His thumbs played with her sides, in the little space between the top of her jeans and the bottom of her shirt. Her muscles quivered in response. As if she had no control over them, her hands moved to his waist and she pulled Trick’s shirt from his jeans. His hot skin tempted her to delve beneath the stiff denim of his jeans, but Monica resisted the urge. Instead she ran her hands up his ridged abdomen, delighting in muscles that jumped at her touch.
Someone groaned. Probably Trick. Maybe her. She didn’t care; she just wanted more of him. Monica pushed her leg between his, needing to be closer to this man she couldn’t stop wanting. The denim of her jeans made a zipping sound against his as she moved. She dove her tongue into his mouth, pushing against him, tasting. Wanting more, always more.
Trick ran his hands up her abdomen to cup her breasts through her shirt. Flicked his thumbs against her hard nipples through the layers of fabric. “Damn, I missed you,” he said between kisses.
Monica closed her eyes tightly at his words. They were just words. Didn’t mean a damn thing. He’d missed her because she was a fun way to blow off a little steam. And that’s just the way she wanted him to think of her, wasn’t it? Because they weren’t suited at all. Trick would be much better off with a woman like Kathleen. Her sister loved Texas. Wanted to be nowhere other than Texas, even when she travelled with her photographer husband. There had to be fifty women in the Hill Country who would be perfect for Trick. Why did he keep coming back to her? Monica. The rodeo queen who needed the loud noises of a filled arena and another show so badly. Part of her hated that she wasn’t the right woman for him. The bigger part of her didn’t care that they were so ill-suited. That bit of her only wanted one more day with the handsome veterinarian. And that was one more reason to cut the cord between them.
She pulled back, rested her forehead against his chin for a second. Swallowed. It wouldn’t do for him to know how those simple words had cut through her. She raked her fingers back down his abs, pausing just a second too long at the zip of his jeans, and then stepping away from him.
Trick looked as dazed as she felt. Just the hormones, Monica told herself.
She straightened her shoulders. “I win.” She folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot against the gravel. She lowered her voice, pushing a healthy dose of brazen into the cocky words. “You dared. I called. What do I win, cowboy?”
He reached for her, but Monica laughed and skittered away. “Why don’t you come over here and finish that kiss, and we’ll see?” His voice was low, hoarse and rough in the night air, sending a chill up her arms and heat straight to her core.
Two more steps and she was at her truck. “You dared me to kiss you.” She opened the door and scooted onto the seat. “You want more than that, come up with a better dare.” She pushed the key into the ignition and threw the gearshift into drive. Monica leaned out the window. “And next time, don’t forget about the winnings.”
She pulled out of the Longneck drive and sped down the street, leaving Trick gaping after her. She turned two corners, fast, and pulled into the lot of the Methodist church. Monica parked under the cover of two, sweeping oak trees and pressed her head against the steering wheel. Her heart still beat a little too fast. Her breath still came in short little gasps.
She’d started something all right, started a fire she wasn’t sure she could put out.
A fire she wasn’t sure she wanted to put out, and that was the scariest part.
• • •
Trick stood under the shower head, icy water prickling along his skin. It wasn’t working. Nothing would put out the fire of that kiss. He’d tried running, hit the five-mile mark with no relief, and decided a cold shower was a better remedy.
The shower had been cold for at least ten minutes, and still he burned for Monica. Fast, hot, and hard was great. Sweet, slow, and sexy was killing him. He shut off the water, determined to lose himself in something, anything. He knew exactly what Monica wanted. She wanted him to follow her, lusting after her like a horse in heat because she could handle sweaty sex and fun romps in the bed of his truck. Or hers. It was the deeper side of things that gave them her problems. And his problem was he wanted the deeper side of things. Wanted all of Monica more than he’d wanted anything in his life. Unlike the kid at the candy store, though, he couldn’t just take what he wanted. She had to come to him.
