Taking Back Tara (Ranch Lovers Romance) (4 page)

“Zane. My God,
Zane. You’re sober!
That’s
what the
difference is!” Her face lit up and the scarred cheek seemed to almost
disappear in that joyful expression. She folded her hands in front of her
steaming plate of mushroom omelet.

“This is a
milestone, Zane. I’d like to. . .give thanks before we eat our supper.”

He sat beside
her and pulled his chair closer to her. Zane bowed his silky, dark head, taking
one of her small, soft hands in his large, calloused ones and holding it to his
heart.

“Go on, honey.
Give thanks. He’s all ears and so am I.”

***

Much later, Tara
still panted underneath him, her eyes closed, her silky blonde hair fanned over
the pillow, her small hands lightly tracing the ribs across his back, as if
remembering map coordinates. Zane lightly kissed her closed eyelids and she
smiled without opening her eyes. He moved off her and let his hand lightly rest
on her nearest breast. He felt her heart hammer under his palm, watched it
match the visible pulse in her delicate neck artery. A few drops of
perspiration pooled in the hollow at the base of her neck and he licked them
away, his tongue gentle. She gasped and shuddered, then was quiet.

He murmured her
name against her neck. She opened her arms to him and pulled his dark head
against her breasts. He inhaled the fragrance of their lovemaking and moaned
with contentment.

“Don’t smell
me, Zane. I’m all sweaty.”

“I like you
sweaty. I might just keep you sweaty all the time.”

She laughed
softly and opened her eyes, meeting his, then saw something in them that made
her take a sharp breath inward.

“What, Zane?”

He hesitated
and pressed his lips together, his eyes flicking away. She stroked his cheek
and his hazel eyes came back to hers. “I know you, Zane. Something’s stuck in
your craw.” Softer, she said, “Tell me, Zane.”

“How was Hugh?
In bed, I mean.”

“Oh. So
that’s
the big burr under your saddle.”

He sat up. “I
shouldn’t have asked, but—”

“You need to
know, right?”

He nodded and
she sat up, too then pulled the sheet over her breasts. “He was not anything like
you, Zane. You’re passionate. You get after it like a barrel race. You’re
fierce and demanding and energetic and no holds barred. He was tender,
soft-touching, his fingers like leaves falling on me. He let me do all the work
in bed. No initiative beyond a sort of vague comfort. At times, his tenderness
degenerated into laziness. And then he was too sick from the cancer to make
a…stand.”

Zane narrowed
his eyes. “Tara. Why on God’s green earth would you ever
leave me for a man like that?”

She chewed her lip
thoughtfully. “His passion was in the talking, especially talking his poetry.
He spoke to me like you make love to me. You are poetry in motion. He
was…poetry
itself
.”

Zane sighed and
considered this. “Is this whole thing with him about talking, then?”

“Pretty much.” Tara
took Zane’s hand and squeezed it. “Zane, after your daddy died, you barely
spoke to me or anyone else for two years. You hurt me, every day that you were
silent. This is Wyoming, miles
from any paved road. We are each other’s company, each other’s friends, each
other’s lovers. We were each other’s complete link to humanity and you took
that away from me. From us.”

His big hands
enveloped her small ones. “I’m sorry, my lady. I had a lot on my mind, then. It
was not a small thing to lose Daddy.”

“Zane, I loved
him, too. Your daddy was good to me like a real father. When he was gone, he
left a hole in both our lives, but instead of talking about what was on your
mind, you curled up with a bottle in complete silence, for pretty much every day
of two years. I watched you start to destroy yourself like your daddy did after
your mama died.
 
I was here for you,
Zane, and you completely shut me out and worked on killing your liver, too.”

They went into
each other’s arms and he held her against him, feeling her heart quicken.

“I’m so sorry.
That’s over and done with, Tara. No more bottle. And
I’ll talk a blue streak, romantic-like, just like in those novels you read.”

“You don’t have
to talk pretty for me like a poem or a novel. You just have to convince me that
we share a
life
, Zane.”

“Those are some
hard words, Tara, considerin’ how you left me for a
total stranger.”

“We’ve always
been honest with each other. That was straight talk, Zane. I’m not the only one
at fault.”

He nodded.
“That’s true. I neglected you. I admit it.”

