Colorado Woman (The Hansen Women)

by Coburn, C. C.

  “No–one.”

  He could hear the pain in her voice––it spoke of regret and lost opportunities––and he was reminded again of how much Maggie had sacrificed for her sisters.

  He drew her into his arms and murmured in her ear, “I aim to change all that, if you’ll let me.”

  “Please do!”

  Mac smiled at the urgency in her voice and said, “I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you.”

  He’d dated a lot of women in his life, but no–one had touched him the way Maggie had; no–one had wound themselves so deeply into his psyche, nor around his heart. No–one had even come close.

  “I love you, Maggie,” he said and kissed her before she could protest, before she felt she had to make a similar declaration.

  He had no notion of how Maggie felt about him, only that she wanted to spend the night with him, hopefully make love with him.

  “Oh, hell!” he muttered as he drew back.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t have any condoms.”

  Maggie grinned and touched his lips with her finger. “I noticed a box as I lit the candles on the bedside table. I… was a little… embarrassed, so I shifted them behind that stack of books.”

  “Thank you, Gramps!” Mac said and kissed her, then lifted her in his arms and strode towards their shack. They walked inside and kicked the door shut, then placed Maggie on the bed. She leapt off it.

  “I’m all wet!” she protested, grabbing one of the towels and stood to dry herself, then her hair with another.

  Mac watched entranced and forgetting how cold he’d been only moments earlier. She bent forward and wound her towel around her head in a distinctly feminine gesture. God, he wanted her so bad!

  Glancing up she noticed him watching her, picked up another towel and threw it at him. He caught it easily, dried himself and wondered what to do next. By her own admission, Maggie was not very sexually experienced.

  He needed to take this slow. But that was hard to do since she was standing in front of him, naked apart from a towel wrapped around her head and another around her body, tucked in just above her breast.

  He wanted her so bad, the evidence was there for both to see. So, instead of wrapping his own towel about his waist when he finished drying himself, he placed it over a chair and stood facing her, and watched as Maggie’s eyes went on a slow perusal of his body.

  Her chest rose and fell as her eyes paused at his groin and she swallowed, then glanced back up at him shyly.

  And then she did something wonderful. She stripped away her own towel and strode towards him and rested her hands on his shoulders. “Make love to me, Mac,” she said, and they were the sweetest words he’d ever heard.

  With a grunt of approval, he fitted his hands to her waist and pulled her closer. Her mouth opened under his as Mac kissed her with all the love he had in his heart and prayed that in the morning his heart wouldn’t be broken. For something niggled in his mind that something wasn’t quite right and that Maggie’s heart and soul belonged to another…

  Chapter Thirteen

  Maggie woke with the birdsong the next morning and stretched deliciously.

  An unaccustomed soreness reminded her she wasn’t alone, and it took her a moment to realize where she was: in the old miner’s shack with Mac—not at home in her bed, alone.

  She smiled as she remembered the night before, what a gentle lover Mac was, how he held back his own pleasure for her to take hers first. How ardently he’d held her, kissed her, made love to her. It was as if he’d thought her a precious gift. But he’d been the gift, he’d given her so much pleasure, awakened something in her that Maggie had suppressed for too long.

  She wanted so much to tell him that, but didn’t know how.

  She turned on her side to watch Mac as he slept, tempted to wake him, to make slow and tender love to him until he came to properly. She wanted to reach out and stroke her finger across his lips, feel the stubble now marking his jaw—

  “Are you going to just lie there and stare at me like that, or are you going to come over here and kiss me good morning?”

  Maggie didn’t need any further encouragement. She climbed over him and straddled Mac, pressing her breasts to his chest and her lips to his.

  “Careful!” he warned, as he repositioned her slightly so she didn’t kick his groin. Then he kissed her.

  Maggie squirmed against him, reveling in the strength of his morning erection.

  “You’re acting as if you didn’t get enough of me last night,” he protested with a smile.

  “I didn’t,” she said, and moved down his body kissing his chest, his abdomen, and his erection, enjoying how it responded to her touch.

  “Do I need to punish you for being so greedy?” he demanded softly.

  “Yes, please! Any punishment you see fit would be appropriate,” she agreed.

  With a yelp of surprise she soon found herself pinned under him as he worked his magic on her with lips tongue and teeth. Within moments, Maggie was ready for him. But this time, she wanted to be in total control.

  She pushed his shoulders until he was sitting on his haunches, then reached out to grab a condom, ripped the packet open with her teeth and sheathed him. Moments later she straddled him again, sinking onto him. He caught her hips to slow her eager progress, stifling a smile of pleasure as she sank lower. He groaned as she took him all in and let her take the lead in their lovemaking. And she did. Amazing what a woman could learn in so short a space of time, he mused, but then Maggie had been waiting to be made love to by a real man all her life. She’d been a quick study.

  He teased her breasts the way he’d learned she liked to be touched, encouraged her with moans of approval and pulled her down towards his eager mouth so he could suckle each breast in turn. As he knew it would, it increased her pleasure so much that, moments later, her rhythm increased and he watched her start to climax as the sun lit her golden hair. Gathering her to him, he joined her over the precipice taking the fading cries of her ecstasy into his mouth.

