“Why do you always smell so good?”
“I’m as sweaty and dirty as you, so it must be the whipped cream.”
He kissed me. It took me off-guard at first, the contact was so gentle. I was afraid to move. He deepened it, took my shoulders, and pulled me against him. The rush of heat detonated. I wrapped my legs around his hips, and he pushed me into the wall, his hands taking my hips to support me.
I lost track of time, of myself, knew only the feel of him against me, and nothing else mattered. I’m fairly certain some very un-ladylike groans escaped my throat.
At some point, we stopped kissing, but stayed where we were, holding each other, breathing like we’d run a marathon. I still had my pants on tight, but my volcano had erupted. His, too.
“Vi, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”
“Please don’t apologize. I…that’s never happened to me before.”
“Me neither,” he said on a relieved chuckle.
“But we probably shouldn’t let it happen again.”
“I’m not making any promises, but you’re probably right. We shouldn’t. At least not until…what are you doing Wednesday starting at about two in the afternoon?”
I furrowed my brow at him. “I’ll be here.”
“Can you clear your schedule?”
“I guess, why?”
“That’s when I’ll be back from my lawyer’s office.”
“Your lawyer?”
“I’ll be a free man again.”
- 28 -
On that note, he kissed my forehead, and eased my feet to the floor. He kept his hands on my hips while I got my legs under me and sorted out my shirt, which somehow had gotten shoved up to my armpits. His thumbs grazed the bare skin of my sides, sending shivers through me. I didn’t know what to do or say. I wanted him to stay with me, knew he shouldn’t.
He took my hands and kissed my fingers. “I don’t want to leave you, but Dex One will be here soon. I wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea.”
“Dex?”
He retrieved his wet shirt and curled one arm around my neck—a gesture both casual and intimate. We walked to the front of the barn.
“I assumed you wouldn’t consider sleeping in my guest room, especially if Nicky isn’t home. You won’t stay at Clara’s, I can’t be here all the time, and I can’t allow you to be alone. He’s been keeping an eye on things.”
“You mean keeping an eye on me.”
He turned me toward him. “I mean keeping watch for JJ, Vi. If anything happened to you—”
“Of course.” I pressed my fingertips to my eyes. Jesus. I was so tired. “I’m sorry.”
He hugged me. “Don’t be. I’m sorry all this has happened…” He stopped, squeezed me closer. “All I’ve done since you arrived is apologize.”
Brooke, I thought. She must have blamed him for everything. “Mr. Malcolm—”
He set me away from him. “Call me Robert?”
His smile looked uncertain, as if he regretted asking the second the words left his mouth.
There was a moment then, just a moment, when I knew exactly what he looked like when he was a boy. I yearned to know that side of him. The side he kept hidden. And share that part of myself with him. He must have recognized the expression on my face, because the smile became more confident.
“I can do that,” I said, “but it makes it harder to say what I was going to say.” It was difficult enough with the soft night air flowing around us, and him with no shirt, and the memory of his kisses fresh on my skin.
He quirked one eyebrow.
I tried saying his name. “Robert.” Yep, way more intimate than calling him Malcolm, like everyone else. But he’d asked me to call him by his first name, and I would. And his face lit up when I said it. I took a deep breath and continued. “You are the nicest man I’ve ever met.”
He tried to keep the smile on, but I could tell that was not what he wanted to hear.
“That didn’t come out right.”
His brows drew together. I was confusing him again.
“You are nice, and many other things as well, but I think what I mean is kind. You are truly kind and not afraid to show it. That’s rare. At least, it has been in my experience. And you’re generous, too.”
I didn’t know how to say I didn’t want to screw this up. I’d had no practice honestly expressing my emotions. There’d never been the need. And there was this other niggling thought that kept bugging me—that I wasn’t good enough for the likes of him.
“You don’t really know me very well,” he said.
“It’s true we haven’t known each other long, but it’s been…”
“Intense?”
“Yeah, that’s one word for it. But, you don’t need to apologize to me for anything. I’m a big girl. Everything isn’t your fault.”
He let out a long breath, as if hearing that was a relief. He looked around at the horses and the barn, and got that faraway look again. Then, he pulled me against him, a quick, hard embrace.
“When things calm down,” he said, “I want to talk about that partnership. I don’t guess you’ve had much time to think about it.”
“I’m not sure I know what to think about it. I need a little more information. Next week?”
“Yes, next week. Now, I won’t say I’m sorry again, but I shouldn’t have forced myself on you so soon on top of everything else. It’s just that…”
“You didn’t force yourself on me. I feel…”
“…I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”
“…the same.”
We pushed apart and both said, “What?”
He found a bit of dirt on the floor to stare at, and I studied cobwebs in the rafters.
“I think we should go ahead and have the Monday ride, if you’re up to it,” he said.
“Yes,” I agreed, “the sooner everyone gets back in the routine, the better. There are enough sound horses to do it.”
“I’ll give you the schedule for the rest of the week as soon as I can.”
“Good. Thanks.”
We said a good night as if nothing had happened.
