Jake (Men of Clifton Montana Book 1) (6 page)

She held up two
fingers, shrugged, and couldn’t hold back a giggle. “I wanted to kill the pain.”

Jake took off his
coat and hat, tossing them onto one of the recliners and took a seat in the
other. She watched him run his hand over his face as he propped his booted feet
on the coffee table.

“You
should go get you shome, some blankets. They are in the
lina
-
lina
-
lin
-en closhet up…” Becca
sat up and waved her hand toward the stairs, then collapsed into a fit of giggles.

Jake
didn’t move from his seat. He simply clasped his hands across his flat stomach
and leaned his head back. “Go to sleep, Becca.”

She
sighed and settled into the couch. She heard him mutter.

“Christ,
it’s going to be a long damn night.”

The next morning,
Becca’s throbbing ankle woke her up. She sat up and looked to the chair where
Jake had been. He was gone, but a glass of water and her pain pills sat on the
coffee table with a note telling her to take only one and call if she needed
him. She scooted to the edge of the couch and stood up on her good foot.

How was she
supposed to get up the steps? She was considering hopping up them when she
heard someone knock on the back door. Becca yelled for whoever it was to come
in. It was Stan.

“Jake told me about
your ankle. I’m sorry you couldn’t get ahold of me.”

“That’s okay. Jake
helped me.” Thank God for Jake, since she really couldn’t imagine Stan carrying
her up the stairs. He seemed fit enough, but he was in his sixties.

“Ted’s bringing a
set of crutches. His daughter broke her leg last year and when I told him about
you, he said he’d bring them for you to use.”

Becca smiled. “That’s
great. It should only be for a few days.”

After Stan left, she
tackled the stairs by crawling up them. Now all she had to do was figure out
how to get back down them without falling. The stairs were hardwood with no
carpeting. They were also very slick. That would need to be changed.

Becca stopped when
she realized her line of thought.
Changed?
Why change anything if she wasn’t staying? She shook her head as she stood at
the top of the stairs looking down. She could always slide down the banister.
She laughed at the thought, carefully took a seat on the top step, and moved
down them one at a time on her bottom, holding onto the spindles in the
banister as tightly as she could.

Whew!
She made it down all right, but she never would’ve been able to do it last
night with those painkillers in her system. Becca would’ve gone down those
stairs like a melted cartoon
character.
Feeling relieved to be on the ground floor, she hopped to the kitchen to make
coffee.

She
was puttering around the kitchen carefully when there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” she called out
. Thank goodness, it was Ted bringing her a
pair of crutches.

“Ted, I could kiss
you,” Becca exclaimed and then laughed when his ears turned pink.

She knew she’d get
around much easier now that she had crutches for support.

As she sat drinking
her coffee, Becca decided to call Steve and get that over with once and for all.
After all, she’d promised. He was going to drive Olivia insane and her best
friend would end up killing him. Becca punched in his number and waited for him
to pick up. She was about to disconnect the call when he finally answered.

“Becky! I’m so glad
you called. How are you?”

She sighed. “I’m
fine, Steve. How are you doing?”

“I miss you Becky,
so very much.”

God!
She didn’t know what to say to him.
Lord, how she hated it when he called her Becky.

“When are you
coming home?”

“I have to stay for
six months, Steve. I told you this before I left.” Becca clenched her teeth to
keep from saying something she might regret.

“Maybe I should
come visit you,” Steve suggested with hope in his voice.

“No,” she said a
little too quick and probably a little too loud. “I mean, there’s no need to do
that, Steve.” Becca tried to soften her tone. “Six months will be up before you
know it.” Did he not know what being on a
break
meant?

She cringed when he
laughed. “Maybe I’ll surprise you. I think you and I have something special,
Becky. I just might show up one day and whisk you away.”

Great.
That would definitely be the last straw...

“I have to go now,
Steve. Take care and I’ll see you in June.”

