A Knight In Cowboy Boots (23 page)

“Gladewater. It’s about a four hour drive.”

“Is it near your ranch?”

“The ranch is about another hour.”

“Do you need me to stay awake and keep you company?” Maddie asked as she fastened her seatbelt.

“Nah. I’ve driven this a thousand times. Go ahead and grab some shuteye.”

“Thanks.” Maddie reclined the seat, slumping out of sight, not believing she had a chance in hell of sleeping, but the tensions of the day drained away with the monotonous sounds of the road, and exhaustion claimed her.

Chapter Seventeen

Maddie woke to the sound of Jake talking softly into his cell phone. “We’ll be there in about ten,” was all she caught before he flipped the phone shut.

“We’re nearly there?” Maddie asked, her brain still foggy from sleep.

“Yup.”

She pushed her hair back out of her face, turned on the dome light, and peered into the mirror on the flip side of the visor. “Crap. I look like hell.” Only part of the nightmare in the mirror could be blamed on the horror house effect of the car’s interior light. Maddie dug into her purse and found a crumpled napkin. She spit on it then scrubbed at the black half moons left by the prior day’s mascara. She was tempted to apply a fresh coat, but even as smoothly as the Lincoln rode, she’d just jab the applicator into her eye. Zach would have to settle for the fresh scrubbed look. Whether he knew it or not, it was an improvement over the raccoon eyes she woke up with.

Ten miles more and Jake pulled into the parking lot of a small motel that reminded Maddie of the places she’d stayed in on her drive from Wyoming. She was surprised at how calm she felt. As she’d slept, she seemed to have accepted the necessity of running again. Though she hadn’t decided where yet, she felt more confident that everything would fall into place. But first, she needed to make her peace with leaving behind the man who waited in one of those rooms.

“It’s not much,” Jake apologized as he slid the car into the empty slot beside Zach’s pickup. “For some reason, Zach don’t wanna run into family this trip.” He said it lightly, as though he didn’t find the reason all that mysterious.

“That’s my fault. Some of your family scares me.”

“Can’t say as I blame you. We’re not all like Rachel though. ‘Cepting of course for Mamma.”

“Rachel’s like your mother?” Maddie’s hand froze on the door handle.

“Well, no. But she wouldn’t approve.”

“Of me?”

“No, I think she’d like you. But she wouldn’t like you and Zach sharing a room. Course, she won’t be at the rodeo. Zach’s just being careful so’s no one knows anything that’ll get back to her.” Jake got the diaper bag out of the back seat for her while Maddie unstrapped Jesse.

“Except you.”

Jake grinned. “He knows where too many of my bodies are buried for me to go tattling on him. Got a bag?”

“My duffel bag’s in the trunk. I’ll get it later.”

“That’s okay. I got it,” Jake said, unlocking the trunk before she could protest.

Maddie tensed as she balanced a limp Jesse on her hip. The trunk lid blocked her view of Jake. What would he think, seeing the trunk packed so tightly? If he thought anything was strange, she couldn’t see it on his face when he slammed the lid.

“So you and Zach can practice mutual blackmail on each other now,” Maddie said, picking up the thread of their conversation, hoping to distract him before he could question why everything but the kitchen sink seemed to be in her trunk.

“That ain’t nothing new. You ain’t the only thing I got on him.”

Maddie’s chest loosened up, letting her breathe deep again. A moment of melancholy tugged at her. She would have liked to tease Zach’s secrets out of his brother, but since she wasn’t staying, she resisted trying.

“Zach’s in here.” Jake put her bags in front of room twelve. “He got me eleven. Walls are probably pretty thin. You’ll try to keep it down, right?” He said with a wink, then headed for the office to get his key.

A faint glow escaped the room’s window where the curtains didn’t quite close. Standing in front of the door, Maddie pushed aside everything else but her desire to feel Zach’s strong arms around her. She wanted their last days together to be as untainted as she could make them.

He answered her knock like he’d been waiting.

Maddie stopped dead two steps inside the door.

“What—?”

The air was sweet with the soft scent from a dozen small vases scattered around the room, each holding clusters of tiny bell-shaped flowers. A dozen votive candles were interspersed between the vases.

“Lilies of the valley! How did you know?”

Zach dropped her bags in the doorless closet on the far side of the room before he came back to wrap his arms around her and Jesse. He hugged them both for several long seconds, as though reacquainting himself with the feel of them. “I have my sources.”

“Peggy!”

Zach stepped back and hooked a finger in the edge of Jesse’s diaper. He shook his head as he peered inside. “How could I have doubted her claim to tact?”

“She was surprisingly tactful, but no one else has rambled on lately about how nothing beats roses.”

“A point you apparently don’t agree with.”

“Don’t get me wrong. Roses are nice. I just like lilies of the valley better. What are you doing?”

“I’m going to change Jesse.”

“Before you even kiss me hello?”

“Once he’s changed and down for the night,” Zach took the still sleeping child from Maddie’s arms and laid him on the bed next to the fresh diaper he’d just laid out, ”you’ll stop complaining about me not kissing you. Did you bring in the brandy?”

