While she nestled against him, Rex reached out to run a hand down the length of her bare leg. He caressed the smooth curve of her calf, then eased his hand back up onto her thigh just beneath the brief hem of the dress.
“So pretty,” he whispered in her ear. “You’ve always had the sweetest little body.”
He could feel her tension, but she didn’t move or try to pull away.
“Kiss me, Linnie,” he murmured. “Not like an old friend, either. Kiss me for once as if you really meant it.”
She shook her head against his chest, keeping her face hidden.
“Kiss me,” he urged her, his voice husky. “You know you want to, Lin, and I’m dying for you. Come on, just one kiss.”
She raised her face and his mouth found hers in an explosion of feeling. Rex was astonished by the intensity of his own need. Her lips were so soft, so sweet and yielding. He could feel her straining toward him, and sense the rising passion in her.
His only coherent thought was that he wanted this woman more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He wanted her now, immediately, right here on the sun-warmed grass.
Barely aware of what he was doing, Rex began to whisper urgently and tug at her dress. He reached under the smocked bodice to caress her shapely breasts, ran his hand under her skirt to find the edge of her panties, slipped a finger beneath the elastic edging at the leg to touch her moist warmth.
He heard her gasp, felt the way she shuddered in his arms. For a few moments she responded, opening her mouth wide and driving her tongue against his. The deep kiss sent him even wilder with passion.
But then, as abruptly as the storm had come upon them, it was over.
Lindsay whispered something and pulled away from him. Scrambling to her feet, she rushed inside the office. A few minutes later when she came out again, her clothes were in order, her face tight and composed.
“Well, I have a lot to do,” she said over her shoulder as she walked past him down the steps, “and I’m sure you’re busy too, so I guess we’ll see each other bright and early tomorrow morning.”
He remained on the step, watching thoughtfully as Lindsay hurried up the path in the direction of the ranch house.
A casual onlooker would think their searing moment of mutual passion had never happened, that his kiss had meant nothing at all to Lindsay. But Rex could see the unnatural stiffness of her shoulders as she walked away from him, the slight trembling of her hands, and he knew better.
He leaned back against the door frame, still watching with narrowed eyes as her dainty yellow-clad body disappeared from view.
During that embrace he’d felt her brief uninhibited response, and he knew she wanted their sexual union as much as he did. Whatever was holding her back, it seemed to be getting weaker.
Rex was winning.
And now they’d have a whole long week on the trail, with private walks in the woods and long starry nights, and all kinds of other opportunities for intimate talks and caresses.
Rex smiled dreamily, resting his head against the office door and lifting his face to the warmth of the afternoon sun.
His body was still on fire, aching with need, but both his heart and mind were full of the woman he’d just held. He wanted to drown in her sweetness, to spend a lifetime holding her and learning everything he could ever know about the mysteries of this one person. He knew well enough how lust felt, but his yearning for Lindsay Duncan went far beyond that.
He loved her.
The sudden realization was stunning, but also strangely liberating. It explained his solitude all these years, his restlessness and inability to commit to much of anything in his life.
But now that he knew the truth, Rex intended to act on it without wasting any more time. Before they returned from the mountains, he and Lindsay Duncan were going to have things sorted out between them, and all the obstacles removed.
The thought made him so happy he couldn’t lounge in the sun any longer. He got up from the steps and jogged along the path toward the barn, moving easily, as carefree and full of anticipation as when he’d run along these same trails as a young boy.
* * *
THE DAY OF THE camping trip arrived in a whirl of activity.
Lindsay was up just after four in the morning. She rushed into jeans and sweatshirt, made herself a hasty breakfast in the predawn light and did a last-minute check of her own duffel bag, making sure she’d packed everything she was likely to require for a whole week in the wilderness. It was a relief to be so busy that she had no time to think about what she and Rex had done the day before.
She hauled her equipment down to the office building where the boys already milled around, shouting and laughing. Little Danny was so tense with excitement that his face looked pale and all his freckles stood out in sharp relief.
Lindsay smiled and hugged him, checking to be sure he was warmly dressed.
Finally she tossed her duffel bag into the van with the rest of the equipment and settled in the front seat next to Sam, who was going to drop them off at the foot of the trail where their horses waited.
“So, are you wishing you could come along?” she teased, looking fondly at her uncle’s profile under the old Stetson.
He tossed her a rueful glance and jerked his thumb toward the back, where a good deal of scuffling and yelling could still be heard.
“You’re joking, right?” he said. “A whole week on the trail with these young hellions? I’d rather be skinned and hung out to dry.”
She laughed, pleased by the touch of humor in his voice. Sam hadn’t found much to joke about lately, for some reason.
Lindsay turned and glanced into the back seat where Jason Bernstein and Allan Larkin were arguing loudly over how to read a compass. Lonnie Schneider sat next to his friend Allan, munching furtively on something. When he caught Lindsay’s eye, he hid the food hastily in his pocket and looked out the window.
