by Sandra Brown
"Well, I think that was a lovely gesture," Laurie said, coming to Devon's defense. "But I can't say that I feel sorry for Alvin. Those Cagney kids were allowed to run roughshod over everybody without any parental supervision. It's a wonder to me they're not all behind bars by now."
"What about Jack Ed?" Chase wanted to know once he had contained his laughter.
"They've got an arrest warrant out for him. Since he thinks he's in the clear, he shouldn't be too hard to find."
"Oh, I'm so glad you're off the hook," Tanya said.
"Hopefully things will get back to normal now," Sage said. "By the way, Lucky, I went into town this morning and saw Susan Young at the dry cleaners. She kept her eyes to the floor. That's the first time since I've known her that she hasn't looked down her nose at me."
"Her dirty, rotten trick almost backfired this time," Chase said. "It put the fear of God into her."
"Or the fear of Lucky," Sage said, grinning at her brother.
Chase stood and extended a hand down to assist Tanya up. "I'm going to the office and call the insurance company. Now that we've been cleared of any criminal charges, they can process our claim."
"What will we do with the money?" Lucky asked him. "Pay back the bank in full, or replace the equipment we lost in the fire?"
"We need to discuss how to allocate it," Chase said.
"Not right now, you don't," Laurie said. "I don't want talk about business to spoil the mood." She took Tanya's arm as she walked with her to the door. "How's the house hunting? Find anything yet?"
"This morning," Tanya reported with a smile. "Marcie took me to see one I really liked. I want Chase to see it."
"Soon," he promised.
"How are you feeling?" Laurie inquired.
"Fit as a fiddle. A little indigestion in the evenings."
They said their good-byes and left. Celebrating his brother's liberation, Chase honked his car horn as they sped down the lane toward the main road.
"Know what I feel like?" Lucky said. "A good, galloping ride. Who's game?"
"Sage and I have to pass," Laurie said. "We've got dental appointments in town."
"Oh, Mother—"
"I won't cancel it again, Sage. I've canceled three times already."
After an exchange that Sage was destined to lose, she reluctantly followed her mother out the back of the house where Laurie always parked her car. Lucky turned to Devon.
"That leaves you."
"I really should be getting back to Dallas."
"Mother obviously expects you to stay another night."
"How do you know?"
"She didn't say goodbye."
"She did so."
"That? That wasn't one of her formal good-byes. Her formal good-byes take forever. Lots of hugs and Kleenex and stuff."
"There's nothing to keep me here any longer, Lucky."
"Surely you can spare an hour for a horseback ride," he said cajolingly. "Besides, you can't leave the family without first going through the rite of a formal goodbye."
His smile was so disarming, she capitulated after offering only a few more token excuses.
"Give me time to wash off my black eye and change clothes," she said, heading for the stairs.
"Meet you in the stable."
* * *
Devon reigned in behind Lucky, choking on the dust his mount had kicked up. "No fair," she shouted. "You cheated!"
"Naturally," he admitted breezily as he swung his leg over his saddle and dismounted. "How else could I be guaranteed to win?"
Devon slid from her saddle and jumped to the ground. "Then Lucky is a misnomer. You win by cheating."
Laughing, he took the reins from her and walked both horses into the stable. Its shadows were cool and refreshing in comparison to the sunny heat of the afternoon.
"I've had my share of luck, too," he told her. Skillfully he removed the saddles from the horses, then began walking them up and down the center aisle of the stable to cool them off. Devon walked alongside him.
"Is that how you got your nickname?"
"Sort of."
"Who gave it to you?"
His tanned face broke into a wide grin. "Chase."
"Why?"
"Well, he and some of his buddies…" He paused and glanced down at her. "Sure you want to hear this?"
"I'm sure."
"Okay. Just remember you asked."
"It sounds sordid."
"It is. One night when I was about fourteen, I blackmailed Chase and some of his friends into including me when they took out one of the boys' family car. We ended up over in Kilgore at a bowling alley. They'd gone there looking for a woman."
"Just any ol' woman?"
"No. A particular woman."
"Dare I ask why? Here, let me help." She scooped grain into a feed bucket while Lucky rubbed down the gelding she'd been riding. "Tell me about the woman."
His hands, one holding a currycomb, worked efficiently and smoothly over the animal's flesh. "She had a stupefying body, and showed it off to the yokels like us. Got her kicks wearing tight sweaters without a bra. That kind of thing."
They moved to the next stall and began working together on the horse Lucky had been riding. "What happened?" Devon asked as she positioned the feed bucket where the animal could reach it.
"I guess I wanted to prove that I was as much a stud as the rest of them even though I was younger. So I approached her and struck up a conversation."
"About what?"
"My father, who had been falsely accused of being a spy and was imprisoned somewhere behind the Iron Curtain."
Devon's hands fell still. She laughed with disbelief. "And she bought it?"
"I guess so. I never knew. Maybe she was just tired of the bowling alley. Anyway, when I told her I was collecting aluminum cans to recycle so I could raise the money to buy his way out of a Communist country, she invited me to her house and said I could have all the cans I could find."
