Texas Redeemed (27 page)

The house was quiet except for the hum of the dryer and
the thrust of wind and scratch of sleet against the windows—and the driving
beat of the shower water against marble and glass. Hot chocolate still in hand,
she let the strong and steady sound lead her to it.

Opening the bathroom door, she was engulfed in steam,
absently noting that he’d forgotten to throw the exhaust switch. The mug made a
tiny clink as she set it on the granite vanity.

Now.
The word echoed inside her. She moved farther into the bathroom, stopping in
front of the shower that was foggy with steam and fragrant with the potent
scent of soap.

Inside the stall, Peyton stood with closed eyes under the
hard stream of the shower, running his hands through sudsy hair, letting the
force of the water press into him.

Valerie lifted a hand, and drew the sliding glass doors
open. Droplets of hot water escaped the stall, spraying her clothes and the dry
mat she stood on.

As if he felt the heat of the shower start to escape,
Peyton ducked from underneath the spray, opened his eyes and found her watching
him.

He didn’t speak, didn’t attempt to cover himself in
modesty or swat away the residual patch of suds across his chest.

Valerie stepped inside, joining him in the steam and
heat. In seconds the hot water soaked through her sweater and jeans. Her
fingers made contact with the hard contours of his shoulders, and she moved
closer, until at last her lips touched the throb of
his pulse at his throat.

How had she gone so long without tasting his skin?

Peyton moved her so that she was at the other end of the
shower, and he under the spray. Trails of hot water streaked down his body,
from his face to his shoulders to his thighs and farther down. “Look at me.”

Unable to do anything else, she let her stare stroke him
from the hair plastered to his head to the insteps of his feet. She wanted her
hands to follow the path, then her mouth. “Now.” The
word that had been hammering in her mind found its way to her tongue. She
pushed away from the wall and met him under the water, blending her mouth with
his and tasting heat and water and something darker—need.

Then his hands were on her, angling her face up to his as
he swept his tongue across her lips and drove it deep into her mouth. He drew
her wrists up with one hand, and used the other to stroke between her legs.

She buckled, gasping at the sensation of his fingers
rough on the wet denim there, stunned by the heat in his eyes. After a moment
he released her wrists, moved her away from the beat of the water and molded
his hands to her ass, hauling her up against the marble wall.

Bracing her hands on his shoulders, she struggled to hold
his gaze even as his touch beckoned her to close her eyes against the molten
pleasure. She hooked her legs around his hips, and cried out at the impact of
his naked hardness.

“Let me …” She struggled to hold on to him with one hand
while tugging up the hem of her sweater with the other. But he stopped her by
easing her down the length of his body until her feet touched the shower floor,
and he bent his head and covered one of her hardened nipples with his mouth
through the sweater.

Safe,
she
thought.
I’m safe here.

She welcomed his hands and his mouth, reveled in his
exploration. Yet it wasn’t enough. She rose up on her tiptoes to kiss his
temples, then his mouth, as her hands roamed the tight
muscles of his abdomen in a downward motion, to the scar on his thigh.

Lightly dragging her fingernails over the scar, she
whispered against his mouth, “I want to kiss you here.” Then her fingers moved
between his legs, to the hard, warm flesh curving up against her waist. “And here.”

A guttural moan answered her, and she started to lower to
her knees. “Wait, Valerie.”

“What?”

“In bed.”

Valerie stilled, struck by images of them moving against
each other not just with raw passion but with care and tenderness and then
there were more images of them falling asleep together and waking up in each
other’s arms.

They were images of lovemaking, not plain sex. Coming
into the shower with him wasn’t about love. It was about need. About want.

Keep telling
yourself that.

Peyton apparently picked up on her hesitation, because he
took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Why’d you come in here?”

Because
I want you even though I gave up that right years ago when I betrayed you.
“Just to thank you.”

His eyes glinted, but not with anger. “You’re welcome
then.” Without so much as another touch, he slid open the door and stepped out,
leaving her alone in the shower.

A
TOWEL WRAPPED
around his waist, Peyton
went straight to the laundry room, intent on throwing on his clothes—wet or
dry, he didn’t care—and getting the hell away from the ranch.

His body was still hot; he could still taste her on his
lips and feel her on his fingertips. But he wouldn’t return to that shower and
go through what would be a colossal mistake.

“Peyton!”

He could hear Valerie’s bare feet hitting hardwood as she
thundered down the back stairs. She rushed into the laundry room with the legs
of her wet jeans rolled up to her knees and a towel over her shoulders. “It’s
dangerous out. Don’t leave.”

Peyton grabbed his clothes from the dryer. “I drove to
Memorial and back, Valerie. I can make it to my grandfather’s place fine.”

“What if I didn’t want you to go?”

