by Em Petrova
* * * * *
“Your cellphone’s ringing.” Dane nudged the woman who lay so boneless in his arms.
She jerked upright. “Damn, I was drifting and didn’t process what that sound was.”
He watched her bare breasts jiggle as she leaped off the bed and scrambled across the room for her phone. She grabbed the phone and stared at the screen. A dark flush infused her cheeks, and she turned away.
What the hell was that about? He leaned onto his elbows, staring at the curves of her waist and ass.
She threw him a look over her shoulder. “I’ll just take this in the bathroom.” She hurried out of the room and shut the door.
Dane didn’t like the sound of that or the nervous look in her eye when she saw the caller. He’d seen similar behavior before, with other women—women who had boyfriends, fiancés or even husbands. Women who wanted to lose themselves in a moment with Dane and conveniently forgot other obligations in their lives.
Motherfucking hell.
He hadn’t just run the gambit of emotions to be jilted from Brennah’s bed and have the news broken to him that she was attached.
Jumping to his feet, he made a grab for his underwear. He walked across the room to her wastebasket, peeled off his condom and dropped it into the can. Through the door, Brennah’s voice projected to him.
He shouldn’t listen in.
But he fucking would.
Cocking his head, he focused on her tones and the words formed in his head.
“Yes, I got your email. The job’s an excellent opportunity, but I need to think on it, Shania.”
Pinpricks of relief crawled over his face and down his arms to his fingertips. She spoke with a woman, not a lover.
“Seattle sounds great. I’m sure I’d love the city and the nightlife. I’d love to be more involved in new procedures and work with Dr. Clemens.”
Seattle.
He hung his head and pulled on his boxers, and then moved to the rest of his clothes. When she finally emerged from the bathroom wearing a terrycloth robe, he stood there fully dressed.
She blinked at him. “You’re leaving?”
Unable to fully meet her eyes, he gave a nod. “Think it’s best.”
“But…” She took a step toward him and stopped. When she wrapped her arms around herself and gave him that forlorn look, she grabbed his heart with both hands and twisted.
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “I think I’ve taken up enough of your time this evening.”
She glanced to the window. Beyond the sheer curtains, the sunset shone in a myriad of fiery oranges and pinks. “I guess daylight’s fading, and I haven’t even fed my animals.”
Damn, he didn’t want her to leave Stokes. He might be acting in his usually dumb-shit fashion, but he couldn’t help but feel she’d left him out of a very important loop.
As she moved around the room and slipped into her panties and bra, he considered saying fuck it all and tossing her back in bed. But he didn’t move from the spot and just watched her finish dressing.
Hell, he didn’t want to go quite yet. These feelings she’d raised in him weren’t normal post-sex Dane feelings. Typically he wanted to get up and run out the door as fast as possible. If not for that phone call and the implications of her leaving town, he’d still have her in his arms, teasing her to another frenzy—possibly making good on that promise to claim her ass.
Clamping his hand into a fist, he faced her. “I’ll help ya feed the animals.”
Her brown stare moved over his face as if trying to figure him out. “I’d appreciate the help.”
Together, they left the bedroom and he paused outside while she pulled on muck boots to head to the barn. They walked the short distance from house to pens. The horses still happily grazed in their fenced area.
“Let’s start with the pigs and chickens. We’ll let the horses get the last of the daylight.” She took off toward the pigpen. As soon as the pair saw her, they rushed the fence and rooted for their dinners. She scattered feed from a slop bucket. The pigs went straight for the vegetable peelings. She watched them a moment, careful not to look at Dane.
He didn’t blame her. Talk about mixed signals. But what else could he do when he just had the best moments of his life with the woman, only to learn she might soon leave for a better job in Seattle?
A job that would stretch her wings professionally. Hell, she deserved to be the best version of herself she could be, and who was he to try to stomp on that dream?
Grabbing a shovel, he slipped into the pen and began scooping the worst of the manure into a wheelbarrow.
“I’ll do the chickens,” she said.
Without looking up, he nodded.
She walked away. Pausing in his work, he watched her round the corner. He tightened his hold on the shovel handle. Goddammit, he acted like an idiot. Of course a relationship between them could go nowhere.
After about half hour of work, they met up at the barn. He opened the stall doors while Brennah led the first horse inside. He went out for the second and together, they put the beasts to bed with fresh feed.
Thing was, he’d never been so comfortable around anyone, let alone a woman. In his time spent married to Liz, this peace had never come over him.
Brennah fussed over one of the horses, talking in a low voice to the mare. He bent to grab a sack of feed off the barn floor and carried it to the farthest stall.
A loud gasp sounded, and he whirled. Heart racing, he expected to see she’d suffered from a kick from a powerful horse leg, but she stood in the middle of the barn, staring down at something in her hand.
Her shoulders jerked, and she held up the object. The metal glinted in the fading light streaming through the high barn windows.
Confusion crinkled his brows. “What is it?”
“I…”
He dropped the sack and walked over to her. As soon as he spotted the small brass token he’d carried in his pocket for months since Zayden gave it to him, he knew what Brennah thought.
