He hadn't figured it would be long.
He hadn't counted on Milly.
"I got a bandage I'm supposed to wrap 'em with, but I didn't put it on after my ride."
"Do you have it with you?"
"In my rigging bag."
"I'll help you put it on."
He blinked in astonishment. But as he did so, he realized that her offer was perfectly innocent. Unpremeditated. As if she didn't have a clue what inviting him to take his shirt off could lead to.
She gave him an eager, helpful smile, and Cash—damn him for a negative role model!—couldn't set her straight.
"I'll go get it," he said, and headed out to get his rigging bag from her car.
"I used to tape Deke's ankles for him when he played ball," Milly said when he came back and set the bag on the floor, then hunkered down over it.
It wasn't going to be the same, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Instead he gave her a quick reassuring grin. "Great. You're experienced then."
"Oh, yes," she said as he began opening his shirt.
Something almost sultry in her voice made him glance at her. She was looking at him with such avid interest, he felt his body heat up. He was used to taking women's clothes off before he shed his own. He'd never been the first one out of his clothes.
Hell, he almost felt like he was stripping in front of her!
But hey, if it worked…
He tried to ease his shirt off without turning his shoulder or twisting and hurting his ribs.
"Let me help." And the next thing he knew she was taking his shirt off for him. She was very matter-of-fact in her movements. Her hands didn't linger. They didn't stroke him or caress.
It didn't matter. His mind was managing quite nicely with only the barest help from her; it was taking her lightest touch and turning it into a titillating experience; it was taking the feel of her warm breath on his bare skin and making it a seductive ploy.
And if her removal of his shirt got his mind working overtime—the soft play of her hands on him, once she took the elastic bandage from him and began to wrap his ribs—well, he tried not to think about that—yet.
"Do you want me to fix it so it immobilizes your arm, too?" she asked him.
Cash cleared his throat. "Er, naw. The ribs are enough. I, um, might want to use my arms."
"But your shoulder—"
"It's okay." He rolled it experimentally and couldn't help grimacing a little. "Just a little knotted up. Don't suppose you could maybe knead 'em a bit?"
It was a perfectly legitimate request. It would feel a hell of a lot better if somebody rubbed his shoulders. And if something else happened after that, he couldn't predict it with absolute certainty, could he?
"Lie down," Milly said.
Cash would have dropped where he stood, but he didn't want to appear too eager. He looked around. There was the couch, and there was the floor. The couch was probably more comfortable, but it didn't look long enough. He looked doubtfully at the hard, oak floor.
"On my bed." Milly took his hand. "Come on."
He couldn't believe it.
He wasn't having to do any work at all! But he wasn't about to argue. He followed her into her bedroom.
It was a small room. Neat and modestly adorned. "I haven't been here long enough to do much decorating," she said quickly, as if embarrassed by its Spartan decor.
"Hey, it's great." A whole lot better than the back of Rod's truck.
Cash actually found himself liking the fact that she only had a single bed. He took that to mean that she didn't habitually entertain overnight guests. Cash felt a stab of satisfaction as he sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at her.
She smiled nervously, as if she might be realizing that she'd just invited a strange man into her bedroom.
He had no desire to frighten her. He just wanted to make love with her. So he smiled back and asked, as offhand as he could, "You mind if I take my boots off?"
She blinked, then swallowed. "Oh, no. Um, go right ahead."
Getting them off wasn't easy, given the state of his ribs. But Milly helped with that, too. And doing so seemed to make her feel less nervous, as if she were in control. Cash didn't mind.
He was embarrassed to note, though, that he had a hole in the toe of his sock. He knew Milly saw it, too. Her finger brushed his bare toe and made him jerk. But she didn't say a word, just set his boots at the foot of the bed and straightened up, then waited. The nervous look was back again.
Slowly, carefully Cash lay back and stretched out on her bed, then looked up at her. "You scared?" he asked her.
"Of course not. I've taken judo."
He gaped. "Judo?"
