Two in the Saddle

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  She was probably acting like an idiot, but surely any red-blooded woman would be in turmoil after watching his reaction after taking a bite of a cinnamon roll. And the sensuous way he’d licked his fingers belonged in an X-rated movie. Travis eating a cinnamon roll was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen.

  “If you’re out, that’s okay.”

  “Out?” She realized that she’d totally forgotten why she’d opened the refrigerator in the first place.

  “Of cream.”

  Cream. She’d been staring at the container for at least thirty seconds without seeing it. “It’s right here. I was taking a little inventory of my supplies while I was at it.” She pulled the cream carton from the shelf and closed the refrigerator door with careful efficiency.

  “Gwen, are you okay?”

  She turned to him with what she hoped was a pleasant smile, an easygoing smile, perhaps even a jaunty smile. “I’m fine.”

  He gestured behind her. “The reason I ask is that you just put the coffee in the refrigerator.”

  Hot embarrassment flooded through her. “Oh, dear.” She plopped the cream on the counter and jerked open the refrigerator door. Sure enough, the coffee carafe sat on the top shelf where the cream had been.

  “Iced coffee is good, too.” He was right behind her, and his voice was dangerously close to her ear.

  “I want it hot.” She grabbed the carafe and realized what she’d said. “My coffee,” she amended quickly. “I like hot coffee.”

  “I like it any way I can get it.” His body brushed hers and his spicy scent teased her senses as he reached around her and nudged the refrigerator door closed.

  Her pulse raced and the carafe trembled in her grip. “Be careful,” she said, her voice quivering. “I have hot coffee here.”

  “Are you about to throw it on me?” He drew her hair aside and nibbled at her earlobe.

  She gulped for air as the gentle rake of his teeth drove her insane. “Travis, this isn’t what I—”

  “You fixed yourself up for me,” he murmured as he caressed the nape of her neck. “Don’t tell me this isn’t what you want. We both know better.”

  “I don’t know what I was thinking!” she wailed. Her knees threatened to give way as he kissed the tender spot behind her ear.

  “Then let me tell you what you were thinking.” His warm breath tickled her skin as he slid his arm around her waist and drew her back until she made easy but definite contact with his erection. “You were thinking that we wouldn’t be taking care of Lizzie every minute.” He cupped her breast softly, teasingly. “You were thinking that we might need a way to pass the time.” Only a slight tremble in his voice betrayed his excitement. Otherwise he seemed in perfect control.

  She groaned and closed her eyes. The quiver in his voice told her he was going wild inside, as she was. Yet he touched her with such finesse, such exquisite restraint. He must know that when a woman was completely aroused, a light caress had more power than a heavy hand. Oh, yes. He knew that a slow approach would hypnotize, robbing her of the will to resist. Of course he knew. He was an expert at this sort of thing.

  Her mind emptied of everything except his hand at her breast, his lips brushing the outer rim of her ear. Her body grew as limp and cooperative as a rag doll’s. “I’m…going to drop this…coffeepot,” she whispered.

  “No, you’re not.” His voice was tight with strain as he took the carafe from her nerveless fingers. It clicked down on the kitchen table behind him.

  “Travis—”

  His breathing harshened. “You’re going to let me love you.” He slipped a silk-covered button of her blouse from its loop.

  “No,” she said softly, knowing it was a token protest that meant nothing. He was in command.

  “Yes,” he murmured.

  Her heart raced with anticipation. The house was completely, utterly still, except for the fevered rasp of their breathing. Travis took his time, dropping butterfly kisses along her shoulder as her blouse gradually fell away. Another button gave way, and another. Her breasts ached with the need to be touched.

  And then a baby’s cough broke the silence.

  Travis’s hand stilled.

  Elizabeth coughed again and started to cry.

  Travis kissed Gwen’s neck firmly and quickly, then released her. Without a word he left the kitchen and started up the stairs.

  Fumbling to refasten her blouse, Gwen followed him on wobbly legs as the baby’s coughs became louder and her wails higher pitched. She met Travis coming down the stairs with a flushed and unhappy Elizabeth in his arms.

