Big Sky River

by Linda Lael Miller

  She still couldn’t believe she’d said yes, thereby opening a floodgate of disquieting possibilities—like sex with the cowboy sheriff. She’d never been much of a party girl—when it came to lovers, James and a grand total of two other men made up her entire dance card.

  And she hadn’t wanted a one of them the way she wanted Boone Taylor.

  She colored up at the images and sensations that practically swamped her then, and she ducked her head a little, concentrating on the delicious salad—a concoction of greens, feta cheese, walnuts and dried berries of some sort—and on not choking, thereby requiring the Heimlich maneuver.

  Kendra and Joslyn clearly noticed, but neither one offered a comment.

  Just one of the many reasons she loved her friends—though there was no guarantee that they wouldn’t grill her once they were all back in the SUV and driving away.

  “Do you have another tour coming up soon?” Joslyn asked Casey after the second course, a cold pasta dish with pesto and pine nuts, had been served by the bustling Doris.

  Casey shook her head. “I’m taking a year off,” she said. “At least where going on the road is concerned. I’ve parked the tour bus and given all the road people a long vacation with pay, though the band and the techs are living here, so we can rehearse and do some recording.”

  It was common knowledge in Parable that Casey was in the process of converting the former wine cellar and recreation room downstairs into a state-of-the-art studio, complete with a small soundstage, specially designed computers and the latest digital equipment for making and transmitting videos. Folks weren’t overimpressed with her celebrity, admired though she was—movie stars and captains of various industries came and went, in both Parable and the neighboring town of Three Trees, buying or building spectacular hideaways and showing up only rarely to interact with the townspeople—but they were impressed by her down-home personality, small-town values and genuine interest in the community as a whole.

  In addition, of course, that renovating meant a spate of regular paychecks, an important perk in an area mostly geared to raising cattle and the crops to feed them. Although all of the larger ranchers employed crews, the pickings were slim come winter, and there weren’t enough service jobs to go around.

  Casey Elder was putting food on the tables of ordinary, hardworking people, without acting like Lady Bountiful in the process, as some of the out-of-towners did, and they not only liked her, they were grateful to her.

  Dessert, again brought in by the tireless Doris, was orange sorbet, formed into perfect balls and decorated with a sprig of mint. After dessert came coffee made from freshly ground beans, and after the coffee, the party began to wind down.

  Kendra said she needed to nurse the baby soon, and Madison would be getting out of her summer program over at the community center in under two hours.

  Joslyn had a toddler at home, and she started glancing at her watch and saying, “Look at the time.”

  Tara, with her stepdaughters at the movies with Shea, had no particular reason to hurry, unless you counted sweet, patient Lucy, who probably needed to go out, and the chickens, waiting for their sprinklings of poultry feed.

  Everyone thanked Doris and, of course, Casey, as they took their leave. On the porch, Casey reminded them about the backstage party that would follow her benefit concert, saying they were all invited.

  Maybe it was the reminder of the concert—Tara didn’t know. But as soon as she was behind the wheel of her SUV again, with Kendra riding in the back this time and Joslyn taking the shotgun seat, they took their opportunity.

  “What are you planning to wear? On your date with Boone, I mean?” Joslyn inquired, sounding like a reporter at a presidential press conference rather than a close friend riding in the back of an SUV.

  “Clothes,” Tara quipped, but the joke didn’t quite fly.

  “Not for long, I’ll bet,” Kendra remarked, pleased as a cat just presented with a bowl of cream.

  Tara reddened slightly as she pulled away from the curb in front of Casey’s place, honked a farewell to her, since she was still standing on the porch, waving goodbye. As full as her life was, with her glamorous career, her beautiful children and her rollicking band of cats and dogs, she looked strangely lonely standing there, watching as her lunch guests drove away.

  “Just because you and Hutch could never keep your hands off each other,” Tara said sweetly, darting a brief glance in Kendra’s direction, “it doesn’t mean I’m planning on jumping Boone Taylor’s bones the minute we’re alone.”

