She had to be patient. Perhaps it had been unrealistic to expect him to change overnight. This wasn’t a faerie tale. He wouldn’t take one look at her and never look at another woman again—no matter how much she might wish it. But once he realized his feelings for her, it would be different. Good gracious, he hadn’t even kissed her yet!
Yet.
As soon as John and Pip had walked away, she turned to face him. Sometimes she forgot how handsome he was and other times—like now—it would strike her somewhere between the ribs like a thunderbolt. Golden-brown hair shimmering in the sunlight, eyes such a deep sparkling green they looked like emeralds, a face so strong and perfectly formed it would make the angels sing—God, was she fooling herself?
She took a deep breath. “What did you want to talk to me about?”
Perhaps “want” was the wrong word. Although the white lines around his mouth and tightness in his jaw had started to dissipate (he’d been angry about something, but whatever it was, it seemed to be directed at his brother and not her), there was a certain resolve and determination to his expression, like that of a man about to perform an unpleasant task that had to be done.
She being the unpleasant task.
Still, the gaze that met hers was not without compassion—not exactly what she wanted from him, however.
“About what happened in the barn the other day. I don’t want there to be any…” He hesitated. “Awkwardness between us.”
She tilted her head to the side and held his gaze. “Then whatwouldyou like there to be between us?”
For one moment something hot and possessive flared in his eyes. Something fierce and primal that sent a shudder of awareness racing through her. Something that left her a little shaky and wondering if she really had any idea of what she was asking for.
The flare quickly turned to irritation, however. “Nothing, damn it.” He dragged his hand through his hair as if were exuding all the patience of Job. “Christ, Cate, I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t.”
He shot her a glare and ignored the comment. “What you want is impossible.”
“How do you know what I want?”
One side of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “What do all young girls who fancy themselves in love want? The faerie tale. Marriage. Children. A husband who loves them back. But that isn’t me, Cate. I’m not the settle-down-with-one-woman type. When you are a little older you will understand.”
Now it was Cate who was angry. “Do not patronize me, Gregor. I’m twenty, not a fifteen-year-old girl anymore. I’m old enough to know my own feelings. I do not ‘fancy’ myself in love. I love you, whether you choose to accept that or not. Although the rest sounds nice, and I do think you are the settle-down-with-one-woman type—the right woman—all I want from you right now is to acknowledge that you feel something for me.”
“What I feel is lust, but I care too much about you to give in to it. Damn it, I’m trying to protect—” Suddenly, he stopped and looked as if he’d just been shot with one of those arrows he was so good with. “Howold are you?”
She winced a little sheepishly. “Twenty.”
His gaze narrowed. “Why did you let me think you were younger?”
She shrugged. “You never asked. Your mother thought you’d guessed but didn’t want to know.”
He swore again, dragging his fingers through his hair again but this time more harshly. “Christ,twenty?” He dragged out the word accusingly, scanning her up and down as if she were some sort of strange creature from a menagerie that he’d never seen before.
“Is it really that important?”
“Yes,” he snapped. “No! I’m still your guardian, and you’re still too young.”
Cate’s nose wrinkled. Was that what this was about? Was that why he was fighting his attraction so hard? Because of some misplaced sense of responsibility toward her? She was no longer a foundling in need of rescue. “As you have just seen, I don’t need a protector anymore, Gregor. I can take care of myself.”
“Like you did with young MacNab? Do you know his father wanted to arrest you?”
“For what, defending myself?”
“For humiliating his son.”
She gaped at him as if he were jesting. “So I should have let him strike me?”
“Of course not. You shouldn’t have intervened in the first place.”
“He was hurting Pip.”
