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He stood up, pulling back her chair. He tugged her to her feet and suddenly swung her up into his arms. She gasped and clutched at his shoulders.
He raised an eyebrow rakishly. “Now it’s my ankles that will be in danger. I have to clean that and put antiseptic ointment on it,” he mused as he turned and carried her down the hall toward the bedrooms.
“I’m too heavy!” she protested.
“You’re not,” he assured her. He looked down at her in his arms. He felt several inches taller. She was delightful close up. He enjoyed kissing her. He’d liked to have done it again, but this wasn’t the time.
He put her down on the vanity in the huge, blue-patterned tile bathroom. There was a whirlpool bath and an enormous space that held commode, vanity, chair, and a linen closet, as well as a large medicine chest.
He fumbled in the chest for what he needed, tugged a washcloth out of a drawer and proceeded to clean and bandage the wound.
Yow peered into the bathroom, her blue eyes huge in her triangle-shaped face.
“No tuna for you tonight, young lady,” Blake told her firmly.
She flattened her ears and hissed at Violet.
“And none tomorrow, either,” he added curtly.
Yow turned her back and flounced out. Mee, in a conciliatory tone, meowed at the door and walked in, watching the byplay curiously but without much antagonism.
“Beautiful girl,” Violet mused, lowering her fingers for the cat to sniff.
Mee sniffed them, rubbed her face against them, and then wrapped her lean body around Violet’s legs.
“You can have tuna,” Blake told the cat.
The purring grew louder.
Violet stroked the cat, but her eyes and her heart were on Blake’s bent head as he put a sticky bandage over the scratch.
“It should be fine,” he said.
“Of course it will be,” she assured him, smiling down as he finished. “Thanks.”
“I’m really sorry,” he said again as he gathered up the first aid supplies and put them away. “Yow’s spoiled.”
“I love cats,” Violet said, still stroking Mee. “I’d have loved to have some, if Mama wasn’t allergic.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without mine. Although there are times when I’m tempted to try,” he added, with a glowering look toward the door where Yow had reappeared and was hissing again.
“You live alone,” she said. “It’s natural that they’d resent strangers.”
He bent down and drew her gently to her feet. “You’re no stranger,” he said huskily as his eyes searched hers. “I don’t think you ever were.”
She felt such elation that she could hardly get her breath. Just weeks ago they’d been mortal enemies. Then, suddenly, they were almost intimate. It was a shock. It was…wonderful.
“Your eyes can’t hide anything,” he murmured, bending toward her.
She glanced worriedly at her ankles, and he laughed.
He picked her up again, shifting her in his arms. “Feel safer?” he murmured, staring at her mouth.
“Much,” she agreed, and her arms tightened boldly around his neck.
With a long sigh, he bent his head and kissed her, very tenderly. His teeth nibbled at her lower lip until her mouth opened. He took immediate advantage of the opportunity, and she felt her whole body go hot as he dragged her closer, so that her full breasts rubbed against his muscular chest.
He groaned, and the kiss grew hotter, longer, more passionate. His arms contracted hungrily.
She gave him back the kiss with more enthusiasm than expertise, but he didn’t seem to mind. She sighed under the hard crush of his mouth and sank into dreams. It was sweeter than she’d ever dared hope it might be.
She felt as if her whole body was shattering with pleasure.
Blake’s head lifted. He turned it, listening. That hadn’t been her imagination. Something really had shattered. “Yow!” he growled.
He put Violet down and rushed back down the hall ahead of her. He made it into the dining room just in time to see Yow feasting on Violet’s piece of cake, on the floor, in the ruins of the saucer it had been placed in.
“Yow!” he bit off.
The cat jumped back and hissed at Violet. For good measure she hissed at Blake, too, and ran quickly out of the room.
Mee, seeing an opening, rubbed against Blake’s legs while she eyed the cake on the floor.
Blake picked up the saucer pieces. While he was putting them into the trash, Mee grabbed up a piece of cake and trotted into the kitchen with it.
“That cat,” he was muttering.
Violet was chuckling, happier than she’d been in years, despite the cat’s antagonism. It was a rare look at Blake’s private life, at the man he was when he wasn’t working. She liked what she saw. His affection for the cats was obvious, even through his frustration with Yow.
“They’re very different, aren’t they?” she asked while he took the lion’s share of the cake away from a frustrated Mee and put it in the trash, too.
“They’re maddening from time to time,” he admitted. “But I suppose they’d taste terrible, even if I do have infrequent visions of serving them up in a casserole.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” she exclaimed, laughing.
He shrugged. “Well, not sober,” he confessed.
She grinned at him, her whole face radiant with the sudden, new relationship that was building between them.
She looked so pretty that Blake stopped what he was doing and just stared at her. Why hadn’t he realized how pretty she was? he wondered.
Violet saw the look and was mesmerized by it. She stood staring back at him, while time stood still around them.
