The Rancher's Surrender

me forget that I've kissed you, not when I've been pretending to hate you.'

He tucked his tongue into his cheek and vowed to get her drunk more often.

Finally they made it to his front door. When he got her inside, he headed toward his fireplace, wanting to get her warmed before he drove her home.

'Your house. It's… lovely.' She craned her neck, looking around. He knew what she saw-high wood-beamed ceilings, rustic interior, sparse but comfortable furniture.

She met his gaze as he hunkered by the fireplace, match in hand. 'It's a home,' she said with some surprise. 'A real one.'

'Yes.' He knew exactly what she meant, for their backgrounds weren't all that different. Neither of them had belonged before, had ever had a true home. The ranch house was his first, and it gave him one of his few good pleasures because it was warm and cozy and everything he imagined a real home should be.

'But…' Distress filled her expression. 'I don't want to know this about you,' she whispered, suddenly looking stone-cold sober. She wrapped her arms around herself, confused. 'I don't want to know you're capable of this, that you can…'

He lit the kindling, then rose to his feet in one movement, suddenly restless. 'You don't want to know I'm a real man with real needs like warmth and comfort and love and affection?' Anger was a slow, inexorable burn in the pit of his belly. 'A man who maybe isn't just after your land, but maybe something much, much more important?'

'Yes, that,' she agreed softly, backing up as he took a step toward her.

The fire crackled, the night outside the windows was complete. Inside was close and toasty and soothing. It absolutely terrified the woman in front of him in a way he understood better than anyone else would.

'You said we'd go slow,' she whispered hoarsely as he came close.

'Yeah, well, I think I've just ran out of 'slow'.' He tossed aside the matches and reached for her. 'Face it, Zoe. You're not mad because I told your sisters we kissed. You're mad because you liked it, because you know you want more. But mostly you're mad because you know that those kisses meant more than just sexual tension-which, by the way, is running between us so hot I can no longer even function.'

She swallowed and took another step away from him, her gaze glued to his lips, which made him instantly hard.

'Tell me, Zoe,' he said quietly, stalking her in the living room, unable to handle her distance. 'Tell me now, when you're staring at my mouth as if you could devour it, tell me, dammit, the truth. That those kisses meant more than anything, more than even your wildest dreams.'

'I… I don't want them to.'

'It's too late.'

'No! Don't you understand?' she cried. 'I can't give myself when I don't even know who that is!'

That stopped him. 'You know who you are.'

'No, I don't, I know nothing about myself. Nothing! Not what kind of place I came from. Not my heritage, my culture.' Slowly she shook her head, staring off into space. 'I don't know if my father ever held me. Hell, I don't even know if he knows I exist! It drives me crazy that I can't remember.'

'You were only three,' he said softly. 'Just a baby, Zoe. It's not your fault.'

She wanted to believe that. 'I just wish I knew why my mother left me.'

'You could try to find her,' he suggested quietly.

'I've tried. Cade's working on it, but there's nothing. She's gone and I have no idea who I am.'

He was shaking his head. 'You decide who Zoe is, no one else can do that. It doesn't matter if you were born in the gutter, no one can take you away from you.'

He was talking from experience, they both knew that.

'And then there's you,' she whispered. 'You make me feel things… things I don't want to feel. You want to know me, you want me to let you in…' She let out a pained laugh. 'You want me to let you in when I can't find the door to open. I mean, I can't even tell you what my father's name was, Ty.'

'Zoe.' There was compassion in his voice and something that sounded very much like pity, which she couldn't take. She was going to break down right here in front of him if she so much as blinked.

'I'm sorry,' he said so gently her eyes filled. She needed out. Now.

'I'm thirsty,' she muttered, and dashed into the kitchen, swiping at her eyes.

When Ty followed her, he found her standing in front of his opened refrigerator.

'I need something to eat,' she said with a hitched breath.

'I thought you were thirsty.'

'Well, now I'm hungry.'

He sighed. 'I'll take you home.'

'You… you want me to go?'

He looked at her, saw the fear and nerves, and cursed himself for pushing her. Cursed himself for caring so much.

'Fine. You won't talk, but you want food.' He yanked a tub of ice cream out of the freezer and dropped it on the counter. Grabbing a can of whipped cream from the refrigerator, he shoved it at her. 'Go for it.'

Reflexively she took the can, clutched it to her chest. 'I don't know what you want from me.'

'I want…' What did he want from her? 'Hell,' he muttered.

'See?' she cried. 'It's not that easy, is it?'

'Yes, it is,' he decided. 'I want you to open up and talk to me.'

'No, you want me to tell you how I feel about you.'

'That, too,' he agreed.

'But- But you've never told me how you feel.'

No, he had to agree, he hadn't.

'Tell me, Ty.'

Without warning, his heart started pumping, because she was right, it wasn't nearly as easy to define as he'd thought. He stared at her, struggling. 'Zoe-'

'Oh, forget it.' Turning from him, she touched the container of ice cream. 'I don't want to know how you feel, anyway.'

A blatant lie, but one he was willing to let her have at the moment, because for some reason he was frightened, truly frightened. Big, bad, tough Ty Jackson, scared to death by this woman. 'I want you,' he said to her back. 'There's more, but I'm not sure I'm ready for the rest.'

'Convenient.'

'Honest,' he corrected her. 'I won't ever hurt you with lies, Zoe.'

'So you want me. That's not really that big of a secret, Ty.'

'Neither is the fact you want me back.'

She stiffened and clammed up, which infuriated him. 'Eat,' he said, opening the carton. 'Go on. Keep pretending you're not the least bit affected by me, that you feel nothing-'

She whirled around. 'At the moment, I don't have to pretend a thing!'

'You're so full of-'

She popped the top off the whipped cream and sprayed it in his mouth and on his face, muffling the rest of his sentence.

Cold stickiness clouded his brain so that for a moment he could only gape at her, he was so shocked. She was shocked, too, if her wide eyes were any indication. Slowly those eyes blinked, then ran over his face, stopping at the sight of the cream around his mouth. Ty licked his lips to speak and her eyes were riveted to the action.

Heat spiraled through him irrationally. He didn't stop to think about the wisdom of his actions, he simply reached for her, but she was quicker. Backing up a step, she aimed the can at him and looked comically fierce. 'Don't take another step,' she warned.

No way was she going to squirt him again, he thought, taking another step.

She shot him in the chest and stomach, layering whipped cream over his shirt.

'You're going to be very sorry for that,' he promised, grabbing her, wrestling the can from her hand and, without qualm, using his superior strength to wrap a long arm around her, holding her immobile against his side. He