When he pulled his hand away, Belinda whimpered in protest. She had just enough presence of mind to realize that no man had ever made her whimper before. It was right that it was Ace.
Then he was tugging her jeans down her legs, and she couldn’t wait to be free of them. Her skin felt too tight, too sensitive, the denim too rough. She needed to have him inside of her.
Ace looked into her eyes, which, m the dim light, looked huge and dark. And filled with want. That this strong-willed, vibrant woman would welcome him this way humbled him, made his chest swell. Made him feel ten feet tall, as if there was nothing in the world he couldn’t do.
He reached for his zipper, but she moved his hands away and lowered it herself. Devastating. Without bothering to push his jeans down, she cupped him with both hands. If he hadn’t already been on his knees, she would have brought him there with those cool, clever fingers. He hissed in a sharp breath, his entire body as rigid as the flesh she now held with one hand, while the other strayed below, killing him with pleasure.
Finally he was forced to push her hands away or see it all end then and there. He hadn’t been this close to losing control since he’d been a teenager with rampaging hormones. He wasn’t a teenager anymore, but he felt like one, just then, with her hands slipping away, reluctantly, it seemed.
He kicked his jeans aside and lowered himself to the welcoming cradle of her thighs.
“Now,” he whispered.
“Yes.” She reached for him. “Now.”
He started to move, eager to feel her heat surround him. Then a thought whipped through his mind, and he stopped. And cursed. And rolled away.
“What?” Belinda cried. “Ace, what?”
With an arm across his eyes, Ace clenched his fists and fought for breath, for control. “No damn condom,” he said between gritted teeth. “I can’t believe I almost—damn.”
Belinda swallowed. “It’s not a problem, Ace.”
As fast as lightning, Ace lowered his arm and turned his head toward her. “It’s not?”
“It’s not.”
Something in her voice had him rolling to his side and touching her arm. “You’re sure?”
She tried to smile, but it didn’t work. “I’m sure.”
“It’s okay?”
“Unless you want to call this off,” she whispered.
“No way, lady. Not if you don’t mind that I didn’t come dressed for the occasion.”
She gave him a look, all the way to his toes and back, that scorched him, let him know how much she wanted him.
He rolled until he once again lay in the cradle of her thighs. And then he filled her, and she took him in to the hilt. For one long moment neither moved, neither breathed, while they savored this first joining. It was more, Ace feared, than a mere joining of flesh. A great deal more.
But then she moved beneath him, and he was lost. That last ounce of control burned to cinders and set him on fire. For her. For Belinda. Only Belinda. No woman had ever made him feel this way.
The heat and hunger took them as he thrust, pulled back, thrust again. And she met him, thrust for heart-stopping thrust, breath for lung-searing breath. Hotter. Harder. Faster. Higher. Until there was nothing left. No yesterday, no tomorrow. Only now. Only them. With strangled cries, they flew off the edge together.
It was a long time before either could think again. Or breathe. And they started over.
At 4:00 a.m. Ace sat on the edge of Belinda’s bed and brushed a kiss across her cheek. He’d already showered and dressed.
“Ace?” she murmured.
“Shh.” Her voice was full of sleep, and, he thought rather smugly, satisfaction. It made him want to crawl right back into bed with her. “You’ve got another half hour before your alarm goes off.” He kissed her cheek again, but she turned her head and captured his lips with hers, softly, tenderly. Completely. With a groan he pulled away and said softly, “Go back to sleep, Slim.”
She whispered his name again, and he would have sworn he felt his heart swell to fill his chest. When she curled up on her side, he eased from the bed and let himself out of her room.
He checked on the boys, found them fast asleep. Downstairs he put on a pot of coffee. In the mudroom he tugged on his boots and left the house. Halfway to the barn, he stopped. There was no hint of dawn yet. The moon had set, and millions of stars filled the sky.
For a moment his mind shut down and his feet refused to move as he remembered the incredible night he’d spent with Belinda. His wife’s sister.
