Mercury Rising

Cade, on the other hand, had made his money in poker parlors up and down the state and later, in the big tournaments in Las Vegas and L.A. And yeah, he’d been in a few tight scrapes with the law—most of them while he was in his teens and early twenties, back when Jane’s uncle, J. T. Elliott, who was now the mayor, had been the sheriff. He also had that rep as a lady-killing charmer. And yeah, all right. He’d admit it. The rep was mostly earned.

Jane Elliott, unfortunately, was the one sort of woman a guy like Cade didn’t really have a prayer with—and he knew it. She was the kind who’d been there and done that and learned from her mistakes. If he had any sense at all, he’d forget her.

But hey. Who said sense had a damn thing to do with it?

He was suffering, and it was bad. And since his brother had married Jane’s friend Celia, it had only gotten worse. Now, he and Jane sometimes ended up at the same social events.

And don’t think he hadn’t tried to make use of the opportunity those events provided. He’d been no slouch. He’d tried all the preliminary moves a man will use on a woman who attracts him. He’d stood a little too close—and she had backed away. He’d struck up achingly casual conversations—which she concluded quickly and politely before they even really got started. When there was food available, he’d offered to bring her a plateful. What he got for that was a cool smile and a “Thanks, Cade. I’m not hungry right now.”

Once, there was dancing. He asked her to dance. She surprised the hell out of him by following him out onto the floor. He held her in his arms—for one dance, and one dance only. Her spectacular breasts rubbed against his chest. The scent of her hair almost drove him insane.

The minute the music stopped she thanked him and pulled free.

Before she could escape, he’d suggested, “Hey. How about one more?”

For that, he got a wry twisting of her wide mouth and a maddeningly arousing low chuckle. “I’m not really a big one for dancing, Cade.”

He knew she wasn’t interested—or if maybe she was interested, she would never give her interest a chance to become anything more.

He’d had enough women come on to him over the years to realize when one was not coming on, when she wasn’t even willing to sit back and relax and let him come on to her.

It was probably nothing short of hopeless, the yearning inside him that tied him in knots.

So why the hell did it keep getting stronger?

He knew where this had to lead. That the moment was fast approaching when he would come right out and ask her. Give it to her point-blank: Jane. Will you go out with me?

He’d just been putting it off for as long as he could stand it. After all, he knew what would happen when he asked her. She would turn him down flat.

The day was really heating up. Cade shrugged out of his leather jacket, tossed it on the passenger seat.

Then he got out of the car. This craziness had to end.

He would ask the question now, today. She’d give him her answer.

And then, just maybe, he could get over Jane Elliott and get on with his life.

Chapter Three

J ane had picked the ripest tomatoes. They waited in a basket on the porch steps. She’d pulled up a bucketful of carrots, shaking the fragrant black soil off of them and sticking them just inside the back door, ready to clean up later, when she was done outside for the day.

For about thirty-five minutes, she’d been squatting among the rows, digging up persistent dandelions and other irritating weeds. Her back was feeling the strain.

With a small groan, she stood, pulling off her grimy gardening gloves, dropping them at her feet. Sweat had collected under her straw hat, so she skimmed it off and raked her hand back through her unruly hair, letting the slight afternoon breeze cool her off a little. She grabbed the boat neckline of her old shirt and fanned it. It felt wonderful, that cool air flowing down her shirt. Then she put her hand at the base of her spine and rubbed a little.

Oh, yes. Much better….

“Jane.”

She froze. She didn’t have to turn and look to know who it was. She knew his voice, would have known it anywhere. Deep and soft and rough, all at the same time, the voice she sometimes heard calling her in her dreams.

In her dreams, she always called back, Yes, oh yes! And sometimes, in her dreams, he found her and took her in his arms. Just before he kissed her, the dream would fade. And then, usually, she would wake. She would stare at the ceiling and fight the urge to go to the window, to see if the lights were on at his house.

She hadn’t heard him come through the back gate. How long had he watched her?

Her legs felt kind of shaky. And a flush crept up her cheeks. But she couldn’t stand there, looking off toward the back fence forever.

