Tall, Dark and Cowboy

by Joanne Kennedy

  If only he could carry that satisfaction over into the rest of his day. Most of the time, he felt impatient and rushed, as if there was something he needed to do that he couldn’t quite grasp, some essential element that was missing in his life.

  It seemed like he always wanted to be somewhere other than where he was. When he was at the car lot, he wanted to be at the ranch. When he was at the ranch, he wanted to be in Tennessee, back at the farm where his future had seemed so assured. Even now, on this perfect quiet evening, he wanted to be somewhere else.

  He wanted to be with Lacey.

  He wondered if she’d really gone for a walk. She was hardly a country girl, and the plains at night were wide and lonesome—hardly the place for a suburban socialite. She probably wasn’t much better suited for hiking than she was for horseback riding.

  But she’d said she was going for a walk, and she’d probably gone, even if the dark open prairie scared her. He was starting to realize there was more to Lacey than he’d expected—a core of steel at the heart of her soft beauty. She’d ridden, even though it was obvious that the horses scared her half to death. She’d even climbed back on Captain after he’d confirmed all her fears by dumping her in the dirt. Even though it obviously hurt her to climb back in the saddle.

  He stroked Captain’s mane as the horse bent over the feed trough. He needed to stop thinking about Lacey. Maybe it would help if he thought about the woman he really needed, the woman he hadn’t met yet. The one who would be an equal partner. Who loved ranch life. Who would work with him, side by side, everyday.

  He’d pictured her a dozen times, a dozen ways, but she changed all the time. Maybe she’d be blonde, maybe brown-haired. She’d be sturdy but not heavy, muscular yet feminine. She’d come with all the qualities he wanted in a wife: a love of animals, some ranching know-how, and a steady, rock-solid disposition. She’d also have an insatiable appetite for sex.

  Hey, ranching wasn’t everything.

  Thinking of sex took him back to the motel, back to the moment Lacey had taken charge. He remembered how she’d pushed him back on the bed, straddled him with her hips, set her hands on his shoulders, and gripped him with her thighs like a barrel racer in a tight turn. He remembered her face, upturned in ecstasy, the yellow light casting faint shadows on her cheeks from her shuttered lashes, her lips pink and swollen from his kisses.

  He pictured her breasts, the soft flesh cupped in her hands as she rode him. Her total lack of self-consciousness as she took her pleasure, and the way she’d blinked in surprise when she finished the long, shuddering arc of her orgasm. She’d looked down at him as if she’d forgotten where she was, and then light had dawned in her eyes as if she was recognizing him for the first time.

  He shook his head, trying to shatter the image. He needed to focus on the attributes Lacey didn’t have. She didn’t love animals—not like he did—and she didn’t know a dang thing about ranching. And as for her disposition, it was anything but steady. She seemed to swing from passion to fear to anger to elation in a heartbeat, her feelings always at the surface, her passion always threatening to boil over and burn somebody. He’d be better off with someone more solid. Placid. Even-tempered.

  Boring.

  What was he going to do, marry a cow? With passion came strength, and at least he always knew what Lacey was thinking. She wasn’t devious like Krystal, who was always nursing an ulterior motive like a little demon hidden in her heart. Lacey he could trust. In that way, she was steady as a rock.

  He kicked at a clump of straw on the floor, scattering it over the worn boards. He was rationalizing. He was trying to make Lacey over into the woman he needed.

  But maybe he could do that. Hell, you could learn about ranching. You could grow to trust animals, and once you trusted them, you could love them. Even in the short time she’d spent with Captain, she’d managed through sheer force of will to move from hesitant fear to a cautious affection.

  And if she was willing, Lacey could do anything. Even back in high school, she’d been full of that indefinable quality cowboys call “try.” Try meant you made the effort to take on challenges. It meant you were willing to change and grow. It meant you were willing to get back on the horse that threw you off.

