Return to Star Valley

by RaeAnne Thayne

  After her brother’s wedding in a month, the cute little rental Sarah lived in would be available. Maybe she could take over Sarah’s lease—or even make Bob Jimenez an offer to buy it.

  Suddenly the day seemed brighter, the air more fresh. She could do this. She wanted to be that fearless girl again.

  And Zack. Did she dare take a chance with him, too?

  With her heart pounding hard, she thought of the sweetness of his kiss that morning, the thick emotion in those green eyes. He hadn’t been lying when he said he still cared about her.

  Trying again with him would take a huge leap of faith. Could she trust him to catch her on the other side?

  * * *

  Zack sat on his favorite chair on the porch watching the stars come out one by one and trying like hell not to spend too much time watching the windows of the cabin next door for an occasional shadow to move past the closed curtains.

  What was the matter with him? He was turning into some kind of sick and twisted voyeur, hoping to catch even a glimpse of her. Where was his pride? His dignity?

  He didn’t have much of either left when it came to Cassidy Jane Harte.

  Going along on the cattle drive the day before had turned out to be a complete bust. He was no closer to regaining her trust today than he’d been a week ago when he first arrived at the ranch.

  He sighed into the darkness and thought of the stacks of messages Jean Martineau had handed him as soon as they rode back to the ranch. Claudia, his very competent assistant, was frantic to have him back in Denver, with a dozen projects needing his urgent attention. He couldn’t keep putting off his return to real life.

  He hated to admit defeat at anything, but he was beginning to think this was a battle he couldn’t win.

  The thought left an acid taste in his mouth. The future stretched out ahead of him, stark and lonely and colorless, but he didn’t know what else he could do to change it.

  If only he could find Melanie. But one of the messages from Claudia contained another worthless report from his P.I. So far it looked as if the woman had either changed her name and moved out of the country or had been abducted by aliens.

  He was betting on the aliens at this point.

  Either way, he figured he was damned. If he couldn’t find her, Cassie would have to take his story on blind faith. He couldn’t see that happening anytime soon.

  The only bright spot about the cattle drive had been the way she’d responded to his kiss that morning. He had seen awareness and some deeper emotion flicker in her eyes before she had shielded them with her lashes and surrendered to him.

  He shifted in the chair, remembering the sweetness of her mouth and the fluttering of her hands against his chest. She hadn’t been exactly bubbling over with enthusiasm during the kiss—hadn’t participated much at all, really—but she hadn’t poured hot coffee on him, either. That had to count for something, right?

  And a few times on the ride down the trail, their gazes had met and he thought he saw something else there besides anger and disdain. A different light. Softer, somehow.

  No. That was probably only wishful thinking on his part. He hadn’t seen her since they arrived back at the ranch several hours earlier, when she had treated him with the same cool reserve.

  Her porch light suddenly flickered off, leaving only a soft glow through the window. Damn. Now she was going to bed before he had a chance to come up with any kind of half-rational excuse to knock on her door in the middle of the night.

  He should do the same. He hadn’t slept much all week, and his muscles ached from two days in the saddle. Still, something kept him planted here, watching the stars and regretting the past.

  With a sigh he planted his hands on the armrest of the old rocker and prepared to rise, when he suddenly heard the squeak of hinges. An instant later his breath caught and held somewhere in the vicinity of his throat as she stepped out onto the porch.

  Though her porch light and his were both out, he could see her clearly from the soft light still on inside her cabin. Her hair was damp around the edges as if she had just stepped out of the tub, and she was wearing a loose, flowing white cotton robe that glowed iridescent in the moonlight.

  He opened his mouth to greet her, then paused for just a moment, struck by the stunning picture she made. Sensual and sweet at once. Wistful and wanton. As he watched her move to the porch railing, he couldn’t seem to remember how his voice worked. All he could do was stare, his throat dry, as she leaned out and gazed up at the vast glittering night sky, her attention fixed on the same stars he had watched appear.

  What was she wishing for? he wondered. He would give anything to know, to be the man she shared her secrets with.

  He couldn’t sit here like this, lurking in the corner and watching her in such a solitary moment. Remaining silent was an unconscionable invasion of her privacy.

  “Hey,” he finally called out, his voice sounding rough and ragged to his ears.

  She froze for an instant, then turned toward him with something like resignation in her eyes. “Zack. Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

  “Probably. The night was too gorgeous to ignore.” And so are you, he thought, and unfolded his length from the rocker to go to her. When he joined her at the railing, he was heartened considerably when she moved aside to make room for him.

  For a moment they were silent, both contemplating the mysteries of the heavens, then she sent him a sidelong look. “Why do we always keep meeting in darkness?” she murmured.

  He was going to say something flip, but stopped and gave her question a little deeper consideration. “Maybe it’s easier facing each other and ourselves at night than in the harsh glare of daylight.”

  She lifted one slim, dark eyebrow. “That’s very philosophical, Slater. And surprisingly insightful.”

  He shrugged. “I’m just chock-full of surprises, Cassidy Jane.”

