Smiling crookedly, he reached up to grip her waist and pull her effortlessly from the horse. She gasped as she felt the length of his hard body, knowing he’d deliberately let her slide against him. She found her hands gripping his shoulders, and wondered wildly why the barriers of their clothing felt like nothing. Nothing at all.
“Rafe…”
“Do you know,” he said huskily, “just how lovely you are?” He pulled the hat from her head and hung it on her saddle’s horn, then toyed with one of her ponytails. “The sun turns your hair to golden honey, and makes your eyes sparkle. And you have such a beautiful smile. You rarely smile at me, lass. Do you know that?”
She wanted to escape his hold. At least she thought she did. But her legs refused to obey her and her hands clung to his shoulders with no will of her own. “I—I thought we were going to look at the horses,” she said, aware of the unevenness of her voice.
“Horses.” His smile grew even more crooked, and something like regret stirred in his eyes. “Sometimes I’ve wished I were a horse, Maggie. Then I’d have all your attention. I’d feel your hands stroking me, and hear your soft voice praising me. And you’d look at me with a smile in your eyes.” His laugh was quiet and faintly self-mocking. “Does that sound self-centered? It is, I know. But I feel that way about you. I want all your time, and all your attention.”
“Rafe, you—”
“I want to hold you.” His arms tightened. “And kiss you.” Warm lips feathered across her jaw. “I want to see your eyes look at me with desire, and feel your hands touching me. Is it so wrong of me, Maggie, to want that?”
She couldn’t answer, couldn’t find the words or the breath for them. And when his head lowered and blotted out the sun, she couldn’t find the strength even to turn her face aside.
His kiss was tentative at first, warm and seeking, undemanding. Her knees became weak, and her lips parted with a need beyond any stopping, beyond all reason. She could feel the power of his shoulders beneath her fingers as he pulled her even closer until his body branded its contours on her own.
A shudder passed through Rafe and his mouth hardened, becoming hungry and demanding as she responded. He felt her hands slide up around his neck, knocking his hat away when her fingers twined in his hair. The desire that had tormented his days and nights burst suddenly into flame, rushing through his body like wildfire. Caution went spinning away, and there was only this relentless, torturing need of her.
“Maggie…” His voice was a hoarse gasp as his lips left hers to plunder the satiny flesh of her neck. When her head fell back to allow his exploration, his heart smothered him with its pounding.
Maggie’s horse, impatient, nudged them violently just then, causing them both to stagger. Her wits recalled, Maggie pushed away from Rafe, bemused to realize her hands had been locked in his hair. Nothing in her experience had taught her how to handle this situation, and she could only stare at him as she tried to control her ragged breathing.
For the first time in his life Rafe could have struck a horse in anger. But when he looked at Maggie’s strained expression, he realized that the interruption had not been as untimely as his tormented body felt it to be. He drew a deep breath and brushed his knuckles lightly down her flushed cheek, striving for humor to leash his own desire.
“What you do to me,” he said roughly, “ought to be illegal.” Then, without giving her time to respond, he took her hand and led her toward the horses they’d come to see.
It was difficult to recapture the earlier light mood, but surrounded by curious, friendly mares and foals, Maggie felt her tension gradually fall away. And Rafe waited for that before he suggested they return to the barns.
He had no intention of pushing Maggie into a corner from which the only escape was flight—or a confrontation neither of them was ready for.
—
During the following days Maggie was almost continually torn between wary anger and inner laughter. That was when Rafe was being a verbal rogue. When the cheerful, caressing words became equally cheerful, caressing actions, she didn’t know what she felt.
Whether by accident, design, or plain experience, he was always careful to stop just short of the mark. She was never able to get angry enough to hit him or to leave, just angry enough to indulge in some pretty colorful swearing.
Bewildered and unsettled, she had to cope with sudden kisses on the back of her neck, with abrupt hugs, when she thought she was alone. There were playful tugs on her ponytails or braids, and he began swinging her up into his arms in order to put her on a horse instead of offering the traditional leg up. When he was around, that is—and he was almost always around.