Devon followed him to a deep utility sink at the back of the building where they washed their hands, sharing a bar of soap. "Meanwhile, Chase and his friends don't know what you're telling her," Devon said as she shook water off her hands before pulling a towel from the rack.
"Right. They thought she was taking me to her house for prurient purposes." He bobbed his eyebrows. "Behind her back, I was giving them the high sign, fanning my face, stuff like that, which would indicate that she was hot for me and vice versa."
"I've got the picture."
"So I rode with her to her house. I felt like a damn fool fishing soda cans out of her trash and placing them in the grocery sack she had provided. Although the scenery was good."
"Scenery?"
"The body."
"Oh yes, the body."
"She was an adolescent boy's dream. From an adult point of view—my taste has been considerably refined," he said, raking his eyes down Devon's slender shapeliness, "I realize she was a little overblown. Back then, though, I thought she was something.
"So, with my eyes glued to her bosom, I'm riffling through her garbage looking for cans, and she's chattering about how admirable it is of me to undertake this dangerous mission and how terrible it must be to be imprisoned in a foreign land. She had a ten-plus body, but a single-digit IQ."
"The type who causes the feminist movement to nosedive."
"Exactly. She was a prototype."
He led Devon into a small room at the back of the stable. In it were a couple of chairs, a double bed with an iron headboard, which at some point in its long life had been painted china blue, and a compact refrigerator.
He pulled the string dangling from the ceiling fan, and it began to hum as it circulated the warm, still air. He took two canned drinks from the refrigerator and handed one to Devon, opening the other for himself.
"She never made a move on you?"
He shook his head with chagrin. "In retrospect I scolded myself for laying it on so thick. I finally worked up enough nerve to embrace her, and
she comforted me! Saying things like 'Poor baby.'
"In her eyes I was too damn noble to be corruptible, much less horny. When it came time for me to go—when there were no more cans in the house—I told her I'd go out the back. See, I knew Chase and the others would have followed us and were watching her house.
"With this rattling sack of cans in my arms, I went out her back door and hid in the bushes. It was an hour longer before the other guys started honking the car horn for me. I had taken off my shirt, given myself a few scratches across the chest and belly, messed up my hair, all to give the general impression that I'd just been laid by a she-cat."
Devon's expression was a mix of incredulity and hilarity. Groping behind her for the edge of the bed, she sat down. The ancient springs creaked. "I can't believe this. Proving your manhood was that important to you?"
"At that point in time I guess it was. Anyhow, the guys fell for it. By the time I got finished with my breathless, lurid account, they thought she'd taken me to bed and that I had experienced what they'd only dreamed about. That's when they started calling me Lucky. To this day, they don't know any different."
"Not even Chase?"
"No." His brows steepled. "You're not going to tell him, are you?"
Laughing, she flung her arms behind her head and fell back onto the bed. "And spoil the masculine myth? I wouldn't dream of it."
"Good." He sat on the edge of the bed and smiled down at her. "The point would be moot anyway, because it wasn't long after that night that I really became a man with a girl in my algebra class."
Devon's smile faltered; she averted her eyes. "Women have always been easy conquests for you, haven't they?"
She started to sit up, but Lucky slid his palms against hers and exerted enough pressure to keep the backs of her hands lying supine on the cheap bedspread beneath her.
"All but one, Devon. Nothing with you has been easy."
"Let me up."
"Not yet."
"I want to get up."
"So do I," he whispered hoarsely before covering her lips with his.
Their mouths came together hungrily and clung. He thrust his tongue between her lips, between her teeth, into her mouth. Their fingers interlocked as he moved his body above hers and used his knee to separate hers. He released her hands and drove his up through her loose hair. They held her head still while his mouth gently ate hers. All resistance gone, she closed her arms around his torso, hugging him to her tightly. Her hands ran up and down his back, gripping the firm musculature.
Overhead the fan droned, fanning their bodies, which burned hotter by the second.
From the stable came an occasional snuffling sound made by horses. But the throaty sounds of want and need were all that echoed through their heads.
He tore his mouth from hers and peered deeply into her eyes. "I want you, Devon. Damn, but I want you…"
He kissed her again, ravenously, while he grappled with the buttons on her plain white shirt. When they were undone, he pushed the fabric aside. The front clasp of her bra fell open at a flick of his fingertips. He caressed her. His eyes adored her. His mouth drew in her sweet flesh and sucked it tenderly.
"Lucky," she breathed, half in anguish, half in ecstasy. Her fingers tunneled through his hair and clasped his head to her chest. Her thighs parted. He nestled his middle in her cleft, moved against it, rubbed it.
He kissed her breasts again and again; using his tongue to excite them. When she thought she couldn't be drawn any tighter, any higher, he brushed her nipples with rapid flicking motions of his tongue until they were tingling.
For weeks he had tried convincing himself that he wanted Devon Haines merely because he couldn't have her. He had told himself that his imagination had run rampant and that their one time together hadn't been as unique as his memory had made it out to be. One taste of her, however, had shot that theory all to hell. He wanted her. He wanted her right now, and later today, and tomorrow, and the day after that, forever. He wanted the sight and sound and smell of her, the taste and the textures of her.
