Sleigh Bells in Valentine Valley (15 page)

To her surprise, he sat right down at her table.

Will grinned at him. “Hey, Tony, left the tavern early?”

“Stephen's got it under control.”

Will nodded, then slyly glanced at Kate. “I hear you couldn't stand living next door to my boy here.”

She swallowed a piece of cake and eyed Will. “Are you suggesting something?” she teased back. “I do work for the man, so it's obvious we have no problems.”

Will turned to Tony. “No problems at all?”

Tony shook his head, giving Kate a glance that skimmed over her and kept moving. She gave a little internal sigh of relief. She didn't want to be a topic of conversation that could get back to Ethan. Lyndsay looked between them, gave the smallest frown that made Kate hold her breath, then went back to eating, seemingly unconcerned.

Emily came out from behind the counter to take Olivia, beating out the widows who clustered around her. They took off the baby's coat, then oohed and aahed over Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on her tummy. Eventually, the older women departed for the evening, and Emily did the dance women do when holding babies, sashaying around the floor before showing Olivia the little collection of Santas on the coffee counter. Olivia, not quite seven months old, blinked drowsily.

Will saw where Kate was looking. “Em wants a baby bad.”

“Hopefully the adoption happens soon,” she answered.

“Do you want more kids some day?” Will suddenly asked.

Kate blinked at him in surprise, and to her regret, she glanced at Tony. “Well, I guess I haven't thought about it. You need a guy for that.”

“So you don't know if you want to get married again?”

She wondered if Will was going to continue the personal questions. It wasn't that she minded—if only Tony hadn't been there.

“I'd have to meet the right guy to get married again,” she said. “And then . . . yeah, I'd probably want another baby.” To her surprise, she blushed.

Lyndsay laughed and elbowed her. “Look at you.”

Kate elbowed her back.

“You two might as well be in school again,” Tony said, although he looked pleased about it.

Brooke came in with Monica, and Matt Sweet called, “Let's talk wedding plans!”

Adam pulled Brooke into his lap.

“I've got no wedding plans,” Monica said, going to sit near Travis.

“She can't even make up her mind about living together,” Travis said dryly.

“Hey, we've only been dating seven months. And you were gone for four of those.”

“Guilty as charged,” Travis said. “Hey, it takes a while to retire from the Secret Service.”

There were good-natured groans, and Travis, whose auburn hair was still cut in a military fashion, nodded his head almost regally.

“When the time is right, I'll think about letting you move in,” Monica teased, her eyes sly as she leaned into Travis.

“Good thing I'm patient,” he said gruffly.

“Well, I'm not,” Adam said, slamming a hand down on the table and making everyone jump. “Which is why we're getting married Christmas Eve.”

There were gasps of excitement and questions overlapping each other, leading Kate to realize that this was the first official announcement. Enjoying the merriment, she found herself noticing that Lyndsay was smiling, but there was a faint aura of sadness that disappeared so quickly that Kate questioned seeing it. But she remembered Tony saying that Kate wasn't happy. Did it hurt her to see others happy? Kate remembered feeling that way for a time after the divorce, when her pain had seemed magnified in the face of others' contentment. She hoped Lyndsay could eventually talk to her about it, but it could be a long time before their old trust was totally rebuilt.

“Christmas Eve,” Nate said, shaking his head. “Sorry you can't use the gazebo like Em and I did, but smart people get married in the summer.”

“Hey, we're more original than that, big brother,” Brooke said, smiling superiorly. “We're getting married in the riding arena.”

Josh was distracted enough from making faces at his baby to say to his sister, “I know you love your new place, but in the winter? Don't you want your guests to enjoy themselves?”

“We're going to rent those giant portable heaters,” Brooke said, “and put in one of those temporary dance floors. You dance enough, you'll stay warm.”

Kate watched the happy contentment of Brooke and Adam, who answered questions patiently and kept looking at each other with all the love and promise of the future shining in their eyes. And Kate felt . . . old. It had been a long time since she'd felt that excited about the future—or anything else that didn't involve Ethan. But she was only thirty-three years old. Did she want to live through her son for the rest of her life?

