Smolder (Firefighters of Montana Book 1) (11 page)

Sam wanted to say more, but Laurel picked up her Stetson and pulled it low over her brows.

“I’m going to take Tabitha out for some training,” she said. “She’s really progressing well. Would you like to stay and watch?”

The thought of watching his lover ride Becky’s horse should have bothered Sam more than it did. The truth was he’d endure just about anything to spend more time with Laurel. The only things awaiting him at the A-frame were boxes of memories he’d like to forget and an empty bed. Sam wanted another night in Laurel’s bed.

“Sure,” he said. Oreo charged through the door in front of them and they both headed down to the barn.

*

The spring sun
was warm on Laurel’s shoulders as she guided Tabitha through a series of patterns and spins. She squeezed her right thigh firmly against Tabitha’s flank so the horse spun counterclockwise three-hundred-sixty degrees while keeping her back pivot foot planted in the sand. The mare’s spins were nearly perfect—perhaps the best of any horse Laurel had ever ridden. When they ended up in exactly the same spot as they’d begun, Laurel gave her a big pat.

“She’s a little better to her left than her right, but then most horses favor one side over the other. A good rider will be able to camouflage that,” she said as Tabitha ambled over to the rail where Sam was sitting, looking sexy as hell with his white shirt billowing in the warm breeze. He’d grabbed a Texas Rangers baseball cap out of his truck and pulled it low on his head, but that only accentuated the square jaw she’d traced her tongue along the night before.

Laurel took a long drink from the bottle of water he handed her, hoping it would cool her off. His intense gaze wasn’t helping. She glanced down to the V in her blouse where her skin shimmered with a fine sheen of sweat. Pressing the cold bottle to the spot, Laurel sighed. Sam swore beside her, making her laugh, glad she wasn’t the only one feeling the sexual pull.

“There a few other things we need to get smoothed out,” Laurel continued. “And she needs to develop a bit more muscle before you start advertising her, but I think another six weeks will be all it takes.”

He nodded and his mouth formed a grim line. Tabitha nudged his thigh and Sam reached over to stroke her nose. Laurel cursed herself for being so callous. The mare was his late wife’s prized possession and she was nonchalantly talking about selling her.

“Will you miss her?” she asked.

Sam seemed startled by the question. “No. I wasn’t around the farm much. I was deployed most of the time Becky had her.”

“Tell me about her.”

“Tabitha? All her info is in the package I gave your dad. I’m not even sure of her age.”

Laurel shook her head. “Not the horse, silly. Your wife. Becky.” She wasn’t sure why she’d asked the question except that suddenly, knowing this man’s body wasn’t enough. Laurel wanted to know everything that was Sam Gaskill. And his late wife certainly held some clues.

Sam looked away from her and stared out at the lake as if the answer to her question was buried at the bottom. He was quiet so long that she didn’t think he’d answer her.

“Why do women always want to know this shit,” he finally said. “What’s so important that you want to know about her? She’s gone and she’s not coming back.”

Her stomach squeezed at the annoyed look on his face and her head was telling her to let this go. As usual, her mouth wasn’t listening. “Because she’s still here. With Tabitha. With you.”

He swore violently, sending Oreo and Truman scurrying into the barn. Tabitha shifted from side to side but Laurel refused to be cowed. The laugh he gave had a hollow ring to it. “To hear Becky tell it, I left her years before she left this earth.”

Laurel swallowed her gasp. “So you’re not ‘pining’ after the love of your life?” Her mother would be appalled at the indelicacy of the question, but his answer would change how she viewed him. How she viewed
them
.

Sam’s stare was hard and challenging. “Only as much as you’re pining after Bryce Johnson.”

She didn’t bother stopping her quicksilver grin as something warm and fuzzy unfurled inside of her. Dismounting from the horse, she held onto the reins and climbed up onto the fence beside him. Laurel leaned in and brushed her lips against his. Sam responded by wrapping his hands around her head, dislodging her hat in the process, and kissing her with a reckless force that nearly had them toppling off the fence. Digging her fingers in the wood, Laurel let him have his way with her, punishing her with his lips, his tongue, and his teeth.

She groaned when Sam finally nipped at her lip before jumping down and retrieving her hat. He plopped it on her head then settled his back against the wood between Laurel’s thighs. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned in to trace the shell of his ear with her tongue.

“Tell me your story,” she urged him.

He let out a frustrated sigh. “Becky was PK—a preacher’s kid. I met her on the base. She worked in the battalion office, answering phones and doing other things for the CO.”

Laurel began gently kneading his tight shoulders and Sam draped his arms over her thighs.

He relaxed beneath her hands as he continued. “It’s the usual tale told around every military base in the world. I was shipping out to face God-knows-what. At twenty-three, I thought I knew shit, that I had it all figured out, but really I was a green kid. I wanted someone to write to me, to keep me connected with what was going on here in the States. Something to look forward to. Becky just wanted out of her daddy’s house.” He was quiet again, and Laurel massaged the back of his neck until he spoke once more. “My parents, my sisters, they all have these amazing marriages. I was too ashamed to let anyone know I’d made a mistake. It wasn’t Becky. She was a really sweet girl. I think maybe if we’d had kids. . .”

His voice trailed off, and suddenly Laurel’s shoulders ached, too.

“I bought Tabitha for her so she’d have something to do when I went on my second deployment. The horse made her happy.”

