A Cowboy to Remember

by Barbara Ankrum

  He jerked upright, shoving the sheet away. Monday whined and licked his hand. Breathing hard, he threw his legs over the side of the couch and braced his elbows on his knees.

  Shit.

  The dream. He thought he’d kicked it, but apparently it was alive and well in his psyche. And whenever he dreamed it, it was no damned use to try to go back to sleep, because he just kept seeing it over and over. The gunfire, the crash, the screams.

  In all his years as a rescue pilot, he’d only been shot down once. He supposed it was the twelve years of adrenaline-punching hell that preceded that incident that had taken its toll on him, made him unable to keep going in the army. He’d had enough of war and death. He wanted peace, a little normalcy... and he wanted Olivia.

  But the dream made three times since he’d been back in Marietta that memories had snuck up and coldcocked him. Three times more than any time in the last five months. What the hell was that all about?

  Pulling on his jeans, he headed for the kitchen to get a glass of water. His hand shook while holding his glass under the faucet. He supposed he’d opened a door this week that had been virtually closed for a long time. One where emotions and longings crept in. Clearly, he should have left it closed. Allowed himself to stay in that grey place where nothing really touched him—nothing except flying.

  But Olivia was the fracture in his defenses, the thing he wanted, more than flying even.

  He turned the faucet on again, ran his hands underneath and splashed cold water on his face. He couldn’t make her love him, just like he couldn’t force her back up on a horse. Only she could do that. Either she was willing or she wasn’t. But if she wasn’t willing to risk getting on a horse, what made him think she’d let him in?

  He reached blindly for the towel on the counter and, instead, encountered a hand.

  He jumped and opened his eyes to find Olivia beside him. Her dark hair was all sexy and rumpled, and there was a cute smudge of black mascara under one eye. He wanted to reach up and wipe it away with his thumb. She was wearing Deke’s old shirt that went halfway down her perfectly toned thighs. Bracing one hip against the counter, she held the towel out to him.

  Her gaze traveled down his bare chest and back up again. When her eyes returned to his, she reminded him of a rabbit he’d found, caught in Deke’s fenced garden. All hungry and scared.

  Jake took the towel and wiped his face, watching her. “What are you doing up?”

  “I heard you. Bad dream?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “You okay?” she asked, her brows furrowed with worry.

  He nodded.

  And so did she. “I can’t sleep either.”

  His gaze fell to the curve of her breasts beneath the shirt. “Why not?”

  “Because I”—she glanced around the kitchen before her eyes found his again—“forgot something.”

  “What?” He wondered if she could hear the drum of his heartbeat, because, in the next moment, she took a step closer, reached out and splayed her fingers there.

  “My kiss.”

  Her words caught him off guard. Her touch nearly undid him. “I thought you—”

  “I know. I know what you thought I thought,” she said, then screwed up her face. “But I was really thinking something else altogether.” She slid her palm down his torso to the low slung waistband of his jeans.

  “Do I want to know?” he asked, as something like relief unlocked his lungs.

  The backs of her fingertips brushed over his abs, sending a quiver galloping across his skin. He went instantly hard.

  “Ohhh,” she sighed and shook her head. “When it comes to kissing and relationships, and all that, my thought process is a dark and twisty place. I think it’s best if we don’t explore that right now.”

  “Roger that.”

  Olivia smiled. “Mmm. I love it when you talk helicopter talk.”

  He took her shoulders between his hands. “Turn and burn, baby. I can do that all night long.”

  Olivia dipped her head down and pressed her lips against his ribs, then licked all the way up to his nipple. He swallowed hard and shivered at the damp trail she left behind.

  “So, in reviewing the terms of the wager”—her hands glided across his chest—“I came across some faulty wording.” Her thumb slowly circled his nipple, which had leapt to attention the moment she touched it.

  “Faulty?” he repeated, his mouth going dry. He threw the towel onto the counter.

