The Barons of Texas: Jill Read online

  He watched her for several minutes. She lay very still, though it seemed to him that she was starting to breathe easier. She had no way of knowing it, but he had zero intention of leaving her alone tonight in this big house. Anything could happen, and she wouldn’t be able to help herself. “Jill?”

  She didn’t answer. He slid off the bed. Immediately her eyes flew open.

  “Do you have to…go just yet?”

  “No.”

  “Just a…little longer.”

  He could barely believe she was actually asking him to stay. For her to ask, she must be in a kind of hell he could only imagine. “Of course I’ll stay, for as long as you want me to.”

  Her eyes closed again. “Only a…little…” Her words trailed off.

  He shrugged out of his jacket, slid his tie from around his neck, rolled up his sleeves and slipped off his shoes. He eased himself down on the other side of the bed. Taking a couple of pillows, he arranged them to his satisfaction, then settled back.

  She moaned, and in her drugged sleep, she edged closer to him. She must still be cold. Slowly he drew her against him, though he was on top of the covers and she was beneath them. He put his arm around her and rested her head on his chest.

  For so long he’d wanted to hold her, but not like this. All he could think of was how to get her more comfortable. Again she moaned. What could he do?

  Two

  Something disturbed her. A scent invaded her senses. Something was happening that she didn’t want to happen. Unwillingly, Jill felt herself being drawn upward through layers of blissful sleep to wakefulness, but she resisted moving or opening her eyes. Instinct told her something was wrong. She was warm and comfortable, but she felt…fragile. Extremely fragile.

  Then she remembered. She’d had a migraine last night. It was gone, but as always, her head retained the memory of the pain. She softly sighed. She hadn’t had a migraine in two months and had convinced herself that she was over them. Damn. To make it worse, this one had been a killer, one of the worst she’d had.

  What had happened? And what was it that she was smelling? And feeling?

  Trying to piece together the previous night’s events, she grasped at remnants of the pictures that were floating in and out of her consciousness. The party—it had gone well. Holland Mathis and Tyler Forster were to the point of agreeing to what she wanted, which had been the main purpose of the party. Yes, she remembered. And she had even been able to lay the groundwork for future projects with others.

  Champagne. Blue filtered lights. Golden brown eyes. Hair that always seemed to need combing.

  Colin.

  Now she remembered. He had returned, showing up in her backyard after everyone had left. He had said he’d returned because he had sensed something was wrong. That had been really strange.

  Sometimes Colin could be the bane of her existence. No one could get to her the way he could. When she tried to ignore him, he refused to let her. And when she tried to cut him dead by turning a cold shoulder, he would just laugh at her.

  A year ago he had offered to fly her and quite a few of their friends down to Corpus Christie in his latest toy, a new plane. The occasion had been her sister Tess’s birthday party, but he’d left without her. The reason? She was fifteen minutes late, and he had refused to wait. She had been furious.

  Yet other times, she would find herself attracted to him. That is, until she could manage to regain control of her senses and sternly remind herself why she couldn’t be attracted to Colin. Des was the man she planned to marry—if she could just get him to cooperate.

  Still…she owed Colin. As much as she hated even to consider the idea, she definitely owed him. When the pain had hit, he had been there for her.

  She liked to think she could have taken care of herself, but truthfully, she would never know, because he had stepped in and helped her. She was going to have to come up with some appropriate way to thank him. Perhaps a plant for his office.

  She inwardly groaned. How should she know what was appropriate? Maybe she would just wait until she went in to work and discuss the matter with Molly. For now, her thinking was still too fuzzy.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes and saw sunlight flooding her bedroom. She gave another inward groan. Normally, as soon as the sun slanted its first rays into her bedroom, she hopped out of bed, eager to attack the day. But she didn’t feel all that well just yet. She felt enervated, weak, and the urge to stay in bed was strong.

  However, she had tried hard never to allow herself to use the migraines as an excuse to slack off, and she wasn’t going to now. When she was at work, she tried to be more aware of the signs of an oncoming migraine. There, if necessary, she would even give herself a shot that would stop the headache dead in its tracks and allow her to continue her business day. But since she had been alone last night, she’d been reluctant to rely on medication and had tried to fight the pain off by willing it away. So much for her will.

  She turned her head to glance at her bedside clock. Seven-thirty. Usually she was in her office by seven. If she got up now, she could be in by eight-thirty, nine at the latest. Experimentally, she pushed herself up in bed.

  “Feeling better?”

  Every muscle in her body froze. Colin. She twisted around and gasped.

  He was lying on his back, his arm behind his head, the covers at his waist giving her a breathtaking vision of his bare chest. Golden-brown hairs curled over its width and downward to disappear beneath the covers. Dear Lord, was he naked? She closed her eyes, then quickly opened them again. “What are you doing here?”

  He shifted, and the bed dipped as he angled his body toward her, came up on his elbow and propped his head up with his hand just inches from her. His face was so close she could see the fine golden-brown stubble on his jaw and the gold streaks in his eyes.

