Cowgirl, Unexpectedly

by Vicki Tharp

  His moonlit eyes were steel gray and should have seemed cold, but the reverent way his gaze drifted over the planes of my face warmed me more than the water ever could have. My core rested against his abdomen and his hands drifted down to my hips. Despite the intimate way he held me, as well as his own lack of personal modesty, he seemed mindful to keep the water at a G-rated level around my shoulders with enough space between our torsos to mollify my high school dance chaperones.

  The restraint and the dichotomy of our positions struck me. When I first arrived at the ranch, I didn’t really like him and I’d been okay with that. Now that I have to admit that I do, I’m not so sure how I feel about that.

  His eyes drifted up from my lips and met mine, his voice strained when he spoke. “Your move.”

  Though his voice had been a notch above a whisper, his words echoed in my head. Your move.

  Why didn’t he go ahead and kiss me? Then I could pretend I hadn’t seen it coming, that the moment had swept me away. But he refused to make it easy on me. The water was hot, but where our bodies touched bordered on incendiary. My heart pounded. My lungs seized and I contemplated my response. I wanted to kiss him.

  My thoughts fuzzed at the edges. My head floated above my neck.

  There were so many reasons why I shouldn’t.

  “Breathe, Mackenzie,” he said as he gave me a little shake. “Don’t make this anything more or less than it is. Either you want to kiss me or you don’t.”

  “I want to kiss you,” I admitted.

  “But?”

  “Can I kiss you first and worry about the ‘buts’ later?”

  “If that’s what you want.” He reached up with a hand and brushed back a lock of my bangs dripping water over my eyebrow.

  I focused on his full lips for an instant before meeting his gaze again. He didn’t budge. “Afraid if you move you’re going to scare me off?” I asked.

  “No. I’m afraid if I start…I won’t be able to stop.”

  My heart did crazy stutter beats, all uncoordinated as if they were tripping over themselves, like a newborn foal trying to learn to run. Stupid. His words should have sounded like a cheesy come-on line, but the halting way he said it made it sound like the truth. I tucked that information away because I didn’t quite know what to do with it. Besides, something in the way he said it made me believe he wasn’t convinced that was such a good thing.

  I reined the conversation in another direction. “No one calls me Mackenzie.”

  “I like Mackenzie. Mackenzie is soft in my arms. Mac is tough on the trail. Mackenzie is caring and vulnerable, Mac would kick my ass if given half a chance, Mackenzie is beautiful—”

  I pressed a finger to his lips to shut him up. “You don’t have to tell me I’m attractive. I already told you I wanted to kiss you.”

  A slow, dangerous smile turned his lips. “Yeah, you did. Yet I’m still waiting.”

  I captured his face between my palms and closed the small gap between us. Licking my lips, I gently landed them on his before easing away.

  I wanted more.

  His nostrils flared, but there was little other outward response. I leaned in again, taking his upper lip and nipping it before I traced it with my tongue. Still he didn’t move. I pulled back and dropped my hands to his chest. “You can kiss me back, you know.”

  “Is that an order?”

  I nodded. “Pretty much.”

  Hank sat down. I hadn’t realized he’d edged us closer to the shore. My knees dug into the coarse sand. Small waterweeds brushed against my skin. He combed one hand through my hair and tugged me to him. When his lips met mine, I no longer had control of the reins.

  Giddy up, Cowboy!

  He angled my head for better access and opened my mouth with his. His tongue invaded and a soft moan fell from his lips as my tongue dueled with his. He leaned back against the bank until my full weight pressed against him. I was not a movie star. I’ll never walk the red carpet or grace the cover of a magazine—unless it’s Soldier of Fortune—but when his erection nudged against me, I knew I turned him on.