  “Try” meant you could take what life threw at you and make the best of it, and that was the single most important thing when it came to ranching. Nothing in nature stayed the same. One year might be prosperous, the next a disaster. One day might bring sunshine, the next a blinding snowstorm. Surviving the challenges was one thing; being committed to continuing the fight was another. Sticking with this life took courage and stamina and the determination to get back on the horse after it bucked you off.

  And Lacey had all those things.

  It might be handy to find a woman who had all the qualities he wanted—but how likely was it that he’d ever find another woman who inspired him with the feelings he had for Lacey?

  Suddenly, he needed to see her. He knew she felt trapped here, hunted by strangers, stuck with nowhere to run. He knew she felt trapped by her feelings, too, stuck in a situation where her determination to stay independent was endangered by their enforced togetherness.

  He knew she didn’t want a relationship right now—maybe not ever. Her marriage had been difficult, and she was as reluctant to love again as she had been to ride—but he knew she had the courage to try.

  All she needed was for someone to offer the challenge.

  Chapter 32

  Something moved at the edge of Lacey’s vision, a bright slash in the sky. She turned, but she’d missed it—and as she turned, something streaked across the patch of sky she’d turned away from.

  “Meteors,” said a deep voice behind her. Chase’s boots crunched on the dry earth.

  She wanted to turn and look at him, but another gleam of light sped across the sky, and she felt riveted, her eyes searching for the next streaking comet. What seemed so permanent was changing minute by minute on a scale she couldn’t even imagine.

  “Falling stars,” Chase said, as if she didn’t know what a meteor was.

  “Falling?” she asked. “Or flying?”

  “Flying, maybe.” He settled down beside her, bringing his knees to his chest and clasping them in his arms as he tipped his head back to share the view. “I never thought of it that way.”

  “Falling would mean they’re failing.” She spotted another and traced its path with one finger. “Flying means they’re moving, changing, going somewhere.”

  “Like you?”

  “Not right now.” She’d been flying as she sped across the country, the Mustang’s bald tires eating up the highway. But she wasn’t flying now. The urge that had struck her at Trent’s party—the urge to simply run fast and far, wherever her feet could take her—had struck her over and over, but she had nowhere to go.

  “You’re still flying, Lacey. Still changing.”

  She was scanning the sky, concentrating on something outside herself, so she almost didn’t notice when his hand stole into hers. When she focused on it, she felt everything keenly—his skin rough and warm, the faint pressure as he squeezed her hand.

  “I mean, look where you started with the horses this morning, and look where you are now. Even a seasoned rider might not have gotten back on Captain after getting tossed like that.” She could hear a smile lightening his tone. “I mean, your butt had to hurt on the way home.”

  “It still hurts.”

  He reached up with his other hand and rubbed her back between her shoulder blades in slow, gentle circles. It was nowhere near her injury, but somehow it made the ache in her tailbone feel better. She tilted toward him. The fathomless depth of the sky, the wide expanse of the land, the sounds of crickets and calm breezes going about their business without her, had made her feel alone and insignificant, but Chase’s touch reminded her she was real. She wanted to feel his warmth, savor the feeling of closeness to another human being. It wasn’t Chase, she told herself. She just di
dn’t want to be alone.

  Another star traced a shining path across the sky, and he paused, resting his hand on her shoulder. They sat and watched the distant fireworks of the universe in silence for a long while, her hand still clasped in his, his arm around her back, sitting in the dirt by a clump of sagebrush in a world she didn’t know and had never expected to find.

  For some strange reason, she’d never felt so at home.

  ***

  Chase stared resolutely at the stars, knowing that if he looked at Lacey, he’d kiss her. She’d looked so alone when he’d walked up. So forlorn, seated Indian-style like a lone toddler in front of the ultimate big-screen TV—but what she was watching was the whole world, spinning around her without a thought for a woman alone and struggling.

