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Either way, she saw heartache in her future.
Seth rode his horse hard and fast toward Paradise Wild, but no matter how ruthlessly he pushed Lexi for speed, he found he couldn’t outrun his conflicting feelings for the woman he’d just left behind.
He slowed Lexi as they neared a wide creek that trickled down from the mountain butting against the side of McAllister and O’Connor property. He waited until his mare had settled, then slid out of the saddle and dropped the reins so she could graze.
Bending down by the creek, he scooped the cool, clear liquid into his palm, brought it to his mouth and quenched his thirst. Then he dipped both hands into the water and ran them through his hair, slicking the thick strands away from his face.
Damn Josie and her trigger-happy finger anyway, he thought irritably. That had been his favorite Stetson, shaped perfectly to his head after years of use, and now he was going to have to break in a new one.
Sighing heavily, he stared at his scowling expression reflecting off the crystalline water. He wanted to hate her just as she claimed to despise him. And for eleven years he’d been able to believe that Josie McAllister meant nothing to him, that their brief time together in high school had been a grave mistake and taught him a valuable lesson he’d never forgotten. Like not to trust a McAllister’s motives.
But try as he might, he never could forget Josie. No matter how many women he’d dated over the years, he couldn’t wipe out the memories of how silky and warm her skin had felt beneath his hands, the sweet taste of her lips, her light, lilting laughter, and especially the soft sounds of pleasure she made when he’d slid deep inside her body. Those images had haunted him every night since the last time they’d made love.
The connection between them had seemed magical, considering they’d been taught all their lives to hate the other. During grade school he’d ridiculed her mercilessly, taking his cue from his older brother, Jay. As a young boy, he remembered that he hadn’t liked hurting Josie with those nasty taunts, but Jay had wanted to keep the rift fueled any way he could, and whenever he suggested they leave her alone, Jay would make his life miserable until he proved that he could dole out his share of jeers and mean insults.
Seth shook his head at the immaturity of his youth, more than a little disgusted that his own father had encouraged the dissension between the McAllister girl and his own boys.
That familial pressure ebbed when Jay finally graduated high school, leaving Seth as a senior and Josie as a sophomore. By that time, she was taking great pains to avoid him, not that he could blame her after the way he and his brother had treated her. When by chance they passed in the halls or on the campus, she never looked him in the eye. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t like the thought of her believing he was as rotten as his brother.
One day as she walked out of a classroom, he’d literally slammed into her, so hard that the impact knocked her back on her bottom and the books in her arms flew in five different directions. She’d sat there frozen, with her skirt up around her thighs, staring at him with a panic-stricken look on her face. Just like an animal cornered by a hunter, waiting for him to either shoot or let her go free.
He remembered thinking how pretty she was, with wild curly hair the hue of fire and cinnamon, wide green eyes emphasized by dark brows, and the smattering of freckles over the bridge of her nose. And he couldn’t help but notice those shapely legs of hers and the small, firm breasts beneath her clingy T-shirt—her blossoming curves were what boys his age fantasized about.
And in that moment, he felt as though he’d been struck by lightning. His heart thudded erratically in his chest and his palms grew damp. It was a crazy feeling, one he’d never experienced before.
Clearing his dry throat, he squatted to her level and handed her the biology book that had landed by his sneakered foot. “Are you all right?” he’d asked.
Not sparing him the slightest glance, she scrambled to collect her other books. “I’m f-f-fine,” she’d said in a soft, quivering voice.
She stood, and just as she attempted to dart around him, he caught her arm. Immediately, she stopped and stiffened, as if she feared he’d rip off her limb if she didn’t. Her body began to tremble as she waited.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently, not for bumping into her, but for all the years of torment he and his brother had put her through.
“I, uh, should have, um—” she swallowed back the tears he heard in her voice, the same ones he saw pooling in her eyes “—watched where I was g-g-going.”
