by Raeann Blake
“Lynn, I apologize, too. I never should have jumped straight to the conclusion that it was you. We should have talked to you. I’m sorry,” Clay said quietly.
Laine held his breath. He hoped this didn’t put them right back where they were. When he saw Lynn lift her head and meet his gaze openly he still didn’t know whether it did or not and quickly added his own apology.
“Thank you. All of you. Let’s just forget about it.”
Charlie looked back at her again and quietly said, “Can I ask you a question? You didn’t seem all that surprised. You already knew this, didn’t you?”
She looked directly at Hailey for several seconds then back up to Charlie and nodded. “Yes. I’ve never met Yates. I knew it wasn’t me and other than Clay, Laine and Hailey you were the only other one close enough to hear what I said that day. I knew you were seeing Pepper, so…I guess I jumped to my own conclusions.”
“You had it figured out right from the first and didn’t say anything? And I thought I couldn’t feel any lower. Let’s go see the other hands, Lynn. Thanks, guys,” Charlie said quietly then kissed Hailey on the cheek and opened the door to let Lynn go out ahead of him, closing it behind him.
Hailey finally let out a slow breath and sank back down in a chair before she turned to find Clay watching her silently.
“You already knew it, too. Didn’t you? How?” he asked softly.
“Lynn told me just before Charlie came out to get us. Well, she told me about him seeing her when she was here. I figured out the rest.”
“You’re not upset with him?” Laine asked.
“With Charlie? No,” Hailey said immediately as she shook her head. “I may not be experienced about working with other women, but I’m not naïve enough to not know that there are a lot of women in this world who will do whatever they can to get a man to do or say whatever they want. I never doubted that Pepper was one of those women. And I also know there aren’t a lot of men in this world who think with their head instead of what’s behind their fly when faced with a woman like that, especially if he doesn’t think anybody will be hurt by it. He’s just a man.
“No, if I was going to be upset with him it would be about not owning up to it right away and letting Lynn take the blame for it. But he made it right, so…” She finally stopped and shrugged her shoulders a little.
“You’re a strange woman,” Laine said softly.
Hailey frowned then smiled just a little as she shifted her gaze back to Clay. “Maybe just different. I just had to find where I fit, that’s all.”
Clay couldn’t help the smile that spread slowly across his face. If he’d been able to look anywhere but at her eyes, he would have noticed the confused frown on Laine’s face that eventually turned into a knowing smile.
“I believe you may be right. I have work to do. See you later,” he said then went through the door quietly.
“Come here,” Clay whispered as soon as the door closed behind him.
Hailey rose and walked around the desk then waited as he pulled her to him and down to straddle his lap. “You fit right here,” Clay murmured against her lips when she dropped hers against his.
* * *
Clay was lying back on the blanket they had spread out behind the house with one hand propped behind his head and the other with his fingers laced through Hailey’s where she was lying perpendicular to him with her head resting on his stomach. They had watched the night sky turn from purple to black and the stars wink on one by one.
“Have you ever been on a sleigh ride?” Clay asked quietly.
“A sleigh? You mean like a Jingle Bells sleigh?” Hailey asked.
“Yeah. There are places around here that do that.”
“No. I’ve never actually seen a sleigh. Why do you ask?”
“I’m planning your first winter here, all the things I want to show you. I don’t have a sleigh, although I guess the wagon could double as one. We’ve got ski runners we put on it in the winter. But I think you should have a real sleigh ride. Who knows? If you like it, we might just have to buy one,” he said then smiled down at her when she rolled her head to the side enough to see him in the moonlight.
“You’d buy a sleigh…just for me?” Hailey asked softly.
“Well, yeah…if you promise to let me ride with you. See you have to snuggle down under these blankets, and…” He let his voice trail off as his smile widened when the throaty laugh slid out of her throat.
“Oh, yeah? I think I like this already.”
“Actually, so do I. Enough that I may just go ahead and buy one. Speaking of buying, what’s on your list for your big girls’ day out tomorrow?”
“Just the buckles. Other than that, I’ll have to see when I get there. What do you have planned for the day?” She couldn’t help but see the way his smile softened before he spoke. That alone told her that whatever it was, it had to do with Laine and Shack.
“We’re gonna ride the fence line. We won’t go too far because it’s hard on Shack. He could ride all day if he needed to, but it hurts him. Maybe we’ll just make a morning of it and then after that I thought I could hang around the stables with them, the way I used to. It’s been a long time since I just spent time with them. I miss them a lot. I have ever since the day I moved in that house. Even before I moved in the bunkhouse I spent most of my time out there or out riding with Shack. When Laine first came here, I was already staying out there. Something about us just clicked. From the very first minute I met him, it was like we’d been best friends all our lives.
