by Diana Palmer
“You…bit me.”
“Not hard enough to hurt,” he whispered. “I never would. It’s a kind of love play. A way of expressing passion.”
“Oh.” She stared at him, her eyes soft with love, wide with curiosity.
“Your upbringing scarred your emotions, I know. But will you try to remember that what we’re doing together is part of life? That men and women were created to join, to become one in physical union?”
“Yes, but…but not in lust,” she whispered.
He frowned faintly, his hands stilling. “Kate, do you think that all I feel for you is lust?”
She lowered her eyes to his broad, hair-matted chest, watching the ripple of muscle as he shifted over her. “Isn’t it?”
He didn’t know how to answer her. He was just realizing that what he felt wasn’t physical alone. He wanted to please her. His own satisfaction didn’t seem so important these days. He touched her face, loving the very structure of it, the softness of her skin. “No. I don’t think it ever was. If I hadn’t gone over the edge that night in your apartment, I’d have made sure you never wanted to forget what we did. I had these exquisite fantasies about loving you half to death.”
Her heart jumped. How sweet that sounded. She looked up at him, her eyes so soft that he got lost in them. “I’m sorry about what I said to you…”
He brushed his mouth over hers. “Not half as sorry as I am about that damned hundred-dollar bill.”
“I understand now.”
“I could have lost you,” he said under his breath. “The doctor said if that bullet had gone two inches lower, you’d have died.”
“But it didn’t, and I didn’t,” she reminded him. Her hands lifted to his chest, trembling a little at the delicious feel of all that muscle and its furry covering. “What did you say to me when you came into the intensive-care unit?”
“Things.”
She moved her hands softly, and he tensed. “What kind of things?”
He nuzzled her face with his. “Very personal ones, that I wouldn’t repeat cold sober or in broad daylight. I’m rather glad that you don’t remember hearing them.”
Now she really was curious. What could he have told her that he didn’t want her to know? He was such a private person, so alone. But then, so was she.
“I think you pulled me back,” she confessed. She looked at his chest, watched it ripple as she caressed it. “I didn’t care about living.”
“That’s what bothered me. You were close to the edge, and I’d given you every reason in the world to look for a way over.”
His breath caught as her hands moved again. He wavered between the need to let her caress him and the stupidity of not stopping her before things got any hotter than they already were.
“Kate…I really think that we’d better stop now.”
She looked at the rigidity of his chest and understood. With a deep sigh, she moved her hands to his arms instead. “What a pity, when I was just getting the hang of it,” she murmured dryly, although her heart was going mad.
“I feel the same way. But you can’t handle passionate lovemaking until that rib heals.”
She blushed. “No, I don’t suppose so.”
“It would be passionate, too,” he breathed, slowly fastening the caftan over her breasts. “I’m shaking like a teenage boy right now.”
She wondered if he’d ever admitted to that with any other woman. She almost asked, but she was too jealous of him to want the answer. She watched his dark face while he finished closing the buttons on her shoulder.
“Jacob, tell me what just happened wasn’t out of guilt.”
“Guilt?” He stared down at her for a long minute until, with a rigid smile, he moved onto his side and reached for her, pulling her gently against the length of him, his hands pressing her hips slowly against the unmistakable contours of his body. “Does this feel like guilt? Or are you still innocent enough to think a man can fake desire?”
Her legs felt trembly. She caught his hands, but he wouldn’t release her. “I don’t know a lot about it,” she said.
“This,” he emphasized, shifting her against him gently, “is a hell of a nuisance. I’m not usually stupid enough to encourage it unless I’m in a position to satisfy it. It’s damned uncomfortable.”
She was flaming by now. “Oh.”
He released her and rolled over onto his back, arching a little as the ache increased before it finally began to subside. He forced himself to breathe normally, to relax.
“In the old days, about the time you decided to drive me crazy with Gerald what’s-his-name, I could hear your voice on the phone and have that happen,” he said quietly. “Of course, it’s diminished a little over the years.”
He sounded dry, and she sat up, staring down at him. Yes, he was smiling, just faintly.
“Now do you begin to understand what happened that night?” he asked, his voice deep and gentle. “I’ve wanted you for so many years that I dreamed about you all the time, and then there you were, wanting me back, and we were in bed together. A loaded gun wouldn’t have stopped me.”
“You wouldn’t come near me, all those years,” she said.
“I knew what would happen if I did,” he replied. He drew her back down again, her head using his shoulder as a pillow. “There was Margo, and you were friends. I didn’t want to have to explain to my niece why she couldn’t play around with boys when I was playing around with her best friend.”
“You wouldn’t have played around with me after the first time,” she reminded him.
He smiled, touching her hair gently. “That’s true enough. It still makes me feel incredibly male, knowing that I was the first. I’m only sorry that I didn’t give you the pleasure I felt.”
She stared at the steady rise and fall of his chest. “Will we ever make love again?” she whispered, blurting it out.
“If you marry me, we will,” he replied after a minute. “Otherwise, I don’t think my conscience, or yours, will let us.”
She had to fight tears. “That kind of marriage wouldn’t work.”
