Suddenly Texan (10 page)

How easy it would be now to confess to Leo that she was Cal and Troy's secret little sister. She could tell Leo that she didn't care about the ranch or any inherited money.

She just wanted a family. The one she'd never had.

“I…I think I'm ready for that authentic Casale recipe now,” she said softly, pulling back.

Leo sat across from her, looking intense, determined. He wanted to know the truth and he would keep asking. He expected her to cave in under his pressure.

He didn't know her very well.

At last he sat back. “Do you like Caesar salad?”

“Yes, I do.”

In one fluid motion he stood up and held out his hand. “Come on. This is possibly the best batch of Aria Casale's bolognese sauce that ever simmered on a stove.”

She smiled. “I can't wait to try it.”

“Come on.” He'd set the table already, but he lit the two candles in the center and dimmed the modern drum-shaped light over the dining area. “Have a seat,” he said, pulling out her chair. “I'll get the salad and a refill of wine.”

“Oh, I probably shouldn't have any more.”

“Why? You don't have to drive. If you get tipsy, I'll walk you downstairs.”

She rolled her eyes. He was one smooth operator. Still, the urge to relax a little, have more than one glass
of wine that she didn't have to pay for, was appealing. “Okay, just one more.”

Within minutes she was two sips into her new glass of Chianti and well into her salad. “This is great. Probably not Aria's recipe, though.”

“No, my mother's. She always loved the fresh produce section of the market. That's where she met my father.”

“How long have they been married?”

“Oh, let's see. I think it's thirty-six years.”

“Wow. That's a long time.”

“There's something about living in a small town that seems to keep couples together. I'd say we have a much lower divorce rate in Brody's Crossing than the national one.”

Not all couples stayed married.
Not her mother and father. “Well, I'm happy for your parents, but there are always exceptions to the rule.”

“True.” He gathered their empty salad plates.

She started to rise. “Let me help.”

“No, you just relax. I don't want you seeing the mess in my kitchen. I'm a very…active cook.”

I'll bet you're an active lover, too,
she thought. Not something she should be thinking about, she berated herself, especially alone in his apartment, eating his delicious food and drinking his excellent wine.

She sat in her chair and looked around the beautiful condo where Leo lived. In his friendly, quaint and thriving town, surrounded with loving family and good friends. How different his life was from hers.

If her mother had brought her back to Brody's Crossing instead of sweeping her away to Oregon, would she
have gone to school with Leo? Would she have thought he was too old for her, while secretly wanting to kiss him?

Probably. He'd no doubt always been a charmer.

“Dinner is served,” he said, shaking her out of her could-have-been dreaming. He placed a steaming plate of fettuccine topped with a rich-looking, fragrant sauce. There was even a few vegetables hiding in the finely ground beef or pork.

Leo sat down across from her, watching her closely. He raised an eyebrow. She smiled back and twirled her fork in the pasta, raising it to her lips, pausing just a moment. Leo's eyes narrowed and a muscle in his cheek tightened.

Amanda slipped the fork inside her mouth and closed her eyes, savoring the rich sauce and perfectly cooked fettuccine.

She opened her eyes and looked across the table when Leo discreetly cleared his throat. “How is it?” he asked.

“Wonderful,” she answered honestly. “It's the best.”

“I told you so,” he replied, his smile returning. Right then she knew that if they'd grown up here together, he would have definitely been the older boy she'd wanted to kiss.

Would it be so terrible to give in to her desires this one time, she wondered.

 

L
EO KNEW HE'D LOST ALL
perspective on the evening when he watched Amanda's clear blue-gray eyes tear at his great-grandparents' story. She felt a particular sensitivity for ties to the past that he'd often taken for granted.

He'd meant what he said about her being brave, making her own journey. He wasn't sure she believed it, though. And he still wasn't sure why she'd decided to come to Brody's Crossing, other than it had to do with the Crawfords.

At first she'd been a mystery to solve. Now he wanted to know everything about her. He wanted her to trust him enough to tell him why she'd packed up her car and driven halfway across the country, and why she had a deadline looming.

“How about some dessert?” he asked as she placed her napkin beside the plate and leaned back in her chair.

“I don't think I can,” she answered, looking honestly disappointed.

“Maybe after the movie.”

“Movie? Oh, right.”

He pushed back from the table and grabbed both their plates. “Toni loaned me some of her favorites, and I picked up a couple of newer ones.” His sister's DVDs were older, so he'd bought two more at the Walmart store in Graham just so he'd have a variety. “They're inside the cabinet, beside the fireplace.”

