Rebel Love

Still, she was trying with every cell in her body and brain to appear composed and nonplussed. The day was bright and sunny, with very little breeze. Starting out that morning, Cass had asked Gard what he wanted to see first. He had named the springs and creeks, which would have made very good sense if he’d been a stranger and unfamiliar with the valley’s water sources.

Nevertheless, they rode to each of the ranch’s three springs, where Gard dismounted, walked around and checked every little thing, such as the drainage runoff, the depth and temperature of the water, and the foliage around it. He was putting on some kind of show, Cass felt, irritated by his ridiculous attentiveness to details that were perfectly obvious to anyone with a lick of ranching sense.

They then followed each of the two creeks from one end of Whitfield land to the other. Anytime they came close to the cattle, Gard gave the animals a long look and, periodically, he dismounted to inspect the grass, actually breaking off handfuls and in several instances, tasting it.

Around noon Cass mentioned the sandwiches she had made that morning, having known instinctively that Gard was going to keep her out on the range past lunchtime. Which, of course, was merely another irritating aspect of the game he was playing and she was putting up with to get this ludicrous charade over and done with.

“You packed a lunch?” Gard looked pleased.

“Nothing fancy. Just some sandwiches.” They were wrapped in aluminum foil and residing in her saddlebag, and by now they were probably overheated and soggy. Still, she was hungry and even a soggy sandwich would taste good.

Gard pointed ahead to a copse of trees and brush. “Let’s get out of the sun to eat.”

“Fine.” Actually, getting out of the saddle was reaching the necessary stage for Cass. Four hours of riding was a mite more than she was used to, and she was feeling the long ride in her thighs and back.

They reached the trees and got down. Cass wanted to moan with relief, but managed to stifle the impulse. Gard, she noted, didn’t seem to be the least bit tired.

She opened her saddlebag and removed the sandwiches, placing them on a grassy spot along with her canteen of water.

Gard sat down with his back against a tree near the wrapped sandwiches. He smiled at her and she did her best to smile back.

“It isn’t much, but dig in,” she told him, lowering herself to the grass.

They each took a sandwich and began eating. Gard removed his hat and laid it on the grass next to him. “Nice out here. Thanks for thinking of bringing along lunch.”

“Such as it is, but you’re welcome.” Cass swallowed a bite. “Have you seen enough to make that decision?”

“Well...I’ve been thinking of that high ridge at the western perimeter of your land, Cassandra. You must remember the spot. Anyway, we had an extremely heavy runoff this spring—about twenty feet of snow in the mountains last winter—and I’ve been wondering how it affected that ridge. It was always a natural boundary between Whitfield land and forest service property, as I recall.”

Cass stared at him. “Even if the ridge was entirely wiped out, what possible difference could it make to your decision?”

“We could be talking about some major environmental damage, Cassandra.”

She spoke sarcastically. “I’m sure Dad would have told me if melting snow had washed away a ridge of land that was at least forty feet higher than the valley floor, Gard.”

Gard shoved the last piece of his sandwich into his mouth. “Did you and your dad talk very often?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, we did. Look—”

“Didn’t it bother him that you preferred Oregon over Montana?”

“Of course it didn’t bother him. Why should it? Listen—”

“Tell me about your home. Do you live near the coast?”

Internally Cass was seething. He kept interrupting her, deliberately avoiding conversation about that option.

“I live on the coast. My house is on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Gard—”

“That sounds terrific. Bet you have a great view.”

Her patience came to an abrupt end. “You are without a doubt the most irritating person I have ever known.” Scrambling to her feet, she bent over to pick up the foil wrappers from the sandwiches. “You’ve ridden me around in circles all morning, and now you want to ride for another two hours to see a ridge that couldn’t possibly be washed away from spring runoff, no matter how much damned snow piled up in the mountains during the winter.”

“Now you’re mad.” Gard spoke in a hurt, disbelieving voice, as though she were the most unfair woman on the face of the earth. Or in Montana, at least.

