by Cindy Gerard
It was when he’d realized that he was wanting to do a little looking in that direction, that he’d known he had to get his head back on straight. He’d never had a need to know a woman that way before. Never felt the need to get close. The unexpected pull that he’d felt toward Sloan was far more dangerous than the prospect of crawling on the back of one ton of short-fused dynamite in the guise of lazy-eyed cowhide. Far more dangerous.
So he’d talked D.U. into heading south—not because he was running, he told himself. He didn’t run from anything. He just needed a couple weeks’ distance from that country girl to hunt up a little perspective.
Damned if he hadn’t found it, too, he thought with satisfaction as he shifted in the seat and stretched his neck with a shoulder roll. Perspective was all it had taken to get him back in the winner’s circle again. He’d won the day money twice in Colorado, and the allaround in Texas, so he knew his slump was over.
He did spare a grinning thought, though, that maybe that kiss he’d finagled out of her might have changed his luck a little bit. It had been some kiss. Sweet and spicy. Hot and honeyed. And, lest he forget, laced with the temptation to make some promises he knew he couldn’t keep.
Lesson learned, he thought resolutely as he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel: don’t waste time or energy trying to tame a wild rose. Yes, it was pretty. And, oh, my, did it smell sweet. But getting tangled in the brambles did things to a man’s head. Things that interfered with basic life plans, philosophy, and goals. She was a forever kind of woman. He was a temporary kind of man. And he didn’t want anybody—especially her—getting hurt by expectations that didn’t have a calf roper’s chance with an elephant of being met.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he thought of how close he’d come to making a major mistake. Man, he still didn’t know what he’d been thinking. He’d been treading some dangerous ground with that girl. He’d been playing his usual kind of games but not with his usual type of playmate—and before he’d known it, she’d upped the ante and he couldn’t afford to play anymore. So he’d folded on a losing hand while he still had his shirt and his heart exactly where he wanted them.
He concentrated on the center line with a scowl when he realized she had him thinking about hearts, for pity sake. Her heart, and how he had the ability to break it. His heart, and how she just might be the one who could take it.
Either possibility set the hair on the back of his neck on end. So did the knowledge that he’d let her get to him in a way no woman ever had before.
Well, he didn’t have to worry about any more danger from that front. That was all behind him.
He felt so settled in his newfound perspective, in fact, that he’d decided to make a long overdue trip home. That’s why the truck was heading for Jackson Hole. The last few times his mother had called to check on him, she’d reminded him about a family celebration she didn’t want him to miss. It was time to let her see up close and personal what he had difficulty convincing her of long distance: that he was still in one piece.
A smile tipped his lips at the thought of seeing his family again. Of the things that was solid and steady and pulled at him, it always came down to that. His family was special. And yet, going home was always one of the hardest things he had to do.
The ache was always there. The hollow, gutchurning sense of loss he’d felt since he was thirteen, the year his father had died.
He hit the low beams when a semi blinked at him, and pushed those thoughts away. He couldn’t afford to fall into that well. He couldn’t lose his concentration now. He was climbing back toward the top. The national finals in Vegas in December was a little more than three months away and he aimed to go into it in the number one position to insure he’d win the title.
He didn’t have time for indulgence—in memories that haunted him, or in forbidden fantasies about a forever kind of woman, who, fortunately, he’d gotten out from under his skin before she’d settled in fever deep.
“Weddings and babies,” Jesse mumbled under his breath as he looked around the backyard of the property his mother, Maya, now shared with her new husband, Logan Bradford. There seemed to be a rash of them in this family these days. The fact was, it made him a little nervous.
Slowly nursing a soda and halfway wishing it was a cold beer, he let his gaze drift around the yard. His mother, happily remarried a year ago February after fifteen years as a widow, was in her glory.
Her face was glowing. Jesse knew that her glittering smiles had as much to do with her own happiness as it did with the fact that all of her boys, Garrett, Clay, and himself, were home.
