by Vicki Tharp
Without saying anything else, he stepped closer and pressed up against her. She could hear him breathing. No. Wait. That was her. She reached up to grab his shirt, but stopped. Why had he stopped kissing her? Was something wrong?
Did she have bad breath?
Had her kiss been as desperate as she’d felt?
Did it show that she hadn’t been laid since the start of the indoor season last fall?
She opened to mouth to ask, but her questions didn’t tumble out. Instead she said, “It wasn’t our fastest time considering the thrown shoe, and Comet knocked the second barrel and we’re near the bottom of the standings and Dottye Goodspeed doesn’t run until tomorrow so she could knock us out of the finals and there’s a good reason speed is in her last name and—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Relaaax.” He pressed another kiss to her forehead, to the corner of her eye. He kissed his way down her jawline until he’d made it back to her lips. He was no longer exploring, but tasting. He opened her mouth with his and dove in.
Kissing was better than talking anyway.
Their tongues taunted and tangled.
His hands slid to the curve of her ass, and snaked up under the hem of her untucked shirt, his calloused hands hot against her skin. He broke the kiss long enough for both of them to suck in a couple of quick breaths, then went back for more. She slid her arms around his neck as he lifted her up and wrapped her legs around—
“Aaaghhhh.” He stumbled and dropped her.
She grabbed onto the rail of the stall front to keep from falling. “Ohmygod, ohmygod. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
He was bent over, his right hand braced on his knee, his left arm hugging his ribs. His breaths coming shallow and quick.
“Silas?”
He held a finger up in a way that said give-me-a-second.
“I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
When he caught his breath, he straightened, as slow as a ninety-two-year-old man. But even in the darkened barn, she saw what might have qualified as a smile on his face.
“What are you smiling about?” she asked.
“The fact that I could make you not think.” He reached out for her but she lightly batted his hand away.
“Uh, uh, cowboy. No more kissing until you ice those ribs.”
His teeth flashed in the light with a grin she’d expect to see on one of the painted up rodeo clowns.
“What?”
“That implies there’s going to be a next time.”
She figured an emphatic oh hell yeah, probably made her sound desperate, so she kept it to herself.
Silas walked her to her trailer. The door to her front tack compartment, aka home-sweet-home, stood wide open.
“I swear I don’t know what to do with Cora.” Josephine yanked a flashlight out of the tray in the door and shined the light around inside. “Ever since she’s been hanging out with that roper, her head’s been so high in the clouds, I think the extra moisture has rusted her synapses.”
“Everything still there?”
Her and Cora’s saddles were locked in the back of the trailer so at least the most important things were safe. “Looks like.”
She went to click off the light, but Silas took it from her hands and leaned in, having a look around. “Cozy. You’re not afraid Cora’s bunk is going to fall on you in the middle of the night?”
“Adrenaline junkies like living on the edge.”
“Touché”
Silas swung the light over the rest of the space. From the stacked double bunks, to the short rod for their hanging clothes that Chet had helped install before she’d set out in the spring, to the set of six stacking milk crates she and Cora used to store the rest of their things, to her extra pair of boots in the corner, complete with caked on mud that she hadn’t found the time to clean.
In the back of the trailer she had rigged a makeshift shower and a small porta-potty. Which made her rig luxurious compared to some of the other competitors. But she was confident Silas didn’t want or need to see that too.
That was it. There wasn’t even enough square footage to call it the ten cent tour. More like the tarnished and dented half-penny tour.
“It doesn’t get a little tight in there?” This from a man with a cab-over camper on his truck. In comparison, it looked like she and Cora were living in a soup can. Which they pretty much were.
“Cora’s tight on funds and she’s my best friend. We make it work.” Josephine wasn’t exactly flush either. Especially after not pulling a check at the last two rodeos. But she had a good feeling about the finals on Sunday if Comet stayed sound and her time held.
He brushed the hair off one of her shoulders, his breath warm on her neck as he leaned in and whispered. “I guess bringing a guy back to your place is out of the question.”
The deep rumble of his voice sent a shiver down her spine and all the hair stood up on her arms and waved hello! She wouldn’t admit the truth. That the lack of privacy hadn’t been a problem because she’d been too focused on her career for it to matter. “We make it work.”
But for the first time in months she wondered what was the harm in a little distraction.
Her father would tell her to take up knitting.
Her grandmother—bless her dirty old heart—would tell her to take up men.
Josephine went to close her trailer door. It was late, and they still had Silas’s ribs to ice. He caught the door and said, “Good night, Josie.”
What? “I was going to help you ice those ribs.”
He waited a beat. It dragged on and on like those times when she’d waited at the pay phones while the line rang and rang as she tried to make the entry cutoff for the next rodeo. Only usually her stomach didn’t feel like the air was leaking out. Had she misread him? Was he trying to find a nice way to let her down?
“You’ve had a long day. Get some sleep. I can take care of the ribs.”
Her stomach did that pffffffft thing that balloons do when someone lets go of the end and all the air escapes and the rubber zips and dips and crashes. She tried to clear her throat of her doubts, but they stuck in her windpipe. “Y-yeah. Sure. I could use a few Zs.”
