“Crow,” she told him softly, though he already knew. Her eyes were the strangest electric-bronze color right then. He watched her gaze moving—from his eyes to his mouth, and back again.
It was right then, as he watched those amber eyes tracking, that he got the message loud and clear: she knew exactly what was happening with him. She had him figured out.
“Damn it, Rory.” The two words came out sounding rough, dangerous as rocks tumbling down a mountain, picking up bigger and bigger boulders as they rolled, becoming a full-out landslide. “You know.”
She caught her plump lower lip between her teeth, and he wanted to growl at her, Let me do that. And then she nodded. Her mouth trembled a little. It was almost a smile. But not quite.
He demanded, “How long have you known?”
She hitched up her pretty pointed chin. “You don’t have to growl at me.”
He growled again, “How long?”
She hesitated. For a second he thought she would refuse to answer him. But then she said, “Since last night, after the party. When we were having that last cup of cocoa by the fire...”
“I’m that obvious, huh?” He swore under his breath and didn’t know whether to feel humiliated that he was behaving like a desperate kid with a first big crush, or relieved that she finally knew and they could move on from here—to where, exactly, he had no idea.
“Not obvious. Honestly. It was cumulative. You’ve been acting strange for days.”
He reached out, clasped her arm in the quilted jacket, felt the softness, the firmness, the slender bones beneath. “Tell me...” The words ran out.
She looked down at his gloved hand, and then back up into his eyes. It burned, that look she gave him. Burned so good. Seared him where he stood. “Tell you...what?”
“Tell me what I told you five years ago. To forget about it, that it’s a bad idea.”
Her eyes sparked with defiance. “You can tell yourself that. No reason I need to do it, too.” She eased her arm free of his grip. “Let’s get back, get some breakfast.”
He swiped off his hat and stood there, lost in the sight of her, as she put her camera away and mounted up. Once she was in the saddle, he only wanted to drag her back down off that horse and into his waiting arms.
She patted the gelding’s neck and then bent low to whisper some soothing word that had the horse chuffing softly and twitching his ear. Lucky damn animal. “You coming, or not?”
With a muttered oath, he shoved his hat on his head and got back on his horse.
* * *
All that day she treated him the same as she always had—with warmth and fondness and easy smiles. She never said a word about those few minutes at Lookout Point, when she’d admitted that she was onto him, that she knew the desperate, hungry way he’d started thinking of her. She just went on as always, helping with breakfast, pitching in to clean up after the party, working on her laptop for a couple of hours. And then riding into town with him for groceries and to pick up a few things at the hardware store.
It was driving him crazy, to feel this way and know that she knew. But then again, well, it had been driving him crazy before he knew that she knew. So what was the difference, really? Either way, he’d lost his mind.
He needed to make a move of some kind, but all the possible moves seemed like bad ones. There were no safe choices. He felt frozen in place.
Somehow, he got through that day.
They returned home from town. Alva had left pork chops, lemon rice and mixed vegetables waiting in the oven. They dished up and sat down.
He looked across the table at her and she glanced up and into his eyes—and it was too much. He couldn’t go on trying to ignore the heat and confusion all tangled up inside him. “Have I ruined everything?”
She set down her fork. “You have to stop being so hard on yourself. You have not ruined anything. Whatever happens, it will be all right.”
“How can you know that?”
She actually chuckled. “Well, I don’t know. Not really. But I was raised in a happy family where things always seem to work out in the end, so I’m going with that. Things will work out.”
“My family wasn’t so happy. My dad took off when Rye was only a baby.”
“I know,” she said gently. He’d told her all about it one night in the forest, camped out under the stars. “And your mother spent the rest of her life waiting for him.”
“She...had it so bad for him. And she never got over it. It was like a disease with her. I always promised myself I would never be like that, pining for someone who’d been nothing but bad for me.”
Rory knew what came next. “And then there was Denise, who did you wrong, who swore to love you forever and then left you cold.”
“So I guess I don’t have the same happy outlook as you.”
She jumped right to his defense. “That’s not true. Most of the time, you’re a pretty upbeat guy.”
“Not about this. Not about...” Love. The word was there, a threat and a promise inside his head and heart. He didn’t let it out. “I don’t want to lose you, to lose what we have.”
She tipped her head to the side, thinking that over. “I don’t want to lose you, either. But things change, you know? Between people, over time. You can’t stop that. You can’t make time stand still. We might...grow closer together. Or we might grow apart. But denying what you’re feeling right now is not going to somehow magically keep our friendship all safe and tidy and just the way it’s always been.”
“What are you feeling?”
She only looked at him for a very long time. “Not fair,” she said finally. And he knew she was right. He’d turned her down once. And he was the one who’d started this now. It was his job to step up, make his move.
Or let it go.
“Hey,” she spoke softly.
“Yeah?”
“Eat your pork chop before it gets cold.”
* * *
The night before had been a long one and Saturday night was the party at Rye’s bar. So they both decided to turn in early. He switched off the fire and the lights.
