Red Hot Rancher

by Maureen Child

  She was home now, but for how long? Was she just here in Montana as a pit stop before hitting the road again? How was he supposed to know? How could he ever trust her again?

  He rolled away from her onto his back and tossed one arm across his eyes. Beside him, he heard her breath rushing in and out of her lungs and felt the heat of her body reaching out for him.

  And he wanted her again.

  To fight that urge, he got out of bed, crossed to the bathroom to clean up, then gave himself a hard-eyed stare in the mirror. Remember who you’re dealing with, he warned himself. Keep your guard up.

  “Caden?” Her voice, still slightly breathless, called to him. “Everything okay?”

  Still glaring at himself, he answered, “Fine.”

  He stepped out of the bathroom and paused on the threshold, looking at the bed where Emma lay sprawled across the mattress. She was a wonder, he thought idly, as he might if he were looking at a beautiful painting.

  Her tantalizing mouth was curved in a secretive smile and that amazing hair of hers spilled across his pillows and then drifted down across her breasts, giving her nipples a peekaboo effect.

  Her body was slim and strong, and if he didn’t know she’d had a baby just a few months ago, he’d never have guessed. A baby. Emma had a daughter. She’d gotten pregnant by some other man. A rush of fury filled him, then drained away again. Who was he? Where was he? Why had she run from him?

  “Wow,” she mused softly. “For a man who just got lucky, you don’t look very happy.”

  He blew out a breath. “Sex doesn’t change anything, Emma.”

  She went up on her elbows, cocked her head to one side and said, “I don’t know. I think it changed something.” Pushing higher up, she stretched her arms over her head in a slow, languorous movement that sent Caden’s gaze to her breasts, still peeking through the long silky curls of her hair.

  His body stirred and he looked down at his own dick as if it were a traitor. The problem was, he considered, that a man’s penis didn’t give a damn what he was thinking. It only wanted.

  And his wanted Emma. Now.

  Her gaze dropped to his erection and that smile on her mouth curved higher. “Looks like at least a part of you agrees with me.”

  “At least you didn’t say a ‘small’ part of me,” he drawled and could have bitten off his own tongue when she laughed.

  Damn, he’d missed that laugh. Musical, deep, infectious. Emma had always thrown herself into laughter and Caden had spent a huge amount of time trying to make her laugh just so he could listen to it. Now she was here, in his house, in his bed, and he was silently arguing with himself about what this would mean going forward.

  Well, who the hell cared?

  Enjoy what you had while you had it and let go of the rest of it.

  With that thought firmly in mind, he absently flipped a switch alongside the fireplace and heard the gas flames kick into life. She sighed and that soft sound fed the heat inside him until Caden was sure he would simply spontaneously combust.

  That burning need forced him across the room in a damn hurry. He was drawn to her like metal shavings to a magnet. He always had been. Emma was the one thing in his life that had always defied description. What she was to him was too complex to label and too overpowering to ignore.

  The light in the room was fading, but she seemed lit from within. Firelight danced across her bare skin, flickering shadows that defined every curve. Emma was watching him and her green eyes shone with anticipation as he paused long enough to grab a fresh condom and slide it on. He’d spent a lot of sleepless nights over the past five years, thinking about this moment. This woman. No more thinking.

  He turned to her and she smiled up at him, lifted her arms in welcome and parted her lips for his kiss. He took what was offered and claimed her mouth with his. The taste of her exploded and spread through him on a river of heat. Their tongues tangled in a frantic burst of need—need that roared and clawed at his insides as if that climax only moments ago hadn’t happened.

  Caden ran his hands up and down her body, then settled on those breasts that had been driving him crazy. He cupped them both and she sighed into his mouth. His thumbs moved across her hard, dark pink nipples and she shivered. Then he tore his mouth from hers and lowered his head to those beautiful breasts and the sensitive, rigid nipples that tempted him so.

  First one, then the other, he kissed and licked and nibbled, loving the taste of her. The sound of her sighs. The choked-off whimper that shot from her throat when he dropped one hand to her center and cupped the damp heat there. Her hips moved against his hand as she rocked helplessly, reaching for release from the tension rocketing up inside them both.

  Caden was nearly blind with need. He lifted his head, stared down into her eyes and smiled. She was his again. His for now. His for however long he could keep her in this bed.

  “Caden,” she whispered, still moving her hips restlessly, “enough with the foreplay. Be in me.”

  “Plan to,” he assured her, then sat back.

  “You’re stopping again and it’s making me crazy.” Confused, she pushed her hair back and stared at him.

  “Not stopping,” he said tightly, reaching for her. “Just rearranging.”

  With one quick move, he flipped her onto her stomach and then cupped her behind with his palms. Squeezing, kneading, he watched her squirm, heard the catch in her throat as she said again, “Come on, Caden. You’re killing me.”

  He laughed shortly. “That is not the plan.”

