The Texan's Diamond Bride (12 page)

Oh, please, don’t let it be just that.

She didn’t think she could stand it if, in the end, it was nothing but that.

Paige shook her head, refusing to think that way. She was here now. That was what mattered. They had this time together, and she intended to make the most of it.

Tonight, she was going to do something she’d never done for any man, because she hadn’t ever wanted so much to please a man, to surprise him, to be a little daring, a little outrageous for him.

She was going to strip for Travis Foley.

She’d do it in front of the fire while he watched, if she didn’t lose her nerve. Paige planned her wardrobe accordingly, looking for something with lots of buttons she could slowly undo and pretty, tiny, lace underwear. She’d even wear high heels for this. That’s how crazy she was for the man.

He knew something was up when he walked in that night and saw her in those shoes.

“Are we going out?” he asked.

“Oh, no. We’re staying in.” She grinned wickedly.

“Okay,” he said meekly. “Is there anything I should…do?”

“No, I’m going to take care of everything. You just do what you normally do. Go get cleaned up so I can feed you and then…you’ll see.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, already headed for the shower.

“That was the sexiest thing I have ever seen in my life,” he whispered into her ear later that evening as they lay on a blanket in front of the fire. “If it gets any better than that, I don’t think my heart could take it.”

He’d taken her in a frenzy of blazing heat and need and pleasure so deep and all encompassing, it was as if there was nothing left in the world, like what they shared erased everything else, consumed it.

As if they were the only two people in the world and nothing else even existed, much less mattered.

As if nothing had the power to come between them.

When she was in his arms like this, that’s how she felt.

As if nothing could come between them.

Later, pleasantly tired and yet excited by all that she’d found out about the ranch, she wrapped herself up in an afghan, and he did, too, and she showed him some of her favorite old photos of the ranch, read him a few passages from old diaries with speculation about the diamond, and then showed him the deed itself and what she and Blake had found.

There was a scanned copy of it in her e-mail box. She’d had Blake send it to her earlier.

She brought it up on the computer and showed him the image.

“See, right here?” She pointed to the border of the deed, made with hundreds of tiny eagles.

“That’s the same image used to mark the Eagle Mine,” he said, leaning over her shoulder as she sat at his desk.

“Yes. And look here, this corner. It’s hard to see on the scan—and even on the actual map, you have to really be looking to see it—but this one eagle, in his talon is a diamond.”

He leaned closer to the computer screen, then shook his head. “I don’t see it.”

“Well, it’s there. I think it’s telling us not just that the diamond was hidden in the Eagle Mine, but that the image of the eagle marks the spot where the diamond was buried. The image used on the petroglyphs is the same as the one on the deed, as the eagle holding the diamond in his claw. I know where all those images are because you gave me the archaeologists’ report, along with the maps they made. Travis, we can find it! We’re going to find that diamond!”

He turned and sat on the edge of the desk, shaking his head.

“You thought I was crazy, didn’t you?”

“Maybe. A little.”

“But see? It’s all here. It all makes sense. The diamond has to be at one of these spots, and there are only thirteen of them. We’re going to find it.”

“Okay, but can we find it tomorrow? Or two days from now? Or next week?” he asked, trailing kisses from her bare shoulder up to her neck.

She laughed, shivering because it felt so good, and
went to close the image and the e-mail it came in, only then noticing she had six different e-mails from Gabby, all within a two-hour span.

“My cousin Gabby’s going nuts about something,” she said. “She probably found out my mother’s dating your father.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, teasing her ear with his tongue. “Tomorrow. They’ll all be just as crazy tomorrow.”

He was right. They would. But just as she was closing the program, she noticed the last subject heading.

Penny in trouble.

A shiver worked its way through her body, this one not of pleasure but of uneasiness, of dread.

“Travis, wait,” she said, pulling away from him. “Something’s wrong with my sister.”

He lifted his head and looked at the screen.

Paige opened the e-mail, scared of what she was going to find.

Gabby wrote:

Wanted to be able to tell you this on the phone, but you never answer your phone. Where are you? Penny’s been seeing someone in secret for months now, and I’m terrified for her.

Paige, it’s Jason Foley!

