Just a Cowboy and His Baby (Spikes & Spurs) (9 page)

Those damn drugs must still be in her system from the beer two days ago. Never in her entire life had her mind said one thing, her heart another, and her mouth a third. Now she understood multiple personalities. She’d always figured that only one at a time came out to play. The personalities in Gemma all wanted center stage and fought like siblings.

“What do I do? Just supervise?”

“You’ll be in a cabin with ten girls. There’s an itinerary, but part of the time you’re on your own. Like for the craft things and keeping peace between them. That’s your decision and no one gets in your way. It’s kind of like you are the teacher and principal both for a week. You ever heard of a leadership conference?”

She shook her head.

“My folks are big on them. They even sponsor one in Houston. It’s a learning experience that teaches teamwork and to lean on your team members in times of stress or need.”

“That’s what family is for,” she said.

“These kids come from broken homes or no homes. Some of them have a mother. Some a father. Few have both. There might even be a couple from an orphanage and you can bet there will be some from foster homes. They’ll be wary, but you’ll be amazed what friendships get formed in a week. Lester’s been doing this for several years now. Some of his first kids are graduating high school and they write him these awesome notes about how that week turned their life around.”

Her heart melted at the softness in his voice. “Sounds like a pretty big responsibility.”

“You can do it. They’ll love you,” he said.

“Have you done this before?” she asked.

“A few times. My cousins make a lot of money with the dude ranch, but kid’s week is their way of giving back. Not one of the kids has to pay a dime for their week. The rest of the summer and fall is for adults. This is the only week that he takes in kids. Adults don’t need supervision, but he’s always scrambling to find someone to help out on kid week.”

“I have ten girls? You have ten boys, right? Where are they from? All the same place or different towns?”

“Ten boys. Ten girls. All from inner cities. Dallas. Chicago. New York City. Detroit. Los Angeles. Cities like that. They learn about horses, cows, gardening, ranching, and making new friends. It’s a working ranch so you’ll be right at home.”

She swallowed hard. How in the devil would she chaperone ten city girls? She’d lived in Ringgold, Texas, population less than a hundred, her whole life. Country girls she could take care of without a problem. They spoke the same language, listened to the same music, but inner-city kids. Lord, they’d have her running circles like a dog chasing its tail. What in the hell was she thinking? Thinking—evidently her brain lost the ability to do that basic function when Trace was in the room.

He reached across the tiny table and laid his hand on hers. “They’ll love someone like you.”

“And why is that?”

“You are independent as hell. Sassy as the devil. And beautiful as a model.”

“Thank you.”

She slid her hand out in the pretense of needing both of them to slather butter on a biscuit. She could bluff her way through anything, but not while his touch was sending up dazzling sparks that rivaled the fireworks show the night before.

It was one week, for goodness sakes. She wasn’t signing her life away in blood forever amen. It would last seven days, and when it was over, she’d ride in the Cheyenne rodeo and go home where she’d sort everything out once and for all.

Trace reached for the coffee pot and refilled their cups. “My three cousins run the ranch. Lester, Hill, and Harper. They are all older than I am but not much. We were like stair steps—Lester was born one year, the twins, Hill and Harper, the next, and then me the next. We’re the only the grandkids on my dad’s side of the family. On Mother’s side, I’m the only grandchild and she’s an only child.”

“Okay.” Gemma wondered why he was telling her that.

“They all three live on the ranch.”

“Wives?”

“None of us are married or have ever been married. You have cousins?”

“A lot more than three. Momma is the baby of a big family, and Daddy is the oldest of a big family. The Irish like babies.” She laughed.

“So do I,” Trace said and then changed the subject. “Your girls will be in the nine- to eleven-year-old range. They arrive in time to throw down their bags, eat supper in the dining cabin, and load up in the two ranch vans to go to the rodeo. After we get through with the rodeo, we’ll drive out to their place and start to work right then. You are going to love it.”

According to Trace, the kids would love her. She would love the ranch. She would love the kids. There was a hell of a lot of love going on in the trailer kitchen that morning, and the
L
word terrified Gemma. Just thinking it made her want to run back to Ringgold and hide behind her scissors and hair dye.

