Read A Bride For Abel Greene Online
Authors: Cindy Gerard
A Bride For Abel Greene (4 page)
Scarlett laughed again. “Atta girl. Something tells me you can handle yourself just fine with him. Where are you from by the way? Over.”
“California” popped out before she thought about it. The look Abel gave her made her wish she hadn’t said it.
“California?” More than polite curiosity colored Scarlett’s surprised response. A short pause followed. “Abel...I thought J.D. said—”
Before she could finish, he commandeered the mike again. “Time to sign off. I don’t want to tie up the airwaves, in case someone needs help. Let me hear from you if you need anything. Over and out.”
With a flip of the switch, he broke the connection and backed away from the desk. He moved so quickly Mackenzie felt the air stir like a cool breeze around her. She could almost picture Scarlett on the other end of the line, frowning at the sudden silence and Abel’s puzzling abruptness.
“Why do I feel like rm the family secret no one wants to talk about?” she mumbled with a final glance at the radio. And why was she getting the impression that in addition to J.D. and Maggie Hazzard, Scarlett Morgan would like to see Abel Greene join the ranks of the happily-ever-after crowd?
She filed the bit of information away. It could come in handy if push came to shove and he balked at keeping the bargain. The Hazzards and Scarlett Morgan might prove to be just the allies she needed.
It won’t come to that, she told herself as she turned to leave the room—and ran smack into the solid wall of Abel Greene’s chest.
His hands shot out to steady her, but not before she’d lost her balance and landed flush against him. Everything registered at once. The feel of those huge hands cupping her upper arms. The heat of him. His dark, woodsy scent. A powerful strength countered by an innate gentleness. The unsteady, heavy pounding of his heart against her breasts.
She drew a deep breath. When her own heart rate evened out, she looked up at his face, not knowing what to expect.
His eyes were closed, his jaw clenched. And the hands that held her both steady and captive, tightened before they loosened and he set her away.
“We have to talk.”
His voice sounded smoky and rough as he opened his eyes and looked not at her but over the top of her head.
Slowly she nodded. Carefully she agreed. “You’re right. We do. But is there a chance I could shower first? I need to work a little stiffness out of my bones, and a shower might just do the trick.”
A glazed look came over his eyes, and in the moment they met hers she swore he was picturing her in the shower and considering joining her there.
An instant later his hard scowl was firmly back in place.
He backed away. “Fine. Shower. Towels are in the cabinet by the sink.”
Then he turned on his heel and hotfooted it out of the room.
He’d been in tight spots in his life, both before and after he’d opted out of the marines ten years ago. He’d missed the Gulf War, but not the drug war, first as an undercover cop and then later as he’d scrambled for his life for the “Company.” Later still, his belly full of being used, and knowing he, too, was dispensable to the CIA, he’d freelanced for any country who’d had need of his services and the cash to pay for them. It had still been his neck on the line, but calling his own shots ensured he had a fighting chance.
But never, in all those dark, ugly experiences, had he felt as defenseless as he had two minutes ago facing one small green-eyed woman.
He jabbed at the fire with a poker, thinking that war, whether fought on a battlefield or on back streets, seedy bars or jungle undergrowth, was never personal. War was a job. Someone tried to kill you. You tried not to let them. What he’d felt when he’d held Mackenzie Kincaid in his arms with those soulful eyes trained on his was as personal as it got.
Last night he’d had one hell of a personal struggle. After the boy had settled down in the loft, he’d sat by the fire, gauging the strength of the wind and the force of the front as ice-laced snow peppered the window panes. He’d watched, not entirely surprised, when Nashata rose from her nest by the fire, tiptoed with a soft click of her toenails up the loft stairs and settled with a whisper of goose down on the sleeping bag by the boy.
Nashata, too, had sensed the need in the troubled kid. Her reaction had been instinctive, as elemental as that of a kindred soul and less removed from human emotion than most humans would feel comfortable admitting.
The boy had stirred in surprise, then in his state of fatigue, had let down his guard and welcomed Nashata’s warmth and company. Abel understood the boy. That knowledge ate at him. He didn’t know the reason for his anger, but he recognized the intensity of it. He’d had the same rage at Mark’s age—didn’t feel that distanced from it even now. Was close enough to it, in fact, that he felt a keen and unwelcome sense of empathy for both the boy and the woman.
