Tempting as Sin

by Rosalind James

  He was so easy, Lily thought. So low-key charming, like he wasn’t even trying. Right now, he was driving them down the mountain and up McCallister Peak to the north, then pulling in at the trailhead beside a horse trailer, where a tall, lean figure in jeans, cowboy hat, and boots was leading a big bay gelding down a ramp.

  By the time Rafe came around the side of the dusty SUV, Lily was introducing herself. “I’m Lily,” she told the woman, who looked like she’d heard it all and believed less than half of it. “Who’s this big guy?” She gave him a pat on the neck, then a rub on his velvet nose, and he blew out a breath at her that made her laugh. “Am I wasting your time?” she asked him. “Keeping you from something important? Never mind. Soon be going.”

  “That’s Thunderbolt,” the woman said. “I’m Jo.” She shook hands, quick and dry, looked Lily over some more, and asked, “Do you know what you’re doing, or am I babysitting you, too?”

  Lily smiled. “I should be able to take care of myself, but if I look like I don’t, you can tell me so. It’s been a while.”

  Jo’s snort wasn’t too different from Thunderbolt’s, and Lily smiled again, said, “I miss horse people,” and almost got a smile in return. The horse beside Thunderbolt was another bay, a mare this time, with a gorgeous black mane and tail and a calm eye, and she asked, “Is that the one I’m riding? Isn’t she a beauty.”

  “Nope,” Jo said. “Cheyenne’s mine. You’re on Starlight. I’ll bring her down now, and you can say your hellos.”

  Lily reached into her pocket and asked, “Are carrots OK?”

  “Huh,” Jo said. “You came to make friends. Sure.” She eyed the small yellow vegetables with their feathery tops and said, “You didn’t get those in the store.”

  “Nope,” Lily said. “Organic garden.” She gave one to Rafe, who offered it to Thunderbolt on a flat palm and gamely didn’t snatch his fingers away afterwards, instead giving the horse a gingerly pat. As for Lily, she stepped across the hitching post and offered Cheyenne her own treat, which she took with better manners, a dainty whuffle of velvet lips that brought delight to Lily’s heart.

  After that, though, she forgot about Thunderbolt, Cheyenne, and Rafe, because Jo was leading another animal down the ramp, and she was gorgeous. Smallish, maybe fifteen hands, a pale brown shading into white, with a fawn-colored mane and tail. “Surely,” she said to Jo, “that’s an Appaloosa cross. Crossed with what?”

  “Arabian,” Jo said. “Best trail horse you could ever hope for. This is Starlight.” She handed the reins to Lily, then watched with a critical eye as Lily led the horse behind the other two and tied her reins to the post, then fed the beauty her own carrot. “And I’m guessing you’ll do. Good. Lets me focus on Motorcycle Boy.”

  Rafe sighed. His eyes, blue today, were nothing but amused as he said, “And the paying client cops the abuse again.”

  “You got too many people telling you you’re special,” Jo said. “You won’t listen if I do that. You just got to remember that it’s a horse, not a machine. Let him know what you want, and then go with him when he does it. Look ahead, anticipate, and let him know what you’ll be wanting next. Do it right, and he’ll finally listen, and you’ll see the difference. Saddles and pommel packs in the trailer. Let’s get a move on. It’s not going to get any cooler out here.”

  Rafe was an athlete. He always had been. He was also used to being impressive, and not just when his stand-in was onscreen.

  Watching Lily saddle her pretty little horse and swing herself up with absolute competence was a pure pleasure. Which could be why he got a bit distracted.

  He’d just got his own self up onto Thunderbolt, urged the horse on with his knees in the absolutely correct way, and was moving forward to join Lily and Jo at the trailhead when it happened.

  He felt the saddle slip first, and himself with it, and was swinging his leg over, ready to jump down and fix it. The saddle slipped some more, and he kicked his way out of the stirrup at the last possible moment before he hit the ground, rolled, and came to his feet again. Credit his physical training for not breaking an ankle, anyway.

  Thunderbolt, meanwhile, had taken four or five finicky steps, then considered bolting, shying at the feeling of the saddle hanging underneath him, which was nothing but his own bloody fault. Fortunately, Jo was already there, holding the reins, settling him down.

