“I know. But you’re finally here in my own room in my own house. Pleeeeze.”
Vick felt her heart squeeze at the thought that her cabin wasn’t “home” to her son. What could she expect when he only stayed with her for two nights each month? She knew Sullivan didn’t approve of what he called “coddling,” but what could it hurt? She glanced at the empty doorway, then grinned and said, “Scoot over and give me some room.”
Once she was lying down, she and Cody turned to face each other, nose to nose.
“This is nice,” Vick whispered.
“Yeah,” Cody agreed. “Can we do this every night from now on?”
Tears filled her eyes and blurred her vision. How could she tell her son this was only temporary, that in a month, or maybe less, this interlude would be over?
Cody put his palm against her cheek and said, “Don’t cry, Mommy.”
She blinked to stem the tears and ruffled his cornsilk-soft hair. “These are happy tears. I’m so glad to be here with you, in your own bed in your own room.”
“Sometimes Rusty sneaks in to sleep with me,” Cody confided. “When Daddy catches him, he makes him go back outside.”
That was exactly what had happened this evening. Rye had needed to drag the dog out from under the bed, not an easy feat when the terrier-mix mutt weighed a good eighty pounds. Cody had found Rusty sitting on the back porch the previous fall and insisted he needed rescuing. The dog spent its time chasing rats in the barn in winter, lolled on the covered back porch in summer, when he wasn’t chasing squirrels, and spent every other minute of his life being played with and petted by Cody.
Vick had invited Rusty to her cabin one weekend when Cody was visiting, and the dog had gifted her with a bloody, not-quite-dead, eight-inch-long pocket gopher he dropped on the kitchen floor. She’d decided Sullivan might have a point about keeping the dog outside.
Vick wondered if Cody’s desire to have her lie down with him tonight meant he needed more time than he was getting with her, or whether all children simply wanted as much interaction with their parents as they could get. Or maybe, as Sullivan had once suggested to her, “Kids will do anything to postpone actually going to sleep.”
She slid her arm around Cody’s waist and pulled him snug against her, his head beneath her chin, and heard him sigh. Cuddling her five-year-old like this had to be all right. It felt too good to be wrong.
Suddenly aware of a soft touch on her shoulder, Vick lifted her head and looked around groggily. It took her a moment to realize where she was.
I fell asleep in Cody’s bed. In Sullivan’s house.
She carefully disentangled herself from Cody’s embrace, so she wouldn’t wake him, then rose and shoved a nervous hand through her long blond curls as she turned to face Sullivan. When he opened his mouth to speak, she put a fingertip to her lips and pointed to the open door. As they left the room, she hit the switch that turned off the lamp beside Cody’s bed, and hurried down the hall toward the living room. A shiver careered down her spine as Sullivan followed in her footsteps like some stalking panther.
When she reached the flickering fireplace, she turned and confronted him. She wished he weren’t so good-looking. His rangy body was all muscle and sinew and bone. She was tall; he was taller by a good half foot. She’d always found his green eyes mesmerizing, which was why she so seldom met his gaze. She fisted her hands to keep from reaching out to shove away the chestnut curl that fell over his forehead.
Vick felt her nipples tighten into buds. She couldn’t believe this was happening.
You’re feeling a simple (ha!) physiological response to an attractive person of the opposite sex. Don’t make too much of it. Sullivan is not Prince Charming. Far from it. And he wants nothing, whatsoever, to do with you!
Vick knew there was no way Sullivan could want her, because she would never have been able to feel desire for anyone whose character she despised, as Sullivan did hers. She got the distinct feeling he would rather she were anywhere else. Too bad. He was stuck with her until Darcie came home. Nevertheless, she felt the need to explain why she’d fallen asleep in Cody’s bed. “I know you don’t like it when I—”
“Have I said anything that sounded like a complaint?”
“But you—”
“I realize you deal differently with Cody than I do. That doesn’t mean my way is right and yours is wrong. It just means they’re different.”
“Oh.” She shot him a crooked smile. “I guess I was figuring your house, your rules.”
“Cody has grown up with two parents doing things differently. He’s managing fine.”
“But now that we’re both in the same house—”
He interrupted her again. “You and I will have to work things out so Cody sees us as a united front. The main thing is not to let him get an answer from me he doesn’t like and try to get a different answer from you.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“I’m a reasonable sort of guy.”
She shook her head and gave a rueful laugh. “Is that what you think?”
“About most things.”
Not about her visiting rights with her son. Sullivan had been stubborn about keeping her out of Cody’s life. Over the past year, she’d gone to as many of Cody’s activities as she could manage, but being a part of her son’s everyday life for this one evening had confirmed her need to share more time with Cody than her agreement with Sullivan allowed. She was finally ready to fight him, in court if necessary, to get it.
Vick settled into a padded rocker in front of the fire where she thought Darcie probably sat most nights, while Sullivan settled into an overstuffed leather chair next to it that had likely belonged to his dad.
“I have something I’d like to discuss with you,” he said as he shifted to get more comfortable.