While she walked over to pick out a DVD, he took the dirty dishes into his kitchen. More bowls, pans and utensils than he normally used in a week littered his countertop, sink and stove. A couple of glazed fruit and cream cheese tarts from the grocery sat on the counter, along with an unopened bottle of dessert wine and an unbrewed pot of coffee.

He'd done his best to be prepared. But for what?

 

L
EO HAD STACKED UP SOME
chick flicks that looked well used—
Moonstruck, Ghost
and
Somewhere in Time
.
They must be Toni's, Amanda thought. Then he had two newer date-type movies,
The Proposal
and
Love Happens
. He obviously didn't want to get into any serious political or religious discussions, which was fine with her.

She looked at the movies on his shelves, from westerns to science fiction to war-related films like
The Hurt Locker
. He seemed to have eclectic tastes. Just as in the rest of his life, he was impossible to pigeonhole. He wasn't just a small town hardware store owner. He wasn't just a tux-wearing former professional gambler or a barista or a chef.

His movies were all “manly,” though. She'd bet he'd never lived with a woman, or if he had, she took her movies with her when she left.

His flat-screen TV and home theater system looked pretty high-tech, but it blended in with the rest of his furnishings. She wasn't accustomed to men who thought about things like decor. The guys she'd dated would buy the biggest television and stereo they could afford and plop it in the middle of the longest wall in their living room, lining up old chairs and ratty, beer-stained couches to watch “the game.” Football, baseball, hockey.

Leo drank wine, cooked like a chef and had his great-grandparents' trunk as a coffee table.

She was so out of her league.

Still, she was here now, and if he was just a little too good to be true, she could live with that. She
would
live with that. Why not take away some great memories when she left?

“Did you make a decision?” he asked from behind her.

She picked up a DVD and turned around. “Yes, I did.” She'd decided on a lot more than just a movie.

“
Moonstruck?
I haven't seen that in years. It's about an Italian family, you know.”

“Yes, I read that. I figured it was appropriate after the dinner you served.”

“Want anything before I put the movie on? Wine, water, coffee?”

She looked him over and bit back a suggestive response. “No, no, I'm fine.”

“Have a seat. I'll get this started.”

“Sounds…great.”

She settled on the couch and watched him operate the home theater system. He dimmed the lights to a soft glow and joined her. Not too close, but not very far, either.

Leo had everything planned and scheduled. He was always thinking two or three steps ahead, as if life were a chess match. But if there was one thing Amanda had learned in her twenty-six years, it was that life didn't always play by the rules.

Amanda hadn't expected to get drawn into the movie, especially the beginning, where Cher's character, Loretta, was basically fumbling through life. The family dynamic was interesting, though, and Amanda almost forgot that she was sitting next to a very sexy man with a complicated dynamic all his own.

She began to fidget when she grew uncomfortable with the idea that someone had to settle for a role in life so unsuited to them. Loretta's family took advantage of her. They expected her to behave just so. Cher as a mild-mannered bookkeeper?
I don't think so.

Which meant that something big was going to happen. A huge explosion. A monumental shift.

Amanda frowned as she thought about her mother, the only close family she'd really known. Had her mom's role as wife and mother on the Rocking C dragged her down, like Loretta in the movie? In those manic stages of her bipolar disorder, had Luanna chafed at the restrictions, the duties? Had she yearned to run away, even before she'd decided she had to get Amanda and leave the family behind?

“You look deep in thought,” Leo remarked.

His softly voiced comment startled her. “Oh!” She had been. Too deep. “Yes, I was.”

“Thinking about the movie?”

She hesitated a moment. “About my mother, actually.” It wouldn't hurt to tell him just a little. To let down her guard and share a tiny bit of her childhood.

He pressed the pause button on the remote. The face of Loretta's exasperated mother was frozen on the screen. “She passed away when you were…what, just a teenager?”

Amanda nodded, looking away from the television to stare at the empty hearth. “She was…she had a difficult life. Then she was diagnosed with late stage cancer and she died fairly quickly when I was in high school.”

“And you went to live with her friends.”

“That's right.”

“What about your father? Was he alive?”

Amanda frowned. When her mother died? “No, I think he was dead by then. I never knew him.”

“He didn't visit or anything? Did you try to get in touch with him?”

Amanda gave a very unladylike snort, unable to hold back her bitterness. “Hardly. He didn't believe I was his child. He probably never gave me a thought even if he knew I existed.”

Leo looked at her for a long time. “I'm sorry he felt that way. He missed out on something very special.”

She'd barely kept her composure earlier. This time, his words flowed into her like the warmth of thick, rich hot chocolate on a cold day. Like the feeling of stretching her feet toward a toasty fire on Oregon's Cannon Beach. She had no immediate family, little chance of finding acceptance, but for tonight, she had Leo.

And Leo had said that she deserved happiness….

