She swallowed painfully, some of her joyful exuberance draining away. She hesitated, wondering if she wasn't letting her heart rule her head. OK, so her heart was calling the shots, but one thing was very clear in her mind. She loved him. She'd never stopped loving him. And she wanted to marry him. It was a second chance for both of them, and she wasn't going to blow it because she was a coward. She'd find a way to put the past to rest…somehow. She wanted to marry him more than she had ever wanted anything else—this was a second chance for both of them and she was going to grab it with both hands and hang on for dear life. On the other hand tomorrow was just too soon to get married. “I'll marry you,” she said slowly. “And I don't yearn for a big wedding: Reno will be fine.” Her gaze met his. “But could we please wait a couple of weeks?”
Sloan's lips tightened. “A couple of weeks isn't going to change how I feel.”
“And it isn't going to change my feelings either,” she retorted, a little irritated. “It's just that right now, I've got a lot on my plate.” She ran a hand through her tangled hair. “Roman just arrived; there's the settlement of the estate, the cattle operation—none of those things may seem important to you, but they are to me, and I'd like just a little time to get myself organized before taking such a huge step.” It was on the tip of her tongue to mention Josh's relationship to Nick, but without just blurting it out, she couldn't think of a way to introduce the subject. She bit her lip. And yet, if they were to marry, he should know about it. Somehow she'd have to think of a diplomatic way to spring it on him. “My life is pretty complicated right now,” she said softly, “all I'm asking for is a couple of weeks.” She smiled. “After that I'm all yours.”
Sloan growled and jerked her into his arms. “You're already all mine,” he said against her mouth. “Don't forget it.” His mouth came down hard on hers, all the love and longing he felt for her in that one kiss.
When Sloan finally lifted his head several minutes later, Shelly wasn't certain if her legs would hold her up. “Wow,” she breathed. “You kiss me like that very often, and I'll never have a coherent thought in my brain.”
“Good,” he said, satisfaction in his voice. His fingertips caressed her cheek. “There is just one thing…” When she looked at him, he smiled ruefully, “You haven't said that you love me…do you?”
His expression was so vulnerable that Shelly melted inside. Her heart almost too full of love for her to breathe, she kissed him tenderly. “I love you. I always have. I always will.”
Of course he kissed her again, a fierce joy in his heart. It was difficult to part, but eventually they did. Taking a deep breath, Sloan said, “Either we stop now or I'm afraid it's back to the grass for us.”
Shelly laughed. “I'm not exactly averse to the idea, but the next time we make love, I think I'd like it to be in bed.”
“Well, that's easily solved—if memory serves you have a perfectly adequate bed upstairs…and I have a very nice bed. Which?”
Reluctantly, Shelly shook her head. “No. Not tonight.” Shyly she said, “I know it's stupid and silly, but I don't want to spend the night with you until after we're married.”
Sloan looked aghast. “You mean I have to wait until after we're married to make love to you again?”
Shelly giggled at his expression. “No, I just don't want to sleep with you until then.”
“Honey, when I get you in a bed, we won't be sleeping, believe me.”
Sloan had parked out front and hand in hand they walked through the darkened, silent house toward the gleam of light that came from the sconces on either side of the front door. It was difficult to part, and while they did get out the front door, as one they drifted to the covered swing seat on the deck and spent several moments kissing, caressing, and murmuring the soft, silly words that lovers always do. With Shelly's head resting on his shoulder, their hands entwined between them, they sat and talked and kissed and talked some more.
“I hadn't thought about it before now, but there are a lot of things that will have to be taken care of once we're married,” Sloan said reflectively. He jerked his head in the direction of the house. “This house for one thing. What will you do with it?”
“I don't suppose you'd like to live here?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Josh's house? I don't think so.” He smiled crookedly. “Some things are hard to change, and my feelings about your brother are one of them.” When Shelly would have joined battle, he held up a hand, and said, “Whoa. He's your brother and you loved him—because of that, and only because of that, I'll try to keep a civil tongue in my mouth—but don't ask me to live in his house, OK? We don't have to live in my house either, although that would be my first choice. If you don't want to live there, I guess we could find a piece of property we both like and build something that suits the pair of us. But not here. Not in Josh's house.”
