Читать книгу Diamond Spur - Diana Palmer - Страница 11
ОглавлениеAS SHE DROVE up in front of the Donavan house Kate realized something. She had no girlfriends, unless she counted her mother. Her best friend, the only real friend she had, was Jason. It was ironic that she had no one else to share this milestone in her life with.
She smiled about that as she darted up the steps and knocked furiously at the big hand-carved oak door, ignoring the modern doorbell altogether.
Sheila opened it, her eyebrows arching. “What a nice surprise.”
“I’ll bet,” Kate laughed. “Well, is he in jail or not?”
The older woman grimaced. “He belongs there, all right. But Mr. Tanner decided that it would be easier to reinforce his fence and move that bull to another pasture after Jason explained the situation to him.”
“I wish I’d been a bug on the fence,” Kate said with a mischievous grin.
“Me, too,” Sheila whispered. She nodded her grizzled head toward the hall. “He’s in there with Gene and Cherry having supper. Go sit down and I’ll get you a dish.”
“Oh, I’ve already eaten....”
“The dish,” Sheila explained patiently, dragging her inside, “is for peach cobbler. I made one tonight.”
“My favorite!” Kate enthused.
“Fancy that,” came the tongue-in-cheek reply. “I didn’t know, of course, having only made it for you about a hundred times over the past few years.”
Kate laughed delightedly. “What would I do without you?”
“Starve, most likely, if you weren’t such a good little cook yourself. And I’ll pat myself on the back for teaching you how, too, because your sweet mama is the best seamstress and the worst cook I ever knew.”
Kate started to argue, and then closed her mouth. “I thought hamburgers were supposed to be black and crunchy,” she said under her breath.
Gene and Cherry were whispering when Kate walked into the elaborate dining room. Jason was sitting quietly at the head of the table, impressive in pale slacks and a tailored gray shirt open at the throat. He was tapping his silver fork against the tablecloth, lost in thought, brooding if that scowl was anything to go by.
He looked up suddenly, as if he sensed Kate, and the scowl was still there. But something new kindled in his eyes, something born of their tempestuous interlude the day before. He was aware of her now, and she was just beginning to realize it. Her heart raced as his dark, very Spanish-looking eyes went over her like hands tracing every curve and line of her slender body.
“Did somebody die?” he asked politely. “I haven’t seen you dressed like that since the last time you went to church with us.”
Kate curtsied to cover her nervousness. “Do you like it? I made it myself.”
“It’s beautiful,” Cherry sighed, propping her head on her hands to stare dreamily at the long full skirt and blouson top with its sky blue colors and detailed embroidery. “Gosh, Kate, you ought to open a boutique.”
Kate could have hugged her. Cherry was petite and blonde and blue-eyed, always smiling, always enthusiastic. She encouraged Gene to be himself, to do what pleased him instead of what pleased big brother. But she did it in such an open, sweet way that Jason had become less antagonistic toward her. She was just eighteen now, and to Kate she seemed very young, despite the fact that there was less than three years between them.
“I’ll second that,” Gene chuckled. He was thinner than Jason, a little shorter. He had lighter hair and dark eyes, but his features were more even and attractive than his older brother’s. Jason had the business sense and the steel will, but Gene was the male beauty of the family and had always seemed to have girls hanging all over him.
Kate wondered sometimes if that wasn’t why she preferred Jason—he wasn’t a ladies’ man by anybody’s measure, although she was sure that he wasn’t naive. He’d had her trembling with need in no time at all. Not that he needed vast experience to accomplish that, when Kate thought the sun rose and set on him.
“Jason would loan you the money to go into business for yourself, wouldn’t you, Jay?” Gene asked him with the careless certainty of youth.
“Careers are the ruin of good women everywhere,” he commented dryly, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head. The posture outlined the powerful muscles of his chest and stomach, and it made Kate tingle to touch him. That must have showed, because his slow smile was knowing and faintly predatory. “A woman’s place is three steps behind her man.”
Kate stared at him, and even though it sounded like teasing, it took some of the joy out of her surprise. His mother’s betrayal had warped his attitude toward marriage, and his one-time fiancée’s defection to Hollywood had compounded the prejudice.
“Not this woman,” Kate told him as she sat down beside him at the table. “I think a woman’s place is at a man’s side.”
“Here we go again,” Gene muttered to Cherry, who giggled.
