“I had no idea you’d fallen so far, bro,” Wes replied sympathetically. “Sounds like you’ve lost your man card for good.”
Chase grinned. “Yeah. But I found Anna.”
Wes just shook his head.
They strolled over to the long dining room table, and Wes wasn’t the least bit surprised that Miranda had maneuvered the seating arrangement so he was beside Jessica. His mother hadn’t put an extra leaf in the table, either, so Wes was sitting elbow to elbow, knee to knee with Jess. He was close enough to smell her gardenia perfume. The scent never failed to remind him of old money, beach estates and fast cars.
An image flashed through his head of Jessica in dark sunglasses with a silk scarf wrapped around her head, wearing white leather gloves, driving her vintage Corvette with the top down. She had looked like a movie star from the 1950s. It had been the day they’d taken a road trip to the coast. The sun had been shining, the salt smell of the sea mingling with her perfume. They’d had a picnic and too much wine and ended up making love on the beach. Yeah, that had been a damned near perfect day.
Jessica did know how to live each moment to the fullest, that was for sure.
“Earth to Wes, come in,” she murmured beside him.
He looked up, startled out of the memory, which was secretly one of his all-time favorites.
“Your mother just asked you if you like what I’m doing to your place.”
He glanced down to the foot of the table. “Jessica’s doing a fantastic job on my place.” He added wryly, “I’m just worried she won’t stop with the house.”
“What do you mean?” Jessica interjected.
“I’m afraid I’m going to walk out to the barn one morning and find the damn thing wallpapered and curtained and accessorized.”
Everyone laughed, but he caught the brief look of hurt that passed through her eyes. Beneath the talk and clatter of dishes passing around, he murmured, “I didn’t mean anything by that. I was just joking. We kid each other a lot in this family.”
She nodded, but he frowned, not convinced she’d forgiven him. He forgot sometimes that she’d grown up with just her father for family. Poor kid.
Why did he give a damn if he’d hurt her feelings, anyway? If she couldn’t take being teased a little, she surely wouldn’t last long in his family—
Whoa. Time-out. He didn’t want her to last long in his family!
Cripes, the woman tied him in knots.
Scowling, he ate in silence, letting the banter and discussion of Chase and Anna’s upcoming wedding flow around him without touching him.
He should have known Miranda would try to throw him and Jess together. He should have turned down today’s dinner invitation, except it was lonely in his nuked house after Jessica left.
He’d been okay before she’d come, but now the place echoed hollowly. He occasionally caught a whiff of gardenia or found a paper with a scribbled sketch on it in her handwriting. Even her sketches were talented, conveying artistically what she wanted workmen to do, be it installing a hearth or hanging the new wrought iron chandelier where the kitchen table was going to go.
Each reminder of her caused him actual physical pain. His gut tightened like someone had reached into his body, grabbed a fistful of his innards and given them a good, hard twist.
“Are you okay?” Jessica whispered, startling him.
“Yeah.”
“You looked like you were in pain.”
“I was.”
“Are you sick?” she asked in quick concern. “Or is your finger hurting?”
He glanced down at the bandage on his finger. “It’s fine. Doc says I can take the tape off tomorrow.”
“That’s wonderful! Can you go back to carving?”
He threw her a sheepish, sidelong look. “Already did.”
“Wes—”
He cut her off, muttering urgently, “Don’t tell Doc Cooper. And, for God’s sake, don’t tell my mother.”
Jessica smiled fondly down the table. “Miranda’s great, isn’t she?”
He blinked, taken aback. “Are we talking about Miranda Morgan? You didn’t have to grow up with her. She’s a terror.”
“I didn’t have a mother at all. You should be grateful for her, even if she can be a bit of a mama bear. She loves all of you guys immensely.”
“True. But she’s an inveterate meddler. Take you being here today and conveniently seated beside me.”
“She means well.”
He harrumphed.
Miranda looked over at him, an eyebrow raised, and he smiled lamely at her. No need to cause a scene when he and his father were just starting to bury the hatchet after their last falling-out. The fastest way to piss off John Morgan besides dissing the United States Marine Corps was to upset his wife.
The meal ended, and Chase invited Anna out to the horse barn to see the new foal that had been born a few days ago. Miranda bred champion quarter horses and had some beautiful specimens in her barn.
Wes looked over at Jessica reluctantly. If she thought calves were cute, wait till she got a load of a foal. “You wanna go, too?”
“Will you come with us?” she asked hopefully.
He sighed. “Yeah, sure. The alternative is to get drafted to do the dishes with Mother and suffer through an interrogation from her.”
Jessica chuckled. “I’m glad to know that I rate higher than slave labor and hostile interrogations.”
“Just barely,” he allowed drily.
They followed Chase and Anna, who walked ahead, their arms twined around each other. It was hard to look at. The pair were a vivid reminder of what he lacked in his life. Since when was he all hot and bothered about finding a woman and settling down, anyway?
The answer, which came to him unwillingly, made his jaw tighten. Since Jessica Blankenship had shown up at his front door and started playing house with him.
What in the hell was he going to do with her?
