She was an adult. They both were. And if this was what they needed...
“Upstairs?”
She nodded and took his hand.
There was plenty of time as they made their way to her bedroom to change their minds.
They didn’t.
Instead, she drew him over to her bed, then lifted her arms to encircle his shoulders and kissed him with a wildness beyond his most erotic dreams. With her breasts pressed intimately against him, her hands sliding up and down his spine, she rocked against him in a way that had all his gentlemanly instincts fading.
Drunk with pleasure, he undressed her and filled his hands with her lush, delectable curves. She was incredibly beautiful, soft and silky all over, damp with desire.
She stripped off his shirt, dropped her hands to his fly. His jeans came off, then his shorts.
He let her call the shots, let her be in control, until they were almost there. Then he laid her back on the bed and slid between her thighs.
She gasped as his hand found his way to the feminine heart of her. Shuddered as he helped her find the release she sought. He found a condom. Slid upward. Lifting her to him, easing in, then diving deep. She closed around him like a tight, hot sheath, and together, they soared toward a passionate completion more stunning and fulfilling than anything he had ever felt.
Afterward, they clung together in silence, still shuddering, breathing hard. But as normality returned, so did Sara’s usual reserve. To his disappointment, Matt felt the barriers around her heart going right back up.
When she turned on her side, away from him, he bent over to kiss her bare shoulder. “Hey...” he said softly, wanting her to know this was not casual. Not...meaningless.
She waited, not moving.
But how to approach it? In a way that wouldn’t insult. “Maybe we should forget about not using labels.”
This caught her attention.
She turned back to him, caution in her pretty green eyes. “And do what?” she asked in surprise.
“Date.”
Chapter Eight
“Oh, Matt,” Sara said wistfully.
She draped the blanket around herself and moved elegantly to her feet.
Regret flowing through him like the tide, he sat up, too, and reached for his boxer-briefs. Damn it all. He had known it was too soon to make love to her. Given what had just happened between them, though, it shouldn’t be too soon to ask her out. In fact, that should have happened first. Probably two weeks ago, after the first time they kissed.
“If you’re worried about this making things too complicated between us, you needn’t be,” he said gently, determined to ease her worries and lighten her mood. He sent her a look filled with mischief. “Complicated is just fine with me.”
With a low laugh, she shook her head. “Oh, Matt,” she said again. The picture of sated elegance, she gathered her bra and panties off the floor. Managed to don her panties with the blanket still around her.
With a faint shake of her head and a soft exhalation of breath, she let the blanket fall all the way to the floor. Giving him a fine view of her curvaceous backside in the process. And though he could no longer see what lay beneath her floral print cotton panties, he remembered the petal softness well.
He felt himself grow hard again.
“Tell me what’s on your mind,” he encouraged.
Keeping her back to him, she slipped on her bra and fastened it in front. “You don’t have to be gallant.” She looked at him with weary embarrassment as she pulled her arms through the sleeves of her blouse and shimmied into her denim skirt. “I get what this was.” Barefoot, she disappeared into the adjacent bathroom and came out with a brush.
Aware it was just as arousing to watch her dress as it had been to undress her, he shifted on his jeans. Reached for his shirt, too.
“For both of us,” she added, suddenly looking a whole lot more practical and a lot less emotional than the situation warranted.
“Hmm.” Matt stroked his jaw in a parody of thoughtfulness. “A long time coming, maybe?” he teased.
She nixed his guess. “Rebound sex.”
To Matt, that was both good news and bad. Bad in the sense that she put it in the category of something not necessarily to be repeated again. Good in that... He studied the flush in her cheeks and the shimmer of feminine embarrassment in her jade eyes. “You haven’t...?”
Her tongue snaked out to wet her lower lip. “Not since Anthony,” she confirmed softly. Then demonstrated the kind of mutual interest he hoped she would. Swallowing, she looked him in the eye. “And you?”
He was pleased to report, “Not since Janelle.”
He’d thought the fact he didn’t bed women recklessly would be of comfort to her.
Instead, it only seemed to confirm what erroneous conclusions she had already made. “See?” She leaned against her dresser, arms folded in front of her, satisfied her point had been made.
Their lovemaking had been rebound sex. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Matt finished getting dressed. Hands spread in a gesture of supplication, he walked toward her. “I hear what you’re saying, darlin’, but I don’t agree.”
Her chin lifting, she gave him a challenging look that made him want to ravish her all over again.
“If I just wanted to...um—” he tried to think of a respectful way to put it, and failed “—I could have. As could you.”
She uttered a smothered half laugh, then sent her glance heavenward, sighed. “What’s your point, cowboy?”
He looked down at her arms, which were still crossed militantly in front of her, and knew he had his work cut out for him.
That did not make him any less intent on persuading her to give him...them...a chance, however.
He took another step closer, and looked deep into her eyes, reiterating gently, “It means, Sara—” he took her resisting body all the way into his arms “—that maybe the fact we chose here and now means something.”
