Cattleman's Choice (6 page)

“I got my education while I was in military service, in the Marines,” he told her bluntly. “But that was a long time ago. I've lived hard and I've worked hard and I haven't had time for socializing. I hate pretense. I hate people lying to each other and cutting at each other and pretending to be things they aren't. Most of all,” he added hotly, “I hate places that put you down on the basis of your bank account. God, how I hate it!”

He must have spent a good part of his youth being looked down on, humiliated. Her heart thawed. She reached out and touched his sleeve very gently, and he tensed even at that light touch.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Sorry that I lost my temper, that I yelled at you.”

“I have scars,” he said quietly. “They don't show, and I try to forget them. But they're pretty deep.”

She dropped her eyes to his stubborn, square chin. “Still want to take me fishing?”

“I reckon.”

“How about Monday?”

He hesitated, and her eyes came up.

“You work on Monday,” he reminded her, and there was a strangely puzzled look about him, as if he hadn't expected her to take him seriously.

“So I'll play hookey.” She grinned.

He laughed softly. “All right. So will I.”

She settled her head back against the seat with a sigh. “If you'll put the worm on the hook,” she added. “I'm not committing homicide on any helpless worms.”

Later, she thought about that sudden decision to take a day off—something she never did—and go fishing with Carson, of all people. How odd that he'd never mentioned that business degree he held, almost as if he was ashamed of it. She felt vaguely sorry for him. Carson wasn't a bad man. He had wonderful qualities. He'd stayed two nights with old Ben Hamm and his wife on their ranch when the couple had the flu. He'd fed them and taken care of them, and then paid their utility bills for the month because Ben had been unable to work for a week and had gotten behind. Then there was the poor family that he'd “adopted” for Christmas. He'd bought toys for the kids and had a huge turkey with all the trimmings delivered to their home. Yes, Carson was a caring man. He just had an extremely hard shell, and Mandelyn decided that he probably had plenty of reasons for it. What would it be like to know the man beneath the shell? She fell asleep on the thought.

Chapter Four

B
right and early Monday morning she called Angie at home and told her she wasn't coming in to the office.

“I'm going fishing. I'll call in later to see if there are any messages,” she told the younger woman.

“Fishing?” Angie burst out.

“Why not?' she replied.

“Excuse me, Miss Bush.” Angie cleared her throat. “It's just that I never thought you'd like fishing.”

“Well, we'll both find out after this morning. Have a good day.”

“You, too.”

Mandelyn didn't own a pair of old jeans. She wore a slightly worn pair of designer jeans with a colorful striped pullover shirt and sneakers, and left her hair long. She looked a little less proper than usual, she decided finally.

Carson wasn't outside when she drove up, and she hesitated at the front door when he called for her to come inside. It was a little unnerving to be totally alone with him, but she chided herself for her continuing feeling of uneasiness with him and went inside anyway.

“Just be a minute,” he called from the back of the house. The bedrooms must be located there, but she'd never seen them.

“Take your time,” she replied. She sighed over the worn furniture and bare walls. With a little paint and love, this house had great possibilities. It wasn't all that old, and it was built sturdily. She pursed her lips, studying it. The room was big, but it could be comfortable, and there was a huge rock fireplace that would be a showpiece with a little cleaning up. The windows were long and elegant, and the floor would have a beauty all its own if it were varnished.

“You won't find any sidewinders under the rug, if that's what you're looking for,” Carson taunted from the doorway.

She turned and had to force herself to look away again. He'd obviously just come from a shower. He was fully dressed except for the shirt he was shrugging into, a blue printed one that matched his eyes. She got a wildly exciting glimpse of broad, tanned muscles and a thick pelt of hair running down past the buckled belt around his lean hips, and her heart started beating unexpectedly hard. She'd seen Carson without a shirt before, for God's sake, she told herself, why was it affecting her this way all of a sudden?

“You look elegant even in jeans,” he murmured drily. “Couldn't you find anything worn?”

“This is worn.” She pouted, turning to find him closer than she'd expected. She took a slow breath and inhaled the scent of a men's cologne that was one of her particular favorites. “You smell good,” she blurted out.

“Do I?” He laughed softly.

His hands had stilled on the top buttons of the shirt and he looked down at her in a way that threatened and excited all at the same time. His chiseled mouth was smiling in a faint, sexy way and his blue eyes narrowed as they studied her.

“Why are you so nervous?” he asked with his head lifted, so that he was looking down his crooked nose at her. “You've been alone with me before.”

“You were always dressed before,” she said without meaning to.

“Is that it?” He watched her face and deliberately flicked open the buttons he'd fastened. “Does this bother you?” he asked in a deep, lazy tone, moving the shirt aside to let the hair-roughened expanse of his chest show.

Her breath caught and she didn't understand why. Her lips went dry, but she barely noticed.

He lifted her hands with slow, easy movements, and brought her fingers to his cool skin, letting her feel the hard muscles.

“No flab,” she laughed unsteadily, trying to keep things light between them, but her legs felt shaky.

“Not a bit,” he agreed. “I work too hard for that.” He pressed her fingers hard against him and moved them in a slow, sensuous pattern down the center of his chest and back up again. “I don't suppose you brought a fishing pole?”

“I don't…own one,” she replied. Incredible, that they were conducting an impersonal conversation while what they were doing was growing quickly more intimate.

