A Cowboy for Christmas (17 page)

“Mmm,” Ila said when they went past her. “Lissy's pies are the fast road to inner peace.”

“Well, well,” said Cordy as he came up to greet them wearing a black cape and vampire teeth, his only stab at a costume. “Let me guess. You're a real Texas twister.”

“What?” Rafferty frowned, and then remembered he was dressed like a tornado. “Oh, yeah.”

“I'll take the pies from you, Lissy,” Cordy offered. “You might want to hurry on over to the equestrian center. They're saddling up the ponies for the kids.”

“You want a beer, Rafferty?” Joe asked, nodding to a gold-plated horse trough loaded down with iced beer.

Rafferty raised a hand. “No thanks. I better help Lissette with Kyle.” He didn't drink, but he realized that other men often thought him odd or unsocial because he didn't.

He followed Lissette as she joined the stream of people walking through a gateway arch with a sign above it that said: “The Dutch Callahan Equine Center.”

A man in a horse costume was leading horses from the barn while ranch hands saddled them up and helped children climb aboard. Off to the side was a corral full of polled cattle.

“One group of six at a time,” the man in the horse costume said. He pulled the horse head off, tucked it under his arm, and fanned himself with the opposite hand. “No one told me it was hot as hell in this damn thing,” he complained with a wink and a grin.

“Brady!” Lissette exclaimed, and hugged the man in the horse costume. “You're back.”

“We are.”

“Where's Annie?”

“Somewhere in this madhouse.” He flapped a hoof at the thickening crowd.

“Rafferty, this is horse whisperer Brady Talmadge. Brady, Rafferty trains horses for the movies.”

“I'd shake hands but . . .” Brady held up his hooves. “I'm familiar with your work. You're famous.”

Rafferty shrugged. “There's not many people training horses for the movies.”

“We should get together. Talk shop.”

“I'd like that,” Rafferty said, and was surprised to realize that he really would.

He and Lissette took Kyle to the corral where the saddled ponies were lined up. A surprised expression came over Kyle's face when Rafferty set him in the saddle. He looked to his mother. She signed. “Okay.”

Kyle shifted his gaze back to Rafferty. He nodded at the boy.

Lissette gave Kyle a sack decorated with pumpkins. She walked beside him while Rafferty led the horse to where the trick-or-treating cows were set up. Unique way to experience Halloween. He would have loved this as a kid. Hell, he was enjoying himself now.

After the trick or treating, they made their way over to the bonfire. Lissette had brought camp chairs for them to sit on and Rafferty went back to the truck to retrieve them. When he came back, he took Kyle from her. “So you can circulate with your friends.”

She met his gaze. “I'm good right here.”

He didn't know what to think. Things with Lissette could turn on a dime. They had this whole push-pull thing going on between them, and while he understood why she ran hot and then cold and then hot again, it was starting to get to him. Especially when she looked so sexy and she kept throwing those winsome glances his way.

Kyle stared at the fire, mesmerized. Rafferty bounced him on his knee while Lissette skewered a clutch of marshmallows and squatted down to hold them over the fire. Her hair gleamed in the crackling glow. The air smelled smoky.

Nearby, an old cowboy was telling a modernized version of the story of the headless horseman to a group of tweens who were trying to act like they weren't the least bit scared.

When Lissette pulled a cooled roasted marshmallow off the skewer and popped it in Kyle's mouth, Rafferty enjoyed seeing the delight spread across his face. Kyle held out a hand, wanting more.

“Let him roast his own marshmallow, Mama,” Rafferty suggested.

“I don't want him getting that close to the fire. He's too little.”

“The boy knows what hot is.”

She looked like she was about to argue, but she then nodded, loosing the apron strings.

“Come to Mommy.” She held out her arm to Kyle, and Rafferty slid him off his knee so the boy could go to her. Lissette gave him a raw marshmallow and guided his hand, showing him how to put it on the skewer.

Lissette glanced over her shoulder at Rafferty, a big grin on her face. She had one hand wrapped around Kyle's waist as her son struggled to hold the skewer over a small flame at the bottom of the bonfire. He kept turning his face into his mother's chest to escape the intensity of the heat, but when she tried to relieve him of his obligation, he would grunt, screw up his face, and determinedly go back to his task.

