The Cowboy's Craving (Book 4, the Mackenzies—Morgan)

by Diana Fraser

  Morgan grunted. “I don’t think I’m her type.”

  “Gemma’s never wrong about these things. I don’t know how women know this kind of stuff, but they do.” Callum shrugged. “Can’t fight it, mate.”

  They paused on the edge of the garden just as they were about to part ways. Callum to join his family and Morgan to hang around on the edges of the party, waiting for a convenient moment when he could talk to Rebecca.

  “Thanks again for your work just now,” Callum said. “Just as well you’re still here. I’d never have finished that on my own before dark.”

  “Sure you would.”

  “Fancy a drink with me and the family?”

  “Thanks, but no. I’m only here because Joe made something or other for the kid’s display. Rebecca insisted I didn’t leave until after that.”

  “Kid’s display?” Callum frowned. “What kid’s display?”

  Morgan closed his eyes and shook his head. “That woman. She’s too bloody clever for me.”

  “Aren’t they all.” Callum agreed, nodding his head toward Gemma. “She’s got me wound around her little finger.” At that moment Gemma caught his eye and winked at him and gave him what could only be called a sexy smile. He sighed. “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Callum began to walk off when he stopped abruptly and turned. “Hang on a minute. Who told you about the loose hay?”

  “Gemma. Who told you?”

  “Rebecca.”

  Together they turned to the two women who, oblivious to their stares, were playing with Joe and Gemma’s baby.

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Well,” said Callum. “See you around, mate.”

  “Yep.”

  Morgan watched Callum walk away. There went his half-brother. His. The thought warmed him and instantly replaced the anger he’d been nurturing over the past few days as if that anger had never existed. He had family.

  It was dark now and Rebecca didn’t hear Morgan approach. She’d been standing on the veranda with Gemma who’d disappeared inside with Violet. She hadn’t caught sight of Morgan for a while and her agitation grew with each passing minute. The last of the daylight had disappeared over the frozen white lake. Fairy lights dotted the huge dark trees above, casting a surreal glow on the kids who continued to play by the lake.

  She turned suddenly to find him standing there watching her. “Rebecca, I—“

  “Morgan! I was joking about James. I was just angry. I was stupid. Don’t think I like him because I don’t.” She shrugged. “I mean I like him, but...” She looked helplessly at him.

  “It’s okay. I understand.”

  She looked up into his eyes and suddenly felt tears prick hers at the thought she might have risked her future with this man, who stood like a God before her—so solid, reassuring, so... hers. “I’m sorry...”

  She didn’t think he’d see in the dark of the night, but the track of her tears must have been caught by the moonlight because he raised his hands to her face and swept his thumb across her cheeks, wiping away the tears.

  “You’ve nothing to be sorry about. It’s me. I’ve done things all wrong. I never meant for you to find out from anyone else. It was just the way it worked out. I had to secure the land first. I couldn’t come to you with nothing.”

  “I don’t care about the land.”

  “But I care about you, which means I care about your future.” His face was in shadow but she could feel the tension in his hands as his fingers thrust into her hair and held her more tightly. “I love you, Rebecca. I love everything about you.” He kissed her forehead, both cheeks and her lips. He closed his eyes and placed his forehead against hers. “I can’t imagine a life without you.”

  The tears came again then, mingling with laughter before the laughter turned to moans as they kissed again. He held her tight against him—their bodies melded against each other’s, her cheek against his chest, his arms holding her close—as their breathing returned to normal. She looked up at him. “Where are you staying tonight?”

  “I’ve a room booked at the motel.”

  “Do you want company? Of the female kind?”

  “Sure do.” He smiled. “Although I think we should hang around for a bit longer yet.”

  “Why?” He looked over to Joe who now ventured occasionally onto the ice under the watchful eye of Lily who was bossily giving him lessons, despite the fact that she was a few months younger than Joe. Morgan smiled and in that smile Rebecca suddenly saw what she’d failed to see before, a contentment that had been missing from him before. He turned back to her and smiled.

