by Nancy Martin
A geometric quilt decorated one wall, a pair of seascapes another. Her travel experiences were remembered in the grouping of objects on a low coffee table—some rustic pottery, a stack of picture books about Italy, a bonsai tree in a jade green pot.
A baby grand piano stood in an alcove as if waiting for a concert pianist to show up and entertain a party of elegant and sophisticated guests.
Approaching the piano, Hank twinkled the keys, and asked, “Do you play?”
“Not well, despite all the lessons I took as a kid.” She smiled, watching Hank get accustomed to her home. “It’s my father’s. I keep it here because there’s no room in his apartment.”
She carried the food into her kitchen, leaving Hank to savor the mental picture of a very young Carly diligently practicing her piano lessons.
He strolled to the kitchen doorway and enfolded Carly in his arms when she came out. “I look forward to getting to know everything about you.”
She melted against his body and looped her arms around his neck. “I’m the one looking forward to the truth.”
“I have a lot of explaining to do,” he admitted.
“I gather you aren’t a rancher in South Dakota?” Carly lifted her eyebrows.
“No.” He stroked her cheek with his fingertips. “This is strange, isn’t it? You don’t even know who I am.”
“I’ve been trying to guess.”
Carly led him to the rear of the house, past a darkened bedroom to another small niche. She flipped on a small, glowing lamp. Beneath a large, arched window that overlooked the city stood a deeply cushioned sofa—obviously the place Carly liked best in her house. A filled bookshelf, a telephone and fax machine, an armoire that clearly hid a television set—all the comforts a busy single woman could wish for in a retreat. Her bedroom lay just a few yards away.
Carly was glad to have Hank in her home. It felt right to see him among her things. She pulled him down onto the sofa. Ready to hear everything, she tucked her feet up and leaned into his arm.
Hank took a deep breath and took the plunge. “I’m a writer for a newspaper. Or newspapers, I guess. I live in Seattle.”
“Seattle?” Carly felt a pang of fear. “That’s so far away.”
“I write a column that involves travel and politics,” he continued. And thereafter he explained his career to her.
His life sounded exciting, stimulating and hectic. Carly was familiar with his column in a distant sort of way. It was not carried by any of the newspapers she read on a daily or weekly basis, but she realized she must have read some of his work while she traveled. Hank’s writing was the kind that had a great future.
She smiled, glad that he was accomplished and respected in his field. She longed to hear more about his column, and looked forward to the many conversations they would have.
If they had a future together.
“Anyway,” Hank concluded after a few minutes, “I don’t live in South Dakota. Becky owns the ranch, lock, stock and barrel. She’s the one who runs it.”
“You rarely go there?”
“Hardly ever.”
“And Becky’s in some kind of financial trouble.”
“Right- She heard about your calendar contest and decided it was a great way to make her mortgage payments. Trouble was, your contest specified cowboy and she didn’t fit the bill.”
“So she sent your pictures instead.”
“Yes.” Ruefully, Hank added, “I had no idea what she’d done until you were on your way to take my picture.”
“But since she needed the money, you agreed to do the calendar.”
“Yes. We didn’t see the need to tell you the truth. What did it matter whether I was the genuine article or not? I was a face you needed, that’s it. But I couldn’t go through with the plan, Carly. Not after you and I, well, it was that first night on the porch, I suppose.”
“What do you mean?”
“Until then, I hadn’t realized you’d be a real person. It was easier when you were just a corporate entity. But I liked Carly Cortazzo.” He touched her face again, bringing a lump to Carly’s throat. “You were a pretty tough broad on the outside, but I saw someone I could really care about on the inside.”
“You could have been honest with me from the start.”
“I wasn’t sure about that.”
Carly swallowed hard and tried to explain. “Maybe it was important at first for you to be a cowboy. I... had this silly fantasy in my head—”
“A fantasy?”
“Yes, about you and—and—well, it seemed important that you were a man of the wide-open spaces. In my head you came from a simpler time, I guess. It...it felt more romantic, somehow. There’s something about a cowboy.”
“What, exactly?”
“I can’t explain it. I suppose I wanted to be swept off my feet by a man who rode the range and sang to his cattle and did all that cowboy stuff.”
Hank laughed, drawing Carly closer. “I’ve never sung a single note to a cow in my life, and I don’t care if I ever set eyes on a horse again. But,” he added, his voice deepening, “I can sweep you off your feet, Carly.”
She lifted her mouth to his and let Hank press a long and delicious kiss into her soul. Her heart beat erratically in her chest, making Carly breathless. His mouth was warm, but it was the warmth that emanated from within Hank that made Carly feel toasty inside.
But a giggle started to bubble in her throat, and soon she was shaking with amusement.
Hank pulled back and looked at her quizzically. “Have I lost my ability to make your head swim?”
“No,” she said, trying to smother her laughter with her hand. “Not at all. I was just thinking about my first glimpse of you—riding that black horse right up to me on the road. And you jumped off!”
