Marry Me, Cowboy (Copper Mountain Rodeo) (10 page)

Who knew I’d like the marshmallow part so much?

“It’s pretty. It’s gorgeous,” she said truthfully. Maybe she could tell him…? “But it reminds me of - ”

No. Don’t say it. Just don’t.

It scared her that she’d told him so much already, and that she wanted to tell him more. Those first few words had brought her to the cliff edge, and now, suddenly, she scrabbled to get back. She grabbed for a shred of the old prickly pride. “ - of the fact that I don’t like dresses.”

“For a wedding, you should like dresses.” He looked at her, blue eyes daring her to disagree. “And pink roses. For a bouquet.”

“You’re my style consultant now?”

He insisted, “You love pink.”

Well, she’d always known he was stubborn. “Okay, yeah, I do.”

“Good.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Suits you.”

He kissed her with the wedding gown as chaperone, until a group of people came out of the café a couple of doors down and brought the moment to an end.

They wandered back and went to Jamie’s trailer, barely taking in the evening’s entertainment on the way. Tegan sat on the lower bunk and opened the candy. It looked rich and dark, the shapes unusual and clever. “You say you know the woman who makes this? It looks amazing. Hand-made.”

“Sage, yeah. She’s a few years older than me. Dawson asks me about her, sometimes, so I pay attention when Aunt Kate gives me the Carrigan family news. Sage used to barrel-race, and she and Dawson knew each other on the circuit. I think she works pretty hard in that store of hers.”

“And he asks you about her. Why?”

He shrugged. “Not my business. Eat your candy.”

“I might. Bossy-pants.” She chose one and popped it in his mouth instead of her own, and he did the same back to her, and if he’d bought her the candy as a kind of pretty, copper-colored foreplay, well... it worked.

Oh boy, did it work!

In the secret darkness of the trailer, with rodeo noise all around them, he peeled off her fringed shirt and her bra and her jeans and her underwear so slowly he had time to plant slow kisses over every inch of her skin while his fingers moved. She was totally naked before he’d even taken off his boots, and she found it hugely erotic to feel his clothes against her skin as she swayed limp and utterly relaxed in his arms.

“Take another one of these,” he whispered, and pressed a sweet piece of chocolate into her mouth, then kissed it out again. They kissed until the taste of chocolate was all gone, and still he hadn’t undressed.

Tegan took matters into her own hands, and did to him exactly what he’d done to her, covering his body with the touch of her mouth as she found each new patch of silky warm skin.

“Never made love on a top bunk before,” he muttered. “But I’m sure it can be done.”

“It’ll be different. We can work it out,” she whispered back.

She climbed up first and he followed and they lay there face to face on top of the covers, grinning foolishly at each other. “Now what?” he said.

“Maybe we need to find some instructions,” she suggested.

“You kidding me? Men don’t need instructions.”

“Of course. I was forgetting...”

“We can
all-l-l-ways
find the way...”

He rolled his leg over her hip and nestled himself against her and his hand whispered against her breast. She didn’t know where it would go next, but somehow that didn’t matter, because they had all night to find out and nothing to get in the way.

At first there were some bumps and laughs because, seriously, a top bunk in a horse trailer didn’t provide a lot of room, but then they worked out a few things about lying sideways. He spooned against her from behind and reached around to hold her and cup her and touch her and slide his fingers into her warmest places, and when she finally rolled to face him again and he filled her, they took it so achingly slow and sweet Tegan thought the world might end and they would never even notice.

“So you know how to do it quick and you know how to do it slow,” she whispered to him afterward.

“I got all the bases covered, don’t I? Fast, slow… Is there anything else?”

“That’s it? Fast and slow?”

“Well, medium,” he conceded.

“Standing, lying, on top, underneath.”

“Wow, I never knew about any of those.”

“Nutcase, Jamie.”

“Well, I always aim to entertain.”

“You’re pretty good.”

“So are you.”

They lay together, warm and limp and very satisfied with themselves. She almost fell asleep, but Jamie was still touching her, lazy and liquid, no plan in mind, just touching her. Talking, too, very soft, words just spooling out as if he had all the time in the world and so much to say.

