Chapter Nine

C alla was cursing a blue streak when Abby walked into the kitchen the next morning at six, wearing a yellow sundress with an elasticized bodice and tiny straps that tied over each shoulder.

“Having to fry bacon and chicken all at once,” the housekeeper muttered darkly as she stood over the stove. “Picnics, with all I got to do!” She glared over her shoulder at Abby. “Well, don’t just stand there, girl, go set the table!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Abby said smartly and curtsied. The dress was one she’d designed herself, and with her loosened blond hair, she looked like something out of a fashion magazine. Calla stopped muttering long enough to give her an approving stare. “Nice,” she said after a minute. “You make that yourself?”

“Sure did.” She whirled around for Calla’s benefit, her skirt flying against her long, smooth legs. “It’s cool and comfortable and it doesn’t bind. I’ll make you one, if you like.”

“I can just see me in something like that.” The older woman sighed, indicating the dowdy housedress that covered her ample figure. Then her watery blue eyes narrowed. “You watch Cade while you’re out there alone with him, you hear me? I ain’t blind. I saw how you looked when you came out of his room last night. You make him keep his distance.”

Abby felt her cheeks go hot. “Now, Calla…”

“Don’t you ‘now, Calla’ me! I know Cade. He hasn’t been the same since you walked through the front door, and it ain’t because of the cattle.” Her chin lifted. “You and I both know how he feels about weddings, Abigail,” she added gently, using the younger woman’s full name, as she rarely did except when she was serious. “You’re my lamb, and I love him, too, but I don’t want you hurt. Melly told me what happened. Don’t you jump out of the frying pan into the fire. All you’ll find here is heartache.”

Abby smothered an urge to hug the concerned old woman, knowing it wouldn’t be welcome. “You’re sure about that?” she asked softly.

“He looks at you like a starving man looks at a steak smothered with onions,” Calla replied. “But once he’s fed, young lady, he’s just as likely to find he’s lost his taste for steak. You get my meaning? Wanting ain’t loving.”

“I know that,” she said on a wistful sigh.

“Then act accordingly. He’s been sticking close to the ranch for quite a while now,” Calla added gently. “A hungry man is dangerous.”

“I’m a big girl,” Abby reminded her. “I can look out for myself—most of the time, anyway.”

“And what time you can’t, I will,” came the fervent promise. “Now go set the table.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Abby said, grinning.

She carried two place settings of everyday china into the dining room and helped put the food on the table. Cade was uncharacteristically late getting downstairs, and she was almost ready to go up and call him when he walked into the room.

He looked as if he hadn’t slept a wink. His dark hair was damp from a shower, and he was wearing a tan patterned Western shirt over rust-colored denims, and polished tan boots. He looked rugged and formidable, and so solemn that he intimidated her.

“I thought you were going to fix fences,” Abby remarked.

“I am,” he muttered. He sat down at the head of the table and stared at her for a long moment, taking in every line of her face and body. “When you finish your breakfast, go back upstairs and get dressed. I’m not taking you on a picnic half-naked.”

The sudden attack left her dumb. She gaped at him with wide, hurt eyes before she put down her napkin and got up from the table in tears. She’d worn the sundress especially for him, to please him.

“Where are you going?” Calla demanded, elbowing in with a platter of scrambled eggs.

“To put on some clothes,” Abby said in a subdued tone, and didn’t look back.

“Now what have you done?” Calla was demanding, but Abby didn’t wait around to hear the answer. She rushed up to her room and slammed the door with tears boiling down her flushed cheeks.

She cried for what seemed hours before she dragged herself up and put on her blue jeans and a short-sleeved blue blouse. She put on a vest over that, a fringed leather one, and put her hair up in a bun. Before she went back downstairs, she scrubbed off every trace of makeup, as well.

When she walked back into the room, pale and silent, Cade barely glanced at her.

“If you’d like to call the picnic off, I can finish Melly’s wedding dress instead,” she said as she sipped her coffee, ignoring the eggs and sausage and fresh, hot biscuits.

“I’d like to call everything off, if you want to know,” he said shortly.

“That’s fine with me. I have plenty to keep me busy.” She finished her coffee and, trying not to let him see how hurt she really was, smiled in his general direction and got up.

“Abby.”

She stopped, keeping her back to him. “What?”

He drew in a slow breath. “Let’s talk.”

