CHAPTER FOUR

Arabella had supper with the family for the first time that night, and Matt announced that he was taking Mary to the Bahamas for a much-needed vacation.

“Vacation?” Ethan glared at him. “What’s that?”

Matt grinned. He looked a lot like his brother, except that he had deep blue eyes and Ethan’s were silver. Matt was shorter, less formidable, but a hard worker in spite of his easygoing nature.

“A vacation is a thing I haven’t had since I got married. I’m leaving and Mary is going with me.”

“It’s March,” Ethan pointed out. “Calving? Roundup…?”

“I never asked for a honeymoon,” Matt replied with an eloquent glance.

Ethan and Coreen exchanged wry looks. “All right. Go ahead,” Ethan told him dryly. “I’ll just have an extra set of arms put on and manage without you.”

“Thanks, Ethan,” Mary said gently. Her eyes glanced shyly off his and she smiled at her husband with pure delight.

“Where in the Bahamas did you plan to go?” Ethan asked.

Matt grinned. “That’s a secret. If you don’t know where I am, you can’t look for me.”

Ethan glared at him. “I tried that four years ago. You found me.”

“That was different,” Matt said. “A note came due at the bank and they wouldn’t let me arrange the renewal.”

“Excuses, excuses,” Ethan replied.

“You might look at houses before you come back,” Coreen murmured.

Matt shook his finger at her. “Not nice.”

“Just a thought,” she replied.

“If we leave, who’ll save you from Ethan?” Matt asked smugly.

Arabella glanced at Ethan, who looked more approachable tonight than he had since she’d come home from the hospital. She felt suddenly mischievous. She raised her hand. “I volunteer.”

Ethan’s silvery eyes lanced her way with faint surprise and a little delight in them as he studied her face. “It’ll take more than you, cupcake,” Ethan said, and he smiled.

The smile reminded her of what Coreen had said, about how easily Ethan had once smiled for Arabella. The knowledge went to her head. She wrinkled her nose at him. “I’ll recruit help. At least one of the cowboys was offering to spray you with malathion late this afternoon. I heard him.”

“He was offering to spray me with insecticide?” Ethan glowered. “Which cowboy?” he demanded, with a look that meant trouble for the man.

“I won’t tell. He might come in handy later,” Arabella returned.

“Feeling better, are we?” Ethan murmured. He lifted an eyebrow. “Watch out. We’ll get in trouble.”

Arabella looked around. “I thought there was only one of me.”

Ethan felt frankly exhilarated, and that disturbed him. He had to drag his eyes away from Arabella’s soft face. He stared at his brother instead. “Why don’t you want a house of your own?” Ethan asked him.

“I can’t afford one.”

“Horsefeathers,” Ethan muttered. “You’ve got a great credit rating.”

“I don’t like the idea of going that deep in debt.”

Ethan sat back in his chair and chuckled. “You don’t know what debt is until you spend ninety thousand dollars for a combine.”

“If you think that’s high for a harvesting machine, just consider the total cost of tractors, hay balers and cattle trailers,” Coreen added.

“I know, I know,” Matt conceded. “But you’re used to it. I’m not. Mary’s applied for a job at the new textile plant that just opened. They’re looking for secretarial help. If she gets it, we might take the plunge. But first we take a vacation. Right, honey?”

“Right,” Mary said eagerly.

“Suit yourself,” Ethan said. He finished his coffee and stood up. “I’ve got to make a couple of phone calls.” Involuntarily, his eyes were drawn to Arabella. She looked up in time to meet that searching gaze, and a long, static moment passed during which Ethan’s jaw clenched and Arabella flushed.

Arabella managed to look away first, embarrassed even though Coreen and the others were engaged in conversation and hadn’t noticed.

Ethan paused by her chair and his lean hand went to her dark hair, lightly brushing it. He was gone before she could question whether it had been accidental or deliberate. Either way, her heart went wild.

