The air hung heavy with the scent of flowers and passion, but no matter how deeply she filled her lungs, she couldn’t catch her breath. Then he knelt in front of her and pressed his lips to her stomach, and she dug her fingers into the heavy muscles of his shoulders through the heated material of his T-shirt. And she decided that breathing was overrated. Who needed oxygen when there was so much to feel?
His smooth-shaven jaw contrasted with the thick fullness of his hair and the slide of skin on skin when he worked his way up her body and kissed her lips, drawing her shirt off and letting it fall.
“Boots,” he rasped against her lips, “unless you want them getting wet.”
She toed them off and kicked them aside, and the second they thudded to the floor he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the raised platform. She didn’t have a chance to admire the finished surround, the wine, or the candles, because without pausing for an instant, he stepped straight into the hot tub and started down the shallow staircase.
“Wyatt!” She pushed at his arms. “You’re still wearing your—”
He sank down, carrying her with him. She gasped as the water closed around her, then murmured in pleasure as she found it warm rather than hot, so it energized her rather than sapping her strength. “Jeans,” she finished on a breathy moan as he settled her against him face-to-face, spreading her legs around him so she was riding the hard, jutting ridge behind his fly.
“I know.” He kissed her throat, her ear, the upslope of one breast. “They’re the only reason I’m not already inside you.”
“So what are you waiting for?”
“Wine,” he muttered, hands splaying to cup her buttocks beneath the water. “Brownies. Slow seduction.”
“Later,” she said, going to work on his fly. Reaching up, she snagged the bag, found the condoms, and soaked the box getting it open. When she had one of the packets free, she reached beneath the water to press it into his palm. “Right now—I don’t want to wait.”
His eyes fired and his lips curved, a cocky boy’s smile in a face that was all man. “Good. Because neither do I.”
*
Wyatt had known they were good together, but before tonight, he hadn’t known how far “good” could go. Hadn’t had a clue.
In the warm languor following their first hard, fast encounter in the hot tub, they sipped wine and fed each other strawberries dabbed with whipped cream, and talked about a long-ago picnic when they had ridden up into the hills and picked wild berries. By unspoken consent, they left the brownies for later and turned to each other instead, twining together in the hot tub, only to emerge an hour later, waterlogged and laughing, to towel each other off between kisses and caresses. Then, as had become his newest favorite habit, he swept her up, cradled her against his chest, and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom.
As he started up the short hallway, she danced her nails across his chest and kissed his throat until he groaned and rasped, “You keep doing that and I may drop you. I won’t mean it, and I’ll feel really bad afterward, but I’ll do it.”
“No, you won’t,” she purred, tugging on his earlobe with her teeth. “I trust you not to let me fall.”
“Don’t,” he said, tossing her on the bed, “speak too soon!”
She squealed as she landed and bounced, damp, naked and pink-skinned, and so glorious that part of him wanted to stand there and stare, and wonder how he’d gotten so damn lucky. He dropped down to the bed beside her, instead, and covered her with his body, intensely aware of how perfectly she wrapped around him, welcomed him home, and then took him someplace else entirely.
In the aftermath, lying with her tucked against his side, with her hand on his chest and his cheek resting on the top of her head as usual, he dozed, not really ready to sleep when sleeping would mean the end of an incredible night. Mind drifting, he listened to the now-familiar sounds of the bunkhouse. The hot tub was off and cooling, but the passive vent system whirred, powered by the heat still coming off the water. The refrigerator kicked on now and then, as did the solar-charged battery that fed to an exterior generator. And under all of that, counterpointing the sounds of their breathing and the occasional click-click-click of Klepto’s nails on the floor downstairs, was the rare creak-pop of the logs settling for the night.
Of all the sounds, it was strange to think that those creak-pops were the only ones that the long-ago inhabitants of the bunkhouse would have heard.
