She didn’t have to worry about that, though. Jake drew her onto his lap, taking her mouth in deep, hungry gulps, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. Their tongues tangled together, breath mingling, heartbeats racing in time as they each explored the other. Hands touched, caressed, pushed past the fabric denying them the feel of hot skin and found what they needed.
Strangling on the heavy beat of her own heart, Cass broke the kiss and gasped for breath as Jake’s mouth closed on first one nipple, then the other. She didn’t know where her shirt was. Didn’t remember taking it off. Didn’t care.
In seconds they were both naked and stretched out on the rug before the fire. Shadows danced and leaped on the walls. Outside, it was cold; inside, heat raged, claiming them, enveloping them both in a frantic sea of need and desire that was greater than anything else.
Touching, tasting, stroking, they moved together, skin sliding across skin, their tangled bodies creating more shadows on the walls. Jake swept one hand down to the blond curls at the center of her and when he stroked her hot, damp core, she arched off the floor, pushing into his hand.
“Jake, please,” she whispered and heard her voice break unsteadily as she fought for air. It had been a nearly year and a half since he’d touched her, and she was ready to shatter already. Her body was eager to rocket off into the satiated oblivion she remembered so well.
“We’ve been apart too long,” he whispered, dipping his head to kiss her, to run his tongue across her bottom lip. To nibble at her mouth while she whimpered and rocked her hips against him.
“We have. I can’t wait. Don’t want to wait.” Gray eyes locked on blue. “Be in me,” she said. “Be with me. Now, Jake.”
“Now,” he agreed and pushed his body into hers, sheathing himself so deeply that Cass gasped at the strength of his possession. She’d forgotten—or tried to forget—what it was like with Jake. How she lost herself in him. How her body became his. How he could make her want and feel so much more than she ever had before.
And now she had him inside her again and it was so right. So good. She wanted it to never end. She moved with him, and when he rolled over onto his back, she was astride him, taking him even deeper as she moved on him.
She watched the firelight play across his sculpted muscles. Watched her own hands stroke his skin and watched him squirm in response. He clenched his hands at her waist as he urged her into a faster pace. She rocked on him, throwing her head back, feeling like some wild warrior queen with him beneath her. And when her body trembled, letting her know the release was coming, she looked into his eyes, drowning in that deep, lake-blue.
She called his name as her body splintered and heard his hoarse shout moments later as he emptied himself into her.
When it was over, when her body was humming and replete, Cass slumped across Jake’s chest and never wanted to move again.
“So,” he whispered, waiting until she lifted her head to look at him. “Wrong time to ask, but you wouldn’t be on the pill, would you?”
Her forehead hit his chest as the implications of that question slapped her. “No. I’m not.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said and that got her attention.
“Doesn’t— What do you—how can it not matter?”
“We’ve got one kid. Would one more be so bad?”
Her heart hurt at the words. She’d always wanted a big family and in her mind, she could see her and Jake and the crowd of kids they would make living on this ranch. Plenty of room for children to run and they’d have horses and dogs and two parents who—didn’t love each other? No. The dream images popped like soap bubbles.
How was it possible for her body to feel so good and her heart and mind to be steeped in misery? Propping herself up on her forearms, she looked down at him and shook her head. “We don’t know what’s going to happen between us, Jake. We can’t go making another baby.”
“Too late to worry about that now,” he reminded her. “In fact, I hope you are pregnant.”
Surprised, she blurted, “You can’t be serious.”
“Damn straight I am.” He hooked one arm around her waist and rolled, pinning her beneath him. Looking down into her eyes, he said, “If you are, then this time I’ll see my child grow in you. I’ll be there when he’s born—not hear about it five months later.”
“And then what, Jake?” She shook her head slowly. “It wouldn’t solve anything. It would just be more...complicated.”
Jake’s gaze shifted slightly and she wanted desperately to know what he was thinking, feeling. But the wall was up again and she was on the wrong side.
“Maybe,” he said quietly, “but you’d have to stay here. With me. That, at least, would be settled.”
She stared up at him for what felt like forever before saying, “Instead of just asking me to stay, you’d prefer to trap me. Or order me.”
Scowling, he reminded her, “I asked you to marry me.”
“You told me to marry you. There’s a difference.”
“You’re trying to make this romantic. A love story,” he muttered, and idly stroked a lock of her hair back from her face. “It’s not, Cassie. It’s two people who work well together finding common ground.”
She caught his hand in hers and wished it was as easy to take hold of his heart. But looking into his eyes, she saw it was over. For her, it was done.
He wouldn’t be what she needed. Wouldn’t be the man he could be—just by opening his heart. So she couldn’t stay. Couldn’t risk him one day walking away as her father had done. Cass wouldn’t put herself through that kind of loss again, and Luke would never know what it felt like to have his father turn his back and leave him behind.
She had to say it now, while she had the nerve. While she could force the words from her throat because the threat to her heart was so real. So immediate. “When the road’s clear, I’m taking Luke and going back to Boston.”
Jake went absolutely still. She felt her words hit him like stones because she saw pain in his eyes before he drew that so familiar shutter over what he was feeling.
