Joan Johnston: Texas Brides: The Rancher and the Runaway Bride & The Bluest Eyes in Texas

A half hour later, sweat had made damp patches under the arms and down the back of Adam’s chambray shirt. He had paused in what he was doing long enough to tie a navy blue bandanna around his forehead to keep the salty wetness out of his eyes. He worked quietly, efficiently, aware of the life-and-death nature of his task.

Adam knew a moment of hope when he finished. But now that the foals had been rearranged, the mare seemed too exhausted to push. He looked across the mare to Tate, feeling his failure in every inch of his body. “I’m sorry.”

Tate didn’t hear his apology. She took the mare’s head onto her lap and began chanting and cooing to the exhausted animal—witchcraft for sure, Adam thought—until the mare amazingly, miraculously birthed the first of the foals.

Adam knew his grin had to be as silly as the one on Tate’s face, but he didn’t care. Buck took care of cleaning up the first foal while Tate continued her incantations until the mare had delivered the second. Buck again took over drying off the foal while Tate remained at the mare’s head, and Adam made sure the afterbirths were taken care of.

When Adam was finished, he crossed to a sink at one end of the barn and scrubbed himself clean. He dried his hands with a towel before rolling his sleeves down from above the elbow to the middle of his forearms.

Adam watched in admiration as Tate coaxed the mare onto her feet and introduced her to her offspring. The mare took a tentative lick of one, and then the other. In a matter of minutes both foals were nudging under her belly to find mother’s milk.

Tate’s eyes met Adam’s across the stall. He opened his arms and she walked right into them. Her arms circled his waist, and she held him tightly as she gave vent to the tears she hadn’t shed during the awful ordeal.

“Everything’s fine, sweetheart. Thanks to you, everything’s just fine,” Adam said, stroking her short, silky hair. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. You did just fine.”

Adam wasn’t sure how long they stood there. When he looked up to tell Buck he could go, he discovered the cowboy was already gone. Tate’s sobs had subsided and he became aware for the first time of the lithe figure that was pressed so intimately against him.

Tate Whitelaw might be young, but she had the body of a woman. He could feel the soft roundness of her breasts against his chest, and her feminine hips were fitted tight against his masculinity. His growing masculinity.

He tried shifting himself away, but her nose buried itself more deeply at his shoulder and she snuggled closer.

“Tate.” He didn’t recognize the voice as his own. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Tate.”

“Hmm?”

If she didn’t recognize the potential danger of the situation was he honor bound to point it out to her? She felt so good in his arms!

Before he could stop himself, his hands had tangled in her hair. He tugged and her head fell back. Her eyes were limpid pools of gold and green. Her face was flushed from crying. She had been gnawing on that lip again and it was swollen. He could see it needed soothing.

He lowered his head and caught her lower lip between his teeth, letting his tongue ride the length of it, testing the fullness of it.

Tate moaned and he was lost.

His tongue slipped into her mouth, tasting her, seeking solace for a desolation of spirit he had never admitted even to himself. Her whole body melted against him, and he was aware of an excruciatingly pleasurable heat in his groin where their bodies were fitted together. He spread his legs slightly and pulled her hard against him, then rubbed them together, creating a friction that turned molten coals to fire.

Tate was only aware of sensations. The softness of his lips. The slickness of his tongue. The heat and hardness of his body pressed tightly against hers. The surge of pleasure as his maleness sought out her femaleness. The urgency of his mouth as it found the smooth column of her neck and teased its way up to her ear, where his breath, hot and moist, made her shiver.

“Please, Adam,” she gasped. “Please, don’t stop.”

Adam’s head jerked up, and he stared at the woman in his arms. Good Lord in Heaven! What was he doing?

Adam had to reach behind him to free Tate’s arms. He held her at arm’s length, his hands gripping hers so tightly he saw her wince. He loosened his hold slightly, but didn’t let go. If he did, he was liable to pull her back into his arms and finish what he had started.

Her eyes were lambent, her face rosy with the heat of passion. Her body was languid, boneless with desire, and it wouldn’t take much to have her flat on her back beneath him.

Are you out of your mind? What’s gotten into you? You’re supposed to be protecting her from lechers, not seducing her yourself!

Tate could see Adam was distraught, but she hadn’t the least notion why. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

Her voice was still breathless and sounded sexy as hell! His body throbbed with need.

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong, little girl!” he retorted. “You may be hotter than a firecracker on the Fourth of July, but I’m not interested in initiating any virgins! Do you hear me? Flat not interested!”

“Could have fooled me!” Tate shot back.

Adam realized he was still holding her hands—was in fact rubbing his thumbs along her palms—and dropped them like hot potatoes. “You stay away from me, little girl. You’re here for one reason, and one reason only—keeping books. You got that?”

“I got it, big boy!”

Adam started to reach for her but caught himself. He stalked over and let himself out of the stall. A moment later he was gone from the barn.

Tate curled her arms protectively around herself. What had happened to change things so quickly? One minute Adam had been making sweet, sweet love to her. The next he had become a raving lunatic. Oh, how it had stung when he called her little girl! She might be small in stature, but she was all grown up in every way that mattered.

Except for being a virgin.

Tate had to admit she was a babe in the woods when it came to sexual experience. But she recognized that what had just happened between her and Adam was something special. He had wanted her as much as she had wanted him. She couldn’t be mistaken about that. But their attraction had been more than sexual. It was as though when she walked into his arms she had found a missing part of herself. And though Adam might discount what had happened because she was so young, she wasn’t going to let him get away with denying what had happened between them—to her or to himself.

She wasn’t some little girl he could dismiss with a wave of his hand. Powerful forces were at work between them. Tate had to find a way to make Adam see her as a woman worthy of his love. But how best to accomplish that goal?

Because the physical attraction between them was so powerful, Tate decided she would start with that. She would put temptation in Adam’s path and just see what happened.

ADAM WATCHED TATE SMILING up at the cowboys who surrounded her at the corral while she regaled them with another of her outrageous stories about life at Hawk’s Way, as she had often done over the past three weeks. As usual, she was dressed in jeans, boots and a T-shirt with some equally outrageous slogan written on it.

Only this T-shirt had the neckline cut out so it slipped down to reveal one shoulder—and the obvious fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Anyone with eyes in his head could see she was naked under the T-shirt. The three cowboys were sure as hell looking. The wind was blowing and the cotton clung to her, outlining her generous breasts.

Adam told himself he wasn’t going to make a fool out of himself by going over there and dragging her away from three sets of ogling male eyes. However, once his footsteps headed in that direction, he didn’t seem to be able to stop them.