening his arms. “It only makes things worse!”
“Yes,” she whispered shakily. Her face nuzzled against his, her eyes closed, her body aching for something it had never had.
She began to realize what was happening to him, and it was her fault. She sat perfectly still in his arms and let him hold her until his breathing was steady, until the slight tremor went out of his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Yes, I know, but it doesn’t help,” he murmured.
“Well, don’t put all the blame on me!” she sobbed, trying to push him away.