The Bride Wore Starlight (23 page)

Warm, wet, and slippery, his mouth brought her closer to a stunning cliff edge she really didn't think she should look over. Because if she did, she'd want to fly off it with him.

“Alec,” she murmured. “That is . . . ”

“Beautiful,” he said against her. “You're beautiful, Joely.”

Beautiful? In that moment, fighting tears of wonder, she almost believed him. All at once, she could imagine them entwined, wholly joined, rocketing toward that cliff—and she wanted it.

He kissed her one last time, took the aroused nipple between his teeth, and wriggled his jaw.

Her breath left in a rush.

He lifted his head, pulled down her bra, and straightened her shirt. “Yeah,” he said. “Oh yeah.”

“Why are you stopping?” she asked, setting her forehead against his lips and circling her hand through his chest hair. She understood exactly why they had to quit.

“Because you didn't show up at Ina's shop for this,” he said.

“Oh, what do you know?”

She laid her head on his shoulder and withdrew her hand from under his shirt. He took it and clasped it to his chest.

“I need to be honest with you,” he said somberly. “I can't marry you tomorrow.”

“Well, dang.”

She straightened then and grimaced as she rolled off his lap to settle beside him. “My legs aren't used to that.”

“Then how do you expect to ride?”

“Yeah, about that . . . ”

“You aren't getting out of it, so don't try.”

“I know. I know. I did that to myself.” She sat quietly and let her body calm, get used to the idea that it wasn't going to follow the exquisite sensations she and Alec had just shared to their natural conclusion. Finally she let out a long, regret-filled sigh.

“I didn't get a chance to say I'm sorry for last Sunday.”

He hugged her into the crook of his arm and chuckled softly. “Yeah. You broke up with me, and we weren't even going steady.”

“I did. And everything would be much easier if we just blew that day off, but we both said some harsh things.”

“We were both upset.”

“I know, but there was truth behind some of the words. For both of us.”

“You were right. It's none of my business to tell you what to do about Tim. Dickwad,” he added under his breath.

“True, but it's done so it doesn't matter anymore.”

“It . . . what's done?”

“Papers are signed. He's gone.”

He turned a little and put both arms around her. “Oh, Joely, that's . . . a huge blow. Should I say I'm sorry? Or I'm happy for you? More than happy?”

“Definitely happy, not sorry. But Tim isn't the issue. Just because I like you—a lot I'm starting to realize—doesn't mean our pasts suddenly went away or we've changed. I do things that tick you off. You're overbearing and bossy. Those are the issues.”

He released his bear hug and relaxed again. She cuddled back against him and placed an arm across his chest. “I said one thing that remains true,” he said. “I'm not looking for a deep commitment. What I want is time with you. You're good for me—you draw me out of my reclusive shell. I'm good for you—I make you rethink what you know about yourself. And if you didn't notice, you turn me on—fast and hard. How can all that be anything but great?”

“Are you suggesting friends with benefits? How awful and clichéd is that?”

“It's kind of exactly what I'm suggesting. And why is it awful?”

“I don't need a friend who's out to save me. Neither do you. I just want to see where this goes.”

He didn't respond. He sat so quietly for such a long time that she finally pulled away and peered into his eyes. They were focused somewhere in the distance until he turned back to her. He cupped her cheek.

“Maybe I can help you get through some things in your life because I've been where you are. I will sound like I'm trying to boss you around sometimes because I'm a dumbass guy. But don't ever think I'm out to save you. I'm the last person you'd ever want in that position, Joely.”

“Hey, come on. What's that mean?”

“I've tried saving people. I'm not good at it.” Two heartbeats after the words were out cheerful Alec returned. “Here's how we put last weekend behind us. I was obviously wrong when I said you were afraid because I kissed you—that's been proven without question over the past fifteen minutes. So let's go from here. We won't talk about vet school. We won't talk about rodeo. Maybe we'll get to those topics in time; maybe we won't. But we have so much we can do. So much more we have in common.”

“Easy peasy lemon squeezie,” she thought. It's what she and her sisters had always said when a solution seemed more than obvious. Alec's cut-and-dried plan was flawless on the surface, but beneath it ran something scared at best and cowardly at worst. To ignore problems was the worst way to start a relationship.

