Three
Scowling, John Lee trailed Merideth to the house loaded down with four shopping bags and a huge box containing, of all things, a life-size Raggedy Ann doll. He’d already made two trips, and it looked as if he’d be making at least two more before he’d transferred all Merideth’s purchases to the nursery.
The very thought made his knee throb in protest.
“Hurry up, John Lee,” Merideth called over her shoulder. “I want to get started on Cassie’s room as soon as possible.”
“Hurry up, John Lee,” he mocked, limping along behind her. “If you’re in such an all-fired hurry,” he grumped, “then why don’t you carry some of this crap?”
Merideth stopped and turned to look at him. “Because I have the baby.” Smiling sweetly, she pivoted and continued up the steps.
John Lee frowned at her back. “Why don’t I get to carry the baby?”
“Because that’s my job,” she reminded him. She opened the door, then shifted the sleeping Cassie to cradle her in her opposite arm so she could prop the door open with her hip. “Besides,” she added, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously, “carrying those little old bags should be a snap for someone as big and strong as you.”
With a snort, John Lee pushed past her. “Save your breath,” he muttered. “I know you too well to be suckered by your sweet talk.”
Merideth let the door close behind her. “You consider that sweet talk?” she teased, as she followed him. “Darling, you don’t even know what sweet talk is.”
“And I don’t want to know,” he grumbled. He picked his way through the minefield of suitcases Merideth had dumped in his bedroom earlier that morning, then squeezed through the door connecting the bedroom to his den. After dropping the packages to the floor, he flexed his fingers, trying to get the blood running through them again. “The rest of that stuff can wait.”
“But, John Lee—”
“No buts,” he warned, wagging a finger beneath her nose. “If you want the rest of it in here, you can haul it. I’m done.” Having had his say, he turned and stalked from the room.
Merideth smothered a laugh. “That’s what he thinks,” she whispered to the sleeping Cassie as she tucked her into her crib for the rest of her nap. She waited a moment, to make sure she’d settled, then tiptoed to the door and closed it softly behind her. When she turned, she found John Lee sprawled on his back on the king-size bed, his arms flung wide.
“Excuse me, but I think you’re on my bed.”
John Lee groaned. “Have a heart, Merideth. It was the closest one.”
Still high from the day of shopping, she sat down beside him. “What’s wrong, John Lee?” she teased, giving his cheek a playful pat. “Did we wear you out?”
He growled and batted her hand away.
Chuckling softly, she kicked off her shoes and leaned back, supporting herself with her elbows. Tipping her head to one side, she wiggled her toes and admired her nail polish. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “shopping is a lot like sex.”
John Lee cracked open one eye to peer at her. “In what way?”
“Afterwards, a woman is energized and ready for more, while all a man wants to do is sleep.”
In spite of his weariness, John Lee chuckled. “I’ll agree on the shopping part, but as to sex...well, I’d have to say that depends on the man.”
“Oh, really?” she challenged, cocking her head to look at him. “And I suppose you’re the exception to the rule?”
Smiling smugly, he laced his fingers across his chest. “Sugar, where sex is involved, I’m the exception to every rule.”
She snorted. “Egotist.”
“No, I just know my strengths.” He rolled his head to the side and grinned up at her. “Want me to prove it?”
“Do you want me to break your nose?” she returned.
He chuckled. “And ruin this pretty face?”
Rolling her eyes, Merideth lay back, settling beside him, then groaned when her gaze met her reflection on the ceiling. “That is sick,” she said, frowning at the mirror above.
John Lee stifled a yawn. “What’s sick?”
“That!”
He opened his eyes and met her gaze in the mirror above them. They lay side by side, their shoulders almost touching.
“And that, too,” she added, pointing to the mirrored wall beside the bed.
His mouth curved in a teasing grin when her gaze met his again on the ceiling. “I don’t know. Personally, I kind of like ’em.”
“You would,” she grumbled. She snagged the comer of the pillow beneath his head, gave it a tug and plopped her head down on it. “This room looks like something straight out of a cathouse.”
