To Wear His Ring (33 page)

Chase shook his head. He still wasn’t ready to talk about this. Several times during lunch, he’d tried to direct the conversation to a more personal level. Each time, she’d turned the tables on him, deflecting his questions. He’d discovered that she wrote and illustrated kids’ storybooks for a living and that her favorite Christmas gift had been a set of forty colored pencils when she was eight, but that was it. She hadn’t allowed the conversation to get any more personal, except to make it clear that she was a career girl.

A career girl who accepted the fact that he was a career man.

The rules had already been set. A few weeks. No strings.

“I thought a little privacy might not be a half-bad idea,” he said and then scowled. That had sounded better in his head than it did out loud. Aloud it sounded like he was making a play for her. Like he’d been thinking about it, planning for it.
Which
, he reminded himself,
you are.

“What I meant was—”

“I think privacy is a good idea.”

Chase sucked in a breath. At another time, with another woman, he would have anticipated that response. He’d feel pleased. He’d begin to envision the rendezvous, but in a relaxed, even lazy way. He might not think about it again at all until the moment was at hand, except perhaps to pick up a bottle of champagne.

So why, now, was his heart hammering and his brow starting to perspire?

When he realized he was starting to sweat all over, Chase dropped his hand and shook his head. This was the damnedest thing.

“What?” Nettie asked, tilting her head.

“What…what?”
Ah, you are an articulate son-of-a-gun
, Chase applauded himself.
You’ve been a journalist for how long?

“You were shaking your head,” Nettie answered him.

“Right.” He wiped his palm on his jeans as discreetly as he could, then swiped the perspiration from his upper lip.

Where was his will? He was a fighter by nature. He possessed a strong mind. If he wanted to be casual, then, dammit, he ought to be able to
make
himself be casual.

“I know you’ve got a work schedule,” he began.

She nodded. “But I’m due for a vacation.”

Chase swallowed. That’s it. He was a goner. “I’m picking you up tomorrow at nine. Nick’s driving into Minot. He’ll be gone until early afternoon. I make great French toast, so be hungry.”

Nettie groaned. “You dare say that while I’m still digesting a Giant Dakota Burger, fries and a chocolate shake? After those calories, we women tend to stick to salad and grapefruit for the next couple of meals.”

The confusion and ambivalence Chase had been feeling dried up in a flash. He bent over her. “Not
my
woman.”

With a quick, hard kiss, he was back at his car, leaving Nettie open-mouthed, dewy-eyed and slightly off-balance as she stared after him.

“Nine o’clock.” He winked. “I hope you like lots of syrup.”

N
ettie awoke at quarter past six the next morning. She had also awakened at three-thirty, four-ten and five-eighteen.

Plunging her feet into the soft, cushioned slippers at her bedside, she moved by feel to the chintz-covered chair where she’d tossed her robe the night before. There was something private and, yes, romantic about the early-morning darkness—lavender sky, pale hint of a moon and birds beginning to arise and sing. She didn’t want to lose the mood by turning on a light.

Slipping the robe around her, she tiptoed to the bathroom, trying not to waken Sara, then made her way downstairs to the kitchen. Might as well start the caffeine drip. Not that I’m the least bit tired, she thought. Nope. Not at all. She let her fingers dance lightly along the banister.

Singing a little something from the Dixie Chicks as she scooped Otto’s finest French Roast—five twenty-nine a pound; buy one, get one free—into a paper filter, she wondered what Chase was doing right now.

“Probably sleeping.” She grinned, knowing she hadn’t been this anxious to start a day in longer than she could remember.

Dropping the coffee scoop into the can, Nettie snapped the
filter unit into place and hit the start button on the coffee machine. Searching a cupboard for corn flakes, since breakfast with Chase was still a good three hours away, she marveled at her own appetite. Excitement did that to her, she guessed—woke up all her senses, taste included. She’d felt like this last night, too. Craving music, she’d turned on the radio and blared country and rock. She’d gone back to work and painted with bold strokes and splashes of the most brilliant colors she’d ever used. Later in the evening she’d lit an aromatherapy candle, climbed into a foamy tub and shaved her legs for today, slathering them with moisturizer and then putting on the softest cotton leggings she owned. The feeling of whisper-soft material on smooth skin had been sensuous. And everything she did, every single thing all night long had made her think of Chase.

Grabbing a handful of corn flakes straight from the box, she searched the fridge for bacon.

The coffee had brewed fragrantly and the fry pan was sizzling when Sara ambled into the kitchen around seven.

“Oh, good, you’re up!” Nettie sang cheerfully, adding several hot, crisp slices of bacon to the mound already draining on a paper towel. “Now we can up the music.” She danced over to a portable radio tucked into a built-in shelf and raised the volume on Billy Ocean. Then she danced her way back to the stove.

Barefoot and squinting from an apparent lack of rest, Sara stomped to the radio and turned it down. “I’m gonna to puke if I have to listen to that this early in the morning.”

Shrugging, Nettie hummed “Get Outta My Dreams and into My Car” as she fried bacon.

