by Tina Leonard
She gazed at his offering. “Well, it’s not four-star restaurant fare, but I will not complain.”
She tore into the beef jerky wrapper without any hint of a snit, he noticed with admiration. “I do like the fact that you travel well. You’re not prissy.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Some girls would be really perturbed at the accommodations and sustenance—”
“My parents were hippies. We lived in a commune. I can adapt.” She looked at him. “But I really, really want to know something.”
He loved the way she was staring at him, her eyes round and big in the waning light. Green smells from the meadows blew through the truck on a playful breeze, and as he stared at Hannah, he thought he could stay with her like this for a long time. Maybe forever. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman on the planet, she wasn’t a cowgirl, and she wasn’t settled, that was for certain. But something about her felt right to him.
It had to be the stuff Hawk had given him to drink. Maybe that foul medicine hadn’t completely worked its way out of his system. “Ask. Whatever you want.”
“You said you wanted us to have honesty between us.”
“Yeah.” He drank some soda and made a face. “Maybe I’ll switch to beer.”
“Pay attention,” she told him. “This is an important question.”
“I’m right with you, lady. Fire away.”
“It was pretty hard for me to tell you I couldn’t have kids,” she said softly.
He stared at her. “Um, oh yeah. I forgot about that. I’m sorry you can’t.”
Her eyes grew wide. “You are?”
“Well, yeah. Isn’t that what I should say?”
“I guess so.”
But she put her jerky back in the package as if she’d lost her appetite. “What is it?” he asked. “I am sorry that you went through that.”
Her gaze turned hopeful. “Nothing else?”
He scratched his head. “Hannah, you’re going to have to ask me directly what it is you want to know. You’ve already determined my scale of logic and romance.”
She swallowed and brushed her hands together before looking at him. “Does not being able to have a baby—”
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “No. That would not change my mind, if we were of a mind to be discussing a real marriage. No. I don’t want kids. I haven’t wanted marriage for just that reason. The family history and all that.” He shook his head decisively. “No. Last’s were the final diapers I ever hope to change, thank you.”
She smiled at him. “And you don’t mind a scar here or there?”
“A scar?” He realized where the conversation might be heading. His heart lit up. “Hannah, my scars outnumber yours any day, first of all. Secondly, I think I can say this for all men, we’re much more interested in the destination than the um—” He broke off and rubbed his chin. “You know what? I’m going to insert my boot in my mouth when I should be saying something romantic.”
She smiled and took his hand away from his chin. “Relax. I’m not looking for the perfect man. I’m not even looking for anything long-term, as you know.” Moving his hand to her lips, she kissed his fingers. He was so startled that he picked up her other hand and did the same, only he kissed her fingers one at a time. Slowly. And then he kissed her lips softly, with pressure that communicated warmth, not heat. He wanted Hannah to know that there was more to him than raucous cowboy. He might not be skilled at verbal communication, but with his mouth he could tell her what he wanted her to know.
“I’ll take that eight hours,” she said. “There are too many stars out to waste on being angry.”
His whole body exploded with desire. “I’ll get you to that boat, even if I have to swim to it. I won’t get you there by the time it leaves, but I will find it.”
She nodded. “I know you will.”
She trusted him, after all. That excited him more than anything. Leaning into her, he went for her lips, but she quickly stopped him with one finger. “We both agree that this is no-strings sex,” she said.
“Agreed. This is casual coitus,” he stated recklessly. Most women wanted to hear that a man loved them, but of course, Hannah would be different.
“Are you fibbing?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said as he cupped her breasts in his hands. “Nothing about you is casual to me.” He slid his fingers down her stomach, feeling the soft skin underneath her top. “Is that a problem?”
“Of course,” she murmured. “Nothing about my upbringing is conducive to long-term stability. You’re going to be disappointed by that eventually, and I don’t want to be responsible for hurting you. Remember what your father said.” She gazed up at him from under her lashes. “Maybe I’m not to your betterment.”