“I can’t think what we have to talk about,” she said with a careless laugh, turning to face him with fearless eyes. “I’ll be leaving as soon as Melly comes back after her honeymoon, you know. But I can go right now, if you like. I’ve had an interesting offer from a boutique owner—”

His eyes flashed fire, and he cut her off sharply before she could tell him the rest. “And you’ll be off to another landmark in your career, I suppose?” he asked with a mocking smile. “It’s just as well, honey—I plan to do some traveling on my own in the next few months. There’s only one job here, and Melly’s got it.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t particularly enjoy keeping records on cattle,” she replied with a cool smile.

He stood up and lit a cigarette, leaving his second cup of coffee untouched on the table. “Calla’s got the picnic basket packed. We might as well spend today together. It’ll sure as hell be the last time we have, because starting tomorrow I’ll be out with the boys constantly.”

“Why don’t you take Calla on a picnic?” she asked coldly. “You like her.”

His nostrils flared as he stared down at her from his superior height. “I used to like you pretty well,” he reminded her.

“Sure, as long as I stayed away.” She moved about restlessly. “I should have stayed in New York. I didn’t think I’d be welcomed here with open arms….”

“You might have been, once,” he said enigmatically, “if you hadn’t decided that the world of fashion meant more to you than a home and family.”

She glanced up at him narrowly. “Pull the other one.” She laughed. “If I’d stayed here, I would have withered away and become just another old maid dotting the landscape, and you know it. Or are you going to try and tell me that you were dying for love of me?” she added mockingly.

His dark eyes went quietly over her face. “Why would I waste time telling you something you wouldn’t believe in the first place?” he asked. “If we’re going, let’s go. I don’t have time to stand around talking.”

“Oh, by all means, the ranch might fall apart!” she replied, and walked into the kitchen.

Calla glanced at her and scowled, a scowl that grew even fiercer when she saw Cade. “There’s the basket,” she grumbled at him.

“Thanks a hell of a lot,” Cade snapped back, grabbing the picnic basket. “If you need extra help here, hire it. Or quit. But don’t bother me with it. I’m slam out of patience, Calla.”

And he slammed his hat over his brow and stormed out the back door ahead of Abby.

“Watch out,” the housekeeper said sympathetically. “Something’s eating him today.”

“If he keeps that up, I’ll find something that really will eat him!” Abby promised. “A wandering cannibal…” she muttered as she followed him out the door.

Cade drove them through pastures where there were little more than ruts for the truck to follow, and Abby held on to the seat for dear life, afraid to say a word. His face was grim, eyes doggedly on the ruts, and he looked as if the slightest sound would set him off.

But later, after he’d stripped off his shirt and rewired two or three strands of barbed wire in a pasture near the river, he seemed to have worked off some of his irritation.

Abby, who’d already spread out the picnic lunch under the cottonwoods near the river, wandered through the towering break of pines and spruce to find him.

He was leaning back against the truck smoking a cigarette, his eyes on the distant mountains across the rolling grasslands. His hat was off, his gloves were still in place and he looked as much a part of the land as the tall grasses that grew there. With his shirt gone, his chest was revealed, the thick wedge of hair damp with sweat, his tanned shoulders gleaming with moisture. Abby almost closed her eyes at the sight of all that provocative masculinity so close and tempting. She wanted desperately to touch him, to run her hands over those broad shoulders and feel the texture of the thick hair that covered the bronzed muscles of his chest. But she didn’t dare.

“Lunch is ready, when you are,” she said quietly.

He glanced at her solemnly. “I’ve patched the fence,” he said. His eyes went back to the mountains. “God, I love this country,” he added in a tone deep and soft with reverence. “I could stand and look over it for hours and never tire of the sight.”

“It wouldn’t have been much different in the old days, when trappers and fur traders and explorers like William Clark came here,” she remarked, going to stand beside him. The wind was tearing at the tight bun of her hair, but she pinned it back relentlessly.

“It’s different,” Cade said shortly, his eyes straight ahead. “It’s damned hard balancing between environmental protection and progress, Abby.”

“Between mining and ranching, agriculture and industry?” she asked gently, because it was a subject that could set him off like a time bomb.

“Exactly.” He glanced toward one of the grassy ridges that faced away from the mountains. There was mining a few miles beyond that ridge, on land Cade had leased for the purpose. It had been a struggle, that decision, but in the end he’d bowed to the nation’s struggle for fuel independence.

