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“What happened this time?” she asked, not sure she really wanted an answer. But at least it would keep him talking.
His jaw tautened.
“Come on,” she coaxed. “You can tell me. You know I won’t repeat it.”
“Most of what I tell you, you wouldn’t dare repeat,” he muttered, averting his eyes.
“Yes.”
She waited, not pushing, not prodding, not even coaxing.
He seemed to sober a little. “I had on the damned prosthesis. Looks real, right? At least, until you get close up.” He looked out the window at the passing dark silhouettes of bare trees and pasture. “I took her up to my room. It’s been a long time. I was hungry.” Fortunately for Bodie, he couldn’t see the brief anguish that skirted across her face. “I started to take off my shirt and when she saw the straps that held the prosthesis in place, she stopped me dead. She said it was nothing personal, she just couldn’t do it with a man who was crippled like that. She had to have a whole man.”
“Oh, Cane,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry. Yes. She was sorry, too. I took off the damned prosthesis and threw it at the wall. Then I flew home.” He laid his head back against the headrest. “I couldn’t think about anything else. The look on her face, when she saw that thing…haunted me all day. By sundown, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to get that memory out of my mind. Had to!”
She bit her lower lip. What could she say? Of all the things to happen. She hated knowing that he had women. That wasn’t even her business. But for a woman to treat him that way, after all he’d been through, as if he was less than a man because he lost part of his arm fighting in a conflict sanctioned by his country. It was unthinkable.
“I can’t live like this!” he burst out. “I can’t go through the rest of my life being half a man, being pitied…!”
She stopped the truck. “You stop that!” she said harshly. “You’re not half a man! You’re a hero! You ran right over the damned IED, knowing it would blow up, to save the medics in the jeep behind you! You knew your vehicle had better armor, you knew the bomb would explode when the column went past. You made a sacrifice, saved God knows how many lives by saving those medics. And some stupid woman makes a remark out of ignorance, and you throw away that heroism, that act of gutsy courage, like a used tissue. Well, I won’t let you do it! I won’t!”
He gaped at her through a drunken haze. He shook his head.
She started the truck going forward again. Her face felt hot.
“How do you know that, about me?”
“Tank told me,” she said gently. “The last time I had to go get you from a bar. He said it was tragic, not only what happened to you, but that you wanted to forget something that won you a silver star.”
“Oh.”
She drew in a long breath. “Why do you date women like that in the first place?”
“Most of the women around here are married or ugly.”
She glared at him. “Thanks, from the ugly brigade, I mean.”
“I didn’t mean you,” he said easily. He pursed his lips and studied her. “You’re not ugly, but your breasts are too small.”
The truck almost ran off the road. “Cane!” she exclaimed.
“Don’t worry about it, a lot of men like small breasts. I just like nice big ones. And a soft, sweet belly to sink against when I get inside all that delicate, wet…”
“Cane!” she exclaimed again, flushing.
“Oh, come on, you know about that,” he said, leaning his head back. “Nothing so cushy as a woman lifting to you on cool sheets, feeling you thrust into her, swelling and swelling until you burst and she cries out with the pleasure.”
“I get sex education in school!”
“Well, you get the basics, but they don’t tell you how good it feels, do they? Or that men come in different sizes and shapes. I’m well-endowed myself. Not too big, but I can…”
“Will you please stop?” she raged.
He glanced at her. “Getting aroused, are we?” He chuckled in a deep, soft, sensual tone. “You’re not really my type, kid, and you’re too young, but I could make you get off like a machine gun firing.”
She swallowed, stepping on the gas.
“But I don’t think your grandfather would ever forgive me. That’s probably why you go to college out of state, so he won’t know what you’re up to. How many lovers have you had?”
“Can’t we talk about the weather?” she asked, trying not to sound desperate. She was aroused, unbelievably aroused. He wouldn’t know it, but she was still a virgin. Despite that, the imagery was giving her real problems.
He stretched and grimaced. “Sure. It’s cold.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you like the man to get on top, or do you like to get on top? I can go deeper that way,” he said as easily as if he was discussing the weather.
She groaned.
