by Seton, Cora
She’d grown accustomed to Mason’s face, but now it was all hard angles. He was furious at what he’d found here. He was trying to hide it, but he wasn’t succeeding.
“I do love it. I mean—” What did she mean? Just a week ago she would have said she was a city girl. She still wasn’t sure about ranching, but the Hall—it was a dream come true. “It’s beautiful here and I haven’t made my mind up yet, but I haven’t seen anything to dissuade me from staying, either. I’ll help you figure it out, whether I stay or go. I mean that.”
His gaze searched her face. He nodded. “It’s just—I have a timeline. And now—”
“A timeline?”
He sagged back against what she now saw was a workbench. “I should have told you before. Inheriting the ranch is based on some contingencies. My brothers and I have to get the cattle operation up and running before a year is up. Heloise doesn’t expect us to turn a profit—it takes time to raise cattle—but we have to be able to carry a hundred pairs within twelve months. That means we need barns, pastures, stables for the horses, equipment to get in crops to feed to the animals over the winter. I thought we’d have all that.”
“But you don’t.”
“We don’t.”
“Is there any way you can still pull it off?”
He took a breath. Looked her in the eye. “I don’t know.”
She’d never seen Mason anything other than fully confident and the change was startling. She had begun to think of him as super-human; some kind of real life James Bond. He didn’t look defeated, though. Far from it. She could tell he was already adjusting his plans and coming up with new ones. Still, she could tell the state of the ranch was a blow.
“Show me something else,” she said. “Something good. Something you loved about the place as a kid.”
“Okay.” Mason thought about it. “I’ll show you two things.” He took her on a ten minute walk down a track between two pastures until they reached a smooth flowing stream. “This is Chance Creek. It flows from the northeast through town and then south until it gets here. It turns southwest eventually.” They stood on its banks admiring its clear water. Mason was regaining his equilibrium and now he drew her close. “This has always been one of my favorite places. In a month or so we’ll be able to swim. My whole family used to come down here on sunny days for a break—even my mom and dad.”
She smiled. He wasn’t conceding defeat. “Can’t wait.” It occurred to her that she too wanted the plan to work. She would help Mason figure out how to get everything done. At least for the next few weeks—until she made her final decision.
They watched the water flow past and she could tell his mind had drifted back to all of the ranch’s problems. She wished she could offer him some advice, but she didn’t feel qualified to give him any.
“The ranch is in worse shape than I expected,” he echoed her thoughts, “but we’re not beaten yet. I’ve been gone for a long time, but the Hall name still means something around here. I’ll look up our neighbors and old friends and ask for a hand setting things to right. It’ll still cost a pretty penny, but more hands will get the work done faster.” He turned to her. “Just you wait and see—it’ll be all right.”
She believed him. Mason seemed capable of any miracle.
He tugged her hand. “Come on, let me show you something else.” He led her back up the track and across the yard with a lighter step. They cut behind the Hall toward the woods. Mostly pine, but interspersed with hemlock and birch, it was a comfortable, mature forest—fairly clear of brush and undergrowth.
Regan cocked her head when she spotted a kind of wooden ladder ahead, then raised her brows in surprise when she realized it was more like a piece of playground equipment. Two identical pieces of playground equipment side by side, actually. “What is that?”
“That is the Course, as we like to call it. It’s a side-by-side obstacle course. My dad got the idea when we were pretty young, after watching a show on television. He decided it would be the perfect thing to occupy four boys who had the tendency to get in fights and then expect him to sort them out. He built all the obstacles by hand, practiced on them for a while himself until he could run through it in a fraction of the time we could, and then relied on it for the next ten years.”
“Relied on it how?”
“If we had a dispute, we ran the Course to see who won. If one of us had a complaint against him, we ran the Course against him. It goes without saying he always won. If we misbehaved, we had to run the Course and beat a certain time before we got our privileges back. Dad called it his one-size-fits-all-boy-sorting-out machine.”
