Calder Storm (8 page)

The bathroom mirror was completely misted over when they finally emerged from the shower and toweled dry. Finishing, Trey wrapped the damp towel around his hips tucking in a corner to hold it in place.

His gaze slid to Sloan, watching as she squeezed the excess water from her hair. Her kiss-swollen lips lay softly together, and there was a kind of inner beauty to her face that gave it a new radiance. A possessiveness rushed through him with a potency that shook him.

“Must be nice to have short hair,” she observed idly.

“It has its advantages,” he admitted absently. “This is just about where I came in—here you are, fresh out of the shower, your hair all wet.”

“But this time I'm not even going to try to dry it.” She ran a comb through it, slicking it away from her face. “It will be a lot quicker just to braid it.”

“While you do that, I'll go round up our clothes.”

The minute he left the bathroom, Sloan felt his absence. But it was eased by the small sounds she heard coming from the outer room. A heady contentment hummed through her, making her feel all tingly and warm.

When Trey returned a few minutes later, fully dressed, to deliver her clothes, Sloan was struck by how natural it seemed, as if it had always been that way. It wasn't a feeling she examined too closely; experience had taught her to live in the moment. And she was determined to do that.

 

The restaurant was crowded when they arrived, but Trey managed to find a booth tucked in an out-of-the-way corner. They sat
on the same side, without an ounce of space between them. A lot more snuggling and kissing went on than talking. But words seemed unnecessary when there was a much more satisfactory and elemental form of communication to be enjoyed.

It was nearly ten o'clock by the time they finished and headed back to the motel. Nothing was said; it was simply understood that on this night Trey wouldn't be leaving Sloan at the door.

Trey followed her into the room and paused to shut it behind him, flipping the dead bolt into its locked position. When he turned away from it, Sloan was nowhere in sight. Three steps into the room, he spotted her perched on the edge of the bed by the nightstand, her back to him. He dropped his hat on the low bureau and turned toward her.

Curiosity made him ask, “What are you doing?”

“Setting the alarm.” The task accomplished, she rose from bed, an easy smile curving her lips when she turned to him. “It's back to work for me tomorrow.”

Some of his earlier resentment flared at the thought of the camera claiming her time the next day instead of him. “Haven't you taken enough pictures?” He managed to keep the challenge light, but just barely.

Her smile widened. “Don't you know that's one of a photographer's secrets to success? We play the numbers game. You take a couple hundred shots in hopes of getting one that's really good.”

“That's the key, is it?” There was a touch of grimness around his mouth, but it faded as she wandered toward him while reaching behind her head to pull free the elastic band securing her braid. The action drew the dress's tan material across her breasts, outlining their perfectly round shape and drawing his attention to them. “What time are you planning to get up?”

“Six.” She swept the loosened braid onto a shoulder and finger-combed her hair free of its plait.

“Why so early?” Displeasure put a hard edge on his voice, but Sloan didn't appear to notice it. “Nothing's going on at that hour. Competition doesn't resume until the afternoon.”

“I know, but I want to get some early-morning shots when it's all deserted and it's only the horses in the pens. I have my fingers crossed that it will be chilly enough to see their breath.” Her attention was turned inward, picturing the ideal shot in her mind. Belatedly she focused on him. “Actually, that was how I planned to spend my morning today, but somebody took me out for a picnic breakfast instead.”

She halted in front of him, her head tipped up to meet his gaze. Her nearness unraveled all the little knots of anger, and his hands moved to settle on the points of her shoulders.

“Do you think that same guy could persuade you to have breakfast with him in the morning?” Trey murmured.

“'Fraid not.” Sloan smiled in easy refusal. “But he is welcome to come along with me in the morning and act as a sort of helper.”

It wasn't the sort of offer that appealed to Trey, considering he had already tagged behind her earlier in the day, and it wasn't an experience he cared to repeat.

As a result, he opted for a somewhat dry non-answer. “That's kind of you.”

“I thought so.”

Idly he fingered the wavy strands of hair that curled over one of her shoulders. “Your hair is still damp.”

“I know. Maybe I should cut it short like yours,” she suggested, strictly in jest.

“Don't. I like it this way.” Even damp, he could feel the silken fineness of its texture as he brushed it off her shoulder, then left his hand along the side of her neck while his thumb traced its long curve. Desire stirred through him, hot and disturbing. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” he asked in a voice that had grown husky with want.

There was a small, denying shake of her head. “I only know how beautiful I feel when you touch me.” Reaching up, she curved a hand behind his head, applying pressure to draw it down.

The kiss was gentle and deep, more satisfying and seductive
than hard passion. The wonder of it was in her blue eyes when she drew back from him. It made it easier for Trey to let her go.

“I'll only be a moment,” she murmured, her voice just above a whisper, then she moved past him and slipped into the bathroom.

