Between Strangers (11 page)

Her knees wobbled so she hung on to him with both hands while he bit and laved both sensitive tips. As the heat overtook her, she trailed one hand over his hip then caressed his muscled thigh. Finally she cupped his bottom and pulled his aroused body against her belly.

Driven wild with need by the feel of him, she ran her hand between them to his groin and stroked his hard erection. The sensual and conflicting feelings of silky skin and hard scorching heat under her fingers consumed all the air in the room. She gasped.

He groaned and grabbed her shoulders. From somewhere in her dusky haze of desire, Marcy recognized that his hands were shaking as badly as hers. Pulling her to him, he lowered them to the kitchen table with his back flat on the surface and his feet still firmly planted on the floor.

Taking the golden opportunity, she explored him with her tongue. Enthralled by the pleasure he was getting from her moves, she tasted and licked her way down his body and thoroughly enjoyed the sounds of his heavy breathing.

“Enough,” he groaned as he dragged her up and kissed her lips with an abandon that drove her insane. She crawled on the table and positioned her knees beside his hips, slowly fitting herself down on him.

Allowing only one inch of his tip inside her, she lifted up again and grinned to herself as he groaned, bent upward in the middle and bit her nipple. So this
was what had been so missing from her world, this spell of raw need and tender teasing.

She lowered her bottom down two inches the next time, then pulled up again as he writhed below her and rubbed his callused thumbs across her peaks. “Stop,” he gasped.

Laughing and completely entranced by what she could do to him, she hesitated above him and gazed into his glazed eyes. The desperation and the erotic longing were easy to see, but she also saw herself looking back and imagined a fascinating glimmer of witchcraft in her eyes.

They were surrounded by the magic. She saw it, felt it heavy in the air around them. The sizzle of it was beyond her experience, but she knew it meant trouble.

With her thighs trembling from holding back, she jammed down hard against his hips, driving him to the hilt of her desire. Lance shuddered, but let her set the pace.

While she raised then lowered her body and rubbed her breasts against his chest, he ran a hand up her spine, sending tingles to mix with the deep spicy sensations. She began to feel the tremors sneaking up on her like a thief in the night, ready to take her too far, too fast.

Trying to still, to make the pleasure last, Marcy was met instead by Lance's rage of need. He plunged upward and begged her to come with him.

A blinding rash of heat and stars captured them both as they clung to each through the earthquake of joint climax.

Laying her head on his chest, she luxuriated in the last of the spiraling jolts. But while she caught her breath and listened to his heart pound, the reality of her situation sunk in.

She'd fallen in love with him. Really, desperately and passionately in love.

If she'd imagined at the start that this would be the outcome of their time together, she would've found another way to get to Cheyenne. She wished she'd never gotten to know him. Never learned how they fit together. Even finding another job altogether would've been easier to handle than the pain she predicted was coming next.

He wrapped his arms around her. “You are absolutely perfect,” he whispered.

She placed her lips against his chest then raised her hand to caress his cheek. “Not me. It's you that's so wonderful.”

Lance drew them up together until they were standing in the kitchen with their arms wound around each other's waists. He tenderly kissed her lips then leaned back to gaze at her face while he smiled at her.

“You look thoroughly pleased,” he grinned. “You should always look that way.”

A frisson of pure panic drove through her veins as she realized what was coming next. “Lance, no…”

“Honey,” he interrupted. “Why don't you and Angie come with me to Montana? We're good together. We can make a home, build a family.”

The pain through her heart was as bad as she'd anticipated. If only she didn't want him, love him,
almost beyond good sense. This was going to hurt him and it was the very last thing she'd wanted to do.

But he belonged on his ranch, with his friends around him. And she didn't belong there at all. He was part of nature…wild and untamed…beautiful and free. She had no idea where on earth she truly belonged, and she needed to find out before her soul completely disappeared like her mother's had so long ago.

She stepped out of his embrace and took a breath. “No, Lance. That's not a good idea.”

