She dropped her gaze. Which was worse—having Jack think she was mentally compromised or wondering if he suspected what she and Ian had been doing?
Which had been talking. And him checking her ribs. And barely even the lightest of light petting. She should not feel as if she’d done something embarrassing. She hadn’t done anything except be unable to get her bra on by herself.
And be unable to tell Ian no. Or yes. She didn’t know which was worse.
“I won’t,” she promised. “I’m okay. Really. We’ll see you in the morning.”
Jack nodded and left shortly thereafter. And then Lacy was, once again, alone with Ian.
He took the camp chair Jack had vacated, grabbed another slice of pizza, and popped another beer. “It’s going to be cool tonight,” he casually observed. “We’ll have to climb in the truck before much longer.”
She nodded. It was nearly dark now, and there was something about the darkness that put her more on edge. Darkness hid things. Darkness let people move around unseen.
And she’d be in the dark all night with Ian. Who was still acting as if they were friends and nothing more.
She didn’t like that. She didn’t like that he could seemingly turn his attraction on and off. Okay, so she might be a little jealous of that—she’d give anything to not have this heavy weight pulling at her inner thighs—but if he wanted her that badly, couldn’t he at least act like it?
What if he was playing around? What if he wasn’t interested in her, Lacy Evans, semiprofessional hot mess—what if he just wanted to get laid?
The thought made her mildly nauseous. But then, he’d been up front from the beginning—no strings, friends with benefits. There’d been none of those wild promises about how he couldn’t live without her. If he’d said anything along those lines, she would have known he was in it for the sex. If he were trying to get laid—why insist that she had to tell him to start? Why not kiss her into submission when he had the chance?
But instead, after she’d said not yet, he’d let her go, helped her put her shirt and her boots on and held her hat for her until she’d wanted it. If he were playing her, he must be playing a hell of a long game.
“You’re awfully quiet over there.”
This simple observation made her startle, which pulled on her ribs. She grimaced. “I’m just, uh, thinking.”
She thought she saw him smile. “About?”
What she needed right now was a lie. And a good one. “About how I’m going to drive home like this.”
Ian grabbed another piece of pizza, and then nudged the box in her direction. “Eat, Evans.” He waited until she had taken a bite, and then asked, “Where are you going to be next weekend?”
“Pierre, I think.” Somehow, South Dakota felt almost as far away as Oklahoma. “You?”
“Same.” She saw him stretch out his legs and tuck his arms behind his head. “I have a proposition for you.”
She blurted out, “Another one?”
There was a pause, during which she got the feeling he was giving her a look that would definitely cause her to start squirming, if only she could properly see it. “I left my truck at home on the rez and flew to West Virgina,” he finally said. “I rode down with Jack to his home in Texas for the week. I was going to ride back up with him to South Dakota, where my dad will pick me up and take me home so I can get my truck. Or...”
“Or?” Why did that one little word set her body on fire?
“Or I can come home with you. I don’t like the idea of you driving across Tornado Alley with two bulls in a trailer by yourself.”
Her heart began to pound. Just take Ian home with her? As if it was no big deal? As if no one would notice that she’d up and driven off with one of the bullfighters?
And then—well, then he’d be at the Straight Arrow. In her house—her parents’ house. She’d never brought a boy home to meet her family before they died. She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about the idea of Ian being alone in her house with her.
She shivered. No, she didn’t have a single freaking clue how she was supposed to feel about this “proposition” at all. “You don’t have to like it,” she heard herself say. “I can still do it.”
She caught a flash of white. “Can and should are two different things.” Before she could protest further, he said, “You can think about it. We’ve got a few more days of sleeping in a truck to get through first.”
Wait, what? He was going to stay with her for the next two nights?
He stood and stretched. “Come on,” he said, holding out his hand to her. “I’m getting cold.”
They climbed into the cab. Well, Ian climbed. He half lifted her into the driver’s seat. “You got your pillows?”
“Yes.” He’d insisted on snagging some of the pillows from the hotel and she had a fleece throw that her dad had always kept in the truck.
Ian reached behind her until he found the throw. “Second time today I’ve tucked you in,” he said. She tried to get comfortable, but they were sitting in the dark. In the silence. There probably weren’t enough drugs in the world to make this situation comfortable for her.
“Tell me about home,” she said, because she felt they should be talking, but she didn’t want to talk about her.
“Home,” he repeated. “Home is grass and sky and cows.”
The way he talked was softer now. Some of the words came out longer. “Your accent is so pretty.” She shifted again. This was not helping. The sharp stabbing in her ribs had dulled to a throbbing ache. She tried to look on the bright side. At least if she was in this much pain, she wouldn’t run the risk of falling asleep.
“Here.” The next thing she knew, Ian had flipped the seat divider back and was gently pulling her into his arms. “Lean on me.”
“Um...” He all but lifted her onto his lap, snagging the pillow that had been under her head and wedging it under his own. Then he settled his massive arms around her waist, careful to avoid her ribs. His hands were resting on her belly—under the blanket.