What was he supposed to do with all these feelings welling up inside? How was he supposed to live with the realization that he’d felt things last night with Belinda that he’d never felt before? How was he supposed to admit that her brand of loving—so generous, so exciting, sometimes even aggressive—left him feeling breathless and wanting more? And that no other woman had ever done that to him?
Not even Cathy.
It felt...disloyal. He had loved Cathy, and she had loved him. She’d been the sweetest, most loving wife imaginable. Kind and gentle, always agreeable, ever willing to please.
Now here he was, falling for a woman who was not only her sister, but her exact opposite in every way. Looks, temperament, even—and most devastating to him—her sexuality.
But Ace knew, as he stood there on his drive and stared up at the stars, that, for him, there was no turning back. He would find a way to let Cathy go while keeping the best of her memory. There was nothing else for him to do. Cathy was dead. He had to let her go. Because heaven help him, he wasn’t ready to let Belinda go. He was afraid, very much afraid, that he was hooked.
When Belinda’s alarm went off at four-thirty, she awoke, as usual, alone in her bed. The same as every morning on the Flying Ace.
But she wasn’t the same. She had changed during the night, in Ace’s arms. Loving him had changed her. The man himself, the way he’d treated her, the way he’d made love to her throughout the night, the way he’d held her, kissed her, the way he’d whispered her name in the dark. All those things had changed her.
But a few minutes later, standing under the pounding spray of the shower, she was forced to ask herself what, really, had changed
Last night had been...glorious. That was the best word she could think of to describe what she and Ace had shared. She had no doubt that he had wanted her every bit as much as she had wanted him. Even now, after making love with him three times during the night, she wanted him still. Again. Would, she acknowledged, always want him.
There was no doubt now that she was in love with him.
God help her. Because she still felt as though she were stealing something from Cathy. The guilt—misplaced, she knew, but no less real—weighed more heavily on her shoulders now than it had the day before. Because now she had gone beyond merely coveting her sister’s husband. Now she had lain with him. Slept with the man her sister had loved with all her heart. The father of her sister’s sons.
Was it so terribly wrong to love him, to want more of him? How could something that had felt so incredibly right be wrong? For the first time in her life, Belinda realized that she was, at her core, a very sexual person. Two years of marriage to Todd hadn’t taught her that. One night with Ace Wilder had.
Always before, with other men, Belinda had felt inadequate. Todd had certainly told her she was inadequate often enough. But then, Todd would have preferred Cathy, and they both knew it. Cathy had never known, though, that Todd had a serious thing for her. Belinda had more than once thanked God for that blessing. As far as Cathy had been concerned, Todd had been a fun date once or twice, but nothing more. It would have been too humiliating in the extreme if anyone other than Belinda and Todd had known that he had settled for Belinda because Cathy had married Ace and put herself beyond his reach.
And it didn’t take a genius to realize that Belinda had always envied Cathy her pretty blond looks and the adoration that her looks and her sweet nature brought her. It was no great leap from there for
Belinda to understand why she’d married Todd. He’d been Cathy’s, even if Cathy hadn’t known it. It had been a way, in Belinda’s insecure mind, to grab something for herself that, had it not been for Ace, might have belonged to Cathy. A way for Belinda, or so she had undoubtedly thought somewhere in the back of her mind, to live a part of Cathy’s life. To be Cathy.
It made her sick just to think about it.
And now, here she was, making love with, falling in love with, Cathy’s husband.
And that, too, made her sick. Because in the end, Ace would not accept her as a substitute for Cathy any more than Todd had.
“Oh, my God.” Belinda curled in upon herself and leaned against the shower wall. “What have I done?”
It was getting old, Ace thought. And ridiculous. This reluctance of his—okay, he could admit it—it was fear, ice-cold, knee-shaking fear. He was afraid to walk into his own kitchen and face Belinda. And he’d be damned if he would let the fear or memories of Cathy and the guilt they brought or anything else keep him from Belinda. Memories couldn’t keep him warm at night. Belinda could. Belinda had. She was the present. Maybe even the future.