She finally admitted that she’s in love with Jason Foley, and I can’t believe this is all a coincidence. That there’s all this stuff going on with the search for the diamond, and Jason Foley just happens to show up and seduce one of the McCords.

Tried to tell Penny, but she wouldn’t listen to me.
You have to call her. You have to warn her, before he breaks her heart.

—Gabby

Paige froze.

I can’t believe this is all a coincidence.

Jason Foley seducing Penny, at the same time Paige just happens to find herself here with Travis, thinking herself in love with him.

Beside her, reading over her shoulder, Travis backed away and swore long and loud.

One look at his face told her everything she needed to know.

“Both of us?” she asked, clutching the afghan closer to her naked body.

She was sitting here, naked in his library, having just performed a striptease for him, then had sex with him on the rug in front of the fire, crazy to please him.

And he and his brother had…

What?

“Was it some sort of bet?” She threw the words at him. “Which one of you could bed one of the McCord twins first?”

“No!” He looked outraged that she’d even think it.

“And did you win? Or did he?”

“It wasn’t a bet! I’m not like that! How can you think I’m like that?”

“Well, there’s no way this is a coincidence. Your brother seducing my sister, and you seducing me—”

“I didn’t know you were coming here. How could I
possibly know you were going to show up on this ranch—”

“You knew we were looking for the diamond—”

“My brothers thought your family was up to something, but they always think that. They care so much more about this stupid feud than I do. I just want to be here and run this ranch. That’s all I want. You know that. I told you that. You’ve been here. You’ve seen for yourself how much I love this ranch. Haven’t you?”

Paige started to cry then, so mad at herself for giving into that need, so mad that he had to see it. “I saw your face just a minute ago, before you could hide it. You knew what your brother was doing—”

“I never agreed to do anything to you, not hurting you or using you or seducing you. I didn’t want anything to do with my family’s obsession with your family or that stupid diamond.”

“So you’re trying to tell me, your brother just happened to seduce my sister at the same time you seduced me—”

“Hey, I don’t remember there being a great deal of seduction involved. I remember two people who just flat-out wanted each other and couldn’t keep their hands off each other. And I’ll remind you, I’m the one who stopped that first night. Not you. I could have done anything I wanted with you that night, and you know it. But I didn’t.”

Paige felt like all the blood rushed out of her head at that, ashamed and embarrassed and getting even madder.

Just how good was he at this game?

“You need to remember, too,” he went on, “that you climbed into my bed knowing exactly who I was, wanting
me despite everything that was going on with the diamond and the family feud. You wanted me anyway, just the way I wanted you.”

She closed her eyes, hating herself and what she’d done, what she’d let him do to her.

“You and your brother had a plan,” she said, glaring at him.

“No, we didn’t—”

“I saw your face, Travis! When you first read that e-mail, you knew. I saw the guilt on your face—”

“Over what my brother had done to your sister!” he yelled. “I know you love her, and I knew…I knew—”

Paige gasped. “You knew what he was going to do? He deliberately set out to get close to her? To seduce her? And you knew all along?”

Travis closed his eyes and turned away, swearing under his breath as he did.

Obviously, he’d known.

And that thing she felt deep inside, that was her heart, breaking in two.

She pulled the afghan tighter against her, feeling more naked and humiliated than she’d ever been in her life. Getting to her feet, she tried to shove him out of her way. But he got hold of her and didn’t let go, grabbing her by the arms and pulling her close, making her look at him.

Making her let him see just how much he’d hurt her? Why did he have to see that, too? Hadn’t he done enough already?

“Listen to me. You’ve been here with me all this time. You know me. Don’t you?”

“I know you knew something about your brother seducing my sister—”

“Okay, yes, I knew. I’m sorry. I didn’t even remember what he was going to try to do until right now. But when I saw your cousin’s e-mail…. Yes, I knew.”

Paige felt like her whole body started to shake at once, like there was no solid ground anywhere, nothing to catch her if she just sank to the floor.

He knew!

“Look, Paige, I got a call from my brothers months ago. They were sure your family was up to something to do with the diamond. They wanted to make all sorts of plans, and I told you already, I didn’t want anything to do with the whole mess. I just want to run my ranch and have everybody leave me the hell alone. So it wasn’t like I was in on planning this. I was only half listening to them at this point. I do that. My eyes glaze over, and I start thinking about cattle prices or fences that need to be replaced, things like that when they start talking family feud with me. But yes, when I saw your cousin’s e-mail, I remembered Jason saying something months ago about needing to get information on what your family was up to, and thinking he could get it from Penny.”

