His eyes flashed with something that might have been amusement. "That's certainly a relief to hear."
"Laugh if you must, but it's true." She pointed the dripping whisk straight at him. "I can see that when I arrived on your doorstep, I was already light-years ahead of you in terms of my position within our relationship."
"Hell. Are you still on that kick?"
"Of course. What we need to do is let you catch up with me. Your progress has been severely retarded by the fact that you've got a few unpleasant events in your past that have made you gun-shy when it comes to relationships. In short, you're afraid I might be as foolish and as uncertain of what I really want as your ex-wife was. You don't trust my judgment."
"I didn't say Leanna was foolish or uncertain."
"No, but it's obvious she was if she actually thought she wanted someone else instead of you."
"I don't know what makes you think I'm such a hell of a catch, but—"
"On top of having your wife desert you, you also had the traumatic experience of being betrayed by a close male friend. In short, you've got a legitimate fear of being betrayed by people you trust. You're carrying some serious scars. You've obviously learned to keep yourself aloof from people who try to get too close to you. You've gotten in the habit of questioning everyone's motives. It's entirely understandable."
Gideon stared at her. "No kidding?"
"Don't act so insulted. We're all shaped emotionally by our pasts even when our rational mind tells us we don't have to repeat our mistakes. If we're reasonably intelligent, we're afraid we might repeat those mistakes. If we're not too intelligent or self-aware we go on repeating them. Either way, it's hard to break the cycle."
Gideon propped one shoulder against the doorjamb. He looked fascinated. "What hang-ups have you got from your traumatic experience of being left at the altar?"
"Well, for one thing, you'd never find me waiting in a wedding dress in front of a church full of people again, that's for sure."
"You don't plan to marry?" he asked slowly.
"I didn't say that. I just wouldn't risk a big wedding with all the trimmings. Believe me, if I ever decide to try it again, it'll be a quick trip to Vegas or Reno." She grinned. "See? We all have our scars. Rationally I tell myself that I wouldn't screw up and make such a major error in judgment again. I'll be sure of what I'm doing the next time and it will be perfectly safe to plan a big wedding if that's what I wanted."
"But you won't plan one?"
She shook her head swiftly. "No, I won't. Emotionally I couldn't face it. I couldn't bear to risk that sort of humiliation again, no matter how sure I was of the man I was marrying. Just the prospect of addressing invitations to all the people who witnessed the first fiasco is enough to make me cringe." She shook off the old pain and smiled reassuringly. "You see? That's how our mistakes affect us. We try to learn from them, to protect ourselves and in doing so we sometimes err on the side of caution."
He watched her intently. "If I'd have been there, I'd have nailed the bastard's hide to the wall."
Sarah was instantly warmed by the unexpected words. She smiled mistily. "Gideon, that's about the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. Thank you."
"Forget it." He came toward her.
Sarah felt the immediate tingle of sensual awareness ripple through her. She wasn't sure what the determination in Gideon's eyes meant, however. Instinctively she stepped back and found herself up against the kitchen counter. "Gideon?"
He didn't halt, just kept coming toward her until he was looming over her, crowding her against the counter. He was overwhelming when he was this close. Sarah was mesmerized by the pattern of crisp, curling hair on his broad chest. She gripped the whisk handle as if it were a lifeline to sanity.
Deliberately he reached out and removed the bowl of pancake batter and the whisk from her frozen fingers.
"Gideon, I don't think…"
"Sarah," he muttered, his voice lower and grittier than usual as his hands slid up her arms to her shoulders, "let's get something understood here. You don't have to go through a lot of crazy rationalization or try to see me through rose-colored glasses if all you really want is for me to take you to bed. I'll be glad to lay you down on that sofa over there right now."
Sarah panicked. "Don't you dare do this to me, Gideon Trace. This is a relationship we're building here. I'm not about to let you reduce it to nothing more than a roll in the hay."
