She bit her lower lip as she gathered her courage. She knew that she’d have to leave in the near future, but not yet.
Trying not to sound as if his answer would mean the world to her, she asked, “Would it help if I stayed around for a while longer and took care of the calf for you?”
Nine
S ucking in a sharp breath, Cooper’s pulse took off at a gallop. Faith had a way to escape the primitive conditions they’d been forced to live in the past few days, but she was willing to stay?
“Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked, hoping with all his heart that was exactly what she wanted. “It’s going to demand a lot of your time.”
She smiled. “My dance card’s pretty crowded, but I think I can make room for one little red calf.”
Her reference to dancing sent a fair amount of adrenaline surging through his veins. She was letting him know that she was staying, not because she wanted to care for an orphaned calf, but because she wanted to be with him. He felt like picking her up, taking her inside the house and making love to her for the rest of the day.
“Darlin’, you’ve got yourself a job.” Grinning, he handed her the feed bucket. “Welcome to motherhood.”
For a split second, he could have sworn that a deep sadness clouded her eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. “I think I’ll name her Penelope,” she said, turning to stare at the little calf.
He frowned. “Penelope?”
“Don’t you like it?” she asked, her expression hopeful.
“It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s fine.” He shrugged. “But normally a rancher doesn’t name his cattle.”
“That doesn’t matter,” she said, smiling. “Penelope’s special. She’s named after my grandmother.” She laughed and the sound was like music to his ears. “They both have the same color hair.”
Her enthusiasm and sweet smile had him deciding that she could name every animal he owned if she wanted to and he’d readily go along with it. “Then Penelope it is,” he said, smiling back.
“How old is she?”
“She was born about five weeks ago,” he answered.
Turning on him, her stormy expression surprised him. “She’s only a month old and she’s still in there with all those big cows? No wonder she’s standing there shivering. She’s just a baby and scared to death. Go get her.”
It appeared Faith was taking this mothering thing pretty seriously. “Where am I going to put her until I get another stall in the barn ready?”
“I don’t care, but she’s not staying in there.”
Whiskers walked up and slapped Cooper on the back, his toothless grin wide. “While I was puttin’ the horses up, I nosed around—”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Cooper asked dryly.
Snorting, the old man raised his chin a notch and finished, “You could put her in the tack room.”
Cooper looked over at Flint for help. But the smirk on his brother-in-law’s face and his noncommittal shrug made Cooper want to punch him.
Resigned, he opened the gate and motioned for Flint to follow him. “You take the left side and I’ll take the right.”
In no time, they had the calf cornered and gathering her into his arms, Cooper carried Penelope out of the corral.
“Will she be all right in the tack room by herself?” Faith asked, sounding genuinely concerned. She reached out and gently ran her hand along the calf’s red hide.
Cooper stared at her a moment as he watched her soothe the frightened animal he held. Faith would be a wonderful mother some day. He only wished he could be the father of her babies.
A pang of deep longing tightened his chest. He’d always planned on having a wife and kids one day, and she was just the type of woman he’d always wanted. But the timing was lousy. There was way too much to do to this place, too many repairs to be made.
His steps heavier than they’d been only moments before, he walked toward the barn. He couldn’t ask Faith to saddle herself with a man who had nothing to offer her but hard work and a truckload of promises. She deserved better than that. A hell of a lot better.
Settling Penelope in the tack room, he went back outside and found Flint and Whiskers preparing to climb into the cab of Flint’s truck. “I appreciate your bringing the cattle and horses.” Giving Whiskers a pointed look, Cooper added, “And for returning my truck.”
“You don’t have to thank me.” The old geezer had the audacity to give Cooper a toothless grin as he added, “I been thinkin’ it all worked out right fine.”
Cooper knew Whiskers wasn’t referring to returning the truck as much as he was about taking it in the first place.
“If you get tired of the primitive conditions, you’re both more than welcome to stay at the Rocking M,” Flint offered.
Cooper glanced at Faith to check for her reaction to the offer, but an almost imperceptible shake of her head quickly had him grinning and shaking his own head. “Thanks, but I don’t want to waste thirty minutes just driving over here. It’s time I could be getting something done.” He held up the new cell phone battery Flint had handed him earlier. “Besides, now that I can make calls, I’ll be able to get the power company out here to hook up the electricity as soon as I get the house rewired.”
Flint nodded as he got into the truck. “If you change your mind, you know where we are.”
“Did you mention Sunday dinner, like Jenna said?” Whiskers asked, getting in on the passenger side.
Flint snapped his fingers. “Damn, I almost forgot. Jenna said to tell you to be over at our place by noon Sunday.”
Cooper grinned. “We’ll be there. Tell the boys I’ll take them on another critter hunt if they’re over their colds by then.”
“I’ll tell them,” Flint said, his grin wide. “But I’ve got better sense than to tell Jenna.” Starting the engine, he and Whiskers waved as they drove away.
Draping his arm around Faith’s shoulders, Cooper waited until the truck disappeared from sight before he pulled her into his arms. “I’m glad you decided to stay,” he said, brushing his mouth over hers.
