by Sandra Brown
Ever mindful of eavesdroppers, she said cheerfully, "Well, I must run, Travis. Thanks for calling. Merry Christmas."
Replacing the receiver, she gripped it hard for several seconds, as though wanting to extract bravado from it. She still didn't intend to spoil everyone's holiday by announcing that Travis and she were no longer getting married. Until she could figure out a graceful way to break the news to her family and save face, she planned to brazen it out.
But she needed a moment to collect herself. Rather than returning to the dining room, she rushed upstairs. As she approached the door of the room she was now sleeping in, she heard voices coming from the other side.
Marcie was lying on the bed. Jamie was at her breast, sucking greedily. Chase was adoring both. "Oh, I'm sorry, Sage," Marcie said when she saw her standing in the doorway. "We'll go someplace else."
Masking her distress behind a smile, Sage breezed in. "Don't be silly. I just came in to repair my lipstick."
She moved to the vanity table and checked the mirror for signs of discomposure on her face. None were visible. She used a tube of lipstick, then crossed to the bed and sat down on the opposite side from Chase, who couldn't take his eyes off his wife and child.
The threesome embodied familial bliss. Tears threatened again, but they were easily explained. Everyone got emotional over babies. "Jamie is beautiful, you two," she said gruffly. "Truly beautiful."
"Thank you. We think so too." When Marcie and Chase's eyes met, they looked at each other with such naked love and devotion that Sage felt like an intruder. After a moment, Chase said, "I've barely had a chance to say hello, brat. We're damned proud of you for getting that master's degree."
"Thank you."
"It's a shame Travis couldn't be here to celebrate Christmas with us," Marcie said with commiseration. "I think Jamie and I ruined your plans."
"It doesn't matter. We—"
If she could tell anybody that her engagement was off, it would be Chase and Marcie. Marcie was extremely sensitive to other people's feelings. Chase had always been more serious than Lucky, who would either demand to know how dare the sonofabitch jilt his sister or tease her until she couldn't stand it.
But Sage couldn't bring herself to admit her failure yet. They would offer condolences, too. Their pity, like Travis's, would be intolerable. To spare them all an awkward scene, she perpetuated the myth that she was still engaged.
"We had changed plans so many times already, once more didn't matter."
"Hey, Chase." Lucky knocked on the door. "Can you tear yourself away from your wife and kid long enough to watch the Cowboys kick the Redskins' butts?"
Chase looked at Marcie inquiringly. She laughed. "I couldn't possibly ask you to miss that."
"I could watch the game at home."
"No. Enjoy the day. I'm fine. After Jamie's finished here, I'll stay and rest for a while."
"Sure?"
"Sure."
He bent down and kissed her lips before leaving the room. Marcie's eyes followed him from the room, before they returned to Jamie. He had stopped sucking. She cupped her breast and moved it aside, her nipple popping from his mouth.
Sage extended her arms. "Do you mind if I hold him?"
"Not at all." Sage had learned how to handle an infant when Lauren was born, but she lifted the baby gingerly. Observing her, Marcie said, "You're getting a lot of practice before having one of your own, which shouldn't be too much longer."
Sage shook her head emphatically. "No, I don't think so."
"Haven't Travis and you talked about having children?"
"Oh, sure. But we planned to postpone it for five years at least."
"You've been that specific?" Sage nodded, and Marcie laughed softly as she settled against the pillows behind her. "Sometimes it doesn't work out that way."
"Chase said you got pregnant on your wedding night."
"That's right, even though we thought we were protected against it. Thank God we weren't," she said, gazing at her son lovingly.
Sage bent her head over the infant sleeping in her arms and rubbed her cheek against his soft, warm head. "Amen to that. He's an angel."
After a while, she returned the child to his mother. Marcie seemed content to lie there and watch him as he slept. She was perfectly serene, secure in the knowledge that she loved and was loved, where before she had been so career-driven.
"What about your business?" Sage asked.
