Time After Time (8 page)

"Yes, of course," she said, feeling as thoroughly chastened as he had intended her to.

From that high point the day slid rapidly downhill. At four that afternoon she had just settled behind her desk after a thoroughly disorganized meeting when Charlotte buzzed her.

"Yes?" Leah said briskly.

"David Yarrow's on line two. Do you want me to tell him you're busy?" Charlotte's voice squeaked slightly, a sign of nerves. The brunette hated trying to put anyone off and would usually stammer for five minutes before putting the call through anyway.

Leah opened her mouth to tell the other woman that she couldn't take any calls; then she stopped. Maybe this was exactly what she needed. She rarely dated during the week, and tonight she had the extra work that Mr. Gregory had given her. But David had called at the right moment—or perhaps it was the wrong moment. She was still smarting from her boss's unconscious rejection of her femininity. A few hours

with an attractive man—a man who left no doubt that he saw her as a woman—might be just what Leah needed to get her ego back in shape.

"I'll take the call," she said before she could change her mind.

At six-thirty that evening she met David in the parking lot of a small dinner club. "I can only stay a couple of hours," she said over her shoulder as she led the way into the club. "I have to work tonight."

"A couple of hours with you is better than a weekend with any other woman," he said earnestly, then grinned. "Besides, I have to get back to the studio by nine-thirty."

Leah laughed. David was a local television news reporter. He had been in the Dallas area for only two years but his blond curls, boyish grin and quick wit had already caused a perceptible rise in the ratings for his station's nightly news broadcast.

Immediately she began to relax. There were no undercurrents between them. No complications. The look in his gray eyes was basic. It said that she was an attractive, intelligent woman, and his job for the next two hours would be to enjoy that fact. He kept her amused with a constant flow of anecdotes about the people he had met in his work.

The two hours Leah had allotted for dinner flew by too quickly. Before she knew it, they were walking toward her car in the parking lot.

David opened the car door for her, leaning on it as he gazed down at her. "The mayor's giving a party next Friday," he said. He placed a companionable

hand on her neck, massaging it gently. "Want to come with me?"

She smiled. "Let me check my schedule and get back to you."

"Do that," he murmured, then lowered his head, his lips finding hers in a warm kiss.

Leah sighed and leaned toward him. It was a nice kiss from a nice man, and she was just beginning to really enjoy it when suddenly she pulled away, frowning.

"I'd better get going," she said, avoiding his eyes. "Work—I have to get that work done." She swallowed nervously, trying to get her brain to function as she slid into the driver's seat. "It was wonderful seeing you again, David___I owe you a dinner."

She didn't look at him as she shut the door and started the car, but as she pulled out of the parking lot, she glanced in the rearview mirror. He was still standing there, staring after her.

He must have thought she had lost her mind. Maybe she had. That was the only explanation she could find at the moment for her behavior. For a moment, for one brief second as David kissed her, she had felt guilty.
Guilty!

As she drove, her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, her thoughts spinning. The whole thing was crazy. Why should she feel guilty about kissing an attractive, likable man? Was some long-buried hang-up finally rising to the surface?

That was totally unreasonable, she told herself. She didn't have any hang-ups about men. It was only a

friendly kiss, for Pete's sake. She had kissed dozens of men, and nothing like this had ever happened before.

So what in hell was wrong with her? she wondered in confusion.

Even when she was in front of the television with her work spread out on the coffee table, the feeling nagged at her, pulling her thoughts away from the campaign.

Luckily, the differences Mr. Gregory had told her to look for were glaringly obvious. The movie hadn't finished playing when she pulled it out of the VCR and walked to her bedroom.

She sat on the edge of the bed, stretching her back. No more thinking, she ordered herself firmly. No thoughts of unfounded, random guilt. No thoughts of the two campaigns. Tomorrow was soon enough to think about it all.

She plumped her pillow, then lay back and closed

her eyes. Seconds later her eyelids began to twitch

gently.

* * *

Leah stood in a small, open valley that rested between gently rolling hills. Around her, wildflowers made a vivid rainbow for her to pass through. Her sunbonnet rested on her back, exposing the blond hair that gleamed in the bright spring sunlight. The faded blue calico of her dress pressed against her legs as she walked through the knee-high growth.

Her arms were overflowing with pink and red and yellow blooms. She had enough flowers for every room of their small ranch house, but still she was reluctant to start back. It was spring, the sun was shin-

ing, the breeze was warm on her face and she was young. That was enough reason for dawdling.

Laying aside her bundle of flowers, she sat down, then flung out her arms and flopped back on the soft grass. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. A couple of months from now the grass would be stiffer and the air would be dryer. But now it was spring, and she could imagine no more perfect place on the earth.

She opened her eyes as the sound of hoofbeats reached her. Sitting up, she turned toward the noise and saw a horse as it topped the small hill to her right. Leah shaded her eyes with one hand, studying the rider. Surely Pa hadn't sent one of the men after her? she thought. She hadn't been gone more than two hours.

But when the rider drew closer, she knew it wasn't one of the men from the ranch. She felt her muscles tighten in surprise and scrambled to her feet. The rider pulled his horse to a halt several yards from her and stepped from the saddle in a fluid movement.

Leah felt a wave of emotion wash over her, its force making her sway slightly. Suddenly she began to run toward him. He met her halfway and grabbed her up in his arms, swinging her around in a joyous circle, as though he too felt the power of being young on a spring day.

"Paul," she whispered breathlessly. "When did you get back?"

"Today," he said, laughing down at her. Sparks of platinum light appeared in his green eyes.

