by Tina Leonard
She felt light-headed and crazily hot. “Let me catch my breath.”
“No,” he said, giving her a kiss so sweet she clung to him. “You won’t need to catch your breath for what I’m about to do to you. I’ll breathe for both of us.”
AN HOUR LATER Esme stared up at the skylight overhead, seeing silken cobwebs and maybe a touch of heaven. “I’m not afraid of heights anymore,” she said. “I’m positive I like them just fine.”
Last leaned up on an elbow to smile down at her and brushed a hand over her breasts. “You never had to be afraid of heights,” he said gently. “You could have come up the staircase over there.”
Leaning up, she looked to see. Built into the wall was a very sturdy, ordinary set of wide stairs anyone might find in a regular house. “You louse,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you wanted to get over your fears so badly,” he said, kissing her neck. “Why else would you come stomping in here all full of pride and glory to tell me you couldn’t pursue me—when quite clearly that was exactly what you were doing?”
Gasping, she sat up. “Last Jefferson, I do not like you. You are an egotistical—”
He pushed her back down, straddling her, and proceeded to ease her skirt up her thighs again. “You’re so cute when you’re half-dressed.”
“You are about to be in big trouble with me,” she told him.
He laughed. “So we can have the conversation now that brought you in here in the first place. If you’d like. Which member of my family was filling your head with nonsense?”
She did need to talk to him, but he was making it difficult. Her pride wanted her to flounce out of there, but her body was playing traitor. “Maybe I’ll just pursue you as my boy toy,” she said.
He grinned. “You would find yourself pursuing often.” He nipped lightly at her lips and gave her bottom a squeeze. “You and I are like a matched set when it comes to lovemaking.”
“There has to be more than that,” she said, “for the sake of compatibility.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” he said, happily admiring a mole on her rib cage. “I have to like you a lot.”
She sat up, realizing there was no way she could only have a sexual liaison with this too-sexy male. “Sex only goes so far. Can you slide off of me, please?”
He rolled, taking her with him so that now she sat astride him. “So speak your mind. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”
She felt oddly more in control in this position. And he seemed sincerely interested in listening. “You’re running for sheriff.”
“Yes. I told you.”
“Mimi says you did all the necessary paperwork before you came to California.”
“I did.”
“You told me you were on your way to Africa to bungee jump.”
“I was,” he said. “The two goals are not mutually exclusive. Both required a leap of faith.”
“They seem quite different to me.”
“On the surface,” Last said, tugging her blouse into place helpfully. “However, which would be harder—beating your brother or jumping off a cliff with a harness securing you?”
She was silent.
“You see, you think of harnesses as protection for going up. I see them as protection for coming down. Where’s the risk in that?” He tapped a finger against her neckline. “I would say intending to beat your brother for an elected position takes far more guts.”
“Why are you doing it?”
He stroked her arm, making her shiver a bit. “Next question.”
She took a deep breath. “Mimi wants Mason to win.”
“Of course. He’s her man, though he doesn’t realize it.”
Esme felt her heart break a little for Mimi. “I don’t understand you men.”
“We don’t understand ourselves either.” Last didn’t grin when he said it. “But we muddle through.”
“You’re right about Mason—”
“Sh,” Last said. “Only a blood test could determine that for certain.”
True. But she had seen the sadness in Mimi’s eyes. “Are you ever going to at least hint to him?”
“No.”
Esme took a deep breath. “Because we could be wrong.”
“Because it’s none of our business and not our life,” Last said. “I have enough to do looking after you, lady.”
Esme stiffened. “I do not need looking after.”
“But I like to.” He ran a wandering hand up her back. “So tell me more about this nonpursuit you’re conducting.”
“Last,” Esme said, “why do you think you’re immune to your family superstition?”
He grinned. “Because I started that fairy tale. So keep my secret, all right?”
“Fill me in and maybe I will. I may even put this in my thesis about people’s beliefs.”
“It wasn’t magic,” Last said.
“But it is a belief system you tapped into, if you’re telling the truth,” Esme said. “Are you saying that all these years your family has believed in The Curse, you manipulated them?”
“Harsh,” he said. “I prefer to think of it as helping them through hoodwinks and chicanery.” He ran a hand up her naked thigh, making her glad she’d worn a dress. “Wouldn’t that make me a ringmaster who understood his audience?” Last asked with a grin, rolling her over so that he lay on top of her again. “You are now my partner in crime.”
“So now what?” she asked him, unzipping his zipper to give him a little of his own medicine. “What about you?”
“Oh, I like having a partner. Never fear.”
“About the pain thing.”
He nibbled along her neck, then moved to a breast. Her blood soared and sang with pleasure. “I am neither that stupid nor that stubborn. I’d never let my lady go just because I was too stubborn to know a good thing when I saw it.”
“I can’t believe you’ve done this to your brothers,” she said, gasping, amazed that Last clearly wanted her again as he began removing his jeans. She helped him ease them down eagerly.
“I only do things that are good for them. Trust me, they deserved to be hoodwinked.”
She could barely keep her mind on the conversation. The temptation to fall into bliss was too strong. “I clearly remember you being worried about it in California, when the junior sea lion—”
“Shh,” Last said. “Let’s not talk about that.”