He wanted her laughter and her temper.
He'd grown fond of her feminist defensiveness, her clever, analytical mind, and the delightful and annoying little surprises she constantly pulled on him. He wanted everything and all that Devon comprised. As his lips kissed their way down her smooth belly, he unfastened her jeans and worked them past her waist. The open wedge fascinated him and he continued to explore it until he felt the softest hair against his lips.
"Devon," he murmured with longing. "Devon."
Pressing deeper, he parted his lips and kissed her earnestly. There was moisture and heat and need, which he wanted to probe.
"No!" Suddenly she shoved him off, rolled away, and drew herself into a ball. "It's wrong. I can't. I can't."
Lucky stared down at her, gasping for breath, trying to clear his head and make sense of a senseless situation. He saw her tears, but even before then he knew this wasn't some trick. She was suffering spiritual torment and emotional hell, and he couldn't bear it.
"It's okay, Devon," he said with soft gruffness, laying a hand on her shoulder. He made ineffectual attempts to draw her blouse together over her breasts, the tips of which were still rosy and moist from his caresses.
"I'd never want you to do anything that would make you feel bad about yourself or about me. Never."
She turned her head and gazed up at him through eyes shimmering with tears. "I'm married, Lucky." Her voice trembled with desperation. "I'm married."
"I know."
The ancient bed rocked when he flung himself off it and stamped through the door. He paced the length of the stable a couple of times, cursing fate, gnashing his teeth in an effort to cool his passions and his temper. However, when Devon appeared, his temper dissipated. Her despair killed it as nothing else could have. There were still tears in her eyes. Her lips, which were swollen from fervent kissing, made her look like a victim. What did that make him? The culprit?
Yes.
"I'll walk you back to the house now," he said gently. She didn't take the hand he extended to her, but fell into step beside him as they moved from the stable to the house. As soon as they entered, she said, "It won't take me long to pack." Before he could stop her, she ran upstairs.
He wished his mother allowed liquor in the house. If he'd ever needed a whiskey, it was now. The longest ten minutes of his life was spent roaming the rooms of the house, knowing that Devon was upstairs, preparing to walk out of his life forever.
She had reached the bottom stair before he heard her tread and rushed to confront her there. At her side, she was carrying her packed suitcase.
"Devon—"
"Good-bye, Lucky. I'm glad everything worked out well for you. Of course, there was never any doubt in my mind that you would be cleared of the charges. Thank your mother for her hospitality, and say my good-byes to everyone. They're all so kind, so…" When her voice cracked, she side-stepped him and headed for the front door.
He caught her arm and spun her around. "You can't just leave like this."
"I have to."
"But you don't want to, Devon. Dammit, I know you don't."
"I'm married."
"To a guy you don't love."
"How do you know?"
He took a step closer. It was time to play hard-ball. Their futures were at stake.
"Because if you did, you wouldn't have let me make love to you that first time. You weren't that sleepy. And you wouldn't have let what just happened, when you were wide awake, go so far.
"Know what else? I don't think he loves you either. If he did, he wouldn't have acted like he did when you went to explain things. He'd be gut-sick, or outraged, or determined to castrate and kill me, but he wouldn't act like a kid whose favorite toy had been damaged."
Her momentary defiance evaporated, and she lowered her head. "Whatever Greg says or does isn't the issue. It's what we do that counts. I'm leaving, Lucky. Talking about it won't change my mind."
"I can't let you just go."
"You don't have a choice. Neither do I."
Again she maneuvered around him. He delayed her again. "If you did have a choice—"
"But I don't."
"If you did," he repeated stubbornly, "would you want to stay with me?" She did something then that she had avoided doing since coming downstairs—she looked at him directly.
The yearning in her eyes mirrored his own. He exulted in it. Raising his hand, he stroked her cheek. "If you had a choice, would you let me love you like I want to?" he asked in a stirring voice.
The physical and emotional tug-of-war between them was almost palpable. Her eyes cried, yes, yes! But aloud she said nothing. Instead, she turned toward the door. "Good-bye, Lucky."
Abysmally dejected, he dropped down onto the bottom stair and listened to her light footsteps cross the porch and crunch in the gravel driveway. He heard her car door being opened, then closed, and the growl of the engine as she turned it on. He sat there long after the motor could no longer be heard and she had had time to put miles between them.
He listened very closely to something else—his own being. He lusted after this woman's body more than all the other bodies he'd ever known put together. His single sexual experience with her stood out above all the rest. He'd had many that were lustier, crazier, faster, slower, but none as heart-piercingly sweet, none that still haunted his mind.
His heart was saying that his craving for her wasn't entirely physical, however. He could no longer even imagine a life without Devon in it. There would be nothing to look forward to. Days would be dreaded rather than anticipated. Years. Decades.
His head was telling him that the situation was hopeless and that he'd known that from the time she had informed him she was married. Their worst enemy wasn't Greg Shelby; it was their own consciences. Neither could engage in an unscrupulous affair, and if they could, they wouldn't be attracted. They would be two different people. What a brutal irony, that the morals they respected in each other made their being together impossible.
