Last Chance Llama Ranch

by Hilary Fields

  His tone sounded almost…humorous? But Merry wasn’t feeling much like laughing right now. The feel of his very solid body behind hers was making her…uneasy. “I’ll manage,” she gritted. Merry shut her eyes and forced herself to start stripping off her shirt. But she’d barely gotten it unbuttoned when Sam sighed and stilled her with a firm hand.

  “Stop. You’re knocking all the boughs off. Let me.” Suddenly, Sam’s hands were all over her torso, sliding the shirt off her shoulders, briefly pinning her arms at her sides before the sleeves came free. There was a puff of frigid air, and then his chest made contact with her bare back. Merry jumped.

  Hot.

  Hard.

  Furry.

  He wrestled around a bit and made their discarded shirts into a blanket atop the boughs—to sandwich the warmth in, Merry supposed. But it also kept Sam’s scent in, and it wasn’t stanky after all. No, this was honest, and musky…and weirdly, undeniably delicious. It wasn’t something you could put your finger on. You just knew you wanted to keep inhaling it, like fresh-baked bread or new snow atop a pristine mountain. Or your beloved after sex…

  Sam wrapped an arm around her body and drew her in.

  “Before you ask—yes, it’s necessary.”

  Merry bit back the several things she wanted to say. She knew damn well the fastest way to raise one’s core temperature was for skin to feed off skin. She could feel the theory bearing fruit already as the convulsions loosed their grip on her aching body, and a warm lassitude replaced them. A knot of tension uncurled inside her belly, only to be replaced by another sort of tension altogether.

  “Shoes too.”

  Merry did as he bid, kicking off her damp boots. She drew her feet as far as she could up into their nest, cursing her height, but Sam didn’t give her a hard time—in fact, he wrapped his legs around hers, tangling them together and making sure her cold soles were sandwiched by his calves, which felt warm even through his jeans.

  Jesus. I’ve had sex less intimate than this, Merry thought. She was quiet a minute, listening to the sounds outside their little shelter, the suckling of tiny Bill at his mother’s teat. She breathed shallowly so as not to encourage more contact between their bodies—or inhale too deeply of Sam’s scent.

  Okay. This wasn’t so bad.

  Then she felt something stiff poking into her lower back. It hadn’t been there a moment before. She lurched forward, but Sam’s arm held her in place. “Is that your…?!” she hissed.

  “It’s a branch, Wookiee,” said Sam, sounding half-asleep. Yet…was it her imagination, or did his voice hold a certain tension?

  “Do branches throb?”

  There was a pause, which Merry couldn’t interpret.

  “This one does. Just ignore it. A little wood is all part of nature.”

  How the hell was Merry supposed to ignore that rhythmic pulse against her back…or the one that was beginning to match it, low in her own abdomen? The woodsy smell of him was overwhelming in the tight space. Outside, the wind howled and the snow piled up. They weren’t going their separate ways anytime soon. Just thinking about it made her shudder.

  Sam pulled her closer, rubbing her upper arms with his rough hands. “Okay?” he asked, sounding for once like a nice, normal person. “Or still cold?”

  Merry was not cold. Not remotely. But that was no reason to believe Sam had the hots for her. As he’d said, “wood” was natural, even when you didn’t care for the person whose proximity caused it. He probably just doesn’t want his reputation as a survival teacher to be ruined. Otherwise my ass would be out in the snow. “I’ve endured worse,” she said shortly.

  He grunted, but he moved his pelvis a few inches back.

  Merry told herself she was glad.

  The silence grew awkward. Finally, Merry couldn’t stand it anymore. “Look, I’m sorry, Sam. I appreciate you rescuing me, and doing this.” She gestured to indicate their bower. “I know it can’t be fun when you hate the person you’re spooning up with.”

  “I don’t hate you, Merry.” Sam sounded almost…surprised?

  “Baloney. You’ve loathed me from day one. And you seemed pretty damn angry a minute ago, bossing me around.”

  “I’m not angry,” he said. “Well, I am, but not at you. I’m angry at myself, for not looking after you. It’s my responsibility to watch over everyone and everything on the Last Chance ranch.”

