My throat is too tight to speak. I come forward because I can’t run from his need anymore. His face is still shadowed by darkness, I reach up, hands shaking, pause for a split second to see if he’ll do anything, he doesn’t move. I brush his lean cheeks. His skin is warm and rough beneath my fingers, a day’s stubble tickles my palms. I watch him from underneath my lashes. He doesn’t hide from me, though I can see he wants too, he’s not comfortable with me this close either. But he stands still and lets me look into him.
My breath catches in my throat at the loneliness there, hidden beneath the strength and determination. I have to ask and before I do I know the answer, “Colt, have you ever been in love?”
“No.” He says simply, there is a sheen in his eyes. Regret? I can’t be sure. It humbles me that he’s chosen me to spend this time with.
I’m beginning to understand and frighteningly accept what he wants from me.
“Why me?” I ask and my voice cracks.
He chuckles but it’s strained, he sobers up and he cups my chin, he looks right into my eyes, “because when I touched you today, I didn’t want to stop. That’s never happened to me before.”
I close my eyes to protect some part of my heart from what’s about to happen. I grip the sides of his face and seconds later I’m in his arms, how I get there is a mystery, I moved, he moved, I don’t know which happened first. My toes flirt with the ground, his chest is so hard it squeezes the breath from my lungs but I’m touching him and for now that’s all that matters.
Chapter four
“Wake up,” Colt’s voice comes from the darkness inside my tent that night.
I bolt up from my sleeping bag, rub the sleep from my eyes, turn to the sound. His face is next to mine, he’s kneeling on the ground, “what?” I ask, my heartbeat speeding up. Why is he in my tent?
“Dress warm and come with me,” he says and backs out of the tent.
Confused but curious I pull on a thick coat, a hat and some cotton gloves for good measure, I’m still wearing my jeans. It’s never warm on the mountains, even in summer.
I stagger outside, still half asleep. Cold air tickles my nose, I sneeze.
Colt reaches to my face, my breath comes up short. I think he’s going to kiss me but he just pulls my sheepskin hat firmly down over my ears.
“Let’s go for a ride,” he says excitedly.
Shocked, I stare like a beached fish, “Are you crazy!” I hiss trying to keep my voice low. There are five other single person tents clustered around our little banked fire. And it’s after midnight!
He laughs and in a diabolical move, he catches me up in his arms. He knows already that touching him brings me peace … and other things. Predictably my irritation vanishes. I succumb to the scent of smoke and whiskey on his skin still warmed from his own sleeping bag. I rest my face against his strong neck and feed my growing addiction to him by taking in long draughts of his scent. I sigh, his skin in so earthy and deep, the more I pull him into my lungs, the richer he tastes. I could literally stay here and smell him for the rest of the night.
And I’m becoming even greedier by the second because I can’t get enough of hugging him. Locked in his strong arms I feel that I will never fall.
He clears his throat, brings me back, his hands loosen around me. My cheeks burn as he puts me gently on my feet.
I look off, away from his eyes not ready to face what I’ve just put there with my actions, “where are we going?” I ask and my words quiver.
He chuckles and excitement burgeons in his voice, “you’ll know when we get there.”
He helps me up onto a fresh mare, my own still needs rest after the long day. He also mounts a different stallion.
We ride for about forty minutes, climb up and up past small boulders and rocks until the ground flattens out.
I pause to look back at our camp. It’s a small dot of white in the landscape sunken into slumber.
He comes close to me, “don’t be afraid,” he says softly, his eyes are on my face, open and calm.
“I’m not afraid,” I say and know it to be entirely true.
He clicks his horse into a trot, “it’s ten minutes up ahead. Let’s go.”
We arrive at a clearing. It’s not circular, more of a rough rectangle. It sorta dips down into a bowl. The horses pick their way down a little incline that is covered with thick thigh high grass all around. Spots of darkness show where boulders sit, lazy and immovable.
Eagerness starts to strum in blood. I draw closer, scramble quickly from my horse. Colt takes my bridle, leads the horses away to a lone tree sitting contently at one edge of the field.
