Christmas on the Range: Winter Roses\Cattleman's Choice by Diana Palmer

Author:Diana Palmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2015-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

11

And then, when Ivy was certain she’d lost, Stuart began to smile. It wasn’t a sarcastic smile, either. He rolled over onto his side and traced patterns on her soft, swollen mouth. His shirt was open and her fingers were tangled in the thick hair that covered his chest. She didn’t remember unfastening buttons, but she must have. Her own blouse and bra were down around her waist.

“I told you, I don’t seduce virgins,” he whispered deeply.

“I remember,” she whispered back.

“I do, however, marry them,” he murmured against her lips.

Her eyes widened. “You want to...to marry me?”

He kissed her eyelids closed. “Of course I do,” he replied huskily. “I wanted you when you were just eighteen. I’ve gone almost out of my mind wanting you since then, and hating myself for it. You’re so young, Ivy,” he told her, hugging her close. “But I can’t live without you.”

She clung to him, burying her face in his warm throat. “I can’t live without you, either, Stuart,” she confessed on a broken sob. “I love you...!”

His mouth stopped the words. He kissed her until her mouth was sore and they were both on the verge of surrender.

Whether it was by accident or by design, a loud knock at the door announced Merrie.

“Who wants cake and ice cream?” she called.

Stuart laughed. “Both of us!” he called back, winking at Ivy, who was delightfully flushed.

“Coming right up. You two coming out to get it?”

Stuart made a face. “Sure,” he replied.

“Okay! Five minutes!”

Her footsteps died away.

Stuart’s eyes began to glitter wickedly as he eased Ivy onto her back and slid over her. “Five whole minutes,” he murmured against her soft mouth. “Let’s make the best of them, sweetheart.”

They did, too.

* * *

Amid plans for a big, society wedding that Ivy really didn’t want, Chief Cash Grier and Sheriff Hayes Carson came to talk to Ivy. Stuart had gone out onto the ranch because there was a problem with some equipment, and Merrie was in town ordering invitations and a wedding cake.

Mrs. Rhodes led them into the living room, where Ivy was making a list of people she wanted to invite to the wedding.

“What can I do for you?” she asked them, smiling as she offered them chairs around the big, open fireplace that was blazing, cozy and warm in the large room.

“We thought you might like to know how things are going since we got Rachel’s packet of information,” Hayes told her.

“Would I ever!” she replied.

“It turns out that her boyfriend’s main supplier was from Jacobsville,” Cash Grier said. “Do you remember back last year when two of my patrol officers arrested a drunk politician and his daughter slandered me in the press?”

“Everybody remembers that,” she said.

“Well, his daughter, Julie Merrill, was up to her neck in drug trafficking, along with the two commissioners who resigned from the city council and vanished.”

“Julie was arrested and accused of arson for trying to burn down Libby Collins’s house, wasn’t she?” she replied. “And then she

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