by Anne Marsh
“No, we’re not. You don’t call the shots here, Cabe. Not in my house.” Rose shot to her feet, looking irritated. “Tell me why I need a new well.”
The contractor looked at Cabe, because the man wasn’t stupid. Cabe could make damn sure he never worked in Northern California again. Cabe’s mouth tightened. The damage was done, and he wouldn’t lie to Rose. Overtly, a little voice mocked. He gestured for the other man to continue.
“You got plenty of water here. This place is sitting on a real nice little aquifer. Mr. Dawson had a drilling engineer out to check the levels maybe seven, eight months ago. We all figured he was waiting for the old woman to pass on before he knocked the house down and drilled for the water.”
Her face closed right up. “I see,” she said, and he’d just bet she did. The contractor must have smelled trouble brewing, because he beat a retreat to his pickup. Rose just watched him go.
“Rose,” he said carefully.
“Your offer to buy me out isn’t just a be-nice favor, is it, Cabe?”
“No. This house is sitting on an aquifer. Blackhawk Ranch is running dry on its southern border. I drill here, that problem goes away.”
“You want to turn my home into a cattle yard.”
“Hell, Rose.” He scrubbed a hand over his head, then jammed the Stetson back on. “I want what’s best for both of us. My ranch needs the water. You need a chance to start over. Take the check, and you’ve got that chance. What’s so hard about doing that?”
“You don’t get to decide what’s best for me.” She was standing chest to chest with him now, eyes snapping. She was furious, and she still didn’t know the half of it. Goddamn it, why couldn’t she admit he might be right? Maybe he did know what was best. “You have no right.”
“Actually, I do, darlin’,” he drawled. “I have every right in the world.”
Cabe Dawson was big and tough and sexy. Part of her wanted to get her hands on his belt buckle and undo him the way he’d undone her. He was so gorgeous—she tried the word out mentally, and it fit—but he’d put that distance between them again. He stood up there, leaning against the pillar, while she sat lower on the steps. Well, screw him. Screw his well-intentioned plans for her life.
“No,” she countered. The problem with Cabe was, the man didn’t move until he was good and ready to move. “You have no rights here at all. Just because we had sex last night doesn’t mean you can come in here today and tell me what’s what.”
Last night hadn’t been just sex, though, and that was the problem, wasn’t it? He’d taken her into his arms, and she’d been impossibly happy. He was a sensual, dominating lover, and, for the first time, she’d known he was seeing her. Not his brothers’ friend or the neighbor’s wayward foster child. Her. Rose Jordan, the woman. She wasn’t sure where they’d been going, but someplace special, even if feelings and words weren’t something Cabe expressed easily. That was her cowboy.
“I should have let the lawyer finish,” he growled out. “Like ripping off a Band-Aid, right? Maybe there’s a sting, but it’s over quick, and you move on.”
Time seemed to slow down. That icy-hot sensation hit her, the feeling you got when you knew there was bad news coming and there was no way to stop it.
“Auntie Dee left you this house,” he continued. “But she had a reverse mortgage on the place.”
The pieces were falling into place, and she didn’t like the pattern. “You hold her note. How much?” She fought the temptation to close her eyes. There was no hiding from this.
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
She didn’t have that kind of money, and if Cabe wanted that water, he wouldn’t want money anyhow. She was going to lose this place. She wasn’t coming home, not to stay. She’d be saying good-bye. To her heart and her home.
“You should have said something.” Could he hear her heart breaking in the quiet surrounding them? Goddamn it, she wasn’t going to show him how this was tearing her up inside.
He stared at her, and she couldn’t read his face. Of course, she never had been able to tell what he was thinking, had she?
“I should have,” he admitted.
Grabbing the tube of plans she’d brought with her for the contractor to review, she put some space between them and let her feet take her out into the yard.
“Yes, you should have. Or maybe, Cabe, you should have said something before you took me to bed. Maybe I deserved to know exactly what I was dealing with here.”
