by Jeannie Watt
Emma worked her way around the back of the stands, weaving her way through and around groups of people waiting at the concessions or making their way to the parking lot now that the rodeo was almost over. She squeezed through an opening in a chain-link fence into the competitor parking lot, but it didn’t bring her any closer to the alley where she wanted to catch Jess. If she didn’t see him leave, or if he had already left...
She dug her phone out of her pocket and started writing a text.
I’m here and—
What?
Of all the times for words to escape her. She knew what she wanted, what she had to do—
“Em?”
She jumped at the sound of the familiar voice and turned as her heart hammered against her ribs, dropping her phone in the process. Behind her was a group of four bull riders—Chase, Dermott, Tim LeClair and Jess. Only one of them was staring at her...the other three were staring at him.
Jess started toward her purposefully, as if zeroing in on a target, his chaps flapping around his legs, the grip bag that carried his rosin, rope and glove in one hand. He bent down, picked up the phone that had skittered several feet away and held it out. Em carefully took it from him without making contact.
She’d planned to say something coherent, such as, “I missed you, so I came to watch you ride,” or, “I’ve done a lot of thinking and I’d like to talk.”
Instead she stared at him, trying to read his unreadable expression. And failing.
“I love you.”
The words came spilling out, leaving her feeling oddly breathless as the solid truth of what she’d just said slammed into her. She did. She loved him.
Jess’s expression didn’t change, but behind him the other bull riders exchanged glances.
Em’s heart rate was close to redlining, but she pressed on. “I hate being without you.” Jess moved closer then, until he was only inches away, dropping his bag in the dirt next to him. She opened her mouth, then closed it again as he solemnly took her face in his hands and tipped her chin up. She swallowed drily. “I know we have a lot to work out—”
“Em?”
“Yes?”
“Stop talking.”
“But—”
He kissed her then. Kissed her hard and kissed her long, lifted her off her feet and then set her back down again. There was muttering behind them about getting a room, leaving them be and moving on.
“Great idea,” Jess said. “Leave us be.”
Tim clapped his back as he went by. “I want to take off in half an hour.”
“Yeah. I’ll figure out another way to get there. I have business.” He looked back at Em, his thumbs brushing over her cheeks.
“Business, you say?” Jess smiled.
“I have missed you so much.” His hands slid up into her hair as he kissed her again, making it very clear that he had indeed missed her and was glad that she was there. When the kiss finally ended, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close, resting his cheek on top of her head. Held her. The announcer started naming winners, but Jess didn’t move. Not even when his own name was called.
Emma eased back. “Congratulations,” she murmured.
“Yeah. I won big today.”
He wasn’t talking about bull riding.
“Me, too,” Emma whispered, warmth flooding her body as Jess smiled down at her, looking as if he’d just received the biggest prize of his life.
“Can I ride back to Gavin with you?”
His next rodeo was less than a hundred miles from their hometown. “I’d like that.”
He bent down to pick up his bag and looped an arm around her shoulders as they made their way to the parking lot. “I didn’t like traveling without you.”
“I didn’t like it either.” She pushed her hair back with her free hand, then took hold of the fingers draped over the edge of her shoulder. “I thought I could slip back into my life after I got home and things would eventually feel kind of normal—that leaving you would be like leaving Darion. It wasn’t. You’re...part of me, I guess.”
His arm tightened and then he let go of her as she slipped back through the gap in the chain-link fence. As soon as he was through, he had his arm around her again. “And you’re part of me.”
Across the arena, the contractors were loading their animals for the trip to the next event and a steady stream of trucks and trailers moved slowly behind them on their way to the street. Emma barely noticed as the man she loved once again dropped his gear bag, then pulled her close and kissed her again. “You’ll never lose me, Em. I promise.”
“I seem to recall you giving it a good effort back in the day.” She linked her hands behind his back just above the belt of his chaps, loving the feel of his long hard body against hers—right where it should be.
He lightly nipped her lower lip, then gave it a gentle kiss. “Guess I was just waiting for you to grow into that smart mouth.”
“And now that I have?”
His arms tightened and he gave her one more quick kiss before whispering against her lips, “I’m never letting you go.”
Epilogue
“Now, you’re certain that Jess doesn’t mind that you’re wearing the dress.”
Emma somehow managed not to roll her eyes. Selma, who’d been all about wearing the dress, was now having second thoughts.
“I think we should get a new dress.”
