Dylan Read online

  “Claiming dibs doesn’t count when the woman hasn’t acknowledged the claim.”

  “You’re right,” Tyler said slowly, eyeing his siblings.

  But before he could start something that would end up involving fists, Mavis called their attention back to more important matters. “Who’d like pie and who wants cake?”

  Dylan groaned out loud. “Man, is that pecan pie?” His gaze shifted from the pie to Ronnie. “Darlin’, you free later?”

  Suspicious, she asked, “Why?”

  “We can find someone to marry us up, then you can bake your way to my heart.”

  Jesse snickered. “More like she should try to stroke your—”

  “There’s ladies present, Jess,” Tyler warned.

  The youngest Garahan tucked his head to his chest and mumbled, “Sorry… not used to it yet.”

  “Emily’s been here for over a week.”

  “She don’t count, Ty,” Jesse said. “She’s family.”

  Ronnie’s heart melted at the thought of being a part of their family. Good thing, because it distracted her from thoughts of bashing Dylan over the head with the serving spoon in her hand, right before she laid a lip lock on him guaranteed to grab his attention. Talk about feeling conflicted!

  “So how about it, Ronnie?” Dylan asked getting into her personal space again, setting every single cell in her body to vibrate and stoking the fire inside of her that only he could put out.

  She was crazy. He is so hot. She was ten times a fool. He is going to set my sheets on fire once I have him where I want him.

  No, no, and no! Step back from the hunkalicious cowboy with the darkly dangerous eyes and no one will get hurt.

  He moved closer until not a breath was between them. His jean-clad legs were fused to hers, her breasts were squashed to his amazing pecs, driving her crazy—

  “Shit that hurts!” He backed away from her as if he’d been burned.

  “What happened, are you all right?” Concerned because she couldn’t remember if she’d set down the knife she was slicing bread with, she looked at her hands. They were empty.

  Before she could blink, Dylan reached down, grabbed the hem of his T-shirt, and yanked it over his head in one smooth motion.

  Her heart registered the shock of what he revealed before her head did; it skipped a beat, then two more before settling back into its normal rhythm. She sucked in a breath and stared; she couldn’t help it.

  The room started to spin as her vision grayed and her chest began to burn. Shock held her immobile while her brain frantically struggled to process what her heart had already accepted.

  “The curse!” she rasped as everything went black.

  Chapter 7

  Dylan swept Ronnie into his arms before her head hit the floor. “What the hell happened? What. The. Hell. Just. Happened?”

  “Nice tattoo, Bro,” Tyler drawled, ignoring the limp woman in his brother’s arms. “Why did you back away from her like you’d been burned?”

  “She leaned on my new damned tattoo.”

  Tyler and Jesse exchanged a look, while Dylan stared down into the angelic face of the woman who’d kept him twisted upside down and sideways all night.

  “You need to lay her down.” Mavis’s words shot through him like a hot knife through butter.

  But his brain wasn’t working properly, hadn’t been since he’d lassoed the woman two nights ago.

  As if she could sense he wasn’t capable of thought just now, Mavis placed her hand on his elbow and steered him toward the living room. Reluctantly, he set Ronnie down on the ancient overstuffed sofa. It had always looked so out of place out here at the ranch, but his mom had insisted if she was going to be working her butt off on the ranch during the day, she should at least have a comfy place to rest her weary bones at night.

  Mavis had a washcloth in her hand, and she placed it gently on Ronnie’s head.

  Concern arrowed through him as she lay unmoving. “Is she sick?”

  “I might ask the same of you, the way you were acting a few moments ago,” Mavis said quietly, stroking the cool cloth over Ronnie’s cheeks, forehead, and chin.

  Dylan shook his head and looked down at her. The floor shifted beneath his feet and he knew in that moment that he’d never let Ronnie leave. Come hell or high water, this woman was not stepping one foot off of his ranch.

  The elbow to his ribs had him spinning around.

  “You keepin’ her, Bro?” Jesse asked moving to stand on Dylan’s right.

  He looked from one brother to the other and nodded. “Yep.”

