by Cindy Gerard
He pinched his jaw between his thumb and forefinger, let the air out of his lungs. “What the hell,” he said under his breath and decided to go for it.
“Enjoying the sunshine?” Matt asked as he walked out onto the terrace.
Helena’s face brightened when she saw him. She graced him with a smile that rivaled the warmth of the sun. “It’s lovely.”
He braced one hand on the arm of her chair, one on the back and leaned down to kiss her softly on the mouth. “Now that was lovely,” he said, pulling slowly away.
She actually blushed. He thought it was fascinating.
“Matthew. Lois—”
“—is probably watching, I know. You don’t honestly think she doesn’t know we’re lovers?”
“You…you didn’t tell her?” There was more hope in the statement than question.
He smiled. “I didn’t have to. She doesn’t usually give me wake-up calls every morning—and I’ve no doubt that as soon as she’s checked on me, she makes a quick call to your room. I answer. You don’t. It doesn’t take a nuclear physicist to do the math on that one.”
“Oh, Lord,” she said with a dawning realization. “What must she think?”
“Well,” he eased close again to take another taste of her full, lush mouth, “we had apricot brandy muffins this morning. Lois has to be in a re-e-al good mood to bake her apricot muffins.”
She smiled up at him. “And you seem to be in a re-e-al good mood yourself. What are you about today?”
“I’m about this far from putting my life in your hands.” He extended one of his.
She took it and rose. “Your life in my hands? Sounds like the makings of a power trip to me. What did you have in mind?”
He tucked her under his shoulder and started walking slowly toward the house. “I want you to drive me down to the barns.”
“Ah. So you want to see firsthand if you were a good instructor?”
He’d taught her to drive Lois’s golf cart yesterday. Then he’d let her loose to find her comfort level on her own.
“Something like that.” He squeezed her shoulder.
“I warn you, Matthew, I will not tolerate any front-seat drivers,” she said playfully. “And I like to go fast.”
He chuckled. “Maybe I should drive.”
She just laughed. And then she drove. Fast.
“Oh, Matthew, what happened to her?” Helena asked, her voice thick with concern as she stood, her arms crossed over the box-stall door, staring at the injured horse.
For the better part of the last hour, Matt had directed Helena to drive him from one barn to the other. They’d checked on the foals and the yearlings. They’d watched Vince and the boys work the two-year-olds in the round pen. Their last stop was at the west barn. He’d decided it was time for Helena to meet Jewell.
Jewell was a rosy-red roan, a three-year-old athlete bred for speed and agility. She’d been on her way to the top of the cutting horse world when she’d suffered a crippling injury.
“Windstorm about three months ago,” he said, watching Helena’s face. “She’d just had a workout and was cooling down in the south pen. We’re not sure what happened exactly, but she spooked and ran through a fence. It cut her up pretty badly.”
“Poor pretty girl,” Helena crooned as Jewell stood loafing on her left rear leg, her right rear leg cocked and not bearing any weight. Her liquid brown eyes regarded Helena with a calm interest.
“Will she heal?” she asked softly.
Matt propped an elbow on the stall door. “She’ll heal. Question is, will she compete again?”
“What does the vet say?”
He shrugged and, without asking if she wanted to go in, flipped the latch on the stall door and slowly swung it open. “He says it’s partly up to her.”
Without even realizing she’d made a decision, Helena limped slowly into the stall.
“Hello, pretty girl,” she crooned, letting Jewell get used to the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand on her withers. “Let’s have a look, okay?”
Matt watched quietly as the small woman spoke in soothing whispers to the thousand-pound horse, who regarded her, if not warily, at least as a curiosity.
He’d given it a lot of thought before finally deciding to bring Helena and the injured quarter horse together. He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake. The look in Helena’s eyes told him that he hadn’t. She was positively maternal with the young mare. Cooing softly, crooning gently, she ran her hand across her withers, testing her trust before she finally extended her exploration to the healing scar on her rear hock.
