The Marriage Pact (Hqn) (23 page)

And that little cry, and the way she tightened around him, would be his undoing. He’d drive deep, unable to hold back the primal response of his body or the hoarse shout she’d wrung from him, before he finally collapsed beside her, satisfied and exhausted.

Oh, yeah. He’d been satisfied, all right, down to the very core of his being—except for his awareness of the condom. It wasn’t that the thing lessened his pleasure; these days, prophylactics were thinner than skin and engineered to do the job. No, it was the
efficiency
of space-age protection that bothered Tripp.

Why? Because for the first time in his life, he
wanted
to make a baby—with Hadleigh.

Fat chance of that, Cowboy,
he told himself, as he brushed down the mare he’d bought at the auction, along with the two geldings, the chestnut and his favorite, the paint called Apache.

“What’s her name?” Hadleigh’s question startled him. Turned out she was standing just on the other side of the door to the buckskin’s stall, smiling as she admired the mare.

Tripp, oddly distracted, mused for a moment or two. “I guess I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “Nobody mentioned a name, and there was nothing on the bill of sale, either.”

Come to think of it, the same was true of the chestnut. He’d had a formal introduction to Apache, but the mare and the other gelding could have been called just about anything.

Hadleigh made a face, a cross between a wince and a grin. “Men,” she said. “Animals need
names,
Tripp—just like people do. It gives them...well, an
identity,
so they can feel as though they belong.”

Tripp ventured a grin, thinking he’d love this woman three week beyond forever. Why had it taken him so damn long to realize it?

“If that’s so,” he drawled, setting the grooming brush aside, “then I guess you’d better decide what we’re going to call this little buckskin.” He frowned thoughtfully. “And the chestnut could use a handle, too, if you’re feeling creative.”

Hadleigh smiled. “Of
course
I feel creative,” she said. “I’m an artist. I design quilts for a living.”

Tripp stood just on the other side of the stall door from Hadleigh, so close he could have kissed her. “Okay.” He capitulated affably, although his voice came out sounding scratchy, because he was thinking about the way she’d moaned and called his name when she’d first started to climax. He’d have liked to carry her straight into the house to his bed—or, better yet, have her right there in the breezeway, standing up. Or on the pile of fresh, wood-scented shavings he’d had delivered a few days before. He had to pause, clear his throat—and his head, which proved to be a little more difficult. “Have at it.”

Hadleigh looked past Tripp to the buckskin mare, evidently pondering the possibilities. After a moment or so, her face lit up. “Sugarplum,” she said, clearly pleased with the choice.

Tripp sighed, even as he grinned at Hadleigh’s expression. “Can’t do it,” he said with cheerful regret.

“Why not?”

“Because no self-respecting Wyoming cowboy is going to walk out into the pasture on a summer morning and yell, ‘Hey, Sugarplum,’ that’s why.”

Hadleigh looked benignly exasperated. “That’s silly.”

“Maybe so,” Tripp replied with a shrug, “but that’s the way of it. I call a horse by that sissy-assed name, and I’ll be laughed out of the county.”

“Fine,” Hadleigh said, hands on her hips. “
You
name her, then. Something suitably macho, like ‘Killer’ or ‘Spike’—and never mind that she’s a girl.”

Tripp chuckled. “She’s your horse,” he said. “You can call her whatever you want.”

“Except Sugarplum,” Hadleigh retorted.

“Except Sugarplum,” Tripp confirmed.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake.”

“The chores are done,” Tripp said. “Let’s go inside and have some breakfast. That’ll give you time to think up a name we can both live with.”

The realization struck Hadleigh visibly, if belatedly. “Did you say she’s
my
horse?”

Tripp nodded. “That’s what I said.”

“You bought this horse for me?”

“Let’s just say I could picture you riding her, right from the beginning. Giving her to you was...an impulse.”

“Fairy Dust,” Hadleigh almost crowed. It took Tripp a second or two to register the awful truth—impossible as it seemed, Hadleigh had just come up with an even worse name for the critter than Sugarplum.

“Ah, no,” he said.

“Tinkerbell?” She was ribbing him now; he knew that by the twinkle in those amber-gold eyes.

“Oh, come on,” Tripp protested, opening the stall door and stepping out to join Hadleigh in the breezeway.

