Runaway Temptation

by Maureen Child

  “Good guess,” she said. Her head tipped to one side, spilling that beautiful hair of hers across one shoulder. “Got it in one.”

  “Why are you sitting here in the dark?” Why are you in the kitchen, he asked silently.

  “The moonlight’s pretty and light enough.” She shrugged. “What’re you doing sneaking around in the dark?”

  “I don’t sneak,” he corrected and suddenly felt like an idiot for having done just that. What had it come to when he slipped through a quiet house in the dark to avoid seeing the woman driving him crazy? “Besides, this is my house and—” He sniffed the air. “Do you have the chicken?”

  “Yes and it’s great.” She pushed a plate of chicken into the middle of the table. “Cam is a fantastic cook. Did you know she went to a culinary school in Park City, Utah, when she was a teenager? She told me stories about some of the chefs she met there and you wouldn’t believe—”

  “Stop.” He held up one hand. “Just stop talking. I beg you. I came down here for some damn chicken before I sleep.”

  “No problem. Get a plate.”

  “Don’t need a plate.”

  “Yeah, you do.” She scooted off the bright blue bench seat and hurried past him to a cupboard.

  He watched her go and swallowed the groan that rose up to choke him. She was wearing a tiny tank top and a pair of low-slung cotton shorts that just barely managed to cover her crotch. He couldn’t tell what color they were. The moonlight disguised that. Could have been white or gray or yellow. And it didn’t matter.

  Her long legs looked silky and all too tempting. Her curly red hair fell loose around her shoulders, sliding back and forth with her every movement and he couldn’t seem to look away.

  “Here. Now sit down.” She passed him again and he caught her scent. Unlike Marta’s heavy floral perfume, Shelby smelled like summer. Fresh and clean and cool. She set the plate and a fork and napkin down opposite where she was seated. “I’ve got Cam’s potato salad out, too. I wasn’t hungry at dinner but a little while ago, I realized I could probably eat one of your cows, hooves and all, so...here we are.”

  “Yeah.” He sat down and tried not to think of just how lovely she looked in moonlight. How close she was. All he had to do was stretch one arm across the table and he could take her hand, smooth his thumb across her palm, feel her pulse race.

  She leaned forward and her thin tank top dipped slightly, allowing him an all too brief glimpse of her breasts. Somewhere there was a god of lust with a nasty sense of humor. He’d spent most of the afternoon and evening avoiding her and now she was here and he was more than tempted.

  “Thanks again for taking me to Houston today.”

  Burying another groan, Caleb took a bite of chicken and scooped up some of Cam’s famous potato salad. “Stop thanking me.”

  “I tried, but I can’t seem to,” Shelby said, taking a sip from the water bottle in front of her. “So you’ll just have to get used to it.”

  Caleb sighed, filled his plate and then stood to open the fridge and grab a bottle of water. In the slash of bright light that lit up the room, Shelby looked far more delicious than the chicken he’d come in here for. Her nipples were outlined against the thin fabric of her tank top and that wonderful hair of hers fell in tumbled curls across her shoulders. Her green eyes were clear and bright and locked on him.

  He let the door swing shut, cutting off the light, slamming the room into darkness again.

  “I was avoiding you tonight.” His eyes adjusted quickly to the dim glow of the moonlight sliding through the window she sat beside.

  “Yeah,” she said softly. “I picked up on that when you didn’t come in until after dark. Why do you think I’m here now?”

  “You set a trap?”

  “Oh, trap is a hard word.”

  Maybe, but he had the distinct impression it was accurate, too. “What was the plan?”

  “Do I need one?”

  No. All she had to do was sit there, staring at him, looking like a promise. Something stirred inside him, and Caleb did his best to smother it. Hell, he was the one who needed a damn plan.

  She was talking again. Of course.

  “I knew you had to get hungry at some point. We ate a long time ago.”

