Colorado's Finest

by Lynn, Sheryl

  He backed a step. “Don’t go there. I don’t want anything to do with a god that fills a woman up with cancer. A woman who never did anything mean to anyone, never said a bad word. A genuinely good person. It got so bad even a draft of air on her skin was agony. What kind of freaky god does that?”

  “God doesn’t do it. These frail, fragile animal bodies we inhabit are the price we pay for the experience of living.” She tapped the center of her chest. “Our spirits are imbued with all of God’s love, and generosity and power and wisdom. Free will is our birthright, to do with those godly gifts whatever we wish. God isn’t Santa Claus, or a zookeeper.”

  Shaking his head, he turned away. “You honestly believe that.”

  “I do. I also believe that everything is a gift. Every breath we take, every idea, every occurrence. Even those things we fear or consider a tragedy.”

  Incredulous, he rubbed his nape. “Are you saying cancer was God’s gift to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re nuts.”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “How can something that horrible be a gift?” He practically shouted. His ears burned. He’d never met anyone who so flustered, infuriated and engaged him—except for Lisa.

  She resumed unpacking groceries. “I woke up from surgery. There was no one in the room. It hit me hard that here I was a respected physician, I drove a Mercedes, my husband’s and my combined annual income was in the seven figures. I lived in a million-dollar condo, furnished with expensive antiques, with a full-time housekeeper. Yet, I woke up alone. My marriage was empty. I hated my work. I had no friends, no family. For years and years anger sustained me. Anger at my father for his perfectionism. My mother for emotional blackmail. My sister who wouldn’t act right no matter what I did. That anger manifested itself in breast cancer. On that day, in that lonely room, for the first time in over twenty years, I wept.”

  Dumbfounded by her brutal revelation, he sank onto a chair.

  “I cried a lifetime of tears that day. I was empty. In that emptiness, I realized I wasn’t alone. The knowledge was so clear, so profound, it was blinding. Right at that moment, for the very first time in my entire life, I knew what it felt like to be unafraid. That was my gift.”

  “Wow.” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. His intellect said she was nuts, but his gut told him otherwise. “So you gave it all up? The husband, the money, the job?”

  “I gave up all that was meaningless.” She smiled. “It’s an abundant world. I’m not deprived.”

  “Huh. So, uh, you said forgiveness is a two-part process. What’s the second part?”

  “The assertion in total confidence that you will never commit that particular sin again.”

  He stared at his hands and loosed a rueful laugh. “Then it should be easy. Because I’m sure as hell never putting myself in the position to ever do that again.”

  STEALTHY NOISES ROUSED Tate. He’d been up and down throughout the night, investigating every creak and rustle. The lodge had only one door—he slept in front of it. The windows were painted shut. Even so, the persistence of both the FBI and the hired guns made him nervous.

  Adding to his sleeplessness was knowing Diana was in the other room, snuggled in a musty old bed. Her puppy shared the bed with her. Lucky dog.

  A lantern in the kitchen nook had its wick turned down so the glow was soft. Thin morning light seeped through the dirty windows. Diana crouched before the fireplace. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She poked at embers, fed them sticks until they caught fire and added a log. Along with the wood smoke, he thought he smelled coffee.

  Her legs were bare. They were as beautiful, as long and strong and shapely as he’d always imagined. As sternly as he told himself to behave, his body had other ideas.

  She moved toward the kitchen, the thick socks on her feet whispering against the wooden floor. Firelight outlined the long, smooth muscles in her legs.

  “Good morning,” he said. It was growing unbearably hot inside the bag.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  A tiptoeing mouse could have awakened him. He fumbled around for the sleeping bag’s zipper and lowered it until he could wriggle his shoulders free.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  She crouched beside him. Bundled in the blanket with her hair sticking out every which way, he wouldn’t have been surprised if she broke into some kind of shamanistic chant.

  Why she was so damned sexy, he couldn’t imagine. His male parts were doing enough imagining for ten people.

  “It’s probably around six. I’m up for the day. If you want the bed, take it.”

