The Wrangler's Bride

by Justine Davis

  “But you don’t think that now?”

  Slowly, reluctantly, she shook her head. “Since I’ve been here…since I’ve seen the peace and beauty here…I know it’s more than that.” She closed her eyes, resting her chin on her knees. It was hard to admit this, but she knew deep inside that if there was anyone who wouldn’t judge her, it was Grant.

  “I’m afraid I’ve…I’ve lost my nerve for my job.”

  “You? No way.”

  He sounded so incredulous, Mercy couldn’t help feeling slightly warmed inside. But not even Grant’s astonishment at the idea made it go away.

  “Thank you. But I can’t change how I feel. I used to be eager to go back, ready to get out there and do battle, to try and clean things up. But now, I just wonder what’s the point? People will just keep on doing what they do, and my little bit won’t even slow them down.”

  “People aren’t all like that,” Grant said.

  “I know. But those are the ones cops see. It’s the nature of the job. And the thought of dealing with more slime like the bastards who murdered Nick…it doesn’t make me glad that I might play a part in putting them away, it just makes me…sick.”

  She felt Grant’s hand on her shoulder, and then he turned her to face him.

  “You haven’t lost your nerve for the job, Mercy,” he said softly. “You’ve lost your stomach for it. That’s an entirely different thing.”

  She looked up at him, and saw in his eyes all the comfort and gentle understanding she ever could have wished for in this crisis of confidence. And she knew then that he’d only been trying to rescue them both from an uncomfortable disillusionment by confronting head-on the knowledge that there was no future for them. And that he’d been willing to risk it anyway made her feel… She wasn’t sure how it made her feel. And knowing that there was no future for them didn’t make it any easier to understand. Even if she was willing to leave her entire life behind, she doubted Grant would ever really trust a city girl to stay.

  “You’ve got more nerve than anybody I know, Mercy,” he said, his gaze never wavering. “Don’t ever doubt that. But you’re also…compassionate. You feel things, deeply. And maybe you’ve just simply had enough of trying to solve problems for people who don’t care or don’t want their problems solved.”

  She whispered his name, then stopped, unable to think of another thing to say. Then, slowly, not sure she should but unable to stop herself, she stretched upward and kissed him. She felt him go still, and wondered if she’d managed to make her problems worse. But then he was kissing her back, warmly, welcomingly, his arms coming around her as he hauled her against him.

  At the first flick of his tongue over her lips, Mercy parted them for him. She welcomed his probing exploration, and savored the sound of satisfaction he made as she tasted him in turn, teasing the rough velvet of his tongue with the tip of her own. She felt his hands move to cup her head, then heard him grunt in frustration. He pulled back just long enough to tug off his heavy gloves; then, before she could do more than drag in a breath, he threaded his fingers through her hair. She’d left it down, more aware of the silken length of it than ever before in her life, after Grant’s whispered words last night about how beautiful it looked and how good it felt trailing over his skin.

  He pulled her head back and took her mouth again, fiercely this time. There was nothing tentative about this; he kissed her like a man staking a claim. And she let him, feeling for the first time in her life the wish that a man, this man, would do just that.

  She clung to him, kissing him back hungrily, not caring that she was betraying every bit of her need for reassurance. Not caring about anything but this man and the way he made her feel. And when one strong hand slid down to unbutton her jacket, she didn’t protest, but shifted to make it easier for him. And when he slipped his hand inside to cup her breast, she gave a tiny cry of gladness and pressed herself against his palm, wishing only that it was his hand on her naked flesh, without the interference of the layers of clothing.

  Grant slipped to his side and pulled her down beside him, onto a bed of leaves and sweet-scented pine. Mercy wriggled to get closer to him, wondering how she could ever have thought this small, protected place the least bit cold. It was more than warm now; she half expected the granite overhang to be glowing with their reflected heat.

  They reached for each other at the same moment, tugging at each other’s shirts, freeing them from jeans that were suddenly far too confining. When seeking hands at last found bare skin, their sighs of relief were simultaneous. Mercy traced the muscled planes of his belly and chest, but stopped with a gasp when Grant found and held her breast, rubbing his thumb over her nipple until even the thin lace of her bra seemed far too much fabric.

  Her hands slipped convulsively down to his waist, and held on as he continued to tease the taut peak until heat was rippling through her. Her fingers tightened, pulling him closer. He grasped her wrist with his free hand and gently moved her hand, pressing her palm over his straining erection. Mercy felt the heat of him even through the denim, and traced his length with a slow thoroughness that made him groan. She did it again, reaching tentatively lower, caressing, until his hips jerked convulsively.

  “Mercy…” he gasped out.

  She repeated the motion, and his hands shot to her shoulders, holding her still.

  “Mercy, stop.”

  “You don’t…like that?”

  He laughed, low and harsh. “You’re about to find out how much I like it, right here on this damn rock.”

  She took one look at the heat that was glowing in his eyes, glanced around the sheltered alcove that magically seemed to be blocking the cold and welcoming what warmth there was from the winter sun, then looked back at his face and smiled.

  “A little chilly, maybe, but…I think I like the idea.”

