Letter to a Lonesome Cowboy

by Jackie Merritt

  Leaning her hips against the dresser, she folded her arms across her chest and watched him peer into the closet. When he looked under the bed, though, a weird urge to giggle rose in her throat. What could possibly be under her bed?

  “You know,” she said around a smile she couldn’t suppress, “if you would tell me what you’re looking for, I might be able to help.”

  It was the second time she’d offered her help, and he hated having to refuse it again. But what else could he do?

  “Thanks, but I have to do this myself.”

  He was so serious that Suzanne laughed. “Goodness, one would think your missing item is necessary to national security.”

  Rand had spotted what appeared to be a boot box under the bed. It wasn’t big enough to contain a whole case of dynamite, but he had already wondered about the case having been opened and the dynamite divided and hidden in a dozen different places.

  He stared at that box with a knot in his gut. Suzanne was standing by, watching him, and he didn’t want to alarm her by asking her to leave her own room. Unless it became necessary, of course. Stretching out on his belly, he reached under the bed and cautiously slid the box’s lid aside. He breathed a silent sigh of relief; the box contained an old pair of boots. Obviously someone who’d been using this room at one time or another had purchased new boots and left the old ones behind.

  “Did you find what you’ve been looking for under my bed?” Suzanne asked with laughter lurking in her voice.

  Rand left the box where it was and got to his feet. He was satisfied that the dynamite was nowhere in the bunkhouse, which at least relieved him of one very grave concern. He was beginning to think that the man who’d ordered that second box of dynamite had furtively taken it out to some far-off pasture and buried it, which meant that Rand would never find it. Certainly he couldn’t cover every foot of Kincaid ground to look for it, especially with the snow concealing any disturbed dirt.

  “Well, I guess that does it,” he said to Suzanne.

  “You didn’t check the bathroom,” she stated with a tongue-in-cheek smile.

  Rand smiled back. She hadn’t taken his search seriously, and that was best.

  “Nor the bureau drawers,” Suzanne added teasingly.

  Her teasing tone thrilled Rand. His ransacking the entire building in search of some mysterious object was apparently amusing to her, and now that he knew the bunkhouse was safe, he was more than willing to participate in any game she might want to play.

  In a deliberately somber voice he said, “You’re right.” Striding into her bathroom, he pulled back the shower curtain to check the stall, then opened the few drawers in the sink cabinet. Her small cache of cosmetics, toothbrush and toothpaste were in one drawer, her hair dryer in another.

  He returned to the bedroom, sent her a grin and opened the top drawer of the dresser. Folded neatly within the drawer was a stack of silky panties and bras. He slowly turned his face to her, his left eyebrow raised in friendly good humor.

  “Dare I look beneath these dainty things?” he asked.

  Suzanne laughed. “I think you’d dare anything you thought you could get away with, Mr. Harding.”

  “Do you really?” Pushing the drawer closed, Rand walked over to her.

  Suzanne’s pulse leapt. Only a short time ago in the dining room she had decided that maintaining distance between her and Rand was her best course. Now she’d been bandying words with him and teasing him over his searching her room. He’d been teasing, too, but right this moment he didn’t look all that playful.

  “Um, you haven’t looked in the other drawers,” she stammered, nervous suddenly.

  “No, but I bet you have. Is there anything in them?”

  “Uh, they’re all empty except for the top two.”

  “Figured as much.”

  An idea so startling that she nearly gasped right out loud suddenly raced through Suzanne’s mind: Rand could be the solution to every single one of her problems! He liked her, he wanted a wife badly enough to advertise for one and she had nothing in Baltimore to go home to. Plus, there was Mack, who no longer listened to her concerns for his welfare and future, nor did he heed any advice she might offer him on any given topic. What Mack needed was a father image, a strong man that wouldn’t take any teenage guff and bluster, especially about his not finishing high school.

  As for her own needs, so what if she and Rand weren’t in love with each other? There was something between them, and besides, when she had married for love, the liaison had been an abysmal failure.