Sara dragged a mug down from a shelf and slammed the cupboard door. “What’s the matter with you? You’re acting like Martha Stewart on speed.”

Nettie laughed. “I’m happy. It’s a beautiful morning. Have you looked outside yet?” Sara grunted, poured herself some coffee and trudged to the table. “Well, it’s going to be a glorious day. I hope you’re hungry.”

“Not really.”

Nettie stopped what she was doing and turned toward her sister. “Sara, are you sick?”

“No.” The three heaping teaspoons of sugar she dumped into
her coffee more or less proved the point. Slumping over the mug, she stirred.

Nettie brought the first plate of bacon to the table. “Here then. Help me out. I can’t possibly eat all this myself. I’m having breakfast at nine.”

Sara’s head whipped up. “Why are you cooking now if you’re having breakfast—Who are you having breakfast with?”

Disapproval edged Sara’s tone. Nettie turned to pull juice from the fridge, biting her tongue before she let her own irritation show. Like Nettie, Sara was most comfortable when she had a set of immutable rules to follow. Losing their parents so suddenly had made life seem unpredictable and chaotic for the Owens sisters. Lilah had coped by embracing chaos and unpredictability as a way of life. Sara had divided the world into good and bad and literally tried to jail anything that upset her. Nettie had become very, very, very, very, very, very good in the hope that bad things did not happen to
very
good people.

She shook her head, musing.
Maybe we should all be more like Lilah.
Never one to linger over relationships or sorrows, Lilah had once insisted that life was like toothpaste and everyone had a choice: You could give the tube a squish, here a little, there a little, or start at one end and squeeze out every last drop. Either way, the tube was going to get tossed.

Maybe that was the right idea. Enjoy life and, as much as anyone can, keep it simple. Sara, however, would never agree. She considered Lilah wild and unforgivably irresponsible.

“What is happening at nine?” Sara demanded, again with a tone that foreshadowed the litany of cautions to come.

It’s my life
, Nettie reminded herself and then answered, “I’m having breakfast with a friend.” As Sara’s lips formed the word
who
, Nettie stated, “I’m not discussing this. My social calendar is not open for examination. Or debate,” she added when Sara geared up for exactly that. “Now,” Nettie said, tempering her own urge to argue, “do you care for juice?” She raised the carton.

“No, I do not care for juice!” Grabbing her coffee cup and a handful of bacon, Sara marched to the door, but couldn’t resist turning around to add, “You know what kind of trouble you could get into? No man who sneaks around is interested in a woman’s good name.”

Nettie laughed out loud. “I certainly hope not.”

Sara stared at her sister in growing dismay, but she said nothing else before pushing through the door and heading back to her bedroom.

Nettie stared at the wood panel, listening to the stomp of Sara’s footsteps and determinedly resisting the urge to make peace at whatever cost.

She busied herself awhile, cleaning up and trying not to think, but her mood was less buoyant than before and she had a hard time ignoring the guilt that stabbed at her. All Sara wanted was order in the court.

By eight-thirty, Nettie was more concerned for herself than she was for her sister. Sara wasn’t talking, she wasn’t eating and she sure wasn’t leaving. The door to her bedroom was still closed. She hadn’t emerged to shower yet, and Chase was due to arrive in half an hour.

Dressed and ready to go herself, Nettie stared at Sara’s door and made a decision: She would head over to the farm on her own, right now, before Chase left.

Running downstairs to use the phone in the kitchen, Nettie remembered how easily Chase had handled her panic yesterday in the car. He’d simply accepted her as she was and effectively distracted her very, very effectively.

Today she would have to distract herself. A twinge of nerves made her legs feel jittery and weak.

Surrender.
The word drifted through her mind in a man’s voice and with it came a warm, buttery feeling of relief. Surrender. If she chose, she could surrender to the feelings in her body, to the excitement and the nervousness and to the risk inherent in being alive.

With a long, deep breath, Nettie reached for the phone to tell Chase she’d see him in a few minutes. Punching in the number, she felt a genuine smile spread across her face.
This girl’s going to squeeze some toothpaste.

“Where did you learn to cook?” Nettie asked as she and Chase trekked over to the cottage after breakfast.

Wearing a white V-neck T-shirt, denim pedal pushers and lace-up espadrilles, she walked along the grass that bordered
Nick’s barley fields. Chase strolled by her side. Breakfast had been wonderful. Thick-sliced French toast dripping with warm maple syrup, sausages that tasted of apple and sage and perfect coffee. Chase had seated her at the kitchen table with a mimosa and hadn’t let her lift a finger. She sneaked a glance in his direction. Obviously he hadn’t spent all his time chasing stories along the Sudan.

Hoping she sounded casual even as she admitted to herself that she was dying to know, she nudged again, “Fess up. Who taught you to cook? Mother, sister or girlfriend?”

“Who said I could cook? You just tasted a full half of my repertoire.”

He’d neatly skirted the answer, but Nettie had no idea how to probe further without being obvious, so she asked instead, “What’s the other half?”

“Chocolate chip cookies.”

