Twin Seduction

Cash smiled at her. At her count, it was the first one he’d given her all day, and something inside of her eased a bit.

“I’m sorry he didn’t live to meet you.”

Jordan felt her throat tighten. “Me, too. But you’re showing me a lot about him. And I’ll learn more.” She shifted her gaze to the land again, knowing that it was an integral part of her father. “In the city, there aren’t any places like this where I can get away and just breathe. Maddie told me that this place was special—that I would find something here.”

And she had. She turned to Cash. It wasn’t just the land. It was the man. They came from different worlds just as her parents had. Like her mother, she was a New Yorker. Like her father, he was a rancher who loved the wide-open spaces.

When he placed a hand over hers on the pommel of the saddle, she glanced down and saw the sharp contrast. His fingers were larger, his palm callused, and yet somehow they fit. She met his eyes. There were so many differences between them and yet she felt the pull—sure, steady and right. And she felt her heart drop just as fast and hard as if it had fallen off the ledge in front of them.

“I also brought you here for another reason, Jordan,” Cash said.

“I figured. To seduce me.” She tried a tentative smile, but he didn’t return it.

“We’ll get to that. But first I have something to say.”

“Me, too.” Ignoring the flutter of panic in her stomach, Jordan hurried on. “I was wrong.”

For a moment his hand tightened on hers. “About what?”

“About us.”

His eyes narrowed and the intensity of his gaze nearly had her throat drying up. She could do this. She had to do this. “I was wrong about the ground rules I set up at the very beginning of this…relationship. I thought I knew what I wanted—a mutually enjoyable time that we could both walk away from in twenty-one days. No harm, no foul. But I’ve changed my mind.”

When he said nothing, she lifted her chin. “A woman has a right to do that.”

“It depends. What have you changed it to?”

Without knowing exactly how, Jordan found her fingers had become linked with his. “I want more time.”

“Why?” he asked again.

Panic fluttered again, but she shoved it down. “Because I need it. Because I think what we’re discovering together deserves it. And I don’t want to make the same mistake my mother did. I understand now that she walked away from my father and from Maddie because she was so focused on her goal of creating a successful jewelry empire that she couldn’t see that she could have had that and more. When I thought that I had to go back to New York and make sure that her legacy lived on, I was being as blind as she was. I want more. I need more.”

“Why?”

Jordan swallowed hard. “Because I really want to desvelop a business plan for the dude ranch, and I want to be here a lot of the time to run it. I can still oversee the business side of Eva Ware Designs. And I want to help Maddie, too. I don’t want her to merely step into the job of head designer at Eva Ware Designs. She can do that if she wants, but she has her own reputation to build. I’m going to encourage her to do that. And then there’s Ware Bank.”

He gave her a brief nod. Whether it was approval or disapproval, she wasn’t sure.

“There’s no excuse for what my uncle did or tried to do, but I do understand his desire to keep a family business running. But I don’t have to be in New York all the time to help out with that.”

“You’re nervous. You always talk a lot when you’re nervous. So I don’t think you’ve gotten yet to the real reason you want to change the ground rules. Give me the bottom line, Jordan. Why?”

She felt a sudden flare of anger and tamped down on it. Because he was right. And she was stalling. She studied him sitting there on his horse, and it wasn’t some fantasy she saw. It was Cash Landry. And suddenly she knew.

Meeting his eyes steadily, she said, “I want to change the ground rules because I want more than twenty-one days with you. Because I love you.”

He raised their joined hands to his lips in a gesture that had her heart tumbling again. “Same goes.” He smiled that slow easy smile. “I know how much you like to map things out and see where you’re headed. So how much more time are you thinking of?”

The mix of heat and amusement she saw in his eyes had her stomach settling. It reminded her of exactly what she’d seen that first morning she’d woken up in bed with him.

“I was thinking of a lifetime.”

He pulled her close then, and when his mouth was only a breath away from hers, he murmured, “I hope you’re open to negotiations. I brought you out here to convince you we’d need two lifetimes. Maybe more.”

