Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (9 page)

Ben made a show of lining up his shot for a second time.  He also adjusted his hat and hiked up his pants before sending another disc swishing across the boards.  It came to rest neatly in a section marked with a seven.

“Ho, ho!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide in victory.

A coil of panic punctured Eric’s good mood at the prospect of losing.  His grin dropped.

A moment later his panic was banished by Amelia’s delighted laugh.  Instead of moping he smirked and said, “Why, I do believe that is what my mother used to refer to as a braggadocio.”

“It’s a competition, dear.”  Amelia touched his arm.  “A little swagger is appropriate.  You can’t be as serious about a game as you are about business.”

The tickle of the idea that she was up to something flared louder.

“All right then.”  He strode to change places with Ben, moving one of his blue discs to line up a shot.  “Ben, you’d better watch out.  My wife’s just given me permission to be boastful.”

He took a breath and lined up his shot, praying that he wouldn’t make a fool of himself this time.  With less power than he’d used before, he shoved his disc across the board.  To his utter amazement, it glided neatly into the top of the triangle.  He reacted with a disbelieving laugh and a woot that drew attention from the rest of the players on the deck.

“How do you like that for skill and precision?” he taunted Ben.

“Admirable, sir.  Admirable.  But let’s see if your luck can hold.  Watching these other games it looks like I have the option of knocking your piece out of that place.”

Ben swaggered his way to the foot of the board and lined up his final disc.

“Do you conduct your business with as much ruthlessness, Mr. Chase?” Amelia asked, sending Eric a mischievous look as he came to stand by her side once more.

“Always, madam,” Ben replied with a smile before setting up his shot.  “Business is a game that’s played for keeps.”

“You got that right,” Eric added with a wry laugh.

“Oh?”  Amelia batted her pretty little eyelashes at him.  She was fishing for sure, like a wildcat in a riverbed.

“Yeah,” he went on.  “You got lives on the line when you’re running a business, people that depend on you.  Every ranch hand and cowboy that works for me’s got a family that needs food on the table and clothes on their backs.  That’s why I gotta take extra care of everything we do and raise the finest cattle.”

Eric’s insides wobbled.  He hadn’t thought about the men who worked for him.  If he failed to make a deal with a supplier to keep them going from year to year he’d have to sell and Curtis would cut back.  All those men would be out of work, men he was responsible for.  And here he was bandying around words like discs flying across the boards.

“It’s your turn, Eric,” Ben bumped him out of his thoughts.

“What?  Oh.”

He walked to the end of the board, relieved that Ben hadn’t knocked his disc out of the ten spot.  He had scored an eight, however.  Without bravado this time, Eric lined up and took a shot.  His disc went sailing well right of the triangle.

“Hell.”

“What now, fair lady?” Ben asked Amelia.

“Now you switch sides and keep going from this end.”  Amelia moved to the other side of the deck where blue and red discs were scattered around the triangle.  “Tell me again, Eric, dear, what is it that makes the cattle you raise different from any others?” she asked, smooth as silk.  “I’m determined to understand the ranching business as masterfully as Eric does, Mr. Chase,” she added as Eric and Ben followed her to the other end of the deck.

“Seems your wife is driving at something,” Ben muttered to Eric with a twinkle in his eye as they walked.

“Seems that way, doesn’t it,” he replied with an equally entertained twitch of his lips.  They reached the other side of the board and Eric answered, “I raise Aberdeen Angus cattle.”

“Really?” Ben asked, and if Eric wasn’t mistaken he was impressed.  “I thought you only found them in Scotland.”

“Maybe twenty years ago,” Eric shrugged.  “But my family’s been working with them since they was first brought over to the states.  They like Montana.”

“Where do you sell them?” Ben went on.

Out of the corner of his eye Eric caught Amelia holding her breath, one hand over the round lump of her stomach.  Her eyes shone like the sun.  So that’s what she was up to.

