Denim and Lace (13 page)

Bess had tautened with the first shock of his touch, but almost at once the intimacy overwhelmed her. Sensations piled on each other, the feel of his lips for the first time, the steely hardness of his chest and stomach and thighs against her, the rough demand of his mouth as it grew slower and rougher on the trembling of her soft lips. She felt his arms sliding even more closely around her yielding body, felt him groan softly as his lean hand slid down her back and pulled her close. And then she felt the full force of his sudden arousal, and her breath caught at the undisguised need. It was the first time in her life that she'd ever known such intimacy with a man, but it didn't frighten her. She gave in to him without the tiniest struggle, all her longing for him reflected in the clinging warmth of her arms around his hard waist, the response of her shy mouth.

She could hear his rough breathing mingling with the loudness of her own heartbeat as they kissed in the silence of the apartment. Whatever his reason, even anger, it was the sweetest pleasure in the world to feel his mouth moving on her lips, to have him holding her against his taut, muscular body. He might not have wanted her three years ago, but he wanted her now.

Heaven, she thought, after all the years of loneliness, of aching need. He was slow and very expert, and she loved the feel of his arms, the close contact with his hard, fit body. He smelled of spicy cologne and leather, and she thought that if she died now, she'd have had all life could offer. This was Cade, and she loved him more than the air she breathed. She relaxed into his taut body and let him kiss her, savoring every breathless second of the hard mouth slowly penetrating her own.

But even as she reveled in the crush of his mouth, she knew that she was going to have to stop him soon. He thought she was a tramp. He thought her mother was responsible for his father's death. There were too many reasons why she couldn't afford the luxury of letting him carry her to bed, even if her body was resisting reason.

“No,” she whispered halfheartedly, pushing at his hard chest.

“Be still,” he breathed into her mouth. “I won't hurt you,” he whispered, and his mouth gentled. “Bess, I want you. Oh, God, I want you so much, honey...”

He was losing control, second by second. His lean hands slid lower on her hips and pulled her up hard against the arch of his body, and his breath caught at the feel of all that sweet softness so close to him, even as her soft moan kindled fires in his blood.

For one long second she gave in to him, let him feel the hungry response of her lips, the sinuous warmth of her body. She was starving for the touch of him, for the hard warmth of his mouth on hers. Dreams came alive while he fed on her soft lips. She looked up and saw his dark brows knit, his eyes closed, thick black lashes on his cheeks as he pulled her even closer. He looked as desperate as she felt, and she closed her eyes and savored the fierce ardor that made her weak-kneed and breathless. She let him mold her to his hardness without fear. It was as natural as loving him to feel joy in his need of her, to glory in his response to her femininity.

But she had to stop him, because she could sense that he wasn't quite in control. He thought she'd already had a lover, for which she could thank her mother, and because of that suspicion, he wouldn't try to pull back. If she didn't get away, it would be too late to stop him in a very few minutes. She could feel a faint tremor in his arms already, and the arousal of his lean body was becoming more and more urgent.

“I can't, Cade,” she whispered against his hard mouth, forcing herself to sound convincing this time.

“Why can't you?” he demanded, his breath quick and hard on her moistened lips. “Because I'm not rich enough?” he demanded, feeling a sense of anguish as he said it.

His mouth searched for hers again, but what he'd said had given her strength to get away. She ducked her head to avoid his lips, pulled out of his arms, and moved back. She was shaking from the double effect of his unexpected ardor and her own knowledge of her mother's betrayal of her father.

“Why?” he asked, his voice still a little shaken with the force of his ardor.

“Not like this,” she whispered. “You're angry...”

“Not angry enough to hurt you,” he said gruffly. “Not even if you were still the virgin you were three years ago.”

“You laughed at me then,” she said with a choke. “You showed me that you didn't want me...!”

His expression hardened. “I had to!” he said curtly. “It was even more impossible then than it is now. You were rich and I wasn't. I couldn't encourage you, but you almost made me lose my head. I had to make you stop flirting with me, and the only way to do it was to convince you that you left me cold. It took more self-control than I thought I had,” he said, finishing wearily. “My God, I wanted you! I still do.” He moved toward her. “And you want me. So no more games.”

