by Donna Alward
“I’ll miss you if you go, but there’s no point in ending this before you leave.”
“You’re not hearing me.”
“No, I’m not agreeing with you. Big difference.”
“I don’t like feeling the way I did just then. I’ve been honest with you from the start. I’m leaving. If I stay, I’m going to resent the hell out of you eventually.”
“Or you won’t.”
She shook her head and sighed. “I’m never going to find out. I’ve spent my whole life staring down the barrel at someone else’s resentment of me, and I’ll never do that to anyone. I have to put my needs first, and I need to know if I can be a designer.”
“You already are.”
“I mean on a national level. Designing dresses out here where there are so few options doesn’t mean my designs have any real appeal.”
“They appeal to me.”
She gave a quick laugh. “No, I appeal to you. You’d rather see a dress on the ground than on me.”
He winced. “Guilty.”
“See?” She sat up and ran a hand through her mussed hair. “You don’t get it.”
“I get that you had other plans. So did I. And then the woman I’d been trying like hell not to think about invited me to her apartment and my world changed.”
She shook her head. “Nothing changed. You want a wife and a mother for your kids. I want to go to New York and be a fashion designer. Those two paths do not cross.”
She’d thought about it. He could tell by her puzzled expression she’d considered it. Which meant he wasn’t alone in knowing there could be so much more between them than simple satisfaction. “I could wait. In case New York isn’t what you really want.”
“Or you could trust me. Once I leave this town, I’m never coming back.”
“When are you leaving, exactly?”
“July first. I wanted to leave right after Drea’s graduation, but her friends are having parties for the week after, and then it’s just a week more until the quilt show in Sisters. My aprons have always done well there, so I’ll have cash in hand when we’re looking for an apartment.”
“We’ll have to work hard if we want to burn this out in a month.” He ran the back of his fingers along her rib cage. “But if you’re going to go, that’s a good time. I’ll have prep for the Buckaroo that week and then the event the week after.”
“Ah yes, when the whole town goes rodeo crazy and the Weston Ridge brand is on everything.”
“I ought to put it on you.” He gripped her firm ass. “Right about here.”
“You have a month to put it on me as much as you want.” She wiggled her tight little body against his and he was instantly up for another round.
“As much as I want? You ought to come out to the ranch. I could take you for a ride to some secret spots.”
She sat up, straddling his hips. “If it’s a ride you want, cowboy, we don’t have to leave this room.”
“Damn, woman. As much as I love you horizontal—”
“And vertical. And upside down.” She leaned down until her breasts teased his chest. He turned to face the window.
“If you keep doing that I’m going to lose my train of thought.”
“That’s the point.” She licked his neck, then sat up again. “I’m not going to your ranch. I don’t have anything to wear.”
He covered her breasts with his hands and squeezed. He wanted her again. So much that he was having a hard time thinking straight. “Something easy to take off. The standard boots, jeans, and a T-shirt will be fine.”
“I don’t wear T-shirts. They have no definition. I have skinny jeans, but I’m not interested in getting them dirty. Same with my boots. Ranching isn’t my thing, cowboy.”
He supposed she was right, and as much as he wanted to change her mind, it wouldn’t matter in a month. She’d be gone, and he’d be working too hard all summer to think about how much he missed the feel of her, the taste, the way she looked at him like he was her favorite dessert.
“Then I suppose I’ll be doing a lot of riding in town, then.” He tilted his head toward the nightstand. “Grab another condom. It’s time to saddle up again.”
Chapter Six
Jules slapped the alarm clock before it had a chance to beep. Her heart pounded, and Slade was still balls deep inside of her, his body wrapped around hers from behind. They hadn’t slept at all.
“This day is going to suck.”
He chuckled behind her, his big hand on her breast. “I love the way you suck.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.” She sighed and tried to wiggle away, but he held her in place. “I have to shower or the Better than Sex Cakes are going to be made of actual sex.
