Jerod appeared minutes later, leading out the new mare for Caleb. The horse was smaller boned than any of Lily’s horses, and according to Abe Breckenridge, who had sold her to them, the mare was sweet-tempered and docile.
“This is now officially your horse, son,” Jerod said. “Her name is Diamond, and your saddle even has your name on it. See right here? I figured we could start right away to teach you how to ride. What do you think?”
Lily waited for her son to jump up and down, to clap his hands together in excitement. Instead, he stared at Jerod for a long moment. His eyes darkened. “I don’t want the dumb horse,” he yelled, and then he raced into the barn.
Lily’s heart squeezed tight. What had just happened? What was wrong with Caleb? How could they really become a family when she didn’t know what was going on with her son?
* * *
Jerod was aware of Lily following behind him as he went into the barn to find Caleb. Of all the reactions he’d expected from Caleb, the one he had gotten had shocked him.
It had only been a little over a week ago that Caleb had told him he wanted a horse of his own and that he wanted to learn how to ride. Why had Caleb rejected the horse now? What was going on in the little boy’s head?
“Caleb?” Jerod walked into the barn and looked around, but he saw no sign of the boy anywhere. He was apparently hiding. “Caleb, where are you? We need to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk.” Caleb’s voice came from an empty horse stall on the left. “Just leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that, Caleb.”
“Why not?”
Jerod exchanged a look with Lily and then moved closer to the stall. “I need to talk to you because I care about you.”
“Why should you care about me? My own father didn’t care enough about me to even get to know me. He didn’t want me, so why should you?” A stark pain and rage radiated from Caleb’s voice. “And you probably won’t stick around, either. I’m just not lovable. I’m no good.”
“Oh, Caleb...” Lily started to rush forward, but Jerod stopped her with a hand on her arm. Right now Caleb didn’t need his mother. He knew his mother loved him.
Jerod knew intimately the kind of anger and pain Caleb was feeling, and Jerod believed this was the source of Caleb’s temper fits. Jerod was the best person to talk to the boy right now.
“Hey, buddy, it sucks about your dad,” Jerod said. “My father left me when I was a year old. So, he even got to meet me and still took off.” Jerod took a couple of steps closer to the stall. “And then when I was fifteen, my mom tried to kill me.” Lily’s gasp was audible behind him, but he stayed focused on the hurting little boy in the horse stall.
“She tried to kill you?” Caleb’s voice had lost some of the rage. “Why did she do that?”
“Can I come in and sit down with you?” Jerod asked.
There was a long moment of silence. “Okay,” Caleb finally agreed.
Jerod stepped into the stall, where Caleb was curled up in the corner. Jerod sank down in the hay facing Caleb. “After my dad took off, my mother started drinking and taking drugs. Do you know about drugs?”
“Yeah, I know they’re really bad.”
“They are, and so is drinking too much alcohol.”
Caleb’s blue eyes stared at Jerod. “And your mom did those things?”
“She did.” Jerod hoped he wasn’t going wrong in sharing with Caleb something he’d never shared with anyone else. It was something that was ugly and exposed the rawness of what life sometimes had to offer.
“So, why did she try to kill you?”
“I don’t think she ever liked me much. She didn’t take good care of me, and then when I was fifteen, she was dating a very bad man. One night they were both drunk and on drugs and fighting, and he started to beat up my mom. When I tried to stop him, my mother broke her beer bottle and used it to cut down the side of my face. Then she told me if I didn’t leave she was going to kill me, so I left.”
Jerod reached up and touched the scar that had been left behind. He took several deep, long breaths as a rush of unexpected emotions blew through him. His chest tightened and his mouth dried as he remembered that horrible time.
That night his mother had become a monster. He’d never forget the hatred that had shone from her eyes as she had sliced down his face and then threatened to stab him in the heart if he didn’t leave her boyfriend alone. She had chosen a man who beat her over her son. She’d always chosen drugs and men over him.
He only realized he had gotten caught up in the old memories when Caleb’s small hand covered his and pulled him back to the here and now. “I guess sometimes we just get bad parents,” Caleb said.
“But you’re lucky. You have a mom who loves you with all her heart, and you have me, Caleb. I’ll always be here, loving and supporting you as long as your mom and you want me to.” He turned his hand over and squeezed Caleb’s. “Now, what do you say we both get out of this barn stall and I really introduce you to your new horse?”
“Okay,” Caleb replied. The two of them both stood, but before they left the stall, Jerod stopped him.
“Caleb, any time you want to talk about your disappointment and your anger about your dad, come to me. I’ll always listen to you because I really understand. Deal?”
Once again Caleb looked up at Jerod for a long moment, and then he nodded. “Deal.”
As they came out of the stall, Jerod didn’t quite meet Lily’s eyes. He knew she’d heard everything he’d said, and the last thing he wanted to see in his wife’s eyes was pity.
They went back outside where, thankfully, Diamond still stood in the same place. Jerod took the reins and led the horse into the corral. “Before we can get you riding, you need to make friends with Diamond.”
Caleb eyed him curiously. “Make friends how?”
