Lone Star Lonely (8 page)

She shrugged.

“I made you some dinner. Come on.” He held
out a hand.

She didn’t take it. “I love my father, you
know,” she said.

Adam swallowed hard. “So you’ve been sitting
here getting drunk and thinking I don’t know that?”

She looked up at him. Big eyes, totally
without pretense now. Her makeup had washed off in the water.

Her face was as naked and as honest as he’d
ever seen it, and he liked it that way.

“I know you love Max. I shouldn’t have said
what I did.”

“I had to take him to Sunnyside. I had to.”
She shook her head, shot him a look. “You think I would have taken
him there if I’d had a choice?”

Adam shook his head. “I know you wouldn’t
have. It’s okay. C’mon, get out of the water now.”

Kirsten shook her head. Her eyes were
moistening, and her lower lip protruding a bit. She sniffed. “If
he’d known what I did to you…if he’d known we never…and he was so
sick anyway, just before the wedding. All the excitement, it was
just too much for him.”

Adam frowned at her. “Wait a minute. He was
sick? That was why he never showed that day? I thought you must
have just told him it was off.”

He’d been truly worried when Max hadn’t shown
up…but not for long. Within minutes his worry had focused on
Kirsten. And when he learned what she’d done, his worry had turned
to rage.

“I took him to see Doc the day before,” she
said, speaking softly, as if she was thinking it all through in her
mind and just saying it aloud to solidify the thoughts. “Doc said
he ought to be in the hospital. Daddy…he said he’d go, but he made
me promise to go ahead with the wedding anyway. Said it would kill
him if he thought we’d postponed it because of him. So I just…I
just let him think we–”

“You never told him the difference?” Adam
said slowly. “I can’t believe this. Your father thinks we’ve been
married all this time?”

She closed her eyes, let her head rest on the
cushion behind her. The hand holding the bottle relaxed so much
that the whiskey all ran out into the water, but he didn’t think
that was a bad thing. “I couldn’t tell him about Joseph. He hated
Joseph. All his life, he hated him.”

Adam hunkered down beside the hot tub, his
curiosity piqued. “Why?”

Kirsten shrugged. “I don’t know. But Joseph
hated Daddy right back.” She sat up, tipping her bottle to her
lips, then frowning at it because it was empty.

“Come on. Out of the water,” Adam said. He
held out his hand once more. She set the bottle down and lifted
hers. Adam clasped it. Cool and damp. Small and fragile. She got to
her feet, and he steadied her up the marble steps, out of the
water. She closed her eyes and breathed in slowly. Then she took
her hand away. “I can manage by myself.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

She thrust her chin out and strode
forward—then her arms started wheeling as one foot slipped on the
wet surface. He snagged her waist, but it was too late. She was
going in, and she took him with her. They splashed into the hot
tub. When Adam got himself upright, she was wrapped around him like
a spider monkey. Legs locked around his waist, arms locked around
his neck. His hands were on her backside, and he was damned if he
knew how they’d gotten there. But it felt good. She felt good. Firm
and tight, and she was pressing against him in all the right
places, and he was hard and pressing back.

She looked up, wide-eyed, mouth slightly
open.

“Oh, hell,” he muttered, and he told himself
this was the stupidest, most idiotic, poorly thought out invitation
to disaster he’d ever issued…and then he kissed her. He just bent
his head and pulled her harder against him, and gobbled up her wet
mouth as if he’d been starved to death for it forever.

And it occurred to him that maybe he had
been.

She tasted good. Warmth and whiskey on her
tongue as he drew it into his mouth and sucked at the flavor. His
hands tightened on her butt, and she pressed herself against him.
He walked forward through the churning water until her rear end
landed on the built-in bench, and then he brought his hand around
between them and reached for his zipper.

She felt it, his knuckles between her legs.
And she jerked her mouth away from his.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He blinked his eyes open. “I–”

“No way in hell, honey,” she said, pushing
herself up to the edge and scooting backward across the marble.
“I’m not that drunk.”

He got his breathing under control with an
effort. “I’m not drunk at all. Sorry, Kirsty. I didn’t mean for
that to happen.”

