But she asked him to leave, said she needed a little time alone. She really was down.
He went back to Jackson’s and took another cold shower.
That night he dreamed of Lily Divine—except she had Joss’s face. In the dream, he stood at the bar in the Hitching Post and looked up at the painting of the Shady Lady.
And suddenly, the painting came alive. The Shady Lady was Joss, so fine and curvy and mostly naked, lying on her side, braced up on an elbow with her beautiful backside to him, sending him a come-and-get-it look over one bare, dimpled shoulder. He stood there, gulping, hard as a rock.
But then she sat up from the pose she’d been stuck in for more than a century. The scarves that covered her breasts and hips wafted in a warm breeze that had come up out of nowhere—right there in the Hitching Post. She stepped out of the painting and down off the wall, her long hair lifted and coiling seductively around her in that impossible breeze. She reached out her slim, bare arms to him, her eyes gleaming with the promise of untold sensual delights.
And then he woke up.
He lay there in the guest room bed and glared at the darkened ceiling and wondered who he’d been kidding, to think it would be enough for him, to be just friends with a woman like Joss.
* * *
She called him at seven Friday morning. “Sorry I was such a downer.” Her voice was sweet and husky in his ear.
“Hey,” he said a little more gruffly than he meant to, “it’s not a problem. You know that.”
“I want to go riding one more time before I go….”
Her words hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. Before I go…
Their time was ending. Tomorrow was Saturday. And Sunday she was leaving.
A week. It was nothing. Gone in an instant. He’d known that, hadn’t he?
So why did it suddenly seem so wrong, so completely unfair, that she would be going, leaving him for good?
He schooled his voice to easiness. “So we’ll go riding. Today?”
“Yeah. I thought breakfast first at the Grubstake.” That was the coffee shop at the resort. “And then we’d head for the stables. I already asked to have Cupcake ready.”
He would need to get the go-ahead from Jackson to take Major again. That should be no problem. “Bring something you can swim in,” he said.
“But I thought the mountain lakes were too cold.”
“I know a little valley. A wide creek runs through it. It’s not so high up and should be warm enough for swimming.”
“Sounds wonderful,” she agreed.
“The Grubstake, then.” His voice was rough again, a little ragged with emotions he didn’t even understand. “Give me an hour.”
“I’ll be there. Waiting.”
* * *
And she was there, just as she’d promised, waiting in the coffee shop, dressed for riding in her red boots and jeans and a blue-and-white checked shirt. They ordered pancake specials, with scrambled eggs and bacon. She was animated and smiling, out from under the cloud of misery that had gotten her down the night before.
“Today and tomorrow,” she said, her dark eyes gleaming. “And that’s it.” Did she have to remind him? “I’m going to enjoy every minute of the time we have left.”
Don’t go. The words were there on the tip of his tongue. He shut his mouth over them and swallowed them down.
He tried to remember what a tangled mess the whole thing with Tricia had been, that he didn’t know his ass from up when it came to relationships. That the last thing Joss needed at this point was another man in her life.
A friend, she could handle.
But more?
It wasn’t going to happen. She needed time to get over that asshat Kenny, time to put her life back together, to get on her feet. She didn’t need to get involved with some ex-player ex-oilman from Texas who didn’t know zip about love and was seriously considering relocating to Montana and trying his hand at running a bar and grill.
They finished their pancakes and headed for the stables. By ten-thirty, they were on their way up the mountain. They rode a different series of trails that day, around the mountain, climbing for a time. But then, using a series of switchbacks, heading lower, down into the little valley he’d told her about.
The land belonged to Grant Clifton, the resort’s manager, and his wife, Steph. Last year, when Ethan had invested Traub money in the resort, Grant had been kind enough to issue a general invitation to any Traubs who wanted to swim in the creek there.
“It’s beautiful,” Joss said, when they spread a blanket under a cottonwood at the edge of the creek.