“There,” he said when she was sitting between his legs, her back pressed against his chest muscles. “Think of me as your human heating pad.”
“Ian.” She was horrified to hear that her voice had dropped to a whisper again. Why did it keep doing that every single time he touched her? He didn’t seem affected by her body pressing against his. She shouldn’t be, either. She could be cooler than this, by God. She would be, even if it killed her.
“Easy, babe.” This time, his voice was deep and low and right in her ear. The warmth of his breath seemed to trickle down the back of her neck, sending shivers over her skin all the way down her back. “You haven’t told me I can do anything yet. Let me hold you so you don’t hurt as much. That’s all this is. Try to get some sleep.”
“I don’t sleep.” He was considerably more comfortable than the driver’s-side seat had been and yes, she could feel the heat of his body already warming her. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to relax. The tension of keeping her back straight was not helping her ribs.
“Why not?”
How was she supposed to answer that? Tell him about the nightmares? How she usually woke up screaming and crying and reliving car accidents and abandonments and so much work yet to do, and knowing she was responsible for all of it?
No, she was weak enough right now. Busted up, unable to drive or take care of her bulls—hell, she couldn’t even take care of herself.
“Don’t need to,” she said. Almost against her will, her back eased against his chest.
He shifted his head and she felt his chin rest on the top of her head. “You’re a lousy liar, you know that? I hope you don’t play poker.”
It was time to change the subject. “Tell me about home,” she said. She leaned her head back against his shoulde
r. “Tell me something about you. Something secret.” That way, she might feel as if she had leveled the playing field ever-so-slightly.
Everything about him tensed up—she could feel it as his hands tightened against her and in the way his chest muscles went rock hard against her back. “I...” His words seemed to get stuck in his throat and then he moved—maybe burying his nose in her hair?
She just wanted to hear him talk, so she tried a different approach. “Tell me about growing up.”
“Growing up...” He sighed, his breath ruffling her hair. The tension left his body. “My dad is a managing partner for a cattle ranch north of the rez—the America’s Real Pride Ranch, although that wasn’t what it was called when I was growing up. It was the D&J—Dave and Joseph. They got off the rez and scraped together enough money to buy some land and some cows.”
His accent was so much thicker right now. So pretty. It seemed to suit him more than the generic Midwestern accent he often used. She let her eyes drift closed as she tried to picture a home that was nothing but grass and sky. The cows part she didn’t have trouble picturing.
“I was working cattle from when I was old enough to sit in a saddle,” he went on.
“Me, too.”
“Then you know what it’s like.”
“Castrating calves and branding and manure and getting up early? Yeah, I know.”
He chuckled. Lacy felt it in her whole body. “That’s it. My mom died when I was still really little. I don’t remember her much.”
“I’m so sorry.” Unexpectedly, her throat tried to close up. “It’s hard to lose your parents.”
They sat in silence for a moment longer. “It’s okay, babe,” he whispered in her ear.
“It’s fine,” she quickly insisted, but she knew it was a lie.
He knew it, too. He sighed heavily and held her a little tighter. “You want to talk about it?”
“No.” Because she didn’t. She didn’t even have a clue about where to start. “Tell me about growing up with June. Did you know she was going to be a famous bull rider?”
“Junie? Hell, no. Our moms were sisters. That side of the family...” She felt him shaking his head. “Anyway, her dad is in jail and her mom was a drunk. So there’d be days when I’d wake up and find June on the couch. She’d have stolen a car or a horse and made it the ten miles across the rez to our ranch, and either Dad would let her in or she’d break in.”
“Dude, really?”
“Really. So she was this irritating big sister, basically. Anything I could do, she could do better, and woe unto the person who told her she couldn’t. That’s why she rides bulls. Her dad said she couldn’t and she had to prove him wrong.”
“Tell me a story about you two growing up.” Lacy shifted so she could rest her head against his chest and feel the rumble of his voice. “Tell me a nice story.”
“Hmm...” He all but hummed it in her ear and for some reason, it sounded like a cat purring. “Will you sleep if I tell you a story?”
“I don’t sleep,” she reminded him, but her body betrayed her with a yawn. “Besides, I’m supposed to be watching my bulls.”
He shifted then, one of his massive hands leaving her stomach. He brushed her crazy hair to the side and then his fingertips traced her face. That warmed her almost as much as his chest did. “I will keep watch.”
“It’s my responsibility,” she said defensively. She didn’t know why. “Mine, and mine alone.”
His fingertips stroked over her cheek. “And you are mine.”
Everything about that should have set off warning bells. Her brain struggled mightily to come up with the reasons why she was absolutely not his responsibility—she was no one’s responsibility because she was without a real family or a proper name.
But her body betrayed her yet again. Stupid body. Her muscles gave up the fight with her brain and she sank back against his chest, her eyelids drifting shut. Safe, she thought as she said, “Better be a damn good story.”