“You ever been in a cathouse?”
Merideth squirmed, nudging him over, until she had the lion’s share of the pillow. “No, but I played a call girl once.”
“A call girl, huh?”
Comfortable now, she met his gaze in the mirror. “Yes, a call girl. A very expensive one, I might add.”
“Were you any good?”
She smiled smugly. “The best.”
Wide awake now, John Lee rolled to his side, propping an elbow on the mattress and his cheek on his palm as he looked at her. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine Merideth playing the part of a high-priced prostitute. With those pouty lips, that voluptuous figure and those sultry eyes, she would be a natural for the part.
A woman like her could drive a man wild...and did, he was sure.
Of course, she’d had years of practice to prepare for the part. Even as a teenager she’d been aware of her feminine wiles and had honed them to a razor-sharp edge on her unsuspecting male classmates. Fights were fought over her, bets made and lost as to who would win her heart. But even though she’d had her pick of the guys, he couldn’t remember her ever having a steady boyfriend. He supposed it was because she’d enjoyed all the attention too much to sacrifice it for the love of just one man.
Three years her senior, John Lee had never competed with the others for her attention. He’d never needed to. He’d had his hands full keeping all the girls who’d chased after him satisfied. But he’d been aware of her, just the same.
Any other woman undergoing as close a scrutiny as John Lee was giving her right now might have fidgeted and fussed, but not Merideth. She was way too sure of herself to squirm. She met his gaze squarely, confidently and maybe a bit cockily.
“The best, huh?” he said, eyeing her.
“The very best.”
“What was your specialty?”
She laughed at his question, that low sultry laugh of hers that crawled along a man’s nerves and tightened his groin.
“I wasn’t the star in some porno flick, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she told him. “It was daytime television. In fact, as I recall, there was actually only one scene with a john. Monique, the character I play, or rather played,” she amended, frowning as she remembered that the part was no longer hers. Marcus had stripped her of it, just before—She stanched the thought before it could fully form, not wanting to think about the past and all she’d lost. “Anyway,” she went on, “Monique had a dual personality that surfaced from time to time. She was the wife of a successful doctor, and her alter ego, Charise, was the prostitute. Unfortunately—”
While she rattled on with her synopsis of the story line and the description of her character, John Lee only half listened, his attention stolen by the movement of her lips.
She had a delectable mouth. Full and soft, the points of her upper lip’s bow sharp and well-defined. He wondered what those lips would feel like pressed against his, moving in a slow sensual mating of taste and texture. As he watched, mesmerized, her lips parted and her tongue slipped out to trace a line along her upper lip, wetting it. Her tongue bumped that little tight bow at the center of her upper lip and John Lee had to bite back a groan.
He knew it was a mistake, knew that he might very well be jeopardizing the arrangement that he’d made with Merideth to look after Cassie, but even knowing this, he couldn’t resist the temptation to taste her.
Throwing a leg over hers, he hooked his knee behind her thighs and drew her to her side and closer to him. Instinctively, her hands went to his chest and braced there. “John Lee! What are you—”
But before she could fully form the question, he closed his mouth over hers. Satin, he thought, cool, soft satin and a taste as sweet as any he could have imagined. He traced the shape of her lips with his tongue, warming them, then flicked its pointed tig at the bow, teasing her lips apart.
“John Lee!”
His name came to him on a rush of warm, moist air that sent heat shooting through him. “Yeah, sugar?” he whispered as he flattened a hand on her butt and curled himself around her.
“What are you doing?”
“Tasting you.” To prove it, he raked his fingers through her hair and knotted them to draw her face to his. The movement brought his arm across her body and his elbow grazed her breast. She sucked in a shocked breath at the intimate contact, her lips parted beneath his. Always a man to take an advantage of an opportunity, John Lee slid his tongue in the opening. He smoothed it across her teeth, then probed deeper, sweeping across the velvet surface of her tongue, then higher to tease the roof of her mouth. He felt her fingers curl into fists against his chest and felt the quickening of her breath in the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath his arm.
