Cowboy Redeemed (13 page)

She didn’t know how it happened but Ainsley found herself sitting. She smoothed the offer against the table, staring at it with disbelief.

Clay had
lied
to her.

He’d told her whatever was between them had nothing to do with the ranch. Had said he fixed the porch because he didn’t want her to get hurt. That he’d rode with her each day because … oh god.

Her stomach churned.

Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.

She gulped for air as her heart shattered into a million pieces.

He hadn’t wanted to teach her about ranching. He’d been scoping out the place. Something she wouldn’t have allowed him to do if they hadn’t…

She slammed her fist against the table hard enough to shoot pain to her elbow.

She knew it!

One swipe and the sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers, and her water glass went flying, crashing to the floor.

All the rides. All the questions.

She’d ignored her instincts. She’d trusted—

Ainsley’s tears burst forth with lung-seizing force. She buried her face in her hands. Her sobs were muffled by her palms, but ringing through loud and clear in her heart.

The things they’d done. He’d made her beg. He’d made her scream. Jesus Christ, she’d gone to her knees for him, allowed him total access to her body. She’d given him everything she had.

And he’d used her for his own advantage. The story of her life.

Of course he’d wanted to fuck her. Fuck her out of her land, her home. He’d done his job well, the whole time hiding his real intent. He might’ve even known who she was all along, his determination to get her name that first night at the bar just another ploy to throw her off.

She couldn’t deny the document in front of her. Or where it had come from.

His nervousness the first time she’d offered to take his bag made sense now. He’d quickly moved it to his truck, so as not to show his hand too soon. He hadn’t seduced her yet. Hadn’t had time to soften her up. She had no doubt he carried the document that night.

Seconds, minutes, hours later, her tears dried up.

Hurt and anger took their place. With no idea what to do next, she sat at the kitchen table and tried to breathe in a room suddenly devoid of oxygen.

The phone rang. On autopilot, she rose to answer. Ainsley cleared the lump in her throat. “Hello?”

“Ms. Russell?”

“Yes?”

“This is Luke Meyer at Heritage National.”

“Yes, Mr. Meyer. Of course.” Ainsley tried to add some enthusiasm, but her tone fell short. “Do you have news for me?”

His sigh said it all. “I’m sorry, Ms. Russell. The bank won’t be able to approve your loan.”

Ainsley didn’t hear what came next. Fresh tears sprung as she did the math in her head. If she sold what was left of the herd, she might make enough to pay the mortgage for another month or two. A band-aid for a sinking ship. She was truly out of options.

Well, not exactly. Her gaze found the papers on the table.

Mr. Meyer was still talking when she mumbled a “thank you” and hung up.

Ainsley found a pen and slid back onto the chair. She stared at the words in front of her without reading a single one.

Unbelievable pain split her chest.

She’d gotten it all wrong. She loved living in the old ranch house, but never more than in the last weeks. It wasn’t the land that gave her roots. It wasn’t the ranch that gave her a sense of home.

It was Clay. Without him, the rest of it didn’t matter. The reality of it kicked her in the teeth.

She loved a man she couldn’t trust.

Her body cold and numb, she flipped to the last page. The empty line next to Gavin’s mocked her.

She’d done all she could do and it hadn’t been enough. She was tired of fighting. She’d take the money and find a quiet place to lick her wounds. She’d find a job. Rent a decent apartment. Forget she’d had a familial tie to this place, however precarious. And no matter how long it took—days, months, years … a lifetime—she’d forget she loved Clayton Mathis.

Utterly defeated, Ainsley added her name next to Gavin’s in bold, black strokes.

Chapter Fourteen

Ainsley’s car wasn’t in the driveway when Clay pulled up. A frown tugged at his lips as he noticed the side door was wide open.

Strange. Ainsley always locked her doors. Called it her
city-girl
habit. If she was home, where the hell was her car? If she wasn’t home…

He threw the door open and bailed, leaving the truck running as he headed toward the house.

“Ainsley?” Clay stepped into the kitchen, every muscle in his body on high alert.

Laundry was piled on the floor. He stepped over the mess only to discover another. Shattered glass, broken sugar bowl mixed with its former contents, undamaged shaker—salt or pepper, he didn’t know.

“Ainsley?” he called out, louder now. Fear paralyzed him as he tried to come up with an explanation for the mess. Was she hurt? Had someone broken in? Crime was all but nonexistent in these parts, but that didn’t stop the dire scenarios from playing out in his head.

Then he saw it.

His duffle bag. His
empty
duffle bag.

His gaze landed on the table. Clay didn’t need confirmation to know the document he’d kept in said bag was the one sitting underneath the pen.

He let out a frustrated yell. He was so close. The solution to all their problems sat on the front seat of his truck—a way to expand Shadow Maverick and give Ainsley what she needed.

Where was she? When he thought about what she must be thinking, his stomach churned. She probably thought he was no better than the people who’d used and discarded her in the past.

He
was
better, damn it. And he wanted to spend the rest of his life proving it to her. He pressed the heels of his palms against his burning eyes.

First, he had to find her.

