“I’m fine, really, Reid, as long as you don’t mind driving. If I get too sleepy, I’ll just take a nap.”
“Here.” He handed her a pillow from the backseat. “I’ll wake you up when we get into Wyoming.”
“I’m not that tired yet.”
“Are you hungry?” he asked. “If you want to get something, we should stop here in town. There won’t be many options once we get on the highway.”
“I’m always hungry, Reid, but I have juice and granola bars in my pack. I’ll survive until we hit Wyoming.” She shook her head with a giggle and then threw the pillow in the back. “What a mother hen you’re becoming.”
“I take care of what matters to me, and you top that list.”
“You’re first on mine too, Reid,” she returned with a soft smile, and then curled up against his chest. He put the truck in gear and drove the next twenty miles lost in his thoughts. He thought she’d nodded off until she broke the silence. “It’s getting close to Christmas.”
“Yup.”
“We haven’t talked about how we’re going to spend it.”
“Nope,” he replied, watching her in his peripheral vision.
“So…do you have any thoughts on the subject?”
“As a matter of fact I do,” he replied. “Thoughts and plans.”
“Care to elaborate, Reid? I’m not sure I like playing twenty questions.”
“Seems to me we have several options.”
“I’m listening.”
“Since it’s our first Christmas together, we might want to spend it alone. Or, if you prefer, we’re always welcome up at the ranch.”
“You said several options. What’s the third?” she asked.
“We could drive out to California and spend it with your grandparents.”
“Really, Reid?” Her face lit up. “You’d do that?”
“Absolutely. Only seems right. You haven’t seen them in almost a year.”
“But will your family be disappointed if we don’t spend it with them?”
“A little.” He shrugged. “But they’ll get over it.”
“We’ve come a long way, haven’t we? Your family and me. I never could have imagined it, especially Krista.”
“She never really disliked you. She just wanted to see me with Tonya and thought you were the only reason it didn’t work out. She didn’t know anything about Ton and Jared. Everything changed once I told her. Krista’s always been fiercely loyal to me.”
“Don’t I know it,” she replied dryly.
“Speaking of family, there’s something else I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
“What’s that?”
“Your mom, Haley. I’m wondering if you might be feeling a tad bit softer toward her now.”
She exhaled a long sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe part of me does, but the other half feels more resentful than ever.”
“Then maybe you can just concentrate on that first part?” he suggested.
“Why are you bringing it up out of the blue like this?”
“Because she’d like to see you at Christmas. She’d like to be part of your life.”
Haley’s brows met in a scowl. “You’ve spoken with her?”
“Not directly.”
“Then how?” she demanded.
“Your grandpa told me. Just think about it, okay? We could drive through Washington on our way to California. That way you could visit however long you like—twenty minutes or twenty hours. Totally your choice. I’d just like to see you mend your fences with her. Especially now. I think you’d be happier if you did.”
“But I am happy,” she insisted.
“You might be even happier knowing the truth about your parents, especially with the baby coming. Have you ever thought about tracking down your father?”
“I lied when you asked me that once before. I told you I hadn’t, but the truth is I’m afraid.”
“Of what, sweetheart?”
“Rejection, Reid. What if he really is the dog I’ve always believed he was?”
“But what if he isn’t? Worst-case scenario, he’s the man you already think he is, but maybe he isn’t. What if he has regrets about the past and is equally fearful of rejection from you? What if he never knew about you at all? I’m not gonna force the issue, but just consider it, okay?”
“I will,” she replied. After a moment she added, “It’s really sweet of you to care about all that, Reid.”
His hand came off the wheel to grip hers. “I care about you. Everything that matters to you, matters to me. Which brings up another subject I’ve been waiting to discuss.”
“What’s that?”
“Wolves. Or rather wolf control.”
“What do you mean?”
“You remember that range rider idea I had?”
“Of course I remember.”
“I have some thoughts on how to get it started.”
“Do you? Tell me, Reid.”
“A couple of weeks ago I got a call from an old buddy of mine who’s having some wolf troubles. He’s got a big spread, about five thousand acres, I think. He’s expecting a new crop of calves soon and is getting worried about driving them into the mountains for summer grazing. He says he lost a number of high-dollar cows to predators last year.”
“Is he using fladry?” she asked.
“No. It’s not practical in the mountains.”
“Then I suppose we could collar them and try to weed out the culprits,” she suggested.
He shook his head. “But then the damage is already done. On top of all that, it isn’t just depredations that he has to fret about, but aborted fetuses and low-body condition of their stock due to stress from predators. Do you see how it is?”
“I’m starting to,” she said.
“Dirk told me he’s looking for some ranch hands to watch over the herd. I asked him about hiring some vets. I think his place would make an ideal pilot program.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s interested. He knows better than most how it is. He had a helluva time adjusting.”
“Why’s that?”
“He lost half his leg in Afghanistan.”
“And he’s still running a ranch?”
“Yup. Moreover, he’s about to expand his operation. He just signed a grazing lease for twelve hundred acres owned by his brother’s fiancée.”
