The Horseman's Bride

by Marilyn Pappano

  He followed her into the bedroom, where she was closing the blinds at the windows. When she finished, she turned to face him, and for a moment they simply looked at each other. There wasn’t much light in the room—just what spilled in from the kitchen—but it was enough to see. Enough to feel vulnerable.

  “If you have any second thoughts...” He watched her jaw tighten, saw the glint come into her brown eyes and changed the last part of his sentence. “I’d be happy to dispel them for you.”

  Her jaw relaxed, her eyes softened, and her mouth curved up in a sensual smile. “No second thoughts,” she promised. “Not for either of us.”

  He crossed the room to her, and she moved, too, meeting him at the bed. His arms went around her waist, hers went around his neck, and they moved together naturally, perfectly. She pressed a kiss to his jaw. The next landed on his cheek, and the third landed on his ear, where her mouth lingered, tracing, nibbling, biting, sending shivers down his spine.

  Cupping her face in his hands, he took her mouth again, greedy, demanding. It was a brief kiss, followed by more—hot, quick, hungry. Together they maneuvered closer to the bed until he felt the mattress bump against his knees. After pulling his T-shirt over his head, she urged him down onto the bed. He lay back, the sheets cool against his heated skin, and her perfect, slender fingers unfastened his jeans, guided them down, treated him to a fleeting, intimate caress that dragged a groan from deep inside.

  Once he was naked, she joined him, one knee on either side of his hips, still fully dressed. Leaning over him, she left kisses along his chest, suckled his nipples and made them swell, tormenting him with full-body, silk-and-satin caresses so soft, so tantalizing, that he couldn’t tell where her dress stopped and she began, where she stopped and he began.

  When the pleasure became more than he could bear, when he thought he just might explode right there, she sat back, her bottom snug against his groin. Her fingers curled around the hem of her dress and his fingers curled into the sheet underneath him. She slowly peeled the dress away, revealing slender hips clad in deep crimson silk, a narrow waist, full breasts, long, strong arms. When she pulled the dress over her head, it left her hair looking as if she’d just crawled out of bed after a long, hot night.

  She looked damn beautiful. Sexy. Too good for him.

  But he could damn well try to be better.

  She had to move aside to slide that bit of crimson silk off, then she eased, inch by inch, back into place, took him breath by breath deep inside her. Her body clenched around his, stretching, yielding to fit him snugly. If he were a lesser man, that alone—those exquisite little tremors—could finish him. As it was, they made him groan, made a cold sweat pop out across his forehead even as they turned up the heat.

  Once she’d taken him completely, she leaned forward, resting one hand on either side of his head. “What do you want me to do?” Her voice was soft, thick, and her brown eyes were hazy.

  “D-do?”

  “Do you want me to stay like this? Or would you prefer that I do this?” She moved her hips in one long easy stroke, withdrawing until they were barely touching, then taking him again in another long easy move. “Or maybe you’d like—”

  He grabbed her hips with both hands and guided her into a torturous rhythm that made her breath catch in her chest, that made his nerve endings start to quiver. With his lungs burning, his muscles straining, he didn’t even consider trying to hold out. His eyes open just enough to see her, he surrendered to the torment, surrendered to her. He did exactly what she’d advised.

  Lie back. I’ll handle the rest.

  And she did it exquisitely.

  “‘Handle the rest.’”

  Shay thought about lifting her head from Easy’s shoulder to give him a questioning look, then decided it would require too much effort. She considered moving to the side to curl against him, but had spent too many years missing this sort of full-body contact with him—and she did mean full. He was still hard inside her in spite of that terrific climax that had made him cry out and arch against her, that had been sweet enough to bring tears to her eyes.

  So instead of moving, she settled for turning her head to the side enough to see him through a fringe of her hair. “Hmm?”

  “You said you would handle the rest. You didn’t say that that translated to damn near killing me with pleasure.”

  She managed to raise one hand enough to shove her hair back before she smiled sleepily at him. “You complaining, cowboy?”