  They lay joined together long moments later, each unwilling to break the loving bonds that held their hearts together.

  Later, as they lay curled in each other’s arms each soaking up the minutes they had left together before returning to their families, Mac said, “I want to make this work for us, Maggie.”

  “What are you saying? Everything worked perfectly!”

  “No, I mean us. A relationship.”

  “I don’t have any expectations outside of the night we’ve just shared.”

  “I mean, longer term.”

  “There can’t be any longer term, Mac. Your life is on the world’s stage, mine is here in Coldwater, Colorado.”

  “It won’t be, if the school closes.”

  Maggie sat bolt upright. “What do you mean, if the school closes? If you have so little expectation of saving the school, of attracting people to Coldwater, then why in hell are we all putting in so much effort?”

  Angry now at his sounding so defeatist, she got out of bed, found her towel and wrapped it around her.

  Mac sat up and held out his hand to her, inviting her to sit on the bed. She ignored it and paced the floor. Then she disappeared outside and came back moments later, fully dressed.

  “We need to get back to our families,” she said, her voice sounding flat.

  “Sweetheart, sit down. Let’s talk about it.”

  “What? So you can be a realist, while I remain the deluded dreamer? ”

  With angry movements she ripped open her backpack, found a toothbrush and squeezed the toothpaste onto it, then she filled a glass with the bottled water left beside the bed. She disappeared outside again.

  Mac got out of bed, wrapped his towel around his hips and went to use the outhouse.

  When he got back, Maggie had already stripped the bed and was stuffing the sheets into a plastic bin liner.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “Mac, the
re’s nothing more to say. In spite of your initial enthusiasm for the barbeque, you’re now having second thoughts, think it will be a dismal failure and you want to back out to save face before it all goes pear–shaped.”

  “No. The condom broke.”

  Maggie sank down onto the end of the bed, a half–folded towel in her hands. “Hell.”

  Mac took the towel from her, finished folding it then sat beside her. He reached for her hand, but she resisted him.

  “I’ll do the right thing by you, Maggie.”

  She turned to glare at him and demanded, “What? About the barbeque—or the baby you think I might be carrying?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, don’t worry about the baby, it’s the wrong time of the month for me.” And I probably can’t have kids anyway, so don’t trouble yourself on that score.

  Mac could barely believe the bitterness in her voice. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  She sprang to her feet. “What’s wrong? You’ve just told me you think the barbeque will be a failure. That the school will close! The whole town believed in you, Mac. Believed in your pulling power to make this work. If you hadn’t stepped up to the plate and given it your backing, then no–one would have lifted a finger to make it a reality. And now you want to just give up! That’s what’s wrong!”

  “I never said anything about giving up.” He ran his hand back through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “How did we go from discussing our future to you accusing me of giving up on the town?”

  “You said, ‘If the school closes’.”

  “Maggie, you need to be prepared for that happening. But that doesn’t mean I’m giving up, far from it. You have my complete support. I want this to succeed, more than you know.”

  Maggie picked up her backpack and the trash bag and went out to the car. She threw them into the back seat then climbed in the front. With a shrug, Mac joined her, put the key in the ignition and started it.

  With a groan of disapproval, Maggie got out of the vehicle, went back to the shack and pulled the front door shut and checked it.

  She climbed back in and said, “Remember what I told you about bears?”

  Mac sat looking at her for the longest time, but she refused to meet his eyes. Finally, he put his vehicle in gear, reversed up then turned onto the track back to Maggie’s place.

  “Can you drop me at my front gate,” she said as they neared the main gate to her ranch. “I need some exercise.”

  Since it was the only thing she’d said to him the entire fifteen minutes they’d been driving back to the ranch, Mac wasn’t going to argue about it.

  He thought they’d both got more than enough exercise the night before.

  He pulled up and Maggie reached for her door–handle. But Mac was too fast for her and engaged the SUV’s central locking, preventing her opening the door.

  “I’m not in the mood to play games. Unlock the door please.”

  “Not until we’ve cleared the air. We can’t part on these terms, sweethear—”

  “Don’t call me, sweetheart!”

  “Okay, then, Maggie. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you; that was never my intention. I just want you to be prepared for the worst.”

  “Play another tune, Mac, because I’m not interested in listening to this one,” she ground through clenched teeth. “I cannot and will not contemplate failure.”

  “Fine, then at least we’re agreed on something,” he said, seeing no point in arguing further. He couldn’t believe how stubborn Maggie was being. Sheesh! All he’d done was try to stop her getting her hopes up too high. “Now, about our relationship—”

  “There is no relationship, Mac. We had sex. That’s all.”

  Mac felt the words like a punch to his solar plexus. So this was the tiny thing niggling away at the back of his mind last night. The fear that Maggie wasn’t as committed to him as he was to her? She was looking for an easy out. Maybe picking a fight with him over some misplaced words of his was her way of achieving it?

  “That was way deeper than just sex for me, Maggie. And I’m pretty sure it was for you too.”

