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Kings of California: Bargaining for King's Baby
Maureen Child


Bargaining for King’s BabyGina knew her father had made a bargain to ‘sell’ her in exchange for next-door neighbour Adam King’s much-desired land…so she decided to make a deal with the millionaire herself. She’d marry him. He’d get the land. And she’d get King’s baby.Marrying for King’s MillionsThe only way millionaire Travis King could get his biggest client off his back was to marry someone else. So he handpicked home-town girl Julie, a desperate woman who would do exactly what he wanted. Unless what he wanted began to change…Falling for King’s FortuneFor Jackson King, business always triumphs over romance. Until Casey, the beautiful stranger heshared a mind-blowing tryst with, reveals he’s a father. Now he’s determined to have his daughter under his roof…even if it means marrying Casey!









Kings of

California

Bargaining

for King’s Baby

Marrying for

King’s Millions

Falling for

King’s Fortune



Maureen Child





















www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


MAUREEN CHILD is a California native who loves to travel. Every chance they get, she and her husband are taking off on another research trip. An author of more than sixty books, Maureen loves a happy ending and still swears that she has the best job in the world. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two children and a golden retriever with delusions of grandeur.

You can contact Maureen via her website: www.maureenchild.com (http://www.maureenchild.com).



Bargaining for King’s Baby


To Carter, for bringing so much love into our lives. We wish for you all the good things life holds, and we’re grateful to be able to watch you discover the world around you.




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve




One


“You’re obsessed.” Travis King looked at his older brother and smiled. “And not in a good way.”

“I agree,” Jackson King said, with a shake of his head. “Why is this so important to you anyway?”

Adam King looked from one of his brothers to the other and paused for a few seconds before answering them. When he did, he used the tone he usually reserved for his employees—the tone that precluded arguments. “We agreed when we took over the reins of the family businesses from Dad that we’d each be in charge of our own areas.”

Then he waited, because Adam knew his brothers weren’t finished. Every month, the King brothers held a meeting. They’d get together either here at the family ranch, at the vineyard Travis operated or on one of the executive jets Jackson owned and leased to the mega-wealthy of the world.

The King family had holdings in so many different areas, the monthly meetings helped the brothers keep up with what the tangled lines of the King dynasty were up to at any given moment. But it also gave the brothers a chance to catch up on each other’s lives. Even if sometimes, Adam thought, that meant putting up with interference—no matter how well meant.

Picking up his Waterford crystal tumbler of brandy, he swirled the amber liquid in the bottom of the glass and watched the firelight from the hearth wink in its depths. He knew it wouldn’t take long to get a comment from his brothers and he silently bet himself that it would be Travis who spoke first. A moment later, he was proven right.

“Yeah, Adam, we each run our own areas,” Travis said, taking a deep sip of a King Vineyard Merlot. Travis preferred drinking the wines his vineyard produced to the brandy Adam enjoyed. He shot a look at Jackson, who nodded at him. “That doesn’t mean we won’t have a question or two.”

“Have all the questions you like,” Adam told him. He stood up, walked to the massive stone hearth and stared down into the crackling fire. “Just don’t expect me to answer them.”

Jackson spoke up as if to head off a budding confrontation. Holding his glass of Irish whiskey, he said, “We’re not saying that the ranch isn’t yours to do with as you want, Adam. We’re only trying to figure out why it means so damn much to you to get back every inch of land we used to hold.”

Adam turned his back on the fireplace, looked at his brothers and felt that tight bond they’d always shared. Only a year separated each of them and the friendship they’d formed when they were kids was every bit as strong now. But that didn’t mean he was going to explain his every move to them. He was still the oldest, and Adam King didn’t do explanations.

“The ranch is mine,” he said simply. “If I want to make it whole again, why should you care?”

“We don’t,” Travis said, speaking up before Jackson could. Leaning back in the maroon leather chair, he kicked his feet out in front of him, balanced the fragile wineglass on his flat stomach and looked at Adam through slitted eyes. “I just want to know why you care. Hell, Adam, Great-Grandpa King sold off that twenty-acre parcel to the Torinos nearly sixty years ago. We already own nearly half the county. Why’s that twenty acre plot so important?”

Because he’d set out to do this and Adam had never given up on anything. Once he’d made up his mind to do something, it got done, come hell or high water. He glanced from his brothers to the wide front windows overlooking a stretch of neatly tended lawn and garden that stretched for almost a quarter of a mile before feeding into the road.

This ranch had always been important to him. But in the last five years, it had become everything to him and damned if he’d stop before it was complete again.

Outside, the night was thick and black, broken only by tiny puddles of decorative lights positioned along the wide, curved driveway. This was his home. Their home. And he was going to see to it that it was once again completely in King hands.

“Because it’s the last missing piece,” Adam said, thinking of the last five years. Years that he’d spent buying back every piece of land that had been in the original King land grant more than a hundred and fifty years ago.

The King family had been in central California since before the gold rush. They’d been miners and ranchers and farmers and ship builders. Over the years, the family had changed with the times, moving into different fields, expanding their dynasty. Generations of them had worked to broaden the family’s holdings. To grow and build on the previous generations—with one exception.

Their great-grandfather, Simon King, had been more of a gambler than a family scion. And to support his gambling habits, he’d sold off pieces of his heritage. Thankfully the Kings who’d come after Simon had held on to their family history with both hands.

Adam didn’t know if he could make his brothers understand—didn’t know that he cared to try. All he knew was that he’d devoted the last five years to putting the jigsaw pieces of this ranch back together and he wasn’t going to stop until he’d completed the task.

“Fine,” Jackson said, shooting Travis a quick shut-up look. “If it’s that important to you, go ahead.”

Adam snorted. “Your permission isn’t necessary. But thanks.”

Jackson smiled. As always, the youngest of the King boys was almost impossible to rile. “Good luck getting that land away from the Torinos, though,” he added, taking a sip of his whiskey and giving a dramatic sigh. “That old man holds on to everything that’s his with both hands.” His mouth twisted into a smile. “Like you, big brother. Sal’s not going to just up and sell it to you.”

Adam smiled now, and lifted his brandy snifter in a salute. “What was Dad’s favorite saying?”

“Every man’s got his price,” Travis said, and lifted his glass, too, as he finished their father’s quote, “the trick is to find it the quickest way you can.”

Jackson shook his head, but lifted his glass to his brothers. “Salvatore Torino may be the exception to that rule.”

“Not a chance,” Adam said and he could already taste the victory he’d worked five years for. He wasn’t about to let one stubborn neighbor stand in the way of success. “Sal’s got a price. Somewhere.”



Gina Torino hooked the heel of her scuffed boot on the bottom rung of the weathered wooden fence. She crossed her arms on the top rail and looked out at the field in front of her. The sun was shining out of a clear blue sky, the grass was thick and green and a brand-new baby was trotting alongside his mother.

“See, Shadow?” she whispered to the contented mare, “I told you he’d be fine.”

Of course, last night Gina hadn’t been so sure. Playing midwife to a Gypsy horse she’d raised from infancy had absolutely terrified her. But today, she could smile and enjoy the moment.

Her gaze followed the black-and-white mare as she moved lazily around the enclosure, new baby at her feathered heels. The Gypsies were the most beautiful horses Gina had ever seen. Their broad shoulders, proud neck and the “feathers,” or long, delicate hairs flying around their feet, looked exquisite. Most people, of course, took one look at the breed and thought…miniature Clydesdales. But the Gypsy horses were something else entirely.

Relatively small, but sturdy, the Gypsies had at first been bred by the roaming people who gave them their name. They were bred to be strong enough to pull loaded carts and wagons and gentle enough to be considered part of the family. They were exceptionally gentle with children and incredibly loyal to those they loved.

The horses, to Gina, were more than animals to be bred and sold…they were family.

“You baby them.”

Gina didn’t even turn when her mother spoke up from behind her. This was a long-standing argument—with her mother claiming that Gina spent too much time with the horses and too little time looking for a husband. “There’s no harm in that.”

“You need your own babies.”

Gina rolled her eyes, grateful her mother couldn’t see the action. Teresa Torino didn’t care how old her children were. If they sassed, they were just as likely to get a swat on the back of the head as they had been when they were children. If she’d had any sense at all, Gina told herself, she’d have moved away like two of her three older brothers had.

“I know you’re rolling your eyes….”

Grinning, Gina glanced back over her shoulder. Teresa Torino was short, curvy and opinionated. Her black hair was going gray and she didn’t bother dyeing it, instead reminding everyone in the family that she’d earned those gray hairs. Her chin was stubborn and her brown eyes were sharp and didn’t miss much.

“Would I roll my eyes at you, Mom?”

One dark eyebrow lifted. “If you thought you could get away with it, yes.”

Gina lifted her face into a soft wind blowing in off the nearby ocean and changed the subject. Safer that way. “I heard you talking on the phone to Nick this morning. Everything all right?”

“Yes,” Teresa said, walking up to join her daughter at the split rail fence. “Your brother Nickie’s wife is pregnant again.”

Ah. So this explained the let’s get Gina married and pregnant theme of the morning. “That’s great news.”

“Yes. That will be three for Nick, two children for Tony and four for Peter.”

Her brothers were really doing all they could to repopulate the world with Torinos, Gina thought with a smile. She loved being an aunt, of course. But she wished they all lived closer, so they could take more of the heat off of her. Yet of the three Torino sons, only Tony lived here on the ranch, working it with their father. Nick was in Colorado, coaching high school football and Peter was in Southern California, installing computer software for security companies.

“You’re a lucky nana to have so many grandbabies to spoil,” Gina said, sliding a glance at her mother.

“Could be luckier,” Teresa countered with a sniff.

“Mom…” Gina couldn’t stop the sigh that slipped from her. “You’ve got eight and a half grandchildren. You don’t need me to produce one.”

Her mother had always dreamed of Gina’s wedding day. Of seeing her only daughter walk down the aisle on her father’s arm. The fact that Gina hadn’t complied didn’t sit well with Teresa.

“It’s not good for you to be alone, Gina,” her mother said, slapping one hand against a board hard enough to make the fence rattle.

“I’m not alone,” Gina argued. “I’ve got you and Papa, my brothers, their wives, their kids. Who could ever be alone in this family?”

Teresa, though, was on a roll. The music of her still-thick Italian accent colored her words when she spoke again. “A woman should have a man in her life, Gina. A man to love and be loved by…”

Gina felt her back go up, even though a part of her agreed with her mother. It wasn’t as if she’d gone out of her way to decide to never get married. To never have children. It’s just the way things had worked out. And she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life being miserable because of it.

“Just because I’m not married, Mom,” Gina interrupted, “that doesn’t mean I don’t have men in my life.”

Teresa sucked air in through her nose in a disapproving sniff that was so loud, one of the horses in the meadow turned its head to investigate. “I don’t want to know about that.”

Good, because Gina didn’t really want to talk about her love life—or lack thereof—with her mother. She loved her parents dearly, she really did. Teresa had been born into a huge Sicilian family and had come to America more than forty years ago to marry Sal Torino. And despite the fact that Sal had been born and raised in America, he tended to side with his wife when she clung to Old World values—namely, that daughters who hadn’t found husbands by their thirtieth birthday were destined to be old maids.

Sadly, Gina’s thirtieth birthday had come and gone two months ago.

“Mom…” Gina took a breath, blew it out and prayed for patience. She’d hoped that having her own small house built on the family ranch would give her more privacy. Would make her parents think of her as a capable adult. She should have known better. Once a Torino child, always a Torino child.

Maybe she should have just moved away from the ranch entirely. But even if she had, she’d have been spending every day here anyway, since the Gypsy horses she raised and trained were her life. So she’d simply have to find a way to deal with being her mother’s great disappointment.

“I know, I know,” Teresa said, holding up one hand as if to stave off a familiar argument. “You are a grown woman. You don’t need a man to complete you.” She gave an impatient huff. “I should never have let you watch those talk shows when you were growing up. They fill your head with—”

“—sense?” Gina offered, smiling. She did love her mom, it was just so aggravating having to apologize for not being married and/or pregnant all the damn time.

“Sense. Is it sense to live alone? To not have love in your life? No,” Teresa snapped, not waiting for an answer. “It is not.”

It would be easier to argue with her mom if a part of Gina didn’t agree. Okay, a small part. But a tiny voice in the back of her mind whispered that she wasn’t getting any younger. That she should give up on old fantasies that should have died years ago.

Yet somehow…she couldn’t quite manage it.

“I’m fine, Mom,” she said, willing herself to believe it.

Teresa laid one hand on her daughter’s forearm and gave her a pat. “Of course you are.”

Okay, Gina was willing to accept that, even if her mom was placating her. At least it had stopped the conversation. “Where’s Papa?” she asked. “He was going to come look over the new baby this morning.”

Teresa waved one hand. “He has a ‘meeting’ he said. Very important.”

“Yeah? With who?”

“You think he tells me?” Teresa huffed out a frustrated breath and Gina smiled.

Nothing her mother hated more than not knowing what was going on at all times.

“Well, while Papa’s in his meeting, you can meet the new baby.”

“Horses,” Teresa muttered. “You and your horses.”

Gina laughed and took her mother’s hand. “Come on.”

As they walked to the fence gate, a rumble of noise drifted to them and Gina turned to watch a car approach down the long driveway leading in from the main road. Dust billowed behind the black luxury SUV and Gina felt a stir of something deep inside her when she recognized the car. Despite trying to ignore that feeling, her breath caught and held in her chest and her mouth suddenly went dry.

She didn’t even need to read the license plate…KING 1 to know without a doubt that Adam King was in that car. She felt it as surely as she felt the rocky ground beneath her feet. What was that, anyway? Some sort of inner radar that leaped into life whenever Adam got close?

“So, Adam King is the important meeting,” her mother mused. “I wonder why.”

Gina wondered, too. She knew she should just go about her business, but somehow, she couldn’t make her feet move. She just stood there and watched as Adam parked his car and opened the door. When he stepped out and looked around, his dark-eyed gaze sliding across the ranch yard, something inside her jumped in reaction. Stupid, she told herself. Stupid to feel anything for a man who didn’t even know you existed.

Adam’s gaze kept moving, as if he were cataloging the Torino ranch and would be given a test on it later. Finally, his gaze moved over Gina. She stiffened. Even from a distance she felt the power of his stare as if he’d reached out and touched her.

He nodded at her and her mother, and Gina forced herself to lift one hand in a halfhearted wave. Almost before her fingers had stopped moving, though, Adam had turned for the house.

“A cold man, that one,” Teresa said in a quiet voice from right beside Gina. Crossing herself she added, “There is a darkness in him.”

Gina had felt the darkness, too, so she couldn’t really argue the point. But she’d known Adam and his brothers all of her life. And she’d always wanted to be the one to ease the darkness back for him.

Stupid, she supposed. What is it with women that we all want to be the one to “save” a guy? she wondered.

She was still standing there, watching after Adam, even though he’d already gone into the ranch house for his meeting with her father. And finally, Gina felt her mother watching her. “What?”

“I see something in your eyes, Gina,” her mother whispered, worry tightening her mouth and flashing in her gaze.

Gina immediately turned away and started walking toward the horses in the meadow. She still felt a little shaky so she made sure her steps were long and steady. Lifting her chin, she whipped her hair back out of her eyes and said, “I don’t know what you mean, Mom.”

Teresa wasn’t so easily put off, however. She hurried after her daughter, took hold of Gina’s arm and dragged her to a stop. Looking into her eyes, Teresa said, “You cannot fool me. There is something there in you for Adam King. And you must not surrender to it.”

Surprised, Gina laughed. “Excuse me? This from the woman who not five minutes ago was telling me to get married and start having babies?”

“Not with him,” Teresa said. “Adam King is the one man I do not want for you.”

Unfortunate.

Since Adam King was the only man Gina wanted.




Two


Adam knocked on the front door, waited impatiently and then jerked to attention when a shorter, older man opened it and smiled out at him.

“Adam,” Sal Torino said, stepping back and waving him inside. “Right on time, as always.”

“Sal. Thanks for seeing me.” Adam stepped into the house and glanced around. It had been a long time since he was last here, but he noticed that the place hadn’t changed much.

The entryway was wide and lit from above by a skylight that spilled sunshine in a wash of gold across the gleaming pine floors. The hall leading to the back of the house was covered in framed family photos of smiling kids and proud parents. The high, arched doorway that led into the living room where Sal gestured for Adam to follow had been unchanged, as well. The walls were still a soft, warm yellow, the furniture was oversize and comfortable, and a stone hearth, cold now, held a copper urn filled with fresh flowers. Sal took a seat on the sofa and reached for a coffeepot sitting on a tray atop a wide, scarred pine table.

While Sal poured coffee Adam didn’t want, he wandered the room and stopped at the curved bay window. The glass gleamed in the morning light and provided a sweeping view of the neatly trimmed lawn ringed by ancient oak trees. Adam hardly noticed, though. His mind was already focused on the task at hand: How he would convince Sal to sell him the land he needed.

“So, what brings Adam King to my house first thing in the morning?”

Adam turned around to look at his neighbor. Sal stood about five foot eight, had thick black hair streaked with gray, skin as weathered and tanned as old leather and sharp brown eyes.

He walked over to take the coffee cup Sal offered him and then had a sip just to be polite. Sitting down opposite the other man, Adam cupped the heavy mug between his palms and said, “I want to talk to you about that twenty-acre parcel in your north pasture, Sal.”