  Grant groaned again, as deeply as he had when she caressed him, as if her words had affected him as much as her touch had.

  “If I thought for a minute you meant that…” he began, his voice rough.

  “But I did,” she said softly. “This place is…special.”

  She didn’t say that she would treasure such a memory in the time ahead, when she left this place, and him, but she suspected he realized it anyway. Something flickered in his eyes, something in their blue depths that told her he, too, was thinking of memories as yet unmade. And, she admitted to herself, there was an utterly selfish motive driving her; she wanted some memory of her always to be with him, imprinted on this special place, the memory of at least one city girl he hadn’t hated.

  And then Grant was moving, so swiftly she barely had time to realize what he was doing, and so swiftly she wouldn’t have time to protest, even had she wanted to. She didn’t want to. He tugged off her jacket and shoved it beneath her, to cushion her from their granite bed. He paused to kiss her, deep and hot and enflaming, before he tugged at the snap of her jeans, then at the zipper, his fingers clumsy, as they never were in his haste. Mercy reached to help him, but he brushed her hands away, urging them to his own zipper.

  In her eagerness, her hands were clumsy, too, but eventually she managed the button at his waist, and after that the insistent press of his flesh helped her with the zipper. She pushed aside the interfering clothing, and then she had him in her hands, hot and hard and satin-smooth. Grant let out a harsh groan as she stroked him, as her fingers curled around his length and her thumb rubbed over the swollen tip of him, spreading his own ardent moisture.

  He clawed at her jeans and panties then, dragging them down her legs. Mercy knew this would be awkward, that this was insane, trying to make love on a rock in jeans and boots, but she didn’t care—unless he made her wait too long. Already the ache inside her was unbearable, the ache that only he could ease, the hollowness only he could fill.

  “Mercy,” he gasped out. “Stop. That feels too damn good. I can’t take any more.”

  He stopped her hands, still busily caressing his rigid flesh, with his
own, and moved them safely to his chest. He grabbed at her left boot and yanked it from her foot with a single fierce motion, then freed her leg from the tangle of clothing. She shivered, not from the cold—it didn’t seem cold at all—but from her body’s sudden knowledge that it wasn’t going to be denied, that she would soon have him inside her again, that he would fill her, stretch her to that exquisite fullness, then drive her to madness and beyond.

  Grant shed his own big, heavy jacket and draped it over them both. He moved over her then, and shoved at his own clothing. When he lowered himself and Mercy felt the first touch of eager male flesh, she gave a glad cry and lifted herself to him. Grant covered her mouth with his, drinking in that cry, and she felt him shudder as he slid into her welcoming heat.

  It truly was insane, Mercy thought in some vague part of her mind that wasn’t already consumed with the driving power of Grant’s body as he thrust into her again and again. Somehow the insanity of it added a new dimension, as if the setting, this high rocky shelf, for all its sheltering still in the middle of all the wild beauty around them, added a kind of wildness to their mating that could only be found in a place like this. They became as their surroundings, primal, fierce, clawing at each other as they each took and demanded and gave and gloried in all of it.

  And in the end, as they exploded together, Grant’s harsh shout of her name, and her keening moan of his, melded into a single primitive cry as wild as anything that lived in this untamed place.

  Maybe he could stand it, Grant thought as Mercy clung to him as they rode Joker back to the ranch. Maybe he could stand the city in small doses, stand to be away from the ranch. Maybe he could take it enough to keep some kind of relationship going. Mercy seemed to truly like it here, and although he knew better than to think she’d adapt completely and want to stay forever, maybe she’d visit often enough that they could force some kind of a future out of what had flared between them.

  He didn’t think she’d ever force him to a choice, as Constance had. She was too open and honest for that, and he knew she realized his heart was here and always would be.

  But what would be the point? A long-distance relationship composed mostly of airplane flights and phone calls, periods of aching longing broken up by bouts of fierce togetherness, where the passion of absence blurred the reality of day-to-day living together, that process by which two people really joined to form a third entity that was stronger than the sum of its parts?

  His mother had that, however unlikely it seemed, with Nate. He’d had to admit that whenever he saw the driven, hungry man turn to putty in his mother’s loving hands. Nate had rather belligerently told him once, during one of his Christmas visits as an equally belligerent teenager, that Barbara was his touchstone with real life, and that Grant had better get used to the idea. That had probably been the first time he truly accepted the fact that his mother was indeed a Fortune, in more than just name only. And that the powerful and sometimes star-crossed family was part of his life, like it or not.

  It hit him then: Could the unexpectedly successful match of his down-to-earth, warm, sincere mother with the hungry, edgy, discontented Nate Fortune be any more unlikely than him and Mercy? Were the cowboy and the cop any more implausible a couple? Could they make something of this, as his mother and Nate had? As even Jake and Erica had, strife-torn though their lives were?

  All the old warnings rose up inside him, but couldn’t seem to make their way through the lingering heat that still warmed him after their passionate love-making in that spot that had always been, as Mercy had said, special. And now, he thought, it would be forever linked with Mercy in his mind, linked with her sweet, honest giving and the incredible, astonishing pleasure he’d found with her, a pleasure unlike anything he’d ever known.