She spent the evening listening to Matt and Mary talk about their planned trip, and when bedtime came, she was the first to go up. She was on the bottom step of the staircase when Ethan came out of his study and joined her there.

“Come here, little one, I’ll carry you up.” He bent, swinging her gently into his arms, careful of the hand that was in the cast.

“It’s my arm, not my leg,” she stammered.

He started up the stairs, easily taking her weight. He glanced down at her. “I don’t want you to overdo it.”

She was silent, and he drank in the feel of her in his arms. He’d never managed to forget how she felt close against him, and he’d tried, for years. Of course she didn’t need to be carried. But he needed to carry her, to feel her body against him, to bring back the bittersweet memories of the one time he’d made love to her. It had haunted him ever since, especially now that she was here, in his house. He hardly slept at all these days, and when he did, his dreams were full of her. She didn’t know that, and he wasn’t going to admit it. It was much too soon.

She felt her breath whispering out at the concern in his deep voice. She couldn’t think of anything to say. She curled her arms hesitantly around his neck and nuzzled her face into his shoulder. His breath caught and his step faltered for an instant, as if her soft movement had startled and disturbed him.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

He didn’t answer. He’d felt something when she moved that way. Something that he hadn’t felt in a long time. His arms tightened as he savored the warm weight of Arabella’s body, the faint scent of flowers that clung to her dark hair.

“You’ve lost weight,” he said as he reached the landing.

“I know.” Her breasts rose and fell in a gentle sigh, bringing them into a closer, exciting contact with his chest. “Aren’t you glad? I mean, if I weighed twice as much as I do, you might pitch headfirst down the stairs and we’d both wind up with broken necks.”

He smiled faintly. “That’s one way of looking at it.” He shifted her as he reached her bedroom, edging through the doorway. “Hold tight while I close the door.”

She did, shivering a little at his closeness. He felt that betraying tremble and stopped dead, lifting his head to look into her wide, bright eyes with a heart-stopping intensity.

“You like being close to me, don’t you?” he asked. His senses stirred with a sensuality that he hadn’t felt in years.

Arabella went scarlet. She dropped her eyes and went rigid in his arms, struggling for something to say.

Amazingly, her embarrassment intensified the excitement he was feeling. It was like coming to life after being dead. His body rippled with desire and he felt like a man for the first time in four years. He kicked the door shut and carried her to the bed. He tossed her onto it gently and stood over her, his eyes lingering on the soft thrust of her breasts. His eyes darted back up to catch hers, his heart feeding on the helpless desire he found on her face.

So she hadn’t forgotten, any more than he had. For one wild minute, he thought about going down beside her, arching his body over her own and kissing her until she gasped. But he moved away from the bed before his body could urge him on. Arabella might want him, but her virginal state was enough of a brake for both of them. She was still bitter about the past, and what he was feeling might not last. He had to be sure….

He lit a cigarette, repocketing his lighter roughly.

“I thought you’d quit, until this afternoon,” Arabella said sitting up. She was uncomfortable with the silence and his sudden withdrawal. Why had he taunted her with that intimate remark and then looked as if she’d asked him to do it? Shades of the past, she thought.

“I had quit until you got yourself banged up in that wreck,” he agreed with a cold glance. “That started me back.”

“So did having a flat tire in the truck.” She began to count off the reasons on one hand. “There was the time the men got drunk the night before roundup started. Then there was the day your horse went lame. And once, a horse bit you….”

“I don’t have to have excuses to smoke,” he reminded her. “I’ve always done it and you’ve always known it.” His eyes narrowed as he studied her soft face. “I was smoking that day by the creek. You didn’t complain about the taste of it when I kissed you.”

She felt the sadness that must have been reflected in her eyes. “I was eighteen,” she said. “A couple of boys had kissed me, but you were older and more worldly.” She lowered her eyes. “I was trying so hard to behave like a sophisticated woman, but the minute you touched me, I went to pieces.” She sighed heavily. “It seems like a hundred years ago. I guess you were right, too; I did throw myself at you. I was besotted with you.”