  Joslyn giggled and leaned forward to land a reassuring pat on Tara’s shoulder. “Chill out,” she said. “We’re on your side.”

  “There are sides?” Tara asked fretfully, biting her lower lip. She headed for Windfall Ranch first, since Whisper Creek, Kendra and Hutch’s home, was nearer her farmhouse.

  “Naive girl,” Kendra teased, almost purring. “There’s the male side, and the female side. And you can bet Team Boone—that would be Hutch and Slade—are coaching him to bring condoms and pour on the charm.”

  “And you two are Team Tara?” Tara’s tone might have been a touch on the snarky side.

  “Believe it,” Joslyn confirmed.

  “Given that you both seem as invested in getting Boone and me into bed together at the earliest possible moment, I can’t really tell where one team ends and the other begins.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” said Kendra.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Tara shot back, navigating Parable’s homey side streets as she wound her way toward the highway.

  “You sound like a nun,” Joslyn put in, straining at her seat belt as she leaned forward, her head poking between the two front seats. “Pardon me for saying so, but you’ve been through a pretty long dry spell, unless you’re keeping something from us. You must be beyond ready for some sweaty, sheet-tangling, OMG sex.”

  “Is that how it is for you?” Tara asked, bemused. Had she missed something? With James, sex had been—well—nice. Soft orgasms, but never anything that twisted sweaty sheets into knots or made her cry out, Oh, my God!

  “Better,” said Joslyn.

  “By a long shot,” Kendra added.

  “We haven’t even kissed,” Tara said, and then blushed again.

  “You’re kidding,” Joslyn marveled.

  “We didn’t exactly strike sparks when we met, you know,” Tara pointed out.

  “Right,” Kendra scoffed, in a tone that might have been sarcastic if it hadn’t been so gentle.

  “We were there, if you’ll recall,” Joslyn said. “He looked at you, you looked at him and fireworks lit the sky.”

  They had passed beyond the Parable town limits by then, and Tara was relieved. Nothing but open road ahead of her. “Fireworks did not light the sky,” she said. “Unless you and Slade sparked them, or Kendra and Hutch. I was an innocent bystander, and Boone couldn’t have made it clearer what he thought of a New York city slicker in the chicken ranching business.”

  “Kiss him,” Kendra suggested, without preamble.

  Tara nearly drove off the road. “What?”

  “Kiss Boone Taylor,” Joslyn contributed, from the backseat. “Just kiss him, and you’ll know.”

  “Know what?” Tara bit out, blushing again. Were her two best friends so complacent in their admittedly red-hot marriages that they believed love—not that whatever she had with Boone was love, of course—would reveal itself through one simple kiss?

  “Just kiss him,” Kendra urged.

  “I dare you,” Joslyn added.

  “Have I mentioned that you two are no help at all?” Tara retorted, flustered. Suddenly, just imagining what it would be like to kiss Boone Taylor made her warm all over—too warm—and she turned on the SUV’s powerful air-conditioning system with a poke of a button.

  Kendra and Joslyn laughed.

  “She’s got it bad,” Kendra said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Joslyn agreed.

  For her part, Tara w
as glad when she pulled into Joslyn and Slade’s driveway. Their house, recently renovated with a much bigger family in mind, rose majestically from a grassy rise. There was a new barn, and lots of horses wandering around in the pasture, which went on for acres and acres.

  “Thanks for the lift home,” Joslyn said as Tara stopped the SUV near the house.

  Joslyn and Slade’s dog, Jasper, rushed to meet her, as did Lucy-Maude, the cat, though she was more sedate in her exuberance.

  Joslyn laughed, waved goodbye to Tara and Kendra, and bent to scoop up the big gray feline into her arms, nuzzling between its ears as she headed for the back door. Jasper jumped and yipped, overjoyed, at her side.

  “Her life is perfect,” Tara mused, and then wished she hadn’t spoken aloud.

  Kendra reached over to touch Tara’s arm. She’d been in a teasing mood before, but now she looked solemn and gentle and very tender. “No,” she said quietly. “But it’s very, very good, and yours can be that way, too, Tara. Give things a chance—give Boone a chance.”