“Deal.”

Then he kissed her.

Brutus whinnied, Mischief pawed the ground. But Jordan held on tight.

She’d come home.

Epilogue

Eighteen days later

THE SUN had begun its descent behind the mountains southwest of the ranch as Cash stirred the coals in the barbecue pit. They were just beginning to turn white at the edges.

“Let me know when you’re ready for the steaks,” Jase said.Cash glanced over to the corral near the new stable. Maddie and Jordan sat together on the top rung of the fence watching Julius Caesar and Brutus take each other’s measure. Jordan had arranged for Julius Caesar to be shipped across country, timing his arrival to coincide with Jase’s and Maddie’s yesterday.

The women’s heads were close, and in the slanting sunlight they made a pretty picture. “I think the ladies will let us know when they’re hungry.”

Jase followed the direction of Cash’s gaze, then reached into a cooler and pulled out two beers. “If we leave it entirely up to them, we won’t be eating those steaks until breakfast.”

Cash took a long swallow of the beer Jase handed him. “They stayed up all night talking. You’d think they’d run out of things to say.”

Jase’s brows arched upward. “I’ve never known Jordan to be at a loss for words. And the two of them have a lifetime to catch up on.”

“True.” Cash smiled slowly. “With Jordan at the helm, they have another lifetime to plan.”

Jase chuckled. “I see you’re getting to know her. But I imagine Maddie will get her two cents’ worth in. She went to bat for her cousin, Adam, and convinced Jordan that they shouldn’t press charges for the robbery if Adam agreed to get help for his gambling problem. The D.A. was agreeable as long as Adam promised to testify against the loan shark he borrowed so much money from. I think Maddie felt sorry for him.”

“And Jordan probably saw it as a good business decision because she believes him to be a talented designer. Without pressure from his mother, he might turn into an asset at Eva Ware Designs.”

“They’re going to make a good team.” Jase turned to Cash. “By the way, I owe you one.”

“What for?”

“Those karate moves you taught Maddie. One of them saved my life. Hers, too.”

Cash smiled at him. “Then it was time well spent.” He glanced at his coals. “Ten more minutes and we’re going to have to round ’em up and bring ’em in. I’ll open a bottle of chardonnay as bait and we’ll take them a couple of glasses along with the letter Pete Blackthorn delivered while they were riding.”

“Good plan.”

“I’ve got another one. Tonight, I’m taking Jordan back to my place. That will give you and Maddie some privacy.”

Jase studied Cash. “If you can pull that off, you’re going to be my new best friend.”

“Watch and learn. I know just what bait to use then, too. Making love in the back of my pickup is on our to-do list.”

Jase raised his beer bottle in a toast. “I like your style.”

“I’M STILL TRYING to get my mind around the other Wares,” Maddie said. “I knew from the time I met them that there was something different about them.”

“Different is way too mild a word. Carleton was absolutely nuts. I saw it in his eyes. I’m amazed he was able to hide it all these years.”Maddie shivered a little. “I saw it in Dorothy’s eyes, too.”

“At least Adam might be salvageable,” Jordan mused. “I think you’re right about him. He’s a lot like our mother—focused on his career as a designer. I think she saw a lot of herself in him. That may be why she didn’t want to prosecute him when she discovered he robbed the store. And the gambling may have been his way of acting out against his mother’s constant derision and dissatisfaction.”

“Our mother may have had some faults, but they were light years away from Dorothy Ware’s.” Maddie glanced at Jordan. “I have a question about Eva.”

“Ask away.”

“Are you angry with her for what she did? I mean, she didn’t want either one of us, and then she was the one who insisted that we never know about each other.”

Jordan shook her head. “I’m not angry at all. She may have been the cause of our separation, but in the end she brought us together.” Jordan let her gaze sweep the landscape. “And in the end she opened up new worlds for me. Not just this place, but all the new business challenges I’m finding here.”