"Then taste me again, Lash."
He closed his eyes. "Damn, woman. I must've been out of my mind to think…"
"Shh…" she whispered. "No talking, Lash. Not tonight. Not when…" She stopped herself from saying, "not when it's the last night we'll have." She didn't want to ruin this with a confrontation. "Not when I want you so badly."
She watched his eyes open, saw his imminent surrender in those pale blue depths. He wasn't even going to try to deny her this time. He reached out to touch her, trailing his fingertips from her cheek, all the way down her neck and over her breast to her belly. She closed her eyes and sighed in longing.
And then he pulled her close and kissed her again, and it was so bittersweet that she had to battle tears. To love him this much, to know he was leaving her … she wanted to hate him, but she couldn't find it in her. He'd told her this was how it would be, after all. He'd warned her again and again, but she hadn't listened. She had no one to blame for her heartbreak but herself.
But she'd have this. One last night to cling to, to remember him by. She lowered her hands between them, and one by one opened the buttons of his shirt. Then she pushed the material away and pressed her palms to his chest. Warmth and firmness under her hands. His heart pounding, his breathing ragged.
His hands were at the hem of her shirt, and he pulled it off over her head. And then he pushed her back against the seat, and trailed his lips over her breasts, capturing one peak and suckling it as if he were feeding there. As if he needed this sustenance to survive.
Then he sat up slowly, eyes blazing. "I should put the top up," he whispered.
"I like it down."
"Someone could come along."
"I really don't care." She reached out and tugged the button of his jeans loose, then carefully lowered the zipper.
"This time," he told her, "I brought protection."
"Hope you didn't buy them at Mr. Henry's."
"Why—"
"Shh…" she said, and she pushed his jeans down, skimming her hands over his hips. "It might not matter now, anyway," she whispered. "Make love to me, Lash." She pushed him down until he was sitting on the seat of the car. Then she knelt up and managed to kick free of her own jeans. She looked at him sitting there, aroused and waiting for her. And she slowly lowered her head into his lap, taking him into her mouth, working him with her lips until he was trembling and tangling his hands in her hair and making desperate, pleading noises deep in his throat.
She sat up again, and slowly, she straddled him, lowering herself over him, down into his lap, while she held his gaze with her own.
He closed his eyes and released a slow, long, shuddery sigh.
Her hands clasped his shoulders, nails digging slightly into his flesh, and she lifted herself up, lowered again, drew away, came back. Over and over she moved, her pace so slow it was agonizing. He clamped her waist, urging her faster. His head fell backward, and he grated his teeth, his lips parting in delicious anguish as she made him insane. She could see the cords in his neck standing out. She could feel his pulse skyrocketing.
His hands slid lower, cupping her buttocks and squeezing her. And then he brought his head up, caught her nipple in his teeth and suckled it as if trying to extract its nectar. She moved her hands to the back of his head to pull him closer, hold him to her breast, and she quickened her pace. He was moving, now, too. Arching himself up and into her, clinging to her, moaning her name. And then she didn't hear anything as the climax broke over her in waves, each one more powerful than the one preceding it. She whispered that this night would last her forever, and then she relaxed against him, sliding her arms around him and lowering her head onto his shoulder.
And he held her, just that way, stroking her hair, for a very long time. But she knew it couldn't last. And finally he said, "Jessi, I don't want to, honey, but I have to go."
"I know," she said. "I know." He'd told her all along, hadn't he? How could she not know?
She slowly got off him, reaching for her clothes.
"We're going to have that talk," he said. "But it's gonna have to wait, for now. If I wait too long—"
"It's all right, Lash. There's nothing you need to explain to me. I understand." She pulled her shirt on, climbed out of the car, where it was easier to stand, and yanked her jeans on. Lash was struggling into his inside the car. She smiled gently as she watched him. "Goodbye, Lash." She turned to start walking toward her pickup.
"Jessi?" He looked up as she left, still trying hard to right his clothes in the confines of the vehicle. His shirt hung open, his hat was on crooked, and his jeans were still undone when he jumped out to stand on the roadside.