“Real deep, in fact,” he murmured, getting drowsy. “I remember this one woman, she was small and I was afraid I’d hurt her. But she got on top and pumped me like a shotgun, screaming the whole time. We went all night long.” He grinned. “She liked to try new positions. So one time…”
“I don’t want to hear about your sexual acrobatics, Cane!” Her voice was high-pitched and desperate.
He rolled his head against the headrest so that he could see her face. “Jealous?”
“I am not jealous!”
He smiled. But the smile faded. “You’d have to get on top,” he said coldly. “I don’t have two arms to prop on anymore. I don’t even know if I could do it now. I wanted to find out. I wanted to see if I could still be a man....”
“Cane, there are men all over the world who have lost arms and legs and who can still have sex,” she pointed out, trying to restrain her embarrassment. “People find a way!”
He drew in a long breath. “I won’t have the nerve to try again,” he said in a haunted tone. “She said I was a cripple.” His eyes closed. “A cripple. She wanted a whole man....”
She pulled up at the front of the house and blew the horn. She almost jumped out when Tank came onto the front porch.
CHAPTER TWO
“DAMN IT, CANE,” TANK, aka Dalton, muttered under his breath as he helped Bodie get his brother out of the truck and up onto the porch. “Why do you do this to yourself?”
“He does share,” Bodie replied. “He did it to the bar also.”
Dalton groaned.
“I paid the bar tab, and extra.” Cane sighed. He pulled away from his brother. “I want her to take me upstairs.” He pointed to Bodie.
“No way. I have to go home. I’m studying for biology finals.”
“Won’t go if you don’t go with me,” Cane said obstinately.
Dalton grimaced. He looked at Bodie, pleadingly.
“Oh, all right. But then I have to go home, and somebody will have to drive me.”
“I’ll take you home,” Dalton promised. He smiled. “Thanks.”
She shrugged. “You’re welcome.”
She got under Cane’s good arm, shimmering all over at the feel of that powerful body so close to hers, and guided him up the steps.
“You owe me, pal,” she muttered.
His hand slid over her arm, his fingers accidentally brushing the rounded underside of her breast in the process, and dragging a helpless shock of pleasure that echoed from her throat.
“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured.
She got him into his room. He pushed the door closed behind them and let her guide him to the bed, but when he went down, he pulled her with him.
“Now,” he breathed, his hand under her back. “I want to find out something....”
She opened her mouth to ask what and his was suddenly teasing around it, nibbling at her upper lip, teasing the underside with his tongue. The mastery of the caress left her helpless. She just lay there, shocked, tempted…tingling all over with new sensations.
He unsnapped the bra and, leaning on the stump of his left arm, proceeded to unbutton his shirt while his lips were playing with hers. Seconds later, he’d pushed up her shirt and bra and his bare, hair-matted, muscular chest was pressing down against skin that had never been touched.
“Small,” he groaned, “but firm and soft and sweet.”
His thumb and forefinger were teasing the nipple, making it hard. She shivered.
“Yes.” He bent his head and his mouth suddenly opened, hot and moist, right on top of the nipple. He pulled at it tenderly, rasped it against his tongue and finally took all of her into his mouth and suckled her.
She came up off the bed shuddering, trying to contain the hoarse, pulsing cry of pleasure that accompanied the action.
His lean hand was behind her, pushing into her jeans as he shifted, so that he could bring her hips into intimate contact with him. She felt him swell, felt the size and power of him, in a contact she’d never shared with a man in her whole life. Repressed, raised religiously by a grandfather whose morals were still Victorian, she’d kept herself chaste. Now this man, this playboy, was trying to use her like one of his women, make her into his toy, to salve the ego that another woman had hurt.
She was trying to remember all that while one long leg curled around her and his mouth grew more insistent. She was so engrossed in new sensations that she barely heard the knock on the door until it was repeated, loudly.
“Cane! Bodie needs to go home!”
Bodie sat bolt upright, gaping down at Cane, whose expression was a cross between shock and shame.
“On my way!” she called, hoping her voice didn’t sound as unsettled as she felt. She fumbled her bra back in place, pulled her shirt down and stared at Cane in shock.
