Page 46 of Texas Honor

“Not an oilman?”

He shrugged. “I used to think oil was the most important thing in the world. Until I got plenty of it. Now I don’t know what’s the most important thing anymore. My whole life seems to be upside down lately.” He stared straight at her. “I was a happy man until you came along.”

“You were a vegetable until I came along,” she replied matter-of-factly. “You thought robbing people was all right.”

“Why, you little devil,” he said in a husky undertone, and his eyes went a glittering green. “You little devil!”

She laughed because there was as much mischief as threat in that look. She started running across the meadow, a picture in her full gray skirt and pretty pink blouse, with her dark hair gleaming in the sun. He ran after her in time to catch the colorful glimmer of something moving just in front of her in the grass.

“Mari!” he called out, his voice deep and cutting and full of authority. “Stop!”

She did, with one foot in midair, because he sounded so final. She didn’t look down. With her inborn terror of snakes, she knew instinctively what he was warning her about.

“Don’t move, baby,” he breathed, stopping himself just within reach of a fallen limb from one of the oaks. “Don’t move, don’t breathe. It’s all right. Just stand perfectly still....”

He moved with lightning speed picking up a heavy branch and swinging his arm down, slamming. There was a feverish rattling, like bacon sizzling in a pan, and then only a bloody, writhing, coiling mass on the ground.

She was numb with unexpressed terror, her eyes huge at the thing on the ground that, only seconds ago, could have taken her life. She started to speak, to tell him how grateful she was, when he caught her up in his arms and brought his hard mouth down bruisingly on hers.

She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. He was hurting her, and she hardly noticed. His mouth was telling her things words couldn’t. That he was afraid for her, that he was glad she was safe, that he’d take care of her. She let him tell her that way, glad of his strength. Her arms curled around his broad shoulders, and she sighed under his warm, hungry mouth, savoring its rough ardor.

“My God,” he whispered unsteadily, his mouth poised over hers, his eyes dark in a face that was pale under its tan, his breath rough. “My God, one more step and it would have had you!”

“I’m all right, thanks to you.” She managed to smile through the shaking relief, her fingers traced his rough cheek, his mouth. “Thank you.”

He lifted her against his body, as rugged as any frontier man would have been, his face mirroring pride and masculinity. “Thank me, then,” he whispered, opening his mouth as he bent to her lips. “Thank me...”

She did, so hungrily that he had to put her away from him or let her feel how easily she could arouse him. He held her by the waist, breathing unsteadily, watching her flushed face.

“We agreed that wouldn’t happen again,” he said.

She nodded, searching his eyes.

“But the circumstances were...unusual,” he continued.

“Yes,” she whispered, her eyes falling to his hard mouth with languorous remembered pleasure. “Unusual.”

“Stop looking at me like that, or it won’t end with kisses,” he threatened huskily. “You felt what you were doing to me.”

She averted her eyes and moved away. Sometimes she forgot how experienced he was until he made a remark like that and emphasized it. She had to remember that she was just another woman. He felt responsible for her, that was why he’d reacted like that to the snake. It wasn’t anything personal.

“Well, thanks for saving me,” she said, folding her arms over her breasts as she walked back to the car, and carefully she avoided looking at the dead snake as she went.

“Watch where you put your feet, will you?” he asked from behind her. “One scare like that is enough.”

Scare for which one of us?she wanted to ask. But she was too drained to say it. Her mouth ached for his. She could hardly bear to remember that she’d inflicted this torment on herself by letting him bring her out here. How was she going to bear days or weeks of it, of being near him and being vulnerable and having no hope at all for a future that included him?

CHAPTER TEN

WARDWASQUIETthe rest of the way to the ranch, but he kept watching Mari and the way he did it was exciting. Once he reached across the space between them and found her hand. He kept it close in his until traffic in Ravine forced him to let go, and Mari found her heart doing spins.

She didn’t know how to handle this new approach. She couldn’t quite trust him yet, and she wasn’t altogether sure that he didn’t have some ulterior motive for bringing her back. After all, he wasn’t hampered by emotions as she was.

Lillian came quickly out to meet them, looking healthy and fit and with a healed leg.

“Look here,” she called to Mari and danced a jig. “How’s that for an improvement?” She laughed gaily.

“Terrific!” Mari agreed. She ran forward to embrace the older woman warmly. “It’s good to see you again.”

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