Accidental Hero

by Lauren Nichols

  Maggie’s pulse stepped up its pace. Thirty-odd yards behind the house, Ross stood in the high grass, taking the noisy saw through a downed tree. His black truck was parked nearby, and he seemed to be alone. At least, she hoped he was. They needed to talk.

  Dismounting, she tethered the mare to the base of a sapling, then walked toward Ross.

  Why had she never before thought the word beautiful appropriate for describing a man? she wondered. Because from the tip of his Stetson, to his broad shoulders and back, to the scuffed toes on his cowboy boots, that’s what he was. Taut skin gleamed beneath a sheen of sweat, and sawdust clung to his lean midsection and body hair, speckled the faded jeans that hugged his seat. To his left, an uneven pile of pine boughs and branches scented the air with a clean, woodsy fragrance.

  She watched him raise the saw again, take another cut...

  The saw shrieked, bucked and died halfway through the trunk. Ross cursed a blue streak, then swore again when he tried to pull it out and the blade stayed pinched in the wood. Suddenly he whirled, seeming to sense her behind him.

  The rugged face beneath his hat could have been carved from granite, his facial muscles were so rigid. Rivulets of perspiration ran from the hair at his temples.

  “Hi,” Maggie murmured, halting uncertainly several yards away.

  Ross stared at her for a long moment. Then he said, “Hi,” and snatched up a hammer and long metal wedge from the ground beside him. Shoving the wedge into the cut, he beat it mercilessly, finally spreading the gap wide enough to retrieve the saw.

  All right, Maggie thought, he was angry about Monday—and he had a right to be. With her father watching to see if she would encourage his interest after promising to have nothing to do with him, she simply hadn’t known how to handle the situation. And she’d ended up handling it badly.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said quietly, when he put the saw aside and sat down on the thick trunk.

  “All of me, or only specific parts?”

  Maggie stood there, stunned. “How dare you speak to me like that.”

  “How dare you speak to me at all? You didn’t dare all the while your dad was in town. Guess he’s gone now, huh?”

  Sighing, she crossed the needle-strewn ground and sat beside him. He wasn’t going to make this easy. “Dad just left for the airport.” She tried to lighten the mood. “Thankfully, he had a rental car and didn’t have to depend on mine. Pete at the garage said the most humane thing would be to give it a decent burial and try to get on with my life.”

  To Maggie’s disappointment, Ross didn’t smile, didn’t comment—just let his gaze drift over her loose hair, blue plaid cotton shirt and jeans.

  “How have you been?” she asked, once again attempting to put things right.

  Pushing to his feet, he walked several yards to his truck to grab the chambray shirt hanging from the side mirror. Then he wiped it over his sweaty chest and shoulders, balled it up and tossed it into the back of the truck. “Fine. Couldn’t be better.”

  “Ross, please don’t be like this. If you’re angry because I wouldn’t have lunch with you—”

  “I’m not angry.” He carried the saw over and put it in the bed of the truck, too. Then he opened the cab, grabbed soap, a towel and a pair of gray sweatpants from the seat, and headed for the hot spring. “Anger’s a waste of energy.”

  Maggie cast about in frustration, then finally let her own anger out and charged after him. “How can you be so damn cold!”

  He kept walking. “How can you be such a liar?”

  She kept following. “I never lied to you.”

  “No? How about when you told me you didn’t care what anyone else thought of me? Changed your mind pretty quick when your father showed up.”

  “I didn’t change my mind.”

  “Bet he was scared spitless he might have a jailbird for a son-in-law someday. I hope you reassured him on that score.”

  Furious, Maggie followed him through the long grass to the familiar break in the chokecherries and cottonwoods. They stepped into the dirt-packed clearing where the old fire ring still awaited the next party and the warm, dammed-up creek bed beckoned. “Ross, will you turn around, please?”

  “Why?”

  “Just turn around! Stop walking and stop talking and listen to me! My father never said a word about your past. He was upset because we’d slept together.”

  He pivoted, his surprised expression lined and questioning. “You told him?”

