Heather Graham Read Online Free PDF Page B

pool—but not yours, Senator!” He laughed at the puzzled expression on the older man’s face. “You told me that Martine Galway was a pretty girl. You were wrong. She’s the stuff dreams and fantasies are woven from.”
    Joe glanced at Kane with narrowing eyes. “Tread carefully with her, Kane. She’s been through a lot. Don’t …” He hesitated. Maybe he had no right to give warnings to other people, and he was more perceptive than Kane realized. Kane hadn’t said much—he never did—but Joe knew that Kane had arrived at Martie’s just in time to prevent some real disaster.
    “Don’t hurt her.” He finished a little lamely. But then he chuckled, a bright light touching his eyes. “Never mind. Come to think of it, Martie Galway might be just what you need, my boy. The lady’s been known to cause a heart or two to bleed.”
    Kane laughed again. “Sounds like you think the two of us would be fitting adversaries in some kind of arena.”
    “Maybe that’s exactly what I mean.”
    Kane shrugged. “Well, you’d better excuse me, Joe, or there will be no ranch, and I’d rather not see her face a certain other adversary again.”
    “By all means, get going.”
    Kane nodded. Joe Devlin walked him to the door. “Take the CJ-seven into town, then come back here for the horse. It will be a lot faster. Oh, and Kane, what do you want me to do if anyone asks for you?”
    Kane shrugged. “No one should be asking. I’m a big kid now, Joe. I’ve been out on my own a long time, and I’m known to land on my feet.”
    “Keep in touch.”
    Kane nodded.
    When he walked back into the sunshine, he saw the jeep parked up the drive. Senator Joseph Devlin had a tendency to be a step ahead of everyone, Kane thought with affection. He had probably ordered the jeep pulled around the second he had realized Kane had returned.
    But as he left the driveway behind and headed for town, Kane wasn’t thinking about Joe Devlin. He was thinking about Martine Galway, about the way he’d felt when he saw Lander pinning her to the ground.
    His fingers gripped the gearshift, and he forced himself to inhale a long, shaky breath. He couldn’t make trouble with Lander now—not the kind of trouble he wanted to make. Joe Devlin wanted to pin Lander with all the legal goods he could.
    Besides, he thought, his scowl fading a bit as he eased back into the comfortable driver’s seat of the vehicle, on one score he had something in common with Lander.
    He hadn’t been able to think about anything but Martine since he’d met her either. Daydreams and fantasies—just as he had told Joe. He wondered just what kind of hero he really was, saving her from the pressuring affections of one man when he would have loved to have grabbed her and swept her up a staircase himself.
    He wanted her, just as Lander did. He didn’t think that any healthy male could see her and not have a few carnal thoughts.
    Obsessions, he admitted. He could deny anything to her, but not to himself. He would love to have her in lieu of $8,000—in lieu of $80 for that matter. Because just like Lander, he’d envisioned her naked, decked only in that wild mane of waving hair, her eyes liquid and flashing, her flesh bared to his touch, her arms reaching for him.
    Kane twisted his jaw, irritated with the tension that coiled in his body. He fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette and glanced at the rolling scenery he passed: scrub mostly; some decent grassland.
    Finally he sighed, having convinced himself that there was a difference between Lander and him. He wanted her with a desire so intense that it was startling, haunting, but he wanted her to want him in return, touching him with the same longing and fascination. …
    He grimaced. Somehow he didn’t see it. She’d been grateful to him but wary too. Sparks had flown between them with the explosive quality of dry tinder.
    And, he reminded himself, eyes narrowing with self-annoyance, there was something else he had to want