She knew he wouldn't stop this time. And once he touched her, she wouldn't want to stop him. She had to get away. Her hand reached behind her on the coffee table for her purse and she darted to the door, jerking it open.

“There's no need to run,” he said, his eyes dark with desire and faint contempt. “You've wanted me for years, just as I've wanted you. We might as well satisfy each other. The only reason I held back this long was because you were a virgin.”

She stared at him quietly. “Only...because of that?” she asked.

“Why else?” He moved closer, the faint scent of his cologne making her head spin as he stopped just in front of her, one lean hand touching her mouth, tracing it. “You and I were always worlds apart socially,” he said bitterly. “I couldn't seduce a virgin, even to satisfy an obsessive hunger. But you don't have that restriction anymore, and I want you like hell. So come here, honey, and let's see how good we can be together.”

“I don't want that,” she stammered, backing through the open door.

“Why not?” he asked mockingly. “I can't marry someone like you—especially not with the past between us—but there's no reason we can't have each other. Not now that you're earning your money the hard way. And to think I believed you that first night you went out with Ryker,” he added coldly. “I actually believed that you'd never let anyone touch you except me! Did you even love me, or was that just an act? Did you laugh behind your hand, thinking you could play me for a fool because you had money and I didn't?”

Tears stung her eyes. “How can you believe those things about me?” she whispered brokenly.

“How can I believe otherwise?” he shot back. “Your own mother said—”

“You're so quick to believe her, when you know she hates you, that she doesn't want me to even associate with you! You want to believe those things, don't you, Cade?” she cried. “You want to believe them because all you want from me is sex! Oh, what does it matter?” she moaned, hearing all her dreams torn to pieces. She'd loved him, and now he was confessing that all it had ever been with him was desire! “I can't take any more of you or my mother! I can't take any more!” She ran through the open doorway.

“Where do you think you're going at this hour of the night?” he called harshly, suddenly struck by the apparent hysteria on her face.

“As far away from you as I can get!” she burst out, heading for the staircase that led down to the parking lot.

“Bess!” he burst out. He hadn't expected her to bolt and run. He went out the door after her, without considering how much his pursuit might affect her.

She panicked. She didn't know what he might do, and she couldn't let him overwhelm her with his ardor. He'd find out how innocent she was the hard way, but his conscience would force him to marry her. She didn't want him that way. Her mother had really fixed things this time, she thought miserably. She'd never forgive Gussie for this!

Gussie. As she ran, she saw the utter hopelessness of the future. She was going to be landed with her mother again. There would be no more peace, no more freedom. She was going to be hog-tied and owned, working herself to death to support Gussie's spending, and now that she understood Cade's reasons for hating her mother, she knew that it would have been impossible for him ever to have cared about her. She'd been living in a fool's paradise. It had just come abruptly to an end, thanks to Gussie and to Cade's own admission that it was only desire on his part, and she couldn't face it.

She ran for her small car and jumped in, locking the door. She drove out of the parking lot wildly because she could see Cade running toward her. She was too weak to last through another round of his ardent lovemaking, and she couldn't hide what she felt any longer. He was out for revenge and he'd only humiliate her again. It was only sex he wanted. He'd said so. He didn't love her, he never had, never would. He only wanted her. She couldn't bear it, she couldn't...!

She pulled out into traffic just as a speeding car rounded a corner and plowed right into the driver's side of her car. There was a sound of breaking glass and a hard thud, and a lightning bolt of pain. And then, nothing.

Cade reached the car seconds later. His face was white, his eyes so black that the driver of the car that had struck Bess's got out and ran for his life. But Cade didn't follow him. He fought to get the door open, but he couldn't. Bess was trapped in crushed metal. He couldn't get the other door open either. Somewhere voices rushed in on him, other hands helped, but they still couldn't free her. She was bleeding, and he knew with terrible certainty that she was badly hurt. Someone called an ambulance, and Cade began to pray.

