by Sheryl Lynn
“I’m not...too...”
“You’re just right,” he assured her, nodding.
Bolting upright, he caught her naked body to him and kissed her fiercely, deeply. She clung to him, hungry for the feel of him. Together they fell onto the mattress, sinking into the mound of silky coverings. Never pausing in his kiss, Ryder kicked off the covers, sending them billowing off the end of the bed.
He rolled her onto her back and covered her with the long, hard length of his body. He quivered with the effort it took to keep from crushing her with his weight.
He searched her eyes. She greedily absorbed the dark sapphire blue and the heated depth of his pupils. She drowned.
“I want you too much, darlin’, I can’t go slow.”
Burning with need, she caressed his hard shoulders and sides, marveling at the thick bands of muscle and controlled strength. His wild eyes and flushed face enchanted her.
“You can go fast if you want,” she whispered in a voice gone husky. She licked his chin, her tongue rasping on whiskers. A spasm shook him head to toe. She took it as a sign he liked that. When she worked her hands under the waistband of his pajamas, he shuddered again and made a strangled noise deep in his throat.
“You have a beautiful face,” she said. She worked her fingers up his back, lovingly savoring the sensation of supple skin and taut muscle.
Hunger to have another child filled her, heightening her desire. She wriggled against him, working her way up his chest. Fate had pulled her from the brink of death for a purpose. Fate gave her a second chance. If fate meant for her and Ryder to make a baby, then she wasn’t about to stand in the way of fate. She captured his mouth with hers and boldly shoved her hand beneath the waist of his pajamas.
She claimed, she conquered...and he was hers.
FEELING HIS WAY in the darkness, Ryder sneaked through the kitchen. He used both hands to open the back door without a sound. Cool night wind slapped him. A half-moon offered enough light for him to make his way along the familiar path to his old house. Wind captured the sound of his boots and wisped it away. On the porch, the wooden planks, dried to kindling stage by recent winds, creaked and groaned.
He pounded on the door. “Tom! Wake up!” He kept knocking until a light was turned on inside.
Tom Sorry opened the door and blinked blearily at him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Ryder strode inside. “I’m in trouble, Tom. Big trouble.”
The cowboy shut the door. He wore only blue jeans, and his belt flopped. Though nearing fifty, he had a lean, spare body taut with hard-used muscle. He caught the big brass buckle and fastened it. Then he turned his attention to a small cabinet. He brought out the good Kentucky bourbon and hoisted the bottle for Ryder’s approval.
“Make it a double.” Ryder paced the wooden floor, back and forth in front of the big stone fireplace dominating the room. This had been his house once, and he’d lived a happy bachelor’s existence here. He was starting to think he’d never be happy again.
Tom handed him the drink. Ryder drained it in one long fiery gulp. It hit his belly with a bang. The back burn made his eyes water. He shook his head. “Thanks.”
“Now what’s going on?”
He rested his forearm against the mantelpiece. “Laura. Or whoever she is. She isn’t Laura.”
Looking as confused as a calf stuck in mud, Tom pushed hanks of hair off his sleep-ruddy face. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“It’s Laura. I don’t think she’s my wife.” He clutched a handful of hair and tugged his scalp. “I’ve been working my tail off convincing her she is Laura, but she’s not.”
Tom backed up a step. He glowered from beneath shaggy brows. “You’re crazy.”
Frustrated, Ryder grabbed Tom’s broad shoulders and shook him. “Listen to me! The woman asleep in my bed is not my wife. She is not Laura Hudson.”
“Did she...say she’s not your wife?”
“No, damn it!” He threw his hands in the air. “She’s Laura, but she’s not Laura. You’re going to make me say it. Okay, fine, I’ll speak it right out. I made love to her.” His entire body shivered in remembered pleasure. Making love to her had been heaven and moonshine. No one in all his days had ever touched him with such passion and loving and hungry urgency. Even thinking about her now made him hot and cold.
She loved him.
And he hadn’t the faintest idea who she was.
He choked out the words. “I just had sex with a virgin.”
