The last tourist stepped down from the wagon, thanking her and Mason before he strolled off with his wife and infant. Utah faced forward after watching the tourists leave and didn't move to get down from the wagon bench. She turned to see Mason and found him watching her with eyes no longer twinkling and mouth no longer smiling. She could feel his unspoken thoughts. He regretted the end of the day just like her.
Without a word, he tapped the horses into motion, heading back up the road where they'd just come.
"What are you doing?" She tried to quell the flutter of anticipation that put a smile on her mouth.
"Taking you for your own tour." He grinned with a glance.
She should tell him to turn around and go back to the fairgrounds. Instead, she let herself absorb his profile, with strong brow and jaw line, a kissable mouth, and eyes glowing in the fading light.
"I've already seen the Provence cabin," she said, keeping her tone light. "And I've heard your colorful versions of history about it."
"I have another one just for you." His eyes told her this version had nothing to do with entertaining tourists.
"Yeah?"
"Oh, yeah."
Now would be a really good time to insist he turn the wagon around. But for the life of her she couldn't. It felt too good being with him. She couldn't remember if she'd ever felt this happy with anyone else. Even though she knew the danger of where this ride would lead, she didn't want the feeling to end.
"Were any of your stories about Edgar and Esther true?"
"It's true Esther died freezing in the cabin, but Edgar didn't die with her. Not at the same time. He lived for a few more days."
"Why did you tell everyone they both died together?"
"I didn't want to ruin the fun by saying how much Edgar suffered in his last days."
The wagon jostled her as it rolled along. "How do you know he suffered?"
"My dad has his last journal."
Her jaw parted a little. "Really? Why doesn't anyone know that in town?"
"Dad doesn't talk about it. The old-timers know, though. They all grew up together."
"Was your dad born here?"
He nodded and looked at her. "Didn't you know that?"
"I guess I never asked."
"His mother had an affair with Edgar Provence's grandson."
"Oh-my-God, why have you never told me this before?"
"It never came up."
He seemed so proud of the fact that his dad was born here. She could see it in the curve of his mouth and the happy angle of his eyes.
"Wow. Mason Briggs has a soft spot for Timberline after all."
"It's my hometown."
She decided to leave him alone on the matter. For now. But she tucked the bit of information away, too afraid to trust it just yet. His affection for Timberline, no matter how faint, may not be enough to keep him rooted.
"What happened to Edgar?" she asked.
He met her eyes and she felt him assess why she'd changed the subject. "He had no wood and ran out of food and water. Three days after his wife died, so did he. But he spent those days writing in his journal. He wrote about how much he loved Esther and how much he regretted coming here in search of gold. He felt like he killed her."
"That's so sad." God, how she loved it when he talked in that low, gruff tone. It was laced with the attraction that had never died between them.
He smiled with a sexy hook to one side of his mouth. "Now you know why I left that part out."
She smiled back. "It sounds a lot like your dad's story. Except the part about killing his wife." Utah looked across the steep mountainside and valley below, thinking. "I can see why you thought he was so lonely all the time."
"He was."
She turned to face him again. "No, he wasn't. He mourned your mother, but he wasn't lonely. This is his home. His family are the people of Timberline. Their your family, too, you know."
Mason pulled the wagon to a stop and met her eyes in that way of his, so direct, so full of his strong personality, brimming with life and vitality.
"If I leave this town, it won't be to avoid ending up like my father," he said.
"If?" Hope was risky with him.
"It will be because I have a career I can't abandon. Not yet. Can you ever understand that?"
Unfinished business. He had to return to his job because he believed that was the only way he'd put whatever happened to him to rest. If he stayed, he'd feel like he was running from whatever haunted him.
"Yes," she whispered.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mason leaned toward her when she whispered that word. "I've waited a long time to hear you say that."
"All summer."
He kissed her, twisting on the bench seat of the wagon. "I don't want this night to end."
The promise of what would come if she allowed it hung in the air between them. He'd make love to her. Now. Tonight.
He waited, looking into her eyes, asking as he had when he kissed her earlier.
"Neither do I," she finally said, unable to believe what she'd just told him.
Satisfaction ignited the green fire of his eyes. He straightened on the bench seat and commanded the horses into motion. At a Y in the dirt road, he guided them to the right. She'd seen this less traveled road on one of their trips to the cabin. Two dirt paths with tall grass growing between wound through the trees beneath a star-lit sky.
Saying anything would ruin the magic. So she stayed quiet as the wagon emerged from the trees. A stream flowed ahead, water rolling over rocks with a soft hiss and splash. Mason guided the horses across the shallow stream.
At the crest of a hill, he drew the wagon to a stop. Utah sucked in a breath at the sight below. From here there was a clear view of Timberline, lights winking and the faint sound of voices and traffic drifting up the mountainside. She could see everything; the land where her golf course would go, the highway curving past Burl's and leading through town until it disappeared on the other side of town, the fairgrounds. Timberline. It looked like a Dickens village.
"I came here the night I dropped you off for the last time." Mason pointed. "I could see your house just like I can now. I watched until your light went off."