The older man’s face split in an understanding smile as he leaned back into the sofa cushions. “Ah.”

It wasn’t good business to let your opponent know how badly you wanted something. But Sal Torino was no dummy. The King family had made offers for that land several times over the last couple of decades and Sal had always turned them down flat. So, he already knew how important this was to Adam. No point in trying to pretend otherwise.

“I want that land, Sal, and I’m willing to make you a deal that’ll give you a hell of a profit on it.”

Shaking his head Sal took a gulp of coffee, swallowed and sighed. “Adam…”

“Hear me out.” Adam leaned forward, set his coffee cup down on the tray and sat back again, bracing his forearms on his thighs. “You don’t use that piece of land for grazing or pasture. It’s just sitting there.”

Sal smiled and shook his head again. Fine. He was stubborn. Adam could appreciate that. He bit down on the impatience scratching at his insides and forced a congenial tone to his voice. “Think about this, Sal. I’m willing to make you another substantial offer for the property.”

“Why is this so important to you?”

Now we play the game. Adam wished this were all somehow easier. Sal knew damn well about Adam’s quest to make the King ranch whole again, but clearly he was going to have to spell it all out.

“It’s the last piece of the original King family holdings,” Adam said tightly. “Which you already know.”

Sal smiled again and Adam thought the older man sort of looked like a benevolent elf. Too bad he didn’t look like an elf who wanted to sell. “So let’s get down to business here. You don’t need the land. I want the land. Simple as that. So what do you say?”

“Adam,” Sal started, pausing for another sip of coffee, “I don’t like selling land. What’s mine is mine. You know that. You feel the same way I do.”

“Yes, and that parcel is mine, Sal. Or it should be. It started out King land. It should be King land again.”

“But it isn’t.”

Adam quietly seethed with frustration.

“I don’t need your money.” Sal sat forward, set his coffee cup down and then stood up to wander the room. “You know that, and yet, you come to me anyway, thinking to sway me with an argument for profit margins.”

“Making a profit’s not a sin, Sal,” Adam countered.

“Money is not the only thing a man thinks about, though.”

Sal stopped at the hearth, leaned one arm on the heavily carved mantel and looked down at Adam.

Adam wasn’t used to being the one on the defensive in a negotiation. And looking up at Sal from the comfort of a too-soft chair made him feel at a disadvantage, so he stood up, too. Shoving both hands into the pockets of his jeans, he watched the older man and wondered what Sal was up to.

“I hear an implied ‘but’ in there somewhere,” Adam said. “So why don’t you just tell me what you’ve got in mind and we can decide if we’re going to be able to make a deal.”

“Ah,” Sal said. “So impatient. You should learn to enjoy life more, Adam. It’s not good to build a life solely on business.”

“Works for me.”

Adam wasn’t interested in listening to advice. He didn’t want to hear about “enjoying” life. All he wanted was that last piece of land.

“There was a time when you didn’t feel that way,” Sal mused and the smile slipped off his features even as his dark eyes went soft and sympathetic.

Adam stiffened perceptibly. The worst part of living in a small town was having everyone for miles around knowing your personal business. Sal, he knew, was trying to be nice, so he kept a lid on the simmering knot of something ugly inside him. People thought they knew him. Thought they could understand what he was feeling, thinking. But they were wrong.

He wasn’t interested in sympathy any more than he was looking for advice. He didn’t need anyone’s pity. Adam’s life was just as he wanted it.

Except for owning that damned piece of land.

“Look, Sal,” Adam said slowly, quietly, “I’m not here to talk about my life. I’m here to make a deal. So if you don’t mind…”

Sal clucked his tongue in disapproval. “You are a single-minded man, Adam. And while I admire that, it can also make one’s life harder than it has to be.”

“Let me worry about my life, okay?” That sizzle of impatience he’d felt earlier had begun to bubble and froth in the pit of his stomach. “What do you say, Sal? Are we going to be able to come to an agreement?”

Sal braced his feet wide apart, folded his arms across his chest and tipped his head to one side, studying Adam as if looking for something in particular. After a long moment or two, he said, “We might be able to strike a deal. Though the terms I have in mind are somewhat different than you were expecting.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Simple,” Sal said with a shrug. “You want the land. I want something in return. And it’s not your money.”

“Then what?”

The older man nodded, walked back to the sofa and sat down again, getting comfortable. When he was settled, he looked up at Adam and said, “You know my Gina.”

“Yeah…” Suspicion rattled through Adam.

“I want to see her happy,” Sal said.

“I’m sure you do.” And what the hell did Gina have to do with any of this?

“I want to see her married. Settled. With a family.”

Everything in Adam went still and cold. He suddenly became hyperaware. He heard the ticking of the clock that hung over the fireplace. He heard a fly bumping against the bay window. He took a long, slow, deep breath and dragged in the enticing aroma of spaghetti sauce bubbling in the kitchen. Adam’s skin felt too tight and every nerve ending in his body was standing straight up.

He took another breath, shook his head and stared at Sal, hardly able to believe what he’d just heard—realization at what Sal could be insinuating hitting him like a ton of bricks. But the older man was staring at him through steady, determined eyes, allowing Adam time to absorb what he’d said. But how could he possibly believe the old man was serious?

Adam had faced tough negotiators before and come out on top, though. Today would be no different.

“I don’t see what Gina getting married has to do with me or this conversation.”

“Don’t you?” Sal smiled. “You’re a man alone, Adam. Gina is alone, as well…”

This was not going the way he’d planned.

Gina?

Married?

To him?

No way. He looked into Sal’s eyes and saw that the older man was absolutely sincere. No matter how whacked it sounded. Adam ground his back teeth together and took a couple of long, hopefully calming, breaths. Didn’t help.

“Let me be clear,” Sal said, shifting to rest one arm along the back of the sofa, like a man completely at ease with himself and his surroundings. “I offer you a deal, Adam. Marry my Gina. Make her happy. Give her one or two babies. And I give you the land.”

Babies?

Fury erupted within and turned Adam’s vision red at the edges. His lungs labored for air. His brain was covered in a mist of temper that made thinking nearly impossible. Which was probably for the best. Because if he took the time to actually consider what Sal was saying, who the hell knew what he might say?

He couldn’t even remember being that angry before. Adam wasn’t manipulated—he was the one who did the manipulating. He was the one who was a shark in negotiations. He didn’t get surprised. He didn’t feel at a loss. He was never at a loss for words, damn it.

And looking at Sal now, he could see the old guy was really enjoying him being confounded, which only made Adam more furious.

“Forget it,” Adam said, the words hardly more than a hiss of sound. Unable to stand still, he stalked over to the bay window, glared at the outside world for a second or two, then spun back around to face the man still seated on the couch. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Sal? Are you delusional? People don’t bargain their daughters for gain anymore. This isn’t the middle ages, you know.”

Slowly the older man stood up, narrowed his eyes on Adam and pointed his index finger, stabbing at the air with it. “This is not for my gain,” Sal pointed out. “This is for your gain. You think I would accept any man for my Gina? You think I value her so lowly that I do this without thinking? Without considering?”

“I think you’re nuts.”

Sal snorted a laugh that had no humor in it. “You want the land so badly? Do this one thing and it’s yours.”

“Unbelievable.” This was crazy. Plain and simple. He’d always liked Sal Torino, too. Who knew the old guy was off his rocker?

“Why does this seem so unreasonable to you?” Sal demanded, coming around the sofa to stand beside Adam at the window. Sunlight speared in through the leaded glass panes, dotting the two men and the wood floor with diamond-shaped splotches of gold. “Is it crazy for a father to look to his daughter’s happiness? To the happiness of the son of a man I called friend? You’re a good man, Adam. But you’ve been alone too long. Lost too much.”

“Sal—” His tone filled with warning.

“Fine.” He held up both hands. “We won’t speak of the past, but of the future.” Sal turned his head, looked out the window and stared into the distance. Nodding his head, he said, “My Gina needs more in her life than her beloved horses. You need more in your life than your ranch. Is it so crazy to think the two of you could build something together?”

Adam just stared at him. “You want your daughter to marry a man who doesn’t love her?”

He shrugged. “Love can grow.”

“Not for me.”

“Never say never, Adam.” Sal slid a glance at him. “A life is long and not meant to be lived alone.”

Life wasn’t always long and Adam had discovered that it was better lived alone. He had no one’s interests but his own to look after. He lived the way he wanted and made no excuses or apologies for it. And he had no intention of changing any part of his life.

Irritation spiked inside him. He did want that damned land. It had become a Holy Grail of sorts for him. The last square to place in the King family quilt of holdings. He could almost taste the satisfaction of finishing the task he’d set for himself. But now…looked like he’d be tasting failure instead and that knowledge notched his irritation a little higher.

“Thanks, Sal. But I’m not interested.” In any of it. He wanted the land, but he wasn’t willing to marry again. He’d tried that once. And even before the crashing end, it hadn’t worked out for him or for his wife. He just wasn’t built to be a husband.

“Think about it,” Sal said and pointed out the window.

Adam glanced in the direction indicated and saw Gina and her mother out in the pasture. While he stood there, Teresa walked off, leaving her daughter alone in the field, surrounded by small, sturdy horses.

Sunlight dropped down on Gina like a cloud of light. Her long, dark hair whipped around her shoulders and when she tipped her head back to laugh, she made such an intriguing picture Adam gritted his teeth even harder.

“My Gina’s a wonderful woman. You could do worse.”

Adam tore his gaze from the woman in the meadow, shook his head and looked at the older man beside him. “You can let this idea of yours go, Sal. So why don’t you do some realistic thinking and come up with a price for the land that we can both live with?”

This whole situation had gotten way out of hand and Adam felt as if the walls were closing in on him. Looking at Sal, you’d never guess he was crazy as a loon. But clearly he was. Who the hell bartered their children these days?

Giving reasonable one last shot, Adam asked, “What the hell do you think Gina would say if she could hear you?”

Sal shrugged and smiled a little. “She doesn’t have to know.”

“You live dangerously, Sal.”

The older man snorted. “I know what’s good for my children. And, I know what’s good for you. This is the best bargain you could ever make, Adam. So you are the one who should think carefully before you decide.”

“Decision’s already made,” Adam assured him. “I’m not marrying Gina or anybody else for that matter. But if you change your mind and want to actually talk business, you give me a call.”

Adam had to get out of there. His blood was buzzing in his veins and he felt like his skin was on fire. Damned old man, throwing something like this at him out of the blue. Turning for the foyer, Adam crossed the room in a few long strides and yanked open the front door just as Teresa Torino was stepping inside. She jolted.

“Adam.”

“Teresa.” He gave her a nod, shot another incredulous look at Sal, then walked outside, closing the door behind him.

Instantly he felt as if he could breathe again. The sharp, clear air carried the scent of horses and the far-off sea. A cool wind brushed past him and almost without thinking about it, Adam turned his head and thoughtfully looked at the meadow where Gina Torino was communing with her horses.

Even from a distance, he felt the tug of an attraction he hadn’t felt in too long to count. The last time he’d seen Gina, it had been at his wife and son’s funeral. He’d been too numb that day to notice and since then, he’d mostly spent his time working the ranch.

And rather than heading for his car, he surprised himself by heading toward the fenced meadow.



Gina watched Adam approach and told her hormones to take a nap. Apparently, though, they weren’t listening. Nope, instead of lying down and keeping quiet, her hormones were instead tap dancing on every one of her nerve endings. Heck, she was surprised she wasn’t actually vibrating.

“Oh, Shadow,” she whispered, stroking the mare’s velvety neck, “I am such an idiot.”

“Morning, Gina.”

She braced herself, turned to face him and with one look into Adam’s dark eyes, Gina knew she could never be “braced” enough. Why was it this one man absolutely lit up her insides like a fireworks display on the Fourth of July? Why did it have to be Adam King her heart yearned for?

“Hello, Adam,” she said and silently congratulated herself on keeping her voice so nice and steady. “You’re out early this morning.”

“Yeah.” His features twisted briefly, then he made an obvious effort to ease them before saying, “Had a meeting with your father.”

“About what?”

“Nothing,” he said so quickly that Gina knew something was definitely going on. And knowing her father as she did, it could be anything.

Still, it was clear Adam wouldn’t be talking about whatever it was, so she’d save her curiosity for later. When she could pry it out of her father. For now, it was all she could do to keep from gibbering like an idiot. Adam walked closer, leaned his forearms on the top rung of the fence and squinted into the morning light. And wouldn’t you know it, the wind shifted directions, just so it could tease her by drifting the scent of him toward her.

Nothing so prosaic as aftershave, though. Nope, the only scent she picked up was soap and man. Which only made it harder to draw a breath. Oh, yeah. This was going really well.

“Looks like you’ve had a new addition to your herd,” he said with a nod at the foal.

Instantly Gina grinned and looked at the sturdy baby nuzzling his mother. “He arrived last night. Well, the middle of the night, really. I was up until nearly four this morning—hence my close resemblance to Frankenstein’s Bride.”

God, idiot. Make sure you point out to the man how haggard and hideous you look. First time you’ve seen him since his family’s funeral and you have to look like the wrath of God? Just fabulous.

“You look great,” he said and almost sounded grudging about it.

“Yeah. I’m sure.” Gina laughed, gave Shadow one more caress, then climbed through the fence. She knew right away that she should have just taken a short walk and opened the gate. She was too tired and strung a little too tightly to gracefully maneuver slipping between the rungs of the fence.

The toe of her boot caught on the bottom slat and she only had a second to think, This is perfect. I’m about to fall on my face in the dirt, right in front of Adam. Can this get any better? Then Adam’s hand curled around her upper arm and he held on to her until she found her balance again.

Flinging her hair back out of her face, she looked up into dark-chocolate eyes and said, “Thanks—” Whatever else she might have added died unspoken because her mouth dried up completely.

The heat in his gaze was nearly overpowering. She felt blasted by it, as if she were being hit by a flamethrower. Blood sizzling, breath straining in her lungs, stomach spinning in wild circles, she could only stare at him. The feel of his hand on her skin only added to the sensation of heat pouring through her.

And just when she wondered what in the hell she could possibly say to explain why she had suddenly become dumb as a post, Adam said, “Have dinner with me.”




Three


The words were out before he could stop himself and once they’d been said, Adam thought—why the hell not?

Yeah, he’d surprised himself and judging from the expression on her face, he’d surprised Gina, as well. But damned if he’d expected this rush of something hot and needy pulsing inside him. She’d caught him off guard, that was for sure.

Gina Torino was luscious. He hadn’t noticed the last time he’d seen her. But now, just looking at her made him feel something he’d thought himself immune to. And he was male enough to enjoy the rush of lust crowding his system.

While she stared up at him out of golden eyes, he heard her father’s offer repeat again and again in his mind. And as desire pumped fast and fiercely through his bloodstream, he told himself maybe he should rethink his instant rejection of her father’s idea. It wouldn’t be too much a hardship to make Gina Torino his wife.

And God knew he could hardly believe himself that he was considering this. But after all, it didn’t have to be forever. There didn’t have to be a baby. All he had to do was marry Gina and he’d get the land he wanted so badly. Then he’d divorce her with a good settlement and everybody’s happy.

Was he as crazy as Sal? Possibly. On the other hand, Adam had always been able to look at a situation, see it from every angle and then make the moves necessary for him to come out on top. Why should this be any different?

It wasn’t as if he was going into the deal with an idea to cheat Sal. The old man had come up with this bizarre plan all on his own. And Gina?

Well, hell. His gaze swept her up and down in a heartbeat of time. He took in her bright, golden eyes, her full mouth tipped into a smile, her lush breasts pressing against the faded fabric of a denim shirt and her rounded hips and long legs encased in worn jeans. She was enough to make any man’s mouth water. And the fact that she was getting to him was enough to have him considering Sal’s proposal.

“You look surprised,” he said when he realized that seconds of silence were ticking past.

“Well, I am.” She brushed her palms against her thighs but it was clearly more about nerves than cleaning her hands off. “I haven’t even spoken to you in the last five years, Adam.”

True. He’d never been a social type, like his brothers were. And in the last few years, he’d cut himself off even further from his neighbors. “I’ve been busy.”

She laughed and somehow the rollicking music of it seemed to slice through him, cutting him so deep his breath caught in his chest. What was this? Lust he could deal with. Use to his own advantage. But he wasn’t looking to be intrigued or captivated by her.

Yet he wanted her. And after years of feeling nothing, this rush of lust felt damn good. All he had to do was remind himself why he was considering this. The land. Marry Gina, enjoy himself, and when he was finished with her, they’d divorce and then this lust would be over with and he would have the land he required.

“You’ve been busy.” Nodding, she shot him a smile. “For five years.”

He shrugged. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What’ve you been up to?”

Her eyebrows lifted and she tipped her head to one side to look at him. “Five years of news is going to take a little while to tell.”

“So, do it at dinner.”

“First a question.”

“Of course.” Women always had questions.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why ask me to dinner?” She pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, arching her back a little, making her breasts push against the fabric of her shirt. “Why now all of a sudden?”

Adam frowned a little. Figured she’d make him work for this. “Look, it’s no big deal. I saw you, we talked, I asked. If you don’t want to go, just say so.”

