“You won’t.”
He kissed her again as his hands slid under her hips. She felt herself grow wet as he lifted her at an angle and slid inside her.
She gasped as he filled her.
“Are you okay?”
She smiled up at him. “Yes.” She ran her fingertips down the middle of his chest then lower, causing him to tense. “Better than okay.”
Natalie ceased to care if anyone was nearby or what daylight would bring. In this glorious moment, she was going to enjoy all the erotic sensations sparking from her brain to every nerve ending.
Garrett evidently felt the same because his restraint seemed to flee as he began to move quicker. She silently cursed her cast because she wanted to wrap her legs around him, allowing him to go even deeper.
As if he could read her desire, he shifted so that he filled her even more, increasing the pace with each stroke. The muscles inside her began to tense, and each of Garrett’s movements brought her closer to completion. By the sound of his ragged breaths beside her ear, he was in a similar state.
“Faster.” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but it was what she wanted, and Garrett complied until she stiffened and came apart. His release followed quickly on the heels of hers, and his moan of absolute pleasure made her smile and feel like the most powerful woman in the world.
After their breathing slowed, Garrett pulled her close and kissed her with such tenderness that it brought home the truth. She loved him. The realization nearly brought tears to her eyes, and part of her wondered if there was some way to make this work. But how could he ever hold her like this again knowing that her father had killed his mother? Even if he didn’t blame her, that horrible thought would always be there.
“You okay?” he asked. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
“I’m fine.” She caressed his strong jaw and felt a soul-deep yearning for a life with this man. It was on her lips to tell him that she loved him, but that wasn’t fair, not when she was lying to him by omission.
Tomorrow she would deal with the aftermath of what had just happened between them, but for now all she wanted was to be held in Garrett’s arms for as long as possible.
* * *
WHEN THEY RETURNED to the ranch, Garrett didn’t want to go inside. He feared that when night gave way to day, Natalie would pretend it hadn’t happened as she had after their first kiss. And as crazy as it sounded, he didn’t think he could live through that. No matter that they had spent only a few days together after two decades of not laying eyes on each other, he was having thoughts as if Natalie might be the one.
How that was going to work, he had no idea. All he knew was that he couldn’t go another moment without kissing her again. So as soon as he carried her up the front porch steps, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her until he was forced to come up to breathe.
“Be careful,” she said with a small laugh. “You’re going to scar poor Roscoe and Cletus.”
He glanced over his shoulder to where the dogs didn’t seem at all interested in the nearby humans. “I guarantee you that is not the first kiss they’ve seen on this porch.”
“That right?”
“Yeah, you seem to forget the newest family members spent a good bit of recovery time here, as well. I think we’re going to have to get a B and B license.”
“I don’t think what happened tonight is typically on the menu at a B and B.”
“That was a special deal.”
“Oh, how much is that going to cost me?”
“Another kiss.”
He lost track of the minutes as they stood on the porch kissing, but he caught a small wince on her face that told him she was ready to rest her leg. He nodded toward the door.
“Time for some sleep.”
She yawned. “I think you’re right.”
He held the door for her. “You go on. I’m going to check on the animals before I turn in.”
“Okay, good night.”
He stole one final kiss. “Good night. Sweet dreams.”
The way she smiled at him made him think that she was hoping her dreams would be of him.
After she disappeared into the house, he strode out to the fence that ran from beside the barn down the length of the driveway. He leaned on the fence and looked up at the blanket of stars above, thought about the meteor shower they’d watched together. If he saw a shooting star tonight, he knew exactly what he would wish for—a miracle that would keep Natalie Todd in his life.
* * *
NATALIE AWOKE SLOWLY, trying to hang on to the dream in which she and Garrett were wrapped around each other in an embrace that filled her with more love than she thought possible. As dreams were wont to do, however, the image faded as she woke to find the sun streaming in the window.
As if that bright light was illuminating every nook and cranny of her soul, the bliss of the dream was replaced by a heart in turmoil. Her evening with Garrett had been the best night of her life, and she knew she would hold it close forever. But now that the star-studded sky wasn’t winking down at them, filling her head with romantic thoughts, she knew she shouldn’t have let it go so far—at least not without telling him the truth first.
As she lay there staring at the ceiling, she realized that all the times she’d told herself it would be better for her to just leave and take her secret with her had been nothing more than fear talking. Fear that Chloe and her family would hate her. Fear that she wouldn’t be able to get through the telling without falling apart. Fear that the feelings that had started growing for Garrett the moment he stole that first cheese fry would be thrown back in her face.
And now she’d made love to him, fallen in love with the grown-up version of that boy who’d captured her heart so long ago. Telling him was going to be so much worse, but she couldn’t avoid it any longer. If it had been her mother killed by some unknown driver, she’d want to know the truth. Though she’d maintained the need to tell the entire family at once, things had changed. Because of what they’d shared and how she felt about him, she had to tell Garrett first.
