by Lisa Jackson
He groaned when she touched him, his muscles flexing. “Oh, Cassie.” Lips, full and hungry, captured hers, and he kicked off his clothes, his body in all its young, virile glory straining over hers. “I—I don’t have anything for protection—”
“I don’t need anything but you,” she whispered, watching him through glazed eyes.
Shuddering, he parted her legs with his own. He moved quickly then, thrusting into her, past the thin barrier of her virginity.
She gasped with the searing pain, a white-hot burst that he assuaged with his gentle, rhythmic movements. Cassie closed her eyes, and the sounds of the night faded. She could no longer hear the gentle drone of crickets, the quiet lapping of the lake, the wind soughing through the pines. She heard only the beating of her heart and the thundering cadence of Colton’s, felt only the liquid heat within her building with each joyful, binding thrust.
She dug her fingers into his shoulders as his tempo increased. Moving with him, she arched upward, her spine curving, her breasts full against him.
“I can’t hold back,” he cried, just as the first spasm sent her rocketing into a new, wondrous world. Light splintered before her eyes, and she heard him cry out lustily, the sound echoing through the trees.
“Cassie, Cassie,” he whispered, hoarse and clinging, his body fused to hers. He gazed down at her, and regret darkened his gaze. “Oh, God—”
“Shh . . .” She pressed a finger to his lips and smiled, but he closed his eyes and clung to her, as if blocking out an image he couldn’t bear.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“You—you were a virgin.”
“Of course I was!” She held his face between her hands. “There’s no reason to be sorry.”
“Oh, God, Cass, there are a thousand reasons,” he whispered, levering himself on one elbow and gazing down on her.
His eyes moved over her slowly, and his expression turned pained, guilt-ridden. “This wasn’t the right time,” he muttered, his muscles still glistening with sweat.
“It was perfect.”
“That’s the trouble, Cassie. You see things the way you want to see them. I see them for what they are.”
“And what was this?” she asked, almost afraid to know.
“This . . .” He smiled wistfully for a second before he swallowed hard. “This was—a mistake.”
“No!”
“Cassie, you’re not ready for any of this.”
“I know what I want.”
“You couldn’t,” he said, looking up to the darkening sky as if searching for answers.
“Colton? Talk to me.”
He ran a hand through his still-wet hair, and his fingers trembled. “I-I think we’d better get dressed.”
“So soon?”
“For God’s sake, Cassie!” he exploded. “Think about it.” Muttering under his breath, he yanked his cutoffs on.
“I’m not ashamed.”
His head snapped up. “Good. You shouldn’t be,” he said quickly.
“Neither should you.”
He pinched his lips together. “Forget it.”
“Colton, it was beautiful! I love—”
“Don’t!” he said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously and biting the corner of his lip. “I care about you, Cass. Hell, you know that. But you’re so young.... I just think we should slow things down a little.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, crushed.
“That we’re moving much too fast.”
Reluctantly she stepped into her panties and tried not to cry. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, but she forced them back. Maybe Colton didn’t love her now, right this minute, but he would! She knew it! Surely he couldn’t have touched her so intimately, caressed her skin so fondly, if he didn’t—
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a strong, familiar voice demanded.
Cassie froze, grateful for the shadows cast by the trees.
Colton, lifting his head, scrambled to hide her from his brother’s incriminating gaze.
Astride a rangy bay gelding, Denver McLean glared down at them. His face was lined with disapproval, his brows drawing into one thick black line. “Have you lost your mind?” he demanded harshly.
Colton coiled, his muscles flexed as if he was about to leap up and drag his brother from the saddle. “I think you’d better leave!”
“So you can go back to bedding Ivan Aldridge’s daughter?” Denver sneered. “Not on your life.”
Cassie wanted to die! She struggled into her halter and shorts.
Standing, Colton snapped the closure of his cutoffs. “It’s none of your business!”
“No? And what happens if she turns up pregnant? What do you think her old man will say?”
