by Raeann Blake
“What’s the grin for?” she asked as he took her hand and pulled her to the couch.
Clay looked down then back up to her and shrugged his shoulders with his lips still twitching. “Nothing. It’s just…I don’t think I’ve ever shared a drink with somebody before. I suddenly had an urge to share a cigarette with you, too.”
Hailey laughed in surprise as he sat down and pulled her down beside him. “Well, now that you mention it, I guess that’s the first time I’ve ever taken a sip of somebody else’s drink. Well…unless you count drinking out of a canteen after I used it to pour water in my hat for a horse.”
Clay burst out laughing and laced his fingers through hers as he pushed his boots off then propped his feet up on the table in front of them.
“I don’t think we’ll count that. Tell me about your brother. You said Dwayne, right? He’s older than you?”
Hailey nodded as she leaned forward to take her boots off then leaned back and turned her head to look at him. “Yeah. He’s two years older than me. Dwayne is…I’m not sure how to describe him. I told you about how it was for him. After he left the ranch I always seemed to be making excuses for him because of that. He’s been off that ranch long enough to have started to do something with his life, but that just doesn’t seem to be very important to him. One week he’s a janitor for some little business. The next week he’s working at a fast food place. Then it’s a road crew or a carney for some carnival that comes into town. Maybe he’s just lost. I used to think that it was because he never had a chance to learn how to do anything except take care of cattle and he just wanted to experience a lot of different things before he decided what he wanted to do. He’s had plenty of time to learn anything he wanted to since then. Evidently he just doesn’t want to.”
Clay handed her the glass and let her take another drink before he shook his head a little and said, “I don’t know, Hailey. People like you and me grow up knowing that a ranch like this, cattle, and maybe a campfire is in our blood. It’s who we are. If you don’t grow up knowing that, it can’t be that easy to find your place. Especially if you never got a chance to try anything except the one thing you know you’re not meant to do. Is he a good brother? Did he take care of you?”
Hailey frowned then shrugged her shoulders. “I guess he is. But no matter how much he tried not to, he did have our daddy in him. He wasn’t big on heart-to-heart chats. He took off at one minute past midnight on his eighteenth birthday. That’s all he was waiting on. Inside he’s a good guy, and I guess he loves me. And I love him. But we were never really close. Take care of me?” she murmured as she thought about that then shook her head slightly.
“I don’t know how to answer that. He certainly didn’t fight my battles for me. I probably wouldn’t have let him anyway, but I don’t remember him ever trying. Maybe if I had been more like the girls I went to school with and had boyfriends back then…maybe he would have taken up for me if one of them broke my heart or something, but I never was interested in boys.”
Clay rubbed his thumb back and forth across her knuckles as he frowned. “I’m sorry, sugar. You should have had that. Even as bad as things were here, I always had Kathy. She was always in my corner.”
“Well, yeah. But I didn’t have to go through what you did, Clay. Daddy might not have been very good about saying or doing the right thing, but underneath it all I knew he loved me. He would infuriate me, but I knew he loved me. He just didn’t know how to be any other way,” Hailey explained.
Clay frowned deeper and looked down at her hand in his for several minutes then opened his hand flat and pressed hers against it, measuring it against his. “Maybe that’s why you’re the first woman I’ve ever met that I could talk to. Neither one of us had the best childhoods. And we’re both…different. We don’t seem to quite fit anywhere else. Maybe that’s why we seem to fit with each other,” he said quietly as he thoughtfully studied their hands together.
Hailey let out a ragged breath and swallowed to try to make her voice work. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get anything past the lump in her throat. She was silent so long that Clay finally lifted his eyes slowly to hers and found tears there.
“Hailey, I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”
She immediately shook her head and forced out, “No, Clay. I think that’s probably the sweetest thing anybody has ever said to me.”
“Really? That was…that was sweet?” Clay asked her in confusion.
Hailey couldn’t help the slight smile as her heart soared into the stratosphere. “That was very, very sweet. And the most perfect thing you could have possibly said.”
The smile that spread across her face as he continued to frown at her finally pulled his own lips into a smile. “I’m so confused. I don’t suppose there’s a book somewhere to explain all of this is there?”
Hailey finally laughed and leaned into him and kissed him softly. “You don’t need a book, Clay. You’re doing just fine without it.”
He brushed his fingers against her cheek but turned to look across the room then back to her again. “Can we do something? Would you go turn the coffee pot off while I put some music on? Would you dance with me? Maybe out on the porch. We can share that cigarette and dance.”
“I’d love to dance with you. I’ll be right back,” she said and kissed him quickly then rose and started to the kitchen as he went to the CD player. He put a CD in then made a fresh drink that they could share. He walked behind the bar and pulled out a package of cigarettes and lighter from where he had stashed them to keep from walking around with them in his pocket and smoking them constantly. As soon as he dropped them in his pocket, he went to the lights and turned out each one until the only light in the room was the one behind the bar. Then he walked to the opening into the dining room to wait for her.
