“And you’re sure of that, Jacob?”
“Yes, so accept that as I have. In the meantime, we’ll have to be mature enough to deal with it. We’re not two animals whose only urge is to mate. We’re two intelligent human beings who can recognize when a situation won’t work. This is one of them. I don’t want to hurt you and I refuse to let you hurt me.”
“And you think I will hurt you?”
“Yes. I discovered long ago that nothing is usually as it should be, not the way you’d like it to be.” He took a step back. “I’ll be by early in the morning to get you for the cattle drive, since you’re determined to go on our first day out. Good night, Diamond.”
She watched him walk back to his Jeep and leave.
J
ake wasn’t surprised the next morning to find Diamond dressed and enjoying a mug of coffee when he arrived at the cabin during the predawn hours.
To make matters simple, he had saddled up a horse at the ranch, a mare he’d felt would be easy enough for her to handle, and had hitched the animal to his horse and brought it along. Diamond had been standing on the deck, waiting for him when he’d ridden up. She had immediately put down her mug and smiled, evidently pleased with his choice of a horse for her.
“She’s beautiful, Jacob,” she said, as she took a good look at the horse she would be riding that day. She reached up to touch the animal’s muzzle. Diamond’s smile widened when the horse nickered and playfully tossed her head.
You’re beautiful, too,
Jake thought as he watched Diamond interact with the huge palomino. Even now he doubted she was wearing makeup, but the smooth freshness of her dark skin, her eyes the color of whisky and the fullness of her lips made her a delectable sight early in the morning.
“I’m glad you like her. She belongs to one of my nieces, but I’m sure she won’t mind your riding her. Christy’s a real big fan of yours.”
Diamond glanced up at Jake and smiled again, the same smile she gave him whenever she saw him, the one with the ability to stir his insides.
“Are you ready to ride?”
Diamond nodded. “Yes, I’m all set.”
Jake watched as she mounted the mare, not surprised with the ease with which she did so. According to what she’d told Blaylock yesterday, which the older man had been most eager to share with him and the men over breakfast, was the fact that Diamond was not a greenhorn when it came to riding a horse. Although she had not been raised on a ranch, as a child her father had made sure she had gotten numerous riding lessons.
“Then let’s go,” Jake said, turning his horse toward the north pastures. He decided to set out at a slow pace. It would be a long workday and he didn’t want to tire out the horses too soon.
They rode in silence. Jake tried not to think about what had transpired between them the night before and knew that nothing had truly been resolved. If the truth were known, he wanted her now more than ever. His suggestion that they behave like two intelligent human beings and not like two animals with a strong urge to mate wasn’t working. At least it wasn’t working for
him. All he had to do was to glance over at her, sitting comfortably astride the horse, looking every bit as tempting as she had yesterday, and his body was reacting. He was aware of the blood flowing hot and thick through his veins and the quiver surging through his loins.
There was something sexy as hell about a woman in jeans, he thought, especially tight jeans. His mind suddenly began imagining all sorts of things. For instance, the pleasure he would feel in peeling those tight jeans off her body.
Jake cursed under his breath. He definitely didn’t need those kinds of thoughts. He needed all his strength and focus to be concentrated on today’s activities, which were to move the herd to the high pastures without any problems.
He shook his head. The only problem he could think of was riding on a horse next to him. “Watch yourself today, Diamond,” he decided to say, breaking into the silence by making the first attempt at conversation since leaving the cabin. “I’ll be too busy to keep an eye on you.”
“I’ll be careful, Jacob.”
“And another thing.”
She glanced over at him. “Yes?”
“The men, they’ll be branding the cows. I don’t want them to get careless and start branding each other. They need to stay focused on what they’ll be doing, and you’ll be a distraction.”
When he saw Diamond raising a questioning brow, he continued, “You have the ability to make a man lose focus, Diamond. The men are in awe of who you are. I don’t want any careless accidents to happen.”
For some reason, Jake got the impression she was caught off guard by what he had just said to her. He wondered why she would be. Surely the woman knew how beautiful she was and that there were a number of men fascinated by that beauty both on and off the screen. He had even seen a huge poster of her in one of his teenage nephew’s bedrooms a few months ago.