  “No, he guessed. But I admitted it. He was at the screen door and saw us kissing goodbye on Saturday. He...he’s almost fanatical about sex outside of marriage.”

  After another assessing moment, Ross frowned, hung his hat on a tree branch, and dropped to the log beside the fire ring to tug off his boots.

  “That’s it?” she asked, dumbfounded. “You’re not going to say anything?”

  “What is there to say?” He glanced up briefly. “You might want to leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until we have a civil conversation.”

  “Suit yourself.” He pulled off his socks, stuffed them into his boots, then stood and unbuckled his belt.

  “Ross, I wanted to see you while he was here. I really did.”

  “That’s okay. I was too busy for a pity call anyway.”

  Maggie shot an irritated glance toward heaven. Why did she even care what this overgrown child thought?

  He unsnapped his waistband, pulled down his zipper and shucked off his jeans. When he was standing there in nothing but a pair of navy briefs, he sent her a direct look. “Are you leaving?”

  “No.”

  “Fine. Nothing you haven’t seen before anyway.” Grabbing his soap and towel, he turned away from her, walked to the creek bed, and finished stripping.

  Maggie strode after him. “He told me he’d leave if I didn’t stay away from you while he was here. Ross, you have to understand—he’s a clergyman.”

  “And a manipulator,” he added. Stepping from the bank into mid-thigh-deep water, he immersed himself in the warm eddy. Beyond the dammed-up “hot tub,” the shallow, rocky creek babbled its way downstream.

  Maggie sank cross-legged to the grassy bank beside the water. Sunlight shone down through the break in the trees as she watched him lather his chest and shoulders. “I don’t think he wanted to be manipulative,” she said quietly.

  “Maybe not. But you’re his sweet little girl and I’m the despoiler of virgins. Just ask anybody.”

  “I’ll say it again,” she replied evenly. “This isn’t about your reputation, it’s about mine.”

  “Which will be ruined if you continue to see me.”

  “I’m seeing you right now, aren’t I?”

  Ross laughed and soaped his underarms. “By God, you are. Right out here in front of the squirrels and the blue jays and the occasional wren. Everybody knows what blabbermouths they are.”

  Maggie felt the swift sting of tears in her eyes. “Okay,” she murmured, “that’s it for me. I don’t need this.” She started to get up. His hand was on her wrist in a heartbeat, his expression instantly remorseful.

  “Maggie, don’t go.”

  She pulled her hand away. “Why not?”

  “Because—” Then all the fight was out of him. “Because I’m the biggest jerk who ever lived, and...I’ve missed you, too.” When she remained frozen in place, he said quietly, “I really am sorry. You were caught in the middle, and I should have realized it.” He laid the soap on the bank. “What did you tell him about our being together?”

  Relaxing her tense muscles, Maggie sank back down on the scrub grass. She had told her father that she loved Ross Dalton, but she couldn’t share those words with Ross until he first said them to her. If he ever said them. “I tried to make him understand that we respect each other, and I told him I felt no guilt for making love with you. But in his heart, he believes it was wrong—so I did what he asked.” She met his sober eyes. “I’m sorry I hurt you. It was just ea
sier to hope you would understand than to keep arguing with a man who preaches morality for a living. He...he would have left.”

  Maggie watched his lips thin grimly, then he spoke. “You did the right thing. As I told you before, family’s important. It wouldn’t have been right to say goodbye with bad feelings between the two of you.” Several long moments passed while their fingers touched and twined and neither said a word. Finally he murmured, “So what now?”

  Maggie knew another long moment of uncertainty, then she responded. “You could ask me to wash your back.”

  Ross’s smile came back slowly. “I asked you to do that the last time we were here and you refused.”

  But the last time, she hadn’t been in love with him. Maggie pulled off her boots and socks, then stood, rid herself of her shirt, jeans and underwear, and stepped into the warm water.