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I…” A memory floated to the forefront of her brain. She’d been reluctant for him to leave, though she couldn’t actually recall asking him to stay. But that memory brought others. The pain had been so bad she’d felt a vital, essential need to hold on to him, as if his strength could keep the pain from sweeping her away. But…

  Her brow creased as she prodded her memory further. “I remember you walked around the bed and got on top of the covers.” And once he was on the bed beside her, his warmth had drawn her toward him. Without really knowing what she was doing, she’d cuddled against his upper body, doing her best to soak up the heat and strength of him. But she was sure the covers had been between them.

  And now she recognized the scent that had invaded her sleep. The covers and the air around her were filled with the scent of spices and musk. It was the bold, sexual scent that was uniquely Colin’s and was probably on the sheets where he’d slept. “I didn’t expect you to stay all night. And I didn’t expect you to…uh…undress.”

  He pushed himself up in bed to a sitting position. The covers fell away enough that she could see the black elastic waistband of his briefs. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t totally naked.

  “The truth is, I never had any intention of leaving you alone. If you hadn’t said something, I had planned to wait outside the door until I thought you were asleep, then come back in.”

  She blinked. “Why?”

  “I couldn’t leave you alone. You were too sick, too out of it, and there are a hundred other reasons why you shouldn’t have been left alone. If you’d gotten worse, or had a reaction to the medication, or if you’d needed something, I wanted to be here. Hell, what if the house had caught on fire? You would have been defenseless. No, Jill, I couldn’t leave you alone.”

  She had never seen his eyes as soft as they were now. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. A moment later, she realized what she was doing. Chewing on her bottom lip was a bad trait left over from a stressful childhood. “And, uh, what went into the decision that moved you from on top of the bed, fully dressed, to under the covers and undressed
?”

  He grinned. “Even after the medicine hit you and you went out like a light, you couldn’t seem to get comfortable. I decided you still might be cold, and I was right. As soon as I undressed and got beneath the covers, I pulled you against me. Almost immediately you relaxed.”

  There was nothing she could say. None of what she’d done had been conscious, and therefore she couldn’t explain her actions. The medication always made her feel odd, as if she might float away. She had a vague recollection of his arm around her, of being pulled against him, of at last feeling secure and, strangely, anchored to something strong.

  “How long have you been awake?”

  “Since the sun came up.”

  “Why didn’t you wake me?” For the first time irritation shaded her tone.

  He responded by smiling, slowly, and she found herself caught up in watching the movement of his lips, their fullness, their sensual shape. And then there was his dimple. She stared at it, vaguely fascinated.

  “Manners.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I didn’t wake you up because it wouldn’t have been polite.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  “You were all tangled up with me.”

  The air went out of her lungs as the feeling came back to her of her leg between his and her arm laid across his middle. Her face grew hot. She would swear she never blushed, but now she couldn’t be sure, because his gaze had suddenly narrowed on her face.

  “Besides, you were sleeping so well I hated to wake you.”

  “But when I did wake up, you… I mean, I was…over here.”

  He shrugged. “I’d been lying in one position all night. My muscles had started to cramp, and I needed to stretch out. I disentangled us, though I tried hard not to wake you. Sorry.”

  She nodded, though she had no idea why. She was just grateful that she hadn’t awakened in his arms. That would have been incredibly awkward and excruciatingly embarrassing.

  “How are you feeling?” He threw back the covers and slipped off the bed. His solid black briefs fit him as if they’d been cut just for him, and he seemed as comfortable in front of her as if he paraded around her bedroom every day, nearly naked. To him it was obviously not a big deal, but then, he must have dressed and undressed many times before in other women’s bedrooms.

  She barely had time to absorb that strangely disturbing thought when, with his back to her, he bent over to retrieve his trousers, offering her a view of his muscled back that tapered down to a narrow waist, then continued on to the tight roundness of his buttocks. Her throat went dry. She’d known him for more than two years, yet she’d never once thought to wonder how he would look with no clothes. Now she wouldn’t have to. The close fit of his briefs left very little to the imagination.

  “Jill?”

  “What?”

  “You never answered my question. Are you feeling better?”

  In what seemed like slow motion, he drew on his trousers one leg at a time, so that she could see the arresting play of his muscles beneath his skin. In the sunlight, the hair on his legs was more golden than brown and gilded his tan. When his pants were settled around his waist, she heard the swift, efficient zip of his trousers.

  She felt a pang of regret. It was such a foreign feeling to her that it left her shaken and more than a little bemused. It was only when she realized that Colin was looking at her with an amused expression on his face that she realized she hadn’t answered him.

  “Okay. I feel okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Is the pain completely gone?”

  “All but the memory.”

  His eyes narrowed on her. “What’s wrong, Jill?” His words were soft and filled with concern, the concern she remembered from last night.

  “Nothing. It’s just… I’m sorry you felt you had to stay all night. You couldn’t have been comfortable.” Not the way she’d clung to him. “Were you even able to sleep?”

  “Yes. After you calmed and I was sure you were sleeping well, I went to sleep.”