“He's loving being in control,” Lissette said. “Thank you for suggesting I let him try.”

“Hey, he's an independent kid. There's no holding this one back.”

After the hot dogs were consumed and all the wieners roasted, after the ghost stories were told and the musical among them had played a few Halloween songs on guitars and harmonicas, Joe announced it was time for the hayride.

A tractor engine revved up in an adjacent pasture. It pulled a trailer piled with loose hay. Teenagers were the first to climb aboard, jostling around to sit with a particular girl or boy. Next came the families who didn't mind staying up late. The early birds were gathering up their things, saying good night and heading for their vehicles.

“You want to go on the hayride?” Lissette asked, a hopeful note in her voice.

“Sure,” Rafferty said easily. He got up from the folding camp chair, held out a hand to her.

She hitched Kyle on her hip and took Rafferty's hand. They walked across the pasture in the light of the full moon. Rafferty found them a spot big enough for the three of them. Kyle's eyelids were already sinking.

One of the guitarists sat across from them. He was picking a tune from The Band Perry, “If I Die Young.” It made Rafferty think of Jake. He wondered if Lissy was thinking of him too. How many times had she and Jake ridden on a hayride just like this together?

“None,” she whispered.

Rafferty startled. “What?”

“You were wondering how often Jake and I took a hayride.”

“How do you know that?”

“When you're thinking about Jake you get this tense set to your chin.”

“He never took you on a hayride?”

She shook her head. “He said it was too slow-paced.”

Rafferty stretched out an arm around the back of the trailer's boards. Lissette's hair trailed over his hand. A jumble of emotions mixed up inside him. Desire. Longing. Sex. Things he shouldn't be thinking about. Not in regard to his dead brother's wife.

“Well, lucky for you I like slow-paced,” he drawled, and immediately regretted it the minute he said it.

“I've noticed,” she said in a throaty tone, “that you don't ever get in a hurry.”

“You should have seen me the time I dislodged a nest of yellow jackets from a lemon tree when I was twelve. I was moving pretty quickly then.”

“I'll bet.” She chuckled.

“You're making fun of my pain?” he teased.

“Did you get stung?”

“Six times. On the face.”

“Ouch. I'm sorry.” She reached up to cup his cheek in her palm.

The soft, simple stroke was his undoing. Try as he might, Rafferty couldn't fight off his natural masculine reaction. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, prayed it was dark enough on the ride that nobody noticed.

The guitarist switched tempo and went into Vince Gill's “Cowboy Up.” That got the group—including Lissette—singing along.

The tractor toiled through the field. The moonlight played against scarecrows and pumpkins. The leaves of a corn maze rustled spookily in the wind. Lissette leaned against his shoulder. Her sweet scent carried to him. She looked so sexy in her vampire cape, dark makeup, and black fishnet hose. Some of the couples were kissing. Rafferty quelled an almost impossible urge to kiss Lissy.

It was a perfect night. The kind of special night you wish you could capture in a jar so when you opened it later you could be right back in that moment. Too bad memories didn't work that way.

“Is he asleep yet?” she whispered.

Rafferty bent his head to get a look at her little Spider-Man. His eyes were shut tightly and he was slumped in his mother's arms, completely relaxed. “He's out.”

“You've made this so much easier,” Lissy murmured.

“What?”

“Dealing with Kyle's deafness.”

“It was sheer luck that I knew sign language.”

“I don't know, sometimes I wonder if fate didn't bring us together.”

Rafferty smiled. “You believe in fate?”

She shrugged. “What if you hadn't been in Australia and you'd come the minute you heard about Jake's death? You wouldn't have stayed around in July.”

“Probably not,” he admitted.

“What if Jake hadn't left you the money? You probably won't have shown up at all.”

“I would have,” Rafferty said, but he had to wonder if it was true.

“It just seemed you showed up at the right time.”

“It's easy to romanticize coincidence.”

“We don't want to do that, do we?”

“Do we?”

The tractor labored to a stop. They were back at the ranch house. Mariah and Joe were there to greet them. The other passengers climbed out, parents collecting sleepy children and belongings. Neighbors called to one another.

