She shrieked in mindless ecstasy and pressed back against him, increasing the pressure. He thrust once…twice…a third time…and they both came in a blind, cataclysmic explosion of raw passion.
They were both so exhausted, so wrung out by what had just passed between them, that they hung there for a moment or two, both of them bent over the saddle, both of them panting and weak and filled with churning emotions.
Roxanne felt an overwhelming exhilaration, a fierce kind of joy that was almost painful in its intensity. He wouldn’t forget her now. No matter what happened, no matter who he married or what his life became, he wouldn’t ever forget her.
Tom was swamped with an unnerving, almost brutal tenderness. He’d taken her like an animal, driven to possess her in the most basic, elemental way, and yet there he stood, curled over her body, his overriding instinct to cherish and protect what he had just ravaged.
It wasn’t how he had meant for this night to go. He’d planned on romance. He’d planned to shower her with flower petals and kisses. Planned to woo her with soft seductive words, and softer caresses.
He’d planned to tell her how he felt.
But the time to tell a woman you were in love with her wasn’t after you’d just mounted her like a stallion in rut and ridden her to exhaustion. Especially when you weren’t more than half sure she wouldn’t laugh in your face. Falling in love hadn’t been part of their bargain, and she hadn’t given any indication that she wanted that bargain changed. She had a life up there in Connecticut. A family. Friends. A job. And he knew damned good and well she was used to better than he could give her. She came from cultured, sophisticated people and—despite his fancy college education—he was just a cowboy.
And he really wouldn’t want to be anything else.
Not even for her.
The declaration of his feelings would have to wait.
He straightened, lifting her against him with an arm around her waist. She sagged against him, as boneless as a rag doll.
“Are you all right, Slim?”
“I think so.” Her voice was soft. Hesitant. Faint. “I’m just so…tired,” she managed.
He turned her in his arms and bent slightly, slipping an arm under her knees so he could lift her. Staggering slightly, his own strength curiously lacking, he stumbled to the makeshift bed of hay and quilts, and sank down into the welcoming softness. She lolled against him, already sound asleep. Cuddling her in his arms, he closed his eyes and joined her.
13
ROXANNE WOKE at first light, disturbed by the prickly, uncomfortable feel of straw poking into her bare thigh, and the urgent need to relieve her bladder. She wasn’t sure, in that first waking moment, of exactly where she was. And then she became aware of the heat of the body beside her, the weight of his arm over her waist, the soft rush of his warm breath against her shoulder, and it all came flooding back.
Last night.
It had been earthy and magical. Elemental and ethereal. A transcendental experience on a rawly physical plane. And it had made her transformation from good-girl Roxanne to good-time girl Roxy complete.
She’d touched herself like a wanton, tantalizing and teasing her dangerous, good-looking cowboy until he was driven to take her like a beast. And she had reveled in it! There wasn’t the slightest sting of embarrassment, not the faintest trace of shame. None of the unspoken taboos and conventions she’d been brought up with had intruded to mar the experience in any way. Her overriding feeling about the night just past was one of supreme satisfaction.
She’d satisfied him.
Utterly.
He’d satisfied her.
Completely.
She’d accomplished what she’d wanted to when she’d set out to seduce him out of his mind. She’d met all her own expectations. Fulfilled every fantasy, except one. And that one hadn’t been part of the original bargain. It wasn’t fair to change the rules now and ask him to give her something he hadn’t bargained for.
It was time for her to go home.
Thankful that he was a heavy sleeper, who always woke slowly, in stages, she picked up his wrist in both hands and gently lifted it off her waist, placing it by his side. Still moving slowly, she sat up and rose to her knees, carefully working her rumpled skirt out from under his thigh. And then she paused and smiled, looking down into his face, wishing, for one fleeting moment, that it had been different. That she had met him under other circumstances, in another place. That she hadn’t made the promises she’d made. No muss. No fuss. No strings. And no looking back.
Particularly no looking back!
That was the one she had to remember.
From now on, she would only look forward.
Looking back would hurt too much.
She leaned down and kissed him softly. “Goodbye, sugar,” she said.
Rising to her feet, she tiptoed from the tack room.
ROXANNE HAD THE LITTLE attic room to herself. The nurse had gone home after the party last night, her duties at an end, leaving Roxanne free to indulge in a long hot bath and a good hard cry—after which she had to lie down on the bed with a cold washcloth over her eyes for nearly half an hour to soothe the resulting redness away. When she went downstairs, there must be no trace of tears. No evidence of sadness or regret. Good-time girl Roxy had to be completely in charge. It was the only way for good-girl Roxanne to get through the coming goodbyes with her dignity intact.
She did her makeup carefully, using concealer and shadows to camouflage any lingering signs of weepiness, and bright red lipstick to draw attention to the smile she intended to have plastered to her face. Although she tried to linger over the task, she was dressed in a few minutes. Boots and jeans and one of her little sleeveless eyelet blouses didn’t lend themselves to a lot of sartorial fusing. Her packing only took another minute or two—she only had the one bag—and before she was really ready, she was heading downstairs to face the music.
