by Cora Seton
He wished he could.
He was so loyal. Hunter’s concern for his mother—and for Marlon—had poured out of him when he’d explained his past to her. He took their troubles on as his own. Jo couldn’t doubt that part of his personality anymore. It was far too intrinsic to who he was.
She had to admit, too, she found that loyalty far sexier than just about any other part of him. Except for his body. His inquisitive mind. His sense of humor—
No wonder her resolve to keep her distance had crumbled. Unlike any man she’d ever met before, he was truthful about his feelings and his motivations. He hadn’t sugar-coated what he’d done in his past, and he didn’t hide what he wanted from her now. They had clashed when he tried to call the shots, but she’d begun to understand that wasn’t anything personal. He wasn’t trying to rule her. He was just doing what he thought of as his job.
“Maybe it’s time for you to let go of the past, too,” Hunter said.
“In what way?”
“You’re holding all this anger against your father. Maybe it’s time to give him another chance.”
She supposed she deserved this for the lecture she’d given him. “I would have been glad to—for years. But he’s taken too long about coming home. And it’s no fair that he wants it both ways.”
“What do you mean?”
“He won’t come here and help with the ranch or consult with us about it, or spend any time with us at all, but he wants to make all the rules and keep control over everything. How is that acceptable?”
“I don’t know. I guess it isn’t,” Hunter admitted. “But I know holding onto anger isn’t healthy.”
“So have you stopped being angry with your father?” she challenged him.
Hunter chuckled. “Wish I could say that I had.”
“Don’t expect me to be better than you.” If he thought women were more forgiving he didn’t know much about women.
“Maybe we can work on it together.” He took her hand and Jo let him, liking the contact between them.
“In what way?”
“We could lean on each other a little more. Be each other’s family. Let go of any leftover need for our fathers.”
“Do you still feel like you need yours?” She wouldn’t have put it like that. She’d learned not to need hers, because needing the General didn’t do any good. He wouldn’t be there to help, even if you did.
“No, I guess not. Not in the sense that he might come and help me in some way. I guess I miss—something, though.”
“Approval?” That’s what she wanted. Or maybe assurance was a better word.
“Yeah, something like that. Some kind of gold star to show I’m not fucking it all up too badly.” He chuckled.
Jo smiled. “I approve of you,” she said. It was true. Hunter was a good man. “You’re not fucking it all up—too badly.”
“Thanks. I think. I approve of you, too. You’re doing a real good job here on the ranch.”
“Thank you.” Her heart warmed toward him. He would know far better than the General. Something eased within her, and Jo found that her mood had lifted, despite the trouble that had them sleeping out here. Maybe it was time to let go of the past and focus more on the present.
More on Hunter.
As she lay back down and tugged him down, too, Jo thought about something else she’d sensed: his decision to take things slowly with her.
She couldn’t lie to herself; if he tried to take things further, she would join in willingly. She ached to know what it would feel like to be with him. Knowing he was willing to take the time to get to know her made him even harder to resist. He was so close to her in his sleeping bag, their bodies barely a foot apart. She could simply lean over and kiss him, but she held back from starting anything too heavy. If he was willing to take it slow, so was she.
Instead, Jo squeezed his hand in the dark. As Hunter’s strong fingers closed around hers, she sensed his worry about Marlon, and his regret. His confusion about his mother.
But all of that was overshadowed by the unmistakable lust he was projecting her way.
Chapter Seven
‡
Two days later, Hunter watched in satisfaction as a truck pulled in behind the house right on time.
“There’s your trailer,” he told Jo, who was slicing an apple.
“That looks really small,” Jo said with a frown. She finished cutting up the pieces of fruit and tucked them into a container for later, joining him at the window.
“It is really small. It’s supposed to be temporary, remember?”
She nodded, but she didn’t look particularly impressed. He hoped that would change when they built her house.
He and Jo had discussed her plans at length these past few nights and he’d been confident enough to place an order for materials this morning. He’d been right; alone out in the stables, it was easier for them to talk about the places where their plans had diverged and come to common ground. Jo had told him about the materials she wanted to use inside, and Hunter had to admit he hadn’t thought much about them, except the wooden built-ins, so he was easy to lead on those.
It surprised him how good it felt to think about building a home to please her. Generally, he was a man who liked to do things his own way, because he thought things through far more carefully than most people did, but Jo thought things through, too. And when she spoke about the little house, she lit up.
He liked that.
Outside, they greeted Norton Dale, who’d brought the trailer. He was all too happy to unload it. “Got it for my nephew when I was in Colorado,” Norton said when he got out of his truck and hitched up his jeans under a substantial beer belly. “He was all hot to build a little cabin in back of his folks’ place, then he met a girl and next thing we knew he hightailed it to Virginia.”
“Kids,” Hunter said, as if he knew anything about it.
“Hope you folks make better use of it than we did.”
“We will,” Hunter assured him. He paced around the trailer and made sure it was in good shape. “Looks pristine.”
“Like I said, just got it and the kid took off!”
