Just Until Morning, An Enemies-to-Lovers Novel (Carrington Cousins Book 3) Page 6

  He started to say something angrily, then visibly stopped himself and reined in his emotions. Taking a deep breath, he spoke slowly and carefully.

  “Haven’t you ever heard that bad things can happen to good people? It’s true, you know. You’ve got to be prepared.”

  She hesitated, realizing suddenly that he wasn’t really attacking her or her shelter. He was genuinely concerned and he was making a clear attempt to calm down and communicate that concern in a logical way. She had to appreciate that. But that didn’t mean she had to cave in.

  “I know how to take care of myself.”

  He shook his head. “Tell me this. Why do you hide out here with only your animals for company?”

  She avoided his gaze. “I’m not hiding. This is my work. I like it out here.”

  “I’d call it hiding. You know what I think? I think you work with animals so you won’t have to face people.”

  “You know what I think? I think you ought to stop worrying about me and how I live my life. What do you care, anyway? I can take care of my own.”

  “I do care, Kendall. I care about you.”

  Her breath was coming too quickly. He would notice in a moment if she weren’t careful. And she didn’t dare give him any sign of how strongly he affected her.

  She put on such a tough front. She thought she had things so well in hand, that no one would ever be able to get beneath that hard, shiny surface and see her pain again. But Brett could break through her barriers at will if he really wanted to. She had to fight him.

  And yet, when she looked at him her defenses seemed to melt away. He was kind and gentle. At least, that was how he seemed. Who knew what lurked beneath the exterior? She’d had only too much experience with men who were not what they seemed.

  “Don’t care about me,” she said stiffly. “Forget me.

  “How could I possibly do that?” he asked softly, and then his hand was at the nape of her neck, fingers tangling with the dark curls there. She felt warmth spread like melting butter all through her system. “Do you ever think about that night?” he asked.

  He didn’t have to explain what night he was talking about. She knew. She wanted to shove his hand away, to twist away from him, but she couldn’t. Paralyzed, she could only answer in a strangled voice, “No. No, I never do.”

  He looked down into her violet eyes, searching. She stared up at him, unable to hide anything from him.

  “Liar,” he whispered at last, and his fingers tightened, drawing her closer, and his face lowered, until his lips touched hers, setting her soul on fire and shooting agony through her heart.

  His kiss was a temptation she wasn’t strong enough to resist. As his mouth opened on hers, she realized she’d been dreaming about this every night, moaning and writhing between her cold, sterile sheets and wishing she had him beside her. She wanted him. She’d never understood real desire before. Suddenly she knew what it was. What she didn’t know was how to control it.

  The overwhelming wave of need was too frightening. She pushed away from him, fear mixing with uncertainty, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, glaring at him.

  “No,” she murmured hoarsely. “No!”

  His eyes were clouded with confusion. “Kendall,” he began, reaching for her.

  “No!” She cried it out, making sure he understood she wasn’t being coy, that she meant it. He was much too dangerous. She had to get him as far away as possible, before she did something she would always regret. “I want you to stay away from me.”

  Chapter 5

  His head snapped back as though she’d slapped him. “Listen, I didn’t mean to...”

  “Just stay away from me. I... I want Danni to work here. But you aren’t part of the deal. I don’t want you here at all.”

  His arms hung at his sides, and his face went blank. “What have I done?” he asked simply.

  What had he done? Her heart twisted with pain. Nothing, except to throw her emotions into a turmoil she didn’t think she could handle.

  “It... it’s not you,” she whispered at last, her eyes asking him to understand. “It’s me. I can’t have you here. Please...”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then finally nodded his head. “All right,” he said simply. “Don’t worry. I won’t ever bother you again.”

  A sound turned both their heads. Danni had come out of the office and was watching them, eyes wide. It was obvious her young mind was having difficulty understanding what was going on.

  “Let’s go, Danni,” Brett said, holding out a hand for her. He glanced back at Kendall. “What time do you want her tomorrow?”

