The Next Mrs. Blackthorne (Bitter Creek Book 6)

by Joan Johnston

  Libby gripped Clay’s forearms, feeling the power of muscle and sinew, and the trembling that revealed he recognized the danger in what they were doing. How awful to replace treasured memories with an awkward coupling. And what were the chances they could match the wonder of those summertime afternoons when they were young and carefree and so much in love?

  Libby broke the kiss and said, “Wait.”

  “For what?” Clay asked, his breathing unsteady. “I never expected this to be easy.”

  Libby was surprised to hear Clay acknowledge the trepidation that she felt. “Then why don’t we wait until—”

  “I don’t think waiting—”

  Libby put her fingertips to Clay’s lips, astonished at the quiver of feeling even that small touch caused. Maybe this was possible. But she still wanted more time. “I’d like to spend the night with you in that bed. But I don’t want to do more than talk.”

  She saw the crinkles form at the corners of Clay’s eyes as he smiled, and felt his lips curve under her fingertips. “Agreed. With one condition.”

  “What’s that?” Libby said warily.

  “We do it naked.”

  “What’s the point of that?” Libby asked.

  “It’ll give you a chance to get over any shyness you might feel about—”

  “Fine,” Libby interrupted, flushing at the thought of exposing her thirty-five-year-old body to Clay’s gaze.

  Clay lifted an eyebrow. “I expected you to argue more.”

  “I want to see you. I might even want to touch.”

  “Uh-uh,” Clay said. “No touching, unless you remove the ban on sex.”

  Libby wrinkled her nose. “We used to be able to touch without having sex. We used to kiss for hours—”

  “I was a younger and stronger man,” Clay said with a wry smile.

  “Are you suggesting you don’t have the stamina—”

  “All right. Fine. But if you can touch, I can touch.”

  “No intercourse,” Libby said firmly.

  “How are we defining intercourse?” Clay asked. “Is this the presidential definition or—”

  Libby laughed. “It’s anything likely to produce—”

  “An orgasm?”

  “A baby,” Libby said.

  “That leaves a lot of room for…play.”

  “Oh, I hope so,” Libby said with a teasing smile.

  When Clay started to unbutton his shirt, Libby stepped forward and moved his hands away. “I want to do it.”

  His breathing became ragged as she stepped closer, brushing her hands across his bare flesh as she shoved the crisp white button-down Oxford-cloth shirt off his shoulders. Libby reached for Clay’s tooled western belt, unbuckled it, and slowly pulled it free. When she reached for the snap on his jeans, he caught her wrists and said, “My turn.”

  Libby held out her arms as Clay unbuttoned her cuffs, then her blouse, before shoving it off her shoulders and down her arms. She wasn’t wearing a belt, and when he reached for the button on her jeans, she said, “Boots first.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed.

  A pair of wing chairs were arranged in front of the fire, and Clay gestured toward them. Libby sat down in one, and Clay gestured for her to give him her foot. He pulled off one boot, then the other, dropping each of them onto the cowhide that covered the wood floor.

  “Your turn,” Libby said. Clay sat and Libby took the booted foot he extended, straddled his leg with her back to him, then hooked her palms around the heel and pulled. When the first boot was off, she followed the same procedure with the other, except Clay put his socked foot on her rump and gave a little shove to help.

  She dumped the boot, then turned, and as Clay was rising, pressed a flattened hand against his furred chest to push him back into the chair. She sat on his lap, her folded legs on either side of his hips. She sat back far enough that there was no direct contact where Clay might have wanted it most.

  She shoved her hands through his springy hair, easing a curl off his forehead. “I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.”

  He wrapped his hands in her shoulder-length hair and pulled her face down to his. “Ditto.”

  Their mouths were close enough that Libby could feel Clay’s breath against her cheek.

  “Kiss me, Libby,” he said.

  His voice sounded like a rusty gate. His eyes invited her to take a chance, and Libby closed her eyes and leaned close until her lips touched his.

