The Cutting Edge (24 page)

“I hated to do that to you, but I couldn't trust myself to make a rational decision. No matter which way I went, I knew I'd always doubt my reasons for doing it.”

“And if I had wanted her prosecuted?”

The hard, flinty expression came back into his eyes. “You would have wanted what I wanted.”

He was a little frightening, a hard man who wouldn't tolerate any threat against anything or anyone he considered his. The realization, instead of frightening her, made her eyes widen. He felt that way about her. It wasn't guilt, but an expression of something she had sensed the first time he had made love to her. The act had not been one of casual pleasure, but one of possession, in the most basic way. She had become his, which was why he had lashed out at her when he thought she had betrayed him and his trust. Yet even before he knew her to be innocent, he had begun working for her release. Her innocence or guilt hadn't mattered; she was his, and he would have handled it. That was why he had given Sammy that rather primitive advice.

“Were you going to beat me?” she asked, giving him a hard look.

He made no apologies. “I was planning on it. I doubt I'd ever have done it, because I couldn't deliberately hurt you, but thinking about it made me feel better. Now, with Sammy…that girl may get the spanking of her life. When the quiet ones get angry, there's no stopping them. Do you care? Are you really that forgiving?”

“No, I'm not. I'm far more human than that,” she replied with a flash of spirit. “I'd like to punch her out. But this has gone on long enough, and I want it to end. Let Sammy take care of her. I just want to put it behind me and forget about it. Besides, if you had prosecuted, Sammy would have been hurt, too, and he didn't deserve it.”

He gave a soft sigh, and removed his arm from around her, leaving her feeling faintly chilled. His expression was grim as he leaned forward, resting his
forearms on his thighs. “If you're so generous with a stranger, why can't you be that generous with me? Why can't you forgive me and give me a second chance? I'm not asking for time, but for a real second chance.” He drew a deep breath, waiting for her reaction.

Tessa stared at him, stricken by what he had said, because it was nothing less than the truth. She
had
been more generous with a stranger than she had been with him, and she loved him more than she'd ever thought it was possible to love anyone or anything. But precisely because she did love him so much, his lack of trust had cut her far more deeply than Hillary's treacherous actions. Hillary didn't mean anything to her at all, except as someone important to one of her friends.

So this was love, she thought painfully. It wasn't only forgiving, it was taking a chance that her love was returned. He had lashed out at her only when he thought she'd betrayed him first, and even then, when his first pain had faded, he had moved swiftly to protect her. Even thinking that she was guilty, he had forgiven her and reached out for her.

It was love, and she really didn't have a choice about trusting him, because she had no life without him.

She had been silent for a long time, and Brett's mouth had firmed into a grim line. He had one more card to play, one more chance at convincing her that he loved her, that he'd do whatever he had to do to protect her. If she misunderstood his motives now, he didn't know what he would do, because he was playing his last card. “Tessa, I've resigned my job.”

She made a sharp movement, and the color washed
out of her face. “But…but you told me that you didn't have to worry about your job!”

“I don't. Because I don't have one. I resigned Monday, effective whenever this was finished. The deal I made with Joshua,” he said carefully, “was that in exchange for you, I would continue to do the occasional consulting job for him. That's what he called it, anyway. It means I'll get the easy jobs like negotiating the settlement of a strike, or industrial espionage, things like that. But for the most part, I intend to be on the ranch with you, raising kids and cattle.”

Her heart was doing crazy things in her chest, interfering with her breathing. “Is that a proposal?” she demanded.

“I guess it is. I intend to be the father of your children, and I'd like for it to be legal.” His entire world hinged on her answer, and he couldn't read her expression at all. He started to sweat. “Do you love me enough to forgive me?”

She got to her feet, propelled by a sudden need for action, anything to give herself something to do. “It was never a matter of forgiving,” she said jerkily. “I love you so much I think I can forgive you anything. That doesn't mean I'd let you get away with it,” she added, in case he got the wrong idea. “It just means I'd forgive you for it.”

Something was changing in his face; his navy eyes were lighting, as if fired from the inside. “After you threw hot lemonade on me? Or hit me over the head with something?”

“Or kicked you out of our bed.”

“Whoa, honey, you're talking nasty now. If there's
one place I'm going to be, it's in bed with you. But if you forgive me, what was the problem?”

“I was trying to decide if I should take you without being sure you loved me, or wait until I was sure,” she said baldly.

He surged to his feet, towering over her, his shoulders so broad that they blocked out the light. “Would you like a demonstration of what it's like to be a rancher's wife?”

Suddenly she was the old Tessa again, her long lashes sweeping down languidly to hide the vibrant sparkle in her green eyes. “Why, I believe I would,” she said in her slowest, most wicked drawl, the one that made Brett's loins turn to molten lava. With a low growl, he tossed her over his shoulder and carried her off to bed.

* * *

S
OME MEN DIDN'T
know when they were well off, he thought an hour later. She was turning the charm on him, enticing him and teasing him and generally driving him crazy, and even though he knew he was being managed, there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help himself.

She lay propped above him, her lovely breasts nestled into the hair that covered his chest and doing a good job of distracting him. She was winding one finger through the curls of hair, then she moved it on to his ear, his mouth, his throat, across his shoulder and down his arm, over to his side, down his hip… . What she did with that one finger was amazing. He shifted restlessly, considering tossing her over on her back and finishing what she'd started, but she was still talking.

“I want to get married in Tennessee,” she murmured,
nipping at his chin with her white teeth, then kissing the slight sting away. “In our old church in Sevierville, with Aunt Silver there. You do want your father to be best man, don't you?”