Hailey took in a deep breath as she started for the living room. She knew she was flying too close to the sun but she couldn’t seem to make herself stop. When she got close enough to realize the lights were off the little smile started first. When she found him waiting for her with an outstretched hand, it grew even wider.
“May I have this dance?” he whispered to her.
“I’d be honored,” she whispered back. She could see the wide smile on his face and all of those doubts and worries just seemed to float away as he led her to the back door then out onto the porch.
“One sip, then one dance. One cigarette. And another dance. Then…then we’ll see,” he said softly as he held out the glass in his hand.
Hailey laughed softly and took the drink. She handed the glass back to him and waited until he had taken one and set it on the railing. When he turned back to her she looked up at him, trying one more time to use an innocent face.
“I do plan to see. I plan to see plenty.”
Clay’s eyebrows went up just slightly as the smile spread. As he folded her hand against his chest and pulled her close he said, “Do you now? And what if I’m not agreeable?”
“Then we’ll have to dance until you are,” she said as she pressed closer to him and let her hips shift against his just enough to force a small grunt to escape his lips.
“Uh…I’m agreeable now,” he whispered hoarsely but then had to smile when she burst out laughing.
“Hailey, I haven’t done much of this. I’ll try not to step on your toes,” he said as they started to move to the low music coming from inside the house.
“Neither have I. Some but not much. But this feels so good that I don’t think I’ll care if you do,” she whispered as she turned her head to lie against his shoulder.
“It does feel good. Better than it’s ever felt before,” he said softly. He let his eyes drift shut and let the feeling of her against him spread through him. Somehow it just felt right to pull the hand he had against his chest up to his neck and then release it before he let his fingers slide back down her arm, down her back and then tighten both arms to pull her even closer. Her fingers gliding along the neckl
ine then into his hair was one of the most arousing things he’d ever felt. It ranked right up there with feeling her hands or her lips pressed against his chest. He was pretty sure she knew that. The way they were molded together, there was no way she could help but feel the erection growing between them.
He never realized when that voice at the back of his mind stopped talking to him. He didn’t even notice that it was gone. It never registered in any way that he had slipped into a spot where there was nothing and nobody but the two of them. There were no worries or doubts about what she wanted or whether or not she was working with or for Yates. There weren’t any questions about whether or not she would suddenly disappear. She was there, in his arms and it wasn’t just that nothing else mattered. There was nothing else and it was like there never had been.
When the song ended, he didn’t let her go. Instead they stayed exactly like they were, waiting on the next one. “I lied. Two dances, then a cigarette. Just don’t move,” he whispered without opening his eyes or lifting his head from where it was lying against hers. When she snuggled even closer his own words came back to him. We fit.
Hailey knew there was something different. Something had happened but she didn’t know what it was. And her heart was too full to try to figure it out. His arms around her, so strong and so secure, gave her the assurance she’d dreamed about but had been afraid to even hope for. There wasn’t a single doubt in her mind that everything was okay. What could possibly be wrong? He couldn’t hold her the way he was holding her if anything was wrong. His voice couldn’t hold the emotion that it held if he still doubted her. Somewhere deep inside she knew it was probably a mistake to let herself believe, but she couldn’t stop it. And that feeling only grew when he finally lifted his head on the last few notes to gaze down at her. The way he searched her face before he dropped his lips to hers in a soft kiss stole her breath and opened every last door and window that was left inside of her.
“Perfect. Let’s smoke that cigarette and finish this drink. Then I want another dance,” Clay said with a soft smile. He took his arms from around her, but he didn’t let her go. Instead, he immediately took her hand in his and pulled her to the steps. He sat down on the top one and moved back far enough to pull her down to settle her between his legs and let one hand slip under her arm then down to rest against her stomach as he reached for the glass.
“Here. You hold this and I’ll light us a cigarette.”
“It’s so beautiful. The sky’s so clear. What’s it like in the winter? I know you must get more snow than we ever did,” Hailey asked as she took a sip of the drink then waited as he lit the cigarette and handed it to her.
Clay nodded and said, “Sure we do. Bozeman usually averages between six and seven feet a year. It varies with the location just within this area. Right here we’ll typically have around eight or nine. Up where the cattle are now, it usually averages between twelve and fifteen. Down around Big Sky it’s probably closer to thirty feet or more.”
He couldn’t help the wide smile when her head came up slowly to look at him in surprise.
“Feet? You said…feet?”
“Well, yeah, sugar. How much did you get back home?”
“Maybe ten…eleven inches,” she said then took a drag off of the cigarette and handed it back to him.
Clay laughed and pulled her tighter back again him. “Then you’re in for a treat. This whole place becomes a winter wonderland. I almost can’t wait for it snow now so I can show it to you.”
