by Pamela Aares
“Dara, meet Chloe McNalley,” Scotty said.
Dara shook Chloe’s hand. “I’ve heard so much about you. I couldn’t believe it when he said you owned the Sabers; that’s a lot of guys. I can’t even handle three brothers.”
So much for avoiding tricky territory.
“It took all three of us to handle you,” Scotty said, turning the conversation with the same ease that he threw curve balls. He draped an arm over his sister’s shoulder. “So how’s it feel to have your Ph.D., Dr. Donovan? Dad told me you actually landed a job.”
“I start at Berkeley in September. Dad thinks that until then he’s going to have free labor from me.” She turned to Chloe. “Scotty told us you teach cosmology. How can you possibly cover all that in one semester?”
“Taught. I’ve had to give up teaching for a while.” Chloe still wasn’t used to thinking of teaching in the past tense. “I imagine teaching art history is a pretty serious challenge as well.”
“Not when you love it like I do.” Dara nodded toward Scotty and their bags. “Mom put you in your old room. Chloe’s in the guest house.”
“I thought she might want a little peace and quiet,” a soft voice said from behind them.
Chloe turned and faced one of the most beautiful women she’d ever seen. The woman offered her hand.
“I’m Meg,” she said with a gentle smile as Chloe shook her outstretched hand. “Welcome to Cedar Creek, Miss McNalley. I hope you’ll forgive me, but I have to get back to the kitchen. Sam has invited everyone for miles around.” She winked at her husband.
“Not everyone,” Sam protested.
“Please, call me Chloe. Can I give you a hand?”
“You settle in,” Meg said as she hugged Scotty, bags and all. “But I’d love some help later, with the dessert.”
Chloe saw the loving look Meg gave Scotty as she turned back toward the house. It made her feel like she wanted to stay, surrounded by this family, forever. She knew what unconditional love felt like, and she missed it, missed the uncompromising security it offered. Missed having someone to talk with, someone she didn’t have to be on guard with.
She simply missed her dad.
Scotty handed his sister his bag. “I’ll walk Chloe over. See you all in ten.”
Chloe followed Scotty along a pebbled path that led to a quaint cottage surrounded by flowers and trees.
“I’m afraid we’ve spoiled Dara,” he said as he opened the glass-paned door to the cottage.
“Spoiled isn’t always a bad thing,” Chloe said.
He brushed past her through the door, and her pulse skittered in her chest. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all. Keeping up a cool façade wasn’t going to be easy.
Scotty put her bag on a bench just inside the door. He turned, and she saw the hunger in his eyes that more than matched her own. They’d been together for hours, but hadn’t touched, hadn’t shown any hint of impropriety. Their restraint was apparently about to end.
Scotty reached out and circled her wrist, watching her eyes. He tugged her to him, a gentle pull, like a dance move, and she slid into his arms. He tilted her chin and closed his lips over hers.
He tasted good, felt like heaven. But she pulled her mouth free.
“Scotty, w—”
He put his lips to hers. “Shhh. We have ten minutes. Who knows when we’ll have ten minutes alone again?”
He kicked the door to the cottage shut, offered his hand and led her into the tiny bedroom. Her heart pounded so hard against her chest that it nearly embarrassed her. She started to protest, to say they shouldn’t, to say all the things she’d scripted to keep him at a safe distance during this trip to visit his family. But all protest dissolved when he slid his hand under her blouse and crushed her lips in a fevered kiss. If the heat that pulsed in her had a color, she’d have been red hot. She pulled his shirt free from his jeans and wriggled her hands up the muscles of his chest, felt him go hard against her thigh. He pulled her blouse over her head, and she freed her hands and unsnapped her bra. They’d gotten good at taking their clothes off quickly—each time they came together, they couldn’t wait to touch, to taste.