He blinked.  By gum, she had a point.  Ben owned a supply business right over the border from him in Canada.  His pulse soared.

“We been selling to a firm in Chicago these last few years, but they haven’t given us half what they’re worth.  My cousin Curtis, who co-owns the ranch, sent me over here to England to see if I couldn’t find new business opportunities.”

“And did you?”  Ben hung on his every word.

Eric scratched his head.  The all-too familiar wave of anxiety that paralyzed him any time he came near a business deal filled up his gut again.  Any second now Ben would figure out he was an idiot and turn up his nose.

“Well, no,” he confessed.  “Seems most folks over here would rather get their Angus stock straight from Scotland instead of having it imported from the states.”

“Have you explored all of your options in North America?” Ben asked.  “Why, I’ve got retailers who would kill for Angus beef.”

“Do you now?”  Eric brightened.  He stood straighter.  His heart had worked its way up to pounding in his throat.  He glanced to Amelia, who looked like she might bust out in tears of joy, and it ratcheted up another notch.

“Absolutely.”  Ben nodded and thumped him on the back.  “Tonight after supper we’ll have a drink and talk a little more about what we can do for each other.”

A strange feeling, something Eric hadn’t experienced for ages, broke over him.  It was like taking a warm shower in pure sunlight.  It was hope.  He walked to Amelia’s side in a daze while Ben lined his discs up to take a shot.  Amelia took his arm and hugged it, leaning into him.

“Excellent shot,” she whispered.  She even winked at him.

He stared down at her with a rippling sense of disbelief.  “Did you set that up?”

She shrugged, playing coy.  “I saw an opportunity.”

Ben took his turn, sending his disc across the deck to land in a part of the triangle marked eight.  He hooted in victory.  “There you go!  Twenty-three!  I win!”

“Not so fast there, mister.”  Eric swaggered forward.  He’d never felt so confident in his life.  “I still got a chance to knock your disc out.  And there’s that minus ten space too.  The game’s not over yet.”

“You think so?” Ben ribbed him.

“I know so,” he replied.  “I’m suddenly feeling extraordinarily lucky.”

Chapter Six

Amelia paced the deck in the moonlight.  She hadn’t felt so light in years.  At that very moment Eric was closeted in the gentleman’s lounge with Benton Chase, discussing a deal that would save his ranch.  She stopped at the end of the railing, placing a hand over the bump of her stomach and looking up at the stars with a grateful sigh.

She’d been able to see the deal coming as they ate their supper.  Eric and Ben had chatted like two old school friends over everything from what they saw as ridiculous English manners to the open range of the North American west.  They had entertained the others at their table more effectively than a stage show.  But all the while there were hints and grins and inferences that the two men would be a team for far longer than the remaining days of the crossing.

Relief swirled through Amelia at the prospect.  She leaned against the railing, closing her eyes and letting the sea air touch her smiling face.  At last she had done something good.  Eric would be repaid for his amazing kindness and she could enter her new life with the assurance that she had helped the man who helped her.  She could begin anew as an honest woman.

She opened her eyes and stared forward.  Why should that thought bring with it a wave of sadness?  These last few days with Eric had been happy ones, but he was still a stranger.  A handsome, generous, charming stranger.  Just because they got along well didn’t mean she could impose on him longer than necessary.

No, she’d done what she needed to do by connecting him with Ben Chase.  If she really was going to make a fresh start, she would say goodbye to him and set out on her own as soon as they reached New York.

“There you are.”

The warm ring of Eric’s voice spun her away from the railing.  She turned to find him striding toward her in the moonlight.  Her breath caught in her throat.  He wore a simple suit the way some men would wear shining armor.  His broad shoulders and chest stood out with his hands tucked in his pockets.  He’d loosened his neck tie and unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt.  A lazy grin spread across his face but his eyes glittered with excitement.  The sea breeze ruffled his hair.  Desire spilled through her, as delicious as it was unwelcome.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”  Even Eric’s voice sent tendrils of real pleasure through her.  She swallowed
and fought to keep her smile.