  “I wouldn’t want to interrupt Joe’s big moment when he shows off the thing he made for the kids’ competition.” He glanced at her. “Looking forward to that.” She suddenly remembered the excuse she’d made to get Morgan here in the first place.

  “Um, well I think maybe that’s been cancelled.”

  He laughed loudly and casually caressed her neck and hair before dropping his arm again. “You’re a terrible liar, Rebecca.”

  She grinned. “I know. I did it for you, you know.”

  “I know you did. Thank you.” He dropped a kiss on her lips and she lifted her face to his. He kissed her again, this time lingering.

  “Um,” he said pulling her to his side.

  “Um, yourself. You’re so warm,” she shivered in his arms. “So… do you have a question you want to ask me?”

  “If I had, I’ve forgotten what it was, with you looking like that.” He caught her hand and pushed his fingers through hers, closing his hands around hers and pulling her to him. He dipped his head to hers. “You could make a man forget his own name,” he whispered, his lips brushing her ear. He watched with satisfaction as her flesh goosebumped under his breath. She stepped closer until her breasts brushed his body. He leaned over once more. “Have you any idea what I want to do to you?”

  She drew in a sharp breath, looked up at him and nodded. “Oh, yes.” She licked her lips.

  “And you’re okay with all that now?”

  She nodded. “There can’t be anything wrong with the passion we have for each other. I feel safe when I’m with you, safe to be me.”

  “Good.”

  “And have you any idea what I want to do to you?”

  He pulled her to him and she could feel his erection, ready for her. She realized she was also serving as a screen so others couldn’t see how turned on he was.

  Suddenly a gunshot went off. Morgan glanced up. “It’ll be the gamekeeper shooting duck. He said he was going after a couple and must have caught their last flight.”

  “I doubt I’ll ever get used to gunshots like you country people do.”

  Morgan looked back to where they’d last seen Joe. “Where’s Joe?”

  “Isn’t he with the other kids?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. I think they’ve all just left.”

  They walked quickly down to where Lily was playing with Cassandra and Gemma. “Have you seen Joe?” asked Rebecca, unable to keep the sense of panic from her voice.

  Rebecca glanced at Morgan who was pacing around the shores of the lake, checking the ice to see if it was broken.

  “Lily,” called Cassandra. “Have you seen Joe?”

  “Yeah. He went running off. I don’t know. Up there somewhere.” She pointed toward the barn where Morgan had just been.

  “Christ, those hay bales.” Morgan looked at Lily. “Why did he go running off? Any idea?”

  “Those gun shots, I think. He looked frightened. I told him not to be, but I don’t think he heard me.” Lily shrugged.

  Rebecca felt sick and for one long moment no one moved, as they all experienced the shock of realizing that Joe had walked away, off into the night and they had no idea where the troubled little boy was going or what he was going to do.

  “The barn!” said Morgan. “It must have been those shots from the hunting party that did it.”

  Torch lights were flicked
on and Rebecca watched Morgan, Callum, and other men race up to the barn. She stayed behind.

  “Joe,” she called, joining echoes of his name from all around. Something was wrong. She looked around at the ice, still brightly lit. She couldn’t see any obvious signs of the ice breaking up. Still you couldn’t be sure. She walked quickly around the edge of the lake. Gemma ran and joined her.

  “You don’t think he…”

  “I don’t know. But he can’t have just disappeared into thin air. We were all at the house and he didn’t go there. So he must be out here somewhere. He’ll freeze unless he comes in soon.”

  “But surely he will.”

  “We discovered something the other day. Morgan and me. Putting two and two together, we think that Joe may have witnessed something, something which frightened him very much. Something to do with guns.”

  “Oh, God. Poor kid.” Gemma called his name again and they both waited, looking around the brightly lit lake and out into the darkness. “Let’s separate. I’ll go and check the far side of the lake and you check to see if he’s in one of the outbuildings around the house. The men will cover the other danger spots.”