Her cheeks went bright red. "You know. To pro—" She stopped, as if she couldn't say the words, then said, "I didn't mean—that is, I don't think—"
A grin quirked the corner of his mouth. "You reckon you can protect yourself." If she didn't want to say it, he would say it for her.
"That's right."
"You won't have to," he promised. "You're in charge."
She smiled at him then, a wide smile, a genuine smile. "Turn over, Cash Callahan. I'll rub your shoulders."
Cash turned over. He lay on his stomach. His sock-clad feet hung over the end of the bed. He turned his head so he could see her as she stood above him.
He waited, held himself perfectly still, didn't even breathe as Milly bent and put her hands on his shoulders. Her fingers moved, squeezed lightly, her thumbs pressed the sensitive cords of his neck, made his spine ripple.
A tremor ran through him. A soft moan escaped him.
Milly jerked back. "Am I hurting you?"
"No!" God, no! It felt wonderful. "It's fine. Keep going."
She kneaded his shoulders again. And again. She stroked and pushed. Loosened the knots. Rubbed the pads of her thumbs against the nape of his neck, untying knots there, too, that he didn't even know he had.
"'S wonderful," he mumbled.
"Good. Move over."
He jerked. "What?"
"So I can sit next to you," she explained. "It'll be easier. If I do it from here much longer I'll have a crick in my back."
He grinned. "I'd rub it for you."
"Nice of you." He heard the smile in her voice. He didn't see it. He'd shut his eyes.
It felt better than wonderful, the way her hands were moving rhythmically on his shoulders and neck. It felt like the best thing that had ever happened to him. He yawned and flexed his shoulders. "More," he muttered when her hands faltered for a moment.
"Just getting settled," she said. The bed shifted a little more. Her hip pressed against his side. He smiled.
Milly went on kneading. And kneading. "How's that?"
Cash let out a soft sigh. "Fantastic. Dunno why you're working in a grocery store. Or taking accounting. You ought to give back rubs for a living."
She laughed. He liked her laugh. It was soft and warm and intimate.
Intimate was good. He was definitely in favor of intimate, he thought muzzily. In fact he intended to get intimate with her real soon… Just as soon as she got all these knots out of his neck and back… Just as soon as he got her clothes off…
Just as soon as…
He was asleep.
She'd actually put him to sleep.
There was finally a man in her bed—which Alexis had been assuring her for months was absolutely necessary to her well-being—and he was out like a light.
Milly shook her head, but kept up her soft, rhythmic movements on his back as she looked down at Cash Callahan and smiled.
He looked exhausted. Beaten. And beautiful at the same time.
She'd thought that the moment she saw him scrambling over the fence. It had been like a blow to the solar plexus—the sudden intense attraction she'd felt, the realization that she really wasn't as immune as she'd always thought she must be to stark masculine attraction.
It had never hit her before. She'd never been able to understand wha
t had driven Dori to go to bed with Jake's father.
Now—for the very first time—she did.
And she knew she might actually have made love with Cash Callahan—if he'd managed to stay awake!
She supposed she ought to be chagrined or questioning her own sex appeal. She could just imagine what Alexis would say. Not that she had any intention of telling her! What happened here—or hadn't happened here—tonight was between her and Cash Callahan.
Someday she might regret that nothing had.
But then again, someday she might be glad. She knew that innocence wasn't exactly an "in-thing" these days. Sometimes she felt like a walking, talking anachronism. But she had seen what Dori went through. She had seen the pain of single motherhood, of love unrequited, of getting in too deep, too soon. It scared her.
Cash, awake, scared her a little, too.
But asleep, he was the most beautiful, the most wonderful, the most tempting thing she'd ever seen.
She wanted just to sit here and look at him. To touch him. She touched him again now.
He shifted slightly in his sleep. His one good arm came up to rest on her knee. Now he was touching her. She lifted her hand from his back and traced his fingers with hers.
She liked his hands. They looked strong even in repose. They were hard and callused. Not grocer's hands. Nothing at all like her father's.