She stared at him for a long moment or two, but Adam knew she wasn’t going to turn him down. She was intrigued. She was interested. And more than that, she was feeling the same sort of physical buzz he was. He could see it in her eyes.

“I didn’t say that,” she said a moment later, proving that he could still read people pretty well. “I was just curious.”

He gave her a casual shrug. “We both have to eat. Why not do it together?”

“Okay…where are you taking me?”

He offered the first place that came to him. It wasn’t as if he’d planned this all out. He’d come to the Torino spread looking to make a deal. Now, it appeared that he was going to make that deal after all—just not the one he’d counted on.



Gina’s insides were doing a happy skip and dance. She couldn’t believe that Adam King had finally noticed her. And for a few minutes, that was the only thought she concentrated on. But finally, dumb ol’ reality crashed in. Why now? She had to ask herself the question. She’d known Adam all her life and up until five minutes ago, he’d never acknowledged her existence beyond the occasional “hi.”

Since the death of his family five years before, Adam had pretty much been a recluse. He’d shut himself away from everything but his ranch and his brothers. So why all of a sudden was he Mr. Charm? A tiny nugget of suspicion settled in the pit of her stomach, but it didn’t do a thing to ease the thumping of her heart.

“What about Serenity?”

Ah. The almost impossible to get into place on the coast. He really was pulling out all the stops.

“Sounds good,” she said, even though what she really meant was, sounds fabulous, can’t wait, what took you so long?

“Tomorrow night? Seven?”

“Okay. Seven.” The moment she agreed, she saw satisfaction glitter in his dark-chocolate eyes and the suspicion crowding her jumped up in her brain and started waving hands, trying to get her attention. Well, it worked. “Though I really would like to know what actually prompted this out-of-nowhere invitation.”

His features tightened briefly, but a moment later, he gave her a small smile again. “If you’re not interested, Gina, all you have to do is say no.”

“I didn’t say that.” She pulled her hands from her pockets and folded her arms across her chest.

“Glad to hear it,” he said and reached for one of her hands, holding it in his, smoothing his thumb gently across her skin. He looked into her eyes, gave her a small smile and said, “So, I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow? You can tell me all about what you’ve been up to for the last five years.”

When he let go of her hand, Gina could have sworn she could actually smell her skin sizzling from the heat he’d generated. Oh, she was sliding into some seriously deep waters here.

Adam was charming. Friendly. Smiley. Flirty.

Something was definitely going on here. Something he wasn’t telling her. And still, she wouldn’t turn down this invitation for anything.

“I’ll be ready.”

“See you then.” With one last smile, he turned around and walked with determined steps across the yard to the SUV he’d left parked near the house.

Gina stood stock-still to enjoy the view. His excellent butt looked great in the dark blue jeans. His long legs moved with a deceptively lazy stride and the sun hit his dark brown hair and gleamed in its depths.

Her heart actually fluttered in her chest. Weird sensation. And not a good sign. “Oh, Gina,” she whispered, “you are in very deep trouble, here.”

Just being that close to Adam, having him focusing his attention on her, had been enough to stir up all of the old fantasies and dreams. She felt shaky, like the time she’d had three espresso drinks in an hour. Only Adam King was a way bigger buzz than too much caffeine.

Her breath left her in a rush as Adam steered his car down the driveway and away from the ranch. She rubbed the spot on her hand where Adam had touched her. When the cloud of dust behind his car had settled back down onto the driveway, Gina thoughtfully turned her gaze on the house behind her. Adam might not be willing to tell her what was going on, but she had a bone-deep feeling that her father had the answers she needed.



“I can’t believe it,” Gina muttered, stalking around the perimeter of the great room. She must have made thirty circuits in the last twenty minutes. Ever since her father had confessed what his meeting with Adam King had really been about. Gina’s temper spiked anew every time she thought about it. She couldn’t seem to sit down. Couldn’t keep still.

At every other clomp of her boots against the wood floor, she shot her father a look that should have frizzed his hair. When she thought she could speak without screaming, she asked, “You tried to sell me?”

“You make too much of this, Gina.” Sal sat on the sofa, but his comfy, relaxed position was belied by the glitter of guilt and caution in his eyes.

“Too much?” She threw her hands high and let them slap to her thighs again. “What am I, a princess in a tower? Are you some feudal lord, Papa? God, this is like one of the historical romance novels I read.” She stopped dead and stabbed her index finger at him. “Only difference is, this is the twenty-first century!”

“Women are too emotional,” Sal muttered. “This is why men run the world.”

“This is what you think?” Teresa Torino reached over and slapped her husband’s upper arm. “Men run the world because women allow it.”

Normally Gina would have smiled at that, but at the moment, she was just too furious to see the humor in anything about this situation. Oh, man, she wanted to open up a big, yawning hole in the earth and fall into it. What must Adam have been thinking when her father faced him with this “plan”?

God. Everything in her cringed away from that image. Could a person die of embarrassment?

“You said yourself Gina should get married and have babies,” Sal told his wife.

“Yes, but not like this. Not with him.”

“What’s wrong with Adam?” Sal wanted to know.

Nothing, as far as Gina was concerned, but she wasn’t about to say that.

“There is…something,” Teresa said with a sniff.

Gina nearly groaned.

“You don’t know Adam well enough to think there’s something wrong with him,” Sal told his wife.

“Ah,” Teresa argued. “But you know him well enough to barter your daughter’s future with him?”

And the argument was off and running. Gina only half listened. In her family, yelling was as much a part of life as the constant hugs and laughter. Italians, her mother liked to say, lived life to the fullest. Of course, Gina’s father liked to say that his wife lived life to the loudest, but basically, it was the same thing.

She and her brothers had grown up with laughter, shouts, hugs, more shouts and the knowledge that they were all loved unconditionally.

Today, though…she could have cheerfully strangled the father she loved so much. Gina’s gaze shifted around the room, picking out the framed family photos sprinkled across every flat surface. There were dozens of her brothers and their families. There were old, sepia prints of grandparents and great-grandparents, too. There were photos of children in Italy, cousins she’d never met. And there were pictures of Gina. With her first horse. As the winning pitcher on her high school softball team. Getting ready for her prom. Her graduation. And in all of the pictures of Gina, she was alone. There was no husband. No kids.

Just good ol’ Aunt Gina.

Old maid.

The Torino clan was big on family. And she was no exception to that rule.

Gina had always wanted a family of her own. Had always expected that she would be a mother, once the time was right. But in the last couple of years, as she’d watched her brothers’ families grow while she remained alone and single, she’d begun to accept that maybe her life wouldn’t turn out the way she’d always hoped.

And on that depressing thought, she stopped walking crazily around the room, closed down her racing brain and focused her gaze on the slant of sunlight beaming in through the wide front windows and the dust motes dancing in the still air. The scent of her mother’s sauce spilled from the kitchen and wrapped itself around Gina like a warm hug.

Sal scowled at his wife, shot his daughter a cautious look and said, “Besides, all of this is wasted effort. You’re angry for nothing, Gina. Adam turned me down.”

“He did?”

“Of course he did,” Teresa said, reaching out to give her husband another smack.

“Hey!” Sal complained.

“Adam King is not a man to be trifled with this way,” Teresa said, lifting one hand to wag a warning finger. “There is a darkness there….”

Sal rolled his eyes and even Gina had to stifle a snort. Any man who didn’t like pasta wasn’t to be trusted in Teresa Torino’s world.

“There’s nothing wrong with Adam,” Sal argued. “He’s a good businessman. He’s steady. He’s wealthy so we don’t need to worry about a man marrying Gina for her money—”

“Oh,” Gina snapped, feeling the insult jab its way home, “thanks very much for that!”

“And,” Sal continued before either his wife or his daughter could interrupt again, “he needs a wife.”

“He had a wife,” Teresa pointed out.

“She’s dead,” Sal argued.

“So you sign me up as a pinch hitter?” Gina demanded.

“It’s not good to be alone,” her father said.

“God.” Gina slumped onto the arm of the closest sofa and stared at her father. “Did you and Mom rehearse that little ditty? Maybe we should put it to music!”

“There’s no reason to be smart,” Teresa said.

“No reason?” Gina slid her gaze to her mother in astonishment. Typical. A minute ago, Teresa had been furious with her husband. But the moment she felt he was the underdog, she jumped onto his side of the debate.

“Mom, I know Papa meant well, but this is…is…” She stopped and shook her head. “I don’t even have a word for what this is. Beyond the usual. You know…humiliating. Embarrassing. Demeaning.”

Teresa blew out a breath. “So dramatic.”

Gina just goggled at her. How did a person argue with parents like this? And why was she still living on this ranch?

Oh, she wanted to scream. How mortifying was this? She was so pitiful, so unwanted that her father had to try to buy her a husband?

Her head was pounding and her chest felt tight. Vaguely she heard her mother’s whispered mutterings as she continued her tirade. But Gina couldn’t even think about her parents at the moment.

What must Adam have thought? Oh, God, she didn’t want to know. Way better to just push that little question right out of her mind. How would she ever face him again? How would she be able to keep that dinner date with him tomorrow night?

And with that thought, everything inside her stopped.

He’d turned her father down.

He wasn’t willing to marry her for the land he wanted so badly. So why, then, had he stepped outside and asked her to dinner? Was this a pity date? Poor little Gina will never get married, why not toss her a bowl of soup and a nice night out?

No.

Adam wasn’t the doing-good-deeds kind of guy. She didn’t agree with her mother about the darkness in him, but he also wasn’t the kind of guy who went out of his way for people.

So what did all of this mean?

Her headache erupted into migraine territory.

“So what?” Sal asked. “How long am I going to be in trouble?”

Gina glared at her father.

“Long time, I guess,” he muttered.

“You want me to call and talk to Adam? Explain?” Teresa asked.

“Good God, no!” Gina hopped up off the arm of the couch. “What am I? In third grade?”

“Only to help,” her mother soothed. “To tell him that your papa is crazy.”

“I’m not crazy,” Sal argued.

“Matter of debate,” Gina said wryly and her father had the grace to flush.

“I meant no harm,” Sal told her.

Gina’s heart melted a little. No matter how furious he made her, she’d loved him too long to stay mad forever. “I know that, Papa. But please stay out of my love life.”

“Yes, yes,” he said.

When her parents started arguing again, Gina left them to it. She was just too tired to hold up her end of the battle. Walking across the ranch yard, she went straight to her own small house and stepped inside. It was quiet. Empty. She didn’t even have a pet. Since she spent so much time with her horses, it seemed silly to have another animal around.

She stopped just inside the living room. Her gaze swept quickly around the familiar space but it was as if she were seeing it with new eyes.

Here, too, just like up at the main house, there were framed photos. Pictures of her nieces and nephews. Laughing kids with gap-toothed smiles. Snapshots of days spent at amusement parks, on the Gypsy horses, eating at her kitchen table. There were drawings taped to the wall, too, each signed by the young artist.

And there were toys. Some scattered across her coffee table, others in a chest she kept under her front window. Baby dolls and fire trucks. GameBoys and coloring books.

In a blink, Gina knew that this was the pattern of her life. As it was. As it would always be. She would forever be the favorite aunt. The children she loved would never be her own. And she would no doubt end up an old woman, alone, with a houseful of cats.

Tears stung the backs of her eyes as she imagined it, the years spilling out in front of her so clearly, it made her head spin. Her house wasn’t a home. It was a place where she slept. It was a place that children visited and never stayed. It was a place that would forever be haunted by the ghosts of the children she might have had.

Unless she did something outrageous.

Something no one would expect.

Least of all Adam King.




Four


A dinner date with Adam King—especially this one—required nothing less than a new dress.

Turning in front of her mirror, Gina took a long, critical look and decided she looked pretty good. The black dress hit just above her knee and the full skirt swirled out when she turned. The bodice dipped low enough to give a peek at what was hidden beneath the silky fabric, and the sleeveless straps over her shoulders were narrow, delicate.

Her hair hung in a cascade of curls down her back and her new high-heeled sandals gave her an extra three inches of height.

“Okay,” she said, smiling at the woman in the glass. “I can do this. Everything’s gonna be great. I am sooooo ready.”

Her reflection was not convinced. Frowning a little, Gina jolted at the knock on her front door. “Oh, yeah. You’re ready.”

Shaking her head, she snapped up her black clutch bag and headed for the front of the little house. When she opened the door, though, she found not Adam, but her brother Tony standing on the porch.

Hands on his hips, he said, “I just talked to Mom and thought I’d better come see you.”

“No time,” she said, looking past him at the driveway to the road.

“Why not?”

“I have a date.” She waved one hand at him in a “shooing” motion. “Me. Going out. Thanks for stopping by. Bye now.”

He paid no attention to that at all, just stalked past her into the house. Gina sighed at the dust his boots left on the floor, then she turned and said, “What’re you doing here?”

“Mom told me what Pop did.”

“Fabulous.” Had her mom called Peter and Nicky, too, to bring them up to speed on the pitiful wasteland that was Gina’s love life? Was she going to take out an ad in the Birkfield paper, too?

“I just want to say, Pop was out of line. You don’t need him to find you a man.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said and waved at the still open front door, trying to get her brother out of there before Adam showed up.

“Because, if you want a guy, I can find one for you.”

“No.”

Tony shrugged. “I’m just saying…Mike over at the bank? Great guy. Good job…”

“Did you learn nothing from Papa?”

“Pop’s mistake was going for Adam. Adam’s a bad bet,” Tony said. “He’s a good guy, but he’s shut down emotionally.”

“Huh?” Gina shook her head. “You’ve been reading Vickie’s magazines again, haven’t you?”

He grinned and the Torino golden eyes twinkled at her. “Gotta keep up. Don’t want the wife thinking I’m just a dumb ranch hand.”

“Uh-huh. How about you go home and tell her that?”

“What’s the rush?” Then he seemed to notice her for the first time. He gave a long, slow whistle. “Wow. You look…did you say you have a date?”

Insulted, she demanded, “Why do you sound so surprised?”

“You never go out.”

“Not true.” Okay, semitrue. She wasn’t a shy little wallflower virgin, but she wasn’t exactly party central, either. And why couldn’t she have had sisters instead of three well-meaning, but interfering older brothers?

“Who’s this date with?”

“None of your business. Gee, look at the time.”

“Why don’t you want to tell me who this guy—”

“Hi, Tony.”

They both turned at the sound of the deep voice. Adam stood on her porch, the wash of lamplight spilling out of the house to welcome him. He wore a well-tailored black suit with a dark red tie and he looked as at home in the elegantly cut suit as he did in his jeans and boots. As he looked from her to Tony and back again, his dark eyes shone with interest and what Gina suspected was humor.

So how long had he been standing there?

“Adam,” Tony said with a nod, stepping out in front of his sister to hold out one hand.

Adam shook his hand, then shifted his gaze to Gina. The power of his stare was enough to make her head go light and her heart jitter in her chest.

“You look lovely,” he said.

“Thanks. Um, Tony was just leaving.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Well, we are,” Adam countered and held out one hand to Gina.

The look on Tony’s face was priceless. Gina smiled as she slipped past her brother to join Adam on the porch. Then she threw Tony a look over her shoulder. “Lock up when you leave, okay?”



The restaurant was amazing. Sitting atop a cliff overlooking the ocean, one entire wall of Serenity was glass, providing a breathtaking view of moonlight, waves crashing against the rocks below. Overhead lighting in the sprawling building was deliberately faint, as if each wall and ceiling sconce had been chosen to define the darkness rather than defeat it.

The musical clink of crystal and the whisper of muted conversations were flavored with soft jazz piping from the three piece band. Completing the atmosphere, each round table boasted a single votive candle and the effect of dozens of flickering flames was nearly magical.

All in all, it had been a perfect evening. Adam was considerate, charming and never even hinted at the deal her father had broached to him. And while Gina was enjoying herself, she’d been dealing with a twist of nerves in her stomach since the hostess had first seated them. Now that dinner was over and they were sipping a last cup of coffee before leaving, time was up.

She either faced Adam with her own deal—or came to her senses and forgot the whole thing. Gina stared out the glass wall beside their table and watched as waves rolled ceaselessly into shore, slamming into the rocks, sending white spray into the air.

“What’re you thinking?”

“What?” She turned her head to find Adam watching her with a bemused smile on his face. “I’m sorry. Mind wandering.”

“To where, exactly?”

Here it was, she told herself, fingers curling around the fragile handle of her coffee cup. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Funny that was the phrase that sprang to mind.

“Adam,” she said before she could talk herself out of it, “I know what my father said to you.”

His features tightened. “Excuse me?”

Now it was her turn to give him a small smile. Shaking her head, she said, “Forget it. Papa confessed all.”

He shifted on his chair, scowled a little and picked up his coffee cup. “Did he also mention that I turned him down?”

“Yeah, he did.” Gina swiveled in her seat, turning her back on the wide vista of ocean and cliffs to face him. “And by the way, thanks.”

“No problem.” Sitting back in his chair, Adam watched her. Waiting.

“But,” she said, “I had to wonder about you asking me out to dinner. I mean, if you weren’t interested in buying a bride, why the invitation?”

His mouth flattened into a thin line. “One has nothing to do with the other.”

“I don’t know,” Gina said softly, running the tip of her index finger around the outside rim of the cup. “See, I’ve had some time to think about all of this…”

“Gina.”

“I think that when Papa first—” she paused as if looking for the right word before continuing “—proposed, if you’ll pardon the pun, his little deal, your first reaction was no. Of course not.”

