Montana Mavericks 04 - The Once and Future Wife

by Paige, Laurie

  Judd stood, too. He took the three steps needed to bring him face-to-face with her. “Trace,” he said and shook his head as if he, too, were in the grip of emotions too powerful to deny.

  “I feel so lonely,” she whispered.

  He frowned as if in pain, then nodded slowly. “I know. God, I know.” He reached out and touched her shoulder, then grasped her with both his hands. He drew her close.

  She put her face into the groove of his neck and clasped her hands around his waist. For a while she was content to share the warmth of their embrace, then it wasn’t enough.

  Slowly, carefully, as if coaxing a wild creature, she ran her hands along his sides. Turning her head ever so little, she pressed her lips to the strong column of his neck.

  She felt his breath catch. His hands tightened, then released her shoulders and slipped around her, pulling her against him.

  “Trace,” he said, a note of desperation in his voice.

  “Hold me,” she pleaded. “It’s been so long.”

  He moved then, taking a seat on the sofa and pulling her across his lap. Her sandals hit the floor. His head bent, then his lips touched hers.

  The kiss was so sweet it hurt.

  She whimpered as the pent-up love crashed against the barrier of restraint she’d built inside. It had held too many years for her surrender to be an easy one. The ready tears burned her eyes as she fought for control.

  “Oh, love, love,” she murmured. She hadn’t wanted to need to him like this, hadn’t meant to let herself love him again.

  The futility of fighting it swept over her. She couldn’t give up the moment, no matter what tomorrow might bring.

  “Make love to me.” She remembered his leg. “Can we? Your leg…does it hurt?”

  “Shh, no, it doesn’t hurt,” he soothed, his lips busy at her eyes, her temples, her ears while his hands strayed all over her.

  It felt so good to be touched and caressed. She loved the feel of him against her—big and strong and warm. With trembling hands, she unfastened his shirt.

  “Take your blouse off,” he requested in a low, husky tone that thrilled her with its urgency.

  She stripped out of the bright silk print. Judd reached behind her and unfastened her bra with one hand. He hooked a finger at the front and pulled it from her. It whispered over her arms and disappeared behind her as he tossed it on the floor.

  He brought her close, moving her from side to side so that her nipples brushed back and forth against the curly hairs on his chest. They beaded into hard, plump peaks at once.

  Moving her so that she reclined against the arm of the sofa, he bent his head until he could reach one breast. He took the taut nipple into his mouth and ran his tongue around it, again and again. He remembered all the ways to drive her wild.

  The sensuality that had always existed between them blossomed out of control. His hands touched her everywhere. When he unzipped her slacks, she twisted from side to side until he had them and the lacy underpants down her hips. They followed the rest of her clothing to the floor.

  Against her hip, she felt the hard length of his phallus pulse against the denim of his cutoffs.

  “The bedroom,” he murmured. “I want to enjoy all of you without falling off the sofa.”

  When she opened her eyes, he smiled…so beautifully, it broke her heart. “I’ve missed that.” She touched the corner of his mouth. “That slow, sexy smile…the way you look at a woman, as if she’s the only one in your world….”

  “You were. You were the only one,” he avowed.

  “But not anymore—”

  He cut her off with his lips. When the kiss ended, he lifted her to her feet and pushed himself up from the sofa. He grabbed his crutches, hobbled a few steps, then paused and waited for her.

  She stood there, rooted to the spot as love and fear collided inside her. She had no right to ask for anything from him—not his body, not his fidelity, not his love. But she wanted all of them.

  “Are you coming?” he asked, a wariness in his manner.

  He expected her to refuse, she realized. He thought she would turn from him as she’d done so long ago. He’d waited for her once, and she’d turned from him, lost in her own misery.

  She took a step forward…then another. She felt she was on an ice bridge that might collapse beneath her at any moment.