  Rafe didn’t bother to brush himself off. He stalked over, took the reins from Jo, told her, “Don’t say it,” unbuckled the gelding’s saddle, and started over again. This time, he kneed him in the belly before he cinched the girth tighter.

  “He’s got a trick,” Jo told Lily.

  “I see that,” she said. “Lazy horse’s attempt to get out of being ridden. It’s interesting that that’s the horse you gave Rafe to start.”

  “Thank you,” Rafe muttered, swinging onto Thunderbolt’s back once more. “Toughening me up, I reckon.”

  “Let’s go,” Jo said. “You said you wanted to ford a creek and ride uphill. This is your big chance. Try not to screw up any more than you can help. We’ll let Lily go first to show you how.”

  That was the minus. The plus was that Rafe got to watch Lily’s seat on a horse, which was exactly as good as Ezra had said. She was always a pleasure in jeans, and if his mind went straight to Reverse Cowgirl during the more tedious phases of plodding up a never-ending mountain with dust in his mouth and flies in his hair, you could hardly blame him. Everybody got to go to their Happy Place.

  “Pay attention,” Jo boomed from behind him. “What are you thinking about? Stop thinking it. Look at Lily’s back. That’s how you do it.”

  Lily turned and glanced back at him with a rueful smile, and he said, “Yeah, you’re right. That’s what I was thinking.” But he sat up straight. Eye on the prize. Discipline. He had it. He did it. When it started to hurt, he kept on doing it, and when it hurt more, he set his jaw and focused.

  “Better,” Jo said. “You sore?”

  “You could say that,” he said. “Never mind.”

  She grunted. “One thing I’ll say for you. You got guts.”

  Lily turned around again. “What do you have?”

  “Guts,” he informed her.

  “Oh,” she said. “What I have, personally, is bruised lady parts.” She smiled at him sweetly. “It’s been a while. Just wait until we go downhill. Ow.”

  They were heading around a corner, though, and Rafe caught his breath and forgot the flies and the dust and a pair of bollocks that felt like Dr. Ezra had been performing surgery on them.

  A sapphire lake ringed by evergreens lay spread out like a jewel beneath the granite-faced summits of the Rockies, their peaks crowned with white even in midsummer, under a pristine blue sky dotted with a few fluffy white clouds. The trail sloped gently downward all the way to the lake, and on the other side, an enormous emerald field was dotted with purple.

  It was a postcard, and it was so much more than that. The crispness in the air up here, the buzzing of insects, the scent of horse and pine, the sound of the wind, and more than anything, the scale of it. You couldn’t put that in a picture. You could only feel it in your heart.

  “Lupines,” Lily said on a breath, her voice full of wonder. “Oh, it’s beautiful.”

  “If you want to pick up the pace,” Jo called out from behind Rafe, “now would be the time.”

  Lily didn’t need any more invitation than that. She’d signaled to her mare already, and the horse was pulling away in a medium-fast trot, Lily’s gorgeous backside barely touching the saddle.

  “Posting to the trot,” Jo said. “That’s a pretty thing to watch.” Which was true. Rafe hauled on his discipline once more, gave Thunderbolt a nudge, and followed after, rising and falling with the horse with every bit of back and abdominal strength he had.

  Down the slope, more than twice as fast as they’d ridden up, and the trail was evening out, sweeping around the lake, its surface smoother now. Another message from Lily, and she was
cantering, moving like she was part of the horse.

  “Now’s the time,” Jo said again. “Come on, cowboy. Show us what you got.”

  Rafe took a long breath, let it out, and signaled with knees, rein, and body. And Thunderbolt ran.

  So different than in the paddock. The horse’s mane was flying, and so was the horse. He was trying to catch up to Starlight the same way Rafe wanted to catch up with Lily, like the gelding had never happened and a wilder, more ancient voice called his name. Picking up on his rider’s emotions, and putting them into action.

  At first, Rafe focused on getting it right. On holding on with his legs, on keeping his body moving with the horse’s. And then they swept around the bend, Lily was ahead of him, leaning forward in the saddle, urging her horse into a gallop, and he forgot to think about getting it right and just did it.