“What do you want, then?” He untied the towel and let it
fall to the floor. “To say thanks with a shower fuck?”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Seriously—”

“That’s what it would’ve been. Because you won’t let it
be more than that.” He took the towel from her shoulders and brought her close.
“Come on, then. I’ll take you here on the floor. Isn’t that what you want?”

“No.”

And that was the truth. He knew it in the conviction of her
voice, the vulnerability in her eyes. “I care about you, Valerie. If you want
to be with somebody who doesn’t care, then tell me now.” He put on his clothes,
then picked up the discarded towels and tossed them into a hamper. “Tell me if
I’m wrong when I say you deserve more.”

When she didn’t say anything, he touched her shoulder.
“Let me care.”

She hesitated, but finally covered his hand with hers. “I
care about you, too. In case you were wondering.” She let him go. “So what next?”

“I’d like to date you.”

“Date me?” Her face glowed with mirth. “As in go steady?
As in you give me a ring and I carve our initials into a tree?”

“One date, then. We’ve never gone out
and shared a full meal together, just the two of us. So let’s try it.
And if we like it, maybe I’ll give you a ring and then you carve the tree. Are
you game?”

“Game.” She glanced around them.
“As far as tonight goes, it’s
possible
that
we can spend the night together without having sex. There’re sofas down here
and a guest room upstairs. The fridge is stocked and I have Trivial Pursuit and
Scrabble and a deck of cards still new in the box.”

“Are you that concerned about me going out in this
weather again?”

She nodded. “Think you can bunk here without being
overcome with lust?”

Peyton grinned in spite of the volatile situation. “Scout’s honor.”

Valerie’s mouth curved in a smirk. “You said you were
never a boy scout.” With a wink she headed to the family room and beckoned him
to follow.

He’d certainly never been a man who passed on sex with an
eager woman who made him harder than stone. “Then you’re changing me, Valerie.”

For the better.

A
GOOD
NIGHT
shift in Memorial’s emergency room
was a double-edged sword—no serious injuries but slower than a tortoise
crawling through molasses. Peyton had tacked an extra six hours onto his
twelve-hour day shift to cover Sawyer Reed, who hadn’t returned after his first
smoke break of the night. Minus the round of handovers, the most action the
hospital had seen was the new mother who’d thundered in frenzied about the
mysterious blood on her baby’s shirt, which had turned out to be a cherry juice
stain.

Left wired with unspent adrenaline, he’d killed time at
the tavern, half watching sports highlights on Two-Bit Tony’s tube television
and half listening to some old-timers in dirty fishing gear make bets about the
weather and politics. Then he’d dragged himself to his grandfather’s house,
only to devote a full hour to turning his bedroom inside out hunting for the
imported ink pen, engraved with his initials, that Nathaniel had given him on
Christmas morning. Coming up empty, he suspended the search, stripped and
climbed into bed for what he hoped would be a few hours of dreamless sleep.

So when his cell phone rang shortly after he drifted off,
he’d been tempted to ignore it and bury his head under a pillow. After all,
when there was a hospital emergency the staff paged him—they didn’t call. They
certainly didn’t let it slip to voice mail without redialing him at least once.

Three beeps told him a message had been left. By the
third beep he’d been so annoyed that he reached over to the nightstand, turned
on the lamp and snatched up the phone.

One missed call. Valerie’s home number.

The thin fog of sleep cleared in an instant, and he swung
his bare legs over the side of the bed, sitting up as he dialed. “What’s
wrong?” he demanded when she picked up on the first ring.

“Peyton—oh, hell. I’m sorry. I
shouldn’t have called. Good night.”

“Valerie!” he said sharply, mindful of the late hour.
“Hold on, all right? You can’t just call me, leave a voice mail and then say
forget it.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I didn’t actually leave a message. It
went through to voice mail but I hung up, so you’ll probably hear dead air.” Another sigh. “Lucy had a nightmare. But really, I’m
handling it. So go back to bed.”

Peyton had already placed the cell phone between his ear
and shoulder and was yanking on his pants. “What’s she doing now?”

“Crying. She’s holed up in the
bathroom, but I can hear her through the door.”

“On my way.”

He threw on a shirt, shoes and was out the door with his
keys in hand within the next minute. Concern for his daughter had washed away
every trace of exhaustion, but during the drive to the outskirts of town his
attention remained split between the road and whatever had seemed to spook Lucy
to tears.

At the ranch, he parked at a crooked angle on the curb
and ran to the porch to see Valerie already at the door, like she’d been
standing watch, waiting for him.

In a cotton tee and terrycloth shorts, with a mane of
messy waves falling over her shoulders, she seemed nervous as she escorted him
in. “You didn’t have to come over, Peyton. I could’ve given her the phone and
let her talk to you. God. Your shirt’s inside out.”