  “What can we do?” he asked.

  “Try cleaning out her nose and giving her some juice, I guess.”

  “She feels hot.”

  “We’ll take her temperature, then. I have a thermometer in my bathroom. Bring her in there.” She retraced her steps back through the kitchen and opened the door into her suite.

  When the house was built at the turn of the century, the rooms had been used as maid’s quarters. Gwen had a small sitting room, a bedroom and a bathroom that were off-limits to guests. She’d meant to keep them off-limits to Travis, too, yet the scene in the kitchen had demonstrated how easily she could give up her promises to herself.

  “Try rocking her in the rocker while I get the thermometer.” She hurried into her bathroom and took the thermometer out of an oak cabinet. A couple of years ago she’d replaced her old one with a digital model that registered by placing it the patient’s ear. She’d justified it as a service for guests with children, but lately she’d begun to realize her “guest” purchases were really for the family she longed for.

  The wooden rocking horse in a bedroom upstairs, the toy train on the library mantel and the children’s books scattered on shelves throughout the house had all been collected in hopes she’d someday become a mother. If she allowed herself to get sidetracked with a confirmed bachelor like Travis, she was in danger of being involved with him when Mr. Right came along. She really needed to stay away from Travis Evans.

  Yet when she walked into the sitting room and found him rocking Elizabeth in the delicate antique chair padded with ruffled chintz cushions, her heart squeezed in a way that didn’t bode well for staying away. He cuddled the fussy baby against his broad chest and dabbed at her nose with a tissue he’d taken from a box on the table beside him.

  And he was singing to her. Off-key.

  He glanced up and grinned sheepishly. “I’m a lousy singer, but Lizzie never seems to care. It usually helps her quiet down.”

  Gwen swallowed the lump in her throat. It wasn’t fair that a man who was so good with women and children should refuse to become a husband. “I’m sure it does.” She walked over to the rocker and crouched beside it. “Let’s see what her temperature is.” Murmuring to the baby, she eased the thermometer cautiously into her outer ear.

  “Doc Harrison has one like that, too.”

  His voice rippled over her nerve endings. He could probably recite names from the phone book and get a response from her. Or from any woman. Perhaps that bothered her the most—knowing he’d used his seductive techniques on so many other lovers. She longed to believe that the chemistry between her and Travis was unique, but that would be fooling herself, which was a dangerous thing to do.

  She glanced at the numbers on the thermometer. “A hundred degrees. That’s not too bad.”

  “You’re sure that thing’s working?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “Test it on me to make sure. It could be broken.” He cupped his hand around Elizabeth’s soft cheek. “She feels hot to me.”

  “Okay. Let me sterilize it first.” She returned to the bathroom and tried not to think of the tender way his fingers had curved around Elizabeth’s cheek. Gwen ached with longing. Travis’s touch against her bare skin would be heaven…and hell, because he would be a temporary lover.

  After she’d sterilized the tip of the thermometer, she returned to the sitting room and crouched be
side the rocker again. “Hold still. This might tickle.”

  He angled his head. “I’m not ticklish. Do it.” He continued to stroke the baby’s cheek, and it seemed to have a calming effect on her. She still coughed every so often, but she stopped crying.

  It wasn’t surprising, Gwen thought as she prepared to insert the thermometer in his ear. Travis had an amazing ability to get females to do what he wanted them to do. He was one of the most appealing male specimens she’d ever known.

  Even his ears were attractive. She liked the way his thick brown hair fell into a soft wave right there. As she slid the thermometer carefully into the outer channel, she imagined finger-combing his hair back and outlining the curve of his ear with her tongue. It wasn’t an appropriate thought considering he was holding a sick baby, but Travis inspired inappropriate thoughts.

  And he definitely had nicely formed ears. She suspected that everything about Travis was nicely formed. Her womb tightened at the thought.

  “Mmm.” He closed his eyes. “Feels sort of sexy.”

  “That’s because you think everything feels sexy.”

  “Just about everything does, if you do it right.”

