by Alexa Davis
My solution had been to beat the shit out of the guy, but Tucker had refused, and apparently, was still fighting the good fight, trying to work his way out of trouble. I knew better. I was pissed at him for not fighting dirty like everyone else was and respected the hell out of him for being the better man, even though it was making his life harder.
I cursed softly to myself as I realized I’d been holding the same page in front of my face for at least five minutes while my mind wandered. I figured I hadn’t understood how much I missed my brother. But, the thought of him meeting Rachel made me smile in spite of myself. I couldn’t wait for her to charm him into submission, then kick his butt, just like she’d done with the guys. They certainly loved her for it. Pete and the couple guys who had nowhere else to be for the holiday dragged almost as much as I felt like I did, now that the sunshine she brought with her was gone.
Work was obviously not going to happen, so I grabbed two more beers and joined my father on the veranda, which he’d apparently claimed as his new office. I handed him a beer, forcing him to put down the sweet tea he’d been nursing.
“Glad you came out,” he drawled. He lifted his feet off the ottoman so I could climb past him to the hanging swing on the other side of the small table that currently held a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses, one empty. “I was afraid I’d actually have to get up and get myself a beer.” He tipped it my way and I nodded.
“My pleasure.” I set my hat on the swing next to me and leaned back, looking out over the front grounds. “Rachel’s coming home,” I stated, not looking at him. He grunted and I heard him take a long pull from his bottle. “I’m taking her to meet Tuck at Shelly’s tonight.” I glanced over and he nodded at me.
“Don’t break anything tonight. If you gotta fight, take it outside. I’m not paying for damages, what with the hoopla going on over that boy driving drunk.”
“Well, I was hoping for no fight at all, but I’ll pass the message along when I see him,” I drawled. I drained the rest of my beer in one swallow and sighed, adding the empty to the one he’d already set on the porch between us.
“Ain’t no matter, son,” he drawled, pointing at the pitcher. “We’ll just drink that until your mother takes pity on us. You look too pretty to be hiking back and forth to the kitchen. What would Rachel say if she saw you in a sweat?” he mocked me as he poured me a tall glass of the homemade sweet tea.
Almost as if on cue, and probably because he’d heard my dad, Pete arrived with three more bottles and joined us as I was pulling out the bracelet to show my dad. I slipped the box back in my jacket pocket. I’d talk to him later about my plans.
I moved my hat to the porch to make room for him, and he sat, gently swinging until he even had me pushing back and forth. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and he snorted, spraying a fine mist of beer over his shirt and mine.
“Goddamn it, Danny,” he spluttered and laughed. “I can’t help it. I didn’t become a horse-master on account of I like sitting still!” he yelped as he took his handkerchief to his face and shirt. My dad rolled his eyes at us and it just made Pete laugh even harder. Between our laughter and the weight of the two of us combined to begin with, I thought that old swing might actually fall off its anchors before we calmed down.
When Rachel arrived, that’s how she found us. Two grown-ass men giggling like a couple of twelve-year-old boys finding Dad’s girlie magazines for the first time, holding onto half empty bottles of beer and trying our damndest to control ourselves just enough to not bring the swing crashing to the veranda.
Seeing her there, beautiful and casual in a little sundress and sandals that laced up her ankle to almost her knee, I sobered up real quick. The strappy, little dress hugged her waist and hips her hair was pulled back from her face, and if we’d been alone, I’d have had the wine-colored fabric belted around her waist in an instant, just to free up the skin underneath to touch and to taste. I considered canceling with Tucker and scrapped the idea in the same thought. It had been months since we’d talked. I had to go or it might never be right between us again.
Rachel dared me from the top of the stairs to close the distance between us. I set down the sad remains of my beer and stood. Her expression faded from challenge, to concern, to wide-eyed apprehension as I stalked towards her, until she buckled and, with a squeal, skipped down the steps. By the time I caught her, she was halfway to her quarters. I swept her up into my arms without breaking stride, and carried her right into the little guesthouse.