  Tara backed up the SUV, tooted her horn in farewell to Joslyn, even though she’d disappeared into the house by then, and made her way toward the main road at the base of the driveway. “Is there a reason why you and Joslyn are so convinced that Boone Taylor is the man for me?” she asked, her tone fretful and even a little impatient.

  “Call it intuition,” Kendra replied, smiling softly as she nodded.

  Tara needed a while to digest that one.

  Twenty minutes later, with Kendra safely deposited at Whisper Creek Ranch, Tara headed for home. She had a few extra hours on her hands, with the twins off in Three Trees, eating lunch and catching a movie.

  Once she’d reached her own place, Tara let Lucy out of the house to run wildly around the yard for a while, drunk on the celebration of freedom, checked on the chickens, watered and weeded the garden, and found herself with way too much time on her hands, anyway.

  When Boone drove up, less than half an hour after she’d finished her chores, she was sitting on the front porch, sipping iced tea and watching Lucy make good-natured attempts at herding the chickens from one part of the yard to another.

  She wasn’t having much success, silly dog, but she seemed to be enjoying the process, and the chickens must have known she was harmless, because they just went about their business.

  Tara’s first reaction to Boone’s arrival was gut-clenching alarm. Had something happened to the twins, to Shea? An accident, maybe? Why else would the sheriff of Parable County be pulling into her yard at a little after two in the afternoon?

  She stood up.

  Boone, out of the cruiser by then, must have read her body language, because he raised a reassuring hand. “Nothing’s wrong, Tara,” he said, and she gave him a few points for being unexpectedly perceptive. “I just stopped by to ask if you’d be willing to donate some chickens for the fundraising event at Opal’s church—the one to help with some of the McCullough’s hospital bills.”

  Tara put a hand to the hollow of her throat, still playing catch-up. She’d heard about the project through Joslyn, but for some reason, she did some mental stumbling—in the privacy of her own head, she hoped—Kiss him, she heard Joslyn say, a friendly challenge in her voice.

  Kiss Boone Taylor, and you’ll know, Kendra had told her, in so many words.

  Boone was standing at the foot of the porch steps by then, greeting an exuberant Lucy with a chuckle and some serious ear-ruffling.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, watching Tara. There was a mischievous light in his eyes, and it got to her, as surely as if he’d reached out and stroked her cheek, traced the line of her lips with the pad of a calloused thumb, or even caressed one of her breasts.

  She swallowed hard. “What are you doing here?”

  Kiss him, kiss him. Then you’ll know.

  That’s stupid.

  Tara Kendall, you’re a coward.

  The internal bantering—with herself, no less—rattled her even more.

  “I just told you,” Boone replied, his voice low. “I came to ask for chickens.”

  Tara blinked. “People would eat them?” she heard herself say, and in the next instant, she wanted to bite off her tongue. If Boone ever found out she’d never killed a single chicken, or even signed a figurative death warrant, he’d think she was a fraud—a tenderhearted, skittish female posing as a real farmer.

  “That’s the general idea,” Boone said. Something flickered in his eyes—the beginnings of a grin, maybe? Was he on to her? “Is it a problem?”

  Tara was a few moments catching her breath. Her heart skittered and she kept noticing that Boone’s shoulders were wide, his eyes a piercing brown, his hair dark and silken, inviting her to plunge her fingers into it.

  That was when, as she would claim ever-after, the devil made her do it.

  She launched herself at Boone Taylor, right from the top step of the porch, wrapped both arms around his neck and kissed him. Hard.

  He caught her in strong arms, rested his hands at either side of her waist, and kissed her right back, tentatively at first, but then with increasing boldness and a hunger that sent thrills rippling through every part of Tara. Soon, their tongues were involved and the sensations compounded themselves to the infinite power—each of them distinct and wildly delicious—and she uttered a little moan as Boone deepened the kiss.

  OMG, Tara thought wildly, while the planet jolted off its axis. Oh. My. God.

  This was so good.

  This was so bad.

