The Cowboy Steals a Lady

by Anne McAllister

  And she knew she would.

  But to know such intimacy, to have experienced it and yet to realize it wouldn't last, well, it hurt.

  She wished … wished…

  Something of what she was feeling must have shown in her face for Shane touched her arm. "Are you … okay?"

  Poppy forced a smile. "I'm fine," she lied.

  "I hurt you."

  She shook her head. "No."

  Not the way he meant. Not the way that he was going to hurt her when the snow stopped and they left the cabin—and each other—to go their separate ways.

  She rolled onto her side, facing him, cradling her head in the crook of her arm and smiled at him again. This time it wasn't so hard. "You didn't hurt me," she told him. "You loved me."

  He blinked. But he didn't at once look away. He seemed to consider her words, to weigh them.

  And then he, too, smiled. It was a sad smile. Wistful almost. Then he blinked again, several times rapidly, and rolled onto his back to stare up at the ceiling. She saw him swallow.

  "I wish I could," he said.

  * * *

  So much for restraint.

  Had he ever really expected he'd be able to resist the temptation that was Poppy Hamilton?

  Even knowing who her father was, had he, Shane Nichols, ever actually believed that he'd be able to do the honorable thing, the right thing, and keep his jeans zipped and his hands off her?

  Well, he'd hoped.

  Sort of.

  But not enough, obviously. And now he had that on his conscience as well.

  It was a good thing his conscience was used to bearing up under heavy loads, he thought morosely as he studied the woman sleeping beside him.

  He wasn't on the sofa tonight.

  He would have gone back there again if she'd wanted him to, but she didn't. She wanted him to stay, wanted to sleep with him.

  He stayed. He wasn't sleeping.

  He was lying there thinking. Aching. Wishing.

  He'd wanted sex. He'd thought that was what he was after. And he'd got it.

  And more.

  So much more he couldn't quite fathom it even yet. He'd been given unconditional love. Poppy Hamilton's virginity. And more than that even. Her heart and soul.

  He knew it. He saw it in her eyes, felt it in her touch. Knew what was happening and was powerless to stop it. Didn't want to stop it. He only wanted her.

  And he tried to give her what he could of himself in return.

  It wasn't much. It wasn't enough.

  Nothing he had would ever be enough for her.

  Maybe she wouldn't tell her father about him kidnapping her. Maybe he would get off scot-free. Maybe no one would ever know what had happened, except the two of them.

  And maybe, if he hadn't made love with her, he could have forgotten it himself in time.

  Not now.

  Now he would carry with him the memories of the sweetest, most beautiful lovemaking he'd ever shared. Now he would move on and know that the best was behind him. Now he would go to his grave carrying the impression of Poppy Hamilton's smiling face in his heart.

  The judge would say it served him right.

  * * *

  They awoke to sunshine, snow melt and Taggart Jones clumping up the front steps.

  "Shane? You here? Hello!"

  Poppy's eyes snapped open wide. "Who's that?"

  Shane, muttering swear words, stumbled out of bed and scrabbled for his jeans. "Taggart. Guy who owns the cabin. Prob'ly up checking the herd and saw the truck. 'M here," he yelled back. "Hold your horses!"

  He threw Poppy the shirt she'd shed during their lovemaking, then he stepped into his jeans and yanked them up and hurried to open the door.

  "Saw your truck in the ditch when I was makin' a circle," Taggart said when Shane opened the door. "You okay?"

  "Fine." Shane got the jeans zipped, but gave up on the button and left his shirt hanging open. "Just … sleeping in. I tried digging out a couple of times. Couldn't make it. Got pretty tired."

  "I guess. What the hell were you doin' up here?"

  "Drivin' around."

  "In a blizzard?"

  Shane hunched his shoulders. "You've never done a stupid thing in your life?"

  "One or two," Taggart said. He frowned at the sound of bedsprings in the other room. "Someone else here?"

  A light seemed to dawn in his head. He looked at Shane, his expression far less puzzled now. He grinned.

