“What would be?”
“You and me.”
To his amazement once more, she smiled knowingly. “You were the one who made marriage part of the deal, Jake. Isn’t it nice to know that we won’t be bored in bed?”
Before he could form a coherent response to that, she was gone. And he was left to another restless, lonely night.
Chapter Five
Kissing Sara Wilde could get to be habit-forming, Jake concluded during a long and very restless night. He was relieved that he’d be heading out first thing this morning for a two-day check of the fence lines. Time and distance would surely cure him of this unwanted fascination with the boss’s daughter. Women rarely tangled up his emotions for more than forty-eight hours at a stretch, especially when he gave his common sense time to kick into gear.
Just to be sure there would be no last-minute temptations, he avoided the dining room, grabbed a bowl of oatmeal in the kitchen and settled down to eat it under Annie’s watchful eye. That was almost more disconcerting than dealing with Sara.
“You seem to be in some sort of hurry this morning,” Annie observed.
“I’ve got miles of fence to check. It’s going to be a long day.”
The corners of the woman’s mouth twitched with some private amusement. “Must be quite a project. You’re the second person to tell me that this morning.”
Jake paused, a spoonful of oatmeal halfway to his mouth. “And the other one was…?” he asked unnecessarily. Trent Wilde hadn’t mended a fence line himself in years.
“Sara,” Annie said, confirming his worst fears. “She was up with the chickens. Bolted her food down, too.”
Jake carefully set the spoon back down and eyed the housekeeper warily. “Sara said something about checking fences?”
“Sure did. She said you wanted to get an early start. She’s already out in the barn saddling up. I sent the packs of food along with her.”
“What the devil…?” Jake pushed away from the table, grabbed his Stetson and headed for the door.
“Jake Dawson, you can’t work all morning on half a bowl of cereal,” Annie called after him.
“I’ll eat Sara’s share of the food you packed for a midmorning snack,” he retorted. There was no way in hell she was going to need it.
Sure enough, though, Sara was in the barn. She greeted him with a cheerful smile that almost melted his grim determination to set her straight about going along on this two-day trip with him.
“What are you up to?” he inquired.
“What does it look like?” she asked as she cinched the saddle securely. “We have a fence line to check. I saw the note on your calendar. You must have forgotten to mention it last night.”
“I have a fence line to check,” he corrected.
“We’ve been through this before. It’s my ranch. I should see firsthand what repairs are needed.”
“It is not your ranch,” Jake retorted grimly. “Besides, I thought you had a lesson with Zeke today.”
“I called and postponed it until tomorrow evening.”
“I’ll bet he loved that.”
Sara shrugged. “He understood that chores come first on a ranch. If I neglect the fences, we could lose cattle.”
Jake clung to his patience by a thread. “The fence won’t be neglected. I’ll be checking it.”
“We’ll get done that much faster if we both do it,” she said cheerfully. “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Jake muttered a curse under his breath and stalked to the stall where his own horse was waiting impatiently. He couldn’t order Sara not to come. In truth, it wouldn’t be the first time they had shared a chore like this.
But it would be the first time since he’d discovered that she was capable of tormenting his senses. He suspected that she was well aware of the impact she had on him and had deliberately forced the issue just to make him crazy. He doubted she had any idea, though, just how dangerous a game she was playing. Last time he’d checked, he’d been a long way off from sainthood. The kisses they’d shared should have told her that, too.
“Suit yourself,” he said finally.
“I always do.”
“I’m just surprised that you’re taking time off from training already,” he said slyly. “Was the first day too much for you, after all?”
Sara scowled at him. “I explained that chores come first.”
“I know that’s what you said,” he agreed.
“Meaning?”
“That it looks an awful lot to me as if you’re chickening out on our bet. Looks to me like you latched on to the first excuse that came along to avoid getting back on that bronco. Which one did Zeke put you on? Lightning or Jezebel?”
“Diablo,” she said.
“A misnomer, if ever there was one. That horse can barely kick up its hind legs anymore.”
“Tell that to my butt,” she retorted. “Now back off. The training can wait another day.”
“I’m not letting you drag this out forever,” he warned her.
“Don’t worry about it.” She drew a deep breath, then blurted, “If not knowing when we’re competing bothers you, I’ll set a date. How’s the first Saturday after Memorial Day?”
Jake regarded her with astonishment. He wasn’t sure which of them was more stunned by the impulsive announcement. “That’s less than a month away,” he protested.
She gave him one of her saucy grins that had his stomach clenching and his blood pumping harder. “Then I say you’d better start practicing,” she retorted. “After all, you haven’t been tossed around by any bulls lately.”
“That was not what I meant.”
“I’ll be ready,” she vowed.
“We’re not competing until Zeke clears you,” Jake countered. “I will not be responsible for you breaking your neck just because you’re too stubborn to back down.”
“If you’d just sign the ranch over to me, we wouldn’t have to compete at all.”
“No way, sweetheart.”
She shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she said, echoing his earlier remark.
Jake smiled grimly. “I always do.”
