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

by Patricia McLinn

  “It’s your decision, Rebecca.”

  “You scare me.”

  “Makes us even.”

  “I scare you?”

  “Don’t look so pleased about it.”

  “It would be an achievement to scare Luke Chandler. Especially for someone like me.”

  “Someone like you?”

  “Prissy, prim – all the things you’ve said about the way I dress. I’ve never been a very ... uh, sensual woman.”

  He cut the gap between them in half, and multiplied her heartbeat by four. When he slowly raised one hand to her throat, her pulse rate squared.

  “How you dress and what you are are two different things.” He stroked down and out, catching the lapel of her jacket, then sliding under it to her shoulder, carrying the material with his movement. Slowly, his other hand repeated the motion on the opposite side. He dropped the jacket just off her shoulders. When she would have freed her arms he made a sound that commanded stillness.

  His mesmerizingly slow hands came back to her throat, to the high buttons on her blouse. One button came open, and her heart jolted. A second. A third. She looked down, watching the movement of his tough, scarred hands in fascination. The side of his hand brushed down her skin as he worked, as erotic a touch as she had ever felt.

  “I wanted to do this that first day,” he murmured as he reached the final button.

  She wanted nothing more than to let a shiver release the tension of nerves under her suddenly too-tight skin.

  He brushed down her skin exposed by the hanging material of her blouse in feathery touches, his eyes watching the progress. When he reached her skirt, he stepped in close, his hands going to the tab at the back of her waist. She felt the strength of his response against her abdomen. Her own response escalated as his movements brought the sensitized tips of her breasts against his chest.

  She pulled her arms free of the jacket. The zipper on her skirt slid down, and his hands cupped her hips as he eased the garment off over her half-slip. The skirt dropped to the floor and she stepped out of it, along with hesitation.

  Without haste, she unsnapped his shirt and tugged the T-shirt beneath free. His scent of open air, sage and man came stronger as she feasted her palms on his chest. She dragged it into her lungs, into her soul with fast, deep breaths.

  Standing there with her blouse swinging open, the press of his body sliding the slip against her bare legs, she felt immeasurably sensual.

  “Luke ... let’s ... the bed...”

  “We’re not going to make it to the bed.”

  He was right.

  * * * *

  After a sidetrip to the kitchen for sustenance, they finally made it to his bed.

  Now wearing his T-shirt, Rebecca straddled Luke’s lap as he leaned back on pillows and took the brownie he’d been eating out of his hand.

  “Haven’t you had enough to eat yet?”

  Shifting to put the brownie on the bedside table caused the T-shirt’s too-big neckline to slide off her right shoulder and down her arm. As she moved back over him, it drew back up for an instant before sliding off the other shoulder.

  “You got something else in mind?”

  She leaned forward, letting the tips of her breasts brush his chest through the thin fabric.

  “Mmmm-hmmmm.” She reached over to the table again, with a repeat of the T-shirt neck’s tantalizing slide, this time bringing back a foil packet.

  He groaned, but took the packet. “I’ve created a monster.”

  “Created?” She sounded indignant. “I wasn’t a total innocent, you know.”

  “Damn near.”

  She sat back slightly as he finished putting on the protection, the intimate friction drawing another groan from him, as well as a less voluntary response.

  “That’s not true. I’d made love before and – ”

  He’d never been the jealous kind, but he didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to hear it at all.

  “Like this?”

  He brought his torso up. At the same time he caught that sliding neckline with two fingers and dragged the right side down to her elbow, revealing one smooth, russet-tipped breast. Before she could react, he ran his tongue up from the bottom curve to that already-pebbling tip, circled the sweet texture, then put his mouth over it and drew on her. She jolted, her back arching. He used his hand on her hip to harness the motion into aligning their lower bodies. He nearly swore as he encountered her panties. He pushed up against her anyhow, and felt an answering shiver.

  He lifted his head to state, “You never made love like this.”

  Her head had fallen back, her eyes closed. But now she straightened and opened her eyes to meet his.

  “No.” Her voice was dark, sweet smoke. “Never like this before.”

  Something hit him then. An instinct, an awareness ... the edge of a fear. He’d felt it a few times in the backcountry, and he’d never ignored it. It had kept him alive.

  It said to get the hell out of this situation.

  Then Rebecca put her hands on his head and arched her back again, offering what he could not refuse, and he forgot fear. He opened his mouth over her nipple, experiencing the texture and taste with his tongue, testing it gently with his teeth.

  She shifted against him. ... No, they were both moving, trying to find each other. But her damn panties –

  The brrrrrrrppp of fragile fabric giving way to a pair of hands used to wrestling calves, tractors and barbed wire, made her jump. He dropped the remnants and used both hands on her hips to bring her where he wanted her, needed her.

  “Luke, what – ? Ah!”

  He sucked on her with a matching rhythm, and knew she was close. And he’d be right behind.

  No, not yet. He wasn’t ready for this to be over so fast.

  He forced himself to still, to hold her hips motionless at the same time he drew back from her nipple, twisting and falling back to lie flat. Sharp, shallow breaths gave him an instant of control.