“Let it lie, for now. We’ll plug along for a while and see how it goes.” He brushed his lips across her forehead. “Sleep well.”
“Are you all right now?” she asked softly.
He chuckled. “I’m all right.” He drew the covers over them with a long sigh. “Curl up against me and we’ll try to sleep.”
He turned on his side and drew her back into the curve of his body, and she caught her breath at the delicious sensations it produced.
“Just try not to move around too much,” he whispered into her ear.
She laughed, because she could feel why. It was magic, this closeness that had come so unexpectedly, this intimacy that was warm and sweet and tender. She sighed, linking her fingers into the hand that curved across her arm. He felt warm and strong at her back, and she knew there wouldn’t be any more nightmares. Not this night. She closed her eyes, wishing that it could last forever.
But she awoke the next morning in her own bed, and at first it seemed that the night before had been a sweet dream. She sat up, and with the movement, she caught the spicy scent of Jacob’s cologne still clinging to her. And beside her, on the next pillow, was a white rose, like the few roses still blooming on the bush outside the back door.
She picked it up and inhaled its dew-kissed fragrance, smiling softly to herself. No. It hadn’t been a dream after all.
She put on her rib belt and got dressed, feeling young and extraordinarily happy. Jacob had asked her to marry him.
That didn’t mean that he loved her, of course. But it had to be a start of some kind, if he’d been thinking about it.
In jeans, a loose green knit blouse, and boots, she went slowly down the hall and into the dining room. Hank was gone, but Jacob was still there, pushing eggs around on his plate absently.
He looked up when she walked in, and his eyes kindled as he smiled at her.
“Finally,” he mur
mured. “I wondered how much longer I could push these damned cold eggs around on my plate without making Janet suspicious.”
“Were you waiting for me?” she asked, returning the smile.
“What do you think?” he slid back his chair and stood up, holding out his hand. She took it and was drawn gently into his hard arms and kissed with warm, rough affection.
“Good morning,” she whispered under his lips.
“Good morning yourself. Did you find the rose?”
She smiled. “Yes. Thank you.”
He kissed her eyelids. “I wish your rib was healed, Kate, because I want you a hell of a lot closer than this.”
“Me, too,” she breathed. She could feel his heart beating against her breasts. “Did you sleep?”
“Eventually,” he mused, drawing back. “I lay and looked at you for a long, long time before I finally did. We’re going to have to get married, Kate.”
She looked down at his chest. She wanted to say yes. She wanted him. But a tiny part of her knew that it would be disastrous. He might be feeling new things with her, but that didn’t necessarily mean he loved her. He admitted himself that a great deal of what he felt was physical. That would wear off, when he was totally satisfied, and what would they have left?
“I can’t marry you.”
“Why?”
He sounded indignant. She met his dark eyes. “Jacob, desire isn’t enough. Without love…”
“You love me, though, Kate,” he said quietly, watching her face. “You always have.”
She seemed to stop breathing. She searched his eyes. Was he guessing…?
“Tom told me everything, just before they took you to the hospital,” he said. “I even saw the photos of me…”
Her reaction was unexpected. She tore away from him, wild-eyed, oblivious of the shock in his face and the pain in her rib.
“Well, my God, it’s all right,” he said shortly, because her actions surprised him. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
But there was. Kate was dying inside. She felt as if her soul had been stripped naked in front of an audience. She went alternately red and white, and then the tears started.
It was just too much to have Jacob know everything. What he felt had been pity; now she was sure of it. Pity and guilt, because she loved him and he’d hurt her. Now he was trying to make up for that hurt, and she’d believed that he was just beginning to feel something for her. What a fool she’d been!
He started toward her, and she jerked back.
“No,” she whispered tearfully. “No, don’t you ever touch me again. I don’t want your pity, Jacob!”
She turned and ran down the hall into her room, closing the door and locking it behind her. She didn’t even hear him knock, or try the doorknob, and after a minute he called her name.
She ignored him, falling onto the bed in tears. She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she couldn’t stay at Warlance. Outside, thunder rattled the house and lightning struck toward the ground as the storm brought wind and pelting rain. Kate closed her eyes, grateful for the noise that drowned out Jacob’s voice. She pulled the pillow over her head to make sure she couldn’t understand. He sounded coaxing, then demanding and, finally, furiously angry. The sound of his boots stalking off down the hall was loud enough to penetrate through the pillow. With a sob, she buried her face and cried until her chest was sore again.
Chapter 10
Kate spent the rest of the morning in her room, not leaving it until she was certain that Jacob had gone out. Then she sat in the living room, trying to decide what to do. It was raining outside, and she thought about the cowboys out in the chilly, wet weather. She thought about Jacob, and felt her heart go cold.
Why had he admitted that Tom had told him? Was it because she’d refused to marry him, and he’d been irritated when she didn’t jump at the chance? Did he think that she was so selfish that she’d marry him just because she wanted it, without any thought for what it would be like for him? Being tied to a woman he didn’t love would make him miserable for the rest of his life. Loving sometimes required sacrifices, but apparently he didn’t know that.
