One Brave Cowboy (12 page)

“But you saved your hat.”

“Let's just stay here a while.” He put his arm around her. “This is my first time.”

“Right.”

“First time in the backseat of a car. I've always wanted to steam up the windows like this.” He drew a heart in the vapor and wrote
CB +
. He glanced at
her, the corner of his mouth twitching. And then he drew a
C
. “It fits.”

She pulled his head down and kissed him soundly. A second kiss, and a third, and then they looked at each other.
To be continued.

“My place or yours?” he asked as he opened the car door.

“How big is your shower?”

“About half the size of this backseat, but with a little more head room.”

“I'll race you to the house,” she proposed as she emerged from the car. “Bare feet versus boots.”

They reached the barn door, he pulled it open, and they surveyed the scene. Cottonwood branches, roof shingles and tumbleweeds littered the yard, but it was the gigantic puddles in what had been dry ground that impressed them the most.

“Yard of a thousand lakes,” he said.

“That's what I love about this country,” she said. “No half measures.”

He sat down on a three-legged stool and pulled one boot off. She laughed. “You can start now if you want,” he said without looking up. “I'll still beat the pants off you.”

“Not if I get to yours first.”

C
elia took off running, pumping her arms and paddling the air with a flip-flop in each hand. Suddenly reborn, the kid in Cougar sprang from the stool and dashed past her. He carried his boots like a running back, deftly dodging puddles until she started gaining on him by running straight up the middle. He cut in front of her, and she let out a girlish shriek. Music to a bad boy's ears.

He did a one-eighty and sloshed backward. “Take me down, woman. I dare you.”

She kicked water in his direction, but he was out of range.

“Aw, c'mon.” He fired back, and she was fully
splattered. “Try again. The ol' college try. You went to college for this, didn't you?”

A girlish screech added some power to her second try, and he took some spray.

“Better, but not by mu—” One foot went out from under him and down he went, flat on his ass in six inches of water.

Squealing with delight, Celia hurled herself on top of him. Her rubber sandals floated away as she pushed against his shoulders, going for the pin. He couldn't let her get it, but he admired her cowboy try.

“Takedown!” She scooped water on him furiously with both hands. “Say it! I've got you down!”

“Takedown? Ha! It's first and goal.” Tucked under his elevated wing, the ball was still in his possession.

“Typical man.” She sat back and scowled. “Not only do you change the rules to suit you, you switch games.” Her eyes narrowed. She wagged her finger at his boots and smiled impishly. “But your boots are wet.”

He glanced askance. Sure enough. “I don't care about a little water.”

“Oh. Now you change your whole bottom line.”

“Which is underwater.” He grinned, and then he gave her a quick kiss. “As long as my boots aren't caked with mud, I'm happy.”

“What about winning the race?”

“What about you beatin' my pants off?”

She hit him with a parting handful of water as she sprang off his lap. Then she reached for his hand. He gave her a wary look, and she laughed. “I'd pity you if you hadn't shown your true colors.” She risked a closer reach. “Can we call it a draw?”

“
You
can.” He took her hand. “I call it a time-out.”

They sloshed through the water, unflinching now that caution and dignity had been released to the wind. He couldn't remember the last time he'd indulged himself in the feel of being ankle-deep in mud, but it felt vaguely familiar. Celia was dragging him toward the grass around the house, but he pulled back at the edge to partake of a thorough mud squeeze between his toes. He looked up and found the teacher smiling, like he'd just mastered some skill. They both laughed. They wiped their feet on wet grass and hosed each other off before they went inside.

He hung back and watched her make the switch from playful girl to real mother. She went directly to the phone, called the school and was, from what he gathered, reassured that the storm hadn't disrupted the field trip.

“Where's your dryer?” he asked as she bustled around in the kitchen—out of sight, back in, out again. He was just standing there, trying to figure out what to do with his hands. “I'll just throw my pants in since you didn't beat them off me.” She leaned back around the corner and leered at him.
“What?” He yanked at his belt, grinning. Her eyes narrowed. “You've already seen the best parts.”

“Oh.” The word was injected with a full measure of disappointment. She extended her palm with a supple twist of the wrist. “Hand them over, then.”

“Yours are wet, too.”

“Yeah, but I've just decided to save mine.”

