Hidden in a Heartbeat (A Place Called Home, Book 3)

by Patricia McLinn

  “I don’t think you should – ”

  “Oh, no. Not anywhere to drink. Just someplace ... else.”

  He frowned, but turned short of Canyon. “Where to?”

  “I don’t know. We could drive around a while.”

  That had a hint of a plea to it. Maybe he’d take her directly home after all. He didn’t want Rebecca sounding small and vulnerable. It wasn’t safe.

  Then she spoke again and it had enough snap to it to ease his mind. “After all, it’s my gas we’re using.”

  * * * *

  “Where is this?” she asked as soon as he stopped her car.

  “It’s as close as we can get in a car to Leaping Star’s overlook.”

  “Oh.”

  The syllable packed a lot into it. Before he could sort out the elements or remind himself of the reasons not to try, she was on the move.

  “Hey! Whaddya think you’re doing?”

  “Walking.” she called back over her shoulder as she did just that.

  “Rebecca – ” He loped to catch up. Admittedly the moon and stars lit the sky, but she was heading over rough ground on a path that ran near the edge of a sheer drop. “That’s not a good idea.”

  “You haven’t liked any of my ideas – not computers or donuts or talking or ... or anything. But I like my ideas. And I want to see Leaping Star’s overlook.”

  He hooked a hand around her upper arm. “Rebecca – ”

  She spun on him “Quit! Just quit scolding me and ordering me around like I’m a child with no sense and you’re my ... my grandmother!”

  He looked at her, preparing hot, sharp words of his own. Instead, he said, “I’m going first. Hold onto my belt.”

  He moved ahead of her on the path. When she didn’t take hold as he’d instructed, he pulled her hand to the back waist of his jeans, waiting until he felt her fingers wrap around the sturdy leather.

  Oh, yeah, this was a great idea.

  Somehow they made it to the overlook. It must have been luck and instinct, because his mind was definitely not all on the task.

  As the path opened into the clearing at the back of the overlook, he reached around and took her hand to remove it from his belt. Somehow he ended up not releasing it as he guided her to the fallen log that served as a rough seat.

  “Oh, look ...” she whispered as she sank to the log. “Tell me what I’m seeing, Luke.”

  “Far Hills,” he said gruffly. There was a reverence in her tone that touched him despite himself.

  “What parts? Is that the home ranch?”

  “No that’s Ridge House. Main house is over there – see?”

  “This must be what it looked like those nights Leaping Star stayed up here, hoping Charles Susland would change his heart and take care of their child.”

  “Darker then. It was darker even when I was a kid.”

  “You came here when you were a child? Alone?”

  “Sure.”

  “But your parents, they let you?”

  “Had other things on their minds.” She’d turned to him; he knew that even though he was looking out over the land. “Came up once when the power was out to see what it must have looked like in the old days, but the backup generators had already cut on.” He squinted as if he could filter out the manmade light. “Even with that, even with the lights and fences and irrigation ditches and planted fields, the land doesn’t change, not really. Not the land, and not the seasons, and not nature. They don’t change.”

  “No, they don’t,” she agreed softly. “They’re here, no matter what. And you fit right in with them. Part of them. Part of this place. Part of these people. Part of this land.”

  “It’s a job. Don’t go reciting poetry about it.”

  “It is a kind of poetry, knowing where you belong, and being there. Having friends around you that you trust, who accept you and trust you back. Having a place you love. Having a job that suits you. A home.”

  The thread of wistfulness woven into otherwise simple words kept him from shaking off her description. Even though he’d just come back temporarily. Passing through. No obligation. No responsibility, other than to do a good job. He could walk away any time. Move on, free and clear.

  “I can’t imagine you anywhere but here, Luke,” came Rebecca’s soft voice, as if to refute his thoughts.

  He shifted, ready to say it was time to go.

