Читать книгу The Millionaires' Club: Ryan, Alex and Darin - Cindy Gerard - Страница 12

Six

Carrie stared at her tear-swollen face in her bathroom mirror. Considered writing a big red L for loser in the middle of her forehead in lipstick.

But then she got mad.

She did not cry. She was not a weeping Wilda, and hated that she’d been reduced to tears by Ryan Evans.

Well, she’d shed her last tear over him.

And she was finished letting him interfere with her life and her plans… on any level.

So what if his kiss had melted her bones.

And, oh, Lord above, had it melted them.

Her knees got weak and she got a muzzy feeling in her tummy all over again just thinking about it.

And then she got mad all over again.

For a moment—one long, blissful, hot, mindless moment—she’d thought Ry was kissing her because he wanted her. His kiss had been a lie. All he was doing was teaching her a lesson, doing his duty—his cursed brotherly duty—and warning her away from Nathan Beldon. She was furious that he’d had the gall to accuse her of being a tease. Hurt that he would think of her that way.

So what if his kiss had made her blood boil. He wasn’t offering her a darn thing but grief. Nathan… Nathan had been sending all kinds of signals that he was offering more. And Ry Evans or no Ry Evans, she owed it to herself to find out exactly how much more.

She pressed ice-cold water to her eyes, repaired her makeup, then ran a brush through her hair. Quickly exchanging her dark blue sweater for a Val-entine-red silk blouse, she grabbed her car keys, and headed for Nathan’s apartment across town. It was still early evening. It was still Valentine’s Day. And she was not going to spend the rest of the night alone. She was going to go to Nathan, apologize again and make it impossible for him not to take her to bed.

Roman Birkenfeld stood, reached for his trousers and tugged them on. Behind him Marci lay sprawled and spent in the middle of his rumpled bed. There was a bruise on her left cheek he couldn’t muster enough conscience to be sorry about. He hadn’t asked her to come over here. It wasn’t his fault she’d been a handy outlet for his fury when he’d returned from the park, his pants soaked with champagne and smeared with caviar.

It was Evans’s fault. The interfering, clod-kicking yokel had crossed a line tonight. No one humiliated Roman Birkenfeld. He felt the rage boil up in his blood all over again, just thinking about how the slow-talking and slow-witted Texan had managed to thwart yet another attempt to get to Natalie Perez through Carrie Whelan.

He’d almost had her. Almost gotten her to take him home, when Evan’s filthy mutt had attacked him.

Seething with building fury, he stalked into the living room, snagged his cell phone and dialed.

“Give me a report,” he ordered when Jason Carter answered the phone. “And you’d better have something good to tell me about my money.”

He waited with growing impatience as Carter, one of the muscle men he’d hired to help him track down the money, handed the phone to Tommy Stokes.

“Nothing new, boss,” Stokes said stoically when he came on the line. “We know one of those Cattleman’s Club guys who’s been protecting Perez took the money to their prissy rich man’s club, but we haven’t figured out a way to get to it.”

“You break into the damn place, is how you do it,” he barked back, at the end of his tolerance with the entire situation. “How hard can it be to get past a few prissy—wasn’t that your word—cowboys?”

“You said you wanted to keep it low-key,” Stokes said defensively.

“We’re past low-key, you moron. I need that money. And I need it yesterday. Now, find it and bring it to me or your miserable lives aren’t going to be worth living.”

He punched the end key before Stokes could utter a response, then tossed the phone angrily against the wall. Damn Natalie Perez. Everything had started unraveling when she’d gotten wise to his black-market baby ring.

He raked his hands roughly through his hair, forced a calming breath. And told himself he wasn’t coming unglued. He was still in control. It hadn’t been his fault that he’d fallen so far behind in his payments to the Atlantic City boys. He’d just had a streak of bad luck at the casinos. That’s why he’d started the baby theft in the first place, to pay off his gambling debts.

“Okay. Don’t think about that now,” he told himself aloud. “Think positive. Stokes and Carter will get the money.” The half million in the diaper bag represented all of his hard work—the cumulative amount from the sale of several babies over several months. Once he recovered it, he’d get the heat off his back… and then he’d make a few people pay. Natalie Perez would be first; Ryan Evans, however, was rising to the top of his short list like a bullet.

He was pacing the room, thinking of ways to deal with him when his doorbell rang. He was so lost in thought he didn’t even think. He just opened the door.

And stared straight into Carrie Whelan’s anxious face.

“Nathan,” she said hesitantly. “Can… can I come in?”

