She slipped out onto the veranda—and Jack was there before her.
He didn’t hear her—and for a moment she stayed silent.
The sensible thing would be to retreat. Now.
But she wasn’t being sensible. There was something about this night. There was something about this man.
A long time ago, sixteen years old, she’d broken her heart over a boy. She’d moped about the house for days and finally her mother had given her a solid talking-to.
‘Alexandra, this is your time for having fun,’ Fenella had scolded. ‘It’s time for making friends rather than committing for life. Don’t break your heart now. There’s no need. One day you’ll meet someone so special that there’ll be no chance he could ever leave you, or you him.’
‘Is that how you feel about Dad?’ Alex had whispered, and Fenella had smiled, a weird, tight smile that maybe Ellie’s letter had explained. But...
‘Of course I do, honey,’ Fenella had told her. ‘Your dad and I have something special and one day you’ll find it, too.’
Had she found it? Here, with this man who was trying so hard not to care? She couldn’t know, but what she did know was that she had five months to find out. Starting now?
He was staring out at the moon, staring at nothing, and her heart twisted. Somehow she knew this man. He was strong and silent and wise. He handled his horses with a skill and understanding that took her breath away. He was so good-looking he’d make any woman’s heart do backflips. He was hero material.
And yet it wasn’t the hero she was seeing now. She was seeing a boy, desperately caring for his sister, facing a load far too heavy for even an adult to carry alone. She was seeing a man who’d learned that caring hurt.
And today his heart had been tugged right out of the protective shield he’d built for himself, and he was exposed.
In more ways than one.
He’d fallen for Oliver. He’d put the child on a horse—no big deal—but he’d promised to teach him, promised to let him come whenever he wanted. No one seeing Oliver’s face could doubt what that promise meant.
It meant every night after school, every weekend, every holiday, Jack would have his personal shadow. Maybe she hadn’t seen it as clearly as Jack had, that there were no half-measures in caring.
Up until now he’d held himself back, but today he’d promised to care for Oliver and he’d opened himself to whatever it was that he was most afraid of.
Jack’s armour had been shattered.
Tomorrow he might have that armour back in place, she thought. Tomorrow he might have it figured that he could leave an Oliver-size hole but seal the rest.
So tonight...
She’d never had armour where this man was concerned. She’d fallen for him and she was still falling. He was her wonderful Jack, the guy who did things to her insides she couldn’t imagine anyone else doing.
And as she watched him in the darkness, she thought this could be the man she could love with all her heart. Her mother had promised her she’d meet someone like this, and maybe she had.
So do something.
She sat down beside him on the veranda steps and she took his hand in hers.
‘Jack, you were wonderful today,’ she said simply. And then she said, ‘We have five months together. There are no promises about the future, but for these five months, maybe they could be special for both of us. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if you let me hold you?’
CHAPTER TEN
THE world stilled.
Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. The words hung in the warm night air, waiting to explode.
All or nothing. She was an ‘all’ sort of girl, she thought ruefully. Her words got her into trouble but she thought it; why not say it?
‘Why?’ Jack asked at last, in a voice so ragged she wanted to gather him into her arms and hold him for ever.
‘Because we both could do with holding?’ she managed, trying to make it light but it didn’t come out light. Her words came out deadly serious, and she knew she had to say more.
‘Maybe...maybe it’s more than just holding,’ she said, weaving her fingers through his. Feeling the strength of them. ‘I’m not sure, but what I’m feeling... I’ve had boyfriends,’ she conceded. ‘They’ve been fun, they’ve been friends. I thought that was all there was, but now... My mom told me one day wham might happen, and now maybe it has. One look at you and wham.’
‘Wham?’ he said, sounding astonished, but wonderfully there was a trace of a twinkle returning.
‘Well, not completely at first look,’ she admitted. ‘First you scared me witless, standing in your great black waterproofs in the middle of a rainstorm, spouting all sorts of chauvinistic nonsense. But I saw straight through you. I thought, there and then, Here’s a man who I want to hold and I want to hold me right back. This is a man who...’
And then she broke off. She’d been trying to keep it light but it wasn’t working.
He was watching her intently, and suddenly there was room for nothing but the truth.
‘I don’t know,’ she said simply. ‘I don’t know what makes me feel the way I’m feeling about you. How to explain? It’s the way you look at me. It’s the way you cared for Sancha that first night, and made me a poached egg. It’s the way you showed me the platypus, and the way you left me to fix the veranda rail by myself and then didn’t go overboard because a mere female had done it. It’s the way you trusted me with your horses from the get-go—you respect my training. It’s because you make me smile and I know you hurt and I know it almost broke something inside you today when we thought Oliver was dead and I know...I know if these five months are all I can have of you, then I’ll take them and gladly. I’ll hold you for as long as you want me to hold you.’
Enough. She could lay her heart on her sleeve no further.
She let his hand drop.
