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He worried about the situation all through supper and all through the glass of merlot they enjoyed by the fire he started for her in the stone fireplace. When they ended up entwined on the couch, he willed his body to react to the feel of her lips against his, to the feel of her body beneath his hands. He felt the sweat pop out on his forehead. But…nothing.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Just because he hadn’t made love with a woman didn’t mean that he didn’t want to. He wanted to, all right. His damned body just wasn’t cooperating! He made up some excuse for why he couldn’t stay—his aching leg had come in handy for once—and bolted.
He drove around for two hours wondering if he was going to spend the rest of his life a virgin. What the hell had gone wrong? He hadn’t been able to figure it out but had finally conceded that driving around all night wasn’t going to give him any answers.
Then he remembered he had told Jewel he would probably be out all night. What was she going to think if he came back early?
That you don’t take your time.
Yeah. Probably she’d just think he’d gotten his fill of Eve already. He couldn’t imagine getting his fill of Jewel in bed. The thought of touching her skin, the feel of her hair against his body, the smell of her.
His body stirred in response.
It’s too late, buddy. You already missed the party. You have to do that when there’s a flesh-and-blood woman around.
And when it was some other woman besides Jewel. It wasn’t going to do him any good getting aroused by thoughts of her, because she was the last person he could have sex with.
Hell, his leg was killing him. He had some exercises he was supposed to do at night that he hadn’t done to relax the muscles. He needed to lay his leg flat in bed. He needed…he needed to know he could function as a man. The situation with Eve had been disturbing because it had never happened to him before. What if something was wrong with him? What if all those operations had done something to his libido?
You don’t have any problem responding to Jewel.
He recalled his feelings for Jewel, the ones that had sent him off in search of another woman. They weren’t as comforting as they should have been. He had felt the same sort of semi-arousal with Eve before he kissed her, but when it came time for action, his body had opted out.
Mac cut the pickup engine at the back door to the cottage. No lights. At least he’d be spared the ignominy of Jewel seeing him sneaking in at two in the morning. He didn’t want to have to make some explanation about why he was home early. He wasn’t about to tell her the truth, and he hated like hell to lie.
He eased the kitchen door open—Western doors were rarely locked, even in this day and age—and slipped inside.
“Hi.”
Mac nearly lost his balance and fell. “What the hell are you doing sitting here in the dark?”
He reached for the light switch, but Jewel said, “Don’t.”
The rough, raw sound of her voice, as though she had been crying, stayed his hand. He remained where he was, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. He finally located her in the shadows. She was sitting with her elbows perched on the kitchen table, her face buried in her hands.
He limped over, scraped a chair closer and sat beside her. He felt her stiffen as he laid an arm across her shoulder. “Are you all right?
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. You sound like you’ve been crying.”
“I didn’t think you’d be back tonight.”
Which meant she had expected to have the privacy to cry without being disturbed. It didn’t explain why she had been crying. She tried to rise, but he kept his arm around her and pressed her back down. “I’m here, Jewel.”
“Why is that, Mac? I can’t imagine any woman throwing you out. Which means you left on your own. What happened?”
This was exactly the scene Mac had been hoping to avoid. “She…uh…we…uh…”
“Don’t tell me Eve didn’t make a pass.”
“She did,” Mac conceded reluctantly.
“Then why aren’t you spending the night with her?”
“I…uh…that sort of thing can give a woman ideas.”
“I see.”
“You do?”
“Sure. Spend the whole night in a woman’s bed, and she tends to think you might be serious about her. Everyone knows you’re a love’em and leave’em kind of guy.”
“I am? I mean, I suppose I am. I haven’t found a woman I’d want to settle down with who’d have me.” That was certainly no lie.
Eve had wanted him, all right. It should have been the easiest thing in the world to take her in his arms and make love to her. The situation had been perfect: willing woman, intelligent, not a total stranger, attractive—hell, absolutely beautiful. And it had been absolutely impossible.
Mac bit back the sound of frustration that sought voice.
“You should go to bed if you’re going to get up early and walk tomorrow,” Jewel said.