He couldn’t stall a grin as he watched Clay, who stood with his arm around his wife, Maddie. Lord, that girl had led Clay on a merry chase. For a while there the odds had been in the favor of her murdering him instead of marrying him, but to look at them now you’d never know it The baby girl in her arms told the tale.
“All this marital and baby bliss giving you any ideas, little brother?” Garrett joined Jesse on the deck and eased a hip onto the corner of a wrought-iron table.
“More like I’ve been hoping it’d take the heat off.”
“One of these days,” Garrett said with a big grin and little sympathy, “some sweet little girl is going to knock the saddle out from under you and you’ll fold just like Clay and I did.”
When an errant thought of Sloan Gantry careened into his head, he quickly shot it right back out again.
“You’re beginning to sound like Mom,” he muttered.
Garrett smiled. “She doesn’t like seeing you alone.”
“That, and she doesn’t like my choice of profession and figures a wife and little ones will make me give it up for something more respectable.”
“I believe less dangerous is the key here.”
Jesse couldn’t stop his family from worrying. But he did what he could to minimize their concern. After the first few cracked ribs and the slight concussion in his rookie year, he’d learned to keep his injuries to himself. And when the media got wind of a mishap, he downplayed it as much as he could. Breaks, bruises, and stitches went with the territory. So did the thrills. And it was the thrills that kept him going back for more.
“Riding bulls isn’t dangerous,” he said with a sideways grin. “It’s bucking off that gets you into trouble. I try to make it a habit not to let that happen.”
“At least not too often these days,” Garrett agreed, but with unspoken emphasis on the fact that even the best bull rider hit the dirt every once in a while—Jesse’s recent slump, a case in point. “Aren’t you afraid one of those hay burners is going to mess up that pretty-boy face of yours? Then you’ll end up lookmg like ole D.U. over there and never find yourself a good woman.”
“He does all right with the ladies.” Jesse grinned over at D.U., whom he’d dragged along with him to the house. “There’s something about him—like he’s so ugly they find him cute—that works for him.”
Garrett chuckled. “Just take care of yourself, okay? Mom worries. We all worry.” With a firm squeeze of Jesse’s shoulder, Garrett rose and strode back to Emma’s side.
Those two had something special going for them, Jesse conceded as he watched them together. They had a bond that had pulled them through a real rough time a while back. Nine-year-old Sara and the baby boy in Emma’s arms was testament to that bond. They’d named him Jonathan, after his grandfather. Even from across the yard, where they sat under a shade tree, Jesse swore he could see a resemblance to the baby’s namesake.
You’d have been proud of them, Dad, Jesse thought, a mix of emotions crowding in on him as he looked at his brothers. For as wild and unruly as they’d been as kids, the James boys had done all right for themselves. Garrett and Clay had taken over the construction business Jonathan had founded, and together, they’d made it a success.
But what would he think of you, Jess? Would he praise you for going your own road or would he come down on you for your inability to settle down and for
worrying your mother at every turn?
That was something Jesse would never know. He’d been barely thirteen when his father died. He’d felt cheated ever since. Cheated, aimless, and reckless. And somehow, he’d just never been able to shake it the way Garrett and Clay had. They’d done their grieving and then gotten on with the business of life.
But Jesse...he’d always felt as if he was a little stalled in time—that time. He could still see his father’s prideful grin when he’d called Jesse his maverick, his outlaw, his wild child. Sometimes he swore he could still hear his voice. No one’s ever going to tame that youngest boy of mine.
Well, his father had been right. Jesse had made sure he never stayed in one place long enough to let anyone get close enough to tame him.
He’d almost slipped up with Sloan. Almost.
He took another long pull on his soda as he watched his brothers and their wives and the unbridled and unrestricted joy on their faces. The thoughts formed before he could stop them, tightening into a knot in his gut. Was he missing out on something, after all? After years of living on the edge, of fulfilling his father’s prophesy and answering to no one but himself, was there something—someone—who could dull this increasingly hollow ache that he’d long denied stemmed from loneliness? Was that what this business of one man and one woman was all about?
