Round-the-Clock Temptation

by Michelle Celmer

  “Keep us posted on the situation and we’ll keep digging.”

  When the meeting was over Connor called Nita to let her know he was ready to be picked up. She informed him curtly that she and Jimmy were shopping for groceries and she would be there when she was good and ready. All the way into town she and Jimmy had chatted while she’d ignored Connor. He figured she was still ticked off that she hadn’t been able to sneak away from him that morning. She also was growing increasingly frustrated with the fact that they had no housekeeper. Her father had shot down the two candidates they’d interviewed yesterday, saying they just weren’t right, and no one else had answered the ad.

  Nita seemed to be at the end of her rope.

  It was the middle of a workday and the club was fairly quiet, so Connor decided he might as well get some shut-eye while he waited. He walked back to the cigar lounge and made himself comfortable in a soft leather chair in the corner. He’d trained himself to sleep lightly in the Rangers, so when he heard the door open, heard the muffled sound of footsteps coming in his direction, he was only half-asleep.

  Nita kicked his boot. “Wake up.”

  He opened his eyes.

  She hovered over him, hands on her hips, Stetson pulled low over her eyes.

  “How did you get in here?” he asked.

  A wry smile curled her mouth. “The staff here learned the hard way not to mess with me. I think they hide when they see me comin’.”

  “Can’t say I blame them.”

  Her grin widened. Apparently she wasn’t angry with him any longer. “You ready to go?”

  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  He pulled himself from the chair and followed her out to the truck. Jimmy was leaning against the passenger door waiting for them and the bed was filled with groceries and supplies.

  “You tell him?” Jimmy asked.

  Nita shot Connor a nervous look. “I told you, there’s nothing to tell. It was an accident.”

  No wonder she was being so nice. She was hiding something from him. He should have known. “What was an accident?”

  Jimmy ignored Nita’s warning look. “Me and Nita were on Main Street waiting to cross and a car came out of nowhere and nearly ran her down.”

  Connor swore under his breath.

  “I’m sure it was just an accident,” Nita said hastily. “No one would try to run someone down in the middle of a busy street on purpose.”

  “If they were desperate to get rid of you they might,” Connor said. “What type of car was it?”

  “It happened so fast I didn’t get a good look,” Jimmy said. “I’m pretty sure it was a black BMW. Maybe dark blue. Not much help considering half of Royal drives those.”

  “You didn’t see the license place?”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Happened too fast. By the time I heard Nita swear, and turned to see what had happened, the car was around the corner.”

  Connor turned to Nita. “Exactly what happened?”

  “The light changed, I started to cross, then this car came out of nowhere and shot through the light and turned right. I’m sure it was accidental and they just didn’t see me there.”

  “Could you see the driver?”

  “Like Jimmy said, it happened so fast. And the windows were tinted.”

  Connor didn’t like the sound of this. He felt guilty for not being with her. He never should have taken his eyes off her. “Did anyone else see it? Did someone take down the license plate?”

  “Why would they?” she snapped. “I told you it was an accident.”

  No, he didn’t think it was an accident at all. If this person was bold enough to try to run her down on a busy street corner, things were even worse than he’d thought.

  Nita stuck her head out the bedroom door and peered down the hall. Connor’s door was closed, meaning he’d gone to bed.

  Too bad for him.

  The grandfather clock in the office chimed twelve times as she tiptoed down the darkened hall toward the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky spot just above the top step. Since almost getting run over two days ago—which she was still convinced was an accident—Connor had been stuck to her like glue. She couldn’t use the bathroom without him hovering outside the door. And he must have made some sort of pact with the men, because whenever Connor wasn’t around, Jimmy or one of the hands kept her in their sights. She realized, in retrospect, that by continually trying to give him the slip, she’d probably only made things worse for herself. But she was beginning to feel smothered, and all she really wanted was a few blissful minutes to herself. Even if that meant just sitting on the swing and looking at the stars, which is exactly what she planned to do tonight.

  She didn’t doubt someone was trying to scare them off the land, but besides the holes—which they now knew weren’t dug with the intention of hurting anyone—nothing had been done to put her or the staff in danger. Even the letters had been vague. Just your basic get off the land or else. Whoever penned them never specified what the or else would be if the Windcrofts didn’t comply. And here they were, still safe and sound on the land.

  She crept across the wood floor to the front door and flipped the deadbolt, cringing as the click echoed through the foyer. She was reaching for the doorknob when a hand clamped down firmly over her shoulder. She let out a shriek of surprise and spun around, and was greeted by the deep baritone of Connor’s laughter.

  “Are you trying to scare me half to death?” she admonished.

  Through the dark she could see he was grinning. “Just making sure you don’t sneak away.”

  “I wasn’t sneaking,” she lied.

  “Uh-huh. That would explain why you were tiptoeing down the stairs.” He took in her tennis shoes, flannel pants and University of Texas sweatshirt. “Let me guess, you were sleepwalking?”