  Everyone needed somebody. Lacey might not want to trust a man again, but she had to trust someone. And he wanted it to be him.

  But he’d promised. He shouldn’t even be holding her hand. After all, he’d hired her. He was her boss now, and any sexual shenanigans were out of the question.

  She sighed and uncrossed her legs, tilting toward him as she bent her knees and tucked them sideways. Her hand was in his, his arm around her shoulder. He could hear her breath soft beside him, the one human sound in the quiet Wyoming night.

  Maybe he could fire her just for tonight. Then they could do what they wanted. Because he had a feeling she wanted as much as he did.

  She tucked her head on his shoulder, and they watched another star streak through the night. He knew the stars were falling, not flying. Nothing was constant, and there wasn’t a single thing in the universe you could depend on—not a sky, not a star, and certainly not the future. He’d worked out a perfect plan for the ranch—one that included finding the right partner so he’d have children to pass it on to. He wanted to pass on all his father had taught him—but now here was Lacey, the last person he’d expected to see in Grady, throwing a cosmic wrench into his carefully planned life like a new star spinning into his orbit and throwing him off course.

  “Calamity Lacey,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Like Calamity Jane. She came out here and shook up everybody in the West. That’s what you’re doing to me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.” He turned, brushing her forehead with his lips. “You’re fired.”

  She tucked her head under his chin. “Thanks.”

  She tilted her face up to his so his next kiss fell on her lips. That was all the signal he needed. Moving his hand up from her shoulder to her nape, sliding his fingers into the silky mass of her hair, he let her hand loose and swept his fingers over her face. Tracing the curve of her smooth cheek with his fingertips, he kissed her temple, her cheekbone, the hollow beneath it, and finally her lips.

  Suddenly the night sky wasn’t black and cold and bottomless; it was deep velvet, soft and nurturing, a shroud to hide and protect them. Lacey paused when his lips brushed hers, and for a heartbeat, he thought she might push him away, but then her lips parted and let him in.

  Now it was sexual.

  He lost all sense of where they were and focused only on the feel of her skin and the touch of her lips. He drew her close and let himself fall, the sky swelling over them as she let him pull her with him onto the ground. A pebble dug into his shoulder blade and a stick poked his ribs, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care how prickly or hard or unyielding the world was as long as he could be the one to bear it. Him, not Lacey. Pulling her on top of him, he nested his hands in her hair as she caught her balance and settled on top of him.

  “You’ll hurt yourself,” she murmured, scattering soft kisses down his jawline. “The rocks…”

  “I don’t care.” He brought his hands up to frame her face and scanned her face. “I don’t care, as long as nothing hurts you.”

  Her eyes closed while she drew in a breath. He knew she’d retreated inside herself to decide on her own whether she’d let him in or not. She was choosing what power she’d give him and what she’d keep for herself.

  When she opened her eyes again, her gaze was soft as the night sky and her lips curved into a smile.

  “Let’s go home,” she said. “I don’t want anything to hurt you either.”

  ***

  Lacey tugged Chase to his feet and they walked back to the house hand in hand, helping each other as they stumbled over rocks in the dark. Staring at the stars had made her night-blind, and he wasn’t doing much better at navigating the uneven ground.

  She’d vowed to steer clear of Chase and decide her own future. But she’d known ever since she’d seen him sitting behind the counter at the dealership that he was part of her future. She could fight it, or she could face it.

  If she faced it, maybe she could be the one to determine just how far it would go.

  It wasn’t like Chase took anything away from her when he touched her. Having sex with her husband had felt like handing over more than her body, but having sex with Chase felt liberating, like she was setting herself free.

  She paused inside the back door, glancing from the hallway on the left that led to his room to the new rooms on the right where she’d been sleeping. They’d go to her room, not his.

  Of course all the rooms were his. It was his house. But she’d put out her things that day, stacking a few paperback novels on the nightstand, tucking her clothes into an empty dresser drawer, arranging a bottle of perfume and some lotions on the dresser. She’d done her best to make it her own small space in the world, and she wanted to share it with Chase—not intrude on his world, but welcome him into what little she had that was her own.