CHAPTER 13
Wes fled Monday morning as a dozen contractors and workers and Jessica descended upon his house. He couldn’t believe how fast she was getting the job done. Then again, he supposed no man could refuse her when she batted her gorgeous eyes and smiled that winning smile of hers at him.
On the one hand, he was eager to get his damned house back to himself. On the other hand, Jessica’s promise to leave for good when it was done loomed ominously in the back of his mind. He wanted her to leave, right?
Aw, hell. Who was he trying to kid? He didn’t want her to go.
He was riding fence again today, making sure his herd hadn’t broken through the fence to get to greener grass on the other side. He’d seeded his pastures last fall and should get better, thicker forage for his cattle this year, but the new seed wasn’t coming up as fast as his father’s older, more established pastures, which continued to tempt his cattle.
He was paying attention to his horse’s footing and stewing over Jessica’s imminent departure when he heard a faint bang and something zinged past him. A sharp crack of sound made his horse shy. He managed to keep his seat, but barely, as his horse jigged, agitated, beneath him.
“Easy, Mac,” he soothed the horse. Usually Mac was as steady as a rock, and nothing fazed him. Except for snakes, of course. Mac was terrified of them and ran like a little girl from them. All thirteen hundred pounds of him.
Wes looked around cautiously. He was near the top of the valley his ranch shared with a portion of the Runaway Ranch property. The trees were thin, and the pastures were giving way to fields of boulders and patches of late snow.
Thunderclouds were roiling over the mountain peaks in the west, and he’d assumed that loud bang was thunder. What if it wasn’t?
Jessica’s shooting incident fresh on his mind, he turned Mac back down toward the barn and gave the horse his head. Mac was as good a trail
horse as he’d ever had, and the animal could be trusted to choose his own footing and not twist an ankle on a loose rock or unseen gully.
They’d gone perhaps a hundred yards when another bang sounded and bark flew off a pine tree a few yards ahead of him.
Sonofabitch. Someone was shooting at him!
Leaning low over his horse’s neck, he clucked to Mac and squeezed his legs against the horse’s ribs. Picking up on Wes’s stress, the horse jumped forward, stretching out in a gallop. Even then, Wes left the horse to pick his own path. Mac had been born and raised in this valley and would know the terrain better than any human ever could.
Fat drops of rain began to pelt his back, and Wes pulled his cowboy hat lower on his brow. They charged down the mountain, and the barns and house came into view. He didn’t ease back on Mac’s reins until they’d almost reached the barn, and even then he trotted directly into its sheltering cover.
He slid from the winded gelding, quickly stripped off the saddle and bridle and threw a wool cooling blanket over the animal’s heaving sides. “Good job, Mac.”
He patted the horse’s neck and commenced walking the horse up and down the long aisle between the decrepit stalls. He’d fixed up a big double stall for Mac when he’d bought the horse. It was bedded with fresh sawdust and weatherproofed against wind and wet. When Mac was dry and breathing normally after his hard run back to the barn, Wes put him away.
He checked the horse’s water, tossed him a heaping helping of grain and threw in a couple flakes of good alfalfa hay. God knew, the horse had earned it. Mac’s speed and familiarity with the mountain had likely saved Wes’s life.
He pulled out his cell phone and dialed his cousin, Joe.
“What’s up, cuz?” the sheriff answered.
“You know how someone took potshots at Jessica last week? Someone just did the same to me on my own damned property. Two shots were fired at me before my horse got me the hell out of there. I was up in the high pasture. Unfortunately, it’s gonna take horses or helicopters to get up there and have a look around.”
“Is it raining up there? It’s pouring down here in town.”
“Yup. Cats and dogs up here.”
“Damn. The rain will erase evidence that could have been helpful. But maybe we can still retrieve a slug to compare to the ones used to shoot at Miss Blankenship.”
“I only have one horse. If you want to go up there tomorrow, you’ll need to bring your own ride.”
Joe laughed. “Cheapskate.”
“Naw, man. Just a cash-poor rancher trying to get started in the business. All my money went to cattle.”
“I’ll bring one of the sheriff-patrol horses first thing in the morning, and we’ll ride up there.”
Wes ran back to the house, not only because it was raining harder now, but also because he hated the sensation of being outside and exposed to a potential sniper. Lord, it was like being back overseas at a forward operating base with enemy combatants on the lookout for any chance to take out an American soldier.
He ducked into the house, which wasn’t much less of a combat zone than the high pasture had been. Men were working all over the place, doing last-minute trim work, installing stuff in the kitchen and who knew what all else.
He needed a little peace and quiet, and retreated to his bedroom, closing out all the noise with a sigh of relief. He turned and drew up short as something—someone—moved in the corner.
Jessica stepped out of the shadows beyond his bed. “Oh! I wasn’t expecting you back yet. I’m sorry. I was putting your clothes back into the new dresser for you. I think I got most of them back in the right place.”
He shrugged impatiently. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Listen, Jessica. I need you to do me a favor.”
“Anything. Name it.”
“I need you not to go outside today for any reason. Promise me.”
“Okay, but why?”
