Promises Linger (Promise Series)

by Sarah McCarty

  “I want babies.”

  He smiled. “Then again, I guess you can.”

  “You don’t have to be nice to me, you know.” The amount of pride packed into that statement would have done a cavalry unit proud.

  “I like being nice to you.” He shifted her elbow out of his rib cage. “I told you when you proposed I had a liking for touching ladies tenderly.”

  “I thought you were talking about…” She waved her hand descriptively.

  “You thought I was talking about between the sheets,” he clarified. “Gotta admit, I have a penchant for that, too.” He felt her blush heating her chest on its way to her face.

  His grin widened as he went on, “Thing is, I flat out like having a wife to spoil. I’m enjoying being married.”

  She didn’t have anything to say to that. He took the opportunity to get to the meat of the matter. He tipped up her chin so she’d know he wasn’t lying. “I know what it’s like to be beaten, Elizabeth. Don’t you ever think I don’t know how ashamed you feel. A shame that goes bone deep when it’s someone you love doing the beating. My ma used to whip me daily to drive the devil out.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “You ever get the urge to look, you’ll find marks on me, too. Probably not as much as you’re thinking as I grew big fast and could put an end to it, but it’s not something I’m proud of or likely to forget.”

  “I didn’t realize…”

  “No reason you should. It happened a long time ago.”

  A hairpin jabbed his thumb as he slid his hand over her hair. He pulled it out, then went in search of more. “Thing is, when I was little, I could never figure out how I had the devil in me when she was the one sinning daily. I used to check the mirror for some sign that everyone else could see and I couldn’t.” By the time he had the sixth pin free, her hair began to uncoil. With a few passes of his fingers, he aided its surge for freedom. He shrugged and continued. “I could never find it, though.”

  “What?”

  “The mark that made them call me devil’s spawn.”

  “You were just a little boy!”

  He carefully slid his arm from under her and propped himself on his elbow so he could see her face. “And you were just a little girl who couldn’t help it anymore than I could. The only difference between us is I stopped searching for the reason.”

  “It’s not right—”

  He cut her off by sliding his hand down her hips and pulling her legs against his. “Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. It’s just the way it happened.”

  “I know—”

  He put his fingers over her lips. He didn’t want to rehash the past. Not when he had her in bed with him and in an accommodating mood, her soul bare, her defenses down. “I think the best thing for us to do is forget what we ‘know’ about the other and start fresh.”

  She yawned against his chest. “Maybe after I’ve had a nap?”

  He stroked her hair, smoothing it back from her brow. “Tired?”

  She snuggled into his neck. “Yes.”

  He suppressed a yawn of his own. He slid his hand over her waist and up the curve of her hip. She seemed to blend into his touch. As natural as breathing, his palm curved over the globe of her ass. She shivered, and it wasn’t from cold.

  He dipped his fingers into the crease and lightly traced her anus. “Did you like it when I took you here?”

  A slight tension stiffened her muscles. “It felt strange at first.”

  “And then?”

  She didn’t answer.

  He kissed her temple. “Did you like it later?”

  “Yes.”

  He hugged her and moved his hand back to her ass cheek. “I’m glad.”

  The tension left her muscles. He wondered if she’d thought he would think her enjoyment was improper. He yawned again. “I hope you don’t think less of me, Mrs. MacIntyre, but I’m about played out.”

  She stroked his chest comfortingly. “Me, too.”

  He reached down and pulled the covers over their bodies. “Then cuddle up here, darlin’, and we’ll get some sleep.”

  She was out before he finished talking. With one last stoke of her hair, he closed his eyes and joined her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Weary and pleasantly worn out after four days of lovemaking, Asa saddled up Shameless. As much as he’d like to spend the next year or so in bed with his wife, he had a ranch to save. The Rocking C meant everything to Elizabeth. If he wanted to hold onto her, he had to hold onto it. It was simple, but it had been his experience that most things usually were. Sift through all the sediment and there would usually be some shining truths. He tightened the girth and dropped the stirrup into position. Of all the things he’d gained in his life, Elizabeth was the one thing he didn’t plan on giving up.

