by Cindy Gerard
The question was as loaded as the shotgun he kept in the barn to chase off coyotes. And that was something that would never change, either. Folks knowing other folks’ business.
“Right as rain,” he answered evasively.
Nadine made a big show of wiping off the bar with a damp cloth that smelled of soap and chlorine bleach. “So what do you think of the new vet?”
He’d been waiting for that one. “Seems to know her business.”
Nadine nodded sagely. “She sure is a little bit of a thing to be doing all that rough stock work.”
“She can handle it,” he said and stretched across the counter to grab the weekly newspaper the Haskins always kept for their clientele.
“Seen that firsthand, have you?”
“Yeah. Firsthand.”
He buried his face in the paper—all ten pages of it—hoping Nadine might get the hint and drop the subject of Alison Samuels. No such luck.
“Seems like a nice enough sort. Pretty, too.”
He grunted behind the paper.
“But then, you know that firsthand, too, don’t cha?”
He let out a deep breath, slowly folded the paper. Smiled. “Don’t forget my order now…and be sure you make it to go.”
Damn busybody, John muttered under his breath five minutes later as he stowed the two dinners beside him in the front seat and headed for Ali’s. Probably that wasn’t fair. He liked Nadine. And she was just being human.
That didn’t mean he had to like it when she poked her nose into his life. Didn’t want her snooping around in Ali’s life, either. Just like he didn’t like people pairing him up with the doc. It wasn’t like that between them and generally about the time he started hearing whispers of rumors of his name linked with a woman’s, he knew it was time to move on. It made him feel cornered and uncomfortable.
With Ali, though, he was more concerned about how his reputation would affect hers. Like it or not, it could affect her business and that would be a sad turn of events.
He didn’t want her hurt by this. And as he pulled up in front of her house, he was thinking that maybe he needed to let her know the buzz around town, give her a chance to bail if she wanted to.
As he walked up her front porch steps, he refused to acknowledge that the thought of her calling things off set a knot of anxiety coiling tight in his chest. Or that she’d become a habit it was going to be very hard to break.
“Ali?”
He rapped a knuckle on her front screen door. When she didn’t answer, he walked on in. She was expecting him so he figured she wouldn’t be far.
“Ali?” He called her name again as he walked through the foyer toward the kitchen—that’s when he spotted the cookie on the floor at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second story.
“What the hell?”
He spotted another cookie on the first step and realized there was a trail of them leading all the way up the stairs.
Setting the take-out on the dining-room table, he hooked his hat over a chair back and, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning, followed the trail to her open bedroom door.
And damn near swallowed his tongue.
There she was, buck naked on the bed but for three strategically placed cookies and a glad-to-see-him grin.
“Howdy, cowboy.”
Ten
John leaned a shoulder against the door frame, felt a smile spreading like sunrise across his face and forgot completely about giving her a chance to bail before the gossip got out of control. “Well, hello. Don’t you just look…sweet.”
He bent down and picked up a cookie from the floor. Looked from it to her. “Special occasion?”
“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost.”
“Not a chance,” he said, walking across the bedroom, tugging his shirt out of his jeans. “I take it we’re having dessert before dinner?”
“One of the things I appreciate most about you is that quick mind of yours. You don’t miss a thing, do you?”
“Darlin’,” he said, making quick work of the rest of his clothes, then easing down onto the bed beside her, “you can bet I’m not going to miss one single thing tonight. Starting here.” He dipped his head to her breast and nudged the cookie aside with his nose.
He loved the sound she made when he touched her. A deep, throaty hum that was all honest reaction and brazen invitation. He loved that she was proud of her body and let him look his fill, and touch and explore until they were both so close to the edge desperation not only drove them, it consumed them.
But tonight, he wasn’t going down easy. Tonight, he was going to take pleasure in the giving and so help him, he would draw out every sigh, every groan, every scream until she was completely and utterly devastated.
He knew now what took her there. Knew that sensitive and reactive spot at the very center of her nipple. Knew that she loved it when he flicked the pretty, pouty bead with his tongue then sucked her into his mouth hard and fast. And he used that knowledge to please her now, used his physical power to still her hands when she reached for him and urged him to hurry and come inside her.
“Not yet,” he whispered, clasping her wrists in his hands and raising her arms above her head. With deliberate care, he positioned her fingers around the spokes in the brass headboard, stretched out full-length on top of her. “Hang on, little cowgirl. I’m going to take you for the ride of your life.”
She blinked up at him through eyes gone misty with pleasure, watched his face as he kissed his way down her body, lingering at her breasts, dipping deep into her navel before settling his shoulders between her thighs.
He looked up the length of her body, nuzzled soft springy curls and watched her eyes go dark.
“Sweet,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to the inside of her left thigh. “Better and better,” he drawled, finally finding and settling his mouth over that part of her that he found so fascinating and responsive and deliciously wet with anticipation and desire.
He burrowed deep and tasted heaven. Satin heat, silken and pink. He’d never seen anything so pretty. And he never tired of the way she opened like a vessel and invited him to drink his fill.
