Hot Summer in Texas

by Delores Fossen

  “Matthew,” she said, answering the call. “Is something wrong?”

  But it wasn’t the boy’s voice she heard. It was Nolan’s. “Sorry about using Matthew’s phone,” he immediately told her. “But I wanted to make sure you accepted the call.”

  Lana huffed. She’d had her fill of ploys to get her attention, and she seriously doubted Nolan had anywhere near the justification her grandfather had for using said ploy.

  “I’m really busy, Nolan.” And yes, her tone was more than a little chilly. “What do you want?”

  “I want to fix your problem with your grandfather’s ranch,” he said without hesitation.

  While she didn’t think such a fix could come from Nolan, she was desperate enough to hear any possible suggestions for plan B.

  “What fix?” she asked cautiously.

  “An easy one,” Nolan declared. “You can marry me.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  YOU CAN MARRY ME.

  Those were the words that’d been going through Marco’s head for the past two days, and they were continuing to repeat as he rode in from the pasture after checking the fences.

  Words that he shouldn’t have heard.

  But Lana had taken her ex-boyfriend’s call while Marco had been standing right in front of her. Hard not to hear when they were standing only inches apart.

  Prior to the call, they’d been well on their way to revving up their bodies to the point that they might have dragged each other off to bed. That wouldn’t have been a good idea. Even though at the time it’d felt as if they’d had no choice.

  There was no choice about this attraction he felt for her, either. Or his feelings. Those were the most troublesome. After all, sexual attraction could happen between plenty of people who didn’t even care for each other. It could mean nothing other than just sex.

  But feelings meant something.

  The trouble was he needed to figure out exactly what that something was while dealing with his worries about Benji and the possibility that Lana would accept the marriage proposal from her clown of an ex.

  You can marry me.

  Lana hadn’t given the man an answer while she’d been standing there, but she had said she would talk to him later before she’d ended the call. She hadn’t had that talk while she’d been at Benji’s that night, but Marco suspected Lana had contacted the man at some point in the past two days. Maybe she’d even seen him so she could agree to a marriage to fulfill the conditions of Benji’s promise.

  Marco had never met Nolan, but he was certain about the guy being a clown. And an idiot. Why else would he have let Lana go? Then again, that also made him an idiot clown since he hadn’t been able to stop her from leaving, either.

  Cursing himself, the situation and everything else he could think of to curse, Marco unsaddled his horse, brushed her down and made his way across the backyard to the house for a shower. Maybe if he made the water cold enough, it would cool down both kinds of heat. The one from the ninety-degree summer temps and the one that Lana had ignited inside him.

  Of course, the shower didn’t help with the internal heat, but that would have been somewhat of a miracle if it had. Thoughts of Lana stayed with him while the water spewed over him. Pushing into his mind. Taunting him.

  Making him ache for her.

  That’s why he thought he was seeing a mirage of her when he stepped from the shower and she was standing in the doorway of his bathroom. Her back was to him, but if it was a mirage, then it was a darn good one because that was Lana’s backside.

  “I wasn’t gawking at you,” she said.

  She wasn’t. She didn’t even turn her head and glance over her shoulder. Though Marco did some glancing of his own once he realized she was the real deal.

  Lana was indeed a welcome sight. As much as he could see of her, that is. She was wearing another of those cotton dresses, a yellow one this time, and it skimmed her butt and hit just above the knee.

  “I knocked,” she went on, “and the front door wasn’t locked. It’s hotter than Hades out there so I thought I’d come inside and wait for you, but then I heard the shower. I came in to shout out that I was here, that I’d wait for you in the living room, but then you stepped out of the shower stall.” She paused, muttered some profanity. “Okay, maybe I gawked a little before I turned around.”

  Marco smiled, and just like that, he felt as if some of the heavy weight had flown right off his shoulders. Lana was here, and just seeing her made him feel better. At least it did until he realized she probably wouldn’t have come unless something had gone wrong.

  Maybe something with Benji.

  Maybe she’d accepted the idiot clown’s proposal.

  Before those notions could catch and spread like wildfire, Marco grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist. That was the best he could do to cover up since all of his clothes were in the bedroom and he didn’t own a robe. And besides, he didn’t mind being nearly naked around Lana. It also gave him a cheap thrill to know that she had indeed caught a glimpse of his bare ass.

  “I just got back from another doctor’s appointment with my granddad,” she explained. “They scheduled the bypass for Monday.”

  So, five days from now. Not long at all. Then again, it hadn’t been long—only forty-eight hours—since Benji had dropped his health scare bombshell and told them about his ranch troubles. So much had happened in those hours. Not just adjusting to Benji’s medical condition, either. But also the kiss at the police station followed by the make out session. And her ex’s proposal.

  “Are you marrying your asshole ex?” he came out and asked.

  She whipped around to face him, and he saw the frown on her face. Or maybe it was a scowl. “No. I told Nolan thanks but no thanks.”

  It was sort of dangerous feeling as much relief as he did. That relief made Marco want to go to Lana and haul her into his arms. Considering that he was wearing only a towel, that probably wasn’t a good idea.

  Or maybe it was.