  “I can look after myself,” Merry said stiffly.

  “I can see that. And you did really well, Merry,” Sam surprised her by saying. His breath was warm against her neck, his voice a rumble she could feel as well as hear. “Getting Dashiell to shelter…keeping her cria warm…that was impressive. I know Dolly will be grateful. And…so am I.”

  “A compliment?” Merry rolled her eyes. “I must have whacked you harder with that branch than I realized. Or did you forget I’m the entitled rich girl, exploiting you folks for my own gain?” Merry’s tone was more bitter than she’d intended. But she had to defend herself against this new, confusing Sam somehow. She didn’t trust this niceness…not after the look in his eyes the last time she’d seen him. That had hurt.

  Sam gently swept aside a strand of her hair that had tangled in his stubble, tucking it against her neck. His arm settled back around her waist like it belonged there. “I might have been a bit harsh on you,” he admitted. He paused a beat. “Hell. I know I was, and I know I owe you an apology.”

  Merry tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go, except out into the storm. “Don’t bullshit me, Cassidy.”

  “I’m not. Look, I had a lot of time to think, while I was out in the woods. I realized I never gave you a fair shake, from the day you first arrived at the ranch.”

  “And now, suddenly, you’ve changed your mind?” She wanted to roll over and look at him, to read the expression in those electric blue eyes, but that would have brought her bra-clad breasts into contact with his chest. And her heart perilously close to his.

  He sighed, propping himself up on his elbow. She could feel him looking down at her profile, as if willing her to look back at him, but she just stared into the fire stubbornly. “Not changed it, so much as realized it wasn’t you I’ve been fighting with, all along.”

  Merry waited. Her heart was beating fast.

  “When you arrived at the ranch, Merry, it wasn’t you I saw; it was my ex-wife. Jessica.” He blew out his breath. “Christ. I can’t believe I’m about to tell you this. I don’t talk about her—with anyone.”

  “So why tell me?” Merry asked. It was weird, talking to Sam in the dark, skin to skin, intimate, and yet unable to see the expression in his eyes. She stared instead at the tableau of mother and baby alpaca, drowsing together across the fire. So sweet, so peaceful. She wished she and Sam could be at peace with one another too. What would it be like, to feel trusting and safe with Sam? From the moment she’d met this enigmatic, often hostile man, she’d wanted to know what made him tick. Yet suddenly she wasn’t sure she was ready to hear his story, to feel something real with him. He’d turned on her too many times. “Why now?”

  “I guess I owe it to you, after the way I treated you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. Not…” She hesitated. Give the dude a break. It’s obviously killing him to be this nice. “Not unless it’s something you really need to say.”

  “You know? I don’t know why, but I think I do need to tell you.” He sounded mystified. “Just promise me this stays between us. No posting it online.”

  “Of course not. Jesus, Sam. What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “I don’t know,” he said seriously. She could feel his gaze searching her face, and her cheeks heated up. “But I do know you’re not Jessica. It’s just, when I saw you that first day, all dolled up in that fancy coat and freaking out about a little llama spit, I couldn’t help comparing you two.

  “She was glamorous, worldly,” he went on. “Accustomed to the best. And she…” He paused, and Merry could hear t
he working of his jaw as he ground his teeth. “She had certain expectations. Of me, of what I should provide. How I should look, behave, what I should value.” Merry could feel him shaking his head. “It was a bad match from the start. But I was young, and she was…so beautiful. So confident. When she took an interest in me, I couldn’t believe it. I was just this nobody kid from Jersey City. I wasn’t handsome. I wasn’t suave. But somehow she picked me.”

  He sighed. “I was fresh out of school. We met at some fancy-ass benefit. I was only there because my friend had won tickets off a raffle, and Bruce Springsteen was playing. Not Bon Jovi, by the way.”

  Merry smiled at the reminder of their conversation up on Wheeler Peak.

