by Julie Miller
“I couldn’t handle it,” she said.
“But you’re ready to figure it out now?”
“Yep. Oh, is that your place? It’s charming.”
“Thanks to the automatic lights you can actually see it,” he said. “Come on inside.”
The house had the typical highly peaked roofs of an A-frame. She was surprised at how spacious it was inside. “There’s a loft bedroom upstairs that I use,” he said. “There are two more bedrooms on the main floor, but they aren’t furnished yet.”
She raised her eyebrows and he laughed. “I’m sleeping on the couch tonight. You get the loft. Would you like a brandy?”
“Sure,” she said.
“I’ll take your satchel upstairs first,” he said. “Make yourself at home.”
The kitchen was small but efficient, lacking only the homey touches that would come with time. The dining room consisted of a card table and two chairs. The living room was the most pulled together space with a white shag area carpet anchored by a dark leather sofa and two huge chairs. Two tall windows flanked a rock fireplace where wood was stacked in preparation for a fire. Lily wandered over to one of the windows. The automatic outdoor lights had switched off, and as she stood in front of the black glass, backlit by the room behind her, she was suddenly aware of how visible a target she must make and backed away from the window, shivering now. She ran into Chance who lifted the snifters up high to avoid spilling their contents.
“Something spook you?” he asked.
“No,” she said. She took the brandy he offered, clinked glasses, and took a sip. The fire burning down her throat helped clear her mind and chase away the boogie-man.
“Sit down,” he said, patting the sofa seat next to him. Lily set her glass down on a small table.
“This is a comfortable house.”
“Do you want me to start a fire?”
“That would be nice,” she said, and scrunched back on the sofa while he fussed with paper and matches. For a second, she imagined Charlie back at the main house, toasting marshmallows and sleeping with the ranch dogs. A smile just got broader when Chance returned to the sofa. There was no denying the magnetism between them.
“Your face is back to normal,” he said, raising a hand to lay his fingers against her cheek. “How come you’ve never been in my house before?”
“You never asked me.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “The night we kissed, remember that night?”
“I remember.”
“I asked you before the fateful kiss. You said you didn’t think it would be a good idea.”
“I did. Hmm,” she said, and sipped more brandy.
“I have another theory,” he added. “I think you didn’t want to take the chance you might find a place you didn’t want to leave.”
“Your ego is one of your more endearing characteristics,” she said with a soft chuckle. “That’s why I thought you were like Jeremy when I first met you. You were just so sure of yourself, so positive a woman would be willing to settle for whatever you cared to offer.”
“Comparing me to that psychopath is hitting beneath the belt,” he grumbled.
She set aside her glass again. “But then I got to know you.”
“And you discovered how dashing I am,” he said.
“No, the dashing part was easy to see. What I found out is that you are a very good man.”
“Don’t go spreading that around,” he said. “I have a reputation to protect.”
She pretended to zip her lips, and they just both kind of mutually sank lower on the cushions, legs stretched out in front of them on an ottoman, the fire crackling and throwing wild shapes about the room.
“There’s something I’ve been asking myself for a long time now,” he said at last. She turned her head to find him looking right at her. He was so close she could feel his breath warm her skin. “I’ve been wondering and wondering what it is about you. Why do I crave you? Sure, you’re gorgeous and interesting and sexy as hell, but frankly, lots of people are those things, right?”
She laughed internally. He sounded as though he was really struggling with this concept. She murmured, “Yes, right, lots of people.”
He took her hand in his and squeezed it. “But I can’t get past wanting you.”
“And that’s a problem for you?”
“Yes. You’re not easy.”
This time the laugh escaped her lips. “I know I’m not.” She scooted even closer and his arm slipped around her back. She laid her head against his chest and sighed. “If it makes you feel any less alone in this endeavor, I find you just as hard to resist.”
“And yet you do,” he said softly.
“I’ve been running and hiding for so many years, first from myself, then Jeremy... I’ve just forgotten how to trust people. I’m trying, but I keep feeling any moment now, I’m going to have to grab Charlie and head for the hills.”
“I know you do.”
She raised her chin and looked up at him, stretched a little more and touched his lips with hers. “But there’s this thing between us,” she whispered. “Maybe it is just lust. Maybe what we have is supposed to be like a storm, you know, crazy and wild and then over.” She looked up into his eyes. “It would be easier if I left and you forgot I ever existed.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But that’s not going to happen and you know it. I’ve been thinking about no one else but you since the moment I saw you standing in the yard with your wild chopped blond hair and dangling earrings catching the light like sparklers. I admit it, I rushed you, I was crazy to have you. I would have said or done almost anything to get through to you.”
“What makes you think you didn’t get through to me?”
“You ran off when I kissed you.”
“That wasn’t just a kiss and you know it,” she said. “With you it’s never just a kiss.” She was about to expound on this theory when he pulled her against him and proved what she’d just said. He kissed her so deeply that it was like the warm mouth of heaven opened to claim her. He teased her tongue with his and she held onto him tighter, pressing against him, the simmering heat off his skin musky and corporeal. His kisses went deep, lasted long, the storm she’d predicted hovering on the horizon about to shake the earth with thunder.