He nodded slowly. “Maybe not.” And then he unbuttoned her jeans. A slender thong encircled her hips with two small strings. His heart pounded. “Hannah, a certain part of my body wants you to know that you definitely are to my betterment,” he said hoarsely.
He watched, mesmerized, as her hands went to her shirt, unbuttoning it to reveal a small bra. Polka dots brightened the material, shimmering in the moonlight. “Happy bra,” he said.
“Happy cowboy,” she said, sliding the bra down her shoulders so that her nipples were bared.
“Oh, honey,” he groaned. “I’ve got to get in you. Now.”
She gasped as he pulled her bra off. “Don’t be too gentle with me.”
“Absolutely not.” He removed the itty-bitty thong and made a slingshot out of it.
“I may never find that,” she said, watching it fly.
He took her breasts in his mouth, and she tried not to sound like a delirious cheerleader when he sucked her nipples. “Then again, all I care about is finding you.”
Her hands found the buttons on his jeans, and she frantically undid them. He took one second to help her pull off his jeans and everything else, and when she put her small hands on him, stroking and pulling, he wanted to holler yee-haw! But he used that energy instead to open the truck door, dragging her across the bench seat to him.
“Lie still,” he told her, “I’ve wanted to do this to you since I first met you.” And he pulled her hips to his mouth, stroking inside her with his tongue until she cried out with a pleasure she’d never known before.
He sat her up and pulled her out of the truck onto him, and she locked her legs around his waist, and he thrust into her, and then she did scream to release the wild joy building inside her. He yelled, too, and she loved the sound of his pleasure, and the best part of this moment was that they were so far out in the middle of nowhere that nobody heard them.
BY THE TIME the sun broke night’s hold on the darkness, Hannah was exhausted. She’d also had the best time she’d ever had, she acknowledged, pulling herself out of Ranger’s arms. He was snoring in her ear, thoroughly satisfied, she thought smugly. They were lying on a blanket in the truckbed, and heaven only knew if she could jump down. His grip tightened on her when she tried to move away.
“Where’re you going?” he asked without opening his eyes.
“To find my clothes, if that can be achieved.” She removed his arms and crawled away from him, recognizing that she was probably going to be sore for a few days. Ranger had been good for his promise of eight hours.
He grabbed her ankle and gently dragged her back to him, which made her giggle in spite of herself.
“Not without my good-morning kiss,” he told her bossily, flipping her onto her back so that he could kiss her thoroughly. “Now, that’s how I like to greet the day,” he said, when he was through ravishing her lips and most of her face and neck.
“I’m dying, Ranger,” she said with a groan. “I’ve never had so much fun in my life. It was like riding all the fast rides at the amusement park all at once, over and over again.”
He stretched, revealing a big chest and strong muscles she hadn’t had time to appreciate fully last night. Men weren’t supposed to be so gorgeous. Nor so tale
nted with their—
She’d pulled his shirt through the back window from where he’d tossed it, and a small rope circle fell to the truckbed. Picking it up, she held the ring up so that Ranger could see it. “What’s this?”
He took the shirt and put it on, ignoring what she held up and the tone of her voice. “Your ring.”
“I know that. I threw it away in the cave.”
“And I picked it up.” Jumping down from the truck, he went to shrug into the rest of his clothes. Was there anything more exciting than the sight of a man’s bare butt hanging out below his shirt—
She forced herself to focus on her fear and not her attraction. “But why?”
He didn’t look at her as he dressed. “Why not?”
Why not, indeed. This was supposed to be casual. It was supposed to mean nothing. He wasn’t supposed to want anything serious between them.
Then why did he have her wedding ring?
“Ranger,” she said, taking her clothes as he handed them over the side, “where is your ring?”
“In my wallet. Yours must have fallen out when I tore my clothes off. In fact, if we find all of your clothes, it will be a shock to me.”
