The Curvy Astronomer and the Cowboy (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) (3 page)

But Dr. Barker had been in his eighties. He hadn’t been likely to try to jump my bones.

I cleared my throat. “This cabin,” I said. “How many bedrooms does it have?”

“One,” said Troy, looking right into my eyes.

I swallowed. “Oh.”

“But I’ll sleep on the couch,” he said, “if that’s what it takes to stop you dying out here.”

I gave him a distrusting look.

He sighed again and raised his hand in the air. “I, Troy Elson, do solemnly swear that I won’t murder you in your sleep. And I won’t try to sleep with you.” And then his eyes twinkled. “Not unless you ask me to.”

I felt my face flush. Now he was just kidding around. I felt stupid for even mentioning the bedrooms thing. Of
course
he wasn’t interested in me that way. He’d want some slender thing with an ass like a couple of hard-boiled eggs. She could ride horses with him, bouncing up and down in the saddle, and then she’d be in his bed, bouncing up and down on top of him—I flushed again.

I looked at the cans of mac n’ cheese on the back seat. I wasn’t even sure if I’d be able to get the gas stove in the trailer to light. Cold mac n’ cheese from the can and shivering under some blankets, lost and alone, versus cuddling up in a warm cabin with the hottest guy I’d ever seen…

“Okay,” I said at last. “Thank you.”

He grinned, and it sent a ripple of warmth through me.

***

Moments later, we stood outside our parked cars. I clumped around to the tow hook at the back of my station wagon, wincing as the freezing snow soaked through my sneakers.

Troy looked at me in surprise as I began to unhitch it. “You’re bringing the trailer?” he asked. “We can sleep in the cabin. Just bring your telescope.”

“It’s not to sleep in,” I said. “The trailer
is
the telescope.”

He looked at the trailer in disbelief. “The whole thing?! How big is the telescope?”

“How big are you?”

“Six-three.”

“Bigger than you.”

He stepped around to the trailer and ran his hand over the metal. “I thought this was for sleeping in. Wait--where
were
you going to sleep, if I’d let you go by yourself?”

I looked guiltily at the station wagon.

He chuckled and shook his head. “Good thing I came along.” He helped me unhitch, then waited while I pulled the station wagon off the road. A moment later, he had the trailer hitched to his pickup.

I jumped in beside him, clutching my pathetically small backpack and the cans of food. He glanced at them and gave me a questioning look.

“I travel light,” I said. “I’m a free spirit.”

He pressed his lips together. “Uh-huh.”

“Let’s go,” I told him, and I did an elaborate sweep of my hand, pointing forward along the road. Only he picked just that moment to reach for the gear stick and our hands collided. A surge of raw heat raced along my arm, every tiny hair standing up. We looked at each other and our gazes seemed to get entangled. Neither of us could look away.

“Let’s go,” I said again—more of a squeak, this time—and put my hands very firmly in my lap. I looked fixedly out of the windshield…but when I dared to glance at him, he was smiling.

We set off.

***

It should have been familiar, driving along with him--I’d spent countless hours on the road. But it wasn’t.

Firstly, his huge, shiny pickup was nothing like my station wagon. His suspension actually worked, his heater was set just-so and I could hear the stereo over the engine without turning it up to eleven. It looked expensive. I hadn’t realized cowboys had that much money.

“What is it you do, exactly?” I asked.

“There’s a guy called Russ Tyler,” said Troy. “Owns a big stud farm on the edge of town.”

I thought back to the diner. “I think I met him.”

“Well, I work with his horses.” Troy turned to smile at me. “Taming them.”

“Horses need taming?” I’d always thought of horses as being docile things.

“Some of these ones do. Russ has a thing for bringing in wild mustangs. Some of them haven’t seen a person in a while. They’re not very...trusting.”

That sounded like a very sensible mindset, to me. “And you do the whispering thing with them?”

He threw back his head and laughed, the sound filling the cab. “Something like that. I feed them. Wash them. Get to know them. Show them people are okay.” He looked sideways at me. “And you? You take photos of the stars?”

I nodded. “Some guy in China is willing to pay a good price for a really nice photo of the horsehead nebula. I take requests, basically. I move around the country and then, when someone needs something, I find a good, dark spot and set up.”

Troy frowned. “I don’t know much about this stuff, but...do you have to be
here?
In Wyoming? I mean, do you need a certain angle or something…?”

I felt my chest tighten. “Well, no. Pretty much anywhere in this hemisphere would do, as long as it’s dark.”

He glanced at me. “Then why not just find one good place and stay there?”

I felt my face go hot. I’d spoken to plenty of people about what I did, and none of them had ever called me on it. What right did he have to-- “Sometimes there are conferences I want to go to, right across the country,” I said, flailing for an excuse, “and sometimes people just want a photo of the sky, with good scenery behind it, so I need to find a good place for that, and--and....” I ran out of excuses.

“And you like to keep moving?” he asked gently.

I didn’t like that gentle tone. We’d only been talking a few minutes and already he was all too good at getting under my skin. “I’m a rolling stone,” I said defensively. “I like it like that.”

He nodded soberly. As if he didn’t believe me at all.

***

The miles sped by. I told him about growing up in San Fran and being the only girl on an astrophysics course and he told me about being the third generation of his family to live in the town. His grandfather was taught by his teacher’s grandfather in the very same school--that sort of thing. It sounded claustrophobic as hell, and backward and cheesy and also...sort of nice.

The cab was pleasantly warm and I started to feel myself nodding. On my third yawn, Troy asked, “How many hours did you drive today?”

“How far is Denver?” I asked.

“About five hours.”

“About seven hours, then,” I said. He looked curiously at me. “I took a few wrong turns.”