  No longer having to hold us afloat, his hands were free to roam. He avoided the scrape and bruising on my side and edged his thumbs beneath my breasts, trapping them in the span of his thumb and forefinger. I felt wanton as the warm water lapped at my sex as the cool night air brought goose bumps to my exposed flesh. My nipples hardened as he wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me tighter against him, deepening the kiss. He slipped his hands down, cupped my ass, and thrust his hips against mine. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to raise my hips up a fraction to take the length of him inside me. To take him in. To join with him. To give myself this moment where pasts didn’t matter.

  But the past does matter. My past matters.

  What the fuck am I doing?

  “What’s wrong?” Hank broke the kiss.

  Blood pounded in my ears, so I had to read his lips to understand what he’d said. I closed my eyes, and rested my forehead on his shoulder, trying to think of how I could explain to him why this was such a bad idea. He brought his arms up and slowly caressed my back and waited for me to respond. His pulse thumped at the base of his neck and our lungs gobbled up the oxygen.

  “Is this the ‘but’?” he managed, his words thick and sticky in his throat.

  I met his eyes. He deserved that much. “I’m sorry.”

  He shook his head. “No apologies necessary, Mackenzie. I’m a big boy.”

  “Yeah.” I smirked. “Kinda hard not to notice.”

  He scrubbed a hand down his face, his smile wide. “You did not just say that.”

  I groaned in embarrassment and buried my face into his shoulder again. Seriously, I needed a filter. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

  He tipped my chin up and forced me to meet his gaze. His smile slowly faded the longer he peered into my eyes. “I love the way I never know what’s going to come out of that mouth of yours.”

  “Usually, it pisses people off.”

  “It’s sexy.”

  Leaning up, he gave me a quick peck on the end of my nose. “Come, on. It’s getting late and we gotta be up early for target practice.”

  He gave me a quick pat on my butt cheek as I slid off him. He stood and gave me a hand up, turning his head for a hint of privacy. For a blink, I was eye-level with his erection that jutted out beneath his muscular abdomen. Wow.

  He chuckled as I got to my feet and he tugged me toward the waiting towels. Holy crap. I’d said that aloud. Filter. Filter. Filter. A flush of embarrassment flashed up from my toes to my head.

  “Gonna have to keep you around, Army. My ego already loves you.”

  In the interest of time, we toweled off quickly, our backs to each other. My skin was still damp so I slipped my shirt on sans bra, wrapped it in my towel, and tucked it under my arm. Hank beat me to the rifle, so I let him carry it as we walked back to our cabin. Our shoulders bumped and Hank slipped his free hand into mine, our fingers loosely intertwined, casual and undemanding, yet the connection grounded me.

  He’d taken my hesitation at escalating our physical relationship remarkably well. Maybe that’s what a little age and maturity got you. Or maybe he really wasn’t that into me. On the other hand, I could still feel the heat and heaviness deep in my belly.

  I wanted him.

  That didn’t mean I had to act on it. In fact, I was very used to pushing that part of myself aside and focusing on the work at hand. After all, the military didn’t look kindly on fraternization.

  My attraction to Rahim, an Iraqi contractor at our base, was the closest thing I’d had to a relationship in years. Though I’d considered him as a boyfriend, in reality it never went beyond a deep friendship. If circumstances had been different, I’m certain I’d have slept with him and maybe the relationship would have developed into something more
. But I’d worked my ass off to be taken seriously as a Marine, especially in a Muslim country. I hadn’t been about to screw that up by having a sexual relationship while deployed.

  Besides, I always wondered how much the essentially closed population of a military base, close working conditions, and high stress played into the attraction. If I’d met Rahim anywhere else, would he have even noticed me or me him? If there’d been other people to talk to, would we have confided in each other? Would our friendship had grown? If the stress and the stakes hadn’t been so high, would he have betrayed me?

  How is my current situation with Hank essentially any different?

  The handful of people on the ranch worked long hours in close proximity. Quarters were tight and the underlying danger behind Dink’s ordeal and the rustling of the cattle kept the adrenaline amped waiting for the next hit as if we were waiting for the other shoe to drop, the next RPG to land in camp or the next IED to blow up a truck full of men.