  If he took her in his arms now, they’d have sex, and while he was very much looking forward to that, it was obvious that Lana had come here to give him an update. He wanted her to finish that before he started anything else.

  He was thinking about starting with her neck.

  Then working his way down.

  And speaking of down, that’s where Lana’s gaze drifted. Down to his chest. To the towel.

  She swallowed hard and shook her head as if to clear it. Marco wanted to tell her that head shaking wasn’t going to fix what was stirring between them, but he decided to give her a few more minutes to come to that conclusion.

  “Uh, Grandad nixed the trust idea,” she said her voice a little breathy. “He said it would be like skirting over his promise because he’d essentially be leaving the place to me.”

  That was exactly the news that Marco had expected, but it did cool him down a little. Clearly, the trust would have been the easiest fix for the ranch, and now they had to move to the yet undetermined plan B. Or maybe even C, though Marco doubted Lana wanted him to get her pregnant. Saving a ranch wasn’t a reason to have a child.

  “So, what will you do?” he asked, taking a step toward her. Even though sex wasn’t going to solve Benji’s situation, it would be satisfying.

  And it was inevitable.

  Marco knew that when he went closer to Lana and she didn’t retreat. She definitely didn’t give him any signals to back off. Just the opposite. A silky feminine sigh left her mouth. The sound of arousal. Arousal flushed her cheeks, too, but the clincher was when she licked her lips. He seriously doubted she’d done that because they were dry.

  He moved in even more, sliding his hand around the back of her neck and easing her closer. In the same motion, he put his mouth on the very lips she’d just licked. The taste of her jolted through him, making him want her even more, somet
hing that Marco hadn’t thought possible. Because he already wanted her so much that his body was a hard ache.

  Emphasis on the hard.

  “Should we be doing this?” Lana asked, mumbling around the kiss, but she immediately added, “Don’t answer that.”

  He wouldn’t. They both knew it was a stupid idea, with so many things unsettled between them, but it was going to happen anyway. And it was apparently going to happen fast. Lana saw to that when she started touching him. First, his chest. Then, his stomach.

  Then, lower.

  She grabbed the towel to get it off him, and it dropped to the floor. Now she stepped back just a little, her gaze sliding over him. Drinking him in. Marco did some drinking in of his own and decided that Lana had on way too many clothes.

  He did something about that. While grabbing another kiss, he caught onto the bottom of her dress and shucked it off her. It landed near his towel and left her nearly naked.

  Her bra was barely there, and with her breath gusting, her breasts were practically spilling out of the cups. Marco helped with that, too, by pushing down the swatch of lace and doing something he hadn’t done to her in a decade. He kissed her breasts and took her nipple into his mouth.

  She approved.

  He could tell from her gasp of pleasure, and when she fisted her hands in his hair to anchor him in place. Not that he was going anywhere. And besides, he could shimmy down her panties while he continued to tongue kiss her breasts.

  “You’d better have a condom,” she muttered.

  He did have some, but there weren’t any in the bathroom. That’s why he started moving her backward into his bedroom. It wasn’t easy to do since he wasn’t watching where they were going. Nor was he willing to give up the breast kisses. That’s the reason he banged his shoulder and elbow a couple of times, but he finally managed to maneuver them in the direction of the bed. They landed on it in a tumbled heap with him on top of her.

  “Condom,” she repeated, and she wrapped her legs around him. She also must have decided to increase the urgency and fire because she ground herself against his erection.

  Once Marco got his eyes uncrossed, he fumbled around, located the nightstand and took a condom from the drawer. He got it on as fast as he could which would have been a whole lot faster if Lana hadn’t tried to help him. Her help darn near resulted in a hand job before he finally got suited up.

  He checked her expression, to see if there were any second thoughts about this. There were none. And clearly she was still in the hurry mode because Lana latched onto his hips and pushed him inside her.

  She immediately went still, and their gazes connected. She was tight, wet and perfect. So perfect that his vision blurred a little. He had to focus to see her face. It was perfect, too. And he saw the hungry need in her eyes. A hunger that Marco was sure was in his as well.

  Keeping his gaze on her, he started to move inside her, watching her take him in. Watching the pleasure build. Marco kept the pace as slow as he could. Drawing out the moments. Savoring this.

  Savoring Lana.

  It’d been a long time since he’d had her in his bed, but it was like coming home. Coming home with intense heat, that is. Heat was definitely going to have a big say in this, and the slow pace had to go. The need drove them faster, faster.

  Deeper.

  Until he felt the climax slam through Lana. That in turn caused the pleasure to slam through him. He held back as long as he could, savoring every moment of what she was giving him. Before he let himself go.

  As soon as he could, Marco adjusted his weight to his elbows so that he wouldn’t be crushing her, and they lay there, coming back to earth while their breathing leveled. He finally managed to look down at her and kiss her.

  “Did this have anything to do with plan B?” he joked.

  He immediately wished he hadn’t attempted to go light. Because he saw something in her eyes. Not the aftereffects of sated passion. But something he didn’t want to see there.

  Regret.

  Hell. He figured that wouldn’t set in until she’d at least had some thinking time. Apparently though, Lana was a fast thinker.

