“Would you make Harper very happy?”
“Sure. Nobody would be mad at her anymore. Except Melanie.”
“I don’t think you should be contemplating things that don’t make Harper happy.”
“It’s not all about Harper.”
He ran his thumb over the tip of her breast. She shivered. He kissed her through the sweater, and she squeaked in pleasure. “I respectfully disagree. It should be all about Harper. How can she be happy living her life if it’s all for other people?”
“Those other people are helping her get what does make her happy.”
“Doing what?” He kissed her other breast. She grasped his head and held it to her.
“Letting me paint. Sending goose bumps and shivers through my entire body. . . ”
“Okay. That last one I’ll allow.”
He pushed himself down the bed and rolled on top of her jean-clad legs so his mouth was even with the hem of her sweater. Pushing it slowly upward, he rested his kiss above the waistband of her Levi’s.
“You could come back to Chicago with me again.” Her breath caught along each word as he kissed his way up her stomach to the space between her breasts.
“I would, but I was only staying through Friday, which is nearly past. You and your sisters do actually pay me to work around here. I suppose you could fire me.”
“You’re fired,” she murmured. “And now rehired. To do this all day long.”
He pushed her sweater past her breasts and rose to his hands and knees. With only a little fumbling he helped her pull the sweater over her head and tossed it to the floor. Before she could lie back down, he flicked the hooks on the back of her bra, pulled it off, and sent it after the sweater.
“Oh yeah.” He grinned as she nestled into the mattress and he stretched out on top of her. “I accept the position.”
“Do you really think you’d make a good missionary?”
Laughter burst from him like water from a newly discovered spring. She never failed to surprise him with something wonderful or caring or silly or slightly naughty. Suddenly all he wanted from her was tumbling, sheet-twisting, laughing naughtiness. She obliged, and their peals of laughter mixed as their mouths met and parted, their noses bumped, and their hands flew to buttons, shirts, zippers, and socks.
Before he knew it, she was atop him, her long, dark hair disheveled and flowing across her creamy skin, heavy over his knuckles as he reached for her perfect, round breasts.
“You misrepresented yourself, Mr. Wainwright. Missionaries are not giddy. I expected much more serious dedication from you.”
“You will find nobody more dedicated than I am,” he promised. “But if you want somebody more serious, you’ll have to search elsewhere.”
“You stay right where you are. I’m done searching.”
“Good to hear.”
He rolled to a sitting position and pulled her into his lap, tugging on her hips, and settling the sweet cleft of her against the heat and hardness only she could alleviate. She held him around the neck, moving against him, arching and stroking until he couldn’t breathe.
The last straw dropped when she slipped one hand between them and slid back enough to add finger strokes to the erection he didn’t think could get any stronger. He dropped his head back and groaned.
“Baby, that’s about gonna do it if you aren’t careful.”
“I never said be careful.” She kissed him.
“Then turnabout is only fair.”
He closed his eyes and slid his hand beside hers, swirling a finger through the soft tangle of curls. Her cry and the clench of muscle around his hand nearly made him lose it.
“See,” he said. “Torture isn’t nice.”
“No. But try and stop.”
“We have to.” He removed his hand.
“Have to?” She whimpered.
He laughed and took her hand from him, groaning his regret. “Patience, love.”
He stretched enough to reach the foil packet on the night stand beside the bed. She closed her eyes.
“Oh bother,” she said. “Give me that. You’ll be too slow.”
She was not slow. Once she’d made him even crazier by rolling the soft latex expertly over him, he cupped his hands beneath her seat and lifted her. In one smooth motion he lowered her again and slid slowly into her, whimpering as her velvet skin encased him in heat. He made her move slowly, guiding her hips, extending the torture, closing his eyes as she moved up and down with athletic grace. He moved closer and closer to the brink as he listened to her breathing grow ragged.
She arched her back with a cry that penetrated to his core, and then she collapsed against him, pushing as if she couldn’t get close enough. Spasms wracked her muscles, and she clung to him, shivering and gulping for air.
“All right?” he asked. She nodded, allowing a tiny choked laugh to escape, followed by a clear sob. “Hey.” He tried to pry her from him, to check on her, but she held his neck more tightly.
“No! You,” she said. “You now.”
“Oh, baby,” he said in her ear.
With a swift, masterful motion he pushed them together onto one side and flipped her to her back. He never left her soft, deep warmth and moved without a lost moment into a timeless rhythm as perfectly tuned to her motion and her body as if they’d been designed to for each other. Three strokes. Four. Hard and smooth. Five and she grasped his butt, pulled him tight to her and let him fall from the cliff right into her soul.
His release took long torturously phenomenal moments during which he lost all frame of reference and sense of time. Only her voice, soft, filled with humor, brought him back to Earth.
“I think you passed the job interview.”
He wanted to laugh, rouse himself, and go again, but he had no power to do anything but collapse and worry that he was going to crush her before motion returned to his body.
“I don’t care if I didn’t. Don’t you dare let anyone else try out for this position. Ever.”
“Okay. You’ve got the job anyway.”
“I made you cry.”
“You mean man.”