  “Yes. I’m beginning to see that,” she murmured.

  Just what did she mean by that? he wondered. Before he could ask, she spoke again.

  “I heard quite an earful about you today from Amy Carlson on the ride down the mountain. She read all about you in the business section of one of the Denver papers, apparently.”

  “Oh, no.” His oath was low and heartfelt.

  Her soft laugh drifted over him like imported silk. “It was very educational, I must admit. I never would have pegged you for such a philanthropist.”

  “Have I just been insulted?” he asked, with an inward curse at the business reporter at the Post for being so damned good at his job and ferreting out that closely held secret.

  She laughed again. “I don’t know. Maybe. Sorry. You know, in all these years, I just never pictured you as a pillar of the community, giving bundles of money away like some modern-day Robin Hood.”

  He couldn’t control the sudden tension rippling through him. He hated talking about this. What the hell was the point of giving anonymous donations if they weren’t going to stay that way?

  So what if he contributed to a few causes he cared about? That didn’t make him any kind of hero. Just a man with astonishing good luck in a lot of ways that seemed hollow and unimportant unless he could share that luck.

  He blew out a breath, turning away the conversation before it became any more uncomfortable. “How did you picture me?”

  “Oh, plenty of ways. All of them very creative, you can be sure. I believe staked out naked on an anthill somewhere with buzzards circling around your head was always a personal favorite.”

  He heard the humor in her voice. But he also heard the thin thread of pain woven through it, like a pale, out-of-place color on a rich tapestry. Regret washed over him again, bitter guilt that he had been the cause of that pain.

  He shifted to face her, leaning a hip on the railing. A wild yearning to reach out and caress that face, to touch her soft skin, welled up inside him. He almost did it but checked himself at the last moment, afraid she would shy away from him like an unbroken
colt.

  “I never meant to hurt you, Cassie. I should have hightailed it out of Star Valley the minute things started to get serious between us. Before everything went so far.”

  She didn’t answer him, just watched him out of those solemn blue eyes that had always seen deep inside his soul.

  “I thought about leaving a hundred times but I couldn’t do it. For once in my godforsaken life, something right had happened to me. Something real and beautiful. I was too selfish to give that up—to give you up—even though I knew I would end up hurting you in the end.”

  “But you did give it up. You left and you never looked back.”

  “I left,” he allowed. “But I’ve spent every day of the last ten years looking back, Cassie. Knowing I made the biggest mistake of my life walking away from the only woman I have ever loved. And wondering how I could ever make it right with her again.”

  After he finished speaking, her eyes turned murky and dark. A second later one fat tear slipped out. Dismayed, he stared as it caught the moonlight, wanting to call back whatever he’d done to make it appear.

  His Cassie hardly ever cried. He couldn’t bear this, the heavy, unforgiving weight of knowing he had hurt her. Not just once, but a thousand times over the past ten years. Self-disgust filled his chest, his throat, even as he had to force himself not to reach for her.

  She didn’t want him here. He was only hurting her more every day by his stubbornness.

  “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Please. I’m sorry. I should never have come back. I’ll leave in the morning, I promise. I won’t bother you again.”

  She swiped at the tear and glared at him. “Don’t you dare walk away from me again, Zack Slater. Not when I was just trying to gather the courage to give you another chance.”

  He froze, afraid to believe what he thought he just heard her say. It took every ounce of energy within him to remember to breathe. “You mean that?”

  “I must. Why else would my legs be shaking?”

  A shocked joy exploded inside of him, fierce and bright and buoyant. He drank in her tousled beauty, wanting to burn every second of this into his brain.

  Her smile trembled just a little, like a small, tender wildflower in a mountain breeze. With a groan, he reached out and clasped her face in both hands and lowered his mouth to hers.

  He kissed her slowly, reverently, savoring every inch of her mouth. She kissed him back, this time with no hesitation or wariness. Her lips moved under, opened for him.

  Welcomed him home.

  He wanted to weep from the torrent of emotions gushing through him. This was where he belonged. Right here, with her arms around him and her mouth soft and giving beneath his.

  This was where he had always belonged.

  Entwining his hands in her sexy little cap of hair, he deepened the kiss. Her breathy sigh of response acted on his already inflamed body like a rush of hot wind on a grass fire.

  Her arms pulled him closer, then closer still, until he could feel her soft curves through the thin cotton of her robe. He folded her against him, marveling again at how perfectly they fit together.

  Gradually, through the haze of joy and desire engulfing him like coastal fog, he realized she was shivering against him, ever so subtly but enough to make him draw away. “Is that from the cold or from nerves?”

  She blinked at him. “What?”

  “Your legs aren’t the only thing shaking, sweetheart.” He looked closer and realized she had come outside with no shoes. The wooden porch slats must be freezing beneath her bare feet.

  “No wonder you’re trembling. Here, let’s get you inside.”

  He picked her up and opened her door. The soft glow inside came from a trio of slim candles she had left burning on the mantel.

  “You didn’t have to do that. I’m not helpless.”

