Common sense told him to forget both things. As a Santerre, when they got down to business, she was going to be unhappy with him because he didn’t want to leave a Santerre house standing. The people who had worked for her grandmother could retire or find other jobs, he was sure. He would look into hiring them himself.
Out of sentiment Caitlin wanted the house she grew up in, but she spent little time here. She could move everything out of the house into another home elsewhere. He saw no valid reason to sell the place back to her and several reasons to turn her down. He didn’t want Santerres left in the county. He didn’t want to have to worry about Caitlin and that old house sitting in the center of his property, leaving part of the property out of his control. If Gabe struck oil, it would be even more important to own the land. While he had mineral rights, he didn’t want to have to drive around Caitlin’s holdings.
Was he being uncooperative because she was a Santerre? So what? It was his property, legally purchased and he couldn’t help if her half brother had not informed her about the sale or her father hadn’t included her in ownership. From all he’d heard, her father never had involved her in anything in his life. It was solely the grandmother who had adopted Caitlin to give her a Santerre life.
“Your grandmother has been gone now—what—five years?” Jake asked, trying to recall when he heard that Madeline Santerre had passed away.
“Yes. You have an excellent memory because I know that wasn’t a date that meant anything to you,” Caitlin replied, looking away. “I loved her with all my heart,” she added quietly. Her emotional answer indicated she probably cared so much for the people who had worked for her grandmother because she didn’t have anyone else. Her father and half brother had rejected her all her life. So had her birth mother in giving her up for adoption. “The minute Grandmother heard my mother planned to put me up for adoption, she stepped up and took me in.”
“So where did you go to college, Caitlin?”
“To Texas University and then to Stanford. My degree is from Stanford. I had intended to go into law, but by my junior year I was earning a lot of money with photography, so I finished college and became a photographer. What about you, Jake?”
“Texas University, too, but years ahead of you. Then a master’s in business from Harvard. Then back to work here. Pretty simple and predictable.”
“Sure,” she said, smiling at him. “You told me what you don’t like, so what do you like, Jake?”
“Beautiful women, slow, hot kisses—”
She laughed, interrupting him. “That was not what I had in mind. Besides women, what do you like?”
He grinned. “Making money and doing business deals, watching the business grow, the usual. I swim, I play golf, play basketball with my friends, I ski, I like snow-covered mountains or tropical islands. I’m easy to please. Your turn.”
“I’m even easier to please. I like a riveting book, quiet winter nights, getting just the right picture, little children—”
“That sounds like marriage is looming.”
“Not at all. No man in my life, but I hope someday. Don’t you want to marry someday?”
“Yes, but not this year,” he said a little more forcefully than he had intended.
She laughed. “Okay, so you’re not ready. I think I can make the same promise safely. I will not marry this year,” she said, mimicking him and he had to smile and was relieved she made light of his comment.
The rain turned to a steady, moderate rain. Jake took her hand, aware of her smooth skin, the warmth and softness of her. “Let’s go in where it’s warmer. I’m glad we don’t have to get out in this,” he said.
She looked down at her clothes. “I just have what I’m wearing. If you can stand seeing me in the same thing in the morning, only more wrinkled, I’m happy to stay because water may be over some of the bridges, I’d guess.”
“Great.” He switched on lights in the living area. The fire had burned low and he added logs.
He put on music and took her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Come here, Caitlin, and let’s dance,” he said, drawing her to him on the polished oak floor in a space between area rugs.
She came into his arms easily, following his lead. He liked holding her, wanting her more with each hour that passed. Common sense still screamed to keep his distance to avoid entanglement of any kind with her, but it was a losing argument. It would be the ultimate irony to seduce Will’s half sister, except Will wouldn’t care because he obviously had no fondness or even polite consideration for Caitlin.
Jake tightened his arms around her and moved slowly with her. “This is good, Caitlin,” he said quietly, more to himself than her.
“Not wise, but it’s good,” she added, indicating that she must hold the same view of getting acquainted that he had.
“So you like to dance.”
“I love to dance and I’m glad you thought of this,” she said softly. They moved quietly, conversation ceasing and he was sorry when the music came to an end.
She looked up at him. He held her lightly in his embrace and he felt as if he were tumbling down into a sea of green, falling headlong without any hope of stopping. He had waited long enough.
Three
Caitlin’s heart drummed as she gazed into Jake Benton’s eyes. Her afternoon had turned her world topsy-turvy. All her life she had been given reasons to dislike the Bentons. Her grandmother had hated Jake’s father for things he had done to her son, Caitlin’s father, in the years the men were growing up. They had been thrown together at school as well as in town. Grandmother had disliked Jake because of complaints about him from Will.
During the past month, Caitlin herself had developed hostility toward Jake, which had increased swiftly when she found a stone wall of interference keeping her from contacting him.
He was important, busy, an oil millionaire, but he should have had a streak of common courtesy to at least take a phone call from someone from the neighboring ranch. While the bitterness between the families could have made him unreceptive, she suspected he was never even told that she was trying to contact him.
Growing up, she had disliked the Bentons because she had been taught to. Jake’s snubs had added fuel to the fires of contempt. The only way to get the property back from him was to communicate with him. When she had learned he was expected at the West Texas ranch, she had decided to confront him to force him to listen to her request.
He was being as stubborn as she had expected. What she hadn’t anticipated was the scalding chemistry the moment they were face-to-face. It was an intense attraction he felt as much as she did. He also probably hated it as much as she did. Except he had seduction in his eyes. She could imagine how much it would amuse him to seduce a Santerre, even one on the fringe of the family. Titus Santerre’s illegitimate child whom he only grudgingly acknowledged because his own mother adopted her.
The thoughts swirled briefly and then vanished. Caitlin’s gaze locked with Jake’s. His blue eyes held a blatant hunger. Her breathing altered while her temperature rose and her heart skipped. She tilted her face up, knowing she should step away and never kiss him, never open a Pandora’s box of problems.
The instant attraction had mushroomed with each hour. A kiss might send it soaring out of control. She had no intention of repeating her mother’s big mistake in life that had left Caitlin abandoned and hurt.
“Caitlin,” Jake said in a quiet, husky voice that conveyed desire and was an invitation to her.
How could she have this intense sexy reaction to him? A man she had disliked