“Women shouldn’t have careers,” Jason repeated, his dark eyes level and somber. “Not unless they never plan to settle down.”
“I plan to settle down one day,” she said unexpectedly. “And have a home of my own, and children. And a career. I’m going to be a designer.”
“Without any help from me,” he returned blandly. “I’ll be damned if I’ll start you on the road to women’s liberation.”
Her eyes flashed. It wasn’t the first time she and Jason had argued about the traditional place of a man and a woman in society, but it was the first time it had mattered.
“I’m on the way already,” she shot back, “and without any need to go to you for help, thank God. I’ve just agreed to sign a contract with Clayborn to design a new line of leisure wear.”
“Congratulations! Kate, that’s grand!” Cherry gushed.
“I knew you could do it,” Gene chuckled.
“What’s this? A career designing clothes?” Sheila asked from the doorway, all eyes. “Great! Design something for heavyset women, the moderately priced stuff I can afford makes me look like a tub of lard.”
“Don’t say it,” Cherry gritted as Gene started to say something. “Not until after we get our peach cobbler, for heaven’s sake!”
Gene looked as if he might burst. Sheila glared at him out of gimlet eyes, the bowl of cobbler held protectively against her waist, her head cocked threateningly.
“I’ll throw it out,” she promised the young man.
Gene sighed. “I love peach cobbler.” He grinned. “Sheila, you ravishing beauty, you, how about a taste of that exquisite dessert you concoct with such style and sensuality?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
Sheila curtsied, almost falling over. “Why, thank you, kind sir, would you like to eat it or wear it?”
“I’ll eat it, thanks, and I swear,” he stood, hand over his heart, “I’ll never make another sarcastic remark about your size.”
Sheila nodded curtly. “See that you don’t. Here.”
She set the deliciously browned dessert on the table and laid a serving spoon beside it. “Kate goes first, since we’re celebrating.”
“Well, I won’t argue with that.” Gene grinned. “She’s earned it. When did you find out?”
“This morning,” she replied, digging with the serving spoon through the sugar-sprinkled crust to the sweet smell of sugary peach and dumpling beneath. She filled her dish, aware of Jason’s dark glare on her averted features. It was difficult to keep her hands from trembling as she began to sample the dish.
“It’s wonderful,” she told Sheila, who beamed and went back into the kitchen.
Gene got up and did an impression of the ample-hipped housekeeper waddling away, only to turn and find the object of his demonstration scowling at him from the doorway.
He cleared his throat and sat down quickly. “I lost a button, I was looking for it.”
Sheila glared at him. “Ha, ha. You just hold your breath until I cook you that vanilla pound cake you keep begging for.”
“I’ll repent!” He ran into the kitchen after her and the door closed behind them.
“Disgusting, watching him grovel.” Cherry grinned. She grabbed the cobbler. “Maybe if I hurry, I can finish his part and mine before he gets back.”
“Evil girl,” Kate accused. She glanced at Jason, who hadn’t said a single word through all the wordplay. He didn’t seem to hear what was going on around him. In fact, he didn’t. He was still hearing Kate rave about her career. He’d never realized how ambitious she was. It bothered him because he didn’t like to think of losing her to the big city and high fashion. And that was vaguely surprising. He’d been fighting the memory of her soft mouth for a whole day without success, and that hadn’t helped his temper.
“Don’t you want any cobbler?” Kate asked him.
“I’ve lost my appetite.” He lit a cigarette, daring anyone to object, and leaned forward to stare at Kate while she tried to eat her cobbler. “What will it mean, this job?”
“More money to start with. And I’ll get to do a lot of traveling once the designs are finished and we have samples made up,” she told him. “I’ll go to New York for market week this October and talk to the buyers and salesmen, and if my designs sell well, I’ll get to do another collection. All with my own name on it. I may even get to go to Europe to look at styles before I start on my next designs.”
Jason stared at her quietly. That wouldn’t suit Kate. She was meant for a kitchen and a house of her own, for children. Not this house, of course, not his children. He didn’t want any kind of permanent relationship even with Kate. He frowned. She’d meet all kinds of men in a job like that, predatory men. He didn’t like to think about some suave stranger seducing her.
“You’re too damned green for a sophisticated job like that,” he said aloud, shocking her.
She gaped at him, her fork poised in mid-air. So did Cherry. “What?!” Kate asked, torn between exasperation and laughter.