  Zing. A painfully sweet sensation settled between her thighs. “Ninety-eight-point-six,” she said as calmly as she could manage. She lifted the thermometer from his ear. “It’s working.” She stood and moved away from his commanding force field.

  He gazed down at Elizabeth and sighed. “I wish I could do some hocus-pocus and get her well.”

  “It’s a cliché, but love is sometimes the best medicine.”

  Travis looked up at her. “Then she’ll be better real quick. I’m crazy about this little kid.”

  Gwen experienced a sudden and unworthy stab of jealousy. She was ashamed of herself, resenting his feelings for Elizabeth. Gwen loved the baby, too, and was thrilled that Travis was so devoted to her. After all, Elizabeth had a tough situation—a mother on the run and an uncertain family future, depending on who her father was. The baby needed all the luck and love she could get.

  Gwen laid down the thermometer. “Why don’t I go upstairs and get the suction bulb so we can take care of her nose? Then we’ll give her some juice.”

  “Is it okay if I stay here? She’s used to the rocker at the ranch, and I think this makes her feel more at home.”

  “Sure. I’ll be right back.” As Gwen left the room, she wondered if she’d ever find a man with Travis’s obvious capacity to love…and a desire to stay.

  LIZZIE WASN’T the only one who felt at home in this cozy suite of rooms, Travis thought. Gwen had a real gift for putting things together so a person felt welcome. He pictured sharing a meal at the drop-leaf table, or enjoying some serious cuddling on the love seat in front of the small fireplace.

  Sure, the decoration scheme was a little flowery, but even though he was a guy, flowers appealed to him. Actually they had the potential to get him hot. Flowers had always seemed like sex symbols to him.

  Besides, he liked the idea of making love to a woman in her surroundings. It felt as if he’d penetrated her inner sanctum, breached the last of her defenses, touched the core of who she was. That turned him on.

  He’d always been careful, though, not to let a woman touch the core of who he was. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but it was the way things had to be. He could afford to fall in lust, but not in love.

  From that standpoint, Gwen made him nervous. His need for her felt different, more urgent, less manageable than his other affairs. At the beginning of a relationship, he usually pictured the end of it and started preparing for that inevitable day. But the end of this relationship wouldn’t come into focus for him.

  In his lap, Lizzie coughed. He lifted her to his shoulder and patted her back as she coughed again. Poor little tyke. He didn’t approve of a system that let babies catch colds. If he was in charge of the world, nobody would get sick until they were at least twenty-one and could treat it with booze.

  Maybe Lizzie was throwing off his normal sense of timing with Gwen, he thought. It sure was possible, especially considering how Lizzie’s illness made him feel raw inside. Maybe he only thought he needed Gwen more because she represented help with the baby.

  Then again, maybe it was those damned cinnamon rolls. He’d never tasted anything so fantastic in his life. They were almost as good as sex. Almost.

  Gwen came back into the room holding a small towel and a basin with the suction doohickey inside it. There was nothing deliberately sexy about the way she moved, and there was definitely nothing sexy about the job she proposed to do. He winced thinking about it, in fact. And yet he couldn’t stop looking at the swell of her breasts or the curve of her hips. She was so womanly he could barely stand it.

  She picked up one of the two ladder-backed chairs flanking the drop-leaf table and carried it over next to the rocker. “She probably isn’t going to like this.”

  Travis eyed the rubber bulb with suspicion. “Then let’s skip it. What if you suck out something important?”

  She smiled. “I don’t think that’s possible. I read the directions, and we’re not applying much pressure. And if we don’t do this, she’ll have trouble drinking from a bottle.”

  “I know. This morning I tried to teach her to blow out of her nose, but she didn’t get the picture. She can sneeze, but she can’t blow yet. I showed her about twenty times, but she just stared at me.”

  “She’s just too little for some of these tricks. Come on, let’s try this thing. Prop her up in your lap.”

  “Okay.” Travis surrendered to the inevitable. The doc had said they needed to get some fluids in the baby, and she couldn’t drink as long as her nose was plugged. “Here we go, Lizzie.” He propped her so she was facing Gwen. “Remember, this isn’t me doing this. It’s your mean Auntie Gwen.”

