The Durango Affair Read online

  Savannah forced her eyes open although she wasn’t ready to end her dream just yet. In it Durango had just removed her clothes, had begun kissing her. But a sound made her come awake.

  She glanced across the room, and there he was, the man she loved, kneeling in front of the fireplace, working the flames and keeping her warm. She breathed in deeply as pain clutched at her heart. She recalled packing, trying to make it to the airport before the storm hit. How had she gotten back here, to a place where she wasn’t wanted? That agonizing question made her moan deep in her throat and it was then that Durango turned around and stared at her, holding her gaze with his and with a force that left her breathless.

  She watched as he stood and slowly came over to the bed, his gaze still locked on hers. “You were leaving me,” he said in a low, accusing tone. “You were actually leaving me.”

  Savannah sighed. Evidently he wasn’t used to women leaving him and the thought of her abandoning him hurt his pride. “You didn’t want me anymore,” she said softly, not knowing what else to say. “I thought it would be best if I left.”

  “Did you think that I didn’t want you anymore because of that document Jared sent?” When she didn’t respond to his question quickly enough, he said, “You assumed the wrong thing, Mrs. Westmoreland.”

  Savannah blinked. In all the weeks they had married, he had never called her that, mainly because they’d both known the name was only temporary. So why was he calling her that now? “Did I?”

  “Yes, you did. I thought having everything spelled out in a document was what you’d want. I guess I was wrong.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said softly, trying to hold back her tears.

  He came and sat on the side of the bed and took her hand in his. “Yes, it does matter, Savannah. It matters a lot because you matter. You matter to me.”

  She shrugged, weakly. “The baby matters to you.”

  “Yes, and the baby matters to you, too. But you also matter to me. You matter because I love you.”

  She blinked again and those beautiful hazel eyes of hers stared at him with disbelief in their depth. He was determined to make her believe and accept him. “I do love you. It would be a waste of time to ask exactly when it happened, but since we have all the time in the world you can go ahead and ask me anyway,” he said, smiling and stretching out beside her on the bed.

  “When?” she asked, barely able to get the single word out.

  He paused, as if searching for the right words. “I think it was when I arrived late at the rehearsal dinner and saw you standing there talking to Jessica. And when you looked up and met my gaze, something hit me. I assumed it was lust, but now I know it was love. Lust would not have driven me to have unprotected sex with any woman, tipsy or not, Savannah. But when we made love I was driven with an urgency I’d never felt before to be inside you and feel the full impact of exploding inside you.”

  He grinned. “Pill or no Pill, no wonder you got pregnant. Now when I think about it, it would have really surprised the hell out of me if you hadn’t. I was hot that night and so were you. Mating the way we did was just a pregnancy waiting to happen. It wasn’t intentional, but it was meant to be. And regardless of how you feel about me, I love you.”

  He shifted a little to get closer to her. “A few weeks ago, before we married, you asked why I had an aversion to city girls and I never gave you an answer. Maybe it’s time that I did.”

  And then he spent the next twenty minutes or so telling her about Tricia, the one woman he’d actually thought he’d loved and how she had used him and tossed his love back in his face. “And I actually thought I could never love another woman for fear of getting hurt that way all over again, especially a female who was a city woman.”

  He chuckled in spite of himself, remembering the first night he’d seen her. “The moment I saw you I knew you were a city girl and as much as I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help falling in love with you anyway, Savannah.”

  He looked down at her, held her gaze. “And no matter what that document says, I do love you. I love you very much.”

  Savannah felt her cheeks getting wet and tried furiously to wipe at them. But Durango took over, and leaned down and licked them dry. When he pulled back his dark eyebrows rose, clearly astonished. “I thought all tears were salty but yours are sweet. Is there anything that’s not perfect about you?”

  Savannah let out a small cry and threw her arms around Durango’s neck and whispered, “I love you, too, and I fell in love the exact moment that you did.”

  He chuckled softly and eased from the bed. “Then that leaves only one thing to do,” he said, reaching to retrieve the legal document off the nightstand.

  Savannah watched as he stood and walked over to the fireplace and tossed it in, and watched with him as the flames engulfed it, burning it to ashes.

  “Now that is taken care of,” he said.

  Savannah kept her eyes on Durango as he slowly removed his shirt. Her heartbeat quickened when he then proceeded to take off his jeans. “I know you’re probably too exhausted to make love, but I need to hold you in my arms, Savannah. I need your warmth, I need your love and I need your promise that you won’t ever leave me.”

  She swallowed thickly when he came back to the bed and slipped under the covers with her. She turned to him when he pulled her into his arms. “I won’t leave you, Durango. I want forever if you do…and I’m not tired.”

  He smiled. “I want forever, too, and you are tired. You just don’t know it.”