“Oh?”

“Well….”  He leaned against the railing beside her.  A grin spread across his lips like a string of taffy being pulled in slow motion. “I got the deal.”

Her smile burst back to genuine joy.  “Oh Eric, I’m so happy for you!”

His cool façade melted into a laugh and he stood straight, throwing his arms wide.  “I got the deal!”

He swept her into his arms, twirling her around.  Amelia gasped in surprise and dissolved into giggles.  A few fellow passengers walking near them looked on with approving smiles.

Eric set her on her feet but kept his arms around her.  “Ben’s been looking for someone to supply quality beef to the big cities back east in Canada.  He said he can get your average run-of-the-mill beef from the western provinces, but he hasn’t been able to find anyone with Angus cattle to sell yet.  He ate up the notion of going into business with me!  And he’s actually gonna pay what each head is worth!”

“How wonderful!”  She could feel his hands around her waist through the light fabric of her dress as thoug
h he were touching her skin.

“I couldn’t have done it without you, Amelia,” he went on.

“Nonsense,” she contradicted him.  “The opportunity was there.  I’m sure you would have seen it and taken advantage of it.”  Her heart thundered.  She needed to master her lusts or she would lose everything.

“No I wouldn’t’ve.”  Eric shook his head, serious.  “Curtis is right, I’m pitiful when it comes to business.  I don’t even know why he sent me over here in the first place.  But then I found you.”  His broad grin returned.  He drew her tighter against him.  She caught her breath.  “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

Before Amelia could move or stop him he’d tilted his head down, his lips brushing hers.  She swayed into him.  For one moment he was perfectly still, then his mouth sought hers out with a power that enveloped her.  He kissed her with full passion.  His lips parted hers, taking her and tasting her.  When his tongue teased against hers she met it with wild longing.  She settled her arms around his back, threading her fingers into the short hair at the base of his head, bliss punishing her.

He hummed against her mouth, still kissing her deeply.  The sultry, possessive sound reverberated through Amelia, filling her with liquid heat and making her weak.  She wanted this man, wanted him the way she’d wanted Nick before he destroyed her.  Eric had the power to destroy her now, but still she wanted him.  It was heaven and hell tangled together in bittersweet paradise.

Eric broke their kiss, leaning back with his arms still around her.  His chest heaved as he fought to breathe.

“Hell,” he muttered as he stared into her eyes.  There was no doubt that he saw the blazing desire there.  She couldn’t hide something so raw.  “I was gonna suggest having a drink of something and a walk around the deck as a victory celebration, but you look like you got other things in mind.”

“Take me to bed, Eric,” she whispered.  Her heart squeezed to the point of choking her as the brazen words crossed her lips.  “I want to be with you.”

He was still, the lines of his body rigid with desire.  He couldn’t conceal it either.  Neither of them could keep their passions hidden.  His eyes were alight with temptation.  He slid his hands from her back to her sides, putting a fraction of distance between them.

Prickles of shame sizzled across Amelia’s skin from the inside out and she turned her face away from him.  She’d spoken too quickly, embarrassed herself in front of the man who had only sought to help her.  He knew how wicked she was now.  He would know her situation was her own fault, that he’d given his help to someone who didn’t deserve it, and then he would cast her aside the same way Nick had.

He caught her cheek in his warm palm.  Her gaze fluttered back to his.  Eric’s eyes shone with a fire that pierced deep into his soul.
  He dipped to kiss her again.

Her aching heart dropped to her stomach and lower as his kiss seared her.  It was slow and heady, deliberate in every way.  He knew what he wanted.  The heat of his body permeated her as his mouth explored hers without reservation.  It felt so good to have him claim her that way, so far from the rejection she expected, that tears stung her eyes.