MATCH MADE IN WYOMING

by Patricia McLinn

  Taylor made no effort to check the tears tracking down her cheeks. Cal didn't notice. He was lost in the words he'd never before let out.

  "Christina saw the danger right away – they didn't have a hold on me any longer. She tried to seduce me the night after Aunt Eva had died." His smile was stark and pained. "On the same couch that Father favored for such events. I dumped her on the floor and walked out.

  "After the funeral, I walked up to my father, told him I was clearing the books before I closed them, just like he'd always said to do, and I told him what I thought of him. Then I left straight from the cemetery. I sold everything I could lay claim to, right down to the clothes I'd worn to the funeral. I haven't looked back since.

  "So that's the story of Cal Ruskoff. Not a pretty story. A grown man, and I ran away from home. I'm not proud of it. If I'd been tougher…"

  Taylor leaned forward, resting her hand atop his on the quilt. He flinched and pulled away, but she followed the motion, stretching partially across him. His gaze came to her, and she could see him gradually returning his focus from the past to now.

  "You ran to stay out of that prison your aunt wrote about. That took a lot of courage. But you can't keep running, Cal, or the running becomes another kind of prison – that's what your aunt was telling you. Sometime—"

  "Hey, you're crying." He wiped at her cheek with his fingertips. "Don't cry, Taylor. I never meant to make you cry."

  She shook her head. "That doesn't matter. Listen to me, Cal. You can't keep running or hiding out. You have to face those demons from the past. If you went back, faced your father and talked to him—"

  "No."

  "Maybe you could never reconcile, but until you resolve the situation with your father—"

  "It's never going to happen. I'm not going back there. I'm not going to ever talk to my father again. And I'm done talking about him. Understand?"

  She understood. He was giving her a choice – no, an ultimatum. If she tried to press him on this, he was leaving – not physically, but emotionally, pulling right back into that shell.

  She couldn't lose him now. Not after their time alone had stripped the protective layers from around him, so she'd seen the man inside.

  "Yes, I understand."

  * * *

  The wind had scoured an occasional patch clear of snow, while drifting other areas waist high.

  Cal skillfully maneuvered the truck with the plow blade attached to the front to push the uneven accumulations off the road, while Taylor contemplated how different this trip down this snowy route was from their previous one.

  She had an urge to smile for no good reason. The sky was clear and bright. The three of them – Cal, her and Sin – were snug in the cab of a truck instead of struggling on horseback. And most significant, she was snuggled close enough to Cal's side to feel the muscles in his thighs work as he fed the truck more gas.

  Just to emphasize that difference, she placed her gloved hand on his thigh. When she'd been battling the storm, she'd regretted wearing these thin gloves. Now she was glad, as his warmth and movement communicated to her palm. He glanced down, but didn't say a word. In fact, something ahead had caught his attention.

  Her car.

  Only one corner, sticking up at an angle, was uncovered by snow. She wished the whole thing was invisible. Better yet, that it had disappeared.

  Oops, can't leave now, Cal, my car's disappeared. Guess I'll just have to stay here with you forever.

  She waited for him to say something, but Cal drove the truck past the car. The only sign that he'd noted its existence was the fact that he'd left no piles of accumulated snow that would interfere with getting the car out.

  He kept plowing, past the main house, to the last big curve before the highway would have come in sight. Then he stopped.

  Before them, the wind-frothed snow stretched like a moat surrounding their private world.

  "Can't get your car anywhere until we dig it out, anyhow," Cal explained in a mumble when he started backing up the truck.

  She didn't say a word. She was too happy.

  "Stay here, both of you," he ordered when they'd backed up near her car. "I'm going to see if we can hitch up the car to tow it out."

  From inside the truck, which he'd left running with the heater going, she watched him clamber down into the ditch to her car with a shovel. Sin whined a little from her right. After a minute or two she realized she was smiling. Simply from the pleasure of watching Cal.

  He wasn't doing anything dramatic. He shoveled enough to find the shape of the car, then concentrated on the area around the rear bumper, pausing to feel under it with his gloved hand. Once in a while, he would step back and consider the car and the ditch and the road.

  It didn't matter what he did, it was simply the fact of him – Cal Ruskoff – doing it and her getting to watch him that gave her pleasure.

  That pleasure and her happiness were undimmed when he shook his head, frowned and headed back toward the truck.

  He climbed in. Before he could close the door, she scooted up against him, took his face between her gloved hands and kissed him, her lips traveling over the cool surface of his before her tongue slipped inside to the warmth awaiting her there. He let go of the door and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her almost into his lap.

  Unwilling to relinquish control of this kiss to him, she tugged back. Sin gave a single bark and jumped to the floor, clear of this human game they kept playing.

  Even through jackets and sweaters and jeans, the maneuverings of their bodies against each other set up a friction she relished. She felt him push against her, then heard the driver's door creak fully open before a new layer of cold settled over them.

  With a disgusted grunt, Cal sat up, bringing her with him. "Must have kicked it," he grumbled. With one arm around her shoulders, he reached out with the other and yanked the door closed. Then he turned to her. "What was that for?"