“Let her smell you and stroke down her nose. Rub down her neck and let her get used to you.”
As Caleb began to interact with Diamond, Jerod moved to stand next to Lily. She surprised him by taking his hand in hers, and when he looked at her, there was no pity in her eyes. Instead there was a warmth that half stole his breath away. She held his hand for only a moment and then released it, and he immediately missed her touch.
For the next couple of hours, Jerod worked with Caleb and Diamond. Lily leaned on the corral railing and watched them. It was like a dream Jerod had envisioned for himself for years...his wife watching him while he taught his son to ride. It didn’t matter that Caleb was a stepson. He was Jerod’s family now, and that’s all that mattered.
It was strange to him that before the marriage he hadn’t paid much attention to Lily Kidwell, but since the marriage he’d noticed a lot of things about her. Like the fact that her hair wasn’t just a plain brown, but in the sunlight it sparkled with interesting strands of red and gold. He knew how sweet her lips tasted, but he’d never noticed before how lush they looked.
The more time he spent with her, the more he noticed how pretty she was, and the more he desired her.
He loved the sound of her laughter, which was melodious and infectious. He liked that she was a cheerful morning person and the way she loved her son. He could easily imagine her as the mother of his children, but there was a little part of him that believed this was all too good to be true.
For the first fifteen years of his life, he had been told he wasn’t important, that he didn’t matter and therefore he didn’t deserve any real happiness. He’d seen himself as a worthless, unlovable kid.
Despite the years with Big Cass, there were still times when those early childhood memories haunted him and inner demons rose up that told him he’d never be good enough, he’d never be smart enough to please anyone.
He shook his head to now dispel those demons and instead focused on Caleb and Lily. Thank God, he and Lily had gotten through the boxer issu
e, although he’d still like to know who had tried to tear him and his new wife apart.
He and Caleb worked with the horse until noon, when they all went inside for lunch. Over sandwiches Caleb chattered excitedly about getting in the saddle that afternoon. There was no hint of the sad, angry child they had seen earlier in the day.
In the afternoon Jerod put Caleb in the saddle and worked teaching him how to guide a horse with a nudge of his knees and a slight tug on the reins. They stayed in the corral, and right before dinner the three of them saddled up and went for a slow ride through the pasture.
Caleb did great, but as always Jerod’s eyes kept drifting to Lily. Clad in a light blue sweater and jeans, and with a wide smile on her face, she looked absolutely beautiful.
There had been no more intimacy between them since the kiss they’d shared after the boxer incident. That kiss had been amazing and he was eager to do it again, but he was still afraid to make a move on his own. He needed her to take the lead where their intimacy was concerned. With each day that passed, he was more and more drawn to her.
By the time supper came and went, Caleb was exhausted from the day in the fresh air and his excitement over Diamond. They decided not to play games that evening. Caleb just wanted to shower and get ready for bed.
“Wow, this is unusual, especially on a Saturday night,” Lily said at seven thirty, when Caleb had been tucked in and was sound asleep.
Jerod sank down on the sofa next to her. “It was a good day. He was a fast study on the horse.”
“Now we’ll have trouble keeping him off Diamond,” she replied. Her eyes sparkled with her happiness, and desire for her punched Jerod in the pit of his stomach. There was no better feeling in the world than seeing your wife happy, he thought.
“We need to set up some rules, and right now the main one should be that he doesn’t ride alone. He’s nowhere near ready for that.”
Lily smiled at him. “I agree.”
He returned her smile. “It’s nice to be on the same page when it comes to rules.”
“Totally nice.” She moved a little closer to him, bringing with her that soft lilac scent that he found so evocative. “Thank you for sharing with him this morning. I had no idea that Caleb had such terrible feelings about his father...about himself.”
“I think it’s the source of the anger issues he’s been having. Hopefully talking about it will ease some of that anger,” Jerod replied.
Lily placed a hand on his thigh. “Yes, but I think you sharing what happened to you as a kid really helped him, and for that I thank you. It couldn’t have been easy for you to talk about those things.”
“It was a very dark time,” he admitted.
“Was your mother always abusive with you?” she asked. Her eyes were soft pools of comfort. He wanted to dive in and live in them.
“Yeah, she’d beaten and neglected me throughout my childhood, but that night it was something different. I’d never really gotten in between her and one of her loser boyfriends before, but that night I thought he was going to kill her, and so I hit her boyfriend in the jaw to get him off her.”
He ran his hand down his scar and then dropped his hand back to his lap. “And I not only got this for my trouble, but I really believed she wanted to kill me that night. I knew then I had to leave. If her boyfriend didn’t wind up killing her, then the drugs she was doing were going to, and I couldn’t stick around to watch it even if she wanted me to, which she didn’t. She made it clear that night how much she resented me...how much she hated me.”
“Oh, Jerod, I’m so very sorry for you. Have you seen or heard from her since that night?”
“No. Even if I wanted to find her, I would have no clue where to look. If she wasn’t running away from the law, she was running away from bill collectors. We never stayed in one place for long. I don’t know if she’s still in the state of Oklahoma or if she’s dead.” He released a deep sigh. “And now let’s talk about something more pleasant.”