He dried off, wiping the towel angrily over his chest and arms, grabbed an old pair of board shorts and a tee shirt from his bureau. He padded down to the basement, flicked on his iPod and turned up the speakers until the pulsing Metallica rhythm was all he could feel. He measured the space between himself and the heavy bag hanging from the ceiling and tossed a first, easy punch at it. The hit rippled from his fist up his arm, jostling the annoyance at that kiss. He punched again, harder this time, and the annoyance cracked.
Fast, hard, easy, and light was exactly what he should want. He’d had enough of the picture-perfect family life as a kid. His parents posed for pretty pictures, went to church, and had everyone in their little Florida town fooled. Underneath the façade, they hated each other. His father, the judge, resented his mother getting pregnant at seventeen; his mother was so broken by his father’s infidelities, she couldn’t function outside the June Cleaver role she presented to the world.
A slow kiss from Monica Witte shouldn’t throw him into this kind of tailspin. He punched twice more, adding in a kick. Punch, punch, kick. Punch, punch, kick. He repeated the pattern for a few minutes.
Trick couldn’t wait to get out of that house, away from those memories. Now he was reliving a twisted version of that scenario, because where his parents had presented the television version of the perfect family, he and Monica presented no image at all. They were the epitome of every affair his father had had, and it didn’t matter that it was what Monica wanted. Being anything like his father rankled Trick.
He’d seen good marriages. Seen committed family life. Despite his upbringing, he knew it could work. Two people could commit themselves to one another without it being a battle for supremacy. He wasn’t his father and he didn’t want Monica to become some warped version of June Cleaver on a rodeo horse. Until seven weeks ago, he never wanted the seemingly picture perfect life. A fling with no strings should be perfect, but he wanted more.
If he could see the difference between himself and his father why couldn’t Monica?
Punch, punch, kick. Punch, punch, kick. He could see his father’s smarmy face, smiling across the dinner table. Home for dinner at five-thirty, off to his mistress’s home by six.
Punch, punch, kick.
He’d gone as far away from their life in Florida as he could. Texas, as the slogan went, was a whole other country. A country he liked.
Finally, Monica and the past faded, and the only thing left was his father and the heavy bag. Punch, punch, kick. He repeated the moves for what seemed like an hour until all that was left was the heavy bag and an empty mind. No criss-crossing of his past with his present. Just Trick, breathing heavily and punching as hard as he could. He threw another punch, and it landed lightly against the bag. Not even a slight imprint from his fist.
Trick put his arms around the bag and leaned against it, his forehead slick against its side. Took one deep breath and then another. The grandfather clock in the entryway chimed twice. Two in the morning. Sweat dripped from his chin to plop in tiny circles on the mat at his feet.
Monica wasn’t his mother.
Plop, plop, plop.
He wasn’t his father.
His breathing steadied, and he stepped away from the heavy bag. Turned off the music and, in the quiet of the basement, admitted that he still wanted Monica. He couldn’t get rid of her with a run or a cold shower or a basement-workout session.
What they’d shared — what they were sharing — had awakened a part of him he hadn’t known exist
ed: a corner of his soul that wanted the white picket fence, the kids running around the yard. It scared the crap out of him. The picture-perfect family? He didn’t even know where to begin, especially with a woman who seemed to want the exact opposite: a life living out of a suitcase, no close connections, no real family ties. She may have come back her to rehab Jinx, but Trick wasn’t fooling himself. If there was a better therapy outfit than Kathleen’s, Monica would be there instead of the Double Diamond.
Monica running away from it meant she felt it, too, or at least a part of it. Not that she would admit it. One more reason to get her out of his mind, to put her in a box marked Do Not Touch.
But she wanted more. He’d seen it, for just a second, when she’d stopped that kiss. He’d seen the wanting and a flicker of fear when it had registered on her what that meant. It’s why he hadn’t followed her.
Trick slowly made his way up the stairs and into the shower. This time, he allowed the water to run hot, burning his skin. She would never admit what she wanted, he knew. If he were brave enough to go after more, he would have to romance her into it. Better to leave her in the box in his mind.
