by Diana Palmer
“Now, Cousin,” Bud said soothingly, “how would I find him in there?” He jerked his hand toward the study and shuddered. “It would take a team of secretaries a week just to find the desk!”
“Speaking of secretaries,” Ward said, “this is my new one. Marianne Raymond, this is Bud Jessup. My cousin.”
“Ah, the much-talked-about niece,” Bud murmured, winking at Mari. “Hello, Georgia peach. You sure do your home state proud.”
Ward didn’t like Bud’s flirting. His eyes told his cousin so, which only made Bud more determined than ever.
“Thank you,” Mari was saying, all smiles. “It’s nice to meet you at last.”
“Same here,” Bud said warmly, moving forward.
“Here, son,” Ward said, tossing the bag at him. “You can put that in the guest room, if you don’t mind. I’m sure Mari would like to see the study.” Before anybody could say anything else, Ward had taken Mari by the arm and propelled her none too gently into the study.
He slammed the door behind them, bristling with masculine pride, and turned to glare at her. “He’s not marrying material,” he told her immediately, “so don’t take him too seriously. He just likes to flirt.”
“Maybe I do, too,” she began hotly.
He shook his head, moving slowly toward her. “Not you, honey,” he replied. “You aren’t the flirting kind. You’re no butterfly. You’re a little house wren, all feathered indignation and quick eyes and nesting instinct.”
“You think you know a lot about me, don’t you?” She faltered on the last word because she was backing away from him and almost fell over a chair. He kept coming, looming over her with threatening eyes and sheer size.
“I know more than I ever expected to,” he agreed, coming closer. “Stop running. We both know it’s me you really want, not Bud.”
She drew herself up, glaring at him. “You conceited…”
He moved quickly, scooping her up in his arms, holding her off the floor, his eyes wavering between amusement and ardor. “Go ahead, finish it,” he taunted.
She could have if he hadn’t been so close. His breath was minty and it brushed her lips when he breathed, warm and moist. He made her feel feminine and vulnerable, and when she looked at his hard mouth, she wanted to kiss it.
“Your office,” she swallowed, “is a mess.”
“So am I,” he whispered huskily, searching her eyes. “So is my life. Oh, God, I missed you!”
That confession was her undoing. She looked up at him and couldn’t look away, and her heart felt like a runaway engine. Her head fell back onto his shoulder, and she watched him lower his dark head.
“Open your mouth when I put mine over it,” he breathed against her lips. “Taste me…”
Her breath caught. She was reaching up, she could already feel the first tentative brushing of his warm lips when a knock at the door made them both jump.
He lifted his head with a jerky motion. “What is it?” he growled.
Mari trembling in his arms, heard a male voice reply, “Lillian’s got coffee and cake in the dining room, Cousin! Why don’t you come and have some refreshment?”
“I’d like to have him, fricasseed,” Ward muttered under his breath as Bud’s laughing voice became dimmer along with his footsteps.
“I’d like some coffee,” she said hesitantly even though she was still shaking with frustrated reaction and her voice wobbled.
He looked down into her eyes. “No, you wouldn’t,” he said huskily. “You’d like me. And I’d like you, right there on that long sofa where we almost made love the first time. And if it hadn’t been for my meddling, jealous cousin, that’s where we’d be right now!”
He put her down abruptly and moved away. “Come on, we’ll have coffee.” He stopped at the door with his hand on the knob. “For now,” he added softly. “But one day, Marianne, we’ll have each other. Because one day neither one of us is going to be able to stop.”
She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t even manage a defiant stare. It was the truth. She’d been crazy to come here, but there was no one to blame but herself.
From that first meeting, Cousin Bud seemed determined to drive Ward absolutely crazy. He didn’t leave Mari alone with the older man for a second if he could help it. He found excuse after excuse to come into the office when she was typing things for Ward, and if she ever had to find Ward to ask a question, Bud would find them before they said two words to each other. Mari wondered if it might just be mischief on Bud’s part, but Ward treated the situation as if he had a rival.