  “Oh, I am.” He stared directly into her eyes so she could see he wasn’t talking about the damn chicken now.

  “Me, too,” she whispered.

  Everything in Caleb twisted into painful knots. “This is a bad idea.”

  “Oh, no doubt,” she agreed, but she didn’t look away.

  Caleb had the opening there. The chance to back the hell off. This was the Godzilla of bad ideas. And that still wasn’t enough to sway him from taking what he wanted.

  “Damn it, Shelby,” he ground out.

  “Oh,” she said softly, “you’re talking too much.”

  He choked out a harsh laugh, took two long steps, pulled her to her feet and kissed her like he’d wanted to for days.

  Since the moment she’d run into his arms while escaping her wedding.

  Six

  She felt even better against him now, Caleb thought.

  Her arms snaked around his neck, she leaned into him and opened her mouth under his. Their tongues twisted and tangled together. Breath came fast and hard. Hearts pounded, blood boiled and need rose up, quickening with each passing second.

  Caleb’s hands moved up and down her back, tracing her spine with his fingertips. Then he swooped down again, his hands settled on her butt and squeezed, pressing her to his aching groin in a futile effort to ease the throbbing within. She sighed in response and that soft sound of surrender crashed down on him.

  Caleb groaned, lifted her off her feet and spun her around until her back was against the wall. Breaking their kiss, he looked into her eyes and saw passion glittering in the moonlight.

  “Don’t stop,” she said, her voice a whispered plea.

  “Won’t,” he promised and slid one hand down the front of her shorts.

  She gasped and tipped her head back against the wall as he touched her. Damp heat welcomed him and she hooked her legs around his hips, and arched into him. He stroked her center, driving them both a little crazy. She rocked her hips into his hand and let her breath pant from her lungs. When he pushed one finger, then two, deep inside her, she gasped and shuddered in his grasp.

  “Caleb!” Her body trembled and her eyes closed briefly as she savored what he was doing to her.

  He caressed her, inside and out, his thumb brushing over the heart of her, and as he watched her react, his body tightened to the point of agony. He hadn’t wanted this to happen. Hadn’t wanted to start something between them that would lead them both exactly nowhere. And now he couldn’t imagine not touching her. She was driving him wild with desire. Had been from the moment he first saw her.

  Caleb wanted her so much he could hardly breathe. He wanted—needed—to slide his body into hers, to feel her surround him and take him in. Darkness filled the room but between them there was light and heat and a bone-searing desire.

  Touching her was filling him up and tearing a hole in him at the same time. It was good, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more. Wanted more. She was a craving like nothing he’d ever known before and he poured his own desire into touching her more deeply, thoroughly, until her breath came short, fast. Until her body coiled in expectation. Until release slammed into her and she shook with the force of it. Until he held her in the darkness and felt her heart race against his.

  At last, she took a long, deep breath, looked up into his eyes and grinned. “Wow.”

  Caleb stared at her for a second or two, then choked out a laugh. “You surprise me.”

  Tipping her head to one side, she asked, “Why? Did you expect regret? No. How could I be sorry that happened?”

  He eased her onto her f
eet, letting her body slide against his, just because he was apparently a masochist and needed a bit more torture. Now that the initial frenzy of hunger had faded and he didn’t have his hands full of her, Caleb could think clearly again. Beyond what he wanted to what he knew, so he took a long step backward and shook his head.

  “This isn’t going to happen.”

  “It already did,” she said. “And at least from my point of view, it was really good.”

  He smiled briefly and wondered what it was about this woman that she could drive him nuts one second and make him laugh the next. She was honest and strong and funny and so damn hot, she was keeping him twisted into knots. Knots that couldn’t be undone because there was nothing here for him. Nothing more than giving her a place to stay until she got her life back. Then it was done. He didn’t need another woman in his life. Especially one who, like Meg, had made the choice to run from a situation rather than face it.

  “Yeah, well,” he muttered thickly, because each word cost him, “good time’s over.”

