“Uh-huh. I suspected something like that had happened. Sorry you had to go through that, Amy.”
Didn’t he get it? Women often lost a breast, or a portion of it, when they had breast cancer. Hank knew enough about cancer to know that. Couldn’t he connect the dots?
She got into his face, so there would be no mistaking exactly what her problem was.
“I lost a breast,” she enunciated clearly.
A slow smile spread across his face. “Is that all that’s holding you back?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Impatience made her voice hard. “I have only one breast.”
He sobered. “That’s awful, Amy, and I feel bad that you had to go through that. But did you honestly think I would reject you if I knew the truth?”
“Yes,” she cried, exasperated beyond bearing.
“I won’t. I love you, Amy. I want us to be together.”
His declaration of love should have sent her to the moon, but she barely registered it.
“Don’t you get it?” she asked. “I have an ugly scar on my chest.”
“I wouldn’t turn away from you because of that.”
Her skepticism must have shown because he continued, “Over the years, I’ve seen what cancer can do to people and what they can live through. Plenty of people don’t just survive. They go on to lead productive, happy lives.” He shrugged. “Sure, some of the kids are still messed up. But lots of people are messed up. I feel bad that they couldn’t work their lives out, but I don’t pity them.”
He leaned toward her. “Is that why I’ve been getting mixed signals from you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes when you look at me—” He avoided her gaze.
“When I look at you…?”
“You look like you want to eat me or something.”
Amy choked on a bitter laugh. He was right. That was exactly how she sometimes felt—like Hank was a banquet on the other side of a wall of windows that she shouldn’t open because she couldn’t afford the cost of the meal.
“Then you turn away from me,” he said, “like the last thing you want to do is touch me. Hey, I’m not the best-looking guy around—”
“Stop right there. I love the way you look.”
“Then I guess we’re going to have to do something about what we feel for each other.”
He kissed her. She held her breath, savored the warmth of his lips. Oh, Hank. She closed her eyes, leaned into him and, with a moan, opened her mouth.
He tasted better than anything she’d ever known—like potent masculinity and gentle understanding and battle-hardened compassion.
She pulled away and swallowed hard. She wanted him. Somehow, she needed to work up the courage to expose herself to Hank and hope that he didn’t turn away in disgust.
She wanted him.
“Tonight?” he asked.
“Tonight,” she whispered.
HANK STOOD OUTSIDE Amy’s attic door and listened to the silence of the house. He was free to make love with Amy. Finally.
He smoothed the hair down on both sides of his head.
“Casanova,” he whispered.
A faint shuffling on the other side of the door let him know she really was in her room. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find that she’d bolted.
His knock jarred the silence. He opened the door and found her standing beside the window in the dark wearing something filmy and pale and pretty, lit from behind by the light of the moon. The fabric of her nightgown whispered a sigh on the mellow breeze from the open window. Her blond hair fell around her shoulders.
Oh, yeah. This was right. Indubitably. Great word. Hank smiled, suddenly more sure of what he was doing than he’d ever been of anything, calm and confident.
Pale moonlight outlined her figure. Amy’s hips flared from a narrow waist, into long, perfect legs. Her face in shadows, he couldn’t make out her expression. His gaze dropped. He couldn’t see what the darkness hid behind her gown.
“Can I turn on the light?” he asked, desperate to see her.
“No,” she whispered. “Please don’t.”
“All right.” Stepping into the room, he closed the door behind him, making sure the latch caught. It sounded loud.
“Hank, are you sure about this?”
He approached her and wrapped his arms around her. “More sure than I am of my own name.”
She clung to his shirt and shivered in the warm room. He knew she wasn’t cold.
“Come here.” He took her hand and led her to the bed.
“Lie down,” he said gently.
She lay on her back with her hands crossed below her breasts. Hank laughed.
“What?”
“You look like a virgin sacrifice.”
An exasperated laugh broke from her and she set her hands at her sides, but her movements lacked her usual grace.
“It will be all right, Amy.”
She looked away.
When he tugged the tails of his shirt out of his pants, her gaze flew back to him. No woman had ever looked at him as Amy did, with bottomless hunger. He unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it onto the floor. Her eyes widened. He removed his socks and lay down beside her wearing only his jeans, willing himself to take it slowly.
Pulling her against him, he ran his fingers through her hair. It felt like cool water flowing across his hand. He kissed her deeply, urging her tight lips apart.
She trembled when he reached for the ribbons that held her nightgown closed above her breasts. When the fabric parted, she pressed herself hard against him so he couldn’t see anything.
“This isn’t going to work,” he said.
He spotted a bottle of lotion on the bedside table, beside a small jade cat. “Let’s try something different. Roll over.”
She held the edges of her nightgown closed while she rolled onto her stomach.
“Put your hands at your sides.”
Now that he couldn’t possibly see her scar, she let go of her nightgown and rested her hands beside her hips.
Hank opened the bottle. The scent of jasmine assailed his senses.
He tugged her nightgown down past her shoulders and poured a few drops into his hand then rubbed his palms together. By the time the lotion touched Amy’s skin, it was warm.
