by Lori Foster
“Whatcha laughing about?” Betsy Mae raised her head and gazed at him over the rim of her glass.
She’d pulled her hair into a ponytail and wore a soft cotton T-shirt and cutoff jeans. The bruises on her face had flnally faded, though he noticed new ones on her arm where Frank had grabbed her. She looked about twelve years old, and when Mark saw those bruises he was glad he’d broken Frank’s jaw.
Holding on to his temper, he shook his head. “Nothing in particular.” He sipped his beer. “Did you know Frank had priors on him? That he was wanted for assaults against three women?”
Betsy Mae glanced away and shook her head. “Do you really think I would have married him if I’d known that?”
“No. I don’t. You’re too smart for that.” The corner of his mouth quirked up.
She glanced at him and then stared out across the valley. “Well, then you’re the only one who thinks that.” She sighed and spun her wineglass between her fingers. “Will was always the smart one. I was just dumb old Betsy Mae. Pretty to look at but not good for much else.”
Frowning, Mark reached for her, caught her chin in his fingers, and gently forced her to look at him. “What makes you say that?”
Her short burst of laughter sounded too much like a sob for his peace of mind. “Oh, just about everybody. My parents . . . Will. Of course, I never did anything to make them think differently. They pegged me as a dumb blonde from the beginning, and it was just easier to play the part. Tag was the only one who never talked down to me, but that’s because he figured he was just a dumb old cowboy. He’s not, though. He’s smart as a whip.”
Mark smiled, leaned close, and kissed her. It was chaste and quick and made him want a whole lot more. “So’re you. Smart. And you’re wrong about Will. He told me the dude ranch was your idea after your parents died. He said you’re the one who set up the website, took care of the permits, and got the cabins built. He gives you a lot of the credit for Columbine Camp’s success.”
“He does?” She tilted her head and frowned. “He’s never said a word. ’Course, he doesn’t talk much about the ranch. He leaves most of it up to me, except when I’m not here.” She shook her head. “He was really mad at me for taking off with Frank and leaving him here to handle the ranch on his own.”
“Maybe it was more than that.” Mark set down his beer and moved closer to Betsy Mae. “Maybe it’s because he recognized Frank for the animal he is. Maybe Will was worried about you but didn’t want to interfere. Ever think about it that way?”
She stared at him for a long, slow moment in time. “No,” she said. “Do you really . . . ?”
He leaned close, then closer still, and the soft puff of her breath, the taste of her lips told him this might not be the best idea—but it was the only one he had.
Until a loud bellow of pain had both of them running for the barn.
six
“Damn. What should we do?” Mark stood outside the stall while Betsy Mae knelt behind the laboring cow with her right arm buried elbow deep where she really had no business going, at least as far as Mark was concerned.
She glanced up and shook her head. “This one’s a heifer—it’s her first calf and it’s coming out butt flrst. I think he’s stuck. I can feel him but I’m not strong enough to turn him. Wash your hands good and see if you can do it.”
Oh shit. He really did not want to do this, but he stripped off his shirt and scrubbed up to his armpits with an ugly brown bar of soap that smelled to high heaven. Holding his hands high like the doctors on ER, Mark stepped into the stall and knelt down beside Betsy Mae.
“What should I do?”
“Crap, you’ve got such big hands.” Betsy Mae let out a puff of air. “Make your hand as small as you can and slide in through the birth canal. You’ll feel a bony little butt, but what you really want is two front legs with the head. This little guy’s all folded up in there. You need to try and slowly rotate him, but do it between contractions. Just a sec . . . I’m going to wash her off flrst so we don’t introduce any debris.”
“Okay.” He nodded like he had a clue what she was talking about. She slopped some warm water over the heifer’s butt and then he was kneeling down behind the animal and sliding his hand and then his wrist and then most of his arm deep inside the poor creature. And there it was, just the way Betsy Mae had described it—a bony little butt and what felt like a tail.