Half an hour later, in the messed-up ranch house kitchen, over bacon and scrambled eggs, they finally settled on a name for the mare. Sunset.

“Because she’s golden,” Hadleigh had said, beaming. “Like the first evening light on a summer day.”

“Sunset it is,” Tripp had agreed.
I love you, Hadleigh Stevens. I want to wake up beside you every morning of my life, and go to sleep next to you every night. I want to make a baby with you. Hell, I want to make a
dozen
babies with you.

Of course he couldn’t say any of those things—not yet, anyway.

“How long since you’ve been in the saddle?” he asked instead, when they’d cleared the table and rinsed their plates and utensils and coffee mugs under the kitchen faucet, a combined effort that involved some hip and elbow bumping. The new dishwasher was still in its box.

“It’s been a while,” Hadleigh said. An impish grin curled the corners of her mouth and made her eyes sparkle. “
Or
we could drive into town and pick up a fresh supply of condoms.”

Tripp laughed, then made a show of looking at the watch he wasn’t wearing. Since the advent of smartphones, he rarely bothered to buckle on the only one he owned, a college graduation gift from Jim. “The crews will be here any minute,” he said, turning her toward the door and giving her curvaceous backside a little swat. Then, carefully, with the condom suggestion lingering in his brain, he added, “You’re using some kind of birth control, right? Taking the pill?”

“Why would I do that?” Hadleigh asked, looking back at him over her shoulder and nearly tripping over one of the dogs as Ridley and Muggles squeezed past them, zipping out onto the side porch. “I’m not sleeping with anybody.”

It was, of course, good news, though Tripp had no illusions that one night of over-the-top lovemaking indicated immediate or lifelong monogamy.

“Well,” Hadleigh clarified, stepping out onto the side porch, “not with anybody besides you, anyhow.”

Tripp took her hand, his grip a little tenuous at first, but when she didn’t pull away, he gave her fingers a light squeeze. “That’s good,” he said.
Let’s keep it that way.

The dogs frolicked on either side of the couple as they walked toward the barn, eager for an outing. With that distinctive canine attitude they probably didn’t care about the destination
or
the process, provided they got to go along.

The sun was barely up, spilling pinkish-apricot light over the craggy peaks of the mountains, and the air, though chilly, was pure in the way only country air can be. The sky, still a dark lavender, eased toward that heartbreaking shade of pale blue Tripp would always associate with Wyoming.

“Bex is throwing a party on Saturday night,” Hadleigh announced, and then looked away, evidently overtaken by shyness. Tripp saw her exquisite throat move as she swallowed.

“Yeah,” he said, wanting to help her over this awkward moment. “I know.”

Hadleigh stopped as they reached the entrance to the barn and looked up at him. “She invited you?”

“Yep,” Tripp acknowledged. “Is that a problem?”

Hadleigh pondered the question. “No,” she said. “It’s just that Bex didn’t mention it.”

Tripp grinned, interlaced his fingers with hers. “In other words, she didn’t warn you that I might be there?” he prompted.

Hadleigh hesitated, biting her lower lip.

“Could be,” Tripp suggested gently, “that she was afraid you wouldn’t show up, if you knew you’d probably run into me.”

“I wouldn’t miss this party for
any
reason,” Hadleigh insisted with a touch of indignation. “Bex has accomplished something incredible, turning one little fitness club into a
national
franchise operation. That’s worth celebrating. What bothers me is...well, I’m feeling a bit
ambushed.
”

Tripp raised her hand to his mouth, ran his lips lightly over the backs of her knuckles and enjoyed the shiver of electricity that zipped through Hadleigh and then arced over to sizzle in his flesh, as well. “If you’d rather I didn’t go to Bex’s party,” he told her, “I’ll stay away.”

“No,” Hadleigh immediately protested, her eyes troubled. “Don’t skip the party, please.”

Tripp grinned again. “So it’s a date?” he asked, and though she couldn’t have known it, he held his breath while he waited for her answer. “We’ll go together?”

Hadleigh’s laugh was a bright, lovely sound. “
That
was slick,” she said.

Tripp simply waited, watching her face, feeling much like he had the day he’d made his first solo flight—as though he’d sprouted wings of his own, as though he owned the sky. The sensation was so intense that the backs of his eyes scalded and his throat tightened.