That in itself was amazing. Ward seemed possessive now, frankly covetous whenever Mari was near him. He shared things with her. Things about the ranch, about his plans for it, the hard work that had gone into its success. When he came home late in the evening, it was to Mari that he went, seeking her out wherever she might be, to ask for coffee or a sandwich or a slice of cake. Lillian took this new attitude with open delight, glad to have her former position usurped when she saw the way he was looking at her puzzled niece.
Bud usually managed to weasel in, of course, but there eventually came a night when he had business out of town. Ward came in about eight o’clock, covered in dust and half starved.
“I sure could use a couple of sandwiches, honey,” he told Mari gently, pausing in the living room doorway. Lillian had gone to bed, and curled up on the sofa in her jeans and a yellow tank top, Mari was watching the credits roll after an entertainment special.
“Of course,” she said eagerly and got up without bothering to look for her shoes.
He was even taller when she was barefoot, and he seemed amused by her lack of footwear.
“You look like a country girl,” he remarked as she passed close by him, feeling the warmth of his big body.
“I feel like a country girl,” she said with a pert smile. “Come on, big man, I’ll feed you.”
“How about some coffee to go with it?” he added as he followed her down the hall into the spacious kitchen.
“Easier done than said,” she told him. She flicked the on switch of the small coffee machine, grinning at him when it started to perk. “I had it fixed and ready to start.”
“Reading my mind already?” he teased. He pulled out a chair and sat down, sprawling with a huge stretch before he put his long legs out and rested his booted feet in another chair. “The days are getting longer, or I’m getting older,” he said with a yawn. “I guess if I keep up this pace, before long you’ll be pushing me around in a wheelchair.”
“Not you,” she said with loving amusement. “You’re not the type to give up and get old before your time. You’ll still be chasing women when you’re eighty-five.”
He sobered with amazing rapidity, his green eyes narrowing in his handsome face as he studied her graceful movements around the kitchen. “Suppose I told you that you’re the only woman I’ll want to chase when I’m eighty-five, Marianne?” he asked gently.
Her heart leaped, but she wasn’t giving in to it that easily. He’d already come too close once and hurt her. She’d been deliberately keeping things light since she’d come back to the ranch, and she wasn’t going to be trapped now.
She laughed. “Oh, I guess I’d be flattered.”
“Only flattered?” he mused.
She finished making the sandwiches and put them down on the table. “By that time I expect to be a grandmother many times over,” she informed him as she went back to pour the coffee. “And I think my husband might object.”
He didn’t like thinking about Marianne with a husband. His face darkened. He turned his attention to the sandwiches and began to eat.
“I have to go over to Ty Wade’s place tomorrow,” he murmured. “Want to come and meet Erin and the babies?”
She caught her breath. “Me? But won’t I be in the way if you’re going to talk business?”
He shook his head, holding her soft blue eyes. “You’ll never be in my way, sweetheart,” he said with something very much
like tenderness in his deep voice. “Not ever.”
She smiled at him. The way he was looking at her made her feel trembly all over. He was weaving subtle webs around her, but without the wild passion he’d shown her at the beginning of their turbulent relationship. This was new and different. While part of her was afraid to trust it, another part was hungry for it and for him.
“How about it?” he asked, forcing himself to go slow, not to rush her. He’d already had to face the fact that he wasn’t going to be able to let her go. Now it was a question of making her see that he didn’t have ulterior motives, and she was as hard to trust as he was.
“I’d like to meet Mrs. Wade,” she said after a minute. “She sounds like quite a lady.”
He laughed under his breath. “If you’d known Ty before she came along, you’d think she was quite a lady,” he agreed with a grin. “It took one special woman to calm down that cougar. You’ll see what I mean tomorrow.”
* * *
The next afternoon Mari climbed into the Chrysler beside Ward for the trip over to the Wades’ place. Ward was wearing slacks with a striped, open-necked green shirt, and she had on a pretty green pantsuit with a gaily striped sleeveless blouse. He’d grinned when he noticed that their stripes matched.