He had a hard time paying a lot of attention to the trees and the clear creek and the rolling, sunlit land. Joss had taken off her jeans, boots and shirt by then. She wore a little black-and-white bikini that looked like polka dots at first glance, but was really tiny white hearts on a black background. She filled it out real nice. He kept thinking about his dream, where she was the Shady Lady and she came down out of the picture and held out her arms to him.
“Jace?” she asked softly. “You okay?”
“Ahem. Fine. Great. Why?”
She laughed then. “Well, your mouth is hanging open.”
He shut it. “Is not.”
She laughed again and turned and ran to the creek. He watched her pretty, round bottom bouncing away from him and tried not to think about how much he wanted a lot more than he was ever going to have with her. If she had any bruises from her fall the other day, he couldn’t see them.
Hugging herself and giggling, she went into the water. “It’s cold!” She bent at the knees and got right down into it all the way up to her neck.
“I can hear your teeth chattering,” he teased from the bank, admiring the way that thick, long hair of hers fanned out on the water all around her.
“My teeth are chattering because the water is freezing!”
“Don’t be a sissy,” he taunted.
“You said it would be warm down here in this valley,” she accused. “Brrrr.”
“It is warm—compared to the lakes higher up.”
She rose to her feet, the water sheeting off her body, her hair falling to cling like a lover to her shoulders and the high, proud curves of her breasts. The sight stole the breath clean out of his body and made all the spit dry up in his mouth.
“Well?” she demanded. “Are you coming in?”
He remembered to breathe and he swallowed, hard. “Yes, ma’am.” He dropped to the blanket and pulled off his boots and socks. His shirt followed. Then he stood up again to unbuckle his belt. A moment later, he stepped out of his jeans.
Joss gave him a two-finger whistle. “I never saw a cowboy in board shorts before—neon orange, no less.” He made a show of flexing his biceps and she laughed some more.
And then he took off toward her at a run. She shrieked as he cannonballed into the water. And when he got his feet under him and stood up, she started madly splashing him.
He dived and grabbed for her legs, yanking them out from under her. Flailing and laughing, she went down, but only for a moment. Then she kicked free of his grip and swam for the far bank.
When he caught up with her, she was trying to climb out on the other side.
He grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back in.
She let out a shriek and went under again.
A moment later, she shot upright. She was quick, he had to give her that. She gave him a shove when he wasn’t expecting it. He went down on his back, sending water flying. He heard her laughing as the creek closed over his head.
In a few seconds, he was upright again. They started madly splashing each other, both of them fanning the water for all they were worth, really going to town.
Finally, her hair plastered to her face, water dripping from her nose, she put up both hands. “All right. I surrender. You win. You’re the champion.”
That made him laugh. “The champion of splashing?”
“Yeah.” She swiped a hand
over the crown of her head, gathering her hair in one thick swatch, guiding it forward over her shoulder so she could wring the water from the dripping strands. “You don’t want to be the champion of splashing?”
He speared his fingers back through his hair. “Depends on the prize.”
She made a scoffing sound. “Please. You don’t get a prize for splashing the hardest.”
He stepped up closer. He couldn’t resist. They stood in the shallows by then, not far from the bank and their waiting blanket, with the hobbled horses grazing nearby.
She stared up at him, drops of water caught like diamonds in her long, dark eyelashes, her eyes so bright they blinded him. Damn. She was beautiful. “Jace?”
He couldn’t stop staring at her wide, soft mouth. “I want to kiss you.”
“Oh, Jace…”
“You’d better tell me not to. You’d better tell me now.”
Chapter Eight
She drew in a breath—a sharp little sound. And she argued, “But I don’t want to tell you not to…”
He took her shoulders. Wet. Silky. Cool. Longing speared through him. Sharp. Hot. “Was that a yes?”
“Oh, Jace…”
“Answer the question.”
“Yes.” She said it fervently. Eagerly. “That’s a yes.”
