He forced a silly fake smile. “Better?”
“Not much.”
“The blanket. Come on.”
“Oh, all right.” She untucked the blanket and handed him the ends. He opened it wide, raising it so it wouldn’t touch the water. She shivered all the harder as the night air touched all of her—well, except for her feet, which were still in the water and felt halfway numb by then.
“Just a few steps,” he said softly, coaxingly. “In the center, it’ll be deep enough you can rinse off.”
So she felt her way over the sharp rocks to the middle of the narrow stream, where she dipped down and rinsed herself. The icy water put goose bumps on her goose bumps, but where it mattered, it did feel good. She sighed in pleasure as the stinging eased and the smears of blood were rinsed away. Too bad her teeth were chattering…
“Better?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She stood. “But now I am freezing.”
“Let’s go then…” He kind of herded her back to the bank, where he wrapped the blanket around her again and tucked it in place—but not tight enough. It started to slip off the moment he let go of it.
She caught it. “Here. Let me…” Tucking it properly, she turned in his arms and rested her hands against his chest, seeking his eyes through the darkness. “Beau. Please try to understand.” He made a grumbling sound. She went on anyway. “I…I wanted it to be you. I always did, I think since the day I first saw you, that first day I came back to the Rising Sun to live. You rode into the yard at the house in the bed of one of Dad’s pickups. You stood up when you saw me, remember? You stood up and took off your hat and put it over your heart. I remember my dad said, ‘Get your tongue back in your mouth, Tisdale.’ Remember that?” He made a grumbly sound. She added, “You had me, that first time we saw each other. You know you did.”
He gave her a look. She would always remember it, that look—treasure it, safe in her heart where she kept all the very best memories. It was a look both tender and full of wonderment. “I think you are a little bit crazy, Starr.” The words were husky—and full of the same wonderment she saw in his face.
“Yeah,” she whispered back. “I think I am. But trust me. It’s a good kind of crazy.” She slid her hands up to link behind his neck. “And now we’re lovers, aren’t we?” It came out as a challenge—which was exactly what she’d meant it to be.
He narrowed his eyes at her. He had his hands at her waist, and he pushed her away a little—to a safer distance, maybe. “Where are you leading with this?”
“I’m cold and I want you to wrap your arms around me. Please?”
He muttered a swear word, but he did it.
Her shivers subsided, eased in an instant by his body’s warmth. She nuzzled his neck, breathed in the scent of him. “Umm. Much better.” She kissed his chin. “I just want you to know that this was…what I wanted.”
He grunted. “Yeah. In an old pickup truck—and way too rough for an innocent woman. Real romantic.”
She kind of shoved at him with a shoulder. “Stop that. It was romantic. And I’m not innocent, not in my heart. I never was. Not when it came to you.” He was scowling again. She reached up and traced his brows, soothing that scowl away. “Beau Tisdale, don’t you know? It’s not where, or even how. It’s who. It’s two people together, in an honest, open way. Both of them saying yes, you know? Each really wanting to be with the other. That’s what matters when it comes to something like this.”
He grumbled, “You still should have told me.”
“Yeah. I should have. But I didn’t. It happened the way it happened. And it’s…okay with me.” She snuggled in closer with a happy sigh. “It was with you, Beau. Just like I always knew it would be.”
His arms tightened around her. “Now what?”
She lifted her head from the hollow of his shoulder and met his eyes. “Well, now we have this summer, for us. We can be together. Really together like we couldn’t be all those years ago.” She threaded her fingers up into the silky hair at his nape. “So I think you should kiss me now. Don’t you?”
His eyes gleamed down at her. The crickets sang and the creek burbled by at their feet and she knew she was exactly where she wanted to be. Held close in Beau’s arms under the summer stars.
At last, he asked roughly, “That’s all you want, a kiss?”
“No. I told you. I want you. For the summer. But for right now, say yes. And then kiss me. That would be so nice.”
“Nice,” he repeated, irritatingly doubtful.
