by Diana Palmer
She shook her head again, with a smile.
He touched a finger to her swollen mouth. “Good night, honey,” he murmured, and went out the door, leaving her eyes glued to the space where he’d been.
She woke up wondering if the night before had been a dream. There was no sign of bruising on her, no turmoil in the eyes that met hers in the mirror. But she felt a tingle of emotion at just the thought of meeting Curry this morning and she dressed in her jeans and a white cotton top with a feeling of vibrant anticipation.
He was at the breakfast table waiting for her when she came downstairs, and his silver eyes ate her the minute she walked through the doorway.
She flushed at the intensity of the look, surprised by the sudden inexplicable difference in their relationship. It was as if what had happened last night—and it was no dream, she read that in his eyes—had opened the floodgates, and there was no stopping the raging current they’d created.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked in a deep caressing voice when she sat down beside him.
“Yes, thank you.” Her eyes darted up for an instant to meet his and dropped quickly. “Did you?”
“I’ll tell you later,” he murmured. He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “You look lovely in white, little one,” he added.
She smiled, feeling a warmth like summer sunlight inside her when she met his level gaze. He returned the smile, and a current of electric hunger seemed to link them for several seconds so that neither could look away.
“Well, aren’t we affectionate this morning?” Bessie enthused, and broke the magic spell as she walked in with a platter of sausage, scrambled eggs and biscuits.
Curry lifted a dark eyebrow at her, not a bit perturbed. “Remind me to raise your salary in 1996.”
“What makes you think I’m going to put up with you that long?” Bessie returned, leaving with a quick wink at Eleanor and a face like the cat that got the cream.
“What if I raised your salary?” Curry teased, and she could feel the laughter in his eyes. “Would you stay?”
She felt the light go out of the world, remembering, and all at once she wondered if these were some more of Curry’s ruthless tactics to get his way.
Would he go so far as to court her to keep her on the ranch? She hadn’t considered the possibility before, she’d been too caught up in the surge of emotion he’d created between them with those expert kisses. But the mention of her staying brought it all home with a vengeance. Curry was engaged to Amanda, for heaven’s sake! That was a fact, and all the teasing kisses in the world wouldn’t change it. If he’d wanted to marry Eleanor, or even been in love with her, it wouldn’t have taken him three years to find out.
“Never mind,” Curry said. His sharp eyes caught the freezing of her features, the stiffening of her body. “We’ll take it one day at a time. Eat your breakfast, honey, I’ve got work to do.”
“Should you be pushing so hard with that wound?” she asked, and nodded toward his ribs under the khaki shirt.
“I told you once, I’m as tough as nails,” he said with a smile. “It’s a little more sore today, but I don’t expect to die from it.”
“Stubborn man.”
“It’s my middle name.”
She smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it. She finished her breakfast quickly, already dreading being alone with him for the rest of the day. When it came to Curry, she had no resistance, and she was afraid of what he might demand of her innocence. He was dynamite at close quarters, she’d learned that already, and the fact that she was in love with him would make it all that much harder to resist him.
How could he do this, how could he use her own emotions against her just to keep her working for him? Secretaries, even private ones, weren’t that hard to come by. Not for a man with Curry’s looks and charm. Or maybe it was just the principle of it. That he didn’t want his old rival Jim Black to get one up on him by stealing his very efficient secretary. Either way, Eleanor thought miserably, she was the one who stood to suffer because of it.
The noise and dust and heat were far worse the second day than the first, and it seemed to take forever to work the herd after they were sorted.
One mean-looking heifer got her foot stuck between the rails and it took a half hour to free her. The men’s tempers were running hot, and Curry’s was at its finest, when lunch time finally rolled around.
Curry stomped away from the corral, dirty and drenched in sweat, his face flushed with temper, his eyes cruel.
“Let’s go,” he bit off, joining Eleanor where their mounts were tied.
“Was that the last of the breeding herd?” Eleanor asked.
“Almost. We’ve got about a hundred or so to go today.” He smoked quietly on his cigarette as they rode along toward the small country store down the road. “God, I’m getting too old for this kind of aggravation.”
“Jim Baylock’s opening a new nursing home,” Eleanor suggested. “Maybe we could get your name on the waiting list.”
He glared at her through narrowed eyes. “I can’t go,” he told her. “The damned cattle would cry their eyes out missing me.”
She grinned at him. “Only the cows,” she laughed.
“Keep it up and I won’t feed you.”
“If you don’t, I’ll get weak from hunger and fall off my horse,” she threatened.
He smiled at the banter, and she could actually see some of the tautness drain out of his tall body, his set face. He finished the cigarette and threw it down into the dust as they reached the old-fashioned little store with its single gas pump out front.
They bought Vienna sausages and crackers, along with soft drinks, a block of cheese, and moon pies. Loaded with their bounty, they rode down to the cool trees by the river and sprawled on the soft grass to eat.
“We’ll get chiggers,” Eleanor said lazily. She popped a small sausage into her mouth and savored every bite as she washed it down with an orange drink.
“You can get Bessie to rub you down with alcohol to get rid of them,” Curry replied.
