AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I would be happy to cook for you,” she said.
“If I let you talk.”
“I can confine myself to discussing food,” she said.
“That might be a first,” he replied.
Her eyes glittered, but she folded her arms and lifted her chin. “Well, you can go to the main room, and I’ll bring it to you when it’s ready.”
He didn’t want to go back in where his mother was. Plus, knowing Madre, she’d take offense at another woman in her kitchen cooking. “Just no questions, Anna.” He wasn’t up to lying to her anymore. “Okay?”
“I might have to ask you how you want your food.”
“Cooked.” He pulled open the kitchen door and held it for her. “Thank you.”
Her lips twitched. “Don’t thank me yet. It might not be like your mother would make.”
“That wouldn’t be a bad thing. I have eaten a meal or two in town.”
“I explored the kitchen earlier, and I made a bit of starter dough. I’ll make some rolls from it.”
“Okay.”
She urged him to sit as she bustled around the kitchen. First slapping a bit of dough on the table and adding flour, milk and butter, then kneading it. She retrieved what was left of a haunch of beef from the larder, and she told him to sit back down when he rose to help her. She cut off a good-sized steak and started frying it in a skillet. When she finally finished, she was flushed and a strand of hair had slipped down to drift in front of her face.
He almost didn’t notice his stomach growling as he watched her, because she set off another kind of hunger in him.
She set down a plate with a roasted tomato, a juicy steak and a couple of small rolls. “The rolls won’t be as light as I hoped. The dough just wasn’t ready yet.”
“Smells heavenly.” He picked up the knife and fork she’d set before him and tucked in.
After working all day, he was hungry enough to think burned beans would taste good. But in no time at all he was scraping the plate with the last of his roll. She had moved to washing the dishes and was surprisingly quiet.
“I could get used to your cooking. Easily. That was just what I needed.”
Her gaze flicked to his cleaned plate, and the ghost of a smile crossed her face.
Now that he’d forced her into silence, he missed the barrage of questions, missed the way she looked at him as if he had answers. He only hated that his answers had been lies.
“Come on. You can leave the rest for Juanita to finish. Let’s go into the courtyard, where it is cooler.”
She dried her hands and tucked the loose strand of hair behind her ear. He held open the door for her, and they stepped out into the twilight.
He sighed. He supposed she wanted to talk about Rafael. Again. Seemed as if they were always talking about Rafael. “I assume Madre told you she arranged for the priest to come in five days.”
Anna turned and bit her lip. “How can she know Rafael will be back in five days?”
“Good question. You should ask her.”
“I did. She just told me not to worry.” Anna’s forehead furrowed. “I don’t think I’ll be ready to marry Rafael then.”
An odd little hope flared to light. “When do you think you’ll be ready?”
Anna ducked her head to the side and folded her arms. “Maybe never.”
“Didn’t you arrive prepared to marry him?” he asked.
“I did,” she said softly.
They walked along in silence for a while until they reached her door. He should bid her good-night and go to his room. Then after she settled, he could sneak out to check on Rafael. But instead he stopped walking.
She turned to look out at the empty courtyard. “The thing is, he could have told me where he was going or what he was doing or left me a note.”
A shaft of remorse that he hadn’t thought to pass off a note to her stabbed him. But that would have only helped Rafe’s cause.
“Nothing he’s done since I arrived shows he holds me in any esteem. Leaving, not telling me anything, when he spoke to the rest of you.” She lifted her chin. “I want to do what I can to help him keep the ranch, but he hasn’t spared me any thought.”
He should remind her that she had been sleeping when Rafael supposedly left, but he couldn’t find the energy to force out the lie. Okay, not entirely a lie, because he’d taken Rafael out before dawn to be certain she wouldn’t see him.
“It may be that I did not deserve consideration given my deception, but he couldn’t have known about that then,” she continued. “If he lost all respect for me when he learned I shot the stagecoach robber, we won’t have the basis for a good marriage.”
“You’re going to have to make up your mind what you want, Anna.”
“I don’t have a family that can afford to take me back. The mill is closed, so I don’t have a job to return to. I keep thinking he paid for me to come out here, and I owe him.”
His gut tightened. Did she think she was obligated to marry Rafael because of the cost of her travel? “You don’t have to marry him, Anna.”
She turned and studied him. “I may not have a lot of choice. I want to be married to a man of means.”
This new pensive Anna concerned him. “You shouldn’t be left alone all day ever again.”
She looked down. “I’m just confused. I would like to talk to Rafael long enough to know if we would rub along well, but...” She shook her head and pressed her lips together.
“But what?”
Her cheeks darkened. “He seemed handsome enough, but I don’t ever think of him.”
Did that mean she thought of him? His ears perked up, waiting, hoping for her to say more.
“Then I think of those letters he wrote me, and I think I want to be with him.”
Oh, hell. He felt the truth bubbling up, and he couldn’t hold it back. “Anna.” He waited until her gaze was focused on him. “I wrote those letters.”
Her forehead puckered.
He didn’t know if he expected anger or disappointment, but he watched her with his breath held. Her eyes turned faraway, and then she nodded. “That makes sense.”
“How does that make sense?” burst out of him.
“Because the writing on the note with the hairpins made me think Rafael had written it. And because what you wrote seems like you. Daniel, it was you—”
He kissed her then. She’d come to marry him, not Rafael. Of course, there was still her expectation of marrying the owner of the ranch, but she couldn’t know he was anything more than a younger brother who liked to grow things and hoped to have his own small stretch of land one day.
Her lips clung to his, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Desire flung his sanity and caution to the side, and he pulled her tight against him and deepened the kiss.
She strained up on her toes and made the sweetest little mew as his tongue tangled with hers. He pushed into her until she was against her door and still he wanted closer. He wanted her so badly. The black fire that had been burning in him all day burst into bright, colorful flames. Scorching hot flames of need.
His arm around her back, he pulled her tighter against him, tight enough to feel her breasts pressing against his chest. She arched into him. Yet he needed closer. Her leg wrapped around his, and he wanted to pull her up, as he’d had her last night, but this time Rafael wasn’t a few feet away. This time he wasn’t certain he could stop if she didn’t stop him.
This time he wanted nothing between them, no clothes between his hands and her skin, nothing between his privates and hers, no misunderstanding or shades of his brother. He drew his head back and she went with him, clinging, sucking on his lip, until he had to wrest his face to the side.
For a second only their heavy breathing filled the air.
“Am I doing something wrong?” she whispered.
He turned and drank in the uncertainty in her liquid green eyes. He brushed his lips across hers, slowly, gently, fighting the passion that would have him ripping her clothes open.
“Oh, Anna,” he whispered against her sweet lips. “If we continue this, you can’t marry Rafael.”
Her lower lashes came up, and he watched her eyes, fascinated by the fierce determination he found there.
“If we continue, I will use the rifle on you if that is what it takes to make me your wife.”
Well, marrying her would be one way to reclaim ownership of his rifle. “You won’t have to shoot me to get me in front of the priest.”
His heart galloped at the idea he was committing to a woman who’d never be afraid to go toe to toe with him, but at least she didn’t try to work guilt or obligation against him.
He would owe her a proper proposal in due time. He’d do it right on bended knee, with all the right words and declarations, but right now they were beyond that. He reached for the doorknob and turned it, leading them both into her room.
