by Monroe, Lucy
Grant sighed. “If your brother had lived, your dad wouldn’t have sold the ranch at all. But—”
She broke in before he could go on. “But he didn’t live and my dad was stuck with me. I flunked at being a rancher’s daughter and he knew I’d fail at running the ranch as well.”
Pain coalesced inside Zoe as so many unmet needs rang hollowly through her soul. She had needed her father’s unconditional acceptance, but she’d never gotten it. She’d needed to know she counted for something in her family besides the “oops” baby that had grown into the incomprehensible child. Those needs had never been met, and now Grant was telling her he’d been a part of one the most painful experiences of her life—her parents’ final rejection.
They had sold her childhood home, bought property in Arizona, and waited to tell her until everything was a done deal.
Grant trapped her gaze with his own. “When you were six, you took a cow you’d befriended out on the range to save it from the stock sale. When you were nine, you buried the branding irons in your mother’s garden. When you were thirteen, you opened the gates on the cattle-holding pens that had been marked for beef. You became a vegetarian when you were sixteen and you refused to come home from college for Spring Break your freshman year because it coincided with spring roundup.”
She couldn’t deny a single one of his charges.
He sighed, pain she did not understand reflecting in his eyes. “This isn’t about failing. It’s about wanting you to be happy—and your dad knew it wouldn’t be running a ranch.”
Grant stood up and moved toward her. He looked like he was going to touch her and she couldn’t bear it. She jumped up. “I need to get back to the house. I’ve got presents that still need wrapping.” And she desperately needed time to think—to come to terms with Grant’s role in her dad’s decision. “I’ll leave the cats here for now, if you don’t mind.”
He put his hand out to grab her, but she evaded him and rushed from the room. Grant wanted to shoot something, and his dad, sitting next to Lottie and looking so calm, made a likely target. “Why the hell did you have to tell her I advised Jensen to sell?”
“I didn’t know it was a state secret.”
Grant gritted his teeth. “It wasn’t. It was something Zoe didn’t need to know and clearly won’t understand.”
“Maybe you should try explaining it to her again, when she’s had a chance to calm down.” Lottie laid a hand on his dad’s forearm. “And maybe you should learn to leave well enough alone.”
His dad shook his head. “I’ve left well enough alone long enough. It hasn’t gotten me one step closer to being a grandfather. Jensen neither.”
Lottie groaned. “I should have known. So, you think putting their friendship at risk is going to catapult them into each other’s arms?”
“It’s worth a try. Jensen selling his ranch and leaving his daughter homeless sure as hell didn’t do the trick.”
Grant experienced a glimmer of understanding at his dad’s belligerent words, along with more than a glimmer of aggravation. “Are you saying Zoe’s dad sold the ranch to me as a way to bring the two of us together?”
His own father shrugged. “I’m not saying anything. But it’s what I would have done if it had been left up to me.”
Aggravation grew to anger. “And causing a major disagreement between Zoe and me is your idea of matchmaking?”
“It’s time you two stopped dancing around each other and figured out the reason I don’t have any grandchildren is because my son is in love with his best friend and too blind to see it.”
Grant controlled the urge to yell. “I’m not blind.”
It was his dad’s turn to look enlightened. “So you figured out you loved her, did you?”
“I don’t know about love, but I care about her.”
“Hell, what else would you call it, boy?”
Grant remained stubbornly mute.
“Are you seeing each other again?” Lottie asked.
“We never stopped seeing each other.”
“You know what I mean. Are you dating?”
After last night there could only be one answer to that question. “Yes.”
His dad frowned. “So, what’s the problem?”
“Don’t you mean problems?” Grant sighed. “Zoe hated being a rancher’s daughter. Really hated it. She was miserable on the ranch. But I belong here. And when I’m not here, I live in a world that doesn’t impress her much either. She’s a small-town girl, but not a rancher, and I’m not sure where that leaves us. Added to that, you’ve got her so mad at me I’m not sure she’ll ever speak to me again.”
“Are you sleeping with her, son?”
Tension arced right up Grant’s spine and landed behind his eyes as a pulsing headache. Zoe was going to kill him, but she’d have to get him out of jail first, after he’d strangled his dad. “That’s none of your business.”
“I agree.” Lottie’s voice held the firm authority Grant had learned to respect as a child, and he knew his father didn’t dismiss it lightly either. “Whatever is happening between the two of them is just that—between the two of them. I think you and Mr. Jensen have done enough.”
His dad opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again at one look from Lottie’s usually gentle gray eyes, now gone hard as slate. She turned her attention to Grant.
“Have you asked yourself what the ranch would mean to you if you lost Zoe because of it?”
“You mean like my dad had to do when you demanded he choose between you and his life as a rancher? He wouldn’t give up the land for my mother, but he did for you, and, yes…maybe I’m beginning to understand how he could have made that choice.”
But it wasn’t one Grant wanted to make.
His dad leveled a look of censure at him. “Lottie may have made me choose between the ranch and her, but she didn’t do it because she couldn’t stand living the life of a rancher’s wife.”