“I bet you never get chiggers,” she observed. “Your hide’s so tough they couldn’t get through it.”
He grinned. “So I’ve been told.”
She finished her lunch and leaned back against the grassy bank with her arms behind her head. “It’s so cool here,” she murmured with closed eyes. “So quiet.”
“Shangri-la, Eleanor,” he agreed. He stripped off his shirt and stopped down at the edge of the river to splash cold water over his sweaty chest and shoulders and neck.
She watched him quietly, her eyes drawn to the powerful muscular body, remembering the feel and touch of it with a hunger that ached. Of all the men to fall in love with, why did it have to be one as unreachable as Curry Matherson? Why couldn’t it have been Jim Black? She smiled, remembering Jim’s last phone call, his enthusiasm for the little blonde. It sounded very much as if there’d be a wedding before long, and she was glad for the lonely widower. He’d been alone so much over the years, he deserved a little happiness.
Curry straightened up, tossing his shirt to the grass as he dropped lazily beside Eleanor, leaning on one elbow with his long body stretching out on the green grass.
“I love it here,” she murmured, closing her eyes to savor the watery voice of the river.
“Is there anything about ranch life you don’t like?” he asked with sudden bitterness.
She sighed, drinking in the delicious peace of green shadows and silvery water. “No, there isn’t anything about it that I dislike. Oh I’d hate to live in a city, wouldn’t you, Curry?” she asked abruptly, enthusiastically, turning to meet his silver eyes and finding a look in them that made her heart turn over. It was a sensuous, totally adult look that appraised every inch of her body, and she was more aware than ever of the masculine appeal of that broad, bronzed chest so close to her with its mat of hair still damp from the water, the bandage slightly dark where the water had just touched it.
“
You’re trembling, Eleanor,” he said quietly. “What are you afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” she denied shakily.
His fingers slid under the sleeveless white top at her shoulders, lightly stroking the warm young flesh over her collarbone with a teasing pressure that made her tremble.
“Your skin feels like warm silk,” he remarked gently. He leaned forward, easing her onto her back and trapping her there with his arms on either side of her.
“Shouldn’t we get back?” she asked too quickly.
He caught her frightened eyes and held them with his. “I don’t want to go back right now,” he said, bending to tease her lips with his. “You don’t want to, either, if you’d admit it. I need you, Eleanor….”
He drew her face up to his and kissed her gently, slowly building the pressure until he felt her mouth relax and part, until he heard the soft moan that sighed against his lips. He took her hands and spread them onto his bare, cool chest, teaching her wordlessly how to touch him, how to caress and arouse him.
His body was hard and unyielding where she touched him with slow, nervous fingers, learning the hard contours with a sense of wonder, testing the wiry strength of the dark hair on his chest with a fleeting pressure that brought a groan from the mouth that devoured hers.
She looked up into his face, seeing the passion harden it, darken his eyes as he returned her frank regard.
“God, the way you look when I love you…” he whispered huskily, sketching every soft, lovely line of her face.
“You shouldn’t be,” she whispered unsteadily.
“You want it,” he replied flatly, with that inborn arrogance that was as much a part of him as his square, relentless jaw.
She lowered her eyes to the muscular chest under her fingers. So did he, she thought, but only as a means to an end, and she knew it. With a sigh, she rolled away from him and got up, standing under a spreading oak at the river’s edge while she caught her breath.
“What’s wrong?” he said from a few feet behind her.
“It’s not fair, Curry,” she said. Her hands fluttered as she clasped them behind her, drinking in the cool breeze that blew off the bubbling water below the bank. “Not to Amanda, not to me. You’re engaged.”
“I know.” There was a harsh sigh, and a long pause, after which she smelled the cigarette smoke that drifted thick and pungent past her face. “Avalanches aren’t that easy to stop, little girl. Once they start rolling downhill, it’s next to impossible to stop them.”
“Riddles?” she asked quietly.
He moved beside her to lean back against the trunk of the mammoth tree. He’d put his shirt back on, although it was hanging open, and she could see marks on his chest where her nails had bitten into the bronzed flesh while he was kissing her….
“I want you,” he said bluntly, his eyes catching the way she stiffened at the words. “I want you like hell every time I touch you, and I can’t help it any more than I can help breathing. And, damn you, you want me just as much!”
She felt the trembling start in her legs and work its way up. Her eyes closed on the emotion in his deep voice, an emotion so convincing that she almost believed he felt it. But she knew Curry too well. She knew his tactics. It was just another trick, and only a fool would fall for it.
“Physical attraction fades in time,” she said. “I don’t want an affair with you, Curry, I don’t want it with anyone. I want something permanent.”
“A ring?” he growled. “Just like every other damned woman, you’ll give yourself if the price is right, is that it? I won’t be owned, Eleanor. I’m as susceptible to a soft young body as the next man, but there’s a limit to the price I’ll pay for it.”
“Aren’t you buying Amanda’s?” she asked bitterly, glaring at him.
He paused. “It’s different with her. She doesn’t want ties, and neither do I.”
