Lone Star Bride, page 9
Opening her vest wider, he gazed upon the perfect globes of her bosom and bent to touch one puckered crest, feeling her shiver of fear even as he forbid himself the taste of it in his mouth. Instead, he bent low and kissed her skin, lifting her breast, exposing the tender underside to his touch, then tracing the firm flesh with fervent kisses that seemed to hold her immobile.
She was quiet then, but for the harshness of her breathing. On an indrawn sigh, she murmured his name, and that only a whisper. Her hands reached to clasp his head, fingers forming runnels through his hair, then holding him firmly against herself, as if she would keep his eager lips against her flesh.
“I thought you would…” She caught her breath, as if unable to continue.
“You thought I’d hurt you? Take more from you than this?” he asked roughly.
Her nod was unsure, and then she quickly shook her head. “No, I think I knew better, Jamie. You’ve only given me warmth and pleasure.”
Her words were a spur to his desire, but he quelled the harsh grip of passion and set it aside. “I have to quit,” he muttered darkly, picking up his head to fasten his gaze on her face. “If I don’t stop now, it’ll be too late, Alex. Tell me to stop.”
She laughed, releasing his head and dropping her hands to where her vest and shirt gaped open. “Stop, Jamie.” And then she laughed again. “Is that what you wanted?”
He shook his head. “No. But it’s what I needed to hear. I want you, Alex. I have a powerful need to mate with you. But my willpower is mighty thin right now.”
She pushed at him and rose from the cot, buttoning the topmost button on her shirt. “I probably wouldn’t have stopped you, Jamie,” she confessed in a low voice.
“I know,” he said, reaching for her and holding her close. His mouth was on her hair, moving to her temple where he spent a dozen kisses. “You were a big temptation, Alex, but I’d rather wait.”
She curled against him and he rocked her a bit, holding her fast. “Please don’t take any chances, will you?”
“I’m not foolish, Jamie. And whether you mean with Mick in the vicinity or on the horses, it doesn’t matter. I’m too smart to risk myself.”
“I think you understood all right,” he told her. “I meant in both cases, especially where Mick Jenson is concerned. He’s an unknown to me, and I don’t know just what he’s capable of, but I fear his size and temperament could be too much for you to handle. The horses aren’t as much a problem as he is. I’m pretty sure you can handle any of them, so long as you’re careful. But from what Chet said, Jenson is a big fella. You wouldn’t stand a chance against him. He’ll be looking for you to attack him if he gets a chance at you.”
“I know that. And I will be careful. I don’t trust him, not one little bit. I think he may be out to get me.”
“If he touches you, I’ll kill him,” James said harshly. “You can bet on it.”
“Can I assume your intentions toward my daughter are honorable?” Hank stood with one foot on the corral fence and questioned James with a bluntness that seemed perfectly logical to James. If Alexis were his daughter, he’d probably be holding a shotgun about now.
Knowing that Hank had seen them coming out of the tack room yesterday had been preying on James’s mind all night. Now, in the light of day, with Alexis atop one of the horses, one she’d quieted and coaxed into trotting around the corral, he faced her father. “You can assume that,” he said quietly. “I love Alexis, sir. I want to marry her.”
“What does she say about that?” Hank asked.
“I haven’t asked her yet.”
Hank’s eyebrow rose. “Don’t you think it’s about time? After the time you spent with her in the tack room yesterday, I’d say you were walking on the wild side. I came pretty close to calling you on it when I saw the pair of you.”
“Alexis didn’t see you,” James told him. “If she had, I’d have cleared the air then and there. As it is, I’d rather wait and talk to her when I get her alone.”
“Just make sure you spend the time talking,” Hank said, his brows lowered, his face taut with emotion. “I won’t have my girl taken advantage of, Jamie. You’ll marry her before you bed her if I have anything to say about it.”
“You haven’t,” James said. And then he held up his hand as Hank moved toward him. “Hold on, Hank. What I’m saying is that I have a brand-new set of rules I’m playing by when it comes to Alexis. Marriage comes first for a woman like her, and I have no intention of jumping the gun.” He grinned at the disbelief on Hank’s face, the man looking as if he were stunned by James’s words. “She’ll be a virgin on her wedding day. And that’s a promise.”
Hank stuck out his hand and James grasped it, shaking it firmly. “Are we seeing things the same way now?” He waited for an answering nod from Hank before he released his hand. “Now if you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to spend some time with your daughter. Wave goodbye to her and walk away. This is personal business I’m about to transact.”
Hank laughed and waved at Alexis, who nodded and glanced from James to her father and back again, as if she were trying to figure them out. “Let me know if you succeed, son,” Hank said, walking into the back of the barn and down the aisle to the yard, and then toward the house.
Alexis rode the gelding she was on to where James watched and bent toward him. “What’s going on? Was Dad upset?”
“Not so’s you could notice,” James said. “How about putting that horse away for now. I need to talk to you.”
“All right. Open the gate for me, would you?” With an easy movement, she turned the horse in a half circle and rode to the pasture gate, sliding from the gelding’s back and loosening his cinch.