  Sighing, Ross pulled her into his arms, water sloshing as Maggie’s legs came around him and their mouths claimed each other repeatedly—gratitude and anxiety lacing their kisses because the quarrel was over. Finally they stopped to breathe and cling to each other, male to female, hearts beating fast with the quick arousal that three days of abstinence and their very vulnerable location generated. It was still light.

  They were almost eye to eye, with Maggie seated on his lap. She lowered her head to kiss his throat and collarbone, and his water-slick skin tasted faintly soapy. “Make love to me,” she whispered, moving her mouth up to his ear, nudging his thick, sandy hair aside to find that sensitive spot behind it.

  Beneath the warm water, Ross’s hands were reacquainting themselves with the span of her hips, sliding up to her waist and rib cage. “Not here,” he murmured back.

  “Are you expecting someone?” she teased.

  “No, but my wallet’s back at the house and our protection’s in it.”

  She kissed his jaw, inhaled the citrusy smell of his soap, pressed against his arousal. “We’ll be okay. It’s a safe time.”

  “Uh-uh.” Easing her away from him, he met her eyes. To her surprise, he smiled, his crooked grin a mixture of humor and longing. “What do you call a man and woman who use the rhythm method of birth control?”

  Maggie laughed. “Jokes? Now?”

  “Come on, what do you call them?”

  “I have no idea,” she said through another laugh, loving him so very much. “What?”

  “Parents,” he sighed.

  Ross reached for the soap still lying on the bank. “For now, let’s just enjoy the water.” His eyes twinkled. “Turn around.”

  Soap was the most luxurious thing, Maggie thought, lying back against his chest as he lathered her with his wonderful hands and kept every sensation simmering just below flashpoint. He didn’t miss a curve or swell; he soaped and rinsed every finger and toe. Eventually, he turned her to face him again and kissed her so deeply that they shuddered, making them both pause to reevaluate the need for protection. Then at Maggie’s insistence, Ross gave up the soap and let her hands rove where they would. Minutes later, only the fiercest of determination kept them apart.

  “Okay, that’s it,” he said through a throaty chuckle, as they broke from another kiss. Snatching the soap away from her, he hurled it far into the surrounding woods. “We’re going back to the house. The blood’s pounding so hard in my temples that if we don’t do something pretty soon, I’m going to have a stroke.”

  Laughing, they splashed out of the water and onto the bank, shared his dry towel, then pulled on sweats, jeans and shirts—foregoing underwear—to half run, half stumble in each other’s arms back to the house. They made for the loft.

  The setting sun streamed through the window upstairs, turning the natural logs a warm, rosy shade. There was no bed, but Ross’s oversize sleeping bag and pillow lay on the floor. Stripping quickly, they dove into it. Maggie welcomed his mouth, his kiss, his tongue as they burrowed deep and twined in each other’s arms. They met in the soft folds of the sleeping bag, found a tempo that almost immediately started shudders of pleasure rippling through them. Kissing and tonguing, they climbed that great hill, lungs aching for air, minds floating aloft. Then there was nothing to do but hold tightly to each other while muscles contracted, colors flashed behind their closed eyelids, and they burst, gasping, into radiance.

  It was a full minute before either of them spoke. Then Ross made a low sound deep in his throat. “I can’t move.”

  Threading her fingers through his hair, Maggie held him close. “Good,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to. I think we should stay right here until tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”

  “That’d be great, except...”

  “Except what?”

  Rolling onto his back, he slid an arm under her neck, then gathered her close and kissed her forehead. “Except Lila’d eventually get around to missing her horse and come looking for you.” He paused, sighed. “And much as I hate to mention this...it’s getting late. I don’t want you riding home in the dark.”

  “You worry too much. I won’t cut through the field, I’ll take the road.”

  “I still don’t want you traveling in the dark.”

  “Okay,” she finally grumbled. “I’ll leave now. Thank heaven for Aunt Lila or I wouldn’t have any transportation at all. I have to find some time to buy a new car.”

  She tried to get up, but he pulled her back down.

  Grinning, she tussled in his arms. “Hey—didn’t you just remind me that I have to get that horse back home?”