  When she came abreast of Judd, she walked past him and went to the master bedroom, feeling terribly exposed and vulnerable without her clothing. He fell into step behind her.

  In the bedroom, she stopped beside the bed. She cast Judd an uncertain glance.

  He bent and held the covers up with one hand, an invitation. She quickly climbed in. He propped the crutches against the wall.

  Tracy watched as his hands went to the fastening of his cutoffs. He glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the task. His fingers trembled slightly as he worked the zipper.

  Realizing he was as unsure of this moment as she was, she felt her own doubts ease up. They’d work it out, she decided. It would all work out.

  “Hurry,” she said. “I want you.”

  He pushed the cutoffs and briefs over his hips, then sat in the chair to work the clothing over the cast. When he rose and crossed the narrow space between the chair and bed, she laid her hand on his thigh, luxuriating in the feel of him.

  “The first time I saw you, I thought you were a savage, wild and beautiful and free.” She caressed his thigh, marveling at the hardness of the muscle beneath the taut skin.

  When she touched him intimately, stroking the hard length of his erection, he made a low sound in the back of his throat, the sound of a man pushed beyond his limits.

  With one mighty sweep, he threw the sheet aside. He pushed her down on the mattress and followed, dragging his injured leg up on the bed with a grunt of pain.

  “Be careful,” she said, worried that in their eagerness he might somehow injure it again.

  “It’s too late,” he muttered hoarsely. He made a space for himself between her thighs. Then he pushed forward, his flesh hot and rigid against her as he sought entry.

  She clasped his hips and drew him inside, pressing her hips upward to meet his downward thrust. Their bodies melded, sliding easily, snugly together. A perfect fit.

  He took his weight on his elbows, his solid length covering her while he rested there. A shudder went through him.

  “Don’t move.”

  “I can’t help it.” She kissed his chest and nuzzled her nose through the crisp hairs. She flicked her tongue against his nipples and felt his body leap within her in response.

  He tangled his fingers in her hair and angled her face up until her mouth was level with his. Then he kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed her.

  It was wild and beautiful and desperate, each thrust of his tongue a sensuous prelude to the pleasure that would come later.

  She clung to him helplessly, running her hands over his back and hips, along his thighs where the muscles were rigid with control. She vaguely realized she’d unleashed a tempest that wouldn’t be contained until the final bolt of lightning jolted between them.

  When he slipped a hand between them and stroked her lightly, an explosion of heat rippled through her. He rocked against her, then gasped and was still. She sensed he was fighting to hold back the climatic moment. There was no need.

  She cried out as a great surge of tension coiled in her, then unfurled with the acute quickness of a whiplash.

  Barriers fell by the wayside. Doubts were forgotten. There was only now and the pulsating intensity between them as he pounded into her, pushed over the edge by her climax.

  Before she could think, the tension coiled again, then burst outward so that her entire body seemed to convulse around the point where he thrust so intimately, so pleasurably against her.

  She clutched him desperately as the storm rode over her, blinding her, draining her. She heard him gasp, then his entire body went still. Inside, she felt the throbbing
release of his seed. He started moving again, slower this time, until he at last rested, spent and panting, on her.

  “So beautiful,” she murmured, overcome by the intensity of their passion. “Oh, Judd, it was so beautiful.” Tears slid down her temples into her hair.

  Eleven

  J udd thought beautiful didn’t begin to describe what had happened between them. Mind-shattering, ecstatic…and, yeah, beautiful—all those terms applied, and then some.

  He lingered, not wanting to break the connection between them, not wanting to think beyond the pure contentment of the moment.

  And therein lay danger.

  He’d been unable to deny the need between them, but he wouldn’t become entangled with her again. He wouldn’t let himself start thinking he had to have her in order to feel alive and whole, although that was the way he felt at the moment.

  He’d been through that wringer once. When she’d told him she wanted a divorce, it had been like having open-heart surgery without benefit of anesthesia.