“It’s an AA token. One month sober.”
“I’ve been sober longer than a month. And it’s not mine.”
She swallowed hard and then tossed the token at him. He caught the disc and clamped it in his fist.
“I knew you drank, Dane, but I didn’t realize how much of a problem it is.”
“It’s not. Not anymore.” His chest burned.
“Seeing that makes me wonder about the things I don’t know about you. What are you leaving out, Dane? You have kids?”
“No.”
“You’re a drug addict looking for your next fix?”
“Jesus Christ, no, Brennah. You come at me with drugs? How the hell can you even think that?” He squared his shoulders and faced her.
“I want the truth—all of it. You say you’re no good and I want to know just what makes you that way.”
He opened his fist and stared at the token. “Belonged to my father. Zayden found it when he cleaned out the old man’s desk. None of us ever knew he attempted to get sober, and Zayden gave it to me last time I was home and having a rough time.”
“A rough time staying sober?”
He nodded. “Guess so. I’m not an alcoholic, though. I might use drink sometimes to mask my feelings, but I don’t need it.”
She barked out a laugh. “I’ve heard that before.”
He cocked a brow. “From who?”
“My mother.” She shoved past him and walked outside.
For a moment, he gaped at her retreating back. Hell, the woman had suffered the same way he and his brothers had with their father? No wonder she reacted so strong to seeing the token.
Stalking after her, he found she’d wandered all the way to the fence. When he approached, she tried to dart away, but he grabbed her arm and held her.
When she looked up at him, her eyes blazed. “What else are you keeping from me, Dane? You said there aren’t kids or drugs involved. Are you actually divorced?”
�
�Yes, dammit. I’ve got the papers at home to prove it if you need to see with your own eyes.”
“How am I supposed to believe that AA token isn’t yours?”
“And if it is? Isn’t it better if I was in recovery than a raging drunk?”
She shook her head. “You know how many of those one-month tokens I’ve seen in my life? Too many to count.”
He held her, forcing her to look him in the eye. “Your ma?”
Her face crumpled, but she quickly slapped a mask over it. “Yeah.”
“What was her poison?” God, breaking through this woman’s wall might kill them both, or they could walk through these painful memories together and come out on the other side healed.
She sucked in a deep breath. “Wine. Nobody knew but me.”
“Where was your father during all this?”
“He left.”
He nodded in complete understanding.
A tear escaped her lashes and trailed down her cheek. She backhanded the glistening drop away.
So this was where her drive and determination stemmed from. While he’d leaned on bad behavior and excuses about his upbringing, Brennah grew stronger and pulled herself up and away from everything.
“Do you ever see her?”
“No. The minute I could walk away I did.”
He nodded. “Me too.”
“Then she moved to Florida with some guy and I’m glad of it.” She glared up at him. “I gave you my trust back in that bed, Dane. Now it’s your turn to trust me. I need to hear what’s so bad about you. I need you to come clean with me.”
Bowing his head, he gave a single nod. “And if you walk away from me, it’s no less than I deserve.”
Chapter Nine
He released her arm and scrubbed a hand over his face. With his shoulders slumped and him wearing a beaten expression, Brennah braced herself to hear the worst.
Shoving a breath through his teeth, he looked her in the eyes. “It’s gambling debts. I owe a loan shark back in Vegas.”
She blinked at him. Of course one vice often went hand in hand with another vice. Drinking and gambling. Drugs and sex. She should have guessed.
He went on, “Last time I came back to the Moon Ranch, I’d missed my dad’s funeral. I got here to find Zayden wasn’t very friendly with me, and he had good reason not to be. While he took care of business and tried to figure out what to do to save the ranch, I was off in Vegas doing what I always did.”
“Which was?” she asked quietly.
“I s’pose I run from reality and find trouble to get into. It’s a habit formed when I was a just a kid. Asher and I would need to get away from the old man and all the yellin’. Hittin’ too.”
She winced on the inside, aching for the things Dane had endured.
“We’d go off and do something we weren’t supposed to do, just to say we could get away with it. It’s not an excuse for what I got hanging over my head. But I guess you could call that an explanation.”
She nodded. “Go on.”
“Anyway, when I came back, Zayden asked me for money. Said if I had any, he could use some and we’d call it my cut of the ranch.”
“Did you give him some?”
“Fifteen grand. I emptied the bank account, and my ex wasn’t very happy with me.”
“I can see why.”
“I could use that money now to pay what I owe these guys.”
“Have you told Zayden any of this?”
“Hell no. My brother can’t know. I’ll find a way out of the situation on my own.”
She met his stare and saw the determination chiseled into the angles of his face as if put there by an artist. She nodded to urge him to continue.
“Back in Vegas, things were all wrong with Liz. My ex,” he clarified before going on. “Lots of arguing, screaming, her throwing stuff at me and breaking shit in the apartment.”
Brennah couldn’t imagine living with somebody like that day in and out, but held her silence.
