The Cowboy SEAL

by Laura Marie Altom

  Now that the mess left by the fallen tree had been cleared, that meant he was good to go on assembling the new chicken coop. He hadn’t mentioned it to Millie, but he’d remembered her saying how she’d once seen a fancy chicken coop and thought it was cool, so that was exactly what he planned to give her.

  She deserved so much.

  Only a fraction of which he was equipped to deliver.

  Had the night gone the way she’d deserved, that kiss wouldn’t have been an excuse for ditching Stacie, but so much more. As much as it pained him to admit, what she’d really deserved was a surprise kiss from a real man—maybe even that guy Buck, whom she’d danced with. She needed the sort of man who’d care for not only the ranch, but her and the kids, as well. He’d be a worthy son for Clint.

  In short, Millie deserved a man who was everything Cooper wasn’t.

  *

  “WHAT’RE YOU STILL doing up?”

  “What’s it look like?” Millie hadn’t meant to be sharp with Cooper. Or maybe she had.

  He closed the back door behind him.

  She shivered from the burst of cold air.

  “Let me rephrase my question.” He drew out the chair across from her, spun it around then straddled it. He was tall enough to rest his forearms on the chair’s back. His cheeks were ruddy from the cold and his grown-out hair adorably mussed. Couldn’t he at least have the decency to look bad? “Why are you up at 1:00 a.m. painting LeeAnn’s volcano?”

  “The science fair is next Friday. She needed me to put a coat on for her this afternoon so it’d be dry enough tomorrow for her to start adding trees, but with all the party planning, my day got away from me.”

  “You outshone every woman in that bar.”

  “Hush.” If her heart beat any faster, she’d pass out, doing a face-plant in the ugly brown paint.

  “I mean it. I’m sorry I ran out on you, but I’m not sorry I kissed you.”

  “Cooper Hansen, I’m about two seconds from pitching this paint in your face. Do you have any idea how humiliated I was to not only go back into that bar alone, but having to explain to Stacie that you’d left her, too?”

  “She get home okay?” He at least had the decency to bow his head.

  “Well, gee, I wouldn’t exactly know, seeing how about two seconds after I told her you’d left, she took off with some other guy and told me she’d find her own way back to her car.”

  He had the gall to grin, and he looked damned sexy doing it. “Guess since her car’s not in the drive, my question was irrelevant.”

  “You think?”

  “Ouch.” He was back to grinning.

  Millie wanted to slug him. Trouble was, she also wanted to kiss him. Instead, she fished one of the Oreos from her nearby Ziploc bag.

  “I told you I didn’t want to go out with her.” He shrugged. “To my way of thinking, right from the start, that makes this whole mess your fault.”

  That’s it—she put down her half-eaten cookie to dredge her paint brush across the paper plate then flick it at him. Unfortunately, more of the washable poster board paint landed on the table than him, but he had gained a few awkward-size freckles on his chin. This dating disaster was all his fault for always looking so damned good—even with paint freckles.

  “Nice, Mill.” He took a napkin from the holder she kept on the table. “Real mature.”

  “Oh—like you leaving me to deal with your date was mature?”

  “For the last time, she wasn’t my date. I only went along with this whole thing on the off chance I might get to spend more time with you.”

  “Please, don’t do that.”

  “What?” Her heart fluttered just to witness a flash of his slow grin.

  “Act like you care, when you obviously don’t.”

  He leisurely rose, sauntering toward her with cowboy swagger.

  Dear Lord...

  “My problem—” he knelt alongside her, manhandling her chair until turning her far enough to face him “—is that I care too much. From the second I stepped back into this house, you’ve been all I can think of. I keep seeing flashes of you when we were kids and then older, in high school—back before you and Jim were even an item. How had I never noticed you? How had I let him get to you first? But then what kind of lowlife does that make me? If Jim were alive, he’d owe me an ass-kicking.”

  She licked her lips, willing her runaway pulse to slow. “That’s the thing—he’s not here. But we are. And that’s got me so confused.” I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my whole life. But was that just her body talking? Or something more? How was she supposed to know?