  “I couldn’t sleep. I needed some fresh air to clear my head. I was going to sit on the swing.”

  He pulled the door open and held it for her. “Let’s go.”

  “Alone, Connor. If I wanted company, I would have woken you.”

  “You have two choices. We can sit out on the swing together, or go back to bed.”

  “Can we go back to bed together?” she asked, for the mere pleasure of teasing him, because she already knew the answer was no. And of course there was always that million-to-one chance she would catch him in the right mood and he would throw her against the wall, as he’d done in the stable, and ravage her.

  “In or out,” he said.

  And apparently tonight wasn’t going to be the night.

  She sighed and said, “Since I’m up and dressed we might as well go out there.”

  They walked onto the porch and he pulled the door closed behind them, then followed her down the steps and across the yard to the swing. The air carried a deep chill and dew soaked through the canvas of her shoes. The moon hung low in the sky casting a pale, eerie light across the land.

  Nita plopped down in the middle of the swing seat, so that whichever side he chose, Connor would be right next to her. She thought he might complain, instead he sat beside her—so close that their thighs were touching—and draped his arm over the back of the swing behind her shoulders. He pushed off with his foot and they swayed gently back and forth.

  “Out of curiosity, how did you know I was coming out here?” she asked.

  He leaned his head back and gazed up at the sky. “I heard you moving around in your room. Then I followed you downstairs.”

  And here she thought she’d been so quiet. “What did you do, levitate? I didn’t even hear you.”

  “Don’t feel bad. It’s what I was trained to do.”

  “Did you have to kill people, too?”

  Through the dark she could see him frown. “Sometimes.”

  “Jake said you served in the Middle East.”

  He nodded.

  “Is that where you were shot?”

  “Yep.”

  She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “And yo
u apparently don’t like to talk about it.”

  The frown deepened. “The things I saw there, you wouldn’t want to know about. Things I wish even I could forget.”

  He hadn’t revealed much, but she felt closer to him somehow, as if he’d exposed a part of himself no one else had ever seen. A part of her wanted to jump off the swing and do a happy dance, while another part warned her to back off. She didn’t want to care if he confided in her or not. She was getting too close.

  Even when she was angry and frustrated with him, she couldn’t be near Connor without experiencing a giddy, excited sensation in her tummy. A need to touch him. To be touched. It was as intriguing as it was frustrating.

  She didn’t know what it was about him that fascinated her so. She only knew that she wanted—no needed—to be near him. She wished he would just give in so their affair could run its course and she could stop feeling this way. She’d been so restless lately, so unfocussed and out of her element. It was as if her entire life was spinning out of control and he was the only thing keeping her rooted in reality. The only thing she could depend on, even if that meant depending on him to constantly avoid her advances.

  And she didn’t like it one bit.

  She shivered under her sweatshirt and Connor surprised her when he slipped his arm from the swing onto her shoulder.

  “Cold?”

  “A little. It’s chillier than I thought it would be.”

  Well, this was nice. Unexpected, but nice. She inched a little closer and rested her head on his shoulder. The stubble on his chin was rough against her forehead and, Lord, did he smell good. That masculine, woodsy smell that made her want to bury her nose against his neck and sniff. Of course, she knew she couldn’t get that close to his neck without taking a nibble or two.

  “I know what we could do to raise my body temperature,” she said, and heard him chuckle.

  “You don’t give up easily, do you?”

  “I’m not going to fall in love with you if that’s what you’re worried about. I know a lot of women say that but don’t really mean it. I’m too independent for that. I just want us to have some fun.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to, Nita. It’s too risky.”

  Too risky? What was that supposed to mean? “Are you afraid I’m going to get pregnant or something? Do you think I have diseases?”

  “It has nothing to do with that.”

  “Is it my age? Do you think I’m too young? Too immature?”

  He turned his head, brushed his lips across her hair. “Nope, you’re just right.”

  She could feel how much he wanted her, could see it in his eyes every time he looked at her. Why wouldn’t he just give in to the inevitable? “Would you please explain to me exactly what the problem is? I’m getting a complex here.”

  He was quiet for several minutes and she could practically feel him working it out in his head, deciding what to tell her. Finally he said, “I have a temper, Nita.”

  She snorted. “Tell me something I didn’t already know. I have a temper, too. So what?”

  “Sometimes I don’t have a lot of control over it. And when I get really angry, bad things happen.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Things I don’t want to talk about.”

  She reached up, touched his cheek. “I’m not afraid of you, Connor.”

  “You should be.” He grabbed her hand and held it, gazed down at her. “All my life, the only way I’ve been able to control my temper is to keep a tight rein on my emotions. But when I’m with you, when you touch me, I feel like I have no control at all.”

  Instead of feeling fearful, a shiver of excitement raced through her. She wanted to make him lose control. Wanted to push him to feel everything he wouldn’t allow himself to feel. “It’s okay to lose control sometimes.”

  The arm around her tightened. “Not for me.”

