“We could always have another race,” he offered.
“Now, what would be the damn point in doing that?” Hutch flared.
“Just trying to make you feel better—little brother.”
For a moment, Slade thought Hutch might lunge at him, and they’d cap off the festivities with a good old-fashioned fistfight, right there in the middle of the barn, but in the end, Hutch just laughed and said, “You want to have a beer sometime?”
“Sounds good,” Slade said. Were they bonding, him and Hutch? After all those years of enmity, would they wind up behaving like brothers? It was too soon to tell.
Slade slapped Hutch’s shoulder as he passed him. Then he went outside, into the rain, to get into his truck and go home.
Peering past the windshield wipers, he drove away from Whisper Creek without so much as a backward glance. It was nothing more to him and nothing less than the place he’d never belonged. With his back to all of it, felt as though a weight had fallen from his shoulders.
Although he couldn’t have said exactly what had changed, Slade knew he’d been set free in some fundamental way, set himself free, and so had Hutch.
They were, each of them, their own man.
Finally.
* * *
JOSLYN WAS WAITING WITH JASPER, when Slade’s muddy truck made its way up the slippery driveway that ran between his house and that decrepit old barn. She stood on the front steps, rain sheeting past her from the eaves of the porch roof, her clothes wet, her hair in dripping spirals.
She was too hot to be cold, but she shivered as she watched Slade get out of the truck, shut the door and move toward her.
The rain pounded down, but it didn’t bow him—he walked upright, at an easy pace, his gaze burning blue into her face.
“About that implant,” she began stupidly, as he mounted the steps to join her.
Slade merely arched an eyebrow and waited, looking down at her, already making love to her with his eyes.
“I had it removed a couple of weeks ago,” Joslyn spouted, because this was something that had to be said up front. They both knew what was about to happen, and she wanted Slade to know there was a risk involved, even using a condom.
“That’s fine with me,” he told her gruffly, acknowledging Jasper with a pat on the head before taking Joslyn’s hand, leading her across the threshold, where they both stood dripping rainwater on Opal’s clean floor.
He kissed her then, and she lost herself in that kiss, gave herself up to it, to him.
When Slade lifted her into his arms and started up the stairs, Jasper didn’t follow.
The shower was blessedly hot, but that was about all Joslyn remembered about the experience because Slade drove her right straight out of her mind, caressing her, kissing her and, as he had the other time, devouring her.
She was in a daze of sweet satisfaction when Slade shut off the water, dried her off with a towel and then bundled it around her, and steered her across the hall and into his bedroom.
His bed was big, with spooled spindles in the headboard and fluffy pillows, but Joslyn didn’t notice much more than that. At her core, she was molten, but the wet cold had begun to seep into her bones, and she needed his warmth, his weight, his strength and, most of all, his love.
Slade drew back the covers and then somehow they were both beneath them, lying on their sides, facing each other.
He ran the backs of his knuckles lightly down her cheek.
Almost shyly, she slipped her leg over his, scooted closer.
He kissed her forehead, and she felt some kind of tremor go through him, opened her eyes to search his face.
“What?” she whispered.
“I’m selling my half of Whisper Creek to Hutch,” he said, his voice gruff, his eyes almost painfully blue. “This place will be home from now on.”
She blinked. “But you won—didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he replied. And then a grin crooked up the corner of his mouth. “But just barely, according to Hutch.”
Relief swept through Joslyn, and she slipped her arms around his neck, moved closer still, into the heat radiating from that blatantly masculine body of his. “I’m glad,” she said. “This is a wonderful old house.”
His lashes were so long. It wasn’t one damn bit fair for a man to have lashes like that, in Joslyn’s love-fuzzed opinion.
“I’m glad you like it,” he said. “The question is, do you like it enough to live here?”
Her heart leaped. She’d believed Slade when he’d said he loved her, and she certainly loved him back, but she’d been sure he’d want to wait, deliberate over every aspect of things, before making a move. After all, that had always been his way.
“Are you asking me to shack up?” she joked, but her voice trembled and she found herself holding her breath, maybe even her heartbeat, while she waited for his reply.
“I told you before,” he said, his eyes shining. “I’m an old-fashioned man. I’m asking you to marry me, Joslyn. To help me build this ranch up to something we can both be proud of, to share this bed every night and to have my babies.”
Tears filled her eyes. He was offering her everything she’d ever wanted, but things were happening too fast. She needed time.
Fifteen minutes, at the very least.
Slade frowned, stroking the length of her upper arm now, leaving a trail of fire everywhere he touched. “Unless—?” he began, as some thought darkened his face. “Damn.”
“Unless what?” Joslyn asked, breathless, and not just because he’d moved his hand from her arm to her breast. He cupped her in his palm, prepared her nipple with the edge of his thumb, his touch idle and completely intoxicating.
“Shea will be living here,” he said. “I promised her she could stay for the coming school year.”
“Is that a problem?” Joslyn asked, feeling an overwhelming tenderness for Slade in that moment and for his stepdaughter, too.
“Is it?” he countered.
She nibbled at his mouth, teasing him. “No,” she murmured. “It isn’t.”
“You’re sure?”
She grinned at him. “I never say anything I don’t mean, Slade Barlow,” she told him. “And now, since I’ve been perpetually aroused since the last time we went to bed together, would you mind making love to me?”
He laughed at that, rolled on top of her, his elbows and forearms pressing into the mattress on either side of her. “Why, ma’am,” he said cowboy style, “I wouldn’t mind that at all.”
She spread her legs, hardly able to breathe, even though Slade wasn’t putting any real pressure on her. “Good,” she murmured and raised her mouth to capture his kiss.
