The new truck was waiting outside, decorated from front to back with streamers, streaks of shaving cream, and all manner of other stuff, including a big, hand-lettered sign that read Just Married.
He hoisted Kendra into the passenger seat, taking what seemed like an extra five minutes to stuff the skirts of that big dress in behind her. She laughed the whole time.
What a sight they must make, Hutch thought, getting in on the driver’s side, him in a tux, and Kendra in all that lace and silk, leaving their wedding in a pickup truck.
Eager as he was to get home to the ranch house and be alone with his bride, to unwrap her from that fancy gown and everything underneath it, he was struck dumb for a long moment, just to look at her.
She was so unbelievably, impossibly beautiful.
And she was his.
Peering out of the billows of white surrounding her, she laughed again, maybe at his expression and maybe for sheer joy.
“I feel like a giant cupcake,” she said.
He cocked a grin at her before starting up the truck. “Good enough to eat,” he replied, driving away from the church.
When they got home, the house was lit up, even though the afternoon was still bright with sunshine. The night before, he and Slade and Boone had spent hours putting up strings of white Christmas lights, and the whole place twinkled.
Hutch parked the truck near the front gate, got out and came around to lift Kendra off the passenger seat.
He didn’t set her down, but looked straight into her eyes and said, “Welcome home, Mrs. Carmody.”
Her eyes filled with tears, causing her mascara to run a little. “I love you,” she said. “So, so much.”
He replied in kind and kissed her to seal the bargain.
Getting the gate open with an armload of woman and wedding dress was tricky, but Hutch managed it, carried Kendra up the walk and the porch steps and over the threshold to boot. Leviticus was right there to greet them, though he soon lost interest and wandered off into some other part of the house.
In the foyer, he set her on her feet, pretending to be winded by the effort of lugging her that far.
She smiled, picked up her voluminous skirts and started up the stairs, looking back at him over one shoulder. She knew where the master bedroom was—he’d shown it to her, along with the rest of that big and formerly empty house—but today was different. Today, and tonight, and every night that followed, they could make use of it.
“Aren’t you going to help me out of this dress?” she asked coyly.
“It’s the least I can do,” Hutch answered, then he bolted up the stairs after her, undoing his tie as he went, shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket and leaving it behind on the rail of the landing.
His cummerbund went next and, by the time he caught up with Kendra inside the bedroom, he was undoing his cuff links.
Kendra, a vision in white, stood looking around, taking in the antique four-poster bed, the old-fashioned fireplace, the built-in bookshelves, bare at the moment because Hutch had been sleeping in a room down the hall since he was younger than Madison was now.
She moved to the mantel, ran her hand along the face of it, turned to him. “Our room,” she said very softly, almost reverently. “The place where our babies will be conceived.”
Hutch watched her, etching her image into his mind so he could remember, years and years from now, when they were an old married couple, how she’d looked at this moment. “Some of them,” he agreed. “I plan on making love to you in plenty of other places, too.”
Kendra came to him, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “This will do for a start, though,” she said with mischief in her eyes. Then she turned, indicating the long row of tiny buttons on the back of her dress with a gesture of one hand.
Hutch began the slow, delicious process of unbuttoning Kendra’s wedding gown. He fumbled a little, now and then—what was the point of making buttons that small when a man had big fingers?—but he finally got the thing open, and she stepped out of it, draped it carefully over the chair in front of the fireplace. It looked like a fallen cloud, resting there.
“Madison will wear this dress someday,” Kendra said. “And maybe other daughters, too.”
The thought warmed Hutch’s heart, but it was soon gone. At the moment, he wasn’t thinking long-term, he was thinking right now.
Even without the gown, Kendra was still wearing a lot of gear—a big, lacy petticoat-type thing, and a camisole with a bra underneath it. She kicked off her satin shoes and shed the petticoat, unfastened her stockings from the sexy garters that held them up, bared her legs and stood there in panties and the camisole, looking like an angel trying to pass as a pinup girl.
For a moment, he couldn’t speak.
She walked over to him, unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it out of his pants. “Do I have to do all the undressing around here?” she asked.
He shook his head, pulled her close and kissed her again, deeply this time, thoroughly, holding nothing back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her warm softness against him and kissed him back.
He groaned, consuming her, unable to get enough.
At some point, they both got naked, though Hutch was too far gone by that point to say when it happened. He lifted Kendra in his arms, carried her to the bed and laid her down.
“No foreplay this time,” she whispered, gazing up at him with sultry eyes and a wicked little smile. “I want you inside me, Hutch. It’s been too long since we were together—like this—”
“No rush,” he ground out. “We’ve got all the time in the world.” He kissed her mouth, her neck, found her nipple and took it into his mouth. “All the time in the world,” he repeated, using his tongue.
Fire shot through Kendra as Hutch took his sweet time at her breast, caressing her all the while running a hand over her other breast, down her side, across her belly to the place where her passions lived.
