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He sipped his drink and nodded. “You’re right,” he admitted. “This is an escape for me.”
“What do you need to escape from? Business decisions? Women?”
He laughed. “Never women.”
“You think about it—I’ll make a nice neighbor and the old feud will die with us. I won’t fight with you over the boundary, over water, never over the mineral rights, which I’m certain you won’t sell back to me, but that’s not my purpose here. I want to keep the home for all those people I told you about. Selfishly, also for my own memories and pleasure.”
She sipped her water and turned to watch the rain that still came in torrents. “We’re having a record breaker.”
“Maybe it’ll be a night to remember,” he said softly. She gave him a sultry look. He wondered if she hadn’t wanted the ranch from him if she would have been far less friendly. She had a convincing act to get what she wanted.
“It already has been,” she replied. He took her chin in hand to hold her face so he could look into her eyes.
“Are you playing with me to get what you want, Caitlin?” he asked.
“Perhaps, but you’re doing the same thing.”
“I didn’t come to the ranch wanting something from you.”
“You do now,” she replied, and his heart drummed. He wanted to close the last few inches between them to kiss her. As if she guessed his intent, with a deft move, she twisted away from his light grasp and sat back, smiling coyly at him.
“What would it hurt to sell a piece of the ranch back to me? You could still search for oil and reap the rewards if you find it. The little parcel you’d sell to me, you’d really never miss.”
“You could turn right around and give it to Will. As a matter of fact, how do I know that he hasn’t had a change of heart and sent you to buy a piece of the ranch back for him? If I sell to you, it’s yours to do with as you see fit.”
“You can write it in the contract. I’ll swear in front of a judge if you want—I absolutely am not doing this for Will,” she said and her expression frosted. “Will and I speak only when necessary. Our father barely recognized me. Will has snubbed me on the street in town before. There’s no love lost between us.”
“I’d think you’d be glad to be rid of the house and the land that belonged to your father and that Will inherited. That would be a constant reminder of your status in the family when you’re here. And a reminder your grandmother couldn’t own the house she lived in. The Santerres were not considerate of the women in the family.”
“No. When I’m in the house where I grew up, my blood father and Will are an insignificant part of it. My father and Will were at her house for family get-togethers, rarely any other times. Grandmother couldn’t own the land or the house, but she had other assets. She left Will a token $25,000, otherwise all her money, savings, stocks, bonds, went to me. One thing, Will had to mind Grandmother and he hated that. Will never took orders well from anyone except Grandmother and sometimes his father. Grandmother made him mind and it irritated him no end, but she was the one person on this earth Will truly feared. He feared and cooperated with his father just to the point to keep in his good graces. Will’s mother spoiled him terribly. She may have contributed greatly to Will being the selfish, self-centered person he is.”
“Did you ever go to your father’s house?”
She shook her head and stood, watching the rain. “No, except for Christmases when I was young. Later my father and Will would travel to exotic places to celebrate. I think they were both frightened of Grandmother. They didn’t mess with her. I haven’t seen Will since my father’s funeral. We talked on the phone after I learned about the sale of the ranch. That’s how I know Will is living in California and Paris. I’m my father’s daughter by blood only. Since I didn’t grow up with him, he had little influence on my life. Grandmother raised me to think for myself and form my own opinions. I keep telling you, please don’t categorize me with Will.” Caitlin tilted her head, studying Jake.
“I haven’t. I can keep you and Will separate in my mind.” Jake reached out to touch a stray lock of her hair. “I have a suggestion. Let’s set aside business so we can enjoy the next few hours. For a while, let’s forget that I’m a Benton and you’re a Santerre. We can get to know each other on another level that doesn’t involve the past, but is the present. If we’d just met, we wouldn’t be into all this family history. I think we’ll have a better evening that we’re compelled by rain to share.”
She smiled. “You feel compelled to share this evening with me?”
“You’ve already said we’re captive for tonight and I never said the time together was a bad thing. I’m just trying to make it better by removing some of the remnants of the family feud for a few hours. We can always return to swords’ points.”