With long, even strokes, he massaged her shoulders and upper back. He felt the moment she started to relax, when her body settled into the mattress and the tense muscles of her neck eased. In slow, circular motions, he soothed her, until she seemed to barely notice when he slid the nightgown to her waist.
She had a beautiful back, strong and lean but soft and full in all the right places. Using firm pressure, he massaged the rest of her resistance away.
The tension was his now. Touching Amy was a bittersweet bliss, her skin a torment. He wanted her this very minute.
His big hands spanned her narrow waist, then molded to the swell of her hips. His thumbs caressed the dimples above her cheeks. He remembered his first glimpse of her the day she came to the ranch. He remembered thinking of full, curvy things like his guitar and pears, but none of his imaginings prepared him for the reality of Amy Graves naked as he eased the nightgown from her hips and down her legs.
She lay before him in splendor. He caught his breath.
He remembered the word he whispered that first day.
Exquisite. It barely did her justice. For a man who loved words, they failed him now.
Pouring more lotion onto his trembling hands, he rested them on the cheeks of her perfect behind, his thumbs falling naturally to the deep cleft. Smoothing his palms down, his thumbs dipped into the sensitive crease at the top of her thighs. She gasped, arched a little then settled with a sigh.
By the time Hank finished caressing her legs and feet, his erection strained against the zipper of his jeans. Painfully.
Starting at the back of her knees, he kissed and licked the length of her to her nape, while she writhed beneath him.
&nbs
p; Turning her over, he found her watching him, some of the tension back. He leaned over and kissed her, pouring his love for her into her mouth. She relaxed, marginally. He knew she wouldn’t completely until he’d seen all of her. He pulled back and looked at her chest, pale in the moonlight.
He’d expected to feel compassion for her, but the anger took him by surprise—at God or nature, he wasn’t sure which. The scar across her chest ruined the symmetry of a perfect body. Her left breast, the most beautiful one he’d ever seen, firm and sloping along the top to a full, dark nipple, flared round above her slim ribs. She must have been breathtaking when she was whole.
He rested his hand on her belly. It quavered beneath his palm. Still nervous. He had to reassure her.
Bending from the waist, he rested his fists on either side of her and kissed her scar. Her quick inhalation forced her chest against him. Running her fingers into his hair, she held his head still. He kissed her again, then felt the dam of her resistance break and her emotions overflow. He held her while she cried, caressing her hair, kissing her temples, her cheeks, her chest. Suckling her perfect left breast.
Gasping, she arched her back off the bed.
It unleashed the woman in her. When she wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling all his weight onto her, she pressed against him, kissed his lips hungrily, asked for more.
It was all Hank could do to get himself out of his jeans and into a condom.
They came together as strong as any whirling force of nature, passionate and demanding. He’d wanted to be gentle with her their first time, but she wouldn’t allow it. She wanted him as much as he craved her. Reveling in her demands, he met every one, pushing her higher and higher until she stiffened, then shook, before he exploded with his own loving release.
HANK SIGHED, long and deeply. They were together now.
Amy ran her hands over his body, humming low in her throat, undulating her hips sinuously against him.
“Hank. Oh, Hank.”
They made love again, even better than the first time, taking it slowly. Hank savored every inch of Amy’s strong, fit body with his hands and his lips, as she savored him. She tasted of smoky florals, woodsy mosses, green leaves. He tasted and tasted and tasted more, skimming his lips over every smooth plane, swirling his tongue into every nook and cranny. Amy flowed down and over and through him, easing his loneliness, filling his aching emptiness.
“AMY?” he murmured in the early dawn, studying the interesting shadows the dim light made across the hills and valleys of her body.
“Hmm?” she purred like a satisfied cat.
“I never did finish that massage. I still have to do the front.”
He searched the tangled sheets for the bottle, but she stopped him by wrapping her fingers around his wrist.
“Slow down, there, cowboy. I have one stipulation.”
Hank raised one eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“You can only massage me, partner, if you use—” she drew out the tension while she ran one finger along his lips “—your mustache.”
He went still with the sudden, fierce ache in his loins, then felt a grin creep across his face.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said obediently before dipping his mustache to the underside of her upflung arm.
She writhed and giggled.
SHE KISSED HIM in the morning after he’d dressed to leave her room, as she stood naked and unashamed in the broad light of day. Her scar no longer mattered. She owed it all to the big, beautiful man in front of her.
“Hank,” she said, “are the women of Ordinary crazy?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“How have you managed to remain free and available all these years?”
“Aww. You know I’m as homely as a stump.”
“You are a beautiful man.”
“Amy, don’t say that. It isn’t true.”
Anger shot through her and she grabbed his face between her hands. “Yes, it is true. A man is worth so much more than his face. It is the whole man, your character and your boundless love, that makes you beautiful.”
He shrugged and looked unconvinced. “If you say so.”
She wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself full length against him, his denim shirt and jeans abrading her sex-sensitized skin. They hadn’t slept a wink all night, yet she wanted him back in her bed already. She felt his immediate response. Leaning her head back until her hair whispered over her shoulders the way Hank’s hands had last night, she laughed.
