But she couldn’t do that—it would be the worst lie of all.
“What do you mean, ‘He didn’t know’?” Clare shot back. “He knows now, so you must have clued him in at some point—unlike Shane and me.”
“When I found out I was expecting you,” Casey said, thinking that telling the truth was overrated, “I led Walker to believe there was another man in my life. A year later, when Shane was on his way, I knew I had to tell Walker, because he was sure to guess everything if I didn’t. He was madder than a bee-stung mule at first, but not because I’d gotten pregnant again—he wanted to us to be a family then, the four of us, but I wasn’t ready for that.”
“You weren’t ready,” Clare echoed, scornful again. Inside the house, Walker, Brylee and Shane talked in quiet, peaceful voices, and it seemed to Casey that they were apart from her and from Clare, in some other, unreachable dimension. “You still had to win all those Grammies and CMA awards, didn’t you? Make all that money?” A shuddery pause followed. “Did you even think about us, Mom? Did it cross your mind that maybe Shane and I would have liked to grow up in a real house, instead of airplanes and tour buses and hotels, with a mother and a father and a regular life?” She gestured, taking in everything around them. “We could have lived right here, gone trick-or-treating at Halloween, ridden the bus to school in town, had friends we’d known since kindergarten, put up the Christmas tree in the same part of the same room every year. We could have been regular people—but, no. We had to have a mother so famous she couldn’t even take us to Disneyland without being mobbed!”
Where did all that come from? Casey didn’t dare ask. Not yet, anyhow. All these years, she’d thought her confident, capable children were happy living unconventional lives, at least most of the time. Obviously, that had only been partially true. Her head began to ache.
“If I could go back,” she said, “I’d do things differently.”
“Easy to say,” Clare retorted. She’d put her stubborn face on, and she meant to wear it for a while. Maybe forever.
“I love you and Shane with all my heart,” Casey said. “I always have.”
Clare made a contemptuous, huffy sound, barely audible. “Whatever,” she replied in bitter dismissal.
After that, an invisible wall came down between the two of them, and Casey knew there would be no reaching the girl, that the time for talking was over, for now anyway.
She stood up and went back into the house, leaving Clare in the porch swing and feeling as though she’d aged twenty years in the past hour. Worse, she was literally beside herself, a step removed from her body, oddly detached, like an observer following close on her own heels.
Brylee crossed to Casey when she entered the kitchen, gave her a wordless hug.
Casey was profoundly grateful for the other woman’s support, though she had no idea how long it would last, and hugged her back.
Shane remained remarkably unshaken—it was as if he’d been told he’d won the lottery, and maybe he had. The prize was a father—just what he’d always wanted.
It hurt to know, with such certainty, that she, Casey, for all her love, for all her devotion and hands-on parenting, wasn’t enough.
“I want to be Shane Parrish from now on,” the boy announced.
Casey merely nodded, unable to look at her son or at Walker, keeping her eyes cast downward as she stood there in the middle of that plank floor, stricken all over again.
“So,” Brylee said, suddenly, expansively and with a little too much enthusiasm, “suppose I take my niece and nephew out for a nice, long horseback ride? Followed by supper in town?”
“Yes!” Shane said.
“Might be a good idea,” Walker agreed, standing now. Casey wondered when he’d moved, gotten up from his chair at the table. That peculiar feeling of being separated from herself remained, and the headache was getting worse, too.
“I’m not sure Clare will want to—” Casey began, but she lost momentum before she could finish the sentence. She didn’t know what Clare would do next, or what she would say.
To Casey’s surprise, though, Brylee easily convinced Clare to join her and Shane on an impromptu adventure, and Casey watched through the window above the sink as the three of them headed for the barn, accompanied by Brylee’s dog.
Walker moved to stand behind Casey, slipping his arms loosely around her waist, giving her plenty of room, even inside his embrace. He’d always had a way about him, an ability to comfort her without making her feel cornered. “The worst part is over,” he told her, his voice husky, resting his chin on the crown of her head.