Regan frowned. “I’m not sure that’s how parenting is supposed to work.”
“Worked pretty well, actually. I’m sure a psychologist could have a field day with the whole thing, but it served two purposes. It stopped us from fighting, or at least gave us a way to sort out our fights. It got to the point where we took our grievances to the Course without Dad even having to tell us. It also made us strong. We all sailed through boot camp.”
Regan remembered the feel of his muscles. She could believe it. “What did your mother say about it?”
Mason laughed. “She ran it a few times herself. My parents didn’t fight often—they were more in love than any couple I’ve ever seen—but I remember one time they had a doozy of an argument over Uncle Zeke. Zeke had borrowed money from Dad and refused to pay it back. Mom thought they should demand to be paid. Dad thought they should let it slide. They got into a shouting match—just about the only time I heard them do that. It freaked Colt out something fierce. He was only about nine at the time. He told them if they were going to argue they’d better run the Course to find the winner.” Mason’s smile grew. “They did, too. They were like that—able to see the humor in things even when times were tough. By the time they were half-way through they were laughing fit to be tied. By the time they were done they’d forgotten all about that argument.” He scratched the back of his neck. “They told us to go visit our cousin Darren for a few hours and headed back to the house to be alone.”
Regan grinned. She liked the picture that story painted of his childhood. No wonder the loss of his father and the Hall had been so devastating to his whole family. “Let’s see it.”
“See what?”
“The Course. Let’s see you run it.”
“What? Now?”
“Unless you’re chicken.” Regan bit her lip to keep from smiling. As if Mason was ever chicken. But maybe it would distract him from his worry about the ranch for a little longer.
“Those are fighting words, woman.” He stepped away from her and stripped off his shirt. Regan whistled. “You need to see my muscles to get the full effect,” he said, grinning.
“No complaints here.”
Mason positioned himself near one of the sets of monkey bars. Just like the ones at her elementary school, they looked like two vertical ladders holding up a horizontal one. The horizontal one had rungs all the way across, while the vertical ones just had a few at the bottom to give a boost to kids too small to gain access to the top ones.
“You need to call my start.”
“Okay. On your mark. Get set. Go!”
Mason exploded off the starting line, leaped for the horizontal rungs of the monkey bars and went hand over hand across them in a flash, skipping two rungs at a time. He was right—the play of his muscles was something to behold, but before she could enjoy it too much he was off the bars and running—sprinting—to the next obstacle. Regan spotted a straight path that seemed to run through the center of the Course. She dashed down it to keep Mason in sight as he raced for a vertical wooden wall that looked to her like it was ten feet tall.
Maybe not quite that tall, she thought when Mason hurled himself at it, gripped the top with his fingertips, pulled a leg up and over and dropped out of sight behind it. Regan, stunned by that spectacle, nearly forgot to dash forward to see what was next. When she caught up again, he was racing th
rough a bunch of old tires laid out horizontally on the ground, like a football player doing drills. His feet moved so fast she was sure he’d trip, but she reminded herself he’d done this hundreds of times. Maybe thousands.
Mason kept his footing, sprinted forward fifty feet and threw himself to the ground to army-crawl under low lines of what she realized was real barbed wire. Shocked that anyone would let boys play near something so dangerous, she lost track of Mason again when he sprang back up to his feet and raced away.
By the time she caught up he’d passed through several obstacles and was approaching what looked like an enormous balance beam made from a tree trunk. The beam itself was about thirty feet long. The trunk of the tree that had been felled to make it was roughly a foot and a half in diameter. What made the obstacle truly frightening was its height. A good ten feet in the air, Regan estimated. Thick logs sloped upward on either end from the ground to offer access on and off the giant beam. There were no handholds that she could see on them. Just plain logs, polished over time by the hands and feet of the Hall boys.