  “How are you gonna convince her to stay?” Tyler asked, coming to stand on his left.

  “I won’t need to convince her,” Dylan boasted. “She’ll stay.”

  Mavis shook her head, “Give the poor girl a moment to regain her composure, boys, before you start dictating where and what she’ll be doing. Ronnie’s an independent young woman and doesn’t like to be told what to do.”

  Ronnie moaned softly as her eyelashes fluttered.

  Dylan squatted down next to the sofa, to be there to reassure her when her eyes opened, but her first words were not quite the ones he’d hoped to hear.

  “Frigging curse!”

  “Nice mouth, DelVecchio.” He waited a heartbeat then asked, “What curse?”

  “It’s more of a family legend.”

  “A legend that involves a curse?”

  Her eyes narrowed as they focused on his face. “Yes.”

  He wanted to ask her more, but she was staring at his tattoo. Was she afraid of the sight of blood, or did it have more to do with the family curse? He grinned. The more he found out about Ronnie, the more he wanted to know.

  ***

  “Could you please put a damned shirt on?” She shifted so she was leaning back against the arm of the sofa; if she sat up, she’d smack the reason she’d fainted with her face. She didn’t need to be reminded to steer clear of this man. The evidence was proclaimed in kelly green in the form of a shamrock tattooed to his to-die-for left pec… right over his heart.

  “Damned Irish pride,” she mumbled.

  “What’s that?” Dylan leaned close enough to press his lips to hers, but she squirmed even farther into the cushion, moving her lips out of kissing range. She didn’t trust the man as far as she could throw him. Looking at the breadth of his shoulders, the depth of his chest, and the size of his biceps, she figured she couldn’t even budge him, let alone throw him.

  Dylan Garahan was Grade A, prime Texas male. And wasn’t it just her bad luck that he’d be sporting a sign even a dimwit should be able to notice. She wished Nonni was here so she could ask her more questions about the bane of the female DelVecchio’s existence, a.k.a. the curse, instead of having to wait until she got back to her apartment to call her.

  “Mrs. Beeton, I think Ronnie should stay here with us until she recovers.”

  Mavis coughed and Ronnie looked up at her for the first time since she’d come to. Was her friend trying to stifle a chuckle? What had she missed when she’d fainted?

  “I’m fine,” Ronnie protested. “Just let me up and I’ll prove it.”

  His brothers backed up, but Dylan didn’t. He put out a hand to stop her. “You blacked out in our kitchen and would have knocked yourself silly on the edge of the solid oak table if I hadn’t kept you from falling.”

  “Oh really?” she sneered. “And how’d you do that?”

  Dylan got into her personal space again, irritating her until she took a deep breath and his scent washed over her—clean and spicy, with a hint of what she could only describe as Texas air. Unless you’d been out to Texas you couldn’t describe it, but it just didn’t smell like back home. It was simply different… or maybe it was simply Dylan.

  She shifted and eased back farther into the corner of the couch. “You going to answer me,” she demanded, “or stare at me?”

  “Darlin’,” he drawled, “I could spend the rest of my life staring at you.”
/>   The breath she just drew in got caught in her lungs, black spots formed in front of her eyes, she swatted at them, but they got bigger as a funny buzzing filled her ears.

  Mavis pushed Dylan out of the way and grabbed Ronnie’s face in her hands. “Breathe, honey.”

  Ronnie obeyed, and to her relief, the buzzing dimmed and the spots disappeared. “Thanks, Mavis. I don’t know what came over me.”

  Mavis leaned closer and smiled at her. “I think it’s the C word.”

  Ronnie’s stomach flipped over. C for curse. “I think you’re right.” Glancing first at Dylan, then his brothers, and finally the trio of boys standing silent in the doorway, she shook her head. “I need to get out of here.”

  Dylan slowly stood to his full height, and damned if it didn’t impress the hell out of her. He was a man to be reckoned with—too bad she didn’t have the time or the inclination.

  You shouldn’t lie to yourself, Veronica. Her grandmother’s warning from her childhood would be apropos today.

