by Carole Howey
Flynn was ashamed that it had taken the foreman to remind him of his obligation as a gentleman, and amazed that Micah had such common-sense eloquence about him. He opened his mouth to tell the man as much but was interrupted by Boland's housekeeper.
"Them's probably the smartest words you ever spoke in your life, Micah Watts," the old lady declared, giving Flynn a long, narrow look that made him far more uncomfortable than any Bill had yet conferred. "And fit as you are, Bill Boland, I guess this here fella's still young enough to boot your behind from here to next Sunday, even though he ain't no spring rooster hisself. Ain't you already made a big enough fool of yourself at the C-Bar-C without puttin' a slam-bang finish to the job?"
Flynn marveled that anyone would speak to Bill Boland thus and live to tell about it, but old women, he knew, often enjoyed such an advantage over men. The rancher merely glowered at her, then turned a slightly deeper shade of scarlet.
"This isn't over by a sight, Muldaur," he said in a low, feral tone. "I mean to see you do right by Missy if you've ruined her, and I'll marry her myself tomorrow to get her away from here if you haven't. You think you can walk on in here and make free with a decent woman"
"I beg your pardon." Missy's voice was strong and clear as a brass bugle trumpeting reveille, and Flynn was startled into facing her. She stood draped in her towel like Lady Liberty, the big statue in New York Harbor, and she had a long, regal look for everyone in the room.
"This is my kitchen." She pronounced each word with great care. "And my house. What I do here, and with whom I do it, is of concern to no one but myself. I am not answerable to you, Bill Boland, or to Flynn, or anyone. And I deeply resent that the two of you are treating me as if I'm a piece of furniture being argued over by a gaggle of greedy heirs. I want you all to leave. No, on second thought, I'll leave. Then you can feel free to posture and snarl at one another all you like, even break things here in the kitchen if you think it'll serve any purpose. Just remember before you come to any conclusions that I, and I alone, will be the one who decides what happens to me."
Missy hiked the towel farther up on her shoulder, revealing a bit more of her shapely calves than was good for her. With a last, significant look at each of them, she swept from the room, barefoot, head high, back erect,
and closed the door with a bang behind her.
Bill Boland's housekeeper was the first to speak after a full minute. "She don't have a lot of sense, but she's got spunk. I give her that."
Chapter Nineteen
What a lovely, blessed mess, Missy thought, facedown on her bed. Well, Flynn had wanted to distract her from thinking about the tragedy with Miss Mabel's foal, and she guessed he'd succeeded. All too well, in fact. For now all she was able to think about was the fact that no fewer than three people had seen her and Flynn together under very compromising circumstances, and at least two of those three people were not reliable when it came to keeping their mouths shut.
Damn.
It was furiously hot in her bedroom. The July wind wasn't much help and there was still dust flying about. Bill had ridden off hard for home just a few minutes earlier, and the fine, filmy dirt his horse kicked up had filled the room. Missy couldn't say for certain, watching the rancher from her window, but she guessed by his breakneck pace that he and Flynn had not parted amicably in the kitchen. Micah had taken the buckboard to town right afterward. That left the alarmingly perceptive and forthright Mrs. Bonner in her kitchen, and Flynn who knew where.
Just as well. She didn't want to see them, any of them. Not even Lucy's baby. She wanted to go to sleep and forget about them, forget the entire mortifying incident, and wake up to find that none of it had happened. . . .
She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. It had happened, she realized with a throbbing ache in her breast. There could be no denying it or pretending otherwise. And even if the party downstairs had reached an agreement to keep the matter private, Missy knew that such a scandal would spread like a pestilence until her good name was as sullied as last week's linens.
She closed her eyes and swore she could hear herself sweat. Any benefits of the sensuously wonderful warm bath, and the subsequent sweet interlude in Flynn's arms, had long been overshadowed by the tense drama that followed it. What madness had overwhelmed her to make her think that bathing in Flynn Muldaur's presence might be harmless?
Even if they had not been interrupted in such an untimely manner, the result would have been calamitous, she knew. With one kiss, she had been ready to give Flynn everything, perhaps a good deal more than he wanted. She'd have gladly given him the ranch, her heart, and her virtue when he'd taken her in his arms that way. She had, for one sweet, reckless moment, abandoned every precept she'd ever held dear, every shred of coolheaded common sense she'd ever been praised for, and allowed herself to be blindly, blissfully in love with a man.
With Flynn Muldaur.
She closed her eyes, but found his fond, slow smile haunting her. She opened them again. This was a catastrophe the like of which she could never have calculated or predicted: she was in love with him, utterly and irrevocably. And she had allowed that love, combined with her weakened state, to lead her to an act of sheer folly.