And yet. What could she say about it? Her family was fantastic at ignoring relationship issues. She and every one of her five sisters—six girls—had left home so they wouldn't have to face the problems each had had with their father. If that wasn't burying one's head in the sand, nothing was. Maybe a handful of them had come back—but not to face the difficulties or feelings that had been brushed under the rugs of time.

“I don't have a better plan,” she said. “I'll take it.”

“It's not a plan,” he said. “It's just a step forward.”

She hoped he was right. The funny thing was, although he'd adamantly insisted he was the last person to count on when it came to saving someone, her heart had never felt safer than it did while she was cuddled into the curve of Alec Morrissey's body.

A
LEC FACED THE
center of the sixty-foot-round pen, his back against the fence, the boot heel on his prosthetic foot propped on the bottom fence rail, and his arms draped backward over the top. A smile rode permanently on his face, and his heart doubled up on beats of happiness, partly because the evening sun shone hot and pretty across western Wyoming, and partly because he was enjoying every awkward moment of the scene unfolding in front of him.

“Trust your balance, honey,” he called. “If that left leg slips back too far, don't try to force fix it—straighten up and ride from your seat bones. The strength will come.”

It was a good thing he was in such a jolly mood, because his girl on the horse was as cranky as she could be without crossing the line that would make him pull her off for the day. So far she was infinitely kind to the horse and a shrill harpy only to him, and he loved every minute of her feisty, fighting side. Plus, she was doing a great job—she just wouldn't admit it.

“If you tell me ‘the strength will come' one more time, I'll jump off this horse and deck you.”

“I'm up for that. If you can do it, you graduate.”

“Horrid man.”

It was lesson number three that week, and Joely had mastered the walk and trot and was moving on to the lope. The challenge to its execution was in the cue for the horse: a shift of one leg to give a slight nudge behind the cinch so the horse would lift off into the three-beat gait. At the same time, the opposite leg remained long and strong to keep the horse straight. That was a lot to coordinate for someone whose joints didn't move as quickly or subtly as she wanted them to. Joely's physical therapy had given her decent range of motion, but she had poor core strength.

“You haven't had enough evil taskmasters in your life,” he said. “I am the best thing that's ever happened to you.”

She didn't reply, and he studied her closely, certain he was imagining the ghost of a smile playing on her lips. His heart swelled again.

“Don't get cocky, you arrogant cowboy.” Lines of intense concentration creased her forehead, and she popped the handsome liver chestnut quarter horse she rode into a right lead lope.

“Fantastic! Seriously now, forget your leg and relax your backbone. Rock your hips. That's all you have to think about—the rest is instinct for someone like you.”

A reining or pleasure class show judge would penalize her for her left leg, which trailed slightly behind the cinch, but for the first time that day Joely's sweet little butt and her gorgeous long spine rolled like an exotic dancer's in time with the horse's movements. Lord, he thought, his heart pounding anew, she was a beautiful woman. A talented woman.

A woman he wanted more with each day that passed.

She halted the gelding in front of him. “I'm calling that good. It was forty-five minutes. Don't want to push it.”

“You feeling okay?”

“My back is sore, but not as bad as yesterday.”

“Good. Improvement. It all counts. You can tell me when you want to go again, tomorrow or Thursday.”

“Easy for you to say, you sadist. I don't see you up here getting sore.”

“I ain't no ordinary dummy.”

She blew out an exasperated breath and pulled her right foot out of the stirrup. Very carefully she swung that leg over the saddle while her weak leg held her weight. With a little adjustment she leaned across the saddle's seat, pulled her other foot free, and dropped to the ground. She hopped like a gymnast trying to stick a landing, but she stayed upright.

“Woo hoo! Most elegant dismount yet.” Alec kept his hands in his pockets to keep compliant with her rule of no helping. He wasn't allowed to touch her until she had both feet on the ground—even if that meant she had to pick herself up off of it first. Letting her fall was excruciating, but he was learning. And the juxtaposition was humorous—she whined like a five-year-old at the hard work, but by gosh and golly she was going to do it herself.

