A Hero's Homecoming

by Laurie Paige

  “Come to me.”

  “Carey, honey, I didn’t bring anything,” he said, humor in his voice. “You got any samples we can try.”

  “I’m on the pill. A doctor’s life is too hectic—” She stopped abruptly and stared up at him.

  He smiled in that slow, easy way he had. “Then we’re all right. I’ve always been careful.” He touched her temple, tracing a vein there. “I’ll be careful with you.”

  But she didn’t want careful. She wanted now. She wanted frantic and hot. She wanted to reap the whirlwind of passion that she’d denied for months. Since she’d met this blue-eyed stranger with his slow smile and wonderful hands, she’d wanted this. With him.

  “Oh,” she murmured when he stroked her just so.

  “This is going to be good,” he promised.

  She found out how good. As in mind-blowing. As in out of control. As in wild and furious and fast. His hands were everywhere. His mouth followed, dropping kisses over her the way the rain fell upon the land, drenching her in delight.

  Sometimes she sighed. She sobbed. When he finally came to her, she cried out at the hot, wet joining, the heated thrust of his flesh on hers, the wonderful, sweaty, slippery feel of his skin against hers. The world condensed to a point and disappeared.

  She tossed her head. She struggled as if they fought. He held her secure, his weight keeping her grounded. She clung to him as the world heaved under her. She would have screamed, but he had locked his mouth on hers and refused to let go.

  The release was explosive.

  She went utterly still as colors flew against her closed eyelids—reds and brilliant yellows, vibrant green and a blue so perfectly beautiful it would have made the ocean pale by comparison.

  At that moment, she felt him throb heavily in her. He lay still, then moved again, slowly, bringing them back from that wild passionate place they’d visited. The colors went to pastel, then blinked out. She opened her eyes.

  He watched her without speaking. Perspiration beaded his face. Hers, too. She sighed shakily, totally drained but not exactly content. For once in her life, she didn’t know what to do next.

  His breath caressed her neck. With an easy movement, he turned them so that she lay snug between his body and the back of the sofa. He coaxed her leg over his. They remained locked together.

  “I—”

  “Rest,” he said. He ran his fingers into her tousled hair, bringing her face against his chest.

  She closed her eyes, then opened them. “I have to pick up Sophie at Lorrie’s.”

  “In a minute.” His voice was a deep purr, soothing, yet with that undercoating of rough excitement she found so alluring in this man.

  “That was wonderful,” she finally said.

  “The best.” He nuzzled his lips along her temple. “The very best, Carey Hall.”

  She caught the nuance. “That worries you.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, that worries me.”

  “Why?”

  “You ask too many questions.”

  “It’s the doctor in me. That’s what we do.” She licked his chest and tasted salt. “Making love is work. I think it should be counted as an aerobic exercise.”

  That elicited a chuckle from him. “You have an amazing mind.” He kissed her forehead, her cheek, her throat, then licked the moisture from between her breasts.

  To her shock, she found she wanted to make love all over again. “I really have to go,” she managed, fighting the selfish demands of her body.

  “I know.” He eased away from her and stood. He grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk and handed it to her.

  “There’s a bathroom through there.”

  They bathed and dressed, moving around each other with an ease she found as disturbing as the explosion of desire between them. There was puzzlement in his eyes, too.

  At last, she stood by her desk, her cardigan on, her purse strap over her shoulder, her heavy coat in her hand. She checked the time.

  It had been a little less than an hour ago that she’d gone to answer the door. She tried to decide if anything had really changed, but she didn’t know.

  “Well,” she said.

  “It’s been fun,” he finished for her, his smile slightly ironic, more than a little enigmatic. “The roads are slick. Be careful.”

  “I will. It’s a short trip.” She searched for her gloves. “I can’t have lost them. I bought two pairs the other day.”

  He picked them off the floor behind her desk chair. “Are these what you’re looking for?” He held them so she could put them on, then followed her out the side door.