She smiled as she wrapped her arms around his waist. “Penelope needs me.”
He smiled down at her. “Is the calf the only reason you decided to stay?”
“No.”
“What’s the other reason?”
“I haven’t finished my work for the day.”
“Work?”
Nodding, she stepped from his arms and started walking toward the barn. “After I take care of feeding Penelope I have to—” She stopped to glance at him over her shoulder, and giving him a smile that sent his blood pressure out of sight, finished, “Make the bed.”
Faith stirred the warm water into the powdered calf formula, then tested it on her arm to see if it was too hot. Confident that the milk was just right, she eyed the gallon bucket with the nipple on the side. It wasn’t full, but it still looked like an awfully large amount for one little calf.
“Cooper, are you sure this isn’t too much?” she called down the wide barn aisle.
Poking his head around the side of the stall he was cleaning, he shrugged. “Flint said they were having trouble getting her to eat, but if she starts nursing like she’s supposed to, it’ll be about right.” He walked toward her. “I almost forgot to tell you, you’ll have to be careful to brace the bucket when you start to feed her. You won’t be able to just hold it by the bail.”
“Why?”
He grinned. “Because she’ll butt her head against the bucket just like she would against her momma’s udder and you’ll wind up with calf formula all over you.”
“Ouch,” Faith said, wincing. She could just imagine how a poor mother cow would feel. “Why do calves do that?”
“It helps get the cow’s milk started,” he explained. He lifted the bucket. “Come on, I’ll show you how to hold it to keep her from knocking it out of your hands.”
He carried the bucket down to the tack room where he’d con
fined Penelope, then showed Faith how to hold the bucket to steady it. “She’s still a little skittish about people,” he said, walking slowly over to the corner where the little calf stood shivering nervously.
Faith heard him murmur soothing words as he caught the calf and guided her to where Faith stood holding the pail of milk. “Come on, sweetheart,” she said, adding her encouragement.
She watched Cooper kneel down and take hold of the nipple. He squirted a little milk toward Penelope and as soon as it landed on her nose, the calf ran her tongue out to lick it off.
“That’s it, little one.” He squirted more milk onto the calf’s nose. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?” Grinning, he looked up at Faith. “Once she gets the taste and figures out where it came from, she should hit that bucket like a defensive tackle trying to break through the line.”
It took several squirts for Penelope to realize where the milk came from, but when she did, she took the nipple into her mouth and butted the pail so hard Faith almost dropped it. “You were right about her butting against it,” she said, laughing. “Will she drink all of this at one time?”
“Probably.” He stood up and scratched Penelope’s red back while she noisily sucked on the nippled bucket. “If the cow was around, she’d nurse whenever she wanted. But now that you’re her momma, she’ll have to get used to a schedule.”
Faith’s chest tightened when he referred to her as Penelope’s mother. He had no way of knowing how long she’d wanted to be a mother, how she and Eric had tried to have a baby for over a year with no luck. She stared down at her bovine charge and blinked back tears before Cooper noticed. At least she’d get to mother something, even if the baby in question had a long tail that wiggled every time she ate.
“If you two will be all right, I’ll go finish getting her stall ready,” Cooper said.
“We’ll be fine.” Faith watched the level of milk in the bucket descend as Penelope butted against it and sucked noisily on the nipple. “Is there a lot left to do?”
He shook his head. “I just need to put down a fresh bed of straw.”
“Where did the straw come from?” She hadn’t seen Flint or Whiskers unload anything but the horses and cattle.
“Whiskers wasn’t joking when he said he’d thought of everything.” Cooper chuckled. “There’s about twenty bales of straw stacked in one of the other stalls and about two weeks supply of horse and cattle feed stored in the feed room.” He walked to the door. “When Penelope gets finished eating let me know and I’ll carry her down to her new home.”
Faith watched him go, then looked down at the calf he had coaxed into eating. Cooper was the most gentle, caring person she’d ever known. The patience he’d shown as he worked to help Penelope learn to find nourishment from the bucket had amazed her. And if she had any doubts about her feelings for him, they’d just been erased.
She was completely and hopelessly in love with Cooper Adams.
Faith bit her lower lip to stop its nervous trembling. She knew nothing could ever come of a relationship with Cooper. He deserved to have a family and she refused to deprive him of it. But she had a few more days to store up a lifetime of memories. And that was exactly what she intended to do.
She just hoped when the time came for her to leave that she was able to go without leaving her entire soul behind.
Cooper had just finished spreading straw over the dirt floor of the stall when he felt something tickle the back of his neck. Reaching up, he brushed his hand across his nape. When he felt the tickling again, he turned to find Faith standing behind him holding a straw in her hand.
He grinned. “Oh, so you want to play, huh?”
“How do you know that was me?” she asked innocently as she started backing away from him. “It might have been a spider that spun his way down from one of the rafters, tickled your neck, then climbed back up.”
“Was it?”
Laughing, she took another step backward. “No, but it could have been.”
When she turned to run from the stall, he caught her around the waist and pulled her to him. “Have you ever seen a tickling spider, darlin’?”