She giggled, knowing she’d hit a point of pride with him. “You were so cute thinking you were going to save it. And you distinctly rambled about pain and love.”
“A man can come to believe his own legend,” Last said. “And something told me I shouldn’t take any chances with you. Besides, I prefer to believe in pleasure. Keep doing what you’re doing and I’m going to pleasure you again, my lady magician.”
She liked having him under her spell. “I could do an entire thesis on you, Last.”
But then he took her lips again, and she forgot all about Last’s fairy tales.
Chapter Thirteen
Last awakened, looking up at the skylight of the hayloft—if one could call it a true skylight; maybe it was more of a hole in the roof, he decided, and realized he’d never before opened his eyes to marvel at a little piece of heaven. It was all due to the woman next to him, he thought, his heart nearly singing from the joy and wonder of falling in love.
He was falling in love, despite Mason’s objection to Esme and the myriad other reasons that might stand in his way. Esme was a woman like none other. “You’re all mine,” he said, confidently rolling over to shower her with affection.
She was gone.
He looked around the hayloft in surprise. “Impatient lass,” he muttered. “How kind of her to let me nap while she goes and checks on the kids.” She must have used the hayloft stairs, as he’d explained to her.
But he was worried that she’d just up and leave him napping in hay.
There was probably a very good reason that she’d left his side
without a kiss goodbye. She’d been baking apple pies and possibly she’d gone to prepare him a slice, he decided, feeling ravenous after an afternoon of even more ravenous lovemaking.
It was great to be pursued by a gorgeous, goodhearted female.
He headed to the kitchen of the main house, his stomach growling. Helga looked up when he entered, and Mason sat at the table eating a piece of freshly baked pie.
“You look like you’ve been napping in a hayloft,” Mason said, barely disturbing the rise of the fork to his mouth as he spoke.
“Yeah.” Not in the mood for a lecture on staying on task, Last said, “Have you seen Esme?”
Mason looked at him strangely. “She and the kids went to Lonely Hearts Station.”
Last stared at his older brother, his heart sinking. “For what?”
“You didn’t know?” Mason asked. “Apparently her family and the circus are arriving today.”
She hadn’t said a word, the little minx. Last looked at the pie, almost tasting regret. But there would be more pies in life, yet only one woman he cared about.
“So about the race for sheriff,” Mason said.
“First things first,” Last said. “I’ve got to run off and join the circus today, but I’ll be back.”
“Circus first, then family?” Mason asked.
“Family first or it’s forever a circus,” Last said, letting Helga hand him a plastic-wrapped piece of pie as he strode out the door.
MOVING VANS were the first thing Last saw when he pulled into Lonely Hearts Station. In all the years of living at the beck and call of glorious rodeo and the excitement it created, he had to admit that the pandemonium surrounding the circus was electrifying.
In fact, he would never have believed it if he wasn’t seeing it. And Esme had orchestrated all of this.
For a man used to adventure, his heart was certainly pounding now, with adrenaline, with nerves, with recognition that this was a different bull ride than any he had experienced before. He spied Esme standing with the ringmaster and the lion tamer, directing traffic, and for a moment he watched her in her natural element. Nearby Amelia and Curtis were perched on an empty cage, eating cotton candy. Several Lonely Hearts Salon hair-dressers helped unpack, happy to be part of a new venture for their town. The town fathers—including Delilah Honeycutt—stood nearby, smiling at their new economic venture. Esme’s parents sat in the shade, looking happy and rested despite the trip. The family was together again.
In spite of himself, Last knew bringing the circus to Lonely Hearts Station was a good idea. Yet his prejudice was hard to get over. He wasn’t so different from Mason in that regard; he wanted to believe, as Esme’s parents once had, that the circus life was not the most optimal environment for a family.
He was being intellectually dishonest, he knew.
Getting out of the truck, he stood by an elephant that was being taken to the stables, which would be converted for the circus animals. The fact was, the infrastructure of the year-round rodeo was perfect for the small circus, and the commerce would be good for a town that had once struggled so mightily that Delilah had had to lay off half her girls, who had then opened a salon in Union Junction.
He could learn to fork hay for elephants just as well as livestock. For Esme and the children, he was going to have to change.
“Hey, magician,” he said, grabbing Esme and pulling her behind a truck. “Nice disappearing act you performed on me.”
“Last!” She looked up at him, her eyes wide.
“Just as soon as I think I’ve got you tied to me with your fear of heights, you decide you’re an air mistress. Maybe I’ll get you up in a hang glider one day.”
She smiled. “How did you find me?”
He gave her a crooked grin. “You must have said goodbye to Mason. And he has a big mouth.”
“Oh.” Her eyes glowed as she looked up at him. “He was playing cards with the kids. I had to say something. Besides, it was nice of him to host us for so long.”
He kissed her thoroughly, nearly lifting her off her feet, and Esme kissed him back, glad to have him in her arms.
“You weren’t in my town that long, lady, and I didn’t know Mason knew how to play cards with young children,” Last said, pulling away from her lips, to her great disappointment.