He had to be faced.

She turned. He was waiting maybe fifteen feet away, not far from her back porch. In those wonderful, deliciously frightening silver eyes of his, she could see what he planned to say to her.

She supposed she had known it was coming. She opened her mouth, to get it over with, to tell him no before he even got a chance to ask the question. But she shut it without speaking.

Something had happened in his face. Something tender and vulnerable, something that yearned as she yearned.

All right, whatever he felt for her deep in his secret heart, he was going to have to get over it. Just as she fully intended to get over him. Cade Bravo was not Rusty Jenkins—thank God. But he was close enough. A wild-hearted Bravo man, a lady-killer who lived the gambler’s life, dangerous to love for any woman.

But especially for a woman like Jane who’d let love—or desire, or lust or whatever you wanted to call it—almost annihilate her once and had sworn never to let anything like that happen again, a woman who had a nice, stable life now and was not in the market for anything even remotely resembling a tumultuous affair.

What Jane sought in a man, Cade Bravo didn’t have.

And yet, to be fair to him, she had to admit he’d handled himself with courtesy and tact. For months, he had kept his distance. Yes, she’d known he watched her. But how could she blame him for that, when she was doing the same thing herself? Watching him right back, wishing it might be different…

He’d done all the right things whenever they ended up at the same party or get-together. He’d let her know he was interested. But he hadn’t pushed her. The minute she’d made her reluctance clear, he had backed off.

And now, when he was finally making a real move, he had a right to a little courtesy from her. He deserved to be treated with respect.

Nervously she fingered the brim of her straw hat, aware of the moisture between her breasts and beneath her arms, of the way her hair clung to the back of her neck, of the bead of sweat that was sliding down her temple, almost to her cheekbone now. “Listen.” She lifted one hand, carefully, and wiped away that bead of sweat. “Would you like to go inside? I’ve got some iced tea in the fridge. I could maybe even dig up a beer, if you’d prefer that.”

Those silver eyes regarded her. They saw down into the depths of her. They saw things she wished they didn’t.

“Inside?” he asked softly. The one word meant a hundred things, most of them sexual, all of them dangerous.

Too late to back out now. She bent, picked up her dirty gloves. “Yes. What do you say?”

He took a moment to answer. She found herself watching his mouth—the mouth she never quite got to kiss in her dreams. The mouth, she reminded herself sternly, that she had better start forgetting about. And soon.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “Iced tea sounds great.”

Another silence, between them. A silence that felt like a standoff. She wanted him to just turn and go up the three steps to her back porch, go on in ahead of her. She didn’t want to have to approach him, to move past him, to lead the way, with him at her back, watching.

But of course, he wouldn’t go ahead of her. It was her house, her responsibility to show a first-time guest inside.

“Well,” she said, and forced her feet to move.

Neither of them seemed capable of looking away. She advanced and he just stood there. And then, when she came even with him, she closed her eyes, briefly, breaking the hold of his gaze. She moved by, went up the steps. He followed. His tread was light, but she felt every footfall, pressing on her, in some deep, private place. She paused to pick up her basket of tomatoes, to drop her gloves at the edge of the step. Then she went on, pulling open the door and standing back.

He went in, and she followed, onto the service porch where her washer and dryer and laundry supplies lined one wall and her bucket of dirty carrots waited on the edge of the doormat to be cleaned.

The porch half bath was through the door to her right. She wanted to go in there, rinse off her sweating face, run a comb through her hair. But no. Not right now, not with him standing here, waiting. Better to show him on in first.

She had dirt on her shoes. “Hold on a second…”

He said nothing, just stood to the side a little and watched as she set down the tomatoes, shucked off her gardening clogs, got rid of her slightly grimy socks, tossing them in the wicker laundry basket on top of the dryer. Her pale feet seemed very bare—defenseless, without her socks. A few evenings ago, she’d given herself a long, lovely pedicure, buffing and pumicing and stroking clear polish on her toenails at the end.

She despised herself right now because she was glad that she had.

Swiftly she slipped on a pair of sandals and picked up the basket again. “Okay.” Her voice was absurdly breathy and urgent. “This way.” She moved ahead again, opened the inner door and went through. He followed.