  “I don’t deserve you,” she said, her voice thick and void of any trace of the heat that’d just flared between them.

  “Is that like a compliment?” he asked, not at all sure what this was. It sounded more like the start of a brush-off.

  She stared at him a long time, and despite him still being inside her, the intimacy between them vanished. She moved, his signal to get off her so that’s what Marco did. He landed on the bed next to her.

  “It wasn’t a compliment,” he concluded.

  She turned, touching his face and sliding her fingers down his cheek. “You’re an amazing man, and I don’t deserve you.” Lana got up and headed for his bathroom, saying the rest of what she had to say with her back to him. “I can never forgive myself for what I did.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  LANA GATHERED HER clothes as quickly as she could, and clutching them to her, she hurried to the guest room just up the hall so that Marco would be able to use his own bathroom.

  And so that she’d have a minute or two to gather her thoughts.

  Of course, she didn’t need time to know that having sex with Marco had been a mistake. One that’d felt amazing, but it wasn’t fair to him. Not with the past swooping in on her. So many mistakes and regrets, and she didn’t want to risk putting Marco through something like that again.

  She dressed and freshened up in the guest bath, and taking a deep breath that she was certain she’d need, Lana went into the living room. Marco wasn’t there, but she immediately spotted him in the kitchen. He was dressed, mostly, in jeans and an unbuttoned shirt, and he was sipping a beer. He was also eyeing her as if waiting for her to explain what her hasty bedroom exit had been about.

  “I don’t regret the sex,” she told him right off. “I should, but I don’t.”

  The corner of his mouth lifted in a chrome-melting smile. “No regrets on my part either.” He didn’t add more, didn’t ask her what was wrong. Marco just waited for her to continue.

  Lana would, but she went to the fridge and helped herself to a beer. She wasn’t much of a drinker, especially when it came to beer, but she thought she might need a few sips of liquid courage to get through this.

  “Are you up to a really bad walk down memory lane?” she asked.

  He didn’t smile this time but nodded without hesitation. “Will it explain why you were in a rush to leave my bed?”

  It would. But it wasn’t going to fix anything between them. It was the reason she hadn’t had this particular heart-to-heart with him sooner. Plus, it was going to bring a lot of pain to the surface.

  “When I found out I was pregnant,” she started, “it threw me for a loop. I mean, I was on the pill, and we were careful.”

  “It threw me for a loop, too,” Marco replied when she didn’t jump in to add anything else.

  She nodded because she’d known that it had. He had so much on his plate with the ranch, trying to run it by himself, and the last thing he’d likely wanted to add to that was taking care of a family.

  “But you adjusted,” Lana pointed out. She took a sip of beer because her throat suddenly felt as dry as dust. “Within a couple of hours, you were making plans.” Actually, she believed he’d been over the moon at the prospect of fatherhood.

  “Did those plans upset you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “Because it took me more than a few hours to start to believe we could make it work. During that time, I was wishing that I hadn’t gotten pregnant.”

  He kept his gaze on her face, studying her, and he shook his head. “I think that’s a normal response, Lana.”

  “Maybe.” And this part was going to be so hard to say. So hard for him to hear. “But after I miscarried, the guilt
and regret came.” In fact, it had come like a flash flood.

  Marco stayed quiet a few long moments. “You left me because you felt guilty over losing the baby?”

  “I left you because I couldn’t live with the guilt. I never blamed you for what happened. I blamed myself, and if I’d just taken more precautions, I might not have lost the baby.”

  “Precautions?” he questioned without hesitating. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” She groaned and set the beer aside. It wasn’t settling well in her stomach. “Maybe bed rest or figuring out a way to lessen the stress.”

  Marco put down his beer, too, and took her by the shoulders. “That’s BS. Women miscarry babies and not because of anything the mother did wrong. I read about it,” he added when she stared at him. “Sometimes, miscarriages just happen.”

  She didn’t know why that surprised her. Of course, he would have read about it because he would have wanted to know what went wrong. He would have tried to figure out how to help her.

  Except she hadn’t let him even try.

  “When I looked at you back then,” she went on, “all I could see was the grief.” Her eyes stung, but she blinked back the tears. “And even though you never blamed me, being around you was a reminder that I failed. That I couldn’t keep our baby safe.”

  Marco groaned, cursed softly and then gathered her into his arms. He brushed a kiss on the top of her head, but Lana didn’t feel as if she deserved the kiss or the comfort he was trying to give her.

  “I was scared spitless when you told me you were pregnant,” he said. His voice was as soft and gentle as the strokes he was making on her back. “Maybe I should have let you see just how scared I was, but I was trying to be strong for you.”

  “You were strong,” she admitted. Lana looked up at him. “And you would have forgiven me if I’d asked. I just didn’t think I had the right to ask.”

  “You had the right,” he assured her. “It wasn’t needed, but the right was yours.”

  He put his fingers beneath her chin and lifted it, forcing eye contact. She had won the battle with the tears, but she wasn’t sure how long that would last. However, Lana was certain of one thing. That being here with Marco like this had helped. Making love with him had helped, too. But it didn’t fix their problems with Benji and the ranch.