The past, she realized, would probably always rise up between them, but surely their love was strong enough to overcome the bitterness that lay behind them?
Her hand tightened in his. “Do you really love me?” she asked softly.
“More than anything else in the world,” he said huskily, kissing their locked fingers. “Never doubt it. I do love you.” A thought occurred to him, and he slanted her a wry look. “Is this where you tell me to prove it by agreeing to live in Josh's house?”
“Would you?”
“If it was the only way I could have you, hell, yes.” He grinned. “But I'll be honest—I'd probably find a way to burn the damn thing down before we were married for many months.”
“To save you from becoming an arsonist, I won't insist we live here,” she said with a laugh. “I guess we could start out living in your house and see how it goes from there.”
“Good idea. In the meantime, you can be thinking about what to do with Josh's house.” He hesitated. “Shelly, I know it's your property, and I don't want you to think that I meant that you had to sell it or anything like that, but we'll have to come to some sort of arrangement—although what it will be, I have no idea. We both have large holdings, and I don't see us merging our lands.” He grinned. “My father would have a heart attack at the very notion of joining Granger land with Ballinger land.” Gloomily, he added, “It's going to be hard enough for him to accept you as my wife. We may have settled our differences, but I don't know how the rest of the family is going to take our marriage.”
Shelly stiffened. “Well, if that's a problem for you, you can just not marry me!”
Sloan shook his head, smiling at her. “Not on your life—we're getting married, and no one is going to stop that. The Granger/Ballinger feud is someone else's problem from now on—it's no longer our feud.” He pulled her half-resisting form into his arms and kissed her. “Do you really think,” he murmured, “that I'd let anyone come between us?” When she remained mute, he shook her slightly. “Shelly, I love you. And if loving you means telling my whole family to go to hell, I will. You're what's important to me, and an ancient feud started long before I was even born sure isn't going to determine my future. Got that?”
She relented, saying ruefully, “It's going to be a touchy subject for us now and then, isn't it?”
“Probably, but as long as we love each other, we'll muddle through it, won't we?”
She met his intent gaze, seeing the love blazing in the depths of the brilliant golden eyes. “Yes,” she said confidently, “yes, we will.”
A comfortable silence fell between them, and, hands entwined, they rocked in the swing, their thoughts busy. There would be difficulties ahead—both of them realized that—they were two strong personalities, and they had a history behind them, a history that was both family and personal, and it would always be lurking in the background waiting to spring up and cause complications. Shelly sighed, thinking of Josh's house. There was one complication already, but as she considered it, a solution, maybe a solution to several problems, presented itself.
“Uh, I was thinking,” she
began slowly, “about the house. Josh's house.” She took a deep breath. “Nick could live in it.” Growing more excited with the idea, she said, “It'd work out great. Josh only leased him the house and land where he's presently living; since I'm going to be living with you, he'd be right here where the cattle operation is centered—everything would be at his fingertips—the barns, the cattle, the office, the chutes, the lab, everything. It's more important that he be handy anyway—I'm the paperwork/telephone junky, and I can do that anywhere, even at your place, but he's the brawn and experience of our operation, and he really should be right here. What do you think?”
Sloan scratched his chin. “You know, I've been meaning to talk to you about Nick.”
Warily she looked at him. “Oh? What about Nick?”
“It strikes me that you two are thicker than thieves—which is sort of surprising—after all, he was just a kid when you left. You come back, after being gone for years, and all of a sudden you're in a partnership together and he's treating your house like it's home. The pair of you get along very well for relative strangers…” He bent her a look. “Or is there something you'd like to mention about now…such as the fact that maybe Nick isn't such a stranger? That maybe Nick's uncanny resemblance to your brother isn't just a coincidence? That maybe Nick Rios is really a relative?”