  Kendall tried to get her head straight. She felt like a fool. The two of them must think she was off-balance to take this so seriously. But she couldn’t help it. That was just the way it was.

  “Three-thirty?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm and professional.

  His blue eyes seemed to take in everything, all the emotions, all the doubts she had. “Fine,” he said quietly. “She’ll be here.”

  He took Danni’s hand and started for the gate. Danni looked back at Kendall, her eyes troubled. “Brett?” she said. “Brett, don’t you think...?”

  “Don’t worry about it, honey,” he said crisply. “Kendall knows what she wants, and what she doesn’t want. Everything’s okay.”

  He didn’t look back. They went out the gate, and Kendall followed slowly to put the bar in place again. They didn’t wave as they drove off. But her heart was still beating like a wild thing in her chest. She’d never known a man like Brett Carrington. Perhaps she’d never known any man at all.

  Danni arrived the next afternoon, just as Brett had promised.

  “I love animals,” she said, excitement shining in her eyes. “What can I do first?”

  “Learn how not to love animals quite so much,” Kendall told her, but she said it with a smile in her voice. “The very first thing you must do is get rid of the idea that these are pets who will respond to loving care. They’re not. They’re wild animals and they’ll hurt you if you’re not careful. Not because they’re cruel or angry. Just because they must always be on the defensive. That’s the way they stay alive in the wild.”

  Danni tried to hide her disappointment but it showed. “I’m not allowed to stroke them or touch them?”

  Kendall shook her head. “An elderly man named Bruno, a gamekeeper on my husband’s estate, once told me something I’ve never forgotten. And now I want you to keep it in mind all the time.”

  Danni looked apprehensive. “Okay.”

  “Here it is. Anything that has a mouth, bites. Period. We work with these animals, but we always keep an escape route in mind, we always watch to see what their mood is, we always act as though they could turn on us at any moment. That way, we all stay safe.”

  Danni nodded.

  Kendal smiled, relieved. The girl was going to be okay. Kendall spent the rest of that afternoon taking her around and introducing her to the animals, showing her how the food was prepared, how the cages were hosed out without getting the animals wet.

  When Danni appeared the next day, riding up on her bicycle, her excitement had dimmed, but Kendall could tell by the determined set of her jaw that she’d decided she wanted to do well here at the shelter. That pleased her. The girl had spunk.

  Within a few days Danni fit in as though she’d always been there. Her workers, Ernie and Pedro both liked her and taught her things about the care and feeding of wild animals she needed to know. Kendall found herself looking forward to afternoons. Danni’s youthful enthusiasm brightened up the place. Even the animals seemed to respond to her.

  “I love it here,” Danni said one day, after Kendall had let her see the secret dark spot where Chelsea kept her cubs. “Could I stay longer? Could I help you shut them in for the night?”

  Kendall glanced at her watch. “You’ve already stayed a half hour over. Won’t they be expecting you at home?”

  Danni’s eyes had gone unu
sually stormy. “Brett is out of town and Sandi’s having her boyfriend over. No one will even notice if I don’t show up.”

  “Sandi. I remember her. She claimed to be brewing a love potion the day I visited your house.” She smiled at Danni, expecting a smile in return, but Danni’s look of disgust surprised her.

  “Love potion. That sounds like Sandi. All she can think of is Mike Turner. Tonight she’s trying to get at him through the stomach, like they say. She’s cooking something fancy.” She grunted. “She might as well go for the stomach; it’s a cinch she’ll never get him by appealing to his brain.”

  Kendall wasn’t sure if it was Sandi or Mike that brought out Danni’s scorn. But it was a Friday night. Danni had no school to prepare for in the morning. “Tell you what,” she suggested. “You call home and ask if you can stay and have dinner with me. Tell Sandi I’ll drive you home later on.”

  “Really?” Kendall was touched at how happy this seemed to make the girl. “I’ll call her right now. She’ll say yes. She’ll be happy to get rid of me.”