  She could tell that Rand was thinking about kissing her. It was in his eyes, in the very air they were both breathing.

  Well, there was nothing wrong with a few kisses, she resolutely told herself, and she tilted her chin and parted her lips in blatant invitation.

  Rand didn’t need her encouragement spelled out any clearer. He took one step, slid his hands down her back and brought her forward. His lips glided over her face in mute appreciation of her participation, then stopped on her mouth. At first his lips moved very gently on hers, and that gentleness was extremely effective in igniting Suzanne’s passion, although Rand hadn’t planned or thought ahead to that result. It was just such a pleasure to kiss her that he was taking his time and savoring every moment.

  It was Suzanne who really got them rolling. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she snuggled her body into his, drew his tongue into her mouth and started sucking on it.

  Rand was hard in two seconds flat. His kisses began eating her up, and he didn’t even try to keep his hands away from the intimate spots of her body. Last night she had stopped him after a couple of kisses; he knew in his soul that she wasn’t going to stop him today. Her feverish excitement blew his mind, and he started undressing her by pushing the unbuttoned sweater from her shoulders.

  “Yes, oh, yes,” she whispered, and went for the buttons on his shirt, then for his belt buckle.

  Rand didn’t care what had happened to change her mind between last night and today. A man didn’t question a woman’s feelings or motives at a time like this. All he could think of was getting them both naked and in that bed.

  He did pause for a moment to look at her without clothes, however. She was slender from her smooth, creamy throat to the tips of her toes. Her breasts were not large, but they were beautifully shaped and had rosy-pink nipples. Her waist was tiny, her hips were narrow and her legs were thrillingly long. He wanted to feel them wrapped around him. He wanted to be inside her, with those long, gorgeous legs locked around him.

  Suzanne was doing some looking of her own. There was only a small patch of dark hair on Rand’s muscular chest—she liked that—and his body was superb, every inch of it. She nestled herself against him, and closed her eyes to absorb the incredible sensation of his bare skin embracing hers.

  “You’re hot,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his chest.

  Rand chuckled deep in his throat. “Hot for you, Suz.”

  “No, I meant your skin is hot.” She smiled because he had shortened her name.

  “So is yours.” Rand let his hand drift down her back, then slid it around her hip to touch her intimately. “You’re hot here, too,” he said hoarsely. “And wet. Oh, Suz, kiss me. Touch me. I want you so much. You’re so beautiful.”

  She raised her head from his chest and stood on tiptoe to kiss his mouth. She might not have fallen in love with Rand— that took more than a few days, didn’t it?—but she could honestly say she had never wanted a man more.

  They fell to the bed and somehow managed to maneuver themselves under the covers while still kissing and caressing each other. Rand took her hand and placed it on his manhood. A shiver of utter delight rippled her spine as she explored its velvety texture. His hand was between her legs, and so much erotic foreplay was bringing them both to the brink.

  “I have a condom,” Rand growled. Reaching to the floor for his jeans, he pulled out his wallet and took out a foil packet.

  Suzann
e was glad he had the good sense to be cautious, because it hadn’t even entered her mind. She wanted at least one child someday, but not like this, not when her life was in turmoil and she had too many problems to count. Again it flashed through her mind that Rand might be the answer to everything, but it was a brief thought as he had quickly put on the condom and was back to kissing her with a hunger that took her breath.

  They writhed together under those covers, creating a cocoon of heat and ecstatic feelings. And then he eased himself on top of her. She opened her legs for him. He thrust into her. She closed her eyes as he began moving, and silently prayed that he was the kind of man to make sure the woman under him reached fulfillment before he took his own pleasure. Since her divorce—even before it—she had given so little thought to sex that the intensity of her desire now was startling. If Rand left her hanging she would not be able to forgive him.

  A long time later, sweating and weeping, she kissed him again and again. She had never before experienced such an overwhelming climax, and she knew in her heart that in this, at least, they were soul mates.

