by Cindy Gerard
“Greed,” she said, loving the husky resonance in his voice that told her he felt as satisfied and yet as insatiable as she did, “often gets a bad rap.”
“Amen to that. Did you find my note?”
“I did. Thank you.”
“Shakespeare, I’m not.”
“But you are so many other things. And it’s the thought that counts.”
“I’m having some thoughts right now. Wanna hear them?”
She laughed. “Not if I want to get anything done today.” Lord. Listen to her. She was flirting on the phone.
He was quiet for a moment and when he finally spoke again, the need in his voice sent a firestorm of arousal skittering through her blood. “When can I see you again?”
A dizzying rush of desire weakened her knees. “Tonight?”
“God, yes. Come out to the ranch. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Nine
John had just stepped out of the shower and thrown on clean jeans and a T-shirt when he heard a car pull up in the drive. Finally. It was late, going on eight. There hadn’t been too much sleeping going on last night in Ali’s bed and he’d pushed himself hard all day, buzzed on anticipation. A couple of hours ago, he’d let down, tired to the bone. When he walked outside into a twilight tinged with apricot and lavender and plenty of lingering July heat, and saw Ali getting out of her car, though, suddenly he wasn’t tired any more.
He stood on his front stoop, arms crossed over his chest as she opened her car door and stepped out into the gathering dusk.
Now there, he realized, was a sight that would be tattooed on his memory for a very long time. Mountain met sky in purple relief behind her. The sun, about to dip low on the horizon, set fire to her hair and limned her in a golden glow.
She wore a pair of yellow shorts and a white tank top. And as she walked closer, a tentative smile on her face, he could see she’d applied a touch of lip gloss. He couldn’t wait to lick it off of her.
As a matter of fact, it took every ounce of his will-power not to haul her up and over his shoulder and deposit her on the nearest horizontal surface.
“You’re looking pretty foxy tonight there, Doc,” he said instead, looking his fill and liking it, drawing out the anticipation to make their lovemaking that much sweeter. “And pretty sure of yourself,” he suddenly realized, judging by the look on her face.
“Well, I’m a woman on a mission.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I like the sound of that.” Like maybe her mission was making love to him until he was comatose this time.
“We’ll know soon enough. Come help me.”
He followed her back to her car, enjoying the sassy sway of her hips and the way her hair bounced against her back with every step.
“I thought maybe you could use a refill,” she said, reaching inside the car then handing him a gallon-sized plastic bag full of oatmeal-raisin cookies.
“Hey.” Something warm and mellow filled his chest. “This is great. I’m going to have to figure out a way to repay you for these. Let me think.” He raked her body with a long, thorough sweep of his eyes. “Oh, wait, I’ve got it.”
She laughed, a husky, throaty sound. “I’ll just bet you do. First, though, I took a chance that you hadn’t eaten and brought dinner. I figured if you had, you could always warm it up tomorrow.”
“You brought me dinner?” Another warm fuzzy feeling settled in his chest. It wasn’t the first time a woman had brought him dinner. Hell, women tended to want to do a lot of things for him. They’d cooked, they’d cleaned, they’d washed his clothes in bids to settle him down and show him what good marriage material they’d make. It had always made him nervous. It had always made him walk.
Tonight, it simply made him smile.
“Don’t get too excited. It’s carryout from the Dusk to Dawn. Nadine said hi, by the way.”
Nadine and her husband Chet Haskins had owned the Dusk for as long as John could remember. And they knew everybody’s business.
“Are there any secrets in this town?” she asked with a rueful smile.
“Not so anyone would notice. Hey…are you up for a little adventure?” he asked as a sudden idea struck him.
She raised a brow. “What kind of adventure?”
“A twilight picnic.”
“Sounds wonderful.”
He kissed her lightly. “Let me grab a blanket. We’ll take my truck.”
The little pocket lake that lay in the belly of a green canyon on the west end of his ranch had always been one of John’s favorite places. And as they drove over the last hill leading to a shoreline dotted with aspens and pines and blanketed with pasture grass that was resting for the fall grazing season, he could see that Ali was taken with it, too.
“It’s like a postcard,” she said after he cut the motor. Then she simply sat, taking in the lush, verdant beauty of the valley, the gently rolling foothills and the towering trees climbing the slopes toward the mountain range beyond.
“Thought you’d like it.” He opened the door and climbed out. “You bring the grub—I’ve got the blanket.”
It would be dark soon, so along with the blanket, he’d grabbed a camping lantern so they’d have some light to guide them back to the truck later. Much later if he had his way.
He led her down to the lakeshore then got busy spreading out the blanket. When he’d finished, he looked up and found her toeing off her sandals.
“It’s just too good to pass up,” she said, smiling up at him.
“So is this,” he said, unable to hold back any longer.
He drew her into his arms and kissed her. “Hello,” he whispered against her mouth.
“Hello.” Dewy soft eyes looked into his from beneath lashes that he’d never noticed were so long and lush.
He kissed her again, slow and deep. “I’m glad you’re here.”
She looped her arms around his neck and rose up on her tiptoes to get closer. “So am I.”