  “I know. You’ve always been so strong and determined. It’s one of the things I love most about you.”

  Strong? He must have her mixed up with another woman. She had been anything but strong in those days and months after he had left, when she had kept herself from shattering apart only because Matt and poor Lucy needed her.

  In the intervening years she had cowered in her safe little life like a rabbit in a hole. And like that rabbit, while she might have felt free from the danger of heartache in that insular world, she had also been slowly starving to death.

  Depriving herself of the very things she needed to survive.

  Even knowing that—even with the vow she had made to herself that morning—she didn’t feel very strong right now. A low, constant fear hummed through her but she refused to give in to it.

  The simple truth was, she believed him. About Melanie. About the crime ring he stumbled onto. About how he thought he was doing the right thing for her by leaving.

  She would never agree with the choice he had made. But that morning as they had ridden through the mountains where she had fallen in love with him so long ago, she had finally come to understand it.

  Maybe he had to leave so that he could finally learn to see himself the way she always had—as a good, decent, honorable man who deserved whatever happiness life had in store for him.

  The candles’ glow burnished him in gold, catching in his hair and the gold flecks in his eyes. That beautiful, sculpted face she had loved for so long.

  She smiled suddenly. She could be stronger than fear.

  She would be.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him fiercely. He remained still for one instant then he groaned and dragged her against him, his mouth ardent and demanding as he pressed her down to the plump cushions of her couch.

  Eventually kissing wasn’t enough. It had been too long and her emotions were too raw, too close to the surface. She gasped when his hand shifted from the skin at her hip until he was barely touching the curve of her breast. Heat pooled in her stomach, in her thighs, and she arched against him.

  He groaned against her throat and trailed kisses along her jawline, then back to her waiting mouth while his fingers touched her.

  Oh, dear heavens, she had missed him. Missed this. The fire and the closeness and the sweet churn of her blood.

  Only with Zack had she ever felt so stunningly alive, and she wanted it to go on and on forever.

  His fingers danced over her nipple, and the shock of it was like leaping into an icy mountain lake without testing the waters first. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, and for a moment she was afraid she was in way over her head.

  “Zack, stop,” she gasped.

  The slow torture of his fingers stilled instantly. Wariness crept into his eyes.

  “I’m just not…I don’t think I’m ready for…for more. Not yet.”

  He gazed at her for a moment, his eyes glittering, then he drew in a ragged-sounding breath. “I can understand that. I’m sorry. I’ve just dreamed of touching you for so long.”

  He stepped back from the couch and raked a hand through his sun-streaked hair. When she saw his hand trembling slightly, she had to admit to a certain completely feminine sense of power.

  “Thank you for understanding,” she murmured. “We rushed into things before. I don’t want to make that mistake again.”

  “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” With a lopsided smile he reached out and grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Slow and easy. I can handle that.”

  He kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her tightly. At the feel of that hard, muscled body against her, she suddenly wasn’t so sure “slow and easy” would be enough.

  * * *

  The next week was as close to heaven as she could imagine.

  The pace of life in the Lost Creek kitchen didn’t slow at all just because she and Zack were busy rediscovering each other. She still put in long hours cooking for the ranch guests, ordering supplies and training Claire Dustin to take over for her.

  Zack was busy, too. Although he didn’t put it in so many words, she had a feeling his cont
inued absence from his business interests in Denver was causing problems, because a few days after that momentous kiss at her house, he moved his office to one of the extra rooms in the ranch, installing computers, phone lines and a crisp, efficient, somewhat snooty assistant named Claudia.

  While she devised menus and tested out recipes, his days were filled with conference calls as he ran his little empire in absentia.

  And it was an empire, she was coming to realize. It was one thing to know in the abstract that Zack had built his own very successful business from the ground up. It was quite another to watch him in action, with his sleeves rolled up and a pair of wire reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose as he talked on the phone about capital outlays and IPOs.

  She had to admit she found the contrast between the rough-edged cowboy she had known and this high-powered executive very sexy.

  Even with their respective workloads, they still tried to spend every available moment together. In the past week they had managed to squeeze time to go riding together several times, to take moonlit hikes into the mountains around the ranch, and the night before they had taken a drive through the massive splendor of Grand Teton National Park to have dinner at Jenny Lake Lodge inside the park.

  Although they spent long, drugging hours kissing and rediscovering each other, he always stopped before things went too far. While she was touched—and amazed—at his restraint, she was also growing increasingly frustrated.

  She was falling for him again, and hard. A part of her still quaked at the thought, but the rest of her couldn’t deny that she was happier than she had been since she was that fresh-faced eighteen-year-old girl head over heels in love.

  Just now they were on their way to the Independence Day parade in Salt River, set to begin in just under fifteen minutes.

  She had almost said no when he’d suggested it after breakfast that morning. Not because she didn’t want to go—the small-town parade was usually one of the highlights of her year—but she was fairly sure gossip about poor Cassidy Harte and her long-lost fiancé was still running rampant around town. She wasn’t sure if she had the fortitude to face the inevitable stares and whispers.