City Girl (18 page)

“Nope.” She grabbed a butter tart off the plate and evaded his hand by dancing away to pick up a box of ornaments. “No time for that. We have to get the tree finished so we can have this house looking as if we mean to celebrate Christmas, or Lord knows what your mother will think about your new partners. Come on, lazybones, get that ladder in operation.”

Kirk laughed as he unfolded the stepladder for her. He held it while she climbed it, then handed her a box of glass balls, each one a different color. Tenderness softened his smile. She was nervous, he thought. About what? The thought of his mother coming? He wanted to pull her into his arms and comfort her and tell her it would be all right. She wouldn’t meet his gaze, though. She kept busy, hanging one ornament after another, then asking for another box. All right, he decided. If this was the way she needed to handle her anxieties, he’d help her.

“I know what my mother’s going to think of one of my partners,” he said, handing her the star.

 “Yeah?” She reached high, trying to put it on the top of the tree. He placed a hand in the small of her back for support.

“Liss, my mom’s going to like you,” he said, then blinked at the emphasis he’d put on the pronoun. It was, he told himself, only because he remembered the wounded look in her eyes when she’d said the McCalls didn’t like her because of her “mixed blood.” It was important that she know his mother wasn’t like that, but she pretended she wasn’t concerned.

“That’s good,” she said lightly. She tilted her face toward the ceiling, listening to the boys still fooling around in their beds, or more likely, not in their beds. “I only hope your mother likes kids.

“Those two aren’t going to settle down now until after the big day.”

“She does,” he said, moving to the other side of the tree to begin decorating there. Through the branches he noted the way the twinkling lights reflected in Liss’s eyes and put roses in her cheeks. “And she’s going to think your kids are as special as I do.”

“You know,” she said, parting some twigs to smile down at him, “I’ve never been more touched than I was when you said you were proud of my boys.”

“I was. I am. They looked so great up on that stage, so . . . beautiful.” His throat choked up, and he wanted to tell her he wasn’t going to let her take them away, any more than he was going to let her leave, no matter how ‘much she earned with her photography. But he didn’t have the right to say any of that. They were partners, as she so frequently reminded him, friends at best. If he was going crazy from wanting more than that from her, he couldn’t ask for it unless he asked for the whole ball of wax.

Sighing, he finished his box of ornaments, then turned to get another, but he got distracted by the butter tarts. Standing there eating them one after another, he watched Liss’s slender body stretch and reach as her dainty hands hung the ornaments; watched her head tilt to one side as she considered one position for a ball, then moved it to another. Then, when she reached too far, she teetered, one arm flailing, and cried out his name. He dived for her, shouting, “Liss!” He caught her and dragged her off the ladder into his arms.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re all right, you’re safe, I caught you,” he said, his legs shaking so hard he had to sit down and cradle her on his lap.

“Of course I’m all right,” she said, gazing up at him, then staring intently. “How about that? I’ve never noticed before that you have freckles.”

He looked at her uncomprehendingly. “Freckles?” Lord almighty, didn’t she realize how close a call she’d had? If he hadn’t caught her, she’d have fallen and hit her head on the corner of that heavy oak coffee table. The thought made his stomach lurch, and he held her even closer, wanting to protect her, keep her from harm, slay all her dragons, and . . . Good Lord! It hit him then, smacked him between the eyes, stunned him, made his head reel. “Liss,” he croaked. “Oh, my God, Liss . . .”

“You do,” Liss said. “Across your nose and cheeks.” She touched them with her fingers, realizing as she did why she’d never seen them before. He was pale, as white as milk, and his hand trembled violently as he brushed her hair back from her face. “Darling, what is it?” she asked.

“You’re not going to leave!” he exclaimed. “I can’t let you leave! You’re going to stay right here, Liss Tremayne, and marry me if it’s the last thing I ever make anybody do and— What did you call me?”

“Darling.” She looked guilty and shocked. “What did you say?”