He had to struggle not to go to her, to pull her into his arms and kiss the breath out of her. She felt guilty, when he was the one who’d been wrong. He’d hurt her. He’d wounded her pride, just as Miriam had wounded his, and sent her running. Perhaps her father would never have gotten such a hold on her if he’d told Miriam to go to hell and asked Arabella to marry him.

“What tangled webs we weave,” he said quietly. “Even when we aren’t trying to deceive people.”

“You couldn’t help loving Miriam,” she replied.

His face froze. Amazing how just the sound of his ex-wife’s name could turn him off completely. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth, the hardness in him almost brittle as he stared down at Arabella.

Arabella watched him. “Do you realize how you look when someone mentions her, Ethan?” she asked gently.

“I realize it,” he said curtly.

“And you don’t want to talk about it. All right, I won’t ask,” she replied. “I can imagine she dealt your pride a horrible blow. But sometimes all it takes to repair the damage is having your ego built back up again.”

His pale eyes pierced hers, and the look they exchanged was even more electric and intimate than the one downstairs.

“Are you offering to give me back my self-esteem?” he asked.

Years seemed to pass while she tried to decide if he meant that question. He couldn’t have, she decided finally. He’d made it clear four years ago just how he felt. She shivered. “No, I’m not offering anything, except to give a good performance when Miriam gets here,” she told him. “I owe you that much for taking me in while I get well.”

His eyes blazed. “You owe me nothing,” he said coldly.

“Then I’ll do it for old times’ sake,” she returned with icy pride. “You were like the big brother I never had. I’ll do it to pay you back for looking out for me.”

He felt as if she’d hit him. The only thing that gave him any confidence was the way she’d reacted to being in his arms. He blew out a cloud of smoke, staring at her with total absorption. “Any reason will do,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He turned and started toward the door.

“Well, what do you want me to say?” she burst out. “That I’d do anything you asked me to do short of murder? Are you looking for miracles?”

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob and looked at her. “No, I’m not looking for miracles.” He searched her face. Somewhere inside, he felt dead. “I put the cat and kittens in the barn,” he said after a minute. “If you’d like to see them, I’ll take you down there in the morning.”

She hesitated. It was an olive branch of sorts. And if they were going to convince Miriam, they couldn’t do it in a state of war. She moved restlessly on the bed. “Yes, I’d like that. Thank you.”

“De nada,“ he said in careless Spanish, a habit because of the Mexican vaqueros who worked for him, who still understood their own language best. Ethan spoke three or four languages fluently, which often surprised visitors who felt his Texas drawl indicated a deprived education.

She watched him leave with pure exasperation. He kept her so confused and upset that she didn’t know if she was coming or going.

* * *

Mary and Matt left the next morning. Arabella hugged Mary goodbye, feeling a little lost without her best friend. Ethan’s new outlook and the specter of Miriam’s approach seemed daunting, to say the least.

“Don’t look so worried,” Mary said gently. “Ethan and Coreen will take good care of you. And Miriam won’t be staying here. Ethan wouldn’t have it.”

“I hope you’re right. I have a feeling Miriam could take skin off with words.”

“I wouldn’t doubt that,” Mary replied, grimacing. “She can be nasty, all right. But I think you might be equal to her, once you got going. You used to be eloquent when you lost your temper. Even Ethan listened.” She laughed.

“I haven’t had much practice at losing my temper, except with Ethan,” Arabella replied. “Wish me luck.”

“I will, but you won’t need it, I’m sure,” Mary said.

Ethan drove them to the airport in Houston so they wouldn’t have to take the shuttle flight out of Jacobsville airport. But he was back before Arabella expected him, and he hadn’t forgotten about the kittens.

