Long, Tall Texans: Stanton ; Long, Tall Texans: Garon Read online

  “I remembered.” She reached up and kissed his wounded eye. She’d teased him out of the patch already. He gave in with good grace. He didn’t really mind letting her see the injury. She loved him so much that she never even noticed it, and he realized that.

  He moved slowly on her yielding body, enjoying the soft little cries that pulsed from her throat, the way her short nails dug into his hips as he lifted and fell against her. The whole time, he watched her face, enjoyed the intimacy of being with her, all over again.

  “I didn’t think…you could be so patient,” she whispered brokenly.

  “Why? Because you think I had other women while my memory was gone?” he teased unsteadily. “I couldn’t touch another woman, not even Charlene,” he murmured at her lips. “I didn’t want anyone else. I couldn’t understand why, until I ran headlong into you in the Jacobsville pharmacy. My God, what a shock! I was so aroused that I attacked you,” he groaned.

  She gasped. “Aroused?”

  “Aroused.” He moved harder against her. “I hadn’t felt it since the wound. I just looked at you and went rigid.” His mouth ground into hers. “Lift your legs around me, darling,” he whispered as he shifted, making her moan even louder. “That’s it. Yes…like that…hold on, baby. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on…!”

  The words echoed with every hard, deep motion of his hips. The rhythm went wild all at once. His hands tightened at either side of her head and his face mirrored the sweet torment of what he was beginning to feel.

  “Oh, God, Tat…!” he cried out and began to shudder rhythmically.

  She went with him, her body arching, lifting, grinding up into his as the fever melted them together like molten steel. At the end, she cried out and sobbed against his shoulder, giving in to a wave of pleasure that threatened to kill her. She almost lost consciousness, it was so violent.

  She felt his heartbeat shaking her. She felt the beloved weight of his warm, damp body on hers as they both gasped at breath.

  “I died,” he murmured against her soft breast. “I died.”

  “So did I,” she whispered, still shivering.

  “I got you pregnant the first time we made love,” he said huskily. “I wanted it, so much!”

  “Me, too,” she whispered, holding him closer.

  “If only,” he managed, lifting his head to look down into her soft, sated eyes.

  She touched his cheek with the tips of her fingers. “If only.”

  “We’ve had a hell of a rocky ride to the altar,” he said drowsily. “But maybe, with a little luck, it will be smooth sailing from now on.”

  “I hope so,” she agreed. She smoothed her hands over his broad, hair-covered chest. “You’re so beautiful, Stanton,” she whispered. “I never get tired of looking at you.”

  “That’s my line,” he argued, laughing as he bent to her mouth. “My lovely Tat.”

  She sighed and pulled him closer. “Now I’m sleepy.”

  “Me, too.” He rolled over, pulling her with him. “Do you have the monitor on in Joshua’s room?”

  “Yes, of course,” she murmured. She grimaced. “I still can’t believe I trusted Mariel with him.” She shivered. “I was so stupid…!”

  “You had no reason to believe she meant you any harm.” He traced her eyebrows. “I’m so sorry, for the pain you’ve endured because of me. I’m sorry about Carvajal, as well. Not that I wouldn’t have done everything in my power to get you and my son away from him, if he’d survived the malaria,” he added darkly.

  “He wouldn’t have tried to make me stay. He knew how I felt about you,” she added sadly. “He’d been in love, himself. He never told her after the accident. He said she deserved a full life.”

  “He was a good man,” he said reluctantly.

  “So are you,” she replied, tracing his hard mouth. “And I love you insanely.”

  He laughed softly and kissed her back. “I love you insanely. Otherwise, I assure you, I wouldn’t have gone eight damned long years without a woman!”

  She wreathed her arms around his neck and leaned over him. “I’ll make it all up to you,” she murmured against his mouth.

  “You will?” he teased.

  “Oh, yes. I can start right away, too.” Her long, soft leg smoothed in between his hair-roughened ones. “Do you like this?”