“Then why did she do it?” Grant asked.
“I did it because your father was running his health into the ground, trying to run both the Cortez ranch holdings and his business ventures in Portland. He had a heart attack a couple of months before I gave him my ultimatum. It was a mild one, but the doctor told him something had to give.”
Grant felt sucker punched and glared at his dad. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to feel pressured into coming home from the east coast. You had your plans, and I wasn’t going to ruin them, but then Lottie left for Portland and told me I could follow or be divorced.”
“I meant it too.” Lottie’s eyes filled with a militant gleam. “I wasn’t going to stick around to watch your father work himself into an early grave. Nothing was worth his health—not the ranch, nothing.”
Grant couldn’t argue with that. Lottie was right. His dad’s health was more important than his former lifestyle, and Zoe was more important to Grant than his current one.
Nothing was worth losing Zoe. Not the ranch, nothing. Hell, it had to be love…nothing else could feel this damn scary. As she drove toward the Pattersons’, Zoe’s mind kept replaying her conversation with Grant and his parents.
Grant had advised her dad to sell, and she couldn’t blame him. Not when she thought about it rationally. He had been right. She didn’t want to be a cattle rancher, and selling the ranch had been the only alternative that made sense for her parents. What he and her parents didn’t seem to understand was her need to have been part of the decision—to have been legitimized as an important part of her family.
But that had not been Grant’s choice. She clutched the cold steering wheel tightly, missing the gloves she’d forgotten to put on…again. She shouldn’t have run out of Grant’s house without talking out Roy’s revelation. She’d left Grant believing she blamed him for her dad’s rejection, and she didn’t. She didn’t even blame her dad. Losing his only son had broken something inside him and she’d never been able to fix it.
And she
had to give her dad some credit. She had been a difficult child for a rancher to raise. She smiled at the memories Grant had brought up. She’d been too attached to the animals, and she’d spent hours drawing and writing stories when she was supposed to be doing chores.
It wasn’t Grant’s fault her parents didn’t see her as a contributing member of their family unit either. But frankly that old pain had been well and truly superceded by a new one. Grant’s advice to her dad only confirmed the lack of any hope for a future between them. He wasn’t going to marry a woman who’d failed so miserably at the whole ranching lifestyle.
He might not realize it, but she knew he had major baggage left over from the three most important women in his life abandoning him for his lifestyle. He wouldn’t risk marriage to someone who couldn’t love him more than she hated ranching.
Zoe had spent the last four years running from her love for Grant, but she wasn’t going to run any longer. She loved that stubborn rancher-tycoon more than anyone or anything else on earth, and she believed he loved her. He couldn’t have made love to her the way he had otherwise. It had been too reverent…too spiritual. It had not been simple lust.
She would live in a snakepit if it meant being his wife. Telling him she wanted to share his life on a working cattle ranch was nothing in comparison.
She smiled with grim purpose as she turned into the Pattersons’ drive. She had plans. The Christmas wrapping would have to wait. Grant had invited her to spend the holidays at the ranch, and she intended to accept his invitation.
Grant stood under the pulsing hot water, steam billowing around him, and closed his eyes.
Zoe had come back. She’d shown up on his doorstep not two hours after she’d left. She’d come in through the front door again. There was significance in that, but he didn’t know what. She’d had all of her stuff too, not just a suitcase.
He’d wanted to yank her into his arms and kiss her until neither of them could breathe, but she’d made it clear she didn’t want to flaunt the physical side of their relationship in front of his parents. He would heed her wishes, but as soon as the household had gone to sleep he was going to Zoe’s room—even if it meant tiptoeing down a dark hallway.
He reached for the soap and touched a feminine hand instead. “Let me do that.”
He spun around at the sound of the soft female voice and ran into a lot more female flesh. Naked female flesh. He opened his eyes and blinked. He rubbed them and blinked again. He still couldn’t see anything. “Zoe?”
Soft, soapy hands started gliding over his torso. “Who else would accost you in the shower?”
“No one.” He reached out to touch her, trying to see her tantalizing body in the inky blackness. “What happened to the lights?” His hand connected with resilient flesh and he cupped her breast, reveling in the feeling of her turgid nipple against his palm.
Her breath hitched and her hands started kneading his chest. “I turned them off. I wanted it to be just you and me. Nothing else. Not even the light.” She moved a step closer and their bodies contacted from chest to knee.
He shuddered, feeling his hardened flesh press against the slick wet skin of her stomach. “Querida—”
She cut him off with a kiss, her lips sliding against his wet ones with erotic purpose. And just like that he gave up trying to figure out why the room had gone dark, or why Zoe had come to him at the risk of being caught out by his parents. He didn’t care.
He kissed her with reckless male passion and caressed her back, then brushed his hands over her bottom, pressing her closer into his male heat. The dark lent a touch of unreality to their lovemaking. Talk about male fantasy. He’d take Zoe’s version any day of the week.
They were alone in a world of their own, where ranches and cattle sold for beef had no place. Where no one and nothing could separate them. Where the past had no power to hurt and the present was nothing more than two bodies pressed close together in a darkness no light was allowed to penetrate.
