Marry Me, Cowboy (Copper Mountain Rodeo) (7 page)

The words kicked home, kicked Tegan in the gut.

She said in a scratchy voice, “Me, too.”

“Yeah?” He was studying her as if he, too, was trying to work out what the heat meant, and what they should do about it. The air was thick with it, and they could both read each other’s thoughts. Or each other’s bodies.

“Different.” She tried to shrug it off, at once sorry that she’d said anything. “No, it’s different.”

“How?”

Okay, do I talk about this?

Jamie was waiting. She’d accused him of not knowing how to talk to women, but she’d been unfair about that, she decided. Talking was hard. No wonder he couldn’t do it. She couldn’t, either. “Step-mother, actually,” she said.

“Oh, okay, I didn’t know.”

The horses didn’t know what was going on. Were they being caught and ridden, or not? There were two saddles resting over the top rail of the fence, but nothing was happening. They stayed very close, almost touching their riders, but bent their heads to the grass and started to eat, leaving Tegan and Jamie in the middle of a glossy, warm, horse-shaped sandwich that was oddly private, under the huge, sunny Montana October sky.

“I don’t remember my real mother,” Tegan said. “Or maybe just the tiniest bit. She died when I was two. Cancer. And my dad remarried a year later. I always thought my step-mum was just my mum. I don’t remember her not being around, not being the one to tuck me in bed at night.”

“Mum. Cute how you say it.”

“That’s how we say it in Australia. Shorter. Mum. Not Mo-o-om.”

“Don’t get off topic,” he scolded her softly.

“Maybe I want to.”

“Yeah, but I’m not letting you.”

“You’re not the boss of me,” she said rudely, like a five-year-old.

“Oh, I’d like to be.” He gave a dark, syrupy laugh. “Give you what’s coming to you.”

“Now who’s getting off topic?” she said, shaky with wanting him.

He let out a breath between his straight white teeth. “You don’t have to talk about it, Tegan, if you don’t want to.”

“You said I did.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a fine one to insist, aren’t I? I hate talking.”

“But we’ve been doing a bit of it.”

“We have.”

They could have kissed at that point. They both wanted to. It was in the air again, thicker than ever. Her gaze kept dragging to his mouth. The scant six inches of air between them buzzed and heated up. Her crotch felt tender, sensitive, full. But somehow, by mutual and unworded agreement, they held off. Held their breath on it for a little longer.

Because they were scared, or because it was hotter that way?

Maybe both…

“So you called her “Mum”?” he prompted. “But you knew she wasn’t?”

“I knew, technically, because she and Dad both showed me pictures in albums, and said that was my other mummy, who died, and I think I do have a couple of tiny memories. But I loved her. Mum. My step-mum. I really loved her, and I felt like her girl, just as much as my brother Ben - my half-brother - was her son. And then - ”

Do. Not. Cry.

She made herself get practical again. “I did a three-year agriculture degree in animal husbandry, after I left high school. I made it totally clear that I was committed to the farm and wanted to take over from Mum and Dad when they were ready. Maybe share it with Ben, if he wanted a farm life, too.”

“He’s how much younger?”

“Six years. He’s twenty. I made it clear. I talked to Dad about the horse thing, trying rodeo. What you said this morning, remember? You needed some time away, so that you could come back and be happy. I was the same. I
talked
to him about it.” The lump of anger and hurt and indignation and burning loss formed in her throat again and she had to stop.

“What happened?”

“I got a phone call from Dad. A year and a half ago, about six months after I came over here.”

“Few months after I met you.”

“About that.”

She remembered. Chet was the one person she’d thought she might talk to about what had happened. But Jamie was along for the ride, that night, so she hadn’t, and the moment had passed. Maybe that was when she’d really decided that she and Jamie didn’t get on.

“They’d sold the farm,” she told this very different-seeming Jamie, now. “Done deal. Dad was upset about it, and kind of weird. He sounded old. I couldn’t understand. I said why, when they
knew
... he knew... that I wanted to farm it myself. Help him, and then take over. I’d done the right degree. I came home whenever I could to help. This was going to be two years over here, that was all, and he knew that.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Nothing. He put Mum on the line, because he’s another one who’s not that great with talking about the important stuff. I don’t know if she meant it to hurt. Did she? She couldn’t have. Surely. But she said it, anyhow. That Ben had decided he didn’t want the farm, so it had to be sold so he could have his cash share. I said what would have happened if it had been the other way around? If Ben was the one who’d wanted it, and I was the one who didn’t? Would they have sold it then, so that I could have my cash share?”