“Exactly,” Adam agreed.

“And then…” She smiled when he frowned. “You started thinking. You came outside. You saw Mom and I and you told yourself that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.”

Adam straightened in his chair, then leaned over the table, peering directly into her eyes with a hard stare. “I did not bring you here so that I could propose to you.”

Gina actually laughed at that. “Oh, you wouldn’t have done that. Not right away, anyway. You brought me here on a date.” She stopped and grinned, looking around the restaurant in approval. “And it’s been lovely, by the way. Anyway, after tonight, there would have been other dates. And after a couple of months, you would have proposed.”

He stared at her for a long, silent minute and Gina knew that she was right. For whatever reason, Adam had reconsidered her father’s offer. Which was good. In a way. Of course, she didn’t like the idea that he’d been seriously willing to marry her for his own gain. Actually it made her heart hurt to think about that too long. After all, she’d been in love with Adam King since she was fourteen years old. But at least it made her own plan seem more reasonable.

“Okay, that’s enough.” He lifted one hand in a silent signal to their server, requesting their check. “I’m sorry you feel this way, but since you do, there’s no point in continuing this. I’ll take you home.”

“Not ready to leave yet,” she said, leaning back into her own chair to watch him. “I know you, Adam. And right now, you’re a little embarrassed and a lot on the defensive.”

“Gina, what I am is sorry that you misunderstood.”

“But I didn’t,” she said. “In fact, I completely understand.”

“Understand what?” His tone was clipped, impatient.

“Look, I know how much getting the King holdings back together means to you,” Gina said and felt a tug of satisfaction when his eyes flashed at the thought. “I know that you would do just about anything to ensure that happens.”

“Believe what you will,” Adam said, then paused as the waiter delivered their bill in a sleek, black leather folder. Once the waiter was gone, he continued, “But there are limits to what I’m willing to do. Lines I won’t cross.”

“Well, if that’s true, it’s a shame.”

He blinked at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“Adam, I know you want the land. I know you don’t want to be married. And I know you don’t like being manipulated any more than I do.”

He nodded. “Go on.”

“See, I’ve had a little time to think about this and I’m pretty sure I’ve come up with a solution that’ll work for both of us.”

Still scowling, he folded his arms across his chest. “Now, this I’ve got to hear.”

She smiled and realized that the flutter of nerves that had been irritating her all night were suddenly gone. Because she’d finally brought everything into the light? Because she knew that what she was doing was the right thing? Or was it the wine they’d had with dinner?

Didn’t matter now, she thought. She was in way too deep to quit at this point.

“Well,” she said, letting the words tumble from her mouth in a rush, “the thing is, I’m willing to discuss my father’s offer to you.”



Adam was stunned. He couldn’t believe she was saying any of this. First off, that she knew about Sal’s offer was bad enough. The fact that she’d guessed Adam had reconsidered the deal was disquieting. Did she really know him as well as she seemed to? And why in the hell would a woman like Gina be willing to consider such an insulting bargain?

In the candlelight, Gina’s eyes seemed to shine with the deep, rich glow of antique gold. Her skin was soft and smooth and lightly tanned. He’d hardly been able to look away from her all night. His gaze caught in the tumble of thick, dark curls that hung down her back in waves so silky they invited a man’s hands to delve into them. Her black dress hugged every curve—and she had good ones—and her long, tanned legs looked amazing in high-heeled sandals that should have been impossible to walk in.

All night, she’d tormented him, simply by being Gina. How had he not noticed years ago just how beguiling she was? Had he really been blind enough to dismiss his little neighbor because he’d once known her as a pigtailed child? Well, she was all grown-up now and surprisingly enough, was damn calm and accepting about the bargain her father had offered.

And somehow, that worried him more than anything else.

“Why would you want to do that?” he asked and watched as something not quite identifiable flashed in her eyes.

“I have my reasons,” she said, then smiled at him again.

Adam hissed in a breath. She really was beautiful—but it was more than that. It was something indefinable. Something that tugged at him. Prodded him. Why else would he have considered Sal’s proposition for more than an instant?

“What are these reasons?” he asked.

“Mine,” she said and didn’t offer any more.

This wasn’t going at all the way Adam had expected. What was it about the Torinos that could keep him off balance? First her father, now her. He was the one in charge of situations. On top of everything. He knew what the other guy was thinking, what his next move would be and exactly the right countermove to ensure that Adam King got exactly what he set out to get.

Having the tables turned on him wasn’t something he appreciated. And it was damned uncomfortable to have someone know him as well as Gina seemed to. At the moment, she was watching him with patient understanding glimmering in her eyes and it irritated him that she was so damned complacent while he felt off balance.

Clearly then, it was time to take charge again. Time to let her know that he wouldn’t be twisted around and made to feel as if he’d taken a wrong step. Time to let her know that this date was over.

“Gina…” He flipped open the check folder, tucked a credit card into the pocket, then closed the whole thing and set it on the edge of the table. Their waiter rushed by a moment later and took it away. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I won’t be maneuvered. By you…or your father.”

She laughed, damn it, and he was both annoyed and charmed. “I don’t see what’s so funny.”

“Of course you don’t,” she said and reached across the table to pat his hand as she would have an excitable kid. “But come on, Adam. We’ve known each other way too long for you to put on the big crabby attitude and expect me to either salute or slink away!”

He ground his back teeth together and hissed in a breath. “Fine. Say what you want to say, then I’ll take you home.”

She shook her head and smiled again. “Charming to the last.” Before he could say anything to that, she spoke up again, quickly. “Okay. To the point. I’ll marry you, Adam, so you can get the land. But I have a condition.”

“I can’t wait to hear it.”

“I want a child.”

Adam felt the slam of those words crush into his chest and he could have sworn he felt his heart actually stop. Her eyes were clear and steady. Her features calm. Her manner at ease. All the while, his insides were churning and it felt as though the air was on fire. Otherwise, why would his lungs be burning with every breath?

“You can’t be serious.”

“Completely,” she assured him and her face softened, her mouth curving gently. “I know what you went through with the loss of your son and—”

While he was reeling, the waiter brought their check back to be signed. Adam took it, glanced at it, added a hefty tip and signed his name. Taking his credit card and the receipt, he tucked them into his wallet and only when he was finished did he look up at Gina again.

“I don’t discuss my son. Ever.” His loss was just that. His loss. He’d survived. Put the past behind him and that was where he intended to keep it. Those memories, that pain had nothing to do with his life or his world today.

“Fine.”

“And I’m not interested in being a father again.”

“I don’t need your help in parenting my child, Adam,” she said and her voice went suddenly as chill as his own. “All I need from you is your sperm.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I want to be a mother.” She leaned back in her chair, fiddled with the handle of her coffee cup and lowered her gaze to the tabletop. “My brothers’ kids are beautiful and I love them with all my heart. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being the favorite auntie. I want a child of my own. I don’t want to be married any more than you do—don’t worry about that. But I do want a baby. The way I see it—” she lifted her gaze to his “—this bargain satisfies both parties. You get your land. I get the baby I want.”

He was already shaking his head. Instinct, he supposed, when she spoke again.

“Think about this before you turn me down. I’ll marry you. Be your wife in every way. As soon as I’m pregnant, you get the land and we get a divorce. And I’ll sign whatever you want me to sign, exempting you from any responsibility toward me or my child.” Her gaze was steady on his as she added, “It’s a good deal, Adam. For both of us.”

She had him in a corner. He hadn’t expected her to know about her father’s proposition—let alone come up with one of her own. The tantalizing idea that he could, in a few short months, have the King family ranch whole and secure again was a tempting one.

He had to give Gina credit. She’d thought this out and had come up with a bargain sure to be tempting to him. And the fact that she, too, was getting something out of the deal made him feel less like some robber baron.

Yet the thought of fathering another child wasn’t something he’d even considered. A pain he refused to recognize thrummed inside him for a long moment. Then it was gone, because he’d had years to learn how to distance himself from emotional distress.

Besides, it wasn’t as if this would be a real marriage. A genuine family situation. This was something completely different and apart from the norm. Gina knew him. And she didn’t want a husband any more than he wanted a wife. She wanted a child, he wanted his land. A win-win bargain. All it would take was being married to a desirable woman for a few months.

How bad could that be?

“Well, Adam,” she said softly, her voice nearly lost in the quiet rhythm of the jazz spilling through the restaurant. “What do you say?”

He stood up and held out one hand to help her from her chair. When she was standing, too, he shook the hand she held out and said, “Gina, you’ve got yourself a bargain.”




Five


Things happened pretty quickly after the proposal.

Within a few days, Adam had arranged for a marriage license—apparently it paid to be one of the wealthiest men in California. And, since Adam was anxious to get their bargain up and running, there was no time for the big, fancy wedding Gina’s mom had always dreamed of.

Instead Adam, Gina and her parents took one of the King family jets to Vegas.

“Not exactly the wedding every little girl dreams of,” Gina whispered to herself as she looked around the interior of the luxury garden the ceremony was taking place in.

The walls were painted a soft summer-blue, with white clouds sponge-painted on as accents. There were tall pedestals holding elegant sprays of silk flowers and the white carpeted main aisle still held the footprints of the couple who had been married before them. Classical music piped in from overhead speakers and Gina’s fingers tightened on the handle of her complimentary bouquet.

Gina’s heart did a bump and roll in her chest and she was very glad she’d insisted on doing some prewedding shopping in San Jose. The deep yellow dress she wore made her feel beautiful and Gina had known instinctively that she would need all the confidence she could find.

“You’re sure about this, Gina?”

She turned her head to look at her father and swallowed hard before answering. “Yes, Papa. I’m sure.”

Of course she was sure. She’d been in love with Adam King for what felt like forever. She’d dreamed of this day for years. Of course, in all of those dreams, Adam had loved her, too. Her dream groom was happy and smiling, surrounded by his brothers, looking at Gina with desire flashing in his eyes.

So okay, the reality was a little disappointing. Still, she thought, shifting her gaze to the head of the aisle where her groom waited. She was marrying Adam.

And Gina’d had a few days to completely rethink this bargain she’d made with her about-to-be husband. This was a business deal, certainly. Adam was getting what he wanted out of it and she would be getting the baby her heart craved.

But over the last couple of days, she’d begun to imagine a slightly different outcome to this bargain. If she were willing to take a chance, to risk her heart, she might find a way to get everything she’d ever wanted.

All she had to do was find a way to break Adam’s defences. Her insides fisted and released at the daunting prospect. She’d come this far, why not take that extra step? She only needed time. Gina was sure that once Adam and she were married, he would see the truth she’d always known. That they could be a great couple.

She sucked in a deep breath as that thought shot through her brain and sent a current of adrenaline to the pit of her stomach.

“You don’t look so good, honey,” her father said.

“I’m fine, Papa. Really. It’s all good. See?” She gave her father a wide, phony smile that, thankfully, he accepted at face value. “Let’s get this done, okay?”

“Yes,” he said. “Your mother looks anxious.”

She did, Gina thought, sliding a quick look at her mom. Actually her mother looked as though she wanted to give Adam a stern lecture about how to treat her daughter. Best to head that off at the pass. Teresa Torino was already a little snippy about Gina marrying a man she didn’t think loved her.

The string quartet suddenly began playing the solemn strains of the Wedding March. Gina’s stomach lurched, but she fought down the last bits of hesitation she felt and started down the aisle on her father’s arm.

Not a very long walk, really, but with every step, she moved further away from the life she knew and closer to the life she’d always wanted.

Adam’s dark chocolate eyes were narrowed on her. His features were stiff and the smile she’d hoped to see didn’t appear. But then, this wasn’t a love match, was it? His gaze was steady, but blank, giving away no hint at all of what he was feeling, thinking. And Gina could only hope he wasn’t able to read her emotions any better than she could his.

At the head of the aisle, Sal laid Gina’s hand in Adam’s and stepped back to join his wife.

Adam gave her a brief smile that didn’t do a thing to ease the cool indifference on his features.

When the minister started talking, she found it hard to hear him over the thundering of her own heartbeat. She was only able to catch every other word, but they were the important ones. The ones that would change her life. At least for now.

“I will,” Adam said and Gina swayed a little at the impact of two small words. And her heartbeat seemed to pound out, if only.

Then it was her turn. She felt Adam’s big hand enveloping hers and focused on the minister. Here it was. Her last chance to back out. Or, she thought, the beginning of the biggest gamble she would ever make.

There was a long pause when the minister stopped speaking and the silence in the chapel was nearly deafening. She felt Adam watching her, waiting for her answer.

“I will,” she said finally and it was as if the room took a relieved breath and let it out again.

Adam slipped a ring on her finger and as the short, round minister finished up the brief ceremony, Gina looked down at her hand. A wide, thick gold band glittered up at her. There were no stones set into the precious metal. No delicate carvings or etchings that proclaimed a deeply felt connection between two people.

It was plain.

Impersonal.

Much like her marriage.

Then Adam held her shoulders, pulled her in close and gave her a quick, hard kiss, sealing the bargain Gina really hoped wouldn’t come back to haunt them both.



For the first time in far too long, Adam felt as though he’d somehow lost control of a situation. And he didn’t like the sensation.

Yet somehow, he’d ended up here, in the Presidential Suite of Dreams, the newest, most opulent hotel yet to be built in Las Vegas, waiting for his bride to join him.

“Bride.” He shook his head and poured himself a glass of the champagne chilling in a sterling silver ice bucket atop the table set up for them on the suite’s private balcony. If ever a man needed a drink, it was now.

Taking a sip, he looked out over the view sprawling for miles. In the distance, he saw the purple smudge of mountains, crowned by the first stars blinking into life in the night sky. The setting sun still provided an orange glow on the horizon and in the streets far below him, other lights in dizzying colors and patterns glittered and shone like jewels in a treasure chest.

From thirty stories up, Las Vegas was beautiful. Up close and personal, Adam knew that the tattered edges of the city were much easier to spot. Much like his marriage, he thought wryly, taking a long sip of the cold, bubbly wine. From a distance, people would assume that he and Gina had been swept away by passion. Only they would ever know the cold, hard truth.

Which was what, exactly?

“That you’re a hard ass,” he muttered. “Willing to use a woman to get what you want. Ready to create a child and walk away from it without a second thought.”

Surprisingly enough, that little jolt of reality bothered Adam more than he’d thought it would. He scrubbed one hand across his jaw, stared off into the night and reminded himself that this had been Gina’s idea. She wasn’t a victim in this but a willing conspirator.

When his cell phone rang, though, Adam grabbed it, grateful to have something besides his own thoughts to concentrate on. A glance at the screen had him sighing. Flipping the phone open, he asked, “What is it, Travis?”

“What is it?” his brother echoed. “You’re not serious. I just talked to Esperanza and she told me you were in Las Vegas getting married.”

Adam sighed. His housekeeper had a big mouth. “That’s right.”

“To Gina.”

“That’s right.”

“So my invitation got lost in the mail?” Travis demanded.

Setting his champagne glass down on the stone balcony railing, Adam shoved his free hand into his pants pocket and tightened his grip on the phone. “It was a small ceremony.”

“Yeah? I hear her parents were there.”

“And now they’re gone. The jet took them home this afternoon.”

“Uh-huh. Any reason why you didn’t want your family there?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Really? Because what I think is you just married a kid we’ve known all our lives without bothering to tell your brothers.”

“She’s not a kid,” Adam said tightly, his fingers clenching down hard on his phone. “Hasn’t been one for a long time. And since when do I report to you and Jackson?”

“You don’t,” Travis countered. “But there’s something fishy going on here, Adam. This ‘marriage’ of yours wouldn’t have anything to do with getting that damned land, would it?”

There was a long, silent moment as Adam got a tight rein on the temper screaming inside, then Travis muttered, “You really are a son of a bitch, aren’t you?”

“She knew what she was doing.” Hadn’t he told himself that over and over again since agreeing to the bargain Gina had offered him?

“I doubt it.”

Shoving his free hand through his hair, Adam shot a look behind him to assure himself that Gina hadn’t come out of the bathroom yet. Then he argued, “You know, Travis, you’re not exactly the poster child for the better treatment of women.”

“That’s not the point,” his brother snapped.

“It’s exactly the point. I don’t tell you to stop squiring bimbos around—or to avoid the damn paparazzi that follow you everywhere. So butt the hell out of my life, little brother.”

“You screw with Gina and her father will make your life a living hell,” Travis warned.

“Because my life now is just rainbows and kittens, right?”

“Damn, Adam,” his brother said on a sigh. “When the hell did you get so cold?”

“When wasn’t I?” Adam asked and snapped the phone closed before Travis could get started again. Then he turned the phone off before Jackson could call and have his say. He didn’t need to hear his brothers’ opinions. He knew going into this what they’d think. And it didn’t matter a damn.

He and Gina were two consenting adults. Their marriage—such as it was—was nobody else’s business.

“Well,” Gina said from behind him. “You look like you want to take a bite out of somebody.”

He turned, schooling his features into the calm, unreadable mask he used with everyone but his brothers. But even as he fought for distance, the sight of her had a hot ball of lust pooling in his belly.

In the pale wash of the soft balcony lights, she looked almost otherworldly. Her nightgown was short, stopping midthigh. A deep, rich red, the satin fabric clung to her skin, outlining every curve and exposing what looked like a mile of leg. The bodice was red lace and it cupped her breasts like a lover’s hands. Her hair hung loose and thick over her shoulders, the untamed curls enticing him. She smelled like heaven—peaches and flowers and the smile she gave him was knowing and nervous at the same time.