Chapter Five
Violet folded her hands in front of her, self-consciously. “I really like your house,” she said, for something to break the silence.
He smiled. “I’m glad.”
“I like the cats, too. In spite of everything,” she added. “It’s only a scratch.”
He glowered toward the doorway, where Yow was looking in again. Mee was still twirling around Violet’s ankles. “We’ll have to work on Yow’s social skills. Maybe she lacks proper company. I might buy her a dog.”
“You wouldn’t!” Violet exclaimed, laughing.
He gave her a wicked look. “A big, ugly dog with a bad attitude,” he added.
“You’d turn up in court as a defendant.”
“Not unless Yow can afford legal representation,” he assured her.
She laughed. It was amazing how carefree she felt with him, a man who’d intimidated her from their very first meeting when she’d worked for him. He was another man entirely away from the office.
“Well, there’s still cake,” he pointed out. “We’d better get it while we can, before Yow tries again.”
“What kind is it?” she asked as she seated herself at the table again.
“Pound cake. It’s the only cake I can do myself.”
“My favorite kind, too. I can make a layer cake, but I like these better.”
He put a slice on a plate, and a fork, in front of her. “More coffee?”
“Please,” she replied.
He poured more coffee and they settled down with their cake, but she noticed that Blake kept a careful eye on the doorway in case Yow made another appearance.
He wouldn’t let her help with the dishes, insisting that he could do them later. Instead, he walked her out onto the porch and settled her beside him in the porch swing.
“I love this,” she said. “We used to have a porch swing, before we lost everything,” she mused. “I loved sitting in it, especially in the spring and summer. We had a big yard with pecan trees and a mesquite tree, and Mama had a flower garden, very much like yours.”
He slid his arm behind her head and curled his long fingers comfortably into her hair. “It must be hard for both of you.”
“We’re getting by,” she said softly. “I don’t really mind. I’m just sorry about Daddy, and how he died.” She looked up at him. “You haven’t heard anything about the autopsy yet?”
“Maybe next week,” he replied. “I’ll tell you the minute I know for sure. Then we’ll both break it to your mother.”
“That’s very kind of you,” she said.
He bent and touched his lips to her forehead. “I’m a kind man,” he murmured, laughing softly. “I don’t even kick cats when they deserve it.”
She smiled back, leaning closer. She loved being near him, feeling his breath on her face, his fingers in her hair.
Blake was amazed at how receptive she was to his advances, how hungrily she met them. He hadn’t analyzed his feelings for Violet. He wasn’t going to. Not yet. But she kindled fires in his blood that he hadn’t felt since Shannon Culbertson’s death.
Shannon. His eyes grew dark and quiet as he stared over Violet’s head and memories flooded in on him. He’d loved her. He’d given his heart completely, recklessly, without any thought for the future. Shannon had died, and his life had shattered overnight. He remembered that headlong passion with faint apprehension. It was dangerous to love. Very dangerous.
Violet didn’t know what he was thinking, but she felt a sudden remoteness from him. She noticed that he was staring into space, thinking. Perhaps he was having second thoughts about the direction their relationship was taking. Was he sorry that he’d kissed her?
He felt her intent stare. He turned his head and looked down into her eyes, searching them slowly. The look was more intimate than a kiss. His body began to swell from the intensity of it.
“Is something wrong?” she asked after a minute.
His fingers touched her chin, drawing it up. “I have cold feet.”
“I don’t understand.”
He drew in a long breath. “It’s too quick, Violet,” he murmured, looking at her. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this.”
“For feeding me trout?” she asked, wide-eyed.
He shook his head. “No. For…this.”
He bent and kissed her, very gently. He lifted his head. “I like kissing you.”
She smiled slowly. “I like kissing you, too.”
“To what end?”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t want to get married,” he said bluntly.
She felt all at sea, confused and uncertain.
He stared down into her wide eyes. She looked miserable and he felt confused. “Forget it,” he murmured, dropping his stare to her soft eyes. “I’m just talking. I don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
“I know about her,” she blurted out.
He scowled. “Her?”
“Shannon Culbertson,” she said, averting her gaze to the budding rosebushes. “I’m sorry it happened like that. It must have been devastating for you.”
He couldn’t think of another single person he wouldn’t have cursed for mentioning her name. But it didn’t feel at all uncomfortable to discuss Shannon with Violet. She had a tender heart. He ached for comfort. He’d never had it.
“She was beautiful,” he replied. “Young and full of fun and promise. I loved her until she was an obsession. I didn’t think I could go on living when she died.”
“But you did,” she replied. “You’re stronger than you realize.”
“You have an odd effect on me,” he murmured.
“What sort?” she asked, studying him.
One shoulder lifted and fell. His eyes went back to the landscape as he rocked the swing lazily into motion. “I don’t talk about her. I haven’t in years.”
She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder, staring across his broad chest toward the distant highway. “You can’t bury the past,” she said absently. “It affects everything we do, everything we are.”
He frowned. “Did you lose someone?”