Trey stood there a minute, listening to the sound of water running in the sink. Then his gaze slid to the king-sized bed that dominated the room. Something half the size would have suited him better tonight. This was one night when he wanted to know he wasn't sleeping alone.

Wasting no more time, he crossed to the head of the bed and peeled back the covers, exposing the bottom sheet. Then he stripped out of his clothes and laid them in a neat pile on the low bureau near his hat.

When Sloan came out of the bathroom, once again wrapped in the terry robe, all the lights were out except for the lamp on the bedstand. Trey was already in bed waiting for her, the top sheet drawn up around his middle, pillows propping him in a reclining position. She ran an openly admiring gaze over his naked torso and those broad pectoral muscles that formed his flat breasts. The ache was there to feel them under her hands.

With slow fingers, Sloan began unknotting the sash around her waist and walked to the bed and the empty space that he'd left on the outside, the sheet folded back in silent invitation.

“I didn't expect to see you there. I thought men preferred sleeping on the outside.” It was amazing how careless and carefree she felt with him. But the intimacy felt easy and natural.

“Not in this bed, I don't.” His response was quick and definite.

“What's different about this bed?” she wondered.

“It's so big I could lose you in it. That isn't a risk I want to take.” There was so much written in his eyes that she almost grew dizzy reading all the sensual messages.

A little breathless, Sloan turned and slipped out of the robe, letting it fall to the floor in a pile within easy reach of the bed. She sat down on the edge of it and leaned over to switch off the lamp.

The darkness was total and instant, freezing her in place if only momentarily. Yet before Sloan could swing her legs into bed, a large pair of hands slid onto her waist, simultaneously lifting, twisting, and drawing her onto him.

Her outstretched hands encountered the solid wall of his chest. His flesh was hard and vital beneath her hands, making her conscious of the raw energy rippling through his muscles. Then his mouth sought and found her lips, covering them in a hungry kiss, but not for long.

Abandoning her lips, his mouth took a slow track to the curve of her neck and followed it to the hollow of her shoulder. The grip of his hands tightened, lifting her higher while his mouth continued its downward journey. One hand slipped forward to cup a breast and guide it to his mouth. Sharp pleasure spiraled through Sloan as his tongue and teeth licked and played with its rosy crest.

She curled her fingers into the springy thickness of his hair, cupping the back of his head and pressing him more tightly to her breast. Then he was moving, the moist inside of his mouth transferring its attention to her other breast.

Desire intensified, weakening her limbs. She tried to brace her knees against the mattress while leaning more of her weight on Trey. But that helped only for a short time; then she began sinking.

His arm steadied her a moment. Then he was rolling, flipping her onto her back. In the darkness, she felt the fan of his rough breathing before his mouth nuzzled her cheek. Then it lifted, and she sensed him looking at her.

“It's hell being apart from you,” he muttered thickly, “even for a few minutes.”

Her breath caught on the stark need in his voice. Then his mouth lowered onto hers and kissed her with drugging insistence. In the next moment, he was levering himself onto her. Sloan felt the stiffening muscle rising from his loins, hard and virile. She had an instant to marvel at the physical differences between a man and a woman—and how perfectly they fit together.

After that, there was no time for reasonable thought as she was caught up in a rush of sensation that engulfed them both. As in the previous times when they made love, she glimpsed this closeness, this raw demand, this wondrous urgency, without ever guessing it could always be that way.

Yet, there was no end to it. Because they could never get enough of it—just as they could never get enough of each other.

E
arly morning sunlight streamed through the motel room window, the heavy drapes being drawn back to let it fill the room. The long angle of its light reached all the way to the first double bed, the covers of which were undisturbed. Only the second bed had been slept in, and it had recently been vacated.

Laredo stood in front of the bathroom mirror, naked from the waist up save for a hand towel slung over his shoulder. Focusing his attention on the reflection in the mirror, he skewed his mouth to one side and watched while the razor stroked a path through the lather on his face.

Stroke after stroke, he scraped away his night's beard, pausing now and again to rinse the blade under the faucet, then returning to the task of exposing more of his face. The cheeks, the upper lip, the chin were shaved in order. He had only a few more strokes along his neck to finish when he heard a sharp, insistent rapping.

“Be right there!” he called and turned off the faucet. Using a corner of the towel, he wiped the stray bits of lather from his upper face and mouth as he exited the bathroom. Ignoring the door to the hallway, he walked to the connecting door to the adjoining bedroom.

A smile played across his mouth as he opened the door and leaned an arm against it while his gaze wandered warmly over Jessy's strongly attractive face.

“This is a welcome change,” he declared. “It isn't often a beautiful woman pays me a visit so early in the morning.”

She looked momentarily flustered and pleased by his remark. And he liked knowing that he could still unsettle that calm composure of hers even after all these years. He liked it even better when her glance darted past him into the room.

