At Wolf Ranch (28 page)

Chapter 33

G
abe stood beside Blake at the stall door, checking out the colt. Gabe’s nemesis these last weeks. “Thanks for coming to pick up Pain in My Ass for training.”

Blake laughed. “I thought his name is Bo.”

“That may be his name, but that’s not what he is,” Gabe grumbled. He’d done a lot of that lately. “How’re things with Bud and Dee at Three Peaks Ranch?”

“Get this, Bud found his granddaughter. She killed her father.”

“No shit!”

“Bud’s trying to get her to come home to the ranch.”

“She’s not in jail?”

“No. The way I hear it, it was self-defense. Her dad went drugged-out-nuts on her.”

“I hope she’s okay.”

“I’ll find out soon. She should be here in a week if things work out. Everything good with you?”

“Tell Mom everything is fine.” Blake’s eyes held the light of innocence, but Gabe didn’t buy it. “Yes, I know that’s why you came here to get the horse, instead of me bringing it to you tomorrow.”

“Why the hell don’t you just call her?” Blake asked.

“Leave it alone,” Gabe warned.

“I don’t understand why you broke things off with her. She’s running around New York. You’re here. You two own this place together, but you don’t talk to her and she isn’t here. It’s been two weeks.”

“Thanks for summing it up.”

“Don’t you love her?”

Gabe grabbed hold of the stall gate, gripping it so tight his fingers ached. Of course he loved her. More than anything or anyone, but he couldn’t ask her to leave her life and live his. She’d resent him. Eventually, she’d hate him. The thought turned his stomach even now. Better to hold on to the beautiful memories of what they shared than to tarnish them with the bitterness that would build with each day she stayed with him when she’d rather be at work, with her friends, back in New York with everything and everyone that mattered most to her.

“Well, since you didn’t go after her, looks like she came after you, big brother.” Blake cocked his head toward the open barn door.

Gabe couldn’t believe his eyes. The car skidded to a stop and Ella got out, slammed the door, and walked toward him with a pissed-off scowl and fury flashing in her eyes. She’d never looked more beautiful.

“I want to talk to you.”

He wanted to grab hold of her, kiss away the feral look on her face, and never let her go again. But she didn’t belong to him. She never really did. So why did she come back?

“City girl, what are you doing here?”

“I own eighty percent of this place, or did you forget?”

“Hard to forget when it’s your name on the gate and the brand.”

“Hey, honey,” Blake said.

Gabe shoved Blake toward the doors. “Get out.”

“You staying for dinner?” Blake pressed, smiling like an idiot.

Gabe almost cracked a smile when she opened her mouth to answer, but closed it and glared harder at him. Blake looked from her to him and shook his head, walking out the doors without another word.

“You left me.” Some of the pain that flashed in her eyes wiped out the anger in her words.

“I didn’t leave you. I came home.”

That took the wind right out of her sails. He hated to see the uncertainty in her eyes.

“You said you’d always want me,” she said more boldly than the unsure look on her face conveyed.

“I wanted you the second I saw you. I want you every second of every day.” He wanted the truth from her, so he gave her the truth he lived with day in and day out missing her. “Doesn’t change the fact this is never going to work, city girl.”

“Stop calling me that. You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand. You don’t belong here. Look at you. It’s thirty-something degrees out and you’re in a silk skirt, a short-sleeve sweater, no coat, and high heels that you ruined traipsing through the snow.” Seeing the ruby heart bracelet he gave her for Valentine’s Day on her wrist made his heart melt. “You’re standing in the stables when you should be standing in a conference room conducting a board meeting.” Gabe didn’t want to say the words, but he did so anyway. “Go home, city girl. You don’t belong here.”

Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. Just the sight of them almost made him cave. Everything inside him ached, but his heart broke into a thousand pieces, a band around his chest tightened until he couldn’t breathe, and he held his breath and waited. She didn’t disappoint. Ella’s fingers curled into tight fists, the unshed tears cleared from her eyes, and she took a menacing step toward him.

“Do you have any idea how many planes it takes to get here from Paris? How many hours it took me to cross half the globe? You tell me you’ll always want me with one breath and tell me to go home with the next. Well, cowboy, I’m not going anywhere until you answer one question.”

“What?”

“Do you love me?” Her voice went soft with the simple question that was more complicated than anything she could have asked him.

“Ella, what are you doing here?”

She threw up her hands and let them fall and slap the sides of her legs. “What am I doing here? You’re here. Wherever you are is where I want to be. Don’t you get it? I love you. I want to build a life with you. Here. With the horses and the cows and the children we’ll have. I thought that’s what you wanted too.”

“I want that more than I can tell you, but let’s face it, saying you want it is one thing. Making it happen—you living and working here and being happy—isn’t exactly going to be easy for you. It’ll be harder, especially when the power and Internet go down during a storm.”