Before he could explain what he’d meant, she wrenched her arm away and fled down the corridor and out the doors leading to the front of the school. He should have let things end there but found he couldn’t He followed her home from school, and when he was positive they were alone, he approached her as she entered the woods that lined both of their properties.
This time, she didn’t cower. Fire flashed in her eyes and she dropped her schoolbooks on the ground. She told him she was tired of being bullied, then came at him full force in an attempt to defend herself. Her attack knocked them both to the moss-covered ground, him on his back, with her sprawled on top of him.
Eyes closed, he didn’t move a muscle, not wanting to threaten her in any way, though the press of her lithe body along his conjured up some interesting fantasies. He began mentally reciting his times tables to detach himself from the situation until his randier thoughts settled.
She squirmed on top of him, her breasts brushing across his chest as she propped herself up on her elbows to look down at him. “Oh, my gosh!” she exclaimed, worry in her voice.
Six times seven is forty-two.
She sat up, straddling his lower body so her thighs bracketed his hips, and gently cupped his face in her cool hands. “Seth?” He decided he liked the way his name sounded on her lips. “Seth, are you okay?”
He wanted to groan at the exquisite feel of her bottom tucked so intimately against him but found he couldn’t utter a sound. Six times eight is forty-eight.
Her fingers quickly unbuttoned his shirt and her palm slid inside, right over his heart. “You’re not breathing!”
He wasn’t? Then why was he so aware of that intense heat pooling low in his belly and his body’s embarrassing reaction to Josie’s position? He concentrated on his arithmetic. Six times nine is fifty-four.
“I didn’t really mean to kill you.” She moved off him, her tone frantic. “I swear I didn’t!” Tilting his head back, she pinched his nose closed and pressed her mouth to his.
He felt her soft lips on his and believed he’d died and gone to heaven. Air whooshed into his lungs, her very breath, and he began to cough and gulp more air. Finally, wheezing in a breath, his eyes opened.
“Oh, Seth,” she cried in obvious relief, “you’re okay!”
It took him a moment to realize what had happened and reorient himself. “I think you just knocked the breath out of me.”
And there, in the woods, it happened...a spark of awareness Seth decided to nurture, with her cooperation, of course. He’d gently cupped the back of her head and brought her mouth back to his and kissed her like he’d been wanting to ever since he’d bumped into her in the hall. Her lips parted beneath the subtle pressure of his, and she moaned deep in her throat, but the sound wasn’t one of alarm. No, she didn’t fear him. She sank against his chest, closed her eyes and let his tongue explore her mouth and tempt her to join in the slow, drugging kiss.
At nearly eighteen, he was two years older than her, had been on plenty of dates and kissed a lot of girls. But none of them tasted as sweet as Josie. He couldn’t get enough of her, and it seemed she was just as needy.
From that day on, he met her after school, anxious to be with her. Because neither of them wanted their families to know they were seeing one another for fear of repercussions, he met her at the edge of the woods and spent as much time with her as possible until they had to head home. Eventually, kisses weren’t enough, and he’d coaxed her to make love. They’d been good together, her uninhibited response to his touch driving him wild with desire for her. He’d been careful about protecting her, but three months later she tearfully informed him she was pregnant.
He’d been scared, certain his father would flay him alive—that’s how much David O’Connor loathed the McAllisters. So, instead, he’d confided in his brother.
“How do you know it’s your baby?” Jay had asked him.
His brother’s question made him wary. “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded to know.
Jay smirked. “Considering she’s slept with half the senior class, there’s no telling whose brat it is.”
He’d been so furious with his brother’s claim he’d given Jay a black eye. A few days later, the rumors started circulating around school, and he heard bragging in the locker room about Josie and other boys. Considering he’d used protection every time they’d slept together, he found the claims difficult to ignore.
Josie, it seemed, had manipulated him for her own purposes. If she meant to dupe an O’Connor, she’d nearly succeeded. She’d put on a flawless act, making him believe he was the first and only one to know her intimately. The thought had filled him with a white-hot fury and made him plan a fitting retribution.
