Always (14 page)

"Heard this one's interesting." From the shelf, he removes a face-out copy of Julian Kingsley's recent novel
Beautiful, But Me
. What editorial genius thought
that
title was a good idea?

“I don’t care for the guy.”

He turns to me in clear surprise. “You know him?”

“Well.” I sigh, taking the book out of his hand, studying the expensively designed dust jacket, inlaid with gold foil. “Let’s just say he broke my best friend’s heart.”

“Guess she hates him, huh?”

“Actually,
he
doesn’t.” I flip over the book to reveal Julian’s disgustingly perfect author photo on the back of the cover. Another good reason to loathe him: no man should be so absolutely gorgeous. Who knows? Maybe this latest title’s directed to the world at large as a form of honest apology.

“Oooh, he does look like a heartbreaker.” He gives a strange kind of laugh that I don’t quite know how to read. I think of Trevor’s first assessment of Michael, that he was gay. Because I can’t imagine that most straight guys would describe Julian as a “heartbreaker”.

Once again, I cast a covert glance at his ring finger, curious. Only this time I don’t like what I see—a silver band glinting beneath the streamlined bookstore lights. “Would your wife think so, too?”

“I’m sorry?” The bushy dark eyebrows draw together in genuine confusion.

“Your wife,” I repeat firmly, this time gesturing toward his hand. “You are married, right?” I ask, folding my arms across my chest. No guy’s going to play me, no sir. “You’ve got a wedding band on, after all.”

He stares down at his hand, extending his fingers as if he’s never noticed the ring before, and I’m cool as possible, proud of myself for having been a smart girl, until he answers softly, “Uh, widowed. Actually.”

“Oh, God. I’m so sorry,” I blurt, feeling embarrassed and sad all at once. Sad because of the dark pain that fills his eyes. It’s so obvious, only a fool could miss it.

“No, I’m glad you asked.” He picks up another copy of Julian’s book absently. “Wouldn’t want you to think I was playing around or anything.”

“I didn’t.”

“’Cause I’m not that kind of guy,” he presses, offering me a gentle smile. The thing is, I don’t know precisely what kind of guy he is. A melancholy one. A beautiful one. My kind of guy… maybe. With that quiet realization, I give my ponytail an anxious tug as he leans close, lowering his voice. “But that doesn’t explain what
you’re
doing, Rebecca O’Neill.”

“Me?”

He gestures toward the floor, at my sandal-clad feet. “You’re clearly off the market.” I stare down, confused, until I realize he’s pointing at my silver toe ring, a series of hearts knit together, circling my second digit. “You’re wearing a band, yet you’re talking to me in a bookstore.” He laughs low and throatily. “Unchaperoned, at that.”

“We’re downright risqué.”

“So that is your ring toe?” he asks, studying me closely. “Like your ring
finger
?”

“Oh, the same general rules apply for feet.” I giggle, staring at the floor. “My foot is happily spoken for, thank you very much.”

“Who’s the lucky guy? He wearing a band inside his loafer? Did the pair of you
run
off to Vegas together?”

“Who says it’s a wedding ring?” I tease, avoiding his gaze. “Maybe Foot is only engaged.”

“True,” he observes. “Foot is very sexy, so I can’t blame the guy, but I do think she’s worthy of true commitment.”

I haven’t felt this beautiful in years.

I glance upward shyly. Lord, he’s tall, too—I hadn’t realized just how tall until now, when I find myself craning upward to meet his dark gaze. “Truth is,” I say, rising to my full five feet two inches of height. “Toe thinks she’s Cinderella, and she’s still searching for her glass slipper.”

“It’s good to dream,” he says, but sadness veils his eyes again despite our repartee. I wonder if his wife loved fairy tales. I wonder if she believed in happily-ever-after, like I used to once upon a time.

And I wonder if it’s still good for me to dream. Because standing here with Michael Warner, some lost part of me thinks that maybe it is.

“Do you?” I ask, surprising even myself with my directness. “Dream, I mean?”

A scowl forms on his face as he considers my question in silence. Moments spread out, long and eternal, until I wonder if he’ll ever reply.