  “Yes. The phrase, I get to kiss you, is a little fuzzy in terms of quantity.”

  He grinned and leaned back against the counter. “Open to interpretation?”

  “Yes,” she agreed with a nod of her head. “Wide open. I mean... is it one kiss?” She brushed her lips across his nipple. “Or fifty?”

  Jake inhaled sharply. “Fifty... works... fine for me.”

  “But not more than a hundred,” she said, “because that would just be...”

  “Excessive? Let’s revisit that later.”

  She smiled up at him through a dark sweep of lashes, lifted his palm to her lips and kissed it. “And if we should, just for tonight, be each other’s fallback person, where’s the harm, right?”

  He pulled a small foil square from his pocket and gave a no harm, no foul shrug.

  She rose up on her tiptoes to press her lips against his. Hers were soft and sweet, and the taste of them rocked him to his core. “Then, let’s be that. Just for this one night.”

  A bright heat ebbed through him as they kissed. Her skin was warm against the dampness of his and hers held the musky scent of desire. He wanted, needed to taste every bit of her—without hurrying—even though the idea of waiting even another moment to make love to her seemed almost beyond his ability. But she wanted to set the pace and he could live with that because he guessed control was a hot button for her.

  So when she took his hand and tugged him in the direction of her room, she didn’t need to ask twice.

  Chapter Six

  She’d left a lamp lit on the bedside table and the room was filled with shadows. Her bed looked like she’d been wrestling alligators in it. And in a way, she had. She’d wrestled with the part of herself that resisted everything good in her life, everything hopeful.

  Quietly, she closed the door and stood looking at him, her back against the roughhewn wood. His eyes were hooded, their blueness gone dark as midnight. A hot thrill chased through her. He still wanted her. He wanted her.

  She would remember that look for the rest of her life. And if it only happened this once, that a man she cared for saw her, it would be enough. There was no turning back now. Not that she wanted to. Slowly, she reached for the buttons on her shirt and undid them one at a time.

  He stood a few feet away, coiled and waiting. His gaze followed the movements of her fingers and he swallowed hard.

  She hardly recognized this girl, the one stripping off her shirt and asking him for sex. It was so unlike her, so off-the-charts reckless, she could only assume it was because she’d lost her mind a little.

  Another button went flick.

  Not because he wasn’t gorgeous—he was—and not even because he knew every dark crevice of her youth—which he did—but because when she was with him, she felt out of control. Daring. And absolutely female.

  “It’s been a long time for me.”

  Her whispered warning raised his gaze from the buttons and she couldn’t be sure if it was sympathy or surprise she read there.

  “It’s like falling. You don’t forget how.”

  She undid another button. “It’s just that... I usually do this... in the dark.” Even before the surgeries left her scarred, she’d made a habit of undressing and slipping beneath the covers before her ex-husband could find something about her to frown at.

  A muscle jumped in his jaw and he inhaled back some retort she felt sure he was thinking. Instead, he helped her with the last button and slid his hand inside to fit along the curve of her hip and draw her to h
im. “You’re beautiful, Liv. Look at you. There’s nothing you need to hide from me.”

  But she closed her eyes anyway and let the shirt slide away from her shoulders, heard his intake of breath and felt the warm, whisper of his hands against her skin. Particularly mortifying was the seven-inch, crescent-shaped splenectomy scar that nearly bisected her left side. He’d felt it last night in the river, but seeing it would be different.

  The scar was the first thing he kissed, from front to back and around again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “For what?”

  “It’s ugly.”

  “No,” he said, “This just proves you’re a survivor. It’s beautiful to me.”

  Was it? Kyle couldn’t look at it. Never would.

  “If you were mine,” he said against her belly, “I’d want you naked all the time.”

  If she were his...

  She pushed the thought away. “That would be most inconvenient,” she quipped breathlessly, as his hands roamed over the silky panties obstructing his chosen path.