Erin Wade opened the door, a picture in a gaily flowing lavender caftan. She looked as if she smiled a lot, and she was obviously a beauty when she was made up, with her long black hair and pretty green eyes. But she wasn’t wearing makeup. She looked like a country girl, clean and fresh.
“Hello!” she said enthusiastically. “I’m glad you brought her, Ward. Hello, I’m Erin, and you have to be Marianne. Come in and see my boys!”
“I’m glad to meet you, too.” Marianne grinned. “I’ve heard legends about you already.”
“Have you, really?” Erin laughed. She was beautiful even without makeup, Marianne thought, the kind of beauty that comes from deep within and makes even homely women bright and lovely when it shows. “Well, Ty and I got off to a bad start, but we’ve come a long way in very little time. I don’t think he has many regrets about getting married. Not even with twin boys.”
“I can just see him now, changing a diaper.” Ward chuckled.
Erin’s green eyes widened. “But you can,” she said. “Follow me.”
Sure enough, there he was, changing a diaper. It looked so touching, the big, tough rancher Marianne had met before bending over that tiny, smiling, kicking baby on the changing table in a bedroom decorated with teddy bear wallpaper and mobiles.
“Oh, hello, Jessup,” he murmured, glancing over his shoulder as he put the last piece of adhesive in place around the baby’s fat middle. “Matthew was wet, I was just changing him,” he told Erin. He glanced toward a playpen, where another baby was standing on unsteady little fat legs with both chubby hands on the rail, biting delightedly on the plastic edging. “Jason’s hungry, I think. He’s been trying to eat the playpen for the past five minutes.”
“He’s teething,” Erin said, leaning over to pick him up and cuddle him while he cooed and patted her shoulder and chanted, “Da, Da, Da, Da.”
Ty grinned mockingly at his frowning wife. “She hates that,” he told the guests. “Most babies say Mama first. Both of them call me instead of her.”
“Don’t gloat.” Erin stuck her tongue out at him. “You just remember who got up with them last night and let you sleep.”
He winked at her, with torrents of love pouring on her from his light eyes. Marianne glanced up at Ward and found him watching her with the oddest look on his face. His green eyes went slowly down to her flat stomach and back up again, and she blushed because she knew what he was thinking. Exactly what he was thinking. She could read it in the sudden flare of his eyes, in the set of his face. She went hot all over with the unexpected passion that boiled up so suddenly and had to turn away to get herself under control again.
“How about some coffee?” Erin asked them, handing Jason to his dad. “Ward, if you’ll bring the playpen, the boys can come with us.”
Ward, to his credit, tried to figure out how the device folded up, but he couldn’t seem to fathom it. Ty chuckled. “Here, if Marianne will hold the boys, I’ll do it.”
“Surely!” She took them, cooing to them both, loving their little chubby smiling faces and the way they tried to feel every inch of her face and hair as she carried them into the living room.
“Oh, how sweet,” she cooed, kissing fat cheeks and heads that had just a smattering of hair. The twins had light eyes like their father, but they were green.
“Thank God they both take after Erin and not me,” Ty said with a sigh as he set up the playpen and took the boys from Marianne to put them back in.
“You’re not that bad,” Ward remarked, cocking his head. “I’ve seen uglier cactus plants, in fact.”
Ty glared at him. “If you want that second damned lease, you’d better clean up your act, Jessup.”
Ward grinned. “Can I help it if you go asking for insults?”
“Watch it,” Ty muttered, turning back to help Erin with the coffee service.
The men talked business, and Marianne and Erin talked babies and clothes and fashion. It was the most enjoyable afternoon Marianne had spent in a long time and getting to cuddle the babies was a bonus. She was reluctant to leave.
“Ward, you’ll have to bring her back to see me,” Erin insisted. “I don’t have much company, and I do love to talk clothes.”
“I will,” Ward promised. He shook hands with Ty, and they said their goodbyes. As they drove away, Ty had one lean arm around Erin, looking as if he were part of her.