Shelly gasped. “You knew?”
“Hell, honey, have you forgotten that we live in Oak Valley?” Sloan asked dryly. “The whole valley knows—or suspects—that Nick is Josh's son. It's been a topic of discussion amongst all the old tabbies in town for years. The first time I learned about it, I was about sixteen and overheard my mom and several of her friends happily feeling sorry for your mother that Josh had embarrassed her so.”
“Oh, wow,” Shelly breathed, her eyes huge. “Poor Nick. And Maria. No wonder she doesn't want to talk about it—I'll bet some of those old witches have gotten their claws into her in the past.” She frowned. “Do you think Nick knows all the gossip about him?”
“Probably not. I can't think of a soul who is likely to walk up and ask him if it's true.” One brow raised, he asked, “So is it true? Is Nick Josh's son?”
Shelly nodded. “I think so.”
“Think?”
She made a face. “We have no way of proving it. Maria won't confirm it exactly, and even if she did say that Josh was Nick's father, it doesn't prove anything. My DNA would show we're related…but not that Josh is his father. Nick looks like a Granger—Roman spotted it immediately—but that doesn't prove anything either. Josh certainly made no effort to acknowledge Nick while he was alive—and his body was cremated, so we have no way of getting our hands on Josh's DNA to prove it one way or another.”
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“I don't know. Nick and I talk about it all the time—at the moment, he's content, sort of, that I believe him and treat him like my nephew.” Shelly's hands clenched into fists. “I've discussed it with the lawyer, but Sawyer, cautious bastard that he is, doesn't want to do anything—he says that Nick is just trying to get his hands on some of the estate.” Her voice shook with anger. “It's just not fair—Josh should have made provisions for him. Nick should own half of the estate and he should be able to claim the Granger ancestors as his own. He's my nephew, yet we keep up this pretense in public that he's just the housekeeper's son. As it is, he's living in some kind of limbo, neither Rios nor Granger.” She glanced at Sloan from underneath her lashes. “If I have my way, he'll be acknowledged and end up with half the estate…so remember that when you marry me, that you'll only get your greedy hands on half the Granger lands.”
Sloan growled and pulled her up onto his lap. His mouth found hers and he kissed her hungrily, his tongue delving deep, his hand cupping her breast and squeezing gently. “As long,” he said thickly, a second later, “as I am able to get my hands on you, that's all that matters to me.”
Aroused and trembling, she brushed her mouth against his. “Feel free,” she murmured throatily.
He did and he only let her go several minutes later when it occurred to him that if he attempted to make love to her in the swing he'd probably spend the next few weeks visiting the chiropractor. Setting her from him, he said reluctantly, “That's it. I have to go. If I don't, I'll do something that will spoil all my plans for our honeymoon.”
“Oh, are we going to have a honeymoon?”
“I don't know about you, but I'm certainly going to have one.” He leered at her. “I'm stocking my house with food and water, unhooking the phone, the fax, and the computer, and sending Pandora to stay with the vet.” He kissed her nose. “And you, my sweet, will be locked naked in my bedroom for at least six weeks while I have my wicked way with you whenever I want.”
“Sounds lovely. I can hardly wait.”
“Which reminds me—I agreed to not getting married for a couple of weeks, but I hope you don't plan on practicing abstinence,” Sloan said, nipping one of her fingertips. “I don't think we have to go so far as to announce our plans”—he made a wry face—“which would defeat the whole purpose of flying away for a private wedding, but on the other hand, I don't intend to be kept at arm's length either. I want to be with you.” His voice grew husky. “And I intend to be with you—a lot. I'll draw the line at sleeping here, but you better get used to me being your shadow.” He kissed her lips. “And I hope you'll come out to visit my place.” He grinned. “Conjugal visits. We can practice being married.”
Shelly blushed in the shadows, but she said airily, “Oh, I'm sure that I can live with those stipulations.”
“Tomorrow afternoon?” he asked with a lascivious look.
