The Last Chance Ranch (19 page)

He looked over his shoulder, as if afraid there would be some older boy to make fun of him if he admitted to still wanting such things.

“I need a hug,” Tanya said. “That kind of scared me. Did it scare you?”

His expression eased, and he nodded, moving forward. Tanya moved back from the table to make room on her lap, and Zach eased his skinny body gingerly onto her legs. She rubbed his back. “Everything is okay now.”

“I’m glad they arrested him. He was mean to me.”

“He was? Did you tell anybody?”

Zach sighed and shook his head. She kept rubbing his back. “I was afraid he’d be meaner if I did.”

“Oh, honey.” She pulled him close. He wasn’t a very large child and still fit neatly in her lap.

Almost as if against his will, he put his head on her shoulder and started to cry. “I was scared for you,” he said, and suddenly put his arms around her very tightly.

“Go ahead and cry it out, sweetie. Don’t believe all those people who say it doesn’t help anything—it helps a lot.”

“What if he had hurt you bad? Or cut your throat?”

“He didn’t. I’m okay. I’m sorry you were frightened, Zach, I really am. If I’d thought for a minute…” What? She wouldn’t have acted? That wasn’t true. “He didn’t,” she repeated.

He fell silent against her, his tears drying quickly. He made no immediate move to get away, however, so Tanya relaxed, her arms around his painfully thin body. “It’s nice to hold a boy again,” she said after a little while. “I used to have a little boy, did I tell you that?”

Zach shook his head. “Did he die, like my mom?”

“No.” Tanya sighed. “No, thank goodness. I lost him, that’s all. Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.” She began to rock slowly, back and forth, and began to hum. “I used to hold him and sing to him. Can I sing you a song?”

“I think I’m too big for a song.”

“Who’s going to know?” She felt him smile against her neck, and from the weight of his body slumped against hers, he was getting sleepy. “Even grown-up boys listen to music sometimes when they’ve had a bad day.”

He yawned. “Okay.”

Tanya hummed quietly through the song to get her voice, then very quietly, she began to sing Tonio’s song to him. By the time she reached the end, Zach was slumped and snoring softly. A movement at the door caught her eye, and she looked up to see Tonio standing there, a strange expression on his face. A cool sense of shock washed through her—her guard was slipping fast. To cover her feelings of guilt, she smiled. “He’s out cold.”

Tonio nodded and came into the room. “I’ll take him and put him to bed.”

“Thanks.” Tanya stood and shifted the weight of Zach into Tonio’s waiting arms. She smiled. “You’re really a good kid, you know it?”

He smiled, but said nothing.

With a sigh, Tanya sat back down at her tea, gone lukewarm now. She covered her face with her hands, dizzy with everything that had happened—not only tonight, but since she’d been released from prison. Her life had changed so much!

That was where Ramón found her, sitting at the kitchen table, mug between her cold hands. He looked grim. The scuffle had mussed his carefully tamed hair, and it had sprung into its natural, wild waves over his head. She thought she understood why he wore it longer than normal—cut short, it would be uncontrollable. He touched the bridge of his nose. “That was crazy, Tanya.”

She winced. “I know. I didn’t do it with a lot of conscious thought. I just saw the chance and…” She let the words trail off and raised her hand.

With a sigh, he sank into the chair opposite. “It was brave, too.”

She said nothing, only looked at her hands.

“I wanted to be the hero, you know.” There was teasing in his voice. “That’s how it’s supposed to be. The guy does the heroic stuff, the girl squeals on the sidelines.

Tanya looked up and saw his wry smile. “Sorry. I’ll practice my squealing for next time.”

“Let’s hope there is no next time.”

“There will be.” She sucked in a breath of air and let it go on a sigh. “There always is.”

From the dining room came the sounds of cleanup. Tonio came in. A smear of dust marked his dark blue shirt, and there was a goose egg on his forehead. “Zach’s safely in bed,” he said.

“You okay?” Ramón asked.

“Yeah.” He looked down. “But Teresa’s mom is pretty upset.”

“I can understand that.”

“He took me by surprise.” He touched the goose egg gingerly. “I don’t even know what he hit me with.”

“A plain old rock,” Ramón said. “It’s in there by the chair where you fell.”

