Wilde Bunch Read online

  “Once. It lasted three years. We split up nearly nine years ago, so it falls into the realm of ancient history. Don’t look so shocked, Kara. Most men don’t reach the age of thirty-five without experiencing the unholy state of matrimony at least once.”

  “Unholy state,” she repeated. “Since you feel that way, then why—”

  “I already explained. There are four compelling reasons why.”

  Tai chimed in with another commanding meow.

  Mac rolled his eyes. “I led you to believe I was going to put you out of the car because I wanted that furball with claws back in his carrier so we could talk. I didn’t want him distracting you, and he’s easier to ignore in his cage.”

  “Much to his outrage. Poor Tai.” Kara’s fear had already begun to dissipate, but the nervous excitement pulsing through her had heightened and intensified. She felt his thumb glide over the sensitive skin of her wrist, then move upward to stroke her palm. The small gesture was sensual and provocative and her whole body responded to it with a strong swift surge of desire.

  “You agree that we do need to talk before we go any farther?”

  She drew a sharp breath. “I—I agree,” she murmured, trying to regain her bearings. “I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience and expense you’ve had to—”

  “Forget about that,” Mac ordered. “Let’s cut to the chase, Kara. I know this whole situation is a bit unorthodox. I mean, out West mail-order brides have gone the way of the Pony Express and the Wells Fargo Wagon, yet here we are....”

  “Mail-order bride? Is that what I’m supposed to be?” She could not suppress the bubble of laughter welling up inside her.

  “Yeah, I know. It sounds ridiculous. I laughed too, when the Rev first suggested it.” Mac smiled wryly. He sobered almost instantly, his dark eyes intense. “But I’ve come to believe it’s a damn good idea.” His eyes slid over her. “Now that I’ve met you, it seems like an even better one.”

  “Oh, please!” Kara swept an agitated hand through her hair, tousling it. “It’s bad enough that you think I’m so desperate for a man that I would hightail it out to Montana to marry a stranger who paid for my fare. Don’t make things even worse by pretending to be attracted to me.”

  “Who says I’m pretending?” His voice grew deeper. “I am attracted to you.”

  “You’re playing some kind of role. Saying things you think I’d like to hear.” Kara swallowed hard. Depressingly enough, she realized that she liked hearing him say he found her attractive, even though she knew he couldn’t mean it.

  She straightened her spine, holding her head high, as she steeled herself against his insidious virile charm. “You must think I’m downright pathetic if you expect me to believe that you could possibly—”

  “Enough about me,” Mac cut in. “Let’s talk about you. I think you’re attracted to me, too, Kara. A little scared of me, maybe, but definitely attracted.” With one deft move, he slipped his hands to her waist, and gripping her, easily lifted her out of her seat and onto his lap. “So let’s work on eliminating the fear and heightening the attraction.”

  Kara gasped a protest. “No, Mac!”

  Mac grinned, settling her more deeply into his lap, his arms fastening around her like steel bands. “Let’s work on changing that into, ‘Oh, Mac!’”

  He held her fast against the hard male planes of his body, making her fully aware of his muscular strength. And of something else. There was no mistaking the blatant arousal of his body. Kara’s stunned eyes locked with his intense, knowing ones.

  “I told you I was attracted to you.” Mac lightly touched his mouth to hers.

  “I—I’m not as gullible as you seem to think,” Kara whispered. It was difficult to talk and even harder to think. His lips were nibbling at hers, their breaths mingling. “I know I’m not the type to inspire instant lust—”

  “You’re not?” Mac traced the shape of her mouth with the tip of his tongue, until she unconsciously parted her lips. “Well, I don’t see anyone else here but you, baby. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  “Probably that you’ve been in a—a state of deprivation and that any woman would turn you on.” Kara squirmed on his lap and made a feeble effort to free herself. Her cheeks burned with shame. She was well aware of how very slight her attempts to escape from his lap actually were.

  “Don’t underestimate yourself.” His voice was husky and hypnotizing. “You’re the one who inspired my case of instant lust. You, Kara.”