But it had. Even if whatever had transpired between us—and I wasn’t sure what that was—hadn’t, my feelings would be the same, and I tossed and tangled my sheets for some time trying to sort those out.
I thought I knew what love felt like, but nothing I’d experienced in the past resembled what had grabbed hold of me almost from the first moment I set foot on Winterlight. Before, I’d known infatuation, lust, even affection. But this—this was an overwhelming sense of connection, the irresistible pull of belonging, and a devastating awareness of inevitability.
It scared the crap out of me.
I’d never belonged anywhere. My aunt and uncle raised me and never treated me any differently than they did Penny, but I knew I wasn’t theirs. Penny had given me a place to live, but I’d always been a well-tolerated temporary guest.
I didn’t feel connected to anyone or anything, except the horses I rode. I’d always assumed that was just how I was. Now, I wasn’t so sure. Is this what Penny meant when she said I’d never found my home? Maybe she was on to something after all.
My instinct was to run away. That was precisely what I’d done all my life when the emotional going got tough. That scared feeling would bloom in my gut, and my head would tell me to run. I’d create a reason to leave, whether it was a job or a relationship.
Never would I admit my fear—of caring, of getting hurt—and worse—being cared for, and having the capacity to hurt others. I never wanted to feel at home. But now, I couldn’t leave, no matter what my head said. I was stuck. I had to face this.
Or did I? I’d agreed to stay at Winterlight for a year. But if I wanted to leave badly enough, I already had plenty of reasons to make an excuse to run along. At this point, the stupid trust fund didn’t even figure into my thinking. I flipped onto my stomach and punched my pillow. Noire pushed her feet against my side and st
retched.
I could blame my father for the situation, but the truth was, I had arrived here thanks to my own damn choices.
The problem was that this time, there was something new between my gut and my head, an organ I was thoroughly unacquainted with.
And that was my heart.
- 29 -
In the morning, I made coffee, groomed horses for the ride, and tried not to think about the latest dream. It was very similar to the previous one. The woods, the living room, the Westie with the bone, the derelict trailer. Wastrel was consistent, if not clear.
Malcolm left at eight, but not before Dex One pulled in. They talked before Dex came in, and Malcolm drove off with a wave. Warring feelings of disappointment and relief formed a knot in my chest. It was just as well, I told myself, that he left without coming in.
“Changing of the guard?” I asked.
“Guilty as charged. I won’t kid you about it. Hank and Clara are taking some steers to the sale barn today.”
“So, you’re my babysitter.”
“Think of me more as a paid companion.”
“He’s paying you?”
“Not in the way you think. Anyway, no one would have to pay me to spend the day with you, Miss Parker.”
It was hard to stay mad at Dex, and I wasn’t angry with him, anyway. I’d awakened with tension perched in my body like a hawk too long without a meal and apprehension roosting in my brain like a sparrow too far from its nest. I couldn’t wait to mount up and work out the kinks. Riding through long dreams with Wastrel had only added to my anxiety.
“Got a present for you,” Dex said.
I’d been busy combing Smitty’s tail, so hadn’t noticed he held something behind his back. He produced a Mason jar with a bunch of wildflowers in it.
“Oh, I—”
“They’re from him.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb indicating the direction Malcolm—Robert—had gone. He didn’t try to hide his disapproval of such nonsense.
I put the bouquet in the tack room. The knot in my chest unraveled.
“Weren’t you already here all night?” I asked when I returned to the barn.
“I see there are no secrets with you.”
“Where’d you sleep, in your truck?”
“Sleeping would defeat the purpose of keeping watch, now, wouldn’t it?”
“Okay,” I said. “Are you coming along on this ride, or staying here?”
“I have my orders. Riding shotgun, Ma’am.”
“Oh, please, not literally?”
“Hell no. Shotguns are for folks who don’t know how to shoot.” He sat on the tack-room steps. “No offense to Mac. I know he likes the cannon, and it’s a good choice for home defense.” He hiked up one pants’ leg to reveal a holster with a shiny handgun strapped in.
“Fine,” I said. “Just don’t shoot yourself in the foot.”
“Miss Parker, I will have you know—”
I held up my hand. “Save it. Let’s get the horses tacked up.”
After the blessedly uneventful ride, Dex said he’d clean stalls while I took care of the injury list. He grabbed the wheelbarrow and the tools he needed.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said before he went very far.
He turned and leaned on the pitchfork. “My pleasure, Miss Parker.”
“You can call me Vi, you know.”
He chuckled at what appeared to be a private joke. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll stick with Miss Parker.”
“Then if it’s all the same to you, Mr. Hamill, let’s get to work.”
He laughed and started to push the wheelbarrow to the first stall, stopped and turned. “By the way. I have news about Norman.”
I don’t know why I went cold. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the details.
“He suffocated.”
I tried to let that sink in, but my brain refused to process it. “So, he wasn’t dead when he was put in the manure pile?”
Dex shook his head slowly. “Very likely unconscious. He had enough cat valium in his blood to drop a horse.”
“Cat valium?”
“Ketamine hydrochloride.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Veterinary anesthetic.”
“Still never heard of it, and I’ve been around vets and drugs plenty.”