The water ran cold, and Trick flicked off the taps, stepped onto the heated floor of his bathroom, rested his hands against the sink, and leaned forward to stare hard at himself in the mirror. His brain screamed at him to leave Monica in that box, tied up with a pretty red bow.
He pushed off the marble counters. Damn it. Just once in his life he’d like to take the easy road. But which was it?
Trick fell onto his bed, laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the shadows on his ceiling. A car drove slowly by, its lights running from one side of the ceiling to the other. Someone getting home late from the Longneck or leaving early for work in Austin or San Antonio. Someone with a life, who wasn’t contemplating blowing it up in the stupidest way possible. An image of Monica leading Jinx through the pasture walked through his mind. Of Monica sitting atop the rail fence at her training stable in Austin, watching Jinx and laughing as he pranced around the ring. Trick swallowed. Monica was too much a part of him, even as a part-time girlfriend, to ever be locked up inside a box.
Romance, it was.
Only, how did he romance a Texas girl afraid of commitment?
• • •
Monica awoke, head pounding and bleary-eyed, on the floor of her childhood room at the Double Diamond. Not from drinking too much, from getting too little sleep. Barrel racing trophies glinted in the sunlight on the shelf near the window. Taunting her. The one thing she was good at, and now she was behind the chutes for the rest of the season. She had another horse in Austin. With a little work, she could be back on the circuit in a month or two. Another she could start training now for next season. Jinx needed her.
Who was she kidding? Trick was here. As much as she loved her horse and wanted to help him heal, the shine of leaving for a new rodeo every few weeks had faded when they’d started fooling around a few weeks before. Maybe it was infatuation and if she stayed long enough the shine would dim.
She’d driven around the Texas countryside until the wee hours of the morning, thinking about Trick and that kiss. Taking the cocky out of that cowboy was obviously the biggest mistake she’d made since not leaving the arena when the cows broke through the fences. Instead of bringing Trick down a notch, instead of making him just another guy that slow kiss lit another fire deep inside Monica. A fire that burned hotter and made her want to stay here, with Trick, and forget all her plans.
She rolled over on her side, wincing as her bruised hip met hard floorboard. She really had to break this habit of sleeping on the floor, in a little fort consisting of her baby blue, overstuffed couch, the wall, and the big sleigh bed. She pushed the couch back into place at the foot of the bed. Stretched her arms high over her head and leaned left and then right. Rolled her shoulders a few times. As a kid, when things didn’t go her way, Monica hid away in the little fort. Back then, she would pull every stuffed animal in her plush zoo beside her, burying herself in their softness until the hurt went away and she could drop off into sleep.
Last night, she’d needed to remind herself that she was better on her own than tied down. She couldn’t save her father from the bottle. She had no clue how a strong relationship worked. Staying in Lockhardt, imagining a life with Trick was foolhardy. She would hurt him. He would tire of waiting for her to come back from a rodeo. So she built the fort as a reminder not to get too attached. This morning, she felt ridiculous. She rolled her shoulders a few more times, until the muscles began to loosen.
Her brown- and teal-flowered boots lay on their sides near her door. She still wore the jeans and shirt she’d grabbed before going to look for Trick the night before. Monica stripped off the clothes, tossing them through the laundry chute to the basement, and stepped into her en suite bath to shower the remnants of last night away.
She scrubbed her hair twice and ran the water as hot as she could bear. Finally, pink from the heat, she emerged ready for the day. More or less. Monica grabbed a fresh pair of jeans, pulled Lucchese boots over her feet, and slipped a coral-striped camisole over her head.
