Desperado

She said it in an odd sort of way. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“You aren’t exactly Don Juan these days,” she pointed out.

He bristled with stung pride. It was true that he didn’t have affairs, or spend a lot of time living the life of a playboy, but he didn’t like her knowing it. His dark eyes flashed. “You know nothing about that side of my life,” he said coldly. “And you never will.”

There was a brief, incredulous look on her face, and he could have bitten his tongue. They’d slept together, once, even if it wasn’t a memory she liked. She knew him in a way few women ever had. It was a thoughtless remark.

“On second thought,” he began abruptly.

She held up a hand. “You said it yourself, digging up the past doesn’t solve anything.”

He drew in a long, slow breath. “I hurt you.”

Her face flamed. She wasn’t going to get trapped into that conversation. “Let it go, Cord. It all happened a long time ago. Now I have to get up and start job-hunting. If you don’t mind going out of here so I can get dressed...?”

But he wouldn’t leave it alone. “You’re twenty-six and a widow,” he said shortly, irritated by her embarrassment. “And I know every inch of you. So stop acting coy.”

Her teeth clenched so hard she thought she might chip them. Her eyes were furious. “You have no idea how much I hate the memory of that night,” she said spitefully.

The words stung, as she meant them to. He got to his feet abruptly and noticed how she dragged the covers up to her chin, as if she couldn’t bear him to look at her body at all.

“You must have noticed that I was drunk,” he said curtly. “If I hadn’t been, I’d never have touched you!”

“I drank too much myself,” she shot back. “Or I’d never have let you touch me!”

“Having made ourselves clear on that point,” he added, turning away from her. “I’m sorry about what happened.”

He sounded as if he was about to choke on the words. She noticed that his face was clenched as tightly as her fingers.

“Two apologies in one day,” she said with mock surprise. “Do you have something fatal and you’re trying to win points with God while there’s still time?”

He laughed faintly. “You could be forgiven for thinking so, I suppose.” He turned and looked at her for a long time, as if he needed to reconcile his memory of her with the reality. “You were eight when we came to live with Mrs. Barton. That means you’ve been part of my life for eighteen years.” His eyes grew contemplative. “I’ve given you nothing but hostility, all that time. But the minute I get in trouble or get hurt, you come running. Why?”

“Habit,” she said at once. “And a monstrous appetite for verbal abuse,” she added with a faintly wicked smile.

He burst out laughing, and this time it was genuine. It changed him. It made his eyes sparkle, his face so handsome that it hurt her to see it. He’d been this way with Patricia, his wife, she supposed. Maybe he’d been happy with other women, too, over the years. But he only smiled at Maggie if she teased him. So, through the years, she’d tried to do that. It was one way of getting attention from him, even if the only way.

“You didn’t need to come here and apologize,” she added. “I’m used to having you snarl at me.”

He frowned as he considered that. She spoke as if she expected nothing else. There was so much about her past that he didn’t know, couldn’t know. She volunteered nothing. It was a reminder that she knew far more about him than he knew about her.

“You can come and stay out at the ranch while you look for work,” he said out of the blue.

Her heart skipped, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “No, thanks. I like it where I am.”

He hadn’t expected the refusal. “What’s the matter, scared I’ll lose my temper and throw you out in your nightgown one rainy night?”

She sighed. “It would be in character,” she said with resignation. “You’d make sure it was on a main street, too.”

He grimaced. “I was kidding!”

She looked up. “I wasn’t.”

His jaw clenched. “You don’t know me, Maggie.”

She laughed shortly. She sat up, pushing back the thick waves of her long hair before she leaned forward with her head in her hands, her elbows resting on her drawn-up knees. “My head hurts. I’m not used to traveling so far at one time.”

“You’re jet-lagged,” he said. He knew a lot about overseas travel. He’d done more than his share. “You probably went to sleep the minute you got here. You should have tried to wait until bedtime.”

She gave him a speaking glance. “I had a trying day.”

He sighed and stuck his hands in the pockets of his khaki slacks. “So you did.”

Her eyes lifted to his face, tracing the new cuts and stitches. “It’s a miracle that you didn’t lose your sight,” she said softly.

“It was. And I’m not going to make it public that I haven’t. Note the dark glasses,” he added, indicating them hanging out of one pocket by an earpiece. “I even had one of my boys drive me into town and bring me up on the elevator, just to keep the fiction going.” He didn’t say why. He jingled his car keys in his pocket restlessly. “Watch your back while you’re in town,” he added suddenly. “I’m pretty sure that an old enemy of mine set me up. If I’m right, he’s going to be on my trail pretty soon, to make sure I don’t put him out of business. He wouldn’t stop at attacking anybody close to me.”

“Well, that certainly puts me out of danger,” she said pertly.

He glared at her. “You’re family. If he doesn’t know it, he’ll find it out. You could be in danger. I think he’s involved with people here in Houston.”

“You’ve had plenty of enemies over the years. None of them considered me family, even if you do.”

His gaze was narrow and contemplative. “I don’t know how I think of you,” he said absently. “I’ve never taken time to do an inventory.”

“You could do it between sips of coffee.” She laughed.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said unexpectedly.

She met his eyes, and her whole life was suddenly stark and painful in her face. She couldn’t bear the memories sometimes. He knew nothing about her past. She hoped he would never have to know. She couldn’t imagine why he was being so nice to her. He must have a guilty conscience.

“No need for flattery, Cord,” she said with a faint smile. “I know what you think of me.”

He moved back to the bed and sat down beside her. One lean hand went to her cheek and he turned her face up so that he could see it. He felt the tension in her, the choked breath, the wild heartbeat. Her eyes reflected the helpless response that her body betrayed. That, at least, never changed. She might hate the memory of what he’d done to her—no less than he hated it himself—but she was as hopelessly attracted to him as she’d always been. It comforted him on some level to know that.

“Don’t play with me anymore,” she said tautly, her eyes telling him that she hated the hopeless attraction he could see. It was almost physically painful to have him so near, to see the chiseled line of his wide mouth and remember the feel of it, to know the warm strength of that powerful body so very close.

He read those reactions with textbook accuracy. His proud head lifted. His eyes narrowed. His lean hand spread against her cheek and his thumb suddenly swept hard over her soft lips, dragging a gasp from them.

His other hand caught in her thick hair and he pulled her, lifted her, until she was lying across his body with her head in the crook of his arm.

Her breasts were flattened against his broad, hair-roughened chest over the thin cotton shirt he wore. She looked up at him with helpless desire. He gently smoothed his hand up and down her throat, caressing, tantalizing, while his head bent and his hard lips hovered maddeningly just above her mouth.

“What makes you think I’m playing?” he murmured roughly.

Her nails dug into his shoulder as she hung there, vulnerable, aching for him to bend those scant inches and crush his mouth down hard on her parted lips. She could smell the coffee he’d had for breakfast on his breath. She could smell the clean, spicy scent of his skin. Where his sports shirt was open at the throat, she could see the thick press of curling dark hair that covered his broad, muscular chest. She remembered unwillingly the way it had felt against her bare breasts that one time in their lives when she’d thought he really wanted her. Even the memory of pain and embarrassed shame that came afterward didn’t diminish her reactions to him. They were eternal. He touched her and she melted into him. She belonged to him, just as she had at the age of eight. And he knew it. He’d always known.

Involuntarily her cold fingers went trembling to his cheek, up into the thick darkness of his hair at his temple, where that slight wave gave it definition. He always felt clean to the touch. He always smelled good. She felt safe when she was with him, despite his hostility. He was the first male thing in her young life that had ever given her a feeling of security. He was the only man she’d ever trusted.