She thought about being asked to pack her bags right here, right now. Employee throws herself at her boss...
He was gazing at her in the moonlight, for what seemed like for ever, searching her face as if searching for what he knew was truth.
She met his gaze as calmly as she could, but inside she was anything but calm.
What had she done? Thrown her heart at him, when today he’d been stretched to the limit already? Asked him for yet more commitment?
Asked him to care.
‘You feel that...’ he said gently, but he didn’t move
‘...about me?’
‘Stupid, isn’t it,’ she said, and suddenly she was choking back a sob. ‘I know you don’t want it. I know you don’t want anyone to care.’
‘I didn’t think I did,’ he said, and finally, finally, he took her hands. He tugged her to her feet and she came, rising so she was hard against him. Her breasts were against the hardness of his chest. ‘Alex, I can’t....’
‘Can’t what?’ she said, and pressed a little harder. Amazed at her own temerity. Amazed where her body was taking her. ‘From where I’m standing if feels as if you definitely can.’
He stilled. Thought about it. Didn’t pull away.
‘You know, if I didn’t care I’d take you to bed in a heartbeat,’ he said at last, and she felt his heart beating and thought there was nowhere she wanted to be but right here, right now.
‘I thought you didn’t care.’
‘That was the plan. One crazy vet later...’
‘Who’s crazy?’
‘You,’ he said softly into her hair. ‘Alex, today, with Oliver... I’m not sure how much you realise how big a deal this is for me. And now, you say you want me.’
‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘It’s too much pressure. I should just give you the odd hint. Start by smiling coyly at you over the breakfast table. Maybe carve our linked initials in the stable doors. Send you
a valentine—oh, wait, that’s done for this year so it’s another year away. Sorry, Jack, but I can’t wait. You have me now.’
‘So what am I supposed to do with you?’
She tugged back at that, looking up at him. Was he looking...trapped?
Trapped?
Whoa. A girl had some pride. Or a girl had to find some pride pretty fast.
She tugged right away and stood and glared at him. ‘You needn’t worry,’ she managed. ‘I’m no cavewoman with a club about to drag you off to my lair. I believe I may have said more than was wise. I believe I should retract. Should we go back to calling each other Mr Connor and Dr Patterson?’
She felt humiliated to her socks. She felt sick.
And Jack was still looking at her.
‘Alex?’
‘What?’ It was a huffy sort of reply. Where was her dignity? Back in the States. Maybe that’s where she had to go.
‘Alex, all I meant to say is that I don’t know how this can operate long-term,’ he said, and he reached out and took her hands again. ‘I made a vow about commitment and I meant it. I said I’d never care for anyone. It causes pain, it doesn’t help. I’ve never seen it work. But yeah, all sorts of things happened today, or maybe they happened a month ago when you first came here but I was too dumb to see it. It seems, like it or not, I do care. Like it or not, I want you.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I want you in every sense of the word.’
‘So...’ she said, feeling like she was almost scared to breathe. ‘Are you saying you’re liking me against your better judgement. Have you read Pride and Prejudice?’
‘At school but—’
‘But you never thought about it again because you think of it as chick fiction,’ she said cordially. ‘So you didn’t learn the Mr Darcy lesson. So here you are, liking me against your better judgement. But you need to think back. Think hard. Mr Darcy got his comeuppance and so might you.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, and she believed him. He looked bewildered.
‘Neither do dumb males everywhere,’ she retorted, and she knew she needed to explain. She must. Because even though a girl had some pride, she wanted this man more than anything else in the world. ‘Darcy took almost a whole book to realise he loved Elizabeth, and to know his judgement was just as dumb as his pride. So maybe we could do better. We could put them both aside right there, right now, and just...see. We could just take one woman and one man and put them together and see if we could make each other happy. I’m not saying it’ll work. I’m saying we could just...see.’
‘For five months.’ His face was expressionless.
‘That’s the contract.’
‘Alex...’
‘No promises,’ she said. ‘I know that. But I also know that right now, right at this moment, I want you more than life itself, and I want you to want me right back. And I know for you life is heavy and everything has to be weighed but sometimes I truly believe you should go where your instincts tell you. Heart instead of head. Leap before you look if you like, and consequences be damned. Not that there would be consequences. Except maybe making us very happy for the next five months. So I’m thinking—’
‘I’m thinking maybe you might want to stop thinking?’
And amazingly, wonderfully, he was laughing. Laughing!
‘Has anyone ever accused you of being able to sell ice to Eskimos?’ he demanded.
‘Totally different,’ she said, twinkling back at him. ‘From where I’m standing you haven’t seen ice for a very long time.’
He chuckled, a low delicious sound that sent the low simmer in her body into a fiery burn. She wanted...
And so, it seemed, did he. He caught her hands and held, not fiercely, not in the claim of a lover, but in the hold of someone who needed to make sure this was no mere whim.