That couldn’t be good. Vick shot Sullivan an uneasy look but said nothing.
“I think we ought to take advantage of the time you’ll be living here to get to know each other better.”
Vick frowned. “You’ve made it clear I’m not the sort of person you want to know any better.”
“Maybe I’ve changed my mind.” He lowered his gaze, making it difficult to perceive any glimmer of what he was thinking.
Vick waited anxiously for what was coming next, distrustful of his supposed change of heart.
When his green eyes suddenly focused on her again, Vick felt as though she’d been zapped with a thousand volts of electricity. She hitched in a breath. She couldn’t be seeing in his half-lidded eyes what she thought she was seeing.
“I was drawn to you from the moment I spied you in that bar in Jackson,” he said in a voice that made her quiver with anticipation.
She lowered her gaze to her hands, which she realized were knotted in her lap, before admitting, “The attraction was mutual.”
“I remember how excited you were by your work.”
She smiled. “I remember your groan when you found out what I do for a living.”
He smiled back. “Protecting grizzlies and wolves? What did you expect from a cattleman?”
“You were surprisingly open-minded.”
“You were a surprisingly good advocate.”
“You had a lot of hopes and dreams of your own,” she said. “Did you buy that champion Black Angus bull you wanted?”
He shook his head. “Couldn’t afford him. I found one about as good the following year.”
“I’m glad.”
“You weren’t sure you could handle all the travel for your job. How has that worked out?”
“It helped that my dad let me borrow his jet,” she said with a wry smile. The smile disappeared as she continued, “I’ve learned to loathe hotel rooms. At least being busy helped keep my mind off what I was missing here.”
“You mean Cody.”
She nodded but didn’t pursue the subject of custody, because it held too many hidden trip wires. Instead she said, “I remember your telling me the night we met how glad you were Mike came home safe from the war. And how much you relied on him to help you manage the ranch.”
It was hard to look into Sullivan’s eyes because of the pain she saw there. His voice was hoarse when he spoke. “I can hardly believe he made it home from Afghanistan mostly in one piece and is going to end up with hundreds of stitches from a bear attack.”
Vick waited for Sullivan to complain about her work saving grizzlies, but he didn’t go there. “I’ve been praying he’ll recover quickly,” she said.
“It’s going to be tough getting everything done on my own until he gets back on his feet,” he admitted.
“Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“You can help me best by taking care of Cody.”
“I’m glad for the chance to do it.”
“That’s another thing I liked about you when I met you. You’re not afraid of hard work.”
She wrinkled her nose and asked, “How could you possibly know that from one conversation in a bar?”
“You told me about all the chores your sister Leah made you do, so you’d grow up to be a responsible human being.”
She laughed. “She set me to work in the barn because she knew I love horses. I complained every step of the way, but I experienced the satisfaction you get from a job well done.”
“It seemed to me that you’d learned more from her than how to muck out stalls. You were chock-full of ideas for what I could do to put the Rafter S on firmer financial footing.”
“I guess I absorbed more knowledge about the ranching business from Leah—she’s the real financier in the family—than I realized.”
“When I think about it now,” Rye said, “it’s strange how close I felt to you when we’d only shared a bit of talk and a couple of drinks. I just remember I was enjoying your company so much, I didn’t want the night to end.” He hesitated before adding, “I was glad you agreed to leave the bar with me.”
“I hope you know that was unusual for me, something I’d never done before.”
Sullivan met her gaze and said, “The night we spent together was a different experience for me, too.”
Vick blushed as their night of lovemaking flashed in her mind. Tangled, sweat-slick bodies, a soft mouth, an agile tongue, and strong, demanding hands.
Before Vick had met Sullivan, she’d never gone to bed with a man mere hours after meeting him. She’d done it that long-ago night because she hadn’t wanted her interlude with him to end, and because she’d known he wasn’t going to be around for long, since he was only in town for a two-day cattlemen’s conference.
“Why didn’t you stay the next morning?” he asked. “Why did you run away?”
Because I liked you too much. Because it all happened so fast. Because I couldn’t trust what I was feeling, and I didn’t want to make a mistake like my mother did and fall for some cowboy with a pair of strong arms and a charming smile.
When Vick’s mother had taken off with one of her father’s cowhands, she’d left her four daughters behind. Vick had grown up feeling unloved and unlovable, which made her vulnerable to a man like Sullivan, who’d offered so much of himself to a woman who was virtually a stranger. Of course she’d run for the hills. What if she let herself love such a man and he abandoned her, as he was certain to do? That sort of pain would be unbearable. Better not to risk it.
Vick wasn’t about to admit any of that to Sullivan, but he was waiting for an answer. She shrugged and said, “You were leaving for Montana the next day. What was the point?”
“I went looking for you the next morning.”
She frowned and asked, “Why would you do that?”
“I wanted to spend more time with you.”
“Why?”
He snorted. “You were in bed with me. Why do you think?”
“You wanted a nooner?” she said disdainfully.