"I'm taking a leave of absence, at least until Jamie is weaned and goes on a bottle. I have two agents selling for me now. Esme runs the office like a boot camp. Things are well in hand."
Sage felt a stab of envy for Marcie, just as she had for Devon earlier that day. She wasn't that much younger than either of them, yet she had accomplished so little. She didn't have a career. She wasn't diligently pursuing one. She didn't have a child who depended on her for its very existence. She didn't have a man who worshiped and adored her and wanted her forever as his partner in life.
Suddenly the walls of the room closed in on her, as suffocating as her own sense of worthlessness. "I think I'll try out my new riding quirt." With no more explanation than that, she virtually ran from the room.
She had dressed in her leather pants that morning, so she didn't have to change clothes. Within minutes of leaving the house via the back door, she was saddled and galloping across the open pasture.
It was a glorious day. The sky was so clear and blue, it hurt the eyes to look at it. The sun was warm on her face, but the wind was cold. As it tore through her hair, it brought tears to her eyes. At least that's how she explained them to herself.
What did her life amount to? Nothing. Where was she going? Nowhere.
Marrying Travis Belcher had seemed like the ideal thing to do when they began dating. Now she acknowledged that he had been right—she had only talked herself into believing she loved him. They had had a risk-free relationship. It had been safe because she didn't love him enough for him to hurt her. His rejection hurt, yes, but not because she was emotionally bonded with him.
There, she had admitted it. She hadn't been as much in love with Travis as she had been with the ideal that he represented. So losing Travis, the person, was no great loss, except that it left a gaping whole in her future where marriage to him had previously been scheduled. That was the loss that hurt. That's what she was crying over. What was she going to do with the rest of her life?
If she told her family what she really wanted, they would be flabbergasted. They would pat her on the head and tell her that it was an amusing notion. None would take the "brat" seriously. They never had.
Her horse grew tired long before she had decided what action she should take next. All she had resolved was that she couldn't withstand another grievous disappointment right now. So, for the time being, her secret ambition would remain a secret.
She walked the gelding back to the stable, rubbed him down, and gave him a bucket of oats. Leaving his stall, she saw movement from the corner of her eye and turned to find Harlan lounging against one of the double doors.
"What do you want?" she asked crossly, hoping that her mascara hadn't left muddy tracks on her cheeks.
"Just getting some fresh air and stretching my legs."
"I thought you were watching the football game."
"It's halftime."
"Who's winning?"
"Redskins."
"Figures."
"You're not in a very festive mood. I thought Hot Lips's telephone call would cheer you up."
"It did."
"Did he beg for your hand back?"
"He made some overtures," she said coyly. "I told you he would come around." She lied brazenly. Her conscience didn't apply when it came to Harlan. "Every bridegroom gets premarital jitters and tries to back out at least once before the wedding."
"Not every bridegroom."
"Have you ever been one?" she demanded, planting her hands on her hips.
"Can't say that I have."
&
nbsp; "Then how in hell do you know what they do or don't do?"
He whistled. "Cussing, too. We really ought to do something about this blue funk you're in."
"I lost the Christmas spirit the moment I opened that stupid present you gave me."
He grinned unrepentantly. "You didn't like it? When I saw it, it cried out, 'Buy me for Sage.'"
"You should have saved your money."
"Well, now I really feel responsible for your lack of holiday merriment." He glanced above his head. "Maybe that would help."
She looked up. A fresh sprig of mistletoe was hanging from the doorjamb. "Who put that there? It wasn't there earlier." She leveled a gaze on him. "Oh, that's cute."
"Call it charity. I figured you'd be missing Travis. Since he's not here to give you a Christmas kiss…" He raised his arms at his sides as though offering himself to her service.
"Are you serious?" she exclaimed.
"Never more so."
"You expect me to kiss you?"
Sliding his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, he tilted his head to one side. "Why not? It won't be the first time."
"I didn't kiss you before."
"That's not how I remember it."
"You forced it on me by rubbing our mouths together."
"Fun, wasn't it?"