Of course, what would suit him right now would be to throttle Miss Sara Wilde and there was no way in hell he could do that without putting everything he’d worked for at risk. Trent might recognize what a handful his daughter was, but he wouldn’t appreciate another man calling her on her behavior.
Unless, of course, that man happened to be married to her.
* * *
Two hours into the icy silence that had fallen between her and Jake, Sara realized that she actually enjoyed driving him to distraction. In fact, she’d found the whole morning downright amusing. The frustrated look on Jake’s face when he’d realized he couldn’t talk her out of coming along had been priceless. He’d appeared cornered, maybe even a little desperate.
That expression confirmed what she’d guessed the night before. He was susceptible to her and he wasn’t happy about it. Which meant there might be more than one way to land Three-Stars for herself.
Despite her brave comments on her ability to win their bet, Sara knew that her chances of outlasting Jake on a bronco were slim at best. She needed a backup plan and it appeared that seduction might be its cornerstone. If she could keep Jake off guard and rattled, he might make a mistake that would give her the edge she needed in their competition.
She cast a cautious glance sideways at his harsh profile. With his Stetson settled low on his forehead and his mouth narrowed to a thin line, there was no question about his mood. He was definitely not a happy camper.
Since he’d never reacted so negatively to her presence before, she could only conclude that he suddenly didn’t trust himself to be alone with her. That conclusion did wonders for her relatively untested feminine ego.
“Jake?”
“What?”
“Could we call a truce? We are pretty much stuck with each other for the next day or so. We might as well try to be pleasant.”
/>
“If you wanted chitchat, you should have gone into town for a visit with your sister.”
Sara wasn’t about to be put off so easily. “I was just wondering what it was like on the rodeo circuit.”
He glanced over at her. “Thinking of taking it up full time?”
She scowled at him. “Hardly. I was just curious.”
“I thought I satisfied your curiosity on this particular subject years ago. You pestered me about it enough when I first came to the ranch.”
She grinned at him. “I do recall something about ending up polishing your championship buckles.”
The hard line of his mouth softened just a fraction. “You were an easy mark.”
“I suppose I had a bit of a crush on you back then,” she admitted, not sure why she was willing to share such a secret now. Maybe because she’d always thought of Jake as a trusted friend, right up until the moment she’d realized he intended to take what she so desperately wanted.
“I would have done anything to please you,” she recalled with a wry smile. “You never took advantage of that, though.”
“Except to get you to polish those buckles for me.”
She met his gaze. “You know what I meant.”
Jake didn’t pretend not to understand a second time. “You were a girl, Sara. I may be a low-down skunk when it comes to women, but you were off-limits.”
“I’m all grown up now,” she pointed out daringly.
He grinned at that. “And more trouble than I can cope with,” he told her. “Don’t play with fire, Sara. You’re liable to get burned.”
“That’s an odd warning coming from a man who figures on winning a bet that includes me among the prizes.”
He shrugged. “I probably should have mentioned the warning before we made the bet. You might not have been so quick to take me up on it. Being married to a man like me wouldn’t be any bed of roses. I’m not going to settle down like some docile lapdog, Sara. You ought to keep that in mind.”
“It doesn’t change anything,” she said with a touch of vehemence. “I want Three-Stars. I’ll do whatever it takes to get it.”
“Including making a pact with the devil?” he asked dryly.
“You don’t scare me, Jake,” she said, surprised by the certainty in her voice. He really didn’t frighten her, not nearly as much as he should have, given his coldhearted reputation as a love-’em-and-leave-’em ladies’ man. She’d seen exactly how kind and loyal he could be to the people he cared about.
“That’s your first mistake, darlin’. You should always be a little bit afraid of a man who controls what you want.”
“You don’t control it,” she shot back. “Not yet.”
“The papers your father and I signed yesterday say otherwise.”
Sara was so startled by the calm statement, she almost lost control of her horse. Dismay ripped through her. “You’ve signed the papers already?”
“You knew we were going to,” he reminded her. “It’s just a matter of getting the bank’s okay on the loan and setting a date for the closing.”
“That can’t be. We had a deal,” she protested. “I thought you were going to put everything on hold…”
“I never said that.”
“But I assumed… I thought we had a deal,” she repeated.
“We do. If by some crazy fluke you win the bet, I’ll sign the ranch over to you. If I win, there’s no paperwork involved. I keep the ranch and get you in the bargain. Don’t count on a big, fancy wedding, though. The very thought of it gives me the jitters.”
Sara wasn’t sure why Jake’s announcement about the paperwork came as such a shock. She should have known he wouldn’t wait for their contest to stake his claim on the ranch. Besides, what would he have told her father about the delay? The truth was certainly out of the question. Her father would go ballistic if he found out about the bet. No, realistically, Jake had done the only logical thing.
A chill washed through her all the same. Once the ranch was in his name, what would prevent him from reneging on their bargain? She believed deep down that Jake was an honorable man, but he was also a man who fought hard for everything he wanted. He wouldn’t walk away from what was his easily. And the one thing she had never doubted was that he wanted Three-Stars as desperately as she did.