“Now that would send sales through the roof.” He kissed the nape of her neck and her exhausted body stirred to life once more.
“Aren’t you tired?” She knew by his honed muscles he was in better shape than she was, but after the sex marathon they’d had, he ought to be spent too.
“I’m going to nap while you bake, then wear you out completely when you come back.”
She groaned as he pinched her nipple. “That sounds amazing, but I can’t. I have a dress fitting today. Here, so you can’t stay.”
“When can I come back?” He nipped at her earlobe and started to move inside her again. The man was a machine.
“When can you get away?” She had half a mind to cancel her appointment, but it was for bridesmaid dresses and the wedding was in three weeks. His sister Jacy’s wedding. Reality crept in like a winter chill. She reached back and tried to still him with a hand on his hip. “Babe, we need to think about this.”
“You need to think about coming again.” He kissed the sensitive skin between her neck and shoulder, his hand drifting from her breast, over her belly and between her legs.
She thought about arguing, but logic couldn’t compete with Slade Weston. He knew just how to play her, like he was an artist and she was his masterpiece. He circled his hips, stirring up her emotions along with her arousal. She gave herself up to him, let him please them both until she slipped under the release of another orgasm, this one deep inside as if her body had to find new ways to come after such a long night.
“You’re amazing,” he whispered in her ear, his breath hot against her sweaty skin.
“I didn’t do anything that time.” He slipped out of her and she sighed, too exhausted to move.
“You exist. That’s enough for me.” He sat up behind her on the bed and ran his calloused hand from her ribs to her waist and over her hip. “What happens if you don’t cake?”
“Ben will pound on the door to wake me up and then he’ll tell me how to bake because I’m in his way.” She sighed and turned to sit beside him. “And I’m not interested in explaining why I’m so tired. I don’t want opinions on what we’re doing.”
“I’m not a secrets kind of person.”
“You really want to hear how I’m leading you around by your cock and ruining your chance of finding a decent woman?”
He laughed, which woke her up completely. He must have no idea the reputation she’d been stuck with in this town.
“That’s what they’ll whisper. When they bother to lower their voice.” She got up and rescued her dress from the ground. She ought to have just answered the door naked last night. “And then when I leave, they’ll be all up on you trying to console you from the damage I’ve caused.”
“Shit, you’re serious.” He swung his legs to the side of the bed.
“It’s one way to get you a wife, I suppose. But I’d rather if we didn’t broadcast this. Ben worries, and he has this misguided notion I have some honor left.” Her eyes stung, probably from lack of sleep. She needed a quick shower and to get downstairs. Once she got into the routine of baking, this would pass. The self-pity and self-doubt and this nagging feeling that after she moved on, she’d never find anyone to measure up to him.
“Hey.” Slade gripped her arms from behind,
stalling her on her walk of shame to her own bathroom. “I happen to like Jules, so don’t put her down.” He dropped a kiss on her shoulder. “I might have to start defending her honor too.”
“I need to shower.”
“I need to know you’re okay.”
She turned and gave him her best smile. “I’m just tired. I’ll be good by next week, promise.”
“Next week? Oh no, I’m not waiting that long.”
“If you ask someone to watch your kids, aren’t they going to ask where you’re going?” He closed his eyes and she knew she had him. “Next Friday, you and me. I’ll get someone else to cake.” She gave him a quick kiss. “Now let me wash off the sex smell or there will be no secrets to keep.”
…
Jules gripped the steering wheel of her compact SUV as she drove beneath the Weston Ridge arch, gravel crunching beneath her tires and dust kicking up. Her stomach kept pitching and rolling like it had ever since Carly had called and begged her to change the dress fitting from Jules’s loft to the ranch. Maybe if she hadn’t spent the night before twisted up in Slade she might be able to do this without feeling like Alice down the rabbit hole.