Chapter Nine
“She’s out there somewhere,” Ryder said. Another stiff drink and a hefty dose of Tom Sorry’s stolid companionship had gone a considerable way toward calming Ryder’s agitation. This particular problem, however, wasn’t getting better with thinking. The more he thought about it, the worse the situation seemed. If the woman he loved wasn’t Laura, then he was a low-down cheating dog—and where the hell was Laura?
And who was the woman in his bed...who had shot her and why?
He rubbed his shoulder where Laura had bit him. He deserved the bite since he’d hurt her, but by the time he realized she’d never made love before, it had been too late to stop.
Tom emerged from the kitchen. The smell of brewing coffee followed him. “I still say you’re crazy, boss. Your missus has been through a lot It’s been a long time since you...” His ears and cheeks reddened. “You know.”
Ryder couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. A real man just plain didn’t go around discussing the particulars of his marriage bed. “I don’t think I’m wrong.”
Tom gave him a dry look. “You know a lot about the subject?” His face turned crimson. “About...heifers?”
Ryder pulled fiercely at his jaw and mouth. “Not much.”
“Me, neither. But you can’t go putting a lady out of your house because you’re thinking she lacks experience.”
He clenched his jaw. “You’re making me feel like a damned fool, Tom.”
“You sound like one. She’s your wife. Now, I’ve never held it secret, I think you made yourself a bum choice. But you married her and you have to stick with it.”
Ryder began to catch on that Tom thought he was trying to get out of the marriage because he didn’t like the way Laura made love. A laugh rumbled from him before he could stop it. Tom drew his shoulders back, looking offended.
“Laura never liked fooling around,” Ryder said. “Might say, if you stuck her in a snowbank, she’d have warmed up.”
Tom’s cheeks flushed.
“When she did warm up,” Ryder continued, “it was only because she wanted something. Even a jackass like me could figure out she was fooling ” Remembering her habit of immediately leaping out of bed after lovemaking so she could rush into the shower made his jaw muscles tighten.
Laura had never desired him.
Looking toward the house, envisioning the warm and beautiful woman sleeping like an angel in his bed, he said, “I don’t care about amnesia and whatever else the doctors might want to call it, some things just don’t change. That’s not Laura. Nothing is the same. Not the feel of her or the taste of her. Not the way she...” A tremble of lingering passion rippled through his muscles. His voice dropped to a whisper. “The way she says my name.”
Managing to look both skeptical and fascinated, Tom leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Ever been with a woman and she loves you so much you want to crawl inside her skin and her into yours and the rest of the world drops off into space? Your heart gets six times too big for your chest. Like it’s going to explode.” Ryder thumped himself on the breastbone. “It’s a fire right here, stoking embers into your blood. Your skin’s too small to hold all the feeling in. Anything is possible and everything is right. The only word in your head is her name, and man, you can fly.”
Eyes wide, mouth slack, Tom slowly shook his head.
“That’s how Laura makes me feel, and that’s how come I know she isn’t Laura.”
“Yo
u’ve been sniffing paint too long.” Tom crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chin. “It’s not like you to spit at good fortune.”
“I’m not doing it now.”
“Then who is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m not saying I’m the smartest fellow on this patch of ground, but sense tells me you’re turned around. If what you’re saying is true, then where did your missus go? Who is the lady in your house?”
“She could be anybody.”
Tom shook his head in firm negation. “Her people would be missing her. And she has to have a reason for being in your missus’s car. How’d she get on the property in the first place? Who shot her? And the biggest question of all, where’s the real Laura? That’s too many questions common sense can’t answer.” Tom went to the kitchen for coffee. His bare feet rustled against the wooden floor.
As Ryder mulled over the questions, he began to see Tom’s point. Except... He jerked his head. “Teresa Gallagher.”
Tom nearly dropped the coffee mugs. He set them down quickly enough for Ryder to know he’d burned himself. He stuck his thumb in his mouth.