  “I think she should stay where someone can keep an eye on her. She’s obviously got something wrong with her and needs someone to be with her in case she blacks out again.”

  Beneath the layer of frustration was concern. It was that emotion that had her looking to Mavis for advice. She didn’t know what to do, but more, didn’t trust herself to be alone with the man for five minutes afraid that she’d make the same mistake she had before and chose the wrong man for the wrong reasons. Only this time, she’d be choosing Dylan because of the feelings he stirred inside of her every time he looked at her—like a Texas wildfire, flaming hot and out of control.

  He shifted his stance, muscles bunching and smoothing out again… make that three minutes.

  Mavis nodded. “I think he’s right, Ronnie. You shouldn’t be alone right now, and I’ve got to go back into town. I have a meeting to go to.”

  Ronnie felt as if her one friend in the whole world was abandoning her to a pack of wild animals. A glance around the room and she felt as if she were the prey and the brothers were just waiting to pounce on her… make that one brother in particular: the one with the damned tattoo, the one who’d asked her to marry up with him.

  “And who the heck asks someone to marry up with them two days after they meet? Is that another quaint Texas saying?”

  Dylan’s eyes narrowed, and she wondered if she pushed him just a little bit too far. It wasn’t a good idea to prod the one with the black eyes and the really big muscles until he got mad.

  The brothers looked at one another first and her second. “Our great-great-grandparents,” Tyler answered.

  “But that might have been an exception, due to the duress our great-great-grandfather was under at the time.”

  Ronnie didn’t like the way they managed to join together as one against her, the outsider. When they simply waited, watching her, she finally asked. “OK, I’ll bite, what duress?”

  Dylan smiled, and her heart melted all over again. “He was in jail at the time.”

  “Come on, boys,” Mavis said, corralling the young men and leading them back into the kitchen. “I’m sure Tyler has more chores for you boys and the day’s not getting any younger.”

  Ronnie tried not to let her unease show. She wasn’t quite as sure of herself as she let on, but the Garahans didn’t know that, and if she were the woman she’d fought hard to become, they wouldn’t figure it out anytime soon.

  “What did your great-great-grandfather do to get arrested?”

  The brothers looked at one another and then back at her. Tyler shrugged, Jesse shook his head, and Dylan answered, “Can’t remember, but it must have been a trumped up charge.”

  She smiled. “Naturally, a Garahan couldn’t be accused of committing a crime.”

  Dylan must not have appreciated her sarcasm. Not many people did until they got to know her better… but that was just it, he didn’t know her better. Would he still want to?

  To diffuse the anger she could see smoldering in his eyes, she asked, “So why did you jump back from me as if I’d sliced you with a switchblade?”

  “Switchblade? Is that something that might have happened in a dark alleyway back East?”

  She shrugged and didn’t answer, instead prodding him, “Well?”

  He leaned forward and damn if the man wasn’t crowding her. She liked at least three feet or more between her and the person she was talking to… two feet if they were friends… make that a couple of inches if said friends had been drinking.

  “You rubbed against my new tattoo and the skin’s just a bit raw.”

  Her eyes shot to the bright green shamrock and she studied it closely. She could see a red outline around the leaf, and more red just beneath the color. “Why did they outline it in red?”

  His mouth lifted on one side and his eyes twinkled. “Well now, that’s not ink; that’d be blood… tattooing isn’t for the faint of heart.”

  She felt the blood rush from her head to her toes and for a moment, couldn’t explain what was happening, other than she must have had an out of body experience. When her mind snapped back to the present, she was cradled in Dylan’s arms once more.

  The man was quick on his feet, she’d give him that much.

  “And that just settled it; you’re not going anywhere.”

  Wide awake now and in control of her body and her senses, Ronnie bristled at being told what to do. “I don’t have to listen to you.” She started squirming. “You can’t keep me here.”

  She looked up at him, about to blast him until she saw the compassion-laced concern in his eyes, and came undone. Why that should appeal to her, deep inside, where she hadn’t let anyone or any emotion touch her was a mystery to her. But right now, she needed to be strong, and remember not to let her misplaced feelings for the man confuse the issue.

