Every Breath She Takes (41 page)

“I wasn’t ready.” She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling desolate outside of his embrace, even though she’d been the one to leave it.

“Lauren, honey, when you came back to see me, you were on your way to the airport.”

The agony of that parting was a fresh wound. “What was I supposed to do? You made it clear you expected me to decamp.”

“I may have expected it, but I sure as hell didn’t
want
it.”

“You did a pretty good impression of it. ‘
Think of me when you dust off those moves with the next guy.’”

He blushed. “I only said that because I could see you were already on your way. And you were going to lean over that bed rail and kiss me good-bye. I couldn’t have borne it.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I never wanted you to leave. I just didn’t dare hope you’d stay once your mission was done.”

Lauren’s heart thudded like a wild thing in her chest. “What about
us
? You didn’t think I might want to hang around to find out where it might take us?”

“You’d only just reminded me that you were quite capable of enjoying sex for the sake of sex,” he said carefully. “You said you were cool with it, that saying good-bye would be no problem.”

“Of course I said that! Those were
your
rules, remember?
No happily-ever-after. No bride and groom on a wedding cake. Just sex.
I was just trying to play by your stupid rules.”

“I didn’t mean it,” he said, stepping toward her.

“You
did
mean it,” she contradicted, backing away, afraid to believe him yet needing desperately to.

He caught her arm, arresting her retreat. “Okay, maybe I did mean it at first, but I changed my mind.”

Lauren dashed new tears from her cheek. “Oh, Cal, you were so afraid I’d find something in you worth loving.”

“You’re right.”

“You wouldn’t let me say one positive thing—” She stumbled to a halt. “Wait a minute, I’m right?”

“You’re absolutely right.”

Something that felt terrifyingly like hope stirred to life.

“The only thing scarier than the prospect of your finding some redeeming qualities in me was the prospect that you wouldn’t.”

Here it was, the nub of it. “Why wouldn’t I?” she asked. “Cal, there are lots of things about you people value.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yeah, three of them.”

Oh God, he’d inventoried them. And she’d bet they weren’t the same three she’d name. “Okay, let’s hear them.”

“Number one—on a given day, I ride bulls just about as well as anyone in the world. Leastways,
I used to
.”

“Number two?”

“I’m a decent rancher, present circumstances notwithstanding.”

So far he’d named only things that he could
do
, things that, if he did them well enough, would earn him the respect of his peers. But nothing about his truly remarkable qualities, like strength, resilience, a deep sense of responsibility, compassion. Lauren could easily cry again. “And number three?”

“I can please a woman in bed.” The hand gripping her wrist flexed, but she was sure it was involuntary. “I was schooled early and often by the working girl who took me in off the street when I was a scared sixteen-year-old runaway. I know where to touch a woman and how. They take one look at me and know it.”

A wave of jealousy at the thought of those other women rocked her, but she forced herself to concentrate on his words.

“It’s instant recognition. They see right through to my dirty little soul and realize they don’t have to hide a thing.”

She shivered. “You can’t really believe that.”

“Tell me you didn’t consider an anonymous roll with the cowboy within days of our meeting,” he challenged.

She held his gaze while a flush worked up her neck, remembering the awareness that had so quickly stirred the air between them. “Hours, actually,” she admitted, “but if you think that’s all I saw in you, you’re even dumber than I thought. I wouldn’t have gone to bed with you unless I saw a lot more than—”

“I know.”

She blinked. “You do?”

“Yeah, and it scared the hell out of me. I was afraid I couldn’t live up to all the good things you thought about me, even as I memorized every nice thing you said.”

“You’ve got a real problem, you know that?” She was crying again, the tears coursing down her cheeks.

“I know.” He grasped her face between his hands and used his thumbs to wipe away her tears. “But I’m working on it.”

She gazed up at him to find a suspicious sheen in his eyes. It was enough to startle her own tears into drying up. He must have read her surprise, because he smiled self-mockingly.

“I know, me and sober introspection aren’t what you’d call best pals, but I figured out some stuff.”

She brought her hands up to cover his in case he had thoughts about removing them. “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

“Like my mother might not have left us if I’d been a better kid.”

“Left you?” Lauren’s eyes widened. “I thought she died?”

“She did, of cancer when I was five, but I guess I figured she should have fought harder to stay with us. I thought that if I’d just been better, she wouldn’t have succumbed so easily.”

“That’s just not true!”

He actually laughed. “I know that, but the trick was figuring out that I thought it in the first place.”

“Then there was your father, who didn’t notice you unless you were raising hell. And Marlena, who rewarded you with her love only when you were winning.”

“You’re starting to get the picture.” He brushed a thumb over her lip. “Throw in the prostitute who schooled me so thoroughly, add the rodeo Annies who rounded out my education, and you pretty much have it.”

Yes, she got the picture.

But she was getting another picture too.
He really did love her!
Nothing less would have propelled a man like Cal down this path of self-examination. Lauren put her hand over his, turned her mouth into his palm and kissed it, keeping her gaze trained on his. As she watched, his pupils dilated and his breathing shallowed up.

“Don’t you want to know what else I figured out?” he rasped.

“Of course.” She touched her tongue to his palm again, loving the explosion of salt.

He dragged in a breath. “Lauren, you’re making me crazy.”

“I sure hope so.”

At that, he pulled her into his arms, his mouth fixing on hers hungrily. Within seconds the hunger swelled to a pure, incandescent need that threatened to engulf both of them. Then he tore his mouth away, breathing heavily.

“I don’t know if I can be the man you think I am, but I want to try.” His fingers were busily undoing the buttons of her shirt, with her assistance.

