"Carla won't care what you look like. She's too damn happy that Logan finally shook off that infection and both of them can stay on the ranch again instead of in my apartment in Boulder. Besides, I happen to know Carla's dying to meet you."
"You go ahead," Mariah urged. "I'll catch up as soon as I've showered."
He tipped up Mariah's chin, kissed her with a lingering heat that made her toes curl, and reluctantly released her.
"Don't be long," Cash said huskily.
She almost changed her mind about going at all, but the thought of standing around in camp clothes while meeting Carla stiffened Mariah's determination. As her brother's wife and the sister of the man she loved, Carla was too important to risk alienating. Bitter experience with Mariah's stepfamily had taught her how very important first impressions could be.
Putting the unhappy past out of her mind, Mariah hurried toward the old ranch house. She had her blouse half-unbuttoned when she opened the front door, only to encounter Nevada just inside the living room. He was carrying a huge carton.
"Don't stop on my account," he said, appreciation gleaming in his eyes.
Hastily Mariah fumbled with a button, trying to bring her dйcolletage under some control.
"Relax, he said matter-of-factly. "I'm just a pack animal."
"Funny," she muttered, feeling heat stain her cheeks. "To me you look like a man called Nevada Blackthorn."
"Optical illusion. Hold the door open and I'll prove it by disappearing."
"What are you hauling?" she asked, reaching for the door, opening it only a few inches.
"Broken crockery."
"What?"
"Ten and Diana are finally moving the Anasazi artifacts out of your way. I'm taking the stuff to their new house in Spring Valley."
"That's not necessary," Mariah said. "I don't want to be a bother. I certainly don't need every room in the old house. Please. Put everything back. Don't go to any trouble because of me."
The fear beneath Mariah's rapid words was clear. Even if Nevada hadn't heard the fear, he would have sensed it in the sudden tension of her body, felt it in the urgency of the hand wrapped around his wrist.
"You'll have to take that up with Ten and Diana," Nevada said calmly. "They were looking forward to having all this stuff moved into their new house where they could work on it whenever they wanted." He saw that Mariah didn't understand yet. "Diana is an archaeologist. She supervises the September Canyon dig. Ten is a partner in the Rocking M. He owns the land the dig is on."
Slowly Mariah's fingers relaxed their grip on Nevada's wrist, but she didn't release him yet.
"You're sure they don't mind moving their workroom?" she asked.
"They've been looking forward to it. Would have done it sooner, but Carolina came along a few weeks early and upset all their plans."
Mariah smiled uncertainly. "If you're sure…"
"I'm sure."
"Just what are you sure of?" Cash's voice asked coldly, pushing the door open. Bleak blue eyes took in Mariah's partially unbuttoned blouse and her hand wrapped around Nevada's wrist.
"I was just telling her that Diana and Ten don't mind clearing out their stuff," Nevada said in a voice as emotionless as the ice-green eyes measuring Cash's anger. "Your woman was afraid she'd be kicked off the ranch if she upset anyone."
"My woman?"
"She lit up like a Christmas tree when she heard your voice. That's as much a man's woman as it gets," Nevada said. "Now if you'll get out of my way, I'll get out of yours."
There was a long silence before Cash stepped aside. Nevada brushed past him and out the front door. Only then did Mariah realize she was holding her breath. She closed her eyes and let out air in a long sigh.
When she opened her eyes again, Cash was gone.
12
Mariah showered, dried her hair, dusted on makeup and put on her favorite casual clothes – a tourmaline green blouse and matching slacks. She checked her appearance in the mirror. Everything was tucked in, no rips, no missing buttons, no spots. Satisfied, she turned away without appreciating the contrast of very dark brown hair, topaz eyes and green clothes. She had never seen herself as particularly attractive, much less striking. Yet she was just that – tall, elegantly proportioned, with high cheekbones and large, unusually colored eyes.
Mentally crossing her fingers that everything would go well with Carla, Mariah grabbed a light jacket and headed for the big house. No one answered her gentle tapping on the front door. She opened it and stuck her head in.
"Cash?" she called softly, not wanting to wake Carolina if she were still sleeping.
"In here," came the soft answer.
Mariah opened the door and walked into the living room. What she saw made her throat constrict and tears burn behind her eyelids. A clean-shaven Cash was sitting in an oversize rocking chair with a tiny baby tucked into the crook of his arm. One big hand held a bottle that looked too small in his grasp to be anything but a toy. The baby was ignoring the bottle, which held only water. Both tiny hands had locked onto one of Cash's fingers. Wide, blue-gray eyes studied the man's face with the intensity only young babies achieved.
"Isn't she something?" Cash asked softly, his voice as proud as though he were the baby's father rather than a friend of the family. "She's got a grip like a tiger."
Mariah crept closer and looked at the smooth, tiny fingers clinging to Cash's callused, much more powerful finger.
"Yes," Mariah whispered, "she's something. And so are you."
Cash looked away from the baby and saw the tears magnifying Mariah's beautiful eyes.
"It's all right," she said softly, blinking away the tears. "It's just… I thought men cared only for their own children. But you care for this baby."
"Hell, yes. It's great to hold a little girl again."
"Again?" Mariah asked, shocked. "Do you have children?"
Cash's expression changed. He looked from Mariah to the baby in his arms. "No. No children." His voice was flat, remote. "I was thinking of when Carla was born. It was Dad's second marriage, so I was ten years old when Carla came along. I took care of her a lot. Carla's mother was pretty as a rosebud, and not much more use. She married Dad so she wouldn't have to support herself." Cash shrugged and said ironically, "So what else is new? Women have lived off men since they got us kicked out of Eden."
Although Mariah flinched at Cash's brutal summation of marriage and women, she made no comment. She suspected that her mother's second marriage had been little better than Cash's description.
Cash looked back to the baby, who was slowly succumbing to sleep in his arms. He smiled, changing the lines of his face from forbidding to beguiling. Mariah's heart turned over as she realized all over again just how handsome Cash was.
"Carla was like this baby," Cash said softly. "Lively as a flea one minute and dead asleep the next. Carla used to watch me with her big blue-green eyes and I'd feel like king of the world. I could coax away her tears when no one else could. Her smile… God, her smile was so sweet."
"Carla was lucky to have a brother like you. She was even luckier to keep you," Mariah whispered. "Long after my grandparents took me from the Rocking M, I used to cry myself to sleep. It was Luke I was crying for, not my father."
"Luke always hoped that you were happy," Cash said, looking up at Mariah.
"It's in the past." Mariah shrugged with a casualness that went no deeper than her skin. "Anyway, I was no great bargain as a child. The man my mother married was older, wealthy, and recently widowed. I met him on Christmas Day. I had been praying very hard that the special present my mother had been hinting at would be a return trip to the Rocking M. When I was introduced to my new 'father' and his kids, I started crying for Luke. Not the best first impression I could have made," Mariah added unhappily. "A disaster, in fact. Harold and his older kids resented being saddled with a 'snot-nosed, whining seven-year-old.' Boarding schools were the answer."