  At the moment the issue of the curse was paramount. She could not stay here… not if she wanted to have a say in her future. Did she really want to get involved with a man who probably spent most of his time working, and his spare time recovering from working? From all she’d heard since moving out to Texas, there were two types of people out here: those who owned and worked ranches and those who didn’t. She rarely saw any ranchers in town, and from what Mavis had told her, probably wouldn’t unless it was market day, usually the third or fourth Saturday of the month.

  Shaking her head to break his hold over her, she was surprised when he didn’t let go. Well, she wasn’t really surprised; he’d proven to be hardheaded in his pursuit of her, maybe this was just another aspect of his not being able to accept the word no. “Did you have a hard time as a child?”

  He blinked, then frowned. “With what?”

  “Being told no.”

  Unbelievably, he tilted his head back and laughed, a deep, masculine sound that sent shivers up and down her spine. Afraid that the more she discovered about the man, the more she’d like, Ronnie knew she’d have to leave—now.

  “Oh good,” she murmured, “then if you’ll just ease up on your grip, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Darlin’,” Dylan rumbled, the sound vibrating from deep inside his broad chest, “did you hit your head recently?”

  She smacked him—just hauled off and smacked him with the flat of her hand on the back of his hard head and sweetly asked, “No, darlin’, have you?”

  The reaction she got was swift and unexpected. His mouth found hers and his talented lips shaped and molded hers as his kiss loosened the tension building inside of her. The tip of his tongue traced a lazy path around the rim of her mouth, filling her with pleasure, sharp and sweet.

  Lord, the man could kiss.

  Dylan changed the angle, slid his hand down the length of her spine, and cupped her backside, pulling her hard up against him, and all thought evaporated. It was hang on or fall off.

  Need sprinted through her. She moaned, and his agile tongue took advantage and delved deep, teasing hers into response. His lips, mouth, and tongue were destroying her,
but she met him taste for taste, stroke for stroke, and the wild, uninhibited side of her took over.

  He might have a supremely talented mouth, but her hands were as quick as lightning as she moved them up his pecs, avoiding the tender area of his tattoo, over his shoulders, and around his back in a hypnotic motion until he moaned. Empowered by the sound, she took advantage of the moment and slid her hands down as far as she could reach, until finally, thank you Lord, she got ahold of his amazingly taut backside and grabbed on for dear life.

  Holding him where she wanted him, her mouth went on a journey, licking and kissing a path along the line of his jaw to beneath his ear and along the tendon in his neck. He was breathing hard and fast by the time she’d latched on with her lips, adding suction. His grip changed from firm to punishing.

  She reveled in his strength, not afraid of it or him. She wanted to make him forget about being careful with her, wanted to feel the power of him unleashed, raw and ready to mate. The man would be like a stallion, wild and free, taking what he could, when he could, and damn the consequences.

  ***

  Dylan felt the sharp, sweet sting of her love bite and felt the blood rush from his head to his boots and back up to flood the part of him that was proud to be a man. Ready, willing, and able to do his part, he moaned when his jeans constricted and cut into his erection.

  The need to strip her bare and drive into her until they were both blind clawed at him. He slid his hands up from her backside to the hem of her T-shirt and grabbed ahold of it.

  “Hey, Bro, you ’bout ready to—”

  Dylan’s heart slammed against his ribs, and his breath was roaring like a freight train. Looking down into Ronnie’s slumberous green eyes, he knew one night with this woman would never be enough. The lacy, black bra peeking out from beneath the shirt he’d been about to tear off her had him groaning. The overwhelming need to kill the man interrupting him from taking what he wanted from the woman in his arms brought him up short.

  “Whoa,” Jesse said, holding up his hands and backing up. “I’ll uh… just leave you two alone.”

  Dylan swore under his breath, leaned his forehead against Ronnie’s, and let her shirt slide back down. “Darlin’, it’s getting too crowded here. How ’bout if I drive you out to your place where we can be alone?”