They entered what she thought of as the family room. Bookshelves lined the walls, the blind eye of a television stared from a corner and the furniture was a little bit worn and very comfortable. She took him through the open doorway to the kitchen and gestured at the bay window and the round oak table in front of it. “Make yourself comfortable.” She set the tomatoes on the counter. “And if you’d give me one minute?”

“Sure.”

She retraced her steps, through the family room and out to the service porch, then on into the half bath at last. She shut the door, rested her head against the wood, closed her eyes and let out a long, shaky sigh. Then she drew herself up and turned to face the mirror above the sink.

Her eyes were wide, haunted-looking. Twin spots of hectic color stained her cheeks.

This was awful, impossible, wrong. Had she learned nothing from the mess she’d made of her life once? It certainly didn’t feel like it, not with the way her heart was pounding, the way she burned with hungry heat.

She might as well have been seventeen again, that first time she snuck Rusty into her parents’ house. Seventeen, with her parents gone—off somewhere. She couldn’t remember where, but it would have been two separate places. Her mom and dad didn’t go out together much. But wherever they were, neither of them had a clue what their bright, perfect, well-behaved daughter was up to. That she had Rusty in the house.

Yes. She had Rusty in the house and she knew that he was going to kiss her. And she knew that he wouldn’t stop with just kisses.

And she was glad.

“Oh, God,” she whispered low.

She flipped on the cold tap and splashed water on her face, grabbing the hand towel, scrubbing at her cheeks as if she could wipe away not only the water, but the heat in them, the evidence of her own insistent, self-destructive attraction to the wrong kind of man. She got a brush from the drawer and tugged it angrily through her hair, trying to tame it. Failing that, she found a scrunchy in the other drawer and anchored the mess in a ponytail, low on her neck.

“There,” she whispered to her reflection, “Better. Really. It’s really okay.” Swiftly she tucked her raggedy shirt more securely into the waistband of her baggy old jeans.

And then there was nothing else to do but get out there and deal with him.

He was sitting at the table when she reentered the kitchen, but he’d turned his chair out a little, so he could comfortably face the doorway to the family room. He wore faded denim and worn tan boots and his skin looked golden in contrast to his white T-shirt. He was Brad Pitt in Fight Club, Ben Affleck out of rehab. He was a young Paul Newman in that old Faulkner movie, The Long Hot Summer, the barn burner’s son looking for more than any woman ought to give him. He was sin just waiting to happen.

And why, she found herself wondering? Why me?

What did he see in her? Not that there was anything wrong with her, just that she simply was not his type. Not gorgeous, not glamorous, not a party animal.

And look at her wardrobe. Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean—and, times like right now, when she’d been gardening, various little numbers one step away from the ragbag. Cade Bravo’s women wore DKNY and Versace. They probably all bought their underwear at Victoria’s Secret.

It made no sense. No sense at all.

But then, it had been the same with Rusty. Attraction of opposites. A good girl and a bad boy, tasting the forbidden, doing what they shouldn’t do.

And loving every minute of it.

At least, for a while.

“Iced tea, you said?”

“Great.”

“Sugar? Lemon?”

“Plain.”

Her refrigerator had an ice maker in the freezer door. She got a pair of glasses from the cupboard and stuck them under the ice dispenser, one and then the other. The cubes dropping into place sounded like gunshots in the too-quiet room.

She got out the tea, poured it over the ice, filling both glasses. Normally she liked sugar and lemon. But no way she was fooling with any of that right now.

She put the tea away, picked up the two glasses and carried them to the table, setting his in front of him, then sliding into a chair.

“Thanks,” he said.

She gave him a tight smile and a nod in response. Then, not knowing what else to do, she sipped from her tea—too bitter, not tart enough.

She set it down in front of her and looked at it. She was afraid to look anywhere else, and that was a plain fact.

“Jane.”

He was waiting, she knew. For her to look at him.

Better get it over with. She dragged her gaze upward, and she met those silver eyes again.

