“So we have chemistry! It doesn’t mean we have to act on it.”
He slowed his pace to better accommodate hers. “Doesn’t mean we can’t, either.” He gave her the sensual once over, his gaze returning to linger on her lips.
Wishing she didn’t want to kiss him as much as she did, Bridgett huffed responsibly. “Am I going to be fending you off?”
Chuckling mischievously, he shot right back at her. “Am I going to be fending you off?”
She couldn’t help it, his tone was so playful, she laughed. “How did we even get on this subject?” she drawled, her voice every bit as exasperated as his had been.
The warm spring breeze wafted through their hair and blew across their bodies. He put a hand around her waist and tugged her against him. Then he leaned over and whispered in her ear. “You were feeling me out on our...situation.”
The unyielding imprint of his strong, hard body had her nipples tingling and pressing against her shirt. “Really?” she groaned, but she didn’t move away. “You had to use that term?”
He met her gaze, his eyes dark and heated. “Can’t help it,” he teased in a way that made all rational thinking cease. Releasing a soft exhalation of breath, he cupped her face and rubbed his thumb across her cheek before dropping to explore the shape of her lower lip. “I like seeing you all spunky and indignant.” Reluctantly, he let her go as the four of them continued on their stroll. “It brings a real sparkle to your eyes.”
She had the strong impression he had been about to kiss her again and still might. “For someone who is unsentimental, you can certainly be a handful.” She lifted a warning finger. “And don’t even think about going down that verbal path...”
He grinned. “Whatever the lady wants...” He made a motion as if he was zipping his lips, locking them tight and throwing away the key.
They walked some more in silence, enjoying the day, each other. With conversation momentarily halted, Riot pulled ahead. Grateful for the much-needed diversion, Bridgett concentrated on her task. As did Cullen.
“Try varying your pace a little.” He reached over to show her exactly how much pressure to exert on the leash. “You want Riot to be following you, not the other way around.” He watched with masculine satisfaction as she did it on her own. A mixture of pleasure and unmet need rolled through her.
“That’s it. Yeah. Nice.”
She could imagine him giving her the same low, deep-throated encouragement in bed.
Cautioning herself not to wear her heart on her sleeve, she slanted him a look and broke the tension with a joke. “Are you talking to me or the dog?”
He waggled his brows. “Both.”
Bridgett had never imagined he could be so playful. He was always so serious and businesslike. At least, around her. She wondered what else about him she had yet to see. “So, how come you’re not married?” She blurted the first question that came to mind.
He slanted her a reluctant look. She wasn’t surprised he didn’t want to answer. Still, she pushed on. “You already know all about my romantic past.” How she had given up her one shot at love and marriage and family. “What’s your story, cowboy?”
“I’m single.”
“Have you ever been married?”
He looked out at the pastures with a brooding expression. “Nope.”
“Engaged?”
He bent to adjust the canopy around the still-sleeping Robby. “I was close a couple of years ago.”
This hurt. Why, she couldn’t say. “What happened?”
He continued grimly. “I brought her home for a weekend to meet my family.”
The suspense was killing Bridgett. “And?”
His hands tightened on the handle. “She found out I was only half McCabe.”
It was all Bridgett could do to keep walking. “So...?”
He finally turned to look at her. Their glances locked and they shared another moment of tingling awareness, an emotional connection Bridgett did not expect. “Theresa found that concerning. She thought that might affect my future inheritance.”
Bridgett blinked. “She really said that?”
“She really did,” Cullen reflected sadly. “Anyway, her interest in me cooled really quickly after that, but she was very interested in getting to know a couple of my brothers, so...when we got back to Oklahoma, I told her I didn’t stand to inherit anything from Frank.”
“Is that true?” It didn’t sound like the McCabes she knew!
“No, but not too long after that she asked to start dating other people.”
Because there were not going to be any large sums of money. Nice. Curious, Bridgett studied the rugged lines of his handsome profile. “Did she go after your brothers?”
Cullen smirked. If he was still heartbroken, Bridgett noted, he wasn’t showing it. “Apparently she sent some pretty friendly private messages via social media. I’m not sure what my brothers said to her.”
Hopefully they’d told her to take a hike!
“All I know is she has been incommunicado with my family and out of my life.”
He appeared relieved. Bridgett couldn’t blame him. “And there’s been no one serious since then?”
“That was true,” he said very quietly, gazing into her eyes.
Bridgett took a bolstering breath and forced herself to hold his gaze with the same calm, quiet deliberation he was holding hers. “Until?” she asked, her heart doing cartwheels in her chest.
His smile slowly widened.
She had the gut feeling he was about to kiss her again. And she knew, wise or not, she was going to kiss him back. Or would have, had Riot not chosen that particular instant to give out a short little bark at something in front of them.
Turning to check on her charge, Bridgett gasped at the unfolding calamity.
* * *
“YOU SURE YOU’RE OKAY?” Cullen asked twenty minutes later, walking into the upstairs bathroom, first-aid kit in hand. “Riot really dragged you through the brush.”