"Hardly."
He laughed as he sauntered toward her. "Come on, what do you say?"
"No."
"How come?" He had moved so close they were almost touching. His eyes were heavy lidded, impelling. "Scared you might like it again, even more than you did the first time?"
His challenge was as brassy as a trumpet. No Tyler, particularly Sage, had ever backed down from a dare. She had picked up every gauntlet her brothers had ever tossed down. If she hadn't, she would have been called a chicken and a crybaby. Harlan had probably guessed that and was using it to goad her. Even so, Sage couldn't back down from such a flagrant challenge.
"Oh, what the hell? One kiss under the mistletoe. What's the big deal?"
* * *
Chapter 6
The big deal was that he knew how to kiss.
The big deal was that if a panel of expert kissers were ever asked to appear on "Donahue," Harlan Boyd would serve as chairman.
The big deal was that she felt the kiss straight through her body to her toes.
She had planned to call his bluff but keep the kiss short and chaste, to show him that she wasn't intimidated by his dare. Even when he cupped her head between his hands and tilted it back like he meant business, she hadn't panicked. She could handle this. He was only a man. This was just a kiss.
But before she realized quite how he had accomplished it, her lips had been seduced to separate and she was receiving his tongue. Receiving was the appropriate word. He hadn't forced his way inside her mouth with brutal thrusts. He didn't make hit or miss stabs at the seam of her lips like some of her less talented boyfriends had done in their vain attempts to thaw her.
His tongue entered nonaggressively, stroked lazily, explored leisurely, tasted thoroughly. The only thing abrupt and shocking was her response. His lips were firm, not loose and floppy. He applied just the right amount of pressure and a delightful degree of suction. His mastery was startling, but too marvelous to stop. It would be like cutting off the hands of a gifted magician.
Harlan spun his own kind of spell. Her stomach fluttered weightlessly, yet her limbs felt heavy. She was lightheaded, but her earlobes throbbed with an infusion of pressure. Her breasts tingled, especially her nipples. Between her thighs she experienced a dull, feverish ache.
Without releasing her mouth he moved his hands from her head to her shoulders. They slid down her back, then over her derriere. He pulled her against the front of his body.
Feeling his hardness, Sage whimpered. Her knees went weak, much as they had the night before in church. Her bones seemed to have liquefied, so she leaned into him for support. Her mouth clung to his. She laid her hands on his shirt, her fingers involuntarily curling into his sturdy chest.
"Damn, Sage," he muttered, momentarily lifting his lips off hers and gazing down at her.
Her eyelids were afflicted with the same lassitude as the rest of her body. She could barely lift them. Later, she knew she would bitterly regret this, but right now, she thought she would die if he didn't go on kissing her.
Apparently he was of the same mind because he walked her backward into the barn, out of the doorway where they could be spotted by anyone inside the house who might glance out a window. He didn't stop until her back came up against the slats of the first stall.
Barn smells filled her nostrils. Animal flesh and fresh hay and old leather … and Harlan. His smell was a mix of man and cologne and outdoors and sunshine. Healthy. Sexy. Masculine.
As his head lowered to hers again, she reached for his lips with her own. When his tongue slid into her sweetly receptive mouth, he made a low, wanting sound and angled his body against hers, pressing into her softness. She reached up and sank her fingers in his hair.
By the time they broke apart for breath, they were panting. Their faces were flushed, their bodies on fire with yearning, their loins pounding with lust.
"Damn," he murmured again, burying his face in her neck.
He kissed it hungrily, with an open mouth, drawing her skin against his teeth. She had threatened to murder the last man who had left a mark on her. Now, she ran her hands up and down the rippling muscles of Harlan's back, dropping her head back and giving him access to her throat.
At first he only nudged aside her collar with his nose. Then he undid the first button of her blouse and kissed the hollow of her throat. She moaned, arching her back and sliding her middle across his. He undid the second button of her blouse, then the third. As they came undone, he tracked the fragrant opening with hungry lips.