“She doesn’t know anything!” Paige cried. “She’s not like me. She’s sweet and innocent. I don’t think she’s ever even slept with a man before in her life, and now she thinks she’s in love with him, Travis. How could he do that to her? How can you play with people’s hearts that way?”

He pulled her close, tucked her head against his shoulder and held her while she cried, and she let him.

Dammit, she just let him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, again and again. “I’m so sorry. All I agreed to do was watch out for trespassers at the old mines. That’s it. I swear to you. And then…there you were.”

“I came right to you,” she whispered. “I made it so easy for you.”

“No,” he swore. “It wasn’t like that. You know it wasn’t.”

She pulled away from him, staring him in the face. “Then what was it, exactly? A lucky coincidence?”

“No, it was damned inconvenient. It still is, and you know it. You made me want you despite who you are and how complicated this is, and you want me despite all of that, too.”

She wanted to believe him.

Oh, she did.

He was such a dangerous man, because even now, she wanted to believe him.

“These last few days, I haven’t been thinking of anything but you,” he said.

God, she wanted to believe him.

“Of hurrying back here every night so I can be with you. It’s like the whole world is just gone, and I love the rain and even the stupid flood, because it’s keeping everybody else away, and it’s just you and me. That’s all I want. Just you and me.”

She gave him a hard look, probably spoiled completely by the tears in her eyes.

“I have to go call my sister,” she said with as much outrage and indignation as she could muster against
him. “I have to go tell her that the man she thinks she’s in love with has been lying to her all along, just to get information about our family.”

He took that like a slap in the face, backing away, hands up and off of her, breathing hard, his jaw as hard as granite.

“Fine,” he said. “Believe what you want. Make the call.”

S
he cried some more in her room before she could get herself together enough to call her sister, dreading how much what she had to say was going to hurt Penny, whom Paige had always tried to protect from the big, bad world.

Her sweet, dreamy, artsy sister, delicate as a fairy and always seeing men through a kind of filmy, romantic haze.

She hated Travis’s brother for this, absolutely hated him.

But she wasn’t going to think of Travis himself or anything he’d done to her or how she felt about it. It was too new, too raw. It hurt too much, and she just didn’t know what to believe.

Finally, her tears stopped enough that she thought she could do it, she could tell her sister this awful thing. She
picked up the phone by her bed, and Penny came on the line, sounding so happy Paige nearly started to cry again.

“Oh, my God! What is it? What’s wrong?” Penny cried.

“Nothing. I just…I have to tell you something, and—”

“I have to tell you something, too, but mine is good and it can wait. You go first. What’s wrong?”

Oh, this was awful!

Jason Foley should be strung up by his ankles and left to fry in the hot Texas sun. Paige would find the rope and help do it herself, and her brothers would help her.

“Paige, you’re scaring me,” her sister said.

“I know. I’m sorry. Penny, I’m so sorry about this. I love you. You know that, right? And I’ll help you get through this. I promise.”

“Get through what?”

“Jason Foley,” Paige said.

Silence came from the other end.

“You’ve been seeing Jason Foley, right?”

“Yes,” her sister said. “And I know that no one’s going to like that, that no one’s going to understand, and I’m so sorry I couldn’t bring myself to tell you sooner. It was awful, trying to keep a secret like this from you. I just…All the feelings I have are all so overwhelming, so new that I can still hardly believe it myself, but he’s not who you think he is, Paige, I swear. He’s not the man any of us think he is. He’s wonderful, and sweet and kind, and I’m in love with him. I think he’s in love with me, too—”

“He’s using you to get information about our family.” Paige just blurted it out.

Penny laughed. “No, he’s not.”

“Yes, he is.”

Penny hesitated. “He wouldn’t do that. He’s not like that.”

“Yes, he is. Penny, honey, I’m at the ranch right now. I’m at Travis Foley’s ranch, looking for the diamond. Travis was with me when I read Gabby’s e-mail telling me you were seeing Jason, and Travis knew…. He knew what his brother was going to do. Jason planned this months ago to try to find out what we were doing to find the diamond.”

