response seemed to gratify her, bolster her fortitude, even. Straightening in her chair, she reached over and rested her hand on his arm, her gaze locking on his. “Luke…I have a proposition for you.” Before he could swallow the bite of potato he’d just taken and waylay her request, she forged ahead. “I’d like for you and I to, well…” Her voice faltered as she struggled to find the right words. “I’ve never asked a man to, well…”
He swallowed, hard, and sympathetic to her discomfort, he supplied, “Have an affair?”
She snatched her hand back, shock enveloping her features. “Oh, goodness, no!” Her hand fluttered to the collar of her dress, and then she laughed, as if she found his wrong assumption amusing. “I don’t want us to have an affair, I want us to get married.”
Stunned, Luke’s fork clattered to his plate, and his appetite vanished. “Married?” he repeated incredulously, feeling as though he’d just been prodded with a fiery branding iron. His entire body burned, and he had a strong urge to bolt for wide open spaces. He’d been prepared to divert a seduction, not a marriage proposal!
She pulled in a deep breath, and let it out in a rush. “I know this is all very sudden—”
“Ma’am,” he managed to interrupt with extreme politeness, “I think you’ve roped the wrong cowboy.” Prepared to leave, he scooted his chair back, the scraping sound much like the clawing sensation in his belly.
Abruptly, she stood, too, panic flashing in her eyes. “Luke, wait a minute.”
Another minute, and he’d surely give in to the pleading note in her voice—and she had to be desperate to ask a renegade like him to marry her. He was certain she had her reasons for picking him, a stranger, he just didn’t want to be any part of whatever ploy she had in mind.
And considering what a fiercely independent woman she was, he had no doubt that this marriage proposal was a scheme of some sort. He didn’t believe for a moment that she needed a husband.
He headed toward the back screen door, but she beat him to it, blocking his path. When he stepped even closer to intimidate her into moving out of his way, she held out her hand and pressed her palm against his chest to keep two feet of distance between them. He immediately tensed at her bold move, but she didn’t seem the least bit afraid of him, and she might not know it but she had many reasons to fear him.
He scowled down at her. Stubborn woman!
“Luke, please,” she persisted, ignoring his dark look. “Just give me a chance to explain.”
His jaw clenched tight, until a muscle in his cheek ticked. “There’s nothing to explain,” he said with more calm than he felt. “I think we both should just chalk this up to a big misunderstanding.”
“But it’s not a misunderstanding.” Her chin rose and purpose fired her green eyes to a bright shade of emerald. “I am proposing.”
That heat prickled his skin again, settling in his stomach like a ball of fire. “I’m not interested.” The lie tumbled gruffly from his lips.
Frustration radiated off her, and her fingers flexed against his chest. “I’ll make it worth your while,” she blurted.
Her brazen statement threw provocative images into his mind that he had no defenses against. Oh, he had no doubt the benefits of marrying Eden would far exceed any sacrifice on his part. She was a beautiful woman, and it would be no hardship to share a house and bed with her, to be able to claim his husbandly rights and take their attraction to its logical conclusion. She was an excellent cook, an intelligent, hardworking business woman, and a good mom. She possessed all the qualities a man would pick for a wife, and then some. But whatever her reasons for singling him out, and no matter how appealing he found the idea of marrying Eden, he couldn’t do it.
And then there was his past to consider that would forever haunt him, a past which would only taint Eden’s reputation and the credibility of the Double L if someone discovered what he’d done.
He was a solitary man for a reason, a drifter by necessity—for the sole purpose of being able to pack up and move on when his transgressions nipped at his heels. Far from being poor, he’d been saving his earnings for years now, and he hoped that one day he’d be able to settle down on his own spread, be his own boss, raise his own cattle…alone. Always alone.
Regret twisted within him, and he gently grasped the hand Eden still pressed insistently to his chest. His callused thumb grazed the silky soft skin along her wrist, as much of a touch as he dared when he craved something far more intimate with Eden—warmth, caring, acceptance. The very things he’d sworn he’d learned to live without.
Obviously not.
Her lips parted on a catch of breath, and the pulse at the base of her neck fluttered in reaction to his caress. Her dark, spiky lashes drifted to half-mast, and she made no attempt to pull her arm back. The tension in the room shifted, crackling with those sensual sparks that flared whenever they got too close.
Right now, they were close enough to ignite a wildfire.
His heartbeat drummed in his ears and reverberated heavily through his body, making him intensely aware of Eden, of himself, and the need that had crept up on him without his permission—a dangerous kind of longing he couldn’t seem to shake when it came to this particular woman.
Kissing her would be only a matter of lowering his head and stealing what she unconsciously offered. And there was no denying he ached to taste the sweet heat of her mouth, to draw her body against his and lose himself in her scent and softness.
And though he suspected Eden wouldn’t so much as issue a protest to something they’d both been fighting for the past month, deny himself he did. For her protection as much as for his own sanity.
Releasing her hand, he watched as the smoky desire in her gaze ebbed to confusion. He forced himself to speak, to reestablish those boundaries that had crumbled the moment he touched her.
“As tempting as your offer is, ma’am, I’m not interested,” he said succinctly.
Stepping around her before she regained her composure and countered him yet again, he headed out the back door, mentally justifying his brusque actions—better for her to experience a gentle rejection now than for her to suffer later.
CHAPTER TWO
EDEN wasn’t ready to admit defeat, not when Luke hadn’t even given her the opportunity to explain her predicament, or extend her generous offer.
I’ll make it worth your while.
Eden dipped her hands into the soapy water in the sink and scrubbed a bowl, her face warming as she recalled the words she’d spoken in haste—and the unintentional sexual connotation behind her reckless statement.
Good grief, the man probably thought she was a desperate widow in need of attention. She cringed, realizing she was a desperate widow, but not for the reasons he most likely believed.
She didn’t want a man in her life, but she did need one to achieve her ultimate goal of securing the house and Double L as hers, and finally be free of her brother-in-law’s influence.
Not for the first time, she cursed the stipulation