Tony was watching her again, his eyes inscrutable.
He
excited her. It had been a long time since a guy had been bold enough to pursue her, and . . . she liked it.

Not that she thought it was a good idea, of course.

The wedding conversation at last turned to Chris Sweet, Will's and Emily's quieter brother, and his fiancée, Heather Armstrong. Heather had come to town from San Francisco to be one of Emily's bridesmaids. Kate had heard that whole story from her mom last year, how Emily's wedding had been livened up with the revelation of a secret romance.

Chris and Heather simply looked at each other with amusement, and shook their heads.

“We may be engaged,” Heather said, blushing a redhead's bright blush, “but I'm still growing my business. No time to plan yet.”

“What does she do again?” Kate whispered to Lyndsay.

“She owns As You Like It Catering. She's in one of the old Victorians on Second Street. Her food's really good.”

For a while Brooke and the girls continued to talk color schemes and Western wedding decorations, while, as they had in middle school, the guys gravitated to the other side of the bakery, talking football, ranching, or hockey. Gradually the discussion merged again. Kate heard about Brooke's riding school, Adam helping to build houses for military vets, Monica's passion for the environment, even Tony's woodworking, which Ethan had occasionally mentioned to her. They all had hobbies or volunteer work to be excited about, and she realized that even now, researching a law case was all she was doing with her spare time.

“You have a weird look on your face,” Lyndsay said quietly.

Kate hesitated before saying, “I don't know. I'm not the oldest person here—”

“You're close.”

Kate grinned. “True. But I
feel
like the oldest person here, like my best years are behind me and but for the odd date here and there, all I do is work.”

“We have too much in common,” Lyndsay said with a sigh.

“But at least you do stuff to keep yourself refreshed, like your band. Even on sabbatical, the only things I'm focusing on are Ethan and my old client.”

“And your new job at Tony's,” Lyndsay pointed out, beginning to smile.

Kate shrugged and glanced at him, only to realize he'd been watching her. She and Lyndsay hadn't been whispering or hiding their conversation, but Kate still felt awkward.

“Oh, yes, the tavern is keeping me occupied,” she said, feeling herself blush. “And though technically that's work, I actually like talking to people. I feel more connected, and it's wonderful to catch up with people I haven't seen in years.”

Tony arched a brow and folded his arms over his chest, still watching her. She felt a flush of embarrassed warmth, remembering how she hadn't understood how he could enjoy a job that wasn't what she'd consider “a career.” But that wasn't what her dismay was really about.

“Maybe you're too serious,” Will said.

She jumped, having forgotten he was on her other side. “So we're
all
going to discuss my deficiencies?”

“Being serious isn't a deficiency,” Will said, “but you take it to extremes.”

“And you know me so well, Will Sweet?” she said, trying to be lighthearted.

“You did get awfully serious in college,” Lyndsay said reluctantly.

“Well, I
had
to be serious.” She could hear the defensiveness in her tone, and she wanted to wince. She kept waiting for Tony to say something, but he remained silent. “I had to have the best grades to get into law school.”

“Of course you did,” Lyndsay said quickly, “but maybe it got to be a habit. And you can unlearn habits.”

A habit? Working wasn't a habit, it was . . . all she would allow herself. She'd spent her childhood learning the importance of it. But . . . had she somehow begun to think she didn't deserve more?

“You should come out to the ranch,” Will said. “Get back on a horse, do some riding in the mountains.”

“Well, that's a nice invitation, but—”

“Just a suggestion, no pressure. Not a date or anything,” he said, chuckling as he looked at Tony.

There was an awkward pause.

Will groaned. “You guys are all so sensitive, tiptoeing around each other.”

“I don't think you can call offering my ex-wife a job ‘tiptoeing' around her,” Tony said dryly. “And Kate can do anything she'd like to do on her sabbatical.”

She couldn't look at him, because she knew what he wanted her to do. And it probably wasn't dating Will. She didn't want to date Will, but did she really want her next extracurricular activity to be sleeping with her ex-husband?