The scent of grass and sunshine filtered into her car as she drove between two pastures and up the hill to the giant ranch house that looked down on it all. She couldn’t even imagine what it must have been like as a kid, to come from a place so solid and vast. She’d never lived in the same apartment for more than a few months until Ben dragged her to Opal Creek. Her mother was always looking for the next best thing, something better around every corner. They always moved on as soon as the shine wore off.
The mid-afternoon sun lit the fields up like a movie set. She passed stocky, black cattle, which stood still in the verdant grass as if they’d been placed there, and a bright red barn that made her think she was driving back through time and into a painting. She didn’t fit in this kind of wholesome setting, even to do something as mundane as fitting some bridesmaid dresses.
At the crest of the hill, she turned toward the house and parked next to Carly’s little red convertible. Carly bought more of her designs than anyone else, so when she’d asked Jules to make the bridesmaid dresses for her best friend’s wedding, she’d been flattered. When Jules mentioned to Jacy Weston her latest passion, making simple sundresses out of vintage bed sheets, the decision to use them in the wedding had been made. But that was before she’d propositioned the bride’s big brother. Before she’d done the unthinkable and started considering pointless endeavors like long-distance relationships or a design school closer to home. Which wouldn’t work. She’d learned that lesson from her mother’s revolving door of boyfriends. The moment you changed for a man, you lost yourself and he lost interest in you.
“You found it.” Carly’s voice drifted down from the wraparound porch of the giant ranch house. She bounded down the stairs, to where Jules had parked her car.
Jules couldn’t help but grin to see Carly wearing exactly what Slade had suggested—blue jeans, boots, and a Tequila es Mi Amigo T-shirt. She’d gone the other way, wearing her favorite dress and heels. She always felt pulled together in the dusty blue dress, pockets hidden in the a-line skirt. The mandarin collar gave it a kind of east meets west fusion she liked to play with. She opened the back of her SUV and grabbed the garment bag and her box of tricks. She’d done enough custom fittings to keep all the necessities in a train case.
“Thanks again for coming out,” Carly said, taking the garment bag from her. “Vicki is still not here. The girl is a total fail as a bridesmaid.”
Jules followed her up the wooden stairs, telling herself her pulse quickened from the climb. Not because she was walking into the house Slade was raised in. Not because she was the one crossing the line in the sand she’d drawn herself.
“Jules!” Jacy called out as they stepped inside. A massive stone fireplace anchored the great room, a giant dining table angled toward the back, oversize soft green couches creating a seating area for a dozen in the middle and bookshelves lining the far wall. A tiny girl with a halo of blonde hair sat in the corner, so still she seemed to be a doll. She wore the cowgirl apron Jules had given Slade and gazed up with haunting blue eyes, then took the pink blanket from her lap and covered her head, hiding behind it with her stuffed rabbit. Jules’s heart squeezed in her chest, the moment tattooing itself there.
“Tell me you can fix this thing.” The pretty redhead stood atop a coffee table, draped in an old-fashioned lace bridal gown, yellowed from age.
“Without destroying it,” Joanna Weston added from her daughter’s side. She smiled wide, her embroidered green tunic setting off her vivid green eyes. “It’s been through four generations. It feels wrong to take it apart now.”
Jules ignored the way her chest tightened at this glimpse inside Slade’s private world, a place she didn’t belong. Instead, she set down her case and stepped to Jacy, examining the dress that was easily three sizes too big for its fifth generation.
“Do you think we could bleach it?” Jacy asked.
Jules gasped, a vision of all the antique, handmade lace dissolving chased through her mind like a nightmare. Something so steeped in tradition had to be handled with care. She tested the layers of material with her fingers, the love and labor evident in the hand stitching. It was the kind of garment she’d love to spend hours going over, studying.
“Honestly?” She peeked up at Jacy’s expectant gaze. “I’d rather start from scratch than risk ruining this trying to get it back to white. I can carefully clean it and alter it to fit you. A good fit can do wonders for any gown.”