Shelly laughed. “Maybe, depending on what happens in the morning.” She grew serious. “I want to start checking some of the semen to see if it's viable. And if it is, as we're all pretty sure it is, Nick and I need to set up a whole new breeding program based on what's in those tanks.”
“You and Nick are really determined about making Granger Cattle Company a success, aren't you?”
“We are. And we're lucky that our skills complement each other's—he has the cattle know-how that I lack, but I'm a demon with paperwork—his downfall. We make a pretty good team.”
Sloan stood up, pulling her to her feet. His arms around her, he brushed his nose against hers. “But we'll make a better team, won't we?”
“Hmm, indeed we will.”
They walked down the steps to Sloan's vehicle. Sloan opened the door, but he couldn't bring himself to end the evening. He'd never thought that he'd be given a second chance with Shelly, and he was, despite feeling a fool about it, just a bit superstitious. He'd been this happy once before; once before they'd declared their love for each other and once before they had promised to marry….
His expression bleak, he glanced over at her. “You're certain about this? You're not going to suddenly change your mind on me, are you?” His gaze dropped. “Don't play with me, Shelly, not now, not this time. If you have any doubts, I want to hear about them now. What I don't want to have happen this time is for you to do another disappearing act on me. I don't think I could live through it again.”
Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I won't pretend that I don't have some doubts—there's your side of what happened seventeen years ago and there's what I saw and heard.” When he would have protested, she put a silencing hand against his mouth. “No, listen to me. It isn't going to do any good for you to protest your innocence—one of you, Josh or you, deceived me, and I have to decide, if I ever can, which one of you lied. I loved Josh, and I love you. But I love you so much that I want to marry you even if I have doubts. See? I have no pride left where you are concerned.” A tear slid down her cheek. “It's hard, Sloan. I believed and trusted Josh all my life. And I did see you kissing her. And you did marry her within months of my leaving…”
His gaze hooded, Sloan nodded. “Yes, I married her—for all the wrong reasons. If you were hurt and miserable and felt betrayed, just remember
I felt the same. No, not the same. Hell, for me it was ten times worse—I didn't know why. Jesus, the nights I lay awake wondering why, why did she do it?” His voice hardened. “You left me. You walked out without a word. I kept thinking it was a nightmare, that it couldn't be true.” He laughed, an ugly sound in the night. “After all, you'd sworn that you loved me, you couldn't have left me. We were going to be married—you wouldn't have left me without one single, goddamn word. Well, I was wrong. You did. And once I got over being hurt, I got mad, and there was Nancy waiting with open arms. She didn't love me; she loved the Ballinger fortune. I knew it at the time, but yes, I married her—I married her to spite you; to thumb my nose at the world, to show everyone that your desertion didn't mean a damn thing to me. My motives might have been crass and stupid, but I suffered for it.” His lips twisted. “And Nancy suffered for it, too. She found out too late that money wasn't everything, that being with the one you love is worth more than all the gold in the world.” He looked away. “She loved Josh, and I think he loved her, so I guess in the end, you could say that we all suffered.”
Her heart ached for him, for all of them. They had all made mistakes and paid dearly for them. Josh and Nancy were dead, while she and Sloan…. She and Sloan had a second chance.
She reached for him and with a muttered groan, he crushed her to his chest. “Don't disappear on me again,” he said hoarsely. “Please.”
Her face alight with love, she caressed his rough cheek. “I promise. I'll be here tomorrow and tomorrow and for all of our tomorrows. I love you. I always will.” A tremulous smile curved her lips. “Nothing is going to stop us this time. Nothing.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Shelly spent a restless night, excited at the prospect of marriage to Sloan, a little apprehensive about the future, a small part of her worried that in the face of Sloan's powerful personality and her own yearnings she was letting her heart overrule her mind. She did have doubts—but not about her love or her determination to marry Sloan. For whatever reasons, they'd lost seventeen years. She wasn't about to lose the rest of her life.
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