  “What’s going on, Caleb?” she asked, reaching out to him.

  He grabbed her hand, squeezed it, then let her go. “Nothing, Shelby. That’s the point.”

  Because he didn’t trust himself to leave if he stayed even one more second, Caleb grabbed the damn plate of chicken and left her there in the dark.

  * * *

  Rose took extra care with her hair and makeup before her next meeting with Gus. Not for his benefit, of course. It was a small vanity to know that she’d kept her looks but for a few stubborn wrinkles she tried to ignore and the subtle gray streaks in her hair.

  Her cream-colored slacks were matched with a butter-yellow shirt and a pair of light brown boots. The summer heat was at a blistering level, which made her grateful for the shade of the old oak she sat beneath. While she waited for Gus—who was late again—she checked her email. When she saw one from her grandson, Daniel, she frowned.

  Gran,

  Meeting a friend for dinner. Will be out late.

  See you tomorrow,

  Daniel

  “A friend,” she mused and tapped her well-manicured finger against the now darkened screen. She knew very well whom he was meeting. Alexis Slade. Did he think she was blind? Or too old to recognize the signs a man gave off when he’d found a woman he was interested in? She remembered all too well how Gus had once looked at her.

  Her husband, Ed, never had, but then why would he? He’d been handpicked by her father to be her husband because Ed had been willing to take the Clayton surname and keep the family line going. Romance had had nothing to do with it.

  Sliding her phone back into her purse, Rose looked up when she heard Gus approaching. He was still tall, built tough and strong, and just watching him walk stirred things inside her better left unstirred. Standing, she said, “You’re late. Again.”

  “Good to see you, too, Rosie.”

  The familiar name took her breath away for a second. No one but Gus had ever called her Rosie and he hadn’t done it in close to fifty years. His expression let her know that he was as surprised as she was that he’d said it now.

  He scrubbed one hand across his jaw, cleared his throat and said, “This thing with Alexis and Daniel is getting serious. You’ve got to keep your boy away from my girl. Alex is telling me she’s meeting her girlfriend for dinner tonight, but she’s never bought a new dress to go out with her friends. It’s him she’s meeting.”

  “I know it,” she said, “and I think I’ve come up with a solution.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He braced his feet wide apart, crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

  “A charity bachelor auction,” Rose said. The idea had come to her while she was watching some silly TV reality show. “It’s perfect. Daniel will enter and meet other women—hopefully finding one more suitable than your Alexis.”

  “Suitable? There’s nothing wrong with my girl,” he said in a near growl.

  Rose waved one hand at him. “You know very well what I mean. Alexis is a perfectly nice woman, but neither of us wants those two together. Do we?”

  His jaw worked as if he were chewing on words he didn’t like the taste of. “No. We don’t.”

  “Well, then.” Rose picked up her purse again and rummaged inside. Pulling out a piece of paper, she handed it to him. “I’ve jotted down a few ideas. I thought Alexis could be a part of this, as well. Meet some new eligible bachelors to distract her from Daniel. She wouldn’t bid on him so publicly.”

  He scanned her list, nodding as he read. “It’s not bad. If we make it a fund-raiser—say for pancreatic cancer—Alexis will jump on board.”

  Rose’s heart sank a little. Gus’s wife, Sarah, had died of the disease two years ago and she knew how hard her passing had hit both Gus and Alexis. Royal was a small town and people were always willing to talk about other people’s business. So even though Rose and Gus hadn’t spoken in decades, she had been able to keep up with what was happening in his life.

  “That’s a wonderful idea, Gus.”

  He looked at her and seemed to study her forever before he spoke again. “Sarah missed having you in her life, Rose.”

  “I missed her, too.” They’d been inseparable once, when they were girls. But then life happened and things had gotten so twisted around.

  His voice was gruff, accusatory when he said, “You didn’t have to cut her off just because you didn’t want me.”