“Awww. I’ve heard it’s a talent to make a woman weep.”
“I’ve never met anyone with that talent, so I wouldn’t know.”
“Proof I’m the perfect man for this job. And, I’ll make you a bet. I can do it again.”
“I like a cowboy with confidence,” she said, and pulled him back down on top of her for deep, rejuvenating kisses in the tangled sheets.
Chapter Twenty-Four
SHE’D ALWAYS SCOFFED that the term “soul mate” had been invented by some ancient romance writer, but after the night with Cole she had to change her mind. There wasn’t any way Harper could write off the night as meaningless fun, even though three beautiful, star-reaching “times” had definitely fit the very definition of fun. It was what happened when they weren’t making love, when everything they said and did flowed between them as effortlessly as breathing, without awkwardness, embarrassment, or effort that altered her view. As if Harper-and-Cole had always been.
She was a believer.
She was also confused and torn. How could she pick between a soul mate and life dream?
The next morning she entered her mother’s hospital room, a new one on the general medical-surgical floor. Bella was still under careful watch, but she’d graduated. With luck, she’d be ready to go home in a week.
She looked beautiful. Now that she could shower and dress in her own pajamas, she was back to being elegant Bella Crockett—put together and lovely even in a hospital bed. Harper found her knitting a stunning filigreed shawl with the enviable skill she’d only ever been able to pass on to Grace.
“Hi, Mama,” she called softly.
The soft click of needles stopped. Her mother looked up and smiled. “Darling. I’m so happy to see you.”
Harper kissed her cheek and lingered for a long, tight hug. When she straightened, her mother patted the mattress.
“Sit. Tell me why you look so sad about being happy. What’s going on?”
How in the world did her mother do it?
“What makes you say that?”
“I know my girls,” she said. “Don’t try to get out of it.”
She hadn’t officially told her mother about her feelings for Cole. They hadn’t officially told anyone, although they didn’t need to announce the obvious, she supposed. Like everything else about her life at the moment, words to describe it seemed weak and insufficient.
“It’s Cole. Cole is messing up everything.”
“However is our sweet boy doing such a thing?” She smiled in the all-knowing way that had been confounding, and sometimes terrifying, children since the creation of mothers.
“He . . . ” She stopped the elaborate explanation she’d planned and shook her head. “He’s making me fall in love with him.”
“And? Is it working?”
Her raised brows and calm hope drew a sputter from Harper. She took her mother’s hand. “It’s working maybe a little too well. I’ve lost all ability to think straight.”
“Sounds like love to me.”
“But he and Mia . . . for so long.”
“Cole was never feisty enough for Mia. He has too much of a poet’s soul, too much kindness. Mia needs someone to stand toe-to-toe with her and love her for the mover and shaker she is. Cole needs someone to ground him—to prove there’s more to life than trying to regain the past. That, my sweet daughter, is you.”
“Oh, Mom, I don’t know. He deserves someone less needy.”
“Didn’t I tell you I know my girls?” She smoothed a strand of Harper’s hair. “What is it you think you need?”
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been able to answer that question. Just someone who accepts me for who I really am and what I really love to do.”
“You’ve always had that, Harper.”
“Right. Sure I have. From the time Dad told me he had no idea what planet I lived on half the time to the day I devastated him by getting kicked out of school.”
“You don’t think he told all his daughters he thought they were from other planets?” She chuckled. “You girls had your father bamboozled and lost from the days you were born. He was a rancher’s rancher drowning in estrogen.”
“He never once told me he was proud of my talent. Never once encouraged me to pursue what I loved. I had to leave home for that.”
“He kept every drawing, every painting, every picture you ever made him, did you know that? I can show you his “Harper Box” when I get home. Of course he was proud of you.”
Harper’s mouth dropped open. “He had a very strange way of showing it.”
“I never said he did everything right. He was stubborn, and he was focused. I look back now and realize I should have forced him to do some things differently. But that wasn’t easy to do with him. He loved the way he loved—quietly but deeply.
“I wish he could have troubled himself to tell a person.”
“I know, honey. You’re right. You don’t say it easily either, though. Do you?”
She sat there, convicted on the spot. Her mother’s words drilled into her heart, and her breath caught in a mixture of embarrassment, mortification, and denial. Cole. Patient, kind, loving Cole. She’d had the words on the tip of her tongue so many times. And yet . . .
“I wish people would stop trying to compare me to Dad. I’m nothing like him.”
“Oh ho, darling Harper. You are the most like him of all.”
“Pierce my heart why don’t you?”
“I’m not trying to pierce anything. But one of these days you have to embrace the truth. You and your dad both did things far differently than anyone else in the family. You both ran away and holed up when you were wounded. You were both opinionated and extremely brilliant about those opinions. You both make decisions as much from the heart as from the brain—a way of feeling what’s right. Highly evolved intuition, I used to call it.”
“Or the ever-popular ‘flighty’ according to Mia.”
“For the record, Mia was far flightier than you ever were. She jumped from one interest to another until she settled on medicine. As much to be rebellious as anything. But you? You never wavered. You knew who you were from the time you could hold a big fat crayon.”
