Leftover Love (11 page)

The tension between them seemed to take on a different quality that electrified her senses. The underlying heat was still there, but it was more sexual in origin. The beat of her pulse became shallow and uneven as a threat of confusion began to weave itself into her emotions.

“And I’ve noticed your lips,” Creed was continuing, his voice dropping lower and lower. “The way they—” His mouth came shut on the incomplete sentence, the angle of his jaw hardening.

His large hands reached out and snared her arms before Layne could jump backward to elude them. She was hauled roughly against him, her arms pinioned to her sides. There wasn’t time to draw more than a breath of surprise before the air was choked off by the bruising crush of his mouth.

Not an inch of maneuverability was allowed her as her head was forced backward by the brutal pressure until she thought her neck would snap. It was all pain, from the scrape of his short, whisker stubble to the grinding of her lips against her teeth.

When the initial shock passed, there was a roar of blood pounding in her ears. The heat of his breath seemed to set fire to her skin. Layne raged at her own impotency, trapped in the bear-grip of his arms with no chance to escape or struggle.

It was not the kind of kiss that had a beginning or an end. It was seizure and release, both in abrupt actions. Layne backed quickly from him, not sure if Creed intended to follow up that attack with another. The back of her hand was instinctively pressed to her sore and throbbing lips while she eyed him with wary revulsion. But he merely stood there, breathing roughly, his arms at his sides.

“Are you happy now?” he snapped at her like a wounded animal, which was crazy. She was the one who’d been so savagely attacked. “I’ve made a pass at you, so now you can stop wondering whether there’s something wrong with you. You can go on to your next conquest now.”

With that, the truck door was jerked open and Creed swung into the cab. The door banged loudly against its metal frame as it was pulled shut. An instant later the motor was gunned to life and the headlights glared across the lot. Layne moved to the side and pressed herself close to the car parked in the adjoining space as the truck pulled out. She had a short glimpse of his blunted profile, lean and ruthless in its stony contours.

Slowly Layne walked to her own car, still shaken by the incident. For a long time she simply sat behind the wheel, mindless of the cold, and tried to figure it out. Despite Creed’s rough looks, what happened seemed out of character. He was an intelligent man, so he must have known how she would react to such sexual abuse. If he did, then that meant it was deliberate on his part.

It was sobering to think he disliked her so much that he was willing to make himself repulsive to her so she would
stay away from him. It was obvious that Creed wanted nothing beyond a work relationship. She should have taken the hint when her friendly overtures weren’t reciprocated, Layne decided. If that’s the way he wanted it, then she would oblige him.

The spate of mild weather didn’t last. A winter storm ushered in the month of March, complete with snow and cold north winds. Its arrival coincided with the calving of the first cows, which added a few complications to the natural procedure. A bovine nursery was set up in the kitchen for the odd weak calf that needed the warm shelter from the bad weather for a day or so until it had the strength to return to its mother.

As a child, Layne had been present when a neighbor’s dog had puppies, and had seen films of larger animals giving birth to their young, but she had never attended any other birthing before. No matter how cold and tired she got, she always felt a tingling sense of awe that she had witnessed a little miracle when a spanking-new white-faced calf made its first wobbling lurch onto its feet.

With all her morning chores finished, including the milking, Layne crossed the yard to the barn area where the tractor was parked. It was already hitched to the loaded hayrack, but Creed wasn’t in sight. Figuring he’d be along directly, she wandered over to the fence and huddled against a post to look out over the cattle in the winter pasture.

The hayrack with its stacks of bales acted as a windbreak to shield her from the blast of the north wind. A bleak, gray cloud cover hung over the land, pressing its gloom onto the morning and making the temperature seem colder. A wool muffler covered her mouth and nose, but her face still felt numb and stiff.

In the pasture the cows were gathering expectantly along the circuitous tracks made by the tractor and hay wagon on the previous morning’s feed. The snow was trampled in that area, stray wisps of dirty hay mixing in with the snow and frozen soil.