“Marry me.” He looked stunned, disbelieving. For a long moment they stared at each other, both caught in a myriad of swirling, conflicting emotions that clamored within them. Abruptly, though, everything became perfectly clear for Kirk, as if all the questions had been asked and all the answers given. Of course! he thought. It was so simple. He wondered why he had spent so much time arguing with himself, why he had bothered with the doubts and the fears and the confusion, the inner fighting against Brose’s apparent intentions for him and Liss. Brose, in spite of his high-handed manipulations, had known what he was doing after all!

He threw back his head and laughed as exultation flooded through him. Then, standing, he spun Liss around and around until she was dizzy and giddy and clinging to him, gasping for breath. He flopped back down on the couch with her, still laughing.

“What’s the joke?” Liss asked, still wondering if she had really called him “darling” as if she had the right. And had he really said “Marry me”?

“No joke,” he said, planting little kisses all over her face. “Or if there is one, it’s on me.” He took long enough to kiss her mouth, then looked into her eyes. He seemed bemused, she thought, still half disbelieving of something that was a whole lot clearer to him that it was to her. “He won,” he said. “I can’t believe it. The old son-of-a— Son-of-a-gun, he won!”

“Who?” Liss planted her hands on Kirk’s shoulders and tried to shake some sense into him. It was like trying to shake a concrete pillar. “Who are you talking about?”

“Brose!” he said, lying flat and holding her securely atop him. “I fell into his trap, and now I know it’s exactly where I want to be. He was right all along. I needed you in my home, I need you in my life. I need you, period.” He tightened his arms around her. “Oh, sweetheart, please say you’ll marry me!”

Before she could say anything, though, he rolled over, tucking her under him and then kissing her as if he never meant to stop. She grazed his face with her fingertips, his wonderful, beloved face, and knew there were no words for her to tell him what she felt. All she could do was kiss him back. “I love you,” she whispered. “I’ve known it since the night of the concert when you said you were proud of my kids. Do you know how important that is to me?”

He let out a long, agonized breath. “Do you have any idea how important you have become to me in three weeks?”

“No idea at all,” she teased. “So . . .show me.”

“Liss . . .”

He held himself up on one elbow, curving his hand around her face. Her insides curled and twisted in a spasm of hungry response as his mouth touched hers, skimming her lips, making her burn with need. Her hips thrust involuntarily against him as he slipped his hand up under her sweater and cupped her breast. His harshly rasping breath thrilled her before she stole it with a series of tiny, tantalizing kisses that covered his cheeks and throat and ears.

“Kirk,” she said, meeting the stormy need in his gaze. “Oh, Kirk, please . . .”

He rejoiced at her willing, giving response, in the hard thrust of her nipple into his palm, the unharnessed hammering of her pulse as his lips found it in her throat.

“Please, please . . .”

Her soft whispers filled him with enormous power and immense pleasure. When he lifted his head and looked down at her, he saw her through a haze of desire, and saw that desire reflected back at him. In that moment, the power went out, plunging the room into darkness.

Liss didn’t care. His lips were hard, his tongue was hot and firm as it thrust inside her mouth. His arms encircled her fiercely, dragging her tight against him. The electricity that had left the wires seemed to whip through her, making her shudder and stiffen into a quivering bow of sensation. Gasping, she clung to Kirk, making soft little cries that only inflamed him more.

He kissed her deeply again and again, his hand moving from one breast to the other, fingering her nipples, then skimming down over her waist to the top of her jeans and lower, over her zipper, his fingers curling in between her thighs.

“I want you,” he whispered. “I want you right now. I want you to be all mine.”

“Yes,” she murmured, unbuttoning his shirt and sliding her hands across his chest. She moved again, thrusting against his hand, aching with a need she feared would never be adequately filled and driven by something beyond her control to seek that fulfillment.

The lights flashed on again. Moaning, Kirk sat up and rolled away from her, then dropped to his knees on the floor. Crouching by her side, he stroked her hair, her face, his eyes dark and serious. “No, love,” he said. “Stop. We’re both forgetting something—someone. I won’t put you or your kids at risk. We’ll wait, Liss. Wait until we’re married. “

Slowly she sat up, her eyes big and shocked as her gaze clung to his face. “Married?” she echoed, as if she’d never heard the word before, as if it had no meaning for her.

“Of course, married,” he said impatiently. “Didn’t you hear me asking you?”

She drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. “I heard,” she said, then nothing else.