  How many times had he lain awake in bed, picturing this moment, remembering others? How many nights had he simply given up on sleep and stalked through the quiet dark house like a man looking for something to remind him he was alive? Now she was here, with him, and he couldn’t get enough of her. Didn’t think he’d ever have enough of her. And that should worry him, Caden thought. He couldn’t trust her to stay. Couldn’t believe that she was really back. So, as much as he wanted her, as much as he loved having her here, he wouldn’t allow himself to feel again what had once been the driving force in his life.

  He wouldn’t love her again.

  Wouldn’t risk that again.

  But he could be with her, take what she offered and give what he could.

  Taking hold of her hips, he lifted her off the mattress and said softly, “Come up to your knees, Emma...”

  She threw a quick, surprised look at him over her shoulder. Licking her lips, she did as he asked, moving slowly, deliberately. When she was on her knees, her gorgeous behind in the air, Caden moved in behind her. He held her butt still when she would have moved again and as she looked back at him, studying him through clear green eyes, Caden pushed his body into hers with one long, satisfying stroke.

  She groaned and her fingers curled into the comforter. Tossing her head back, she moved into him as he took her with a fast, hard rhythm. Sighs and moans slid from her throat as he kept them both at a frantic pace. Again and again, he took her, reclaiming what had once been between them. Reminding her of what they’d had. Reminding her what she’d tossed aside. Reminding himself.

  “Caden...” His name was a plea. A command. A wish. He heard all of that and more in her voice and he responded.

  Reaching down between them, he used his thumb to stroke that hard nub of sensation at her center. And still, he slammed himself home over and over again, feeding the growing tension within him.

  “Caden!” She screamed his name and it was like music. She pushed back against him, trembling, rocking, shuddering as her release crashed into her.

  An instant later, Caden claimed his own prize and nearly howled as his body erupted into an avalanche of satisfaction.

  Breathing wasn’t easy. He collapsed onto the bed, keeping her pinned to him, her back to his front. Bodies still joined, he rode the last of those tremors, waiting for his heartbea
t to slow.

  Against him, she squirmed a little, creating another ripple effect of sensation. In response, Caden held her still. “Now you’re killing me.”

  Chucking gently, she took a breath and let it out on a sigh. “That was...” Emma shook her head as if she couldn’t find the right word for what they’d just experienced. He knew how she felt. Hell, he’d been with plenty of women since Emma left Montana. He’d found satisfaction with most of them, but he’d never known the kind of earth-shattering climax that was only found in her arms.

  He could have hated her for that alone.

  Why should she still have any kind of hold on him? Well, that was a question he’d asked himself a lot. To this day, he didn’t have an answer.

  “...new,” she finally finished and it took him a second to connect that word to the beginning of her statement.

  She turned her head on the pillow and looked back at him. “You’ve got some new moves since the last time we were together, Caden.”

  He couldn’t help himself; he smoothed a long strand of dark hair from her eyes. “The world didn’t stand still while you were gone, Emma. I didn’t stand still, either.”

  He disentangled their bodies because he’d learned long ago that a conversation with Emma required him to focus. And how the hell could he concentrate on a conversation when he was already hardening inside her again? He got up, took care of the condom issue, then went back to his bed, lying down beside her, but separate.

  She didn’t let that stand for long. Turning around, she went up on her elbows and looked at him. He didn’t have a clue what she was thinking. Emma had always been partly a mystery to him and maybe that had been a draw back in the day. It was exciting, never being able to predict what his woman would do from one moment to the next. But it didn’t make for easy conversations.

  “So where’d you learn all these new tricks?” she asked in a way-too-quiet voice. “My sister?”

  He threw her a hot look. “What?”

  “Gracie. You remember her, right?” Temper was sounding in her voice now and in response, Caden’s did the same. “Are you having sex with my sister?”

  “None of your business, Emma.” How many times would he have to say that?

  She sat up on and stared down at him. “Tell me. Should I be getting dressed and leaving to make room for my little sister? When’s the shift change here?”

  His gaze pierced hers. “You’re being an idiot.”

  “And you’re not denying anything.”

  “Because like I said, not your business.”

  “Gracie’s my business,” she argued.

  “And she’s my friend,” he countered.

  “I was your friend, too,” she reminded him, “when we were having sex out in your barn.”

  Was she jealous? That thought almost made him smile but the daggers she was shooting him told Caden that would be a big mistake.

  “You left, Emma. You don’t get an opinion on what we did after you were gone.”

  “So you did do something.” She nodded sharply and he wondered how a woman could look so dangerous and so appealing all at the same time. “And believe me when I say I really do have an opinion.”

  Hell, it was tempting to let this go on. To let her wonder and fuss over what was between him and Gracie. Didn’t she deserve a little torture for what she’d put him through? After all, Caden had done plenty of wondering himself about what Emma was up to out in California. But even as he considered it, he let it go. Caden wasn’t going to play games with her. And if he was, he wouldn’t use Gracie to do it.

  “Damn it, Caden...” She pushed him, both hands on his chest, as if demanding his attention.

  He caught her hands in his. His gaze locked on hers. “We did nothing, Emma. Nothing is between me and Gracie. I’m her friend. That’s all.”

  She studied him for a few long seconds before he could see the tension slide from her system. “Really?”