How Allyn would laugh at me, she thought gloomily, rolling onto her stomach again. And how I would love to have her here so I could tell her everything!
She was flip-flopping so much in the hot room that she was beginning to feel like a lamb being roasted on a spit over a bed of hot coals. She considered removing her nightgown but decided it was just such impulsiveness that had gotten her into this fix to begin with.
The door opened. A new draft of warm air accompanied it. She sat up in alarm.
''I thought you'd be asleep." Flynn stood at the door, half in and half out of the room. There was no hint of a smile on his face, nor of the tenderness he'd so freely shown her in the kitchen before they'd been interrupted.
"Don't you believe in knocking?" She sounded petulant, she knew, but she didn't care. If he laughed at her, she would throw a pillow at him, or possibly even her lamp.
"What's good for the goose is good for the gander," he told her with a shrug and a fleeting hint of a grin as he closed the door behind him. "Remember?"
She did remember, and she silently damned him for remembering, too.
"That was different," she grumbled, turning on her side so she did not have to look at him. "This is my bedroom and I have a right to my privacy. Go away. I'm trying to sleep."
"No, you aren't," he argued in a quiet voice, leaning against the closed door. "If you were, you'd be asleep already. You've been up here for over an hour and you're still wide awake. I bet I can guess why, too." "You arrogant, presumptuous"
With annoying ease, he caught the pillow she flung at him. He approached the bed and handed it back to her wearing a most serious expression on his face.
"Missy, you realize we have to talk."
She groaned as she lay back against her pillows.
"I don't want to talk. I want to sleep."
"I know, but I don't think you'll be able to until we settle this. Do you?"
"There's nothing to settle." She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, determined not to look at him. "We made a foolish mistake that's going to cost both of us whatever reputations we once enjoyed, although it certainly won't affect you as much as it will me. The Bible makes very plain that the wages of sin are death. While I doubt either of us will die from shame, it's liable to be a very, very long time before people hereabouts forget this. I suppose I'll lose the goodwill of my neighbors Lord knows I've already lost Bill’s but I expect I'll survive nevertheless."
"It isn't as simple as that, and you know it."
He sounded so calm and detached that she wanted to kill him.
"Yes it is," she argued stubbornly. "Now go away. Leave me be."
"You sound just like Gideon." There was no mistaking the derision in his voice. "Grow up, Missy. There are adult consequences for what we
did, and you know it."
"We didn't do anything," she felt compelled to remind him as she met his gaze at last.
She remembered the look on his face. The last time she'd seen it, they'd been in her study, and he'd struck a deal with her to buy out his share of the ranch.
"It's best if we marry." His words were flat.
"I think not." Her heart raced, belying the coolness of her veto.
"That's your trouble: you're not thinking. You're either being stubborn about this, or you're just plain deliberately ignoring the facts."
"Oh?" She tried to be blasé. "And just what are the facts, Mr. Muldaur? That you've decided it would be more convenient after all to have me as a wife rather than merely a business partner? Perhaps” It was an awful thought, and it just materialized in her brain” perhaps you planned the whole scenario in an effort to force me into marrying you."
His face went slack.
"I what?"
"You heard me."
"I asked you to marry me last night before any of this happened, if you'll recall!"
"And what does that prove?" She hoped she sounded indifferent.
"Damn it, it proves that I care about you!"
"That's not how I interpret it."
"Oh? Then perhaps you'd like to interpret this."
In a single, efficient movement, he sat down on the edge of her bed and braced himself against the headboard behind her with one hand. He brought his face near enough for Missy to see the anger, the hurt, and the determination in his ice blue eyes, and she knew what he meant to do.
She shrank against the headboard, but she was trapped, both by his nearness and the rush of emotions she'd tried to bury.
"No, Flynn"
It was a pathetic, futile effort on her part. She knew it. He seemed to know it, too. He kept her prisoner with one hand on the headboard, but with his other hand he
cupped her cheek, teasing her earlobe with the tips of his fingers.
"Remember?" he said in a mesmerizing whisper.
"Yes," she breathed, just before his lips took hers.
He tasted like morning coffee, sweet and hot. He tasted clean. He tasted like the promise of love, and the coaxing of his mouth made her want to fulfill it with every part of her. He worked his silent entreaty with a mastery Missy could not resist and she found herself answering him with the same wordless enthusiasm.
Her hands found his lapels, then followed the trail to his throat. One of the buttons there gave way, and his low growl tickled the tips of her fingers even as it sent a hot, fluid ripple right down to the joining of her legs.
The hand that held the headboard found its way to her shoulder and guided her as the insistence of his mouth pressed her down against her pillows. His kiss grew stronger, harder by degrees, more demanding yet more yielding, as if for everything he took from her, he gave double of himself back.