James reached to take the saddle, leaving Alexis to trade bridle for halter, and then they watched as the gelding loped across the pasture to join the dozen or so horses that cropped the grass beneath a grove of trees.
“They’re smart, staying out of the sun,” Alexis said, turning toward the barn, bridle in hand. James followed her, carrying her saddle, heaving it over the sawhorse where his own rested. She went on to the tack room to hang up the bridle and he followed her.
She turned to him and pushed at his chest ineffectually. “I’m not going to spend another hour in here with you today, Jamie. I almost got in trouble yesterday.”
“Just a few minutes, Alex. And we don’t have to stay in here. We can do as well in the barn or out in back.”
She looked curious, her cat’s eyes slanted as they surveyed him. “What is it?” she asked. “What do you want?”
He grinned, not touching her, but standing close enough to feel her breath as she turned her head up toward him. “You, Alexis. I want you.”
She grinned. “You’ve made that pretty clear already. I got the message yesterday. What else is new?”
“I want you on a permanent basis,” he said soberly. “All joking aside, sweetheart, I’m asking you to marry me, be my wife, tie the knot. However you want me to say it, I will. So long as your answer is yes.”
“Marry you?” She looked stunned, and he was surprised.
“I thought you’d figured out already that I was dead serious about you, honey. I thought you’d be expecting me to want to set a date. I’m an impatient man when it comes to some things and right now that means you. I want to marry you, Alex.”
“To get me in bed?” she asked, a pout forming. “I didn’t think you’d go to all the trouble of a wedding to succeed at that. Not that I’d go along with it, but I was sure you’d try.”
“I’ve already told you I’d wait.” His jaw was firm, as if he’d suffered an insult.
She was silent for a moment, her gaze softening as she searched his face, as though some message might be there in the complex formation of eyes, mouth and brow. “You really mean it, don’t you?” she whispered.
“Let’s go about this starting from the first question you asked. No, I’m not marrying you just to get you in my bed.” He hesitated and grinned. “Well, hell, yes. I want you there, so there’s that, too,” he said. “But mostly because I want to spend my life with you. We’ll have a good time together. We get along, except for when we’re fighting, and that doesn’t happen very often. And then there’s the fire that comes to life between us when we touch, when I hold you close. That in itself is almost enough reason for me to marry you. But more important than that is the fact that I like you. I really like you, girl. That doesn’t sound very romantic, I know, but it’s true. I’ve been in love with you for a while, but liking you is almost more important to me.”
She stood before him, seemingly transfixed by his speech. For that was surely what it was. He’d listed all the reasons for his proposal and now he waited to hear her answer. It was not long in coming.
“I like you, too, Jamie. I have from the first day you got here, when you told me my pancakes tasted like your mama’s. That was quite a compliment, coming from a man who obviously was well fed as a child.”
“You think I’m fat?” he asked, looking down at his trim waist.
“Far from it. But you looked healthy to me the first time I saw you, and only a man who’s been well fed his whole life has the color you have and the overall look of good health.” She reached out a hand and touched his shirtfront. “You’re not fat, Jamie. In fact, you’re about as well built as any man I’ve ever seen. I like your broad shoulders and your narrow hips and the muscles in your—”
“Muscles in my what?” he asked, grinning foolishly.
“Never mind,” she told him, blushing as she realized what she’d almost said aloud. In your legs. And your arms. Across your back. The man had muscles everywhere a man was supposed to have them. Jamie had his share and more.
And now, she’d just told him she would marry him, and unless she was mighty mistaken, he was ready to set a date.
“When, Alex?” he asked, verifying her suspicion.
“As soon as you like,” she said quickly. “My father will want to give a party for the neighbors and the townspeople. We can’t get away without that.”
The wave of his arm was expansive. “No problem, sweetheart. He can invite anyone he likes, so long as you and I are both there, along with the preacher.”
“You want to get married here? Not in church?” she asked.
“Wherever you like,” he said. “It’s your party, honey. I’ll just be here to ride off in the sunset with you.”
“Where will we go?” she asked, wide-eyed.
He laughed. “I’ll figure something out. Maybe the hotel in town.”
“No. Everyone will be watching for us the next day. I’d be embarrassed.”
“Well, then we’ll ride to Perryville. It’s only ten miles away. They’ve got a big hotel there, I suspect. The stage stops there, so they’re probably well equipped for travelers.”
“They have,” she said agreeably. “Bigger than the one in town. With a nice restaurant.”
“Well, that’s settled,” he said with a sigh that sounded like relief to her. “Now, let’s go and tell your father.”
“Will he be surprised?” she asked, intent on his face. He looked a bit guilty, she thought, as if he had already talked this whole thing over with Hank Powers.
“Not really,” James said. “He wanted to know if my intentions were honorable.”
“When did he ask you that?” She sounded huffy, and then she laughed. “Never mind. I know when. While I was riding the gelding, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he drawled. “He saw us coming out of the tack room yesterday and I think he was going to warn me away from you if I didn’t have marriage on the mind. I assured him that I was on the verge of making a proposal and he backed off.”