  As Rebecca walked quickly up to the homestead, past the barn converted into Gemma’s art studio, she stopped as she listened to Morgan calling his son’s name. Her heart ached for him. She could hear the pain and anguish increasing with each shout.

  She looked the other way to see Callum on horseback checking further afield. And then to Gemma who stood on the veranda, cuddling her baby. They exchanged worried glances. And then Gemma put her baby in her front pack and walked around the rear of the homestead to where a hill rose. No doubt to check it out for a second time.

  Rebecca turned full circle, trying to put herself in the mind of the troubled child she’d grown to love like he was her own. She looked around her slowly, taking in the spots where people were looking and where they weren’t. It was very quiet around the courtyard, close to the house. She shone the light from her phone into the darker corners and it was then that she saw her.

  Annie. Morgan’s dog. Lying low under one of the large spreading trees. Rebecca frowned. She’d never known Morgan’s dog to be away from Morgan’s side if she could help it. But it wasn’t only that. The dog’s ears were pricked and her eyes were soulful. As if she was standing guard.

  Rebecca looked for Morgan but he’d disappeared, his calls growing ever more distant as he widened his search. Rebecca walked over to the tree under which the dog lay and petted her head. The dog whimpered slightly. Rebecca looked around. There was nowhere for a boy to hide. It was almost completely dark now. Morgan must be going out of his mind with worry. The stars were bright tonight though. So that would help the search.

  Then she heard another whimper. She looked at the dog and the dog looked back as if to say, “It wasn’t me”. Then something made her look up as a few flakes of snow fell from the bough of the tree. Except it wasn’t snowing.

  She shone the light onto the wooden ladder and saw that the ice had been disturbed. Recently scuffed.

  “Joe,” she called softly.

  She heard another whimper and she took a deep breath and gingerly climbed up the ladder. She pushed open the hinged door and there, in the corner, was the faint shadow of a boy curled into a ball, crying softly.

  She gasped with relief. Her first instinct was to stand and shout to everyone that she’d found him but she stopped herself in time. It might be her first instinct, but her first duty was to Joe.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Can I join you?”

  He didn’t respond, simply continued to whimper, his fear revealed in the big eyes that gazed wordlessly at her.

  Rebecca crawled across the icy wooden platform towards him and sat back, trying to control her shivers. She turned to him and he met her gaze with an unblinking one of his own.

  “You don’t mind me being here?”

  She caught a slight shake of the head.

  “Thanks for letting me share your space. It feels good up here.” She peered down through the small window, to the ground so far beneath them and did her best to repress a shudder. “Kind of safe. Like nothing can get us.”

  The whimpering was interrupted by a shuddering sigh.

  “I can imagine people below us putting everything away for the night, going about their business and not even knowing we were here.” She smiled at him. “We could hear what they were saying, know what they were doing, but they wouldn’t know anything about us.”

  She sat in silence for a few moments. “I guess that’s all right for a while but I think I’d miss seeing things with my own eyes. Only hearing other people move around wouldn’t be enough for me.”

  She let the silence settle for what felt like an age, listening to the little boy’s breathing quietly settle.

  “Do you know what I’d miss seeing?”

  Joe shook his head.

  “I’d miss seeing the stars.”

  “Why?” His first whispered word made her catch her breath.

  “Because ever since I was a little girl they made me feel good.”

  She hadn’t taken her eyes off him since he’d uttered his first word. He nodded. “They make me feel good too.”

  “I’d look at them and feel excited about all that wasn’t known and how I couldn’t wait to understand it.”

  He cleared his throat and wriggled a little. “I look at them and make shapes and pretend they’re magic.”

  Her breath squeezed inside and she blinked hard but didn’t look away. “Your daddy once told me that he did exactly the same thing. He used to see taniwhas.”

  Joe’s eyes widened. “Did he?”

