The Cowboy Takes a Bride (34 page)

And that’s when Mariah realized it was absolutely true.

J
oe turned out the lights in the barn, took Mariah’s hand, and led her out into the silvery moonlight. “You’re done with the wedding planning for now.”

“Yes,” she said, “but I received a handful of business cards. Hopefully, there are more weddings in my future.” She pulled other people’s business cards from her pocket, fanned them out in front of him.

“Put those away for now. I want your complete attention.”

“Yes, sir.” She stuffed the cards back into her pocket.

He took both of her hands in his. “We’ve both been so busy we haven’t had a chance to talk since Thanksgiving.”

Her heart fluttered. Finally. They were going to talk. Thank heavens she’d been so busy she’d had no time to dwell on his silence. He’d been just as busy. She knew how much the futurity meant to him so she hadn’t said anything either.

“Tomorrow is Sunday, you don’t have to work at the Silver Horseshoe.”

“No,” she agreed.

“And I have a day off from the futurity.”

“Oh?”

“Imagine that,” he said, drawing her closer to him. “We both have a day off at the same time.”

“Imagine that,” she echoed.

“I was hoping, if you weren’t too tired from the wedding planning, that maybe we could pick up where we left off after the rainstorm.”

“Oh, were you?”

“Yes.” He smiled, dipped his head. “I was.”

She tilted her face up to accept his kiss. “I think that’s an excellent idea.”

Then she took him by the hand and led him to her cabin.

Once inside the house, once inside the circle of Joe’s arms, Mariah grew nervous. She was afraid of losing this precious moment, of never getting it back again. She wanted so much to hope for happily-ever-after but she was afraid to believe in it.

She couldn’t wait for him to kiss her. To do more than kiss her. The somnolent way he looked at her, the way his fingers moved up her arm felt so intimate. He dipped his head.

The floorboards creaked under their feet.

Mariah’s breath hung in her lungs.

He brushed his lips over hers, soft as a sigh. His fingers played up the back of her neck, angling her head, raising her face up so he could extend the kiss.

She was falling, deep into an endless sea of sensation.

His dark eyes ensnared hers. She leaned into him. She’d been hungering for this—
for him
—for weeks.

He kissed her for what could have been hours or minutes. The experience was that riveting. His mouth took her higher and hotter until nothing mattered but the two of them. All doubt evaporated. Nothing had ever felt so right, so perfect.

Joe scooped her into his arms and she wrapped her hands around his neck, holding on tight. His grip was strong, his muscles bunched around her body. His warm breath feathered the fine hairs at her temple.

He pressed his lips to her cheek. It felt nice. Sweet. Like a gentle wind on a hot summer day.

Sexual desire hummed across her nerve endings, heating her body from top to bottom. He laid her gently on the bed, stepped back, and gazed down at her, his eyes shimmering in the moonlight slanting through the crack in the curtains.

Mariah’s throat tightened at his expression. He looked at her as if she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She felt wanted, cherished. Tears pushed at the backs of her eyelids.

“Make love to me, Joe,” she whispered.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Is this what you really want? Once we make love, there’s no going back.”

“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life.”

“Me either.” He breathed.

He sank down on the bed beside her, his hand reaching for the zipper at the side of her dress. Slowly, he tugged the zipper down. His knuckles rubbed against her skin bared by the parting teeth. He leaned over and, with lips hotter than a branding iron, kissed the fluttering pulse in the hollow of her throat.

He stretched out beside her, all shirt and skin, man and heat, smelling of leather and spicy cologne and pure essence of Joe. He tasted of wedding cake and champagne. Promise. He tasted of promise.

His mouth explored her neck, finding all kinds of spots to lick and nuzzle until he had her squirming, then he pulled back and lay on his side beside her, stacking his palms under his chin while he studied her in the darkness.

She stared back. Mesmerized.

“Wh-why did you stop?”

“I want to take my time. Enjoy this. Enjoy you.”

They spent the next several minutes undressing each other. Taking their time, never rushing. Once they were completely naked and he’d put on a condom, he trailed an incredibly light caress over her collarbone. “You are so perfect.”

Mariah trembled.

He kissed her breasts, the flat of her belly. Used his hand to excite her nipples, send her blood thrusting through her veins.

“Joe . . .” She whispered his name on a sigh. He made her feel so good. No, good didn’t begin to describe it. Nor did any of the other superlatives that sprang to mind. It was beyond great, super, terrific, awesome . . .

Okay, she had one.
Splendid.
Being with him felt splendid.

His masculine scent surrounded her. His eyes darkened. His hand tightened around her wrist.

Her body burned from her heart to her stomach straight down to her sex. Burned and ached and craved.

His mouth claimed hers again.

All her senses were altered—sound, sight, taste, smell, touch. She existed in an uncharted but delicious land. She was total awareness. Barbed strands of fevered sensation pricked her.

He whispered her name, and his beautiful hands were busy making her feel alive in a hundred different ways. Frenzy fired every nerve ending.

“What do you want? What can I do for you?” she asked.

“You’re doing it.”

“No, really. Do you like it when I touch you here?”

He groaned. “Yeah. I like that.”

“How about this?”

“You don’t have to work so hard. I’m pretty easy to please.”

“It’s just that . . . well . . . I want to do this right.”

“Honey, you can’t go wrong when you put your hand
there
.”

