Slade, just back from taking Jasper a hamburger to eat in the truck, smiled at that. “If you don’t work,” he reasoned, taking his seat at the table again, “where are you going to get the money to feed a horse? There’ll be veterinary bills to pay, too, and you’ll need a saddle and bridle and some other gear on top of that.”
Shea’s eyes widened. “You never said I had to pay for anything,” she said.
Slade chuckled and toasted her with his nearly empty coffee cup. “Some things,” he told her, “go without saying.”
Shea’s gaze moved to Joslyn, who was sitting across from her, beside Slade, and the girl’s thoughts were so clear that they might as well have been inscribed on her forehead.
What will Joslyn have to do to pay for the horse you bought her?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SLADE DROPPED SHEA OFF at the Curly-Burly once they were back in Parable, along with Jasper, who seemed reluctant to leave the girl’s side, and promised to pick them up when her shift was over.
Which left him with the meantime heavy on his hands.
He had the whole day off, and Sunday, too, a rare occurrence, and he didn’t feel like hurrying back to the ranch where Opal was either baking up a storm or getting ready for bingo. Of course, he could head out to Whisper Creek and help unload the new horses, since three of them were his, but the mood between him and Hutch was like tinder-dry grass, needing only a spark to set off a wildfire.
Simple prudence indicated that he and Hutch both needed some space, at least for today. Better to leave that alone till morning, anyhow, when he’d feel duty bound to drive out there and feed his own horses.
With luck, he wouldn’t run into Hutch. His half brother was a busy man, after all, running one of the biggest ranches in the state.
He looked over at Joslyn, sitting rigid in the passenger seat. Her color was high again, and she was gazing straight ahead, at Callie’s reader-board, as though fascinated by the offering of free haircuts for active-duty military personnel home on leave.
“I don’t expect anything,” Slade felt compelled to say, though he felt foolish for bringing up something that should have been obvious. “In return for the horse, I mean.”
“I know,” Joslyn said. Her voice was soft as she turned her head to look at him.
For a long moment, they just sat there with the air pulsing between them, and then Slade sighed and started the truck, backed out of the parking space in Callie’s lot and steered for the highway.
Neither of them said anything all the way back to Kendra’s place. It wasn’t far, but it seemed like a long drive to Slade, longer than the one down from Missoula.
He got out of the truck to walk Joslyn to the door, because that was what you did, taking a woman home, even in the middle of the afternoon.
When she took his hand, he felt that now-familiar charge, fit to knock him back on the heels of his best boots.
He swallowed hard. “Joslyn—”
She reached up, pressed one index finger against his mouth.
He was jolted again, even by the lightest of touches. It was like dancing in a mud puddle in the pouring rain, with both hands gripping an electric fence.
Still grasping his hand, she started toward the guesthouse.
Inside, where it was shadowy and cool, they stood practically toe-to-toe in the kitchen.
“This isn’t about the horse,” she said, and then, at his gruff chuckle, she blushed.
Damn, but she was even more beautiful when she colored up like that. Her eyes turned a deeper shade of brown, and flecks of golden light sparked in them, light that had to be coming from inside her, since the shades were drawn against the heat. He had to kiss her. So he did. And he felt her soft body melt against him, felt her nipples harden like stones against his chest, even through both their clothes.
He was careful at first, but as the situation developed, and their tongues became involved, he practically consumed her.
“This is—not—a good idea,” he gasped out, when their mouths finally parted.
Joslyn spread her hands against his chest, fingers splayed. “It’s absolutely the wrong thing to do,” she agreed dreamily.
Then she stood on tiptoe, slid her arms around his neck and kissed him in earnest.
The whole universe seemed to shift.
“I really ought to go—” he rasped the next time they came up for air.
“You really should,” Joslyn replied, but she’d taken his hand again, and she was pulling him toward an inside doorway.
Sure enough, they wound up in the bedroom.