  Bed. Don’t say bed, he pleaded silently. He stretched and rolled his shoulders and neck. Goosebumps prickled his back. “I’ll get up.” Might as well. In this state, he’d never get back to sleep.

  Diana eased past him and opened the door enough for Tippy to slip out. In passing, the pup licked Tate’s chin. Diana gathered his jeans. “I’ll warm these for you.”

  Icy denim might be just the thing to cool his ardor. “Not necessary.”

  “It’ll be like wearing ice packs. Stay where you are for a few minutes. I’ll get you some coffee.” She draped his jeans over the back of a chair so they hung near the hearth. She did the same thing with her jeans.

  He sure couldn’t leap out of the bag. Not with an erection.

  Then she shrugged off the blanket. All she wore was a man’s shirt, the tails hanging to mid-thigh, and the socks. Lace teddies and garter belts couldn’t best the eroticism of a woman wearing a man’s shirt and nothing else.

  “Brr,” she said when she brought him a cup of coffee. “I ought to crawl in there with you.”

  He nearly choked. The way she crouched put her knee within kissing distance. A nice, nice knee. He forced his attention onto the coffee cup. It smelled heavenly—he wanted to smell her, bury his face in her hair, rub her body all over his. “How’d you make coffee without electricity?”

  She bent closer. He avoided her eyes. “Is something wrong? You sound funny. You aren’t catching cold, are you?”

  He sounded horny and desperate, neither of which he wanted her to know. As the rising sun penetrated the surrounding forest, it was growing lighter in the cabin. Any chance he’d had of retaining some dignity while he retrieved his clothing was long gone.

  “Drink your coffee. You’re grumpy.” She left him. She adjusted the wick in the lantern, and the cabin filled with light. Abruptly, she turned, staring right at him—catching him staring at her.

  She knew. And she liked it.

  He slammed the cup onto the floor and ripped down the zipper. He wasn’t shy, he’d never been shy, and besides which, she was a doctor. A mature woman who’d been married. She knew perfectly well that a healthy man’s sexual response was instinctive, automatic and completely beyond his control. She watched his every move. Lurching to his feet, he almost tripped in the now tangled sleeping bag. He kicked it aside and snatched the coffee off the floor. She wanted a show? He hoped she got a good eyeful.

  He glared at her over the coffee cup. She wore a grin he knew too well. A look that said he was an idiot, but she thought he was cute anyway. His feet were freezing. The rest of him was burning up.

  Picking up a cast iron Dutch oven, she said, “There’s no hot water. I’ll have to warm some up so we can wash.” She filled the pot with water, then sauntered past him, her hips swaying. She hung the pot from a metal hook that swung into the fireplace.

  “You better quit teasing me.” His feet were frozen and his tongue was burnt. Neither sensation came close to the desire raging through his blood.

  “Why?”

  “Because—because—” His brain blanked. “Because I said so.”

  She dropped her gaze to his crotch. “That’s pretty lame.”

  He couldn’t disagree. He held out a hand. “Give me my pants.”

  Still smiling that infuriatingly sexy smile, she brought his je
ans. “No games, right? I want you. From what I can see, the feeling is mutual. Is it mutual?”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “Damn it.” He pulled the jeans from her hand, let them drop to the floor and gathered her into his arms.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You can touch me,” Diana said.

  Tate made a guttural noise, and his hips rolled beneath her thighs. They’d made it to the bed—somehow—barely. Once his hot mouth was on hers, time and space lost meaning. Theirs had been a frantic dance of fumbling and groping and grasping, and he’d finally lifted her off her feet and swept her onto the bed.

  The first shock of icy bedding had brought a squeal from her, but now she was so hot they could be making love in a snow field and she wouldn’t care. She straddled him, her body thrumming in a controlled burn, her senses saturated by the feel and taste and smell of him. She ran her hands over his chest. He wasn’t buff-cut or grotesque like a body builder, but beautifully solid, his muscles supple. She wove her fingers through the crisp hair whorls on his chest.