  And felt the touch of her lips against the right side of his mouth. Maybe she’d intended to kiss him on the cheek, and his movement had provided a different landing spot. Maybe not.

  She didn’t jolt away.

  She seemed to float there next to him, breathing in and breathing out, with that faint motion brushing her lips against the side of his mouth. Slowly, he brought his head around toward her.

  Her eyes were on his mouth. The lashes dark and long, not quite hiding the soft, warm brown of her eyes.

  The look jolted heat into his groin.

  She drew a particularly deep breath, held for an instant, then kissed him again. Lips to lips.

  He tasted a blend of Scotch and her, and that was enough to short-circuit any noble commands his head might have issued. He didn’t grab her – that was as noble as he could hope for right now. Holding still, and waiting.

  If he touched her – if he thrust his tongue into the warmth of her mouth ...

  She hadn’t been sure a week ago in the office. Not sure at all. Despite how her body reacted. Was she now? Or was this the Scotch? Was this the moonlight and night and the mountain?

  Damn, he wanted her.

  She jerked away with a gasp. Instinct had his hands reaching for her, discipline stopped them before they took hold.

  She didn’t even see it. She had her head down.

  “I’m sorry, Luke. I shouldn’t – That was ... After I made it clear ... I keep making ...” Her hands fluttered with no more sense than her words.

  “Let’s go.”

  Her head came up, though she didn’t meet his eyes. “Luke, I – ”

  “Forget it. Let’s go.

  * * * *

  He pulled all the way to the back of the drive, and went around the front of the car. She was negotiating the stairs fine. When he followed, she gave him a quizzical look over her left shoulder, only faintly wary. Apparently she hadn’t yet recognized the problem she would have faced at the top of the stairs if he hadn’t followed.

  “Here’re your keys,” he offered when she hesitated.

  She accepted them without touching him, opened the door. He took a single step inside for a precautionary look around. A woman who left the door unlocked the way she had at the ranch office wasn’t as careful as she should be, so he scanned the room. He was also curious. Nothing wrong with that. He surveyed Rebecca’s classy touches against the fading mediocrity of the apartment. Her leather bag, a scarf he suspected was silk draped over the back of a small sofa, books and folders neatly stacked where a desk met the wall, a pen that might be gold on a pad next to an answering machine that kept company with her laptop. His gaze slowed at the bedside table. More books and papers, a lamp, a huddle of photographs each in a polished wood frame.

  An older woman, sleek and certain, with softly graying hair and a hard mouth – had to be Grandmother. Another photo with three generations – a somewhat younger version of the grandmother, with a dark-hair girl who had to be Rebecca at about Emily’s age, and a young woman, who looked like the Grandmother with the personality leached out of her, probably Rebecca’s mother. A less formal photograph of Rebecca and two other attractive young women all wearing college sweatshirts. A slightly fuzzy snapshot of a man nearing retirement age dressed in a suit beside a rounded woman with a smear of something white on her cheek.

  His eyes went back to the picture of the three generations. Rebecca, vibrant and open with her little-girl smile, sat between the two women, yet seemed apart from them. No wonder she’d felt she didn’t belong. She didn’t belong with those two. At least she hadn’t then. But sh
e’d learned, oh, yes, she’d learned.

  She would dismiss him now, thank him with the cool politeness of her pedigree. Pretend nothing had happened. Or try.

  But she didn’t. She was looking beyond him, through the open door, down toward her car in the driveway.

  “How stupid of me. How will you get home?”

  “I’ll manage.”

  “But you’ll have to walk.”

  “I’ll manage,” he repeated.

  “I can give you a ride in the morning. You can sleep on the couch – ”

  “No.”

  “I’ll give you a pillow and blanket.”

  “I don’t want a pillow and blanket.”

  She looked up at him then, eyes slightly hazy, but guileless. “Don’t you?”