‘Alex, you know I can’t make promises.’
‘I’m not asking for promises.’
‘And yet you’re offering to come to my bed.’
‘That’s a very old-fashioned phrase,’ she said. ‘And it sounds wanton.’ She hesitated. ‘You know I’m not wanton.’
‘I do know that,’ he said gravely. ‘And I know the gift you’re offering. Alex, a man would need to be a lot stronger than me to resist.’
‘I think,’ she said softly, almost as a whisper but much more sure, ‘that you need to do better than that. I’m not going to bed with a man against his better judgement, no matter how much I want him. I want you to want me. I want you to think we could have a wonderful, wonderful time if we managed to cut loose from our inhibitions for a few months. I’m thinking yes, I could give my heart, and in five months I may well cry all the way home but when I’m in my rocking chair in my nursing home I’ll be thinking, Wow, that was mind-blowing, and I’ll also be thinking that you’ll have a grin on your toothless, ancient face, as well.’
‘Toothless?’ he said faintly.
‘It’s sooner than you think. You’re really quite old.’
‘Hey!’
‘I say it as I see it,’ she said, twinkling again. ‘So I’m saying now, right now, I want you more than anything in the world and if you could just unzip that armour just a little bit...’
‘And unzip anything else that came along?’
‘That’s the one,’ she said approvingly. ‘If you want me.’
‘I do want you,’ he said, and the smile died and the grip on her hands tightened. ‘Right now, I want you so much it’s like there’s a black void that I don’t know how to fill. Alex, I know nothing about love. I don’t do caring. I’m on my own. But you... I just have to look at you and—’
‘Your toes curl?’ she said hopefully, and he laughed, a lovely, rich chuckle that sounded out over the valley. He tugged her to him and held, long, hard, folding her to his chest, simply holding. Resting his chin on her hair. Folding her to him.
And she didn’t say a word. She was fighting with every weapon she had, she thought, but would it be enough? Could this man want her?
‘It would be an honour and a privilege to take you to my bed,’ he said at last.
‘How about fun?’ she managed, striving to be light, and he put her away from him, holding her at arm’s length.
‘Fun, too,’ he said. ‘But a gift without price for all that. No, I’m not taking you against my better judgement but it is selfish.’
‘Two adults who want each other? What’s selfish about that?’
‘I guess...nothing at all.’ He looked down at her gravely in the night. ‘Alex Patterson,’ he said, soft and low and sure. ‘Would you do me the honour of coming to my bed?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ she whispered, and then she chuckled. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’
* * *
He woke and she was spooned into the curve of his body. His face was in her hair. Skin against skin, she was moulded to him, held in his arms.
His.
For he was under no illusions. She’d given herself to him last night, with all the joy and generosity and wonder she possessed. She’d taken him to her as he’d taken her. Their bodies had merged and merged again, and it had felt like...coming home.
There was a peace about him this morning he’d never known, never thought he could know.
Maybe it was this place, he thought. He’d had relationships before—of course he had—but they’d been part of the tight, controlled life he’d built for himself in the city. Here, on this farm that he loved...
Did he love this farm?
There was a thought to let drift with all the others on this magic morning.
He’d loathed this place by the time he’d left it, but it had called him back. The memories of a grandmother who’d truly loved them. The time Sophie was happy. The garden... The horses...
He’d thought hi
s mother’s betrayal, Sophie’s illness, his grandfather’s brutality, had killed it. He’d come here because he’d loved the horses and he’d wanted to be alone, but now...
Now he had a little boy who was depending on him to be his friend and his defender.
Now he had a woman held warm against his body and her heat, her joy, was shattering defences he didn’t know he had.
She stirred a little, moving slightly against him, and the feel of her skin on his was enough to take his breath away, to make him forget to think of anything but her, this woman, this warmth, this love.
Love?
He didn’t do—
No. He didn’t know what he didn’t do. For now she was in his arms, twisting to kiss him good-morning, lacing her arms around his neck, kissing him so deeply everything else slid away and there was only this moment, this woman, this joy.
* * *
He was hers.
She felt warm and sated and desired.
She felt loved.
For five months?
How could she feel like this about this man, how could she lie with him each night, and walk away after five months?
Don’t care, she told herself. Don’t think about it. Five months is an eternity. Five months is long enough for miracles to happen.
A miracle had happened. This big, brooding horse whisperer was making love to her with all the tenderness he knew how, with all the love she’d hoped for, with a passion she hadn’t known existed.
He was loving her and she was loving him back—and everything else could take care of itself.
Everything else had to take care of itself. All she could think about right now, all she could feel, all she could taste, all she could want, was Jack.
* * *
Nothing had changed—yet everything had.
Employer/employee? Not so much. Jack paid her wages. Jack supposedly gave the orders but somewhere during that one night of passion, the dynamics changed.
Taming The Brooding Cattleman Page 13
