Slowly she sank to the floor of the stall and buried her face in her hands. Grief welled inside her, burning her throat, stinging her eyes. And with it came a regret so deep that it cut like a knife through her soul.
Eight
Forrest thought he’d been close to losing his mind when he’d returned from the mission in Europe, but his mental state then didn’t hold a candle to the sense of madness that currently had him in its clutches.
When Becky had first told him about her fiancé, he’d been sure that she was lying...so sure that he’d insulted her with his offer to run a trace on the guy. But later, he’d been forced to admit that she really was engaged when he’d had proof of the guy’s existence all but shoved in his face—the phone call, the roses. The one event, though, that had sent him careening over the edge had been Becky’s request for him to teach her how to please a man so that she wouldn’t embarrass herself when she made love with her fiancé the first time.
He snorted, dragging a finger beneath his nose. Love. If that was how a woman in love acted, he wanted no part of matrimony. He’d damn well live out his life alone with no wife to stand beside him and no kids to carry on the Cunningham name before he’d saddle himself with a woman who had no sense of loyalty, no respect for the vows she’d promised to take.
Even as the thought formed, he frowned, trying to place those attributes on Becky. For some reason they just wouldn’t fit. In all the years he’d known her, he couldn’t recall a time when she’d done anything that would make a person question her character. Becky Sullivan was a moral, law-abiding woman. Hell! He remembered a time when she’d found a twenty-dollar bill lying on the street, and hadn’t rested until she’d found the person who’d dropped it. And, God knew, she could have used the money herself.
His frown deepened as he thought of all the work she’d done for the Golden Steer over the years when she could have just as easily accepted the charity his family had offered her and never lifted a finger in return. And as far as being loyal, wasn’t the fact that she had stayed on at the Rusty Corral, taking care of her sorry excuse for a father, working her fingers to the bone to keep the place going, a sign of loyalty?
But she’d sold the Rusty Corral, he argued mentally, still having a hard time imagining Becky ever letting go of the place she’d worked so hard to keep.
Something’s not right, he told himself with a shake of his head. There’s more to this picture than meets the eye. He drove on a few miles, then braced a knee against the steering wheel and reached for his cell phone. He punched in a series of numbers, then brought the phone to his ear, glaring at the road ahead.
“Yeah,” he said to the operator’s offer of assistance. “Wichita. I need the number for John Smythe. That’s spelled S-m-y-t-h-e.”
He waited for a response, impatiently thrumming his fingers against the steering wheel, then frowned when the operator came back on the line. “You’re sure?” he asked uncertainly. “No, I don’t have a street address,” he replied to her question. He listened a moment, then mumbled a thanks and dropped the phone back onto its base on the truck’s leather console.
No John Smythe listed in Wichita, Kansas. He pondered that a moment, then pressed the accelerator a little closer to the floor. Doesn’t prove a thing, he told himself. Lots of folks had unlisted numbers.
And an unlisted number didn’t resolve his questions as to why Becky would sell the Rusty Corral, either.
Still frowning, he drove down Royal’s main street, headed for the Club. He glanced toward the line of cars parked along the street and suddenly stomped a foot on the brake. A horn blared behind him, and he quickly swung his truck into an empty parking space.
He shouldered open the door and jumped down, grabbing his hat before he pushed the door to behind him. Settling his hat on his head, he rounded the rear of his truck and backtracked to the car that had caught his attention. He stopped behind it, his gaze settling on the rear bumper and the name of the rental company displayed there. Moving quickly, he headed for the sidewalk and looked up and down, searching for the driver of the car. He spotted him half a block away.
“Hey!” he called, starting after him. “Hey, John! Wait up!” But the man kept walking.
Cursing under his breath, Forrest broke into a jog, ramming his hat farther down on his brow to keep the wind from stealing it. “Hey, John!” he yelled again. He caught up with the guy, and planted a hand on his shoulder and spun him around. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?” he asked angrily.