He crossed his long legs and took a heavy draw from his cigarette. In the overhead light, his dark straight hair seemed to have black highlights. “You’ll get in trouble back East, with no one to look out for you.”
“Well, you’ll probably bleed to death while I’m gone,” she shot back, “since nobody else can convince you that blood poisoning is dangerous.”
“I’ve been looking out for myself just fine.”
“Oh, of course,” she agreed. “Ripping your arm open, trying to shoot people...how’s the bull, by the way?”
His jaw tautened. “The bull is alive, through no fault of mine. I had to sell six cows to Tanner because his bull bred them. Luckily, I had plenty of replacement heifers this time.”
“How do you know his bull bred them?” Cherry asked innocently.
Jason looked suddenly hunted, his whole expression set and uncomfortable.
“Go ahead,” Kate dared him. “Tell her.” She knew about the new system of dyes that were used to show a stockman when a cow had been bred, but Cherry had never taken much interest in the cattle. Like Gene, she was more fascinated by art.
Jason took a sharp breath and stood up. “You tell her,” he said to Kate, his tone deep and cutting. “I’ve got better things to do.”
“You might congratulate me on my new job,” Kate said quietly.
He searched her green eyes curiously, his eyes narrowing on her oval face in its frame of dark, softly loosened hair. “I can’t do that. I think you’re making one hell of a big mistake.”
“You didn’t think so when I wanted to take the course in fashion design!” she argued.
“That was just something to help you sew better at the plant, or so I thought. I didn’t realize that San Frio was going to get too small to hold you.”
She stuck her chin up in the air and stared at him, refusing to be told how to live her life. “You’re just jealous because you can’t sew a dress, Jason,” she replied, resorting to teasing to keep from blowing up at him again.
“Oh, hell.” He turned on his heel and walked away without another word or a backward glance.
Kate smothered a grin, sharing a wink with Cherry, who was about to burst with mischief. Jason would come to his senses and then they’d talk about it. For now, he had to get used to the idea, and Kate knew very well how to skirt his moods. She’d had almost three years of practice.
“I never used to believe Gene when he talked about how well you managed to get along with Jason,” Cherry grinned. “But I’m beginning to see the light. My gosh, he takes a lot from you, doesn’t he?”
“From time to time,” Kate agreed with a sigh. “I wish he could understand that women aren’t property anymore. He doesn’t like them very much, you know.”
“It’s hard to miss,” Cherry murmured dryly. “All the same, I guess he’ll marry a woman someday, as long as she’s socially acceptable and doesn’t mind giving him an heir.”
Cherry couldn’t have known how much that supposition hurt Kate, even though she’d already faced it.
“I guess he will,” Kate replied, going quiet. She finished her cobbler and poured herself a cup of coffee from the carafe. She took it black, hardly tasting it as she lifted it to her mouth.
Cherry smiled. “I thought he was going to pass out when you dared him to tell me about those bred cattle.” The younger girl frowned. “How do you tell that a cow’s been bred?”
Kate told her absently, and Cherry just shook her head. “I can’t imagine a man being a rancher who’s too old-fashioned to talk about breeding in mixed company,” Cherry remarked.
Kate bit back a defensive comment. She couldn’t help it that she felt defensive about Jason. Despite her proud defense, she liked a few of his old-fashioned attitudes. In the modern world, where rough language and frank discussions were a matter of course, it was sometimes refreshing to be treated like a lady. Not that Jason cared much who was around when he lost his temper, she mused, but he’d never let Kate near his cows and heifers at breeding time or expose her to cattle that were being put down because of illness. Apparently he thought women were too delicate for that kind of thing.
She’d asked him once why he didn’t want her around the breeding stock, just in passing. He’d said something that had puzzled her at the time—that he didn’t want her to get the wrong idea about it because the cows would sound as if they were in pain and he didn’t want her to be frightened of a natural process. Now that she was older, and had been exposed to at least one racy motion picture, she began to understand what he’d meant. Passion was violent, if what she’d seen was any indication, and on the screen at least, women looked and sounded as if they were being killed. Kate had wondered a time or two if she’d ever sound like that, but she’d never felt passion with the few hometown boys who’d taken her out. She’d only felt that kind of fiery heat with Jason, the day before, and it was still new and a little unnerving.