CHAPTER NINE

C
ADE
DIDN
'
T
KNOW
how he stayed sane through the next few hours. Bess was cut out of the car by the local rescue unit and taken immediately to the nearest hospital emergency room. She was in a coma, with internal injuries and severe bleeding. The doctor was as kind as he could be, but the fact was she might die. Comas were unpredictable, and medical science was simply helpless. Either she'd come out of it or she wouldn't. It was in God's hands.

He sat in the intensive-care waiting room, smoking like a furnace, until his mother and Gussie got there.

“Has there been any change?” Gussie asked, looking pale and worried.

“None,” Cade said curtly. He didn't look up.

“How did it happen?” Gussie asked without really expecting an answer. “A car wreck, you said, but she's such a careful driver. I didn't even know she had a car.” She buried her face in her hands and cried helplessly. “My poor baby.”

“It's all right, Gussie,” Elise said gently, comforting her. “Cade, can they do anything?”

He shook his dark head. He didn't look at his mother, because she knew him too well. He didn't want her to see his anguish.

“I just don't understand why she was out driving in the middle of the night,” Gussie said in a choked voice. “She never went out at night. She wouldn't even go out with men...”

Cade's head jerked up and he stared at Gussie with barely concealed fury. “She wouldn't? That isn't what you said at Lariat!” he reminded her harshly, too cut up himself to worry about Gussie's feelings, if she had any. “You said she and Ryker were close.”

She looked at him through red, puffy eyes, aware of Elise's pointed stare. “I hoped they would be,” she faltered. “I haven't seen her for several weeks, you know. They might have been close.” She ground her teeth together. “All right, I lied, hoping that you'd think she had someone so that you'd stay away from her. You're the last man on earth she needs. All of us know how Bess feels about you,” she muttered defensively. “She worships the ground you walk on, but you'd walk all over her. She doesn't have the spirit to stand up to you.”

“I'm not blind,” Cade returned curtly. He glanced at Gussie and then away, but not before Gussie got a look at his eyes.

Gussie stopped sniffing and simply looked at him. His face was as tormented as she imagined her own was. Why, he cared about Bess! She'd never stopped hating him long enough to consider his feelings, but they were written all over him now.

She almost reached out to him. Almost. But there had been too many bad feelings between them over the years. She wondered what he would say if he knew that her letting him think she'd been with his father that day had kept a devastating secret from him as well as from Elise—and that the truth would hurt him every bit as much as it would hurt his mother.

“I thought she was letting Ryker keep her,” Cade said, grinding out his words. “The fancy apartment, that fox jacket...”

Gussie took a deep breath. “She doesn't have a fox jacket,” she said.

“She does. I saw her with it in town!”

She stared at him. “It was mine. At least I bought it.” She lowered her eyes. “She took it back to the store. After she threw me out of the apartment,” she added tightly, her face coloring. “That's why I went to Jamaica, because it was the only place I could go. She has a good job now, she could afford fox if she wanted it, but she said she wasn't supporting me. I went to Jamaica and then, when the welcome ran out, I had no place to go. If it hadn't been for Elise...” She looked past him at the other woman, and a long, quiet look passed between them. “I'll never forget what your mother did for me, Cade. Even though I know I don't deserve it.”

Cade gaped at her. He knew his face had gone white. He'd accused Bess of something she hadn't done, he'd deliberately hurt her, and needlessly. He'd sent her into the path of that oncoming car. She might die, and it would be his fault. Out of jealousy and Gussie's interference, he'd attacked her. And all the while she'd been freeing herself of her mother's domination, working to earn what she had.

“You'd been to see her, hadn't you?” Gussie asked Cade suddenly.

“Thanks to you, yes,” he returned, his heart ice-cold now from the terror of what he'd done. “You lied about Ryker.”

Gussie's eyes filled with tears. “To protect Bess. Maybe to protect myself, too,” she said miserably. “Bess thought she loved you, and I knew I'd lose her forever if she was with you.”