Before he could stop her, she shouldered around him and into the apartment.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, her hands clenched together in front of her. “It was horrible… what Ryan did. I came to… well… to tell you that if you still want to spend the night with me—”

Her voice trailed off as her eyes strayed, then opened wide and held on a spot just beyond his shoulder.

He knew without turning around what—or who—she saw. He turned, looked over his shoulder and saw Marci standing in the doorway, wearing only his shirt and a catlike smile of triumph.

“Whoops,” Marci said with a laugh and disappeared back into the bedroom.

He drew a deep breath and turned back to Carrie who looked as if someone had just gut punched her.

“Carrie… I can explain,” he said quickly, confident he could put a spin on this that the gullible little ingenue would buy.

“Not necessary,” she said stiffly, and turned for the door.

He snagged her arm, angry all over again, at Marci, at this stupid little doe-eyed girl and the time and effort he’d had to put into winning her over. “Please,” he said, sounding appropriately desperate. “Let me explain. It’s not what you think.”

“Nothing,” she said with a pathetic lift of her chin, “ever is.” Then she practically ran out the door.

Seething, he damned her rotten timing and his bad luck for getting caught in a little recreational sex. And then he turned back to the bedroom… blood in his eyes.

Carrie’s hands trembled as she raced across the parking lot and punched her keyless remote to unlock her car.

Eyes wide, blinking back tears of humiliation, she peeled out of the lot and onto Hanover Street.

And then she just drove.

Wanting to deny what she’d just seen… even considering turning around and letting Nathan make his explanation.

And then she got a clue.

There was no explaining… no matter that Nathan had snagged her arm and begged her to let him.

What was there to explain? He’d just gotten out of bed. With his nurse… Mary somebody. Maid… Mary. Made… Mary. A hysterical laugh burst out. Mary made quite a statement standing there in nothing but her bed-mussed hair and Nathan’s rumpled shirt.

“What, do I have a sign on my back, or something?” she asked skyward. “Humiliate me. Lie to me. Fool me. I love the abuse. Pile it on. I can take it.”

And then she wasn’t laughing anymore. She was crying. Damn it, she was crying again! Like she never cried. Like she hadn’t cried since that awful time when her parents had died. Huge, racking sobs flooded her vision and made her throat ache and made her feel spineless and pathetic. Because she couldn’t take it. Didn’t understand why she had to.

He’d been right. Ry had been right. Nathan was a loser. He’d just been… what? Using her?

She wiped the back of her wrist over her cheek and under her nose. “But why? To what purpose?

“And why me,” she demanded bitterly. Or maybe the questions was, Why not me? Why, just once, couldn’t something work out for her in the love department?

All she wanted was someone special. All she wanted was someone to love. To make a life with. To make babies with. To replace the family she’d lost when she’d been little more than a baby herself.

And all she’d ever gotten was interference from her brother and now Ry… and from fools who either ran or didn’t care enough to make a difference in her life.

Hours later she’d left the city lights behind and was cruising down miles of empty highway. She wasn’t even aware when she’d crossed the Royal city limits. Wasn’t conscious of the fact that she’d taken the old Cattle Trail Road. She’d just driven. Mile after mile after mile.

It was after midnight when she pulled into the main drive of the Dusty E. And it wasn’t really a surprise, when five minutes later, she cruised to a stop in front of the Evans’s ranch house.

She might not have deliberately set out for the Dusty E, but her subconscious had led her to the one place she’d always felt safe. Home.

Yeah. She’d come home, she realized as she cut the motor and killed the lights. Then she just sat there and let the darkness and the sense of open arms settle around her like a warm, cuddly blanket. She’d been an orphan when Ry’s mom had welcomed her into the rambling tan stucco house with its graceful, open veranda and endless banks of arched windows. She’d been brokenhearted then. She was brokenhearted now.

And this place—filled with fond memories that had become her safe haven all those years ago—had drawn her like a combat-weary soldier was drawn to home.

She let out an exhausted breath and, leaning forward, pressed her forehead against the back of her hands, which were gripped around the top of the steering wheel.

And felt another overwhelming wave of grief wash over her.

She’d come home to lick her wounds…and yet the man who had caused the deepest cut to her pride was even now, sleeping in the bedroom behind the fourth window to the right of the entryway.

Tired to the bone, she sat there for several moments…then lifted her head and squinted toward the house when the porch light flicked on.

The front door eased opened and Shamu tiptoed out. The big coward, she thought, finally managing a watery grin. This was no watchdog, cautiously sniffing the air. Clearly, he was hoping his master was going to handle whatever critter had decided to risk life and limb to trespass on hallowed Evans ground.

