Rubbing my closed eyes with my fingers, I thought about everything. “Of course it can’t, but I knew this, Ken. When I came here, I knew what he was like. We both saw him that day in the gym.”
“Stuart Knight is no one to fu—front with.” Lane’s little voice said something, and she covered the phone to answer him.
“Oh, god!” I dropped my head against my hand again. “Why the hell am I here?”
Kenny was back. “I’m still not really sure, but you are there. You’re going to go with him. What can I do?”
Comfort warmed my chest at her words. “I’m going to have to be strong with him.” She made a noise of agreement. “I have to hold my own if I ever expect to be a part of his life. He won’t respect anything less.”
“I can see that.”
Pausing a moment, I thought about what that meant. Then with a little laugh, I touched the corners of my hot eyes. “Help me pick up the pieces when he breaks my heart.”
“I bet Pete would be more than happy to help you.” The tease in her voice gave me the tiniest nanoparticle of relief. “And who knows? You’ve been right before. Maybe ‘That’s all’ is the cry of the defeated.”
“Ha. In my dreams.”
* * *
Stuart
It took less than an hour to pack clothes, food, drinks... pretty much everything we’d need for a three-day stay at the cabin. I hadn’t given myself time to question it. No time to second-guess what I was doing or back away. I wanted to spend the next three days exploring every inch of her beautiful body, unraveling the layers of her mind. Finding the answer to why she captivated me so thoroughly.
She didn’t question or protest. She seemed to understand I needed to be away from the house, the people there, everything. I needed to understand why she was different. It was potentially setting us both up for a world of hurt, but I couldn’t let that stand in the way.
I’d stripped the bed and deposited the sheets in the machine while I waited for her to shower and change. She’d emerged from her end of the house wearing a leather-fringed jacket over a thigh-high, mint-blue dress. I wanted to pull her to me and slide my hands up that skirt, but not yet. Winona was in the kitchen observing for one thing.
Irritation built as she lingered to text Elaine. Not hearing back immediately, she decided to leave a note, which prompted a search for paper and a pen.
“Just so she won’t worry.” The sound of her voice, her fluid movements, made me impatient to be gone.
“Winona can take care of it.”
“I’ll only be a second.”
Leaning against the doorframe, I watched, arms crossed as she fussed with paper, finding a pen. A few times she glanced in my direction, and her cheeks flushed. For some reason, it did something to me. Made it even harder not to catch her around the waist and thread my fingers in her hair.
Once she was satisfied no one would worry or come looking, I put her in the pickup Bill loaned me and told her to follow as I rode Freckles the short distance across the prairie. I’d wanted her in the saddle with me, secure against my chest the way I’d held her on our ride back from the lake, but her body was tender from this afternoon. I didn’t want to prolong that state of affairs, so she kept a comfortable distance following as we chased the sunset west.
Now we were back together again. It didn’t take long to unload our bags from the truck and assemble the portable shelter for Freckles. We were outside again near where the campfire would be built.
“What’s this place for?” Mariska watched as I stacked wood. I had something special in mind for tonight.
“It came with the ranch.” Stepping back, I surveyed the small house lonely against the vast horizon. “We think it was an outpost when they used to raise cattle here. I’m the only one who ever uses it now.”
Her eyes followed mine before returning to my face. Taking in the wind pushing the soft waves away from her cheeks, I pulled her to me.
“Give me a few minutes to get the fire going.”
She blinked up. “Winona sent dinner for tonight. Want me to make our plates?”
“Are you hungry?”
With a shrug, she looked at her hands trapped against my chest. “Not particularly.”
“Good.” I leaned forward and kissed the corner of her mouth before releasing her.
The fire was blazing a short time later, and I took her hand, leading her back toward the cabin. She followed without question. Everything she did was somehow perfect, from the way her body felt in my arms to the way she could alternate between resistance and surrender.