And, she realized, those devil-black eyes were watching her with an intensity never hidden by light words or easy smiles. His behavior might be carelessly flirtatious, but his eyes told her it was no game.
He didn’t interfere actively with her work, but when she wasn’t on a horse she was in danger of being forced to cope with his devilish attentions. At first Maggie worried about what everyone on the ranch was thinking, but after observing bystanders of the little scenes, she began to smell a conspiracy.
Never, she decided mutinously, had there been so obvious an outbreak of mass blindness and deafness. There was never so much as a giggle at any of Rafe’s outrageous flirting, and any observing eyes went opaque and distant whenever he picked her up or hugged her.
And it didn’t help that the infamous kissing bandit had grabbed her twice after late working sessions, catching her offguard in spite of herself with kisses that left her shaking and bewildered.
Two men who affected her like that?
Both times she had found Rafe innocently at the house.
Curiously he made no attempt to take advantage of their time alone together in the house. He was friendly and companionable, but no more, and that unsettled her too.
And she again encountered the mirror-Rafe that she had first met on a hilltop overlooking the valley.
She was leaning against a fence, watching a more than usually spectacular sunset.
Although Rafe moved like a cat or a hunting brave, she had developed a built-in radar where he was concerned and felt him approach. She tensed, expecting one of his sudden hugs or kisses. But he only leaned against the fence beside her, his gaze fixed on the brilliant horizon.
“I never tire of looking at it,” he murmured.
She tore her gaze from his profile and stared blindly forward. “I…can see how you wouldn’t. It’s always different.”
“Ever-changing,” he agreed quietly. “Has this land gotten into your blood, Maggie?”
She wanted to say no, wanted to boast that she could pull up stakes and move at any moment. She wanted to consider this place only a setting for her work and so, temporary. She wanted to believe that she could turn her back and walk away with no tugs at her heart or mind. But the truth overbore her wishes, and the feeling was so powerful, it nearly hurt. Did hurt. She ached inside with the knowledge that this land, this place, would always be with her—wherever she went.
And a fleeting realization told her this man would also go with her.
Maggie felt his gaze on her, and nodded. The land…think only of the land! her mind shrieked. “I’ve never…been anywhere like this before,” she managed to say.
“Or never looked?” His tone was gentle.
She nodded again, feeling the web of his spell enmesh her as they had on the hilltop. “Never looked, I guess. I was always too busy. You know—” Her laugh was without humor. “I’ve been to Madison Square Garden several times, and I’ve never really looked at New York. I’ve flown over the Grand Canyon—and never looked.” She turned blind eyes to him, suddenly aware of a strange grief. “I never looked. How did I let that happen?”
It was the bewildered dejection of a child, unthinking emotion, and Rafe responded instantly. He drew her into his arms, holding her quietly, not questioning. He held her while she silently absorbed the bereavement of
having been so single-minded she had not even cared to gaze at one of nature’s masterpieces.
That realization haunted her for days, even though Rafe never alluded to it. Instead, he reverted to his rakish behavior the following day, making her laugh and swear in spite of herself.
A few days later Maggie recaptured her earlier image of being in a funhouse and standing in the hall of mirrors. Each mirror reflected a Rafe, each face subtly—or not so subtly—different from the rest. She thought of that image because she found herself staring at the roguish, devilish Rafe in the flesh. He had her cornered—literally—in the tackroom.
“Rafe, stop it!” She had gotten over her fear of losing her temper with the boss. He might fire her if she stole all his horses, she’d decided, but otherwise she was safe.
“Now, Maggie love, you shouldn’t run from me.” His black eyes were gleaming brightly.
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” she said hastily, “why is the shamrock your family’s symbol? That’s the logo of all the Delaney concerns, isn’t it?” She was trying to edge carefully out of his reach while keeping his mind occupied. Humor the madman, Maggie told herself.