Cash wasn't like her father. She understood that at once. He had no steady job. No determined focus on responsibility. No roots.
He was, she feared, very much like the man who had left Dori behind.
But maybe not. It might be wrong to tar him with the same brush without giving him a chance to show her who he really was. She certainly wanted to know who he really was.
She didn't suppose she would get to find out. She imagined he'd be here tonight and gone tomorrow—that he would be no more than a fleeting moment in her otherwise steady, humdrum life.
Well, so be it.
At least she had tonight.
She eased herself gently off the bed, careful not to wake him. Then she padded out into the living room. She looked at his rigging bag lying open by the door. It looked out of place—and yet somehow, exactly right. As if it belonged—as if he belonged. To her.
She didn't let herself think about that. Instead she shut off the lights and went back into the bedroom.
Cash hadn't moved.
She wondered if propriety required that she sleep in Alexis's room. Certainly her mother and father would think it did. But propriety wasn't the topmost thing on her mind tonight. She wanted to stay here.
She left the small lamp on so she could look her fill at him and so it wouldn't seem quite so intimate if he woke up and wondered where he was or—horror of horrors—who she was! Then she crossed the room to the bed.
She couldn't bring herself to actually lie down next to him. It wasn't just propriety. It was presumption that stopped her. She didn't want him thinking she was trying to take advantage of him!
Still, she couldn't just stand there all night like some ridiculous guardian angel. She could sit beside him on the bed. That would be proper enough, and no more presumptuous than giving him the back rub had been.
Carefully Milly eased herself onto it next to him. His nose pressed against her thigh. His hair brushed her jean-clad hip. He murmured in his sleep. She reached out a tentative hand and brushed it across his hair.
It was as soft as Jake's. She smiled and relaxed a little, brushing her hand over it again.
Cash muttered. And then his arm came up and wrapped around her, and he hauled her down into his embrace!
For an instant Milly stiffened, resisted—then felt her resistance fail. Like she was meant to be there, she slid down next to him and felt the hard, warm length of his body against hers, felt the rasp of his day-old whiskery cheek on her smooth one. It was wonderful. It was astonishing. It was so … so … right!
And then he kissed her.
It was a long kiss, a drugging kiss. A tantalizing kiss. A kiss of the sort that Milly had only imagined existed. If she'd been standing, it would have knocked her over.
She enjoyed it. She got into it. She opened her mouth tentatively, hesitantly. Then with increasing enthusiasm she kissed him back. She felt hot. She felt hungry. She felt everything that she'd only been able to guess that Dori felt.
And then Cash rolled onto his back and began to snore.
* * *
Four
« ^ »
The deep insistent ooo-gah of the horn woke him.
That and the tendril of hair tickling his nose.
Cash blinked, then opened his eyes and stared at the girl asleep on the bed beside him. What the—?
He gave himself a little shake. It hurt. He hurt.
But he also remembered … the dance … Milly … the back rub … the—
No, damn it, he didn't remember that! Wished he could. Tried to. But couldn't. Had he? Had they?
She lay curled on her side against him, her lips slightly parted. They looked kissed.
Hell, he couldn't even remember kissing her!
And she was still dressed. She didn't even have a button of her shirt undone! Cash's hand explored his own torso. Bare except for the bandage. His hand slid lower and encountered his belt, still buckled.
He groaned.
Another deep ooo-gah reverberated outside. Annoying. Irritating. Demanding. Familiar.
Kind of like the horn on Rod's truck. Oh, God.
Cash eased himself away from Milly and sat up. He was stiff, moving slowly, not wanting to do this at all. And yet—
Another impatient ooo-gah. He hauled himself out of the bed. Milly's eyes opened, too, wide and wondering. She looked rumpled and cuddly and— Another ooo-gah.
Damn. He stumbled out into the living room and pushed back the curtain. Rod saw him and gave a yell.
"Hurry up! We gotta be in Wolf Point by two!"
