by Diana Palmer
Without a word, Colt lowered his mouth to hers as he lifted her to him and in one smooth motion joined their bodies. The feel of Kaylee surrounding him, the sound of her soft sigh and the taste of desire on her sweet lips blocked out all reason and left him with nothing but the ability to complete the act of loving her.
He held her hips and guided her in a rocking motion that quickly had him gritting his teeth against the urgent need to race for the peak. His body throbbed and his heart pounded, but he refused to give in to his own satisfaction before he was assured he’d helped Kaylee find hers.
When he felt her inner feminine muscles tighten around him, signaling that she was close to finding her completion, he reached between them to stroke her. The moment his finger touched her, she went completely still, then, whispering his name, he felt her body quiver around him as she was released from the exquisite tension inside her.
Only then did he give in to the storm raging inside him and surrender the tight hold he had on his control. Surging into her one final time, he groaned as he emptied his essence deep within her warm depths.
As the whirlpool jets worked their magic and lulled them back to the realm of reality, he held Kaylee close. He’d done the unthinkable. He’d failed to protect her. Much the way he’d done three years ago, he’d let his need to brand her as his override his good sense.
But as he caressed her soft body, it came as no small surprise that he wasn’t sorry. Nothing would please him more than to create another child with Kaylee, of seeing her belly grow round as his baby grew inside her.
Unfortunately he wasn’t sure how she felt about giving Amber a little brother or sister. Nor had they discussed their future together.
He was sure she loved him and there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he loved her. But knowing how he made his living, would she be willing to marry him?
“Kaylee?”
“Mmm.”
“Do you have any idea how much I love you?”
He heard her soft intake of breath a moment before she leaned back to gaze up at him. “Y-you love me?”
Unable to stop grinning, Colt nodded. “I always have. I was just too big of a fool to admit it.”
Tears filled her pretty violet eyes. “Oh, Colt. I’ve loved you from the first minute I set eyes on you.”
His heart soared. Everything was going to be all right. They’d work something out. They had to. There was no way he was going to take a chance on screwing this up a second time.
Kissing her creamy shoulder, he smiled. “Let’s get out of the tub, honey. We need to talk.”
Chapter Ten
“Kaylee, I want you and Amber to go with me to the PBR finals in Vegas.”
Sitting in the middle of Colt’s bed, Kaylee gazed into his vivid blue eyes and fought the urge to tell him that she would go with him. Pulling her chenille robe more tightly around her, she shivered violently. She loved him more than life itself, but he was asking something of her that she just couldn’t do.
“Colt, I love you. I’ll always love you.” She shook her head. “But I can’t watch you ride bulls.”
He took her hands in his. “Honey, I know you’re afraid something might happen to me. But you’ve always known what I did for a living and you accepted it.”
“Th-that was before.” She pulled away from him and got out of bed before his touch and the beseeching expression on his handsome face caused her to weaken.
“Honey, I’m close to winning the championship,” Colt argued. “I can’t quit now.”
Pacing the length of his room, she tried to explain how she felt. “Colt, I would never ask you to stop being a bull rider. It’s a part of you—it’s who you are.” Feeling as if she might choke on the emotions welling up inside of her, she stopped to catch her breath. “But I can’t bear the thought of watching you being taken out of an arena like Mitch was that night in Houston.”
“Kaylee, you know I’m always careful. I keep myself in good shape and—”
“Mitch was in as good a shape as any of the riders and he was always careful,” she said, impatiently wiping at a tear running down her cheek. “And look what happened to him.”
“But—”
She shook her head. “Colt, I couldn’t survive standing in another hospital waiting room while some doctor tells me there’s nothing he could do to save your life.” Chills racked her body and she couldn’t stop shaking. “I just can’t…do that again,” she whispered.
He got out of bed and, walking over to her, wrapped her in his strong arms. “Kaylee, life doesn’t come with any kind of guarantee. Something could happen to me no matter what I do for a living.”