So he kissed her. Kissed her for the second time. Slowly, deeply.
She opened for him and he tasted the sweetness beyond her parted lips. He gathered her close to him, skin to skin, carefully. Tenderly.
The sun was warm on his back and she was so perfect in his arms. He didn’t want to let her go.
But he knew he had to. He lifted his mouth from hers with regret. And he opened his eyes to find hers waiting for him.
She searched his face. “Do you know how much I’ll miss you?”
Don’t go. “Hey, you’re not gone yet.”
She reached up, touched his lips with her cool, smooth fingers. “That’s right. I’m still here. And I’m so glad…” Her eyes shone brighter, wetter. A single tear escaped and trailed down her cheek. He leaned close and kissed that warm wetness away. She whispered, “I’m so glad I met you.”
“Me, too.” He took her hand. “Come on.” He led her up to the bank where he picked up the blanket and moved it out from under the shading branches of the tree.
They lay down side-by-side, faces tipped to the sunlight.
Far off, he heard the cry of a hawk. And then silence, just the rushing whisper of the creek and the wind stirring the cottonwoods.
He closed his eyes. It was one of those moments, so simple. So perfect—him and Joss on a blanket in the sun.
Eventually, they got up and pulled on their jeans, shirts and boots. They ate the jerky he’d brought along in his saddlebag and drank from their canteens. Then they rolled up the blanket and tied it on behind Major’s saddle.
They mounted up and started back the way they had come.
That night, they had dinner with the rest of the family at Rose and Austin’s. Around eleven, they went back to the resort. He stayed until three in the morning. They talked and they laughed. They ate too much chocolate. They watched two movies on pay-per-view: a romantic comedy for her and an old Western for him.
The whole night he kept thinking, Don’t go, don’t go. After a while it seemed that the words were there, echoing, in every breath he took, in every beat of his heart.
But he didn’t say them.
And he didn’t kiss her again either. Not kissing her was almost as hard as not saying “Don’t go.” But he managed both somehow. He went back to Jackson’s in the early morning hours, had his usual cold shower and climbed under the covers to toss and turn and dream of her.
He was up at daylight. He showered fast and dressed faster and headed for the resort. Luck was with him. He caught Grant in the office complex down the hill from clubhouse and took care of the business that had been nagging at him.
Then he went up the hill, got two coffees at the Starbucks on the first floor of the clubhouse and took the elevator to Joss’s suite. He had to knock twice before she finally answered, looking sleepy and tousled and irresistible, barefoot in a cream-colored terrycloth robe.
“I see you brought coffee,” she said in a sleepy voice. “Smart man.”
Don’t go. “Mornin’.” He held hers out to her. She took it and sipped, stepping back at the same time so that he could enter. “I have a confession,” he said to her back as she led the way into the sitting room.
She paused to send him a look over her shoulder. “Nothing too awful, I hope.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to be mad at me.”
She turned around then, and faced him in the archway to the sitting room. “Better just say it.” She sipped from her cup again.
It made him ache all over to look at her, to think that she was leaving, that tomorrow, she would be gone. “I stopped in and saw Grant this morning—you know, the resort manager?”
“I remember Grant.”
“I caught him down the hill at his office…”
“Yeah?”
“And I paid your bill.”
She had her cup halfway to her lips again, but she lowered it without drinking. Her face had a set look to it suddenly, and her dark gaze was steady on his. “Jace. No.”
“Come on. It’s not a big deal.”
“It’s a lot of money. And no.” She reached out her hand.
He looked at it. “I guess if you’re offering me your hand, at least you’re not too mad. Right?”
“I’m not mad,” she said softly. “I promise.” She grabbed his fingers. Heat shot up his arm and he had to stop himself from yanking her close to him and slamming his mouth down on hers. “Come on.” She towed him into the sitting room and over to the sofa. “Sit.” He sat. She dropped down beside him and set her cup on the coffee table. “I’m…well, I could really get emotional, you know? It means so much that you would want to do that for me.”