“No. That’s crazy! You’re at Travis Foley’s ranch?”

“Yes. Honey, listen to me. I’m sorry, but Travis admitted the whole thing. The Foleys were convinced our family was up to something. Jason thought he could get the information from you. By getting to know you, by pretending he was interested in you.”

Again, silence.

“I’m so sorry. I could just kill them both with my bare hands, I swear. I will make them pay,” Paige promised. “We’ll all make them pay for what Jason did to you.”

“I thought…I thought I was in love with him.”

“I know. Gabby told me. I’m so sorry, honey.”

“Paige, I slept with him,” she confessed.

Yes, they were going to kill him. String him up and let the ants slowly kill him or maybe buzzards. Texas was full of buzzards.

Jason Foley deserved it all.

“It’s…” Penny started laughing, a sad, scary sound. “It’s even worse than that, I’m afraid.”

Worse?

What could be worse than that?

“Because, I just figured out that…Well, I’m pregnant,” Penny confessed. “I’m going to have Jason Foley’s baby.”

It was a horrible night.

Paige cried. She paced the floor, scrubbed her skin clean in the shower, trying to erase every touch of Travis Foley from her body. She burned with shame the way she’d fallen all over him, practically begging him to take her that first night and then even trying to get all the so-called family business out of the way so they could be together, despite everything else.

And the way she’d given herself to him….

Completely, without reservation, nothing held back.

Not even her heart.

She’d stripped for him in his library and had sex with him on the rug in front of his fireplace, like a woman just crazy-mad for him.

And he…

She had no idea what he felt for her or what she could trust that he’d ever said.

Could a man really just forget that his brother was going to seduce her sister to get information out of her? Was that something anyone could really forget?

Although, she had to admit, her family said a lot of things about his, and there were times when she got sick of the whole thing, too, when she tried her best to tune it all out.

She wanted to believe Travis. And as he’d pointed out, he hadn’t seduced her, unless he was even better at it than she imagined and she was just much more
gullible and hadn’t even realized what he was doing. Because it seemed to her, it was completely mutual, as he claimed.

She buried her face in her pillow and cried herself to sleep.

When she woke the next morning, the sun was high in the sky.

It was nearly eleven.

Her head hurt, and her eyes felt like they’d been rubbed with sandpaper. Her throat ached from crying, and she felt the need to scrub her skin some more, to try to forget every sweet, sexy touch of his body against hers.

She’d have just stayed in bed all day, if it weren’t for the fact that her sister was heartbroken and pregnant, and she still had a diamond to find and a family about to go broke if she didn’t.

Thank goodness she hadn’t told Travis Foley that, at least.

He hadn’t had to seduce her to get information out of her. She’d just given it all to him, she realized in horror.

She’d told him exactly where the diamond was!

He could have found it already! He could kick her off this ranch today and take the maps from the archaeology dig and find the diamond himself! He could hold her prisoner here, to keep her quiet and isolated from her family, while he found the diamond!

Paige scrambled up and into her clothes, rushing into the hallway and through the house.

Marta looked at her as if she was nuts when she tried all the doors and found them open, no one trying to stop her from going anywhere.

Of course, she couldn’t get off this ranch without Travis. Or at least, without one of his horses or his trucks.

Next, she tried the phones.

All working.

She could call for help right now, if she wanted to. Warn her brother about everything and have him send an army to guard the opening of the mine and the diamond inside.

Paige started to dial and then Travis walked in, looking wary and bone tired and not sure what kind of reception he’d get from her today.

“You need to make a call?” he asked. “I can go into the kitchen, if you want some privacy.”

She wasn’t sure whether to believe him. “You’ll let me make a call?”

He frowned. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because I could tell my brother what you did and what your brother did, and that I told you exactly where the diamond is.”

“I assumed you already had,” he said, looking resigned to it all being public knowledge by now.

So, she could just tell her family everything and he’d let her?

Paige thought of her mother then, for the first time. Her mother who was supposedly dating Rex Foley now.

Oh, God!

Her mother!

“Tell me your father seeing my mother has nothing to do with any of this? That at least that part is real.”