  “But fun.” He backed up, drawing her toward the bed and when the backs of his knees collided with the mattress, he sat and pulled her closer, between the ‘V’ of his long legs. A fortuitous position, as it turned out. He hooked his thumbs in her panties, slid them down her hips, and discarded them.

  Exposed, she resisted a silly impulse to cover herself. In for a dime, in for a dollar. “Then you would have to be naked, too,” she murmured, when his mouth began to explore her in places that hadn’t been noticed in a very long time. “Which reminds me”—her breath shuddered and her fingers dug into his bare shoulders—“you’re still...dressed.”

  A few moments later, his jeans and boxer briefs were history, with the exception of the foil package he pulled from his pocket, and he wrapped his arms around her, taking her with him as he rolled onto the bed. He settled into the lee of her hips and she wrapped her legs around him. His hard length pressed against her, coiling a hot and heavy need inside her.

  He obliged that need, not as she expected, or, had come to expect—with a swift reckoning—but, instead, he took a slow, steamy tour of her body with his mouth along her throat, her ears, her breasts, and—she gasped—lower down. His hands did other things. Deeper things. Until she thrashed in the tangled sheets beneath him, desperate for more.

  He kissed her using slow, languid strokes of his tongue against hers and she completely forgot her vow to keep her heart out of it. His kisses swept away the memory of the boy she’d known and replaced it with the man whose skill and tenderness made her feel like a woman again. She’d almost given up hope of ever trusting a man to touch her this way, or of feeling cherished when he did.

  When he’d freed her mouth, she tormented a spot just below his ear she found particularly sensitive, if the tremor that shot down him when she licked him was any indication. His reaction sent an illicit thrill through her and she laughed softly against his skin.

  He drew in a deep breath. “Do that again with your tongue and I... can’t be responsible for what happens next.”

  She smiled wickedly. “That would be tragic.”

  A wolfish grin curved his delicious mouth before he dipped down to taste her breast again.

  He stroked his palm down her inner thigh and back up again, where it lingered, teasingly close to the slick warmth between her legs. Her hips arched of their own accord toward his hand.

  She made a small sound of need. “Don’t stop,” she managed, breathing in the salty scent of his skin, which made her forget every sensible thought she’d ever had.

  She heard, rather than saw, the crinkle of foil when he unwrapped his protection, then he was stroking her again, pushing her to the brink of some precipice whose edge she’d never seen before. And the drop was steep.

  “Ah, Jake, please—”

  A low, carnal growl came from somewhere deep inside him moments before she would have plunged down it, and he settled himself, at last, between her legs, pressuring the very place where she craved him the most.

  “You’re so damned beautiful,” he murmured, lowering his mouth against hers.

  His words melted into a kiss as she welcomed him inside her. And he was good as his word. He moved in her slowly first, and then, with wanton, primal need. There was a wildness to their rhythm, something exquisite and unbearable.

  She forgot herself. Lost herself inside him, clinging to his deliciously muscled shoulders. And the craziest notion stuck her that she was right where she belonged. The weight of him, the friction of his skin against hers as he held her, felt so right. Like she’d come home.

  And then she forgot to think. She could only feel as the edge of the cliff they’d been skirting rushed toward her and she plunged over the edge. Biting her lip to contain a scream that threatened, she splintered into a thousand tiny explosions in his arms and felt him follow right after.

  The next morning, before either of them was really ready to leave, Sammy appeared with the chopper to fly them back to Lane’s End. They hadn’t really talked about what had happened between them last night. There really were no words. Last night had been the sweetest night of her life. And Jake had been a revelation. The ground rules she’d set were now muddy tracks in her mind and it was too soon to sort them out. But she’d have to. Sooner or later, she’d have to.

  They said their goodbyes to Deke and she promised to visit again soon. Jake embraced the older man, who winked at him and waved them off. But she could have sworn Deke’s eyes got misty as he waved them off.