She laughed softly. “Deal. At least we can try. We’ll see how long it lasts.”
“Excellent,” he said, smiling at her. Again, there was a flicker in the depths of her eyes and his insides tightened. She was responsive to him, willing to flirt. She wanted to kiss, he was sure of it, but he was determined to wait until the right moment.
“So, Caitlin, tell me about professional photography. Do you have a studio somewhere?”
“Yes, I do in Houston as well as galleries in Houston and in Santa Fe. I have homes both places.”
“Impressive.”
She smiled as she peered over the edge of her drink at him. “You’re not really impressed. I like my work. Actually, I love my work.”
“And what kind of photography do you do?”
“Don’t sound as if I’m playing marbles for a living,” she said, her smile taking the bite out of her words. “I take pictures of people, families, children, celebs, pets. I specialize in black-and-white photography of people and children. I already know about you—the CEO of Benton Energy, Inc. Your father is retired now and you run the company. Your brother Gabe is CEO of Benton Drilling.”
“Right. Before hunger sets in, I’ll fire up the grill for steaks. I’ll put potatoes in to cook.” He went to the refrigerator to remove the steaks and put them on the grill.
While he cooked, she helped him get salads and water on the table. When she was finished, she perched on the bar stool nearest him to talk to him. “This is a wonderful patio. You can sit outside, yet you’re protected from the elements here.”
“I enjoy it when I’m here,” he said, glancing beyond the patio at the pool that was splashing as raindrops hit the blue surface. “No swimming in this weather.” Lightning streaked the sky in a brilliant flash. “If the lightning worries you, we can go inside.”
“I’m fine.”
“So what does worry you, Caitlin?”
“Losing the property, not being able to help the people who worked for Grandmother through the years.”
“I walked into that one.”
“So what worries you, Jake?”
“Business failure. My dad’s interference in my life.”
“You’re a little old for your daddy to interfere, especially since you’re running a large company,” she said and he detected the amusement in her voice.
“Oh, no. I have a manipulative father. At least he tries and I resist. It’s not quite the same for my brother. Sometimes I think Brittany dated Will out of rebellion against Dad’s constant attempt to dominate her life.”
She laughed. “That’s mind-boggling. You are definitely not the type to have someone try to control you.”
He grinned, turning from the steaks to sit near her for a few minutes. “I like your smile, your laughter. When you laugh, it’s a sunny spring day.”
“Thank you. That’s a nice compliment,” she replied. “Too bad you’re not Jake Smith and I’m not Caitlin Jones. The night might be incredibly different.”
“For tonight, we can try to be Jake Smith and Caitlin Jones. We’ve already agreed to forget business. Just stretch it a little more and pretend we don’t have family histories.”
“That’s a giant stretch with pitfalls all along the pathway, but it would have been nice,” she added and sipped her water.
He leaned down so his face was closer to hers and her eyes widened. “Try. You have an imagination. See me as someone you just met,” he urged, thinking she had the greenest eyes he had ever seen. Her perfume tormented him and her mouth was a constant temptation.
“While it’s an exciting prospect, it’s the way to disaster. Impossible,” she answered breathlessly and he was certain she felt the attraction, too.
“Coward,” he teased with a faint smile, wanting to lean the last few inches and kiss her. She tilted her face up another degree.
“Wicked man,” she replied, smiling to make light of her words.
It would be so easy to close the mere inches of distance and kiss her and she wanted the kiss as much as he, but he resisted. He wanted her to be eager to kiss with no hesitation. The tantalizing moments were building his desire. Hopefully, hers, too.
“Your steaks may be crispy now,” she remarked.
He hurried to flip the steaks. He turned, catching her studying him. “Now, wine with dinner?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you,” she replied and he moved behind the bar to get a bottle of Shiraz.
In a short time they were seated near the fireplace with dinner in front of them. She was a dainty eater, telling him about her gallery in Santa Fe while he mentally peeled away the blue Western shirt. His appetite for steak diminished. To his surprise, he wanted to see her again beyond tonight and he wanted to take her dancing so he could hold her in his arms.
