Twin Cowboys for Tamara (16 page)

“…out now.”

Jess shook himself and opened his eyes to stare at Jax and Tamara who both frowned at him. “What?”

“I said we’re going to head out now. I’ll look over the fences during our ride.”

“Have a good time.”

Jax curved his free arm around Tamara’s shoulders as they headed toward the exit. “Oh, don’t worry. We will.”

Just what Jess worry about.

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Twin Cowboys for Tamara

115

The farther away they got from the ranch and Jess, the more Tamara’s stomach churned and the more uncomfortable she felt, as if she left behind her best friend.

Why did she feel so guilty about leaving Jess and riding off with Jax?

He’d
lied
to her.
He
had betrayed
her
. He didn’t deserve her soft heart or sympathy, far from it. But she couldn’t seem to keep the cool and detached stance, not in her heart, and especially not with the memory of their time spent together in the motel haunting her.

Tamara refused to believe that she had fallen for someone who behavior so despicably toward her, someone with no redeemable qualities. She usually proved such a good judge of character, usually knew when someone pulled the wool over her eyes. But she’d had no reason to doubt Jess’s sincerity, no reason to believe that the young man
Jay
had any reason to lie about his identity.

Why had he lied?

Jax had earlier indicated that his brother had a good reason for doing what he did, and she had to admit that curiosity almost tempted her to ask him—almost.

Had it just been to get her into bed? Would she have slept with him had she known his real identity? Tamara couldn’t really say one way or the other but she doubted she would have entertained the thought of being intimate with Jess. Too much baggage existed between them, too much history. She still saw him as a kid and the fact that he’d pulled that little identity game on her at the airport didn’t help matters.

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Gigi Moore

Why?

She knew she appeared relatively attractive to the opposite sex, but she functioned under no illusions to believe that her allure was irresistible. Not enough to make Jess act so out of character, to make him lose all sense of decency and reason and lie to someone he knew and cared about.

“You’re mighty quiet over there. Anything you want to talk about?”

Tamara turned her head to look at Jax, momentarily thrown by the familiar tone of his voice, thrown by the sexy drawl. Thrown by how much he sounded like Jess.

She mentally kicked herself. Damn it, she needed to stop thinking about Jess, which proved a pretty tall order when his mirror image rode not more than ten feet away from her.

“Nothing you can help me with,” she said and turned her head to admire the scenery they were riding by. She unintentionally got lost in the lush green and brown countryside below them and the view of the sun beginning to dip low behind the mountains on the western horizon.

She’d forgotten how breathtaking this country could be, how homesick it could make a body.

“I’m a good listener.”

Tamara smiled as she turned back to Jax to find him and his horse riding much closer to her. She’d been so absorbed by the landscape she hadn’t even heard their approach.

She looked at the earnest expression on Jax’s face and wanted to spill her guts—not just about what had happened between her and Jess, but what had happened with James. But from there it would have been just a hop, skip and a jump to spilling the beans about a whole lot of other things that he just didn’t need to know or probably didn’t want to hear.

Tamara wasn’t good at sharing confidences. She never had been.

She’d always been a bit of a loner on the ranch except when it came Ebook piracy is stealing. It is a federal offense.

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to immediate family, and she had stayed that way when she went away to college because saw no reason to change. She didn’t fit in with any of the various factions except those bent on excelling in their studies and that group, like her, wasn’t interested in socializing except under duress and unless it would further their academic goals.

She talked a good game at work, proved proficient at mixing when she needed to, at rubbing elbows with the bigwigs and the clients of her firm, but when it came to intimates she kept close to her, the circle almost didn’t exist.

James had been the closest thing to a confidant she had had, and he had been a poor excuse for one when she got right down to it. She knew about and had shared more with Jess since she’d been back than she had with James their entire time together.

Tamara had never felt comfortable enough with her fiancé to tell him her innermost secrets or to reveal her vulnerabilities. When she got right down to it, he had done her a favor by dumping her. What kind of marriage would they have had, really? She would have been making the same mistake of incompatibility that her own parents had made.

She didn’t want the relationship her parents had had. She wanted the sort of relationship that Jeremiah and Paula had had.

Tamara knew that her father’s friends hadn’t had the ideal relationship and that everything wasn’t always sunshine and kisses for them. They’d gone through some rough patches, had their disagreements like any other married couple, but for every disagreement or moment of unhappiness between them, they worked that much harder to make sure the good times outnumbered the bad.

Vaguely, she wondered if Jeremiah had ever kept a secret or lied to Paula.

But you’re not married to Jess. You don’t have anything beyond a
crushed ego invested. Better to cut your losses now than to devote any
more time or energy to something doomed to failure and that
shouldn’t have started in the first place.

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Gigi Moore

“Right here’s a good spot to rest for a spell.”

Tamara dismounted, took Clipper’s reins, and led him toward the stream several yards away, following Jax and Cappuccino.

In synch, the horses lowered their heads and drank.

The stream, leading to a pristine waterfall in the mountains yonder, appeared cool and refreshing and tempted Tamara on a visceral level.

She closed her eyes and could see herself naked and frolicking with Jess and Jax beneath the force of the falls, the cold water making her nipples stand at attention for both men’s sucking and viewing pleasure.

Tamara licked her lips and opened her eyes with a start when she felt Jax’s hands on her shoulders and his lips near her ear.

“Thinking about going for a dip?”