  Nine

  Every cell in Suzanne’s body felt loose and languorous. Mentally she added incredible lover to her list of Rand’s good points. She liked the way he was curled around her now, spoon-fashion, and that he hadn’t immediately jumped up and returned to work after making love. Dreamily, she smiled. Could a city-born-and-bred woman find happiness on a ranch in Montana with a man she barely knew?

  “Hmm,” she murmured, realizing that her disdain for the idea of advertising for a spouse was losing impact. Different strokes for different folks, after all. Nevertheless, she would like to know what had prompted Rand to join those particular ranks when he seemed to have so much to offer a life-partner. Maybe if she talked some about herself, she mused, Rand would offer some information about his own past.

  She was facing the wall and could feel Rand’s warm breath on the back of her hair. He had one arm buried beneath her pillow, the other around her waist. She was lazily comfortable, more so than she’d ever been with any man, even with her husband, as Les had been a nervous sort and forever fidgeting. Rand seemed perfectly content to lie still, as Suzanne was doing, which in her estimation was another point in his favor.

  “Rand?” she said softly, a little tentatively.

  “Yes?”

  “Did Mack tell you about my marriage and divorce?”

  Rand was silent a moment, digesting the information. It wasn’t a shock, by any means, but it wasn’t something he had speculated about, either. He finally spoke, quietly. “No, he never mentioned it. What happened? I mean, if you don’t mind my asking, how come it didn’t last?”

  Suzanne sighed. “A thousand reasons. I think what really happened is that we just fell out of love.”

  Rand had an immediate answer for that observation. “Love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, anyway.” There was a touch of bitterness in his voice that gave Suzanne a start. “I think if two people like and respect each other it’s a lot more important than love,” he added.

  So that’s it, Suzanne thought. Rand had experienced love and some sort of subsequent failure, and now he was gun-shy. Well, could she blame him? Didn’t she have similar misgivings? The death of a relationship, whatever its causes or whoever had been to blame, was terribly traumatic. She didn’t love Les anymore, but she wasn’t completely over the pain of the divorce, either.

  Her insight, however, did not cover all the bases. “Were you married?”

  “No.” Rand never talked about his having been jilted practically at the altar. It was probably the most emotionally wrenching event of his life, but it was in the past and he intended keeping it there. Certainly something within himself rebelled at the thought of relating it to Suzanne.

  His terse reply told Suzanne that she had heard all he was going to say on that subject. She wasn’t offended, as she didn’t enjoy talking about her abysmal love life, either. Besides, considering that she was in bed right now with a man who had just taken her to the stars, maybe abysmal was no longer applicable.

  She was thinking hard. Rand wasn’t out romancing women in his search for a wife because of a bad experience with love. Ergo, the ad, which she had totally misinterpreted. She wasn’t looking for love, either, although, in all honesty, she wasn’t as dead set against it as Rand seemed to be. Bottom line: they had a lot in common, and was there really anything wrong with a marriage based on mutual liking and respect? Actually, they had more than those things going for them; a powerful attraction and perfect sex was nothing to sneeze at.

  “Let me ask you something,” she said slowly. “If Mack had sent you a photo of me instead of the one he did send, would you still have answered his letter?”

  Rand raised his head to peer around her and look into her eyes. “In a heartbeat.” He grinned and then chuckled. “Would you like to see the picture he did send?”

  “You still have it?”

  “It’s in my room.”

  Suzanne grimaced. “Let me guess. The woman in the picture is only partially dressed.”

  “Good guess. She’s blond, voluptuous and wearing a skimpy bathing suit.”

  Suzanne groaned. “What did I ever do to deserve a kid brother like Mack? Sometimes I wonder if he has any sense at all. Didn’t it occur to him that if you and I ever did meet, you would immediately know I wasn’t the woman in that photo?”