“I wanted to keep the ranch exactly as it was, for my sons to inherit,” he said, his voice strangely intense. His eyes searched hers for a long moment. “Do you want children, Abby?”

The question knocked her sideways. She hadn’t thought much about children, except when she was around Cade. Now she looked at him and pictured him with a child on his knee, and something inside her burst into wild bloom.

“Yes,” she murmured involuntarily.

His gaze dropped lower, to her slender body. “Aren’t you afraid of losing your figure?” he asked carelessly, and averted his head while he finished the cigarette.

She didn’t dare answer, afraid that her longing for his children would be evident in her voice. Instead, she changed the subject. “Where do you plan to get those sons to leave Painted Ridge to? Are you adopting?”

His dark eyebrows shot up. “I’ll get them in the usual way. You do know how people make babies?” he added, a mocking smile shadowing his hard face.

She flushed and turned away. “You always say marriage isn’t in your book, Cade. I just wondered, that’s all.”

“Maybe I’ll be forced to change my mind eventually,” he remarked, tossing his gloves in the open window of the truck as he followed her back through the trees to the river.

She knelt on one side of the red-checked tablecloth, where she’d laid out foil-covered plates of food and the jug of coffee Calla had packed in the basket.

“Are you going to taste it first?” he asked, moving to the river to slosh water over his face and chest while she dished up the food.

“I think I’ll let you, after what you said to her,” Abby replied. “She might have put arsenic in it.”

“She didn’t have time.” He came back to the cloth, grabbing up one of several linen towels in the basket. He dabbed at his face and chest, and Abby watched him helplessly, hungrily, as his hands drew the cloth over the warm muscles with their furry covering.

He happened to look up, and his eyes flashed violently at her intense scrutiny.

She couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt so intimidated by him or so attracted to him, all at once. She dropped her eyes back to the cloth and dished up the fried chicken, potato salad and rolls, with hands she could barely keep steady.

“Nervous of me, Abby?” he asked quietly, easing his formidable bulk down beside her, far too close, to take the plate she handed him.

“Should I be?” she countered. She poured him a cup of black coffee and automatically added cream before she handed him the foam cup. “After all, you’re the one who should be worrying. I seem to make a habit of throwing myself at you,” she added with bitter humor.

“And if you don’t get off my ranch pretty quick, Abigail Shane, you may do it once too often,” he said flatly. His eyes were dark and full of secrets as he nibbled at a piece of chicken.

“I have utter trust in your remarkable self-control, Mr. McLaren,” she muttered, picking at her own food while he put his away like a last meal.

He made a strange sound, a laugh that died away too quickly, and finished his food before he spoke again. He swallowed his coffee and stretched out lazily on the ground while Abby gathered up the remnants of the picnic and put everything except the red-checkered cloth back in the hamper and set it aside.

“You’ll be busy with roundup from now on, I guess,” she commented after a long silence. Her eyes went to the distant grassy ridges, green and lonely, with pale blue mountains beyond them. The only trees in sight were the ones they were under, and the small thicket of pines nearby. It was like paradise, all clean air and open land and fluffy clouds drifting overhead.

“It’s spring,” he remarked. “Calves won’t brand themselves.”

“How’s your shoulder?”

“I reckon I won’t die,” he muttered. He was smoking another cigarette, something he seemed to be doing constantly these days. He had once said it was something he did a lot when he was nervous. That almost made her laugh. He would never be nervous around her.

She drew up her jean-clad legs and rested her chin on her updrawn knees, sighing as she watched the river flow lazily by. “Remember when we came fishing up here the summer I graduated from high school?” she said. “You and me and Melly and a couple of the hands? You caught the biggest crappie I’d ever seen, and Melly got her hook caught in one of the cowboy’s jeans….” She laughed, remembering the incident as if it were yesterday.

She stared at the river, lost in memory. It had been a day much like this one. Green and full of sun and laughter. Hank had been along; so had a cowboy whose name she couldn’t remember—one Melly had a crush on. But Abby had somehow wandered close to Cade and stayed there while they fished in the river.

It was just a few weeks after he’d taken her to his room, and she’d been much too shy to approach him, but she’d eased as close as she could get.

“Cold?” he’d teased, glancing down at her.

