“This isn’t much of a storm. It’ll pass in a bit and you’ll see the most gorgeous Texas sunset you’ve ever seen.”
“It isn’t the storm I’m worried about. I promised Lola Ruth that we’d be back by dinner. Don’t want to miss her homemade ice cream. And I’ll be the judge of whether it’s the best sunset I’ve ever seen.”
Chapter Twenty-three
The next afternoon, the turn and descent of the Learjet woke McCall. She looked out the plane’s window as it approached the Niagara Falls International Airport. Within what seemed like only minutes after landing, a car shuttled them to their hotel.
And now, McCall felt safe and secure with Nick’s arm around her shoulder as they stood in the gleaming sunshine of Niagara Falls. They enjoyed the tapestry of turbulent waves and billowy foam when the river thundered over the spectacular waterfalls. The allure of the town known for romance, coupled with the mystery of the cascading falls, washed away any remaining misgivings the couple had about their relationship. They were in love and eager to explore their future.
“Come sit with me.” Nick guided her to a park bench. “Did your Grandmother really fire Colt?”
“Oh yeah. She’s wanted to send him packing for years because of his attitude, but she had promised his dying father that she’d see after the kid. He was lucky and had inherited his dad’s gift for recognizing rank stock, which made the ranch a lot of money.”
“Then it wasn’t all because of our altercation?”
“No. Granny didn’t have a problem with a good ol’-fashioned buckin’ competition, but would have preferred it with trained rodeo stock. I think deep inside she was happy that you sent Colt over the top rail of the corral, but of course, she couldn’t admit it.” McCall laid her hand on Nick’s thigh. “It’s been a while since there’s been a good ol’-fashioned fistfight on the Jacks Bluff. But when she discovered that Colt put you both in danger by foolishly using Mesa’s wild mustangs, Granny had had enough. She won’t let anyone put the ranch in jeopardy for any reason.” McCall patted his leg. “I just wish I’d seen more of the fight.”
“Glad you didn’t. There were three blows, two of them mine.” He smiled shyly and tucked her closer to his side. “Sure wasn’t my finest hour.”
“Nick, I’m happy he’s gone.” She reached up and caressed his knuckles. “It was time, and thanks for defending my honor.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am. Insulting a woman in Texas is purt near a hangin’ offense, I heard.”
She nodded and smiled. “You’ve been reading the book on Texa-sisms, huh?”
A sheepish smile crossed his lips. “Yep. Trust me, ma’am . . . it was the Texas thing to do.”
“Just as long as he drew first.”
“In a manner of speaking, he did. I wouldn’t be much of a man if I’d ignored him.”
“Nick, I need to clear up a misconception about Colt.”
“I told you before, Mac, you don’t owe me any explanations. Remember, our pasts are our pasts.”
“I think you have the idea that Colt hurt me, and he didn’t. He’s just a natural born idiot and blowhard who wanted to get your goat. Honestly, if anything, he was a bit protective of me. We never had anything going, but it wasn’t because he didn’t try.” Her heart beat out of control while she scrounged up the courage to confront the demon of her past, and tell Nick the secret she’d kept buried in the cemetery of her past. She continued. “This isn’t easy. It’s something I’ve told nobody, especially Granny. She’d probably have gone for her Winchester if she’d known what happened.”
Nick looked at her questioningly. His brow creased with obvious concern, and he took her hand.
“I was touched inappropriately. No, I wasn’t just touched. I was raped when I was eight.” She looked up at Nick and fought for the courage to continue. Telling him the truth was much harder than she ever imagined. “And, yes, I told my mother, but she didn’t believe me.”
Miserable, utter chaos exploded within Nick. His temples pounded and his throat constricted in anger. A primeval instinct to protect the woman he loved wrestled with rationality; he knew that he must remain calm. Words formed on his lips but seemed unable to come forth.
McCall hushed his response with her fingers. “Please, don’t say anything. This is hard enough. Nick, I don’t want sympathy, but you need to know why I seem to have a need to sabotage things every time you get too close.”
