Montana Mavericks 04 - The Once and Future Wife

by Paige, Laurie

  “I guess you heard about Maris Wyler, didn’t you?” Lily Mae asked over fresh blackberry cobbler and ice cream.

  Tracy’s heart leapt to her throat. “Maris?” she said cautiously. She didn’t want to hear of an engagement. It was none of her business what Judd did in his private life, but…she didn’t want to hear about it.

  “She up and married some drifter that came through, a rodeo rider just like that good-for-nothing husband of hers who got himself killed. The man showed up claiming Ray had died owing him some money. Which was probably true.”

  “So…Maris is married to—to this other man?”

  The parrots swung wildly as Lily Mae nodded. “She just had a baby a few months ago—his name is Clay. I always thought Maris had a head on her shoulders, but you know what passion can do to a person.”

  Tracy felt a rush of heat to her face. She bent over her cobbler and scooped up the last bites. When she looked up, Lily Mae was studying her curiously.

  “She and Judd went out some for a year or more, but nothing ever came of it. Sometimes a person can’t get over that first love. Your father is that kind, I think.”

  A flash of mutual understanding passed between them. Tracy touched Lily Mae’s hand in sympathy. The widow, for all her bright clothes, jewelry and painted face, had more depth to her than appeared on the surface.

  During the rest of the meal, they chatted about the town and its various problems. It was dark and surprisingly late when Tracy refused a ride from Lily Mae and started home.

  As she passed the mayor’s house, she heard the familiar gravelly rumble of a deep voice. She ducked her head and tried to hurry. She didn’t want to see Judd and his date saying good-night to the mayor and his wife.

  “Tracy,” he called out before she could get more than three-fourths of the way past the mansion.

  She stopped and turned. Judd stood alone on the paved driveway next to the house. He was dressed in a suit and tie. Her heart knocked hard against her ribs.

  “Hello,” she managed to say in a nonchalant voice. She looked at him, then away.

  His face wore a frown when he came to her at the end of the sweeping drive. “What are you doing out after dark?”

  She bristled at his tone. “Is there a curfew you didn’t tell me about?”

  That brought him up short. “Of course not,” he said in a more reasonable manner. “It’s just…it’s after nine. Not many people wander around a small town this late.”

  She didn’t owe him an explanation, but she found herself giving one anyway. “I went to the café for dinner. Lily Mae Wheeler was there—”

  His muted groan brought a stop to the words. “Say no more. She talked your ear off for three hours.”

  “Well, two,” Tracy admitted.

  “Get in. I’ll drive you home.” He motioned to a low-slung sporty-looking car at the curb.

  “This is yours?”

  “Yeah.”

  His direct gaze challenged her to make something of it. They had never been able to afford a new car, much less a luxury vehicle such as this, during their marriage, but they had teased each other about the one they would buy “when our ship comes in.”

  The plans they had made…so many dreams and hopes…so many bright promises for the future…

  “Trace?” he said, shortening her name as he used to. He held the car door open for her.

  She got in, feeling very uncertain about the wisdom of this. She hadn’t felt this self-conscious the first time they’d made love, there on a grassy meadow with the June sun pouring over their entwined bodies.

  It took less than five minutes to get to her house. He sat in the car after turning off the engine. “You didn’t leave the porch light on.”

  “Uh, no. I didn’t expect to be gone so long. I mean, I was just out for a walk. I’d thought I might go to town for dinner, but I wasn’t sure.” She stopped the incoherent chatter.

  For some reason, it was more difficult to talk to him knowing he wasn’t involved with Maris.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t involved with someone else.

  She realized it must have been the mayor’s wife on the phone earlier that day, inviting him to dinner. Tracy wondered if there had been an extra woman at the table for him. She shied away from the thought. It was none of her business.

  “Look,” he said harshly, “I don’t know if we can work together if you’re going to act as if you suspect my motives every time I speak to you.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you?” he snapped. He swung his head around to glare at her in the dim glow cast by a streetlight on the corner. “Admit you didn’t want me to come to the house this morning. Admit you didn’t want to have lunch with me. Hell, you didn’t want to come into my office to review the case.”

  “Judd—”

  “Do you hate me that much?”

  She gasped, stunned by the question. “I—I don’t hate you at all.” She stumbled over her denial.

  He faced forward, staring out into the darkness behind the cottage. Trees were visible as a darker outline against the dark sky. A sliver of moon hung above their branches.

  When he said nothing more, she ventured, “All right. I admit I was reluctant to see you. I think having a few misgivings would be the natural order of things, considering our past. It was bound to be awkward…this first meeting. It brought back memories.”

  “Yes,” he said. “God, yes.”

  The silence, the dark, the close confinement of the sports car crept over her like a warm cape.

  “You’d better go in,” he said.

  She didn’t want to go into the house, not alone. She didn’t think she could bear the silence.

  Besides, she felt they might be on the verge of discovering something important about each other and about their time together before. Perhaps it was time she faced the past. “Would you like some coffee?” she heard herself ask.