And then he looked at her with those big dark eyes, patient and kind and unmoving.
“You promised,” she said softly. “You promised this was casual.”
“I can be as casual as you want me to be.” He leaned over the side to give her a soft kiss on the lips. “I’m going to go use the gents.”
And he left her sitting there, naked in his truck.
She had the strangest feeling he had no intention of being casual at all. Suddenly, she was scared. If he loved her, if he was in love with her, she wouldn’t know what to do.
She was afraid she might fall in love with him, too. She was nothing like the kind of woman he should love. Her way was to keep moving before anyone could realize she wasn’t good enough. But a handsome man with a fairly stable lifestyle and enough badness in him to make cowboy sex the most fun she’d ever had—it was almost too irresistible.
He’d kept the wedding ring she’d flung in the dirt.
Oh, God. She needed to keep moving. Now.
Chapter Eleven
“The ladies’ is over by yonder tree,” Ranger said cheerfully when he returned. “Hurry up. We’ve got to get a move on if we’re going to catch that riverboat.” And then he started singing.
The ass! He was actually serenading her with an old Mac Davis tune, one from, yes, her generation. It was the one about the girl getting that clinging-vine look in her eyes and the man warning her not to get hooked on him!
She jumped down from the truckbed without folding the blanket and ignored him, marching off to find the “ladies”’ he’d offered. When she returned, he grinned at her.
“Feel better?” he asked.
She wanted to smack him. “It is so obvious what you’re doing.”
“Getting you to your riverboat, darlin’,” he said too happily, gunning the truck engine. “Why, would you look at that? A full tank of gas!”
“What?” she exclaimed.
“Now, Miss HotKiss,” he said, shaking a finger at her, his grin smug. “You didn’t think a cowboy would travel in a truck this size without extra fuel, did you? Didn’t you see that gas can back there? I believe you kicked it once or twice.” He put his hat on and pulled out a good-size map from the console, which he made a great show of shaking out. “Now, I put us about here. Which means we’re only five minutes from a main road. So we’re off and running, huh, gal?”
He’d tricked her, the louse. Gritting her teeth, she said, “And the flat? Should I ask if meadow fairies fixed the flat in the night?”
“They did!” he exclaimed with wide eyes. “How did you guess? And you know what else,” he said conspiratorially, “they even told me that the north star was a pretty reliable indicator of direction.”
“You ass!” She crossed her arms and stared out the window.
“Some crazy little girl once upon a time told me the word was best used with a French pronunciation,” he said, driving the truck up onto the highway smoothly, his grin even more smooth. “Ah-shay, I believe she told me. ’Course, by the time I finished with her, she was saying, Ah-Ranger!”
“Thanks for sharing that,” Hannah said. “Very funny, I might add.”
“Casual, sweetie,” he said cheerfully. “I’m just a casual kind of guy, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
WHEW! Hannah was pouting, which was good. Ranger’s heart slowed down. She’d begun freaking out on him when she found her ring, and with her eyes all panicked and wild, she’d reminded him of a filly he’d once been stuck breaking in. That filly had just about worn him out with her crazy ways. Instantly, he’d realized Hannah was on her way out the gate.
But now she was calm—annoyed, but calm—and that was better. He’d need a few moments to gather his wits and prepare the rest of his battle plan. She was a wily one, never-tameable, and he’d have to be very careful about proceeding, sort of like stepping around grenades.
Obviously, she couldn’t handle the thought of security or commitment. That was fine, wasn’t it?
He tried to picture Hannah cooking on a stove, wearing an apron every day of her life, and the vision was enough to make him laugh. It was much easier to envision her naked.
He liked that image much better. Okay, so lots of sex could be in their future, just so long as she thought he didn’t want her permanently.
Damn, that might suck after a while. Something inside him was stable, a part of him that overlaid his rowdy spirit. Did he want to settle down eventually? Not with the white picket fence, blue shutters and yard full of kids, but…settle with the right woman and wake up every day with a hard-on for her.