She laughed, but that didn’t stop the insecurity. It had been a very long time since she’d been with a man and she’d never been with one who made her feel like this. Part of her wanted to pull on her clothes and rush away until she could figure out what all this meant, if, indeed, it meant anything more than sex.

It does and you know it.

That’s what had her so nervous. This meant something. Did she really want to take the plunge? Yes, her body wanted him, but was she ready?

Mariah touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip and thought about where they were. In the cabin that had belonged to her father. With a new roof put on by the Jubilee Co-op. The small, cozy room felt like a cocoon. A cocoon where she didn’t really belong.

“Hey.” Joe rubbed a palm up her arm to her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“You’re tensing up.”

She shrugged.

“Talk to me.”

“Nothing’s wrong, it’s just that . . .”

He waited. When she didn’t continue, he whispered, “Let go.” His breath was a warm brush against her ear. “Let down your guard. Drop the mask. You don’t have to pretend with me. Be you, Mariah. One hundred percent.”

That startled her. Both because he’d read her mind and because he was right. She was still trying to fit in. If you spent your life being a chameleon, how did you know what was really you and what was merely the milieu you’d adapted to?

“What are you so afraid of?” He tickled her belly with his fingertips.

“I’m afraid . . .”

“Yes?”

“That I’m simply trying to be what you want me to be.”

“And what is that?”

She waved her hand at the room around them. “A cowgirl. Dutch’s daughter.”
Your late wife.
“I’m afraid that if you knew the real me you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

“You underestimate me and your own appeal. You let me see your naked body, now let me see your naked mind.”

Mariah drew in a deep breath. “I’m scared.”

Joe intertwined his fingers with hers. “I’ve got your back . . . and your front.” Then he grinned, pressed his lips to her belly, and blew a raspberry against her skin.

Mariah giggled and Joe kissed her again. Then under his tender, thrusting strokes, her body eclipsed her brain, she forgot her anxiety, and simply let go.

“I
never expect . . . well, I knew you’d be . . . but wow . . . never this,” Mariah said after they made love a second time.

“Never what?” Joe asked, lazily toying with her nipple.

She shivered, curled against him. “I never expected you to be so incredible.”

He chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“You. You’re so earnest.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing’s wrong with that. It’s just you leave yourself open to a lot of hurt.”

She pulled back, looked up into his face. “What do you mean by that?”

“Some things aren’t meant to be taken seriously.”

“Like Slinkys and Silly Putty.”

“Yeah.”

“Like unicorns and rainbows.”

“Pretty much.”

“As if this thing is going anywhere beyond a quick roll in the hay?”

“I didn’t say that.” His voice deepened and his eyes darkened.

“You didn’t have to. I know this is hard for you.”

“What do you mean? Being with you is easy.”

“I meant . . . Becca.”

“Oh.” He was silent a long time.

Why had she brought up his wife? What was wrong with her? Things had been going so well and here she’d brought up his dead wife.

“I am . . .” He cleared his throat. “Was something of a mess.”

“I know that too. On my first day here, I found you drunk and naked in a horse trough.”

“I wasn’t naked.”

“Almost.”

He smiled lightly. Kissed her forehead. “Mariah, I want to offer you the moon and the stars.”

“But you’ve been there before and you’ve realized the moon and stars aren’t yours to give.”

“Something like that,” he acknowledged. “Right now, I’m just living in the moment. It’s all any of us really have.”

“That’s okay.” She snuggled closer. “I don’t need the moon and the stars.”

“You’re not like Annie in
Sleepless in Seattle
? Looking for magic?”

She shrugged, not sure what to say. “I suppose a lot of women are looking for magic. Most of them settle for far less.”

“Don’t settle, Mariah. You deserve to have your dreams come true.”

“So do you,” she whispered.

“I’m close,” he said. “If Miracle wins the futurity, not only do my dreams come true, but so do Dutch’s. He spent his life chasing this dream, only to never see it realized. Since you’re staying, I’m going to use the winnings to open the equine center on another part of my land.”

Ah, there was the rub. Joe could devote himself to cutting, but when it came to relationships, was he a lot like his hero Dutch? Untrustworthy. She thought of what his Gamma had told her at Thanksgiving.
Cutting, horses, his work means everything to him. If you can’t share that with him the way Becca did, well . . .

That thought squeezed her heart. She couldn’t be falling in love with a man who was just like her father. A man who would inevitably put horses before his family.

“My father’s dream lives on,” she whispered, not knowing what else to say. “Through you. I’m sure he thought of you as a son.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Some,” she admitted. “It hurts that you knew my father better than I did. I don’t want to be like my mother, pining for a guy who was too in love with horses to pay much attention to her. It’s better to never have loved than to be so strung up by it that you can’t see reality.”

“Reality is overrated.”

“Says the man who’s never had to live in it. You were raised in a loving family. You got to follow your dreams. You had life handed to you on a silver platter.”

“Until Becca died.” The teasing look vanished from his gaze.

Mariah didn’t rush to fill the silence because she didn’t know what to say to make things right again.

He bent his head to kiss her, but she could tell things were different. His muscles were tense, his eyes muted. “Mariah,” he started, “I don’t mean to make you feel—” He broke off, cleared his throat.

“It’s fine.” She held up a palm. She didn’t want to hear any more. “I get it. Live in the moment. Be free. No expectations.”