Safe In The Rancher's Arms: Stranded with the Rancher / Sheltered by the Millionaire / Pregnant by the Texan

Shaking her head with a wry smile, she took the teacher’s chair, pulled it from behind the large oak desk and sat down facing her audience. If she was nervous, she didn’t show it. After reading quietly through the first few paragraphs, she found her rhythm and injected a note of drama into Fern’s character, particularly the girl’s outrage when she found out the small pig was going to be killed.

At that moment, Drew realized his role as disciplinarian was going to be unnecessary. The children hung on Beth’s every word. She read nonstop for forty-five minutes, creating voices for each new actor in the beloved story. Even Drew found himself caught up in the classic tale.

But after a while he went from listening to watching. The curve of Beth’s lips as she smiled. The nuances of expression on her face. The way she made eye contact with each child, as if assuring every boy and girl that she was reading just to him or her.

It struck him that Beth Andrews would make an amazing mother. Drew hadn’t spent much time thinking about marriage and babies and home and hearth. After all, he was only thirty-two. He had plenty of time.

But the storm’s havoc made him reassess a lot of things. Watching families pull together in the last forty-eight hours had shown him the importance of being grounded. Jed lived in Dallas, their parents in south Texas. Drew travelled often. Though his work was satisfying and he had a wide circle of friends and extended relatives, for the first time he wondered if he was missing something very important. Maybe he needed to think about the bigger picture.

Beth ended a chapter as the promised refreshments arrived. Supervising snack time was a sticky, rowdy mess, but it reminded him of what it was like to be a kid. When the apples and peanut butter disappeared faster than a snowflake in the hot sun, he helped clean up the debris. Another volunteer arrived to shepherd the group of children back to their parents.

Drew straightened one last row of seats and grinned at Beth. “Your talents are lost on farming. You should have been either a librarian or an actress.”

Tucking wayward strands of hair behind her ears, she perched on the teacher’s desk, her legs swinging. “To be honest, kids give me the heebie-jeebies. They scare me to death. One wrong word or move, and you’ve scarred them for life. It’s too much responsibility. And as for being an actress, well...let’s just say I prefer digging in the dirt.”

He yawned and stretched, feeling tired but content. “It’s hard to believe that forty-eight hours ago we were running for our lives.”

“I know. It seems like a dream until you look outside. Then it smacks you in the face. I feel so sorry for all the people taking shelter here. Especially the ones with children. My house is damaged, but at least I have only myself to worry about.”

“And your brother.”

Beth’s face closed up. “I don’t want to talk about Audie.”

“We’re one man short at the stables. I could offer him a job. It’s grunt work...doesn’t pay much. But it would be better than nothing.”

Despite the stuffy air in the classroom, Beth’s pink cheeks paled. “That would be a very bad idea. Trust me.” Her soft lips firmed in a grim line.

“It’s not that big a deal. I really am looking for somebody.”

“Then look somewhere else.”

He stood, nonplussed, and wondered with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach if Beth was as stubborn and intractable as his ex-fiancée. Whatever happened to sweet, amenable women?

Beth jumped down from the desk and walked toward the door. “We should see if they need us anywhere else.”

“Wait.” The command came out more urgently than he had intended.

Beth stopped and turned. Her posture was wary. “What’s wrong?”

He went to her and rubbed a thumb over her cheek. “I’ve been wondering if those first two kisses were a fluke.”

When her gaze went to his mouth, a tingle of something hot and heady settled in his gut.

She bit her lip. “Perhaps not flukes, but probably mistakes. Adrenaline...the will to live. That’s all.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Beth. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about them.” He slid one hand beneath her hair, prepared to draw back if she made a protest. Instead, she looked up at him with curiosity and something more. It was that second emotion that stole his breath and made his hands shake.

Lowering his head, he found her lips with his. She tasted like peanut butter and cherry Kool-Aid. At first, her arms hung at her sides. He explored her mouth gently, his tongue brushing hers. The only other place their bodies connected was where his left hand cupped her chin.

In the storm cellar, emotions had run high. Now, in the broad light of day, he felt the same jolt of arousal. “Touch me,” he said.

Slowly, her arms came up and twined around his neck. She stretched on her tiptoes, straining to get closer.

Lifting her off her feet, he strode to the teacher’s desk and sat her there, moving into the V of her thighs. Now they were perfectly matched. He cupped her breast through her shirt. The door was unlocked. They were in a public building. Though he rubbed his thumb over her nipple, he knew he dared not go any further.

“I don’t know what to do with you,” he muttered.

She rested her forehead on his collarbone. “I have a few ideas.”

Her droll humor startled a laugh from him. “I hope we’re on the same page.”

Her answer was to kiss him so sweetly that an entirely inopportune erection was the result. Breathing heavily, he stepped away, trying to elude temptation. “I think one of us is supposed to say this is going too fast.”

She shrugged, leaning back on her hands. “I’ve had a terrible crush on you for over a year, even when you were being an obnoxious, overbearing plutocrat.”

“Ouch.” His wince was not feigned. Hearing her description of his less-than-stellar qualities made him squirm. “I thought we called a truce.”

“Under duress and the threat of apocalypse.”

“Then I’ll say it again,” he muttered quietly. “For the moment, I’m not going to fight with you or try to make you see reason.”

She crooked a finger. He went to her like a kite on a string, hoping she didn’t recognize the hold she had on him.

Beth kissed him again, but in a naughtier fashion this time. She pulled back and smiled, her lips swollen. “We’re consenting adults. I’m staying at your house temporarily. Seems like the universe is giving us a sign.”

He curled a hand behind her neck and pulled her mouth to his, no longer as in control as he would have liked. “If you believe in that kind of stuff.”

“Are you turning me down?”

He jerked. “Hell, no. Besides, this was my idea.”

“To-may-to, to-mah-to. But if we’re going to share the credit, then we’ll both share the blame when we crash and burn.”

“Why would you say a thing like that?” He stole half a second to nip her earlobe with sharp teeth. Her groaned sigh was his reward.

“You’re you, and I’m me,” she whispered with inescapable logic.

“So?”

“Don’t ruin the moment, Farrell. We’re the definition of short-term.”

He sighed. “I don’t want to argue about what ifs. Surely the tornado taught us that. Live in the moment. Carpe diem. Any cliché you want to choose. I’ve never come that close to disaster. I feel foolish saying it, but it changed me.”

Beth stared at him, her green eyes bright. He wondered what she was thinking.

Finally she responded. “I think it’s too soon to make a statement like that. Give it a week. A month. You’ll be your old self.”

“That’s pretty cynical.”