“Do you think I shouldn’t come?” she asked quietly.
“To be quite honest with you,” he said slowly, “right now I’m questioning my decision to let you come along. I can’t afford any on-the-job accidents.”
Diamond brought her horse to a stop. “I’ll go back then, Jacob. The last thing I want is for my presence to cause problems for anyone.”
Jake looked at her, studied her. She wasn’t acting sulky or pouty. He saw genuine concern in her features. He wondered how often she’d felt that because of who she was, she would have to act or behave a certain way not to cause problems either to herself or others. He knew from being good friends with Sterling that most Hollywood types fell in two categories: those who gave a damn and those who didn’t. Sterling was one who didn’t, but he believed Diamond was one who did. Sterling was right when he’d said the other night that Diamond enjoyed being around people, but in her line of business, she couldn’t get too friendly with anyone.
But she had.
She felt comfortable being on friendly terms with everyone on the ranch. No one had been excluded from her friendliness or acts of kindness, not even him. Being kind and friendly seemed to make her
happy and relaxed, and he wasn’t about to take that away from her.
Jake shook his head. “You won’t cause any problems. The only problem you’ll cause is by not showing up. The men know you’re coming, and they’re looking forward to your spending a day out there on the range with them. They really like you, Diamond.”
He saw her face light up in a smile. He knew his words had meant a lot to her. “I like them, too. You have a special group of men working for you, Jacob. They are good men. I can feel it.”
Jake looked at her consideringly. After a long moment he asked, “What else can you feel, Diamond?”
Fierce, hungry desire was obvious in the dark eyes staring at her. Instinctively Diamond felt the core of her body quivering with renewed need. She flushed and looked away. Moments later she looked at him again. “I thought we had decided to try and stop this thing from developing between us, Jacob.”
He moved his horse close up beside hers. He wondered how he was going to make it through the day with her around. They stared at each other for a long, silent moment. Neither of them blinked. Then finally, after he had gained a semblance of control, Jake said, “Yeah, we did, didn’t we? Sorry.” He then urged his horse on and without saying a word, Diamond and her horse followed.
Jake had two choices. He could ignore Diamond or he could not ignore her. And he was finding that he could not ignore her. It seemed the men were handling
her presence better than he was. Once they had gotten used to her being there, they had gone about doing their normal chores, and she had stayed out of everyone’s way by volunteering her services in the meal wagon. Willie Beads, the range cook, had been more than grateful for another pair of hands, even those belonging to Diamond Swain. And she had been a big help. She had assisted Willie in unpacking the cooking utensils and had been most eager to help serve the men lunch and dinner. Then later she had helped Willie get everything cleaned up and put away.
Nearing the afternoon, Jake sat on his horse frowning as he watched her, thinking of just how well she was able to fit in out here on the range. She was such a natural outdoors. And that’s what bothered him. Diamond Swain was not acting in any of the ways he had expected a sophisticate to act. She wasn’t afraid of breaking a fingernail by doing a little hard work, and she didn’t seem to be getting bored yet.
It takes longer for some,
his inner mind told him.
She’ll come around and find that this place is cramping the style she’s used to. She’ll begin missing the excitement and glamour of the life she left in California. It will be just a matter of time before Whispering Pines loses the allure and charm it now holds for her.
He knew this. It was expected. But the thought still bothered him. To be more precise, it bugged the hell out of him. And that, he thought, was dumb. He could not figure out why he was letting her get next to him. He set his lips in a firm line as he stared at her. He was way too smart to get tangled up with a sophisticated lady again. She was here for another two weeks, even
less when the boredom finally settles in. So why was he feeling so agitated, so annoyed; and why had he gone back to feeling like a lusty bull again?
To tell the truth, the feeling had never left him.
He raised his chin, took off his hat and looked over at her. For once she was standing alone, looking out over his herd. She had taken off the wide-brim hat she had brought along and was using her hands as a shield as she squinted the sun out of her eyes. Her shoulder-length hair fell loosely around her shoulders. Even from a good fifty yards away, he could almost feel its softness. It would be the kind of hair a man would want to twirl his fingers around while he made love to her. It was the kind a man would want to bury his nose in at the same time the heat of him spilled deep within her body.