The guy pursed his lips and lifted an arrogant chin, his eyes like daggers as he met Forrest’s gaze. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, imperiously. He lifted a manicured hand and pushed Forrest’s hand from his shoulder. “I believe you have mistaken me for someone else.” With that he turned and continued on his way, leaving Forrest behind, staring after him.
But Forrest wasn’t mistaken. He knew that was the same man he’d seen sitting on Becky’s front porch. The same one she’d claimed was her fiancé.
Forrest made the return trip to the Rusty Corral in under twenty minutes, burning up the miles with a heavy foot pressed against the accelerator. He braked to a gravelspitting stop in front of the barn and shoved open his door. Once on the ground, he drew in a deep breath.
She’d lied to him. And now it was time to even the score. And he was going to love every minute of it.
He took another deep breath, forcing the tension from his shoulders, then hooked his thumbs loosely through his belt loops and whistled a cheery little tune as he strolled inside the barn.
In the midst of measuring out feed, Becky whipped her head around at the sound of his whistling. “What are you doing back here?” she asked irritably and dumped the scoop of feed into the bucket.
“Two things,” he replied. “First, I want to apologize for how I acted earlier.” At her surprised look, he rubbed a finger beneath his nose, and tried his best to look sheepish. “I guess you were right. Knowing you’d rather marry someone else other than me did put a dent in my ego.”
She jerked her gaze from his and rammed the scoop back into the bin, burying it deeply in the oats. “Apology accepted. What else?”
“Well, I had a thought,” he said, and folded his arms across his chest. Smiling, he rocked back on his heels, feigning nonchalance. “Sort of a way to make up to you for the way I acted earlier.” He paused a moment, taking a deep breath, then went on. “Since your fiancé’s in town, and all, I figure that y‘all will probably get around to doing the big one,” he explained, using her term for the act. He had to work hard to keep from grinning at the horrified look that spread across her face.
She quickly ducked her head and dumped the scoop of oats into the bucket. “Probably,” she muttered and lifted the bucket.
He calmly reached over and took it from her hands and set it aside. “And I know that you don’t want to make a fool of yourself when you do,” he said sympathetically. Smiling, he caught her hands in his and forced them to his shoulders. “So I thought I’d give you a few more pointers, just to show you there’s no hard feelings.”
“I—I think I’ve pretty well got everything down,” she said, and tried to pull her hands from beneath his.
He tightened his grip and stepped closer, successfully trapping her between the wall of the barn and the equally unrelenting wall of his chest. “Oh, there’s a few things, you’ve yet to learn,” he said, pleased when he felt the kick of her pulse beneath his hands. “Like kissing,” he suggested as he dipped his head over hers. He ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, then sipped gently at them. “You’re responsive,” he murmured, withdrawing a little and licking the moisture from his lips as he stared at her sensuous mouth. “I can’t argue that. But you need to be a bit more aggressive. A man likes it when a woman shows a more active interest in what’s going on between them.” He pressed his mouth over hers again, and murmured, “Give me some tongue. Tease me a little.”
She pressed her lips firmly together
and dug the heels of her hands into his shoulders, trying to push him away. He smiled against her mouth. “Come on, Becky,” he urged silkily as he rubbed his chest seductively across her breasts. “Let me teach you all I know.”
He felt the stab of her hardened nipples against his chest and the sudden trembling in her legs against his thigh, and knew he’d succeeded in arousing her. Shifting, he purposefully grazed her abdomen with his as he nuzzled his way across her cheek to her ear, then swept behind it to nip at the tender skin there.
She shivered, but continued to press against his shoulders, trying to push him away. “Woody, don’t.”
“Don’t, what?” he asked as he slid his mouth down the smooth column of her throat.
“Don’t do this to me.”
“I’m not doing anything to you. I’m trying to get you to do something to me.” He closed his mouth over a breast and nipped.