The look of agony on his face was nearly unbearable. “We don't have anything in common,” she told him softly. “This trip has been a dream and not real. Our emotions have gotten all tangled up with our bodies, but we really want different things out of life.”

“Marcy…please…wait…” He looked shell-shocked, and it was all she could do not to reach for him.

She forced herself to take another step back and bent to pick up her clothes. This was hard enough to do without standing there naked before him.

“You know it's true,” she said with a cracked voice. “I will always want to travel and see the world. I'd be miserable living on your ranch. And you…all you want in life is a home. A place to settle and call your own.”

Stepping into her jeans, she ignored the panties and bra in favor of covering herself in a hurry. “We're like fire and water. It would be a terrible mix.”

He blinked then set his jaw. “I suppose you're right.” Reaching a hand to her cheek, he tenderly ran
a finger along her jaw and traced her mouth as if he meant to memorize the lines. “But we would've really set the place on fire first. We'd have gone out in a blaze of glory.”

The pain in his gut burned white-hot and with fierce intensity. On this trip, for the first time in his life, the empty loneliness that followed him everywhere had disappeared—but the agreeable feeling that replaced it had apparently only been a temporary thing.

Though he had a few more hours left to bask in Marcy and Angie's warmth, the gut-wrenching solitude he knew so well loomed ahead with a deep, cold shadow across his life.

Marcy's face contorted in sadness while she gripped her clothes and thumped a fisted hand against her breast as if her heart was breaking in two. His own heart ached just watching her pain. He wanted to make it better, easier for her somehow, but his mind was still blurred with the false promise of an end to his quest.

He didn't dare touch her again; it would lead him right back to that paradise. So he yanked on his jeans and set to work. There was a lot for them to do before every trace of their time here was erased.

With a heavy heart, he helped Marcy take down the decorations. He slipped one of the aluminum stars she'd made into his pocket when she wasn't looking. After he was home on the ranch, maybe he would make another wish on that star and start off again in search of his dream.

Lance quickly closed off the thought, because at
the moment he wasn't willing to accept all the pain he knew was heading his way. He fixed a quiet scowl upon his face, set his shoulders and finished his work. He dragged the tree outside, put the baby's crib back in the attic and cleaned.

By the time all that was done, the neighbor showed up and they dug out the SUV. The last of his few remaining hours with the two sweet females was racing by like a fireman on the way to put out a fire.

All afternoon Marcy was quiet and seemed as pensive as he felt. After they ate and cleaned up the kitchen one last time, she asked if he minded driving at night.

“I think Angie might sleep through the trip if we drive after dark,” she told him. “It'll be easier on her…on all of us.” Marcy's smile was bittersweet, and it cut a path right through his heart.

Lance agreed to the night trip because, now that the decision had been made and the last remnants of their time together was slipping away, he didn't think he could stand to stay here much longer and keep his hands to himself.

Every time he moved past Marcy or pulled some luggage from her hands, it took a supreme effort not to reach out for her. It was hard enough to think of letting the baby out of his sight for good.

The normal six-hour drive took closer to eight, and they arrived in Cheyenne just as daylight came creeping over the horizon from the east behind them. Thinking about the direction of the rising sun, he reminded himself to go over the Four Directions again
once he was headed home…and was back to being alone.

He managed to find a fairly nice motel and paid three weeks in advance for a cozy room with a kitchenette. Marcy let him take a nap while she borrowed the SUV to make a run to the grocery store and to contact her new employers.

But soon…too soon…he found himself holding Angie in his right arm while reaching for Marcy and a last hug with the left. She didn't step into his embrace but hung back as tears welled in her eyes.

Lifting her face with his free hand, he bent and touched her lips with his own in an achingly tender kiss. He wanted to savor it and keep the memory with him for his darkest hours.

Angie cried and put her arms around his neck. “No.”

Marcy pulled back. “She doesn't want you to go.”

He didn't want to go, either. But it was time. So he handed the baby over and gave Marcy his business card, telling her to contact him if she ever needed his help.

