Not My 1st Rodeo (22 page)

Tension left his body and he relaxed against her. She held him to her, her arms around his back, her feet twisted over his calves. They'd done it, done something bigger than either could do alone.

“Wow.” It was all she could think to say once she finally caught her breath.

“Amen to that.” He lifted himself off her and then moved off the bed.

“Where are you going?” His withdrawal sent a sting between her legs, so she squeezed her thighs together. She heard water running, answering her question. She reached down and pulled the blankets up so she could press her hand to her core, which helped with the discomfort.

Ray returned and pulled back the covers, catching her with her hand down her pants, had she been wearing any. “Aw, babe. I worried you'd be sore.”

He pressed a hot washcloth between her thighs and she sighed in relief. The tight muscles relaxed, the pain easing.

“Next time, we'll play more. And you'll tell me when it's too much, okay?”

She rested her hand on his arm. “I was fine until you left. I'm okay, really.”

She glanced down at his cock, still thick and full. His was the first erect penis she'd dealt with, so she had nothing to measure him against. She touched the rounded tip of him with her finger and smiled.

“It's a blessing and a curse. I should have asked how long it had been for you.”

She shook her head. “You're perfect. Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you.”

“You did all the work.” She propped herself up on one elbow and admired how amazingly handsome he was. She could stare at him the way art lovers did paintings in museums.

He handed her a dry washcloth and held out his hand as if he expected her to give him the wet one. It went beyond intimate.

“Babe, I had my tongue inside you. I can handle a towel.”

She cringed as she handed it over and then settled down against the pillows. Ray joined her beneath the covers. He reached for her and she went to him, resting her head on his chest, listening to the strength of his heartbeat. He stroked her hair and she sighed.

He cleared his throat. “Would it be weird if I said I think I could be perfectly happy to just stay here and not share you with the world?”

She placed her forearms on his chest and grinned up at him. “Definitely stalkerish. But I feel the same way. I don't know that I'll ever have enough of you.”

Chapter Nine

Ray kicked the cabin door shut, balancing the plate of breakfast burritos on his coffee mug. He hadn't realized he'd never had coffee with anyone in his cabin until he found himself at his door, a mug in each hand, and was faced with the puzzle of how to open it.

He set their breakfast on his nightstand and took a step back. With the length of his double bed against the wall, Jacy had been trapped between the wall and him. She'd tried to creep out of bed at dawn without waking him, but he'd caught her mid-sneak. Good morning was an understatement.

As fun as that had been, he should probably build another nightstand and turn the bed. He plopped down hard on the mattress. He needed to slow his roll. Because she was in his thoughts twenty-four seven, it felt like he'd known her much longer than a week. She had that something, something he couldn't name, and it drew him like a pig to mud.

He scratched the back of his head, trying to get his mind to slow down and just let things happen. But he'd always been the type to take action rather than wait around. The sound of the shower running flooded his imagination with her delicious curves, warm and slick from the soap. The water cutting off didn't help. Snapshots of terry cloth on bare skin and all that naked flesh left him barely holding on to his control.

Next time she visited, she wouldn't be showering alone. There'd be no reason to leave him to check on horses, and Deke could cover his chores instead of babysitting colts. He was still awed by the way Jacy had handled the mare, and that both of the twins had made it through the night. When he'd gone to get breakfast, he'd caught his old man happier than he'd seen him in years. That made two of them.

Jacy opened the bathroom door, and his gaze drifted to her on instinct. With her hair wrapped in a towel, she walked barefoot into the room, wearing a cream dress that looked like old lace and showed off her long legs. She froze, one hand on the towel and the other on the wide leather belt cinching her waist.

“I smell coffee.” Her Venus smile hit him full force. She probably had a hundred different smiles, and he wanted to know them all by heart.

“I know you don't like to be undercaffienated.” He sat on the bed he'd made before heading to the house.

