Wild West Fortune

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “You’re sure?”

  She twined her legs around his and nodded, pressing her mouth against his because she wasn’t sure that she could hold back words that she didn’t dare admit. Fortunately, it was answer enough and she shuddered when he slowly pressed into her, filling her so perfectly she wondered how she would ever be the same again.

  Then his hands slid up to find hers again, their fingers meshing. “I knew it.” His voice had gone rough. Husky.

  She could already feel herself tightening around him. She could hardly manage to form words as he rocked against her, making the pleasure inside her build and build.

  “Knew...what?”

  “How you’d feel.” Then his breath hissed between his teeth as she arched sharply, winding her legs even more tightly around his hips. “Perfect.”

  But she was already beyond hearing as he emptied himself inside her and she cried out, startling a nearby bevy of quail into scattering.

  All she knew was that he was right.

  There was no more perfect place than being beneath the Paseo sky.

  With him.

  Chapter Ten

  Jayden’s cotton shirt dried long before hers did and he pulled it over her head. “More than your nose is getting sunburned.”

  “And you’re not getting sunburned?”

  “I’m already mostly leather,” he murmured, kissing her shoulder through the shirt.

  She smiled, because she knew better. His upper torso was deeply tanned and felt like satin covered muscle. “Not your under-the-swimsuit bits,” she said.

  He gave a choked laugh. “Bits?”

  She lifted her shoulder and twisted her fingers through his.

  They were picking their way barefoot through the clover around the pond. And even if it ought to seem odd that he was wearing only his still-damp jeans and she was wearing only his wrinkled plaid shirt over her panties that had quickly dried in the sun, she didn’t care.

  “I suppose you’d prefer something a little grander sounding.”

  “I’d prefer words other than little and bits,” he allowed wryly.

  She laughed and he suddenly pulled her around to face him, twisting his hands in her long hair as he kissed her.

  Despite the lethargy still clinging to her, she felt heat streak through her and she swayed unsteadily when he finally lifted his head and started walking again.

  They passed the windmill and she stopped to look up at the tall structure. She reached up and wrapped her hands around one of the horizontal bars running between the corner pieces. The pipe running straight down from the top slowly moved up and down and connected to another series of pipes near the ground, one which clearly ran toward the pond. “Considering the noise this thing makes, I thought it would be rustier.”

  “It’s not rust that’s squeaking. It’s the sails and the sucker rod.” He stopped close against her and set his hands on either side of hers. “We’ve gotta keep it running. Can’t depend only on rain that’s either too little or too often.” He tapped the metal bar. “This baby keeps the place irrigated and the cattle from drying up. We have three more mills farther out, too. Nathan’ll be checking on ’em while he’s out. Make sure they weren’t damaged during the storm that delivered you.”

  She leaned her head back against his chest as she squinted up at the slowly revolving fan blades. Sails, he’d called them. Such an evocative term. “It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?” The afternoon. The windmill. Him.

  “Mmm-hmm.” He lifted the plaid shirt and slid his arm around her bare waist. “Only times it’s not real beautiful is when we have to climb up and repair something.” His fingers grazed her breasts, circled her eager nipples. “View’s great, but it’s still a pain in the butt and seems to only happen when it’s either hotter ’n hell outside like today or cold as a witch’s heart.”

  She was having a hard time breathing. Particularly when his leg slid between hers and she felt him, hard and insistent against her backside. And even though she felt a rush of dizzying want all over again, she closed her hand over his, stilling his motions. “I want to.” How badly she wanted to.

  “But?”

  She rubbed her temple against his chin. Despite her cautioning hand, his thumb still managed to taunt her sensitized nipple and heat collected low inside her. “But I’m too sore,” she admitted in a raw breath.

  “You’ll get used to saddles and horseback riding.” He slid his hand from beneath hers.

  Regret was like a physical noise, joining the cacophony of sound around them. “I’m not talking about being sore from the horse.”

  He dipped his head and kissed the side of her neck. “Guess that makes up for the bits bit,” he said in a low voice. His hand didn’t leave her, though. It slid leisurely over her rib cage.

  She exhaled shakily and rested against him, feeling more than a little mesmerized by the motion of the windmill. The turn of the sails. The up-and-down glide of the rod. The no-longer-random trajectory of his fingers. “Jayden—”

  “Sshh.” His hand covered hers where she was still holding on to the metal bar. His other hand—the provocatively tempting one—moved inexorably southward. “Just let me do this.”

  She inhaled sharply as his fingers breached the edge of her panties. She wrapped her fingers around his strong wrist. Whether to stop him or urge him on, she wasn’t sure. “But what about you?”

  His fingers delved between her legs, gliding slickly. He made a low sound of pure appreciation that rumbled from his chest, through her spine and straight to her heart. He pressed his mouth against her shoulder and his voice dropped even deeper. “This is for me.” His clever, marauding fingers swirled against her and she couldn’t hold back a sigh of pleasure. “You know what a fantasy this is?”

  She rolled her head back and forth against his chest. “No.”