  He looked up, the sight of her, lips parted, eyes molten, breast damp and swollen, caused another surge, and she moaned with it, the sound translating into a roll of her hips against him, the motion hidden by the hem of the T-shirt.

  But he would not let her hide anything. Not now.

  He jerked the bottom of the T-shirt up to her waist. In an instant, she’d taken hold of the gathered fabric and pulled it over her head, releasing it to float out of their universe off one extended hand.

  He ran his big hands from her waist to the delicate skin over her hips, to the even more delicate skin lower, until his thumbs brushed at where they were joined. At her gasp, he looked up to her eyes.

  She breathed in slow and long, then let it out. Then he watched her gaze drop, watched the moment she looked at where his body entered hers, felt it in the roll of tightening muscles around him.

  “Luke ...”

  When their eyes met this time, they held. Held as he slowly lifted his hips. Held as she slowly rolled against him.

  Held as the individual motions melded into one, unified quest. Held as the deliberateness gave way to desperation. Held as the desperation exploded into triumphant cataclysm.

  Held until she crumpled onto his still heaving chest and into arms that tied her there.

  “Luke ...” Her whisper of his name was barely a movement of breath against his burning skin, yet struck through bone, and into his marrow.

  Spent, satisfied, stifling the urge to hold her so tight that she blended into him molecule by molecule, he knew what the fear had been warning him about.

  Never like this before.

  The words didn’t apply to just Rebecca and her limited experience, and they had nothing to do with sex. They had to do with her, with the sound of her voice, the scent of her skin, the vulnerability of her heart and the depth of her soul.

  They had to do with making love.

  Never like this before.

  * * * *

  The third time they made love was slow
and sweet. Then slow and not so sweet. She’d crested one peak and was climbing fast toward the next, and he knew this time he’d wouldn’t be able to stop himself from tumbling over with her.

  That’s when she said it. Twice.

  “I love you. Luke, I love you.”

  He’d heard women say it before. Some of them, he supposed, even thought they meant it beyond the moment it was spoken. This was the only time he’d been tempted to believe it.

  He smoothed her hair back, touched his lips to the sweet dampness on her forehead, then claimed her mouth with his own, as they reached that crest together, and dove, with only each other to hold onto, into the wild, thrilling, soul-searing plunge that brought them back slowly, so slowly, to earth, to his bed, to their bodies joined and tangled.

  He held her, pretending to sleep, until she truly did. Only then did he ease out of the bed, deal with necessities. Then return to the bed. He shouldn’t have. It was near enough to dawn that he could have gotten up, started his day, pushed what she’d said down deep where it could maybe be forgotten.

  Instead, he crawled back into the bed, took her back in his arms and carefully settled her sleeping body against his.

  I love you. Luke, I love you.

  Come daylight he’d have to deal with those words. Have to make it clear he didn’t hold her to them. She had a life to go back to in Delaware. She had a rich grandmother who could give her a comfortable, safe life – an easy life. All the things a footloose ranch foreman couldn’t ever hope to give someone.

  Especially not a footloose ranch foreman like him.

  It was just what he’d spent years trying to avoid. Having someone love him. Rely on him. Count on him to save them. Because he could fail again. Just like with Polly. He couldn’t risk failing Rebecca. He couldn’t risk her that way.

  But for these last minutes of safe darkness, he’d stay here, holding Rebecca and hearing those words.

  I love you. Luke, I love you.

  And knowing that if he hadn’t kissed her, he would have answered.

  I love you, Rebecca.

  * * * *

  “Tom Brackel found some of your father’s people. I’ll drive you up after lunch. Kendra’s got Em for the afternoon.”

  Rebecca stared at Luke. He’d walked into the ranch office and made his announcement at nine-thirty Saturday morning with no preamble. She’d heard his words, but processing them all at once seemed to be beyond her.

  Or maybe it wasn’t these words she was having trouble processing, but images. Images, and emotions. And remembered words of the past day and a half.

  When you go back East ...

  It’s like you’ve been saying, your Grandmother’s your family. She wants you home – that’s not hard to understand.

  Luke had started his campaign of hints and expectations Friday morning. At least this time he hadn’t simply walked out. And she didn’t run home.

  She spent Friday on the ranch, first comparing availability and costs for the computer system she’d selected, then riding out with everyone in the afternoon to move the same herd as before to new grazing. Then came a strained dinner with Antonia in Sheridan. She’d returned to the ranch and stayed with Luke in the guest room of the main house that night. With Emily down the hall, they’d slept more than made love for the first time in their nights together – and Rebecca thought she’d never slept better.

  She’d been able to spend that time at Far Hills because she’d submitted the first phase of her work for the Fort Big Horn project and, true to Vince’s prediction, they needed to wait for approval.

  That had given Antonia more ammunition in her campaign to have Rebecca return to Delaware with her on Monday “while the project is in hiatus, although, really, anyone could complete the project now that you have laid the groundwork.”

  Antonia would have been shocked to know she had an ally in Luke.

  When you’re back home at Dahlgren House, you won’t be running out of hot water.

  You’ll be able to do just about anything you want when you get back to Delaware.