“We rode together, worked together, talked. I never got off this ranch much except for school. I didn’t know much about what it was like out there. What I do know I learned from him and Shack. Laine, even…”
He stopped talking abruptly and Hailey tightened her fingers through his.
“Laine even…what?”
Clay blew out a breath and lifted his eyes back up to the stars. “He found out that I’d never…been with a woman. He carried me into the bar one night and set me up. I didn’t even know what the hell to do. He handed me a condom and sent me out the door. Told me I’d figure it out…just not to forget the condom when I did,” he said, then had to smile in embarrassment when Hailey couldn’t hold the little chuckle inside.
“And did you? Figure it out?”
“Well, I had to learn somewhere,” he muttered.
“I’d say you learned very well, but I draw the line at sending your teachers a thank you card. Some things are just better left unsaid.”
Clay burst out laughing and lifted her hand to press against his lip and nodded. “I’ll agree with that. What about you? When was your first time?”
When she grew quiet he pressed his lips back to her hand. “Never mind. I’m sorry. I think that’s probably something I shouldn’t have asked, right? I didn’t know, Hailey.”
“It’s okay. I was seventeen, almost eighteen. He was just a guy I’d met at one the stores we used to buy supplies from. I just sort of wondered what all the fuss was about. I mean that’s all the girls in school wanted to talk about, so I thought what the hell. I’d give it a shot. It was nothing to write home about, but it happened. It was so much less than spectacular that I didn’t try again for a long time. Truthfully, it didn’t get much better after that…until you.”
Clay pushed her up into a sitting position then sat up to face her. “Really? It’s different for you, too? I mean it’s just so…so much more. And there are things, like when you touch my chest…it’s never felt like that before. And other things that you do, too. They just feel different when you do them than they ever have before. It’s like that for you?” he asked earnestly.
If her heart wasn’t already full it would be after that honest admission. “Yes, baby. Everything about it is different. The first couple of nights here I dreamed about us, about being together. And I thought, man…that’s what they were talking about; that’s what it’s supposed to be like. But then you kissed me. And I got it. Those
dreams weren’t what it was supposed to be like. That kiss…that first touch…that first time. That was it. And every time it’s like…deeper and fuller. I didn’t know it was like that for you, too,” she said trailing off a little embarrassed at the end.
“It is like that for me,” he whispered as he slid a hand behind her neck and tugged. When she lifted her eyes back to him he pulled her to him slowly and brushed his lips against hers a couple of times before he let them settle there for a gentle kiss. The wonder of what he felt seeped through him slowly. Even gentle kisses like this one had started to feel different, like she was giving even more of herself with each touch, each caress, each kiss. And it made him want to give her back just as much. He turned her and leaned her back on the blanket, following her down then ending the kiss gently.
He gazed down at her for several seconds then said, “Hailey, I like how this feels. I like how you make me feel. I know I probably do a thousand things a day that are wrong. I know I say things when I shouldn’t, or don’t say something when I should. I’m trying to learn that, too. Teach me. Give me time to learn that.”
Hailey slid her arms around his neck and whispered hoarsely, “We’ll learn together. Some of those things I need to learn, too. We’ll learn all of them, Clay. We’ve got all the time in the world to learn them all.”
He kissed her once more then rolled to his back and let her lie against his shoulder as they looked back at the stars. They stayed that way until well into the night. Right up until he heard it. He didn’t give any indication at all.
Instead he flinched his shoulder just enough to nudge against her and said, “You know, since Isobell’s gone home, we could sneak in there and finish off that coffee cake.”
He couldn’t help but laugh when she immediately shot up off the ground and held her hand out to help him up with a broad smile on her face.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Didn’t have to ask you twice, did I?” he said then rose and calmly pulled the blanket off the ground. He didn’t take time to fold it. Instead he draped it over his shoulder and walked directly to the house with his arm around her shoulders. He dropped the blanket on the couch on their way by, flicking off lights as they went and waited until he was in the dining room where he would be out of the direct line of sight from the back before he jerked his phone off and made a call.
Hailey stopped and looked back at him in surprise when she heard the harsh tone.
“Are you in the bunkhouse? Look around right now. See who’s missing.”
Hailey frowned when he let her hand go and started pacing back and forth as he waited. When he stopped walking, he turned to face her and lifted his eyes to hers.
“Nobody? Are you sure? Then we’ve got somebody on the ranch that doesn’t belong here. They’re in the woods behind the house,” he snapped. He saw Hailey pale slightly and he would deal with that later. He immediately closed the phone and started back for the living room.
“Stay in the house,” he muttered on his way to the front door.
