The Last Wilder

by Janis Reams Hudson

  Dane raised his head from where he had buried his face in her hair. “Come again?”

  Considering their present circumstances, his usual version of “What?” surprised a bark of laughter from her. “So soon?” she asked.

  When Dane realized what he’d said, and how she’d taken it, he snickered. A moment later, still smiling, he looked down at her. With his hands bracketing her face, he stared, bemused by this woman he barely knew but whom he felt as if he’d known forever.

  Had he ever laughed while in bed with a woman? If he had, he couldn’t remember it. What power did this one have over him that she filled his every thought and made him do things he knew he shouldn’t?

  Stacey watched the smile fade from his face. “Don’t,” she whispered.

  “Don’t what?”

  With the tip of one finger, she traced a line across his forehead then down the side of his face. “Don’t think.”

  “You’re right. This isn’t a night for thinking.” He turned his head and captured her finger between his lips, licking it with his tongue.

  The gesture sent shivers of awareness down Stacey’s arm. “Oh, my.”

  “Dare I say it—come again?”

  “Yes.” Her smile was quick and wide. “You lick my finger like that again, and I just might.”

  Dane shuddered. “Be my guest.”

  “I’d rather have you with me when I do,” she whispered.

  With a slow smile, he reached over the edge of the bed for his wallet. He pulled out the remaining condom. “This is my last one.”

  “Then we better make the most of it,” she told him. “Allow me.” With a hand to his chest, she pushed him over and down onto his back. After taking the packet from him, she tore it open and slowly, slowly, rolled it into place. So slowly that Dane groaned.

  “You don’t like that?” she asked him.

  “If I liked it any better,” he said with a low growl in his voice, “I’d be finished.”

  They both laughed, but only until Stacey straddled his hips, then leaned down and kissed him.

  They took their time. Time to savor, to taste, to discover what made the other’s breath catch. Time to linger when those special places were found.

  The fire between them built slowly, but burned even hotter than before. And soon the slow pace was not enough. She raised above him and, with his hands on her hips, settled over him.

  Her breath left her on a moan. To have him fill her this way, to have a part of him become a part of her, was the sweetest of tortures.

  Then Dane turned the tables and rolled with her until his weight pressed her into the mattress and her thighs cradled his hips. They strained together, hips pumping, hearts racing, racing, racing. Each thrust was harder, faster, than the one before. Each small peak of pleasure higher and higher until an explosion of body and senses ripped through them, and bound them together more tightly than either thought possible.

  And afterward, they drifted off to sleep in each other’s arms.

  The phone rang at four in the morning.

  Dane woke the way he always did, immediately and fully. He shifted Stacey’s precious weight from where she slept draped across his chest. He hated to move her. It felt so damn good and right to hold her there.

  But the phone didn’t ring at four in the morning with good news.

  He couldn’t believe she was sleeping through the ringing, through his moving her. Then again, he thought with a secret smile as he sat up and reached for the phone, they had pretty much worn each other out before falling asleep.

  The call was from his dispatcher. The Colorado state police had just located not only the rig Stacey had described, but also approximately two hundred head of cattle, fifty of which bore the brand of the Flying Ace.

  “I’m en route to the office.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The sky was barely turning gray when Dane left the two-lane blacktop and turned the Blazer onto the gravel road that led to the Flying Ace.

  He was worried. Stacey had barely said two words to him since he woke her up and told her he had to go to work. She hadn’t complained. Well, except for having to wake up at all. She was definitely not a morning person, he thought with a slight smile. When he’d given her shoulder a gentle shake to wake her, she had grumbled and groused and snuggled deeper into the covers.

  He should have kissed her awake. Would have, if time hadn’t been pressing.

  He did manage to kiss her before they left the house, and it had been sweet. So damn sweet. And hot enough to have him wishing he could take her back to bed.

  But again, she hadn’t complained about his having to go to work. Neither had she complained when she realized he was taking her to stay with the Wilders. But since then she’d had next to nothing to say.

  “This isn’t the way I would have planned this morning,” he told her now as gravel rattled against the undercarriage of the Blazer.

  Out of the ache in the region of her heart, Stacey managed to summon up a smile for him. “It’s your job, Dane. I understand.”

  What brought on the layer of sadness that weighed upon her was the other thing she understood. He was close now to catching the rustlers. Her ankle was much better. Soon there would be no reasons left for her to stay in Wyatt County. Their time together might already be over, if this trip of his to Colorado went the way he hoped it would.

  One night. That’s all they’d had together. She’d known better than to get involved with him, but she hadn’t guessed, would never have guessed in a million years, that her heart had just been waiting for the right time to take the big tumble. When he’d awakened her and told her they had to go, she’d known.

  Too soon! her heart had cried. She’d wanted more time with him. More nights of sweet, hot loving. More days of work and conversation and laughter. More shared meals, more quiet drives. More arguments. That’s when she knew. She was in love with him. Deeply, irrevocably, heartbreakingly in love. And for all she knew, she might never see him again after this morning. He could wrap up the case and have Ace drive her to get her car.