  The motion was him, and he was the motion. The ground flashing away below, the sound of beating hooves in his ears, the wind in his face. It was like a tumbler had clicked into place in a lock and the door had opened. He got it. He got it.

  Around the meadow, now, the hoofbeats softened by the grass, and the beauty that was Lily on a white horse ahead of him. The horse’s tawny tail and mane flying, and the sight of horse and rider taking the turns like they’d been born to do this. Once around, twice, and Lily was leaning back, bringing the mare out of the gallop, back to the trot again, and then to an amble, and Rafe followed along like it was natural. Because, finally, it was.

  Lily discovered that she was laughing out loud, patting her horse’s neck. She walked Starlight down to the lake and let her take a drink, and when Rafe came up beside her, she had to smile at him, too, didn’t she? “That was awesome,” she told him. “That was amazing. That was singing karaoke with you, dancing on the stage like I was floating, feeling your magic and trusting it to carry me, too. It was falling in love with life again, just like that night. Coming out of my cocoon, unfolding my wings, and flying.” She laughed again from pure delight. She should feel self-conscious, but she couldn’t. “Sharing so you know.”

  He took off his sunglasses and smiled back at her, his silver-blue eyes warm, the creases around them deepening. Every inch a man, and nothing cocky about him. A face full of joy, she thought, and then she said it, because how could she not?

  “Weeping may endure for a night,” she told him, “but joy cometh in the morning. That’s what they say, and every once in a while, it’s even true.”

  His face changed, and his body did, too. He came to attention. What he said, though, was, “You’re beautiful. You were beautiful that night, and you’re even more beautiful today. And I love watching you fly.”

  She leaned over in the saddle, and so did he, and when she touched her lips to his, there was that current between them again. Softer this time, and sweeter, too. A river, not a jagged streak of lightning. A connection, and a promise.

  Jo’s voice, behind them. “Felt good, did it? You figure out why I gave you Thunderbolt? Feel like you finally got it right?”

  Rafe turned in the saddle, put his sunglasses back on, and grinned at her. “Yeah,” he said. “Reckon that’s what everybody’s talking about.”

  “The horse,” she said, “or the girl?”

  “Oh,” he said, “I’d say both.”

  Which was all very wonderful until they were headed down the mountain again, and Rafe was trying not to let his beautiful moment be drowned out by hours of jarring designed to take his manhood straight out of the picture.

  “All right?” Lily asked after one particularly rocky stretch.

  “As long as I never want to father children,” he said through his teeth, “brilliant.”

  Her laugh floated back to him. “I’m not much better off, if it helps. Never mind. I have a plan.”

  “Unless it involves anesthesia,” he said, “I don’t care.” Sounded narky, but then, he was narky. Even the thought of sex wasn’t helping as much as it should have. He was fairly sure he’d never want to use his testicles again.

  That was one moment. The next, Lily’s horse was backing up with dancing steps, and Thunderbolt was whinnying. No mere dancing for him, though. He reared. And Rafe stayed on. This morning, he’d fallen off. Now, he stayed on.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Whoa, boy. Settle down.” Thunderbolt dropped to four legs again, and Rafe gave him a pat. The horse’s skin quivered, and Lily, ahead of him, said, a little shakiness in her own voice, “Well, that wasn’t there this morning.”

  A rotten log beside the track was ripped to pieces, but that wasn’t the main thing. That would be the mound of dung in the middle of the track that was more like a mountain. The steaming mound of dung. And then there were the paw prints in a muddy patch near that rotten log. A good fifteen inches across, with the claw marks gouging deep into the earth.

  “That’s a grizzly,” Jo said unnecessarily, since the horses had all received the message already and were dancing as much as the track and their riders would allow. “Could be close to a thousand pounds. Big sucker. We’ll pick up the pace a little.”

  “Should we do something?” Rafe asked. “How long are those claws, anyway?”

  “Four inches,” Jo said. “And nothing to do but let him know we’re here and let him keep out of our way. Shooting him would just make him mad. You could sing, though.”

  “Ah…” Rafe said. “I could sing? Reckon I could, but…to soothe the savage beast, or the nerves, or what?”