“Is Trey up already?” she asked.

“Couldn't say,” Laredo said blandly.

Jessy gave him a puzzled, uncertain look. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. For all I know he could be awake, but not here.” He swung the door open wider. “His bed hasn't been slept in.”

“You mean—He never came back last night?” she said as her gaze made its own confirmation with a quick sweep of the unrumpled bed.

Wise to the smallest nuance in her tone and expression, Laredo detected the note of concern. “I wouldn't worry too much about it,” he told her. “If Trey's in any trouble at all, it's probably the female kind.”

“The photographer he was with yesterday,” Jessy guessed, an acceptance settling into her expression, the kind that came from being a woman in an essentially male world, with all its occasional crudities. If she personally found it offensive that a man took a woman purely for his own sexual gratification, she had learned to keep it to herself.

“That would be my guess,” Laredo agreed. “Looks like you're ready to head out for breakfast.”

“You're not.” She touched a finger to the patch of lather on his neck.

“It'll only take me a couple minutes to finish up.”

“In that case, I'll make a quick call to the ranch and see how things are there.” Her glance again strayed to the unmade bed. “I
imagine Trey will show up sometime—to shower and change clothes.”

“He always does.” Laredo's tone was dry with amusement.

A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth. “I sound like a mother, don't I?”

“I kind'a like it,” Laredo said. “You don't often let yourself be female.”

Rising on her toes, she pressed a warm kiss on his mouth, all tender and loving, then drew back before Laredo could turn it into something more. “Go finish shaving,” she ordered. “I'm hungry.”

 

Uncowboy-like, Trey put his hat on last and snugged it down, then cast a glance about the motel room. Sloan had rolled out of bed the minute the alarm went off and headed straight into the bathroom, emerging a few minutes later fully dressed. With a couple of pillows propping him up, Trey had watched while she knelt beside the camera case and loaded her vest pockets with film and gear.

“Aren't you coming?” she had asked, managing to spare him an over-the-shoulder glance.

“I'll catch up with you later in the morning,” he told her rather than admit that pride wouldn't let him compete with a camera for her attention.

Satisfied that she had everything she might need, Sloan had crossed to the bed and leaned across to give him a warm, lingering kiss, then eluded his attempt to pull her onto the bed with him.

“I'd bring you some coffee, but I don't want to lose the light.” Then she had gone, leaving him alone.

Trey wasn't really sure how long he had lain there before he finally got up. He only knew he wasn't in the best of moods, and he wasn't sure who or what to blame for that.

In a weary gesture, he rubbed a hand over his mouth and cheek and felt the scrape of his beard growth. A shower, shave, and
change of clothes were in order. Then he could figure out the next step.

Though he was aware that time was passing, there was no hurry in his stride when he crossed to the door and opened it. As he stepped into the hall and paused to pull the door firmly shut, footsteps sounded behind him. Casting an idle glance in their direction, he saw a sleepy-eyed Kelly Ramsey. With her face strangely bare of all makeup and her blond hair straggling loose from her ponytail, it took a second for Trey to recognize her.

Kelly had no such difficulty as her expression took on a stricken look. “Trey.” His name slipped out, and her hand lifted to smooth her hair. Her mouth twitched with a self-conscious smile. “I guess you can tell I just got up,” she said, then went still for a split second before darting a sharp, quick look at the door to Sloan's room. A swirl of questions and suspicions was in her eyes when she shifted her gaze back to him. “Did you just get up, too?”

Her question was anything but innocent, and Trey knew it. “A little while ago,” he replied and let her think what she liked.

“We missed you at the street dance last night. I guess you were otherwise occupied.” Her smile was taunting.

He ignored her latter comment. “Had a good time last night, did you?”

“Of course.”

“Glad to hear it.” Trey nodded a little curtly. “See you around.”

He struck out down the hall, his strides lengthening to put distance between them. He figured that Kelly knew it wasn't his room, considering that the range telegraph usually worked as well in town as it did on the ranch, and most Triple C ranch hands knew which rooms the Calders occupied.

His pace never slowed until he reached the room he shared with Laredo. He unlocked the door and walked in. Laredo stood near the foot of his bed, buckling his belt. Sharp blue eyes skimmed Trey. “I guess I don't have to ask where you were last night,” he remarked idly.

“I guess you don't.” A raw and restless energy carried Trey past Laredo.

“Did you take her to breakfast already?” Laredo eyed him curiously.

“No. She headed off to the arena first thing to get some early morning pictures.” Trey swept off his hat and dropped it on the bed, then turned to the opened suitcase on the luggage rack.

“And you couldn't change her mind,” Laredo guessed. “That explains why you're here earlier than I thought you'd be.”