She whimpered, giving herself up to pleasure. There would be no hurrying this husband of hers—he believed in taking her by inches, by millimeters, a touch, a kiss, a teasing brush of his fingertips at a time.
Her voice was ragged when she said his name, rose to a low shout when he put his head between her legs and took her into his mouth.
He suckled until she was near the breaking point and then withdrew to nibble at the insides of her thighs, even the backs of her knees.
Her breath came deep and fast, and she commanded him to take her, damn it, but he only took her into his mouth again, and alternately sucked on her and teased her with his tongue.
Kendra’s hips began to rise and fall, faster and faster, and she plunged her fingers into Hutch’s hair, holding him to her even as she pleaded to be taken.
She was on the verge, whispering, “Don’t stop—
oh, God, don’t stop—” when the eruption finally came. She exploded against an inner sky, like fireworks, and dissolved into flaming sparks that took a long time to fall.
By the time she’d settled back into herself, Hutch was poised above her on the bed, his forearms braced against the mattress on either side of her still-quivering, exquisitely sated body.
He moved inside her, slowly that first time, throwing his head back as he reached her depths.
Instantly, she needed him again and more desperately than before. This time, however, he didn’t hold back, but gave her all of himself, one long, hard thrust following another.
Kendra found the ever-rising ecstasy almost more than she could bear. She tossed her head from side to side on the pillow, and their bodies collided, again and again, until they reached the same pinnacle at the same moment. Hutch went still, deep inside her, and she felt the surging warmth of him.
This time, there was no condom.
They’d wasted enough time and both of them wanted a baby.
When it was over, he collapsed beside her, one leg sprawled across her thighs, his breathing ragged.
A long time passed before eit
her of them spoke.
“What is it with you and foreplay?” Kendra asked, her head resting on his shoulder.
He chuckled. “Get used to it,” he said, kissing her temple. “Some things shouldn’t be hurried, and making love to you is one of them.”
She made a slow circle on the taut, washboard flesh of his belly with the fingertips of her right hand. “Really?” she purred. Then she closed her fingers around him, and he groaned, instantly hard again.
“Woman,” he gasped, “you are playing with fire.”
She worked him harder, faster, but gently, too.
“Am I?”
He pulsed against her palm, huge and hot, and gave a raspy moan.
Then, in a heartbeat, he was on top of her.
She looked up into his eyes, batted her lashes, and said, “But what about the foreplay?”
“You win,” he rasped, and then he possessed her in one hard, driving thrust.
* * *
HOURS LATER, DOWNSTAIRS in the dimly lit kitchen—Hutch wearing jeans and nothing else, Kendra in one of his T-shirts, happier than she’d ever imagined it was possible to be—they nibbled at the lasagna Opal had thoughtfully prepared and left in the refrigerator. Leviticus, recently fed, snoozed nearby on his dog bed.
“I guess this isn’t much of a honeymoon,” Hutch fretted, sitting across from her, his hair love-rumpled and his golden beard coming in with the twilight. “Maybe we should have gone to Vegas or Hawaii or something.”
Kendra grinned at him. “No complaints here, cowboy,” she said. “We can take trips later. Right now, we’ve got a lot of settling in to do.”
Hutch looked relieved, and the expression in his eyes made Kendra wonder how she’d ever doubted that they belonged together, for always.
They ate what they could, both of them starved and at the same time too riled up to eat much. They’d showered together and made love under the spray, and while Kendra’s body still throbbed with aftershocks from the powerful releases he’d brought her to, she wanted more, and she knew Hutch did, too.
“Think we made a baby today?” he asked.
Kendra moved her shoulders in a little shrug. “All we can do is keep trying,” she said.
He laughed, reached out, closed his hand briefly over hers. “I have something for you,” he told her, turning serious all of a sudden.
“I hope so,” she vamped, making eyes at him.
“Besides that,” he said, after a raspy chuckle. He stood up, disappeared into his office off the kitchen and returned with a thick packet in one hand.
Kendra frowned, a little unnerved. They hadn’t signed, or even discussed, a prenuptial agreement but now, it seemed, he’d reconsidered the idea. Did he really think she’d demand half of Whisper Creek Ranch if, God forbid, they parted ways before one of them died?
“What’s this?” she asked warily.
He smiled, reading her trepidation accurately, the way he so often did. “It’s a deed,” he said. “Maggie Landers drew it up.”
Kendra’s hands trembled as she opened the document, scanned the legalese and made the startling discovery that she was already half owner of the ranch. All that was required was a notarized signature.
“I don’t understand,” she confessed. “This ranch means everything to you—”
“And so do you,” Hutch finished huskily when her words fell away. “This ranch is me, Kendra—as much a part of me as my arms and legs and my heart. I’d do just about anything to keep it. But if you divorced me tomorrow, well, so be it, you’d still be half owner of Whisper Creek.”