Jo looked to be biting back a smile, and Hunter was glad to see that flash of humor. He thought Jo was far too serious for the most part. Building a house might be just what the doctor ordered. There hadn’t been a repeat of trouble these past few nights, and he was beginning to think that the incident with Bright Star was caused by kids on a joy ride rather than a restart of the difficulties with the drug dealers from Tennessee.
Alone together in the stables each night, they’d talked for hours, swapping stories of their childhoods and their hopes and dreams for the future. Several times they’d held hands. Once or twice they’d kissed. He was having a hard time keeping his libido in check.
Hunter didn’t haggle over the price with Norton. He paid in full, glad to put his hands on a trailer so quickly that fit the bill for what they wanted.
“Now what?” Jo asked as they watched Norton—much happier now he had a fistful of dollars—drive away.
“Now we level the ground, move the trailer into place and brace it. As soon as those materials get delivered we’ll get started.”
The process of picking a site, leveling the ground, moving the trailer into place and making sure it couldn’t roll took longer than Hunter had anticipated, but he didn’t mind. It gave him time to work with Jo and see how she reacted to adversity and pressure. Jo was so excited about her house she wasn’t thrown at all by the setbacks.
As for him, he found it easier to work with Jo than with most men he had worked with in the past. She was quicker to see what he was after. Quicker to jump in to help—or to figure out the problem for herself.
Once they’d leveled the ground, tugged the trailer into place and braced it, Hunter wanted to make sure the frame was level, too, but before he could even issue the order, Jo had already knelt in the dirt to put the level on the metal frame of the trailer.
; “Looks good here.” She glanced up. “What?”
“Could have used you on a few missions. It’s like you can read my mind.”
“Maybe I can.” She stood up, still holding on to the level.
“I thought that was Alice’s trick. You’re supposed to read emotions.”
Jo shrugged and moved to another position, placing the level on the frame again. “It’s good here, too.”
“What am I thinking right now?” Hunter knew he was playing with fire, but he couldn’t help it. Jo was so damn cute in her slim jeans, fitted T-shirt and the baseball cap she wore to keep the sun out of her eyes.
She eyed him again, moved closer to him and touched his wrist, but instead of speaking she simply shook her head. “I’m not going to repeat what you’re thinking.”
When she went to move away again, Hunter caught her, cupped her chin in both hands, tilted it up. Brushed his lips over hers once, twice.
“What was that for?” she asked when he reluctantly pulled away.
“Because I wanted to.”
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend back home?” Jo moved away and tested another portion of the frame. “Level, here.”
“Never found the right woman.” But thinking of home made him think of Marlon.
Who hadn’t called today, Hunter realized with a start. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked. Nope. No calls at all.
“Something wrong?” Jo asked, looking a little miffed that his attention had wandered.
“Yeah—no. Hold on a sec.” Their agreement was that Marlon would initiate the calls, and he had never failed to check in by their agreed-upon time, but he was late, so Hunter would do the dialing. Hunter’s pulse kicked up and he paced while he waited for the call to go through. His friend knew what Hunter had given up to cover for him. There was no way Marlon would go against his word.
Even if he’d made it clear he resented the intrusions into his life.
He got no answer. Hunter cut the call, then tried it again. “Get back to me as soon as you get this message,” he told his friend when voice mail kicked on.
“Marlon hasn’t called,” he answered Jo’s inquisitive look. “I was supposed to hear from him today.”
“And you’re worried?”
“He’s going through a hard time—a real hard time. His marriage is falling apart. But that’s no excuse. You’ve had a hard time, too, and you don’t let your emotions cloud your judgment.”
Jo frowned. “Hard time?” She set the level on the frame again, only inches from the last place she’d tested.
“That gunfight you were in—”
“God, not you, too.” She raised her hands in defeat. “I’m not made of spun glass, okay? I’m fine.”
“It’s not like you kill someone every day, though.” He was provoking her, but he thought she might need to talk about it. Besides, he needed to think about something other than Marlon. He wanted to keep calling until he got an answer, but his friend had made it clear how much he resented Hunter’s interference in his life. So he wouldn’t interfere—for now. He’d give Marlon a little time. Meanwhile, he’d focus on Jo. Was she holding in her fear and sorrow? That wasn’t good.
“A man who tried to kidnap me, kill my dogs, kill my sisters!” She lifted her hands again. “Jesus, if someone came after you and pointed a gun to your head, what would you do?”
“Kill him.”
“And would you need rest and counseling?”
“I—”
“No, because you’re a man, and men make tough decisions, but we women are supposed to roll over and die the minute things get hard—”
“I’m on your side, here,” Hunter protested.
“Really? Here’s the thing: I knew it was the right thing to do. When I was doing it,” she added. “I didn’t have to think about it. And afterward, I wasn’t afraid I’d made a mistake. But everyone’s acting like that’s how I should feel. Honestly? That’s driving me crazy. I can’t manufacture something that isn’t real.”
He understood what she was saying; sometimes reactions took over and events played out the way they were meant to whether you thought about them or not.