They spent the rest of the evening watching a sitcom and talking about their visions for the ranch. He continued to be acutely aware of the enticement of her warmth and her scent so close to him.
When he’d made the proposition to Lily about marrying him, he’d never dreamed there would come a time when he would desire her as much as he did now. He’d never dreamed he would want to make love to her aside from impregnating her so he could have a child of his own.
However, at the moment, he wasn’t thinking about getting her pregnant—he was thinking about how much he’d like to take her mouth with his, how much he wanted to undress her and kiss each and every inch of skin he exposed.
He tamped down the arousal his thoughts were evoking. No matter how much desire he felt for her, he didn’t intend to act on it. She was going to have to show him when she was ready for it to happen.
Still, he felt a new kind of intimacy with her given what he’d shared about his mother. She now knew his dirty, ugly past, and if she decided to reject him because of it, then it would be nothing more than what he expected.
Rather than reject him, she had made him feel closer to her, and he was certain he had picked a woman far different from the one who had given birth to him.
Lily would never turn on her son. She would never, ever allow a man to come between herself and her son, and those were the values he had wanted in his woman...in the woman who would be the mother to his children if this marriage worked out.
At nine o’clock she turned off the television, and he shut off the lights and made sure the doors were locked up tight. She checked on Caleb, who was still sleeping soundly, and then together they went down the hallway to their bedroom.
Lily changed into her nightgown first, and then Jerod went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and get undressed for bed. He was surprised when he came back into the bedroom to find Lily propped up on her pillow, as if she wasn’t ready to go directly to sleep.
“On the whole, this was the best day ever,” she said as he slid into the bed next to her.
He smiled at her. “On a scale from one to ten, this was definitely a nine.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Only a nine?”
He nodded. “A ten is for something unbelievingly wonderful. So far, I’ve never had a ten.”
She scooted a little closer to him and reached out and ran her fingers down his scar. He froze in stunned surprise. Her fingers were so soft, so tender against the shame of his past.
“I hate that this happened to you,” she murmured. “And yet if it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t be here now with me.” She dropped her hand but didn’t move away from him.
He’d worried about seeing pity in her gaze, but instead he saw something else—a burn...a raw desire that accelerated his heartbeat. Her mouth was slightly open, as if in invitation.
He leaned forward and captured her mouth with his, and all he tasted was sweet desire and open acceptance. He wanted this woman—his wife—with a passion that stole his breath away.
When the kiss ended, she leaned back from him, her eyes blazing with a fire that made his heart race even faster. He wanted to pull her against him. He wanted to strip the nightgown off her body and love her nakedness. But he did none of those things. The last thing he wanted to do was move too fast for her. Instead, he froze and waited to see what would happen next.
She held his gaze for another long moment. “I want you, Jerod. I want you to make love to me.” She leaned over and turned off the lamp, and then she was back in his arms.
Chapter 7
Lily’s desire for her husband had been building over the last couple of days, but today when he’d opened up and become so vulnerable to help her son with his emotions, it had shot her desire for Jerod over the moon.
It had been such a joy to watch him work with Caleb and the horse in the corral. He’d been so patient and he’d looked so inc
redibly hot with his black hat set at a handsome angle on his head and the worn jeans that fit so well on his long legs and across his incredible butt.
She’d never felt special or sexy, but as she saw the heated glow in Jerod’s eyes in the moonlight that drifted through the window, she felt both sexy and very desirable.
She moved back into his arms, and their mouths found each other in a kiss that stole her breath and raced shivers of pleasure up her spine. Her husband definitely knew how to kiss. His tongue swirled with hers, and her heartbeat raced in anticipation of what would come next.
They kissed for several long moments, and then she began to tug on the bottom of his T-shirt. She wanted to slide her hands across the wide expanse of the muscled flesh of his chest.
He reared back from her and pulled the T-shirt over his head and tossed it to the floor on the side of the bed. In the moonlight his chest was bronzed and beautiful. He had a small smattering of dark hair that narrowed and disappeared into the top of his boxers.
Immediately she ran her hands over the warm expanse of skin as his lips slid down her cheek and then glided down to kiss her throat. The warmth of his mouth felt incredibly good.
She was on fire with her want...with her need for her husband. It had been so long since she’d made love, so long since she’d felt this kind of passion, of desire. She’d almost forgotten that she was not only a mother and a respected teacher, but she was also a woman. Jerod had awakened something inside her that had been dormant for a very long time.
She not only wanted to caress his warm flesh, but she wanted his touch on her. She wanted to feel the slow slide of his work-roughened hands all over her body. She leaned back from him and, taking a deep breath, she pulled her nightgown over her head and tossed it aside, leaving her clad only in a pair of wispy, silky underpants.
“Lily, you are so beautiful,” he murmured. She felt more beautiful than she’d ever felt in her life as he drew her back into his arms. He kissed her, and at the same time his hand stroked across her collarbone and then to her breasts.
The Cowboy’s Targeted Bride Page 10