"Fl"
"Shhhh," he commanded her, breaking away from her lips just long enough to let the sound out.
He was no longer sitting on the bed, she realized dimly. He was lying on it. Beside her. With her. On top of her. The heavier material of his shirt abraded her breasts through the soft lawn of her nightgown and made her nipples stand tender and erect.
He teased her with his tongue, diving in, retreating, playful one moment, urgent the next. Missy followed his lead, wanting to learn, learning to want. It felt so right having him there with her, beside her. Right and yet wrong. Not enough somehow. Too much. But she knew wrong. Not enough somehow. Too much. But she knew if she allowed it to go on, the line would blur even further and she would not be capable of asking him to stop. She did not want him to stop, even now. She turned her head aside, breaking the moment. He held her face in his hand and nibbled at her ear.
"Sweet God, Missy, if you don't marry me, I'll have to do something desperate." His hoarse whisper sounded so urgent that she believed him, although why it should make her feel like giggling, she had no idea. She was in terrible, terrible trouble; it was no laughing matter that she'd lost her heart to a man like Flynn Muldaur. She might as well have lost her mind. And if his hand moved down any farther, she was certain she would.
"We . . . we need to talk." Was that her voice? It shook like a frightened child's.
"Don't want to talk." His mouth was over hers again, threatening to send her into sweet oblivion.
"Flynn." She pushed him away, then was aware of a keen disappointment when he obliged by retreating to the edge of the bed. His hair was rumpled, his face was flushed, and he was panting as if he'd run a distance. And he was eyeing her with a steadiness she found disconcerting.
"What is it, Missy?"
How could he sound so impassive after what they'd experienced? What she'd experienced? She found she could not remain so near to him and not want to touch him in some way, so she eased to the other side of the bed and got out of it. She was warm, but she reached for her wrapper anyway and escaped to the window. Having put some distance between them, she felt secure enough to look at him again. He was propped up on one elbow and his legs were crossed at the ankle. His dusty boots were soiling her comforter, but that did not seem worth mentioning. His sensuous mouth was turned down in an expression that was half a pout, half a sneer. She did not know whether she loved him or hated him in that moment, but she made herself maintain his gaze.
"Do you love me, Flynn?" She held her wrapper tightly about herself, all the way up to her throat. That way she could choke herself if he said no.
"Would you believe me if I said I did?"
"That's not an answer."
"I know."
"You're not being fair to me, damn it!" Missy wanted to strike him, but she knew she could not trust herself to get that close to him. Distance provided at least the illusion of safety.
Looking down at his hands, Flynn let out a sigh.
"I want to marry you, Missy," he said in a quiet voice. "Not because I feel like I have to or I should, and not because I think it's the best thing for either of us. In fact, I'm damned sure it isn't."
"Then why should I marry you?" She prayed he would not get up from the bed and come to her; her heart needed far less encouragement to accept him than her head required to reject him.
He looked up at her again. His eyes were unshielded this time, and their look went straight to her soul like a silver arrow.
"Because you care for me," he replied simply. "And I care for you. And I think we're both smart enough to know that, with as little chance as there is for a lifetime or even a minute of happiness on this earth, we're still the best chance each of us has."
It was hardly a lover like proposal. Missy's eyelids suddenly felt like lead.
"You have secrets." She thought it, but the words escaped from her lips.
"And I always will," he told her solemnly. "As long as there's someone who might be hurt by my revealing them."
Missy tried to digest that, but it was a pretty big bellyful. "I value honesty," she murmured.
"I know you do," he said. "It's one of the many things I admire about you. All I can say is that I won't ever lie to you. I may refuse to answer you sometimes, but I won't ever deliberately mislead you."
"Will you answer one question?"
"If I can."
Cautious as a cat. Missy wondered if she could live with such canniness and fool herself into calling it honesty.
"Joshua Manners, that is told me that you were responsible for the deaths of two men in an undercover assignment in New Orleans. Were you?"
Flynn drew in and blew out a hard breath. He looked up at the ceiling and chewed on his lower lip.
"You don't think Manners lies, do you?"
"That isn't an answer, Flynn, and you know it," Missy rebuked him, her stomach knotting. "You just finished saying you'd never deliberately mislead me. If you'd rather not answer, say so. Don't bandy words with me. It's the same thing as lying."
Flynn looked down at his hands again, and his shoulders sank an inch.
>
"Well, I'd rather not answer that one, but there's no legitimate reason why I can't. So I have to say yes, Missy. I was responsible. So were a few other people, but that doesn't excuse my part in it. All I can say in my defense is that it wasn't supposed to happen that way, and that one of the things I do with the money I make is to send part of it to the widows and families of those men. It doesn't begin to compensate them for their loss, I know, but it's something I can do, anyway."