  “Like it?” he groaned, arching. “I love it!”

  “In that case, suppose I do this, too…!”

  He rolled her over onto her back and groaned as he found her mouth. For a long, long time, they didn’t say another word.

  * * *

  JOSHUA WAS CHRISTENED at the age of four months in Jake Blair’s church. His name had already been changed to Kantor, just as Rourke’s had. Clarisse had felt a pang of conscience at first, but it wasn’t right to keep the name of a man who wasn’t Joshua’s father. She knew that Ruy would understand.

  Joshua’s proud parents stood with the Griers, Cash and Tippy, who were to be his godparents. On the other side was K.C., his grandfather, who released the honor of godparent to one not of the family. There was a crowd for the event.

  The reception was held at the fellowship hall, but just as a buffet lunch was being served, Tippy left Tris with her brother, Rory, and Clarisse left Joshua with his father and grandfather, and both women made a sudden beeline for the ladies’ room.

  As they bathed their faces shortly afterward, they exchanged looks of unholy amusement.

  “I know, it’s too soon, but we really wanted another one,” Clarisse began.

  Tippy was laughing through tears. “I wasn’t convinced that I could get pregnant again,” she confessed. “Cash is going to be shocked!”

  * * *

  SHOCKED WASN’T THE WORD. Cash picked her up in his arms and carried her around the fellowship hall, kissing her nonstop the whole time. Rourke was similarly involved with his own wife.

  “Must be the water,” Jake Blair murmured, glancing at his daughter, who was almost ready to deliver.

  Her husband, Carson, just grinned.

  * * *

  MANY MONTHS LATER, Rourke and Cash were pacing the waiting room while their wives were admitted and taken into the delivery room.

  “I want to be in there with her,” Cash muttered as the obstetrician, a woman, came into the seated area.

  “So do I,” Rourke added. “We did the natural childbirth thing…”

  “Mrs. Grier went into labor almost before we could get her prepped,” she told Cash with a big smile. “You have a son, Chief Grier. A fine, healthy little boy.”

  “A boy.” Cash’s face went white. “A boy! Tippy, is Tippy all right?” he added quickly.

  “She’s just fine. You can go in and see her. Marie, will you take the chief back to his wife and son?” she added, motioning to a nurse.

  “My pleasure. Come along, Chief Grier,” Marie said.

  “What about Tat?” Rourke asked, beside himself.

  “We had to do a C-section. It’s all right—she’s doing very well,” the doctor assured him. She laughed. “I know you were hoping for a matched set, but it’s another boy.”

  Rourke just smiled. “I was hoping for a healthy baby,” he corrected. “I’d have been happy with either, as long as my sweetheart is okay.” That concern showed.

  “She’s doing fine. Come along. I’ll take you back myself.” She shook her head. She laughed. “Maybe it really is the water.”

  * * *

  ROURKE STOOD OVER the bed where Tat, pale but happy, was holding the newest addition to their family. He bent and touched the tiny head with his fingertips. There was a wetness in his good eye.

  “All my life, I’ve felt as if I never had a place where I truly belonged. Now I do,” he said, lifting his gaze to her rapt face. “I could die of happin
ess right now.”

  She smiled softly. “So could I, my darling.”

  “K.C. is on his way over. He’s bought out half a toy store for Joshua, and he’s bringing a bag full of things for the new baby.”

  “I’d like to call him Kent,” she said gently. “For K.C.” It was Rourke’s father’s real first name.

  His face softened. “He’d be very proud.”

  “And Morrison for my father. It was his middle name.”

  “Kent Morrison Kantor it is,” he said softly. He bent and kissed her eyes. “Have I told you today how much I love you, Mrs. Kantor?” he whispered.

  “Only ten times,” she murmured, drawing his face down so that she could kiss him warmly. “Not nearly enough.”

  He chuckled. “I love you madly.”

  “I love you madly back,” she said against his mouth.

  “Forever,” he whispered, and his face was so radiant with love that it almost blinded her.