She launched herself across the small space separating them, threw her arms around his neck and pushed him back onto the pillows. Leo gasped and grabbed hold of her before she kissed him.

Amanda had surprised him but he adapted fast, his lips dueling with hers for dominance. If he wanted to take the lead, that was fine, as long as he didn't reject her.

She wasn't going to stop herself or him tonight, not when she needed this so badly. When she wanted him so much. Their kiss went on and on, until she broke away, head reeling. He framed her face with his hands, holding her steady, looking deeply in her eyes. She tried to tell him
yes, I want you.

He must have understood, because he pulled her down and kissed her again, devouring her. His tongue plunged between her parted lips and she moaned into his mouth. Oh, that man could really kiss.

His hands moved over her back, her bottom, tugging her closer. He raised his knee, settling her tight against him. Oh, yes. He wanted her as much as she wanted him.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice husky with desire.

“Yes. Yes, I'm sure.”

He nibbled a trail down her neck, pulling her sweater aside and following her collarbone around to the front of her chest.

“Bedroom,” he mumbled against her skin, sending ripples of sensation through her.

She wasn't sure how they untangled themselves and got up from the couch. Carefully, in his case. Clumsily,
in hers. Finally, though, he pulled her upright until they were standing chest to chest, thigh to thigh.

Leo leaned down and kissed her, holding her tight, stroking her back, her sides. When he pulled back, he said, “I've wanted you from the first time I saw you sitting downstairs in the coffee shop, the sunlight on your hair and that wary look in your eyes.” He smiled down at her and smoothed her hair back from her cheek. “I don't want to be the one to put that look back there, so if you're not sure—”

“I'm sure.” She didn't want to overthink this. Not now. Not when she had this one chance to create a memory she knew she'd never forget. “Now, please show me the master bedroom before I have to get firm with you.”

Leo grinned. “Firm with me? That sounds interesting.”

“Could be. Let's go.” She started to tug at his hand.

He tugged her back, swept her off her feet before she could even squeal. Her arms went around his neck and she held on tight. She breathed in his scent. A light trace of cologne, a hint of herbs from dinner, a touch of heat and arousal. Her teeth grazed his skin right above the neck of his knit shirt as he carried her into the bedroom.

In just a few steps—far too few when she was being carried in Leo's arms—he slid her down onto a high bed. She looked around to get her bearings, stretching out on the soft, downy comforter. Only a single, low-wattage lamp lit the room, but she could see the wide bed and dresser, the master bath through an open doorway. Windows let in light from the streetlamps outside, gilding everything in a golden glow.

She felt golden as she looked up at Leo, who whipped his shirt off, over his head, and flung it across the room.

Oh, my. He was everything she'd wanted, more than she'd expected. All bronzed skin and muscle, blond hair on his chest and a fiery light in his eyes. For the first time since she'd known him, she felt so…ordinary.

She hoped he wasn't disappointed. No swimsuit-model breasts were going to suddenly pop out of her B-cup bra. No hard abs were going to ripple when she removed her everyday sweater.

Maybe he wouldn't notice if she didn't think too much and just started
doing.
She'd begin by removing his jeans, which looked way too tight.

She ran her fingers up the straining zipper. He sucked in a breath and popped open the top button.

“You are wearing way too many clothes,” he said, reaching for her sweater.

“Maybe the light—”

He leaned down and kissed away the rest of the sentence, all the while working the already short hem of her sweater higher. “The light is perfect,” he said after he pulled her sweater off and flung it in the direction of his own top. “Unless it makes you really uncomfortable, I want to see you.”

I want to see you, too,
she felt like purring, but her confidence was being replaced by nervous energy. She scrambled to her knees on the mattress, needing to feel him close to her, touching her.

He kissed her, melting away her doubts as he reached between them and unbuttoned her jeans, then eased down the zipper. Her heart beat fast as he cupped his hands over her bottom and pulled away the denim.
Oh, my, he's good at this.
Then he came down on top of her on
the bed, still kissing her, still undressing her. He broke away to remove her socks and whisk the jeans from her legs, leaving her in only her thin bra and panties.

“Very nice,” he said, kissing her belly as he slid back up her body.

Her doubts fled at the sensation of warm male skin next to her.
It's been so long since someone has touched me,
she thought as he reached behind and unhooked her bra.
I've wanted this forever,
she silently moaned as he flung the flimsy garment away with the rest of their clothes.

And then she stopped thinking as Leo made love to her and she rode the crest of sensation. She watched with hazy, unfocused eyes as he dropped his jeans and boxers. Was it just the light, or did he look even better than she could have ever imagined? Then he settled between her legs and kissed her, and she didn't care how he looked, because he felt wonderful. They felt wonderful together. She couldn't stop touching him, even when he reached in his bedside drawer and—thankfully—remembered protection.