“You don’t consider marriage a tie?” She looked straight into his glittering eyes. “Do you think I’d use the back stairs to your bedroom while she spent the better part of her life in Houston, Curry? Is that what you had in mind for me?”
He had the grace to flush, his eyes stormy and strange. “It wouldn’t be like that.”
“Oh, wouldn’t it?” She laughed without humor. “Do you think I’m so stupefied by a few of your kisses that I’ll tell Jim Black sorry and climb into your bed? I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m still going. If you thought you could keep me here by blinding me with your potent charm, you lose.”
He looked for an instant as if he’d been hit from behind. “You think that?” he asked in an ominously quiet tone.
“Did you think you had me buffaloed?” she replied with a coolness that was smoothly convincing. “That I wouldn’t guess what you were up to? I may be naïve, Curry, but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen you in action, remember, and I know better than most how low you’ll stoop to get what you want. You couldn’t stand letting Jim Black walk away with anything you considered your property, could you?” She drew in a sharp breath. “Did you have to grit your teeth when you kissed me, Curry?” she asked bitterly. “After all, you said yourself that no man would be blind enough to want me.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked in a frankly dangerous voice.
“You know what I’m talking about, you’ve tried everything short of proposing to keep me here!” she said furiously. “You and Jim have been rivals in business for years, and you’ve never taken a challenge from him that you didn’t win. Did it really bother you that much to have him hire me right out from under you? Or was it just that you couldn’t stand having a woman around the place who could resist you?”
His eyes caught fire. “Resist me?” he growled. “You little wildcat, I could lay you down in that grass and have you right now if I wanted you, and you’d let me! So don’t stand there like some Victorian society matron and tell me how immune you are to me. I just might let you prove it!”
She wrapped her arms around her chest and turned her attention back to the water. She didn’t say another word.
“You’re still the shriveled up little chicken you were before you shed your disguise, Jadebud,” he growled cruelly. “For your information, I wasn’t trying to get you into my bed. I thought you might benefit from a little experience if you’re going to be tangling with the likes of Jim Black. But from now on, your education can go hang! If you think I’d trade Amanda for a repressed little bundle of piety like you, you’re crazy as hell!”
She went white in the face. Absolutely white, her nails bit into her forearms as she fought not to let him see the effect the vicious attack had on her.
“You’re free to go whenever you damned well please, Eleanor,” he added curtly. “Making love to you every day is too damned high a price to pay to keep you at your desk.”
She heard him walk away and a minute later, there was the creak of saddle leather and the thud of a horse’s hooves dying away.
It was only then that she let the tears roll freely down her pale cheeks. She’d wanted the truth, and now she had it. Only four more days, she reminded herself, and she’d be able to walk out the door with a clean conscience. But how would she survive it? How?
Ten
Roundup went on, but without Eleanor. There were no more trips out to the holding pens, no more quiet rides with Curry. He avoided her like the plague, speaking to her only when it was necessary.
She was grateful for his absence. She felt wounded, and she needed time for the scars to heal.
“Something wrong between you and Curry?” Bessie asked her at supper one night when Curry was still out working on the ranch.
Eleanor stared into her plate. “Just the usual irritation,” she said lightly, trying to make a joke out of it.
“Things calmed down for a little while there.”
“So they did,” Eleanor agreed.
“Don’t want to talk about it?” the housekeeper said knowingly.
Eleanor
smiled wanly and shook her head. “It’s best forgotten.”
“Still going over to Jim?”
“Yes, for now.”
“And then?”
Eleanor shrugged. “It’s a big world,” she said with a short laugh. “There’s no telling where I’ll wind up.”
“You’ll write?”
She said yes, of course she would, and dug into her meal, knowing full well she wanted no more contact with the ranch, ever, once she left it. It would hurt too much.
Jim Black’s phone call the next afternoon came at the best possible time. Curry’s continued avoidance, and the lack of work to keep her busy, was driving her to an attack of nerves she’d never experienced before.
“How much longer?” Jim teased. “I’m getting impatient over here, and I just may need your help with a wedding before long.”
“Oh, Jim, congratulations!” she enthused. “See, I told you it would work out!”
“Yes, you did, and Elaine and I will never be able to thank you enough for that ‘double-double dog dare’ that started it all. When, Norie?”
She swallowed. “Three more days. I wish it was tomorrow.”
“What about if I talk to Curry?”
“I…I wouldn’t do that,” she murmured.
He drew a hard breath. “I knew I should have kept a check on you!” he grumbled. “If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my own life…hon, I’m sorry. It’s been bad, hasn’t it?”
The sympathy brought tears to her eyes. “Yes,” she admitted unsteadily. “It has.”
“Are you free the rest of the day?”
She brightened. “Yes. I’ve got everything out of the way that I need to do.”
“Good. How about if I come get you, and you can have supper with all of us tonight? I’d like you to get to know Elaine.”
She smiled. “I’d like that very much,” she said genuinely.
“I’ll pick you up in thirty minutes. That long enough?”
She was ready, dressed in a pale green clinging dress with her hair waving softly around her shoulders, when Curry arrived back at the ranch house just as Jim drove up.