"I wasn't going to do that."
"Yes, you were. That's exactly what you were going to do and I won't have it, do you hear me?"
He winced as her voice rose hysterically. "Believe me, I hear you."
"I mean it. Every word. This is very important to me. I gave it hours of thought last night and I know how I'm going to handle everything. Things are back on track now and I won't let you mess it all up with sex."
He smiled faintly, his mouth very close to hers. "I kind of like the thought of messing it up with sex. I'm not the knight in shining armor you seem to think I am, but I'll certainly do my best to give you what you want in bed."
"No."
He kissed her before she could find a way to deflect him. Sarah struggled furiously for a moment and then capitulated with a small, trembling sigh as his mouth moved on hers. He was so real, this man who had filled her thoughts and her heart for the past four months. How could she resist his kiss?
It was no wonder she was vulnerable on this front, she thought fleetingly. Everything felt so right when he kissed her. She flexed her nails experimentally on his shoulders and he responded with a heavy groan.
She could feel his strong thighs pushing against her and there was no mistaking the solid evidence of his early morning desire. His beard scraped along her cheek in a way that was unbelievably sexy.
"Gideon." His name was torn from her in a breathless gasp. She could feel his teeth on her earlobe now. The sensation was driving her wild. Frantically she fought to hold on to her common sense. "Gideon, no. Not like this. Not until you're ready."
"I'm ready. Believe me, I'm ready."
"No, damn it, not yet. Please."
He broke the kiss at last, but he didn't release her. His eyes were as green as emeralds as he looked down into her upturned face. She knew she was trembling and she also knew the heat she felt was probably evident on her flushed cheeks.
"You really want me, don't you?" Beneath the blatant, masculine desire in his gaze was an odd, bemused look. "You really do want me. I've never had a woman look at me quite the way you're looking at me now."
"Of course, I want you." She glowered at him, trying to hide her flustered emotions. "I've never made any secret of that. But that's got nothing to do with it. You need time to realize you want me, too."
"I do want you."
"I mean, really want me."
"I really want you." Sexy amusement lit his eyes again.
Sarah grabbed the dripping whisk and threatened him with it. "Stop teasing me and go take a shower, you beast. And when you come back into this kitchen, you are going to behave yourself, is that clear?"
He grinned slowly, his eyes alight with a sensual promise that made her ache to throw herself back into his arms. "Real clear. Be interesting to see how you enforce your own rules." He turned and sauntered out of the kitchen.
5
« ^ »
TWO DAYS LATER, Sarah again succumbed to serious self-doubts. Conducting the courtship of a man might be a feasible notion if the object of the effort was shy and retiring by nature but Gideon was definitely not shy or retiring.
What he was, was difficult and maddeningly unpredictable. He was also proving dangerous on a sensual level.
Having discovered just how vulnerable she was to his kisses, he tormented her with them. He seemed to delight in catching her off guard and pulling her into his arms for a quick, stolen caress that inevitably left her feeling giddy and breathless.
But whenever she tried to introduce a serious, personal topic or questioned
him about his past, he became as silent and uncommunicative as a mountain.
She could not tell if she was making any progress at all.
And the courtship wasn't the only area that wasn't progressing with satisfying rapidity. They had not broken the code on the map and Sarah was getting frustrated. She had expected the actual treasure hunt to go smoothly.
"You're too impatient," Gideon remarked as they tromped back and forth across the heavily wooded acreage that had once been owned by Emelina Fleetwood.
There was very little left of Emelina Fleetwood's home, just a tumbledown cabin that was completely bare inside. Some distance away from where the house stood was the collapsed wall of what might have been the barn. A few feet from the back door of the cabin itself were several boards left from what might have been an outhouse. Rusty nails and a couple of pieces of metal from some old farm equipment were scattered around the ruins.
Almost everything had long since been reclaimed by the forest. The multitude of owners who had tried to farm the place since Emelina's time had not made any noticeable improvements.