Bridgett placed her foot on the edge of the tub so she could better see the scrapes she was tending to. They covered her calves, knees and lower thighs. Being careful to keep the hem of her denim skirt modestly down, she addressed each jagged cut with a cotton ball dipped in a numbing cleanser/antiseptic. “Note, though, I did not let go of the leash!”
“No, you didn’t.” Cullen handed her the tube of antibiotic cream from the first-aid kit. “And your fierce grip on him kept Riot from landing his first wild game.” He stepped back slightly to give her room to work. Arms folded across his chest, he lingered in the portal of the smallish, old-fashioned bathroom. “Though I’m not sure what he would have done had he caught that squirrel.”
“Me, either.” They both laughed.
Their eyes met, held. “Well, he’s certainly tuckered out now,” Bridgett said softly.
“He is.”
She straightened, aware all over again how much taller he was. How smoking hot. It didn’t matter what time of day or night, or how he was dressed, whenever she looked into his eyes, felt that fierce magnetic pull, she wanted him.
It was crazy.
It was real.
It was...destiny?
Oblivious to the lusty nature of her thoughts, he leaned closer. Reached up and plucked a leaf from her hair with the same smitten look she had seen other men give their wives in the maternity ward. Her hand went up automatically. “Do I have anything else in there?”
Another lift of his impossibly wide shoulders. He shook his head mutely, his gaze still locked on hers. Her pulse skittered. Awareness grew. “Cullen...”
“I know,” he told her gently threading the fingers of both hands through her hair and lowering his head. He gazed at her as if she were the most desirable woman in the entire world. “I’m feeling it, too.”
The next thin
g she knew, his lips were on hers. Her arms were around his neck. The kiss—if you could call it just a kiss!—was more incredible than the first had been. With a low moan of appreciation, she pushed all the way against him, drinking in the heat and masculine feel of his hard physique. Her knees went weak, her lips opened to the dizzying pressure of his. Their tongues tangled as surely as their hearts. The next thing she knew, he was dancing her backward to the room at the end of the hall that held his king-size bed.
All it would have taken was one hand pressed against the center of his chest. One hint of dissent. She could have put on the brakes.
She didn’t.
The truth was, he was as much her fate as Robby and Riot. And she was his. This was all meant to be. And she was determined to enjoy every single moment of it.
“You smell so good.” He buried his face in her hair.
Arousal swept through her, more potent than before.
She kissed his neck. “So do you. Like sunshine and spring...”
He chuckled softly then dropped a string of kisses down the nape of her neck, across her cheek, up her jaw, then hovered over her lips. Passion roared through her, fierce as a tornado, as he pressed her lower half to his. She surged against him, softness to hardness. He kissed her, even more amorously this time. She could feel the strong, steady thrumming of his heart, beating in rhythm with hers. Lower still, there was a tingling need.
She melted against him. And they kissed and kissed and kissed. Until there wasn’t any place she would rather be. He was hot and powerful and male. And he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
* * *
ALTHOUGH HE’D KNOWN the time would come, Cullen hadn’t expected to make love to Bridgett just yet. He had planned to get to know her, spend quality time with her. After solving the mystery of why the puppy and baby had been left to him.
But that was before she had looked at him with such tender devotion. She had been alone a long time, too. Yet he needed to know she was all in before they took this any further. He caught her face in his hands and searched her eyes. “You’re sure?”
“Very.”
His glance fell to the nipples protruding through her top. He unbuttoned her blouse, unfastened her bra. Found the curves, the tips, the valley in between her breasts until she shuddered in response.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” he rasped, kissing her again, desire exploding in liquid heat.
She unbuttoned his shirt and palmed the contours of his chest. Lower still, she unzipped his jeans. Her hand closed over him as he reached beneath her skirt and divested her of her panties. He shifted her against the bureau and slid a knee between her thighs. She moved her weight onto it, building the pleasure even as he determined to make their lovemaking last. His mouth slid over her neck, dragging against the skin, and he felt her erotic little shiver. She whimpered in frustration, her body straining all the more, before abruptly finding the release she’d clearly been wanting.
Her head fell to his shoulder. He held her until her shudders stopped then finished undressing her and moved her to the bed.
He found a condom, stripped down and joined her.
She slid her hands down his sides, to his hips. He grinned as she arched up to kiss him again. “Now, where were we...?” he murmured roughly.
Impatience glimmered in her pretty eyes. She nipped his shoulder. “I want you in me.”
All too ready to oblige, he eased his hands beneath her. Her muscles trembled, tensed, as he settled between her thighs, his hips nudging hers apart.
Her hands rubbed his shoulders, stroked against his chest. They kissed again, their bodies immersed in friction, in need, in sweet, all-encompassing heat. He couldn’t get enough of her as he slowly, erotically slid home, and she rose up to meet him, answering each fierce, deliberate thrust and intoxicating kiss. Until there was no more holding back, for either of them. It was all hot, out-of-control kisses and reckless daring and want and need. Until finally satisfaction came. Roaring through them both. And they collapsed, spent and shaking, in the warm protective embrace of each other’s arms.
