The Rancher's Family Thanksgiving

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “I knew you’d be a dangerous distraction in the kitchen,” she joked, adjusting the temperature and bending to put the pecan pie in the oven alongside the pumpkin.

  He traced the curve of her hips with both hands. “Not nearly as much of one as I’d like to be, believe me.”

  “Oh, I believe you, all right.” Still tingling from his playful touch, she straightened, stepped away and reset the timer. The lust in his eyes was igniting her own. “Now, on to that apple pie filling…”

  He made a face. “Taskmaster.”

  Someone had to be, if they didn’t want to find themselves explaining how they’d come to either ruin or fail to complete three pies this evening. “When we’re all done, two hours from now, you’ll be thanking me for making such short work of this.” And leaving the rest of their evening free for playing…

  “I expect I will.” Tyler took her into his arms again. Hazel eyes glimmering with affection, he bent his head. “But before we work anymore, I need another kiss.”

  Loving the way he made her feel, Susie was only too glad to oblige. They were still kissing when the doorbell rang.

  “It seems to be our night to be interrupted by the bell,” Tyler groused.

  No kidding, Susie thought, as she reluctantly let him go. “You take care of that. I’ll do this.”

  Grumbling his aggravation, Tyler disappeared.

  Only to return a minute later, Susie’s sister Rebecca, and his brother Trevor, by his side.

  “What’s up?” Susie asked the newly married couple.

  It was clear from the color in their faces and the excitement in their eyes that something was going on.

  “We have news,” Trevor said, his voice hoarse.

  Rebecca nodded. Her eyes were moist.

  Her sister looked the way she had on her wedding day when she’d taken Trevor’s hand at the altar and prepared to take their wedding vows. Susie put the clues together that until this point she had largely ignored.

  They’re still honeymooning…incredibly happy…Rebecca’s under the weather….

  And suddenly, she knew.

  “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

  Rebecca nodded. Tears of happiness spilled down her cheeks. “Oh, Suze. We’re having a baby next June.”

  Tyler let out a whoop of pure delight and the two brothers hugged and slapped each other on the back.

  Joy flooded Susie’s heart and she gathered Rebecca in her arms.

  Susie didn’t need anyone to tell her how happy and excited Tyler was. His joy for his brother was clear for all to see.

  “Congratulations!” Tyler hugged Rebecca while Susie and Trevor embraced.

  “This is great news!” Tyler continued, when everyone had pulled apart. “The folks must be ecstatic.”

  Rebecca dabbed at the happy tears running down her face. “That is an understatement,” she said.

  “If it weren’t for the big Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow I think they’d already be knitting booties and planning the nursery,” Trevor teased.

  “Anyway, we’ll let you get back to your baking. We have to go find Amy and Teddy. We want to tell them, too.”

  Susie and Tyler congratulated Rebecca and Trevor again as they walked them to the door. And then all fell silent as they returned to the kitchen.

  “Wow,” Tyler said eventually. Still looking a little shell-shocked, he rubbed his jaw. “I’m going to be an uncle.”

  Susie measured sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt into a bowl. “Well, I guess this takes the pressure off the rest of us.”

  Tyler lifted a brow.

  Susie poured the dry ingredients over the sliced apples and mixed it all thoroughly. “Your mom was talking last weekend, about how much she wanted you all married. Now that she’s going to be a grandmother for the first time, I expect she’ll be a little distracted.”

  Tyler rocked back on his heels. “I wouldn’t count on that, at least not for long. My mom’s serious about wanting to see us all settled down, with families of our own.”

  So was hers. Susie put the apples in the crust, and dotted the top with bits of butter. She paused to tilt her head and study him beneath lowered lashes. “Does it bother you, that you won’t be making her happy that way?” she asked softly.

  Tyler shrugged and slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Who says we won’t?”

  Chapter Ten

  If you try hard enough, you will succeed.