He'd been tormented over leaving her. He'd left because he had to. She understood that. This time was different. This time he didn't have to leave. He may have unfinished business, but he could plan a future here, with her.
That's when it hit her what a fool she'd been all summer. She should have used every moment to sway him, to show him where he belonged. Make it as hard on him as possible to leave this time. As hard as it had been that first time. Only now he had a man's heart. Everyone kept telling her he wouldn't be able to walk away from love. She was counting on them. And she was counting on her love for him. The risk was worth it.
"Remember when I told you I'm not a sixteen year old girl anymore?" she asked.
His head turned from the view. "As I recall, you threw lemonade into my face."
Grasping the back of the bench seat, she crawled onto his lap. "I'm not sixteen anymore, Mason."
"I can see that." His hands held her hips.
She slid hers up his chest to his shoulders, adjusting herself on the hardness in his jeans. His answering grunt gave her surge of triumph. "Are you sure you can handle me now?"
Her sandals fell off her feet, falling with a thud to the floor of the bench seat.
"Very sure." He kneaded her rear, moving her on his crotch.
She saw it register that she wasn't wearing any underwear. The sundress was too thin. The lines would have shown.
"You're not wearing any underwear."
She leaned forward, folding her arms around his neck to kiss him. "What are you going to do about that?"
Breath whooshed out of him.
"Let me show you." He kissed her more fully and reached for the hem of her sundress, pulling it up. Over her rear. Her ribcage.
She raised her arms and he removed the onl
y thing keeping her from his view. He savored the sight of her perched naked on his lap. Air caressed her along with his eyes. A horse breathed a gentle snort. Stars salted the night sky. The town lay quiet behind her and far below the mountain. At last his palms held the sides of her breasts.
Utah let her head fall back as he took one of her nipples into his mouth.
"You made me wait too long for this." He treated her other nipple to the same erotic ministration.
She ran her fingers into his hair and pulled his head back, seeing his mouth. He gave it to her. Her nipples brushed his shirt. Need soared to a new dimensions. The power of her love for this man awed and overwhelmed her. Fisting her hands with strands of his hair soft between her fingers, she pressed harder to him, needing him to give her more.
The kiss grew wild with urgency.
"I can't believe I let fifteen years go by without this," he breathed.
"Mason," was all she could get her brain to produce.
He held her bare butt, moving her over his jean-covered erection. Yes. She felt dizzy with a rush of urgency. Nothing else mattered, not the consequences in the morning, not her past mistakes. All that mattered was this. That Mason's essence fill her brain and soul, take her away with him.
She started unbuttoning his white shirt. He kissed her again, getting in the way of her task. Impatient, she pulled the shirt and sent buttons bouncing onto the bench seat and landing soundless on the ground. She felt his hard muscles with her hands.
"Mmm," she murmured against his mouth, pulling away so she could bend to put her open mouth on his chest. Mason. Her Mason.
She pushed the shirt off his shoulders, finding one of his nipples. It pebbled to attention. He jerked out of the shirt and tossed it where her dress had landed on the ground. Holding her firmly, he stood. She hugged his hips with her thighs and hooked her arms around his shoulders as he stepped over the seat to the back.
Still kissing her, he sank to his knees on the hay. Her breasts mashed against his bare chest between the opening of his shirt. She raked her fingers into his hair.
He lowered her onto the hay. She opened her eyes to the smoldering fire of his green eyes.
She reached up and grabbed the sides of his shirt and pulled him down. "Kiss me."
His stomach pressed against hers as he obliged her. Oh, yeah. His weight on her. His harsh breathing through his nose. She loved the sound of his passion. She didn't remember it being this sharp as teenagers. He rubbed his erection between her legs. She arched her body toward him, digging her head back into the hay with a long moan, gripping his biceps as if she'd fly away if she didn't. He moved again, harder this time. Oh, God.
"Mason." If he didn't do something soon, she'd come without him. She slid her hands around his waist to cup his butt, pulling him toward her. "I can't stand it anymore!"
Rising up onto his knees, he looked down at her with passion blazing, fumbling with the button of his jeans. She lifted her arms above her head, knees open, naked and ready. He unzipped his jeans with a jerk and shoved them down to his knees.
Without removing them all the way, leaving his boots on, he came back down to her. She felt the length of his erection in the bare skin of her thigh and lost more of her mind to him. She ran her hands down his back to his rear, urging him to hurry.
The tip of him touched her wetness. Hot fire engulfed her, spreading mindless sensation everywhere. He shoved into her, his erection parting her aching flesh. She closed her eyes to sweet agony. He pulled back and shoved into her again, as deep as she could take him.
She hooked her ankles around his lower back and lifted her hips to meet his thrusts. A flurry of hot tingles showered her. She blanked to anything but that. His erection a rock hard piston driving her to combustion. Right with the strangled sound of his release, she eddied into a numbing explosion of her own that left her paralyzed when it settled.
He lay there a while, on top of her, staring at her in awe and confusion, the stars a backdrop behind his head.