The mare stood statue-still—except for the slight trembling that vibrated through her entire body.
“Oh, sweet girl, it’s all right. No one’s going to hurt you,” Helena murmured softly, her movements slow and calculated so as not to startle the horse. She worked her way back to the mare’s head then scratched her ears and whispered sweet nothings.
“She seems scared to death.” Her brows furrowed as she lifted questioning eyes to Matt.
“It’s the damnedest thing. Doc says she should be past the memory by now, and past the worst of the pain. But she refuses to put any weight on that leg and she tenses up any time anyone tries to work with her.”
“She’s still frightened,” Helena said in the little roan’s defense.
“Either that, or the injury broke her spirit.”
Helena’s gaze met his, her eyes carefully blank. “What will happen to her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. She loved to compete. And man, was she a natural.” He thumbed back his charcoal Stetson. “If she doesn’t come out of it, I suppose she’ll end up a broodmare.”
The furrow between Helena’s eyes deepened. “Maybe she just needs a little special attention.”
Matt looked away, contained the smile that had been tugging at the corner of his mouth. He cleared his throat, turned back with a sober frown. “Maybe. Trouble is, we’re getting ready for a big competition. I can’t spare the hands.”
She gave the mare one last pat on the withers, her hand gliding down her glistening coat in a way that told him she was reluctant to leave her.
“A shame,” she said thoughtfully and walked slowly from the stall.
“Yeah,” he said, “it’s a damn shame.”
She was unusually quiet that evening. And when they made love, it was with a tenderness that left him humbled and in awe of her capacity for giving.
The next morning, he left her sleeping and went directly to the barns. When he came back to the house for lunch, she wasn’t there.
“Took the cart,” Lois said when he ended up in the kitchen asking if Lois knew where Helena was. “Said she was heading for the barn and she was dressed in a pair of Becca’s jeans and some soft boots. She asked me to take and braid her hair,” Lois said, beaming. “Imagine. Me, braiding a countess’s hair. Like silk, it was,” she went on, ignoring, as always, Matt’s grinning attempt to correct her concerning Helena’s title.
“But then I guess you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” she added, her old eyes watching him in a way that made him decidedly uncomfortable.
“The barn, huh?” was all he said as he walked to the refrigerator and snagged a can of soda.
“She’s not like Jena, Matthew,” Lois said softly. “Be a shame if you took and let her get away.”
He stiffened, then turned slowly toward her. “She’s my guest, Lois. When it’s time, she’ll leave. She has a life to go back to. And I have one to maintain.”
Lois didn’t say anything. She didn’t even snort. She just wiped her hands on her apron, gave him a long look and turned back to the stove and the pots simmering on the front burners.
When he reached the barn where Jewell was stalled, he found Lois’s cart in the middle of the alley and Helena, her back to him, on the cell phone.
He stood quietly in the shadows, when what he wanted to do was turn her into his arms. He wanted to fill his palms with h
er beautiful little backside that was packed into those skin-tight Wranglers. Then he wanted to haul her up to the loft and peel her out of both the jeans and the flannel shirt she’d tucked into them. Afterwards, he wanted to lie in the hay and pick twigs of sweet clover out of the braid that he had thoroughly ruined with his hands.
But what he did was back quietly away when he heard her discussing Jewell’s injury and possible treatment with his on-call vet. She was resourceful, he thought with a grin and wondered who she’d cornered long enough to get Doc Jones’s number.
Was he worried that Helena was biting off a little more than she could chew by getting wrapped up in Jewell’s recovery? Hell yes. Was he concerned that if Jewell didn’t respond to her attention she would see it as a sign that neither of them were destined to improve? Damn right.