Cass faced him, all but breathing fire. “If I were a man, I’d punch you right in the nose!” Then she whirled to go to her horse and get away from this infuriating person. She was all through being nice to him, option or no option.

Gard, still sitting, caught her by the ankles. Down she came, landing mostly on top of him. “You...” The names she shrieked at him were very unladylike and quite descriptive. “Let me go, you snake in the grass, you weasel, you...” Again the unladylike names rolled out of her mouth.

Neatly and with a minimum of exertion, Gard rolled them over so that he was on top. “You sure do have a mouth on you, Sassy Whitfield. I think it’s time someone taught you better manners.”

“And you think you’re the man to do it?” Cass let out a screech so loud and piercing, Gard thought it probably echoed throughout the entire valley. But she didn’t only screech, she started fighting to get away.

And the wrestling match began.

Three

Cass squirmed and pushed and shoved. “You cretin!” She was wiry and quick, but so was Gard, and his strength was so superior he soon had her hands locked above her head while the weight of his body held her down.

What really infuriated her was that he thought rolling around on the ground like this was funny. Throughout their tussle she’d heard the low, sexy chuckle deep in his throat, and when she was finally unable to move anything but her toes, he grinned at her.

“You savage,” she said, venting her wrath through clenched teeth. “Force is probably the only way you can get a woman on her back.” He laughed as though she had said something hysterically funny. “Egotistical jerk.” Cassandra turned her eyes to avoid his. No one she’d ever known had eyes as blue as Gard’s. Right now they were brimming with amusement and she didn’t want to see it.

He dipped his head slightly, bringing their faces closer. “There are three things I’d like to do to you, Sassy Whitfield,” he whispered. “Want to know what they are?”

“I most certainly do not!”

“Make that four, and I don’t believe you don’t want to know. In fact, I think you’re dying to know, so I’m going to be kind and tell you. First, I’d like to turn you over my knee and paddle your sweet little behind. I think you’ve had it all your way for so long, you don’t know how to deal with a man who doesn’t jump at your command.”

Cass’s gaze jerked around. “Of all the... Just try it, and I’ll scratch the eyes right out of your arrogant head!”

Gard laughed softly. “Second, I’d like to kiss you until you’re limp all over and begging for more.”

“Hell will freeze over before I ever beg you for anything,” she sputtered.

“Third, once you’re begging and whimpering, I’d like to make love to you. The right kind of love, Sassy, sensual and slow.”

She had no cutting retort for that one. Being held down like this was humiliating, and so were his crude fantasies.

“The fourth thing I want from you is friendship,” Gard said quietly.

“Yeah, right,” she drawled, disdain all over her face. “Why did I ever think you and I could conduct business like two normal people? You’re not the least bit normal.”

“Oh, I’m pretty normal, honey. Can’t you tell?”

What she could tell was that he was enormously aroused and not a bit averse to letting her know. It was a frustrating moment for Cass. Lying beneath him, feeling every contour of his body pressing into hers, her own hormones were beginning to misbehave.

“If friendship is what you want between us, you’re going at it in a mighty strange way,” she said sharply, denying the throbbing that had started at intimate points of her body. “Tripping me was abominable. So is holding me down this way. Don’t you have any scruples at all?”

“Since paddling your behind would probably cause a ruckus we might never get over, how about going with the second item on my list and kissing each other senseless?”

She turned her gaze to give him a murderous look. He was having entirely too much fun at her expense. “You’re already minus the sense God gave that tree over there. Let go of my hands!”

“So you can scratch out my eyes? That’s what you said, honey, that you’d scratch the eyes right out of my arrogant head.”

“This conversation is over. Let me up!”

“Not until you kiss me.”

Cass gulped. The silky tone in his teasing voice was much too reminiscent of that night at the dunes. “You don’t have the morals of an alley cat. I see it all now. This is the only reason you put on that big act of needing to inspect Whitfield land before making that decision, you...you...”

“Don’t start with the name-calling again, Sassy, or I swear I’ll hold you here for the rest of the day.”

“You always were a damned bully,” she said, fuming.