When she stood by the horse's head she handed Alec her reins, and he finally got to gather her into his arms. Slender, warm, and horsey-smelling from riding, she filled his senses with things he was starting to crave when they weren't there. The thought of falling in love and being responsible for another human being's well-being and happiness still gave him panic attacks, but despite how hard he was trying to keep things casual, Alec was worryingly hooked.

“Still mad at me?” he asked, and slipped a kiss onto her lips, which were salty with perspiration and plump as juicy cherries.

She reached into the kiss, stroking his tongue with hers, lingering as if truly reluctant to part.

“I'm pretty much always mad at you,” she said.

He lifted her chin. “But not really, right?”

She touched his lip quizzically with her forefinger. “You are such goofball.”

“I'm paranoid. You'll take the six lessons we agreed on and get so good you'll leave and find a real cowgirl job. I'll lose you.”

“I like that fairy tale, cowboy. It might become my favorite bedtime story.”

“I should be lucky enough to hear bedtime stories from you.” His imagination went far beyond bedtime stories.

She rose up and kissed him again—catching his bottom lip first and running her tongue lightly over it until she leaned in and sealed the kiss in sweet abandon.

She was the sexiest kisser he'd ever known. Joely's hot, sweet mouth and her long-legged, feminine softness induced fantasies of so much more than lips meeting lips—like heated nights tangled in cool sheets, and long hours when he didn't have to leave her but could stay wrapped, like he was now, in her embrace. But even though he waited for those fantasies to come true with the impatience of a horny schoolboy, he also dreaded the moment they would happen.

He fully believed he'd come to grips with his injury. He accepted what his leg looked like now, what its limitations were, and how to deal with his mobility issues. He also believed Joely understood the injury. Most women said they did. The reality of an amputated limb, however, was something totally different from intellectual acceptance. And making love to a man with a residual stump was a step into the unknown or even weird for somebody who'd never experienced a partial limb. Joely might be fine. She might not look twice. Or she might find it too uncomfortable or too creepy to come across a mutilated leg in the middle of sex.

Both had happened to him.

So he didn't push. And as a reward, concentrating on mundane things gave him time to see how much he also craved her company. It only took a week to start rolling with the rhythm of her moods and silence-filling pleasure of her chatter. Cooking her dinner one night, helping her grocery shop another, watching her play with Rowan, at which she excelled—each activity only made him want to spend more evenings, and more days, with her.

Joely grumbled, she laughed, she tripped on things, she cried, but most of all she bubbled sunshine into his life. He hadn't realized what a hermit he'd become since his recuperation, despite leaving the house every day for work and knowing how to be perfectly sociable around people. Even in Texas, before he'd come to Wyoming, he'd kept his nose pretty steadily to routine. Not a lot of nights in the bars with buddies. Not a lot of accepted dinner invitations. Far, far fewer nights in bed with a pretty girl than in his rodeo heyday.

But here he stood, back in the dirt of an arena, with a horse, the smell of leather and summer air all around him, and Joely in his arms—earthy, simple, and yet his contentment swelled so quickly he didn't know how to describe the feeling. Love? Did he even know how to recognize it? He wasn't sure he'd ever known love—the real, lasting kind—with a woman. Was love wanting to stay with one person, with no end to the togetherness in sight, because you made each other whole inside? If so, maybe he already did love Joely Crockett.

What he did know was that standing on this simple, dusty spot with her, he felt as if he'd found his way home. He hadn't known where that was since he and Buzz had run rashly off to Iraq, but home had always been his best definition of love.

Joely unclasped her arms from around his neck and lowered her heels to the ground, smiling as she wrinkled her nose.

“You're lucky, cowboy,” she said. “You get to have cranky old me as a student. Not everyone is so fortunate.”

“Dang right.”

“Honestly, I'm sorry I'm so awful when I'm up there.”

“You're angry at your body. I get it.”

She thought for a moment and surprise crawled across her face. “I am,” she said. “I really am. But why?”

He shrugged. “Grief. Anger that your leg and your back and your face weren't strong enough to survive the blows they took when the rest of you didn't die. What's wrong with them anyway?”

Her eyes widened with the understanding. “It's all true. I've always thought I was just angry at the universe.”