  He captured her lips with his, kissing her with all the intensity of a man who had found love by first having an affair—The Durango Affair. It was definitely his last.

  “So, Mrs. Westmoreland, will you stay married to me? For better or for worse?”

  She smiled through her tears. “Yes, I’ll stay married to you, but I have a feeling all my days will be for the better.”

  He leaned over and kissed her after whispering, “I’ll make sure of that.”

  Epilogue

  S avannah glanced around the room. There were more Westmorelands than she remembered from Jessica’s wedding. She’d known Durango’s family was big but she had no idea it was this large.

  The wedding reception given in their honor had turned out to be a beautiful affair. To Savannah’s surprise, even her grandparents from Philly had come to be a part of it.

  “I know how you feel,” Dana Rollins Westmoreland eased up by her side to say. “The first time Jared took me to meet them I thought that this wasn’t a family, it was a whole whopping village.”

  Savannah smiled, thinking the very same thing. She glanced around the room again and it was Tara Westmoreland, who was married to Durango’s cousin Thorn, who came up and said, “It seems that Durango called a meeting with the menfolk.”

  “Oh,” Savannah said, wondering the reason why.

  Upon seeing her concern, Tara said, “I’m sure whatever they need to talk about won’t take long. In the meantime, has anyone ever told you how I met Thorn?”

  Savannah smiled. “No, but after meeting him I’m sure it was very interesting.”

  “Yes, it was. Come on, let me, you and Dana grab the others and go into the kitchen for a talk. If the guys can have a little chat time then so can we.”

  After gathering Delaney, Shelly, Madison, Jessica, Casey and Jayla up in their wake, the Westmoreland women headed for the kitchen. The married women would tell Savannah how they met their husbands and fell in love.

  “Okay, I can see all of you have questions, so what is it you want to know?” Durango asked the men who had cornered him and demanded this meeting.

  It was Stone who spoke up. “I know it’s really none of our business, Durango, but we know you. What’s the real reason you got married?”

  Durango shook his head. He’d known his marriage would be hard for a lot of his family to believe, so he decided to be up-front with them, since he suspected a few had their suspicions anyway.

  “Sav
annah is pregnant. However,” he went on to say before unnecessary conversation could get started, “although her pregnancy might have been the reason we married initially, it’s not now.”

  Spencer Westmoreland raised a dark eyebrow. “It’s not?”

  “No. I’m in love with her. She’s in love with me. We’re having a baby in September and we’re happy.”

  The men in the room stared at him. A few, those who knew how easy it was to fall in love if the right woman came alone, accepted his words. But Durango saw a few skeptical gazes.

  “And you want us to believe that just like that, a die-hard bachelor can fall in love?” Quade Westmoreland asked.

  “It can happen,” Durango said, smiling.

  “I agree,” added the man who’d once been such a confirmed bachelor that the women had pegged him the Perfect Storm. Storm Westmoreland met the gazes of his brothers and cousins and one lone brother-in-law, Sheikh Jamal Yasir. “All of you know my history and yet Jayla was able to capture my heart,” he reminded them.

  Thorn Westmoreland chuckled. “And all of you know what Tara did to me.”

  The men in the room doubted they would ever forget. Tara had been Thorn’s challenge and had lived up to the task.

  “And you’re really happy about being married, Durango? No regrets?” Reggie Westmoreland asked, needing to be certain.

  Durango met all the men’s gazes. “Yes and there aren’t any regrets. You’ve all seen Savannah. What man wouldn’t be happy married to her? But her beauty isn’t just on the outside. It’s on the inside, as well. I need her in my life and she has single-handedly opened my heart to love.”

  All the men in the room finally believed him. As miraculous as it seemed, Durango Westmoreland had fallen in love. Unfortunately that didn’t bode well for the remaining single Westmorelands, who didn’t have falling in love on their agendas. The thought of doing so was as foreign to them as a six-legged bear.

  “Congratulations and welcome to wedded bliss,” Chase Westmoreland said, clapping Durango on the back.

  “Thanks, Chase.”

  Other congratulations followed. It was Ian who had a serious question to ask. “What about us? The ones who have no desire to follow down that path?”

  Durango grinned at his brother and said, “I hate to tell you this, but I doubt any man is safe. I’m going to tell it to you like someone older and wiser told it to me. No matter how much your heart is made of stone, it can turn to putty in the right woman’s hands.”

  Jared Westmoreland grinned and raised his wineglass up in the air and said, “With that said, gentlemen, I rest my case.”

  Dare Westmoreland, who had been quiet all this time, smiled and said after glancing around the room at the remaining six Westmoreland bachelors, “Now we’re faced with that burning question again. Which one of you will be next?”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-3676-3

  THE DURANGO AFFAIR

  Copyright © 2006 by Brenda Streater Jackson

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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