She hung up and
turned the phone off. She was beginning to wonder what she ever saw in him. For
the first time since arriving in Montana, she was happy to be here instead of
in Maryland where Steve was.

* * * *

Jake rode Midnight
around the huge barn he used for training. Come spring, the competitions would
start and he wanted to be ready.

Jake and his
brothers were good at what they did. All three of them were into the breeding,
raising, selling, and training of American Quarter horses. They trained their
own as well as other people’s horses. Jake trained reining and barrel racing
horses. Gabe’s field was calf-roping horses, and Wyatt’s was cutting horses.
Each of them had won several competitions. Their horses had sold for up to twenty-five
thousand dollars. They each belonged to the National Reining Horse Association,
the National Rodeo Association, and the National Cutting Horse Association.
Their horses were certified and very much sought after.

Jake had Midnight
do several maneuvers. The horse could virtually do the moves by himself without
any commands from Jake. He rode him through the figure eight, making sure
Midnight changed his gait from one foot to the other, and then he ran him full
speed in a straight line before he had him stop and back up. Unless done in a
straight line, the judges deducted points.
 

Jake glanced toward
the door when it opened. He was surprised to see Becca standing there. It had
been two weeks since he’d seen her and helped her with her ankle. She stood
inside the door, looking uncertain. He rode Midnight over to her.

“How’s the ankle?”
he asked, leaning his arms on the saddle horn.

She smiled and put
her hand on Midnight’s nose. “It’s much better. Thank you for your help. I
really appreciated it.”

Jake grinned and
dismounted. He jerked his head for her to follow him as he led Midnight to the
other barn. After handing the horse off to one of the ranch hands, he put his
hands on his hips and looked at her. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“I just wanted to
thank you for helping me.”

Jake snorted. “A
phone call would have done that. Why are you here, Becca?”

He watched her
shuffle her feet and look around. She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I
wanted to see your place.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

Jake almost groaned.
He wanted to chew on that lip so bad he could taste it.

He stared at her
for a few minutes then shook his head. “All right then. Come on, I’ll show you
around.”

They walked through
two barns that held fifteen horses each and then Jake pointed out the pastures
to her. “If the weather was nicer, they’d be outside so they can run and get
some good exercise but since it’s so cold, they have to make do with the
corrals. I have seven ranch hands that take care of them full time. I trust
them all. If I ever see them hurting or abusing the horses in any way, they’re
gone.”

Becca nodded. “I’m
glad you’re so adamant about that. I love horses and hate to see any animal
abused.” Then she spun around and looked back at him. “I don’t understand.”

Jake frowned. “What?”

“You have all this,”
she said as she waved her arms around. “Yet you still want my ranch.”

“I told you I didn’t
want it or need it.” Jake’s jaw clenched.

“And I told you
that I don’t believe you. You would love me to leave before the six months are
up so you can swoop in and buy it a lot cheaper than what I could sell it for
at auction. You’re hoping I’ll get so bored that I won’t care what happens to
it.” Her voice rose at the end of her rant.

She had fire in
her. He liked that.

Jake stalked toward
Becca, making her step backward until her back was against the barn wall. He
stopped in front of her and leaned his face down to hers. “Anyone ever tell you
that you talk too much, Red?”

Her chin came up. “Why?
You think you can shut me up?”

His mouth lifted in a
slow smile as he cupped her face in his hands. “I’ve wanted to do this since
the first moment I saw you.”

She was shaking her head no, but Jake
didn’t care. He had to taste those lips. When his mouth touched hers, he
growled low in his throat. Her hands pushed at his shoulders but then slid
around his neck as he picked her up and her legs wrapped around his waist. His
hands moved to cup her butt and pull her closer. He felt her heat against his
erection as he rubbed against her. She gasped against his mouth. How had he
kept his hands off her for so long? Pressing his lips to hers, he brushed the
seam with his tongue and when she rewarded him with a little moan, his blood
raced like fire through his veins. “Open,” he commanded against her mouth. When
she did, he slipped his tongue into the honeyed depths of her mouth and mapped
it as if he planned a return trip.