“You’re so sweet and beautiful. You make me laugh. You’re amazing. This is so good. Watching you eat that candy. Watching you undress. Watching you ride. You make me crazy.”

“I was wrong about you not knowing how to talk to women, Jamie,” she said, smiling at him in the dark. “Now I’m a bit afraid I’m not going to be able to shut you up.”

“I know a way...”

Turned out he did. His tongue was busy with other things for a long time, and he didn’t say a word.

CHAPTER TEN

He reached for her and she wasn’t there.

Jamie was a little shocked to discover how quickly this shot him awake. Half-asleep, he’d grown a little cold and wanted Tegan against him for the warmth… and probably another reason… but when he’d grabbed chilly air all the way to the edge of the bunk and discovered she wasn’t in it –

Yeah, he wasn’t half-asleep any more, he was firing on all cylinders.

He leaned out of the bunk to grope for his phone, kept just within reach down on the laminate counter-top of the trailer’s tiny kitchen area. It was four in the morning, said the glaring screen. Where had she gone? Didn’t she realize they hadn’t finished with each other yet? Had she gone back to her own trailer? Why would she do that?

He thought about letting it go. So what if she had gone back there? Maybe she was looking for some decent rest, for the last few hours of the night, to give herself a better chance in her event. He felt as if he’d slept like the dead, after all that sweetness together, but admittedly only for a handful of hours.

Now, he knew he wouldn’t get back to sleep if he didn’t have her beside him, or at least know where… and preferably also
why…
she’d gone.

Checking on her horse?

He grabbed a clean pair of jeans and some underwear, didn’t bother with socks or a shirt, just shoved his feet into a pair of gritty boots and slung on a padded jacket, then stepped out beneath the stars.

On the edge of a Montana town at this time of night in the clear air of fall, they were so thick in the sky that you’d think they were going to come falling to earth like white rain. The sky didn’t seem as if it was dense enough to hold them. Only their slow whirling through the heavens, a million billion miles away, seemed enough to keep them afloat.

Out on the ranch, where the nights were even darker, you could see that the stars were different colors, some shining gold, others blue or pinkish, others pure platinum silver or twinkling white. On a summer night as a child, Jamie had looked at them for hours.

He found Tegan looking up at them, also, sitting on the steps of her trailer. She heard his footsteps thudding in a muffled way across the tracked-up grass and switched her focus. “Kara at home?” he asked, wanting to know how alone they were.

“Dean’s trailer, I expect.” She didn’t show any surprise at seeing him, which he found restful, and she scooted over on the step so he could sit beside her, which he found…
right
. He could never get serious about a woman who wouldn’t sit on a trailer step, or the top rail of a yard, or an upturned feed bucket.

“Whatcha doing, star-gazing?”

“Trying to work out the time difference for calling Australia.”

“Homesick?”

“Stupid dress.”

“What stupid dress?”

“The stupid wedding dress.”

“Oh, right,
that
stupid dress,” he said wisely, although he had no idea why the wedding gown in the store window was suddenly stupid, when he’d actually forced her to admit, only eight or nine hours ago, that she really liked it and it was beautiful.

“Reminded me of the flower-girl dress I wore when Mum and Dad were married,” she said.

“You never mentioned that.”

“I’m mentioning it now.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because you came looking for me and sat on my step - ”

“You made room.”

“ - and forced me to mention it.”

“Yeah, at gunpoint, baby.”

It wasn’t a very wide step. Her whole side was pressed up against him, while they had their legs bent and planted wide on the ground, which meant their thighs were pressed together, too. This was working for him very well, he decided. He leaned a little closer in, pressed a little harder, so she’d know it was okay for her to talk, if she wanted.

Horses pushed into pressure. Tegan had quite a lot of horse in her, and pushed against pressure, too. “I’m cold,” she said.

Jamie took this as a hint, and put his arm around her. She was wearing one of her satin shirts. One that she’d earlier discarded in his trailer, in fact. Pretty, but no warmth. Silky. He rubbed her arm because friction made heat.