She followed him up the stairs and along the hall to their two bedroom doors, across from each other. He turned to tell her good-night, and then, out of nowhere, she offered him her hand.
He took it, fast, before he could convince himself that he shouldn’t. Wrapping his fingers around her softer, cooler ones, he felt the heat within him, coiling deep down. “Damn it to hell, Rory...”
She stepped up nice and close. She smelled of that perfume she always wore, of roses and oranges and a hint of some dark spice. He’d always liked her scent. But now, tonight, it seduced him, made his head spin. She pulled her hand back.
He felt the loss of her touch as a blow, sharp and cruel.
But then she tipped up her sweet mouth to him.
It was the best offer he’d had in a very long time. And yet it felt all wrong. “I’m supposed to be looking out for you, not stealing kisses at bedtime.”
She took a soft, slow breath. “Because you’re my bodyguard.”
“That’s right.”
“Didn’t I try to warn you that being my bodyguard was not a good idea?”
Oranges. Spice. What would she taste like, on his tongue? She really was killing him. “Uh, yeah. I believe that you did.”
“You should have listened to me.”
“Maybe so. Too late now, though.”
“Is it?” She lifted a hand and laid it, flat, on his chest. His heart started booming. He was sure she could feel it bonging away in there, yet more proof of what she did to him.
And then, very slowly, she closed her slender fingers into a fist, taking his shirt with it, and then pulling him down to her, until you couldn’t fit so much as a feather between his
mouth and hers.
It was too much. With a low, needful sound, he gave in, lowering his head that fraction more and touching those waiting lips with his.
Petal-soft and perfect, those lips of hers. She sighed. He let himself fall into her—but slowly, with care. It was his first real taste of her, in all the years of knowing her.
It might very well be his last. He was determined to savor it, to savor her.
She offered only her mouth to him and kept her fist, still clenching his shirt, between them. She didn’t let her body sway to his.
He accepted those terms, even approved of them. It was important to him that they go no further than this.
This.
God, this...
He brushed his lips back and forth across her slightly parted ones. Sweet as sugar, tender as a breath, she stunned him with pleasure. He nipped her plump lower lip and she moaned—a tiny sound, inaudible, really.
Oh, but he heard it. His arms ached to draw her in—but no. He kept them at his sides.
Slowly, he settled his mouth more firmly on hers. He dipped his tongue in. So good, the taste of her. She swirled her tongue around his, teasing him, inviting him.
He moaned, a deeper sound, one that betrayed how close he was to losing control, to reaching out and hauling her close to him.
And that was when she let go of his shirt and stepped away.
He longed to grab her back. But there was his obligation, the contract he’d made with her mother, a promise to take care of her. It was a whole different kind of taking care of her to climb into her bed—not the kind her mother had intended, that was for sure.
So in the end, he only said, “’Night, Rory.”
“’Night,” she whispered, taking another step backward. Now she was fully past the threshold, into her bedroom. Slowly, she closed the door, those bronze eyes, shadowed to deep brown now, holding his until he lost sight of her and found himself standing there in the upper hallway.
Alone.
* * *
As soon as she shut the door between them, Rory turned and sagged against it.
Enough.
Yes, it had been fun, at first, to torment him a little. After all the years of keeping her feelings in check, giving him a little taste of his own medicine had been very, very sweet.
But Walker took his commitments so seriously. He didn’t want to want her—at least, not now, while he had a responsibility as her protector.
Knowing him, he probably didn’t want to want her, period. There were those issues they would have to get past. But they couldn’t even begin to tackle the issues now, not as long as he was her bodyguard.
She had to do something about that. And she intended to.
As soon as it was morning in Montedoro.
She took a bath. Then she let Lucky in, got in bed and read half of a mystery novel on her laptop, with the cat curled up next to her. When she grew tired of reading, she played video games and fiddled with some of the shots she’d taken. Way too slowly, the hours crawled by.
At 1:00 a.m.—nine, in Montedoro—she picked up her phone and called her mother’s cell.
Adrienne Bravo-Calabretti, Sovereign Princess of Montedoro, answered on the first ring. “Aurora, darling. Hello.”
“Good morning, Mother.”
A pause, then cautiously, “Isn’t it very late there?”
“It’s just one.”
“Are you well?”
Rory got down to it. “This isn’t working out, having Walker as my bodyguard.”
“How so?”
“Can’t you just take my word for it? Please.”
Silence. “Are you angry with me, my darling?”
“Well, yes. I guess I am, a little.”
“Why?”
“Oh, please.”
“Oh, please?” her mother echoed. “That tells me nothing. What does that mean?”
“You’re making me feel like a bratty child, Mother.”
“Darling, I can’t make you feel anything. Your feelings are all your own.”
Rory slumped against the pillows and took a long, slow breath.
Her mother spoke again. “I really do like your friend Walker so much.” Her mother and her father had met him in person just once, four years ago, when they came to Justice Creek for a visit—and to check out the place Rory seemed to want to spend so much time. “Is he...not taking care of you?”