  Kendall chalked her attitude up to mere age differences with her sisters, but as the evening progressed, she began to realize it might be more than that. Danni had not one good thing to say about any of her sisters, and nothing but praise for Brett.

  “Our parents died when I was young,” Danni told her as they sat over a dinner of shrimp salad and cantaloupe. “Brett and Julie were the oldest, so they raised us. Then Julie got married and moved to Alaska. That was about three years ago. Brett has been taking care of all of us ever since.”

  It was a homey image, totally at odds with the raw sexuality of the man. Kendall smiled and said faintly, “All those women and only one man. Poor Brett!”

  “Oh, he loves it.” She made the statement with a touch of irony. “He’s always all involved with Anne’s career and Sandi’s education and her troubles with Mike.” Her voice lowered and her eyes seemed to be gazing at something far away. “Sometimes I wish I were older, like them. Then maybe he would take me seriously...”

  Change the subject whatever way Kendall might, Danni always found a way to swing it back to Brett. Her feelings for her brother seemed to be a mixture of hero worship and resentment that Kendall couldn’t quite get a handle on. When Kendall finally drove her home, waiting until she let herself into the cheery house, she couldn’t help but wonder which of those upper windows was the one for Brett’s bedroom.

  She felt a lot more secure at the shelter these days. She’d taken Brett’s advice, though she never would have admitted it to him, and asked Pedro to stay in a little trailer she had brought onto the property. He was happy enough to do so. He had no wife or family. All he had were his job and the animals.

  So now she wasn’t alone at night any longer.

  Still, the threats didn’t stop. Anonymous notes were taped to her gate in the morning. And the very next day the Johnsons called.

  The call came late in the afternoon and Danni took it. Kendall was in the office at the time, going over accounts. She didn’t pay much attention as Danni cheerfully answered the phone, but as her voice became strained, she looked up. Danni looked at her and shook her head anxiously.

  “No,” she was saying. “No, really Hiram, it couldn’t have been any of our animals. We don’t have any missing.”

  Kendall jumped up to take the receiver from her but by the time she got to it, Hiram had hung up.

  “He said something had ripped a big old hole in the fence to his henhouse,” Danni told her, her eyes huge and worried. “He said he was going to come on over here and shoot all our animals.”

  For just a moment, the words stunned Kendall, and she felt the same fear she could see in Danni’s expression. Quickly, she suppressed it.

  “He’s bluffing,” she said. “He wouldn’t dare. He knows he’d go to jail if he did anything like that.”

  Relief lit Danni’s face. “I know. I’ll call Brett. He’ll take care of it.”

  Kendall reached out to stop her from dialing his number. “No, don’t you dare tell Brett. I don’t want him to get involved in this. I can handle it myself.”

  “But he’ll know what to do! He can go over to the Johnsons’ and order them to stay away from us. He’d do it, too.”

  “No, Danni. No.”

  Danni didn’t understand. Who could understand? Kendall wasn’t too sure of why she was so adamant herself. After all, if it would help protect the animals...

  But no. She couldn’t let herself get tangled with the man again. Her reactions to him were too strong, too frightening. She thought of Gerald. She’d imagined herself in love with him once. And then she’d married him and found out a thing or two about the real world. Never again would she lay herself out on the line that way. Never again would she risk that sort of pain. She was her own master here. It was so much better that way.

  Other than reinforcing the gate and warning Bernie and Pedro to be on guard, she did nothing extraordinary. The day passed and nothing happened. She breathed a little easier. But she couldn’t keep from looking over her shoulder. It was a shame that their peace of mind was shaken this way. But it seemed to come with the territory.

  Brett Carrington waved to Mike Turner, the market manager, then put his six-pack of soda down on the conveyor belt and grinned at the grocery store cashier. “Hey, Bonnie, how’s it going?”

  Bonnie Hampton shook out her blond curls and showed him her pretty dimples, flashing a flirtatious look as she expertly rang up his total. There were only a few people in the store and no one else in line. She had time to talk as long as Mike was busy elsewhere.

