Long Road Home

by JoAnn Ross

“Why would you find it strange? Given that Sawyer was deployed and I spent so much time traveling with the ranch’s stock business. Our lives were on different paths. I also fail to see where our relationship during that time has anything to do with whether I’d be a good custodial parent to Jack and Sophie Campbell,” she said with a great deal more poise than she was feeling.

  For the first time, Austin was actually grateful that Lexi had sneakily entered her in the Modoc County Miss Teen Rodeo competition the summer after eighth grade. Although she’d intended to back out, when Lexi pointed out that no way would Sawyer not want to date a rodeo queen, Austin had gone ahead with the pageant.

  Being the youngest girl in the competition that had contestants to the age of eighteen, she hadn’t even placed in the top ten, which was a huge relief, because no way would she have wanted to travel all over the state representing Oregon rodeo. However, the interview competition and the mock TV interview had proven good training for today’s interrogation.

  “Yet you’re back together now,” the woman pressed on.

  “Sawyer is leasing property and living on the ranch. In the foreman’s cabin,” she pointed out.

  “Yes. I was there last evening.”

  “So I heard.”

  “Do you have an intimate relationship?”

  “Again, I don’t see what that has to do with the issue at hand.”

  “These are young, impressionable children we’re talking about, Ms. Merrill.”

  “I’m well aware of that, Ms. Grimsley.” Austin couldn’t help putting a bit more stress on that first syllable. “And if you’re worried that Mr. Murphy and I plan to be having wild orgies in front of Jack and Sophie, you can rest assured that will not be happening.”

  “But you can’t dismiss the possibility of sexual intimacy.”

  Seriously? Did she ask this of married applicants? Surely she didn’t expect people to take an oath of celibacy to win guardianship?

  “No. I can also not dismiss the possibility of lightning striking the barn. Or a boulder falling on the roof of my truck while I’m driving into town.” Austin stood up. “If we’re done here, I really need to pick up the children.”

  The social services caseworker stood, as well. “I have one last question. Have you seen Mr. Murphy exhibit any evidence of post-traumatic stress disorder? And do you think the children would be safe in his company?”

  “No to your first question,” Austin said. Which was true. “And absolutely, positively yes to the second.”

  Grimsley nodded. Closed her clipboard. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Austin said, changing to a more conciliatory tone. It wouldn’t help to have the woman leave in a huff. “I realize that the county only has the children’s welfare in mind, and I know Tom and Heather would appreciate your thoroughness. As do I.”

  She walked the woman all the way out to the car, waved goodbye, then breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  Feeling as if she’d been rode hard and put away wet, Austin turned and headed toward the foreman’s cabin.

  *

  SAWYER OPENED THE door even before she knocked, suggesting he’d been watching for her. And didn’t that cause a little kick of anticipation?

  “What took you so long?” Without giving her a chance to answer, he scooped her into his arms and his mouth claimed hers, and he was kissing her as if they’d been apart for days, months, years.

  And wow, his kisses! World-class didn’t even begin to describe them, she thought, her head spinning dizzily as he carried her down the hall to the bed where she’d been so thoroughly ravished two nights ago. If kissing were an Olympic event, he’d win the gold medal. Hands down. Along with the silver and bronze.

  He only broke the bone-melting contact long enough to put her on the bed and cover her body with his gloriously muscled one, then resumed kissing her, slow and deep, as if they had all the time in the world.

  “So much for the quickie,” she managed to say as he caught her bottom lip between his teeth and lightly tugged, setting off little explosions inside her.

  “Oh, we’ll get to that.” His lips skimmed up her face, warming her cheek before lingering at her temple. His breath warmed her skin when he lightly blew at a strand of hair that had escaped her braid, then nipped at her ear, drawing a moan when his tongue took a long lick down her neck. When his open mouth paused at the hollow in her throat, Austin knew he could feel her wildly beating heart.

  A heart that had only ever truly beat for him.