He figured he was either the stupidest man alive—or the luckiest.
Or both.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked, watching as she removed her baseball cap, tossed it aside, raised her hands to undo the ponytail and send her hair spilling in rich brown glory around her shoulders.
“No,” she answered with an honesty he could appreciate—even in those circumstances. “Are you?”
“I’m sure I want to make love to you,” Slade said. “Beyond that—”
She hauled her T-shirt off over her head, stood there in her jeans and her sneakers and her lacy pink bra. “At least we can agree on that much,” she said. “We both want to make love.”
Slade wasn’t usually tongue-tied with women, half-naked or otherwise—sex was a natural function, after all, like sleeping, eating and breathing—but this wasn’t just any woman. His head reeled, and he was hard as tamarack, and if he loused this up, he’d have ruined something precious.
He was a man on a precipice, and he was about to lose his balance.
“Joslyn,” he stumbled, “I don’t—I didn’t—”
She moved to the bedside table, unfastening her bra as she went, opened a drawer, took out a box and set it down.
“Condoms,” he marveled. “Are you always this direct?”
She let the bra drop, revealing the most perfect pair of breasts he’d ever seen—not too big and not too small. “Actually,” she answered, “I’m never this direct. And it’s your turn to take off an article of clothing, by the way.”
He laughed, though it was a raw sound, scraped from his throat. He untucked his shirt, worked the snaps, let the garment fall forgotten to the floor. He wanted to lay his hands—better yet, his tongue—on those lush breasts of hers.
And then proceed to do a lot more.
She moved toward him, there in that tiny bedroom, and they stood skin-to-skin, and Slade hesitated, then let his hands rest lightly against her shoulder blades.
Her flesh was soft and warm and smooth under his palms and his fingers, and her breasts pressed against his chest. A groan escaped him.
She cupped his face in her hands, looked up into his eyes and murmured, “This was inevitable, you know.”
“Bound to happen,” Slade confirmed.
He kissed her again, and there was a scuffle while they both grappled with the snaps and buttons on each other’s jeans, and both of them ended up laughing.
When they were both naked, they did some more kissing and somehow wound up squeezed into a lilliputian shower together, under a lukewarm spray.
Whatever happened after this, Slade thought, he was never going to regret making love to Joslyn Kirk on that hot summer afternoon. He wouldn’t allow himself to regret it.
They washed themselves, washed each other, and as the water drenched them both, Slade pressed Joslyn against the tile wall of the shower stall and kissed her yet again. Presently, knowing that the more slowly he went, the better this would be for both of them, he tasted her earlobe, her neck, the upper rounding of her breasts.
“If you’re inclined to change your mind, Joslyn,” he muttered, “now’s the time to say so, because in another few minutes, you’re going to be incoherent.”
* * *
JOSLYN DIDN’T CHANGE her mind—she was in too deep for that—so she just gave herself up to what she’d wanted, needed, ever since she’d returned to Parable and subseq
uently run smack into Slade Barlow.
He kissed her breasts, tongued her nipples, slipped his fingers between her legs.
She moaned, and the cravings grew to an almost painful intensity, and she was exultant in her surrender.
When Slade moved to his knees, parted her and took her into his mouth, ever so gently, she cried out, plunging her fingers into his hair, holding him close against her.
He enjoyed her at leisure, bringing her to the brink, then letting her descend again, whimpering, while he kissed and caressed her thighs. Only when she pleaded did he come back to the core of her, only teasing her at first, but then devouring her.
He’d been right earlier—she was incoherent, her body flexing and buckling as he satisfied her, then satisfied her again, her cries joyous, her words nonsensical.
She was limp when he shut off the shower spray, hoisted her into his arms and carried her to the bed.
Both of them were still wet—they hadn’t bothered with towels—but neither cared. By then, nothing mattered but being joined.