  Tyler stepped closer, looking impossibly handsome and impossibly determined in the welcoming light of the kitchen. “Marry me.”

  Susie had known this was coming. She just hadn’t expected the discussion to happen tonight. She swallowed, loving him so much, too much, really… “Tyler.” She splayed her hands across his chest and hitched in a quick bolstering breath.

  “I know,” he murmured in a low, sexy voice that further stirred her senses. Ever so tenderly, he smoothed the hair from her face. “It’s not something I should be asking you just yet.” He kissed her lightly, persuasively and moved his torso in even closer, until his lower half rested against hers and she could feel the depth of his arousal. “I just want you to know where this is headed.”

  Susie did know and her fear of the future…of letting him down…in any way…was breaking her heart.

  He dropped kisses along the shell of her ear and buried his face in the curve of her neck. “I want you to know how much I care.”

  The next thing she knew he had an arm behind her back, another beneath her knees. One smooth move and she was swept off her feet and cradled against his chest. With long and resolute strides, he headed through the passageway that led to the master bedroom suite.

  “Tyler.” Susie drew in a quick excited breath. “We haven’t finished baking.”

  “We will.” Hazel eyes glittering playfully, he flicked the light switch with the back of his hand, then strode over to set her down next to the king-size bed. “But first things first.”

  Susie ignored the racing of her pulse and did her best to look as if she had little interest in making love with him again, when she knew darn well nothing could be further from the truth.

  “If that were the case,” she said, “you and I would still be putting together an apple pie.”

  Tyler grinned and gave her body a long, thorough once-over that promised untold delights. Slowly lifting his hot-blooded gaze back to hers, he said, “We’ll get to that, I promise. In the meantime—” he eased the sweater from her torso, the skirt from her hips “—I want you to let yourself go.”

  Her heart fluttered once in anticipation, then his lips covered hers in a kiss that was slow and sweet, urgent and commanding, soft and tempting. And Susie knew, no matter what the future held for them, she could not let the opportunity to make love with him once again pass her by. Standing on tiptoe, she wreathed her arms about his neck, and returned his kisses ardently, knowing no one had ever wanted her in such a fundamental way, knowing no one had ever made her want or hope for so much.

  He peeled off her bra. Her panties went next.

  She had just started on the buttons of his shirt when he went down on his knees in front of her. “Ladies first.” Using the pads of his fingers, he traced the satiny petals, found and luxuriated in the dampness that flowed.

  Susie swayed in his arms. They had barely started and already she could feel herself sliding inexorably toward the edge.

  Tyler released a sound that was pure male triumph, using lips and hands, coaxing response after response from her, until she was trembling, aching to be filled.

  She caught his head in her hands. “Now,” she said.

  He kissed the inside of her thigh. “We’re getting there. But you’re right.” He stripped off his clothes, lowered her to the bed, and lay down beside her. “It is time we got more comfortable.”

  He was hard as a rock as he stretched out over top of her and took her wrists in his hand, anchoring them above her head. Leaving no doubt about who was in charge, he kissed
her long and deep and hard. The softness of her breasts molded to the hardness of his chest. Her senses swam with the scent and taste of him. She opened herself to him and Tyler claimed her with the unchecked abandon she had come to know and love. Susie wrapped her legs around him, reveling in the hot, insistent demand, the thrust and parry. She surged against him, welcoming the commanding male possession, the sizzling sensations sweeping through her. She took him deeper inside her, tightening her hold on him as slowly and deliberately as he was claiming her, knowing even as they reached the pinnacle that it wasn’t going to last.

  Tyler had known something was wrong, even before he and Susie started to make love. He had known, from the moment he suggested marriage, that Susie was not ready to be his wife or look that far into the future.

  The hesitation in her soft golden-brown eyes was what had made him want to claim her, now, in the most emotional way possible. He knew it was the only way to make her face up to the fact that her need for him was every bit as deep and lasting as his need for her. And although that fact was undisputed, he could almost feel the sadness in her as they climaxed, and continued to kiss and hold each other, during the minutes that followed. It was almost as if she was saying goodbye to him.