  "Wanted to warm you up."

  "You succeeded."

  "I had help." She smiled. A smile that warmed several degrees when she saw the way his gaze went to her mouth.

  But he was clearly trying to sound stern when he added, "I've got work to do."

  "You're going to tow my car out now?"

  Once the car was out, how long would it take him to clear the rest of the way to the highway? Would he expect her to leave right away?

  "Can't. This truck would pull the bumper right off that tin can of yours. So we'll have to go the old-fashioned – and slower – route. We'll have to shovel it out and push."

  A renewed fondness for her car welled up in Taylor. Tin cans had their upsides.

  "I can shovel." Helping would speed the process, but she'd be with him.

  "I only have one shovel."

  She answered his glower with a smile. "That's okay, I have hands."

  "Don't I know it, and they're good for a helluva lot more than shoveling snow." His lips twitched, but he kept his tone dour as he said, "There's another shovel in back."

  She laughed, as warmed by his look as by the truck's heater, and followed him out of the truck, with Sin on their heels.

  The first part was tough going, but once they – mostly he – had cleared a starting area, they had somewhere to stand while they dug, lifted and tossed shovelful after shovelful of snow. They'd started back to back, and headed in opposite directions around the car, brushing it off as they went. Now they had nearly met on the far side of it. Even though Cal had shoveled a much wider swath across the back to help form a ramp up toward the road surface, he'd covered more than half of their route. Maybe she hadn't been in much of a rush to get this chore done.

  She stretched her back, then leaned on her shovel, watching him methodically attack the snow coming toward her. Absently one hand dug into the pile of snow at her side.

  "Don't even consider it." Cal hadn't looked up, and he didn't stop shoveling.

  "Consider what?"

  "Throwing that snowball."
<
br />   She looked at the clump of snow in her hand. "This sorry thing? I wouldn't ever throw this poor excuse for a snowball at you. Now this—" in one motion, she had captured a shovelful of snow and was flinging it at him "—is worth throwing."

  It cascaded over his head and shoulders, sliding down his slightly bent back.

  Before her chuckle had a chance to reach adulthood, he'd dropped his shovel and lunged at her.

  "Throw snow at me, will you?"

  She squealed, spinning away, but he caught her arm, pulling her back to him, even as he tumbled into the snowbank, with her on top of him. Sin was barking and leaping around, more than willing to aid the cause of chaos.

  "Happy now?"

  "Extremely, since you're the one in the snow!" To emphasize her point, she levered up and swept more snow onto him.

  "Oh, no you don't." He wrapped his arms around her and rolled until she was caught between icy snow below her and heated man above her. "How do you like that?"

  "Not as much as this." She'd grabbed a handful of snow during the roll and now released it at the gap between the back of his neck and his clothes.

  He yelped, arching his back. It provided no escape from the coldness sliding down it, but pushed the heat of his groin into her, between her parted legs.

  Before she could initiate another attack, he captured both her wrists, transferred them to one of his in the snow above her head. With his other hand he scooped up snow.

  "Now, what shall I do with this? So many possibilities," he mused with an evil grin. He loosed a plop of snow on her cheek, then followed it with his mouth.

  "Here," he murmured, licking the snow and her skin, and replacing the icy moistness with sultry heat.

  Sin, bored with their apparent inactivity, wandered off.

  "Or here." Another constellation of snowflakes fell on the point of her chin, then slid down its underside, heading for her throat.

  He nibbled the snow from her chin, then followed its melting descent, down her throat, pushing aside the scarf that had kept her coat closed around her neck. Eyes closed, she shifted under him, and he rocked against her in response.

  "Or here." His voice dropped to midnight velvet.

  In the next instant, cold exploded in the hollow at the base of her throat and headed for the valley between her breasts. It brought her off the ground. But that only pressed her harder against Cal, and in that same instant, the heated caress of his mouth touched the same tender hollow.

  His tongue flicked against the rise of her breast just above her bra, but her clothes kept him from going any deeper. And she definitely wanted him to go deeper.

  "Cal…"

  "Or here?"

  Her eyes popped open as the words coincided with something pushing and opening at the closures of her coat. And he still had snow in his hand.

  "Cal, you wouldn't—"

  He had his snow-holding hand under the bottom edge of her sweater now. She was twisting and writhing beneath him – a vain effort in trying to get away, but quite productive in stoking the heat where their lower bodies met.

  "Oh, wouldn't I?"

  Cold wetness connected with the sensitive skin of her stomach, and her muscles clenched, trying to escape it.

  "Cal!"

  She was only vaguely aware he was using his teeth to pull his glove off – a glove no longer needed since its payload was busy freezing her skin. Then, in an almost instantaneous alchemy his hand spread over the cold and turned it sizzling.

  The cold, now consisting of air instead of snow, advanced ahead of his touch, up her rib cage, under the edge of her bra, defying gravity to climb the underslope of her breast, then pebble her nipple. And everywhere it was followed by the incredible heat of his touch, feathering across her ribs, stroking her breast, skimming her nipple to rock hardness.