“That was old Shamus’s idea,” Rafe said, stepping sideways neatly and cutting off her escape. “Because his luck came in threes or multiples of three. I’ve already told you he missed being hanged three times. And he had nine sons. And his first name had six letters.”
Maggie unobtrusively eyed the space to Rafe’s left. Big enough to escape through? “Ironic,” she said chattily, “that the present generation is three.”
“Isn’t it?” he murmured cordially. “Old Shamus might have planned it.”
She gathered herself for the attempt. “And is it true that all the Delaneys came home, so to speak? Someone said there was a graveyard at Killara—” She made a break for it.
Uncannily anticipating her, Rafe moved smoothly to intercept. Holding her quite securely in his arms, he said in a calm voice, “Yes, there’s a graveyard. And all the Delaneys have come home. Except one.”
“Uh…who was that?” she asked, staring fixedly at the unfastened third button of his blue shirt and the curling black hair just beside the button. She was trying very hard not to giggle. Or punch him in the chest. She wasn’t sure which.
“William Delaney,” he told her affably. “He’s one of the verifiable black sheep in our history. Instead of treading the straight and narrow, he decided on a life of crime. Sadly he wasn’t very successful. He’s buried in Tombstone, on Boot Hill.”
“Fancy that.” She cleared her throat. “And no one offered to…uh, bring him home?”
“Burke thinks he should be buried at Killara. York thinks the choice was old Bill’s, and he obviously made it.”
“And what do you think?” Maggie had the odd feeling she was becoming hypnotized by that button. She felt light-headed. Of course, it couldn’t be because the length of his body was pressed against hers. That was ridiculous.
“Me?” Rafe reflected at some length, as if he had all the time in the world. “Well, I think it’s a dandy thing to have a relative buried at Boot Hill. Makes for interesting dinner-table conversation.”
Maggie bit her bottom lip. “Oh,” she acknowledged unsteadily.
“Indeed. Now, Maggie love, have we finished talking? Or are there any other little historical tidbits you’d like to know about?”
“Hey, Rafe, are you—Oh. Uh, ’scuse me.” Russell backed hastily out of the tackroom, his face already beginning to assume the consistency of stone.
Maggie let her forehead fall briefly against Rafe’s chest. “My reputation,” she nearly wailed. “You’ve shot it all to hell!”
“He didn’t see a thing,” Rafe said soothingly, maddeningly.
She lifted her head as her teeth came together with an audible snap. “How much are you paying them not to see anything?” she demanded irately.
Rafe looked wounded. “They’re blind for the love of me, Maggie lass,” he drawled. “Deaf for the love of me. They’d do anything for the love of me. Now you, on the other hand—”
With great deliberation and malice aforethought Maggie brought her booted heel down on Rafe’s booted toe. Freed, she backed away a couple of steps and gazed impersonally at Rafe, sitting on a low chest of drawers and nursing his foot while his curses tinted the air.
“That,” he finally said coherently, “was unfair, love.”
“You have the superior strength,” she said sweetly. “I’ll lay claim to the superior cunning.”
Rafe lowered his foot to the floor and leaned forward slightly. His black eyes began to gleam brighter than ever. “I should have warned you, lass,” he said softly. “Never challenge a Delaney. We don’t give up.”
She glared at him. “Even a Delaney,” she said witheringly, “should know when to give up on a lost cause!”
“We never give up. Remember the Alamo!”
“That was Texas!”
“It’s the meaning that counts.”
She wanted to snatch a handful of bridles off their pegs and throw them at him. “You,” she told him, “should be locked up. You’re dangerous!”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever told me,” he said, deeply moved.
Maggie let out a sound somewhere between a snarl and a laugh, turned on her heel, and stalked from the tackroom, muttering to herself. She was still muttering when she realized she’d walked the length of the compound and was leaning against a fence beside Tom Graham, watching a Thoroughbred hunter being worked over jumps.