She only struggled until she had wriggled around in my arms enough to face me. Then she kissed my neck until I let her wrap her legs around my waist. I felt her grind on me as she whispered and pled with me to let her touch my skin. She fumbled with the buttons of my shirt, and I lifted her ass to get to my belt. The shirt tugged free of my jeans, and I shook it down off my arms one at a time so I wouldn’t have to put her down.
She used her hands and thighs to push my jeans down as we kissed, and we fell to the bed, laughing, when they caught me up around my knees. I rolled her off of me and kicked off my boots to get my pants off while she ran her hands over my chest and back.
“How many years has it been since I touched you?” she said as I grabbed both of her slender wrists in my hand and pulled her to the top of the bed.
“A hundred. A thousand,” I replied, holding her wrists above her head while I inched her dress up over her thighs. “Too damn long, that’s all I know.” I teased myself, slowly revealing an inch of thigh at a time, while the blood pounded through me and my body begged for release. She whimpered as my fingers reached the softest skin at the apex of her legs, and her back arched as she tried in vain to push herself against my playful, light touch.
“Hold on, darlin’,” I breathed. Her body tensed, but she stayed perfectly still as I released her captive wrists and used both hands to push her dress up to her waist and spread her legs a little at a time, until I could kneel between them. I stroked and fondled the warmest part of her through her panties until they were soaked through and she was biting her lip to keep from crying out too loudly. Her whimpers and wordless pleas for release made me harder than I ever remembered being. The torture was nothing compared to the sweet taste of her as I removed her panties and delved into her with my tongue and fingers.
“Please, just stop, just, just come here and make love to me, I need you, I need…” Rachel babbled as she begged for me to take her, but I need to see her release before I even thought of my own. Two fingers were a tight fit, but she was so ready, so willing to take them in, that I added a third. Her gasp and the movement of her hips as she took me into herself almost brought to my peak just from watching her. I used my free hand to slip her breasts free of the dress that still clung to them.
She shook the straps down her arms, and the dress bunched up around her waist exactly as I’d pictured it. She slipped her arms free and held onto me as she came. Her head fell back as she cried out and dug her fingernails into the flesh of my arms. I held her there until her body collapsed to the bed and she lay there, shuddering and panting below me.
Her eyes widened as I stripped my boxers off and pushed her knees farther apart. I was hard and swollen, more ready to go than I wanted to be, but I couldn’t wait another minute to be inside her. I drove myself into her with one, long thrust and started a slow, deliberate rhythm as she rocked her hips, matching my pace to her own.
She lifted her hips at the end of each stroke, lifting her ass off the bed. I held her hips so that she stayed that way, only her upper back and shoulders against the bed, her arms pressing down at her sides to balance and help her push up on me.
I looked down the length of her body, only just noticing the pale pink shine of scar tissue on her otherwise perfect abdomen, disappearing under the darker crimson of the fabric. I slid my fingers over the scars on her right side and released into her with a roar, as my fingertips slid over the smooth, soft skin. I held her in place for an eternity, throbbing inside
her as she squeezed down on me.
Finally spent, I collapsed next to her and pulled her into my arms, the dress still around her waist. I breathed the scent of her in and nuzzled her as she sighed, pressing her back against me. We lay quietly while we recovered and finally she turned onto her back and looked at me without speaking.
“We’re going to meet my brother tonight, if that’s okay,” I said. She stiffened against me, then relaxed and met my eyes.
“But, we can do this again after, right?” she asked, her eyes wide and hopeful. I gave her breast a squeeze.
“Sounds like we have a plan.” I picked her up and rolled under her, so she was straddling my waist as I lay on my back. “But, just in case we don’t have the energy when we get back, how about round two, darlin’?” She shook her head, but giggled as I slid my hand over her buttocks and squeezed. “Hold on, I have something for you.”