He waited for as long as he could, holding her face between his hands, looking into her eyes and wishing he could see into her soul. “I didn’t hear your answer, Liss.”

“I didn’t give you one.”

“Then hurry up and do it.” He dropped his hands to her shoulders. “Liss, don’t refuse me, love, please. Marry me.”

“I . . . Kirk, why?”

“Why?” His gaze sharpened, but she lowered her eyes and hid her emotions. “Because that’s what a man and a woman do when they’re in love.”

“Is it? How many times have you thought you loved someone? How many times have you considered marriage?”

He let her go and drew his legs up, wrapping his arms around them. “There have been other . . . relationships,” he said slowly, carefully. He didn’t want to make any mistakes. “You know that, Liss. It would be stupid for me to pretend otherwise. But until I met you, I wanted to stay a bachelor. Hell, until tonight I thought I wanted to remain single.”

Liss wanted to ask him, And why don’t you now? Is it because you want the cakes as well as the kisses, and with my check’s arrival, you can see having to replace the maker of the cakes? The kisses he could have gotten from Gina. Why hadn’t he married Gina, who wanted it so much she risked making herself a laughingstock? Was it because she couldn’t cook, because she’d never be content as a rancher’s wife?

Oh, Lord, what was the matter with her? Liss wondered. There should be more joy than doubts, yet here she sat, unable to tell him she wanted to be his wife when she did. She did!

“So what’s the difference this time?” she asked.

“Liss . . .”

Kirk’s pain-filled eyes called out to her to ease his agony, make it right for him, for them, but how could she when she didn’t know what was right for herself? A few days ago, she would have known. But since then, she had seen his face change when she received her check, and out of the blue, he’d said he wasn’t going to let her go, that he wanted to marry her. Only belatedly had he said anything about love.

“I can’t tell you what the difference is this time because I don’t know,” he said. “I know only that I want you to be my wife, and I’ve never wanted that from anybody else.”

Kirk watched her face, looked deeply into her eyes, hoping, praying, for a lessening of the doubts, the uncertainty, even the distrust he saw there. If she loved him as he loved her, wouldn’t this be what she wanted, too? Didn’t a woman know as quickly as a man when everything was exactly right? Didn’t women traditionally have a deep-seated need to belong, one they often accused men of lacking?

He thought momentarily of other women he’d known. They’d been the ones to want commitment, the ones with the nesting instinct, and he’d been the one to shy away. But . . . Liss had been married before. She’d had two children with her husband. Maybe her nesting instinct was all used up. As for a home, she had one here, whether she married him or not. And, with her photography business shaping up, she’d soon have enough money to escape this “godforsaken wilderness.”

No! The word was a loud cry within him. He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t! Somewhere, somehow, he’d find a way to convince her. Drawing in a deep, unsteady breath, he got to his feet, then reached for her hands and pulled her up.

“You do love me, don’t you? You weren’t simply carried away by . . . by . . .”

“I love you,” she whispered, her fingers locked with his. “I love you so much, but . . . I-I guess I expected more time before we discussed the future.” As she said them, Liss recognized the validity of her words. Of course, she thought. All these doubts had beset her because she simply didn’t know him well enough. She tried to smile, and failed. “It’s only been three weeks, Kirk,” she said, a wobble in her voice.

“That’s time enough for me, Liss.” He lifted one of her hands up to his mouth and pressed a kiss into her palm, his eyes never leaving her face. “Can’t you recognize in me what I see in you? A life’s mate? The life’s mate?”

“I think so. I hope so. But I don’t know, and I must, Kirk, because I can’t help remembering that I knew Johnny for two years before we married and . . .” She swallowed the tears that clogged her throat and looked down at their hands linked so tightly together. “I realized, when he killed himself, that I’d never really known him at all.” She lifted her gaze to his face again. It was set in a drawn mask reminiscent of the haunted figures he carved. “If he loved me, how could he have done that? Why wasn’t I enough? Where did I fail?”

Kirk squeezed his eyes shut for an instant and pulled her against him. “I love you,” he said, wishing he knew stronger words to convince her. “With every cell that makes me me, I love you, and I’d never betray you in that way or in any other.”