“Gabe, I have a battalion of people working for me. I am not the end-all-be-all at the company. I don’t want to be. I want to have a full life. Yes, running the company, but also with the man I love and the children I want to share with you. What do I have to say to make you believe that the life we build here is what I want, what I need, what I long for every second of every day that we’re apart? I love you. Isn’t that enough to see us through whatever compromises we have to make?”

“My answer to your first question is yes.”

“What?”

“I love you. I want you. Wherever you are is where I want to be. I needed you to make the choice on your own, without everything that happened with your family clouding your mind, or me influencing you. I needed to know that you aren’t here for any other reason than this is where you want to be.”

“It is. Why do you think I set this all up? Why do you think I brought Angel and Belle here? This is the life and home I want. With you.”

“Then why are you still standing five feet away.” He held out his arms. “Come here before I tackle hug you to the ground. I need you.”

She flew into his arms. Her lips met his in a greedy kiss that nearly buckled his knees. Her legs wrapped around his waist and he slid his hands down her back to her hips.

Ella’s hands came up to cup his face. She broke the kiss and stared into his eyes. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“I can’t sleep without you,” he admitted, seeing the dark smudges under her eyes as well.

“Take me to bed, cowboy. Make love to me. I need you wrapped around me.”

Gabe walked out the barn doors with her kissing her way from his ear and down his neck. “The house is too damn far,” he grumbled.

“I’ll build a cottage out by the stables.”

“Our love shack.”

She bit into his earlobe. “Yes,” she said, her voice all breathy. “My new office too, so I’ll never be too far away from you.”

Shivers ran down his spine. He squeezed her ass, raising her up the length of him and back down even as he walked the too long distance to the house. She sighed with pleasure and he desperately tried to reel in the urge to take her against the nearest tree. “You’re killing me.”

“You’re going too slow.” She clamped her legs tighter around his waist and grinded against him.

Gabe tried not to stumble, but the woman distracted him from walking to what he really wanted to do. Bury himself deep inside her heat.

Finally, he reached the front door, pushed it open, and kicked it closed with the back of his boot. He walked through the living room where Blake stood drinking a can of soda. Gabe didn’t say anything, just kept walking down the hall to his room, Ella kissing his neck, her legs around his waist, completely oblivious to his brother’s presence.

Before he kicked his bedroom door shut and made love to Ella the rest of the night, Blake’s amused words made him smile. “Lucky bastard. I guess she’s staying for dinner.”

Epilogue

E
lla used her key to open the front door and stepped into the dark house, exhausted and so happy to be home. She hated all the times she left Gabe, but it had been necessary to put her company and her life in order. She had sold the penthouse and bought a quaint loft that suited her and Gabe’s taste for when she needed to be in New York. Her uncle didn’t take long to accept her offer of a lawyer in exchange for pleading guilty to all his heinous crimes. He’d spend the rest of his life in jail.

She’d found something infinitely better than living in the past. She’d found a future with the man she loved right here at Wolf Ranch.

Over the last two weeks, she’d made it back to the ranch once. For a day. Gabe grew as impatient as she to make their living arrangement permanent. They filled those days apart with work and hours talking on the phone together, sharing their lives in a way that might not have happened if she stayed with him day after day.

She’d reached a turning point in her hectic schedule. Finally, she’d flip her long stays in New York with her short visits to Montana, and she couldn’t be happier.

Used to sneaking into the house late at night, she found her way to the bedroom and Gabe without turning on the lights. She stripped her clothes at the end of the bed and dropped them one by one to the floor. Gabe lay on his stomach. She slid under the covers beside him and leaned down and kissed his shoulder, up his neck, to his ear, and whispered the same thing she always said to him. “I’m home.”

His arm snaked out and wrapped around her, she landed on his chest when he rolled over.

“What time is it?”

“Just after one in the morning.”

“I called you hours ago.”

“I was on a plane.”

“I missed you.” He buried his face in her neck and inhaled her scent like he always did.

She smiled and held him close. “I missed you more.”

“Happy birthday,” he said, kissing his way down her neck to her breast, taking her hard nipple into his mouth.

“It is now.” She gave herself over to making love to Gabe. His big hands swept up her back and down. He rolled her underneath him, his mouth on her breast. His hand swept down her side and thigh, pushing it out to make more room for his big body, though he remained at her side, brushing his fingers up the inside of her leg to the very center of her. His fingers smoothed over her soft folds; one dipped deep and pushed into her slick core, making her moan.

Neither of them wanted slow and sweet. They’d missed each other too much. Gabe took care of the condom, settled between her thighs, and thrust into her again and again. She raked her fingers down his back, over his hips, to his ass, and pulled him into her, deep. She loved the way he moved against her, creating that sweet friction, grinding against her until the heat pooled in her belly, the fire burned and flashed, sparking every nerve in her body.

Lost in his warmth, his body stretched over hers, his face buried in her neck, she held him close and sighed. He slid to her side, threw one leg over hers, along with his arm, and held her close, his face at her shoulder on the pillow.

