Courtship of the Recluse by Linda Rigsbee (ereader for textbooks txt) 📗

job, you can’tjust march into a person’s life and disrupt it and then...”

Her words trailed off at his raisedbrows.

“Hold that thought,” He pitched the apron atChet. “Go get your own girl and leave mine alone.”

“Cade!” Was he drunk?

“Russ,” He corrected as he gripped her armand led her to the door. “Why is it that you can only remember myfirst name when we’re making love?”

His voice was low and she was sure no oneelse heard, but her face burned furiously. What had gotten intohim?

He led her to his truck and opened the door,helping her into the truck. He slammed the door and strodepurposefully around to the other side, jerking the driver’s sidedoor open. If she had felt the least bit threatened, it would havebeen easy enough to jump out of the truck. But in spite of hisaggressive behavior, she felt safe with him. He obviously hadsomething definite on his mind. And why had he told Chet that shewas his girl?

He parked the truck in front of thecourthouse and turned to her, dragging a paper from his pocket.

“Explain this - if you can.”

She unfolded the paper and gasped. “How didyou get this?” And then she saw the note clipped to the adoptionform. The familiar scrawl belonged to Mary.

“Thought you should know.”

She glanced up at him, her face burningagain. Did he feel obligated to marry her now?

He watched her intently, his expressioninjured.

“Why, Cindy? Didn’t you think I had the rightto know?”

She swallowed hard. “I was going to come outthis weekend and talk to you. I knew you didn’t want children.”

His brows shot up. “And how did you determinethat?”

“You said you didn’t want any little bratstearing your house up.”

He rolled his eyes “I wasn’t talking aboutmy children. I was talking about other people’s children.Mine will be taught to mind.”

She gnawed on her lower lip. “I didn’t wantyou to think you had to marry me. You don’t, you know. I can raisethe baby...”

“Have to marry you?” He shook his headin disbelief. “I tried to ask you more than once, but someone wasalways interrupting and throwing a new kink in my plans. Rememberwhen Claudette interrupted us in the kitchen? The moment was soperfect - and then she walked in and said that... ruinedeverything. I could have wrung her neck.” He shook his head,obviously still distraught by the mere thought of it. “And youjumped right in and assured her things weren’t as they appeared.All that wasn’t bad enough, but she had to drag up that old rumor –and I thought you believed it.”

She stared at him. “You were going topropose?”

He nodded. “Remember the picnic beside thepond? You know, when Mary put in her untimely appearance. Not thatI was having much luck, anyway. Every time I found a way to leadinto it, you came up with something else. Then when Mary arrived,you ran off. At the time I thought it was another diversionarytactic. Why did you do that?”

“I thought you were upset because Mary caughtus together. I mean, you did visit her the night before, and Ithought maybe you two were...”

“Mary and me?” He shook his head. “Istopped by to see her on my way to the store. I wanted to know whatI could do to help you. You weren’t giving me much information.” Hefrowned. “So that’s why you acted so cool for a while.”

She folded her hands in her lap and stared atthem. Until now she would have sworn that he was the one who neverexpressed his feelings. Obviously they were both guilty. Now wasthe time to clear the air, and there was one thing about all thisthat didn’t make sense.

“If you were trying to ask me to marry you,why did you act that way after we...” It was still hard to acceptwhat they had done. She wrung her hands. “Spent the night on thecouch,” she concluded in a mumble. “I thought you didn’t respect meany more.”

He touched her arm. “Cindy,” he spoke gently.“I’ve always respected you.” He lifted her chin with a curled indexfinger and forced her to meet his solemn gaze. “I swear, I neverintended for things to go that far. I thought I could control myemotions. I always have before. But when you kissed me, somethingsnapped inside. It was my fault. I knew I was losing control and Ishould have stopped then. To be perfectly honest, at that point, Ididn’t want to.”

She gazed up into his face. “Why should you?I was completely submissive. I thought there was no situation Icouldn’t handle outside of rape - and I didn’t believe you would dothat.” She shook her head in amazement. “It wasn’t that I didn’tknow when things started getting out of control. It’s justthat...well, after that, it all happened so fast.”

He colored and looked away, dropping hishand.

“I’m sorry. I guess we both lackedexperience. I didn’t mean to hurt you. When I heard you crying inthe bathroom...” He brushed a crumb from the seat and cleared histhroat. “I knew I had ruined everything between us. I felt sick tomy stomach.”

She stared at him. “I wanted you to saysomething - anything. Instead, you acted like you wanted to forgetthe whole thing.”

They were both silent for a few moments,remembering that emotion packed morning - and another one. “Russ?”His name came easily to her lips this time.

He glanced up. “Yes?”

“If you wanted to marry me, why did you tellme you only wanted to spend a few nights with me? Don’t you knowhow bad that hurt?”

He stared at her blankly. “I never saidthat.”

“Yes you did. You said marriage was forpeople who wanted to spend a lifetime together, not a fewnights.”

His face was a road map of emotion, travelingfrom puzzled, to comprehensive and then on to frustration. Hegrimaced.

“I can see right now that I’m going to haveto be more explicit when I talk to you. If you’ll think back, mymessage was that spending a few nights together wasn’t a goodreason to get married. I wanted you to tell me that wasn’t yoursole reason for wanting to get married. When you didn’t answer, Ithought maybe it was your only reason and you thought