His Girl Friday (14 page)

Because he didn't want commitment, she supposed. She laid her cheek against his chest. "We don't have to go to bed together."

"Have you by any chance gone numb?" he asked, dragging her hips against his. "Just how long do you think I'm going to be able to control this?"

"I'l get pregnant," she mumbled, and then blushed when she realized what she'd said.

He laughed. His chest shook with it. He pushed her away with rough affection and lifted his burning cigaret e to his lips.

"Damn you," he chuckled. "That wasn't fair."

"Yes, it was," she replied. "And I would. I know a lot of women are on the Pil , but I'd have to go to my family doctor to get it and he'd make me feel terrible. Or I'd have to go to a clinic, and sure as the world, I'd meet one of the ladies from my church going there for some Other reason. I couldn't. I just couldn't." He tugged a long lock of her curly hair. "I can understand that," he said.

Her eyes searched his longingly. "There are only a few hours a month when a woman can get pregnant."

"Don't you bet on it." He tapped her on the nose. "I remember reading that sperm can live in a woman's body for almost three days____"

"Cabe!" she gasped.

"My best friend studied to be a doctor," he said, unperturbed. "He told me a lot of things about women. The risk isn't just those few days, either, because some women ovulate irregularly, so you can't always be sure about when the dangerous time is. And stop blushing and looking at your feet. Reproduction is a natural, beautiful part of what a man and woman feel for each other. It's nothing to hide."

"A lot of people are making it into something to hide," she muttered. "And it isn't exactly loving these days, it's like. . like blowing your nose, one girl said." He drew her head against him. "Not for you and me, Dan," he said softly, using the nickname she was beginning to like. "You're no rounder, and I'm not into seducing virgins. It won't be something ugly and casual with us."

"It wil if I'm just another conquest."

He kis ed her forehead with breathles tendernes . "If you were going to be a conquest, I'd be adamant about birth control and something for both of us to use," he said at her temple. "Because these days only a fool takes chances in bed." He tilted her face up to his, and his eyes were quiet and solemn. "I don't care if you get pregnant, Dani. Does that sound casual?"

Her mind was whirling like a top. "I don't understand what you want," she faltered. "You said you didn't want commitment, and that you don't seduce virgins, and now you're talking about babies and.. "

He smiled. "I like babies, Dani. Do you?"

"Oh, yes," she said, giving in to the madnes . "I like to go in department stores and look at baby things," she confes ed. Her shoulders rose and fel . "I never thought I'd have reason to buy any, but it was something to do when I was alone. I always seemed to be alone."

"Me, too." He kis ed her eyelids shut. "I've been alone a long time. Then you came to work for me and started throwing calendars my way, and the light came back into the world. I didn't realize how I looked forward to each new day, until Christmas. I started to kis you, and then I realized that you might think I was going to start chasing you and quit. And I knew that I couldn't make it without you at the office. There wouldn't be any joy left in the job.'

"I'd only just decided that it was you and not the job I went to work for," she confes ed.

He sighed and brushed her mouth softly with his. "How can two people be so blind?" he asked. "My dad was right, you know. You're worth two of Karol." She wanted to ask him about Karol, but she was afraid to. This might be just a slight infatuation on his part. She couldn't risk let ing herself feel too much for him.

"The coffee," she said, glancing toward the pot.

"I gues we'd bet er do something about it before they send out a search party," he agreed with a sigh. "Okay. I'l slice the cake." He let her go and took a minute to tidy himself up while his cigaret e smoldered and then final y went out in the ashtray. He sliced cake and Danet a put it onto saucers and got out forks and napkins to go with it, al neatly arranged on the big silver tray. Cabe picked it up and with one reluctant glance at Danet a, carried it into the living room. Eight

Nicky was sent to bed at nine, and begged to have Norman sleep in his room. Cabe gave him a hard glare, but his parents agreed, providing it was al right with Danet a.

"You real y let him run loose in your apartment?" Nicky asked excitedly when they'd brought Norman into the house and he was perched on a bookcase in Nicky's room.

"Yes, I real y do. He's potty trained. We'l have to put down a slightly wet newspaper in your bathroom and show him where it is. He'l go straight to it."

"That's amazing," Nicky sighed. "Gosh, he's pret y."