Tight-jawed and trembling, Nick fought for control. Angry with his inadequacy to comfort her—to say the right thing, to make it all right—he listened.
Yesterday’s clouds hung heavily over today’s sunshine as McCall told about being stalked by a refinery worker who her father called a friend. One night, after one of her dad’s weekly poker games, the man followed her to the barn. Instead of leaving the ranch for home, he attacked her.
Nick struggled to hold his temper and his tongue in check while something rancid and wrong swathed his heart.
Just telling Nick that much had unraveled her courage to a single hair-like strand of steel, but she continued digging through the hostile valleys of her memories, feeling naked and exposed. A patchwork of humiliation and frenzied emotions brought tears to McCall’s eyes. They mingled with relief that she had finally uttered the words kept hidden in her soul way too long. She could now release herself from a self-imposed sentence of shame.
Shrinking back into her past, she told Nick about the secret she harbored, the guilt deep inside, and how she’d tried to figure out what she had done to provoke the attack.
For weeks after the incident, she had withdrawn from her family members, feeling insecure and shameful. After weeks of turmoil, she tried to talk to her mother—seek guidance from the one person who would protect her. But her mother refused to listen, telling McCall that accusations of that sort would ruin her father’s career and that she would tell nobody. McCall had retreated from the house and for weeks spent every spare moment fishing or riding, wondering what she had done wrong. Each night she climbed in bed carrying a burden of guilt that no child should have to. The word nobody repeated itself daily. Nobody, no doubt, meant her grandmother and teachers, but especially her father.
Being so young, McCall didn’t understand the judicial system, but years later she always thought that if her own mother wouldn’t believe her, then why would anyone else? She swore to keep her secret . . . and had done so, until today.
Determined to turn her back on the past, McCall said, “Now I know he’d groomed me. Made me think he was my friend. Took me to town for ice cream. He’d go riding with me and always told me how much he loved me when he’d hug me.” Humiliation and embarrassment shrouded her being. “The worst part—my own mother hadn’t believed me. I had been violated, lost my innocence, yet I was the one to feel the shame. I asked myself for years—if my own mother didn’t believe me, then why would anybody else?”
“I believe you, baby. I truly do.” Nick’s expression was a mask of stone. Anger seethed in his eyes.
“Nick, you have no idea how it makes me feel to have this burden lifted. Of knowing that I told the truth and somebody believes me.” She snuggled deep against his shoulder. The cursed past was behind her and she could applaud the future. “You have brought me full circle.”
Nick didn’t say anything for a while, but from the look on his face he was trying to put his own feelings into words, digging deep inside to find the right ones. “Rape is an act of power and dominance. Survival depended on compliance and submission. You were too young to understand, but it’s never, never a victim’s fault, McCall. Never.” She felt sure by his responses that her story disturbed him because he only whispered, “I love you, McCall. I truly do. I won’t push you into an intimate relationship until you’re ready.” He looked deeply in her eyes. “I promise to be here when you are.”
“You have no idea how much I’ve prayed for this day, and with your understanding, I know I can learn to love, give of myself completely.” She kissed
him. “I know one thing. I will never feel unprotected ever again. I’m free, Nick. Truly free for the first time in my life.” McCall looked into his eyes.
She should have felt spent and exhausted, but instead it was as though she had been freed from the guilt and shame just by having someone believe her.
Breaking loose, she pulled off her raincoat, tossing the heavy cloth in the air. Shaking out her hair, she lifted her face to the sky and let the mist from the falls pepper down on her.
“Isn’t the mystique of the rapids awesome? Come play with me,” she said.
“Oh yeah, I’ll come play with you.” Following suit, Nick dumped his slicker and joined in. “Look across to the farthest brink. It’s twenty-five hundred feet wide and way over there is the Canadian side.”
“Oh Nick, you really did bring me to a place where it rains while the sun is shining—and I can see a foreign country at the same time.” McCall smoothed his hair with her fingers, and loved him with her eyes. “Thanks.”