He imagined the place as it would have been back then, a single-story, single-room dormitory with a card table at one end, bunks at the other, and saddles stacked by each bed. Because a cowboy could borrow a horse, but he couldn’t call himself a cowboy without a saddle. The bunkhouse would’ve held a dozen men, maybe more—they would ride together, eat together, even blow off steam in town together come payday. And when it came time to round up the herds and drive them down to the railhead several hundred miles away, they would have one another’s backs for the duration.
He pictured them scattered around the fire—some tending to the horses and cattle, others seeing to the camp, while the Cookie whipped up biscuits and gravy and brewed coffee the consistency of hydraulic fluid. Maybe they didn’t all like one another, but they needed one another. Their sum was far greater than its parts, but it was never static because they were the kind of men who didn’t stay in one place very long before their feet started itching, telling them it was time to move on.
And damned if he didn’t see it all of a sudden, a tantalizing glimpse of what could be: a fire of metal strips that spun in the breeze; a coffeepot that bubbled with recycled oil; a backdrop of hammered-flat car hoods etched with lines that suggested saddle horses on a picket line and a massive herd of cattle being held by the watering hole; and a dozen mechanical men in ten-gallon hats made of flywheels and air filters.
It was fresh, different, exciting. He hadn’t done anything like it before. Didn’t know if anyone had. And where a few minutes ago he’d thought he might not ever move again, now his blood hummed with a different sort of urgency—diffuse and not fully formed yet, but still more than he’d felt in too long. I could build that. It could be good.
Giving in to the gloriously sudden urge, even knowing that tomorrow was going to suck if he didn’t get any sleep, he eased out from beneath Krista.
She snuggled up with his pillow, frowning in her sleep as he bent down and kissed her cheek. “Wyatt,” she whispered, reaching for him.
“I’ll just be down in the workshop,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t remember the conversation. “Klepto will keep an eye on you.”
At the sound of his name, the dog poked his head through the door.
Wyatt pointed to the floor near the bed. “Stay here,” he said. “Keep her company.” He didn’t know how many words Klepto actually understood, but the mutt did a couple of turns and lay down on the throw rug, facing the bed. The sight of her in his bed, with his dog on the floor nearby, put a curl of warmth in his chest and a sense that everything was where it was supposed to be. For right now, anyway. Careful not to look at it too close, he headed downstairs and out into the darkness, suddenly itching for his tools.
*
Krista awoke to a pink-tinged darkness and stared at the wood-beamed ceiling while the last of her dream—something about giant corn muffins with foam-rubber tentacles battling a flash flood, and she really didn’t want to run that through a dream analyzer—drained away and her pulse slowed.
“Well,” she said. “That was crazy.” Then, realizing the space beside her was empty, the sheets cool, she called, “Wyatt?”
“Whuff?” A gray-whiskered face appeared over the side of the bed.
She tousled Klepto’s head. “Hey, buddy. Where’s the big guy?” Wide awake despite the early hour, she crawled out of the big, soft bed and pulled on the yoga pants and T-shirt that had migrated from her place to his. Sticking her feet into a pair of canary yellow flip-flops—more migrants—she said, “Come on. Let’s go see what’s up.
”
Hoping it wouldn’t be tentacles and flash floods—or their real-world equivalents, whatever those might be—she headed down the stairs and swung open the front door. Klepto flung himself down the stairs with canine abandon, barking as if to say, “Hello, world, here I am!”
Clang-bang! The noise brought Krista’s attention around, and she grinned. “Well, what do you know? Seems like the hot tub is already paying dividends. Who needs the Fountain of Youth when you’ve got the Hot Tub of Creativity? We’ll have to put that in the brochure.”
Ignoring the pang that came at the thought of renting the place out next season, she rolled open the sliding steel door and slipped into the shop, where she found the workbench covered with drawing paper and Wyatt standing over a collection of metal scraps that had been laid out in an indecipherable outline, like some mechanical fossil.
“Whuff!” Klepto barged past her, jogged into the shop, and dropped a flamingo-pink hairbrush at his master’s feet.
