The Rancher's Dance (14 page)

“How'd you meet?” Lucy's soft voice seemed to glide over him like a whisper.

“In high school. She's the only girl I ever loved.”

“You were lucky.” She shifted in her chair and the sweater slipped lower on her arm. “Well, obviously not the way you lost her, but I mean you were lucky to find someone
to
love. Really and truly love.”

“Didn't you love the cheating pig?”

She started. “I don't remember using that phrase with you.”

“So? Isn't that what he was?”

She shook her head a little and sat back in her chair again. “Yes.” Then she sighed faintly. “And I thought I loved him at least. I told myself that someday we'd have more.”

“More.” He thought about what J.D. had said. “Like marriage?”

“And a family,” she admitted. “The normal things that most women want sooner or later, I guess. Even me.” She closed her sweater more tightly across her chest. “I was just fooling myself, though. Lars never wanted either one. The whole family and kids thing just isn't his way. Never will be. I should have faced that before. And now…I realize he hurt my pride far more than he hurt anything else.”

“And before him?”

She shrugged. “Nobody serious enough to even remember really. I was too busy concentrating on my career.” Then she smiled rather impishly. “But
way
before him, I dated Evan for a while.”

“Taggart?” He frowned. “Leandra's husband?”

“One and the same. I guess if anyone qualified as my first love—” she lifted her fingers in an air quote “—he'd be it. When I turned thirteen he was at the birthday party that Belle and my dad threw for me. Even though I was a total gimp with my leg torn up the way it was, we danced in the barn.” Her grin was quick and mischievous. “My tender heart swooned.”

He tried to envision her and the vet together and couldn't. “So what happened?”

“Oh, we grew up, of course. We were friends and we were a habit through most of high school. But I was more
interested in dancing than anything else. He was more interested in Leandra, though he didn't have the guts to admit it until it was too late and she'd married his college roommate.”

“Ouch.”

“It took them a while and plenty of tragedy before they found their way to each other.” She picked up a stick and poked it at the embers, sending sparks shooting up into the sky. “They've been married only a handful of years now, but it's hard to imagine either one of them with anyone
but
each other. They're so obviously perfect for one another.”

“I figured they'd been married for a long time.”

She gave him a look over her temptingly bare shoulder. A small smile played around the corners of her lips. “Why?”

He shrugged, feeling strangely foolish. “I don't know. They…fit.”

Her gaze softened. “Yes, they do. Nobody who was here today has been married all that long actually.” She looked back at the fire. “Or married at all,” she added, obviously referring to herself.

“You're young. You have plenty of time.”

She gave a snort of laughter and tossed the stick into the fire. “I'm not young, and you don't need to go around sounding like you're as old as Moses.” She pushed to her feet and shrugged out of the sweater, letting it fall onto the seat. “Come on.”

He eyed the hand she held out toward him. “Where?”

She tilted her head toward the swimming hole. “Back in the water.”

He shook his head. “You're nuts. The water was cold.”

“But it'll feel warm now,” she assured. “Once you get used to it.”

He didn't know why he stood up when he didn't believe her for a second. The water
had
felt great when it was counteracting the hot sun. But there was no sun now.

Only a fire's ember glow, the moonlight and the occasional glint of a firefly.

She was picking her way to the water's edge, and as she moved, she unfastened her cutoffs. They slipped off and fell to the clover, leaving her in a bikini bottom that was just as brief as the top, and just as maddening to his senses. She stepped out of the denim around her feet and continued to the boulder where the rope hung. But instead of taking the rope to swing over the swimming hole, this time, she just dived off the rock, knifing cleanly, quietly into the water.

Her head bobbed up a moment later. He could see the pale gleam of her wet head and her face. “Come in, Beck,” she called softly to him. “The water's fine.”

He doubted it, but he was burning from the inside out. So he went over to the same boulder. Did the same dive.

When he came up, she was several feet away.

“The water is not warm,” he said emphatically, and saw the gleam of her smile.

“It will be,” she promised. “Some things just take a little time. Give it a few minutes. And then you're not going to want to
leave
the water at all.” She turned onto her back and the red of her bikini gleamed dark and wet, in stark contrast to her skin that gleamed pale and wet.

And inviting.

He ran his wet hand down his face.

“I used to love coming here at night when I was younger,” she mused softly.

“Did you come here with Taggart?”

She flipped over with a little splash and swam past
him. Her smile flashed. “Would you be shocked if I said I did?”

“Shocked?” He shook his head. “Jealous?” He shrugged ruefully. It was quite a step to admit that to himself, much less to her.

She looked more surprised than he felt as she switched directions and swam past him the other way, as nimble as a fish. “As it happens, I did not.” Her voice was studiedly casual. “I told you. We were only friends.”

“Anyone else, then?”

She laughed softly, much more naturally. “Sadly, no.” She rolled onto her back again, floating. The long ends of her hair drifted around her, grazing his chest.

He didn't move away.

“My young heart certainly fantasized a time or two about it,” she went on a little dreamily.

His jaw tightened to match the rest of his body.
What were her fantasies now?

He had to bite back the question but it just circled maddeningly inside his head instead.

“Your dad and Susan seem to be getting pretty close.”

“Yeah.” He wasn't particularly interested just then in what his father was doing with Susan Reeves. He was, however, intensely interested in the woman floating within arm's reach.

And he couldn't help but feel guilty about that fact.

His head assured him he had no reason to feel guilty. But the weight of the wedding ring he still wore whispered otherwise.

“My wife died three years ago today,” he said abruptly. “It took only three months from the day I found her collapsed in our living room until the day cancer stole her for good.”