  “This is just a warm-up.” She could feel his smile against her lips as his mouth returned to hers. And—oh, yes!—he began moving his body against hers.

  “I like warm-ups.”

  Which was a misnomer, because the friction between their bodies was creating such heat they could well be in danger. She could see the headline in the River’s Bend Register now: War Hero and Former Miss Teen Rodeo Queen Die from Spontaneous Combustion. Nothing Left but Ashes.

  “Good.” Rolling over to lie beside her, he began unbuttoning her blouse with an intense fascination that made it seem as if it were the first time he’d ever been exposed to a woman’s bare flesh. “You’re wearing a bra.” His fingers slipped beneath the cup, trailing sparks over her breast.

  “I came straight from the meeting with Grim,” she managed breathlessly. The last time she’d had less air in her lungs was when she’d fallen off Blue.

  “You were in a hurry.”

  She could only nod as he bent his head and licked the crest of her breasts. “For this?”

  Another nod as his fingers poised on the front clasp of the bra.

  “I like this.” His knuckles brushed over the cups. “I wonder how many men in River’s Bend know that you wear girly pink-and-white polka dots beneath those practical cowgirl working shirts?”

  Austin decided he didn’t need to know that the bra, which she’d never worn before, was yet another outlet mall purchase Heather had talked her into. “I don’t exactly go around town flashing all the males I see.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” One flick of his wrist and his palms were on her breasts, which she could have sworn were growing to a full B cup beneath his touch. “We can keep it our secret.” When he took a nipple between his lips and tugged, as if pulled by an invisible cord, her back arched off the mattress in a silent plea for more.

  But instead, he lifted his head and looked down at her for what seemed like forever. The teasing smile had left his lips and his eyes turned sober. Not wounded sober, the way they’d been when he’d told her about the deaths and visiting his dead teammates’ families, but serious.

  She’d seen him look that way before, she realized with a flash of memory. The day she’d walked into their classroom late. The day she’d learned that her mother had gone away for good. They were the eyes of a boy back then, but they’d been both caring and careful. As if he’d been afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m just in this for the sex.”

  “I don’t.” If he’d only been interested in sex, they probably shared around fifteen years of backstory when he could have had it. As much and as often as he’d wanted.

  “So, okay. Now that we’ve got that clarified, you up for the quickie part now?”

  The laugh that exploded out of her surprised Austin. And from the grin that had replaced his grave expression, she knew it had him, as well.

  She rolled over on top of him, shoved her hands beneath his Jaspar Lepak Music in the Mountains festival shirt, and spread her fingers across his magnificently cut chest. “Giddy up, cowboy.”

  *

  “DO YOU THINK this is all too easy?” Austin asked a few minutes later as she re-buttoned her shirt.

  “Is what too easy?” Sawyer asked, causing a tinge of remorse as he zipped up his jeans.

  “You. Me.” She waved a hand toward the bed. “This.”

  “Would you prefer for it to be difficult and complicated?”

  “No
, of course not. But with all that’s happening—”

  “All the better that something in our life is going smoothly.” He ran his knuckles down the side of her face in the way he might do to gentle a nervous mare. “If it feels easy, it’s because it’s right. It’s what’s been missing for me with any other woman.”

  “Me, too,” she admitted, covering his hand with hers. “With other men. Including my ex.” Especially Jace. “They were never you.”

  “Well, then, we’ve nothing to worry about.”

  And didn’t she wish that were true? But Austin had lived in volcano/earthquake country all of her life and knew that there were always faults and fissures lying beneath the most seemingly tranquil landscape.

  “I keep forgetting to tell you that I love that way you smell,” Sawyer said.

  “It’s body soap, lotion, and shampoo,” she sat down on the bed and pulled her boots back on. “Lexi made it last winter when seemingly everything in my life was falling apart and I couldn’t afford the time or money to escape to some tropical island. So she said this would bring the island to me.”

  “I’ll have to thank her for that. Although if I ever start belting out the piña colada song while making love to you, it’s on her.”