He smiled against her lips. Yeah, she could drive a man wild, all right. He was beginning to feel a little bit crazy himself.
When he shifted to deepen the kiss, she shifted too, drawing her knee up intimately against his crotch. He groaned against her mouth, finding the pressure unbelievably erotic.
“John Lee?” she whispered, her voice a low seductive purr.
“Yeah, sugar?”
“Can you feel that?” she asked and rubbed her knee suggestively against him.
“Oh, yeah, baby,” he replied huskily. “That feels good.”
“I’m glad,” she said, her voice as smooth as silk, “because you’re fixing to feel it in your throat.”
He grunted when her knee connected soundly with his crotch, and reared back to look at her in surprise. Blue eyes blazed, piercing his.
Angrily she shoved at his chest. “Get off of me,” she demanded through gritted teeth.
Not sure what he’d done to upset her, but knowing her well enough to know that she wouldn’t hesitate to make good her threat, John Lee untangled his fingers from her hair and his legs from around her body, keeping his movements slow and careful.
When he rolled away from her, she jackknifed to a sitting position and jerked her blouse back into place. Twisting at the waist, she glared at him. “Taste me!” she all but spat at him. “As if I’m some morsel of food to be savored.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously, she rolled to her knees, planting her hands on the mattress between them.
“For your information, I am not one of those bimbos whose pictures you’ve hung on the wall in your den like some kind of sexual trophies. I—”
“Now wait just a damn minute,” he began defensively, “those women—”
“You don’t have to tell me about those women,” Merideth replied scathingly. “I know the type. Groupies who’d drop their pom-poms in a heartbeat for a chance to hop into bed with you or one of your studly friends.” She rose to her knees, her breasts heaving, her eyes wild as she glared down at him. “They may enjoy your kinky mirrors,” she said, flinging a hand in the direction of the ceiling, “and they may get some kind of orgasmic thrill from being pawed by you, but I don’t!”
“Pawed?” John Lee repeated, pushing himself to an elbow.
“Yes, pawed!” She scooted off the bed and stood, her hands braced at her hips. “And if you think that I’m going to spend the next several months dodging your passes, you’ve got another think coming.”
Where he was confused before, now John Lee was mad. Damn mad. No one challenged his prowess as a lover. No one. Not even Merideth McCloud. He rolled off the bed and to his feet.
Merideth knew he was angry, could see it in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. Never was she more aware of his size or his strength, than at that moment. Yet, it was neither of those things that frightened her. It was his voice. When he spoke it was with a deathly calm.
“I don’t know what kind of men you’ve dealt with in the past,” he said as he took a menacing step toward her. “And I don’t know how they go about showing a woman they find her attractive, nor what they call it when they do.” He took another step and Merideth found herself backed up against the wall.
Bracing a hand at either side of her head, he leaned over her, pushing his face up close to hers. “But, sugar, where I come from, when a man is attracted to a woman, he lets her know by kissing her.” Before Merideth could stop him, he’d closed his mouth over hers and thrust his tongue deeply into her mouth.
The capture was so complete, so unexpected, she felt her knees weaken, her heart slam against her ribs.
“And sometimes even touching her,” he murmured against her mouth. To demonstrate, he slipped a hand between them and smoothed his palm across her breast.
Though she stiffened, willing herself not to respond, the heat, the friction of his hand burned through her, and her nipple hardened beneath his palm and began to ache.
He drew his head back just far enough to meet her eyes. “You Yankees might call it pawing,” he said, his eyes burning into hers, “but down here in Texas, we call it foreplay.” With his gaze still locked on hers, he withdrew his hand. She closed her eyes and dragged in a shuddering breath, then opened them to find him still watching her.
“But don’t you worry that pretty little head of yours about me making any more passes at you,” he told her. He pushed away from the wall and from her. “I prefer my women willing and warm.”