And then Ry stepped outside. She wasn’t grinning anymore.

He was shirtless, barefoot and barely tucked into a pair of work-and wash-faded jeans that hung precariously low on his lean hips.

Without her sanction, her heart skipped several beats, and she accepted that it wasn’t only home, but Ry who had drawn her here.

He was, she told herself bleakly, the most beautiful man in Texas, with his dark hair mussed and falling over his brow, his brown eyes piercing hers with concern and questions as he walked slowly toward her car.

“Bear? What’s up, sweetie?”

She just couldn’t help it. When he leaned down, a concerned and sober scowl on his face, she started crying again. Hot, silent tears that trailed down her face and tracked under her chin, and ran, like a salty river, over the convulsing cords at her throat to wet her blouse.

She cried for all the things she’d lost when her parents died. She cried for all she’d lost when she’d finally accepted Ry didn’t love her. She cried for her lost pride and Nathan Beldon’s betrayal.

When Ry opened the driver’s-side door and, without a word, lifted her out of her car, she wrapped her arms around his warm, strong neck and took solace in his softly murmured, “Shh. Shush now. Don’t cry, bear. Don’t cry, baby. I’ve got you.”

And she kept right on crying.

It was killing him.

Ry couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t stand to see her in this much pain and know he was probably the cause of it. The Carrie he knew was strong. The little girl who had mourned for her parents had grown into a self-contained woman who would feel diminished and embarrassed by giving in to tears. She’d consider it a weakness. Unlike some women he knew, she would never resort to weeping to manipulate a man or get her way. If she cried, then she was hurting. Hurting bad. It took him back to that horrible time when the only thing he could do to help her was be someone for her to hold on to in return.

Wincing as a bare foot met with a piece of gravel, he carried her into the house, kicked the front door closed behind him and headed for the living room.

Still holding her in his arms, he sat down on the sofa, then settled her onto his lap as her long, sleek body curled into his and clung.

And felt his guilt over the scene at her apartment settle like a festering thorn.

Only the full moon peaking through the huge picture window to the west illuminated the room, casting them in soft shadows and cocooning them in the intimacy of the night. Despite feeling like the horse’s ass he was, he was very aware of her slim hip nestled into his lap, far too aware of her warm breast pressing against his chest through the thin red silk of her blouse. But most of all, he was conscious of how badly she needed the very person who had driven her to this state to be her friend right now. A friend…not a man whose first and basic instinct was to comfort her in the most elemental and pleasurable of ways.

It broke his heart to feel her slim shoulders tremble, to feel the warmth of her silent tears on his skin. So he just hung on tighter. Pressing his lips to the top of her head, he combed his fingers through her silky hair and made soothing sounds to settle her.

Her eyes were red and swollen when she finally lifted her head and pressed the heels of her hands to her eye sockets. He watched in silence as her throat convulsed and she made a concentrated effort to pull out of her funk.

“Hold on a sec,” he said and, easing her off his lap, walked out of the room. When he returned, she’d done when he’d known she would do, what he’d known she needed a moment alone to do. She’d used the time to compose herself.

He handed her a glass of water and a box of tissue.

“I am too—” a hiccupy shudder broke up her words “—too pathetic to draw breath.”

Despite her misery, he smiled. “And you’ve reached this conclusion all by yourself? Or did someone or something nudge you in that direction?”

She sniffed, then blinked and after a long drink of water, tugged a tissue from the box and blew. “Someone and something,” she said, mopping up the beautiful mess she’d made of her face and reaching for another tissue.

He didn’t even hesitate. He sat back down beside her and drew her onto his lap again. She snuggled into him like a sleepy kitten, looping her arms around his neck and nestling her head under his chin. Her breath was warm against his chest, her fingers cool where they linked together on his bare shoulder.

He circled her hips with his arms and propped his chin on the top of her head. “Want to just hit me and get it over with?”

“Hit you?”

“For being such an ass.”

“Well, you can’t help what you are.”

“Um…ouch.” But he was grinning at the return of her spunk as he rubbed a hand up and down her arm. “I’m sorry for making you cry like this.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. This isn’t about you.”

He didn’t know which emotion was stronger. Relief or bafflement. “So…you wanna tell me about it?”

“What? So you can say I told you so?”

There was more resignation than anger in her words. And suddenly he knew. Beldon.

“What did he do to you?” he asked with barely leashed rage. “If that rat bastard so much as laid a finger on you against your will, I will personally see to it that for the foreseeable future, the good doctor won’t be able to manage even simple daily tasks—such as blinking, breathing, or eating—without the aid of a professional health care specialist.”