Trace pointed to the clock. “Five minutes until eight. The wagon train leaves at eight every morning according to the wagon master.”

She slid out of the booth, carried her paper plate and disposable cutlery, and tossed it in the trash can. “What else do I need to do to help with cleanup?”

Trace shook his head. “I’ve already washed the gravy pan and the biscuit pan. So it’s done. Just one more thing.”

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her with more hunger than before. “That’s to hold me until tonight.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing his lips to hers for a second kiss. She tasted the remnants of sausage and coffee mixed with just a touch of orange juice.

“That’s to hold me until tonight,” she whispered.

“God, Gemma, I could forget about a rodeo and just hold you all day.”

“God, Trace, there’s no woman in the world that would make you forget about the rodeo,” she said.

He glared at her, his eyes hard and brittle. “You sure know how to wreck the hell out of a good mood, woman.”

“Now if I could just figure out a way to wreck the hell out of your bronc riding, I’d have it made.” She smiled.

“You are a witch in a cowgirl hat!”

“You are a warlock in spurs!”

His eyes twinkled. “Go get your damn broom and let’s move out.”

“I’ll be right ahead of you.”

They were on the road less than an hour when her phone rang. She glanced down to see that it was Trace and pushed the speaker button. “Yes?”

“Does the witch mind if we make a pit stop? Sugar is about to explode.”

“You need to teach her to go before you leave.”

“Pulling off at the next exit whether you do or not.”

“Oh, okay, but don’t make a habit of it. We’ve got a lot of miles to put in before the day is done.”

He chuckled and the light went out on the phone.

If she and Trace had met under different circumstances, they would have still had obstacles to overcome. He was bullheaded and she was stubborn. Not two good qualities to throw in a burlap bag and tie the end shut. But they hadn’t met in another world, they’d met in this one at the worst possible time in her life and career. Sex hadn’t done a thing to put out the raging desire she had for him, not like she’d hoped it would. If anything it had just made it all the hotter. She mulled over the whole thing all day, but everything was still unsettled when the sun began to set and they reached their destination that evening.

Dusk was just settling when they reached the campground in Rawlins, Wyoming. The small log cabin office just inside the grounds didn’t offer trinkets for sale so she paid for her parking space and followed Trace out to the front porch.

Sugar chased a butterfly and Trace leaned against the side of the porch post. “Penny for your thoughts,” he said.

“I was thinking that someday my granddaughter will ask me about this trip and how much fun I’d have telling her all about Sugar.”

“You going to tell her about the hot sex we had last night?” he asked.

She blushed scarlet. “Trace Coleman! Of course not. A granny doesn’t tell her granddaughters such things. Besides, by then she wouldn’t believe me anyway. In her eyes, I’ll be an old gray-haired woman with wrinkles who never had or even wanted sex.”

He held up a palm. “You’ll still be hot and sexy when you are old and gray. And don’t be givin’ me no shit about that being a line, either.”

She pointed and changed the subject. “Look at that view. Isn’t it gorgeous? But I do miss the trees and rolling hills back home.”

“There aren’t many trees in Goodnight, Texas. It’s mainly land and sky,” he said.

“Like Claude,” Gemma said.

Trace nodded. “It looks like another trailer is turning this way. Guess we’d better get out of the way.”

She stepped off the porch. “Grilled cheese sandwiches and the rest of the fruit salad for supper?”

“Sounds good to me. You bring the fruit and I’ll make the sandwiches soon as I get electricity hooked up. Trailer will cool down pretty quick when the air conditioner gets going, or we can eat out on the picnic table. It’s a fairly nice night and I don’t hear too many mosquitoes buzzing around.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ve been inside that truck all day. I could look at this view until it gets too dark to see anything.”

She crawled into the driver’s seat of her club cab truck and drove slowly toward the lot at the back of the campground. They were falling into a routine and there didn’t seem to be a dang thing she could do about it. If she opened her mouth, the wrong thing came out. If she tried to walk away from a kiss, her legs wouldn’t move. The only thing she could do was let fate have its way and see where it led. Maybe it would grow tired of their bickering eventually and just let the relationship or friendship, or whatever the hell it was, die in its sleep.