  “You ready, Shameless?” he asked the patient horse. Dust flew as he patted the sorrel’s neck. Not by the twitch of an ear did the horse indicate agreement. “I know what you mean. It’s a lazy day, but we’ve got work to do.”

  Catching the bridle, he led the horse out the barn door. Shameless protested with a hard blow of his lips.

  “You’d best be finding your pepper, old son, ‘cause we got to head over to the East Range. Clint claimed there was Rocking C stock running loose there.”

  He scratched the horse behind his ears. “That means you get to run,” he coaxed. As if he understood, Shameless perked up his step. Asa grinned. “Thought that might help you shake off the blankets.”

  He cast a wary eye to the sky. “Sure enough looks like bad weather moving in.” He checked the knots securing his poncho to the back of the saddle. “Damn, I hate getting wet.”

  “The mighty Asa MacIntyre has a weakness?”

  He turned and found Elizabeth holding a sack containing his lunch. In her red gingham dress, she looked as fresh as a spring day and just as inviting.

  “Every now and then, one crops up.” Like you, he thought.

  Her smile was shy. Her hair was back in its prissy bun. Remembering the night before, he hooked his arm around her neck and pulled her close for a kiss. He swallowed her gasp and seduced her mouth like he wanted to do to her body. When she stepped back, red-cheeked, her hair came tumbling down around her shoulders.

  She grabbed for the mass, but it slid through her grasp, curling around her shoulders and falling into her face like living silk. “How did you—?”

  “Now you look like my Elizabeth.”

  She shook her head at him while holding out her hand for her hairpins. “Not even for you, husband, will I go around looking like a harlot.”

  “I could order you to,” he pointed out as he combined the pins into one hand.

  She swapped his lunch for the pins, then set to work immediately on her hair. “You won’t,” she mumbled around the pins sticking out of her mouth like quills on a porcupine. She twisted the waist-length strands into a rope and, with a couple of flicks, reestablished the bun on top of her head. Four jabs and her mouth was free of hairpins.

  She seemed pretty confident. A more optimistic man might call her cocky. He adopted his most impressive don’t-tell-me-what-to-do expression. “I might.”

  Instead of backing up, she stepped forward until her breasts brushed his chest. “You won’t.”

  “I won’t?”

  She smiled. “Nope.”

  “Your grammar’s slipping,” he informed her.

  “So’s your ability to give orders, but I’m not lecturing you on it.”

  “You’re probably just waiting on a better moment.” He shifted his grip on his lunch. “So,” he asked, raising his arms slightly so she could slip hers around his waist. “Why am I not going to order you to wear your hair down?”

  His hands naturally skimmed her body to land at the base of her spine. She smiled and slid her hands up his chest. “Because I don’t want anyone but you to see it down.”

  Neither did he, he realized. It was one of the pleasures he hadn’t
considered when he took a wife, but all their private moments were just between them. No one had ever come before him. No one would come after him an hour or week down the road. What they did was theirs alone. He liked that. “You’re right. I’m not going to be ordering you.”

  Her smile was full of sass without a bit of propriety. He liked that, too.

  He meant to kiss her quickly, but the instant his lips met hers, all thoughts of goodbye sighed away on the breeze. She moaned. He stepped closer. She squeezed nearer. Like wildfire set loose in a windstorm, the passion flared between them, making a mockery of his goodbye intentions. This was a welcome-to-my-bed kiss. And he was participating fully, in the yard, in full view of the hands. Damn! He had to get himself under control, but first, just one more kiss. Just one more time to savor the sweetness of his wife. His wife. His.

  He pulled back before he lay her down in the dirt. “Lord, woman! You’re as potent as Kentucky sippin’ whiskey!”

  If anyone was drunk from that kiss, Elizabeth decided, it was her. She opened her eyes slowly. Leather creaked as Asa swung up into the saddle. Shameless half-bucked, half-hopped in his impatience to be off. Asa pulled him under control. His “You take care of yourself” was gruff.

