“Then don’t act like one,” Jonah said sharply.
Maddie smiled in amusement when Jonah’s comment snapped Christina out of the beginning of a childish tantrum. “Jonah, would you mind fetching the spare horse that Jesse left in the ravine to the east? Christina and I need a moment alone.”
When Jonah strode off, Christina rounded on Maddie. “If you are going to tell me that I made a fool of myself because I fell in love with Boone, save your breath. You feel the same way about Jonah, so you have no room to talk.”
Maddie didn’t deny it. Instead she said, “The difference is that I’m nearly twenty-one and you aren’t quite sixteen.”
“We know several girls my age who are married,” Christina reminded her.
“Yes, we do, but you aren’t going to be one of them and Boone didn’t ask you to be.” Maddie stared directly at her sister. “Why do
you
think Boone feels that he needs to leave here?”
Christina’s shoulders slumped dejectedly. “Because he thinks I’m too young for him.”
“No, he
knows
you’re too young for him,” Maddie corrected as she curled a comforting arm around her sister’s waist, then ambled toward the lone horse that stood beside the spring. “Boone is a good and honorable man. Is it so hard to understand that he might just be waiting for you to grow up?”
When Christina glanced up hopefully, Maddie smiled. “I know it’s hard to be patient, Chrissy. But there truly is a time and a season for things to come.”
Christina nodded reluctantly. “So you really think Boone will come back someday?”
“He’ll be back,” Jonah confirmed as he led the spare mount down the path. “I know for a fact that Garret women are impossible to forget. Believe me, I tried.” He smiled wryly at Maddie as he approached. “Used to think I was a man of my
word,
until someone around here had me contradicting myself left and right. I was five miles east of town when I realized I couldn’t leave you behind because I’ve become a man of my
heart.
”
Maddie beamed at him. He hadn’t said the exact words she wanted to hear, but it gave her hope.
“I had some arrangements to make before I came back to the ranch to see you.” He stared disapprovingly at Maddie. “Should have known you wouldn’t have the good sense to stay in bed instead of riding off, daring trouble to catch up with you.”
Christina managed a faint smile. “He chewed Boone and me up one side and down the other when he discovered that we’d let you go riding alone.” She stared accusingly at Maddie. “As if we had any choice. Then Jonah burned my ears off with curses, the likes I’ve never heard before, when that ransom note arrived.”
Maddie tossed Jonah a frown of feigned annoyance. “If you can’t be a positive influence on my sister then I will have to ask you to leave.”
“You can ask,” Jonah said as he scooped Maddie up and gently set her atop her horse, “but I’m not going away again. In fact, Boone and I formed a partnership to purchase the Hanson Ranch so we can raise and train horses. Boone will be a silent partner for a time, but all the same, half the ranch is his.”
Maddie sat there in stunned amazement as Jonah swung up behind her in the saddle. She nearly melted into a puddle of hungry need when he slid his arm around her waist to pull her back against him, and pressed his sensuous lips against the side of her neck.
“In case you haven’t figured it out yet, princess, I’m here to stay this time.
This
is the end of the line for me.”
Maddie’s heart swelled with so much pleasure that she swore it was about to burst. “You aren’t just saying that to make me feel better because I almost got myself killed again, are you?”
“No,” he murmured. “You know me better than that. I don’t say anything just to be nice or accommodating.”
“You broke my heart when you rode away. I’m not sure how long it will take me to forgive you for that,” Maddie said as Jonah walked the horse toward the house.
“I’ll always be right here when you need me,” Jonah promised as he cuddled her possessively against him. “I intend to prove exactly how much you mean to me when we get home.”
Home.
The word hadn’t held any meaning for Jonah in years. But now, wherever Maddie was felt like home to him, even this canyon that had once held bitter memories. It was his past, yet it was his future—filled with hope and a promise of better days to come. He thought perhaps his Comanche clan might approve of the fact that he had returned to claim this land that had been his by right of birth.
And the woman who held his heart.
Jonah’s pensive thoughts trailed off as he dismounted, then eased Maddie from the horse. He glanced sideways at Christina, who had a lost look on her face. Jonah had worn that same expression the past two days. He knew it was going to take a while
before Christina accepted the inevitability of the time and distance Boone felt compelled to put between them.
Jonah felt a fond smile curve his lips when Christina slipped her hand in his, then pushed up on tiptoe to press a sisterly kiss to his cheek.
“I’m glad you’re here to stay,” she whispered. “I’ve always wanted a big brother.” She smiled a little too knowingly as she glanced back and forth between him and Maddie. “I’ll see you both in the morning.”
Jonah frowned as he watched Christina climb the steps and disappear into the dark foyer. “Are you sure that kid is only fifteen?”
“Fifteen wishing she were twenty.” Maddie stepped onto the porch, then pivoted to smile invitingly at him. “Come to bed, Jonah. It’s been a long, tiring day.”