  His hands paused on her belly, fingers splayed, spreading fire. Between the main room and the bed, he’d lost his briefs and she’d lost her panties. He’d unfastened all but one button on her shirt, baring her belly, but concealing her chest. His fingertips teased the arch of her ribs, as if seeking a breast to fondle, but he kept stopping short.

  She wanted him to touch her breast. She ached for him, yearned for him, wanted his mouth and tongue devouring her.

  The button remained fastened.

  He lowered his hands, a slow, sensual sweep into the dip of her waist and over the swell of her hips. A moan rose in her throat, and she rocked against his erection. Arousal almost hurt, a sweet pain, full and pulsing and urgent. When he grasped the sensitive juncture of her thighs, a shudder rocked her, and she arched her spine.

  “Ready, baby?” he whispered. His smile could slay a battalion of Amazons. It certainly slew her. He had a hand between her legs. Tremors gripped her again. She fought to keep her eyes open, wanting—needing—to see his face. A flex of her thigh muscles raised her, a cautious thrust and he was home. His eyes rolled back in the sockets, and his hips rose to meet hers.

  “I take it that feels good, hmm?”

  “Oh…oh my.” His fingers tightened, so powerful, so erotic. His thumbs pressed either side of her mound, unbearably sweet. She rocked, he thrust and eventually a rhythm found them.

  She couldn’t stand it. Orgasm hit so fast, so powerful, it was almost embarrassing—if she had the wits to feel embarrassed. Instead she cried out, swept away, her joints disjointing and her spirit soaring. He bucked beneath her and made a strangled sound. His jaw was clenched and cords stuck out on his powerful neck.

  She fell forward, burying her face against his neck. Aftershocks trembled through her. Cold air made itself known. As if reading her mind, he tugged blankets up over her back and shoulders, then slid his hands beneath the shirt so they rested against her damp skin. They breathed in unison, deep and satisfied.

  He nibbled her ear. “Grateful?”

  It took her a few seconds to remember the crack she’d made about Ben Franklin calling older women not only experienced, but grateful. She chuckled. “Very. You’re quite a stud.”

  “I’m grateful, too.” He kissed her neck.

  Lazily, but with care so as to keep them connected, she managed to straighten her legs so she lay full length atop him. The hair on his legs tickled. She could feel the thump of his heart. Its strong beat soothed her and she drowsed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Her eyelids fluttered. Her mind was nowhere, so it took a few seconds to figure out what he said. “About what?”

  “Not…touching you…you know.”

  She lifted her head. It was a cloudy day and fog wreathed the forest and curled around the lodge. Daylight was pearl-colored. Even so she saw the chagrin. She fought the urge to sigh. She wasn’t offering him therapy, and he had nothing to prove—not to her anyway. If the mastectomy scar bothered him, then it bothered him. He didn’t have to apologize or force himself to do what he wasn’t ready for. She sure didn’t want to give him another panic attack.

  “Seems to me, you touched me pretty good.”

  “I really do think you’re beautiful.” It almost sounded like a plea.

  God save me from guilty men. “And I think you’re gorgeous.” She planted a kiss on his nose. “If you don’t want to look, that’s okay. If you don’t want to touch, that’s okay, too.” She wanted to tell him she loved him, but no sense scaring him any more than he was already.

  “I feel stupid.”

  “I’m after your body, not your brains.”

  His laugh rocked her. Laughter which ended too soon. “Does it hurt? The scar, I mean.”

  “No.”

  “How do you know the…it won’t come back?”

  “I don’t.” With a sigh and a sense of loss, she struggled upright. He let her go without argument. Sitting cross-legged beside him, she buttoned the shirt. “All I have is today. It’s all any of us have. Whatever happens in the future will happen, whether I worry about it or not.”

  “But statistically…”

  She sighed again. “I’m healthy, college-educated, don’t smoke or drink and I eat a low-fat, low-protein diet. Statistically, I should live to ninety.” She cupped his chin. “Oh, Tate, I wish I could assure you with a hundred percent certainty that the cancer will never come back. But I can’t.”