  They were standing too close. She leaned against the wall next to the door, head tipped back. He was angled to face her, one shoulder still propping open the screen door. He saw her hand moving, saw the touch coming, and did nothing to avoid it. Stood there and let her fingertips float over the stubble at the turn of his jaw, tracing his old scar. Stood there and let her voice seep into his blood.

  “What do you want, Luke?” she asked, not meaning it the way his body took it. Not meaning it that way at all.

  And then he wasn’t just standing there. The door was banging shut because he’d jerked his shoulder away, because he was surrounding her where she stood against the wall. He dropped his mouth onto hers and answered a question she hadn’t meant.

  Her lips were hell on discipline. Her softness pressing against him blasted pride to kingdom come.

  She lit up like the Northern Lights. Shimmery and mysterious. Ever changing, and with a faint, stirring sound that seemed to come from all of her, not just her throat.

  He touched his palm to her throat to feel that sound as well as hear it. Traced it down, the vibration stronger at the notched hollow at its base.

  And lower. Slipping beneath the soft fabric of her blouse to the indefinable softness of her skin, The first, easy swell of her breast, the thin barrier of her bra. Sweeping his hand down, his fingers stretched, brushing across a tip he could feel tightening. Shifting, so that point pressed hotly against his palm.

  Her tongue met his, more than accepting the thrusts, greeting them, meeting him. His left leg rocked high between her thighs. It would be soft there, too. Where his hand had held her when the truck nearly flipped. Soft and firm. Just like her mouth. Just like her breast.

  Stroking, his fingers slipped under the looseness of her bra strap and found the sweet, sweet softness of her. Pushing away the material, brushing her nipple with his thumb, cupping her and drawing her free. He circled the hardening flesh with his thumb, felt her hands clutch, one against his back, the other at his shoulder. That wasn’t enough.

  He left her mouth with regret, then wiped away the regret with the sweetness of the pebbled nub. Circling now with his tongue. Feeling the pleasure jab at his groin, as they rocked against each other, increasing the ache they longed to ease. Until the pleasure was too fierce, too close.

  He brought his mouth back to hers, thrusting his tongue deep into the warmth, accompanying it with a strong, slow rock of the hardness at the juncture of his legs against the softness at hers. Feeling the dampness of her nipple pushing against his bare chest – his shirt was open, and he didn’t even remember it happening – and hearing her groan.

  If he took her now . . . laid her on the bed, himself beside her, over her, inside her ...

  And then?

  And then.

  She’d still be who she was, and he’d still be who he was.

  He yanked away from her, hands holding her shoulders against the wall, elbows locked to keep himself from falling back against her or dragging her to him. You didn’t take advantage of a woman who’d had too much to drink.

  He got himself out to the top of the stairway, closing the doors firm behind him, without another word. Because that was another rule – you didn’t give women like Rebecca Dahlgren the soft words that might mislead them into thinking you were a man you weren’t.

  * * * *

  Rebecca woke with a throbbing headache centered between her eyes and an unsettled queasiness low in her stomach.

  A hangover. She wished with all her heart it was a hangover from alcohol. How easy that would be. How clear to treat. How quick to overcome.

  Instead, she had a hangover from Luke Chandler. Not from having too much of him, but from wanting too much.

  Wanting so much that she let herself forget her dignity, her reputation, her real reason for being here, even her self-preservation, and threw herself at the man.

  She groaned. Following him into the Ranchers’ Rest was forgivable. Even the conversation and the drinks there were understandable. But postponing the moment he would leave her by asking him to drive around, then kissing him ...

  She couldn’t even claim she was drunk at that point. Unless it was drunk on him. He’d seemed so much a part of the sweet night breeze, the pine tang around them, the mysterious mountain behind them and the immutable land spread before them. Or maybe they had all seemed so much a part of him.

  And she’d seen him so clearly in that moment. Seen that somehow he’d been deeply disappointed by his family. Seen that his attempts to deny his connections to Far Hills – the land and the people – were somehow connected to that disappointment.

  She’d kissed him.