“Yeah, nice. Say yes. Please.”
He looked at her for a long time. And then, at last, he whispered, “Yes.”
And then he kissed her, long and deep.
Chapter Six
After that night, they spent every spare second together, though it was never as much time as they wished it could be. Beau, after all, had a ranch to run. Starr had her job at the paper, plus Tess and Edna expected her to do her bit around the house. So she washed dishes and ran the vacuum and weeded Tess’s garden and peeled any vegetable that was set in front of her—and waited for the next time she could be with Beau.
They went to the Wednesday-night rodeo at the county fairgrounds and on Friday, Starr cooked dinner for Daniel and Beau. Saturday, they drove up to Sheridan to see a movie….
And they made each other crazy in the cab of that green pickup, parking under the cottonwoods down by the creek, acting like a couple of sex-obsessed teenagers and reveling in every caress, every hungry, wet kiss. Those first few times they were alone together after the night she so shocked him by giving him her virginity, Beau refused to go beyond starved kisses and urgent caresses. He didn’t want to hurt her.
She was okay with that—at first, anyway. She was a little sore. So they would kiss and stroke each other until Starr felt certain her body was going to incinerate with the heat between them. And then, panting and unsatisfied, they’d pull apart. They’d talk for a while, there in the cab, or walk down by the creek until they both had a chance to cool off a little. Then he would drive her home.
After Saturday night, Starr was getting pretty tired of lovemaking that stopped short of all the way. This was their summer, after all. They weren’t going to be spending every tender moment in the cab of an old truck. No way.
They deserved a bed—but not just any old bed.
Though they weren’t hiding anything, neither of them wanted to flaunt what they shared. Beau lived in the house with Daniel now. The sweet old guy didn’t need a couple of lovers having wild sex in one of his bedrooms. And Starr’s room—upstairs at the Rising Sun, with her dad and Tess across the hall and Jobeth a wall away? Uh-uh. That was not going to be happening.
They could find some motel, she supposed.
But no. That would be like sneaking around. And they weren’t lovers like that. They were discreet. She smiled as she thought the word. Yeah. Discreet. They might try a motel room, one time, for a thrill. But they deserved a place to be together, a private space they could claim as their own.
And really, now she thought about it, wasn’t it about time she had her own private space at the Rising Sun? Edna had the foreman’s cottage, across the yard in front, so that was out. There were trailers, for the hands. One of them was vacant now.
But no, she didn’t think she wanted to take over one of the trailers….
That left the old homesteader’s cabin, past the barn and beyond the horse pasture, not far from where the creek ran by. Four years ago, her dad had put in electricity out there. It had running water and it was fully furnished—in a rustic kind of way, with old mismatched pieces that had been handed down in the family for generations.
Rustic, Starr decided, was fine with her. She had a distant cousin, an artist named Lacey, who’d come from California few years ago and stayed in the cabin for a while. Lacey had been pregnant when she arrived, seven months or so. At nine months along, her baby’s father, Logan, had come to find her.
Logan ended up delivering
their baby—right there, in the cabin. They got married in the great room of the main house and then they went home to California.
Starr had thought it all terribly romantic. Logan was a dark-haired hunk of a guy. And Starr admired Lacey—her free, adventurous spirit and her open smile. Lacey had loved living in the cabin….
At breakfast that Sunday morning, Starr told the family—and the hands, since they were there—what she planned. “I’d like to move into the homesteader’s cabin for the summer,” she said. “I think I’ll make the move today.” She gave them all a big smile. “Is that okay?”
“But why?” Edna asked. “You’ll be much more comfortable here in the main house. And what about that fancy computer of yours? You won’t be able to get the Internet out there.”
“I can use my room upstairs for an office, do my work there.” Starr speared up a bite of scrambled eggs. “And as far as being comfortable, I think I’ll like it in the cabin.”
“But—” That was as far as Edna got, because Zach cut her off.
“The cabin’s yours if you want it,” her dad said so easily, she wanted to leap up and run down the table and throw her arms around him. “Tim, can you turn the water on out there this morning?”