  “I’d feel better about this,” Lily said, “if you hadn’t just told me that you’d been attacked by a shark and bitten by a poisonous snake. Twice.”

  “Could be I’ve used up my bad luck,” Rafe said. Lily wasn’t sounding scared anymore, so that was good.

  “A shark and a snake,” Jo said. “That’s some double-barrelled luck, all right. Maybe we should make you ride in front.”

  Lily snorted, and Rafe said, “Good idea,” edged his horse around hers, and started off again.

  “Joke,” Jo called from the back. “You’re the client. I’ll ride in front.”

  “Nah,” Rafe said. “You can ride in back, and I’ll hope he sneaks up on us.” Do me a favor, he thought. He might not be the best rider in the world, but he made a fair-sized shield. “Also, if it’s singing that’s required, I’m the loudest.”

  “All right, then,” Jo said, surrendering to the inevitable. “No reason for him to go for us anyway, if he hears us ahead of time. I’d do the singing myself, but it could be worse than a bear attack. Only woman ever asked to shut up during the National Anthem at the rodeo.”

  Which was why Rafe spent the last hour of the ride singing with Lily and warding off bears. Waltzing Matilda first, and then the official anthem, boring except for the last line, Advance Australia Fair. He could get behind that. Down Under, naturally, with him tapping out the beat on the horn of his saddle, and Lily going to town on the chorus until Jo had no choice but to join in, bellowing it out in a way that seemed likely to spook the horses, if not the bear. After that, Rafe sang some Keith Urban, the next best Aussie thing he could manage. Keith wasn’t a bad bloke, and he did a nice line in I’m-here-for-you songs, the kind a wounded, wary woman might need to hear.

  At first, he slowed it down. He couldn’t see Lily, but he sang to her anyway. He sang that blue wasn’t her color, that she’d been made for something better. She didn’t say anything, but maybe she heard. He sang about how life went by too fast in the city, and it was time to slow down and live for now. When he finished that one, Lily said, “That’s it. That’s how I felt. How can you know that? It’s like you’re in my head.”

  “Nah,” he said. “Paying attention, that’s all. Anybody can do it. You do it all the time.”

  “Maybe,” she said, “but I’ve never seen a man do it. Except maybe Jace, with Paige.”

  “Well, there you go,” he said. “We’re special. Just like the two of you.”

  After that, he went for it. He sang that she’d been unlucky before, but s
he was here with him now. That those days were over, because this time, he’d do the fighting for her. After he’d finished, he sang it again, and this time, she sang her parts.

  By the time they got down the mountain and dismounted, the horses were calm again, and he’d forgotten how sore he was. There were some tears in Lily’s eyes, and when he stepped to her, put a gentle hand under her chin, lifted her face to his, and kissed her, a couple of them spilled over and made their way down her cheeks.

  “Stupid,” she said, laughing and brushing them away.

  “No,” he said. “Real.” And kissed her again.

  “No grizzlies,” Jo said. “Works for me. If you’re all done kissing, maybe you could help me take care of these horses.”

  He was dusty. He was hot. He was sore. And he was purely happy. Taking Thunderbolt’s saddle off his back like he’d been born doing it, brushing him down, patting his neck. In sync with his company, the place, the day, in a way he hadn’t been in a long time. Not since Australia.

  He felt at home.

  Could a heart, Lily wondered, actually melt? Could a person truly be as right for you as this, and could you know it as deep-down as this felt? This soon?

  Surely it was better to be cautious. Then why was caution the last thing she was feeling?

  She had time to ask herself, because it was a twenty-five-minute drive back to Sinful. She didn’t spend it asking, though. Rafe turned up the radio, and as soon as he got off the gravel road, he rolled the windows down. He stuck an elbow out the window, she did the same, and they sang along, Rafe’s hand beating on the window frame, like the rhythm and the music went all the way to his bones.

  She said, “How do you know all the words?” and he answered, “Come to Aussie again and turn on the car radio, and you’ll see how. We’re all about the country music. It’s not all Sydney. Sheep stations, cattle stations. If you think Montana’s big sky country, you’ve never been in the Outback.” He smiled at her, slow and sweet, and said, “Someday, I’ll show you.”