Cowboy Under Cover

by Marilyn Tracy

But there had been some boundary trampled, some line Dulce had drawn between them in the barn, daring her to cross. Instead of coming out swinging at the girl, she’d opened her arms. And Dulce would never know how much that hurt and healed simultaneously.

  When Jeannie finally spied the salt cedars rimming the steep edges of the pool far below, she dismounted and carefully approached the steplike striations in the rock. She found a large, loose piece of flagstone, and manhandled it onto Diablo’s reins so he could graze on what little yellow grass existed while she explored her chasm.

  She readily recognized the deep well as a metaphor for her heart. It was hidden from view and held untold secrets, even from her. And she wouldn’t know what it contained until she summoned the courage to follow the path into its depths.

  The ledges were broad and covered with sand and silt. No footprints marred the sand, and Jeannie was aware she might be the first person to discover the unusual well. The thought was slightly staggering until she reminded herself that the massive and famous Carlsbad Caverns to the south of her ranch hadn’t been discovered until the late eighteen hundreds. They were considered one of the natural wonders of the world.

  Step after step, she moved steadily downward until all she could see above her were red walls with tufts of gray-green growth at the top and a circle of pure azure sky directly overhead. At the bottom, the steps widened out, forming a narrow strip of sandy beach beside a pool of deep blue-green, utterly clear water. She could see rocks far beneath the surface. She could hear gurgling, but couldn’t see the source of the water. No river flowed into the pool unless from underground.

  Kneeling, she reached a hand into the clear water and smiled a little at how pure she fancied it felt. She lifted her fingers to her nose and sniffed them, then delicately tasted the moisture. It was cool and tasted of mountain springs and the recent late summer rains, a sweet ozone flavor permeating it.

  How David would have loved this place, she thought, and listened for a moment to hear his voice. She heard nothing but the trickle of the water. She’d so come to expect to his voice whenever she thought of him, she realized she missed it almost as much as she missed him.

  But today he wasn’t with her. Not here in her magical place. She didn’t want to analyze what that meant. Instead, she thought of Chance, wished she could understand what she felt for him, what she thought about him and why, whenever she thought of David, Chance so quickly slipped into her mind instead.

  High above her, Diablo whickered, and Jeannie was suddenly, sharply aware of how vulnerable she was in this cavern, with only one exit. As she stared upward, she realized how deep the well really was and how dangerous her descent had been. Had she fallen, would her family ever find her? The rock she’d placed on Diablo’s reins wouldn’t have held for much longer than one or two strong tugs. And no one knew better than she did how hidden the well was from even a distance of twenty yards.

  “Jeannie?” she heard Chance call.

  Her heart was pounding, not with fear of physical danger but with a terror greater than almost any she’d known. He’d come looking for her. Come after her. And she didn’t have any idea what to say to him.

  “Jeannie!” His voice held more than mere worry.

  “Down here,” she called. “I’m down at the pool.”

  “Down where?”

  She saw his shadow long before she could see him. It played along the sandstone walls, a sinuous cowboy in black. “What the hell— Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. “There’s water down here.”

  “Did you fall in?”

  “No. There are steps on the other side,” she said and pointed, though he couldn’t possibly have seen her gesture.

  “Stay there, I’m coming down.”

  She heard him swear a couple of times as he too rapidly made his way down the steps to the base of the chasm. As he had the knack of doing in a car or in her office, he made the unusual cavern seem smaller just by his presence.

  He surveyed her unbroken body first, then the water, then, as she had done, looked high above them at the rock chimney that revealed only sky and a few stray salt cedar branches. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “The water seems pure,” she said.

  He looked at her, his hazel-green eyes piercing her. “And you’re okay?”

  “I’m okay,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “You scared me,” he said, and the expression on his face told her this was nothing but the raw truth.

  She wanted to tell him that he scared her, too. Not for the same reason, and not with anything specific, but just because he was Chance and she still felt so broken a person. “I’m sorry,” she said, and meant far more than any worry she might have caused him.

