by Beverly Bird
She began moving underneath him. It wasn’t in protest. He took that for the response she wasn’t willing to speak aloud, and he couldn’t blame her. He knew that she needed more than sex. But sex had always been a pretty good place to start before.
He pushed his hands beneath her hips, pulling her against him, and felt everything inside him strain to get still closer to her, to get inside her, where everything was warm and safe and good. She finally started kissing him back, hot and fast. Her mouth skimmed over his face before latching on to his lips again. He heard a groan catch deep in her throat.
It still wasn’t completely assent, but neither was it denial. He took her mouth again and again, desperate, feeling raw and needy and wild. He shoved up her T-shirt and her bra and gathered her breasts in his hands. She shuddered once, hard, and groaned again.
“Not here,” she managed. And if he stopped touching her long enough for them to move somewhere else, she thought, then maybe she would get sane again.
“Now.”
“The others—”
“If they come home, they’ll just blush and look the other way.”
Holly would probably cheer, Carly thought. She gave up. No one was expected home for a while anyway.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and gloried in the feel of him pressed against her again. She groped for his belt, but she couldn’t manage to do anything with it because her hands were trembling too badly. She finally settled for wrenching his shirt free from his jeans.
She slid her hands beneath it, over the hard muscles of his back, so clenched now, so tense with restraint. For whatever reason, Holly had been right. He had come back to her. It was enough. For now, it was enough.
She twisted beneath him, splaying her legs so she could wrap them around him. His mouth dived to take in her nipple. His hands were alive, touching, coaxing, urging her on, and she didn’t need any more urging. She never had where he was concerned.
He slid his hands down over her tummy to cup her through her jeans, rubbing, the weight of his body deepening his touch until she cried out. “Now!”
He wouldn’t argue with her. Not this time.
His hand moved, sliding her zipper down. She grappled with his belt again and this time she won her battle with it. She managed to tug his jeans down at the same time his fingers—his wonderful fingers—slid beneath the cotton of her panties.
Jack shuddered. She was wet, hot…his, still his. It was all the proof he needed.
She got his shirt off. Her mouth skimmed feverishly across his chest. Her fingers found his new scar and she explored it, remembering, then she passed it by because the memories of that day struck cold into her heart. There was no room for cold now. Her hand searched for his hardness, and when she found him, Jack made a strangled sound and fought not to explode at her touch.
He had missed her so much.
He felt her hand tremble on him, stroking, taking away the last of his control. The hay scratched her back, her bottom, and Carly felt nothing but the warmth of him against her palm.
Jack eased his mouth away from hers and clenched his jaw. He worked her with his fingers but it wasn’t enough, her hand was too much, and he finally pushed it away so that he could sink into her. She stiffened and quivered and he held her hips, just savoring the feel of her before he moved inside her.
She gave a breath that was half sigh, half gasp, and wrapped her legs tighter around him. She wouldn’t let him go this time. She wouldn’t let him slip away.
He found the band at the end of her braid and tugged it free. Her hair spilled into his hand. He tangled his fingers in it and felt a wave of tenderness, so new, so terrifying that he finally lost control.
He pumped inside her, harder and harder. He wanted more. More of her, more of them, more of this sheer sweetness of mating, matching, joining together. He had never wanted it so badly in his life. He kissed her swollen mouth and drank his name from her lips. Then her breath started coming in short, little pants that drove him the last of the way over the edge.
Carly climaxed hard and fast and completely, crashing over that edge with him.
Finally, she lay still and caught her breath. For a while they watched the wind puff a single white cloud across a clear blue sky. Jack wanted to savor this new peace, and he knew that, as always, she wouldn’t let him. There were still those words left to be dealt with.
She sat up and started grabbing her clothing. Her motions were fast and jerky. Never a dull moment, he thought, grinning.
“What’s the matter now?”
“I don’t know what your story is, cowboy, but you didn’t have to come—what?—two thousand miles? You didn’t have to come all this way to tell me how to get money out of your powerful men.” She was perilously close to crying again. “I’m sick of chasing carrots, Jack. I’m sick of having all of you hold them out to me like some kind of…of promise, but no matter how I try, I can’t run fast enough, I can’t collect the prize, because none of you ever intended to give it to me in the first place!”
She was dressed, scrambling down off the hay again. Jack stared after her. Where had that come from?
“Hey! Wait a minute!”
She spun back to look at him. “I want the truth, Jack! Not excuses, not lies, just the truth. What are you doing here and why?”
He scrambled for a response, but she didn’t wait for an answer. By the time he got his jeans back on, she was halfway across the yard. She veered for the closest barn. Jack went after her. His gut was sinking fast.
Something had happened while he was gone. Something that had smudged the shadows beneath her eyes. Something that had hurt her badly, and it didn’t have anything to do with him. Maybe something had even happened before he’d left. He’d been so preoccupied with Scorpion those last couple of days, he couldn’t say for sure.
He ran into the barn, then stopped, out of breath, trying to let his eyes adjust to the darkness inside. He heard her before he saw her. Soft sniffs were coming from the back of the barn. He ran a hand along the wood, guiding himself toward the sounds. He found her sitting in a stall, her legs drawn up, her head down on her knees.