It was getting even older, he thought a minute later, to walk into his kitchen and have Belinda refuse to look him in the eye. He tried a gentle good-morning and got a quiet response, but not even so much as a glance.
The gallon jars of milk hit the counter with a dull thud. “Okay,” he said as Belinda stirred and studied the huge kettle of oatmeal on the stove as if it held the cure for cancer. “Out with it, Belinda.”
Outside in the cool dark of predawn, Jack heard Trey walk up beside him.
“What are you doing?” Trey asked, his voice low in deference to the quiet.
Jack frowned at the kitchen window. “I guess you’d call it spying.”
Trey folded his arms across his chest and followed Jack’s gaze through the window. Belinda and Ace were there in the kitchen. The tension between the two, the unhappiness, was palpable even out here on the drive. “Hell, what’s their problem now?”
Jack shook his head. “Did you hear him in the barn when he was milking?”
“No. I just got here. What would I have heard?”
“Whistling,” Jack said grimly.
Slowly Trey unfolded his arms and looked at Jack. “You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not.”
This, Trey acknowledged, was more serious than he’d realized. “Ace hasn’t whistled in...”
“More than two years,” Jack supplied.
“Belinda.”
“That’s the way I figure it.”
Trey frowned and looked back at the window. “He sure as hell isn’t whistling now. What happened?”
Jack shook his head again. “The damn idiot’s started thinking again.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I’ve had about all this foolishness I can stand. Those two belong together.”
“You got a plan?”
“Little brother, it’s time for drastic measures.”
Trey grinned. “Can I watch?”
“No. You have to baby-sit.”
“Huh?”
“Come on,” Ace said again. “Out with it.”
Belinda allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes, but only for an instant. She set the spoon on the spoon rest and turned to him. “Out with what?”
“For starters, why you wouldn’t look at me just now?”
She swallowed and glanced away, then forced herself to look at him. Then she chickened out and said, “I don’t know what you want me to say.” For a minute she was afraid he was going to advance on her, but he merely braced a hand on the counter.
“How about how big a mistake we made last night, that it never should have happened, that it can’t happen again because you’re Cathy’s sister and I’m Cathy’s husband and it just isn’t right.”
Every word he spoke was a knife to her heart. She couldn’t read his eyes. Any minute, all of her blood would be pooled at her feet and she would die right there on the spot. “Is that what you think?”
“No.” He made a cutting motion with his hand. “I’m dope with that, dammit. I thought you were, too. But it’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? Cathy is dead. It’s time you and I both learned to live with that, don’t you think?”
Belinda swallowed. She couldn’t say what needed to be said while looking at him. She stared instead at the window over the sink, where only her reflection stared back. Looking herself in the eye wasn’t any easier. She stared at the sink. “How do we do that, Ace? How do either one of us stop remembering how beautiful she was, how wonderful, how...perfect?” When we both knew I’m none of those things?
The silence that followed her question was broken by a derisive snort. “Hell,” Jack said with disgust from the door to the mudroom. “Why stop with ‘remembering’? Why don’t the two of you just build a damn shrine right here in the kitchen?”
Ace’s jaw flexed as he turned to face his half brother. “Butt out, Jack. This is none of your business.”
“You’re right,” Jack snapped. “It’s not. But I’m damn sick and tired of watching two people I care about, who are obviously perfect for each other, mess up their lives, so I’m making it my business.”
“No,” Ace said, flexing his fists at his sides, “you’re not. Get out. Breakfast isn’t ready yet.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed, his chest heaved. “I own thirteen and one-third percent of this house, and I’ll get out when I’m damn good and ready. The two of you—”
“What the hell is going on?” Trey demanded as he came in the back door.