“You wanted me,” he said, and that calm, logical voice of his made her want to shriek. “This house doesn’t change that, Rose. You kissed me. You let me put my fingers and my tongue on that sweet little pussy of yours, and you liked it. Money owing doesn’t change that.”
She’d heard he was ruthless. She’d known that his was the hard, predatory gaze of a man who knew what he wanted and took it. He’d wanted her, and she’d made it so very easy for him to take her.
“Was I a pity fuck? I had no place to go, so you took me in because you felt sorry for me?”
“It wasn’t like that, Rose.” It sounded to her as if it had been precisely like that.
“Then tell me what it was like,” she demanded. “Make me understand that you didn’t fuck me two ways to Sunday, Cabe.”
His silence was damning. That hat of his came off his head, slapping slowly, dangerously at his thigh. Cabe didn’t get mad quickly or often, but once he was worked up, a wise woman left him alone. “I did what I thought was best, darlin’.”
“Don’t call me darling. Don’t call me anything. Just don’t, Cabe.”
For the second time that week, she threw what she was holding at him. The tube of architectural drawings was an awkward length, but he caught it, just as she’d known he would. Cabe didn’t like loose ends, and he never left things to chance. She stomped to her car.
Slamming the door of the Honda, she tore down the drive.
She’d left him.
Cabe had caught the roll of papers instinctively. Other older, more primitive instincts screamed for him to go after Rose. His ancestors had been Californians and Spanish aristos who knew how to rule. How to carve out and hold territory in a hostile, unfamiliar world. She was his. She’d let him touch her, and she’d enjoyed every moment.
She was his, and he always held on to what was his.
So letting her go now was the hardest damn thing he’d ever done. He wanted to go after her, take her into his arms, and make this all better. There was no getting around the fact, however, that he needed her water and had every intention of drilling just as soon as he could get the engineer back in here. He had a business to run. A ranch to preserve. Blackhawk Ranch was more than a legacy—it was a way of life. A hell of a lot of people depended on him. Cheap foreign beef had put most of the California ranches out of business, making it almost impossible for a man to even sell his cattle for what it cost to raise them. Cabe barely broke even on his herd, but that herd mattered. He’d inherited a ranch full of cowboys and a disappearing way of life he wouldn’t let die. Not on his watch.
So he watched her go and tried to work it all out in his head. She drove that battered Honda Civic of hers down the dirt road, headed nowhere in particular as far as he knew, and he wanted to be in the front seat with her. It didn’t matter where she was headed. For one insane moment, he wished he could consign the ranch and all his responsibility to hell.
She’d stormed off. He’d stayed put. And wasn’t that the way it had always been?
He looked down at the plans in his hands. When he looked at them, he realized he was holding plans for a home, not a house. She’d seen more than four walls and a roof.
To hell with his plans and his heavy, endless responsibilities.
Some things—some people—were worth fighting for.
He got his ass into his pickup and followed her.
Chapter Six
Rose didn’t stop driving until Cabe could almost see Lonesome. Maybe she’d stopped at the rest area o
n purpose, or maybe she was just plain tired of his following her ass so closely.
He just knew he wasn’t done with them. He wouldn’t let her run from him this time. Slamming the pickup’s door, Cabe strode toward the picnic table where she was waiting for him. Before she could move, he slapped his hands down on either side of her, caging her body between his arms and the table. A distant part of his brain—the logical part that hadn’t been turned upside down and inside out by this infuriating, fascinating, wonderful woman—warned him that this wasn’t his best idea.
Rose Jordan didn’t need or want a Neanderthal cowboy. But to hell with that.
“I took that reverse mortgage,” he growled, “because it was the only goddamned way Auntie Dee would let me give her money. She was proud, Rose. She wanted to give me something back.”
“You should have told me right away,” she accused. “Why offer to buy me out when you already had that note? You know I can’t repay it. My home is all yours.”