  “After this, I’ll never hate repairing windmills again,” he murmured. His thumb roved over the knot of nerve endings and she gasped.

  “Trust me, sweetheart.” His fingers dipped. “Let yourself go. For me.”

  And she did.

  * * *

  Eventually, they made it to the small cemetery he’d mentioned earlier, where the Thompsons were buried. The grassy patch was surrounded by a white picket fence that looked in pristine condition. It made a few of the headstones that it surrounded look even more ancient by comparison.

  For the first time in a long while, she wished she had her cell phone with her so she could take pictures. She didn’t need to ask who was responsible for maintaining the fence around the family plot. Because she understood that the ones buried there were considered Jayden’s family.

  She put her hand on the gate. “May I?”

  “Sure.”

  She undid the latch and stepped through. The oldest of the headstones were the farthest away from the gate, situated among the roots of the enormous tree standing guard over the cemetery. She knelt down, barely noticing the way her calves and thighs protested, and read the inscriptions on the simple stone markers. “Eighteen ninety-five. Nineteen-oh-two.”

  “Earl’s grandparents.” Jayden flicked a leaf away from the deeply weathered granite. “They were some of Paseo’s first settlers. Came from Boston originally.” He gestured toward the three markers next to them. “They had four children. Earl’s dad was the only one who lived past fifteen.” He moved around to the next row where the headstones were noticeably brighter, the edges less worn. “Kees Thompson. Earl’s father.”

  She read the marker. Jayden had pronounced the name like Case. “I like that name. Very different.”

  “His wife, Mary.” He pointed at the accompanying headstone. “Nothing unusual about her name. Not until you get to Mary Junior.” He stopped in front of a third headstone. “Earl’s sister. Only woman I’ve ever
known that actually used Junior in her name.”

  She brushed her fingertips over the engraved surname. “Thompson. Mary Junior never married?”

  He shook his head. “Died when we were little.”

  She moved around to look at the last and most recent row of headstones. Earl. Cynthia. Caroline and child. “So sad. Every generation lost a child before they should have.”

  He leaned over to brush away the leaves accumulated at the base of Caroline’s square headstone. When he straightened, he was holding a large silver ring. “That’s a new kind of leaf,” he drawled.

  She smiled and reached out to take it. Only to frown as she studied it more closely. “It’s part of a loose-leaf binder.” A big one. She worked the ring apart. “See?”

  He was still brushing away debris and held up a piece of bright pink plastic. “Belonged to this, I expect.”

  Her stomach tightened as she took the jagged remnant.

  “You had a notebook like this in your car, didn’t you?”

  Her mouth suddenly ran dry. She nodded.

  “Wonder if anything else from your car landed around here. We should take a look. In case.”

  She wasn’t sure how she’d managed to forget the inconvenience facing her when it came to replacing her driver’s license and everything else that had been in her wallet. “It doesn’t matter.” She couldn’t seem to tear her attention away from the piece of plastic binder.

  Jayden noticed. “You okay?”

  There was a knot inside her chest. “I kept all my research and notes in this.”

  “For the magazine.”

  She started to nod. But then she looked at him and couldn’t make herself do it. She couldn’t tell him an outright lie. Not anymore. Not when she’d already crossed every single line she’d sworn she’d never cross.

  The self-imposed oath had been simple.

  Until now. Now that she knew she was in love with him.

  “For my book,” she said huskily.

  His eyebrows rose. “A book? That’s great. You never said you were working on—” He broke off. His eyes narrowed. “What kind of book?”

  “A biography.” She had to forcibly swallow down the knot when it moved from her chest into her throat. “An unauthorized biography.”

  His lips tightened. He folded his arms across his wide chest. Arms that only minutes earlier had surrounded her with such thrilling tenderness. “Let me guess. About Gerald Robinson?”

  “Jerome Fortune.”

  His lips twisted. “They’re one and the same.”

  How could she make him understand? “And everyone knows everything about Gerald! At least everything he’s let everyone know. But nobody seems to know anything about Jerome. Not once he supposedly died thirty-some years ago.”

  “What were you hoping, Ariana?”

  Her nerves tightened. Because he never addressed her directly by name. And it felt so, so much worse than it should have.

  “Were you hoping you’d be here long enough to grill my mother when she returns?”

  “No!”

  “To dig into her past just because you think writing some damn unauthorized book gives you the right?”

  “I would never do that.” Her eyes stung. “Not now.”

  “Why should I believe you?” He advanced on her, looking furious. He plucked the pink plastic out of her numb fingers and held it up between them. “Because you’ve been so honest and up-front about everything so far?”

  “Because I fell in love with you!”

  A muscle worked in his tight jaw as his gaze drilled into hers.

  She pulled in a breath that seemed to burn. “I fell in love with you,” she repeated huskily. “Whatever ends up in the book, it won’t involve you.”

  It seemed impossible for his expression to sharpen even more, but it did. “Because you believe he’s not our father.”

  She chewed the inside of her lip. But she’d already determined she couldn’t lie. And what did it matter now, when he was looking at her with such anger? Such distrust?

  “No. I do believe he is your father.”