  He rose just high enough to kiss her, resting his hands on her thighs, singeing her tender flesh through her robe. “You taste so damned good.”

  He urged her mouth open, sweeping her tongue with his. An erotic jolt slammed through her, colliding flaming desire into an icy wall of guilt. Despite her speech, she still knew what they were doing was wrong, but that fact didn’t even remotely slow them down.

  When he took her hands, urging her from her chair, she let him, and when he dipped his kisses deep into her robe’s open vee, she didn’t offer the slightest protest. All that mattered was the velvety warmth centered between her legs and spreading like wicked syrup throughout every inch of her fevered body.

  The house was quiet save for the clock ticking over the stove. Everyone had been sleeping for hours, which was why when Cooper untied her robe, instead of fighting him, she only held her breath, praying for release of the forbidden tension that’d been building ever since he’d come home.

  He was kneeling again, worshipping her abdomen with kisses, skimming his hands along her hips, dragging down her panties until the room’s chill touched her hot core.

  Back to her lips, he kissed the breath from her, dizzying her from his urgency that surprisingly matched her own.

  His slipping his finger inside her seemed the most natural thing in the world, as did his nipping her rock-hard nipple through her bra. He set a rhythm that left her alternately gasping and moaning, twining her arms round his neck for support, kissing him, kissing him until he made her come, moaning her pleasure into his mouth.

  “More...” she begged. She was no longer a mom or widow, but a woman. A woman desperate to once again feel alive in every sense of the word.

  “Sure?”

  Cheek pressed to the warm wall of his chest, she nodded.

  And then he was shoving aside the paint and volcano to ease her back, leaving her for only the instant it took him to unfasten his jeans. He’d just touched his tip inside her, when he stopped.

  “Wh-what’s wrong?” she managed to say. He needed to keep going before she lost her nerve.

  “I don’t have protection.”

  “I don’t care.” And in the moment, she truly didn’t.

  It’d been so long, that the first few thrusts were painful. Tears sprung to her eyes, but then he slowed and kissed pain away, and then pleasure was once again building and spreading into a lavish labyrinth of stunning heat and joy and spiraling, ever-climbing, raw sensation. This man had somehow become her moon and stars and everything in between.

  With his every thrust, she gripped his biceps harder, raising her hips, urging him deeper, deeper until she came again in a glorious Technicolor dream.

  He rested on top of her, showering her with adoring kisses that only made her want him again. Was this normal? It’d been so long since she’d been with a man, she couldn’t even remember. All she knew was that she wasn’t sorry. Not one bit.

  Though she probably would be in the morning...

  *

  SUNDAY MORNING, COOPER volunteered to help his dad eat breakfast. Considering what’d gone down in the kitchen the previous night, he wasn’t sure he could ever again look at the table with a straight face.

  “How are you?” Cooper asked, mixing butter and sugar into the oatmeal.

  “T-tired.”

  “Me, too.” He fed Clint his first
bite. “I went on a date with your therapist. What’s her name? Sandy? Sissy?”

  “St-Stacie...”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Anyway, it was a rough night. She’s a sweet girl, but not really my type. I guess when it comes down to it, if I ever settle down, I’d want a woman more like Millie. Someone who’s not afraid to get her hands dirty, and isn’t into all the fancy hair and makeup. I like an earthy girl, you know?”

  His dad grunted then swallowed his latest bite.

  “Truth is, I couldn’t sleep a wink. Just thinking about things. Makes me crazy when that happens.” He helped his dad with a few more spoonfuls then a few sips of coffee. “How come you couldn’t sleep?”

  Clint gestured for Cooper to hand over his whiteboard. He then wrote: Too damned noisy!

  Cooper’s stomach tightened. Did that mean what he thought it did? That his father hadn’t been out when...

  His cheeks felt hot enough to fry an egg. No, no, no.

  “Too noisy, huh? What? Did you have an owl outside your window? Coyotes?”

  Clint erased the board with his elbow, then wrote: All that rutting!