* * *
As Sara gazed up into Matt’s ruggedly handsome face, she wanted to believe that. So much.
Especially since she’d had a secret crush on Matt for years that had only faded when she got married. After she lost her husband, and Matt returned to Laramie County, that desire had come roaring back. Hence why it wasn’t a surprise to her that they had ended up in bed.
She also knew the night had been an emotional one. For them both. He yearned for the kind of satisfying romantic relationship most of the members of his family had. She did, too. But she also knew that kind of romantic love did not happen on a whim. And what they’d enjoyed just now—satisfying and wonderful as it was—had been wildly, recklessly impulsive. Which was something she had never been.
Sara sighed. She wished he didn’t look so damn hot, even in his disheveled state, because it was not helping matters. “Look, Matt, I’m not the same person you remember.”
She focused on the disbelief in his eyes.
“Why do you think that?” He continued to study her as if trying to figure something out.
Heat gathered in her chest and spread through her throat to her face. She knew she had to be completely honest with him, or even a friendship between them would never work. She knotted her hands in front of her. “Because the last decade has changed me.”
He pulled her against him for a sweet and thorough kiss that quickly had her tingling from head to toe. He lifted his head, then swept his hand through her hair. “We’re both definitely older and more mature.”
She splayed a hand across the center of his chest. “And guarded in ways that the people closest to us don’t want to see or accept.” Beneath her fingers, she could feel the strong and steady beat of his heart.
“It’s like there’s this wall,” Matt said.
She wet her lips. “Around our hearts.”
> A contemplative silence fell.
She remained in the circle of his arms. “The thing is, I like having that wall around me,” Sara said, appreciating how protected and cared for she felt when she was with him, even though she knew her heart was very much at risk. She lifted her head to look into his eyes.
“I feel like it keeps Charley and me safe.”
And while such emotional independence was good for her, it might not be good for him.
And because she cared about Matt, she wanted what was best for him. Always.
The corners of his lips lifted ruefully. “You may have noticed I like to keep my distance from people, too, darlin’.” He paused, as if sensing that in this one area they were really in sync. His gaze darkened. “The quiet and solitude...the lack of demands...can bring a lot of peace.”
She took his hand and led him through the bedroom doorway, back down the stairs. As they landed on the first floor, well away from the temptations of her bed, she drew a deep breath, confessing, “The thing is, my friends and family keep urging me to open up my heart again, and go back to being my ‘old hopelessly romantic self.’ But I can’t do it. I don’t want to be that vulnerable or emotionally dependent on anyone again.”
So he needed to know this was as close as they were ever likely to get. She wasn’t even sure this was sustainable, given how conflicted she was feeling right now.
“Never mind anyone’s wife,” he deadpanned.
Were they really talking marriage now? “Or significant other.” She didn’t want that kind of pressure, to make everything turn out all right.
By the same token, she wasn’t promiscuous. So she couldn’t just have random one-night stands and feel good about it, because that wasn’t the real her, either.
Sara’s brows knit together. “Why are you smiling?”
He shrugged and flashed her an indulgent smile. “I just find it ironic...”
“Because?” She went into the kitchen to get something to drink.
He followed beside her. “Weddings were all you ever talked about when we were teenagers.”
How well she remembered. Her favorite magazines when she was in high school had been centered on being a bride.
She poured him a tall glass of lemonade and handed it to him. “That’s because I thought marriage to the love of your life was the key to living happily ever after.” How that dream had crashed. “Now I know it isn’t.”
He regarded her over the rim of his glass. “Because Anthony died.”
She sipped the tart, icy liquid. Waited while it soothed her dry, taut throat. “There’s that.”
He sat down at the breakfast table. As she started to walk by, he hooked an arm about her waist and drew her down onto his lap. “And what else?”
Sara set her glass on the table beside her. She figured as long as she was baring her soul, she might as well tell Matt about this insufficiency, too. “I don’t know if it was me.” She let her fingertips dance across the broad plane of his shoulder.
“Or Anthony. Or the fact that we had such a whirlwind romance, and then rushed into marriage before he left for the Middle East. But...” She bit her lip in chagrin.
Matt studied her, as always seeing so much more than she would have preferred. “You weren’t happy together?”
Finding it impossible to talk about this when she was so physically close to Matt, Sara stood and paced a distance away. Taking a deep, bolstering breath, she forced herself to continue, as frankly as possible, so he would understand what a very bad bet she was as a life partner. For Anthony, and now for Matt...
“Our reunions while he was in the army were always wildly passionate and then so horribly bittersweet and sad when he had to leave.”
She could see Matt understood; he had been through the deployment miseries himself.
Doing her best to suppress the remembered hurt, she swallowed. “Then, when he finally did come back for good, he was just... Our relationship was just...so different. He didn’t talk to me anymore.” She’d felt like she barely knew him, and vice versa.
“PTSD?”
She stuffed down another wave of pain. “Like you, he said not.”
Matt’s gaze narrowed. “You think otherwise.”