“You look,” he said, “beautiful.”

Her smile brightened. “I feel silly.” Then she smoothed one hand over her stomach as if trying to calm butterflies and he wondered if she was regretting making the offer that had brought them to this place.

Adam poured her a flute of champagne and when she took it from him, her fingertips grazed his skin and heat exploded. He ignored it for the moment. “Why silly?”

She waved a hand at her negligee and shrugged. “I went out and bought this, especially for tonight and I probably shouldn’t have. It’s not like this is an ordinary wedding night, is it?”

“No,” he conceded and found he couldn’t take his gaze from her. From the curve of her breasts. From the hard tips of her nipples, pressing against the dark red lace. “It’s not. But it is the beginning of our bargain.”

“True,” she said and took a sip of champagne. Then she licked her bottom lip and everything in Adam tightened painfully.

“And,” he said, taking a swallow himself, “for myself, I can tell you I appreciate your shopping talents.”

Her eyes widened, then she smiled more easily. “Thanks.” Stepping out onto the balcony, heedless of the negligee she wore, she looked out at the view and sighed. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.” But he wasn’t looking at the neon-lit desert or the mountains beyond. He was staring at her. He took another drink of champagne, hoping the icy wine would spill into his blood and cool it off a little. No such luck.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Thanks for flying Mom and Dad here and home again.”

He shrugged. He hadn’t minded bringing Sal and Teresa along, though he also hadn’t been sorry to see them go. Teresa especially. The woman had looked daggers at him all day. “Seemed important that they be there for you.”

“But you didn’t want your brothers?”

He leaned back against the stone railing. “I thought it would be easier all around if we kept it simple.”

“Right,” she said. “Simple. Do they know?”

“About us?” he asked. When she nodded he said, “They do now. Esperanza told them.”

She smiled. “How’d they take it?”

He looked at her and lied. It didn’t matter a damn to him what his brothers thought about this. “Fine. Talked to Travis a few minutes ago.”

A desert wind sailed past them and Gina shivered.

“You’re cold.”

“A little.”

He set his glass down on the table and went to her. A short walk and yet Adam felt as if each step were measured. He was about to seal their bargain. There would be no going back. And if he woke up tomorrow regretting what he’d done tonight, then he’d have to live with it.

But then, he’d had plenty of practice living with uncomfortable realities.

“Come here.” Pulling her close, he wrapped both arms around her, drawing her in, her back to his front. Heat pooled between them, seeping into his bones, firing his blood. Adam felt that sweet rush of need fill him and he gritted his teeth to maintain control. He wouldn’t be led around by his groin. This bargain was one thing.

Releasing control was something else. Something he wouldn’t allow to happen.

“Adam,” Gina said, her voice so soft, he almost missed it. “I know this was my idea, but I suddenly don’t know what to do next.”

“We do what we planned to do. We make a child together.”

She shivered again and pressed harder against him. “Right. I mean, that is what this is all about. So,” she said, turning in his arms to look up at him, “no point in wasting time, is there?”

She lifted her arms and hooked them behind his neck. Then she went up on her toes, tilted her head and kissed him. The soft, almost hesitant touch of her mouth to his lit up Adam’s insides brighter than any of the neon stretching out across the desert beneath them.

He’d spent the last five years alone. Pushing aside wants and needs he didn’t have the time or patience to deal with. Now, there was no reason to hold back. So he didn’t. Wrapping his arms around her middle, he held her to him with a fierce grip and took her mouth with all the pent-up hunger he felt surging within.

She groaned a little as he parted her lips with his tongue and tasted her warmth. She sighed and fed the fires racing through his blood. He held her tighter to him, grinding his hips against hers, needing that sweet pressure.

Again and again, his tongue delved inside, claiming her, taking all she had to give. He allowed his control to slip and he surrendered to the waves of desire crashing inside him. He slid his hands up and down her back, cupping her bottom, stroking her spine, threading through the thick mass of curls that fell in a dark curtain around her.

Her scent filled him. Her taste enflamed him. And his body physically ached to have her under him.

He tore his mouth from hers, like a man struggling for air before he drowned. Gina swayed unsteadily, but Adam’s arms were like steel bands, supporting her, holding her. She tipped her head back to stare up at the desert sky while Adam’s mouth moved up and down her neck, nibbling, licking, tasting. She felt like a banquet laid out before a starving man.

She felt needed. Wanted.

If only she also felt loved.

But when that thought appeared in her mind, she shut it off instantly. For now, it was enough that she loved. It was enough that she finally knew what it was to have Adam King’s legendary focus directed at her. And she wanted more. She wanted it all. Tomorrow, she would begin the pretense of a marriage they’d decided on. But tonight was her wedding night and she wanted to remember every moment of it.

When Adam swept her up into his arms, she gasped. Then she looked into his dark, dark eyes. She smiled at him, but there was no glint of humor or warmth in his gaze.

Only need.

A part of her saddened at that knowledge, but she fought that sensation back, cupped his face in her hands and said, “We can do this, right?”

His mouth quirked. “Oh, we’re going to do this, Gina. Now.”

A swirl of something delicious swept through her, heating her core, making her blood run thick. She took a deep breath as he started to carry her back into the suite. “I wasn’t talking about sex, Adam. I was talking about our bargain.”

He stopped dead just inside the French doors. Looking down at her, he asked, “Second thoughts?”

And thirds. And fourths, she thought, but didn’t say. “No. Just making sure you’re not having any.”

He held her tighter, his right hand sliding up her thigh. “Once I make a deal, I stick with it.”

“Of course you do,” she said, nodding even as she let one hand slide from his neck, down his throat to his chest. His heartbeat thudded beneath her hand and she knew, whether his features were stoic or not, he wasn’t as calm as he pretended. “And so do I,” she added.

“Good to know. Now, how about we start taking care of business?”

“That might be easier for me if we didn’t call it business,” she pointed out, unbuttoning the front of his shirt.

He shook his head and his eyes seemed to swallow her. “This is business, though, Gina. Nothing more. Don’t fool yourself. Don’t pretend that this is a real marriage. You’ll only be hurt in the end.”

Well, nothing like a cold flood of reality to warm you up for the night’s festivities. He was making sure she didn’t put too much of herself into this bargain they’d struck. And maybe assuring himself that there wouldn’t be any hard feelings when it was done.

That was fine with Gina. He could think what he wanted. Her thoughts she would keep to herself. Her dreams would remain hidden and secret, locked away in her heart. For now, she had the man she’d always wanted and she wasn’t going to let doubts or fears about the future ruin the night she’d been waiting for all of her life.




Six


His hands on her bare skin felt wicked. Felt…right. She felt as though she’d been waiting for this one particular moment all of her life. The moment when she would have Adam to herself. When she would take him into her body and hold him there.

Her stomach was spinning, a weird combination of nerves and champagne. Her brain was racing, alternately shouting out warnings and egging her on. But Gina didn’t need urging. She unbuttoned his shirt and slid one hand across his bare chest. She felt his body jerk at the slight touch and knew that he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.

The plush, gigantic bedroom was dark, but for the desert moonlight streaming through the open balcony doors. The white sheers hanging there fluttered and swayed seductively in a soft wind and the scent of desert sage wafted into the room.

The bed was wide and high and covered in a luxurious white silk duvet that had already been turned down for the night. A mountain of pillows were stacked against the black iron headboard. Adam carried her with quick steps, right to the edge of the bed. Then he set her on her feet, grabbed the edge of the duvet and tossed it heedlessly to the foot of the mattress.

Gina’s knees went a little wobbly, so she locked them just to make sure she didn’t do anything totally stupid like topple over. In the semidarkness, Adam’s chocolate-brown eyes looked nearly black as he stared down at her. His mouth was thin, tight, as if he were holding on to the ragged edge of control.

Well, she didn’t want him controlled.

She wanted him wild and eager and spontaneous. Biting down on her bottom lip, Gina lifted her hands to the front of his shirt and undid the rest of the buttons. While he stood there, unmoving, she pushed the shirt off his shoulders and down his arms, to drop to the floor. Then she let her hands slide across his hard, warm chest. Felt the soft brush of the dark hair that whorled across his tanned skin. Felt him flinch when her thumbnail stroked the tip of one flat nipple.

He grabbed her waist, his hands big and hard and strong. Then he yanked her close, holding her to him so that she felt the thick ridge of his arousal. Looming over her, he stared into her eyes and Gina felt the heat of that gaze fire up her insides like a match to a pool of gasoline.

His mouth came down on hers with a fierceness she hadn’t expected. His tongue parted her lips and she opened for him, inviting his exploration. Their tongues twisted together in a heated dance that was only a prelude of things to come. Gina’s breath caught in her chest and her head began to swim.

Her body alive with sensation, she groaned from the back of her throat when Adam’s hands slid up to cover her breasts. He stroked her, causing the lace to rub across her already sensitized nipples with a delicious friction that heated her core and drove her to the edge of madness. Each touch was a fire. Each touch only made her want the next. Each stroking caress tautened the tension already coiled inside her.

When he tore his mouth from hers to lick and nibble his way down the length of her throat, Gina tipped her head back to give him more access. His mouth was a wonder. His hands at her breasts a lovely torture.

Then he shifted position, lifting his hands to the thin, ribbonlike straps of her nightgown and he slid them down over her shoulders. Gina shivered a little at the cool glide of his fingertips against her skin, then shivered harder as he pushed the nightgown down and off to puddle at her feet.

The desert wind was cool as it brushed into the room and danced across her skin, but Adam’s gaze kept her too warm to notice. He looked her up and down, then looking directly into her eyes, he lifted her again and dropped her onto the mattress.

She bounced once, then settled back against the backdrop of pillows, a lavender scent drifting to her like a lost memory of summer. Her center, hot and aching, had her shifting on the smooth, cool sheets, looking for the release her body already clamored for.

Gina watched as Adam stripped quickly out of his clothes. Her mouth went dry when he was naked and her gaze dropped down to the incredible, hard length of him.

Gina forced herself to relax, ordering her legs to loosen and the hard knot of worry to dissolve in the back of her mind. She’d known him her whole life practically. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her. Knew that even if he didn’t love her, he would take care of her.

Then he was moving over her and her brain shut down. All she had the strength to focus on were the sensations rippling through her body in relentless waves. His hands, his mouth, his body, lavished attention on her. Every inch of her felt alive and tingling.

He closed his mouth over one nipple and Gina nearly leaped off the bed. His lips and tongue and teeth tormented her until she whimpered and shifted beneath him, trying to get closer. Her hands slid up and down his broad, muscled back and her short, neat fingernails scraped over his skin.

He groaned against her and Gina’s hips rocked into him. She lifted one leg, trailing the sole of her foot along his leg, desperate to touch him. To feel all of him.

“You smell incredible,” he whispered, moving his mouth from one nipple to the other.

Gina made a mental note to buy more of the citrus/flowery body lotion she preferred.

She stared up at the moonlit ceiling above them and stared blindly as shadows shifted and waved against the pale lemon paint. Her breath struggled in and out of her lungs. Her body burned and when he moved lazily and she felt that hard, thick length of him rub her core, she gasped and arched higher. “Adam…”

“I know,” he whispered, lifting his head to look into her eyes.

She met his gaze with a dazed look, and saw the wildness in his eyes. Gina took his face between her palms and drew his head to her. She wanted to kiss him. To feel that connection of want and desire build between them. To have his body atop hers, his heartbeat thundering in time with her own.

The kiss seared them both. Heat and passion trembled in the air and Gina put all she had into it. She gave him her heart in that kiss, whether he knew it or not. She poured the feelings she’d so carefully banked for years into that one instant of mouths and hearts blending and when she felt him shift, positioning himself between her legs, she kissed him even harder.

She wanted his mouth on hers when he entered her and so she moved with him, spreading her thighs, lifting her hips while at the same time keeping her lips firmly attached to his. His tongue swept across the inside of her mouth as he pushed his body into hers.

He lifted his head, looked down into her eyes and held perfectly still, allowing her body to adjust to the presence of his. Gina groaned, digging her head into the mound of pillows behind her. She wriggled her hips, lifting, shifting, feeling him slowly sink deeper within and as he claimed her, inch by inch, she felt her body stretching to accommodate him.

“Oh, my…” She let out a breath on a sigh and looked up at him smiling down at her.

She smiled, then gasped as he rocked his hips, pushing higher within.

He eased back, sitting on his haunches, scooping his hands under bottom, lifting her hips a little, pulling her body down harder on his. “We’re just getting started.”

“Oh, boy.”

His thumb stroked the hard, hot nub of flesh at her center and Gina’s back arched high off the mattress. Her hands scrabbled for something to hold on to and her fingers curled into the silken sheets beneath her. It didn’t help; she still felt her world swaying and tilting weirdly around her as he moved, withdrawing only to plunge inside her again.

His fingers continued to rub and stroke her most sensitive spot, until Gina was writhing in his grasp, twisting her hips, unconsciously drawing his body deeper into hers. Too much, she thought. It was all too much. She couldn’t handle so many sensations. So much pleasure. Surely there was a saturation point where her body would simply dissolve and her mind become a puddle of goo.

And then he showed her differently. Reaching for her, he took hold of her waist and lifted her off the bed, settling her down on his lap, so that his length was deep inside her. Gina looked directly into his eyes as he guided her in an easy rhythm that had her rocking on him, tantalizing them both.

The wind slid into the room, and the scent of sage melded with the scent of their heated bodies and the bloom of sex. Skin met skin, breath intermingled and their sighs became a symphony of want and desperate need.

Moving on him, sliding her body onto his, Gina found a magic she’d never expected. Her body quivered, her insides straining, reaching toward the release that built within. Her heart swelled, filling with the thrill of being a part of Adam at long last. And her mind raced with images she couldn’t allow herself to indulge in. Images of Adam’s eyes shining with love for her. Images of the two of them, together. Always.

But even though a part of her mourned, she relished the feelings coursing through her. She looked into Adam’s eyes, lost herself in those dark, dark depths and watched as passion ignited, firing sparks she knew she had brought him.

Tension coiled tighter, tighter. Her body trembled. She held her breath and when she slid down his length one more time, the first explosion smashed into her.

“Adam!” She gripped his shoulders hard, trying to keep herself stable in a suddenly wildly unstable world.

“Let go,” he ordered, his voice a low rush of sound, scraping from his throat. “Let yourself go, Gina.”

She did. She couldn’t help it. Didn’t want to try. Instead she gave herself up to the incredible sensations coursing through her. Riding wave after wave of tremors that continued to ripple through her long after that first tremendous burst had diminished.

And when Gina thought she couldn’t take another moment, there was more. Adam dropped one hand to the spot where their bodies joined. Once again, he rubbed that tender piece of flesh that seemed to hold a store of electrical-like nerve endings. She jolted in his embrace and instinctively ground her hips against him.

“Adam…” She whispered his name now, a sigh of pleasure.

“Again,” he said, pushing her even higher than she’d been before. Her mind splintered, her body shattered and when she felt herself falling, she heard Adam groan and knew he was taking the fall with her.



Adam’s heart was racing and his body felt more lax than it had in years. He turned his head on the pillows to look at the woman lying beside him. Her eyes were closed, and she lay, one arm flung back behind her head, the other reaching toward him across the wide expanse of mattress.

Her skin was softer than the silk they lay on and her hair was a tumble of curls he couldn’t seem to touch enough. Her sighs, her pleasures, tempted him to take her again and again. Even now, he felt himself stir, his body already hardening for her.

“You’re watching me.”

“Your eyes are closed,” he pointed out. “How do you know?”

“I can feel it,” she said and turned her head on the pillows to look at him. A smile curved her delectable mouth and Adam felt another jolt of desire slam into him. Maybe this bargain between them hadn’t been such a good idea after all, he thought, at the realization that in the last hour with her, he’d felt more than he had in the last five years.

“Now you’re frowning,” Gina said, rolling to her side, unabashedly naked, her tanned, smooth skin nearly glowing in the moonlight. “No frowns allowed.”

“Don’t know if I can accommodate that request,” he said.

She sighed, pushed one hand through her hair, throwing the thick mass over her shoulder. “Adam, you don’t have to be worried.”

“What makes you think I’m worried?”

She laughed and the sound of it sang through the otherwise quiet room. “Please. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

“Is that right?” Turning to face her, he went up on one elbow. “Then what am I thinking?” he said with a slight smile.

She stroked the tips of her fingers across the sheet covered distance separating them and Adam wished she were touching him.

“That’s easy. You’re worrying that you made a mistake by agreeing to this little bargain.”

He opened his mouth to argue, more because he hated knowing that she could read him so well than anything else, but she spoke up again.

“You’re worried that I’m building up romantic notions. Hoping you’ll fall in love with me.”

He frowned harder, because damn it, she was right. He had been worrying about that, too. But he wouldn’t admit it. “Wrong. I know you’re not doing anything that foolish.” At least, he hoped not. “After all, this was your idea.”

“True.” She smiled and rolled onto her stomach, coming closer to him. Close enough that he couldn’t keep himself from reaching one hand out to stroke the line of her spine, the curve of her bottom. And he wondered how in the hell she’d managed to get a tan all over.