“I swear, Denver, if you don’t leave . . .” Colton warned, still using his body to shield her.
“Come on. Take your best shot.” But Denver didn’t slide to the ground. He glanced at Cassie and sighed. “Hell, Colt, she’s only a child!”
“I’m seventeen,” Cassie insisted, her clothes finally intact even if her pride was shredded to ribbons.
“Sweet Mary! Seventeen?” Denver exclaimed, his furious gaze ricocheting back to Colton. “Ivan Aldridge will personally nail your hide to the wall!”
“That’s my problem,” Colton retorted, standing next to Cassie, one hand curved protectively around her waist.
“That’s everybody’s problem,” Denver pointed out. “There’s still a lot of bad blood between the two families. If Ivan finds out that you and his daughter are lovers, there’ll be hell to pay.”
“I’m warning you,” Colton ground out.
“It’s none of your business,” Cassie cut in, her temper flaring.
“Isn’t it?” Denver’s blue eyes glinted. “I hope to God that you’re old enough to protect yourself,” he said furiously. “I don’t know how your dad would feel about becoming a grandfather to a McLean.”
“Protect myself?” Cassie repeated.
“It hasn’t come to that, Denver,” Colton lied, his jaw tightening.
“But not far from it.”
Colton bristled. “I can handle myself.”
“Just use your head.”
“Oh, like you do whenever you’re around Tessa?”
Denver’s face became a mask of iron. “Leave Tessa out of this,” he warned in a low growl. “You’d better get back to the house. Dad wants to talk to you. And you, Cassie—”
“I’ll take care of her,” Colton bristled.
“If you haven’t already.” Yanking on the bay’s reins, Denver swore furiously. The horse twirled on his back legs and took off in a cloud of dust.
“Come on,” Colton said gently, “I’ll take you home.”
“I don’t want to go home.”
A muscle tightened in Colton’s jaw, and his silvery eyes sparked. “Denver’s right, you know. This’ll only cause trouble.” He took her hand in his and guided her to the truck.
“But all I want is you! I want to marry you!”
“Oh, God, Cassie. Marry me?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head violently. The fading light was reflected in his eyes. “You’ll change your mind a dozen times before—”
“Don’t tell me I’m too young to know what I want,” she said, tears flooding her eyes as he helped her into the dented Ford pickup. She hated being only seventeen—hated it!
“Okay, I won’t. But I’ll tell you what I want. I want to finish college. I want to travel. I want to be the best photographer in the newspaper business.” He ground the old gears, and the truck lurched forward. “And I’m not interested in a wife—at least not now.”
He couldn’t have wounded her more if he’d taken a knife to her throat. Huddled miserably on the passenger side of the pickup, Cassie wondered how she could change his mind. He’d wanted her, and there was more to their relationship than simple lust, she thought wretchedly. There had to be. Some
how she’d prove it to him.
The next morning Cassie was working out her plan to see Colton when her father cornered her in the kitchen. “You were out yesterday,” he said. Seated at the battered old table, he sipped coffee from his favorite chipped mug.
“Umm.” She kissed her father on his crown. “But I wasn’t late.”
“Who were you with?” he asked.
“Just a friend.” She reached into the cupboard and found a cup for herself.
“Boyfriend?”
“Yes,” she said, naively thinking she could end the feud right then and there. “Colton McLean.”
Her father’s head snapped back and a steady flush crept up his neck as he glared at her. “I thought I told you the McLean boys were off limits.”
“And I thought that it was time to start mending fences,”
The back of her father’s neck turned scarlet. “Some fences are never meant to be mended. Don’t you remember what the McLeans did to us? To our family?” He shoved his plate across the table.
“That was John.”
“I never want to hear that name in this house!” he warned. “And you may as well realize all the McLeans are the same—cut from the same bolt of rotten cloth. Especially Colton. He’s wild and irresponsible, that one!”
“You just don’t know him.”