  She could feel herself being pulled in emotionally, sinking too deeply into a relationship that should have been anything but. Yet she couldn’t stop it. She had to know.

  “Tell me,” she said, looking up at him, disturbed by the anguish in his eyes, by the raw hurt. “Tell me what happened to make you feel this way. Why you don’t trust yourself?”

  “Because I almost killed a man with my bare hands.”

  Nine

  “Who was it?” Nita asked.

  Connor didn’t want to do this. Didn’t want her to know who he really was, but there was no other way to make her understand. No other way for her to see the mistake she was making. “He was in my platoon. One of my men. A friend.”

  “What happened?”

  He leaned his head back against the swing and gazed up at the stars, at the same sky he’d gazed up at that night. It felt like yesterday, and it felt like a hundred years ago. “He used to be one of my best men, but he’d changed those last few months. The things we saw over there…” He shook his head. “He’d become reckless, self-destructive. I didn’t realize how bad it was and I kept cutting him slack. I thought that whatever was wrong with him, he would work through it. But that night he disobeyed a direct order. He disclosed our location and put us all in mortal danger.”

  “Is that when you were shot?”

  “Me and half a dozen other men were injured. Two almost fatally. I’ve always had a volatile temper, but that night, I lost it. It took four men to pull me off him.”

  “Everyone has a breaking point,” she told him. “He’d pushed you too far.”

  “And I should have taken formal action against him. Instead I flew into a rage. If they hadn’t pulled me off, I wouldn’t have stopped. I would have killed him.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “But I would have, and the worst part, the thing that makes me sick to my stomach, is when I went back a few weeks ago they threw a damned party for me. This man who I nearly beat to death came up to me and apologized. Said he was sorry he let me down.”

  “He respects you,” she said.

  “I gave him no reason to.”

  Nita stroked his arm, and the simple gesture took away some of the pain. Soothed him in a way he’d never felt soothed before. He was so tired of feeling angry. So sick of the guilt. But it wouldn’t go away. It was as if it had become an extension of his personality. A part of his soul.

  “This is why you left the army, isn’t it?”

  “I had to. What if I lose it like that again? Next time, someone might not be there to stop me.”

  She was quiet for several minutes. He needed her to tell him that it was over, that she would stop pursuing him. He both anticipated and dreaded it.

  “Connor,” she finally said, turning to face him. “Were you happy in the army?”

  Her question threw him. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, did you enjoy it?”

  “I was serving my country.”

  “Yes, I realize that. But did you like it?”

  It was what he was meant to do. What he was expected to do. Whether or not he liked it had never crossed his mind. “It was an honorable career,” he told her.

  She blew out a frustrated breath. “Let’s try this again. When you were in the army, did you have fun?”

  “It’s not supposed to be fun.”

  “Yes, Connor, it is. When I wake up in the morning, I can’t wait to get to work because I love it. Sometimes, when I’m training a horse, it’s scary and it’s frustrating and it’s difficult, and it’s still fun.” She touched his cheek, turned his head so he would look at her. “I’m going to ask you again, did you enjoy being in the army?”

  “It’s what was expected of me. What I was good at.”

  “What about working in your father’s firm. Is that fun?”

  He gave a rueful laugh. “I don’t think you could ever categorize engineering as fun.”

  “The people who like to do it can. The people who don’t do it because it’s what is expected of them.”

  “Life is not about having fun.”

>   “Why not? Shouldn’t it be?”

  Good question. One he’d never considered—and had no idea how to answer.

  She didn’t wait for one. “If you’re not having fun, you’re most likely unhappy, and people who aren’t happy get angry and bitter. And if they don’t do anything to change, they just get angrier and angrier until they snap.”

  It took a full minute for his brain to absorb the meaning of her words, the concept was so foreign to him. Could she be right? Could his rage, his anger be the result of a life spent pleasing other people? Had he really been so unhappy?

  What was it his brother had said? Connor needed someone who could show him how to have fun. Had he become so closed off, so mired in other people’s expectations and his father’s constant disapproval, that he’d forgotten how to have fun?

  Hell, had he ever known? Had he ever been happy?

  Nita yawned and stretched, and pulled herself to her feet. “Well, it’s getting late. I think I’ll head back up to bed now.”

  “I’ll be up in a bit,” he said. He didn’t feel much like sleeping.

  “You know, you’re still welcome to join me.”

  Everything in him wanted to accept her offer. But he wasn’t prepared to drag her into this mess that had become his life.

  “Maybe another time,” she said, when he didn’t answer. “And think about what I said.”

  Thinking about what she’d said seemed to be all he could do as she disappeared into the house. When dawn cast a pink shadow on the horizon he finally got up and went inside, no closer to a solution than he’d been before.

  Nita stormed into the family room, feeling as if she were about an inch from her wits’ end and slipping fast. The men in this house were all acting like a bunch of fools and, damn it, it was time she did something about it.

  She smacked the newspaper down on the coffee table across from her father’s chair. Startled, he looked up from his game.