Common sense told him to forget both things. As a Santerre, when they got down to business, she was going to be unhappy with him because he didn’t want to leave a Santerre house standing. The people who had worked for her grandmother could retire or find other jobs, he was sure. He would look into hiring them himself.
Out of sentiment Caitlin wanted the house she grew up in, but she spent little time here. She could move everything out of the house into another home elsewhere. He saw no valid reason to sell the place back to her and several reasons to turn her down. He didn’t want Santerres left in the county. He didn’t want to have to worry about Caitlin and that old house sitting in the center of his property, leaving part of the property out of his control. If Gabe struck oil, it would be even more important to own the land. While he had mineral rights, he didn’t want to have to drive around Caitlin’s holdings.
Was he being uncooperative because she was a Santerre? So what? It was his property, legally purchased and he couldn’t help if her half brother had not informed her about the sale or her father hadn’t included her in ownership. From all he’d heard, her father never had involved her in anything in his life. It was solely the grandmother who had adopted Caitlin to give her a Santerre life.
“Your grandmother has been gone now—what—five years?” Jake asked, trying to recall when he heard that Madeline Santerre had passed away.
“Yes. You have an excellent memory because I know that wasn’t a date that meant anything to you,” Caitlin replied, looking away. “I loved her with all my heart,” she added quietly. Her emotional answer indicated she probably cared so much for the people who had worked for her grandmother because she didn’t have anyone else. Her father and half brother had rejected her all her life. So had her birth mother in giving her up for adoption. “The minute Grandmother heard my mother planned to put me up for adoption, she stepped up and took me in.”
“So where did you go to college, Caitlin?”
“To Texas University and then to Stanford. My degree is from Stanford. I had intended to go into law, but by my junior year I was earning a lot of money with photography, so I finished college and became a photographer. What about you, Jake?”
“Texas University, too, but years ahead of you. Then a master’s in business from Harvard. Then back to work here. Pretty simple and predictable.”
“Sure,” she said, smiling at him. “You told me what you don’t like, so what do you like, Jake?”
“Beautiful women, slow, hot kisses—”
She laughed, interrupting him. “That was not what I had in mind. Besides women, what do you like?”
He grinned. “Making money and doing business deals, watching the business grow, the usual. I swim, I play golf, play basketball with my friends, I ski, I like snow-covered mountains or tropical islands. I’m easy to please. Your turn.”
“I’m even easier to please. I like a riveting book, quiet winter nights, getting just the right picture, little children—”
“That sounds like marriage is looming.”
“Not at all. No man in my life, but I hope someday. Don’t you want to marry someday?”
“Yes, but not this year,” he said a little more forcefully than he had intended.
She laughed. “Okay, so you’re not ready. I think I can make the same promise safely. I will not marry this year,” she said, mimicking him and he had to smile and was relieved she made light of his comment.
The rain turned to a steady, moderate rain. Jake took her hand, aware of her smooth skin, the warmth and softness of her. “Let’s go in where it’s warmer. I’m glad we don’t have to get out in this,” he said.
She looked down at her clothes. “I just have what I’m wearing. If you can stand seeing me in the same thing in the morning, only more wrinkled, I’m happy to stay because water may be over some of the bridges, I’d guess.”
“Great.” He switched on lights in the living area. The fire had burned low and he added logs.
He put on music and took her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Come here, Caitlin, and let’s dance,” he said, drawing her to him on the polished oak floor in a space between area rugs.
She came into his arms easily, following his lead. He liked holding her, wanting her more with each hour that passed. Common sense still screamed to keep his distance to avoid entanglement of any kind with her, but it was a losing argument. It would be the ultimate irony to seduce Will’s half sister, except Will wouldn’t care because he obviously had no fondness or even polite consideration for Caitlin.
Jake tightened his arms around her and moved slowly with her. “This is good, Caitlin,” he said quietly, more to himself than her.
“Not wise, but it’s good,” she added, indicating that she must hold the same view of getting acquainted that he had.
“So you like to dance.”