“Come on, if you’re still interested.” He took her good hand, tugging her along with him, not a trace of emotion showing on his face.

“Shouldn’t we tell your mother where we’re going?” she protested.

“I haven’t told my mother where I was going since I was eight,” he said shortly. “I don’t need her permission to walk around the ranch.”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she muttered.

It did no good at all. He ignored her. He was still wearing what he called his city clothes, charcoal slacks with a pale blue shirt and a Western-cut gray-and-black sport jacket.

“You’ll get dirty,” she said as they entered the wide-aisled barn.

He glanced down at her. “How?”

She could have made a joke about it with a less intimidating man, but not with Ethan. This unapproachable man would have cut her to pieces.

“Never mind.” She moved ahead of him, neatly dressed herself in a pair of designer jeans and a pale yellow pullover that would show the least hint of dirt.

She walked down the aisle and went where he gestured, feeling his presence with fear and delight. It was sobering to think that but for the accident that had damaged her hand, she might never have seen Ethan again.

Her hand. She glanced down at it, seeing the helplessness of it emphasized by the cast. Threads of music drew through her mind. She could hear the keys, feel the chords, the melody, the minors, the subdominants….

She closed her eyes and heard Clementi’s Sonatina, its three movements one of the first pieces she’d mastered when she began as an intermediary student. She smiled as it was replaced in her thoughts by the exquisite English Suite by Bach, and Finlandia by Grieg.

“I said, here are the kittens. Where were you?” Ethan asked quietly.

She opened her eyes, and realized as she did that her fingers might never feel those notes again. She might never be able to play a melody in more than a parody of her former ability. Even the pop tunes would be beyond her. She’d have no way to support herself. And she certainly couldn’t expect her father to do it, not when he wouldn’t even phone or come near her. At least Ethan had managed to save some of her earnings, but they wouldn’t last long if her father hadn’t paid off the debts.

There was panic in her eyes, in her pale face.

Ethan saw it. He tapped her gently on the nose, the antagonism dying out of him all at once when he saw her tormented expression. He had to stop baiting her. It wasn’t her fault that Miriam had crippled him as a man. “Stop trying to live your life all at one time. There’s nothing to panic about.”

Her eyes met his. “That’s what you think.”

“Let tomorrow take care of itself.” He went down on one knee. “Now this is worth seeing.”

He gestured for her to kneel down beside him, and all her cares were lost in the magic of five snow-white, newborn kittens. Their mother, too, was a snow-white shorthair with deep blue eyes.

“Why, I’ve never seen a cat like this!” she exclaimed. “A white cat with blue eyes!”

“They’re pretty rare, I’m told. Bill found them in his barn, and he’s not a cat fancier.”

“And they were going to be put to sleep.” She groaned. “I’ll rent them an apartment if my father gives me any trouble,” she said firmly. She smiled at the mother cat and then looked longingly at the kittens. “Will she let me hold one?”

“Of course. Here.” He lifted a tiny white kitten and placed it gently in Arabella’s hand, which she held close to her body to make sure it didn’t fall. She nuzzled its tiny head with her cheek, lost in the magic of the new life.

Ethan watched her, his eyes indulgent and without mockery. “You love little things, don’t you?”

“I always have.” She handed back the kitten with obvious reluctance, taking the opportunity to stroke it gently. “I always thought that one day I’d get married and have children, but there seemed to be one more concert, one more recording date.” She smiled wistfully. “My father was determined to make sure that I never had the chance to get serious about anyone.”

“He couldn’t risk losing you.” Ethan put the kitten back down, stroking the mother’s head gently before he rose, bringing Arabella up with him. He brushed back her long, loose dark hair with both hands. Then, in the silence of the barn, which was only broken by an occasional movement or sound from the horses nearby, his hands moved to frame her face. “I used to take you riding. Remember?”

“Yes. I haven’t been on a horse since. Ethan, why wouldn’t you let your mother sell the horse I used to ride here?” she asked suddenly, remembering what Coreen had said about it.