“What do we do with this one?” Emma reached out to touch the soft folds of ultra-expensive silk charmeuse hanging on the back of her closet door.
“Isn’t your friend Chloe getting married?”
“She can’t afford this dress.”
Selma stood back, tapping her finger on her chin. “We’ll think of something.”
“I’m sure we will,” Emma murmured. Selma was still a force to be reckoned with, but Emma no longer felt overwhelmed by her stepmom. Maybe because she now had backup, in the form of her brothers, who’d finally realized the benefit of a united front where their mother was concerned, and in Jess, who always had her back.
Damn but she loved that man.
And speaking of Jess... Emma glanced at her phone. “I need to go if we’re going to get to Bozeman in time to catch the plane.” She could see that the dress thing was going to eat at Selma, so she said, “Why don’t you find me something suitable? Surprise me? Something about half the price of this dress.”
Selma’s expression brightened. “Maybe an off-the-shoulder dress. Something simple, a little pastoral...”
“That would be perfect.” Emma reached out and gave Selma a quick hug as the kitchen door open and closed. “I’ll call as soon as we get back.”
“Em?”
“Coming.”
She headed out to the kitchen where her husband-to-be waited with her father and younger brother, who was giving Jess a few last-minute pointers about making it through airport security unscathed. Two trips with Emma to watch Jess ride and suddenly he was an expert.
But the trips had done him good and now he was considering going to college on the other side of the country. Emma thought that would be good for everyone. The rest of the family was still close enough for Selma to manage, and Wylie would develop some much-needed independence.
Jess took her hand, said goodbye to her parents, who wished him luck, then led Emma out of the house. As soon as the door shut behind them, he put an arm around her and dropped a kiss on her head.
“Your dad wants to go in on the construction business. He sees it as a good way to diversify.”
Emma gave him a surprised look. Jess had already banked enough money to buy the business outright. He didn’t need a partner, but maybe her dad needed to be a partner. To focus on something other than the ranch.
“You sure about this?”
/>
“Totally. We had a long talk. Shared some Len stories. He made me promise to treat you like a queen.”
“Sounds like a good talk.”
Jess opened the truck door and handed her inside, then settled his hands on her thigh. “Are you all right with the plan?”
Emma gave him a long look, loving the way he took care of her, and his brother, and now her father, before reaching out to press her palm against the side of his face.
“I’m good with anything you want to do,” she murmured as she leaned down to kiss him.
“We might have to test that theory.”
“We have a plane to catch.”
He smiled against her lips. “Then I’m going to have to ask for a rain check.”
Emma laughed softly. “You got it, babe. Now let’s get out of here so you can go ride a bull.”
* * * * *
Be sure to check out
A BULL RIDER TO DEPEND ON—Tyler’s story—as well as the other books in the
MONTANA BULL RIDERS miniseries,
THE BULL RIDER MEETS HIS MATCH and
THE BULL RIDER’S HOMECOMING
All available now from Harlequin Western Romance!
Keep reading for an excerpt from A TEXAS SOLDIER’S CHRISTMAS by Cathy Gillen Thacker.
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A Texas Soldier’s Christmas
by Cathy Gillen Thacker
Chapter One
“It certainly looks like Christmas came early for you, Nora!” ninety-year-old Miss Sadie said.
Nora Caldwell regarded the ladies gathered in the Laramie Gardens community room. All were grinning and merrily nudging each other. Not sure she wanted to know what was causing such hilarity, she slowly turned toward the portal. What she saw in the doorway was enough to stop her heart.
United States Army Lieutenant Zane Lockhart, the love—as well as the bane—of her life. And it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet! Her knees went weak as she took him in.
Breathing a huge sigh of relief, Nora noted that the Special Forces officer did not show any new battle scars.
Clad in desert camouflage shirt and pants and utility boots, his six-foot-three-inch frame was as broad-shouldered and solidly muscled as ever. His ruggedly handsome face bore the perpetual tan she knew so well, his sensual lips the same knowing slant. It didn’t appear he had done more than run a hand through the thick layers of his wheat-gold hair, but it didn’t matter—the cropped shiny-clean strands looked good no matter which way the wind tossed them.
Resisting the urge to throw herself into his arms, she deliberately met his gaze, while his dark silver eyes roamed her frame every bit as hungrily as she surveyed his. And still, neither of them moved. He was here. Alive. Safe. A feat that, as always, felt almost too good to be true, given the types of dangerous missions he went on.
