Western Man (18 page)

The crushing band of his arms had lifted her onto her toes while the driving force of his kiss arched her backwards. Her hat was swept off her head and sailed to a pile of straw in the corner. Sharon reeled under the desperate urgency of his kiss, which revealed a hint of vulnerability that gave her renewed hope.

When he dragged his mouth from hers, a hand cupped the back of her head and pressed it to his shoulder as if he didn’t want her to see what was written in his face. Sharon felt the shudder that went through him. There was a soaring lift of her heart in reaction.

“Ridge, it doesn’t have to be all on my terms,” she said, listening to the wild run of his heartbeat. “I do want children, but—what about you?”

A short laugh became mixed up in the roughness of his breath. His hand relaxed its pressure on her head, letting, her draw away from his shoulder to look up at him. A fiery satisfaction burned blue-bright in his eyes.

“Shall I be honest?” he asked with a quirk of one brow.

“Yes.” Never in her life had she wanted him to be more honest about something than now.

“I keep remembering how you looked that day with that little boy riding on your hip while you tried to chase those loose horses back into the corral—and I remembered how it was in the kitchen that day . . . you baking cookies while little Tony and I ate them.” His gaze moved randomly over her upturned face, memorizing its features. “I think about that and imagine what it would be like if that was our son and all the things I could show him. I might like it better if we had a girl, though.” His callus-roughened hand stroked the tawny silk of her hair while he studied its color and texture. “A little girl with toffee-colored hair who would sit on my lap and tell me about the boys who teased her in school and pulled her braids.”

“You mean that, don’t you?” Sharon realized with breathless wonder.

“Yes.” His gaze smoldered on her face once more. He drew back, their hips keeping contact
while he ran his hand down the valley between her breasts and came to a stop on her flat stomach. “I’m looking forward to this little stomach of yours growing round with our child. I want it, whatever sex it turns out to be. But—” Ridge paused “—there’s two things that have to come before it.”

She was so enthralled with the discovery that he wanted a family—that he wanted
their
family—she didn’t follow his meaning. “What two things?”

“First is the ring, if I haven’t lost it.” He felt in his side pocket where he’d shoved it for safekeeping when she’d thrust it into his hand and started to leave. This time, he took the diamond ring out of the box and slipped it on her trembling finger.

It seemed to wink at her, as if it knew a wonderful secret. Happiness was tumbling from her, crystal bright and clear like the cascading waters of a Colorado stream running swift and pure.

Her heart was in her eyes when she looked at him, then she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the pent-up emotion of those long years. She clung to him fiercely, openly showing him how much she cared, until the frustration of holding it back for so long was spent.

“I love you so much it hurts,” she declared and hugged him tightly.

“The way I am?” There was an earnestness in his demand.

Sharon set back on her heels and gazed at him, a smile beaming. “The way you are—no pedestal
and no shining armor. I love the grumbler that snaps when he’s irritable. I love the tough cowboy that doesn’t want anyone to see he’s hurt—”

“Except you. You wouldn’t let me hide the pain from you,” he remembered.

“I don’t want a hero, Ridge,” she assured him. “I just want the man I love. I don’t want you to be anything but what you are. When you’re hurt, I want to know it. And when you’re happy, I want to be happy with you. That’s all.”

“Maybe if you had seen me like this a long time ago, I would have forgotten sooner that my best friend was your brother,” he mused idely. “It’s funny. Now I think of him as being your brother, instead of you being his sister. Sharon, what have you done to me?”

“I haven’t done anything to you.”

“Haven’t you?” Ridge mocked. “You’ve put me through a wringer and taken the starch out of me. I think Scott is convinced that bull did more than stomp me.”

“Scott? Why?” Sharon couldn’t recall her brother saying a word to her about Ridge’s behavior. Of course, every time Ridge’s name had been mentioned in her presence lately, she’d left the room.

“Because of the way I grilled him the other night about that Rivers fella. It was all I could talk about—all I could think about,” he admitted. “Scott didn’t improve the situation either with his constant chuckling.”

“You said you weren’t jealous.” She eyed him, beginning to doubt his disclaimer.

“I wasn’t,” he
denied, then lifted a shoulder in a reluctant shrug. “Maybe I was. I know I was mad clean through.”

“Why?” Sharon questioned, studying him more closely with a speculating gleam in her look.

“Because you were wearing that dress,” Ridge admitted, a trace of a vaguely chagrined smile showing at the corners of his mouth. “You had it on that day you brought me home from the hospital. I guess I thought of it as ‘my’ dress. I can’t explain it. But when I saw you wearing it to go out on a date with another guy, I felt betrayed somehow.”

“It was all I had to wear except jeans.”

“You didn’t have to go out with him,” he reminded her grimly. “You were supposed to be taking care of me, not gallivanting all over the countryside.”

“You seemed well enough to manage on your own for one evening,” Sharon murmured.

“I was. As a matter of fact, I think subconsciously I took my time about getting better. I liked having you around, and it was one way to keep you there longer.”

“When I told you I was leaving, you didn’t put up any fuss,” she remembered. “I had the feeling you were glad to see me go.”

“That’s because when you left, I thought things would go back on an even keel. And I also knew if you stayed, I’d end up making love to you—by fair means or foul,” he sighed briefly. “I knew I’d have trouble looking you—or your family—in the eye if I had taken advantage of the situation. Mainly,
though, I realized I couldn’t do that to you when I heard you crying in your room. I didn’t want to hurt you again.”

“You heard me?” Sharon frowned. “But the radio—”

“I turned it on. You have your pride, too, and I thought you’d rather I didn’t know you were crying.” His finger touched her cheek as if seeking traces of those tears. “I didn’t know it could hurt me so much to hear someone else’s sobbing.”

“I only cried because I loved you so much. I knew I had to leave and I didn’t want to go,” she explained.

“Now you can come back to stay.”

“Are you sure you won’t get tired of having me around all the time?” she asked, melting against him as his arms tightened in possession.

“You never get tired of having people around that you love,” Ridge chided and didn’t understand her choked cry of elation, because he’d finally said the word she’d been longing to hear, but he understood the outpouring of desire in her kiss.

JANET DAILEY
is the author of scores of popular, uniquely American novels, including the bestselling
The Glory Game; Silver Wings, Santiago Blue; The Pride of Hannah Wade;
and the phenomenal CALDER SAGA. Since her first novel was published in 1975, Janet Dailey has become the bestselling female author in America, with more than three hundred million copies of her books in print. Her books have been published in 17 languages and are sold in different countries. Janet Dailey’s careful research and her intimate knowledge of America have made her one of the best-loved authors in the country—and around the world.