“What did she say to that?”

“Not a word, for, like, a minute. I almost thought she’d put down the phone. Then she said in this weird, cold, uncomfortable voice, “That’s different,” and I knew what she meant. Ben was hers and I wasn’t. She put his needs ahead of anything of mine. She talked Dad into it. And this loving mother I thought I had... strict, looking back, and not that demonstrative, but, you know, she cooked my dinner and picked me up from the school bus and cleaned my riding boots until I was nine and told her I wanted to do it myself... This woman I’d called Mummy or Mum almost since I learned to talk... wasn’t quite the full deal after all. Half a mom. Just like you said.”

“Rough.” He was looking at her.

“Yeah.”

“That’s why you don’t really want to go back? Why you wanted to get a green card and stay on?”

“Yes.”

“What will you do now?”

“What choice do I have?”

“Could have married me. I offered, remember?”

“You were just saying that to take the pressure of Chet, Jamie, I knew that perfectly well.”

He didn’t argue. “So you’re going to go back?”

“Not much other option,” she said.

“When?”

“I guess I’ll start working on it as soon as this rodeo is over. I need to buy a plane ticket, sell my horse, see if Kara will buy out my half of the trailer and pickup, find a friend to stay with when I arrive.”

“You won’t stay with your parents?”

She stiffened instantly, and he must have seen it, because he added quickly, “Okay, don’t answer that. I know you’re angry. And hurt. Have you talked to them since the phone conversation? You do, don’t you? I’ve heard you mention it.”

“I call, and we’re on Facebook. I don’t want to hurt Dad. I kept waiting for Mum to apologize or explain. To say she didn’t meant it that way, that she loves me just as much. But she’s never said a word. Ben’s doing a law degree. You start that straight out of school, in Australia. You don’t have to do an undergraduate degree first. He’s bought a unit... apartment... in Sydney, with his share of the farm money. Mum and Dad have moved into town. Place called Tamworth, in New South Wales. Very big into country music and horse events. It’s a nice town. Not that that’s relevant to anything.... Shoot, if Mum had said it was different because Ben was male - strong, strapping farmer material - and I was just a girl, it would have hurt less. I loved my farm. I’ve lost that, and half a mother, and I’m angry at Dad. Well, at both of them, and… yeah.” She came to a stop.

“Rough...” he said, the way he’d said it before.

One word.

Looking at her.

Blue eyes.

Jamie, who didn’t know how to talk to women, but somehow that didn’t matter. One word was enough.

He reached up and closed his hand softly around her arm, ran it up and down a little. “Really rough,” he said for the third time.

Oh, but it wasn’t rough. It was smooth, when it finally happened. They slid together through that last little bit of air, and their mouths met, and their bodies pressed together. He was only a couple of inches taller than she was, and they fit so perfectly, his thighs hard against hers, his chest a wall of muscle nudging her breasts.

“Hell, Tegan,” he breathed into her mouth, and his hands came down to her butt and pulled her into his groin and she felt that hard package of man that had pulled her focus last night, and it was every bit as sizeable and satisfying as it looked.

“Hell, yourself,” she whispered back to him, then closed her eyes and let her weight drift in his arms, and kissed him until she was blue, or dizzy, or in paradise.

A long time.

He tasted perfect, and smelled perfect, and felt perfect, and kissing him
made sense
to her body and her heart in a way she’d never expected in a million years. He was beautiful, and she ached, and just wanted, wanted, wanted.

Wanted
Jamie.

Shoot, they had to stop this! Problem was, she didn’t know how.

The horses had drifted away, in search of more grass. A big, fluffy cloud had crossed the sun. Their jeans were practically steaming, still pressed together at the groin, still fitting like clockwork.

“We going for this ride or what?” he said creakily.

“You tell me.”

“I have to do something or I’m going to fall over. Don’t think I could even drive.”

“You think you can ride?” She looked deliberately at the impediment, still stretching the denim to an impressive extent.