  “Hell, no,” he said fiercely. “I’ve waited six long years to feel that way again.”

  Six long, lonely years—longer for her, lonelier for him. She wished she’d waited, too—wished she hadn’t tried to replace him with any man foolish enough to try. She’d known from the start that it was impossible, but she’d kept trying and failing.

  She hoped to God she wouldn’t ever have to try again.

  “Shay.” He brushed his hand over her hair, then let his fingers slide over her jaw. “I’m so sorry. You’re the one person in the world I should have bent over backward to make happy, and instead I went out of my way to hurt you. It seemed so wrong that we should be happy at Guthrie’s expense. If he was suffering, I thought we should suffer, too, and so I...” He drew a shaky breath. “I treated you badly, and I regret it more than I can say. I’m sorry.”

  She blinked to keep the tears from seeping into her eyes. “So you didn’t find me pathetic, after all.”

  Even in the dim light, it was easy to read the astonishment in his expression. It turned to shame when he remembered the comment he’d made the first time she’d found the courage to visit him. No matter how badly I treated you, you kept coming back for more. You always were pathetic that way. “God, no. I was just trying to make you go away. I didn’t want you to see me like this. You’re so beautiful, and I’m—I didn’t want your pity. I couldn’t bear it.”

  She carefully eased into a sitting position, braced her hands lightly on his flat belly, shifted her hips slightly along the length of his arousal. “The only pity I’ll ever show you is when your skin is slick with sweat...” She bent to kiss his chest, to make his nipple pucker.

  “...and your heart’s about to pound right out of your chest...” Lengthening her strokes, she withdrew farther, took him deeper, held him tighter.

  “...and your muscles are taut and your nerves are wound tight...” Trailing her fingertips across his stomach, she watched the bronzed skin ripple and quiver.

  “...and you can’t see...or hear...or feel...or think...or know anything...” He raised his hands to her breasts, rubbing, teasing, and her own vision went blurry. Her tongue felt thick, and the words kept slipping from her grasp as she took him faster, as he took her harder.

  “...except...” She dragged in a deep, desperate breath of superheated air that threatened to make her melt and searched for words lost in a rush of helpless, whispered pleas as he slid one hand between their bodies.

  “... except how good it feels—oh, yes, there—” She gave a great sigh as he found the one tiny place where she needed him most, and bliss turned quickly to pain, then back again.

  “... and how much you want it...” His muscles clenched. Hers were throbbing. Holding her hip with one hand and pleasuring her with the other, he thrust heavily into her, driving her closer, closer...

  “...and how—” her voice was frantic “—you’re going to—please, Easy, oh, please—”

  And, taking pity on her, he did.

  When the bedside alarm went off early Friday morning, Easy knew immediately where he was, and with whom, and why. Without opening his eyes, he flung one arm out, located the alarm and punched buttons until the beeping stopped, then he carefully eased onto his left side to face the woman who’d slept the last few hours curled against his back.

  She looked tired, gorgeous—like the answer to every dream he’d ever dreamed, to every prayer he’d ever prayed. She was an incredible woman, and she’d long been his woman. If he
could be man enough to claim her.

  His mouth quirked in a half grin. She’d put more than a few doubts about his manhood to rest last night. He could make love to a woman—maybe not in the same way he used to—but he could do it quite well.

  Maybe that was the key to the life he was looking for. Maybe it would be different from his old life because of his injuries and limitations, but maybe it could be a good different. Maybe it could even be better than his old life.

  Behind him the clock began beeping again. He reached back, found it, followed the cord down and yanked it from the wall. Letting it fall to the floor, he settled in again to watch Shay sleep. He would wake her soon—wouldn’t make her late for work, unless of course, she wanted to be late—but he needed these few minutes. Needed to think. Needed to marvel.