“I was never a bully and you know it. I did a lot of things I wish I hadn’t, but bullying people wasn’t one of them. If anything, I was too easygoing. I picked the wrong friends, or they picked me. Anyway, there was always someone around wanting to party, and I fully admit to acting like a jackass in my younger days.”

“You’re still acting like a jackass. Gard, this has gone far enough. Let me up!”

“After you kiss me.”

“I am not going to kiss you!”

“Then how about just lying still and letting me kiss you?”

“Could I stop you?” she said angrily. Could she stop him from doing anything he wanted? Her face flamed at the thought. He wouldn’t dare do more than kiss her, would he?

Gard brought his head down until his lips were almost touching hers. “You won’t let yourself like me, and I want to know why.”

“What you’re doing right now is reason enough, don’t you think?”

“I’m talking about before today. The afternoon you walked into that room at the Plantation, you were all bristled up like a little porcupine.”

“That’s a lie.” She could feel his breath on her mouth and smell his after-shave, and worse, much worse, she was unable to ignore the blatant evidence of his manhood pressing into her abdomen. She wanted to stay angry, to remain furious and spiteful, but a languor was spreading throughout her body.

His gaze flicked over her face, feature by feature. His hold on her relaxed. She could easily elude him now if she wanted to. “You are a seriously beautiful woman, Cassandra Whitfield.” Elation darted through him; she hadn’t moved an inch. He placed his mouth tenderly on hers, and at just about the same moment, he wedged his legs in between hers and adjusted his position so that his arousal was firmly resting against her most private and sensitive spot.

Cass’s brain seemed to divide, one portion suddenly aching with passion and the other trying desperately to cling to common sense. It would be so easy to get carried away, to just let go and kiss him back. He had succeeded in making her want him, in stirring up all of the eroticism she possessed, and the commonsense portion of herself was losing ground. His lips felt delectably sensual on hers, warm and tender, demanding and giving, all at the same time. Instead of feeling the substantial weight of his body, she felt its remarkable composition, his chest, his thighs, and most disturbing of all, his sex subtly moving against hers.

She was getting sweaty and weak, and her mouth had become yielding and soft under his, molding at his direction, opening for his tongue.

“Sassy,” he whispered huskily.

Oh, God, she thought. She couldn’t let this happen again, not when their first time had meant so little to him he had no memory of it. Her wounds from that episode had gone so deep she still felt them. Rebel Sterling wasn’t the man for her to be fooling around with, however persuasive were his kisses and hard body.

With her hands freed, she laid them on either side of his head and pushed. Their mouths separated, and he looked at her with surprise in his eyes. Cass could almost see the protests lining up in his head, so she spoke first, hoarsely but fiercely. “Are you planning to take advantage of me again?”

Gard froze, his expression, his hands, his body, every inch of him. “What did you say?”

Already she wished she hadn’t said it. It wasn’t the truth, not the whole truth, and she could see what her accusation had done to him.

But neither could she take back the question. “I think you heard me.”

“All right, I heard you, but why did you say something like that?” His voice was controlled only through intense effort. He’d taken advantage of her? When? Where? As the questions mounted in his mind, he could feel all traces of desire deserting his system.

But then a horrifying thought struck him: was it true? Was that why Cassandra had been so distant and unfriendly? Was that the event nagging at his flawed memory? Had he forced her into something sexual?

Abruptly he rolled away from her, ending up on his back, his face tense, his eyes shadowed with confusion. Cass sat up slowly, almost afraid to look at him. She never should have said such a thing. He hadn’t taken advantage of her; he’d just made giving in to his charm seem natural and sensible, and while it had felt perfectly natural at the time, it certainly hadn’t been sensible.

She sent him a quick, uneasy glance, wondering how to undo the damage she had just inflicted without getting into a detailed discussion of that night and its painful aftermath. There were some things she would never be able to tell him, such as the nights of crying herself to sleep because she’d seen him at some point of that day and he hadn’t noticed her. Certainly he had never called or come to the house to see her. It was as though that night at the dunes had happened only in her own mind, and she’d been so hurt by his avoidance that nothing else in life held any meaning.