“I don't care,” he muttered in raw frustration, sitting up abruptly and dumping her off his chest. As he reached for her she drew away, but she caught his hand and carried his fingers to her lips, where she nibbled and sucked at each of his fingertips in turn.

Her voice was dreamy. “I want to show you the farm, and the old country roads. Gatlinburg is best in the spring and summer, I think. We can go into all the old-time crafts stores on Glades Road, and walk in the mountains. I want to show you the whole park. We can go to the Chimneys, and Cade's Cove, and Grandfather Mountain. And I want to see
Unto These Hills
one last time—”

He put his hand over her mouth, stifling the flow of words. “Tessa, darling,
yes
! I'll agree to anything you want. I'll marry you anywhere you want, in front of as many people as you want, and I'll hike from Tennessee to Wyoming with you, if that's what you want. Now, does that cover everything?”

A suspicious sound came from behind his hand, and he looked into green eyes that were brimming with laughter, sparkling in the way that he loved. She'd been playing with him, he realized, deliberately driving him mad with frustration, and loving her feminine power to do so. If he hadn't been so certain of her intention of fully satisfying him, he'd have erupted into rage, but all he could do was fall back on the bed, his chest heaving with his heavy breathing.

He'd asked for it. She was just what he wanted, every devilish, delicious inch of her. He had to be crazy, considering what a chase she was going to lead him on for the rest of their lives. Then he chuckled, and before she could evade him again, he had reached out a brawny arm and toppled her onto the bed. Quickly he covered her, parting her legs and taking her. “This is what you get for teasing me,” he said, kissing her hungrily.

An expression of delight spread across her lovely, exotic face, radiant now with his love. “Really?” she drawled. “Oh, good.”

* * *

T
HE MOONLIGHT SPILLED
across the big bed, lighting a room with polished wooden floors covered by a hand-woven rug. The bed was long and wide, big enough to accommodate the length of the man who sprawled in it. Tessa sat up in the bed, folding her arms and resting them on top of her knees, and putting her chin on top of her arms. They had been married only that morning, and Brett had barely given her time to pack before he'd whisked her to Knoxville to catch a plane. She had hugged Aunt Silver and cried, knowing that this time she was truly leaving. Her home would be in Wyoming now, not in Tennessee. Silver had cried, too, until Tom, Brett's father, had snatched her up in his brawny arms and kissed her until she'd forgotten about crying.

“Come visit,” he'd growled to the astonished woman in his arms. “I'd love to have you.” His deep voice had given the words another meaning, probably his real meaning, because Tom was a big, hard, battle-scarred old tomcat of a man.

The flight had been a long one, from Knoxville to
Chicago to Denver, then to Cheyenne, and they had flown the last leg of the journey in their own plane. By then Tessa had been exhausted, curled up in her seat sound asleep. Brett had shaken her awake only when the plane was on the ground at the ranch. The drive from the dirt airstrip to the ranch house had been a short one, but she'd been fully awake by the time they reached the house. Brett had carried her inside and straight up to his room, and a grinning Tom had brought their suitcases in.

“We have a private bathroom,” Brett had said, opening a door off the bedroom. “Are you hungry, or would you rather take a bath and go to bed?”

Tessa had stretched and yawned. “Why don't I take a bath, then get something to eat, then go to bed? How does that sound?”

“Too damned long,” he muttered. He looked longingly at the big bed.

“Poor baby, are you tired?” she'd purred.

“No.”

“Hungry?”

“Yes.”

It had been obvious that her man wasn't concerned with his stomach. She had slowly unbuttoned her blouse and drawn it off, then unhooked her bra and dropped it. “Why don't you take a shower with me?” she'd suggested innocently. “That would save time.”

His eyes had narrowed, and his hands had gone to the buttons of his shirt. “I hope you're not really hungry, darling, because it could be a while before you have dinner. As a matter of fact, we'll probably have to call it breakfast.”

“You can take me down for a midnight snack,” she had said, stepping out of her skirt.

“Deal.”

Now she really was hungry, and it was long after midnight. His hand touched her back, but she wasn't startled. Gently his long fingers moved down her spine.

“I fantasized about this, the first night I made love to you.” His smoky, whiskey-rough voice was low, and it rubbed over her like a caress. “I held you after you'd gone to sleep, and I thought of how it would be to make love to you in this bed, and hold you when the loving was finished. I decided then that I was going to marry you.”

She turned and went into his arms, rubbing her face into the hair on his chest. “Was it as good as your fantasy?”

He laughed. “It was better. You were awake this time.”

“Good enough that you'd like to do it again?”

“Now, that's a foolish question if I've ever heard one.”

“There's a purpose to it. I was about to point out that if you want to keep my strength up, you're going to have to feed me.”

“All right, Mrs. Rutland, hint taken.” He got out of bed and pulled on his pants. He began zipping them, then looked up at her as she tried to straighten the tangle of her nightgown. Even in the moonlight he could tell that her lips were sweetly swollen, her hair mussed. She wore the look of a woman in love, and a woman who had been thoroughly loved.

“I'm glad you're my wife,” he said simply.

Tessa discarded the nightgown and made do with her robe, tying the belt securely around her slender waist. “I am, too,” she said, and went into his arms. The horrible, nightmarish week was gone now, in the past where it belonged. She had changed, yes, but so had he. They had both let their barriers down, because there was no room for barriers between them. How could she not trust this man? Not only was her life safe in his hands, but also her love.

* * * * *

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