“Do you have any idea how sexy it is for a fully clothed man to hold a naked woman?” he asked.
“Do you have any idea how sexy your voice is?” she retorted. “Like fingernails raking sensuously over my skin.” She shivered and her nipple drew tight. “Don’t you think you feel beautiful to me?”
“If I feel half as good to you as you do to me, beautiful doesn’t begin to describe it.” He frowned. “I don’t have the right words.”
She held his face between her hands and stared into his eyes. “You don’t need words, Hank. Everything you do professes your love.” Kissing him softly, sweetly, she said, “I love you.”
He closed his eyes and rested his forehead on hers, breathing roughly. For a split second, she thought he might cry. The emotion suddenly felt overwhelming.
“Get out of here, cowboy, before we both end up back on that bed.”
His laugh filled the sunlight-drenched room. Grabbing her to him, he bent her back over his arm. Growling, he nuzzled her neck and chest scar, as if she could feel anything there.
Then he set her on the bed, and left the room, calling, “Eeeee-haaaaw,” as he ran down the stairs.
She fell back against her pillow, laughing. She was in love with an amazing man. Her missing breast had turned into a nonissue. All it had taken was a little Hank Shelter lovin’. All of that fear for nothing. She sighed. The day was going to be far too long. She could feel it already—the desire to get Hank back up here and repeat last night.
FOR A BLISSFUL two weeks, Amy floated on a cloud. By day, she organized a rodeo that would help to save the ranch. She was aiming for September or October. By night, she made love with Hank. All night, every night.
Hank had done the impossible. She felt like a woman again, free to love completely.
The only argument they’d had so far was when Hank refused to wear his chaps—and nothing else—to bed.
How could she be the same woman who’d been so depressed when she arrived at the ranch? So joyless? How could one man make such happiness possible? A superstition that had taken root in her personality the day her father died whispered that it couldn’t last.
“Shut up,” she whispered back, but she shivered.
Stepping out of the office, she bumped into Hank.
“Hi,” he said. “I was just coming to see you.”
She stole a kiss.
“You look tired,” he said.
“That makes two of us,” she replied, smiling because the making of that fatigue had been so much fun.
He reached toward her, laid his hand on her arm and said, “Amy, I—”
She never did find out what he had been about to say, because Hannah came out of the kitchen at that moment, holding the phone toward Hank, her expression grim. “It’s for you,” she said, then turned back into the kitchen, but not before Amy saw her pull a tissue out of her apron pocket and wipe her eyes.
Amy’s gut clenched.
“Hello,” Hank said into the receiver.
A moment later, when he whispered, “Cheryl,” Amy swung toward him. A chill skittered up her spine, raising the hairs on her neck. She started to shake her head, because she didn’t like how Hank sounded or the bleakness on his face.
He hung up the phone and reached for her, but she moved away from him.
“No.”
“Amy—”
“No,” she shouted. “Not Cheryl. She can’t have cancer again.”
“No. It’s not cancer.”
; “If it isn’t cancer, then what is it?” The hard ball of anger in her gut rose through her chest and up into her throat, spewing all over Hank. “What the hell is it, if it isn’t cancer? Is she sick?”
“No,” he said, still trying to touch her, stalking her one painful step at a time.
“Tell me what it is.” But Amy already knew. There was only one thing that made a person like Hank look so bad. She retreated but found herself butting against the back door with nowhere to go, with no choice but to face the truth.
“What—” Her mouth was too dry. She swallowed hard. “What was it?”
“She was hit by a car.” He reached for her again, and this time she let him wrap his arms around her.
“A car? She survived cancer to be hit by a car?”
She wouldn’t cry—wouldn’t allow herself to feel the pain—but she let the anger through loud and clear.
“Where was her mother?” She hit Hank on the chest with the palm of her hand. “Why wasn’t the woman taking care of her?” She hit him again. “Why was she allowed to have her? Why would Social Services let her have a child she was too stupid to keep off the road?” With every question, she pounded his chest until Hank grabbed her hands, circling her wrists with his long fingers in gentle bondage.
“Cry, Amy, if it will help.”
“No,” she screamed in his face. She couldn’t give in. That would make it all too real. Then she would have to admit that Cheryl was gone and that she would never see her again. Oh God. Cheryl was dead.
No-o-o-o-o.
“Why do you bother to save these kids if you send them out into the world to get hurt and to die? What use is your bloody ranch?”
“Amy—”
She tried to run, but Hank grabbed her arm.
“No.” She clawed at his fingers. “Let me go.”
“We can face this together, Amy.”
“No. I’m not strong like you.”
“Yes, you are.” The conviction in Hank’s voice cut her to ribbons. Didn’t he get it? She couldn’t stand to love and lose another person.
“You have more courage than you give yourself credit for.” He shook her gently. “You didn’t cave in when your father died. You pulled up your boot straps, survived and supported Gladys and yourself while you went to school.”
No Ordinary Cowboy Page 17