Shaking his head to get rid of the image of her stretched out naked in the sun, Adam asked, “Why?”

“Why what?” She looked at him, her golden eyes shining in the darkness.

“Why’d you offer me this bargain? I mean, I know you want a baby. I understand that. What I want to know is why me?”

She stretched lazily, moving that tanned, toned body on the white silk sheets until blood vessels started popping in Adam’s brain.

“Easily enough explained, Adam,” she said, glancing at him. “You wanted the land, so that gave me some leverage….”

“Yes…” He wanted the rest of her reason.

“And, I’ve known you forever, Adam. I like you. I think you like me—”

He nodded. He did like Gina. He’d just never paid much attention to that fact over the years. She was younger than he was, so they hadn’t spent much time together when they were kids. Then, when they were grown, he’d had other priorities.

“—it seemed like the perfect answer to both of our problems.” She lifted one hand to him and stroked her palm across his chest. Adam sucked in a gulp of air at the heat that instantly shot through him. “And…I think the two of us will make a beautiful baby.”

A slice of something cold and dark cut through his mind at those words. He’d once made a vow to never have another child. To never open himself up to that kind of risk again. But this was different, he reasoned, so he pushed those thoughts into a corner of his mind. He’d made this bargain and he’d honor it. The child he and Gina made between them wouldn’t be a part of his life. He wouldn’t know it. Love it. Or lose it. In fact, best to not think about it at all.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and Adam cut her a look.

“About what?”

“Talking about the baby I want must make you remember your son.”

Adam froze. He felt his features tighten and everything in him go hard and still as glass. Memories jumped into his mind, but he refused to acknowledge them. He turned them off as easily as punching the remote button aimed at a television. He’d had a lot of practice.

He wasn’t open to talking about the son he’d lost five years before and they might as well get that straight right up front. “I don’t talk about him. Ever.”

Her eyes went soft in sympathy and Adam resented it. He didn’t need her feeling sorry for him.

“I understand.”

“You couldn’t possibly,” he told her.

A silent second or two passed before Gina said, “Fine, you’re right. I don’t understand. I hope I never learn the kind of pain you experienced and—”

He caught her hand in his and gave it a hard squeeze. Just enough to get her to stop talking. How the hell had they gotten onto the subject of his lost family anyway? Wasn’t their bargain supposed to be about sex, plain and simple? “What part of ‘I don’t talk about it’ didn’t you get?”

She pulled her hand free of his, pushed herself up on the bed and leaned in close to him. Staring into his eyes, it looked as though she were searching for something, some sign that there was warmth hidden somewhere inside him. Adam could have told her to not bother looking.

After a long moment, Gina leaned in even further and kissed him, briefly, softly. “I get it, Adam. The subject’s off-limits.”

“Good.”

“I don’t want to talk anyway.” Gina stroked his cheek with her palm and drew his head closer to hers.

“That’s good, too.” At her touch, his body heated and was instantly ready for her again. He’d been too long without a woman, that was all. He’d been a damn recluse for five years, with only the occasional, temporary woman to ease needs that couldn’t be denied any longer.

That explained why his response to Gina was so overwhelming. It was just biological, that was all. It wasn’t about her. It was about sex. Need.

And when she moved into him, he kept telling himself that, even as he inhaled her scent, drawing it deep inside him. Even as he twisted his hand into her hair, letting the silky feel of it slide over his skin. Even as he took her mouth and tasted the sweetness that was Gina alone.

He couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow anything else.

She tried to roll over in his arms, but he kept her on her stomach and shifted enough that he could trail kisses along the length of her spine. Such soft, honey-brown skin. Such long lines and rich curves. He heard her sigh and felt her tremble as his left hand swept down to stroke her bottom. He glanced at her, saw her eyes closed, her hands fisted in the bank of pillows.

“Adam…”

“We have all night, Gina,” he said and suddenly knew that he wanted every moment of the night. He wanted her over him, under him. He wanted to taste and explore every glorious inch of her and then he wanted to start all over again.

Fire erupted in his blood as she moved on the sheets and he knew he had to have her. No more thinking. No more worrying about tomorrow or the day after that. For now, he would waste no more time with her.

Flipping her over with a quick twist, he grinned when she smiled up at him and lifted her arms in welcome. He slid into her embrace, covering her body with his and when he entered her, she arched her hips to take him completely. To hold him deep inside her heat. And Adam closed his mind to everything but her.

They moved together in a rhythm that left them both breathless. Bodies sang, minds emptied and when the first flash of release slammed into Gina, Adam held on to her, watching her eyes, dazzled with pleasure as he surrendered himself to the glory waiting for him.




Seven


Thanks to Esperanza Sanchez, Adam’s longtime housekeeper, Gina was pretty sure she’d gained five pounds in four days. The older woman was so happy to see Adam married again, she hadn’t stopped cooking all week. And every time Gina tried to help out in the kitchen, straighten up the living room or even to dust, she was shooed out of the room and told to go spend time with her new husband.

Not as easy as it sounded.

Esperanza was determined to see that Gina felt at home. Even if Adam was a little less than welcoming. Staring into a full-length mirror in the bedroom she now shared with Adam, Gina wasn’t looking at her own reflection so much as at the gigantic bed behind her. That was the only place she felt as though Adam was glad to have her in his home.

“Happy to have me in his bed anyway,” she muttered and tried to find the bright spot in that statement. At least they shared passion. At least they connected occasionally. Even if it was only physically.

“Pitiful, Gina, just pitiful.” She shook her head, met her own gaze in the mirror and gave her reflection one last glance. Not exactly a femme fatale, she admitted. In her pink T-shirt, worn jeans and boots, she looked more like a ranch hand than a newlywed. Her long dark hair hung down her back in a single braid and her eyes looked huge in her face.

She’d had a lot of hopes for this bargain. Had counted on Adam being a little easier to maneuver than he was proving. Instead he seemed determined to keep to himself. To keep their relationship as superficial as possible, despite the fact that they were married and living together.

Gina turned away, opened the French doors to their bedroom terrace and stepped out onto the glossy wood floor. The early morning sky was deep blue, but there were storm clouds banking out over the ocean. Now why, she wondered, did that sound like a perfect metaphor for her marriage?

They’d been back from Vegas for nearly a week, and it was as if that brief “honeymoon” had never happened. She leaned both hands on the second-story balcony railing and curled her fingers over the sun-warmed decorative iron. The minute they’d arrived back at the ranch, Adam had closed himself off. She actually felt like they were a couple those days and nights together. It was as if a switch inside him had been flipped. He’d become the recluse he’d been for five long years. She hardly saw him during the day and when she did, he was distant, if polite. The only time he warmed to her was at night.

Then, he was the man she’d always dreamed he would be. Then, he gave himself and took from her. Every time they came together was better than the time before. Frankly the sex was incredible. Gina’d never known anything quite like it. But at the bottom of it, if all they shared was great sex, was there anything between them worth fighting for?

“Way to go, Gina,” she muttered. “Depress yourself.”

She squinted into the sun and watched Adam walk with long, determined steps into the barn. Once he’d been swallowed by the shadows, Gina sighed. She wondered what he was doing. What he was thinking. He didn’t talk to her. Didn’t share his plans for the day. Didn’t let her into what was going on in his head. It was as if she were a boarder here at the ranch. Nothing more than a guest who would be moving on shortly.

Another sigh escaped before she could stop it. Bending slightly, she leaned her elbows on the railing and studied the shiny new gold band on her ring finger. She wasn’t a guest. She was his wife. For now.

At least, for as long as it took her to get pregnant.

Which, she thought, explained why she was still using her diaphragm. A tiny thread of guilt whipped through her like summer lightning. She admitted at least to herself that what she was doing wasn’t technically fair. But she was willing to risk everything for the chance at real love. Even if that meant Adam one day finding out what she’d done. If that day came, she’d confess all and hope that he understood.

Every night, he did everything he could to impregnate her, no doubt so that he could end the marriage quickly and send her on her way.

He just had no idea that she was sabotaging the bargain she had proposed in the first place.

“Gina, this might turn out to be a lot harder than you thought it would be.” And maybe, she admitted silently, it would be impossible.

But even as that thought niggled away in her brain, she vowed she wouldn’t give up so quickly.

She’d made the decision to keep using her diaphragm before the wedding. Yes, she wanted a baby. Adam’s baby. But she also wanted a chance to make Adam want her for longer than the duration of their arrangement. She wanted time for them to get used to each other. Time for him to realize that they could have something special together.

Time to make him fall in love with her.

Risky?

Oh, yeah.

But if she could pull it off, so worth it.

While her mind wandered down the “what if” paths it was getting so used to lately, she noticed a bright red sports car turning into the driveway. Before she could even wonder who their visitor was, though, another vehicle turned onto the ranch road right behind the zippy little car. This one was a huge horse trailer. Instantly excitement shot through her.

“They’re here!” She grinned, turned and ran back into the bedroom she shared with Adam. She raced through the big room, hardly looking at it, then down the hall and took the stairs two at a time. She was already standing in the driveway when the car and then the horse van pulled up in the yard and stopped.

A tall, gorgeous man stepped out of the car, took one look at Gina and said, “I’m guessing that eager welcome isn’t for me?”

Gina gave Adam’s brother a quick smile. Travis was so easygoing. So relaxed. So ready to smile and quick to laugh. How much easier would her life had been if she’d only fallen in love with him? Unfortunately, though, when she looked at him, she didn’t get that “zing” of something hot and sweet inside her. It was just pure female admiration for a gorgeous man.

“Hi, Travis. Nice to see you.” She waved a hand at the trailer. “My horses are here.”

“Upstaged by a truck full of horses?” Travis walked around the front of his car, then leaned lazily against the front fender. “Must be losing my touch. Came by to see my new sister-in-law and say welcome to the family.”

She knew that Travis and Jackson had a feeling of the true circumstances of her marriage, but he’d come anyway. Wanted to welcome her, however briefly, into the King family. For that, she wanted to kiss him. She walked to him and gave him a brief hug. “Thanks. I appreciate it, really.”

He gave her a hard squeeze and held on to her when she would have backed away. Looking down into her eyes, Travis asked, “How’s it going, Gina? Adam making you nuts yet?”

“Not completely.” She smiled, grateful for the understanding.

“Give him time,” Travis said with a wink. Then the smile faded from his face. “Gina, I just want you to be careful, okay? I don’t want to see you get hurt and—”

“Why’re you hugging my wife, Travis?” Adam’s voice boomed as he walked out of the barn.

“Well, she’s just so damn huggable, isn’t she?” Travis sounded amused as he gave her another squeeze. He winked down at her before letting her go.

Adam’s features were tight and his eyes were narrowed. Gina wished she could pretend he was actually a little jealous, but she had the feeling it was more about Travis showing up unannounced than about a hug.

Adam looked at her, then shifted his gaze back to his brother. “What’re you doing here?”

“And hello to you, too, big brother,” Travis answered.

Gina looked at her husband and tried to rein in her instant physical response. But it was way too late. No matter how she tried to control it, her body lit up the moment she saw Adam. Where she could look at Travis or Jackson, for that matter, and see a handsome man with a great body and lots of charm, that’s as far as it went. When she looked at Adam, though, her stomach fluttered with the nervous clip of butterfly wings and her heartbeat quickened into a fast gallop.

Even with his crabby nature and tendency to shut out anyone who threatened to get close, she loved him. Somewhere inside that perpetual crab, there was still the guy who at sixteen had helped her home after she’d fallen off her horse. Inside Adam, there was still the young hero who’d come to her rescue at a school dance when her date had gotten too grabby.

She looked at him and saw not only the past, but their possible future and the love for him she’d carried around inside her for years was alive and well. God help her. She took a deep breath, waited for him to look at her and then said with a forced brightness, “My horses are here.”

“I see that,” he said, shooting a glare at the trailer as it parked close to the corral. “Why?”

That she hadn’t expected. “What do you mean, why?”

“Simple question, Gina,” he said, folding his arms over his chest, planting his booted feet wide apart as if readying for battle. “Why are they here? Why didn’t you just keep them at your folks’ place?”

Gina stared at him. He was mad about her horses being shuttled to the ranch? “Because I live here now.”

“Temporarily,” Adam said.

Direct hit, she thought and inwardly winced.

“For God’s sake, Adam.” Travis straightened up and walked to Gina’s side, clearly aligning himself with her.

“This is none of your business, Travis.”

Gina appreciated Adam’s brother’s attempts at help, but she needed to take care of this herself. “He’s right, Travis. This is between Adam and me.”

She walked over to her husband, whose scowl looked fierce enough to strip paint and tipped her head back to look up at him. “Adam, we’re married. I live here. I work with the Gypsies every day. It’s not exactly convenient to drive over to my parents ranch every morning to do that work.”

Adam did a quiet seethe. She could see it in his narrowed eyes and the tense lock of his jaw. Then she watched him flick a glance at Travis before turning his gaze back to her. Clearly there was more he wanted to say, but Travis being a witness wasn’t something he was interested in.

Taking her upper arm in a firm grip, he steered her farther away from his brother and didn’t stop until they were standing in the shade of the open barn doors. “You don’t have to put on a front, Gina. We both know that this marriage isn’t real.”

Another barb that hit home with deadly accuracy. But damned if she’d let him know it. If she was going to make Adam see her, really see her, then she had to stand up to him. Let him know right up front that she wasn’t going to be ignored or placated or pushed around.

“You’re wrong,” she said shortly. “This marriage is very real.” She held up her left hand and wiggled her ring finger at him. “Whatever you’d like to think, Adam, we’re legally married, for however long it lasts.”

He released his grip on her arm, but her skin kept buzzing as if his touch had branded her. “I know it’s legal, but it’s not your ordinary marriage, now is it?”

“What marriage is ordinary, Adam?”

He blew out a frustrated breath. “You’re purposely misunderstanding me.”

“Oh, I understand just fine,” she said and tapped the tip of her index finger against his chest. “You want to pretend that I’m not really here. The only place you want to see me is our bedroom. Well, get over it. I am here. And I’m not going anywhere just yet.”

“I know that.” He shot a look at Travis, lowered his voice and said, “I’m just saying it doesn’t make much sense to uproot your horses. Besides, there’s no room for them here. Not to mention the fact that you could have talked to me about this before arranging for their arrival.”

Okay. Love him or not, Gina wasn’t going to be walked on. “There’s plenty of room on this ranch for the horses, Adam. You don’t even use the front corral and the barn’s half empty.”

“That’s not the point—”

“You just made it the point. Plus,” she said, rushing on before he could get started again, “you knew going in that I work with those horses.”

“I didn’t think—”

“What?” Her eyes widened and she waved both hands in the air. “You didn’t think I’d work with them here? Where I live?” She lowered her voice a little and leaned in. “What did you think, Adam? That I’d just stay tucked up in the bedroom waiting for you to service me? I said I wanted a baby, but I also have a life. One I’m not interested in giving up.”

“You could have told me—”

“Maybe I should have. But I didn’t realize I would have to discuss every one of my decisions with you to get your approval.”

“I didn’t say that—”

“What did you say then?” She was almost enjoying this, Gina thought. Adam looked confused and off balance. But it was better than disinterested. At least he was looking at her. Talking to her. Actually, she thought, keeping him off balance might be just the answer.

He scrubbed one hand across his face in an impatient gesture. “Fine. I’m not going to argue about this.”

“Too late.”

“You want the damn horses here, then fine.”

“Oh,” she said, laying one hand on her chest. “Thanks so much.”

His mouth worked, he pulled in a long breath and then said, “You’re really starting to irritate me, Gina.”

“Good,” she said and gave him a smile. Irritated meant she was getting to him. Keeping him confused could only help her. “I like knowing that I can make you feel something.”

When she turned to leave, he grabbed her arm again, spun her around and before she could ask what else he wanted to complain about, he kissed her. He covered her mouth with his in a fast, hungry kiss that left her knees wobbly. He let her go then took a step back as if even he were surprised by what he’d done. “Be careful what you wish for, Gina. Not all feelings are pretty.”

She lifted one hand to her mouth, rubbed her lips with her fingertips and looked up at him. “Even that would be better than feeling nothing.”

“Now you’re the one who’s wrong,” he said. Then he jerked his head at the trailer, where the driver was jumping down from the truck cab. “Go get your horses settled in.”

He turned his back on her and walked away, stepping into the darkness of the van without another look her way.



Adam stalked to the rear of the barn and turned into the small ranch office that had been built into what had once been just another stall. He took a seat behind the battered desk his ranch foreman usually used. Today, though, he was damn glad that Sam was somewhere out on the ranch.

Travis stopped in the open doorway, leaned one shoulder against the jamb and looked in at him. “You really enjoy being a jackass?”

“Butt out.” Adam propped one boot up on the corner of the desk and folded his hands atop his middle. He could still taste Gina and that wasn’t good. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. But she’d prodded him until damned if he could control the urge to touch her.

Since coming back home from Vegas, he’d done his damnedest to avoid spending much time with her. If he kept himself busy enough, it was almost possible to pretend that she wasn’t living there. That nothing had changed in his life. He went about his normal routine during the day.

But every afternoon, his mind started drifting to thoughts of her. His body started yearning. And every night, he went to her like a man on fire.

He hadn’t counted on this. Hadn’t planned on being affected by Gina’s presence at all. This was just one more deal made. One more bargain struck.