Mason approached the closest incline at full speed and to Regan’s amazement he dashed straight up it. Reaching the top, he didn’t stop to get his balance, although his pace finally slowed. He walked across the log quickly, keeping his eyes focused ahead. Regan watched, her heart in her mouth, not breathing again until he skidded down the far incline and reached solid ground again.
He wasn’t just a SEAL. He was an athlete, she realized. His body was beautiful. Powerful.
Breathtaking.
She watched him complete the rest of the obstacles including one she’d seen on television but never seen in real life—a salmon ladder. Thick, vertical metal uprights had been attached to each of two pine trees growing close together. The uprights had heavy prongs that stuck out of them at even intervals in forty-five degree angles. A metal chin-up bar rested in the lowest set of these prongs. Mason gripped it, swung his legs hard and popped the bar up into the next higher set of prongs. He did this again and again, climbing up the ladder by popping the bar into ever-higher sets. His muscles bunched and worked. Regan was mesmerized. She’d always thought that particular stunt was fake.
When she realized Mason was nearly done with the obstacles, she dashed back to the starting point, which was also where the course ended. Soon after, Mason reached the finish line, out of breath, sweating, but not done in. Instead, she would swear the course had invigorated him. She felt puny and out of shape next to this amazing specimen of human capability.
“That was incredible,” she admitted when he’d caught his breath.
“You liked it, huh?”
“I have no words.” She touched his arm, felt the muscles at play beneath his skin. “I couldn’t do half those things.”
“You could if you had as much practice as I’ve had.” He picked up his shirt and used it to wipe himself down. “Did it turn you on?” He came to her. Hitched his thumbs through her belt loops. Tugged her closer.
“It did,” Regan was forced to admit. “A lot.” In fact, it set her on fire. She was aware of Mason in a whole new way now. Aware of his strength. His capabilities. Aware of every muscle in his back, shoulders, abs and arms. No wonder he’d made such a career for himself in the military. He must have stood head and shoulders over the other men in terms of physical fitness. She knew him well enough by now to guess that he stood head and shoulders above them in intelligence, as well. Mason was a hell of a man.
“Good. Mission accomplished.” He bent down to kiss her. This kiss was different than the ones that had gone before and Regan wondered if that was because they were on Mason’s turf now.
Home field advantage, she thought dizzily as his kiss deepened and her body responded. He was right; she was turned on. Her hands explored his shoulders, back, and biceps of their own volition, wanting to feel the muscles she’d watched at play. Her mouth answered his, kissing him with an intensity she couldn’t dial back. She found herself pressed against him but still unsatisfied, and when his embrace tightened she moaned in frustration. It still wasn’t enough.
When Mason’s hands tugged lightly at the hem of her t-shirt, Regan answered his unspoken question quickly. She was ready to take this next step with him—more than ready. Maybe she should wait. Maybe she should take this slow and easy, one step at a time, but she’d never felt this hunger for a man before and she wanted Mason’s hands on her skin. She yanked her shirt up and over her head, barely pulling away from him to accomplish the maneuver. As soon as it was gone, she lurched forward and kissed him again, already fumbling at the catch of her bra. She wanted it off. Wanted it gone.
Mason chuckled against her. “Let me help you with that.”
She felt small, delicate, womanly as his large hands covered hers and released the catch. She yanked the bra off and tossed it away. Seized his wrists and lifted his hands to cup her breasts. Her breath hitched almost in a sob when he did so, sliding his palms over her pliant skin. Squeezing.
When his thumbs traced over her nipples, Regan arched back and Mason bent down and kissed one rosy peak, then the other. Regan thrust her breasts forward to allow him greater access and was rewarded when he took one nipple into his mouth. He suckled it until she was weak in the knees, clinging to him to stay upright.
She hardly noticed when he lowered her to the ground, spreading her shirt beneath her. Dried leaves on the forest floor itched crisp and dry beneath her shoulders. Above her, Mason stripped quickly, unbuckling his pants and kicking them off. He dropped his shorts and knelt above her, giving her all the time in the world for a good, long look.