“I think they’d roped him into playing Old Maid,” she said.
Last grinned. “That is practically Mason’s namesake game.”
“I think Curtis and Amelia have started to grow on him.”
“Believe it or not, he’s really not as crusty as he appears. And Curtis and Amelia are cool.” He set her down, placing her about a foot away from him. “Back to you just leaving me without so much as a goodbye. I didn’t like that.”
She lowered her gaze for a moment. “I knew you’d pout about us leaving to do anything with the circus.”
“Well, pout may be too strong,” Last said, knowing full well he’d not given her the support she’d needed with her venture. “However, I might not have been excited about it.”
“Whatever,” Esme said with a laugh. “Sounds like pout to me.”
He twisted his lips. “I’d like to think you’d planned on missing me, Esme.”
“Some things about you,” she admitted, “and some things not. You’re quite stubborn, you know, and I’m not sure where you stand on much of anything. I’ve realized I need stability.” She smiled, and at that moment Curtis and Amelia appeared at Last’s elbow.
“There’s pie in your truck, Mr. Last,” Curtis said, his eyes bright.
“How do you know?” Last asked.
“We checked it out in case you’d brought us some. Mr. Mason called to say you were on your way,” Amelia said.
“You knew I was on the way,” Last told Esme. “With a pie for your parents. And still you acted surprised.”
“Well, I wanted you to feel your trip had been worth it,” Esme said. “I didn’t know there would be two little pie eaters waiting to see.”
“It’s all about the pie,” Last said with a put-upon sigh. “Here.” He handed the kids his keys. “Get the pie, but do not drive the truck, please.”
“Yay!” Curtis and Amelia ran off, delighted to be the recipients of truck keys and a pie.
Last narrowed his gaze on Esme. “So I’m not the only one who isn’t clear about where you stand,” he pointed out. “You knew all along I wasn’t going to let you go so easily.”
“We work better when you pursue,” Esme said, lifting her nose mock-haughtily. “I believe you like the role of hunter.”
“I’m going to keep my eye on you,” he said. “Right now I’m going to watch you work. I can tell this circus world is going to change my life in immeasurable ways.”
She laughed, tugging him by the jeans pocket. “Come help unload and settle my horses. That’s where you’ll shine, I suspect.”
“First, I must say hello to your parents and the ringmaster and the lion tamer and the guy in the gorilla suit,” Last said. “I feel like the Wizard of Oz, only I won’t be passing out heart, courage and brains.”
“That would make me Dorothy.”
“You do wear sparkly shoes,” Last said, “but I like you naked best. Come on. I’m excited about meeting the gang again.”
“HI, MR. AND MRS. HASTINGS,” Last said politely as the children dutifully handed them the pie Last had supposedly brought to greet her parents—though Esme knew the gesture was at Mason’s behest. Chester lumbered to his feet to greet the cowboy, an old yellow hound glad to reintroduce himself to the once-wounded person with whom he’d shared a sofa. “I see you made the trip just fine, old boy,” he told the big dog. “As did the two of you,” he said to Esme’s parents.
“And you’re in much better shape today,” her mother told Last with a twinkle in her eye. “All over your injuries.”
“I’m a new man,” Last said, not worried about the teasing as he shook her father’s hand. “I’ve been trying to take good care of your
daughter.”
“So we’ve heard, dear,” Esme’s mother said. “The children tell us everything.”
He glanced over at Esme, then the children. “I might have suspected,” he said, drawing a laugh from everyone.
“Yes, we were a bit worried when we heard that Esme had swept you out of a tree,” Mrs. Hastings said, “but it does seem as if you’ve recovered just fine.”
“Oh, those injuries,” Last said, and Esme took his arm.
“Let’s not tease him too hard,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll have to adjust to us in small doses.”
“I’m good,” Last said, stiffening just the slightest when the ringmaster, lion tamer and gorilla-man—today out of costume—came over to say hello.
“We thank you for having us here,” the ringmaster said formally. “Being here will keep us all together.”
Esme knew that was probably the last thing Last had on his mind. “Mom and Dad and Chester seem to have made the trip very comfortably. Thank you so much.”
“It’s no problem for family,” the ringmaster replied.
Last pushed his hat back on his head, looking at the seven people Esme cared about. There had to be a way for Last to feel included in her life, Esme thought, or he was going to leave her.
She knew then, as he welcomed her ragtag family into town, that she didn’t want to lose him. This was going to be a very tough transition for him, because he was used to possessing something completely, and she knew that would include any lady he had a relationship with. He would have to share her, and she hoped he cared about her enough to want to figure out how it all would work.
“We’re going to put my horses in their new digs,” Esme said hurriedly. “Mom, Dad, I’ll be right back to situate you over at Delilah’s place.”
Taking Last by the hand, she dragged him toward the horse trailer.
“You wanted to speak with me?” he said. “I sense that you have something on your mind, since you’ve never pulled me away before.”
She stopped, looking at him. “Are you going to be okay with all this?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “As long as I don’t have to wear a gorilla suit, I’m easy with the whole thing. I really don’t like to be confined, and a suit of any kind just isn’t me.”