“You read my mind.” She turned to face him and smiled. “The water just looks so good.”

“Feels even better.” Jax winked, took a couple of steps back and tossed his hat aside right before he began pulling off his boots.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting ready to go for a dip. Care to join me?”

Everything in her said she shouldn’t, that it would be a mistake, bigger than going to bed with Jess had been. But her heart fluttered at the idea of making at least half her fantasy come true, even though she knew the water must be a bracing forty degrees, if not colder.

Sure spring abounded but she wouldn’t dare underestimate the cold of the Colorado Rockies.

“You’re insane.”

“Suit yourself. You can watch me enjoy myself then.”

And watch she did, feeling part voyeur and part honored guest at a Chippendale’s stage show when Jax finished pulling off his boots and proceeded to peel off his jeans.

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Something unfurled and fluttered low in her belly at the sight of his long lightly-tanned legs, at the material of his black boxer briefs clinging to the lean tight muscles of his thighs.

Tamara just barely held in a gasp as Jax teased the waistband of his underwear before sliding his hands up to the buttons of his shirt.

She glanced up at his face to find a wicked smile teasing the corners of his full, sensual mouth as if he knew she wondered whether he’d meant
skinny
dip when he’d invited her into the water with him.

Jax finished taking off his shirt to finally stand before her in just his underwear and a smile, and Tamara took a deep breath to steady herself.

He looked just as gorgeous as Jess, but then she hadn’t expected anything less. He had a few distinguishing marks, however, the most prominent being a jagged scar that ran six inches in length down his right knee.

The football injury she’d heard about years ago came to mind.

Jeremiah had called her in New York with news of Jax’s injury on the field. She had been buried deep in one of the biggest cases of her career at the firm. She hadn’t been able to come up for air to do things like eat and sleep, much less travel halfway across the country for a hospital visit. She’d had to settle for giving Jax a call after his surgery but regretted not coming to see him in person. She regretted missing so
many
significant moments in his and Jess’s lives—the boys’

baseball team taking the championship in little league three years straight, Jax’s first game as starting running back in high school, pageants, plays, graduations.

Damn, when she thought about it, she realized she’d been remiss with keeping in touch, and she regretted a lot of things that concerned her boys.

Her boys—she’d probably always think of them this way no matter how old they got. And she had allowed the differences between herself and her father to spill into her relationship with Jax and Jess when she should have been doing everything she could to Ebook piracy is stealing. It is a federal offense.

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preserve the relationship. They and her father and Jeremiah were all the family she had, after all.

Jax followed her gaze and smiled. “I know, it looks wicked, but it wasn’t that bad.”

“It looks like it hurt.”

“It did.” His expression turned solemn, but he instantly perked up, bending slightly to knock his knuckles against his shin. “Between football and the rodeo, I’ve got enough plates, pins and screws in this old body to make going through airport security a fun adventure.”

“Regular bionic man, huh?”

“To say the least.” He chuckled.

That he could laugh about it made her smile, though she knew how agonizing his injuries and the resultant rehabilitation must have been. She remembered how hard it had been for her when she’d suffered a knee injury that prevented her getting in her daily morning jog. And she would never be a professional athlete who ate, slept and dreamed a sport the way she knew Jax had with football. “Rodeo too?”

He shrugged. “Guy has to get his adrenaline rush some kind of way.”

Hers just happened to be the unexciting practice of law. Still, Tamara ran into some clients and opponents in the legal arena as ornery as an untamed horse or irritated bull though.

She’d never had any great weakness for the rodeo or its participants like so many other women she knew who fantasized about cowboys and the cowboy way. She’d grown up around cowboys and ranchers and knew each a job as well as a way of life.

Tamara wasn’t impressed by cowboys and their way of life didn’t hold any romantic mystique for her. But just the idea of seeing Jax atop a bucking bronco or bull trying not to be thrown made her panties damp and her nipples tingle.

“Guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do,” she said.

“Change your mind yet?”

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She looked out over the peaceful stream then back to him. “I don’t think so.”

“Suit yourself.” He turned and headed toward an outcropping of rocks past a cluster of aspen and other trees she had long since forgotten the names of. Tamara got a sweet view of the most perfectly round, tight ass she had ever seen this side of a brother.

Damn, but he looked fine!

It would probably be wise to stay on dry land and keep her distance. She was already wet enough and knew it could only get worse the way her pussy clenched and throbbed at the mere sight of Jax half-naked. If she got in the water with him, she didn’t think she could keep her hands off of him.

Hadn’t she had sex with what had to be the sexiest man in Colorado not several hours ago? How could she be so hot and ready for a go-round with his brother now? She’d never been this randy and hungry for sex before.

What gave?

Despite all her arguments against it, she found her feet following the path Jax had taken through the forest to where the stream ran deeper. She couldn’t help herself.

She watched as he dove into the water, cutting the water cleanly like a knife and looking so good and athletic doing it that he took her breath away.

Jax’s head popped up several yards away from shore after a few moments and Tamara laughed as he shook his head like a drenched pup.

He cupped his hands around his mouth. “The water’s great! You should come in.”

Somehow, she thought she’d be in for a rude awakening if she accepted his invite.

Jax struck her as an adventurer, someone who did things just for the hell of it and to get a rise out of people. Tamara considered herself a bit of an adventurer too, but she practicality made her draw the line Ebook piracy is stealing. It is a federal offense.

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