“You don’t have GPS?”

“I do have GPS, but we don’t always agree.”

He chuckled at that. “You’re as stubborn as a blue-nose mule, aren’t you?”

I tried to glower at him, but I was too tired to make more than a half-hearted attempt.

He pulled over to the side of the road. “Hop in the back. There are some blankets there you can get under. We have a good ways to go yet.”

I looked at him doubtfully. “What about you? Don’t you need me to keep you awake?”

He tapped his travel mug. “I got takeout coffee from the diner. This stuff’ll keep anyone awake. They say it brought a man back from the dead, once.”

I gave him a look, but then sighed. I
was
just about ready to drop. “Okay. Thanks.” I jumped down, went around to the back seat and got in again. There were indeed blankets--softer and warmer than the cheap ones I’d bought. And the soft leather seat was supremely comfortable. I pulled off my sneakers, lay down and was dozing in minutes.

***

Heat like Satan’s own oven hit me in the face as I stepped down from the stagecoach. I fanned myself furiously with my fan and hitched up the hoops of my skirt a little so that my dress wouldn’t be ruined by the dusty road. “Heavens!” I exclaimed, gazing around at the small town. “What a place!”

“It ain’t so bad,” drawled a male voice, so low and full of dark promise that I felt immediately scandalized just for having heard it. The voice came from a cowboy leaning against the wall of the saloon, his hat tipped low against the sun so that I couldn’t see his face. A white shirt did little to disguise the swell of his muscles, while black work pants clung to his ass.
Good Lord!

“You just passing through?” he asked, and now he took a step towards me, knocking the brim of his hat up a little. Stunningly clear blue eyes gazed down at me--clear blue but with a burning desire within them, ice mixed with fire. He appraised me the way a wolf appraises a sheep.

I gulped. “Yes,” I said firmly. “I’ll be here just a few days.”

“Well, then,” said the cowboy, stepping right up close to me. “We’d best get started.” And he started to walk me backward toward the open stagecoach door. I felt as if I’d been hypnotized, helpless to do anything but look up into those gorgeous blue eyes, as I stepped back and back. When we reached the stagecoach, he put one thick arm around my waist and lifted me bodily inside, slamming the door behind him.

“B--But sir! I barely know you!” I gasped.

He smiled, as if that wasn’t at all important. Outrageous! Didn’t he know that I was a lady and didn’t just give myself to any good-looking man who happened to--

His lips suddenly pressed down on mine, hard and insistent, and I let out a yelp of surprise. My body went tense and I resisted for a single beat of my heart...before I fell limply back onto the stagecoach’s seat, my lips parting beneath his. The cowboy’s tongue sought out mine, teasing me, sending red tendrils of fire licking down between my legs. His hands were on my waist, tracing the curves of my voluptuous body under my dress and then yanking down the top of it, fabric protesting and then shredding under his grip. He tore through layers of fine lace and silk and suddenly my breasts were naked beneath his touch, rolling up into his hands, my nipples hardening as he stroked them.

I felt his legs beneath mine, pushing the hoops of my dress higher and higher, revealing bare thigh and then the silk of my underthings. Another ripping of fabric and I felt the warm desert air against my most tender places, and discovered I was already shamefully moist there.

I lay there gasping and panting as he stepped back from me for a moment, shoving his work pants down his thighs. I had a glimpse of his cock--thick and long as any desert serpent--and then he was between my legs and--

Oh!

Pushing up inside me and my hands were rubbing across the muscles of his back in a most wanton manner and he was filling me,
stretching
me, and as he began to move inside me the pleasure began to build and build.

“Sir!” I pleaded. “I am not some wench! You must not give me your child!”

And he smiled down at me and said--

“Emily?”

I jerked awake...and fell off the pickup’s rear seat. The stagecoach and the desert air vanished in an instant and I saw mountains and sky and those same clear blue eyes looking down at me.

“You okay?” he asked. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. But we’re here.”

Chapter 3

I scrambled up off the floor and back onto the rear seat, my face beetroot.
Please don’t let me have been talking in my sleep!
At least all my clothes were still in place--I hadn’t wriggled my jeans down and been jilling off under the blankets or anything. But what if I’d been gasping about cowboys and being
filled?

“I’m fine,” I said, brushing my hair out of my face. “I was just having a dream.”

He smiled. “I know. I could tell.”

My brain exploded.

“You were moving around a lot,” he said.

I let out a shuddering sigh of relief and opened my door. And, for the first time, I took a look at where we were.

It was so beautiful I caught my breath. We were a good way up into the mountains, parked on the edge of a natural plateau. This spot was the highest for miles around--ahead of me, I had an uninterrupted view across to two distant peaks. Between us and the peaks, there was thick forest and, at the edge of the forest, there was a tiny log cabin.

My mind was spinning. I’d be able to see the stars that were low in the sky through the gap between the peaks--it would look amazing. I was already lining it up in my mind.
If I position here, I can probably see Neptune through there,
I estimated. I was practically bouncing in my seat with excitement. “This is perfect!” I told Troy.

He grinned. “Get out and turn around,” he told me.

I did as he said…and my jaw dropped. The view towards the mountains, had been awesome. But the view behind us was mind-blowing. In that direction, there were no peaks at all and we could see right out to the horizon. The town looked almost like an aerial map, or a toy town laid out on the grass at our feet. And the sky…. There was nothing
but
sky almost all the way around, and then the dramatic peaks on the final side. It was an astronomer’s dream. The weather wasn’t perfect—it looked as if there might be some clouds moving in that would reach us by nightfall—but this was just the first night. I started visualizing it in my head.
There
would be Rigel and
there
would be Sirius—