Slade laid Joslyn down in the middle of the bedspread, fumbled for the box of condoms and was soon stretched out on top of her, careful not to let his full weight rest on her. His face was so open, so earnest as he looked deep into her eyes, asking the silent question.
Joslyn merely nodded, giving her permission.
Slade claimed her in one long, slow stroke, and she was already climaxing in soft, sweet spasms before he’d withdrawn to thrust again.
He kissed her eyelids lightly, whispered gentle words to her as she moved beneath him, ecstasy rippling through her as her body seized and then seized again. The releases were exquisite, but instead of sating Joslyn, each one led to another, steeper climb, another pinnacle, higher than the last.
She’d lost count of the peaks she’d reached when the big one came, the one that was off the Richter scale, the one that shattered her and left her in splinters, spinning in its wake like flotsam on a receding tide.
When Slade finally lost control, it was with a low shout and a plunge that heightened Joslyn’s pleasure until she exploded from the inside; she dissolved into a splash of light against an inner sky, trailing brightly colored sparks like the finale to some celestial fireworks display.
Slade fell beside her, breathing hard, stroking her breasts, her hips, her stomach as she slowly descended into the real world again, reassembling her soul piece by piece.
They were silent for a long time, exhausted and spent, and Slade, one leg thrown across hers, continued to caress her until she needed him all over again.
Deftly, so that she barely noticed the interruption, he replaced the first condom with a second, rolled onto his back, and brought her with him, and she found herself straddling his hips.
This time, there were no preliminaries. Slade entered her hard and fast and deep, wringing a gasp of welcome from her. Their lovemaking was wild, unrestrained, with neither one granting the other any quarter at all.
The friction grew greater and greater, and Joslyn, breathless, hoped it would never end, this giving and taking, this being more completely alive, more fully a woman, than she’d ever known she could be.
Slade grasped her hips and raised and lowered her along his shaft, faster and then more slowly, and then faster again.
Joslyn was neither promiscuous nor inexperienced, but she’d never been loved like this before, and somewhere in her frenzied daze of need, she knew she might never be again.
Whimpering Slade’s name over and over, she crested the mountaintop and broke apart once more, raining fire upon her own inner landscape.
Slade bucked high as he erupted inside her. She felt the warmth of him, spilling life.
“Damn,” she heard him mutter.
“What?” she gasped the word, and it took her a long time to work up the energy to do even that. She’d collapsed onto the bed, half blinded by pleasure, sweating and blissfully wrung out.
“I think the condom broke,” Slade said.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “No,” she said.
He left the bed, headed for the bathroom, returned a minute or so later.
“The thing blew out like a bald tire,” he told her, stretching out beside her on the bed again.
Joslyn laughed at the allegory, but in the next instant, she was crying—not because she might be pregnant, but, against all logic and good sense, because she knew she couldn’t be. There was the implant.
Slade gathered her close against his chest. “Are we going to let this ruin the mood?” he teased huskily.
She laughed again and sobbed, both at once. Was she losing her mind? She didn’t love Slade Barlow, and he didn’t love her. A baby would have been among the worst things that could have happened to either one of them.
So why was her heart about to crack down the middle?
“I’m not pregnant,” she told him, and briefly explained the precautions she’d already taken.
He smoothed her hair back from her cheek, where it was sticking to her tear-streaked, exertion-dampened face. “Well, that’s good, I guess,” he said doubtfully.
“You guess?” she asked, a puzzled frown creasing her forehead.
He kissed the crease away. “I can’t say I’d be unhappy if you were,” he said, with that stunning honesty of his. “It would be inconvenient for sure, but babies are supposed to be inconvenient, aren’t they?”
She couldn’t believe her ears. Most men would have been wildly relieved to learn that a condom malfunction wasn’t going to result in untimely parenthood. Slade, to the contrary, almost seemed to regret that it was just short of impossible.
Resting on one hip and one elbow, his head cupped in his hand, he frowned at the emotions that must have been speeding across her face like clouds in a high wind.