Tim Bernstein sat with his twin brother, his finely drawn features tense with anticipation. He coughed a couple of times and Lindsay rummaged hastily in her pack, making sure she’d remembered to bring enough of the boy’s asthma medication.
In the rear seat of the van, Clint Kraft sprawled with legs extended and eyes closed, looking bored and detached. Beside him Danny bounced up and down, red cowlick waving like a flag as he strained against his seat belt to see out the window.
If Danny got any more excited, he was in danger of flying into little pieces.
Lindsay settled back, still smiling.
This trip might have been a tremendous amount of work, but it was worth all the effort just to see the look of wonder on that small freckled face and feel the surges of excitement from the older boys.
All except Clint, of course, who still gave the impression of being bored to tears.
“I wonder if Clint really hates this whole idea as much as he lets on,” she murmured to Sam under cover of the noisy uproar from the middle seats.
“He’s a hard one to read,” Sam said. “A closed book. Most boys I can get figured out before too long, but not that one.”
Lindsay gave him a thoughtful glance but her uncle didn’t seem disposed to talk further. She nodded after a moment and rested her head against the back of the seat, letting her eyes drift shut as she thought about Rex and their passionate kiss the day before.
She still didn’t know what had come over her. After all her firm resolve to keep him at arm’s length and not allow herself to get involved in his silly, upsetting game of seduction, she’d practically thrown herself at the man. In another few minutes they would both have been naked on the grass.
Lindsay grimaced and hugged her arms, trying not to remember the feel of his hands on her bare skin, his probing tongue and hard mouth.
They’d kissed a few times when they were teenagers,
but it had never been anything like that.
Lindsay knew it was important to keep reminding herself Rex Trowbridge was no longer her childhood playmate. He was a grown man now, powerful and sexy and dangerous.
Far too dangerous. But so desperately attractive...
“What was that?” Sam asked.
Lindsay opened her eyes and looked over at him. “Beg your pardon?”
“I thought you said something just now.”
Lindsay shook her head, feeling prickly and embarrassed. “I was just...thinking out loud, I guess.” She glanced restlessly out the window. “I hope Rex is going to be there to meet us. Are you sure he knows the right time?”
“Don’t worry,” Sam told her. “His secretary is driving him out from Casper to meet you all at the ranch. He said he’d be there by 6:00 a.m. to help load the packhorses, and I expect he’s going to keep his word. Rex was always reliable.”
Lindsay wondered how she was going to react when she saw him for the first time after their embarrassing kiss. She could almost feel the heat of his lazy blue eyes and see that meaningful grin.
A whole week on the trail, she thought, turning to look bleakly out the window at the countryside flowing past. A week of days to avoid talking with him about anything significant, and nights of lying alone in the tent with him so close by.
“Jason!” she said sharply, turning to look over her shoulder again. “And Allan! Stop that yelling, both of you.”
The boys glanced at her, clearly startled, then lowered their voices and continued to argue passionately over the compass.
Lindsay turned back, avoiding Sam’s curious glance, and watched as he pulled off the highway and started up a graveled road that led to the ranch at the foot of the mountains.
* * *
REX WAS THERE when they arrived, just as he’d promised. His secretary had already left, heading back to the city. He sat on a fence rail in the pale morning light wearing jeans and a denim windbreaker, his duffel bag at his feet, talking with Karl Fuller, the rancher who’d boarded their horses overnight.
When Sam and Lindsay drove up with their lively crew of passengers, Rex climbed down from the fence and ambled over to the van. He stood with an arm on Lindsay’s window ledge and smiled at her while the boys tumbled out and began to run across the ranch yard in a wild excess of high spirits.
“Hi, Sam,” Rex said. “Good morning, Linnie. Are you ready for this?”
She was painfully conscious of his nearness. “Ready for what?” she asked, pretending to rummage under the seat for her belt pack.
“Well now...ready for whatever happens on the trail.” His eyes sparkled with teasing laughter. “I’m thinking something might...come up.”
Her cheeks warmed painfully. Lindsay opened the door in his face, scrambled out past him and headed toward the small knot of boys who crowded by the fence with their equipment.
Rex followed her and they both stood watching as Sam pulled the ranch van around, then drove back onto the graveled road with a final wave of his arm.
Lindsay frowned at the van as it vanished beyond a grove of trees. “Why isn’t he staying to see us off?” she asked Rex. “I thought he’d at least want to do a check of all the horses and packs before we left.”
He rested an arm casually around her shoulder. “I guess Sam thinks we’re grown-ups who can look after things by ourselves.”
“Of course we can.” She drew away, not looking at him. “But it still seems odd that he has so little interest in anything these days.”
Rex walked beside her toward the barn where their horses were being prepared for the trip. The pack animals were loaded first, the weight of their burdens carefully distributed to avoid galling or laming the horses. Then, under the supervision of Clint and the neighboring rancher, each boy settled his own bedroll and pack in position and attached them by tying the cantle strings.
Finally, after more than an hour of careful preparations and several last-minute checks, the group was ready to start their first day’s journey into the rugged mountain range.
