Second Chance Cowboy (20 page)

“
Four years?”

“
A lot has changed in the
last four years.”

“
Changed? How have things
changed? Please don’t tell me that you and Leslie are having an
affair?”

“
Leslie and I are not
having an affair. I promise.”

Thunder cracked the sky and she
jumped. He noticed her shivering limbs.

“
Let’s go inside,” he
urged. She refused.

“
No, Chance. I have
something to tell you. I can’t wait another second.”

“
Okay.” The rain came down
hard and he attempted to wipe it from his eyes. It was
useless.

“
Do you have reason to
believe that I’ve been having an affair? Could it be
possible?”

He hesitated. “An affair? With
whom?”

The words were barely out when
lightning struck a nearby tree. Chance pulled her close and led her
toward the house. It wouldn’t do them any good to die before they
worked things out.

Inside, he lifted her into his arms
and carried her upstairs into the master bedroom. “Poor baby,” he
whispered the sweet words into her ear. “We’ve got to get these
clothes off.” He proceeded to pull her clinging shirt over her
head. He unsnapped the soaking bra and unzipped her shorts. They
slid right off her legs. She stepped out of the puddle of soggy
clothes and stood there in only her panties. She looked like a
drowned nymph.

“
I’ll be right back,” he
said, heading into the adjoining bathroom.

* * * *

Carly listened. The water turned on in
the shower. A few minutes seemed to pass and he returned, naked and
gloriously handsome. She couldn’t help herself. She swept her
hungry gaze along broad shoulders, toned abs and long
legs.

She steadied her attention on his
plum-colored erection peeking from the black patch of crisp, curly
hair. She stared, amazed. It tripled in length.

“
Naughty girl.” He covered
the distance between them. Her arms crossed, she attempted to
control the shivering. “We can’t think of anything else until you
are warm.”

When he lifted her, she molded against
his warmth, cradling into his muscular, secure frame. Her
temperature went up and a dewy heat throbbed at the apex of her
thighs. She wanted nothing more than to touch him, to feel him, but
he wouldn’t have it.

He set her easily into the steamy
spray of water. “Mmm, feels good,” she said in a throaty tone,
enjoying the feel of the water falling over her chilled
skin.

When he joined her, she slowly turned
to look at him, her eyes glazed with sentiment.

“
Better?” His breath swept
across her cheek.

“
Not quite.” She wasn’t
ready for the truth. What she needed was Chance to hold her, to
show her his love. “But right now, I don’t want to talk. I want to
feel.” She reached between their bodies and circled his erection
with her fingers. He moaned and she smiled. “Feels good, doesn’t
it?”

“
Better than good. A pure
slice of heaven,” he mumbled.

She gently pushed him a step back and
switched places with him so that his back was positioned toward the
water. She dropped to her knees at his feet, and with one hand
still clutching his cock, she guided him into her mouth.

There was something insanely erotic in
having her man in her mouth while watching waves of pleasure sweep
across his face. She wanted to please him. She wanted him to feel
amazing.

She slid her tongue down the pulsing
vein along his entire length, then swirled her tongue around the
head, before taking him deep, deeper. She suckled and licked until
he moaned, his fingers buried in her drenched, tangled hair, gently
tugging her. He moved himself in and out.

Ecstasy rushed through her.

“
I...can’t...wait...any...longer.” Each word came on an exhale
of breath. “Now, Carly.” He tucked his hands underneath her arms
and lifted her.

Carly wrapped her legs around his
waist as he pressed her against the tiled wall. The ceramic cooled
her heated skin.

Her senses heightened and his touch
seeped into her soul. “Chance.”

“
I’m here, baby. I’m here,”
he whispered in her ear, positioning himself against the entrance
of her moist heat, and drove himself deep inside of her.

He filled her with his strength. She
dug her fingers into his back, clinging to him, riding him, moaning
in pleasure. He suckled her breasts, teasing her nipples between
his teeth. He cupped her buttocks so he could drive harder and
faster and she held on in bliss.

He penetrated her deeply, filling
every part of her dripping passage with his steely
maleness.

With each thrust, climax drew closer.
He buried his hand between their bodies and found her clit with the
tip of a finger. One flick, she moaned. Two flicks, she stiffened.
Three flicks of his finger across the most sensitive part of her
and she flew on a cloud of complete, mind-blowing
orgasm.

Chance buried himself deeper and
emptied his seed into her body.

Chapter
Nineteen

SEX IN THE bathroom was amazing, but
once hadn’t been enough. After repositioning their bodies, with
Chance sitting on the edge of the tub with her straddling him, they
made love slowly. After what they shared in the shower, her body
ached, blissfully so. It had taken all their energy to climb out
and drag their bodies into the bedroom to drop onto the
bed.

Carly lay next to Chance with her head
tucked against his shoulder. His fingers were buried in her damp
hair.

A dark cloud loomed over
them.

Carly knew it was time to resume their
discussion. She’d delayed the inevitable long enough.

She played with the small patch of
hair on his chest, gently pulling the springy hair. “Chance, I wish
we could go on like we have. I know it’s time I’ve heard what
you’ve tried to protect me from.”

“
Yeah.” The word rumbled in
his chest.

“
But first I have to tell
you something.” She lifted herself up on elbow so she could look at
him. She told him all about Kincaid’s visit. She’d expected his
explosion, but it never came. Her biggest question was to come.
“Chance, remember what I asked you earlier?”

He swept her hair back from her cheek.
He started to say something, but the phone rang, interrupting the
moment like the piercing wail of a tornado alarm.

His eyes met hers.

“
Go ahead, Chance. Answer
it,” she said.