  He frowned as if he were going to refuse, then nodded. When he climbed out, she did the same. He removed his jacket and tie and tossed them onto the seat. They went into the dark house.

  “You should leave some lights on when you go out,” he told her. “A lamp on an electronic timer is a good idea.”

  “I will.” She turned on lights as they made their way to the kitchen. Once there, she started a pot of coffee. She noticed her hands were trembling when she stripped off her Windbreaker.

  “Coffee cake?” she offered.

  “No, thanks. I had dessert at the mayor’s house. He’s already started his goodwill campaign to win reelection.” The irony in Judd’s tone made her smile.

  “Is anyone thinking of running against him?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?” He gave her a puzzled glance, his expression once more guarded.

  “You’d make a good mayor. You’re well known for your honesty. You get along with the city council.”

  He gave an amused snort. “I don’t like the kind of politicking it takes to get elected. Even as sheriff, I find I can’t always say exactly what I think.”

  “Yes, you’re a man of few words,” she said wryly.

  She considered this statement. Judd had been a quiet man, especially about his feelings. Perhaps she should have pushed him to talk to her. Perhaps she should have made him listen when she’d wanted to explain her feelings. Perhaps…But it was too late now. As the Cheyenne said, the path of life is a one-way road.

  She poured the coffee and took it to the table. He held her chair for her. He’d always been gallant. It was one of the things that had attracted her to him from the first. He was gentle with women and children, at ease with his fellow men.

  When his hand brushed her shoulder, she felt a leap in her pulse rate. It was scary, the things he could still make her feel, or was that part of once having been as close as earth and air?

  He sat opposite her. They drank the steaming coffee. He opene
d his shirt collar and rolled his sleeves back. She tried to think of something innocuous to discuss, but nothing came to mind. She wanted him, she realized.

  “Why did you come back?” he asked suddenly. He sounded angry. “Why now, after all this time?”

  She swallowed as emotion gathered in her throat. They’d met in June. Seventeen years…

  “Frank Many Horses asked for me,” she finally said. “He wanted someone who would understand tribal ways and respect their ancestors and their customs.”

  He studied her, as if wondering whether this was the truth, his dark gaze so penetrating it made her wonder at her decision to accept the case. Since she worked as a special agent, on a consulting basis only, she could have refused.

  “I saw your father last summer,” Judd mentioned. “He said you were buried in your work. He was worried about you.”

  This was news to her. “Why?” she asked in surprise.

  “He thought you didn’t have a life outside of your studies. He said you didn’t go out much.”

  “Oh.” She licked her lips. Her mouth seemed to have dried up. Little sensations spiraled off inside her. “Well, I have been busy. However, I do see friends occasionally.”

  “Friends?” Judd questioned. His gaze seemed sharper.

  “I do go out,” she said firmly. “Some.”

  The clock in the living room ticked off the seconds as he silently absorbed this information.

  Judd knew he should leave. It was dangerous to stay here in this quiet house with Tracy. She was the only female he’d ever met who could make him forget his good intentions. Hell, she made him forget the basic instincts of self-preservation.

  “Some,” he repeated, hot anger going through him at the thought of the men who might have touched her. He fought the rising hunger in himself, the conviction someplace inside him that this woman belonged to him.

  Not anymore, he reminded himself ruthlessly. Somehow that bright flaming passion had used itself up, like the fuel of the sun, burning itself out in a fury of intense heat.

  A man would be a fool to trust those feelings again. When he’d first seen her, some gut instinct had said she was his. He’d believed it then; he knew better now.

  He stood abruptly.

  She did, too.

  Her green eyes widened as she gazed into his. He knew what she saw. She’d always been able to read him like the front page of a newspaper when it came to passion. He cursed himself for wanting her, for thinking he needed her. He didn’t.

  He didn’t need anyone. Hadn’t the last seven years proven that—eight if he counted the final, devastating year of their marriage before it fell apart? “I’d better go.”

  She nodded.

  Neither of them moved.

  Her lips parted as if she would speak, but she didn’t.

  He moved toward her. “One day,” he murmured. “One day, and I already wonder what you would taste like, how you would react to my touch if we were to kiss.”

  “I—I…me, too.”

  Her confession threw him further off balance. He’d expected her to deny the attraction. He’d wanted her to. Now the admission lingered in the air between them like gunpowder that might explode at any moment.

  Slowly, he reached out. He almost wished she would disappear, the way a mirage would when a person tried to grab it.

  She didn’t vanish.

  Instead, with a sigh, she settled into his arms when he enclosed her in an embrace. Some part of him wondered what he was doing. An experiment, he decided. It was an experiment. But he had no idea what he was trying to prove.

  And then it didn’t matter. His lips met hers. She made a little choked sound in her throat. He held her tighter.

  The kiss burned through him, driving out everything but the need for her, fed by eight long years of starvation.

  She moved her head from side to side, as if trying to deny the kiss. He slipped his hands into her hair, which felt cool on the surface, but was warm, so warm, underneath. He held her face up to his. She stopped the restless movement and stared at him.

  “You mustn’t,” she whispered.

