wasn’t the urgency of desire. It was, he was sure, the need to settle a debt and it broke his heart.
“Not like this,” he admonished her softly.
“Like what?”
“This isn’t the way to say thanks, Patsy. Dinner will do for that just fine.”
She started as if he’d slapped her. “You think I was offering myself to you out of gratitude?” she demanded.
“Weren’t you?”
The question hung in the air, adding to the already high tension. Her expression faltered under his steady gaze.
“Okay, yes,” she said finally. Eyes blazing she met his gaze. “But it was more than that. It is more than that.”
“Tell me, then.”
Her temper died slowly and only then did she murmur in a voice so low he could barely hear it, “I think I’m falling in love with you. It scares me to death, but there it is,” she said with a defiant tilt to her chin.
Justin’s heart flipped over. With some other woman maybes might have been enough. Not with this woman. With Patsy he wanted it all. He wanted love, commitment, permanence. He wanted a family and forever, with no doubts at all.
He bent his head and touched his lips to hers, then headed for the door because he knew he didn’t dare stay. He glanced back, saw her shattered expression and almost changed his mind, but something warned him that it would be the worst mistake of his life.
After taking one last look at this woman who’d stolen his heart, he sighed, then said, “Let me know when you’re sure.”
He almost made it out the door, but her softly whispered cry of his name stopped him. He turned slowly back.
“I know now,” she said, her eyes bright.
He smiled. “So fast?”
She nodded. “Because you were willing to walk out of here when I know you didn’t want to. I knew in that instant.”
He wanted desperately to believe her.
She held out her hand. “Please stay. Just for dinner, if that’s all you’re interested in.”
“You know better than that.”
“Please stay,” she repeated.
Still wondering if he could trust himself, he grinned. “No hanky-panky?”
“Absolutely not.” She sketched an X across her heart, then regarded him innocently. “Unless you change your mind.”
“The steaks are probably ruined,” he noted.
“We probably shouldn’t be eating meat, anyway.”
“Don’t ever say that out at White Pines,” he warned. “Grandpa Harlan will surely take offense. He does run a cattle empire, you know.”
“I’ll remember that.” She tilted her head. “So was that a yes? Are you going to stay?”
He considered the question for some time, debating the wisdom of his decision, weighing desire against reason. Finally he nodded.
“Against my better judgment.”
She laughed at his somber tone. “What’s the matter, Deputy? Don’t you trust yourself around me?”
“You’ve got that right.”
“I’ll do my best to see that you don’t go against any of those important principles of yours.”
“There’s only one principle that applies to this particular situation,” he told her.
“What’s that?”
“I don’t want to do anything that either one of us is going to regret in the morning.”
She stepped up close then, deliberately crowding him, and rested her hand against his cheek. His skin heated under her touch. “There is nothing we could do, Justin, nothing, that I would ever regret.”
She said it so fiercely, with so much passion that Justin’s only choice was to kiss her. He moved quickly, before he could think, before second thoughts could come roaring back. And when he claimed her lips this time, he knew there would be no turning back.
* * *
Until the very instant when Justin’s mouth had come crushing down on hers again, Patsy had been terrified that he would walk out the door. She had also been very much afraid that she would never again have the courage to go after him. It had been a long time since she’d taken an emotional risk. Her confidence was shaky.
She had been astonished earlier when he’d read her so easily, when he’d guessed that she’d wanted to give herself to him out of gratitude. Men weren’t supposed to be so perceptive. Then, again, this wasn’t most men they were talking about. This was Justin. He’d always struck her as a cut above the rest and tonight he had proved it.
She wanted him so desperately. She wanted the physical connection, knowing that it would come with the emotional commitment. She had been so sure that she was doomed to a life of solitude, a life on the run, an unending marital limbo. Because of Justin, all that had changed. He had given her