“Jeez.” His head was bowed, but he lifted it now and looked at Tanya. “Where’d you learn to fight, lady?”

“Long story. I’ll tell it to you someday.”

He nodded slowly. “I’m going to bed. Good night, you guys.” He ambled out of the kitchen, into the main part of the house, leaving a deep silence behind him.

Tanya stared at her tea, watching the lights play over the surface in rippling waves. “We have to tell him,” she said.

“Yes, we do.”

“How do you think he’ll take it?”

Ramón sucked his teeth, shook his head. “I really don’t have any idea, Tanya. You takes yer cards and plays yer hand.”

She nodded. In the dining room, a pair of voices quieted with the slam of a door, and there was silence.

“At last,” Ramón said, and rubbed his face. He looked at her. “Come here, will you?”

Her heart jumped, and without knowing she would, she got up and moved around the table to his side. He took her hand and tugged her into his lap. As she put her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder, pounds of tension drained suddenly from her body. He, too, sighed, as if he’d needed her closeness to ease him.

He held her loosely, his cheek against her hair, his hands joined around her waist. Tanya closed her eyes at the comfort of his touch, and breathed of his scent—faint traces of aftershave and shampoo, and deeper, the notes of his very flesh, redolent of the desert and its secrets. She shifted and pressed her forehead and the bridge of her nose against his neck.

Gently he rubbed her back, smoothing his hand over her hip, back to her waist. A strange, unfamiliar feeling crept through her, calm and sweet, so comforting she didn’t recognize it at first.

Trust.

It was such a strange feeling; she raised her head to look at him. He met her gaze evenly, his fathomless eyes promising honor and gentleness. She could touch him her way, explore him according to her needs—and his, too, of course—but he’d be patient while she learned him.

Earlier, she’d wanted him, with her body and a certain yearning incompleteness she didn’t know how to name. Now a bone-deep need grew in her, a need to love him and let him love her in return, a need to show him she trusted him as she’d trusted no other, a need to—

He touched her face, and his long fingers spread wide to cup her jaw, her cheekbone, her temple, and his eyes were intent on her mouth. She kissed him, or he kissed her, and there was a sighing, breathy sound that came from them both. “Ah, Tanya,” he said, and pulled her closer.

They kissed for a long time, and Tanya touched him, his hair and his ears and his throat where his blood ran under the skin. He stroked her back and rubbed his open palm over her thigh, and skimmed his hand under her skirt, over the slippery stockings. They parted ever so slightly, breath mingling. “I think we should go upstairs,” he said.

“Yes.”

And it was so easy to stand up and let him take her hand, and go through the house, turning off lights. He paused at the foot of the stairs to kiss her, as if he were nibbling something addictive. “Mmm,” he said, and took her hand again, smiling.

They stopped by his room, quietly. He took the box of condoms out of a drawer and dropped them in the pocket of his robe, which he also carried with him. Tanya watched from the doorway, leaning against the doorjamb, admiring him. His movements were fluid and easy, and she liked how he handled the things he needed to bring without embarrassment. Open. He hid nothing, so he had no fear of exposure.

When he turned off the lamp by the bed, he came to her and put his hands on either side of her face, pressing his body along the length of her, and kissed her again, long and deep, as if he could never taste it enough.

Tanya smiled up at him. “You’re so…wonderful,” she said, and blushed because it sounded so silly.

He dipped, smiling, and touched his tongue to her lips. “Just wait.”

And seized with a sudden silliness, they raced up the rest of the stairs to Tanya’s room, hissing for the other to be quiet, tripping on the tie of his robe, and each other. At last they were safely inside her room, and the door was closed, and they fell on each other.

Ramón dropped his robe on the floor and reached for her at the same moment she reached for him. She tugged open the snaps on his shirt, until his brown, bare chest was exposed to her hands and her mouth. Ramón unzipped her dress, and slipped his hands underneath the fabric. She felt her bra give way as he unfastened the hook, and she skimmed his shirt off his shoulders. He let her push it off his arms, leaving his torso bare, then took her dress and bra from her shoulders and helped them fall to the floor. He bent to gather her close, to kiss her, and Tanya gasped at the electric sensation of his naked chest against her breasts.