  He might be a fool to think anything could ever come of this, but maybe he’d be an even bigger fool to turn his back on it. Even if it didn’t, couldn’t, last, even if it was only for whatever time she was here.

  Joker let out a whicker as they came in sight of the barn. Mercy still said nothing, and Grant wondered what she was thinking. Was she regretting what they’d done, those moments of fiery madness when they’d taken each other like two creatures born more of the wild places than the supposedly civilized people they were?

  “Mercy?”

  “What?” She sounded…odd, but not upset.

  “I think we need to talk.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be in as soon as I put up Joker.”

  “All right,” she said, still with that odd note in her voice that he couldn’t label.

  He dropped her off at the house and went to rub down and stable Joker, giving the stallion a scoop of sweet feed as a reward for his patience while two humans ignored him in their self-absorption. He checked on the mare and foal, pleased to see that the wary baby, who was marked so much like her father, was not at all bothered by his presence.

  When he walked back into the house, he found Mercy in the den. And when he coupled the phone in her hand with the look on her face, he wished he’d never had that phone line run in that five miles from the main road.

  She glanced up as he came in, but said nothing, clearly listening intently. At last she said, “Yes, I’ll let you know exactly when,” and hung up.

  She turned to face him. He knew what was coming, and guessed she knew he knew, but she said it anyway. As if it wouldn’t be real until she did.

  “They’ve caught the murderers. The preliminary hearing is set for Monday. I have to go back.”

  Thirteen

  If he kept on like this, Grant thought, the whole damn place was going to fall down around his ears. This had to stop. He had to keep his mind on his work, not spend half his day staring into space, thinking about Mercy, wondering if she was all right. And wondering what would have happened if they’d had the chance to have that talk.

  A chill seized him, making him shiver with its ferocity. Why hadn’t she told him? How could she just walk back into that deadly mess, knowing how much danger she was in?

  He lugged his saddle inside and slammed the tack room door shut, making Walt, who was sitting mending a bridle strap—the kind of chore Mercy had taken off their hands—jump.

  “You’d best get rid of what’s eatin’ you, boy,” the old hand said, “while there’s still something left.”

  “Nothing’s eating me.”

  “Right. That’s why you been snarly as a caged bobcat ever since that little lady left.”

  Grant dumped his saddle unceremoniously on its rack. “I’m not snarly.”

  Walt studied him for a moment, then said quietly, “We’re all worried about her, Grant. Ever since that detective fella told you what was really going on.”

  Grant swore, low and harsh, his voice echoing with frustration. He’d only called Gabe Devereax, the private investigator Rebecca Fortune had hired to look into Kate’s death, because his mother had said the man had friends on the police force, and Grant had wanted to make sure Mercy had people looking out for her during the preliminary hearing for the suspected killers.

  It was then that he’d found out that the murder of Nick Corelli, and the previous murder of his friend, had been mob-related. Found out that Mercy herself was now, as the only witness, a target. Found out that attempts had already been made to silence her permanently, and that this, as much as her need for a place to recoup, had been behind her retreat to the M Double C; her superiors had ordered her out of town and out of sight, for her own safety.

  He swore again as he yanked open a drawer beneath the small workbench and dug out a small tin of saddle soap. He’d clean the damn thing from stirrup to horn; that ought to keep him occupied.

  “You gonna keep slamming around here swearin’ a blue streak, or do what you want to do?”

  Grant glared at the old man. “And just what might that be?”

  Walt refused to be intimidated. “Go after her.”

  That that was exactly the urge he’d been fighting
ever since Mercy had packed her bag and decamped the day after Christmas didn’t make him any less testy about it. He’d decided against it more times than he could count already, yet the idea kept returning, as determined and hardheaded as the lady herself.

  “She’s the cop, not me. She’s trained to handle—”

  Walt interrupted him sharply. “Mobsters?”

  Grant suppressed another shiver. Just the thought made him queasy—Mercy, facing some shadowy gangster type alone…

  “You know her,” he muttered. “Do you really think she’d appreciate me charging after her like she was a child who couldn’t take care of herself?”

  “Just because you can take care of yourself don’t mean you always want to do it alone.”

  For a long, silent moment, Grant just stood there looking at the old hand. Walt met his gaze steadily, and then something oddly soft came into his eyes.

  “I’d hate to see you end up like your daddy, son. He lost once and never tried again, just got old and died here, all alone except for you and me. But you and I both know there was a big part of him that died a long time ago, when your mamma left.”

  “Damn.” Grant swore a third time, but this time it was in a tone of surrender.

  Walt smiled. “You go to it, boy. We’ll keep things runnin’ around here. You ain’t been much help of late, anyway.”

  Four hours later, he was fastening his seat belt on a small turboprop plane headed for Denver and his connecting flight to Minneapolis. And he wasn’t sure if he was happy about it or not. He only knew he couldn’t do anything else.

  Mercy had given up trying to read the book that lay open on her lap; in any case, the light in her bedroom had faded long ago. Nor was there any point in going over the paperwork she’d brought home from her meeting with the detectives and the prosecuting attorneys; she couldn’t know it any better than she did now.