Cade stared down at his dusty boots. It wasn't the time for all that, for the past to start intruding again. Gussie was partly right, too. The way he felt about Bess's mother, he would have kept them apart if he could. But now he didn't have a chance in hell with Bess. After what he'd said and done to her, he'd be lucky if she ever spoke to him again. He couldn't blame Gussie without blaming himself. Bess had accused him of always thinking the worst about her, of being willing to listen to any damaging gossip about her. His own jealousy had been his biggest enemy. He should have trusted her. He should have given her a chance to tell him about the fox jacket and about her mother. But he hadn't. Now she was lying in the hospital, maybe dying, and he had to live with the fact that he'd put her there. Gussie had dug the hole and he'd pushed Bess into it. He groaned and put his head in his hands.

“She'll be all right,” Elise said gently, smoothing her hand over Cade's shoulder. She looked across at Gussie, who was weeping. “We have to believe that she'll be all right.”

“It's my fault,” Gussie whimpered. “I pushed and pushed and demanded. I never realized how overbearing I was. I expected her to take Frank's place, and how could she?”

Cade didn't answer. He lifted his head and stared sightlessly ahead of him, memories flooding his mind, mental pictures of Bess laughing, running toward him, begging for his kisses. He had to believe she'd be all right, he thought, or he'd go mad.

In his mind he could hear the angry words he'd spoken, the accusations he'd made. He'd cut Bess to pieces with what he'd said to her, denying that he had any feelings for her aside from desire, demanding that she take Gussie back. He'd even acted as if he meant to attack her, so she had every reason in the world to run. And the irony of it was that she was the last human being on earth he'd hurt deliberately. He'd been angry, but only at first. Just before she'd pulled out of his arms, they'd been sharing the most exquisite tenderness with each other. Reality, after years of empty dreams, and if she'd only known it, she'd made a mockery of his claim not to care about her. A few more minutes of that tempestuous exchange and he'd have bared his soul to her. But she hadn't thought he was going to stop, and she'd run from him. He'd made it worse by chasing her, but he'd been so afraid that she was going to get hurt. And she had anyway.

Elise, seeing his tormented expression, took pity on him. “Isn't there a chapel?” Elise asked, rising. She took Gussie's arm. “Come on, dear, let's go find it. Cade?”

He shook his head. “I'll stay here, in case they need to tell us something.” He didn't add that he'd already done, was still doing, his own share of praying. Life without Bess would lose its meaning completely. He wasn't sure if he could cope without her.

In some way that he didn't understand, Bess's adulation made him whole. It gave him strength. Now he was like a ship without a rudder, drifting without a direction. He'd worked for years to build Lariat into a successful ranch, mostly so that he'd have it to offer to Bess, if he could come to grips with the differences between them. There hadn't really been another woman in his heart, even if he'd known a few women over the years, including the divorcée whose attractions had momentarily dazzled him. And that physical attraction had only lasted as far as her bedroom. He'd seen the hardness under the beauty, and it had repelled him, along with her attitude toward sex. She liked three in a bed, but Cade only wanted two. It hadn't even bothered him when she left.

Cade glanced impatiently toward the nurses' station. He'd smoked a pack of cigarettes already, and he knew he was going to have to stop or he'd cough himself to death. But it was that or a quart of straight Kentucky bourbon, and he couldn't climb into a bottle, even if his heart was breaking in two.

He sighed wearily as he looked out the window. He hadn't told the others exactly how the accident happened because it hurt too much to admit it had been his fault. He didn't think he could live with himself if she was crippled. There had been some internal damage, the doctor had said after a preliminary examination, and a good deal of bleeding, but she'd most likely recover. Cade hadn't half heard him; he was trying to force an assurance from the doctor that she'd live.

“Excuse me...”

He turned to find a nurse watching him. She smiled gently. “She's calling for someone named Cade. Would that be you?”

His heart almost burst. She was calling for him! For the first time since the accident he was able to hope. “Yes.” He quickly put the cigarette out in the ashtray and followed the nurse into the intensive care unit, and then to the small cubicle where Bess was hooked up to all kinds of humming, buzzing, beeping machinery. There was an oxygen tube taped in her nose—to replace the one he'd seen in her mouth earlier. She was pale and there were bruises on her cheek, but her eyes were open.

“Bess!” he whispered huskily. “How are you, honey?”