Scotty cupped a breast in one hand and kissed her again, opening the button at the waist of her capris with his other hand. She pulled away, watching the heat in his eyes build as she slithered out of her pants. As soon as she was free, he backed her up and with his arm, pressed her across the bed, where the nubby texture of the chenille spread tingled against her skin. He straightened, shucked his jeans and in one quick motion cast off his briefs. Freed from its confines, his erection rose up, thick and ready. Before he could move, she sat up and wrapped her hand around him and tasted. He throbbed under the pressure of her lips, and the thrill of intensifying his desire pulsed in her, stoking her own fierce craving.
“No. Ten minutes,” Scotty said, pulling away from her. “If you do that, it’ll be more like three.” He closed his hands around her wrists and raised them over her head, using his chest to ease her back onto the bed. His pulse throbbed at the base of his neck, keeping time with her own. He held her hands pinned to the mattress, and his eyes roved her body. Held in his gaze she felt beautiful, felt the power of woman to man and man to woman. Now she understood why such a power was called primal—it rushed in beyond words, beyond thoughts and took its place in the core of her. She sucked in a breath as he released her and moved to slide her panties down her legs. She kicked at them and they landed on the floor. She started to sit back up and once again he pressed her back.
“Not so fast, Miss McNalley.” He held her down with one hand and ran his other hand between her thighs. She shivered against his palm. For a moment he admired her, feasting his eyes on her flushed skin, on her breasts and her swollen lips, before reaching a finger to stroke the soft curls at the top of her legs. She moaned. It nearly undid him, that soft, sweet, hungry moan. He’d thought about having her every minute of every hour since the night they’d shared in New York. His schedule hadn’t permitted them to get together until that morning at the airport. The wanting, the need to lose himself in her body, had strung him out until he’d been almost shaking with it. He’d wanted to touch her at the terminal in San Francisco, in the jet, in his dad’s Jeep. He slid his fingers into her. She was wet and slick and hot, as ready as he was. Which was better than good. Somebody would come looking for them soon, so they didn’t have a lot of time. Hell, ten minutes was probably an exaggeration; a quickie was all they’d be able to get in. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t satisfy Chloe. She was responsive, and he loved watching her respond. He could probably get off just by watching her come.
He touched her exactly where she loved being touched, circling with his thumb while he slid his fingers deeper into her heat. She contracted around them as she came. He pulled away, just far enough to slip the condom out of his jeans and roll it on. He hovered above her, rubbing himself against her throbbing sex. She grabbed for his arms and pulled him down, hard. He thrust inside her and it was the last thing his mind registered. The rest was body, sound and soul.
He couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down. The heat, the motion . . .
But then he heard, maybe felt, her murmured encouragement, her moan of pleasure, and he came hard, his body shuddering with the force of it.
He collapsed on top of Chloe, boneless and at peace.
When he could think again, he slid to the side, shifting his weight off her. And he lay listening to their breathing.
It should’ve scared him how lost he got when their bodies came together, but it didn’t. It felt too good. Too right.
He turned his head. Chloe’s eyes were closed, her body slack. Her skin was flushed, and a drop of sweat trickled along her hairline. He’d done that. Satisfaction washed over him. He’d given her pleasure.
He’d had good sex in his life, amazing sex, but never had he felt as he did with Chloe. Maybe love felt like that, satisfying and complete.
Love. He hadn’t ev
er before let himself think about love. And in some deep place he almost wished he hadn’t. Love raised the stakes, didn’t it?
They lay breathing together for one of those perfect moments he wished would never end, the kind that couldn’t be captured or held, but which was all the more potent for the fact it couldn’t last.
A clanging commotion in the driveway behind the cottage rudely ended their idyll.
Chloe startled and then giggled. He put a finger to his lips and kissed her. But it was the wrong move. He was instantly hard again. She wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Do you think they’ll miss us?” The sultry smile in her eyes and the sheen of perspiration on her cheeks made him want more. Want her under him, over him, any way he could have her. But family—very curious family—called.
“Yup.” He stood and scooped up her panties. “Better put these on or they’ll have to send in the cavalry to get me out of here.”