  A barrier seemed to slam down behind his eyes.

  “But no matter what I believe, I’m not going to write about it,” she insisted even though her head told her it was useless. “Not about you. Not about your brothers or your mother.”

  “Then what are you going to fill the pages with? Details about some other slob you pick up off the street and sleep with for a story?”

  She felt the blood drain from her face. Even though it took every speck of strength inside her, she managed to lift her chin. She wasn’t a tramp and she wasn’t going to apologize. “I never came here trying to prove you were Jerome Fortune’s son. You know that. You have to know that by now.”

  “The only thing I know is that you could’ve mentioned the book from the get-go. And you didn’t. That’s as good as a lie to me.”

  “If I’d been trying to prove that you weren’t his son, would you still feel the same?”

  His expression remained cold.

  But no colder than the yawning hole that had opened up inside her.

  She set the metal ring on the edge of poor Caroline’s headstone, then turned and walked away.

  She knew he followed after her. Not because she could hear his footsteps in the clover and grass. They were just as silent as hers. But because she could feel the drilling of his eyes through the space between her shoulder blades.

  She was out of breath by the time she made it all the way around the pond again, and she pulled off his shirt, turning to hand it to him.

  His gaze dropped for the briefest millisecond, but she was damned if she’d cover her bare breasts now. Instead, she snatched up her cami from the rock where she’d spread it to dry and tugged it over her head. Then the rough cotton T-shirt and her jeans that were still more wet than not. She ignored the clamminess and pulled on her socks and his mother’s too-large boots.

  “Ariana.”

  It was practically a command and she hesitated.

  “Don’t rush around the horses. I don’t want you spooking them.”

  Not that he didn’t want her getting kicked. Just that he didn’t want her scaring his horses.

  He’d pulled the plaid shirt on, but the buttons weren’t fastened and it flapped around his lean hips after he’d pulled on his own boots and headed toward the horses. They’d never strayed far from where they’d left them, and even though it felt like they’d whiled away an entire day beside the pond, it could only have been a couple of hours.

  A couple of hours for her to taste heaven.

  A couple of hours for her to lose it just as surely.

  She looked away from him, blinking hard at the stinging in her eyes.

  Then she lifted her head and threw her hair behind her back. She walked over to where he stood with Daisy and put one hand on the horse’s withers, the other on the cantle, and mounted.

  Focusing on the top of Jayden’s tousled head, she pulled on the leather gloves then held out her hands for the reins.

  He silently handed them to her, then mounted Jobuck and led the way back to the ranch.

  No swaying, gentle walk this time. No exercise in trying to sit the trot. He didn’t even make a soft clucking sound. Jobuck just moved smoothly into a steady lope and Daisy kept pace.

  He couldn’t have made it any clearer that he wanted to get away from her.

  All too quickly, they were back at the ranch and Daisy aimed straight for the wash rack at the back of the barn.

  Ariana wasn’t showing off any particular skill she’d learned that afternoon. That was all Daisy.

  “I’ll put her up,” Jayden said when Ariana dismounted. His expression was still closed. She knew there was no point
in arguing. Not about helping to unsaddle the horse and groom her like she knew he always did after bringing one of his horses in. Nor about convincing him that the book she was writing didn’t matter.

  Because if it truly hadn’t mattered, why had she really kept from mentioning it?

  She silently handed him the reins and walked through the barn. She didn’t even notice the little red vehicle sitting near the house until she practically walked right into it.

  “Hey there, Miss Lamonte.” Charlie came down from where he’d been sitting on one of the porch chairs. “Was just beginning to think I wasn’t goin’ t’ find you.” His skinny face had a happy smile. “Got that part today after all.” He waved at her car. “She’s spit-shined and ready t’ go.”

  Her eyes burned. “I see that, Charlie.” Because she was badly afraid she was going to lose it and cry, she walked around the vehicle, working hard to study it. She couldn’t see a single scratch. No dents. No damage.

  It was as if the tornado had never crossed the car’s path at all.

  She bent over and looked blindly through the window. “It looks perfect, Charlie.” She surreptitiously swiped her eyes and straightened.

  “Runs perfect, too,” he assured her. He pulled a sheaf of folded papers from the back pocket of his overalls. “Just gotta get your signature.” He spread the papers out on the hood of the car and fumbled in his pocket again to produce a pen. “Insurance companies always want things good ’n’ official.”

  She took the pen and signed her name.

  “Gotcha a full tank of gas as well.”

  “If you tell me how much I owe you, I’ll have to send you the money.” Her insurance wasn’t going to cover gas.

  “Nah. Jayden took care of it a few days ago when he told me to make sure your tank was full.”

  Naturally. Even before he ever knew there was a book at all, he’d wanted to make sure she had no reason to hang around. Not even at the gas station in Paseo.

  “Thank you,” she said huskily. “I never expected you to deliver the car to me like this.”

  “No trouble. Wanted to give it a good test-drive anyway.” He refolded the papers and pocketed them again. “Figure Jayden won’t mind giving me a hitch back to my place.” He handed her the key fob.