  “I heard some of the things you were talking about with Dulce. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I just—”

  “It’s okay,” she said and moved away from him to kneel by the side of the pool. She trailed her fingers through the cool water. “She didn’t understand that I wanted her to stay here.”

  “I know. She does now.”

  “I hope so.”

  “She does. She sent me after you,” he said.

  She looked at him. “She did? Why?”

  “She was worried about you.”

  Jeannie couldn’t read his expression. She looked away. After a minute, she said, “In my mind, it was all so simple. Leeza, Corrie and I would buy this ranch. The children would come. It would be all the happy parts of every book and movie I watched as a kid— Lassie, My Friend Flicka, Ladd, the Black Stallion series. Old Yeller would never get rabies, The Black would never be stolen, Black Beauty would never be abused, and Lassie would never be abandoned. And the kids would all be happy and laugh and nothing bad would ever happen to them and they would forget all about their dreadful pasts. One long daydream.”

  “And it’s so far from the truth?” he asked gently, warily.

  “As Pluto is from the earth,” she said. “I wasn’t wrong to dream about it. I was just naive to think it could be so simple.”

  “It is that simple, Jeannie. You’ve done it. Dulce is smiling. She knows she’s wanted here. And more than that, she genuinely wants to stay. And José—I think he’d find a way to be happy any place he might land. But something brought him here, and I think he means to stay if he has anything to say about it. Or, rather, anything to do with the decision.”

  Jeannie smiled, and it felt wistful on her lips. “He’s a darling, all right. So is Dulce. It’s funny, but by finally getting angry with her, I made a breakthrough.”

  “So the dream is a reality,” he said.

  Jeannie didn’t answer. In that special way of his, he made it sound so simple. So easy, if she could just forget about the complications, one of which was standing just inches from her.

  “Jeannie, there’s something I think I should tell you.”

  She waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, she gazed at him with a question in her eyes. He’d taken off his hat and held it against his thigh. She thought of that silly kitchen bowl he’d been holding in exactly the same way the night he’d kissed her outside the barn.

  “I’m not what you think I am.”

  She shook her head. He could have no idea what she thought of him. And she didn’t dare tell him she thought he was probably one of the most amazing men she’d ever encountered.

  “I’m here under false pretences.”

  She raised a hand to stop him. Whatever he was about to say, she didn’t want to hear it. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Not really, in the grand scheme of things. But it could.” He tossed his hat onto the bottom step and knelt beside her. “You were totally honest with Dulce in the barn. You deserve nothing less from me.”

  She wanted to close her eyes to shut him out. His words, his closeness, made too many alarm bells ring inside her, and he revealed too much of his desire for her in his hazel-green gaze. She felt herself trembl
ing. And hoping.

  “Jeannie?”

  She closed her eyes. He was too close to her. And she wanted too much from him…and too little, for she didn’t think she had a whole enough heart to offer him anything that could last beyond the present.

  “Jeannie, would you look at me?” he asked.

  She shook her head and smiled a little.

  “Why not?” She could hear the puzzlement and the answering smile in his voice.

  “Because this is a magic spot,” she said.

  He seemed to mull over her words, then asked finally, in that gentle tone, “It is?”

  “Yes. And one of the rules of magic spots is that you don’t have to tell all the truth. In magic places, everything is okay as long you’re there. Nothing from the outside world can intrude.”

  She sighed when she felt his fingers lightly brush her hair from her forehead.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said.

  “So am I,” she answered, and tilted her head to grant his fingers greater access to her bare throat. And when he obligingly trailed his fingertips along her jawline and traced the edges of her collar, her breath hitched, but she still didn’t open her eyes.

  “You’re so exquisite,” he murmured.

  She sighed as he lifted his fingers from her. And gasped as he returned them to her, wet and cool from the water in her crystal-clear pool. The sensation of cold water being painted onto her skin with roughened warm fingers made her dizzy.

