Sweetwater Seduction (23 page)

“Not by half.”

When she started to leave, he said, “Stay a minute. I need to ask a favor.”

Miss Devlin debated the wisdom of hanging around when he might bring up other embarrassing questions she was certain he wanted to ask, but she was curious enough to stay, settling into the rocker beside her bed. Instead of telling her what he wanted, he ate, savoring each bite as if it were ambrosia.

Kerrigan might have been hungry, but his stomach had shrunk so much that he had swallowed no more than a few bites before he was forced to set down his fork. He looked ruefully at the nearly full bowl before him. The stew was too salty, and the carrots were still raw, but he appreciated her efforts, so he said, “You're a fine cook, Miss Devlin. I'm sorry I can't do your supper justice.”

“There's no need to lie, Mr. Kerrigan. I oversalted the stew and the carrots are raw. I can only excuse myself by saying I got distracted by some papers I was grading.”

His lips quirked. “You believe in calling a spade a spade, don't you?”

“I'm well aware of my shortcomings, if that's what you mean.”

“You're awful hard on yourself. I've found more in you to admire than not.”

Eden arched a brow. There he was, saying nice things to her again. If he kept that up, she might have to start revising her low opinion of him.

“Of course,” he added, “that's not to say you couldn't stand some improvement.”

Miss Devlin's lips pressed flat. She might have known he would spoil it. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well, for one thing, you could smile a little more.”

“I see nothing to smile about so long as the ranchers and nesters in this valley are at one another's throats. I've done everything I can—”

“It's not your fight,” he said in a harsh voice. “Stay out of it.”

Eden rose to confront him, fists on hips. “Since when do you tell me what to do?”

“Since I know more about this kind of fight than you do. I've seen how ugly things can get. I'm warning you, for your own good, stay out of it.”

“Of all the impertinent, audaciohubristic—”

Kerrigan burst out laughing. He managed to control himself long enough to chortle, “Hubristic?”

Eden's chin jutted. “It means having exaggerated pride or self-confi—”

He burst out laughing again.

“I don't see what's so funny,” Miss Devlin said.

“You are. I thought we agreed it was a waste of time for you to use big—obscure, abstruse, obtuse—words to put me in my place.”

Kerrigan knew he had misspoken the instant the words were out of his mouth. Eden's face whitened and her fisted hands disappeared into the folds of her skirt. It had become clear to him that while Eden Devlin might be sensitive about her looks and her height, she was plainly
hubristic
about her intelligence. By discounting what she considered her one strength, he had struck a low blow. He hadn't meant to hurt her feelings, but damnit, he didn't know what else to do to get past those fences she kept throwing up at him.

“Look,” he began. He opened his mouth to say he was sorry, and shut it again. He wasn't sorry.

Eden reached out and took the tray from his lap. “If you're done, I'll remove this.”

When she started out the door with the tray, he said, “Wait. Don't go.”

Eden looked down the length of her nose at him. “I don't see that we have anything else to say to one another.”

“I want you to get a message to Sheriff Reeves.”

“Why not wait until you're well and talk to him yourself?”

“I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't important,” Kerrigan said.

“What do you want me to tell him?”

Kerrigan met her troubled gaze and said, “Tell him I want to talk to him . . . here.”

“That's impossible.”

“Why?”

“You know why!” Miss Devlin slammed the tray down on the bedside table. “I don't want anyone to know you've been here. Most especially not him.”

“Oh, so that's the way it is.”

“That's the way it is.”

He leaned his head back against the pillow and looked her up and down. “I didn't know things were that seriou you and Felton Reeves.”

“They're not . . . yet.” His continuing stare made her wonder if her hair was falling down, or her buttons unlooped, and she began self-consciously to check them. “But inviting Felton to meet you here . . . letting him find out you've been here all along when I told him straight out that you weren't—”

“Felton was here?”

“He came asking about you earlier in the week when you turned up missing. I told him I had no idea where you were. To let him find out that I lied would be as good as a slap in the face to a proud man like him.”

“And you care so much what Felton Reeves thinks?”

Miss Devlin turned away so Kerrigan wouldn't see the conflict on her face. She did care . . . and she didn't. The truth was, she hadn't had a chance yet to find out. But she wasn't about to end any hope of a life with Felton before she knew for sure whether she wanted one. She turned back to him and said simply, “You know he wants to marry me.”

“And you're taking him up on the offer?”

Miss Devlin had no idea why Kerrigan sounded so angry, but she was confused and upset enough to answer him in kind. “I don't know what I'm going to do. I only know I don't want to make it impossible for Felton to ask when, or if, the times comes.”

“All right,” Kerrigan said brusquely. “I'll tell you what I want him to know.”

“Very well,” she said, threading her hands in front of her to keep him from seeing how agitated she was. “I'll have one of my pupils take a message to him on Monday. Is that soon enough to please you?”

He could see she was confused by the attitude he had taken toward her relationship with Felton. Try as he might, though, he couldn't get the sneer off his face. He wasn't sure of the source of his anger, but he knew it was real. “I'm surprised that with this great romance you two have going Felton doesn't drop by to see you every day.”