“Someone just shot at me up at the top end of my property. It could just be a poacher I stumbled across. Or,” he added reluctantly, “it could be the same person who shot at you.”
“Ohmigod! Are you all right?” she cried, rushing over to him. Her hands roamed frantically up his arms and across his shoulders, fluttering in panic down his ribs and around his sides.
He captured her hands and held them against his chest. “I’m fine. But with the rain, the sheriff and I won’t be able to get back up there until tomorrow morning.”
“Should we leave?” she asked urgently.
“I’m not about to get chased off my own land. Not to mention I’m a Marine. I can handle myself when someone threatens me.”
“But I don’t want anything bad to happen to you—”
He released one of her hands and pressed his fingertips against her lips. “Nothing bad will happen to me or to you. I promise.”
He became aware of how soft and plump her lips were against his fingers, how warm and kissable. Her eyes were wide with fright and worry for him, and something warm surged through his gut at the sight.
His fingers drifted down to her chin, lifting her face slightly, to the perfect angle for kissing. His other arm went around her and he drew her close. She came to him without any hint of resistance, and when his lips replaced his fingertips, lightly touching her mouth, she sighed like this was a homecoming she’d been waiting for for a very long time.
In an instant, the kiss transformed from sweet and grateful to smoking hot and carnal. Before he hardly knew what was happening, her hands fumbled at his belt buckle, his zipper made a metallic slithering noise and her fingers wrapped around his rock-hard shaft. He was always rock hard around her, it seemed.
He grabbed at handfuls of her puffy retro skirt, dragging them up around her waist. He felt bare bottom and grinned against her mouth. She might be wearing a demure fifties-throwback dress with a little lace collar, but she was wearing a naughty, barely there thong beneath it. He shoved the scrap of fabric aside and plunged a finger into her wet desire. It was too much. He had to have her.
He hoisted her by the hips, and her legs wrapped around him eagerly. He backed her up against the new wood planks covering his wall and lowered her onto his straining erection.
He buried his face against her neck, groaning his pleasure into her satin-smooth skin. Jessica threw her head back, riding him with abandon. She was lithe and athletic and slender and curvy all at once.
Relieved as hell to be alive, he surged up into her with abandon to match hers. How was it that he could never get enough of her? Every time he was inside her like this, he only craved her more. Every time he felt her pulse racing frantically beneath her skin, his raced harder. Every time he tasted her mouth, he grew starved to taste her more deeply.
He found release in her body, joy in her muffled cries against his neck now, security in how tightly she clung to him and freedom in how she made his spirit soar. Sex with her was more than just physical pleasure. It was life.
He had never been a woo-woo kind of guy, but ever since she’d come to Montana, sex with Jessica had been...more. It wasn’t just sex anymore. It had become something life affirming, spiritual, even. Which was ridiculous, of course. But undeniably true.
Blessedly, the wanderings of his mind were taken over by the physical sensations of Jessica’s tight, hot body cupping his sex, by the glory of plunging so deep into her that he could feel her womb, the instinctive clenching of his glutes as he drove into her, the fantastic feel of trapping her between him and the wall at her back, losing himself in the pleasure clawing at the back of his eyeballs and closing his throat and constricting his heart.
His entire body braced as the coming explosion built and built. And built some more. Holding his breath, he plunged into her harder and faster, racing toward a finish that he sensed would be epic. Jessica’s fingernails clawed at his back and she surged against him as mindlessly as he was p
umping into her.
And when the dam was on the verge of bursting in a spectacular fashion, he whispered, “Look at me.”
Jessica’s sex-glazed eyes opened, and he dived into their azure depths, reveling in the helpless love he saw there. Her beautiful, kiss-reddened mouth curved into a smile of pure bliss, and her internal muscles gripped him so strongly he thought he might cry.
Staring through the naked windows of their joined souls, their joined bodies sought the explosion together, straining against one another frantically.
All at once, his entire universe froze. Clenched. Drew one last, apocalyptic breath and then exploded. This was a supernova—a flash of light blinding all the way across the universe, followed by a crash of pleasure so intense that no matter, no planet, no sun could survive its utter and perfect devastation.
Thank God his knees were locked, or he would have fallen to the ground under the weight of the ecstasy ripping through him, destroying him.
Vaguely he realized he was leaning heavily against Jessica, smashing her against the rough wall at her back. He tried to push away from her and let her breathe, but her arms tightened around his neck and one of her legs slid from around his hips to touch the floor.
“Don’t move,” she mumbled.
“Not sure I can,” he mumbled back.
Eventually, her lips moved against his neck, kissing lazily. Her hot, wet tongue touched his skin and roused him slightly from his stupor.
“You’ve killed me.” He managed to sigh.
“What a way to go.”
He smiled against her temple, too spent for a response. More time passed, and he murmured, “I give up.”
“Give up what?”
“Fighting against you.”
“Were we fighting?” she asked, sounding more alert.
He lifted his head to look down at her. God, she was beautiful. Her features were delicate, elfin even. Her bones were exquisite, her cheekbones sleek and elegant, her jaw just square enough to have character yet not so much as to be masculine. And her eyes—the life brimming in them was impossible to look away from.
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