Thoughts of what he should do ran through his mind. Even as those thoughts struck him, he struggled to look away from her big green eyes until his gaze lowered to her mouth. Her full, rosy lips looked incredibly kissable. Oh damn, what a thought. He almost groaned aloud. His gaze flew back to meet hers. When something flickered in the depths of her eyes, he realized he was right. She felt something, too.
Instantly, that knowledge had a double effect—first, he didn’t want her to feel anything. Second, the realization that she did feel something made his heart race faster and gave him a more intense awareness of her.
He had seen her, passed her in town, gone to the same school—although at three years older, he had been in a different grade. In the past they had either fought or ignored each other. Until now.
Until today, he’d let his foreman or one of the cowboys handle any problems that had occurred due to their adjoining ranches. They rarely had to talk to one another and that worked for them. Often, she did the same and the two foremen worked things out.
As he glanced again at her and she looked at him, he realized it was the first time he had really noticed her.
How long had he looked at her? A couple of seconds? Ten, fifteen? Whatever time frame, he felt as if his whole life had changed in a subtle but irreversible way. He would never again see her the same way he always had. Worse, right now, he wanted to tighten his arm around her, pull her closer and kiss her. That shocking thought galvanized him to move away, and he released her. Instantly she scooted away, and her cheeks became pink—adding to her beauty. How could she suddenly be appealing? She was a lifelong enemy, as well as an enemy of every relative he had ever had. Generations of relatives over the last century. And now he was caught in a hot attraction? Oh wow, did he need to call someone and go out with a good-looking, fun woman.
When Claire Blake moved away, she looked back at her ranch. “Oh my heavens. My whole ranch is on fire, and now the flames are headed right for my house. From the first moment I heard about this fire, I hoped this wouldn’t happen.”
He reached in front of her to get two clean bandannas out of the glove compartment. He held one out to her. “Put this on and maybe it’ll help filter out the smoke. I’ll get us and the dogs away from this.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking the bandanna to tie it behind her head and over her nose and mouth. It just made him even more aware of her big green eyes. He drew a deep breath, coughed slightly and wished he didn’t have any kind of response to her. He never had before today. Now, he knew that no matter what happened between them, he would never again see her in the same impersonal way he always had.
“The sheriff said to evacuate, so that’s what we’ll do,” he said, turning to drive and trying to focus on getting away quickly.
She didn’t answer, and he glanced at her. She was looking back, and she ran her hand across her face. He was certain she wiped away tears.
His screen crackled, and his pilot’s voice came in. She twisted to look at his screens. “What are those?”
“I can get pictures sent from one of my planes. I have someone flying around, getting those pictures of the fire so I know what’s happening. He’s flown out of this area now because of the smoke. Even if he could get a picture, I don’t think you’d want to see your house.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Don’t worry, he’s just taking pictures of my place unless I tell him differently.”
She nodded and looked out the window over her shoulder.
Rain was predicted in late afternoon, and he prayed for her sake it arrived sooner. He looked up at the sky, but it was hidden by the smoke spreading in all directions overhead. He knew from flying over their land before that she lived in the original big farm home that was said to be over a century old. It would hurt to lose your house no matter what, but an old one like that would be really tough. It had lasted all these years, but there was no way it would survive this raging, out-of-control wildfire that was consuming everything in its path. He suspected her house was filled with hand-me-downs from generations of her family—heirlooms that she treasured. They wouldn’t make it through the fire. He felt sorry for her, which surprised him.
“Claire,” he said, her name rolling off his tongue for the first time in his life. He had never called her by her first name, and saying it made him think again of the moment when he had looked into her big eyes and then at her mouth that looked made for kisses. He almost groaned aloud at that one. She was Claire Blake, he reminded himself. A Blake—the despised and hated enemy, including all her rotten relatives, for generations as far back as his family history went.
He didn’t think she ever went out with anyone. She was a loner, staying on her ranch. On Friday or Saturday nights when he was out, he never saw her. He rarely even thought about her and never had wondered why he didn’t see her. Now he wondered. And the minute he realized that, he knew he shouldn’t. He should go right back to ignoring her and seeing her the way he always had—a neighbor whose entire family had a feud with his family. But he knew he couldn’t see her just that way anymore.
Without doing anything except looking at him, she had turned his life topsy-turvy.
She was going to need a place to stay tonight. Within the hour she would be homeless. None of her family lived close now. Her father and brothers had all moved away, but she needed to be out here. She couldn’t walk away from her ranch and all the people who worked for her.
He dreaded asking her to stay at his cabin. He liked his privacy, and they were bitter, lifelong enemies. So why was he about to offer her shelter? To get shut up in his cabin with her for an indefinite period of time?
What worried him the most was the unwanted, unreasonable attraction she had stirred. He didn’t want to be attracted to a Blake, much less one who was a loner, almost a recluse. He wished he could stop thinking about her appeal, but that was impossible with her sitting close. He didn’t want to think about spending the night with her in his cabin or, even worse, maybe a couple of days together. He was sure after a few minutes that unwanted and unreasonable attraction would disappear as swiftly as it had come. But even as that thought ran through his mind, he remembered how soft her lips had looked.
“Claire, I have a cabin on the river about thirty miles from here. It’s far enough away to be okay. You can come stay there. It’s big. There’s plenty of room.” Even as he said the words, he hoped she would refuse, but he suspected she had no other choice. Where else could she go?
She glanced up, her eyes widening in surprise, and from the crinkled line around them he knew she was smiling. Just the thought made his insides clench again, causing another worry. If she stayed with him, would he keep having these physical reactions to her?
As a kid, he’d thought she was plain-looking, and he paid little attention to her. She was three years younger, so they were never involved in anything together.
He responded to women, to being with a good-looking woman or a fun woman, but this was a totally unwanted, unpredictable, shocking response to a woman he had spent a lifetime avoiding. Not to mention the hostility between their families and sometimes between them. Something she seemed to have put on hold as much as he had.
“Stay with me,” he surprised himself by repeating. “It’s a big cabin, and we ought to be able to get through a night or two under the same roof.”
A faint smile lit her eyes again and was gone in an instant, but that tiny smile made his heart clench again. What could it mean if he was continually having this intense reaction to his deepest and maybe only enemy? Well, only enemy in the area. Her brothers, who’d moved away, would fall into that category. Just the two older ones, he amended. Her younger brother, Laird, had always stayed out of the fights.
Jake knew that her two older brothers hated him, and the feeling was mutual. Ironically, their reasons were probably as good as his. He didn’t want any part of them. They had secrets they tried to hide from everyone. They would be shocked if they ever discovered he knew what they knew.
