The Next Mrs. Blackthorne (Bitter Creek Book 6) Page 12

  Kate felt her jaw drop at Jack’s short speech and quickly closed her mouth. She turned back to her parents to see what effect his plea might have.

  It was her mother who gave in first. She tried to smile, failed, then tried again and succeeded. “It will be nice to ride together again.”

  Kate shifted her gaze to her father, whose lips were pressed in a flat line. She didn’t beg. Grayhawks didn’t beg. Besides, Blackthornes had no mercy.

  But what she felt must have been plain in her eyes, because her father’s mouth twisted wryly before he said, “I haven’t been on a horse in a while.”

  Kate grinned, realizing her father had agreed to stay. “I’ll make sure you get a gentle mount,” she said.

  Her father snorted, and she laughed. Her parents were both excellent riders. In fact, they’d met on horseback. She was hoping this ride would remind them of that long-ago day. And of their long-ago feelings.

  “I’ve had an exhausting day traveling,” her mother said. “I hope you won’t mind if I retire early.”

  “No problem, Mom,” Kate said. “I can loan you something to sleep in. Jack, maybe you can find something for Daddy—”

  “I’ll be fine,” her father said, the scowl back on his face as he looked at Jack. “I brought some work with me. It’s in the car. I’ll go get it.”

  By the time Kate returned from getting her mother settled, her father had closed himself inside the second bedroom. She looked around for Jack and found him standing at the screen door.

  “I think we’d better take that walk,” he said soberly.

  Kate realized he wanted to argue, and that he didn’t want her parents to hear. She wasn’t about to give him the chance to yell at her. “I’m tired, too,” she said. “I think I’ll go to bed.”

  To her dismay, he followed close on her heels. She could feel his masculine presence, the heat of him at her back. The moment she was inside the master bedroom, he closed the door behind her.

  She turned to face him, trembling with some emotion she couldn’t name. But she wasn’t about to cower. Grayhawks weren’t afraid of anyone. She crossed her arms over her chest in defiance and said, “You’re going to ruin everything if you start yelling at me.”

  “I have no intention of arguing with you,” Jack said.

  She watched, appalled, as he unsnapped his cuffs, and with a single yank, unsnapped his western shirt and tugged it out of his jeans. He wasn’t wearing an undershirt, exposing a broad chest covered with dark curls. She quivered at the rattle of his belt being unbuckled and heard the slide of leather as he pulled it free.

  When he reached for the button of his jeans, she turned her back abruptly. “You could at least respect my modesty.”

  “You’re the one who set this up. What did you expect me to do?”

  “You could sleep in your clothes.”

  He snorted in disgust. “I should never have agreed to baby-sit—”

  She whirled on him, incensed at his dismissal of her and stopped short as she realized she could see his white briefs in the V where his jeans had been unzipped. She forced her eyes to his face and said fiercely—but softly, “I’m not a kid!”

  “Get undressed and get in the damned bed,” he said.

  “Where are you going to sleep?”

  “On the floor.”

  “That’s not necessary,” she said, eyeing the king-size bed. “There’s plenty of room for both of us.”

  “We’re not married. We’re not engaged. Hell, I don’t even like you. I went along with this ridiculous scheme because—” He cut himself off, and Kate wondered what he’d stopped himself from saying. He looked at her, his mouth a thin, disgusted line, and said, “I’ll be damned if I get tricked into marriage by some spoiled brat.”

  She was toe-to-toe with him a moment later, keeping her voice down, but surprisingly hurt and furiously angry. “Don’t worry! I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man in the universe. I can’t believe I asked you to help me get my parents together. You can have the bed. I’ll take the floor! I wouldn’t want you to lose any sleep!”

  “A gentleman doesn’t—”

  “I’m no lady, remember? Just a kid.”

  “I never—”

  Kate blinked back the tears that were blurring her vision. She wasn’t about to cry and confirm his belief that she was a child. She’d show him! She was nineteen. And a woman.