“So what’s the next step?” she asked.
“We need to go up there and meet face-to-face. Iron out some details about how we’re going to do this.”
“When do you want to go? I’d love to meet him.”
“Them,” Reid corrected. “I forgot to mention he’s getting married. I know her too. We all used to rodeo back in the day. Her name’s Janice. You’ll like her. He’s invited us to their wedding in February. It’s going to be small and private.”
“The best kind,” she said.
“Oh yeah? So you didn’t miss that whole bridesmaid-and-bouquet-tossing thing?”
“Maybe a little,” she confessed, then broke into a mischievous grin. “But you more than made up for it with the honeymoon.”
They’d rushed things a bit once they’d learned about the baby, but he had no regrets about any of it. He’d waited long enough already. After the civil ceremony, he’d surprised her with a honeymoon cabin at Dunton Hot Springs outside Telluride, Colorado. He’d seen it listed in Forbes as one of the ten most romantic places in the U.S. Forbes was right. They didn’t leave their cabin for three days. Although most of the amenities were wasted, at least they’d had the benefit of a private hot pool and five-star room services.
The memory stirred him to life. “Do you recall that first night we spent at the hot spring?”
“Do I?” She gave a throaty chuckle. “It’s kind o
f hard to forget.” She slid their joined hands from her thigh up to her protruding belly. “Unlike you, I have a daily reminder of it.”
He reached under her sweater to caress her bare skin. The thought of the life growing inside her never ceased to fill him with awe. “Since you mention it, what does the doc say about…”
“Sex, Reid?” She grinned. “You can’t say it? I can. You’ve corrupted me. I can even say orgasm now,” she exaggerated the word. “Yolanda would be very proud.”
“Well, don’t say it anymore unless you want me to pull the truck over.”
“Really?” She arched a brow. “Is that a dare, Reid?”
“It’s a promise.”
“In that case I’d better choose my words very carefully. How about multiple screaming orgasms?”
“That’s a damned tall order to fill in a truck, sweetheart.”
“Oh.” Her mouth drooped in disappointment.
Two miles later he turned off the highway, answering her confused look with a lecherous grin. “But there’s a motel just up the road.”
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Read on for an excerpt from the first in the Hot Cowboy Nights series
SLOW HAND
The fasten seat belt sign glared like a malevolent beacon.
Clutching both armrests with clammy palms and white knuckles, Nikki diverted her terrified gaze from the sign to the window, where lightning slashed the black clouds. She then looked in panic to the seat pocket in front of her, vainly seeking the little white paper bag.
Dear God, don’t let me get sick! Breathe, Nikki. Just breathe.
As if on cue, the plane took another turbulent lurch, sending bile to the back of her throat.
Was this foul weather some kind of dark omen? What would happen if lightning struck the plane? Or would they just run out of fuel while circling the blackened skies above Denver?
She hated flying. Always had. Maybe it was irrational, but she despised any situation that placed her fate under anyone else’s control. On a normal day she didn’t even like being a passenger in a car. Flying, however, literally put her life in a perfect stranger’s hands, so she avoided it at all costs.
Until now.
But Atlanta to Sheridan, Montana, was over two thousand miles, an impossible drive with only a three-day bereavement leave.
She closed her eyes, willing away the nausea churning her stomach, wishing she had never received the fateful phone call, and hoping that this entire episode was just a very bad dream. She didn’t know why she’d felt such a strong obligation to get on the damn plane in the first place. He’d bailed out when she was only seven, after all. Followed by over twenty years of stone-cold silence.
Then the letter arrived.
It had come to her with a Bozeman, Montana, postmark, but no return address. Still, she had known it was from him. She hadn’t opened it, but she hadn’t destroyed it either. Instead, it sat in a state of purgatory in her desk drawer—untouched for eighteen months. Well, that wasn’t quite right either, for she had touched it often enough. Picked it up, turned it over, smelled the familiar Marlboro scent, and thrown it back in the drawer again. Everything short of actually opening it. The letter represented a virtual Pandora’s box of heartaches that she just wasn’t willing to experience again. So, she’d buried it. Chapter closed. Until the blasted phone call with news that unleashed a gale of emotions about a man she’d hardly known.
Hours later she’d torn the letter open, devouring every line as if starved. She wished she’d never read it because then she wouldn’t have cared. But she had, and she did. But now it was too late.
He was gone.
They would never get to say what needed saying. She would never see his face again. The letter left her with a relentless ache in the middle of her chest, a pain that she suspected would continue to eat at her until she followed this through. In the end, she’d had no choice but to suffer the motion sickness and face her near-paralyzing fear of flying.
The garbled voice of the captain jarred into her wildly rambling thoughts. Three precious words were all she understood, but also all she cared about—cleared for landing.
* * *
Nikki anxiously waited another fifteen minutes before the plane actually hit the tarmac. It had barely reached the Jetway before she flipped the seat buckle and snatched the shoulder strap of her oversized purse, the one she’d barely managed to cram under the seat to begin with. A struggle to release it ensued, eating up valuable seconds before she could escape from the flying deathtrap. One last tug and it lurched free, only to have the contents spill helter-skelter all over the floor.