“I…know that,” she said, trying desperately to stop her teeth from chattering. “But we both know the high price that riding bulls can cost.” The feel of his warm chest pressed to her cheek and the steady beat of his heart should have been reassuring, but her fears were too strong and ran too deep.
“Honey, I love you and Amber and I want you both with me,” he said, rubbing his hands soothingly up and down her spine. “It’s important to me for you to be there with me.” He kissed the top of her head. “Besides, you won’t be alone. Morgan, Samantha and Annie will be sitting in the stands with you, and Brant will be down in the arena with me.”
Tears ran down her cheeks as she pulled from his arms and started to back out of the room. “Colt, don’t you understand? It doesn’t matter who’s with me or how many people there are around me, they couldn’t stop something from happening to you.”
“Kaylee, honey, wait—”
“No.” She stood in the doorway, her knees feeling as if they were going to buckle at any moment. “You’ve always been, and will always be, my biggest weakness, Colt. I love you more than you’ll ever know. But I can’t watch you ride.” She took a deep breath, then rushed on before she had a chance to change her mind. “Your shoulder is healed now, and you really don’t need me—”
“I’ll always need you, Kaylee,” he said, taking a step toward her.
“I told you I would help you regain the use of your arm,” she said quietly. “And I’ve done that. But I also told you I wouldn’t help you get ready for the finals.”
“Kaylee, don’t do this,” he said, taking another step toward her.
She could tell by his expression that he’d anticipated what she was about to say next. But she couldn’t let that sway her. Her survival depended on it.
“Amber and I will be leaving tomorrow to go back to Oklahoma City. I’ll get Annie or Samantha to drive me down to Laramie to catch a commuter flight to Denver.”
Before he could respond, she turned and walked down the hall to the room she’d shared with Amber. She knew she was being a coward. But she really didn’t have a choice.
She would be devastated if something tragic happened to Colt at any time. But Kaylee knew for certain that if she had to witness him being fatally injured the way she had Mitch, she’d never be able to survive. And surviving was something she had to do at all costs.
She had a little girl to think of now. Amber was depending on her. And Kaylee wasn’t about to let Amber down.
Colt stood behind the bucking chutes as the bulls were being loaded into the enclosures on the last day of the Professional Bull Riders championship. He’d had an exceptional finals and was currently tied with another rider to win the season title.
But even if he achieved his goal and won the damn championship, he knew for certain the victory would be a hollow one. Hell, his whole life had been nothing but an empty void for the past two weeks—ever since Kaylee and Amber had gone back to Oklahoma.
“You ready to go out there and kick Kamikaze’s butt once and for all?” Brant asked, referring to the bull Colt had never been able to ride.
Colt shrugged as he buckled his bat-wing chaps. “It’s just another ride.”
Dressed in the bullfighter’s uniform of shorts and matching jersey, Brant rotated his shoulders to stay loose. “Just keep your head o
ut there, little brother. You can take off for Oklahoma City tomorrow morning to see if you can straighten things out with Kaylee.”
“What makes you think I’ll be going to Oklahoma?” Colt asked, pulling on his riding glove.
“Two reasons,” Brant said, sounding so certain that Colt felt like belting him one.
“What would those be?” he asked, knowing his brother would tell him anyway.
“Number one, you’ve been like a bear with a sore paw ever since Kaylee left. You might as well give it up and admit that nothing is more important than being with the woman you love,” Brant said, bending to adjust his knee pads. When he straightened to his full height, he wore a knowing expression. “Take it from me, bro, if you don’t come to that conclusion your mood is only going to get worse.”
“Since when did you become an expert on affairs of the heart?” Colt asked sourly.
Brant grinned. “If you’ll remember, I went through something similar with Annie before I came to my senses. I was one miserable SOB until I decided there was nothing more important than being with her.”
Colt glared at his brother. “That was different. You had some stupid idea that you and Annie didn’t have anything in common.”