He glanced down, but wasn’t affected in the least. “Did
she tell you anything about the dream? Dinah’s sleeping through all this?”

Valerie had led him to the front staircase, close to
inviting him to an entire level of her home that he hadn’t tried to tour
before. At the foot of the stairs, she swept her eyes over him, swallowed and said,
“Are you coming?”

“Yeah.”

“Lucy won’t talk about it. Dinah’s at the carriage house
tonight because Cordelia and Jack had another blowout
and she wants to help smooth things over.” By the time she was done talking,
they had reached the top of the stairs and were confronted with an L-shaped
hallway. “Lucy’s room is there, but here’s the bathroom.”

Peyton went to the large, solid dark wood door she
indicated and rapped on it twice. “Uh …” How many strained conversations had he
had with women through closed doors? And had they
all
been scorned lovers, insisting that he realize what a
steel-hearted bastard he was? “Lucy, it’s me. Will you come out?” His gut
twisted. He was falling ass-backward into parenting, learning as he went along,
and it was hard to be sure of himself when he didn’t
know how to coax a crying twelve-year-old out of a bathroom.

Just behind his shoulder, Valerie muttered something
about using a miniature screwdriver to pick the lock. Then there was a barely
audible click, the door opened and she pounced. “Lucy! How are you?”

“Craptastic.”
She half collapsed against Peyton, tucking her arms around his waist. “I’m
sorry.”

Peyton held her tightly, brushed his lips over her
sleep-tangled hair. It felt so right to be holding her up, to be her rock.
“Sorry for what?”

“Just sorry.” She blurted out an
excuse about how she’d watched a horror-movie marathon at one of her friends’
houses recently and then went into her room. Above the wainscoting, the walls
were decorated with black-framed pictures: family photographs, fashion
sketches, a black-and-white shot of Audrey Hepburn in
Breakfast at Tiffany’s,
a collage of covers from
Elle
and
Vogue
and
Vanity Fair.
A
string of ribboned bows with golden lights was draped
across the dresser mirror, twinkling over a scatter of soccer trophies and
pictures of the Manhattan skyline, the Eiffel Tower and the Sydney Opera House.
A dress form stood in one corner, mutilated with pins, and the large bed with
its colorful comforter and eclectic mix of pillows dominated the space.

At her heels, Valerie said, “Which friend? Because you’ve
been like this for weeks—”

“Can you stop, Mom? Please?” Lucy paused to stroke the
small gray-striped cat lounging on the comforter, and she grabbed an iPod from
one of the two nightstands that flanked the bed. “Sorry I woke you up, sorry I
cried about it, and I’m sorry you came all the way over here, Dad—uh, Peyton.”

Dad.
His heartbeat stuttered, and he shot a look at Valerie just in time to see the
slightest of frowns touch her face.

“Well, since you’re here, do you wanna
listen to some tunes with me?”

Peyton was floored. It was the best invitation he’d
received in a long time. A niggling feeling that he was overstepping some
boundary tugged at him, but the open, vulnerable and hopeful expression in his
daughter’s puffy eyes made the decision for him. “Absolutely.”

He shuffled into the room with Valerie silent beside him.
In minutes Lucy was curled up in her bed and scrolling through the gadget, with
an ear bud in one ear. He had the other bud, and was putting it into his ear
when she chose a song.

“This is Lady Antebellum.”

Valerie, who’d claimed a spot at the foot of the bed with
the cat named Bowie in her lap, tipped her mouth up at the corner. But her eyes
were still shielded—alarmed, even.

Peyton half heard the music as one song faded to another.
His whole life had been building up to a crescendo, and this was it: comforting
his child back to sleep with Valerie right there, close enough to reach out and
touch.

Could he leave this behind? Even when Malcolm had given
him the information about next month’s mission, he hadn’t been hit with quite
the same rush of adrenaline that he’d felt before. Yet, being forced to make an
all-or-nothing choice between family in Night Sky and a career that could lead
him to any country on any given day made him feel pressured and uneasy.

Valerie and Lucy smelled like clean laundry, like fresh
cotton in a country breeze. They were rumpled from sleep, and Lucy was sighing
here and there, worn out from her crying episode. An hour ago this house had
been in pandemonium, but now it was calm.

He’d done that? Had he actually made this situation
better just by being here?

Valerie touched his foot, mouthing, “Asleep.” She pointed
to Lucy, who had slumped to the side and rested her head at an awkward angle
against his shoulder.

Together, he and Valerie put away the iPod, laid their
daughter beneath her covers, turned out the lights and left the bedroom with
Bowie soundlessly following them.

“You said Lucy’s been quiet lately,” Peyton said, after
they wound up in the family room, sitting on the floor with their backs against
the sofa and a bowl of popcorn between them. “Has she been getting chased by
nightmares, too?”