“What is it?” he asked. “What happened?”
She dragged a hand over her cheek and shrugged. “I’ve been five kinds of a fool,” she muttered.
“You?” He moved carefully to sit beside her.
“Yeah, me. You can’t get to know somebody inside a few days. You were right about that.”
He took a deep breath. “No. I was wrong.”
Carly snorted, but her heart chugged.
“I know you well enough to know that you’re no fool.” She was dogged and feisty, he thought, but she wasn’t stupid.
He watched her tilt her head back to look up at the rafters. Her tears had been short-lived, as usual. Now there was a grim set to her jaw.
“My father was a lot like you,” she said finally. Her voice was just bitter enough to scare him. “You’re both so damned good at moving people around like chess pieces, putting them where you want them, telling them only what you think they need to know. And like a pathetic puppy, I guess I just panted and wagged my tail and gave the best of myself to both of you.”
“Yeah, but it’s a hell of a tail.”
She didn’t even smile. His throat closed. Had protecting her hurt her so much? It seemed safer to ask about her father.
“Who’d your father move around? How?”
“Me.”
She told him everything Rawley had told her. She’d tried to come to terms with it, but she hadn’t been able to. She didn’t give herself any benefit of doubt in the telling, but he knew she never would.
It took Jack a long time to find words. “So what?” he asked finally.
She turned wide, green eyes on him. “So what? I’ve been killing myself for this ranch, for him!”
“Not for him. Not anymore. You’ve been killing yourself for you. And for Holly. Maybe Theresa.”
“What do you mean?” she asked stif
fly.
“Your father’s dead, sweetheart. This ranch is yours. If it sinks, you’re the one who loses. If it floats, it’s you who triumphs.”
She closed her eyes weakly. “I hate you,” she breathed.
The response took his breath away a lot faster than he liked. “Why?”
“Because I needed you to say that thirty-two days ago.”
He shifted his weight, suddenly uncomfortable. “I was in the hospital thirty-two days ago.”
“Hmm. Nice tan you’ve got there. Let’s try seven days ago.”
He had been in Florida, searching, not finding, but then, he’d known he wouldn’t. He had only done it as a symbolic gesture of putting things behind him. If his father had stayed in the state, he was gone now. Jack could have looked elsewhere, and he had realized that he really didn’t need to bother. The man had left him. Now he could let him go as well.
As for his mother, she was no longer in the system. She wasn’t receiving any government aid. Jack found he wanted even less to look through other channels for her.
He’d been born in Florida and abandoned there, but now it was just another place with palm trees. Happiness and hope, home, hearth and family were here in the Dust Bowl.
“I had some traveling to do,” he said finally. “I had to wrap some things up for myself. What do you want from me?”
Carly took a deep breath. “The truth,” she said again. No matter what it was, she knew she needed to hear it. “I thought you were different. That maybe you didn’t actually betray me, that I was just being paranoid and blaming you for what everyone else did. But then you just…vanished. And if what we had was something…anything…you wouldn’t have just gone away, Jack. Tell me,” she said again. No more delusions, she thought. No more chasing after carrots. “I want to know why you came back here. It wasn’t because of Uncle Sam, and it wasn’t for a roll in the hay. So to speak.”
He wanted to smile, but he saw that she had braced herself for a blow. That made it easier to say what he needed to say. He enjoyed jolting her for a change.
“I came to ask you to marry me.”
He got more or less the reaction he’d anticipated. Carly came to her feet in one lunging motion and stared down at him.
“What?”
He stood as well and watched her. “Marry me.” It was so easy to use words after all.
“Why?”
“I love you. You love me. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”
Her heart was slamming. Her breath was gone. She shook her head frantically. “I never said I loved you.”
“You said you needed me.”
I did. I do. Always. “I did not.”
“Yes, you did. You said you needed me thirty-two days ago.”
“I had a moment of weakness thirty-two days ago.”
“That’s garbage,” he said mildly. He leaned a shoulder against the stall door, watching her. He enjoyed her panic and loved the flare of longing in her eyes.
Such expressive eyes. Her whole heart showed there if you looked at them just right. They were really much better in reality than in the picture.
“So what do you say?” he prompted her.
“No.” It was a gasp. Carly felt herself starting to shake.
“Why not?”
“Because…well, we’re not good at it. Neither one of us. There was Zoe, and Brett—” She broke off to shake her head hard. “No, Jack, no.”
“I don’t like blondes, I have all the money I need, and I’ve always had a hard time pulling the trigger. Brett was right about that. So I’m not like him, and trust me when I tell you that you’re not anything like Zoe.”
She stared at him. “You’re crazy.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m just finally willing to settle down. But it has to be with you, cowgirl. No one else.”
That shook her like nothing had yet. And she needed, wanted, to believe it so desperately that it was a physical ache. So she tried one last time to remember all the reasons it might be wrong.
“We’ve only known each other…days. Really, it was just a week.”