  “She thought I belonged,” Sam continued, “and I wanted her to keep thinking that. I was crazy about her. I wanted to be everything she expected from the man on her arm. So I took the job she wanted for me, pursued the career path she funneled me down. I schmoozed with the friends she thought were suitable. Hell, I even dressed in the monkey suits she bought me. And still I couldn’t make her happy. Over time, it got really bad. I could see the disappointment in her eyes when I couldn’t fit in with her crowd, when the money I brought in wasn’t enough. We started fighting all the time, and we both said some pretty terrible things. It was killing me not to be the man she needed, and I knew I was standing in the way of the life she really wanted. So finally, I left.”

  Merry couldn’t imagine this younger Cassidy. Sam had always seemed so self-assured, so comfortable in his own skin and confident of his skills. She’d never pictured him as someone with vulnerabilities, insecurities.

  “It took me a long time, and a lot of roughing it, but I found my way in the end. Where I belonged wasn’t in some stock exchange, parsing derivatives, and it wasn’t drinking appletinis on some douchebag’s tax-write-off yacht. I lost myself in the woods—but I found myself there too. I was finally the man I needed to be, not the man she’d demanded I be. I was content—or getting there, anyhow. And then you came along.”

  “And when you saw me, I reminded you of her?” Confident? Glamorous? Was he kidding?

  Sam lay back down. “Yeah.”

  “Oh, Sam.” Her shoulders started to shake. Little choking sounds escaped her chest.

  “Shit.” Sam sounded alarmed. “I’m sorry, Merry. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  A wild cackle escaped Merry’s lips. She was laughing so hard she could barely speak. “Samuel Cassidy, you have to be the biggest idiot I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “I do?” He reared back, but the cold outside their bower prohibited much distance.

  “If you think I give a shit about being ‘glamorous,’ or moving in high society, you’ve obviously had your head up a llama’s butt. I’ve spent my entire life running from exactly that sort of shit. You think you were a social misfit? Try being six foot three with shoulders like a linebacker when you’re the daughter of a diplomat and a fucking peer of the realm. The only place I ever felt like I fit in was on a podium with the national anthem playing. And then that ended.” Merry’s voice grew tight. “But when I got to the Last Chance…it just seemed like a place I could go and not have to worry about all that.”

  Sam was silent for a while. “And I made you feel unwelcome. Hell, I’m sorry, Merry. I think I can see that now. You’re not like my wife was. I mean, not that you’re not poised, or confident, but that you’re…I don’t know…genuine. Unpretentious. You weren’t trying to use us, or the ranch. I should’ve seen that when I read your stories. But all I could think was that you were making fun of me.”

  “Fun of you? After the way I made you out to be such a romance novel hero?”

  “Because of that. I know I’m no prize to look at.”

  “You’re not so bad,” Merry said grudgingly. “If one likes the Pa Ingalls look.”

  Sam chuckled.

  God, it would be so nice to revel in this moment. To feel this kindness, this acceptance from Sam. But he didn’t know everything. And when he did…his earlier anger would be nothing to what he would feel. “Before you get too warm and fuzzy, you need to know, you weren’t wrong. I was oblivious. And self-absorbed. I didn’t think enough about the effect my column would have on the kids, or the rest of Aguas Milagros. And it’s worse than a little camping gear.” Merry started to tell him about John Dixon’s arrival, his ultimatum.

  Sam put his hand on her shoulder. “I already know, Merry. I ran into my aunt in town, and she told me all about it on our way back to the ranch.”

  So why isn’t he tossing my ass out into the snow?

  “She also told me how hard you’ve been working to make things right. How you offered to buy the ranch with your own money, even though it would mean making yourself miserable.”

  “It was the least I could do,” Merry said. “I had to take responsibility.”

  Sam let silence settle over them for a while. “You couldn’t have predicted what my uncle would do. He’s been a thorn in Dolly’s butt for the better part of two decades, one way or another.”

  “Still…”

  “Hush, Merry.”

  Merry hushed. She liked that he wasn’t calling her Wookiee anymore.

  Sam’s hand was in her hair again, she noticed, gently smoothing it away from her neck. “You know, while you’re going begging for blame, there is something else you’re responsible for.” He pressed closer, making it clear what he was talking about. The “branch” felt more like a tree trunk now, rubbing up against her ass.