But she was wriggling her way into his thoughts, his life, with a surety that bothered him more than a little.

“Gina deserves better than the way you’re treating her.”

Adam shot Travis a look through narrowed eyes that should have fried him on the spot. Naturally Travis was unaffected. “What’s between Gina and me is just that,” Adam said. “Between Gina and me.”

Travis pushed away from the doorjamb, walked into the room and pushed Adam’s foot off the edge of the desk before sitting down. One eyebrow lifted and a corner of his mouth tipped into a half smile. “She’s getting to you.”

“No,” Adam lied. “She’s not.”

“She could if you let her.”

“And why would I do that?” Adam’s fingers, laced together atop his stomach, tightened until the knuckles went white.

“Let me answer that with another question. Do you really like living like a damn monk?” Travis demanded. “Do you enjoy locking yourself away on this ranch? Shutting out everybody but me and Jackson?”

Adam inhaled slowly, deeply, getting a rein on the flare of anger that had erupted inside him. “I’m not shut away. I’m working. The ranch demands a lot of time and—”

“Tell that to somebody else,” Travis said, neatly interrupting him. “I grew up here, too. I know what it takes to run this place. Didn’t I watch Dad do it year after year?”

“Dad didn’t have the same plans for it I do.”

“Yeah,” Travis agreed amiably. “Dad wanted a life, too.”

“I have a life.”

Smiling, Travis nodded. “After seeing that kiss, I’m guessing you’ve got a shot at one, anyway. If you don’t screw it up.”

Adam fixed him with a frown. “Is there a reason you came by here today? Or are you just here to be another thorn in my figurative paw?”

“The thorn thing appeals, I’ll admit. But I did have a reason.” Standing up, Travis stuffed both hands into the pockets of his black slacks. “I’m taking one of the family jets to Napa for a couple of weeks.”

“Bon voyage,” Adam said, standing himself. “But what’s that got to do with me?”

“Just wanted to let you know. There’s a winery there doing some interesting stuff with cabernets. Want to see what I can find out about their operation.”

“So why is it when you do something related to the vineyard it’s okay, but when I’m concentrating on the ranch I’m a recluse?”

“Because—” Travis grinned “—I make time for the ladies, too. I don’t live and die by the grape, Adam. And now that you’ve got yourself married again, maybe it’s time for you to remember that there’s more to life than this damn ranch.”

“You know exactly why I’m married. Don’t make it out to be more than it is.”

“Doesn’t mean it couldn’t work out. For both of you.”

“Not interested.”

“Just because you and Monica—” He stopped short when Adam flushed a dark red. “Fine. We won’t talk about it. Even though you should—”

“I don’t need to be psychoanalyzed, either.”

“Wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Travis said, then continued. “Go ahead, Adam. Bury your future because of your past. But—” he half turned to point toward the ranch yard beyond the barn “—that’s a fine woman out there. Too good for you to use and toss away. She deserves better.” When his brother didn’t say anything else, Travis added, “Hell, Adam, you deserve better.”

He didn’t want to talk about any of this. “Don’t you have a winemaker to seduce?”

“I do indeed.” Travis headed for the door and stopped on the threshold. “But do me a favor while I’m gone?”

“Depends.”

“Try not to be such a complete ass all the time. Give Gina a chance. Give yourself a damn break, will you?”

When Travis was gone, Adam couldn’t settle. He paced the narrow confines of the office and listened to the sounds from the yard. The clatter of hooves on a metal gate, the nervous whinnies, Gina’s delighted laughter.

He stopped dead, concentrating on the near magical music of it.

And he told himself that no matter what he felt or didn’t feel for Gina, once she was pregnant, deal done. Marriage over. She’d move out and he’d move on.

Despite what Travis seemed to think, there was no hope for a future here. Adam had already proven to himself that he simply wasn’t the marrying kind.




Eight


Gina left Adam sleeping in their big bed. She grabbed her robe from a nearby chair, tugged it on and belted it at the waist before slipping out of the bedroom. She couldn’t seem to fall asleep no matter how long she lay there in the darkness. So why not get up, make some tea and have a few of Esperanza’s cookies?

At the doorway, she looked back at her husband and her heart turned over as she studied him in the dim light. Even in sleep, Adam managed to look powerful, aloof. As if his emotions were closed up so tightly they couldn’t even find the surface when he wasn’t actively guarding them. Apparently she would have to do battle with his subconscious, as well.

She sighed a little, shut the door quietly behind her and wandered down the hall toward the stairs. The house was quiet, tucked up for the night, resting after a long day. Gina only wished she could rest, too. But her mind was just too busy. She couldn’t stop thinking about Adam, their argument earlier and the way he’d watched her from afar as she settled the Gypsies into their new home.

Why had she thought she’d be able to reach him easily when he’d spent the last five years sealing himself off from the entire world? What if he didn’t want to be reached? Would she be able to outlast him? Would he guess there was something going on when she didn’t get pregnant right away? A headache burst into life behind her eyes and she blew out a breath as she headed downstairs.

There were no lights on, but moonlight shone through the skylights, illuminating the dark staircase in a pale silver glow. Her bare feet made no sound on the carpet runner and as she walked downstairs, she looked at the framed photographs lining the wall.

Pictures of the King brothers from infancy to adulthood stared back at her. There was a smiling Jackson, boasting a black eye, standing between his older brothers, each of them with an arm draped over his shoulders. There was Travis, holding the trophy the high school football team had won when he was the quarterback. There was even a twenty-year-old photo taken at a Fourth of July picnic. The King brothers were there, but so were Gina and her brothers. Adam was the tallest and he was standing right behind a ten-year-old Gina. As if even then, she’d been arranging things so she could be close to him. Had he noticed? Smiling to herself, her gaze continued over the faces frozen in time and as she looked, she noticed that there weren’t any pictures of Monica, Adam’s late wife. Or even of his lost son, Jeremy.

That made her frown thoughtfully for a minute and think about the other photographs she’d noticed throughout the house. Now that she was considering it, she realized there weren’t any pictures of the family Adam had lost five years ago. Strange. Why would he not want to see them? Remember them?

Then she pushed those thoughts aside and went back to studying the framed photographs on the wall. She blurred her vision to all but the shots of Adam.

Gina studied them, one at a time, remembering some, wondering about others. There was Adam as a kid, with torn blue jeans and a baseball cap shading his eyes. Adam as captain of the high school baseball team. Adam at his prom. Adam with a blue ribbon won at a local rodeo. Adam smiling. God, he should do that more often, she thought.

Reaching out, Gina touched her fingertips to that captured smile and wished she could reach the man as easily. He was so close to her now, yet he felt even further away from her than ever.

A chill swept along her spine and she hunched deeper into the soft folds of the green cashmere robe. But this chill came from her heart, not the temperature of the room, so nothing she did helped with it. She took the last of the stairs and stopped in the foyer.

In the silence, she looked down the long hall toward the kitchen and Esperanza’s cookies—-then to the front door and the night beyond. She made up her mind quickly and opened the door to step outside.

The night air was cold and damp and still. Not a breath of wind moved. Overhead, the sky was clear and spatter-shot with bright stars. The moon was half-full and the light that shone down was bright enough to cast shadows across the ground.

Gina stepped onto the dirt driveway and walked quietly across the yard toward the corral where the Gypsies slept. Tomorrow, they’d be assigned stalls in the barn, but for tonight, they were here, getting used to their new home.

She leaned her forearms on the topmost rail and whispered, “I hope you guys catch on faster than I am.”

One of the mares whickered softly and moved to her. Gina reached out, stroked the horse’s nose with a gentle touch and smiled when the animal moved in closer for more. “Hi, Rosie. Did you miss me?” The horse shifted from foot to foot, the long, delicate feathers about its hooves waving lightly. Gina looked from Rosie to the other horses beyond and then back to the mare that had been her very first Gypsy.

“Feeling a little out of your element?” she asked, fingers stroking through the mare’s silky mane. “Yeah, I know just how you feel. But we’ll get used to it here. You know, Adam’s not a bad guy at all. He just acts crabby.”

“I am crabby.”

His voice came directly behind her and Gina jolted so hard, the mare skipped away, dancing back from the fence to join the rest of the horses on the far side of the corral. Gina caught her breath and turned around to face him.

“You could have said something instead of sneaking up on me and giving me a heart attack!” Her hand slapped to her chest and she felt her heartbeat thundering hard and fast. “Jeez, Adam.”

“What the hell are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

Gina fought back the last of the adrenaline pumping through her and took her first good look at him. His naked chest gleamed gold in the soft light. His hair was rumpled from sleep and his jaw carried the shadow of a dark beard. Barefoot, he wore a pair of threadbare jeans that he’d apparently dragged on in a hurry. The top couple of buttons were undone and her gaze tracked the narrow line of dark hair that disappeared beneath the denim fabric.

He looked way too good.

Shaking her head, though, Gina asked, “Is this another rule, Adam? Do I have to ask permission to come outside, too?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what?”

He came closer and the scent of him, soap and male, drifted to her and seemed to coil in the pit of her stomach. She took a breath, hoping to steady herself, but all she succeeded in doing was dragging more of that scent deeper inside.

“I woke up and you were gone.” He said it with a shrug.

A small note of hope lifted inside her. “You were worried about me?”

He glanced at her, then shifted his gaze to the animals wandering the corral enclosure. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said. “I…wondered about you.”

That was a start, Gina thought.

“You were sleeping and I couldn’t,” she said, turning to lean on the railing again and watch the horses moving through moonlight. “I was going to go for some of Esperanza’s cookies, then I decided to come out and check on the Gypsies.”

He shook his head and took up a spot beside her at the fence. Amusement colored his voice when he said, “What is it about these horses that’s so damn special?”

She shot him a quick look, smiled and said, “Everything.”

“Care to vague that up for me?”

“Wow. A joke?” She laid one hand on his forearm and when he didn’t flinch and pull away, Gina considered it a win. “This is a real moment for me, Adam.”

“Very funny.” He turned to look down at her. “But that doesn’t tell me why you’re so nuts about these horses.”

“They’re gentle. And smart. And so good with kids, its nearly eerie.” She blew out a breath and watched as one of the foals jolted into a one-horse race around the corral. Smiling as she watched the spindly legged baby run, she said, “They’ve been bred for centuries to become part of a family. They’re strong and loyal. I admire that.”

“Me, too,” he said and when she looked at him, she noticed he hadn’t been watching the horses, but her.

Nerves fizzed inside her, but in a good way. The night was quiet, but for the sounds of the horses. The wind was still, the sky brilliant with stars and it suddenly felt as though the world itself was holding its breath.

He was silent for so long, her nerves buzzed even harder, so she spoke to break the hush building between them. “I saw my first Gypsy about six years ago, at a horse show.” Her gaze slid from his to the corral again. “They were so beautiful. Elegant somehow, yet their eyes were liquid and kind, as if there were very old souls looking back at me.”

“If you love them so much, how do you bring yourself to sell them?”

She laughed. “It’s not easy. And I’m very careful who they go to. I check out prospective buyers so thoroughly, the CIA would be impressed.”

“I know I am.”

“Really?” Gina turned her head to look up at him again and saw his dark eyes flash with something she couldn’t quite read.

“Really,” he said and leaned his bare forearms on the top railing of the corral fence, alongside hers. Jerking his chin at the horses milling around like wallflowers at a high school reunion, he continued, “I’ve seen my share of horse breeders who couldn’t care less about the animals in their charge. They’re only interested in the money they can make.”

Gina’s mouth tightened. “I’ve seen a few like that myself.”

“Bet you have.” Glancing down at her, he said, “Sorry about earlier today.”

“Sorry?” Gina blinked at him, shook her head as if she hadn’t heard him right and smiled. “Wow. A joke and an apology. This is a red-letter night for me!”

“You’ve got a smart mouth on you, that’s for damn sure.”

“True. My mom always said it would get me in trouble someday.”

“Do you always listen to your mother?”

“If I did, we wouldn’t be married right now,” she pointed out, then wished she hadn’t when he frowned.

“She was right, you know. About me. About warning you off.”

“No, she wasn’t. I love my mom, but sometimes she worries more than she should.” Gina looked up at him and felt that maybe, just maybe, he was reaching out to her for the first time since their hurried wedding. Everything in her yearned for it to be true. She laid one hand on his forearm and tried not to notice that he nearly flinched from her gentle touch. “I know you, Adam…”

“No, you don’t.” He looked down at her hand on his arm and his stare was so steady, she finally pulled her hand away in response. When she had, he said, “You used to know me, Gina. I give you that. But I’m not that kid anymore. Time’s gone by and things have changed. I’ve changed.”

“You’re still Adam,” she insisted.

“Damn it.” He pushed away from the railing, grabbed her shoulders and turned her around to face him. In the starlight, his features were hard and cold and his eyes were deep, dark, filled with shadows. Gina felt the strength in his hands and the heat of his skin, burning through the thick, cashmere robe right into hers.

“Don’t mistake what’s happening here, Gina.”

She wouldn’t be intimidated. And she wasn’t afraid of him at all—even if that’s what he was trying to do. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.” His grip on her gentled slightly even as his eyes became darker, nearly black with the intensity of his gaze. “You’re fooling yourself, Gina. You think I don’t see it? Feel it?”

“Adam—”

“This bargain we made? That’s all we share,” he assured her. “We each want something from the other and when that bargain’s fulfilled, it’s over. Don’t get comfortable here. Don’t expect more from me than there is. And for God’s sake, stop looking at me with those golden eyes of yours all soft and dewy.”

“I don’t—”

“Yeah, you do. And it’s time to stop, Gina. For your own sake if nothing else. There is no us. There won’t ever be.”

Her heart ached.

Literally ached.

Her stomach churned and tears stung the backs of her eyes, but she fought them back, buried the swell of emotion that threatened to choke her. Everything he said, she knew he really meant, and yet, wasn’t there more here than he would—or could—admit? Or was she just fooling herself as he thought? Was she setting herself up for a crashing fall at the end of their time together? Was she expecting to find the boy she’d once known inside a man too changed to remember him?

“We have now,” she said, lifting both hands to lay her palms on his chest. The hard, sculpted muscles felt warm beneath her hands and the pound of his heart shattered something inside her. When he hissed in a breath, she took it as a sign to continue. “And for now Adam, there is an us.”

“Gina…” He shook his head and blew out a breath riddled with frustration. “You’re making this harder than it has to be.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “And maybe you’re making this far less fun than it could be.”

She moved in toward him, closing the spare distance between them with a single step. Her hands moved over his chest, fingertips exploring, smoothing across his flat nipples until he took a breath and held it, trying not to surrender.

But she wanted his surrender and was willing to fight for it.

He caught her wrists and held them, staring down into her eyes like a man lost in unfamiliar territory. “You’re playing with fire here, Gina.”

“I’m not fragile, Adam,” she said. “I don’t mind a burn or two.”

“This kind of fire consumes.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” she asked, smiling up at him despite the blackness of his eyes, the tight, grim slash of his mouth. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, the Adam she’d once known and fallen in love with was still there, hidden inside him, and she wanted to set him free again. To remind him that love and life and laughter were worth having. Worth cherishing. “We’re married, Adam. This fire is what most people dream of finding.”

“Fires usually burn out fast.”

“Sometimes,” she said with a short nod. “But while they burn, it’s an amazing thing.”

“You’re not going to listen to anybody about this, are you?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Thank God.”

He released her wrists and without a word, reached for the cloth belt at her waist. Pulling it free, he silently swept the sides of the robe back, baring her naked body to his gaze.

Gina shivered a little as the cool, night air kissed her skin, but that minor chill dissipated under Adam’s steady, heat-filled gaze. Her nipples peaked, tightening in the cold, aching for the touch of his lips, his mouth. His hands moved over her body, the hard calluses on his fingers scraping against her skin with an erotic friction that sent heat directly to her center.

Shifting from foot to foot in an unconscious attempt to ease the throbbing at her core, she let her head fall back against the fence post. Adam stroked her from breast to core and back again.

“Your skin glows in the moonlight,” he said softly and leaned in to take one of her nipples into his mouth.

She gasped, arched into him and cradled the back of his head in the palm of her hand. He nibbled at her, scoring the tip of her nipple with the edges of his teeth. Ripples of something amazing rolled through her and Gina held her breath as she watched him suckle her. With each draw and tug of his mouth at her breast, Gina was swamped with more tenderness for this man who tried so hard to keep her at a distance for her own sake.

Holding him to her, she watched him as his mouth worked her body, teasing, tormenting, drawing out her pleasure as if he could taste her all night. She felt his connection to her, despite his warnings. His feelings were communicated in his touch. Tender strokes, gentle bites and licks. The brush of his breath across her skin and the sweep of his hands down her body, along her curves, down her hips and behind to cup her bottom.

In his touch, she felt everything she’d ever dreamed of.

Her hands fell to his shoulders and she reveled in the strength of him. The warm, solid feel of him beneath her hands. He lifted his head from her breast and she wanted to weep with the loss of him.

“I need to have you,” he whispered and Gina quivered from head to foot.

“You are having me,” she said on a choked-off laugh.

He smiled up at her and her heart stuttered in her chest. Those smiles of his, so rare, so breathtaking, tugged at her more than anything else.

“I want more,” he said, sliding down the length of her body, trailing his lips and tongue along her skin as she leaned against the corral fence and hoped she didn’t simply topple over.

