She knew they would get around to kissing eventually—they couldn't seem to be within a few feet of each other without their mouths connecting. Still, the stubborn man let her set the pace.
She laughed and chatted the way she had every other time they'd been together, even while her insides shivered every time she looked at those hard, chiseled features and felt the heat of his gold-flecked eyes on her.
She was right in the middle of a breathless story about the time she'd been caught skinny-dipping with her friends in the mayor's pond by the mayor and his wife, who had obviously come down to the pond with the same idea, when Zack suddenly yanked her into his lap.
"I can't take any more," he murmured against her mouth, and she tasted wine and the sweetness of the berries. "I've got to kiss you."
"Who's stopping you?" she murmured back, and was rewarded with a fierce, possessive kiss. The shivers in her insides turned to devastating earthquakes of awareness.
That kiss had led to more. And more.
She could remember every second of that night. Every gliding touch, every drugging kiss. Before long, the buttons of her lacy shirt slipped free, and those wonderful hard hands found her unbound breasts.
"No bra tonight?" he murmured against her neck with a surprised laugh.
"It's the Fourth of July," she said on a gasp as his fingers danced across a nipple. "My own little celebration of freedom."
"I'm not sure this is quite what the Founding Fathers had in mind, but hey, I'm as patriotic as the next guy."
Her laugh turned into a gasp when he slid down her body and drew the nipple into his mouth, sending shock waves rippling through her. He had never gone this far and she knew this was it.
While he licked and tasted her skin, desire exploded inside her, building and building until she was afraid she would shatter. Finally she couldn't stand this aching tension. She reached down and cupped his hardness through the thick material of his jeans, her fingers fumbling with the button fly so she could really reach him. He groaned and shoved against her hand for a moment, then eased away, flopping back on the blanket to stare up at the sky. "Stop. Slow down."
She sat up, her shirt still unbuttoned and her long hair flying loosely around her face. "Why? I'm so tired of slowing down! I love you, Zack. We're going to spend the rest of our lives together. This is right. Why do we have to wait?"
She leaned over him, and this time she kissed him with all the fierce love in her heart. "I love you, Zack Slater," she murmured. "I will never stop loving you."
With a groan, he fisted his hands in her hair and devoured her mouth. Lit by only the moonlight and the last glowing rim of sun streaking the mountains, he quickly removed the rest of her clothing.
Though July, it was chilly at this higher elevation, and she shivered a little as a cool wind kissed her bare skin. But only for a moment. Then he covered her with his hard, muscled body and the shocking, incredible sensation of his naked flesh against hers warmed her completely.
She clutched him to her tightly and kissed him while a thousand sensations burned themselves into her brain. He had been so careful. So gentle. Even though she could feel the need trembling through him, feel the strength of his arousal against her, he still moved slowly.
She was far from naive about what went on between a man and a woman but she wasn't prepared for Zack Slater and that dogged determination of his. He took his dear, sweet time, touching every inch of her skin, until she was ready to weep from frustration.
Finally his hand slid between her thighs, to the slick, aching center of her need. She shattered apart instantly, crying out his name.
While her body still pulsed and trembled, he knelt over her. "Are you absolutely sure, Cass? We can still wait."
She groaned and bit his shoulder hard enough to leave two little crescent-shaped marks. "Yes! I'm positive! Will you just do it?"
With his glittering hazel gaze locked with hers and his hands crushing her fingers, he entered her slowly, carefully, just as the first booming fireworks exploded far below them in town.
They spent the next three weeks finding every opportunity they could to be alone together. Each time they made love was more incredible than the last, and those invisible bonds tightened even more.
And then he'd left.
Something stirred behind her in the brush, and Cassie jolted back to the present, horrified to feel the wet burn of tears in her eyes. She swiped at them with the sleeve of her denim jacket, furious at herself for dredging that all up again and for the low thrum of remembered heat that had burrowed under her skin while she relived those moments in his arms.
With the instincts of one of the small, scurrying creatures of the night, she sensed who was coming long before she saw him. Maybe it was his scent of cedar and sage carried by the breeze. Or maybe it was just the hum and twang of those bonds between them.
Whatever the reason, by the time he broke through the brush to her spot by the lake, all her defenses were firmly in place.
"You should be in bed, Cassie. Aren't you freezing out here?"
"It's not so bad," she answered, relieved that her voice only trembled a little.
The wind whistled through the pines as he stood looking at her. "May I join you?" he finally asked.
No. Go away and leave me in peace. "I was just about ready to turn in."
He reached out as if to touch her arm, then checked the movement. "Stay a moment with me. Please?"
She studied his features, wishing the moon were full so she could see him a little more clearly. Every instinct warned her that lingering here would be dangerous, especially when her thoughts were filled with the remembered passion between them and the feel of his hands upon her skin.
But she couldn't walk away.
Oh, sweet mercy. She couldn't leave. What was wrong with her? She hated Zack all over again for the ache in her throat, the heaviness in her chest. For breaking her heart into tiny jagged pieces, which she still couldn't seem to make fit back together completely.
