Read Online Fire and Rain by Elizabeth Lowell - Free Book Online

strip off her."
     "Maybe. And maybe I think my cook has better things to do than chase my ramrod."
     "Yeah, I kind of thought that might be the burr under your saddle." Ten's mocking smile faded.
     "You don't have a kind word to say to Carla, yet when someone else does, you jump real salty. You never used to be a dog in the manger, but the way you're acting lately, a man might think if you can't have Carla you don't want anyone to have her."
     "She's too young to talk about having."
     "Bull, boss man. She's a woman all the way to the soles of her feet." Ten saw the shift in Luke's expression, the flash of hunger and anger. The ramrod nodded, satisfied with what he saw. "She's fully of age. If she wants a man, she's entitled."
     "Leave her alone, Ten."
     "Why? You've made it real clear you don't want her. Hell, it's not like she was a kid anymore. The men in Boulder aren't blind. By now, one of them has probably taught her why women are soft and men are hard."
     "Drop it."
     Ten sighed, lifted his hat and raked his fingers through his black hair. "You're being a damned fool," he said calmly. "The way I see it, Carla has loved you for years and you've pushed her away for years. Finally you made it stick. She went off to college and found men who didn't push her away. She grew up. Then she came back to see how you stacked up against her memories and her new experiences with men."
     "Carla isn't the type to sleep around," Luke said tightly.
     "Who said anything about sleeping around?" Ten retorted. "I was talking about a young girl who was sent out of here with her pride in shreds. Seems to me she could be forgiven for finding a nice boy or two who wanted to kiss all the wounds and make her feel like a woman instead of a 'schoolgirl.'"
     Luke said not one word, but the thought of Carla being touched by another man shook him. The thought of her being taken by anyone sent a killing rage through Luke's veins. He had been so sure, so unspeakably certain, that she would never allow anyone to touch her but him.
     Ten measured the barely contained rage in Luke's expression and shrugged. "Suit yourself, boss man. But you should know one thing. Carla told me she came here this summer to get over you. You keep riding roughshod over her feelings and she'll walk out of here at the end of the summer and never look back. Then where will you be? You may not be her first man, but so what? You're the one who was given first call and you turned her down flat. Your fault, not hers. You'll never find another woman with half what she has to offer and you know it."
     There was a long, taut silence while Luke measured Ten with the cold yellow eyes of a cornered mountain lion.
     "I wasn't cut out to live in a city," Luke said finally.
     "Did she ask you to?"
     "No, but sooner or later she would. The Rocking M is hell on women. I'd rather not marry at all than have a woman walk out on her kids and her husband, or hit the bottle or go crazy staying on the ranch and make everyone's life a living hell."
     "Carla wouldn't—"
     "Like flaming hell she wouldn't," Luke said savagely. "Do you think my mother or my aunts wanted to betray their children and husbands? Do you think my father or my uncles deliberately picked weak women to marry? Do you think I want to watch Carla get thin and sullen grieving for a way of life she can't have if she's my wife? Or maybe you think I should be like some college kid and just take what she's offering and not worry about marriage, is that it?"
     Ten swore beneath his breath, the words all the more violent for the softness of his voice.
     "Now you're beginning to understand," Luke said. "Stay away from her, Ten. This is the only warning you'll get."
     "What if I'm thinking of marriage?"
     Luke closed his eyes for an instant. When they opened there was no emotion showing; not anger, not fear, not desire, nothing but an icy emptiness.
     "Are you thinking of marriage?" he asked softly.
    "She's the kind of