She walked him to the front door with her arms wrapped around her chest and her mouth zipped in a firm line. No talking. She respected that it was late and he had to leave. Her gaze kept shooting to his face, though, and Pax had the uneasy feeling that shed rope and hog-tie him if he dared try leaving without saying something else about Case.
When he pushed open the back door, she was as faithful as a dog on his heels. It had turned dark. The lights of Sierra Vista were a soft glow in the sky to the north, but this far out of town, there were no lights, no traffic, no people noise. The night came alive here. The air was impossibly clear and pure, the silence soothing on a mans soul. So typically, the Arizona spring night was seeped in desert smells and sounds and a huge, ghost white full moonhis favorite kind.
Kansass gaze was still glued tightly on his face. Pax doubted she noticed the moon or the nightat that precise moment, he doubted shed notice an earthquakeand mentally sighed. Yeah, hed been thinking about the problem of her brother.
My work schedule is pretty weird, he told her. Im not an office hours kind of vet. About the only thing I do in the office is surgerymost of my work is out in the field, and I use a cellular phone for people trying to track me down. My hours are always crazy, and like I said, I really dont know where your brother is, Kansas. The best I could doif you dont mind working around my hit-or-miss scheduleis take you around, show you some places where Case used to go, that kind of thing.
That kind of thing would be wonderful, she said fervently, and smiled like hed just turned on the switch for the sun. That was all I was asking forsome help. I know its an imposition, and I really appreciate the offer. In fact I would be glad to pay you
Around here, we havent caught up with big city values yet. A neighbor still helps a neighbor. Money has nothing to do with it. Pax dug the truck key out of his jeans pocket. He doubted the wisdom of getting involved, but there was no help for it. Letting Kansas poke and pry on her own just wouldnt sit on his conscience. I wont be free tomorrow until after three in the afternoon.
Thatd be great.
Pax wasnt sure itd be great. He wasnt sure of anything except that he felt a whomp upside the head every time he looked at her.
Kansas moved aside so he could open the drivers door to the Explorer. He opened the door, but he didnt immediately climb in.
It had been a long time since anyone or anything confused him. His real name, Paxton, had been shortened to Pax because the Latin base for the nickname had always pegged his personality. He liked peace. Hed had enough turmoil in his childhood to last forever. Most things that mattered in life reduced to simple terms, if a man was determined to lead a simple life.
Nothing seemed simple about Kansas. Right then, she was standing in a shower of moonlight, her eyes softer than the big black sky. The filmy blouse she wore was no thicker than a veil, and never mind that it was sexier than a mans midnight fantasies. The fabric was ethereal and fragile, and everything she wore, every damn thing she did, shouted loudly that she was a wimp and a wuss and a crushably vulnerable woman.
Yet shed taken off cross-country without a qualm to save her brother. And hed watched the confounded shrimp tackle the tarantula, when she had a rescuer right at her fingertips who could have handled it. It didnt make sense. She didnt make sense.
Kansas cocked her head. Im in no rush if you want to stand here all night, she murmured humorously. But youre looking at me like theres a bug on my nose.
Theres no bug on your nose.
Maybe you were thinking of something else having to do with my brother? Because if theres anything else you could tell me about Case
I wasnt thinking about your brother. Pax just kept thinking that somehow, someway, he had to figure out what kind of woman Kansas really was.
She could get hurt if he misjudged what she was capable of.
She could get into serious trouble unless he had a measure of what she could handleand what she couldnt.
All Pax wanted was some simple, clean-cut answers. In a dozen years, thoughin a hundred yearshe never planned on kissing her.
Three
Kansas didnt move when he took a step toward her. And she saw his arm reach up, felt the knuckles of his hand brush her cheek. But Pax didnt seem to even be thinking about her. There was a dark wedge of a frown grooved in his brow, as if some weighty problem was consuming his attention.
Even when he ducked his head, it just never occurred to her that he planned to kiss her. Thered been no come-on. No man-woman exchange of looks or body-language signals. If anything, Kansas sensed that Pax saw her as a pesky little sisterhumorous and a little annoying, but as safe as a sibling to be with.
His lips touched hers, in a whispery-soft kiss. A safe kiss. A kiss swifter than the feather stroke of a spring wind.