She gasped and dug her fingernails deeply into his shoulders. But she wasn’t pushing away any longer. She was holding on.
“You like that?” he whispered, then nipped again. “Tell me how that feels, what it does to you.”
She sucked in a trembling breath and closed her eyes, her head lolling back against the wall.
He dropped one of his hands from hers and slipped it between her legs. She bucked at the unexpected touch. “Can you feel it here?” he whispered, cupping her heat. “When I touch your breasts—” he paused to suckle the one nearest him “—do you feel it here, as well?” he asked, and gently squeezed his hand around her.
“Yes,” she whispered, frantically nodding her head. “Yes, there.”
He wedged his hips more firmly against hers. “Does it feel good?” he asked and nipped at her breasts again, this time succeeding in capturing a nipple beneath the fabric that covered them.
“Yes,” she cried, arching against him.
He lifted his face to hers and increased the pressure of his hand. “Show me,” he said, his voice growing husky. “Show me how good it feels.”
Though Becky knew that making love with Woody again was a mistake, the memory of which would haunt the lonely nights ahead of her, on a sob, she wrapped her hands around his neck and crushed her mouth against his. She nipped his lips, as he had hers, then dived her tongue inside when they parted. With a wantonness she was only beginning to realize she possessed, she stroked his tongue, mating with it, matching the rhythm of his hand between her legs.
Crazed by the sensations that pulsed and built inside her, she pushed away from the wall. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and stretched to her toes, matching her body to the length of his. She ground her hips against his, wanting, needing to be closer still.
“Make love to me, Woody,” she gasped, dropping her hands to tug at his belt.
Forrest wasn’t sure at what point he lost the need to get even to the more powerful urge to have her. But it was there, burning beneath his hands as he ripped open her shirt’s snaps, baring her breasts to a hunger that gnawed low in his gut. He pressed hot kisses over the swelled mounds he’d exposed while she fumbled with the buttons that lined his fly. He suckled greedily while she struggled to free him, and when she took him in her hand...he knew there was no turning back.
The feel of her trembling fingers wrapped around him, the heat that rose between them, threatening to consume them both, blinded him to everything but the carnal pleasure she drew with each tremulous stroke.
Wanting to touch her as well, he quickly unfastened her jeans and worked his hand inside the denim. One brush of his fingers against the moist velvet folds and he knew touching wasn’t going to be enough. He wanted inside her.
With a low, feral growl, he caught her up in his arms and closed his mouth over hers. Holding her high on his chest, he crossed to a stack of hay, his belt buckle slapping against his thigh. He set her down, his mouth still ravaging hers, and worked her jeans over her hips and down her legs. Wedging himself in the V formed by her spread knees, he drew her hips toward him. “Mine,” he whispered, drawing back to meet her gaze. “You’re mine.”
He thrust forward, driving inside her, watching her eyes darken, then glaze. He squeezed his own eyes shut, groaning at the pleasure that shot through him in waves. He felt her hand on his cheek, then it was on his neck, pulling his face to hers. Her mouth met his, her breath warm against his lips, her taste as sweet as it was erotic...and he was lost.
Holding her hips between his hands, he arched against her again...and again...and again...and again. Driving himself against her until perspiration beaded both their bodies and they were both gasping and clinging to each other. He felt the pressure building inside him, the answering pulse of her feminine walls against his engorged shaft. A moan built that seemed to come from the deepest depths of his soul, and he dragged her from the hay and clutched her to his chest. She wrapped her legs around his waist and arched against him, crying out his name as he pumped his seed into her.
He stood, his back bowed, the muscles in his arms and legs trembling at the strain, until the tension eased from her body and she collapsed against his chest, burying her face in the curve of his neck.
He felt her hands wind around his neck, the moist warmth of her breath against his skin. And he knew that no matter what, he wasn’t going to let her go. He wasn’t going to lose her.