The woman
. When he’d finally gone to bed he’d tried to convince himself he didn’t like having his privacy invaded. Told himself it was a curse not a blessing, knowing that somewhere in this cabin, a human heartbeat other than his own pulsed softly. A body other than his own shared space and warmth and silence.
. When he’d finally gone to bed he’d tried to convince himself he didn’t like having his privacy invaded. Told himself it was a curse not a blessing, knowing that somewhere in this cabin, a human heartbeat other than his own pulsed softly. A body other than his own shared space and warmth and silence.
The problem was that her presence in his home had intensified his feelings of loss—and of how alone he’d felt the night he’d broken down and let J.D. place that ad.
He set the poker in the stand, his thoughts returning against his will to Mackenzie Kincaid. To her softness, her slim curves, to the puzzle that had sent her to him. As he had last night, he found himself stacking common sense against uncommon need and wondering if, despite her troubled kid brother and the threat hanging over his business, he’d have the sense to send her back to L.A.
He considered his life to date: a past littered with regrets, a future promising more of the same. He was thirty-five years old. He’d either been alone or felt alone for every one of them. That he’d always been and would always be an outsider was a truth he’d accepted when he’d left the lake all those years ago as an angry and rebellious eighteen-year-old. He’d never intended to come back. Only when he’d run out of options had he returned. And only when the loneliness had gotten a choke hold, had he let himself be duped into placing that damned ad.
“What about you, green eyes?” he murmured, searching the fire and seeing those young-old eyes that captivated him. “Is that why you’re here? Have you run out of options, too?”
He reminded himself he couldn’t afford to invest in someone else’s misery. He especially couldn’t use it to temper his own. No matter how tempting she was.
Besides, wisdom dictated that he send her away. He had to get her out of here for her own good. If his suspicions played out and the last of his business mishaps—a fire at his main storage shed just last week—wasn’t an accident, that meant it had been deliberately set. He didn’t want to believe it, but it was a possibility, and he couldn’t involve her or her brother in a potentially dangerous situation.
If someone wanted him gone—and he had a pretty good idea who that someone might be—that someone was in for a surprise.
Abel Greene had reset his roots. He wasn’t going anywhere. And if he did have a problem, he’d deal with it the same way he had every other problem in his life. Alone.
He’d had it all in perspective when he’d come in from taking care of the horses this morning—and then he’d run into Mackenzie Kincaid in his office.
She’d looked sleep mussed and dewy soft and so very touchable. All the speculations he’d wrestled with through the night—the feel of her, the softness of flesh over fragile bones, the heat and scent of woman—were speculation no more.
His hands were still shaking from holding her. Lower in his body, deep in his groin, an ache, hot and demanding had begun to intensify and burn at the memory of the soft brush of her thighs against his legs, the cushion of her breasts pulsing against his chest.
“That’s what you get, Greene,” he muttered under his breath as he stalked out of the living room and headed for the kitchen.
“You hold up out here for five years like a damn hermit and then you’re surprised when a body with breasts knocks you for a loop.”
He jerked open a cupboard, grabbed the coffee can off the top shelf and slammed around making a fresh pot.
Then he tried to get a grip. Bracing his hands wide on the counter, he dropped his head between his hunched shoulders and dragged in a deep, controlling breath.
“She can really piss a guy off, huh?”
He spun around like he’d been shot.
Sitting at the table, digging into a bowl of cereal, sat the kid. From the look on his face, Abel surmised he’d heard every muttered word.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I’m not angry at your sister.”
The boy shrugged. “Whatever.” Then a nasty smirk curled his upper lip. “So...are you gonna do her?”
Anger exploded inside Abel like a bomb. He skirted the table in two strides, grabbed the boy’s shirt in one fist and jerked him nose to nose before he had a chance to run for cover.
“Look, you little punk. I don’t know what’s eating you, but a man doesn’t bad-mouth a woman because his nose is out of joint. Don’t ever make reference to your sister in that tone or that way again. Understood?”
Eyes bulging, face red, hands clasped in a death grip around Abel’s wrist, Mark nodded. Once. Then again, in a series of rapid, jerky movements.
Slowly Abel let him go. Slower still, aware that the boy was watching his every move in wary silence, he backed away. Without breaking eye contact, he reached behind him to the counter where he’d left the boom box after he’d repaired it earlier this morning.
Without a word, he set it in front of him.
Unsure of what he was supposed to do with it, the boy stared first at the box then at Abel.
“Don’t give me a reason to break it.”