Because she wouldn't have thought about anything but pulling him to her, in her, and loving him all night long.

“Yes,” she whispered fiercely as they moved together. Tears burned her eyes as she arched from the bed and cried his name, and he crushed her to him, roaring his pleasure against her hot, damp skin.

 

T
HE ROOM HAD RETURNED
to normal. Or as near normal as it would ever feel again, Leo thought, his heart slowing and his sweat-damp skin cooling in the night air. Amanda was curled around him, her arm over his chest.
His arm, behind her back, would feel pins and needles soon, but he didn't care. He pulled her tighter to him, and her leg slid over his thigh.

Not yet, he thought, although his body was willing with the least amount of encouragement. Tonight had raised the stakes for him. He felt a different kind of urgency than the sexual need to get her into his bed, to make her his.

No, they'd shared more than dinner and a movie. More than first time sex.

Now what?

Now they had to talk. She'd evaded his questions. She'd danced around her reason for being in Brody's Crossing. She'd given partial truths to everyone.

He was no longer “just anybody.” He was the man she'd made love with, the man who wanted to protect her from whatever problem had pursued her from Oregon to Texas.

He needed to confirm who she was and why she was here. He didn't care what the truth was—although he was ninety percent sure of the basic facts—as long as she was willing to share it with him.

Sacrificing a moment of physical contact, he reached down and grabbed the sheet, pulling it over their cooling bodies. Amanda mumbled something and snuggled closer. Her eyes were tightly closed, as if she didn't want to wake up. Or admit that she was awake.

He knew she didn't want to talk to him, which was ironic, because wasn't it usually the guy who avoided talking after sex?

Once they had this long-awaited conversation, she might pull away entirely. Her warm, soft body wouldn't be pressed against him. Her breath wouldn't tickle his
chest. He wouldn't be looking forward to lovemaking round number two. And they wouldn't be waking up together in the morning.

Maybe he was a fool for wanting to get all her secrets out in the open. Perhaps he should just let her tell him—or not—in her own sweet time. After all, did it make any difference? Not to him, it didn't. He couldn't care less whether she was from Oregon or Texas or Mars, or who her parents were.

But he didn't like secrets. He'd been burned by deception before, and in Brody's Crossing, he didn't have to put up with partial truths and mysteries.

She stirred, slipping her leg higher on his thigh, moving her hand across his chest. His body sprang to attention even while he told himself that they should talk.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” he said softly, tucking the sheet across his lap with his free hand. “Are you okay?”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled. “I'm…great.”

“Yes, you are,” he said, kissing her on the forehead. “You feel like talking?”

Her whole body stilled, as if her heart had stopped beating. “About dessert? I could probably eat some now.”

“No, although we can have that also. And coffee or a very nice Moscato if you like dessert wine.”

“Oh, I don't know. I should probably go. You'll want to get up in the morning and I have a ton of things to do.”

He hadn't thought about her jumping up and leaving. “What if I don't need to get up early in the morning? What if I'd really like you to stay?” He shifted to face
her, their heads on the same pillow, and he ran his hand down her arm.

“Um, well, I do have things to do tomorrow.”

“The night's still young. We didn't even finish our movie.”

“That's an excellent idea! Let's go have dessert and watch the rest of
Moonstruck.
”

“We can do that,” he said, pulling the sheet over her as he felt her cool skin. “But first, I just wanted to tell you something.”

“Oh, that's okay. You don't have to say anything. I mean, we both know I'm leaving soon and this has been great, but—”

“That's not what I meant,” he answered carefully, trying to keep the frustration out of his voice. “And I know you said you were leaving soon, but that's one of the things I want to talk about.”

“Sorry,” she said, scooting away, taking the sheet with her. “I'm on a real firm deadline. I've got places to go, people to see,” she added with false cheer.

“There are people here you came to see.”

“Research. That's all.” Her voice was muffled as she searched the floor beside the bed. “Where are my clothes?”

“Around. And I think it's more than research. I think you came here to find someone.”

“Really, I should be going.”

He moved beside her, ignoring her naked back and his own desire to tuck her close and keep her there. “You should stay. And I'm very sure you came here to meet Cal Crawford.”

“Cal? Where do you get these ideas? I came to do genealogy research.”

“Because you're his sister.”

 

A
MANDA'S HEART FELT AS IF
it had jumped right out of her chest. How had Leo guessed she was Cal's sister? She thought she'd been careful in her questions about the Rocking C.

“Really, I don't understand where you got that idea,” she said, sacrificing modesty for the necessity of getting away before…what? Before she confessed her true identity?