He ran his hand along the knobby backbone until he found the calf’s head, and very slowly began to tug the baby around.
“Careful with the hooves. You don’t want them to tear anything.”
“Okay.” He felt the calf begin to turn.
“Watch for the umbilical cord.”
Mark nodded, concentrating on the slow slide of calf, when all of a sudden muscles clamped down on his arm and the cow let out a loud groan. “Shit! What’s that?”
“Contraction. It’s normal. Just hold still until it’s over.”
“Hold still? You mean there’s an option? Sorry, babe, but there’s no way to move when you’re caught like this.”
Betsy Mae sort of giggled, but it was a nervous sound. He didn’t blame her—he was nervous, too, but at the same time he had the most amazing sense that he was actually helping this poor creature—a sense unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
The contraction ended and he got the calf turned until he felt its little hooves pointed forward and the nose was tucked between the front legs. Then he slipped his arm out of the cow and sat back on his heels to let nature take its course.
The heifer tightened up once more, groaned, and two little hooves poked out. Mark was almost sure he held his breath for the entire time it took before that little calf slid out onto the clean straw just the way he was supposed to. And lay there.
Mark stared at it, waiting for the little guy to breathe, but his sides didn’t move, his eyes didn’t open, his mouth stayed shut, and mama wasn’t paying him any attention at all. Then Betsy Mae was rubbing his little body with a clean towel, clearing mucus from his nose and mouth. Then she leaned real close, put her mouth over his nostrils, and started to blow.
Dumbfounded, Mark watched as she breathed life into the newborn calf. Blowing and pausing, blowing and pausing until the little guy snorted and got snot and mucus all over her face, blew a few bubbles, and took a deep breath.
“Oh, yuck.” Wrinkling her nose and grinning like an idiot, Betsy Mae grabbed the tail of her T-shirt and used it to wipe away the mess. “Look. Here comes number two!”
Mark had been so intent on the one he’d helped deliver, he had no idea the cow was still laboring. Another tiny calf slid out—easily this time and still encased in membrane. The cow turned her head and began to vigorously lick her new baby—and eat the afterbirth while she was at it. This calf’s head popped up almost immediately once mama cleared the way.
“They’re both white, but the mother’s brown. How come?”
“Will bought the heifer already bred to a Charolais bull. They’re a big, sturdy breed. They’ll strengthen our herd.”
Mark laughed. “Looks like he got two for the price of one.” He had no idea how long he sat there in the hay beside Betsy Mae, his arms and chest covered in blood and mucus and other things he didn’t want to consider, but time seemed to stop while he watched the two little calves struggle to stand and the cow finally come to her feet. Before he knew it, both calves were licked creamy white and clean, standing on shaky little legs, suckling and butting at mama’s udders.
“Ever see a calf born?”
Mark shook his head. “Kittens once. A long time ago. That’s amazing.” He rolled his head against his shoulder and glanced at Betsy Mae. “Please tell me it’s not the same for humans. The idea of eating the afterbirth is just a bit too gross for me to imagine.”
Laughing, Betsy Mae grabbed a handful of straw and threw it at him. It stuck to the gunk on his chest. Mark flicked it off with fingers covered in semidried whatever. He glanced down and slowly shoo
k his head. “As much as I could watch this all night, I think I need a shower.”
Betsy Mae—every bit as filthy—stood up. “Ya think?”
They were both laughing as she checked the water trough and filled the feed box with fresh grain. Mark held the stall door open and then shut it carefully behind her. Together they closed up the barn and headed back to the house.
A sliver of moon rode high in the sky, and stars shimmered from one side of the horizon to the other. They walked quietly, but inside Mark was singing. If he’d had any doubts about coming west, tonight had answered all his questions. This was the life he wanted. This was what he’d been searching for.
And maybe, just maybe, the woman walking beside him was the one he’d never once imagined really existed at all.