She parked in her assigned lot, hooked up to the electricity, and picked up the bowl of fruit. She knocked on Trace’s trailer door and he opened it wearing nothing but boots, a cowboy hat held right below his belly button, and a smile.

“Holy shit, Trace!”

“You don’t like my outfit, Miz Wagon Master? I styled it after Pepper on your favorite movie. He was skinnier than me, though.”

She stepped inside the trailer and shut the door with her foot. He reached out a hand and took the fruit from her, set it on the counter, and tossed the cowboy hat on the table.

She looked down. “I didn’t ever see what was behind Pepper’s cowboy hat, but it probably wasn’t nearly that nice.”

Trace chuckled. “Thank you, ma’am. I’ve thought about this all day, and believe me, it made for a hard day in every sense of the word. And that, darlin’, is not a line either. It’s the truth as you can well see.”

He pulled her close and his hands were everywhere, unzipping the white sundress, slipping it down over her hips and draping it across a chair in the corner, kissing her breasts, sliding her silky bikini underpants down to her ankles, and then working his way up her legs with his lips and tongue until he reached her mouth where he kissed her so long and hard that her knees went weak.

She hopped up into his arms and wrapped her legs around his hips. Urgent, demanding kisses swept her away in their need, and she arched against him, feeling every bit of his muscular body touching her bare skin. He pushed the fruit salad to one side, set her on the cabinet top, and slid into her with a powerful thrust that brought out a throaty groan from her.

“That… feels… so… good,” she said in short raspy words.

“Every bit as good as I imagined all day.” His drawl was even deeper than usual.

The cool cabinet was against her warm butt. His breath was hot on the soft spot of her neck. The contrast was sexy enough to send her into hormone heaven, but then he pushed inside and the heat was so intense that she thought of hell’s flames. His thrusts made her dig her heels in and hang on to his shoulders with her fingernails. Nothing else mattered but satisfying the want and need engulfing her whole being.

Not rodeos.

Not the whoosh in her ears.

Nothing but satisfaction.

Her legs gripped his hips tighter than they’d ever gripped a bronc. The exhilaration when he groaned something that sounded like her name, or it might have been something about a witch in a cowgirl hat bedazzling him, beat the hell out of hearing the buzzer at the end of an eight-second ride.

Trace carried her still wrapped around his body to the bedroom and fell back on the bed with her beside him.

“Was that a marathon?” she asked.

“It was an eight-second ride that lasted ten minutes. A marathon is longer,” he panted.

“Mmmm,” she mumbled.

He adjusted their positions, nestling her in the crook of his arm so he could see her face. “Open your eyes, Gemma.”

They popped open even though she tried to keep them shut. “Why?”

“I love the color. They are the color of moss on the back side of a tree in the fall of the year,” he continued.

She started so say something, but he put a finger over her lips.

“It might not sound romantic, but I’m thinking of a big oak tree right beside my house in Goodnight and that is home. So it is romantic because I’d love to take you there sometime, Gemma.”

“That is the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.” She sighed.

“Sleep or food?” He nuzzled down into her luxurious long red hair.

“Food. Sleep. More sex.”

“Your wish is my command. We’ll have sandwiches and fruit in bed. Take a nap and dream about sex in fields of clover or maybe in a hayloft and then wake up and make it come true.”

“Now that’s definitely romantic.”

His eyes sparkled and then he smiled. He pulled her into a sitting position and removed a brush from the bedside table.

Her eyes widened. “What are you going to do with that?”

“I’m not into kinky stuff. Plain old foreplay and sex is fantastic enough. I’m going to brush your hair and braid it. It’s sticking to your neck.”

When all the tangles were out, he deftly French braided her hair into a long rope down her back, secured it with a rubber band, and kissed her right below the ear.

Forget afterglow. Hair brushing and braiding pushed it out of the picture.

“Now you can feel the air on your neck,” he said. “I love long hair and I’m a sucker for redheads.”