And she’d blushed, looking away. “Oh, maybe a little,” she’d lied. But they both knew the truth, although it didn’t seem to bother him a bit.

“Jesse said you’d been thinking about going to New York,” he’d mentioned.

“One of my teachers said I had the right carriage and figure and face for it,” Abby had said enthusiastically, dreaming how it would be to have Cade and a career all at once.

“New York is a long way from Painted Ridge,” he’d murmured, scowling at his fishing rod. “And full of disappointment.”

That had pricked her temper, as if he didn’t think she were pretty enough or poised enough for such a career in a big city.

“You don’t think I can do it?” she’d asked with deceptive softness.

He’d laughed. “You’re just a kid, Abby.”

“I was eighteen last month. I’m a woman,” she’d argued.

His head had turned. His dark eyes had gone over every inch of the shorts and tank top she wore, darkening at the sight of her slender, well-proportioned body.

“You’re a woman, all right,” he’d said, and looked up.

Her eyes had met his at point-blank range. Even now, she could remember the wild feelings that look had stirred, the hot pleasure of his eyes holding hers. Oblivious to everything around them, she’d actually moved toward him.

And Melly had said something to break the delicate spell. For the rest of the afternoon, they’d fished, and Cade’s manner had relaxed a little. She’d tossed a worm at him out of pique when he caught the fish she’d been trying to land for several hours. And he’d picked her up bodily and thrown her in the river….

“You threw me in the river,” she remarked suddenly, glaring at him.

His eyebrows arched. “I what?”

“That day we went fishing, the month before I left for New York,” she reminded him. “You threw me in the river.”

He chuckled softly. “So I did. But you started it, honey. That damned worm hit me right between the eyes.”

“It was my fish you caught,” she muttered. “My big crappie. I’d half hooked him and he’d gotten away three times. And you just sat there and hauled him out of circulation forever.”

“I let you have half of him when Calla cooked him,” he reminded her. “That should have made up for it a little.”

Her full lips pouted. “I don’t know about your half, but mine tasted bitter.”

“Sour grapes,” he said, grinning. “If you’d caught him, your half would have been twice as good as mine, wouldn’t it?”

She shrugged. “Well, I guess so.” Her eyes gazed over the river dreamily. “I used to love fishing. Now I don’t have time for anything except work. Or didn’t have, until I came back here. Funny how time seems to stop in a place like this,” she added quietly. “Not another soul in sight, and you can drive for miles without seeing a ranch house or a store. It must have looked like this when the first settlers came and put down roots. The winter killed a lot of them didn’t it?”

He nodded. “Montana winters are rough. I know. I lose cattle every year, and once we lost a man in a line cabin. He froze to death sitting up.”

She shivered. “I remember. That was when I was just out of grammar school. When Melly and I went riding, we wouldn’t go near that cabin, thinking it was haunted.”

He shook his head. “Well, I’ve got a couple of old hands now who feel the same way. Hank’s one.”

“I didn’t think Hank was afraid of anything.”

He lifted an amused eyebrow. “Do you ever miss this, in New York?”

She searched his face, thinking how she missed him every waking moment. She looked away. “I miss it a lot. There’s so much history here. So much privacy and peace.” She remembered the role she had to play, almost too late. “But, of course, New York has its good points, as well. There’s always a new play to see. Sometimes I go to the opera or the ballet. And there are nightclubs and little coffeehouses, and museums….”

“None of which you find around here,” he said harshly. “There’s not much place for sophistication in the middle of a cattle spread, is there?”

He was watching her with narrowed, calculating eyes, and a dark kind of pain washed over his face before she saw it. Deliberately he crushed out the cigarette on the ground beside him.

She turned, glancing down at him. He was lying on his back with his hands under his head, and his eyes were closed. His powerful legs were crossed, stretching the denim sensuously over their muscular contours. Her eyes took in every detail, from head to broad chest to quiet face, and she felt suddenly reckless.

She picked up a long blade of grass and moved close enough to draw it lightly over his chest.

He grabbed it. “Courting trouble, Abby?” he asked curtly.

There was a wildness in her that sprang from looking at his impassive face. He wouldn’t let her close—he spent his life pushing her away. Today would be the last day she’d ever have with him to remember, and today she was going to make him feel something. Even if it was only rage.

“Oh, I just live for it, Cade,” she murmured, edging closer. She bent over him before he could stop her, and pressed her lips down on his broad, warm chest.

