“I think it might be fun.”
“Fun. Forcing Guthrie into a situation where he has to be friendly to someone he hates, and it might be fun.” He shook his head grimly. “You do have a sick sense of humor.”
She crouched on the floor beside him. “Don’t you miss him, Easy? Don’t you miss all the time you spent together, talking, dreaming, planning, doing nothing at all? Don’t you miss knowing that he’s there for you, that he’ll always be there?”
“Of course I do,” he said sharply as emotion bronzed his cheeks. “More than almost anything in the world.”
Briefly she wondered if she might be the almost, if he missed her more than Guthrie. She wanted him to, wanted him to hate every hour that they weren’t together—not physically, but emotionally. Mentally. Spiritually. But she put the selfish thoughts aside for the moment and concentrated on the issue. “Then go to him and tell him. Tell him you’re sorry. Tell him you’ve missed him. Tell him you need him.”
For a long moment he stared at her as if she’d just suggested that he dance naked down the streets of Heartbreak. Then his expression turned flat—empty and accepting—and he shook his head. “I can’t.”
For a time she stared at him, then abruptly she got to her feet and began removing dishes from the nearest cabinet. His short, stiff refusal wasn’t born of stubbornness or pride. It was, very simply, God’s honest truth. He literally could not go to Guthrie and say, I’ve missed you and I need your friendship now more than ever. Words were hard. Emotions were harder. And his absolute conviction that he didn’t deserve forgiveness or Guthrie’s friendship was hardest—most unyielding—of all.
Taking a deep breath, she let go of the subject, let the tension seep out, then turned with an armful of plates, saucers and bowls. “Where do you want this stuff?”
He shifted in the chair to fix his grim gaze on her. “How about in the cabinet where it belongs?”
“We’re going to start on your kitchen tonight. We need to move everything out, at least for a day or two.”
He looked so ill-tempered that at any moment she expected him to grumpily order her to forget the project, go home and leave him alone. She felt so blue that if he did, she would probably obey, go home and sulk in her bed about the decisions he’d made in their years together, the ones she’d made in their years apart.
But he didn’t try to send her away. He got to his feet, pulled both chairs away from the table, then lifted one end and waited. She set her load on the counter and picked up the end closest to her, and together they carried it into the dining room next door.
It didn’t take long to empty the cabinets. While he removed the last few loads, she brought in everything from the car, then went into his bedroom to change into old shorts and a paint-stained T-shirt. She came back prepared to work, kneeling on the bare wooden floor with a supply of sandpaper. She’d barely started before pausing to give him a look over one shoulder. “You’re not helpless. Grab some sandpaper.”
For an instant the expression on his face was startled, almost comical. Then he pushed away from the doorjamb where he was leaning and hobbled across the room. “What are you doing?” he asked grudgingly.
“We are roughing up the surface a bit so it’ll hold the paint better. Just give it a light sanding.” Keeping her gaze on the cabinet door in front of her, she conversationally pointed out, “You aren’t helpless, you know—unless you choose to be.”
He didn’t say anything, but started on the upper cabinet at the end.
“Yes, you have some physical limitations, but who doesn’t? I mean, there are things I can’t do, or my mom or my dad.”
The sanding from his end seemed to grow a little louder.
“It’s only natural. We get older. We slow down. We—”
“Get three fingers amputated and God knows how many pins in our hips,” he added snidely. “I thought you quit being a cheerleader sixteen years ago.”
She wagged her square of sandpaper in his direction, shaking bits of dust into the air. “Not true. I was your own personal cheerleader for eight years.”
For a time he was silent, paying particular attention—or so it seemed—to the corners of the raised panel that fronted the cabinet door. Then he glanced at her. “That’s true. You were always there.”
Always. For every rodeo, from the tiniest little makeshift show to the biggest, grandest National Finals performance of all. For eight years he had never climbed onto a horse or roped a calf without her right there, cheering him on. She had celebrated with him when he won, commiserated with him when he lost and prayed for him every time. Please keep him safe. Please don’t let him get hurt.