“Jay just rattled the windows in the front room slamming out the door,” Gene remarked as he rejoined them with another saucer of cobbler. He grinned knowingly at Cherry as she guiltily gulped down the last bite of his after having finished her own.
“It was my fault, I guess,” Kate confessed. “I got a little overheated about his opinion of a woman’s place. Honest to goodness, I think sometimes that he doesn’t know what century this is.”
“You know why, though,” Gene said gently. “You of all people know why.”
Kate sighed. “Yes. But I was so excited about my break,” she smiled. “I wanted to share it.”
“He’ll storm around the barn for a while and then he’ll be all right,” Gene assured her. “Just drink your coffee, Kate, and remember that even the nastiest storm rains out eventually.”
“After it gets through rumbling,” she agreed, and sipped her coffee.
She stayed a few minutes longer, telling them about the new chores she had at the plant and what she was going to work around in her designs. Then, depressed by Jason’s sustained absence, she told them good-bye, waved to Sheila, and went out the front door to go home.
It was a glorious spring night. The sky was clear and the breeze was warm, and the stars looked close enough to touch. There was a whisper of jasmine in the air from the thick bushes at the front steps and at the corner of the house, lilac was just blooming. Kate sighed, smelling it, her eyes on the long horizon. Somewhere cattle were lowing softly, and she thought about the trail drives of the last century, when cowboys would sing to the cattle to calm them.
“Leaving already?”
She stiffened at the unexpected sound of Jason’s voice from the porch. She turned to find him sitting in the porch swing, barely silhouetted in the light from the nearby window. The orange tip of a smoking cigarette waved in his hand as he pushed the swing into motion. Its soft creaking sound was oddly comforting, but Jason’s presence made Kate feel nervous.
She lifted her chin. “Are we still speaking?”
“If you’re through reading me sermons on the modern woman, we are,” he said shortly.
“I might as well be, for all the good it’s done me,” she sighed, and smiled at him, because it was hard to fight with Jason. She understood him all too well, most of the time.
He got out of the swing lazily and strode toward her. Seconds later, he towered over her. The soft light coming out of the window lay on the floor in abstract patterns at her feet.
“I hate fighting with you,” she remarked to break the silence.
“Then don’t do it,” he said lazily, and managed to smile.
But as he smiled, he stared. He hadn’t really come face to face with her career until tonight, and now that he had, he was concerned. He knew that she couldn’t stay a girl forever. But he’d opened up with Kate in ways he couldn’t with even his own brother. He could talk to her. Somehow in the past few years he’d come to think of her as his own, and now she wanted to go away and leave him.
His eyes narrowed as they searched her face and then down her slender, exquisite body. Just lately his affection for her had become physical. He’d told himself that he hadn’t noticed her blossoming figure, but he had. Ever since that sweet interlude by the Bronco when he’d come within a hair of kissing the breath out of her, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. And that wouldn’t do. He couldn’t give her a physical hold on him. He didn’t want commitment with anybody just yet, much less with a girl like Kate who was years younger than he was, and a world apart from him in experience and maturity. She wouldn’t fit into his world. Even if she could, he didn’t want to let her.
But letting go was hard. “Do you even realize what a change it will be, if you get what you think you want?” he said after a minute. “You’ll be thrown into a world you’ve never experienced,” he said.
“It isn’t so different from mine,” she defended.
He lifted his chin, staring down his straight nose at her. “You’re a poor little girl from rural Texas, Kathryn,” he said shortly. “You don’t even know how to speak the language.”
“And I guess you do?” she challenged.
He looked at her half angrily. “Of course I do,” he said shortly. “I’m worth a small fortune. I’ve been moving in monied circles for years.”
Her face went blood red. She’d never considered the differences between herself and Jason as much in her life as she had in the past two days. She knew he was a rich man and she was a poor woman, but she’d never really noticed it before.
“You like to go barefooted and groom horses,” he said on a slow breath. “The people you’ll be associating with in New York will be city sophisticates. You won’t understand the discussions they have, or know the people they talk about, or be knowledgeable about the customs they’ll take for granted. You’ve got a Texas drawl that will stand out, and an innocence that some city man will do his best to relieve you of. If you aren’t careful, you’ll end up a broken flower, used up.”
She glared up at him. “What a glowing character reference,” she said, almost choking on her own pride. “I’m poor white trash, is that how you think of me after all these years?”