The nausea that had accompanied her to Blue Falls returned, so she made her way to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. After fumbling her way through getting ready, she headed up the hallway. If Garrett was keeping to his typical schedule, he should be in the barn. She only hoped he was alone. Just thinking about Wayne, Owen or any of the other Brodys there as well made her heart ache. How had she ever thought she could sit across from all of them and tell them what her father had asked her to? The weight of all those stares at once, all the anger and sorrow, would be too much to bear.
When she reached the living room, instead of heading immediately to the kitchen door, she detoured to the pictures along the mantel. She lifted a family photo from about a year before Karen had died. All those smiles looking back at Natalie made what she was about to do even worse.
She placed the framed photograph back in its spot and took a deep, shaky breath. Knowing it wasn’t going to get any easier if she waited longer and not wanting to risk Garrett leaving before she could talk to him, she started her trek to the barn. Her hands shook so much that it was difficult to keep a firm grip on her crutches, and by the time she reached the entrance to the barn she felt as if she was going to be sick or pass out, or quite possibly both. She stopped and forced herself to take slow, even breaths.
When she finally stepped into the barn, it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. But then she saw Garrett and she wanted nothing more than to be held in his arms again. He caught sight of her and headed toward her.
“Good morning,” he said as he came close. The look in his eyes said he was going to kiss her. If she let him, she feared she’d lose her resolve to tell him the truth. So she took a couple of awkward steps away, causing Garrett to stop in his trac
ks and give her a confused look.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” She paused and glanced down at the ground before forcing herself to meet his gaze. “Actually, no. I need to tell you something.”
He sighed. “You regret last night.”
“No, I don’t. I had a wonderful time.” It had been so far beyond wonderful, but how could she convey that with mere words? “It’s just that...I should have told you something before anything happened between us.”
Garrett crossed his arms and took what appeared to be an unconscious step backward. “Okay.”
She began to shake so much that she made her way to a stack of hay bales and leaned back against them. “I didn’t just come to Blue Falls for old time’s sake. I made a promise to my dad the night he died that I’d come back here and...give your family a message.”
The lines on Garrett’s forehead deepened. “Your dad?”
She bit her lip and wished with all her heart there was an easier way to say this. “He...” Her voice broke, and she took a moment to swallow past a lump in her throat that felt as if it were the size of a softball. “He was the one who hit your mom’s car that night.”
For what felt like forever, Garrett just stared at her, as if he couldn’t have possibly heard her correctly.
“What night?”
He knew what she meant. She could see it in his eyes. But she knew in her heart that he was hoping what he was hearing wasn’t true, the same as she had the night her father had told her.
“He’d been drinking, and he hit her car. He said that he checked on her, but when he saw...” Again, her voice broke, and this time it was accompanied by tears welling in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Garrett, but he ran. And he dragged us all away from here in fear.”
Garrett stared at her hard with a look so piercing she’d swear she could feel the heat of it on her skin. “Your father was drunk when he hit my mom? And then he ran away?”
She nodded.
“The bastard ran away and left us with nothing but horrible questions.” His face transformed with the darkest look of hatred she’d ever seen. “You’ve known all this time and said nothing?”
“I fully intended to tell your family the night I arrived, but Owen had just gotten married. He, Chloe and their spouses were headed out on their honeymoon trip. It...it just didn’t feel right to bring such awful news into such a happy time for your family.”
“But today seemed like such a better choice? Is that why you slept with me last night, because you thought it would make things easier for you and your family?”
Natalie jerked as if he’d slapped her. “No, of course not.”
“You stayed under our roof, laughed with my dad, let us think you were just here for a friendly visit. God, I knew something wasn’t right. All those times when you seemed as if you were somewhere else, you were just thinking of some way to spill the beans. Hell, why even tell us when you could have gotten off scot-free?”
Her heart felt as if it’d taken several hard punches from a boxer. “Scot-free? I didn’t do anything other than not know how to tell you all the truth. Who the hell gets any training on how to tell the family of her childhood best friend that her drunk of a father killed the person who meant the most to them?”
“You had plenty of time to think about it.”
The tears in Natalie’s eyes spilled over, and she wiped them away with angry swipes. “Days during which I was mourning my father. He wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but he was my dad and I loved him.”
“You’re telling me that you didn’t know all these years, that you didn’t wonder why your dad uprooted you out of the blue and made you move to another state?”
“I was a kid, one who was used to things not going the way we wanted because my dad couldn’t beat the bottle.”
Fear welled up inside Natalie at the thought that Garrett and his family might go after her mother. Yes, her mom had kept a horrible secret for more than twenty years, but everything the woman had ever done was to help keep their family from falling apart.
Garrett stalked away several steps, rubbing his hand down over his face.
“I’m so—”
“Don’t. Just don’t. I don’t want to hear it.” He turned his head toward her. “You’ve said and done enough.”