Beside him, Hannah was dozing. The sunlight showed the softness of age in her face. He found that more attractive than any pretty young thing he might have had in his truck. So much about Hannah felt like what he’d been waiting for his whole life.
He could be patient, he told himself. He’d out-waited many a wild thing in his time.
He would take her to Jellyfish and his riverboat, and when she saw the two of them side-by-side, she would realize the difference between a squid and a cowboy. He would bet Little Miss Don’t-Tie-Me-Down would jump into the river to swim after him as he waved goodbye!
A COUPLE OF SILENT HOURS later, they’d reached their destination. The riverboat shone white and serene in the murky water of the Mississippi.
“He’s still here!” Hannah exclaimed, sitting up.
“Sure he is. I paid your almost-ex two hundred dollars per customer to hang around until we got here.”
Hannah turned to stare at him. “What are you talking about?”
Ranger shrugged, pleased that he’d surprised her. “Last night, when you took a little snooze in between the action, I called Archer. I told him to make an offer to Jellyfish. That’s what he negotiated on our behalf.” He grinned.
“Our behalf?”
“I promised I’d get you to your riverboat, and here you are. I always keep my promises.” He winked at her.
He had her unbalanced, Ranger thought with a smirk. It felt good to unhinge her just a little. She was impressed, although she didn’t want to show it.
Cissy came running down the pier toward them. “Hannah! You made it!”
Hannah jumped out of the truck, and the two women embraced. Ranger beamed. Behind the women, his brother walked down the pier toward them, with another man beside him. Suddenly, Hannah separated herself from Cissy and went running toward the stranger. She launched herself into his arms, and he picked her up off the ground to swing her around.
Which he could do easily, Ranger observed with some dismay. The man was a brown giant. He topped Ranger by a couple of inches and outweighed him by a fit one hundred pounds. His arms, exposed by a short-sleeved T-shirt, had hams for biceps. His face was the youthful one of a twenty-something-year-old. And he treated Ha
nnah as gently as if she were a doll. All the surety Ranger had felt began to shift inside his chest.
“Ranger!” Hannah exclaimed. “Come meet Jellyfish!”
ONCE INSIDE the boat, Hannah put away her luggage while Cissy looked on.
“Jellyfish was frantic when you didn’t show up,” Cissy said. “He was ready to send out the National Guard. Ranger’s going to have to work to get on his good side.”
“He’s kind of protective of me.” Hannah sat down on the bed and kicked off her shoes. “All I want is a shower.”
“I’ll leave you to it.”
“Hang on a second, Cissy,” Hannah said. “Ranger got me lost on purpose. I’m sorry it held up the trip.”
Cissy shrugged. “I’ve made plenty in extra tips. I think I’m going to make more here than I did at Marvella’s. And it’s good, clean fun.” She glanced around the room. “I think I could like living like this.”
“Really? It suits the gypsy in me, but I would have thought you were looking for something more stable.”
“I don’t know.” Cissy shook her head with a soft smile. “It’s very romantic. I can’t wait to get moving down the river.”
“So, I guess Archer’s pretty bored?”
“Who cares? He doesn’t know what he wants any more than we do.”
“Great. We’re all just undecideds.”
“Nothing decided between you and Ranger, then?” Cissy looked at her. “I know how much you like him, Hannah.”
“I think I do. But…he’s not a man one hauls around like luggage, and I’ll never be the settled kind.”
“Jellyfish told me the two of you grew up in the commune together.”
“Yeah. We’ve known each other a long time.” Hannah looked at her toes.
“Do you know he’s talking about selling the riverboat?”
Hannah shook her head. “It won’t matter to me.”
“You won’t marry him?”
“No. We talked about it, because we are so similar. He understands me. We come from the same place. But…that all changed when I fell in love.”