  He closed his mouth over her nipple, and rocked against the apex of her thighs.

  "Cal…"

  Her voice sounded strange to her, though she wasn't interested enough in that to try to pinpoint why. But Cal stilled, then raised his head, meeting her gaze.

  He swore, low and heartfelt. Before she could guess what was coming, much less prepare herself for it, he jackknifed up and away from her.

  "What? But…"

  "You're shivering." He was pulling her clothes into position, then he was tugging her upright.

  She was going to protest, but then a tremor shuddered through her.

  He wrapped one arm around her, snagging the two shovels with the other hand and started bundling her up the slope toward the truck. She gave him a half grin.

  She tried to say something, but her teeth chattered.

  "Taylor—"

  "It's not that bad, honest, Cal."

  "C'mon, Sin!"

  He had her in the cab, the heat on full blast, wrapped in a blanket he'd pulled from somewhere faster than she could imagine. With Sin on the floor and the heater fast melting snow from his coat, Cal quickly turned the truck around despite the big plow blade, and headed for his house.

  "I–I thought every man wanted to make women tremble."

  He looked her over before he answered. Apparently that reassured him, because he relaxed a little.

  "Preferably not right before they turned into an icicle."

  "A little longer and I'd have been a very satisfied icicle."

  He put his arm around her shoulders and dragged her a little closer. "Well, now you've done it, Taylor."

  "I've done it?" she laughed. "I wasn't alone, you know."

  "You're going to freeze if we don't get you into the house where it's warm." A glint lit his eyes even before the heated smile came. "And get you out of those clothes."

  * * *

  Chapter 10

  « ^ »

  They didn't get back to her car until midmorning the next day.

  By the time they both got into the shower after their roll in the snow yesterday, there'd been more danger of his igniting in spontaneous combustion than of her freezing.

  They made it from the shower to the bed, and stayed there until both their stomachs were growling from missing lunch and delaying supper, and Sin was whining to go out.

  They made love again in front of the fire, like they would have the first time if he'd had condoms in his pocket.

  Except it still wouldn't have been like the first time. This was even better. Slower. Less desperation and more pleasure. Though the desperation came. Yes, it definitely came.

  He thought the even better should be worrying him. He'd never experienced anything like this before.

  Other than his ill-fated engagement, his experience ran more to sex than relationships. Not that this interlude was a relationship. It was the peculiar circumstances that made it seem that way, what with them holed up like this.

  Maybe having a craving grow was normal when you were with the same woman so many times in a short stretch.

  Maybe it was normal to come in from the barn after caring for the animals first thing this morning, and have her find a piece of hay in his hair, and start laughing about rolls in the hay and rolls in the snow, and end up back in the warm, soft bed he hadn't left long ago judging by the clock, though his body said it had been too long – much, much too long.

  Maybe it was normal, a few hours later, to find yourself scanning the sky, thinking another blizzard wouldn't be so bad.

  And maybe it wasn't normal at all.

  So it was a good thing she'd be leaving soon. A damned good thing. Then things would truly get back to normal.

  Before they'd finished the little bit of reshoveling needed because of the wind-drifting, he heard a plow from the direction of the highway.

  He saw her turn that way, then dart another of those looks at him. He didn't return it.

  He'd put it off longer than he should have, and now the moment was coming toward them in the form of a powerful. Slash-C truck outfitted with a top-quality plow. It would break through any minute now.

  And then he'd do what he
had to do.

  "Is everybody okay? Are you hurt, Taylor?" As Matty slammed the door of the Slash-C truck closed behind her, she shifted her questioning to her foreman. "How could you let her try to leave after I told you—"

  "It had already happened," Taylor said, cutting off the accusation, "when you called and said the road was closed."

  Matty's gaze stayed on her an extra beat before returning to Cal. "But why didn't you tell me her car was in a ditch?"

  He shrugged. "What difference did it make? Nobody could do anything about it."

  But Taylor had a sudden feeling that there was more to it than that.

  I already feel like an idiot for driving the car into a ditch, okay?

  Could've happened to anybody.

  Cal Ruskoff, of all the people in the world, was protecting her feelings.

  She wanted to hug him. But that would bring a barrage of questions and speculations – spoken or unspoken – from Matty that she just wasn't ready to deal with yet. This was too new, too … unformed.

  "How're the roads?" Cal asked Dave.

  "Not bad. They started on the state roads day before yesterday, and had the county roads pretty well done by last night."

  "Everybody else has been out since yesterday afternoon or longer," Matty added. "Even those who were enjoying being snowbound."

  Taylor felt her cheeks burning with more than cold and wind. There was no denying she had enjoyed being snowbound with Cal – at least the past forty-eight hours. But Matty was smiling at Dave, and Taylor realized her friend was referring to her own experiences.

  "I can't imagine," Matty continued as she turned now to Cal, "why it's taken you two so long."

  "Snow's deeper here." Cal gave Matty back look for look, daring her to challenge him.