  His warm hand closed over her breast. There was nothing alarming or demanding in his touch, no heavy-handed possession. He caressed her gently, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to touch her there, to learn the feminine shape of her body.

  Kara’s breathing became deeper and heavier. He was seducing her and she knew it. Knew it, and was falling hard and fast. She’d never been exposed to an experienced man’s advances. Her dates had been with quiet young men as unsure and reserved as she was; passion had never been a remote possibility. In D.C., confident, good-looking, assertive men like Mac never gave her a second glance, let alone gazed at her with intense dark eyes while murmuring how sexy she was. Never had she been lifted onto a hard male lap while his mouth and hands aroused this hot, melting sensation that made her close her eyes and wriggle closer to him, helpless in the mounting throes of ardor.

  Mac let his mouth wander to her cheeks, then along the curve of her jawline to her ear, where his teeth nipped sensuously on the lobe. “Your skin is so soft,” he marveled. “Beautiful and creamy soft.” He was nibbling on her neck now, and his hand made a bold foray under her sweater. “I want to see more. I want to taste you, feel you.”

  With a slow, sure touch he slipped his hand inside her bra, his fingers gliding deeper into the cup to caress her already taut nipple.

  “Mac, no!” Kara cried frantically, unnerved by the flooding warmth surging through her body. The sensual heat spread like wildfire through her veins, from wherever his lips and fingers touched her. The most secret intimate part of her felt unaccustomedly swollen and achy and embarrassingly wet.

  “No?” Mac reluctantly removed his hand from beneath her sweater. “Am I going too fast for you, sweetie?”

  She pressed her thighs together, trying to suppress the too-exciting pleasure he had evoked.

  “W-Way too fast. After all, we just met.” Yet she couldn’t summon the willpower necessary to get off his lap and return to her own seat. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, making her achingly aware of his powerful muscular strength.

  “True. But we’re not bound by any stupid traditional courtship rules.” Mac’s hands slid down her back to cup the roundness of her bottom, his fingers kneading the firm softness there as he lifted her still closer.

  “That’s what’s so great about this whole deal, honey. We’re spared the getting-to-know-you games, the who’s-going-to-make-the-next-move strategies, the is-it-too-soon-for-sex conundrum, the commitment worries. We’re already beyond all that, even though we just met. We know what the outcome is—we’re going to be married. There is no purpose in holding back—or holding out.”

  His voice was soft and warmly reassuring. As he talked, his hands grew bolder and more insistent. He caressed the backs of her thighs with long sweeping strokes, the tips of his fingers moving toward her inner thighs with leisurely smoothness. Instinctively, her legs parted, and he began to trace erotic circles, his fingers moving higher toward the place that burned and throbbed for him.

  Kara’s pulse was racing wildly. The raw sexuality of his caresses blitzed her natural inhibition and reserve and common sense, the three hallmarks of her personality. She was reeling with pleasure, unable to control the shooting streaks of desire burning through her.

  “Kiss me,” Mac growled huskily, but he didn’t wait for her to comply to his sensual command. He cupped her chin in his hand, angling her mouth to meet the hot hard slant of his.

  There was nothing hesitant or tentative a
bout the way his mouth took hers. His lips parted hers easily and his tongue penetrated the moist hollow of her mouth, as he moved to secure her more firmly against him. One hand fastened in her hair to hold her head, the other continued to glide over the curves of her body with slow enticing strokes.

  The kiss deepened and grew longer, more intimate. She had never been kissed with such mastery, such fierce hunger. Dazed and dizzied, Kara had neither the control nor experience nor sophistication to hold back her response. She was throbbing everywhere, her whole body flushed and heated with the sensual fire Mac had kindled and set blazing.

  Kara felt as if she were drowning in a wild, thrilling whirlpool of sensations. She moved restlessly, clinging to him and trying to get even closer. She was aching with an urgency and an emptiness she had never before experienced, a force which could not be ignored. Sensuality pumped through her body like a potent drug; she felt as high as Montana’s Big Sky.