Then he turned his back on them…and walked away from everything that had ever really mattered.

H
e cursed himself for letting his dreams overtake his reality. Slamming the SUV's door, he jammed it into gear and took off for home. Dazed and hurting, he headed for the interstate and set the cruise control.

Needing to think through his life—to get
himself
back under cruise control—Lance didn't pay much attention to the road. He'd traveled it so many times in the past, anyway. Instead, he desperately tried to calm down and find a way past the awful pain.

He rubbed at a place on his chest, right above his heart. How could just leaving them behind hurt so much?

It was a deep physical pain, worse than any he could remember. The time that crazy bull stepped on his back and broke three ribs had been bad. But not this bad.

And some of the things he'd put himself through on the rez, those things he thought would prove that he was a man, none of those had ever been this painful. But he just couldn't get a grip on why.

Why was this different?

Perhaps…because he was being selfish. Though not particularly pleasant, he figured that thought was something to be considered. For as long as he could remember, when he let himself want something—when he let himself hope—the results were always the same.

Had he totally ignored what Marcy wanted in his zeal to grab a new bright life? He tried to focus on the things that she had told him.

“Soul loneliness” she'd called it. He couldn't entirely understand what she meant. Swallowing back a fuzzy lump in his throat, he kept going over her words. She'd wanted him to have his home and his family—but with someone else.

Why? Why not with her and Angie?

Suddenly it hit him, like a damned cartoon lightbulb going on over his head. Of course. A home to Marcy was someplace bad. Someplace where things hurt you instead of a place where there were good vibrations and people who cared—the way
he'd
always dreamed.

What an idiot he'd been. He'd done the exact thing she'd tried to warn him against. He hadn't paid a bit of attention to her spirit or her feelings.

“Marcy…” he groaned to himself. “I was such a fool. I didn't really listen to you.”

She was absolutely right. They didn't belong to
gether. Lance wasn't positive at the moment that he belonged with anyone. He'd been a selfish bastard and had gotten just what he deserved.

 

Marcy finished changing Angie and set her down on the motel room floor so she could crawl around. “Okay, Ange, play for a while and release some of that energy. Your mama is miserable. I'm afraid I'm not going to be much fun tonight.”

Angie plopped her bottom on the rug and pointed up to her. “Ma-ma.”

The surprising tears came fast and furious, leaving Marcy with a lump in her throat and a pain in her chest so bad it almost doubled her over. “Oh, Angie,” she sobbed. “Mama is such a jerk. You're starting to talk…starting to do such wonderful things…and we don't have anyone to share that with. I sent away the only one who cared.”

“Ba!”

“Yes…yes. He gave you Baby,” Marcy reached for the doll and handed it to her child. “There you go, sweetheart. You have your Baby even if you don't have the daddy you need. Your mama was too afraid to grab a good thing when she saw it.”

Marcy sat on the edge of the bed. “Oh God, what have I done?” She swiped at the tears and leaned her face into her palms. “I was so scared. So afraid to take a chance.”

“Da.”

Though her eyes were blurred with tears, Marcy glanced down at Angie and smiled sadly. “Da… Yes, baby, he could've been your daddy. He wanted it, and
I'm sure he loves you. It was just
me
that he wasn't too sure about.”

She closed her eyes and longed for the feel of Lance's arms around her…his lips on hers…his hands on her body. More than merely awakening her body, his intensity had touched her very soul and brought her back to life.

And she'd refused to go home with him. Somebody should come commit her; she'd totally lost her sanity.

“I wanted him to feel the magic,” she told Angie. “I needed him to love me the same way I love him.”

“Da.”

“Yes. I want him, too, Ange. I want him so badly my whole body aches.” She bent and picked up her child, hugging her to her breast. “But we can't make someone love us, no matter how much we might want them to.”