Not far from the fence stood a cow with a calf not more than two days old. The little heifer calf eyed Layne curiously while it hugged close to its mother’s side. Its white face seemed whiter even than the snow, and its deep russet-brown coat appeared burnished. But it was the calf’s eyes that fascinated Layne. They were so big and luminously brown, and the lashes were incredibly long and curling.

Behind Layne heavy footsteps crunched on the frozen ground, moving her way. All tightly bundled around the neck, she had to half turn before she was able to see Creed walking toward her. She was reluctant to leave the windbreak of the hayrack, so she let him come to her rather than going to meet him.

Since the incident in the parking lot a certain terseness had existed between them. They rarely spent enough time in each other’s company for it to become an uncomfortable situation. Layne knew she harbored no bitterness on her part, and it appeared that Creed didn’t either. An unspoken agreement seemed to exist that they would keep their distance.

“Ready?” Creed pushed next to the fence to issue his one-word question.

“I guess so,” Layne agreed reluctantly and let her gaze stray back to the young calf. “They’re beautiful little creatures, aren’t they?” Her half-frozen lips had trouble forming the words as she attempted to share the wonder she felt at the sweet innocence of the baby calf. “So perfect in every detail.”

“Everything is beautiful when it’s a baby.” There was a
certain flatness in his voice, which didn’t seem attributable to the cold, as he glanced at the object of Layne’s interest. “But it doesn’t last. That face will never be so white again. When that calf grows up, it will be just as ugly and ungainly as its mother.”

His blunt and unflattering assessment of the cow seemed unfair and severe. Yet when Layne looked at the grown animal, its tongue came sliding out to lick the mucousy slime from its broad nostrils. Its shaggy coat was dirty and stained, its white face discolored to a yellow gray. Layne had to admit the cow was neither graceful nor beautiful, except maybe to a bull.

“Come on. Let’s get the hay out to those cattle.” Creed pushed away from the fence with a visible effort. “You drive the tractor this time. I’m liable to fall asleep if I stop moving.”

Layne opened her mouth to protest that she’d never driven a tractor before, but one look at his leaden strides reminded her of the weariness that dragged at him. He’d worked around the clock during the calving, and she doubted if he’d slept more than two hours in the last forty-eight, so she kept silent about her inexperience. After all, it couldn’t be much different than driving a stick shift. She trailed a few steps behind him as he trudged through the snow to the hay wagon and hauled himself bodily onto the flat rack.

Bundled in so many clothes, Layne climbed awkwardly up to the tractor seat and eyed the confusing array of foot pedals and gear handles with misgivings. It didn’t look as simple as she thought it would be.

Reluctantly, she half turned in the cold seat to shout at Creed, “How do you make it go?”

His head lifted and she could see the exasperation in his expression. “Don’t you even know how to drive a tractor?” he retorted impatiently.

“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking,” Layne flared. His tiredness was no excuse for ridiculing her lack of knowledge. Besides, it was cold up there on that tractor seat, exposed to the bleakly stinging wind.

“You can begin by starting the motor, then release the clutch to put it in gear,” Creed replied with a trace of dry scorn in his raised voice.

His caustic instructions weren’t much help, since she wasn’t sure which pedal was the clutch, the brake, or the accelerator. And Layne was too stubborn to ask for more explicit directions, choosing instead to hazard it out on her own.

There was a reluctant grinding of the motor when she tried the ignition. With a rumble and a chug, it finally vibrated to life to puncture the stillness with its noisy roar. When she tried to coordinate releasing the clutch, shifting the gears, and giving it gas, the tractor made a halfhearted buck forward, then the motor stalled and died.

“Dammit, I said release the clutch —slowly!” Creed shouted in irritation. “If you can’t drive the damned thing, just say so!”

“Maybe if you’d quit yelling at me and simply tell me how the damned thing operates, I’d be able to manage it!” Her voice rose in an angry response to his intolerance.

Layne didn’t wait for him to reply as she again started the tractor. At the same moment that she let out the clutch, she tromped her other foot onto the accelerator. The tractor leaped forward, jerking the hay wagon after it. Behind her, she heard a muffled yell and turned in the seat in time to see the high-stacked bales tumbling onto Creed. In alarm, Layne slammed her foot onto the brake, stopping the tractor as abruptly as it had started.

