by Diana Palmer
JL took Cassie’s hand and led her toward the back of the jet. The engines were just revving up for takeoff.
“Shouldn’t we be strapped in or something?” she asked worriedly.
“We’re about to be,” he assured her.
He opened a door and nudged her inside. He followed her. It was a bedroom, complete with television, stereo, a computer, a desk, and the biggest, cushiest bed she’d seen in a long time.
He picked her up and put her gently on the bed as the jet began to speed up and rise into the air.
“Have you ever heard,” he asked her amusedly, “of the ‘mile high club’?”
She flushed. “Everybody has,” she stammered, referring to those who’d had sex in flight, high above the earth.
“Well, darlin’,” he whispered as his hands went to the fastenings on her beautiful wedding gown, “we are about to join the club!”
Chapter Eleven
Cassie had no experience of intimacy. A few kisses and some groping, yes, but nothing really intimate. So what JL did to her came as a shock.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. He’d removed her gown between soft, tender kisses and put her under the covers while he removed his own clothes. She hadn’t watched. It was pretty intimidating already, this initiation into true adulthood. But he hadn’t made fun of her shyness. It had delighted him. Now he was touching her in ways and places that embarrassed her, and she caught his wrist worriedly.
“It’s really all right,” he said again, brushing her mouth with his. “Just relax. There’s no reason to be embarrassed. This is part of the process. You have to let me touch you. It’s how I can be sure that I won’t hurt you, when the time comes.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered back, and she really didn’t. Her few girlfriends had been mostly like her, uninitiated, and what she heard from experienced people was general rather than specific.
He chuckled. “Okay.” He whispered it to her, so that she understood what he was doing, and why.
Her faint gasp indicated how new to it she really was. She swallowed, hard, and let go of his wrist.
“That’s it. Yes. Shhhhh.” His mouth opened on hers, tasting her, arousing her, while his hands were doing the most incredible things to her body.
She began to writhe on the sheets, shivering with each new touch.
“It won’t be hard at all,” he said huskily. “And by the time we start, you won’t be afraid anymore.”
She was barely hearing him now. Her body was throbbing with new sensations, new experience. She opened her legs for him without coaxing, gave him back the hungry kisses with new passion, arched up to his hands and then, unbelievably, his mouth!
She wanted to protest, but all at once, she shot up into the sky, exploding, throbbing, dying of pleasure. She cried out helplessly, a sound she’d never heard from her own lips.
“Oh, yes,” he murmured just as he went into her.
His mouth covered the faint little cry that was less protest than enticement. She was sensitized now, so that the joining of their bodies was warm and sweet and welcome. She wrapped her long legs around his and held on, shuddering as he moved, feeling him swell in her, feeling her own body respond urgently to the slow, deep movements of his hips.
Then, all at once, it became something else, something primitive and devouring, a throbbing need that ached to be fulfilled, that demanded heat and motion and passion. She bit his shoulder in her ecstasy, crying, sobbing as she begged him not to stop.
His mouth buried itself in her throat as he pushed harder, harder, and then suddenly went rigid above her and cried out. She found her own fulfillment at the same time, riveted to his hard body, shivering and convulsing in a pleasure she’d never known existed. It was almost unbearable at the last, a sweetness so volcanic that she thought she might pass out.
Finally, she was able to relax, to flow into his body as she felt him go heavy against her. He started to pull away, but she held him there, coaxed him back to her mouth so that she could kiss him hungrily, with new and sweet knowledge of him as a man, as her husband.
He lifted his head and looked down into her soft, sated eyes. He smiled at her expression. His big hand brushed back her unruly red-gold hair. “Now you know,” he whispered.
She nodded. “Now I know.”
He covered her mouth with his and kissed her hungrily. “That exclusive club I mentioned?”
“Umhmm,” she murmured lazily.
“We are now members in good standing,” he chuckled.
Her eyes laughed as they met his. “Yes, we are. So. Where are we going?”
“Jamaica,” he said. “Montego Bay, to be precise. We can be beachcombers for a week.”
“Maybe enlist on a pirate ship and raid small villages?” she suggested.
He pinched her bottom and laughed when she flinched and grinned at him.
“Maybe sit around drinking piña coladas and enjoy the swimming pool,” he countered.
“Spoilsport.”
He smoothed back her damp hair. “My darling, if you wanted a pirate ship for real, I’d go right out and get you one. I’m the happiest man in the world right now.”
“I hope to keep you that way,” she replied. She touched his hard mouth. “What does JL stand for?”
He smiled. “John Lewis,” he said. “But I’ve gone by JL for so long that it’s pretty much my name now.”
“I have a better one.”
“You do?”
She nodded. “My sweetheart.”
He grinned from ear to ear. “I like it.”
She tugged him closer. “Me too. And this is where we live happily ever after, right?”
He rolled over, taking her with him. “Happily ever after and after and after.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
She smiled with her whole heart and kissed him again. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you more.”
She beamed. It was the first time he’d really said it. “You do?”
“I loved you when you were standing in the rain holding a protest sign, with your hair all wet,” he confessed. “You stole my heart, when I didn’t think I had one left. If I’d lost you, I could never have gone home again, you know,” he added solemnly. “I’d have been a wanderer for the rest of my life, rootless, useless.”