There was no foreplay this time—the need to be joined was too great, too urgent. Slade put his hands under her hips, raised her slightly off the mattress and plunged inside her.
Immediately, her eyes rolled back in her head as the first release consumed her, wringing a long, low whimper from her throat even as she dug her fingers into Slade’s shoulders.
“Just the beginning,” he whispered, close to her ear.
The boast proved prophetic in no time at all. Joslyn was caught in the grip of one ferocious orgasm only to be hurled directly into the next. She gasped and cried out and gripped the rails in the headboard with moist palms, arching high off the mattress. She begged and threatened and, most of all, she loved—freely, wildly, with the whole of her being.
Finally, Slade’s restraint gave way, and he flexed upon her, flexed again, his head thrown back, her name rasping past his lips over and over again.
Long minutes later, when Joslyn was back in her right mind—mostly—she giggled into his shoulder.
“I hope the condom broke again,” she said.
He gave her a light kiss. “What condom?” he retorted.
And they laughed together, with the rain beating down on that old roof and lashing against the windows, and their shared joy was a form of lovemaking in its own right.
&nbs
p; * * *
THE WEDDING TOOK PLACE two weeks later, in the church Callie attended, with the few stained-glass windows spilling colored light and the pews bulging with grinning guests.
Boone was Slade’s best man, Kendra and Shea were co-maids-of-honor, and clad in matching organdy dresses they both claimed to hate.
Dana and Brian made the trip to Parable to attend, of course, and Dana sat with Opal and Callie, beaming. The three Graces, Joslyn thought.
It was all a blur, though, as she stood at the foot of the aisle, her arm looped through Hutch’s. She felt beautiful in her carefully chosen, quickly purchased and slightly altered wedding dress, a froth of white lace and pearls. She wore a veil, too, held in place by a little crown of pale pink flowers, and carried a matching bouquet in gloved hands.
Slade stood up front with the minister and Boone, looking unbelievably handsome in his rented tux. Smiling at her across the pews full of dressed-up guests.
He would probably have been just as happy to elope, her tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed groom, but Joslyn had insisted on the whole works—white dress, bridesmaids, reception-to-follow and all the rest.
After all, this was forever, and that meant doing it up right.
The organ began to play.
“Ready?” Hutch asked quietly with a grin in his eyes.
“Ready,” Joslyn replied, after drawing a deep breath.
As rehearsed, Shea went up the aisle first, proud and graceful.
Kendra, who had been studiously ignoring Hutch the whole time, soon followed, joining Shea to the left of the altar.
“Here comes the bride,” Hutch whispered.
Joslyn smiled. “Let’s do this,” she said.
* * *
SLADE HAD WANTED TO TAKE Joslyn somewhere fancy for their honeymoon, but in the end, they stayed home instead. Although he’d already announced that he wouldn’t be running for another term as sheriff—Boone was going up against Treat McQuillan in that particular race—there was a lot to do before the changeover took place.
Joslyn, having passed her exam and acquired a real-estate license, said Kendra was going through a rough patch emotionally and needed her to help keep the business afloat.
And then there was Shea. They couldn’t simply go off and leave her, even in Callie’s or Opal’s competent care, now could they? Her mother and Bentley had married and embarked on a long cruise, so she couldn’t go back to L.A., either.
As happy as Shea was about the marriage between Slade and Joslyn, this was a time of transition for her. The child needed stability, especially now, with all this change underway.
Slade, for his part, was glad to have his bride to himself, after the ceremony and the hectic celebration afterwards, in Kendra’s elegant mansion. Mostly to himself, anyway, he amended, with a grin. Jasper was there to chaperone.
They’d come home to change out of their wedding gear, following the reception at Kendra’s, both of them wearing jeans, boots and favorite sweatshirts.
Standing in that kitchen, with her hair down but still sparkling with a few stray rhinestone clips, looking like tiny stars swiped from a night sky, Joslyn looked every bit as beautiful as she had in all that lacy finery.
They kissed, laughed and kissed again. And then Slade whistled for Jasper, and they left the crumbling ranch house that would one day be stately again, and climbed into the truck.
“Happy?” Slade asked gruffly, as they headed down the driveway to the county road.
“Happy,” Joslyn replied serenely. “And you?”
“Definitely.”
She reached over, rested her hand lightly on his knee.
They didn’t say much on the way to Whisper Creek Ranch, but they didn’t need to. They communicated in so many private, subtle ways—linking their thoughts, smiling at each other in that special way that was theirs alone.
No one was around when they pulled up alongside Hutch’s barn, which was not happy coincidence, but prearrangement.
They walked hand in hand into the barn, Jasper frolicking along behind them, and, once inside, parted to approach separate stalls.
Joslyn groomed Sundance, saddled the mare and led her out into the late-afternoon sunshine, crisp with the promise of autumn.
Slade did the same with Highlander.
They rode out onto the range with Slade taking the lead at first, but Sundance quickly caught up.
“All we need now,” Joslyn quipped, grinning at him, “is a sunset.”
Slade chuckled at the image. “I was thinking more along the lines of making love somewhere out there, in the deep grass.”
She grinned. “That would work, too,” she said.
* * * * *
Look for Linda’s next PARABLE book,
BIG SKY MOUNTAIN, coming in August from HQN Books.
Love awaits in Parable, Montana…
If you loved Big Sky Country, don’t miss the next two titles in this exciting new series from New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller.
Big Sky Mountain (August 2012)
Big Sky River (2013)
Can’t wait? There are over forty Linda Lael Miller titles available in ebook—wherever ebooks are sold!
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ISBN: 9781459230040
Copyright © 2012 by Linda Lael Miller
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