Rocking Angie back and forth, Marcy buried her face in her baby's sweet-smelling hair. “I love you, Ange. And I'll always be here for you, I promise. I won't marry someone who doesn't love me, and end up giving you the kind of life my mother gave me.”

Angie started to whimper, picking up on her mother's sad mood.

“But I love him so much,” Marcy cried. She didn't want Angie to be unhappy, but it was too hard for her to stay strong.

At least she had Angie, she thought. They had each other…and they always would.

With a startled gasp, Marcy suddenly realized what she'd really done. She drew Angie back and looked
down at her daughter through blurred eyes. “Angie, we have each other. But he's all alone.”

She tried to blink back the tears. “I can't believe I've been so selfish. He did everything in his power to take care of us and make us happy, and he didn't deserve to be turned away like that. What was I thinking?”

The baby started to cry, and her mother tried to give her some comfort by patting her back. But Marcy's own tears were running freely down her cheeks. “I hurt the man I love more than life. Why couldn't I see that before it was too late?”

Angie threw her arms around her mother's neck and shrieked. “All right, sweetheart.” Marcy tried to soothe her. “I'll try, but I don't know if I can make it right. The damage might be too big, the pain too strong. But I love him enough to take the risk.”

 

Driving on, Lance was only vaguely aware of his surroundings. He barely noticed when the sun made its final descent and left the gray, lifeless sky behind for the rest of the day. The darkness that came after sunset could not possibly match the black, yawning hole inside him.

What could he do in order to go on from here? The ranch in Montana didn't seem to hold the same cozy, homey spot in his heart that it had only a few days ago. Without Marcy and Angie, no place held a lot of appeal.

He couldn't think clearly, so he kept on heading home. There were things in Montana he needed to do.
People who were counting on him. Meeting his responsibilities was all that was left to him.

Always in the past when he'd been lost and without direction, the lessons he'd learned from the Dine had served him well. That was where he'd first learned about the importance of family. To the Navajo, nothing is more important than family.

He'd wanted so badly to fit in on the rez, to be worthy of being included in the family. But he never truly belonged with them. Just as he had never truly belonged in Grandmother Steele's world, either.

Joining the rodeo circuit and traveling the country had been only a means of searching for a place where he belonged. And he'd been so sure that place was the Montana ranch and the Stanton family who lived there.

Now…

Now, he just didn't know how to find his direction. Wanting to seek a center, to stabilize and balance his life as he had on the back of a horse, Lance decided to review aloud the Four Directions in Navajo Life one more time.

“East is the direction of the dawn and is the thinking direction.” He'd probably missed that direction when he'd jumped in and asked Marcy to come to Montana with him.

“South…that's the planning direction. The direction where I should've planned my actions after thinking them through.” With a roll of his eyes, he continued. “West, the direction of home. West is a Navajo's life, the place where they do their living as they act out their plan and their thoughts.”

After he arrived at home he could look to the North. “The direction where a Navajo finds satisfaction and can evaluate the outcome of what was first started in the east,” he quoted from his old lessons.

The Dine believe that when a person falls, they must stand back up and see what they can do differently the next day. At this moment Lance figured he might never be able to crawl back up again.

Thinking back to his original indecision about going to New Orleans for Grandmother Steele's funeral and how surprised he'd been to find that she'd had other family members he'd never known, Lance tried to see his mistakes.

Lucille Steele had had several children, nieces and nephews. New aunts, uncles and cousins that he'd had never even heard of before. He didn't hang around long enough to find out what they thought of having a half-breed relative.

Learning about all that extended family had been quite a shock. He'd ambled around in a hazy fog of amazement over the drastic changes to his ideas of family, until he'd bumped into the old gypsy woman. And she had been an amazement all on her own.

But was this crazy trip he was on about finding his extended family and then wanting his own home so badly he could taste it? Or was it something more? It made him wonder if that gypsy had put some sort of spell on him.

Lance pulled over to a rest stop and dug in his pocket for the ring. Getting the ring had started everything.

He rubbed his fingers over the velvet box, expect
ing to feel a static charge as he had when he'd shown Marcy the ring. But nothing happened.