  She reached for the buttons on her shirt.

  “What are you doing?” Jack said.

  “Getting undressed.” She waited for him to say something, anything, that would give her an idea what he was thinking. But he remained silent as she unbuttoned her tailored white shirt, pulled it from her jeans and let it slide down her shoulders onto the floor. She didn’t bother turning her back. She simply reached for the button on her jeans—she wasn’t wearing a belt—and began to unzip them.

  “Whoa,” Jack said, putting out a hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’ve already told you,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed to yank off her boots and socks. She lifted her hips and pulled off her jeans. Then she stood before him, wearing only her white bra and a pair of colorful bikini bottoms.

  His eyes surveyed her from head to toe. He lifted an eyebrow, but he looked distinctly…unimpressed.

  Kate was seething inside at his dismissal of her charms, but she’d be damned if she let him know it. She retrieved a pillow from the top of the bed and a blanket from the foot and made herself a pallet on the rug.

  “I said I’d take the floor,” Jack said in a biting voice.

  “And I said that isn’t necessary,”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Well, we children have a tendency to do that,” she replied saracastically. She turned to glare at him, and found herself arrested by what she saw.

  His butter-soft jeans didn’t leave much to the imagination. She’d been wrong. He had noticed how grown up she was. Her eyes shot to his face, but he looked annoyed, rather than aroused. He was clearly determined to ignore her.

  Well. She’d see about that. Kate didn’t know what imp provoked her to test his self-control. She shoved her hands up into her hair as though it was heavy on her shoulders and let it fall across her breasts, then reached behind her to unsnap her bra and let it fall to the floor.

  Kate felt herself flushing when she realized her hair had not covered her breasts as she’d hoped. Her peaked nipples protruded. She resisted the urge to rearrange her hair to cover them. Instead, she lifted her eyes to meet Jack’s and moved toward him slowly, one bare foot in front of the other, wondering what would happen when she reached him.

  “Stop right there,” he said in a guttural voice.

  She stood a mere foot from him, but she could feel the tension arcing between them and smell some masculine scent that made her body prickle. The hairs on her arms stood up, and her belly curled with unmistakable desire. Jack’s eyes were heavy-lidded, dark and lambent. He focused on her mouth before moving to her breasts, and then her belly, where the last of her dark tresses curled against the hem of her bikini panties.

  She felt an irresistable urge to move into Jack’s embrace, but her feet were rooted to the floor. The look on his face was terrifying. And exhilarating. She’d wanted to prove to him that he wasn’t as cool and calm and collected as he thought he was. And she’d succeeded. She’d peeled away the thin veneer of civilization that covered his base animal lust, but she wasn’t sure what to do with the savage beast she’d set free.

  She heard Jack swallow audibly. She met his gaze and felt frightened by his dark, inscrutable eyes.

  She was surprised at how quickly he moved, how tightly he held her arms in his powerful grasp, and how fast his mouth captured her own. His tongue thrust deep and the sound he made in his throat caused her insides to twist with an agony of pleasure. She moaned as she reached out for him. But he had too tight a hold on her and kept their bodies separated.

  A mom
ent later, he wrenched their mouths apart. He stared down into her eyes, his own glittering with a need so fierce it stopped her breath. “Get in that bed,” he said in a harsh, guttural voice. “Before I put you there.”

  It only took a moment for her to divine what he meant. She could get into bed—and sleep there by herself. Or she could wait for him to put her there—and join her.

  Kate usually responded to threats with defiance. But she could see his body quivering and knew that whatever leash he had on himself was within a hairs-breadth of breaking. She opened her mouth to say she wanted him as much as he wanted her, and suddenly remembered why they were in this room together.

  It was all pretend. For the purpose of getting her parents together. He was a playboy, a gambler, and, for all the world knew, a cheat. He might want her body, but that was all. He didn’t even know who she was, not really.