  “Let’s be realistic shall we?” she said. “Since you seem to think I’m such a dreamer. At the end of this summer, you’ll be going back to your life in Nashville. And I’ll either be teaching here—or in Spruce Lake. We live in very different worlds, Mac. It was never going to work.”

  “Since you’re so sure it would never work, then why did you come up to the shack with me last night? Why did you let me make love to you all night?” Why are you breaking my heart?

  “I had an itch. It needed scratching,” she said, staring out through the windscreen.

  “Bullshit!”

  His outburst had the desired effect. She shuddered slightly at his expletive. Then she turned her blue–eyed gaze on him and the emptiness he saw there, scared Mac to his marrow.

  “Hey, you guys!”

  They both jumped with fright as Pixie stuck her head through Mac’s window. She was riding Apache, Clancy was on Solace.

  “We were waiting breakfast on you. Then we all gave up. Gramps said you two would probably stay at the shack all day, living off love and sunshine.”

  Maggie’s lips thinned as she looked beseechingly at Mac. He released the door lock and she was out the door before he could tell her they’d talk later.

  Pixie slid off her mount and offered him to Maggie, while she doubled up with Clancy on Solace.

  Mac sat and watched as the three of them rode their horses back to the cabin and wondered how the hell he was going to win back Maggie’s trust. And he was determined to find out what she really wasn’t telling him.

  “I’m off,” Paige said, as Maggie walked in the door. She was dressed in her high–heeled cowgirl boots, jeans that looked as if they’d been painted on and a diamante encrusted denim shirt. Paige’s homage to the West, Maggie thought with a touch of bitterness, then said, “But you just got here! Can’t you at least stay the weekend?”

  “Angus is missing me. He wants me home.”

  It took a moment for Maggie to realize she meant her dog, not a boyfriend. “He told you this in a phone call, did he?” she asked skeptically.

  “Not in so many words, no. But he bit one of the kennel attendants and they’re threatening legal action if I don’t remove him immediately.”

  Maggie was about to point out that given a couple of days with Angus—and a good muzzle—she’d have him cured of biting anyone ever again. But she was too wrung out from arguing with Mac. “Can I give you a ride to the airport?” she offered instead, half–thinking it would be a good way to make herself scarce for a few hours at least. She sure didn’t want to see Mac anytime soon.

  “Nope. Got it sorted. One of Pix’s buddies has to head back to Colorado Springs, so he’s going to drop me at the airport there. I’ve changed my ticket from Denver.”

  Stunned at the speed with which things had happened in her absence, Maggie could only wish her sister well and wave her off at the front door.

  As everyone left behind, headed back inside, Pixie said, “So how was your night in the love–shack?”

  “None of your business,” Maggie snapped. Then immediately regretted her tone.

  Unfortunately, Pixie picked up on her sister’s tension and pressed a little harder. “I thought I detected there was trouble in paradise when I stuck my head in Mac’s truck earlier. What’s up?”

  “Nothing’s up. We’re fine. I didn’t get much sleep, that’s all.”

  That careless admission had Pixie making all sorts of sounds that annoyed Maggie. Needing privacy, she took the stairs two at a time, shut her bedroom door with more force than intended and fell face first on her bed, quite prepared to have her own little pity party.

  A gentle knock had her groaning, “Go away, Pix, or so help me!”

  The door opened and she heard Lisa say, “It’s me, Maggie. Can we talk?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Any other time would be
great, Lise” she said into her pillow. “But right now I want to be alone.”

  “Jeff and I are getting a divorce.”

  That news had Maggie bolting upright, turning to her sister and patting the bed beside her. “What? When did all this happen? I thought you two were solid?”

  “You didn’t wonder where Jeff was at Christmas?” Lisa said, taking her seat on the bed.

  “You told us he was overseas on business and got caught up in the heavy snowfalls in Europe.”

  “He was in Hong Kong. With his girlfriend.”

  “Oh, shoot!” Maggie shook her head as she digested the news. “Where is he now?”

  “Living with her in San Francisco.”

  Maggie got out of bed and went to her door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To get my gun. How dare that bastard leave you and your two little darlings like that!”

  Lisa leapt up, went to Maggie and dragged her back to her bed and made her sit down with her again. “It’s okay, sis. I’ve had time to come to terms with it. I sure don’t want him back and thankfully, the girlfriend is pregnant so I’m hoping his focus will be more on that kid than ours.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I don’t want to share custody with him. I want the boys to myself, not playing second fiddles to their new baby.”

  “You’re being all very practical and unemotional about this. I’d expect that sort of behavior more from Paige than you,” Maggie pointed out. “What do Nicky and Justin have to say about it all?”

  “So far they don’t know about the girlfriend. Jeff has come to stay at the house occasionally and we’ve pretended he’s been going away on longer and longer business trips in between.”

  “And they haven’t guessed there’s something wrong?”

  “Not so far, but they will soon. I just know some nosey neighbor will guess what’s up and say something. I want to sell the house and move out here.”

  Maggie was almost as shocked by that bit of news. “Whoa! I think you’ve missed a few steps in the story,” she pointed out. “For starters, what does Jeff have to say about you taking the kids away from Seattle? And where do you think you’re going to find a job?”