  She was in so much trouble.

  For all her native common sense, Tara knew there had been a mutiny—her body had wrested the controls from her mind, taken over.

  She was vaguely conscious of Lucy, of Boone’s little dog, apparently content to remain in the cruiser, of the chickens pecking at the ground around her feet.

  It was time to get a grip, stop herself, put down the mutiny and batten down the hatches.

  Except that Boone kissed her again, and she was utterly lost.

  When he finally tore his mouth from hers, he looked deep into her eyes, chuckled once, then turned her gently around, steering her over the threshold, leaving the door open to the summer afternoon.

  She half pulled him up the stairs, along the hallway to her room.

  This is crazy, prattled that voice in her head, feverish now, and flimsy. Stop, now!

  No way, Tara thought, in direct response. This is it, and there’s no going back.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  TARA’S ROOM, HER PERSONAL sanctuary, was spacious and feminine, with lots of lace, both at the windows and on her antique brass bed; it was the same space, and yet it was different, too.

  Despite the voices going back and forth in her mind, a quiet knowing came over her: she wasn’t out of control. In fact, she’d never felt stronger or more self-possessed. She’d brought Boone Taylor to this room for one reason and one reason only—because she wanted him.

  He smoothed her hair back off her shoulders, a gesture so tender that it made her throat ache, and tilted his head to one side, regarding her with smoky eyes and a modicum of concern. “Are you sure you want this?” he asked, his voice gruff. A little grin cocked up one corner of his mouth. “This is me, you know. Boone Taylor. The redneck sheriff from next door, he of the beat-up double-wide and the weedy yard.”

  She smiled, relishing this strange and special freedom she was allowing herself, this bubble that held the two of them, somewhere outside of time, all the while knowing full well that she’d probably regret it later and still not giving a damn, and slid her arms around his neck. Her senses raced as Boone drew her close, her softness resting against the steely length of him. He smelled of soap and fresh air and something else she couldn’t quite define, his own scent, she guessed, as unique to him as his fingerprints.

  Boone arched one dark eyebrow, watching her, waiting for her reply. He was so solid, so substantial, and if there was any hesitancy, any uncertainty in him, Tara couldn’t de
tect it.

  “It was bound to happen,” she said reasonably.

  He gave just the slightest nod, then the corner of his mouth quirked up again. “I figured it would be on concert night, though,” he observed.

  “You’d rather wait?” she teased, looking up at him, longing to get lost in him.

  “No, ma’am,” he answered. “But some things have to be taken into consideration, just the same.”

  “I’m not using birth control,” Tara confessed, and felt her soaring spirits sag a little.

  Boone chuckled, pulled his wallet from the hip pocket of his jeans, opened it and brought out a small, battered packet. “‘Be prepared,’” he quoted, his eyes twinkling with an irresistible combination of passion and mischief. “I’ve been carrying at least one of these around since high school.”

  Tara eyed the condom. “Not this particular one, I hope,” she said, only half kidding.

  He laughed, a low, masculine sound, easy and real and unhurried. “No,” he answered. “I’ve seen a little more action than that, as it happens.”

  “Kiss me again,” Tara said. Some part of her longed to conceive a child, this man’s child, but she knew it wouldn’t be fair to Boone or to the baby. If things didn’t work out—and there were so many reasons why they might not—Boone would want to be a part of the little one’s life, wouldn’t he?

  And the baby would be born into turmoil and controversy. Tara wanted her children to be conceived in love, raised in a happy home, like Joslyn and Slade’s little boy, and Hutch and Kendra’s infant daughter.

  “I like a woman who says what’s on her mind,” Boone answered, obliging.

  If only you knew what’s on my mind. You’d probably be out of here in two seconds flat.

  Instead of clueing him in, Tara gave herself up to his kiss, to his mouth and the caresses of his hands, marveling that the floor seemed to pitch beneath her feet, dazed and dizzy and loving the wild physical and emotional responses Boone roused in her.

  They kissed again and again, now hungrily, now in gentle exploration, and again the ordinary course of time seemed altered to Tara.