"Don't talk too loud, you'l make him conceited," she said in a stage whisper.

Nicky laughed. "Okay."

"And for heaven's sake, don't leave your door open," she groaned. "He wanders at night. He isn't nocturnal, and he's supposed to stay put, but he can't read the book that says so."

"If he got into bed with my brother, the world would end, right?"

She had to stop and think a minute before she realized he meant Cabe. She could see her rugged boss trapped in a room with an iguana. She started laughing and couldn't stop.

"Are you sure that thing shouldn't be in a cage?" the object of their amusement asked from the doorway, scowling at Norman as he sprawled on the top of Nicky's bookcase.

"I'm absolutely sure," Danet a as ured him." "He's very quiet and clean, and he won't bother anything. I was just tel ing Nicky how to fix his. . toilet facilities."

"I could suggest a way," he murmured dryly.

"He's just a baby," Danet a said gently.

"Some baby. Uggggggh." Cabe shuddered.

"Close your ears, sweetheart," Danet a told the lizard, stroking his head gently. He closed his eyes instead, and Nicky laughed with pure delight.

"You made his day," Cabe said as he walked her to her own room on the other side of Nicky's. Cabe's was on the other side of the boy, so Danet a could understand his faint unease. In fact, they shared a mutual bathroom when Cabe was at home. She prayed that Nicky wouldn't forget to keep the doors closed.

"He's a nice boy," she replied, pausing with her hand on her doorknob. It was early to go to bed, but she was tired and hadn't had much sleep the night before. Besides, Cabe had mentioned something about going fishing early the next morning, even if it was dreary.

"I'l round you up a pole and we'l drive over to the lake and fish off Dad's pier," he murmured, his eyes going over her wan face like tender hands. "You look tired."

"It was a long night," she told him, "and I didn't get much sleep."

"That makes two of us," he mused, smiling faintly. "I tormented myself with thoughts of you and my sales manager until about five in the morning. I'd only had an hour's sleep when you got to the office."

She searched his pale blue eyes quietly. "Ben is a nice young man," she told him. "But I real y went out with him in., wel , to prove that I didn't have a crush on you. So you wouldn't think I was going to chase you, or anything."

He framed her face in his warm hands. "I might enjoy hiving you chase me, lit le one," he murmured. "You're It "nothing of a novelty in my life." Which was just what she'd suspected al along. But he bent and kis ed her gently, and she sighed with pure delight. Even knowing how shal ow his feelings were didn't seem to do anything for her sense of self-preservation.

He lifted his head seconds later with obvious reluctance. "It isn't a good idea to start things we can't finish," he sighed. "Sleep tight, honey. Cynthia wil drag you out of bed at daylight. She and Dad are early risers, and she cooks a big breakfast."

"I love breakfast," she said. "So does Norman. He likes eggs and bacon."

He shook his head. "Talk about your weird triangles," he murmured. "You and me and the Irish lizard. Good night." She laughed as he walked away, her eyes adoring the powerful set of his shoulders, his slim waist and narrow hips and long legs. He was the most beautiful man she'd ever seen. Al muscle and bristling masculinity and sensuous appeal. With a frustrated sigh, she went back into her room and closed the door. The smel of bacon woke her long before Cynthia tapped on the door. She got up quickly, put on her jeans and a button-up blue-checked shirt and her socks and boots. It was stil gray outside, but the sun was threatening to come out and it had stopped raining. She ran a brush through her hair, left off her makeup, brushed her teeth and rushed down to breakfast.

Cabe was already in the kitchen taking plat ers of food to the table for Cynthia. He looked different. His usual suit | had been sacrificed for tight jeans, a pair of boots that made him even tal er than usual and a pearl-snap Western-cut chambray shirt. He looked the picture of a working | cowboy, and so sexy that he made Danet a's heart beat like a drum. She watched him while they ate, covertly she thought,' but Cynthia and Eugene were exchanging conspiratorial* glances, so maybe she was a bit more obvious than she'd thought. In any event, Cabe was watching her openly, so it didn't real y mat er.