“…elevator doesn’t go to the top floor. Crazy. Loco. All the sand’s sifted from his bucket. He’s a few bricks short of a full load. He’s got so much blarney in him, it’s spilling over the edges….”
Tom chuckled. “The boss?”
She gave him a look of mock astonishment. “You mean, you aren’t blind and deaf like the rest of the peons?”
His faded blue eyes twinkled at her. “Not me. It’s too much fun to watch and listen.”
“It isn’t funny. Tom!” She’d felt comfortable with the foreman from their first introduction, and found it easy to talk to him.
“Isn’t it?” He sent her an oblique look. “Heard you laughing more often these days.”
That stopped Maggie, but only for a moment. “The point is,” she elaborated, “the man’s making a fool out of me! And I have to take it because he’s my employer.”
Tom turned to her, abruptly grave. “Rafe wouldn’t like to hear you say that. And you don’t really believe it yourself.”
Her eyes fell before his steady gaze. “No. No, I suppose not. But I want to stay here.”
“You could stop Rafe with a word.” Tom was staring straight ahead again, his face expressionless.
Maggie, too, was staring into the ring. She felt abruptly, strangely, shaken. Because she knew he was right. She could stop Rafe with a word. All she had to do was tell him no.
No, I won’t be your latest playmate. No, I won’t be your mistress. No, I won’t wake up one morning in your bed. No. Just no. Don’t bother me anymore. You’re my boss and nothing more. No.
It had never been put into words between them. He had never said, quite simply, “I want you.” And she had never said no.
She felt her throat close up. Why hadn’t she said no? She would rage at him, evade him, even avoid him. But she had never turned to him and said simply, “I don’t want that.” Why?
Because it would have been a lie.
Maggie forcefully held herself still and silent, hardly conscious of the man beside her. It would have been a lie. There was a secret part of her that would carry Rafe with her all the days of her life. His would be the face she would always see in her dreams, and his kisses would make every other man’s pale by comparison.
Rafe’s pursuit had been, for the most part, a teasing thing. Playful, but not quite a game. But Maggie knew with an awful sense of finality that if he carried her off to his bed, she would not put up even a token res
istance. She could withstand his teasing flirtation, but when those devil-black eyes gazed at her with passion, she would be lost.
She took a deep breath and silently left Tom’s side. Away from the ring, she stood for a moment alone in the bright sunlight. Completely alone. A distant buzz caught her vague attention, and she lifted her head to watch a helicopter approach the ranch. It landed at some distance from the training rings and barns on the concrete pad she’d noticed days before, the shamrock logo visible even far away.
She felt more than heard Rafe, and half turned to see him striding up the lane toward the helicopter. He flashed a grin at her and waved as he passed, calling out something she wasn’t at all sure she heard correctly.
“Going to hell. See you later!”
Bemused, she watched him pause a moment beside the man in coveralls who had climbed out of the helicopter, then the other man walked away and Rafe got into the aircraft alone. She saw the helicopter lift and fly off toward the north. Hell, she mused. He was going to hell? And he’d be back later. Only a Delaney, she thought, could sound so sure of that.
And she had an almost uncontrollable urge to sink down in the sandy dirt and laugh herself silly.
Chapter 5
The house seemed lonely that night. It was lonely. And the emptiness of the place gave Maggie too much time to think. She occupied herself in teaching—or trying to teach—Kathleen how to make a baked chicken dish Maggie had often made for her father. The housekeeper was willing, but amazingly inept, and since she kept saying things like “Mr. Rafe will soon be home again,” it was just too much.
It was also too much sometime later that evening when Maggie found herself curled up in Rafe’s favorite chair, and realized she had snuggled up to the cushion because it bore his scent.
Swearing, she went to bed.
Being no more curious than average, she assured herself, Maggie cornered Tom at the crack of dawn the next morning and threatened death by inches unless he told her what “hell” Rafe had flown off to the day before. Thoroughly cowed, he told her: Hell’s Bluff, the Delaney mining town where York lived.