A Real Cowboy Knows How to Kiss (17 page)

His words were so heartfelt, she felt her throat tighten. This was the man who thought he wasn't good enough for his brothers? Or to take his place in his family? God, he was beautiful, and not just his face. His soul was pure and beautiful, just as she'd always known. She knew she was catching a precious glimpse that he never shared, an inside peek at the man he tried so hard to hide.

Instinctively, she tightened her grip on his shoulder. "That was beautiful," she said. "Kiss me."

He lifted his head from where he'd had it tucked against the side of hers. His eyes were dark and beautiful, peaceful for the first time she could remember. He searched her face for a moment, and then he kissed her.

The kiss was different than it had ever been before. It was sensual and demanding, as always, but this time, there was something else. An emotion. A need. A connection. She realized it was the first time Steen had kissed her with all of himself, instead of holding back and giving her only the part of himself he was willing to give.

There was a tenderness to his kiss now. A softness. A realness. It was a kiss that touched her heart in a way that it had never been touched.

Steen cradled her face as he kissed her, his touch so gentle she felt as though she could be made of the most fragile china and she would still be safe in his arms. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, kissing him back until she felt like her heart was going to explode.

It wasn't until she heard the catcalls and the whistles that she realized the music had stopped.

Heat flooded her cheeks as she pulled back, but Steen didn't let her retreat. He kissed her again, longer, and her heart seemed to soar when she realized he didn't care about the whistles or the attention. He wasn't finished kissing her, and he had no plans to stop until he was done.

With a happy sigh, she melted back into him and enjoyed every last moment of the kiss until he finally pulled back, just enough to break the kiss, but his body was still against hers, and his hands still cradled her face.

He grinned at her, and kissed the tip of her nose. "Hey."

She smiled back. "Hi."

"That was fun."

She giggled at his understatement. "Yes, it was."

"Want to dance again when the band comes back on stage?"

She rolled her eyes. "What do you think?"

He kissed the tip of her nose. "I'll take that as a yes." He kissed her one last time, a deep, delicious kiss of connection, and then swung his arm over her shoulder, tucking her up against him as he escorted her off the dance floor. "This place makes great burgers. You up for that?"

"Of course." It felt so natural to be nestled against him, and she wasn't blind to the appreciative glances of the other women as they walked toward an empty table. She also noticed that Steen didn't even noticed the women gawking at him. He was drop-dead gorgeous, yet he had no awareness of it whatsoever. He was simply watching her. After having her husband leave her for another woman, the fact that Steen was literally unaware of the feminine adoration he was receiving was so amazing.

It was incredible to be the focus of his attention. She was so accustomed to being barely seen, that to have Steen entirely focused on her was almost surreal. It felt incredible. She grinned at him. "You make me feel amazing. Thank you."

"Hey." He paused at an empty table and pulled her against him. "You're the one who deserves the thanks. I forgot what it felt like to be alive. You've changed everything for me."

"Mutual benefit, then." She couldn't keep the smile off her face as he pulled out the chair for her. "Thanks."

"You bet." He eased into the seat adjacent to hers, immediately resting his hand on the back of her chair. There was no doubt about the fact that he was claiming her, and she loved it. He made her feel like she was the most special woman in the entire world, and it felt incredible.

She didn't want to go back home to her life. She wanted to stay with Steen, to feel every moment of the way he made her feel. The depth of her need stunned her, and she realized that if he asked her right now, she would stay.

The realization was shocking, and terrifying. Would she really give up everything she'd worked so hard to achieve for a man who made her feel alive? She had spent her entire life dedicating every last inch of herself to what she'd finally managed to achieve professionally. She'd developed self-worth through her work accomplishments, because she hadn't been able to earn it in her personal life. Steen thought she was a simple vet, but she wasn't. She was a highly specialized equine orthopedic surgeon, specializing in elite, expensive athletes, and she could never do here what she did in her real life. In this area, there weren't many horses of that extreme caliber, the surgery facilities didn't exist, and most potential clients didn't have the money to pay for that kind of work. If she walked away from what she'd accomplished and put herself entirely in the hands of Steen, what would she have left for herself? What would she have to fall back upon when he realized he wanted something else, someone else? Her chest tightened, and suddenly she felt sick to her stomach. Would she really consider giving all that up for him, if he asked? She'd given everything to try to impress her husband and her parents. Was she actually willing to give it all up for another man?

His eyes narrowed. "What?"

She blinked. "What?"

"You were just thinking something serious. I saw it in your eyes. What's up?"

She shook her head, trying to erase the thoughts from her head. She didn't want to ruin this moment with real life. "Nothing."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Don't lie to me. I know it's not nothing."

She sighed, wrinkling her nose at him in exasperation. "Okay, fine. I was thinking something, but I don't want to tell you."

He eyed her speculatively, and she knew he was considering whether to force it out of her. The last thing she wanted was to talk about how they had no future together, or to even tell him what she'd been thinking. He didn't want a future with her, and to offer him her own future would be against everything she'd worked so hard to achieve.

So, instead, she turned the tables on him. "When you compared dancing to communicating with horses, it made me think about your incredible talent with horses. Don't you have any interest in working with them anymore? You could do that at the ranch." He opened his mouth to protest, and she rushed on. "None of your brothers have your gift. You're the only one who could bring that to the ranch. How can you think you don't add value?"

He said nothing for a long moment, leaning back as a waitress stopped by to take their order. Erin knew he was aware of her attempt to change the subject and he was contemplating whether to let her go ahead with it, or force her back to what he wanted to talk about.

After the waitress was gone, however, Steen answered her question. "Horses aren't my thing anymore."

"Why not?"

"I gave it up to play football."