His mouth was swollen from its long contact with her body. His breathing was fast. But the alcohol suddenly seemed to catch up with him. He stared at her, blinked, started to speak and fell back onto the bed, snoring.
She got up and opened the door.
Tank looked in past her and sighed. “Thank God,” he mused. “I was afraid he might try to get out of hand.” He looked her over, and apparently didn’t see anything to concern him. She was mussed, but that could have come from manhandling Cane into bed. Or so she guessed.
“He’s a handful all right. I thought I’d never get him into the bed. He’s heavy!” she muttered, trying to bluff.
“Yes, he is.” He shook his head. “I wish he’d stop picking up women in bars,” he added coldly. “At his age, he should be thinking about a family.”
“Some men never settle down,” she replied, going ahead of him downstairs. “He seems to be one of those.”
“You never know. We’re in your debt, again,” he emphasized, and smiled gently. “Isn’t there something we can do for you?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yes. Drive me home, please. I still have to study.”
“Come on. Yes, I remember finals. No fun.”
“Yes, but I only have one more semester to go. If I pass everything, I get my degree.”
“Then what?”
“Then, on to my master’s.” She sighed. “With digs in between and a nice full-time job this next summer to help pay for it all.”
“We could…”
She held up a hand. “You’ve done so much for Granddaddy. You don’t need to do anything for me. I’m happy to help out, any way I can. You’re a nice family.”
He smiled. “Thanks. Your granddad was one of the best wranglers we ever had. Shame he had to go and get old,” he added gently.
“I feel the same way!”
* * *
HE DROVE HER HOME. She went inside, just in time to catch her grandfather in a conversation on the telephone.
“But where would I go, Will?” he was asking heavily. “This was my daughter’s place…yes, I know you own it. But I can’t pay that much in rent! My little monthly check from the Kirks helps, but I’m still trying to get on disability…yes, I know. I know. All right, I’ll try to come up with it. You wouldn’t really…? Hello?”
She walked into the dining room. He was standing by the telephone table that had belonged to her great-grandmother, with the freedom phone held in his hand, frozen.
“Granddaddy? What is it?”
He glanced at her, started to speak, thought better of it and just hung up the phone. “Aw, nothing. Nothing at all. You go back and work on that biology. I’m going to read a book. See you in the morning.” He even managed a smile.
“You sleep well,” she said.
He hesitated. “Oh, did you get Cane home okay?”
She nodded. “Tank drove me back. Cane passed out.”
He sighed. “Cane’s a good boy. Tragic, what happened to him.” He shook his head. “Just tragic.” He went into his room and closed the door.
Bodie went into her own room and sank down on the side of her bed, speechless from what had happened in Cane’s bedroom. He’d never once touched her. He’d told her things, shocking things, like the intimate details of his dates. But this was different. This was the first time he’d treated her as an adult woman.
She didn’t know whether to be outraged, angry or flattered. He was much older than she was. He was rich and handsome. He had a disability that made him forget how dishy he really was to women. But she couldn’t forget the look on his face just before he sank back into the pillows unconscious. That had been shame. Real shame.
She sighed. Her whole life had changed in the course of one night. She’d had her mind on education, on getting degrees, getting a job in her field, making some worthy and famous discovery that would set the world of anthropology on its ear. Now, all she could think about was the feel of Cane’s mouth on her body.
She couldn’t afford to let those thoughts continue. She was poor. Her grandfather was even poorer, and it sounded as if her stepfather had been making threats to him about raising the rent. She grimaced. Will Jones was horrible. He kept all sorts of explicit magazines around the house, and her mother had been furious at the cable and satellite bills because he watched pornography almost around the clock. She’d kept a close eye on Bodie, made sure that she was never alone with the man. Bodie had wondered about that, but never really questioned it, until her mother’s death.
The day after the funeral, which her stepfather had actually attended, dry-eyed, he made an intimate remark to her about her body. He said he knew about college girls and he had a new way to make money, now that her mother wasn’t around to disapprove. If she’d cooperate, he’d share the proceeds with her. He was starting an internet business. He could make her a star. All she had to do was pose for a few photographs....
