“Now,” she pleaded. “I wanted it to be right.”
“We can wait—”
She didn’t let him finish as she lifted her hips, drawing him deeper. “It’s right,” she gasped.
“Don’t do this to me,” he groaned.
She gave him no choice when she wrapped her legs around him, driving him deeper.
“Be still,” he told her when she started to move. “Let me.”
She felt the first wave hit her, sending her free-falling into a word of colors. Tumbling, she floated in a world of sensations until he cried out her name.
Their bodies wrapped around each other and their hearts slowed to a steady rhythm, bringing a smile to Kate’s lips as she sighed with pleasure. Dusty raised his head to look at her, his eyes still smoky. A smile eased the angles of his face as he pressed his hand to her cheek.
“See what happens?” he asked. “See what you do to me? I completely forgot what I came to tell you.”
She turned her head to press a kiss to his palm. “What’s that?”
“I’ll be leaving in a few days, and—”
“Back to riding bulls?” A chill of fear shot through her. She had known it was coming, sooner or later, but she’d held out hope that he might suddenly have some common sense when it came to his life.
“That’s what I do.”
She couldn’t continue to be silent about it. “Even though it could mean serious injury? Or maybe even death? I know what the doctor said. I know what numerous concussions can cause.”
“That’s the decision I’ve made.”
“Why?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Why not? Rodeo has been my life since I was seventeen. It’s what I know best, and I’m good at it. I’d be a fool to walk away from it.”
The stubborn determination in his eyes almost made her give up, but she couldn’t. “Rodeo could end your life, too,” she reminded him.
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he said, avoiding eye contact. Tugging at her disheveled hair, he twisted a strand of it around his finger. When he looked directly at her, his eyes were soft and needful. “Come with me, Kate.”
Disappointment warred with a short burst of happiness. “I can’t, Dusty.”
“Why not? With Aggie leasing the farmland, how will you keep busy?”
Trish had been told, and Aggie had let people know her plan. A few had professed interest, but Kate wasn’t ready to give up yet. “I have my accounting. Besides, this is home.”
“How do you know? You’ve never really seen anything else. Come with me and see the sights. Maybe you’ll find a place you like even more.”
All she could do was look at him, still unable to understand what drove him to do what he did. Apparently he felt the same about her. “You really don’t understand, do you? Home means nothing to you.”
“Maybe someday it will.”
“If that’s what you believe, it never will. So go. There’s nothing keeping you here.” It was time to let go. She had no hold on him and never would.
“I’ll be back,” he told her, as if it would change things. “I’ll come back to see you, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
She couldn’t look at him. “Why should it matter?”
“Because it does. At least to me.” He paused for a moment, but she didn’t allow herself to hope. “I don’t know what the future will bring, but I grew up knowing that rodeo and marriage don’t work. I even tried it myself and learned the hard way.”
“Who said I was interested in marriage?” she asked, battling for her pride. “I don’t need you or anyone else. I know what I want out of life. I have plans for the future. Goals. You don’t, and that’s where we part ways. Don’t worry about those feelings you might have. I’m sure they’re nothing. And don’t bother about coming back to see me. It isn’t necessary.”
He shook his head, rolling away from her and leaving the bed to sit on the edge of it. “You remind me of my mother. She was just as stubborn as you are, and for most of my life I didn’t like her.”
She felt the cold of his absence, but refused to let him see it affected her. “If that’s your way of giving someone a compliment—”
“Now that I’ve met you, I’m beginning to understand her more. She worked hard to keep a roof over our heads when my dad left. When she remarried, I hated the man, but now I see that he’s not the villain I thought he was. In fact, he’s a pretty good guy.”
It wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be to remain unemotional and uninvolved. “Do you see them often?”
“I don’t see them at all. They live in Arizona now. She keeps trying though, and calls me once or twice a year.”
Turning her head so she wouldn’t have to look in his eyes, she kept all emotion from her voice. “Maybe you should call her and tell her that you appreciate what she did for you.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” But he didn’t seem convinced.
She felt him hesitate, and then lean on the bed. Reaching out, he caught the end of her hair and trailed it across her breasts. The bed shifted before his lips found what he’d just teased, and she hated that she couldn’t stop the way her body responded. She was his, body, heart and soul.
And he planned to leave.
“Maybe I should check on that tractor,” she said, moving away from him.
He caught her and pulled her closer to trail kisses over her throat. “You’re not going anywhere,” he murmured, before he pressed his lips to hers and entered her again.
Kate groaned at the intense pleasure he gave her. Had she been foolish enough to believe that if they made love, everything would fall into place? She didn’t think so.
Later, when he was gone, she lay on her bed in the silent house wondering when regret would set in. When it didn’t, she went over every moment they’d been together, gathering memories to last the rest of her life. Had Aunt Aggie done the same?
Now she had even more reason to never marry. No other man would be able to take Dusty’s place in her heart. If he ever returned to Desperation—and she doubted he would—he could never know how much she loved him. She couldn’t risk that. In a tiny corner of her heart, there would always be the fear that she would lose him, just as she had her parents. Letting him go now would be easier than losing him later.