She laughed.
He loved the sound of her laugh. If a bright summer day had a soundtrack, it would feature Chloe’s laugh. But even as he watched, a sudden darkness clouded her eyes.
“We can’t do this, you know,” she said as she tugged on her clothes. She leaned into his shoulder and buried her face against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and felt her shudder.
He tipped her face to his. “We have now. We’ll sort the rest out later.” He held her gaze. “Let’s just have now.”
When Scotty walked into the kitchen of the farmhouse, his mother was pulling a tray of hot biscuits from the oven.
“Hungry?” She nodded to a plate already stacked with biscuits.
“Starved.”
“Hope you don’t mind the sleeping arrangements. Seemed best, given the situation.”
He didn’t want to discuss the situation, and she knew it.
“How was your flight?”
“Mind blowing,” he said as he bit into a biscuit.
She looked at him then, really looked. “You’ll find your way.” She slid the hot biscuits to another plate. “Where is Miss McNalley?”
“Chloe. She went to have a look at the barn.”
“Your grandmother’s out by the barn.”
That could complicate things. Grandma Donovan was partially blind, but she didn’t need good eyes. She saw deeper into the world than any of them.
“Maybe I’d better head out there.”
“Take Chloe one of these—lunch isn’t for another hour. And take an apple for Drake. He’s been a pistol since Dara’s been away so much. Maybe he’ll settle down now that she’s back for a while. But you were always his favorite.”
He accepted a biscuit wrapped in a paper towel, brushed a kiss to his mother’s cheek and turned for the door.
“Apple,” his mother said, grabbing one from the dish beside the stove and tossing it to him. He plucked it from the air and she smiled.
He tucked the apple into his pocket. That a piece of fruit could calm a sixteen-hundred-pound horse amazed him. Not all appetites could be so easily addressed.
It was going to take a hell of a lot more than an apple to slake the desire that making love with Chloe had fired.
Chapter Sixteen
Chloe needed more than a walk to clear her head. Once again Scotty had shaken her world. She’d promised herself this would be a simple family visit, no shenanigans. But she was good at fooling herself, it seemed.
As she approached the barn, she saw a woman standing with her head up against a very handsome thoroughbred. The horse towered over her; it must’ve been sixteen hands high. But it nuzzled the woman and stood still and calm. Chloe stopped. She didn’t want to disturb them.
“You can come on over,” the woman said. Her voice had the same beautiful inflection as Scotty’s and his dad’s. But she couldn’t have seen Chloe; her back was turned.
Curious, Chloe approached slowly.
“This is Drake,” the woman said as she turned. “We’ve been discussing a few things.”
Chloe had never met a horse whisperer, but the woman with her sun-creased face fit her image of one by every measure.
“I’m Nanu,” she said. “Or, as Scotty calls me, G’maw. I know who you are.”
The horse nuzzled the woman again, and she said something Chloe couldn’t make out. The animal walked a few steps toward Chloe and stopped.
“You like horses?”
“I do,” Chloe said, reaching her hand to the horse’s soft muzzle. “But I haven’t had much time for them lately.”
“I can imagine,” G’maw said with a sly glint. “Does your family ride?”
The flip in Chloe’s stomach reminded her that she wasn’t on the other side of grief. The counselor she’d seen said moving through grief could take years. She hoped not. The bottomless sadness was an awful feeling.
“My parents—” She stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to say the word dead. Not here. Not on this beautiful day. Not now. And she wasn’t going to cry. But a tear slipped out anyway. “My parents are no longer living.”
G’maw put her hands on her hips and faced Chloe. “Then you’ve come to the right place. There are no orphans around the Donovan clan.”
She took a step toward Chloe and folded her in her arms. A sense of safety and belonging washed through Chloe. Though she tried to swallow it, a sob rose up. She’d had more friendly hugs in one day here than in the past three or four months.
“Terrifying our guests again, G’maw?”