He pressed his lips against her hair as he eased her down on the bale of hay. “Becky,” he whispered, placing his hands at her cheeks and turning her face up to his. “Marry me. Now. Right now.”
He watched the color drain from her face, the passion from her eyes.
She brushed his hands away and slipped from the bale of hay and around him. “I can’t.” She grabbed her jeans and tugged them on.
Forrest watched her, shocked by her refusal. Then the anger came singing back. “Why the hell not? And don’t give me that crap about being engaged.” He jerked his own jeans back to his waist and began furiously to button them. “I saw your fiancé in town,” he added scathingly. “John Smythe? Right? Funny. The guy didn’t seem to recognize his own name when I called out to him.”
Becky froze with her hands on the plackets of her shirt. Slowly she dropped them to her sides, knowing the game was over. “I’m not engaged,” she murmured and dipped her chin in order to see to fit together the snaps that lined the front of her shirt.
“Now there’s a surprise,” he said sarcastically. He shoved his belt through the last loop and hooked the buckle. “What I’d like to know is why you said you were in the first place.”
Though a lie would have been easier to offer, this time Becky gave him the truth. “Because you hurt my feelings.”
“What!” he cried, then demanded, “When?”
“The afternoon you first proposed.” She combed her fingers through her hair, plucking at the pieces of hay that had somehow managed to embed themselves there.
Forrest remembered Hank’s comment about how a woman didn’t like being referred to as a spinster, and realized the old cuss had been right. “I didn’t mean to offend you by referring to your spinster status,” he said gruffly.
She shot him a dark look.
He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and tossed his hands up in the air. “Hell. You know what I mean.” At a loss as to what else he could say, he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I just wanted to get married, was all,” he muttered.
“You just wanted to get married,” she repeated, her voice mocking, “and it didn’t matter to who, just so long as you got yourself a wife. So you asked good ol‘ Becky, thinking you were doing me a big favor by doing so.”
He scowled at the sarcasm in her voice. “That wasn’t the way it was.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Oh, really? Then was it because all those other women turned you down? The ones you wined and dined after you got back from Europe?”
“I didn’t ask anybody to marry me, except you,” he cried indignantly.
“And why did you ask me?” she asked,
her voice rising. “Did you wear yourself out romancing those other women so much that you didn’t have any romance left to offer anyone else, so you turned to good old Becky, thinking I wouldn’t require any?”
It took him a minute, but Forrest finally noticed the tears that gleamed in her eyes, and realized how deeply he’d hurt her with his backhanded proposal. “I’m sorry, Becky,” he said, and meant it with all his heart. “It never occurred to me that you would want to be romanced.”
She snorted a laugh that lacked even a glimmer of humor. “No, I’m sure it didn’t.” She turned and picked up the bucket he’d taken from her earlier. “You’ll have to excuse me, Woody,” she said tersely as she brushed past him. “I’ve got work to do.”
He watched her stride angrily from the barn, and thought it best to let her go. At least for the moment. When Becky had a bee in her bonnet, Forrest had learned years ago to stay out of her way. Besides, he had some thinking to do. If Becky wanted to be romanced, then he’d romance her.
But first, he was going to have to find out how a man went about doing that.
The Royal Diner was the perfect place for heavy thinking. With the jukebox pumping out a popular country tune, and the scent of grease thick in the air, Forrest slid into his favorite booth and gave a nod at the coffeepot Anna held up in silent invitation from her position behind the counter.
She quickly crossed the room and upended a cup in front of him. “Have you heard anything from Blake?” she whispered.
Regretfully he shook his head. “Not recently. But we’ll hear something soon, I’m sure.”
Her brow furrowed with worry. “I hope so. I fear for his and the children’s safety.”
“Hey, Annie! Where’s my fries?”
Forrest glanced in the direction of the counter and to the disgruntled customer who’d shouted the question, then back at Anna. “Has his drawers in a twist, doesn’t he?”
Billionaire Bridegroom Page 13