The dam broke then, the one Casey had erected years ago, before she had Clare and Shane, even before she’d known Walker. A virtual torrent of emotion flooded through the barrier that had held for so long—sorrow and loss, shame and regret, loneliness and exhaustion. Casey, disoriented before, landed back in her own skin with a crash, and a cry of pain escaped her.
Walker turned her around, held her. And she sobbed into his chest, clung to his shoulders with both hands, convinced she’d collapse if she let go.
She knew that, like most men, Walker was uncomfortable with tears, but he didn’t shush her, didn’t tell her not to cry, didn’t prattle on about how everything would turn out just fine. He merely stood there, as solid as the trunk of a venerable Ponderosa pine, holding her. It felt so right, the heat and the substance of him, the strength.
That was the trouble, of course, because it wasn’t right. When she allowed Walker to take care of her this way, when she allowed herself to be a mortal woman with needs and feelings instead of a powerhouse, a star, a success, things happened. Babies happened.
For all that, she couldn’t pull away from Walker.
Curving his hand under her chin, he lifted her face, kissed away her tears. “Casey,” he ground out, holding her tightly.
Their lips came together naturally—inevitably—seeking at first, tentative, then demanding, fusing them together on some deeper level, where nameless forces surged and swelled, as powerful as a rain-swollen river on a downhill course.
They remained where they were for a long time, kissing, pausing to catch quick, desperate breaths, kissing again.
Vaguely, at the far periphery of her awareness, Casey heard voices—Brylee, Clare, Shane—heard the clomp of horses’ hooves out in the yard, the jingle of bridle fittings, and Brylee’s dog, barking with excitement.
They might have been in another world, all of them, quite apart from the one she and Walker and—somewhere nearby, Doolittle—occupied.
Her common sense, normally her north star, her personal compass, deserted her, and that wasn’t even the worst part. No, the worst part was, she didn’t care about practicality, about consequences, about old lessons learned the hard way and the scars they left behind.
All she wanted was to lose herself in Walker for a little while.
Need crackled between them, almost tangible.
“Are you sure?” Walker asked, reading her with perfect accuracy, the way he’d always done, at least when they were intimate.
“Yes,” she said, because she’d been hungry for so long, lonely for so long, brave for so long. She didn’t want to be her usual strong, independent self—no, instead, she yearned to give in, to let Walker’s strength be enough for both of them, if only for a little while.
He lifted her easily into his arms, carried her out of the kitchen, along a corridor.
She knew she ought to stop him, right this instant, before things went any further, but she couldn’t. Make that, wouldn’t. Alarm bells should have sounded in her head—history was about to repeat itself—but they didn’t. She wanted this, wanted to be swept away, wanted Walker.
Soon, they were in his bedroom.
Momentarily, sanity returned. What if Brylee and the kids came back?
Casey didn’t realize she’d asked the question out loud until Walker answered it, his breath warm against her ear, making her skin tingle even as he eased her dow
n onto the bed.
“They’ll be gone a while,” he promised hoarsely. “Bless her, Brylee will see to that.”
He was already undressing Casey, even as he spoke—or was she undressing herself? Or him? Either way, their clothes seemed to evaporate, his as well as hers, like morning dew under the light of a summer sun.
Casey murmured Walker’s name, feeling the steely length of him against her side as they lay together, a breeze blowing through, cooling their flesh, if not their ardor.
His mouth fell to hers then, consuming, igniting flames within flames within flames. There was no stopping this, Casey knew—they were already lost, both of them.
Walker nibbled at her earlobe, traced the length of her neck with his warm mouth, found her breast, took her nipple with a greedy tenderness that sent hot, sweet pleasure skewering through her.
It’s been so long, her body whispered—or was it the wordless language of her soul that spoke so eloquently? Walker—Walker—it’s been so long.
