Just as he’d been intent on keeping Daisy safe.
“Stay in the house!” he’d shouted at her when the first call for help had sounded out. Immediately, he’d raced away from her, fully expecting her to hear and obey him, for God’s sake.
Naturally, she didn’t.
She paused only long enough to close the bedroom door, making sure Nikki couldn’t get out and be injured, then she was on his heels as he ran downstairs for the front door. Before he could shout at her again, she’d yelled, “Don’t waste your breath, Jericho. This is my home, too, and I’ll help save it.”
Then she had bolted out of the house and he’d had no choice but to follow after her. Still he’d kept as close an eye on her as possible throughout the battle with the fire.
She was tireless, he thought as the mountain fire department roared up the drive and more men joined the struggle. Daisy handled one of the ranch garden hoses, shooting streams of water on the flames as the men beat at the fire with wet blankets. She never quit. Never flagged. She stood her ground alongside the others and faced whatever fears were choking her without once turning from them.
And as the night wore on and sparks flew into the night, winking from brilliance to darkness, Jericho at last realized the truth.
He loved her.
Loved her with everything he was.
It wasn’t about lust. Wasn’t about not wanting her to go. It was so much more. He’d tried to tell himself she was just a clumsy, pretty city girl. But there was grit and strength and purpose in her. She was the woman for him.
The only woman.
By the time the fire was contained, Daisy was in the kitchen making boatloads of coffee for the men. Jericho found her there, face sooty, clothes grimy, her hair tangled—and he thought she’d never looked lovelier to him.
“More coffee’s on the way,” she said, with a quick glance at him.
“That’s good. The men are sucking it down as fast as you take it out there.”
“Fire’s really out?”
“Completely,” he said, walking to her, laying his hands on her shoulders and turning her around to face him. “Fire chief thinks it was an electrical thing. Started in one of the wall panels. But we got lucky.” He pulled her in close, wrapped his arms around her and felt himself settle for the first time in what felt like forever. “No one was hurt. The animals are safe and we’ll rebuild the barn. Structure’s still sound. Just going to take—”
“A coat of paint?” she murmured wryly.
He chuckled, kissed the top of her head and said, “A little more than that, but it’ll be good.”
“And I’ll be here to see it?” She tipped her head back and looked up at him. “No more talking about me leaving?”
“No,” he told her, wiping away some of the grime from her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I don’t want you to go. Ever.”
She smiled at him. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Jericho King. But you already said it before.”
“This is…different. I’ve got plenty more to say, Daisy Saxon,” he admitted. “Starting with—”
“Don’t.”
The proposal that had leaped to the tip of his tongue stayed locked inside when she shushed him by laying her fingertips against his mouth. Confusion rushed through him. Hell, he knew she’d guessed what he was about to say—so why did she stop him? “Daisy…”
“Before you say anything else, there’s something I have to tell you,” she whispered.
From outside came the clatter and noise of the men working to put away the firefighting equipment and getting the animals settled down again. They’d have to put the horses up in one of the outbuildings for the night. It wouldn’t be a long-term solution but for right now… Jericho dragged his mind back from the logistical problems facing him and instead focused on the woman watching him with a wary regret in her eyes.
“What is it?” His voice was low, his chest tight with the pressure of his breath backing up in his lungs. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” she assured him and took a deep breath herself, as if trying to find her own balance before continuing the conversation. “But I have a feeling you were about to ask me to marry you…”
“And you don’t want to marry me?” Shock pumped through him. Daisy, the woman to whom commitment was essential? The woman who longed for family was now going to turn down a proposal from the man she claimed to love? This had to be the weirdest situation he’d ever found himself in.
Jericho had never considered proposing to anyone before. Now that he was ready, the woman he loved was heading him off before he could say the words? What the hell was going on? “You said you love me.”
“I do,” she said quickly. Reaching up, she cupped his face in her hands and speared her gaze into his. “Oh, Jericho, I do love you. Completely. But I can’t marry you until I’m completely honest with you. I think we both need to be truthful with each other. So I’ll go first. I can’t let you ask me the question until you know the real reason I came here.”
“What?” The tension in the kitchen was alive and pulsing around them. So Jericho did what he always had when faced with a problem. He charged right at it. “What do you mean, the real reason?”
She blew out a breath, squared her shoulders and said, “I came here planning to seduce you, Jericho. I wanted a baby and I wanted you to be the father.”
Eleven
Everything in him went cold and still.
It was as if he were standing outside himself, a silent observer to a scene that had him both furious and baffled.
“You what?”
When she pulled back from him, he let her go. It was better to keep a distance right now. He didn’t know what he was feeling and his brain was racing from one thought to another.
“I wanted a family, Jericho,” she said, filling a thermos with the freshly brewed coffee. Her hands weren’t entirely steady though, and some of the hot, dark liquid spilled onto the countertop. “Brant was all I had. When I lost him…” She stopped, capped the thermos and turned to him. “I was crazy with grief for so long. Weeks, months, all I could do was mourn him. Mourn the loss of my family. When I finally came up for air and realized that I needed to keep living, I knew I didn’t want to live alone.”
He didn’t know what to say to that so he held his silence and waited. It didn’t take her long to continue.