“Willing and warm,” Merideth muttered viciously. Rearing back, she threw an armload of shoes into the closet, then kicked the door closed behind them. “As if I’m not.”
She whipped the skirt of her robe aside to keep it from tangling around her bare legs as she whirled for the bed. With a disregard for the delicate fabrics scattered there, she raked her clothes to the floor, then flopped down on her back and flung her arms wide.
The mirror above her offered a full view of the king-size bed with its padded headboard of black-and-white cowhide, its yards of downy black satin and its cowhide throw. If ever a room deserved the tag “love nest,” this one did. She could almost see John Lee rolling around beneath the mirror with one of his bimbos, naked, his body slick with perspiration.
“Pervert,” she muttered, and turned to her stomach and away from the upsetting image.
Fisting her hands beneath her chin, she stared at her reflection on the opposite wall, still angry with John Lee for suggesting she was frigid. She wasn’t frigid, she told herself. She just didn’t like surprises, that was all, and John Lee had definitely caught her off guard when he’d made that pass at her. She liked control, felt safe with it, and didn’t like it when someone snatched it from her hands. And John Lee had definitely done that.
She groaned and dropped her head, pressing her forehead against her fists, remembering the shock she’d felt when he’d first wrapped his leg around her and pulled her to him. Before she could even take a breath, his mouth had covered hers, drawing her in, stripping her bare of her defenses.
Yes, his kiss had been devastating, his touch electrifying... but she hadn’t been expecting it, hadn’t been prepared for the depth of her response. So she’d struck out at him, clawing at him, fighting for the control that she’d lost and so desperately needed.
She’d overreacted, and, in doing so, made a fool of herself. A big bumbling fool.
Groaning, she lifted her face and propped her chin on her fists again to stare miserably at her reflection. She didn’t like looking like a fool, any more than she liked losing control. But what could she do about it now?
She supposed she could apologize, explain to John Lee that her response to him was simply a reflexive action, a defense mechanism. But if she apologized, then that would be the same as admitting that she’d done something wrong, that she’d made a mistake, and that didn’t sit well with Merideth, either. Especially since John Lee had insulted her by insinuating that she was frigid.
Frigid. Hah! She was anything but frigid. Her body’s response to his first kiss was proof enough of that. But of course he didn’t know he’d made her toes curl, her heart nearly jump out of her chest. All he’d seen was her anger.
And that second kiss! A shiver chased down her spine as she remembered the heat in it, the feel of his hand on her breast, her nipple budding beneath it.
He’d said he was attracted to her—she distinctly remembered him telling her so—and that his actions were a result of that attraction. He’d even gone so far as to label them foreplay.
Foreplay. The word itself was seductive, suggestive and when demonstrated by John Lee, devastating—which in itself was a surprise. In all the years she’d known John Lee, she’d never considered him romantically. He was simply a friend, nothing more. But now she was forced to reconsider.
She cocked her head and studied her reflection thoughtfully. Given the proper setting, the right mood, she might actually enjoy pursuing that “attraction,” as he’d called it, and experiencing a little more of his unique brand of foreplay.
But don’t you worry that pretty little head of yours about me making any more passes at you. I prefer my women willing and warm.
She frowned, her fists tightening beneath her chin as his last words came to mind. Dam it! She wanted him to make another pass at her.
But he wouldn’t. Not after the scene she’d made.
She narrowed her eyes as she considered the situation. She’d just have to prove to him that she was warm and willing, she decided. Of course, she couldn’t make the first move. Her pride simply wouldn’t let her. But she knew how to draw a man’s attention. She knew how to flirt. In no time at all, she’d have him panting after her, begging to kiss her again.
Pleased with herself and her plan, she rose from the bed, feeling energized. Picking up the clothes she’d strewn on the floor, she tossed them on the bed and began to fold them. A cry from the other room had her dropping them again.
Cassie had awakened from her nap.
“Coming, darling,” she sang cheerfully as she all but sailed for the nursery door.
