A Stranger in the Family (Book 1, Bardville, Wyoming Trilogy)

by Patricia McLinn

  Cambria shifted her weight. “It’s her past—if she wants you to know, she’ll tell you.”

  “Okay,” he accepted slowly. “Then tell me about your past.”

  “I don’t see wh—”

  “I’ve told you about growing up and my family. Hardly fair for you to complain about my holding some things back when you hold everything back. So I’m asking. Why did you leave Washington?”

  She glanced at him, then back to the harshly textured wall of the canyon. “Disillusionment.”

  He considered that. “With politics?”

  “With people. Irene worries I’ve become cynical. Maybe I have. Or maybe it’s just realistic—being able to accept and be prepared for the fact that most people aren’t to be trusted. So, you don’t put trust in people easily. And when you do, you keep a sharp eye out for cracks. When those show up, you don’t trust that person again.”

  “No forgiving small slips?”

  “No, because those cracks can mean a shaky foundation—you should know that from building.”

  He met her eyes, his expression serious. “Some cracks can mean a shaky foundation, but some are cosmetic, the result of settling with age, a building maturing, becoming actually more solid.”

  She gave a hoot of dry laughter. “Yeah? Believe that of people and I’ve got some oceanfront property to sell you in Wyoming.”

  Not returning her laughter, he studied her.

  “Who was he?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy who was the reason you left Washington.”

  She picked up a pebble from beside the blanket and tossed it into the stream. Its splash rose straight up, then sank in an instant, absorbed into the unceasing movement.

  “Cambria...”

  Boone’s prodding was almost drowned out by Jessa’s voice in her head.

  Have you told him any of your business? Have you told him about your life in Washington, or about Tony, or about growing up, or about your family, or about your mother? No, I know you haven’t. You‘re attracted to him, drawn to him, and you’re fighting that like hell... You’re trying to keep distance from that man because he scares you.

  Cambria wasn’t scared. She had no reason to be. She had this under control.

  “I’d been engaged, but it ended a year before I left D.C., so that wasn’t the reason I came back here.”

  From the sound he made, he didn’t buy that—not entirely, anyway—but he let it pass. “Who was he?”

  “I told you that wasn’t the reason. The B and B operation was losing money instead of making it. I came back to run it, because Irene’s about as financially tough as a marshmallow.”

  “Who was he?”

  “God, you’re stubborn. His name’s Tony. Tony Sussman. Okay?”

  “What happened?”

  She tossed up her hands in disgust. “It was all very boring. We both worked on Capitol Hill. We met. We dated. We got engaged. He broke the engagement. He married someone else. End of story.”

  Gray eyes probed her face like silver bullets. “I don’t think so. That doesn’t explain not trusting people. You wouldn’t blame somebody for honestly discovering he wasn’t in love and finding someone else.”

  “Honestly being the operative word.”

  “What happened, Cambria?”

  The quiet question was the trickle of water that finally burst the dam.

  “He was never in love. Not with me, and not with Joanna, the woman he married.” She gave a short, rough laugh. “I don’t think he was even in lust with either of us. He was in ambition. That was the ruling passion of his life. First he thought I could help his career because I was touted as an up-and-comer on the Hill. But I couldn’t hold a candle to the daughter of a powerful senator with all those glittering connections. He even had the gall to tell me when he broke off the engagement, with this earnest voice and clear-eyed expression, that he would never regret our time together.”

  “Jackass.”

  On a roll now, she ignored Boone’s contribution. “The thing of it was, I had seen hints of it earlier and I’d ignored them. Blindly, stupidly, stubbornly ignored them. I should have known. I’m not some naive innocent who thinks everyone’s to be trusted. I had years to judge his character, but I didn’t see what he really was. I wouldn’t let myself see. So I couldn’t blame just him, I had to blame myself, too.”

  He took her face between his palms, and turned her to face him. Instinctively her hands covered his, but she made no effort to pull his away.

  “If you made any mistake, Cambria, it was from having a good heart. He’s the one who passed up someone incredible. He had you. He had a chance to have a life with you, and he walked away from it. What an ass.” His gaze dropped to her mouth, then slowly rose until she could see into his eyes again. With their faces so close, the swell of desire that fired his eyes and tightened his expression was like a touch on her skin—and deeper, beneath her skin, where it met an answering swell inside her. “He should never have let you go.”

  “Boone...”

  “I won’t, Cambria...I won’t...”

  Her mind couldn’t grapple with what it was he wouldn’t do; it was too occupied with what he did.

  His thumbs stroked along her cheekbones as he tilted her face to kiss her. In that first instant his mouth was warm and firm, like his body against hers.

  Then it was hot and hungry.

  Like her body.

  Maybe she’d known this could happen—would happen—from the time they’d come out here. Maybe she’d wanted it to. She knew she wanted to touch him. To learn the texture and resilience of his chest, to feel against her palm and between her fingers the prickle of the wedge of hair she’d glimpsed over the past weeks.

  Oh, yes, she wanted. But her rational mind didn’t turn off because of that, it simply grew quieter and less insistent than her senses.