Then he rolled off of her and curled her against him with his arm. She rested her cheek on his chest, listening to his heart hammer in the aftermath. She felt his jeans against her legs below her knees, remnants of the urgency that had overtaken them.
"That was different than I remember," he said, breathless.
Yes, back then she'd felt satiated. Now she yearned for more. The pent-up desire nowhere near assuaged. She wanted him again.
He brushed the hair back from her face with two fingers. She ran her finger over his lips.
Is this how she'd feel if he left? Wanting more? Yearning for him but never able to have him. Never enough.
"Hey." He noticed the change in her.
"Shh," she whispered, still gently rubbing his lips.
He took hold of her finger and sucked it into his mouth. "You okay?"
"Yes." She withdrew her finger, still reeling from the aftermath, certain he was, too. Where did this leave them? Utah didn't know. Mason was probably even more confused. Would it make him stay? The thought dampened her mood and drained the rest of the aftermath away.
Pushing up off his chest, she climbed to her feet and went to the end of the wagon. She hopped down and walked toward her dress. Seeing the lights of Timberline, she passed her rumpled dress and stopped beside the horses to stare. So beautiful. So isolated. And she welcomed the diversion from the kaleidoscope of emotions twisting and turning in her head and heart.
"God, I love it up here," she said. "Is this Andy's land? It's a great spot for a house."
"Careful, there's probably three or four of them with binoculars." Mason gestured with his head toward the town lights as he came to stand beside her. He handed her the dress. She took it and caught him taking in her nudity.
"Everyone's probably looking for us." She slipped the dress over her head, noticing he'd pulled his jeans up. His shirt was ruined, but he hung it over his shoulders anyway.
"They'll do a good job of guessing what happened to us," he said.
She frowned with the struggle not to let that upset her and followed him to the wagon. He lifted her onto the seat and climbed up beside her. Turning the horses around, he drove back the way they'd come, but instead of taking her back to the fairgrounds, he veered toward his dad's house. She looked at him.
"What are you doing now?" she asked.
"Taking you home with me." He grinned. "I've always wanted to have you in my room."
The idea of spending an entire night with him more than unsettled her. She didn't think she'd be prepared for the morning. "Mason..."
"Would you rather we go back to the fairgrounds looking like this?" He picked up a corner of his shirt. "You have straw in your hair."
She reached up to find the piece and discovered not only was there straw in her hair, it was a mess. She probably looked tumbled.
"I'll drive you home later," Mason said.
"Then Ellie will see you drop me off. Besides, my car is at the fairgrounds."
"We'll wait until everyone clears out before I take you there, then."
"Okay."
When they reached Andy's house, Utah saw that he wasn't home yet. They were going to be alone.
She helped Mason take care of the horses, catching his hot glances. The anticipation of what would come consumed them both. He hadn't had enough, either. That encouraged her.
After leaving the barn, he took her hand and started to lead her to the house. Andy still wasn't home.
Inside the house, he shut the door.
She wandered into the living room, more nervous than she ever remembered being at sixteen.
Mason took her hand again and led her downstairs. The walkout faced the mountain where they'd just been. A pool table sat empty under a stained glass light. A hall led to more rooms. The first one was his. Bulky pine furniture filled the spacious room, and there was a connecting bathroom.
She rubbed her arms and went to the window to stare into the dark, shadowy night. He reached past her
and shut the blinds. She turned to find herself standing before his shirtless chest.
She almost asked him what would happen in the morning.
But he reached up and with his fingers, pushed the straps of her sundress off one shoulder, then the other. It fell to the floor around her feet. Once again naked before him, she let anything else disappear from her awareness.
He touched one pliant breast before moving on to her abdomen, and then between her legs. Moving closer, he slid his middle finger inside her. She touched his chest and planted kisses on his neck.
"I'm going to make love to you all night," he said softly.
He kissed her deep and long before removing his boots and jeans. She got the chance to look at him standing beside the bed, the angles of his body fuller and more rugged than when he was nineteen. Stubble had sprouted on his face, giving his green eyes a luminescent glow.
She reached for his hand and tugged. He obeyed and climbed onto the mattress, straddling her before stretching out on top of her. He put one knee between her legs, then the other. She bent her knees and parted them.
He kissed her while he pressed his hardness for entry.
The sound of a door closing upstairs made them both go still. She looked up into Mason's eyes. He pushed all the way inside her.
"Mason."
"He won't hear us." He pulled back and pushed his way in again. Utah smothered a sound and closed her eyes. He kept doing that. Pleasuring her, slow and excruciating.
"Oh, God." It was going to be more intense this time. The mattress was soft against her back. And Mason moved slower, drawing out the ache until she did cry out when she came. He muffled it as promised, covering her open mouth with his. But then his in and out stroke grew faster, and the sound he made filled the room.
She swatted his arm and hissed in a whisper, "Mason Briggs!"
He collapsed on top of her. "Sorry." He kissed her neck. "See what you do to me?"
She rolled her head to give him better access. He found her ear and found his way to her mouth. The kiss that followed burrowed into her soul.
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