bit. Worth hesitated. He didn’t force kisses on unwilling women. She didn’t back away. Her mouth opened slightly. Inviting him.
He sensed she was as curious as he was.
His fingers slid into her hair. Silky threads snared his knuckles. Slanting his mouth over hers, he kissed her gently, then added some firmness, and when she didn’t protest or pull away, he deepened the kiss.
She didn’t pull away from him, even if her muted response only hinted at a fiery passion he suspected she’d buried with her husband.
Every muscle in Worth’s body tightened, and he knew he shouldn’t have kissed her. Because he wanted to keep kissing her. Wanted to take her to bed. Wanted to make love to her until she’d completely freed that passion.
Thoughts of her husband brought back sanity, and Worth lifted his head. The light from the living room fell on her face, and he read a confused vulnerability in her eyes before she looked down. Worth tucked the afghan securely around her legs and curved a hand around the back of her neck. “I’m not going to apologize.” Curling a tendril of red hair around his finger, he wondered it didn’t sear his skin. “You wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss you.”
“You didn’t want to kiss me,” she said wearily. “You wanted to intimidate me.” Her downcast eyelashes brushed against the dusting of freckles on her cheeks.
He snatched his hand away from her neck. “Are you saying I forced you to kiss me? That you didn’t want to kiss me?”
“I’m saying you have this idiotic notion I’m here to stop Russ from marrying your mother, and you’ll do anything you can to ensure the wedding goes ahead.”
He relaxed. She might shy away from acknowledging she’d returned his kiss, but apparently she was honest enough, at least about that, not to tell outright lies about it. “I didn’t realize you were so susceptible to my kisses.” Worth swallowed a grin as he felt her stiffen. “That leads to all kinds of possibilities. If I kiss you again, will you shovel out the barn? Repair some fence? I have a whole stack of calving data which needs entering in the computer. How many kisses will that cost me?”
“You rate your kisses too high. If I were trying to interfere with the wedding, which I’m not, you could kiss me from now until the cows come home, and you couldn’t stop me.”
“Lucky for me that I’m not relying on my kisses to stop you, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it—” She stopped abruptly. Several minutes passed before she asked warily, “What does that mean?”
Elizabeth’s fear of horses was her own business, and under ordinary circumstances, Worth would never have mentioned it. The possible consequences of Elizabeth’s need to punish her father kept this from being an ordinary circumstance.
Drawing a long strand of hair under her chin, he used it to raise her face. “My sisters used to call it blackmail.” In spite of her being nothing but a troublemaker, the indignation on her face made him want to kiss her again.
“You can’t blackmail me over a silly kiss. I don’t care if you tell the entire world you kissed me.”
“But you would care if I told Russ you’re afraid of horses.”
Her sharp intake of air must have sucked in half the mosquito population of Colorado. After a bit, she said, “Me, terrified of horses? That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”
He’d never heard a less believable denial. “You are, and you don’t want Russ to know, or you would have told him by now.”
She went very still. “I’m not afraid of horses.”
“That’s good, because Russ is real anxious to put you up on Wall Street. Wally’s a good-looking stallion who’s all muscle and power, and you don’t want to believe the hands if they try and tell you he’s a mean, fractious son of a gun.” Wally had the temperament of a favorite nanny; even so, Worth never put an insecure or unknown rider on over half a ton of finely-tuned horseflesh.
Elizabeth didn’t say anything for the longest time. Then she deliberately pushed aside his hand and stood. “Jamie and I will leave tomorrow.” She didn’t look at Worth. “I’m not staying where we’re not wanted.” Her voice was stiff with pride and wounded dignity.
For a second, Worth felt like a heel for harassing her, then he remembered the trouble she’d managed to stir up in only one day and hardened his heart. Catching the afghan still wrapped around her, he pulled her back down to the swing. “You’re not going anywhere. Russ and Mom want you here for the wedding, so you’re staying. And you’re going to behave yourself and forget about your plans for sabotaging the wedding. If you don’t,” reaching for her hand, he played with her icy fingers, “I’ll tell Russ your dirty little secret about being afraid of horses.” He wouldn’t, no matter the provocation, but she didn’t need to know that.
She yanked her hand away from him. “He won’t believe you.”
“Maybe not. But I’m guessing he’ll start wondering when you keep refusing to ride.”
“I’m not afraid of horses.” She stared straight ahead, her hands clenched in her lap. “I have lots of reasons for not riding.”
“I’ll bet you made up a real nice list before you got on the plane.” It didn’t seem to occur to her that if she told Russ the truth, Worth would lose his leverage over her.
“Blackmail and blackmailers are despicable.”
“Dregs of the earth,” he agreed cheerfully. This time Worth made no effort to stop her when she stood.
“I have my son to think about.” She started for the door. “I won’t have him hurt by your fun and games.”
“Elizabeth.” He hadn’t run a large ranch for more than his adult life without learning how to crack his voice like a whip. She stopped dead in her tracks. Standing, Worth reached past her shoulder and held the screen door shut. “I would never put Jimbo in harm’s way. You can trust me on that.”
She turned, leaning against the door, her eyes glittering in the light from the house. “Trust is a word people use too easily. They don’t understand what trust is. I have no idea if I can trust you. I don’t even know if you know what the word means.” Turning back to the door, she removed his hand and went inside.
Worth returned to the swing, contemplating the puzzle Elizabeth presented. Why did she hide her fear of horses from her father? Russ was hardly the type to tell his daughter never to darken his doorstep again, nor was he likely to force her to ride in spite of her fears. A part of the puzzle was missing, which intrigued Worth.
He wondered who’d betrayed her trust.
Russ, because he hadn’t gone to her when her husband was killed? If a woman couldn’t trust her father, rely on him in her darkest moment, who could she trust? Russ had let his daughter down badly, and he knew it. Worth could do nothing about that. He could make sure their problems didn’t hurt his mother.
Elizabeth Randall was a bundle of nerves held together by not much more than sheer grit. A fierceness in her eyes had told him she’d fight desperately for her young son’s well-being. She didn’t need to fight Worth. He had no intention of harming her or her son,