They bade their hosts good night and drove home.

“It was a wonderful evening,” Lissette said. “Thank you for making it so special.”

“It wasn't an effort. I enjoyed being there.”

They didn't speak the rest of the way home, but the sexual tension inside the cab of Lissette's truck was thick as custard. Staying away from each other for several days had not diminished his desire for her one bit. Rather, it made him want her that much more.

The forbidden fruit.

Rafferty carried Kyle into the house for her. He laid the boy down in his bed, kissed his head and whispered, “Sweet dreams, little guy.”

Straightening, he turned to find Lissette standing in the door looking completely irresistible in her vampish costume. She'd cocked her leg at a totally seductive angle and there was a come-hither tilt to her head. Until now, he'd never understood the sex appeal of vampires. But right now, all he could think was
Suck my blood
.

Did she want him or was he reading something into her posture that wasn't there? Desire ran through him, brooding and untamable. He licked his lips.

“Rafferty,” she breathed.

The sound of his name on her tongue sent a hot, hard pulsing straight to his groin, and his burning need for her, which had been growing steadily every day, could no longer be denied.

Chapter Fifteen

L
issette raised a hand to her hair, thinking how silly she must look in the vampire costume, and ducked her head. He'd already shed his tornado costume long before the hayride. They stood on opposite sides of the living room. He pulled off his cowboy boots and set them aside. She kicked off her black stilettos.

Rafferty's eyes never left hers. He studied her like she was the most precious thing he'd ever seen and she studied him right back, marveling that it was possible to feel this way about someone so soon, especially when the rest of her life was in tumult.

He traced a finger down the bridge of her nose, stopping at the tip to press down, and then he trailed a path over the ridge of her cheekbone, and followed the line of her jaw to her chin. He caressed her with reverence, marvel in his eyes as if he were a fortune hunter who'd spent his life seeking a legendary treasure he'd almost stopped believing in and had now accidentally stumbled across it.

“C'mere,” Rafferty murmured, and held out his hand.

His deep tone of voice, the look of his face cast in shadows sent a sweet shiver winnowing through her bloodstream, but she did not resist. Her will had been slowly eroding since that first night in the pasture.

His hand on hers was sure and strong; his lips firm, but sweetly inviting. They'd been building toward this moment for the past few weeks. Even so, she should have resisted.

But she wanted to yield to him. Meld into him.

Was that so wrong? Was she falling back into old habits simply because he was so easy to be with? Going with the flow, letting herself be carried along by the current of sexual energy surging between them, a dandelion shedding her seeds to the breeze.

But his kiss quickly snuffed out all doubts, blotted everything from her mind except for how he made her feel. Fully, one hundred percent wanted. He wasn't demanding, but instead took his time, drawing out every bit of response in her. His body was so strong. So warm. Radiating so much masculine heat.

His tongue flirted with hers, teasing, coaxing, exploring, arousing.

She strained against him, desperate for more contact. Sensation swirled her around until she didn't know up from down. She felt like silk sliding darkly down a cascade of melted chocolate—rich and weak—and she finally understood there was no going back. She didn't want to go back.

He slipped a hand down her spine, pressed it to the small of her back. Her pulse quickened and she wrapped her arms around his taut waist, held him close. She clung to him and he kept kissing her, exploring her, tasting her. She could feel every inch of his arousal, hot and insistent.

Crave.

She craved him.

His hand slipped to her bottom, his palm cupping one cheek. Panting, aching, she savored every second. Nothing in her universe—and it was a universe of delicious tastes and scents—had ever been so scrumptious.

When he finally pulled his lips away from where he'd been doing devastating things to her throat with his tongue, she let out a noise of frustration.
Don't stop.
She'd waited so very long to feel like this. Fully and completely alive.

“You are so beautiful,” he murmured.

She knew she wasn't beautiful. She had two beautiful sisters. But Rafferty made her feel beautiful.

“I know there's a lot of good reasons not to do this, but Lissy, I've never in my life wanted a woman the way I want you. Need you.”

“I want you too.”

“Last thing I want is to hurt you.”

“I don't want to hurt
you
.”

He laughed. “Darlin', it's already gonna hurt when I have to leave.”