  Shane scowled. "None of your business."

  A corner of Taggart's mouth lifted. "Not as long as she's here of her own free will."

  Shane felt his cheeks warm, but he managed an indignant look. "You reckon I kidnapped someone?"

  Taggart laughed. "You never know." His gaze strayed toward the bedroom and he looked speculative. Poppy didn't come out. He looked back at Shane.

  "Mystery woman?"

  "That's right."

  There was a moment of silence, then Taggart nodded. "It's what I always liked about you, Nichols. You got guts." He made a sound suspiciously like a chicken cluck.

  Shane's teeth came together with a snap. His fingers balled into fists.

  Taggart burst out laughing and clapped Shane on the shoulder, then turned toward the steps. "Come on. Grab your jacket. I've got a cellular phone in my saddlebag. I'll call Jed and have him meet us. We can winch your truck out, and you can leave whenever you're ready."

  Shane stared after him suspiciously.

  Taggart paused halfway down the steps and looked back. "Scout's honor, Nichols. I know the native curiosity of the local inhabitants. I've experienced it myself. I won't even ask."

  * * *

  And so it was over.

  Just like that.

  Taggart called Jed McCall. And while Jed drove over in his truck with the plow and the winch, Shane and Taggart rode double on Taggart's horse to meet him at the truck.

  In a matter of a little over two hours, Jed had the road from the highway plowed all the way to the cabin. Then the three of them winched Shane's truck out of the ditch and up on the snow-packed gravel.

  "Thanks," Shane said to Jed while they were working the winch. He shot his brother's friend a quick, wary look, wondering if Jed would ask what he was doing here or if he'd wonder who he was with.

  He needn't have worried.

  "No sweat," Jed said. It was the only thing he said until they had the truck up on the road. Then, as he was getting back in his own, he looked over at Shane.

  "Watch yourself," he said conversationally, with no expression on his face at all. Then he put the truck in gear and let out the clutch. As he drove off he made a noise that sounded distinctly like a chicken.

  "Did you hear something?" Taggart said, grinning.

  Shane's fists clenched. "No."

  Taggart got back on his horse, touched a hand to the brim of his hat and gave Shane a wink. "Me, neither."

  * * *

  Poppy came out onto the porch as he drove up the freshly plowed road to the cabin. "That was easy," she said.

  "Yeah." He got out and came toward her, wanting it not to have been so easy, wanting the snow to start up again, wanting to pretend they could keep right on with this fantasy life they'd created for themselves.

  He tried looking at her, but his eyes wouldn't meet hers for longer than a second. He didn't know how to look at her now that the real world was a factor again. Everything had changed.

  "Did your friend clear everything all the way to the highway?"

  "He did."

  "Nice of him."

  He flicked a glance at her then, trying to guess if she felt the same dismay he did.

  Of course she didn't, he told himself. She'd given him love, but she hadn't asked for anything back. Because she was a realist.

  She'd never expect anything. Not from a guy like him.

  "I better cut the fuel off," he said abruptly. "Throw the gear together, and we can go."

  "I already have," Poppy said.

&nb
sp; So she could hardly wait.

  He couldn't blame her. She had a life. He was an interlude.

  He wished he was a different sort of guy—a guy whom some girl might look at and think had staying power, some common sense, a future.

  Any of the above.

  But he wasn't.

  And both of them knew it.

  The ride back to town was accomplished in almost total silence. They sat side by side, but they didn't touch. For people who couldn't get enough of each other just hours before, they didn't have anything to say to each other now.

  It wasn't until Shane pulled up outside her apartment and they both got out of the truck that either of them dared look at the other.

  She smiled. It was a sad smile, a painful smile.

  He touched her mouth with one finger. "Don't."

  And then, because he was nothing if he wasn't a man of impulse, Shane indulged himself one last time.

  He closed the distance between them and put his hands on her arms, drawing her into his embrace. Then, lightly, gently, he touched his lips to hers.

  They were warm, soft, yielding. They parted slightly, offering him more. And he wanted more.