They exchanged good nights and Silas walked away.
No hesitation.
No looking back.
Josephine climbed into her trailer and closed the door behind her. The front of her trailer had about a foot-long horizontal window that matched the curve of the nose. Standing on top of one of the milk crates, she could just make out the back of Silas’s rig sticking out from behind a stock trailer. Then the tail lights of the stock trailer came on and someone towed it out of her line of sight.
A light was visible in Silas’s camper. But even with the shades drawn she knew he wasn’t icing his ribs because his cooler laid upturned beside his truck, the lid open as if he were letting it dry out.
She flopped on her bunk. It shifted. Metal groaned. Her breath caught. The bunk held. She closed her eyes, but her insides jigged and jogged in place the same way Comet did in the alley before a run. With all her worrying, she wasn’t going to get any sleep, she was going to get a migraine.
She climbed out of the trailer, grabbed Comet’s spare water bucket, and went in search of ice.
She didn’t know if Silas hadn’t wanted to ice his ribs or if he hadn’t wanted her.
But there was only one way to find out.
3
Silas sat on the bench seat of his dinette, a couple pillows from the bed propped up behind him as he read a Louis L’Amour book that had been making the rounds. He went to turn the page, but it stuck to the one behind it. The book was tattered and the way some of the pages were wrinkled and wavy, it might have gone two rounds with a water trough.
He pried the pages free, but some of the letters came off and stuck to the other page making it impossible to read. He dog-eared a corner and set the book on the table. The light overhead dimmed as his battery weakened.
Wit
hout the book to distract him, he started thinking of Josephine and everything he wanted to do with those lips and those hips and—
Tap, tap, tap. The knock was light, hesitant.
It wasn’t his best friend, Tobias. That man used the meat of his fist and pounding like the big bad wolf.
He stared at the door and debated pretending he was asleep. But it was late and no one knocked on doors this deep into the night unless someone’s horse got out, or someone was in trouble.
Knock, knock, knock. Louder now. More insistent. It would be hard to pretend to sleep through that.
He grabbed the end of the table and hauled himself up. The quick movement sent shooting pains across his ribs and he hissed in a breath. “Yeah, yeah. Keep your pants on.”
He shoved the door open. “Josephine…what are you doing here?” So the bucket of ice in her hand wasn’t a big enough clue? He sounded like his brain was packed with more sawdust than the championship stall at the Quarter Horse Congress.
Josephine raised the bucket and shook it. “Can I come in?”
He wanted to drag her into his camper, strip all their clothes off, and lock themselves away from the world until Cheyenne. Or longer. Probably not what she thought she was getting herself into tonight. “Uhhh…”
Her face fell the same way it always did when she and Comet have had a bad run.
She set the bucket at his feet on the floor of the camper. “Or not. I’m sure you’re plenty capable. I just noticed your cooler was empty and figured you didn’t have any ice and so I found Cora and they had bought some and—”
“No, no. Come in.” He loved the way her nose crinkled, and all her sentences ran together when she got flustered.
He pushed the door all the way open, and bent to pick up the bucket, but that wasn’t going to happen without serious pain meds, and he was saving what he had left for a time when he really needed them. Like before he rode in the finals on Sunday.
“Go on. I got it.” She came up the steps, the leaf springs on his old truck creaking under her weight.
He backed to the dinette and use the table to ease himself onto the seat. He didn’t want her seeing how much effort it took to slide in, so he let his legs dangle in the walkway.
“You want to do it here or on the bed?”
His head snapped up and he caught her eye. Her cheeks turned the color of his favorite red bandanna.
She waved a hand at him. “That came out wrong. Do you want me to—”
“I know what you meant. Here’s fine.”
“This would be easier if you were laying down. Does the dinette turn into a bed?”
“Yeah you just—” He started to get up, but she put a staying hand on his bare shoulder.
“You just sit there and look pretty. I’ve got this.”
Look pretty. Damn she was something. And he was a little ashamed that that simple touch was all it took to get him hard. Good thing his sweat pants were loose. Maybe there was enough ice in the bucket to dump on his crotch as well.
In a matter of minutes, she’d folded the legs of the table, and repositioned the cushions, and turned his dinette into another bed. He wanted to reach for her, to drag her beneath him, to—
“Fossy?”
“Yeah?”
She fluffed the pillows and put them in the corner, so he could lean back. “Is this going to be comfortable enough for you?”
“Yeah, fine.” He held a protective hand over his ribs and slid over, trying not to sound like a crippled old bull needing to be put out to pasture, or worse, put out of its misery.
When he got situated, he glanced up at her. She sat on the edge of the table-turned-bed, with one of those stern looks on her face his mother used to get when he’d let the dogs in the pig pen. He pushed the thought from his mind. The last thing he wanted to think about when he had a beautiful woman in his bed, was his mother.
“You positive nothing is broken?”
He opened his mouth, but before the I’m fine could escape, she held a finger to his lips and narrowed her eyes. “Think twice before you lie to me.”
