By the light of the moon, he could tell that she was watching his every move.
“You’re a beautiful man, especially when you’re buck naked.” She giggled at her play on words. “Get it?”
“I got it. Very funny.” He put his hands on his hips and grinned. “And I’ve been called many things, but beautiful isn’t one of them.”
“Get over here, cowboy.”
She slid out of her underwear. When she lay back down on the bed, it was his turn to look at her by the moonlight.
Merry shivered in anticipation. It didn’t take long for his fingers to find her core, to make her wet with desire.
As his mouth found hers, she could feel his fingers slide in and out, making her even wetter, hotter. The roughness of his calluses moved along her bottom, lifting her. The sensation made her tingle all over.
He nibbled at her bottom lip, and more heat coursed through her veins. She couldn’t get enough of the taste of him, the feel of his hard muscles.
The pace of their caressing increased as their passion escalated. Merry reached between them and cupped him in her hand. He was thick and hard, and she felt him pulse. His tongue mated with hers as her heart thundered in anticipation of feeling the length of him inside her.
“Buck…oh, Buck…I want you.”
“Mmm…wait. Stop.” He grabbed her wrist and stilled her hand.
She stared at him. “What’s wrong?”
“Not a thing.” He rolled over and reached for his pants on the floor. He yanked his wallet out of a pocket and pulled out a foil packet, tossing the wallet to the floor. Tearing a corner of the square open with his teeth, he stood and hurriedly unrolled the condom over his hard length.
She thought it was one of the sexiest things she’d ever witnessed.
“Thank you,” she said, cupping him again.
His tongue traced a line down her stomach. His fingers lingered in the coarse curls below then parted her again. She was wet and ready for him.
She sighed. “Now. Please.” She could barely speak.
He moved on top of her, and she welcomed the weight of him. He kissed her neck, her breasts, moved his tongue in a way that let her know what he intended to do.
She’d never wanted a man so much in her life.
He entered her slowly, letting her stretch to accommodate him. He filled her completely, tightly.
She felt like she was floating, never to return to earth. It felt right, more than right. It was as if she was part of a whole, and yet complete by herself. When he started to move inside her, she met his pace. Their lovemaking was fast, frenzied, until they both cried out their release all too soon.
He moved to the side, pulling her with him, still hard inside her. He buried his face in her hair and nibbled on her ear.
“That wasn’t enough,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get enough of you.”
She kissed the tip of his nose. “The night is young.”
“We’ll take it slower the next time.”
Merry could only smile her consent. She was already working on the next time.
Chapter Eleven
M erry got up just before sunrise because a certain cowboy sleeping on the couch was snoring loud enough to cause Lizard Rock to tumble down Lizard Rock Mountain.
Buck had moved to the couch in the early morning light because he didn’t want Cait to catch him in Merry’s bedroom.
Merry couldn’t sleep. The memory of their lovemaking kept rolling like a movie in her mind. Her face heated just thinking about the things they did.
If she was going to work the cowboys like a trail boss all day, she might as well feed them, and feed Buck. After all the exercise she had last night, she was famished, too.
She felt giddy, energized. Other than making love with Buck again, the thing she wanted to do the most was cook. She loved cooking here, cooking for people who appreciated it, who needed a little comfort food.
The third thing that she wanted to do was to find out more about Debbie Dalton.
Soaping her skin, she thought again of her night with Buck. There wasn’t an inch of her that remained untouched from his strong yet gentle hands. She broke into song, being careful not to choose a Debbie Dalton song. It was a long time since she’d been this happy and wanted it to last forever.
She toweled off, got dressed and stopped to take a look at Buck sleeping on the couch as she walked to the kitchen.
He was covered in a serape from the waist down. His chest was bare. She remembered splaying her hands across his tanned chest and feeling the hard muscles and warm skin under her palms.
His need took her breath away, yet he was a considerate lover.
To take her mind off him, she hurried into the kitchen to put the coffee on. She got the dough ready for her maple biscuits and made the batter for her buttermilk pancakes. She boiled some potatoes, and when they were done, she ran them under cold water and then diced them up in a pan along with some peppers and onions for fried potatoes. She found a couple of packs of sausage in the freezer and thawed them out in the microwave.
Thank goodness it was beef sausage, and not turkey or pork.
If she stopped to listen, she could still hear Buck’s even snoring. He must be exhausted from their workout last night.
She giggled, and Meredith Bingham Turner never giggled.
Merry walked onto the front porch to do what she had always wanted to do—ring the triangle to call everyone to the meal.
It barely made a sound at first, but then she got the hang of it, and let it rip.
She heard laughter behind her, and she knew immediately that it was Buck. When she turned to face him, she saw that his chest and feet were bare, and he was wearing his jeans. The jeans that fit him like a second skin.
He was sexy—and cute. And she blushed again when she remembered what they’d done all through the night, and for most of the morning.
“No one has rung that in years—not since my mother died.”
She wanted to sink through the floorboards. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No. That’s okay. Really. It was good to hear it again, but if you’re calling the boys, they’re moving the cattle to different ground. They won’t be in for another couple of hours.”