"But you don't play anymore." She knew she hadn't mistaken the depth of emotion when he'd spoken about the horses. It hadn't been there when he'd talked about the furniture, and it hadn't been there when he'd talked about the football days with Walt, but there had been no mistaking it when he'd mentioned the horses. "Why are you resisting the ranch? Help me understand."

"I quit horses because there was no future. No one respected people who deal with horses. I wanted to get the hell out of my life and be someone, and football was the answer, so that's what I did." Steen let out his breath, looking across the bar. Finally, he looked back at her. "My knee healed after I graduated high school, and I was able to get to college on a full ride. It was my only chance out of my hell. I played three seasons, and then I blew out my knee again, this time for good. I had put everything into football, and I had no backup plan. So, I started riding dirt bikes. It was a rush of adrenaline, a way to outrun the reality of my life, like the fact that my job was pumping gas in a crappy station that was so filthy that even the cockroaches wouldn't rob it."

Erin leaned forward, listening intently. "Did you race the dirt bikes?"

"Yeah. I crashed. I severed my spine." His voice was neutral, but she felt the sudden withdrawal of his energy, as if he were battling memories he didn't want to deal with. "The doctors told me I'd never walk again. They said I was paralyzed for life." He looked at her, and she saw the stark anguish in his eyes. "I was twenty-one years old. The only thing I knew was sports. I had nothing, Erin. Absolutely nothing. It was the scariest moment of my entire life."

Her heart tightened. "But you walk now."

"I fought back with everything I had. I had no insurance to pay for fancy physical therapy. It was all me, and I got my legs working again. I won, and then I lost it all again, and again. Everything I tried, I lost, until I ended up in prison for attempted murder." He leaned forward, his voice low. "But I am scared out of my mind that I'll hurt my back again. If I fall off a horse the wrong way, I'm done. My entire horse career was helping the ones that no one else could handle. I have no interest in shoveling manure for the rest of my life or hauling hay bales around. The only thing I'd want to do on this ranch is deal with the horses that no one else can help, and those are the animals that just might send me back into the worst hell you can ever imagine."

She understood then. She understood everything that drove him. He was afraid, the kind of soul-deep terror that could destroy a life forever. She knew, because she'd lived with that every day of her life. Not the fear of being paralyzed, but the fear of never being loved the way she needed to be loved as a human being. Everything she'd ever done had been driven by that fear. She understood what was driving him, and if she were him, she wasn't sure she'd ever get on a horse again either, not at that risk. "You rode with me."

"The horse wasn't a risk. We had a conversation."

She almost smiled at his answer. He had a conversation with the horse? And he was going to walk away from that? "So, you're going to live in fear your whole life, then?"

He met her gaze. "No. I'm going to live with the memory of our time together. That's what's going to carry me."

She suddenly felt tired, like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. "You're an idiot. Why would you do that? You have a family that wants you to be a part of it. Do you know what I'd do if my family wanted me? I'd never leave their side."

Regret flickered over his handsome face. "Shit, Erin, it's not like that. I'm sorry you have a crappy family. But this is different. They aren't my family. Yeah, I'm related to my half-brothers through our dad, but I don't belong. I can't take charity from them and park myself in the middle of the family ranch that Chase is trying to create." He leaned forward. "
I don't belong there.
"

She could tell he meant it, and she didn't know what to say. Maybe he was right. She didn't know. "Come to Virginia," she said suddenly. "Come back with me."

He stared at her, and her invite fell into the heavy silence.

Oh, God. What had she just done?

"Move to Virginia?" Steen repeated softly, his voice low with emotion that seemed to thicken the air around them. "With you?"

"Well, I mean, why not? If you're not going to stay here, and then, well, I don't know. We could..." She shrugged, suddenly embarrassed. "I mean, it's not cowboy country or anything, but there are tons of horses. Or you could build furniture. I have a house in the country, and it has a big workshop out back that I've never used." Excitement began to build. "Seriously, why not?"

He didn't take his gaze off her, and his face was utterly expressionless. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, and suddenly she felt horribly vulnerable and exposed. "Never mind," she muttered. "It was just an idea." God, what had she been thinking? Inviting Steen to move in with her?

Steen leaned forward. "Erin."

The urgency of his tone drew her attention to him, and she looked up, her heart skipping a beat with sudden hope. "What?"

"First of all, I'm pretty much overwhelmed you would offer that. It's a huge statement of trust, and I am honored. But there's no way I would ever allow you to support me."

She spun her fork in her fingers, restless and unsettled. "Maybe money isn't what I need from you. Maybe it's something else." She met his gaze. "Like being loved." She held her breath after she said it. Love? Had she really just said love to him?

His eyes darkened, and electricity seemed to leap between them. "Do you love me?" he asked softly.

She bit her lip and shrugged.

He closed his eyes for a long moment, and she thought she saw his hands tremble. Then he took a breath and leaned forward, staring into her eyes. "Look at me, Erin. I want you to really look at me."

She met his gaze, searching the face that was so familiar to her. His hair was slightly longer than it had been, and his face was less gaunt. She knew his lips so intimately, and could easily envision what it felt like to touch his cheeks. He was so human, so strong, and so vulnerable. "I see a man who was dealt a bad hand in life, and somehow, he has emerged with a pure heart and a good soul. That's what I see."

His face softened, and for a moment, he looked ten years younger. The lines on his face seemed to drop away, and the tension he always carried with him vanished. He bent forward and kissed her, a tender beautiful kiss that made her heart soar. He broke the kiss too soon and rested his forehead against hers. "My sweet Erin," he said quietly. "I don't have a job, or any source of income. As I already told you, I can't even leave the state without the permission of my parole officer. I won't be free of those constraints for at least five years. Don't you see that? I'm an ex-con convicted of a serious, serious crime. I have nothing to offer you, sweetheart, nothing that is remotely worthy of you."