  Austin laughed again, amazed she could find any humor in anything this week. “You really do make me happy.”

  “Good.” His smile was slow and warm, wrapping around her like one of Heather’s quilts. “Because that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. So, now that we’ve taken the edge off, so to speak, how was your meeting with the lemon-sucking Ms. Grim?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. I couldn’t get a read on her.”

  “Yeah. Like I said, that’s her power/control thing.”

  “She did ask about us.”

  “What about us?”

  “It was a strange conversation, but mainly, I think she wanted to know if we were going to have mad, ripping-clothes-off sex in front of the children.”

  “Did you tell her we’d never do that?”

  “Yes. And that it wasn’t any of her business.”

  “Good for you.”

  “She also did the same thing to me she did with you. Her last question was whether or not I’d witnessed you exhibit any signs of PTSD. And whether I thought Jack and Sophie would be safe with you.”

  His smile, which had broadened across his handsome face when she’d told him how she’d stood up to Ms. Grim’s sex interrogation, faded. “And what did you say?”

  “No.” She stood up and wrapped her arms around his neck. “And positively, absolutely yes.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He pulled her closer. Then gave her another of those devastating kisses that threatened to have her melting into a puddle of lust onto the heart-of-pine floor.

  “I have to leave,” she murmured.

  “I know.” He cupped her jaw in his fingers, tilting her head, fitting his mouth even more perfectly onto hers. “Just one more minute.”

  “Just one,” she said as their breaths mingled and she could feel his erection against her. Denim, she was discovering, was no insulator against heat.

  The kiss was slow. Sweet. Warm.

  Someone whimpered. And someone’s hand—it must be hers, but she couldn’t remember it moving—was cupping the back of his neck. “Maybe two minutes.”

  The second kiss was long and lingering, and this time as she seemed to float off the floor, the sound she swore she heard was that of angels singing.

  The thought of those angels was all it took to have her come plummeting down to earth with a crash.

  Knowing her well, Sawyer sensed the change immediately.

  “It’s okay to be happy,” he reminded her.

  “It’s hard,” she admitted.

  He smoothed a hand down her back. “I know.”

  And he did. Worlds more than she ever would.

  “I’ve really got to go.”

  “And I’ve got some stuff to do.”

  “Ranch stuff?”

  “Sort of. I had an idea about the rest of the day and evening.”

  “Oh?” They’d agreed against having any funeral home visitation because it would be one more event Jack and Sophie would have to be put through.

  “How about we just treat the rest of today like a holiday?”

  “A holiday?” She looked at him as if he’d suggested they both strip off all their clothes and go streaking down Front Street at high noon.

  “Not a celebration-type thing,” he assured her. “But a family thing. Have a nice, slow afternoon centered around the kids enjoying themselves. Maybe go pick out those trees Father Cassidy talked about at The Plant Place, take a ride along the river, play some games, get a few people—you, me, the kids, Winema and Buck, Rachel, Cooper, and Scott, Ryan and Layla, my folks and grandparents, and Lexi—together for a barbecue. I already bought a couple steaks I was planning to grill for a romantic dinner with you—”

  “Wait.” She held up a hand. “You were going to cook? For me?”

  “Yeah. That’s what the green stuff in the fridge is. Rachel gave me some recipes she figured even I could pull off. But we can do that anytime. I figured while you’re picking up the kids, I’d go raid the Bar M meat locker for some ribs and steaks and burgers, and maybe a hot dog or two if Jack would rather have those than a burger. You and Sophie might want to make a pie or cookies or something, and we manly men will, of course, take care of the grilling.”

  “I can grill,” she said. “Despite all the male-oriented marketing campaigns that suggest otherwise, it doesn’t take testosterone to char a mountain of red meat.”

  “I’ve not a single doubt you could do anything you put your mind to,” he said easily. “But a little male bonding will be good for Jack. And Buck.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. “You want to help Dad get his cowboy back on.”