Her voice broke and she turned away furiously. But he was one step behind her. Without bothering to worry about consequences, he reached for her hungrily, locking her in his arms. He held fast, her tearstained cheek against his broad chest.
“I don’t want you hurt,” he said curtly. His mouth brushed her forehead, his lean hand smoothed her hair away from her face. “You’d be on your own in the city, with nobody to protect you, and you’re so damned innocent, honey.”
“And who’s to blame for that?” she demanded, hitting at his broad chest.
He took a slow breath. “All right, if you want to put it that way, I guess some of the blame is mine,” he admitted. He nuzzled her dark hair with his cheek. “I’ve tried to help Mary keep you out of trouble, and maybe I’ve gone overboard. It’s just that it’s hard to let go,” he admitted finally, breathing in the scent of her.
She’d hoped for something more. And that was foolish because she knew better than most people how much Jason avoided involvement. He had almost a fear of it, and knowing his past, she couldn’t really blame him. He couldn’t trust anybody that far, not even Kate.
“You’ll have to let go one day,” she reminded him.
“I guess so.” He spoke absently into her soft hair. “But you’re the closest thing to a friend I’ve got,” he added, the words slow and gentle. “I’ll miss having you around.”
“I won’t be going away forever,” she laughed, because he sounded so fatalistic. “Just for an occasional week.”
“That’s what you think now,” he said quietly. “That isn’t how it will be. Business tends to overshadow everything else, after a while. I’ve given everything in me to the Diamond Spur in recent years. It’s become my life. Be careful that designing doesn’t obsess you the same way.”
“It won’t,” she said. She drew back enough that she could smile up into his concerned face. “And if you’d relax a little now and again, maybe you wouldn’t have those gray hairs.”
“I can’t relax,” he returned. “The cattle industry has been in a slump for the past few years. Until market prices edge up, the Spur is hanging by a thread.”
“You could delegate once in a while.”
“Maybe I could, if Gene would hold up his end of the work,” he returned. He studied her quietly. “You never seemed so ambitious, Kate. You used to talk endlessly about getting married.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind now,” she said, holding back the fact that she’d changed her mind because she knew she’d never change his about marriage.
He sighed, watching her. With her hair loose around her shoulders and that silky blouse she was wearing, she looked seductive. When she moved her breasts danced with erotic subtlety, and he was sure that she wasn’t wearing anything to support them. That made it even worse, thinking about what her full young breasts looked like under their sensuous covering. He even felt vaguely guilty to be considering Kate in that light, when she’d been off limits for years.
“It’s strange to argue like this with you,” she said finally, smiling faintly. “We’ve been friends for a long time now. We get along better than any two people I know. And yet in the past two days, all we’ve done is disagree. It’s...it’s uncomfortable.”
“This is the first time you’ve really gone against me,” he replied.
“I’ve never wanted anything this badly before,” she replied. And it was true, she’d never fought him. How odd to suddenly wake up and find that she’d allowed herself to be dominated by him for years. Her eyes searched his dark face. “You won’t change my mind, Jason. I’m going to do what pleases me, even if it doesn’t please you.”
His eyes narrowed, but he didn’t speak. It was frankly arousing to argue with her. His body made a sudden and emphatic statement about what it wanted, and he moved restlessly, trying to convince it that she wasn’t fair game.
“I’ll drive you home,” he said abruptly.
“I have the car,” she reminded him reluctantly. His nearness was already working on her, and she wanted the delight of being alone with him, even if it was just for a few minutes on the way home. Remembering the way he’d looked at her and touched her the day before still made her burn with untried longings.
“That’s just as well,” he said after a minute. He lifted the cigarette again to his chiseled lips. “I’m in a strange mood tonight.”
“I don’t understand.”
His chin lifted and he scowled at her. “Don’t you? Are you going to pretend that nothing happened yesterday?” he challenged, driven by mingled desire and frustration to lash out at her.
She remembered, but she didn’t want to. Jason aroused her, excited her, and she was uncertain of his motives. He’d always been possessive of her, but lately he was taking it to new heights. She felt that if she let him, he’d smother her.
“Nothing did happen, really,” she faltered.
He moved closer, his whole posture threatening. She could smell his cologne and the scent of leather that clung to his soft Western shirt. Her breath stifled in her throat.
“And nothing’s different between us?” he persisted.
