A Bravo's Honour

“I know the feeling.” He pulled her nearer, wrapping both arms around her, heedless of the roses, which he held against her slim back. She didn’t resist him, not this time, only curved against him, warm and soft, all woman. A perfect fit.

She reached up, touched his face, her eyes full of wonder. “Oh, Luke. My heart is beating so hard…”

“Mine too. So hard…”

He kissed her. He had to. Hungrily, he speared his tongue inside, yanking her up hard and firm against him, pressing his hips against her, letting her know exactly how she affected him. His blood pounded in his ears, so loud the sound filled up the world.

When he lifted his head, she sagged against him, as though the kiss had made her legs too weak to hold her up.

He tried to control himself, tried to think of something other than how much he longed to take off all her clothes and lay her down on the couch across the room and make love to her all night long. “I wanted…I thought we would talk, you know? Learn about each other…”

She laughed low, and the sound seemed to vibrate along his every nerve. “How’s that working out for you?”

“It’s not.” With a low groan, he took her mouth again. He was like a starving man—starved for her. For the feel of her, the taste. For all of her…

That time, she was the one who broke the kiss. She put her hands on his shoulders and dug her fingers in, shaking him a little, making a hissing sound between her white teeth. And while she shook him, she looked up at him, lips soft and red, eyes so very serious.

He met her gaze, frowning, not sure what her expression meant, what she might be thinking.

Her hand slid down his arm and she caught his free hand. “Come on. To my kitchen. We’ll put my table between us. It will be easier to act like civilized people that way.”

Obedient as a well-behaved child, he followed her through the arch at the far side of the living room. Her kitchen was small, with a brightly tiled counter, a two-seater table, and a pair of bentwood chairs painted yellow. She pushed him down into one of the chairs.

It seemed about time to offer the roses. “I picked these for you. The color made me think of you. Red. Like your lips when I kiss you.”

She put the pads of her fingers against her mouth, lightly. He wanted to be those fingers, touching that mouth. He had to will himself not to surge up out of that chair, grab her in his arms and kiss her again.

And again…

She took the flowers from his outstretched hand. “Thank you.” She brought them close and breathed in the scent of them. “Mmm. Not like the ones you get at the store with all the fine, dewy rose smell bred right out of them.” She turned for the cupboard and brought down a yellow ceramic pitcher painted with daisies. As she filled it with water at the sink, a scraggly three-legged dog limped in from the other room.

The dog stumped right over to him and wagged its raggedy tail. “Hey.” He let the mutt sniff his hand and then scratched him behind the ears. The dog dropped to his haunches and stared up at him adoringly.

Mercy turned from the sink. She unwrapped the roses from the newspaper cone he’d carried them in and arranged them in the pitcher. Then she brought the arrangement to the table and set it in the center.

“His name’s Orlando.” She gave the dog a fond glance. “Someone dropped him off at the clinic a year ago. He’d been in a car accident. They amputated his crushed leg, patched him up and, since no one would take him, they let him live there. Until I came along and couldn’t resist those sweet, hungry eyes. I adopted him. Or maybe he adopted me…”

“I’ve got a dog. Lollie. She’s a sweetheart.” Feeling suddenly awkward and inexplicably tongue-tied, he petted the dog some more as she went to the fridge and got out two beers. She opened them and returned to the table, where she took the empty chair.

Holding his gaze, she slid one of the bottles across to his side. “I told Elena that you kissed me. That I…couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“When did you tell her that?”

“Before we saw you and Caleb at Armadillo Rose.” She ran her finger down the side of the sweating bottle, wiping a path in the condensation as she went. “It was her idea, going to Corrine’s bar Saturday night. I said how that was silly, that you and I had agreed it was not going to happen between us, and there was almost no chance you would show up there, anyway. So then she asked me what I was afraid of. And I went, just to prove I wasn’t scared—and also because, deep in my secret heart, I was hoping you might be there.” Her dark lashes swept down. When she looked at him again, she added, softly, “And you were.”

He loved her eyes, that slight, sexy slant they had, their velvety blackness. “I wouldn’t have been there that night, except for Caleb. He decided we needed to get out. He drove. I just settled back and went where he wanted to go.”

She slid her beer across the table until it clinked against his, then she pulled it back. “Would you call that fate?”

He watched her smooth throat as she drank. “I’m glad that you were there.”

She set the bottle down again. “Elena thinks the bad things between our families are in the past, that we all need to move beyond what happened so long ago, that it’s got nothing to do with us, with our generation.”

He’d guessed as much from the way Elena behaved the other night, greeting him with a smile, dancing with Caleb. “But you feel differently.”

As she considered what he’d said, the dog, Orlando, rose wearily to his three feet and limped away into the living room.

Finally, she spoke. “The other night in the stable, I did feel differently. All I could think then was that going out with you would only be a betrayal of everyone I love. But after listening to my sister lecture me about how the animosity between our families is all in the past…” She touched the pitcher with his roses in it, then brushed her finger across the velvety petals of one of the blooms. “Maybe I’ve been making a big thing out of nothing. Maybe it really is all over and done. My dad used to speak of your family with anger. With disgust. He really hated your grandfather. And your dad, too. But in the past few years, he hardly mentions you Bravos. He and my mom are happy, doing well.”

Luke thought of his own father. He wondered how Davis Bravo would react to him and Mercy getting together. The old feud aside, Davis had big ambitions. He wanted his sons to marry rich Texas debs, to bring connections and fat fortunes into the family. So far, it hadn’t worked out that way. Ash had married a storekeeper from California. And Gabe’s new wife was a poor Hill Country widow. How would Davis take it if his third son married a Cabrera?

Marriage…

Whoa. He was getting way ahead of himself. He had spent maybe an hour in Mercy’s company, total. They hardly knew each other. He needed to remember that.

She said, “You’re so quiet, all of a sudden. Is something wrong?”

He sipped from his beer—and sidestepped her question. “Saturday night on the way home, Caleb said he was going to ask Elena out.”

She gave a disbelieving laugh. “You’re kidding me.”

“No. I talked him out of it. Now I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have. Not on account of the family feud, anyway.”

“But for some other reason?”

He shrugged. “Caleb is such a damn player. He’s almost as bad as Gabe was before he met his new wife, Mary. He might break poor little Elena’s heart.”

Mercy made a scoffing sound. “You don’t know my sister very well.”

He had to admit, “No, I don’t.” He studied her amazing face. “I have a lot of questions.”

“Like what?”

“Why did you become a vet?”

She pulled the pitcher of roses close, breathed in their scent, then pushed them back to the center of the table again. “The usual reasons, I guess. I love animals. And I’m good with them. They like me, they feel safe with me.”

Lucky animals. Luke didn’t feel safe around Mercy. Not safe at all. “Are you dating anyone?”

She looked at him so solemnly. “Now? No.”

He couldn’t help asking, “But you were, recently?” When she nodded, he pressed her further. “Did you love him?”

“Love…” A frown formed between her sleek black brows. “I thought so. For a while. We were together in veterinary school. Until about six months ago.”

“What went wrong?” Luke’s voice was gruffer than he had meant for it to be.

“I don’t know. How does that happen? It all seems right and then slowly you start to see it’s not going to work out, that it’s not a forever kind of thing, after all.”