He breathed her name, and his kiss grew fierce. For one instant, he let her go, and knelt to take the box from his robe pocket, then walked her backward to the bed, until the back of her knees bumped the mattress. They tumbled down together, kicking off their shoes, skimming off jeans and stockings, kissing and kissing and kissing. Ramón played her body like a fiddle, setting it to a furious, building tune, using his hands, his mouth, his limbs, to tease and tantalize and arouse.

At last, gasping with need, she grabbed his shoulders. “I want you inside me, Ramón, before I die of needing you.”

“Yes.” He reached for the box, flipping the lid with his thumb and dumping the contents in their slippery foil packs on the bed. Tanya grabbed one and tore the foil with her teeth and took the condom out. She paused.

“I haven’t made love to anyone since Victor,” she said. “We don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, we do.” He reached for it, but Tanya moved her hand away.

She smiled. “Allow me,
señor
.”

He lifted a little to give her access, and groaned as her fingers slid over the length of him. Tanya moved, and he put himself between her thighs. For a moment he paused. “I’ve wanted this for more years than I can count,” he whispered, and kissed her breast, then her mouth. Tanya ached, feeling him at her nethermost. His hair brushed her lips as he kissed her throat, and the sensation was erotic, tantalizing.

“Ramón,” she whispered. “Come
home
.”

He let go of a ragged chuckle, and she could tell by his breathing it was not so easy for him to stay so torturously poised, either. “You sure?” He kissed her gently, bracing himself on his arms. “We won’t be the same after this, not you or me, or us.”

“I’m sure.” She put her hands on his firm buttocks and lifted her hips, and there was no more teasing from him. He made a low pleasured sound and eased into her. Tanya heard her own moan roll into the room—it was so right! She sighed his name, her hands moving on his back and hips, and the backs of his thighs. She arched. “Ramón!”

He gathered her close and drove home and there was no thought, only wide bands of feelings, only touching as they tangled hands and mouths and legs, as they rocked in ancient rhythm. Tanya felt him all through her, all around her, and he was right—it was like nothing she’d ever known. The way they melded, the way each cry, each kiss, each small movement increased the joining until there was only one being, not two. One soul, one mind, one heart, irretrievably entwined.

Ramón kissed her and Tanya tumbled, her body pulsing around his. She cried out in a sobbing voice against his lips and heard him whisper, “Sweet, sweet Tanya.” He rocked her harder, closer, his lips and movements intense and wild and so vividly pleasurable Tanya thought she could happily die.

And then his mouth was all over her face and her neck and his hands held her close and she felt him come apart, throbbing within her.

He buried his face against her neck, slowly moving, letting the waves slow in him, in her. There was sweat between their chests, and their pounding, racing hearts beat only millimeters apart. Their breath tangled in the darkness. Tanya lifted her hands from his back and touched his head, putting her fingers in that silky, springy hair. She turned her head and kissed his ear, filled with emotions too broad, too intense, too new to name. Ramón planted tiny kisses on her collarbone, her throat, her chin.

They shifted to lie side by side, and tugged the covers over them. Tanya touched his face, suddenly overwhelmed with the fact that it was Ramón here in her arms. She kissed his forehead, between his eyes, and his nose. “I’m in love with you, Ramón,” she whispered, touching his jaw, his mouth.

“Don’t say it,” he said, and kissed her, as if to blot out the words. “You owe me nothing.”

Smelling the scent of their joining, together with the notes of his skin, Tanya thought: I owe you everything, but she didn’t say it. She contented herself with the feel of him warm against her and the joy of being in complete union with another human for possibly the first time in her life.

* * *

They dozed and woke up starving. Ramón tiptoed downstairs and brought back a big plate of leftovers from the party, along with cans of grape soda. When he came back into her room, he stopped just inside the door, closed his eyes, and opened them again. It wasn’t a dream. Tanya, sensual as a cat, waited for him in bed, naked beneath the green sheets and blankets of her bed. Her dark golden hair tumbled in disarray around her face, and one lean bare arm held the sheets to her breasts. She was beautiful, delectable, everything he’d ever wanted. Emotion slammed him, so strong and intense, he knew he was lost.

Settling the food on the lamp table beside the bed, Ramón sat down. “Hi,” he said, holding out a carrot stick.

“Hi.” She chomped the carrot right from his fingers and leaned back. “Come here often?”