  Cooper gulped. Okay, no biggie. No need to panic. He’d been trained in crisis management and thinking on his feet in the often-fluid situation of battle. “Geez, Dad, I’m sorry. I’ll bet you overheard the movie I was watching. Parts were pretty racy—if you know what I mean.”

  His father didn’t look all that convinced.

  *

  “WHY DOES MY volcano look splotchy?”

  Late Sunday morning, Millie took a sheet of oatmeal cookies from the oven, pretending she hadn’t heard her daughter’s embarrassing question.

  “Mom? Did you hear me?”

  Mortification didn’t begin describing how awful Millie felt about not only the odd paint pattern on LeeAnn’s science-fair project, but also for her own downright scandalous behavior. What had she been thinking? “I heard you, okay? I don’t know how it happened. Maybe Cheetah’s been on the table?”

  As traitorous as that cat was, he deserved the blame!

  “Yeah, I’ll bet he did it...”

  “Have fun at your party?” Wish I hadn’t had quite so much fun at mine.

  “Yeah, but Kara and Finleigh kept calling boys, and the boy I wanted to talk to was at his grandparents’ and couldn’t talk. I wish I knew if he liked me.”

  “What boy?” Since when had her baby girl even known boys existed?

  “His name’s Damon. He’s in sixth grade, and his eyes are all dreamy, but I don’t want him using them to look at any other girls.”

  Back up the truck. Though Millie would like nothing more than to dissect every possible meaning behind what’d transpired after she and Cooper had—well, fornicated, for lack of a better word—it sounded like her daughter needed her more.

  “Honey...” She used a spatula to transfer the cookies from the sheet to a plate. “Don’t you think you’re a little young for boys?”

  “No. God, Mom, Kara’s had a boyfriend for like three months.”

  “Okay, first—when you say boyfriend, what exactly are we talking? Like you just talk at recess? And second—do Kara’s parents know about this guy?”

  LeeAnn rolled her eyes. “You’re so lame.”

  “And you’re a little too mouthy. And way too young to be even thinking about boys.”

  “What do you know about them? It’s not like you ever date.”

  Touché. “How about you take a nice, long time-out up in your room.”

  “I have to work on my volcano.”

  “Write on the research paper that goes along with it.”

  As luck would have it, Cooper chose that moment to stroll through the back door. He wore faded work jeans, boots, an old, red flannel shirt and his raggedy straw hat. Despite all of that, he looked so handsome, Millie dropped a cookie on the floor. And then her mind’s eye recalled what’d happened right there on the kitchen table, and she wanted to dissolve into a confused puddle.

  LeeAnn shot her uncle a preteen stony glare then stomped off toward the hall.

  Cheetah shot out from under the table, dragging the cookie to the utility porch. Weird, traitorous cat who apparently thought he was a dog.

  “What’s she in a snit about?” Peg asked on her way into the kitchen from doing Clint’s physical therapy.

  “Can you believe it? Boys.” Millie glanced up to catch Cooper’s mossy-green gaze. Just thinking about what they’d done made her nipples harden. It’d been filthy! But then afterward, he’d been so sweet, and then strangely distant—as if nothing had even happened.

  “She’s too young for that.”

  “Exactly.” To avoid looking at Cooper, Millie focused on spooning dough onto the cookie sheet.

  “Mom!” J.J. called from the living room, where they were watching a movie. “When are the cookies gonna be done? Me and Cayden are starving!”

  “Just a minute!” Why, on the one morning when she really needed private time with Cooper to dissect what’d transpired between them was all hell-a-poppin’ in the Hansen home?

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Pretty day, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.” Cooper kept right on hammering. He didn’t pause to admire how well Millie filled out her jeans, or how the sun glinted off the few red streaks in her hair. When he’d been in the kitchen—the scene of his crime—with her that morning, he couldn’t escape fast enough.

  Millie hung clothes on the line.

  If not for the jet overhead bound for Denver International, they could have been in another century. Part of him wished they were. Lord knew, things would be less complicated. But then would they? All things being relative, nothing would change. He’d still have carried a wagonload of emotional baggage, and she’d still be his brother’s widow.

