Gambling on a Dream (22 page)

She let out a small laugh, then tilted her head to the side. Humor he’d not seen for a long time shined in her deep brown eyes. “Like the time you and Talon stole all her tomatoes from the garden to throw at Jock Blackwell’s house?”

He rubbed his jaw and chuckled. “Yeah, like that.” He set his hat on his head and nodded toward the exit. “So, let’s go.”

With a wince she couldn’t stop, she pushed away from the wall and lost her balance. She would have fallen if Wyatt hadn’t caught her. “Damn. My knee hurts.”

He guided her to a chair. “Sit down. I’m going to find a nurse with a wheelchair.”

With narrowed eyes, she shook her head. “Just give me a minute. I’ll be fine.”

“No. For once in your life let someone take care of you.” Before she could make a fuss, he turned toward a passing nurse. “Miss, do you have a wheelchair handy? Sheriff Madison was in an auto accident yesterday and has been on her feet all day.”

“Wyatt. I’m fine.” He heard the words through gritted teeth.

Dawn stood, but she fell back into the chair. The nurse stepped forward and frowned. “I think he’s right. In fact, I’d recommend you having it looked at.”

“No.” Dawn glared at him. “Just get me a chair. I’ll call the doctor when we get back to Colton.”

The nurse pursed her lips as if she wasn’t sure she believed her, but soon turned to fetch the wheelchair.

Dawn leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She gave up too easily, which had to mean she knew he was right, or she was glad for the intervention but too proud to admit it.

When the chair arrived, the nurse helped her onto the seat and glanced at Wyatt as she took the handles. “Which exit are you parked closest to?”

“The E.R. I’ll pull my truck up to the door.”

“Good. I’ll meet you there.” She started pushing the chair through the staring FBI agents and medical staff, while he took off for the elevator.

When would she stop pushing herself to the brink?

* * * *

Dawn stared out the window as the dark highway between Dallas and Colton flew by. Soft country music played on the radio. She and Wyatt didn’t speak. What was there to talk about? She’d said more than her piece that morning--
God, had it been that morning?
--at the diner.

The sex that happened before then seemed like a lifetime ago.

“I have nowhere to go,” she said more to herself than to Wyatt as they entered the city limits of Colton.

“I’m taking you back to my place.” The deepness of his voice had her turning her head toward him. He glanced her way, and their eyes met for a brief time before he had to look back at the road, but she recognized the shadowy seriousness shining in the depths. “I think it’s time you and I have a talk.”

“Thought we already did this morning at the diner.”

Again, his piercing blue gaze touched hers as he stopped at the red light in the center of town. “You asked me a question before Tilly came in. I think I owe you an answer.” He looked back at the road when the signal changed to green, but she got the feeling he did so more to avoid her than to make the turn. “I don’t know what I thought, Dawn. About the baby. About whether you’d want it or not. I spent a lot of years trying to figure that out. I…” He shook his head and rubbed his jaw. “I was hurt you didn’t tell me.”

Sighing, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. She was too tired to do this again. “I told you why I didn’t.”

“Yes. And that’s what hurts. I thought you knew me better than that. I’m nothing like Jock Blackwell.”

She turned her head and looked at his handsome profile. The set of his jaw showed her the pain in his heart, but the sight did nothing to alleviate the hurt she still held deep in her own. “Then why did you run? If I’d honestly hurt you so bad by not telling you about the baby. If you wanted our baby so much, why didn’t you face me then?”

“Let me get you home, and we’ll finish this.”

She shook her head. He was still running. “Okay.”

A few moments later, they pulled into his driveway. He helped her out of the truck and into the house. Once he helped her settle on the couch, with her bum leg propped on a pillow, he gently placed a bag of frozen peas over her swollen knee. When he handed her a couple of pain pills and a glass of milk to wash them down, she’d had enough.

She set the empty glass on the end table. “Now, are you going to tell me the real reason you bailed on me?”

He faced the fireplace and tossed his hat onto the leather chair that matched the couch. “I should have been able to protect you, Dawn. I failed. The same way I failed my sisters, especially Rachel.”

What?
“I don’t get it? I can take care of myself, and I can’t imagine a brother loving his sisters more than you do.”

