Free Baby My Baby (A Ranching Family) by Victoria Pade Page B

on watching her as if he knew she was lying but didn’t understand why.
    Beth wished he’d leave. That he’d take his finely chiseled bones and his penetrating eyes and his broad shoulders hugged by that tight T-shirt and get out of her kitchen, her town and her life once and for all.
    He finished eating and pushed his plate away, resting his hands on the table where his fingers drummed against the top in a slow rhythm.
    She stared at those hands with their long, blunt fingers and she had a flash of what they felt like against her bare skin. Against her breasts. Against her nipples that were erect and straining within the too-small confines of her bra.
    And then she noticed something else.
    She noticed that there was a very faint tan line on the third finger of his left hand where his wedding ring used to be. And two things struck her. One—that he must not have taken it off until recently, even though the divorce had been final for a long time.
    And, two—that even though it might have been belated—or even reluctant—he had taken it off.
    And that fact was yet another jab at her heart.
    Of course it was unreasonable. They were divorced. She’d taken off her rings, certainly he had to take off his.
    But somehow, looking at that bare finger, where she’d once placed his ring, where it had stayed throughout their marriage, was painful, and she felt tears well up behind her eyes.
    As she fought them, he spoke again and she had the sense that he could see some of what was going on inside her, because his deep voice was very quiet, very solemn, raising the lid on more unwanted feelings. “I wish that, just once, you’d let me know what’s going on with you. Did you ever think that I might be able to make even one thing easier if you did?”
    She snatched up her plate and took it to the sink. “You could make things easier for me if you’d go back to the reservation and leave me alone,” she said, meaning for it to be curt and cold, yet it came out softly, almost a plea.
    She set her plate on the counter, but she didn’t turn back to him. She stared down into the sink as pure weariness washed through her and splashed against the tension in her neck like tidal waves against rocky cliffs.
    “Why can’t you just go away?” she nearly whispered, digging her own fingers into her nape.
    She heard his chair scrape back and the sound of his heels on the tile floor as he came up behind her.
    He stopped very near and took her hands away to replace them with his, kneading the tension with strong, capable fingers that seemed to know the exact spot and the perfect pressure to ease the taut muscles and tendons.
    Her gazillionth wish for that day was that it didn’t feel so wonderful or work so well.
    But it did, and little by little she felt herself relax beneath his expert ministrations, even leaning toward him until she was almost resting against the hard expanse of his torso.
    “I only want to help,” he said in a husky voice, just before he pressed a kiss to the side of her neck with warm lips.
    And then, somehow, she was facing him, gazing up into his inscrutable eyes as his mouth lowered to hers, capturing hers in a kiss that had nothing to do with stress relief.
    She knew this kiss well. The tenderness in it. The anticipation. The sweetness before the storm of passion. And more than being familiar, it awakened things inside her that had no business being awake. Desires. Yearnings. Cravings for what she knew could be so good between them.
    But it was the only thing that was any good between them, and she also knew that indulging in it would only further complicate an already too-complicated situation.
    Besides, deep inside she carried with her the vivid memory of the loneliness that had followed that last time they’d made love, the loneliness of her entire marriage to him. Nothing was worth revisiting that.
    She pushed from his kiss, from his arms, sidestepped away from him and, without looking at him, said,