He sat beside her on the wide log, sending out an ambient heat that seemed to seep through her jacket. She wanted to burrow closer to that warmth, but she knew it wouldn't be enough to thaw the cold that had been inside her for ten years.
They sat in silence for several moments, lost in the night and the past He was the first to break it.
"I thought I could forget you," he murmured.
She stiffened at his quiet words. She didn't want to hear this. The urge to run back to the safety of her tent was overwhelming, but pride and something else—an unwilling compulsion to know—kept her glued to the log.
"I wanted to forget you," he went on. "That was my plan. Move on to the next town, bury myself in hard work and forget all about the Diamond Harte and Star Valley and the pretty blue-eyed girl with the long brown hair and the smile that could make me feel a hundred feet tall."
"Why?"
The word was wrenched out of her, and she hated herself for asking it and hated him more for forcing her to ask. Why did he want to forget her? Why had he left in the first place?
"Survival," he answered, his voice grim. "It was sheer torture remembering those nights I held you in my arms. Remembering all the dreams we made together and the future we planned. Somehow I ended up on the rodeo circuit. Those first few months after I left, I think I probably spent more time in the bottle than sober."
She pictured him ten years younger, desperate and drunk. "If you were so miserable, why didn't you just come back?"
"I almost did a hundred times. But I knew nothing had changed. I was still the wrong man for you."
She bit her tongue to hold back the bitter words that wanted to flow out like vinegar from a spilled bottle.
"I tried my damnedest to forget you. But I couldn't. For ten years I remembered the way you always smelled like wildflowers. The way you tucked your hair behind your ear when you were concentrating on something. The way your mouth would soften like warm caramel when I kissed you."
She shivered, not from the cold this time but from a slow, achy heat she didn't want to face.
"Is that supposed to matter to me?" she snapped, to cover her reaction. "That once in a while you spared a thought for the stupid, naive girl you left behind?"
"Not only once in a while. Much more often than that."
She drew in a shaky breath. "Slater, you could have tattooed my name across your forehead for all I care. It still wouldn't change the basic fact that you left."
His mouth tightened. "I had reasons. I told you that. At the time it seemed like the best decision all around."
"Oh, right I almost forgot Salt River's evil drug cartel that was going to arrange things so you were thrown in jail."
"Damn it, Cassie. I'm telling the truth. I was threatened with exactly that. Ask yourself this. How would you have faced your friends, your brothers, if the man you planned to marry went to prison?"
"We'll never know, will we?"
He opened his mouth as if to say something, then snapped it shut again. An uneasy silence descended between them again, and he picked up a stone and skipped it into the lake, where it bounced five times, one more than her own personal best. Where the stone hit water, ripples spread out in ever-widening circles that shimmered in the moonlight.
"I figured you'd be long married by now to some prosperous rancher," he finally said. "Even though that was what I wanted for you, I hated picturing you with a house and a husband and a pack of kids."
She had to close her eyes at the raw note in his voice. She wouldn't let him get to her. She couldn't.
"When I found out you never married, that you were working at the Lost Creek, I realized I had to come back to find out why."
Why had she never married? Because no one else had ever asked her. Maybe someone might have if she hadn't always constructed an invisible wall of protection around her wounded heart that no man had ever been able to breach.
"Wait a minute." Her attention finally caught on his words. "How did you find out I never married?"
In the moonlight she thought she saw his color change slightly, and he refused to meet her gaze, looking out at the water instead.
Finally he shrugged. "I sent out private investigators. You weren't very hard to find."
Of course she wasn't hard to find. She had never gone anywhere. All her life, the only time she had been beyond a hundred-mile radius of Star Valley was the time she and Lucy spent a week with Matt at a stock show in Denver.
She hadn't been anywhere, hadn't done anything, hadn't lived beyond the insular world she had known all her life. The world had marched on in the last ten years—just look at how much Slater had changed—while she had stayed behind, forever frozen in ice.
Waiting for him.
No. No she wasn't. She denied it vehemently. She had done what she had to do, stayed and raised her niece and helped her brother. She couldn't regret that.
She loved it here. She had a good life. Good friends, her family. Once she bought Murphy's in town, she would have everything she had ever needed.
Still, her face burned and she wanted to press a hand to the sudden slippery self-disgust flipping around in her stomach like one of those trout.
It was far easier to focus her anger at him. "You sent hired dogs after me?"
He grew still, his eyes suddenly cautious over her tone. "Cassie..."
"Am I supposed to be flattered by that?"
"You're not supposed to be anything."
"So that's why Maverick decided to buy the Lost Creek. You found out the ranch was for sale and figured maybe I was, too."
"No. Of course not."
"I don't care how much money you have, Slater, and I never did. You're the only one who cared about that. If you bought the ranch with some crazy, misguided idea that I would fall back into your arms, you've wasted your money."