A car buzzed by, and its occupants blew their horn at him and hollered something obscene out the window.
"Dammit, Jessi, wait. At least you have to know that when I said I wanted to marry you before, I—"
"I know," she whispered. "I already know." She blew him a kiss, climbed into her pickup, started the engine and drove away fast, heading for home instead of the highway. She had to get out of there before the tears started flowing. If he saw them, he'd go back to believing she was some innocent, naive little girl who couldn't handle reality.
Problem was, she was wishing she could be the naive girl he thought she was. But she couldn't. Not when reality was staring her squarely in the face. She loved him, and he was leaving. And there was still a slim chance she might be carrying his child.
Hell, reality was just no fun at all.
Jessi tried really hard to act perfectly normal at home, but she suspected her family saw right through her. And whenever anyone mentioned Lash's name, she had to avert her eyes so that she could have a minute to blink them dry.
"Speaking of Lash…" Wes said, after someone mentioned his name yet again, this time as they gathered for leftovers in the kitchen. No one could sleep, after the rustling, and now, at midnight, everyone was hungry. "Where the hell is he? I thought he'd be out here with you, Garrett, seeing as how we were the latest victims of the rustlers."
"No need of that," Garrett said. "We've pretty much figured it was that lowlife Zane who did it. Now all we have to do is track him down."
"Oh." Wes frowned and reached for another piece of fried chicken. "So why aren't we doing it?"
"I'm just waiting for some information to come in," Garrett said. "Don't worry, we'll get him."
Elliot tilted his head, observing and listening. "Not like you to be so vague, Garrett," he said.
"Not like you to be so curious," Garrett said quickly. "I'm goin' up to bed. Can't do any good to sit up all night."
"Me too," Jessi said softly, drawing all her brothers' eyes to her face, every set of them studying her worriedly.
"You getting sick again, Jessi?" Wes asked.
"You're so quiet," Ben added.
"You should talk, Ben," she replied, injecting a lightness she didn't feel into her tone. "My brother, the epitome of the 'strong, silent type.'" Ben smiled at her, and she smiled back, but it felt strained. Then she said good-night and headed up to her room, but she was far from ready to go to sleep.
She put on her nightgown, and actually crawled into bed. She lay there, wide awake and staring at the ceiling, for over an hour before she gave up the notion of getting any rest tonight. She couldn't even close her eyes.
Garrett must already know that Lash had moved on. After all, they'd solved the rustling. They knew now that Zane was the mastermind behind the whole thing, and since he'd no doubt left the state and maybe even the country, it was up to the FBI to bring him in. Lash's job was done. He'd only promised Garrett he'd stay until it was, and he'd probably turned in his badge tonight, when they went to his place in town.
But Garrett had his suspicions about Jessi and Lash, and he didn't have the heart to tell her the truth.
Poor Garrett. It would be easier on him if she told him she knew, and that she was all right with it. But she wasn't quite sure she was all right with it yet. So she paced, and w
orried, and she figured she might as well just buck up and get used to the fact that she'd never see Lash Monroe again. It wasn't the end of the world … as much as it felt like it was.
Wes said over a hundred head of cattle had been taken. It was a terrible loss, but the ranch would probably survive. Still, she felt personally responsible for the loss. So as long as she was pacing anyway, she went ahead and worried about that, as well.
The pregnancy test was still in its wrapper in the bottom of her purse. So she paced still more, and she worried about that, above and beyond all else. She gnawed her lip and told herself she couldn't use it tonight. She stopped pacing, stared at her purse, took a step toward it, then shook her head hard and resumed moving along the path she was trying to wear in her carpet. She had enough on her mind tonight without knowing the results of that stupid pink pregnancy test kit. And what idiot decided to wrap them up in pink cellophane, anyway?
Ah, but if she knew the results were negative, it would be one less thing to worry about, right? And she had to do something. Anything productive.