He removes his baseball cap, slapping it again into his palm with a sigh. “I used to, yeah,” he answers thoughtfully. “But not anymore.” It’s all he says, and then he walks away from me, ambling toward the coffee bar, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such heaviness on anyone’s shoulders before.

For some reason, watching his retreat makes me recall a bit of wisdom my daddy’s always quoted to me.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick.

Daddy would say we’re two virtual strangers with the exact same disease.

Nat Jackson knows what she’s good at: healing horses. Relationships? She learned about the price of those from her mother. When Cole Masterson shows up at her Second Hope ranch with a bad shoulder and a lame horse, she’s more than willing to treat the animal. But his money comes with a catch—he insists on staying at the ranch while his horse undergoes treatment.

The horse, she can handle. Resisting the man…that’s a complication she doesn’t need.

Money is no object when it comes to his horses, and Cole knows Second Hope offers the best in equine rehab. He hadn’t counted on Nat’s fractured heart awakening his desire to mend it. Her skills have his horse on the fast track to health, though. There’s not much time to work his way through her defenses before it’s time to leave.

Nat has no intention of getting her hopes up only to have them dashed. Cole’s already thrown his heart over the fence—and he has no choice but to follow it in pursuit of the woman of his dreams.

Warning: This book contains hunky cowboys, gorgeous horses, awesome cowgirls, lots of tight Levi’s, and heartbreaking injuries. Oh, yeah, and m/f sex.

Streaks of dirt smeared one arm and shavings pooled near her ankles, in the folds of her jeans. Her scuffed boots had mud caked on the heels. Her nails were dirty, and her black hair had escaped from its braid, clinging to the long line of her neck.

“It’s beautiful.” Cole smiled softly.

Nat glanced at him. The moment of realization when she knew he’d been watching her was plain. She laughed quietly and looked away, wandering off toward the nearest oak. “I’ve always liked this place. When I first started the ranch I’d come out here just to get away. Clear my head. See something alive and growing, rather than the horses that needed so much help. Out here, nothing needed me like that.” She glanced back, one hand spread on the trunk. “We got a lot of wrecks, in those days. We couldn’t afford the best of anything yet, and a lot of the horses were rescues. A lot of them couldn’t be saved.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he simply remained quiet.

She looked at the tree, head tipping back as she gazed upward into its branches, chin tucking as she lowered her face, tracing the line of the trunk back down to her hand. Her thumb rubbed over a scar in the bark, and she smiled faintly. “This was the first horse we managed to pull through. Just Aaron and I then—he was a snot-nosed little punk trying to get as far from his family as he could without leaving the horse world. Blue mohawk and stoned every night. And then we healed King, and something about that healed Aaron.” Her smile grew, blooming across her face. “He called his parents that night. He’d run away when he was sixteen, and it was the first time he’d spoken to them in five years.”

“Maybe he just needed to know he could do something good without them.” Cole could remember the first time he’d succeeded at a job without standing on his father’s or brother’s shoulders. It had been liberating. For the first time, he’d felt grown up.

He wondered, suddenly, if Nat had ever been a child in that way. If she’d ever had shoulders to stand on. “Your grandmother helped you with this place, didn’t she?”

Nat shrugged. “She gave me the money. When she died, she left me the rest. I think she was trying to keep my mother from having it. They never spoke. My grandmother didn’t approve of my father, whether or not he was a doctor.” Her smile was bitter. “She had more sense than my mother did.”

Cole wandered closer, lifting his good hand to brush it over the wooden scar she kept fingering. The bark was paler here, and there was a line of smaller scratches, a few inked lines from a marker, some dates. “Are these all the horses you’ve helped?”

“The ones we saved, that first year.” Nat pointed to one of the red lines. “These are the ones we lost.”

There were more than a few, but they didn’t outnumber the scars. “You did well.”

Nat chuckled, shifting to lean against the tree, shoulder pressed to wood. “Considering what we had? We did all right. The cases got tougher as time went on, but we got a lot more rich people too.”

“Like me.” He grinned.

Her mouth tipped, echoing his expression. “Like you. Only most people just send their horses. Not sure how good I’m gonna be at mending rotator cuffs.”

He laughed at her teasing. “Well, you have to start somewhere, Doctor Nat.”