  “Ouch!” she said, jumping back as a painful electrical spark arced between them.

  Clay laughed and said, “I guess the spark’s still there.”

  “Scientific phenomenon,” she said. “Socks brushing cowhide, creating friction which—”

  Clay captured her nape and pulled her down so his mouth covered hers. Libby felt like she’d dived into warm, welcoming waters. It was an easy kiss, without demands, a “How are you? I’m feeling fine,” kind of kiss. She broke it to gasp a breath and sat up to stare down into Clay’s eyes. His gaze was interested, but not aroused.

  “What would you like to talk about?” he asked, his hands settling high on her jean-clad hips.

  Libby rested her hands on his shoulders, because she wanted to feel the play of muscle and bone, and said, “Do you think Bomber Brown is guilty?”

  Clay laughed and shook his head. “You know I can’t discuss that.”

  “If we were together, if we were a couple, you’d be coming home to me after a day in court, and I’d expect you to let off steam. How do you usually do that?”

  “I usually play a game of squash,” Clay said. “After I whack the ball around for an hour, I don’t feel so much like bashing heads together.”

  “And you feel like that—like bashing heads—after a day in court?”

  “Not so much as a judge,” Clay said. “I just listen to the evidence. I don’t have to develop it against a defendant. But yes, work as a prosecutor was stressful.”

  “How much of your life would you be able to share with me?” Libby asked, finding the curve of Clay’s ear fascinating. She traced it with her fingertips and tasted the lobe with her lips and teeth. “I mean, if we lived in the same house.”

  “Ah,” Clay groaned.

  Libby stopped what she was doing and met Clay’s gaze. “Ah? That much, huh?”

  Her smile was cut off when his hands slid around to her buttocks and he pulled her close, so her heat was pressed tight against his hardness. She framed his cheeks with her palms, then leaned down and pressed her lips to his. It was a close-mouthed kiss, a simple meeting of warm flesh. And yet she felt butterflies take delighted flight in her stomach.

  “I’ve been thinking about what work I could do here in Texas,” she murmured against his lips.

  He put his hands on her shoulders and eased her back so they could look into one another’s eyes. “I’m listening.”

  “There are lots of hunting leases on ranches around here—for deer and turkey and javelinas. I think some of those businessmen from back east coming out here to Texas might enjoy having a guide.”

  “You’ve lived in Wyoming your whole life,” Clay said. “Can you be happy waking up without the Tetons?”

  “All I would need to wake up to is you.”

  “Ah,” Clay said again.

  Libby rubbed her silk bra against Clay’s chest, purring in her throat, like a cat with a bowl of cream.

  “How about if we get rid of this?” Clay said as he unsnapped the front clasp of her bra and slid it down her arms.

  Libby felt self-conscious. She lowered her gaze shyly. These weren’t the perky breasts she’d had at sixteen. Then she felt Clay’s warm hands cup her breasts and watched her nipples peak, amazingly perky, as he brushed them with his thumbs.

  “Ah,” she purred. Libby rubbed herself against him, feeling the rough hairs on his chest against her tender breasts. She wrapped her arms around his neck and found his mouth with hers.

  Clay made her welcome, opening his mouth to
her intrusion, and returning the favor. She remembered this. How they fit together. How good he tasted, how right. How he seemed to know where to touch her with his hands, as he made love to her with his mouth. She felt passion rising between them, and wanted more. Needed more.

  She felt his hands gentling her, his mouth disengaging to give their struggling lungs a chance to catch up.

  “Wow,” he said, with a breathless laugh. “That brings back memories.”

  “Good ones, I hope.”

  “The best.” Clay nestled her body against his, tucking her head under his chin and said, “I have a question for you.”

  “Shoot,” she said on a gust of air.

  “When did you know you loved me? I mean, the summer we met. You obviously plotted to seduce me and leave me high and dry. When did your plans change?”

  Libby tried to lift her head, but Clay captured her nape and kept her tucked close.