As he moved up the steps she was silent,
staring wide-eyed, looking wounded, near tears. “What?” he asked.
“What did I say?”

She closed her eyes tight, bit her lip.
“Nothing. Maybe…something to eat wouldn’t be a bad idea after all,
huh?”

He lowered his head, ashamed of himself,
shocked by the desire that had just rocketed through him so
powerfully that all common sense had fled. For crying out loud, he
was over her.

He
was.

“So what did you make?”

He looked up at her again. A huge mistake, he
thought. Because he couldn’t keep his eyes on her face. Her bathing
suit fit like a second skin, and that zipper was down low enough to
reveal the smooth, round tops of her breasts. Her nipples showed
right through the fabric. She sure as hell had kept herself in
shape. She looked better than ever. And he wanted her. He might be
completely over the emotions he’d once felt for her, but the
physical part was even stronger than it had been before. Damn his
body for craving hers like this.

“Adam?”

He swallowed hard. “Stir-fry,” he muttered.
“Chicken.”

She nodded, staggered across the floor to a
rack with towels hanging from it, reached for one and missed.
Blinking slowly, she tried again, snagging a towel this time and
half falling, half sitting on a bench to rub at her hair, and her
face, and her arms. He wanted to do it for her.

Adam walked over, dripping dark-colored
water. His clothes were not chlorine proof, then. Great. He
snatched a towel of his own. “Hey, Kirsty, you’d best turn around,
unless you want an eyeful. If I don’t get out of this stuff, my
skin’s gonna be dyed to match my pants.”

Without looking at her to see if she’d
obeyed, he shucked off the trousers, peeled off the shirt. Stood
there in his dripping wet shorts and nothing else. When he started
rubbing himself down, he glanced her way and figured it was a
damned good thing he hadn’t had any of that whiskey, because the
way she was looking at him just then would have been too much to
resist.

Maybe it was anyway.

He dropped the towel and took a single step
toward her. Then he stopped himself. She was drunk. His daddy had
never sired any son who would take advantage of a woman in the
condition she was in right now. Especially after what she’d been
through today. His mama would be ashamed of him if she could see
him. And Garrett would knock him right square on his backside for
even thinking about it. Garrett put a lot of stock in honor and
chivalry and respecting a woman. Enough so that Adam knew better
than to do what every cell in his body was screaming to do right
now.

He clenched his jaw and turned away, knotted
the towel at his hip to hide the bulge of his arousal. Didn’t do a
hell of a lot of good. Then he reached for her hand, pulled her to
her feet. “Come on. Let’s find some dry clothes. Then we’ll see if
a plateful of food does anything to absorb all the whiskey in your
belly.”

“Hell, it’s all in my bloodstream by now,
Adam. And I like it there.”

He frowned at her, worried by those words.
“Don’t get to liking it too much.”

“What difference would it make if I did? I’m
only going to prison anyway.”

“You think so?”

She shrugged as he led her back through the
house. “That or Mexico.”

“Why, Kirsten?” He watched her face, half
expecting her to confess to murder, half praying she wouldn’t.

“Because it’s looking like that’s what Joseph
wants. And Joseph Cowan always gets what he wants.”

Adam narrowed his eyes on her. What the hell
did she mean? Did she think her husband was setting her up from
beyond the grave? Hell, she was drunk. She wasn’t making any sense,
and he probably shouldn’t pay a lot of attention to anything she
might say.

“That’s what he was always saying.” They
stopped outside the library, and she flung open the double doors
and stood staring inside. Adam followed her gaze to the huge
portrait of Joseph Cowan that hung on the wall above the
fireplace.

‘“Don’t try to fight me, Kirsten,’” she
quoted, mimicking Cowan’s voice. “‘I’m a powerful man. I always get
what I want.’” Then she pressed a hand to her lips to stifle a bark
of bitter laughter. “Well, guess what, you bastard. You didn’t. Not
always.’”

There were wet footprints throughout the
house, and more water dripped from Adam now, to puddle on the
library floor. He secretly gloried in that.