“Fair enough. This way to the shower?” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. She waved a gimme gesture. “You're not beating anything off me, woman. Turn around.”

He took his jeans off, draped them over her arm, and headed for the shower. No rush. He could tell when she turned to take a peek at his bare ass. He had the ears of an owl.

“I'll leave the door unlocked,” he said.

He helped himself to soap and shampoo, which was cascading over his face when she slid in behind him, slipped her arms around his waist and pressed her belly against his backside. She slid up a little, down and up again, buffing him with her soft skin and springy hair, her fingertips lightly circling his belly. She stilled momentarily when the tip of his penis touched the back of her hand, but she started in again, pressing a little more, testing him. She'd find him solid if that was what she was testing for. Physically, at least.

He turned in her arms and pivoted with her to give her a turn under the running water. She sputtered,
tipped her head and let the water wash her hair as she caressed his backside. “You're a hardass, you know.”

“You like that?”

She laughed. “Who knew such a thing existed in real life?”

“You're a soft touch.” He slid his hands up her sleek back, pressed his lip to her forehead. “You know that?”

“I meant literally.”

“I meant inside and out.” Which both pleased and troubled him, but rubbing up against her in the shower, he wasn't in any mood for trouble. “Let me touch both.”

“I want this.” She slipped her hand between their bodies and claimed his penis. “This was made to touch me inside.”

“You sure? I had the feeling you weren't impressed.”

“I didn't say it was made to look at.” She hooked her leg around his back and lifted herself as though she would shimmy up his body. “I said… I meant…”

He put one arm around her and used the other to ease himself down in the tub with her in his lap, right where she'd been when they'd played in the mud puddle like kids. “I'm made to go deep,” he warned.

She rose on her knees and positioned herself to take him where he was made to fit her, to swallow him by degrees, feel him make his way in a place
built to house him and home in on him and welcome him with her undying “Yesss…” until the whole of him made her catch her breath.

He went still. “Hurt?”

“No. Yes.”

But she was in charge. She looked into his eyes as though he were a mirror and she was learning a new dance, taking it slow, trying one rhythm, then another, all the while watching his eyes. He had no idea what she saw, but he saw pleasure. Behind those beautiful brown eyes there was pleasure and nothing else. There was Cougar and no one else. He would be good to her, and she would make him even better.

He took charge. He found ways to reach her that made her body quake and her mouth pour molten words in his ears. Ah, she was flying, and he wanted to stay where he was and fly with her, first class.

But he did not.

“No!” she gasped, but she could do nothing to keep him from pulling himself away. In his arms she was boneless and mindless and beautifully spent, oblivious to the water pelting her back.

“Oh, I could have gone on all day,” she whispered against his shoulder.

“That's where we're different. Where we have to part ways if I'm unprepared.” He kissed her wet hair. “I'll do better next time.”

Her throaty chuckle felt like a bee buzzing against his chest. “It doesn't get any better than Cougar.”

“Oh, yeah. Cougar gets better than Cougar.” He lifted her shoulders away from his. “What? You're laughing at my name?” She braced her hands on his arms and glanced down between them. “No, don't look down. If you look down and you're still laughing, I'll be—”

She kissed him hard and quick. “I'm laughing for joy, silly.”

“That's something I've never been called. Silly.” He raised a palm against the spray. “Get up, woman. It was nice while it lasted, but the water's going cold on us.”

They laughed at themselves in their awkward recovery. He reached past her and shut the water off. “Joy, huh?” He grinned. “That good?”

“You're that good, Cougar.” She slid the shower curtain aside, grabbed a bath sheet from the rack and flung it around his shoulders. “Not it, Cougar. You.”

“Joy seems way out there. Just tell me the sex was good. I get that.” He took a couple of swipes at his legs with the towel, and then he wrapped it around her. “It's been a while, Celia. I kept it together tour after tour, and then I got hit, and I lost it. I can't even tell you what I lost and how much I got back. You're taking a risk with me.”

“It's always a risk.”

She climbed out of the tub, and he stood there, watching her dry off. She stepped into a pair of silky-looking white panties and slipped lacy bra straps
over her shoulders. He stepped out of the tub, took the two sides of the bra band from her hands and fit the tiny wire hooks together. Pleased with the steadiness, he kissed her shoulder.

“Are you trying to scare me?”