“I’d rather sit here with you,” Mac replied.
“I’d rather be alone.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Mac leaned over to kiss her softly on the temple. Her hair smelled of lilacs. It reminded him of warm, lazy summer days they had spent lying on the banks of the pond that bordered the Stonecreek Ranch. He resisted the urge to thread his fingers through her hair. It might comfort her, but it would drive him damn near crazy.
“Just know I’m here if you need me,” he said. “You’d better get to bed, too, because I’m expecting you to walk with me tomorrow.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. It would be better if you go alone.”
He stared at her, wishing he could see the expression on her face. Moonlight filtered in through the kitchen window but left her mostly in shadow. “What’s going on, Jewel? Why are you shutting me out?”
“I got along fine without you for six years, Mac. What makes you think I need you now?”
Mac was stunned as much by the virulence in her voice as by what she had said. “If you want me out of here, I’m gone.”
She clutched his forearm as he rose, rubbing at her eyes with the knuckles of her other hand. “Don’t leave. Don’t leave.”
He pulled her up and into his arms, and she grabbed him tight around his neck and sobbed against his shoulder. He rubbed her back with his open palms, aware suddenly that she was wearing a thin, sleeveless cotton nightgown and nothing else.
His body turned hard as a rock in two seconds flat.
His equipment worked all right. At the wrong time. With the wrong woman.
“Damn it all to hell,” he muttered.
Jewel needed his comfort, not some male animal lusting after her. He kept their hips apart, not wanting his physical response to frighten or distress her. “Tell me what’s wrong, Jewel. Let me help,” he crooned in her ear.
“It’s too embarrassing,” she said, her face pressed tight against the curve of his shoulder.
“Nothing’s too embarrassing for us to talk about, my little carbuncle.”
She hiccuped a laugh. “Carbuncle? Isn’t that an ugly inflammation—”
“It’s a red precious stone. I swear.”
She relaxed, chuckling, and it took all the willpower he had to keep from pulling her tight against him.
“You always could make me laugh,” she said. “Oh, Mac, I wish you’d come back a long time ago. I missed you.”
“And I missed you. Now tell me what’s so embarrassing that you don’t want to talk about it?”
She sighed, and her breasts swelled against his chest, soft and warm. His heartbeat picked up. Lord, she was dangerous. Why couldn’t this have happened with Eve? Why did it have to be Jewel?
Her fingers began to play in the hair at his nape. He wondered if she knew what she was doing to him and decided she couldn’t possibly. She wouldn’t purposely turn him on. What she wanted was comfort from a friend. And he intended to give it to her.
But he wasn’t any more able to stop his body from responding than he had been capable of making it respond. All he could do was try to ignore the part of him that was insisting he do something. He focused his attention on Jewel. She needed his help.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he urged.
“I wish things were different, that’s all.”
“Don’t we all?” he said, thinking of his own situation. “But frankly, that doesn’t sound embarrassing enough to keep to yourself. What is it? Got bucked off your horse? Happens to the best of us. Broke a dish? Do it all the time. If you broke a heart I might worry, but you can always buy another dish.”
She laughed. The bubbly, effervescent sound he hadn’t heard for six years. He pulled her close and rocked her in his arms in the old, familiar, brotherly way.
She stiffened, and he realized what he had done. His hips, with the hard bulge in front, were pressed tight against hers. There was no way she could mistake his condition.
“Damn, Jewel,” he said, backing away from her, putting her at arm’s length and gripping her hands tightly in his.
He smiled, but she didn’t smile back.
When she pulled free, he let her go. “We can still talk,” he said, wanting her to stay, wanting to confess the truth to her. She was still his best friend. But somehow things had changed. He couldn’t tell her everything, not the most private things. Not anymore.
Maybe he had been wrong to expect her to confide in him. Maybe she felt the same awkwardness he did, the distance that had never been there before. A distance he had put there, because he saw her not just as a friend, but as a woman he wanted to kiss and touch.
“I’m going to bed, Mac.”
“Will you walk with me tomorrow?”
“I don’t think—”
“Please, Jewel. You’re my best friend. I’d really like the company.”