“Oh, my!” Retired librarian Miss Mim fanned her face, her face turning as red as her auburn hair while Zane and Nora continued to silently size each other up. “Is it hot in here or what?”
It was definitely steamy, Nora thought. But then, wasn’t that always the case when she and Zane were in the vicinity of each other? Sparks flew, even as duty and honor and strong wills tore them apart.
“If this is the result of serving in the Army Nurse Corps, I wish I’d done a tour or two,” Miss Patricia teased.
Not, Nora thought, if your heart had been shattered as often and surely as hers had by this gorgeous hunk of a man.
Oblivious to the admiring glances of the three dozen women gathered in the community room, Zane asked, “Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but may I have a word with you, Nora?” His expression abruptly becoming inscrutable, he added, “Privately?”
Where was his usual wide-as-all-Texas grin, the easy charm he managed to exhibit no matter what, Nora wondered, acutely aware he could be about to give her bad news about one of their fellow soldiers.
Oblivious to her worry, the ladies promised in unison, “Go ahead. We can handle the rest of the holiday planning session.”
Breaking eye contact with Zane, Nora drew a deep enervating breath and said to one and all, “I’ll be in my office if you need me.” Shoulders stiff with tension, she led the way down the hall to the door just off the formal entry.
Zane read the bronze plaque next to the door. “Are you just the director, or the director of the nursing staff?”
“Both.” Although she imagined he, like her brigadier-general mother, did not view her current position with the same high regard as her previous assignment in one of the premier military hospitals in the world.
He followed her inside.
Nora spun around to face him, still tingling all over. Zane shut the door behind him. Ignored the chair she offered.
She sat down behind her desk anyway.
“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on with you?” he said plainly.
He wanted to talk about their ill-fated off-and-on-again romance? Now? Over a year after it had finally ended? With an insouciance she couldn’t begin to feel, Nora waved an airy hand. “I didn’t think my resignation from the Army was relevant to you, given the way our relationship ended.”
Zane’s gaze narrowed all the more. “How about your private life?” His square jaw jutted out. “You didn’t think I had a right to know about any of that?”
Why was he acting so weird? Like a man on a mission? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known she intended to return to the small West Texas town where she had grown up when she ended her career in the military service.
Laramie was home to her.
Laramie was comforting.
It had been to him, too, as a child, when he had left his wealthy life in Dallas and visited his much more rustic paternal grandfather’s Laramie County ranch in the summers.
But now he clearly wasn’t thinking about their closeness back then.
Doggedly, he persisted, “You didn’t think you should at least write or call me and let me know of your plans?”
Feeling even more baffled, Nora shrugged. “Ah. Not really.”
His expression changed. Became almost rueful. He sat down and leaned forward, his muscular forearms on his spread knees. He speared her with his gaze. “Did I really disappoint you that badly?”
If he only knew. Hurt filled her heart. She swallowed and tried agai
n to explain, “I told you...it wasn’t you. It was never you.” Zane had been clear about who and what he was from the very start. “It was me,” she admitted in a low, strangled voice. “I’m the one who couldn’t handle the intensity of our affair.” The fact that every time he left she had to contend with the fact she might never see him again.
He straightened, squaring his broad shoulders. “So you came here?”
It was the only thing in her life at that time that had made sense. Especially with everything else she’d had going on, familywise. “My sister, mother and I all still jointly own a home here, the one my grandparents left us.” The one she had grown up in.
Nora swallowed around the parched feeling in her throat. “After serving in field hospitals and military trauma centers—” helping the sometimes mortally wounded “—I needed something low-key.”
He squinted, displeased. “That doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me about your future plans.”
Actually, Nora thought, it pretty much explained everything. Sharing in his obvious exasperation, she glared right back at him. “We weren’t in touch after we ended things.” And hadn’t been for the last year.
“Actually, Nora, you ended things,” he jumped in to correct. Sounding a little angry and resentful now.
Guilt flooded her. “Okay, yes, I did. And I told you then that it wasn’t your fault. You handled the dangerous aspects of your military service just fine. It was me who couldn’t take the not knowing where you were, or what you were doing, or if you were okay. It was me who couldn’t take you just showing up hurt, repeatedly, in the military hospital where I was assigned.”
It had gotten to the point where she couldn’t eat or sleep, or even smile when he was deployed, he was on her mind so much.
That was when he had begun to worry about her, too.
And being distracted like that, they both knew, could get him killed. So she had ended it, and a few months after that, exited the armed service honorably.