  And then suddenly, unexpectedly and most unwelcomely, the sharp ring of a telephone sounded, blasting through the sensuous cocoon enveloping them, with the force of a gunshot.

  “Damn!” Mac muttered, lifting his mouth from hers. His hands stilled on her body. “This is the downside of car phones. Back in the good old days, you couldn’t be reached when you decided to do a little parking.”

  The car phone rang again. The sound offended Tai who had momentarily ceased his meowing, and he voiced his protest with another screeching cry.

  Kara whimpered softly as Mac set her away from him. Her body roiled in a turmoil of frustration and thwarted need. It was as if she had become instantly addicted to his touch and was now undergoing the physical deprivations of withdrawal.

  “Yes, this really is Uncle Mac, Autumn,” Mac said into the phone. “No, I’m not some bad guy pretending to be him. It’s okay that you called me, Autumn. That’s why we have the car-phone number written down beside the phone, so you can get in touch if you need to.”

  Mac’s voice filtered through Kara’s shell-shocked haze. As she began to slowly regain her composure, she noticed that Mac appeared to be quite collected. He seemed to have pulled himself together with remarkable haste. Embarrassingly remarkable haste.

  While her mind was still awhirl, unable to form coherent thoughts, let alone phrases, Mac was conversing with his young niece as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.

  Maybe it hadn’t, not for him.

  The nasty possibility seemed too obvious to ignore. Maybe a heavy make-out session in his Jeep was strictly routine for him. While she had lost her head, made mindless and helpless under the potent spell of his sexual expertise, he had remained in complete control. He couldn’t have recovered himself so quickly and so completely if he’d been as far gone as she, Kara was certain of that.

  “She what?” Mac’s voice rose to a shout. “Autumn, put Webb on the— He what? Oh, great!” The way he said it left no doubt that he considered the opposite to be true. “Just great!”

  Kara dared to glance at him. He didn’t appear collected now; he was clearly agitated.

  “Autumn, I’ll make a deal with you. If you and Clay sit quietly in front of the television set until I get back, I’ll order you whatever you want from the toy catalog. “Yeah, the Christmas Wish Book. One thing apiece. But remember, for the deal to be valid, you and Clay can’t fight and neither of you can move from in front of the TV.”

  He replaced the receiver and restarted the engine, flooring the gas pedal. The Jeep roared back onto the highway in a burst of speed. Mac was scowling. There wasn’t a trace of the sexy, seductive lover evident in his grim expression.

  Kara nervously twisted her fingers. She felt as if she were on an emotional merry-go-round—first up, then down, going round and round, giving her no time to adjust or maintain any sort of equilibrium.

  The silence was getting to her. As long as it was quiet, she was free to reflect on her shockingly abandoned response to Mac. And that, of course, led to thoughts of his response to her. He’d been hungry and impassioned, but turned cool and controlled immediately, as if a switch had been thrown. The implications of that made Kara cringe.

  “I guess...something’s going on at the ranch?” she ventured. “With the kids?” Talking to Mac was better than sitting here agonizing over their earlier hot scene.

  “Something’s always going on with those kids,” Mac growled. “Autumn called to tell me that the sheriff picked Lily up in a bar just outside Bear Creek, a place called the Rustler. There’s a pool table and darts and a jukebox there. The patrons are hardworking, hard-drinking cowboys who don’t mind a good fight when things get dull.”

  “And women aren’t welcome there?”

  “Oh, there are women who go to the Rustler. But they’re either good ol’ gals or women who are not looking—” He paused and cleared his throat.

  “For a committed relationship?” Kara asked tactfully.

  A slight smile creased Mac’s face. “Something like that. It is definitely not a place for seventeen-year-old schoolgirls,” he added, his expression turning dour. “My ranch manager drove over there to bring Lily home. That means Autumn and Clay are alone again.”

  “Thus, your bribe.”

  “You don’t approve of bribing kids?” Mac demanded testily.

  “Well, I—”

  “I can’t risk trying out any fancy child-rearing theories from this distance. I have to rely on what works. And promising toys and candy is the most successful ploy I’ve got. It’s also the only one,” he added glumly.