That was when she had made the decision to leave Montana. Her parents agreed on the further education she’d chosen, a small, well-respected art school in San Francisco, and she had packed and left, praying that time and distance would allow her to forget Gard Sterling.

She pushed herself to her feet and brushed off the seat of her jeans. “I’m sorry I said that.”

Gard sat up. Something hurt in his stomach. Not a pain, exactly, more like a tearing, ripping sensation. He spoke raggedly. “Is it true?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” Nervous and trying not to show it, Cass started for her horse.

Gard jumped to his feet and rushed after her. He grabbed her by the arm, and not gently, either. “Is it true?”

She tried to wrench her arm free. “I said I don’t want to talk about it!”

Gard’s eyes were blazing. “That’s just too damned bad! You’re not leaving until you explain yourself. What you said is either a stupefying, deplorable fact or the most despicable lie I’ve ever heard. Now, which is it?”

Her own anger was rising. “What’s wrong with your own memory? Don’t you remember what you did years ago? How you behaved? Was the world really your oyster, or did you merely think it was? You were drunk or well on your way most of the time, and why anyone—including your father—put up with your selfishness escapes me completely.”

“List every fault I ever had if it makes you feel superior, Cassandra, but don’t try to evade the subject you introduced. Did I force you into something?” He winced at the question. Never in his wildest dreams could he have put himself in that scenario. Yes, there’d been many women, but what he remembered of them was willingness, eagerness, cooperation, participation.

Cass’s face was flushed. “I’ve said all I’m going to say about it, so you may as well stop throwing your weight around. Just what makes you think you can manhandle me the way you’ve done today? You’re still doing it!”

What he was doing was maintaining a tight grasp on her arm, though not with anything sexual in mind. She had struck a blow he wouldn’t easily forget, and he had to know if there was any truth to it. His teeth clenched. “Give me a straight answer, damn you. Did I ever force you to have sex with me?”

She looked away from the turmoil in his eyes. “There are different kinds of force,” she said stiffly.

Gard took her chin with his free hand and turned her head to face him. “So, we did have sex? When did it happen? Where? And what kind of force did I allegedly use to seduce you? Did I hold you down and rip off your clothes?”

Her lips pursed. “Not exactly.” She had never wanted to have this conversation. Why in God’s name hadn’t she kept her big mouth shut?

“But I did get you out of your clothes. Where were we when this supposedly took place?”

If she didn’t get away from him, he was going to pull every tiny detail out of her about that night. She gathered what strength she could and looked him right in the eyes. “I’m telling you to let go of my arm this instant. This conversation is over, and you can stew about it for the rest of your life for all I care.”

His eyes had grown hard. “Do you care about that option?”

Her eyes hardened, also. “Are you going to try and blackmail me into talking about the past? Forget that idea, Gard. Frankly, after today I don’t give a damn if you ever make that decision.”

“I’ll stop you from selling.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. You never were a decent person, and you’ll probably still be a coldhearted, selfish S.O.B. on the day you die. Now, let me go!” This time when Cass pulled against his hand, he loosened his hold on her arm and let her move away. “Thank you,” she said sarcastically.

His expression grim, Gard stood there and watched her walk to her horse. She mounted. He yelled as she rode away. “Have a good day, Cassandra. You sure as hell made mine!”

Internally Cass winced, though she kept going. How could those words have come out of her mouth? She had never used the word force in any description of that night at the dunes. Had it been lurking in the far recesses of her mind all this time?

She bit her lip, frowning at the ground ahead of her. Remembering Gard’s words—that it was either a stupefying, deplorable fact or the most despicable lie—caused remorse to burn like acid in her stomach. If she had wanted to finally talk to Gard about that night, why had she chosen to blurt out a ghastly accusation instead of merely...

Merely what? Hadn’t his faulty memory been gnawing at her? How dare he make love to a woman and then simply put it out of his mind, as though it had been of no more import than...than crossing a street? Why should she be feeling guilty and as though she had committed some unpardonable sin?