Why do you have to leave?
she wanted to ask, but she knew. He had a life in California and hers was here. There were too many other complications. He was her dead husband's half brother. There was Claudia to consider. And Kyle. She could not be irresponsible with her heart.

“Shh,” she said. “Let's not talk. Let's not think. Let's just—”

She never got the rest of the words out because his mouth was closing over hers again and he was kissing her like they were already joined.

It was all teeth and tongue and lips and heat and a heartbreaking bittersweetness. He ate her like she was the best tasting cake in the world, as if he could eat and eat and eat her and never get sated.

He reached to untie the strings of her skimpy costume, his fingers unexpectedly cool and a sweet relief to her blistering hot skin. She arched her back, thrusting out her chest, eager to feel his lips on her breasts.

She ran her hands along his upper arms. They were hard as concrete.

“Let me take care of you, Lissy. I want to take care of you. Just for tonight. Don't fight me on this. Give up your pride and let me take you where you need to go.”

She wanted to argue because it was so easy for her to turn over the reins. She'd fought for her newfound independence and she didn't want to fall back into old habits. But her body, damn her treacherous body, wanted nothing more than to give it all up to him, let him be in charge, take control, meet her needs.

That's what was different here, she realized with a jolt as his mouth, oh his spectacular mouth, closed over one of her erect nipples, while his wicked hands worked the straps of her costume down over arms. He was looking after her needs rather than pulling her along with him in pursuit of his own satisfaction. Would it be so wrong to simply surrender?

The more he stroked her with his tongue, the more tension gathered, tightening, concentrating in one throbbing location. He seemed in no hurry, leisurely caressing and kneading and massaging her body in miraculous ways.

Time elongated, moved in glorious slow motion. She lost track of everything except him, his mouth alternating between tender and commanding. At one point she tried to get him to hurry, to put out the raging blaze between her legs, but he resisted her anxious urging.

While his tongue was occupied teasing her nipples, his hand traveled down her side to the small of her back, attuned to her every nuanced response and adjusting his pressure according to her soft noises of pleasure. He discovered erogenous zones she never knew she had.

In languid movements, he removed the rest of her clothing, slowly sliding the black fishnet over her legs as if peeling the skin from a banana. Once she was fully undressed, he dispatched this own clothing and she saw for the first time his naked body.

Her breath stilled in her lungs at the sight of him and she realized that he too was holding his breath as his gaze took her in. He was as awestruck with her body as she was with his.

His hands were on her again, sliding smoothly over her waist, and she arched into him. They both kept their eyes wide open, staring into each other, searching deeply and finding what they were both searching for. Acceptance.

Together, they sank to the living room rug.

He kissed her navel and each hipbone, then finally, with a laugh, buried his face in the V between her legs. She twined her fingers through his hair and tugged lightly.

Rafferty teased and explored until she felt like a wild, untamed horse. She bucked, begged, and arched her back. He straddled her, pinned her wrists to the comforter, and stared down at her. Her heart thumped. She should have been scared or at least unnerved a bit. But while this man was powerful, she was not afraid of him. She trusted Rafferty.

With her life.

From somewhere he produced a condom and she helped him roll it on. Then they went back to kissing for a long, sweet time, the towering pressure building higher and hotter in them both.

He made a low growling noise in his throat. “I can't take any more. I have to have you,” he murmured into her ear.

She thrust her hips up at him.

He was in her then, slick and hot. She gasped at the sudden intensity of his fierce penetration. He pushed into her, stroking her body both inside and out. Filling her up. Making her whole. Making her feel whole.

Hard muscles grazed over soft curves.

Each thrust drove them closer and closer until she could not tell where he ended and she began. Above her, his face contorted as he struggled for control, fighting against the primal urge pushing him to every bit of her, trying to hold on for as long as he could.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, rocked him into her, deeper and deeper still until there was nothing left to give.

He moved his hands from her wrists, slipped his palms upward, interlaced his fingers with hers. He slowed the pace.

“No,” she begged. “Faster.”

“If I go faster, I'll come.”

“So will I,” she gasped.

He let loose then, driving himself into her hard and fast, sending silky spirals swirling through her.

They were one.

His gaze latched tight to hers and she could not look away. Never wanted to look away.