“I don’t know.” Without warning, Sara found herself blinking back tears. “There were a lot of days he seemed completely fine, happy even.” When she had a ray of hope. Enough to want to start a family with him. She shook her head, still struggling to contain the raw emotion welling within her. “Others, where he was drinking too much. Flying off the handle. Taking reckless chances.” To the point she had been worried and on edge.
Matt leaned toward her, his forearms on the breakfast table between them. “So when your husband’s car went off the road one afternoon, in that freak accident, leaving you alone and pregnant...”
And sad and guilty and so much more.
Matter-of-factly, he surmised, “You decided that was it, as far as ever getting married again went. At least to an ex-soldier.”
“Yes.” Yet life went on. And she had Charley, and for a while anyway, little Champ. And now, temporarily anyway, Matt...?
She swallowed hard, confessing honestly, “I miss my husband every day and I deeply regret that Charley will never know his father, but—” She paused to corral her emotions and draw an enervating breath. “Being a single mom isn’t so bad.” Doing her best to look on the bright side, she lifted her arm expansively. “I get a whole king-size bed to myself. Never have to negotiate what’s for dinner. Or share the remote.”
“I can see the pluses of that,” he rasped.
As their eyes met, his filled with heat.
“But you still want to do whatever-this-was-tonight again,” Sara guessed.
He stood, all Texas gentleman. All honorable McCabe. “When you’re ready.” Which he seemed to fully expect her to be one day. “Yeah,” he said softly, coming over to kiss her one last, completely thrilling time. “I do.”
* * *
Matt was out in the field, taking down more fence the next morning when his oldest brother, Cullen, drove across the semi-open field and stopped just short of him.
Matt put down his tools and walked over to greet him. “Hey. What’s up?”
Cullen emerged from his pick-up truck. “Thought I’d come out to see how things were going out here.” He gazed around Matt’s ranch, surveying the progress that had been made. “Pretty slow, from the looks of it.”
Sensing a talk he didn’t much want to hear coming on, Matt pretended not to understand where this all was headed. “You accusing me of being lazy?”
“Nope. Just impractical and stubborn to a fault is all.”
“Thanks, bro.”
“You’re welcome.”
They exchanged grins. “As you know,” Cullen continued, serious now, “I’ve got a lot of calves about to be born and I need a safe place to put them and their mamas until they’re weaned. I was hoping to lease pasture here, on the Silver Creek, by next month.”
The thought of having cattle trucks in and out, and hired hands disrupting his solitude set Matt on edge. With a sigh, he walked back to pick up some of the debris. He carried it over to the bed of his pick-up truck. With as much patience as he could muster, he reminded, “I told you it would probably be another year. Maybe two before I’d be ready for that.”
Cullen nodded. “And I offered to bring some of my men over to speed things up. So you could start making money instead of just spending it.”
Matt gathered another half-dozen rusty metal posts. “Thanks. I’ve got it covered.”
Cullen stepped in to help. “You sure?”
Matt considered. He was getting better, thanks to Sara, and Charley, and Champ. He still had a ways to go. “Yep. So maybe you better start looking elsewhere for pasture to lease.”
Togeth
er, they carried the trash over to the bed of the truck, dumped it on top of the rest.
The awkward silence stretched.
“You know, I may only be half McCabe,” Cullen finally said.
That again? Aware he wasn’t the only family member who’d had issues, Matt held up a staying hand. “You know you’re as much a part of the Rachel and Frank McCabe clan as the rest of us.”
“Now, yes,” Cullen admitted candidly. “Thanks to some recent revelations, brought about by my lovely wife. But there was a time, when I was sixteen and I first came to live with you-all, when I was just like you are now, little brother.”
Matt preened. “Incredibly handsome and charming?”
Cullen guffawed—as Matt meant him to do.
Eventually, the twinkle in Cullen’s eyes faded. He got serious again. “I had walls around me a mile high. The way you do now.”
Matt didn’t need reminding that the war had changed him, and not for the better. He scowled impatiently. “What’s your point?”
Cullen shrugged. “Just that it’s a lonely way to live.” His voice grew rusty. “If it weren’t for Bridgett and Robby and Riot, and the unexpected way they came into my life...” He paused to shake his head, his affection for his wife, baby and puppy as clear as the blue Texas sky overhead. “Well, let’s just say I would not be anywhere near as gloriously happy as I am now.”
Matt knew that. He met Cullen’s eyes. “I’m glad you all have each other,” he said. And he meant it.
Cullen clapped a brotherly hand on Matt’s shoulder. “I want you to have a wife who loves you... and a family of your own...complete with kids and a dog, too.”
Funny, Matt was feeling the same.
That did not mean it was going to happen.
Not with his limitations and Sara feeling the way she did.
Still, the time they were spending together...their passionate lovemaking...had showed him they could have something incredible.
Something enduring.
And Sara was right.
Their relationship didn’t have to necessarily be formal or traditional. With time, they could—and would—fashion an arrangement that worked well for them.
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