“Plus, you don’t need to wear white.” Carly said before chuckling.
Jules nodded. “With your coloring, a soft candlelight white would be more flattering. And I do think I can get it there.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Carly said, a mischievous twinkle in her dark eyes. “You should tell her. Jules is like a vault.”
The best friends exchanged a glance before Jacy shrugged. “I’m a little bit pregnant. We were already getting married, but things happen. My clothes fit fine. I don’t need some kind of maternity dress. Right?”
“How little bit pregnant are we talking here?” She took in Jacy’s slim figure, no evidence of a baby bump yet. But she didn’t want to be sewing in a panel the morning of the big day.
“I’ll be eleven weeks by then.” Jacy worried her bottom lip.
Joanna shook her head. “I think you’ll be fine. I didn’t show until my last trimester with any of my babies except Nathan. But he was my fifth and I think my body just gave up at that point.”
“We’ll make it work.” Jules pasted on a smile and turned back to her case. The little girl had been peeking at her, but covered her face again when Jules spied her. She took a deep breath as she took up her chalk and pins. She had no idea what pregnancy had been like for her own mother. She’d been six when Andrea was born, but she didn’t recall any talk about where babies came from or belly rubbing. In her childish mind, it was as if Drea just showed up one day.
The phone rang and Joanna stepped to another room to answer it. Jules knelt beside the table and got to work on marking and pinning, her mind a whirl of ways to turn the gown into something Jacy would like while still preserving the integrity of it.
“Can you really fix this thing? I wanted something simple. This is so…girly.” Jacy whispered.
“Of course. And if not, I can design something simple in no time.” Though she didn’t have any time to spare. There was a wedding this weekend she had to deliver the bridesmaids dresses for, not to mention trying to make as many aprons as possible for the quilting convention. She didn’t overpromise, but there was something about Jacy she’d always liked. A straightforwardness she admired.
“Be careful, Jace,” Carly said as she unzipped the garment bag and removed the bridesmaids dresses. “Jules can make anything sexy.”
Jacy responded with a laugh. “That would be a first for me, bu
t I’m already pregnant, so I think I’ll be okay. And my brothers will have to learn to deal.”
Jules cleared her throat. “As much as I like to play up the sexy, for a wedding I like to focus on pretty. I’m much more comfortable with my little sister looking beautiful then looking like, well, me.”
A puzzled expression crossed Jacy’s face before her features lifted in a smile. “That’s gorgeous. I’m jealous. I’d wear that.”
Jules turned to see Carly had slipped into one of the bridesmaid dresses. Broad purple ribbon at the waist set off the tiny purple flowers in the pattern. Because she’d made so many dresses for her already, the dress flattered her figure to perfection from the halter neckline to her tiny waist. It looked even better on Carly than she’d hoped.
“Maybe I should wear one of those dresses. They’re more, I don’t know, me.”
Carly shook her head. “We cannot match.”
Jacy shrugged. “Remember how you used to say we’d have a double wedding?”
“Yes, but that was because I knew that left to your own devices, you’d have said your vows in the barn. The whole production would have stunk like cow.”
The best friends laughed together, making Jules acutely aware that she’d never felt that kind of bond with anyone. Every confidant she’d ever tried to have had turned her secrets into gossip, every friend had bailed the moment their boyfriend had looked at her too long. And with their mother dying so young, her relationship with Drea had always been more maternal than sisterly. The princess of Weston Ridge really did have it all. Thank goodness she was so damned nice, or it would be hard not to hate her.
Joanna returned to the room wearing a grim expression.
Jacy put her hands on her hips. “I swear if that was Vicki with another excuse, she’s out.”
Her mother sighed. “She’s marrying your cousin.”
“Is she? Because I have half a mind to make sure that never happens. She’s a flake of the first order, and we have no time for that around here. Uncle Dean needs to talk some sense into him.”
“He’s tried.” Joanna stepped behind Jules, silently inspecting her work.
