Instead, she turned around, her body glancing his inner thighs as she twisted, and leaned back against his chest, her rear nestled against the juncture of his thighs as she rested on the rock—he nearly bit a hole in his cheek. He took off her hat for her and set it aside on the rock so her hair had complete freedom, brushed it over her shoulder as she looked out at the water. There was no way she couldn’t feel how worked up he’d gotten himself with her ass against his package. Her hair, kinked from a hairband she must have worn earlier, still smelled like peaches. His arms slipped so naturally around her waist, it was a wonder they hadn’t done this for years.
He needed to kill this burgeoning mood, but he couldn’t and took off his Stetson, too, to rest his chin atop her shoulder to look out on the water with her.
“Have you ever been back home?” he continued.
“Nope. I haven’t been home since I left for college on August 15th, 2001.”
An exact date, spoken without inflection or hesitation. Fifteen years ago next month.
Her posture tightened. She didn’t seem as if she liked where his questions were leading. Ah, it meant he was on the right track to finding out something. She seemed to worry about everyone else around her, which afforded her a veil of anonymity to fly under the radar. She wasn’t as changed as she thought she was. She’d just gotten better at concealing the parts she didn’t want others to see.
“Why not?”
“It’s not something I like to think on.”
“Kinda like me not wanting to talk about the landmine?”
“It’s different.”
“How so?”
She sighed with exasperation and flashed a glare back at him. He only grinned and pecked her cheek. “Sky, you pushed me to the brink about my leg. All I’m sayin’ is fair play and all that. What’re you hiding?”
“I’m not hiding anything.” Spoken like a lie with an edge of defensiveness. She’d always been a bad liar. “But if you must know?”
“Yup,” he prodded again. Squeezed her waist, cheek against her ear. “Must.”
“You were gone and Rhett was there. The one time I called him from college for help, he, well”—her voice wavered slightly, he noticed—“told me in ‘no uncertain terms’ I was on my own. He died a couple months ago.”
Not that he’d expect Rhett to ever help her, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to cry tears over that bastard’s death. But he was suddenly curious about these “no uncertain terms.” And how must it have felt, for her to know she was always on her own? With no support network? Perhaps it was another reason why she was reluctant about Dallas. Traveling there would take her away from the support network she’d woven here, with her friend Lydia and the Tyson family. He knew what it was like to live without a support network, but his hell had been self-inflicted. His family had been there, rooting for him, even when he’d pushed them away.
“I’m real sorry, babe.”
“Don’t be.”
A zap crackled on her two simple words, and that straight posture tensed a degree more.
“You know I didn’t like him. I’m just sorry that it was such a mess. With all that in mind, why’re you okay with the clinic being in Alpine—if I can swing it?”
He had a helluva lot of paperwork to sort through. Lopez was only on the fence because Travis had spent the better half of the week getting a rush order of the property plats, checking up on the zoning, and setting his assistant at the hospital about the tasks of fact-finding. Next up was a visit home to discuss particulars with Toby. He had yet to arrange that. And he hadn’t wanted to get Sky’s hopes up if Lopez—or Toby—refused.
She shrugged, then looked back upon a wry smile at the now-joke, her lips a mere breath away from his cheek and nose, but added, “Because he’s finally gone. And you aren’t anymore… So, uh—I finally feel like I’m strong enough, that I can.”
Sweet Skylar. The way her voice lilted just now, as if containing a swell behind an outdated stop gate, twisted his heart in a knot. He strummed her hair, nuzzled her cheek as he’d been itching to do for over a week, tightened his arm upon her waist, dusted a kiss against her temple. Her fingers grazing over her belly. Why did she do that? More than once that insecure little gesture had happened surreptitiously, but he’d noticed. What had her dad said to her when she’d needed him? Whatever it was, the way she’d glossed over it as if hoping he wouldn’t notice actually seemed like it was at the root of whatever she was withholding…perhaps whatever was making her flinch back from him?
“What were these no uncertain terms you meant when you said Rhett told you you were on your own?”
She stiffened again. Didn’t offer an answer. Looked forward again. He rubbed her back, willing her to relax. That was the wrong question, apparently. She pivoted around, her hips brushing around his inner thighs again, fanning air on the embers of desire rushing through him as her hands came around his neck, her fingers gently scraping his nape.
“I want to tell you.” But she chewed her lip and didn’t.
He toyed with her hair now, coaxing, waiting, alarm spiking his blood at the direness in her words and the mist that glistened her eyes, playing with the ends in his fingertips at her lower back. So long. He wanted to wrap his hands in it and never let go.
She wrapped him in a hug, chest flush with his. He tightened his embrace, tightened his thighs upon hers. Her lips pressed to his cheek, holding the tender kiss against his skin as if savoring the saltiness of it, cutting off further words. So swiftly, the tender pressing of lips turned into a collision as the spring trickled and splashed into the tinaja, echoing as the occasional thud of a horse hoof as their animals shifted their weight and creaked their leather played upon his peripheral senses. Flesh upon flesh. His blood rushed.
“Talk to me, babe,” he murmured, his mouth hovering over hers now. He kissed her lips carefully. “Whatever it is, we can work through it.”
But the feel of her hands gripping him, the soft mashing of her breasts against his pecs—breasts he’d been itching to feel again, itching to kiss—began reverberating, idling, engines started and truck in Drive, held barely in place by a foot on the brake.