For long, leisurely moments they just stood that way. Snuggled close and kissing. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of kissing her.
“This is nice,” he said and drawing her closer trailed kisses across her face, along the sweet line of her jaw, then worked his way back to her mouth again.
She sighed in contentment. “Very, very nice.”
“I know a way to make it even nicer.” He drew back far enough so that he could see her face. “How do you feel about skinny-dipping?”
“I…um…what?”
He laughed. “Let’s go for a swim.”
She looked at the lake, then back at him, working hard not to look horrified, and failing miserably. “In there?”
“Of course in there.”
“But…aren’t there fish and things in there?
“Believe me, darlin’, they are little fish and little things and they’re a lot more worried about you than you could ever be about them.”
Clearly, she wasn’t convinced as he let her go, tugged his T-shirt out of his jeans and whipped it over his head. After tossing his shirt behind him on the blanket, he went to work on his boots.
“You’re really going in there?” she asked, then did a little wide-eyed ogling when he undid his belt and shucked his jeans. “Oh…well…wow. You’re not wearing underwear.”
“Plannin’ ahead, darlin’. Just plannin’ ahead.
“So,” he added, feeling himself grow hard as her gaze swept him from head to toe, then back to the rising proof of the effect she had on him. “You coming in?”
She blinked from him to the water. “Is it cold?”
“I sure do hope so. It’s still as hot as blazes tonight.”
And with that, he waded to the edge of the bank and made a shallow surface dive. He emerged ten yards from shore. Whipping his wet hair from his eyes, he treaded water and grinned back at her.
“Come on, Doc. It feels great.”
Her pinched frown told him she wasn’t so sure about this. She looked over h
er shoulder, then back at him. “We won’t… I mean…Clive or someone won’t find us out here, right?”
“Doc, darlin’, there’s not another human soul within twenty miles of here. Now, quit stalling. It’s getting lonely out here.”
With one final look back toward the car, she drew a bracing breath and slowly lifted her tank top up and over her head. Her shorts came next and then she was standing there in nothing but panties and bra.
His mouth went dry. Someday, he was going to have to have her model her entire collection of underwear for him. He loved the black satin she’d worn last night. He was wild about the peach-colored bits of lace that almost covered the important parts right now.
But right now, all he wanted was skin.
“Scaredy-cat,” he taunted. “City slicker.”
“All right. All right, you don’t have to resort to name-calling.” She was grinning as she reached behind her back to unhook her bra. “But so help me, if I get bit by a fish or a snake or something, you’d better have the name of a good lawyer.”
He was grinning, too…until she tossed her bra on the blanket beside his T-shirt. And then he was just plain staring and loving everything he saw. She had the most incredible breasts. Heavy and creamy with dusky brown nipples set in the middle of the prettiest pink areolas. And right now, they were diamond-hard. So was he by the time she’d shimmied out of her French-cut panties and stood before him in all her naked glory.
“You are absolutely beautiful,” he said, hearing the awe in his voice, feeling the rapid beat of his blood rushing to his groin.
Beautiful and proud of her body as she pulled back her shoulders, drew a fortifying breath and walked into the lake.
“Oh, my God. It’s f-freezing.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“N-not in this lifetime.”
The water had just reached her knees when he realized he couldn’t wait to meet her halfway. He had to get his hands on her. Now.
“Then we’ll just have to figure out a way to warm you up.”
He found bottom, then started walking toward her, meeting her just as the water was lapping at her navel. She looked like a sea nymph standing there, her hair curling over her shoulder, her eyes beckoning and bright.
And he couldn’t stop himself. He reached for her, went down on his knees and drew one beautiful breast into his mouth. Then he gorged himself on the silk-and-velvet texture of her while she laced her fingers through his hair and offered herself up for his pleasure.
He’d never received so much in the giving. Never realized how good it could feel when a woman literally turned boneless in his arms. He lifted his head, coaxed her wrists around his neck and drew her back into deeper water with him.
“Are you warm yet?”
“Getting there,” she said dreamily, then abruptly screamed and damned near drowned him in a mad scramble to scale his body.
“What…Doc…what’s wrong?”
“S-snake!” she gasped, burying her face against his throat. “It…it brushed against my thigh.
“It’s not funny,” she said when he broke into a grin, then an all-out chuckle.
“Stop laughing!” With a combination of terror and testiness, she slugged him on the shoulder. “I’m telling you there’s a snake down there.”
“Believe me, sweetie, that was no snake.”
“Well, whatever it was, it was huge!”
“Why, thank you, darlin’,” he said, then watched her face transition from horror to embarrassment when it finally dawned on her what had really been brushing up against her thigh.
She let out a breath of pure relief. Then a devilish gleam filled her eyes. “Well, now that I think about it, it wasn’t all that big. In fact…it was just a teensy weensy little thing.”
He loved this playful side of her. “Is that a fact?”
“Microscopic,” she reiterated, fluttering her lashes.
“Doc?”
“Hmm?”
“Plug your nose.” Then he dunked her.