“I won’t let you go.”
“Jake, you can’t stop me.” She touched his face because she could, her fingers tracing the stubble on his jaw. “I want what you can’t give me. I love you, Jake.”
He closed his eyes as if that would shut down his hearing as well, and the pain of his reaction wound through her like barbed wire, tearing at her insides.
“I love you, but you won’t love me,” she said softly, willing those lake-blue eyes to open again. When they did, she said quietly, “So I can’t stay.”
“You love me,” he said, gaze pinning hers. “But you’ll still leave.”
“One-sided love isn’t going to work.” God, did her voice sound as shaky as she felt? Could he hear her heart breaking?
He didn’t see the truth. She wondered why, because it was all suddenly so clear to her.
“This, what we have? It’s not enough, Jake. Not for me. Not for Luke. Heck, not even for you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, arms tightening around her as if he could keep her there by sheer force of will. “I’ll make it enough.”
Ten
It would never be enough. Not with Cassie. Jake knew it. He just couldn’t make himself admit it. Not to himself. Not to her.
Knowing she loved him gave him a sense of rightness he hadn’t known in way too long. Knowing she was going to leave left him staring at a pool of darkness so complete he thought he would drown in it.
He knew what she wanted. What she needed. But he couldn’t bring himself to comply. Doing that would lay everything on the line. Risk the life he’d built for himself. The peace he’d finally found.
Though if he were to be honest, he’d have to acknowledge that the so-called “peace” hadn’t b
een the same since Cassie walked into his life.
He forked some hay into a stall, then moved along the line and did the same for the rest of the horses. It had always soothed him, these ordinary tasks. Usually, he let his mind wander while he did what needed doing as quickly as possible. Now though, he was taking his time because he was in no hurry to go back to the main house.
Yeah, he wanted to see Cassie. Hold her. Kiss her. But he didn’t want to see the questions in her eyes. Didn’t want to give her the chance to tell him again that she was leaving.
It had been three days since he’d watched her eyes as she told him she wouldn’t stay. Three days and three nights and every one of those nights, they’d been together. Him, trying to show her what they could have if she’d back down; her, saying goodbye every time she touched him. He felt her pulling back, distancing herself from him in exactly the same way he had distanced himself from her since the beginning.
And it was damned hard to take.
Leaning on the handle of the pitchfork, he shot a quick look down the center aisle toward the open stable doors. The wind had eased off and it hadn’t really snowed since yesterday. A couple more days like today and the roads would be clear and he’d have a hell of a time keeping her here. Where she and Luke belonged. He couldn’t lose them. Either of them.
“Where’s another damn blizzard when you need one?”
“Talking to yourself is never a good sign, son.”
Jake turned to watch his grandfather approach. The older man was bundled up in his heavy coat, with his hat pulled down tight.
“At least when I talk to myself,” Jake told him, forking more hay out for the horses, “I know I won’t get a fight for my troubles.”
“Won’t you?” Ben snickered. “Isn’t that what you’re doing out here? Having a fight with yourself?”
Jake shot the older man a scowl that would have sent any of his employees running for cover. “Why do you have to be so perceptive?”
“The gift of age,” Ben told him, leaning one arm on the top rail of a stall door. “Some things get harder, but you see everything around you a lot more clearly.”
“Is that right?” Jake didn’t want to have this conversation. All he wanted was some time to think. To plan. To find a way through the maze that lay stretched out in front of him.
“Like I can see plain as day that you’re in love with Cassie.”
Jake flinched, shook his head and tossed extra hay to one of the horses. “Nobody said anything about love.”
“And that’s a damn shame because if you can’t say it, like as not, you’ll lose it.”
Jake’s chest felt tight, as if there were an iron band squeezing his middle until his lungs could hardly draw air. Lose Cassie. He’d already lived without her once and didn’t want to go back to the dark emptiness that his life had become in her absence.
But love? Love was dangerous. Love meant opening yourself to pain. Hadn’t he had enough damn pain in his life already?
Ben stood there looking at him and Jake caught the sympathy in the older man’s gaze. Rolling his shoulders, he shrugged off the pity and told himself he didn’t want it. Didn’t need it. He was in charge of his life and he wouldn’t make apologies for the decisions he made. Even if those decisions cost him the one thing he wanted most.
“I had forty-nine years with your grandmother, Jake,” Ben was saying softly, “and I wouldn’t trade one moment of that time for all the treasure in the world.”
Jake sighed at the reminder. His grandparents had the love story that most people only dreamed of, he knew that. Which was one of the reasons his spectacular failure with Lisa had torn the ground out from under his feet. He had expected the same kind of marriage. But maybe, he thought, he shouldn’t have. He’d gone into that relationship too quickly, closing his eyes to who Lisa really was. Because he had wanted what his grandparents had shared. What his parents had found together before his father died.
When he didn’t get it, Jake admitted silently, he’d shut down, refusing to try again. But who the hell could blame him? Lisa had made everyone’s life a misery until she’d done him the supreme favor of leaving him. Hell, he’d take another tour of active duty in a war zone over going through that kind of marriage again.