“Oh. I didn’t know. I made breakfast.”
“It smells delicious. Will it keep?”
“Yes.”
As if on cue, Buck’s stomach growled, and he grinned sheepishly.
“I’ll check on Cait so you can finish dressing and we’ll have breakfast outside under the cottonwood tree by the corral. You know, where we took pictures yesterday?”
He looked surprised. “Breakfast outside?”
“I thought you cowboys are used to eating outdoors. Don’t you go on trail drives so you can take your pack of cows to Dodge City or something?”
“That would be a herd of cows. Cattle. And the farthest we drive our cattle is to holding pens by the highway, where they are picked up by eighteen-wheelers.”
“What happened to the romance of the Old West?”
“I think I showed you that I can be romantic,” he said, his deep voice vibrating clear through to her bones. “Matter of fact, I think I showed you a few times.”
“Only a few?” She laughed.
He pulled her into his arms, and she laid her cheek against his warm chest. He kissed the top of her head. “No regrets, Merry?”
“No regrets, Buck.”
Not for now. But if she stopped to think, she knew that regrets would set in like a thick Boston fog. She didn’t want that to happen. Not yet. She just wanted to enjoy the special feeling inside her, for as long as possible.
She had to keep herself occupied or she would think too much. All the reasons why she shouldn’t get further involved with Buck Porter would come to her like ideas for new Christmas recipes.
She looked into his eyes and saw that the sparkle had left them. His regrets had set in already.
He let out a deep brea
th. “I think I’ll take a shower now.”
After his shower, Buck walked toward the big cottonwood and couldn’t believe his eyes. Merry really knew how to serve a meal. His mother’s dishes were set on the long picnic table along with some Mexican platters and bowls that he hadn’t seen in years. She had found a tablecloth that his mother had hand-painted with their brand—two Rs back to back.
All this fuss, and it wasn’t even for a photo shoot.
He liked the quart canning jar with the bouquet of wildflowers in it and a big, beat-up blue tin coffeepot in the center of the table steaming with the hot brew. He remembered the pot from the times the whole family had camped out at the line shack, and his mother used to hang it over a campfire to boil the coffee.
He saw that she’d set a place for Cait and remembered how his daughter had clung to him last night, crying her eyes out. He’d been praying that it was the breakthrough he’d been waiting for.
He thought of how he made love with Merry. She was one passionate woman. Were the men in Boston idiots? How could they kiss and tell and hurt her so deeply? How could they use her like that?
Yet their betrayals didn’t hold her back from his touch. And in the end, he’d probably end up hurting her just the same. If she was looking for a long-term relationship, she was spitting in the wind as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t going to compete against the spotlights and cameras for yet another woman. It was a losing battle.
Never again.
Merry sat sipping coffee from a metal mug that matched the coffeepot. When she saw him, she poured him a cup and pushed it over.
“This is mighty fancy,” Buck said. He felt content and comfortable with the homey outdoor scene.
She smiled. “I hope you don’t mind that I used what I found in the kitchen.”
“I don’t mind at all. We never get this fancy. There’s nothing like paper plates.”
She rolled her eyes. “Normally, I’d tell my guests to eat before things got cold, but things could stay hot for hours outside. It’s the desert, you know.”
Buck grinned as she shot his own words at him. “Just what I’d say.”
“I know.” The slight breeze moved her hair, and she tucked a lock behind her ear. “Is Cait still sleeping?”
He nodded, eying the stacks of pancakes under a glass-domed tray. “Yes. She’s still out, clutching her stuffed cat.”
“How come she doesn’t have a real cat? No dog for her, either?” She reached for the platter of pancakes and passed it to him. “I always wanted a pet. I was going to name my dog Scruffy and my cat Snowball, but my parents wouldn’t allow pets in our house.”
“Debbie was allergic to animals.” He helped himself to a pile of pancakes and then some fried potatoes. Damn, his mouth was watering. “I guess that doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”
“So, you were married to Debbie Dalton. I just read an article about her in People. They’re calling her a rising star.”
He reached for the maple syrup she’d put in a small glass pitcher. It was warm.
“That’s nice,” he said. “They certainly wouldn’t call her mother of the year.”
She looked at the mountains in the distance. He dreaded the inevitable questions. She wasn’t going to let him eat, and he knew it.
“C’mon, Buck. Tell me what happened. Whatever it was, Caitlin got so traumatized by it, she stopped talking.”
He’d just wanted to get a taste of the beautiful pancakes with the warm maple syrup before the questions hit, but suddenly everything looked like wax. He tossed his fork down. He might as well tell her everything. Merry’s magic seemed to be reaching Cait, and maybe if she knew a little more…
He took a sip of coffee, sat back in his chair and stretched out his legs. “We’d been married for six years when Debbie decided that she’d had enough. That was just after she’d met some guy in a bar in town, who heard her sing. He was some kind of agent. They went to Vegas, where she divorced me, and eventually they went to Nashville to cut a demo. They stayed three months or so, meeting with the record producers and doing whatever.”
“Where were you all this time when she was with him?” she asked.
“Here. Working the ranch.”
“And taking care of Cait?”