“Don’t I?” Ivan’s hands were shaking. He rolled his fingers into his palms, and his jaw clenched and relaxed several times before he found his voice. “Use your head, Cassie. Colton McLean doesn’t care for you.”
“You don’t know anything about him!” she cried.
Ivan cocked both eyebrows. “I know this—you’re not to see him.”
“You can’t stop me!”
“You’re still a minor, Cassie. You’re living under my roof, by my rules.”
She clenched her fingers tight around the cup, her knuckles white. She swallowed hard. “I love him, Dad,” she admitted, cringing a little when she saw his shoulders slump.
“You’re too young to know about love.”
“Mom was seventeen when she married you.”
“And look what happened. She ran off with John McLean. Then, when he was through with her, she didn’t bother coming back.”
“And so you blame everyone with the McLean name.”
“The same blood runs through their veins.” He stood and jammed his hat onto his head. “You’re not to see Colton McLean again, hear?”
“And what if I do?”
His old eyes saddened. “Don’t be forcing the issue, Cassie. It’s a mistake to choose between family and a man who doesn’t want or need you.”
“You’re wrong about Colton!”
“Am I?” Ivan paused at the door. “Then if he wants you, he’ll have to court you. I won’t have you sneaking off behind my back!”
Colton didn’t call. Not that day, nor the next, nor any day that week. Her father never mentioned his name again, but Cassie thought of him constantly. She rode along the fence line, hoping to catch a glimpse of him working on the ranch, and she spent hours in town with her friends, hoping to run into him. Once in a while she’d see him and he’d be staring at her, but guilt would change his expression and he’d quickly look away.
Two weeks later she was seated in a corner booth in Jerry’s, a local burger hut. Cassie had purposely chosen this booth near the window facing Main Street so that she could stare outside and watch the traffic, just in case Colton or someone from the McLean spread drove into Three Falls.
She sat there for fifteen minutes, sipping cola, pining for Colton, when Beth Lassiter, her best friend, breezed through the front door.
Spying Cassie, Beth waved, dashed to Cassie’s booth and slid excitedly onto the red plastic seat. “I’ll have a Coke and onion rings,” she said to Bonnie, the waitress, then trained worried blue eyes on her friend. “Guess what?” she whispered, her brown ponytail falling forward, her cheeks flushed.
“What?” Cassie swirled her straw in her drink, watching the ice cubes dance.
Beth bit her lower lip. “Colton McLean’s dating Jessica Monroe.”
Cassie gasped, her stomach turning over. Her hands began to shake, and she hid them beneath the table and tried to appear as calm as possible. “No—”
“I didn’t believe it, either, but I got the word from Ellen.”
Ellen was Jessica Monroe’s younger sister. There were three Monroe sisters in all. All blond, blue-eyed, petite and gorgeous. Jessica was the oldest and probably the prettiest.
“That’s impossible,” Cassie said, finishing her Coke. She wouldn’t believe that Colton had betrayed her—couldn’t. Already she suspected that her lovemaking with Colton had cost her more than her virginity. Her period was late, and Cassie was certain that she was pregnant.
Beth rolled her eyes. “Look, Cassie, I know you’ve got a major crush on Colton, but you may as well forget it. He’s only got a term or so left in college in California and then he’s history. He won’t be coming back here.”
“You don’t know that—”
“Sure I do. He’s as much as told everyone he’s met that he’s going to be some hot-shot journalist. Face it, this town bores him.”
“Maybe he’s changed.”
“Are you kidding? Cass, what’s gotten into you? He’s more like his Uncle John than the rest of his family and—oh, jeez, I’m sorry,” Beth said, grimacing. “I—I forgot about your mom.”
“It’s okay.” Cassie forced a smile that threatened to fall from her face. The back of her eyes burned when she thought of her mother and especially when she thought about making love to Colton McLean. “But you’re wrong about Colton.”
Bonnie, a heavyset woman with a once-white apron strapped around her thick waist, deposited onion rings and Beth’s drink on the table.
