us.”
Especially on her, she thought. She didn’t know just how much longer she could keep resisting him. It was important to stop the game now, before she became too addicted to what he might offer. And too devastated when he didn’t offer it any longer.
Picking up the reins, Cruz led the mare out for her. “Well, for one thing, I never made love with Vanessa.”
Savannah had never even considered that possibility. Now that Cruz mentioned it, she realized that Vanessa and him making love was somethingthat very well could have happened—growing up on the ranch together and being so close.
But she believed him when he said they hadn’t. Words slid effortlessly from his tongue like golden honey pouring from a pitcher, but somehow she believed him. Besides, surely if Vanessa had ever been romantically involved with him, she would have said something when Savannah confessed about being pregnant with Cruz’s baby.
Still, Vanessa was one of the most beautiful people, inside and out, that Savannah had ever known. She couldn’t understand Cruz not making a play for her friend. “Why didn’t you?”
His smile grew a little less lethal. “Because she’s like a sister to me.”
For some men, that wouldn’t have meant much. But Savannah knew what a high regard Cruz had for his family. It hadn’t taken long to discover. She could tell by the way she’d seen him kiss his mother on the cheek at the reception, the way he’d looked at his sister Maggie when she’d talked to some of the male guests. There was affection and an air of the protector about Cruz when it came to his family.
All the things, she thought, that had been missing from her own life, her own family. They had been three polite, well-educated people forced tolive with one another for a time—all because of one mistake.
The same mistake she’d made, but wasn’t going to compound, even though a part of her ached to have Cruz in her life any way she could. Each time she was around him, she found herself more drawn, more attracted. More wistful. And more resolved not to make her parents’ misjudgment. Love did not bloom under adversity. Only hostility did.
“I don’t know if that makes Vanessa lucky, or not,” Savannah commented.
The remark started Cruz wondering about her again. Was she as genuine as she seemed? Or was it all just a very clever act? When he was with her, he could swear that she was completely sweet, completely innocent. Yet away from Savannah, when thoughts had time to ferment and impressions faded, Cruz found himself thinking she had to be like the rest.
Didn’t she?
He glanced toward his own horse. Hellfire stood in the corral, jealously watching him work with the other horse. A thought began to form, created by impulse.
“That would be for you to judge,” he told her, “not me.”
The conversation was headed toward hotterground than she wanted to tread on. Savannah took the reins from him.
“If I’m going to be working for the Fortunes, you and I are going to have to come to some sort of mutual agreement.”
His eyes sparkled. She was playing hard to get, he realized. Nothing he loved better than a challenge. It made him want her that much more. The fact that he’d already had her didn’t really enter into the picture.
His eyes cut the distance between them until there was nothing. “I’m all for that.”
Savannah tried to pull her wits together. Cruz was making it very hard to think. “We’re going to have to have a working arrangement.”
Just what he had in mind. He ran his hand up along her elbow and had the pleasure of seeing a spark of desire enter her eyes. “You know what they say. All work and no play…”
She thought of everything Vanessa had told her after she’d made her confession. Cruz’s conquests were legion. “No one can accuse you of that.”
“No,” he agreed. “They can’t.” His brown eyes darkened a shade. “But I work hard for my keep. No one can say any less than that,