  “Don’t tell me no,” he growled. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear from her. He wanted acquiescence, acceptance…response.

  Tracy thought she might faint, she was so light-headed. When he framed her face with his long, sensuous fingers, she felt the tremor in them and was afraid for both of them.

  They were becoming enmeshed in something neither could control. She knew she should push him away, but her hands spread over his chest. The warmth of his skin under the white shirt radiated into her cold fingers.

  It seemed she’d been cold a long time.

  “No,” she said, but it was a whimper of need.

  His hands tugged at her T-shirt, pulling it from her jeans. Then they slipped under the material and caressed her back. His hands were large compared to her slenderness. They felt strong and capable on her flesh. And gentle…so gentle.

  She’d instinctively trusted him and his touch from the first moment they’d met. It was like that all over again.

  “Touch me,” he growled low in her ear, his mouth raining hot kisses all over her face.

  She obeyed mindlessly, reaching for the shirt buttons, opening them, pushing his shirt aside so she could reach the bare flesh underneath. She pressed her nose into the rough diamond of wiry hairs on his chest and inhaled deeply.

  Judd groaned helplessly. When she touched her lips to his chest, the caress was as hot as a branding iron. He wrapped his arms around her, lifting her from the floor, bringing her into searing contact from lips to chest to stomach to thighs.

  He placed her on the counter. She opened her legs, letting him come close, tacitly giving him permission to explore further, whether she knew it or not.

  His heart leapt like a jackhammer in his chest, and for the briefest second he wondered what he was doing. And then her tongue touched his nipple, causing flames to shoot through him, burning out all other thoughts.

  Tracy felt the spasm that went through Judd and experienced the wild thrill of triumph. He still went crazy in her arms. As she did in his.

  He pushed her T-shirt up and unfastened her bra. The cool night air hit her breasts, then was gone, shut out by his hands as he cupped her against his palms.

  His lips sought hers when she lifted her head. She saw his eyes close, felt his breath blow across her mouth, and then his mouth was on hers, demanding, exploring, seeking the passion that she’d thought was dead.

  She felt his hands move, pulling his shirt free, brushing it to either side, then the controlled weight of his chest settled against hers. Flesh against flesh. Hot and wonderful and wild.

  A throb started between her thighs as the hard length of his arousal pressed there. He moved against her, again…and again.

  Once during the embrace—after a minute or an aeon, she wasn’t sure which—he said her name against her mouth, and his lips trembled on hers before he slipped his tongue inside.

  The smooth thrust of it was a wanton replay of the many times their bodies had plunged together until she’d cried out in ecstasy.

  A moan tore its way out of her, from deep inside where she was vulnerable, where emptiness demanded fulfillment, where love dwelled, all alone and in darkness.

  She turned her head, her breath panting from her body. She was afraid to feel this passion, afraid of what feelings might come after….

  “Trace,” he said.

  There was no choice. She had to look at him.

  He shook his head, and she knew he, too, was fighting the needs that drove them. She looked away.

  He eased her bra into place, his hands shaking as badly as hers, and pulled her T-shirt down over her bare skin. Then he fastened his shirt.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  That surprised her. “It was both of us,” she insisted, taking her share of the blame.

  She put her hands on the counter, preparing to jump down. He caught her by the
waist and lifted her, setting her on her feet and making sure she was steady before he let her go.

  “You’re shaking,” he said. “So am I.”

  He gave a snort of laughter. The bitterness of it cut into her. She didn’t know what to say. Everything was confused.

  “We overreacted to the tension,” she finally offered by way of explanation. It was the best she could come up with.

  “Tension? That’s a new name for it.”

  She pressed her fingertips to her temples, where a headache now throbbed mercilessly. “Don’t,” she pleaded. “Let’s forget it happened. It’s late, and we were…our defenses were down.”

  He spun away from her. “Why the hell does it have to be you?” he demanded. He tucked his shirt into his dress slacks.

  The harshness had returned to his face, and he looked ready to destroy something. With a low curse, he reached out and twisted the faucet handle. The steady dripping stopped.

  The inane thought came to her that she probably wouldn’t be able to turn it back on.

  “I’ll fix it,” Judd said. He looked around the kitchen, but apparently didn’t see anything to vent his fury on. He rubbed a hand over his face and pressed his fingers against his eyes.

  Tracy realized how very tired and vulnerable he looked. She felt the same. Her throat was tight and achy now. She feared she might cry at any moment. She swallowed a couple of times. The feeling passed, but the terrible sorrow lingered inside her. She felt sorry for both of them.

  “I’m going now.” He dropped his hand from his eyes and studied her. “Will you be all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe we’ll solve the case soon, and you can leave.”

  She nodded, too weary to answer. They walked to the door.

  He paused before going out into the night. “I’m sorry,” he murmured again, so low the words might have been the sighing of the wind.

  Three

  J udd held the door for her the next morning when he came by. She climbed into the truck. He didn’t touch her. She was grateful for that. They were both subdued, careful of each other. It was just as well. They had to maintain a distance.