She just shook her head and chuckled in return, but her eyes were lighter now, the sadness gone. “Does it hurt much?”

“Not much. I think it’s healing pretty well.” He stretched his neck, rubbing at where the sling dug into his shoulder. “I think this is giving me more pain than the tendon, anymore.”

“You could adjust it?” She stepped closer and he went still, turning his head slightly so she could get a better look.

Her touch was featherlight, her scent intoxicating. Like blueberries and cream, rich and sweet without being sickly.

“Is this any better?”

He couldn’t tell any difference, but he could feel her body heat. His gaze caught hers, and fire rippled between them. “Yeah.” His voice dropped into its deepest registers, coming out husky.

Nat’s tongue flicked out, dampening her lips. Dark pupils dilated to spill black across her irises. “You didn’t even pay attention.”

Cole smiled. It stretched over his face, slow and seductive. “No. I didn’t.” He didn’t think she cared, from the way her eyes flickered to his mouth, following his lips as he spoke. His hand rose as if of its own volition, rubbing away a smear of dust along her jawbone. She had a delicate jaw, for all that she was strong. Like a razorblade, sharp and fine. It narrowed down to a perfect little chin under a full mouth. He remembered that mouth from the night before. Remembered how her lips had parted under his, the tiny exhale he doubted she’d been aware of. The way her tongue had stroked his, the way she’d tasted, felt, smelled.

He wanted to taste her again, feel her under him, smell arousal and sex build. Moving slowly, remembering how she’d taken the lead before, he slid his fingers around the nape of her neck. Her skin was chilled despite the warm weather. When he fitted his mouth to hers she shivered, the finest tremble of skin and muscle, so faint he almost didn’t feel it.

She wavered, seemingly caught between stepping closer and stepping away. He kept the kiss light, gentle, fingertips and soft brushes of his mouth, nothing more. He didn’t want to push.

She stepped closer, fitting her body to his. He nearly groaned with relief, pressing tightly against her. One slender hand wrapped around his neck and her mouth opened, deepening the kiss. Her tongue slid against his and he responded, exploring her mouth, the way she tasted. His pulse beat thick and heavy under his skin, in his groin. He shifted his thigh to press between her legs. She caught her balance, opening for him slightly, pressing back.

The temptation was to push harder, to pin her against the tree and keep things moving along fast until they both came. He fought it, keeping his movements slow and gentle. Once you’d won over a skittish horse, you didn’t mess it up by asking for too much, too soon. Still, his good hand skimmed over her jaw, under it, tipping her head up so he could duck his face into her neck, nibble on the slim line of her throat. Her skin was warm, a little salty, and he could feel the beat of her heart in her jugular.

She exhaled, breath soft and shivering. Cole did it again, teeth scraping gently over flesh, pulling that exact little tremble from her that was so thoroughly intoxicating. His fingertips slid over her skin, down one of the slim tendons that framed her throat, and lit on her collarbones. He brushed over them, marveling over how tiny the bones were, like bird wings arcing in from the points of her shoulders.

Her hands moved firmly over his rib cage, over the heavy pads of muscle, pulling him closer. His fingertips glided downward, touch featherlight against the edge of a perfect breast clothed in the thin material of a tank top and bra. A shiver crept through her, her hand stuttering on his ribs.

Cole smiled against her before placing a careful kiss on her neck, another on her throat, opening his mouth and flicking his tongue across her flesh. Her hands tightened in his shirt, curling into small, demanding fists. With his good hand he grazed her arm, trailing down, feeling the tiny soft hairs and the firmness of muscle under skin. Then he found her waist, kept moving down until he felt the edge of her jeans. He tugged at her tank top, pulling it free to find warm, elastic flesh.

His kissed her again as his fingertips skimmed over abdomen muscle, teasing at the edge of her rib cage. Her mouth opened, tongue brushing against his lips. She tasted like warm summer sunshine and lazy mornings, long rides and slow laughter. Tongues tangled and slid together, tasting, exploring, growing bolder and more heated. He slid his hand up under her shirt, following the line of her rib cage to the edge of her bra. There he hesitated, giving her a moment to pull back, to slow things down. Instead, she pressed into him with a tiny sound almost caught in her throat.