  “It was just a thought.”

  “A wonderful one.” She went up on her toes and, even knowing she was risking another delay, kissed him. “I’ll see you later. Maybe you guys can work with Jack’s roping while Winema, Sophie, and I start baking. I’m behind on things for the New Chance anyway. Rachel’s been wonderfully patient, but since I’m making pies, I might as well make a bunch.”

  “If you need a taster, just shout.”

  “I will.” She paused, the words I love you on the tip of her tongue. But those three words were too important to say as she was going out the door.

  After the funeral, she decided as she drove out to Rachel and Cooper’s place. Once they got all this behind them.

  32

  SAWYER HAD BEEN right. The day, which could have been wretchedly awful, turned out not to be that way at all.

  Oh, Austin would’ve been happier if Sophie hadn’t insisted on Madison joining them. The girl had shown up in those same Daisy Dukes, a gauzy, off-the-shoulder ivory top thin enough to show the shadow of the black bra she was wearing beneath it, and another pair of those tasseled boots, this one with, heaven forbid, rhinestones on them.

  The girl had resisted when Austin suggested she’d be happier riding in a pair of jeans. Ten minutes of her inner thighs rubbing painfully against the leather saddle, which was exactly what Austin had warned her about, she’d begun to whine. After five minutes of nonstop complaining, Austin, Madison and Sophie were on their way back to the house.

  “You could borrow a pair of mine,” Sophie suggested.

  Madison swept a look over her supposed best friend. “Thanks, but they’d bag like clown pants on me. I wear a juniors size one. You’re probably a five. Maybe I’ll just go out and work on my tan.”

  Good idea, Austin thought. Before she said something she really shouldn’t.

  “Would you like to go work on your tan with Madison?” she asked Sophie. Dear Lord, please let her say no!

  “Tanning’s boring. And besides, I sunburn too easily.” Yes! There was a God!

  “You can help me make some pies. I thought I’d mak
e two for dinner, and some more to freeze for Rachel to put on the menu at the New Chance.”

  “I’d like that,” she decided. “Mom really liked those cookies you taught me to make.”

  “Your mom had quite the sweet tooth. I always was surprised she never baked.”

  “She told me that she might have talents, but cooking wasn’t one of them,” she said, following Austin into the kitchen, where Winema was busy making potato, macaroni, and green bean with bacon salads for the cookout. “She set a cabinet on fire once frying chicken.”

  “I remember that.” Austin pulled two aprons out of a drawer and tossed one to Sophie. “It sounds scary, but later it became something we all laughed about. In fact . . .”

  “What?” Sophie asked.

  Great move. Bringing up Friday night’s dinner, when Tom and Heather had been alive and laughing, with so much to look forward to. “She mentioned it recently, that’s all.”

  “That’s how the remodeling started,” Sophie said. Austin breathed a sigh of relief at having dodged that conversational bullet. “Then, once she got started, she just sort of kept on going.” Her eyes misted. “She’s never going to see it finished.”

  “I know. I’ve thought about that, too. But it’s going to be a beautiful home for some new family.” Austin measured out the flour for the crust. “Are you too disappointed about having to live here?”

  “Not really. I guess.” Sophie’s gaze drifted out the window to the corral, where Buck was feeding the still unnamed colt a carrot. “Could I have a horse?”

  “There are quite a few you could ride anytime you’d like.”

  “No, I mean, like, my very own. Like you can ride any of them, but Blue is your special one.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Austin said. “We’ll have to have you try out several.” She thought a bit about that as she cut in the chilled butter. “There’s a sweet mare who’s as smart as a whip. I’ve been considering working with her on barrels.”

  “Could you teach me to do that? Mom said you’ve won a lot of championships.”

  “In my day.” Austin had given up rodeoing herself once she’d ended up having to fill in so much of her father’s jobs as he’d become more and more weakened from the PPS. “But, I have to tell you, it’s not easy. It takes a lot of hard work and practice.”