She undid the towel and damp strands of her red hair fell around her shoulders. “Lucky for you, Deke brought me my first cup while I was checking on the boys.” She folded the towel and placed it on the bench by the door. “Before Rick names them, I do want it noted there were no twins on Bonanza.”

“I don't think he cares. My grandpa started that, and I think Dad keeps it up in his honor. But I can pass on suggestions.”

She stepped to the bed and then stood there staring at it. The scent of his soap on her skin was a heady thing. She looked innocent. Fun. Beautiful.

“Babe, we went over this last night. It's the only place we can both sit.”

She waved him off with her hand. “It's not that. I, well, I don't know how to sit in a dress.”

“Okay.” It wasn't as if he had any pointers.

“I should have packed jeans like I'd wanted.” She undid the belt buckle and hung the belt on his footboard. “And I'm not going to be able to drive with that squeezing me. Hand me a pillow.”

She hopped up on the bed and scooted until her back was against the wall. The hem of the dress rode high on her thighs. She snatched the pillow from his hands and placed it on her lap before letting out an exaggerated sigh. “That's better.”

“Don't cover up on my account.”

She quirked a brow at him. “I have to get out of here within the hour. If we start something, I'll be late.”

He shrugged. “Be late.”

She shook her head. “Give me the coffee and no one gets hurt.”

He handed her the mug. Her soft smile as she inhaled the brew reminded him of her innate sensuality. He reached out and wrapped his hand around her bare calf.

“Ray, if I could be late, I would be.” The regret in her voice made him release his hold.

“Breakfast burrito?” He set the plate between them.

“Now I feel bad for leaving.” Her smile disappeared and she sipped her coffee.

“So don't.”

The silence stretched as they drank their coffee. He knew he was asking too much. She had an established career, in a whole other county, and she'd only known him a week. That fact didn't change how much he wanted to seduce her into a few more hours.

“I'll be back Monday night.” Her voice had a pleading tone that had him wondering if she felt it too, this war between what his brain knew and what his soul felt.

“You're really coming right back?”

“Those twins are in a precarious situation. They have to be monitored closely. The partners at my clinic can fill in for me while we wait and see how strong the colts really are, and how well Candy does with nursing them. We might have to take them to a hospital facility, but I want to avoid that since the stress could cause a snowball of problems. If they make it a week, we might want to think about taking the story public. I could bring down some vet students, so they can see it is possible, and you could get publicity for the ranch.”

“We, huh?”

“Are you going to play hard to get right now?” She tried to give him a schoolmarm stare, but her eyes were laughing. The girl had so many tells, it made him think how fun she'd be at strip poker.

“Not with you.”

Ray stepped in the front door of the main house. “Ma?” he called out as the screen door snapped shut behind him. He glanced down at his boots and decided they were clean enough to make it to the kitchen. With his brain still reliving last night with Jacy, he'd volunteered to collect lunch. He was too preoccupied to be useful for much else. He grabbed the heavy cooler off the counter and turned to leave.

Only his gaze stalled on a giant black medical bag sitting on his parent's coffee table. He called out for his mother again, because something was up. He left the cooler in the kitchen, and by the time he made it into the family room, he knew without a doubt it was Jacy's bag, and his mother had some serious explaining to do.

Lynn appeared, a blue bandana tied over her grey curls and dust covering her navy sweatshirt. “What's your emergency? I'm in a groove upstairs cleaning.”

“What is this?” Ray lifted the heavy bag, noticing Jacy's business card on the back in a clear pocket.

“It's Jacy's. She left it in the tack room last night, so I brought it in for safe keeping.”

Anger stabbed at his chest. “You know I have no patience for lying. And she had the bag this morning when she drew blood samples. So try again.”

She held up her hands. “Fine. I took it this morning so that she would come back for it. Or you could take it to her.”

“Did you happen to think that she'll need this today? That she probably showed up at a call and didn't have what she needed? Why would you want her to look unprofessional?” She had calls to make today, said none of the horses would be as exciting as the lot here. “I loaded some things in her camper. She probably thinks this is one of them.”