Merideth heard the kitchen door swing open behind her and glanced over her shoulder. “Good morning, John Lee,” she said in greeting.
He froze at the sight of her, his eyes going wide. Merideth lifted a hand, pressing her fingertips into the bare cleavage her nightgown left exposed between her breasts, intentionally drawing his gaze there. “I’m sorry,” she said, all wide-eyed innocence. “I didn’t realize you were up. If I’d known, I would’ve thrown on a robe.”
It was a lie, of course. She’d planned her early-morning visit to the kitchen on purpose, hoping to bump into John Lee before he left for the day. She’d chosen her nightgown with the same goal in mind.
Designed for seduction, the gown’s fabric was sheer, but not transparent, merely hinting at the curves beneath. Lace panels, no more than four inches in width, stretched in soft gathers from the gown’s empire waist from front to back, were all that covered her breasts.
She watched John Lee’s Adam’s apple bob convul-sively, his hands clench at his sides, and silently applauded herself. Yes, she definitely knew how to grab a man’s attention.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” she asked, cocking her head in question. When he didn’t answer, but continued to stare at her breasts, she took a step toward him. “John Lee?”
His head snapped up, his gaze hitting hers. “What?”
She smiled sweetly, innocently. “I asked if you would like a cup of coffee.”
He swallowed again, and Merideth could tell it was an effort for him to keep his gaze from dropping to her breasts again. “N-no,” he stammered. “I don’t have time.”
“Oh?” She sidled closer, her nightgown whispering around her legs. “And where are you off to so early this morning?”
“I—I—” He cleared his throat. “I’ve got to drive into Austin and pick up a tractor part.”
She reached up and brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his shirtfront. His body jerked spasmodically at her touch and Merideth had to bite back a smug smile.
“You be careful, now, you hear?” she told him, her voice dripping honey. “That traffic can be beastly at this hour.” Giving his cheek an affectionate pat, she puckered her lips and blew him a kiss, then swept past him and through the swinging door.
John Lee dumped the box of parts on the workbench in the barn and glanced around, looking for Bill, his foreman and sometime mechanic.
“Bill!” he yelled, anxious to get the part in place and the tractor back out in the hay field. He waited, listening, but the only sound that came to him was the purr of the barn cat that was currently wrapping itself around his legs.
He gave the cat an impatient nudge with his foot. “Where is everybody?” he muttered irritably as he strode from the barn. Once outside, he stopped and looked around, expecting to at least find his wranglers about their chores. But he didn’t see a soul, which slapped a thick coat of icing on an already lousy cake of a day.
It had all started earlier that morning in the kitchen when he’d bumped into Merideth wearing that bit of nothing. Hell, he admitted silently, his bad mood had started before then. It had begun the evening before when she’d gone ballistic on him, and all over an innocent little kiss. The way she’d carried on, a person would think he’d tried to assault her or something, when all he’d done and intended to do, was taste her. She’d aroused his curiosity and he’d just wanted to ease it, nothing more.
Oh, and he’d tasted her, all right, he remembered as he headed for the house. But he hadn’t come close to satisfying his curiosity. If anything, he’d given himself more to wonder about, to fantasize over. Like what it would be like to peel off her clothes real slow, and what her skin would feel like bare, rubbing against his.
Just thinking about it made his pulse kick, his groin tighten. Angry with himself for even giving her a second thought, he yanked open the kitchen door.
At the sound, Mrs. Baker turned from the stove, a wooden spoon dripping in her hand.
“Have you seen Bill?” he asked irritably. “His truck’s out by the barn, but I can’t find him anywhere.”
With a sniff, Mrs. Baker tipped up her chin and went back to her stirring. “That woman has him.”
“Merideth?”
She lifted the spoon and whacked it against the side of the pan, sending juice flying, her disapproval of Merideth obvious. “Him and a few others, as well. Has them all dancing to her tune. Mark my words,” she said, turning to shake the spoon at John Lee. “You’ll rue the day you brought her here. She’ll be the ruination of ’em all before its over.”