She watched out the dining room window as she saw Shack, Laine, Charlie, Davey and Houston all come out of the stables with rifles. When Clay reached them Laine handed him a rifle and they split up with Charlie, Davey, and Houston going one way, Shack, Laine, and Clay in the opposite direction. She waited until they had skirted the yard and slipped into the trees before she quietly went through the front door and followed them. She moved slowly so that no one would hear her. It took her a long time to get to the back and close enough to hear them talking.
“Goddammit. How the hell did they get out of here that fast?” Clay snapped.
“Son, they could be up in one of these trees for all we know. You can’t check them all in the dark,” Shack said as he played a flashlight around through the trees closest to them.
When she realized that whoever it was had gone, she decided it was okay if they knew she was there. She took one step then froze when she found a rifle pointed right at her.
“Get out of there. Get out here where we can see you,” Laine barked.
“C-C-Clay,” she finally managed to squeak. It was several long seconds before Clay lowered the rifle and strode to her then jerked her arm to pull her forward. He pulled her to where the other men were then turned and got right in her face.
“Damn, Hailey. That’s a good way to get shot,” Laine snapped at her before Clay could even get a word out.
“I told you to stay in the fuckin’ house. When I give somebody an order, I expect it to be obeyed,” Clay shouted.
Hailey immediately pulled herself up as tall as she could and shouted right back at him. “I’ve got news for you, Clay Cardell. I don’t take orders. You can ask me to do something as a boss, and I’ll do my damnedest to make sure it’s done. But you do not get to order me around like a slave.”
Clay’s voice dropped to a low hiss and anybody not close enough would have missed it. “Fine. How’s this? Would you please get your ass back in the goddamned house?”
“Fine,” Hailey muttered then spun on her heel and strode across the yard without looking back.
Shack laid a hand on Clay’s shoulder and said, “We’re not gonna find anything tonight, Clay. Go on back to the house. Here, give me that rifle.”
Clay handed him the rifle then took the light from him and shined it up into the trees around them again before he snapped it off then handed it back to him.
“Goddammit,” he muttered then turned and followed the same path Hailey had taken while the other men started back to the bunkhouse. Long after they were gone, there was nobody left to hear the finally released quiet sigh of relief from the next tree past the one Clay had looked at last.
When he went through the back door he found her at the bar with a drink in her hand and an angry glare on her face. He sent a hard look back to her and walked behind the bar and poured one drink, quickly downed it then poured another one. He drank it in two swallows and slapped the glass angrily against the bar before he started for the stairs.
“Go ahead. Say it,” Hailey said evenly.
Clay spun and walked back to her then grabbed her roughly by the arms and shook her slightly. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you goddamned get it?” he shouted then sank weakly to his knees before he lifted tear-filled eyes back up to her.
“I could have shot you. My finger was on the trigger,” he rasped.
“Oh,” Hailey breathed out and held him tightly when he buried his face against her stomach. “I’m sorry, Clay. I’m so sorry. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.”
She held him tightly until he rubbed his face slightly against her stomach. She knew he was probably drying tears he didn’t want her to see. When he finally eased his arms some and leaned back, she lifted his head to look up at her.
“Let’s forget the coffee cake. Come to bed,” she whispered. When he nodded slightly she waited for him to stand then held his hand and led him up the stairs. Once they were inside the room, she immediately undressed then turned back to him as she pulled the covers back on the bed and stretched out.
“Clay…undress for me this time,” she whispered. The slow breath hissed out between his lips as his mouth curved into a small smile. And he did as she asked. It was slow and it was teasing, until he teased himself to the point that he couldn’t wait. The room was filled with the frenzied desires that overtook them both. They both felt it. They knew it was an unleashing of the adrenalin from what had happened and it drove them both to demand more of each other than they ever had before. It was long after they had exhausted each other and drifted to sleep when Clay sat bolt upright in the bed with an anguished whisper as he dropped his head into his hands.
“No, no, no. Hailey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know it was you. God, I’m sorry.”
“Clay. Clay, look at me. Clay, wake up,” Hailey whispered tenderly. She had to catch her breath and keep her face calm when he lifted disbelieving eyes to her and she could see the moonlight gliste
n against the tear tracks on his face.
“Oh, sonofabitch. I thought…I mean…dream. It was a dream,” he murmured as he touched her face. It had seemed so real. In reality, he had just barely stopped his finger from squeezing the trigger in a reflex action. In the dream, he hadn’t been quite quick enough. He pulled her tightly against him and then dried his face once she couldn’t see.
“I’m sorry, Clay. It was so stupid.”
“Yes, it was. You can’t run around out in the dark like that when there are men with guns who…it was very stupid. It’s okay. Just don’t ever do it again. Wait. Let me start over. Would you please not ever do it again?” he amended. When he felt her lips curve into a smile against his neck he laid back on the bed, pulling her with him. Something wouldn’t let him let her go. He wasn’t going to try to figure out what it was. He was just going to hold on.