“Yes, but … what’re you thinking?” As she shifted to curl
her legs beneath her, she brushed against him.

His nerves centered on that spot of contact.
Focus, man.
“What if she’s not happy, Valerie? Look at her room—it’s a
shrine to fashion.”

“Seriously? You’re going to
plead Nathaniel’s case to me now?”

“During the cattle drive she told me something to the effect
of she doesn’t fit in. I don’t think my grandfather should strong-arm you into
anything—”

“Then drop it. She said she’s been watching horror
movies.”

“Which you don’t believe any more than
I do.”

Valerie’s delicate brows drew together. “It’s like she’s
six years old all over again.”

“Meaning?”

“For about a year after Anna died, off and on Lucy would
have these terrible dreams and she’d camp out in a bathtub with her pillow and
blanket. No fooling, that’s what she would do.” She sighed. “Well, tonight
there was no pillow and blanket in the tub, but it brought me back to those
days.”

“What if she’s still grieving? She hasn’t once visited
Anna’s grave—”

“Have you visited Estella’s since you’ve been back?”
Valerie shot back, and knowing she had him, continued. “Everyone’s got a theory
about her. Still grieving. Too
social. Not social enough. She’s an out-of-control badass just like her
father.”

Not for the first time Peyton regretted things he’d done,
because he’d never considered that he’d have a child who would inherit his
reputation, failures and stigma. Still, he could stop his daughter from
repeating his mistakes. Could, and
would.
He needed to figure out how.

Valerie slumped on the floor, now curled up with her hair
fanned out around her head. “I gave Lucy all the love and strength she needed
to get over Anna.”

And that’s final.
Valerie didn’t say it, but didn’t need to. In that moment her candor
shut down and her protective shroud went up.

She nudged his leg with her bare foot. “So Lucy’s asleep
and it’s the wee hours of the morning, and you’re not racing for the door.”

“I’m in no hurry to go,” he replied, swiping a handful of
popcorn.

Valerie sat up and slowly, very deliberately, straddled
his thighs. “We have to do something about this,” she said, taking hold of the
hem of his shirt.

He wordlessly raised his arms and let her tug his shirt
off. Her gaze caressed him as she turned it right-side-out. And then she
shifted on his lap and he hardened beneath her.

“Sorry.” He could think of nothing else to say to the
fact that with a single look she could charm his body to full arousal.

“I’m not complaining.” Valerie illicitly scooted herself
even closer, grinding against the ridge in his pants. “So, won’t Nathaniel or
Jasper notice you’re missing?”

“Grandpa’s a deep sleeper. And Jasper’s … yeah, he’s
getting too much good fortune these days to notice which end is up.”

Valerie gasped. “You know, don’t you? ‘Good fortune’?”

She
knew about
Jasper and Hope’s nightly adventures? “How …”

“Walked in on a moment I wish I hadn’t seen. You?”

“I’m
not
a deep
sleeper.” He grinned. “But, hey, I’m happy for the man. God knows he’s needed
someone to rumple him up a little.”

“Are you really happy for Jasper? Are you really this guy
who drives across town in the middle of the night with his shirt inside out to
calm his kid out of a nightmare? Are you really a guy who won’t settle—” she
moved again and he couldn’t help but groan at how good she felt on his lap “—for sex?”

“I can’t settle when it comes to you.”

“Right. All or
nothing.”

Peyton gripped her thighs to keep her still, but she gave
a defiant look and resisted with a deliberate little wiggle. Then his hands
were sliding up into her shorts and gripping her backside. Saying nothing, he
guided her back and forth, tugged the reins of his self-restraint tight as she
started to bounce and buck. “All, Val. I want it all.”

When he felt her come apart on his lap, he almost gave in
to his own release. But with gritted teeth and iron-strong control he held back, and held on to Valerie as she burrowed her face to his
neck and teased his throat with muffled moans and quick, shaky breaths.

When she finally raised her head, a pink flush darkened
her skin and there were tears glittering in her eyes. “Val, you’re crying.”

“It’s nothing.” She handed him the shirt and resumed her
spot on the floor.

Stop doing that.
Stop hedging. Stop hiding. Show me that I can trust you and that I can finally
quit running.
“Talk to me.”

“I felt so good, so
free
just now. But reality … all the stress and worry and fear … it all came
charging back into my mind.”

“Okay. Stress, worry, fear. Give
it to me.”

“What?”

He rose to his knees, took her arms and pulled her into a
sitting position so that they could be face-to-face. “When I say I care about
you, it means you can share that stuff with me and trust me to help you out.”

Valerie’s face was naked with desperation. “I messed up.
Around the time of the girls’ field trip, some students at the college had
planned a pretty wild party in San Antonio. I chose that party, because I was
beaten from working the ranch and from handling two kids.”