“Maybe we’d better put our agreement in writing,” she said.
“Don’t you trust me, darlin’?”
There was an odd note of regret mixed in with the amusement in his voice.
“Somebody very wise once told me never to trust a snake not to turn on me,” she said.
“Good advice,” he agreed. “You draw up your little piece of paper and I’ll sign it.”
Startled, she stared at him. She’d expected more of an argument. “You will?”
“Why not? I don’t have anything to lose.”
“Except the ranch,” she reminded him.
He shook his head. “Sweetheart, it isn’t going to happen. You might as well make a trip into town and have a chat with the preacher. That way you’ll have a head start on planning that June wedding. What’s the waiting period for a license? Or we could get that now and get married right after you hit the ground.”
The shudder that swept through Sara couldn’t be blamed entirely on panic. An unmistakable image of an impending wedding night set off a fair share of the trembling reaction she had to Jake’s confident words.
He regarded her speculatively. “Unless of course, you’ve thought better of it and want to call the whole thing off.”
“Not a chance,” Sara said fiercely, refusing to be provoked into doing what he wanted.
One way or another she was going to have Three-Stars. If marriage to Jake was the only way she could get it, then she’d find some way to live with it.
A surreptitious glance in his direction made her pulse escalate. For some reason she couldn’t quite convince herself that having Jake Dawson in her bed would be a total calamity. Maybe it was time she found out for sure.
* * *
How the dickens did she do it? Jake stared across the fire at Sara and cursed his luck for the hundredth time that day. She was sleeping like an innocent babe, while he was tied up in knots.
Leave it to him to develop the hots for a woman as irritating and perverse as Sara Wilde. He’d been in a perpetual state of arousal practically since dawn. Surely a man could die of frustration after a day like that. Tomorrow didn’t promise to be one bit easier on his libido.
Meanwhile, Sara had been blithely acting as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Even his deliberate taunts about the inevitable loss of Three-Stars hadn’t stirred much of a reaction. She’d apparently concluded that the ranch would be hers one way or another and was satisfied with that.
He found her ready acceptance that she might have to marry him to get it a bit disconcerting. He was finally forced to face the fact that he’d gotten himself in way over his head with that impulsive counterbet. There was every chance in the world that he was going to be forced to marry her just to live up to his word.
What in God’s name had he been thinking?
He sighed heavily. The truth was he hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d reacted impulsively, something he seemed to do all too often where Sara was concerned. Lately his ironclad self-control flew out the window when she was around.
As he was contemplating the reason for that, the distant, plaintive cry of a wolf split the night air. Sara shot upright, which indicated to Jake that perhaps she hadn’t been sleeping quite as deeply or peacefully as he’d thought.
“What was that?” she asked.
He didn’t buy the startled reaction for a minute. “You’ve heard wolves before, Sara.”
“He sounded close.”
“You know how noise carries out here. I’m sure he’s miles away. Go back to sleep.”
“I don’t think I can.”
Jake regarded her suspiciously. “When did the sound of a wolf start making you
nervous?”
Her gaze met his evenly. The firelight made her eyes glitter like brilliant jewels, the kind of gems that turned honorable men into thieves.
“I guess I’m just jumpier than usual tonight,” she claimed. “Would you mind if I moved to your side of the campfire?”
The soft plea put him in a hell of a bind. He might not believe her, but he couldn’t very well say no. He’d come off like a hard-hearted jerk. By the same token, saying yes was definitely tempting fate. That campfire was just about the only thing between him and a decision that would lead them both straight to disaster.
“Please,” she said softly.
“Come on over,” he said, his tone resigned.
Sara slid out of her sleeping bag and carried it over beside his. She spread it out scant inches from him, then wriggled back inside it.
With every shifting movement, Jake’s body hummed with awareness. He wanted desperately to slide in her direction, to cover her body with his, to claim her mouth again and prove to himself once and for all if it was sweeter and more enticing than any other mouth he’d ever tasted.
“Jake?”
Jake gritted his teeth. “Go to sleep, Sara.”
“I think I’d feel better if you’d hold me.”
Sweet heaven, she was going to drive him straight over the brink to insanity. There was no longer a doubt in his mind that she was doing it on purpose, too. Sara Wilde was definitely not the scaredy-cat she was pretending to be. She was one of the strongest, most self-reliant women he’d ever known. Somehow he had to remind her of that.
“Not a good idea, darlin’. Besides, you’ve been out here at night often enough to know exactly what to do to protect yourself. You don’t need me.”
“Oh.”
That single word was infused with a whole range of emotions— from disappointment to resignation. She sighed heavily.
Silence fell and Jake finally convinced himself that he’d had a narrow escape, but his honor was intact.
“Jake? Are you sure?”
He swallowed hard. “I’m sure.”
“Oh.”
Maybe it would have ended there. Maybe he would have clung to his fragile willpower for the rest of the night. But that damned wolf picked that precise moment to let out another plaintive howl that, indeed, sounded closer.
The Bridal Path: Sara Page 6