Call Of The White Wolf. Carol Finch
knew he was being ignored by Tara at supper, which turned out to be an exceptional feast. The rabbit meat was tender and juicy. The vegetables, seasoned with mesquite seeds, had a marvelous flavor. While the children chatted on—and on—about their survival excursion, Tara stared at her plate and ate her meal in silence.
All right, so John knew that crack he’d made about using him to discourage the boys’ amorous interests was way out of line—and too dangerous for his own good. And certainly, he’d told himself several times not to become attached to Tara. But hell, he was, damn it! She didn’t seem to have a clue about how attractive she was, especially in those trim-fitting breeches and shirts that accentuated every alluring curve and swell. She seemed to think that because she was a woman, with all the necessary body parts, a man would regard her as nothing more than a possession to be used for his lusty purposes. She didn’t seem to realize that it was her personality and character, as well as her ravishing good looks, that attracted male interest.
Why get into this? John asked himself as he chewed on the medley of wild vegetables. He was going to be the perfect gentleman while he shared the same space with Tara. He’d be gone soon and he didn’t want to hurt her in any way. She’d be hurt if he did something really stupid like…oh, say, forge a physical liaison.
If he felt the urge to satisfy an itch, then he could get himself into Rambler Springs to find a woman who made her living appeasing men. He’d made a pact to keep his hands off Tara, no matter how tempting she was. Furthermore, she’d find her own way to resolve the male rivalry going on between Samuel and Derek, without breaking their tender young hearts.
And so, being ignored as he was by Tara, he was thunderstruck when she pushed away from the table, came to her feet, strode to the head of the table where he was sitting and planted a kiss on his lips—right in front of five startled children, God and every deity known to the Apache nation. True, it wasn’t much of a kiss, as kisses went, yet the feel of her soft lips melting upon his sent his male body into a slow burn—and left him burning long after she withdrew. John struggled to draw a breath that wasn’t thick with her fresh, clean, alluring scent.
“Good night, John dear. I have some sewing to do before I go to bed.” She glanced surreptitiously at Samuel and Derek, whose eyes were bulging and whose jaws were scraping the table. “Somebody around here ripped their shirts during the Battle of Paradise Valley, and I’m the one who has to stitch the fabric back together.”
No one uttered a word. No one moved until Tara exited the room to retrieve her sewing kit, then reversed direction to breeze out the front door. Just as John predicted, all goggle-eyed gazes zeroed in on him.
“How come you kissed Tara when I’m the one who loves you and told you so, huh?” Flora demanded that very second.
“She kissed me,” John corrected.
“I never saw Tara kiss anybody on the mouth before,” Calvin said.
Samuel and Derek slouched down, as if their breath had been knocked clean out of them. Maureen slumped in her chair, staring at him as if he’d just broken her heart in about a million pieces. John had the uneasy feeling he had a silent admirer. Well damn, he was as oblivious as Tara, who hadn’t realized Samuel and Derek were infatuated with her.
And Tara, damn her ornery hide, had dropped a live grenade in his lap, then walked off, leaving him to answer awkward questions. He ought to storm outside and shake the living daylights out of her for that.
John sat there, wondering how to extricate himself from this situation, then decided changing the subject was the best strategy he could come up with. “While you children are clearing the table, I’m going to brew a poultice to pack on my wounds.”
“Are you sure you aren’t going to go outside to kiss Tara again?” Flora asked suspiciously. “Maureen says that’s how people make babies.”
“Flora! Shut your flapping jaws!” Maureen shrieked, humiliated.
Calvin blinked. “We’re gonna have more babies around here?”
Damn, could this situation get any worse? John wondered. Strangling Tara for her mischief was becoming more appealing by the second.
“Babies don’t come from kissing,” Samuel told Maureen, whose face had turned the color of cooked beets. “Damn, don’t you know anything?”
John’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. He stared nonplussed at Samuel, then tried to speak, but his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth.
“Tara said not to curse in front of the children,” Derek scolded. “And what do you know about making babies, anyway?”
Flora glanced up at John. “Where do babies come—?”
John flung up both hands to forestall the barrage of questions he didn’t want to answer. “Enough! We’ll discuss this later.” In about a hundred years, if he had his way about it!
“You mean tomorrow while we’re on another survival excursion?”
Leave it to little Flora to pin him down, he thought in dismay. “Yeah, sure. That’d be good.”
Samuel and Derek perked up immediately. John wanted to swear, but there’d been enough of that already. Apparently, Maureen had recovered from her humiliation, for she was staring curiously at him, as if she had a million questions to ask on the subject of the birds and bees. Hell!
John got up, limped out the door and went looking for Tara. He found her perched on a quilt, taking advantage of the last rays of sunset. Her nimble fingers flew over the rips in Samuel and Derek’s grass-stained shirts.
“You, Irish, have a devilish sense of humor,” John muttered.
She glanced up, grinning elfishly. “Oh, are you referring to that kiss I bestowed on you at the table?”
“Hell, yes, damn it,” he snapped. “Next thing I knew Flora was spouting off that she’s the one who loves me, and then she wanted to know if kissing is what makes babies.”
He could see Tara battling back a giggle. He wished he was in possession of a chain—one size smaller than the swanlike column of her neck.
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