He comes back and stands behind me. We don’t touch. The smell is what hits me first, like a growing wave. Bitter, sweet, pungent, and beneath this there is a peppery, hot fragrance that only the summer sun can bring out in flowers and wild herbs.
It tugs me deeper into the glade. Colt follows me like my shadow. Most of the flowers are tall, they sniff my ankles, brush my thighs. Their pale faces are open, turned up to the seductive pull of the moon hidden now behind thin streaks of clouds.
I stop and stand still somewhere in the middle of the glade. I close my eyes. It’s so amazing. I try not to breathe too loud to disturb the utter beauty of the midnight flowers, the moon and the trees who guard this oasis of natural perfection.
“Do you want to stay the night?” Colt’s voice is softly reverent. He already knows what I want.
“Yes,” I whisper and drag my gaze away from the flowers back to him.
His smile widens and he’s gone for several minutes before coming back with two sleeping bags. He’d come prepared.
I unroll mine in a short patch of grass, Colt lays his beside mine. We bunk down, eyes skyward. A handful of stars twinkle, the sky is a navy blue, gorgeous and ephemeral.
I turn to Colt, he feels my gaze and our eyes lock, “do you come here often?”
“Every time I’m in the area,” he holds my hands and shifts me so that my face points east. His long fingers extend upward over mine. He points at three bright stars which form a lop-sided triangle, “those are-”
“Vega, Altair and Deneb,” I supply and smile smugly at him, “I don’t just text all day you know.”
He laughs amused, “prove it.”
Moments, minutes, perhaps an hour passes as we cover a major chunk of the summer’s sky before I fumble.
“It’s a shark-” I say uncertainly eyeing what is indisputably the shape of a marine form.
“Wrong!” he pounces triumphantly and using my finger which he has not let go of the entire time, he traces the a shape just outside the summer triangle, “that’s Delphinius, named after a -”
“A dolphin,” I pout disagreeably.
He lowers his hand, wrapped around my fingers onto his chest, “I win,” he coos.
I huff, “I wasn’t aware this was a game.”
“Liar,” he rejoins swift as an eagle.
“What do you want?”
“Excuse me?” he asks and he actually sounds bewildered.
I narrow my eyes at him, “what do you want as your prize?” I ask, and my mouth goes dry, I’m not sure that I can give him what he may want.
He surprises me, the laughter vanishes from his face. He fingers soften and thread their way through mine. Mating our hands. A shiver of heat blossoms between our entwined hands, I begin to shiver, trembling in his arms. He can’t help but notice but he doesn’t say anything.
He brings my fingers to his lips and dusts a light, warm kiss across my knuckles. Each kiss makes me shiver harder but he’s merciless. He finishes with a warm, butterfly kiss in the center of my palm.
It’s too much, with a strangled sound I tug my hand back to the safety of my breasts.
He lets me go.
I clench my fingers into fists to stop the trembling and stare stonily ahead, “you shouldn’t have done that.”
“I know,” his voice is quiet, repentant. I’ve wiped out some of
his joy. And it hurts like an unexpectedly grazing from a fall, swift and intense.
This can’t be happening, some inner voice screams at me. I groan and turn away. I pummel the sleeping bag in frustration. When I stop he’s hitched up on his elbow watching me. A sardonic smile plays around the corners of his wide lips.
I wince, “I guess that was stupid.”
“Yep,” he drawls pragmatically.
He turns back to his stars.
I fumble towards the first thing to say. “What do you want for you prize,” I ask again.
“I’ve already got it,” he says without looking at me, then he does and I wish he hadn’t. His golden eyes are gentle now with contentment, he slides a forefinger down the tip of my nose and the embarrassing trembling comes roaring back, he looks me in the eye, “you,” he says.
All the unease and freedom I’d felt earlier comes crashing down and it’s as if I’m lying on a million pieces of broken glass.