SHE’D been afraid of this. So keyed up after all that had happened tonight, Betsy Mae was still tossing and turning a good two hours after she’d showered and gone to bed.
And, to be perfectly honest, knowing that Mark slept just two doors down wasn’t helping her any. She’d been so good staying away from him for the past two weeks, she figured she deserved a damned medal. Then he’d come in like her knight in shining armor and decked Frank, which was amazing, and then . . . then he’d kissed her. That kiss had changed everything.
She’d only read about kisses like that.
In fact, not once in her thirty-five years had she come close to experiencing anything remotely like Mark Connor’s kisses.
So, Betsy Mae, what the hell you going to do about it?
Nothing. Not a damned thing. Will and Annie were due home, and Tag’s wife had already called to see when Mark was planning to come visit, the way he’d planned. Then she flgured he’d go back to New York. For good.
That wasn’t what she wanted. Not anymore. Not after seeing Annie and Will so damned happy together, watching her friend grow bigger every day with their baby. She’d never thought she wanted those things for herself, but after hearing Tag wax eloquent over married life, after seeing the way Annie and Will were together, Betsy Mae knew she needed more than a lonely bedroom in her brother’s house.
She needed to be more than somebody’s ditzy aunt, more than someone’s sister. For the first time in her life, Betsy Mae truly wanted to be loved.
Grumbling at how pathetic that sounded, she threw the covers back and slipped out of bed. Will had a bottle of good sippin’ whisky stashed in the office, and if a shot of that wouldn’t put her to sleep, she might as well just figure on being up all night.
“Not gonna happen.”
seven
Mark kept the lights down low as he poured himself another shot of Will’s good whisky. Luckily the bottle had still been in the same hiding place where Will had it stashed the flrst time Mark was out to stay at Columbine Camp.
The two of them had hit it off really well, which was just weird considering how different their backgrounds were, but he’d sat here many nights, hearing Will’s stories of growing up on the ranch, of how he and Betsy Mae had turned it into a dude ranch after their parents were gone.
Probably why he felt as if he knew Betsy Mae as well as he did. Why she fascinated him the way she did—because of Will’s stories. That had to be it.
He leaned back on the comfortable leather couch and stared at the shot glass between his fingers, remembering. He certainly hadn’t realized how that two-week stay at a dude ranch would change his life, but nothing had been the same since.
He’d been thinking about making a change, getting out of publishing, out of New York, but he hadn’t had a clue what he wanted to do. Then he’d come here. He’d loved everything, but more than that, he’d learned to breathe. Really breathe deeply and work hard until he was bone-tired and his muscles ached.
And calluses! He’d never had calluses on his hands in his life until he’d been to Columbine Camp. He looked at the palm of his right hand, at the dark ridges of hard callus and grinned. No more lily white, city-boy hands for him. Never again.
“What are you doing here?”
Mark glanced over his shoulder at Betsy Mae. She stood there with her hair all sleep-mussed, wearing her little cotton shorts and camisole top, probably not even aware the fabric was so sheer he could see the dark circles surrounding her nipples. “Come join me,” he said, holding up his glass. “I’m stealing Will’s good whisky.”
She laughed, grabbed a shot glass off the shelf, and flopped down on the couch beside him. “How’d you know where it was?”
“Your dumb brother’s still using the same hiding place he was when I was here a couple of years ago.” Mark filled her glass.
“He shared his good whisky with you? You must be something special. Will never shares with the guests. He flgures if they can afford to stay here, they can afford their own booze.” She sipped her whisky and sighed her pleasure.
Mark had to force his eyes away from the line of her throat and the sexy curve of her collarbone. “Probably true,” he said, “but I really like your brother. We hit it off from the start. I ended up helping out because you were gone.”
She nodded. “I was probably following the circuit. I was still barrel racing a lot then.”
Mark put his arm around her shoulders and tugged. She slipped closer like it was the most natural thing in the world to be sitting out here in the middle of the night, she in her jammies and he wearing nothing but a pair of knit boxer shorts.
