The Cowboy and the Lady (10 page)

“It won’t take long,” Donald said encouragingly, finishing a quick cup of coffee. “We’ll have you on your way in no time,” he promised.

No time turned out to be two hours, and it was thanks to Donald’s skill as a mechanic that they were able to take off at all.

The sun had not yet risen when Duncan set the twin-engine plane down on the Casa Verde landing strip, but the sky was already lightening with the approaching dawn.

Tired and bedraggled, they got out of the plane and stood quietly on the apron looking around at the quiet, pastoral landscape.

“Peaceful, isn’t it?” Duncan asked, taking a deep breath of fresh air.

“So far,” she agreed with a wan smile. “They’ll have heard us land, of course.”

“It’s never failed yet.”

As if in answer to the remark, they heard the loud, angry roar of one of the ranch’s pickup trucks.

“Would you care to bet who’s driving it?” Duncan asked with cool nonchalance.

“Oh, I think I have some idea,” she returned. Her knees felt curiously weak. Circumstance it might have been, but she knew without guessing what Jace’s reaction was going to be, and she wanted to run. But there was no place to go. Jace was already out of the truck and striding toward them with homicide in his eyes.

He hadn’t slept. That registered in Amanda’s tired mind even as his dangerous gaze riveted itself to Duncan as he approached them. He needed a shave badly, and his face was pale and haggard. He was wearing gray suit pants with a half unbuttoned white shirt, and over it was his suede ranch coat. The familiar black Stetson was pulled cockily over one eye, and he looked fierce and uncivilized in the gray half-light.

“Uh, hi, Jace,” Duncan said uneasily.

He’d barely got the words out when Jace reached him, hauling back to throw a deadly accurate right fist into his jaw and knock him sprawling backward onto the pavement.

“Do you know what we’ve been through?” Jace breathed huskily, his temper barely leashed. “We expected you by midnight and it’s daylight. You let us sit here without even a phone call…Mother’s in tears, damn you!”

“It’s a long story,” Duncan muttered, holding his jaw as he sat up, his face contrite. “I swear to God, we’ve had a night ourselves. The right magneto went in one of the engines and I almost crashed the plane getting us down.”

She could have sworn Jace paled. His glittering eyes shot to Amanda and ran over her like hands feeling for breaks after a fall. “Are you all right?” he asked curtly.

She nodded, afraid to risk words. She’d never seen him like this.

Duncan picked himself up, feeling his jaw gingerly. “Damn, Jace, I wish you’d yell instead of hit,” he mused, geared to his brother’s temper after years of conditioning.

“What happened?” came the terse reply.

Duncan explained briefly the events that had mounted up to delay them, adding that they couldn’t even telephone.

Jace’s face got, if possible, even harder. “You could still have phoned before you left New York,” he reminded his brother.

Duncan smiled sheepishly. “I know. But we were having such a good time that I just didn’t think. Then, when we finally got to the airport, I was afraid to waste the time.”

“I even tried to call the terminal in New York to find out when you filed your flight plan,” Jace continued grimly.

“Guilty on all counts,” Duncan agreed. “I don’t have a good excuse. I just…didn’t think.”

Jace’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. “I’m going to let you explain that to Mother.”

Duncan waited for Amanda, who’d been quiet, and held out his hand, but Jace got to her first, catching her arm in a grip that was frankly punishing. His eyes went over the expensive coat and narrowed.

“You didn’t have a coat with you,” he said, his tone challenging.

“No…” she started to explain.

“Didn’t I warn you about gifts?” he demanded.

It was too much. The night, the near-crash, the worry about getting home and then Jace’s fury…it was just too much. A sob broke from her throat and she started crying, little noises escaping her tight throat, tears rolling pathetically down her cheeks.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Amanda…!” Jace burst out.

“Leave her alone, Jace,” Duncan said quietly, and stopped to draw her against him. “I scared her out of her wits. And if the coat bothers you, blame Mother. Amanda didn’t have one and Mother loaned it to her.”

Jace looked as if he wanted to throw things. But he whirled without another word, his face terrible, and got in behind the wheel of the truck. Duncan eased Amanda into the seat first, watching her shrink away from contact with Jace when he got in on the other side of her and closed the door. Jace started the truck and left rubber behind taking off.