Then he’d gone off without her and look what had happened.
“It meant a lot to be able to look up in the stands and see you there. I never had to worry because I knew you were worrying for me. And I always wanted to do my best because I knew you were watching. I wanted—” the sanding slowed, stopped, then started again “—I wanted you to be proud of me.”
“I was proud of you.” But the rodeo—the winning times, the championships, the payouts—had been the least of it.
“At the first rodeo after—” another pause in his work accompanied the hesitation in his speech “—after I left you, it came my turn. I was sitting there on Gambler, and I looked up to the center left where you always sat, and I couldn’t find you. It seemed so odd—so wrong. I kept looking, and they released the calf, and Gambler shot off. He unseated me right there.” He gave a shake of his head. “I didn’t win a dime that day or any other for more than a month.”
She finished the front of the cabinet door, opened it, then scooted around to do the back. Conveniently, it gave her a clear view of him. “So why didn’t you come back for me? You knew where I would be. You knew where to reach me.”
“Because nothing had changed. I still felt guilty. I still believed we didn’t have the right to be together. I still would have hurt you.” His smile was crooked, unsteady and short-lived. “Besides, you were home, where you wanted to be. You’d bought the café. If I’d called and said, ‘Hey, I can’t rope worth a damn because you’re not here. Please come,’ would you have given all that up and gone?”
She didn’t hesitate, didn’t dither over her response. She looked him in the eye and quietly, deliberately replied, “In a heartbeat.”
In a heartbeat. Easy’s fingers curled around the edges of the sandpaper as he repeated the words silently to himself. In a heartbeat he’d fallen in love with her, driven away from her, damn near killed himself. In that same heartbeat—in less than a second—he could have gotten her back. If he had picked up the phone, if he had called her, if he had only asked...
The last six years would have been worth living. They would have had some bad times, of course, but they’d always had more good ones. Maybe he would have retired. Maybe they would have come back here, made their peace with Guthrie, gotten married and started that ranch, that family. Maybe he would have been whole and healthy, with every dream he’d ever had. Maybe the accident never would have happened.
Or maybe it would have, and instead of injuring only himself and Gambler, he would have hurt her, too. The guilt surely would have killed him.
“Would it make you feel better if I told you, No, I wouldn’t have gone?” she asked quietly.
He shook his head without looking at her.
“Good, because I’d rather not start lying to you at this late date.”
Silence settled between them, broken only by the refrigerator’s hum, the drip in the sink and the soft, regular scratch of sandpaper on wood. When his left arm grew tired—much quicker than should ever be the case for an able-bodied cowboy, he thought grimly—Easy looked at Shay, absorbed in her own work, then switched the paper to his right hand. It was an awkward process and the initial results were lopsided. Without three additional fingers to provide even pressure on the sandpaper, he was taking off the finish in uneven layers.
“I have a s
anding block.” Shay scrambled to her feet, dug in the bag she’d carried in and pulled out a wood block and a utility knife. She left them on the counter near him, along with a couple sheets of paper, then returned to her cross-legged position on the floor.
He ignored the block and concentrated instead on the paper he held. As long as the surface was flat, he could manage, he realized. It was a simple matter of laying the paper against the wood, then using both finger and thumb, along with his palm, to move it. It required no more effort than the usual way and gave the same results, and when he was finished, he felt as if he’d almost accomplished something.
Sure, he had. He’d sanded a lousy cabinet door. A four-year-old could have done the same, and faster. And it was a hell of a long way from sanding a cabinet door to doing anything that mattered. Like working with his horses. Roping a calf. Touching a woman.
Touching Shay.
The thought made his body tighten with desire, but the image that sprang to mind filled him with revulsion. Her body was so beautiful, her skin so perfect. She had escaped a rough-and-tumble childhood without even the tiniest of scars, while he... His mangled, deformed hand touching her smooth, unblemished skin would be an obscenity. She wouldn’t welcome it. He wouldn’t endure it.