He wondered if she’d noticed yet that he wasn’t really dressed.
“Those days are over, though.” She sighed.
“Do you miss it?” Damn, but he loved the way she felt, soft in all the right places, snuggled up next to him, still warm from her bed.
“Sometimes.” She tilted her head and gazed at him out of those beautiful green eyes. “Mostly not. It’s a lot of hard work for a few seconds of glory. There’s so much backstabbing and bickering behind the scenes. It’s a young woman’s sport. I was getting too old.”
“How old are you?” He laughed. “Guess I’m not supposed to ask that, right?”
She shook her head. “It’s okay. I’m thirty-five. Not sure how it got here so fast. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve wasted the better part of my life, racing from one rodeo to the next, never taking time to enjoy the life I could have had here at home.” She rubbed her cheek against his bare shoulder. “What about you? How old are you?”
He laughed. “Well, forty’s closer than thirty-five. I hit thirty-eight a couple of months ago. Shocked the hell out of me. I realized I was almost forty years old and still hadn’t figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
“You, too?” She pushed herself away and stared at him wide-eyed. “I thought I was the only one with that problem.”
“Is it really a problem?” He wrapped his flngers around the back of her head, tangled them in her blond curls, and pulled her close.
She didn’t fight him a bit. No, she met him, lip to lip, kissing him as if she meant it. As if she really cared about him. Mark set his glass to one side, took hers out of her hand, and set it beside his. Then he wrapped his hands around her waist and lifted her until she straddled him, all without ever breaking their kiss.
The moment she settled down atop him, her eyes went wide. Blinking almost owlishly, she scooted her hips around a bit, settling even closer against the hard length of him.
Mark groaned and shifted beneath her, dying for even more contact. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.”
Betsy Mae leaned close and rubbed noses with him. “Either that, or it was the best idea you’ve ever had.”
This time, Mark was the one to blink. He wrapped his hands around her shoulders and held her still so that he could look into those trusting eyes. “You don’t strike me as a tease.”
She smiled softly and shook her head. “I’m not. We’re both grown-ups. Neither one of us appears all that virginal, and while I’m still not sure it’s a very smart move, I’m beginning to think that if I don’t make it, I’m going
to regret it the rest of my life.”
“Oh?” He didn’t even try and stop the grin spreading across his face. “And why is that?”
“Well . . .” She drew the word out. “I’ve been thinking of your profession. You’re an editor—Michelle Garrison Martin’s editor, in fact—and you said you read romance novels for a living, right? That means you know exactly how the hero is supposed to treat his woman. Now, I’ve never once been with a man who spends his days learning how to treat a woman right, and I imagine it’s got to be quite an experience. One no right-thinking girl would ever want to miss.”
“You’re right, you know. Those books are better than any instruction manual. Written by women, for women. Lots of details. Kissing, for instance.” He pulled her close and feathered his lips lightly over hers. Traced the seam between hers with his tongue until she parted on a sigh and let him in. Kept kissing her gently, thoroughly, until her body was all soft and pliable and both their hearts were beating a mile a minute.
When he ended the kiss, her eyes held a glazed expression, and her slow smile made him want to do it all over again.
“Okay,” she said. “Kissing is good. You’ve paid attention.”
“Then there’s touching.”
She nodded slowly. “I like touching.”
He proceeded to show her exactly what he’d learned, beginning with soft strokes along her sides as he slowly peeled her camisole top up, baring her breasts before finally tugging the shirt over her head.
She frowned. “This appears to be more in the undressing category than touching.”
“No fun, touching through clothes. Besides, I want to see what I’m touching.” He leaned close and suckled one pert nipple between his lips, sucking hard enough to draw it up against the roof of his mouth.
“See? You’re doing it again!”
Her voice was growing strained, but he released her nipple and backed away, blinking innocently. “Doing what?”