His jaw went tight with anger. “My father claims he’s been crazy about your mother since long before she
even met
your
father, and that his feelings haven’t changed all these years. You believe that if you want to. I can’t stop you if you don’t.”

Paige wasn’t sure. She just couldn’t be sure of anything.

And Charlie…What was this all going to do to Charlie and any relationship he might have with the Foleys now?

She didn’t know about that, either, and so she decided to try to deal with the situation at hand. Her and Travis, the ranch and the diamond.

“Are you going to keep me here?” she asked him.

“Keep you here? I haven’t been keeping you here, Paige. There’s a flood that’s been keeping you here.”

“So you’d just let me leave?” she tried.

“Tell me where you want to go. We’ll do our best to get you there.”

“Off this ranch?”

“Paige, what the devil are you talking about?” he snapped.

She took a breath, felt like crying again. “I don’t know. I thought…you know where the diamond is. I told you. I told you how to find it. I thought—”

“That I’d hold you prisoner here, and go get the diamond for myself and my family?”

He was so loud, so angry, she nearly took a step back from the sheer force of his words.

It sounded crazy when he said it like that, and yet…this whole thing between them had been just crazy.

“It’s worth a fortune,” she said.

“I already have what most people would consider a fortune. My family struck it rich in oil. I suspect you’ve
heard about it. There’s nothing I really want that I can get from that diamond,” he said bitterly.

And she wondered exactly what it was Travis Foley might want.

Not her.

Surely not her.

He couldn’t have meant that. He was furious with her and probably cursed her whole family right now.

But why was he furious? It was his brother who seduced her sister for information, while Travis…She wasn’t sure what Travis had done, exactly, or why he’d done it.

He certainly was the picture of an outraged man, and that just didn’t fit.

“So,” she began. “The diamond…”

“I assume you still want to find it? And then get the hell off my ranch?”

She nodded.

“That’s what I came to tell you. The water’s gone down. We can get into the mine today, if you want.”

Just like that?

Their previous deal stood?

“You’re still going to honor our agreement?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Nothing to do with our agreement has changed. Your family’s determined to have that diamond, and as long as you believe it’s here, one of the McCords is going to be here, bothering me, trying to get it. As I see it, the easiest way to get rid of you all seems to be to let you look your fill, until you either give up or find the damned thing. So go look, please, and let’s get this over with. And then you can go.”

Travis took her that afternoon to the mine, insisting that he be the one to watch over her while she looked. He didn’t trust anyone but himself to make sure she was safe, and he was at least going to make sure she didn’t get hurt on this stupid family quest of hers.

That her family would send a woman, a young, beautiful woman to do something like this still made him a little bit crazy. He didn’t care that she was the geologist of the family.

It wasn’t the kind of job he thought a man should send a woman to do.

Of course, he came from a family that sent his brother to seduce her sister for information, so it seemed he didn’t have much room to talk in the what-your-family-would-do area.

He was still furious with the lot of them.

For the whole, crazy feud.

For the lost diamond.

For her sister getting hurt the way she no doubt had been hurt when she heard the news about Jason.

For Charlie, the brother he never knew about until a few months ago, and the father who’d just admitted to always being in love with a woman other than Travis’s mother.

For all of it.

And for the woman who’d shown up on his ranch, him not knowing who she was, for the way she’d bewitched him with need and wanting. For the way he’d do just about anything for her, and she didn’t even believe it or care.

For the whole damned mess.

But she just had to find that diamond, so he stood there, watching over her and waiting for her, to make sure she didn’t get herself killed over the stupid thing. All so he could stand by and watch her walk away from him when her search was over.

It was all so stupid. And completely infuriating. How was he ever going to let her go? How could he ever convince her to stay?

She finally gave up her search shortly before sunset, coming out of the mine cold and grubby and looking completely worn-out. She’d cried herself to sleep the night before. He’d stood on the other side of her bedroom wall, listening to her, fighting the urge to go to her and beg her to believe him about what he’d known and what he’d done, to beg her to forgive him.

So she had to be exhausted now. But she was still beautiful and he still wanted her, dammit.

“We can come back tomorrow?” she asked.

He nodded.

Fine.

They’d come back tomorrow, and they’d make this thing between them about nothing but the stupid diamond now.