“From scratch?”

“My own recipe.”

“Are they really good?”

He twirled a long twig from the fields between his teeth. “People have killed for less.”

“You don’t say. I make a pretty mean cookie myself. What’s your secret?”

A dark brow arched as he glanced her way. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret.”

Nettie laughed. The day was sunny; the conversation was sunny. If hearts could grin, she figured hers was.

“Come on,” she wheedled happily. “I won’t blab to
People
magazine, if that’s what you’re worried about. In fact, if anyone ever asks me what one of the Fifty Most Beautiful Bachelors likes to do in his spare time, I give you my word never to mention how natural you looked in your sweet little apron, holding a fry pan.”

Clamping his teeth around the twig, Chase scowled. “I wasn’t wearing an apron.”

“Makes a better story, though, doesn’t it?” Laughing, she skipped ahead of him, then turned to walk backwards a few paces while he stood still, glowering. Until now, Nettie had had no idea that teasing someone could be this much fun. “Ah, I know what’s bothering you,” she sang out. “You’re afraid
People
’s
female audience will find out that you’re beautiful
and
you bake chocolate chip cookies and you’ll be hounded by single women. Hungry single women. You know, I think you’re actually very shy.”

Disposing of the twig, Chase gave her a wide, unarguably sexy grin. “Why, Nettie,” he said, his voice a silky smooth purr, “I had no idea you think I’m beautiful.”

This time Nettie stopped walking as he strolled on. “I didn’t say that,” she claimed while he strutted like a peacock with its tail feathers spread.

Chase wriggled the twig with his tongue. “Did too.”

“I was referring to the article.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Catching up with him, Nettie fell into step without glancing his way. “Well, think again.” Under her breath, but loudly enough for him to hear, she muttered, “Egomaniac.”

Chase didn’t even blink. He simply stretched a leg in front of hers, deliberately tripping her. As she shrieked and started to fall, he pivoted neatly, placing himself in front of her and grasping both her arms. Then in one smooth move, he dropped onto his back, bringing her harmlessly down on top of him.

The sheer surprise left Nettie panting. Chase’s hands were warm and firm around her upper arms. “Admit it,” he commanded in a low sexy growl. Before she had time to catch her breath, he rolled them over, placing his palms on the ground and hovering over her. “Admit you want me badly.”

Bracketed by his arms, Nettie shook her head. He was teasing, but the energy that sizzled between them was no joke. “I admit I want your cookie recipe,” she breathed, refusing to give in. Playing the game.

Chase grinned appreciatively. He lowered his head. “Ve haf vays of making you speak.” Closer and closer he moved until he was nuzzling her cheek with his nose and lips.

A strong shiver raced through her body, followed by a dozen tiny, delicious shivers. She tried to mask the intensity of her reaction, but when his tongue came out to tickle the corner of her mouth, Nettie thought she would go berserk if she had to stay silent and still.

“You taste like maple syrup,” Chase whispered.

Someone moaned.
Probably me
, Nettie thought, then couldn’t
have formed a coherent sentence to save her sanity as he used his lips to nibble the spot he’d just licked.

Chase was in control. He was sure of it. Until her fingers delved mindlessly into his hair. Until she arched beneath him with total abandon. Until she moaned.

She was part siren, part playmate. What started out as a game to urge her to say she wanted him had turned into a trap he’d set for himself. He wanted her. Now.

Nettie raised her right knee and his thigh slid between hers. There was no way she could mistake his desire, yet she gave no hint of wanting to pull back.

This is no place to make love, Chase thought even as his mouth covered hers completely. Her lips parted, and he sank into the kiss like a drowning man. On the other hand, it might be the perfect place. Earth below, sunup above. There was another groan, this time issuing from him.

Chase’s hand caressed and explored as it roamed from her breast to her waist. Nettie strained against him. He curved a palm around her hip. She began to wriggle, which just about drove him crazy. If she kept moving like that, he’d have them both out of their clothes before their hearts took the next beat.

He clamped a hand on her hip. She strained against him and her hands left his hair, moving to his shoulders, first pulling then pushing until she reached for the hand holding her hip and tried to throw it off.

With a Herculean effort, Chase broke the kiss and raised his head. “Sweetheart,” he groaned, his voice hoarse. “I want to give us what we both want, believe me, but I—”

“Off,” she gasped.

Chase frowned.
Off?

“Get. Off.” This time she pushed the words through gritted teeth. There was no mistaking her intention as she brought the heels of her hands to his shoulders and shoved as hard as she could.
“Now!”

Chase leaped up. Nettie followed. Before Chase’s everwidening eyes, she grabbed her T-shirt and all but ripped it from the waistband of her pants.

“Fire ants!” she cried.

“What?”

“Fire ants.” Wriggling like a trapped lizard, Nettie indicated, “In my shirt.”

She began a mad dance, hopping up and down and flapping the hem of the shirt as she tried desperately to rid herself of the biting insects.

Chase watched with a kind of fascination and some notion that he ought to help, but damned if he knew how. He was a guy. A guy would just—