One thing was certain; she had to get away from here. She couldn’t bear the embarrassment of being around Jacob and knowing that she had no secrets from him. Her eyes closed as she relived the sweetness of the night before. The memory turned bitter when she realized that pity had motivated him. He knew that she loved him. That slow, tender loving had been because he thought it would please her, just another way of making restitution for the hurt he’d dealt her in Chicago. Maybe he wanted her, too, but she knew it hadn’t been out of love, and that was what hurt the most.
The tears came again, pouring down her cheeks. She had to go back to Chicago. But if she did, what was she going to do? She knew she couldn’t work for another week or so at least, and even then, doing police news was going to be impossible. She was drawing her paycheck, but that would run out when her recuperation period was over. She had pitiful little savings. So what was she to do? She didn’t feel right about imposing on Tom, although she knew he’d come for her if she called him.
She was still worrying about the future when Hank came in, tossing off his yellow slicker, muttering under his breath. He glanced at Kate and grinned sheepishly.
“Sorry, I got carried away. My son,” he said, nodding toward the front door, “is out there in his shirt-sleeves, getting drenched, and the temperature is dropping. So naturally I asked him did he want a raincoat. He said some words I won’t repeat and stomped off mumbling something about hoping he catches his death.” He frowned. “Did the two of you get into another argument or something, Katie?”
He was the only person who ever called her by that nickname. She shifted restlessly on the sofa. “Well… kind of.”
“Kind of?”
She grimaced. “Jacob asked me to marry him and I said no.” She noted the shock on his face. “Well, he doesn’t love me, Hank,” she said. “It wouldn’t be right.”
He whistled. “I never thought I’d live to see the day he’d propose to any woman. Now the miracle has happened, and you have to go all righteous and say no. Are you crazy?” he asked. “My gosh, girl, I’m sixty years old. If he doesn’t get a move on, I’ll never have grandkids. And you’re a nice girl. We all know and like you—he couldn’t do better if he looked for years.” He sat down across from her. “See here, Kate, you need to think about this.”
“I have thought about it.” She blushed, lowering her eyes. “I love him, and he knew all the time—Tom told him. Jacob blurted it out this morning when I said I wouldn’t marry him, and I’m so hurt…!”
She was crying and Hank felt awkward. He patted her hand gently. “Now, now,” he said, grimacing. “Now, now.”
“I want to leave,” she whispered. “But I’ve got nowhere to go.”
“He’d just come after you if you left,” he said reasonably. “Jay don’t give up when he sets his mind to something, you know. That is, if he don’t kill himself working out in the pouring rain.”
“Doctors say that you don’t catch cold even in the rain unless you’ve been exposed to a virus or something,” she said, more to reassure herself than to convince him.
“Yeah, but there’s a virus going through the bunkhouse, one of those chest things with bronchitis. I sure hope he doesn’t get it.”
So did Kate, but she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t even face Jacob right now, much less go out and start trying to tell him what to do.
“You might get one of the men to hit him over the head and drag him back here,” she suggested as she dabbed at the tears on her face.
“There’s a thought. Are you okay now?”
She forced a smile. “I’m okay.”
“Don’t make such heavy weather of it. Everything will work out.” He smiled. “Now go get some lunch and I’ll go out and try to save Jay from himself.”
“All right. You’re a nice man, Hank.”
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br /> “Why, sure I am,” he agreed. “And you’re a nice girl. Too bad we can’t include Jay, but he ain’t nice.”
“Once in a while…” she protested.
“Maybe. Go on, now.”
She got up and went off to find Janet. But if she expected Hank to get anywhere with his stubborn offspring, she was disappointed. Night came, and Jacob was still out. By the time she went reluctantly to bed, he hadn’t put a foot in the door.
The next morning, he was still at the table when she came down after a sleepless night. Her heart jumped. She’d expected him to be gone already.
She tried to find words, but couldn’t. Having him know everything in her heart made her feel vulnerable and nervous.
It was too late to run. She pulled out a chair and sat down, glancing quickly at Jacob.
He was pale, and when he asked her to pass the bacon, his voice sounded hoarse.
“All that rain,” she said hesitantly. “You’ve caught cold.”
“Maybe I’ll die,” he shot back, glaring at her. “I hope if I do that I lie on your conscience like lead, Kate.”
She flushed and pulled her eyes to the coffee she was pouring into her cup. “I didn’t ask you to try and drown yourself.”
“You won’t marry me,” he said coldly.
“You know why, too.”
“I wish I could understand why women are so damned secretive about their feelings,” he muttered. He put his fork down and glared at her. “What difference does it make if I know that you care about me? The world hasn’t stopped turning, has it? The sky hasn’t fallen on your head!”
“It’s embarrassing!” she shot back.
“Why?”
She looked at him and away, stirring too much cream into her coffee while she tried to deal with the intimacy of the conversation. “I feel vulnerable.”
“Maybe I do, too, Kate.”
She laughed bitterly. “How could you? You don’t care about me.”
There was a long pause, and she looked up to find him watching her with eyes that looked strange, unusually dark. “I’m still in the learning stages about that,” he confessed, his voice husky. He cleared his throat, and coughed. “Damned cold rain. I feel like hell.”