Tears were suddenly blurring Cass’s vision. She should have known that Gard would not only prove uncooperative regarding the contract, but that he would do something else to make her miserable. She should have left the matter in the hands of their lawyers, as she had initially intended.

Well, that was the way it would be from now on. There was not going to be any more personal contact between her and Gard Sterling, not if she had to desert the ranch and Montana to accomplish it.

* * *

Gard stared after Cassandra through narrowed, disturbed eyes as she and her horse got smaller in the distance. He had never been so shaken before in his life. How many times would some idiotic thing he’d done years ago suddenly flash into his mind and bring him to his knees with regret?

But nothing from his wild and hedonistic youth had hit him the way Cassandra’s allegation had. Was there any truth to it? She had backed down slightly, but even though he couldn’t remember the event, he suspected—very strongly—that they had made love, or rather, had sex—under some circumstance.

How old had she been when she left the valley? Gard had to think hard to come up with an approximate age. Seventeen or eighteen...somewhere along there. Damn! He slammed his fist into his other palm. A kid, and he’d made love to her and couldn’t even remember doing it.

But she remembered. Remembered so well that she could barely speak civilly to him.

Slowly Gard walked to where he’d tied his horse. The feelings he’d developed rose up to mock him. Certainly Cassandra had become interesting to him at their first meeting. He’d seen and appreciated her pretty face and remarkable figure. More, he’d felt that intangible chemistry that made one woman stand out from others.

Now there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of anything important occurring between them. He’d behaved like an adolescent, assuming that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. Kissing her...pressuring her...talking like a fool about paddling her behind and making love...thinking that her protests were merely coyness and flirting.

His ego had been badly damaged today. Cassandra was no slouch in the hit-’em-where-it-hurts department, and he resented her cruel method of letting him know where they stood with each other. She could have used a little tact, couldn’t she?

But then, he hadn’t been exactly tactful, either. Meeting Cassandra at the Plantation that day had been like meeting her for the first time ever. The girl he remembered—vaguely, to be sure—had barely been recognizable in the stylish, sophisticated woman who had walked into that banquet room. He’d started off on the wrong foot with Cassandra simply because he hadn’t had a clue about her true state of mind.

Tight-lipped and tense, Gard mounted his horse and began the ride home. To his own home. What did he do now? he thought dismally. They still had the contract to deal with, even though Cassandra had plainly and angrily stated that she didn’t give a damn if he ever made a decision on that option.

Would she cool down and talk to him again? When should he try to find out? This evening? He could call and apologize, even though he couldn’t remember what he’d be apologizing for. Maybe he should apologize for that, as well. Cassandra, I’m sorry I can’t remember making love to you.

Gard winced. An apology of that sort was apt to earn him a behind full of buckshot, should he ever get near enough for her to haul out that shotgun she’d mentioned.

Admit it, Sterling. You’ve made one hell of a mess of things, and this is one time that an apology might do more harm than good.

But how did a man untangle this kind of chaotic muddle? Leaving the situation as it was now was unthinkable. Something had to be done. Cassandra thought the absolute worst of him, and that knowledge hurt like the very devil. He didn’t want her thinking he was the same careless, pleasure-seeking, self-indulgent swinger he’d been fourteen years ago. The signs of his present calm and temperate life-style were completely evident, which she would have seen right away if she hadn’t been so biased by the past.

On the other hand, he himself had negated those signs by behaving like a wet-behind-the-ears, horny kid. That was the crux of this thing, Gard thought uneasily. Neither of them were kids anymore, and for some god-awful reason their meeting had set off a sort of regression that had Cassandra despising him for something he obviously should have remembered, and him, in his ignorance, getting all silly and excited over a pretty face.

Gard got home without reaching a solution. One thing was for certain: the sparks between himself and Cassandra were real. The yielding softness of her lips wasn’t only in his imagination. For a few seconds there on the ground, she had kissed him back. The pliancy of her body under his had felt too good to have been anything else. However determined she was to hate him—and he did believe that was the case—she was affected by him physically, just as she affected him.