The evening was winding down when someone suggested a walk to work off all the dessert they'd eaten. The sky was pure black, stars scattered across like sequins on a dark Christmas ornament. The air was crisp and mountain fresh, her breath a fog in the lamplight on Main Street.

Kate told herself she was with friends again and should enjoy herself.

But she felt Tony behind her, and though he was a quiet guy, he was even quieter than normal. She felt his focus as if she'd had a target on her back. It was almost as if she could feel his gaze on her legs, her butt. When she'd been without her coat in the bakery, he'd glanced at her breasts more than once, until she'd felt that even the sweater had been restrictive.

And now, under the starry night, one by one the members of the group separated, heading toward their respective homes, calling cheerful good nights. She waved and smiled, but it was feeling more and more difficult to ignore Tony behind her, ignore what he wanted.

T
ony found himself eventually walking with just his sister and Kate. When Lyndsay turned down Mabel Street, waving good-bye, he continued to walk at Kate's side.

She eyed him. “This is Valentine Valley. You do know that I can walk home safely. And I didn't see you escorting your sister home.”

“That's because this isn't about protecting your delicate self. I'm alone tonight, you're alone tonight.” He kept walking beside her, hands in his pockets.

She inhaled swiftly but didn't say anything. He wondered if she was trying to think of all the reasons sleeping together was such a bad idea, like he was. And then, like the little devil on his shoulder, he reminded himself that they were adults, they both knew what they were getting into, no one had any notions that sex would lead to anything more. They'd slept together hundreds and hundreds of times.

Yet it was so risky, especially when their lives would be entwined forever regardless. But all he could think about was how long it had been since he'd touched her. Had her body changed? Had
she
changed? He thought she had, in many ways.

By unspoken agreement, they walked down her shadowy driveway, staying away from the lighted front porch. At the back door, she swung her purse off her shoulder, dug clumsily for the keys, then accidentally dumped them on the snowy stoop. He grabbed them first, unlocked her door, and swung it wide.

“I'm safely home,” she whispered, as if a crowd might overhear her. “Thanks for the escort.”

He leaned one arm against the doorway, knowing he should leave but unable to move.

“Are you waiting for a kiss good night?” she murmured. “Like we're at the end of a date?”

Moonlight flickered through the bare branches of trees, etching her face. “I know we're not dating.”

He dipped his head toward her, and she didn't back away. Her lips were chilly on the outside, so moist and warm on the inside. He tilted his head and took her deeper, heard a low sound from her, but it wasn't a protest.

She suddenly arched her head away. “Inside.”

They practically fell over the threshold in their eagerness. After shutting the door, he leaned her against a wall and laughed against her mouth. She wasn't laughing, she was throwing her gloves aside, unzipping his ski jacket, and putting her hands on his chest.

“You're so warm,” she murmured between kisses.

“Let's get you warm.”

“You mean you don't want my freezing hands on your naked flesh?”

“Something like that.”

They peeled clothes off, leaving them in a line from the back door to the master bedroom. He took her hand and hauled her toward the bathroom.

“Into the shower you go,” he ordered. “That'll warm us up.”

She kept stripping until the tantalizing lingerie was the only thing covering what he wanted, what he needed. Too slowly, she slithered out of them until she was completely naked, and he found he couldn't breathe. She pulled his shirt up over his head, and he suddenly remembered the tattoo.

She paused, and he winced as she took in the heart with the stake through it.

“It's not what you think. It was a joke about working nights and being a vampire. Will dared me to—”

To his relief, she kissed it, then she pulled his head down and kissed him. “Take off your jeans.”

When she bent over to start the water in the tub, he didn't think he was going to be capable of removing his jeans. He only wanted to unzip them so he could put his cold hands on her warm hips and guide himself deep inside her.

“Kate.” Her name came out as a croak.

She looked over her shoulder, and she knew him too well to misunderstand anything he was thinking. Her grin was wicked, and as she straightened up, her breasts jiggled, and his attention was directed there.

She rolled her eyes. “So easily distracted.” Stepping into the shower, she let the water sluice down her body, tumbling over her breasts, to meet at the center of her thighs. “I'm waiting.”