But as the days passed and Helena became more involved with Jewell’s rehabilitation, he could see that he’d been right to plant the seed that had brought them together. As he sat across from her at dinner each evening and saw the sparkle return to her eyes, saw an animation in her expression that made her look younger and centered and confident, he decided it was worth the risk. And he didn’t feel even a twinge of guilt over manipulating her into that situation.
As he’d hoped, Helena had begun to see something of herself in the injured mare. From all indications, pitting her own limitations against Jewell’s had given Helena a purpose and a goal. If Jewell could get past her injuries, then so, perhaps, could she. If Jewell could compete again, so, perhaps, could she.
As the days passed, she completely immersed herself in Jewell’s care. She took over the daily task of changing her dressings, massaging her damaged muscles, coaxing her to absorb some of her weight on that leg. Little by little Jewell began to accept Helena’s prompting.
When Matt came upon them—and he made it a point to check on them several times a day—it was a sight that never failed to cause a heart-deep ache in his chest. The beautiful, injured woman, the sleek, crippled horse. Both of them dealing with the damage, both in pain, both valiantly trying to work through the exercise-therapy program Matt’s vet had prescribed.
“‘What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”’ he whispered against her hair when he found her late one afternoon, exhausted and frustrated by her own limitations and Jewell’s painfully slow progress.
He hadn’t meant to make her cry. But there were tears streaming down her cheeks as she snuggled in his arms and smiled up at him. “Not only is he kind and sensitive, but he quotes Shakespeare,” she said around a watery laugh. “However is a girl supposed to resist you, Matthew Walker?”
“Many have tried,” he teased gently, “but few have succeeded.”
“And he’s humble, too.” With a bracing breath, she pulled slowly out of his arms. “Now that you’ve shored me up, go away. I’ve got work to do.”
He kept a loose grip on her arms. “Don’t push too hard, okay?”
“It’s past time I did a little pushing.” She touched a hand to his cheek. “Now, go. Don’t worry about me.”
But he did worry, as well as marvel at her patience and her drive. He didn’t know if she was aware of the change, but little by little, he could see improvement in the mobility in both her hand and her ankle. Her limp seemed less pronounced. She used her left hand with less reluctance.
It was an amazing transformation to watch. And it cemented into fact that although she may think she needed him now, she was finding her own strength again. And as she grew stronger, she would soon be ready to move on. He knew she was very fond of him. He suspected she might even be a little in love with him. But he knew it would pass, just as he’d be ready to let her go when she was ready to move back into her world and out of his.
And he would be ready, he told himself, ignoring the dull ache the thought never failed to resurrect to sit like lead in his gut.
Nine
It had been a full three weeks since she’d arrived at High Stakes, Helena thought reflectively, as she relaxed, naked, in the huge whirlpool tub sunk in the floor of Matthew’s bathroom. She’d been working with Jewell for seventeen days. She’d been back to the doctor two more times and, thanks to Aaron and Pamela’s kindness and Matt’s determination to keep her trips into Royal low-profile, she’d managed to evade the press each time.
She’d talked with her parents twice, most recently just last night, assuring them that she was fine then making them laugh at her tales of Texas and her experience on a working ranch.
“How wonderfully quaint, dear,” her mother had said with a smile in her voice. “And how hospitable of your friend Mr. Walker to give you this dazzling taste of Americana.”
She smiled at the memory of the call—and at her hospitable friend, Mr. Walker, who was currently sitting across from her—also naked—in the whirlpool. His eyes were closed, his head lay back, his bronzed arms were stretched out across the rim of the sunken tub. He did not look quaint. He did, however, look dazzling. And positively wicked. And so gorgeous, her heart stalled.
Water beaded like transparent pearls across the sinewy breadth of his shoulders, clung to his dark, wet curls, trickled in a slow, enticing river from his temple to his jaw before disappearing in the hollow of his throat.
“Something on your mind, Lady Helena?”
Her gaze rose to his to find him watching her through heavy-lidded eyes. His tone was deceptively casual, absolutely sexual.