Brushing the wet and curling hair on his chest, she shifted her legs apart until she straddled one of his thighs. He gave an involuntary groan at the first contact between her feminine juncture and his hair-roughened thigh. She caught her breath, tearing her lips from his to suck in more humid air, and moved experimentally against him. Sensation shot through him as he felt a wetness on his thigh that had nothing to do with the hot water cascading over them.
“Grant.” His name coming out of the darkness in her voice, rough with passion, shivered along his senses like a caress.
She moved again, and made a startled sound when he lifted his leg and tightened his grip on her bottom, pressing her sensitive flesh more firmly against his thigh. “Do you like that, baby?”
“I…” Her voice trailed off as he moved his leg again, and she shuddered, crying out with irresistible feminine passion.
He had thought making love with her the first time had been the most mind-altering experience he could possibly have, but this wasn’t just amazing—this was soul-transforming.
“Give it to me, Zoe. I want it all.” He punctuated each word with a movement of his thigh, rejoicing as the sensitive skin against his thigh swelled and went silky smooth with wetness. “That’s right, niña.”
“Please, Grant. You can have anything.”
He stopped moving, his hands gripping her so tightly part of his conscious mind warned him about bruising her. “Anything?”
“Yes! Anything, Grant. Anything!” She tried to move on him again, but he wouldn’t let her.
Instead he kissed her, a soft warm caress that felt like the sealing of something incredibly important. “Can I have your love? Will you give that to me?”
He waited in an agony of need, knowing her answer was more important to him than the desire clamoring for satiation.
Her hands came out of the darkness to cup his face. “I love you, Grant. I always have. I always will.”
His body went rigid, and in a convulsive move he crushed her to him, spreading her legs more widely until he’d speared her with his hard maleness, giving them both what they craved. “I love you, Zoe. I will love you forever.”
He pressed her against the shower wall, warm and slick from the hot spray, and drove into her with almost frightening intensity. He needed to slow down, but he couldn’t. Her avowal of love had torn away his control, leaving only a primitive need to confirm that love in the most elemental way possible.
She didn’t seem to mind as she hooked her legs around his waist, opening herself up completely to him. He drove into her with a circling motion, pressing the swollen bud of her pleasure against his pelvic bone with every thrust.
“I want to go so deep you can’t remember what it’s like not to be joined with me.”
She gripped his shoulders with fingers like talons. “Yes!”
He made love to her with his entire body, his hands busy holding and touching her, his lips all over her face and neck, his chest rubbing her hardened nipples until she was screaming with pleasure and convulsing around him with one pulsing contraction after another.
He shouted as his release came over him, feeling one with her in a way he’d only ever known when his body was joined with Zoe’s. He held her tightly to him as their breathing returned to normal. She kept her legs tightly wound around his waist.
“Ninety years of this is not going to be enough.”
“Ninety years?” she asked, her voice sounding uncertain.
He kissed her forehead and gently disentangled their limbs, before pulling her back into the shower and washing her body with reverent care and a thoroughness that led her to another shattering explosion of physical sensation. When he finally turned the water off and pulled her from the shower, she held onto him like she needed his support to stay upright, while he groped in the dark for a towel.
He dried her off, kissing her body between tender swipes with the towel. She returned the favor, and it was all he could do not to initiate another bout of loving in the steam-
filled room. He went to turn on the light.
“No. Don’t.”
“Baby?”
“There’s something I want to say.”
“And you want to do it while it’s dark?”
He heard a soft sigh. “Yes. I don’t want distractions or interruptions. Only the words. I want you to hear the words and believe them. Will you do that, Grant? Will you believe my words in the darkness?”
She sounded on the verge of tears, and he couldn’t help reaching out to touch her. He found her arm, and from there settled both hands on her shoulders. “Yes. I’ll believe anything you tell me, whether it’s dark or not.”
Her hands settled against his chest like the fluttering wings of a sparrow. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
One of her hands left his chest, and then he felt her finger tracing his lips, silencing them. “Thank you.” Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath. “I know you think I can’t be happy on a working ranch.”
He nodded. Her fingers were still pressing his lips closed.
“You’re wrong.”
He reached up and gently pulled her hand away from his mouth. “What are you trying to say?”
“Living with you, loving you, will make me happy. Living without you would be hell. Please don’t make me do it.”
He pulled her into a tight embrace. “Never. I want to marry you. I want you to have my babies. I’m not the one who started talking about affairs instead of a future after the most passionate night of love between two people known to man.”
He reached over and flipped on the light. “Marry me, Zoe.” He cupped her face with one hand while the other held her close to him. “I love you more than the ranch, more than my freedom, more than anything in my life. Marry me.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I love you. I love you so much. I’ll live on the ranch with you. I’ll have your babies, and I’ll be as stoic as they come every year at the stock sale.”
He smiled and shook his head, covering her lips with his thumb when she opened her mouth to answer. “I’d give up the ranch, if that was what it would take to make you happy as my wife, but I don’t think I’ll have to.”