  He pulled his face away. “I just…I know what it does.”

  This was the cold fire of fear he needed to walk through. She scooted off the bed. “I forgot all about the water. I hope the pot didn’t boil dry.”

  He followed her out of the bedroom. The sight of his nakedness turned her knees weak. Waves of desire rolled through her pelvis.

  He found his underwear and snatched his jeans off the floor. “Diana, please, I’m sorry. I know I should get over it.”

  She used tongs to swing the Dutch oven out of the flames. Water bubbled and steamed. Not enough for bathing, but at least he could shave. She pulled on her pants. They were toasty warm, even hot in places.

  “You want a guarantee from me,” she said. “I can’t do that. It’s impossible. It would be like me demanding you not get shot by a bad guy.” She grasped his hands. Head hanging, feet planted in a wide stance, he looked like a man about to mount the gallows. “Believe it or not, I don’t take your fears personally.” He lifted his head just enough for her to see the whites of his eyes. “I don’t. I don’t consider your fears unreasonable either. What happened to your wife, to you, was a terrible thing, a tragedy. You’d have to be heartless not to suffer some traumatization.”

  “I couldn’t watch…she was in pain…I couldn’t do anything.”

  She knew exactly what he meant. As a physician, she’d protected herself from the misery of others by armoring herself with a shell of professional detachment. When her mother fell terminally ill, however, the shell had cracked. Helplessness to alleviate the suffering of a loved one hurt even more than the loss.

  She squeezed his fingers. “Look at me. Please.” Hesitantly, he did so. His gaze was bleak. “You have to deal with this. I can’t do it for you, as much as I wish I could. But you aren’t alone. Okay?”

  “I’m a coward.”

  “Now you’re just feeling sorry for yourself.” She squeezed his fingers again and tried to tease him into a smile. “A coward wouldn’t be risking his life and livelihood for a waitress.”

  “Yeah, I—” His head snapped up. “Ric! Oh, jeez!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “If that orderly got the license plate number of the Jeep and reported it, Ric will get in trouble. Where’s my phone?” He snatched a phone off a desk, punched buttons, shook it, then tossed it down with a grunt. “Battery’s dead. Where’s mine? What did I do with it?”

  “You threw it into the bushes. Calm down. I’ll find it. Finish getting dressed.”<
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  TATE DROVE THE ROUGH back roads off ranch property. The fog was so thick in places it was akin to pushing through gauze curtains. Even though it wasn’t raining, dripping trees kept the windshield wipers clacking. He had to pass through several gates, and each time he left the Jeep, moisture condensed on his skin.

  Such slow going gave him too much time for thinking. He shouldn’t have made love to Diana. There had been none of the detached pleasure he’d felt with other women, none of the separation of body and heart. This wasn’t affection, or a mutual good time, or even scratching an itch. He was falling for her, hard—he’d fallen already.

  She had cancer.

  He turned the radio on as loud as he could stand it. The only station coming in clearly was the morning farm report. Anything to distract from death and dying and his shameful cowardice.

  He drove a roundabout route to the ranch’s main entrance. In the distance he could just barely make out semi-tractor trailers idling at a weigh station where cattle milled in holding pens. A tractor plowed a field. Cowboys on ATVs rumbled along a fence line.

  Cancer. He shuddered and flipped the heater on high. She claimed she was cured, but how could she know? How could anyone know that vicious mutant cells weren’t even now lodging in her tissues?

  His jaw tightened and blood pulsed in his temples. It wasn’t fair. His diaphragm tightened, and his heart was jittering. He ground a knuckle against his breastbone as if he could still his racing heart through pressure.

  He couldn’t go through it again.

  Catch the bad guys, life would return to normal and things would be as they were. He and Diana would be friends, nothing more, nothing less.

  He was lousy at lying to himself.

  He reached Ric and Elaine’s house. Windows glowed in welcome.

  Elaine Buchanan met him at the front door. A petite woman, she always made him feel like an oversized oaf. Even in jeans, a flannel shirt and a faded old cardigan sweater she carried herself like royalty.