John Lee pressed his finger and thumb on the bridge of his nose and squeezed. He didn’t need this right now. He knew Mrs. Baker didn’t like Merideth. She’d already made her position on that crystal clear.
He heaved a deep breath. “Where are they?” he asked, dropping his hand.
She flung an arm in the direction of the swinging door. “Back yonder. Has ’em tearing the place apart. Told ’em their other chores could wait.”
John Lee’s temper soared at the news. “Oh, she did, did she?” Setting his jaw, he ripped off his hat and sent it sailing toward the counter where it hit a pie pan and landed with a clatter. “Well, we’ll just see about that.”
Marching across the room, he hit the swinging door with the flat of his hand and sent it rocking back on its hinges. As he passed through the den, he heard the murmur of male voices and the husky. sound of Merideth’s laughter, and his anger climbed a notch higher.
Pulling his men from their jobs, he fumed silently. She probably had them lugging her suitcases for her and helping her unpack. Spoiled little brat. Well, he’d set her straight real quick. His men were wranglers, not lady’s maids.
When he reached the master bedroom, he found Bill, his foreman, standing on a ladder at one corner of the room, holding a wire in his hand, while Rudy, one of his wranglers, was perched similarly in the opposite comer, holding the other end. The remainder of the wire was hidden behind the mirror that covered the wall. Dumbfounded, John Lee watched while the two men sawed the wire back and forth, their faces reddening with the effort.
“What in Sam Hill is going on in here?” he roared.
Bill jumped, nearly losing his footing, and grabbed for the top of the ladder to keep from falling. The red in his face deepened when he saw John Lee. “Uh, hi, boss.”
John Lee took another step into the room. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Well, me and Rudy here,” Bill explained, gesturing to the man on the other ladder, “was trying to bring down this mirror for Miss Merideth.”
At that moment, the woman in question breezed through the open nursery door. Dressed in khaki shorts that barely covered her butt and a peach-colored tank top that hugged her breasts like a second skin, she beamed at John Lee.
“Hi,” she greeted him cheerfully. “I thought I heard your voice.” She turned her smile on Bill and batted those big baby blues. “Would you do an itsy-bitsy favor for me?”
Bill was scrambling down the ladder, tripping all over himself in his haste to help her. And no wonder, John Lee thought angrily. A woman like Merideth, especially dressed as she was, was hard to say no to when she turned on the charm.
He stuck out a hand, planting it against Bill’s chest, stopping him. “Two seconds, Merideth,” he said angrily, glaring at her. “That’s all the time I’m giving you to explain what the hell’s going on here.”
She spread her arms wide, her smiling broadening. “We’re decorating the nursery.” She quickly stepped to the side to make way for the leather couch that appeared in the doorway behind her, carried by two of the other wranglers.
“Excuse me, boss,” Joe murmured as he squeezed past John Lee.
Billy, who supported the other end, merely nodded a bashful greeting as he passed by.
Speechless, John Lee watched the men disappear with his couch. It was a full second before he could move, but when he did, he was barreling across the room, headed for what he once considered his private domain. He braced his hands against the door frame to peer inside.
The couch where he liked to kick back with a cold beer and watch old game videos on the giant screen TV wasn’t the only item he found missing. The TV was gone, too, as was the entertainment center that usually held it. Walls that had once been covered with pictures and trophy-laden shelves attesting to his successful career as a star quarterback were stripped bare.
Gone. All of it gone. All the things he’d collected over the years. All the furniture and electronic equipment he’d selected with such painstaking care for the sole purpose of his own pleasure and entertainment. The only items left in the room were Cassie’s crib and the box that held her clothes.
Merideth strolled past him, paint samples fanned in front of her face. “I’m thinking a pale yellow,” she said, cocking her head first to one side then the other as she eyed them critically. “What do you think?”
It was all John Lee could do to keep from closing his hands around her throat and strangling her. “Where is my stuff?”