  “I am not responsible for that!” Merry protested. But somehow, she wasn’t pulling away like some outraged virgin. In fact…her ass seemed to be doing some rubbing of its own.

  Sam sucked in a breath, then let it out slowly. “Oh, it’s definitely on you, Merry,” he said.

  On me? How about in me? The thought set her pulse thrumming. Merry bit her lip. “Purely a physiological thing, I’m sure. Just a natural biological response to the circumstance?”

  “Of course.” There was a smile in Sam’s voice. “I’m a guy who’s close to nature, and this is my ‘natural biological response’ when I’m lying beside a beautiful woman.”

  Ice doused Merry’s desire.

  Suddenly she was colder than she’d been before Sam had come to rescue her from the storm. Just when I thought we were friends…and maybe more than friends…How could he be such a snake? Merry flipped over to face him. “Fuck you, Sam Cassidy,” she said fiercely. “I knew you could be a dick sometimes, but that was just plain cruel.”

  Even in the dim light of the little campfire she could make out his bewildered expression. “Cruel? The hell did I say?”

  She glared at him. “Look, you didn’t like it when I made you out to be all gorgeous for the magazine? Fine. No problem. No more Studly Sam in the column. But I’d appreciate it if you’d do me the same courtesy and not blow smoke up my ass. I know I’m not beautiful. Not now…not before the accident. Not ever. If you’re trying to get back at me by mocking me—”

  “I’m not mocking you, Merry,” he said.

  And then he kissed her.

  This time, it was no accident.

  Sorry to disappoint you, ladies and germs, but Sam was a perfect gentleman. While the storm raged outside, and my hormones raged inside, our mountain man kept Mama, cria, and Merry warm and toasty inside the old mine shaft where we’d sheltered from the storm. Beneath a blanket of boughs and outerwear, we passed the night in pleasant conversation while Dashiell nursed her sweater-draped offspring and hummed counterpoint to the swirling snow blowing past the mouth of the cave.

  I have to say that I’ve rarely felt safer, or, frankly, as comfortable as I did that night in the abandoned mine. Without the comforts of electricity, running water, or even a mattress, we yet managed to pass a productive and informative evening, chatting about everything from survival strategies to favorite childhood TV shows (mine was Twin Peaks, while Sam preferred The X-Files). I learned that our Mr. Cassidy is passionate abo
ut a great many things, when you take the time to get to know him, and he’s generous with his time, his expertise, and, of course, his body heat.

  * * *

  Merry had to smile. Sam had been generous alright…with his lips, his tongue, the caress of his callused hands. From the moment he’d captured her mouth with his passionate kiss, Sam had taken full control, and she’d never for a moment felt her superior height. In his arms, she’d been all woman, and he’d been all man—a hot, muscular presence thrumming with desire, hands tangling in her hair to hold her still for his kisses, body sliding over hers to enfold her in his embrace.

  Making out with Sam was hot as hell, Merry had discovered. It was also fun. His kisses had been mischievous and mind-blowing by turns, his lips capturing and cajoling hers into an ever-deepening response, his teeth nipping gently at her bottom lip, then soothing the sting with his tongue and smiling lips. His hands had cupped her face, his elbows braced on either side of her head so that he became her whole world, her focus entirely on the superheated maleness of him. And yet there was something about the encounter that had been about more than passion—it was an invitation to play, to explore, and simply enjoy each other in the moment.

  Because that was the essence of Sam, Merry realized. When he wasn’t keeping tight wraps on his past, or protecting the little corner of the world he’d come to call home, Sam was a man with a great love of everything life had to offer; someone who was fully in his body and deeply engaged with his surroundings. And his passion last night had made Merry yearn for a taste of that courage, just as she’d yearned for the taste of him. Since the accident, she’d lost sight of her own passionate, spirited side—the side that had been fearless on the slopes.

  Now Merry wanted to be fearless with Sam.

  But Sam had wanted to be a gentleman.

  “Go slow, honey,” he’d said, though she could feel his heart racing where it was pressed up against her chest. “Slow…slow…” he’d murmured over and over as he kissed her deep, kissed her slow like he promised, kissed her everywhere.