Finally he raised his head so he could see her breasts. They were rising and falling rapidly, nearly tumbling out of the sheer, lacy cups of her low-cut brassiere. Her nipples, raised and pointed, strained against the weblike lace.
"Damn, Sage," Harlan hissed through his teeth. He laid a hand over each breast.
Her eyelids closed and she released a long, staggering sigh. "Yes."
He ground the stiff centers of her breasts with his palms.
"Hmm, yes." She moaned, swaying slightly.
Suddenly, not only were his hands withdrawn, but his warmth as well. Sage struggled to open her eyes and pull him into focus. He was standing several feet away from her. The hands that had been gently caressing her, were now planted firmly in the hip pockets of his pants, as though he didn't trust them. His eyes were trained on her breasts. He was gnawing his lips and cursing beneath his breath.
Sage came to her senses, as though she'd been snapped out of a hypnotic trance. If she had discovered herself prancing naked in front of a sideshow audience, she couldn't have been more furious with her hypnotist. She closed the distance between them in two short strides and slapped Harlan across the face as hard as she could.
To her consternation, she privately acknowledged that she wasn't slapping him for what he'd done, but because he had stopped doing it.
Rubbing his cheek, he said, "Well, it almost worked."
"It didn't even come close." Her voice was low, vibrating with outrage. "You've got nothing to pat yourself on the back for." Clumsily she began rebuttoning her blouse, then gave up on that tricky endeavor and pulled her jacket together over her exposed chest. "I didn't feel a thing."
"I wasn't referring to my efforts," Harlan calmly remarked. "I was referring to yours."
He wasn't making sense. Either that or she was too angry to piece the words together to form a cohesive thought. She shoved back her mussed hair. "What are you talking about? Not that I really care."
"I'm talking about your unsuccessful attempt to get rid of me." Sage stared at him, blinking stupidly. Her incomprehension seemed to annoy him. He pulled his lower lip through his teeth several times. "It's obvio
us what you were up to, Sage."
"I wasn't up to anything."
He snorted scoffingly. "I wasn't born yesterday, you know." Then, moving in closer and leaning down to her, he added, "A woman doesn't go from icicle to sexpot in that short a time, unless she's got a real good motive."
"Icicle? Sexpot! Motive?" She was uncertain which offensive word to take issue with first.
"With good reason, you want me out of your life. So you figured you'd get me to try something with you, then run screaming to your brothers, didn't you?"
"What?" she gasped.
"That's right. You thought that if I messed with you, they'd kick my butt right outta here. You're probably right. Only it didn't work." He glanced down at her breasts. "It came close, but I regained my head in the nick of time." Having said that, he turned and sauntered toward the door.
For the space of several seconds Sage stared at his back. Then she launched herself at him, grabbed his sleeve, and whipped him around. "In all my life, I've never been accused of anything so low, so demeaning, so— What kind of woman do you think I am?"
"You're a liar."
"I am not!"
"Could've fooled me. You haven't told your family that Casanova dumped you."
"No one's asked."
"So he has dumped you. When he called a while ago, it wasn't to kiss and make up."
Sage stood accused guilty as charged. Harlan laughed. "Okay, so I lied to you," she shouted. "I haven't lied to my family."
"But you haven't volunteered the information anytime Travis's name comes up."
"What business is that of yours?"
"None, I guess. I'd like to keep it that way. Don't make it my business by trying to manipulate me the way you do everybody else."
"I didn't try any such thing."
One of his eyebrows rose sharply. "Is that right?"
"Yes," she said defiantly. "That's right."
"Then why'd you kiss me like that?"
She opened her mouth to make a sharp retort, but suddenly realized she didn't have one. She closed her mouth quickly and looked away.
"Say," he said slowly, advancing on her until she had to back up a few steps, "you didn't by chance really lose your head over our kisses, did you? I thought you were faking all that moaning and groaning, that grasping and clawing. Are you saying it was for real? Was that begging and pleading, that 'yes, yes' genuine?"