“That's the last thing I wanna do. Scare you, hurt you. If it happens, tell me. Okay? And I'll go.”

She turned to him. “I want you here, and so does Mark.”

“For now.” He glanced at the door. “When does Mark get back?”

“Soon. I'll go get your jeans out of the dryer.” She pulled a fresh, pale green T-shirt on over wet hair and climbed into a pair of clean shorts. “We could use some wind now to dry everything out.” She twisted her hair up the back of her head and clipped it in place.

He listened to the sound of bare feet go down the hall, then up again. The door opened, and his pants came in on the end of her arm.

“Here you go. I need to be at the highway to meet the bus pretty soon. I just hope my road's passable.”

“We'll take the pickup,” Cougar called out after her, chuckling at the way she bounced between shy and seductive.

And then Celia gasped. He knew distress when he heard it. Before she'd finished demanding, “What are you doing here?” Cougar was at her side.

“He's quick,” Greg said. He was seated comfort
ably in an easy chair in the least conspicuous corner of the living room. “Quick as a cat. What do you do for a living, Cougar?”

A pale red haze closed in from the periphery like rising smoke. Cougar stared through it, focusing impassively at the intruder. Inches away, Celia's body exuded tension.

But she spoke quietly. “What are you doing in my house?”

“I heard about the storm. It kinda blew through ahead of me.” Banyon cut his eyes at Cougar. “Looks like that's not all.”

Cougar's blood was heating up.

“Get out of here,” Celia demanded, her tone on the rise. “This is
my house
. You can't just walk in here.”

“Anybody could. The front door was unlocked. And the road
is
passable.” Banyon pushed himself out of the chair and closed in. “Where's my son?”

“Mark is in school.”

“How do you know? For all you know, the school could've blown away.” He turned to Cougar. “I guess you noticed, Cecilia's a great lay during a—”

Cougar had the intruder in a headlock with his arm behind his back before the sentence could be finished with anything more than a choking sound. “Yeah, I'm quick. And you're trespassing.”

“Cougar…”

“What do you want me to do with him, Celia?”

“I just want him to go away.” He couldn't look at her, but her hand felt cool on his arm. “Don't, Cougar. Please.”

“You can't just walk into somebody's house,” Cougar calmly told his prisoner. “It's against the law.”

“Cougar, let him go. He'll leave.” The hand on his arm tightened. “Please, Cougar.”

He released the head of the prisoner first and then the arm.

“I think you broke my arm,” Banyon whined, cradling one arm in the other.

“I know something about breaking bones. I thought about it, but I decided against it.” Cougar stepped back. “The smart thing for you to do now is leave.”

“This man's dangerous.” Banyon stepped to one side, effectively using Celia as a shield. “Why is he here?”

“Because I invited him, Greg. And he—”

“And he was here first? But he isn't the first, is he?” Another sidestep, menacing eyes, loading up the idiot finger and aiming at Cougar…

Buster, you're about to blunder.

“You aren't the first. I was the first, but between me and you there was a whole damn parade. A whole—”

Cougar backhanded the fool's mouth shut, spun him around and neutralized his “broken” arm.

“Aaa! I'm…calling…the police.”

“You.” Pressure applied. “Are.” More pressure applied. “Trespassing.” And Banyon was out the door.

Cougar closed the door and stood for a moment, cooling himself, calming himself, collecting himself. He turned to face Celia, whose eyes were big with surprise but not—so far—horror.

“He'll call the police,” she said in a small voice.

Meaning what? “Did I do something wrong?”

“I would have called the police.” She took a tentative step. “If he'd tried to hurt anyone, I
would
have.”

“What do you think he was he trying to do?”

“I don't care what he says, and it doesn't matter anymore what he suspects. He's a bully and a coward.”

“One thing I'm not is a coward.”

“You're not a bully, either.” She wrapped her arms around her slender middle. “When Greg comes here, I don't ask him to come in. He had no business…” Her face went funny with a touch of sadness, a hint of fury. “He doesn't come in my house, but he comes to take my son.” She shook her head. “
Our
son according to the court.”

He wanted to hold her, but he wasn't sure what category he fell into. Maybe she wasn't looking at a bully, but what business did he have?

“He won't get past me, Celia.”

“He'll make trouble for you.” She closed the dis
tance between them. “He has a way of twisting things. Finding you here…”