Casey couldn’t get close enough to him; her hands roamed up and down the muscular length of his back, urging, urging.
With a low groan, Walker parted her legs, found her most sensitive place and began plying her with his fingers. He knew just how to touch her, lightly but not too lightly, increasing the turmoil inside her with every skillful motion of his hand.
Casey arched her back, biting down hard on her lower lip to hold back a cry of raw, primitive surrender. “Now,” she pleaded, nearly strangling on her own voice. “Please, Walker—now—”
But Walker would not be rushed; even in the state she was in, she should have remembered that. No, he’d take his time with her, enjoy both her breasts at his leisure, kiss her senseless, and then he would—
The memory of all those other times when they’d made love electrified her, made her gasp again in anticipation, and Walker, understanding, chuckled low in his throat.
“Hang on, cowgirl,” he murmured, his lips moving against the quivering flesh of her belly now and headed slowly, inexorably south. “We’re just getting started.”
“I don’t think—I can wait—” Casey whimpered, already wet, already expanding to receive him, take him inside her, hold him there.
“That’s all right, too,” Walker replied. And then he was there, burrowing through with his tongue, teasing her, finally taking her into his mouth.
Her entire body buckled in a spasm of frantic welcome as he shifted to his knees, slid his hands under her backside, raised her high off the sheets and went right on partaking of her, now gently, now hungrily, as though she were a honeycomb, ripe and juicy and sweet.
She buried her fingers in his hair, holding him to her even as she thought she’d surely explode into flaming fragments at any moment, like a dying star, dissolving into darkness. The pleasure was all-consuming and yet not nearly enough, a mere promise of what was still to come.
Casey rasped Walker’s name, fevered, desolate, triumphant.
Walker went easy on her for a few moments, then grew more demanding again, more insistent.
Her first climax erupted like a geyser, propelling her skyward in dizzying spirals of splintered light, the force of it stopping her breath behind her throat, even as her body flexed in glorious abandon, and flexed again. Then again.
When it was over, Walker lowered her back to the mattress and Casey, though saturated with satisfaction, every muscle and bone melted, craved more. She wanted, needed, to feel Walker deep inside her, part of her, needed to be driven mad all over again by the friction as they moved together, in that most private, most sacred dance of all.
She could only mutter his name, though, because she’d given him all her strength, shamelessly thrown everything she had, everything she was, into that shattering, seemingly endless orgasm. For all its power, she knew it was only the first of many, each one wilder than the last, each one hurling her outside herself, outside the ordinary, everyday world, into realms of mystery and magic.
Walker shifted, and the thought flitted through Casey’s mind that he was putting on a condom, and she wanted to laugh for sheer joy, though she knew she didn’t have the breath for even that much effort. He’d been wearing a condom when they conceived Clare. Shane, too.
Did he remember that?
Dazed, Casey shook her head from side to side in answer to her own unspoken question. Walker was a man—was he ever—and using protection was probably a matter of habit with him. Just another responsibility.
He wasn’t thinking about making babies.
“You’re sure?” he rasped, poised above her now, careful not to crush her beneath his weight.
He’d always asked her that, no matter how heated the moment, and he cared about her answer. If she’d asked him to stop, he would have.
“I’m sure,” she said instead.
In one powerful, earth-shattering thrust, Walker claimed her, made her his own, and she immediately climaxed again, softly, though each motion of their joined bodies aroused her more, drove her ever upward, toward another, greater release, and then still another.
Walker maintained control, even as she flailed beneath him, gave herself up to him completely, over and over again, repeated his name like a ragged litany.
Finally, though, he let go, driving deep, his whole body seizing like a single muscle as, with a long, low groan—her name—he spilled himself inside her.
Afterward, they lay in silence, too spent to talk, arms and legs entwined, skin slick with perspiration. The breeze was like a cool caress, soothing and soft. Somewhere nearby, a clock ticked, the old-fashioned kind with actual works inside, steady as a heartbeat.