He'd never removed jeans so fast in his life. And then he was inside, closing the glass door, looking at the steam that had already begun to rise around her like mist at the shrine of a goddess. Her damp hair had turned dark and curly with the heat, and her eyes laughed at him.

He stood close enough so that he could feel her breasts brush his chest, while he put his hands on the water over her head and rubbed them together. The temperature was almost painful to his freezing hands, but he didn't care.

“Touch me,” she finally said.

When he cupped her breasts, it was like coming home. He lifted them each to his mouth and took turns pleasuring them, suckling, nibbling, drawing as much into his mouth as he could. He still remembered everything she liked. How could he ever forget, since they'd been each other's firsts, and done all their practicing and learning and exploring with each other?

When she took his penis in her hand, he inhaled on a groan. He had a last brain cell left to think. “Wait, wait, I don't have a condom. You shouldn't—”

“I'm on the pill.”

There was no sweeter sentence in the world. “But I wouldn't blame you if—”

“I know you, Tony.”

She stroked and teased and cupped him, and he kissed her with growing desperation, as the water rained down around them and splashed against their closed eyes. When he cupped between her thighs, she cried out. She was moist regardless of the water, moist with the need he shared. He stroked the way she liked best, until she was whimpering against his wet chest and clutching his arm as if she'd fall without him. He slid his fingers inside her and she came apart, shuddering in his arms with the force of her orgasm.

It was still the sweet feeling of fulfillment it had always been, knowing that this strong woman could be so vulnerable with him.

He turned her back against the shower wall and lifted her leg, pressing his hips to hers.

She moaned. “In here?”

“In here.” He had to bend to slide between her thighs, and with a curse, he simply picked her up so that her legs slid around his hips. She was lighter than he remembered—or he was too far gone to care about anything beyond being inside her.

And then he sank deep into her, the force of his thrust pinning her to the wall. The water splashed down his back, beaded across her upturned face. He could see the triumph there, the fulfillment, and he wanted to feel that way, too. He started to move then, and the moist heat of her was almost too much.

“God, this feels so good,” he said hoarsely against her cheek.

And then he kissed her, slanting his lips across hers, mating with her mouth like he mated with her body. He tried to draw it out, but the heat of the shower, the whimpers of pleasure she was making, the bliss of being inside her, all combined. He was trembling and desperate when at last he felt her convulse around him with another orgasm. At last he could release all the passion he'd once and forever feel for her. He groaned and gave her body everything.

K
ate couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so at peace, so lazy with satisfaction. Being held in Tony's strong arms was something she'd never imagined happening again, and it was difficult at first to not flash back on everything they'd shared, every emotion, from incredible joy to the depths of sorrow.

But she wasn't going to think of that, not now, not when she had him inside her, still pulsing with the echoes of his climax. He rubbed against her one more time and she gasped.

With a giggle, she whispered, “I think we're losing the hot water.”

He lifted his head, so dazed-looking that she wondered if he'd even noticed the drop in temperature. He didn't speak as she shut off the water, but he did manage to find the towels on a little shelf on the wall. And then he patted her dry with a tenderness that brought a lump to her throat, aroused an emotion she didn't want to name. She took the towel from him without meeting his eyes and wrapped it around herself.

“Thanks,” she said, stepping past him and out onto the bathroom floor.

He'd sensed the change in her mood, but her smile seemed to reassure him.

And then she saw that tattoo on his chest again.

He touched it self-consciously with his hand. “Yeah, I know. Some women like it, some don't.”

She felt a pang of
How many women have there been?
but she didn't dwell on it. It had been nine long years. She might have been his first, but she wouldn't be his last.

He stood there dripping on her bathroom rug, looking good enough that she could lick him like a giant piece of candy. He seemed more . . . rugged than he'd been as a young man, with leaner planes and harder angles.

But he was watching her now, looking a bit wary. “Should I get dressed?”

“When I have a comfortable bed, and it's not even eleven o'clock?”