Scowling, he switched the sandpaper to his left hand, shoved his right hand out of sight and wished, not for the first time, that he’d died in that damn crash.
But honesty forced him to admit that that wasn’t true. The pam, the shock, the bitter disappointment, all of it had been worth seeing Shay again, talking to her, kissing her, watching her smile. If he’d died, he could have been spared a lot of suffering—his own and others’—but he would have died believing that she hated him. It was worth more than he could say to know that she didn’t.
By nine-fifteen she was slowing down, and he caught her hiding more than one yawn. Tired himself, he put the sandpaper down, brushed the dust from his hands and clothes, then limped toward her. “Let’s call it a night,” he suggested, offering his left hand.
She wrapped her fingers around his and let him pull her to her feet. “We made pretty good progress.”
“You did.” She’d done two cabinets to every one of his and still had more energy. His arms felt as if they weighed a ton each, and his hip was throbbing from too much time on his feet.
“We did,” she repeated, brushing her palms briskly over her clothes. “I’m going to change into my other clothes and wash up.”
He watched her go into the hall, then turned to the sink to wash his hands and arms and splash cool water over his face. After drying off, he went to the bedroom to trade his dusty shirt for a clean one—and came to a sudden stop in the doorway.
He had assumed earlier that she’d changed clothes in the bathroom, that she would change there once again. He hadn’t expected to find her standing beside his bed, her back to the door, her work shirt on the floor and her hot-pink T-shirt in her hands. As his throat went dry, she cocked her head slightly, made aware by something that he was there. The intensity of his stare? The sudden heat radiating from his body?
Or the sudden cessation of that damn shuffle that was his pathetic version of a walk these days?
He tried to turn away, but his feet wouldn’t obey. His body wouldn’t move. All he could do was stand there and stare at the long line of smooth, golden skin that curved and enticed its way down to the waist of her shorts. All he could think was that she was half-naked and right beside his bed. All he could want was her—to see her breasts, to watch while her nipples swelled and hardened, exactly the way his own body was swelling and hardening. He wanted to go to her, lower her to the bed, to sink deep inside her and fill her so full that all the men, all the hurt, all the years, were wiped away forever. He wanted to make love to her until they were too weak to move, and then he wanted to do it again. He wanted...
Slowly she turned, holding the T-shirt to her chest. Just as slowly she let it fall away. He stared. Didn’t breathe. Didn’t move. Didn’t reach out in silent plea. He simply stared, like an adolescent confronted with his first living, breathing, half-naked goddess.
With slow, easy, achingly graceful steps, she closed the distance between them—walked right up to him, slid her arms around his neck and kissed him. Stunned, he kissed her back, sliding his tongue inside her mouth, greedily savoring the taste of her. He’d been so empty for so damned long, and she was so sweet, so hot and demanding, and he needed her so damned much!
He shifted so he leaned against the wall, and she moved with him, clinging to him, her breasts flattened against his chest, her long, lean thighs trapped between the heat of his. He was hard enough to fragment with one wrong—or very, very right—touch, hot enough to steam, needy enough to beg. For six years he’d been haunted by memories of this—tormented by the need for it. For six years he’d wanted her desperately, and now he could have her.
He raised his left hand to her bottom, lifting her against him, rubbing his arousal hard against her. With a groan of pure, raw pleasure, he raised his other hand to her face, to position her so he could deepen the kiss, so he could take her mouth as intimately, as completely, as he would take her body.
But something was wrong. Cold panic raced through him, warring with sexual torment. Freeing himself of the kiss, he dragged in a deep breath, then forced his eyes to open, forced them to focus on the source of the panic—on his hand, scarred, disfigured, offensive against the smooth, pale gold of her cheek.
Shuddering with revulsion, he moved her away. For one moment she clung, but he lifted her fingers one at a time, then pushed her an arm’s length back. “Go home,” he demanded, his voice harsh, louder than necessary.