Humbled, yet too proud to give in to humiliation and too pleased by the prospect of listening to his precious radio, the boy nodded. “No, sir.” Then he stood, pushing back his chair and picked up the radio.
“The dirty dishes go in the sink,” Abel said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
At the least he’d expected a belligerent scowl. At the most, a suggestion to stick it. Instead Mark picked up his bowl and spoon and walked them to the sink. When he returned to the table for his radio, he hesitated, then swallowing hard, faced Abel again. “Thanks,” he croaked.
Abel regarded him over his coffee cup, then accepted the unexpected thanks with a nod.
With Nashata at his side, and the boom box under his arm, Mark headed for the loft. Abel was standing there watching them go when he realized he had an audience.
He turned his head and found Mackenzie standing in the doorway. She looked like an untidy elf. She didn’t look like a woman who would accelerate a man’s heartbeat and heat his blood. Yet she did—in spades.
Jaw clenched, he took in her drab, gray sweats, her hair tousled and shaggy, her green eyes full and glistening. The look on her face nearly destroyed him. It held too much. Too much respect. Too much gratitude. Too much hope.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you for setting him straight.”
Then, hugging a towel to her breast, she turned toward the bathroom, walked down the hall and shut the door behind her.
Four
H
e might have known she’d get the wrong idea. He might have known she’d take the dressing down he’d given the boy as a sign that he cared. Caring had nothing to do with it. Emotions long buried and seldom addressed had nothing to do with it. He hadn’t hurt for the boy, hadn’t speculated at his source of conflict, hadn’t answered a need to set him back on course.
e might have known she’d get the wrong idea. He might have known she’d take the dressing down he’d given the boy as a sign that he cared. Caring had nothing to do with it. Emotions long buried and seldom addressed had nothing to do with it. He hadn’t hurt for the boy, hadn’t speculated at his source of conflict, hadn’t answered a need to set him back on course.
Like hell he hadn’t—but he’d be damned if he’d let her think it made any difference. He scrubbed a hand across his jaw and set his mind to the task. She’d had her rest. And as soon as she had her shower, she was going to get the facts.
When she emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later dressed in tight old jeans and a bulky red sweater, he was ready to lay things out for her without preamble. He could have pulled it off, too, if the look of her hadn’t blown his plans all to hell.
She held him spellbound, speechless and...hungry, he admitted, as she again managed to tap his sexual urges that were out of place and out of time. Hungry for the softness she possessed, which had been missing so long from his life. Hungry for the womanly scents she brought with her—strawberries and cream and spring rain—as the steam from her shower rolled out of the bathroom in her wake. Hungry for what J.D. had with Maggie and he’d been fool enough to think he could have for himself.
He swore under his breath. Damn her for answering the ad. And damn the insufferable storm. It should have blown itself out by now, but it hadn’t let up and didn’t show signs of easing up anytime soon. The wind howled around the cabin like a wolf calling the pack home, deepening the drifts, dumping more snow as it screamed across the lake lands.
He was stuck with her until the front moved on. In the meantime, if he was going to get through this, he was going to have to get a grip. And he was going to make it clear that this foolishness about a mail-order marriage wasn’t going to happen.
“Sit down,” he said stiffly when she shuffled on bare feet into the kitchen.
“Coffee?” he added in a grudging attempt at civility.
Either she didn’t catch the sharp edge to his voice, or she chose, for whatever reasons, to ignore it.
“Coffee would be great.” She smiled and settled cross-legged into a chair at the table, fluffing her damp hair with a towel.
He poured her a cup, working hard at ignoring all the subtle, provocative jiggling that was taking place under her sweater while she did it.
“Black, right?”
“You got it. Black and bitey, just the way you made it last night.”
He set her coffee on the table in front of her, determined to say his peace. But he made a mistake then. He looked at her. He hadn’t intended more than a glance, but his gaze snagged on her eyes as she inhaled the scent of the coffee with an exuberant, almost childlike pleasure.
Then he made another mistake. He let his attention linger and drift from the waifish elegance of her bone structure to the wet tangle of short, dark hair softly wisping around her face and finally to the full, lush ripeness of her lips as she brought the cup to her mouth.
“Umm.” She closed her eyes and exhaled a sumptuous sigh. “Good. I needed this bad.”
He pulled out a chair, his jaw clenched against the picture she made, all comfy and content as a cat and looking sexier than a squirt of a woman like her had a right to. Spinning the chair around backward, he straddled it and crossed his forearms over its back.