  His truck was parked behind her sports utility vehicle. He backed out, then let her get on the street before he fell in behind her. He followed her to Lorrie’s, then to her house. Making sure she got home okay, she assumed.

  As if she hadn’t traveled these roads a million times. But it gave her a nice feeling that he did.

  “Is that J.D.?” Sophie wanted to know. “Let’s invite him in. Can he eat supper with us?”

  Carey hesitated. “Okay.” She pulled into the garage and climbed out, then waved her arm at the truck, indicating he should come into the garage with them. After a couple of seconds, the truck eased forward into the empty space. He rolled down the window.

  “Would you like to have supper with us?” she asked. The question sounded ridiculously formal after what had just happened between them.

  Wayne considered, for all of two seconds, then nodded. He turned the lights and the engine off. He needed to talk to Carey. He had to tell her who he was. Tonight. Before word got out all over town. He climbed down from the truck.

  “Where’s Freeway?” Sophie demanded, slipping her hand into his and skipping to keep up as they went into the house. “Didn’t he come with you?”

  “Not tonight. He was in the hay barn with his family, where it was warm and dry.”

  “He has a family?” Her eyes sparkled with interest. “What’s his wife’s name? Do they have any kids?”

  “Yeah. Daisy is the, um, wife. They have four pups.”

  “Ohh, that sounds so nice.”

  The five-year-old studied her mom, who was busy turning on lights and removing her cardigan and gloves, which she stuck on a shelf next to the old-fashioned coatrack. He could almost see the wheels turning as Sophie tried to figure out how to wheedle a pup out of Carey.

  Two cats greeted them in the kitchen. “That’s Dudley and that’s Pickles,” Sophie introduced them.

  The cats were old. They’d each lost a fang. Their muzzles were gray. One evidently had arthritis in its hips. Yeah, the kid could use a new pet.

  “Help J.D. with his coat,” Carey suggested.

  “Okay.” The kid pulled off her own winter wear and showed him where to hang his. “Would you like to watch the news on television? That’s what Daddy likes to do.”

  Emotion tugged at his heart. “I’d rather stay here and watch your mom,” he confessed.

  Carey flashed him a worried glance, then went back to her chores. He pulled out a chair and straddled it. Sophie decided to color in a Donald Duck coloring book.

  In a few minutes, wonderful odors wafted from a skillet in which Carey mixed wine and chicken breasts. She added dried onion that she’d soaked in hot water for a few minutes, then some other spices.

  She placed potatoes in the microwave and started them to cooking. When they came out, frozen green beans went in. She scooped out the potatoes and added ranch dressing, then stuffed the mixture back into the potato skins. After laying strips of cheese on top, she stuck the potatoes in a toaster oven to brown.

  “Sophie, you may set the table,” she said.

  “I’ll help,” he volunteered.

  Within thirty minutes of entering the kitchen, he was sitting down to a mouthwatering meal that could have come from any fancy restaurant he’d ever been in. Chicken marsala, duchess potatoes, French-cut green beans with toasted almonds, a salad and white wine.

  “
You like to cook,” he said when they were all seated around the oak table in the kitchen.

  “Yes. I suppose it’s my hobby.”

  They all held hands and the girls said grace together. Again he got a twangy feeling inside, as if a tightly wound guitar string had been plucked hard. There was danger here in this cozy kitchen.

  “How are things at the ranch?” she asked. “Have you lost any cattle lately?”

  He told her about the mineral block. She listened with a quiet, intent expression, her eyes troubled as he told of his suspicions. Sophie slipped bits of food under the table to the two cats. Carey pretended not to see.

  They talked of local news. Carey included Sophie by asking about her day. With the enthusiasm of the young for detail, the kid told about a boy getting sick after lunch at school. Carey nodded solemnly and didn’t reprimand her daughter for choosing a topic inappropriate to mealtime, as his own mother would have when he was young. His admiration for her as a mother and a person grew.

