Cassidy Harte and the Comeback Kid (14 page)

But Wade? The image of him involved in any kind of criminal enterprise just didn't fit the man she knew. “You said they were all wearing masks,” she said slowly. “So you can't be sure Wade was there.”

“Not one hundred percent,” he admitted. Damn, he wished he could remember that night more vividly, could put faces and names to the men who had so gleefully taken turns beating him.

If he could, he would find a way to even the score now that he was no longer that no-account drifter Lowry had called him. What was the saying? Vengeance was sweeter when it was savored. He would love to be able to savor a little delayed justice.

His memories were just too hazy, though. He only had vague impressions of Briggs ordering one of the men to cuff him. Then the chief had circled around him a few times, just for intimidation's sake, before offering him three choices that were really no choices at all.

They could kill him right then and bury him deep in
the mountains surrounding Star Valley where nobody would ever find him.

They could let him take the rap for the drugs.

Or he could leave Salt River and never come back.

Cocky bastard that he'd been a decade earlier, he had spat in the chief's face. Briggs had eased back on his heels, his pale blue eyes narrowed.

“Boy, you just made a big mistake,” he murmured softly, then had ordered the other men to finish him off.

They had all taken turns beating on “Cassie Harte's pretty-boy boyfriend” who stuck his nose in the wrong place.

He must have passed out from one too many kicks in the head. His last thought before he had surrendered to the pain had been for Cassie.

When he regained consciousness, he'd been alone. No plane, no handcuffs, no Briggs. Only his beat-up truck and a note staked to the ground in front of him that said only five words. “Jail or bail. Your choice.”

He had no doubt in the world Briggs could make a charge of drug smuggling stick against him. He wanted to stay and fight it. But then he thought of the expression he would see on Cassie's face if she saw him behind bars. The hurt and the dismay. The disillusionment.

He couldn't make her endure that kind of shame. She deserved better than to have to go through that.

She deserved better than him.

It had taken him a good fifteen minutes to make his shaky way into the driver's seat of his old truck and start it up, pain shrieking through him with every second from what he would later learn had been a half-dozen broken ribs, a concussion and a shattered elbow.

He had a vague memory of that drive out of town, how he'd decided to head south toward Utah. He had known he was leaving Cassie forever, and his heart had cracked into sharp little pieces that gouged him just as painfully as his broken ribs.

“Where did you go?”

He blinked back to the present, to the soft, beautiful woman beside him who had suffered the consequences of that decision. “What?”

“Just now. You looked like you were miles away.”

“I was remembering. Regretting. I should never have left. I should have stayed and fought Briggs.”

Her eyes softened and she reached across the vehicle and touched his arm. “You would have lost. He might have killed you.”

“Maybe. But at least I would have known I tried.”

“Small consolation that would have been to you in your grave. No. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I'm glad you made the choice you did.”

He stared at her, taking his eyes off the road for several beats too long. When he realized he had just narrowly missed hitting a reflector pole, he yanked the Range Rover into the nearest pullout and shoved it into Park.

“How can you say that? Running out on you was unforgivable.”

“No it wasn't. You broke my heart when you left, I won't lie about that. But broken hearts eventually heal, even if they never quite fit together perfectly again.” She was quiet for a moment, then she grabbed his hand. “If you had been killed, Zack, I never would have recovered.”

 

After her low admission, he didn't say anything for several moments, just gazed at her with a bemused kind
of wonder in his eyes, then with a muffled groan he reached for her.

The kiss was soft and sweet and so full of tenderness she melted against him, her bones dissolving inside her skin.

They had shared dozens of kisses in this last week. Hundreds of them. But she sensed something deeper in this embrace, as if they had both crossed some invisible line.

A heavy tractor trailer passed them, and its wake rattled the windows of the Range Rover. Zack groaned and pressed his forehead against hers. “I don't deserve you.”

“You deserve whatever you want out of life.” She touched his cheek. “You always have.”