She would always keep these moments close in her heart. He would just never know it.
Chapter Twelve
Dusty spent the night and all the next day wishing he had done things differently. He hadn’t meant to let things go so far, but he’d been hard pressed to refuse Kate. He wanted to tell her he was sorry he hadn’t been the gentleman he’d always believed he was. He wanted to tell her a lot of things. But all he could tell her was goodbye.
With a feeling of heaviness in his heart, he knocked on the Claybornes’ door. When Aggie answered, he tried to state his intentions in a calm, clear manner.
“I need to talk to Kate.”
“She’s not here, Dusty,” Aggie answered, propped against the door.
Disappointed to the point of desperation, Dusty pulled off his hat and swore under his breath. He looked at Aggie. “Can I come in and wait?”
Hesitating at first, Aggie smiled and held the door open. “Might as well. I’m here all alone,” she said as she sat in her chair at the table. “Trish is visiting Hettie for the night. Kate was supposed to give her some cooking lessons today, but Hettie offered to do it. Trish is getting better at it, but I pity poor Morgan. Of course you don’t have to worry about anything like that.”
Dusty tried for a smile. He wasn’t sure what to do or say. He hadn’t planned on a conversation with Aggie about her niece’s cooking skills.
“Don’t just stand there,” Aggie told him with a wave of her hand. “Pull up a chair. You’re gonna have a long wait.”
Before his butt hit the chair, Dusty stopped and looked at her. “Why?”
Aggie took a long drink of her ever-present coffee while he continued to sit. “S
he’s at the Blue Barn.”
Dusty felt his blood run cold. Narrowing his eyes, he stared at her. “What’s she doing there?”
Shrugging, Aggie avoided his gaze. “Oh, whatever it is that people do at the Blue Barn. Personally, I’ve never stepped inside the place, but folks don’t see things the way I do.”
“She ought to know better than to go there alone again,” he grumbled.
Aggie cleared her throat and looked at him, a nervous tick causing her right eye to twitch. “She didn’t go alone.”
Dusty’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. “Who’s she with?”
“Well, now, Dusty,” she hedged, “I don’t know that I ought to tell you that. I don’t know that it’s any of your business.”
The edges of the room began to turn red. “I’m making it my business.”
“I don’t know what you did to my poor Kate,” Aggie said, a mournful frown on her face, “but that girl was just moping around this place all day.”
“She was?” He wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but it definitely meant something.
“Well, that and biting everybody’s head off,” she added.
He noticed the twinkle of mischief in her eyes. Realizing what she was up to, he leaned back in his chair and tipped his hat down over his eyes. He hadn’t missed Aggie’s attempts at matchmaking and, at times, had been grateful. But tonight she wanted him riled up and crazy. She counted on him to run off half-cocked to drag Kate out of the Blue Barn. Well, he wouldn’t give either of them the satisfaction.
“I reckon I’ll just hang around until she wanders on home,” he said, hiding his smile. “You got any more of that coffee? Could be a long night.”
He heard and felt the smack on the table. “Dusty McPherson, you’re a bigger fool than I thought,” she declared.
Although the sound of her hand hitting the table had jarred him, he attempted to play it cool. Tipping his hat back with a knuckle, he smiled at her. “Now, Miss Aggie—”
“Get your good lookin’ butt out of here and go get her,” she demanded in a way only Miss Aggie could. “If you care anything at all about her, you’ll grab her by the hair and haul her out of there, before she gets into trouble.”
“If she’s with somebody she should be safe, even at the Blue Barn,” he assured her.
“Depends on who she’s with, doesn’t it?”
He waited as the air thickened in the suddenly silent kitchen, while Aggie looked at him. He didn’t want to make a guess.
“Who’s she with?” he finally asked.
When she told him, Dusty let out a string of swear words on his way to the door and hit the ground outside at a run.
ADJUSTING HIS EYES to the dim interior of the Blue Barn, Dusty cringed at the loud music that assaulted him as he searched for Kate. The place was packed with people, but he didn’t see any of them. He was busy searching for only one particular redhead as he pushed his way through to the dance floor. After a quick look around, he started to turn to find a better spot, but a flash of auburn caught his attention.
He had calmed down since he’d left Aggie at the farm, until he saw Kate on the dance floor in the arms of the last man Dusty wanted to see her with. Just as Miss Aggie had told him, Ted Haverly had his arms wrapped around her. Dusty felt the cavernous room shrink as everything in his view disappeared except her. Setting his jaw, his fists clenched in tight balls, he made his way to the dancing couple, not caring who he ran over to get there. Unable to speak, he reached them and wrapped his fingers around Kate’s upper arm.
“Hey, Dusty,” Ted protested. “The lady is with me.”
Dusty slid his glare to the man. “You only got one part of that right, Haverly. The lady part.” He tugged on Kate as she tried to pry his hand off. One look in her eyes told him he was pushing his luck with her. Whether Kate was agreeable to a dance or not didn’t matter. Letting go of her arm, he managed to pull her into his arms, ignoring her partner.