Scotty spoke from a few feet away, giving Chloe time to take a deep breath and step away from his grandmother. He enfolded G’maw in a tight hug and lifted a brow at Chloe before pulling a wadded paper towel from his pocket and holding it out to her. “Mom’s biscuits are the cure for everything. At least she thinks so. She’s usually right.”
Chloe accepted the biscuit and the crumpled paper towel, then used the towel to wipe at her cheeks. She should’ve felt embarrassed, but didn’t. Scotty shot her another questioning look. She shrugged, smiled at him and G’maw, and nibbled on the biscuit. Scotty pulled the apple from his other pocket and they watched Drake devour it.
“I’m pitching the pick-up game,” G’maw said with a chortle as she turned and walked away from them. “You’ll have to find some other position, my boy. Change is good, remember?”
Scotty was lassoed by his dad to help set up the barbecue, so Chloe accepted Scotty’s brother Lowell’s invitation to tour the farm. If she stayed anywhere near Scotty, lord only knew what she’d do.
Lowell told her that most of Sunridge’s income came from what he called CSAs, a type of community subscription service for produce. The summer garden was thick with carrots, cabbage, lettuce, kale and eggplant. Most of the crops had been started in the high-tech green house next to the barn. She tried to remember the names of some of the more esoteric herbs and vegetables, but only bergamot and daikon stuck in her mind. As usual, making love with Scotty had tumbled her thoughts.
“My dad goes by two words here—local and organic,” Lowell said. “It’s the where and the what of his world. Give him a few beers, and he’ll start waxing on about how food is love.”
Looking out over the carefully tended gardens, each row of plants carefully spaced and weeded, Chloe believed it.
They couldn’t spend too long wandering the farm; cars started to pour into the parking area—liberally covered with hay—that they’d roped off for the party. Chloe thanked Lowell, ran to clean up and then joined the crowd as neighbors and friends ate and chatted under the striped tent Scotty had helped his father erect. The food was plentiful and the guests loud, and Chloe loved every moment.
After lunch, Scotty’s other brother, Luke, chalked the lines for the pick-up game. She wasn’t looking forward to it, but Scotty’s family had already insisted that she play. She’d never been much good at baseball. She recalled her poor showing at the Sabers’ friends and family volleyball game—she’d better cross volleyball off her list of talents as well.
&nb
sp; She ducked into the kitchen to help Scotty’s mother with the dessert trays, hoping for a reprieve.
A painting on the far wall caught her eye, an exquisite still life of eggplants and pears. They throbbed with vitality. She stepped closer to admire it.
“You can have that if you like,” Meg said as she pulled a tray of cookies from the oven.
“Oh, I couldn’t. I mean it’s beautiful. So full of life.”
“I can paint another. I want you to have it.”
Before she could thank her, express her surprise that Meg had painted it, two boys bounded into the kitchen.
“Aunt Meg, the game’s nearly started, but Uncle Sam said we could have ice cream first.”
“And cookies,” the other boy added as he nosed up to the counter.
“And cookies.” Meg laughed. “You can carry out the cookies.” She knelt in front of them. “That is, if you promise to pocket only two each.”
“Promise,” the taller boy said.
Meg gave the other boy the evil eye. Chloe bit back a laugh at her expression.
“I promise too.”
“We’d better head out,” Meg said as she stood. “Sam will come in and drag us out if we don’t.”
So much for the reprieve. Chloe followed Meg with a smile glued in place.
Chloe had expected competition, maybe a bit of friendly cheating, but the family baseball game was unlike any she’d ever experienced.
The younger players, mostly nieces and nephews and neighbor kids, got to hit a softball and bat from a line four feet in front of home plate. They were allowed a four-second start—with all the players on both sides counting to four loudly and dramatically—before anyone who chased down the ball could try to throw them out.
Chloe stood in center field with an oversized glove that Scotty had lent her. He played a short distance away, in right field.
“We should try these rules for the MLB,” she said.
“I knew there was something that could improve my slugging percentage,” he said with a grin.