  Stunned, he pulled away from her and saw the tears sliding down her face.

  TYLER’S HEART BEGAN to beat like a bass drum.

  These were not happy tears. Not even close.

  These were the tears of a woman who was trying—however reluctantly—to say goodbye.

  Reminded of all that was at stake here, Tyler tipped her chin to his and asked, “What’s going on?”

  Susie looked edgy and kissable, even as she became immediately defensive and elusive. “I don’t want to talk about this tonight.”

  Her golden curls tousled from their lovemaking, Susie dressed and went back to the kitchen.

  The rain that had threatened earlier had begun to fall in earnest now, adding to the dark, despairing feel the evening had suddenly taken on.

  Tyler pulled on his clothes and followed her.

  “It can wait until after the holiday,” Susie said when he had joined her again.

  Not in his opinion. Tyler positioned himself so she had no choice but to look at him. “If something is hurting you, Suze, if I’ve done something wrong here, I want to know what it is.”

  With a dispirited sigh, Susie took the pumpkin and pecan pies out of the oven, set them on top of the stove to cool. She put the oven mitts aside and turned back to him, the unbearable sadness he had felt in their last kiss, on her face. “I can’t marry you.”

  Tyler forced himself to show no reaction. He might not have wanted to hear this, but he had half expected her to say something similiar.

  Still holding his eyes—even more reluctantly now, he noticed—she gulped. “I thought—I hoped—I could, but tonight when I saw you with Rebecca and Trevor, saw how joyful you were over their news…” Tears blurred her eyes. She shook her head and went back to assembling the apple pie. “I realized I could never do that to you.”

  Knowing touching her now would be a mistake, Tyler stood, arms crossed in front of him, watching her layer the top crust over the filling. “You could never do what to me?” he prodded eventually, when she did not go on.

  Susie crimped the edges with more than necessary care. “Deprive you of a family of your own.”

  He waited until she had fluted the edges, cut slits in the top, reset the timer and slid the finished confection in to bake. He took her by the shoulders and held her in front of him.

  She studied him, silently assessing and deciding, Tyler figured, if she should get any further involved with him. He wanted her to feel she could. He wanted her to feel, as he did, that together they could surmount any obstacle.

  Assured of her attention, he said quietly, “I don’t understand.”

  SUSIE KNEW HE DIDN’T.

  That was what made this conversation so painful.

  Finding his tender touch unbearably poignant now that her decision had been made, Susie shrugged off Tyler’s light restraining grip. She forced herself to put aside her own selfish desires and remind, “The chemotherapy I took may have rendered me sterile, Tyler.”

  A fact, she noted silently, Tyler knew very well, as he had been around the day, years ago, when she had received the news.

  “May being the operative word here, Suze.” Tyler’s expression remained implacable. “You don’t know for sure you’ll never be able to bear a child.”

  Susie stared at the toe of her boot. She wished like hell her intuition were telling her otherwise. “I know,” she said stubbornly. Just as she knew, after seeing him happily interact with children of all ages, and delight over the news of his triplet brother’s impending fatherhood, that a life without children would not be a fulfilling one for him.

  “Fine, then.” Tyler moved closer once again. He released a long, frustrated breath. “If that’s the case—and we don’t know that it is—we’ll adopt.”

  Tears pushed behind her eyes. Susie blinked, refusing to let them fall, even as her heart filled with a mixture of bittersweet resignation and longing. “I can’t do that to a child,” she said in a low, strangled voice.

  “Love them?” Tyler taunted. Irritation creased his handsome features.

  Susie held up her arms to ward him off. “Start out being their mother when there is no guarantee I’ll be able to finish the job.”

  Tyler jammed his hands on his waist. “You’re in remission.”

  Now. Susie gritted her teeth and spelled it out for him. “I could just as easily go out of remission.”