  She brushed his lips with hers, fighting tears that felt like a watery overflow of happiness. Her mind was drifting back, over the long barren years with glimpses of terror and pain and sadness. All that, and now this. Heaven.

  “Don’t cry,” he whispered, kissing her eyelids, sipping away the tears. “I’ll never leave you again. Never.”

  She managed a watery smile. “I know, my darling,” she whispered softly, overcome with joy. “I know.”

  Rourke kissed his son’s little head. “After the storm, the sunlight,” he said under his breath, in Afrikaans.

  She nodded. “And it’s blinding—it’s so beautiful!” she whispered.

  “Beautiful,” he agreed, but he was looking at her lovely face.

  She looked down at the child in her arms and drew in a long breath. “Better call K.C.,” she told Rourke.

  He chuckled, pulled out his cell phone, took a selfie of the three of them, and sent it off to his father.

  An instant later, there was a reply. There, on the screen, was K.C., with a grin like a Cheshire cat, wearing a long red cap with a white ball on the end, waving a small soccer ball and a stuffed lion. There was a text message underneath.

  On my way, with the contents of another toy shop. Harnessing the reindeer as we speak!

  “My God, it’s Christmas tomorrow,” Rourke exclaimed.

  “Yes, and you didn’t believe in Santa Claus, you silly man,” Clarisse chided. “But look what he brought you!” she added, indicating the child in her arms.

  He bent and brushed his mouth over hers, and then over the child’s head. “I must have been a very, very good boy this year!”

  She pursed her lips. “Oooooh, yes,” she drawled, and gave him a steamy appraisal.

  Cash Grier poked his head in the door. “I’m going for coffee. Want some?” he asked Rourke.

  “Yes,” Rourke said. “I’ll go help you carry it. Back in a jiffy,” he promised his wife, grinning.

  “What did you name him?” Clarisse asked.

  “Marcus Gilbert Rourke Grier.”

  Rourke caught his breath. He looked oddly flushed.

  Cash grinned. “We’d have added Cassius, but Carson’s got that on his side of the family. So we thought we should have Rourke for yours.” He put an affectionate arm around Rourke. “After all, that’s what Jacobsville is. A family. Right?”

  Rourke was trying not to show the emotion he felt. He looked at his wife, his newest child and thought of K.C. on the way to join them. “Ya,” he said after a minute, when he’d composed himself. “A big family.”

  Clarisse’s eyes were brimming over with joy. “Hey,” she teased, “bring me back a steak, could you?”

  Rourke made a face at her. “I’d be hung from the ceiling with IV tubes, my darling,” he confessed. “Sorry. But you can have a teddy bear.”

  “A lion,” she corrected, her eyes soft with love. “We’ll name him Lou, after yours back home.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” He winked at her and went out the door with Cash, whistling softly.

  Clarisse drew in a breath. She had the world. The whole world. She kissed her little boy’s head and closed her eyes. Life was sweet. Sweeter than dreams.

  * * * * *

  Long, Tall Texans: Garon

  Diana Palmer

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  CHAPTER 1

  THE OLD JACOBS PLACE was in disrepair. The last owner hadn’t been big on maintenance, and now there was a leak in Garon’s study. Right over his damned computer, in fact.

  He glared at it from the doorway, elegantly dressed in a gray suit. He’d just arrived in Jacobsville from Washington, D.C., where he’d been taking a course at Quantico on homicide investigation. It was his new specialty, that area of law enforcement. Garon Grier was a career FBI man. He worked out of the San Antonio office, but he’d recently moved from an apartment there to this huge ranch in Jacobsville. His brother Cash was the Jacobsville police chief. The brothers had been alienated for some time. Cash had disowned his family over his father’s remarriage just days after his beloved mother’s death from cancer. That long feud had only just ended. Cash was newly, happily, married to Tippy Moore, the “Georgia Firefly” of modeling and motion picture fame. She had just had their first child, a little girl.