“That marriage will outlast this ranch,” she murmured, watching the landscape turn gray with a sudden shower. It seemed chilly in the car with that wetness beating on the hood and windshield. “They seem so happy.”
“They are,” he agreed. He glanced at her and slowly pulled the truck off onto one of the farm roads, pulling up under a huge live oak tree before cutting the engine. “Would you like to guess why I stopped?” he asked, his voice slow and tender as he looked at her. “Or do you know?”
Chapter Eleven
No, Marianne thought, she didn’t really have to wonder why he’d parked the car. His face gave her the answer. So did the heavy, quick rise and fall of his chest under the green-striped shirt. He looked so handsome that she could hardly take her eyes off him, and the sheer arrogance in his narrowed eyes was intimidating.
But she wasn’t sure she wanted a sweet interlude with him. Her defenses were weak enough already. Suppose he insisted? Could she resist him if she let herself fall in that heady trap?
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” she began as he unfastened his seat belt and then hers.
“Don’t you?” he asked. “Even after the way you went scarlet when I stared at your waistline in the twins’ room? You knew what I was thinking, Marianne,” he whispered, reaching for her. “You knew.”
He lifted her across him, finding her mouth even as he eased her down against his arm with her head at the window. Outside rain was streaming down the glass, making a quick tattoo on the hood and the roof, as driving as the passion that began to take over Mari’s blood.
He bit at her soft lips, tender little nips that made her want him. His big hand smoothed over her blouse, under it, finding the softness of her breast in its silky casing.
“Lie still,” he whispered when her body jerked under that gentle probing. “It’s been a long time since we’ve enjoyed each other like this. Too long.”
He kissed her wide eyes shut and found the catch that bared her to his warm, hard fingers. She couldn’t let this happen, she kept telling herself. It was just a game to him, he didn’t mean it. Any minute now he was going to let that seat down and turn her in his arms….
With a wounded cry she pulled out of his arms so suddenly that he was startled into releasing her. She fumbled the door open, deaf to his sharp exclamation, and ran out into the rain.
> The long grass beat against her slacks as she ran, not really sure why she was running or where she was trying to go. Seconds later it didn’t matter because he’d caught her and dragged her down onto the ground in the wet grass with him.
“Never run from a hunter,” he breathed roughly, turning her under him as he found her mouth with his. The rain beat down on them, drenching them, making their bodies as supple as silk-covered saplings, binding them as if there had been no fabric at all in the way.
It was new and exciting to lie like this, to kiss like this, feeling the warm, twisting motions of Ward’s big body against hers, their clothes wet and their skin sensitive.
“We might as well have no clothes on at all,” he breathed into her open, welcoming mouth, his voice husky with passion. “I can feel you. All of you.”
His hands were sliding down her body now, exploring, experiencing her through the wet thinness of fabric, and it was like feeling his hands on her skin.
She moaned as she slid her own hands against his hard-muscled back, his chest, his hips. She didn’t understand what was happening, how this passion had crept up on her. But she was lost now, helpless. He could do anything he liked, and she couldn’t stop him. She was on fire despite the drenching rain, reaching up toward him, sliding her wet body against his in the silence of the meadow with the rain slicking their hair as it slicked their skin.
He eased his full weight onto her, devouring her mouth with his. His hands smoothed under her back, sensuously pressing her up against him.
Her body throbbed, burned, with the expertness of his movements. Yes, he knew what to do and how to do it. He knew…too much!
“Tell me to stop,” he challenged under his breath, probing her lips with his tongue. “Tell me to let you go. I dare you.”
“I can’t,” she whimpered, and her eyes stung with tears as she clung to his broad, wet shoulders. “I want you. Oh, I want you!”
His lips were all over her face. Tender, seeking, gentling, his breath catching in his throat at her devastating submission. He was trembling all over with the force of this new sensation. He wanted to protect her. Devour her. Warm her. Hold her until he died, just like this.