“He saw us?” She was shocked, thinking of what her father must have felt, watching the two of them exiting the tack room, her with her hair all ruffled and her shirt probably half-untucked from her trousers.
“He saw us. But he’s not mad. I told him I hadn’t asked you yet.”
“You did?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“’Cause I knew you’d get upset over it. Just like you are right now.”
She looked at him, tempted to exhibit her anger more physically. “I’m not upset, James Webster. I’m damn mad. From now on, you tell me anything that goes on, you hear? I don’t like being kept in the dark.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said meekly. “I surely will.” And then he grinned, a cocky smile of triumph. “So, you’re gonna marry me. How about that.”
With a flexing of muscles, he reached for her, picked her up and swung her in a circle, then made his way through the barn, across the yard and up on the back porch.
“Hank. You in there?” he shouted.
“Jamie. Stop yelling. The men will all hear you.”
“I’ve got something to shout about,” he said, bending his head to plant a damp kiss on her mouth, just as the screened door swung open and Hank appeared on the threshold.
“And what’s that?” Hank asked, hiding his smile unsuccessfully.
“She’s gonna marry me, Pop. Maybe next week or the Saturday after.”
“Pop?” Hank’s mouth dropped open. And then he recovered quickly. “Make it the week after, so I can plan a party.”
“What did I tell you?” Alexis crowed. “I knew what he’d say.”
“You’re not really going to call me Pop, are you?” Hank asked the man who had his arms full of woman.
“I’ve kinda gotten used to Hank,” James said. “Will that do?”
“That’ll do. Now, put that girl down and let me shake your hand, son. I owe you big-time for taking her off my hands.”
Chapter Six
They’d eaten their supper, James quiet, as if his mind were filled with plans. Alexis spoke with her father about plans for the party, seemingly ignoring Jamie’s silence. And then, once the meal was finished, she led him to the back porch, seating herself on one end of the swing.
The chains squeaked as Jamie’s foot touched the floor of the porch, stirring the swing into motion with his right foot, moving in an easy rhythm. Beside him, Alexis turned her face up to his, her thoughts awash with his very presence. Her mind grasped a moment of passion, replaying it slowly again in her mind, recognizing her own pleasure and finally acknowledging the depth of his need for her.
He’d said he truly liked her, and offered it partially as a basis for marriage, but her honest heart recognized that more than just having her in his life, he wanted her in his bed. To be the object of his desire, to know his passion was directed at her was exciting in the extreme, giving a satisfying boost to her woman’s ego and joy to her heart.
To be wanted was one thing. Heavenly days, half the men who had ever worked on the ranch had wanted her, a carnal lust for a woman’s body their driving purpose. But being needed—now there was a matter that could endear a man to her. To know that Jamie truly felt excitement and passion at the thought of spending his life with her was indeed most gratifying.
The best part of which was that she felt a like need for him, for the strength of his body and spirit, the protection of his presence, the hope for a family of her own. But above and beyond that was the love she knew bloomed within her, the manifestation of her attraction to him and all that he promised.
And so she sat with him, this man who vowed to be her future, whose word could be trusted. A man who had been honest and aboveboard since the day she first met him. And now the reason for his need to speak with her must surely have to do with their lives beyond the wedding. A conversation she was eager to pursue.
“I can’t believe Dad went to bed and left us out here alone,” she said with a muffled laugh. James’s arm tugged her closer to his side and she leaned her head back on his shoulder, enjoying the quiet of the night, the darkness that surrounded them.
“I reckon he knew we had things to talk about,” he said quietly. “At least I need to talk about something,” he said soberly. “I’ve got a couple of things to tell you and I can’t put it off until after we’re married. It wouldn’t be right, Alexis. You have a right to know more about me before you say your vows.”
She jerked and sat upright. “I think you’re frightening me, Jamie. What on earth is in your past that would make a difference in the way I feel about you?”
“That’s what we’re going to talk about. It happened a long time ago, but I was old enough to know better and I’ve carried the guilt around with me for years.”
Alexis inhaled deeply and then prepared herself to listen, realizing this conversation was not concerning bright plans for their years to come. “Go ahead. Tell me.”
He cleared his throat, looking out at the night, there where the moonlight silvered the barn and spread a trail across the yard. It wasn’t easy to begin, for he knew he was putting his future on the line.
“When I was a boy, back in Oklahoma, I lived on the farm with my mom and dad and my brother, Connor,” he began slowly. “Dad always gave Connor more respect than he did me, but I was the privileged one. And between my parents, they spoiled me rotten. I was my mama’s favored child, and I got so I expected everything to fall in my lap. Including the girl Connor was engaged to.”
A dark wave of envy swept through Alexis. She’d known that Jamie was no angel, but the thought that he might have caused trouble over a woman was pretty important stuff in a family. Perhaps there was more to the years of his past than she had suspected.
“Who was she? What did you do?” Her voice was low, neutral and pitched just above a whisper.
“I persuaded her to dance with me at a party while Connor was out of town on a buying trip, and then I took her outdoors and kissed her. It was hard staying away from her after that, and she liked me, too. We met secretly a few times and one day we ended up in her daddy’s barn.”