His grin was the same, rakish and adorable all at the same time. He didn't bother wrapping a towel around himself, only dried off and hung it back up.

“That's a change,” she commented. “Towels where they should be.”

“I do have a son who needs to be guided.”

She knew he was teasing, but it was difficult not to counter, We
have a son
. Oh, she was overthinking everything now.

She let the towel drop, enjoying the way his gaze roamed her hungrily until she didn't think about anything but feeling him inside her again. She curled a finger to lure him, walking backward into her bedroom so she could watch him stalk toward her. He was still more than ready for her, so after she pulled the covers down, she forced him to sit when he would have tumbled her onto the sheets. She straddled his lap, then rubbed herself along his penis until he was gasping. Only then did she take him inside and sink down.

This time she controlled their pace, watching his face for the clues that hadn't changed for all these years. The way his eyes seemed hooded, the tightening of his mouth, the occasional grimace that was almost a smile of pleasure and pain mixed together. She waited for him to beg for an end, but she ended up being the one who reveled in his mouth at her breasts, and at last increased her rhythm and put an end to it.

With a groan, she slid off his lap and they both sank back on the bed. She meant to stretch out on her back, but she found herself on her side, watching him. Both of them had flushed, warm skin from the shower, and she didn't think she'd ever feel cold again. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his expression was peaceful and relaxed, but his erection still looked ready for action.

She laughed softly.

He opened his eyes and glanced to the side at her. “What?”

She gestured with her chin down his body. “You're still ready for another go-around?”

“It's been a long time,” he said with a deep sigh.

“How long?”

He glanced again, sharper this time. “How personal are we getting?”

“I don't think it's any more personal than what we just did. And I'm not about to be utterly silent.”

“Really?” he said, affecting sadness.

She hit his arm and he laughed.

“No, really,” she insisted, coming up on her elbow. “If I tell you how long it's been, you'll have to tell me.”

His gaze dropped to her breasts. “Fair enough. Let's hear it.”

“Okay, it's been two years.”

He grimaced. “That's a long time.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

“I'm surprised you didn't come with just a kiss.” And he pulled her against his side.

She laughed, but she was almost serious as she said, “So this cuddling isn't exactly sex. Is it allowed?”

“We're in your bedroom, post-sex, and we're alone. Anything counts.”

“I think we need some ground rules.”

He chuckled. “You're such a lawyer.”

“I just want us each to know what to expect. But go ahead, first tell me how long it's been for you.”

“Seven months.”

“Well, in guy time that's at least five years.”

Against her cheek, she felt the chuckle reverberate through his chest, and she appreciated when he reached to pull the blankets up to their waists.

“Maybe not five years, but it's been a long time,” he said. “Good thing you came almost as fast as me.”

She smiled. “Ground rules now?”

He reached to settle his hand on her breast. “I didn't come into this with a plan. And this feels too good to overthink it.”

“I don't want to overthink it either, trust me. But we should know what to expect. This is just sex between us, right?”

He studied her. “Yeah. Are you okay with that?”

She looked down where his hand rested on her breast, then cupped it there. “Yes. I wouldn't have done this otherwise. But we're not dating or making plans, right? We're not expecting anything of each other. We'll take each day as it comes.”

He rolled onto his side, taking her into his arms and speaking between kisses. “And comes . . . and comes . . . and comes.”

At last he got up to get dressed, and she watched him with pleasure she didn't second-guess. He wouldn't let her get out of bed, so she simply enjoyed the show. At last he stood above her in his zippered coat and jeans, winter hat dangling from his fingertips.

He bent down to kiss her again. “Good night. I don't think you work tomorrow, so whenever I see you, I'll see you.”

“Oh, you'll see me tomorrow. I'm picking up Ethan for a day in Glenwood Springs. It's been years since I've been to the hot springs. He doesn't have a lot of his stuff here, so it will just be easier for him to go home.”

“Then tomorrow it is.”

As she watched him walk out of her bedroom and heard the back door open and close, she stared at the ceiling and wondered what the hell had gotten into her.

Tony had gotten into her, and the thought of sex after two years and . . . it had been worth it.