He moved slightly to stand in front of her, his brown eyes challenging her. “Tell me, Savannah, what am I thinking now?”
He’d never called her by her name before. It seemed to float to her on his tongue, making her feel even warmer than she already was. She was beginning to wish fervently that the bridesmaid dress had been sleeveless instead of having tight, long sleeves that ended a little over her wrists. She had a feeling even that wouldn’t help to cool her off.
After a moment, she found her breath. “That you’d like to dance with me.” It was a stab in the dark, and probably wrong, but it was the only thing that came to her.
The deep, lusty laugh enveloped her as Cruz obviously enjoyed her answer.
That was definitely not what had been on his mind. He was thinking of the way she’d looked, with only the moonlight sneaking into the stables. She’d looked soft and pliant, with the sheen of lovemaking still fresh on her firm, nude body and seeing her like that had made him want to make love to her all over again.
“All right,” he agreed amiably. “We can do that if you’d like.”
She’d been right. Dancing hadn’t been on his mind. But she was afraid to think what had been. Afraid to think because she might be right.
More afraid because she might be wrong—and disappointed.
Taking the glass from her hand, Cruz placed it on the first available flat surface, then gently took her into his arms.
She tried not to let the warmth of Cruz’s body seep into hers. She might as well have tried to breathe under water. It couldn’t be done.
Savannah felt like a princess, just like the first time they had danced.
“I looked for you, you know. The morning after,” he added when she looked up at him questioningly. “I was surprised that you had gone so quickly.”
She’d gone because the reality of what she had done had suddenly hit her with the force of a two-ton truck. She’d been embarrassed and somewhat ashamed, as well. And more than that, she’d been afraid that he would laugh at her, at how easily he’d been able to seduce her. She couldn’t have faced his laughter. Better to walk away with a lovely memory than to deal with aftermath and reality.
Except that now she had to.
She studied his face, looking for an answer, trying not to let herself be distracted. “Why would you look for me?”
“Why does any man look for a woman?”
She lifted one shoulder beneath her gown in a half shrug. “For a very long list of reasons,” she murmured evasively as he spun her around.
“Shorten it,” he whispered against her hair.
Urges began to grow, to multiply within her.
No, not this time, Savannah warned silently, trying hard to steel herself. She couldn’t allow herself to give in again.
No matter what she wanted, she had to maintain a barrier. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to stay here. And the Double Crown was her last hope. She’d been “released” from Pierce Academy after the principal had discovered she was pregnant. Out of sympathy and kindness, Vanessa had offered her a job and a place to stay at the ranch for as long as she wanted it.
Savannah had no other options. She absolutely refused to turn to either of her parents. They had already done enough for her by getting married in the first place to give her a name. For that, they’d each paid dearly and continually suffered one another’s company in a union that should never have been allowed to take place. She’d left home as soon as she was old enough, unable to stand the guilt of knowing she’d inadvertently ruined two people’s lives just by drawing breath.
It was a fate she was determined that she was never going to bequeath to her child.
Putting on her most carefree face, Savannah turned it up to him. “Is it your sworn duty to seduce every woman under the age of fifty?”
He saw the smile playing on her lips and realized she was teasing rather than being coy. With Savannah, there was a difference.
“Only the beautiful ones.”
“Oh, I see.” Beautiful. It was a word she’d never heard applied to herself, and she didn’t cleave to it now. “Then you’re just practicing on me.”
“Practicing?” For a second, Cruz didn’t understand, then he realized that perhaps she was being coy after all. “Querida, I don’t need practice. And you are the prize.”
She laughed shortly. She’d been an ugly duckling as a child, a fact that only added to her parents’ misery. Neither could believe that they had created such a plain child between them, when they were both regarded as extremely good-looking in their circles.
“I’m hardly that.”
He cocked his head, looking at her. “You don’t think you’re beautiful?”
The subject made her uncomfortable. She’d heard enough taunts as a child to instinctively brace herself for a punch line at her expense. “I don’t think about the way I look at all.”
“It’s a lie.” Cruz called her on it, looking amused. “Every woman thinks about how she looks—if she is exciting, if she makes a man’s head turn, his mouth water, his—”
Savannah was afraid to let him go any further. “I don’t.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then you are even more unique than I thought.”
He doesn’t think I’m unique—it’s a line, she told herself.
A line she wished with all her heart she could believe.
Becoming defensive, Savannah raised her chin ever so slightly.
“I’m not unique, I’m stable. Sensible.” She ticked off terms that she’d heard applied to herself over the course of her life.
Cruz made a face at the last word. “Sensible is for shoes.”
He made it sound as if it were a bad thing. She didn’t think so. Maybe it wasn’t a very exciting quality, but she was proud of being sensible—even though what she had done that night in the stable was as far from sensible as the earth was from the moon.
“Not if you work for a living.”
Savannah had struck a chord. Cruz looked at her thoughtfully for a long moment as they whirled around on the floor.
“Maybe you are at that. Sensible,” he added in case she’d lost the thread. “But you are still beautiful,” he insisted.
“It’s the dress.”
“You can put a beautiful gown on a warthog,” he pointed out. “But in the long run, you still have a very ugly animal in a dress.”
She laughed. “You’re very colorful.”
If the compliment pleased him, he gave no indication. “I read.”
The admission caught her interest, appealing to the teacher within her. “A lot?”
He shrugged, perhaps uncomfortable at the confession. “Whenever I get the chance.”
It wasn’t something he often admitted, but he read everything he could get his hands on, determined not to just work with his hands, but with his mind as well. He couldn’t afford to go to college, the way Ryan Fortune’s children had, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t continue learning.
He looked around at the others dancing around them. “I want to know as much as these hidalgos do. More.” That was the whole point of it. They took their education for granted, something that was handed to them. To him, knowledge