“We gotta be leavin’, kid, if we’re gonna make Launders for tonight’s go-round.”
Jesse turned at the sound of D.U.’s voice. He let go of a heavy breath before breaking into a teasing grin. “You ole saddle tramp, you’re just itching to get to the motel and put in a call to that checkout clerk you got so chummy with the last time we were there.”
D.U. turned as red as his kerchief and gave Jess a lopsided smile. “Well, shoot, Jess. Can’t blame a guy for a little wishful thinkin’.”
No, Jesse agreed as he glanced again at his brothers and for a brief moment envied the richness of their lives. You can’t blame a guy for a little wishful thinking.
When he rose to say his goodbyes, and Sloan’s dark eyes came to mind again, he shoved the image away, reminded himself of two very basic facts. One, he wasn’t cut out to be a family man. And two, even if he was, it wasn’t in his nature to be the kind of man a woman like her needed in her life.
Both Jesse and D.U. placed in the money in Launders. They left early the next morning and made Bozeman by noon. For a change, they were ahead of the game. Sometimes, they didn’t make an event much before it was time to ride, then had to hit the road again right after the competition. This time, however, they had a day to spare. The rodeo didn’t start until tomorrow night. It was a welcome physical rest for both of them before they tucked into the upcoming five-day event.
Since he’d slept most of the night while Jesse drove, D.U. was revved and ready to go. Jesse had dropped him off to visit some friends on the east side of town then driven on to the motel they always stayed in when they were here.
The motel was your basic three-story, U-shaped building. Their room was on the bottom floor, in the belly of the U, with parking right outside their firstfloor door. Jesse was in the process of unloading his gear from the truck and relishing the prospect of a lazy afternoon nap, when he sensed he was being watched.
He turned slowly, surveyed the length of the parking lot, then let his gaze track down the row of doors to the pint-size cowpoke perched on a parking curb not five stalls away.
He was a squirt of a kid, couldn’t have been more than four or five, not much taller than three and a half feet—part of that, his hat—as he sat there, drilling Jesse with a look that landed somewhere between speculation and awe.
Amused, Jesse tipped his hat. “Hey, cowboy.”
“Hey,” the little guy said, sober as a judge. He looked Jesse over from boot tip to hat brim. “Yer Jesse James.”
Jesse grinned, surprised that the kid knew his way around a rodeo. “That would be me.”
“Yer pretty good,” he said generously, after another long, measuring look, “but he’ll buck ya off.”
So much for hero worship.
Scratching his head and working to tone down his smile, Jesse walked over and hunkered down beside the boy. “I’ve been bucked off a lot of bulls,” he said, looking into a pair of serious brown eyes that, as impossible as it seemed, looked startlingly familiar. “Which one do you figure is gonna flatten my hat this time?”
“Oh, it’ll be Baby,” he said without hesitation. “Ain’t nobody can ride Baby—‘cept me, a’course.”
“Ah.” Jesse nodded sagely, playing to the pride in the little guy’s voice. “He’s a rank one, all right. Figure you can handle him, though, do ya?”
“Yeah. I ride him all the time—well, leastwise when my mom lets me.”
Jesse nodded with the severity the conversation deserved, fought to hold his straight face, and strung along with the fantasy. “Moms don’t go much for their boys growing up to be cowboys. Yours must be mighty understanding.”
For the first time, a smile lit that sober little face. Cherubs never looked sweeter, though Jesse didn’t doubt there was all boy and a lot of ornery behind that angelic grin.
“Yeah, and she’s pretty, too,” he added with pride.
“Is that a fact? Well, a man can’t ask for much more than a rank bull to ride and the sight of a pretty face to tuck him into bed at night. More than one night’s past when that would have made me a happy man.”