Shocked and still grieving for her mother, she’d left his house immediately and gone to her grandfather’s rented home with only a small suitcase containing her greatest little treasures and a few clothes. Her grandfather, grim-faced, had never asked why she’d moved in with him. But from then on, they were a team. Her stepfather had tried to coax her back, but she’d refused and hung up on him. He had a friend who liked her. The friend, Larry, wanted to go out with her. She didn’t like the look of him, or the way he spent time with her stepfather. She imagined that he had the same taste in reading matter and film viewing as the older man. It gave her the creeps. She opened her biology textbook and sprawled on the bed. She wasn’t going to think of these things right now. She’d face them when she had to. At the moment her priority was passing biology, a subject she loved but was never really good at. She recalled her first biology exam. She could understand the material; her professor was an excellent teacher. But she ground her teeth together during the oral biology lab. Her professor, a kind but terrifying man in a white lab coat during orals, had grinned when she rattled off the information about circulation through the lymphatic system. It had been harrowing. But that was only a test. She was certain that the final would be much worse.
She sighed, closing her eyes and smiling. Her physical anthropology class was her favorite. She was actually looking forward to that final. Her roommate, Beth Gaines, a nice girl with whom she lived in a small apartment off campus, was in the same anthropology class. They’d spent days before Bodie came home for the weekend, grilling each other on the material.
“Bones, bones, bones,” Beth groaned as she went over the dentition yet another time. “These teeth were in this primate, these teeth were in a more refined primate, this was in homo sapiens…aaaahhhhhh!” she screamed, pulling at her red hair. “I’ll never remember all this!” She glared at Bodie, who was grinning. “And I’ll never forgive you for talking me into taking this class with you! I’m a history major! Why do I need a minor in anthropology?”
“Because when I become famous and get a job at some super university as a professor, you can come and teach there with me.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I’ll have connections! Wait and see!”
Beth sighed. Her expression was doubtful.
“Only a few more years to go,” Bodie teased.
Beth’s green eyes narrowed. “I’m not taking any more anthropology classes, period.”
Bodie had only grinned, as well. Her best friend was like herself, out of step with the world, old-fashioned and deeply religious. It was hard to be that way on a modern college campus without getting hassled by more progressive students. But Beth and Bodie stuck together and coped.
Bodie opened her eyes. She was never going to get this biology committed to memory by thinking about other things.
She frowned as music started playing. She got up to answer her cell phone, which was playing one of the Star Trek themes.
Bodie opened it. “Hello?”
There was a pause. “Bodie?”
Her heart skipped. “Yes.”
She moved to the door and pushed it shut, so she wouldn’t disturb her grandfather.
“About earlier tonight,” Cane began slowly.
“Yes?” She was beginning to sound like a broken record.
He cleared his throat. “If I said anything out of the way, I’m sorry.”
She hesitated. “You don’t remember?” she asked.
He laughed softly. “I was pretty much drunk out of my mind,” he said with a long sigh. “Honest to God, I remember getting into the truck with you. The next thing I remember is waking up with a pounding headache and so sick that I had to run to the bathroom.” He hesitated again, while Bodie’s heart fell like lead. All that, and he didn’t remember anything?
“You should stop treeing bars,” she said quietly.
“If I’m going to have memory loss like this, yes, I guess you’re right.”
“And more specifically, you should stop trying to pick up women in bars,” she said with a bite in her soft voice.
He sighed. “Right again.”
“You need to get back into therapy. Both kinds.”
There was a long hesitation.
“You’re not doing yourself or your brothers any favors by behaving like that, Cane,” she told him. “One day, paying off the damage won’t be enough and you’ll have a police record. Think how that would look in the newspaper.”
There was a sound, like a man sitting down in a leather chair. The sound leather made was no stranger to Bodie, who’d wished all her young life for a chair so fancy for her grandfather. His easy chair was cloth, faded and with torn spots that Bodie kept sewing up.
“You’re not the only person who came home from the military with problems of one sort or another,” she continued, but in a less hostile tone. “People cope. They have to.”
