The Chisholm Brothers:Friends, Lovers... Husbands?

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Emily propped her hands on her hips. “Oh, not much. Only that you think I’m a helpless, incompetent idiot.”

  “I never said—”

  “I heard what you said.” She had never been so hurt, so angry. She felt betrayed. Why, she wasn’t sure. She and Sloan were nothing to each other. Nothing more than boss and employee, and actually, Rose was her boss.

  “All this time,” she told him, “I thought you were being so nice, such a gentleman. Offering me this job, opening doors for me, the heavy lifting, your concern over every little thing I do. I wonder if you really think I’m helpless, or if you’re trying to convince me I am.”

  “Emily, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt your feelings.”

  “My feelings? Is that what this is about? After today, I’m beginning to think maybe it’s your feelings that are the problem here.”

  “What are you talking about?” He looked like a confused, whipped puppy.

  Emily didn’t care what he looked like. She wasn’t about to let him off the hook. “Convince me I’m helpless, that I don’t belong here, and I’ll leave, just the way I planned to, and you won’t have to deal with your feelings for me.”

  “What difference does it make what I think?” He didn’t look so downtrodden and misused now, he looked angry. “You’re leaving anyway. You make that clear every time I get near you. You’ve as much as said that being with me is a waste of time.”

  “I never said any such thing. Every time I mentioned leaving, you never suggested anything else. Because you think I’m what, too weak, too helpless? I’m not helpless, Sloan Chisholm, I’m not. I don’t know who you see when you look at me, but you’re not seeing me. This is me.” She whipped off her shirt and tossed it over her shoulder.

  “Emily! Are you crazy?” He stepped around her and scooped up her blouse. “Put this back on.”

  “Why? So you can go on seeing me the way you want to, instead of the way I am? But then, you don’t know who I am, do you?”

  “The whole damn world’s going to know who you are when they walk in here and see you half-naked.”

  “Nobody’s going to walk in here, and so what if they do?”

  “Where are your girls?” he demanded. “Don’t you care about them?”

  “Of course I care. I’d die for them and you know it. It just so happens they’re in their room for the next hour, and Justin is staying in the house to make sure they stay put. Your grandmother’s in town and not expected back until supper, and Caleb is out riding the range, or whatever. Nobody’s going to walk in here, so you can quit worrying that you’ll be embarrassed.”

  “I’m not worried about me, damn it. Put your clothes back on.”

  “I will not,” she shot back. “Not as long as you have trouble seeing me, the real me. This is me.” With abrupt, jerky motions, running on pure adrenaline and probably, she admitted to herself, no shortage of stupidity, she unzipped her jeans and jerked them down a couple of inches.

  “Emily, stop this.”

  “You see these?” She pointed to the pale marks near her hipbone. “These are stretch marks from having my body swell up to five times its normal size, both times I got pregnant. I carried two babies to term, gave birth to two babies, natural childbirth both times. Michael was there, holding my hand, but he sure didn’t step in and finish the job for me. I was a stay-at-home mom. Do you have any idea what that means?”

  “Emily, put your clothes back on.”

  “You think I sat around at home with my feet up all day, eating bonbons and watching soap operas? Men. What do any of you know? Do you think every time a faucet dripped, a toilet overflowed or a light switch broke, I sat down and cried and waited for the man of the house to come home and solve the problem? Do you think when Michael fell ill and I had a four-year-old and a six-year-old that I waited for somebody else to come along and help me? He was sick for two years before he died. Two long, grueling years. Grueling for him, and yes, for me, too. When he died, I buried the man I’d loved all my life. His medical expenses wiped out our finances. I had to sell the house, put the kids in day care and get a job.”

  “Emily, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry. Prospective employers were sorry, too, that I didn’t have any real job experience. Managing a household, raising children, nursing a dying husband, handling the finances, the plumbing, appliance repairs, none of that mattered, because I wasn’t getting paid for it. It wasn’t real work. But, no, I don’t know how to pull a car engine, so I couldn’t take care of that myself. That does not make me helpless or incompetent.”