"All right," she said, and nodded firmly. "What am I, a woman or a wimp?" She lifted her chin. "Woman. Pure Texas woman, toughest breed on the planet. Too tough to be so scared of a five-dollar package from the drugstore." She nodded hard. "So, let's do it."
She locked her bedroom door, took the kit from her purse, unwrapped it and read the instructions twice.
Then she went into the adjoining bathroom.
She came out a few minutes later and scuffed aimlessly until she found herself sinking onto the stool in front of her vanity. She focused her blurred vision and saw that her face was very pale and her eyes were huge as they stared back at her from the vanity mirror. In something like awe, she laid her palms very gently against her abdomen. "I can't believe it," she whispered, and a tear made of sheer emotion spilled from her eye and rolled silently down her cheek.
She'd expected to feel panic-stricken, devastated, frightened, when she looked down and saw the positive results so clearly showing in the test kit. But instead, she'd felt something entirely different. A wave of warm, soothing, overwhelming joy. A glowing feeling that seemed to fill her up from her head to her toes. She could almost believe it was shining from her eyes like the pale amber glow of light from an oil lamp on a stormy night.
She was going to have Lash Monroe's baby. She was carrying the child of the man she loved. And there was nothing frightening or devastating about it.
She looked into the mirror again, and this time she smiled.
* * *
Chapter 11
« ^ »
"So," Garrett said to Chelsea as they lay in bed, her snuggled so close to him that he could feel her heart beating. "This aunt Kate person told Lash that his other foster brother, Peter, had gone back to Mexico when his uncle died, leaving him—get this—lock-stock-and-barrel ownership of his meat-packing business."
"You're kidding me," she said. "Gosh, how many rotten bad-news foster brothers did that poor guy have to put up with, anyway?"
"Three," Garrett said. "He doesn't think the other one is involved, though. But it seems Zane and this Peter were always stirring up trouble together. So Lash figures Peter has to be Zane's connection. He got an address for the company, and he's going down there to check it out."
"All by himself?" Chelsea sat up a little, staring down at Garrett with a bit of censure in her eyes.
"Yeah, I didn't like that part of it, either. But Lash says he and Zane have a score to settle that goes back a long ways, and that it's their own private war, and he has to take care of this himself. I did make him promise to check in, though, and to let us know if he gets himself into trouble."
Chelsea nodded. "You know how many men Zane must have had working with him to pull off as many rustlings as he did yesterday?" she asked him.
Garrett grimaced, and closed his eyes. "I promised Lash I'd give him a chance to handle this on his own."
"He's going to get himself killed, going down there alone. He's walking into a snake pit."
"Sweetheart, he's not gonna try to take them down or anything. He's just gonna check the place out, see if any cattle are walking into the slaughterhouse with our brand on their hides, see if Zane is down there. Then he'll call in the cavalry."
"The cavalry being…?"
Garrett shook his head. "Wes, Elliot, Ben and me, of course."
"No Feds?"
Garrett shrugged. "Depends on Lash. If he wants me to bring them in, I will. But, hon, if he'd rather not, we'll handle it ourselves. Hell, Lash is like family."
"Maybe more like family than you think," she muttered.
He bunched up his brows and stared hard at her. "Now that sounds like maybe you know something I don't know. Chelsea … is there something going on between Lash and Jessi?"
She shrugged. "Wish I knew. It would be nice, though, wouldn't it?"
"Nice, hell!" He sat up in the bed. "He's too old, and he's a drifter, and—"
"And he's a hell of a good man, and you love him like a brother already. Calm down, you big lug. I swear, I never saw any man as resistant to Cupid's arrow as you! I had to damn near get myself killed before you figured out we belonged together, and now you're pretending to know what's best for your sister. You've got to learn to let love take its own course, honey. And even if you don't, it won't matter, because it's going to anyway."
He didn't like the sounds of this. Not one little bit.