“Round five, I think,” Jack said. “And they’re both trying to duck out of the ring.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind,” Jack said. He crossed the room and took Ace and Belinda each by the arm. “You’re in charge of breakfast, Trey. And the boys.” He started hauling Ace and Belinda toward the door.
“Okay.” Trey grinned. “Sure.”
Ace dug in his heels. “Turn loose, Jack. We’re not going anywhere with you.”
“Fine by me,” Jack said. “We can do this right here in front of everybody, if you want. But I’ve got some not-so-nice things to say about a certain martyr who used to live here, and I don’t think you want me saying them in front of the men.”
“I don’t want you saying them at all.”
“That’s tough, big brother.”
Chapter Eight
The sun was just coming up when Jack stopped his pickup at the gate to the family cemetery three miles from the house. Belinda sat sandwiched between the two men, her jaw clenched tight. She had always felt closer to Jack than any of the other Wilders, but she was going to have to kill him for this stunt.
“This isn’t funny, Jack.” Ace glared over Belinda’s head at his brother.
“So who’s laughing? Get out.” Jack opened his door and, taking keys with him, stepped out.
When Ace and Belinda got out, Jack took each of them by the shoulder and led them through the gate and in among the dozen or more graves. The rising sun turned the granite headstones a deep rose.
The names on many of the headstones read like a Who’s Who of Wyoming history. King and Betty Wilder were buried here, along with all the Wilders before them back to that first one, John, the English baron who won the land from a homesteader in a game of poker. That original owner, Jeremiah Conner, was buried here, too. John’s wife, Elizabeth Comstock Wilder, and their son, Earl, King Wilder’s father. Earl’s wife, Susannah Thomas Wilder, lay next to her husband.
There were others buried here, too. Four of the graves were those of ranch hands who’d had nowhere else to go when they died. Ace had once quoted his father as saying, “They’re ours, too. They have a right to be here. It’s fitting.”
Then there was the stranger’s grave. No one knew who the man was that King Wilder had found dead, halfway between the house and the highway back when Ace was a boy. But King had figured
that since the man had died on the Flying Ace, he should be buried there. From time to time, Belinda had been told, flowers mysteriously appeared on the grave. No one knew who brought them.
Then there was Cathy’s grave. It was there that Jack led them. “Loving Wife and Mother,” it said on the granite headstone.
“Take a look,” Jack said.
Belinda folded her arms across her ribs. “We’ve seen it before, Jack.”
“Yes, you have.” Jack nodded. “But I don’t think either of you paid attention. Allow me to be blunt.”
“When were you ever anything else?” Ace muttered.
“Cathy,” Jack said, pointing at her grave, “is dead. You are not And as much as everyone loved Cathy, she was not the noble, selfless martyr the two of you make her out to be.”
“That’s enough, Jack. Come on.” Ace took Belinda’s arm. “Let’s get out of here.”
“That’s right,” Jack spat out. “Go deaf, dumb and blind when somebody dares to present you with the truth.”
Bewildered, Belinda felt her stomach twist into one huge knot “Why are you doing this?”
“Because it’s time that you admitted the truth. Yes, she was beautiful, and she was wonderful. But, by God, she was not perfect What she did, getting pregnant that third time—not to mention how she did it, by lying to her own husband—was the most selfish thing I think I’ve ever heard of.”
“Jack,” Belinda cried. “How can you say that? She gave her life for Grant.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Jack said harshly. “She didn’t give anything, because she was too damn self-centered to give, and she was too egotistical to admit that some doctor might know more about her condition than she did. She wanted a baby, so to hell with the doctors, to hell with her husband’s wishes, to hell with the possibility of leaving behind two grieving little boys. Let’s give Cathy another baby. Never mind that having a third kid could leave the first two to grow up with no mother, leave her husband with no wife, you with no sister, your parents—To hell with how it might affect everyone around her for the rest of their lives, as long as she got what she wanted. And if you ask me, what she wanted was another person to be totally dependent on her. Another baby.”
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