I held her by the thigh and leaned out as far as I could to grab my jacket, with the bracelet still inside. I handed her the large box with the actual bracelet, and pulled the smaller boxes out one at a time, setting them around her in a semi-circle across my stomach.
She gasped as she opened the bracelet and stared down at me, wide-eyed. I grinned up at her as she opened box after box and we celebrated Christmas in July. By the time she was done, her bangle sparkled and chimed with charms and beads of every kind I had found that reminded me of her, including a rearing horse and a cowgirl hat and boots.
“It’s beautiful.” Her eyes shone, but her smile eased my nerves that I’d just made my girl cry. “I have no words for how much I love this. Thank you.” She kissed me long and deep, which was all the thanks I wanted anyway. I couldn’t wait to see her wearing it out tonight, finally wearing something that could remind her that I was thinking of her, all the time.
Chapter Fifteen
Rachel
I thought I’d be exhausted after the way we made love, but I was energized and excited as we showered together. No matter how much he had touched me, I craved more and even now, as I offered him a soapy loofah so he could wash my body, I felt the heat growing in the pit of my stomach.
But showering with him was completely different than making love. Wherever he touched me, I still felt it linger, but instead of lust, I felt more love for him. I couldn’t keep seeing him without telling him that the accident had stolen my ability to bear him children, and I couldn’t abide the thought of him leaving me later because I hadn’t.
Now, with his hands roving my body, gently washing me, massaging my neck and shoulders, I reminded the voice in my head that I was getting ahead of myself. Just because I’d never shared intimacy like this, caring for each other not just during sex, but after, didn’t mean that it was as special to him.
His eyes were all for me, roving over me and silently reminding me that everything he could see was his. The intensity of his gaze made me shiver, and gooseflesh covered my arms in spite of the steaming-hot water pouring down on us. I crimsoned and looked away, mortified that now he could see me blush down my chest to the bottom of my ribcage. I pulled away and climbed out of the shower. By the time he rinsed and joined me, I was wrapped up in a bath sheet that hung to my knees.
I took a quick look at my dress and it showed it to look like it had been through exactly what we’d done to it. It was wrinkled beyond belief and damp with sweat. I threw on one of his shirts and snuck back to my quarters for clean clothes, relieved that it was still quiet because of the holiday. I blew out my hair, applied a two-minute face, and opened the door just as he knocked.
“Well, damn. You look like a fresh spring morning, Miss Rachel,” he drawled, pushing his hat back on his head and grinning at me. I laughed and took the arm he offered. On the drive into town, he was so quiet, I thought something must be wrong, but I didn’t want to ruin the nice time we were having by asking. Finally, when I thought I couldn’t stand the pressure to the silence any longer, he sighed and started to tell me about his brother Tucker.
I’d heard about Tucker from the guys while we worked, even about how they’d accidentally dated the same woman. But, I still managed to be pretty damn surprised when he told me who that woman was.
“Oh. My. God,” I stammered. “Does that woman have no shame?” He stared out the windshield as though he would turn to stone if he so much as glanced at me. I coughed, and he refused to even relax his hold on the steering wheel. “Hey,” I said. I ran my fingers down his arm until he relaxed. Then I punched him in the shoulder.
“What the…” he started before I could interject.
“Are you going to start trusting me anytime soon?” I demanded. I punched him again, much lighter than the first time. “Or is it your brother you don’t trust?” I snuggled in close to him so he could put his arm around me. He chuckled and squeezed me into his side.
“No, I guess I’m really just not sure he’s ever going to forgive me. He and a few other people always took my lack of serious relationships to mean that I was a hound dog, but I’m not. In case the current audience was wondering,” he added hastily. “He was so hurt and angry, and she screwed up his plans so royally. I never understood how he could think I had anything to with that.”
I felt his body sag in his seat. He spoke from a hundred nights of guilt and the pain of losing a loved one and a best friend and it resounded in the hollowness of his voice.
