The Men of Medicine Ridge - Diana Palmer [23]
“A woman like you could make a man conceited,” he said with a tender smile.
“It isn’t my fault that I can’t resist you,” she pointed out. “And if you’d stop undressing me—”
“I can’t do that,” he interrupted. “I’d have nothing left to live for.” He backed up until he could pull onto the highway. “Besides,” he added with a grin, “how would you ever get any practical experience?”
“I think I may be getting too much,” she replied. Her eyes slipped over him possessively, but she looked away before he noticed.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t push you into doing something you don’t really want.”
“Do you think you could?”
“I know I could,” he replied quietly. “But you’d hate me for it. Maybe I’d hate myself. Whatever happens, it has to be honest and aboveboard. No sneak attacks or seduction.”
“I won’t sleep with you,” she said defensively.
“You would, but I’m not going to let it go that far between us. I’ve got as much responsibility as I can handle already.” His face seemed to harden before her eyes. “The boys can take care of themselves, but Viv can’t. She seems to get less mature by the day.” He glanced at her. “And she’s poisonously angry at you right now.”
“Because Whit paid me too much attention, I gather,” she said miserably.
“Exactly.”
“But that wasn’t my fault,” she muttered.
“I know that. Vivian won’t believe it. Have you forgotten how she was just after Carl was killed?” he added. “She never considered you his girlfriend. She swore he only dated you to get near her. I love my sister, but she has enough conceit for two women.”
“Vivian is really beautiful,” she pointed out. “I’m not.”
He looked at her and smiled slowly. “You’re worth any ten beauty queens, Nat,” he said in a tone that was like being stroked with a velvet glove. “You have a big heart and you’re kind. Too kind, sometimes. You can’t refuse people, and they take advantage of you.”
“Yes, I noticed,” she said pointedly. “Just because I let you kiss me—”
“Stop while you’re ahead,” he cautioned with a bland look. “That was as mutual a passion as any two people ever shared. You love having my mouth on your body. You can’t even hide it.”
She crossed her legs and glared out the window with her arms folded. “I don’t know beans about men, so I’m a pushover.”
“Really? Then why won’t you let the fellow teacher touch you?”
She gave him a hard glare, which he ignored. “You came along when I was at an impressionable age,” she reminded him. “Remember what I said about baby ducks and imprinting?”
“You’re no baby duck.”
“I’m imprinted, just the same,” she said angrily. “Seventeen years old, and spoiled for other men in the course of a night. You should never have come near me while I was in such a vulnerable state!”
“I couldn’t leave you by yourself to grieve,” he pointed out. “And you may have been vulnerable, but you didn’t protest very much.”
“You didn’t leave me enough breath to protest with,” she reminded him. “I may have been stupid about men, but you were no novice! I was outflanked and outgunned!”
“I’m sorry about Carl, but you were no match for him. He liked a more flighty sort of girl altogether, and he had no plans to marry until he finished college. You’d have broken your heart over him.”
“It was my heart to break.”
He stopped at a traffic light and turned to meet her angry eyes. “For an intelligent woman, you are unbelievably naïve. Did you really think he took you out because he was in love with you?”
“He was,” she said. “He told me he was!”
“He told his friends that he dated you because his brother bet him he couldn’t get you to go out with him. There was more to it than that,” he added somberly, “but I’ll spare you the rest.”
“How do you know what he was planning?” she demanded, outraged.
“His younger brother and Bob were good friends,” he reminded her. “When Bob got wind of it, he came to me. That’s why I had words with Carl and his parents before he tried anything with you.”
She was devastated. She’d mourned Carl for months when she was seventeen, and now it turned out that he’d only dated her