  “I’m not trying to put you on the spot,” he said in a voice that rumbled against her ear. “I’m just curious.”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” she said at last. “One moment I was planning the destruction of a Blackthorne. The next, I was willing to go against everything I’d always known was true just to be with you. I can’t believe you never suspected how young I was.”

  She heard Clay make a sound in his throat before he said, “I was surprised by your virginity, that’s for damned sure. The way you flirted, the way you kissed, I never suspected you were untouched. When we made love, when everything I did seemed to surprise you, that’s when I began to wonder if you might be younger than you’d told me.”

  “Why didn’t you confront me?” Libby asked. “I would have caved, I think, and spilled the beans, if you’d acted the least bit suspicious.”

  “I don’t think I wanted to know,” Clay admitted. “I think I was already in love with you.”

  This time when Libby raised her head to look into Clay’s eyes, he released her to do so.

  “You loved me?” she said, searching his eyes for the truth.

  “If you’ll recall, I was willing to marry you when you told me you were pregnant.”

  “I thought that was just—”

  “That wasn’t nobility or responsibility or even political self-preservation. That was me wanting to spend the rest of my life with you. Believe it or not, I was thinking dynasty,” Clay said with a self-deprecating smile. “I had visions of little girls with your golden curls. And little boys who looked like me.”

  “Kate has your gray eyes. And your dark hair. And your height. It’s always been hard for me to look at her without thinking of you.”

  “She’s you,” Clay said, smoothing his hand over Libby’s head and then twirling a curl around his finger. “Her fearlessness, her sense of adventure, her willingness to tackle anything—she got all that from you.”

  “I suppose, like any child, she’s both of us,” Libby conceded.

  “The best of us,” Clay amended.

  “We were lucky. Maybe we should quit while we’re ahead,” Libby said, her lips quirking.

  “I don’t need to have more children,” Clay said. “I just thought it would be something we would both enjoy.”

  “I always wanted a little boy. And I would love to have another little girl,” Libby said.

  “How do you think Kate would feel about a sister or brother?” Clay asked.

  A tiny V appeared between Libby’s brows. “I think she’d be ecstatic if we got married. I’m not sure what she’d think of us having children.”

  “She’ll be too busy with her own family, if she ends up marrying Jack, to worry about us,” Clay predicted.

  “Oh,” Libby said in a startled voice. “I just realized we’re probably going to be grandparents about the time you’re thinking of us becoming parents again.”

  “Like I said, kids are something I’d like, not something I have to have. What I have to have is you. In my life.”

  He put a finger under Libby’s chin and lifted her face so he could kiss her. Libby enthusiastically returned the kiss, and it was some minutes later before they continued their conversation.

  Libby’s nose was pressed against Clay’s skin, and she inhaled the scent of him, something dark and masculine. She slid her hands into the hair on his chest and said, “A month ago you were engaged to Jocelyn Montrose and planning to spend the rest of your life with her. What’s changed between us to make you want me in your life?”

  “When Jocelyn left, I was forced to take a hard look at why I’d gotten engaged to her in the first place.”

  “Aside from the fact she’s stunningly beautiful?” Libby said sardonically.

  “She is beautiful,” Clay said. “And intelligent and charming. And marriage to me is the repayment she deserves for the sacrifice she’s making for my family. But I can’t do it. You see, I don’t love her, and I never have. The person I love is you.”

  Libby inhaled sharply.

  “Last year, when I was in Jackson Hole, when we spent so much time together, it gave me a glimpse of what life might have been like if we’d been able to marry when you got pregnant.”

  Clay swallowed hard. “It would have been so easy to forgive and forget, to reach for happiness together, even at that late date. But, as you may have noticed, Blackthornes aren’t too big on forgiving. I chose to get mad all over again. I walked away from you and right into Jocelyn’s waiting arms.”

  “I’m supposed to believe you’re suddenly not mad anymore?” Libby asked.

  “Having you shove me out the door, figuratively, was a big wake-up call,” Clay said. “I realized the last place I wanted to be was on one side of any door with you on the other side.”