“Yes, Adam.” Two words, softly spoken, nearly lost in the quiet, moonlit darkness surrounding them, cradling them in the cool night air.

Then he was kneeling in front of her, pushing her thighs apart with his big hands and lowering his mouth to cover the very heart of her.

Gina groaned and gripped his shoulders tighter, her short nails digging into his skin to stabilize her hold on him. But even as she found her balance, the world tipped crazily around her. He stroked her damp heat with his tongue and had her gasping for air that never seemed enough to fill her straining lungs.

Wicked, she thought wildly. Here. Outside. In the ranch yard, she was naked and letting Adam have his way with her. More, needing him to have her. The thrill of being outside with him, beneath the stars, only added to the amazing feelings churning inside.

Again and again, he tasted her, torturing her with sweet, intimate caresses that sent waves of electrical-like surges moving through her. Then he lifted one of her legs, draped it across his shoulders and Gina was forced to reach back, grabbing hold of the fence behind her. She wanted this so badly she could hardly breathe anymore. Her world had shrunk to this one spot. Just she and Adam and what he could do to her.

The only sounds were her ragged groans, his steady breathing and the nervous stamping from the horses gathered at the other side of the corral. She stared blindly up at the stars, concentrating on what she was feeling, experiencing. The night was soft, and the magic of what Adam was doing to her was almost more than she could bear.

While his tongue and lips moved over her, he slid one hand around the curve of her hip and deftly slipped first one finger, and then two into her depths. He worked her with a steely determination that had Gina shaking unsteadily as a soul shattering climax coiled tightly within and prepared to spring.

His fingers explored her depths while his mouth continued its delicious torment. She wanted to keep him just like this. Forever. She wanted the orgasm that was just out of reach to stay poised where it was for eternity. She never wanted this moment to end.

Shifting her gaze from the sky to the man kneeling before her, Gina swallowed hard as she watched him take her. She looked at him and seeing what he was doing to her, watching as his mouth took her higher and higher, only seemed to intensify the very feelings he was stoking within. She couldn’t look away now. Couldn’t tear her gaze from Adam as he took her more intimately than anyone ever had before.

She felt him inside, outside. Her body shook. Her mind splintered. And when the first punch of release crashed through her, she called his name on a broken shout that trembled in the darkness.

Trembling, she rode that silky wave until it ended and when it was over, she swayed into him as he stood slowly, skimming his hands up her body as if memorizing the feel of her. “You taste sweet,” he said, dipping his head to kiss her lips, her jaw, neck.

“Adam, that was—” Her forehead hit his chest as she struggled for air. Her body was humming and when he pulled her in close, she felt the hard length of him pressing into her abdomen. And fresh need erupted like a fireball.

Adam sensed her quickening desire as surely as he did his own. He hadn’t come out here for this. Had only followed her into the yard to see if something was wrong. If she was all right.

He’d felt her leave their bed and told himself that he should let her go. But in moments, he’d been following her and when he’d seen her here in the moonlight, something inside him had fisted into a hard knot of pure lust.

Looking into her eyes now, he knew this was dangerous. He knew that she would be building on this encounter, turning it into something romantic. Something that might lead to a future for the two of them. But he’d warned her, hadn’t he?

They’d gone into this with their eyes open, both of them. He was only doing what he could to keep his end of the bargain. Making love with her was just a part of the deal. That’s all this was.

All it could be.

All he’d allow it to be.

He shook his head, letting thoughts and worries fly from his mind as he concentrated only on this moment with her. He wouldn’t question this fire. Wouldn’t try to define it.

As Gina had said, they had now.

Keeping his gaze locked on hers, Adam reached for the fly of his jeans, undid the last two buttons and freed himself. She sucked in a gulp of air and curled her fingers around him. Now it was Adam’s turn to hiss in a breath through clenched teeth. Her touch was torment and pleasure rolled into one.

As she slid her hand up and down his thick length, he fought for control and knew he was losing.

Knew he didn’t care.




Nine


She wrapped her legs around his waist and Adam turned, bracing his bare back against the fence post. The weathered, rough wood scraped at his skin but he couldn’t care. All he felt, all he wanted to feel, was the woman in his arms.

He balanced her slender, curvy weight easily as he lowered her onto his body, inch by tantalizing inch. She slid over him in a slick heat that enveloped him in a rush of sensation like nothing he’d never known before.

Every time with Gina was like the first time.

And damn it, he didn’t want to admit that. Not even to himself. But she was so much more than he’d expected. Her laughter filled him. Her temper challenged him. Her passion ignited his.

Adam held her, hands at her bottom, supporting her weight, easing her up and down on his thick erection. Every move dazzled. Every withdrawal was agony. Every thrust was victory. He filled her and her body opened and held him as if made to fit his.

Her head fell back as she rode him and arched into him. He could watch her all night. Listen to her sighs. Smell the sweet, slightly citrus scent of her skin. He watched every movement she made and saw the moonlight kiss her flesh with a silvery wash that made her seem lit up from within. And when she lifted her head to look at him, that same moon danced in her eyes.

He snaked one hand up her back, cradled her head in his hand and drew her mouth to his as his body tightened, fisting in anticipation. Again and again, she moved on him, rocking, swiveling her hips, driving him faster, harder than he’d ever gone before and still it wasn’t enough.

He wanted.

He…needed…her.

Her tongue tangled with his and he took everything she offered. Her breath mingled with his. She trembled as her climax hit and when she groaned into his mouth, he swallowed it, taking that, as well. He wanted all of her. Needed all of her. And knew, bone-deep, that he would never get enough of her.

Then all thought ceased as he finally surrendered to a shattering release. And as he filled her with everything he had, he wondered if this was the night they would make the child that would end what was between them.



She still wasn’t pregnant.

Gina’d worried a little after that night in the ranch yard two months ago. But the fates were apparently on her side, because her period had arrived right on time.

So she was still married and still trying to find a way to convince the man she loved that he loved her, too.

“You’re thinking about Adam,” her mother said. “I see it on your face.”

Gina looked up from her place at the Torino kitchen table. She’d been assigned that chair when she was a little girl and she still headed straight for it whenever she came home again.

Sunlight speared through the wide windows her mother kept at a high gloss at all times. A clock on the wall chimed twelve times and in the backyard, Papa’s golden retriever barked at a squirrel. Soup simmered on the stove, filling the air with the scents of beef and oregano.

Nothing in this room ever changed, Gina thought. Oh, there was fresh paint—same shade of bright yellow—every couple of years, new rugs or curtains and the occasional new set of pans, but otherwise, it was the same as it had always been. The heart of the Torino house.

The kitchen was where the family had breakfast and dinner. Where she and her brothers had complained and laughed and sometimes cried about whatever was happening in their lives. Her parents, the foundation of the family, had listened, advised and punished when necessary. And each of their children came home whenever they could, just to touch base with their beginnings.

Of course, if there was something they didn’t want their parents to know, it was best to stay away. Especially from Mama. She didn’t miss much.

Her mother was standing at the kitchen counter, putting finishing touches on the lunch she’d insisted Gina eat, while waiting for her daughter’s answer.

“I must look happy then, huh?” Gina quipped and smiled too brightly.

“No, you do not.” Her mother picked up the plate holding a sandwich and some homemade pasta salad. Carrying it to the table, she plunked it down, poured two tall glasses of iced tea and took a seat opposite her daughter. “I worry about you, Gina. Two months you’re with Adam. You do not look happy. You think I don’t see it in your eyes?”

“Mama…”

“Fine,” her mother said, grabbing her glass to chug some of her tea. “You want a baby. I understand. How could I not? I, too, wanted babies. But you want them with the man you love. With a father who will also love the child you make.”

“I do love him,” Gina said and took a bite of the roast beef sandwich, because knowing her mother, she’d never be allowed to leave until she did. She chewed, swallowed and said, “Adam loved his son. He would love our child, too. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.”

Teresa crossed herself quickly at the mention of Adam’s dead son and conceded, “He did love that boy. Such a tragedy. But you know as well as everyone else he changed when he lost his family.”

Gina shifted uneasily on her chair and used her fork to move bow tie pasta around on her plate. “That’s natural enough, isn’t it?”

“Yes. It is. But he does not want to move on, Gina. The darkness in him is thick and heavy and he doesn’t want it lifted.”

“You don’t know that.”

Her mother snorted. “You do not want to see it.”

Gina sighed, dropped her fork and said, “We’ve been over this.”

Teresa Torino set her glass down, reached across the table and patted her daughter’s hand. “And we will again. Until I make you see that you are making a mistake that will only cause you pain.”

“Mama…”

The older woman sat back, folded her arms beneath her copious breasts and frowned. “So. You get pregnant. Then what? You leave? Then you walk away from your baby’s father? You believe you can do this? With no pain?”

Just thinking about it was painful, but admitting that would probably be the wrong move. Besides, she was still hoping she wouldn’t have to walk away. That Adam wouldn’t want to let her go. “Adam and I made a deal.”

“Sì.” Her mother sniffed in disgust. “So your papa tells me all the time. A deal. What kind of a way is that to start a marriage?”

“Um,” Gina said, picking her fork up again to take a bite of her mom’s pasta salad—only the best in the known universe, “excuse me, but didn’t Papa go to Italy to meet you because his parents knew your parents and they thought you two would make a good couple?”

Teresa’s big brown eyes narrowed on her daughter. “You think you’re so smart, eh?”

“Pretty smart,” Gina acknowledged with a smile. “I know my family history anyway.”

“Yes, but you also know this,” her mother said, sitting forward suddenly and leaning her forearms on the yellow-and-white-vinyl-cloth-covered table. “My papa told me I should marry Sal Torino and move to America. I argued with him. Told him I wouldn’t marry a man I didn’t love. Then I took one look at your papa and loved him in that instant.” She lifted one hand and wagged her index finger at Gina. “One look. I knew. I knew it was right. That this marriage would last and be a good one. Can you say the same?”

Spearing another piece of pasta, Gina met her mother’s worried gaze and said softly, “I’ve loved Adam since I was a kid, Mama. One look. I knew.”

Teresa blew out an exasperated sigh. “Is not the same.”

“No, it’s not,” Gina said wearily. “Papa wanted to get married. Adam didn’t. But,” she added, “we are married. And I know he cares for me.”

“Care is not love,” her mother warned softly.

“No, but it could be. Mama, Adam needs me. I love him and I’m going to try to make this work. For both of us. Can’t you be on my side? Please?”

Astonishment crossed her mother’s features as her brown eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. Standing up, Teresa moved around the kitchen table to stand beside Gina. She cupped her daughter’s face between her palms, then drew her in close, wrapped her arms around her girl and held on tightly. “Of course I am on your side, Gina. I’m your mother. I want for you all that you want. Always. I only wish to spare you pain.”

Gina held on and let herself be rocked for a while, taking comfort from the one source she’d always been able to count on. She thought of Adam, saw his face in her mind, felt his touch in her memory and her heart lifted, despite the odds being stacked against her. For two months, she’d lived with him, loved with him. She’d wormed her way into his house and could only hope she was worming her way into his heart, as well.

The chance she was taking was worth it. She had to believe that. She had to try. Otherwise, she’d always wonder if she’d given up on Adam too soon.

“I know that, Mama, I do,” she said, her voice getting more determined with every word. “But sometimes, you can only get to happy by going through the pain.”



“That wife of yours is a real hand with horses,” Sam Ottowell said as he thumbed through a sheaf of receipts for ranch supplies.

“Yes.” Adam smiled. “She is.” Then he leaned over his foreman’s desk and pulled a notebook toward him. Making a few quick notations, he dropped it again. “I want you to call Flanagan’s. Get an extra order of oats out here. With Gina’s horses here, too, we’re going through twice as much.”

“Right,” Sam said, leaning back in his chair, propping his hands on his abundant belly. “She’s really something, you know? Got those damn animals following her around like trained puppies or something. Girl’s got a gift with horses.”

She had a lot of gifts, Adam thought. Most particularly, she had a gift for throwing his perfectly organized life into turmoil. He’d hardly had a moment to himself since entering into this little wedding bargain. And the moments he did manage to find, his thoughts usually turned to her anyway.

“You hear those kids?” Sam asked, cocking his head as if to better hear the laughter drifting to them from the corral.

“Hard not to,” Adam snapped. Though God knew he was trying.

Sam’s features went stiff and blank in a heartbeat. He sat up, reached for the Rolodex and asked, “You going to call Simpson about the hundred-acre lot he wants to lease?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, grabbing on to the change of subject with both hands. He checked his watch, then said, “I’ll call his office tomorrow. We can work out—”

Whatever else he might have said was cut off at the sound of a scream shredding the air.

With Sam right behind him, Adam raced out of the barn, heart in his throat and skidded to a stop when that scream turned into peals of laughter. His gaze shot to the corral and everything in him fisted into a tight knot.

A boy, no more than four or five, was seated on the back of one of the Gypsy horses. The child’s parents were standing outside the corral, watching the scene with indulgent smiles as a daughter, no more than ten, hopped up and down impatiently awaiting her turn on the horse.

Gina walked alongside the tiny would-be cowboy, her hand on the boy’s thigh, holding him in place while she grinned up at him. The boy’s delighted laughter spilled into the air like soap bubbles and Adam wrestled with the pain lodged in the center of his chest.

He couldn’t move. Couldn’t tear his gaze from Gina and the boy as they moved slowly around the inside of the corral. He noticed everything. The sunlight on the boy’s blond hair, the steady gait of the horse, the patient smile on Gina’s face. Again and again, the boy laughed as he petted and stroked the mare’s neck, his tiny fingers getting lost in the thick, black mane.

“Uh, I’ll just head on back to the office,” Sam said, and slipped away unnoticed.

While his vision narrowed to that solitary child, Adam’s mind filled with images of another boy. On another sunny day. Another lifetime ago.

“I want to stay with you, Daddy.” Jeremy’s big brown eyes were filled with tears and his lower lip trembled.

“I know you do,” Adam said, checking his wristwatch and inwardly wincing. He was already late for a meeting. There were offers to be made, documents to be signed, dreams to be crushed. Instead of that wince, he smiled to himself. Since taking over the family ranch, he’d already made a difference.

He’d found new buyers for their grain and cattle. New tenants for the farmland and he had plans to rebuild the King stables.

If that meant spending less time with his wife and son than he would have liked, that’s the price he would pay. He was doing this for their future.

“Please let me stay,” Jeremy said and a single tear rolled down his cheek. “I’ll be good.”

“Jeremy,” he said, going down on one knee long enough to look his son in the eye. “I know you’d be good. But I’ve got work. I can’t play now anyway. You’ll have more fun with Mommy.”

Adam lifted his gaze to the woman standing behind his son. Monica didn’t look any happier than Jeremy, but rather than tears in her eyes, there was fire. Anger. An expression Adam had become more and more used to seeing.

Jeremy’s chin hit his chest and his narrow shoulders slumped in dejection. He rubbed the toe of his bright red tennis shoe in the dirt, sniffed loudly and ran one hand under his nose. “’Kay.”

As the boy turned and walked with slow, miserable steps toward the silver sedan parked in the driveway, Adam stood up to face his wife.

“That’s so typical of you, Adam,” she muttered, shooting a look over her shoulder at their son to make sure he was out of earshot.

“Let’s not do this right now, all right?” He checked his wristwatch again and Monica hissed in a breath.

“You never want to ‘do’ this, Adam. That’s the problem.”

“I don’t have time for it, all right?”

“Why don’t you schedule me in for a week from Tuesday, Adam? Will I get one minute? Or two?”

He blew out a breath, reached out one hand to her, but she skipped back to avoid his touch. Adam sighed. “You know as well as I do, I’ve got responsibilities.”

“Yes, you do.”

He was irritated, angry and just a little weary of this whole situation. Monica had less and less patience with what she saw as Adam’s “preoccupation” with the King ranch. And as she pulled further away from him, he did the same. The ranch was his family’s legacy. It took time. Dedication.

The car door closed behind Jeremy and he looked to see his son pull the seat belt across his chest and hook it securely.

Glancing back at his wife, Adam said, “Can we not do this now? I’ve got a meeting.”

“Right.” She shook her head, blond hair flying in a tight, short arc around her jawline. “Wouldn’t want you to miss a meeting just because of your family.”

“Damn it, Monica.”

“Damn you, Adam.” She turned and stalked to the car without another look at him. Just before she opened the car door, though, she allowed her gaze to lock with his. “Not that you’ll notice or anything, but I thought you should know—we’re not coming back. Jeremy and I are driving to my mother’s in San Francisco. I’ll let you know where to send our things once we’re settled.”

“Just a damn minute,” Adam said, starting for her.

But she hopped into the car, fired the engine and raced down the driveway before he could get to her. He watched dust and gravel fantail up behind the wheels of her car. The sun beat down on his head and shoulders and despite the heat, he felt cold. Right down to his bones.

The dust settled and still he stood there, watching after the car carrying his wife and son away from him. Then the alarm on his watch beeped and he idly reached to turn it off. He had to leave for the meeting. He’d give Monica a chance to cool off. Then they’d talk. Work this out.

He headed for his SUV.

First things first. He had just enough time to make that meeting.

Twenty minutes later, Jeremy and Monica were dead.

Adam came up out of the past with a jolt.

It had been years since he’d allowed himself to remember that day. But now, it had all rushed back at him because of the child, still laughing, in the corral.




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