His chest rose and fell unevenly. He pressed her palms flat against his hardened nipples and she could hear his heartbeat, actually hear it. He moved, so that he was closer than ever, and his breath stirred the hair at her temples.

She couldn't look up, because she wanted his mouth desperately, and she knew he'd see it. She didn't understand her own wild hungers or his unexpected reaction to her nearness and her touch. She didn't understand anything.

The room seemed dark and private. There was no sound in it, except for his breathing and the loud tick of the mantel clock.

He drew his open mouth tenderly across her forehead, his breath hot, his chest shuddering with the harshness of his breathing. Impatiently, he took her hands in his and guided them down the hard muscles of his chest and around to his lean hips. She protested, a stiff little gesture.

“Don't fight me,” he whispered unsteadily, moving her hands down the sides of his legs and back up to his hips. “There's nothing to be afraid of.”

But there was! Her own reaction to him was terrifying. She felt his legs touch hers and she made an odd sound in her throat, one that he heard.

His head moved nearer. Her eyes closed and she felt his warm breath at her forehead, her nose, the open softness of her mouth. Unaware of her response, she opened her mouth to invite his, tilted her head back to give him full access. And waited, breathing in his scent as his mouth came closer. Would it be gentle this time, she wondered, or would he hurt…?

“Mr. Wayne!” The loud call was like a gunshot. Carson's head jerked up. He looked dazed, and his eyes were a dark blue, haunted, hungry as they met hers for just an instant before he moved away.

“What is it, Jake?” he asked curtly, buttoning his shirt as he went out onto the porch.

Mandelyn heard the voices with a sense of unreality. She was still trembling, and her mouth was hungry for the kiss she hadn't gotten. Her misty eyes searched for Carson and found him standing outside the door. She looked at him with open wonder, letting her rapt eyes wander down the superb masculinity of his back and hips and legs. She remembered the feel of his skin, the smell of him. Her breasts ached and as she crossed her arms, she felt the nipples' hardness.

She licked her dry lips and ground her teeth together as she tried to get her rebellious body back under control. It wanted him. God, it wanted him, all of him, skin against skin, mouth against hungry mouth. She almost moaned aloud at the force of that wanting, at the urgency she'd never felt before. Her sweet memories of the man in her past had faded completely away during that passionate onslaught, had been replaced with a different emotion. With a wildness that she'd never known, a violent need.

How in the world could she face Carson now, after giving herself away so completely? He was still a man, he wouldn't hesitate to take anything that was offered, despite their long friendship. If she acted like a temptress, what could she expect? He was human.

She cleared her throat as he came back into the room. If only she could find an excuse to go home.

“I'll find you a pole,” he said good-humoredly, grinning at her. “Got a hat?”

“No.”

“Here.” He reached into the closet and tossed her a straw one that just fit. “It belonged to me, years back. Well, let's go.”

He herded her out the door before she had a chance to protest, and minutes later they went bumping over his pasture in the pickup truck toward the stream where the swimming and fishing hole spread out invitingly past some cottonwood trees.

“We used to swim here,” he told her as they sat on upside-down minnow buckets in the cool shade. “Some of the boys still do, but it's a good fishing spot, nevertheless. Here.”

He handed her the bait can and she stared at it distastefully.

“Please?” she asked softly, looking up at him.

His eyes remained on hers for a minute before he turned them back to the bait can. “I'll show you how.”

“But, Carson…”

“Just watch.”

He threaded worms onto the hook while she grimaced. “Soft-hearted little thing,” he chided. “I'll never take you rabbit hunting, that's for sure.”

She stuck out her tongue at him. “Well, I wouldn't go, so don't ask me.”

“Patty's having a party next Friday night,” he said as he threw her line into the stream. The red cork bobbed gaily against the murky water. He glanced at her.

“Is she?” she asked in a breathless tone.

He threaded worms onto his own hook. “Kind of a social gathering, I think, so folks can get acquainted with her and tour her new office.”

“She's really proud of it,” she murmured.

He threw his own line in and leaned his elbows on his knees, holding the pole between them. Nearby birds were calling, and crickets made pleasant sounds in the underbrush.

She glanced at him. “Are you going?”

He laughed shortly. “You know I don't socialize.”

She looked down at the ground. “I could…teach you.”

His eyes glanced sideways. “Could you?”

“You've got the clothes now,” she reminded him. “All you need to know is some of the new dance steps and how to talk to people.”

He stared at her for a long moment. “Yes.”

She shifted on the bucket. “Well, do you want to?”

“Want to what?” he asked huskily.

She looked up into his eyes and felt herself going hot all over. She dragged her gaze back to the water. “Uh, do you want me to teach you?”

“I think you may be the one who needs teaching,” he said.

Her face flamed, because she knew exactly what he was talking about. She felt like a girl on her first date, tongue-tied and expectant.

“I know how to dance,” she said.

“Deliberately misunderstanding me again?” he said with a soft laugh.

“I thought we came here to fish?”

“I am.”

“Do you want to learn to dance or not?” she asked impatiently.

“I guess so.”

“You can come over tomorrow night, if you want to,” she said. “I'll make supper.”

He studied her for a long moment. “All right.”

She tingled from head to toe in a new, exciting way. She smiled, and he watched the movement of her lips with an expression that it was just as well she didn't see. It would have frightened her.

She studied the bobbing red cork with drowsy, contented eyes, hardly aware when it went straight under. When she felt the tug on the line and realized what was happening, she jerked too soon. The hook came flying up on the bank, straight into her shirt and caught there.