“God!” he burst out, catching the back of her head. But his hands hesitated, as if he couldn’t decide whether to push or pull.

Her nostrils tickled where the thick, curling hair brushed them and she smelled the faint traces of soap and cologne that clung to him. His chest rose and fell with ragged irregularity and she felt the powerful muscles stiffen as she drew her mouth across them, acting on pure instinct alone.

“You sweet little fool,” he rasped. “Oh, God, I’m only human, and I want you until I can hardly stand up straight…!”

He jerked her alongside him and bent over her with hands that trembled as his mouth homed in on hers.

Hungry as she’d never imagined she could be, she turned in his big arms and pressed close, half shocked to find his body blatantly aroused as it touched hers. For an instant she tried to draw away, but one lean, steely hand slid quickly to the base of her spine and gathered her hips back against his.

“You wanted it,” he ground out against her mouth. “Don’t start fighting me now.”

Her hands were tangled in the hair over his chest, but she was still rational enough to realize just how involved he already was. “Cade, I only wanted—” she began, only to have the words crushed under his devouring mouth.

“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you all along,” he whispered shakily, moving his lips to her throat. “I want you, Abby. I’d die to have you! And you can feel how much now, can’t you? This is how it is between lovers. This is what happens to a man when he’s pushed beyond his limits.”

Even as he spoke, his hands were sliding under her blouse, finding bare skin at her back and a clasp that snapped apart with devastating ease.

“I haven’t been with a woman for so damned long, I’d forgotten how soft…” he murmured, sliding his fingers under her breasts to cup their tender weight. His thumbs found suddenly hard peaks, making her shudder with new pleasure.

Abby’s legs moved restlessly as Cade’s eased between them. He turned, and she felt the ground under her and the full weight of his big body over her. She moaned at the intimacy, unfamiliar and arousing.

Her sharp nails dug into his back and raked down to his waist, feeling the warmth and moistness of his flesh as his hands touched her in ways that should have shocked her. His mouth was hungrier than she would ever have believed possible. She opened her own mouth helplessly, eagerly, tasting him, experiencing him.

She felt his hands on the buttons of her blouse, and seconds later his chest crushed the softness of her breasts in a joining that made her cry out again.

He lifted his head and his eyes glittered frighteningly. He was trembling all over with desire, and his face was hard with it.

“Is this what you wanted to know?” he demanded unsteadily. “If you could drive me out of my mind with wanting? To see how it would be if you pushed too hard? I want you, all right. I wanted you when you were eighteen, I’d have killed for you. But when I’d made up my mind to ask you to stay with me, you got on that damned bus and you never looked at me!”

Her eyes widened with shock. “What?”

He searched her face with eyes that barely saw. “Every vacation, all I heard about was how great New York was, how well you were doing in your damned career. Until finally I made sure I was out of the house when you came to visit, because it hurt so much to hear how happy you were away from me.”

“But, I wasn’t…” she began.

He wasn’t listening. His hands slid under her hips and forced her up against his. “Feel it, damn you,” he whispered harshly. “You’ve done this to me since you were fifteen. But it’s something I hate, Abby, and I hate you, too, for doing it to me, for teasing me. Because I know you don’t give a damn for anything except your career and your city men. And nothing you say is going to convince me otherwise!”

She swallowed nervously, her mouth trembling as she realized how set his mind really was. He’d cared, and she hadn’t known. Even when Melly told her, she had refused to believe. What had she done?

“Cade,” she whispered, reaching a hand up to his face.

“What do you want, baby, to see how I make love? To get a taste of what you missed when you stepped onto that bus four years ago?” He jerked her closer and bent his head. “I don’t mind showing you. It will be something to tell your sophisticated friends about when you get back to your own world!” He kissed her again, hurting her, as if it didn’t matter anymore whether he hurt her.

She could hardly believe what she’d just heard. He’d cared, he’d really cared enough to ask her not to leave Painted Ridge. And because she’d put on a brave front and gone away laughing, he’d believed it was because she was glad to be leaving him. Of all the horrible ironies…

She went limp in his arms, tears washing her face while he treated her like something he’d bought for the night, his hands insulting, his mouth probing mercilessly into hers. It didn’t matter that she loved him more than life, because if she told him now, he wouldn’t believe her. He’d just said so, and he thought she was only teasing, playing games with him until she went home. Home. If only he knew that Painted Ridge would always be home—because it was where he was.

