stood with his hands in his pockets as if he didn’t know what to do with them. His obvious unease was so unusual she was taken aback. “Something’s bothering you,” she said quietly.
“Not bothering me,” he said quickly. “But I do have something important I want to say to you.”
“What is it?” Her stomach quivered. She couldn’t imagine what they had to discuss at this moment.
“I want you to live here at Willowbrook...until the repairs on your house are completed. No hidden agenda, I swear. I know we don’t see eye to eye, but we need to table our disagreement in the short term while things are in chaos.”
Her stomach fell to her knees. He was entirely serious. Though it seemed he was trying to be nice, suspicion reared its ugly head. “We don’t even know each other,” she said faintly.
Drew leaned against a post of the giant rice-carved bed and gave her a crooked smile. “I’m not sure you can say that anymore. We’ve lived a lifetime in the last twenty-four hours, don’t you think? I have plenty of room, and you would have online access and fax machines to deal with your insurance claims. You wouldn’t have to worry about grocery shopping or cooking or anything else. You could concentrate on getting Green Acres back in shape.”
What he offered was infinitely tempting. Her world was in tatters. But she was a mature woman. Would taking Drew’s help be too needy?
“I’ll think about it,” she said. “Thank you for the invitation.”
“Accepting help doesn’t mean you’re weak, Beth.”
“What, you’re a mind reader now?”
He crossed to where she stood by the window. “I’m grateful that my house is still standing. But if it weren’t, I would gladly accept a helping hand from my neighbor.”
“Horse hockey,” she said, laughing in spite of herself.
“It’s true. So please swallow your pride and let me do this for you.”
He liked the notion of being her savior. She could tell. It was a guy thing. Looking around the sumptuous, exquisitely decorated bedroom, she grimaced inwardly. This was a far cry from the roach-infested apartments where she had grown up. It was difficult to admit, even to herself, how much she wanted to stay.
On a normal day, she might have summoned the strength to turn him down. But after the tornado and last night’s ordeal, she was working from a final store of reserves. “I suppose I’d be a fool to say no.”
“I happen to know you’re a very smart woman.”
She couldn’t allow herself to depend on him indefinitely. This gilded world of wealth and privilege was not hers. The life she had carved out for herself was a good one, but it wasn’t this.
Even so, surely it couldn’t hurt to pretend for a while. “Okay,” she sighed. “You win. But only because I’m at a low point. And because I’m guessing that bathroom over there has a jetted tub.”
“You are and it does.”
Something happened then—something she couldn’t explain. The attraction that neither of them had acknowledged over the last months and days was tangible now. Fired in the crucible of the tornado’s fury, it had proven to be far more real than she could ever have imagined.
Desire hovered between them...around them. Drew’s expression was serious now. His warm gaze seeped into her bones, rejuvenating her. Did his interest in her have an ulterior motive? Did he think if they were intimate, he could manipulate her more easily? “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.
Hunger flashed in his eyes. “Not the half of it,” he muttered.
His mouth settled over hers in slow motion. Their lips met, clung. Strong arms circled her waist, pulling her up against his big, hard frame.
Dimly, in some far recess of her subconscious, she understood that this was a really bad idea. Living in Drew’s house...accepting his help. Playing with fire.
When his tongue slid between her lips, stroking inside her mouth intimately, a curl of desire, sweet and hot, made her legs tremble. She clung to him, flashing back to their terrifying dash to the storm cellar. Would she have made it in time without him? Awash with emotions that ran the gamut from gratitude to sheer need, she kissed him back.
Drew said she was a smart woman. But here, locked in his arms, with his mouth hot and demanding on hers, she knew that she was not. Despite every obstacle standing in their way, both past and present, she wanted to share his bed.
The town they both loved had been ripped apart. Lives were lost. Her own home was in shambles.
Perhaps it was the very existence of disaster that made her reach for what she wanted. Life was short. Life was precious. Even without a happy ending, she could have Drew. It wasn’t vanity to think so. She saw it in his eyes, felt it in the restless caress of his hands.
Deliberately, she nipped his bottom lip with her teeth. “You have things to do. But I’ll be here when you’re ready.”
I’ll be here when you’re ready. Drew replayed that sentence in his head a thousand times as he made his way from stall to stall checking on his horses. He relied on top-notch employees. But he wanted to see for himself that the horses were safe. These beautiful animals were more than dollar signs to him. They were noble steeds with bloodlines that went further back than his own.
He spoke softly to each one, smiling when a whinny of recognition greeted him. They were muscle and sinew and most of all—heart. Ever since he was a boy, he had loved the sights and sounds and smells of the horse barn. As an adult, he was fortunate to make his living working with these creatures. Though he would be reluctant to admit it, he grieved each time one of his prized stallions left the ranch.
An hour later, walking shoulder to shoulder with Jed down the streets of Royal—or what was left of them—he forgot all about Willowbrook. The random pattern of the destruction was hard to fathom. On one block, houses had been razed to the ground, no more than piles of rubble. But one road over, dwellings were untouched.
The west side of town was hardest hit; almost all of the businesses there a total loss. Smaller tornadoes had touched down across the county.
Drew had seen TV coverage of bad tornadoes. In his lifetime he’d personally witnessed a few storms that ripped up trees and tore off roofs. But nothing like this. Ever. The governor and his entourage had helicoptered in at daybreak and assessed the damage in preparation for a news conference. Faces from national news stations and The Weather Channel popped up everywhere. That, more than anything else, brought home the enormity of the disaster.
Royal was about to become famous for all the wrong reasons.
Earlier in the day, Jed had made contact with the point man for search and rescue. Now, he and Drew and a half dozen other members of the Texas Cattleman’s Club joined a team with canine support going from house to house looking for survivors. Thankfully, almost everyone had been accounted for by this point. While Drew and Beth had been trapped in the cellar the afternoon
