How to Wrangle a Cowboy (36 page)

It had never been like this with other women. Their moans always seemed planned, their moves plotted. Lindsey’s pleasure was so genuine that he knew that at least on some level, he had the trust he’d always wanted from her. She had given him everything, holding nothing back.

Wait. There was one thing…

He felt her move against him as she came back to life, stroking his back, then leaning back to finger the buttons of his shirt. He took her hands in his, but she whisked them away.

“Not this time, cowboy. It’s a nice shirt and all, but I want it gone.”

Buttons. Shoot. He wished he’d worn one with snaps. He tried to help her, fumbling with the buttons, and it was only then that he realized his own hands were shaking. She wasn’t the only one who’d climbed to the heights. Just by watching her face, he’d followed her there and been stunned by what he saw, what he felt and knew as she pressed her body to his.

“There.” She pulled the shirt away, almost tearing it with a triumphant flourish, and tossed it across the room. Without missing a beat, she went to work on his belt buckle.

This he could help with, and he’d better or he’d find himself trapped by his boots. He toed them off, then slipped off the jeans.

“Hold on,” he said. “Safety first.”

He was hard as oak, so slipping on the condom was quick, but he worried the pause in the action had spoiled the mood.

When he got back to the big room, Lindsey was still sitting on the table, a dreamy, distant look on her face. Her eyes flicked to his gloved equipment, and she smiled a sweet, secretive smile, as if he’d come bearing candy.

But he couldn’t smile back. This was serious. She was staying here at the Lazy Q, and this wasn’t just a romp they could enjoy and dismiss like a quick game or break in routine. He might be the one standing, but he could feel himself falling.

No matter what happened between them, they’d never be able to avoid each other. If something went wrong, they’d still be linked by the land. He could leave the Lazy Q if he had to, but he’d told the truth when he’d told her ranchers depended on neighbors and friends. Whether she was, his lover, his friend, or something else, would be decided by time and fate, but she would be part of his life forever.

Right now, forever sounded pretty good. She was so lovely, sitting there smiling with her hair trailing down her back and shoulders. One lock hung down and touched her breast, curling around her nipple, and he brushed it away, then swept the rest away from her face and touched her lips with his own, putting all the tenderness he felt into one sweet kiss that was a gift and a promise.

She accepted. He could feel her heart echoing his as she laced her arms around his neck and kissed him in return.

* * *

Lindsey could have kissed Shane forever. After her wild and uninhibited performance, she’d been afraid he’d lose respect for her and back away, but when they closed the kiss with a reluctance that felt mutual, he looked into her eyes and stroked her hair with gentle hands. No wonder the horses performed so well for him. His hands were magic—sure and surprisingly gentle.

He kissed her again, this time with more urgency, and gently pushed her back onto the tabletop. She’d almost forgotten her naked state, but the sight of his tanned, hard body above her pale one emphasized the differences between them. He was dark and strong, with capable hands and eyes that seemed to look into her soul. She was pale and lithe, and under his gaze she felt beautiful. Her strength, she knew, was in her desire, and in his desire for her.

He cupped her breasts, tasting each one before he reached down and fondled her, his calloused fingers slipping inside her delicate folds with ease. His eyes looked into hers again, a question in his gaze, and she gave him a slight nod and a trembling smile.

This was so different from the last time. Then, they’d been playing, like animals in springtime. Now, things were far more serious. As he held himself at her entrance, moistening the head of his cock with her wetness, she felt as if they were joining in some ancient ceremony, a rite older than time that would seal them together forever. Not like a marriage, or even a promise. They would simply know each other now in a way that was deep and meaningful and impossible to dismiss.

When he slid inside her, she gave a little gasp. He was big, and he was hard. Ready as she was, she could feel his size stretching her, testing her, heating her from the inside with the friction of every move.

She set her heels against the edge of the table and tilted up to give him access. Suddenly, he slid inside, and she felt, again, as if he belonged there, as if he was exactly what she’d needed to fill some empty space inside her. She’d been keeping her eyes closed so she could feel everything, but now she opened them to see him watching her with that wonder in his eyes again.