He leaned in further. “Because that house is your home, Rose. I don’t want to take that for you. I thought maybe that check would let you start over. Pick some other place.”
“Coming home doesn’t work that way, Cabe.” Her gaze dipped slowly, and it felt like she was touching him, those gray eyes moving over his chest and down. “I wanted those four walls, those memories. So I’m not getting what I want. What I want to know is, what do you want? If we’re being honest with one another now?”
“Right now?” he asked in complete surprise. “You. You made me wait a long time for you, Rose.” Getting a hand on his chest, she gave him a little push. She was touching him again, and he had it bad, because just that little brush of her fingers against the cotton of his T-shirt had his dick stirring in his jeans. He’d followed her to talk, he reminded himself. Nothing more.
“No,” she protested. “I’ve been back in Lonesome for less than a month, Cabe. I haven’t made you wait at all.”
“I’ve been waiting ten years for you, Rose,” he growled. “Halfway through high school, I looked at you and I should have been shot for the thoughts I had. You were too young. I was too old. I wasn’t ever leaving this ranch and you’d made it plenty clear you wanted your chance to get out there in the world and explore.”
“But—”
“No buts about it, Rose. I’ve been waiting a damned long time.”
“I tried,” she interrupted. “Right before I left for college. I was waiting for you, too, and I tried. You pushed me away. I thought I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t who you needed or wanted, so I went.”
“Christ,” he dragged a thumb over her lower lip. “You were years younger than me. You were still in high school and I was up to my ears in the ranch.” A slow smile tugged at his mouth. “But I was tempted, Rose. Far too tempted.”
He stepped back regretfully. He wanted to wrap himself around her, kiss every inch of her, because he missed that closeness. Hell. She’d been gone less than half an hour, and he missed her. There was a message right there.
“Tell me something first, before we go any further here,” she said quietly, standing up and taking a step toward him.
He couldn’t help noticing the first. She wasn’t done with him, and that made him impossibly, fiercely glad.
“Ask,” he answered roughly. “You know I’d never lie to you, darlin’. Sure”—he held up a hand when she got her mouth open to protest—“I’m guilty as hell of not being as forthcoming as I should have been. I shouldn’t have let you leave the lawyer’s office without hearing the whole of it. I did, and for that, I’m apologizing.”
She nodded, her hair sliding over her shoulders. She hadn’t moved, though, so he started wondering if he had to get on his knees. Which would put him on a level with her pretty little panties—and then he wouldn’t be behaving himself anymore, and he sure as hell wouldn’t be doing the right thing.
“Tell me right now if last night was you feeling guilty.”
“Hell, no,” he growled, and he tossed his good intentions out the window. Closing the small space between them, he slid a hand up her neck to tangle in her hair.
“We were together because you wanted me,” she pressed. “And for no other reason. Just me. You tell me that I’m enough, that I’m good enough all by myself here. If that’s not the truth, then you give me the truth. Now.”
“Yeah.” His other hand stroked down the straight curve of her spine, arching her into him. Her hands were on his forearms, hanging on but not pushing him away. “No matter what happens between us now, you think I’m ever forgetting last night? You let me in, darlin’, all the way in. That’s something a man doesn’t forget. That’s the kind of memory I’m going to be treasuring.”
“It was good,” she admitted wistfully.
“We were good,” he countered roughly. “You were downright perfect. Perfect for me.”
“Really? You sure about the perfect?” She peeked up at him, and there was that look he loved so much. Pure sin and a little bit of mischief. Christ. When had she stolen his heart away from him? Because, looking at her, he knew, clear as day, that she had and that he wasn’t ever going to be the same again. “That mean you want to kiss me again?”
“Always,” he promised, meaning the words more than she knew. Somehow, somewhere, he’d gotten it bad. He’d fallen for his Rose hard and completely.
“Hmm,” she hummed. “Sit down for me, Cabe?”