“Beck.”
She flipped over in the water and swam close
to him. “I'm so sorry.” Then she slid her arms around his shoulders and hugged him. That was
not
the response he'd needed.

“Why didn't you say so before?” Her hands slid over his back, wet. Soothing. And then she let go and water was once more sliding between them.

He damn near pulled her back against him. “I shouldn't have said so now.” He wouldn't have if he'd thought it would bring out that full-body contact instead of ensuring she kept her distance. Somebody there needed to have some willpower, and he wasn't certain that it could be him.

“Why not?” She swam in his way when he took a stroke for the shore. “I thought we were becoming…friends.”

Then he did reach out. He scooped his arm around her waist and easily pulled her against him again.

Flat against him.

So flat that the hard points of her nipples stabbed him through the fabric of her bathing suit.

So flat that her legs floated up around his, and hugged his hips.

“Is this how it is with all your friends?”

Her lips parted. She stared up at him and wordlessly shook her head.

“Then I'm not sure we're friends,” he murmured.

Only the soaking weight of his shorts and her bathing suit separated him from her. And it was the worst sort of temptation to know it. It would take so little to tug both aside. Then there would be nothing at all between them.

Not even the warm, silky water.

Because he'd be somewhere even warmer. Even silkier.

His hands drifted downward where the edge of her bikini hugged the swell of her shapely rear.

Her eyes went heavy and her lips parted softly. Her legs
tightened around his hips, pulling him tighter against her. He could feel the shape of her breasts against his chest so clearly that her swimsuit might never have existed.

“Then what are we?” Her husky whisper tickled his lips.

His fingers flexed against her supple skin. They could be lovers if he wanted. He knew it.

But then what?

Even though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he forced himself to release her. To let go of her warm, wet body and the invitation that was there.

He was going to take nothing. Not on
that
day.

Not from her. Because she deserved more than he'd ever be able—or ready—to give.

“We're better off if we leave it at…neighbors.” Even as he said it, he wasn't buying it. “Friendly neighbors,” he amended.

This time she didn't try to stop him when he struck out for the shore.

He climbed out of the water and the cool air bit at his skin as he left the warmth of the water behind.

“I think we're more.” Her quiet voice carried across the water. “It's okay to admit it if you're afraid, you know.” Her voice was gentle, but her gaze felt impossibly intense despite the distance he was putting between them. “Maybe I'm afraid, too.”

He looked back at her as he grabbed up a towel. “People often acquire a fear for good reason.”

“There's nothing to fear from me,” she assured.

He almost laughed. Except there was nothing funny about any of this. “You turn me on,” he said huskily and watched her eyes darken and her lips part.

And realizing he was damn close to pitching the towel and all good sense and going back to her, he cleared his
throat. “But that's all I have to offer,” he added. “So unless you're just looking for one more way to pass the time until you go back to New York, we're better off stopping before things get out of hand.” Feeling like a bastard right down to his toes, he dragged the towel over his chest and legs.

She was out of the water much faster than he'd expected and she snatched up her own towel, wrapping it fast around her slender body, but not fast enough to keep him from seeing the rigid peaks of her breasts against the shiny red swimsuit or their rapid rise and fall with her breath. “If you wanted to get my goat, good job.” Her voice shook. “First off, not once have I ever implied that you or Shelby were just a means to get me through the summer. And second, I'm quite capable of deciding for myself what—and
whom
—I want. And deciding whether the risk of being hurt again is worth the effort.”

And judging by her tone, she was obviously rethinking the whole risk and “whom” thing.

Which was what he'd wanted, wasn't it? For her to lose that compassion that was always in her eyes. To put up her own walls between them so there was no chance she'd be susceptible to the desire he was controlling by the thin skin of his teeth.

If she thought she'd been fooling herself where the cheating ex was concerned, she would be doing just the same now where Beck was concerned.

And he liked her too well to add that onto her plate as well, no matter what she thought.

She folded her low chair with a snap and yanked a pair of flip-flops out of her bag and shoved her feet into them.

“Friendly neighbors,” she muttered as she snatched up her shorts from the ground where she'd left him. “You betcha.” Without looking at him, she carried her gear into
the trees, her feet moving fast and the bottom of the towel swaying around her thighs.

He looked up at the stars. Muttered a low oath when there was nothing but silence inside his head.

He grabbed up his own stuff and followed.

The truck engine was running when he reached it and he climbed in beside her. She didn't say a single word to him on the drive. Not even when they reached his dark house.

He knew he should probably apologize. Say something.

He grabbed his stuff and pushed open the door. “Thanks for the ride.”

“What are neighbors for?” But her voice was stiff, and the second he shut the door, she drove away.

Beck went up the front porch and wearily sank down on one of the cushioned chairs there.

He stared out on the drive.

The taillights of Lucy's truck grew dimmer and dimmer until they disappeared altogether.

And still he sat there.

“What the hell am I doing, Harmony?”

But yet again, there was no soft voice inside his head giving him an answer.

Along with Stan and Shelby, even the woman who'd been his conscience for most of his life had deserted him that night. It was no wonder he was making such a mess of things.

And after a long while, he finally went inside the dark, empty house.

Alone.

 

When Lucy arrived home, the last thing she expected was to run into her brother. Particularly her brother in a
clinch with a pretty blonde girl who was definitely
not
Kelly Rasmusson.

They looked as shocked as she felt when she entered the living room, though. Even though she was pretty sure the tracks of the tears she'd shed—as much for Beck and the things he'd shared as for herself—were dry, she busied herself with her stuffed bag long enough to quickly wipe her cheeks. Then she approached them, sticking out her hand toward the unfamiliar girl. “I'm Lucy. Caleb's sister.”