  “I never said you were incompetent.”

  “You might as well have.”

  “Would you please put your clothes back on?”

  “Why? Don’t you like what you see? Or maybe the problem is that you do like what you see, but you don’t want to like it. How can you possibly be attracted to a woman you think is a helpless ninny?”

  “I never called you a ninny,” he cried. “Quit putting words in my mouth.”

  “Quit dodging the question.”

  “Because I can’t help it!” he shouted. “All right? I can’t help it. I want you.”

  “Despite what you think of me.”

  “I was wrong, okay?” Heaven help him, no woman had ever looked less like anyone’s mother than Emily did in that moment. She looked like every man’s secret fantasy. “You’ve convinced me. But even when I thought you did need help with a few things, I never thought it was your fault. I never blamed you.”

  “Oh, goody.”

  “I can’t win with you,” he cried.

  “And I can’t win with you,” she fired back. “I don’t know why I even want to.”

  Sloan lost all desire to shout. He could barely find his voice. “Do you?”

  Emily wasn’t ready to talk about her wants. “What did you mean about your mother?”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, then turned away. “I’m not saying another word until you get dressed.”

  “No,” she told him. “You said I remind you of her. Maybe I should take off the rest of my clothes so you can be sure I’m not her.” She shoved her jeans down to her ankles, kicked off her shoes, then stepped out of the jeans.

  “Damn it, Emily, what are you doing?”

  “I’m waiting,” she said, standing there in panties and bra, “for you to answer my question. Why do I remind you of your mother, and what does that have to do with anything? And why should it terrify you?”

  “I was wrong, okay? You’ve convinced me you’re nothing like her. Just drop it.”

  “I won’t drop it.”

  “Why not, for crying out loud?”

  “Because it’s important to me.”

  “Oh, well, that explains everything.”

  “I take it you thought your mother was helpless.”

  He let out a long breath. “She needed help a lot,” he confessed.

  “Like you think I do.”

  “She was small like you, delicate like you.”

  “So now I’m delicate.”

  Sloan couldn’t help himself. He reached out and stroked her cheek. “You are. She was fragile, too, like you.”

  “I’m not fragile.”

  “To me, you are.”

  Emily leaned into his touch, then backed away. “What happened to your mother, Sloan.”

  He sighed and looked away. “She wasn’t cut out for life on a ranch. It was too hard on her. Eventually, it drove her to kill herself.”

  “Oh, dear God. How old were you?”

  “I was nine. Justin was a little thing, about two.”

  “I lost my parents in a car accident when I was in my teens. I can’t imagine how devastating it must have been for you.”

  “It was roughest on our father. He blamed himself for bringing her here. Drank himself to death within two years.”

  Emily saw the old, deep pain in Sloan’s eyes, pain he had carried all these years since losing his parents. Her own hurt feelings suddenl
y seemed petty. This time it was her hand that went to his cheek. “Oh, Sloan. I’m so sorry. Nothing I could say would ease the pain of your loss. But, Sloan, I am not like your mother.”

  He swallowed and cupped his hand over hers where it rested against his cheek. “I guess I’ve been wrong about you.”

  A tentative smile curved her lips. “I guess you have been. So, can we kiss and make up?”

  “Ha. Not until you put your clothes back on.”

  She moved in closer to him. “You mean that I’ve finally worked up my nerve to make a move on you, and you’re going to turn me away?”

  Chapter Nine

  It might have been nerves, or it might have been the combination of panic, wariness and hope in Sloan’s eyes that had Emily biting back a smile.

  He took a step backward, severing the physical contact. “This is kind of an about-face, isn’t it?”

  Emily missed the feel of his cheek against her palm, his hand holding her hand against his face. “I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “I am,” he acknowledged. “But I’m also confused.”