He held back the smile that wanted to take over his face. It would probably be hard to convince her he wasn’t laughing at her, and the way his side was feeling, even as small as she was, she could take him.
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“What do you mean ‘It doesn’t feel like it?’” She pitched her voice higher, mimicking him.
He hadn’t sounded anything like that. At least he hoped he hadn’t. That would be embarrassing.
“Wait. You didn’t get checked out?”
“X-rays cost money.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s a solid investment. What if your ribs are broken? What if you come off again on Sunday—”
He held his hand up to get a word in but she batted it away and kept on going. “Because I know you’re just stubborn enough to ride on Sunday even though any doctor with any sense would tell you you’d be a complete and total idiot to ride.”
“Good thing you’re not a doctor. Your bedside manners are terrible.”
“You’re impossible.” She stood, opening, and slamming cabinet doors.
He would have asked her what she was looking for, but he was a smart man and kept his trap shut. She found a hand towel in one of the upper cabinets and wrapped it around a couple of handfuls of ice and pressed it to his ribs. He propped a hand behind his head. She wouldn’t look him in the eye, her jaw hard set.
He put his hand over hers. “Look at me.” She did. The anger in her eyes stung like a lick from a stock whip. “I know what cracked ribs feel like. I’m bruised, not broken.”
Her expression softened enough for her exhaustion to show in the ever-dimming light above the dinette.
“Go back to your trailer and get some sleep. I’ve got this.”
“Nope.” Her voice wasn’t hard, but it was quick and sure, and he’d already pissed her off enough that he decided not to fight. She pulled a small container out of her pocket. “I’m not leaving until you’re iced, and I’ve put this ointment on your bruise. I used it on Comet when Cora’s gelding kicked him in the chest with both barrels. It’s effective. Just ask Comet.”
Hard to argue with a horse. He let go of the ice and took the container from her hand and set it on the cushion beside him. He caught the towel back up. He had goosebumps on his chest and water had started leaking down his side into the waistband of his sweats. Her eyes drifted closed, then she caught herself.
“It’s after one in the morning,” he said. “I can put it on later. Go. I’m good.”
She shook her head. “The same way you put ice on your ribs like you said you would?”
He pulled one of the pillows from behind his head and tossed it to her. “Lay down. At least until the time’s up on the ice.”
She relented, which went to show how tired she was. She hugged the pillow to her, and curled up around it, her eyes drifting closed as soon as she’d settled.
When the time was up, he dropped the towel and the melted ice back in the bucket on the counter behind his head. He waited five minutes, ten, and watched her sleep.
The fixture overhead had dimmed to the intensity of a night light, but it was enough to see her and the way her lashes brushed her cheek. He wanted to brush the hair away from her face, but he didn’t want to wake her.
As much as he liked the idea of her rubbing the ointment on his skin, he’d rather she rested. He reached for the container, but she’d moved it farther down the bed when she’d laid down. He’d have to do a sideways crunch to reach it.
He could do this, he could do this, he could do this.
He gritted his teeth, wished he had a leather strap trapped between his incisors. That would help. At least it always had in all those L’Amour novels.
Okay. One. Two. Three…four. Okay. Okay. He crunch-lunged for the ointment. “Fuuuuuck.”
Make that eighty percent sure no bones were broken.
Josephine popped u
p, and she brushed the tumble of hair from her face and the trace of slobber from her lips. She grabbed the container from his hand. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
Pain made the sweat break out over his forehead and he sunk back into the pillows. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You were supposed to wake me. In fact, I wasn’t supposed to be asleep.”
“You were tired.”
“That’s no excuse.” She unscrewed the lid and dipped her fingers in. “You got a flashlight? I can hardly see you.”
He bumped his chin toward the counter behind him. There’s a small one in the top drawer.”
She got up on her knees, and had leaned over to reach the drawer. Her shirt drew up and from his vantage point, he caught a flash of her naked breast beneath her sweatshirt. He put his hand behind his head again to keep from reaching out, from cupping it, from tugging it to his mouth.
With his other hand, he reached down and loosened the string on his sweatpants and tried to think of other things, like if Caine Cox would black both his eyes or just shoot him, if the man knew what Silas wanted to do to his little girl.
That helped. A little.
Josephine settled beside him, her legs crossed, her lips around the flashlight like—
“Give me that.”
“What?” With her mouth full, it sounded more like whuuut.
He plucked the light out of her mouth. It hurt him in more ways than one to take that flashlight from her lips, but he had a serious issue brewing behind a thin piece of cotton that he’d be better off keeping to himself.
He shined the light on his ribs and she started rubbing at the center of the bruising, slowly, working her way outward in ever increasing circles. It hurt, but the pain was bearable, especially if it meant she had her warm hands on him.
She continued rubbing his skin long after the ointment had soaked in. His skin buzzed and tingled under her fingertips. Some of it was the medication.
Most of it wasn’t.
Then her hand drifted over, bumping across the muscles in his lower abdomen, beneath his belly button, her pinky finger dipping beneath the edge of his sweatpants. Holy sweet mother of—