His mother cringed. “No. None of that came to mind. Just that we like her and you like her and she likes you, so yesterday when she said she wouldn't be back for two weeks, I wanted to help.”

“I don't need your kind of helping. We're adults, not teenagers playing a game. If we want things to work out, they will. But having you steal her medical bag? That does not make me look good.”

“I'm sorry.” She shook her head. “I really am. I should have just left it alone. I just want you to be happy.”

“I was happy. But now I have to drive an hour to bring her back her bag and explain that my mother wants to be a matchmaker.” He brushed past her on his way to the kitchen and grabbed the phone. He lifted the bag onto a barstool and looked at her business card.

Opal Creek Farm Animal Hospital

Large Animal and Food Animal

Jasonda Weston, DVM, FAVM

541-555-5555

Opal Creek, Oregon

He read it twice. Weston. Maybe the website had gotten that wrong, but Opal Creek was three hours of winding highway from here. He turned on the computer and logged on to Notmy1stRodeo.com to double check her profile. Jacy West, Douglas County, Myrtle Creek.

He closed his eyes as his stomach pitched and rolled. She wasn't real. She wasn't real at all.

“Okay, we're alone.” Carly pushed herself up to sit on the wooden countertop, her excitement filling the kitchen. “Dish.”

“Dish up the deviled eggs?” Jacy pulled open the refrigerator door and stepped so it blocked her view of her best friend. She'd been able to hold her off with last-minute party details, and then the dozens of people currently in the back yard, laughing and drinking in celebration of her thirtieth birthday.

“Don't make me hurt you.”

“Pretty sure I can take you, so bring it.” Jacy took the last plate of deviled eggs from the fridge and set them on the counter. The last time her dad had added on to the main house, he'd built her mother's dream kitchen. The size of the space, coupled with the white cabinets and oversized everything had kept Jacy out of the room as much as possible ever since.

“After all I did to make you sexified for your big night, and you're not going to tell me how it went?” Carly pulled a pout a five-year-old would be proud of.

“Well, your dress is ruined.” Might as well start with the basics.

“That could happen to you on a random Tuesday. I'm pretty impressed you only have a bit of dirt on this dress.” She brushed an offending spot on Jacy's hip and then smacked her ass. “Did you get your birthday present or not?”

“Lots of them.” She grinned and tilted her head to the side. “I thought we were talking about Ray?”

“Yes, Ray. You did all this running around so you could sleep with him and not have to be a thirty-year-old virgin. So tell me, did he get the deed done or do we need to find a replacement candidate on the website?”

It felt wrong to talk about their night like it was a game they could review on a play-by-play. Like a wish, holding it tight in her heart made it more special.

Three slow knocks rapped against the cabinets behind them. Jacy turned to see who might have overheard and her heart stopped cold.

Chapter Ten

Ray's stomach clenched in pure, unadulterated fury. Good thing he knew how to roll with the punches, because that had been quite the blow. All this deception to sleep with him. Sleep with anyone really. Just so she could check off her virginity as if were an item on her to do list. She might be cold enough to think it didn't matter, but knowing it had been her first time, her only time, would have meant the world to him. Not that she cared.

He held up her bag and then let it drop to the floor with a satisfying thud. “You left that behind. I don't want you to have a reason to come back to my ranch ever again.”

Jacy winced, but he didn't care. She'd stabbed him in the heart, and now he had to get back on his bike and spend the next few hours driving through a forest, figuring out a way to tell his parents the ugly truth.

“What the hell?” A brunette hopped down from the countertop, ready for battle. She wore a green polka dot dress that looked ridiculous outside of a fifties diner.

“Carly, please, give us a minute.” Jacy cast her gaze at the ground, which wouldn't do. He wanted her to look him in the eye and tell him why. “Keep them out if you can.”

Her friend picked up a tray of eggs and shot a glare his way. “Can't promise you that. But don't worry about a mess, honey. Two thousand acres has plenty of places to hide a body.”