“J-John…”
His name escaped her lips on a keening sigh as he laved her with his tongue, tunneled his hands beneath her hips and tipped her to his mouth for better access. With each stroke he took her higher. With deep kisses and gentle suction, he drove her to the brink.
And then she was flying, her release liquid and convulsive, her breath labored and serrated as she let go of the headboard and reached for him, cradling his head in her hands and pressing his mouth against her to prolong the sensation.
Her entire body was trembling by the time he lifted his head. He was doing a little trembling, too, as he pressed a kiss on her damp curls. She was so beautiful…and so beautifully limp and languid.
He loved being responsible. He loved that when she opened her eyes drowsily, she had difficulty focusing. Loved that her voice was hoarse as she begged him to come inside her.
She didn’t have to ask. She never had to ask. When they were in this bed he was hers and she was his and there was only one place he wanted to be. He entered her on a long, deep stroke.
Together they groaned, together they moved and when the warmth of her, the welcome of her, the unrelenting pleasure of sinking into her drew him back again and again and again, he finally took his own release. Electric. Devastating. Complete.
There was still a lot of daylight when John woke up. Ali was sleeping beside him as he carefully eased out of the bed…and spotted the picture on the top of her bureau.
He walked over, picked it up. He hadn’t seen it before—but then, he’d never been in her bedroom in the daylight and the time they’d spent there had kept him and her well occupied with something other than checking out the décor.
The guy in the picture with Ali had his arms around her and she was leaning back against his chest, her hands covering his where they rested unde
r her breasts. Brows knit, he studied the pose harder, and finally accepted he was seeing what he thought he was seeing.
He heard the sheets rustle on the bed behind him and turned with the picture still in his hand.
“My husband,” she said, her gaze shifting from his face to the photograph.
She sat up slowly, gathering the sheet to her breast as she did, covering herself.
He couldn’t think of anything to say. Couldn’t think, period, because the blood had drained from his head. And he wasn’t altogether sure why he felt like he’d just been gut shot.
“David,” she continued, dragging the sheet with her and walking to his side. “I lost him. Four years ago. Cancer.”
What? What did he say? What did he do? And what in the hell was he feeling? Sympathy, yes. But there was anger, too. And a sense of…hell. Loss. Like a huge gaping hole had just been carved out of his heart.
He stood like a stump as she took the picture from his hand and set it back on the bureau.
“I’m…sorry,” finally came out. Clumsy. Hollow—which was exactly how he felt.
“Yeah,” she said walking to the closet. She pulled out her robe and shrugged into it, knotting the belt at her waist. “Me, too.
“And right now, I’m hungry,” she added, forcing a smile and a change of subject as she walked toward the bedroom door where she stopped and turned back to him. “Coming?”
“Yeah,” he said absently. “Yeah. I’ll be there in a minute.”
But it was several minutes before he was able to pull his fractured thoughts together enough to drag on his clothes. Several more before he could make himself walk down the stairs. His mood, like the sky, had transitioned to the gray shades of dusk. And she’d had a husband.
He hadn’t intended to ask, but when he walked into the kitchen and saw her, the woman whose body he knew intimately but who, in actuality, he didn’t know at all, he couldn’t stop himself.
“Why did I not know you’d been married?”
“You never asked,” she said simply.
No. He hadn’t asked. He hadn’t wanted to know about her past or her secrets or her sorrow. Now he did. And he wished he didn’t. Because now he understood. Everything.
Her hesitancy at getting involved. The secrecy. The look that sometimes clouded her eyes but that she quickly hid when she realized he was watching her.
She was still living in the past…past life, past love, past pain. And if he didn’t miss his guess, she was still in love with her husband. At least she thought she was or felt she should be.
Four years. It was a long time to hang on to something that was gone. And suddenly, he wished he were anywhere but here, where he was merely a substitute for the real thing.
His heart went haywire. He didn’t have a clue why, but he felt cheated and lost and…empty. Hell, he was the one who’d set the ground rules. Knowing about her husband shouldn’t change anything. In fact, it should make him a happy man. Right? No worries here that she might fall in love with him and want to get cozy.
So why did he feel like he’d been hit by a freight train?
Suddenly, he had to get out of there.
“You know, I think I’ll pass on dinner,” he said in a voice he knew betrayed his turmoil. “Fact is, I need to be heading back.”
She didn’t make noises about feeding him. She didn’t ask if he wanted to talk. She just nodded, her blue eyes somber as she watched him turn and walk out the door.
Twenty minutes later, he was home. He walked straight to his bedroom and shut the door. Feeling like he’d just lost something vital. Something good. Something that might have been the very best thing that had ever happened to him because he knew it was over between them.
Two weeks later, as Ali drove south out of Sundown toward the Tyler ranch, she still had a vivid picture in her mind of how John had looked when she’d told him about David. She hadn’t understood it then. Hadn’t understood why he’d seemed so angry. Why he’d run like the devil was on his tail. Neither did she understand why she’d just stood in silence and watched him go.
Now she did. Just like she understood why she hadn’t seen him since. He hadn’t been angry. He’d been devastated. He’d been hurt.
