The Cowboy's Unexpected Family

The kiss rocketed up out of control and ran whole hog into wild in two seconds. She gasped against his mouth as if she were as surprised as he was.

Trying for gentle, but falling miles short, he pulled her closer, the rough calluses of his fingers catching on the silky-smooth material of her fancy shirt.

She opened her mouth under his and pulled him as tight as she could, until he was bending over her, holding her against the curl of his body so that not even a breeze could split them.

It was wild. Hot. The lush curve of her hips under the tight, thin black leggings she wore was too much of a temptation to resist and he slid both palms over her, squeezing as he went, listening to her groan.

Her fingers tugged on his hair, the pain an electric bliss down his back, across his skin, through his blood, waking him up. Bringing him back to life.

The growl, like the lust, the fire, rolled up through his gut, obliterating his brain, and he spun slightly, ready to drag her into the house, ready to do whatever it took to take off her clothes, to find the secrets of her skin.

“Yes,” she groaned, lifting herself into him, the sweetest arch, the sweetest capitulation. He cupped his hands under her hips, taking all her weight, and like his every teenage fantasy of what a woman should do, she slipped those long legs around his waist.

Ready to take her into the house, he stepped up onto the porch, but immediately tripped over Casey’s scooter and backed into Ben’s baseball bat, both of which clattered to the ground.

The sounds were like gunshots in the quiet night.

He tore his lips from Lucy’s, his eyes on Casey’s window just above them. He held his breath, waiting for the light to come on, for the five-year-old to come looking for him like he did every night.

But the window stayed dark.

Thank God.

He sighed, resting his head against Lucy’s.

Under the relief that Casey hadn’t woken up, he felt something awful, a black tidal wave of anger. A tsunami of resentment.

A kiss. One goddamned kiss in the moonlight! Couldn’t he just have that? Couldn’t he just have this one thing for himself?

He hadn’t asked for any of this—the ranch, the work, and the boys who stared at him with their hearts in their eyes.

I don’t want it! I don’t want any of it!

The scream gagged him. His miserliness shamed him.

Those boys hadn’t asked for him, either. In a heartbeat they’d take their mom back and he’d give Annie back to them if only he could.

Lucy pressed her lips to his again and he wanted…more than anything in the world right now…he wanted to get right back to where he’d been in that kiss. But the moment was gone.

There were three kids in that house. A drunk cowboy. And three days worth of work to get done before he could go to bed.

That was his life, and the truth was he was terrified of what would happen if he forgot that, even for an hour. How much of his resentment and anger would slip through the cracks of the control he’d had to build up over the last year? How many days would it take for him to be able to look those kids in the eyes again? How many nights of staring up at the ceiling over his bed and forcing himself not to run away?

The answer was too many.

He kissed her, a tender, reluctant goodbye. And she must have read it in his lips because she unwrapped her legs from around his waist and slipped her arms from his neck.

“Well.” She patted his chest, her fingers so hot through his tee-shirt that he had to step back to get some distance. Some clarity. She blinked at him, her fingers suspended in the distance between them, and he had to look away. He hoped she wasn’t hurt, but he didn’t look at her to find out, and he sure as hell didn’t ask, because he was such a mess. Everything was a mess.

Looking at her was like looking at everything he’d had and could never have again.

“Thanks, cowboy,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“No sorry about it.” The teasing, the sauciness in her voice made him smile, allowed him to look up at her. Allowed him to breathe.

“Thanks,” he said. “For Reese and…”

“Rocking your world?”

He laughed. “It needed rocking.” Which was a lie. His life had been taken by its heels and shaken until everything he knew and recognized had vanished. He’d been rocked enough, and what he needed was to be left alone so he could figure out how to handle it.

“Good night,” she said, and then she walked across his porch.

It was rude. Bad-mannered in the extreme, but he did not follow. He did not yank open the sliding glass door for her, even though he knew it stuck. He just stood on that porch and stared up at the moon until he was numb enough to go back inside.