  But he knew he had no right.

  Not here. Not now. Not in the real world.

  He shut his eyes and focused on the moment. He knew he would remember it even longer than he would remember their lovemaking, because it was the last time he would touch her.

  He stepped back, made himself smile. Then he touched her cheek with his finger. "'Bye, Poppy Hamilton."

  Then he turned and walked quickly away. He got in his truck and gunned the engine, spraying snow as he spun away from the curb. He stared straight ahead.

  He wasn't looking back, not for anything in the world.

  * * *

  Eight

  « ^ »

  He was gone.

  One minute he was there, holding her, and the next … he wasn't.

  He was gone.

  One minute he was there, kissing her, making her wish and hope and dream of forever.

  And the next … he wasn't.

  Of course he wasn't, Poppy told herself firmly. She'd never expected he would be.

  But oh, God, how she'd wished!

  And still he'd gone.

  Poppy stood quite still, watching—even then, hoping—until his truck had rumbled down the street and around the corner.

  He was gone.

  She was alone. And then, only then, had she turned and trudged up the stairs—back to real life.

  Her cat was mad. Her plants were thirsty. Newspapers were piling up outside her door. Her answering machine was flashing more times than she wanted to count.

  Poppy apologized to the cat and refilled his not-quite-empty food dish. She watered her plants and apologized to them, too. She carried in her newspapers and dumped them straight into the trash. She shut off the answering machine without listening to a word. The phone started ringing even as she did so. She ignored it.

  She was back in the real world, all right, the world she had coped with day after day for twenty-five years without thinking about it.

  She thought about it now.

  She wanted to be back in the cabin with Shane.

  Get over it, she told herself sharply. You knew it wouldn't last.

  And, of course, that was only the truth.

  But knowing something and facing the reality of it were two different things as she had pointed out just the day before when she had told Shane about her mother's death.

  She had known her mother was dying. She had known that their days in the cabin would end. In both cases she'd had faced reality head-on—and been ground into the dirt in the process, she thought wryly.

  Do you learn from your experience? she asked herself.

  No.

  Not very bright, are you?

  No, not very.

  The phone stopped ringing. She kicked off her shoes and fell onto her bed. It should have felt soft, comfortable, familiar. It felt foreign.

  Comfortable and familiar would have been to fall into the bed at the cabin and into Shane Nichols's arms.

  "You are a nut case," Poppy said out loud.

  No, she corrected herself. She was stressed.

  She'd been kidnapped, hadn't she?

  She'd been taken away against her will, held in a mountain cabin for three days, kissed within an inch of her life, loved until she couldn't see straight, and then brought back to face a furious cat and what was doubtless a tape full of cranky messages from her father.

  "It would make anyone insane," she assured herself as she rolled over onto her back and hauled a pillow against her breasts and hugged it hard. "Anyone," she repeated, as if saying it again would convince her.

  Maybe it did, for in her mind now she didn't see her room anymore. As she shut her eyes, she saw the cabin, all rough logs and plank floors. And she didn't feel the pillow anymore. She felt Shane's weight atop her and his arms around her. It wasn't the cool percale of the pillowcase against her cheek, either, but the moist roughness of Shane's three-day-old beard.

  Moist roughness?

  Poppy's eyes flew open.

  The cat blinked right in her face, made a small disapproving sound, then went back to licking her cheek.

  "Ergh," Poppy muttered and rolled away from him. "Go away, Wally."

  But Wally didn't go away. He stepped onto her back and began kneading. And there was nothing about his little cat paws that reminded her of Shane. She didn't have a man. She had a cat.

  Oh, yes, she was back.

  This was her life.

  "So get on with it," she muttered to herself.

  She would. Tomorrow.

  Tomorrow she would call her father, read her mail, open her shop, do her job, meet an eligible man.

  Tonight she would sleep.

  And maybe, with luck, she would dream about Shane.

  * * *

  "What do you mean, how was the wedding? You weren't there?" Amber, the girl who was helping in Poppy's Garden while Milly was on her honeymoon, looked astonished at Poppy's question.