“You already are.” She shrugged out of the shirt and attacked his while he worked her bra off.

“Lord, I missed you.” He took quick nips at her mouth as she tugged his shirt free.

“Me too.” She fumbled with his belt.

Clothes fell until they were naked in her kitchen. When he pulled her into his arms, body to body, she gasped. She was like the desert and he the rain she’d been too long without. “That should make a hissing sound or something.”

He lifted his head from an exploration of her neck. “Huh?”

“Never mind.” She pulled his head down and kissed him with all the yearning and despair of the past weeks. His response was an echo of her own desperation, but when she writhed against him in invitation a moment later, he pulled back.

“What?” she asked.

“You won’t laugh?”

“Promise.”

“I feel like we should have a bed for this.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. She was dizzy, happy, light. “I can grant that wish, cowboy. Any others?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if they’ll be so easy.”

“Try me.”

“I want the lights on.”

“Done.”

“I want to look into your eyes while I love you. I want you to look into mine. I want you to say you love me when I’m inside you.”

Cal heard his own words resonating in the ensuing silence.

Okay, this was hard. Harder than anything he’d ever done in his entire life. He felt naked in a way he’d never been before. He’d just asked Lauren outright—no,
begged her
—to please love him, and she seemed to be struggling with her reply.

What if she couldn’t say it? What if she couldn’t love him? Then he saw the glint in her beautiful, slightly red-rimmed eyes. For the third time tonight, tears shimmered like diamonds on her lashes.

“Cal Taggart, if you think I’m going to wait that long to finally say I love you, you’ve got another think coming.”

His knees almost buckled, which would have been extremely inconvenient given the way she hurled herself at him. But he managed to catch her and keep his balance too.

“Bedroom?”

“Down the hall, second left.”

Twenty seconds later, they were tangled on the bed. There was no practiced technique, no careful building and falling of desire. Just an urgent joining. But she kept her gaze locked on his as he filled her, letting him see the stark need, the naked love in her eyes. He knew she would see the same in his eyes. It was the most intimate thing he’d ever experienced, and he wanted to draw it out forever. She was already coming apart, though, and he was helpless to do anything but follow her.

Home
, he thought as he lay on his back looking at Lauren’s ceiling. Beside this woman, wherever that might be.

He settled her against himself and she grew quiet. Too quiet? He tipped her chin up. “You okay?”

“Better than okay.”

She smiled, but something in her eyes made his heart stumble. What now?

“So how’s this going to work?” she asked, not lifting her gaze past his chest.

He tried to swallow down his fear. “Any way it can, I guess, but I’d like for you to make an honest man of me.”

“What about that pesky psychic thing?”

“What about it?”

She plucked at the sheet. “I think Garrett was afraid I could read his mind or something.”

He snorted. “Now there’s something I’m not worried about.”

She glanced up, her eyes fear-filled. “No?”

He smiled. “Sweetheart, if you could read my mind, you’d have given up on me.”

“I could have another vision. In fact, I’ll probably have lots of them. I usually have a new one every year or two.”

“Then we’ll deal with it,” he said, “just, please God, not the way we dealt with this one.”

She drew herself up on one elbow to examine his face. “You’re really okay with this stuff?”

“Of course. It’s part of you and I love you.”

She leapt on him. Again. He could get used to this.

“Cal Taggart, I love you.”

“Mmmm, say it again,” he murmured against her mouth.

“As often as you want to hear it,” she promised.

“What if I want to hear it every day?”

“That could be arranged.”

He felt himself stir. She felt it too, seeing as she was now straddling him on the narrow bed. They’d have to get a queen.

“Marry me? And before you answer, bear in mind that’s the second time I’ve asked you today.”

She grinned, raking his chest with the tips of her nails. “Okay. You wore me down.”

He ran his hands lightly up the outsides of her arms. “Could we maybe look for a little fixer-upper farmhouse outside of town? I saw quite a bit of arable land from the plane.”

“What?”

“I’ll need to do something. I can hardly let you keep me,” he said mildly. “I’ve been thinking for a while about getting into breeding bucking bulls. It’s something I know, and nothing says they can’t be bred here on the East Coast. I could buy a couple of good heifers, drop some money on a few straws of semen from a premium bucking bull or two, and we’d be in business.”

“But what about the ranch?”

“Dad and Jim can handle it between them. Dad’s taken to the guest ranch part like a duck to water, by the way.”

She stilled again, that hushing of soul and body. “You’d do that for me? Move here?”

He cupped her face, his eyes as earnest now as hers. “Sweetheart, I’d wear a suit and sell used cars if I had to. Of course, I’d rather do this other thing, if it’s all the same.”

She poked him in the ribs. “Sorry, I can’t let you do that. There just isn’t enough wide-open space here for a man like you. You’d suffocate without your big prairie sky.”

His body tensed. “You’re not getting rid of me.”

“I should hope not!” she exclaimed. “There’s a very good chance you just impregnated me.”

Oh.
Oh!

“I meant I’ll go back with you. We can live at Foothills.”

He shook his head to dislodge the pregnant thing. “But your practice…”

“Can be sold in about a minute. I just sold half of it to Peter Markham last week. He’ll be delighted to relieve me of my share.”

Cal’s heart felt as if it had gotten too big inside his chest. “You’d do that for me?”

She kissed him, once, very sweetly, then straightened her spine again. “Sweetheart, I’d wear a uniform and say, ‘Would you like fries with that?’ if I have to, but I’d rather put my skills to work with your herd and in your stables, if it’s all the same.”