  Emily glanced down and was sharply reminded that her clothes lay in a heap on the barn floor. She looked up again to his face, to keep from losing her nerve. “In most areas of my life I’m confident. I know what I’m doing. I’m good with my girls, and I can handle most of your average daily crises. But when it comes to my personal life, I’m not as confident. I’ve never had to think about having a relationship before, of being intimate with a man, because I always had Michael. I’ve been alone now for two years. I’m out of practice. If you don’t want me anymore, just say so, and I’ll go away. But if you do still want me, you’re going to have to help me out, because I’m not sure how to go about this.”

  Sloan was touched that she would open herself up to him so completely. He couldn’t leave her twisting in the wind on her own. “All you have to be sure about,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her closer, “is that this is what you want.”

  She stepped closer and pressed herself against him. With her steady, blue gaze locked on his, she rose onto her toes and kissed him. A small, simple touch of lips on lips. “I’m sure.”

  He looked down at their joined hands. “You’re trembling.”

  “I know.”

  But she still wanted him. He could see it in her eyes, the heat, the desire. The nerves. “Come here, then.” He wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

  Emily let out the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. She had told him she was sure this was what she wanted. That didn’t mean she was sure of herself. She felt that uncertainty in the chill on her skin, despite the heat of the day. When his mouth brushed hers, she sighed. Then he kissed her again, more thoroughly this time, and when his tongue swept into her mouth and touched hers, her chill disappeared.

  For this space in time she would pretend that she was no longer alone. That someone strong and loving stood by her side and faced the world with her. Someone she could turn to in need, in laughter, in love. Someone she could share the girls with.

  Pretending felt like heaven. Letting go of the reality of her life felt like freedom. To taste a man, to slide her hands over his chest and feel the hard muscles there, made her heart race, her blood heat, and she welcomed both the racing and the heat. His lips were soft, his body hard. The contrast was incredibly arousing.

  She felt as if she were standing on a new threshold, ready to take wing and fly. Against his lips, she murmured his name.

  Sloan ran his hands down her back, then up once more. “Say it again,” he whispered. He had a need to hear it from her. “Say my name again.”

  “Sloan,” she whispered. “Sloan.”

  Her skin felt so smooth, so soft and tender against his hard, workingman’s hands, but she didn’t seem to mind his calluses.

  The smell of her, so sweet and womanly, contrasted sharply, for which he was eternally grateful, with the smells of clean straw and old leather that permeated the barn. The scent of flowers came from her hair, and different, softer perfume from her skin. It was enough to make a man weak.

  When her breath quickened, he nearly lost his head and took her down to the floor of the barn. He wanted to take her to a soft bed, but there was no chance of that. Not this time. But he couldn’t bring himself to pull away and forgo the pleasure he instinctively knew awaited them both.

  He skimmed his lips over her cheeks, down along the side of her neck. Given half a chance, he could devour her.

  When his teeth grazed the tendon in the side of her neck Emily’s knees nearly gave way. What kind of magic did he possess, to make her feel this way? She didn’t know, didn’t care, cared only that he never stop.

  Then his mouth was on hers again, devouring her even as she devoured him.

  His hands, hard and firm and callused on her bare skin, sent a shower of hot shivers down her spine. It wasn’t fair that she couldn’t return the favor. With eager fingers she attacked the snaps on his shirt then shoved the offending garment down his arms and off. Now, now she could feel his skin, and oh, it was glorious. Hot and smooth over hard muscle. Covered with hair down the center of his chest. She ran her hands over him again and again, unable to get enough of the feel of him. His sides, his chest, his arms and shoulders. His back, so broad and firm and hot to the touch.

  Sloan felt every touch, every small, individual movement of her fingers. He groaned and held her tighter, walked her backward toward the stall behind him. If he didn’t find something to lean against, the two of them might yet end up on the floor.