She felt cold to the bone, as though there were not a trace of warmth anywhere inside her trembling body. She felt the restless motion of his body against hers, and wondered through a fog of misery if he really meant to take her completely.

But seconds later, he lifted his head as if he’d just tasted the tears, and looked down at her. His face was haunted-looking, his eyes blazing with frustrated passion. His powerful body shuddered.

“And this is as far as it goes, honey,” he said with a cold, mocking smile. “You wouldn’t want to risk going back to New York with my child growing inside you, would you, Abby? That would be taking the game too far.”

Her face felt tight with hurt. She could feel her body trembling under the hard pressure of his, but he’d never know it was with helpless desire, not fear. Despite everything—even his harsh treatment—she still wanted him, would always want him. Nor did the thought of a child bring any terror to her. It was the very door of heaven.

He took a deep breath and rolled away from her, lying with his eyes closed and his bare chest lifting and falling unevenly while she fumbled with catches and buttons.

She got jerkily to her feet and smoothed down her wild blond hair, trying to find the hairpins his insistent fingers had removed. She leaned against one of the sturdy trees by the riverbank until she could get her breath back and stop crying. Finally, she dragged the hem of her blouse over her red eyes to remove the hot, salty tears from her cheeks.

She heard a sound behind her, over the noise of the river washing lazily between the banks, and she knew Cade was standing behind her. But she didn’t turn.

“Are you all right?” he asked after a minute, and the words sounded torn from him.

She looked over her shoulder at him, and her ravaged face caused something violent to flash in his eyes.

“Don’t look so worried, Cade,” she said with enormous dignity. “You made your point. I’m through throwing myself at you. You’ve cured me for good this time.” She managed a soft little laugh, although her swollen lips trembled and spoiled the effect.

He rammed his hands into his pockets and stared at her stiff back. “I’ll keep out of your way until Melly gets back from the honeymoon,” he said curtly. “I’ll expect the same courtesy from you. What happened…almost happened here isn’t going to be allowed to happen again.”

She bit her lower lip to keep from crying. “Cade…what you said…were you really going to ask me to stay, when I was eighteen?” she asked in a ghost of a whisper.

He laughed bitterly. “Sure,” he said. “I was going to offer you the job I finally gave Melly.” He looked away so that she wouldn’t see the lie in his dark eyes, or the deep pain that accompanied it.

She straightened, a surge of disappointment and hurt raging through her body. She had hoped that he’d wanted to marry her.

“Can we go back now?” she asked in a subdued tone.

“Might as well. I’ve got cattle to work.”

“And I’ve got a wedding dress to finish.” The sound of her words made her want to scream with anguish. There would never be a wedding for her. She walked quietly to the truck without looking at him and got in.

He loaded the basket and the cloth in the back of the truck with quick, furious motions and paused to shrug into his shirt and slam his ranch hat on his head before he got in beside her.

She felt his eyes on her, but she was staring out at the landscape.

“Abby,” he said quietly, “it’s better this way. You’ll hate me for a while, but you’ll get over it.”

“I don’t hate you,” she said in a whisper. “You don’t want commitment any more than I do, Cade, so there’s nothing to regret.”

His hands gripped the steering wheel until his fingers went white. “Don’t make it any harder than it already is,” he said under his breath. “Let’s forget today ever happened, Abby.”

“That suits me,” she said. She stared out the window as he started the truck and gunned it back onto the road. She wasn’t going to cry, she wasn’t. She’d thrown her pride at his feet once too often already. He couldn’t wait to be rid of her, and she was just as anxious to get away from him. The torment of loving him was too much. As far as he was concerned, she was just a city girl amusing herself by playing up to him, and nothing was going to convince him otherwise. What a horrible opinion he had of her. Only a man who thought her utterly contemptible could have treated her as he had.

She drew in a shaky breath. It had been so beautiful at first, feeling the hunger raging in him, knowing that he wanted her that much. Until he told her what he really thought, and she realized that it was only physical desire with him after all. Why hadn’t she remembered what he’d said the night before about sex being a lousy foundation for a relationship? Well, she remembered now, and she wouldn’t forget again. She’d harden her heart and grit her teeth and pray that the three weeks left would go by in a rush. Cade would never get close enough to hurt her again. She was going to make sure of that.