“She was in nursery school at the time, so I was able to get the majority of my chores done before she came home. I tried to spend a lot of time with her at night because she was so withdrawn and just pined for her mother, but Cait wouldn’t talk to me.”
He paused, trying to find the right words.
“Please, go on, Buck.”
“I knew from the beginning that Debbie had a dream of becoming a singer, a star. I thought that eventually she’d be happy being here with me and Cait, but she never was.”
Merry nodded. It was as if she understood Debbie’s mind. Why wouldn’t she? She had the same dream, and she was living her dream right now.
“Was she a good mother when she was with Cait?”
“Not particularly.” Buck shrugged. “There were times where they’d sing together and Cait would sit next to her when she wrote her songs. Cait had a beautiful voice.”
Merry nodded. “Just like her mother.”
He ignored that. He didn’t think that Debbie had a beautiful voice. Not anymore, not when the package it was wrapped in was so selfish and self-centered.
“The day she left, it got ugly between us. We fought in the barn. I was so damn pissed at Debbie. We said hateful things. Debbie told me that she’d had no intention of ever getting pregnant, and called Cait a brat and a mistake.”
Buck washed down his bitterness with a long draw of coffee.
“Oh, Buck.” Merry wiped the tears from her eyes with one of Cait’s hat-shaped napkins.
“Debbie was in such a hurry to leave that she slid on some wet hay and went down in a heap on the barn floor.”
“Oh, no. Then what?”
“Nothing really. I helped her up, and she took a swing at me, but I ducked. I wanted to call a doctor for her, but she couldn’t wait to leave. She said, ‘If you try to stop me, I’m going to tell everyone that you hit me.’”
“Did Cait hear all this?”
Buck shook his head. “Hell, no. She was sleeping. When I saw her the next morning, I had to tell her that her mother was gone. Cait never spoke to anyone again. I can’t explain it, but it was as if she folded into herself. She’s hated me since. I guess she blamed me and everyone for not convincing Debbie to stay.”
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed what was left of his coffee onto the ground and stood.
Now she knew it all, and she was only one of a few who did. “Thanks for the coffee, but I’d better go. I have things to do.”
“But you didn’t eat a thing.”
“Sorry. Maybe later.”
The phone started ringing inside, and he tweaked his hat to Merry and hurried inside to answer it. Normally, he’d let it go, but it might be Karen calling from the hospital.
“I wonder if it’s Karen,” he heard Merry say behind him.
As he answered the phone, Merry entered the kitchen. “It’s for you. It’s Joanne.” He handed it to her.
“Good morning,” she said. A deep frown creased her forehead. “It was just a harmless dinner.” She sat down at the kitchen table with a long sigh. “Joanne, I have to go. Karen is getting out of the hospital tomorrow, and I have things to do.”
She clicked off the phone, sighed deeply and looked out of the window. Buck tried to keep busy by loading the dishwasher and wiping off the counter, but soon there was nothing left to do.
“Buck, you should know that our picture hit one of the tabloids this morning. It won’t be long before they find out everything about you and what your association is with me. I’m sorry.”
“So? It’s just a picture.”
“It’s news. Gossip. People like that kind of thing, or at least the media thinks they do. The headline reads something like ‘Domestic Goddess Goes
Mex with Cowboy’ and the article insinuates that we’re having a torrid love affair under the hot Arizona sun.”
Buck winked. “Well, we are.” He succeeded in getting only a faint smile from her.
She avoided his eyes. “Joanne wants to release something. You know, damage control.”
He wanted to throw something. “I see,” he said instead. “Damage control.”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “Buck, I don’t mean to hurt you, especially after what you told me about Debbie. I like you a lot.”
This whole morning was starting out worse than being bit by a rattler.
“I have my business to think about, just like you have your ranch.”
“And sometimes I want to get away from the ranch and my responsibilities.”
“Me, too. But I can’t.” She touched his cheek gently with her palm. “I can’t seem to resist you, Buck, but it’ll never work out between us.”
“Just what I’ve been thinking.” He spit out the words, then stepped away.
Merry somehow looked surprised, relieved and hurt all at once. “You were thinking that, too?”
He shrugged. “Of course.” Dammit. He’d wanted her to say that it didn’t matter—that nothing mattered but their obvious feelings for each other. But she didn’t say a word to that effect.
Neither had Lisa or Debbie.
“Well, I have things to do,” he snapped. “Make up a grocery list for Cookie. I’ll round up the boys and they’ll do whatever needs doing around here.”
“Thank you.” She gave a weak smile but still couldn’t meet his eyes. “And don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on Cait.”
Buck hurried out of the house and headed to the barn, thinking that he would have rather been kicked in the gut by a mule than by Meredith Bingham Turner’s new cowboy boots.
Buck let Ty direct the men and handle whatever Merry needed done at the house, and he retreated to the barn. It would keep them all busy while he put the finishing touches on a china cabinet he was making. He did his best thinking while he was making furniture, and he had some major thinking to do.
He thought about the big inventory that was stashed in the far corner of the barn, all ready to be hauled to Jack’s gallery. Dammit, it had to pay off.
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