“Sure can, Zach.”
“And maybe you can give Starr a hand with whatever she needs moved.”
The old cowboy beamed, the wrinkles etching all the deeper in his leathery face. “Glad to be of help.”
Edna sighed. “Well, well. I think I will eat my breakfast and mind my own business now.” Nobody argued with her.
The one-room cabin was musty-smelling after so long without an occupant.
Starr braced open the front and rear doors to air things out. She shook out the cover on the daybed that served as a sofa, made up the double bed in the curtained-off nook in the corner. She put her clothes away in the old bureau and set out a few personal treasures she’d brought over from the main house. After Tim had the water running, she washed up the dusty dishes. And she wiped down all the counters and shelves. Then she sat at the round pine table and made herself a grocery list.
By noon she was ready to head for town to buy what she needed. She stopped in at the main house on the way out and called Beau. He was there, as she’d expected, sharing the mid-day meal with Daniel.
“Come to dinner at my house. Tonight. Six o’clock,” she said. And then she told him that her house was the homesteader’s cabin now. “I moved in today.”
“Why?” he said.
“You sound just like Edna—and take a wild guess.”
She heard his breath catch as he figured it out. “Dinner, huh?” His voice was low now, soft as velvet.
“Yeah. Six. Don’t be late.”
When she got back from town, she put the groceries away and then went down to the creek to pick a bouquet of wildflowers. She put them in a Mason jar on the table and stood back to admire them.
Her own place. With her own bouquet of flowers on the table. Yeah, she’d had apartments before, in Boulder, during her junior and senior years at C.U. But this was different. This was her own place…at home. And that was something pretty special, something she hadn’t even realized she wanted until now.
Someone knocked at the rough plank door. Her first guest in her own place. She called out a cheery “Come on in.”
The door swung inward. It was Tess. One look at her stepmother’s face told Starr everything.
“Got a minute or two?”
Starr supposed she’d known this was coming. “A little talk, right? Just between us…”
Tess nodded. “That’s right. Just us.”
Starr indicated a chair. “I have lemonade.”
“Yes. Please.”
Starr poured out two glasses and sat in the straight-back chair opposite Tess. They each took a sip, more or less in unison, and then set their glasses down.
“Pretty flowers,” said Tess.
Starr adjusted a wild iris in her makeshift vase. “It’s about Beau and me, right?” Tess nodded. Her lips were kind of pressed together. Starr asked, “Did Dad send you over here?”
The corners of Tess’s mouth turned up then, a smile as sweet as it was wistful. “Oh, honey. Haven’t you realized by now that your dad thinks that Beau’s the perfect man for you?”
Starr blinked. She had a kind of hollow feeling in her stomach. And then that feeling turned to a fluttery warmth. “Uh…he does?”
Tess sipped her lemonade. “It’s not all that surprising, really, if you think about it. You know how your dad is. He admires nothing so much as a hardworking, honest man.”
In her mind’s eye, Starr saw Beau’s face—the firm jaw, the direct way he would look at her. “He is, isn’t he? A good, honest man.”
“That he is. In the years since all that trouble—with you, and with his brothers—Beau has proved over and over that he’s just the kind of man your father respects and admires.” A gleam lit Tess’s dark eyes. “And the fact that Daniel’s made Beau his heir doesn’t hurt, either, though it’s truly not the determining factor.”
Starr sat back a little. “You know about Daniel’s will? Beau had me promise not to tell anyone.”
“Daniel told your father, back when he made the decision, a couple of years ago—and I mean it. It’s not the main reason your dad thinks you and Beau are a match.”
“A match.” Starr was getting the picture. She wasn’t very comfortable with it. “You’re saying…as in marriage?”
“Yes. As in marriage.”
Their glasses were sweating. Starr got up, went to the counter, and tore a couple of paper towels off the roll. She handed one to Tess. They folded them into squares and slid them beneath their glasses. Then there was one of those moments: two women—mother and daughter at heart; friends as well—regarding each other steadily across a table.