“What—” Wyatt looked at the dog, blinked at her, and then seemed to come out of whatever fugue he’d been in. “Hey!” Expression clearing, he crossed to her, tugged her into the shop. “Come in. Here.” Snagging a work shirt off the welder, he shook it out and draped it around her shoulders, then drew her in for a kiss. “You look cold.”
“You don’t,” she said, flattening her hands on his T-shirt and going up on her tiptoes for a second, more lingering kiss. “You look like you’ve been working. How’s it going?”
“I’ve finally got it, I think,” he said, drawing her to the workbench.
The three drawings showed a campfire scene that could have come straight out of her childhood, with a whiskered, dour-looking Cookie crouched over the fire, a young whip of a cowboy hauling wood, and a cattle dog eyeing the supplies like he was looking for an opening to snag a piece of bacon. Her lips curved. “I see the dog made it back in.”
“Can’t seem to get rid of him. There’s more.” He brushed his fingers across the other sketches, which showed other little scenes—cowboys tending their horses and tack, with herds and mountains in the background, while notes and arrows suggested materials and fabrication techniques. “It’s just a start, but”—he gestured to the fossil pile—“it’s what I was looking for without even realizing it—something new and different, and not like anything I’ve done before.”
That struck a chord, but not in a good way. She pushed the twinge away, though—she was happy for him—she was. “Congratulations.” She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, holding him close. “It’s going to be amazing.”
“It’s just a few lines on a piece of paper at the moment. But, yeah, I think I can get to work for real now.” Looking down at the sketches, he added, “In fact, I need to head south. I’ve got some pistons back home that I can use with the stuff I have here. I figured I could cut out after the ride on Friday, be back by Saturday night.” She didn’t know what he saw in her face, but his expression softened. He pulled her in, kissed her forehead, and then held her close, saying against her temple, “This doesn’t change anything, Krissy, except that I won’t be able to dance with you at the bonfire Friday night, and I’ll miss waking up beside you Saturday morning.”
“And I’ll be sleeping in my own bed.” The prospect bothered her more than she would have expected, more than she wanted to analyze right then.
“You could stay here while I’m gone,” he said.
“Alone? No, thanks.”
“Invite the girls over. Use the hot tub. Call it a spa night.”
“No, that’s . . . Hm. Tempting.”
“Good.” He gave her a smacking kiss on the lips. “That’s settled. Now, what do you say we get dressed and head up to breakfast? Rumor has it there’s a new crop of greenhorns in town, waiting for us to teach them which end kicks, which end bites, and why it’s a good idea to set the saddle so the horn goes in front. And, Krista? I’ll be back Saturday afternoon. That’s a promise.”
20
“To Wyatt,” Jenny proclaimed, lifting her wine. “For finishing the Jacuzzi.” Submerged to her collarbones, with frothy bubbles camouflaging her strapless bathing suit, she could’ve been naked.
Krista was tempted to snap a phone picture for future blackmail, except that Jenny’s ideas of revenge tended to be both public and creative.
“Hear, hear!” Shelby pantomimed a toast across the tub. Sitting with the water just below her breasts, she wore a killer red bathing suit with all sorts of cutouts and push-ups that made Krista feel flat and boring in her blue one-piece. But she had long ago decided that it was okay for her to envy Shelby’s body and wardrobe, on the theory that if you couldn’t fake-hate your best friend, who could you fake-hate?
Sitting between them, Krista clinked her wine with one and then the other. “To girls’ night in.”
Jenny nodded. “May it be the first of many, because why have a luxury guest cabin if you can’t sneak it for yourself now and then? You’ll have to block it out for a week or two next summer so we can still have access once this place is being rented out.”
Shelby studied Krista. “This is a guest cabin, right? Or are you thinking of turning it back into a bunkhouse for your head wrangler?”
“Foster is my head wrangler.”