“Oooooh! You're impossible!” Miss Devlin whirled and started out the door.

“Wait!”

“I have nothing further to say to you,” Miss Devlin gritted out between clenched teeth.

“You forgot the tray,” he said, extending it to bar her way.

She couldn't very well leave it. She reached out for it, and when she did he grasped her arm with his other hand and quickly set the tray on the bedside table.

“Don't leave mad,” he said. “I had no right to say those things. What you do with Felton Reeves is

“You're damn right it is!” She met his gaze, her body trembling with fury.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice rueful. His fingers caressed her wrist to soothe the tiny bruises he had made.

Miss Devlin wasn't in a forgiving mood. “I have to clean up the kitchen. Let me go.”

“Will you come back later to talk to me?”

Eden opened her mouth to tell him absolutely not, but what came out was, “All right.”

He looked as surprised as she felt. She was halfway to the kitchen when she heard him call after her, “Bring another cup of coffee when you come.”

Miss Devlin was soon having second thoughts about her impulsive agreement to spend more time in Kerrigan's company. She was a perfect idiot to fall for the coaxing plea in his dark eyes or the beseeching summons in his voice. But the fact was, she liked looking at him. And she liked hearing him say nice things about her.

Eden chided herself severely for believing Kerrigan's compliments. He probably found pretty words to flatter every woman who crossed his path. However, she had taken his compliments to heart precisely because he had been so honest about what he didn't like about her. As she washed dishes Miss Devlin found herself thinking seriously about changing her behavior—resorting to Big Words less often—as a result of his comments. That was when she knew she was in serious trouble.

Miss Devlin decided she would deliver the promised cup of coffee and make a quick exit. Once she had the dinner things washed up, she came back to her bedroom with a hot cup of coffee in each hand, fully intending, if he grabbed her again, to spill it on him.

“Kerrigan? May I come in?”

“Come ahead.”

She managed somehow to get the door open and hand him his coffee. Seating herself in her rocker, she allowed herself to relax for the first time in days. She rubbed the back of her neck with one hand while she balanced her cup of coffee in the other.

“You look tired,” he said.

“It's been a long week.”

“Come here. I can do that for you.”

She stopped rubbing her neck abruptly. “Never mind, I—”

He set his coffee aside and said, “Come on. I promise not to bite.” His lips twisted up on one side in a self-deprecating grin as he carefully levered himself over to make room for her.

“I really don't think it's a good idea for you to be . . . touching

“I'm just going to be rubbing a few sore muscles. Where's the harm in that?”

He sounded perfectly innocent. She couldn't accuse him of having designs on her person without seeming ridiculous. Quite frankly, it would be nice to have him rub out the soreness in her shoulders. “All right. If you're sure you're feeling up to it.”

Eden sat on the bed with her back to him, her buttocks resting against his thigh. He took her coffee cup from her and set it beside his on the table. His large, strong hands encircled her neck, his thumbs pressing hard into her stiff shoulder muscles.

The instant he touched her she knew she had made another mistake. Because she didn't just
like
the way his hands made her feel, she
loved
it. She tried to convince herself she should get up and leave, but the sensations were so wonderful, she wanted to stay and enjoy them. After all, no one was going to know this had ever happened.

She groaned.

He paused. “Am I being too rough?”

“No, no. It feels wonderful. Don't stop.” Her head lolled forward and a shiver of pleasure rolled down her spine.

Kerrigan felt her response to his touch. The little wisps of hair that had escaped from the old-lady bun onto her neck were the only thing between his lips and her enticing skin. The muscles were bunched in her shoulders, and he wondered if he was the reason she was so tense. “How's school been going?” he asked to get his mind off what he was thinking.

“If you're asking whether Jett and Keefe have been fighting lately, the answer is no,” she said with a chuckle. “You seem to have made a permanent impression with that little demonstration you staged. But with one thing and another every day is a challenge.”

“Why do you stay here, with all the trouble in the valley? Why don't you leave?”

She turned to look at him. His hands stilled and he noticed again how sometimes, when she was upset, her eyes turned an icy blue.

“I've spent my whole adult life looking for the perfect place to settle down,” she said. “I'm here in Sweetwater to stay.”

She turned and looked around the bedroom, her eyes resting on odds and ends she had collected to make the room seem less transient, and his hands claimed her shoulders again. As his gentling touch soothed her, she inventoried the things that had made this place a real home.

A huge French sewing basket woven of willow and rattan and lined with red satin sat in one corner of the room. It contained dozens of spools of thread, scissors, a pincushion, and needles. The first thing she had done the summer she arrived in Sweetwater was to make the braided rag rug now on her bedroom floor out of scraps of material she had collected over the years. It remind all the places she had been, and how she was here to stay.

The most damning evidence that she had settled for good was the huge collection of breakables on her dresser. These consisted of two things: medicinals and toilet preparations.

Her collection of family remedies included tasteless castor oil, a box of carbolic arnica salve for burns and fever sores, effervescent salts for upset stomach, hydrogen peroxide, lavender smelling salts, and pure Norwegian cod-liver oil.