“How’s your hand,” he asked gruffly, noticing, not for the first time, the slight swelling of her knuckle, and wrestling with the guilt that he had been the cause of it.
“About as good as your jaw, I suspect.” She grinned sheepishly. “Sorry about that. Sometimes...sometimes I act before I think.”
And he never acted before he thought it out thoroughly. That’s why it caught him completely off guard when he had to stop himself from returning her smile. The word
infectious
came to mind. She smiled, and it did something to his insides that was totally foreign, undeniably pleasant—and entirely unacceptable.
infectious
came to mind. She smiled, and it did something to his insides that was totally foreign, undeniably pleasant—and entirely unacceptable.
This chitchat had to stop. It reeked of coziness—and he’d never done
cozy
in his life.
cozy
in his life.
“Look,” he said, staring at the steam rising from his cup so he wouldn’t be distracted by all that soft feminine warmth nestled across the table from him. “We need to talk about this...”
“Situation?” she suggested, her eyes bright when he paused.
His gaze shot to hers. “Yeah. Situation,” he agreed, marginally miffed that she’d not only finished his sentence for him but pinned down the word he’d been searching for.
“When I placed that ad,” he began again, shifting uncomfortably in his chair, “there were...” Again he let the line trail off, groping for the right word.
“Circumstances?”
He arched a brow. “Yeah,” he said tightly. “There were circumstances. Just like I suspect you might have been experiencing some circumstances of your own when you ran across it.”
He waited a beat. When she said nothing, just met his gaze with that fresh, open, green-eyed expectancy, he cleared his throat and continued. “The truth is, I never figured anyone would actually...”
“Answer it?” she supplied, looking helpful.
He set his cup down. Hard. “Do you always finish other people’s sentences for them?”
“Sorry.” She grinned, looking a little embarrassed but not one bit sorry. “Old habit.
Bad
habit,” she amended, pulling a contrite face. “I’ll try to control myself.”
Bad
habit,” she amended, pulling a contrite face. “I’ll try to control myself.”
He closed his eyes, scratched his jaw and told himself he didn’t find her or her impertinence refreshing, cute or appealing.
“And I’ll try to be direct,” he said with businesslike gruffness. “But do I really have to spell this out for you?”
For the first time since she’d sat down, her composure faltered. She swallowed, then averted her gaze to her coffee. “I guess maybe you do.”
Her sudden vulnerability unsettled him. The last thing he wanted was for her to see how much. Edgy, uncomfortable, he rose, stalked to the counter and snagged the coffeepot.
“This...your coming here...it never should have happened.”
When he turned back to her all the color had drained from her face. “What are you saying?”
He set his jaw and told himself nothing was going to sway him. “I’m saying I never should have placed the ad. And you never should have answered it.”
“But you
did,”
she pointed out unnecessarily, the tight edge of tension lifting her voice. “And I
did
answer it,” she reminded him, also unnecessarily, but with a decided implication that she considered it the overriding issue.
did,”
she pointed out unnecessarily, the tight edge of tension lifting her voice. “And I
did
answer it,” she reminded him, also unnecessarily, but with a decided implication that she considered it the overriding issue.
He leaned a hip against the counter, then looked away from the startling intensity of her eyes—and the plea he’d seen in them.
“If you didn’t intend to follow through, why did you do it?”
He doubted very much that she’d be mollified if he told her that one night, between a fifth of whiskey that he rarely indulged in and the well-intentioned badgering of J.D. Hazzard, he’d knuckled under to a loneliness that had settled marrow deep. Weakness had never been an option in his life. He hated himself for giving in to it then. He hated admitting to it now, but figured he owed her at least that much.
“Call it a weak moment,” he muttered in disgust. “Call it a mistake. Call it whatever you want, but it never should have gone this far.”
“But it has.”
Though she was as still as the lake on a windless day, the panic in her tone revived his suspicion that she was on the run. And scared. So scared she was going to fight him on this, when she should be relieved as hell that he was letting her off the hook.
“Doesn’t this entire concept strike you as insane? Doesn’t the idea of answering an ad in a newspaper and agreeing to marry someone you don’t know from Adam reek of desperation?”
She was silent for a moment, then blew him away with her pragmatic reply. “At any given point, at any given time, we’re all desperate. That doesn’t mean we’re crazy. It means we’re in need of an alternative. With alternatives come risks. I accepted that there was a risk in coming here. Just like you accepted a risk when you placed the ad.”