Brant grinned and went on as if Colt hadn’t said anything. “And the second reason I know you’ll be going to Oklahoma City is because if you don’t go on your own, Morgan and I are going to stuff you on the plane ourselves.”
Before Colt could respond, Brant turned and jogged out into the arena.
As Colt watched his brother take his place in front of the bucking chutes, he thought about what Brant had said. He was miserable without Kaylee and Amber. They were his life, and a hell of a lot more important than riding two thousand pounds of pissed-off beef.
He shook his head. Kaylee had told him a bull rider was who he was, and he’d pretty much agreed with her. But they’d both been wrong. There was a hell of a lot more to him than that.
Instead of looking at winning a championship buckle to define who he was, he should have considered what else he had going for him. He was a damned good rancher, the father of a precious little girl and the man who loved Kaylee Simpson with all of his heart and soul.
Climbing the steps behind the chutes, Colt gazed down at the back of his old nemesis Kamikaze. He’d drawn the brindle bull many times in the past several years, and so far, the score was Kamikaze three, Colt zero. In fact, the bull had been the one Colt had been bucked off of the night he’d broken his collarbone.
“As far as I’m concerned, we might as well make it four to zero,” Colt said, deciding that riding bulls wasn’t worth losing Kaylee. “Hey, Jim?”
“What’s that, hotshot?” Jim Elliott, the time-keeper asked.
“I’m not going to—”
“Colt,” a familiar female voice called from somewhere behind him.
He stopped short of telling the man that he wouldn’t be riding Kamikaze. Turning, he scanned the crowd of people milling around behind the chutes. Just when he thought he’d imagined hearing her, he spotted Kaylee and Amber standing not twenty feet away.
Afraid he might be hallucinating, he jumped down from the platform and rushed over to wrap his arms around them. “What are you doing here, honey?”
“Daddy,” Amber said, poking her little finger into his protective black leather vest.
“That’s right, little pixie,” he said, kissing her baby-soft cheek.
“I couldn’t stay away,” Kaylee said, hugging him back. “If something happened and I wasn’t with you, I don’t think I could live with myself.”
He shook his head as he gazed down into her pretty violet eyes. “It’s no longer an issue,” he said, brushing his lips over hers, then kissing the top of Amber’s head. He couldn’t get enough of holding them, of letting them know how much he loved them. “I was just getting ready to tell Jim that I’m turning out. I’m not going to ride Kamikaze.”
She looked confused. “Why would you do that?”
“Because I love you,” he said honestly. “You and Amber mean more to me than anything else and I know it upsets you to think about me riding.”
“Colt, I love you, too.” She gave him a kiss that damned near knocked him to his knees, then shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I don’t want you to turn out. I want you to ride that bull.”
It was his turn to look incredulous. “What made you change your mind, honey?”
“I want you to ride because I love you and I don’t ever want you to have any regrets.” She shook her head. “I don’t want you to wonder if you could have won the championship if you’d only taken this ride.”
“Wakefield, you’re up next,” Jim called.
Colt held up his hand. “Just a minute, Jim.” Turning back to Kaylee, he searched her face. “Are you sure, honey? Say the word, and I’ll take the turn-out.”
He watched her take a deep breath, then meet his questioning gaze head-on. “Yes, Colt. If Mitch were here right now, he’d kick your buns if he heard you were about to turn down a bull you could win it all on.”
“Last call, Wakefield,” Jim shouted above the noisy crowd.
Colt stared at Kaylee for a moment longer, then, pressing his lips to hers, he smiled. “I’ll be right back, honey.”
He took the steps to the raised platform behind the bucking chutes two at a time, then stepped over the side of the tubular steel enclosure. Slipping his mouth guard into place to protect his teeth during the jarring ride, he settled himself onto the brindle bull’s broad back and put his gloved hand, palm up, into the bull rope’s grip.
