Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Notorious in the West\Yield to the Highlander\Return of the Viking Warrior (11 page)

Chapter Ten

S
everal hours later, Olivia found herself with sore feet, a hoarse throat and a sunny, private spot beside Morrow Creek's namesake creek. A few feet beyond her aching toes, the water burbled along its banks, glimmering in the sunlight. All around her, tall ponderosa pines and scrubby mountain oaks crowded the steep landscape, turning it green and lush. Nodding wildflowers dotted the patchy grass. The territorial mountains rose in the distance, revealing Morrow Creek for the valley town it was.

From here, though, the town might as well be miles away. At this distance from the creek bridge, even the noisy sounds of horse traffic didn't carry. The afternoon school bell and the blacksmith's hammer were swallowed up by the cloudless skies overhead, and the town's houses and buildings stood far away from this secluded spot. Nothing penetrated the trees and grass and mountainside except for birdsong and rustling leaves.

“Ah.” In patented delight, Griffin reclined on a rock slab beside her. He pillowed his dark leonine head on his arms, his hat abandoned beside him. Apparently, when he'd bared himself to her, he'd lost his need to hide—at least as long as he was out of the view of strangers. “This is good. It's worth all the dillydallying and silly conversations leading up to it.”

That was
not
a polite way to refer to the many rounds of calls they'd made so far, visiting several of Olivia's friends and neighbors and experiencing the sights and sounds of Morrow Creek. But it was accurate. Together, she and Griffin had strolled the main street. They'd popped into the impressively busy offices of the
Pioneer Press.
They'd browsed Hofer's popular mercantile, said hello to a throng of children playing outside the schoolhouse where Sarah McCabe taught on schooldays, perused the lumber mill with its piles of felled timer and—of course—attended the jam-tasting jamboree. They'd encountered a number of townspeople on their way. Only a few had openly gawked at Griffin, to Olivia's satisfaction.

“I thought you'd like it here,” she told him. She longed to massage her tired feet, but it would not be ladylike to remove her high-buttoned shoes. “That's why I saved it for last.”

“Ah.” He cracked open one eye. “You're a savorer, then.”

“A savorer?”

“Someone who likes to wait for good things—who likes to delay the gratification of them for as long as possible.”

“I suppose so.” Pulling up her knees to her chest with her skirts flowing around her, Olivia nodded. “Isn't everyone?”

“No. Some of us know you have to grab the goodness while it's within reach, else lose it forever.” Griffin levered upward on his elbow. He studied her. “Scarcity teaches that lesson.”

“You're wealthy. You don't have scarcity anymore.”

He disagreed. “I'll have scarcity forever.” He touched his chest, indicating his heart. She doubted he was aware of it. He lay back again, letting the sunshine soak into him. Eyes closed, he said, “Just like you'll have marriage proposals forever.”

Ugh.
Reminded of one of the most trying elements of their day so far, Olivia squinted into the treetops. She'd never realized before exactly how much of her life was defined by the receiving—and subsequent evasion—of marriage proposals.

My son William proposed to Miss Mouton,
one of the women at the jam-tasting event had confided to Griffin.
She was quite right to turn him down, though. He was scarcely eighteen.

Or,
my brother proposed to Miss Mouton last winter,
a woman at Hofer's mercantile had said.
He's still awaiting an answer.

Or,
I proposed to Miss Mouton myself,
a bucker had said while greeting them outside Copeland's lumber mill,
well on a year ago now.
He'd given a wink.
Any day now, she'll come round.

Taken as a whole, glimpsed through an outsider's eyes, the entire compilation had been dismaying. Olivia could almost feel the town's fervent wishes bearing down on her even now. More than anything, her friends and neighbors wanted her to be a wife, to be perfectly proper, to be
different
than she was.

She feared she was running out of reasons to resist that.

“Eventually I'll be old.” She gave a blithe wave, watching a butterfly alight on a Griffin's bent knee—watching him notice that butterfly with evident delight. “No one will want me then.”

Griffin laughed. “Is that your plan? To delay your suitors until you're feeble and gray? It's novel, I'll give you that.”