At that moment, as if she felt his gaze on her, she dropped her hand from shielding her eyes and turned and met him across the distance, eye to eye. For what seemed like an eternity, neither of them blinked. She slowly smiled with wide moist lips, which was not intended to tease, but did so anyway. The attraction that he had tried fighting suddenly intensified to a roaring blaze, a towering inferno.
Jake stared at her for a little while longer before finally making a decision. He slowly moved his horse toward her. When he reached her, he watched as she nervously ran her fingers through her hair and licked her lips, biting the bottom one softly.
“Diamond,” he said quietly.
She raised her face and looked up at him questioningly. “Yes?”
They looked at each other, tension shimmering
between them, surrounding them, engulfing them. “It’s getting late,” he finally said. “I thought this would be a good time for me to show you some more of Whispering Pines. Are you interested enough to want to come with me?”
Diamond knew she should turn down his invitation and stay put. Being alone with Jacob was the last thing she needed, but unfortunately it was everything she wanted. She would be returning to the cabin at the end of the day while he and his men continued to drive the herd to the high pastures, a process that could take three to four days to do. The thought of not seeing him for that length of time bothered her. She wanted to spend every chance she got with him.
“I’d love to go with you, Jacob. It’ll only take a minute for me to get my horse.”
“We can both ride mine.”
She frowned, not sure that was such a good idea, but when he reached his hand down to her, without hesitation she placed hers in his. She took a deep steadying breath when he leaned over, reached down with big strong arms and pulled her up into the saddle behind him. She placed her arms around his waist to hold on.
He glanced back over his shoulder. “All set?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then, let’s go.” Setting off at a steady clip, he trotted his horse toward the mountains.
Jake was losing what little control he had. Diamond was holding firmly on to him. With each and every powerful movement his horse made as it galloped up the path, her body rubbed against his. He could feel
the softness of her breasts brushing against his back, and the feel of her soft feminine thighs cradling his own as she held on to him around the waist. Neither of them said anything as they rode farther and farther away from camp and deeper and deeper away from the ranch.
When Jake finally brought his horse to a stop sometime later, Diamond glanced around. It was a very secluded place. A little creek ran the length of an area covered by a thicket of pine trees. They had stopped under a huge canopy of thick branches. There were wildflowers and an abundance of bluebonnets everywhere. The place, she could tell, was a private one, some sort of secret hideaway.
“I discovered this place as a kid and still come here whenever I have a lot on my mind and want to think about something,” he said as if reading her thoughts, as he slid off the horse. “It’s still my own special private place.”
When he stood on the ground, he reached his hands up to her. She braced her hands on his shoulders and slid down into his arms. Midway they faced each other before he slowly and carefully lowered her to the ground. When her feet touched the hard earth, she dropped her hands from his shoulders. But he made no effort to remove his hands from her waist.
“You can let me go now, Jacob,” she said in a velvety voice.
A hard sheen of wanting and desire glittered in Jake’s eyes. “No, I don’t think so, Diamond. I really don’t believe that I can,” he murmured softly as he leaned closer to her. “At least not now,” he breathed thickly against her mouth before his lips covered hers.
Diamond wanted this kiss as much as Jake did and didn’t pretend otherwise. She forgot about the decision they had made just last night. She couldn’t think of anything but the taste of his tongue as it probed her mouth, filling it, torturing it, loving it. He deepened his embrace, crushing her until the feel of her breasts against his chest fueled the desire that tore at them and drove them to partake in this intoxicating moment. She was only mildly aware of him sweeping her into his arms.
She was too conscious of the way he was still kissing her to notice or to care where he was taking her. All she could think about was the feel of his mouth on hers and the feel of his strong, muscled arms holding her. For reasons she could not understand, she was experiencing more emotions with this man than she had with any other man, including Samuel. No other person had ever made her feel this way, wanton and unresisting.
She felt the warm clovers beneath her back when Jake laid her down on a soft bed of green grass. Lowering his body next to hers, his mouth slid down her skin, tasting her soft flesh. Her breath caught at the feel of his warm tongue touching the tender skin underneath her ear.