They had to go over the explanations again for Marguerite, who was pale and worn out from crying, hugging the two of them as if they’d come back from the dead. To Amanda’s silent relief, Jace disappeared upstairs as soon as they got home. She couldn’t cope with him right now.

“I’m so glad you’re safe.” Marguerite sniffed, sipping black coffee with a sodden handkerchief clutched in one thin hand. “I was so worried.”

“I wish we could have let you know,” Amanda said gently, wiping her own face, “but there wasn’t any way. I’m so sorry we upset you.”

“Jace more than me,” she said with a damp smile. “He wore ruts in my carpet. I’ve never seen him so upset.”

“He hit Duncan,” Amanda said, faintly resentful.

“Duncan deserved it,” the injured party said sheepishly, “and you know it.”

Marguerite sighed. “You’re lucky that’s all he did. He threatened worse things while we waited.”

“Would anyone mind if I went to bed for what’s left of the night?” Amanda asked gently. “I know you two are just as tired as I am, but…”

“You go right ahead, dear,” Marguerite said with an affectionate smile. “Duncan and I will be right behind you. Rest well.”

“Where’s Terry, by the way?” Amanda asked suddenly, remembering him belatedly.

“He went to bed early and we didn’t wake him,” Marguerite explained. “He’s missed all the excitement.”

Amanda smiled wanly. “I’ll see you both later, and I really am sorry,” she added gently, bending to kiss Marguerite’s cheek as she passed her.

* * *

The fatigue and lack of sleep hit her all at once when she got to her room. She took off the sundress and her sandals, but she couldn’t seem to stay awake long enough to get out of her slip and hose before she drifted off in a heap at the foot of the bed.

Through a fog, she felt herself being lifted and placed under something soft and cool. Her heavy eyelids opened slowly, as if in a dream, to find a hard, tanned face looming over her.

“Sleepy?” he asked in a voice too soft to be Jace’s.

She nodded. Her vision was blurred, as if she was dreaming. Perhaps she was.

He brought the cover up to her waist, his eyes lingering on the lacy bodice of her slip where it exposed the soft, pale swell of her breasts.

“I’m not dressed,” she murmured drowsily.

“I can see that,” he replied softly, with an amused smile.

“You’re mad at me,” she recalled, frowning. “I don’t remember…why…but…”

“Don’t think. Go to sleep.”

Her eyes drifted down to the growth of beard on his tanned face and involuntarily her fingers reached up to touch it. For a dream, he felt warmly real.

“You haven’t slept either,” she whispered.

“I couldn’t, until I knew,” he said gruffly.

“Were you really worried?” she asked.

“Worried!” He laughed shortly, but his eyes were still turbulent with emotion. “My God, I had visions of the two of you lying mangled in the wreckage of the Cessna. And you were going up and down Broadway!”

She dropped her eyes to his broad chest where his shirt was unbuttoned, and the curling dark hairs on the bronzed skin were damp, like the hair on his head, as if he’d just come from a shower.

“We were having fun,” she said inadequately.

“You always had fun with him.” There was a world of bitterness in the words.

“And I always ran from you,” she murmured gently. Her fingers traced the long, chiseled curve of his warm mouth. “I could never get close to you,” she told him, weariness making her vulnerable, loosening her tongue. “The day I invited you to the party, I was scared to death. I wanted you to come so much, and you were like stone.”

“Self-defense, Amanda,” he replied quietly, his eyes slow and bold on the lacy white slip and the white flesh peeking out of it. “I didn’t like the way you made me feel. I didn’t like being vulnerable either.”

She laughed wistfully. “All I ever managed to do was make you lose your temper.”

“Are you sure?” He caught her hand and drew it to his warm, hard chest, pressing its palm against the hard, shuddering beat of his heart. “Feel what you do to me,” he murmured, watching the surprise in her sleepy eyes. “I can look at you and my heart damned near beats me to death. It’s been that way for years and you’ve never even noticed.”

Her lips fell open, in astonishment. Jace had always been so self-sufficient, so controlled. It was new and exciting to consider the possibility that she could do this to him, that she could make him feel the same shuddering excitement that filled her when he touched her.

“I think…I was afraid to notice,” she whispered shakily, “because I wanted it so much…”

His breath was coming hard and fast now, his eyes going down to her softly parted lips. Like a man in a trance, he bent his head, his eyes staring straight into hers.

