Page 48 of Texas Honor
Her breath caught. She was reaching up, she could already feel the first tentative brushing of his warm lips when a knock at the door made them both jump.
He lifted his head with a jerky motion. “What is it?” he growled.
Mari trembling in his arms, heard a male voice reply, “Lillian’s got coffee and cake in the dining room, Cousin! Why don’t you come and have some refreshment?”
“I’d like to have him, fricasseed,” Ward muttered under his breath as Bud’s laughing voice became dimmer along with his footsteps.
“I’d like some coffee,” she said hesitantly even though she was still shaking with frustrated reaction and her voice wobbled.
He looked down into her eyes. “No, you wouldn’t,” he said huskily. “You’d like me. And I’d like you, right there on that long sofa where we almost made love the first time. And if it hadn’t been for my meddling, jealous cousin, that’s where we’d be right now!”
He put her down abruptly and moved away. “Come on, we’ll have coffee.” He stopped at the door with his hand on the knob. “For now,” he added softly. “But one day, Marianne, we’ll have each other. Because one day neither one of us is going to be able to stop.”
She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t even manage a defiant stare. It was the truth. She’d been crazy to come here, but there was no one to blame but herself.
From that first meeting, Cousin Bud seemed determined to drive Ward absolutely crazy. He didn’t leave Mari alone with the older man for a second if he could help it. He found excuse after excuse to come into the office when she was typing things for Ward, and if she ever had to find Ward to ask a question, Bud would find them before they said two words to each other. Mari wondered if it might just be mischief on Bud’s part, but Ward treated the situation as if he had a rival.
That in itself was amazing. Ward seemed possessive now, frankly covetous whenever Mari was near him. He shared things with her. Things about the ranch, about his plans for it, the hard work that had gone into its success. When he came home late in the evening, it was to Mari that he went, seeking her out wherever she might be, to ask for coffee or a sandwich or a slice of cake. Lillian took this new attitude with open delight, glad to have her former position usurped when she saw the way he was looking at her puzzled niece.
Bud usually managed to weasel in, of course, but there eventually came a night when he had business out of town. Ward came in about eight o’clock, covered in dust and half starved.
“I sure could use a couple of sandwiches, honey,” he told Mari gently, pausing in the living room doorway. Lillian had gone to bed, and curled up on the sofa in her jeans and a yellow tank top, Mari was watching the credits roll after an entertainment special.
“Of course,” she said eagerly and got up without bothering to look for her shoes.
He was even taller when she was barefoot, and he seemed amused by her lack of footwear.
“You look like a country girl,” he remarked as she passed close by him, feeling the warmth of his big body.
“I feel like a country girl,” she said with a pert smile. “Come on, big man, I’ll feed you.”
“How about some coffee to go with it?” he added as he followed her down the hall into the spacious kitchen.
“Easier done than said,” she told him. She flicked the on switch of the small coffee machine, grinning at him when it started to perk. “I had it fixed and ready to start.”
“Reading my mind already?” he teased. He pulled out a chair and sat down, sprawling with a huge stretch before he put his long legs out and rested his booted feet in another chair. “The days are getting longer, or I’m getting older,” he said with a yawn. “I guess if I keep up this pace, before long you’ll be pushing me around in a wheelchair.”
“Not you,” she said with loving amusement. “You’re not the type to give up and get old before your time. You’ll still be chasing women when you’re eighty-five.”
He sobered with amazing rapidity, his green eyes narrowing in his handsome face as he studied her graceful movements around the kitchen. “Suppose I told you that you’re the only woman I’ll want to chase when I’m eighty-five, Marianne?” he asked gently.
Her heart leaped, but she wasn’t giving in to it that easily. He’d already come too close once and hurt her. She’d been deliberately keeping things light since she’d come back to the ranch, and she wasn’t going to be trapped now.
She laughed. “Oh, I guess I’d be flattered.”
“Only flattered?” he mused.
She finished making the sandwiches and put them down on the table. “By that time I expect to be a grandmother many times over,” she informed him as she went back to pour the coffee. “And I think my husband might object.”
He didn’t like thinking about Marianne with a husband. His face darkened. He turned his attention to the sandwiches and began to eat.
“I have to go over to Ty Wade’s place tomorrow,” he murmured. “Want to come and meet Erin and the babies?”
She caught her breath. “Me? But won’t I be in the way if you’re going to talk business?”
He shook his head, holding her soft blue eyes. “You’ll never be in my way, sweetheart,” he said with something very much like tenderness in his deep voice. “Not ever.”
She smiled at him. The way he was looking at her made her feel trembly all over. He was weaving subtle webs around her, but without the wild passion he’d shown her at the beginning of their turbulent relationship. This was new and different. While part of her was afraid to trust it, another part was hungry for it and for him.