Virgin Seduction

'But…shouldn't we-' Leila looked toward the men, who had shaken hands and now were deep in conversation and drifting off across the porch in the direction of what looked like stables.

Elena waved them away with a smile. 'Ah, let 'em go-they'll just want to talk horses and oil. What I'm dying to hear about is you guys. I still can't believe it-talk about sudden! I wish Hassan and I could have stayed for the wedding. So…tell me all about it. How was the wedding? Did you have a honeymoon?' She paused to consider her own question. 'Probably not, if I know Cade. Well-we're going to have to do something about that.'

'Cade has been very busy with his work,' Leila said carefully, and Elena gave her a piercing look that made her glad she had decided to wear sunglasses to hide the tear-shadows around her eyes.

Leila summoned a smile as she tried to divert Elena's attention. 'It seems as though you and Hassan are very happy.'

Elena closed her eyes and smiled in a way that made Leila's heart ache with envy. 'Oh, yeah. I can't tell you. Actually, if you want to know the truth, it's even kind of surprised me.' She threw Leila a bemused look. 'Not that I had any doubts that we loved each other-finally-but I thought it was going to be a lot harder to make it work.'

'Work?' Frowning behind the sunglasses, Leila paused to look at her.

Elena gave a rueful laugh. 'Oh, yeah-marriage takes work, don't ever kid yourself about that.' Her laughter grew light again. 'Especially when you have two people as different and bullheaded as Hassan and I are.'

'At least…you know your husband loves you.' Leila hardly knew she had spoken it out loud. They had been walking as they talked, past the stables and up a gentle slope covered with grass and the same little yellow flowers that grew in Cade's pasture. Now, standing on a hilltop overlooking still more hills that rolled away to banks of trees and a huge hazy sky beyond, she thought of her dreamed-of spaces and was almost overwhelmed with misery. She hardly even knew Elena had put her arm around her shoulders until she spoke.

'Oh, honey, of course Cade loves you!'

'No,' said Leila with a proud lift of her chin, 'he does not.'

'Look,' said Elena flatly, 'I know him. He wouldn't have married you if he didn't love you.'

Leila firmly shook her head. 'He only married me to save me from disgrace.'

Elena gave a hoot of laughter, which she quickly stifled when she saw the tears leaking out from under the edges of Leila's sunglasses. She gave her another hug and said with an exasperated sigh, 'Okay, hon, tell me why you think that husband of yours doesn't love you.'

'He does not act as though he does.' Leila's voice was choked and angry. 'And he certainly has not ever said so.' She was startled and a little hurt when Elena made a very rude noise in reply.

The older woman shook back her short, dark hair and looked up at the sky for a moment as if in hopes of divine guidance. Then she put her arm around Leila's shoulders again. 'Let me tell you something about your husband,' she said quietly, as she began to walk with her back down the hill. 'Cade Gallagher is just about the sweetest, most good-hearted man alive, and the best friend a woman could ever have. But the truth is, when it comes to emotional issues, he's pretty closed up. That's why he's never gotten married, I think-he never could find a woman he trusted enough to open himself up to. He wasn't always that way, I don't think. I think it happened when his mother died- he told you about that, I guess? It was a car accident-a hit-and-run driver ran her car off the road into the river, and she drowned.'

Leila tried in vain to stifle a horrified cry, and Elena glanced at her in sympathy. 'Yeah, I know…terrible, isn't it? They never did find the one who did it…' Her voice trailed off, and Leila saw a grim and bleak look settle briefly over her features. Then she went on, in a voice that was harder and more clipped than before.

'It happened about a year after his mom got involved with my father. He'd have been…fifteen, I think-I know I was only about eight when I first met him. But I remember he had this wonderful, absolutely spectacular smile-it would light up his eyes, I swear, brighter than the lone star of Texas.'

And Leila caught her breath and looked intently at her. Yes, she thought, her heart quicking. I have seen it too, that smile! Just once…

'Anyway, after his mom died,' Elena continued softly, 'I never saw that smile again.' Her lips curved, but not with a smile. 'And I don't think it helped that a few years later he found out my father, the man who'd adopted him after his mom died and treated him like his own son, had actually cheated him out of his inheritance.'

Leila gave another horrified gasp. 'Oh, yeah, it's true,' said Elena. 'I only found out myself recently- Cade told me just before I married Hassan.' She took a breath. 'It was a shock, believe me. His mom had left a will naming Yusuf Rahman as Cade's guardian, as well as trustee of her estate, which at that time was what was left of her daddy's oil company after Cade's dad had pissed away most of it. When Cade turned twenty-one, he found out my father had worked it so there wasn't anything left of his mother's holdings at all. Everything had been absorbed into Rahman Oil.'

She stopped walking to look back at Leila, who was standing still with her fingers pressed against her mouth. 'So you can see,' she said gently, 'why the man might be a little bit slow to trust anybody with his heart, even after all this time.'

'But,' Leila whispered through trembling lips, 'what can I do? I do not know how to make him open himself up to me.' The task seemed too hard, the obstacles enormous…insurmountable. She felt overwhelmed, defeated before she had even begun.

'For starters, have you tried telling him how you feel about him?' Elena's voice was dry, as if she already knew the answer.

'Of course not,' said Leila, drawing herself up stiffly. 'And I will not-not until I know for certain that he has the same feelings for me.' She was a princess. She had her pride!

Elena made an exasperated sound. 'You Kamals! You're all alike-the most bullheaded, proud bunch of people I ever met.' They walked on down the hill in silence. Until…

'I think…I have an idea.'

Leila looked at Elena in hope, and was surprised to find that she was smiling…smiling and gazing down the hill toward the stables, where Cade and Hassan could be seen leaning against the corral fence, still deep in conversation. She turned back to Leila, and her eyes were once again serene. 'Hon, what you need to do is take a little trip. How'd you feel about a nice visit to Tamir? You know-go home and see your folks?'

'Leave…Cade?' Leila's heart gave a leap, and she felt a cold wash of panic. 'But-I don't understand. How-'

'Hey,' said Elena with a placid shrug, 'it worked for me.'

'You mean, you left-'

She shook her head, and her smile was a little crooked, now. 'Uh-uh. Hassan left me. I'd refused to marry him-I guess I was afraid I didn't love him enough… then. So off he went, back to Tamir. It took me...oh, maybe a day to figure out I'd made the biggest mistake of my life. So I went after him. The rest,' she added with a sound like a cat's purr, 'is history.'

'But,' Leila mumbled, 'what if I go to Tamir, and Cade does not come for me?' Her heart was hammering. If Cade did not come for her, she knew she could not possibly come back here, not to live as she had been living for these past weeks. And yet, the thought of never seeing Cade again…never feeling his arms around her…frightened her so she could scarcely breathe.

'Oh, he'll come,' said Elena. 'Trust me.'

'But…I cannot possibly ask him-'

'Hey-don't worry about it. You just leave this to me.'

* * *

Cade leaned against the corral fence and watched them come toward him…two women, one he'd known nearly all his life, as familiar as the grass around him, the other as alien and exotic as an orchid blooming in the desert. Both beautiful, but for one he felt nothing but the deep, abiding affection of a brother for his sister, while the other made his pulses thunder like a buffalo stampede. Why did it have to be the wrong one? He felt betrayed, somehow. Doublecrossed by his own heart.

'Hey, guys,' Elena called out when they were near enough. And Cade watched with a pang of envy as she