The tension between them was almost unbearable. She could feel the warm, smoky sigh of his breath on her lips, the slight mingling scents of soap and cologne as he bent over her, the blazing warmth of his body where her cool hands were pressed against his chest.

“Jason…” she whispered apprehensively.

His open mouth brushed against her lips while he watched her. “Hush,” he whispered gently. “I only want to touch you, to taste you, to be sure that you’re here and safe and not lying in a field somewhere torn to pieces. God, I’ve never been so afraid!”

“You shouted at me,” she reminded him, the words muffled against his mouth as it brushed and caressed in a maddening, tantalizing motion.

“You’d scared me out of my wits. What did you expect?” he growled. He moved, leaning both arms on the sheet on either side of her, his chest arching over hers as he studied her flushed face. “You little fool, can’t you get it into your head that I’m not rational when it comes to you? Does it give you some kind of juvenile kick to knock me off-balance, the way you did in the living room?”

She studied his hard mouth quietly, loving the chiseled perfection of it, the sensations it could cause. “I never realized before that I
could
…knock you off-balance.”

His eyes dropped to the brief, almost transparent bodice of her slip. “Lying there so soft and sweet,” he murmured, “and I’m making small talk when all I want out of life right now is to strip you down to your skin and taste every silky inch of you.”

Her heart turned over. “What time is it?” she asked quickly.

“You’re afraid, aren’t you?” He lifted his hand and touched, very lightly, the soft swell of her breast with his hard fingers, smiling when she caught them and moved them to her shoulder. “You did that once before,” he reminded her. “At that party, years ago. I carried the memory around like a faded photograph for years. You were so deliciously innocent.” His eyes darkened, his face tautened. “And now you’re a woman, not so innocent, so why pretend?”

She chewed on her lower lip, too weary to deny it, to fight with him. “I’m tired, Jason,” she whispered meekly.

He took a deep breath. “And I’m not?” he asked. His eyes searched hers. “I’ve been pacing up and down in my room, trying to get myself back together. I know that if I try to get some sleep, every time I shut my eyes I’ll see the look on your face when I jumped on you about the damned coat.”

“But Marguerite…” she began.

“Insisted. I know, Duncan told me, remember?” He smoothed the hair away from her face. “I was worried sick, honey,” he said quietly. “And hurt.”

“I couldn’t hurt you,” she whispered curiously.

“Couldn’t you?” His eyes dropped to her mouth. “You don’t know how much you could hurt me,” he murmured, bending. He eased her mouth under his, cherishing it, touching it lightly, gentling it in a silence that was only broken by the sound of a breeze outside the open window and the soft sigh of Jace’s breath while he kissed her.

She reached up to hold him, but he caught her hands and spread them against his cool, broad chest, tangling her fingers in the mat of curling dark hair.

“Have you ever learned how to touch a man?” he asked against her parted lips.

She caressed him with nervous, unsure hands while the touch of his tormenting mouth drove her slowly mad.

“Kiss me hard,” she whispered achingly, her slitted eyes looking up into his.

“In a minute.” A faint triumphant smile touched his mouth. “I like it like this, don’t you? Slow and easy. I like to hold back as long as I can—it makes everything more intense,” he whispered against her lips. “Come on, honey, don’t just lie there and let me do it all. Help me.”

She almost blurted out that she didn’t know how, that her only intimate experience had been with him. With other men she had never gone beyond kissing.

She opened her mouth to his and reached up to hold him, to draw his heavy, warm body against hers so that he was half-lying across her, the crushing pressure of his weight dragging a moan from her throat.

“Not so hard, baby,” he whispered, drawing back a little to look at her. “It’s been a long time since I made any effort to go slow with a woman. Let it be gentle with us, this time.”

The words awed her, touched her. She reached up and traced his hard mouth with her fingertip, her dark eyes searching his light ones while her heart hammered in her throat. “I don’t know much…” she blurted out, the admission not quite what she meant it to be.

“It’s all right,” he said quietly. He smoothed her lips under his softly, slowly. “Don’t you want to touch me?” he whispered, and his fingers drew against her waist, her rib cage, up to the soft, high curve of her breasts. “God knows, I want to touch you,” he added huskily, and his hands moved to cup her soft breasts with a light touch that made her tremble all the same and catch at his fingers wildy.