  This time when they flew, Jake sat in the back with her, reluctant to miss an opportunity to touch her, as if, like her, he craved the contact. Monday rode shotgun.

  “Back to the ranch, boss?” Sammy called back to Jake.

  Jake tucked his fingers around hers. “Yep. I need to pick up my truck before we go.”

  Olivia frowned in Jake’s direction. “Boss?”

  He pressed his lips together. “Um... yeah.”

  “He works for you... how? As your copilot?”

  The sound of the rotors droned on for a long moment before he answered.

  “Well,” Jake began, “More like I own the chopper. The whole company, actually.”

  “What?” How could she not have known this? “You own a helicopter company? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  With a shrug, he said, “I figured it would come up eventually.” He gestured at the cabin of the chopper.

  “So to speak,” she allowed with a disbelieving laugh. “That’s... amazing. I’m so proud of you, Jake.” But she couldn’t imagine how he’d swung it on a soldier’s savings.

  As if he’d heard her thoughts, he colored up a little and said, “Thanks, but it wasn’t just me. It was really Deke. He believed in me, staked me, and he’s a silent partner in the business. I’ve got bank loans up the kazoo, but a hell of a lot of experience that doesn’t hurt me either.”

  God bless Deke. “And what do you and the helicopters do?”

  “We started as an executive charter service back in Seattle, which we still do, but we’ve already expanded into heavy lifting, rescue, and transporting hotshots to fires, which is really closer to what I want to do. We’re thinking of expanding into the Montana market. Bozeman is close enough that I can spend more time near Deke and he can participate a little more in the business. Sammy was in the military with me in Afghanistan. He’s my number one guy. We’re heading to Bozeman today to meet with some bankers about financing a new base of operations here.”

  Bozeman. So she’d been right about his coming here for more than just her. It both relieved her, and oddly, checked her bubble of confidence to hear it. Not that she’d wanted him to come just for her. She didn’t. Did she?

  What did it matter? He was here now and every day she was learning new things about him. But last night had undone her and the fact that he’d be gone from her today was almost painful to contemplate.

  “How long will you be gone?” she ask
ed, her gaze, unwittingly, settling on his mouth. She wanted to kiss him. It was all she could do to keep that thought to herself.

  “Truth? I don’t want to be gone at all,” he said, watching her lips as well. “But, today, at least. Maybe part of tomorrow, too, depending. Tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”

  Thirty hours. She could go thirty hours without seeing him, couldn’t she? Of course she could. She had plenty to keep her occupied. Plenty.

  Now you’re just ridiculous. Weren’t you the one who said, ‘just for this one night?’

  She tightened her fingers around his and looked out the window at the landscape sliding by beneath them. Copper Mountain loomed ahead, rising on the flat horizon like a beacon above the charming town of Marietta. There, like a dot in the distance, was her home. Her sanctuary. At least she’d thought of it as one.

  How could her life have turned so upside down so fast?

  She felt dizzy. Off balance. But this relationship, if that was what it was becoming, hadn’t appeared out of thin air. It had been years in the making. There were times with Jake when it felt like they’d never been apart. Like twelve years and whatever had come in between hadn’t even happened. Yet the remnants of their pasts still yawned between them. They knew each other at some deep, undeniable level, but at others, not at all.

  Back at Lane’s End, he promised to call her later after his business in Bozeman.

  “You remember about the dinner my mom invited you to, right? It’s tomorrow night, at seven, at Beck’s Place.”

  “Of course.” He took both her hands in his. “I’ll be there.”

  “Oh, and bring Doctor Ben, if he’s free and not too busy caretaking your house or saving lives. My sisters will be there and we should introduce them. Not that I’m any good at matchmaking, but it sounds like Ben needs to get out. And Kate tends to fall for men she meets in bank lines.”

  Jake laughed. “I’ll do my best. See you soon,” he promised, then dropped a kiss on her that left her breathless before driving off with Monday in his father’s old truck.