  She was so perfect, fit so perfectly in his arms, against his chest. With a flick of his fingers he unhooked her bra, but he couldn’t slide the straps off her arms unless she stopped touching him. He didn’t want her to ever stop touching him.

  She solved the problem herself and then returned her hands to his chest.

  He wanted to touch her the same way, but first, ah, first he pressed her slowly against him, her bare, soft breasts against his chest. The sensation of flesh against flesh stole his breath, made him moan. Then he was touching her, holding a firm, round breast in the palm of his hand, and again, the word perfect swam through his mind.

  At the feel of his hand on her breast Emily’s knees turned to jelly. Heat shot from her breast to her core. Wires, nerves, somewhere deep inside tightened. A new pulse started pounding, hot and heavy, down low in her body. He was killing her with pleasure, and she wanted to thank him. But that would require words, and her mouth was busy devouring his.

  Had she ever felt this way before? She didn’t think so. She hadn’t known she was capable of feeling so much at once. The physical. The emotional. The sheer need to have him inside her. Tearing her mouth from his, she cried out and tried to get closer, closer. Closer.

  “Sloan,” she moaned.

  “I know.” His breathing was as heavy as hers. “I know.”

  He was moving, leading her somewhere. She didn’t care where, only that he take her with him, that he fill this yawning emptiness inside her, and soon.

  Sloan felt her surrender and cherished it. Had he ever had such a gift before? Had he ever cherished anything, anyone? He didn’t know, couldn’t think. He had to have her, had to sink himself into her and take them both someplace they’d never been before.

  But she deserved better than to be taken against a stall door in the open barn, and straw, he remembered from his randy youth, had a nasty way of poking holes in skin. It was damn uncomfortable, and he wouldn’t do that to Emily. His Emily.

  He tore his mouth from hers.

  She cried out in protest.

  “Wait,” he managed, his chest heaving. He yanked open the stall door and pulled her inside. There he tugged off his boots, then his jeans. The boots he tossed into a corner of the stall. His jeans, he laid out flat on the straw. Short of taking her into the house and parading her past Justin, and maybe her daughters, this was the best he could do.

  Then, because he’d b
een away from her way too long, he pulled her close again, and pulled her down onto the makeshift bed.

  Emily barely had time to take in his long, lean legs, his narrow hips and flat, muscled abdomen before she found herself lying on her back on his jeans with his weight, his solid, comforting weight covering her. She had to close her eyes to hold in all the sensations she was experiencing. His heat. The slight rasp of his chest hair against her bare breasts. The silky feel of the hair on his strong legs against her smooth ones. So many sensations, so many feelings. So much heat, along her skin, and in her racing blood.

  She opened her eyes and stared up into his dark brown eyes and thought they might devour her, so hungry was their expression. That they might burn her alive, so hot was their look. Either way, devouring or burning, she could not look away.

  He cupped her breast in his hand and she moaned. He flicked his tongue across her nipple and she cried out. Her hips arched against him of their own accord, but she found no argument with their effort. She wanted him there.

  As his mouth settled over her breast, with tongue and teeth torturing her with pleasure, his hand slid down, down, beneath her panties and straight to the place that ached for him. When he touched her there she nearly exploded.

  Sloan felt her heat, the dampness that told him she was ready to accept him. He felt her hands clutch his shoulders. Felt them slide down his back, and lower, until she was pushing his briefs down. If his heart raced any faster there would be no difference between one beat and the next.

  When her legs parted, he moved between them, settling his hips there with a perfect fit, as if he’d merely been away and was now home. He eased into her slowly, don’t rush. Slowly, to make it last. But when she opened her eyes and he looked into all that blue, he sank in to the hilt, loving the tiny gasp she made, echoing it with one of his own.

  They were so in tune with each other that they started to move at the same time. Rise and fall, give and take, in and out. Slowly at first, then faster as the intensity gripped them. Faster, harder, until the rush of sensations became too much.