  She forced a short laugh. “I guess you’re accustomed to sleeping with women.”

  With a glance at her that she couldn’t interpret, he reached for his shirt. “How long have you suffered from these migraines?”

  She stared at his bare chest. “Not long.”

  He shrugged into the shirt. “Wrong answer. I got a glance at the dates on those prescription bottles. A few of them date back nearly a year.”

  She couldn’t get her mind past the fact that they had slept in the same bed. She’d never slept in the same bed with anyone, and that included her sisters. Even more disturbing, there wasn’t anything platonic about the way she and Colin had slept together. As he had said, she’d only really been able to fall into a truly restful sleep when she’d been tangled up with him. Even though sex hadn’t been involved, to her way of thinking, their night together had been incredibly intimate.

  To Colin, it probably wasn’t that unusual. Not that she was branding him as a womanizer. From her observation, he was as likely to show up at a function without a date as he was to show up with one. Even then, he never seemed serious about any of his dates. She should know. More than once she’d been trapped by one or the other of her female acquaintances as the woman alternately salivated over him and moaned over his lack of interest.

  “The migraines aren’t anything to be ashamed of, Jill.” He tucked his shirt into his trousers. “What has your doctor said about them? I mean, does he know what causes them?”

  She slowly shook her head. “I’m perfectly healthy, if that’s what you mean. I’ve been through numerous tests.”

  His expression darkened. “If all your doctor can do is write out prescriptions for you, you should see another doctor.”

  “I have, and he said and did the same thing.” She already felt too exposed, too vulnerable to him. She didn’t want him to know any more than he already did. “But I’m getting better. The last headache I had was two months ago.” She pushed the covers off her, then stopped. Since she’d awakened, she’d been so focused on Colin, absorbing the fact that they had slept together and watching him as he had dressed, that she hadn’t given much thought to what she was wearing. Now she realized she was wearing only a nightgown.

  “Before that, how often had you been having the headaches?”

  “Never mind that. How did I get this gown on?”

  “I put it on you.”

  “Which means you took off my clothes.”

  He gave her one of his lazy grins, fascinating dimple included. “Don’t worry. I didn’t take advantage of you.”

  “It never crossed my mind that you did.”

  The fact that he’d seen her nearly naked was enough to make her want to hide under the covers until he left. Even worse, if she had slid her leg between his, it meant that her gown could have ridden up, which brought on another thought. She shifted her bottom ever so slightly.

  She began to chew on her lip. She had never been as embarrassed about anything as she was about this. From now on, whenever their eyes met, they would both know that he’d practically seen her naked. The only thing she could think to do now was to try to avoid him as much as possible in the days to come. Hopefully she would soon be able to regain her composure around him. Hopefully.

  “Have you ever had to use that inhalant before? It seemed pretty potent stuff.”

  “No.” Her doctor had warned her to be standing by her bed when she used it, because it would probably knock her out. Now she knew he had been right. But he hadn’t warned her what she would do if there happened to be a man in her bed. She barely stifled a groan.

  “That means that last night’s headache was one of your worst. I think you should call your doctor today and tell him about it.”

  It took a tremendous effort, but somehow she pulled herself together. “Look, I really appreciate your being here for me last night. The headache was a bad one. But I’m late.�
�� She glanced again at the clock and saw that it was already eight. She was surprised Molly hadn’t called her, but since she’d known about the oncoming headache last night, she’d probably decided not to bother her. “I’m very late, and I need to get up and get dressed.”

  She slid off the bed and stood. “Before you go, though, I’d like to ask a favor.”

  Damn. She really hated to be beholden to anyone, especially someone who now knew more about her—and had experienced more of her—than even her doctors. Irrationally, she wanted to get back into bed and pull the covers over her head. But that wasn’t the way she had been taught to handle things. Instead, she looked at him and saw that his gaze was fixed on her breasts. She didn’t even have to glance down to know that her nipples had tightened. She folded her arms across herself.

  “Colin?” She waited until his gaze was once again level with hers, and her knees went weak at the heat she saw in his eyes. She cleared her throat. “I said I’d like to ask a favor of you.”

  “I heard you. Ask away.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you would keep the information regarding my problem to yourself.”

  “Problem? You mean the fact that you suffer from migraines?”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  He slung his tie around his neck. “What’s the matter, Jill? Are you afraid someone might actually think you’ve got a chink in your armor?”

  As he had so many times before, he was baiting her. But this time, she wasn’t going to bite. “Will you keep the information to yourself?”

  “You know, migraines shouldn’t be looked at as some sort of failure on your part, or a weakness. Besides, you’re not the only one who has migraines. Quite a few of our acquaintances also have them.”

  “How do you know?”

  He shrugged. “I listen.”

  She took a deep breath, disgusted with herself at how easily she let him divert her. “Will you?”

  “Of course I won’t tell anyone.”

  “And, uh…the rest?” Once again, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

  He lifted his jacket off a chair and, holding it with two fingers, slung it over his shoulder. “What happened between us will stay between us.”