  And still she didn’t open her eyes.

  She felt his fingers at her collar, at the back of her neck, cool and wet, soft and rough simultaneously.

  “Lean back,” he said, and guided her onto his upraised leg. She allowed him to position her against him, to cradle her between his legs as he sat down, enfolding her with his body. His fingers kept tracing the contours of her face, then finally, deliciously, magically, her body.

  “I’ve dreamed of this,” she sighed.

  “As have I,” he said, rimming her lips with a moistened fingertip. It was a cool, rain-scented kiss.

  She moaned softly and lightly flicked his finger with her tongue.

  She heard him draw in his breath with a hiss. “God, Jeannie, I’ve wanted you since the first second I saw you waiting in Doreen’s post office,” he murmured, and his legs seemed to involuntarily draw her tighter to him.

  She flexed against him, arched to meet his exploring fingers and instead met his hot, questing mouth. He tasted of coffee and carefully banked passion. His firm lips grazed hers like liquid velvet, and his tantalizing hand cupped her face so tenderly it brought tears to her eyes. And he kissed the tears away.

  Her hands seemed to lift of their own volition and flatten against the hard planes of his chiseled face. Like a blind woman, she felt the contours of his cheeks, the rigid jawline, the pulse beating furiously at his temples. From his thundering heartbeat to his ragged breathing to his liquid-soft touch and kiss, she reveled in the knowledge that here in this magic place he was as besotted as she and every bit as vulnerable.

  And still she didn’t open her eyes.

  One of his hands held her by the shoulder while the other slowly, tantalizingly explored her every curve, slowing for the mounds of her breasts, stopping at her waist, then speeding along the curve of her hips to her thighs. And, at a snail’s pace, coming up, lightly teasing the insides of her legs, brushing across her apex, teasing over her breasts. An almost choked sound came from his throat, and his hand stopped to research with greater intent.

  “Jeannie?” he murmured.

  “Mmm?”

  He deftly unfastened the buttons of her blouse and spread the material wide. She leaned against his arm, allowing him full access.

  “Jeannie?”

  His enchanting fingers teased along the lacy edges of her bra and dipped beneath to flick an already hardened nipple.

  “Look at me.” When she didn’t obey his soft command, he kissed her again, continuing his quest with a single dampened finger. His hands were chilled from the cool water. His lips were hot with a burning intensity that threatened to drive her insane.

  When he lifted his lips from hers and dropped them to her collarbone, she moaned and arched to meet him.

  “You have to look at me now, Jeannie. This isn’t a dream. It isn’t a fantasy. I want to know you’re with me all the way here.”

  She opened her eyes and found the reality far sweeter than any dream. His hazel-green eyes glittered in the strange light of her magical pool and seemed to hold all the secrets of the universe within their colored depths. And lurking behind the passion was such a wealth of kindness, understanding, sympathy and sheer longing that she felt stripped naked and wholly empowered by the multiplicity of wants.

  “I’m with you all the way here,” she said, modifying his words even as she tried pinning them down to one specific place, one time out of a whole universe of realities.

  He lifted her, swiftly and effortlessly pulling her from between his legs and rolling them over, so that her head lay resting upon his forearm and her body was stretched beneath him.

  “No doubts?” he asked.

  “Not here,” she answered truthfully.

  He chuckled over her caveat. “Here or anywhere else doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m going to make love to you, Jeannie McMunn.”

  “I know that, Chance Salazar,” she said.

  “You will,” he said, and the tone of his voice made his words a vow, a solemn promise.

  “That sounds like a threat,” she said, and almost laughed at herself for flirting in the middle of such a seemingly solemn moment.

  “Oh, no, Jeannie. It’s an absolute given. I want you to know every touch I make with every fiber of your body. And, damn it all, I don’t want to just be a fantasy.”

