Duncan's Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

silent intensity. She was still gripping his forearms, and she felt the heat of his arms, the steely muscles bunched iron-hard under her fingers. Her heart lurched at the sharp realization that he felt some of the turmoil she had been feeling.
    She began babbling an apology. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend—that is, I didn’t realize—” She stopped, because she couldn’t come right out and say that she hadn’t meant to arouse him. No matter how she reacted to him, he was still essentially a stranger.
    He looked down at her legs, with the skirt still halfway up them, and his hands involuntarily tightened on her waist before he forced himself to release her. “Yeah, I know. It’s all right,” he muttered. His voice was still hoarse. It wasn’t all right. Every muscle in his body was tight. He stepped back before he could give in to the impulse to move forward instead, putting himself between her legs and opening them wider. All he would have to do would be to slide his hands under the skirt to push it up the rest of the way— He crushed the thought, because if he’d let himself finish it, his control would have shattered.
    T HEY HAD LEFT Billings far behind before he spoke again. “Are you hungry? If you are, there’s a café at the crossroads up ahead.”
    â€œNo, thank you,” Madelyn replied a bit dreamily as she stared at the wide vista of countryside around her. She was used to enormous buildings, but suddenly they seemed puny in comparison with this endless expanse of earth and sky. It made her feel both insignificant andfresh, as if her life were just starting now. “How far is it to your ranch?”
    â€œAbout a hundred and twenty miles. It’ll take us almost three hours to get there.”
    She blinked, astonished at the distance. She hadn’t realized how much effort it was for him to come to Billings to meet her. “Do you go to Billings often?”
    He glanced at her, wondering if she was trying to find out how much he isolated himself on the ranch. “No,” he said briefly.
    â€œSo this is a special trip?”
    â€œI did some business this morning, too.” He’d stopped by the bank to give his loan officer the newest figures on the ranch’s projected income for the coming year. Right now, it looked better than it had in a long time. He was still flat broke, but he could see daylight now. The banker had been pleased.
    Madelyn looked at him with concern darkening her gray eyes. “So you’ve been on the road since about dawn.”
    â€œAbout that.”
    â€œYou must be tired.”
    â€œYou get used to early hours on a ranch. I’m up before dawn every day.”
    She looked around again. “I don’t know why anyone would stay in bed and miss dawn out here. It must be wonderful.”
    Reese thought about it. He could remember how spectacular the dawns were, but it had been a long while since he’d had the time to notice one. “Like everything else, you get used to them. I know for a fact that there are dawns in New York, too.”
    She chuckled at his dry tone. “I seem to rememberthem, but my apartment faces to the west. I see sunsets, not dawns.”
    It was on the tip of his tongue to say that they would watch a lot of dawns together, but common sense stopped him. The only dawn they would have in common would be the next day. She wasn’t the woman he would choose for a wife.
    He reached into his shirt pocket and got out the pack of cigarettes that always resided there, shaking one free and drawing it the rest of the way out with his lips. As he dug in his jeans pocket for his lighter he heard her say incredulously, “You smoke ?”
    Swift irritation rose in him. From the tone of her voice you would have thought she had caught him kicking puppies, or something else equally repulsive. He lit the cigarette and blew smoke into the cab.