  “Yep,” he said, returning her grin. Warm breath spilled over her skin as he rolled on top of her again and nuzzled her collarbone. “But it just occurred to me that I could follow you home in my truck. Headlights should brighten up the trip.”

  Maggie laughed softly, craning her neck to give him more throat to kiss. “My, my, you’re just full of good ideas, aren’t you, mister?”

  “I try.”

  Goose bumps prickled her skin as Ross’s lips inched lower. “I think you do a lot better than ‘try,’” she said in a shivery whisper.

  Chapter 12

  The ride back to the Lazy J was strange for Maggie—not exactly lonely, but a little wistful. At Ross’s insistence, he led the way on Lila’s mare with Maggie following in his truck. Headlights illuminated his strong back and shoulders, the shadowy outline of his hat. After the warmth they’d shared, it felt wrong to be so close without touching him.

  When the horse was stabled, they walked slowly up the dark driveway, passing shadowy outbuildings on their way to the Jacksons’ front porch. Overhead, stars twinkled and the moon moved inexorably toward fullness, growing rounder and brighter as the month wore on. A warm breeze rustled the big cottonwoods beside the house, and crickets chirrupped in the July darkness.

  “I don’t know how much time we’ll be able to spend together this week,” Ross said, keeping his tone low. He laced his fingers loosely through hers. “We’re doing the first cutting of hay, and that could take a couple of days. Then I have to find some time to go out to Roy Lang’s and loosen up for Saturday.”

  Maggie glanced up at him. “Lang’s? Saturday?”

  “Roy raises rodeo bulls. He lets me practice on a few of them.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Founder’s Day and the rodeo finals are this weekend. When we had lunch at Ruby’s yesterday, Trent mentioned—” Maggie stopped speaking, sorry she’d brought up his name.

  “Trent mentioned what?” Ross growled.

  “Never mind, it wasn’t important.”

  “Come on, what did he say?”

  “He asked if I’d be there for the bull riding. Then I think he read my dad’s expression and knew he disapproved of rodeo in general, so he changed the subject.”

  “Typical politician.”

  “Actually, I’m sure he was just being considerate. If you had been sitting there and knew the topic bothered my father, you would have changed the subject, too.”

  “Maybe. But I wasn’t sitting there, was I?”

  “No,”
she said, hiding the jealous twinge that she still felt whenever she thought about it. “You were at the lunch counter bumping knees with the redhead from the insurance agency.”

  Ross was silent for a moment, then he simply said, “Brenda’s a friend.”

  How well she knew. That was another thing Trent had mentioned—twice. Once yesterday, and before that on the day of the church roofing.

  Let it alone, that tiny voice in her mind warned. He’s not with her tonight, he’s with you. Don’t let it spoil the evening you’ve had.

  They had arrived at the porch steps. Linking his hands at the base of her spine, Ross brought their lower bodies snugly against each other. The familiar contact did much to drive thoughts of Brenda Larson from Maggie’s mind.

  But it didn’t erase the image of Ross being jerked around mercilessly by a bull at the last rodeo she’d attended.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why bull riding? Why such a dangerous event? You could be badly hurt. Or worse.”

  “There are safeguards. Everyone wears a vest—like the flak jackets football players wear to protect their ribs. And the clowns make sure the bulls are distracted if a rider’s on the ground and in trouble.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I know.” He paused, moonlight skimming his strong cheekbones, defining his angular jaw. “When I quit gambling, I needed something—” he smiled “—I was going to say ‘safer’ to get my blood up, but that’s probably the wrong word, and I can’t think of a better one. There’s nothing like trying to stay on a sixteen-hundred-pound bull for eight seconds to remind you that you’re alive.”

  “For the moment,” Maggie added soberly.

  “Now who’s the worrier? Anyway, when it looked like I might be decent at it, I thought about joining the professional bull-riding circuit. You know, ride for the big money. Kansas City, Albuquerque, Las Vegas...”

  A sudden fear gripped her heart. Would he leave eventually? Go on the road? “Do you still think about that?”