He shifted restlessly. “I had my reasons.”

“And you won’t tell me what they were?”

“No.” He searched her eyes slowly, hungrily. He felt his heartbeat increasing as the nearness of her began to affect him, just as it had the night before. “It’s been a hell of a long time since you and I have been alone together,” he said quietly.

She lowered her eyes to his broad chest, watching its heavy rise and fall. “Years,” she agreed nervously.

He touched her hair gently, trailing it through his fingers, feeling the silkiness of it. “Your hair was long, then, too,” he recalled, catching her soft eyes. “I pillowed you on it in the grass when we made love by the old swimming hole.”

Her heart went wild. It was all she could do to hold on to her self-control. “We didn’t make love,” she said through her teeth. “You kissed me a few times and made sure I didn’t take it seriously. It was to ‘further my education,’ didn’t you say?”

“You were grass-green and stupid about men,” he said curtly. “You felt my body against yours. You may have been a kid then, but you sure as hell ought to know by now how dangerous the situation was getting when I called a halt.”

“It doesn’t make any difference now,” she said miserably. “As I said, you made sure I didn’t take it seriously. I was just being my usual stupid self. Now can we go back to the house?”

He slid his hands roughly into her hair and held her face up to his pale, glittering eyes. “You were eighteen,” he said shortly. “A virginal eighteen with a father who hated my guts and had complete control of your life. Only a heartless fool would have seduced you under those circumstances!”

She stared at him, shocked by the fury in his eyes, his voice. “And you were nobody’s fool,” she agreed, almost shaking with mingled fear and hurt. “But you don’t have to pretend that you cared about my feelings, not after the things you said to me…!”

His hands contracted and he drew in a sharp breath. “God in heaven, how can you be so blind?” he groaned. His gaze fell to her mouth and he drew her face up toward his, his lips parting. “I wanted you!”

The words went into her mouth. He was fitting his lips with exquisite slowness to her own in a silence thick with tense emotion. But even as his mouth brushed against hers, even as she felt the sharp intake of his breath and felt the pressure of his hands on her face, a sound broke the spell and froze him in place.

It was the loud roar of a car driving up outside. Ethan’s head lifted abruptly and the look in his eyes was almost feverish. His hands had a faint tremor as he drew them away from her face, and he was breathing roughly. So was she. She felt as if her legs wouldn’t even support her.

Her eyes asked the question she didn’t dare.

“I’ve been alone a long time,” he said curtly, and he gave her a mocking smile. “Isn’t that what you’d like to believe?”

Before she could answer, he let go of her and turned toward the front of the barn.

“I’m expecting a buyer this morning,” he said gruffly. “That must be him.”

He went down the wide aisle ahead of her, almost grateful for the diversion. He’d lost his head just then, gotten drunk on the exquisite promise of Arabella’s mouth under his. He hadn’t realized how vulnerable he’d become since she’d been here. He was going to have to be more careful. Rushing her would accomplish nothing; he should be thankful that his buyer had interrupted.

But when he reached the yard, the visitor wasn’t his buyer at all. It was a taxi, and getting out of the back seat, all leggy glamour and red lipstick, was Miriam Hardeman. If she wasn’t going to be a houseguest, obviously nobody had thought to inform her of it, because the cabdriver was slowly getting six expensive suitcases out of the trunk of the car.

Ethan’s face went stiff as Arabella joined him and he felt as if he were breaking out in a cold sweat. Miriam. Just the sight of his ex-wife was enough to shake his self-confidence to its foundations. He schooled his face to show nothing as he turned toward Arabella and held out his hand, silently commanding her cooperation, as she’d promised it.

Beside him, Arabella stared at the newcomer as if she were a particularly vicious disease. Which, in fact, was a fair analogy. She let Ethan’s hand envelop hers and she held on for dear life. They were in it together now, for better or worse.