“You're what I want. Whether I deserve you or not.” He drew away suddenly and shoved the Range Rover into gear. “Come on. Let's go buy a pickup truck.”

A little disoriented by the shift in the conversation, she blinked at him. “You're serious? I thought you were only teasing!”

His lopsided grin left her as breathless as his kiss. “Sweetheart, I wouldn't joke about something as important as this.”

Driving with one hand, he grabbed her fingers suddenly with the other and pressed a kiss on her palm. “Seriously, Cass. I know nothing I do will bring back the last ten years. But I'd like to re-create at least one thing from that time.”

“You're crazy! You can't just walk into a dealership at two in the afternoon on the Fourth of July and walk out with a new pickup truck!”

“Watch me.”

She did just that. Not that she had much choice. The sales manager at the small dealership didn't quite know how to deal with an immovable force like Zack Slater with his mind set on something.

The two of them—Cassie and LeRoy Thomas, his nametag read—just stood back and watched, while Zack quickly perused the inventory on the lot.

“What's your favorite color?” he asked her at one point while he peered under the hood of one big beast.

“I don't know,” she answered helplessly, unable to believe he was actually doing this. “Um, I like the sage color of this one.”

She didn't think he would appreciate the observation that when he stood next to it, the color perfectly matched the green flecks in his eyes.

“Sage it is, then,” he said, poking his head up. “LeRoy, my friend, let's talk.”

A half hour later, after some hard-core negotiations that made her head spin, Zack was the proud owner of a hulking three-quarter-ton pickup with all the extras and a price tag that left her feeling slightly ill.

He took her to a late lunch at a pizza place in Idaho Falls. On the way out of the restaurant he offered her the choice of driving home the new truck or the sleek Range Rover.

Home. She really liked the sound of that. Pretending to consider, she cocked her head, looking at both vehicles in the parking lot. “You take the truck,” she finally said. “It's your new toy.”

He grinned with such boyish excitement that she fell in love with him all over again.

She loved Zack Slater. The sweetness of admitting it to herself flowed through her like pure honey.

She loved his strength and his laughter and his decency.

As certain as she was that this was right between them—that she wanted to take this next step with him—by the time they drove under the wooden Lost Creek Ranch sign, her nerves were stretched thin, her body taut with restless anticipation.

When she parked the Range Rover next to the shiny new truck that gleamed in the late afternoon sun, she was chagrined to realize her hands were shaking, just a little. She climbed out, then shoved them in the pockets of her jeans to hide her nerves.

“Let me just grab a couple of…of quilts.” She felt herself blush furiously. “I'm afraid I, um, don't have any strawberries.”

“That's okay.” He smiled. “Strawberries aren't what I'm hungry for, anyway.”

Her mouth went dry and she had to grab the railing of the porch steps to steady herself. He followed her up the steps, and she was almost painfully aware of him as she unlocked the door.

Inside her little cabin he seemed to take up all the available air, leaving her breathless and a little dizzy.

She cleared her throat. “I'll just grab those quilts.”

She turned away and nearly jumped out of her skin when he reached out and rested a strong hand on her shoulder. The heat of his fingers scorched through the soft cotton of her shirt as he turned her to face him.

His eyes were intent, searching, and she knew all her sudden anxieties must be glaringly obvious on her far-too-transparent features.

“Do you want me to leave?”

She shook her head fiercely.

“We don't have to do anything you're not ready for.
Slow and easy, remember? That's what I promised. I meant every word. We don't even have to go anywhere. We can sit right out on your porch swing and watch the fireworks from here, okay? You can always make me go jump in the cold stream out back if I start misbehaving.”

While he spoke, her nerves slid away. She had nothing to be afraid about. Not with Zack. A soft smile captured her mouth at the sincerity in his eyes. He probably would march right to the stream out back if she commanded him.

“You are a very sweet man, Zack Slater,” she murmured.

He snorted. “You know me better than that. I just want to do everything right this time.”