They broke together, tumbling over the crest of their simultaneous orgasm, locked in each other's rapt embrace.

Slowly, their breathing returned to normal and they lay there, arms and legs tangled. She lay with her head on his chest, listening to the crazy tempo of his out-of-control heart.

How odd, lying here with a man who was not Jake. Not just that, but Jake's half brother. It was a thought she did not want to think, so she pushed it away and concentrated on how he'd made her feel.

“That was . . . well, hell, sweetheart, I don't have any words for what that was,” he murmured into her hair.

She raised her head, peered at him. He looked so gorgeous in the moonlight spilling through the window. “Right back at you, cowboy.”

He lightly tickled her ribs.

“You know,” she said. “If I knew you were coming I would have baked a cake.”

His hearty laugh rang out. “You get the cutest expression on your face when you're sassy, like you can barely believe you're doing it.”

“What can I say? I was raised to be a good girl. I feel naughty when I'm bad.”

“Then you're in trouble because you've been a very bad girl.”

“I know.” She grinned.

“Sassiness is bad?”

“It was in my house.”

“Way up there on the hill in Highland Park.”

“I know I had it easy.”

“I didn't say that.”

“Compared to how you grew up?” She shook her head. “My childhood was a cakewalk.”

“I'm glad.” His voice was somber. “You've had more than your share of sorrow now.”

“Things are looking up,” she observed.

“If heaven exists it surely smells like you.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead.

“You don't believe in heaven?”

“I'd like to,” he said, “but I haven't seen any proof of it.”

“That's the thing about belief. You have to believe even when there's no proof.”

“And what happens if you're wrong? It's not belief at that point but self-deception.”

“Your mom never took you to church, did she?”

“Hey, we were lucky if she took us to the grocery store.”

“I wish I could understand what that was like.”

“No you don't. Be grateful you grew up in a gentle world.”

“It didn't prepare me for this.”

“You're handling it very well.”

“Only because you're here.”

“You could make it just fine without me. If I wasn't here, Claudia would help you.”

“Claudia doesn't know sign language or how to train a quarter horse.”

“Is that all I am to you, Lissy?”

“No,” she whispered. “It's not.”

“Lissy.” He sighed her name. “I've never met a woman like you. You're so strong even though you don't know it. That sassiness you've been keeping under wraps is really an asset.”

All at once, melancholia washed over her. “You know this can't last.”

“Look at that pretty moon.” He pointed at the sky outside the window. “So big and round and yellow. You like yellow.”

She burrowed against him, tilted her head up to look at the moon. “It's beautiful, but were you listening to me?”

“Every word.” He squeezed her tight and kissed her gently and they lay there for the longest time just staring up at the moon.

L
ast night, Rafferty had been unable to deny his masculine urges. He'd lost control and made love to Lissette when he knew there was no future for them, but being with Lissy made him feel like Atlas when he shrugged. A huge weight had dropped from his shoulders. When she looked at him with those green eyes that spoke more than words, he experienced a foolish kind of hope.

You're kidding yourself.

Because of Kyle they couldn't fall asleep on the living room rug, nor did Lissy want her son to wake in the night and find Rafferty in her bed.

“Too confusing for him,” she said.

Neither did Rafferty want to sleep in the bed she'd shared with Jake. It just felt wrong.

So they'd separated in the wee hours of the morning, Lissy going to her bedroom, Rafferty hightailing it back to the garage apartment. He vowed he would not make love to her again. It would be too painful. Knowing he was going to have to leave her behind.

Utterly wretched, he dressed at dawn determined to spend the entire day working with Slate and pushing his own body to exhaustion. He didn't want to think about what crossing that line had meant, but he feared that their intimacy would invariably be the thing that pushed them apart.

When he got home, he was surprised to see Lissy waiting for him. “Hi,” she called to him out the back door as he trudged up the stairs to the garage apartment. Her smile was bright and sweet. “Dinner's ready.”

He wasn't expecting this. He'd anticipated that she would put up a wall, back off, keep her distance. Instead, she was waving him inside that warm house with her and Kyle.

Watch out. It can't last.

Yes, yes, he knew that but he couldn't seem to get to her fast enough.