For a time she was still, quiet. Then, her own voice heavy with certainty, she said, “I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here. I want to make love with you.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” He stared at the floor, unable to raise his gaze, to see her so beautiful and half-naked and promising the very thing he’d wanted for so long. He didn’t want to find out exactly how weak he was, to see exactly how little pride or dignity he had left to sacrifice to bring her back into his arms.
“I know exactly what I’m saying, Easy, but if you’re having trouble understanding, I’d be happy to show you.”
Her hand—slim, delicate, too damned perfect—came into his field of vision, and he snapped, “Don’t touch me! Just get out! I don’t want—”
She touched him anyway, her hand brushing his chest, cutting off the lie with a sharp intake of charged air.
“You don’t want what, Easy? This?” She slid her fingers lower, over the waistband of his jeans, to his abdomen. “Or this?” For one torturous, all-too-brief instant, her hand cradled his arousal. The sensation was so foreign and yet so familiar, intimate, agonizing and incredibly sweet.
Then, in a withdrawal that made him groan, she pulled back. “Or do you just not want it with me?” she asked flatly.
Amazed that she could ask such a question, he raised his gaze to hers. “Look at me, Shay,” he commanded, yanking his T-shirt over his head, unfastening his jeans and awkwardly stripping them off along with his briefs. He stood naked in front of her, feeling so angry, so cheated, that he trembled. “Take a good look at what you’re asking for, and then tell me you still want it. Tell me the scars don’t bother you now. Tell me that the idea of this—” he thrust his mangled hand in her face, forcing her to retreat a step “—touching you doesn’t make you sick, because it damn well makes me sick! Wanting you makes me sick! Knowing that I could have you—” His voice quavered and dropped to a harsh whisper. “That makes me sickest of all.”
She stared at him as the moments slid past, then slowly began shaking her head. “You’re right, Easy. I don’t want you like this. But the scars have nothing to do with it. I don’t want a man who can pity himself the way you do, and I don’t want a man who values physical perfection as much as you do. What if I were the one who’d been in an a
ccident, if I had the scars and the hand and the limp? Would you find me so repulsive? Would the idea of making love with me sicken you?”
“Of course not—”
“So you’re just such a better person than I am. It’s nice to know what you really think of me.” Spinning around, she grabbed her shirt from the floor and pulled it on, then stopped beside him and for a moment just stared. “We’ve always been damned good together, but you know what, Easy? Tonight could have been the best night of your life.”
Bending, she picked up the cane he’d dropped earlier and braced it against the wall, then fixed that cool, wounded gaze on him again. “If you ever get over feeling sorry for yourself, give me a call. You know where to find me.”
As she walked away, he reached for the cane and curled his fingers around it so tightly that he thought the wood might splinter, but that was all he did. He didn’t yell her name. He didn’t go after her. He didn’t beg her to stay.
He just held on to the cane and damned himself to hell.
Chapter 8
Shay held her emotions tightly in check. She drove a safe speed all the way home, closed the car door quietly behind her, walked sedately to the door and let herself in without slamming it behind her. Then she undressed, got in the shower and let out a scream that ricocheted off the tile walls before fading away.
He was an idiot. She was in love with an idiot, plain and simple. How in the hell could he care so much about his perceived lack of perfection that he would turn down the most exquisite lovemaking either of them had ever known?
Unless he didn’t really care so much.
Unless it was her that he really hadn’t wanted.
But he’d damned well wanted someone—and at the moment, she was the only one offering.
And he’d turned her down. He’d said the idea sickened him.
Tears filled her eyes and the knot in her throat threatened to choke her. She swore aloud, then viciously narrowed her thoughts to only what she was doing—scrubbing her hair, her face, her body. Drying herself, fixing her hair, redoing her makeup. Dressing in her sexiest, skimpiest barely there outfit. Driving twenty miles to Buffalo Plains and the loudest, busiest, most popular bar in town.
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