Clay snatched up the papers, sending the pen to join the rest of the mess. He should burn the damn thing to ash. The stupid contract had caused him enough trouble.

He flipped to the back. His heart stopped.

No. She didn’t. No.

“Ainsley!”

The fear that had immobilized him moments ago got his boots moving again. He raced up the stairs and into the bedroom, pausing only when he reached the closet door. What would he do if her things were gone? How would he find her? He wouldn’t even know where to start.

He flung open the door. Shelves and racks of clothes greeted him. Relief weakened his knees. Followed by anger so profound, he wanted to put his fist through the wall.

She’d done it. She’d signed away her ranch.

What did she think she was going to do now? Leave this place? Toss him aside?

To hell with that.

He wasn’t going anywhere. And if he had anything to say about it, neither was she.

***

Clay was sitting on th
e steps of her front porch looking as lost as she felt.

Ainsley cut the engine and left the keys dangling from the ignition. She’d made it twenty miles outside of town before she remembered she had nowhere to go. No one to call. No one who cared what happened to her. She never had, but she hadn’t given it much thought before. Her life was how it was, and she’d made the best of it. It was all she’d known.

Until the night Clayton Mathis had demanded her name.

She wondered now what would’ve happened if he’d accepted her terms, taken her outside, and fucked her in the back seat of his truck. Would they still be here, staring across the driveway at each other as though the earth would swallow them whole if they blinked?

The part of her she’d ignored these last weeks said yes. Fate. Destiny. Right place, right time. Whatever label she wanted to put on it wouldn’t change what it was. She’d been drawn to him from the beginning. Right or wrong, she was drawn to him now.

He owned a part of her she’d never get back. Clay had shown her what she’d been missing. How lonely her life had been.

How in the hell would she find the strength to get out of the car and face him, knowing this was the end?

Ainsley met his gaze through the windshield. There was tension in his spine. A storm brewed in his expression. The slow, steady way he ran his hands up and down his thighs made his muscles dance in sinuous contrast to the hard line of his mouth.

Ah.
He’d been inside then.

Her head and her heart were at war. Her head demanded she be angry. Her heart held on to the hope it had all been a big misunderstanding. Either way, he owed her an explanation. And if she had any chance of moving on, she needed to look him in the eye, hear it directly from him.

Her pulse thrummed loudly in her ears. She grabbed the brown paper bag from the passenger seat and got out of the car.

She stopped at the bottom of the steps, out of touching range but close enough to see the anguish in the lines around his eyes.

His chest expanded. Then, as though all the air had been sucked out of him, he folded forward, resting his forearms against his thighs. He laced his fingers together, and studied the results. “Where’ve you been?”

Tears pricked her eyes. “Driving.”

He reached behind his back, brought up a fistful of crumpled papers. “We need to talk about this.”

“I’m not sure what there is to say. You broke your promise. You lied to me.” God, this was harder than she anticipated. “In the end, you got what you wanted.”

He shook the fist clamped around the papers. “You think this is what I wanted?”

“What am I supposed to think, Clay?” Ah, there was the fire she’d need to get through this. “All I have to go on is right there in black and white. You were really great, though. Very convincing in your bid to keep it from me. Reeled me right in. Had me convinced you cared about me.”

“I do care about you.”

Ainsley wrapped her arms around her middle. “Stop. Just stop. No more pretending. Did you know who I was that night at Slick’s?”

He shot to his feet. “Not until you told me. And there’s nothing make-believe about how I feel.”

His boots hit the dirt. Ainsley took a step back when he reached for her. His arms dangled for a second before he dropped them with a huff.

“So that’s it? After the time we’ve spent together, you’re not interested in what I have to say?”

She retreated another step at the furious look on his face. “You want to talk? Okay. Go ahead.” Her own anger was building steam. “Tell me you didn’t keep a proposal to buy my home a secret. Tell me each time we went riding together, you weren’t checking the place out for your own advantage. Tell me every fucking question you asked me was strictly out of curiosity and not some ulterior motive.” Her vision blurred. She silently cursed the tears she couldn’t seem to stop. “And please, tell me you weren’t fixing things around here in preparation of living here yourself someday.”

“Living here … what the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on. You said yourself you wanted … what did you call it? A raise-a-family-in kind of place? Congratulations, Clayton.” She waved her arm in a wide arc. “As of a few hours ago, it’s all yours.”

The roped muscles in his neck bulged as a flush bloomed across his cheeks. “When I said I wanted a bigger place, I didn’t mean
yours.
I own the property my trailer sits on, Ainsley. It might be surrounded by Shadow Maverick land, but from the edge of the lake to a hundred acres due south is all mine. I’d planned to build a house there, not far from where the mobile home sits now. You said yourself how beautiful it was. It’s the perfect place to start a family.”

Thinking about Clay starting a family with someone else broke something inside her. Something vital. “I can’t … I can’t do this right now.” She brushed past him and took the steps to the porch.

“Goddamn it, Ainsley. Listen to me.” His hand on her arm stopped her before she could escape into the house. “The only way I’d consider living
here
is if you were with me.”