“A risk,” he repeated, grunting, determined to ignore her logic. “Playing the stock market is a risk. Running a red light is a risk. Your coming here goes way beyond risk. Your coming here—”
She cut him off. “We made a bargain,” she said with such soft entreaty that he had to stall the urge to ask her what the devil she was running away from.
“We both made a bargain,” she repeated, as if that and that alone was the deciding factor.
While her emphatic, almost pleading conviction moved him, he pounced on her choice of words.
“You want to talk about bargains? Fine. I advertised for a bride—not a bride and a brat. Even if I had intended to follow through with this, you broke the rules when you brought your brother along.”
“About Mark...” She hesitated, then gave a little shake of her head as the sound of his radio reached them from the loft at the far end of the cabin. “I know. I know you didn’t expect him. But he’s really a good kid. He’s just going through some bad times right now. He’ll settle in. He won’t be any problem.”
“You’re missing the point,” he enunciated in a tone that had made grown men break into a cold sweat.
Mackenzie Kincaid didn’t have the sense to sweat or to cringe or to back down. She just sat there, a study in contrasts: stiff with determination, soft with vulnerability.
“I want to call this off,” he said, angry with her for getting to him, angry with himself for letting her.
He waited for her reaction. When she just blinked, then lowered her gaze to the hands she’d wrapped tightly around her coffee cup, he swore under his breath.
“I’m sorry you came all this way.” Even to his own ears it sounded like cold lip service. She made him feel like he’d just beaten a puppy. “I’m sorry. But there’s not going to be a marriage.”
He waited a beat, bracing for tears. He should have figured out by now that he wasn’t going to get them. Not from her. She may look as fragile as a songbird, but she was as tough as nails.
He exhaled a deep breath and stayed the course. “Just as soon as this storm lifts and it’s safe to make the trip, I’ll drive you to Bordertown and put you and your brother on a bus back to L.A. I’ll cover any costs you incurred getting here...and whatever else you feel you need for your trouble.”
He expected any reaction but silence. He could have dealt with any reaction but silence.
With a frustrated growl, he slammed his mug on the counter. “Don’t you get it? You’re off the hook, green eyes. If you had any sense, you’d be breathing a big sigh of relief about now. I’m not going to make you go through with this farce.”
She said nothing for a long moment. When she finally lifted her head, a new determination fired her eyes. She met his without flinching.
“Are you through?”
“Yeah,” he snarled, her composure as irritating as a blister. “I’m through.”
She rose from her perch on the chair, walked toward him in all her barefoot glory and met him toe-to-toe. “Then it’s my turn to say
my
piece. Have a seat, Mr. Greene, while I spell a few things out for you.”
my
piece. Have a seat, Mr. Greene, while I spell a few things out for you.”
When she pointed a finger toward the table, he wondered if she realized she looked like David squaring off against Goliath. If so, it didn’t faze her. She held her ground against him like a miniature marine. And as he trudged belligerently to the table, he had the unsettling thought that before she was through with him, he’d know exactly how Goliath felt.
Mackenzie wished she felt as confident as she sounded. She wished the beautiful and angry man facing her didn’t scare the bejesuz out of her. And she hoped that her conviction to see this through packed enough punch to do the job. If he’d hit her with this last night, she’d have caved in, in a heartbeat. But she was rested now. And she was back in control.
She’d known this was coming. She also knew she would eat her pride—raw, well-done, stir-fried—any way he wanted to serve it to her, before she’d let him badger her into going back to L.A.
It was a cinch she couldn’t outmuscle him. She needed a more powerful weapon than physical force. This morning she’d found it.
In this physically imposing, savagely strong specimen of a man, she’d discovered a major weakness.
The man had a need. A big one that encompassed both physical and emotional elements. His interaction with Mark was proof of the emotional need. He understood Mark. And in that little showdown before she’d taken her shower, he’d proven that he knew just how to handle him.
But the big surprise—and the weapon she suspected would ultimately win the war—was Abel Greene’s physical need and the unbelievable but irrefutable fact that she’d tapped it.
As inconceivable as it seemed, brown-paper-wrapper-plain Mackenzie Jane Kincaid had gotten to him. She’d sensed it last night in the intense way he’d watched her. In the sullen way he stared into space when he thought she wasn’t looking. She’d had lots of theories for what she’d sensed in him then, ranging from shock to impatience to heartburn.
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