“What choice do I have?” Olivia shot an irate look toward the grosbeaks twittering in the nearby oak tree branches. “If I say no outright, I'll disappoint people. If I say yes—”

“You'll disappoint yourself,” Griffin finished for her.

Surprised, she glanced at him. For a man who appeared to love nothing more strongly than an afternoon sunbath, Griffin was unexpectedly perceptive. “Yes. I have no wish to marry.”

“How can you not,” he asked, “when you're so lonely?”

For a moment, the only sounds were those birds and the peaceful ripple of Morrow Creek wending its way downstream.

Then... “What makes you think I'm lonely?” This was different from his earlier charge of loneliness. Then, he'd been reacting to her statement that
he
was lonely. Now... “Of course I'm not!”

Pondering that, Griffin kept his eyes closed. His profile jutted skyward, angular and raw. His cheekbones were as sharp as marble. His forehead was regal enough to merit a crown. His lips were full and sensual. Only his nose marred the image of him as perfectly masculine. She began to think he wouldn't speak.

Her certainty about that was woefully short-lived.

“Olivia, you've deliberately hidden yourself from everyone,” Griffin said in a rumbling, self-certain tone. “With me, you were so eager to discuss Bentham and Rousseau that you committed petty larceny of my philosophy book. With Mrs. Hofer, you chatted about hats for nearly an hour. With me, you claimed a lifelong fascination with science—and proved your interest by conducting a fairly shameless ‘observation' of me in my bed. Yet with Miss Adeline Wilson, you pledged your undying devotion to dressmaking patterns and intricate crewelwork. Given those vast differences, how could you be anything except lonely?”

“You don't understand. Am I not allowed to have diverse interests?”
Even if a few are false?
Olivia wasn't happy he'd brought up her borrowing of his philosophy book and her inability to quit thinking about his provocatively unclothed form...even if she
had
categorized her peeking as “scientific observation” to him. And herself. “Everyone chats socially.”

“Yes,” Griffin agreed. “But not everyone feels as lonely as you do when they do so. I've watched you all day. I can see it in you.” He delivered her a serious look. “I feel it in you. If anyone can, it's me. Unless your own hypothesis is wrong?”

Uncomfortably, she stared at him, feeling irksomely unable to take delight in his casual use of that scientific term—even if it did prove that they had intellectual pastimes in common.

Lonely?
It was true that she often felt misunderstood, Olivia mused. It was true that she had no one to explore her deepest interests with. That she felt apart from workaday goings on in town. But everyone was kind to her. Everyone
wanted
her. Annie had been right about that, at least. She was not a victim of hardship, like Griffin. She was not despondent, like him.

She might be, though, if he refused to discuss Rousseau and Bentham with her. She was counting on their mutual interest. She was counting on exploring that interest in a way she could do with no one else. But that didn't make him an expert on her.

“You've made sure they don't understand you,” Griffin went on, placidly but relentlessly. “What I don't understand is why.”

“What
you
don't understand is far more comprehensive than that,” Olivia snapped. “I'm beginning to regret bringing you here.” She brushed off her skirts, defensively preparing to get to her feet. “It seems the creek side makes you babble nonsense.”

He laughed. Without so much as opening his eyes, Griffin grabbed her arm. Wordlessly, he stopped her from standing.

“I don't think it's nonsense,” he said in a steady tone. “Given that you're ready to stomp off in a huff...neither do you.”

Olivia wanted to take umbrage at that statement. Honestly, she did. But something about the way Griffin lazily stroked his fingers along the sensitive skin of her inner arm made her senses riot in response instead. Her breath caught. Her skin tingled. All her attempts to command her mind—instead of her traitorous body—to take charge of this situation failed utterly.

Squirming breathlessly in place, Olivia wondered how Griffin's touch could possibly be so rousing...and how she could possibly remain annoyed with him while experiencing it. Caught up in the sensation, she couldn't help remembering how it had felt to kiss him. How exciting it had been. How new, how foreign, how stimulating and passionate it had felt. Kissing Griffin had been the most stirring event she'd ever experienced.