I must be dead, she thought dizzily. Here was Cade looking like his world had almost ended and calling her honey.

“Cade?” she whispered.

“I'm here,” he said, almost choking on the emotion welling up in him.

“Two minutes,” the nurse said gently. “We musn't tire her.”

He nodded and moved closer to Bess, touching her bruised cheek with his hand. “I'm sorry,” he whispered. “Oh, God, honey, I'm so sorry...!”

Definitely dead, she was telling herself, or dreaming. She managed to lift one hand and put it against his lean, dark cheek. “I'm okay,” she whispered. She could hardly see him, because she was full of drugs. “Cade, I'll be okay. I don't...blame you.”

And that hurt most of all, that her first concern was for his feelings and not her own pain. He felt tears stinging his eyes and he hated his weakness almost as much as he blamed himself. He knew his face was giving him away, but he couldn't contain the guilt and fear that were raging in his mind. He brought her hand, palm up, to his mouth and kissed it.

She curled her fingers into his and gripped hard. “Am I dead?” she whispered, her eyelids drooping. “You're...my world, Cade...”

She was asleep again. Her hand slid away from his face and he clasped it tight in both of his and bent to brush his mouth so carefully over her dry lips.

“You're my world, too, little one,” he whispered brokenly. “For God's sake, don't die!”

But she didn't hear him. Not consciously. She drifted in and out for the rest of the day, aware of her mother's voice and Cade's between vivid, disturbing dreams.

Cade kept Gussie and his mother going, his own strength bolstering theirs. He still hadn't talked about how the accident had happened, and although Gussie and Elise knew that he'd somehow been involved, Gussie let it all slide after Bess was out of grave danger. But Elise was worried. Cade wasn't acting like himself, and she knew something was bothering him. He'd admitted that he'd gone to see Bess, but he was holding something back, something that was still tormenting him.

While Gussie was visiting Bess, Elise had Cade buy her a cup of coffee in the hospital coffee shop and found a corner table where they could sit and talk.

Outside in the hall, visitors and medical personnel walked past while the familiar intercom sounds and bells signaling the staff made a backdrop for the murmurings around the small white tables.

“What happened?” Elise asked gently, her dark eyes full of compassion. “I won't tell Gussie,” she added. “But I think you need to tell someone.”

He lit a cigarette, his dark eyes challenging a man nearby who was obviously a nonsmoker to say what he was thinking, before he turned his attention back to his mother. “I told her about Gussie and Dad. And I said some hard things to her, because of what Gussie had said about Bess and Jordan Ryker,” he said quietly. “She ran out of the apartment to get away from me.” He studied the cigarette with disgust. “I don't know why I smoke these damned things. Sometimes I think I do it just to make nonsmokers climb the walls.” He put out the cigarette and leaned forward to slide his lean hands around his coffee cup. “I got to her before the ambulance did,” he said. “She was trapped, and I couldn't get her out.”

Elise wanted to put her arms around him as she had when he was a small boy and hold him until he stopped hurting. But he was a man now. Cade was curiously remote about affection. She knew that he cared for her, but his father had been standoffish and undemonstrative and he'd made Cade that way, too.

“What did Gussie say to you about Bess?”

“That she was deeply involved with a rich businessman in San Antonio named Jordan Ryker.” He smiled bitterly. “She's moved to a new, more expensive apartment and she wasn't exactly welcoming when I got there. To compound it all, I saw her with a fox jacket the day I was having a business lunch in San Antonio. I accused her of letting Ryker keep her.”

Elise could almost feel his pain. “Do you really believe she would?”

“I did for a few fatal minutes,” he said curtly. “She's changed since she's been in San Antonio. From what I hear about Ryker, he's attractive to women. Bess is human, and I haven't given her much encouragement,” he added, his voice bitter. “In fact, she saw me with a business associate's wife in a perfectly innocent situation, but I let her believe I was dating the woman. I'd just seen her with that expensive jacket, and I couldn't bear the thought of her with another man. I cut her dead.” His eyes fell to the coffee, oblivious of his mother's shocked delight. “After Gussie came to the ranch and fed me more of the same, I had to see Bess, to find out for myself.”