  And when his movement had brought their lips together she had practically begged for more. He’d stopped, not her.

  It was even worse at her apartment.

  Lying in bed last night for long hours, tossing from one unsatisfying position to another, she’d replayed each word, and she’d felt mortification flush up from her toes to her forehead at how her words must have sounded to him.

  I’ll give you a pillow and blanket.

  I don’t want a pillow and blanket.

  What do you want, Luke?

  She squeezed her eyes shut now against the memory. She would swear her conscious mind hadn’t ordered those words, hadn’t meant them the way he must have taken them. But her subconscious ...?

  If he hadn’t stopped, she might have woken up with entirely different aches this morning.

  No, face facts. If he hadn’t stopped, there was no might about it. She would have made love with him.

  Was this what it felt like when your emotions got out of control?

  Her gaze went to the photograph of her mother. It looked as if that part of the photo had been exposed to too much light or had faded away over the years. But it had been the original that had been fading away. Already a ghost before she died.

  Rebecca would never become her mother.

  And if that meant keeping her distance from Luke, then she would. She would write a note to express her appreciation of his gallantry – not using that word, of course, because Luke would scoff at the notion – and then she would do her best not to allow herself into any situation where her subconscious might start wanting Luke Chandler to make her feel.

  * * * *

  Luke eased his new pickup into the left lane of the Interstate to pass a lumbering flatbed truck. Well clear of that vehicle, he eased the pickup back to the right lane.

  That’s when his gaze caught on the tops of two heads close together in the backseat.

  He hadn’t been particularly surprised when Marti said that instead of flying from Sheridan, she wanted him to drive her to Denver to catch a plane to Los Angeles, where she would then connect for the long flight to China. And taking Emily along made sense, so mother and daughter could spend time together before she left.

  What made no sense was the other passenger. The one seated on the far side of the front seat – Rebecca.

  Only as they turned out of Far Hills Ranch onto the highway had Marti made the announcement – in the blandest of tones – that they needed to pick up Rebecca. She’d rolled right along with the explanation that she’d figured he might need a hand
with Emily on the long drive back, not to mention some company.

  He’d snorted at that, since Rebecca had done her level best the past week to be as far from his company as possible.

  Oh, he’d received a note, no doubt written with that golden pen he’d seen – Luke, I know you find apologies unacceptable, even when they are warranted, but I hope you will accept my sincere thanks for your consideration. – Rebecca L. Dahlgren.

  Thanking him for his consideration his ass.

  Consideration? For not putting her down on that bed and himself between her legs? She sent a damn thank you note for that? He didn’t think so.

  She was letting him know that she recognized she’d had a narrow escape, and it wasn’t going to happen again.

  Hell, that’s how he’d wanted things from the start. He wanted nothing to do with her rules and responsibilities and fussing about the good opinion of others. He might wish she’d seen it earlier, before he knew the taste and the feel of her, but it was still a good thing she’d finally realized it, too. A damned good thing.

  Course she could have been a little more subtle. It wasn’t that he wanted more than a polite How’re you doing now and then. Instead, she’d skedaddled like a prairie dog spotting a coyote the couple times he’d caught sight of her.

  So the idea of her being good company for the drive back from Denver was laughable.

  All he’d said was, “Why not Ellyn, or Kendra?”

  “They have their own families to tend to.”

  “Does she know I’m driving,” he’d asked, as if it were his ability behind the wheel Rebecca might object to.

  “Oh, yes, she knows,” Marti had said breezily.

  Marti had continued to be annoyingly breezy as they’d loaded Rebecca’s small bag into the storage box and Rebecca herself into the front seat. She’d balked, then Marti said she wanted to sit by Emily in back, and that was that.

  Marti’s voice broke into his ruminations.

  “Luke, we better find a place to stop to take a break.”

  He met Marti’s eyes in the rear view mirror and she tipped her head slightly to indicate Emily.