He smiled a thank-you and winked. “This is nothing. Come on.” He grabbed their raincoats, took her hand, and pulled her toward the trolley stop.
After a short ride around Goat Island, across the bridge over the American Rapids, and through the Great Lakes Garden, they exited the trolley.
Still holding her hand, Nick half dragged McCall down the winding path toward the Rainbow Bridge. “Come on, hurry.”
He threw back his head and laughed as McCall stopped to catch her breath. “I thought you were in better shape than that,” he said.
“I’ll show you who’s in shape.” She darted to the bridge entrance and slowly picked up speed, battling the uphill walkway. A few feet ahead, she stopped and looked behind to see Nick’s long legs eating up the concrete.
McCall halted, leaned over with her hands on her knees and inhaled deeply.
“Back up about three feet and face me,” he ordered when he caught up with her.
She complied. “Now what?”
“Take one big step forward.”
She did.
Nick stepped in front of her and took both hands in his. “Angel Eyes, you’re standing in Canada and I am in the United States. My heart is pounding like the six billion pounds of water rushing under this bridge a minute. I have a dilemma.”
“A dilemma? You’re scaring me.” McCall swallowed, her heart pounding at four billion pounds a minute.
“I don’t know whether to ask you to marry me in Canada or the United States.” The warmth of his smile echoed in his voice.
She tilted her head and caught the look in his eyes. “Come here.”
Nick stepped forward. “Will you marry me, McCall Elise Johnson?”
He took one step back, bringing McCall forward one step.
“Yes, I’ll marry you, Nicodemus Dartmouth.”
Nick asked her to marry him in Canada, she accepted in the United States. They bound together in an international kiss.
In disbelief, two hours later, McCall disconnected from her iPhone, after talking briefly with her lawyer’s paralegal.
Wave after wave of shock slapped at her. A horse ranch! The words were barely audible over the pounding of her heart. “Daddy really did make an investment and didn’t lose everything on gambling.” She sat at the desk in their hotel suite and took a deep breath trying to settle her racing pulse.
She walked to the window and stood hugging herself, trying to absorb the news. For months—no, years—she had questioned her father’s business venture. Now it had come to fruition. She had been so astounded at the news she failed to ask where the ranch was located or who owned it.
Think McCall! Think! What did the lawyer’s assistant say? The best she could recall, in all of her excitement, someone had seen the creditor’s notice and come forth, notifying her parents’ estate through her attorney that they held money in her father’s name. She was so caught off guard that she didn’t even ask where the ranch was located or even how much money was involved. It could be a few dollars or a million.
And there was already someone who wanted to buy her out.
Everything hadn’t been lost after all. With Nick in her life, she had someone to love and cherish, and could finally lay the loss of her parents to rest.
McCall thought back to her and Nick’s visit to the Triple J when he told her that he’d like to relocate from LA and buy a ranch. He had certainly proven his prowess on a horse.
Now she could give him the perfect wedding gift. His own horse ranch . . . wherever it might be.
McCall stopped and listened for any stirring in Nick’s bedroom. All quiet. Apparently, he was still soothing his bronc-busting aches, bruises, and a fishing hook mishap.
Capitalizing on her privacy, she redialed her attorney’s office. Excited at the possibility of surprising Nick, she impatiently tapped her fingers on the desk while she waited for an answer. After being told her lawyer was in a deposition, she held a brief conversation with the same woman as before. McCall disconnected, smiling outwardly.
She had left instructions for her lawyer to inform the buyers that she’d reconsidered and did not wish to sell her share. “Dang it—” She snapped her fingers. She was so excited. Once again, she’d failed to ask where the ranch was located. As long as it was a ranch of some sort it’d be the prefect wedding present for the man who got everything he wanted.
Her excitement could no longer be contained. She slipped into Nick’s bedroom.