And likely made you feel less guilty,
Laurel thought. Her chest was aching along with her shoulders.

“How did she die?” Laurel asked softly.

Sam’s body tensed up again. “We’d had a fight. I told her I was re-upping for one more tour and she was not happy. She hated what I did for a living. Despite the distance in our marriage, she didn’t want me to leave again. Funny, since she hated having me around. It kept her from spending time with Tabitha.” He reached over and tugged on the horse’s ear. “Becky took off in a rage. She took Tabitha up into Hill Country. They were both familiar with the trails there, but somehow Becky came off.”

Tears burned the back of Laurel’s eyes. She hated where this was going, knowing Sam felt guilt for something that was not his fault.

“She hit her head and bled out before we found her. I didn’t know she was pregnant until the autopsy.”

The breath seized in Laurel’s chest and her fingers stilled on Sam’s neck. He’d lost his wife
and a child.

“Was the baby yours?” Laurel chewed on her lip, anticipating his reaction.

Sam surprised the hell out of her by laughing. “Only you would ask that out loud.”

He turned around to face her, letting his hands span her waist.

She cupped his chin. “I really do try to control it.”

His grin was resigned. “Becky wasn’t that kind of woman, no matter how unhappy she was. The baby was mine. DNA evidence doesn’t lie.”

“I’m sorry,” she said before leaning down and brushing a kiss along his jaw.

“Mmm,” he said. “It’s in the past. All that’s left is to make sure her horse is taken care of.”

Laurel patted Tabitha on the neck. She doubted being free of the mare would absolve Sam of the guilt he was carrying around, but she’d do her best to see that Tabitha went to a rider who had a shot at the championship.

Sam’s eyes had that hot and hungry look in them again. “You never told me what you noticed first about me?” Clearly Sam wanted a subject change.

Laurel stepped down from her perch on the fence, sliding her body against his as she did. Trying for a seductive smile, she slid her fingers into the back pockets of his jeans and gripped his firm ass. “Your eyes,” she answered. “They were sad when you weren’t glowering and they made me want to do this.” And then she kissed him.

*

Early the next
morning, Laurel studied Sam as he lay sleeping naked in the bed beside her. He was so beautiful with his chiseled muscles, lush eyelashes, and kissable lips. Even better, he was a generous lover, always taking his time to make sure she was satisfied. Not that her satisfaction took that much time to achieve given his talented hands and mouth. She smiled smugly to herself, pleased she’d been lucky enough to have ended her sexual drought with a guy like Sam.

They’d spent the previous day wandering the ranch with Oreo and Truman in tow. Laurel wasn’t sure how long they’d hiked before she’d noticed that Sam’s hand had slipped easily around hers. Somehow, his fingers threaded through hers felt more intimate than when his body was inside her. The thought was both calming and unnerving at the same time.

While Laurel liked the idea of their physical closeness, it was the mental connection that ruffled her. He seemed to know her
—to get her—
like no one else did. Sam didn’t chastise her impulsiveness. Instead, he embraced it as one of the many facets of her. His acceptance was freeing. Laurel felt like a light-headed high school girl again.

She’d even acted like a high school girl, lying to Ivy about why she couldn’t meet for dinner last night. But she didn’t want to share what she had with Sam yet. Not when she wasn’t sure what she wanted with him.

Now gazing at him unabashedly, she felt a stirring of sadness that his face didn’t relax even in sleep. Whether it was his experiences in war, with Becky, or something else, Sam’s body couldn’t seem to let go of all the tension coiling within it. Given that her own body felt like a rag doll’s after spending the past thirty-six hours in some form of sexual encounter with the man, the strain gripping him troubled her.

And the idea that she was concerned about him could only mean one thing. She was falling for the guy. A man who risked his life for a living.
Damn it.
She flopped onto her back and blew out a breath. This was why she needed to curb her impulsiveness.

“Woman, your sexual appetite is insatiable.” His profile was unchanged except for a slight uptick of the corners of his lips. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to oblige. But do you have to wake up so damn early every morning?”

She rolled back over so that her bare flesh brushed up against his. He hissed slightly when her hand found his arousal beneath the sheets. “The day starts early on a ranch. There are chores to do and horses to ride.”

His eyelids gradually lifted, and that amber gaze of his was so arresting, the breath got hung up in Laurel’s chest.

“Now that you mention it, an invigorating morning ride sounds like a pretty good idea,” he murmured before pulling her on top of him.

Laurel’s worries about her vulnerable heart melted away when her lips met his.
This was all that mattered right now
. She’d concentrate on enjoying this man and taking away some of the stress that weighed him down. Everything else could wait until real life returned tomorrow. Their bodies began the now familiar dance and Laurel lost herself in the sheer bliss of it.

Later, she lay sated and sprawled out on Sam’s chest as he gently dragged his fingers through her hair. His heart was still pounding beneath her palm.

“I’m gonna need more than a Pop Tart after that,” he said. “I knew I should have grabbed those breakfast burritos from my freezer when I went home yesterday to get a change of clothes.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “I think we can do better than frozen food. How about breakfast in town? I’m pretty sure I can get us a table for brunch at Cady’s.”

His hand stilled in her hair. “You want to take this public?”

Laurel wasn’t sure what she wanted. She wasn’t even sure what ‘this’ was. But she did know while she’d ended her drought, she’d clearly begun something else. And she wasn’t ready to for it to end.