She touched his mouth with her fingertips. “You stole my heart when you took me home and dried my clothes and made me coffee.”
He smiled. “And here we are, married.”
“Married.” She looked at the beautiful diamond, set in gold, with its beautiful wedding band. “Now I feel married,” she added with a wicked look.
He chuckled. “So do I.” He pursed his lips. “Hungry yet?”
She moved under him. “Yes. But not for food. . . .” she whispered against his mouth. “Suppose we have another go at that exclusive club you mentioned?”
He smoothed his body over hers. “We should have just about enough time before we land,” he said with a grin.
And they did. Just.
* * *
Nine months to the day later, a little boy was delivered in the community hospital in Benton, Colorado. His name was Cole Reed Denton and he had so many godmothers and godfathers that they couldn’t all fit into the waiting room. They spilled out onto the parking lot and some were left sitting in stretch limos until they could get into the building.
It was talked about in Benton for many years to come. The rancher and his famous wife, who were just JL and Cassie locally, no matter how famous she got or how much richer he got. The lovebirds, as they were referred to, were just part of the big family that was Benton. And they did live happily, ever after.
Dear Reader:
I started this story with little more than the opening scene, which is how many of my stories begin. I see something in my mind, a tableau of two characters, and the book builds from there. In this case, I saw a poor, thin, straggly girl st
anding in the rain alone with a placard. There was a ranch nearby. That was all I saw. The rest developed from that one little thing.
Writing has always fascinated me. I sit down at the computer and I never know what’s going to appear on the page. It is a magical process that never loses its mystery or its delight. Every story I craft is like the first one I ever wrote, and I enjoy them all.
I am so happy to be working with Tara, my Kensington editor, once more. I love writing about Colorado, and I feel privileged to be included in these anthologies with such talented other writers. I hope you enjoyed JL and Cassie’s story. I truly adore these characters.
Love,
Diana Palmer
WIND RIVER WEDDING
Lindsay McKenna
Also by New York Times bestselling author
Lindsay McKenna
WIND RIVER WRANGLER
WIND RIVER RANCHER
WIND RIVER COWBOY
WRANGLER’S CHALLENGE
KASSIE’S COWBOY (novella included in
CHRISTMAS WITH MY COWBOY)
LONE RIDER
WIND RIVER LAWMAN
HOME TO WIND RIVER
And coming in August 2019
WIND RIVER PROTECTOR
To all the men and women in the military
and those who are vets.
Thank YOU for your sacrifices for all of us.
Freedom is never free.
Chapter One
October 1964
Steve Whitcomb was serving from behind the steam tables at the Helping Hand Center in Cranbury Township, New Jersey, when his buddy Jose leaned toward him.
“Hey, here comes one of the richest women in the world, Maud Campbell.” He lifted his head in the direction of the doors. This was a huge hall, alive with talk, at least a hundred people and children, coming in for breakfast from around the area. Some were homeless, but many were families with low incomes, bringing their young children in for a hot meal on Saturday morning. “And,” Jose added, “you’re new, but you need to know Maud is special. Everyone loves her. Her mother started on Wall Street about twenty years ago and she’s worth millions. Maud is a freshman at Rider College, the school in Lawrenceville. She has volunteered on Saturdays and Sundays every week since she started college.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Steve murmured, serving a young mother with a baby in her arms as she pushed the tray to where he stood.
He barely glanced in the direction of the double open doors on the warm October morning, but he still caught sight of her. Maud Campbell looked like a lot of the young women going to Rider College, which had admitted women to the school back in the late 1800s: tall, lithe, her black hair short and shiny, and she was about four inches shorter than his six-foot height. She had a square face, but he couldn’t tell the color of her eyes as she hurried toward the kitchen behind where they were standing. If she was rich, it didn’t show in her clothes. She was wearing a scruffy-looking denim jacket, a red T-shirt beneath it, jeans that looked very worn, along with a pair of sensible white tennis shoes. She looked nothing like a privileged heiress.
Steve smiled, said hello to the mother, and spooned several helpings of scrambled eggs and added four pieces of bacon to her plate. She wouldn’t keep contact with his eyes, looking down, and he understood. No one wanted to find themselves taking handouts in America, but there were plenty of people who needed just that. Especially their children who sometimes went hungry for a day without food. It was nothing to be ashamed of. He watched Maud waving, saying hello to a few patrons in the hall who hailed her by name, who smiled and waved back to her as she hurried through the kitchen and disappeared.
“Her mother,” Jose added, giving the mother two large, steaming, flaky biscuits, “gave Helping Hand millions of dollars after Maud arrived. We’re all sure she told her mother about this place. Things have changed since then. Reverend Annie Culver is dancing because with that donation, we’ve been able to add a soup kitchen. Before? We were just a food pantry. Now, Rev has three meals a day, seven days a week, children and families.” He motioned up and down where they stood behind glass counters and the steam food trays. “We had children going hungry, but not anymore. Maud is gung ho, just like my mother.” He chuckled. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Steve smiled and nodded. Like all food servers behind the glass cases in front of them, he wore gloves. “I’m kind of surprised someone with that kind of money would have a daughter volunteering her time here.”