“I’m not coping…very well,” he confessed.
“You have to have a psychologist that you like and trust,” she said, recalling her friend Beth’s entry into therapy over a childhood incident. “I don’t think you liked your last one at all.”
“I didn’t,” he said curtly. “Smart guy, never had a pain or injury in his life, said you just had to pull yourself together like a man and face the fact that you’re crippled....”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she exclaimed. “You should have walked right out the door!”
“I did,” he muttered. “Then everybody said I wasn’t trying because I quit therapy.”
“You should have told why you quit, and nobody would have said anything,” she shot back.
He sighed. “Yes. I guess I should have.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be on the road in the morning with Big Red for that cattle show?” she asked suddenly, naming their prize bull who was on the show circuit. He’d won all sorts of awards. Cane took one of the ranch cowboys along with him on the road, to help manage the big bull who was, however, gentle as a lamb on the lead. Having another man who could help if Big Red got out of hand was a smart precaution.
“I’m headed out later, in fact. I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t abused your trust,” he added gently. “Not good policy, to alienate your only caretaker.”
“Tank or Mallory could save bars from you if they had to,” she pointed out.
“Well, yes, but not without some broken teeth. You can do it with fewer bruises.”
“Nice to know I’m useful,” she replied with a smile in her voice.
There was another pause. He didn’t like talking on the telephone. He did it reluctantly at best. “You dating anybody from that college you go to?” he asked suddenly.
Her heart jumped. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
“I’m too busy studying to run around with men,” she muttered. “I wasn’t blessed with the size brain all you Kirk boys have. I have to dig for my grades.”
“We all have degrees,” he admitted. “But we had to dig for ours, too. Well, maybe not Mallory. He’s just smart.”
“He is.”
“When do you go back to school?”
“Tomorrow morning before daylight,” she said heavily. “My first final is after lunch tomorrow. It’s finals all week.”
There was another pause. “You coming back home after you finish those?”
“Yes. I’ll be here until the first of the year, through the holidays. Granddaddy would be all alone without me. We only have each other.”
“And your stepfather,” he said, but without any warmth in his tone.
“Will Jones is not part of my family,” she bit off. “Not at all.”
“Can’t say I blame you for not claiming him,” he admitted. “None of us ever understood what your mother saw in him.”
Not for worlds would Bodie admit what her mother had said, that she knew she was dying and it was worth putting up with her new husband’s quirks because he was well-to-do and was willing to pay her medical bills and take care of Bodie. It had been a little more complicated than that. Bodie had spent the past two years getting undressed in bathrooms and locking her door at night to prevent any unwanted attention from her mother’s husband. Then when her mother died, everything had come to a head just after the funeral and she’d gone to Granddaddy’s home for good.
“There’s no accounting for taste,” Cane said.
“Truly.”
“It was money, wasn’t it?” he asked suddenly. “She was sick for a long time and couldn’t work.”
Bodie’s heart skipped. Her bow lips made a thin line. “Something like that.”
“She was proud,” he said unexpectedly. “Not the sort of person to ever ask for help.”
She didn’t reply.
“All right, I won’t pry,” he said after the silence. “So, I guess I’ll see you when you come home.”
“Yes,” she said, hesitant.
“If I said or did anything to upset you, I’m sorry,” he added. “I wish I could remember, but the whole night’s a blur. Tank said you looked a little ruffled when he drove you home.”
“I should have looked ruffled!” she replied with spirit. “Trying to wrestle a huge, heavy man onto a bed when he’s deadweight would cause most people to look ruffled! And then you passed out…”
“Oh.” He laughed, softly, deeply. “Okay. That’s really what I wanted to know.”
She was blushing. Thank goodness he couldn’t see. “So, you don’t owe me any apologies,” she said.
“I guess not. I had this really crazy dream tonight…but it was just a dream, I guess, after all.” He laughed, while Bodie bit her tongue. “Damned woman hurt my feelings so bad,” he said in a heavy tone. “I take things hard.”
“Women come in all shapes and sizes and dispositions,” she pointed out. “I don’t think women who hang out in bars looking for men are particularly sensitive. Just my two cents.”