I turn from him, “you don’t have me,” I mumble and it comes out as a whimper because now I’d give anything not to hurt him and I know that I will. I just don’t know how much.
He gets up and reaches for me and treacherously I melt into his arms.
He grips me and holds me close, breathing me in like I’d done him hours before. He whispers into the sensitive skin behind my earlobe, wrecking further havoc on my emotions.
His words are bittersweet, “remember what I said, whatever you’re willing to give me is what I want?”
It makes me cling tighter to him, I pull back and our faces are close, his mouth is inches away from mine, I force out his name, “Colt-”
“I know,” he says and his voice is raw. We’re both suffering from a loss that has not yet come. He brushes my lashes catching the tears there, he searches my eyes, “do you want to leave?” He’s trying to do the right thing.
But I’m not. As everything in my heart strains towards the one answer that makes sense however crazy and fucked up. And it’s the wrong one.
“No,” I say and dig deeper into the hard comfort of his arms.
His breath comes out in a small sigh of relief, “Then don’t think about it anymore, let it be.”
He never lets go of me and at some point I’m slipping into sleep and underneath my heavy lids rise specters of the awful mess I’m creating.
I’m in love with two men.
Two brothers.
And I can’t stop it.
Chapter five
I gallop my horse faster, spur him like demon across the sprawling foot of a mountain called Devil’s Middle. It’s rugged, with juts of rocks which looks up-thrust knives, daring any foolhardy climber to test its fourteen thousand feet of hell. Pine trees skirt safely down its middle and fan out towards the plain we’re cutting through.
Colt, in a black shirt and well-worn jeans looms up ahead of our moving herd, and even from this distance, he looks back as if he feels my eyes.
I smile, even if we’re too far apart to make eye contact, I stick up my hand and wave hard at him.
He sees, waves back. His teeth flash across his dark face.
I spur my horse towards him, past a thousand heads of white faced Hereford cattle.
Sunlight stings my cheek, making me turn to the east. The sun is still rising, it’s only 6 a.m. and thick shards of golden streaks barrel down past the smaller hills to the grass. It’s so freakin beautiful here, I feel as if I’ve found my place on earth.
I can’t wait until we get to the river.
I reach Colt, who comes to meet me, he leans over and grabs my horse’s reins. We come to a standstill.
“Is something chasing you?” he teases me with a crooked grin, his tone soft, eyes considerate.
“Nothing I can’t outrun,” I reply and watch him from under my lashes. We’d slipped back to camp just before our wakeup call at 4 a.m.
His nostrils flare at the challenge, “Are you sure about that?” he grunts in a deep voice.
“Absolutely.”
He shouts over his shoulder at one of the hands several yards away, “Simon take the lead, Angie and I are going for a run!”
I take off before he’s done speaking, firmly lashing my mount whose hooves fly over the soft grass and firm earth. The wind whips my face, turning I see him over my shoulder, gaining speed. Turning back I laugh with delight and use my legs to urge my horse faster.
The mare takes off from under me and I have to lean low to stay atop her. Fear flashes through me that I’m going too fast but I’ll be damned if I’ll let fear hold me down. What Colt thinks of me has already become important. I want him to see that I belong … here. I grin. Plus I’ll be damned if I slow down to let him catch me.
The river widens up-head and the mare instinctively speeds towards it. Behind me I hear Colt gaining fast, his stallion’s huff of indignation at being beaten by a mare probably matching his own.
Tasting victory I urge the mare to even greater speed.
Colt’s hoarse cry breaks through to me the moment I splash into the river. I’ve just a split second to tense because the water rushes up to me and we’re falling.
I scramble back onto the horses but it’s no use, I’m sinking, the horse’s face is all that remains above water.
“Oh God!” I grip the reins and yank backwards with all my strength but the mare is frightened, she leaps and I scream as she nearly dislodges me under the cold flow. Gasping I clutch handfuls of her main as she surges again beneath me, trying desperately to free her legs from the soft silt mush of quick sand that is dragging us both down. She flings her head back and mindless with fear leaps out further into the depths of the dark fast moving water.