In the hearth, burnished cinnabar and umber-tinged flames blazed from crackling logs, taking the chill out of the air, making the hotel room cozy. She fed the fire another log. Hissing, tiny blazing embers shot forth.
Two half-empty glasses of Dom Pérignon sat on the table, reminders of their afternoon together making plans for their future.
The excitement still churned in her being. She could wait to tell him the good news that she could finally settle her parents’ estate, but tonight . . . tonight she planned to make Nick make love to her until he hollered uncle.
Nick lay on the sofa with hands tucked behind his head, breathing evenly.
Tiptoeing across the room, she stopped and stood over the sleeping man. As much as she wanted . . . no, needed to wake her knight in shining armor, it would be best if she let him rest. She reached across the back of the sofa for a blanket to cover him.
Without warning, he masterfully caught her behind the knees and she buckled down on top of him. Grabbing her by the waist, he pulled her tight to him. As she settled against his body of steel, they shared a heartbeat.
Hands met hands.
Lips met lips.
Caresses met caresses . . . seeking, yielding, plunging . . . hot and wet.
“You’re making this hard on me,” Nick growled and rolled, taking her with him, pressing her between his body and the back of the sofa.
“I hope so.”
“I’ll show you hard . . .”
In one fluid motion, Nick stood, wrapped her in his arms, and carried her to the bed. Gently, he eased her down.
Breathlessly, shedding her remaining clothing, she watched Nick stand over her, unbuckle his belt, and step out of his Levi’s.
McCall reached out and helped him disrobe.
Nick kicked his jockey shorts into a pile of white cotton and denim.
Standing before her, he wore nothing but a tiny chin cleft entrenched in a devilish smile.
She forced her gaze upward. “You’re so—”
“So what?” Laughter rumbled deep in his chest. “Ready?” He lowered himself to her, bracing his weight with his arms.
“Oh yeah, that’s the word. Ready.” She touched his face, running her fingers along his rough unshaven jaw. “Nick, I’ve waited so long for this, but I want to tell you something.” Her fingertip traced his lower lip. “News that will make you happy.”
“It can wait,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “I can’t.” His voice was impatient, rough, and wildly thrilling.
“Neither can I.”
<
br /> Greedily, Nick sought her mouth. “I love you, Angel Eyes.” His kiss ravished her. Demanding, hard, conquering. Wild with need, she responded with the same urgency . . . sizzling passion. Her body quaked at the promise of ecstasy that racked her, when she felt the hot shove of his tongue as it entered her mouth again and again.
Their lips, tongues, mouths played out an uninhibited fantasy.
“I want to touch you,” she whispered, light and breathy as a sea breeze.
“You can touch me all you want. I’m all yours. Just touch me.” He groaned deep in his chest when she found his raging ridge of arousal. Delicate tapered fingers closed in on his hardness and fed his hunger, while her thumb drew soft lithe circles near the top.
Hurled against the point of no return, untamed flames of desire burned within them.
Later in the evening, they lay in the magical afterglow of lovemaking. Nick held her quaking body in the crook of his arm, brushed away damp ringlets from her forehead, and kissed her temple. “I love you, Mac,” he said in a husky whisper.
“I love you, Nicodemus. I truly love you,” she managed in a soft willowy voice.
“You have no idea how wonderful that sounds. Know something?” He draped a leg over her thigh.
Her only reply was a soft groan.
“I’m glad I didn’t take advantage of you on the island.” Slowly, preciously, he lifted his knee and applied pressure on her love-swollen flesh.
“You’re glad?” She made little circles with her fingertips in chest hair.
“Yeah, because if I had, I may not have ever gotten to know you well enough to fall in love.”
“You don’t regret waiting?” She slid her hand down to the inside of his thigh.
“I can assure you of one thing, Angel Eyes.” He rolled on top of her, shielding her legs with his, and dipped down to meet her. “I plan to make up for lost time.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Midday sun filtered through the vertical blinds in the hotel suite, creating diagonal patterns on the carpet.
The Tycoon and the Texan Page 19