He grabbed his cell and spoke
urgently. “Yes. I’ll meet you at your office. I’ll see you then.”
When he hung up, she noticed the change in him. His jaw tensed and
his eyes were dark. He looked everywhere, but directly at
her.

“
Chance, are you okay?” Her
curiosity bubbled over.

He shot her a quick glance and got up
from bed. “That was Dan Steele. He needs to speak with me.” He slid
on a pair of jeans and a solid black T-shirt that clung to his
every muscle like a second skin. Any other time she’d be mesmerized
by his good looks, but now instinct told her she should be
concerned.

Apprehension washed through her. “Dan
Steele? Isn’t he the PI you hired several years back?” Suddenly
feeling exposed, she pulled the sheet up to cover her
nudity.

“
Yeah, that’s him. I hired
him regarding business with the ranch.” He ran a hand through his
hair, and stopped at the end of the bed. “Don’t worry. I’ll only be
a short time and we’ll talk.”

Her heart sank, yet she knew Chance
wouldn’t leave her unless important business called. Still, she
wished he’d stayed.

She dropped back onto the pillows when
he left, enveloped in the silence. The events of the day rushed
through her mind as she tried to make since of the
chaos.

After her unexpected meeting with
Martin Kincaid yesterday, painful questions tormented her and the
uncertainty suffocated her. She came back to the Swift Wind,
grateful for the first time to find Chance working until late. She
couldn’t face him, not with the doubt rolling around in her
head.

Thankfully, Dr. Maxwell saw her
today.

Doc Maxwell didn’t ask many questions.
She had requested, with great vagueness, his help in narrowing down
a due date for her baby. She didn’t believe for a second that
Kincaid’s story held truth, or that a slightest possibility
remained that the child she carried was not Chance’s. She loved her
husband and had no recollection of having an affair.

Absurd.

Kincaid was a snake. He used her to
get back at Chance. She still couldn’t deny it opened up a pool of
suspicion.

She knew she carried Chance’s baby,
knew it to the center of her bones, but she also knew something
wasn’t right. She needed her memory back. She needed to know what
Chance was keeping from her.

Thanks to modern technology, Doc
Maxwell performed an ultrasound and gave her an idea when she’d
conceived. The day she got pregnant was within a day or two of her
accident.

She couldn’t have conceived the week
after the incident. She and Chance hadn’t been intimate. Conception
would have happened prior.

Her memories were disorganized and
blurred. Carly’s head ached in confusion. She pressed her fingers
into her temples and applied firm pressure. Frizzled lines erupted
behind her closed lids. When they faded, she opened her
eyes.

How could she have forgotten most of
the last four years? Not every memory was missing. She knew some
things, she was certain.

What were the things her mind didn’t
want to remember?

She got up from the bed, pulled on a
pair of sweats and shirt, and headed downstairs. She started toward
the kitchen and the light filtering into the hallway from Chance’s
office pulled her toward the open doorway. She stopped at the
entryway and peered in. Nothing seemed amiss.

Starting to switch off the light,
something caught her attention.

Chance had forgotten his
cellphone.

She picked it up, flipped it open, and
read the screen.
One missed call. One new voicemail.
The
name displayed across the front made her grow cold.

The missed call came from Leslie
Bakerfield.

She knew she shouldn’t be jealous.
However, she wasn’t an idiot either. After seeing the other woman
kissing her husband, she intended to fire her from the McAllister
and felt certain that Chance would let her go from the Swift
Wind.

Couldn’t Miss Bakerfield find her own
man and leave the married ones alone?

She had the right mind to call her and
tell her to keep her claws out of her husband.

Why did she call anyway?

Kissing him wasn’t enough and now she
had to lure him in over the telephone? If she thought for a minute
Carly was the type to sit back and allow this to happen, the other
woman had lost all grip of reality.

She pressed the listen
button--

“
I’m calling to apologize,
Chance. I hope you worked it out with Carly. I’m not a home
wrecker. Fact is, you two are no longer married, but it seems
that’s where you’re heading. If Carly gets her memory back and
decides she still can’t stand the ground you walk on, you know
where I’ll be.”

The phone went dead. Carly’s heart
went still.

Chapter
Twenty

CHANCE BLEW INTO the parking lot in
front of Steele’s office in downtown San Antonio. He killed the
engine, but didn’t make a move to get out. He shouldn’t have come.
Guilt ate at him from the moment he walked out of the bedroom
leaving Carly lying in their bed. Her blue eyes had drilled through
him. She needed answers.

Carly deserved the answers. Every time
he started to tell her the truth, something stopped him.

He couldn’t go back to the way things
were before Carly lost her memory. He couldn’t bear to lose her,
not again. Not when he loved her and she carried their unborn
child.

He slid out of the driver’s side and
went through the door into Steele’s office. The black-haired man
sat behind his desk, his booted feet relaxed on the corner. A pile
of files reached a foot high and Steel seemed to disappear behind
the clutter.

Chance shut the door and said gruffly,
“You said you needed to see me right away. What does this have to
do with Carly?”

Steele tossed a thick file across the
desk at Chance. He sat and opened the folder. What the
hell?

Chance’s eyes were fixated on the
pictures. They were dark and obviously taken with a night-vision
camera. Two fuzzy figures were barely visible, but his gut instinct
told him who the occupants of the photo were.

“
The shot was difficult. It
was dark and raining sheets. Damn lightning kept flashing, causing
the pictures to come out distorted,” Steele explained.

“
You said Kincaid met Carly
at the McAllister?” Chance sounded calm, belying the fact that his
insides turned to granite.