  Therein lay the danger.

  He was getting sucked in and way too comfortable with these two. He needed to back off. When the kid went to bed, he’d tell Carey who he was, then he’d leave. He needed some distance between them to get his bearings again.

  After the meal, Carey put on coffee while Sophie went off to her room. When she returned, she was in blue fleecy pajamas with feet in them.

  “I stuck my zipper,” she said, stopping in front of him. She obviously expected him to fix it.

  He took out his knife and cut a ball of fleece that was caught, removed it, then finished zipping the pajamas.

  “Let’s get your teeth brushed.” Carey went to the back of the house with her daughter.

  He decided to get off his duff and help with the dishes. While he rinsed and put them in the dishwasher, he listened to the wind and rain against the window. The coffeemaker gurgled pleasantly. It was a night for staying inside.

  From down the hall, he heard water running and the sounds of the females as they chatted, laughter running through their conversation.

  “Should I give J.D. a kiss good-night?” he heard Sophie ask. He found himself on edge waiting for the answer.

  “If you’d like,” Carey said after a brief hesitation.

  They returned to the kitchen. “You want a hug and a kiss?” Sophie asked, fully expecting him to say yes.

  “Sure.”

  She held her arms out. He lifted her up so she could reach him. She kissed his cheek and hugged him. He caught the scent of baby powder and toothpaste and little-girl smell. His insides did the strange, twangy thing again.

  He kissed her cheek and hugged her back.

  “You want to read me a story?”

  “No, he doesn’t,” Carey cut in before he could reply. “He’s done enough for you tonight.”

  The child wasn’t daunted. “I’ve got a new book about a bear family,” she told him. “They have two kids—a brother and a sister. I wish I had a brother or sister.” Her gaze went to her mother in mute appeal. “I don’t see why we can’t have a baby. Lorrie’s daughter did.”

  “Babies cry at night. A doctor has to sleep.”

  “Yeah. So she can take care of the sick people who come to see her,” Sophie explained.

  When he set her on her feet, she skipped happily down the hall, three steps in front of her mom.

  He heaved a deep breath. Confession might be good for the soul, but it was damned hard on the nerves. He finished with the dishes, found a mug and helped himself to coffee.

  The rain turned to sleet and clacked impatiently against the windows. A chill crept up his spine.

  It was forty minutes before Carey returned. He’d changed his mind about telling her forty times.

  “It’s cold out there,” she said, pouring a cup of coffee for herself. “We might have snow before morning.”

  “Yeah. Listen, there’s something I need to tell you—”

  “That’s okay. I know tonight…earlier…didn’t mean anything.” She smiled briefly, a controlled, doctorish type of smile.

  “The hell it didn’t.” He came up out of the chair, anger and other feelings driving him. He didn’t like her blunt acceptance of casual sex between them.

  He tipped her chin up and glared into her hazel eyes. She blinked once, startled, then glared right back. She looked so much like her daughter when the kid had put in her two cents about having a brother or sister that his anger dissolved, leaving all the other emotions, the ones he couldn’t identify, swirling around in him.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “You. Us. Everything.” He kissed her then. He didn’t mean to. He tried not to. But the need was stronger than common sense. He touched her mouth, and he was lost to reason and self-preservation.

  Tell her, a voice warned inside him.

  Later, another answered.

  After a few seconds while she struggled not to respond, she parted her lips and gave him entry. He delved inside the warm honey of her mouth, while his body reared and plunged like a stallion sensing a mare in heat.

  Her arms came around his shoulders. She arched against him, straining upward to meet the demands of his kiss just as she had earlier in her office.

  “Where?” he muttered, biting and licking along her neck, knowing he wasn’t going to quit until he’d sampled the entire feast that was her.

  “At the end of the hall.”

  He lifted her off her feet.

  “I’m heavy,” she protested.

  “Less than a bale of hay.”