By now the sun was higher in the sky, and the air had begun to warm, although a fresh breeze still tugged at Lindsay’s hair. She took off her jacket and tied it with the bedroll at the rear of her saddle, then swung herself up onto the big sorrel gelding, who danced and sidestepped a few paces, adjusting himself to the unaccustomed burden of rider and pack.
She reined him in patiently, allowing her mount to get used to the feeling of the long flapping bedroll at his sides. Then she turned around to watch Rex helping Danny onto his little buckskin.
A telltale froth of orange welled around the small mare’s bit, and Lindsay smiled privately, realizing Danny had slipped his horse a smuggled carrot. Sam didn’t normally allow any of the horses to be fed treats while they were working.
But Sam wasn’t here.
Her smile faded as she remembered the way he’d driven off without a backward glance, and hadn’t even stayed to watch as they set out on the trail.
It was so unlike her uncle. Lindsay resolved to have a talk with him as soon as she got back, and try to find out what was going on in his life.
As she watched, Rex checked Danny’s stirrups and cinches, then moved toward his own horse. By now all the boys were mounted and waiting.
Only Rex remained on the ground. Lindsay watched him, holding her breath.
This was the moment of truth. Rex Trowbridge might look like a cowboy in his jeans and windbreaker, and he had a commanding air that made all the boys look up to him. But would he be as impressive when he was on a horse for the first time in almost fifteen years?
As the group watched, Rex gathered the reins, placed his boot in the stirrup and swung himself easily into the saddle. Once mounted, he wheeled his horse around and walked forward a few paces while he settled himself more comfortably.
Lindsay’s eyes widened in amazement.
The man looked as if he’d been born on horseback and never left. His tall body was easy and relaxed, his hands low and gentle on the reins. He urged his horse into a trot and jogged across the field and back, pulling up next to the little group.
“Feels great,” he said with a casual grin. “If everybody’s ready, I guess we can start.”
His laughing eyes caught Lindsay’s, and she realized she must be staring at him in utter shock.
Rex looked so confident and at home on that big horse. In fact, he looked wonderfully, incredibly desirable.
“Lindsay,” he said, “you take the lead, since you’re the one who knows the trail, with Danny right behind you where we can all see him. The rest of you boys fall into place behind Lindsay and Danny. Clint and I will ride at the back and lead the pack horses.”
The boys moved to obey, stringing out behind Lindsay on the trail in single file. Rex and Clint took up the rear, each of them in charge of three pack horses.
They waved goodbye to Karl Fuller and the Bighorn Ranch and set out west toward the range of mountains, passing from open spaces onto a trail thick with pine needles and dappled by sunlight filtering through branches. Magpies scolded from the trees overhead, and squirrels chattered at them noisily as they passed.
Otherwise the silence was profound and rich, almost palpable. Lindsay felt herself lulled and soothed by the gentle rhythm of hooves, the occasional bursts of happy conversation from the boys behind her, the soft creaking of saddle leather and the rustle of the wind in the trees.
For a while she forgot about Rex and their troubling kiss the day before.
She even put aside the painful memories that tormented her every day of her life, and gave herself over to the utter peace and stillness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
REX LOUNGED ALONG at the rear of the group, leading his three horses. Just ahead of him he could see the bulky outlin
es of the other loaded pack animals, and beyond them Clint’s slumped young body in a red plaid shirt and black Stetson. The younger boys were all strung out in the middle of the group with Danny riding far ahead, just behind Lindsay.
She’d attached a string to Danny’s cowboy hat that tied under his chin. The little boy had protested bitterly, arguing that none of the bigger guys had their hats tied on like babies. But the wisdom of Lindsay’s action was immediately apparent, because Danny’s hat almost always hung down on his back, and without the string would have been lost far behind on the trail.
Rex smiled as he watched the flare of Danny’s red curls against the dark-green of the pine branches.
Far in the lead was Lindsay, so distant that she was usually hidden from Rex’s eyes by curves in the trail. But even when he couldn’t see her, Rex could remember every detail of her appearance that morning.
The sunny golden hair, her striped collar above a green sweatshirt, her faded jeans and the leather riding boots she’d been wearing for so many years that they clung to every line and angle of her small feet.
God, how he loved her.
He was hardly able to cope with this enormous flood of tenderness and yearning. In the past he’d felt lustful desire for a lot of women, but that was more like an itch, a purely physical urge that eased as soon as it was dealt with.
With Lindsay he felt utterly different. He wanted passionately to sleep with her, of course. But he also longed to hold her and talk about everything in the world from politics to movies to favorite foods. He wanted to share thoughts and dreams and memories.
What he really wanted, Rex realized, was to have her with him every day, waiting for him when he came home at night, sharing treats and holidays and lazy Sunday breakfasts.
He wanted Lindsay Duncan to be living with him in his house.
Or hers, he reminded himself, thinking about the pleasant log ranch house she’d once shared with her parents. But if Lindsay didn’t want to leave Lost Springs, would he be prepared to give up his city home and lucrative legal practise and move back to the ranch to be with her?
Best Man in Wyoming Page 13