  He probably wouldn’t do that, though, she thought. He was much too nice a man, too honorable to simply disappear without a word to a woman he’d just spent the night with. A woman he’d kissed at the front door of his house less than a hour ago as if there were no tomorrow.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone,” he said.

  “I know, Dane. It’s all right.”

  “But I should be back sometime tomorrow at the latest. Tonight if things go well.”

  Beneath an arched sign that proclaimed they were entering the Flying Ace ranch, they crossed over a cattle guard.

  He drove with his right arm extended, hand braced against the steering wheel. “Will you be here when I get back?”

  The question startled her. He thought she wouldn’t wait for him? That she would, what, have Ace take her to her car and go home to Cheyenne?

  And why shouldn’t he think that? She’d made it more than clear from the minute she met him that all she wanted to do was go home. When he left her at the ranch, it would be the first time they’d been separated for more than a few minutes, except for the afternoon she’d spent at the motel.

  “I’ll be here,” she told him.

  At her answer, Dane eased his grip on the steering wheel. She couldn’t know, because he hadn’t told her, how important it was to him that she be here when he got back. He couldn’t tell her, not in words, because he wasn’t sure he understood it himself. He only knew that if she left, she would take a big chunk of him with her. A chunk he wasn’t sure he could survive without.

  Whoa. How had this happened? How had this angel-haired trespasser with an alias come to mean so much to him so fast?

  All he knew was he thanked God for it, and for the arrangements to get her to safety before he let his guard down any further and got her hurt through his inattention to his job.

  He would leave her with Ace and go to Colorado to intervie
w the man they’d arrested for possession of stolen cattle. If the man could—and would—identify the men he’d gotten the cattle from, Dane would be able to get a warrant and arrest Wilson and James. With them under lock and key, Stacey would be safe. She would be even more safe for not being the only one who could place them with the stolen cattle.

  Then…then he and Stacey would talk. Figure out what they were going to do. He couldn’t simply let her walk out of his life.

  He glanced at her, and their gazes met. There were feelings in those blue eyes of hers, feelings for him. They made his chest swell and his throat ache. He reached across the console and took her hand in his.

  Stacey closed her eyes and entwined her fingers with Dane’s. She held on tight and swallowed.

  Neither spoke. They both looked straight ahead as the headquarters of the Flying Ace became visible in the distance. They looked straight ahead, and held on to each other.

  Still a few minutes shy of sunrise, they pulled up next to a Flying Ace pickup at the rear of the main ranch house. Ace himself was standing on the back porch waiting for them, his hands tucked into the pockets of his shearling coat, cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes.

  Dane gave Ace a wave, then turned to Stacey. “Ready?”

  Ready, she thought. Ready to let go of his hand and watch him drive off? How silly of her, to let such a thing bother her. He was only going to do his job, not sail the seven seas for a couple of years.

  Ready to let this big, warm family embrace her again? That was almost as scary as being separated from Dane. What did she know about families, except the dysfunctional kind?

  But Dane didn’t need her fears and insecurities. He needed a clear mind to concentrate on his job. So she dug deep and found a smile.

  “Ready,” she said.

  He got her duffle out of the back, then helped her out of the Blazer and up to the house. The air had a serious bite to it this morning, courtesy of a stiff wind sweeping down out of the north.

  Ace held the door open for them, then followed them into the mudroom, where they hung their coats and his hat on pegs on the wall.

  Stacey welcomed the warmth of the house, even though she’d been exposed to the cold outdoors for less than a minute. She also welcomed the smells from the kitchen just beyond the mudroom. Neither she nor Dane had eaten yet. When he’d called Ace to tell him they were coming, Ace had told them to save their appetites.

  “Your wife’s not cooking, is she?” Dane had asked with a laugh.

  Ace had apparently said no, his wife was not cooking. They would be safe.

  There must surely be a joke in there somewhere, but Stacey hadn’t asked and Dane hadn’t volunteered.

  Donna, their housekeeper who had come to the hospital the day before and taken the two youngest Wilders home with her, turned from tending a skillet full of bacon and greeted them.

  “You’re here,” she said. “Good. Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes.”

  Belinda, Ace’s wife, came in and showed Stacey to the guest room. Dane followed, carrying Stacey’s bag, then they rejoined Ace and Donna in the kitchen.

  Over a huge breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs and pancakes, Dane updated the others on what had happened in Colorado. He’d already told Ace that his missing cattle had been found, when he’d called the ranch earlier.

  “But don’t expect to get them back very soon,” Dane warned now. “They’re evidence. I’ll do what I can to get the guys in Colorado to hurry things along.”

  “I appreciate it,” Ace said.

  After breakfast, when Dane was getting ready to leave, Donna presented him with a thermos of hot coffee.

  “For the road,” she told him.

  “Thanks, Donna. And thanks for the breakfast. You get tired of working out here, I’ll hire you to cook for me.”

  “Hey, go find your own cook,” Ace protested.

  “Ah,” Belinda said with a grin. “Spoken like a man who doesn’t want his wife in charge of meals.”

  “She knows me so well,” Ace responded.

  Stacey eyed the two Wilders, more than halfway expecting a heated argument to break out. After all, the husband had just denigrated the wife’s cooking. Even if Belinda couldn’t cook, a comment like that, especially before outsiders, would have raised the roof in her house when she was growing up.