  Luke might have both hands on her back ready to push and Antonia might be pulling, but she was not going back East. Certainly not any time soon. Maybe never. No matter what.

  Sure, she was scared, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew what this was about.

  I love you. Luke, I love you.

  Even as she’d said the words, she’d known he wouldn’t want to hear them. But she’d needed to say them. She’d needed him to hear them, even though his reaction had given her an answer she didn’t want.

  “Rebecca? You hear me?”

  “Tom found people who are willing to meet me?”

  “Yeah. Members of your father’s clan. His mother, her people.”

  “My grandmother.” Judging from Luke’s sharpened look, Rebecca knew her attempt to smile had failed.

  “Thought you’d want to meet her.”

  “I do. It’s ... It’ll be a little odd. I mean, since I never met my father.”

  “We’ll leave here twelve-thirty.”

  “There’s no need for you to – ”

  “I’m driving you.”

  He wouldn’t be budged. And she didn’t mind giving up trying. Luke might not want her and her love in his life permanently, but he hadn’t pushed her out of it yet.

  * * * *

  The door of the small, weathered house with the bench under the curtained front window opened slowly.

  Rebecca appeared, then paused to say something to those inside.

  He’d been sitting out here for forty-five minutes, feeling as nervous as a calf face-to-face with a mountain lion. Tom had said it would be better to let Rebecca meet the clan members on her own, and to not let the first visit go too long.

  She paused a moment longer, then headed down the path toward the truck. Her face was neutral, controlled, with none of the flashes of emotion he’d come to expect in her.

  She got in the truck and sat very still, facing forward. He wanted to pull her across the seat, wrap his arms around her and hold her. Her very stillness prevented him from doing that. That and the elderly woman and middle-aged man standing in the doorway, watching them, their faces as neutral as Rebecca’s.

  “You ready?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Once the truck was rolling, she turned her head to look out the side window. He waited until they were on I-25 to ask, “How’d it go?”

  “All right.”

  The words were even and flat. But something about them stirred a need to see her face. He hunched over the wheel, trying to get an angle without success. It didn’t take long using the remote control to shift the right-hand side mirror to see tears tracking down her face.

  Cursing under his breath, he checked the other mirrors for traffic, then pulled off to the shoulder, turning off the engine and taking hold of her upper arm all in one motion.

  He pulled her around to face him more roughly than he’d intended so he grasped her other arm to steady her as he demanded to her wet and startled face, “What the hell happened.”

  “Noth – ” She gulped once, then sobbed.

  He wasn’t sure if he’d intended the noise that came from his throat to be a word, but he knew he intended to have her in his arms. Her face pressed against his shoulder, one of her arms around his waist, the other bent between them, and both of his arms held her firmly against him. He slowly stroked her back, her shoulders, her head as the sobs came.

  Some favor he’d done her. What the hell did he think he was doing meddling in this? Calling Tom, bringing her up to the reservation like this? The storm of crying was as brief as it had been unexpected.

  “Wait till I get my hands on Tom,” he muttered as she gulped again.

  “No, Luke, you don’t ... I’m glad I went.”

  “Something must have happened,” he said grimly. “Did somebody say something to you – ”

  “No, really.” She leaned back and met his eyes. “They were very pol
ite. They didn’t say much.”

  “Didn’t look like they greeted you with open arms.”

  “I wouldn’t have expected them to. I’m a stranger.”

  Maybe she hadn’t expected, but she’d hoped. He’d seen it and heard it when she’d asked Tom about membership in the tribe, about learning about the culture. She wanted someplace she belonged.

  One side of her mouth lifted. “Besides, I’m not the type most people greet with open arms.”

  The hell she wasn’t. But he’d demonstrated his weakness in that regard enough, no need to say it out loud, too.

  “Then what was this about?” A shift of his shoulder indicated his damp shirt.

  Her eyes followed the gesture. Ruefully, she used her fingers and palm to smooth out the moist and rumpled fabric.

  “Would you believe happiness?”

  “Happiness?”

  She pulled back enough to free the arm between them, and he saw that she held a small snapshot of a young man with long, dark hair in jeans and a T-shirt.

  “It’s Clark Pryor. They gave me his picture. From shortly before my mother met him. It’s the first time I’ve seen him.”

  He stroked her hair. “Your father.”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “My father. His mother – my grandmother – gave this to me. I know I don’t belong there yet. I’m not a member of the family or the clan or the tribe. They have no reason to accept me.” Her voice dropped to an almost awed note. “But there’s a chance.”

  Luke had been kicked in the chest by plenty of calves he’d been wrestling and by a horse or two he’d been trying to shoe. This felt like all those times rolled together.

  She’d been saying it all along, how much it meant to her to be accepted by people, by a group, by a family. But he hadn’t heard it full volume till now. Probably because he’d seen the dark side of being part, and preferred the safety of being apart.

  But even he could see what it meant to her.

  She leaned back farther in his arms. He knew the touch was coming. He let it come. Her fingers on his jaw, so light and warm and soft it seemed like it should be able to heal that old scar. He let his eyes drop closed, and for that moment, he accepted her touch, and her words.

  “And I have you to thank.”