  She sighed and snuggled her face into his neck. She kissed and nibbled and licked her way from his ear to his throat. He was rock hard and throbbing by the time he entered the bedroom. She flipped on a light switch. A lamp at either side of the bed came on.

  “Wait.” She closed and locked the door.

  He set her on her feet beside the king-size bed and pressed her hands to her sides when she would have touched him. He removed her clothing piece by piece, stopping to shrug out of his own clothes, keeping them even, as he did.

  She glanced at the light.

  He turned off one, but left the other on, laying his shirt over the shade to soften the glow. That earned him a smile. She was just a tad shy, this woman who had dedicated herself to treating the human body.

  As sure as the storm blew down from Crazy Mountain, he knew she hadn’t had a man in this house since her husband had left it. She hadn’t had another man period. Neither had he been interested in another woman since he’d met this one.

  When they were both naked, he raked the covers back, braced one knee on the mattress and lowered them to the pristine expanse of white sheet.

  A tremor raced through her slender form as he adjusted his body to the pleasing curves of hers.

  “It’s that way for me, too,” he told her.

  He lowered his head and kissed her breasts, running his tongue around the sensitive tips until they contracted into delicious little morsels that he tasted over and over.

  Her cries were muted now, careful because of the child asleep down the hall, yet exciting and encouraging to his ears. Lying beside her, he glided his hand over her, watching the flush of sexual anticipation turn her skin from pale to rosy tones.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  He lingered at the feminine mound, smiling as he explored the springy blond curls there.

  She touched the scars on his chest and along his arm. She traced a finger along the one on his thigh. She looked a question at him.

  “’Nam,” he said. “They rebuilt my kneecap after a land mine shattered it.”

  Sorrow mingled with the fires of desire inside her. She kissed the scars on his chest, tears in her eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he assured her. “Nothing does, not now. When you touch me, the past is gone. There’s only this moment in time. And you and me.”

  It was the truth. Nothing from his past intruded on the enchantment between them.

  He laid hi
s hand on her breast, cupping the flesh that was both soft and firm under his palm. The nipple formed a tight, hard core in the middle of his hand. He rubbed around and around, reveling in the feel of this woman.

  When she touched him intimately, he sucked in a harsh breath and sought control. Her incredibly smooth hands explored his body as he’d explored hers earlier, finding every sensitive inch of flesh. He forced himself to stay still and let her get used to him.

  She stroked up and down, then cupped the area behind the hard shaft, tugging gently, experimentally, watching him all the while to gauge his reaction.

  “That’s very exciting,” he said, drawing a slight smile from her. “It does to me what this does to you.”

  He caressed between her legs, his fingers finding the slick passage, then the sensitive nub that swelled with delight when he stroked her there. She was ready, but he wouldn’t last a minute if he entered her. He roamed her body, his mouth hungry for the taste of her.

  When he slipped his hands under her hips, she caught her breath in a gasp. He smiled into her eyes before lowering his head and finding that sexy little bit of flesh that responded so fully to his touch.

  He took her to the peak, let her come down gently, then took her there again, using his fingers as well as his mouth to take her as high as she could go. She ran her fingers into his hair, then clutched him as she soared once more, her cries pressed into the pillow.

  When she quieted, he slid over her slender length and entered her in one plunging, heated thrust, all the way to the hilt. He closed his eyes and held on for a moment before moving again.

  Drawing on all his reserves of control, he watched her and began the journey to paradise all over again. She smiled up at him, so beautiful his breath locked in his throat.

  She stroked up and down his thighs, then curved her hands around his hips, guiding him as he moved in her. Her eyes were half-closed. The smile lingered on her lips. She pulled him against her. Harder. Faster. Her hips rose to meet each thrust of his.

  When she held her breath and closed her eyes tightly, he let go completely, burying himself in her, luxuriating in the intense throb of release, spending himself in her until he couldn’t tell where her flesh ended and his began. They were one, and it was the most powerful sensation he’d ever experienced.