  Tyler shook his head in exasperation. “Anyone, no matter how healthy, runs the chance of getting sick, Suze.”

  Frustrated he wasn’t taking her or her concerns seriously, Susie angled her chin at him. “But my chances are so much higher, Tyler.”

  He stared at her a long, debilitating moment.

  Susie felt as though she had not a single defense left. Still, she had to try to end this on a civil note.

  “I know this isn’t what you were expecting from me. It’s not what I expected to happen, either.” She swallowed around the growing knot of emotion in her throat. “But you’ll be okay.”

  He closed in on her with a hurt in his eyes and a purposefulness that had her trembling. “You really think so.”

  Tears gathered in her eyes. “You helped me heal, Tyler. Just like you help every other wounded being that comes your way, whether animal or person. And I’ll always be grateful to you for that.” Her voice caught. She had to force herself to do the unselfish thing. “And now it’s time for you to move on. Just the way you’re doing with Catastrophe and Smokey and her litter of kittens.”

  Looking even more betrayed, he countered, “I’m able to let those animals go because it’s part of my job. Because I can’t possibly care for every homeless or neglected animal I make well.”

  “The point is, you can do it,” she said evenly, studying the ruggedly handsome lines of his face. “You can heal and walk away. And that’s what you need to do here, with me.”

  “That is not what this is about,” he argued.

  Susie’s spirits sank even lower. “Then what is it about?” she asked around the ache in her throat, and the stronger one in her heart.

  Tyler continued staring at her, looking more grim and unhappy than she had ever seen him. “It’s more than the fact you’re afraid to commit to me, to marriage, to children.” He paused, shook his head disparagingly, as if wondering why he hadn’t seen it sooner. “You’re afraid to love.”

  Susie merely wished that were the case.

  The tears she’d been holding back began to fall. “I do love you.” More than she had ever imagined that she could.

  Angrily, she wiped her eyes. “Don’t you see?” She put up her hands to keep him from taking her in his arms again, and deliberately backed away, her look warning him not to even try and touch her.

  Her voice broke and pa
in spilled through both of them, as she concluded hoarsely, “That’s why I have to let you go.” So he would have everything he deserved. “Because I do love you so very much.”

  Tyler’s face turned to granite. “If you loved me, you’d risk anything and everything to be with me,” he scoffed in a low, censuring tone, looking at her as if she were a stranger he had no idea how to deal with. He stepped back, away from her, away from everything they had shared. “The fact you won’t…speaks volumes.”

  AT NINE THE NEXT MORNING, the rain that had started the previous evening was coming down in torrents.

  “Some Thanksgiving day,” Tyler muttered, standing in his kitchen, cup of cold, untouched coffee in his hand.

  The doorbell rang.

  Hoping it was Susie, there because she’d come to her senses, he rushed to get the door.

  No such luck. It was his mother.

  “Oh, honey, I’m glad you’re here.” Oblivious to the disappointment raging deep inside him, Annie unfolded her umbrella and set it next to the door. She wiped her shoes on the welcome mat, then hurried inside. “We’ve had a change of plans. We can’t have the dinner outside at our ranch. The testing center is too small.”

  Tyler had figured as much. He shut the door behind her. “I assume there’s a bad weather plan?” he asked his mother.

  Annie smiled. “Fortunately, yes. Beau Chamberlain has an empty soundstage we can use over at his movie studio. So we’re rounding up all the tables and carting them out there. Which is where you and Susie come in.” Annie paused, for the first time seeming to notice how dark and gloomy the interior of his house was. Eyes full of a mixture of motherly concern and curiosity, she rubbed her arms to ward off the chill of damp, November air and continued to study him. “We could really use both of you.”

  Figuring he might as well get the confessing over with, Tyler stated tersely, “Susie’s not here.”

  A slight lift of auburn brow. “Oh?”

  “I haven’t seen her since last night,” he admitted reluctantly.