  Cash thought the child was the crown jewels. To Garon, she looked more like a little red prune with flailing fists. But as the days passed, she did seem to grow prettier. Garon loved children. No one would ever have guessed it. He had a demeanor that was blunt and confrontational. He rarely smiled, and he was usually all business, even with women. Especially with women. He’d lost his one true love to cancer. It had eaten the heart out of him. Now, at thirty-six, he was resigned to being alone for the rest of his life. It was just as well, he decided, because he had nothing to give to a woman. He lived for his job. He would have liked a child of his own, though. A little boy would be nice. But he had no desire to risk his heart in pursuit of one.

  Miss Jane Turner, the housekeeper he’d hired, came into the room behind him, her thin face resigned. “There aren’t any construction people available until next week, Mr. Garon,” she said in her Texas drawl. “We’d best put a bucket under it for now, I reckon, unless you want to climb up on the roof with a hammer and nails.”

  He gave her a superior look. “I don’t climb up on roofs,” he said flatly.

  She looked him over in the suit. “That doesn’t surprise me,” she muttered, turning to go.

  He gave her a shocked look. She must think he never wore anything but suits, when he’d grown up on a sprawling west Texas ranch. He could ride anything with four legs, and he’d won prizes in rodeo competitions in his teens. Now, he knew more about guns and investigation than he did about rodeo, but he could still run a ranch. In fact, he was stocking purebred black Angus cattle here, and he planned to give his father and brothers a run for their money in cattle shows. He had in mind founding his own champion herd sires here. If he could lick the problem of getting qualified cowboys to work for an outsider, that was. Small towns seemed to draw into themselves when people from other places moved in. Jacobsville had less than two thousand people living in it, and most of them seemed to watch Garon from behind curtained windows every time he walked around town. He was surveyed, measured up and kept carefully at a distance for the time being. People in Jacobsville were particular about letting strangers join the family, because that was what they considered themselves—a family of two thousand soul
s.

  He glanced at his watch. He was already late for a meeting with his squad of agents at the San Antonio FBI office, but last night his flight had been unexpectedly delayed in D.C. by a security hitch. It was early morning before the plane landed in San Antonio. He’d had to drive down to Jacobsville, and he’d barely slept. He walked out onto the wide, concrete front porch with its gray floor and white porch swing and white wicker furniture and cushions. Those were new. It was late February, and his housekeeper said they needed someplace for his company to sit when it came. He told her he wasn’t expecting to have any. She snorted and ordered the furniture anyway. She was an authority on everybody who lived around here. She’d probably become an authority on him in short time, but he’d told her graphically what would happen if she dared to pass on any personal gossip about his life. She’d just smiled. He hated that damned smile. If he could have gotten any other spinster lady with her cooking skills to work for him…

  He glanced at an old, black car of unknown vintage coughing smoke as it went slowly down the road. That would be the next-door neighbor, whose little green-trimmed white clapboard house was barely visible through the pecan and mesquite trees that separated his big property from her small one. Her name was Grace Carver. She took care of her elderly grandmother, who had a serious heart condition. The granddaughter wasn’t much to look at. She wore her blond hair in a long pigtail, and went around mostly in loose jeans and a sweatshirt. She was shy around Garon. In fact, she seemed to be afraid of him, which was curious. Maybe his reputation had gotten around.

  He’d met her when her old German shepherd dog trespassed into his yard. He’d escaped his fenced pen and she came looking for him, apologizing profusely the whole time. She had green eyes, very pale, and an oval face. She was plain, except for her pretty mouth and exquisite complexion. She’d only stayed long enough to make her apologies and introduce herself. She hadn’t come close enough to shake hands, and she’d left as soon as she could, almost dragging the delinquent dog behind her. She hadn’t been back since. Miss Jane had mentioned a week or so later that the old dog had died. Old Mrs. Collier, Grace’s grandmother, didn’t like dogs anyway. Garon remarked that Miss Carver had been nervous around him. Miss Turner told him that Grace was “peculiar” about men. God knew what that meant.