“Yeah, just give me a couple of minutes. I’ve never found saddling a horse that much of a turn-on. Especially Faro, cuz he bites if I girth him too fast.”

“A horse bite. That’ll do it,” she said, but then she made the mistake of looking down at his mouth, inches away.

“Don’t,” he growled.

“What?”

“Don’t make us go through another twenty minutes of that.”

“What, it was that bad?”

“You know what I mean. I’ll die.”

“Think I’ll die, too.”

“I would die for a bed, right now, but Mom’s not
that
vague, and she’d be shocked.”

“I’m not going to bed with you at eleven-thirty in the morning in front of your mom.”

“Damn right you’re not. Tonight, though... Or sooner.”

It was a threat. Best threat she’d ever heard.

She dragged in a breath and made herself step away from him. “I’m getting my saddle,” she told him shakily.

They had an amazing ride, when they were finally ready for it. How long was it since she’d really done this? Gone for a gallop across open terrain? Maybe once or twice at Bob Crannock’s, but not for months. It reminded her of home, when she would have a pony club friend – Natalie or Kathleen or Abby - bring a horse and stay for a few days, and they would just ride and ride and ride. She’d lost touch with everyone except Kathleen, now, and had forged new friendships here on the rodeo circuit.

Could she call Jamie a friend?

Faro and Shildara swept across the open rangeland, sure-footed and keen. The mountains looked unreal, like an artist’s vision too perfect to be true, and the grass was so much thicker than the grass at home, Tegan almost wanted to eat it herself.

She and Jamie had the wind rushing on their skin and the magical thud of horse hooves in their ears, and a couple of times they both let out a whooping yell because the exhilaration was so strong. It was only when they came over a rise and saw a pickup parked by a fence farther down the hill that Jamie slowed. “Hey, that’s Dad and RJ,” he said.

The two men had seen them. They were fixing fence, a tough job that Tegan knew well, but now they’d straightened from their coils of wire and were watching, suspiciously at first, it seemed, but then with a shout and wave of recognition.

“I guess Mom didn’t remember to call them,” Jamie said. He didn’t sound surprised. “Oh, well...”

They slowed more, and reached Jamie’s father and older brother at a walk, the horses stretching forward and down on a loose rein and seeming relaxed and content after their workout.

“You came for the rodeo,” Jamie’s dad said.

RJ just nodded, by way of a greeting, and muttered, “Jamie.”

There was a long moment of tension, then an apparent shared desire for this to go better. Jamie jumped down from his horse, strode up and gave both men something that was more punishing than a hug, but much more tender than a punch.

“Good to see you, son.”

“Good to be here.”

“You saw your mother?”

“Down at the house for coffee. I thought she might call. She seemed to think you had a phone with you.”

“No, she didn’t call.” He gave a half-smile.

“You want to give us some help?” RJ asked, and it was more of a challenge than an invitation.

Jamie looked at Tegan, then back at the men. “Well... Sure. For a bit.”

“Only got another hour more to do here.”

“If Tegan doesn’t mind.”

“Tegan, by the way,” Tegan said, “is me.”

“Yeah, sorry,” Jamie said. “Tegan, from Australia. Tegan, my brother RJ and my dad Rob.

She gave them a grin. “Hi, RJ, hi, Rob. I don’t mind if we stay, Jamie. I can help, if you want.”

“Help?” RJ was flagrantly skeptical, and Tegan was suddenly glad she’d made that dumb, defiant gesture to Jamie of putting on her old pony club state camp shirt. Jamie’s older brother would have been a heck of a lot more skeptical if she’d been wearing a dark pink satin shirt covered in fake diamonds.

“I’ve hammered in staples before,” she told him. “And twisted wire. And used a fence strainer.”

The men nodded, but she thought she would only prove herself once they’d seen her at work, which was fair enough. Anyone could talk up their own talents. You had to back it up with action before it counted for anything.

Which was an argument Jamie could have used about the whole talking thing, if he’d thought of it. She was kind of glad he hadn’t, because if she came up with many more such arguments herself, she’d end up conceding that he was right.

They loosened the saddle girths on the horses, crossed the stirrups over the top, knotted the reins out of the way and let Faro and Shildara graze with their bits in their mouths while they got to work.