* * *
BRIDGETT WASN’T SURE how long it took her to catch her breath after they finally rocketed into oblivion. She did know she’d never been made love to like that. Like she was the most precious woman on Earth.
She did know she’d loved it. Every steamy moment of it. And that left her feeling surprisingly unsettled.
She wasn’t supposed to be having a romance here. She was supposed to be figuring out a way to prove she was the best—the only—mother for little Robby. She was supposed to be solving her housing situation fast so she could get out of here and regain her usual levelheadedness, gosh darn it.
Ignoring her first instinct—which was to stay here, wrapped in his arms—she pushed against his chest and murmured, “Um...Cullen?”
Sleepy-eyed, content, he lay back against the pillows. Sensing she wanted her physical space, he reluctantly folded his arms behind his head. “Yes...Bridgett?” he echoed in a low teasing tone that had her wanting to make love to him again.
She reached for her panties and slipped into them, then her bra. To her embarrassment, he was still watching, enjoying the show. “I don’t think we should do this again.”
To her frustration, he did not look the least bit surprised. Or offended. He grinned at her good-naturedly. “Okay, we can make love in your bed next time.”
“That is not what I meant!”
He sighed, sat up and reached for his boxer briefs. “Yeah. I know,” he grumbled.
Ignoring the reckless warmth spiraling through her, Bridgett pushed aside the desire and held her ground. “I have a lot to get straightened out here. I can’t afford to be sidetracked by a passionate interlude!”
He nodded. Tugged on his jeans. Zipped up his fly. Fastened his belt. Serious now, he asked, “What can I do to help?”
By the time they were fully dressed, Robby was awake, ready for his next feeding. Needing a little time to compose herself, she stayed upstairs to change his diaper, while Cullen went down to heat another bottle in the electric warmer his stepmother had brought over for them.
He got the puppy out of his crate and fed him, too. Then he glanced at her cell phone, which was blinking. “Looks like you’ve got some messages. I’ll finish burping Robby if you want to check on that.”
Bridgett sent him a grateful glance. “Thanks.” Maybe they could go back to being team players, after all.
She read her message. “Excuse me while I make a call. The bank is long closed. But the loan officer processing my mortgage application is a friend, so...maybe it’s some good news.”
Except, Bridgett swiftly found out, it wasn’t.
* * *
“EVERYTHING OKAY?” CULLEN ASKED when she finally hung up.
Turbulent emotions tautened her pretty features. “The bank wants to know if I intend to take a maternity leave to care for Robby.”
He followed her into the kitchen and watched as she poured herself a lemonade. “And obviously you do.”
“I’m on vacation for the next couple of weeks, so I’m still getting paid. But if I can overcome the obstacles and get approved to foster-adopt Robby I am entitled to family leave for six months.” In a low voice, she added, “Unfortunately, that’s unpaid, and I can only qualify for the loan if I am working at the time the mortgage is processed.”
He summed up her dilemma, “So you’d have to close on the property before your vacation is up.”
“Which I’ve just been told is impossible.”
“Or go back to work until you do.” His heart went out to her. “Sounds like you’re between a rock and a hard place.”
She sipped her lemonade. “Yep.”
Wishing he could help her in some way, he studied the sober set of her soft lips. “What are you going to do?”
&nbs
p; She straightened defiantly. “Talk to my Realtor again and see if there is some way I can convince the sellers to rent to me for the next six months, until I can get approved and close the deal.”
More determined than ever, she went off.
A flurry of phone calls followed over the next few hours. And by the time she finally hung up, for what appeared the last time, it was clear from her dejected expression that she was in worse straits than before.
His eyes asked the question.
“The sellers won’t budge,” she informed him miserably. “They are living in a hotel in their new city, and they can’t buy their new house unless they close on their old one, so if I can’t get approved our deal is off. They’re willing to return half of my earnest money, but that is the best they can do.”
He took her hand. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I. It was a great house. It would have been perfect for the three of us.”
Not, Cullen thought, as perfect as the Western Cross ranch, for the four of them. But sensing she did not want to hear that just now, especially since there was still no guarantee someone else wouldn’t show up to claim the baby, he said, instead, “You could always try for a private loan via promissory note.”
Bridgett shook her head. “I don’t want to lean on my siblings.”
“I’m not talking about your siblings.” He waited until she looked at him. “I’m talking about me.”
Chapter Seven
Bridgett stared at him, sure she couldn’t have heard right.
“You want to loan me money.”
Cullen reached up and stroked her cheek as tenderly as he’d made love to her. “You’re good for it, darlin’. Or, if you prefer, I could buy the property outright, rent to you now, and you could purchase it from me later.”
Aware her life had taken another surreal turn, she blinked, not sure whether she should be grateful or insulted. Mostly she was just stunned. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”
More to the point, how and when had she ever given him the impression that she was the type of woman who would depend on a man monetarily?
The Texas Cowboy's Baby Rescue Page 7