He stood up abruptly and pulled her to her feet. Then he leaned down and lifted her into his arms.
“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.
“I’m taking you to bed.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like what? I’m been thinking of doing nothing else since last February. However, we’re in no rush, and contrary to what you think of me, I’m not going to simply have my way with you.” He carried her up the stairs to the bedroom and deposited her on the bed. Then he stared down at her. “You look disappointed,” he said as he pulled off his shirt. “Did you just assume I was going to run amok on your naked body?”
She gazed at his bare chest and bit her lip. “I guess I did. However, if that’s not your plan, why are you undressing? I thought you were going to sleep on the couch.”
“Can’t you stop thinking about sex for thirty seconds?” he teased. “I’m getting ready for bed is all. This is my room, after all.” He sat down beside her. “You know what you are, Lily Kirk?”
She lowered her head and kissed his chest, then ran a hand downward. He picked up her hand and held it.
“No, what am I?”
“Spoiled. You’ve gotten so used to me wanting you—”
She put her finger across his lips. “Just shut up and kiss me, will you please?”
“Not so fast,” he said. He took off his boots and socks, then stood. “You might want to stop gawking at me,” he said. “The jeans are coming off next.”
“I’ll gawk, thanks,” she said and admired the muscles rippling under the skin in his back and shoulders as he unbuttoned his jeans and took them off. Then he spread his arms. “Like what you see?”
She rotated her finger in the air and he did a 360, a silly grin plastered on his face. She could see what this bantering was doing to his anatomy—a guy had a hard time hiding certain things about himself—and it thrilled her.
“Your turn,” he said and sat down again. She stood up and unbuttoned her sweater, then pulled off her shirt. He produced a wolf whistle and she bowed from the waist.
“Thank you,” she said.
His expression softened as he crooked a finger. “Come here. That bra looks tricky. You may need help getting it off.” She stepped closer to him, trembling as he ran his fingers across the bra, feeling his quickening breath clear down in her groin as her breasts escaped the delicate lingerie. She slipped off her jeans, leaned forward and kissed him then put her knee between his legs and pushed him back on the bed, climbing up to join him, straddling him.
His gentle caresses grew more intense as his warm mouth seemed to devour her. He pulled her hips against his. His engorgement between her legs drove her mad and she lay down on top of him, anxious for her bare breasts to touch his chest. He kissed her again and again until there was no definition, until he rolled her over onto her back and stared down into her eyes. His gaze seemed to burn through her skin.
He slowly lowered his head and kissed her, sucking gently on her lower lip. Everything changed. There was no stopping, no going back, no second thoughts. This is what they had both wanted since laying eyes on each other, an abandoned romp where thoughts were as unnecessary as clothes, where bare skin and hot moistness met urgency, where need, exhilarated by desire, pushed them to the breaking point.
There was nothing shy about Lily’s investigation of Chance’s magnificent physique. The skin on his butt was amazingly smooth and soft, and to possess even temporary power to arouse him to the point he could no longer delay plunging himself into her body was a mystifying feeling.
For an hour or more, they loved each other with abandon. He was a generous lover, rough when it aroused her, gentle when she asked for it, tireless in pleasing her just as she pleased him. Lily had only slept with one other man in her life and he’d boasted he felt about sex the same way he felt about almost every aspect of life: he was in it to win it. Sex hadn’t been about desire followed by tenderness. For Jeremy, it had been about conquest, about planting a flag and moving on, not raining tender kisses over a lover’s breasts and belly and beyond.
Chance erased that past. And later, when he held her in his arms and drifted off to sleep, she comforted herself that even if she never slept with him again, or more likely, they slept together often until their differences drove them apart, well, even if that happened, she had this moment.
It would be foolish to put too much meaning into what had happened that night. She just had to try to go with the flow and keep her head and give him the room to bolt when the time came.
* * *
CHANCE AWOKE WITH a start. He opened his eyes and found Lily sound asleep beside him. She was still here! His lips curved. There was a time not so long ago that last night’s sex would have sated his hunger for her and maybe in the back of his mind, he was hoping that was still a possibility. He could tell himself that sex wouldn’t change the nature of their relationship; experience had told him that wasn’t true. What usually happened was a moment of bliss followed by trepidation as he pondered how to slip away into the night.
For the first time in his life he didn’t want to slip away. He wanted the silken bonds he could feel entwining his body and heart to grow stronger. Last night, the more she’d responded to him, the more he’d wanted to give her. The feeling persisted even now. He wanted her here, in this bed, in this house, on this ranch. The thought she and Charlie could disappear again terrified him.
He kissed her cheek and her lashes fluttered. Damn if he didn’t find it sexy. “Time to face the day,” he whispered. Her phone rang and she groaned. He found her jeans on the floor and tugged the phone out of the pocket. “Looks like it’s Kinsey,” he said, adding, “Your phone is almost dead. There’s a hookup over there on the desk.”
