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to trust people."
She nodded. "I suppose not." She wanted to ask him why he seemed to be so interested in where she
lived, but she was too shy. ''I'm packed."
He glanced toward her suitcase. "Enough for a little while?"
"Enough for a week or so," she said. "You didn't say how long 1 was to stay."
He sighed heavily. “That's something we'll leave for later. Right now I just want to go home." He
looked around him. "It's like you," he said finally. "Bright. Cheerful, Very homey."
She hadn't felt bright and cheerful and homey in recent weeks. She'd felt depressed and miserable. But
it fascinated her that her apartment told him so much.
"It doesn't have an indoor stream," she commented.
He smiled slowly. “No , it doesn't. Good thing. With my batting average so far, I guess I'd be in it by
now, wouldn't I?"
She cleared her throat, feeling embarrassed. "I didn't mean to push you in the river."
"Didn't you? It seemed like it at the time." He searched her eyes quietly. "I meant what I said,
Marianne. I won't make any more insulting propositions."
"I appreciate that. I'm just sorry that I gave you such a poor opinion of me," she added, admitting her
own guilt. "I shouldn't have let things go on the way they did." .
He moved closer, lifting his hands to her shoulders, lightly holding her in front of him. "What we did
together was pretty special," he said hesitantly. "I couldn't have stopped it any more than you could.
Let's try not to look back. That part of our relationship is over."
He sounded final, and she felt oddly hurt. She stared at his vest, watching the slow rise and fall of his
chest.
"Yes," she murmured.
He looked down at her silky dark hair, smelled the soft floral scent that clung to her, and his heart
began to throb. It had been so long since he'd held her, kissed her. He wanted to, desperately, but he'd
just tied his own hands by promising not to start anything.
“Do you like kittens?” he asked unexpectedly. Her eyes came up, brightly blue and interested.
"Yes. Why?"
"We've got some," he said with a grin. "Lillian found an old mama cat squalling at the back door in a
driving rain and couldn't help herself.
The very next morning we had four little white kittens with eyes as blue as," he searched hers with a
disturbing intensity "as yours."
"You let her keep the kittens?" she asked softly. He shifted restlessly. "Well, it was raining," he
muttered. "The poor little things would have drowned if 1'd put them outside."
She wasn't buying that. Odd, how well she'd come to know him in the little time she'd spent on his
ranch. "And ... ?" she prodded with raised eyebrows.
He almost smiled at the knowing look on her face.
She knew him, warts and all, all right. "Cousin Bud's got one hell of an allergy to little kitties."
He was incorrigible. She burst out laughing. "Oh, you black-hearted fiend, you!" she groaned.
"I like little kitties," he said with mock indignation.
"If he doesn't, he can leave, can't he? I mean, I don't lock him in at night or anything."
If love was knowing all about someone the good things and the bad and loving them just the same,
then it sure did apply here, she mused silently. "Ward Jessup," she said, sighing, "you just won't leave
Bud alone, will you?"
"Sure I will, if he'll go home and leave my bull alone," he returned. "My God, you don't know how
hard I fought to get that critter into my breeding program. I outbid two of the richest Texans in cattle to
get him!"
"And now Cousin Bud wants him. What for?" she asked.
"Beats me." He sighed. "Probably for his advertising agency." .
She sat down on the sofa. "He wants your bull for an ad agency?" she asked dubiously.
His eyebrows rose while his brain began to grasp what she was thinking. "Ad agency ... oh, no, hell,
no, he isn't going to use the bull to pose for male underwear commercials! He wants to sell it to
finance expanding his advertising agency!"
"Well, don't glare at me, it sounded like he wanted to make a' male model out of it," she defended
herself.
He sighed heavily. "Woman, you're going to be my undoing," he said. And probably she would if he
let himself think too hard about just why he'd come all this way after her. But missing her was just
part of the torturous process. Now he had to prove to himself that he could have her around and not
go' off his head anymore. He still wanted her for certain, but marriage wouldn't suit him any more than
being his mistress would suit her. So they'd be ... friends. Sure. Friends.
Lillian would stop starving him. There. He had noble motives. He just had to get them cemented in his
mind, that was all. .
"Can't you just tell Cousin Bud to go home?" she asked curiously.
"I have!" he grumbled. "Lillian has, too. But every time we get him to the front door, he calls up my
grandmother and she raises hell with Lillian and me for not offering him our hospitality."
"She must like him a lot," she mused.
"More than she likes me, I'm afraid," he returned.
He whirled his Stetson in his hands. "I'll give you one of the kittens if you want it."
"Bribery," she said in a stage whisper and actually grinned.
He grinned back. She was pretty that way. "Sure it is," he said shamelessly. He glanced around her
small apartment. "Will they let you keep a cat here?"
"I guess so. I haven't ever asked." So he was already planning for her to come back here, she thought
miserably.
He shrugged. "You might not want to come back here, though," he said unexpectedly. He smiled
slowly. "You might like working for me.
I'm a good boss. You can have every Sunday off, and I'll only keep you at the computer until nine
every night."
"You old slave driver!"
He didn't laugh as she'd expected him to. He just stared at her. "Am I old to you?" he asked softly as if
it really mattered.
Watch it, girl, she warned herself. Take it easy, don't let the old devil fox you. "No," she said finally.
"I don't think you're that old." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]