  He sat on the horse, tall and proud. Behind him loomed the mountains. He seemed so much a part of them in that moment. So big. So wild. So aloof. “You, too.” Tears welled, unexpectedly.

  “You crying?”

  “Of course not.” She blinked the tears back. She wasn’t the weepy sort. The man was only going to be gone for a couple of days, for goodness sake.

  He pulled back in an exaggerated movement. “No need to nip my head off.”

  “I wasn’t nipping anything.”

  His smile was as wide open as the shot she’d given him. He rubbed his shoulder. “No. A man tends to remember where you set your teeth.”

  Heat flamed her chest and neck, surging into her cheeks. She’d bitten him last night in that very spot. He’d been driving her crazy and she’d bitten him to get his attention.

  “Yup. Pretty as a picture.”

  She would have shot him if she’d had a gun handy. Instead, she had to settle for grinding her teeth and enduring his smug, male grin.

  “Don’t be mad, Elizabeth.” He reined in Shameless beside her. His fingers grazed her hot cheeks. She could have jerked away, but there was so much tenderness in his touch. So much emotion. She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek into his fingers.

  “You please me, wife,” he whispered hoarsely, right there in front of God and half the hired hands. “You please me to my bones.”

  “Be careful,” she whispered.

  “You bet.”

  One last stroke of his fingers and he was gone. She opened her eyes and watched him thunder away. For a moment, it looked as if man, horse and mountains were one. Foreboding snaked down her spine.

  “Take care of him,” she murmured to the Guardians.

  The moment was broken when Clint and Luke galloped after Asa. She shook her head and chided herself for her foolishness. Asa would be fine. He was too big, too mean, and too good for anything to happen to him.

  * * * * *

  “Easy now.” Elizabeth coaxed the young stallion back into the restrictions of the lunge line. “That’s it, Prince,” she murmured as he reared and pawed the air, but didn’t bolt. “This is just another way to play.”

  He rolled his eyes at her and she couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Okay,” she agreed, pulling a carrot out of her pocket. “Maybe it’s not as much fun as frolicking with your friends, but you’re going to like it.”

  He snorted, pawed the ground, and then pranced closer for the tidbit. “Good boy,” she crooned as he took it from her hand. “With your brains, speed and agility, you’re perfect.”

  She eyed him and felt a renewed surge of pride. Jet black with a flowing mane, he was the picture of elegance. Just for pretty, her father had mocked her when he’d seen this colt, the first of her breeding program that combined Arabian and thoroughbred with a touch of mustang.

  She had to agree. The colt did give that impression until a body looked at his conformation. At sixteen and a half hands, Sir Prince was pure speed and agility. Too big a mount for her, but a perfect mount for a big man. She grimaced. Who was she kidding? She was breaking this horse for Asa. Shameless was a great horse, but the Rocking C wasn’t a three-up outfit. A man needed a variety of mounts to get the work done. Sir Prince would be a perfect Christmas present. And he was coming along great with his training. Depending on how well he took to the saddle today, Asa might get his present early.

  She picked up the blanket from the ground and held it out to Sir Prince. He sniffed it, but went immediately back to chomping his carrot. It was the perfect reaction, and why she’d decided it was time to step up his training. She settled the blanket on his back. His skin twitched, but nothing more than that. She patted his shoulder. “Good boy.”

  She swung the heavy saddle into her arms. The strain on her muscles felt good. So did being in the open air and working with her horses. Giving up this aspect of her life had been the hardest thing about becoming a lady. Mrs. Asa MacIntyre might not welcome smelling like a horse, mucking out a barn, or the sometimes bone-crunching results of breaking a horse, but Elizabeth Coyote, Coyote Bill’s crazy daughter, did with a devotion that went beyond liking. She needed it as much as she needed to breathe. The only time she came close to the same satisfaction was in Asa’s arms with the darkness cloaking them in an otherworldly peace.