She could hardly breathe at all. His fingers were on her hair, lightly touching it. “No,” she whispered.
“Then it shouldn’t bother you if I have women.”
She bit her lower lip until her teeth almost broke the skin. The image of that was unbearable. “No,” she agreed. “It shouldn’t.”
He flicked the cigarette off the porch while the silence closed in around them. He tilted her chin up and searched her eyes in the dim light from the windows.
Her mouth, faintly pink and just a little tremulous, looked delicious. He wondered idly if anyone had even kissed her properly. God, he wanted to do that!
Kate watched, shocked, as his dark head suddenly bent toward her. She could feel his warm, smoky breath on her parted lips and her own breath came jerkily.
“Don’t pull away from me,” he whispered deeply as his head tilted, his fingers touching her cheek. His nose nuzzled against hers and his mouth brushed the corner of hers, then drew lightly over the full softness of her parted lips. “I won’t hurt you,” he breathed against her mouth just as his covered it.
The sensation was explosive. His mouth was hard and warm and faintly hungry. He teased her lips until she went weak in the knees and her heart began to slam at her rib cage. Her eyes, half open, a little frightened, searched his curiously when he drew back to look at her.
“You taste of coffee,” he said deeply. She’d never heard that pitch in his voice before, that sensual note. It was exciting and new.
“You...you taste of cigarette smoke,” she whispered back, trying to smile. But she didn’t know how to play sophisticated games, and she was out of her depth with him.
He seemed to know that. His lean hands came up to frame her face and he bent again. “Open your mouth this time,” he breathed as his lips nudged hers apart. “Deep kisses are an acquired taste, but I think I can make you want mine.”
She moaned at the way he said it, at the velvet of his deep voice, at the aching hunger his caressing lips aroused in her body. She let him push her lips apart with his, admitting the slow, tender penetration of his tongue. She felt his tongue touching hers, fencing with it, and her body began to tremble.
One of Jason’s hands went behind her head, to support it. The other traced her cheek, her soft throat while he deepened the kiss. His mouth was expert. Warm and hard and knowing, and she could hear his rough breathing mingled with hers in the silence of the porch. Instinctively she tried to move closer to him, wanting his strength to support her sudden weakness.
His mouth lifted a second later, pressing roughly against the side of her neck. He slid his arms around her and enveloped her against him, but when she pressed even closer and felt the sudden changed contours of his body, he gently eased his hips back to prevent the contact.
She wanted to ask him if it embarrassed him to have her know he was aroused, but she was too shy to put it into words. She’d heard girls at school talk about men getting this way. She knew what caused it, and her head swam to think that, at her age, she could have that effect on Jason.
He was having his own effect on her as well. She couldn’t seem to stop trembling, and his arms tightened, shifting her soft breasts against his hard chest. She could feel the muscle right through the soft material of her blouse. He had to know that she wasn’t wearing a bra by now, and that made her nervous. She tugged gently against his hard arms, but he wouldn’t let go.
“Don’t fight me,” he murmured at her ear as his head lifted. “I won’t take advantage of it.”
“Of...what?” she faltered, trying to save her pride.
“Of the fact that you’re bare under that blouse, Kate,” he said. He lifted his head and looked down at her with an odd kind of patient indulgence, but there was a glitter in his dark eyes that made her heart skip beats. “That I can feel how soft you are, lying on my chest.”
Her face went blood red. She dropped her eyes to the steady rise and fall of his chest. She felt inadequate. Years too young.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he murmured. He scowled, gently tracing her mouth with a lean forefinger, feeling its instant shy response. “I told you I was in a strange mood. I should have sent you on home before this happened.”
“Are you sorry that it did?” she asked shyly, and her eyes were wide and soft and still hungry when they met his.
“Are you hell-bent on becoming famous?” he countered.
“I just want to see how far I can go,” she told him. “No, I don’t want to be famous. I just want to use my talent.”
“New York is a long way from Texas.”
“So you keep telling me. Jason, I won’t change.”
“You will,” he said quietly. He studied her young face quietly. “But I’m not going to have you seduced by some Ivy Leaguer with a line a mile long. I don’t want you treated like an appetizer.”
“You’re very possessive lately,” she said, but it flattered her that he cared, that he didn’t want anything to happen to her.