  “Hey yourself, Brett,” she drawled provocatively. “Where you been lately? I haven’t seen you since that Fourth of July picnic.”

  He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Here and there. I’ve been doing some consulting for the Department of Fish and Game lately, so I’ve spent a good deal of time out of town.”

  “Really.” She bagged his sodas and leaned against the counter, smiling up at him. “You should come in more often. We could talk over old times.”

  His rich laughter filled the air. “Old times? You mean like high school? That was a long time ago, Bonnie. Those are the days I’d rather forget.”

  Bonnie was genuinely shocked. “Are you kidding? You were a football hero and class president and every little thing I can think of offhand. Glory days. Why would you want to forget that?” She took his bill and counted out change, handing it to him.

  He took the coins and pocketed them. “There is life after high school, Bonnie. Didn’t you know?”

  She sighed. “Not for me there isn’t. The last fifteen years have been a big fat waste as far as I’m concerned.” She leaned toward him again, fluttering her lashes. “Brett, tell me something. How come you never asked me out?”

  His smile was in his blue eyes. “Why honey, you were always three deep in boyfriends. I could never get close enough.”

  She leaned closer, flashing signals. “There’s nobody in your way now.”

  Brett raised his eyebrows, subtly backing away. “What happened to Greg? I thought you married him.”

  Disappointment clouded her gaze. “I did, but we didn’t make it. We’re getting a divorce.”

  Amusement still simmered in Brett. He chucked her under the chin and grinned. “Tell you what, sugar. I never date married women. Call me when that divorce is final.”

  She pouted. “I’ll probably be hooked up with someone else by then.”

  He spread his arms wide. “My loss.”

  Her frown was puzzled. It was apparent she wasn’t quite sure how he meant that. But his attention had wandered. Bonnie looked to see what had caught his eye.

  “Oh her,” she said as she saw Kendall coming in through the automatic door. “Just wait until Mike sees her. Every time she’s in here he’s on her like a homing pigeon.”

  “Is that right?” Brett’s gaze darkened as her prediction came true. Mike took one look at the floor and came bounding
out of his office to pull out a cart for Kendall. They were too far away to hear what he was saying, but his ingratiating smile said it all.

  “Well, what do you know?” Brett put his sack of sodas behind Bonnie’s counter. “Hold these for me for a second, will you, Bonnie? I’ve got something I’ve got to do.” He grinned at her. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to have a talk with that boy.”

  Kendall had noticed Brett the moment she’d stepped into the store, noticed how good he looked in the gray slacks and white shirt, open at the neck, as though he’d just pulled off a tie and left it in the car. He must have been to a meeting somewhere, she surmised. She’d never seen him dressed for city business before. It made her wonder what he’d look like in a tuxedo.

  She was glad she’d worn a dress, and had her hair loose. She felt feminine and pretty, and confident enough to face him, if she had to. She’d seen him look her way and instead of waving, she raised her chin and went on about her business.

  But she’d also seen the cashier leaning toward him, flirting for all she was worth, and Brett leaning back, taking it as his due. For some reason she didn’t want to explore fully, that entire scene infuriated her. So when the store manager came running out to help her get a cart, she gave him her sweetest smile and hoped that Brett was still watching.

  “Here you are,” the manager was saying, yanking apart two stubborn carts. “These can be a problem sometimes.”

  “Thank you so much.” Kendall smiled again, feeling slightly foolish. After all, she’d been risking a wrestling match with a Bengal tiger just moments before. Shopping carts should be duck soup for her. “You certainly do know how to give your customers personalized service.”

  “I try.”

  She looked into his eyes and realized this was a mistake. He’d been attentive before, and she’d always been carefully cool, because that was the way she was with men. This warmth she’d just shown him would give him the wrong idea. She could see that right away. But she wasn’t sure how to take it back.

  She couldn’t very well say, “Listen, mister, I didn’t mean that smile. Don’t get fresh.”