“I love to dance and I’m glad you thought of this,” she said softly. They moved quietly, conversation ceasing and he was sorry when the music came to an end.
She looked up at him. He held her lightly in his embrace and he felt as if he were tumbling down into a sea of green, falling headlong without any hope of stopping. He had waited long enough.
Three
Caitlin’s heart drummed as she gazed into Jake Benton’s eyes. Her afternoon had turned her world topsy-turvy. All her life she had been given reasons to dislike the Bentons. Her grandmother had hated Jake’s father for things he had done to her son, Caitlin’s father, in the years the men were growing up. They had been thrown together at school as well as in town. Grandmother had disliked Jake because of complaints about him from Will.
During the past month, Caitlin herself had developed hostility toward Jake, which had increased swiftly when she found a stone wall of interference keeping her from contacting him.
He was important, busy, an oil millionaire, but he should have had a streak of common courtesy to at least take a phone call from someone from the neighboring ranch. While the bitterness between the families could have made him unreceptive, she suspected he was never even told that she was trying to contact him.
Growing up, she had disliked the Bentons because she had been taught to. Jake’s snubs had added fuel to the fires of contempt. The only way to get the property back from him was to communicate with him. When she had learned he was expected at the West Texas ranch, she had decided to confront him to force him to listen to her request.
He was being as stubborn as she had expected. What she hadn’t anticipated was the scalding chemistry the moment they were face-to-face. It was an intense attraction he felt as much as she did. He also probably hated it as much as she did. Except he had seduction in his eyes. She could imagine how much it would amuse him to seduce a Santerre, even one on the fringe of the family. Titus Santerre’s illegitimate child whom he only grudgingly acknowledged because his own mother adopted her.
The thoughts swirled briefly and then vanished. Caitlin’s gaze locked with Jake’s. His blue eyes held a blatant hunger. Her breathing altered while her temperature rose and her heart skipped. She tilted her face up, knowing she should step away and never kiss him, never open a Pandora’s box of problems.
The instant attraction had mushroomed with each hour. A kiss might send it soaring out of control. She had no intention of repeating her mother’s big mistake in life that had left Caitlin abandoned and hurt.
“Caitlin,” Jake said in a quiet, husky voice that conveyed desire and was an invitation to her.
How could she have this intense sexy reaction to him? A man she had disliked her entire life even though she had never known him or talked to him before? Get away from him, an inner feeling urged. He was over six feet of danger to her peace of mind. A kiss would only make things worse. There was no way a kiss would have positive results.
“No,” she whispered without moving an inch.
He slipped his hand behind her head, cupping her head lightly. “This is something we both want,” he whispered, his gaze lowering to her mouth. “I have since we were standing on the porch this afternoon.”
Her lips parted, tingled in anticipation. She was lost to his seductive ways and her own desire, the volatile chemistry between them, her own foolishness.
He leaned down, slowly, tantalizingly. His tongue stroked her lower lip and then he brushed her mouth with his own. Electricity streaked as swiftly as a bolt of lightning flashing outside. Her insides knotted while she slid an arm around his neck. She moved as if she were a puppet with someone else pulling the strings.
His arm tightened around her waist, drawing her more tightly against him.
His kiss scalded, teased. Lust burst in her, sending sparks through her being. She wanted him, needing to touch and kiss and make love. Yet the nagging knowledge that she was kissing a Benton persisted for minutes until his kiss demolished her concern.
Her sigh was consumed by his mouth over hers. When he leaned over her, she tightened her arm around his neck, her body molding to his long, hard strength. Her heart drummed as need built. She wanted him to keep kissing her, longed to run her hands over him.
Fireworks burst in her. His spectacular kisses thawed resistance, escalating her longing and response. She pressed against him to hold him tighter, kissing him with all her being, intending to make him melt and give in to her requests. Caution no longer existed.
His tongue stroked hers; she kissed him deeply in return, slowly thrusting her tongue over his. The faint moans of pleasure were hers. Her hand went to his shirt to twist free top buttons and slip her fingers across his warm, muscled chest.
