Sugar Daddy(87)

"It's late," I said. "I've got to head back."

A frown worked across Gage's forehead. "It's midnight. It's not safe for you to be out this late. Not in Houston. Especially not in that rust bucket you drive."

"My car works fine."

"Stay here. There's an extra bedroom."

I let out a surprised laugh. "You're kidding, right?"

Gage looked annoyed. "No, I'm not kidding."

"I appreciate your concern, but I've driven my rust bucket through Houston many times, much later than this. And I've got my cell phone." I walked over to him and reached out to his forehead. It was cool and slightly damp. "No more fever," I said with satisfaction. "It's time for another dose of Tylenol. You'd better take it just to be sure." I made a motion for him to stay on the sofa as he started to rise. "Rest," I said. "I'll see myself out."

Gage ignored that and followed me to the door, reaching it at the same time I did. I saw his hand press flat against the door panel. His forearm was densely muscled and dusted with hair. It was an aggressive gesture, but as I turned to face him, I was reassured by the subtle entreaty in his eyes.

"Cowboy," I said, "you're in no condition to stop me from doing a damn thing. I could wrestle you to the floor in ten seconds flat."

He continued to lean over me. His voice was very soft. "Try me."

I let out a nervous laugh. "I wouldn't want to hurt you. Let me go, Gage."

A moment of electric stillness. I saw the ripple of a swallow in his throat. "You couldn't hurt me."

He wasn't touching me, but I was excruciatingly aware of his body, the heat and solidity of him. And suddenly I knew how it would be if we slept together...the rise of my hips against his weight, the hardness of his back beneath my hands. I flushed as I felt a responsive twitch between my thighs, soft-secreted nerves prickling, a shot of heat to the quick.

"Please," I whispered, and was infinitely relieved when he pushed away from the door and stood back to let me pass.

Gage waited in the doorway a little too long as I left. It might have been my imagination, but as I reached the elevator and glanced back, he seemed bereft, as if I had just taken something from him.

It was a relief to everyone, especially Jack, when Gage was able to resume his usual

schedule. He showed up at the house on Monday morning, looking so well that Churchill happily accused him of faking his illness.

I hadn't mentioned having stayed with Gage for most of Saturday evening. It was best. I had decided, to let everyone assume I had gone out with my friends as planned. I realized Gage hadn't said anything about it either—if he had, there would have been a comment from Churchill. It made me uneasy, this small secret between Gage and me. even though nothing had happened.

But something had changed. Instead of treating me with his usual reserve. Gage went out of his way to be helpful, fixing my laptop when it froze, taking Churchill's empty breakfast tray downstairs before I could do it. And it seemed to me that he was coming to the house more frequently, dropping by at odd times, always on the pretext of checking on Churchill.

I tried to treat his visits casually, but I couldn't deny that time moved faster when Gage was around, and everything seemed a little more interesting. He wasn't a man you could fit into a neat category. The family, with typically Texan distrust of highbrow pursuits, affectionately mocked him for having more of an intellectual bent than the rest of them.

But Gage had been aptly named after his mother's family, the descendants of warlike Scotch-Irish borderers. Accordine to Gretchen. who had made a hobby of researchine the family genealogy, the Gages' dour self-reliance and toughness had made them perfect candidates to settle the Texas frontier. Isolation, hardship, danger—they had welcomed all of it. their natures practically demanded it. At times you could see the echoes of those fiercely disciplined immigrants in Gage.

Jack and Joe were far more easygoing and charming, both possessing a boyishness that was completely absent in their older brother. And then there was Haven, the daughter, whom I met when she came home on break from school. She was a slim black-haired girl with Churchill's dark eyes, possessing all the subtlety of a firecracker. She announced to her father and anyone else in earshot that she had become a second-wave feminist, she had changed her major to women's studies, and she would no longer tolerate Texas's culture of patriarchal repression. She talked so fast I had a hard time following her, especially when she pulled me aside to express sympathy for the exploitation and disenfranchisement of my people, and assured me of her passionate support for the reformation of immigration policies and guest worker programs. Before I could think of how to reply, she had bounced away and launched into an enthusiastic argument with Churchill.