The Bride Said, 'Finally!'. Cathy Thacker Gillen

go away,” he whispered, his warm callused palms caressing the backs of her hands. “But if you do—if you have it in your heart to repair our relationship and at the same time help me with my little girl—” Again, that slow sexy smile that always turned her knees to water. “I’ll owe you, for a long, long time.”

      WASN’T THIS what she had wanted? For him to come crawling back to her on his hands and knees? Okay, six plus years had passed, but he was still back. Eligible—handsome as ever. And he was offering to make all her business dreams come true, to boot. So what was wrong with this picture? Why, despite everything, did his incredibly presumptuous proposition look and sound so good to her? Why was she suddenly so willing to forgive him for taking her heart and stomping it to pieces? It wasn’t like she was still in love with him—or would ever love him again.

      Jenna looked him square in the eye, determined to let him know where they stood before things progressed any further. “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

      Jake merely grinned at her, as if to say: I wouldn’t make bets on that if I were you. Shrugging, he held her gaze and retorted dryly, “I didn’t expect you would. It may surprise you to know that making love with me is not usually part of my business deals.”

      “Let me guess. But in our case, you’d be willing to make an exception.”

      His deliciously mischievous grin broadened all the more. Jake rubbed his jaw thoughtfully, allowing finally in a deep, sexy murmur that sent shivers coasting up and down her spine, “We never did have that wedding night.”

      Jenna flushed despite herself as she reminded him, “We never had the wedding, Jake.”

      “Then, sure.” Jake spoke as if now were a different matter entirely.

      “We won’t now, either,” Jenna continued flatly. Figuring this had gone on long enough—much more of it and she’d be fantasizing about his return to her life in a romantic sense, too—Jenna pushed past him. Wishing all the while, as she glared at him, that he didn’t have the power to rile her so. She didn’t need this kind of all-encompassing emotion in her life. She didn’t need him. And if she had her way, and she planned to, she never would again, either.

      Looking as relaxed as she was upset, Jake paused to drop an envelope on the table, then swaggered after her as she turned to head for the door. She was nearly there when he clamped a hand on her bare shoulder. Ignoring her resistance, he gently guided her around to face him. Looking down into her face with an intensity that took her breath away, he taunted softly, “You’re telling me you don’t still feel it?”

      Jenna swallowed hard and forced her knees to stop trembling. Darn it all, why had she worn such a sexy dress, anyway? She could have worn something casual that wasn’t the least bit provocative. She could have worn something not designed to make him eat his heart out for all he’d given up. “Feel what?” she asked instead, ignoring the way his gaze kept drifting to her lips and the exposed swell of her breasts.

      Jake hauled her against him. “This.”

      The next thing Jenna knew Jake had wrapped his arms around her back and lowered his lips to hers. His kiss was hot and so sensual it took her breath away. Furious, Jenna made a muffled sound of protest. But then she was surrendering to the emotions swirling through her at breakneck speed, threading her hands through his hair and kissing him back with every fiber of her being. Loving the taste and feel and scent of him, so dark and male and sexy. Loving the way he had always kissed her, as if he didn’t care how many roadblocks she threw in their way, as if he meant to possess her, heart and soul. Damn, but she had missed this, missed him and the special…and yes, powerful way he made her feel. Jake deepened the kiss even more and stroked his tongue intimately with hers, as if she were the only woman in the whole world for him.

      JAKE HADN’T MEANT to kiss her while they were at the inn, maybe not at all that night. He’d wanted to take things nice and slow this time. Show her how much he still cared about her, and always would, before asking anything remotely intimate or physical in return. But when she looked at him like that, as if she were just daring him to love her, he never had been able to resist, even if his hot-blooded pursuit of her was likely to incense her. He wanted to feel the softness of her body cuddled against his. He wanted to taste the honeyed sweetness of her lips, feel the sensual twining of her tongue as it wrapped around his, inhale her sexy perfume, and thread his fingers through the thick red-gold waves of her hair. He wanted her to tell him—by the passionate nature of their embrace—how she felt about him. Even if she wouldn’t admit it out loud.

      JENNA KNEW if they didn’t stop soon they would end up in one of the beds upstairs. That was exactly what she had wanted when they had been together before—the ultimate culmination of their love in the most physically intimate union a man and woman could enter into. But she also knew this was no way, and no place, to lose her virginity.

      Furious that Jake had managed to evade all her carefully erected defenses—again—Jenna splayed both her hands across his chest, tore her lips from his, and pushed him away.

      Stumbling backwards, Jenna glared at him. “You haven’t changed one bit,” she sputtered angrily. Darned if he hadn’t turned her whole world upside down, and with just one measly, heart-stopping kiss!

      Jake grinned and rubbed his jaw. He looked like one thoroughly satisfied male, pleased as punch that it had taken her a good five minutes to summon up the will to make him stop. “The kiss was that good, huh?” he teased.

      Even better, Jenna thought wistfully, not above admitting—to herself, anyway—that she had the same physical desires and needs, not to mention emotional yearnings, as every other woman in Texas. But she couldn’t let her desire for Jake sway her. So what if the two of them together had passion unlike anything she had ever felt before or since? So what if he alone had the power to make her tingle from head to toe and want him with every fiber of her being just by being in the same room with her? Physical desire still did not equate happiness. Jenna looked him up and down disparagingly. Seeing the depth of his desire, she returned her gaze to his face. “You still think everything and anything is there for the taking. You only have to want it badly enough for it to happen.”

      The happiness in Jake’s eyes faded. It was replaced by irritation. “Everything and anything is there for our taking,” he shot right back. “And don’t give me that woe-is-me look, either, honey. ’Cause you have done your fair share of setting your sights on something—like being the premiere new clothing designer—and making it happen.” Jake regarded her steadily, then finished with velvet determination, “So there is no reason on earth you can’t do the same thing in regards to your personal life. You just have to want it.”

      Guilt assailed her anew. “Well, I don’t want it!” Jenna jerked away from him, angry that he was making her want more than what she had, what she couldn’t—and never would—have: a satisfying love life with him.

      He sized her up, skeptical of her self-serving fib. “Could have fooled me.”

      JAKE DROVE her back to Laramie in silence. Jenna slammed out of his truck and stormed up to her apartment above the shop. To her dismay, he didn’t even attempt to follow, just made sure she was inside safely and then drove off. Not loudly, with a screech of tires, as he might have after one of their quarrels in his impetuous youth, but calmly and quietly.

      Tears streaming down her face, Jenna locked the door behind her, muttering invective about his character all the while. Then, really letting her temper fly, she slammed her purse against the wall, and for good measure, kicked off her shoes, too.

      Without warning, Kelsey’s head rose over the back of the sofa, nearly scaring her to death. Jenna gasped and slammed a hand against her chest. She had forgotten Kelsey was bunking here with her until she and her partner, Brady Anderson, could move out to the old Lockhart ranch. That wouldn’t be possible until the contractor they’d hired had finished sanding and varnishing all the floors and cabinets and installing new electrical wiring and plumbing. Meanwhile, the two had plenty to do, staking out pastures and putting up fences that would divide their property into separate cattle and horse operations, one half of the ranch