“Yes, but I don’t think we’ll need it. He’s got two teeth he didn’t have this morning.”

“Great. It won’t be long then until he needs braces.”

“Ha-ha! That’s not funny, Zach. I already worry about how I’m going to afford stuff like orthodontia.”

Jesse’s only reaction through all Zach’s ministrations had been to suckle in his sleep. He continued as Zach pulled the last diaper tab with a flourish, picked Jesse up, and offered him to Maddie for a goodnight kiss.

“I guess I’ll be kissing Jesse before I kiss you then,” she said, still peevish about Zach making Jesse his first priority. If Maddie hadn’t known this was the end for them, she wouldn’t have been so petulant. He’d made this lovely, romantic gesture, one that required thought and planning, but instead of capitalizing on it, he’d gone all practical on her. She gave Jesse a loud smacking kiss on his forehead, then one on each cheek.

Zach didn’t move until she looked up to meet his eyes. “I don’t care who you done kissed before me. It’s who you kiss last that counts.” He shifted the baby to his hip. “C’mere, woman.” Zach wrapped his free arm around her waist and tugged her sharply against him.

He didn’t kiss her so much as ravish her mouth. Maddie rocked back on her heels, off-balance and breathless, when he let her go.

The crib he laid Jesse down in looked as though it was held together with baling twine and duct tape, but Zach didn’t give her a chance to fret over it. Free of Jesse, Zach guided her hand to his crotch. “Still having doubts about me missing you?”

Maddie caught her breath, her peevishness disappearing in the face of the evidence. “Nice artillery. Is it loaded?”

“For you it is.”

He brushed the back of his hand between her legs before he started unbuttoning the shirt she’d worn to work. Her slacks hit the floor moments after the shirt. In the same amount of time, Maddie only managed to get his shirt unbuttoned. She ran her fingers through the soft fur that dusted his pecs, then traced the narrow line down to where it disappeared into his jeans.

Zach dropped his head to nip at her nipples through her lace-trimmed bra. With one hand on her back to hold her steady, the other rubbed her through the crotch of her panties.

With the clock counting down their time together, Maddie didn’t need the muted assault to whet her hunger for him. Even so, the delay raised her need to a fever pitch.

“You’re trembling like a new born filly,” Zach said.

“And you’re teasing me.” Her frustrated desire put an angry-sounding edge to her voice.

“You don’t like it?”

“I want more.”

“More what? More teasing?”

“More you.”

“Don’t you worry about that. You’re gonna get so much of me you’ll be walking funny tomorrow.”

The bra landed on the floor with the rest of Maddie’s clothes as Zach guided her to the bed.

“I want you now.”

“No.”

“Damn it, Za—”

He muffled her complaint with his mouth as he bore her down on to the bed. By the time he started working his way down her body, her lips were swollen with his kisses and her protests tangled in her throat.

Her breath grew ragged when his mouth started working on her through her panties.

“Zach—” His name came out as a sob.

He lifted his head. “Yes, sweet Maddie.”

“I want you.”

“Where do you want me?”

It took a couple of long, frayed breaths for her to find the words. “Inside me.”

Zach looked like he was thinking about it. Then he shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Please.”

He lifted his head, his eyes shining as dark and rich as Texas oil.

“That’s all you ever had to say.”

Later, when they both lay sated at last, with Maddie’s head pillowed on his bare chest, she asked, “Why do you always tease me like that?”

Zach was silent for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. Idly, he played with a strand of her hair until he finally said, “I like getting you so hot and bothered you can’t make a sentence. And you’re never so beautiful as when you’re flush with wanting me. Mostly though,” he paused as though not sure he wanted to say what his thoughts had led him to, ”I think I want to ruin you for other men.”

Maddie’s heart swelled with his confession, then sank as she realized that, for all the good it was going to do either of them, he’d likely already succeeded.

*

As exhausted as everyone else by his bout of teething, Jesse slept until an unprecedented eight thirty. Zach watched Maddie slip naked from their bed to pick him up, wishing he’d been the one to wake her.

When someone pounded on their door moments later, Maddie’s arms tightened around Jesse as she lifted her head. Her eyes were wide with alarm.

Zach was pulling his jeans on almost before his feet hit the floor. “Who is it?” He yelled as he motioned for Maddie to get back into the bed; she started for the bathroom instead.

“It’s the fornication police!”

Maddie stopped with her hand on the bathroom door.

“Damn it!” Zach said to no one in particular. To Maddie, he said, “It’s just Jake. Will you get back into bed?”

When she’d leaped back into the bed, pulling the covers quickly over herself and Jesse, Zach opened the door. “That’s not funny, Jake. You about gave Maddie a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry, Maddie. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“That’s okay. Zach’s exaggerating.”

“What do you want?” Zach grouched.

“Well, we’re cranky this morning, ain’t we? Can’t be coz you ain’t getting any. I know that for a fact, sharing a wall with you and all.”

Zach glowered at his brother, but Jake just looked past him at Maddie. “Lookey there. She’s darn pretty when she blushes.”

“
What
do
you
want
?” Zach asked again, enunciating each word individually.