He stepped aside as green dress walked past him, her nose in the air. He made his way to Jacy, crossed his arms over his chest and rooted himself to the spot. He needed answers. Now.

“How did you get here?” She asked somewhere over his left shoulder.

“I'm the one that needs to explain? Really?” He watched as panic dawned in her hazel eyes before she lowered her gold-tipped lashes and wrapped her arms around her middle. “Fine. I have nothing to hide. You left your bag, and you weren't answering your phone. I looked at the business card on the bag and found out it belonged to someone else. I dialed the number and found out you'd been to the office and left for your birthday party. Your receptionist actually gave me directions. I got here, and the first person I saw is my buddy from college, Slade. Just a couple months ago, I was up this way and we had a few beers. I told him about an online dating site. He probably would have walked me in, but his boy needed a boost into a tree. Amazing how short a story is when it's the truth.”

“Ray.” She didn't even open her eyes. “I know this looks bad, but—”

“It doesn't look bad. It is bad. What you did is despicable. You not only manipulated me, but my family. And I bet there's some rule against practicing medicine under an assumed name.”

“Slow down.” Her voice shook and she held up her hands. She managed to look him in the eye, her hazel eyes glistening. “I never meant to lie to you.”

“The hell you didn't.” His temper erupted in a white hot flash. He clenched his fists to keep from reaching out and shaking her. “This is how deceit works. It starts small, with something you don't think is all that bad. And then you're building more lies on top of it. If you didn't mean to lie to me, you wouldn't have. But you meant to, and you did.”

She nodded. “I wanted to tell you so many times. But I wanted to find the right time, when I could explain and you would understand. I was going to tell you tomorrow.”

“Sure you were.”

“I told you I was coming back tomorrow night. I planned on telling you then, when it was just us.”

“I don't believe you. You weren't coming back for me. You wanted to glean some kind of publicity from the twins. You already got what you wanted from me. But really, kid, I shouldn't be anyone's first time.”

“I didn't sleep with you to lose my virginity. I did it because I love you.” Her voice pitched up an octave and she wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “You have every right to be angry—”

“Well, thank you for that.”

She clenched her jaw and fisted her hands at her sides. “I know I made up parts of my profile on the site. I went about it wrong, but because of it I found you. Doesn't that count for something?”

“I'll give you all the credit for lying. On the site, to my face, to my parents, all of it.”

“I'm not a liar. I only changed a few things on the site because who I am wasn't working for me.”

“I can see why. Tell me, is your ex-husband at your birthday party, or did you make him up too?”

“Damn it, Ray, we wouldn't have been matched if I hadn't joined the site and changed the area I lived in. And if my last name had been Weston, anyone in this state that's ever had anything to do with the annual Fourth of July Buckaroo would know—”

“That Weston Ridge is the main benefactor. Yeah, I know that. Your dad was also very generous with the university. He spoke in some of my classes, about expanding your brand and growing your property.”

“Exactly. You're friends with Slade. Would you have gone out with his sister?”

“Not without asking.”

“He would have told you no. All of my brothers want me to live in this perfect fairytale bubble. I can't get out as long as I'm within their reach. So I had to move myself into an area they weren't so damned intimidating in.”

He shook his head. “You're the one spinning tales, not them. You know what's crazy? We even talked about people who lie on their profile. You could have mentioned what you'd done right then.”

“You just said you wouldn't have gone out with me if you'd known who I was.”

“That's not what I said. But you didn't think honesty would matter, right? Because you did all this, the lies and the driving and pretending to be what I wanted, you did it just to toss away your virginity like yesterday's trash.”

Her throat undulated as she swallowed, anguish marring her delicate features. She knew how to put on a good show. “I wanted to find someone who would see me and not the girl from Weston Ridge. I didn't think I'd ever find that. I was getting to the point where I even accepted it. I'd focused all my energy on becoming a vet while others looked for boyfriends and husbands. Most of the time, I prefer animals to people anyway. So, yeah, I wanted to have sex and know what I was missing. Didn't you sleep with any of the other women you met on the site?”