Good thing it was Hadleigh’s turn to speak, because Tripp wasn’t sure he could.

“Okay,” she finally conceded. “Okay, we’ll do it.” She blushed. “I mean, we’ll go to the party together.” Another pause, another hard swallow that made Tripp want to kiss the pulsing hollow in her throat. “This time, it’ll be a real date.”

Tripp only nodded.

An hour later, when they’d finished the barn chores and he’d saddled both Apache and Sunset, Tripp and Hadleigh led their horses out into the late September morning. By then, they’d agreed to name the chestnut gelding “Skit,” which was short for skitter, since the critter was so fidgety.

Hadleigh gamely stuck one foot into the stirrup, gripped the saddle horn and hauled herself up onto Sunset’s back, and while the effort was awkward, and there were a couple of brief hitches along the way, Tripp knew he’d been right to stand back and let her do this on her own.

All he did was hold the reins—Hadleigh was an independent woman, after all, and she had her pride. He loved her for those qualities, among many others, although he had no doubt they’d lead the two of them into some head-butting matches in the years ahead.

“I guess I’m a little rusty,” she confessed once she was settled squarely in the saddle, looking down at Tripp.

“You’re doing just fine,” he told her, separating the reins, passing the first one beneath Sunset’s neck for Hadleigh to take, then handing up the second.

She immediately looped both of them around her left hand.

Tripp, about to turn away and swing up onto Apache, paused to tug the reins free of Hadleigh’s white-knuckled and slightly sweaty grasp. “One in each palm,” he said easily and, he hoped, diplomatically. Respecting Hadleigh’s dignity was important, but so was her safety. “Hold them firmly but loosely—and
never
wrap them around your hands. If you got thrown for any reason, and you were all tangled up in the reins, you’d be dragged.”

Hadleigh nodded and held the leather straps correctly. “Like this?”

“Like that,” Tripp replied. “You want a firm grip, for sure, but an easy one, too. Horses are mighty perceptive, and they pick up on even the subtlest signals from anybody riding or handling them. If you’re spooked,
they’ll
be spooked. If you’re in control, they’ll know it right away, and most of them will respect that.”

“Most of them?” Hadleigh echoed, a bit nervously, once Tripp was in the saddle. Apache, a born Pegasus, was sidestepping a little in his eagerness to fly.

Tripp grinned over at Hadleigh, leaned to pat Apache’s neck in a way that conveyed his message.
Not today, boy.

“Sunset there is real gentle,” he reassured Hadleigh. “I wouldn’t have let you get within a city block of her if I thought otherwise.”

For a fraction of a moment, she looked puzzled by this last statement, and Tripp wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was: that, as a woman, she’d been on her own from the get-go. As a little girl, she’d had her parents, of course, and then, after the accident, her grandmother and Will had definitely been there for her. It went without saying that Melody Nolan and Bex Stuart were true friends with Hadleigh’s best interests at heart.

But for Hadleigh, it wasn’t enough.

Tripp had an old-fashioned streak, and he would have been the first to admit it, but he wasn’t so behind the times that he thought a woman needed a man to be whole and happy—or vice versa, for that matter. What he
did
believe was that, for some people, life wasn’t quite complete without a partner, someone to laugh with, to console and be consoled by, someone who didn’t necessarily agree and wasn’t afraid to argue a point, but still treated the other person’s ideas with respect.

Without respect, love wouldn’t last, and trust was the other vital component.

Tripp was fairly certain Hadleigh respected him, even loved him. But did she
trust
him?

A little, he supposed; otherwise, she wouldn’t have let him make love to her, wouldn’t have responded so fully and so freely.

Wouldn’t have made love to
him,
as she most certainly had
.

Tripp had had sex with plenty of women, but he knew now that he’d never
made love
with any of them—until Hadleigh.

The thing was, “a little” trust wouldn’t, to use one of Jim’s favorite phrases, cut the mustard—not this time. The stakes were too high.

And the insights didn’t stop there. In previous sexual encounters, even during his brief and tempestuous marriage, Tripp realized, he’d thought mostly in terms of
tonight
or even just
for the moment.

With Hadleigh, though, he was thinking in terms of
forever.