  Hank tugged me to a stop behind our cabin. Were we back already? He pulled me lightly against him, dropping my hand, and placing his gently at my waist. “Where’d ya go?”

  “Just thinking.”

  His lips curled. “I know. I heard the grinding. Was afraid you’d strip a gear. Wanna talk about it?”

  I tried to take a step back, but he held me in place. I could have gotten away if I wanted to, but curiously, I didn’t. “Where I come from, you don’t have a sexual relationship with the people you work with. Nothing good can ever come of it.”

  He sawed his lower jaw back and forth and cast his eyes upward as if he’d find what was left of his patience hanging out up there. “Look, I don’t know what this is that is between us. I don’t know where this is headed. I don’t have an agenda. And frankly, I have a lot on my plate without throwing a relationship into the mix.” He placed his finger under my chin and raised my eyes to his. “What I do know is I find you intriguing and intelligent, frustrating and tantalizing, and desirable as hell.”

  “Not the typical laconic cowboy, are you?”

  “Let’s say I learned long ago not to leave things unsaid.”

  Why I chose that moment to glance at his lips was beyond me. It wasn’t lost on him. He leaned in. He was going to kiss me again, but then he loosened the hold at my waist and I knew he wouldn’t push it.

  “Where I come from”—his voice was low and serious with a resonance that touched me— “as long as the two people involved are consenting adults, nobody gives a damn.” Then he leaned in, his mouth by my ear, his breath warm on my skin. I forced myself to hold my ground, to keep from pressing up against him. “Think about that before you dismiss this, us, outta hand.”

  He pressed his lips to my cheek and released my hip. Instead of following, I watched him walk away, his limp pronounced. His boots scraped on the porch and the old hinges creaked as the door swung open and closed. The overhead light snapped off and then there was only the faint glow of the light above the kitchen sink seeping through the window near his bunk.

  Crickets. Metaphorically and otherwise. Along with the concerns I’d voiced, I also had no plans to stick around long term. I was here to earn a bankroll to get back on the road again.

  Another valid reason to avoid starting anything with Hank.

  Or all the more reason to jump right in.

  Chapter 7

  Lottie plunked a cup of steaming coffee down in front of me. Thanking her, I curled my fingers around the hot mug and drew it to me, inhaling the heavy notes of the dark roast. I was by no means a connoisseur, but I could practically smell the high-octane caffeine wafting up.

  My mind was still a bit fuzzy from too much work and not enough sleep. The late-night skinny-dipping hadn’t helped either, so I was several large gulps into my coffee before my mind started to clear. With dawn around the corner, we still had morning chores and Dale’s ordered target practice to get in before we headed back up to the cattle camp.

  Santos, Jenna, Quinn, Link, and I all sat at the long trestle table in Lottie’s kitchen. Dale and Alby had taken the first watch last night over the cattle we’d rounded up so they wouldn’t be joining us. The table fairly groaned under the weight of the breakfast offerings running down its center. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, gravy, hash browns, and biscuits—their combined aroma had me salivating like Pavlov’s dog.

  Starved, I dug into the eggs and passed them to Jenna on my right, then picked up another dish and kept passing. I didn’t think I’d been this hungry—that gnawing in your belly you get from burning calories much faster than you could take them in—since basic training.

  Quinn settled, as expected, beside Jenna, and Link sat across from him. Lottie sat at one end and Hank, coming in late since it was still his job—because of the lost bet—to fix us our lunches for the day, grabbed his plate from beside the counter, and plopped into the chair across from me.

  “Mornin,’” he said to the group in general, his greeting met with nods and grunts as the rest of us had already tucked into our food.

  Feeling Hank’s eyes on me, I glanced up with a crisp piece of sweet hickory bacon between my teeth.

  “Did you not sleep well?” he asked, full of boyish innocence, his blue eyes dancing with the devil’s own mischief.

  My cheeks flushed, and I resisted the urge to run my hands down my ponytail or over my face checking for obvious signs of dishevel. If I hadn’t taken my baseball hat off at the table, I’d have tugged the brim lower to hide the faint circles under my eyes.