“We raised cattle,” he began, his voice low and his accent so thick she wanted to reach out and stroke it with her hands. “But on the line between our land and the rez, there lived a herd of buffalo. They belonged to the land, to the grass and the sky.”
She could see it in her mind, the sea of grass and the blue sky and the dark shapes moving through as though hundreds of years hadn’t passed the animals into the modern era. “How many?” she murmured, nuzzling against his chest.
“Over three hundred. The tribe had the official papers, but my father and Joseph kept an eye on them. Which meant June and I kept an eye on them. One day, she was driving me crazy—it was early summer and it was hot. We came upon a buffalo cow who’d been scraping her winter fur off on a barbed wire fence and she’d gotten tangled up in the wire.”
“Was she hurt?”
“Naw. Her hide was too tough—nothing gets through their skin, really. So we were untangling her and Junie was driving me crazy. She’s almost as stubborn as you, you know.”
“I’m not stubborn,” Lacy said with another yawn. “I’m just right all the time.”
Oh, the sound—the feel—of his laughter was something real, something right. “That you are, my girl. That you are.”
“Not your girl. Not your babe, either.” She didn’t know why she was arguing with him. Not when she was sinking into the heat of his chest.
She could feel his fingers moving again, this time stroking her hair. “Do you want to hear the end of this story or not?”
“I do,” she admitted. She also wanted him to keep stroking her like that. It felt so good, so lovely—her rib didn’t even throb right now. That was probably the meds, but everything else was Ian. The warmth, the heat, the stroking... “What happened next?”
“I said she couldn’t ride a buffalo and she said she could. So when the cow was almost untangled, June climbed up on that hairy back and held on and when I cut the last wire free, those two took off. The buffalo didn’t buck or anything—she ran, shaking her back like June was this itty-bitty fly. I think June made it all of twenty feet before she lost her grip and went down.”
Lacy tried to picture the woman she’d seen in videos riding No Man’s Land clinging to the back of a pissy buffalo cow. “Was she hurt?”
“Who, June? Hell, no. She popped up out of the grass and said, ‘See? I told you I could ride a buffalo!’”
Lacy chuckled sleepily. “All because you said she couldn’t.”
“Yup.” He shifted underneath her and Lacy felt his lips press against the top of her head. “Sleep.”
“No,” she protested, and she didn’t miss how childish she sounded. “More stories.”
“Hmm,” Ian hummed again. “And what am I going to get in exchange for all these stories?”
“I don’t have anything worth exchanging. Nothing except the bulls.” As she said it, sadness took hold of her. All she had was the bulls, but that no longer included Wreck. God, how was she ever going to make it now?
“That’s not true, darlin’.” His fingers moved from her hair to her cheek again and instead of the crushing panic of failing, she felt light. Free, almost. As free as she’d felt in a long, long time. “Let’s say...you owe me one.”
“Just one,” she murmured. She could feel sleep pulling at her and she wanted to sink into its soft warmth and be. But she wanted to keep listening to Ian’s voice, his unusual accent. “Don’t stop talking.”
“Babe, I’ll talk all night if you sleep.” He chuckled and she really was floating. “Old stories, then? Of Iktomi the Trickster and Coyote and Deer Woman?”
“Mmm,” which was supposed to be “Okay” but didn’t make it.
“Iktomi was the Trickster,” he began with no other introduction. “He was a spider and a man at the same time...”
She
drifted on the warmth that was Ian, his voice vibrating through her even when she no longer understood the words.
Safe, she thought.
She could sleep and it’d be okay. Ian and his voice would keep the nightmares away.
She knew he’d still be there in the morning.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“NO.”
The word—half cried, half begged—was whispered into the silence of the truck’s cab, pulling Ian out of the half doze he’d been stuck in. Instantly he was on high alert, scanning the view outside the windshield for danger. The sky was that dim gray that signaled dawn was only a few minutes off. He didn’t see anything wrong. No skulking shadows, no busted metal, no runaway bulls.
Lacy. She was lying on his chest—okay, good. She hadn’t woken up and bailed on him. But something was wrong. She was shaking her head, her body twitching with fear.
“Lacy,” he whispered softly in her ear. “It’s okay. I’m here.”
“No,” she repeated, and this time, her voice was nothing but pain. Pain and sorrow so deep it hurt him to hear it.
Was he supposed to wake her up or let her ride it out? He couldn’t remember. But when she whimpered again, he couldn’t take it. “Wake up, babe. It’s just a dream.”
She thrashed her head again and he began to worry she was going to reinjure her ribs. “Lacy,” he said more firmly. “Lacy, wake up.”
She sat bolt upright and cried, “No!” Which was followed closely by a sob.
“I’m right here.” He put his hand on her shoulder and tried to pull her back down.
She wasn’t having any of it. “They’re gone,” she said. “They left me and she didn’t want me and I’m all alone.”
“Lacy,” he said. He honestly couldn’t tell if she was still asleep or not. “You’re not alone. I’m here.”
She startled. When she twisted around and looked at him, it hurt him to see tears streaking down her cheeks. “Ian?”
Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set Page 39