She hesitated so long, he thought she was going to refuse. “All right, Mac. I suppose I owe you that much.” She turned and left without another word.
He waited until her bedroom door closed before he moved, afraid that if he did, he would go after her.
He wondered what had been troubling her. He wondered what she would have done if he had lowered his head and sucked on her breasts through the thin cotton. Blood pulsed through his rock-hard body, and he swore under his breath.
Mac went to bed, but he didn’t sleep. He tossed and turned, troubled by vivid erotic fantasies of himself and Jewel Whitelaw. Their legs entangled, their bodies entwined, his tongue deep in her mouth, his shaft deep inside her. She was calling to him, calling his name.
Mac awoke tangled in the sheets, his body hot, hard and ready, his heart racing. And all alone.
He heard Jewel calling from outside the door. “Mac. Are you awake?” She knocked twice quietly. “It’s time to walk.”
Mac groaned. “I’ll be with you in a minute.” As soon as he was decent.
From the look of Jewel at the breakfast table, she hadn’t slept any better than he had. She was wearing something even less attractive than the sweatshirt and cutoffs she had worn previously. It didn’t matter. He saw her naked.
Mac shook his head to clear it. The vision of her breasts, large and luscious as peaches, and her long, slim legs wrapped around his waist, remained as vivid as ever.
“Are you all right?” Jewel asked.
“Fine. Let’s go.”
She chattered the whole way to the canyon, but he would have been hard-pressed to remember a word of what she had said or his own responses.
Everything was different. Something was missing. And something had been added.
He wanted their old relationship back. He was determined to quench any desire he might feel for her, so things could get back to an even footing. He figured the best way to start was to bring the subject out into the open and deal with it. On the walk back to the house, he did.
“About what happened last night…It shouldn’t have happened.” His comment was vague, but he knew she understood exactly what he meant when pink roses blossomed on her cheekbones.
She shrugged. “I was just a woman in a skimpy nightgown.”
“Jewel, I—”
She stopped and turned to him, looking into his eyes, her gaze earnest. “Please, Mac. Can we pretend it never happened?”
He gave a relieved sigh. “That’s exactly what I’d like to do. It was an accident. I never intended for it to happen. I wish I could promise it won’t happen again, but—” He shot her a chagrined look. “I’ll be sure you’re never embarrassed again. Am I forgiven?”
“There’s no need—”
“Just say yes,” he said.
“Yes.”
She turned abruptly and started walking again, and he followed after her.
“I’m glad that’s over with,” he said. “I can’t afford to lose a friend as good as you, Jewel.”
“And I can’t afford to lose a friend like you, Mac.”
Jewel’s eyes were as brown and sad as a motherless calf. Mac wished she had told him why she was crying last night. He wished she had let him comfort her. If she ever gave him another chance, he was going to do it right. He wasn’t going to let his hormones get in the way of their friendship.
When they got back to the house, she hurried up the back steps ahead of him. “I get the shower first!”
“We could always share,” he teased. He could have bitten his tongue out. That sort of sexual innuendo had to cease.
To his relief, Jewel gave him a wide smile and said, “In your dreams, Mac! I’ll try to save you a little hot water.”
Then she was gone.
Mac settled on the back stoop and rubbed the calf muscles of his injured leg. It was getting easier to walk. Practice was helping. And it would get easier to treat Jewel as merely a friend. All he had needed was a little more practice at that, too.
AFTER HE HAD SHOWERED, MAC MADE a point of seeking Jewel out, determined to work on reestablishing their friendship. He found her in the barn, cleaning stalls and shoveling in new hay for the dozen or so ponies Camp LittleHawk kept available for horseback rides. “Can I help?” he said.
“There’s another pitchfork over by the door. Be my guest.”
Mac noticed she didn’t even look up from her work. Not a very promising sign. He grabbed the pitchfork and went to work in the stall next to the one she was working in. “I thought your mom usually hired someone to do this kind of heavy labor.”
“I don’t have anything better to do with my time,” Jewel said.
“Why not?” Mac asked. “Pretty girl like you ought to be out enjoying herself.”