  Three, maybe four minutes had passed before he realized that she was awake. It wasn’t anything overt—her eyes didn’t move underneath her closed lids, her lashes didn’t flutter, her breathing didn’t change. It was an awareness—hers, his, both. He knew she was awake.

  “If you don’t open your eyes, I’m going to kiss your nipple,” he warned in a husky, heavy voice.

  She didn’t open her eyes, but pushed back the covers, reached blindly for his hand and guided it to her breast. “Please do,” she whispered. “Make it hard. Then I’ll make you hard.”

  “You already did that, darlin’.” The instant he’d awakened and felt her warmth against him, the ache had started.

  Her breast was soft, her nipple flat and even softer. He caressed around it, awakening it, rousing it, then, careful to touch her nowhere else, he dragged his tongue across it. Instantly it swelled, straining to meet his next slow stroke.

  Shay’s sigh was full and satisfied. “I love when you play with my breasts,” she murmured sleepily.

  “We could play all day if you didn’t have to get ready for work soon.”

  “Says who? I’m the boss, remember?”

  “And what would you tell your employees?”

  “That I got lucky. I got Easy.”

  He licked her nipple again, then watched it pucker. “Are you sure—” taking it in his mouth, he scraped his teeth across it, then gently bit it “—you want to tell them that?”

  She smacked him on top of the head, making him release her nipple to yelp. “Hey, what was that for?”

  “For asking a stupid question. I don’t care if everyone in the county knows what we did here last night, because one of these days, Easy Rafferty, I’m going to marry you.”

  He propped his chin on his hand and looked at her. “Is that right?” he asked mildly.

  “Yes, it is. When you’re marriage material, of course, which you’re not now.”

  “And what would it take to make me marriage material?” Though he asked the question lightly, he was dead serious about the answer. He’d loved her damn near half his life. Every dream he’d ever had involved her, marriage and kids. Every life he’d ever wanted had included her in his bed, at his side, part of his soul.

  He didn’t know if he could become what she needed, but he damn well intended to try.

  “First—” With gentle fingers, she guided his mouth back to her breast, then shuddered as he suckled her. “Second, you’ve got to accept yourself the way you are and stop regretting that you’re not the way you used to be. Third—”

  Moving carefully, testing his usual morning stiffness against a-long-night-of-incredible-sex stiffness, he braced himself above her, parted her thighs and easily sank inside her.

  “Th-third—”

  “Shh.” He kissed her gently. “Set your rules later. Right now just let me make love to you.”

  “Oh, yes,” she sighed happily as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

  It was a not-entirely successful experiment. Slow and easy he could handle, but when it came to the serious, hardand-deep-and-damn-are-we-going-to-survive-this part, it was Shay’s turn to take control again.

  But who did what didn’t matter. What mattered was that they did it together.

  And someday, he thought with a wry smile, he would say that and fully believe it.

  Twenty minutes later he stepped out of the shower in her god-awful electric-blue bathroom and watched her apply makeup while he dried off.

  “What are your plans for today?” she asked, putting on lipstick, then fluffing her hair with her fingers.

  “I thought I’d do a little work in the kitchen.”

  “Don’t overdo it. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

  He stepped close behind her and breathed deeply of perfume, powder and all her other scents. “It’s not the years, darlin’.”

  Holding his gaze in the mirror, she raised one hand to touch his throat. “I know. So take it easy. I’ll come out when I get off work.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.” Easing away, he got his cane and left her to finish while he dressed in the bedroom.

  He hoped none of her neighbors were out when they left. Luckily, they weren’t. Shay walked to the truck with him, waiting patiently while he climbed inside. “I’ll see you.”

  He nodded, let her walk away a few yards, then called, “Shay?” When she turned back, he swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. For what?”

  Letting me back into your life. Making my life better. Making me feel like a man. Those were only a few of the answers he could give. He settled for the most basic of them all. “Everything.”

  She smiled brightly. “You’re welcome ... for everything.” She was still smiling when he drove out of sight.

  So was he.