  “Are we talking about you…or me?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “I’ve dreamed about you far too long. You’re driving me crazy with fantasy. I want the real thing.”

  “I don’t know what that is anymore,” she said, too truthfully, hating the outside world trying to sneak into this magical, halcyon place.

  “You,” he said. “You’re the magic. Not this spring, not this sinkhole you’re calling a magical place. It’s just you. You carry it with you all the time. I don’t know how. I don’t even care why. Some things just are.”

  Again, he made things simple. Jeannie thought of the puppies he’d brought to the ranch. She thought of the horses, the laughter, the loyalty he gathered around him, and she thought of David and hard-won intimacy and lost promises. And lost love.

  “You’re trying to bring the outside world into this place,” she said, her hands framing his beautiful face. “Remember, this is magical. I don’t want to remember anything here. Just feel. I just want to feel.”

  “But it’s not magic,” he said. “It’s just a sinkhole. Just a place. The magic is all in your head.”

  “And in your heart,” she murmured.

  “And in your heart,” he agreed, laying a warm hand in the hollow between her breasts. “Oh, yeah, in your heart. Take a chance, Jeannie,” he said.

  “That’s your name,” she said dreamily, and let her hands drop to the sand, offering herself to him without words.

  “And?”

  “And…yes. I’ll take the chance. I’ll take you, Chance.”

  Chance felt as if the universe shifted out of focus for a long, aching moment. Kidding him, she nevertheless managed to give him every raw strip of her heart. He knew he should stop the inevitable conclusion of this strange game they were playing in Jeannie’s miraculous, magical well—and probably Pablo’s mystical lost spring, as well. He knew she was too vulnerable and he was too raw from having witnessed her tears and having just learned about her tragedy. But with her trusting body lying beneath him, with her humor and her honesty before him, he couldn’t.

  Hell, he wouldn’t. He’d been a fool to let go of her that first evening. And a double-damned idiot to let her w
alk away from him the night he’d kissed her outside the barn. He didn’t even want to think of how lacerated he’d felt the night before—or how he’d ripped at her with his tipped hat and brush-off and his sure certainty that she needed him as badly as he craved her.

  Even after he’d left her, his damnable pride carrying him away from her, he could smell her on his hands, feel her pressed against his body. He’d spent the night aching for her until every muscle in his body seemed stretched and pained beyond all recognition, and the longing in him left him tired, as if he’d been trying to reach out for her the entire night and more than half the day afterward.

  With her, as with no one else, Chance felt he was always reaching and never grasping what he so wanted. And yet, here she was, if not wholly relaxed, at least lying with her shirt spread wide, revealing glorious breasts that raised and lowered in time to her slightly rapid breathing. Her open arms splayed on her magical sinkhole beach, fingers curled, an odd little smile dancing on her parted lips, her eyes half closed, an invitation etched in denim blue. He knew he’d never wanted anyone the way he wanted her. And he’d never been so scared in his entire life.

  At various moments, he felt he had slipped into quicksand every time he was near her. Now he hovered on the edge of a cliff, as if part of him were still on the lip of the chasm. Everything in the universe could change with touching her.

  “Kiss me, please,” she murmured.

  And with no further thought, he stepped off the cliff’s edge of rational thought.

  With a groan, he lowered his lips to hers, breaking his plummet into the unknown with her taste, her mouth cushioning the free fall.

  One hand cushioned her head, tangling in her silky hair, and he used the other to roam her curves, sliding behind her back to draw her up to meet him. She writhed beneath him, enflaming him with her unfettered want.

  He slipped her bra straps from her shoulders and with a swift tug freed her magnificent breasts. At her sigh, he took a nipple into his mouth and laved it with his tongue until it was rock hard and peaked, and suckled it until she moaned and arched higher. He rose from her breast only to capture the other nipple with his lips, playing it gently with his teeth and tongue until, as her fingers gripped his hair, he stopped teasing her and took her fully into his mouth, abandoning the light touch.