  Belinda caught Stacey’s wary look and laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said. “There are no fireworks in the making here. It’s not that I can’t cook, it’s that I resent being expected to do it simply because I’m lower on testosterone than he is. To get even, if I have to cook I generally let the boys plan the menu.”

  “The boys?” Stacey asked.

  “Our sons,” Belinda said. “Ages five, seven and nine.”

  Stacey blinked. “Oh.” Little boys planning the menu could be…interesting, she thought, fighting a laugh.

  Ace gave an exaggerated shudder. “The last time, we had SpaghettiOs and Gummi Bears.”

  “Gummi Bears. For dinner?” Stacey asked carefully.

  Ace shot his wife a narrow-eyed look. “Breakfast.”

  Belinda’s grin sharpened. “They don’t ask me to cook often.”

  Dane said his goodbyes and shook hands with Ace, then turned to go. Stacey followed on her crutches as he went to the mudroom. She watched, feeling a hollow emptiness in her middle as he put on his coat. She must have it bad, she thought, to feel so devastated at being separated from him for a day or two.

  With his coat on, he came and stood before her. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Take care,” she said. “Drive carefully.”

  He nodded. “I will.” After a long look, he turned to go. He got as far as the back door before he stopped and turned around. “To hell with this.” He crossed the three feet separating them in one stride, grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her.

  It was hard and hot and devastatingly thorough. When he released her and stepped back, all Stacey could do was stare.

  Then he was gone and she was left staring out the storm door at his taillights getting smaller and smaller as he drove away.

  When she finally turned back toward the kitchen, Ace, Belinda and Donna were standing side by side, watching her, with wide, matching grins.

  Her cheeks burned like fire.

  It was the longest day of Stacey’s life, but also one of the most enjoyable.

  Ace left the house for the barn a few minutes after Dane drove away. The kiss he planted on Belinda before he left was every bit as hot as the one Dane had given Stacey. Considering they’d been married for years, that said a lot to Stacey about the solidity of their marriage. And it reaffirmed her belief that she didn’t have to settle for a repeat of the examples she had to go by—her own disastrous union and the unarmed conflict her parents had called marriage. It really could work. Ace and Belinda, and the rest of the Wilder family, were proof of that.

  She tried to help with the kitchen cleanup, but with her ankle, she was less than agile, besides which, Belinda wouldn’t hear of it.

  “You’re our guest,” she said emphatically.

  Stacey pursed her lips. “Yesterday your husband said I was one of the family.”

  “And he meant it,” Belinda said. “That’s how we think of you. Hell’s bells, your great-great grandfather owned this land before any Wilder ever got here. That’s got to be worth something.”

  “Yeah,” Stacey said with a laugh. “It’s worth one ace in a poker hand.”

  “All right. Here.” Belinda tossed her a dish towel. “If you can stand on one foot you can dry the things that won’t fit in the dishwasher.”

  No sooner had they finished cleaning the kitchen than three miniature copies of Ace Wilder raced into the kitchen, all talking at once. They were, Stacey soon learned, Jason, Clay and Grant, ages nine, seven and five, respectively, and they were a handful. An adorable handful, but no wonder the Wilders had hired a housekeeper.

  Donna cooked another breakfast for t
he boys, then Belinda drove them to the bus stop out where the ranch road met the highway.

  Lisa, Jack’s wife, came over and brought little Jackie, and shortly afterward Laurie showed up with baby Katy in tow.

  Stacey’s friends at home were mostly young single women, and none of them were what she would consider close. Belinda, Lisa and Laurie were more than sisters-in-law, they were the closest of friends, and they included Donna with them, making no distinction because she was hired help. She was a friend as much as the others. The affection and respect among the four was a real eye-opener for Stacey. A longing for this type of friendship of her own began to grow inside her.

  They tried their best to get her to talk about Dane, but she refused. She was afraid if she started talking about him, they would know the true depths of her feelings, and she wasn’t ready to share them with anyone yet.

  The five of them prepared a huge hot lunch, and when the men came in to eat, Stacey met a few of the ranch hands.

  One of them, an old man who walked as if the horse was still between his legs, doffed his hat and bobbed his head. “You’d be the stranger’s granddaughter I’ve been hearing about.”

  He was Stoney Hamilton. “You’re the one who found my grandfather.”

  He bobbed his head again and shuffled his feet. “Yes ma’am. It was a long time ago, but I just want you to know how sorry I am. If there’d been anything I coulda done to save him, I woulda done it, and that’s for sure.”

  “I’m sure you would have,” she told him, squeezing his hand. “I’m just glad someone found him. Thank you, Mr. Hamilton.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek.

  He turned so red and flustered that the other men whistled and laughed.

  Throughout the meal, whenever anyone spoke of the stolen cattle and Dane’s name was mentioned, they spoke of him with respect and confidence. It was plain that they admired his abilities as a sheriff, and that they liked him as a man.

  Stacey wanted so badly to tell them that he was one of them. That they shared the same father. That he needed his family to be his family. But she’d given her word, so she kept silent.