Well, no, not for that reason, but it was a side benefit. He reached over and slid his other hand between her thighs – for the side benefits of that, too, obviously.

“So if I’m forcing you,” he said, “You’d better keep talking.”

She shrugged. “I think I said it already.”

“I would have to disagree. You started. You didn’t get anywhere near the end.”

“Boy, Jamie, you are one heck of a fast convert to the whole idea of talking about stuff.”

“Only when it’s you,” he said truthfully.

“I’m flattered.”

“You should be.”

“And your ego is in fine shape.”

“You’re trying to change the subject,” he told her. “You’re hoping I’ll bite, and forget the dress thing.”

“Please bite,” Tegan begged him.

He did. Very gently. Like a very wimpy vampire on a diet, who just wanted a tiny, smoochy taste of the sweet skin on her neck, right below her ear. She shuddered and closed her eyes and said, “I didn’t mean that kind of a bite.”

He took his mouth away. “Sorry.”

“Do it again.”

He did, then took his mouth away for a second time and said, “I’m getting confused about who is distracting who, here.”

She sighed, then said, “It’s around nine o’clock in the evening in Australia, I worked out.”

“Shouldn’t you know that off by heart, by now?”

“No, because we’re in different time zones when we travel on the circuit, and at this time of year they’re going onto Daylight Savings time at home, and we’re coming off it, here, and so it’s more complicated than you’d think.”

“Nine o’clock in the evening sounds like a good time to call.”

“But do I want to?”

“You tell me.”

“It was the dress, you see.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“When they sold the farm they had so much stuff to clear out, you wouldn’t believe.”

“Well, I would,” he answered, thinking of the ranch, and how there were still boxes of his and Rose’s and Jess’s and Jodie’s things stored in the attic and various sheds.

“Mum asked me what I wanted done with my flower-girl dress, and I told her to store it with my other stuff that they were keeping for me, and I was feeling pretty sore about the farm being sold, so I was snippy with her, probably, and I’m trying to think back on how
she
was, and I think I might have missed something.”

“What sort of something?”

“Something in her tone. That maybe she was afraid I wouldn’t want to keep the dress, and then she was pleased when I said I did. Even though I was snippy. But I’m not sure.”

“So you’re going to call and ask?”

“No, I’m just going to call and chat, and try to be… less sore and less snippy, and see if it helps.”

“After you call, are you coming back to my trailer?”

“If you want me.”

“Oh, I want you. Want me to leave? Warm up the bed while you make the call? Want some privacy?”

“No, stay,” she said. So he stayed, arms still cradling her while she touched the screen on her phone and listened, her muscles tense against him. It rang out, unanswered. She looked at him. “Not home.”

“Cell phone?”

“They’re hopeless with them. Dad only turns his on when he wants to make a call, never thinks about someone trying to call him. Mum still hasn’t learned to text. The screen on hers is so small she can barely see it.”

“I’m hearing excuses,” he said.

“Whose excuses?”

“Yours.”

“Mum’s and Dad’s, I sometimes think.”

“You think too much,” he said. “Call the other numbers.”

She made a face at him and went back to her phone twice more, getting the same result each time. “Told you.”

“Leave a message.”

“Then they’ll call back.”

“That’s not good?”

“Maybe I take after Dad. I like to be in control of the timing.”

“Thought you might tell me you’d rather be in bed with me than out here in the cold, waiting for them to call.”

She looked at him. “That, too.”

Yes!

So they dropped the idea of her trying to connect with her family tonight, and he thought she was more relieved about this than she should have been.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Hot damn, Tegan was going to win.

Jamie looked at the scores flashing out on the electronic board. Only two girls left to ride and so far no one had beaten her time. It was a little slower than yesterday, at 16.04, but Lisa Mackie had knocked down a barrel, adding a five second penalty, which blew her chances out of the water.

Meanwhile, Jamie had wrenched his arm in the steer wrestling and failed to make a score, which would probably push him out of the running for All Around Cowboy, because Dawson O’Dell was killing the competition in his events today, after his disappointment in saddle bronc yesterday, and was the popular favorite to win.