Why Sloan’s face came to mind, he didn’t want to say. But, suddenly, he couldn’t stop the picture that developed any more than he could fool himself into believing he hadn’t taken it to bed with him every night for longer than he cared to remember. Midnight-black hair spilling across his chest, melting chocolate eyes smiling into his—
Eyes the same color and shape as the boy’s, he thought abruptly.
A feeling he couldn’t quite get a handle on, sent a prickle of unease scuttling up the back of his neck. Through narrowed eyes, he gave the boy a long, studied look.
“What’s your name, cowboy?” he asked cautiously, just as the sound of a motel door opening behind him brought his head up.
“Noah, come back inside, honey. If you want to go to the pool, we’ve got to get you into your swimsuit.”
Jesse couldn’t see behind the open door. He didn’t have to. He’d know that honeyed-velvet voice anywhere. And now he knew why looking at the boy had made him think of Sloan.
He felt as if he’d just been thrown hard then gutstomped. And suddenly he understood what Sloan Gantry had meant when she’d talked about commitments.
This little boy was her child.
Stunned, he rose slowly as the boy scrambled to his feet.
“Mom,” Noah called, and with the innocence and the trust only a child possessed, snagged Jesse’s hand and tugged him toward the door. “I found me a bull rider.”
“Well, put him back,” she said laughing, “because you can’t keep...” Her voice drifted off when she stepped into the open doorway and spotted Jesse standing there. “Him,” she finished softly, and quickly looked away.
And Jesse, he just felt himself slipping a little deeper into a helpless muddle of emotions and thoughts too tangled to make sense of.
A child, he thought again numbly. And a body, he added morosely as she stood backlit by the light cast from the room in a slim black skin of a swimming suit. The clinging Lycra was cut high at her thigh, dipped in a deep vee between her breasts. By most accounts, it was modestly cut. By Jesse’s, it left nothing, absolutely nothing, to the imagination.
Her breasts were lushly full, the tips of her nipples, tightened by the crisp coolness of a slight September breeze, pressed provocatively against the stretchy fabric. Her waist was small, her hips slim, and her legs—hell, in blue jeans they were killers, but in the flesh, every tanned, toned inch of them was the stuff that dreams were made of. Dark dreams. Hot, sultry dreams.
Regaining her composure after her surprise at seeing him there, she nodded h
ello. “Hey, Jesse.”
“Hey, Country,” he croaked, and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Forgot you’d contracted for this shindig.”
Forgot, hell. He hadn’t forgotten. He’d just tried real hard not to remember. For all the good it had done—and for all the good it would do now that he had this picture of her to take to bed with him along with the one of her face tipped to the moonlight, her lips swollen from his kiss.
“Yeah, well...” She reached for Noah and pulled him in front of her as if he could shield her from Jesse’s dark stare. “Gets a little hectic on the road. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and have to rack my brain to remember where I am.”
She wouldn’t have that problem if she woke up in his bed, he thought darkly. She might not remember her name after he’d finished with her, but she’d damn sure know where she was—and who she was with.
As dangerous as the thought was, he couldn’t have squelched it any more than he could have moved from the spot.
“I see you’ve met Noah. Hope he hasn’t been talking your leg off.”
Jesse cut his gaze to the boy, stunned all over again to clearly see the resemblance to his mother through his eyes.
It was the child’s expectant grin that finally bumped him into responding. “We were just having us a little bull talk, right, cowboy?”
Noah’s head bobbed with his spreading smile.
“Well . . .” he heard Sloan say as he probed the depths of one pair of infectious brown eyes and then the other. “Sorry to run off, Jess, but I promised Noah we’d spend some time at the pool before I had to get back to work.”
She edged a little closer inside the room. He got the clear sense that she was running again. He wasn’t sure if that pleased him or ticked him off.
“Catch you later, then.”
“Yeah, later,” he mumbled, and roused himself enough to return Noah’s goodbye wave.