She rolled over and looked at her sister, sleeping next to her in the bed because there were no other rooms. Lucy snored. Her stylish, composed sister snored like a trucker. And slept like the dead. If it weren’t for the snoring, Mia might be concerned.
Lucy wouldn’t hear Mia if she eased out of bed and snuck across the room. The door barely creaked anymore. She could be in Jack’s room, sliding under the covers, up against all that blanket-warmed bare skin and Lucy wouldn’t even stir.
But she didn’t do it.
You’re a chicken, she told herself. A coward. You’re letting fear rule your life.
She flopped onto her back.
He was changing, she could see it. But was it enough? Truly? Enough to risk her heart again? Every time she’d gone to one of those functions with him and she’d seen him light up at the sight of her, her heart had exploded with joy. But by the end of the night he’d be deep in conversation with Oliver about the next project and she’d once again be an afterthought.
He was focused on her now, and it was a heady delight.
But what happened when his attention wandered, back to his work, his old life, some new project? She’d be an afterthought again. And not even she was strong enough for that.
She wished she could look into his eyes and see the truth. The future.
But there was no guarantee, and if she was going to be honest with herself, she knew that was what she needed. Without it, she had to let him go. She had to. But could she really let him go without touching him one last time? Kissing him?
It seemed impossible.
She had the rest of her life to be alone and only a few more chances to be Jack’s wife.
She slipped out of the bed, glancing back at Lucy to be sure she hadn’t woken, then crept out of the room.
It was just past dawn. Jack might be awake, and if she was lucky she’d get him before he left his bed.
Before she’d taken more than two steps into the hall way, Walter’s door opened and she froze like a thief.
Walter was fully dressed for a day of work. A denim shirt rolled up over muscular arms, tucked into a pair of dark brown canvas pants.
“What are you doing?” she asked as if he’d stepped out of his room in a clown costume.
“Branding,” he said.
“So soon?” she cried. She figured that would be the first thing she’d organize once she was back full steam.
“Wanted to get it done before I left,” Jack said and she turned. She hadn’t heard his door open. He stood in the new dawn sunshine in hard-worn blue jeans and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. Her heart pounded in her chest, her mouth went dry and the grief, the grief that buzzed around her head like a fly waiting to land, was deafening.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
He watched her for a long time, long enough that Walter grumbled something about breakfast and headed down the hallway toward the kitchen.
“You won’t let me stay,” he said. “You won’t let me come back. You won’t let me help you.”
“I don’t need your guilt or your charity,” she said, raising her chin.
He stepped out into the hallway, taking up too much space. Too much air. “It’s not guilt,” he said. “Would you believe I like the work?”
“No.”
His smile was sharp. “Well, I do.”
“What are you doing with Walter?” she asked.
Jack shrugged and pulled his door shut. “He misses the work, and it’s easy enough to drive him up to the pasture. Let him hang out.”
“Hang out?” Mia asked, wondered if the whole world was upside down or just this ranch. “With your father?
The man you haven’t talked to in years?”
“You told me I needed to deal with my past and that’s what I’m doing.”
Flabbergasted, all she could do was nod. “How…how is that going?”
His gaze lifted over Mia’s head to the kitchen at the end of the hallway, where they could hear Walter talking to Sandra. “Better than I thought it would. It’s still not perfect, but it’s better.”
Affection and pride flooded her chest. “I’m so glad.”
“What I’m wondering,” he said, leaning closer. He tilted his head, smiling at her like a wolf. “Is what you’re doing outside my door at dawn.”
“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” she asked, feeling peevish and confused. “You’re off to brand.”
His laugh rang bells all over her body. “It matters, Mia.” He touched her cheek, her lip. “I’ll see you tonight,” he murmured and left her stewing in her own frustration.
JACK AND THE GUYS came in later than usual, but they had the easygoing laughs of men who’d finished a job.
“You’re kidding,” she said, when Chris told her the work was done. “All of them are branded?”
“I hired two seasonal hands,” Chris said. The guys all filed into the room and sat down at the big table. Sandra had made spaghetti with meatballs and the men dug in as if they hadn’t eaten in weeks. They’d eaten that way every night since Sandra had been back. Even Chris seemed to have put on weight.
And Mom watched from the stove, a smile on her face.
“On whose authority?” Mia cried.
“Mine,” Jack said, grabbing an apple from a bowl on the counter that had sat empty for five years. “It’s my money, after all.”
She shook her head, anger and purpose filling her. She’d been an outcast from her life, from her work long enough. “No more bed rest,” she snapped. “This is ridiculous.”
“I agree,” Jack said, taking a giant bite of the bright red fruit, juice dripping down his chin. He looked so earthy, so raw, it felt erotic just to look at him, to stand here and watch him eat.
She could barely blink in fear of missing something.
“Sandra?” he said. “You got that box ready?”
“Here you go.” Sandra lifted a big box up onto the counter. “Try to have her home by midnight or she’ll turn into a pumpkin.”
“What the hell is going on?” Mia demanded.
