“And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll sit there until you think better of it.”

This time he had the audacity to laugh. “Who’s going to make me?”

“Me,” she declared.

“Oh, really? Now that is a fascinating prospect. Care to share your tactics for keeping a man who’s twice your size where you want him?”

“You don’t want to know,” she said. “Trust me, though. I can do it.” She wasn’t exactly sure how, but she would manage it, if it came to that. “Now, talk. What happened when you were with Hank and Dooley? Did the three of you get into it about something? I know they distrust you, but they’re just being protective of me.”

“I know that. And I respect the fact that they’re loyal to you.”

“Then you didn’t have an argument?”

“No.”

She regarded him with exasperation. “But something did happen?”

He beamed at her. “I’ll take that pie now. Make it a big piece with lots of ice cream on top.”

“Not a chance. It’s too late for that. I want to know what went on out there today or that pie goes straight into the garbage.”

Grady sighed heavily. “You’re a very persistent woman, you know that?”

“Yes,” she said proudly.

“It’s a very annoying trait.”

“I suppose that depends on your point of view,” she countered.

“I imagine I could distract you, if I wanted to,” he said, eyeing her thoughtfully.

“I doubt that.”

“Are you challenging me to try?”

Karen spotted the spark of mischief in his eyes and realized that she’d just made a serious tactical error. Before she could correct it, he was on his feet and reaching for her.

With a look of grim determination, he slanted his mouth across hers. Whatever his intention, though, whether to silence her or challenge her, it quickly became something else entirely. The coaxing kiss turned greedy. Gentle persuasion became breath-stealing hunger.

All thoughts about winners and losers in their battle of wits fled as they set a new, common goal: passion. Karen’s head went spinning, her pulse ricocheted wildly, her blood heated and pooled low in her belly.

This is wrong, she thought. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

And yet she couldn’t seem to stop, couldn’t seem to pause even long enough to catch her breath. A frantic neediness was making her breasts ache and her body eager. Grady had moved beyond kisses now. His hands were everywhere, gentle, persuasive, provocative.

Karen felt the buttons on her dress give way, felt the cool air against her overheated skin, then the warmth of Grady’s clever caresses as they streaked fire in their path. She wanted things she had never expected to feel again, wanted to feel gloriously alive and loved and irresistible. Grady was giving her all of that with his wicked kisses and increasingly intimate touches.

“Not here,” she pleaded, when her dress was in a tangle around her feet and her bra was across the room.

“Tell me where,” he said, scooping her into his arms.

“Upstairs.”

At the top of the stairs, he hesitated, and so did she. Not in her room, not in the bed she’d shared with Caleb.

“Over there,” she said, gesturing toward the guest room with its colorful quilt on an antique iron bed.

There were no memories in this room, no personal mementos of her years with Caleb.

The sheets were crisp and smelled of sunshine, not the lingering-or imagined-scent of a familiar aftershave. The mattress was firm, not shaped by years of accommodating two bodies that slept curved together in the middle.

She couldn’t help thinking of the contrasts as Grady lowered her onto the bed, then slid in next to her, his gaze tender as he slowly stripped away her remaining clothes. The trip to the second floor had eased the tension, the frantic need, but with one glance, one touch, he was able to bring it back until she was lying there trembling and desperate for the feel of him deep inside her.

She tugged at his shirt with impatient fingers, pushing it up and over his head, then setting to work on the snap of his jeans with total concentration. She couldn’t seem to manage it, though. Her fingers trembled and, next to the heat of his bare belly, they felt icy cold. He rested his hand atop hers, then met her gaze.

“It’s okay. There’s no rush,” he reminded her.

“There is,” she insisted, struggling to free herself from his grasp so that she could finish what they had begun.

She almost missed the flash of wariness in his eyes, it came and went so quickly. But it had been there and for an instant, she felt a flicker of shame.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice ragged.

“Why?”

“I don’t want you to think I’m using you, that I just want this to be over with.”

His smile was tinged with unmistakable sadness. “Isn’t that the truth, though? At least part of it?”

“Maybe,” she finally confessed in a small voice. “I want you, Grady, but I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“That it’s for all the wrong reasons, just like you said.”

He rolled away from her, locked his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling until his breathing steadied. Karen felt bereft, but she didn’t pursue him, didn’t dare touch him the way she desperately wanted to.

Finally, when she thought she wouldn’t be able to bear the tension building inside her for another second, he reached for her hand, pressed it to his lips. “Another time,” he said quietly and without rancor.

Tears stinging her eyes, she reached for the sheet, clutched it to her bare breasts. “Are you sure?”

His gaze met hers. “Oh, darlin’, if I am sure of anything in this world, it’s that. There will be another time for this, for the two of us. And when it happens, we’ll both be sure it’s the right thing for the right reasons.”

A smile curved his lips. “Now come over here and cuddle up beside me.”

Sheet firmly tucked in place, she slid closer until she could feel his heat warming her and the steady beating of his heart beneath her ear. And in that moment, her heart filled with gratitude and maybe something else, something that felt an awful lot like the first amazing moments of falling head-over-heels in love.

Chapter Ten

With Karen curved securely against him, Grady was having a hard time thinking straight, but he forced himself to concentrate on that severed barbed wire. It was about the only thing sufficiently fascinating to distract him from the warmth of her body curled next to his.

First chance he got, he was going to track down Tate McDonald and then get his private investigator doing checks on all of the neighboring property owners. One of them was holding a grudge against Karen, or against him. Since he’d never even met McDonald and barely knew the Fletchers or the Oldhams, it seemed likely the dispute was with Karen. Either way, it needed to be settled before things got ugly.

Karen sighed softly, her breath stealing across his bare chest and ruining his concentration. He thought he’d been rather clever at distracting her from all of her questions earlier, even if the outcome had been less than what he’d anticipated. He could wait until she was ready to make love, even if it was getting more and more difficult.

She moaned and snuggled more tightly against him. The sheet slipped away, revealing way too much of an alluring breast, a taut dusky nipple. His breath caught in his throat as he struggled yet again against temptation. He was more sinner than saint, and this was too much.

Gently he shook her awake, tugging the sheet back into place as her eyes blinked open, registering first surprise, then sleepy delight, then worry as she realized she had fallen asleep in his arms. The reactions pretty much summed up their relationship, a curious mix that had kept Grady off guard for weeks now. He’d tried staying away twice now, but it hadn’t worked. He’d concluded he was going to have to see this through to whatever ending it was headed for.