  Her tears touched his cheek. He turned his head and sipped the salty moisture from her skin. Inside, something that had been hard and self-preserving went soft and mushy. He fought the need to comfort her.

  Awkward with the cumbersome cast, he slowly eased away from her. The summer heat seeped into the house, but he felt the cold when he withdrew from the moist warmth of her body. He lay on his back and sighed as weariness riffled into every muscle.

  He was aware of Tracy leaving the bed. He didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want to see her go. She was a weakness he couldn’t afford, he reminded himself. He had a job he liked in a town full of friends. He didn’t need anything else.

  A warm washcloth touched him in a sensitive place, causing him to jump in surprise. He heard her low murmur, reassuring him. Gently, she bathed him, then returned to the bathroom.

  He lay there, feeling more vulnerable than he had at the moment of climax. A longing for the things they’d lost stalked his defenses. He felt exposed, his heart laid out raw and quivering on the primitive altar of…lust, he told himself, repeating the word until it felt hard and cold and pure in his mind.

  Lust. That was all. Lust.

  When Tracy returned to bed, she curled against him. She put one smooth thigh between his the way she used to and laid an arm over his chest. “Does this make your leg hurt?”

  “No.”

  All pain had been burned away in the hot pounding of his blood through his body. He wiggled his toes, becoming aware of his injuries for the first time since he’d touched her. Caressing her hadn’t bothered his sore hands at all.

  Turning slightly, he eased an arm under her head and rested the other on her side. With his thumb, he began stroking the side of her breast. The slow buildup of heat started inside him. He wanted her again.

  Ha, when had he ever stopped?

  Even making love to another woman hadn’t erased the memory of Tracy’s response—He broke off the thought as another came to him. He hadn’t offered her any protection.

  Between them, it had never been necessary. Their clumsy eagerness had resulted in their son’s conception almost as soon as they’d met. During the years after that, there’d been no need for birth control. Tracy had never conceived again.

  He wondered if he should mention it. He owed it to her. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t use a condom,” he said.

  She raised her head. Her eyes held that sleepy contentment he remembered so well. They also held a question.

  “In case you were worried,” he explained. “I’m safe. I’ve never been…you’re the only woman I’ve ever had without taking the proper precautions.”

  He wasn’t going to tell her there had been exactly two women in seven years, each of short duration as a lover. With Maris, he hadn’t even gotten that far. He’d realized early on that they were destined to be only friends.

  “I’m safe, too,” Tracy said.

  For a second, the idea of her with someone else burned a hole in him, then he thrust it aside. He thought he heard sadness in her softly spoken words, but couldn’t figure it out.

  “Was there someone?” he asked.

  Tracy stiffened for a second, then sighed. Judd, once he was on to something, was more persistent than a hound after a rabbit.

  “There was a man who wanted to marry me. I thought I loved him, too. In a way. Except that I couldn’t…each time he touched me, I…froze.”

  That was when she’d gone to the psychologist, who’d told her it was time to get over her grief and on with her life. Tracy wondered what the woman would say now, if she talked about going to bed with Judd and about her wild response.

  Was this going forward with her life, or backward?

  “That didn’t seem to be a problem this time.” Judd stroked the side of her breast some more.

  She detected a hint of satisfaction in the words. She frowned at him, letting her irritation show. “I suppose you never had any such problem with the women you’ve dated.”

  The slight smile disappeared from his mouth. “No,” he said truthfully. “There weren’t many.”

  She seethed with jealousy, knowing she had no right to, but feeling it just the same.

  He touched the frown lines on her forehead. “Two. Very brief, very unsatisfactory.”

  A sigh of relief escaped her. She gave him a frank look. “I’m jealous, terribly jealous.” She paused. “I saw Maris touch you the day I arrived and I wanted to hit her.”

  “Maris is a good friend, nothing more. It just wasn’t there for us, for either of us. She met someone later.”