Jonah grinned as he followed her up the steps. He was going to enjoy hearing Maddie tell him to come to bed—every night for the rest of his life.
When Maddie closed the bedroom door she glanced back to see Jonah doffing his shirt and his holsters. He had said he was here to stay and she believed him. But this time she needed to hear the words that bound him to her forever, and he was going to have to come to
her.
She was not going to throw herself at him the way she usually did. Not this time, at least.
When Jonah ambled toward her to wrap her in his sinewy arms, she smiled in pleasure. Finally! This was the first step in the right direction.
“I hope you know that you scared ten more years off my life out there tonight. For a moment I wasn’t sure you were going to live long enough for me to tell you how I felt about you.” He inhaled a deep breath, stared her straight in the eye and said, “I love you, princess. It has taken me two days to work up the nerve to say the words because I’ve never said them to anyone before.”
When Maddie didn’t fling her arms around his neck and kiss him breathless, Jonah angled his head to the side and said, “Something wrong, princess?”
“Yes, I’m waiting.”
He frowned, confused. “Waiting for what?”
“You said you were going to prove that you’ll never leave me again.” She tilted her chin challengingly. “So prove it, Mr. Ranger.”
“I’m not a Ranger anymore. I resigned. Boone is my replacement…. Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
Still she made no move toward him. Jonah blew out an exasperated breath. “Now what?”
Maddie sent him a withering glance. “When you left here two days ago you accused me of seducing you twice, and insulted me by saying that I was too forward.”
Jonah grinned. “Now I get it.”
“Not from me, you won’t,” she sassed him. “Am I going to have to hit you over the head before it finally soaks in that I’m not going to throw myself shamelessly at you ever again?”
“Never?”
“Absolutely not,” she confirmed.
Chuckling, Jonah scooped her up in his arms and
carried her to the four-poster bed. “You want me to seduce you, I take it.”
“That’s exactly what I want.”
Jonah grinned rakishly as he tugged off her boots, then removed her shirt—carefully, so as not to aggravate her mending shoulder. When he had her out of her riding breeches, lying naked on that fancy bed that was fit for a princess, he feasted his appreciative gaze on her. She was so beautiful to him that she nearly took his breath away. He still couldn’t believe that she had chosen him when she could have any man she wanted.
“I do love a woman who knows exactly what she wants and isn’t afraid to say so. No shrinking violet for me. I need a woman who gives as good as she gets.”
His smile softened as he eased down beside her to trail his forefinger over the peak of her breast. When she moaned softly he bent to flick his tongue against her satiny flesh and felt her shiver in response. “How am I doing so far?”
“Not bad,” Maddie said breathlessly. She then reached up to pull his head toward hers—and stopped just shy of touching him.
Jonah smiled in playful amusement. This stubborn beauty was going to make him pay for his outrageous remark, but he had no qualms about seducing her into grabbing hold of him as if she never meant to let go.
He kissed her, gently at first, then intensely, savoring the addicting taste of her. When she responded he felt the fire of desire coiling inside him, and wondered if she was going to outlast him. As for Jonah, he was about finished with stubborn challenges and making
points. He wanted her so badly that he was going to have to resort to begging pretty quickly.
“I love you, Maddie,” he whispered as his hand glided down her hip. “With all my heart and all my soul. I can’t imagine loving anyone or anything as desperately and completely as I love you.”
He must have said or done something right because she came alive in his arms and hugged the stuffing out of him.
“This is never going to work,” Maddie said with a ragged breath. “No matter how hard I try, I can’t keep my hands off you. I obviously have no willpower where you’re concerned.”
Jonah raised his head and grinned into her bewitching face. “Neither do I, princess. Maybe we should make a pact that it’s okay to seduce each other anytime we feel like it.”
Maddie smiled impishly at him. “That might be best.” She kissed the breath clean out of him and said, “I love you so much, Jonah. Come here before I go crazy!”
He came to her, eagerly, and he thanked all the powers that be that Maddie had barged into his life. He was glad he had never been able to say no to her, had never been able to let her go. He had been a man without a home, a man who had forgotten how to hope and how to dream. But Maddie had transformed him, challenged him and given his life pleasure and new purpose. She had dared to love him and he was going to guard the precious gift she had given him.
“You are my heart, princess,” he told her softly and sincerely.
“And you are mine, Jonah,” she whispered back to him.
It took Jonah most of the night to communicate the all-encompassing love that had burned Maddie’s name and her memory on his soul. But that was all right with him, because he wasn’t leaving this canyon or this woman again.
And you could write
that
down in stone because he meant it with every beat of his heart and felt it all the way to the bottom of his soul. On that thought Jonah closed his eyes and cradled Maddie possessively in his arms.
He was definitely here to stay.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4010-0
TEXAS BRIDE
Copyright © 2004 by Connie Feddersen
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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