  Old pain echoed inside Rose. She’d never told anyone why she’d acted as she had so long ago and it was too late now to dredge it all up again.

  “You don’t know what happened, Gus.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “What purpose would it serve now?” she asked, “After all these years?”

  “Purpose? Truth is its own purpose.”

  “Truth isn’t always kind.”

  “What the hell does kind have to do with anything?” Gus scowled at her and his tanned features twisted with it. “Damn it, Rose, you owe me the explanation I never got.”

  “We’re here to talk about the kids.”

  “We’re finally talking after too many damn years. So while we’re at it, let’s get to the bottom of all this.” He tucked the paper into his shirt pocket, balled his fists on his hips and gave her a cool stare. “What the hell changed while I was off making enough money for us to get married? Why’d you cut me loose?”

  It seemed they were going to do this, after all. And maybe he was right. Maybe he was owed that long-held explanation. “My father wanted me to marry Ed. To make sure that happened, he threatened me. Told me that he’d take away my mother’s doctor. Her medicine, if I didn’t break it off with you.”

  Gus snorted. “He wouldn’t have done it.”

  “Yes, he would.” Rose thought back to her life under Jedediah Clayton’s thumb. Her father had ruled his slice of Texas through fear and intimidation and no one had been spared. Rose’s mother had always been delicate and Jedediah used that to keep Rose in line.

  “Papa didn’t like you. Didn’t like me wanting something of my own, so he stopped it.” She swallowed hard as she met Gus’s eyes. “He made me stop it.”

  “That’s it?” Gus was astonished. And furious. “You sent me away because you were afraid of your father?”

  “Not for myself,” she argued. “If it was just me, I’d have defied him. But I couldn’t risk my mother. I was a kid, Gus,” she reminded him. “I had no power. I couldn’t stand up to him.”

  Gus turned away, then spun back around to face her. “We could have, Rose.”

  “You weren’t there,” she said. “I had no way of contacting you. Finding you. I had to do what I did to save my mother.”

  “You didn’t give me a chance. Didn’t give us a chance.”

  She shook her head, unwilling to even consider the possibility now tha
t she could have done something different all those years ago. “You didn’t know him.”

  “Damn it, Rosie, you should have trusted me!”

  His shout thundered in the air.

  “It wasn’t about you, Gus. It was about my mother. When you went away to make enough money for us to get married, I was alone with him. He was in charge and he never let me forget it.” Damned if she’d apologize for doing what she had to, to protect her mother. “I kept hoping you’d come back, but you didn’t. You were gone four years, Gus.”

  “For us, Rose.”

  “But in those years, my father ate away at my mother, at me, until there was nothing left. I was alone,” she repeated for both their sakes. “I did what I had to.”

  Shaking his head, he looked at her. “You cut me off, fine. But you cut Sarah off, too.”

  Heart twisting, Rose said, “Sarah was my best friend. Do you think I didn’t miss her? Didn’t need her, especially with you gone?”

  “Then why?” he asked, voice tight and low.

  “My father. He wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t allow me to have anything he didn’t give me.”

  “I hope that old bastard’s burning in hell,” Gus muttered.

  “You are not alone,” she assured him.

  Shaking his head, Gus asked, “Were you happy at least?”

  She gave him a wry smile. For more than forty years, Rose had kept the secret of her hellish marriage. To outsiders, the Claytons were town royalty. Happy. Successful. But in reality, “Ed drank too much. When he did, he—”

  “Did he hit you?”

  Rose met his gaze and saw flashes of fire there. “Just once.”

  “Just once?” Gus’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Damn it, Rose. Why the hell would you stay with him?”

  “Where was I supposed to go?” she demanded. “He was drunk when he hit me and I hit him back. Let him know I wouldn’t stand for that. You were already married. To Sarah. I’d lost my love and my best friend. I had no one else. I had my children. So I stayed. And I kept out of Ed’s way.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Gus muttered and shot her another hard look.