“Your second-in-command wrangler, then. That’s not what I’m asking, and you know it.”
“I don’t . . . I’m not . . .” Krista took a sip of her wine, buying herself a few seconds. It wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about it—this was the Girl Zone, after all, and she knew the questions would be coming. But now, sitting between her twin and her best friend, she didn’t want to talk about Wyatt’s lack of interest in anything long-term when the others were married to men who had loved them enough to make it work. “Wyatt and I have an agreement.”
Jenny waved that off. “So did Nick and I. We renegotiated.”
“That’s not on the table.”
“Why not? You’re falling for him, aren’t you?”
“No!” Krista said, so quickly that the panic didn’t have time to take root. “That would be”—stupid, suicidal, contrary to everything she’d worked so hard to do right—“ridiculous.”
“You’re in a relationship, aren’t you?”
“It’s not a relationship. We’re just lovers.”
“There’s a difference?”
“Lovers enjoy each other. A relationship implies a future. Can we change the subject? Please?”
“I don’t mean to nag.” Jenny even managed to look contrite. “It’s just—”
“You’re one of those annoying happily married people who think everybody around them should get married, too,” Krista finished for her.
“Yes, I am. And I want you to be one, too. Is that so much to ask for my favorite sister? Remember how you used to plan your wedding? You wanted Great-grandma Abby’s ring and even had your kids’ names picked out. What were they again? Abby, Edith, Rose, and . . .”
“Edward Arthur,” Krista filled in, “after Dad and Big Skye. Too bad it sounds like a knight of the Round Table. Sir Edward Arthur, at your service.” She mocked a bow, refusing to feel sorry for herself. “And for the record, we were eight. We also thought that oatmeal cookies could cure a case of the cooties and that babies were made using a special sourdough recipe. Otherwise known as the facts of life, à la Gran.”
Shelby buried a snicker in her wine. “I should’ve sicced her on Lizzie rather than going with the Dummy’s Guide to Talking to Your Kids About Sex. Though Foster and I got some good giggles out of the diagrams.”
“Did you follow the instructions to make sure they got it right?” Jenny asked, deadpan.
“Why, do you want to borrow it, see if you and Nick are missing any steps?”
“Ha! We graduated to the Idiot’s Guide to the Kama Sutra a while back.” Jenny stuck out her tongue. “So there.”
“Oh? Have you tried page eighty-seven yet?”
“Why, do you need pointers?”
/> Relieved that the conversation had moved past her and Wyatt, Krista settled lower in the water and sipped her wine.
Maybe she had imagined her wedding and named her children-to-be when she was too young to know what it all really meant, and maybe deep down inside, she had always figured she would get married and have kids before Jenny. But she had let go of those fantasies a while back, along with her five-and ten-year plans. Plus, she refused to put Wyatt in the picture, knowing that when the season ended, so would they.
When the thought brought a stab of anguish she wasn’t interested in dealing with—why mope for the last couple of weeks when she could enjoy herself instead?—she skipped ahead, her mind going to the next project, the next business plan, the next fun thing on the guest list. The things that had kept her happily busy all these years.
Into a lull in the conversation, she said, “Now that the bunkhouse is pretty much done, can you guys put your creative brains together and come up with some ideas for advertising? I was thinking maybe we could offer it for long weekends this fall and winter, as a romantic getaway.” There, she had even said it without a twinge. More or less.
“Hot tub, catered meals, and a big bed far away from the hustle and bustle.” Shelby gestured with her wine. “It sells itself. What do you need me for?”
“A slogan with a little more punch than A hot tub, catered meals, and a big bed?” Though she had to admit, it had potential. “And for you and Jenny to get together on the visuals. I was thinking pictures of the interior, maybe get some models for some romantic shots, and—”
“Pictures!” Jenny shot up from the hot tub, creating a mini tsunami that slopped over the mosaic tile as she grabbed a big, fluffy towel and scampered for her bag.
Harvest at Mustang Ridge Page 19