“How did I miss it? She’s Tess.” The more Ryder thought about it, the more obvious it seemed. “Look at the way she dresses. Just like Tess. The way she talks. The way she’s been puttering around in my office.”
“Ain’t no way in hell. The police took fingerprints.” He no longer sounded so sure of himself.
“They took Laura’s fingerprints off her hand, but they aren’t on file anywhere, so there’s nothing to compare them to. They assumed she was Laura. Shoot, everything else was anybody’s guess. All this time she’s been telling me she’s not Laura. I’ve been telling her she’s crazy. The doctors were telling her she’s crazy.”
“I’m saying you’re crazy. You don’t have any proof.”
Ryder rubbed the bite mark on his shoulder. If the woman in his bed truly had been a virgin, then he supposed a doctor could tell that she’d never borne a child. Or a simple blood test could prove she wasn’t Abby’s mother.
What if he was wrong? Well, shoot, darlin’, we had such a fine romp in bed I thought it a swell idea to find out if you really are my wife. That would go over like a box of rocks.
“I’ll have a blood test done.”
Tom laughed uneasily. “What will you tell her?”
“I won’t.”
“Can’t do it on the sneak,” Tom said. “It’s her blood, you can’t go taking it behind her back.”
Ryder began to see how dangerous demanding a blood test or doctor’s examination might be. If Laura was Laura, which he truly doubted, his suspicions could destroy their fragile relationship.
“It’s more like she had one of those near-death experiences,” Tom said. “You know, she got so close to dying that she saw the error of her ways. She finally got it in her head that she loves you. That lady is your wife.”
The idea of her being Tess Gallagher swelled in his mind, gaining weight and substance with every passing moment. “You went around with Tess. Took her to the fair and a movie. You knew her.”
“Not much. Shoot, I might have kissed her once, but it was like taking out my kid sister. But I’m telling you, if she is Teresa, I’d know it. Mrs. Weatherbee would know it.”
“She doesn’t look like Tess anymore, but she dresses like her and talks like her and—and she calls Abby kiddo. Laura never did that.” He thought hard, seeking other proof. “She likes my paintings. Laura hates cowboy art. Hell, she hates cowboys.”
Tom leaned back and clamped his arms over his chest. An implacable wall of skepticism. “So where is your missus?”
Good question.
“What I’m about to say might offend you, so don’t be taking a swing at me.”
Ryder drew back warily. He picked up a coffee mug to occupy his hands.
“If there was one word that would’ve described Laura Hudson before the accident, it was grubber. She’d have sold her soul for a buck. Before the accident.”
Ryder wasn’t offended, but he didn’t like Tom’s tone.
“She wouldn’t run out on your money.”
A sickening truth. Ryder held not the slightest doubt that Laura would desert him and Abby, but only after grabbing as much of his money as she could.
Tom leaned forward. “Now let me ask you something else here, boss. What if that lady isn’t Laura? You go sticking your nose in that hornet’s nest, what’s gonna come swarming out? Donny Weis? And what about that lady cop? She’ll be dancing the jitterbug trying to figure out how you switched wives. I can just hear what sort of noises she’ll be making. What’ll happen to the kid when the newspapers find out?”
Abby... for once in her little life she had a real mother. Laura—whoever she was—loved and cherished the child. Abby was blossoming under the healthy attention. He didn’t want to think about the damage it would do her to lose her mother—the woman she loved as a mother. But Tom was right. If Ryder’s suspicions became known, they could lose Abby forever.
“Use your head, boss,” Tom said slowly, “there ain’t no way in hell that lady could be Teresa Gallagher. Take your good fortune and be happy with it.”
LAURA STRETCHED luxuriously. She liked Ryder’s bed. The firm mattress felt good, and the silk-cotton blend sheets held his masculine scent. Even better was knowing that soon it would be her bed, too. This separate-bedrooms nonsense was ending today.
A movement caught her attention. Ryder eased through the doorway. Sighing happily, Laura rolled onto her belly. How amazing and admirable that a man of Ryder’s wealth and talent still rose before the crack of dawn to do chores.