Even now, she wanted more. More of him.

“We're the same, you and I,” he said, breaking into her wicked thoughts. “We're both apart from everyone else. We're both alone. The only question now is what to do about it.”

His gaze meandered to her face. She would have sworn he could read her thoughts—could know her illicit desires from the heated blush on her cheeks and the telltale hitch in her breath.

“
You
should change your ways,” Olivia said immediately. “Stop being quite so...oversize. And so brooding. And so fierce.”

“Ha.” He caressed her wrist. “I can't help my size.”

Her heart pounded. “And all the rest?”

“Hmm.” His hold on her wrist tightened. He gave a gentle pull. Like magic, Olivia tumbled atop him with a breathless
oof.

Griffin caught her, not at all brooding or fierce in that moment—and not at all bothered by their improper nearness, either. Olivia felt it intensely. She felt his chest, as hard as the river rocks beneath her hands. She felt his arms, as mighty as any tree trunks could have been, holding her close. She felt his thigh, covered now by her skirts, warmed by the sun and flexing with the strength to hold them both in place.

It occurred to her that he might have been doing the very thing he'd spoken about before—grabbing the goodness in his life before it could escape him forever. Was
she
the goodness?

Against all reason, Olivia wanted to be. For him.

“Why have you escaped the imperative to change?” he asked in a vaguely aggrieved tone. He turned his face again to the sunshine, as though it had been his plan to embrace her this way all along. “That hardly seems fair. If I have to mend my disorderly ways,” Griffin told her, “then you should also. You should confess your love of philosophy, proclaim your interest in science and shout your contrariness to the rooftops.”

“No.” She pretended certainty when she felt nothing of the kind. Not given all he'd said just now. “I think I should kiss you again instead. Yes, that
must
be it. It feels right.”

Anything that evaded this conversation felt tangibly right. But kissing Griffin had other, more exhilarating benefits to it.

For one thing, kissing Griffin made Olivia feel
free.
Even bound as she was to Morrow Creek, its conventions and her own role among her friends and neighbors, with Griffin she felt free. Free to be just as she was. Because
he
certainly was in no position to judge her—although he was positioned to disagree.

“That's not it. Kissing is not the answer to this.” He gave her a fleeting and endearingly concerned frown. “I'm serious about this. I mean what I say. You cannot be happy with—”

“With you? Oh, yes. I can.” She touched his face, loving its contours and its warmth and its uniqueness. She leaned upward. She puckered up. “Here. Let me show you what I mean.”

Inexpertly but fervently, she kissed him. Even better, he kissed her back. Their coming together amazed her still. It amazed her with its passion, with its tenderness...with its necessity. Olivia didn't know where she found the daring to behave this way when it came to Griffin. She'd certainly never been this sensually minded or this adventurous before
he'd
come into her life.

Now she was. Now she knew that his mouth made her forget everything. Held in his arms, she felt without thinking. She gave without reservations. She cared for him in a way that was both unequivocal and undeniable...and almost frightening in its intensity. She'd set out to comfort Griffin with this daylong outing of theirs, it was true—but she'd ended up tantalizing herself with their intimacy. Now she needed more.

He, as a gentleman, would likely
not
be first to offer. She didn't believe the stories about him—the scandalous tales of The Tycoon Terror and The Business Brute. With her, he was...gentled.

With her, at least, The Boston Beast was tamed.

Maybe that was why Olivia felt free to loosen the leather tie at his nape. She pulled it free, then boldly went on kissing him while she delved her hands in his dark, tangled hair. With his mouth still pressed against hers, Griffin gave a startled sound.

He caught her hand, held it in his then broke their kiss.

“Don't.” His heavy brows lowered. “You don't want to—”

“I thought we'd settled this already.” She smiled at him. “You won't get anywhere trying to tell me what to do.”

Demonstrating as much, Olivia wriggled her hand free. She caught hold of a length of his hair, then tenderly stroked it away from his face. Griffin closed his eyes...and allowed it.