Her heartbeat picked up a sudden, strange rhythm, but she still didnt move. Even if the kiss was a surprise, no threat of danger crossed her mind. Heaven knew what motivated Pax to kiss her at all, but she had no fear of where it was going. Every man shed ever known had treated her like breakable china. It wasnt their fault; positively her delicate appearance provoked that attitude, but her looks were nothing she could change. Still, she was so experienced at handling careful, cautious, gentle kisses that she never anticipated any other kind.
His hands sieved into her hair and he tilted her face up. His black eyes burned on her face for all of a second, before his mouth dipped down again.
Holy kamoly. For damn sure he wasnt kissing his sister this time.
Fire shot through her veins before shed even smelled sulphur. The shock alone curled her toes. Pax wasnt trapping herexcept for his big hands framing her face, he wasnt holding her at all. The only connection was his smooth, warm lips tasting hers, then taking hers, with a pressure that made her blood spin.
Reflexively her hands shot up. Her fingers closed around his wrists, not necessarily to stop him. Just to hold on. She sure as patooties needed something to hold onto, because an innocuously pale moonlit night had abruptly exploded with color.
He was supposed to treat her like a fragile cookie. Everyone else did. Every other man had always kissed her...respectfully. Pax kissed her like someone had accidentally opened the cage doors on a big, hungry beara bear whod been contained and deprived of sustenance for just too long. She couldnt catch her breath. He seemed to have the same problem.
His shadow covered her more completely than a sheet on a bed. She couldnt see his face, but she could feel the harsh, beating pulse in his wrists, hear the raw, rough sound that came out of his throat. It was a lonely sound. Lonely and wild. And he sealed her mouth under his with the pressure of a brand. His brand.
He was a relative stranger, her mind recognized, and Kansas hadnt survived to the vast age of twenty-nine without knowing the girls rule book. When a stranger came on to a woman with the intimidating force of a steamroller, she wasnt supposed to melt faster than ice cream in the tropics. She was supposed to sock him. She was supposed to make him behave. And if those options werent clear-cut easy, she was supposed to have the good sense to run faster than the wind.
But she didnt run. And when his tongue found hers, an unprincipled kiss that was already pushing the boundaries of trouble suddenly dived straight off that cliff. He tasted dark and wicked. He tasted exotic and forbidden. He tasted like the most dangerous flavor shed ever tried...yet her fingers loosened on his wrists, hovered for a second in midair, and then slowly wrapped tightly around his waist.
Her response wasnt something she could justify, not in rational terms. Yet her never-too-logical heart seemed to think shed known Pax forever. Maybe one tough, strong cookie recognized another. Maybe it took someone whod never belonged to anything or anyone, to recognize how fierce and desperate that longing could be in someone else.
There were no maybes on her mind at that instant, just emotions taking her under with gale force. She kissed him back, as shed never dared kiss anyone. She took him in, as if a pipsqueak-size woman could actually shelter a tall, strong man in the circle of her arms. Some need in Pax touched her heart. And damnation, no one had ever touched her heart, not like this.
Her feet arched up on tiptoe. Her breasts tightened, arched, ached against his chest. His belt buckle grazed her abdomen. The angle of stark moonlight on his face, the warmth pouring off his skin, the tight flex of his thighs and the shiver-arousing feeling of his arousal growing, pressed intimately between themif she had been more razor-sharp aware of a man, she didnt know when. She could feel his whole body shudder with tensionsexual tension that had suddenly become as volatile as lightning.
Kansas kept telling herself she should be scaredmaybe even scared out of her mindbut shed never known this crazy kind of heat even existed. If this was madness and mayhem, shed been waiting for it all her life. Damned if shed be afraid of something this rich, this wondrous and powerful. And damned if thered ever been a man whod made her feel this way. Liquid from the inside out. Needed. Desired. As if nothing else existed but the two of them at that pure moment in time.
It didnt last. On a harsh groan, he tore his mouth free and reared his head back. Firm hands grasped her by the shoulders and forced a separation. His lungs hauled in air like hed been underwater for the last year or two.
If putting some physical distance between them was supposed to cool him down, or calm him down, it didnt seem to be working. His eyes looked dazed drunk in the moonlight. He looked at her, and then hauled in another lungful of air. Kansas...I didnt mean that to happen. Hell. I dont even know what happened.