Kendra was overcome, touched to the tenderest part of her soul. Hutch wasn’t just giving her his love, but his complete trust. He was staking everything he held dear on their marriage, their commitment to each other and to a lifetime as man and wife.
She held the document to her heart for a moment, not because of what it offered but because of what it meant, and then she set it down on the table between them.
“I’m going back upstairs, now,” she announced. “Coming?”
Hutch laughed and scooted back his chair to rise. “Definitely,” he said.
* * * * *
Look for Linda Lael Miller’s next original novel,
AN OUTLAW’S CHRISTMAS,
on sale from Harlequin HQN Books
in October 2012 at your favorite retail outlet.
* * * * *
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Love Awaits in Parable, Montana…
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Big Sky Country
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CHAPTER ONE
Parable, Montana
“YOU WEREN’T AT THE funeral,” Slade Barlow’s half brother, Hutch Carmody, accused, the words rasping against the underside of a long, slow exhale.
Slade didn’t look at Hutch, though he could still see him out of the corner of one eye. The both of them were sitting side by side in a pair of uncomfortable chairs, facing what seemed like an acre of desk. Maggie Landers, their father’s lawyer, who had summoned them there, had yet to put in an appearance.
“I went to the graveside service,” Slade replied evenly, and after a considerable length. It was the truth, though he’d stood at some distance from the crowd, not wanting to be numbered among the admitted mourners but unable to stay away entirely.
“Why bother at all?” Hutch challenged. “Unless you just wanted to make sure the old man was really in the box?”
Slade was not a quick-tempered man—by nature, he tended to think before he spoke and offer whatever response he might make with quiet deliberation, traits that had served him well over the several years since he’d been elected sheriff—but the edge in his half brother’s tone brought heat surging up his neck to pound behind his ears.
“Maybe that was it,” he drawled with quiet contempt as the office door whispered open behind them.
Hutch, who had just shoved back his chair as if to leap to his feet, ready to fight, thrust a hand hard through his shock of brownish-blond hair instead, probably to discharge that rush of adrenaline, and stayed put. He all but buzzed, like an electric fence line short-circuiting in a thunderstorm.
Slade, though still confounded by his own invitation to this particular shindig, took a certain grim satisfaction in Hutch’s reaction. There was, as the old saying went, no love lost between the two of them.
“Good to see you haven’t killed each other,” Maggie observed brightly, rounding the shining expanse of the desk to take the leather chair behind it. Still gorgeous at fifty-plus, with short, expertly dyed brown hair and round green eyes, usually alight with mischievous intelligence, the lawyer turned slightly to boot up her computer.
“Not just yet, anyhow,” Hutch replied finally.
Maggie’s profile was all he could see of her, but Slade registered the slight smile that tilted up one corner of her mouth. Her fingers, perfectly manicured every Saturday morning at his mother’s beauty shop for the last quarter of a century, flicked busily over the keyboard, and the monitor threw a wash of pale blue light onto her face and the lightweight jacket of her custom-made off-white pantsuit.
“How’s your mother, Slade?” she asked mildly without glancing his way.
Maggie and his mom, Callie, were around the same age, and they’d been friends for as long as Slade could remember. Given that he’d run into
Maggie at his mom’s Curly-Burly Hair Salon just the day before, where she’d been having a trim and a touch-up, he figured the question was a rhetorical one, a sort of conversational filler.
“She’s fine,” Slade said. By then, he’d gotten over the urge to commit fratricide and gone back to mulling the thing that had been bothering him ever since the formidable Ms. Landers had called him at home that morning and asked him to stop by her office on his way to work.
The meeting had to be about the old man’s last will and testament, though Maggie hadn’t said so over the phone. All she’d been willing to give up was, “This won’t take long, Slade, and believe me, it’s in your best interests to be there.”
Hutch’s presence made sense, since he was the legitimate son, the golden boy, groomed since birth to become the master of all he surveyed even as, motherless from the age of twelve, he ran wild. Slade himself, on the other hand, was the outsider—born on the proverbial wrong side of the blanket.
John Carmody had never once acknowledged him, in all Slade’s thirty-five years of life, and it wasn’t likely that he’d had a deathbed change of heart and altered his will to include the product of his long-ago affair with Callie.
No, Slade thought, Carmody hadn’t had a heart, not where he and his mother were concerned, anyway. He’d never so much as spoken to Slade in all those years; looked right through him, when they did come into contact, as if he was invisible. If that stiff-necked son of a bitch had instructed Maggie to make sure Slade was there for the reading of the will, it was probably so he’d know what he was missing out on, when all that land and money went to Hutch.
You can stick it all where the sun never shines, old man, Slade thought angrily. He’d never expected—or wanted—to inherit a damn thing from John Carmody—bad enough that he’d gotten the bastard’s looks, his dark hair, lean and muscular build, and blue eyes—and it galled him that Maggie, his mother’s friend, would be a party to wasting his time like this.
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