“You didn’t get a baby, did you, Joseph?”
Kirsten suddenly cried. “And God knows you tried.” She laughed
again, but the sound was so anguished it was more like a cry. “You
stupid old fool—on me all the time. Grunting and sweating until I
thought your heart would give out. I hoped it would, I really did.
Did you know that, Joseph? Did you know I was lying there wishing
your heart would explode in your chest? Did you know how much I
hated your hands on me? How I used to throw up when it was over?
How I used to stay in the scalding shower until my skin was raw
trying to wash your stench away? Did you?”

Adam felt his stomach convulse, and his
entire body came alive with a painful rage. He touched her
shoulders from behind. She shrugged his hands away. Fury seemed to
emanate from her like a living force.

“You never knew about the birth control
pills, did you, Joseph? I won that round. I won that round! It was
all for nothing. I beat you, you son of a bitch.”

“Kirsten…” Adam gripped her shoulders, spun
her around and searched her face. He saw the hatred in her eyes. He
didn’t know what to say, what to think.

“Thank God he’s dead,” she murmured, and the
tears welled. “Thank God he’ll never put his despicable hands on me
again.” She fell against Adam, and he closed his arms around
her.

A cold feeling infused his entire body, as if
his blood had been replaced with snow and his heart with a hunk of
ice. What in hell had she been through? And why? Why had she given
herself to a man she obviously hated? Why had she married him?

He asked her.

But she didn’t reply, and he realized her
body had gone limp in his arms. He turned her face to his, looked
down at her. Out cold.

Swallowing hard, Adam lifted her into his
arms and carried her—not to the kitchen, as planned, but up the
stairs and into her room.

He laid her down on the bed, with a towel
underneath her so she wouldn’t soak the covers through. Then he
bent over her, reached for the zipper on her sexy little black
swimsuit and slowly pulled it down.

Adam stopped with her zipper in his hand.
This was definitely not a good idea. “Hey, Kirsty. Come on, wake
up.” He shook her none too gently.

Her eyes opened and gazed myopically up at
him. A silly, crooked smile twisted her lips. “You called me Kirsty
again. I wish you’d stoppit.”

A lump formed in his throat. “Sorry. It just
slipped out.” No one else had ever called her Kirsty and lived to
tell about it. But when he’d done it, way back when, she’d liked
it. Hell, there was a time when she’d pretty much liked everything
he did.

But he wasn’t going to think about that now.
Not while he was standing over her bed, and they were both wet, and
he was dressed in no more than a pair of damp shorts and a towel,
thinking about undressing her. “Don’t you have a maid or
something?”

She blinked, bunched up her brows as if she
were thinking very hard. “Nobody’s comin’ today. I told ‘em not to
bother.”

“Well, you need to get into some dry clothes,
and I’m the only one here to help.”

She lifted her brows and looked up at him. No
ice princess in sight. She looked worried.

“Unless you can manage by yourself.”

“‘Course I can.” She sat up. Put her feet
down. Braced her hands on the edge of the mattress and started to
stand, then teetered and landed on the bed again. “Or maybe
not.”

“Just sit there,” Adam said. “I’ll find you
some clothes.”

He started off in one direction, but she
pointed him in another. “In the closet, Adam. The big warm snuggly
blue one.” She hugged herself as she said it, and Adam guessed she
didn’t mean the big warm snuggly blue closet but something inside
the closet.

He opened the door and found it. Hanging
inside the door, a flannel nightgown somebody’s granny ought to be
wearing. “Perfect,” he said. If he couldn’t keep his thoughts in
line when she was wearing that number, then he was beyond help.
Taking it down, he turned, but before he handed it to her, he
noticed that it was as soft as down and he ran his hands over the
fabric, then closed his eyes, because even the granny gown now
seemed somehow erotic to him. Man, he was one sorry pup.

She yanked down the zipper of her swimsuit.
Then lifted her head and said, “Turn around.”

He didn’t know what kind of look she sent
him, because his eyes were glued elsewhere. But he did tear them
away and turn his back to her. Not that it did anything to erase
the image from his mind. “Just, uh…holler if you need help.”

“I been dressing myself all my…ouch!”

“Kirsty?”

“Stop saying that!”

He heard muffled cussing and the squeak of
the bed-springs as she wrestled with her clothes. Eventually she
said, “Okay.”