  “It would have occurred to an adult, Suz, but Mack thinks like a fourteen-year-old.” Rand hesitated, then added, “You know, I can’t be angry about what he did when it brought you to Montana. You’re exactly the kind of woman I was hoping my ad would attract.”

  Suzanne turned her head to give Rand a quixotic look. He had written virtually those same words in his letter when he’d believed she was a nudie-cutie. What should she believe now?

  “It’s true,” Rand said solemnly. “On my honor, Suzanne.”

  She turned her face away again. And if Mack hadn’t brought the two of us together and another woman had answered your ad, you would probably be saying the same thing to her. Suzanne wasn’t overly thrilled with that theory, but it was much too clear in her mind to ignore. Truth was, she liked Rand. A lot. But even though she now had some understanding of what had prompted him to advertise for a wife, and even though she didn’t find the concept nearly as distasteful as she had, some part of herself couldn’t let this conversation end up where she was beginning to suspect it was leading.

  It’s my fault as much as his, she thought apprehensively, fearing that Rand was on the verge of offering marriage. Even though she herself had been thinking only a moment ago that a marriage based on friendship might work, a part of her rebelled at the idea of settling for that sort of one-size-fits-all relationship. I never should have asked him about the ad, or the photo, or anything at all about what Mack might have told him, she thought, terribly uneasy with the whole thing. Obviously she had given Rand some very serious notions by sleeping with him; it was up to her now to dispel those ideas without hurting his feelings. He had, after all, taken his cue from her; she could have said no and hadn’t.

  She tried to wriggle free of his embrace and move to the edge of the bed.

  “Hey, where’re you going?” Rand asked in surprise.

  “I have things to do. So do you,” she said calmly, as she was determined to keep this friendly. Frowning, he watched her get off the bed and start picking up her clothes. “I’ve noticed how the wind has died,” she said while heading for the bathroom. “Does that mean the storm is coming to an end?”

  “Probably,” Rand mumbled. They had gotten very close to a serious conversation, and he wasn’t at all happy over Suzanne’s unexpected and rather sudden decision to avoid it. Reluctantly he got up and began dressing.

  In the small bathroom, Suzanne refreshed herself, got dressed and marveled that she felt absolutely no remorse or embarrassment. It was probably because making love with Rand was so explainable, she decided. She had live
d a celibate life for a long time and she liked and admired Rand. She was a logical thinker—most of the time—and what had happened between them today seemed perfectly logical.

  That was the perspective she must maintain, she told herself while brushing her hair in front of the mirror. The storm was dying, and she and Mack would be leaving as soon as the roads were plowed. This romantic little interlude with Rand would be a pleasant memory when she got home. At least that was how she would try to view it.

  But then concern about Mack willingly going back to Baltimore buffeted her again, and she stopped brushing her hair to stare into her own eyes. It hit her abruptly that Rand might have some suggestions to help her convince Mack that he simply could not stay in Montana by himself. She had to talk to him before he returned to work.

  Dropping the hairbrush, she hurriedly opened the door to the bedroom and saw Rand, fully dressed, straightening the bedclothes. He turned when he heard her come in.

  “I—I have a problem,” she said.

  “Don’t we all?” he drawled cynically.

  Suzanne blinked. “Are you angry about something?”

  “Me, angry? Why would you think that? I don’t have any reason to be angry, do I?”

  Suzanne’s spine stiffened. She knew exactly what was behind Rand’s attitude, and while some resentment on his part might be justified, he was an adult and had to take life’s hard knocks, same as her. She wanted very much to keep this amicable, but maybe that was asking too much, given the circumstances, she thought unhappily.

  “No, you do not,” she said, maintaining a neutrality in her voice in a last-ditch effort at congeniality. “Rand, both of us have to look at what happened here today sensibly. Sleeping together did not give either of us any kind of hold over the other.”

  “It would if we wanted it that way.”

  She hesitated a moment to think and discovered she couldn’t disagree with his point. “You’re right. It would if we both wanted it that way.”