"Chels, there's one more thing. Lash made me promise I wouldn't say a word to Jessi—or to the boys, either, for that matter—about where he went or why. He says he's seen the way she dives headfirst into trouble, and he's right. Remember when I was facing an ambush in that canyon and she insisted on coming along to help get me out of it? She could have been killed then—"
"I remember. I was there, too, you know. And the way I recall it, Jessi held her own and made a few of those criminals sorry she'd come along at all."
"She's just a kid, Chelsea."
"She's a grown woman with a career and a business of her own. You've got to get that through your head."
"Lash thought it best she not know what he was up to until it's over with. He doesn't want her rushing off half-cocked and getting hurt, and I agree with him."
"She'd realize how stupid and risky what he's doing is, same as I do," Chelsea said.
"She'd get herself hurt trying to go after him, especially if she's got some hare-brained notion that she's in love with him."
"Yeah. Hell of a hare-brained notion that would be."
"Don't tell her, Chelsea. Promise me?"
"What could I tell her? Mexico's a big country. And for that matter, how are you going to know where to go when Lash needs your help?"
"He's going to call tomorrow night at midnight. Sooner, if he gets into trouble. He'll tell me where he's at then. So do you promise to keep this from Jessi?"
"I promise," she said. "I won't tell her unless it becomes absolutely necessary."
Garrett frowned at her and tried to see just what mischief was working behind her eyes. But, as always, his Chelsea only revealed what she chose to reveal. Which most of the time was everything, at least to him. But once in a while it was not quite everything. He had a feeling this was one of those times.
Six times Lash caught himself driving way over the speed limit. He was in one hell of a hurry, and he told himself it was because he wanted to catch Zane red-handed with those cattle. But it was a lengthy drive, over deserted stretches of dark nighttime highway, and it gave a man time to think. Maybe a little too much time to think.
So he got to thinking, and he didn't like what it was he was thinking about. He blamed it on the heat, then the darkness and the lack of streetlights, and finally on the heartbreaking crooning of country music, which was all his radio could pick up for a while. Songs belted out by men who were hurting so bad their voices cracked, just as their hearts apparently had. Crying over that perfect woman they hadn't realized they lo
ved until it was too late. Moaning about wishing for a second chance as they watched her walk down the aisle with somebody else. Sheesh, it was enough to drive a man nuts.
Of course, he didn't quite have enough willpower to lift his hand and turn that knob in search of a different station, though he couldn't figure out why. So he listened until he lost the signal a little while later. After that, all he got were Spanish-speaking stations, and the music they played ranged from sexy Tejano to hot Latin beats that only served to remind him of the look in Jessi's eyes just a little while ago, when she'd driven him out of his mind with sensations in the front seat of his car. And then there were the heartfelt, emotional ballads with Spanish guitar accompanying them, which reminded him of her eyes when she'd realized he was responsible for that mariachi band at her grand opening. And he remembered dancing with her later.
Hell, everything reminded him of Jessi Brand. And he was more convinced than ever that he had to do the right thing by her. He'd taken advantage of her, and he really ought to make up for that. And if she thought marrying her was some kind of punishment in his eyes, she was wrong. It wasn't punishment at all. It was compensation. And hell, it wouldn't be so bad to be Jessi Brand's husband.
Just who did he think he was kidding, anyway? It would be the closest thing to heaven.
"Jessica Lynn Brand Monroe," he muttered, and then he grinned. "Jessi Monroe." It had a nice ring to it. "Dr. Jessica Monroe, D.V.M."
Well, hell, there was no question about it. He had to at least try to convince her that this was the right thing to do. And what her brothers, with their old-fashioned sense of values, would expect them to do. What the Reverend Mr. Stanton would have flat-out ordered him to do. Hell, it was what he expected himself to do. He'd been raised to do the right thing. And the good book said it was better for a man to marry than to be burning up with lust. And he certainly was that.
A little voice in his head whispered that it was more than any of those things he'd just listed in his mind. Marrying Jessi wasn't just what he should do. It was what he wanted to do. And maybe that was what she'd been needing to hear. Maybe if he told her that, she'd change her mind.
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