His eyes narrowed and suddenly looked dangerous. “I wanted to get to know you better. I thought we’d found something extraordinary together. Something happened to me that had never happened before. Or since.”
She shot a cautious glance in his direction. If all this was really true, why had he waited so long to say something? And why say something now?
“Imagine my surprise,” he continued, “when I went looking for a girl named ‘Lexie’ and no one I spoke with had ever heard of her. Why did you give me that phony name?”
Vick wasn’t sure why she’d called herself Lexie that night, except she’d been trying to find a more feminine name than Vick to use as she began her career supporting endangered species. She hated her regal first name, Victoria, and her middle name, Alexandra, was equally grand. Both could be off-putting, and she needed all the goodwill she could get to coax positive responses from supporters, like congressmen and senators.
Compared to her Hollywood-gorgeous fraternal twin, Taylor, and her blond and beautiful youngest sister, Eve, Vick was last and least of the three daughters her mother had borne King Grayhawk. She’d always compensated for her nothing-to-write-home-about face and equally average form with sparkling—sometimes not so sparkling, but at least intelligent—wit.
She’d toyed with the nickname Alex, but it felt too masculine, so she’d been trying Lexie out for the first time the night she met Sullivan. After doing something in that new persona so uncharacteristic as going to bed with a man she barely knew, she’d never used it again. Unfortunately, the name had stuck with Sullivan.
Vick focused her gaze on the man across from her and asked, “What would you have done if you’d found me?”
“Exactly what I want to do now. Spend time with you.”
Her heart sank at the thought that if he was being honest, they could have started a life together a long time ago and been parents to Cody. Except, he’d been singing an entirely different tune when she’d shown up at his back door the first time. “You’ve had plenty of chances to get to know me over the years we’ve been co-parenting Cody,” she pointed out.
His eyes looked troubled. “It was easier to nurse my grievance against you. And you weren’t around much the first four years to remind me of what I was missing.”
That was true. “And now, we’re living under the same roof,” she murmured.
He nodded. “We’ll be seeing each other every day, bumping elbows, so to speak, with Cody witness to everything we do, everything we say to each other. I’d like to make this as stress-free for him as we can.”
Her heart sank a little. Sullivan might have wanted a romantic relationship with her once upon a time in the past, but all he apparently wanted now was peace between them while they were living in the same house.
“Remaining cordial sounds like a good idea,” she said. “Shall we shake on it?”
She reached across the distance that separated the two chairs and offered her hand. When he took it in his, she realized she’d made a serious mistake. All the hairs on her arm stood on end, and it was all she could do not to jerk herself free. She felt herself trembling from the simple touch of his callused hand.
She tried to stay cool and calm, smiling as she said, “Deal?”
“Deal.” It took another moment before he released her hand, a moment in which she felt her whole body coming alive.
Suddenly, Vick realized what a rare opportunity Sullivan was offering her. She was perfectly willing to provide the amity he was seeking, but why not offer him something more? Over the past year, Vick had realized what a truly good man Sullivan was, aside from that whole black and white, wrong and right business that turned him into a stubborn jackass. Why not take advantage of this truce to give him a taste of what he was missing?
She’d been very careful not to giv
e Sullivan even a hint that she’d come to admire him, not to mention still being strongly attracted to him. It would be the simplest thing in the world to let him know she would welcome a romantic relationship.
What then?
Then she’d let nature take its course.
LEXIE HAD RETIRED to her room for the night, and Rye knew he should go to the hospital and check on his brother. But he still wasn’t ready to confront his mother with what he’d discovered about his birth. She must be worried sick about Mike, and she didn’t need to deal with another crisis. And after all, what difference did it make now? Patrick and Darcie Sullivan were the only parents he’d ever known. Neither parent had even hinted that Rye was not their biological child. There must have been a good reason to keep his past a secret, and he could wait to ask his mother what it was.
Rye settled for getting an update on Mike’s condition by phone.
His mother picked up immediately and said, “I’m not supposed to use my cellphone in Mike’s room because he’s receiving oxygen. That’s why I haven’t called you. I’m in the hall right now, so we can talk.”
“I’ll keep this short,” he said. “Pete Harrison came by and told me Mike survived his surgery. I wanted to make sure you’re both okay. How are you? And how is Mike?”
“I’m all right.”
His gut wrenched when he heard the sob she was trying hard to repress.
“Just worried about Mike,” she continued. “The doctor said his condition is ‘extremely critical.’ Did Pete tell you Mike was shot?”
“Yeah. I’m headed back to the site of the attack with Pete tomorrow to see if we can find anything to lead us to the shooter.”
“How are things at the house?” his mother asked.
“Fine.”
“No problems?”
He knew his mother was fishing for information, but he refused to make an issue of the fact that Lexie was sleeping under the same roof or give her any hint of their conversation tonight. “We’re good here. Did you get in touch with Amy Beth?”
“She wanted to come home, but I told her there was no need, at least until Mike wakes up.”
Sullivan's Promise Page 6
