unpacking her own things, she took decided comfort in the buzz of the electric razor starting up in the bathroom. It was the kind of everyday soothing sound to which she could definitely grow accustomed. Absently she wondered if married couples truly appreciated such simple joys of cohabitation.
When Tara heard the shower being turned on, she marveled at how the thought of such an ordinary hygienic act could bring sweat to her brow. All she could think of was the close proximity of Jonas, naked. The water caressing his six-foot-three body, his glistening muscles, and…
Ten minutes later he emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing but a thick towel wrapped around his middle. With his dark hair shimmering with water, he looked every bit a Roman gladiator. It was all Tara could do to refrain from asking if he would like help wiping that spot on his broad shoulders that he had missed.
“You look like a nude man,” she said with a smile, then realizing the embarrassing Freudian slip, tripped all over her tongue trying to correct herself. “A new man! I meant to say you look like a new man.”
The sound of Jonas’s laughter washed over her. He did have a wonderful way of putting her at ease in the most difficult of moments.
“Listen,” he said with a lopsided smile, “I know how awkward this has to be for you. I’ll promise to try to stay out of your way if you’ll do the same for me. I apologize for my state of undress, too, but I’m actually thinking of burning the clothes I was wearing. I don’t want anything around to remind me of the time I spent in that jail cell. Being the superefficient assistant that you are, I was hoping you might have brought me a couple of clean things to wear…”
Once again on firmer ground, Tara hastened to make him forget her earlier blunder. “I already put clean clothes on your bed. I didn’t bring much along because I figured it would be just as easy to buy a few things while we’re here. You know I’ve been wanting to update your wardrobe for quite some time now.”
Jonas inserted an injured tone to his voice. “Just be forewarned I’m not about to get a nose ring to go along with any trendy clothes you pick out to bring me into the new millennium.”
It was the kind of warm funny banter that Tara liked to think might someday be a part of their marriage. As much as Jonas would like to dismiss her as nothing more than an employee, she couldn’t keep waiting for him to notice she’d grown up. She was, after all, far too bright and ambitious to remain at a dead-end job forever. Certain that this was the perfect opportunity for her to prove what a wonderful wife she would make him, Tara had every intention of maximizing their time together.
“Remind me to give you a raise,” Jonas said, padding off in the direction of his bedroom. “You take awfully good care of me.”
“I’d sure like to,” she replied softly to a backside that made her suck in her breath with longing.
Seeing the damp imprints of his feet across the plush carpet, she wondered if marriages really did break up over such inconsequential things as a husband failing to dry his feet or replace the roll of toilet paper or squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom. Tara had read articles about such things, but found the idea preposterous. She sighed deeply. Only time would tell whether close proximity would indeed bring her closer to the man she wanted—or if it would drive them apart.
Tara knew that some women would be offended by Jonas’s expectations of her as an employee. She understood that it was her duty as a modern woman to rage against any request to make coffee or pick up dry cleaning or, say, pack up the office and move it to Dust Blown, Texas. But she just couldn’t muster up much indignation. Love had a way of making the most mundane chores a joy.
Aside from the fact that she enjoyed being near Jonas, Tara knew she was well compensated, financially, for what she did. And with a little luck she had every intention of moving up in his affections.
She also knew that self-reliant Jonas was likely to do everything in his power to keep her at arm’s length. It clearly amused him how she blushed or trembled whenever he came too close. A less-determined woman might have given up on having anything more than a platonic relationship with him. Not Tara Summers. Having supported both herself and her father ever since she was seventeen, she knew what the word persistence really meant. This was her chance to pay Jonas back for having faith in her when nobody else had and to finally make her feelings known. If she couldn’t muster up the courage here, she knew it wouldn’t happen back in San Francisco, where they would no doubt fall back into the same old productive platonic patterns of behavior.
A virgin, Tara felt a certain amount of trepidation—and a good deal of anticipation—at the prospect of spending a prolonged period of time in confined quarters with such a sexy virile man. But at the ripe old age of twenty-two, she was past caring about what damage could be done to her reputation.
In fact, she was pretty sure her virginity was her reputation.
Not that she hadn’t had any chances, romantically speaking. Plenty of men had made plays for her, but an old-fashioned girl at heart, Tara was hoping to share the gift of herself with a man who truly loved her. A man who she loved with the kind of passion immortalized in the tender verses she so esteemed. Certainly Jonas’s was as tragic a story as any the great bard had imagined. Although she knew he didn’t blame her for the predicament in which he found himself, Tara couldn’t help feeling guilty for the part she had played in getting him to come to Texas.
When he returned to the living room a moment later, Jonas was wearing a new pair of khaki pants and a soft white polo shirt. She was in the midst of deciding whether she liked him more as a rough-shaven rebel or a clean-shaven jock when it occurred to her that he really fit into neither category. One minute he was looking right into her soul with those piercing eyes and the very next moment his eyes would soften to reveal the hint of a little boy all alone against the world.
“Are you ready to fill me in on what’s happened?” she asked, taking a soda from the wet bar and offering him one, as well.
“After all I’ve been through, I think I deserve something stronger,” Jonas told her, settling down into a sofa and stretching his long legs across the expanse of velvet striping.
Tara substituted a beer for the pop and handed it to him. Then she draped her jacket on the back of her chair.
Noticing the wonders her feminine curves did for the simple scoop-neck shell and matching skirt she wore, Jonas took a long swig of his drink before beginning. “Well, of course, you know all about how I ended up here in the first place.”
“The invitation,” she supplied, feeling a twinge of culpability for her part in encouraging him to come to the Double Crown Ranch. Loyally tied to her own family, she had been thrilled when Jonas told her about the invitation he’d received several months ago from his long-lost uncle, Ryan Fortune, asking him to attend a reunion party for his sister and brother’s “lost heirs.” Apparently, good-looking smooth-talking Cameron Fortune had numerous affairs during his marriage and managed to father three illegitimate children before he was killed in a car crash—with his young assistant.
Jonas’s initial reaction was to scorn the invitation outright. After all, the only thing his birth father had ever given him was a start in the womb of a woman who deserved a whole lot better than she ever got. The thought of that dear woman having to endure Nicolas Goodfellow’s emotional abuse just to secure her illegitimate child a name and a trim suburban home was more than Jonas’s heart could bear considering even now. Other than the fact that it would have given him a good deal of satisfaction to look Cameron up one day and spit in his face, he wasn’t particularly sorry that his biological father was dead.
Still,