Tearing open the box, Lance stared down at the empty space in shock. He was sure he hadn't ever removed the ring from its box. So where was it?

Dammit. Losing Marcy and Angie was bad enough. Had he also managed to lose the ring?

He furiously swiped a hand across his eyes and fought the pain. Lost…alone.

Blindly starting up the SUV and driving toward home, Lance vowed to rethink his entire life before he ever made another stupid move like this one.

As the night began to give way to the gray cast of morning, Lance finally looked up to see where he was. But he was having trouble getting his bearings.

Then he saw the craggy peaks of the Badlands out of the windshield and had to pull over to catch his breath. All this time he hadn't been driving toward home in Montana at all. He'd driven himself right back to where he'd started the day before yesterday, Bobby and Vicki's ranch house.

Oh, man. Talk about not thinking and planning before you act. Jeez, this was the absolute height of spontaneity…and stupidity.

He needed to turn around and head west, back to his Montana home. But he was tired now, and maybe he should rest first.

Lance wouldn't allow himself to think that he'd come all the way back here because this was the first place that he'd ever really felt at home. That thought did niggle at the back of his mind, but he refused to let it in.

Instead he drove down the plowed and cleared roads that a few days ago had been treacherous and covered in ice. Bobby and Vicki's place had been a magical white wonderland then. Today, everything looked a little brown around the edges and terribly ordinary, just a typical winter day in South Dakota farmland.

As he neared the ranch house, Lance spotted smoke coming from the chimney of Bobby and Vicki's house. Half a mile closer and he saw Bobby's big four-door truck in front of the house. The family had come home early from their Florida holiday.

Well, he supposed they wouldn't mind if he stopped in and rested for a while. It would be really good to see them again after so long.

Later, after calling Montana to check on his employees, then taking a nap and eating a huge dinner meal with the family, Lance trudged outside with Bobby to cut more firewood.

“I'm glad you showed up today, Steele,” Bobby teased. “You and your guests burned most of the wood I'd set aside. Now you get to replace it.”

Lance hefted the long-handled ax in his fist and grunted. “Should've done it before we left. But I wasn't thinking.”

Bobby chuckled at his friend. “Yeah. And you're doing such a better job of thinking now, aren't you?”

“Huh?” Lance narrowed an eye at his buddy and saw the sly grin. “How come you guys came back early?” he asked in the hopes of changing the subject.

“Vicki and the kids didn't think it felt right to spend Christmas in Florida,” Bobby admitted. “No
snowmen. No seeing your breath hanging on the air. No white Christmas. It just wasn't the same.”

“Right. They missed one of the whitest Christmases on record around here,” Lance grumbled.

“So we heard.” Bobby stopped walking and stood by the cord of wood he'd stacked earlier in the fall. “Actually, I think everyone was homesick. It just wasn't the same without all the family around.”

Lance picked up a piece of wood and set it up for splitting. “Christmas Eve was nice here. Thanks for the use of the house. Sorry you missed it.”

Bobby stopped the first swing by clamping a hand on his friend's shoulder. “You look terrible, bud. If everything is so great, why do you look so miserable?”

Lance didn't respond or look over at Bobby. He just jerked his shoulder back and raised his arms to complete the swing.

As he split the wood with a crack, Lance thought of how wonderful Bobby and Vicki's house had looked on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. When he'd first gone back inside this morning, he'd been terribly disappointed that even the smell wasn't the same. But he didn't know how to say that to his friend—so he stayed silent.

Bobby crossed his arms over his chest and watched him split a few more logs. “Marianne told Vicki that you were pretty hung up on the woman you brought here. Marcy…right?”

Lance wiped his brow against his shoulder then shrugged. He wasn't sure if “hung up” really said it all.

“Oh, man,” Bobby laughed as he looked him in the eyes. “You're a goner. Just imagine, White Eagle Steele miserable over a woman after all these years of being fancy-free.”