Star broke the silence. “Beau and I aren’t talking about marriage. His life is here….”
“That’s right. And you have a few plans for yourself.”
Starr fiddled with the edge of her makeshift coaster. “Well, what are you saying? Are you trying to talk me into breaking it off with him?”
Tess put her hand on her stomach, which looked pretty flat to Starr, though she was well into her third month of pregnancy. “No. It’s not my place to do such a thing.”
“So…Dad, then? He’s expecting that we’ll end up married?”
Tess got that wistful smile again. “I’m only saying he would approve and be glad if you did. But your father’s a smart man. He knows better than to try and plan out other people’s lives for them—even if one of those people is his own precious daughter.” Tess gave her a sideways look. “Now, Edna. She’s another story…”
Starr almost rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it.”
Tess’s gaze was straight-on now. “Edna’s protective—of you and of your own dreams for yourself. But even Edna knows that two adults will do what they want to do with their lives, in the end.”
“So…?”
Tess shifted in the hard chair. “Oh, I guess it’s only…well, you’ve felt so strongly for Beau for such a long time now—adoring him or hating him, he’s never been all that far from your mind. Has he?”
Starr thought about that, thought about the boys she’d dated in high school, the guys she’d known in college. All of them she remembered in shades of gray. Not Beau. Thoughts of Beau were bold and shining, in living color. “Yeah,” she admitted. “Beau is…special to me. But we both know, Beau and me, that we want different things from life. All we’re asking for is one summer together. Is that such a bad thing?”
“No. Of course not. It’s not a bad thing at all. I suppose I only wanted to be sure you’ve thought this through, that you’re not getting involved in something that will steal your dreams away—or leave you with your heart in pieces. Or maybe a little bit of both.”
Starr realized she was biting the inside of her lip. “That’s what you think will happen? That I’ll
give up my plans for myself, or end up with my heart broken? Does every relationship between a man and a woman that doesn’t end in marriage have to break hearts or shatter somebody’s dreams?”
“That depends on the man…and the woman, I guess.”
Starr put her elbows on the table and leaned toward her stepmother. “I’m not giving him up, Tess.”
“Listen to yourself.” Tess’s eyes were so soft. “Hear the passion in your own voice. Do you honestly think you’re going to be able to walk away from that man without it ripping you apart inside when the summer’s over?”
“The summer’s barely started….”
“Think again. August is just about here. Five weeks, and it’s over, you’re off for New York—and let’s not fight. I truly didn’t come here for that.”
Starr slumped back in her chair. “Coulda fooled me.”
Tess only shrugged. “I just think, sometimes, when you want something so badly, it’s tempting to tell yourself lies about what you’re doing, that’s all. Tempting to say, ‘Oh, it’s only for the summer,’ as if a summer wasn’t long enough to end in a broken heart.”
Starr picked up her glass—and plunked it down without drinking from it. “I just don’t get where you’re headed with this.”
Tess frowned—and then she sighed. “Don’t…fool yourself. That’s all I want to say, I think. Lies are no good, especially the kind of lies you tell to yourself.”
“You think I’m lying to myself?”
“I think maybe you care for Beau a whole lot more than you’re letting yourself admit—and you know, the more I listen to myself talk, the more fed up I become with myself.”
Starr’s irritation faded. She found she could laugh. “Well, I’m going to take your advice to heart—as soon as I can figure out what it is you’re saying.”
Tess leaned closer. “You know, I think what I’m really telling you is, I’m here. I’m your stepmother, yes. But I truly am also your friend. It may sound as if I’m telling you what to do, but really, I’m just worrying out loud. Yes, your dad thinks this romance between you and Beau is the best thing that could have happened to either of you. I’m a little more cautious. I can’t see how it could work out, unless one of you ends up living where you don’t want to be. But whatever happens, your dad and I are with you. We’ll support you in whatever you decide is right for your life.”
Fifty Ways to Say I’m Pregnant Page 8