  She showed Prince the saddle. He sniffed it, then went carrot-hunting in her coat pocket.

  “Not yet, big boy. First, you’ve got to show me how smart you are.”

  She tossed the saddle onto his back and held her breath. She would have preferred to ease it on, but, at her height, that wasn’t possible. He sidestepped and snorted, his breath forming steamy clouds around his muzzle. He swung his head around to inspect the unfamiliar source of weight. He sniffed twice. Her familiar scent must have soothed him because he swung his head back and accepted the carrot she held out.

  “Good boy.” She took his halter and urged him forward a step.

  Beyond a flicking of his ears, he didn’t protest the weight on his back. She patted his neck again. “Let’s see how you take to the cinch.”

  She was pushing it, she knew, but she didn’t have much time. Asa would be back tomorrow and, if she wanted to keep this a secret, she had to make the most of the time she had.

  She unhooked the cinch from the saddle horn, then reached under Prince’s belly to pull it up the other side. Like he’d been doing it all his life, he stood still and munched his carrot while she tied the cinch. She pulled it tighter. Not by a sidestep or a snort did he exhibit any displeasure. Exhilaration shot through her.

  “You are a bright one.” She patted his neck. “Then, again, you probably know I’d never hurt you.”

  She pulled the stirrups down. Catching his halter, she led him around the corral twice. Beyond a few ear flicks at the stirrup’s sway, he didn’t seem to realize he bore a saddle on his back. She pulled him up to the hitching post. He was coming along nicely.

  She checked the cinch. It was tight enough to hold the saddle and a rider. She patted his neck again. She’d never had a horse come so far so fast, but Sir Prince had been exceptional from the beginning. He was ready for the next step. She’d need a mounting post, she thought, eyeing the distance from the ground to the stirrup. Short of that, there wasn’t anything between her and the next step of Prince’s training, which was bearing the weight of a rider. She bit her lip and weighed her decision. She didn’t want to ruin a good horse by pushing, then again, she didn’t want to lose any more time than necessary.

  “You even think of getting on that animal and you won’t sit down for a week.”

  There was no question who that drawl belonged to.

  “Asa.” She spun so fast, Sir Prince whickered in concern. She sighed. “
You’re back.”

  “And none too soon by the looks of it,” Asa said.

  He wasn’t alone. Beside him rode Cougar McKinnely. Both men stared at her with grim expressions. If she had to weigh between the two, Cougar’s held more compassion.

  She patted Sir Prince on the shoulder. Wind blew hair out of her bun. She caught it before it could blind her. As she tucked the strand behind her ear, she weighed her options. She could apologize and placate, which would be sensible. She could play dumb, which would no doubt anger him. And from the whiteness of his cheeks and the way his lips were compressed, he didn’t need much of a push to go over the edge. Prudence had always been her specialty.

  “I hope you’re happy,” she accused. “You’ve ruined the surprise.”

  Both men looked startled and well they should. How were they to know she’d decided just yesterday that prudence was boring?

  Asa found his voice first. “Can’t see how coming home to find my wife trampled by a hot-headed stud is something I’d mind ruinin’.”

  “Sir Prince is not hot-headed.” She looped the halter string around the hitching post. Training was clearly over for the day.

  “Yeah, and the door I replaced last week in his stall was because his sweet nature got the better of him.”

  She scratched the stallion behind his ear. “Poor baby. Were you trying to get my attention?”

  “He was trying to get something,” Asa agreed.

  She shot him a glare. “He was only trying to get out and stretch his legs. I haven’t been down to work with him for awhile.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Asa exchanged a meaningful glance with Cougar. It was one of those glances she’d seen the banker give the lawyer after her father’s death. A purely male look that suggested the female in question was losing her mind. “I don’t know why you’re so annoyed.”

  “I passed annoyed about ten minutes back,” Asa drawled.

  “That’s the truth, ma’am,” Cougar obliged. “Thought the man was going to drop his heart along with his good sense when we came over that rise and saw you working that stud.”