Her chin high, her boot heels clicking on the bare wooden treads, she headed for the kitchen as if she were happy to be leaving.
Although there were signs that breakfast had recently been prepared and consumed, the kitchen was empty. Roxanne set her bag on the end of the table and headed for the coffee pot. After pouring herself a cup—and adding the requisite one-half teaspoon of sugar—she plucked the bag off of the table and pushed through the squeaky screened door onto the porch.
It was a beautiful morning, not too hot, yet, although all the signs promised it would be a scorcher. She could hear cattle bawling somewhere off in the near distance. Chickens pecked around the yard under the cottonwood trees, picking up scraps of food dropped in the grass the night before. Off somewhere near the barn, beyond her field of vision, she heard the boisterous sounds of barking dogs and boys at work and play. A child’s laugh—Petie’s—drifted out from an upstairs window.
It was paradise, and she had to leave.
The blue Chevy truck—Rooster’s ride now that he’d returned the black monster to Tom—was sitting in the yard, the bed already packed with his and Clay’s gear. They were headed for the Mesquite rodeo; she planned to ride with them as far as the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. She looked around, wondering where they had gotten to and how long it would be before they were ready to go. She didn’t want to drag out her goodbyes. She walked down the wooden stairs, crossed to the truck, and heaved her bag over the side, determined to be ready to leave the minute they were.
The rhythmic squeak of the rocker against the wooden planks of the porch had her turning her head toward the sound. The Padre sat, exactly where he had sat the day before playing checkers with his surgeon, and watched her over his own cup of coffee. She sighed and moved back up the steps and across the width of the porch to his side. Bending down, she kissed him on the cheek.
“That’s goodbye,” she said.
“I figured it was.” He took a sip of his coffee. “What I didn’t figure is that you’d turn out to be such a coward.”
“A coward?” sh
e said carefully.
The Padre shook his grizzled head. “I never would have expected it of a firecracker like you.”
“Expected what?”
“You running out on him.”
She didn’t pretend not to know who he was talking about. There was only one him, and they both knew it. “I’m not out running out on him. I’m going home. Back to Connecticut were I belong.”
“You’re running,” he said.
“All right, yes, I am. I admit it.” Her tone hinted that she was humoring an old man’s fancy. “I’m running back home before I get my poor little heart broke,” she said, laying on the cornpone accent to show she wasn’t serious.
“Have you ever thought that by doing that, you might be breaking his instead?”
“That’s impossible.”
“Not if he’s in love with you.”
Roxanne felt her heart leap at the thought. She shook her head. “He’s in lust with me,” she said. “It’s not the same thing.”
“No, it’s not,” the Padre said. “And I’m not saying he doesn’t have a healthy case of lust where you’re concerned. But he also happens to be in love with you.”
Roxanne looked him square in the eyes. “I wasn’t joking about how we met,” she said. “I picked him up in a bar in Lubbock, just exactly like I told you. I went there specifically to pick him up. And then I took him back to my motel room and had sex with him six ways from Sunday before he even knew my name.”
“And your point would be?”
“For crying out loud, Padre! I’m his summer fling. His last hurrah before he retires from the rodeo for good. And he was my walk on the wild side. My study subject for “What I Did On My Summer Vacation.” That’s all it was ever meant to be between us. That’s all it can be.”
“It may have started out that way, but that’s not how it ended.” He gave her a level look. “For either of you.”
“And your point would be?” she said, firing his words back at him.
“Don’t you think you owe it to him—and yourself—to tell him how you feel? Even if I’m wrong and he isn’t in love with you, don’t you think you should at least be honest about your own feelings?”
“We had an agreement. No muss. No fuss. No strings. When it was over, it was over. And it’s over.” She could feel the hot tears prickling the backs of her eyes. She clenched her hands around her coffee cup and held on, refusing to let them fall. “I’m not about to change the rules at this stage of the game. It wouldn’t be fair to expect more from him now.”
“Not only a coward, but a liar, too.”
“I haven’t lied,” she said, incensed. “I never lied to Tom.”
“To yourself, Slim,” the Padre said, using Tom’s pet name for her. “You’re lying to yourself.”
She ducked her head, dashing at her cheek with the back of her hand. “How do you figure that?”
“It’s not his feelings you’re worried about, it’s your own. No, don’t go throwing that chin up at me. I’m too old to be taken in by it.” He reached out and grabbed her wrist, holding her by his side when she would have turned away. “How’s it going to hurt Tom to know you’re in love with him? Hmm? If he loves you back, well, that’s fine, then, and everybody’s happy. If he doesn’t, he’ll be a mite embarrassed to hear you admit to feelings he doesn’t share, but it isn’t going to hurt him any. It’s your own pride you’re worried about. You’re so afraid of looking like a fool for falling in love with a man who might not love you, that you’re willing to break your own heart over a possibility rather than face the truth of what is.”
Roxanne went absolutely still as the reality of the Padre’s words sunk in. He was right. It was her pride she was worried about. Her dignity.
And that was good-girl Roxanne thinking.