Casey, flung heavenward with the last, most ferocious release, drifted slowly back to reality, floating like a feather or a snowflake. And the instant she came in for a landing, soul and body colliding with a wallop, she sat bolt upright and said, “Oh, my God, Walker—what have we done?”
He chuckled, still languid. “If I remember correctly,” he murmured, “we had sex.”
“Ha, ha, very funny,” Casey said scathingly, though it was herself she was angry with, not Walker. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d done anything to discourage him—she’d been as unstoppable as a tigress in mating season.
Now, though, she broke free of his embrace, scrambled out of bed and began snatching her discarded clothes from the floor. “I can’t believe we let this happen!”
Walker eased himself up onto his elbows, maddeningly unperturbed, bare to the waist. Mercifully, the sheets covered him. “Simmer down,” he advised, his eyes twinkling. “We’re both grown-ups here.”
Casey wouldn’t look at him. She was struggling awkwardly into her underwear, nearly hog-tying herself in the process. “Which means we ought to know better,” she sputtered.
With a chuckle, Walker got out of bed, magnificently naked, and retreated into the adjoining bathroom. Moments later, he was back, bending to retrieve his jeans from the floor, slipping them on without a hint of self-consciousness.
By then, Casey was back in her clothes and facing the mirror above Walker’s antique bureau, trying to do something with her love-tangled hair. Not only had it come loose from its ponytail, it looked as though she’d been swinging upside down from a trapeze. Bedhead didn’t begin to describe the phenomenon.
Walker sat down on the foot of the bed, the sheets and covers so tangled that a tornado might have just passed through, and watched her, feet and chest bare, hair still mussed from her fingers delving through it. His expression was calm, amused—and a little on the smug side.
And why wouldn’t he be smug? He’d just turned her inside out—again—and she’d let him know it, too, carrying on like that.
If she’d been the violent type, she’d have thrown something at Walker Parrish’s handsome head just then.
“Don’t you grin at me!” she commanded, shaking an index finger for emphasis.
“Still the same old red-hot, complicated Casey,” Walker drawled, undaunted, grin firmly
in place. “A she-wolf in bed, a spinster schoolmarm out of it.”
“What if we did it again, Walker?” she demanded, agonized by the prospect and, at the same time, hopeful. “What if we made another baby? How would we explain that to Clare and Shane?”
“I used a condom,” he reminded her.
“Yes,” she agreed tersely. “Just as you did when we conceived Clare, and then Shane.”
He looked thoughtful for a few moments, then immediately brightened. “You’ve got a point there,” he admitted, willing, for once, to concede that she was right about something. Another pause followed, while he pondered the matter in an annoyingly unhurried way. “If you’re having my baby,” he finally concluded, “you’re going to have me to deal with, from here on, because this time, we’re doing it right.”
“What does that mean?” Casey all but whispered the words.
“It means, Casey Jones, that married or not, if you’re having my child, this time, we’re going to raise him or her together, as a team—not with you in one place and me in another.”
And that, considering the note of finality in Walker’s tone, was that.
CHAPTER NINE
WALKER MIGHT HAVE LOOKED calm on the outside, but on the inside, a whole passel of contradictory emotions churned like the contents of a blender on high speed. Sorting all those feelings out was going to take some time, and he couldn’t just sit there on the end of his bed until things fell neatly into place, now, could he, because if he did, he’d be there till his beard grew in white.
So, suppressing a sigh that would have revealed too much, he stood up, cutting a wide swath around a still-rattled Casey, made his way over to the closet, found himself a clean shirt and shrugged into it. He got the buttoning wrong on the first try and had to start over. Finally, he sat down again, to put on fresh socks and haul his boots back onto his feet.
This probably wasn’t the time, he reasoned, in the privacy of his sex-addled head, to tell Casey that the condom hadn’t held. She was on the verge of a meltdown as it was.
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