Before he could straighten out his emotions or his words, she’d gotten her hands wrapped in his shirt, turning him like he was a reluctant calf in the chute. He went willingly, his erection already straining at his jeans. Hell, if she would just stay here in Lonesome, he’d still be jonesing for her in fifty years.
He loved Rose Jordan.
She pushed gently, and he sank down obligingly on the picnic table where he’d found her.
They were outside. On a picnic table. Hell if he knew how he’d wound up in this position, but there he was, seated on the table’s top, while she got on his lap, facing away from him. He regretted that little distance, even while he enjoyed the sexy position, his hands cupping her hips to steady her.
“You still with me, Cabe?” she asked, and he slid her hair away from her nape, exposing the pale curve of her neck. The white marks from bikini straps had him fantasizing about stripping her naked.
She straddled him, her legs on either side of his. Those long bare legs in those too-short denim cut-offs were killing him, and then her hands came down on his thighs. He could feel the heat of her through his jeans. Hell, he was about to come right out of those jeans.
“You’re playing with fire, darlin’.”
“And you don’t play at all.” She rocked forward. The pressure on his cock was a fiery burst of sensation. Then she was moving rhythmically, up and down, forward and back, and he was lost.
He got the button to her shorts open, his fingers exploring the edges of her silky little panties. Just barely touching her in a liquid tease as she moved.
He had to be inside, needed to be there with her. Scooping her up in his arms, he got off the table and deposited her at the edge. His hands stripped off her shorts and panties. Parting her thighs, he stepped between them, his hands curving around her ass as his thumbs sank into sweet, wet flesh.
Her hands were busy, too, opening his jeans and finding his cock.
He watched her, watched her skin flush and grow pinker, grow wet—for him. They were in a secluded spot, but he knew someone else could come along at any moment. Could find them here like this. And he didn’t give a damn. The only thing that mattered was this woman in his arms.
She was so sensitive, so deliciously responsive to his touch. He was used to being right, to being sure of what the right thing to do was. He ran tens of thousands of acres, and hundreds of men depended on him for their living. But the happiness, the sheer joy on Rose’s face, was something he hadn’t witnessed before. Finally, he’d given her what she needed.
He was ready to tak
e her, to feed the sweet, hot hunger consuming them both, but she reached for him, her fingers brushing his dick.
“Let me,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving his face. She got her hands wrapped around him, and he bit back a groan. She made him feel so good. “Let me do this for you, Cabe.”
She didn’t give him a chance to protest, just stroked gently, her eyes dropping to his cock. He wanted to take care of her. Didn’t know what she wanted from him now. This was unfamiliar.
Could he let her take charge?
Did he want her to?
He wanted to hold on, to lay her back on the table and finish what they’d started, but she’d asked him for something, and he realized he’d give her anything and everything. Whatever Rose needed, he’d provide. And, yet, what she was asking for now was something he’d never considered before. To let go. To let her.
His dick liked the idea. He was painfully hard, his body all on board with her wicked suggestion. And he was tired of saying no to her.
Hell. Those pretty hands of hers wrapped around his dick were the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen. She just held him, the sweet heat of her palms cupping his flesh. Learning him.
“You do whatever you want, darlin’.” The rough growl of his voice broke the silence stretching out between them as he turned and leaned back on his elbows, giving her full access to his body. She stepped closer into the vee of his spread thighs, her fingers working his belt buckle to get his jeans open farther.
Moments later she had him out of the denim completely.
Her fingers danced up his thighs, and heat exploded right through him. Christ, she was really going to do this. Outside, where anyone could see them. If she wasn’t careful, he’d come before he ever got inside her, because being the center of Rose Jordan’s attention had him hard and aching. And that was before her fingers found his balls and cupped him, the pads of her fingers teasing his aching flesh.
“Let’s see if you mean those words, Cabe,” she breathed. “You want to be very still for me right now.”