Kamikaze tensed beneath him in anticipation of making Colt sorry he’d ever been born, but he ignored the animal’s building rage. As he and some of the other riders pulled the flat braided rope snug around the bull’s thick body, he was more determined than ever to keep himself from being hurt or worse. Kaylee was counting on him, and he’d go through hell and back before he let her down.
Once Colt was satisfied that the binding was as tight as it was going to get, he placed the long end of the rope in his palm and wound it around his hand several times, effectively tying himself to Kamikaze’s back. Closing his fingers into a fist around the wrap, he pushed his Resistol down on his head with his free hand, took a deep breath and gave a quick nod to signal that he was ready for the ride to begin. Just as he expected, when the gate swung wide, Kamikaze exploded from the chute and out into the arena with all the energy of a keg of dynamite.
With his left arm extended above his head for balance, he gripped the animal’s sides with his thighs and concentrated on staying with the bull jump for jump. True to style, Kamikaze took two high leaps, then circled to the left and settled into a tight, bucking spin.
Every lurching move of the two thousand pounds of pure fury pulled mercilessly on his right arm and made Colt feel as if someone had lifted him high into the air then slammed him down with the force of a wrecking ball. Directing all of his energy toward hanging on to the rope and keeping his body aligned with the center of the bull’s back, Colt tried to anticipate Kamikaze’s next move.
Adrenaline raced through his veins as he focused on every nuance of the ride and he knew the moment the eight-second whistle blew that he’d finally bested his nemesis. Reaching down between his legs, he released his hand from the bull rope and jumped clear of the angry animal.
Kaylee clutched Amber and held her breath as she watched Colt successfully ride Kamikaze. She prayed that he wouldn’t hang up in the rope or fall as he landed on the dirt floor of the arena when it came time for his dismount. But to her relief, Colt managed to stay on his feet and sprint to safety, while Brant and the other two bullfighters distracted the big, ugly bull.
Watching Brant wrap Colt in a congratulatory bear hug, then seeing the ear-to-ear grin on his face, she knew she’d made the right choice in coming to the finals. She’d spent two agonizing weeks vacillating between staying in Oklahoma City or being at his side. An
d in the end, she’d known that she really never had any choice in the matter. When you loved someone as much as she loved Colt, you simply accepted that person and didn’t try to change them.
She wasn’t sure how she was going to manage watching Colt climb on the back of a bull every weekend for the next several years, knowing that at any time something could go terribly wrong. But in the past two weeks she had quickly reached the conclusion that living with the fear was something she was going to have to get used to. It couldn’t be worse than the debilitating loneliness of living without him in her life at all.
“Daddy,” Amber said, holding her arms out to Colt when he slipped through the arena gate and made his way to them through the crowd of well-wishers.
Happy for him, Kaylee’s eyes filled with moisture as he lifted Amber to sit on his forearm, then put his other arm around her shoulders. “You did it, Colt. You won.”
Still grinning, he nodded. “I guess I did.” When a tear slipped down her cheek, Colt’s smile disappeared instantly as he wiped it away with his finger. “Honey, are you all right?”
She nodded. “I’m just happy you won and relieved you’re all right.”
“Kaylee, there’s something I want to tell you—” At the sound of his name being announced over the loudspeaker, he smiled apologetically. “Dang, I need to—”
Reaching up to kiss his lean cheek, she smiled and reached for Amber. “Go accept your award. You’ve earned it. We’ll be right here waiting for you.”
“Honey, you don’t know how good that sounds to me.” He gave her a quick kiss, then turned and walked back out into the arena for the presentation of the trophies.
Kaylee listened as the announcer presented the championship cup and an oversize check to the bull rider who had the most points for the season. The cowboy thanked the good Lord above for blessing him with an injury-free season and the fans for their support. Then the announcer turned to Colt and handed him a big gold buckle and a check for a huge amount of money for winning the finals. Colt thanked everyone, then asked the man holding the microphone if he could make an announcement.