“Those were some action-packed days, cowgirl. We lived lives in the space of those hours.” He moved closer to her. “Think about it, Carly. I saw you under the best of circumstances and the worst. I know what you’re like when you’re under pressure and I know what you’re like when you’re in pain. I know how you react to pleasure. I know what you are, and you’re everything good. I never thought your kind of simple, basic goodness was out there.” Hearth and home, he thought. “I just never looked in the Dust Bowl. I was sort of preoccupied with Florida.”
Florida, she thought. Palm trees. Her heart spasmed.
She let herself touch him, laying her palms flush against his chest. His heart was beating hard.
Words could be lies, she thought again. But he’d never really told her lies. And his heartbeat…his pounding heart had to be the truth.
He wanted her to say yes, she realized. He wanted it badly. Her head swam and she felt a strange, tingling sensation run over her skin.
“Jack,” she said softly, “just exactly how long did you have that picture of me?”
He hesitated only a moment. “Six years. And Brett was right when he said I wanted you before I even saw you in the flesh. Your heart showed right there in your eyes. For six years, I hated that a woman like that, like you, could love him, while I was falling in love with you.”
Her head spun. “Then why didn’t you come looking for me right away?”
He thought about not telling her that he—that the agency— had kept tabs on her, because he wasn’t sure how she would take it. But she was right—he had never deliberately told her anything that wasn’t true, and there was no reason to evade her questions any longer.
“I did.”
She blinked. “You did?”
“We knew who you were and where you were, and that you were Scorpion’s woman.” She winced at that. “We just kept an eye on you, in case he came back here.”
“Don’t ask me yet, Jack,” she burst out finally.
“What?” She’d done it again, he thought. She’d veered, jumped subjects, and he rushed to catch up with her.
“To marry you.”
“When then?”
“I don’t know. Later. Just…later. I need to think about it. I need to…be sure.” Oh, God, the fear, she thought. The fear was so great.
Did she dare take a chance again? Could she give another man all her heart?
“Can I hang around in the meantime?” he asked, half-smiling.
Yes, please yes. “Try to leave before we’ve finished this and I’ll break your legs.”
He gave a bark of laughter. She moved out of the stall, braiding her hair back up as she went. She got as far as the repaired back porch before she stopped and looked at him eye to eye. He had stopped on the step below her.
“So did you retire?” she said suddenly.
Jack scowled. “Technically, I haven’t decided yet. I’ve taken a leave of absence. What are you getting at, cowgirl?”
“I don’t want to go to Virginia,” she said bluntly. She looked around at the ramshackle fences and outbuildings of Seventy Four Draw. He was right. Her father was dead. This was hers.
“Virginia, huh?” He grinned slowly. “Now where could you have gotten the idea that I’d want to settle there?”
She almost flushed, then she pointed to his license tags with a triumphant expression. Jack laughed aloud.
“And here I thought it might have something to do with you snooping through my wallet when I left it in the sofa. Here I thought you might have had occasion to see my driver’s license.”
Her eyes widened deliberately. “Snooping? Me?” She sniffed righteously. “Uncle Sam lives in Washington, right? And I was merely thinking that he might get a little testy if your wife sues them for the lost revenue of three hundred and fifty-five cattle. You might get fired.”
Jack’s heart chugged. Slammed. He fo
rgot about the wallet. He had no secrets from her anymore anyway.
“Is this later?” he asked cautiously.
Carly barely hesitated. She nodded.
“Is this yes?”
She nodded again.
His knees felt weak. “I’ll retire.”
Carly breathed again. “You will? Really?” She was amazed. The government had something he needed. She’d finally figured it out while he had been gone. He hadn’t been avoiding commitment with his work, not exactly. He’d been replacing something. He’d been replacing family, home, love…with Scorpion, with his powerful men and his agency.
And a man like that valued family, love and honesty too much to give in to betrayal.
Jack nodded. “I’m entitled. I’ve put in my time. And I wasn’t really sure I felt like starting all over again on another project anyway. I was on Scorpion for so long, it feels like he was my job.”
Eleven years, she thought. “So what will you do?”
“Need any help around here, cowgirl? I work cheap.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Yes. Oh, yes.” Then they both looked up sharply when a truck came into the barnyard.
It was Holly and Theresa, back from the market in the city. Holly got out, stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Jack. She grinned slowly.
“I knew it! I knew it! You’re back! Are you staying?”
Carly glanced at Jack. She answered for him, grinning. “We’ll see. That’s sort of up to him.”
“Yeah,” Jack said without hesitation. “And now your mother has to go take a shower and get cleaned up.” He gave her a little push up the steps. “Come on. There’s one more thing we have to take care of here.”
“What?” Carly asked, startled.
“I believe I owe Rawley Cummings a very fine bottle of bourbon.” At her surprise, he grinned. “Hey, I’m a man of my word.”
* * * * *
Watch for THE MARRYING KIND,
Beverly Bird’s next intriguing novel,
coming in August 1996
from Silhouette Intimate Moments.
* * * * *
eISBN 978-14592-7936-0
UNDERCOVER COWBOY