  She’d been grateful for the soft mattress the night before, when her back had ached from her fall, and she was even more grateful now to feel it give beneath her as she fell into it with Chase. There was no time for preparation, for plumping pillows or turning back the quilt. Chase fell with her, propping himself on his hands and knees at the last moment so he wouldn’t crush her while they resumed their kiss.

  His mouth met hers again, and he let his hips fall, laying the length of his body against hers. She could feel his arousal between them, impossibly urgent, as she wrapped her legs around his waist and pressed him closer with her. Everything in her body warmed and softened. She felt nothing but elation, pure joy, and she wondered if the stars minded falling, because she was falling, falling fast and hot, and she didn’t care. She’d let her emotions burn high tonight, and if it was the last time—well, she had a feeling it was going to be worth it.

  Chase slid his hips against hers and she reached up to pull at his collar, a rush of giddy joy bubbling up when it gave in her grip. Snaps, not buttons. They popped open one after the other, top to bottom, and she watched her hands slide over his skin. She took in the square shadows that defined his chest and the muscles below it, memorizing the dark trail that narrowed and dipped below his belt buckle and flowed like a river through the muscular topography of his body. Running her fingertips over square hills and subtle valleys, she followed her fingers with her gaze. She’d seen it all before, but now they had time, and she wasn’t going to miss a single detail.

  He kissed her again, and she focused every ounce of her consciousness on the feeling of his lips brushing hers—the taste of his tongue, the slight hint of mint on his breath, and the sweet scent of grass and pine and straw that might be some manly aftershave or might just be the scent of a man who led his life outdoors. She tucked her face into the angle under his jaw and breathed him in as she rubbed her cheek into the rough stubble of his beard. Slipping the shirt off his shoulders, she stroked her hands over the muscles of his back.

  She could feel his hands running over her too, exploring with the same fervor. He was watching her with the same intent determination to see everything, to miss nothing, to savor every second. They were both living wholly inside the moment, relishing every detail of touch, taste, and smell.

  She was determined not to miss a thing, and she hadn�
�t—except for the one, inconsequential detail of how she’d ended up naked so fast. She’d been so lost in tracing the contours of his body that she hadn’t realized he’d uncovered hers, and her T-shirt and bra, the pink pants and sandals, were scattered on the floor like debris from a bomb blast.

  She laughed, tilting her head back, but the laugh turned to a gasp as his hands swept down her belly and cupped the warmth between her legs. His fingers stroked while his kiss deepened. She was slick, so wet and ready, and his touch made her lose her sense of how perfect now was. She arched up to meet the next moment, the one where he’d be inside her, where the heat would build and she’d explode like one of those falling stars slamming to the earth and sending up a fountain of sparks and flame.

  “Easy,” he whispered. “We have time.”

  She knew he was right, but she wanted that release so badly. Struggling to slow her heartbeat, she clenched her fists and pressed her cheek into his shoulder, closing her eyes and letting her body move with the feelings building inside her as his fingers dipped and stroked. Twice she thought she was lost, and twice he drew back, kissing her back to the present. Then he kissed her breasts, her belly, the curve of her hip, and suddenly his mouth was there, right there, and she could feel warmth rising inside her.

  She rose on the wave, the warmth cresting and breaking until it washed away and left her lying limp on the bed. When she swam back to reality, he was propped on one elbow, watching her with all the wonder she’d felt watching the stars. She felt like what they’d discovered in each other was as big as the universe and just as deep, just as far-reaching, and just as eternal.

  Reaching up, she stroked her hand down his chest, starting at his shoulder and trailing her hand down the hollows and swells. She traced his muscles with the back of her fingers, then swept her hand back up to wrap around the back of his neck and pull him down for a kiss.