And he said it. “I want to go out with you. Dinner. A show. It doesn’t matter to me. Whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do.”

She looked at him, into those eyes. “Thank you. For asking me.” The words came out flat, without intonation. “I’m sorry. But no. I can’t go out with you.”

He didn’t look surprised. “Can’t?” He was mocking her.

She couldn’t blame him for his scorn. Can’t, in this case, was a coward’s word. And a lie. “I won’t. I won’t go out with you.”

“Why not?”

She shut her eyes, dragged in a long breath, then looked at him again. “Won’t you just take what I said? Take no thank you, and let it be?”

He smiled then, more or less. At least the corners of his mouth hitched upward. “I will, if that’s all I can get. It’s not like I really have a choice. But you’re honest, or you try to be, and—”

“How do you know that?”

“Does it matter?”

It did matter, a lot, for some reason. “I’d like to know how you know that about me, that’s all.”

“Jane. How could I not know?”

“You mean you’ve been watching me.”

“What? That’s news? It offends you, that I like to look at you, that I listen when people talk about you?”

“Who? Who talks about me?”

“Oh, come on. Your buddy Celia’s married to Aaron. It’s a story she likes to tell, how she fell in love with my brother and you told her to be honest, to let him know how she felt, that honesty was always the best policy. Is that right? Did that happen?”

She nodded, feeling vaguely foolish for making a big deal out of not very much. “Yes. All right. It happened.”

“And your other friend, Jillian, she said Celia should wear sexier clothes and brighter colors, make him notice her as a woman first before she told him she was gone on him.”

Jane couldn’t help smiling at the memory. “And Celia did both—told the truth and bought a few new clothes.”

“Yeah. And look at them now.”

“Yes,” she said carefully. “They’re very happy.” They lived in Las Vegas. Aaron was part owner and CEO of High Sierra Resort and Casino, on the Strip. Celia was his secretary and personal assistant—and now, his wife as well.

Cade said, “And I haven’t forgotten what I asked in the first place. Did you think I would?”

Yes. All right. Maybe she had. She regarded him warily, her mouth firmly shut.

He asked again, “Why won’t you go out with me?”

Jane looked through the bay window at her backyard, wishing she was out there, deadheading mums and geraniums, digging up more dandelions, working that long, tenacious central root up out of the soil. Anything but this, having to tell this man no when her body and her wayward heart wouldn’t stop crying yes.

“Well?” he prompted.

She looked at him again and she spoke with defiance. “You know why. You’re from town. You know about me. I had a bad marriage. A really bad marriage.”

“I didn’t mention marriage, Jane.”

“Well, of course you didn’t.”

“Did you want me to?”

“Did you plan to?”

He grunted. “No. As a matter of fact, marriage wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“Exactly. And that’s another reason for me not to go out with you. We want completely different things from a relationship.”

“Do we?” His eyes said things she shouldn’t let herself hear.

“Nothing is going to happen between us,” she said, slowly. Firmly. With much more conviction than she actually felt. “What I want from a relationship, you’re not willing to give.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “You’re saying you want to get married again?”

“Yes, I do. And I want a good marriage this time. When it comes to a man, I’m looking for an equal—an equal and a best friend.”

That fine mouth curved, ever so slightly, in another one of those almost-smiles. “Well, all right. Let’s be friends.”

She did not smile back, not even marginally. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“Yes, I am. You want a man to be your friend. Fine. Let’s be friends.”

It was a trap. She knew it. They’d play at being friends. And eventually, they’d make each other crazy enough that they’d give in to what was really driving this. And she should be insulted, that he would sit here in her kitchen and pretend to offer friendship when they both knew what he really wanted from her.

But she wasn’t insulted. She was too excited to be insulted. She just wanted to say yes—Yes, yes, yes. Whatever he wanted, however he wanted it.

“No.” She had to push the word out of her mouth. “I won’t be your friend.”

His long hand cupped his glass of tea. He stroked, wiping the moisture clinging to the side of the glass, so it slid down and pooled on the table. “Why not?”

She looked away from that stroking hand, made a low, tight sound of disbelief. “Because I really don’t think that my friendship is what you’re after.”