“In the garage,” she replied absently as she angled the samples toward the sunshine streaming through the bare window for a better look. “I’ll make arrangements to have it put in storage later.”
“Like hell you will!”
Surprised by his angry tone, Merideth turned to look at him. “Excuse me?”
“I want my stuff put back exactly where you found it and I mean now.”
Merideth inclined her head, her forehead furrowed in confusion. “But I thought this was to be Cassie’s nursery?”
“It is.”
“But you can’t keep your things in here, too,” she argued. “There’s simply not room.”
“The hell I can’t.”
At his obstinate tone, she folded her arms across her breasts, and looked at him, her disapproval obvious. “Surely you don’t expect Cassie to continue to live out of a box and to sleep with her crib shoved into a comer just so that you can keep all your little toys nearby?”
“She doesn’t seem to mind,” he replied. “Far as I can tell, she’s been getting along just fine with our current arrangement.”
“While you have every comfort and every luxury imaginable,” Merideth reminded him pointedly. “A king-size bed and dresser, a walk-in closet, a private bath.”
Though he tried to dodge them, the implications of his selfishness hit him square in the chest. He shifted uncomfortably, and finally stuck his hands deep into his pockets. “Like I said,” he mumbled, “she doesn’t seem to mind.”
Merideth cocked her head to peer at him, her gaze turning skeptical. “This isn’t a temporary arrangement, is it? I mean, you do intend to keep Cassie and raise her as your own, don’t you?”
“Well, of course I do!” he blustered indignantly. “What would make you ask a crazy thing like that?”
She shrugged and unfolded her arms to put the paint samples in her pocket. “Because Cassie’s presence here seems so...so temporary,” she finished futilely. She gestured around the room. “A cardboard box for her clothes. A hand-me-down crib. Is this how you intend to provide for her?”
As he looked at each of the items, he realized how meager they looked, how pathetic, especially now that his furniture and equipment was no longer there to disguise their crudeness. The guilt ate a little deeper into his chest.
But it wasn’t as if he’d chosen them for her, he told himself defensively. The box holding the baby’s clothes was the one Sissy had brought with her when she’d shown up with Cassie in tow, and the crib—a cast-off from one of his friend’s kids—had been drafted into service when Sissy had taken off, leaving Cassie behind.
But Merideth was right, he admitted grudgingly. Cassie deserved better. But damned if he could bring himself to admit it to her. He rammed his hands deeper into his pockets, and set his jaw. “She’s a baby,” he muttered. “What does she care what she sleeps in or where?”
To his surprise, instead of berating him further, Merideth crossed to stand beside him and slipped her arm through his. Her touch was light, but heat curled through him at the contact.
“Oh, John Lee,” she murmured in a voice soft with compassion. “Just think of all the changes Cassie’s had to adjust to in her short life. Judging from what you’ve told me, she’s never known a real home, not with Sissy moving around all the time. Then to lose her mother, the only constant in her life.”
She sighed and leaned against him, resting her head against his arm. “Imagine how terrifying all this must seem to her, to be left here with you and Mrs. Baker, and now me, surrounded by virtual strangers and unfamiliar things.”
Though the scenario she painted was heartbreaking, John Lee was having a hard time focusing on anything but the warmth, the pressure of the body against his, the drugging scent of the perfume that wafted beneath his nose.
While he struggled to keep his mind fixed on the conversation at hand and not on the lustful thoughts that were forming, Merideth leaned back and tipped her face up to his. “She needs permanence, John Lee. She needs to know that her stay here isn’t just temporary. She needs her own room, her own things. She needs to be surrounded with little-girl things, not a grown man’s toys.” She hugged his arm to her, holding it against her breast. “You’ll give her those things, won’t you? Please tell me you will.”
John Lee had to give himself a firm mental shake to focus on the question and not on the enticing swell of breast pressed against his arm, on the blue eyes that looked up at him so pleadingly.
Of course he’d give Cassie those things, he told himself. He’d give her the whole damn house if he thought she needed it, or even wanted it. He adored her, and had since the moment he’d first laid eyes on her.