With an alacrity that belied the many layers of warm clothing, she peeled off the tractor seat and jumped to the
ground to race back and see if Creed was all right. The motor was silent, but Layne didn’t know whether she had killed the engine again or unconsciously turned it off.

When she reached the hayrack, all she could see of Creed were his boots and part of his legs. The rest of him was buried under the fallen bales. As she clambered onto the rack, they started to move. She could hear him swearing under his breath. Hurriedly Layne began to lift the top bales and throw them onto the wobbly stack. As she lifted the third one Creed threw off the others with a heave of his body. When he sat up and reached for his hat, she knelt down quickly to assure herself that he was unharmed.

“Are you okay?” Her anxious glance searched his brutish features as he slapped the hay straws from his hat.

His dusty brown eyes gave her a long, dryly expressive look. He was slow in answering, waiting until his hat was pushed firmly onto his head to reply. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

Relief sighed through her even though Layne could almost hear what he was thinking. “I’m glad.” But if he made one comment about women drivers, she was tempted to hit him just on principle. “I—”

His glance shot past her on an upward angle. Before she could complete her sentence, she was being grabbed. The action was accompanied by a clipped “Look out” as she was twisted down.

Layne had a glimpse of a bale toppling from its precarious perch atop the unsteady stack before Creed’s bulk blocked it from her sight as he protectively hunched his body over hers. The weight of the bale struck his shoulder and glanced off. The impact drove him against her and flattened them both.

For a few seconds after the danger had passed, neither of them moved in case more bales came tumbling down. Layne was completely buried under the hard crush of his body, its muscular length and breadth encapsulating her more slender frame. His face was pressed into the edges of the wool scarf wrapped around her neck. She was conscious of the moist heat of his breath warming her skin.

There was a hesitant lift of his head, as if Creed expected another bale to come crashing down on them. As he started to turn to look, Layne also turned her head. The instant she felt the accidental brush of his mouth at the corner of her lips, she froze. Her heart seemed to make a startled lurch at the unexpected contact that held Creed motionless too.

The moment seemed to stretch itself out until Layne wasn’t sure how long it had lasted—mere seconds or longer. Then, very slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, his mouth edged onto the curve of her lips. The pressure was so faint that their lips touched and no more, their breath mingling.

Layne held herself still, wanting more than he was giving but unwilling to invite it. The memory of that other abusive kiss was too vivid in her mind. She didn’t want to risk a repeat of it, yet she was a little shaken to discover that she wanted Creed to kiss her.

It didn’t seem to matter that she found his looks physically unattractive to her. There was something very earthy and virile about him that touched an inner, responsive core in her own being. It was an elemental desire, female for male.

Gradually his mouth eased onto hers, mobile and exploring. The utter sensuality of the kiss quivered through Layne, supremely seductive in its slow-building heat. His long body shut out the winter cold as warmth seemed to spread all through her system.

She responded pliantly to his kiss, liking the firm texture
of his mouth and the warm taste of him, made tangy by tobacco. When Creed initiated a withdrawal, their moist lips clung together for another second, seemingly of their own volition, before the contact was broken.

His breath continued to fan her lips, its rhythm slightly irregular. As she slowly opened her eyes to look at him, Layne was vaguely dazed by the sensations the kiss had aroused. The bluntly chiseled contours of his face were so close to hers that she could see every sun-leathered groove. The light of wonder was in her green-flecked eyes.

This time she lifted her head to seek that disturbing contact with his mouth and ignite again that tingling pleasure. It was her initiative and her turn to explore the masculine curve of his lips. She felt the throb of excitement in her veins and the heady sweep of warmth through her when his mouth rocked onto her lips in response, gentle in its possession yet nearly shattering in its passion. She was filled with a wondrous ache that yearned for a more unrestrained embrace.

Yet when Creed dragged his mouth from hers a second time, she didn’t protest. Like Creed, she had carefully controlled her responses, keeping them in check and releasing them a bit at a time. This eruption of passionate desire was too sudden and too new. She had been burned the last time something had exploded between them, and she didn’t want that to happen again.