“It’s guys who don’t kiss and tell,” Peg pointed out over lunch Monday. “Women are expected to share every big, little and in-between detail. Now give it up.”
Ali unwrapped her sandwich and popped open a can of lemonade. “We went to dinner. It was nice. Not too many details,” she said evasively.
As much as she trusted Peg, she wasn’t ready to talk about what was happening between her and John. It was new and exciting and hers. A love affair. It sounded so Victorian and yet it felt outrageous and bold and incredibly brazen.
And let’s face it, she thought, feeling her cheeks flush red, making love in a mountain lake and then out in the open on a blanket under the stars was outrageous and bold and incredibly brazen. And wonderful.
“Okay, see, that’s what I’m talking about,” Peg said with a sage nod. “That rosy glow. That secret little smile.”
Ali shrugged. “Sorry. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the fact that Homer Clayborne told Edith Snelling who told Max Winwood who told me that when Homer got up in the middle of the night Saturday to let his dog out, he just happened to see a certain rancher’s pickup parked in front of your house.”
Ali bit off a bite of her sandwich, took her time chewing and finally swallowed. “Mr. Clayborne is eighty years old and has cataracts. I don’t think I’d be counting on anything he says he sees as gospel.”
Peg studied her across the small table in the clinic waiting room. “So, it was that good, was it?”
Ali let out a long, contented sigh and gave it up. “Yeah. It was that good.”
“I knew it! I knew you two were perfect for each other.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. We are not a ‘you two.’ Don’t go pairing us up as a couple. Don’t make this into a relationship, because it’s not. It’s not,” she insisted when Peg cut her a look. “At least not the kind you might want it to be.”
“Then what kind of relationship is it?”
“The kind where two single adults are simply enjoying each other’s company.”
Peg would have kept after her forever, but fortunately, Ali got a call and had to head out to the Crawfords’, so she was able to dodge a second round of questions.
She liked John. She liked him a lot. He was fun and funny and sweet and so sexy she got all achy just thinking about being with him. But, like her, John knew his limits. As he said, he was just out for a good time. Nothing complicated. She had to respect that. And she had to remember that it was a combination of good chemistry and timing that had brought them together. Another place, another time when she hadn’t felt so vulnerable or so lonely, she would never have considered getting involved with him.
She pulled into the Crawfords’ lane reminding herself that she knew what love was. Love was what she’d felt for David. Sure, she felt some of those things for John, but not on that commit-forever level. And even if she did, by some stretch of the imagination, think that some of what she was feeling for John tapped the same vein as the feelings she’d had for David, it would pass. The newness of the affair, the excitement of the sex…well, it would wear off. And when it did, when it was no longer as compelling or as thrilling, one of them would end it.
And that would be the end of the story.
For now, she was going to enjoy it. She was going to live in life as John had suggested, not outside of it.
For the next two weeks, she definitely lived it large. John took her back to Spaghetti Western for dinner, took her to a movie where they shared popcorn and Dots and no matter how many protests she whispered and how many times she tried to stop him, he managed to get in a little necking in the back row of the theater that reduced her to giggling like a schoolgirl. One blissfully gorgeous Sunday afternoon, he took her horseback riding in the foothills, pairing her up with Taco, a gentle buckskin mare.
Some nights they would sit on her front porch and swing in the dark and listen to music. Other nights they would g
o for sunset strolls. But always, always, they would make the most beautiful love. Love that left her breathless, love that left her boneless, love that left her vulnerable to emotions that if she didn’t know better, and wasn’t careful, could start to feel a whole lot like the real thing. A whole lot like love.
As the hot days and sultry summer nights passed, John was feeling pretty good about the arrangement with Ali. He’d never met a woman quite like her. Peg Reno and Ellie Savage had come close. He’d always had special feelings for them but Cutter and Lee were the perfect matches for those two strong women. They needed commitment.
Ali didn’t. Like him, she was very careful to avoid any in-depth discussions about their pasts. They had plenty of other things to talk about and when they weren’t talking, well, they found even more pleasurable ways to pass the time.
Everything was peachy. Everything was fine. Even the nightmares had let up. And he hadn’t had a flashback in weeks. Life was good. He had a lover he liked and respected, who was his intellectual equal, was exciting and giving in bed, and was content with their un-spoken agreement to maintain a no-strings, no-strain relationship. And just because he found it harder and harder and harder to leave her bed at night, that didn’t mean he was looking for something more.
Everyone else was, though. It was never more evident than when J.T. pulled up in front of the Dusk to Dawn around seven Wednesday night.
Whistling under his breath, he breezed into the restaurant and headed for the bar.
“Hey, J.T. What can I get you today?” Nadine Haskin asked with a grin big enough to match her gray-streaked hair when he sat down at the bar.
“We can start with a beer.” He glanced at the chalk-board where the cook’s choice changed daily. “And the special. Make it two. To go.”
Most people would have retired by now, but not the Haskins. They liked what they did, liked the people and, like Sundown, not much in their lives changed.
“So, how’re things in your world these days?” she asked, setting a shell of draft beer on the bar in front of him.