He set his untouched coffee beside hers. “Just say you’re okay with it.”
She blew out a hard breath. “But I’m not okay with it. It’s not right.”
“Sure it is.” He tried to look stern and uncompromising. “I can afford it, believe me.”
“That’s not the issue. I mean, I get why you would want to. I do. And it’s so sweet of you, really.”
“It’s not sweet, believe me,” he muttered. “Not sweet in the least. I don’t think you get it at all.”
“But I do get it. It’s about Kenny, right?”
How did she know that? He admitted, “I don’t want that lowlife, cheating sonofabitch paying your way here. I just don’t.”
“Jace.” She put her hand on his arm. For the second time that morning, he had to steel himself to keep from grabbing her tight and kissing her senseless. “Listen,” she said, “I agree with you. I’ve been thinking about it, too. And I’ve realized that I really can’t have Kenny footing the bill. I don’t want anything from Kenny.”
“Good. There’s no problem, then. It’s paid.”
With a low groan, she let go of his forearm. “You’re not listening to me. It’s not Kenny’s bill. And it’s not your bill. It’s mine. And I will pay it.”
He almost wished she’d been mad at him, instead of so firm and sure and uncompromising about it. How does a man get through to an uncompromising woman? “Listen. You like me, right?”
Her eyes held reproach. “Of course I do.”
“You even trust me. A little.”
“I trust you a lot.” She almost smiled. “And a week ago, I would have sworn I would never trust a man again.”
“So…can’t you think of it as a gift from a friend? From your best friend? When you get settled, with a new apartment and a great job, you can feel free to pay me back if it’s that important to you. But maybe, over time, you’ll see things in a different light. You’ll remember that I said I wanted to do this. And I meant what I said. I don’t want you owing your ex a thing. I want yo
u free of him. And I don’t want you spending every cent you’ve got to get free of him.”
She gathered her legs up onto the cushions and tucked them to the side. Then she wrapped the fluffy robe closer around her. “It wouldn’t be every cent I’ve got…” She gave a low, sad little chuckle. “Not quite, anyway.”
“Let me do this for you, Joss. Please.”
“I really shouldn’t…”
“Yeah, you should.”
She shut her eyes, hung her head. “Thank you,” she said, so softly.
He wanted to touch her, but that would be too dangerous. “Glad to do it.”
And then she swayed against him, whispering a second time, “Thank you.”
What could he do but exactly what he longed to do? He wrapped an arm around her and drew her close. And when she lifted her sweet lips to him, he kissed her, a light kiss, one he didn’t allow himself to deepen.
And then he picked up her cup from the coffee table and handed it to her. “Go on. Get dressed. Let’s get some breakfast.”
* * *
Joss wanted that final day with Jace to last forever, but it seemed to fly by even faster than the ones before it.
They went to Lizzie’s bakery for breakfast, and then they dropped in at the Historical Society Museum to say hi to Melba. They took a long drive along Thunder Canyon Road, all the way to the steep, rocky canyon for which the town was named.
That night, they had dinner in the resort’s best restaurant, the Gallatin Room. They ran into Jace’s parents there. Claudia and Pete were still staying at the resort.
Jace muttered resignedly, “I suppose we should go and say hi to them.”
“Yes, we absolutely should.”
So they stopped by the Wexlers’ table for a moment. Claudia said how she and Pete would be there for at least another week. And Joss confessed that tomorrow she was on her way back to Sacramento.
“I hope you’ll get Jason to bring you to Midland one of these days very soon,” Claudia suggested.
Joss didn’t give her an answer, only said how much she’d enjoyed spending time with the Traub family while she’d been in town.
They moved on to their table shortly after that. It was in a secluded corner, so it really felt like it was just the two of them. Jace ordered a nice bottle of wine and the food was wonderful, better than ever, she thought.
The Last Single Maverick Page 10