Her heart broke as he strode from the barn, pulled himself up into the saddle and kicked his horse into a full gallop. She listened to the pounding hooves until her quivering chin and blurry eyes dissolved into uncontrollable sobs. She wanted to scream at her father until she lost her voice. Even though he was gone, that one decision to drive drunk was still hurting people, her included.
Maybe she was just as big a fool as he’d been, though in a different way. He’d let alcohol control him. For her, it was her loneliness and love for Garrett and his family that was calling the shots. But she felt as if she’d made just as many bad decisions as her father.
Garrett’s reaction to the truth kept playing over and over in her head, causing fresh waves of tears. It might make her a coward, but she couldn’t face going through it again with Chloe, Wayne or even Owen. Though she couldn’t drive, didn’t even have her car, she couldn’t stay on the ranch a minute longer. Though she was aware it was insane and that she was running away just as her father had, she got to her feet and made her way toward the road at the end of the driveway. If she had to walk all the way to Blue Falls on her crutches, she would. She was leaving the Brodys alone, as she should have done in the first place.
Chapter Twelve
Garrett wasn’t aware of how long he’d ridden when he finally pulled his horse to a stop because he couldn’t see past his tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, but Natalie’s revelation had dredged up all the gut-wrenching memories of his mother’s death and the hard years that had followed. And all that time the killer had been someone they knew.
God, he’d never wanted to punch something so much in his life. The horse sensed his mood and sidestepped nervously. Before his blind rage caused him to do something to hurt the animal, he dismounted and left the horse to graze while he stalked up the hill. When he reached the top, he stared out across the land that meant so much to him. The land his mother had loved every bit as much as his dad did. The same land he’d shown Natalie the day he’d first kissed her.
She’d used him, softened him up before spewing forth her awful truth. What a fool he’d been. How had he not seen that her supposed attraction for him was just an act? He hated himself that the loss of Natalie hurt as much as the words she’d spoken. Damn, he felt cursed.
He reached down and picked up a rock then drew back and threw it as far as he could, yelling as he did so. Then came another, and another. He threw and let his anger and pain echo across the pasture until his arm muscles burned and he collapsed onto his knees.
In that moment, he became the little boy he’d been all those years ago when his father had told him, Owen and Chloe that their mother was gone and she wasn’t coming back. He could still see the haunted look on his father’s face as if it had been only the night before and not a night two decades ago.
He tried to remember Natalie’s father, but only bits of memories surfaced. How could he have lived all those years knowing he’d killed someone? Did he even care? Or was he too drunk to remember until he was dying and trying to make things right before he met his judgment?
Garrett’s fingers dug into his palms, and he stared up at the sky so he wouldn’t cry anymore. He had to pull himself together and figure out how he was going to tell his father the truth. He hated Natalie for putting him in the position to have to tarnish these early days of his siblings’ marriages. And he couldn’t stand the idea of his dad reliving that loss. Part of him wished Natalie had stayed in Kansas along with her promise to be the bearer of her father’s too-late confession.
He ground his teeth as he thought that her father had once again taken the coward’s way out, confessing his crime only when he couldn’t be made to pay for it.
And Garrett wanted someone to pay for it.
Needing to be alone with the decisions he had to make, he took the opportunity to ride part of the fence line though he’d done so only a few days earlier. He lost track of time as his thoughts continued to swirl like a spring tornado. But when he considered that Natalie might talk to his dad, too, he turned his horse around and headed for home.
When he arrived at the house, it was to find that not only was his dad there but so were Owen and Linnea, Chloe and Wyatt. His heart started beating faster as he didn’t even take the time to return his horse to the barn, instead tying the reins to one of the porch supports at the front of the house. Fear that Natalie was dropping the bomb on the rest of his family propelled him up the steps and into the house.
The sound of laughter stopped him just inside the door. And the sight of the two sets of newlyweds, all smiles, hit him so hard that he wanted to turn around and hide in the barn for the foreseeable future. The truth was he was pretty sure he’d fallen in love with Natalie faster than he would have ever imagined possible. The idea that maybe it had all been a lie was eating him up inside.
“Hey, there you are,” Chloe said when she spotted him just outside the doorway to the kitchen. “You pull a lone-cowboy-on-the-range deal today?”
“Something like that.” He scanned the room but didn’t see Natalie. If she was hiding in the guest room and everyone out here seemed to be in good spirits, he still had the choice of whether or not to tell them about the circumstances surrounding his mom’s death.
“What’s wrong?”
He met his dad’s gaze and had his answer. The truth had been hidden long enough. “I need to tell you all something, and it’s not going to be easy to hear.” He let his eyes meet those of everyone around the table. “Natalie told me why she came back to Blue Falls.” He paused, took a deep breath then focused on his dad. “Her dad was the one who crashed into Mom that night. He was...he was the one who killed her.”
The Heart of a Cowboy Page 14
