A Tradition of Pride Read online

  "You will play hell getting rid of me, wildcat," Rans growled affectionately, his fingers twisting into the flame gold of her long hair.

  The light radiating from the velvet brown of his eyes took her breath away, at once possessive and passionate and gentle. A sensation of buoyancy seemed to fill her as if she was floating on a cloud.

  "Tell me why, Rans?" whispered Lara, watching the hard lips and waiting for them to form the three precious words she was aching to hear.

  He didn't disappoint her. "I love you that's why." The iron band of his embracing arms tightened like a vise, crushing her against his trembling length. He pressed his mouth against her temple, murmuring against her skin, "I love you, Lara. I love you." Repeating it as if the words had been bottled up too long inside of him.

  Her fingers spread, moving over his back and shoulders in an exploring caress. "I love you too, darling." She rubbed her head against his chin and mouth, dissolving with a completeness of her emotion.

  A tenseness seemed to take possession of him. "The way you loved Trevor?"

  "Oh, no," Lara denied with a smiling sigh. "I loved his image. I was in love with love. His touch never shattered. His kiss never destroyed. I never felt alive, every nerve tingling, with him the way I do with you. There was always something missing that made me feel incomplete. But not anymore, not when you hold me. It's as if I've come home at last."

  "To stay, Lara," he declared firmly, "because I'll never let you go."

  "I'll die if you do." She shuddered, remembering the desolation that nearly entered her life when she had thought she might never see him again. "You quit because of me, didn't you?" she breathed.

  "Why else?" His mouth crooked into a dry smile as he drew his head back to let his gaze rove possessively over her upturned face. "The job, the work, was everything I ever wanted. I knew that within a few weeks after I arrived. What I hadn't counted on was a beautiful redhead complicating the situation. I managed to ignore you quite successfully for a while. But you kept getting under my skin." Rans chuckled softly, his hands lightly caressing her feminine curves. "I thought you were a frigid piece of baggage, a stunningly wrapped block of ice. It was a challenge to keep chipping away to see if it was solid."

  Lara leaned back against his arms, her hands sliding to his broad chest. An impish light gleamed in her green eyes as she met the glittering fire of his gaze.

  "My first impression of you was that you were arrogant." Her lips trying to conceal the smile hovering at the corners. "And I haven't revised my opinion at all."

  The dimples came into play, carving bewitching clefts in his tanned cheeks while his eyes crinkled at the corners. "You should have," Rans told her, "because with you I was never certain about anything except how much I wanted you. The night I walked home from the stable was possibly the longest walk I ever took. I had found the volcano under the ice cap and I had to come to grips with the way I was really feeling toward you."

  "That night was a revelation to me, too," Lara admitted. "I had thought I was immune to any physical need. Before, I was revolted by a man's touch. But not that night. You wiped out the illusion that I was somehow different from everyone else. It was a frightening discovery."

  "How do you think I felt, realizing I was falling in love with another man's wife?" A muscle twitched in his jaw. Lara caressed it tenderly to ease his remembered pain. "I had to keep reminding myself you were married and didn't belong to me. And you didn't make things any easier," Rans accused with mocking gruffness.

  "I couldn't help it. I wanted you, too," she defended herself.

  "I know. That's why I was leaving." He smiled fleetingly. "I knew that if I stayed, it was only a matter of time and I'd have you. I also knew I could never be satisfied with merely possessing you. I wanted you for my wife, to live with me, bear my name and my children. The prospect of an affair filled me with a bitterness that would eventually have destroyed both of us." His mouth closed briefly over hers in a hard kiss. "And that is my proposal of marriage, darling. Do you accept?"

  "Yes." Lara breathed the answer that had been written in her face since Rans had taken her in his arms.

  His hold tightened punishingly around her. An almost inaudible groan came from his throat as he crushed her against him. "How in the world are we going to make it until your divorce is final?" he muttered into the fiery silk of her hair.

  "I can survive anything as long as you love me," was her whispered reply.

  "Maybe you can fly to Reno or Mexico," Rans suggested thickly while her fingers lovingly explored the ragged contours of his face. "I don't want to wait another day."

  "Neither do I. We'll find a way, darling, and we'll find it together," Lara promised.

  "We'll start a new tradition." There was a wicked glint in his eyes as a roguish smile spread across his face. "The MacQuade brides always live happily ever after."

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1981 by Janet Dailey

  Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

  ISBN 978-1-4976-1908-1

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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