I know what I need to do despite the fearful plunging of the dark, cold water rushing up above my waist. I need to give her a shot at life.
I let go of the reins, throw myself sideways off her back and too late I spot the thick, murky specter of a tree trunk that had been sent downriver by the winter runoff. My eyes widen as I watch it rush up to me, unable to stop the momentum of my body as I zoom face forward in a collision with it.
The touch of the freezing cold water hits my face first, immobilizing my senses, stopping the blood in my veins, I fling my hands up, turn my face aside in a bid to stop a blow that will render me senseless.
The force of it slams my head backwards, so sharp I hear the crack of my bones against the wood and the jar of my teeth as my gums scream in pain but only for a moment as ice cold water dives down my throat. My hands clutch into helpless fists as my body shudders from the impact. Robbed of motor control my head falls forward again, and even beneath the paralyzing effect of the cold water I feel the rough bark of the trunk scraping across the skin of my cheek from ear to mouth. Salty blood gushes down my throat, squeezing out the last bit of air left. Pain rattles its way from the back of my neck down my spine in wide sweeps that clutch my whole body into a vice.
I’m freezing and drowning and going down, my legs thrash helplessly fighting for the ground but somehow I’ve been dashed further out into the river.
Still, I can’t stop my body’s claw towards survival. Half-conscious I kick with all the strength I’ve got left, whip my hands about in the water hoping for another trunk to help drag me to safety.
Nothing. My hands waves through the water without effect, grasses and leaves tease and flirt with my fingertips but are helpless to give me the aid I need. I open my eyes and further doom rushes in as the river’s bottom is dark and tangled with dead leaves that block out the sunlight. Instinctively, stupidly, I open my mouth to scream for help.
Colt …
I feel him. Though I’m nearly unconscious. Cold, hard unrelenting hands grip my shirt, the fabric rips but my flesh doesn’t as his hands fasten into an iron vice around my waist and I stop sinking.
Something hits my face. Again and again. … I drift as my body is forcibly pumped and my mouth wrenched open. None of it hurts because it’s as if I can’t feel or think. As if I’m
not truly there.
I hear another voice rough and loud.
Jett?
“Why the fuck did you let her do it!” Jett’s shout of pure rage knifes through my sodden brain, I wince and try to turn from it but that makes it even worse as the movement sends agony across my shoulders and down my spine.
I open my mouth and a moan leaks out.
There is a rustle, a gentle hand grazes my face. “Ang? It’s Jett.”
I try my eyes and they slowly open. Blue eyes brighten as my vision clears out.
Jett is kneeling beside me, his eyes are hard with anger and worry, “that was pretty stupid,” he says glacially, a frown draws his dark brows together.
Yeah, tell me about it. But it’s not what I need right now, I hiss, “kiss my ass.”
Jett’s lips pinch into a thin smile. His eyes soften just a fraction, “this isn’t entirely your fault,” he bites out as he throws a scathing look at Colt.
I try to struggle upwards and Jett gently cups the back of my head to help me. Colt is sitting cross-legged at my feet, his eyes are carefully blank as our gazes meet but beneath it I see the turmoil … and guilt rolling inside him.
I look away as quickly as my sluggish responses will allow back to Jett. “It wasn’t Colt’s fault!”
“Yes it was,” snarls Jett, “if he had done his fucking job you wouldn’t have nearly died!”
“What do you mean?” I gasp.
Jett glares back at Colt, “I asked him to look after you when we spoke last night. Big fucking mistake,” he yells.
I try to sit up but Jett firmly holds me in place, I am swaddled in some of my sodden clothes and a rough sheepskin blanket, “Don’t,” I cry out against his hold.
“Stop!” Colt’s bark shakes the corners of the tent, he grasps Jett’s hand and removes it forcibly from my chest. Both men glare daggers at each other.
Jett wrenches his hand from Colt’s grip, says through gritted teeth, “I think you should leave.”
Love me ... Again Page 3