  “How do I know your anger won’t come back to haunt us?” Libby asked.

  Clay considered for a moment before he answered. “I can’t promise it won’t. I only want a chance for what your father, and my pride, took from us. The chance to enjoy the good times and survive the bad, just like any other couple. I care enough for you—” He cleared his throat and corrected, “I love you enough to be willing to compromise and work out our troubles together. The question you need to ask is whether you still love me enough to do the same.”

  “You make it sound so simple,” Libby murmured, as she kissed Clay’s shoulder, tasting the faint hint of salt.

  “Life with you would never be simple,” Clay said, kissing her temple in return. “But it would be worth the effort to spend my life with you.”

  “I don’t know, Clay,” Libby said. “I’ve been hurt so much, I’m not sure—”

  “Give me a chance, Libby.” Clay leaned down and kissed her mouth, urging a response, which Libby gave without thinking about what it might mean to him.

  She broke the kiss and looked up into his eyes. “What happens to us if this doesn’t work out? What happens if we try to recapture the magic—”

  “That’s where you’re making your mistake,” Clay interrupted.

  Libby arched an inquiring brow. “My mistake?”

  “We don’t try to recapture the past. We carve out a future for ourselves starting here and now.”

  Libby stared at Clay, afraid to voice the thought that came to mind. What are we together without our past? It was memories of her summer with Clay that had kept her enthralled. Now Clay wanted her to forget the past? “I don’t think it’s possible to forget the past,” she said, as she shifted so she was sitting on his lap, her legs hanging over the arm of the chair, her arms around his neck. “Moreover, I don’t think I want to. I have a great many lovely memories, along with the not so lovely ones.”

  “How about forgetting the bad and remembering the good?” Clay asked with a smile meant to charm.

  Libby was charmed, but she shook her head and said, “It’s all jumbled up together. I’m not saying we can’t go on from here. But what happened between us in the past is part of why I love you. And fear you.”

  Libby watched Clay’s brow furrow with concern and hur
ried to explain, “If I allow myself to care, you have the power to hurt me again.”

  “If we’re being honest, I think some pain is inevitable,” Clay said. When Libby opened her mouth to protest, Clay quickly kissed her. “Think about it. I may say something in all innocence that you take in a hurtful way. The question is whether we’ll be able to discuss the things that disturb and worry us about each other and change and compromise.”

  He made it seem so easy. “Why didn’t we talk like this twenty years ago?” she asked.

  “You were scared and hurt. I was angry and hurt. We’re older and wiser now, and the wounds we inflicted on each other have had time to scab over.”

  Libby noticed he hadn’t said the wounds had healed. Would they ever? Could they ever? “What would it take to heal those wounds?” she asked.

  “Living happily ever after,” Clay said.

  Libby listened for cynicism in his voice, but didn’t hear any. “I didn’t think you believed in fairy-tale endings.”

  “I want to believe,” Clay said.

  “That isn’t quite the same thing, is it?” Libby said.

  Clay shrugged. “Close enough.” He slid his arms beneath her, scooted forward and stood up, heading for the bed.

  “I’m not tired,” Libby said archly, as Clay set her down on the bed.

  He grinned and said, “I’m glad to hear it.”

  Libby laughed. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Does that mean I don’t have to play by the rules?” Clay asked as he unbuttoned Libby’s jeans, slid the zipper down and began tugging them off.

  Libby lifted her bottom when Clay got that far and he slid the jeans down off her legs, leaving her in a pair of peach-colored bikini underwear that would have matched her bra, if she’d still been wearing it. He laid his hand on her flat belly and said, “I wanted to touch you here when you were carrying our child.”

  Libby felt tears spring to her eyes. “Oh, Clay. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s a dream I can still realize, Libby. I’m going to hold you to those kids.”

  “Your turn,” she said, scrubbing at the tears with the backs of her hands. “Take off those jeans.”

  “You aren’t going to take them off for me?” Clay asked.