She was the one who worried about looking like a fool. She was the one who always pretended to be cool and unconcerned in case anyone thought she cared too much. She was the one who buried everything inside for the sake of good manners and good breeding and not making a messy, emotional scene.
Good-time girl Roxy wasn’t anything like that. She believed in letting it all hang out and letting the chips fall where they may. She believed in letting ’er rip, and to hell with worrying about whether her emotions and her needs were dignified or proper.
What good were dignity and pride when your whole future happiness was at stake?
She got a calculating look in her eyes. “Is he still out in the barn?”
“Yep.”
“Hold this.” She thrust her coffee cup into his free hand, then leaned down and kissed him again, full on the mouth. “That’s thank you,” she said, and marched on down the stairs and toward the barn with a sassy hip-swinging stride.
“You go get ’em, Roxy,” he said, and chortled gleefully.
SHE FOUND HIM in the tack room, right where she’d left him. Or, almost. He’d obviously been up for a while. The quilts they’d slept on were neatly folded on top of the squat little stool. The lantern was back in its accustomed place. The jelly jar of sweet peas was empty and sitting on a shelf next to other jelly jars full of bits and pieces that were used in maintaining and repairing saddles and other tack. He had his shirt on, but it was hanging open over his chest, the collar wet from where he’d either dunked his head in the water trough or held it under a faucet. He was forking up the hay that had been piled on the tack room floor, dumping it into a wheelbarrow by the door.
He barely glanced up as she came into the room. “I thought we said our goodbyes last night,” he said without pausing in his work.
“Our goodbyes?”
“That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? To make it official?”
“Official?” she said, confused by the cold, dispassionate look in his eyes. He’d never looked at her that way before, with no emotion, no feeling.
She began to wonder if the Padre had been wrong.
“Rooster told me you were leaving with him and Clay this morning,” he said. “That you arranged it last night. Before you came out here with me.”
“Yes,” she admitted. “I did.”
“So last night was—what? Your final performance? Give the cowboy one last thrill before you packed up and headed out?”
She wanted to lie, wanted to say it wasn’t like that at all, but she couldn’t. “Something like that,” she said. “But the thrill was for my benefit, not yours. I wanted one more memory to take with me.”
“Well, you got it.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So what do you want from me now? Another go-round? One for the road?” He knew he was being a jackass, knew he sounded like a petulant fool, but he’d been ready to declare his love last night. Ready to offer his heart and his hand, and she’d been using him for cheap thrills. It was worse than having her laugh at him. He stabbed another pitchforkful of hay and heaved it toward the wheelbarrow. Some of it fluttered down over the toes of her boots. “I’m afraid I’m too busy right now to accommodate you.” He looked her right in the eyes and delivered his killing shot. “Maybe you can get Clay to oblige you.”
It took about three seconds for his meaning to sink in. Three seconds in which her fabulous whiskey-colored eyes widened with shock, glistened with hurt, and narrowed in fury.
“That was a really shitty thing to say,” she said, fighting to keep the tears out of her voice.
“It was a shitty thing to do.”
“What? What did I do? I haven’t slept with Clay, and you know it. I haven’t ever wanted to sleep with Clay. And you know that, too.”
“I wasn’t talking about Clay. I was talking about last night.”
“Last night?” she repeated, at a loss. “Last night was— It was wonderful. It was thrilling. What was so bad about last night?”
“I don’t like being used.”
“But I wasn’t using you. I wouldn’t use you. I—” She put her hand on his bare chest, needing the connection.
He stood, quiver
ing beneath her palm like a stallion awaiting the bit, but he didn’t move away.
She took encouragement from that. “Do you care for—”
No, that was the wrong way to go about it. It was her feelings she had to be concerned about. Her feelings she had to own up to. She took a deep breath, prepared to make a fool of herself if that’s what it took, and plunged in with both feet.
“I love you,” she said. “I know it wasn’t part of our agreement. I know I promised no strings and no looking back. And I meant it. I still do. If you want me to leave, I’ll leave. But I can’t go without telling you how I feel. You don’t have to do anything about it. You don’t have to love me back. I just wanted you to know. I love you. You can take it or leave it, whichever you want. It’s up to you.”
His eyes heated as he listened to her heartfelt confession. His lips curved. His whole life took a decidedly upward turn, and the world was suddenly bright and shining. He put his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll take it,” he said, and yanked her against his chest.
Their kiss was long and liquid and leisurely, a silent affirmation of their feelings for each other. She could feel his heart pounding against the palm of her hand, counterpoint to her own wildly beating heart. She smiled up into his eyes as he drew back to look down at her.
“Does that mean you love me, too?” she said, wanting to hear the words.
He bumped his groin against hers. “What do you think, Slim?”
“I think we should skip the preliminaries—” she slipped the toe of her boot behind his ankle and shoved, hard, against his chest, pushing him backward into the mound of hay on the floor “—and get right to it.”
He hooked an arm around her knees and brought her down on top of him. “Damn, I like a woman with sass!” he said, and rolled her over, pressing her down into the hay beneath him. His expression sobered as he stared down into her glowing eyes.
Good Time Girl Page 19