He saw her one last time. She’d expected him to marry her, to give her bastard child the O’Connor name. Instead of the proposal she anticipated, he’d coldly informed her that he’d deliberately seduced her to gain revenge on the McAllisters, and she’d fallen for the ruse. And since at least a dozen other guys could be the baby’s father, she was on her own.
She’d appeared so convincingly devastated, he’d had to steel himself against the hurt glittering in her tear-filled - eyes. Her pain and despair had seemed so terribly real. But not once did she deny the awful rumors. Not once did she try to explain. She’d walked away from him, head held high.
He hadn’t talked to her since, hadn’t been close enough to touch her...until today. And damned if he still didn’t want her with the same fierceness of his youth, and that irked him more than he cared to admit.
Seth scrubbed a hand over his jaw and let out a low growl of frustration. He hadn’t anticipated her seductive allure, the way her body had filled out with lush, womanly curves that tempted and teased a man’s interest. She was an exciting blend of fire and spirit, and that fiery disposition of hers made him burn hotter than any of the demure, accommodating women he’d dated over the years.
Gruff laughter escaped him. After eleven years of trying to pretend Josie McAllister didn’t exist for him, he found it ironic that he was going to marry her. He didn’t doubt that once her temper cooled she’d agree to become his wife. Despite her fury over her father’s gambling loss, he was certain marrying him was the lesser of two evils when it came to giving up the Golden M. And marrying Josie was a small sacrifice on his part for gaining a prosperous piece of land to call his own.
Seth stood and headed toward his mare. He needed to tell Jay about this recent turn of events and let him know he’d be short a hand and would need to hire someone to replace him. He dreaded the discussion to come, suspecting that Jay was going to explode when he learned that a McAllister was about to become a part of their family. Jay blamed the McAllisters for every misfortune they’d ever encountered. In Seth’s opinion, which he’d always been smart enough to keep to himself, their family’s misfortune was a direct result of mismanagement and too much resentment. He supposed it was easier to blame the family’s old adversary than face the truth that their father hadn’t cared enough to nurture the fertile land they’d lived on, choosing instead to spend his time at the local bar, which had left him drunk and in a surly disposition more often than not.
Refusing to dwell on the bitterness of the past, and the fact that his own father had disinherited him for reasons that proved how spiteful and unforgiving David O’Connor could be, Seth mounted his horse, determined to keep a clear focus on his future-which included Josie as his wife and the Golden M as his new home.
Turning Lexi north, he headed toward Paradise Wild and the unpleasant task ahead.
CHAPTER THREE
SETH found his brother in the spacious office located in the back of the main stable. The door was open, but since Jay seemed engrossed in the open journal on his desk and hadn’t heard him enter the building, he knocked on the wooden. frame so he didn’t startle him.
Jay glanced up, wire-rimmed reading glasses framing his hazel eyes. “Where have you been?” he asked, his tone tinged with a hint of annoyance. “You missed Sunday dinner.”
“Sorry ’bout that.” Usually he was courteous enough to let Jay’s wife, Erin, know when he wasn’t going to be around for breakfast, dinner or supper so she didn’t prepare extra and they didn’t wait on him. Though Seth lived in one of the two cabins located on the ranch, eating with Jay’s family was part of his wages as a hand. It worked for him, considering what a lousy cook he was. “I didn’t think I’d be as long as I was.”
Jay’s gaze flickered over his tousled hair, noted the absence of his Stetson, then narrowed speculatively. “I noticed Lexi was gone. You out checking fences or something? If so, you know you don’t get paid for working Sundays.”
“I wasn’t working,” Seth assured his brother, tamping down the spurt of bitterness surging to the surface. He hated being treated like an employee on the very land that should have been half his. He wanted to believe he’d gotten over his father’s slight, but there were times, like now, when he felt the lash of David O’Connor’s punishment straight to the core. “I was over at the McAllister place.”
That snagged his brother’s attention. He closed the journal in front of him and pushed it aside. “Doing what?” he asked tentatively.