She sniffed out a little laugh. “Relax, Rambo,” she said quietly. “He did nothing to me…but by the way his nurse looked when she came slithering out of his bedroom, I’d say he managed to do plenty to her.”

He only heard one word. “Bedroom? What were you doing in Beldon’s bedroom?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Nothing. I did nothing in his bedroom. After you left, I went over to his apartment with every intention of going to bed with him…but there wasn’t any room for me there. It seems that ‘Nelson’ Beldon had a very packed schedule today,” she added acidly. “Seduce the town virgin in the afternoon, take his nurse to bed at night.”

Ry opened his mouth. Closed it. What would have come out was a short, concise expletive that would have succinctly summed up his opinion of Beldon but would have shocked her virgin ears.

“What’s wrong with me?” she began, with such a puzzled, pained look his heart did a little more breaking. “What’s wrong with me that I can’t attract a man who will stand up to Travis or even have enough strength of character to—”

“Hey,” he said, cutting her off. “There is nothing wrong with you. Absolutely nothing.”

The breath she let out was long and heavy. It nestled her left breast deeper into his ribs, made the fine hair dusting his pecs flutter, made his skin burn.

“Then why can’t I find someone to love me?”

Oh, God. He closed his eyes, felt the liquid warmth of a single tear spill onto his chest then trickle down to catch on his nipple. Despite her misery, he flashed on an image of her mouth lapping against his skin, licking that tear away.

He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to force the image from his mind…fought not to think about how lush and soft she was, how the only thing separating her skin from his was a layer of silk and a thin thread of common sense that was unraveling with the same speed as the blood rushing to pool at his lap.

“Is it…is it that I’m not pretty enough—”

“Stop,” he interrupted hoarsely. Then dug deep for the right things to say, the right thing to do, when every red blood cell in his body screamed at him to show her right here, right now, just how pretty she was. Just how pretty he could make her feel. And how good he could make both of them feel.

“Beldon’s a jerk, all right? Don’t let what he did or didn’t do diminish the person you are. If a man loves a woman, how she looks is not what’s important. It’s who she is. It’s her mind. Her heart. It’s how she lives her life.”

She sat up slowly, met his eyes with a slow blink of uncertainty, then smiled sadly. “I get it. What you’re saying is that I’m the quintessential blind date. ‘I’ll set you up with Carrie. She’s got a great personality. So, she’s a little too tall. A little too thin. Her breasts aren’t—”’

“Stop it. You are not too tall or too thin. You are perfect. Your breasts are beyond perfect,” he said without thinking…then couldn’t help himself and lowered his gaze to the front of her blouse where the plump fullness of the breasts in question pressed against red silk. And then he couldn’t stop looking as he gave in to a moment of intense, uncontrollable madness. “Your breasts are…dream worthy. Do you have any idea how many nights I’ve dreamed about—” He stopped abruptly, a weak wave of sanity returning with the thimbleful of blood that found its way back to his brain.

He closed his eyes. Let his head fall against the back of the sofa. Swallowing convulsively, he mentally kicked himself for his stupidity.

“You…you’ve dreamed about my…breasts?” she whispered breathlessly.

He made himself open his eyes and look at her. “Lord, yes,” he confessed, the line between lucidity and lunacy growing blurry.

Her eyes were alert now…and a little misty. With excitement, with surprise…with a stunned expectancy that suddenly made her bold and her voice as seductive as velvet. “What did you dream, Ry?”

Slowly he shook his head. Tried…really tried…to bring his libido back to heel. “Not a good idea, bear.”

“What did you dream?” she insisted in a voice made soft by wonder and by a woman’s deadly keen insight that evidently told her he was weakening and fading fast.

Then he was no longer fading. He was gone. Beyond gone…and he didn’t even try to resist. Not the hungry look in her eyes, not the element of suspense that with one thought warned him this was wrong, but tempted him beyond reason with another.

In a hushed and raspy voice, he surrendered. “I dreamed about watching you unbutton your blouse for me.”

He watched her face, watched the hesitant longing darken her eyes… then held his breath when she lifted her hands and with trembling fingers, started undoing the buttons.

He should stop her. He knew he should stop her. But he was only so strong. And he’d been fighting the good fight where this woman was concerned for what seemed like a millennium.

Her head was down when she reached the last button… so were the last of his defenses. She slowly lifted her gaze to his. “What else did you dream, Ry?”

Her voice was as hushed as a sigh, but there was a boldness in her eyes that promised him everything… if only he’d ask.

And there was another problem.

Asking was beyond him now, too.

“Take it off,” he ordered on a harsh whisper.