It was the last, the very last thing she’d expected from him. He was the heartbreaker, he was the good-time guy, the keep-it-simple, keep-it-loose playboy who didn’t ever let his emotions get involved with his fun.
He was a fraud. He was involved. With her. As involved as she was with him, but everything in him was conditioned not to trust the truth. She knew why she’d had trouble recognizing what she was really feeling. She had no clue what haunted him.
Maybe she never would. But she had to at least try to make him see the truth.
Her hands were steady as she pulled into his drive with the express intent of telling him she was onto him. Telling him a whole lot more.
Talk about risks. When she got out of the car and spotted him working a yearling on a lunge line in the dry lot by the barn, she felt equal measures of relief and anxiety.
This was it. Gunfight at the not-so-okay corral.
Taking a deep breath, she walked toward him. She knew the moment he spotted her even though he made no sign of recognition or welcome. He continued turning a slow circle as he put the pretty chestnut filly through her paces.
“Looks like she’s getting the hang of it,” she said to break the icy silence even though the summer heat bore down.
His only response was a soft “Whoa, girl” as he reined the filly in.
His hat hid his face as he opened the gate, then led the chestnut through. After locking it behind him, he led the filly toward the pasture. Ali fell in step beside him.
“I’ve missed you.”
“Been busy,” he said, never breaking stride.
“Yeah. Me, too. We need to talk.”
Still silent, he eased the filly through the pasture gate, unclipped the lead rope and gave her a slap on the rump so she’d know she was free to go about her business.
The yearling took off with a trumpeting snort and raced toward her pasture mates who were grazing on the slope of a hill.
The tranquility of the picture they made was in stark contrast to the riot of emotions roiling in her chest.
“I didn’t tell you about David because I didn’t want you to know,” she said without preamble. “And because I felt I would be betraying his memory if I talked about him with you.”
When he didn’t say anything but didn’t make any move to run, she went on. “We grew up together—next-door neighbors. Went together as early as grade school. He was my best friend. And I loved him.”
He propped closed fists on his hips, stared hard at the grass at his feet—the ultimate picture of detachment. Yet she knew him now like she hadn’t known him in the beginning. Only his tightly clenched jaw gave him away. He wasn’t detached. He was heavily invested in what she was about to say whether he chose to acknowledge it or not.
“It was David’s dream, not mine, that we set up a practice in the mountain west. And it was his dream that led me here.
“It was his dream,” she added, hoping he was hearing, really hearing what she was about to say, “that led me to you.”
That got a reaction. He looked at her, his eyes narrowed in what could be question, anger or pain.
“I didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t want to become involved with you. It felt like I was betraying David. It felt like I was letting go of the love I had for him.”
A muscle in his jaw worked before he turned to go.
She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Don’t. Hear me out. I’m telling you this so you’ll understand why it was so hard for me to make the decision to be with you. It didn’t feel right to become involved with someone when I was still in love with someone else. It didn’t feel right to become involved with someone without love.
“Wait,” she said when he held up a hand to stop her. “Let me finish. John—I was right
. I can’t be involved with someone if I love someone else. I can’t be involved with someone I don’t love.”
She waited for the interminable space of two seconds before she let him in on her biggest revelation of all. The one that had taken her almost two full weeks to believe. “That’s why I know that I love you.”
Very slowly, he turned his head, searched her face.
“I love you,” she repeated. “I couldn’t have made love to you if I didn’t.”
The horse barn could have fit inside the silence, it was so huge.
“Didn’t see that one coming, did you?” she finally asked with a shaky laugh. “Well, if it’s any consolation, neither did I.”
He looked like he was ready to run. He looked cornered and trapped and like he was wishing he were anywhere she wasn’t.
What he didn’t look like was a man who was happy about her declaration.
“I don’t know what to say to that,” he said after another huge silence.
Well, it had been a long shot. And she’d had to get it out, had to see if he felt the same. Obviously, he didn’t. Or at least he didn’t want to and that was as much of a barrier as the Great Wall of China.
“Your face says it all, cowboy,” she said with a sad smile. “Don’t worry. It’s okay. I don’t expect anything in return.”
“You should,” he said, his eyes filled with an anger she didn’t quite understand. “You should expect everything.”
“Yes, well, we go with what we get, right? You were up-front from the beginning. You don’t do serious relationships. The problem is, I do…and the irony is, you’re the one who forced me to understand that.
“Goodbye, John,” she said. “Don’t worry. It won’t get uncomfortable. I won’t let it. Sundown’s a small town. We’ll be running into each other now and again and it will be okay. But I think it would be best if you got a different vet.”
And then she left him.
It was over.
And life went on. She knew that better than anyone. Just like she knew about the pain of losing someone she loved.
He was relieved, that’s what he was, John told himself over the next couple of weeks. Damn relieved that Ali had made it so easy for him. Hell, he was usually the one who ended things when he saw signs of a woman getting too involved, looking for more than he could give them. He’d been yelled at, bawled out, called everything but a son of God. But he’d never had a woman just walk away after she told him she loved him.