“I’m taking you on a picnic,” he said.
A picnic? Her breath shook in her chest, her heart missed a beat.
“Mom, what did you do?” Lucy asked from behind her. Mia couldn’t turn; she was riveted by Jack.
“I packed up some fried chicken and a couple of brownies for my daughter and her husband,” Sandra said, the word husband laced with dynamite.
“Sounds wonderful, Sandra,” Jack said with a charming smile and Mom blushed.
“We’re here to help Mia,” Lucy said. But it all seemed so far away to Mia. The only thing she cared about, the thing she could touch, was Jack.
“Stay out of this, Lucy,” Jack said. “This is between me and my wife.”
My wife? Was this really happening?
“Mia,” Lucy said, coming to stand beside her, tugging her hand. “This isn’t a good idea.”
“Lucy. Stop.” Walter’s voice boomed through the big room and everyone froze. Except Lucy, who whirled on the old man.
“Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?” Lucy asked.
Sandra threw her dish towel over her shoulder and stepped out from behind the stove into the fray—and still, Mia could not look away from Jack.
“A picnic,” he whispered, his eyes twinkling, his lips wet with juice. “Away from the maddening crowd.”
Mia knew it was a bad idea, just like she’d known going up on that roof in Santa Barbara had been a bad idea, but she was tired of resisting. Tired of being safe in her misery and loneliness. When Jack left—and he would—she wanted memories. She wanted something real to hold on to.
“Let’s go,” she said.
“THE ROOF of the high school?” she asked, a half hour later, staring up at the old fire escape that led to the air-conditioning unit over the cafeteria.
“Only the finest,” Jack said, tucking Sandra’s picnic dinner into the old beat-up knapsack he’d brought along. He still couldn’t
quite believe she’d come with him. After days of pushing him away, that she was here seemed like a miracle.
A miracle he planned on taking full advantage of.
“You first,” he said, bowing slightly as if escorting her to the best seat in the house.
She shot him a wry look. “Don’t stare at my butt,” she said, starting up the ladder.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, staring at her butt. Good Lord, the woman’s curves had curves.
They climbed up the ladder to the top of the air-conditioning unit and then chinned up onto the flat roof over the main part of the school.
She didn’t need his help, as ready as he was to give her a boost. Mia Alatore got where she wanted to go all by herself, and it was one of the things he most admired about her.
He wondered if she knew that.
How would she? he asked himself. You never bothered to tell her.
Calling a woman tough was hardly a love song. And Mia deserved whatever love songs he could give her.
“Seems like other people have found your hiding spot,” she said, kicking aside beer bottles and empty cans of spray paint. A filthy mattress crouched in the dark corner next to a big vent.
“They need to take down that ladder,” he said, saddened to see his old refuge so misused. “It’s too damn easy to get up here.”
“The view is still the same,” Mia said, looking out at the mountains, bathed in pink light from the setting sun. The small town of Wassau spread out in front of them for a couple of blocks in either direction.
A kingdom of split-level ranch houses and pickup trucks.
“I feel like a queen up here,” she said, laughing. She tucked her hands into the pockets of the red zip-up sweatshirt she wore and tilted her head back to the breeze.
How was it that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen? Dressed in a sweatshirt and cowboy boots, she beat every other woman by a mile.
“I was more inclined to a god on Mount Olympus,” he said, and she shot him a dubious look over her shoulder. A look that sent arrows through his body. His heart.
“You were such a nerd,” she groused.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged off the backpack and opened it up, pulling out a blanket and some food. He wished he had wine, but he’d have to make do with two bottles of water. “Pretending to be a god makes sense for a kid who felt like he had no control in his life.”
“Listen to you,” she said. “All Oprah about your childhood.”
Jack laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far, but…you were right. I’m never going to have a real relationship with anyone if I kept pushing them away or leaving them.”
The atmosphere on the roof changed and he could feel Mia’s anxiety, see it in the set of her shoulders under that red sweatshirt.
It was now or never and as much as he wished he had more than an apple in his nervous stomach, as intricate a seduction as he’d had planned, he knew he couldn’t let this moment go by. He’d let too many moments go by, blind to them.
“I’m coming back to the ranch,” he said. “After the meeting with the university, I’m coming back.”
Mia hung her head and his heart ached for her, it really did, but he wasn’t going to be pushed around by her fears anymore.
“It’s my home, Mia.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“For as long as you’ll have me.” These past few days with his father had started to unravel the mess of his childhood.
The things he’d thought were real—that his father didn’t love him, that his mother’s hate and rage were somehow his fault—he now knew were false.
Except for Mia. Mia had always been real. Mia was joy in a world of cold science.
“I love you,” he said, and she jerked as if he’d shot her.
But she didn’t turn.
“I put my whole life in compartments,” he said, keeping his distance, knowing if he touched her she’d run. So he stood back and hoped his words would do the job. “I had my work. I had the past. I had you. And I kept everything separate. Simple. I didn’t think about the past or you when I thought about work and so, I let work take over.”