He faced her, the shadows in his eyes causing her heart to flutter. “That’s just it. Did you know I set up Lance and Rachel?”

She shook her head.

He sat in the chair next to her and leaned over his long legs to study his hands. “I didn’t think he was good for her, but I went against my gut. Lance was home from college and Rachel was still in high school. I knew she had a crush on him, and when he asked me if I’d get him a date for the Fergusons’ roundup barbeque, I knew exactly who.” He shook his head and fisted his hands. “So, if I’d gone with my gut and told him to go find his own damn date, my little sister might not be suffering like she is right now.”

She couldn’t believe the guilt radiating off him. “Wyatt, you had no way of knowing what would have happened. Besides, Lance made his own decisions when he cheated on her with Audrey, and so did Rachel. No one forced her to join the military.”

He shrugged as he leaned back in the chair. “I know you’re right, but I can’t stop thinking about it. Just like I can’t stop wondering where I went wrong with you. I should have been the one protecting you, not the other way around.”

As if a dark veil lifted from her eyes, she realized the truth about Wyatt, and the fact that he honestly believed that horseshit made her angrier than she’d been in a long time. She shifted to face him. “You egoistical, chauvinistic idiot!”

He narrowed his eyes and sat up in his chair, but before he could respond, she said, “You left me, not because of my losing the baby, but out of some caveman notion that you should have saved
me
? Is that why you left me? You couldn’t stand that a woman took a bullet meant for you?”

“No. It’s not about you being a woman and me being a man. It’s hard to explain. I feel the same way about my dad.” Standing, he ran his hands through his hair, setting the chestnut strands standing on end and askew. He paced to the windows and turned with his shoulders drooping like a great weight sat upon them. The pain shining through his eyes had her gasping. “It’s because I love you so damn much I’d rather die than see you hurt.”

When his words seeped in and their meaning fractured her anger, something warm filled the cold places in her heart. Hadn’t she fallen so desperately in love with him because of his compassion for others? Despite the pain in her knee, she tossed the melting bag of peas aside and stood. He stepped forward as if to stop her, but she shook her head and held out her hand to halt him.

Swallowing the sudden lump in her throat, she asked, “Don’t you get it? I’ve always felt that way about you. That’s why I had to stop that thug.” She put her hands over her flat stomach and closed her eyes against the terrible truth. “I didn’t think about our baby in that moment. All I could think about was you.” Tears burned her sinuses, and she didn’t stop them from flowing. She didn’t have the strength in that moment. “I know it’s awful, and I know you will probably never forgive me, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about our beautiful baby boy.” She opened her eyes and sucked in a breath at finding him standing only inches from her. He laid his hand on her cheek, and she leaned into the warm callused strength of his hardworking palm. “But I couldn’t let you be taken from this world, Wyatt.” She couldn’t manage more than a whisper as she drowned in the fathomless blueness of his eyes. “You’re too damned special. I know you’re nothing like Jock Blackwell.”

He wrapped her up in his arms and kissed her. His soft lips were firm on hers and his tongue demanded entrance. She leaned into him and opened, offering him her total surrender. Clinging to him in a way she never thought she would again, she gave him everything as their tongues danced and teeth nipped.

He broke away panting for air. Before she could catch her own breath, he swung her into his arms.

“Wyatt?”

He searched her eyes, and a small unsure smile touched his lusciously moist lips. “Just let me take care of you for one night. Okay?”

She shivered at the husky quality in his voice and nodded. A few moments later, he laid her down on his bed. Unable to do anything but watch him, he slowly removed her shoes and socks. As he began massaging her aching arches, she leaned back and moaned.

When he stopped, she opened her eyes to him unbuttoning her blouse. The fire in his eyes when they met hers was hot enough to burn her to a crisp, if she hadn’t been already a flame with her own desire. She reached for the snaps of his shirt and yanked it open. He shrugged it off as she caressed over the scattering of dark curls covering his chest.

Leaning forward, he set her skin blazing as he kissed and nipped the skin below her ear. She gripped his hair and pulled him from her neck. His gaze swirled with fear of rejection and questions.