  Poppy had been in the shop since six. She hadn't slept well. She hadn't dreamed of Shane—only of messages from her father—and she'd had nothing to stay in bed for.

  Obviously God was trying to point out that she'd shirked long enough.

  So she got up and made a pot of black coffee and ate some dry toast, and told herself that she was feeling much better, thank you. It was a necessary lie, she assured herself. If she kept repeating it, eventually it would be true.

  In the meantime, she would carry on as if those days at the cabin with Shane hadn't even happened.

  And now she wondered if they hadn't!

  How on earth could Amber not even notice that she hadn't shown up at Milly and Mike's wedding?

  "I … had to go out of town," she said vaguely, plucking some mums out of a vase. "A spur-of-the-moment thing. I'm sorry to have missed it. It must have been wonderful."

  Amber shrugged out of her coat and hung it up. "Wonderful? Hardly. But it was pretty interesting. Cash barging in that way, striding down the aisle in the middle of the ceremony like he was in some movie!"

  Poppy stopped pushing mums into a foam block and gaped. "Cash did what?"

  "Stopped the wedding," Amber said cheerfully. "Didn't you know? Where were you? The North Pole?"

  "Something like that." Poppy's mind reeled. "Out of town. I told you. Tell me what happened?"

  "Well, the wedding was going along just fine. Real pretty. Except Milly was a little ticked 'cause you left those flowers for her to do in the morning."

  Poppy let that pass. "Go on."

  "It didn't really matter in the end 'cause no one will ever remember that."

  "What happened?"

  "The minister was just starting to do the marriage thing, when all of a sudden there was this commotion in the back, and one of the ushers said, 'Hey, you can't go in there!' and Cash said, 'Like to see you try a
n' stop me!' An' the usher did, an' next thing you know, the usher was lying on the floor and Cash was comin' up the aisle!"

  "Cash hit one of Mike's ushers?"

  "Well, the story is supposed to be that the usher slipped on some melting ice," Amber said piously, but the grin came creeping back. "But he's got a black eye today."

  "Oh, dear God." Poppy strangled the mum.

  "Cash stepped over him, went down to the front, looked Milly straight in the eye and told her he'd step back and never say another word if she'd swear to him in front of all these people that she didn't love him anymore." Amber paused dramatically.

  "And?" Poppy prompted. "And?"

  "And she couldn't! She started cryin', and her mother started cryin' and her father said, 'Oh, for God's sake!' and Mike didn't say anything, and the preacher didn't, either. I don't think he knew what to say."

  "They probably don't get lessons in that sort of thing at the seminary," Poppy said. Her mind was reeling.

  Cash had done that? Cash had come back, punched somebody out and broken up the wedding of the woman he loved?

  What would he have done if he'd come back to discover that there wasn't a wedding because the night before, his buddy had run off with the bride?

  "Oh, Lord," she muttered.

  Amber rolled her eyes. "Pretty wild, huh?"

  "You have no idea," Poppy said faintly. What would Shane say when he heard?

  "Milly just kept crying. And then she started apologizing to Mike, and Mike looked as if he'd like to punch Cash."

  "He didn't?" Poppy said hopefully.

  "No. He just looked disgusted. Then he said to Milly, 'You want him? Fine. You got 'im. I'd rather know now.' And he walked out. Nobody else moved. They all waited, looking at Milly and Cash. Then Cash said there was no reason to waste the wedding. All it needed was a new groom. And that would suit him just fine. Milly said, 'Well, it doesn't suit me!' and slapped him! Too bad you missed it."

  "Indeed," Poppy murmured. "And where are Cash and Milly now?"

  "Who knows? She went storming out, still crying. And Cash just sort of shrugged and said he was sorry if he'd ruined everybody's party, but if they wanted to go to The Barrel, drinks were on him. I think he wanted to give Milly a little time to cool off."

  "Smart of him," Poppy said.

  Amber nodded. "So where'd you go?"

  "Er, just … away for the weekend with a … friend."