Lily sat up straight and smiled at him as the sheet fell around her waist. Naked and tousled, she looked good enough to coax under the sheets for another hour or two. He handed her the phone, sighed, and went to take a shower.
* * *
THINGS GOT OFF to a slower start than they’d anticipated when they found the horses had somehow escaped their pasture and wandered off here and there across the fields. Chance finally cornered Jangles, his gorgeous bay gelding, and helped Lily saddle him. That had taken a while as it had been peppered with longing looks between Lily and Chance and excited babble from Charlie detailing the events of the living room campout.
An hour later, she and Kinsey rode past the hanging tree on their way to the ghost town. The October morning was cold and crisp and the snowy ice that had fallen the day before crackled beneath the horses’ feet.
“Do you have any idea what you want to draw?” Lily asked Kinsey as they rode abreast.
“Not really. I like to stay open to inspiration. I won’t do anything with the building where Gerard lost his family,” she said. “I just want to take a look and see what attracts my attention. I hope it won’t be boring for you.”
“It won’t. I’ve been wanting to investigate the place myself before it’s nothing but a heap of wood.”
“Just be careful,” Kinsey warned.
“I will.”
Kinsey studied her for a second and smiled. “You’re different today.”
“I am?”
“Yeah. You didn’t snap at Chance once this morning.”
Lily shrugged. “He’s not so bad.” She slid Kinsey a sidelong glance and added, “As a matter of fact, he’s pretty spectacular.”
“I knew it!” Kinsey said. She wore a bright yellow baseball hat that had once belonged to Gerard. That and the backpack strapped to her coat made her look like a college student riding to a class. “Finally,” she added with an exaggerated sigh.
“Finally. Speaking of Hastings men, what’s going on with Pike? He seemed a little distant last night. Chance said he’s worried about his sister?”
“Tess isn’t really his sister,” Kinsey said. “Pike’s mom and Tess’s dad got together about twelve years ago which in that neck of the woods make theirs a long standing relationship. Heck, I guess it does almost anywhere anymore. Anyway, he was the star of that television show that only aired one season, the one about a private eye married to a belly dancer.”
“I’m not big on TV,” Lily admitted.
“It was on a long time ago. Rumor has it he got booted when he went into rehab. Tess was born about then and eventually came to live with him. I guess he cleaned himself up. He does television ads and voiceovers now and someone said he bought a restaurant or something. Anyway, Pike has never lived in the same house with Tess but he seems very protective of her. She left when Mona kicked her dad out of the mansion, but no one has heard a word from her since.”
“There’s always someone or something to worry about,” Lily mused.
“Are you worried about Jeremy?”
Lily thought back to the shiver she’d experienced when she stood framed in Chance’s window the night before. But Jeremy was in Canada or beyond, it was just the last of her overburdened nervous system working out the kinks. “Not really,” she said, and squeezing her knees, urged her horse into a trot. “Last one there is a rotten egg,” she called over her shoulder.
They slowed down when the first building rose to their left. The main street stretched out ahead, overgrown with weeds, flanked with buildings slowly sagging to the earth. Lily soon became distracted by an old saloon
complete with a decayed-looking balcony. They dismounted and draped the reins over the remains of a hitching post. Kinsey untied a roll from the back of the saddle and produced a folding stool where she perched to open her backpack and withdraw the sketch pad and charcoal pencils. Lily looked over her shoulder for a while, amazed at how adroit her friend was at capturing the nuances of light and shadow. Eventually, she wandered down the street alone, quickly caught in the mystery of the past, wishing Chance was by her side, holding her hand.
* * *
GERARD RODE OUT with Chance and Charlie to look at the last herd of cattle brought down from the mountains. With Charlie riding in front of him in the saddle, he took it slow. Charlie, meanwhile, played with the palomino’s mane and hummed a tune Chance recognized. Undoubtedly, Frankie had been whistling it the night before around the “campfire.” The tune was catchy but the lyrics were borderline obscene and Chance hoped his brother hadn’t shared those.
This group of Angus cattle would give birth for the first time this spring. For now it was important they grazed good fields. The cattle milled around the fence, looking for handouts, curious about the people staring at them while Charlie babbled on and on about dressing up as a cowboy for Halloween.
“Can I carry a gun?” he asked Chance.
“A real gun?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No, but we can make a pretend gun out of wood in the shop this afternoon. Would that do?”
“Yes!” Charlie cried and ran to the fence to tell the cows his big plan.
“He’s a great kid,” Gerard said.
“You bet he is,” Chance agreed. “He’s been through a lot but he seems hardwired for happiness, especially when he’s here.”
“And you and Lily seem to have reached a new level in your relationship,” Gerard added.
“You can tell?”
“Duh,” Gerard said. “There’s still tension between you two, but the nature of it is different. You, little brother, actually seem to be in love. I never thought I’d live to see the day.”