* * *
HER MOTHER WAS unusually quiet. When Keely asked about the house, she only got evasive replies. Carly was nowhere in sight, and hadn’t been for some time. She was out of town for a while, Ella said finally, and didn’t refer to Carly again. There was also a disturbing phone call that Ella had answered with single syllable replies. She wouldn’t tell her daughter what had been said or even who had called.
When a car pulled up at the front door on a rainy Saturday morning, Ella actually gasped. Keely ran to look out.
“It’s Boone Sinclair,” she stammered, shocked.
“Thank God,” Ella said heavily. “Thank God.” She walked back down the hall, went into her room and closed the door.
Surprised, Keely went out onto the porch as Boone exited the car and took the porch steps two at a time.
He was in working clothes, jeans and boots and white Stetson with a checked Western-cut long-sleeved shirt buttoned right up to the neck. He looked down at Keely, his eyes dark and stormy.
“Come for a drive,” he said curtly.
She could have found a dozen reasons not to go. She wanted to come up with an excuse. Her mind agreed. But her body walked back into the house, grabbed her purse and a lightweight jacket and told her mother goodbye.
* * *
BOONE OPENED THE door of his car, helped her inside and went around to get in and start the engine. A minute later, they were speeding down the highway toward his ranch.
She was nervous, and it showed. Her hands played with her small purse while she listened to the rhythmic sound of the windshield wipers as they brushed away the pouring rain.
Despite all their recent turmoil, she felt safe with Boone. Safe, excited, hopeful, breathlessly in love. Her whole body ached to be held again as he’d held her at the charity dance. She hoped that didn’t show.
It did. Boone was far too experienced to mistake her body language. He smiled softly to himself. If she’d been involved with his brother, as Clark claimed, she wouldn’t be this nervous in Boone’s company. That meant there was still time. If he could convince her that he hadn’t meant to humiliate her.
He pulled out onto a pasture track that led to a closed gate, stopped the car and cut off the engine.
The rain flooded onto the windshield, making the outside world a gray blur. He unfastened his seat belt, settled himself crossways in his seat and stared at Keely.
The silence was a little unnerving. She glanced at him and found her eyes captured and held.
“Clark says the two of you are going steady,” he said.
Now what did she say, she wondered frantically. It wasn’t true, but Clark was using her as a tool of vengeance, apparently, for Nellie’s loss. She bit her lower lip and tried to find a graceful way out of the dilemma.
“Did he say that?” she asked, playing for time to think.
His dark eyes narrowed. “Don’t play games with me,” he said curtly. “Are you or are you not getting mixed up with my brother?”
Sorry, Clark, she said silently, but no mere woman could have resisted that look in Boone’s eyes.
“I’m not,” she said, sounding breathless, as though she’d run a long way.
The tautness seemed to go out of him. “Well, thank God for one thing going right,” he murmured. “I could have slugged Hayes Carson!”
While she was trying to work out that puzzle, he’d unfastened her seat belt and pulled her over the console into his arms.
“I thought this week would never end.” His mouth ground down into hers as if he’d gone hungry for years and sought to satisfy the hunger in seconds. He crushed her up against him, mindless of her soft cry of protest. “I’m starving to death for you,” he whispered into her mouth. “Dying for you—”
Had she really heard him say that? She gave up protesting. It didn’t do any good, anyway. She curled up against him and ignored the pain in her shoulder and arm, going boneless as his ardor only increased at her response. Her head began to spin. It was the sweetest interlude of her life. Rain pounded on the roof, the hood, the trunk, the wind blew, but she heard nothing over the pounding of her own heart. She had no reserve left. Whatever he wanted, he could have.
Except when his hand searched under her blouse and up over her breast, inching toward the strap. She couldn’t, didn’t dare, let him feel her shoulder.
With a sharp little cry, she jerked away from him, her face flushed from his ardor, her eyes wild with passion and dread.
He misunderstood. His eyes grew cold. He pushed her away, dragging in harsh breaths, until he could control himself again. He’d taken her protests the first time he’d kissed her as virginal fears. But this wasn’t. She’d rejected him. She’d lied about her feelings for Clark. She couldn’t hide the fact that she didn’t want intimacy with Boone. His ego hurt, almost as badly as it had when Misty shied away from him in the military hospital.
“Boone,” she began slowly, dreading what she had to tell him now.
“Forget it,” he said, interrupting her. He put his seat belt back on and started the car. “Obviously you can’t get past your feelings for Clark. No sweat.”
He didn’t say another word, or even look at her, until they were sitting in front of her house with the engine running.
“It isn’t what you think,” she bit off.
“The hell it isn’t,” he returned icily. “Goodbye, Keely.”
The way he said it, she knew it wasn’t simply a temporary farewell. He meant that he wouldn’t see her alone again, ever. Her heart broke. He thought she’d rejected him and it wasn’t true. She couldn’t bear to see the look on his face if he got her shirt off. That would end any chance she had with him. Of course, she’d just done that, without the
