*
REN DANCED WITH no one else. It seemed to get easier, the more Merrie did it. She felt more confident as the evening progressed. They moved together as one. The contact was very stimulating, and she couldn’t hide the effect it had on her.
She was breathing raggedly as they wound around the dance floor to a slow, lazy rhythm. Ren’s hand on her waist moved up a little. She caught it instinctively. The dress was thin and her scars were noticeable, even to touch.
“Sorry,” he said gruffly, and moved his hand back down to her waist.
“No, I’m sorry.” She bit her lower lip. “There are things you don’t know about me,” she said miserably.
About her affair with his brother, he was thinking. She didn’t like him to touch her in any really intimate way. But she was breathing like a runner. Her heartbeat was almost audible. She was all but trembling in his embrace. Those weren’t signs of revulsion.
Almost experimentally, he drew her very close from the hips down. His body had an immediate, almost embarrassing reaction to the closeness, and he felt her stiffen and try to move back.
He lifted his head and looked down at her, but he held her firmly. His eyes were soft with sensual wisdom. “I won’t rush you,” he promised.
She swallowed. She was very embarrassed. She pushed gently at his chest. “Please?” she asked in a high-pitched, agitated tone. The feel of him like that made her aware of her body in a way she never had been before. She was afraid of how she felt.
He saw her flushed face and took pity on her. He let her put some space between them. She was genuinely unsettled. What an odd woman, he thought. Nothing about her added up. Just when he thought he knew her, she threw him a curve.
He gave her a curious appraisal. “I don’t know what to make of you, Meredith,” he said honestly.
“I’m just an ordinary woman,” she said, relieved that he hadn’t insisted.
“No. You’re definitely not ordinary.” He pulled her gently closer and laid his head against hers as they moved to the lazy rhythm. “Not ordinary at all.”
She felt her heart trying to jump into her throat. She was so aware of him now, so hungry for something more than his arms around her. But that way lay disaster. She knew what men expected of women. She’d seen risqué movies at home. But she couldn’t let Ren see her back. He’d be revolted. She knew what it looked like. She’d seen it in the mirror. No man would want to touch a woman with scars like hers.
So she steeled herself to be less responsive in his arms, to dance without letting him affect her. She was almost successful by the time the party ended and they climbed back into the Jaguar to head home.
*
SNOW WAS FALLING SOFTLY. It looked as if it might be deep soon. She grimaced. “The poor men,” she said absently.
“What do you mean?”
“They’ll have to go out before dawn, in all this snow, to look at the cattle and make sure they have food and water and shelter.”
He smiled to himself. He liked it, that she cared about his ranch hands. She cared for him, too, but she was trying to pull away from him. He wondered why.
He parked the car at the front steps of the house and unlocked the door, letting her go in first.
“Feel like a nightcap?” he asked idly.
“A nightcap?”
He turned. She looked up at him with pale gray eyes that held a soft light.
“A nightcap,” he repeated, smiling. “Brandy, to be specific. I rarely drink hard liquor.” He didn’t add that he had, the day he’d pulled off his belt and snapped it, and Meredith had run into the kitchen to hide behind Delsey. He wasn’t a cruel man, and he’d never have hit her. But her fear of him still hurt. It hurt badly.
“I’ve never tasted brandy,” she confessed. She sighed. “I’ve never even had a beer.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” he said, and his deep voice was like velvet.
He went to the liquor cabinet and pulled out two snifters and a square, squat little bottle of amber liquid. He poured just a little into the large rounded glasses and held one out to Meredith.
“You hold the bowl in the palm of your hands. It warms the brandy.”
“Oh.” She balanced the cold crystal in her hands, which were cold with nervousness. “I guess it’s a learning curve,” she said mischievously.
“Most of life is,” he agreed.
She lifted the glass to her lips slowly and let the liquid touch them. She made a face as she looked up at Ren.
“Give it a chance,” he advised with a chuckle.
She forced herself to take a sip. It burned like fire going down. She gasped, almost choking on it.
He couldn’t help laughing. “Innocent little lamb,” he teased. “I’m leading you astray.”
“You really are,” she agreed.
“Try it again,” he coaxed.
She was reluctant. But she did. This time, the liquid didn’t sting as much, and it warmed her whole body as it went down. She smiled. “Okay,” she said. “It’s not bad.”
He lifted his glass to hers and tapped them together. “Cheers.”