  Kate waited for him to release her. When he didn’t, she realized that he’d gone beyond that point. If she wanted to be free, she would have to make the first move. She met his gaze, raised her chin, and said, “Let me go.”

  The instant she spoke, his hands released her. She almost stumbled backward. He reached out to catch her, but she stepped beyond his reach, certain that if he touched her again, she might surrender to his desire. And regret it the rest of her life.

  “I’ll take the bed,” she said in a shaky voice. She barely managed to swallow the sob that threatened to prove what a child she really was.

  He reached for his shirt and threw it to her. “Put that on.”

  Her hands were shaking too much to find the armholes, but he didn’t offer to help. He stared at her, his dark eyes hard and dangerous, until she finally managed to get her arms into the shirt and pulled it over her shoulders.

  She could hear his harsh breathing, feel a bestial need emanating from him, almost smell the harsh scent of sexual desire.

  She tried to snap the shirt, but her hands were trembling too badly for her to get the two pieces of metal to meet. Abruptly, his large hands appeared under her nose. As she stared up at him, he snapped the top two snaps, then took a step back and said in a rough, scornful voice, “Get in bed.”

  She stared at him a moment, wishing she could get the tongue off the roof of her mouth to speak. But it was stuck there. She climbed into bed, shivering as the cold sheets hit her bare legs, then watched, wide-eyed, as he turned away without another word and settled onto the pallet she’d arranged on the rug. As a final insult, he turned his back on her and pulled the blanket up over his shoulder, shutting her completely out.

  Kate glared at him, then realized he couldn’t see her disdain. Just in case he looked back in her direction, she turned her back on him and pulled the covers up over her shoulders. She realized the light was still on, but she was afraid to move to turn it off. Besides, she felt safer with the light on.

  A moment later, however, she heard the light behind her click off. She shivered again in the dark, and pulled the covers tighter around her. She’d had a narrow escape.

  Kate tried to sleep, but sleep evaded her. She listened for Jack’s breathing and realized he wasn’t asleep either.

  “I’m sorry I got us into this,” she said.

  “You should be,” he shot back.

  She sat up, perturbed at his ungracious response. “I’m not sorry I put us in the same room,” she clarified. “I’m only sorry I started playing games once I got here.”

  “You should be,” he repeated just as brusquely.

  “That’s not fair, Jack,” she said. “You’re as much to blame—”

  That was as far as she got before the light clicked on and she found herself staring up at a very intimidating male figure. She clutched the sheet to her chest, aware that she was half naked.

  “Don’t you know better than to do that sort of striptease in front of man?” he demanded.

  “I never thought—”

  “That’s right,” he said, “You don’t think! You’re an impulsive—”

  She was on her knees facing him in an instant, holding the covers with one hand, poking his chest with a finger of the other. “This was supposed to be pretend! You’re the one who made it into something else.”

  “I suggest we forget what happened here tonight and get back to the original plan.”

  “Fine,” Kate spat.

  “Fine,” he retorted.

  They glared at each other for another moment, before Jack reached over and turned out the light.

  Kate was left staring into the darkness. She could hear him settling back onto the floor and, grumbling to herself, curled onto her side, her back to him, wondering how she could ever go on with the game they were playing. Wanting Jack suddenly felt very real.

  “I’m only doing this because I love my parents and want to see them together,” she whispered into the darkness.

  Jack didn’t reply.

  Jack was careful not to make a sound as he snuck out of the house to make a call on his cell phone.

  “You’ll never guess who’s sleeping under my roof,” he said when the call was answered. “That’s right. The judge himself. And the girl and her mother.”

  He listened, then said, “Now is not the time. I think it’s better if we wait.”

  The wind soughed through trees, making them rustle as he listened. Finally, he said, “I’d better get back inside. I can’t count on any of them staying put all night, and I don’t want to have to do any explaining. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Donnie watched as his brother Bobby John closed his cell phone. Donnie hated his brother. And his mother, whose eyes were squinted into narrow slits as she leaned her head back to avoid the smoke curling up from the filtered cigarette between her bony fingers. The two of them were deep in conversation. They expected him to think the way they did. But he never would. Not if he lived to be a hundred and three.