  Taking two more bites of the crispy strip, I chewed slowly, contemplating my answer because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing that while the swimming had bumped back my bedtime, salacious memories of him had kept my brain buzzing most of the rest of the night.

  He, on the other hand, appeared completely unaffected by our nocturnal activity. When we woke up this morning, the man hadn’t given any indication last night had even happened. No hot, lingering gaze. No kisses. No touches. Not even a smart-ass remark.

  Just “Whatcha want on your sandwich?” in a no-nonsense, complete denial, no-we-didn’t-almost-fuck-like-bunnies tone.

  This morning had only been awkward in the way that it wasn’t awkward at all. Last night we’d seen each other naked and held each other intimately. Not something I did routinely by any stretch. Yet he acted as if this was any other morning. Had it meant nothing to him?

  Not that I was expecting a proposal, or even a fist full of wildflowers, but an acknowledgment that we had taken a brief step away from our status as roommates and our budding friendship would have been grounding. Maybe even nice.

  Even if he had said it had been a mistake and it wouldn’t happen again would be preferred over nothing. Or was he pretending it hadn’t happened? Part of me couldn’t believe he was that good an actor. The part of me that slaved overtime to act completely unaffected myself.

  I didn’t know quite what to make of that.

  Jenna nudged my shoulder with hers. I came back to myself and glanced around. Everyone’s attention on me. I passed the hash browns and a weak smile. “Fine. Fine. Slept like a baby.”

  On my left Santos chuckled softly as if he wasn’t idiot enough to take me at my word. The clank and scrape of utensils resumed. Someone complimented Lottie on the food. Jenna glanced at her father then back at me, then back at her father, biting her lower lip and biting back the questions.

  As for Hank, he shoveled a mouthful of potatoes and narrowed his eyes, his thinly veiled smile silently calling me a liar. Sneaky bastard. I glowered at him, but I didn’t have the strength or will to put any heat behind it. His smile grew impossibly wider; his dimple made a brief appearance and warmth tugged in my abdomen that had nothing to do with the bite of spicy sausage I’d swallowed.

  With her belly full and her meal finished, Jenna bussed her and Quinn’s empty plates, tossing the silverware on top.
“So, target practice in fifteen minutes?”

  My mouth was full of egg, so I nodded.

  “Let’s go,” Jenna said to Quinn. Hank stopped mid-mastication, eyes shooting to Quinn, who stiffened. No need for Hank to tell the kid to watch his step. The glare said it all.

  Quinn cleared his throat. “Excuse us,” he said, directing his words at Lottie and then the rest of the table.

  They dropped their plates at the sink then Jenna threw over her shoulder, “We’ll meet you down there.” They hustled out the door, the quick click, click, click, thud of Dink’s claws and cast close behind.

  Hank turned in the chair and watched them leave. When he turned back around, a distinct scowl etched his features. He wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin on top of his half-eaten food, his concern for his daughter and her choices thick enough to cut and serve with our breakfast. The palpable tension worked like a Chris Angel magic trick, disappearing Link and Santos in a flash and bang of the screen door.

  “Now Hank.” Lottie’s disapproving tone couldn’t hide her affection for him as she cleared the leftover food. “She may be the spitting image of her mother, but Jenna’s nothing like her. She has a good head on her shoulders. You’d know that if you knew her better.” Emotion flared in Lottie’s expression. Pain, disappointment, acceptance, maybe—after all, it was her daughter she was talking about.

  Hank erupted. “She’s seventeen!”

  He shook his head at me when I made to leave to give them privacy. I wasn’t sure why he wanted me here but I sat back down, hoping to give him whatever moral support I could. He glanced at the ceiling as if counting to ten, then cleared his throat. When he spoke, his words had lost their fire, but he held my gaze as if confessing though he directed his words at Lottie as much as me. “Her mother—Becca,” he amended, as if saying “her mother” sounded too impersonal, “was seventeen when she got pregnant.”