  “Boone, we shouldn’t...”

  “Damn right, we shouldn’t.”

  He kissed her, deep, long, involved. A kiss that traveled to mundane spots like the bridge of her nose and the top of her ear, and to more exotic ports like the hollow of her neck, the underside of her chin and the first hint of curve at the top of her breast, but always returned to her mouth, hungry once more.

  “I’ve wondered about this blouse since that night...” he murmured.

  Without his finishing, Cambria knew he meant the night of the cafe party, the first night he’d kissed her. But she was much more interested in what he had wondered.

  She quickly found out when he pushed first one side of the wide neckline over the point of her shoulder, then the other. As his hand cleared the material, his lips and tongue trailed along the exposed flesh below her collarbone.

  Watching her, he carried her down to the sun-warmed rock. With one spread hand cushioning her head, he slid one leg between hers and half covered her with his chest.

  She opened the buttons that stopped her from taking the full pleasure of the touches she’d imagined, and discovered beneath his open shirt a reality much more intense, because her touches fed not only her senses, but his. She found the quick-drawn breath when she stroked, and the fine, involuntary quiver of muscles when she brushed.

  Aching spread, carrying with it a fever. He was unexplained, unexpected. But she knew what was happening, knew where their bodies were leading them.

  He’d found the back clasp of her bandeau bra, and she arched to ease his task. When it gave, they both sighed. He caught the end of her sigh in another kiss as he slid aside blouse and bra to touch her bare breast.

  Remarkable hands, she thought as the sensation of their roughened surface and restrained power circled the sensitive curves. Patient and thorough, he made her wait until she might have voiced her impatience, if he hadn’t kept her mouth occupied. When he touched her nipple, a brush with the side of his thumb over the hardened tip, she jolted and arched against him.

  As if the impatience had built as strongly in him, he groaned, low and hoarse, th
en shifted to take her nipple into his mouth, first dampening it with a swirl of his tongue, then drawing on it deeply, rhythmically.

  His movement pressed the blatant ridge under the zipper of his jeans full against her hip.

  She clutched at him, tumbling into the sensation, falling deeper when he paid the same service to her other breast, and greedily she wanted even more.

  When he kissed her mouth again, she felt the erotic rub of her dampened nipples against his chest, and skimmed her hands down his bare back, over his loosened belt and below, pressing him to her lower body.

  He released her mouth and backed away a little. She closed the space by kissing him. It was a while before they came up for air again and he spoke.

  “Are you...” She lost some of what he said as he dropped a brief kiss on her lips. But she heard the end of it. “Birth control pill?”

  Reality ripped her haze of sensation. “No. I’m not on the pill. Don’t you have any... anything?”

  Boone stilled, too. Then he jerked out a rough curse. “No. I never thought...I can’t seem to keep things straight when I’m around you.”

  He groaned, with an ache that reached deep inside her. She slid her hand down his side, over his hip, then forward.

  “I could—”

  “No.” He caught her wrist. “You were right at the start. We shouldn’t do this.” He jackknifed to a sitting position, putting his elbows on his bent knees. “Just give me a minute.”

  He let loose another curse, then exhaled through his nose.

  “I didn’t expect you, Cambria. And I sure as hell didn’t expect how you make me feel.’’

  She couldn’t argue with him. Not without arguing with herself, too.

  She wanted this man. Wanted the feel of his body against hers, inside hers.

  But she still didn’t know if she should trust him.

  She sat up and adjusted her clothes.

  “I’ll wait in the truck,” Cambria said.

  She’d rehooked her bra and had the neckline of her shirt as high as she could get it when he joined her in a few minutes. Reaching across from the passenger seat, he brushed the back of his fingers down her cheek. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t pull away.

  “I’m sorry, Cambria.”

  “No need. It wasn’t all your doing.”

  “I mean about turning down your offer. Just the thought...It was a near-run thing.”

  She swallowed, feeling the rough desire in his voice as if it were a touch.

  “But I want to be with you. Inside you. I’ll make sure next time there’s no reason to stop.”

  She turned the ignition key, still without looking at him. She knew better.

  “You’ll be gone before there can be a next time.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Cambria, as long as you’re heading out, could you take these clean towels to Boone’s cabin?”

  Irene’s request stopped Cambria in midstretch. She and Ted had been going over financial figures after dinner, while Irene folded laundry. Pete and Boone had gone out together right after finishing Irene’s apple pie and clearing the table. Cambria had wondered where they were going off to, but hadn’t been about to ask.

  Besides, her mind had been divided between mulling over Pete’s studiedly casual comments at dinner that he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to go to college next year, and wondering exactly how the Weston coffers would stretch to tuition, room and board, if he did.

  “Irene, I don’t think—”

  “His car’s gone.”

  “Oh.”

  She couldn’t think of any reason to refuse with the cabin empty. But she didn’t particularly care for Irene’s knowing smile, or the look that passed between her and Ted.

  Cambria frowned over that as she crossed the moonlight-washed porch of the darkened west cabin.