When he set her on her feet, she pulled away from him, and her golden-brown eyes dropped in embar-rassment and confusion. "I didn't mean to do that," she whispered. "You surprised me."

She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes. The white shirt he wore contrasted sharply with his sun-bronzed skin. If it hadn't been for the green eyes and the careless ease of his posture, he might have been taken for a Spaniard.

When he pushed the stained Stetson farther back on his head, Leah met his eyes, her brow creasing in worry. "You shouldn't be here. Pa gave orders to the men to run you off the minute you set foot on Bar R land." She paused, frowning. "What a stupid name for a ranch. Have you ever realized how hard that is to say?" She shook her head in exasperation at her wandering thoughts.

His strong lips curved upward in a slow smile. "When you shake your head like that, your hair catches little pieces of the sun and holds them right to it."

"Did you hear me?" she asked, wanting to shake him for being so stubborn. "You have to leave before any of the men come along. There'd be trouble sure as the world if one of them saw you talking to me."

"The only trouble I'm likely to have is keepin' my eyes off you. You look real nice in that blue dress." He stooped to pick a yellow daisy. "This little flower is as beautiful a thing as God ever made, but put it next to you and it winces in shame." He gently tucked the flower behind her ear.

The intensity in his eyes as he gazed down at her brought a warm, shivery sensation to her middle. "I like daisies," she murmured. "I like to see them growing out here, so wild and free." She drew a long breath, trying to slow her racing heartbeat. "I like them even better than the pink roses that grow on the side of the preacher's house." She frowned. "Besides, I think roses make me sneeze."

He chuckled and the deep, rich sound brought her gaze back to his face. "I missed you, but—"

"I missed you, too," he said quietly, his expression almost stern. "It was only two days, but it felt like a month in hell. You're doin' something to me, Leah. Something I didn't expect. All those years when I was in prison, I thought all I wanted was to get out of there and get my land back. I figure that's what kept me alive. Now"—his hand shook slightly as he reached out to touch her face—"the land doesn't matter. Nothin' matters. You're all I can think about."

Her pulse throbbed wildly in her temple where his fingers had been. Listening to him talk was like having heaven come down and wrap itself around her. It was so sweet, she was afraid suddenly. Afraid that something would happen and she would never feel this way again.

Moistening her lips, she took a step backward. "You've got to leave," she whispered. "There will be trouble, and I don't think I could stand that. Pa is so stubborn. I can't even talk to him about you. You know how he—"

She broke off, a frown tugging at her lips, confusion filling her brown yes. "Paul," she said abruptly, "is this another dream?"

He shrugged. "I reckon so, ma'am, else I wouldn't be talkin' in this damn fool way."

Her eyes sparkled as soft laughter welled up in her throat, but the sound faded away when he reached out to brush a strand of hair from her face. "I—I really think you'd better leave now."

"I'll leave." His gaze slid over her face, lingering on her lips. "But first..."

With movements designed to cause her no alarm, he slowly tilted her chin and lowered his mouth to hers. She drew in a sharp breath, but it was his breath she drew in. His lips moved softly across hers, holding her mesmerized with the pure pleasure they brought.

Leah had never been kissed before. Not by a man who was kissing her as a woman. No one had told her that such a simple touch could be so beautiful. No one had told her it would be so achingly sweet that she would rather die than let it go.

Throughout the kiss, her arms remained limply at her sides, and when he finally drew away, with movements as slow and cautious as his approach, she hadn't moved the whole time. But inside, she had flown. And inside, she felt that he was tearing away a piece of her when he withdrew.

For a moment he stared down at her; then he turned and walked back to the patiently waiting sorrel. Long after he and the horse had disappeared over the top of the hill, Leah stood where Paul had left her. Then,

slowly, she walked back to her flowers, picked them up, and headed toward the house.

Leah wiped her hands on her apron, then took it off and hung it on a hook by the door. She had finished the dishes and knew she should go back in and join her father and their two guests, but still she hung back.

Because Slim was the Bar R's foreman, he really didn't count as a guest. And because Leah liked him, he wasn't the reason for her reluctance to rejoin the men. It was the other guest that kept her in the kitchen. She didn't like Trent Howard, and she couldn't understand why he had been spending so much time here lately. Why was he wasting his time on a barely scraping-along rancher like her father?

Trent's spread was one of the largest in the territory, which made him one of the area's most influential men. That was how men were judged in these parts. It didn't matter how good a man was, or how wise, or even how much money he had in the bank. The thing that made him important was how long it took to ride around his spread.

Leah's father's land was a dogtrot compared to Trent Howard's, but that didn't make it less important to Bob French. He was the same as all men. The land came first and everything else a poor second.

In the six years since her mother's death there had been too many times when Leah had ached to let her anger out. She had wanted to scream at her father and ask him why he couldn't have given her mother some of the love, some of the care, he gave to his precious

land. But she knew she would never do it. A woman couldn't buck reality. And the reality was that in this part of the country, land was everything. Men killed and cheated and died for it. It was the wife who shared their dreams; it was the child they worried over; it was the mistress they lusted after. It was the god they worshiped.

For just a little while, if it was spring and if a man was sensitive, like Paul, he might think something—a woman, perhaps—was more important than the land. But that feeling didn't last long. Leah knew it and accepted it and resented it with all her heart.

Inhaling, she put a pleasant expression on her face and walked back into the front room. The three men still sat at the wooden table. Her father had brought out glasses and a bottle of whiskey.

"You sure outdid yourself tonight, Miss Leah," the short stocky foreman said.