Her relationship with gravity was still a little shaky, and she was having the same tough time catching her breath as he was. Still, she definitely didnt share his problem with figuring out what happened. Hed kissed the living socks off her. And shed kissed him back the same way. Its all right, she said gently.
The hell it is. Im sorry.
Theres nothing to be sorry for.
Yeah, there is. I dont...I would never have...hell, he said again, and clawed a hand at the back of his neck. I apologize for jumping you. And I dont want you afraid that itll happen again. It wont.
Kansas realized fleetingly that Pax was rattled. She rattled easilydidnt take any more than a mouse running across the floorbut she suspicioned that Pax rarely let his control off the leash. He didnt seem to know where to look, what to say, or what the Sam Hill he was supposed to do. And she was afraid it might go on foreverhis swallowing hard and saying hell in between apologiesunless she took charge.
Hey, theres no problem here, she said calmly. Maybe I was surprised when you kissed me. Maybe we were both surprised. But people have been indulging in that particular pastime since the beginning of time... Oops, she thought that might earn a smile, but no. No ones upset, right? No ones mad. Everybodys fine. And its late, like you said. Lets just call it a night, and Ill see you tomorrow.
He leaped on that excuse to split, she noticed dryly, like a dog for a bone. Moments later, the Explorers headlights bounced out of her driveway.
She headed inside, intending to lock up, clean up and get ready for bed. She locked up, then completely forgot the rest of that game plan, and found herself standing in the front window, staring out at the empty driveway.
Her heart was beating like a revved up 747.
Thoughts were tumbling through her mind like dandelion fluff in a hurricane wind.
And every feminine hormone in her body was alive, awake and singing arias.
Inappropriate arias, Kansas mused. It was only a kiss. From a man who clearly wished he hadnt indulged in the impulse, and in a place where she neither lived nor planned to stay long. As there was positively no chance to pursue a relationship, there was absolutely nothing to worry about.
And she wasnt worried. Shed just never felt that fierce, instantaneous pull for anyone else. Before completely giving up menwhich, as far as Kansas was concerned, was the most brilliant decision she ever madeshe was no stranger to passion. Hal had been her last lover, and making love with him had been nice. Messy and time-consuming, but nice. Maybe she had an unusual pocketful of inhibitions, but shed never been in a tearing hurry to get naked with a man, and Hal had been sweet, gentle, comfortable. Untenably, exasperatingly, as possessive as a bloodhound, but the intimate side of their relationship had been A-OK. Shed thought.
How startling, to discover at the vast age of twenty-nine, that a man could wipe all those previous preconceptions right off the map. If Pax had scared her, it was the most delicious scared she could remember. No man had ever kissed her like a lush slide straight into sensual oblivion, as if her whole world had been an arid desert until he touched her.
Kansas wasnt about to mistake a molehill for a mountainfor both of them, it had probably just been a crazy, lost moment in time.
But she didnt want to forget that kiss.
Kansas turned around, and forced her mind to concentrate on getting ready for bed. She had a bad, bad feeling that falling for Pax could be a terrible temptation. That wouldnt do at all; not for him or her. For a few moments there, shed almost forgotten that she was violently, sensibly and firmly off men.
It was a relief to remember that.
* * *
Pax turned down Cactus Court with a glance at the digital clock on his dash. Three oclock on the button.
It was going to be a lot easier to deal with Kansas, he considered, now that he knew for sure she was a stark-raving lunatic.
His experience with her the night before couldnt possibly have been more helpful. He had her measure now. She might be a wimp, but she had more gutsand recklessnessthan any twenty women. And before getting any further involved in her brothers problem, that was precisely what Pax needed to knowhow shed respond to trouble.
Now he knew.
She had no concept of trouble or danger at all. Skydive without a parachuteno problemo for Kansas. Pet a grizzly bearwhat fun. Respond to a guy she barely knew with open vulnerability and passion and a free, naked invitation to do whatever the hell he wanted...damn that woman. Had she even thought about saying no?
Pax braked in her driveway, and slammed the door as he leaped out of the Explorer. Hot sun beat down on his shoulders, healing, soothing sun. Hed been up since five. Spring was calving season. Hed showered before leaving the Hernandez ranchmost of the local ranchers offered him a meal and a place to clean up as an automatic courtesy. So he was clean, but his muscles still ached from the physical work and long, grueling hours. He wouldnt have minded ten minutes to put his feet up.