Defensive, he asked, “Is there a point to this?”
“Yeah,” Ben told him with a shake of his head. “The point is, don’t be a jackass.”
Jake snorted in spite of the thoughts racing through his mind. “Can always count on you to call it like you see it.”
Ben sighed heavily and looked at him as if he were a huge disappointment, and Jake flinched under the uncomfortable feeling.
“You’re a stubborn one. Always have been.”
“Wonder where I got it?” Jake mused.
Snorting, Ben acknowledged, “Came by it naturally, that’s for damn sure. Anyway, I’m here to tell you your mother wants to talk to you. She’s on the phone in my place.”
Jake was in no mood to talk to his mother. Her threat to take his son from Cassie was too fresh in his mind. “I’m busy.”
“Jake...”
Stubborn, Jake reminded himself. His whole damn family was stubborn so it was pointless to try to avoid this call. His mother would only call back until she got hold of him. Best to just get it done now.
“Fine.” He had a few things to say to her anyway. Maybe he could figure out just what she had been up to by threatening Cassie. That kind of move wasn’t like his mother. She wasn’t mean or vicious, so why even pretend to be willing to take Luke? There was something his mother wasn’t telling him and now was as good a time as any to figure out what that was.
He leaned the pitchfork against the stable wall. “A man can’t have five minutes to his damn self around this place. It’s dogs and kids and women and grandfathers and now mothers.”
Ben chuckled as Jake stomped out of the barn, and hearing that muffled laughter didn’t improve Jake’s mood any. Love. He wasn’t in love. He was madly in lust, he knew that much for sure. But love wasn’t something he was looking for.
Jake headed toward Ben’s place and deliberately avoided looking at the main house. Once inside, Jake savored the warmth and tried to ignore the scent of pine that permeated the rooms. The power was back on and the Christmas tree lights shone brighter than ever, as if now that they were free of the generator, they were determined to light up at least this one small corner of the world.
His gaze drawn inevitably to the main house despite his efforts, he looked through the windows and pictured her inside. He knew that Cassie would have the lights she’d strung around the main room blazing. She was probably playing with Luke or maybe baking more Christmas cookies since he and the hands had eaten all of the batch she’d made the day before.
She’d made herself a part of this place. A part of him. And losing her was going to kill him.
Now in a particularly crappy mood, Jake snatched up the phone from beside his grandfather’s favorite chair. “What is it, Mom?”
“Well, hello to you too,” Elise Hunter said coolly. “And merry Christmas!”
His eyes rolled practically to the back of his head. The whole family knew he didn’t do Christmas, yet none of them stopped trying. “Right. Same to you. What’s up?”
“Do you think you might be able to speak to me without trying to bite my head off?”
Sighing, Jake yanked off his hat and scraped one hand through his hair. “A week ago, you threatened to take my son from his mother and now you’re surprised that I’m a little testy?”
She laughed and the sound was so familiar, it eased some of the heaviness he felt inside.
“Oh, Jake. I was never going to take Luke from Cassie.”
“What?” Frowning, he fixed his gaze blindly on his grandfather’s tree, spots of bright red and g
reen and blue blurring weirdly into a kaleidoscope of color. “What do you mean? You threatened Cassie. That’s why she ran to me in the first place.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What?”
Her laughter faded away and drowned in a sigh of frustration. In his mind, he could see her, sitting at the desk that had once been his father’s with a wide window and a view of Boston at her back.
“Jake, I would never take your son. I was only trying to force Cassie’s hand. Once her sister told me about Luke, was I supposed to just sit quietly and pretend I didn’t know?”
His frown deepened as his fist tightened around the phone.
“Would you rather I’d done nothing?” she prodded, her insistence demanding an answer. “Would you rather not know about Luke at all?”
“No,” he said abruptly. The thought of not knowing about Luke’s existence hit him hard. Not ever seeing the boy? Never feeling his solid weight in his arms? Not seeing that wide, drooly smile, hearing his crow of laughter?
If Cassie left, Jake wouldn’t see his son’s first steps. Wouldn’t hear his first word. Wouldn’t teach him to ride a horse or to make a snow fort. He wouldn’t show Luke the best fishing spots on the mountain and he wouldn’t be a part of his own son’s day-to-day life. He’d miss everything, big and small, and that knowledge tore at him, leaving Jake cringing from the pain.
That emptiness was back inside him again at the thought of not having Luke in his life. And Cassie. Without her, what the hell did he have? An empty house? A lonely ranch? He nearly choked on the thought of another fifty or so years of life spent without her laughter. Without her touch.
“Jake,” his mother said softly, “don’t let this chance with Cassie slip away.”
Is that what he was doing? Was he really going to allow her to leave and try to pretend it didn’t matter?
“I know, the hermit on the mountain doesn’t want to hear that he’s not invincible on his own.”
Jake reached out and flicked his finger against a candy cane on the tree, sending it swinging. “I’m not a hermit.”
The Cowboy's Pride and Joy Page 14