  The two of them were sitting across the smoky bar from Donnie, in a corner booth with an old-time lantern that shed scant light. Donnie picked up his beer—nobody here had questioned his age—and took a deep, satisfying drink, wiping the foam from his lips with his sleeve.

  “So, Donnie,” the reporter from The Weekly Herald, the newspaper serving the suburb closest to their farm, said, “I haven’t seen a Letter to the Editor from you in a long time.”

  Donnie glowered at the middle-aged man, with his close-cropped hair and clean-shaven face, sitting across from him and said, “I’ve been a little busy.”

  The sound of wailing violins and a mournful country voice on the jukebox made it hard to hear each other, even across the table.

  “When can I expect to print something?” the man persisted.

  Donnie scowled. “Give me a chance to get my thoughts together. I’ll get in touch with you when I have something.”

  The gray-headed man picked up his Stetson, which had been sitting crown down on the table between them and settled it very carefully and evenly on his head. “Not much time left before the trial is over,” he said.

  Donnie shot a murderous glance toward his brother and mother, whose heads were close together. He watched as his brother laughed. “You’d never know it to look at the two of them,” he said bitterly.

  “You know I’m there whenever you need me,” the reporter said.

  “You always have been,” Donnie said. “And I appreciate it. I’ll be in touch with you. Very soon.”

  8

  Libby sat with her arms circling her knees, wrapped up snug in a quilt, on a wooden swing on the front porch of the foreman’s house, wishing she’d stayed in bed. At least there she’d had a chance at sleep. For the past hour, she’d been listening to the soothing night sounds—the cicada, the occasional lowing of cattle, the rustle of the live oak in the wind—but she felt no less disturbed.

  It seemed lately that whenever she and Clay were alone together, one or the other of them said something hurtful. The sad thing was, it hadn’t always been that way. During the years Kate was growing up,
they’d somehow managed to be civil. Ever since Kate had been kidnapped last year, and Clay had kissed Libby for the first time in twenty-odd years, the gloves had come off.

  Tonight, she’d been the one who’d said something scathing. She tried to remember exactly what Clay had said to provoke her, something like, “Kate’s acting as crazy as you did at her age.” It hadn’t taken much to push her over the edge.

  She hadn’t been able to contain the bitterness she felt that, despite everything she and Clay had been through over the past twenty years raising a child together, and the never-extinguished sexual sizzle that last year’s kiss had revealed, Clay was still so goddamned unforgiving of that long-ago betrayal.

  “I see you couldn’t sleep either.”

  Clay’s quiet voice startled her. Libby would have jumped to her feet, but she got tangled in the patchwork quilt. Before she could get free, Clay was already sitting beside her on the swing. She felt at a disadvantage, because he was dressed in a UT sweatshirt and jeans, while under the blanket, she was wearing only a set of skimpy baby doll pajamas Kate had lent her.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Four. Five. Too close to morning for me to lie in bed anymore. How long have you been sitting out here?”

  “Not long,” she lied.

  As he set the swing moving with one booted foot, she pulled her bare toes farther beneath the blanket.

  She waited for Clay to speak, but he seemed content merely to sit with her and watch the gold and pink beginnings of the dawn. Libby was very aware of him, of his body heat, his musky smell, the way his too-long-for-a-judge black hair settled over his brow and nape. His silent closeness, and her heightened awareness of him, reminded her of the last wonderful night they’d made love, more than twenty years ago.

  And the devastating morning that had followed.

  They’d fallen asleep on a blanket in the grass beneath a willow on Clay’s Wyoming ranch. Libby couldn’t remember who’d woken first, but she remembered feeling anxious and guilty when she’d looked into Clay’s gray eyes, which looked back at her with tenderness in the early morning light.