“Hey. Sometimes that, too.”

For a moment he thought she might weep, but her eyes only softened in acceptance. “Do you ever get over it?”

He gathered the horse's reins into a loop and rubbed his knuckles down the bright white stripe on the gelding's face. “You get angry less and less often. Then one day you might watch a football game and see a player sprain his ankle and curl up in pain, and you want to punch him. Or you watch the Boston Marathon and think, I could do that but I'd beat my stump to a pulp, and you want to kick and punch someone or something else.”

“Or you see a rodeo?” she asked gently.

A flash of resentment burned through his chest. They'd promised not to bring up that subject. But he fought the irritation and, to his surprise, it disappeared.

“I expect it might be the same.” he murmured against her temple. “Most of the time you'll truly be fine. Just accept the anger when it comes, but then let it go. Letting it go is the secret. And you can do it, because you know it's okay if it comes back. It's not like you have to suppress it.”

“You really did learn your lessons well.”

“Still learning. C'mon, let's get Muddy here back to the barn.”

She scowled. “Who names a horse Muddy Waters anyway?”

“A big blues fan. Here, want 'im?” He tried to hand her the reins.

“I'll let you.” She grasped his arm. “Can I just use you as my crutch again? The leg's pretty rubbery.”

His heart sank. This was the one area where she consistently reverted to her old, helpless self. She rode the horse, she groomed the horse for riding and turnout, but she barely touched him otherwise.

“You're starting to gel with him, I think.” He tried the subject in a roundabout way. “He's got your number, too. For a five-year-old he's so well trained that I think he knows how to meet you right where you're at—he's not difficult, but he needs your guidance.”

“He's a good lesson horse.”

“Harper found you a good boy.”

“He'll make a great cow horse,” she agreed.

No emotion. No feeling. This was not normal for a former rodeo queen, however long ago her reign had been. Those women, he knew firsthand, worshipped their horses—more than any man who might come along.

“I thought Muddy was yours. Harper found him months ago as a surprise,” she said.

“It was very nice of her, but it's hard to pick out a horse for someone else.”

Her voice remained sweet and calm; she didn't snap at him for talking about the horse, but she didn't engage in any meaningful way. Alec sighed.

“C'mon,” she said. “Let's get him back to his friends and go eat. Mia and Gabe are home again as of this morning, and I heard rumors there was going to be a chili feed—it's Gabe's favorite.”

“I remember that,” Alec said. “He used to go nuts for the gross canned stuff when we had it in the mess. Nobody wanted to sit next to him because he'd beg their leftovers. But your family has been feeding me a lot recently. Am I overstaying my welcome?”

“Hardly. You're their new favorite. They want you to start bringing Rowan along so they can adopt this dog they hear me go on and on about, too.”

“Just what they need. Another horse.”

Muddy Waters let out a long snort and bobbed his head behind them as if he understood. In fact he simply knew he was headed back to the pasture, and with an eye full of mischievous light, he thrust his muzzle forward and nudged Joely's shoulder, pushing her forward. Alec laughed but it died in his throat when Joely turned and scowled.

“Knock it off, you dumb horse. You have space and four feet of your own. You don't need mine.”

He didn't know who he felt worse for, the horse or the girl.

T
HEY ENTERED
R
OSECROFT
via the big back deck, and Joely relaxed once the fragrance of her mother's abundant flowers enveloped her. Roses, morning glories, gladiolas, Indian paint brush, daisies, and beautiful Asian lilies were just some of the blooms coming into their own now that June was half gone. It was a relief to be away from the barn, away from the horse, and away from Alec's well-meaning hints that she should bond more closely with Muddy Waters. She had no desire to bond. She loved being up on his back. Riding, as frustrated as it made her—and she was going to have to work on that—was still a glorious activity, but all the overhead that surrounded the moments on horseback only made her anxious.

Alec didn't push, however, and so she didn't argue or explain. He didn't understand about Penny. That was fine. She wasn't going to talk about her horse out loud. She could barely handle the gruesome memories—or the ones she imagined since she'd never seen Penny's body.

The mental pictures melted away when she and Alec made their way into the kitchen, redolent with the scent of chili spices and baking corn bread.