said with a reluctant grin. “At the first sign of trouble, they’ll come right through the fence to protect me. Of course, if they get shot in the line of duty,” she added, “I’ll eat them!”
He pushed his Stetson back over clean blond-streaked brown hair and looked down at her with lingering amusement. “You haven’t changed much in six years.”
“Neither have you,” she retorted shyly. “You’re still smoking those awful things.”
He glanced at the big cigar and shrugged. “A man has to have a vice or two to round him out,” he pointed out. “Besides, I only have the occasional one, and never inside. I have read the studies on smoking,” he added dryly.
“Lots of people who smoke read those studies,” she agreed. “And then they quit!”
He smiled. “You can’t reform me,” he told her. “It’s a waste of time to try. I’m thirty-six and very set in my ways.”
“I noticed.”
He took a puff from the cigar and studied her steers. “I suppose they follow you around like dogs.”
“When I go inside the fence with them,” she agreed. She felt odd with him; safe and nervous and excited, all at once. She could smell the fresh scent of the soap he used, and over it a whiff of expensive cologne. He was close at her side, muscular and vibrating with sensuality. She wanted to move closer, to feel that strength all around her. It made her self-conscious. After six years, surely the attraction should have lessened a little.
He glanced down at her, noticing how she picked at her cuticles and nibbled on her lower lip. His green eyes narrowed and there was a faint glitter in them.
She felt the heat of his gaze and refused to lift her face. She wondered if it looked as hot as it felt.
“You haven’t forgotten a thing,” he said suddenly, the cigar in his hand absently falling to his side, whirls of smoke climbing into the air beside him.
“About what?” she choked.
He caught her long, blond ponytail and tugged her closer, so that she was standing right up against him. The scent of him, the heat of him, the muscular ripple of his body combined to make her shiver with repressed feelings.
He shifted, coaxing her into the curve of his body, his eyes catching hers and holding them relentlessly. He could feel her faint trembling, hear the excited whip of her breath as she tried valiantly to hide it from him. But he could see her heartbeat jerking the fabric over her small breasts.
It was a relief to find her as helplessly attracted to him as she once had been. It made him arrogant with pride. He let go of the ponytail and drew his hand against her cheek, letting his thumb slide down to her mouth and over her chin to lift her eyes to his.
“To everything, there is a season,” he said quietly.
She felt the impact of his steady, unblinking gaze in the most secret places of her body. She didn’t have the experience to hide it, to protect herself. She only stood staring up at him, with all her insecurities and fears lying naked in her soft gray eyes.
His head bent and he drew his nose against hers in the sudden silence of the yard. His smoky breath whispered over her lips as he murmured, “Six years is a long time to go hungry.”
She didn’t understand what he was saying. Her eyes were on his hard, long, thin mouth. Her hands had flattened against his broad chest. Under it she could feel thick, soft hair and the beat of his heart. His breath smelled of cigar smoke and when his mouth gently covered hers, she wondered if she was going to faint with the unexpected delight of it. It had been so long!
He felt her immediate, helpless submission. His free arm went around her shoulders and drew her lazily against his muscular body while his hard mouth moved lightly over her lips, tasting her, assessing her experience. His mouth became insistent and she stiffened a little, unused to the tender probing of his tongue against her teeth.
She felt his smile before he lifted his head.
“You still taste of lemonade and cotton candy,” he murmured with unconcealed pleasure.
“What do you mean?” she murmured, mesmerized by the hovering threat of his mouth.
“I mean, you still don’t know how to do this.” He searched her eyes quietly and then the smile left his face. “I did more damage than I ever meant to. You were seventeen. I had to hurt you to save you.” He traced her mouth with his thumb and scowled down at her. “You don’t know what my life was like in those days,” he said solemnly, and for once his eyes were unguarded. The pain in them was visible for the first time Sally could remember.
“Aunt Jessica told me,” she said slowly.
His eyes darkened. His face hardened. “All of it?”
She nodded.
He was still scowling. He released her to gaze off into the distance, absently lifting the cigar to his mouth. He blew out a cloud of smoke. “I’m not sure that I wanted you to know.”
“Secrets are dangerous.”
He glanced down at her, brooding. “More dangerous than you realize. I’ve kept mine for a long time, like your aunt.”
“I had no idea what she did for a living, either.” She glared up at him. “Thanks to the two of you, now I know how a mushroom feels, sitting in the dark.”
He chuckled. “She wanted it that way. She felt you’d be safer if she kept you uninvolved.”
She wanted to ask him about what Jessica had told her, that he’d phoned her about Sally before the painful move to Houston. But she didn’t quite know how. She was shy with him.
He looked down at her again, his eyes intent on her softly flushed cheeks, her swollen mouth, her bright eyes. She lifted his heart. Just the sight of her made him feel welcome, comforted, cared for. He’d missed that. In all his life, Sally had been the first and only person who could thwart his black moods. She made him feel as if he belonged somewhere after a life of wandering. Even during the time she was in Houston, he kept in touch with Jessica, to get news of Sally, of where she was, what she was doing, of her plans. He’d always expected that she’d come back to him one day, or that he’d go to her, despite the way they’d parted. Love, if it existed, was surely a powerful force, immune to harsh words and distance. And time.
Sally’s face was watchful, her eyes brimming over with excitement. She couldn’t hide what she was feeling, and he loved being able to see it. Her hero worship had first irritated and then elated him. Women had wanted him since his teens, although some loved him for the danger that clung to him. One had rejected him because of it and savaged his pride. But, even so, it was Sally who made him ache inside.
He touched her soft mouth with his fingers, liking the faint swell where he’d kissed it so thoroughly. “We’ll have to practice more,” he murmured wickedly.
She opened her mouth to protest that assumption when a laughing Stevie came running out the door like a little blond whirlwind, only to be caught up abruptly in Ebenezer’s hard arms and lifted.
“Uncle Eb!” he cried, laughing delightedly, making Sally realize that if she hadn’t been around Ebenezer since their move from Houston, Jessica and Stevie certainly had.
“Hello, tiger,” came the deep, pleasant reply. He put the boy back down on his feet. “Want to go to my place with Sally and learn karate?”
“Like the ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ in the movies? Radical!” he exclaimed.
“Karate?” Sally asked, hesitating.
“Just a few moves, and only for self-defense,” he assured her. “You’ll enjoy it. It’s necessary,” he added when she seemed to hesitate.
“Okay,” she capitulated.
He led the way back into the house to where Jessica