When he finally lowered himself on top of her, Regan could hardly breathe for wanting him. He waited while she undid her own jeans, slid them down and shimmied out of her panties as well. Pinned by his gaze, turned on by it more than she could express, she waited for him.
She wasn’t disappointed.
“Are you sure about this?” Mason said, lying down beside her and taking her into his arms. “I don’t want to ruin things between us. Don’t feel you have to.”
“I want to. More than anything.”
His features softened at her admission. “You know I’d do anything for you. I want to make all of this shine again.” He gestured to the ranch. “Just for you. You’ve given me a reason to bring it back to life again.”
“I can’t wait to see it when you’re done.”
He traced a hand down her shoulder. Ran a finger over the swell of her breast. She shivered with anticipation, and he moved closer. “I wish you could see it now. I wish it wasn’t in such bad shape. If I’d known, I’d never—”
“Shhh.” She put a finger to his lips. “We’ll build it back up together and it will be even more special.”
His arms tightened around her. “How’d I get lucky enough to find you?”
“I found you, remember?”
He kissed her again, positioning himself between her legs. “I want to make love to you, Regan.”
She nodded her assent. He fished a condom out of his jeans and slid it on. For a long moment he hesitated, his gaze holding hers, requiring her full attention, waiting for her to grant him access.
“Hurry,” she said finally, the word half-whisper, half-entreaty.
Mason bent down to kiss her, surrounding her with his arms. He gathered her close and entered her in one, hard thrust.
Regan gasped, then moaned as he pulled out and thrust in again. He filled her so completely, set every nerve in her body alight. The weight of him above her turned her on even more. She raked her fingers over his ass, relishing the play of his muscles, and urged him on.
* * *
Mason needed little urging. He couldn’t hold back if he wanted to—not when he’d waited this long to be inside Regan. She was hot, ready, and more than willing. She’d torn off her clothes like she couldn’t wait and he blessed her for it, since that saved him the trouble of feeling like a heel for tearing them off of her. All thoughts of taking i
t slow and easy had gone straight out of his mind the moment he laid her down on the ground. He knew their first time should have been somewhere better than this. He should have brought a blanket, at least.
Too late. The ground would have to do. Tangled up with her, lost in the feel of her, all he could do was thrust again and again, press kisses to her mouth and throat, wrap his arms around her and hope she understood. He was crushing her, her breasts flat against his chest, his hands wrapped in her hair, but she didn’t struggle against him. She was as on fire for him as he was for her. The only mistake he could make was to stop.
Mason didn’t stop. He kicked things up a notch, lowering his hands to her ass, lifting it to get even deeper access. Regan cried out as he thrust himself home, her body moving with his. Mason moved faster, deeper and she met him stroke for stroke. Just when he didn’t think he could hold on much longer she cried out and shuddered in his arms in her release. Mason followed her quickly, grunting as he plunged into her again and again. When he finally collapsed on top of her, he was more out of breath than he’d been at the end of the Course. Beneath him Regan chuckled.
“You know how to give a girl a workout.”
He stiffened. “I didn’t hurt you…”
She shushed him with a kiss. “You didn’t hurt me, Mason Hall. And don’t you dare take it slow and easy with me. Fast and hard is just the way I like it.”
“Good.” Mason’s voice rumbled in his throat. “Because that’s just the way I like it, too.” He rolled off of her and pulled her with him. “And as soon as I make you my wife we’ll do that without the condom.” His mouth quirked into a smile. “What do you think about that?”
* * *
Regan welcomed Mason’s arm around her waist as they walked back toward the Hall. She felt dizzy, nearly overcome by the force of their lovemaking and the intensity of her release. She was no shy virgin, but making love to Mason was something entirely different than she’d known before. Was it because of the circumstances or because of the man, she wondered. Either way, it could be addictive. She already knew she wanted to be with him again.