Now she wasn't cold anymore. She was burning up, an angry inferno, and she embraced the heat. She only prayed it would blaze hot enough that the little part of her still clinging to the past would burn away into cinders.
She rose and glared at him. "I was stupid enough to fall for you once, Slater. You can be damn sure I won't make the same mistake again."
She whirled and marched away, leaving him sitting by the small mountain lake, watching after her.
* * *
Chapter 8
« ^ »
Zack lay in his sleeping bag, watching his breath puff out in little clouds in the cold predawn air.
He hadn't slept more than an hour or two all night, and those had been restless, tortured with dreams of her. In one, she had been standing above him on a high glassy tower flanked by hundreds of giant steps, each taller than he was. Every time he tried to hoist himself up and managed to make it within a few steps from her, she moved a little higher up the tower.
Forever out of reach.
The dream's symbolism didn't escape him. He huffed out a breath, grimly aware that he'd messed this whole thing up from the day he came back. What had seemed like such a great idea in Denver—doing everything he could to persuade her to give him another chance—now seemed quixotic in the extreme.
How could he undo the past? Even if he had the power to do so, she wouldn't let him close enough to try healing the wounds his desertion had inflicted on her spirit.
His presence here was torture for both of them. He was beginning to see that. She wanted him to leave so she could get back to the life she had made for herself.
And he wanted to stay so badly he ached with it.
He should just give up. Cut his losses and go on back to Denver. Every time he considered it, though, he remembered the way she had responded to his kiss earlier in the week. The way she shivered if they accidentally touched. The color that climbed her cheeks whenever she caught him looking at her, as he knew he did far too often.
She wasn't immune to him. She'd be lying if she said she was. Even if her mind and her heart couldn't see beyond his past sins, her body was more than willing to forgive and forget.
If only he could manage to convince the rest of her that he deserved that forgiveness.
Or convince himself.
He sighed and rolled over just as he heard the zip and rustle of someone climbing out of a tent nearby.
Cassie.
It had to be. As camp cook she was probably trying to get a head start on breakfast before the rest of the guests and wranglers woke up.
Without stopping to debate the wisdom of confronting her again so soon after their encounter the night before, he moved quietly. He slipped his jeans on over the thermals he'd been wise enough to pack, grateful once more that he had remembered how cold it could get in the Wyomingmountains, even in June.
He shoved his boots on quietly, then grabbed his denim jacket and Stetson.
Outside in the frosty mountain air, he saw her crouched at the fire ring, busy trying to coax the embers back to life. She wore a forest-green ranch coat but her head was bare, her short-cropped dark hair tousled and sexy from sleep. He imagined it would probably look exactly like that after making love all night.
A low groan rumbled in his chest as his unruly body stirred at the mental image. After a moment of fierce concentration, he managed to force it away and offered what he hoped was a harmless smile.
If he expected a smile in return—or any sign at all that she was happy to see him—he was doomed to disappointment. She glowered but went back to work trying to kindle a blaze.
Undeterred, he stepped closer. "Need help?"
For a moment he thought she was going to refuse his offer, then she shrugged and rose to her feet. "Knock yourself out. I need to get some water for coffee."
He took her place, then watched as she grabbed a small bag from inside her tent, then picked up one of coffeepots. She flipped on a flashlight
against the early-morning darkness, then disappeared through the trees toward the lake.
She hadn't left matches for him, he noted with a wry grin. And the embers were as cold as her heart.
Little brat. Did she expect him to rub a couple of sticks together? Joke's on you, sweetheart, he thought, and dug into the pocket of his jacket for his lighter. A few moments later he had a nice little fire snapping to ward off the chill.
A slightly ridiculous sense of pride glowed in him as brightly as the flames while he warmed his hands in the heat emanating from the fire.
When she returned a few moments later carrying the coffeepot filled with water, her hair was wet and under control, her face damp and clean.
A memory flashed through his mind of that first cattle drive they went on, the one that had started everything between them. He had been amazed and intrigued that she had somehow managed to stay fresh and clean and pretty even when trail dust covered everyone else in a fine layer.
He had noticed the boss's younger sister long before then—how could he not?—but he had kept those very facts uppermost in his mind. She was the boss's sister. And she was young.
He was far too wise a man to mess up a good job over a girl, no matter how pretty and fresh she might be. Besides that, she was far too young and innocent for a rough man like him.
Still, on the trip he had seen another side of her. She had been funny and gutsy and mature beyond her years. And she had looked at him with a wary attraction in her blue eyes that he had been helpless to resist.
She still looked at him that way, whether she was conscious of it or not. That, more than anything else, kept him in Star Valley when he knew damn well he should have given up and gone back to Denver days ago. As soon as he found out about Melanie.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and approached her at the big four-burner propane camp stove, with its prep counter and griddle. "What else can I do to help?"
"Nothing. Everything's under control here."
Except me, he thought. "Can I get you more wood for the fire?"
CASSIDY HARTE AND THE COMEBACK KID Page 11