“So far you're doing a pretty darn good job.” She smiled again, sultry this time, and stepped forward to press a kiss to his strong jaw where a hint of late-afternoon shadow rasped against her mouth. She liked it so much she kissed him again. And once more.

He stood motionless while she tasted his skin and meandered her way to his mouth. He wanted slow and easy. She could give him slow and easy. She brushed her lips across his, then back again with leisurely attention to every centimeter of his mouth.

His eyes fluttered closed and he leaned into her. Under her hands, his heart pounded hard and fast in erotic contrast to the unhurried pace of their kiss.

He seemed content to let her take the lead in the kiss, and she reveled in the heady power of his response. As she explored his mouth, she could feel the hard jut of his arousal at her hip, feel his breathing accelerate, grow labored.

When she gripped a handful of shirt and licked at
the corner of his mouth, he groaned and parted his lips slightly, just enough for her to slip her tongue inside. But still he didn't move.

She knew the exact moment when his thin hold on control snapped apart. One moment he was motionless under her sensual onslaught. The next, he shuddered and his arms whipped up, twisting in her hair as he gripped her head and ravaged her mouth.

With a sigh of surrender she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body to him.

She couldn't wait another hour, another moment, another second. She wanted him now, right here.

The dying sun sent long, stretched-out shafts of light through a break in the curtains to dapple the furniture and wood floor as she grabbed his hand and pulled him into her small bedroom.

He dug his boot heels into the floor just inside the doorway, his eyes intent and searching on her face. “Are you sure, Cass? There's no going back after this.”

She smiled. “I couldn't be more sure than I am right this moment. Kiss me, Slater.”

His mouth quirked a little at the order but he promptly obeyed, his hands busy untucking her shirt and exploring the sensitive skin above her hips. She shivered as those hard, rough hands moved closer to her breasts, to her nipples that ached and burned for his touch.

The next few moments were a flurry of buttons and snaps and zippers yanking free.

Finally no barriers remained between them. All her nerves came fluttering back like a flock of magpies to chatter noisily at her.

No man had ever seen her naked except him, and
that had been a decade ago. She was suddenly painfully aware of all her imperfections, every single extra calorie she had ever indulged in over the years.

He didn't appear to notice. At least not judging by the stunned expression on his face.

“I thought I remembered everything about you in exquisite detail,” he murmured. “Every curve, every hollow. I can't believe I forgot the sheer impact of the whole package.”

“Oh, stop.” Hot color saturated all those curves and hollows as he gazed at her with stark longing in his eyes.

He grinned. “Get used to it, sweetheart. I'm just getting warmed up.”

She decided the only way out of this was distraction. “That's too bad,” she murmured. “Because I'm already very, very warm. And getting warmer by the second.”

“Let's see.” He stepped forward and kissed her, skimming one sneaky hand from her shoulders down her back to the curve of one rear cheek, pulling her against him. She gasped as fluttery little nerve impulses rocketed through her everywhere her skin brushed his.

“Mmm. You're right. Very warm,” he murmured against her mouth.

They stood that way for a long time, wrapped together and rediscovering each other while the room darkened around them.

At last he lowered her to the bed. His hands were strong and hard and clever. He knew exactly how and where to touch her—where to linger, where to tease with fleeting caresses.

She closed her eyes, lost to the swirl of sensation and the steadily building heat he stoked so adroitly.
When she opened them, she found him watching her, his eyes heavy with passion. Their gazes locked and stayed that way while his hands caressed her intimately. A restless, aching need gripped her and she curved into his fingers, nearly crying out from the tangle of emotions that bound them so tightly.

Still watching her, he lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss was fierce and possessive and demanding—and she found it every bit as arousing as his hands on her flesh.

“Please,” she begged, unable to stand the slow, exquisite yearning another instant. His thumb stroked a particularly sensitive spot just then, hidden in folds of flesh, and she sobbed his name as she climaxed in a wild tumble of color and light and sensation.