“There are moments like that in any skirmish,” he told her. “Moments where there’s only one way out.” He’d experienced too many of those and wished Jo hadn’t experienced any, but there he was, thinking she was more fragile than him again.
“It’s like I could see it—what I’d do, what he’d do—” Her gaze grew distant, and he knew she’d traveled back to that day. He traveled back to the tough times, too, when he wasn’t careful to block those kinds of thoughts.
“The moment steps out of time,” he agreed. “And the path becomes clear. I’ve experienced that.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He held her gaze, wanting her to know he was there with her, and would continue to be so. That was something the men he’d served with had always done for each other: witnessed the memories—good and bad.
“Does it make me a monster that I don’t have any regrets?” Jo asked softly.
“That makes you a warrior.”
Her lips parted. He saw relief and something else in her eyes. Hunter waited, knowing there was something else she needed to say.
“Kiss me.”
Jo held her breath. She’d just given the hardened fighter standing in front of her an order.
Would he obey?
Hunter took a step closer. Slid a hand to the base of her neck. Bent down and kissed her thoroughly. When he pulled back, she followed him, wanting more, and he must have understood.
Jo melted against him as he swept her close in his arms, and she closed her eyes, the better to feel the soft pressure of his mouth on hers again. But even as she did his kiss grew more insistent. She’d been holding back for days—and nights. Spending time with him, working with him, talking to him. Sleeping in the stables with him—no one else to witness what they did.
With each passing day, the ache in her had increased. She craved his touch.
Craved him.
No one had ever understood her the way he just made it clear he did. No one had validated her feelings so completely as he had with those five small words: that makes you a warrior.
He hadn’t tried to brush away what she’d done, or diminish it, or pretend it hadn’t happened. He’d stood witness to her feelings and had lifted her up instead of tearing her down.
Jo had no idea how much she’d needed that kind of validation. Nor had she realized how strong her instinct was to find the kind of man who could see her that way.
It was as if some small part of her that still believed in love was fighting for its life. Every time she told herself it was crazy to trust another man, Hunter did something that knocked her socks off.
Now she had to choose. Back off from men permanently—or take a chance.
If she was wise, she’d back off, Jo cautioned herself. Hadn’t she seen what men were capable of?
Jo guessed she was still too young for wisdom to have taken hold in her.
As she opened her mouth to allow Hunter’s tongue in, a hunger caught fire inside her—a need to get him even closer. A desire to throw her worries to the wind and submit herself to fate one more time.
Not here, though. Not in plain view of the house.
Where?
She pulled back and her gaze swept their surroundings, taking in Sadie’s garden, which was too exposed; her greenhouse, which felt like trespassing; Alice’s carriage house studio—
Certainly not there.
The maze.
She hadn’t taken Hunter to see the maze yet. And he’d been here nearly two weeks. Had anyone else lasted so long on the property without a tour of it?
She grabbed his hand, determined to rectify the oversight. “Come on.”
He allowed her to tug him toward the maze. Together they crossed Sadie’s garden to its entrance, and then they were inside its tall green walls.
“I’ve neve
r been in one of these,” Hunter said.
“Shut up and kiss me again.” Jo bit her lip. Had she really just said that?
Hunter looked about as surprised as she felt. Then he laughed, pulled her close and obliged. “Like that?”
“Just like that.” She was so grateful he was playing along. Loved the feel of his strong arms around her. The hard planes of his body turned her on, made her want to touch him. Taste him.
Glancing up she caught an expression on his face that made her breath catch. It wasn’t lust, although she felt that thrumming through every fiber of his body.
It was… fondness.
She supposed it should have irked her. Wouldn’t desperation or longing be better?
Maybe.
But fondness… that meant more to her. Any man could desire any woman for a moment or two. Fondness took more. It took the kind of caring that developed over time.
Her body warmed underneath his gaze. The sailor hadn’t been at Two Willows long, but she understood how he felt. She was growing fond of him, too.
Flush with desire, she tugged away from him and led him through the green passages of the maze, stopping now and then to demand another kiss, grateful to be hidden by the twenty-foot-high hedges that bordered the paths.
Each time he complied with a look on his face that said he’d do plenty more—whenever he chose. But he was letting her call the shots for now and that felt good.
Really good.
Jo stopped before they reached the center. “Kiss me, and…” She wanted him badly, but still she hesitated. This was her last chance to exercise caution.
“And…?” Hunter prompted, gathering her close again. Jo felt the sincerity emanating from him. She wasn’t fooling herself this time. Hunter wanted her, but more than that—he cared for her.
“And… touch me.”
It was like stepping into the abyss. Solid ground no longer held her up. She’d taken flight, but whether her wings would work or she’d crash into the chasm below was anyone’s guess.
Hunter’s eyes darkened with desire and Jo’s body tingled all over in anticipation. Would he…?
Yes.
As he kissed her, he slid both hands higher and palmed both her breasts. Jo closed her eyes, pleasure heating her until she thought she would swoon.