  Juggling the double armload of towels, she rapped perfunctorily on the door. Irene was right—the spot in front of the cabin where the rental car usually sat was conspicuously empty. She let herself into the cabin.

  The lack of artificial light didn’t bother her. She’d cleaned these cabins often enough to walk through any of them blindfolded, and with the moonlight filtering in, she easily passed through the outside room and into the bedroom, on a path to the bathroom.

  Halfway across the bedroom she jolted to a stop with an audible gasp.

  “What are you doing here?”

  A low chuckle reached her from the bed before Boone unclasped his hands from behind his head and lazily propped himself up on one elbow.

  “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

  She hitched an arm to indicate the towels.

  He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. When he stood and came toward her, Cambria made herself remain where she was. She had no reason to think he’d do anything...other than take the towels from her.

  “Thanks.” Two strides took him to the bathroom, an instant to put the towels down, then two strides back. That gave her a head start. “Hey, where’re you going? Stick around awhile, keep me company.”

  Once she left the dim bedroom behind, curiosity slowed her exit.

  “What are you doing sitting in the dark?”

  “No—” he stepped between her and the lamp she’d been reaching for “—don’t turn the lights on.”

  “Then I’m leav— No, wait, you’re trying to distract me from the point, aren’t you?” Hands on hips, she considered him. “What’s going on? And where’s your car?”

  Even in the splintered moonlight she saw his slow grin. “Pete’s got it.”

  “Pete!”

  “Let’s go sit outside. It’s a nice night.”

  She let him guide her out the door and take the pile of towels for her cabin from her, setting them on the camp table next to a rocking chair on the porch. “Boone...”

  He held his hands up in classic sign language for innocence. “You have nothing to fear from me.”

  Without touching, they moved to sit side by side on the single step from the small porch to the path. Cambria thought she heard a murmur from him that sounded suspiciously like “For now.” But when she studied his face, it revealed nothing.

  “Nice night, isn’t it?” he offered.

  “You think a nice night’s going to make me forget that Pete has your car? Your expensive car?”

  “He’s got a big date tonight.”

  “But he said he was going to the library—”

  “He did go to the library. He took Lauren.”

  “Lauren?” A memory hit her of Pete’s talking in the most casual manner possible, to a fair-haired girl at his past two baseball games.

  “Yeah. Lauren. I think it’s serious,” he said with absolute solemnity. “She makes him laugh and she doesn’t giggle.”

  “Mmm. Potent combination.”

  “That’s right, and he wanted to impress her.”

  “So you loaned him your rental car. That’s nice of you.”

  He shrugged. “He’s got school tomorrow, so he shouldn’t be too late.”

  “And you don’t mind sitting in the dark waiting for him?”

  He shrugged again. “He’s a good kid.”

  She smiled, while part of her wondered how she could feel so at ease with Boone yet so unnervingly aware of him. “Yeah, he is.”

  The man beside her gave off a tension she’d felt from him before, most recently at dinner not three hours earlier. “You think he meant what he said about not going to college?” he asked abruptly.

  “I hope not. But there’s time before that becomes an issue—as long as nobody pushes him into making an absolute statement too soon.”

  “I didn’t say a word.”

  She laughed. “No, you didn’t. And it was a close call between you and Ted which of you would have burst first if Irene hadn’t changed the subject.”

  “I like that,” he objected. “I bit my tongue until it bled, to follow your advice, keeping my mouth shut even though I think...Wel
l, as you said, it doesn’t matter what I think.”

  “I didn’t say that. It’s how you let people know what you think that can make all the difference—especially with someone like Pete. If you push him too hard, he gets his back up and then he gets so stubborn there’s no budging him, even if he wants to be budged. You should understand that. It sounds like your sister might be the same kind of person.”

  He looked out toward where the moon hung low and jack-o’-lantern big on the horizon.

  “Yeah, she is.”

  She heard tension in his voice. She’d blundered into his vulnerability, bringing up his sister. She subsided into silence, but after a moment he broke it.

  “Will it be pushing too hard if I ask you a question? Kind of personal.”

  Her heart started beating more heavily. “Depends on the question.”

  “How come you mostly call your parents Ted and Irene?”

  A breath slid out of her. She hadn’t expected that.

  For the second time this evening Boone had surprised her.

  “Pete doesn’t,” he went on. “And it sort of surprises me that you do. I know Irene’s your stepmother, but Ted’s your fath—”

  “Ted’s my stepfather,” she heard herself saying. She raised her hands, palms up. “I don’t know officially what that would make Irene. But it doesn’t change how I feel about her.”

  “I can see that.”

  Maybe it was his sincerity. Or his patience. Or the restraint he showed with Pete. Or a less explicable urge to share with him.

  “My father—or maybe I should say, the male who provided sperm to my conception—” Boone flinched slightly at the ironic twist in her voice. If he felt sorry for her, it was wasted. She’d never felt the man’s absence. “My so-called father left before I was born. My mother got notice of his death about a year later. I don’t even know if it caused a ripple in her life. She’d already met Ted. I can’t remember him ever not being there.”