Page 110 of The Honorable Texan
“Damn it!”
He shot to his feet, eyes blazing in a rigid face, with a dusky flush creeping along his high cheekbones with all the warning color of a poisonous reptile.
Meredith stood her ground, watching him clench those big fists at his side.
“Rey,” Leo cautioned abruptly, and started to get to his feet.
Meredith went right up to Rey, looking him in the eyes, quiet, still—waiting.
Rey was breathing through his nostrils.His jaw was clenched with fury.But intelligence won easily over bad temper.His chin raised slowly.“You’re testing me,” he said out of the blue.“You want to know if I’ll hit you.”
“It’s something a woman needs to know about a man,” she said very quietly.“And she needs to find it out where she can get help if she needs it.”She didn’t look at Leo, but Rey knew that was what she meant.She smiled gently.“No, you don’t hit,” she said in a soft, quizzical tone.“You do have a temper, but it’s not a physical one.”
He was still breathing through his nose.“If you were a man, it might be,” he told her bluntly.
“But I’m not a man,” she replied.
Her eyes were almost glowing with feeling.He got lost in those soft, warm, grey eyes.He hated the way he felt when he was near her.He’d been fighting it ever since he carried her up to her garage apartment after she’d fainted at the hospital.He liked the feel of her in his arms.He liked kissing her.He liked the way she picked at him and teased him.No woman had ever done that before.As his older brothers had been before they married, he was taciturn and uncommunicative most of the time.His very attitude put most women off.
It didn’t put Meredith off.She wasn’t afraid of his temper, either.She made him into a different person.It wasn’t something he could easily explain.He felt comfortable with her, even while she was stirring him to passion.He could imagine just sitting in front of the television with her and holding hands, late at night.
The image intimidated him.He sat back down,ignoring Meredith, and started putting butter and strawberry preserves on four biscuits.
Leo gave him a measuring look.“Don’t eat all the biscuits.”
“I’m only getting my share.She,” he jerked his thumb towards Meredith, “didn’t make but eight this morning.That’s one for her, four for me, and three for you.”
“And why do you get four?”Leo asked belligerently.
“Because she proposed to me,” he said with pure smug arrogance, and a look that made Leo’s teeth snap together.
“I did not,” Meredith said haughtily, sitting down across from him.“I said I was thinking of you as a marriage prospect, not that I actually wanted to go through with a ceremony.”She cleared her throat.“I’ll have to see how you work out.”
Rey smiled faintly.“That sounds interesting.”
He didn’t necessarily mean what it sounded like he meant.She mustn’t jump to any conclusions here.But her cheeks were getting very rosy.
He noticed that.It was a devilish game they were playing, and he could do it better.He stared pointedly at her soft mouth as he put a cube of fresh pear into his mouth, slowly and deliberately.
She felt very uncomfortable in odd places when he did that.She ate her beef and gravy and tried to ignore him.
“I like having fresh fruit,” Rey said with a slow smile.He speared a grape with his fork and eased it slowly between his lips.
She moved restlessly in her chair.“It’s healthy stuff.”
“No wonder you were trying to get us to eat right,”Leo said, trying to break the growing spell Rey was casting on her.“You teach nutrition, I suppose.”
“In a way.I’m supposed to counsel patients on changing bad habits and making lifestyle changes when they’re warranted,” she explained.If only her hand didn’t shake while she was holding the stupid fork.Rey saw it and knew why, and she hated that damned smug smile on his lean face!
He picked up a piece of perfectly cooked asparagus spear and slowly sucked it into his mouth, using his tongue meaningfully.
“I have to fix dessert,” Meredith choked, jumping to her feet so quickly that she knocked her chair winding and had to right it.
“I saw that chair jump right out and trip you, Meredith,” Rey commented dryly.“You ought to hit it with a stick.”
“I ought to hityouwith a stick instead!”she raged at him, flushed and flustered and out of patience.
“Me?”Both eyebrows arched.“What did I do?”