“You wanted to
know why I left. I told you bare bones’ truth.”

“So you did.
Please forgive me, too.” He exhaled hard and hugged her hard.

“I do!” She
kissed his chest and he felt her hot tears again.

“We gotta get
you to stop leakin’ from your eyes, darlin’.” He pulled back gently. He pushed
strands of silvery blonde hair from where they’d fallen over her eyes. His
thumbs gently wiped her tears and he kissed her eyelids and her cheeks and her
neck.

“I’m all
sticky,” she said softly, looking away. “I’m gonna go hop in the shower for a
minute and wash off these dumb tears.”

“With that
ankle, you might need some help.”

“Come with me,
then, Zane. Don’t leave me for a second.”

“You got it.”

***

Later, clean
and dried off, Zane carried Tara back to the bed and sat
her on the edge of it, her legs dangling. Then he kneeled in front of her and
wrapped an ace bandage on her ankle, not too tight.

“S’okay?”

She nodded. He
slowly pulled away the towel. He kissed her cheeks, her lips, her ears, her
neck and worked his way down. “Open yourself to me. I want to taste you. I want
to remember this and I want you to remember this.” Her breath came in shudders
as his fingers urged her thighs apart.

He heard her sharp
intake of breath as he slipped his hand between her legs and touched her.

“Again, Zane?”

“What do you
mean again? This ain’t again. It’s
still
.”

“I forgot how
long you last,” she breathed. “All night.”

“Darn right I
do,” he affirmed. “Put your legs over my shoulders and lay back.”

She did as he
asked, blushing.

“I forgot how
shy you are about this,” he whispered, just before he put his mouth on her.
“This is my favorite part. The givin’ of pleasure.” Her fingers, still laced in
his, tightened and she smiled at what he called it and closed her eyes to enjoy
it.

He didn’t let
up until she cried out his name and arched herself into his face. He kissed her
one last time there, then slipped into bed next to her after her breathing
slowed.

“Want some more
of old Zane?”

“Yep. I do. I
hope it’s not too greedy, but I missed you.”

“I missed you,
too, Tara.”

He supported
his weight on his forearms over her. She kissed his chest but said, “Not that
way again,” she whispered and kissed his lips. “Let
me
ride, Zane.”

He grinned.
“That’s a new one for us.”

She tilted her
head expectantly and waited for him to move off her.

He rolled over
on his back and pulled her on top of him. He pulled her long hair away into a
thick rope in his hand and saw that she offered her breasts to him. He filled
his mouth with her, and his hands filled and his heart, too, as she closed her
eyes and moved above him, first with him and then against him and then in
circles and figure eights; all the dances they’d ever done in bed began to fall
away into this new way of coupling. He felt her slight weight and her ribs
poking him and near-wept into her flesh that was in his mouth and the sweetest
thing he’d ever tasted.

Zane groaned in
pleasure as she led this dance. He followed. And it was breathtaking to watch
her. She was in control. She moved gracefully, unhurried. Despite the fact that
she’d brought this new dance back from Hugh, he embraced it. And her.

He went deeper
inside her, deeper than he’d ever been and he noticed how slow and careful she
went about it. When she cried out his name again and held her body in an arc
against his, he said her name, too, and just as he let loose his passion, she
pinched his nipples, something she’d never done before. His eyes slammed shut
and he saw stars behind his eyelids like a horse had kicked him in the head,
except he felt extreme pleasure, not pain, like a crackling in his brain. From
far away, he heard himself shout her name.

When he came
to, and he opened his eyes, she was smiling. He smiled back.

He brushed his
hand along her left cheek. “When you smile, I can’t see your scars at all. Your
facial muscles pull the slack skin tight and the ripples disappear.”

She turned her
head to look in the bedroom mirror and gasped. “Have mercy, I had no idea! All
those months of frownin’ and all I had to do was—”

“
Smile
,” he said. “If you’re back to
stay, I’ll just have to keep you smiling.”

“I’m back to
stay. If you really want me, Zane.”

“I really do, Tara.”
He crossed his heart with his finger and watched her face soften with passion
and compassion. “God bless, honey, when you look at me like that, I melt for
you all over again.”