He made her feel like a goddess. Moving slowly, then faster, she used her muscles to clutch him tight and then release him, clutch and then release. He closed his eyes and threw his head back, his fists clenched with the effort of holding back. He rocked against her, slow at first, then faster, and she lost herself in the silken slide of his cock. The stroke of his body on hers, his roughness on the softness inside her, became so intense it was the only thing in the world, the only thing that mattered, and she let out a cry as she started to come.

Groaning, he tensed, and both of them stilled at their peak as a hot wind lifted them high, then higher. He let out a long moan just as she cried out his name, and then he was calling her too as the two of them hurtled down a seemingly eternal slide of ecstasy. They landed in a heap on the table, so closely entwined in body and mind it was as if they’d become one being.

He pressed the side of his head to hers and whispered in her ear.

“Lindsey,” he said. “Oh, God, Lindsey.”

And just like that, she was his.

Chapter 45

Lindsey woke to late-afternoon light streaming through sheer curtains. Sitting up, she could see through the gauzy fabric to the fields beyond, and the fields beyond those, and the mountains farther still. It looked like an Impressionist painting, all light and color, with no sharp edges. She felt pretty Impressionist herself, like a blurred brushstroke, a slip of light that blended seamlessly into the land, into the sky, into Shane himself.

She was a part of something at last. She belonged here.

Shane stirred beside her. “Hey.” He propped himself up on one elbow and smiled.

My God, he’s gorgeous.

“I’ve got just the thing for you to wear today.”

Presents already? That seemed kind of strange, but okay.

She watched as he opened a drawer in his nightstand and pulled out a bra. A bright red, lacy bra.

Her face went almost as red as the fabric, even though he’d seen far more of her than her underwear last night. “That’s mine.”

“I know. Stormy delivered it last night. I think it could use a wash.” He paused. “And just so you know, I kept it in my nightstand so Cody wouldn’t find it. No other reason.”

She laughed. “I wasn’t going to ask.” She plucked it from his fingers. “Thank you.”

“No, thank
you
.”

He sounded so serious that she looked up and found those dark eyes regarding her gravely.

“For what?”

“For trusting me. I’ve been a jerk so many times, getting mad at you for keeping a secret that was yours to keep and trying to protect Cody from knowing how I felt about you.”

“Is that what you were protecting?”

“I guess I was protecting myself. You scare me sometimes, Lindsey.”

“Because I remind you of his mother?”

Shane coughed, choking on nothing but stunned surprise.

“How—how did you know that?”

“I ran into Eleanor Carson at Boone’s Hardware, and she thought I was Tara. She sure as heck went to bat for you. Almost literally. I thought she was going to beat me to bloody blazes with that cane of hers.”

“She must need new glasses,” Shane said. “You both have dark hair and blue eyes, but that’s about it.”

“She called me all kinds of great names.” Lindsey laughed at the memory. “That woman can really let the insults fly. I can’t wait to get in a fight with somebody so I can call them ‘a snake in the streets of Wynott.’ Or ‘a she cat.’ Or my favorite, ‘Jezebel.’”

He’d been looking pained since the topic of Tara came up, but now he laughed. “Those all fit Tara, all right. But they don’t fit you.”

“I’m not a snake or a she cat, I promise.”

He rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows to peer down at Haycat, who was curled in a ball at the foot of the bed. The moment he looked at her, she began to purr.

“I don’t know.” He gave Lindsey an embarrassed smile. “I kind of like she cats.”

The air cleared visibly as he and Lindsey laughed together. Haycat, as always, stretched and strolled up to rub her head against his hand. Lindsey fussed over the cat, and he wondered if she’d guessed that the animal slept with him every night. He’d hoped that would stay a secret, but it didn’t matter now.

There was only one secret between them that mattered, and maybe he could address that now.

“Why did you marry him?” he asked.