“They don’t dispense it, so there’s no reason you’d know what it was. It’s used for surgery. People take it, sometimes.”
“Norman was taking an animal anesthetic?”
“It’s also a psychedelic. You’ve heard of date-rape drugs?”
“I’m not that out of touch.”
“This is one of them.”
I had no idea what to make of this information or how to fit it in with the rest of my half-baked ideas. “So, he might have been taking it for recreational purposes, or he might have been given it?”
“Right.”
“Wouldn’t there be a needle mark?”
“Not necessarily. When a guy gives it to a girl in a club, he dumps it in her drink.”
I sank down onto the tack-room steps thinking that sounded like JJ’s style. Then again, he probably liked having an excuse to hit his victims. “But—”
“Think motive, Miss Parker.”
“They teach that in Detective Work 101? Why do you think someone would want to murder Norman?”
“And hide his body at Winterlight. That’s the question.”
Hadn’t he just said motive was the question? I had my theories about Norman’s murderer, but I wasn’t ready to share. Without knowing more about Malcolm’s father, that one didn’t hold much water. JJ was a more likely culprit, if I could determine his motive. I’d have to do some digging for that, and I didn’t want to soil my hands with that dirt.
Clearly, Dex wasn’t interested in sharing his theories, either.
“Where do people get this cat valium?”
“Steal it, usually, from veterinarians. Or buy it from someone who has.”
“Have any of the local vets reported a robbery?”
He shrugged. “No way of knowing where it came from.”
I couldn’t remember anything from my dreams that pointed to a drug overdose. Maybe if I got off the farm for a while, that would help me think. And a good, long ride by myself would be great.
“I need to run an errand,” I said. “I think I’ll go do that.”
“Heard your truck was out of commission.”
“Malcolm lent me his SUV. Come on. We’ll get lunch in town.” I ran upstairs for my purse. Back in the barn, I asked Dex, “Does town even have a place where you can get lunch?”
“Town has a place, but I need to stay here. And you can’t go alone.”
Oh, for cripe’s sake. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I have some discretion. What’s the nature of your errand? Do you have a cell phone?”
“You’ll be happy to know I’m opening a checking account at the local bank. If you’re like most men, you’re also happy to know I’m without undergarments and need to buy some. And, yes, I have a cell phone.”
His glance scanned my chest and continued on down. Men. Sheesh.
“Since you brought it up, I prefer my women to wear underwear…so I can have the pleasure of taking it off of them. But I’m not sure you’ll find anything you like nearby.”
I’m sure what he meant was he didn’t think I’d find anything he’d like nearby. He made me program his cell number into my phone, said he’d call an order in for lunch, insisted I stop only at the bank and to pick up our sandwiches, and wanted me back in half an hour. And, I had to call and check-in every five minutes.
“Sure you don’t have one of those nifty little electronic ankle bracelets I could borrow?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
I walked to the house where Malcolm’s SUV was parked in a garage around back, hopped in, adjusted the seat and mirrors, and took off. Evidently, town had a general store that made sandwiches. I wo
uld have given anything for a pepper-and-egg hero from a New-York deli, but I’d have to settle for ham and cheese on potato bread, the same as Dex ordered.
I settled into the SUV’s leather seat and turned onto the blacktop. It felt good to be out and about on my own, even if only for a short time. Not to mention being out and about in style. The SUV had bells and whistles I didn’t know existed. My truck was over ten years old, and if I hadn’t dated a mechanic off and on over the past three, it would have gone to the junkyard long ago. The torn bench seat was convenient for naps at horse shows, but that was about it. Comfort wasn’t on its list of attributes. Except for getting me from point A to point B—most of the time—it didn’t have any attributes.
I cranked up the stereo and enjoyed the scenery. Malcolm—Robert—had radio stations pre-programmed for classic rock, jazz, classical, oldies, and NPR. The six-CD player contained Jethro Tull, Sting, Handel, Patsy Cline, Tony Bennett, and, good lord, bagpipes. Except for that, I couldn’t argue with his taste.
I allowed myself a warm memory from the night before, and felt my body softening at the thought of him against me. Robert. For a split second, my thoughts wandered to a place I never allowed—the future. I reined them in sharply.
For music, I chose the tried and true—Jethro Tull. It was one of my favorites, Heavy Horses. Listening to the news didn’t interest me; I’d had quite enough from Dex already. I jabbed at the stereo’s buttons, glanced at the road, negotiated a sharp turn with one hand, and continued trying to get to the right CD.
To either side, the sun shown on grazing cows, casting their shadows over impossibly green grass. Almost every cow had a calf nearby, either sleeping or nursing. In the congestion of my former life, I’d forgotten there must still be places like this in the world. Like the quiet I’d begun to enjoy, I liked the open vistas, the unhampered view to the horizon.
A little farther along, I plunged into the shade of woods. I’d been this way when I went grocery shopping, but didn’t know the road well. Still, there was no other traffic to worry about. I topped a small rise and headed downhill toward a rickety-looking, narrow bridge over the rushing creek, light glinting off its swiftly changing surface.
Candace Carrabus - Dreamhorse 01 - On the Buckle Page 19