“Promise me you’ll be here in the morning.”

“I don’t have to be back in New York for two weeks, and then only for two days.”

“Really?”

“Happy birthday to me, I’m staying with you. Right where I want to be.”

Gabe rose up on his elbow and stared down at her. “You mean that?”

She reached up and cupped his face. “More than I can tell you with simple words. Besides, with two hundred pounds on top of me, where would I go?”

He kissed her. Soft and sweet, then lay beside her again, but didn’t move off her. “This works perfectly with my plans.”

“What plans?”

“Birthday surprise.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see. I’m taking you somewhere later.” He nuzzled her neck and squeezed her to his big body. “I’m so glad you’re home.”

“I keep telling you to get a dog to keep you company.”

“You want a dog,” he mumbled.

“You’d love a dog, too.”

She felt his smile against her arm. She settled her hands on his warm skin over her middle and fell asleep.

Gabe helped Ella
up into the truck seat, trying to hide his nervous excitement.

“You were really going to fly to New York to be with me tonight?” she asked for the fourth time that day.

“No way I let you spend your birthday alone.” He gave her a quick kiss, closed the door, went around the truck, and slid behind the wheel. He drove them off the ranch and onto Wolf Road.

“I got your message. You were right. I was out to dinner with my friends.”

“I saw the pictures on the Web.”

“Checking up on me?”

“Making sure you were smiling and happy, not sad and missing Lela.”

“I do miss her. I can’t wait for the thaw so we can bury her properly.”

“We’ll do it soon, sweetheart. I promise. We’ll bring her home.”

“I can’t believe you dragged me out of the house in the middle of that call. Where are you taking me? It’s nearly dark.”

“You’ll see.” He smiled and checked the road. They were just about where he wanted to be. “Did you hear that? I think the trailer gate is loose. Let me pull over and check it.”

Gabe walked back behind the trailer and waited for Ella to get impatient and come check to see what was taking him so long. It didn’t take long, but his gut tied in knots and his hands shook. Nervous, he hoped she liked her surprise. He hoped she said yes.

The minute she cleared the trailer and saw him on bended knee holding up a ring, she covered her mouth with both hands and let the shimmering tears fall.

“I found you on a deserted stretch of road. The second I saw you, I knew there was something about you I couldn’t live without. I love you Ella Wolf, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?”

With each passing sentence she’d closed the distance and stood over him now, staring down at him, a soft smile on her face, her clasped hands pressed to her heart.

“Yes. Absolutely, yes.”

Gabe slid the ring on her finger, shot up, wrapped his arms around her, and spun her around, his lips locked with hers. His heart soared and felt so full it might burst from his chest. The relief washed through him and made him laugh.

“I love you,” he said, his forehead pressed to hers.

“I love you too. I can’t wait to be your wife.”

“Good, because we aren’t waiting long.” He didn’t really need the promise that she’d stay with him always, but he wanted it.

A soft bark came from the back of the trailer.

“What is that?”

“Your birthday present.”

“You got me a dog.”

He smiled and brushed his nose against hers. “You wanted a dog.”

She giggled, unable to disagree.

Gabe set her on her feet and took her hand, pressing it to his chest so she could see the ring. Two round diamonds in the center at each of her knuckles with a round emerald on either side where the diamonds met in the middle, making a diamond shape out of the sparkling stones.

“I had this made for you. The diamonds are for you and me. The emeralds for you and your sister. Green stones that are very similar, but different enough if you really look, like your and Lela’s eyes.”

The tears came again. “It’s beautiful and perfect. I love it.”

“You’re beautiful and perfect and I love you.” He held her close, taking in the moment. “Want to see your puppy?”

“Yes!”

Gabe reluctantly let her go and opened the trailer door. The furball rushed out and leaped into Ella’s arms, licking her face.

“He’s potty trained and about four months old, so he’s got some manners.”

“I love him.”

“Good, because it’s you and me and Bentley.”

Ella laughed, trying not to drop the black and white border collie. “Bentley?”

“I like it. It suits us.” He gave her another soft kiss. “Come on. Mom planned a birthday dinner with the family. We promised, remember? We’ll announce our short engagement.”

“How short?”

“We’re getting married before our honeymoon trip to Bora Bora.”

The trip she planned with Lela, but he’d make just as memorable when they went as husband and wife.

Eyes glistening with tears for missing Lela mixed with her happiness, she leaned up and kissed him, then pressed her forehead to his. “Perfect.”

He took the puppy and walked to the truck and set him inside. He closed the door and walked Ella around the front, but stopped before going to the passenger side of the truck. He held her hand and stared up at the starry sky. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“I love it here.”

He heard the truth in her words. She leaned into him, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her in front of him, staring up at the brilliant sky.

“Did you get everything you wanted for your birthday?”

“You’re all I ever wanted.”