They were both silent for a long time as they shared the cigarette and drink. When he put the cigarette out and handed the nearly empty glass back to her, he tightened both arms around her and pressed his lips against her hair. Just something so simple shared between them was the best thing he’d ever felt.
“Hailey, stay here with me forever,” he whispered hoarsely. They were words he didn’t think about before they came out. Any other day, any other time, they would have jerked him back to reality. But not on this day and not at this time. This was so special that those thoughts never came.
She was sailing so high now that nothing could touch her. She didn’t even hesitate. “I will, Clay. I will stay here with you forever,” she whispered back.
“Okay. Come back and dance with me again. And I wanna do something. Come here,” he said then helped her stand then rose and pulled her to him but immediately lifted one hand to start unfastening the buttons on his shirt.
“I just want to feel what it’s like to dance with you against my chest,” he said with his voice trailing off when nothing more than that caused her breath to shorten and she lifted her hands to help him. The groan came out quickly as soon as they had it unfastened and her hands immediately slid inside and up his chest before she pressed her lips against his skin then turned her head to rub her cheek softly against the same spot.
“Oh, damn. Baby, that feels good,” he rasped. He let his eyes drift shut and swallowed as much as he could. It felt even better than it had any other time. He stood it as long as he could. He almost made it through the whole song before he couldn’t stop himself from lifting her chin and dropping his lips to hers in a deep kiss that reminded him of the first one they had shared. The need was surging through him so quickly that it started out rougher than he meant for it to but soon softened and deepened when she answered it fully.
It was Hailey who pulled back and tugged on his hand. “Enough dancing. Come inside,” she said hoarsely.
The look on her face was breathtaking. Even on the darkened porch, he could see the desire in her eyes. He followed her inside but pulled her back to him just as soon as he closed the door behind him. Neither one’s hands were still. His shirt was on the floor before they got to the bar. Hers was at the foot of the stairs. His belt was about halfway up the stairs. Her bra was just outside the bedroom door. And then she stole every ounce of breath he had left.
The minute the bedroom door closed she pushed him back against it then trailed her hands down his chest to the buttons on his jeans and slowly unfastened them one by one. She didn’t even try to keep her hands from brushing against the fullness behind those buttons and eliciting more than one groan from him in the process. His hands on her breasts as she worked seemed to make her fingers not work right part of the time, but she finally managed to get the last one opened and immediately started sliding them down. The second they were past his hips then pooled around his ankles her hand immediately encircled him. The low growl that erupted from his chest came out before he even knew it was coming.
He swiftly kicked the jeans away then turned them so that she was against the door before he mimicked her actions by trailing his hands down and starting on the buttons to hers. Her hands were never still. One was still wrapped around him, gently moving while the other was on his chest then up to his neck, into his hair and back down again.
Clay tried to slow down, but he’d never felt such greed flow through him. The second he had her out of them he lifted her up then settled her over him as he braced her back against the door. The explosion that rocketed through her on the first stroke pushed him right to the edge of that cliff. He was barely hanging onto the side and he knew he needed to slow down but that surging need wouldn’t let him. So he pushed her, demanding that she give him more and more. The more she gave the more he asked for. And the more he asked for, the longer it kept him hanging on until he couldn’t wait anymore and lowered his lips to that spot at the base of her neck…the one he knew would make her give him what he needed. And he wasn’t disappointed. The second his lips touched it he felt the first tremor. When his teeth scraped against the skin he felt like a bomb had gone off inside the room. The groan that the combination of their final release forced out came from a place that was deep inside of him, a place he hadn’t even known was there.
They stayed just that way for several minutes as they both dragged in ragged breaths. He tried to lift his head from where it was leaned against the door, but only managed a fraction of an
inch before her arms locked tightly around his neck.
“Please don’t move. Don’t move yet,” Hailey whispered.
He didn’t have the strength to fight her even if he had wanted to. Instead he let his head drop back to where it was and held onto her.
* * *
Isobell was humming to herself as she started for the living room. Her normal morning routine was to start the coffee then make one quick round through the house to pick up any glasses or coffee cups that had been left there overnight. She always carried them back to the kitchen then started cooking breakfast. She frowned slightly when she found both pairs of boots in front of the couch but kept humming…until her eyes landed on Clay’s shirt. She frowned at it as she looked down at the boots in front of her then back up to the shirt again.
“Hmmm. That’s odd,” she murmured to herself as she started over to pick it up. As soon as she was past the end of the couch, another splotch of color caught her eyes and she turned her head to stare at it. The grin started and spread slowly as she looked back at the boots, down to Clay’s shirt then over to where Hailey’s shirt was lying. Her eyebrows drifted up slightly and she followed the path up the stairs to where she could see just the tip of a belt hanging off the side about halfway up.