Ted attempted to put himself between them. “Seems to me you could use some lessons on how to treat a lady,” he suggested, a mean glint in his eyes.
Dusty forced a smile. With an effort, he pushed down the insult he wanted to say and reminded himself he never cared much for fighting. But he’d never had jealousy push at him before, either, and he couldn’t say he liked it all that much.
“This won’t take long, Ted,” Kate said, with a warning look for Dusty. Ted walked away with a shrug and no comment. Kate’s eyes blazed when she looked up at Dusty. “I’ve never known you to be rude and nasty.”
Dusty squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed the misery she was putting him through. “I can’t help it,” he admitted. “Just the thought of him—” He shook his head, trying to get the picture of them together out of his mind.
“It’s none of your business what I do,” she snapped. “You don’t have any right—”
“Don’t I?” he asked, locking his gaze with her fiery one. He felt her hands resting on his chest, sure she would push him away any second. Fine. He’d just push first, in his own way. “Seems to me you’ve got that a little wrong,” he went on, shoving his luck a little further.
The muted lights cast strange shadows across her face, but even in the dark, it glowed with a blush. “You’re wrong.”
He shook his head, holding her tighter. “You asked me to, hon. I remember you distinctly—”
She had spun around and was gone before he knew what was happening. Being bigger, he was able to get through the crowd with sheer size and followed her. He reached the door as it swung shut behind her.
The parking lot fluorescents afforded him little light to see much, but luckily his hearing was better than average, and he knew where she was.
“Damn it, Kate,” he swore, “just listen to me.”
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she whispered from the shadows of the building. “I was having a good time before you showed up acting like a…a…”
“Jealous fool?” he asked, sneaking up to capture her in the dark.
“That’s close,” she sniffed.
“It’s your fault,” he whispered.
When she twisted in his arms, he pressed his body against hers to hold her still. “If you don’t stop fighting, I’m going to take you home,” he warned her. “And don’t think I won’t.” She settled down again, and he breathed a sigh of relief. “Now maybe we can talk.”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“Oh, yes, we do.” He held her stubborn gaze with his own.
She closed her eyes, breaking the contact, and sighed. Opening them, she relented. “What do you want, Dusty?”
Now that she was giving him the chance, he wasn’t sure exactly how to say it, so he said all he could. “I came to say goodbye.”
A flash of sadness crossed her face, but disappeared immediately, replaced by a stubborn tilt to her chin. “I thought we already did that. Yesterday.”
He knew he’d bungled it, but he hadn’t realized how badly. “Yesterday had nothing to do with it, except that I was going to tell you then. I couldn’t say it though. And I couldn’t leave without seeing you again. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but—” He hadn’t expected her to run off to the Blue Barn at the first opportunity. And he sure hadn’t expected her to be there with another man. “Just tell me one thing, Kate.”
She wouldn’t look at him. “What’s that?”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m doing what you suggested. I’m getting some perspective.”
Frustrated, he shook his head. “You know this isn’t what I meant.”
“It isn’t?” Her smile was small and tight, a definite sign of her belligerence.
“Kate, don’t sell yourself short. You’re better than this.”
“And what’s wrong with this?” She gestured toward the building behind them. “It’s not all that different than the life you lead. A lot of these people are like you. Live for the moment, travel from one place to anothe
r and to another—”
“No, it’s not the same,” he said, shaking his head. “My life is…well, okay. My life may be similar in that respect, and it is different than yours. But that’s no reason—”
“My point, exactly.”
He didn’t know what he could say to change things back. He couldn’t believe that what had happened the day before could have changed her so much. “I won’t ride bulls forever, you know.”
“And then what?”
He shook his head. He’d never given a lot of thought to what he would do when that day came, or even if it would come. That’s not how he had lived.
“Or what if something happens to you?” she continued. “Next week? Next month?”
“It won’t.” He wouldn’t let it.
She was watching him, watching his face so closely he could almost feel her gaze penetrate deep into his mind. “You’re pretty confident, aren’t you?” she asked.
He needed to make her understand. “I have to be to do what I do. Otherwise, I would’ve been stomped flat a long time ago.” He’d even come close to that happening, more than once, but it hadn’t kept him from climbing back on a bull and doing it all over again. “Besides, if something does happen, it isn’t going to affect anyone but me.”
Again, there was a flash of sadness in her eyes, and this time it remained. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“I’ve made sure it’s that way.”
“It’s your life,” she said, her voice flat and unemotional and not at all like her. “And if nothing happens and you keep riding, that’s good. I hope it goes that way. But that isn’t what this is about.”
“Then what is?”
He watched as she seemed to struggle with whatever it was she wanted to say. Finally, she looked him square in the eye.
“You can’t commit, Dusty. Not to people. Not to one person. Not even to yourself. You take responsibility for yourself only, and you don’t do a great job of that. No aspirations, no plans beyond rodeo. When you’re too old to do that, you don’t know what you’ll do, because you can’t look beyond the moment. I don’t know why. Maybe you do.”
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