“If this is all true, then why did Dad always act like I was the black sheep? Why did he take away my sketchbooks as punishment or belittle the degree I wanted?”
“Because what he didn’t have that you do is true empathy. He never saw, either, how much alike you were to him. He was wrong to see your talent as impractical. But don’t mistake that for not loving you.”
She didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t that her mother had shaken the world or foundations of Harper’s life, but her view of everything she’d ever believed about herself now stood on its head.
“I loved him. And I disappointed him.”
“He knew you loved him. And no parent likes to see his child go through what you did. He hurt for you. He also had his own brand of tough love. But he understood making mistakes.”
“It’s hard to hear this. I never thought he forgave me, so it was hard to forgive him.”
“And yet you’re such a loving, caring, amazingly warm person. I loved your father deeply, but I wouldn’t say he was warm.”
“I got that from you.”
She smiled and patted Harper’s knee. “We are champions of the underdog. So we’re back to what you want.”
“To have it all. Cole. Cecelia Markham’s patronage. No oil on Paradise Ranch. Cole?” She added the second “Cole” with a tiny smile.
“Then go be the true love of his life. Give him a dream.”
“Oh, Mom. I want that. But his dream is to stay here with someone who will help him get his ranch back. I don’t live here. He can’t live in Chicago.”
“Your heart is the only thing that can find you an answer, my sweet. I wish I had something better.”
Harper’s heart despaired. “But did you follow your heart? Stuck here for all those years.”
“Stuck? Oh, Harper, never. I chose this place. Chose your father, too. I know that behind my back you all think I’m some downtrodden, unfulfilled ranch widow, but it’s not true. Your father was a wonderful husband—romantic in his own way. A good lover.”
“Ma!” Harper formed a cross with her two index fingers and held it up to ward off further mom-sex anecdotes. Her mother laughed.
“Well, he was. And I wasn’t stupid all those years. While he was off building his family empire, I was building mine. I raised six of the strongest women in Wyoming and encouraged them in whatever they wanted to do. Now each of them is a fabulous success. I served my country. I have credit cards in my own name and a small bank account. I have insurance that will take care of expenses at the end of my life. I kept the books for the ranch and understood all the nuances. I was never forced to stay—but I did and loved it. I don’t want to do it anymore.”
If there were more shocks to come from her mother’s mouth, Harper didn’t think she could handle them. And if she felt guilty about how she’d thought of her father or treated Cole, she was thoroughly shamed by how she’d always looked at her mother.
How could she have missed what an amazing woman she’d grown up with?
Because she was just like her father.
She launched herself into her mother’s arms, remorseful as a scolded child. Except she didn’t feel scolded, just loved and overwhelmed.
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
“Nonsense. These are things you didn’t need to know until you were a grown woman, in love for yourself.”
“What do I do now?”
“I can’t tell you that.” Her mother squeezed more tightly. “I loved a man. I miss him every minute of every day, but it was a great love. If you can say that someday, I’ll be happier than I can say for you. But it’s not a requirement for a happy life. You simply have to do what will leave you with no reg
rets.”
COLE WAITED IN the ICU family area, staring at the elevator bank waiting for Harper in a funk of anticipation and depression. Even after the body-and-soul-melding start to a new life together, he couldn’t convince Harper to stay in Wyoming. Her loyalty to Cecelia and to art seemed to have a hold on her he couldn’t break.
Only two hospital visits stood between this moment and the one where she boarded her flights to Chicago to get there an hour before the start of Cecelia Markham’s party.
He couldn’t go. No matter how desperately he wished to stay by her side, he’d told Harper the truth. He was really a hired hand, and he had his own goals to meet. It was fence-riding time. Repairs on half the ranch’s machinery awaited his skill. Hay had to be set in all the winter pastures. The horses would soon start staying inside at night, and that meant barn chores. If the ranch was to be functional and in good shape by the time Joely and Bella were ready to take over, then he, Leif, Bjorn, Rico, and Neil had boatloads of work ahead of them. Chicago had to wait for a quieter weekend.
She stepped off the elevator with a smile he couldn’t quite read, and he stood, his body leaping to attention.
“How’s your mom?”
The enigmatic smile broadened. “Better than I ever knew. Utterly amazing.”
He hadn’t expected that. Visits with her mother usually left her subdued. “I’m . . . glad?”
She laughed at that and kissed him. “I’ll tell you about it,” she said without further elaboration. “When I’ve figured it out myself.”
He had to settle for the cryptic offering because Mia appeared before he could ask anything more.
“You’re here, I’m glad,” she said, taking them both in with tired eyes. “Joely has been asking for both of you. She wouldn’t let me leave until we all talked to her.”
“That’s a good sign, isn’t it?” Harper asked. “She’s been pretty uninterested in everyone and everything until now.”
“I’m not sure,” Mia said. “Something’s up.”
They entered Joely’s room quietly out of habit, but now that she was awake, she actually needed stimulation more than peace and quiet. They found her staring blankly at the wall, her head elevated five inches and swathed in bandages, one arm in a cast. The rest of her battered body, including the nerve-damaged leg, was hidden beneath stark white sheets and blankets.
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