“No, I fell,” Hank admitted.
“And you fell off again the next day when we were looking for strays?” The mental picture appeared to her, and Carly couldn’t stop the fresh flood of giggles.
“I have no idea how to look for strays,” Hank replied quite honestly. “That day I was doing my best not to get killed.”
Laughing aloud at last, Carly asked, “And...and what about roping that steer? It dragged you through the bushes and—Oh, I’ve never seen anyone look so funny in my life!”
“You didn’t think it was funny at the time,” he pointed out darkly.
“That’s when I didn’t know what was really going on! Oh, Hank, you worked so hard to deceive me.”
“Do you mind?” he asked, pulling her closer again. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Are you angry about what Becky and I did?”
Carly shook her head. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter if you’re a cowboy or a famous newspaper writer. I love both of you, even though you’ll always be Hank to me.”
“And I love you.”
“I’m so glad.”
“Will you mind if the cowboy never shows his face again?”
Wistfully Carly ran her finger down the line of his jaw. “It’s a very nice face. But I guess Chet Roswell’s will do for the calendar.”
Hank smiled with relief. “Thank you. Believe me, I was dreading the explanation I was going to have to give to my colleagues in Seattle if my likeness showed up on a Twilight Calendar.”
“Have you ever seen a Twilight Calendar?” she challenged.
“Of course. The women in my office often tack them up on the bulletin board. We had a discussion about sexist behavior, but the men lost. After centuries of oppression, we decided they could have one calendar around.”
“I never claimed we were politically correct,” Carly said airily. “We’re not forcing anyone to buy our calendars.”
“But I think you’re ready to try something else with your life,” Hank guessed.
“Maybe. I can’t leave Bert by himself—not yet. But something new might turn up for me if I started looking around a little.”
Huskily Hank said, “I want you to be happy, Car
ly. I want to be the one to make you happy.”
“You could make me happy right now,” she whispered.
He smiled. “I could?”
Carly stood up. Taking his hand, she pulled Hank to his feet. “Come with me.”
He hesitated only for a second. “Are you sure, Carly? Sure that you want me?”
“Very sure.”
“My name isn’t even Hank, you know.”
“Should I call you Henry now?”
He thought it over and shook his head. “I’m getting used to hearing Hank. And I like the way you say it.”
“Then Hank it is.”
She led the way to her bedroom. A small candle stood on the night table, and Carly lit it with a long-stemmed match. When she turned around, Hank reached for her and began to unfasten the rhinestone buttons on her shirt.
Softly he said, “You don’t know how much I want to see this thing off you. Where did you get this outfit, anyway?”
“It doesn’t matter. You’ll never see it again.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he murmured, smiling and softly kissing her bare shoulder as the tacky shirt came off. “It’s kind of kinky.”
Carly laughed, but her voice trembled with anticipation. Hank’s lips were hot on her skin. His hands were expert in stripping off her clothing, piece by piece.
With shaking hands, Carly dropped each item of Hank’s clothing on the floor, too. She knew his body so well that a few short caresses made his voice go hoarse.
“I’ve missed you, Carly.”
“We’ve barely been apart a day.”
“Even a day is too long.”
Carly pushed the lacy bedclothes back and pulled Hank down onto her bed. The softness enveloped them, feeling, oh, so much more comfortable than the rough South Dakota ground.
Lips against her skin, Hank murmured, “I always want to be this close to you, Carly.”
Carly settled beneath him and wrapped her arms around Hank’s shoulders. She whispered, “We can be even closer.”
“Like this?”
He was inside her then, gently pressing Carly down into the bed with an achingly gentle force that took her breath so sharply that tears sprang to her eyes. She closed them, the better to experience every sensation Hank evoked in her. He was hers, she thought. Completely her own.
And she wanted to be just as completely his, she realized, arching upward to pull him deeply within herself. Each thrust seemed to fill Carly with joy as well as pleasure. She could feel the burning imprints his fingertips seemed to leave on her breasts, her thighs, as if they seared his name into her receiving flesh.
They rolled together, and then Carly was over him, unwilling to be separated for an instant, but obeying his demands. She reveled in the touch of his hands. He took her nipples into his mouth and teased her to the brink of implosion with his tongue. She gasped.
All conscious thought eluded Carly as he coaxed her body to even more delicious heights. All her senses spun with love. She was hardly aware when Hank pushed her down onto the bed again, but suddenly he was inside her once more. She wrapped her thighs tightly around his hips.
“Open your eyes,” he breathed. “I want you totally, Carly, love.”
She obeyed instinctively and found herself drowning in the emotion that radiated from Hank. He thrust within her, slowly at first, then with an even-more-passionate tempo, driving Carly deeper and deeper into a vortex of sensual darkness.
She felt herself turning to liquid, hot and volcanic. Her flesh melded to his, just as their hearts seemed to meld into something all-powerful. Each thrust drew them tighter and tighter, deeper and blacker.