  “I know. Lily Mae told me she was married.” Tracy sat up in bed and combed her tangled hair with her fingers. “Speaking of Lily Mae, she gave us some soup. Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” he murmured, reaching over and clamping both hands around her waist. “For you.” He sat her astride his hips. “You’re going to have to do all the work this time.”

  She bent to him and planted a fierce kiss on his smiling mouth. “Gladly,” she whispered, feeling the fire start all over again. It was a long time before she prepared their dinner.

  After they ate, they sat on the sofa and watched TV or read. They ended up making love there, too. Neither of them could get enough of the other.

  Tracy held the doors for Judd. When he was settled at his desk, she went into the conference room she used as an office and opened the FBI report. She read it through.

  The expert at the forensic labs agreed with her analysis of the age of the bones. He’d also run a blood test. She looked at the type, then picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Jackson, I have some news,” she said when she reached the tribal attorney. “Kane sent me the report on the blood samples from the family who think the bones belong to their son. I got word on the bones from the FBI labs today. The chances of that being their long-lost boy are practically zilch. They have no common blood factors.”

  “They’ll be disappointed. It’s easier to accept death than to face the fact that the boy doesn’t want to see them.”

  They chatted a few more minutes, then hung up. Tracy sat there lost in thoughts of the weekend. Yesterday, she and Judd had spent the entire day together. Their lovemaking had taken place at several spontaneous moments throughout the day, much as it had during their early marriage before Thadd’s birth.

  She smiled and yawned. Jimmy had come over after church and played checkers with Judd. Fortunately, about the time Judd had grown restless at the youngster’s prolonged visit, Jimmy’s friend Mark had returned home and come looking for him.

  Tracy had sent the two boys off with a sack of cookies to tide them over until their dinner. Over the fence, she’d chatted with Jimmy’s mother about a camping trip the boys would be taking in a couple of weeks with their scout troop, then she’d gone back inside.

  Judd had been waiting impatiently for her. As soon as she was inside, he’d locked the front and back doors, closed the shutters and taken her to bed for
a nap. Well, they had slept. Eventually.

  Yawning again, she admitted she was happy. Beyond that, she wasn’t going to think at present.

  A knock at her door brought her to attention. “Come in.”

  Rafe Rawlings entered. “Hi. I have something for you.” He handed her a package.

  She opened it and found her knapsack and tools. Carefully, she and Rafe sifted through the broken glass of the sample bottles, but the evidence was gone. “Well, I’m pretty sure the short hairs belonged to our cowboy and the long one to…whoever.”

  “An Indian?” he asked. “A lot of them wear their hair like Jackson Hawk—long and tied in braids.”

  “No, it was probably a wo—” She stopped. That was evidence she meant only Judd and Jackson to have for now.

  “A woman?” Rafe jumped right on the tidbit like a crow on a june bug. “Can you tell that by its size or something?”

  “An expert doesn’t have to explain her methods,” Judd said from the open door. He limped inside, glad that he’d interrupted when he saw Tracy’s smile of gratitude. “Sara Lewis called. She says she has Native American bones at the museum. Jackson thought you might be interested.”

  “Definitely.” Tracy went to the cabinet. “I can compare the thigh bones to the one I have.”

  Judd observed the young policeman’s interest as Tracy explained the bone characteristics of the three major human groups. When he left, Judd muttered, “I wonder what the hell he’s up to?”

  “I think he’s looking for some clue to his parents,” she said in a pensive tone. “It must be terrible to be totally abandoned by your family.”

  “Yeah.” He eyed her as she prepared to leave. “Are you going to the museum?”

  “Um-hmm.”

  “Don’t go out to the site by yourself,” he requested. He paused, then added, “I’m asking for your word on that.”

  She picked up the plastic bag with the femur tucked inside and went to him. “I promise,” she murmured.

  The scent of her cologne drifted around them. He remembered her splashing some at various places on her body after her shower that morning. The hunger rose in him.