“Of course I’m possessive. I owe you my life a time or two.” He sighed roughly. “I don’t want a man to...hurt you,” he said finally, and his dark eyes were troubled. “Inevitably, if you move in those circles, you’re going to meet some experienced men, and you won’t know how to handle them. You could get drunk one time too many in the wrong company, or you could be flattered too much by a man’s attentions. And the first time, if a man isn’t damned gentle....” He stopped, frowning as he searched for the right words. “I don’t want you used.”
She smiled, because she knew what he was trying to say. It delighted her that he had trouble saying it when most men were permissive and worldly and blunt. He wasn’t a virgin, she was sure, but he wasn’t all that experienced, either. She dropped her eyes to his chest. “I promise I won’t jump into bed with the first man who asks me, Jason.” She stared at his chest. “Anyway, I don’t like it when men touch me. Except that I’ve always wondered what it would be like...if you did.”
He felt the ground go out from under him. Until the past two days he’d never thought of Kate as a woman, and now he couldn’t think of her any other way. Her mouth was sweet and responsive and he wanted it again. He wanted to put his hands under that silky blouse and touch her bare breasts, to see if they were really as soft as they felt lying against his chest. He wanted to drag her hips back against his and make her feel the strength of the arousal he hadn’t wanted her to know about.
“Don’t make jokes,” he said tersely.
Her face felt warm, but it wasn’t the time for subterfuge. “I’m not,” she said honestly. “If I ever...well, if I wanted anyone, I mean...” She was as bad as he was about this, she thought, almost laughing at her own inefficiency. “I can’t imagine being that intimate with someone I’ve only just met,” she murmured. “It would have to be someone I knew very well.”
“Like me?” he prompted quietly.
Her body tingled. She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. “Yes.”
“If I’d let you,” he said after a minute, trying to lessen some of the tension that was building between them and playing hell with his good intentions, not to mention his agonized body.
She glanced up to find a faint, rather forced amusement in those dark eyes. “Oh, so it’s that way, is it?” she took him up, delighted at the new familiarity they were sharing so unexpectedly. “I’d have to seduce you, I gather?”
“Damned straight,” he returned. “I’m not one of those fast city boys. You won’t get me into bed without a fight.”
She laughed, her eyes sparkling, her face radiant. “Well, I never.”
“I know,” he mused.
She hit his chest with a small, playful fist. “Tease.”
“Flirt.”
She stared up at him with pleasure and adoration written all over her. “If you’re going to play hard to get, I’ll just go home.”
“That might be wise,” he sighed. He dragged a cigarette from his pocket with fingers he had to force to be steady, and lit it. “You’re getting me all stirred up.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Well, you started it.”
“I guess I did.” He touched her cheek gently. “Are you sorry?”
She shook her head. “If we’re making confessions, I’ve wondered for a long time what it would feel like if you kissed me.”
His chest swelled. “I’ve wondered the same thing about you, just lately.”
She smiled with aching pleasure. “I thought you were mad at me when you came out here.”
“I think I was.” He drew from his cigarette, and said, “I just don’t want to lose you.”
“And I’ve already told you, I’m just going to a few fashion shows, that’s all. I’m not going to have my head turned by fancy living.”
“It’s easy to say, isn’t it?” he asked with faint cynicism. “I grew up poor, honey. I remember what it was like when we started making money here. But that’s something you’re going to have to find out for yourself, I guess.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” she said softly.
“It will. Kiss me good night and go home. Want me to follow you in the Bronco to make sure you get there all right?”
She was still staggering from his request. Her wide eyes welded to his, she couldn’t be bothered to worry about getting home.
“Kiss you good night?” she whispered.
“Don’t you want to?” he whispered back, bending. “This kind of thing can get addictive, especially when it feels this sweet. Come on. Open that soft little mouth and fit it to mine, Katy,” he murmured as his face came closer.
She obeyed him, trembling as she felt the moist warmth of his lips so close against her own. She parted her lips and nudged them up against his, and moaned when he returned the caress with biting hunger. The sound worked on his blood like fire. He looped an arm around her shoulders and brought her roughly against his chest while the pressure of his mouth pushed her head back onto his muscular arm. Time hung like the stars while they fed on each other, and it was a long time before Jason could manage to drag himself away.
Jason’s eyes were almost frightening with their hot glitter as they searched Kate’s. “You and your damned soft breasts are giving me hell,” he breathed shakily. “Next time, wear a bra, unless you want to watch me strip you to the waist out of sheer frustration.”