His warmth penetrated her back as his arms slid around her. “I’m not going to deny you’ve got a right to be mad. I’m asking you to reserve judgment until you have all the facts. Can you do that?”

She ducked out of his hold, needing some space to breathe. Otherwise, she’d melt against him, beg him to take her upstairs and make her forget the last few hours.

“Five minutes, Ainsley. Please. Hear me out.”

She glanced to the papers still clutched in his hand, praying whatever he had to say wouldn’t shred her frayed emotions further.

A frustrated noise burst from his throat. “This doesn’t fucking matter!” He tore the contract in half. Tore it again. And again. He tossed the shredded pieces into the air. “The only thing that matters is
you
. I don’t care about this place, Ainsley. I care about you. I
love
you. More than I ever thought I could love another person.”

He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t tell you about Gavin’s offer because I never planned to give it to you. I wanted to find another way.”

Had she heard him correctly? “You love me?”

No hesitation. “I do.”

And then his mouth was on hers.

The strength left her legs, but Clay was there to hold her up. She clutched at the front of his shirt, desperate to hang onto the hope blazing in her chest when she knew her problems were far from over.

Ainsley pulled from the kiss. Breathless, she rested her forehead against his chest. “The bank denied my loan. If I don’t sell, I’ll lose the ranch anyway. You just tore up my way out.”

He caressed her arms with slow, tantalizing strokes. “No, baby, I didn’t. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I found the other way I mentioned. We don’t want to buy your land. We want to lease it.”

She jerked back. “You want to what?”

“Lease it. Three sections of it anyway. Shadow Maverick will pay you for allowing us to use the land to expand our herd. I’ve got a proposal for you to look at. If you agree with the numbers, we’ll have the papers drawn up and the first payment to you by the end of the month.”

“That fast?”

“I know what I want.”

His boyish grin was irresistible. “Clay.”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “Wait, before you say anything. I’m sorry. I should’ve talked to you about what I was working on. I didn’t want to get your hopes up in case things didn’t work out. Not an excuse, just a fact. The deal is yours regardless, but I need to know how you feel about me, Ainsley. I need to know I haven’t lost you.”

Ainsley kissed the tip of his finger. “I’ve never said the words before. Not to anyone. Until you, I never knew what it felt like.”

His hopeful expression melted away any lingering doubt. “Felt like to what, baby?”

“To love. To love
you
.”

He took her mouth again. This time, Ainsley held nothing back. She poured every bit of emotion—the pain, the promise—into every thrust of her tongue.

“Let’s go inside.” Clay cupped her ass and lifted her feet off the porch.

Ainsley tugged at the ends of his hair. Inside was too far away. “No. Here.”

He growled, put her back on her feet and spun her away from him.

She grasped the porch rail, the weathered wood rough under her palms. Her breath came in harsh gasps as he reached around and unfastened her jeans. He jerked them down along with her panties.

She ached, her pussy wet and ready for him. He fumbled behind her. The whisper of a zipper. The tearing of a foil pack. And then the scorching head of his cock pressed into her.

“Don’t go slow,” she begged. “Show me I belong to you.”

Finally.

“Damn right you do.”

Ainsley grunted as he pulled back then powered into her again. And again.

Driven by need, by love, and by the promise of their future together, Ainsley gave herself over to his strength. Quickly, a familiar tension welled in her belly. Her body tingled in anticipation as he drove her over the edge.

“I love you,” she whispered and let go. Her cries of pleasure drifted through the air.

Clay pumped into her a final time and held. “I’ll never get enough of you,” he panted. “Not in a million years.”

Ainsley’s legs felt like limp noodles as he finally pulled from her. He ditched the condom and helped her get her pants back in place before dealing with his own.

He pulled her close. “Say you forgive me, Ainsley. I need to hear you say it.”

“After that … I’d say you definitely redeemed yourself.” She poked him in the chest. “But if you
ever
think to go behind my back again, your skills between my legs won’t be enough to save your ass. Got it?”

“Works both ways, sweetheart. From now on, it’s you and me against the world. No more hiding, no more secrets. I don’t just want your heart.” He tapped a finger to her temple. “I want what’s up here too. I want to know what you’re thinking, what your plans are. I want to be a part of it. I want all of you, Ainsley.”

If she didn’t already love him, she’d be head-over-heels now. “You’ve got me.”

“So, you’ll consider our proposal?”

“No.”

His gaze sharpened. “What? Why the hell not?”

Full disclosure. Both ways.

“I don’t want to be a cattle rancher, Clay. I want to expand my garden, sell to the locals. I’ve talked to Reese. There’s a good chance we’ll work out a deal with the caterers and restaurants she works with in Houston for them to buy their fresh produce from me. It’s what I want to do. So, I’ll sell you the sections you’re interested in, if you think that’s a better way to go. I figured it wouldn’t be worth as much if I broke it up, so I never considered the option.”

“We could go to the house and talk to Gavin about it.”

Ainsley cringed. “I don’t have the greatest track record with your brother.”

“I love you.” Clay grinned and pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “And you better get used to dealing with my brother, baby. He’s your family now, too.”

Family.

Yeah. Ainsley liked the sound of that.