“No.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to show you one,” he said, running his fingers over her ribs.
She giggled and squirmed to break free of his grasp. “Cooper—”
“What?”
“Stop…tickling me.”
Her wiggling threw them both off balance, and making sure he held her so that he took the brunt of the fall, they landed in the soft bed of straw. With her sprawled across his chest, their legs tangled together, his body responded with a speed that made him dizzy. In a matter of seconds he was fully erect, his veins pulsing with need.
She must have noticed the change in his body because she stopped laughing to stare down at him. He watched as the teasing light in her eyes faded and a hunger that matched his own began to replace it.
“Faith?”
She stared down at him for several long seconds, then giving him a slow, sexy smile that damned near caused him to have a heart attack, she said, “Your hat came off when we fell.”
He hadn’t even noticed. Seeing it lying a few feet away, he smiled back at her. “So it did.”
She ran her finger down his nose, then traced his lips. “Should I get it for you?” Her finger dipped into his mouth. “Or do you want to leave it where it is for a while?”
His grin faded and he sucked in so much air, he thought his lungs might explode as he caught on to her meaning. Was she really asking him if he wanted to make love here in the barn?
He needed to make sure he wasn’t reading things wrong. “Well…” He had to stop and clear his throat in order to make his vocal chords work. “What do you think, darlin’?”
She appeared to give the matter some thought, then leaning down, whispered in his ear, “I think you’d be more comfortable with your hat off, Cooper.”
The sound of his name on her velvet voice, the look of hunger in her pretty brown eyes and the feel of her soft body draped over his, sent a shaft of deep need straight to his groin. At that moment, he didn’t care if he ever wore his hat again.
Cupping her cheeks with his hands, he drew her head down to his and pressed his mouth to hers. Her softness created a warmth in his chest that spread throughout his body and he moved to deepen the kiss. But Faith had other ideas.
When she slipped her tongue inside to stroke and tease his, the heat ignited into a flame that threatened to consume him. She was arousing him in ways he’d never believed possible and he had to shift to relieve the discomfort his jeans suddenly caused him.
As her lips moved over his, her hand busily worked at unsnapping the grippers on his shirt. With a pop that sounded like a cannon going off to his heightened senses, first one snap, then another gave way.
She lifted her head and the smile she gave him made him wonder what she had planned next. He didn’t have to wait to find out. Leaning over, she began pressing kisses to his newly exposed skin, and with each touch of her lips a tiny charge of electricity shot straight up his spine. But when her tongue darted out to circle his flat nipple, he thought he might just end up being electrocuted from the current coursing through him.
“Darlin’, you’re killing me.”
Her throaty laughter sent a shaft of desire coursing through every cell in his body. “You want me to stop?”
He swallowed hard in an effort to moisten the cotton coating his throat. “Hell no!”
Smiling, she rose to her knees and reached for his belt. “Are you sure?”
When he nodded, she worked the leather strap through the metal buckle, then eased the tab of his fly down. Her fingers brushed against the cotton fabric covering his arousal and he jerked as if he’d been zapped by a cattle prod.
“I can’t stand much more of this,” he said through gritted teeth. Unable to lie still any longer, he sat up. “It’s high time I evened the score.”
“What did you have in mind?” sh
e asked, her voice sliding over him like a sensual purr.
“This,” he said, pulling her sweatshirt over her head. She was wearing the lacey bra he’d seen through her wet T-shirt the day she’d arrived on the Triple Bar. He ran his finger along the edge of the cup. “You know, as good as you look in this, I like you better out of it.”
“You do?”
He nodded and unhooked the closure at the valley of her breasts. Pulling the straps from her shoulders, he tossed the scrap of lace on top of his hat, then filled his hands with her.
“This kind of beauty shouldn’t be covered up,” he said, lowering his head to take one coral nipple into his mouth. Running his tongue over the tight peak, he tasted her, then sucked the tight bud until she moaned with pleasure. “Does that feel good, darlin’?”
“Mmmm.”
“Want me to stop?”
“No.” She reached out to trace her fingers over his own puckered flesh. “How does that feel?”
“Good.” He closed his eyes as a shudder ran the length of him. “Damned good.” When her fingertips skimmed down his chest and belly to the waistband of his briefs, his eyes popped open. “What are you doing now?”
Her smile just about turned him wrong-side out. “Last night you explored my body, now it’s my turn to explore yours.”
At her urging, he rose to his knees, his heart pounding like a jackhammer against his ribs. “Darlin’, there’s something you should know.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
His breathing felt as if he’d been running a marathon and he had to concentrate hard on what he was trying to tell her. “At this stage of the game, I don’t think I can stand a whole lot of exploration.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Faith held his gaze with hers as she lifted his hands to place them on her shoulders, then slowly shoved his jeans down to his knees. He felt her fingers slide beneath the elastic band of his briefs and the anticipation of her touch had him gritting his teeth for control. It took everything he had not to rip both of their clothes off and end the sweet torture. But when she gently eased the cotton fabric over his arousal, pushed them down to his thighs, then took him into her soft warm hands, his head felt as if it might come right off his shoulders.
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