“All right,” he replied gruffly. “The room’s hers.”
Merideth squealed and flung her arms around his neck. “You are the best, John Lee Carter! The absolute best!”
Shocked at first by her exuberant display of gratitude, John Lee quickly recovered enough to wind his arms around her. When he did, she melted against him. Threading her fingers through his hair, she lifted her face to his.
A gentle smile played at her lips as she gazed up at him, her eyes all soft and warm, and John Lee forgot all about that promise he’d given her the day before about not making any more passes. With a low groan, he dipped his face to hers and slid his hands to the cheeks of her butt, drawing her intimately to him as he closed his mouth over hers. The taste was there, just as he remembered it, only maybe sweeter this time, hotter.
But just as he shifted to deepen the kiss, a rending sound came from the master bedroom. He snapped up his head in alarm, tearing his lips from Merideth’s. A crash and the sound of glass shattering followed.
Jerking free of Merideth, he bolted for the door and found Bill on the ladder, holding one end of the wire, while Rudy stood on the other, holding the opposite end. On the floor between them lay long, jagged shards of mirror.
John Lee’s anger returned with a vengeance. Distracted first by the discovery of his gutted study, then by Merideth’s warm and willing body, he’d forgotten all about Bill and Rudy and Merideth’s instructions to them to remove the mirror from his bedroom wall. God only knew what else of his the woman planned to destroy.
“Good job, guys! I knew you could get it down.”
He whirled to find Merideth standing behind him, smiling her praise at the two men.
He sucked in a breath, blinded by a rage that threatened to consume him. He should have known she had an ulterior motive when she’d cuddled up against him so willingly, especially after the fit she’d pitched the day before when he’d tried to kiss her. She’d probably thought that if she kept him occupied long enough, Rudy and Bill would have time to do her dirty work for her.
Well, she might have played him for a fool once, but not again.
He took a step toward her, narrowing his eyes as he bore down on her. “I may be willing to give up my study for Cassie, but this room,” he said, stabbing a finger at the floor, “is mine, and nobody—and I do mean nobody—changes a thing. Understand?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned to glare at his men. “And if either one of you so much as lays a finger on that mirror on the ceiling, you’ll be riding fence line for a month.”
Merideth’s mouth dropped open. “Surely you don’t expect me to sleep beneath that hideous mirror?” she cried indignantly.
He slowly turned to look at her, his upper lip curling in a snarl. “Whether you choose to sleep under it or not is up to you. The mirror stays.”
“But—”
John Lee lifted a finger in warning and Merideth snapped her mouth shut. Folding her arms across her breasts, she pursed her lips firmly together and glared at him.
He lowered his hand. “Now that we understand each other,” he said, satisfied that he’d made his point. “I think it’s time we all got back to work.”
He turned to his men. “Bill, that tractor part you needed is waiting in the barn, and Rudy, I believe you’ve got some hay to haul.” Without another word to Merideth, he strode for the door, both men following him.
“Understand each other, my foot,” Merideth muttered under her breath as she watched the three men disappear into the hall. Avoiding the broken mirror, she marched to the phone and punched in a number.
Raking back her hair, she waited impatiently through three rings.
“Thomas,” she purred at the sound of the male voice who answered. “It’s Merideth, darling. Yes, it’s been a long time,” she replied, smiling. She wound the length of cord around her wrist, anxious to get to the point of her call. “Listen, darling, I find myself desperately in need of your creative touch. Would it be possible for you to drop by this afternoon? No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not at the Double-Cross. I’m at John Lee Carter’s. You know where his ranch is located, don’t you? Good,” she replied when he’d confirmed that he did. “About three? I’ll see you then, darling.”
Pleased with herself, Merideth dropped the phone back onto its base.
She tipped back her head and smiled at her reflection in the mirrored ceiling above the bed. “We’ll just see who understands who, Mr. John Lee Carter,” she said smugly.