Drawing out the moment of victory, Seth folded his frame into the dark brown Naugahyde chair in front of Jay’s desk, making himself comfortable. “I was claiming the Golden M, which I won in a poker game against Jake McAllister.”
It took a few extra seconds for the importance of his statement to sink in. Seth knew the exact moment it registered—when selfish retribution glittered in Jay’s eyes. “No kidding? You won the Golden M?”
“Lock, stock and barrel,” Seth confirmed. Prime cattle, fertile land, and a feisty woman who hated him enough to threaten his life with a rifle. All his in the span of one night, he thought wryly.
“Whooee!” Jay slapped a hand on the surface of his desk, a wide, gleeful grin splitting his face. “If that isn’t poetic justice, I don’t know what is.”
“Yeah, it’s ironic all right,” he agreed mildly, “considering how we lost the land so long ago.”
Leaning back in his squeaky chair, Jay began spouting plans for Seth’s windfall. “We can join the property again, combine the livestock—”
“No.” Every muscle in Seth’s body had coiled tight. Jay looked taken aback by Seth’s refusal. His brows snapped together, emphasizing his displeasure. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“The Golden M is mine, Jay.” His tone was low, undeniably firm, and a trifle dangerous. “And it’ll remain separate property.”
“Why?” Jay challenged. Standing abruptly, he braced his hands flat on his desk and leaned toward Seth, glaring. “That’s O’Connor property! It always has been. It should remain in the family as a whole.”
Under normal circumstances, Seth would have agreed. But considering he’d been stripped of his rightful inheritance, he wasn’t about to share what now belonged to him. “It hasn’t been in our family for over seventy-five years. There’s no reason why it needs to be part of Paradise Wild again.”
Jay’s mouth thinned in anger. “So, you’ll be competing directly against me, then?”
“I’ll be competing with no one but myself. You’ve got a fine breed of cattle, and there are plenty of buyers to accommodate both you and me.”
“I can’t believe this!” Jay’s temper exploded and his face turned a bright shade of red. “Dad is probably rolling over in his grave right about now!”
“Probably, considering he left me with nothing, and I’ve acquired what he always wanted.”
A sneer curled the corner of his brother’s mouth. “If you wanted half of Paradise Wild, then you never should have messed around with Josie McAllister.”
“You’re right, of course,” Seth graciously conceded to what had been the single most stupid mistake of his life. His brief affair with Josie had cost him so much...a chunk of his youthful pride, his half of Paradise Wild and the inability to give any other woman what he’d given her. His heart.
Refusing to dwell on past mistakes, he casually added, “Just so you know, I’ll be marrying Josie by the end of the week.”
Jay’s eyes nearly bugged right out of their sockets. “What?” he wheezed.
A satisfied smile quirked Seth’s mouth, and he decided that he enjoyed having the upper hand for a change. Very concisely, he explained the stipulation Jake McAllister had added to the deed to the Golden M, which included offering his daughter the benefit of marriage in order for her and his granddaughter to remain on the ranch.
Jay’s blistering curses filled the office, and he paced the length of space behind his desk. “And you actually agreed to those outrageous terms?”
Refusing to be baited, Seth shrugged nonchalantly. “I’d be a fool not to. I want the Golden M.”
Jay stopped his agitated pacing and whirled to face Seth His stare turned hard and bitter. “Yeah, you’re a fool all right. An idiotic fool for marrying that little tra—”
“Don’t say it,” Seth interrupted, the chilling tone of his voice menacing enough to make Jay reconsider his derogatory remark. He stood and faced his brother squarely. He was taller than Jay by at least three inches and more muscular from the physical labor of working the ranch and herding cattle.
Now he used that superior strength to send a silent but unmistakable warning. “In fact, I’d appreciate it from hen on that you keep any insulting comments about Josie to yourself.” As much as Seth had his own personal grudges with Josie, he wouldn’t tolerate his brother, or anyone else for that matter, slandering the woman who would be his wife.
“Good God, Seth,” Jay breathed incredulously, “you’re not still hot for her, are you?”