The grandfather clock in the entryway chimed eight. Not late enough to miss the breakfast crowd. She sighed and started down the stairs. Kathleen, straw cowboy hat beside her on the table, told their grandfather, Mitchum, about the latest addition to the rescue horses — a quarter-racer, who’d torn a muscle in his foreleg and couldn’t run competitively. Monica stood at the dining-room door watching them. Mitchum, in pressed Wranglers and a pearl-buttoned western shirt, focused on his eldest granddaughter in a way he’d never focused on anyone else. Nothing existed except Kathleen’s re-telling of the first session of rehab for the injured horse.
Pain stabbed in Monica’s chest. She’d retrained Jinx, alone. Won four buckles at the National Finals, and was on her way to number five before last weekend. She didn’t think Mitchum had ever looked at her with the pride he showed Kathleen.
And wasn’t she Jan Brady for allowing it to matter?
“You going to join us or just stare at the food and hope it reaches your stomach by osmosis?” Nathaniel rubbed his tee shirt-clad shoulder against hers, his smile inviting her into the room with the rest of the family. Monica dutifully followed her father inside, ordering herself to snap out of the funk she’d felt since last night. There was no need to take her mood out on them.
She served herself scrambled eggs and toast from the plates on the buffet, then grabbed a bowl of raspberries and melon before sitting down at the table.
“Hey, kiddo. I hoped we could catch up over dinner last night.” Mitchum finished his eggs and pushed the plate to the side. “What say we take a ride around the pastures after lunch?”
Monica didn’t think her bruised hip could take a long ride, not after the night on the floor. But she’d never been good at turning Mitchum down. He didn’t mean to favor Kathleen; Monica knew enough pop psychology to understand Kathleen had simply needed him the most as a child. Vanessa was raised away from the ranch by her domineering mother. Monica’s own mother lived until her teenage years. It wasn’t fair to Mitch to blame him because she wanted more than he had been able to offer. She nodded, accepting the invitation, and forked a bite of eggs into her mouth. The table was quiet for a long moment, as if the room held its breath for something.
“We missed you last night at Vanessa’s.” Kathleen bit into a slice of melon, but didn’t give Monica a chance to respond. Maybe she felt the weirdness, too. “I’ve got the new rescue set for nine in the pool, and Jinx is second on the list at ten-thirty, if you want to come and watch. And I still don’t think it’s a good idea, but if you promise nothing strenuous, I can fit you both back in at three this afternoon. The water won’t hurt him, as long as you follow my instructions to the letter. I don’t have any trainers available, so it will be you, me, and the horse.”
What the — ?
“Well, I’ll be.” Mitchum grinned from his place at the head of the table, wiped his hands on his napkin, and sat back like a king at a banquet.
Nathaniel and Kathleen gaped as he made his way across the gravel to the mudroom door. Kathleen’s eyes widened, focused on Monica, who wanted to sink through the floor. Lord, but he looked good. Trick wore his usual vet outfit of a clinic tee shirt, faded jeans, and boots.
What was the man up to? And why did he already have her heart going a mile a minute?
She felt her cheeks redden, with embarrassment, she told herself, but couldn’t make her legs work to leave the table. A second later, Trick entered the room as if he delivered flowers to the ranch on a daily basis. He set his cowboy hat on a chair beside the buffet table and held the flowers out as if for inspection.
Texas Bluebonnets filled the simple, blue vase alongside a few stems of baby’s breath and the biggest yellow-and-orange Gerbera daisies Monica had ever seen.
“You deliverin’ for Bloomers now, Trickett?” Mitchum’s voice was loud in the quiet room.
Trick grinned. “Nope. This is a special delivery.” He reached for the card, sticking up from the middle of the display. Monica’s heartbeat clip-clopped in her chest and she shook her head no, trying to head him off before he really got started. Trick caught her eye, winked and continued on as if she wasn’t about to die right here in the dining room. He cleared his throat and read.
“Roses are red, Violets are blue, Monica Witte’s sure sweet, but she’s certainly hard to woo.”
Mitchum chuckled. Nathaniel snorted. Kathleen looked like she wanted to jump over the table and dance a jig.
Texas Wishes: The Complete Series Page 37