"Two whole days, Gideon, and we've gotten nowhere."
"People spent most of the century looking for the Titanic, They're still looking for Kidd's and Laffite's gold. And they still haven't found Amelia Earhart's plane. Treasure hunting requires time and effort and plenty of patience."
"But we've got a map."
"You keep saying that. Your precious map isn't a magic talisman, you know. It's just a crude sketch that could have been made by almost anyone at any time and mean almost anything."
"I'm sure the map is genuine. It's a family heirloom."
"You got any idea of how many family heirlooms are nothing but junk?"
"This isn't junk. There shouldn't be any problem. Darn it, this is your area of expertise. Why can't you figure out what this code means?" She scanned the odd notes in front of her. "Sixty, ninety and a straight line connecting two dots with the number twenty-five beside it. Then the phrase, 'White rock at intersection of B and C. Ten paces due north.' I tell you, Gideon, we're overlooking something obvious here."
"Yeah. A white boulder."
"That, too. Where do you suppose it is?" She looked around as she had countless times during the past two days and saw nothing of a white rock.
"It probably got washed away or covered up with mud and debris years ago. People who bury treasure expect to dig it up again within a few months or years at the most. They often use transient points of reference like an outhouse or a tree or something else that could easily be gone by the time the next generation comes looking for grandpa's gold."
Sarah wrinkled her nose. "An outhouse?"
"Sure. That was a favorite place to bank the retirement funds in the old days. Who would go looking for gold in an outhouse?"
"You, obviously." She laughed up at him. "Ever find any that way?"
"I refuse to respond to that on the grounds that it may make me look like an idiot."
Sarah giggled. "You did, didn't you?"
"It was a long time ago." Gideon came to a halt. "Isn't it time for lunch, yet?"
"You know, Gideon, there are times when I get the feeling you're only in this for the food. You've been showing an uncommon interest in mealtimes since I cooked that first dinner for you."
"Hey, how was I to know you could cook? And what are you complaining about, anyway? The way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
Sarah slid him a sidelong glance. "Is that true? Am I getting closer?"
He threw a heavy arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side for a moment. His lips moved sensually in her sun-warmed hair. "You're welcome to get as close as you want, Sarah."
"Unfortunately your idea of close is not the same as mine. Not yet, at any rate."
"Are you sure of that?" He boldly let his hand glide over the curve of her breast.
"Positive." She pushed free of the tempting embrace and stalked across the small clearing in back of the old cabin to where she had left the picnic basket.
Gideon followed more slowly, his eyes thoughtful. "What happens if we find the earrings, Sarah?"
"When, not if, we find them." She knelt on the ground and spread out the red and white checked cloth she had brought along in the basket. "And what happens is that you get one pair and I get the other four. Just like we agreed."
"And then you go back to Seattle and I go home to my place on the coast?" He settled down on the ground, one leg drawn up.
She thought about that as she unwrapped tuna fish sandwiches. "No, of course not. This is a long-term plan I'm working on here. But I haven't made all the decisions. I'm not exactly sure how to handle our relationship after we find the earrings. I can't just move in with you, yet. You're not ready for that."
"I'm not?" He took a big bite out of his sandwich.
"No. So it looks like it'll be a long-distance commute for a while. Which won't be easy because I'm scheduled to start a new book next month. Once I start working on it I won't have a lot of free time."
"And I've got a magazine to get out by the first of every month."
"Things will get complicated, won't they? But we'll manage somehow."
"More likely once we find the earrings you'll go back to your real world and that'll be the end of my courtship," Gideon said flatly. He took another large bite of his sandwich.
"No, that's not the way it will be."
"I think it will be exactly that way, Sarah."
"Damn it, you really do think I just brought you along so you could help me find my treasure, don't you? You think that once we've found it, I'll give up courting you."
"I think I'd assign a high probability to that scenario."