Oh, Josie made him plenty hot all right—in ways than her becoming his wife would certainly appease. “She’s a means to an end,” he said, stating a fact. “However, since she’ll be my wife, I’ll expect you to give her the same respect you would any other woman I would have married.”
Jay shook his head, his eyes wide and wild, as if he was searching for a way to make Seth see reason. “Are you totally and completely out of your mind? You can’t marry a McAllister!” He spit the word out like an expletive.
If Seth wasn’t on the verge of letting his own anger get the best of him, he would have found his brother’s in amusing. But he didn’t care for the ominous slant of their conversation or the hostility burning in Jay’s gaze. For crying out loud, it wasn’t as though Jay had to marry Josie.
He let out a deep breath that did nothing to ease the tense muscles in his body. “I can marry a McAllister, and I will.” His brusque tone left no room for debate. “I suggest you get used to the idea.”
Jay raked him with a scathing look. “You’re going to marry her even after what she did to you?”
Seth didn’t want to think about Josie’s deceit, knowing if he dwelled on that aspect of their time together it would eat him alive. “What happened in the past has nothing to do with the present.” Josie was a business deal, part of the package for the Golden M, which he wanted so badly he could taste the sweetness of freedom owning his own place would provide.
“She used you, Seth!” Jay pointed an angry finger his way for emphasis but didn’t dare actually jab Seth with the offending digit. “And she tried to pawn off that brat of hers as yours after sleeping with God-only-knows how many guys!”
Seth’s jaw clenched. Unbidden, visions of Josie’s daughter filled his mind, momentarily taking the edge off his rising temper. The timid young girl looked just like Josie, with curly auburn hair and big green eyes. Nothing about her physical appearance gave any indication as to who her father could have been. Seth wondered if Josie even knew who’d fathered Kellie.
Shoving the disturbing thought out of his mind, he decided then and there that he wouldn’t punish the girl for her mother’s past indiscretions. It just wasn’t fair.
He headed toward the door, ready to end their discussion, but paused in the threshold to glance back at Jay. He leveled his steady gaze on his brother, who looked absolutely livid at the turn of events. “That ‘brat’ is going to be my stepdaughter and your niece. I’ll expect you to treat her with the same kindness I give your own two children, or you’ll answer to me.” With that, Seth left the office and headed down the long corridor to the entrance of the stable
“Don’t expect me to be at the wedding!” Jay yelled furiously after him.
Seth shook his head. He hadn’t realized until that moment how his brother’s spiteful attitude was so much like their father’s. David O’Connor hadn’t cut anyone any slack especially not a McAllister, and he’d allowed old resentments to fester until it had totally consumed his life. Jay was on that same collision course, straight to emotional destruction.
And there wasn’t a damn thing Seth could do about it.
As he walked out of the stables and felt the warmth of the sun on his face, Seth had the invigorating thought tha he was no longer under his brother’s thumb, no longer an employee of the Paradise Wild.
He grinned. He was a free man with a spread of his own
And it felt pretty damn good.
The heartache was already beginning, starting with the letter Josie’s father had left for her.
Sitting on the wooden bench just outside the barn, she read the brief correspondence Jake had scrawled on a scratch piece of paper. She read his words over and over trying to understand why he’d risk the Golden M in a poker game, add an outrageous stipulation that would ruin her lift and bind her to Seth O’Connor, when he knew there was every chance of losing to the last man in Montana she would have chosen for a husband.
But there were no answers in his letter. Just verification that the deed and stipulation were indeed real and blinding and an apology for what he’d done, for failing her and letting his gambling addiction force him to resort to desperate measures, though he’d done his best to secure her future. He knew she’d be disappointed in him, angry even and he couldn’t bear to face her condemnation, so he’d decided it was best if he left. The note ended by saying that he hoped she’d finally find happiness and not hate him too much for what he’d done, and that he loved her and Kellie.
There was nothing about his returning, and that tore her up more than anything because she couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing her father again.