He blinked and an icy coldness spread across his chest. Dear God, she had no idea what she'd done. “You're right. But I never pretended to be making love to any of them.”

“Ray, I wasn't pretending.” She reached for him then, but he snatched his hand away before she could touch him. “You were right there with me. You know I wasn't. I've never been more me than I am with you.”

“Well then, I don't think you know who you are.” He shook his head, so disappointed he'd made the same damned mistake twice. “Have a nice life, Jasonda Weston. Stay the hell out of mine.”

“Jacy what
are
you doing?” Slade stood in her doorway, shaking his head as if she were a kid he'd caught with matches.

She didn't pause, just layered clothes in her duffle bag. Carly always joked about how limited her wardrobe was, but she'd always figured T-shirts, jeans and hoodies were the most practical things to wear. Maybe she ought to not pack at all and just go shopping.

“Tell me you're not going to go chasing after Ray.”

She cast him a glance and instantly knew. “Carly told you.”

He nodded. “Everything.”

She wanted to throw up. How could she have embarrassed herself with this many people at one time? “Did Mama start crying?”

“Carly didn't make a family announcement, she pulled me aside.” He came into the room and sat on her bed.

Her mind stalled, trying to remember the last time he'd been in here. It was before puberty had changed his hair from blonde to brown, so at least twenty years.

“Listen, Jace. Things aren't going to work with you and Ray.”

“Stop. I don't want to hear it. I don't want you to try and keep everyone who might hurt me away. I'm a grown woman. I can slay my own dragons.”

“Fine. You go ahead. But it's not going to matter what you say to Ray. He's done, honey.”

She clutched a flannel shirt to her chest. “You didn't call him, did you?”

He shook his head. “I know him. I've known him a lot of years. He has a heart of gold and would give you the shirt off his back, but he doesn't take too well to being lied to, not anymore.”

“This is more complicated than that.”

“No, it's pretty simple.” Slade drifted a hand over her quilt before meeting her gaze. “Let me break it down for you. Ray got married the year before I did. I thought he and Kendra were solid. He even encouraged her to go to school, so she'd spend the week in Corvallis at the university and the weekends at home. Until there weren't as many weekends. Hell, he was proud of her for studying so hard. And for his birthday, she gave him a pregnancy test and he was over the moon happy.”

She sat on her bed, knowing the crash lay just ahead.

“Only she didn't count on ranchers knowing more about fertility cycles than the average guy. And they're sitting there at the ultrasound, and he finds out it's a boy, and that she's a month farther along than she said. And right there in that moment, he went from having it all to being completely flattened.

“He no sooner got rid of that problem and his dad had a stroke and lied about being cleared to ride again. Then he got thrown and had another stroke. Ray's only bright spot for a long while is how well the ranch has done.”

“But what I did was stupid, not malicious. He's just angry. When he calms down—”

“Jacy, I love you, girl. No matter what crazy thing you do. But Ray is never going to forgive you. He just doesn't have it in him anymore. Don't embarrass yourself more by running after him.”

“I have to try. If I'd been the one to tell him, he would have been mad, but we would have talked it through. When we were together, it was the best I've ever felt.”

“This was just your first rodeo, with the pounding heart, sweaty palms and excitement of the new chance at love. You'll see, it's always like that at first.”

She shook her head, because while she might not have a lot to compare it to, she knew. She'd been raised by two people who loved on a soul level, and she knew when she'd found hers.

“It's not the heart-racing-away kind of thing. It's like, when I'm around him, I can breathe deeper and relax more. He treats me like an equal, not like someone who needs his help or he wants to impress. He never spews out false compliments or pushes me to do things I don't want to do. With him, I don't just feel special, I am.”

“That's Ray. But trust me, sister, you blew it.”