Carly cried out. The vortex drowned her and burst into flame at the same time, firing their two souls into one.
For a long, suspended heartbeat, they clung together, quivering with heat and joy. The rest of the universe ceased to exist. Carly’s world was Hank alone.
Later Hank brought her back to the world by stroking her face, murmuring softly, “Are you all right?”
“Of course. Just—Yes, I’m fine.”
“I love you.”
The words had never sounded so beautiful. “I love you,” she replied. “I want to be with you.”
“We can be.”
“I mean every day, every night.”
“I want that, too,” Hank said against her temple. “We’re going to have to marry, Carly, that’s all there is to it”
“Marry?”
“Does that frighten you?”
“No,” Carly said, knowing it was true. Her heart swelled. “That’s what I want, too, Hank. I want everything.”
“Kids? A house? A dog and picket fence?” He was smiling.
“The whole works. After I help Bert get things settled at Twilight.”
“And a honeymoon?”
“Naturally. Someplace civilized, please. No camping trips.”
Hank shuddered. “Heaven forbid.”
Six weeks later Hank found himself reclining in absolute comfort in a rustic wooden chair with his feet up, eyes closed and the last of the summer sun warming his whole body.
Trouble was, he was listening to the mooing of cattle.
The noise made him smile. Then he sensed rather than saw Carly as she leaned over his prone body and pressed a soft kiss on his forehead.
He mumbled, “I can’t believe we came all the way to Italy to listen to cows.”
“It’s an Italian cattle drive,” she reported. “I was just talking to our landlady. She says the farmers are driving their cattle to market today.”
Hank opened one eye and looked fondly at his wife. She looked beautifully relaxed—blond hair covered with a chic straw hat, her slim body loosely draped in a light summer dress that showed off the golden glow of her shoulders. There wasn’t a rhinestone in sight.
She sat down on his footstool, leaned close and draped one arm around his hips. “If we’re lucky, the landlady will buy one perfect cow and we’ll have beef for dinner tomorrow.”
Hank cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are we staying through tomorrow?”
“While I was downstairs, I used the telephone. I changed our plane reservations. We’re staying until next Monday.”
Hank opened both eyes to better appreciate the happy glow that seemed to encircle Carly as she sat on the balcony of their room overlooking the piazza of the small Italian village that had been their headquarters for the past week. “Do you have a good reason for changing our plans, my love?”
“Yes. I need more research for the article I’m writing,” Carly said. “We’ll have to hike up to Mount Aloysius tomorrow so I can take a few photos. Then I thought we’d go across to the lake the next day.”
“You’re confident this article is going to sell, I presume?”
“I already talked with the paper in Seattle. They’re definitely buying. And I think a whole series of articles might make a good book.”
“What kind of book?”
“Italy for honeymooners.” She took off her hat and tossed it onto the tiles at her feet.
Hank smiled, reaching for her hand. “Sounds like a winner.”
“I got the idea from Becky, actually. Her letter suggested she and Chet are looking for a honeymoon trip.”
“She’ll never leave South Dakota.”
“Don’t bet the ranch on that, darling.”
“Kiss me.”
Carly did so warmly, then gently smoothed his hair back from his forehead. Her voice dropped to a murmur. “The rest of the town has gone inside for their siesta.”
“Are you suggesting we do the same?”
“In a minute.”
Hank stealthily slid one hand up the front of her dress until he encountered the round weight of her breast. He was rewarded by Carly’s intimate smile and delicately circled the already erect nipple with his thumb. Beneath her nearly translucent dress, he could see the curve of her belly and the thrust of her slim hip.
One nice thing about Italy, he had observed,
was that the neighbors who lounged in their open second-floor windows seemed to encourage public displays of affection. He tugged the strap of her dress off one shoulder.
Carly let him have his way, watching his eyes with love in her gaze. She said, “I’ve been wondering about the results of all the time we’ve spent in our honeymoon bed, Hank.”
“What results?”
“Well,” she said, leaning into his caress of her breast. “What if our children don’t care for foreign countries and outdoor cafés, concerts and musty bookshops?”
“You mean—” A disconcerting thought occurred to Hank and made him sit up.
“Yes, what if they like horses and cattle?”
“We’ll have to do everything in our power to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Sometimes these things are destined.”
“Well, then, we may need to rethink the whole children concept,” he replied.
“I’m afraid,” murmured Carly, leaning close to kiss him again, “it’s too late.”
“You mean—”
“Yes,” said Carly, her mouth against his to deliver the not-so-dreadful news. “My love, I’m already pregnant with our own little cowboy.”
IMPRINT: e-book Desire Single
ISBN: 9781460867235
TITLE: THE COWBOY AND THE CALENDAR GIRL
First Australian Publication 2012
Copyright © 2012 NANCY MARTIN
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilisation of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the permission of the publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon®, Locked Bag 7002, Chatswood D.C. N.S.W., Australia 2067.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