Beth handed her a couple of dollars, then poured a thick glob of catsup into her paper-lined plastic basket. “If I were you, I’d forget about Colton,” Beth advised. “There are other fish in the sea.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Beth sighed. “Colton’s just not for you.”
Cassie didn’t believe her. She’d seen the way he’d looked at her, felt the electricity charging the air between them, known the ecstasy of lying in his arms.
But another week passed and she didn’t hear from Colton. Because she loved him with all of her heart and she felt she was carrying his child, Cassie thwarted her father. Though he’d ordered her not to chase after Colton McLean, she couldn’t stop herself. Not with a baby on the way.
Lying on her bed, listening to the sounds of the night through her open window, Cassie waited until her father was asleep, then sneaked down the stairs and hurried outside.
Erasmus yipped at the sight of her, and Cassie jumped.
“You scared the life out of me!” she whispered. “Hush!”
Shoving her hands into the pockets of her jean jacket, she crossed the yard, letting moonlight guide her into the barn.
She couldn’t chance starting the engine of the truck, so she slipped a bridle on Tavish, her favorite chestnut gelding, then led him outside. Not bothering with a saddle, she swung onto the chestnut’s broad back and dug her heels into his sides.
The gelding bolted; his hooves thudded against the dry fields as he fairly flew over the hard ground. The dry summer wind streamed through Cassie’s hair, and she blinked against the tears collecting in her eyes.
She knew what she was doing was dangerous. The horse could trip in the darkness, throwing her. Or her father might wake up and discover her gone. But she had to talk to Colton.
Closer to the edge of the property, she pulled back on the reins and slowed Tavish so he could pick his way through the pines near the river. She heard the roar of the rushing Sage.
Tavish stepped from between the pines, and Cassie saw the river in the moonlight, the turbulent white water splashing over stones and slicing through the dry earth.
The horse shied near the edge of the river. Cas
sie talked softly to him, patting his sleek neck. “Come on, boy. We can do it. We have before.”
Tavish tossed his head before stepping into the river. The dark water swirled around his legs and belly. As she twisted the reins in her fingers, the first icy touch of the Sage brushed against her bare legs. Tavish stepped deeper, then began to float.
Cassie felt his legs stretch as he swam, carrying them across the current and toward the opposite shore. “That’s it,” she said, encouraging, soothing, though her throat was dry, her lungs constricted. “Hold on—just a little more . . .”
Finally his hooves struck bottom. Scrambling over the rocks, Tavish lunged from the river. Once on land, he shook, snorting and blowing, the bridle jangling loudly.
“Good boy!” Cassie cried, climbing off his back and tying him to the sagging fence separating McLean property from Aldridge land. “Wait for me.”
Her canvas shoes squished as she slipped under the barbed wires. She ran through the fields by instinct. Her heart was pounding, and though her shorts were damp from the cold water, she began to sweat. What if Colton wasn’t home? What if he wouldn’t see her? What if, God forbid, he was there with Jessica?
“Don’t go borrowing trouble,” she told herself as she approached the center of the McLean Ranch. The stables, barns and outbuildings loomed ahead, glowing eerily beneath the security lamps. Beyond the buildings and across the yard, lights gleamed in the windows of the McLean house.
Cassie nearly lost her nerve as she climbed the final fence and started across the yard. She was sure someone would look out the window and see her. And then what?
She was almost to the front door when a car approached. Headlights bobbing, engine whining, the sports car sped up the hilly lane leading to the house. Cassie’s heart sank, and she ducked behind a tree, silently praying she wouldn’t be seen.
The car screeched to a stop not far from the tree. A car door banged open.
“I never want to see you again!” a woman screamed, and Cassie recognized the voice as belonging to Jessica Monroe.
“Don’t you?” Colton drawled.
Cassie’s knees gave out. She leaned against the rough bark for support. So it was true. He was seeing Jessica! After he had made love to her. Her stomach roiled, and she thought she might throw up right there on the lawn.