She was looking at his hand again. Slowly he turned the glass in a circle, smearing the puddle of moisture at the base of it. “You don’t, huh?”

She yanked her gaze upward and glared at him. “No, I don’t. Are you going to tell me I’ve got it all wrong?”

There it was again, the smile that didn’t quite happen. “Let me put it this way. I’ll try anything once, friendship included.”

She felt vaguely ridiculous, to keep on with this, to make all this effort to be truthful when she didn’t feel truthful, when she knew he was teasing her, making fun of what she said. But she did keep on. Because however pointless it felt to tell him these things, she believed they were things that had to be said. “I want marriage, a good marriage. I want a steady man, a man who’ll stick by me, a man who’ll be true.”

He had that golden head tipped to the side, as if he were considering whether or not to say what was in his mind.

“What?” she demanded. “Just say it. Say it now.”

He lifted one hard shoulder in a shrug. “Okay. How long’s it been, since Rusty died? You were, what, twenty?”

She had to clear her throat before she could answer. “Twenty-one. It’s been six years.”

“You run into any steady men, since then? Any true, good men?”

“Yes. Yes, of course, I have.”

“You dated a few of them, of those good guys, those solid guys?”

“That’s right. I did.”

“So what happened? How come you’re not with one of them now?”

Silently she cursed him. For knowing her secret truth, for hitting it right on the mark. “It didn’t work out, that’s all.”

“You’re looking away again. Let’s have some truth, Jane. Let’s have it out straight.”

She snapped her gaze back to collide with his and she muttered between clenched teeth, “You’re being purposely cruel. I’ve had enough of that, in my life. Cruelty. From a man.”

He leaned her way, just a little, enough that she felt him, encroaching, not quite enough to make her move back. “Listen,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not him. Not Rusty. Yeah, all right, I’ve had my run-ins with the law. I’ve made trouble. I’m not exactly a solid citizen. And I’ve got no interest in getting married. But I’ve never held up a damn convenience store. I earn my way. I pay for what’s mine. And the kind of cruel I’m guessing Rusty Jenkins was to you, I’m not and would never be. Get out your stack of bibles. I can swear to that.”

Her lips felt dry and hot. She licked them.

His gaze flicked down, watched her do that. “God,” he whispered.

And she forgot everything, but the sound of his voice and the shape of his mouth. All at once, they were leaning in, both of them. She smelled him, smelled the heat and the maleness, the clean cotton scent of his T-shirt. She felt his breath across her cheek.

Just before their lips could meet, she shoved her chair back and jumped to her feet. “No.” It came out every bit as desperate-sounding as she felt. “No, please…”

He sat back, draping a hard arm over the back of the chair, looking up at her through lazy, knowing eyes. “I wasn’t sure. About you, about how you felt. Sometimes, when a man wants a woman, it’s easy to imagine reactions that aren’t really there. But it’s there, isn’t it? It’s as bad for you as it is for me.”

She clenched her fists at her sides. What could she say to that? What could she tell him? The truth was unacceptable. And she was not a woman who told lies. “Nothing is going to happen between us. It’s…not what I want. Please understand.”

“Not what you want?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh, yeah. I think I do.” The gleam in those pale eyes told it all. He knew what she meant, all right. All the wrong things she meant. Her good intentions were nothing to him.

“You’re purposely misconstruing what I’m saying.”

“You’re not saying what you really mean.”

“I am. Yes. I’m not going to go out with you. Nothing is going to happen between us. You’d better forget me. And I’ll forget you.”

He shook his head. That smile that wasn’t quite a smile was back on his sinfully beautiful face. “How long’s it been, since this started, this thing between us, this thing that you keep telling yourself is going to just fade away? Months, anyway, right?”

“What does it matter? I want you to go now.”

He didn’t budge from that chair. “It matters because you’ve been fighting it, right? And don’t think I haven’t been fighting it, too. I have. I mean, come on, I got your messages. Loud and clear. You know the ones. Get back. Keep away. Don’t come near.”

“But here you are, anyway.” She was sneering. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Sitting in my kitchen.”