“Because it was easier,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed, watching her for clues. But she was unreadable. A stone face. And he wanted to feel hope, joy even that he’d told her how he felt. That he’d loosened some of the chains of his past, but her stoicism wouldn’t allow it.
Panic started a drumbeat in his head.
“But I want it all,” he said, pushing on anyway. “I want a full life. A real life. I want you and my work to occupy the same place. To coexist.”
“How can we if your work is all over the world?”
“I don’t know what my work is going to be, Mia. Maybe I’ll stay here and fix irrigation systems.”
She scoffed. “Like that will make you happy.”
“You make me happy.” And then, because he couldn’t not touch her any longer, he curled his hand over her shoulder, feeling her heat and bone and muscle. But he felt none of her heart. None of her love.
She was closed off to him.
“You don’t believe me.” It wasn’t a question. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” he said. “I’m sorry I left. Trust me when I tell you I didn’t know what I was leaving behind. I didn’t know I was leaving the better part of myself, the laughter and the love. I didn’t know I was leaving behind my best friend and my family.”
She stared up at him, dry-eyed and doubtful.
“I’ll prove it,” he said, grabbing hold of the challenge with both hands. He pulled off her hat tossed it to the ground at their feet. Slowly and gently he untangled the ponytail from the nape of her neck. The breeze picked up her hair, blew it around her head. A lusty contradiction to the stone-cold look in her eye.
“You don’t scare me,” he whispered. She thrilled him. Excited him. And if his words didn’t get the job done, he had other ways to convince her.
MIA WAS A LAMB headed to slaughter and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Jack took his time, breathing whisper-thin words against her skin like love and home. Words that wound around her like a spell.
Don’t believe, she warned herself.
And then he kissed her and she couldn’t help it. This was Jack holding her. Jack, her husband, telling her he loved her. How could she not at least hope? How could she pretend to be unmoved?
He didn’t play games, held the back of her head and opened his mouth over hers. It was lush and exciting. Wet and all-consuming. A thousand never-ending kisses.
Her body turned to mist and she lost all boundaries, all sense of herself as something other than him. Other than raw sensation. She opened herself up and took everything he gave her. She had no protection, just desire and the man she loved.
She moaned and wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling herself to him, angry when it didn’t seem like enough.
“Mia—”
“Shut up,” she muttered, unzipping her jacket and tossing it over her shoulder. Closer. She wanted to be closer to him.
His chuckle rumbled against her chest and she didn’t appreciate him laughing at her. She dropped her hand to his belt buckle and his laughter died on a cough. His wiry strength was taut, expectant, waiting for her next move and she liked that. She really liked that.
Slowly, carefully, she ran her hands over the jeans below his belt, feeling the hard length of him beneath the metal and denim.
His groan threw gasoline on the fire burning in her body. Her nipples hardened so fast they hurt and the ache between her legs grew, spreading through her body.
He’d spread out a blanket and she tucked her fingers inside the waistband of his jeans and pulled him toward it, aglow in the last of the sunset.
His shirt rode up and under her fingers she felt the soft tenderness of his belly. The white-hot heat of his skin. She pushed her fingers deeper and felt the wiry curls of the hair that grew there.
It wasn
’t enough; the teasing, fleeting sensations weren’t enough to satisfy her suddenly voracious curiosity. And appetite.
She leaned up on tiptoe and kissed him while her fingers undid his belt. His palms slid over her hips, grabbing her ass with both hands, squeezing and pulling her close. She lost focus for a moment, groaning into his mouth, pressing her aching breasts against his chest, searching for someplace to put this desire.
She wanted him in her hands. Her mouth. She wanted to suck on him. Taste him on her tongue. Feel him against her lips.
She’d never done this. Not really. And she planned to take her time. She planned to master the skill of pleasing her husband, right now.
Jack muttered something dark and dirty into her mouth and she wanted to laugh with wicked delight.
Finally, her awkward fingers got rid of the belt and the button and zipper of his jeans and she slid her hands into his pants.
His erection, hot and smooth, leaped into her fingers and she curled her palm around him.
He hissed, his hips jerking against hers.
“Mia, baby, listen, I love this, but it’s…it’s been a long time.”
She didn’t say anything. Wasn’t about to let him off the hook. She had a plan, damn it, and he wasn’t going to make a mess of this the way he had her life.
A gentle push and he was on his back on the blanket.
His shirt had been pulled up and she saw the muscles of his stomach, the tip of his erection. His pants were stub born, but she tugged them down past his hips, revealing the full length of him. The dark, coarse hair.
She’d seen men who weren’t her husband, of course.
Well, just Bill Winters. But this was her husband, and love made him beautiful, so much more than his body and his skin and hair.
“Men like this,” she said, though she wasn’t sure why. Doubts, maybe. She was, after all, a thirty-year-old almost virgin.
“If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about…yes, they do.”
She ran her fingers over him, feeling the veins that pulsed just beneath the skin. His hips lifted off the ground and his legs shifted, bumping into her knees where she knelt.
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