Jewel stuck her pitchfork into the hay and turned to stare at him. “I enjoy my work.”
“I’m sure you do,” he said, throwing a pitchfork of manure into the nearby wheelbarrow. “But there’s a time for work and a time for play. I don’t see you doing enough playing.”
“I’m a grown-up woman, Mac. Playing is for kids.”
“You’re never too old to play, Jewel.” Mac filled his pitchfork with clean straw and threw it up over the stall so it landed on Jewel’s head.
She came out of her stall sputtering and picking straw out of her mouth, mad as a peeled rattler. She confronted him, hands on hips and said, “That wasn’t funny!”
He set his pitchfork against the stall and laughed. “I think you look darned cute with straw sticking out of your hair every whichaway.” He headed toward her to help pull out some of the straw.
When he got close enough, she gave him a shove that sent him onto his behind. Only the straw Mac landed in wasn’t clean. He gave a howl of outrage and struggled up out of the muck, glaring at the stain on the back of his jeans. “What’d you do that for?”
She grinned. “I think you look darned cute, all covered with muck.”
“You know this means war.”
“No, Mac. We’re even now. Don’t—”
He lunged toward her, caught her by the waist and threw her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
“Watch out for your leg!” Jewel cried. “You’re going to hurt yourself carrying me like this.”
“My leg is fine,” Mac growled. “Good enough to get you where I want you.”
Mac headed for the short stack of hay at one end of the barn and when he got there, dropped Jewel into it. When she tried to jump free, he came down on top of her and pinned her hands on either side of her.
“Mac,” she said breathlessly, laughing. “Get up.”
“I want to play some more, Emerald, my dear,” he said sprinkling her hair with hay.
“You’re more green than I am,” she taunted.
Mac took a look at the back of his jeans. “Yes, and I think you should pay a forfeit for that.”
“You can have the shower first,” she said with a bubbly laugh. “You need it!”
His laugh was cut off when he realized that what he really wanted was a kiss. He stared at her curving mouth, at the way her nose wrinkled when she laughed, at the teasing sparkle in her brown eyes. “I think I’ll take something now.”
He watched her face sober when she realized what he intended. He knew she must be able to feel his arousal, cradled as he was between her jean-clad thighs. He waited for her to tell him to let go, that the game was over. She stared up at him with luminous eyes and slicked her tongue quickly, nervously over her lips. But she didn’t say get up or get off. And she didn’t say no.
Friends, Mac. Not lovers. Friends.
Mac made himself kiss her eyelids closed before he kissed each cheek and then her nose and then…her forehead.
He rose abruptly and pulled her to her feet. She was dizzy, because her eyes had been closed, so he was forced to hold her in his arms until she was steady. She felt so good there, so very right. And so very wrong.
“I’m sorry, Jewel,” he said. “That was totally out of line.”
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Yes, I suppose it was. I think it’s your turn to pay a forfeit, Mac.”
He tensed. “What did you have in mind?”
She reached out, and for a moment he thought she was going to lay her hand on his chest and give him another shove. Instead, she grasped a nearby pitchfork and held it out to him. “You get to finish what I started. I’m going to get another shower and wash off all this itchy straw.”
“Hey! That’s not fair,” he protested.
But she had already turned and stalked away.
“You and your bright ideas,” Mac muttered to himself as he pitched manure into the wheelbarrow. “What were you thinking? Maybe you could throw straw around when you were kids and it was funny, but there was nothing funny about what almost happened in that haystack. What if you’d kissed her lips? How would you have felt when she got upset?
How do you know she’d have been upset?
Mac mused over that question for the next hour as he finished cleaning stalls. Actually, Jewel had seemed more upset that he hadn’t kissed her lips. Could she have feelings for him that weren’t merely friendly?
Don’t even think about it, Macready. The woman’s off-limits. She’s your friend, and she needs your friendship. Concentrate on somebody else’s needs for a change and forget what you want.
Mac knew why he was having all these lurid thoughts about Jewel. He probably would be having such thoughts about any woman he came in close contact with at this stage in his life. It didn’t help that Jewel turned him on so hard and fast.