Trey tossed a clean pair of jeans on the bed, added a shirt, then paused in sudden decision. “I'm going to marry her.”

A soft, barely audible whistle came from Laredo. “Does she know that?”

“Not yet.” Trey rummaged around for a pair of socks and shorts.

After a short run of silence, Laredo asked, “Do you mind a piece of advice?”

It was rare that Laredo ever offered any, once claiming that Trey got enough of it from others and didn't need it from him. It was part of the reason Trey always felt easy in his company. It was like having an older brother or an uncle, someone who would listen without making judgments.

Still, Trey felt he should warn him. “You aren't going to talk me out of it.”

“I wouldn't try,” Laredo replied calmly. “But I would suggest that before you go rushing her off to the preacher, you take her to the Triple C. It's a big and empty stretch of land. Not at all the sort of place that appeals to women. Most have a hard time handling the loneliness and isolation of it. It seems to take a special breed of women to thrive on it.”

“You're thinking of Laura,” Trey said, remembering that his twin sister had grown up on the Triple C. It was her home and she loved it. But it also bored her.

“Actually, I was thinking of the stories I've heard about your father's marriage to Tara and how much she loathed living on the
ranch. I got the impression life was pretty miserable for both of them. And you can be sure neither of them thought when they got married it would end in a divorce.” After a small hesitation, Laredo moved his shoulders in a careless shrug. “Like I said, I'm not trying to talk you out of marrying your lady—just making sure you look at any problems square in the eye first.”

“I will,” Trey replied as a thread of unease ran through him.

 

A drifting of clouds marred the sharp blue of the midmorning sky while below a breeze rolled an empty paper cup across the infield. Most of its grass was flattened, trampled by the constant traffic of vehicles and pedestrians.

The high-pitched shouts and laughter of children at play caught Sloan's attention. Turning, she spotted a family next to a pickup camper. The parents, both in cowboy gear, were seated in lawn chairs, having coffee, while a pigtailed girl in cowboy hat and boots chased her little brother, swinging a loop over her head with the clear intention of roping him.

Sloan snapped a picture of the action even though she knew it wasn't one she would ever use. Mostly she took it because it resembled nothing she had ever known.

Turning away from the scene, she snapped on the lens cap and switched off the camera. The sun was too far up in the sky to provide the kind of angled light she wanted, signaling an end to her morning's work.

It was moments like this, when she was at loose ends, with nothing to do and no particular place to go, that Sloan disliked the most.
Keep busy,
she thought. The phrase had become her mantra.

Not for the first time, she found herself wishing that Trey had come along this morning. The early quiet of the grounds, the sparkling dew on the grass, the whisper of the breeze in the trees—she would have liked to share it all with him. Yet there was always a chance that he wouldn't have been impressed by any of it and his
lack of interest would have spoiled her own enjoyment. So she told herself that it was just as well he hadn't come with her.

Although Trey had said he would join her, she debated whether she should wait for him or head back to the motel on the off chance he might still be there. A second later the decision was taken out of her hands when she saw his tall, familiar shape coming toward her. Joy, all heady and light, swept through her with a kind of beauty that she had never experienced before.

“Perfect timing,” Sloan called and quickened her own steps to shorten the distance between them. “I just finished up a few minutes ago.”

Not a single word of greeting was offered. Trey let the moist heat of his kiss do all the talking, the driving insistence of it bending her backward over his circling arm. Her heartbeat lifted and quickened, stimulated by the earthy contact. Only the camera, hanging from the strap looped around her neck, kept her from being molded to his length.

Almost reluctantly he ended the kiss and lightly rubbed his mouth on her forehead, a disturbed heaviness to his breathing. “I never realized I could miss you so much in just a couple hours.”

“I missed you, too,” Sloan admitted, although until that moment she hadn't realized how true it was.

A horn honked somewhere nearby, and the sound acted as a reminder that they were in a public place. His encircling arms loosened their hold on her as he drew back, his hands settling on the points of her hips.

“Did you get the shots you wanted?” His velvety dark gaze made a slow journey over her face.

For a moment Sloan couldn't think what he was talking about. Then she remembered. “Maybe. Although I didn't have the conditions I hoped I might.”

“I guess Mother Nature doesn't always cooperate.” His mouth curved in understanding.

Her soft, answering laugh was dry with resignation. “Rarely. But that's what makes it so challenging and rewarding.”

“I'll have to take your word for it.” His smile became more pronounced; his gaze never left her face. She felt absorbed by it, as if nothing and no one else existed. It made her feel incredibly unique and special.

He tipped his head to one side. “So what's next on your agenda?”

“Nothing, really.”

“Good, because there's something I want to talk to you about,” he stated, something serious creeping into his tone.

“What's that?” She tensed up a little, not at all sure what to anticipate.

“When are you scheduled to fly out of here?”