Cash gave a wave of his hand in acknowledgment and let the curtain fall again.
"What is it?" Milly had followed him out of the bedroom and stood looking at him. Her hair was tangled around her face and her shirttails were untucked.
At least he'd got that far, Cash thought, disgusted with himself.
Or maybe he hadn't.
Maybe the night's sleep had untucked them for her. Cripes, how could he have just conked out like that? He smothered a groan.
"It's my buddies," he said ruefully. "I gotta go."
"Go?" There was a pause, then. "Of course. Go." She looked slightly sad, totally resigned.
Cash didn't feel resigned. He felt cheated.
He'd spent the night with Milly Malone, for crying out loud, and all he had to show for it were some nicely bandaged ribs!
The horn sounded again.
He cursed under his breath, then, remembering, muttered, "Sorry."
"I don't suppose you all have time for breakfast?"
He shook his head. "We don't have time for breakfast." He glanced at his watch and winced. They were going to have to drive like the proverbial bat out of hell if he stopped long enough to pull on his shirt! He took three strides back toward the bedroom to get it.
Milly watched. "Um, well," she began as he brushed past her, "it was … nice meeting you."
"Wasn't it?" Cash said bitterly, then raked a hand through his rumpled hair and apologized again. "This isn't how I planned it."
Her brows lifted. "Planned it?"
"I mean—I didn't expect to just eat your food and fall asleep on your bed!" He could feel hot blood coursing into his face. He felt like seven kinds of idiot. He pulled his shirt on and began to do it up.
"It's all right," she said quietly. "I didn't mind."
"I did." They stared at each other. Seconds passed. Cash heard footsteps pounding up the steps, and then there was a loud hammering on the front door.
"Damn it!" He finished buttoning his shirt and jammed it into his jeans. "Cut that out!" he yelled. "I'm comin' as fast as I ca
n!"
Milly handed him his boots, and as he yanked them on, she went to answer the door.
Pete stood there, grinning self-consciously. "Don't mean to interrupt anything, um, real personal," he said to Milly apologetically, then he looked past her at Cash and went on, "but we gotta haul a—um, ourselves outa here!"
"I told you I'm comin'," Cash said. "Hold your horses."
"I will," Pete said. "They won't." At the rodeo he meant.
Cash zipped up his rigging bag, scowling. Pete, looking at Milly, touched his fingers to the brim of his hat. "Pleasure meetin' you, miss."
"You, too," Milly said faintly. She watched him head back downstairs, then turned to Cash.
He hoisted the bag and settled his hat on his head. He didn't know what to say other than "I wish…"
"Yes." She smiled. "Me, too." The words were guileless. Sincere. They made him ache. And desire.
He deserved to ache, damn it! And he was just going to have to go on desiring because Rod hit the horn again. Twice.
Milly smiled. "Bye."
"Bye." His voice was hoarse. He stepped forward and kissed her.
It was not a good idea. The desperation in it should have sent her running. The desire in it should have scared her to death. Instead she put her arms around him and hugged him hard!
To Cash the hug felt more intimate than any kiss. It spoke less of sex than of love. Love? Naw, it couldn't! He didn't do love. Wouldn't know how if he wanted to—which he didn't.
It scared him to death.
It tempted him, too.
Then, as quickly as she had embraced him, Milly stepped back. "I'm sorry. I'll hurt you. Hurt your ribs."
"No." And it was the truth. She'd been gentle with him. They stared at each other.
"Cash! For cryin' out loud!" The voice bellowing outside broke the connection.
"Gotta go," Cash said, though his boots still wouldn't move.
"Yes. You do." Milly reached out a hand and touched his for an instant. Then she dropped it again and gave him a smile. "Go on."
"You had a man here? Overnight?" Alexis looked dumbfounded. Then her eyes got big and sparkly, and she squealed and giggled and grabbed Milly by the shoulders and jumped up and down. "I knew it! I knew you had some wild oats to sow!"
THE COWBOY CRASHES A WEDDING Page 5