She licked lips that still tingled from his kiss earlier. “Make love to me, Wyatt.”

A wicked grin lifted one side of his lips, and his eyes darkened to the color of a twilight sky. “It would be my profound pleasure to do so.”

She couldn’t stop the giggle as he nipped her shoulder and flicked open the front clasp of her bra. The laugh quickly died when he pulled back and touched the pucker above her left breast where the bullet had entered her chest. He leaned over, and above her lips, he whispered, “I forgive you. Now, you need to forgive yourself.”

She gasped from the force of those words. “I forgive you. Don’t you ever leave me again.” Forgiving herself had never occurred to her, but she realized in order to fully heal the emptiness inside, she had to. She caressed his handsome face, the stubble of the dark beard on his cheek enticing her fingers.

The passion of his kiss took her breath away. When they separated, panting from a lack of air, wanting to feel skin on skin, the need to join as one drove them to frantic motions as they got rid of the rest of their clothes.

Once they were both naked, Wyatt took his sweet excruciating time to lavish her feverish skin with caresses, kisses, and nipping. From the healing cut on her forehead, to the scar above her breast, to her sore knee, and every place in between. He spent a long time on her breasts until she arched off the bed and fisted her hands in his hair. She was a trembling mess by the time he skimmed his lips over her tummy. Shifting between her legs, he leaned over her. She was more than ready for him and welcomed him into her as he thrust forward. Closing her eyes and moaning his name, she wrapped her uninjured leg around his hips and her arms around his neck as he filled her.

He buried his face into her neck as a groan escaped from deep inside of him; then he slowly pulled out and thrust in again. “Oh, God, Dawn, I don’t know how I’ve lived without you.”

She gasped at the meaning of his words and held him, breathing in his musky, outdoorsy scent. The heat of his body covering her comforted as he moved within her again, and the coil of her climax tightened. So many sensations she’d forgotten built within her as she let her heart soar and break free from the years of doubt and pain.

“Wyatt, I love you!” she screamed when her orgasm hit, taking her to a place she was sure she’d never been.

He moaned deep into her neck as he thrust into her one last time and trembled as she held him.

* * * *

Time stood still as Wyatt let her words and the bliss of his climax flood him. When he found the strength to pull away, he sought her gaze. Had she meant what she said, or were the words something tossed away in the heat of passion?

She gasped as she tried to catch her breath. In her eyes, he saw an opening to her soul he’d never noticed before. Shifting his weight, he leaned over her from the side and brushed his fingers through her long, black hair, spread over his pillow. “Did you really mean that?”

She licked her swollen moist lips and slowly nodded. “I never stopped loving you.”

Joy he hadn’t let into his heart for a long time filled it to bursting. He smiled and kissed her. As he pulled away, he cupped her face and caressed his thumb over her high blushed cheek. “I never stopped loving you. I tried. But I never quite got you out of my blood.”

A beautiful smile curved her swollen lips and lit up her moist eyes. “Where do we go from here?”

He couldn’t believe they were having this conversation. “First, we have to catch ourselves a murdering drug dealer, and you have an election to win.” He shrugged as the future he’d always dreamed of spread out in front of him like a bright patchwork quilt. “I don’t know, maybe then we find out what kind of rancher I am and what kind of rancher’s wife you might become.”

Her eyes widened as shock replaced her smile. He hoped like hell he hadn’t spoken too soon. “Wyatt?” She gasped and laid her hand over her heart. “Are you…”

Clearing his throat, he covered her hand, and it fluttered in his grasp as he squeezed. “Not now, but I hope someday you’ll be ready.”

She sniffed and a tear escaped the corner of her eye. “Luck would have it I have almost seventeen hundred acres of prime pasture right next door waiting for a rancher to let loose some cattle.”

“Do you have a rancher in mind?” Was that hoarse voice his?

Pulling him to her, she whispered before capturing his lips. “Yeah, I do.”

With her elbows planted on the table, Dawn rested her chin on her hands and watched Wyatt make breakfast. He had to be the sexiest man alive while he flipped pancakes and fried bacon. His jeans fit just right, and it wasn’t a stretch to remember what that incredible tight ass looked like naked.