  “Looks like you’re making good progress on the coop.” She hung up a pint-size pair of jeans.

  “Yep.” He kept right on framing by fitting in a 2x4.

  “You planning on avoiding me forever?”

  Yep. “There’s not much to say other than it shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have let it.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that I’m half of this equation and wanted it to happen?”

  He sighed. “Yeah, well, you shouldn’t have. I’m no good, and you’re like a saint. Raising two great kids, looking after my dad and the ranch. You’re my brother’s wife.”

  “Correction...” She hung a tiny T-shirt. And another and another until her motions looked frantic. “I was Jim’s wife, but he left me. He was stupid—so stupid, to die like he did. It was a useless, senseless death that still makes me furious.” Now she was crying, and the racking sobs shredded Cooper’s heart. “How could he be so careless with his life?”

  He set down his hammer and went to her—not caring who saw.

  “I’m sorry.” He kissed the crown of her head.

  She pushed him away. “No. I don’t want pity. I want you to view me not as Jim’s wife, your sister-in-law, but as me—Millie. The girl who watched you at rodeos and thought you were the wildest thing I’d ever seen. Jim was wonderfully safe, he was my rock, but you were—are...”

  Her teary smile rocked his world.

  “Amazing. And I don’t just mean—you know. I’m talking about how you’ve swept in here and made everything better. I could’ve maintained the status quo, but by you taking the ranch duties off my hands, I feel like I can breathe again. I can’t thank you enough for that.”

  He tucked his hands in his pockets. “You’re welcome, but about last night... It can’t happen again.”

  “Because you’re not attracted to me?” The tears streaming down her cheeks glistened in the sun. And that felt wrong. No one should be crying on such a gift of a February day—especially not a woman as gorgeous as Millie.

  “Seriously?” He drew her back into his arms for a kiss, then tucked flyaway strands of her hair behind her ears. “Never doubt your beauty. You’re stunning.”

  “No,
I’m not. My nails are a mess and my hair’s never done. I saw the girls you dated in high school, and I would never have been one of them.”

  “Are we in high school?” He brushed his thumb over her full lower lip then leaned in for a nibble. “I sure as hell hope not, because then I wouldn’t be able to do this...” He kissed her nice and slow, knowing the whole while he shouldn’t, but what kind of man would he be to let a woman as perfect as she was spend one more moment crying?

  Her breathy mew made him hard as hell. “Thought we weren’t doing this anymore?”

  “We’re not. This really is the last time, okay?”

  She returned his kiss, this time with a bad-girl hint of tongue. “Yes. That’s probably best.”

  “No more insecurities, okay?” He tucked his hand under her chin, directing her gaze to his. “Promise?”

  She nodded.

  “Good girl.” He kissed her forehead. The tip of her nose. He wanted to journey farther, but held strong in his resolve to keep his roving hands to himself. Their table tango never should’ve happened. She deserved better than that, than him.

  *

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON, MILLIE stood alongside Peg’s compact car while she rearranged the contents of her overstuffed trunk in an attempt to close it. “Why don’t you take out your toiletry case and put it in the backseat?”

  “Because I’ve got all my quilting gear there. I finished a whole section while you and my brother were off partying.”

  “Whoa—don’t you mean your brother and Stacie?” Because it was the God’s honest truth that Millie hadn’t enjoyed a lick of what’d gone on down at Mack’s. And after? There went the annoying heat in her cheeks. Well, after had been a whole other story.

  “Cut the act. I saw you two kissing out back today.”

  “You were spying on us?”

  “I was washing dishes and happened to look out the window behind the sink. What if it’d been LeeAnn or J.J. who saw? Spill it. What’s going on between you two?”

  “We kissed, but it was no big deal. We both agreed it was a mistake. End of story.”

  “I don’t think so. Do you feel something special for him? If so, when did you know? Is he quitting the Navy to stay here or still leaving, because I can’t imagine you and the kids following him.”