  “If you bribe the two little ones with toys and candy, what do you use to bribe the older kids?” Kara asked.

  “Nothing. You can’t buy them. Brick and Lily do as they please.” Mac heaved a groan. “Sometimes I think it’s too late, that they’re already destined to be future career-criminals. I mean, the kids have always been brats. Their parents considered themselves free spirits, who ‘didn’t believe in restraining kids’ natural curiosity and exuberance with rules and restrictions.’ That’s a direct quote from my sister-in-law, Linda. I heard her say it so often, it’s emblazoned on my brain. And my brother bought into that, though we certainly weren’t raised with the complete freedom Reid and Linda were determined to give their kids.”

  “It seems to me that children want some limits,” Kara murmured. “Complete freedom would be terrifying. There should be certain boundaries to make kids feel secure.”

  “I agree with you completely.” Mac smiled, his relief evident. He reached over to lay his hand on her knee. “We’re going to be a good team, I can tell. Have I thanked you for coming out here, Kara? I am so grateful that you’re willing to—”

  “I don’t want your gratitude,” Kara interrupted quickly. “I haven’t agreed to anything, yet.” She deliberately crossed her legs in an attempt to dislodge his hand. He took the hint and removed it.

  His words stung her. His gratitude seared even more deeply. He was grateful she was here to rescue him from the solitary burden of dealing with his nieces and nephews. He was so grateful to her that he was willing to pretend an attraction to her, to kiss her and arouse her...

  Was that his plan? Throw some sexual crumbs to the desperate old maid and she’d be so thrilled and appreciative that she’d be unable to resist him and his plans for her? Kara winced.

  Mac tried to interpret her expression. Stubborn, sad or mad? Or a little of each? He wished he knew her better, wondered if he should keep pushing or back off. After some consideration, he decided to give her the space she seemed to want. For a while.

  He decided a neutral topic of conversation would be in order.

  “Tell me about your job,” he said conversationally. “The Rev said you work for the—uh—department of...um...” He racked his brain but couldn’t come up with the name of the department. He had not been particularly interested in her place of employment, which would soon be in her past. “The government,” he amended.

  “I’m a statistician with the Department
of Commerce.” Kara didn’t bother to add that she had less than thirty days left before her position there was terminated, that she was taking her vacation this week rather than lose it.

  She hadn’t told Uncle Will about her pending unemployment, either, not wanting to spoil their time together with her job woes. Now she was inordinately relieved she hadn’t said anything. Let them believe she was too dedicated to her career to be a proper mail-order bride.

  “A statistician?” Mac mulled that one over. “Then you must be good with numbers.”

  “I—uh—always did well in math,” she confessed rather reluctantly. She well remembered that females with a prowess for mathematics were hardly the romantic ideal, at least not among the young men she’d known through her school years.

  “Great!” exclaimed Mac. Was he unaware of the stigma against numerically gifted women? “You can do our taxes. That’s my annual nightmare. And then there’s the matter of the children’s trust funds, set up for them by their parents’ insurance policy...another numbers headache I’ll gladly cede to you. And you can do the books for the ranch and handle the budget.”

  “I—”

  “Oh-oh, there I go again. Making presumptions.” Mac tried to look penitent. “I mean, of course, if you decide to stay, you’ll be taking over those chores.” He tried to sound as if he wasn’t sure she would be staying on as his wife.

  Kara eyed him. That smarmy tone of his reminded her of the fairy tale where the Big Bad Wolf tried to convince the hapless Little Pigs on the other side of the door that he was harmless and innocent.

  “I’m going to take Tai out of his carrier,” she announced. The cat’s vocal protests over his confinement were a welcome diversion to her, a note of reality in this astonishingly unreal scenario she seemed to have landed in.

  “Good idea,” Mac agreed amiably. He was smiling, lost in his own thoughts. For the price of a one-way plane ticket, he was getting a sexually desirable wife, a caretaker for the kids and a math whiz! A very good return on his initial investment, despite the presence of the noisy spoiled cat as part of the package.