Chores. That’s what she needed. She was strong enough now to be a real wife. Surely, Mrs. Weatherbee could use all the help she could get around the house. There was a full-time job waiting in Ryder’s office. Abby needed constant care and attention, too. It was ridiculous to pass off her responsibilities.
Starting today, she determined, she was lady of the house.
Ryder used both hands to close the door. He tiptoed into the bathroom. Tingles of remembered pleasure tickled her nerves. She pushed off the covers and slid off the bed.
Her back twinged, her legs ached and she was sore in places she’d never thought about before. She supposed lovemaking was like any other exercise; she needed to get in shape. Super shape, if she was going to keep up with an energetic, enthusiastic lover like Ryder. Even thinking about him stripped the strength from her knees, and she had to sit down until the quivering stopped.
She heard the shower running. Grinning, eagerly anticipating the sight of his nakedness in full light, she slipped into the bathroom. Ryder’s silhouette was dark behind pebbled glass.
“Good morning,” she sang.
A loud thump was followed by Ryder’s cursing.
Laura flinched and clapped a hand to her mouth.
“Laura?”
“I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to startle you.” She pulled open the shower stall door and joined him under the spray. “Hi.” She pulled the door shut with a click.
He pressed his back into the corner and stared wide-eyed at her. Water dribbled off his face. “What are you doing?”
She drank in the sight of his incredible, chiseled-fromstone shoulders, and the patterns water rivulets formed through the patch of dark curls on his chest. “Showering?” She fluttered her eyelashes, thinking his bashful act was cute. She plucked the bar of soap from his hand. “Want me to wash your back?”
“You—you shouldn’t be here.”
“I thought you liked to share,” she murmured huskily. Slowly lathering the bar, she inched closer to him. “Last night was so special, Ryder. I can’t believe I ever forgot. It was like the very first time.” She rubbed the soap back and forth across his chest.
He slid down the wall, and his eyes rolled up in the sockets. “Darlin’...you...”
“I don’t have to stop at your back,” she whispered, a scant inch f
rom his face. She kissed him. His mouth was hot and wet, fresh as rainwater. She continued lathering his chest and his belly and his sides. The effect on him was pleasurably obvious. She pressed her body against his slick arousal. “Have we ever made love in the shower before?”
“No,” he said, his voice raw and choked. He grabbed her suddenly, and kissed her.
Making love in the shower was something Laura vowed to do often. It was slightly uncomfortable, a little bit dangerous and thoroughly exquisite. Afterward she lazily toweled off in front of the steamed-up mirror, watching Ryder’s sexy, shadow shape behind her.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Thirty-seven.” He tossed his towel at the hamper and all but ran out of the bathroom.
Wrapping the towel around her body, she followed him. “What’s wrong?”
He jerked a pair of briefs over his hips and grabbed for his jeans. “Nothing.”
“There is too something wrong. You’re acting very strange. Did I say something to upset you?” She tried to recall what she’d said, but other than I love you and oh, yes and don’t stop, she couldn’t recall saying much at all.
He refused to look at her. She finally marched across the room and grabbed his arm. His hand turned whiteknuckled where he held a shirt.
“Don’t do this to me,” she said. “We’re going to make our marriage work, remember? We’re going to be honest and work out our problems.”
“I’ve got stuff to do.”
She glanced down at herself. Her breastbone protruded like the neck of a turkey. The hand holding the towel was bony. Why, oh, why had she risked the harsh glare of the bathroom lights and approached him naked? She dropped her hold on him. “Oh, God, you think I’m ugly.”
He jerked up his head. “No!”
She stroked her wet hair. “I’m not beautiful anymore. I don’t know how to make love to you anymore. I disgust you, don’t I? I offend you.”
“You’re talking nonsense, darlin’.”
“You’re an artist, you love beauty. You don’t love me. You can’t love me.” She whirled toward the bed and found her robe. Fighting the tears turned her body rigid and her limbs uncooperative. A sleeve that was turned inside out stymied her best efforts to dress.