Rory wanted to pitch her laptop across the room. “Of course he’s taking care of me. He hardly lets me out of his sight. He’s the most responsible man I’ve ever known.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“I don’t want to go into it. It’s personal.”
That elicited a longer-than-ever pause from her mother. Finally, “Fair enough. I’ll have Marcus send a replacement.” Commandant Marcus Desmarais was Rory’s sister Rhia’s husband. He ran the Covert Command Unit, the elite Montedoran fighting force from which the family’s bodyguards were chosen.
“No replacement,” Rory said flatly.
“Oh, but, darling, we’ve talked about this and—”
“Yes, we have. And you haven’t listened. I promise, if I go somewhere dangerous, I will take security. But Justice Creek is not Afghanistan. I don’t need a bodyguard—not here. I truly don’t. I want my freedom, Mother. I need it. You have to let go and give it to me.”
Another brief pause then, “All right,” her mother said wearily.
Rory’s mouth dropped open. “Did I hear you correctly? Did you just say ‘all right’—as in, no bodyguard?”
“Yes, I did. You’re very insistent, darling. And your father and I have been talking about it. He says I’m holding on too tightly.”
“You think?” But she said it affectionately.
“You are my baby, the last of my brood.”
Rory chuckled. “You make us sound like puppies.”
Her mother’s answering laugh warmed her. “I love you, Aurora Eugenia.”
“Oh, Mother. And I love you.”
* * *
Walker went downstairs an hour earlier than usual Saturday morning. He was hoping to steal a little time on his own before Rory came down and filled up his world.
He got lucky. She wasn’t down yet. Technically, as her bodyguard, he shouldn’t leave the house without her. But he needed to get outside, in the open, to clear his head of the scent of her, to clear his mind and his heart, too.
So he piled on the outerwear and left the house, Lonesome trailing after him. He went straight to the stables. He tended the horses, Bud joining him after a while and helping him finish up. Once that chore was handled, Bud returned to his house. Walker went and stood in the yard and stared up at the dark, star-thick sky and took long, deep breaths.
One week until the wedding. And after the wedding, Rory would go. He just needed to get through that week without doing anything too stupid, needed to remember that he had a job to do, a responsibility he’d taken on. He’d made a contract with her mother, the sovereign princess, and he needed to keep that in the front of his mind.
One week. And then she would go...
God. He was a basket case. She was driving him wild and he needed her to go—but he didn’t know how he would stand it once she left.
She had him spinning in circles. The last day or two, he was getting to kind of despise himself. Somehow, he’d turned into a steaming pile of tortured feelings—not like any kind of man at all.
That was the thing about him. Deep down, he was just like his mother. Darla Noonan McKellan spent her whole life loving a man who’d left her and their children without a backward glance. And Walker? He’d never learned how to want a woman in moderation. When he fell, it was like jumping off a mountain, a surrender of all control, so
that all he could do was plummet helplessly to the rocks below.
Time to go in, time to face Rory again and find some way to get through this day. And the next one, and the one after that.
As he started for the front steps, he noticed that the light was on in the entry. He’d turned it off when he went out. She must be up, waiting. Wondering why he hadn’t come down. His heart raced as if he’d run a marathon and his palms, in his heavy gloves, were sweating.
Easy, man. Take a deep breath and suck it the hell up.
He mounted the porch steps and went in, Lonesome bumping in behind him, sliding around him, heading straight for the kitchen and his food bowl. She was sitting on the bottom stair, long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing jeans, work boots and a thermal T with a flannel shirt over it, looking like every rancher’s fantasy of the perfect woman: hot as the Yellowstone caldera and ready to work.
She stood. “I was wondering where you were.” He noticed then that she had her cell phone in her hand. “Hold on, Mother.”
He didn’t think he liked this. “What’s going on?”
She held out the phone. “My mother would like to talk to you.”
His heart dropped to his boots. It felt like an ambush, somehow. But what could he do? He took the phone. “Your Highness?”
That smooth, cultured voice said, “Hello, Walker. My daughter tells me you’re doing a wonderful job as her bodyguard.”
“Well, uh, thank you, ma’am.”
“But she’s also finally convinced me that she needs her independence and that it’s time I gave up being overly protective of her.”
“Ah,” he said idiotically, because she’d stopped talking and it seemed like his turn to make some sort of sound.
“So I’m relieving you of duty, as of right now. Rory wants a chance to take care of herself. I’m giving it to her.”
Did that mean she was going, leaving his house? Of course it did. If she didn’t have to have him watching over her, she could go to the Haltersham, order up room service and visit the spa. She could rent her own vehicle and go where she wanted, when she wanted, without him stuck to her side like a burr on a saddle blanket.
His gut churned. He turned away, so that she couldn’t see his face until he got better control of his damn, wimpy emotions.
A Bravo Christmas Wedding Page 9