She threw
herself down against him and squeezed him tight. “I’ll never leave you again,
Zane. I swear it with all my heart.”

“I believe you,
Tara. And, I believe
in
you. No more
woman in black, though. And no bandanas across your face. You looked like a
movie bandit.”

“That’s done
with, I swear. And you! Don’t get real quiet on me again, Zane.”

“That’s never
going to happen again.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my
heart,” he said and made the gesture.

“Wonderful,
because I got something else to show you,” she said, batting her eyes
innocently, which was a stretch because she was still stark naked and her body
glistened from their lovemaking.

“
Again
?” he asked. “For pity’s sake. How
young do you think I am?”

“Please! I need
your lovin’, Zane.”

“Lovin’
or…validation?”

Her eyebrows
went up. “The second thing, I guess. Where did you learn about that?”

“From one of
your sexual psychology books. I told ya, I read all of your books and magazines
like they were the bible of you!”

“I guess you
did. So you gonna make love to me again then? Cause I need it for validation
and not really for the sake of sexual satisfaction?”

He laughed,
easy and content. “All right, but give me ten minutes, woman. Then there will
be no rest for the wicked, now that you’ve opened that door.”

Her voice
choked with emotion, she said in a hoarse whisper, “I never stopped loving you,
Zane.”

A deep sigh
rose up from him. “I know the inside of your head better than you think I do.”
He stroked her cheek. “Is it okay if I call you angel?” he asked softly.

She smiled, her
eyes misty. “Yeah, I like that, Zane. I like it a lot.”

He pulled her
into his arms and stroked her hair. “You got a bump on your head. A goose egg.”
She swallowed hard and nodded.

“You want an
ice bag on it?”

She shook her
head. He kissed the bump gently. “Does it still hurt?”

“Not as much
now.” Tara put her palm to his face and pulled him to
her lips for a kiss. Their lips met and held for long moments, then parted with
a soft sound. “You talk, Zane, and I’ll listen. You spew out everything that’s
been gnawing at you since your daddy died and since I left and somehow, I’ll
make it all better, even if it takes years.”

“It’s a saga
inside my head since way before Daddy died. If you want to hear it, we’ll have
to miss church.”

“Whatever it
takes. I’ve been drowning in a sky of blackness, Zane. Make the sky blue again.
Like it used to be for us.”

“I’ll make that
sky as blue as your eyes. And then some,” he promised, his hands moving to her
breasts to caress them. She gasped in pleasure as he dipped his head to take
her flesh in his mouth.

She moaned and
closed her eyes even as her toes curled tightly in pleasure. “Zane!” she breathed
and laced her fingers through his dark, silky hair.

Her heart leapt
when he moved higher and kissed her scarred cheek again and again and caressed
it with his large, warm hand. He looked into her eyes as if she was beautiful.
Because to him, she
was
.

“What do you
want, Tara?” he asked gently, his hand moving between her legs and his gentle
finger tracing circles around her very center. She gasped softly.

“Validate me,
Zane. Over and over till I beg you to stop. Because I think that I’ll just die
of heartbreak if you don’t want me as much as I want you.”

Suddenly, Zane
understood so much about his ex-wife, why she’d married him, why she’d left
him, and now, why she’d agreed to stay. “It would be my pleasure to validate
you repeatedly and to the limit of your choosing.”

“Do you love
me?” she asked softly.

“Yes, angel.”

She sighed with
pleasure at the sweet name. As he was about to take her lips again with his,
she whispered, “I think we’re going to miss
both
church services today.”

Tara
pushed him back on the bed and lowered her head to his body, her long hair
streaming across his belly in shining platinum ribbons. He drew in his breath
sharply as she moved downward with lips that brushed his fierce flesh like soft
feathers.

***

Author Eve Paludan was twice a #1 Writer's Digest Book Club
national bestselling author of
The Romance Writer's Pink Pages
, a
three-book series from Prima. Paludan is also an editor of scholarly work at a
state university, as well as a freelance fiction editor, editor and e-publisher
at NoTreeBooks.com, and a book reviewer. She is also the author of the romance
e-novel,
Letters from David
and
the author of a short story, “Pandora’s Boxes,” in the anthology,
Vampires,
Zombies and Ghosts, Oh My
! Please visit her at: