Cory rode up to them, sweat dripping off his brow. “A few have broken off from the herd. Do you want me to go after them, maybe take a guest with me?” He let his gaze drift to Krista for a minute, his meaning clear.
Landon shook his head. “No, you get back to leading. Have Hank take up the back. I’ll go after the strays . . . and I’ll be taking Krista with me.”
Looking more than a little disappointed, Cory nodded and then turned his horse and headed back for the front of the herd.
“The boy likes you,” Landon said, his rich baritone making the hair on her arms stand on end.
“Cory’s a doll. One day he’ll have all the women falling at his feet.”
Landon snorted. “Well, that is if they can stand a cocky cowboy.”
“Yeah, there’s nothing worse than a cocky cowboy.”
He lifted a dark brow. “Are you saying I’m cocky.”
Her gaze shifted from his, down to his lips, then lower, over his wide chest, down to the denim that cradled his cock.
“You’d better be careful about the way you’re looking at me. A man might misinterpret that stare.”
She met his gaze again, the side of her mouth lifting. “Didn’t Cory say something about some strays?”
His eyes darkened as he watched her, and his brows lifted. So . . . he understood her.
“Let’s go,” he said, slapping her horse’s rump. He raced past her, and Krista hung on for dear life as she tried to keep pace with him.
They ate up the miles, her heart in her throat, exhilarated and a little scared at the fast pace. The wind made her eyes water, but it felt good. When she finally came up alongside Landon, he glanced over at her, a wide smile on his gorgeous face.
Lord help her but she wanted this man. . . and not just for the moment.
He pointed off to his left. There, on the horizon, were a few specks. The strays.
“Grab your rope and get ready.”
“Can’t we just urge them back? Do we need to rope them?”
A devilish smile played at his mouth. “We’re not heading back quite yet.”
Her throat went dry and anticipation rippled along her spine.
She turned in the saddle, looked out at the vastness around her. There were only a few copses of trees scattered here and there. Hardly enough for cover. The rest was wide-open space.
“No one will see us,” he said, laughing under his breath.
They made quick work of roping the three calves, and Krista felt a spark of pride for having brought one in on her own, without Landon’s assistance. His pleased smile did wonders for her confidence. He had kissed her before taking the rope from her and leading the cows over to a tree where he tied them up.
“What about the horses. Shouldn’t we tie them up as well?”
“They won’t go anywhere. Jeremiah knows better.”
“Jeremiah?” She tried not to laugh. “You named your horse Jeremiah.”
He grinned boyishly. “My granddaddy had a horse named Jeremiah when I was a kid. I loved that horse, and this here,” he said, rubbing the beautiful black stallion, “is a descendent of that old mare.”
“What about my horse.”
“Nick.”
“Why Nick?”
The grin faded before her eyes. He took off his hat and wiped his brow. “It’s short for Nicolette, or Nikki.”
She’d had to ask. “Someone close to you?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
It was the girl from high school. The girl he was going to marry, who left him for the city, and who had never come home. The love of his life.
Krista bristled that she should feel jealousy over a woman who had died so tragically, but she couldn’t help it. That woman had left her mark on Landon, and that is more than she had ever done with any man.
“Do you miss her?”
He stared at her for a long moment, and Krista got the impression he really wasn’t seeing her.
“What was she like?”
He shrugged. “Nikki liked to ride. She was damn good at it too.” He smiled softly, as though remembering a moment in time. “Her Daddy used to say she could ride before she could walk, and he was right. She was at home on the back of a horse. She’d even sleep in the barn when her horse was sick.”
“She sounds like a wonderful person.”
He nodded. “Yeah, she was.”
Krista wanted to ask more about Nikki, and about his life, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask. She just wanted to be with Landon for however long they had.
She took the steps that separated them and looked up at him. “Well, I suppose we had best get back to the group.”
He frowned. “We have a little time.”
“That’s what I hoped you’d say,” she said, falling to her knees before him, and making quick work of the buckle on his jeans. She unbuttoned his fly and his cock sprang out, erect and ready to go. She yanked the pants until they pooled at his feet, then kissed the plum-sized head, taking it into her mouth, rolling her tongue along the ridge. He tasted salty, and velvety smooth.
His hands fell to her shoulders, clenched tight.
She ran her fingers up his calves, over the backs of his knees, and then cupped his ass. Taking him deeper, she let one hand wander to his scrotum, finding the sensitive patch of skin, and stroking it with her fingers.
He released an unsteady breath, and a few times he eased back, his cock slipping from her mouth. She looked up at him, and he’d be watching her with heavy-lidded eyes that promised much. Even though he braced his arms, she leaned forward again and kissed his head once more, tentatively at first, then growing bolder, taking him into her mouth as far as she could stand without choking.
His fingers raked through her hair. “Stop, or I won’t be able to.” Even as he said the words, he was reaching for her, pulling her up to him. He had her pants unbuttoned and down past her hips before she could blink. With toe to heel, he got rid of his boots, and flung his jeans aside, urging her to do the same.
It took him two seconds to slip on a condom, and he was pushing her down to the ground and onto her back, his cock teasing her opening as he kissed her hard.
Urging her to wrap her legs around him, he slipped into her with a sigh. “You feel so good, Krissy. So damned good.”
With each thrust her body tightened, climbing ever higher to the pinnacle that would push her over the edge. She knew he was close too, trying hard to keep his completion at bay until she came.
She reached the heavens, bursting into a thousand pieces and she heard Landon follow behind, breathing a contented sigh as he found his release.
* * *
Landon knew he was in deep.
The woman beneath him was everything he wanted in a woman —— sweet, kind, and with a passion for life that matched his own. Yet, she was also a woman from the city, who had a career that meant a lot to her. From the moment she had stepped off the plane, he had thought her untouchable, a woman as opposite to him as oil to water. The funny thing about it was Krista hadn’t even come to Wyoming to try and find herself like so many others did. No, she’d come on a mercy mission for her sister. No doubt if she’d done the choosing, she’d be laying on a white beach in the Caribbean, sipping drinks with little umbrella’s in them.
Yet for all that she’d originally fought it, she had changed the most in the past week. With each day she grew more courageous, and he saw the familiar gleam in her eye as she watched the passing scenery.
He recognized the yearning. Knew that she shared a common love for this land. He took solace in the fact she came from a small town herself. This wasn’t so foreign to her, yet she’d chosen to leave Grady in search of her destiny in the big city.
What if? He allowed himself the luxury of wondering what would happen if she would decide on a life here, with him. An image of her sitting beside him in a rocking chair on the front porch of his log home came to mind and he smiled.
“What’s the grin for, cowboy?” she
asked, and he glanced down at her. How lovely she was. How sated she appeared. Happy in the arms of her lover.
“Do you really have to ask that question?”
She laughed, the sound light and airy. “No, I suppose I don’t.”
Grinning, he glanced over at the cows who chewed on grass, and let out a sigh. “We should get back before someone comes looking for us.”
She groaned, letting him know he wasn’t the only one who wished time could stand still. He could make love to her every hour on the hour, and it still wouldn’t be enough.
“What a shock it would be to find us like this.”
“Too much of a shock, I’m afraid,” he said, standing and pulling her up. They both jerked on their pants and righted their clothes, and just in the nick of time. On the horizon, a plume of dust was growing.
“Someone’s headed this way,” he said, handing her one of her socks.
And that someone was Cory. Riding like the devil was on his heels.
Uneasiness worked its way up Landon’s spine. He wouldn’t have come on his own, leaving the others with only Hank, if it weren’t important.
“Something’s wrong,” he said, urging Krista on the horse.
By the time they had the cows untied and headed in the right direction, Cory was already on them. The look on his face told him something had happened . . . and it wasn’t good.
“Sam’s horse bolted.”
“Is he all right?”
Cory shook his head. “I don’t think so. He’s screaming something fierce. We’re all afraid to move him.”
“Damn!” He glanced at Krista. “I gotta get there. Cory will bring you back. All right?”
She nodded, and he was off.
He cursed himself. He’d never left the group to the ranch hands care before. The guests were his responsibility and he’d allowed his better judgment to slip, so he could sleep with a woman that had gotten under his skin.
And now a man was hurt because he’d been too busy with his head in the clouds, making love to a woman in the light of day, without thinking of the consequences of his actions.
When he got to camp, the entire group was huddled around Sam. Landon dismounted even before stopping Jeremiah, and raced to the group who stepped aside.
He breathed a sigh of relief, seeing Sam sitting up, nursing his right arm, but looking none the worse for wear. “The damn horse bolted,” he said, swiping at the sweat that fell from his forehead onto his dusty Wranglers.
Some people just weren’t cut out for the West, and Sam was one of those people. He didn’t have an adventurous bone in his body, and found more comfort in the technology of the age, rather than the thrill of riding a horse across the flat plains.
Relieved Sam wasn’t hurt worse, Landon helped him up and allowed Betty to mother him while he checked on Sam’s horse.
Soon Sam looked comfortable, sitting at a campfire, watching the other guests set up camp, while Landon kept an eye out for Cory and Krista.
Where the hell were they? And why the hell was he suddenly so fired up and jealous at the thought of the two of them alone together.
It shouldn’t have taken this long to get back.
Ten minutes later the two finally showed. Krista had dirt on the back of her shirt and her jeans. She looked like she’d been made love to . . . that or she’d been thrown hard —— flat onto her back.
His loins tightened remembering the feel of her lips on his cock. The sweet velvety softness of her tongue as it swirled around the head. The way she used her teeth so lightly, grazing him, nearly causing his knees to buckle.
“Did you get thrown, too?” Betty yelled after Krista had dismounted and gave her horse a quick rubdown.
“What?” Krista asked, her brows furrowed.
“Your back is all dirty. Looks like you got thrown like Sam did.”
Heat flushed her cheeks a flattering pink. She swallowed hard and shook her head. “I did that while roping a cow. Got my feet tangled up a bit and fell on my ass —— butt.”
The older woman laughed and clapped Krista on the back. “Sweetie, it happens to us all.”
Krista threw Landon a look that promised she’d get back at him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Landon loves the land he was born to and despises the city that took his only love from him —— a country girl born and bred. A woman who found the lure of the city too much, and in the end became a junkie, dying of an overdose in a unfamiliar city, far from the beautiful land she’d once called home.
Krista looked up from the journal to Landon, who was busy rubbing down his horse. He wore no shirt, and his muscles rippled beneath the golden skin that had grown even darker this past week.
Though they made love every night, with every mile that brought them closer to the end of the trail, Krista could feel Landon start to distance himself from her. What had she expected? Their affair would end and she would return to Seattle, back to a fast-paced life she wasn’t so sure she wanted anymore.
She couldn’t even garner the enthusiasm for the damned article.
As though sensing her perusal, Landon turned to look at her, a soft smile curving his lips.
Her heart gave a little tug.
It would be so hard to leave him. She had found herself in these past weeks. A part of her she thought long dead. A part of her that wanted to pick up the phone when she got back to Seattle and call her family. Landon had done what her family had been trying to do for a decade. Make her see the bigger picture.
He pointed off to the distance and she turned to see a pack of wild horses racing along the plain, kicking up dust in their wake. Free, that’s exactly how she’d felt this past week.
A knot formed in her throat at the beauty of it all.
She was in deep and she didn’t know how to get out. A part of her yearned to run away, yet the other yearned to stay. Stay in this land that made her look at life so differently. Stay with this man who made her feel alive for the first time in years.
“Hey you. How about coming with me to gather the strays?”
Krista turned to find Cory standing before her, hands on hips. She hadn’t spent much time with the young cowboy this week, and now on their final day on the trail, she felt obligated. Setting her journal aside, she took the hand he offered. “Okay, I’m all yours.”
“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to hear those words,” Cory said, flashing a boyish grin as he helped her mount. He ran and jumped on his horse’s back. With a parting glance at Landon, she raced after him.
The wind whipped her hair out of its sloppy ponytail, blinding her for a moment. Ahead of her, Cory glanced over his shoulder, a wicked gleam in his eye as he pushed his horse harder.
Krista’s heart pounded in rhythm with the horse’s hooves as she caught up to him. After several minutes Cory slowed his horse and they continued on at a normal pace. “You’ve come along way, Krista”
Krista beamed at his praise. “Yeah, I suppose I have.”
“You seem happier now than you were when you arrived.”
Was it that obvious, even to him?
“I am happy. Very happy.”
Cory grinned. “I hope you’ll come back some day.”
She sobered instantly. Would she return? Could she stand to? An image of Landon and a faceless woman with a child on her hip came to mind and she quickly wished it away. Landon would marry a woman, and that woman who would live in that gorgeous log home with her amazingly beautiful husband. Krista couldn’t bear the thought. “I hope so too.”
Cory lifted a brow. He was so cute, and one day he would sweep a woman off her feet. “You love him, don’t ya?”
She frowned. “Who?”
He snorted. “What do you mean, who? My cousin. The two of you have been thicker than molasses these past two weeks. And don’t think I can’t hear him sneaking over to your tent every night.”
Her cheeks burned. If Cory knew about their liaison, chances were the majority of the gues
ts knew what was going on.
“Landon’s been a lot happier too.” Cory wiggled his brows. “Of course, who could blame him being he’s getting a piece of ——”
“All right,” Krista blurted, and seeing the cattle ahead, pointed. “There they are.”
“Nice diversion, darling, but it won’t work. I’m not gonna let you go until you tell me what you really think of Landon.”
“I like him.”
“Well, that’s obvious.” His eyes narrowed a little. “What do you think of him though. How does he measure up to other men you’ve been with?”
“For God’s sake, Cory.”
Again he snorted. “I don’t mean that literally, since I already know.” He flashed a cocky grin. “Us Rogers men are known for our skill with our large co ——”
“That’s a little too much information,” Krista replied, trying hard not to think of Landon’s impressive size. Her stomach tightened remembered the delicious way he’d teased her last night, pressing just the head of his cock against her opening, slipping out, and in, so achingly slow that she’d wanted to scream. “I think your cousin is a nice guy who is going to make some girl very happy one day.”
Cory frowned. “I take it that someone isn’t you?”
“How can it be?” She shrugged as though it wasn’t a big deal. “My life is in Seattle, not here. What we’ve shared has been great, and I’ll never forget him.”
Cory cast a sideways glance at her. “He could be more to you if you let him. What would be so bad about keeping your relationship going? Who knows, maybe you could fly out to see him every other weekend.”
“I can’t afford that, Cory.”
He shrugged. “He could always fly to Seattle, though I know he doesn’t like going to the city.”
She sat up straighter. “Why doesn’t he like the city?”
“He had a bad experience.”
“Such as?” Though she already knew the story Betty had relayed to her, she wanted to know more.
He sighed, obviously reluctant to tell her. Cory took off his hat and ran a hand through his thick hair. “The woman he loved moved to the city and it ruined her.”
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