  The day started early in Heartbreak. Though it was only six o’clock, lights were on in most houses and traffic was as steady as it ever got. Ranchers and farmers were up before the sun, so people who dealt with them were also up early.

  As he passed the Rocking S, Shay’s folks’ place, he saw Jim Stephens out back by the barn. As he approached the Harris place, he knew Guthrie would be up, too—had probably already eaten breakfast, kissed his wife and kids goodbye and gone out to tend to the endless chores that ranching required.

  If things had turned out differently, Easy would have been doing those chores with him. Sometimes he wished desperately that things had turned out differently. He missed Guthrie—missed the friendship, the bond, the shared history. Most of all he missed knowing that Guthrie was there for him, no matter what. He’d had that certain knowledge for twenty years and had found it impossible to replace.

  But not even that kind of friendship would be worth giving up Shay.

  As he came to the beginning of Harris property—he knew those two hundred ninety acres as well as he knew his own place—he moved his foot from the gas pedal. The five-strand barbed wire fence completely encircled the ranch except at the gate, where pipe replaced wire for a few yards. He and Guthrie had cut and welded the H that topped the arch in junior high, and they’d made it crooked, but Guthrie’s mom had pretended not to notice and let them weld it in place, anyway.

  He was a little surprised Guthrie hadn’t junked it in the years since.

  The truck rolled to a stop, and he realized his foot was on the brake. The few times he’d driven past, he’d made a point of not looking. Now that he was here, he did.

  The house where he’d spent practically as many nights as in his own was little changed—older and a bit more worn, but weren’t they all? The cabin Guthrie’s stepfather had built for his old bat of a mother still stood at the west edge of the yard, and the barn and corrals out back were in as good shape as ever. While it didn’t have the look of a particularly prosperous ranch, it looked settled and well cared for, which was a damn sight better than could be said of his own place.

  With a sorry sigh, he moved his foot from the brake to the gas, ready to go on home and spend yet another day without Shay. When the truck moved, though, it wasn’t headed west. Instead, as if guided by hands other than his own, it turned into Guthrie’s driveway.
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  He parked beside the pickup already there and reluctantly climbed out. At the sound of his arrival, the man he’d come to see had stepped out of the barn and now watched. Even across the distance, it was plain to see that there was no welcome in his expression.

  Easy reached inside for the cane, then closed the door. Guthrie remained where he was, hands on his hips, not even interested enough to meet him halfway.

  That was okay. It might take him a while, but he could walk that far.

  He hadn’t gone more than twenty feet when Guthrie turned away and went back in the barn. Easy’s thin smile was tinged with bitterness. His dad always did that—always managed to be looking elsewhere whenever Easy was doing something. It had pained Bud to see his only kid, his rodeochampion kid, moving like a cripple three times his age. He thought his son’s limitations made him less of a man. So did Betsey, and they’d treated him accordingly.

  It was a damn good thing Shay didn’t share their opinion.

  Even if Guthrie did.

  Finally he reached the barn doors. He paused long enough for his eyes to adjust, then crossed the few feet to the tack room on the left.

  Guthrie was there, his back to the door, his hostility as obvious as the dust that drifted in the air. Easy’s hand tightened around the head of the cane. Now that he was here, he didn’t have a clue what to say. I’m sorry seemed so damned inadequate, but what else did he have to offer?

  Purring loudly in the stillness, a cat wrapped its way around and between his feet. He glanced down at a familiar orange body and found his voice—at least, a rusty version of it—to comment, “That looks like Ginger.”

  The cat had become tired of him and, with stately feline grace, crossed the room to Guthrie, leaping onto the bench he stood in front of, rubbing against his arm. “Ginger’s been dead a long time,” he said grudgingly as he stroked the cat from head to tail. “Pumpkin’s probably related to her.”

  “Pumpkin?”

  “She’s orange. Pumpkins are orange.” His tone was short, his manner sharp, even as he added, “The kids named her. They’ve named damn near everything around here—even the snake that visits Liv’s garden.”