  “Thank you, Benedict Arnold.” Gwen picked up the bulb.

  Travis cringed. “This is a gross concept, you know that?”

  “Then don’t watch.”

  “I don’t believe I will.” By turning his head to the right, he could look at Gwen’s cleavage, instead. That was an excellent distraction until Lizzie started to yell. He glanced back at the sputtering, red-faced baby as Gwen pulled away from her. “Hey! You hurt her.”

  “She probably didn’t like the sensation, but one nostril is free. Hold her so I can do the other one.”

  “But listen to her! She hates this.”

  “She’ll be happier when she can breathe again.” Gwen looked him in the eye. “She won’t go through her life pain and hassle-free, Travis. Sometimes she’ll have to suffer a little in order to make progress.”

  “Says who?”

  Gwen smiled and shook her head. “It’s a fact of life.”

  “Not when I’m around.”

  “Then it’s a good thing you won’t ever see a woman give birth. You’d probably outlaw the process forever.”

  Travis had thought about what women had to go through to bring kids into the world, about what Jessica had gone through, alone, to produce Lizzie. The concept did make him flinch and feel slightly sick to his stomach.

  “You might be right,” he said. Then he gazed at Lizzie. “But I would have given anything to see her born,” he added quietly.

  7

  ONE BY ONE, Travis was knocking down Gwen’s preconceived ideas about him. The man she’d thought she knew would never have admitted regret at not being there when his baby was born. She’d been attracted to him when she thought he was sexy but not very sensitive. Sexy and sensitive might be more than she could handle.

  She finished cleaning out Elizabeth’s nose. “There. Now let’s try a bottle of juice.”

  “Would you be able to take her for a little while?” Travis asked. “My arm is cramping up. Old steer wrestling injury.”

  “Sure thing.” She set down the basin and lifted Elizabeth into her arms. The baby’s breathing was still wheezy, but sounded a little clearer than it had before.

  “That�
�s better.” Travis stood, rolled his shoulder and flexed his fingers. “It stiffens up on me if I stay in one position too long.” He held out his arms. “I can take her back now, if you want.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll feed her.” Once again, Gwen had been caught staring, fascinated by the ripple of muscles when he rolled his shoulder and the grace in those long, talented fingers. And if she wasn’t mistaken, he’d just admitted a physical weakness, a very unmacho thing to do. “Have you ever tried massage?” she asked.

  He glanced at her, that gleam back in his eyes. “Are you offering?”

  She swallowed. “Uh, no.” She sat down in the rocker, positioned the towel over her shoulder and propped Elizabeth there, so the baby could breathe easier. The seat cushion still held Travis’s warmth, and Gwen began to tingle in a very specific spot. “I don’t really know anything about massage.”

  “I do. I could teach you what to do.”

  She just bet he could. She wished she’d waited to sit down until the rocker cushion had cooled off. The heat he’d left there was doing things to her that made her blush. “We’ll see. Better go get her bottle of juice ready before she plugs up again. I put all that stuff in the kitchen.”

  “I saw it. Be right back.”

  Once he was out the door she sighed and relaxed back against the rocker. She would get through this episode one moment at a time and hope, for her own sake, that she didn’t end up in bed with this man.

  She adjusted Elizabeth’s position against her shoulder to give the little girl maximum chance to breathe without so much effort. Elizabeth coughed and laid her head on Gwen’s shoulder.

  “You’re exhausted, aren’t you, sweetheart?” Gwen murmured. “Can’t sleep, can’t eat. It’s almost like being in love.” She had the unwelcome thought that she hadn’t been sleeping or eating well recently, either.

  “Who’s in love?” Travis asked as he came back with the bottle of apple juice in his hand.

  “Matty and Sebastian,” Gwen answered quickly. She settled Elizabeth in the crook of her arm and took the bottle Travis handed her. “I’ve never seen two people so much in love.” She offered the bottle to Elizabeth, and the baby took the nipple, which was a good sign.