“I bet you’re going to find out that everything is okay,” I tried to reassure him. “She’s a whore. By now, he’s got to be putting the blame where it belongs, which is apparently Sara Abbott’s push-up bra.” Daniel snorted and his body lost some rigidity as he began to laugh out loud.
“God, Rachel. You don’t pull punches, do you?” He laughed and sighed. “Damnit, I’m trying not to remember what a let-down it was when she took that thing off, now that I’m picturing it. Do you want me picturing that padded monstrosity?” He laughed harder when I vigorously shook my head in the negative slapped the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “Oh, honey, I wish you’d have saved that for when Tuck met you. He’d be rolling.”
I grinned, happy that I’d made him laugh and that he was letting himself look forward to dinner with his brother. After all, Tucker was the second oldest, only younger than Daniel by a year and a half. All the stories the old goats had told me about the ranch painted the young Hargrave boys as inseparable no matter what kind of mischief they were getting into. It was difficult to see the man next to me as a child, willing and capable of releasing frogs into the workers’ quarters, but even Pete laughed, recalling stunts the two had pulled as young adults that involved strippers and poker games.
I crossed my fingers. I may not need the excitement of the brothers in their heyday of terrorizing Lago Colina, but I prayed that, at the very least, I would be able to finish my dinner without witnessing a fistfight.
Shelly’s Place was exactly what I’d imagined. The exterior was beat up and as dusk fell and the lights came on, I was unabashedly delighted by the signage, a flickering, wavering candle to draw lost souls inside. The ‘S’ at the beginning of Shelly’s was completely burnt out, and none of the remaining letters lit completely.
I was staring at the exterior of a bar from a biker movie, complete with Harleys and trucks parked haphazardly on the gravel lot. I watched the front door anxiously as we approached, nervously hoping to see a bar fight spill outside as a bad guy got thrown out the door. I brushed aside the twinge of disappointment when we walked through the door to clean, wooden tables, smiling waitresses, and good ole boys laughing over their bottles of Bud Light.
Despite its rather nefarious appearance, Shelly’s had apparently been a mainstay for ranch hands and truckers, bike clubs and police officers, for decades. The pool games were guaranteed to be clean, and the beer was cheap and cold. It was still early, so the band was just setting up and already the tables were full and bar was two-deep all the way to the stage.
Luckily for us, Tucker had arrived and secured a table nea
r the front already, and he instantly made my list of people when I walked up to a pizza and next to it, a massive plate of nachos drowned in the house specialty, five-alarm chili. No sooner were we seated than a pretty redhead set frosty pints in front of us and asked Daniel if he needed anything else. She laid her hand on his shoulder as she asked, and Tucker and I eye shared an eye-roll at his expense.
I looked Tucker over as Daniel repeatedly tried to gently rebuff the over-interested waitress, doing my best to control the jealousy welling up inside of me. Tucker seemed to be enjoying his brother’s increasing agitation. The corners of his mouth twitched and there was an almost manic gleam in his eyes that made me wonder what I was missing.
In looks, he took more after his father than Daniel did, a younger carbon copy with the same, craggy features and deep-set eyes that were striking, while being just shy of truly handsome. He looked out of place in his charcoal, single-breasted suit, as though he were meant for a rougher existence than an office would provide.
“Seriously, Amanda, what did he offer you if you would hit on me?” Daniel blurted out. I jumped at the sudden explosion of laughter across the table and stared at Tucker, who was wiping a tear from his eye and still chuckling to himself.
“I’m sorry, Amanda. You were great.” He sniggered as he handed her a folded twenty. “I guess you really are in deep, Danny.” He huffed out a breath and grinned at me, while I gaped at him, completely dumbfounded. Daniel sat rigid beside me, unsmiling. I squeezed his thigh under the table and when he looked down at me, I winked and smiled at him.
“You got me, Tuck,” Daniel ground out through his clenched jaw. “I’m in real deep with an amazing girl.” He put his arm around me and I watched Tucker’s eyebrows disappear into his hairline. “Got no time for anyone else with this little beauty around.” I frowned and glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.