Jose nodded. “When Maud first came to New Jersey, she told us that she was used to volunteering back in New York City where she lives. She and her mother would visit soup kitchens and food pantries all around the city, donating to them. Maud grew up standing where you and I are standing right now. Like I said, the Campbell family is real special. They might have millions, but they didn’t forget the rest of us struggling to make ends meet every day of the week.”
“I know that one, coming from a ranch out west,” Steve said, keeping an eye out toward the swinging doors of the kitchen. There were a lot of positions for volunteers to fill. His curiosity about Maud was piqued. He liked her lanky grace, her shoulders back, and she was a fast walker, like she was in a hurry to get where she was going.
“Yeah, Cowboy,” Jose said, pointing to the black Stetson hat he wore. “I think you go to bed in that hat and cowboy boots on, Steve.”
“Almost,” he laughed.
“You’re probably the only cowboy at Princeton. How are they taking to you refusing to fit in with the Princeton blazer and slacks gang here?”
“Oh,” he said, deadpan, “they’re gradually getting used to me dressing in my Wyoming finery.”
“I wish I could be a fly on the wall and see all their mouths drop open when you come by with that hat and dungarees. Never mind those boots of yours.” Jose was going to Princeton, a sophomore.
“Hey, I’m comfortable in my clothes. Besides, going to Princeton is about education, not what I’m wearing, thank God.”
“Oh! Here comes Maud! And she’s got her eyes on you, Cowboy! It’s gotta be your hat!” Jose laughed. He stepped back, waving hello to Maud as she drew on her gloves and approached them.
Steve watched the warmth between Maud and Jose. She hugged the hell out of him, spoke in fluent Spanish to him, which made him glow with pleasure. Steve caught her fleeting glance in his direction. He knew she was attracted by the black cowboy hat he wore. She reminded him of an outdoors kind of woman, her hair a bit mussed, framing her spring green–colored eyes that missed nothing, her clothing comfortable and the type a hiker might wear. The soft shape of her lips made him wonder if she had a significant other. Steve was sure she did. If she was rich? More than likely she was engaged to some rich guy. He saw no ring on her hand, though.
Still, he smiled a little as she took her place next to him. Jose patted her on the shoulder and left for the kitchen. His time on the food line was over. He was one of the important people in Rev’s organization and Steve was sure Jose was needed elsewhere. There was a large shipment of canned food coming in today via an eighteen-wheeler truck and Jose was a manager and a good leader here at the busy center.
“Hi, I’m Maud Campbell,” she said, and held out her hand in his direction.
“Steve Whitcomb.” He tipped his fingers to the brim of his hat as he released her hand.
“You must be new?”
“Yes, ma’am, I am.”
Her eyes sparkled as she looked him up and down. “Haven’t I seen you on the Princeton campus? The other day I was taking a back way to my college, Rider, and I saw someone in a black cowboy hat. It had to be you. No one else would dare wear a cowboy hat on the campus.”
Grinning sheepishly, Steve saw a Hispanic mother with two five-year-old twins in tow. He quickly filled her tray with plenty of scrambled eggs. He spoke to her in Spanish. Her smile was shy, but she appreciated him trying to speak her language. He wasn’t as fluent as Maud was. “Probably was me. I don’t see
too many people from Wyoming going to Princeton.”
She tittered, broke out in Spanish, leaning forward and greeting the young mother with genuine affection.
Steve liked the husky warmth of Maud’s voice. She was respectful to the mother. The twins stared up at her, as if mesmerized by her sincere greetings. If she was wealthy, it sure didn’t show. In his world, that was a checked box. Not that he knew many rich people out on the Wind River Ranch that his family had owned for three generations in western Wyoming. For the next five minutes, they were busy doling out food for ten families who came and stood in line.
Still, he was drawn to Maud, and he was curious about her. She laughed often, was sincere with everyone who came through the line. And she knew all of them! She remembered every mother’s name, plus the names of their children. That was pretty amazing to Steve. People didn’t remember people’s names unless it was important to them. Another box checked. So? Why was he checking boxes at all? He was here at Princeton to get an AB with a concentration in architecture. After that, he would apply for admission in a graduate program for his master’s degree. He had a number of years to go at this place, and it was a dream come true for him. He’d always wanted to build, to design and create sustainable homes for people in third world countries. Unlike Maud, who didn’t have to worry about money to pay for this expensive education, his parents had saved the first eighteen years of his life to fund his studies at a college of his choice.
Even now, at eighteen, he understood how much his folks had given up to give him this lifetime opportunity. There was no way he was going to squander it by becoming interested in a relationship. Every time their gazes met briefly, he felt his chest tighten.
There was a lull between clients. Maud turned to him. “You look like a commercial for that cowboy on TV,” she said, and she flashed him a wide grin, teasing in her eyes. “That Marlboro cowboy cigarette ad.”
“Yes, ma’am, you aren’t the first to tell me that since landing here in New Jersey. And I don’t smoke.”