* * * *

Becca had never
felt like this. He was hot and hard against her, and she wanted more. Unable to
stop, she lifted her hips against him. With trembling hands, she ran her
fingers through his silky black hair, knocking his hat to the floor. He groaned
in her mouth as he deepened the kiss, running his tongue along her lips and
taking her bottom lip between his teeth. Becca moaned as his tongue moved
slowly into her mouth. Too many clothes were between them. She wanted to rip
them off as he kept bucking against her, driving her need higher and higher. Becca
tore her mouth from his as she felt the pressure building deep inside her. Throwing
her head back, she tensed, knowing she was about to explode.

Jake moved his
mouth to her neck and gently bit her.

“Jake…” she exclaimed
on a low moan.

“Let it go, Becca.
Let go, baby,” he whispered against her skin.

She cried out as
her orgasm hit her. Wave after wave of pleasure coursed through her body and
she trembled hard. Becca dropped her head onto his shoulder as the flutters low
in her belly began to subside.

Oh, God! What had she done?
Becca stiffened
in his arms. She was mortified. She’d wrapped her legs around him and ground
against him until she’d come like some floozy. Slowly, she lowered her legs to
the floor and he let her go. Without looking up, Becca moved away from him.

“Becca…” Jake
reached for her.

She shook her head
and ran from the barn.

Chapter Four

A week went by before Becca saw Jake
again. He’d called a few times, but she hadn’t answered. Once he even came by
and knocked on the door but she refused to answer it. Thank God, he hadn’t used
his key. Her embarrassment was so great that she refused to leave the house.

Just remembering how her body
had reacted, and how her face had flamed hot as she drove home that day was
enough to make her never want to leave home again. Her tears of frustration
were humiliating enough and she could only imagine what Jake must have thought
of her. She’d never experienced anything like that before, not with any man,
especially not Steve. Thank goodness he’d never tried. She’d had orgasms before
but never one as strong as that and not anything like that. Hell, what they’d
done wasn’t even real sex. What haunted her was the thought of what it would be
like to be with him for real.

As she sat at the kitchen table,
Becca saw a truck with a horse trailer pull up to the barn. She watched Stan
walk from the barn toward the truck with a big smile on his face.

“Oh, no,” Becca
groaned when she saw Jake step out of the truck. Both men walked to the back of
the rig. She gasped when she saw the beautiful horse Jake led from the trailer.
She didn’t care how embarrassed she was, Becca was going out there to see that
horse.

She quickly put her
coat on and hurried out to the barn where Jake had taken the horse. When she
stepped inside, he turned to look at her. He smiled at her and she blushed to
the roots of her red hair. Visions of the last time she’d been this close to
him flamed in her mind. Becca tried her best to ignore him.

“What’s going on?”
She looked to Stan for an answer.

“Jake brought his
stud over to breed with Daisy, one of Hattie’s horses,” Stan explained.

Becca almost
groaned aloud. She wanted to tell Stan never, under any circumstances, to use
the word
stud
and Jake in the same
sentence. To her utter chagrin, Becca heard Jake chuckle as if he’d read her
mind. The man was dangerous.
Lethal, in fact.
He made
her weak in the knees and breathing difficult just by looking at her.

“I thought mares
were only in season from April to October?” Becca asked Stan. He started to
answer, but Jake beat him to it.

“They are, unless
we fool Mother Nature. We put the mare under artificial lights, then her biological
calendar tells her
it’s
spring, and she comes in heat.
It’s an eleven-month gestation. There’s a little girl that wants a horse for
Christmas and her daddy is going to make sure she gets her foal.” Jake
shrugged. “He’s a good friend and a client of mine, so I told him I’d take care
of it.”