“Why don’t you come over here and ask me that question, cowboy?”
His smile started at one corner of his mouth, slow but not at all sweet as he sat forward, raked both hands through his wet hair and shoved away from the wall of the tub. He cut through the water then braced his hands on the lip of the tub on either side of her head. “Something on your mind?” he repeated against her lips.
“Umm, actually,” she murmured, pressing soft, eating kisses to his chin, to his jaw, then licking a line from his throat to his mouth, “I was wondering if you tasted as good as you looked.”
He moved in closer, brushing his chest against her breasts. “And…?”
She shivered despite the heat of the water. “You most definitely do.”
He smiled as his hands moved to cover her breasts. Watching her eyes, he scraped his thumbnails across her nipples. She caught her breath on a shallow little hitch as he lifted her until her breasts cleared the waterline. “I’ve been wanting a little taste myself.”
Warm, churning bubbles lapped at the underside of her breasts as his soft, wet mouth surrounded her, drawing her deep.
“Matthew.” She cried his name on a sigh and arched into his mouth.
“Not enough,” he murmured, nuzzling her with his nose, nipping her slick flesh lightly.
His eyes were very dark as he lifted her out of the water and set her on the floor surrounding the tub. Dripping wet, he rose in front of her, snagged a stack of towels and spread them out on the floor behind her. Then he laid her down on the bed he’d made of plush terrycloth.
“Not nearly enough,” he whispered as he sank back down in the water and moved between her legs. Liquid with anticipation, she raised up on her elbows to watch his beautiful face as he kissed the inside of her right thigh and then her left before he draped her legs over his shoulders.
“Not. Nearly. Enough.”
At the first touch of his mouth she whispered his name. At the first stroke of his tongue, she cried out, then surrendered, gave herself over completely to a pleasure so electric it shot lapping flames screaming through her blood. She embraced the shock of it, let it consume her, let him destroy her until she was boneless and whimpering his name, utterly helpless, totally without shame.
She was still coming down when he dragged her back into the water. His mouth sought hers, hard and demanding as he wrapped her in his arms and turned them so his back was against the tub’s wall. In one silken stroke, he filled her, making her his with each deep thrust, taking her higher than she’d ever been in a wet, wild rush.
<
br /> He clenched his jaw, closed his eyes and exploded inside her with a low, guttural groan and shot her over yet another edge of sensation so shattering, she wasn’t sure she’d survive it.
“Helena,” he groaned her name against her throat as she floated on the edge of consciousness. “Helena.” An accolade, a surrender. “What you do to me.”
She lay against him, as limp as her wet hair, knowing and not really caring that she would surely drown if he weren’t holding her above the water.
Long moments passed as they clung to each other that way. The timer on the jets finally shut off, leaving the room thick with steam and the water still but for their ragged breathing.
“I swear,” he ran a hand down the length of her wet hair, “I really, truly had your welfare in mind when I suggested the hot tub.”
She smiled lazily against his shoulder. “Darling, you saw to my welfare just fine.”
He chuckled. “I meant, I was thinking of the Jacuzzi in terms of honest-to-goodness physical therapy.”
With what strength she had left, she pulled away and smiled into his beautiful green eyes, their thick lashes spiked with water. She brushed a wet, unruly curl away from his forehead. “If it will soothe your conscience, I feel very little stiffness in my ankle right about now.”
“Oh yeah?” That crooked grin crawled back up one side of his mouth.
“Oh yeah.” She collapsed against him again, sleepily murmured, “I don’t suppose we could schedule another therapy session for tomorrow? Same time? Same place?”
He hugged her hard. “I guess that depends on whether we drown in here tonight. We need to get out, but I don’t know if I can walk.”
“Really?”
“You don’t have to sound so smug.”
“Oh, but smug is exactly how I feel.”
And love. Love was exactly what she felt for this giving man who had shown her a side of herself, a sensual side, that she hadn’t known existed.