  “Uh-huh,” she nodded. “Shall we crawl carefully to the window and see if can see the stars? I might just get Annie to go and tell your daddy to join us, if that’s okay with you.”

  “Yes.” Joe didn’t hesitate. “I wonder if he sees the same things as me in the stars.”

  Rebecca rolled onto her stomach and wriggled to the top of the ladder. She whistled lightly and Annie lifted her head and looked at her. “Go fetch your master,” she called. “Off you go. Go fetch Morgan.” The dog jumped up and ran off. For a moment Rebecca wondered if her words would have the desired effect. But you didn’t have to say anything much to get Annie to join her master. She’d only been here to protect Joe as if he were a lost sheep, and now she’d been relieved of that duty, she’d head off back to where she belonged.

  “Hey,” she grinned at him as she crawled back in. “I’ve found some sleeping bags. Here.” She passed him one and he pulled it around him. She did the same and they both poked their heads out of the window and looked out into the star-studded sky.

  The whole world looked different under that beautiful light. And for the first time in a long time Rebecca looked at the stars, at the world, in a different way.

  “You’re right, it is magic.” The light blurred a little and then came clear again. She raised her hand and pointed directly overhead to the center of the Milky Way. “Look there’s the constellation of Sagittarius.”

  “Sagi what?”

  “Sagittarius.” She pointed out the pattern of stars that made up the constellation.

  “It looks like a teapot.”

  He was right, but she’d let him explain it to her. “A teapot?”

  “Yeah,” he pointed, his finger describing the outline of a teapot. “And you see that end one, there?”

  “Alnasl.”

  “Well above that are the little puffs of steam coming from the teapot.”

  “Oh yes. They’re actually some dense matter in the Milky Way.”

  “The Milky Way?”

  “Yes, that’s the name of the galaxy of which Earth is a part.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence settled on them. A silence which Rebecca didn’t want to break. For a while she thought she’d said the wrong thing. That she’d destroyed Joe’s magic. She gnawed her lip. She was rubbish at this sort of thing�
��useless with children, hadn’t the first idea of how to handle them, let alone how to heal them.

  “What other shapes can you see?”

  “There’s a dog’s head up there.” Joe pointed.

  “Yes. Sirius. And he’s surrounded by some smaller dogs.” She pointed. “See there? That’s Procyon.”

  Joe smiled. “Oh, yeah.”

  Silence fell and Rebecca’s mind drifted back to her childhood, to the loneliness. “You know, it wasn’t just the knowledge that I thought of when I looked up at the stars.”

  “Did you see magic too?”

  “Not so much. I used to see shapes. I used to draw the shapes that I learned about in mathematics. I’d see how many sided shapes I could draw.”

  “Patterns then?”

  “Yes, I guess. Patterns. My magic was in patterns and shapes. Trying to bring all the stars into some kind of order so I could understand them.”

  “I don’t think I’d want to do that.”

  “You don’t need to. You understand them much better than I ever did. Or do.” She swallowed back the sadness at her realization that, as a little girl, she’d tried to cover her loneliness and fears with an order straight from the stars. Only thing was, she hadn’t healed herself, only masked her fears, covered them up and tried not to look at them again. But she felt different now and realized she could cope with a certain amount of chaos in the stars because she felt more secure in herself. She could look at the chaos and not feel vulnerable.

  “What do you mean? You’re a grown up.”

  “You see the magic. That’s the important thing.”

  There was a bark from below and Annie trotted up to the foot of the tree. She looked around and saw the large shadow of Morgan following her.

  “Rebecca, Joe,” he greeted them casually. “You both okay?”

  “Sure,” they replied in unison.

  “Why don’t you join us?” Rebecca asked.

  “Right,” said Morgan as he looked doubtfully at the ladder. He gripped it and then climbed carefully to the top. He shuffled next to Joe. “What are we looking at?”

  “We’re looking at magic, Dad,” said Joe excitedly. “Rebecca’s been telling me all about the magic in the stars.”