“Help me, sweet Jesus,” she murmured, more curse than prayer.
She scrambled to collect her cell phone, tubes of lipstick, feminine products, and miscellaneous other objects that littered the floor. By the time she’d gathered everything up and crawled out from under the seat, passengers were jamming the aisle.
Shit! With nothing else to do but stand there with her neck craned to avoid the overhead compartments, she turned on her cell phone to check for messages, but the digital clock sent her heart lurching into her throat. Double shit! Her connection to Bozeman was scheduled to depart in eighteen minutes! Even if she could squeeze out of this sardine can, she’d never make it across the behemoth Denver airport to her next gate. Could this trip possibly get any worse?
Hell yes, was the answer when she arrived, winded and flustered, at gate fifty in Terminal C to find stranded passengers camping around the counter.
* * *
“Please, you’ve got to help me,” Nikki pleaded with the gate agent. “I didn’t even want to make this trip to begin with, but my father has passed away. I have to get on this flight.”
“I’m sorry for your loss, miss.” The agent’s gaze barely flickered up from the computer monitor. Although the words were sympathetic, the voice was anything but. “I have done all I can. The next flight is already overbooked due to the inclement weather and all the earlier cancellations. I have you on standby, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. I can confirm you on our noon departure tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? You mean I’ll be stuck here overnight?”
The woman glanced up with an exasperated sigh. “We can provide a room and meal voucher.” She gazed over Nikki’s shoulder and beckoned to the next passenger.
“Wait! You don’t understand! I have to be there.”
Nikki felt a burning sensation behind her eyes. Keep it together, Nikki. You’ve already made an ass of yourself in front of a hundred strangers. Don’t you dare cry.
“I’m sorry, miss.” The agent’s face was completely impassive, now looking past Nikki as if she wasn’t there. “Next in line, please.”
With eyes blurring with tears she still refused to acknowledge, Nikki spun around but found no vacant seats close to the gate. Lacking any other options, she threw herself to the floor beside her bag, fished out a Kleenex from her purse, and blew her nose loud enough to draw some stares. Well, more stares.
What had possessed her to break down into near-hysterics over a man she’d hardly known? She shook her head, drew in a ragged breath, and scrubbed her face with her palms. For a moment she deliberated turning back, catching the next flight to Atlanta, but that would be cowardly.
And Nikki was no coward.
She’d proven it enough times in her life. Except for flying, that is, but she’d even braved that horror when she’d had to. She drew another long and shaky breath in an effort at composure, glaring back at those who still gaped at her, reserving her best glower for the cowboy she’d caught staring at her ass. He was slouched in his seat with his Stetson hat and ostrich Lucchese boots, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, taking up all the surrounding fl
oor space as if he owned it.
God, how I hate arrogant, swaggering cowboys.
She’d had a bellyful of them with their tall boots, big hats, monster trucks, Red Man, and NASCAR. It was one of the reasons for getting the hell out of Toccoa ten years ago—to avoid repeating all of her past mistakes involving no-account cowboys. At least greater Atlanta had a more diversified mix of losers and players—the only two breeds of male she’d identified so far—unfortunately, by dating them.
When Marlboro Man rose to talk to the gate agent, she assumed he must also be on standby. She slanted a covetous glance at his seat the moment he’d vacated, as did several other people. Well hell, if she didn’t take it, someone else certainly would. She stood and slid into it, noting with surprise that it was still warm. Somehow it seemed weird to be absorbing a total stranger’s body heat in such an intimate place.
After his exchange with the agent, Mr. Look-How-Damned-Hot-I-Am headed away from the gate area. Thank God for small favors. The jerk actually had the balls to tip his hat at her with a smirk that said I’m God’s gift to womankind. Perhaps he’d decided to take the noon flight tomorrow, which made her wonder what the chances were—
“Paging passenger Powell. Passenger Powell, please come to gate number fifty.”
* * *
It was her ass he’d noticed first—actually, he couldn’t avoid it since it was parked right in front of him at eye level. Clad in tight denim, supported by legs that went all the way up, it was a mighty fine, shapely, womanly ass, the kind a man liked to fill his hands with.
His interest piqued, Wade’s gaze roamed higher to light brown hair that fell in waves over her shoulders. With her back to him, he couldn’t see her face or judge her age, nor could he hear a word she spoke with George Strait crooning in his earbuds. Still, he was an observer by nature, and his innate ability to read body language had been further honed by his profession. Lacking any other distraction, he watched her, playing a game with himself to see how much of her story he could discern by her actions alone.
The youngish woman attached to the prime ass had a boarding pass in hand that she flapped at the apathetic gate agent whose attention appeared fully engaged in tapping on the keyboard, and staring into her monitor like it was a crystal ball. After a time, the wooden-faced woman glanced up and shook her head. Further fruitless argument ensued, at which point Wade pulled out his earbuds to eavesdrop.
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