"Is it so hard for you to develop a little faith in me?"
"I'm supposed to have faith in you after knowing you for all of three days?"
"Stop saying that. We've known each other for four whole months."
"We were pen pals for four months, not lovers."
Without any warning, Sarah found herself very close to losing her temper. "Pen pals. Yes, that's what we were and you liked it that way, didn't you? In fact, I'll bet you preferred it that way because you didn't have to take any risks or make any commitments. Letter writing is a very safe way to conduct an affair, isn't it?"
"It has a few advantages," he agreed, obviously satisfied at having provoked her. "But it also has a few distinct disadvantages." He leered cheerfully at her. "Now that I've met you in the flesh, I can see what I was missing when all I was getting were recipes."
With a supreme act of willpower, Sarah pulled herself back from the brink. She had been on the verge of flying into a genuine rage, she realized, shaken. Gideon had done this deliberately.
"Stop teasing me, Gideon."
"I'm not teasing you. I mean every word. What do you say we make a deal? You've had your four months of letters. Let me have four months of you in bed, regardless of whether or not we find your earrings. Then we'll decide what sort of relationship we've got."
Sarah refolded the sandwich wrapper with shaking fingers. "Don't talk like that, Gideon."
"You don't like the terms?" he asked, voice hardening. "That doesn't surprise me. You don't get much out of it under those conditions, do you? All right, I'll make the deal contingent on finding the earrings. If we do turn them up, I get my four months."
"I said stop it damn you." She threw the unfinished portion of her sandwich back into the basket and leaped to her feet. The sunlight still poured into the clearing but the warmth had gone out of the day. She was suddenly feeling very cold.
There was a long silence during which Sarah stood with her back to Gideon, her hands thrust into the pockets of her jeans. A lazy breeze ruffled the delicate wildflowers scattered around her feet. She could not bring herself to turn around for fear Gideon would see the hint of tears in her eyes.
The sound of another sandwich being unwrapped behind her finally broke the spell.
"Sor
ry," Gideon growled. "I was pushing it, wasn't I?"
"Yes, you were." Sarah turned back to watch as he wolfed down another of her sandwiches. "Why?"
"Why?" He looked momentarily blank. "Because I want to take you to bed. Why else?"
"You're going about it the wrong way."
"Yeah, I got that feeling. Sit down and eat the rest of your lunch, Sarah. I'll work on keeping my mouth shut."
Moodily she dropped back down onto the ground, folding her legs tailor-fashion. Her appetite was gone. "I was so sure this was going to work, but I'm not getting anywhere."
"You've only been looking for the earrings for two days. There's a lot of territory left to cover around here."
"I didn't mean the treasure hunt."
"I see. You meant our famous relationship. Well, don't get impatient about that, either. You haven't given it any more time than you've given the treasure hunt."
"I've given it four whole months."
"More like three whole days."
She dropped her forehead down onto her updrawn knees and took ten deep breaths. When she raised her head again, her emotions were calmer once more. "Let's talk about the treasure, since we don't seem to be able to discuss our relationship."
"That'a girl. Stick to the real stuff. The stuff you can count on. Nothing like knowing you're sitting somewhere near a cache of jewels to take your mind off a courtship, is there?"
Sarah lost it then. All the self-control she had been practicing for the past few minutes disintegrated in a
flash. "You sarcastic, hateful, son of a… Don't you dare talk to me like that. Do you hear me? Not ever. I won't tolerate it. I'm trying to give you a proper courtship—trying to give you time to catch up with me in this relationship. The least you could do is be polite."
Gideon narrowed his eyes, his expression suddenly fierce. He reached for her, caught her arm and dragged her across his lap to cradle her in a grip of steel.
"I'm sorry," he muttered over and over again as his big hands stroked her. "I'm sorry. You're right. I'm not used to trusting people and I'm not any good at dealing with women. If you want gallantry and charm and trust, you're going to have to look somewhere else."