“What’s going on in there?” he asked, thumping lightly at her forehead with the tip of his index finger.
“I was just thinking—well—how different you are from most of the men I know.”
He waggled his eyebrows, grinned rakishly. “You know a lot of men?” he countered.
Joslyn blushed, then narrowed her eyes. “No,” she said. “I don’t. Not in the Biblical sense, anyway.”
Slade threw back his head and gave a guffaw at that. His eyes, the color of cornflowers in the dim light of that small, shade-sequestered bedroom, danced with mischief. “Biblical?” he echoed.
“You’re like the third man I’ve ever slept with in my whole life,” Joslyn said, mortified. A pitiful count for a woman her age. There was no getting around it; she was a sexual underachiever.
He traced the outline of her mouth with the tip of the same index finger he’d used to tap at her forehead. “Do you keep a chart or something?” he joked.
She wanted to be angry, but she couldn’t help laughing. “How many women have you been with?”
“More than three,” Slade replied, after a moment of comic concentration.
She laughed again. It amazed her that she could be this happy, when she’d just put herself into an entirely new kind of emotional jeopardy by giving in to her desire to make love with this man.
To her, this was a momentous occasion. To Slade, it was probably just summer-afternoon sex.
Laugh today, she thought, cry tomorrow.
That was when he kissed her, and the whole feverishly graceful routine started all over again.
* * *
SLADE FAIRLY CRUSHED his hat onto his head as he strode toward his truck. He was late picking Shea up at the Curly-Burly, and she and Callie would probably both guess why he hadn’t answered his cell phone all afternoon.
He’d left it in the rig, that was why, and he was furious with himself.
He was the sheriff, for God’s sake. What if there had been some kind of emergency, and nobody could find him?
His bones felt as pliable as warm wax as he opened the door of his truck, where he’d left it in Kendra’s driveway, and given the choice, he’d have spent the whole night in
Joslyn’s bed.
But he had responsibilities, even if he hadn’t remembered them any too soon.
He reached for the phone as soon as he’d started up the engine, thumbed in the numbers that would bring up his voice mail.
Three messages.
Maggie Landers wanted him and Hutch to come in for another meeting, concerning the further disbursement of John Carmody’s estate.
“Further disbursement?” The man had left him over five million dollars and half of the family ranch. What else was there to disburse?
The second call was from some stranger, who wanted to discuss “exciting” investment opportunities. He deleted that one and moved on to the third message.
It was from Shea, and there was a touch of little-girl panic in her voice. “Dad? Are you okay? You were supposed to pick me up an hour ago. Why aren’t you answering your phone?”
He called her back instantly.
“Shea?”
“Hold on a sec, Dad,” Shea replied breezily. “Tiffany’s on the other line and I’ve got to tell her ’bye.”
Slade grinned as he steered the truck around in a wide turn and headed down the driveway. She didn’t sound all that traumatized after all.
She clicked off, and he sat at the end of the drive, waiting for her to come back on. When she did, she was in a state.
“I thought you were dead or something, Dad,” she ranted. “You’re never late.”
“I’m sorry you were worried,” Slade said reasonably. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes, and we’ll go home and see what Opal left us for supper.”
“Grands had to buy kibble over at Mulligan’s so Jasper wouldn’t starve!” Shea continued.
He swallowed a chuckle. “Come on, Shea. Aren’t you overreacting just a little, here? It takes more than one missed meal to starve a dog. Besides, I’m the sheriff, remember? For all you know, I’ve been out risking my neck, making the county safe for truth, justice and the American way.”
Shea subsided a little. “Whatever that means.” She drew in a breath. “Were you? Working, I mean?”
He couldn’t lie, but, on the other hand, he wasn’t about to tell his sixteen-year-old stepdaughter—or anybody else—that he’d been in bed with Joslyn ever since they got back to her place after the auction.
Big Sky Country Page 27