“I guess to get away from it, I started my old habit again, drinking and gambling. I lost money but I always made up for it after a good night onstage. But pretty soon I was sitting at the craps table all night. If I started to lose, there was always a guy there to spot me some cash.” He shook his head. “Guys like that collect with interest or in blood. They don’t care how the hell they get paid. But they will get paid.”
A shiver ran through her. She didn’t know or understand this life. Hearing that the man she’d spent hours in bed with, who she trusted—and dammit, was beginning to feel something for—lived this way had her inwardly shrinking back from him.
She’d walked away from a rollercoaster life with her mom and had no intention of ever returning to the way of living, especially not with a man. No matter how strangely deep she felt her connection to the cowboy standing in front of her, she would walk.
“What do you owe?”
Again, he rubbed a hand over his face. “I still owe three grand, but I don’t know the startin’ figure. They took my truck as payment and God knows how much cash from my apartment.”
Shaking her head, she walked away to lean on the fence and stare out at the purple-dark field. The scent of pines and mountain air didn’t cut through the confusion inside her.
Moments later, his body heat washed over her side. Dane rested his elbows on the fence and lowered his head. “There’s more you oughtta know, Brennah.”
Her head snapped around and she stared at him. Heart drumming, she waited.
“I’m pretty sure the loan shark sent his guys here recently and took my brother’s tractor as payment.”
“Dear God.”
“And they might have burned your field, as a message that they’ll stop at nothing to get paid.”
A choked gasp left her, and she twisted from the fence. “You can’t be serious, Dane.”
He stepped near, but didn’t attempt to touch her. She didn’t know what she’d do if he tried.
“I’m not entirely sure, but the fire broke out after they took the tractor.”
“But…the fire chief ruled the fire was a result of the dry season and possible lightning.”
He stared at her. “Do you believe that?”
“Why would somebody burn my field?”
“Because they thought it was Moon property, since it’s adjoining and all. Fuck. I’m so sorry, Brennah. If I could end all this right now, I fucking would. I’m tired of this life. I want somethin’ different now. I want you in it.”
She couldn’t swallow around the lump he’d risen in her throat with his words. Maybe her fear that she’d been broken by her mother really had come true, because despite all the things Dane had just told her…she didn’t want him to go.
A sound broke from her.
“Oh hell, baby doll.” He yanked her into his arms. At the same minute he leaned in, she went on tiptoe to crush her mouth against his.
Without hesitation, he yanked her top off, and she went for his shirt too. Lifting her, he spun toward the barn where they’d just spent time working together. The horses whinnied as they exploded inside. Dane strode to the stack of feed along the wall and dropped her onto the sacks.
Pinned under his gaze, she could only try to gather her senses. But then he flicked open his belt and unfastened his jeans. The zipping noise of his fly made her pant. She tore at her own clothes while he dropped his. When she removed every stitch, she got to her feet.
Slowly, she stepped up to him and pressed against his hard, naked body. His fists clenched at his sides. She didn’t touch him either.
A long heartbeat stretched between them, as she sized up the man before her and he probably asked himself what he was doing as well.
“I can’t hate you for telling me the truth or what you did in the past. It’s the man you tell me you want to be that has me wanting to give you my body.”
He arched a brow. “Just your body?” Then he shook his head.
In a blink, he sat on the stack of feed
and yanked her into his lap. Straddling him, she felt the tip of his cock poised at her slick folds.
She slid her arms around his neck, anchoring him to her. “Wait. Condoms are in the house.”
He held up one fist and unfurled his fingers to show a single condom he must have stuffed into his pocket just in case.
After snatching the packet up, she ripped into the foil and shoved the condom over his big, hard cock. A wild need rose inside her, to feel him moving with her and to either die in the flames of their passion and emotions or exorcise it and set them both free.
Grabbing his shaft at the root, she angled him toward her pussy. He grasped her hips and shoved her down his length. Both of them released a hiss of pleasure. When she took him to the hilt, she began to ride him. Slow, deliberate and milking him with her inner walls until the rumble in his chest vibrated through her.
As he threaded his hand through her hair, she shuddered at the pleasure of his fingers on her scalp. A quick twist of his wrist, and he pulled her hair taut. Drawing her head back, he leaned in and pressed his lips against the erratic pulse in her throat.
Juices squeezed from her. She rocked over him and slammed down harder, taking every inch of him. Perspiration broke out on her lower spine, and she dragged her blunt nails over his shoulder blades.
“That’s it, baby doll. Take my cock. Again. Take me again. Yeahhh.” He sucked her throat, and she writhed in his hold.
“I need more,” she rasped out.
He tipped her head to pierce her in his gaze. “Yeah, you fucking do.”
Without warning, he lifted her off his cock and flipped her face-down on their makeshift bed. He hooked an arm around her middle and angled her ass up to him.
A shudder of excitement matched the flip of her belly. Was this the moment he claimed her…back there?
She craned her head to look at him and found him staring at her with lights of lust in his eyes—and something else. Something she didn’t know how to define, but she’d never seen the expression on this cowboy’s face, or any other man’s.