Nicky was given the coveted chore of feeding Norman, which he did with relish as they carried the lizard back out to the garage for the daylight hours. And afterward, Cabe rounded up his fishing gear and a pole for her and they borrowed Eugene's fishing truck to drive to the lake. Cabe looked perfectly at home in the truck, with a beat-up tan Stetson on his dark hair. The sun was climbing out from behind the clouds as they rode down the long dirt path; that led past an enormous barn where Eugene kept his prize-winning purebred bulls. The path led into another ranch road, which merged with a county paved road.

"I've walked it in the past," he chuckled. "There's a shortcut, but it's stil about two miles even that way. And it's too long a hike with fishing gear and lunch." Lunch was a big basket. Cynthia had packed it for them, along with des ert and cold drinks, in a cooler in the back of the truck. He glanced at her with a wry grin. "I don't relish the idea of lugging coolers and baskets along, but Cynthia seemed certain that we'd starve otherwise."

"Cynthia is nice," she replied. "And so is your half brother."

He averted his gaze to the road, accelerating to a speed (hut was distinctly uncomfortable for his pas enger. "So everyone says." She sighed wistfully. So much for mending broken fences, she thought.

They unloaded everything onto Eugene's wooden pier beside his boat house on the lake, along with the worms they'd stopped to dig behind the bam. Eugene kept his own bed of night crawlers there so he wouldn't have to hunt bait when he went fishing.

"Can you bait a hook al by yourself?" Cabe asked admusedly.

"Look, I grew up doing this," she informed him, deftly threading a worm on to her hook.

"Good God, that's not the way to do it," he burst out. "You have to give the fish something to nibble on!" He held up his own hook, where ten or so worms wiggled.

"You'l lose al your bait, and I'l get a fish," she said haughtily.

"You're on."

They threw their lines in and sat. In the distance, they heard motorboats, but Eugene's cabin and pier were in a smal private cove, and no one intruded. Far out, the white triangle sails of the sailboats flashed against the blue sky.

The pier was weather beaten and wet, although the sun was beginning to dry it out nicely, but Cabe had produced plastic bags for them to sit on. It was quiet and somewhat magical to be here alone with him in the early morning, with no other human being around.

"I wish I had some dough-bal s," she sighed. "We used to fish for crappie with them."

"Wel , worms work pret y good on bas , unles you'd like to try spring lizards."

She gave him her best glare.

He shrugged. "Norman has cousins, I gather," he mused. He frowned in mock thoughtfulnes . "I wonder what I'd catch if I put Norman on a hook.. ?"

"You'd catch hel , that's what you'd catch," she said, "Norman is not fish bait."

"I didn't sleep a wink for worrying about the doors staying closed," he muttered. "I figured if he's half as smart as you claim, he could open the damned door and eat me in my sleep."

She laid down her pole. "Now look here, for the last time, iguanas do not eat people. Especial y not tough old oil riggers who probably taste like mildewed leather!" He put down his own pole with a wicked grin, and the next thing she knew, she was flat on her back on the pier with him looming over her.

"I don't taste like mildewed leather, and I can prove it," he murmured, and lowered his hard, warm mouth square over hers. She didn't even make a pretence of resisting. She reached up to hold him, drawing his weight down over her with soft resignation. He knew she wanted him, so there wasn't real y much point in acting as if she didn't.

His mouth worked on hers in lazy lit le pat erns, making her breath come quickly in her throat. His hands slid under her, protecting her back from the hardnes of the pier while his face brushed hers and his lips and teeth nibbled sensual y at her mouth.

"What do I taste like?" he whispered into her parted lips.

"Coffee," she whispered back. Her fingers touched his mouth, feeling the smooth skin above it where he'd shaved that morning, savoring the clean smel of his body. His eyes were pale and they narrowed as they searched hers. He looked down at her breasts where their faint cleft was visible in the deep V-neck of the button-up blue-checked shirt she was wearing.

"I'd give a lot to have you behind a locked door right now," he whispered huskily.

"What would you do?" she whispered.

"You know that already," he groaned against her mouth. His hand slipped around her rib cage to smooth over her soft breast with arrogant posses ion. "Remember how it felt, when I put my mouth on you?"

Al too wel . She moaned at the expert touch of his fingers on the taut rise of her breast, his thumb slowly driving her mad as it rubbed lazily against the smal hardnes . He lifted his head, his dark face drawn as he looked around them. The area was total y deserted, and when his hungry eyes came back to hers, she knew before he reached for the buttons what he meant to do.