Get over it, Mac.
“I intend to,” Mac muttered as he set the pitchfork back where it belonged and headed for the house. “Jewel is my friend. And that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
AT THE END OF TWO WEEKS MAC was walking the mile to the canyon without the aid of a cane and doing it in seven minutes flat. Jewel had difficulty keeping up with him when he broke into a jog. His leg was getting better; hers never would. She could picture him moving away from her, going on with his life, leaving her behind. She was going to miss him. She was going to miss playing with him.
The scene in the barn hadn’t been repeated. Nor had Mac teased her or taunted her or done any of the playful things he might have done when they were teenagers. He had become a serious grown-up over the past two weeks. She hadn’t realized how much she had needed him to play with her. To her surprise, she hadn’t been intimidated or frightened by him in the barn. Not even when she had thought he might kiss her.
She had wanted that kiss, she realized, and been sorely disappointed when he kissed her forehead instead. Then she’d realized he had been carried away by their physical closeness, and when he’d realized it was her—his old friend, Jewel—he had backed off. He liked her, but not that way. They were just friends.
It should have been enough. But lately, Jewel was realizing she wanted more. She was going to have to control those feelings, or she would ruin everything. Mac would be leaving soon enough. She didn’t want to drive him away by asking for things from him he wasn’t willing to give.
“Hey,” she called ahead to him. “How about taking a break at the bottom of the canyon.”
“You got it.” He dropped onto the warm, sandy ground with his back against the stone wall that bore the primitive Native American drawings and sifted the soil through his fingers. She sank down across from him, leaning back on her palms, her legs in front of her.
“You’ll be running full out by this time next week,” she said.
“I expect so.”
“I won’t be coming with you then.”
“Why not?”
She sat up and rubbed at the sore muscles in her thigh. “I can’t keep up with you, Mac.” In more ways than one. He would be going places, while she stayed behind.
Mac dusted off his hands on his shorts, scooted around to her side and, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, began to massage her thigh. She hadn’t let a man touch her like that since she had broken her engagement. Chill bumps rose on her skin at the feel of Mac’s callused fingers on her flesh. It felt amazingly good. It dawned on her that she didn’t feel the least bit afraid. But then, this was Mac. He would never hurt her.
The past two weeks of waiting for Mac to repeat his behavior in the barn had been wonderful and horrible. She loved being with Mac. And she dreaded it. Since the night he had come home early from Evelyn Latham’s house, he had remained an avuncular friend. He had been a tremendous help planning activities for the children. He had made her laugh often. But with the exception of that brief, unfulfilled promise in the barn, there was nothing the least bit sexual in his behavior toward her.
She was unsure of what her feelings were for Mac, but there was no doubting her profound physical reaction to his touch. It was difficult not to look at him as a virile, attractive man, rather than merely as a friend. Even now, she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him.
The Texas sun had turned him a warm bronze, but a white strip of flesh showed around the waist of his running shorts, confirming the hidden skin was lighter. She caught herself wondering what he would look like without the shorts.
“How does that feel?” he asked as he massaged her thigh. “Better?”
She nodded because she couldn’t speak. It feels wonderful. She wanted his hands to move higher, between her legs. As though she had willed it, his fingertips moved upward on her thigh. She let him keep up the massage, because it felt good. Then stopped him because it felt too good.
“Wait.” She gripped his wrist with her hand, afraid that he would read her mind and realize that the last thing she wanted him to do was stop.
“If you exercised more, maybe your limp wouldn’t be so bad,” he said.
She brushed his hand away from where it lingered on her flesh. “One leg is slightly shorter than the other, Mac. That isn’t going to change with exercise.”
“It might with surgery. They can do remarkable things these days. Have you thought about—”
“What’s going on here, Mac?” she interrupted. “You never said a word to me in the past about my limp. You always told me to ignore it, to pretend it didn’t exist, that it didn’t keep me from being who I am. What’s changed?”
Mac backed up against the wall again. His gaze was concentrated on the sand he began once more sifting through his fingers.
“Mac?” she persisted. “Answer me.”