“Rodger?” Lindsey flushed and so did he, remembering the dreadful dinner with her ex-husband. There was a gloss of tears in Lindsey’s eyes again, and he had to resist the urge to take back the question, to protect her from the pain of her past. He needed to know what made Lindsey tick, and her marriage didn’t fit the woman he’d come to know. She’d gone away a tomboy and come back a woman who cared so much about money and status that she’d married a jerk. Now the tomboy was back—the real Lindsey, he believed. But why had she changed for that brief, disastrous period of time? What made her defy the grandfather she loved to marry Rodger with a
D
?

“You probably know I lived with my aunt after my parents died. My father’s sister. She didn’t care for this side of the family. I think Grace was too much for her.”

Shane grinned. “She’s too much for most people.”

“My aunt believed in a more traditional life. Grace and Bud valued love; she valued success. And Rodger fit into her world.” She sighed. “I didn’t see my grandparents again until I graduated from vet school. I guess I’d changed some. I don’t know. I really fell hard for Rodger, and when we got engaged, I decided I should get to know them again. I had such fond memories of the ranch. Rodger encouraged me, and I owe him for that, I suppose.”

“That was decent of him, encouraging you to mend fences with your family.”

“I thought so too, but his motives were all wrong. He thought Bud was some rich gentleman rancher. He’d already started talking about ‘the ranch’ as if he owned it before he even saw it.”

“Didn’t that set off any alarms?”

Shane wished he could take the question back. Lindsey had been young, after all, and naive. But she didn’t seem offended.

“Love is blind. Bud saw right through him. Told me not to marry him, but I wouldn’t listen. Finally, he told me not to ever come back if I did.”

“That’s pretty harsh.”

“He was trying to save me. He thought maybe I’d see the light if he let me know just how much he disliked Rodger, but it didn’t work. Even though he was every bit as bad as Bud said he was, I chose him over my family.” She looked down at her hands. “It was a really bad decision.”

He nodded. “I know all about bad decisions,” he said. “Although mine led to Cody, so I’m glad it happened.”

To his surprise, Lindsey looked away, and when she glanced back he could see the faint trail of a tear in the dust on her cheek, along with a smudge where she’d wiped it away. “Kids make everything worthwhile, I guess,” she said. “I wish I’d been that lucky.”

He didn’t know what he’d stepped in, but it felt like it was the sort of thing that stuck to the bottom of your shoe. This kind of emotional back and forth made him feel like a fast horse dodging through a prairie dog town, trying to get to a green pasture. All sorts of good things were on the other side, but one bad move could break your leg and get you shot.

“How come you became a vet?” he asked. That seemed safe enough.

“Bud and Grace,” she said. “They had old horses even back then. I remember being stunned when they told me my favorite mare wasn’t worth tons of money. I thought every horse was worth its weight in gold. Discovering people put old horses down for being ‘useless’ made me want to save them somehow.”

She stood and stared through the sheer curtains at the open fields beyond. He wished he could paint the picture she made standing there in the morning light, beautiful in her nakedness but sad too. He wanted to kiss that sadness away—to erase it somehow.

“But after I graduated, I wanted to impress Rodger.” She sighed. “He was a doctor and made a lot of money, and he acted like what I did wasn’t valuable. So I set out to prove him wrong.”

“He
was
wrong.”

She turned to look at him, and he felt strangely shy. Talking about the past felt more intimate than sex.

He rose and went to her, holding her from behind. He wanted to tell her she didn’t have to do anything to be valuable. That just being her kind, sweet, sprightly self brightened his world. That he wanted her there, right in the middle of his life, and Cody’s, forever.

The words were there, on the tip of his tongue, just waiting to be said. And though he’d never thought of himself as a coward, he knew he didn’t have the courage to set them free.

* * *

Lindsey looked down at Shane’s tanned hands clasped over her pale stomach. From her first day at the ranch, she’d resisted him. First she’d mistrusted him; then she’d misunderstood him. But now, she
knew
him, deep down, and loved him.

Loved him.

He kissed her hair. “You keep wondering why Bud left you the ranch. Maybe he knew you’d gotten off course. Maybe he was giving you a chance to get back on track.” She placed her hands over his, and he clasped them immediately, interlacing his fingers with hers. “Maybe he knew this was the only way to bring you back where you belong.”