Her mouth opened on a gasp and he bent long enough to crush his own over it for an instant. Then he let her go and moved back a step. She tried to stop shaking.
“Jason!” she exclaimed.
“I’m not made of solid rock,” he reminded her. His eyes went to her blouson, where the sharp tips of her breasts were straining against the thin fabric. “God, that excites me,” he said roughly.
She blinked, because in some ways, her education was a little faulty. “What?”
He sighed wearily. “Kate...this.” He brushed the back of his hand softly over her breast, and she jerked back on an inverted breath. “Didn’t you know that a woman’s body shows arousal that way?” he asked her gently.
“I do now, thanks,” she fumbled, wrapping her arms around herself in a flurry of embarrassment.
“Stop that,” he scolded gently. “Remember who I am, Kate.”
“I’m trying,” she replied lightly, her eyes fascinated with him and this new and sudden intimacy. But she moved her arms. Odd, how her body tingled when he looked at her breasts. For one wild instant, she thought about what he’d threatened, about stripping her to the waist and looking at her there....
“Why the wild blush?” he asked, his voice deep and velvety. He kissed her closed eyelids. “If you want to experiment, I’ll let you do it with me. At least you’ll be safe that way.”
“Oh, Jason,” she moaned, “I feel so strange...!”
“And so threatened. And there’s no need.” He pressed his mouth to her forehead. “I’m going to take exquisite care of you. Now go home before things get out of hand. Lovemaking is one thing, but sex is something else again.” He lifted his head and searched her eyes. “I won’t let you sleep with me, Kate. Virginity is something you should save for marriage.”
“Nobody else does,” she replied.
“Bull,” he shot back. “That’s another myth. It’s the fashion to be sexually liberated these days, but it’s damned dangerous, too. And I don’t mean just because girls can get pregnant. It’s because there are so many things you can catch that can kill you, or at the very least make you untouchable. You understand me?”
“Is that why you don’t run around?” she asked, her eyes curious.
“It’s one of many reasons I don’t,” he admitted. His eyes drew slowly over her face. “Even a man has to be careful these days. I’d cut off my arm before I’d expose you to any kind of disease.”
“And that’s the only reason you don’t want me to sleep with other men?” she coaxed.
His face hardened. “I feel the same way about that as you seem to feel about thinking of me in bed with other women.”
Her eyes fell. “Oh.”
“Kate, I’m getting in over my head here, and I need a cold shower like hell. So will you please go home?”
She smiled at the way he said it, delighted at the way he was reacting to her, and at the new relationship they were heading for. “Okay.”
“Drive carefully.”
“I will.”
She peeked at him, but he seemed remote now, unapproachable. With a faint grin, she turned and started toward the steps.
“I’ll be in Montana looking at Beefmaster bulls for a few days next week,” he said unexpectedly. “And at the end of the month, I’ll be headed for Australia. I’ll bring you back something pretty from there.”
“You’re doing a lot of traveling,” she said quietly. “Will you be in Australia long?” she asked, sounding miserable because she was.
He wished he wasn’t going all of a sudden. He studied her face. “I know a man up in the Northern Territory who’s experimenting with some new Indian cattle, crossbreeding them with shorthorns. I’ve been invited to spend a month over there getting familiar with the operation. It’s something I’m interested in trying here, so I’ve accepted, and Gene’s going to run things while I’m away, despite the fact that I had to browbeat him into it. I can’t spare the time, but I need to see about expanding the operation.”
“A whole month away?” she murmured, trying not to let him see how disappointed she felt.
“Yes. But not for a few weeks yet.” He smiled. “Don’t borrow things to brood about. Live one day at a time.”
“That’s easy to say,” she sighed.
“You’ll get the hang of it.” He put a fresh cigarette in his mouth and lit it. “Watch your speed.”
She nodded. One last glance at his face was all she got before Jason turned and went back to the swing to sit down. When she pulled out of the driveway, he was still sitting there. By the time she got home, she wondered if she might have dreamed the whole interlude. But her mouth was swollen from his kisses and her breasts ached from the gentle crush of his chest. Kate walked in feeling on air, and only barely managed to camouflage her budding emotions from her mother’s eagle eye. She didn’t want to share her secret just yet. She didn’t want Mary to know what had happened. But life had suddenly taken on new meaning, and she felt alive as she never had before.