  “Really.” He let her go, pushed one hand through his hair and then bunched the pillow under his head. “When you left, she needed a friend and I was there. I’ll always be there for her. Hell, she’s as much my little sister as she is yours.”

  The last of her anger slid away. He watched her let it go and had to admit that as quickly as she was to boil, Emma could let it go just as fast. She didn’t hold grudges. She apologized when she was wrong and she was someone he could always count on. Well, he corrected, she used to be.

  “Okay,” she muttered. “I’m sorry. I know she must have needed you and I’m grateful you helped her out.”

  Scowling at her, he said, “I didn’t do it for you, Emma.”

  “I know that, but I still appreciate it.” She blew out a breath. “And I’m really glad you didn’t sleep with Gracie because that would just be too weird. With a huge side of ew.”

  He snorted. Trust Emma to make him laugh at the oddest moments.

  “But there is something going on with her, isn’t there?”

  And just like that, he wasn’t laughing anymore. Instead, he walked around the bed, grabbed his jeans and yanked them on.

  When he didn’t say anything, she just stared at him. “That nonanswer was actually an answer, you get that, right?”

  He lifted his gaze to her and nearly tore his jeans off again. She looked like temptation personified. Sitting there, bare-ass naked, that glorious hair of hers spilling over her shoulders and across her breasts and those forest green eyes fixed on him.

  “I didn’t say a thing,” he muttered, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it.

  “Exactly. If there was nothing going on, you would have said so, but because you didn’t, I know there is something she’s not telling me.”

  “Amazing how you do that circle speak,” he murmured, and tossed his shirt to her.

  “I have my own clothes,” she said as she caught it.

  “Takes too long and I’m really hungry for those sandwiches now.”

  “And for changing the subject...”

  “Well, I guess you do know me, don’t you?”

  “I do, so I recognize the tactics to throw me off.”

  He shoved both hands into his jeans pockets, rocked back on his heels and looked down at her. She was shrugging into his shirt and something about her wearing his clothes made him hard again. Hell, everything about Emma Williams made him hard. Damn it.

  “I’m not talking about it,” he ground out. “If Gracie wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”

  “No, she won’t. She’s so mad I’m home, she only speaks to me when she’s got a good barb to shoot my way.”

  He headed out of the bedroom, expecting her to follow and she did. He could feel her right behind him. Their bare feet didn’t make a sound on the stair runner and as they walked down the long hall to the kitchen, Emma hurried to keep up.

  “I’m worried about her, Caden,” she admitted, grabbing his arm to pull him to a stop. “Is she in trouble? Can you at least tell me that?”

  He could see the anxiety in her eyes and a small piece of the ice she’d draped over his heart so long ago chipped off and fell away. He understood worry for family and though Gracie’s secret wasn’t his to tell, he could give Emma this. “She’s not in trouble. She’s just working some stuff out. When she’s ready, she’ll tell you.”

  “There was a time she told me everything,” Emma mused quietly.

  “Times change,” he said.

  “Yeah, I know that. And I know it’s because of me. Doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”

  He walked on toward the kitchen and Emma kept step with him. How many times had he pictured her here, in this house that his dream had built?

  Now she was here—but he didn’t trust her to stay.

  Six

  At the Little River Diner, Gracie sat across from Madison in a window b
ooth at the back. The wall of windows showcased the river that ran through Cache and the trees that shrouded it. Aspens were bright gold and the maples were a deep scarlet. The pines were a rich, dark green and the diner felt as if it was in a secluded forest rather than at the edge of a bustling small town.

  The diner itself had been in that spot for forty years. The wood tables had been polished so many times they were as smooth as glass. The red booth seats were comfortable, inviting people to sit and stay for a while and sooner or later, the whole town passed through this small restaurant, so it was a sure place to catch up on local gossip.

  Shifting her gaze from the view to the woman across from her, Gracie silently admitted that she loved watching Madison. The way she grinned, the way she stirred her coffee long after it was cool enough to drink. The way she tucked stray strands of red hair behind her ear where silver leaves dangled from her lobes.

  Since she first moved to Cache, Madison had become a sort of safe space for Gracie. She knew that she could tell Mad anything and it would be protected. She knew that her friend would always understand and would always be on her side.

  “What’re you thinking?” Madison took a sip of her coffee and waited.

  “I was just thinking how glad I am that you moved to Cache.”

  “Hey, me, too.” Reaching out, Madison grabbed Gracie’s hand and squeezed briefly. “And, while you’re still so pleased to have me, I’m going to test it by asking if you had a chance to talk to Emma after I left the ranch.”

  “Well, there went my nice little glow,” Gracie muttered and slumped back against the booth. “No, I didn’t. You saw her leave. And she hadn’t come back by the time I left to meet up with you.”

  Madison shrugged. “Well, talk later tonight. Or tomorrow.”

  And say what? You shouldn’t have left? What would be the point? “Talking won’t solve anything.”

  “Nothing gets solved without talking.”

  “Boy,” Gracie mused, with an accompanying eye roll, “I used to think Emma had the hardest head in the world. But you’re coming in a close second.”